Xi stresses sci-tech self-reliance in building modern socialist country

Xinhua) 08:08, February 10, 2026

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, visits an information technology (IT) innovation park in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 9, 2026. At the park, Xi learned about IT application and innovation, and was briefed on Beijing's efforts to expedite the development of an international sci-tech innovation center. Xi checked the display of sci-tech innovation outcomes, and talked with researchers and heads of sci-tech enterprises. (Xinhua/Yan Yan)

BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, on Monday stressed self-reliance and strength in science and technology, hailing it as the "key" in building China into a great modern socialist country.

Xi made the remarks when he visited a national information technology innovation park in Beijing.

Xi urged efforts to concentrate strength for major undertakings, pool all quality resources to secure breakthroughs, and move faster to tackle prominent weaknesses, in a bid to achieve the country's strategic objectives.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, visits an information technology (IT) innovation park in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 9, 2026. At the park, Xi learned about IT application and innovation, and was briefed on Beijing's efforts to expedite the development of an international sci-tech innovation center. Xi checked the display of sci-tech innovation outcomes, and talked with researchers and heads of sci-tech enterprises. (Photo by Sheng Jiapeng/Xinhua)

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, visits an information technology (IT) innovation park in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 9, 2026. At the park, Xi learned about IT application and innovation, and was briefed on Beijing's efforts to expedite the development of an international sci-tech innovation center. Xi checked the display of sci-tech innovation outcomes, and talked with researchers and heads of sci-tech enterprises. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, visits an information technology (IT) innovation park in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 9, 2026. At the park, Xi learned about IT application and innovation, and was briefed on Beijing's efforts to expedite the development of an international sci-tech innovation center. Xi checked the display of sci-tech innovation outcomes, and talked with researchers and heads of sci-tech enterprises. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, visits an information technology (IT) innovation park in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 9, 2026. At the park, Xi learned about IT application and innovation, and was briefed on Beijing's efforts to expedite the development of an international sci-tech innovation center. Xi checked the display of sci-tech innovation outcomes, and talked with researchers and heads of sci-tech enterprises. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, visits an information technology (IT) innovation park in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 9, 2026. At the park, Xi learned about IT application and innovation, and was briefed on Beijing's efforts to expedite the development of an international sci-tech innovation center. Xi checked the display of sci-tech innovation outcomes, and talked with researchers and heads of sci-tech enterprises. (Xinhua/Yan Yan)

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Spring Festival gala held in Cairo, Egypt

Xinhua) 09:52, February 10, 2026

A guest displays the calligraphy of her Chinese name at a Spring Festival gala in Cairo, Egypt, on Feb. 8, 2026. The gala was held here on Sunday to celebrate the upcoming Chinese Spring Festival, where participants enjoyed traditional Chinese cuisine, experienced intangible cultural heritages, and watched cultural performances. (Xinhua/Xin Mengchen)

Artists perform at a Spring Festival gala in Cairo, Egypt, on Feb. 8, 2026. The gala was held here on Sunday to celebrate the upcoming Chinese Spring Festival, where participants enjoyed traditional Chinese cuisine, experienced intangible cultural heritages, and watched cultural performances. (Xinhua/Xin Mengchen)

Actors perform a dance at a Spring Festival gala in Cairo, Egypt, on Feb. 8, 2026. The gala was held here on Sunday to celebrate the upcoming Chinese Spring Festival, where participants enjoyed traditional Chinese cuisine, experienced intangible cultural heritages, and watched cultural performances. (Xinhua/Xin Mengchen)

An artist interacts with the audience during a face-changing performance at a Spring Festival gala in Cairo, Egypt, on Feb. 8, 2026. The gala was held here on Sunday to celebrate the upcoming Chinese Spring Festival, where participants enjoyed traditional Chinese cuisine, experienced intangible cultural heritages, and watched cultural performances. (Xinhua/Xin Mengchen)

An artist stages a face-changing performance at a Spring Festival gala in Cairo, Egypt, on Feb. 8, 2026. The gala was held here on Sunday to celebrate the upcoming Chinese Spring Festival, where participants enjoyed traditional Chinese cuisine, experienced intangible cultural heritages, and watched cultural performances. (Xinhua/Xin Mengchen)

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Geneva  Briefing the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva today on the situation surrounding the North Darfur capital of El Fasher, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk has called on the international community to hold those responsible for atrocities and war crimes accountable, and to do more to end the senseless war in Sudan.

Full text of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva:

"The events that unfolded in El Fasher in Sudan last October were a preventable human rights catastrophe. After imposing 18 months of siege, starvation and bombardment, the Rapid Support Forces unleashed a wave of intense violence. Thousands of people were killed in a matter of days, and tens of thousands fled in terror. Our collective job is to hold those responsible accountable, and to make sure this never happens again."

Since I last briefed you on El Fasher, I have visited Sudan and heard first hand accounts from some of those who survived that final offensive. I have rarely seen people so traumatized by their experiences. My staff have interviewed more than 140 victims and witnesses in Northern state and eastern Chad.

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They consistently reported mass killings and summary executions of civilians and those no longer participating in hostilities, both inside the city and as people fled. They spoke of rape and other sexual violence, torture and ill-treatment, detention, disappearances and abductions for ransom.

In one horrific example, people who fled to separate locations, thousands of kilometres apart, gave consistent accounts of the mass killing of hundreds of people sheltering at El Fasher University. Others spoke of attacks on health facilities and healthcare workers. We heard convincing testimony that some victims were targeted based on their non-Arab ethnicity - in particular, members of the Zaghawa ethnic group. Survivors also spoke of seeing piles of dead bodies along roads leading away from El Fasher, in an apocalyptic scene that one person likened to the Day of Judgment.

Sexual violence was systematically used as a weapon of war by the RSF and its allied militia. During my visit, I met survivors who gave consistent and harrowing testimony of gang rape and other sexual violence against women and girls. My staff documented many accounts of sexual violence during abductions and searches of women and girls as they attempted to flee.

RSF fighters and their allies abducted people as they fled and charged exorbitant ransoms for their release. Most victims were men and adolescent boys judged to be of fighting age, but women and children were also targeted. Thousands remain missing. Some were undoubtedly killed; others are believed to be held in inhumane detention conditions, subjected to torture and ill-treatment. Thousands were reportedly transferred to Tagris prison in Nyala, South Darfur, where we know conditions are horrific.

The RSF and its allies detained people perceived to be affiliated with the Sudanese Armed Forces and their allied Joint Forces, government officials, medical professionals, journalists, teachers, and local humanitarian volunteers. Former detainees reported that more than 2,000 men were held in El Fasher Children's Hospital. Those who died in detention were reportedly buried near the hospital.

My staff also documented the recruitment and use of children by the RSF, either through pressure on communities, or through direct coercion.

The International Criminal Court told the Security Council last month that it assessed that both war crimes and crimes against humanity had taken place in El Fasher during the culmination of the RSF's siege of the city.

Our own findings are fully consistent with this conclusion. They will be detailed in a public report to be issued in the coming days.

Distinguished delegates,

My Office sounded the alarm about the risk of mass atrocities in the besieged city of El Fasher for more than a year. We had previously documented patterns of such atrocities several times, including during the RSF offensive to capture Zamzam camp for displaced people in April 2025. The threat was clear, but warnings were not heeded.

Responsibility for these atrocity crimes lies squarely with the RSF and their allies and supporters.

At the same time, the international community must do better. If we stand by, wringing our hands while armies and armed groups commit well-flagged international crimes, we can only expect worse to come.

In fact, I am extremely concerned that these violations and abuses may be repeated in the Kordofan region. Fighting there has intensified since the capture of El Fasher. In the last two weeks, the Sudanese Armed Forces and allied Joint Forces broke the sieges on Kadugli and Dilling. But drone strikes by both sides continue, resulting in dozens of civilian deaths and injuries. Civilians are at risk of summary executions, sexual violence, arbitrary detention, and family separation.

In a period of just over two weeks to 6 February, based on documentation by my Office, some 90 civilians were killed and 142 injured in drone strikes by the RSF and the SAF. These struck a World Food Programme convoy, markets, health facilities and residential neighbourhoods in South and North Kordofan.

Nearly three years into this conflict, my Office continues to document flagrant violations of international humanitarian law and violations and abuses of international human rights law, with no effective measures to address or prevent them.

Hate speech is a frequent catalyst for ethnically motivated violence. Leaders use dehumanizing rhetoric against communities to justify atrocities, mobilize fighters, and deepen divisions. I myself saw the effects of that language in the stories and faces of the survivors I met.

I urge every State to consider what it could have done to prevent the deaths of many thousands of civilians in El Fasher, and what it will do to prevent a repeat elsewhere in Sudan.

My Office has drawn up a list of confidence building measures, based on human rights, that are intended to support mediation efforts and foster trust. I have shared these with both parties to the conflict.

All countries need to get behind these concrete steps to protect civilians and de-escalate violence, and pressure the parties to abide by their legal obligations.

This starts with commitments not to target civilians or residential areas with explosive weapons; to take steps to reduce harm to civilians; to enable the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid; to end arbitrary detention; and to treat those deprived of liberty humanely and in accordance with international law.

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And it means ending attacks on civilian infrastructure. During my visit, I witnessed the damage done by RSF attacks on Merowe dam and hydroelectric power station, which once supplied 70 percent of Sudan's electricity. Repeated drone strikes have disrupted power and water supplies to huge numbers of people, with a serious impact on healthcare and livelihoods.

Distinguished delegates,

I will provide the Council with a more extensive update on Sudan on 26 February.

But it is essential in the meantime for the international community to take broader measures to address the human rights crisis in the country, first and foremost, by addressing the continuous inflow of weapons. Advanced weaponry systems used by both sides are now putting civilians in danger wherever they are. I urge you to press for the arms embargo on Darfur to be extended across the whole of Sudan.

I also call on you to help strengthen resilience against divisive ideologies and hate speech, by supporting civil society, human rights defenders and journalists, and empowering religious and community leaders to promote peaceful dialogue.

All States with influence need to do everything possible to promote local, regional, and international mediation efforts, and to put pressure on those who are benefiting from this senseless war.

During my visit to Sudan, one thing became very clear to me: The spirit of the struggle for peace, justice and freedom is still very much alive.

The Sudanese people hold the key to sustainable peace in their country, and they will prevail.
Since the beginning, man has channeled his efforts into making, creating, and building. The world is filled with proof of this compulsion. From beautiful art to exquisite architecture to mechanical wonders that have improved our lives, creativity is a drive within the human spirit that has become a defining characteristic. Even people who may not think they are creative, exercise it in some way when they problem solve.

Creativity is a part of Gods nature that He put into people so that we can glorify Him in unique and diverse ways. Sometimes people use their expression in ways that do not honor the Lord, and are profane, self-serving, or wicked. Despite the influence of sin on humanity, creativity is a part of Gods blessings and one of many ways to engage in worship.

What Does the Bible Say about Creativity?

Creativity is the use of the mind, the body, and inspiration to make something new out of what already exists. In the Bible, there is poetry, descriptions of elaborate art and metal work, and other examples of people using their time and talents to take something, and turn it into something artistic, inventive, and new.

The ultimate form of creativity, of course, was creation. While humanity takes things that already exist, like minerals, woods, and pigments, and makes something new, God took void, and created the universe. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light (Genesis 1:1-3).

Before God spoke, there was no light, no animals, no plants. After six days of creativity, God created millions of species of plants, animals, birds, bugs, bacteria, fungi, and so many other living things.

God made man in His own image, and gave man some of His attributes, including creativity. While people cannot make matter out of void, they do invent tools, create art, and solve problems using that God-given characteristic. Creativity is a part of Gods plan for humanity to improve their lives, to worship Him, and to express themselves. In the Bible, it is shown at its height when people are creating to Gods glory.

When King Solomon had the opportunity to finally build a permanent temple to the Lord, He did not just erect four walls. He made it beautiful, to mirror Gods creation and testify to His character. The Bible records, So also he made for the entrance to the nave doorposts of olivewood, in the form of a square, and two doors of cypress wood. The two leaves of the one door were folding, and the two leaves of the other door were folding. On them he carved cherubim and palm trees and open flowers, and he overlaid them with gold evenly applied on the carved work. He built the inner court with three courses of cut stone and one course of cedar beams (1 Kings 6:33-36). Solomons artistic decisions also reflected how generously the Lord had blessed Israel.

Bible Verses about Creativity

There are many verses in the Bible that allude to Gods creativity, or the creativity He imbued into people. There is not one verse that outlines the Lords philosophy on artistic expression, but many reveal something about how God uses it, and how we can use it to glorify Him.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1).

Let every skillful craftsman among you come and make all that the Lord has commanded (Exodus 35:10).

It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens (Jeremiah 10:12).

O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures (Psalm 104:24).

We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith (Romans 12:6).





Photo credit: Getty Images/Koldunova Anna

Why Is Creativity Important to God?

God is the ultimate source of creativity. In the beginning, there was nothing but Himself. God existed in perfect unity and love with His Triune nature - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is a part of Himself that He gave to humanity; it is part of what makes people made in His image.

God gives individuals the capacity to be creative in different arenas. Some can create stories, others design buildings, and still others can make lines and colors resemble the real world. The Bible is full of examples of how God gifts individuals differently.

The Psalms were poems set to music, highlighting the different abilities of the poet and the musician. In Exodus, God states that He selected one man to be a metal-worker for the tabernacle, as well as empowered Him to teach others to do the same; Then Moses said to the people of Israel, See, the Lord has called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah; and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold and silver and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, for work in every skilled craft. And he has inspired him to teach, both him and Oholiab the son of Ahisamach of the tribe of Dan (Exodus 35: 30-34). Creativity in a Christian can be guided and inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Like anything in this fallen world, creativity can be twisted to serve evil purposes. Some people create to be profane, to indulge in evil, or to spread ungodly ideas. These can usually be identified through works that honor a false god, encourage wicked behavior, engage in blasphemy, or that showcase evil and sin is the purpose of the art. However, just because there is a sinful act present in a book, or portrayed in a work of art, does not mean it is glorifying the sin.

How Can I Use My Creativity to Honor God?

Many believers want to use their art in a way that is pleasing to the Lord, does not lead other people into temptation, and serves as a contrast to art inspired by evil or materialism. Some Christian art is made by Christians, for Christians, and promotes a sweet message about the love of the Lord.

However, if a writer, artist, or creator feels they need to address certain kinds of sin, illustrate the realities of living in a fallen world, or explore evil in order to communicate Christian themes or ideas, that does not take away from their creativity. Part of the glory and mystery of salvation is that God came to save wicked people; sometimes honoring God through art will require an exploration or acknowledgment of that fact. There are many great artists who honored God through art without making explicitly Christian art, such as literary works or paintings with Christian themes, even if the subject may not be overtly Christian.

When focusing on creativity, like most things in the Christian life, the intention behind it is important. The Apostle Paul encouraged the church in Colossae, Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving (Colossians 3:23-24). As long as a creator is being led by the Spirit, doing their work as working for the Lord, and not indulging or reveling in sin through their work, they will probably create something beautiful, edifying, and enjoyable. Of course, note all creativity is art. Some of it is in design, in approaching math and science in a unique way, and so much more. Strive to obey God in the tasks He gives in a creative manner, and He will be working in it.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirableif anything is excellent or praiseworthythink about such things (Philippians 4:8).

Sources

Alter, Robert. The Art of Biblical Poetry Revised Edition. New York: Basic Books, 2011.

Hunter, Alistair G. and Caroline Vander Stichele. Creation and Creativity from Genesis to Genetics and Back. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2009.

Letellier, Robert Ignatus and Janet Mary Mellor. The Bible and Art Exploring the Covenant of Gods Love in Word and Image. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016.

Related articles

10 Ways Creating Connects People to God

Bezalel and the God-Given Gift of Creativity

What Does It Mean That We Were "Made in the Image of God"?



Photo credit: Unsplash/Elena Mozhvilo

Bethany Verrett is a freelance writer who uses her passion for God, reading, and writing to glorify God. She and her husband have lived all over the country serving their Lord and Savior in ministry. She has a blog on graceandgrowing.com.
dpatopbilder - Juan Pablo Guanipa (center), opposition leader and recently released from prison, visits relatives of political prisoners near the El Helicoide detention center in Caracas. Photo: Jesus Vargas/dpa Keystone

The prominent Venezuelan opposition politician Juan Pablo Guanipa is now under house arrest following an alleged abduction a few hours after his release from prison. "I confirm that my father Juan Pablo Guanipa is at home with me," his son Ramon Guanipa announced via Platform X, expressing relief that the family could be together again.

Keystone-SDA SDA

However, his father is still unjustly imprisoned. "House arrest remains prison, and we demand his complete freedom as well as that of all political prisoners," he said.

Guanipa's party confirmed the house arrest. "We thank the national and international pressure that has made it possible for Juan Pablo to reunite with his children and his family," the "Primero Justicia" party announced. "Our struggle continues until everyone enjoys absolute and unconditional freedom."

Guanipa's family: kidnapped shortly after release

According to his family and party, Guanipa was taken away by heavily armed men in plain clothes a few hours after his release from prison. His whereabouts were then unknown for over a day. Relatives and the opposition had spoken of a kidnapping and demanded proof of life. The Venezuelan public prosecutor's office, however, described the incident as a new arrest and justified it with an alleged breach of conditions. Guanipa's son denied the accusations.

Guanipa, the leader of the "Primero Justicia" party, was arrested in May 2025. The government of the authoritarian head of state Nicolas Maduro, who was still in office at the time, accused him of planning terrorist attacks to disrupt elections. Supporters and human rights organizations rejected the accusations.

According to the human rights organization Foro Penal, there are around 800 political prisoners in Venezuela. The caretaker government of President Delcy Rodriguez had announced the release of numerous prisoners following Maduro's arrest at the beginning of January.


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New York  The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is due to hold closed consultations today on the situation in Sudan, amid renewed warnings of worsening famine conditions and escalating conflict across Darfur and Kordofan.

Briefings are expected from Edem Wosornu, Director of the Operations and Advocacy Division at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and Matthew Hollingworth, Assistant Executive Director for Programme Operations at the World Food Programme (WFP).

The meeting was requested by the United Kingdom, the Council's penholder on Sudan, together with Bahrain and Denmark, which serve as co-chairs on conflict and hunger issues. The request follows the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) alert on Sudan issued on 5 February.

The alert raised serious concerns over deteriorating humanitarian conditions across Greater Darfur and Greater Kordofan. It follows a November 2025 IPC report that identified famine-like conditions in several conflict-affected areas, including El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, and Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan.

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Severe acute malnutrition in Umbro and Karnoi

The latest IPC alert reports that famine thresholds for acute malnutrition have been exceeded in two additional areas of North Darfur -- Umbro and Karnoi -- indicating a heightened risk of excess mortality and raising fears that neighbouring areas could slide into similarly catastrophic conditions.

According to the alert, Rapid Support Forces units have advanced in the vicinity of Umbro and Karnoi, forcing thousands of civilians to flee urban centres into rural areas or towards the Chadian border.

Most residents displaced from El Fasher

In El Fasher, the alert states that most civilians have either fled the city or died since late October 2025, when the Rapid Support Forces launched an offensive and seized large sections of the city, leaving fewer than 100,000 people trapped. By the end of 2025, the total number of internally displaced people from El Fasher was estimated at around 1.22 million.

The IPC warns that the humanitarian situation along the El Fasher-Tina corridor towards Chad is expected to deteriorate further in the absence of an immediate cessation of hostilities and a large-scale humanitarian response. Avoidable deaths are already occurring and are likely to rise without urgent action. Security conditions are also worsening in South Darfur state, particularly in and around Nyala, where civilian casualties continue to be reported.

Kordofan emerges as a major conflict hotspot

In recent months, Kordofan has become a principal theatre of conflict. The IPC warns that escalating fighting is likely to increase the number of people facing severe hunger and acute malnutrition, with a corresponding rise in hunger-related deaths.

Famine conditions were identified in Kadugli in November 2025, while severe conditions were projected for Dilling and parts of the western Nuba Mountains. Both Kadugli and Dilling had been under prolonged siege by Rapid Support Forces units until recently, when the Sudanese Armed Forces reportedly broke the blockade and reopened supply routes.

The security situation in Blue Nile state is also deteriorating, with recent reports of renewed clashes and mobilisation by armed groups in the southern and western parts of the state, heightening fears of broader instability along the border with Ethiopia and South Sudan.

Limited progress in aid delivery

The United Nations has reported some recent progress in delivering humanitarian assistance to parts of Sudan, including areas in and around Darfur. However, deliveries remain extremely limited due to insecurity and ongoing negotiations with armed groups. Access is largely irregular, restricting the ability of humanitarian organisations to provide sustained and predictable support.

The IPC alert notes that inconsistent access to El Fasher is constraining aid deliveries to surrounding areas such as Tawila, which hosts more than 650,000 internally displaced people, and Dabba, where aid agencies are struggling to meet the needs of new arrivals.

On 26 December 2025, a UN team led by Sudan Humanitarian Coordinator Denise Brown conducted an assessment mission to El Fasher -- the first UN visit since the city was besieged by the Rapid Support Forces in May 2024. Following the visit, Brown described El Fasher as a "crime scene" and estimated that thousands may have been killed. A joint inter-agency mission including UNICEF, WFP, UNHCR and OCHA visited the city again on 13 January.

Aid access remains heavily restricted

According to the 5 February IPC alert, humanitarian access across Sudan remains severely constrained by insecurity, unexploded ordnance, movement restrictions, checkpoint delays, administrative impediments, informal fees, and operational interference. Access is described as especially fragile and increasingly limited across Greater Darfur and Greater Kordofan, with most of the remaining population in El Fasher difficult to reach.

Deadly attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure -- including humanitarian personnel, assets, and convoys -- continue. On 6 February, a WFP convoy in North Kordofan state was struck by drones while travelling from Kosti to deliver life-saving food assistance to displaced families near El Obeid, the state capital and a strategic hub linking Greater Darfur to Khartoum. At least one person was killed, others were injured, and food supplies intended for humanitarian response were destroyed.

El Obeid remains a contested battleground and is subject to repeated drone strikes. The incident followed another drone attack earlier in the week near a WFP facility in Yabus, Blue Nile state, which injured a staff member.

Renewed calls for ceasefire and funding

Several Council members are expected to renew calls for an immediate ceasefire and to remind the parties to the conflict of their obligations under Security Council Resolution 2417 of 24 May 2018, which condemns the use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare and the unlawful denial of humanitarian access. The resolution calls on all parties to armed conflict to comply with international humanitarian law, protect civilians, and safeguard objects necessary for food production and distribution.

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Briefers are likely to urge the international community to scale up its humanitarian response in line with the urgency and scale of the crisis. As of the time of writing, only 5.8% of the $2.9 billion required for Sudan's 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan has been funded. The 2025 plan, which required $4.16 billion, reached only 38.6% funding.

On 3 February, the United States hosted a high-level Sudan donor conference in Washington, DC, bringing together more than 20 international partners to mobilise additional support. Donors pledged approximately $1.5 billion, including $200 million from the United States -- already committed as part of its $2 billion pledge to OCHA-managed pooled funds. During the conference, media reports quoted Massad Boulos, Senior Adviser for Arab, and African Affairs in the United States, as saying that members of the Quad mechanism -- Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States -- had agreed on a draft peace framework aimed at securing a humanitarian truce and opening safe corridors for relief operations. The document is expected to be submitted to the Security Council once formally adopted.
Khartoum / Amsterdam  Aviation expert and former Director of Sudan's Civil Aviation Authority, Ibrahim Adlan, confirms that arrangements are under way to implement a humanitarian truce plan centred on the United Nations' use of Khartoum Airport as a main humanitarian hub, warning that reliance on foreign crews to run regional airports could undermine the effort.

Speaking to Radio Dabanga, Adlan said recent developments at Khartoum Airport should not be viewed as a purely logistical step or a temporary humanitarian exception, but as the beginning of a new phase in managing Sudan's crisis.

He described Khartoum Airport as the first sovereign institution to resume operations, noting that the landing of a civilian commercial aircraft amid an undeclared war carries major political and operational significance.

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According to Adlan, civil aviation operates under strict standards requiring effective security neutralisation, coordinated airspace arrangements, and tacit acceptance by the parties to the conflict. He said the Rapid Support Forces' decision not to respond hostilely to the airport's reopening -- despite having the capability to disrupt it -- while drones continue to operate elsewhere suggests an undeclared understanding to keep Khartoum Airport neutral.

He added that this interpretation is supported by the United Nations' request to use the airport for humanitarian purposes, which he described as a sovereign and persuasive step that redefines the airport as a neutral facility under soft international oversight.

"In this sense, Khartoum Airport becomes the first sovereign institution to resume work outside competing claims of legitimacy, marking the start of Khartoum's transition from a war city to an administrative centre," he said.

International precedents

Adlan said the approach mirrors international models used in the Balkans in 1998 and at Kabul Airport in 2001, where airport operations resumed despite the absence of a fully functioning state, serving as a relief corridor and point of contact with the outside world.

"The principle in these cases is the same: when it is impossible to agree on who governs, agreement is reached on what must function," he said.

He stressed that Khartoum Airport cannot operate in isolation and requires a network of alternative airports, emergency diversion points, and a functioning humanitarian distribution system. In Sudan, he said, this would include El Fasher, El Geneina and Nyala, with Khartoum as the central hub and Darfur's airports acting as operational extensions.

Three management scenarios

Adlan said the key question concerns who will manage air navigation and airspace control, which he described as revealing the true intent of the plan. He outlined three possible scenarios.

The first would leave Sudanese Civil Aviation as the sole authorised authority for airspace and navigation management, as recognised by the International Civil Aviation Organization and international law. He said qualified staff and experience are available, but challenges include institutional fragmentation, lack of protection, and damaged infrastructure. With international protection, emergency funding, and independent technical management, he said, this would be the least costly and most sustainable option.

The second scenario -- which he described as the most likely -- is joint management. Under this model, Sudanese Civil Aviation retains legal authority while international teams provide technical support, monitor safety compliance and temporarily run certain functions. He said this "shadow management" model has been applied in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

The third scenario would involve importing fully foreign crews. Adlan warned this is the riskiest option and is usually used only as a short-term measure in cases of total institutional collapse. He said it could weaken remaining professional sovereignty, sideline national staff, and create long-term dependency. In Darfur in particular, he warned, excluding local personnel would likely lead to failure because local knowledge of terrain and security conditions cannot be imported.

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Limited and cautious reopening

Adlan said any reopening of Darfur's airports would likely be gradual and limited, potentially restricted to daytime operations and partial services rather than full monitoring, with an international support presence in the early stages. He stressed that success depends on involving Sudanese civil aviation personnel rather than replacing them.

He concluded that the airport reopening does not represent a political victory or final settlement, but a shift from war management to crisis management. Khartoum Airport, he said, is the first gateway, and its operation raises broader questions about control of the national airport network and airspace.

"The real question is no longer who has legitimacy, but who can restore state functions, at what cost to sovereignty and in whose interest," he said. "Sovereignty is not measured by slogans, but by who holds the keys to the skies."
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31 defence lawyers earned over 500,000 each (all figures incl VAT) through Criminal Legal Aid payments in 2025 as the State-funded criminal legal aid payout to lawyers last year surged by 37 per cent to a record 115.3 million.

New figures provided by the Department of Justice show that three lawyers earned almost 1 million as the payout to solicitors and barristers last year under the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme totalled 115.3 million - compared to 84.08 million in 2024 - a jump of 31.2 million in one year.

The detailed figures show that judge Michael Bowman was the best-paid senior counsel in the country through criminal legal aid, receiving 961,821.

Dublin solicitor, Michael Hennessy, retained his position as the best paid criminal legal aid solicitor, receiving 971,155 while Keith Spencer BL was the best paid junior counsel at 972,551 under the criminal legal aid scheme.

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Asked to comment on the figures, Mr Hennessy said that the 2025 increase in payments "Does not represent a windfall for defence lawyers but is instead representative of a concerning increase in societal inequity with a consequent increase in criminal prosecutions.

He said: The legal aid scheme is the underlying bastion of a fair and just criminal process.

The criminal legal aid payout to solicitors increased by 27 per cent, rising from 48.08 million to 60.88 million, while the fee payout to barristers rose by 51pc or 18.42 million, rising from 36 million to 54.42 million.

The increase in payments to barristers was made up of fee payments to junior counsel increasing by 47pc from 21.18 million to 31.03 million, and fee payments to senior counsel increased by 57pc from 14.82 million to 23.34 million.

The top 10 paid solicitors under the scheme shared 7.5 million in fees, while the top 10 paid barristers shared 6.9 million in fees.

In all, 20 solicitors each received in excess of 500,000, while 11 barristers earned over 500,000 each.

The surge in the criminal legal aid fee spend last November prompted the Minister for Justice, Jim OCallaghan (FF), to obtain an additional 21.5 million in a supplementary estimate to fund criminal legal aid for 2025.

The Dept of Justice had originally set aside 99.04 million to fund the criminal legal aid system in 2025.

A spokesman for the Department of Justice said: As the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme is demand-led and there has been a significant increase in the granting of legal aid over the past number of years, there has been a corresponding increase in expenditure.

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"Increases in the complexity and amount of disclosure which needs to be reviewed in criminal cases and the number of legal aid certificates granted have had a significant impact on criminal legal aid expenditure.

An increase of 8 per cent in the fees paid to barristers and solicitors under the Scheme from January 1st, 2025, may also have been a contributing factor to this increased expenditure.

Mr Hennessy said that criminal legal aid fees are calculated at an imposed flat rate rather than per hour worked as in practically all other legal areas.

Ireland Over 20,000 hours spent in solitary confinement by patient in new Central Mental Hospital Read more

"The costs of running our entire criminal justice system, which deserves to be the envy of other Western democracies, are dwarfed by those of the domestic commercial sector. 

Mr Hennessy said The partial restoration of fees to former levels is key to attracting the right kind of conscientious young lawyer who wants to do the job for the right reasons. If a reasonable salary was not available, then standards are at great risk of falling off".

The top paid senior counsel, Mr Bowman continues to be the most in demand senior defence counsel in the country and in the past year represented Co Kerry businessman, Nathan McDonnell (45) formerly of Ballyroe, Tralee, Co Kerry who was last year sentenced to 12 years in prison for his involvement with the largest crystal meth seizure in the history of the State.

Mr Bowman also co-represented Law professor Diarmuid Phelan (57), who walked free from the Central Criminal Court in January 2025 after a jury found him not guilty of the murder of a trespasser, Keith Conlon (36) at Hazelgrove farm, Kiltalown Lane, Tallaght, on February 24th 2022.
The trial of a Limerick engineer accused of corruption by giving money to a detective garda in exchange for a tip-off about a raid on his car dealership has collapsed.

Stephen O'Sullivan (43) was on trial, accused of giving or agreeing to give to Detective Garda David Bourke 20,000 as an inducement to reveal confidential information concerning an investigation being carried out by the Criminal Assets Bureau in relation to Stephen Bawn Motors.

Mr O'Sullivan, of Farrehy, Broadford, Co Limerick, is a director of the business. He had pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to the single count of corruption at Bruree, Co Limerick on December 22, 2018.

The jury began deliberations on Friday, but on Monday the defence made a legal application in the absence of the jury to call a previously unknown but potentially highly relevant witness.

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After hearing evidence and legal submissions, from which the press were excluded, Judge Sinead Ni Chulachain ruled on Monday afternoon that the jury should be discharged.

In her ruling, made in open court, the judge noted that the defence had made an application to call a new witness, whose evidence they say is potentially highly relevant and who the prosecution was aware of. Defence counsel said that if they had been aware of the evidence of this witness, they would have put it to some of the garda witnesses, the judge said.

She noted that some documents relating to the witness were the subject of a disclosure application, but that those documents did not disclose sufficient details. She noted that the prosecution has conceded that the new witness is highly relevant and was seeking to discharge the jury and get a retrial.

Judge Ni Chulachain said that the trial judge has jurisdiction to allow evidence at any point in the trial. But she said that the evidence proposed did appear to be an entirely new strand of evidence relating to events that occurred many years prior to the events in this case.

She said the defence must have an opportunity to put this evidence before the court. She said that the court was not satisfied that allowing the jury to continue deliberating in the absence of this evidence would do justice to anyone.

On Tuesday morning, Judge Ni Chulachain told the jury that an issue arose at the weekend which was going to take more time than available to resolve. She said the matter needs to be investigated. She said some of the matters were very sensitive and that she couldn't tell jurors what happened.

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She apologised to jurors and thanked them for their service in carrying out a vital public role. She listed the case for mention on February 20th to fix a trial date.

Ireland Worker who lost finance job after being jailed for impersonating a garda takes case for unfair dismissal Read more

During the trial, the jury heard audio of a covert recording of a conversation during which the defendant gives 20,000 to Dt Gda Bourke and asks him questions about ongoing garda investigations into his business.

The jury also heard evidence of garda interviews during which the defendant told investigators that senior gardai were involved in extorting money from him.

He alleged that Limerick gardai Dt Gda Bourke and Superintendent Eamonn O'Neill appeared at his car yard a number of times, and he felt harassed and became concerned for his own safety and the safety of his family.

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A defence expert witness in the case of a 51-year-old man who claims his conviction for the rape and murder of a Connemara schoolgirl was a miscarriage of justice has said DNA analysis was very much in its infancy at the time of his trial and technological advances in the intervening years have been huge.

John McDonagh was 27 when he was convicted in 2001 by a Central Criminal Court jury of the rape and murder of Siobhan Hynes (17), of Sconse, Lettermore, Connemara.

Hynes was found dead at Tismeain beach in the townland of Keeraunbeg in the early hours of December 6th, 1998.

McDonagh, formerly of The Demesne, Keeraunbeg, Carraroe, had pleaded not guilty but was convicted following three days of jury deliberations and sentenced to life imprisonment.

He is now seeking to utilise advances in technology and developments in expert knowledge to try to establish that his conviction was unsafe and demonstrate that there has been a miscarriage of justice in his case.

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He has made a novel application to have certain trial exhibits undergo forensic testing and examination, arguing that fibres on Hynes person had not received adequate attention.

Dr Louise McKenna, of the State Forensic Science Laboratory, found "numerous" fibres on the jumper McDonagh wore that night which matched Ms Hynes's petrol-blue polyester fleece jacket and wine acrylic jumper. She also found fibres on the front and back of his jumper which matched fibres from Hynes's black socks.

Fibres from the fleece and the wine jumper were also found in the front passenger seat of McDonagh's car, and fibres from his red fluffy car-seat cover matched two red fibres found on Hynes's clothes.

McKenna said the fibres lent "very strong support to the proposition that Siobhan Hynes was in contact with John McDonagh's jumper and strong support for her being in his car."

McDonagh is now seeking to utilise advances in technology and developments in expert knowledge to try to establish that his conviction was unsafe and demonstrate that there has been a miscarriage of justice in his case.

In opening the appeal last December, Michael OHiggins SC, for McDonagh, said that the meat and veg of the case is in the affidavits of the experts.

The case was adjourned following two days of submissions after the three-judge court said they wished to hear evidence from the expert witnesses in the case.

During cross-examination on Tuesday, the third day of the appeal hearing, forensic expert for McDonagh Clare Jarman told counsel for the State Paul Carroll that while DNA testing was still useful at the time of the trial, it was very much in its infancy.

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She said the advancements in the 20 years since had been significant, although she agreed the basic science remained the same.

Jarman said modern technology is more sensitive and current extraction methods are better able to clean samples and remove contaminants.

She told the court that acid phosphatase (AP) testing is used to identify the possible presence of seminal fluid.

In relation to clothing, she said the detectability of such material depended on whether the fluid was dry or wet when immersed in water. She said spermatozoa can sometimes remain, but identifying which areas of clothing to target can be difficult.

Jarman agreed that AP testing has been used for decades and decades and that immersion in water may cause the substance to be lost or degraded.

Carroll said the evidence in the case was that Hynes body had been left in a tidal area. He said Dr Dorothy Ramsbottom of Forensic Science Ireland, who prepared a report for the Director of Public Prosecutions, had noted that the facts of the case indicated a low likelihood of finding bodily or seminal fluid.

Jarman agreed that immersion in water would reduce the presence of acid phosphatase but said she could not say whether it would eliminate it entirely.

She told counsel the action of waves and seawater would have a more negative effect on evidence than distilled water.

Jarman also addressed Y-STR testing, describing it as useful in isolating male DNA in samples overwhelmed by female DNA.

She said immersion in water was a huge factor affecting detectability.

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Jarman confirmed to Mr OHiggins in re-examination that six cotton buds were taken at the time and split, creating 12 potential test portions. She said only part of one had been tested, meaning 11 portions had not been examined. She said modern testing would involve combining extracts from all portions.

Ramsbottom later told the court that Y-STR profiling was not used in Ireland until 2016. She described the possibility of DNA surviving under fingernails as possible but highly unlikely and said testers at the time had carried out a pre-assessment to maximise evidential value.

She said in this case, testers looked at the fingernail scrapings even though the victim was in the water for up to 14 hours and there would have been a very low likelihood of finding anything under her nails. She said in this case there was a match to the victims own DNA.

Expert evidence was also heard from fibre specialists. Tiernan Coyle said he was unable to confirm the analytical findings in the case file and could not yet express an opinion on contact evidence.

Coyle said important developments have been made in microscopes over the past 25 years and this represented a significant advance in technology.

Amanda Lennon, a prosecution fibre expert, said while technology had advanced, the principles remained the same and further testing would be unlikely to advance the evidence.

She said the testing done at the time was robust and the case involved fibres transferred in multiple directions, with various types on two different garments and given the number involved and the multi-way transfer, further testing was likely to strengthen the evidence rather than the opposite.

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The trial in 2001 heard that Hynes had celebrated her 17th birthday a week before she was murdered. She was raped by McDonagh, who then tried to choke her. After leaving her for dead, he drove his car back to Carraroe village and became involved in a fight.

Hynes disappeared from Carraroe village at around 12.50am. She left a car parked outside a local hotel to go to the toilet in a local chip shop, but she never came back. Earlier, when she tried to go to the toilet in a local pub, a doorman refused her entry because she was underage.

The hearing continues on Wednesday.

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can call the national 24-hour Rape Crisis Helpline at 1800-77 8888, access text service and webchat options at drcc.ie/services/helpline/ or visit Rape Crisis Help. In the case of an emergency, always dial 999/112.
There are a very small number of cases of Irish nationals in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention centres, Irelands Minister for Foreign Affairs has said.

The case of Seamus Culleton, who has been detained by Ice since September, gained national attention after his family raised his situation in the media this week.

Mr Culleton is originally from Co Kilkenny but has been living in the US for almost 20 years and is married to a US citizen.

I am aware of a small number of cases where people have directly reached out to our embassy teams Foreign Affairs Minister Helen McEntee

He was driving home after finishing work when he was detained by Ice agents in September 2025.

Mr Culleton said he had a work permit but was arrested and transported from Massachusetts to an Ice facility in El Paso, Texas.

Foreign Affairs Minister Helen McEntee said it was a really distressing situation for Mr Culleton and said her officials were working to support his family.

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Asked on Tuesday if she was aware of other similar cases of Irish people with a right to be in the US being detained by Ice, she said: I am aware of a small number of cases where people have directly reached out to our embassy teams.

McEntee added: If there are other people in that type of scenario, please engage with our teams  were there to support them.

Asked if it was less than a dozen, she said: Yes, a very small number of cases.

Culleton said he would like Taoiseach Micheal Martin to raise his case with US President Donald Trump during his meeting at the White House in March for St Patricks Day.

Asked if he would do so, Martin told reporters on Tuesday that Government officials will see what more they can do in communication with the administration.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin said he empathises with the position Seamus Culleton is in (Liam McBurney/PA)

He said Government officials have been engaging with local officials and Ice about Mr Culletons case.

Speaking before a Cabinet meeting in Dublin, the Taoiseach said: We will see what more  with the Minister for Foreign Affairs  what we can do in terms of our communication with the administration.

I fully empathise with the position he is in, he has been in the United States quite a long time, hes married there.

Im not clear on the full background to it but certainly we would like to see him out of that facility.

Asked if he was broadly concerned about the US administrations approach to immigration enforcement, Martin said the Government has been concerned about undocumented Irish citizens for a long time through a range of US administrations.

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He added: There is now a crackdown in America in terms of the implementation of migration law which we are concerned about in terms of how it affects the Irish undocumented.

Martin said the approach had been to seek legal channels to regularise the situation for Irish and US citizens in the States.

He said living in the US without status was a very difficult and dangerous position to be in.

Tanaiste Simon Harris said it was an extremely stressful time for Seamus Culleton and his family. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA.

Martin said it has been difficult to get consensus on the Hill as different nations lobby the US Congress for support on migration measures.

Meanwhile, Tanaiste Simon Harris said it is an extremely stressful time for Mr Culleton and his family.

Asked if Martin should raise the issue with Trump, he said: I take the point thats made about what may or may not happen on March 17, I would just make the point, theres a fair whack of time to go between now and March 17, and certainly Ireland and Irish authorities, through our diplomatic channels, will be continuing to engage, to make the point, to make their representations between now and then.

Of course, then the Taoiseach and the Government will judge where thats at.

Asked the same question, McEntee said there is always a time and a place to raise individual cases, and added: I have no doubt the Taoiseach will give it consideration but it is important to stress we are already providing assistance to Seamus.
Zijin Mining is finalizing a $4 billion all-cash acquisition of Allied Gold Corporation, tightening its grip on African gold output as prices surge.

Under the agreement, Zijin Gold International will pay C$44 a share, valuing Allied Gold at about $4 billion. The assets produced about 400,000 ounces in 2025 and are expected to reach about 800,000 ounces a year by 2029. The deal is expected to close by late April 2026.

The transaction brings mines in Mali and Ivory Coast, as well as the under-construction Kurmuk project in Ethiopia, under Chinese control. Mali's Sadiola mine produced 171,000 ounces in 2024 and is targeting 400,000 ounces a year by 2029 following an expansion and changes to the country's mining code. In Ivory Coast, the Bonikro and Agbaou mines are expected to produce as much as 195,000 ounces annually.

The Kurmuk project will become Ethiopia's first commercial gold mine. It is scheduled to start production in mid-2026 and is expected to deliver about 290,000 ounces a year in its first five years.

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The acquisition was announced as gold prices climbed above $5,000 an ounce, boosting interest in established African assets.

Key Takeaways

The deal highlights how Africa's gold sector is attracting capital during a period of record prices, while ownership shifts toward Chinese groups. Zijin already controls more than 8% of Africa's mining output, and this transaction accelerates that trend. For countries such as Mali and Ethiopia, the acquisition brings funding and operational capacity to expand production. Governments retain minority stakes and benefit from royalties, especially as prices rise. At the same time, the deal shows a gap between Western policy goals on supply chain diversification and actual investment flows. Chinese miners, backed by long-term financing, can make large cash offers for producing assets. As gold shifts from a commodity to a strategic reserve asset, African governments may face pressure to strengthen resource policies to balance capital inflows with long-term control and revenue capture.
An Coimisiun Pleanala has rejected plans for a large nursing home near Bullock Harbour in south Dublin, which was strongly opposed by local residents, including broadcaster Pat Kenny, because of concerns an access road would pose a road safety hazard.

The Commission has upheld a decision of Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to refuse planning permission for the proposed construction of a 104-bedroom nursing home on a 0.6-hectare site between Ulverton Road and Harbour Road, Dalkey, Co Dublin.

The councils ruling had been appealed by a company in the Bartra property group run by high-profile developer Richard Barrett.

Bartra Property (Dublin) Limited had sought approval for its plans for a five-storey nursing home on the site of two former residences, Yonder and Maple Tree House, which is located near the family home of Kenny and his wife, Kathy.

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The Commissions ruling was made after several local residents, including the Newstalk presenter and former Late Late Show host, had taken successful judicial review proceedings in the High Court against a decision by its predecessor, An Bord Pleanala, in July 2023 to grant planning permission for the project.

The High Court directed that Bartras planning application should be resubmitted to the Commission for consideration after opponents had raised a number of issues, including claims the nursing home would have an adverse impact on badgers in the area.

The Commission has now ruled that a laneway off Harbour Road, which would be the primary route for accessing the proposed nursing home, would have insufficient capacity to safely accommodate the intensified level of vehicular movements generated by the proposed development.

The Commission said it had taken into consideration the restricted width of the laneway and adjacent footpath and the lack of designated vehicle passing points.

It concluded that the proposed development would endanger public safety by reason of traffic hazard and obstruction of road users.

Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council had rejected the plans for the same reason, as well as on grounds of the scale and design of the nursing home, which planners said would adversely affect the visual and residential amenities of adjoining properties.

Plans for a nursing home were first lodged in January 2021 after Bartra abandoned plans to develop an apartment complex on the site.

In its appeal, Bartra claimed the development complied with national policy, which targeted brownfield sites for redevelopment and providing accommodation for older people as well as with building height guidelines.

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It also claimed the privacy and amenity of other properties were protected and the traffic impact was less than under the previous plans for apartments on the site.

However, opponents claimed the laneway could not safely accommodate the traffic that the nursing home would generate.

They also maintained that the development could not proceed without disturbing a protected habitat of badgers in the area, and a proposed artificial sett for the animals would probably result in their extinction, as they would be cut off from feeding and foraging areas.

The Commission received 15 third-party submissions, including ones from the Kennys and Dalkey Community Council, which questioned the need for the nursing home as well as its design and alignment with criteria for the development of nursing homes under the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Development Plan.

The Kennys claimed the nursing home would detrimentally impact their family home and other adjoining properties as well as seriously damage the character of the Bullock Harbour area.

The couple also described the access laneway as substandard.

In one submission to the council, they claimed that Bartra had bought a challenging and problematic site and was attempting to stuff an Ugly Sisters foot into Cinderellas delicate slipper.

A planning inspector with the Commission said she did not consider the principle of the development of the proposed nursing home could be accepted based on the planning history of the site.

The inspector also noted that two vehicles could not comfortably pass each other in the laneway without mounting a footpath that is used by local residents.

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She concluded the scale of the development, which would provide a care facility for 104 residents, was excessive for the laneway, while car parking provision was inadequate.

The inspector found that the councils decision to refuse planning permission over road safety concerns was reasonable, while she also agreed that the proposed development would seriously injure the amenities of other residences.

However, she did not find that the impact on badgers in the area constituted grounds for the refusal of planning permission.

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A US national described "in detail" how he strangled his 66-year-old father with his bare hands, putting a "full fist into his throat", just over an hour after arriving at a five-star midlands resort, a Central Criminal Court jury has heard.

Opening the trial of Henry McGowan, who has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his father by reason of insanity, the prosecuting barrister also said that, despite being notified by the UK's metropolitan police that the accused was travelling to Ireland and there was some concern for his welfare, gardai failed to locate him at Dublin Airport.

The jury panel also heard the accused was under the delusion that the person he was killing was not his father but "an imposter", with expert psychiatrists for both the prosecution and defence in agreement that Henry McGowan was experiencing a relapse of schizoaffective disorder when he killed his father.

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McGowan (31), with an address at Clinton Street, Brooklyn, New York in the United States has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to the murder of John McGowan (66) at Ballyfin Demesne, Ballyfin, Portlaoise, Co Laois, on November 12th, 2024.

Opening the prosecutions case on Tuesday, Will Fennelly BL said the trial would hear from expert consultant psychiatrists for both the prosecution and defence, who have the same opinion that a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity was open to the jurors.

Outlining the facts of the case, Fennelly said shortly before 8pm on November 12th, 2024 investigators received a phone call alerting them to an incident which occurred in a cubicle off the swimming pool at Ballyfin Demesne hotel.

Fennelly said the jury would hear that gardai went to Ballyfin hotel after 8pm and found John McGowan in a state "of at least serious injury, if not death". Emergency services arrived, and John McGowan was pronounced dead in due course.

He said the focus of attention then moved to John McGowan's son Henry, and a garda investigation ensued.

Henry's arrival in Ireland

Counsel told the panel that shortly before 11pm on November 11th, Henry McGowan arrived at Dublin Airport on a flight from London.

The barrister said metropolitan police had notified An Garda Siochana in Dublin Airport that the accused was coming and expressed some concern for his welfare. He said gardai had looked for Henry McGowan at the airport but could not locate him.

There will be evidence, Fennelly said, that the accused went to one of the airport car parks, where he discarded his baggage and personal items, including his phone and passport. The lawyer said the accused then made his way into Dublin.

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He said Henry McGowan told gardai in his interviews that he ran into the city centre.

At 8.30am on November 12th, the accused presented himself at the emergency department of the Mater Hospital, where he spoke with medical staff. Henry McGowan told them he was having mental health challenges and was seeking some assistance.

In the meantime, counsel said John McGowan was en route from the US because his son Henry had been in phone communication from Paris with his family in the preceding days.

"There was an exchange between the accused and family members, which caused considerable concern as to his welfare," said the lawyer.

Henry McGowan, counsel said, had previously encountered challenges with his mental health, and there was a concern that the accused was not taking his medication.

Fennelly said that John McGowan arrived at Dublin Airport from New York on November 12th and went to his son at the Mater Hospital around midday. The evidence will be that a prescription was issued for the accused's mental health difficulties and that both men left the hospital at 3.40pm.

Father and son's arrival in Laois

The McGowans then took a taxi to Ballyfin Demesne in Co Laois, where John McGowan told the general manager that he had "a bit of a concern" his son hadn't been taking his medication, but that there was nothing to worry about at this point.

The manager found the accused perfectly normal and engaging, said the barrister.

The accused was later shown to the pool and given a pair of swimming togs to use.

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The court will hear evidence that shortly afterwards, a member of staff observed the accused walking along the poolside naked and notified the manager.

In the interim, John McGowan had also gone to the swimming pool area and was observed on CCTV speaking to his son. The accused was lying naked on a pool lounger, but put on a robe before both men went into the cubicle area.

Counsel said the father and son remained in the cubicle area for a number of minutes, after which the accused emerged naked and jumped into the pool. He then got out, wrapped a towel around him and left the area.

The accused, counsel said, met the two staff members coming down to see him because of what they had observed earlier.

When the manager enquired about the accused's father, counsel said the jury would hear that Henry McGowan said "he is not my father".

The court will hear that the manager went back down to the dressing area off the pool, where he found John McGowan lying on the ground.

Two members of staff brought him out of the area and performed CPR, but he was pronounced dead by a doctor shortly after.

Fennelly said gardai arrived at the hotel around 8.15pm and found the accused sitting in the library, looking at a fire. He was dressed in clothes that belonged to his father.

When asked what happened, the accused told gardai that he had hurt his father. The accused continued to speak, saying: "I killed who I thought was not my father downstairs I hit his head against the wall and strangled him".

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The accused was formally arrested when gardai were advised that John McGowan was dead. Fennelly said the cause of death was asphyxia due to manual strangulation and compression of the mouth.

Fennelly said the jury will hear that the accused was brought to a psychiatric unit in the midlands the next morning, where he was assessed by a psychiatrist and deemed fit for interview. The accused was also prescribed certain medication.

Henry McGowan was interviewed on four occasions by gardai, where he told them that he had been diagnosed with a bipolar condition at 27 years old. The accused also told officers that he had been hospitalised in the US in relation to this and was on a programme of medication.

The accused indicated he had stopped taking his medication, and while in Paris, he found his psychosis was becoming elevated.

The jury will hear that the accused also told gardai he had killed his father and that he couldn't make "sense of the thoughts that go through my head". The accused also said: "I don't look back on the decision, I'm not looking back".

Counsel said the accused told detectives that he had strangled his father in a bathroom and had told the deceased he would "always love him as he had his last breath".

Henry McGowan further said he had grabbed his father by the chest and pushed him hard, before strangling him on the bathroom floor with his bare hands.

The barrister said the accused had described in detail killing his father and told gardai it was difficult to choke him. Counsel said Henry McGowan went on to say: "I counted to 49 and when I got to 49 he was breathing and had a pulse. I counted on 20 seconds longer and he stopped. He kept gasping for air, I would not let go".

The accused continued saying: "I was seething and physically tired... Once he hit his head and was on the ground he wasn't resisting. I then put a full fist into his throat using my full force. I pushed down with both hands on his Adam's apple, but he kept breathing. I then put full force on his throat with my knuckles. It was shocking how long it took. I say it took in the region of eight minutes".

Counsel said defence witness Dr Stephen Monks examined the accused, finding that he had experienced a relapse of schizoaffective disorder and was suffering from an acute psychotic episode.

The court heard that the psychiatrist found the accused did not know the true nature and quality of the act, was deluded that the person he was killing was not his father but "an imposter" and that he did not know what he was doing was wrong.

"He believed he was morally justified and duty-bound and could not refrain," said counsel.

A psychiatrist for the prosecution, counsel said, found the accused was also suffering from schizoaffective disorder and accepted the conclusion reached by Dr Monks as to his mental state at the time. "The psychiatric evidence is not disputed in the case," concluded counsel.

Giving evidence, Detective Inspector Diarmaid Lawlor, of Portlaoise Garda Station, told Brendan Grehan SC, prosecuting, that John McGowan was a successful businessman who worked on the New York Stock Exchange.



He said his son Henry McGowan graduated from the University of Virginia and worked for a technology firm. The accused was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2022 and has no previous convictions, said the witness.

When the accused presented himself at the Mater Hospital on November 12th, the garda said he described himself as having interconnected thoughts two weeks prior to this. The witness said the accused told doctors he was talking to God and that God was telling him what to do. He said the defendant was on and off his antipsychotic medication.

The witness said the accused had two prior admissions to psychiatric units in New York, where he was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder. He said the accused admitted to doctors in hospital that he had a historic diagnosis of cannabis use and a family history of bipolar affective disorder.

In his interviews with gardai following his arrest, the accused said he was in direct communication with God, who was telling him what to do, adding that his "impulse" took over in the bathroom of the pool area. He said he felt like he had to claim his life back from his father.

The defendant told officers that his father had started yelling at him like a child because he was naked. "He got super angry, the deal was to have dinner and take the medication after. I had a sense of tranquility after in the pool".

The accused added: "He said I had to take my medication, to me it felt like he was forcing me, I didn't follow the plan".

The accused said his father's anger made him "super angry" and then he killed him. "I attacked him as I handed him the medication".

The defendant said he washed his hands after the incident, closed the bathroom door and jumped back into the pool.

The trial continues on Tuesday afternoon before Judge Paul McDermott and a jury of six men and six women.

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A 52-year-old woman who stole more than 300,000 from TV chef Martin Shanahan is to sell her home in order to raise compensation money, a court has heard.

Nessa Gilsenan of Copper Beech House, Mellifontstown, Kinsale, Co Cork, appeared before Cork Circuit Criminal Court on Tuesday.

She previously pleaded guilty to nine charges which related to theft and the submitting of false documents to Shanahan.

Gilsenan was an employee of the award-winning Fishy Fishy restaurant in Kinsale at the time of the offences which occurred on dates between 2017 and 2022.

She admitted to falsifying the staff payroll system to make a gain for herself in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

In 2017, she dishonestly appropriated in excess of 26,000 from the Shanahan-owned business. The following year involved the theft of almost 55,000, whilst in 2019 Gilsenan dishonestly appropriated over 75,000 from her employer.

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In 2020, 2021 and 2022, she dishonestly appropriated over 63,000, almost 69,000 and almost 15,000 respectively.

All of the charges refer to the period from January 1st to December 31st of each calendar year.

The offences were contrary to the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001.

Ms Gilsenan was first charged in relation to the offences in March of last year.

Defence counsel Donal OSullivan on Tuesday told Judge Helen Boyle that he had received 15,000 in compensation money from his client. Another compensation amount was paid by Gilsenan at a previous court appearance.

OSullivan asked for a lengthy adjournment in the case to allow for the sale of the property. Monies earned from the sale will go towards compensating Shanahan.

The judge remanded Gilsenan on bail for sentencing on November 4th next, when the full facts of the case will be outlined. The hearing is expected to last for around an hour.

Shananan is one of Irelands leading seafood chefs. His cookery programme Mad about Fish first featured on RTE in 2009.

Best-selling cookery books and further TV series such as Surf n Turf with Paul Flynn followed.
A financial services worker whose employment was terminated after he was sentenced to more than two years in prison for deception and impersonating a garda has taken a case for unfair dismissal.

Orville Farrell was working as a custody client servicing associate with State Street when he was convicted of the offences before Waterford Circuit Court and commenced a prison sentence in January 2024.

The company had not been informed that he was facing criminal charges, and was initially unaware of the reason that he was absent from work.

Around January 15th, an employee relations consultant at State Street received a call informing her that Farrell had been admitted to a psychiatric institute and would likely be an inpatient for some time.

The caller refused to identify herself or the name of the psychiatric facility, citing confidentiality, but provided an email address from which further updates would be provided.

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A few days later, an email was received from this address confirming that, in fact, Farrell had received a custodial sentence and was in prison.

Ciara Lawlor, head of employee relations for State Street, told an adjudication hearing of the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) on Monday that Mr Farrells sudden absence had made it difficult to manage workloads.

She said the company had learned about his incarceration from newspaper articles, and made extensive efforts to engage with him, repeatedly extending deadlines for submissions regarding the future of his employment.

Barrister Maurice Osborne, representing State Street, said it was the companys position that there had been no dismissal and that Mr Farrells contract had instead been terminated on the grounds of frustration.

This occurs when an unforeseen event not caused by either party makes the performance of a contract impossible or radically different from what was originally agreed.

However, Mr Farrell argued that the company had failed to consider holding his position open for him pending release, or implementing temporary measures until he could return to work.

He told the WRC that there was an obligation to explore reasonable alternatives before concluding that a contract had been frustrated, and therefore claimed that he had been unfairly dismissed.

Osborne said there had been no realistic prospect of Farrell returning to work within a reasonable period of time, despite his contact person incorrectly claiming that he would be released after 10 months.

He said Mr Farrell should have informed his employer about the trial as a matter of common courtesy. Instead, he initially told his line manager that he was sick, and then the company was told he was in a psychiatric facility.

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Osborne said State Street had gone above and beyond to engage with Mr Farrell, affording him multiple opportunities to make submissions up to April 2024.

Farrell argued that frustration of contract required impossibility, not inconvenience, and claimed his employer had failed to investigate the possibility of his employment continuing if he were moved to an open prison.

The WRC also heard that Mr Farrell had since applied for a new job with State Street, but the company felt it was not appropriate to consider the application as it does not employ anyone with a criminal record.

State Street Custodial Services Ireland Limited is the Irish branch of the US financial services giant, managing assets worth around 1.7 trillion domiciled in Ireland  roughly one-third of the entire funds sector.

Mr Farrell was sentenced to three years in prison for impersonating a garda in January 2024, which was reduced by nine months. He received a concurrent two-year sentence for deception, which was reduced by six months with the final portion suspended for six months.

The hearing concluded and adjudication officer Seamus Clinton is expected to issue a decision on the unfair dismissal complaint in the coming weeks.
Former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre has described allegations made by Doreen Lawrence against the papers publisher as especially bewildering and bitterly wounding, the High Court has been told.

Prince Harry, Elton John and Doreen Lawrence are part of a group of seven high-profile individuals bringing legal action against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) over allegations of unlawful information gathering.

ANL has strongly denied wrongdoing and is defending the claims, which are also brought by David Furnish, Simon Hughes, Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost.

Dacre, now editor-in-chief of ANLs holding company DMG Media, entered the witness box on Tuesday afternoon as the first witness giving evidence in support of ANLs defence.

Paul Dacre, right, was giving evidence at the High Court on Tuesday (Lucy North/PA)

During Dacres tenure as editor, the Daily Mail campaigned to bring the killers of Lawrences son Stephen to justice after his death in 1993.

On the front page of the papers February 14th 1997 edition, the paper labelled five men  Gary Dobson, Neil Acourt, Jamie Acourt, Luke Knight, and David Norris  as murderers and challenged them to sue the newspaper for libel.

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In her claim, Lawrence alleges ANL had targeted her with hidden electronic surveillance, as well as tapping her landline, monitoring her bank account and making payments to police officers for confidential information, with the court told she felt like a victim all over again.

At the start of his evidence, Dacre told the court: My heart bleeds for Baroness Doreen Lawrence.

The claims of criminality made on behalf of Baroness Doreen Lawrence in relation to the Daily Mails 15-year campaign for her murdered son Stephen are especially bewildering and bitterly wounding to me personally Paul Dacre

In his written evidence, he said that it was inconceivable that anyone at the Daily Mail would have carried out the alleged activities.

Dacre also said: The claims of criminality made on behalf of Baroness Doreen Lawrence in relation to the Daily Mails 15-year campaign for her murdered son Stephen are especially bewildering and bitterly wounding to me personally.

Throughout my 26-year editorship, this, of all my countless campaigns, many of which made a significant contribution to the public weal, is the campaign of which I am most proud and to which I devoted the most space.

He also said it simply defies reason for the Daily Mail to use illegal methods to see if other newspapers were getting involved in the Lawrence campaign, later adding: The suggestion that we ran the campaign to generate exclusive headlines, sell newspapers and profit is sickeningly misplaced and bleakly cynical.

Baroness Doreen Lawrence is among a group of seven high-profile individuals bringing legal action against Associated Newspapers Limited (Jordan Pettitt/PA)

Cross-examining Dacre, David Sherborne, for the group of household names, asked whether his involvement in the case is motivated by a desire to protect your legacy rather than getting a fair outcome.

Dacre replied that while he did wish to clear his name, he also cared about the paper and the honest and dedicated staff who work for it.

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Later in his written evidence, Dacre said that the grave and sometimes preposterous allegations made in the case have astonished, appalled and  in the small hours of the night  reduced me to rage.

Dacre later said the claims had had a deeply upsetting and sometimes traumatic impact on staff at the paper, adding: I have witnessed the anguish of honest, dedicated journalists who, for three years now, have had an insidious dark shadow hanging over their lives.

ANLs barrister Antony White previously said that ANL was defending the claims both on their merits and for being brought too late and that the allegations in relation to Lawrence are denied in their entirety and are unsupported by the available evidence.

He continued in written submissions: In fact, the reality is that the information in each of the articles was obtained by entirely legitimate reporting and based on the sources identified by Associated in its defence and evidence.

There is evidence, indisputable evidence, in the documents that Associated journalists and senior executives were commissioning and approving the acquisition and use of unlawfully obtained information, and they must have known that David Sherborne, for the group of household names

But Sherborne previously told the London court that the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday had been engaged in unlawful information gathering over at least two decades, and knew they had skeletons in their closet.

He said: There is evidence, indisputable evidence, in the documents that Associated journalists and senior executives were commissioning and approving the acquisition and use of unlawfully obtained information, and they must have known that.

That is why we say this was no clean ship, far from it.

Sherborne later said that smoke and mirrors and carefully orchestrated attacks on the claimants could not save Associated this time.

He continued: They have to live by their all-or-nothing defence.

The trial before Judge Nicklin is due to conclude in March, with a judgment in writing due at a later date.
Authorities investigating the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie more than a week ago released the first surveillance images on Tuesday, showing a masked person on her porch on the night she went missing.

Video released by the FBI shows the person wearing a backpack, long sleeves and trousers and walking up to the door at the home of the mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie.

The footage shows the person trying to cover a camera near the front door with their gloved hand before putting plants in front of the camera.



A surveillance image showing a masked individual at the home of Nancy Guthrie on the night she went missing (FBI via AP)

The images show an armed individual appearing to have tampered with the camera at Nancy Guthries front door the morning of her disappearance, FBI director Kash Patel said on X.

In the videos, the person appeared to be wearing the holster attached to their front waist area.

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Another video shows the person purposefully tilting their head down while nearing the front archway.

Mr Patel said the videos were pulled from residual data located in backend systems after investigators spent days trying to find lost, corrupted or inaccessible images.

This was the first major breakthrough in an investigation that has raised more questions than answers, including whether the 84-year-old is still alive. It comes as law enforcement and her family intensified calls for assistance from the public.

This will get the phone ringing for lots of potential leads, former FBI agent Katherine Schweit said.

Even when you have a person who appears to be completely covered, theyre really not. You can see their girth, the shape of their face, potentially their eyes or mouth. You can see a gait that people around that person may recognise immediately.

Authorities believe Nancy Guthrie was taken against her will from her house just outside Tucson.



A member of Pima County Sheriffs Department in front of Nancy Guthries home (Ty ONeil/AP)

She was last seen there on January 31 and reported missing the next day after she did not attend church.

DNA tests showed blood on her front porch was a match to her, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has said.

Authorities say Nancy Guthrie needs daily medication because she is said to have high blood pressure and heart issues, including a pacemaker.

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Up until now, authorities have released few details about who may have abducted the 84-year-old from her home in Arizona and whether she is still alive, leaving it unclear if ransom notes demanding money with deadlines already passed were authentic and whether the Guthrie family has had any contact with the abductors.



Savannah Guthrie with her mother Nancy in 2019 (Nathan Congleton/NBCUniversal via AP)

Savannah Guthrie posted the new surveillance images on social media on Tuesday with the caption, We believe she is still alive. Bring her home, and phone numbers for the FBI and county sheriff. Within minutes, the post had thousands of comments.

Investigators had hoped cameras would turn up evidence right away about how Nancy Guthrie went missing from her home in a secluded neighbourhood outside Tucson. But the doorbell camera was disconnected early on Sunday, and while software recorded movement at the home minutes later, she did not have an active subscription, so none of the footage could be recovered, Mr Nanos had said.

Heartbreaking messages by Savannah Guthrie and her family shifted from hopeful to bleak as they pleaded with the apparent kidnappers. In a video just ahead of a purported ransom deadline on Monday, Savannah Guthrie appeared alone and spoke directly to the public, not the abductor.

We are at an hour of desperation, she said. We need your help.

Her familys turn to the public comes as much of the nation is closely following the dramatic case involving the longtime anchor of NBCs morning show.
A top Israeli official said on Tuesday that measures adopted by the government that deepen Israeli control in the occupied West Bank amounted to implementing de facto sovereignty.

The steps actually establish a fact on the ground that there will not be a Palestinian state, Energy Minister Eli Cohen told Israels Army Radio, using language that mirrors critics warnings about the intent behind the moves.

Palestinians, Arab countries and human rights groups have called the moves announced on Sunday an annexation of the territory, home to roughly 3.4 million Palestinians who seek it for a future state.

Mr Cohens comments followed similar remarks by other members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus government, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defence Minister Israel Katz.



A road in the Jordan Valley, West Bank (Ohad Zwigenberg/AP)

The moves  and Israeli officials own descriptions of them  put the country at odds with both regional allies and previous statements from US President Donald Trump. Mr Netanyahu has travelled to Washington to meet him later this week.

Last year, Mr Trump said he will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank. The US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that aimed to stop the war in Gaza also acknowledged Palestinian aspirations for statehood.

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The measures further erode the Palestinian Authoritys limited powers, and it is unclear the extent to which it can oppose them. Still, Hussein Al Sheikh, the Palestinian Authoritys deputy president, said on Tuesday the Palestinian leadership called on all civil and security institutions in the State of Palestine to reject them.

In a post on X on Tuesday, he said the Israeli steps contradict international law and the agreements signed with the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

In a statement on Tuesday, President Mahmoud Abbass Cabinet instructed all public and private Palestinian institutions not to engage with these Israeli measures and to strictly adhere to Palestinian laws and regulations in force.

A group of eight Arab and Muslim-majority countries expressed their absolute rejection of the measures, calling them in a joint statement on Monday illegal and warning they would fuel violence and conflict in the region.

Israels pledge not to annex the West Bank is embedded in its diplomatic agreements with some of those countries and renewed warnings that it was a red line for the Emirates led Israel to shelve some high-level discussions on the matter last year.

They are driving us further and further away from a two-state solution and from the ability of the Palestinian authority and the Palestinian people to control their own destiny Stephane Dujarric

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was gravely concerned by the measures.

They are driving us further and further away from a two-state solution and from the ability of the Palestinian authority and the Palestinian people to control their own destiny, his spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, said on Monday.

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The measures, approved by Mr Netanyahus Security Cabinet on Sunday, expand Israels enforcement authority over land use and planning in areas run by the Palestinian Authority, making it easier for Jewish settlers to force Palestinians to give up land.

Mr Smotrich and Mr Katz on Sunday said they would lift long-standing restrictions on land sales to Israeli Jews in the West Bank, shift some control over sensitive holy sites  including Hebrons Ibrahimi Mosque, also known as the Tomb of the Patriarchs  and declassify land registry records to ease property acquisitions.

They also revive a government committee empowered to make what officials described as proactive land purchases in the territory, a step intended to reserve land for future settlement expansion.

Taken together, the moves add an official stamp to Israels accelerating expansion and would override parts of decades-old agreements that split the West Bank between areas under Israeli control and areas where the Palestinian Authority exercises limited autonomy.

Israel has increasingly legalised settler outposts built on land Palestinians say documents show they have long owned, evicted Palestinian communities from areas declared military zones and villages near archaeological sites it has reclassified as national parks.

More than 700,000 Israelis live in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in 1967 and sought by the Palestinians for an independent state along with the Gaza Strip.

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Palestinians are not permitted to sell land privately to Israelis. Settlers can buy homes on land controlled by Israels government.

The international community overwhelmingly considers Israeli settlement construction to be illegal and an obstacle to peace.

These decisions constitute a direct violation of the international agreements to which Israel is committed and are steps toward the annexation of Areas A and B, anti-settlement watchdog group Peace Now said on Sunday, referring to parts of the West Bank where the Palestinian Authority exercised some autonomy.
Disgraced British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell told US politicians she wanted to answer questions about her paedophile ex-boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein but remained silent on the advice of counsel.

The 64-year-old appeared remotely before the House Oversight Committee on Monday, but declined to answer any questions.

Those in the room said her lawyer David Markus used the opportunity to campaign for a pardon from US President Donald Trump.

I would like to answer your question, but on the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer this question and any related questions Ghislaine Maxwell

The committee posted a video of the short session on social media on Tuesday, showing Maxwell first being asked if she was a close friend and confidant of Jeffrey Epstein.

Maxwell said: I would like to answer your question, but on the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer this question and any related questions.

My habeas petition is pending in the southern district of New York.

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I therefore invoke my right to silence under the fifth amendment to the US constitution.

A document included in the US department of justice release of the Jeffrey Epstein files (Jon Elswick/AP)

Maxwell also declined to answer whether she was involved in the trafficking of any girls and whether she had coerced any young women to have sex with Epstein or his associates.

She also refused to say whether she, and Epstein, surrounded themselves with powerful and influential people to protect them from potential scrutiny, or provide any of Epsteins associates names.

The fifth amendment gives Americans the right to silence when questioned under oath in order to avoid self-incrimination.

In a post on X after the hearing on Monday, Mr Markus said Maxwell would be willing to answer questions if granted clemency by President Trump.

Chairman of the committee, James Comer, told reporters she should not be entitled to immunity.

House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer spoke to reporters after the closed-door deposition with Maxwell (J Scott Applewhite/AP)

In a statement issued after the hearing, House Democrats said who is she protecting? following her decision to decline to answer questions.

During her three-week trial in 2021, prosecutors described Maxwell as dangerous, and said she helped entice vulnerable teenagers to Epsteins properties for him to sexually abuse.

She was sentenced to 20 years in prison at the federal court in the southern district of New York in June 2022.
Russia cannot launch an attack on Nato this year or next but is planning to increase its forces significantly along the alliances eastern flank, depending on the outcome of the war in Ukraine, a senior European intelligence official said.

Speaking in an online briefing with journalists, Kaupo Rosin, the head of Estonias foreign intelligence service, also told The Associated Press that Russian President Vladimir Putin currently has no desire to halt the nearly four-year-old invasion of neighbouring Ukraine and thinks he can outsmart the United States during talks on how to end the war.

Mr Rosin said Russias plan involves creating new military units and multiplying the pre-war force along its border with Nato by two to three times.

But that will be heavily influenced by the outcome of discussions involving Moscow, Washington and Kyiv regarding a cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, he said.



A damaged apartment building in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region (Iryna Rybakova/Ukraines 93rd Mechanized Brigade via AP)

That is because Russia will need to maintain a significant portion of its military inside occupied Ukraine and in Russia to prevent future Ukrainian action, he said.

Currently there are not enough resources available for Moscow to launch an attack on Nato, but the Kremlin is concerned about Europe rearming and being able to conduct military action against Russia in the next couple of years, the intelligence chief said.

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Russian officials, meanwhile, are playing for time in the talks with Washington and there is absolutely no discussion about how to really co-operate with the US in a meaningful way, Mr Rosin said.

Mr Rosin spoke to reporters ahead of the publication of Estonias annual security report on Tuesday.

He said the information on how the Kremlin views the talks with the US is based on intelligence that Nato member Estonia gathered from Russian internal discussions.



An elderly woman reacts after her home was destroyed in Russias airstrike in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, Ukraine, on Sunday (Iryna Rybakova/Ukraines 93rd Mechanized Brigade via AP)

He did not elaborate on how the information was obtained but said the discussions showed that Russian officials believe Washington remains Moscows main enemy.

Russian officials have insisted publicly they want a negotiated deal but have shown little willingness to compromise and remain adamant their demands must be met.

US-brokered talks between envoys from Russia and Ukraine in recent weeks have been described by officials from both sides as constructive and positive, but there has been no sign of any progress on key issues in the discussions.

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Mr Putin, in his head, still thinks that he can actually militarily win (in Ukraine) at some point, Mr Rosin said.

A White House official responded to the Estonian intelligence chiefs comments and said President Donald Trumps negotiators had made tremendous progress on the talks to end the war.

Although prisoner exchanges have happened sporadically since May, they pointed in particular to a recent agreement in Abu Dhabi reached by the US, Ukraine and Russia to release more than 300 prisoners.

That agreement was evidence that efforts to end the war are advancing, said the official, who was granted anonymity because they did not have permission to speak publicly.

In an indication that Mr Trump wants to accelerate the momentum of those efforts, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said last week that Washington has given Kyiv and Moscow a June deadline to reach a settlement.

Mr Trump over the past year has set several deadlines that have come and gone without apparent consequences.

Fiona Hill, a British-American Russia expert and adviser to Mr Trump in his first term, said Mr Trump and his officials are spinning a story that depicts the US president as a peacemaker and, for that reason, they are not interested in changing their assessment that Mr Putin wants to end the war.

She told the AP that both leaders need their version of events to play out and are hanging onto their version of the truth  Mr Putin as the victor in Ukraine and Mr Trump as the dealmaker.



People stand in line for free hot meals in Kyiv as Russian attacks on the power grid leave large areas with no power (Efrem Lukatsky/AP)

On Tuesday morning, Russian planes dropped seven powerful glide bombs on Sloviansk, in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, killing an 11-year-old girl and her mother, according to regional chief Vadym Filashkin.

He said 16 others, including a seven-year-old girl, were injured in the attack that damaged 14 apartment blocks.

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During the night, Russian drone attacks elsewhere in Ukraine wounded at least five people, including a toddler and two other children, regional authorities said.

Although Mr Trump has repeatedly suggested that Mr Putin wants peace, he has sometimes appeared frustrated with the Russian leaders lukewarm approach to talks.

From an intelligence perspective, Mr Rosin said he does not know why US officials believe Mr Putin wants to end the war.

Ms Hill, who served as a national intelligence officer under previous US administrations, said it is unclear what intelligence information Mr Trump gets on Russia  or if he reads it.

He relies heavily on his lead negotiators, special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, who Ms Hill said may struggle to believe that the damage to the Russian economy from the war is a price Mr Putin is willing to pay for Ukraine.

Referring to reports that Mr Witkoff has attended meetings with Mr Putin without a US State Department translator, she questioned if Mr Trumps envoys understood what was being said in meetings and suggested officials may be selectively looking for what they want to hear.

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Mr Putin is fixated on controlling all of Ukraine and the idea is so deep in his head that it takes priority over anything else, including the economy, Mr Rosin said, suggesting the conflict will continue in some form for several years.



White House special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff (Allison Robbert/AP)

He said Mr Putins position may change only if the situation in Russia, or on the front line, becomes catastrophic, threatening his power. For now, the Kremlin leader still believes he can take Ukraine and outsmart everybody, Mr Rosin said.

One reason Mr Putin thinks he can win militarily in Ukraine is because he is definitely getting some incorrect information from his officials, the Estonian intelligence chief said.

Not all Russian officials, however, believe they are winning the war in Ukraine, Mr Rosin said.

The lower you go in the food chain, the more people understand how bad it is actually on the ground, he said, whereas higher-level officials are more optimistic because they are given more positive reports.

Mr Rosin cited examples of officials being told Russian forces had captured Ukrainian settlements when that was not true.

The reports that arrive at Mr Putins desk may be much more optimistic than the situation on the ground because Mr Putin only wants to see success, Mr Rosin said.

Ms Hill said both Mr Trump and Mr Putin are probably being told what they want to hear by people who want to please them.
Keir Starmer will attempt to move on from speculation about his future in No 10 after surviving renewed calls for his resignation from members of his party.

He will take part in a community visit in an attempt to show he is focused on easing the cost-of-living burden after chairing a routine meeting of his Cabinet, a day after his top ministers rallied round him.

The public display of Cabinet support came after Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar urged him to quit amid the fallout from the Peter Mandelson scandal.

Mr Sarwar became the most senior Labour figure to call for Starmer to go, citing concern that the distraction from Downing Street would harm his partys chances of unseating the SNP in Mays Holyrood elections.

But Starmer issued a defiant response at Monday nights meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, telling a packed room in Westminster: Ive won every fight Ive ever been in.

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The British Prime Minister said he was not prepared to walk away as he received a warm reception from MPs reluctant to join Mr Sarwar in calling for him to quit.

The lack of a concerted effort by MPs to depose Starmer suggests the immediate danger may have passed.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar called on Keir Starmer to resign (Robert Perry/PA)

But some discontent remains, with one critic comparing the meeting to the Battle of the Little Bighorn, a Wild West massacre also known as Custers Last Stand.

The Prime Minister is expected to continue efforts to shake up his No 10 operation, with the countrys top civil servant Chris Wormald rumoured to be on his way out in the coming days.

His chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, and communications chief Tim Allan have already departed as Starmer seeks to revive his fortunes after a bruising start to 2026.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, writing in the Daily Telegraph, said Starmer should resign as he had proved incapable of doing the things a prime minister needs to do.

Keir Starmer leaves the Houses of Parliament after announcing he is not resigning (Yui Mok/PA)

With the threat to his position appearing to recede, he is expected to travel to Germany at the end of the week to attend the Munich Security Conference, where concern about the future of the transatlantic alliance is likely to be high on the agenda.
opinion

I read with interest, Learned Senior Advocate, Mr Femi Falana's article, "Why Coup Suspects Cannot Be Tried in a Military Tribunal" on the back page of This Day's February 4, 2026 publication. I certainly agree with Mr Falana that coup plotting is indeed, a grave offence, and anyone accused of such a heinous crime of trying to violently overthrow a democratic government, should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Mr Falana listed two categories of people, who allegedly planned a coup to overthrow the Tinubu administration last year - Military Officers from the rank of Captain to Brigadier General, and their Civilian collaborators. The Senior Advocate then cited Section 251(2) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended)(the Constitution) in support of his assertion that all the alleged coup plotters, both Military and Civilian, can only be tried at the Federal High Court (FHC) under Section 41 of the Criminal Code Act, as Section 251(2) of the Constitution provides that the FHC shall exercise jurisdiction and powers in respect of treason, treasonable felony and allied offences.

The Argument with SKB: Are there Exceptions to Section 251(2) of the Constitution?

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It is certainly logical to conclude that Section 251(2) of the Constitution applies to all Nigerians. It singles out treason, treasonable felony and allied offences out of all the criminal offences, and uses the word "shall" to provide that the FHC has jurisdiction to try these offences. Nevertheless, this is where the argument divides into two.

I got into a debate on this issue with our Columnist, Stephen Kola-Balogun (SKB). Like Mr Falana, SKB believes that, whether Military or Civilian, Section 251(2) of the Constitution provides that treasonable cases must be tried at the FHC, and that the use of the word 'shall' in the provision, makes it mandatory, without exception. But, in BPS Construction & Engineering Co. Ltd v FCDA (2017) LPELR-42516(SC) per Kudirat Motonmori Olatokunbo Kekere-Ekun, JSC (now CJN), the Supreme Court held that: "It is true that generally, the word "shall" is interpreted in its mandatory sense. However, whether the word is used in its mandatory or directory sense, depends on the context in which it is used. The word "shall" can also mean "may", where the context so admits".

In the case of the civil causes listed in the preceding Section 251(1) of the Constitution, this provision clearly gives the FHC power to exercise jurisdiction 'to the exclusion of any other court'. This simply means that, in the causes listed in Section 251(1) of the Constitution, no other court but the FHC, is empowered to hear them. In Rivers State House of Assembly & Anor v Government of Rivers State & Ors (2025) LPELR-80539(SC) per Ibrahim Mohammed Musa Saulawa, JSC, the Supreme Court held inter alia thus: "....the term exclusive jurisdiction means a Court's power to determine or adjudicate an action or class of actions, to the exclusion of all other Courts".

I commented to SKB that the key words in Section 251(1) & (2) conferring jurisdiction on the FHC are similar, aside from the magic words that confer 'exclusive jurisdiction' on the FHC in Section 251(1) of the Constitution, which are clearly absent from Section 251(2). I then asked SKB whether this could mean that, though jurisdiction is conferred on the FHC to try treasonable offences, there are other courts that could/may have concurrent jurisdiction with the FHC to try treason, treasonable felony and allied offences, such as the Court Martial? The rationale behind this line of thought is: (1) 'shall' is also used in 251(1), but reinforced and made certain with 'to the exclusion of any other court', unlike 251(2); if 'shall' is used in its mandatory sense, why the need for reinforcement? (2) that the absence of 'to the exclusion of any other court' in 251(2) could mean that 'shall' isn't being used in its mandatory sense in Section 251(2), but as 'may', thereby allowing other courts to have jurisdiction in 251(2) with its absence therefrom. In Buhari & Anor v Obasanjo & Ors (2005) LPELR-815(SC) per Dennis Onyejife Edozie, JSC, the Supreme Court held thus: "It is settled law that, where the wordings of a statute are clear and unambiguous, the court must give them their plain and ordinary meaning: see Dominic Onuorah Ifezue v Livinus Mbadugha and Anor. (1984) 1 SCNLR 79, (1984) 5 SC 79; A.-G., Bendel State v A.-G., Federation (1982) 3 N.C.L.R".

I submit that Section 251(2) of the Constitution is clear and unambiguous in its provision, and must therefore, be given its plain and ordinary meaning which is that, it gives the FHC the power to exercise jurisdiction in treasonable offences. It however, may not confer 'exclusive jurisdiction' on the FHC in this regard, and trying to do so may be tantamount to making an addition to Section 251(2), without amending it by following due process.

Umoru Mandara v AGF (1984) 4 S.C.8 cited by Mr Falana, a case of treason related charges, happened during the military era, long before the 1999 Constitution, when Tribunals were given more power, treasonable offences were tried in camera under Military Decrees and the FHC's jurisdiction was limited in criminal matters, and it didn't have the jurisdiction to try treasonable cases simpliciter. Today, the FHC has the jurisdiction to try such cases.

Media Rights Agenda v Nigeria (2000) AHRLR 5 also cited by Mr Falana, had to do with Civilians being tried in Military Tribunals. The African Commission declared that Military Tribunals shouldn't have any jurisdiction over civilians, under any circumstances; I concur, and do not envisage a situation in 2026 in which alleged civilian coup plotters can/will be tried by a Court Martial, when they are not military personnel, and generally not subject to the Armed Forces Act LFN 2004 (AFA), that is, 'Service Law', except in specific circumstances such as those mentioned in Section 146 of the AFA which concern offences that a civilian may commit, such as refusing to appear as a Witness in the Court Martial when summoned to do so, or insulting members of the Court Martial, or doing something that would generally be considered to be contempt in a regular court of law.

Court Martial

Section 218(4)(b) of the Constitution empowers to the National Assembly (NASS) to inter alia, make laws for the disciplinary control of the Armed Forces of the Federation - the AFA is that law. The Court Martial, established by the AFA, is a military judicial court set up whenever required, for the discipline and punishment of members of the Armed Forces, including when they are accused of committing criminal offences. It is not the same as the Police Orderly Room Trial process, or that of the National Judicial Council for the Judges, which are administrative bodies for internal discipline. The Court Martial has the status of a High Court, as once convictions of the Court Martial are confirmed by the Army Council, appeals lie from there to the Court of Appeal, and ultimately to the Supreme Court - see Section 183 of the AFA.

Sections 104-113 of the AFA list crimes (referred to as 'civil offences' in the AFA) such as murder, manslaughter, forgery etc, that constitute offences under the AFA and can be tried by the Court Martial. Like Mr Falana stated, treason and allied offences are not expressly listed in the AFA. SKB felt that the fact that treason and allied offences are not expressly listed with the others in the AFA, and separately considered in Section 251(2) of the Constitution, translates into them being off limits for the Court Martial, particularly because the Constitution is supreme (see Section 1(1) & (3) thereof).

But, I directed SKB to Section 114(1) of the AFA, an omnibus clause which covers all 'civil offences' that are not expressly listed in the AFA such as treason, treasonable felony etc, and Section 114(2) which defines a civil offence as ".... an act or omission punishable as an offence under the penal provisions of any law enacted in or applicable to Nigeria....". Section 114(3)(a) & (b) then expressly prescribes the death penalty for treason and murder, and other punishments prescribed by civil courts for lesser offences, and Section 118(a) & (b) also expressly empowers the Court Martial to award the death sentence and imprisonment, respectively.

Nature of Court Martial

In Olowu v Nigerian Navy (2011) LPELR-3127(SC) per Muhammad Saifullahi Muntaka-Coomassie, JSC, the Supreme Court held thus: "....the military Court Martial is unlike the conventional Court. Courts Martial operate a criminal procedure akin to jury trial". In Iberi (Rtd) v AGF (2013) LPELR-20278(CA) per Rita Nosakhare Pemu, JCA, the Court of Appeal mentioned the two types of Court Martial thus: "Section 129 of the Armed Forces Act specifies two types of Court Martial. They are: Section 129 (a) A general Court Martial consisting of a President and not less than four members, a waiting member, a liaison officer and a Judge Advocate (b) A special Court Martial consisting of a President and not less than two members, a waiting member, a liaison officer and a Judge Advocate".

Even though the Court Martial may not operate strictly like a Nigerian High Court with the involvement of a lay people and a jury type trial, in Samual & Ors v Nigerian Army (2006) LPELR-11751(CA) per Alfred Pearson Eyewunmi Awala, JCA, the Court of Appeal held that: "Court Martial is defined by Osborn's Concise Law Dictionary Ninth Edition at page 111 as a "Court convened by or under the military authority of a State, to try an offence against military or naval men for indiscipline, or against the ordinary law of the land committed by a solider or sailor in service. There is an appeal to a Court Martial Appeal Court under the Court-Martial (Appeal) Act of 1968 (as amended) in England". In this country, Appeal is to the Court of Appeal then to the Supreme Court, pursuant to the Armed Forces Decree of 1993 and confirmed by the Nigerian Constitution of 1999. The Court is a creation of the Nigerian Constitution of 1999 like the High Court, it is therefore, a Court of records. A Court Martial is usually an ad hoc military Court, convened by or under the military authority as aforesaid".

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The alleged Military Coup plotters will probably be tried by the General Court Martial, which appears to try more serious offences. It must consist of at least seven members, to be able to prescribe the maximum sentence of death - see Section 130 of the AFA. SKB found it unacceptable that in a democratic setting, members of the Armed Forces should be answerable to a Military Court, for such a grievous offence against the Nigerian State. He stood his ground that things have changed, and the Military should be subject to the FHC for a crime as serious as this, even if the Court Martial is able to try lesser crimes.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I cannot agree more with Mr Femi Falana, SAN, that the alleged Civilian coup plotters who are accused of trying to overthrow the Tinubu administration, cannot be tried by the Court Martial. Their cases can be separated from that of their Military Cohorts, and brought before the FHC.

But, what about the prosecution of members of the Armed Forces? By reason of the foregoing, are there are enough grounds, both constitutionally and statutorily, to support the fact that members of the Armed Forces accused of coup plotting, can be tried by a Court Martial, and not the FHC? Or must they be tried at the FHC? Or should Section 251(2) of the Constitution be amended for better clarity, so that it provides that only the FHC has exclusive jurisdiction to try treasonable offences, in all circumstances? I recall that this issue was raised by Human Rights Activists in the aftermath of the #EndBadGovernance Protest in 2024, when 38 out of the 75 Youngsters arraigned at the FHC for treasonable offences, were said to be Minors between the age of 12 & 15 (see Sections 21 & 494 of the Child's Rights Act 2003 and Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015, respectively, on the categorisation of those less than age 18), insisting that they should have been taken to Family Court within the Children's Justice System. Kindly, share your views on this, dear colleagues.
The heads of the agencies carrying out US President Donald Trumps mass deportation agenda were giving evidence in Congress on Tuesday, parrying questions over how they are prosecuting immigration enforcement in American cities.

Todd Lyons, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Rodney Scott, who leads Customs and Border Protection, and Joseph Edlow, the director of Citizenship and Immigration Services, were called to appear before the House Committee on Homeland Security amid falling public support for immigration enforcement.

Their agencies are flush with cash from Mr Trumps big tax-and-spending law, but Democrats are threatening to shut down the Department of Homeland Security on Friday night if Republicans do not agree on new limits aimed at forcing agents to follow the law and the Constitution following killings in the streets and expanding detentions.



Federal agents conducting immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis (Ryan Murphy/AP)

Mr Trumps immigration campaign has been heavily scrutinised in recent weeks after Homeland Security officers killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

The agencies have also faced criticism for a wave of policies that critics say trample on the rights of both immigrants facing arrest and Americans protesting against the enforcement actions.

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) has undergone a massive hiring boom, deploying immigration officers across the country.

Mr Lyons is likely to face questioning over a memo he signed last year telling Ice officers that they did not need a judges warrant to forcibly enter a house to arrest a deportee, a memo that went against years of Ice practice and Fourth Amendment protections against illegal searches.

Opening the hearing, Andrew Garbarino, chairman of the committee, called the moment an inflection point but warned those in attendance against making any comments offensive to Mr Trump or Vice President JD Vance.

The New York Republican called the increase in rhetoric and lack of cohesion between state and local law jurisdictions  along with the deaths of US citizens Mr Pretti and Ms Good by federal officers  unacceptable and preventable.

Bennie Thompson of Mississippi said every American should be outraged at Homeland Securitys actions, and that both the agency and its secretary Kristi Noem must be held accountable.

Mr Thompson then displaying Ms Good and Mr Prettis photos and held a moment of silence.

Demanding answers in the aftermath of the Minneapolis shootings, Mr Thompson said the department has blocked members from visiting detention facilities and needs to be more responsive to questions.

We are only getting started Todd Lyons, acting director of Ice

Mr Lyons said officers will not be dissuaded from their mission  even in the face of intimidation from the public.

The family of Ice personnel have been made to feel unsafe in their homes, he said.

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He said even his own family has faced harassment. But he warned that those trying to intimidate Ice officers will fail.

We are only getting started, he said.

The Ice director listed statistics to show how well his agency has been carrying out the presidents immigration agenda. Mr Lyons said Ice had conducted 379,000 arrests, and removed more than 475,000 people from the country in 2025.

The president tasked us with mass deportation, and we are fulfilling that mandate, Mr Lyons said.

He also said the money provided by Congress is enabling the agency to increase how many people it can detain at any one time and beef up the number of daily removal flights.

During one pointed exchange, Mr Lyons declined to apologise to the families of Ms Good and Mr Pretti, or comment on the Trump administrations claims that the two Americans killed during protests over the immigration enforcement actions in Minneapolis were involved in domestic terrorism.



Todd Lyons during oversight hearing (Tom Brenner/AP)

Mr Lyons said he welcomed the opportunity to speak to the families, but would leave the comments to others in the administration.

Eric Swalwell, a Californian Democrat, pressed him to resign. Mr Lyons declined.

Mr Lyons got into a heated exchange with Democrat Dan Goldman, of New York, who compared masked Ice agents with the actions of those in Nazi Germany and the former Soviet Union.

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The Ice chief interjected that the congressman was asking the wrong type of questioning, but Mr Goldman cut him off.

If you dont want to be called a fascist regime or secret police, then stop acting like one, Mr Goldman said.

This is not the America I know and love, he said.

Mr Goldman went on to call explanations as to why federal immigration agents were wearing masks during operations because of fears of so-called doxing outright bogus.

People who are proud of what they do arent hiding their identity Democrat Tim Kennedy

Democrats repeatedly brought up the issue of immigration enforcement officers wearing masks as they carry out their jobs.

Tim Kennedy, a Democrat from New York, pointedly asked Mr Lyons if he would commit to making his officers take off their masks and requiring them to wear standard uniforms with identifiable badges.

Mr Lyons answered with one word: No.

Mr Kennedy called that a sad response.

People who are proud of what they do arent hiding their identity, Mr Kennedy said.

Mr Lyons has said repeatedly that he supports officers who feel that they need to wear a mask to protect their identities and their families.

A federal judge has blocked part of a California law that would ban federal immigration agents from covering their faces, but ruled that the agents are required to wear clear identification showing their agency and badge number.

Judge Christina Snyder said she issued the initial ruling on Monday because the states mask ban as enacted does not also apply to state law enforcement authorities, discriminating against the federal government.

She said future legislation would pass muster if it applies to all law enforcement agencies.

The court finds that federal officers can perform their federal functions without wearing masks, she wrote. The ruling will go into effect February 19.

California became the first state to ban most law enforcement officers from wearing facial coverings.
Under questioning from Democrats on Tuesday, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick acknowledged that he had met Jeffrey Epstein twice after his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a child, reversing Mr Lutnicks previous claim that he had cut ties with the late financier after 2005.

Mr Lutnick once again downplayed his relationship with the disgraced financier who was once his neighbour in New York City as he was questioned by Democrats during a subcommittee hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

He described their contact as a handful of emails and a couple of meetings that were years apart.

I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with him, Mr Lutnick told the hearing.



US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick once again downplayed his relationship with Epstein (Alex Brandon/AP)

But Mr Lutnick is facing calls from several politicians for his resignation after the release of case files on Epstein contradicted his claims on a podcast last year that he had decided to never be in the room with Epstein again after a 2005 tour of Epsteins home that disturbed Mr Lutnick and his wife.

The commerce secretary said on Tuesday that he and his family actually had lunch with Epstein on his private island in 2012 and he had another hour-long engagement at Epsteins home in 2011.

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Mr Lutnick, a member of President Donald Trumps Cabinet, is the highest-profile US official to face bipartisan calls for his resignation amid revelations of his ties to Epstein.

His acknowledgement comes as politicians are grasping for what accountability looks like amid the revelations contained in the so-called Epstein files.

In other countries, the Epstein files have triggered resignations and the stripping of royal privileges, but so far, US officials have not met the same level of retribution.

It's the fact that you believe that you misled the country and the Congress based on your earlier statements Senator Chris Van Hollen

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday that Mr Lutnick remains a very important member of President Trumps team, and the president fully supports the secretary.

Senator Chris Van Hollen, the Democrat who questioned Mr Lutnick, told him: Theres not an indication that you yourself engaged in any wrongdoing with Jeffrey Epstein. Its the fact that you believe that you misled the country and the Congress based on your earlier statements.

Mr Van Hollen stopped short of calling for Mr Lutnicks resignation, but requested documentation from Mr Lutnick on any of his ties to Epstein.

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Its absolutely essential that he provide Congress with those documents, given the misrepresentations hes made, and then well go from there, he said.

Mr Lutnick said during the Senate hearing that he would give that request some thought, adding: I have nothing to hide.

But several Senate Republicans were also questioning Mr Lutnicks relationship with Epstein.



Democrat Ro Khanna added to the pressure on Howard Lutnick (Meg Kinnard/AP)

Senator Roger Wicker said the visit to Epsteins private island would raise questions.

And Senator Thom Tillis told reporters: Its something Im concerned with.

Senate majority leader John Thune did not mention Mr Lutnick by name, but told reporters on Tuesday that those mentioned in the Epstein files were going to have to answer questions around that.

I think the American people are going to have to make judgments about whether or not they think those answers are sufficient, Mr Thune said.

Mr Tillis also stayed away from calling for Mr Lutnick to leave his post, but added that he would do himself a service by just laying out exactly what did and what did not happen over the course of what seems to be an interesting relationship that included business entanglements.

Meanwhile, House members who initiated the legislative effort to force the release of the files are calling for Mr Lutnick to resign.

Based on the evidence, he (Mr Lutnick) should be out of the Cabinet Representative Ro Khanna

Republican Thomas Massie of Kentucky called for that over the weekend after emails were released that alluded to the meetings between Mr Lutnick and Epstein.

Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, joined Mr Massie in pressuring Mr Lutnick out of office on Monday.

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Based on the evidence, he should be out of the Cabinet, Mr Khanna said.

He added: Its not about any particular person. In this country, we have to make a decision. Are we going to allow the rich and powerful people who are friends and (had) no problem doing business and showing up with a paedophile who is raping underage girls, are we just going to allow them to skate?
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BusinessCompaniesABC ASIO got my email wrong, ABC boss Hugh Marks tells Senate committee Calum Jaspan and Kishor Napier-Raman February 10, 2026  5:24pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

Australias top intelligence agency got ABC managing director Hugh Marks email wrong when it contacted the broadcaster with grave concerns it held about the second episode of a two-part Four Corners investigation into the Bondi massacre, he told a Senate committee on Tuesday. ASIO took the unusual step of releasing a preemptive statement on Sunday night, critiquing the program and its sourcing after receiving a number of questions regarding a 2019 investigation into one of the attackers. But at a Senate estimates hearing on Tuesday afternoon, following the programs airing on Monday night, Marks said there had been no further complaints. ABC managing director Hugh Marks during a Senate estimates hearing at Parliament House in Canberra on February 10, 2026. Dominic Lorrimer Theres been no orders about that. Obviously, ASIO released a very strong statement about that particular program  they wrote to me. They didnt seek to call me or contact me. They did get my email address wrong, Marks said. I think the program stood up for itself. It was transparent. It raised matters simply in a way that I think warranted further discussion, particularly at a royal commission. We can all assess the program on its own merits.

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I think the program was transparent about where we were one source or not. It was transparent about the various points of contact and what were reasonable decisions at the time. I thought the program stood up very well on a transparent basis, Marks said. Related Article Updated

Bondi shooting ASIO v ABC: Broadcaster stands by Bondi investigation after spy agency rebuke ASIO claimed the ABC had relied in part on an unreliable and disgruntled source who had misidentified one of the alleged gunmen, 24-year-old Naveed Akram, and confused some of his actions before the attack with things done by someone else. But Marks said some of the concerns flagged by ASIO, such as the broadcasters reliance on one source, and where some of the sources statements could not be independently verified, were made clear to the audience in the airing of the program. Sometimes our job in media is just to raise things of concern, to point to areas that people should look at, to point to things that we think warrant further investigation, not necessarily to draw a final conclusion, Marks said, in response to questions from Liberal senator Sarah Henderson.

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Henderson also suggested that another source featured in the program, former intelligence officer Neil Fergus, could be considered disgruntled since he was previously raided by the security agency in 2024 in relation to his past appearances on Four Corners. But ABC editorial director Gavin Fang said that the ABC program had reasonably disclosed that Fergus had an issue with ASIO. Weve also provided the opportunity for ASIO, for example, to respond to the variety of different allegations that have been made in the program. Despite asking four questions about the documentary, Henderson conceded that she had not seen the program in question. Its a great program. I urge you to watch it, Fang said.

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On Monday, the ABC released a statement standing by the story, which it said used extensive reporting and numerous sources to examine the actions of Akram and his father, Sajid Akram, before the events of December 14. Related Article Antisemitism royal commission ABC staff ordered not to delete emails ahead of Bondi royal commission Akram has been charged with murdering 15 people in the December 14 attack, in which his father and alleged co-conspirator Sajid Akram was shot dead by police. The program was viewed by an average audience of 511,000 people nationally across broadcast and live-streaming, according to the VOZ ratings report. In further questions to Fang, Henderson accused star ABC journalists John Lyons, Laura Tingle and Sarah Ferguson of engaging in political activism by withdrawing from the Adelaide Writers Week after the festivals board removed Palestinian-Australian writer Randa Abdel-Fattah. The event was cancelled after hundreds of speakers pulled out following Abdel-Fattahs axing.

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I disagree that somebody not commenting, or somebody making a comment on social media where theyve said they are withdrawing, indicates that they have taken a position supporting the comments of Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah. I just simply do not think that that inference is accurate, Fang said. In this particular case, those reporters have not provided in those public statements any motivation for why they choose to withdraw and so its not, its not possible to infer, just from their public statements, he said. Marks said that Fergusons social media posts flagged by Henderson did not express support for Abdel-Fattahs position on the war in the Middle East, but was instead concerned with issues around freedom of expression. Surely principles of freedom of speech, interference, political interference and creative debate  these are principles that journalists are entitled to stand up for, he said. The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning.
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Guardian Australia editor Lenore Taylor has resigned after almost 10 years in the job, saying she was at peace with the decision to leave the exhausting role and left behind a team of high-calibre potential successors. The publication told staff of Taylors decision via email on Tuesday as global Guardian boss Katharine Viner flies into Sydney for the departing editors last day in the newsroom on Wednesday, setting off an internal and external race for the editorship. The Guardian Australias editor, Lenore Taylor, was one of the last of the original group of reporters on the masthead. The Guardian Taylors departure means the Guardian has scarcely any of the original staff who brought the left-wing publication to Australia in 2013 as part of a wave of new online-only free media that also included local editions of Vice and BuzzFeed News. But where those publications petered out, The Guardian built a model of free content with a soft paywall asking for donations under Taylor.

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Ive been thinking about it for some time, but theres always been some new challenge or story or reason to defer, Taylor said. But after 10 years, the job is exhausting. It doesnt leave a lot of time to care for yourself or those you love. Its time to pass the baton and I have a brilliant, brilliant team and so they have choices [for my successor]. I feel very at peace with the decision. Taylor was a founding Guardian staff member when it launched in Australia in 2013, and won a Walkley for the publication the next year as a political reporter. She has edited it since 2016, making Taylor the longest-serving current editor in Australian media. Guardian editor-in-chief Viner is visiting Australia and will run a process to select a replacement for Taylor. David Munk, the Guardians senior managing editor in London will return to Australia as acting editor. He has previously worked in the newsroom in Sydney.

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In an email to staff, Viner praised Taylors tenure, saying she had made the Australian outpost a force to be reckoned with, sometimes through sheer strength of will. Her hard work, commitment, editorial rigour and political insight have helped deliver journalism that sets the national agenda and driven much admiration from our ever-expanding audience. I want to thank Lenore for her enormous contribution to Guardian Australia over the past 13 years. Earlier in her career, Taylor was the chief political correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald. She is expected to take several months off after departing the Guardian. Taylor had told this masthead in 2025 she was still happy in the role and there was more work to do here, but there has been speculation about her stepping down for some time.

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In the aftermath, the outlet took almost six months to eventually appoint former Australian Financial Review journalist Tom McIlroy as its new political editor, who had only joined as chief political correspondent months earlier. The Guardians 2025 annual report said it generated $50 million in revenue across Australia and New Zealand across the financial year, marginally up on the year prior, aided by 158,000 recurring digital supporters. The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning.
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BusinessEntrepreneurshipBillionaires Opinion Who got richer and who went backwards in the billionaire Olympics Elizabeth Knight Business columnist February 10, 2026  3:00pm

February 10, 2026  3:00pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

In the billionaire Olympics, Australias contestants fell short of the gains made by their tech-focused US peers, but our 50 richest still managed to grow their wealth last year by a respectable 11 per cent to $US254 billion ($358.6 billion). None can compete with the likes of Elon Musk, who is in the running to become the worlds first trillionaire, or other US tech bros whose wealth can fluctuate by billions of dollars in a day of volatile markets. From left: Harry Triguboff, Gina Rinehart, Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar. Michael Howard But Forbes, which publishes the billionaire rankings, contends that Australia is notable for billionaire resilience  with only three of our uber-rich being replaced in the latest line-up. To the extent that one could use loser as an adjective to describe a billionaire, our local tech bros Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar have that dubious honour. They experienced the largest decline in financial fortunes last year  each dropping by $US8 billion and three ranking spots.

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These blokes bank accounts have been feeling the heat as their software business Atlassian, like many others, has felt the squeeze from the rise of artificial intelligence, which investors fear will ultimately render some software products redundant. Atlassians shares slumped around 35 per cent in 2025 and another 37 per cent in the past month. Related Article Opinion

Billionaires Why Australian billionaires are falling behind their uber rich peers Elizabeth Knight Business columnist Despite their troubles both still held their wealth at around US$10 billion. Even this years billionaire first place-getter, Gina Rinehart, experienced a trimming in her fortune which dropped 15 per cent to US$24.6 billion from US$29 billion. Rineharts wealth was hit by a skittish iron ore price that dipped to about US$93 a tonne during the year but has since recovered some ground and appears to be stabilising around US$100 to $US105. The fortunes of Rinehart  the No.1 Australian ticket holder in the Donald Trump fan club  could be positively impacted this year by her renewed interest in rare earths. Her 8 per cent stake in producer Mp Materials  considered strategically important by the US government and the Pentagon  is already up 14 per cent this year (after a 114 per cent gain last year).

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Another iron ore billionaire Andrew Forrest, however, managed to increase his family fortune last year thanks to a strong stock market showing by the company he controls, Fortescue. The Forrest family maintained third position with a combined $US20.1 billion  however the wealth is now split between Andrew and his estranged wife, Nicola. This years list contained the rump of regulars from real estate, including Harry Triguboff in second place and John Gandel, Bob Ell from the Leda Group, and Frank Lowy. The list also contains a liberal smattering of showings from the retail and fashion sector  with stalwarts including Solomon Lew, Chemist Warehouse founders Jack and Sam Gance and Mario Verrocchi, the Wilson family of bathroom and plumbing company Reece, Gerry Harvey, and Brett Blundy. Regardless of the troubles of the Atlassian founders, the Australian technology billionaires are making an increasingly large splash among the billionaire line-up.

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Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht co-founded Canva and are the most recognisable names associated with the tech design and publishing software company, which is currently valued at US$42 billion. This husband and wife team is worth a combined US$15.1 billion, and the companys other founder, Cameron Adams, notched up 20th place on the list with $US3.75 billion. Related Article Billionaires The Trump familys $10 billion fortune is getting more complicated But it was the year for those investing in AI data centres to take the stage. Airtrunks Robin Khuda made his first appearance on the list with a $US2 billion showing, and Daniel and William Roberts made their debut with $US1.7 billion thanks to co-founding American data centre group IREN. Richard White - founder of WiseTech - experienced his own personal relationship scandal last year which bled into the companys share price performance and shaved US$4.4 billion off his personal fortune. That said, 10 of our 50 billionaires are now from the technology sector, and the trend suggests this number will continue to grow over time.

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And the old property, minerals and manufacturing family fortunes that have been the mainstay of the billionaires list will be dispersed among future generations  half this years list is composed of billionaires over the age of 70. The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning.
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CultureArt & designArts Arts boss Adrian Collette says Creative Australia is not about moral compass Karl Quinn February 11, 2026  9:10am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

The countrys top arts organisation is not in the business of denouncing artists whose views might be deemed offensive, its boss has argued, because it operates with a legislative compass, not a moral one. Creative Australia isnt in a position to deplore personal comments by anyone, said Adrian Collette, chief executive of the nations principal cultural body during a testy exchange in Senate estimates on Tuesday night. I have to be guided by our legislative responsibilities, which are not about moral compass. Adrian Collette endured another bruising encounter with Sarah Henderson in Senate estimates. Alex Ellinghausen Collette was being grilled by Liberal senator Sarah Henderson, an experience he has endured repeatedly since landing the role as the nations top arts bureaucrat in 2023. Her questions exclusively on what the organisation was doing to combat antisemitism. She made no reference to any other form of discrimination.

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Ive raised continuing concerns that youve shown no regard for the funding of artists where they have engaged in hateful behaviour towards Jews, said Henderson early in a 45-minute session that began almost five hours later than scheduled. We are not an investigatory body, Collette replied. We do not fund artists on the basis of religious backgrounds or cultural beliefs. We fund them exclusively on the merit and impact of their work. Creative Australia spent much of last year in the crosshairs over its handling of the Khaled Sabsabi affair, wherein the visual artist and his curator, Michael Dagostino, were selected to represent Australia at this years Venice Biennale, only to be deselected a week later over claims that a Sabsabi work from 2007, and another a year earlier, were antisemitic. Following an independent external review that found the decision to dump the pair was flawed and had been made at a time of heightened anxiety about the levels of antisemitism and Islamophobia evident in Australia, Sabsabi was reappointed as Australias representative in July 2025. The culture sector more broadly has been riven with debate and discord fuelled by the war in Gaza, with sackings, boycotts, cancellations, muzzling of free speech, and withdrawals of funding and sponsorship occurring across virtually all fields. Neither side has been spared.

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Henderson, though, was remorseless in pushing the argument that Creative Australia had to do more to combat antisemitism. And Collette was unyielding in his insistence that it was not the organisations role to determine that a work or an artist might be guilty of such a charge. Related Article Art After Venice backflip, arts agency grants Khaled Sabsabi $100,000 commission Sorry, we are not qualified to start adjudicating  on what might qualify as antisemitic or any other kind of behaviours that are discriminatory on the basis of race or culture or religion, he said. If there is evidence which is brought up by a suitably qualified agency of unlawful conduct, then we would take that into consideration. But until that happens, we simply cannot start adjudicating on what might be or not be antisemitic intention or behaviour. Collette suggested such qualified agencies would include the Human Rights Commission, or a court.

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Pressed on whether the existing framework was adequate to deal with the challenges of the current climate, Colette said: We are seeking legal advice on how we can establish more robust expectations. The aim of that advice would be clarity around how to strengthen our contracts and understandings in the event that we learn of unlawful activity on the part of someone we have funded, he said. He added that Creative Australias role was to support freedom of artistic expression, and that the organisation was not responsible for the personal views of some of the artists we fund. He insisted that CA would never invest in artistic expression that we judge to be antisemitic or Islamophobic or that in any way ran the risk of giving unlawful expression on the basis of religion or race or many other discriminatory matters. But the only way it could make such an assessment is if we had evidence, real evidence, that what they said was unlawful. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
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CultureMoviesVale Schitts Creek star Catherine OHaras cause of death revealed Chris Hook February 10, 2026  9:02am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

Schitts Creek star Catherine OHara died of a pulmonary embolism, US media reported on Monday (US time). The death certificate was released Monday by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiners Office, published by US website TMZ, then picked up by other media. Catherine OHara in a scene from Schitts Creek. AP A pulmonary embolism occurs when a blood clot gets stuck in a blood vessel in the lung. The death certificate revealed the 71-year-old stars underlying cause of death was rectal cancer.

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The Canadian-born OHaras death at her home in Los Angeles on Friday, January 30, following a brief illness was first revealed by her agency CAA, which did not provide any further information at the time. OHara began her career with improvisational troupe The Second City in Toronto in the 1970s, where she first met her lifelong collaborator Eugene Levy, with whom she later starred in Schitts Creek. Loading The two were among the original cast of the sketch show SCTV, short for Second City Television, which spawned a legendary group of comedians including Martin Short, John Candy, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis and Joe Flaherty. I grew up in a different time than now. The internet didnt exist, so from my experience we were very much influenced by comedy like Monty Python and comedies that came out of England, Ireland, Scotland, the UK, than by what came out of the US, OHara told this mastheads culture editor at large Michael Idato in 2020.

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We didnt, in my experience, have such a strong sense of nationalism, she added. Our sense of humour was not only to be able to make fun of the rest of the world but to make fun of ourselves, which, I think, is the healthiest sense of humour you can have. Its lovely. I hope we keep our proud Canadian modesty. Schitts Creek was created by Levy and his son Dan; its tale of a wealthy family forced to live in a tiny town would dominate the Emmys in its sixth and final season. It brought OHara, always a beloved figure, a new generation of fans and put her at the centre of cultural attention. From left: Eugene Levy, Dan Levy, Catherine OHara and Annie Murphy attend the 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards. Rich Fury/Getty Images It also brought a career renaissance that led to a dramatic turn on HBOs The Last of Us and a straitlaced role as a Hollywood producer in The Studio, both of which earned her Emmy nominations. However, she told Idato that she actually passed on the Schitts Creek role  until Eugene and Dan Levy decided to give her one more call.

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Related Article Streaming Moira, Cookie and Kevins mum: Where to watch Catherine OHaras memorable roles The reason she passed? OHaras genesis as a sketch actor left her uncertain when it came to anything resembling a potentially long-running role. Thank god I did say yes, OHara said. Ive done movies but thats three months work at the most. I think it was more fear-based  the concept of committing to one character. OHara was also well known for roles as Delia Deetz in Beetlejuice, Kate McCallister in the Home Alone movies, Marilyn Hack in For Your Consideration and Cookie Fleck in Best in Show. I feel fortunate that anybody knows me as anything, that Im in peoples lives somehow, their childhoods, OHara told Idato ahead of the release of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice in 2024.

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Thats the best, to be part of holiday ritual of watching Home Alone or Nightmare Before Christmas, or I just feel honestly, really fortunate. She is survived by her husband, Bo Welch, and sons Matthew and Luke. Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.
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Exclusive Eating outRestaurant news Ive seen the harm they can do: New wave of Sydney pubs go pokie-free No pokies? No problem. A growing fleet of Sydney publicans is proving its possible to reject poker machines while running a hospitality business. Scott Bolles February 11, 2026 Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

When Joes Kitchen opens today at Paddingtons Captain Cook Hotel, the new restaurant will swallow the pubs now redundant poker machine room. The historic hotel is the latest in a growing fleet of Sydney pubs forging new business models, unshackled from the pokie dollar. The pizza oven at Joes Kitchen stands where slot machines once rattled, cold-fermented pinsa dough and Roman-style pizza just a couple of the ingredients in a bag of culinary tricks introduced by the hotels new operator, hospitality group Bird & Bear. Paddingtons Captain Cook Hotel is taking a pokies-free approach. Steven Woodburn Inheriting a pub that had jettisoned its pokies, Bird & Bear co-owner Adam Marshall understands it takes more than pizza or a great pork cotoletta to survive. Bird & Bear cut its teeth on the poker machine-free pub model three years ago, when it began operating The Village Inn, also in Paddington. Tripling clientele at The Village Inn, Marshall relied on basic community engagement. Good food is part of the equation, but The Village Inn listened to locals, providing outdoor seating where they (and their dogs) felt at home to congregate.

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Bird & Bear will mirror that strategy at Joes Kitchen (no connection to Joes Table in neighbouring Darlinghurst), with an application lodged to increase the outdoor seating fronting Josephson Street, creating a hub for locals. James Thorpe, chief executive at Odd Culture Group, has taken a similar pokies-free approach. Powerful clubs and pubs tell you its impossible to run a profitable food and beverage operation without poker machines, he said. Joes Kitchen stands where slot machines once rattled. Steven Woodburn His group created waves in the industry when it went poker machine-free at venues such as The Duke of Enmore and The Old Fitzroy Hotel, in Woolloomooloo. Weve demonstrated you can do it  100 per cent wed do it again, I think they [poker machines] are a moral hazard, Ive seen the harm they can do, Thorpe said. Wesley Mission chief executive Stu Cameron said NSW was in the grip of a public health catastrophe impacting every postcode and community, with data from NSW Liquor and Gaming showing poker machine losses soared to $2.45 billion across the third quarter of 2025.

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A spokesman for the hospitality outlet Regatta Club at UTS Haberfield Rowers Club said the clubs decision to operate without poker machines had resonated with families and driven it as a go-to venue for that sector of the dining market. Last month, The Lord Gladstone Hotel in Chippendale got rid of the last of its poker machines. Lord Gladstones owner, Mitch Crum, said its too early to properly gauge the effect of the move on his bottom line, where bumper days with the machines occasionally outstripped revenue for the rest of the pub, but hes heartened by the feedback. Captain Cook hopes to increase its outdoor seating. Steven Woodburn Weve had over 50 emails in support. Ive had a mum in here in tears, her son had lost his house ... [and] people from interstate saying they want to come and support us, Crum said. The Lord Gladstone isnt simply relying on the largesse of supporters to help it prosper, however. There are longer-term plans to make up for any shortfall in revenue by expanding the courtyard into the gaming room space. Crum said it would provide more area for hungry patrons to sit on busy days.

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Other notable pokie-free venues in Sydney include Darlinghursts Taphouse, White Cockatoo Hotel in Petersham, Bat & Ball in Redfern, The Annandale Hotel and Good Food Guide Pub of the Year The Dry Dock. While Crum remains hopeful of broader support for his stance, poker machines remain big business. In December, the Herald reported that Club Rose Bay had doubled the number of pokies in the Merivale-run venue. Marshall said Bird & Bears experience in the cafe sector  where theyve run a number of venues, including Navy Bear at Rushcutters Bay  taught the group how to operate venues without a large alcohol spend, so surviving without poker machine revenue is easier for them to navigate. The group wanted to balance the old and the new at the Captain Cook, and aimed to be inclusive, serving [non-alcoholic] Heaps Normal on tap alongside regular beers such as Reschs. These places just need love put into them, he said. Related Article Merivales pokie empire expands to Rose Bay
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Angus Taylors resignation has finally opened the door to him launching a leadership challenge to Sussan Ley, but a date and time has not been set  yet.

The now former shadow minister for defence was at pains to stress he had resigned during his meeting with Ley and nothing more.

Member for Hume Angus Taylor did not say he would challenge the leadership. Alex Ellinghausen

But he was being a bit cute. It is almost unthinkable that a vote would not be held in the Liberal Party room on either Thursday or Friday of this week.

And Taylors supporters have confirmed that while there are no further resignations planned for Wednesday evening, there will be more resignations on Thursday.

Thats for one simple reason: a series of resignations by the Taylor supporters on the Liberal frontbench will create momentum for the potential challenger.

For Ley and her supporters the impression created is one of chaos, of a ship going down slowly.

Its a tried and tested method: in 2009, close to a dozen Tony Abbott supporters faxed and emailed their resignations to Malcolm Turnbulls office over a day or two and badly damaged the opposition leader.

The same method was used by Peter Dutton supporters against Malcolm Turnbull in 2018, with senior MPs including Mathias Cormann, Michaelia Cash and Mitch Fifield pulling the pin.

Taylor and his supporters have the same plan, and Thursday morning will bring more frontbench carnage for Ley  and likely, a time and place for the pairs final showdown.
On February 6, Congolese President Felix Antoine Tshisekedi honored Angolan journalist Hariana Veras with a Bible, presented by Ambassador Antoine Ghonda in Washington. Veras is known for her biased questions to US officials, through which she consistently pushes for sanctions against Rwanda.

ALSO READ: Peace in DR Congo will only come when Kinshasa addresses FDLR threat - former US Assistant Secretary of State

Honouring a journalist who has spent her time spreading misinformation about eastern DR Congo with a sacred text that condemns deceit is at odds with the Bible's core teachings. Prior to receiving the award, she was a special guest of Guillaume Ngefa, DR Congo's minister of justice, who thanked her for serving the "interest of the Congolese nation." Those familiar with Congolese politics know the unspoken meaning of this phrase regarding the eastern DR Congo conflict.

ALSO READ: Why genocide ideology doesn't dissolve three decades after dispersion of genocidaires

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This recognition follows her interview with U.S. Congressman Chris Smith, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Africa. Whether it qualifies as an interview or simply as a platform for propagating Kinshasa's narrative is debatable. Smith said he would urge the Trump administration to impose targeted sanctions against Rwandan leadership over alleged non-compliance with the Washington Accords. This comes from a Congressman who claimed that FDLR--a genocidal force of 10,000 fighters--is present in AFC/M23-controlled areas, and therefore the Congolese government bears no responsibility for neutralizing them.

ALSO READ: Kagame says Washington Accords offer clearest path to peace

In July 2022, State Department spokesman Edward Ned Price alleged, "Rwanda is at the root of the security concerns in the region," following Senator Robert Menendez's proposal to cut US aid to Rwanda, claiming that the funds could support M23.

After M23 gained dominance in eastern DR Congo, the US Senate labelled the Congolese crisis a Rwandan problem, alleging that Rwanda supports the rebel group--a misleading narrative quickly adopted by the international community. Some Rwandan officials have faced US sanctions. In short, the US Senate consistently framed the DR Congo crisis as Rwanda's responsibility.

ALSO READ: How Burundian troops in South Kivu sparked a distinct humanitarian crisis amid DR Congo's wider war

Dear Congressman Smith, imagine Rwanda as the 51st state of the United States, alongside Alaska and Hawaii. Suppose this 51st state is under attack by an armed genocidal group called FDLR, which committed genocide and fled to a neighbouring country - DR Congo, and has continued to launch attacks on Rwandan territory. The genocidal militia killed thousands of innocent people, particularly genocide survivors and those accused of ties to the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), between 1997 and 2000. They massacred students at Nyange School on March 18, 1997, ambushed a BRALIRWA bus in Nyamyumba on January 19, 1998, killing passengers, and attacked the villages of Gisura and Ruhara, on July 15, 2012, as well as Kinigi on December 2, 2012.

Today, FDLR is integrated into the Congolese army's operational structure, aiming to overthrow the government in Kigali. They are supported by the Congolese president who has openly vowed to remove President Paul Kagame from power. Just before AFC/M23 seized Goma, Kinshasa's allies including FDLR, Burundian forces, SADC troops, and European mercenaries were preparing to defeat AFC/M23 and then invade Rwanda to fulfill Tshisekedi's goal: remove the RPF from power and allow FDLR to complete the genocide they began three decades ago.

Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Congo-Kinshasa Arms and Armies Rwanda By submitting above, you agree to our privacy policy. Success! Almost finished... We need to confirm your email address. To complete the process, please follow the instructions in the email we just sent you. Error! Error! There was a problem processing your submission. Please try again later.

ALSO READ: SADC forces sought to 'bring war to Rwanda', says foreign ministry

Dear Congressman Smith, if Rwanda were the 51st state of the United States, would you ask Rwanda to remove its defensive measures? I highly doubt it. You would call for a special session to ensure US support in neutralizing the FDLR threat. You would ask the American people to condemn FDLR, which, despite its genocidal history, remains allied with Tshisekedi.

You would stop imposing the eastern DR Congo conflict on President Paul Kagame and the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) and focus on the greatest threat to peace in the Great Lakes region: FDLR and its genocidal ideology. Ending the FDLR threat means peace for DR Congo, peace for Rwanda, and peace for the entire region.
Pro-Palestinian protests continue in Sydney

Pro-Palestinian protesters have taken to Sydney streets for a second consecutive night, this time demonstrating against the actions of police.
Watson says criminal behaviour in the Queensland CFMEU wasnt anything like as bad as in Victoria.

The CFMEU under John Setka  the Victorian CFMEU  [was] a crime organisation, he tells the inquiry.

I do not see Queensland being anything like as bad  Victoria was completely out of control.

Watson earlier testified that elements of the unions Queensland branch had tried to mimic the actions of their Victorian colleagues to increase influence.
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NationalQueenslandCFMEU Former Qld minister accused of directing department to negotiate with CFMEU Matt Dennien and William Davis February 10, 2026  3:07pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

A former Queensland minister has been accused of directing his department and its contractors to negotiate with the CFMEU, under a policy that raised red flags with the former federal construction watchdog. Giving evidence to Queenslands CFMEU inquiry, the states civil construction industry chief also accused the government of running a sham consultation around the policy, which it was warned read like a CFMEU document. Launched by the state last year after reporting by this masthead and 60 Minutes into criminality, corruption and misconduct in the CFMEU and construction industry nationwide, the inquiry resumed its public work on Tuesday. Mark Bailey, the transport minister under Labor, became a focus of the CFMEU inquiry on Tuesday afternoon. Dan Peled The evidence of Damian Long, chief executive of the Civil Contractors Federation Queensland, marks the first of 30 days of public hearings scheduled between now and June, with a report from the $20 million inquiry due by July 31.

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The man charged with investigating the CFMEU by its government-appointed administrators, Geoffrey Watson SC  who appeared in the opening week of public hearings in November  is also scheduled to be called to the stand again this week. Given his role and position on a state government procurement advisory council, Longs evidence centred on the preparation and rollout of the governments best practice industry conditions (BPICs) policies since 2018. Starting with the Department of Housing and Public Works, these were soon being prepared for other areas of major government projects. While aspirational, prequalification clauses essentially made them mandatory. Long told the inquiry he had heard from public servants and contractors that the CFMEU was involved in departmental negotiations  repeating a second-hand claim from senior public servants that there was a ministerial direction to negotiate with the union instead of the Australian Workers Union.

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He told the inquiry this direction came from then transport minister Mark Bailey via his department director-general, Neil Scales, and one of his deputies. Long said his organisation and others repeatedly raised concerns with the government about BPIC conditions, including their strong contravention of federal workplace laws around coercion and adverse action. Civil Contractors Federation Queensland CEO Damian Long. News Corp Australia This particularly related to requirements to force it [the BPIC policy] down the supply chain and effectively ensure contractors also complied with its terms to get government work. Long said his organisation had, through a solicitor, sought the opinion of the Australian Building and Construction Commission before its 2023 abolition, which found potential non-compliance.

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After raising that concern, Long said the Department of Housing and Public Works advised it had sought Crown Law advice, which found it was legal, but refused to release the advice to him. Related Article Analysis

Trade unions The union code cracks that shed wider light on a CFMEU power push Following this, Long said the words not mandatory started creeping into government talk about the BPICs policy. He said the language shifted to: This is an aspirational document. What we want you to do is use your best endeavours to comply with this, and also your usual best endeavours to make sure the supply chain also complies with this. Crown Law advice about other elements of the policy was also raised by Australian Workers Union state secretary Stacey Schinnerl during the inquirys last public hearing block, but the government was also said to have refused to outline the advice.

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The government consultation process during the implementation of the BPIC policy was a sham and did not give industry representatives the chance to provide feedback, Long added. The collaborative process and consultation process was nothing more than tabling documents to show where the government was going, he said. Commissioner Stuart Wood listens to senior counsel assisting Patrick Wheelahan. News Corp Australia Eventually, the Department of Transport and Main Roads appeared to take the concerns on board and, in 2023, held talks with industry groups and contractors. This resulted in a document, shared with Long and provided to the inquiry, outlining the concerns to be briefed back to Bailey, including that the BPIC policy reads like a CFMEU document.

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The inquiry will continue on Wednesday. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
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Updated NationalQueenslandAbortion Liberal-National MP rebels against Crisafulli on abortion James Hall Updated February 10, 2026  3:52pm ,first published 1:22pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

A Liberal-National MP defied Premier David Crisafullis ploy to control far-right figures in the governments party room by crossing the floor in a bid to reverse a debate gag on the termination of pregnancy. In the weeks following the 2024 Queensland election, Crisafulli stunned parliament with a motion banning any bills or debate on abortion laws after the issue threatened to derail his partys campaign. The motion, which was passed at the time with his partys support, banned any bill or amendment to the termination of pregnancy act as well as any motion or amendment seeking to have this house express its views on the laws. Liberal-National leader David Crisafulli was bombarded with questions on abortion during the 2024 election campaign. Matt Dennien On Tuesday, crossbench MP Robbie Katter, the state leader of Katters Australian Party and vocal advocate of restricting access to abortion, sought parliaments approval to move a motion he had flagged would reverse Crisafullis gag.

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The vote was supported by the crossbench as well as the Labor opposition but rejected by most of the LNP members  except for member for Mackay Nigel Dalton. Mackay MP Nigel Dalton. Facebook With the support of government MPs, the bid to reverse the gag was comfortably beaten but Daltons defiance could signal a crucial turning point for the premiers control of the party room. The Mackay MP told reporters his motivation for crossing the floor was that abortion reform was a deeply personal issue but refused to elaborate further when asked a series of questions. During the 2024 election, Crisafulli was dogged for his vague and repeated assurance that changing abortion laws was not part of our plan.

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At the time, Labor launched a fierce campaign warning the LNP leader would be lobbied by his own backbench MPs, who had previously spoken publicly about a desire to repeal Queenslands abortion laws. Related Article Perspective

LNP Be normal: Why these two leaders are speaking out amid their partys chaos Tuesdays incident in parliament will likely reignite the same attack lines but Crisafulli said the nonexistence of abortion reform since the election was proof the government would not amend the legislation. The position we took to the election has been overwhelmingly reaffirmed, the premier told reporters at parliament. That, in my mind, puts to bed another one of those Labor Party scare campaigns for the second time.

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Labors shadow attorney-general Meaghan Scanlon said Daltons move only confirmed her partys campaign. David Crisafulli has members of his cabinet, of his team, who do not believe in abortion laws in Queensland, she said. Crisafulli himself voted to keep abortion a crime, and now he wants everyone to think that he suddenly changed his mind and that all of his members of parliament are progressives. Well, that was shattered today. Dalton revealed his intention to cross the floor in a meeting with the premier on Monday, Crisafulli said, when the Mackay MP was told not to break ranks in voting against the government. Despite defying the orders, Crisafulli said the backbencher would not be reprimanded. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
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NationalQueenslandQueensland government Queensland rejects key Wieambilla recommendation in new gun reforms James Hall February 10, 2026  12:08pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

The Queensland government has rejected calls to pursue mandatory mental health checks for gun ownership applications  a key recommendation from the inquest into the fatal 2022 ambush of police officers in Wieambilla. A new suite of firearm reforms will instead include mandatory mental health reporting, which will require professional carers to make a referral to police when they assess whether an individual is a higher risk to commit violence with a weapon. The tranche of measures, included in a ministerial directive, comes after a coronial inquest into the shooting of constables Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold, along with neighbour Alan Dare, by religious fanatics and conspiracy theorists Nathaniel, Gareth and Stacey Train. Constables Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold were shot dead during the ambush in Wieambilla. Queensland Police The inquest recommended the government review the feasibility of a mandatory health check scheme, but the Crisafulli government dismissed this as merely a study that lacked action.

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The recommendation was about a feasibility study  were taking action today, and that shows how serious we are about dealing with the problem, Premier David Crisafulli said. Police Minister Dan Purdie also said there had been issues with a similar West Australian policy that requires mental health clearance from a GP. In WA, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners has raised concerns about whether GPs have the proper skills to do that risk assessment, he said in response to questions. Mandatory reporting for health practitioners, coupled with the mandatory reporting for applicants  is the best step forward, and Im confident we are strengthening the processes. The mental health reporting measure proposed by the government would not have stopped the Trains from lawfully owning guns, however, given the murderers were not being treated by the mental health system.

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Purdie said this was why the suite of measures included a firearm prohibition order, which will provide extra powers to the police commissioner to remove gun ownership from high-risk individuals, such as those sharing extremist ideology or who are involved in organised crime. Related Article Queensland government You have to be an Aussie citizen: Details of gun laws revealed, but no word on mental health checks The new range of reforms will be effective once firearm reforms introduced in response to the Bondi terror attack are legislated, with the separate suite of laws including a restriction on non-Australian citizens owning a gun. The laws, introduced into parliament on Tuesday, also include increased penalties for stealing firearms; for unlawfully trafficking, possessing, supplying and modifying weapons; and a new offence penalising the reckless discharge of a weapon on a building or vehicle to crack down on drive-by shootings. But the Crisafulli government on Monday doubled down on its rejection of the Albanese governments national buyback scheme, meaning Queensland will likely be the only state not to be part of the federal gun policy.

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Shadow attorney-general Meaghan Scanlon accused the government of buckling to pressure from the gun lobby and far-right members of the LNPs party room. None of these reforms would actually have prevented the fatalities that occurred in Bondi or Wieambilla, she said. All theyre doing is increasing the penalty for crimes that already exist, and issuing a health directive on something that is already practised and doesnt apply to private health services or private hospitals. Before introducing the states broad response to stamping out antisemitism after the Bondi Beach terror attack  which also includes the nations strictest criminalisation of phrases viewed by some as hate speech  Crisafulli delivered a broadside at the federal government. Where others have failed to act or show leadership, we will send the strongest possible message that we dont tolerate antisemitism in our state, in our nation, he told state parliament on Tuesday.

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We cannot afford to return to the inaction and the silence, where words became vandalism, vandalism became violence, violence became murder. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
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NationalWADevelopment outrage Adrian Finis $280 million Smiths Beach development gets watchdogs green tick Hamish Hastie February 10, 2026  12:43pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

The long-running fight against development at Smiths Beach in Yallingup has been dealt a huge blow after the Environmental Protection Authority recommended the project be approved. The EPA made public its recommendations to Environment Minister Matthew Swinbourn on Tuesday, five years after the Adrian Fini-led developer Smiths 2014 Pty Ltd first lodged the 42-hectare Smiths Beach Project proposal. The latest renders for the Smiths Beach development in WAs South West. The project, valued at $280 million in 2022, includes a hotel, wellness centre, 61 holiday homes, campground, community hub and surf lifesaving club. The recommendation comes six days after Swinbourne approved Saracen Properties 121-room five-star Westin resort and residential village in Gnarabup, south of the Smiths Beach site.

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In its press release, the EPA took the step of noting that several members of the EPA, including chair Darren Walsh declared a conflict of interest regarding the Smiths Beach proposal and were not involved in any related discussions and/or decisions. Walsh has a lengthy history working in the development sector, including at Satterley Property Group, and at JBS&G, the environmental consultancy that Fini used to prepare its application to the EPA. The EPA said board members Jane Bennett, David Caddy and Hamish Beck also recused themselves from Smiths Beach discussions. Locals have been fighting development at the site for more than two decades under the Save Smiths Beach Action Group banner, citing concerns about the level of clearing, fire risk, sewage impacts and the use of the controversial State Development Assessment Unit to gain planning approval. The proposal has also attracted criticism from the opposition and features in an ongoing opposition-led parliamentary inquiry into Labor Government planning procedures. Save Smiths Beach Action Group convenor David Mitchell said the EPA had ignored its own rulings in a 2009 proposal the suggested the western half of the development site on the headland should not be developed.

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Therell be a very happy group of Western suburbs businessmen today. Theres probably a long lunch being had in Subiaco, he told ABCs Mornings Program. They have basically regurgitated the developers own proposal, and the EPA has capitulated. Its universal that all the government agencies are against development on the headland on both visual and environmental grounds. The EPA made its recommendation subject to conditions around wastewater management, clearing and offsets of fauna habitat. Those offsets, proposed by Finis company, included rehabilitation of western ringtail possum and black cockatoo foraging habitat at three sites within the state governments estate.

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Related Article Property development Perth developer denies trying to bypass planning process in bid to expand prime beach project Other conditions include requiring the developer to manage weeds at the site and 50 metres outside the development envelope, including on Crown land. Maintaining habitat connectivity between vegetation in the development envelope and the Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park is front and centre of the EPAs conditions, an EPA spokeswoman said. Other measures in the proponents conservation significant Fauna Management Plan and Offset Strategy address feral animal control, nearby offset areas, and a community-based revegetation program. And conditions relating to secondary foraging and dispersal habitat for the western ringtail possum contain a requirement for a conservation covenant. This includes establishment costs and long-term management and maintenance costs.

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A Smiths Beach Project spokeswoman welcomed the EPAs decision and said the company would adhere to the conditions. Our project team of leading Australian landscape designers and architects have designed the coastal village, including its hotel and community facilities, in a way that is sensitive to the sites environmental and cultural significance, she said. Aerial view of Smiths Beach and the Smiths Beach Resort. Tourism WA This brings us closer to realising our project vision of creating a world-class seaside village for the benefit of Western Australia and the South-West - enabling the local community and visitors to this state to share and enjoy the best aspects of our lifestyle and environment. Fini was behind the Bunker Bay Resort, built south of Smiths Beach in 2004, and has been pursuing a development at the Smiths Beach site after purchasing it alongside several other families in 2014.

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The previous owners proposal attracted the first iteration of the Save Smiths Beach community protest campaign, with locals claiming a win after the developer went on to become embroiled in a Corruption and Crime Commission investigation, along with several local councillors. The structure plan approved under the old owners proposal featured up to 500 tourism and residential dwellings, with the western side of the lot to be handed to the state government as a national park. Finis new proposal features a broader footprint but less density, which Fini in the past has said improved amenity and greater retention of vegetation. Last year, Finis company removed a planned ramp to Smiths Beach over community concerns it would act like a sea wall. The EPAs recommendation will be open for a three-week public appeal period.

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Vasse MP Libby Mettam said the EPAs approval was disappointing, also pointing to the 2009 EPA decision, which recommended the western headland section not be built on. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
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Exclusive NationalWAUniversity Impasse over pay, work conditions pushes staff at WAs biggest uni to brink of industrial action Holly Thompson February 11, 2026  4:00am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

Hundreds of lecturers at Perths biggest university have pledged to stay off campus as semester one begins over claims of unsustainable workloads, unfair pay and draconian limitations on work-from-home opportunities. Curtin University staff are planning the industrial action for the first two weeks of the semester, planning to stay home on certain days of the week and running lectures, tutorials and labs to students online. Curtin University human resources management lecturer Dr Sandra Martain plans to take part in industrial action at the university amid negotiations on a new enterprise bargaining agreement. The plans have not been set in stone, with the National Tertiary Education Union WA yet to officially notify the universitys senior management. Union WA Division Secretary Scott Fitzgerald said management could then also choose to refuse to pay staff participating in the industrial action by working from home  a situation that could see tutorials and lectures cancelled.

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Fitzgerald said the university had taken that step before, and further delays to negotiations could see strike action later in the semester. The union claims there had been no meaningful progress on a new enterprise bargaining agreement since July, when discussions began, despite fortnightly meetings involving a small army. Academics at Curtin struggle with enormous workloads, and they fear that the unsustainable volumes of work they face will ultimately damage the quality of education we provide to students, Fitzgerald said. Professional staff have reported draconian limitations on the ability to work from home even a day a week, and at a time when staff and students consistently complain there is nowhere to park on campus due to a lack of space. All staff are feeling the pinch with the cost of living, whether that is staff trying to get into the housing market, struggling with supporting their children or ageing parents, or staff worrying about whether they can retire.

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These are the bread-and-butter issues our members need to see resolved at the bargaining table so that they can return to focusing on the teaching, research, and supporting our students. No set policy on AI usage, and a push to employ more Indigenous Australians are other issues on the negotiating table. Human resources management lecturer Dr Sandra Martain has agreed to take part in the industrial action, should it go ahead. Martain, who is also a representative at the bargaining table, said she was lucky to have a full-time contract, but the university relied heavily on casuals who had no job security. Some have been employed for five, eight, 10 years with no guarantees theyll have work from semester to semester, she said.

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When the vice chancellor earns over $1 million a year, and we have staff worrying about paying their bills  thats very concerning. Martain said students were also concerned, and the Student Guild was backing staff. They understand that good teaching conditions make for good learning conditions, she said. One of the best parts about teaching is getting to share your knowledge in the classroom but that ability to teach is severely impacted in the face of the challenging conditions teachers are facing. Fitzgerald said the national conversation around the poor governance of universities, and the state-level conversation about the potential need to merge WA universities, made the situation even worse.

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Editor's pick Development outrage Adrian Finis $280 million Smiths Beach development gets watchdogs green tick Our members have been appalled to see such an unwillingness to work meaningfully with the unions negotiators, he said. Workload, job insecurity, work flexibility, and pay are all basic issue that shouldnt require industrial action to resolve. Our members are angry, and staff and students deserve better. A Curtin University spokesperson said the union had to provide three days notice of any action and, once that had been received, the university would respond appropriately. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
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Updated NationalWACourts Perth man jailed over elaborate plan to kidnap girl, keep her in his attic Heather McNeill Updated February 10, 2026  4:52pm ,first published 1:32pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

A Perth man who was plotting to kidnap a young girl and keep her as a sex slave in his attic has been jailed for seven years after police raided his home and thwarted his heinous plan. In the months before his arrest, Jason Forbes, 39, had modified the roof space in his Baldivis home to be a soundproof panic room, and had blacked out the windows of his Tesla in preparation to snatch a child off the streets. Loading A mind map diagram found on his bedroom mirror showed the electrician was planning to impersonate a police officer to abduct a child, with a fake police badge found in the glove box of his car. A photo of two children playing on a driveway two kilometres from his house was also found, with the caption X marks the spot.

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During his sentencing in the Perth District Court last month, Judge Darren Renton SC said the photo was taken in April 2024 by Forbes during one of his reconnaissance missions looking for his target. Forbes Google searches also showed he looked up volunteer childcare work near me, rubber acoustic underlay, kidnapping, abductions, Baldivis volunteer, fake window tint screen, chloroform and knockout chemicals and gases. He also looked up the address of notorious American paedophile Phillip Garrido, who kidnapped an 11-year-old girl from a school bus stop in 1991 and held her captive for 18 years. The victim gave birth to two of his children during that time. The web browsing searches identified  a concerning level of preparation to abduct the child for sexual purposes, including how to build a panic room in the loft, Renton said. There was no timeline that indicated when you would move beyond planning to implementation, but I am satisfied that you had an intention to put the plan into effect.

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Jason Forbes and the mind map and modified attic police discovered in his Baldivis house. Evidence taken from his home showed Forbes had highlighted nearby kindergartens and childcare centres on a map and had researched how to approach, isolate and restrain a child. He had also looked up yellow safety house sign, which is a reference to a popular safety program run in Western Australia the 1990s, which was designed to alert children to houses they could go to if they felt they were in danger. Police were tipped off to Forbes plan when Australian Border Force officers intercepted a custom-made child sex doll Forbes had ordered online in July 2024. A subsequent search of his Berryman Terrace house, where he lived alone, uncovered more than 70,000 child exploitation material files, nappies, childrens dolls and childrens underwear.

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Forbes admitted to police he had a 20-year sexual interest in young female children, but denied his was planning to kidnap anyone, telling detectives it was all research for a book he was writing, and that he bought the fake police badge because he liked to dress up. Renton dismissed his claims, saying the case against him was overwhelming. A WA Police spokeswoman said when officers went to Forbes address, they found he had taken extraordinary steps towards preparing his home for potentially abducting a child. A bedroom in Jason Forbes former house shows attic access, a key locked door and a sensor. It was the only room in the house stripped of its flooring and window coverings before it was sold under proceeds of crime. Cotality Police also identified structural modifications to his residence, including construction work to a roof and attic space with restricted access, which formed part of the overall assessment that the accused was actively preparing to commit physical harm, she said.

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He was charged with possessing a child-like sex doll, using a carriage service to prepare to engage in sexual activity with a child, and possessing child exploitation material and was jailed for seven years and five months. Sex Crimes Detective Acting Superintendent David Palmer said the sentence was a win for officers. This investigation is a clear example of early intervention preventing harm to children. Through the identification of concerning behaviour and extensive preparatory planning, WA Police were able to disrupt the offenders actions before any child was physically harmed, he said. The mans assets, including his house, have since been frozen. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
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PoliticsFederalExtremism AFP boss promises more aggressive tactics as young minds poisoned by extremism Matthew Knott February 10, 2026  8:20pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

The Australian Federal Police has set up hate disrupter squads targeting extremist preachers and white supremacists as Commissioner Krissy Barrett promises a more aggressive approach to combating hate and radicalism. Barrett said she was alarmed by the growing numbers of young people susceptible to hatred or attracted to violence, and that she expected police to soon identity young people as high risk terrorist offenders. AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett said police would take a more aggressive approach to combat hate and extremism. Sam Mooy Too many influences and influencers are poisoning the minds of our kids and the vulnerable, Barrett told Senate estimates on Tuesday. We will use all our available disruption tools because modern policing is not always about arresting and charging, it includes the benefit of disrupting early.

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Barrett said that loneliness and feelings of exclusion could be driving the rise of radicalisation, as people who find it difficult to make social connections embrace online forums where polarising views are accepted. Related Article Investigation

Extremism Far-right threats to kidnap Albanese, post bombs to mosques, secret chats reveal We are witnessing the continued rise of individual grievance, including those who are willing to make threats in the online world and then carry them out in the real world, she said. She said that the AFP and spy agency ASIOs joint counterterrorism teams have charged 26 young people with terrorism type offences since 2020. She said that religiously motivated extremism remains the countrys biggest terrorism threat, although ideologically motivated extremism is also on the rise.

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The governments special envoy for tackling antisemitism, Jillian Segal, told Senate estimates earlier in the day that Jewish Australians had been living in a climate of fear since the October 7 attacks and subsequent war in Gaza. She said that antisemitism in Australia has reached a point where sustained, coordinated national action is no longer optional. Related Article Investigation

Right-wing extremism A scary time: Nazi terror links revealed as disbanding sparks fears of violence Its essential for community safety, for social cohesion and for the integrity of our democracy, she said. The events at Bondi marked, I think, a profound turning point for the nation. They brought growing antisemitism into sharp national focus and made visible what Jewish Australians had been saying for many months: that fear, intimidation and exclusion are no longer abstract concerns. They are lived realities

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She said her report on combating antisemitism, which contained some contentious recommendations, remained a relevant and important blueprint for action as she urged the government to implement it as quickly as possible. Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.
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Updated PoliticsVictoriaProperty development Towers up to 20 storeys slated for middle-ring suburbs as new activity centre maps released Kieran Rooney Updated February 11, 2026  10:50am ,first published February 11, 2026  5:00am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

Towers up to 20 storeys and large areas friendly to townhouses have been slated for Melbournes south-east as the Allan government releases the missing piece in its pledge to encourage higher-density housing around train and tram corridors. Draft maps were released on Wednesday for the governments remaining 23 train and tram activity centres, where it intends to allow denser housing close to public transport and is seeking public feedback. This masthead was provided with 10 of the maps ahead of their full release. They show that land around Caulfield train station will have the tallest height limits, some areas being zoned up to 20 storeys. Malvern, Prahran, South Yarra and Springvale will have pockets that permit buildings up to 16 storeys.

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The tallest height limits are proposed for sites beside railway stations and, at Toorak Village, which is on a tram line. Height limits have not been detailed for two areas on the western side of Caulfield Racecourse that have been earmarked as strategic sites for urban renewal. Limits for these will be determined later. South Yarra is among the activity centres flagged for higher-density homes. Luis Enrique Ascui There are 60 activity centres proposed in total, 58 based around public transport hubs and two separate projects that will identify key sites for housing in the City of Melbourne and the City of Yarra. Draft maps have been published for 35 of the areas so far. Wednesdays release details the remaining 23 train and tram zones in Melbournes south-east and east. The final two activity centres, in the City of Melbourne and the City of Yarra, differ from the train and tram hubs. For those two, the state government will work with the local councils to identify land that could be developed.

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Outside the areas with the taller height limits, the government proposes areas of lower density to allow townhouses and low-rise apartments to be built within walking distance of stations. The lower-density areas comprise a much greater share of the suburbs involved than the areas planned for high-rise towers. Related Article Property development Height limits for contentious Bayside activity centres revealed Streets that are five minutes walk from a station would have height limits up to four storeys, or six storeys if the block is bigger than 1000 square metres. Areas 10 minutes walk from a station would have limits of three storeys, or four storeys for bigger blocks. These catchments cross over and merge in suburbs where train stations are close together, with South Yarra, Hawksburn, Prahran and Windsor effectively connected into a larger activity centre. Whether its making it easier to build homes close to public transport, townhouses in our inner suburbs, or family homes with a backyard  our planning reforms are all about giving more Victorians real housing choice, Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny said.

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The governments activity centres have provoked a backlash in some suburbs, including in Brighton, where locals have held rallies opposing the states plans led by local Liberal MP James Newbury. Many of the centres to be mapped out on Wednesday include heartland seats for the Liberals, including deputy party leader David Southwicks seat of Caulfield. Another four centres will be detailed for the electorate of Malvern, alongside six already published. MP for Malvern and former opposition leader Michael OBrien has argued his electorate has been unfairly asked to shoulder the biggest share of the new hubs. OBrien is retiring at the November state election, and former Kooyong federal election candidate Amelia Hamer will run for the Liberal Party as his replacement. A further four centres are in Prahran, which the Liberals won in a byelection last year but is in danger of returning to the Greens at the state election.

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Further out, Labor seats such as Springvale, Bentleigh, Noble Park and Dandenong have been included in the latest release of maps. Related Article Updated

Development The two inner-city councils that have to open up their streets to density The new activity centres on the Cranbourne and Pakenham train lines have had an extra 1200 railway services a week since February 1, with trains running directly through the new Metro Tunnel. Another eight centres are on the Frankston line, where trains returned to the City Loop on February 1, and four are on the Sandringham line, where a new timetable is planned later this year. In Melbournes east, Blackburn, Nunawading, Mitcham and Ashburton stations will have activity centres, while Riversdale and Willison stations will be combined into one centre because they are close together. Toorak Village does not feature rail but has been selected because it is a built-up area along the No. 58 tram route.

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Editor's pick Media & marketing How to make The Age your preferred source on Google The draft maps are open to further consultation this month and next month. Some 3000 submissions were sent to the Department of Transport and Planning before details of height limits were released. Opposition Leader Jess Wilson has previously criticised the activity centre program as providing no voice and no choice, arguing property taxes were stalling the construction of affordable new homes. Height limits and boundaries can change following community feedback. The first 10 pilot activity centres announced by the government were altered after consultation. Plans for all 60 centres are expected to be finalised by the middle of this year. The Allan government expects they will help provide more than 300,000 new homes by 2051. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
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WorldEuropeCrime Moment gang posing as police blow up cash van on Italian motorway Nick Squires February 10, 2026  2:30pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

Armed robbers pretending to be police blew up a security van on a motorway in Italy. The gang, who wore balaclavas to hide their identities, drove a dark blue Alfa Romeo with a blue light on the roof, footage shows. They initially blocked the motorway with a truck that they set alight, forcing the cash van to come to a stop and preventing police from arriving on the scene quickly. The robbers ran around to the back of the security van and blew its doors off with explosives, sending up plumes of dark smoke.

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Related Article Catholic church Meloni-esque angels face plastered over after outcry Police arrived at the scene and exchanged shots with the raiders. It is not known how much cash the robbers got away with. The hold-up was captured on video by passing motorists on their phones. Look, look, look, look  They are robbing the van, look, said one, who caught on film the moment that the back of the security van was blown off. The robbery took place on Monday on a stretch of motorway between the cities of Lecce and Brindisi in the southern region of Puglia, which is popular with tourists during the northern summer months.

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Members of the public called the police to say they had seen two men flee the scene at high speed in an Alfa Romeo. The police intercepted the car and arrested the two men near the town of Squinzano. Police are hunting for the rest of the gang  about six men are believed to have taken part in the raid. The authorities closed a section of the motorway in both directions while they carried out investigations. The assailants are believed to come from Foggia, a town in Puglia, which has established a notorious reputation for being the home turf of armed gangs who regularly hold up security vans.

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Nicola Magno, the secretary general of a police officers union, expressed deep concern for the dangerous escalation of criminal activities and the risks faced on a daily basis by members of the Carabinieri (the Italian police). Related Article Oil It ran and we followed: US forces chase down oil tanker near Australian islands He said: Once again, Carabinieri officers find themselves on the front line of a criminal action that is extremely violent and well organised. The fact that a patrol was targeted with shots shows the high level of risk that our officers are being exposed to on a regular basis. It is only thanks to the professionalism, cool heads and sense of duty of our colleagues that we are not talking about a tragedy.

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Police needed better vehicles, training and equipment as they grappled with criminal gangs which are ever more aggressive and militarised, he said. It is the second such assault in a week. Last week, a gang of robbers held up an armoured security van on a motorway near Ortona in the central Abruzzo region. To stop the van, they fired shots, scattered nails on the ground and set off smoke bombs. They then used an explosive device to blow open the sides of the security van and reportedly made off with about 400,000 ($672,000) in cash. The Telegraph, London Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on whats making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.

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WorldEuropeUK politics Ministers back Starmer after rebels call for leader to quit over Mandelson David Crowe February 10, 2026  3:52am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is fighting a Labour rebellion over his leadership after the head of the partys Scottish wing called on him to stand down, sharply escalating the pressure for a new leader and ministry. Cabinet ministers rallied behind Starmer in a bid to halt the challenge before it could gain momentum, while the prime ministers closest allies insisted he had a mandate from voters and would stay in office. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is under sharply escalating political pressure. Getty Images The leader of the Scottish Labour Party, Anas Sarwar, took the internal war into the public domain on Tuesday by holding a press conference to declare that he had to be honest about failure and call for Starmer to resign. The leadership manoeuvres come barely 19 months after Labour swept into power and heighten the crisis within the governing party, as Labour MPs complain in public about their poor polling and lack of direction.

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Two resignations have also shaken confidence in the prime ministers office, with Starmers communications chief, Tim Allan, quitting on Tuesday, a day after chief of staff Morgan McSweeney stepped down. Sarwar, a centrist like Starmer, is lagging in the opinion polls ahead of an election for the Scottish parliament in May, and he said he spoke out to prevent the Scottish National Party defeating Labour at the polls. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar speaks to the media during a press conference in Glasgow, Scotland, where he called on Keir Starmer to resign as prime minister. AP Thats why I have to be honest about failure wherever I see it. The situation in Downing Street is not good enough. There have been too many mistakes. They promised they were going to be different, but too much has happened.

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Have there been good things? Of course, there have  many of them, but no one knows them, and no one can hear them because theyre being drowned out. Thats why they cannot continue. The leader of the Labour Party in Wales, Eluned Morgan, remained silent on the leadership question on Tuesday (London time). She is also contesting a parliamentary election in May and faces an uphill battle against Welsh governing party Plaid Cymru. Britains now former ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson, left, with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. AP While Sarwar did not name the scandal over Jeffrey Epstein as a factor in his decision, the pressure on Starmer has intensified in part because of questions over his judgement in appointing Peter Mandelson, a close associate of the sex offender, as the UK ambassador to the US. Starmer last week apologised for that decision, five months after removing Mandelson from the post. He admitted that he knew of Mandelsons ties to Epstein but said Mandelson lied and pretended the pair were not close.

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The prime ministers team at 10 Downing Street argued that he had won the general election in July 2024 and therefore held authority from the votes of the British public. He has a clear five-year mandate from the British people to deliver change, and that is what he will do, said a Downing Street spokesperson. Loading The UK has 21 cabinet ministers excluding Starmer, and a majority of them backed the prime minister with public endorsements while Sarwar was speaking or soon after he finished. The British public gave Keir a huge mandate only 18 months ago, said Defence Minister John Healey.

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They wanted a Labour government. They want us to deliver the change we promised. They expect us to get on with the job... The PM has my fullest support in leading this government and this country. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: The PM has my full support. Lets get on with changing the country for the better. Related Article Epstein fallout Starmer should resign as well, MPs demand, as key aide quits Similar statements came from Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, Justice Secretary David Lammy, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, Housing Secretary Steve Reed, Trade Secretary Peter Kyle and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden. Health Secretary Wes Streeting, whose supporters have positioned him as a contender for the leadership, told a media podcast the prime minister should stay on, but his support did not appear to be emphatic.

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Keir Starmer doesnt need to resign, he told the Electoral Dysfunction podcast. Streeting said the last week had not been the best for the government, but he added: Give Keir a chance. Another person often touted as a candidate to for the prime ministers job, former Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner, called publicly for an end to factional games. I urge all my colleagues to come together, remember our values and put them into practice as a team. The Prime Minister has my full support in leading us to that end, she posted on X. The revolt ahead of the Scottish election highlights the concern about Labours slump in the polls across the UK and the rise of populist leader Nigel Farage and his Reform UK party, which would win a general election on current polling.

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Even so, one of the key Scottish ministers in the national government, Douglas Alexander, who is secretary of state for Scotland, did not endorse Sarwars call. The prime minister has recognised not just that lessons have to be learnt but also that we change how we do government, he said. He is right about that and has my support. Hilary Benn, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, urged MPs to stop the unrest. Now is the time for calm heads and seriousness of purpose, he said. That is why the prime minister has my full support. Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on whats making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.
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Updated WorldNorth AmericaMissing person Person detained in Nancy Guthrie disappearance case Mike Balsamo and Eric Tucker Updated February 11, 2026  1:40pm ,first published February 11, 2026  4:48am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

Tucson, Arizona: A person has been detained for questioning in the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, officials said, offering another potential break in a case that has gripped the nation for more than a week. Deputies detained the person during a traffic stop south of Tucson on Tuesday (Arizona time), according to the Pima County Sheriffs Department. The department did not immediately provide additional details. It wasnt clear if the person being questioned is the person captured on surveillance video outside Guthries house that was released earlier Tuesday. The FBI referred all questions about a person being detained to the sheriffs department. Loading

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The department, along with the FBIs Evidence Response Team, was also conducting a court-authorised search in Rio Rico, about an hour south of Tucson, as part of the investigation, the department said in a statement. It was expected to take several hours. The people were not authorised to discuss details of an ongoing investigation and spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Earlier, the FBI released video and images of a masked intruder appearing to tamper with a surveillance camera at Nancy Guthries home early on the morning of her disappearance, providing significant new evidence in a mystery that has gripped the nation and the world. FBI director Kash Patel posted four images from a video he said was recovered from residual data located in backend systems, after eight days of attempting to recover lost or inaccessible data from cameras at Nancy Guthries home. As of this morning, law enforcement has uncovered these previously inaccessible new images showing an armed individual appearing to have tampered with the camera at Nancy Guthries front door the morning of her disappearance, Patel said.

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The black-and-white images show the person wearing a mask, dark gloves, a sweater, pants and a backpack. Patel subsequently posted a 27-second video that showed the person loitering outside the front door, and a 14-second video of the person appearing to cover the doors camera with foliage. It was previously known that a security camera at Guthries home detected a person on camera at 2.12am on February 1, but there was no video to show what triggered that alert. Savannah Guthrie, who was born in Melbourne, has posted numerous videos since her mothers disappearance, including one that acknowledged a message from a purported kidnapper and offered to pay a ransom. The FBI released the first surveillance image from night of Nancy Guthries disappearance, showing a masked person on her porch. X/@FBIDirectorKash Authorities believe Nancy Guthrie was taken against her will from her house, though police are yet to verify the authenticity of purported ransom notes that were sent to some US media outlets. The deadlines set in the notes have now passed.

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They have refocused their search efforts near Nancy Guthries neighbourhood, using vehicles to block her driveway. A few miles away, law enforcement was going door-to-door in the area where daughter Annie Guthrie lives, talking to neighbours as well as walking through a drainage area and examining the inside of a culvert with a flashlight. DNA tests showed blood on Guthries front porch was a match to her, and a doorbell camera was disconnected in the early hours of Sunday morning, police have said. Investigators have not identified any suspects, persons of interest, or vehicles connected to Nancy Guthrie, the Pima County Sheriffs Department said Monday. Savannah Guthrie shared several of the new surveillance images and video on social media with the caption: Someone out there recognises this person. We believe she is still out there. Bring her home, along with numbers for the FBI and county sheriff. Within minutes, the posts had thousands of comments. Savannah Guthrie (left) and her mother, Nancy Guthrie, on the NBCs Today show set in 2023. Getty

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The family has posted a series of videos over the past week, each striking a different tone. The latest video from Savannah on Monday, in which she appeared alone, was more bleak. We are at an hour of desperation, she said. We believe our mum is still out there. She was taken, and we dont know where, and we need your help. Authorities say Nancy Guthrie needs daily medication because she is said to have high blood pressure and heart issues, including a pacemaker. She also has limited mobility, and it is believed she could not have left the home independently. At a briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she and President Donald Trump had reviewed the new images released by the FBI, and Trump encouraged anyone with information to come forward.

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Related Article Missing person We will pay: US TV host Savannah Guthries new plea for mothers return The prayers of this entire White House are with Savannah and her family at this time, and we hope this person is found soon and that her mother is brought home safely, Leavitt said. The FBI has offered a $US50,000 ($71,000) reward for information leading to Guthries recovery or the arrest of anyone involved in her disappearance. The bureau this week began posting digital billboards in major cities from Texas to California. Earlier, FBI spokesperson Connor Hagan said the bureau was not aware of ongoing communication between Guthries family and the suspected kidnappers. He also confirmed authorities had not identified any suspects or persons of interest. Someone has that one piece of information that can help us bring Nancy home, he said.

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With Michael Koziol Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on whats making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.
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WorldNorth AmericaEpstein fallout Trump told police everyone knew about Epstein, called Maxwell evil Michael Koziol Updated February 11, 2026  5:40am ,first published 4:28am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

New York: Donald Trump told Palm Beach police in 2006 that everyone knew about Jeffrey Epsteins sexual abuse of minors, and called Epsteins close friend Ghislaine Maxwell evil, according to investigation records made public in the so-called Epstein files. The revelations stem from a report that documents a 2019 FBI interview with former Palm Beach police chief Michael Reiter, who recounted his recollection of a conversation with Trump in 2006 when charges against Epstein became public. Donald Trump, his then wife-to-be, Melania Knauss, with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in Florida in 2000. Getty Images Donald Trump told [Reiter] that he threw Epstein out of his club, the report says. Trump called the [Palm Beach police] to tell him, Thank goodness youre stopping him, everyone has known hes been doing this. It goes on to say that Trump told police that people in New York knew Epstein was disgusting. Trump said Maxwell was Epsteins operative, and that she is evil and to focus on her.

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Trump told Reiter that he was once around Epstein when teenagers were present, and got the hell out of there, the report says. Trump was one of the very first people to call when people found out that they [the police] were investigating Epstein. The FBI interview record appears among millions of pages released by the US Department of Justice. It was unearthed and first published by Miami Herald journalist Julie Brown, whose 2018 investigation into Epstein  before he was arrested on sex-trafficking charges  broke open the case. The record of Trumps remarks is significant because it appears to corroborate his claim to have cut ties with Epstein before his criminal charges were made public, and that he threw Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club. However, it jars with some of Trumps other claims, chiefly that he had no knowledge of Epsteins crimes. Last year, he said he threw Epstein out of the Mar-a-Lago because he was stealing female staff from the resort  namely Virginia Giuffre, the Epstein survivor who died by suicide in Australia last year.

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Meanwhile, Trumps commerce secretary, billionaire businessman Howard Lutnick, was forced to admit that he visited Epsteins private island, Little Saint James, in December 2012  despite previously claiming he severed contact with Epstein in 2005 after a creepy encounter. I did have lunch with him, as I was on a boat going across to a family vacation. My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies, Lutnick told a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday (Washington time). Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick admitted visiting Jeffrey Epsteins private island in 2012 for lunch. Bloomberg We had lunch on the island, that is true. For an hour, then we left with all of my children, with my nannies and my wife, all together. To suggest there was anything untoward about that in 2012  I dont recall why we did it. Lutnick and Epstein became next-door neighbours in New York in 2005. But Lutnick told the hearing that after an initial neighbourly introduction at Epsteins home  the one he previously said was creepy  he could only recall meeting Epstein two more times: an hour-long meeting in 2011 and the island lunch in 2012.

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I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with that person, Lutnick said. Related Article Analysis

Epstein fallout Why the latest Epstein files triggered the Kings pledge to help police investigate Andrew Lutnick is the former chairman and chief executive of financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald. He is not accused of any wrongdoing in relation to sexual activity, but critics, including Republican congressman Thomas Massie, have called on him to resign for misrepresenting the extent of his contact with Epstein. Ro Khanna, a Democrat who helped lead the congressional push to release the Epstein files, implied there was a higher level of accountability in Europe than the US. If in Norway, the princess no longer has the support to be Queen, and if in the UK King Charles is now calling for a criminal investigation into his own brother, then surely in the United States of America, Howard Lutnick must resign! he said on X.

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White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday (Washington time) said Trump supported Lutnick, who remained a very important member of President Trumps team. The latest revelations come as the Justice Department removed some redactions from the Epstein files under pressure from members of Congress after they viewed the unredacted files in person. That included the name of lingerie billionaire Les Wexner, the former chief executive of Victorias Secret and Epsteins major long-term client, who is listed as a possible co-conspirator on an FBI memo dated five days after Epsteins death in jail in 2019. Among the other people identified as possible co-conspirators in that memo are the late French model scout Jean-Luc Brunel, Epsteins house manager Lesley Groff and Maxwell  as well as four other people whose names remain redacted.

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T he Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) has come a long way since its origins as a revolutionary force. Having grown into a formidable fighting force, backed by Chinas impressive economic growth, it is aggressively upgrading its combat potential along all dimensions of military power, be it on land, at sea, in the air, in space, or in the cyber domain. This has occurred at two levels. In September 2015, the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) embarked on an expansive top-down reformation of the PLA. It was aimed at strengthening the partys control over the military; the theatrisation of its war-fighting capacity; and the reformation of the supporting structures of the PLAs rocket force, strategic support force, and joint logistics support force.

In 2017, the CCP outlined its next set of reforms, widely referred to as below-the-neck reforms. These have focused on delivery of effects on the battlefield, by casting new, agile, and modular combat structures at the brigade and battalion levels, and fusing of old and new capabilities. A key feature has been the resoluteness of the PLAs reforms, even if they were occasionally hampered by bureaucratic stasis, or bouts of internal corruption. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the PLA is well past its envisioned set of reforms to assert itself at regional hotspots  at least along its peripheries, against India and its maritime neighbours  if not fully beyond its continental reach, in the global context. Its increased assertiveness points to its growing confidence to experiment with the use of force in pursuit of its core interests. This article examines the impetus for change, the scale and scope of reforms, what advantage they accord to the PLA ground forces, and how they impact Indias defensive posture along the Himalayas. It concludes that the need for a structural reform of Indias ground forces is inescapable in order to match the agility and lethality of the PLAs reorganised brigades in a future conflict.

Military institutions often tend to look for external stimuli for implementing change. These could be technological, doctrinal, or structural. In the case of China, this impetus has largely been political, and then technological, where the president himself has been setting the agenda for change, rooted in a strong desire for state reclamation of its old glory. Also Read Govt in talks to allow Alipay+ link to its instant payment systems: Report In that sense, the central importance of the paramount leader to draw linkages between the strategic and doctrinal imperatives for institutionalising change has been the key driver of the PLA reforms. An external stimulant has been propelling change, which systematically deprioritises internal resistance to new ideas, technologies, and structures. The CCPs reformation of its military force needs to be studied in this context.

In late 2015, the CCPs China Military Commission (CMC) undertook a major reformation of the PLA headquarters. The four general departments were abolished and replaced with 15 functional departments, commissions, or offices. As part of it, the erstwhile military regions were recast into five joint theatre commands: Eastern, Southern, Western, Northern, and Central. Likewise, they had now to be manned by commanders, commissars, and staff from all three services, barring the PLA Rocket Force. This, for the first time, brought commanders and staff from diverse service backgrounds face to face, which, prior to this, were single-service, depending on the orientation of each military region. Each theatre command headquarters now has a subordinate army and air force headquarters, while the coastal commands have a naval headquarters as well. Each of these headquarters  of the army, air force, and navy  are entrusted with a dual responsibility. The first entails the manning, training, and equipping of respective service components; and the second requires reporting to the joint theatre command headquarters for conduct of integrated joint operations.

At an operational level, the reforms were intended to rebalance the distribution of forces within the PLA, to make it more capable of executing joint operations beyond Chinas land frontiers. This today forms the basis of the planning and thinking of the PLAs integrated joint operations (IJO) . It implied reshaping the armys land-centred thinking by making sweeping changes in the overall force structure, doctrine, personnel policies, professional military education, and training. As the armys influence declines, the other services  including the rocket and strategic support force  are expected to rise both in role and size relative to the army. As a result, there have also been considerable manpower reductions within the army, with surplus manpower moved to either the air force or the navy.

Additionally, there has been increased participation of air force and naval officers in senior positions of operational responsibility. While these overlapping changes might sound a bit confusing, they have vastly contributed to the increase in the PLAs war-fighting capacity and its confidence to restructure and expand the new type of combat forces required for joint operations. Below the neck At a tactical level, it is the below-the-neck reforms that take centre stage. They primarily seek to improve the PLAs capacity to deliver battle-effects  either to deter, or fight an adversary. They seek to improve the PLAs operational readiness and ability to conduct integrated joint operations at a scale and scope that overwhelms an opponent. For the PLA (Army), these reforms have largely focused on modernising and transforming its combat structures at the operational and tactical level. These include their combined corps (the erstwhile group armies), divisions, brigades, regiments, and battalions (see Table 1). While these changes would have triggered great anxiety across the PLA, the CCP, to its credit, has persisted and remained steadfast on this expansive transformation. That highlights the significance of political oversight to drive structural change, as militaries are inherently resistant to change.

The raising of the new theatre commands (TCs), combined corps (CCs), and combined arms brigades (CABs) is reflective of the intrinsic characteristic of the Chinese political system to drive and absorb large-scale change, by changing the vocabulary and imagery of instruments of the State, including its military. Be it the slogan of Two Incompatibles in 2006, Two Big Gaps and Two Inabilities (2013), the Three Whethers (2014), or Five Incapables (2015), all these catchphrases were the CCPs way of prompting and instituting change in the PLA. The CCPs objectives were twofold: Reform the archaic military structures in order to increase their operational effectiveness, and concurrently expand the number of modular units to prosecute IJO. Here, we examine some of these structural innovations.

Theatre commands: Theatre commands, as a concept, are new to the PLA. Unlike the erstwhile military regions, the five new TCs combine both organisational and operational roles and functions. Organisational functions typically include equipping and training, besides peacetime maintenance and logistics. Consequently, the TCs have a mix of responsibilities: To function as operational headquarters for IJOs; exercise control over subordinate single-service headquarters tasked with routine management of the army, air force and navy; and, most importantly, maintain liaison with the provincial military district headquarters in areas where their peacetime responsibilities overlap. They provide the conceptual basis, framework, and expertise for the planning and execution of multidomain operations at a regional theatre level.

Evidently, the military district (MD) headquarters now find their roles considerably curtailed, unlike their erstwhile roles under the military regions. Much of their earlier roles with respect to recruitment and mobilisation of troops, or control over the border defence forces, seem to have passed into the hands of the CMC, or the theatre headquarters. The only exception being the Tibet and Xinjiang MDs. The Xinjiang MD still commands four infantry divisions, along with its complement of supporting arms. Similarly, the Tibet MD commands three CABs, which were earlier designated as PLA regiments. Their command relationship with the Western Theatre Command (WTC) is rather intricate, as they report concurrently to the headquarters at Beijing, while keeping the theatre headquarters informed of the situation in their areas of responsibility. This duality of command makes for an interesting case study in operational effectiveness. While their peacetime role and employment so far seems satisfactory, the real test of its resilience might only emerge in a long-drawn-out crisis, or conflict.

Combined corps: In April 2017, 13 new combined corps were raised to replace 18 group armies. Since 1997, the erstwhile PLA group armies were reduced from 24 to 13 before being reorganised as CCs. Five group armies were disbanded, with many of their constituent units reassigned to the newly raised CCs. This large-scale reformation must have led to severe organisational turbulence. Dennis J. Blasko, a noted China military analyst, argues that an estimated 1,000-plus units were disbanded; another 100 units relocated; and anywhere between 40 to 90 per cent of the manpower was impacted. The leadership turnover alone was about 40 per cent, indicating the degree of turmoil in the early months and years of change. However, these corps seem to have quickly adjusted, with their structures standardised across the PLA for ease of operational employment.

At present, each CC commands a total of six CABs and an additional six brigades in support functions (see Table 2). These include an artillery brigade, air defence brigade, army aviation brigade, special operations forces (SOF) brigade, engineer brigade, and a service support brigade. The service support brigade caters to the functions of communications, electronic warfare, unmanned aerial vehicles, logistics, and repair and maintenance. Overall, the CCs are estimated to command between 50,000 and 60,000 personnel each, depending on the type of units and equipment assigned. Having been standardised, these CCs can quickly deploy for a multitude of operational tasks in an intra- and inter-theatre role. Besides, they can also readily accept out-of-area forces to provide the necessary surge in an evolving crisis situation.

Combined arms brigades: The most noteworthy structural innovation thus far has been the formation of the CABs  a modular outfit designed to operate under the CCs. In all, 15 former divisions were reorganised into CABs, with each erstwhile infantry or mechanised division transforming itself into two CABs. These brigades were categorised as light, medium, or heavy in order to facilitate equipping and employment. And, depending on their role, each has been authorised tracked, semi-tracked, or wheeled vehicles. Also, these brigades have been augmented with additional manpower and newer equipment. A combined arms brigade is authorised 5,000-6,000 personnel, while the support brigades are approximately half this strength.

Typically, a CAB comprises four combined arms battalions, an artillery battalion, an air defence battalion, a reconnaissance battalion, a combat support battalion, and logistic services support battalion. These newly formed combined arms battalions are now the basic battle units of the PLA Army. Composed of companies and platoons sourced from multiple branches of the army such as tank units, infantry, artillery, air defence, engineers, and logistics, they combine superior firepower with mobility, to provide effects on the battlefield. Each of these components is in the process of fielding new and more modern equipment, reflecting a high state of readiness and employability.

For instance, long-range rocket batteries equipped with 300-mm PHL 03 multiple rocket launchers, medium- and short-range drones, upgraded tanks, and ICVs, and 122/152-mm towed artillery deployments were frequently deployed by the PLA ground forces during the Eastern Ladakh crisis of 2020. In addition, a number of operational support units for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, electronic warfare, and communication tasks, which now form part of the CABs, were also positioned during the border crisis, underscoring the increased importance of information operations, cyber and electronic warfare, at the tactical level. Border defence forces: Provincial MDs have been responsible for the peacetime security of Chinas territorial borders. However, this underwent a major change during the 2017 reforms, except for Xinjiang and Tibet MDs. Elsewhere, these border defence units have been consolidated under the theatre headquarters. But more importantly, they have been equipped with modern PLA equipment, such as the PHL 03 or 155-mm howitzers, and even with mechanised infantry and air defence battalions. This implies that these units, vested with superior capabilities, remain a vital tripwire to secure contested territories. Besides, they also provide a modicum of staying power, until such time the CABs rush in to stabilise a situation. India might well review the potential of its peacetime border guarding force, notably the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), with regards to its ability to field matching capabilities for maintenance of routine border guarding tasks.

Impact factor Three aspects stand out. First, the impact of the PLAs reforms  in terms of the theatrisation and brigadisation of the force  along the Himalayas is significant. It reflects a shift towards a more integrated approach to border security, with a focus on rapid response, joint operations, and precision strikes. The WTC with its subordinate headquarters caters precisely to these requirements, by enabling the PLA to improve its operational posture and responsiveness, with advanced infrastructure, logistics, and superior firepower. Consequently, the presence of the WTC along the Himalayas increases the risk of escalation to India, particularly in the event of a conflict, or miscalculation. At the same time, the Indian forces are yet to theatrise or brigadise in numbers and quality.

They are currently focused more on human adaptability, terrain familiarity, and decentralised tactics and operations, with an emphasis on a defensive strategy. Second, a brigadised, modern land force adds to Chinas coercive posture. With a marked reduction in its infantry and mechanised divisions, and a sizeable increase in its CABs (light, medium, and heavy) duly supported by a commensurate complement of supporting brigades (artillery, air defence, engineers, SOF, and others), the PLA land force is possibly the largest, most lethal, and agile force after the United States Army in Asia. In its new avatar, this brigadised land-force can dart down to any of its 14 land borders with greater mobility, to deliver effects in a possible conflict. Even if there are murmurs about the PLA struggling with the brigadisation of its force, it is reasonably evident that the PLA leadership will remain resolute in its endeavour to operationalise it against all odds.

This is so for two reasons: One, the PLA realises that the time and space problem posed by its far-flung peripheries can only be addressed by fielding a modular and agile force capable of transcending the constraints of multi-modal infrastructure, huge logistics, and harsh terrain and climatic conditions. Two, if the PLA Army is required to quickly deploy in a crisis situation along the borders abutting India, it can now do it with ease given superior road and rail infrastructure. Two new alignments, the G-580 and G-695, amongst other strategic road and rail projects have gained immense attention. The former would enable speedier mobilisation from the Xinjiang region to the Aksai Chin sector, while the latter, when completed, would allow PLA brigades to fully exploit the interior lines of communication to deploy or sidestep its units along the western and middle sectors of the Line of Actual Control.

And third, the impressive growth of the PLAs Army aviation and special forces. Today, all CCs are authorised with aviation and SOF brigades, and they can provide a quick response action. Their primary role is to provide support to ground forces in a crisis situation. A total of 15 brigades of each type are now authorised. Two of these brigades are also designated for air assault tasks. While the aviation brigades are yet to grow to full strength, the sheer numbers indicate a formidable helicopter-borne capability. Once completed, an aviation brigade would hold 70-80 helicopters of all types. These would include transport (Z-8, Z-9 series) and attack (WZ-10 and WZ-19) helicopters organised into six battalions with about 12 aircraft each. As this capability grows in mass and quality, the PLA could pose a serious challenge to the Indian ground forces along the Himalayan borders.

Correspondingly, the PLA is also deeply invested into the creation of its SOF. The SOF brigades are now assigned to each CCs. PLA SOF units are equipped with advanced technology and weaponry, enabling them to conduct a range of missions, including special reconnaissance, direct action, and unconventional warfare. They have also been assigned to the Tibetan and Xinjiang MDs, highlighting the importance the PLA accords to the contested borders with India. In fact, they were extensively deployed during the Eastern Ladakh crisis of 2020 to cover the open flanks of the PLA regular units. All this underscores the importance that the PLA accords to the employment of special forces in any future conflict. While some potential challenges they might face include lack of operational experience, or adequacy of rotary wing or fixed wing lift capacity, they can be surely expected to enhance their capabilities and effectiveness in the coming years.

The reorganisation challenge Indias military challenge is how to counter the darting PLA CABs in a possible conflict with China. This would entail the following aspects: First, how soon can India brigadise its land force to operate along the borders with China? It might entail doing away with the divisional headquarters, to flatten the command structure by placing its reorganised brigades directly under the corps headquarters. Second, how potent would these brigade-size forces be in comparison with the PLA brigades and battalions and its supporting elements (artillery, aviation, SOF, and others)? And third, how can Indias border infrastructure be rapidly expanded to enable speedy mobilisation of its forces in a crisis situation? In the absence of matching infrastructure, a brigadised Indian land force, however potent and well-organised, would be stymied from presenting itself in time and space, or at a place of its own choosing, to battle the Chinese.

In this context, the brigadisation of Indias land force becomes a structural necessity. Its current three-tiered structure  of corps, divisions, and brigades  dilutes the advantage accruing from the reorganised brigades (the proposed Rudra brigades) as they would not compare with the two-tiered structure now adopted by the PLA. Such structural disadvantage would be least desired in any conflict, particularly against a stronger adversary like China. This implies that Indias structural challenge lies at two levels: One, of urgent theatrisation of the three services and two, the brigadisation of its land force. The Indian armed forces might do well to order a force structure review for its western and northern borders, where necessary modular brigades are cast out of the existing infantry and mechanised divisions for better control and employment of forces. This brigadisation of the army would ensure that more hands are brought to the table, to fight the fight, and with as little a logistical tail as possible to support the battle. An agile, lethal brigadised force operating directly under a corps headquarters would not only present a low-signature on a transparent battlefield, but also have the ability to aggregate and disaggregate with speed, dictated by the battle conditions. Militaries in recent decades have seen a quantum jump in the way they equip, train, and organise for war. The prime drivers have been the fielding of cutting-edge technologies for war. New ideas and technologies usher in new dynamics, necessitating complimentary changes in doctrines, structures, tactics, and practices. But then, shedding old ideas and practices is a challenge, as militaries tend to hedge against unexpected consequences of change. The issue gets even more complicated when change is seen in the context of the past ways of waging war.The Chinese military has done well to surmount this predicament. It has been successful in ushering in a qualitative change, and at massive scale, while continuing to exploit its old and proven methods. India could take a leaf or two out of the Chinese playbook to address its structural infirmities, and temper it with unique Indian military characteristics and its vast combat experience. India might do
E uropes largest nuclear warship France confirmed its plan to develop the Porte-Avions Nouvelle Generation (PANG), a next-generation nuclear aircraft carrier, at a projected cost of $12 billion, Reuters reported. French President Emmanuel Macron officially announced the beginning of its construction. The PANG, which would be developed by French defence firms Chantiers de lAtlantique and the Naval Group in the port city of Saint-Nazaire, is expected to be deployed in 2038. It would be the largest warship ever built in Europe, replacing the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier. The warship will have two to three electromagnetic aircraft launch systems from General Atomics, along with directed-energy weapons.

Denmark to get advanced US missiles Also Read Zhang Youxia, top Chinese general purged after 'serious violations of law' The United States (US) approved a potential foreign military sale in a deal worth $951 million for 236 advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles  extended range (AMRAAM-ER) to Denmark in December 2025. The RTX-produced missiles will arm Denmark with modern, capable air-to-air munitions for its aircraft, and surface-to-air munitions for its ground-based air defenses, according to the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency. The US had earlier approved a $3.73 billion contract for an integrated battle command system and 200 AIM-120C-8 AMRAAM missiles to Denmark. Photo: Reuters Chinas most extensive war game China conducted a massive military exercise around Taiwan, called Justice Mission 2025, in December 2025. It involved live-fire drills, rocket launches, simulating blockades, and extensive naval and aerial missions, especially after the US arms sale to Taiwan.

Around 71 Chinese warplanes and 24 navy and coastguard vessels were operating in close proximity to Taiwan, according to its defence ministry. China aimed to test its sea-aerial coordination and target detection and neutralisation by sending its forces. Japan launches final Mogami-class frigate Japanese firm Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) introduced the 12th and final Mogami-class frigate, the JS Yoshii (FFM-12), for the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force at its Nagasaki shipyard, in December 2025. The multi-role guided-missile frigate is expected to be commissioned by fiscal year 2026. The Mogami-class vessels are armed with a 127mm naval gun, surface-to-air missiles, anti-ship missiles, anti-submarine rockets, and torpedoes.

In February 2024, Japans defence ministry had granted MHI a $371 million contract to produce the final frigate. Photo: SAAB GlobalEye in the French sky France ordered two GlobalEye airborne early warning and control aircraft from Swedish firm Saab in a deal worth $1.3 billion in December 2025, as per Saabs media statement. The deliveries are slated from 2029 to 2032, and also include an option for two additional aircraft. The GlobalEye is based on the Bombardier Global 6000/6500 business jet, with a maximum take-off weight of 45,132 kilograms. It comprises a multidomain sensor suite, an automatic identification system, and an electro-optical sensor. The platform has a range of over 648 kilometres (km) and an endurance of over 11 hours.

Boeing gets B-52 engine deal from the US The US Air Force granted the defence firm Boeing a $2.04 billion contract to advance the B-52 commercial engine replacement programme, the Pentagon said in December last year. The deal encompasses post-critical design review development, including system integration, and the modification and trials of two B-52 aircraft equipped with the latest Rolls-Royce F130 engines and related subsystems. The production is slated to be completed by 2033. The engines will boost reliability, fuel efficiency, and electrical power at a lower sustainment cost. Photo: Raykar Worlds first autonomous close-formation flight Turkish defence firm Baykar successfully executed the first-ever completely autonomous close formation flight between two jet-driven Kizilelma unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) during a trial flight held late last year, the firm said in a statement. This is expected to enhance Turkiyes artificial intelligence (AI)-driven air combat capabilities and bolster its stance in

next-generation unmanned aviation. The UCAVs relied fully on onboard AI, sensors, and real-time data sharing, and observed precise spatial alignment while travelling at high subsonic speed. Taiwan to make 1,600 attack USVs Taiwan plans to boost deterrence by manufacturing 1,600 attack unmanned surface vessels (USVs) under a proposed special defence budget of $39.8 billion, according to the Taiwan News. The countrys Navy Command is slated to commission the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) as its main developer. This would permit NCSIST to integrate command-and-control, sensors, guidance modules, and explosives into a full weapons system, officials said. If finalised, partial deployment could commence in 2027.
N igeria gets aerial combat boost Nigeria is set to acquire M-346FA combat aircraft and AW-109 attack helicopters from Italian defence firm Leonardo in a $1.4 billion deal this year, the Business Insider Africa reported. The contract includes about 24 jets and 10 helicopters, and the airframes will be delivered throughout 2026. The M-346FAs strike and surveillance capabilities would be complemented by the AW-109s enhancement of troop mobility, reconnaissance, medical evacuation, and rapid-response operations. This acquisition is part of Nigerias effort to expand its air forces operational reach amid internal security crises. West Africas first anti-ship missile Also Read Seif al-Islam, son of late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, shot dead The Senegalese Navy conducted its maiden trials of an anti-ship missile, Marte MK2/N, from a 58 S-class offshore patrol vessel in late 2025. The missile, produced by the European defence firm MBDA, was fired at a decommissioned CTM landing craft.

Developed by the French firm Piriou, the 62-metre vessel deployed the missile, boasting a strike range of about 30 kilometres (km). This testing bolsters Senegals strategic maritime defence. It also aligns with Naval Strategy 2050, the countrys plan to forge a modern naval capability. US strikes ISIS in Africa The United States (US) conducted strikes on the Islamic State group (ISIS) militants in Nigerias Sokoto State in December last year, as announced by US President Donald Trump and Nigerias information minister. A total of 16 GPS-guided precision munitions were deployed using MQ-9 Reaper drones, the minister said. The strikes, launched from maritime platforms stationed in the Gulf of Guinea, involved Nigerias armed forces. The country is facing multiple armed conflicts, including a jihadist insurgency since 2009.

Militancy in the Sahel spills over Insurgency violence by groups linked with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State movement in the Sahel region, especially in countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, is affecting countries along Africas western coast, the global conflict monitor Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) noted in its Conflict Watchlist 2026. ACLED observed the consolidation of a new front line in the Benin, Niger, and Nigeria borderlands. It added that Sahelian and Nigerian militancy theatres are gradually integrating, extending from Mali to western Nigeria. Lack of international support and leadership in regional efforts have fuelled the situation.

Morocco orders H225M helicopters Morocco ordered 10 H225M helicopters from Airbus towards the end of 2025 for its air forces combat search and rescue operations, according to the companys media statement. The H225M will be armed with a double hoist installation, searchlight, a Safran Euroflir 410 electro-optical system, machine guns, and an electronic warfare system. It is suitable for special operations, tactical transport, and medical evacuation, and has a maximum speed of 324 km per hour. Suicide drones intercepted in Sudan The Sudanese military intercepted numerous suicide drones of the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in January, the Army stated.
O ver nearly 70 years, India has presented itself as a member and protector of what today is called the Global South. In the increasingly turbulent world of US President Donald Trumps second term and Chinas relentless rise, is the Global South a vital mooring for Indias foreign policy? How important is India to the Global South, especially compared to China? Can India have influence in the putative bloc? The answer is that the Global South may not be vital to Indias interests, but it cannot be ignored and dismissed. At the same time, overblown claims about Indias role in the Global South are unwarranted. The Western powers and, crucially for India, China, have much greater power and influence. India will be better served to work closely with a coalition of other middle powers to balance against the United States (US) and China and to project its influence in the Global South.

Successive Indian governments, whether ideologically of the centre, left-of-centre, or right-of-centre, have identified the countrys interests with the poor countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America and have asserted a desire for leadership of the putative bloc. Most recently, at the third Voice of Global South Summit in August 2024 in New Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the meeting which hosted 21 heads of state, 34 foreign ministers, and 118 ministers and vice ministers. According to the Ministry of External Affairs, he reiterated Indias commitment to share its experiences and capabilities with partner countries of the Global South.

The Modi government takes pride in its advocacy for the group. At the G20 summit in New Delhi in 2023, it was India that championed the inclusion of the African Union in future gatherings, and this is held as a badge of honour and a necessity. In his book, Why Bharat Matters (2024), External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar writes: As it ascends the international hierarchy, India speaks not just for itself but for a larger Global South constituency as well For India, this is both a moral responsibility as well as an expression of global strategy India is well served by investing deeply in the Global South.

Also Read Good neighbours, friends': Xi Jinping hails India ties on Republic Day What is the Global South that we in India claim to represent and lead? The term Global South has never been clearly defined in terms of who belongs in it. Probably the best way to think about belonging is in economic terms. If we define the Global South countries as those with a per capita income below the global average (approximately $13,000, according to World Bank data), then in 2024 the category consists of some 120 countries, with Malaysia and China at the top of the group with a per capita income of just over $13,000 and Burundi at the bottom with a per capita income of less than $300. India, with a per capita income of just below $2,700, is firmly a member of the Global South in economic terms  now and for the foreseeable future.

Who, then, are the 120 or so countries of the Global South? If we leave out China and the other countries with per capita income above $13,000, they are primarily from Asia and Africa: roughly two-thirds are Asian and African countries, the rest being from South America (only three countries are above the global average), Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, and Oceania. How much economic weight do these Global South countries have? Probably no more than 20 per cent of the global economy in nominal terms. The groups weight comes instead from demography and votes: it has 60 per cent of the worlds population and 65 per cent of the votes in the United Nations (UN).

Why is the Global South important to India? First, the blocs weight of population and votes in the UN make it important. In dealing with the great powers and the developed world, Indian interests can be served by mobilising these countries. The opposition of such huge numbers to the will of the dominant powers could stop them from policies inimical to India (and others in the Global South). Better still, the support of these societies and states may help shape policies beneficial to India and others. So, the Global South may have stopping- and shaping-power. Second, the Global South is an important geopolitical arena vis-a-vis China. Despite the recent detente with China, India must be wary of ceding influence to it, including in the Global South. China could wield its influence not only to deny India economic access to key Global South countries but also to undercut the Indian quest for global status. India needs Global South countries to stand up to China and stand up for India. When UN reforms eventually roll round, Indian diplomats will need the strong support of the Global South if India is to gain permanent membership of the UN Security Council in the teeth of Chinese opposition.

Third, the Global South represents economic opportunities for India. At 20 per cent of the global economy (approximately $23-24 trillion in total nominal gross domestic product or GDP), it is in aggregate larger than the European Union and China. It represents markets for Indian exports, particularly at a time when India may be losing export orders in the US and possibly elsewhere due to US tariffs and other punitive measures. The Global South is also potentially an investment destination for Indian companies. Plus, Global South countries, particularly in South America and parts of Africa, are energy- and mineral-rich, and could help diversify Indias sources of crucial inputs into its growing economy.

If the Global South is important to India, is India important to the Global South? The comparison with China is revealing. China brings far more to the table than India. And this is likely to be true for many years to come, for four reasons. For one thing, China is an economic powerhouse, nearly five times Indias size. This means that it provides development aid, investments, and goods and services on a scale that India cannot match. It is also a huge market for Global South exports, once again beyond anything that India can offer. Beyond this, China is a geopolitical balancing power in a way that India is not. If the Global South needs balancing power against the US and other Western powers, the only real possibility is China  with its massive economic, military, and technological capacities. It is not so much that Global South countries ally themselves formally or informally with China to stave off Western pressures. Instead, the threat that these countries can work more closely with China, and give it preferential economic and strategic treatment, provides the Global South with greater room for manoeuvre. It bears saying that China can be a balancer within the Global South as well  for one Global South country against another.

A third Chinese advantage is its UN and other multilateral power. Chinas UN veto power can come in handy against Western censure and intervention. Already, China and Global South countries work together in the UN to push back against Western moves on human rights violations. China also has influence in other multilateral forums such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and various other international development agencies (for instance, the Asian Development Bank). Through the BRICS New Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (all of which China dominates), and bilateral aid, it is an alternative to the established lending agencies. Here again, India cannot match China.

Chinas influence is also a function of its soft power: the power of attraction. In terms of popularity, Indian and Chinese movies, television dramas, music, and food may be on par; but what makes China more attractive is the fact that it is authoritarian and that this seems to deliver in terms of governance effectiveness. Global South countries marvel at how far China has come and with what speed and, rightly or wrongly, attribute this to its technocratic authoritarianism. On the other hand, when they look at Indias troubled governance, they see either a picture of what they are  noisy and seemingly disorganised  or what they do not want to become. In the Lowy Institute Asia Power Index 2025, on a measure of cultural influence (the Indexs proxy for soft power), India ranks fourth in Asia, behind the US, China, and Japan and just ahead of Australia. The Singapore-based Institute of Southeast Asian Studies annual State of Southeast Asia survey paints an even less flattering picture. It shows how little the region looks to India for leadership or inspiration: India is thought to have virtually no influence (in the company of the United Kingdom and South Korea).

So, is India of little use to the Global South, and should it give up on the Global South? India is a source of medicines and vaccines, food (rice, cereals), and some manufacturing products (electronics, automotives, chemicals, textiles). In addition, Indian government training programmes and lately its expertise in Unified Payments Interface are attractive. India has also been a stalwart in UN peacekeeping. But its main use for the Global South is the ability of its diplomats to say things well on the international stage and to speak truth to power when others are too vulnerable to do so. As for giving up on the Global South, for the reasons shared earlier, India cannot walk away from countries in Africa and Asia in particular.

What of the future? By itself, Indias influence and role in the Global South is limited and cannot match China, but with a group of middle powers it could work more closely with the poor countries of the world to the advantage of all sides. This middle-power grouping would include Brazil, Mexico, France, Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and Japan. No grouping is perfect. But with just 10 members (including India), it is small and manageable. These are weighty regional powers, and together they have about 18-20 per cent of global GDP, roughly as much as the entire Global South. They are adept at working global institutions and are friendly to India. They are also strongly linked to China and the US and yet do not shy away from taking an independent stance on select issues.

Middle or regional powers, rather like the middle classes in a society, are especially well positioned to engage those stronger and weaker than themselves. The powers in this G10, by virtue of their material and diplomatic capabilities, matter to China and the US as well as the smaller countries of the world. So, they possess the credibility to communicate effectively with the two superpowers and with lesser capitals. To be effective, this G10 must avoid theatre. The work of the coalition should be private, consultative, and nimble. Professional diplomats, special envoys, and national security advisors, and not publicity-grabbing foreign ministers and heads of government, should lead the continuous flow of ideas and interventions for real problem-solving. Circumstance and short- and longer-term challenges that are amenable to the groups efforts should dictate what the group does (rather than fanciful, overloaded agendas that become rigid and intractable). And finally, the 10 governments should maintain a constant flow of consultations and discussions, mostly informal and in the shadows.
I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate, and while the debate goes on, the canal does also. When President Theodore Roosevelt made that remark, he was explaining how the United States (US) secured control over the Panama Canal by acting first and legitimising its action later. For much of the 20th century, treating nearby countries as one's own backyard was not unusual among great powers. In the Western hemisphere, it shaped how the US dealt with the rise of socialism in Latin American countries through coups, military interventions, and assassinations. But as the Iron Curtain fell in Europe, the rules of multilateralism and sovereignty defined the Western way of shaping the rules-based global world order. That belief held for a generation, until Donald Trump came back to power.

On January 3, 2026, the US launched Operation Absolute Resolve, which resulted in the capture of Venezuelas President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in Caracas. The operation was condemned by local and international bodies as illegal. Like Roosevelt, Trump did not seek a congressional vote. Neither did he obtain authorisation from the United Nations Security Council for his military actions. US intervention in Venezuela has also increased fears that other Latin American countries like Cuba, Mexico, and Colombia will follow next. Clearly, the rules-based international order is under major stress, and Trump is a big factor in that. He is threatening traditional allies and defending the use of American force wherever he chooses, Michael Albertus, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, told the Blueprint.

Also Read Venezuela's Machado says close ally kidnapped after prison release I believe we are witnessing the end of the prior global era and the beginning of a new one that will be characterised more by force and the projection of military power than in recent decades, he added. That logic is laid out in Trump's 2026 National Defense Strategy, which argued that US interests are under threat throughout the Western Hemisphere, and traced this danger back to what it describes as a loss of US dominance in its own neighbourhood. Invoking the Monroe Doctrine and Roosevelt corollary, the document contended that the US erred by taking its supremacy for granted even as it began to erode. This erosion not only jeopardised US access to strategic geography but has made the Americas less stable and secure, undermining both US interests and those of its regional partners.

Reports indicate that the Trump administration is considering a naval blockade for oil imports to force the collapse of Cuba's communist government. Colombia, too, is under constant threat of US military action. In the near term, especially while Republicans control Congress, we are likely to see more unilateral action, Evan Ellis, research professor of Latin American studies at the US Army War College, told the Blueprint. In the broader context of President Trumps focus on the Western hemisphere and threats that directly affect the US, Venezuela emerged as a priority, he added. The operation in Venezuela aligned closely with the priorities laid out by Trumps National Security Strategy document in 2025, which seeks to reassert US primacy in the Western hemisphere and pledges to keep the region free of hostile foreign incursion. It also aims to assert and enforce a Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which Trump rebranded as the Donroe Doctrine.

A history of intervention Venezuela is not an exception  it is a policy pattern. Since its inception, the US has treated Latin America as a strategic zone that needs to be under its influence. This approach was formalised under the Monroe Doctrine in 1823 by US President James Monroe and his Secretary of State John Quincy Adams: it warned European powers against interference in the Western hemisphere. While it was framed as a defensive principle, it has shaped decades of direct interventionist military approaches to secure US interests in Latin America, often driven by corporate interests.

In the case of Guatemala, the United Fruit Company, a US-based multinational corporation, was the single largest landowner and employer in Central America and controlled vast tracts of land, railroads, and ports, which allowed it to maintain a near monopoly in exporting tropical fruits. Even when the democratically elected government of President Jacobo Arbenz attempted minor land reforms and sought to curb the company's influence in the early 1950s, the US government saw it as a Communist menace. The US Central Intelligence Agency orchestrated a coup detat in 1954, ending the Arbenz government. The military then installed a dictatorship to govern Guatemala. Out of the coup came decades of repression and civil war.

During the Cuban wars of independence against Spain, the US effectively controlled the islands affairs through the Platt Amendment, as well as through embargoes and its display of force. In the 1950s, American business became intertwined with Fulgencio Batistas military regime, especially in the capital city, Havana, as portrayed in the 1974 film The Godfather Part II. As Fidel Castro rose to power in 1959, there was an effort to overthrow him through the Bay of Pigs invasion. All this culminated in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The Americas became the US chessboard during the Cold War. The US invaded Panama in 1989 when Manuel Noriega, the countrys de facto ruler and a former US asset, had fallen out of favour.

The US has used the war on drugs as an excuse to attack countries in Latin America. One such example is Colombia, where the US, through Plan Colombia (2000-2015), poured billions of dollars into military aid to Colombian forces against left-wing militias, which resulted in mass civilian casualties and human rights abuses. It has also occupied Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Honduras at various points, often to protect US security and commercial interests. In each case, the Monroe Doctrine was more than its legal expression. What the doctrine truly achieved was to introduce the principle that events in Latin America could not be treated solely as matters for national security concerns but involved the US commercial interests.

The oil rush In Venezuelas case, commercial interests go along with the security rationale. It has the largest proven oil reserves in the world, but years of sanctions, mismanagement, and isolation have locked US companies out of the fray. For context, Venezuela has an estimated 300 billion barrels of oil reserves, which is one-fifth of the worlds total oil reserves and 13 per cent more than Saudi Arabia, yet it ranks 21st in global oil production. Due to tremendous mismanagement, Venezuelas energy infrastructure has been allowed to rot, Smita Purushottam, former Indian ambassador to Venezuela, told the Blueprint. She added that in 2015, Venezuela was producing between two and three million barrels per day.

The US has already seized Venezuelan oil tankers and has authorised the sale of Venezuelan oil in the global market. At the same time, Venezuelas national assembly under acting President Delcy Rodriguez is advancing legislation to open the oil sector to private and foreign companies. But the core problem is that Venezuelan oil is extra-heavy crude from the Orinoco Belt reserves, which is too viscous to export or flow. This necessitates significant blending with imported lighter diluting agents like naphtha and requires steam injection for extraction, which is a technically demanding process. A huge amount of work is required to restore those oil fields. Given the current oil glut, it may not make sense for US companies to invest heavily to increase production, Purushottam said.

For this reason, many companies are sceptical about investing in Venezuela. The US multinational oil company Exxons chief executive officer Darren Woods called the country uninvestable. He was later rebuked for his frankness by Trump, who said he might keep Exxon out of Venezuela. The most immediate contender to lead the effort is the US multinational company Chevron: it had been operating in the country under special licences, including joint ventures with the Venezuelan state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela. Chevron already has infrastructure and personnel on the ground. US oilfield service firms such as SLB (formerly Schlumberger) are also in discussions with the White House about scaling up operations, which could help rehabilitate ageing wells and boost output.

Indian oil companies like Reliance are already in talks with the US for securing a permit to buy Venezuelan oil in order to diversify their energy supplies amid rising pressure to reduce Russian oil purchases. Reliance was already pumping 63,000 barrels per day from Venezuela until early 2025, when it had to halt operations due to tightened sanctions. The way forward US interests in Venezuela extend beyond oil. Analysts argue that oil, while significant, was not the initial motivation. While US companies have long been interested in Venezuelas reserves, energy considerations were secondary to concerns about security and geopolitical influence.

There is interest in its rare earth minerals, which include vast reserves of bauxite, tantalum, niobium, and other metals. These reserves are very critical to defence technology, and the US administration has stressed that it needs these minerals for national security. However, even if US companies try to mine these rare earth minerals from Venezuela, these minerals are usually sent to China for refining as it holds a near monopoly in processing and refining these minerals. For many Venezuelans who have lived in a crippled economy under the late Hugo Chavez, Maduros removal was a moment of relief. But the situation on the ground has not changed much: Venezuelas economy has contracted by roughly 80 per cent over the last decade.

Under Rodriguez, Maduros regime is still in power. While Maduro remains the de jure president in the eyes of his administration, he is currently in US custody facing drug trafficking charges. The US had previously lauded the opposition figure and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Maria Corina Machado. But Trump has cast her aside, citing she lacks popular support. Venezuela could eventually move towards change, but the repressive apparatus remains intact; the intelligence services, militias, surveillance systems, and Cuban support structures are still in place, Ellis said. For ordinary Venezuelans, the consequences can be dire: economic recovery can be slow, as Venezuela owes tens of billions of dollars to countries like China through oil-backed loans. US control over export revenues could disrupt these arrangements and raise the prospect of prolonged disputes over repayment.

Restoring a democratic government that pursues a more market-based economic path would benefit the country, Purushottam said. One major benefit for the US would be the return of the millions of Venezuelan refugees, nearly seven to eight million people, who fled due to man-made famines, economic mismanagement, and political repression, she added. For the US, the intervention was less about Maduro than about restoring unquestioned control over the Western hemisphere. In that sense, it is not a return to the Monroe Doctrines warning to outsiders but to Roosevelts corollary. The Roosevelt corollary reflected a much stronger United States asserting dominance in the hemisphere through military and political power. President Trumps approach resembles this interpretation, Ellis said.
T he silent sentry is a 3D-printed grey-coloured robot with one large eye that slides on a rail. The robot, which can be controlled remotely or functions autonomously within set parameters, uses artificial intelligence (AI) for surveillance such as human detection and facial recognition. Developed by the Indian Army, the robot can be installed on fences along the countrys border with Pakistan. Last year, a video showed a patrolling robot on a mountain in China, watching India from across the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the de facto border; in another video, humanoid robots were seen at Chinas border crossing with Vietnam. The authenticity of the videos on social media is unclear but both emphasise how national borders are being secured through the use of AI, the technology behind programming machines to perform human tasks.

China has been pushing its military to adopt AI for almost a decade. The United States (US) has made complete AI integration before 2030 a part of its military strategy. Where is India, which will host an international AI summit this month? Indias armed forces are adopting AI, interviews suggest, but analysts urge advancing it. Or else, they say, the Also Read Govt to provide AI infrastructure, GPUs to universities for skilling already significant technological gaps with the US and China will widen. Globally, AI was formally born during a US university conference in the 1950s. But a large language model (LLM) was created only in 2020. Commercial AI took off with ChatGPT two years later.

The importance of AI in defence is set to grow, Indian Army chief General Upendra Dwivedi said at an annual news conference in January. To enhance multidomain combat readiness, the Army is undergoing changes, including moving towards an aviation brigade and a rocket-missile unit. The Armys modernisation priorities with AI are knitting its legacy equipment, improving the mobility and protection of troops and physical assets, strengthening network operations, data centricity and space and satellite communication, and acquiring more new-generation systems, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and counter-UAV technology. To modernise logistics, robots and mule drones have been inducted in large numbers, but that is not enough, Dwivedi said.

Moving ahead, we need AI practically everywhere, be it force visualisation or application or preservation. Indias armed forces are thought to have used AIs predictive analysis of adversary behaviour and target identification during the four-day India-Pakistan conflict last year, when India struck multiple locations in Pakistan with clear precision. It is important for our kill chain, that from the sensor to the shooter, the connection is stable and timely. We have used this kill chain and because it was effective, we were able to address the target in the right place, Dwivedi said. The term kill chain is a military concept of attack. His remarks come amid a surge in the deployment of drones and other aerial items globally, in the contested air littoral, the low-altitude space between the Earths surface and a height of 10,000 feet, above which most piloted aircraft fly.

In India, the vast majority of that space is filled with army assets, Dwivedi said, adding that software for the management system of our flying equipment will be created. In the future, the Army, the Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force (IAF) will be able to connect to the same systems, which is why AI integration is essential. While India won the military conflict in May, media reports said Indian fighter jets were hit by Pakistan (and India hit Pakistans fighter jets). The IAF has not confirmed or denied that its jets were hit (only that losses are part of war) but said all IAF pilots had returned safely.

The hard lesson from Operation Sindoor is that advanced jets and missiles need wrap-around technologies, especially during bigger conflicts, military analyst Lieutenant General Raj Shukla (retired) said. A Rafale (fighter jet) with fancy missiles is useless if you dont have cyber (capability) to degrade the adversarys command and control, or if you dont have space to target it. He cited Ukraine, which does not have a conventional air force or navy but has been able to deploy AI to sustain an asymmetrical war against Russia, a traditional military power, for four years. Ukraines Soviet-era defence-industrial base aside, the country had American technology entrepreneur Alex Karp build an AI-enabled software-driven command-and-control system.

That has brought down decision-making time to nanoseconds and the kill chains have been compressed to minutes. They have developed these lethal frontiers where tanks, infantry, any movement is picked up and neutralised in 5-to-6 minutes, on a frontage of, say, 600-700 kilometres (km), Shukla said. If India replicates that approach along its border with Pakistan and China, he said, see what it will do. Karp was on Time magazines list of the worlds 100 most influential people in 2025. India needs top technology talent, large language models and training, data centres, computing power and energy supplies to become AI-rich in defence, Shukla said.

Ongoing work to publicly release Indias first national security strategy could offer more clarity and set expectations in the longer term for an AI strategy for defence, Antoine Levesques, senior fellow, International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think-tank, wrote in 2024. So far, though, no such strategy document is publicly available. An AI-based language translator (Graphic: Ajaya Mohanty) So far, though, no such strategy document is publicly available. Application layer Indias Defence Research and Development Organisation had made more than 75 AI products, ranging from autonomous robots and cyber defence to AI-based surveillance systems, by 2022. The government had then said 100 crore ($12 million) each would be given to the three services annually for AI support (some more funds have been announced since). China, by contrast, is estimated to spend at least $2-3 billion on military AI annually, and the US some $13 billion (figures vary).

Lieutenant General Harsh Chhibber, director-general, information systems, Indian Army, said in an interview with the Blueprint on January 23 that the Armys current AI integration focuses on data digitisation, AI-enabled decision support, analytics and staff augmentation. AI is being employed to enhance situational awareness, reduce (human) cognitive pressure, and improve the speed and quality of decision-making under full human control. A structured effort in the (Armys) year of networking and data centricity is under way to digitise brigades and higher formations by converting legacy, siloed and paper-based data into structured digital repositories. This includes operational, logistics, personnel, equipment and administrative data. This digitisation forms the foundational layer for meaningful AI application and data-driven command and control.

Among products, the Army has Ekam AI, an AI-as-a-service platform, to tie its use across operational and administrative domains, working as a backbone for applications such as AI chat, document-related work and specialised military bots. It focuses on automating routine staff function, improving consistency and accuracy of outputs, and enabling faster access to authorised information, while ensuring data sovereignty and compliance with the Armys secure networks. Another is Sama Drishti, an AI-enabled tool that assists formation commanders and the rank in understanding real-time operational scenarios. It allows authorised users to interact with operational and intelligence data using natural language, akin to engaging with a digital staff officer. The system interprets commander intent, securely retrieves only role- and responsibility-specific data, and synthesises it into clear, operationally relevant insights, including narrative assessments and GIS (geographic information system)-based outputs, Chhibber said.

GIS helps the military analyse spatial data such as of terrains and from satellite imagery. Planned AI applications and platforms include: Ekam LLM, the first sovereign language-learning model in Indian defence, which is being developed; and agentic AI, an autonomous system that can meet complex objectives with minimal human intervention. In addition, some 100 AI agents will be hosted on air-gapped (isolated) army-captive data networks. The Army might use AI for independent tactical or lethal decision-making later. The Army continues to operate under human-in-the-loop and human-on-the-loop principles, ensuring that command authority and accountability remain firmly with human commanders. Fully autonomous combat roles and delayering of decision-making is in progress, he said.

Human in the loop is when people improve the efficiency of a machine through active participation and human on the loop is people providing feedback to a machine to improve its performance. Large-scale predictive AI applications such as forecasting operational outcomes, logistics demand, equipment health or personnel trends are still in the development stage in the Army. Such capabilities depend on sustained availability of data, consistency and integration across formations and systems. Integrating existing weapons platforms and combat systems with AI-driven functions is also in process. The integration of AI into weapons, particularly for targeting, engagement-support or fire-control requires extensive validation, high reliability under combat conditions and alignment with established doctrines. Consequently, such applications are being pursued cautiously and incrementally, Chhibber said.

The overall adoption of AI remains primarily at the application layer, with several important areas still under development or evaluation. An image-and-video repository has been created for AI models with more than 200,000 images of army equipment. Shakti, another data project, when fully developed, will be a land vector command-control and communication system (digital battlefield management platform) that is pivotal for sensor-shooter integration. Data security is vulnerable. The Army is working on maintaining data integrity to ensure it remains consistent over time, regardless of internal or external influences. Users of the organisations data assets will rely on the same information for decision-making and analysis. The Army is developing applications with inherent security consideration in mind. It has also set up more than 100 auto weather stations along the countrys northern borders that provide warning of natural disasters within 100 kilometres of the international border (with Pakistan) and the LAC. Doppler radars are being installed for long-range weather detection. A canopy inspector for fighter jets that can detect defects based on AI inputs (Photo: Ministry of Defence) An image-and-video repository has been created for AI models with more than 200,000 images of army equipment. Shakti, another data project, when fully developed, will be a land vector command-control and communication system (digital battlefield management platform) that is pivotal for sensor-shooter integration. Data security is vulnerable. The Army is working on maintaining data integrity to ensure it remains consistent over time, regardless of internal or external influences. Users of the organisations data assets will rely on the same information for decision-making and analysis.The Army is developing applications with inherent security consideration in mind. It has also set up more than 100 auto weather stations along the countrys northern borders that provide warning of natural disasters within 100 kilometres of the international border (with Pakistan) and the LAC. Doppler radars are being installed for long-range weather detection.

The OODA loop The IAF does not share information about the use of AI in operations. According to a source, its air-gapped network and predictive analysis were used effectively during Operation Sindoor. By many accounts, the IAF has been at the forefront of AI adoption among the three services (a global trend)  also because it has technology-heavy equipment. The IAF is refining its language-learning models, and uses AI in blockchain, digitisation, encryption, data certification, software systems and medical work, as well as to improve supply chains, including during conflicts, and to find alternative solutions. The source said AI shortens the OODA loop, short for observe, orient, decide, act  the military decision-making model proposed by a US Air Force officer in the 1970s.

An IAF source with direct knowledge of AI adoption, said, National security decisions cannot be left to machines, which is why we have the human-AI teaming approach, especially for operations. The AI-integration framework has been built upon decades of modernisation in the IAF. The foundational steps were taken over 2018-22, with the main objective of analysing and utilising a huge amount of data collected. As India shifted its defence policy to self-reliance, the need to create an informatised system became clear. The IAFs AI cell was set up in 2019. To meet real-world operational challenges and to keep up with technological changes, Udaan or the Unit for Digitisation, Automation, AI and Networking, was formed in 2021 (and the IAFs AI Centre of Excellence in 2022). Udaan (flight in Hindi), where only IAF engineers work, specialises in computing, big data analysis and developing applications. The tasks include absorbing operational data across applications and automation integration.

We have an AI suite and the natural language-processing capability (end-to-end), the source said. In terms of document analysis, we are not looking at AI to just summarise but for speech synopsis, say, when operational data is generated. All the data is transcribed and converted to text. An AI-enabled, rail-mounted robot (Photos: Ministry of Defence; Graphic: Ajaya Mohanty) We have an AI suite and the natural language-processing capability (end-to-end), the source said. In terms of document analysis, we are not looking at AI to just summarise but for speech synopsis, say, when operational data is generated. All the data is transcribed and converted to text. Other AI use includes predictive maintenance of equipment (including radars and aeroengines), based on an analysis of historical data, or AI-enabled prior knowledge of repairs and service life; personnel management (whos the right fit for what job and where); and logistics (where spares are located and the fastest way to get them).

A major challenge is that the IAF has a mix of old (some more than 30 years) and new platforms and systems, which in turn means heterogenous data. For AI to function optimally, it has to make the correct data distinction. All datasets must meet the metadata standard. Plus, data-use requires creating standardised guidelines and frameworks that work within the air-gapped network. The IAF plans to acquire hardware and integrate it with the software developed internally for new AI applications later this year. The visual maintenance of aircraft is done by drones. Conversational AI is used to study air accidents, including those caused by bird hits.

Wing Commander Prateek Thapar (retired), who was the first officer in the IAFs AI cell, said AI-enabled image intelligence is very important for precision strikes by missiles. Intelligence analysis in general is a big part of AI activity. A plethora of information comes in every day, gleaning and linking the data that will be needed for operations later. Its important to do that in peacetime, Thapar said. AI improves situational awareness, but the decision to engage or not to engage is taken by humans, he said, adding that India will need an AI command at the level of battle centres.

In 2005, the IAFs internal network was established. Operations and the monitoring of operations were digitised after that. By 2025, AI had touched all aspects of the organisation, from the integration of weapons to operations, training, wargaming, maintenance, logistics, materials and the auxiliary system. The Navy is integrating AI and machine learning across critical mission areas to enhance operational effectiveness and to maintain maritime superiority, according to an Indian Navy statement to the Blueprint. The Navy has some 50 AI projects, covering language translation, target identification from imagery, sensor enhancement, inventory management, perimeter security, and maritime domain awareness. Future AI work will include LLM-based applications, offline language translators, autonomous vessels, smart ship technologies, and unifying enterprise data.

These initiatives aim to deliver tactical and strategic impacts by accelerating the OODA loop and enabling smarter devices for actionable intelligence from diverse data sources like imagery, machinery, and weapon systems. Strategic impact-and-autonomy integration is reshaping naval doctrines elsewhere. The Indian Navy is exploring autonomous systems to remove humans from data-gathering and basic-decision loops, including large displacement underwater vehicles for undetected operations. Developments in AI-driven weapons in advanced countries that analyse and engage targets autonomously are prompting doctrinal shifts in the Indian Navy, focusing on core elements like annotated datasets and data science, the statement said. Sarvatra Pehchaan, an AI-enabled system with indigenous software, to detect border breach (Photo: Ministry of Defence) INS Valsura in Jamnagar, Gujarat, has housed the Navys Centre of Excellence in Big Data since 2020. An AI-training roadmap for officers and sailors is coming.

AI warfare Gregory M Reichberg, professor, Peace Research Institute Oslo, a think-tank, who has written on AI in Indian defence, said India has worked a lot on swarm warfare (developing applications). But it could be farther on AI, given the countrys software skills. India is considered a top AI power, with the US and China leading the global race. There is an overreliance worldwide on autonomous weapons systems, to identify and engage targets, which may be more important for India, going ahead, Reichberg said. But AI, which is useful for battlefield coordination, should not substitute command decision-making, only support it.

He said an area India could look at is AI application awareness and interfacing, especially to move military assets effectively after locating the adversarys position. In his country, Norway, a population of about 5.65 million protects a landmass of about 385,207 square km, where the terrain is inhospitable in many parts. There, AI can provide inputs on which military assets are most suitable to fend off an adversary across domains, he said. There are exaggerated claims that AI can make decisions, but on tactical and strategic levels humans must be involved, so that pitfalls are avoided. The Indian military will need to consider the development of adversarial AI in some other countries. Adversarial AI is that which manipulates machine data to trigger incorrect decisions.

Machine-learning vulnerability is another concern in AI use. Although military systems are secure because they do not use open channels, even military communication links can be hacked into. Unless there is a breakthrough in quantum (unbreakable codes are created), data-poisoning can happen within the model of language-learning itself, Reichberg said. A mantra of military data-use is harvest today, decrypt tomorrow. In 2023, a special team was formed in the IAF to study the changing quantum computing landscape. Post-quantum cryptography is being worked on to protect data. The Indian military establishment also maintains a high standard of clearing algorithms. But both funds for technology and policy focus are needed.

A framework on integrating quantum technologies  communication, computing, sensing and metrology, and materials and devices  in the Indian military was announced on January 22. While we are imbibing AI into the services, we need to go miles ahead, Thapar said. The Indian military has to move beyond the use of AI for information-gathering, analysis or the simulation of operations and applications to innovation, analysts interviewed said. In terms of valour and other combat matrix, ours is a very professional military. It is ironic that we are not lacing it with technology, in the pace and scale needed, Shukla said. Combat-AI, not (only) logistics.

Theres a craze for swarm drones in the world but they are low-to-medium weapons, Thapar said, adding that India should expand the inventory of AI in its arsenal with advanced implements. Autonomous weapons can be the first line of defence. We need predictive analysis (air, naval and land), and a separate cyber command. India has a responsible position on lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS), Thapar said, but the adversary could deploy AI indiscriminately, particularly because international regulation is still thin. While the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on LAWS in December 2023, the conclusion of a legally binding instrument, prohibiting systems that cannot be used in compliance with international humanitarian law, is pending.

Reichberg said Israel made indiscriminate use of AI in Gaza (2023-25), not just with the targeting of locations but also the frequency and the spread of bombings. Chinas overinvolvement with AI in its armed forces is a concern, Thapar said. The Indian government needs to think about military AI. In a 2025 report to the US Congress on military and security developments in China, the US Department of Defense said, China believes the next revolution in military affairs will occur when militaries transition to intelligentized warfare and fully integrate AI, big data, advanced computing, and other technologies into the joint force.

The Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) is still developing the military theory, doctrine, and operational concepts for this warfare and it continued experimenting with different AI-enabled capabilities and concepts throughout 2024, it added. Chinas AI trajectory can pressure India into a defence-heavy posture. But India can strengthen deterrence without sacrificing growth (economic) and even position itself as the worlds strongest dual-use AI democracy, Thapar said. AI itself is transforming, theres nothing futuristic about it, Shukla said, adding that a missile coming in at Mach 7 or Mach 8 (seven-eight times the speed of sound), cannot be intercepted at the rate of human judgment.

Revenue and capital figures in the defence budget do not indicate combat capability, he said: How much are we spending on AI? India should work not just on AI, but edge-computing, robotics, 3D printing, and other new technologies that are all being woven into military capacities. The PLA set up its strategic support force in 2015 for AI-enablement of sensors and shooters across military domains, he said. Our power differential with China is $450 billion year on year. With technological innovation and civil-military fusion, we can deter China asymmetrically, he said. While indications are that technologically, China is doing very well, all military capabilities have to be combat-proven. Theres a limit to winning without fighting.
by Shinjini Kumar

Published by Penguin

340 pages 699

Shinjini Kumars debut book is a timely work of narrative nonfiction that reframes contemporary Indias economic story through womens lives beyond the bustling metros. Based on extensive travel over three years across more than 30 cities and interviews of over 300 women, the book combines field reporting with economic insight to examine how women as economic actors actively shape local markets, institutions and urban life in Middle Indias Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, such as Jaipur, Lucknow, Darjeeling, Patna, Bhopal and Surat. It is amazing how invisible women are when you look for them in the regular data or ask around the regular people, writes Ms Kumar.

A former central banker, regulator and finance professional, Ms Kumars journey started off with a train ride to Nagpur, where she met a young woman entrepreneur and Shark Tank winner. This led her to meet more than 30 women in Nagpur itself, each with interesting stories to tell. Thereafter, she went to Raipur, Bhubaneshwar and Dehradun, reaching out to womens organisations, industry groups and friends  collecting personal histories of several women along the way  and that was how the book kept growing. I dont think I had ever paid attention to the number of women who, consciously or subconsciously, combine work, home, business and social responsibility, she writes.

Throughout the book, Ms Kumar meets a mix of women in these cities, comprising culture entrepreneurs, startup founders, shop owners, bakers, cafe owners, software exporters, Anganwadi workers, homestay owners, designers, models and consultants. Further, she meets women who run family-owned enterprises, boutiques, art galleries, preschools, handicraft businesses, travel companies, jewellery ventures, food brands and heritage hotels. I was inspired by travel and conversations in middle-class drawing rooms, shops, factories, offices or households as the setting for de-layering commerce and gender relations, writes Ms Kumar in the Prologue.

What is heartening is that most of the women featured in the book are married, and several with children too  which is why its great to read examples of how well they are able to balance work with family life, even in the countrys smaller cities and towns. In a sense, these are all women who are smashing patriarchy in small-town India. Women are known to give credit, even when they do not owe it, notes Ms Kumar, who believes that women have to work harder than men, given all their other household and family responsibilities.

The question that the author set out to decipher was whether womens contribution within and outside home is being recognised and understood, or undermined and broad-brushed under age-old stereotypes. What she found is that most cultural activities in the towns and cities that she visited were helmed by women, whether in the area of heritage, restoration, craft, textile or design. Their contribution is the easiest to dismiss, but it always falls upon the elite to lead cultural change, she writes.

Along the way, Ms Kumar makes some important observations about various changes taking place in Indian society over the years, such as increasing instances of inheritance by daughters. Acceptance of patriarchy on their own behalf is easier than accepting it for their daughters, she explains. Further, more daughters are now choosing to build upon their families legacies. This phenomenon is a bigger enabler of change than we recognise and possibly the most important vector to close the gender gap in wealth and power, Ms Kumar writes. The book also throws light on the recent trend of an increasing number of young people returning to Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities where they belong after some years of education or work in bigger cities or abroad.

Through the stories of these women and their work, the book in many ways is also about the change that has taken place in the Indian economy over the last three decades. It is, in a sense, the story of India today, particularly its growing small towns, where the entrepreneurial ecosystem is thriving, the startup culture is gaining steady momentum, and there are ample opportunities for mentorship and collaboration. Moreover, the story of a new India where women are building fulfilling careers, their work is being recognised, accepted, and in some cases, even taking centre stage.

The future of Indias growth will indeed depend on how we grow beyond our Tier 1 cities and where our new resources of talent and capital  entrepreneurial, cultural, social  will come from, what will they be deployed to do and who will they include in the march to the future, Ms Kumar concludes.
The government on Tuesday announced the launch of an Offer for Sale (OFS) in state-run Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) to divest up to a 3 per cent equity stake, with an additional 2 per cent available through a green shoe option. The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) said in a statement on social media platform X that the OFS for non-retail investors will open on Wednesday, while retail investors can place their bids on Thursday. The proposed stake sale is part of the Centres disinvestment programme for the current financial year. As per data available on the DIPAM disinvestment receipts portal, the government has so far raised about Rs 8,768 crore in FY26 through minority stake sales and other receipts. The final amount to be raised through the BHEL OFS will depend on investor response and the exercise of the green shoe option.

BHEL is a major public sector undertaking under the Ministry of Heavy Industries and plays a key role in Indias power and infrastructure sectors. Separately, the company has received a Letter of Acceptance (LoA) from Bharat Coal Gasification and Chemicals Limited (BCGCL) for a project worth around Rs 2,800 crore, excluding customs duty and goods and services tax.

BCGCL is a joint venture between Coal India Limited, which holds a 51 per cent stake, and BHEL, which owns the remaining 49 per cent. The order relates to the syngas purification plant under the LSTK-2 package for BCGCLs coal-to-2,000-tonnes-per-day ammonium nitrate project at Lakhanpur in Odishas Jharsuguda district.

As part of the contract, BHEL will handle design and engineering, supply of equipment, civil works, erection and commissioning, along with operations and maintenance services. Shares of Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd ended 0.53 per cent higher at Rs 276.05 on the BSE, gaining Rs 1.45 during the session.

Sebi tightens disclosure norms for rating agencies The Union Budget 202627 has set a disinvestment target of Rs 80,000 crore under miscellaneous capital receipts, which includes the sale of shares in public sector undertakings (PSUs) and asset monetisation. However, in the financial year 202526 (FY26), the government fell short of its budgeted target of Rs 47,000 crore, prompting a downward revision to Rs 33,837 crore in the Revised Estimates (RE).

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has tightened disclosure and governance norms for credit rating agencies (CRAs) undertaking ratings of financial instruments regulated by authorities other than Sebi. The move is to prevent investor confusion and ensure clearer segregation of responsibilities. The regulator has clarified that CRAs must ensure their minimum net worth requirement under Sebi regulations remains unaffected by any rating activity carried out for instruments regulated by other authorities.

Day 2: Fractal Analytics IPO subscribed 20%

Fractal Analytics 2,834 crore initial public offering (IPO) on Tuesday drew a muted response from the investors as its shares for bid saw 20 per cent subscription. The quota for Retail individual investors (RIIs) booked 60 per cent, while the portion for non-institutional investors (NIIs) subscribed 27 per cent. Meanwhile, Aye Finance garnered 16 per cent subscription for its 1,010 crore IPO on Tuesday.
Edelweiss Financial Services on Tuesday said US-based private equity major, the Carlyle Group, through its affiliates CA Sardo Investments and Salisbury Investments Private Limited  an investment vehicle of former HDFC Bank chief executive Aditya Puri and his family  will invest 2,100 crore to acquire a majority stake in Nido Home Finance, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Edelweiss Group.

The transaction will result in Carlyle and Salisbury jointly holding up to 73 per cent stake in Nido Home Finance, the official statement said.

This investment marks the first large foreign direct investment in the financial services space in 2026.

The 2,100 crore investment includes acquiring a 45 per cent stake in Nido from Edelweiss through a secondary purchase and a primary equity capital infusion of 1,500 crore (approximately $165 million) in Nido.

The remaining stake will be acquired through the conversion of warrants, taking the combined holding of Carlyle and Salisbury to 73 per cent.

The equity shares will be issued at 193 per share. The warrants will also be issued at the same price.

The transaction seeks to create a win-win opportunity for all stakeholders by bringing additional capital and operational expertise to better serve the affordable housing segment, predominantly in the rural and semi-urban markets in India, a priority for the Indian government, the company said in a statement.

Rashesh Shah, Chairman and Managing Director, Edelweiss, said: The investment by Carlyle in Nido is a key milestone and brings in a high-quality, long-term partner to accelerate Nidos next phase of growth.

We are excited to build on our extensive experience in financial services and housing finance to help Nido scale its operations and serve the expanding needs of affordable housing segments in the rural and semi-urban markets, said Sunil Kaul, Partner and Asia Financial Services Sector Lead, Carlyle.

Established in 2010, Nido provides home loan solutions to customers across the affordable housing and mass-market segments. Nido operates a large network of branches, serving over 800 talukas (sub-districts) in India, and currently manages an assets under management (AUM) of 4,804 crore (approximately $530 million).

The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals from the Reserve Bank of India, National Housing Bank and Competition Commission of India. AZB & Partners acted as legal advisors to Edelweiss, while Trilegal acted as legal advisor to Carlyle.
As part of the strategy, Servier will invest around 15 million annually to build and scale GATINN (Global Accelerator for Technologies and Innovation in New-generation Nutraceuticals), a platform anchored in India that will focus on the development and export of SPCs to markets across Southeast Asia, Latin America, West Asia, and Africa, where disease burden is high and long-term treatment adherence remains a challenge.

Based on products currently in scope, the company estimates the export platform could generate up to 500 million in revenue after 2030, subject to regulatory approvals, registrations and market uptake.

The move marks a shift in Serviers approach to India  from primarily a domestic market and sourcing base to a coordinated hub for late-stage development and exports.

GATINN is Serviers first such platform globally and will function as a single coordination centre, integrating product development, manufacturing, supply chain, and quality oversight for export markets.

Manufacturing will be carried out through selected Indian contract development and manufacturing organisations (CDMOs), while Servier will retain control over quality-critical components and processes through its global quality systems.

Indias domestic market will continue to be served through Servier Indias existing portfolio, with GATINN designed as a purely export-focused platform.

Servier has already invested around 15 million to establish GATINN and expects to deploy roughly 15 million per year over the next few years, depending on the number of projects that progress through development. Investments will be directed towards formulation and product development, bioequivalence and regulatory studies, onboarding and auditing of CDMO partners, and scaling up export manufacturing.

Executives said capital deployment would remain project-linked rather than capped, allowing the group to increase investments if additional viable SPC projects emerge.

Servier expects to have around five SPCs in development by the end of 2026, with new products added progressively through the decade, creating a steady pipeline of export-oriented therapies.

The first international exports from India are targeted for early 2027, with volumes expected to ramp up gradually as regulatory registrations across multiple markets are completed.

Executives said Indias strengths in formulation science, bioequivalence studies, and late-stage development enable Servier to pursue a capital-efficient model, avoiding large greenfield manufacturing investments.

To manage quality and execution risks, the company has put in place US Food and Drug Administration- and European Medicines Agency-aligned quality systems, including a centralised outsourcing committee with veto powers, direct reporting lines to Serviers global quality leadership, and on-site audits of CDMO partners.

China and Japan are not part of the platforms initial export strategy due to regulatory complexities around fixed-dose combinations.

The India-led export platform lines up with Serviers broader strategy to sharpen its focus on cardiometabolic and venous diseases while expanding its footprint in EMs.
Mahindra Lifespace Developers Limited (MLDL) has entered into a long-term joint venture with Japans largest real estate firm, Mitsui Fudosan Group, with Mahindra Blossom in Bengaluru as the first project under the partnership. (MLDL) has entered into a long-term joint venture with Japans largest real estate firm, Mitsui Fudosan Group, with Mahindra Blossom in Bengaluru as the first project under the partnership.

Mahindra Blossom is a premium, high-rise residential development with a gross development value (GDV) of Rs 1,900 crore, comprising approximately 730 homes, located near Hopefarm Channasandra Metro Station on the Namma Metro Purple Line in the Whitefield area. Positioned along one of Bengalurus leading information technology and employment corridors, the project is the citys fourth net-zero waste residential development, according to MLDL.

Amit Kumar Sinha, managing director and chief executive officer, MLDL, said, This joint venture with the Mitsui Fudosan Group marks a significant milestone for Mahindra Lifespaces. As Japans largest residential developer, Mitsui Fudosan sets global benchmarks in design, sustainability and customer experience, and we look forward to integrating their best practices into the first joint project, Mahindra Blossom, one of our premium developments in Bengaluru. We are working towards expanding this partnership.

Mahindra Blossom marks Mitsui Fudosan Groups entry into Indias residential sector. The Tokyo-headquartered firm entered India in 2020 through a $1 billion tie-up with the Bengaluru-based real estate company RMZ for a commercial project in Bengaluru.

Daijiro Eguchi, managing director, Mitsui Fudosan (Asia), said, India represents a highly attractive residential market driven by strong economic fundamentals and rapid urbanisation. Together with Mahindra Lifespace Developers, we aspire to create a marquee residential development, driven by innovation and inspired design, that seamlessly blends global standards of quality and sustainability with deep local insight, contributing to the long-term evolution of Indias urban living environment.

Mitsui Fudosan Group has been conducting business in cities in China, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, India and Australia, as well as Western countries such as the US and the UK.

On the other hand, MLDLs development footprint spans 53.65 million square feet (saleable area) of completed, ongoing and forthcoming residential projects across seven Indian cities, and over 5,000 acres of ongoing and forthcoming projects under development or management at its integrated developments and industrial clusters across four locations.

This partnership adds to the increasing Japanese investments in Indian real estate. Prominent Japanese realty companies such as Sumitomo Realty & Development, Daibiru Corporation  a subsidiary of Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL)  and Sumitomo Corporation have been building their India portfolios over the past few years across the commercial and residential segments.
By Denise Wee and Ambereen Choudhury

Standard Chartered Plc Chief Financial Officer Diego De Giorgi, one of the front-runners to eventually replace long-time Chief Executive Officer Bill Winters, unexpectedly resigned after about two years in the role.

He will be replaced by deputy CFO Peter Burrill on an interim basis as the London-based firm seeks a permanent replacement in due course, according to a statement.

De Giorgi, who joined the bank in September 2023, will take on a role at Apollo Global Management Inc. as a partner and head of Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to a separate statement from the alternative assets giant. He will succeed longtime partner Rob Seminara.

He was seen as one of the candidates to replace Winters, who is the longest-serving CEO of a major UK bank. He previously held senior roles at Bank of America Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. as well on the board of UniCredit SpA.

Simon Cooper, another front-runner to replace Winters abruptly left the emerging markets lender in 2024, as it pushed through a broader management reshuffle to boost returns.

De Giorgis departure comes as the bank is in midst of a restructuring program known as Fit for Growth that aims to streamline operations and save $1.5 billion. Winters has overhauled the lender in the past few years to focus on Asia growth.

Standard Chartered shares in Hong Kong have risen more than 80% in the past year and its share price is around the highest since 2010. The UK lender last year named Maria Ramos as chair to succeed Jose Vinals.

Despite being based in London, Standard Chartered makes most of its income from its operations in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Its single biggest market is Hong Kong, which is still navigating its rebound after a prolonged period of economic contraction. Standard Chartered also has major operations in Singapore, where its largest investor, Temasek Holdings, is headquartered.

As Apollos head of EMEA, De Giorgi will oversee a fast-growing region for the firm as it expands credit, equity and hybrid origination, as well as in wealth and retirement solutions.

Apollo has approximately $155 billion of assets under management in EMEA and a team of nearly 600 professionals. The firm has been an active investor in Europe and in the last year alone has committed and deployed tens of billions across credit, equity and hybrid investments.
By Dana Hull and Kara Carlson

Tesla Inc.s head of sales for North America is leaving the electric-vehicle maker, exiting a position thats seen substantial turnover in the past year.

Raj Jegannathan, a Tesla vice president tapped to oversee sales in the region last year, said in a LinkedIn post that he was parting ways with the company.

Hes the latest prominent executive to leave the Elon Musk-led EV maker, which has seen several departures among key leaders in the midst of back-to-back annual declines in vehicle deliveries.

Longtime Musk confidant Omead Afshar exited last year after overseeing sales and manufacturing in North America. Milan Kovac, the engineering lead for Teslas Optimus robot program, and David Lau, who ran software for over a decade, also left the company in 2025.

Jegannathan, who also had responsibility for IT and data functions, including AI infrastructure, took the sales role shortly after long-time Tesla executive Troy Jones left the company in July.

Tesla is confronting a broader slowdown in EV demand in the US, and Musk increasingly is prioritizing investments in artificial intelligence, autonomous driving and humanoid robots. Tesla relinquished its position as the worlds largest seller of EVs last year to Chinas BYD Co.
State-owned Oil India on Tuesday reported a 10.7 per cent decline in its consolidated net profit to 1,195.08 crore in the third quarter of the financial year 2025-26 (Q3FY26). During the same quarter last year, the company recorded a profit of 1,338.85 crore. On a sequential basis, profit fell 16.4 per cent from 1,428.83 crore.

The Maharatna company's revenue from operations for the quarter stood at 9,111.43 crore, largely flat on a year-on-year (Y-o-Y) and sequential basis.

Oil India declares dividend

The company also said that its Board has cleared an interim dividend of 7 per share, with February 18 set as the record date.

"In its efforts towards ensuring the nations energy security, the company, continuing its sustained efforts, produced 1.659 million metric tonnes of oil equivalent (mmtoe) of oil and gas production from its matured and old oilfields in Q3FY26 vis-a-vis 1.697 mmtoe in Q3FY25," the company said in a BSE filing.

The company added that its daily crude oil production capacity reached 9,861 mt, the highest level in the past decade.

It further said that its subsidiary, Numaligarh Refinery (NRL), reported a 125 per cent jump in profit after tax to 867 crore in Q3FY26, compared with 385 crore in the same quarter last year. The refinery posted a gross refining margin (GRM) of $16.27 per barrel during the quarter. Shares of Oil India closed flat at 487.7 apiece on the BSE on Tuesday, ahead of the result announcement.
Dolce Makes India Debut, Advancing Fine Acers 5,000-Key Growth Vision Udaipur | 6 February 2026 Indias hospitality sector is entering a dynamic new phase, with Fine Acers announcing a strategic alliance with Wyndham Hotels & Resorts to introduce the Dolce brand to the country for the first time. Led by Mr. Dinesh Yadav, Fine Acers Group will develop two landmark properties  Dolce by Wyndham Goa and Dolce by Wyndham Udaipur  marking a significant step forward in the premium lifestyle and destination-led segment. The signing ceremony for both properties also coincided with the launch of Wyndham Grand Jaipur Amer, further strengthening the groups portfolio of internationally branded destinations.

Held at the upcoming resort in Kodiyat, Udaipur, the gala event brought together senior industry leaders, global investors, key stakeholders, celebrities, and representatives from Wyndham. The occasion symbolised more than a formal agreement  it underscored a shared vision of delivering immersive guest experiences supported by strong operational fundamentals. Dolce is positioned within the upscale lifestyle and MICE segment, with a global presence across Europe, North America, and other international markets. Its entry into Goa and Udaipur aligns with rising demand in experiential travel, weddings, and corporate gatherings. The Goa property is expected to benefit from strong domestic and international leisure demand, along with expanding wedding and conference segments. As one of Indias most visited destinations, Goa offers year-round occupancy potential and consistent revenue opportunities for premium brands.

In Udaipur, the resort is being developed amid the Aravalli landscape as a refined retreat. Known for commanding some of the highest average room rates in the country, the city remains a leading choice for luxury weddings and global events, making it one of Indias strongest performing hospitality markets. Meanwhile, Wyndham Grand Jaipur Amer, located in the historic Amer region, blends global luxury standards with Rajasthans royal heritage. Designed for high-end travellers, destination weddings, large-scale events, and international conferences, the property is set to emerge as a prominent landmark in the region. All three developments will follow a unit sales model, with nearly 70% of inventory offered to individual investors and leased back into a professionally managed rental pool. This structure is designed to ensure efficient operations and sustained long-term value.

Commenting on the collaboration, Mr. Dinesh Yadav, Founder & Managing Director of Fine Acers, said, We are pleased to strengthen our association with Wyndham through these important developments. With growing demand for premium leisure and wedding destinations, the projects in Goa and Udaipur will deliver world-class experiences backed by global standards. This alliance is an important step toward our vision of achieving 5,000 keys across India. By combining international expertise with local insight, we aim to create projects that are growth-oriented, brand-driven, and future-ready. Our focus remains on delivering destinations that meet evolving luxury expectations while ensuring sustainable returns and operational excellence for our investors.

Mr. Dimitris Manikis, President, EMEA, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, said, Bringing the brand to India is an exciting milestone for us. Goa and Udaipur are two of the countrys most iconic destinations, and these developments will reflect the brands positioning at the intersection of business and leisure. Mr. Rahool Macarius, Market Managing Director, Eurasia, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, added, We are delighted to introduce this upscale lifestyle offering to India. With elegant design, personalised service, and thoughtfully curated environments, the properties will enhance meetings, events, and travel experiences. Media Contact: Name: Siddharth Bhalla | Phone: +91 95601 66677 Email: siddharth@fineacers.com | Website: www.fineacers.com
Indias schools, colleges and universities now face an average of more than 8,000 cyberattacks every week  over twice the global average of 3,574  according to a report by Check Point Software, a leading provider of cybersecurity solutions. The rapid shift to remote learning, AI-powered education systems and cloud-driven research collaborations has resulted in enormous volumes of sensitive personal and institutional data being stored on vulnerable networks. This is not just a technical issue but a socio-political and economic threat that erodes intellectual property, trust among students and Indias position as a knowledge-based economy.

Recent breaches underline the scale of the risk. In 2019, the Common Admission Test (CAT) suffered a data breach in which personal details of more than 200,000 aspirants to Indias premier MBA programmes were exposed. In 2020, BYJUS faced a CRM vendor breach that exposed learners and families names, email addresses and phone numbers. A year later, Tamil Nadus Directorate of Technical Education was hit by ransomware that halted exam schedules and compelled officials to negotiate payments for decryption keys. Espionage campaigns attributed to groups such as APT36, also known as Transparent Tribe, have targeted top research universities, siphoning project data and posting stolen credentials on dark web forums to demonstrate their success.

Hackers targeting the education sector pursue clear incentives. Student and staff records command premium prices on dark web markets, while biotechnology and AI research attracts state-sponsored espionage groups. Ransomware gangs know universities are more likely to pay hefty sums to restore critical systems. Compromised .edu credentials are also prized for social-engineering campaigns. Attackers often time ransomware deployment just before exams or results, exploiting the pressure to restore systems quickly. These cases show that campuses  custodians of sensitive personal data and frontier research in biotechnology, AI, space and atomic sciences  are now as attractive as financial institutions, if not more.

A core issue is that educational institutions are still treated as secondary consumers of IT, rather than high-value innovation centres. Unlike ecommerce or banking platforms, universities handle sensitive intellectual property linked to advanced research, which is equally appealing to cybercriminals and state-backed actors. Educational networks also involve a diverse user base, including students, visiting researchers and non-human identities such as laboratory IoT devices, making access control and monitoring far more complex than in commercial organisations.

Ignoring these realities risks leaving Indias knowledge sector vulnerable to ransomware, espionage and persistent data exploitation. This is supported by the fact that, as documented by CyberPeace in 2023-2024 simulations, hundreds of thousands of credential thefts have been observed in campus settings, highlighting the scale of potential exposure. Check Point Softwares 2025 report notes a year-on-year rise of 2030 per cent in attacks, with weekly incidents projected to reach 15,000 by 2030.

Globally, countries treat cybersecurity in academia with the same urgency as banking or other critical infrastructure. In the US, the Research and Education Networking Information Sharing and Analysis Center (REN-ISAC) enables universities to share real-time threat intelligence, strengthening defences nationwide. In the EU, the NIS2 Directive links cybersecurity compliance to funding, similar to financial-sector regulations. In India, however, gaps persist. While the National Education Policy, 2020, emphasises digital innovation, cybersecurity receives limited attention. Annual audit requirements focus on compliance but do not foster preventive intelligence-sharing across institutions. There is no equivalent to REN-ISAC, leaving campuses to respond to breaches in isolation  a pattern attackers readily exploit.

India needs to adopt a National Education Cybersecurity Framework to strengthen its academic defences through three interconnected strategies. First, consortium-led defence: an Indian analogue of REN-ISAC to enable secure sharing of threat indicators and breach intelligence across campuses. Second, risk-based, tiered baseline standards that differentiate between colleges, universities and elite research institutes, incorporating tools such as identity-aware proxies and AI-driven anomaly detection. Third, mandatory capacity building for staff and students, complemented by incentives for EdTech vendors that meet Safe Campus-qualified standards.

Recognising campuses as part of Indias critical digital infrastructure would allow national cyber norms to protect academic innovation. By adopting international models, prioritising proactive defence over reactive compliance, and embedding a culture of security into campus life, Indian academia can better safeguard innovation, privacy and the countrys global reputation.
Bangladesh on Monday secured a reduced 19 per cent tariff under a trade agreement with the United States that allows zero tariff on textiles and garments manufactured with US materials. The latest deal brings Dhaka's total tariff down from the earlier 20 per cent.

The agreement is set to provide Bangladesh's textile sector, one of India's major competitors, a significant boost. Here is a closer look at the deal and what it means for Indias textile industry.

What does the USBangladesh deal say?

According to the trade agreement, Bangladesh's key export-earning ready-made garments made from cotton and synthetic fibres imported from the US will enjoy zero reciprocal duty.

This means textiles and ready-made garments exported from Bangladesh could become significantly cheaper , giving the countrys sector a competitive edge over peers, including India and Vietnam.

How large is USBangladesh textile trade?

According to the US Trade Department, US goods imports from Bangladesh stood at $8.4 billion in 2024. More than half of the USs total imports from Bangladesh comprised textiles.

Data from Trading Economics shows that articles of apparel (not knit or crocheted) accounted for $4.78 billion, while articles of apparel (knit or crocheted) stood at $2.63 billion in 2024. Other textile articles and worn clothing items together accounted for $190.22 million during the same period.

ALSO READ | India-US trade deal: FY27 textile, apparel exports to grow in double digits Apart from apparel and textiles, other major imports from Bangladesh included headgear, footwear, leather, electrical items and paper, though their overall share remained limited.

What does this mean for Indias textile sector?

India has also recently concluded a trade deal with the US under which tariffs on Indian textile and apparel exports have been reduced to 18 per cent from 25 per cent earlier . Textiles are among Indias major exports to the US, along with diamonds, pharmaceuticals and auto parts, and the sector was among the worst hit when 50 per cent US tariffs were imposed from August last year.

While Indias overall tariff rate is marginally lower than Bangladeshs 19 per cent, Bangladesh will enjoy tariff-free access for certain categories, making it more competitive in those segments. Bangladeshs lower labour costs also provide an additional competitive advantage.

At the same time, Indias textile industry is larger and more diversified, spanning cotton yarn, fabrics, home textiles, technical textiles and apparel, while Bangladeshs exports are heavily concentrated in ready-made garments. Also, the US zero-duty access is not for all Bangladeshi garments but only those made using US-produced cotton and man-made fibre.

The revised 18 per cent tariff also gives Indian exporters a two percentage point advantage over another major rival, Vietnam, which faces a 20 per cent tariff.

India has also inked a trade deal with the European Union last month, helping diversify export markets beyond the US. Under the IndiaEU agreement, zero-duty access for textiles and clothing across all tariff lines, with tariff reductions of up to 12 per cent, would open up the EUs $263.5 billion import market.

The European Union is Indias second-largest export destination for textiles and apparel after the US, with exports showing steady growth over the past five years.

How is India placed in US apparel imports?

Indias share of the $80 billion US apparel import market rose from about 5 per cent to nearly 7 per cent over the past two years, before dipping temporarily in November due to short-term disruptions.

According to data shared by the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry, US imports from India dipped by 5 per cent, 30.1 per cent and 31.4 per cent in September, October and November last year, respectively. However, imports from India during JanuaryNovember 2025 rose by 2.3 per cent.

Indias overall goods exports to the US are also significantly higher than Bangladeshs. Data from the United States Trade Representative shows India exported goods worth $87.3 billion to the US in 2024, compared with Bangladeshs $8.4 billion.

The share of India's textile exports to the US was slightly higher than that of Bangladesh in 2024. According to Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC) data, India exported textiles worth $9.88 billion to the US in 2024, while Bangladesh exported $7.62 worth of textiles during the same period.

What role does India play in Bangladeshs textile supply chain?

The tariff changes also matter because India plays an important role in Bangladeshs textile ecosystem. Bangladesh imports raw materials such as cotton, yarn and fabrics from India.

While the USBangladesh deal encourages the use of US cotton to qualify for zero tariffs, Indian raw materials remain a key input for many Bangladeshi producers, particularly for exports to markets other than the US.

Latest data shows Bangladesh imported $684,105 worth of cotton (not carded or combed) from India in 2024, up from $492,534 in 2023. In contrast, its cotton imports from the US declined to $356,931 in 2024 from $422,529 a year earlier.

Imports of carded or combed cotton from India rose to $18,675 in 2024 from $5,351 in 2023, while similar imports from the US remained negligible at $83.

India's textiles exports to Bangladesh According to the data from OEC, cotton yarn formed the top export of India to Bangladesh, worth $109 million in November 2025. However, India's exports to Bangladesh decreased following the diplomatic tensions after the fall of Sheikh Hasina's government . New Delhi's overall exports to Dhaka declined 5.02 per cent to $828 million in November 2025, compared to the same period last year. Indian companies also supply machinery, equipment and intermediate goods that support Bangladeshs broader textile manufacturing ecosystem, underlining continued interlinkages between the two industries.

The year-on-year decline was driven mainly by exports of petroleum products (down 47.9 per cent), fresh vegetables (-92.1 per cent), and cotton yarn (-27.5 per cent).
The fall indicates that Indians are sending less money abroad for various purposes, including education, aiding close relatives, and even travel.

The LRS allows Indians to spend up to $250,000 abroad for reasons, including education, medical purposes and travel. The value of the outflows had been rising steadily after a dip in 2021 during the pandemic. It has now been below its post-pandemic high for 23 months.

According to experts, this may have a short-term positive impact on the current account deficit (CAD), though the longer-term impact may be more ambiguous.

The CAD is broadly the difference between a countrys earnings from the rest of the world through trade, remittances and other means, and the money it spends on similar international transactions.

India had a current account deficit of $23.3 billion or 0.6 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the financial year 2024-25 (FY25). The deficit essentially means that there was less earned from abroad than was spent. Key categories for outward remittances have fallen from their peak barring equity and debt investments, which hit $2.3 billion- the highest in data going back to 2009.

Indians looking for higher returns amid a surge in global markets like the US may have driven increased remittances for equity investments, suggested Madhavi Arora, chief economist at Emkay Global, speaking in November to Business Standard.

Lower outward remittances overall may also be driven by the sharp depreciation in the rupee which can impact discretionary spending. The longer-term impact remains to be seen, but in the short-term, lower remittances help India's macroeconomic indicators at the margin, according to Arora.

It's a positive for CAD, she said.

The impact on the CAD may be positive in the short term, but the longer-term effects of the factors driving down outward remittances may also eventually affect money coming in, suggested Bank of Baroda Chief Economist Madan Sabnavis in November.

More onerous visa conditions in the US may have contributed to fewer students choosing to study in the US, according to Sabnavis. Many are also reconsidering the US because it is no longer as easy to get a job there after completing their education. Even if the same students choose to study abroad in another country, the remittances involved would be lower since the US is among the more expensive countries for a foreign education. The same holds true for tourists who may choose locations other than the US and Europe, both of which have seen the tourist visa process become more difficult. Spends in East Asia for the same travel period would be lower than in western countries, he pointed out.

The longer-term impact of a US crackdown on immigration could be fewer Indians residing in the country, and therefore contributing less to foreign inward remittances. India received $135 billion worth of inward remittances in the financial year 2024-25 (FY25) compared to $30 billion in outward remittances. The United States has been the largest source of inward remittances ($27.7 billion) as of FY24, nearly as much as all of Indias outward remittances combined. This means that fewer Indians working in the US will likely have a net negative impact on remittances coming into the country over the longer term, according to Sabnavis.

To that extent, the impact on CAD could be negative, he said.

The external sector outlook is presently benign, suggests a recent RBI bulletin.
The United States on Monday claimed that India will remove its digital services tax (DST) under the recently negotiated trade deal between the two countries.

The claim comes just a week after India and the US signed a trade agreement under which Washington agreed to cut its tariffs on Indian goods to 18 per cent from 25 per cent.

Here is what digital services taxes are, what India had imposed in the past, and what has already been withdrawn.

What did the US say?

In a fact sheet released on Monday, the White House said, India will remove its digital services taxes and commit to negotiate a robust set of bilateral digital trade rules that address discriminatory or burdensome practices and other barriers to digital trade, including rules that prohibit the imposition of customs duties on electronic transmissions.

Indias official statement on the trade deal does not explicitly mention the removal of any digital services tax. New Delhi has said it aims to reduce barriers to digital trade, but has not referred to dismantling DST as part of the agreement.

Notably, India has already abolished the equalisation levies that were repeatedly highlighted as a concern by the United States Trade Representative (USTR).

What are digital services taxes?

A digital services tax is imposed on foreign companies that earn revenue from a countrys users through digital services, even if the company does not have a physical presence there.

Such taxes typically target online advertising, ecommerce platforms, digital marketplaces and other internet-based services. Companies affected globally include firms such as Google, Meta, Amazon and other large technology platforms.

Indias equalisation levy explained

India introduced the Equalisation Levy through the Finance Act, 2016, to tax certain digital transactions involving non-resident companies.

Initially, the levy applied only to online advertising services provided by foreign firms to Indian businesses.

In April 2020, the scope was expanded to cover ecommerce supply of goods and services facilitated by non-resident digital platforms.

What transactions were taxed?

Under the equalisation levy framework:

Online advertising services attracted a 6 per cent tax on payments made to foreign companies for digital ad space and related services.

Ecommerce supply and services were subject to a 2 per cent tax on the value of goods or services sold or facilitated online by foreign ecommerce operators.

Why the US objected to Indias digital tax

In January 2021, the USTR released a report concluding that Indias digital services tax discriminated against US companies.

Indias DST is discriminatory on its face. The law explicitly exempts Indian companies, while targeting non-Indian firms, the USTR said.

The report argued that the tax contravened international tax principles, increased compliance burdens and exposed US companies to double taxation. The USTR estimated that the levy could cost US firms more than $30 million annually.

India has already scrapped the equalisation levy

India has dismantled the equalisation levy in phases:

The 2 per cent tax on ecommerce supply of goods and services ended on August 1, 2024.

The 6 per cent levy on online advertising was scrapped from April 1, 2025.

With this, India has fully removed its standalone digital services tax regime. The decision was aimed at aligning domestic tax rules with evolving global norms and reducing trade friction with major partners.

The withdrawal of the 6 per cent ad levy was announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the FY26 Budget, amid rising concerns over reciprocal tariffs under US President Donald Trump.

What changes for US tech companies

US-based firms such as Google, Meta and Amazon are among the biggest beneficiaries of the levys removal. According to India Briefing, these companies together account for around 65 per cent of Indias digital advertising market, estimated at about $5.82 billion.

With the levy withdrawn, advertisers no longer face the additional tax burden, lowering costs and improving margins for global digital platforms.

Does India still tax foreign digital companies?

Yes. The removal of the equalisation levy does not mean overseas digital firms are untaxed in India.

India introduced the Significant Economic Presence (SEP) framework in 2018, which creates tax liability for non-resident entities that cross specified thresholds of revenue or user interaction in India. While designed for the digital economy, its broad scope allows application beyond purely digital businesses.

Separately, under the GST regime for online information and database access or retrieval (OIDAR) services, foreign and domestic digital service providers must pay 18 per cent GST on services consumed in India. This applies to streaming platforms, cloud services, software subscriptions, online gaming and digital advertising, among others.

Services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Adobe Creative Cloud and Microsoft 365 fall under this framework.
A sharp reduction in NEET-PG qualifying cut-offs has sparked serious concern among doctors after postgraduate medical seats in government colleges were allotted to candidates with extremely low scores, The Times of India reported.

The impact became clear during the third round of postgraduate counselling, where seats across both clinical and non-clinical branches were filled with single-digit and even negative scores. Even core clinical specialities and reputed institutions saw admissions at unusually low marks.

In one of the cases, an MS orthopaedics seat at a government medical college in Rohtak was allotted to a candidate who scored just 4 marks out of 800. At a leading medical college in Delhi, a postgraduate seat in obstetrics and gynaecology went to a candidate with 44 marks, while general surgery was allotted at 47 marks.

Low scores were also seen across non-clinical subjects. Seats were filled at 10 marks in transfusion medicine, 11 in anatomy and even minus 8 marks in biochemistry, largely under reserved and PwD categories, the news report said.

A U-turn from earlier stand

The current policy marks a clear shift from the governments earlier position. In 2022, the Centre had opposed lowering NEET-PG cut-offs in the Delhi High Court, arguing that minimum qualifying standards were necessary to protect education quality. The court had agreed, warning that diluted medical standards could harm society as doctors deal with matters of life and death.

The news report quoted a senior health ministry official as saying that postgraduate admissions are being conducted strictly as per the updated eligibility criteria. The official added that competence is meant to be ensured through training, supervision and exit examinations, not entry scores alone. Colleges, the official said, are responsible for identifying and failing unsuitable candidates.

Medical educators argue that the issue goes beyond cut-offs. Rapid expansion of PG seats without adequate faculty, overcrowded departments and weak exit exams have diluted training quality. Once someone enters the system, very few are filtered out, a senior academician said, as quoted by the news report.

ALSO READ: NEET PG cut-off slashed to zero percentile to fill over 18,000 vacant seats Doctors caution that the real damage may appear years later, when inadequately trained specialists begin independent practice -- posing long-term risks to patient safety and public trust in healthcare.

SC issues notice to Centre on NEET-PG cut-offs

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on Friday sought a response from the Centre on a plea challenging the sharp reduction in qualifying cut-off percentiles for NEET-PG 2025-26. The court issued notice after hearing concerns over falling standards in postgraduate medical education, according to Bar and Bench.

A Bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe observed that the issue directly relates to the quality of medical education and examinations.

The question is whether those standards are being compromised, the top court said.

What the petition challenges

Last month, the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) lowered the NEET-PG cut-off for reserved categories from the 40th percentile to zero, with qualifying marks dropping to minus 40 from 235 out of 800. For general and EWS candidates, the cut-off was reduced from the 50th percentile to the 7th percentile, and for general PwBD candidates from the 45th to the 5th percentile.

The decision has been challenged through a PIL filed by social worker Harisharan Devgan and doctors Saurav Kumar, Lakshya Mittal and Akash Soni. The petition argues that the move violates Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution, weakens merit in medical education and poses risks to patient safety.

Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan told the court that regulations clearly fix the minimum qualifying standard at the 50th percentile.
French President Emmanuel Macron will undertake a three-day visit to India beginning February 17, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) announced on Tuesday.

Macron will hold wide-ranging talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi besides attending the AI Impact summit.

Both the leaders will hold discussions on strengthening bilateral cooperation across a wide spectrum of areas, the MEA said.

In addition, the leaders will discuss regional and global issues of mutual interest, including cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, it said.

Modi and Macron will also be in Mumbai to jointly inaugurate the 'India-France Year of Innovation', the MEA said in a statement.
India and the United Kingdom (UK) on Tuesday signed the Agreement on Social Security relating to social security contributions.

The agreement seeks to avoid double social security contributions for employees of both countries on temporary assignments in each others territories for periods of up to 36 months, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said.

The two governments had committed to concluding such an agreement at the time of signing their free trade deal, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), in July 2025.

The agreement will support mobility and continued social security coverage of employees on short-term overseas assignments. This will enhance India-UK partnerships in the services sector, leveraging the high skills and innovative service sectors of both countries, the MEA said.

The agreement shall come into effect together with the CETA, planned for implementation during the first half of the current year. The agreement was signed by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and British High Commissioner to India Lindy Cameron.

India has been entering into bilateral social security agreements (SSAs) with other countries to protect the interests of Indian professionals and skilled workers working abroad for short durations and enhance the competitiveness of Indian companies.

The signed agreement will be hosted on the website of the Ministry of External Affairs and the website of the Employees Provident Fund Organisation for the information of stakeholders, enabling them to secure certificates of coverage to avoid making double social security contributions.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday issued draft directions proposing to exempt non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) that do not avail public funds and do not have a customer interface, and have an asset size of less than Rs 1,000 crore, from the requirement of registration with itself. These NBFCs will be tagged as Unregistered Type I NBFCs.

Six-month timeline announced for non-public fund, non-customer-facing NBFCs under draft norms

Having said that, NBFCs not availing public funds and not having any customer interface, with an asset size of Rs 1,000 crore and above, will have to seek registration as Type I NBFC even if they do not avail public funds and do not have a customer interface, the RBI said.

Existing NBFCs falling under this category, including those holding a certificate of registration as Type I NBFC as of April 1, 2026, and meeting the prescribed exemption criteria, can apply to the central bank for deregistration within six months, that is, by September 30, 2026, it said.

As per the scale-based regulatory framework, currently, NBFCs not availing public funds and not having customer interface are placed in the Base Layer of the regulatory structure and are subject to relaxed regulatory requirements.

RBI has reviewed the regulatory framework for these NBFCs. Considering their peculiar business model and lower risk profile, it has been decided that the NBFCs not availing public funds and not having customer interface, with asset size of less than Rs 1,000 crore, shall be exempted from registration requirement with the RBI, it said.

The RBI said applications for deregistration must be submitted through the PRAVAAH portal on the companys letterhead, along with documents including the original certificate of registration, audited financial statements for the last three years, details of public funds and customer interface, a statutory auditors certificate, board resolutions, and undertakings on future operations and disclosures.

Additionally, the central bank said deregistration requests will be considered subject to its satisfaction that the NBFC operates under a conscious business model without public funds or customer interface.

NBFCs in this category with assets of Rs 1,000 crore or more will be required to seek registration as Type I NBFC, while those intending to access public funds or have customer interface must register as Type II NBFC.

Unregistered Type I NBFCs undertaking overseas investments in financial services will mandatorily require RBI registration and prior approval, and any violations will attract penal action under the RBI Act, 1934.

Any Unregistered Type I NBFC intending to avail public funds and have customer interface must seek registration with the Reserve Bank as Type II NBFC prior to having either of these, to avoid penal action, the central bank said.
If youre planning to rent a home in a major Indian city, you may still find rents holding firm  even though overall rental demand has cooled slightly.

According to the Magicbricks Rental Index (OctoberDecember 2025), Indias rental housing market is entering a phase of recalibration, where property prices are rising faster than rents, changing how both tenants and investors experience the housing market.

Property prices in India continued to rise at a faster pace (2.2 %) pan-India while rental demand declined by 2.4% quarter-on-quarter even as rents increased by 2.2%, indicating a market adjusting to yield compression rather than a broad-based slowdown, according to the latest Magicbricks Rental Index.

What it means for property investors

For property owners and investors, the market is shifting toward capital appreciation rather than rental income growth.

Across major cities, property values are rising faster than rents, leading to yield compression  a situation where rental returns become smaller relative to property prices.

Among major cities:

Chennai recorded the highest rental yield at 4.16%

Ahmedabad followed at 3.98%

Hyderabad reported 3.93%

Bengaluru and Kolkata were at about 3.88%

The relatively small differences in yields across cities suggest Indias rental market is becoming more mature, with returns increasingly linked to long-term price appreciation rather than rental income alone.

Further, tenant preference during the quarter remained firmly tilted towards mid-sized homes. Units ranging between 500 and 1,500 sq ft accounted for nearly 78% of rental demand, highlighting a clear inclination towards efficient layouts that balance affordability with livability. Semi-furnished homes continued to dominate both demand and supply, accounting for 54% of tenant demand and 55% of available listings, effectively emerging as the standard rental format across major cities.

The data indicates that Indias rental market is not slowing, but recalibrating. While demand has moderated sequentially, rental values continue to show resilience in micro-markets where supply is constrained. The growing divergence between capital values and rental growth reflects a maturing market, where investor focus is gradually shifting from yield-led returns to long-term capital appreciation, while tenants remain highly selective about configuration, size, and affordability," said Prasun Kumar, CMO, Magicbricks.

The index also highlights a growing demandsupply gap at the affordable end of the rental spectrum. While demand remains concentrated in lower and mid-rent categories, a significant share of listings continues to be positioned in higher ticket sizes, limiting choice for value-seeking tenants and intensifying competition for appropriately priced homes.

Overall, the Magicbricks Rental Index OND25 suggests that Indias rental housing market is entering a more balanced and discerning phase, shaped by micro-market performance, configuration suitability, and the evolving relationship between capital values and rental income.
For years, Russia relied on migrants from Central Asia to fill gaps in its workforce. As demographics and the war in Ukraine drive the sharpest labor crisis in decades, recruiters are casting a wider net across some of the worlds most populous countries.

Russia estimates the economy needs 11 million more laborers by the end of the decade.

The issue was high on the agenda during President Vladimir Putins December visit to New Delhi, when officials signed an agreement aimed at simplifying procedures for temporary labor migration.

Even before the deal, the number of employment permits Russia issued for Indians jumped to more than 56,000 last year from roughly 5,000 in 2021. The total number of work permits given to foreigners rose to more than 240,000 in 2025, the highest since at least 2017, statistics from the Ministry of Internal Affairs show. While authorizations have jumped for the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan, much of the growth in foreign labor comes from further abroad  including India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and China.

This year, workers from India and other South Asian countries have begun filling municipal jobs like clearing snow in major Russian cities, but foreign laborers are also winding up at construction sites, restaurants and other city services.

Were seeing a real tectonic shift in the Russian labor market, Elena Velyaeva, operations director at the Moscow-based recruitment agency Intrud, said in an interview in New Delhi in December. The agency was set up just two years ago to bring foreign workers into the country, and Velyaeva is also looking for potential recruits in Sri Lanka and Myanmar while wanting to expand the search further.

While the US under Donald Trump and some European countries are restricting immigration, Russias been grappling with a demographic crisis  about a quarter of the population is retirement age  since the 1990s collapse in the birth rate. With unemployment at about 2%, one of the lowest levels globally, the economy needs new workers from abroad or it risks hitting real limits on its already sluggish growth.

Faced with the shortage, Russian companies are now more interested in attracting workers tied to their jobs by visas and contracts, Velyaeva said. Migrants from visa-free regions like Central Asia are far more likely to change employers frequently.

Intrud has partnered with the Russian Association of Welders to establish a training center for welders in Chennai, southern India, where candidates are trained and assessed before being hired in Russia, Velyaeva said.

Other agencies have organized crash courses in Russian for future hotel workers and other positions where knowledge of the language is required. For some jobs, such as in the construction industry, workers usually communicate with managers who speak both their native language and Russian, according to a recruiter with a Dubai office, who spoke on condition of anonymity because theyre not authorized to speak to the media.

Russia is the newest addition to the list of nations employing Indians, said Amit Saxena, director of the Mumbai-based Ambe International. It has manpower shortage right now. So its a natural match.

Ambe International only started recruiting Indian workers for Russia about three months ago, and only for the Moscow region. Now its also involved in recruitment for employees in Russias Far East  in Vladivostok and on Sakhalin island.

Putins war on Ukraine has worsened the already severe labor shortage. Beyond those recruited into the actual fighting, the war economy has siphoned workers from civilian sectors into military industries, while an estimated 500,000 to 800,000 working-age Russians left the country in opposition to the war, to avoid mobilization or for other reasons.

Russia also tightened regulations around visa-free migration in the wake of a 2024 attack on concert-goers at Crocus City Hall in a Moscow suburb. At the beginning of the year, the number of foreign nationals in Russia had fallen to 5.7 million, down about 10% from a year ago, although many of them are children, the Russian newspaper Vedomosti reported.

Businesses are feeling the pain.

MMC Norilsk Nickel PJSC, Russias largest mining company, which is known to offer some of the countrys highest wages, was short about 10,000 employees in Siberia a year ago, the equivalent of about 10% of its entire workforce. The miner still lacks several thousand workers in the area, according to a person familiar with the situation.

The shortage of skilled personnel remains one of the main challenges for Russian industry as a whole, the companys spokesman said by email.

JSC Shipbuilding Corporation Ak Bars, which builds both civilian and military vessels, is short 1,500-2,000 people, one reason its working at about half capacity, Chief Executive Officer Renat Mistakhov said.

Hiring from Asia is often cheaper for employers as well. A skilled Indian electrician may earn 25% less than what Russian recruiters offer for similar positions, job announcements on Russian and Gulf platforms indicate.

Russia is also looking to leverage deepening ties with North Korea to help plug the gap. Arrivals from the country into Russia have been on the rise since 2022, after declining under a 2017 United Nations ban on employing the countrys citizens abroad.

Many come on student visas  about 9,000 of them in 2024, the latest year for which data is available, according to the Foreign Ministry. The number of North Korean workers on Russian construction sites alone was expected to total about 50,000 by the end of 2025, the developer group Eskadra estimated, according to RIA Novosti.

The role of Chinese labor is altogether different. Most Chinese citizens receiving work visas are employed at their own production facilities or companies, said Alexei Maslov, director of the Institute of Asian and African Studies at Lomonosov Moscow State University. They are mainly active in small and mid-sized businesses such as restaurants, logistics and wholesale trade, he said.

For Russia, theres little sign the situation will change soon.

Russias population will continue to age, and the share of young people and children will keep declining overall, independent demographer Igor Efremov said. This is not a temporary crisis for the labor market but a long-term norm that will persist for decades and to which the economy will have to adapt.
Saudi Arabias Ministry of Hajj and Umrah on Sunday began issuing visas for the 2026 Hajj season, setting preparations in motion months ahead of pilgrims arriving in the Kingdom. The step follows the release of an official operational calendar for Hajj affairs offices worldwide.

The ministry said the early rollout is intended to allow smoother planning and coordination across countries sending pilgrims for the annual pilgrimage.

Preparations formally began on June 8, 2025, corresponding to 12 Dhu Al Hijjah 1446 AH, when preliminary planning documents were shared with Hajj affairs offices across the world. In 2025, India secured a total quota of 175,025 pilgrims.

Planning opens early for 2026 Hajj

In early Safar, Hajj affairs offices were given access to detailed information on camps in the holy sites through the Nusk Masar digital platform. Officials said the early access was provided to give offices additional time for planning, review and coordination before contracting begins.

According to the operational calendar, preparatory contracting for accommodation and core services started on 1 Rabi Al Awwal 1447 AH. October 12, 2025 has been set as the deadline for completing preparatory meetings, finalising operational data and opening pilgrim registration in participating countries.

Visa issuance officially began on February 8, followed by the process to complete visas and submit pilgrims pre-arrival readiness data in March.

When will pilgrims begin arriving?

The ministry said the first groups of pilgrims are expected to arrive in Saudi Arabia from April 18, 2026, corresponding to 1 Dhu Al Qadah 1447 AH. This will mark the start of the final operational phase of the Hajj season.

Officials said adherence to the published timeline is necessary to ensure infrastructure, accommodation and services are ready before pilgrims arrive.

What do registration numbers and facilities show so far?

The ministry confirmed that contracts covering all services at the holy sites for pilgrims arriving from abroad have been completed. Accommodation agreements in Mecca have also been finalised through the Nusk platform.

So far, around 750,000 pilgrims have registered for the 2026 Hajj season. This includes about 30,000 pilgrims who booked packages directly from their home countries.

Other details shared by the ministry include:

> 485 camps have been allocated for international pilgrims at the holy sites

> 73 Hajj affairs offices have completed their basic contractual requirements

How are digital systems being used for compliance?

The ministry referred to the expanded use of the Nusk Masar platform and electronic wallets for managing financial and contractual processes. Officials said these systems help improve transparency, speed up procedures and reduce booking-related issues.

In a statement, the Saudi Arabias Ministry of Hajj and Umrah urged Hajj affairs offices and service providers to fully comply with the approved schedule, noting that early and coordinated planning remains critical for a safe, orderly and dignified pilgrimage.
Indian migration to the UK has supported growth rather than strained public systems, driven by the communitys strong presence across health, care, engineering and technology, according to a new white paper released at the House of Lords complex in London.

Migration of the Indian diaspora to the UK: shaping economic resilience, cultural dynamism and global influence was published last week by Aston Universitys India Centre in Birmingham along with London-based think tank Here & Now 365. The study tracks Indian migration to Britain across four post-war phases, with particular attention to the post-Brexit period, where visa rules, labour shortages and global mobility patterns intersect.

Skilled workers at the core of the workforce

Indian nationals now form the largest cohort on skilled migration routes, with a strong concentration in IT and healthcare roles, according to Home Office data. As of June 2023, Englands National Health Service employed 60,533 staff of Indian nationality, making them the single largest foreign-national group in the NHS workforce.

Recent arrivals reflect the scale of this pipeline. Around 250,000 Indians moved to the UK in 2023, including about 127,000 on work visas, many entering digital and health-related roles, the white paper notes.

Job creation and rising pay levels

The report links Indian migration to sustained labour market expansion. Between 2019 and 2024, jobs held by Indian nationals increased by 488,000, compared with 257,000 additional roles taken up by British citizens, according to Eastern Eye data cited in the paper.

Office for National Statistics figures show that between 2014 and 2021, the Indian-born population rose from roughly 0.79 million to about 0.90 million. Over the same period, employment among Indian nationals climbed from 301,000 to more than 450,000, while median pay increased by nearly 30%.

The post-Brexit fourth wave

A central theme of the white paper is what it describes as the fourth wave of Indian migration, shaped by post-Brexit immigration policy, acute labour shortages and shifting global dynamics.

The aim is to move the debate beyond burden or boon and the focus is on what migration delivers in terms of jobs, services, and value created. The findings resonate that skills- and needs-based migration matches people with the roles that the country needs, while upholding standards, the white paper says.

Balancing labour demand and system pressures

The analysis points to pressures within the immigration and care systems, calling for faster deployment where shortages are most acute and better retention and progression, particularly in adult social care.

The aim is to balance opportunity with system pressures to ensure speedy deployment where shortages are acute, improve retention and progression, especially in adult social care, and ensure gains are reaped across the country, the report says.

From numbers to smarter migration

Rather than arguing for higher or lower migration levels, the paper frames the debate around policy design, advocating clearer standards, predictable routes and stronger qualification recognition, alongside deeper integration support.

It argues that such an approach allows mobility to function as a long-term advantage rather than a short-term fix, particularly in sectors facing chronic skills shortages.

Universities, employers and the NHS

Professor Aleks Subic, Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive of Aston University, described the contribution of the Indian diaspora as closely tied to high-demand skills and innovation.

Indias diaspora contribution to the UK is not only substantial; it is also deeply connected to capability in high-demand professions, entrepreneurship, and globally networked innovation, he said.

He welcomed recommendations that include a UKIndia skills and credential fast-track involving regulators, and a stronger study-to-skilled-worker pathway to deepen cooperation between universities, employers and the National Health Service.

Linking migration and trade ties

The white paper also places the IndiaUK free trade agreement, signed last year, within the migration discussion, describing it as a practical channel to reduce frictions in services and professional mobility.

At the launch, Lord Karan Bilimoria, founder of Cobra Beer, positioned the Indian experience as a reference point for integration. The Indian community is by miles the most successful migrant community and should be seen as an inspiration to everyone in the United Kingdom, he said.

Manish Tiwari of Here & Now 365 connected current trends to a longer arc of contribution. Indian migrants helped rebuild Britain after the war, powered its digital revolution, and strengthened its health and care systems in times of crisis, he said.

The Indian diaspora has played a defining role in building the tech superpower Britain is today and continues to contribute across every layer of society.
The Delhi government, led by the BJP, has withdrawn all cases filed by the previous Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) administration against the Union government, the Lieutenant Governor, and several senior bureaucrats, officials said on Monday.

After assuming office, the BJP government moved courts seeking early hearings to withdraw multiple cases related to key administrative and policy issues, which were a bone of contention between the former AAP dispensation and the Centre, the LG's office, as well as bureaucrats of the Delhi government.

These cases filed by the former AAP government over a period of time included the appointment of Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) chairman, control over service-related matters, implementation of Pradhan Mantri Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission, funding for the Delhi Jal Board, appointment of lawyers in the Delhi riot cases, and the constitution of a high-level committee on Yamuna river pollution.

According to the officials, the law department of the Delhi government began the withdrawal process for these cases shortly after the BJP assumed power following the Assembly elections in February 2025.

Continuing with these cases posed legal challenges, as it would have been difficult for the BJP, which governs Delhi, to pursue cases against its own government at the Centre and its appointed LG. Additionally, persisting with the cases would have wasted government resources without producing any benefits, an officer stated.

In May 2025, the Supreme Court allowed the Delhi government to withdraw seven cases filed against the LG. During the same month, the Delhi High Court also permitted the government to withdraw its petition challenging the LG's decision to appoint lawyers to argue cases related to the farmers' protest and the 2020 Delhi riots.

An internal proposal moved by the law department stated that such litigation caused "hardship" to the bureaucracy and resulted in "administrative paralysis," delaying policy decisions and execution of projects.

The withdrawn cases also included one concerning the 2023 ordinance promulgated by the president, which amended the GNCTD Act of 1991, the interpretation of Section 45D of the Act, appointments to the DERC, cessation of funding, and issues related to the alderman case pending before the Supreme Court.

Officials noted that the LG Secretariat had approved the proposal to withdraw these cases. Furthermore, the Health Department submitted applications to withdraw cases filed by former minister Saurabh Bharadwaj.

There were approximately eight to nine such cases filed by former AAP ministers, officials said.
6 must-visit cities in China for Chinese New Year 2026

10:50, February 10, 2026 By Wu Chaolan ( People's Daily Online

Chinese New Year, or the Spring Festival, falls on Feb. 17 this year, and with the 9-day vacation running from Feb. 15 to Feb. 23, the country is immersed in its most vivid, symbolic, and emotionally charged celebrations of the year.

For travelers, it's a rare 9-day-period when China bursts into celebration. Lantern-lit streets fill with families, festive music and laughter echo through old neighborhoods, food stalls steam in the cold air, and every corner glows with the warmth of the New Year.

People's Daily Online has selected six cities where you can experience the Chinese New Year at its most vibrant, intimate, and authentic.

Beijing, capital of China

For first-time visitors to China, Beijing offers the most iconic Chinese New Year imagery  red lanterns swaying above ancient hutongs, the aroma of street snacks drifting through the cold air, and the city's imperial architecture glowing under festive lights.

One of Beijing's most signature Spring Festival experiences is its temple fairs: a lively mix of traditional street food, local crafts, seasonal rituals, and folk performances. Families gather at these fairs to celebrate the start of a new year.

This year, Beijing will host more than 30 temple fairs and lantern festivals, more numerous and elaborate than in previous years. Highlights include the Longtan, Ditan, and Changdian temple fairs, which will feature more on-site shows  from classic Beijing folk arts like crosstalk and traditional storytelling to acrobatics, opera, and martial arts performances from the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

For anyone hoping to feel the true warmth, joy, and bustle of a Chinese New Year, a temple fair is simply unmissable.

Tourists visit a Spring Festival temple fair at Ditan Park in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 29, 2025. (Xinhua/Ju Huanzong)

(Web editor: Wu Chaolan, Wu Chengliang)
Miscreants set fire to several houses overnight in villages around Litan in Ukhrul district, Manipur Police said on Monday.

According to the press note, while the situation in the affected areas remains tense, it has largely been brought under control. A Joint Control Room has been set up at Litan Police Station to coordinate urgent security measures, and senior officers are camping in the area to closely monitor the situation on the ground.

The police added that the overall law-and-order situation in the state during the last 24 hours remained normal.

Security forces continued search operations and area domination in fringe and vulnerable areas across districts, leading to the recovery of arms and ammunition.

A day earlier, security forces recovered one .303 rifle with a magazine, two 12-bore single-barrel guns, four 9 mm pistols with magazines, and 36 hand grenades from the Ngarou Chengjel hill range near Nongdam village under Lamlai Police Station in Imphal East district.

Intelligence-based combing, cordon and search operations are being carried out extensively to nab those involved in extortion and other criminal activities.

In connection with a bomb explosion case at Lilong Chajing area under Singjamei Police Station in Imphal West district, Manipur Police arrested three active cadres of KCP (Apunba) from different locations in Imphal West and Imphal East districts. The arrested persons were identified as Laishram Bulu Singh (39), Puyamacha David (22), and Ningthoujam Chalamba Singh (29).

From their possession, police recovered a four-wheeler vehicle, a .45 pistol with a magazine and 17 rounds of ammunition, three mobile phones, a wallet containing cash and an Aadhaar card, and other incriminating items.

On the same day, security forces rescued two drivers who were stranded after their truck broke down at Lamlai Chingphei Kuki village under Litan Police Station in Ukhrul district. The rescued persons, identified as Chihanso Keishing (26) and Kanambuan Golmei (17), were safely brought to Yaingangpokpi Police Station.

The police further said that 115 nakas and checkpoints were set up across different districts of Manipur in both the hills and the valley, though no one was detained.

The movement of 306 vehicles carrying essential items along National Highway-37 was ensured with strict security arrangements and convoy protection in sensitive stretches.

Appealing to the public to remain vigilant, the police urged people not to believe rumours or false videos circulating on social media and advised verification through the Central Control Room.
The air quality in the national capital deteriorated sharply on Tuesday morning, with the overall Air Quality Index (AQI) recorded at 268, placing it in the poor category, according to data from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). Out of the monitoring stations reporting data, Anand Vihar (317) along with 10 other stations recorded very poor air quality, while 20 stations were in the poor category. Only six stations reported moderate air quality, and two stations did not have data available at the time of filing this report. Among the worst-affected areas, Mundka recorded the highest AQI at 357, followed by Narela (344), Wazirpur (339), Rohini (335), and Bawana (333). Other pollution hotspots included Shadipur (330), Ashok Vihar (328) and Sonia Vihar (326).

Mandir Marg reported the lowest AQI at 162, placing it in the moderate range.

A day earlier, Delhis AQI stood at 206, also in the poor category, indicating a further decline in air quality within 24 hours. Several parts of the city were enveloped in a layer of smog, raising concerns, particularly for people with respiratory ailments.

According to the CPCBs classification, an AQI between 201 and 300 is considered poor, 301 to 400 very poor, and 401 to 500 severe.

Delhi saw 10 severe AQI days this winter

In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, the government said that Delhi experienced just 10 days of severe air quality (AQI above 401) during the October to January winter season in 2025-26, a marked improvement compared with 31 such days in 2016-17, according to Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav. The minister highlighted that focused actions under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) have led to reductions in particulate pollution in 130 cities.

Delhi weather today

Weather conditions have offered little relief. The national capital woke up to a cold and misty Tuesday morning, with shallow fog reducing visibility in some areas. The minimum temperature ranged between 10 and 11 degrees Celsius, while daytime highs are expected to hover around 22 to 23 degrees Celsius, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said. Calm winds and partly cloudy skies are expected to prevail through the day, with dry conditions.
The Delhi government on Tuesday said it will launch the Lakhpati Bitiya Yojana from April 1, replacing the Ladli Scheme introduced in 2008. Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said the new programme is an upgraded version intended to strengthen financial support for girls from economically weaker families and extend benefits to higher education.

We will launch the upgraded scheme on April 1 and shut down the old Ladli scheme, she announced at a press conference.

The government said the new scheme will provide financial assistance of up to 56,000 per beneficiary in phased deposits linked to education and age milestones. The accumulated amount will grow with interest and be released to the beneficiary at maturity through an Aadhaar-linked bank account.

What are the payouts and eligibility under the Lakhpati Bitiya Yojana?

Under the new scheme, 11,000 will be deposited at birth, followed by 5,000 at admission to Class I and further deposits at later educational stages, including Classes 6, 8, 10, and 12. An additional 20,000 will be deposited in phases if the girl goes for graduation or diploma studies.

The total government contribution may reach 56,000 and is expected to grow to more than 1 lakh with interest. The maturity amount can be claimed after the beneficiary turns 18 and passes Class XII, or after completing graduation or a diploma and turning 21. The state government has estimated the cost of implementing the upgraded scheme at around 160 crore.

The scheme will apply to girls born in Delhi whose families have lived in the city for at least three years and have an annual income not exceeding 1.20 lakh. Benefits will be limited to two surviving girl children per family.

How the new scheme expands benefits to higher education

The new programme will extend coverage beyond school education. Girls pursuing graduation or professional diploma courses in recognised institutions across India will be eligible. Conditions for girls living in government-supported child care institutions have also been relaxed to include vulnerable beneficiaries.

The government said a digital portal will be created to manage registration and tracking. It added that unclaimed funds under the earlier Ladli scheme have been identified and steps are being taken to distribute them.

When we assumed office, we found that a large number of maturity accounts under the Ladli scheme remained unclaimed, the Chief Minister said. She added that funds lying unused in earlier accounts would be released to identified beneficiaries.

What was the Ladli Scheme and why is it being replaced?

The Ladli Scheme, launched in 2008 by the Women and Child Development Department under the Sheila Dikshit-led Congress government, provided financial support for girls from low-income families through deposits linked to school enrolment and progression. Payments were made at birth and at stages such as Class 1, 6, 9, and 12. The accumulated amount was released when the beneficiary turned 18 and met eligibility conditions.

The scheme aimed to improve enrolment and retention of girls in school and provide financial security at adulthood. However, the current BJP government claimed several maturity accounts remained unclaimed, prompting a redesign of the programme.

Lakhpati Bitiya Yojana vs Ladli Scheme: Key differences

The Lakhpati Bitiya Yojana expands the scope of the earlier scheme in several ways. It increases the total deposit amount, extends benefits to graduation or diploma education and introduces Aadhaar-linked payments and digital tracking. The income ceiling has also been revised and conditions for vulnerable groups have been relaxed.

Both schemes provide phased deposits linked to educational milestones and restrict benefits to two girls per family. However, the new scheme introduces higher deposits, longer coverage, and a revised maturity structure tied to higher education completion.

What is the Delhi governments objective behind the new scheme?

The Chief Minister said the new programme is intended to ensure that girls do not drop out of education due to financial constraints.

This is an investment in the future of our girls and the future of the country. No girl will quit education for lack of funds, she said.
The Lok Sabha on Tuesday afternoon took up a discussion on the Budget, with several Opposition MPs accusing the government of signing a trade agreement framework with the United States (US) that would hurt Indias farmers.

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav termed the India-US interim trade agreement one-sided, saying it would hurt the farming community because of imports from the US and also harm domestic industry.

In the Rajya Sabha, Milind Deora of the Shiv Sena, an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance, asked if Indias economy was indeed dead, why the European Union had signed the biggest trade deal with India and not with China or the US.

Some people overseas and, more importantly, right here had the wilful ignorance to call our economy dead, Deora said, without naming either US President Donald Trump, who had last year termed Indias economy as dead, or Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who had then agreed with Trumps comments. BJPs Aparajita Sarangi said India signing nine trade deals in recent months was evidence that the government was capable of navigating a difficult world with conviction.

Trinamool Congress Saugata Roy accused the government of ditching Russia, Indias long-time friend, by succumbing to US pressure to stop oil purchases from Russia.

In comments on X, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said the government had claimed that the Indo-US joint statement said nothing on Russian oil, even though Trump had publicly stated otherwise. Now the White House fact sheet clearly lists Indias commitment to stop purchasing Russian Federation oil as a condition for removal of an additional 25 per cent tariff, he said, adding that the government has backstabbed Indias farmers by completely opening the agriculture sector.

Now, we know what Additional Products actually meant in the Indo-US joint statement agreed by the Modi government. Pulses have been silently added in the newly released White House fact sheet on February 9, which was not part of the Indo-US Joint Statement issued on February 6, 2026.

Kharge said: The utility of red sorghum imports to India was mentioned in the Joint Statement, but that utility pertaining to 'animal feed' has now mysteriously vanished in the White House fact sheet of February 9, 2026.

Kharge accused the Union government of betraying our gau-mata and dairy farmers.

He said the trade deal called for importing food and agricultural products, including dried distillers grains (DDGs) and red sorghum for animal feed, from the US. He said it was well known that if Indian cattle consume American feed, which is largely genetically modified, it would alter cattle breeds and the taste of milk.

Kharge said full-page advertisements were being published in newspapers and Amul was being forced to whitewash this concession. But the truth, he said, was that the Modi government had not approved genetically modified feed since 2017 and had now suddenly done so.

Kharge claimed that the trade deal also stands to hurt the apparel sector. By granting Dhaka zero-duty access for using American cotton, Washington has effectively incentivised Bangladesh over Indian farmers to save their own margins, he said.

Opposition MPs raised concerns over the India-US trade deal in the Rajya Sabha as well.
A firm of Parth Pawar, son of late Deputy CM Ajit Pawar, has appealed against the notice issued by the Maharashtra registration department asking to pay stamp duty of Rs 21 crore pertaining to the sale deed of Mundhwa land by February 10, sources said.

The department, in an earlier order, had asked Amadea Enterprises LLP and its partner, Digvijay Patil, to pay the stamp duty, which was waived during the execution of the sale deed for 40-acre government land, by February 10.

"The deadline to pay the stamp duty was February. The firm has filed an appeal challenging the order. Now there will be a hearing before the Inspector General Registration (IGR)," said a senior official from the department on Monday.

The official, however, did not elaborate on the grounds for challenging the original order seeking Rs 21 crore.

Asked what action can be initiated if the stamp duty is not paid, he said that there are set procedures, such as 'revenue recovery', which involves bank account seizure and attachment of immovable property.

The Rs 300-crore deal to sell the 40-acre land parcel to Amadea Enterprises LLP came under the scanner after it emerged that the land belongs to the government, and the firm was exempted from paying the stamp duty.

Shital Tejwani, who held a power of attorney for 272 'original watandars' of the land, executed the sale deed and sold the property to Amadea Enterprises LLP despite knowing that the land belonged to the government and could not be sold. Sub-Registrar, Ravindra Taru, allegedly facilitated the sale deed.

An FIR was registered against Patil, Tejwani and Taru by the officials of the Inspector General of Registration (IGR) for allegedly evading stamp duty.

The district administration also registered a case against Patil, Tejwani and suspended Tehsildar Suryakant Yeole for allegedly executing the sale deed despite knowing that the land belonged to the government. The FIR was registered with the Khadak police station and is currently being probed by the Economic Offence Wing of the Pune police.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday cited a December 2023 social media post by former army chief MM Naravane informing people that that his book is "available now" to rebut publisher Penguin Random House India's statement that the 'memoir' has not yet been published.

Gandhi said he believes the word of the former army chief over Penguin.

Speaking with reporters in the Parliament House complex, Gandhi read out Naravane's social media post on X (then Twitter), which said, "Hello friends. My book is available now. Just follow the link. Happy reading. Jai Hind." "This is the tweet Mr Naravane has made. The point I am making is either Mr Naravane is lying, and I believe the (former) Army chief, I don't think he will lie, or Penguin is lying. Both cannot be telling the truth," the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha said.

"Penguin is saying the book is not published. The book is available on Amazon. Gen Naravane has tweeted, as I just read to you, that please buy my book. He tweeted this in 2023. Do you believe Penguin over Mr Naravane? I believe Mr Naravane," Gandhi said.

The Congress leader said Naravane has made certain statements in the book that are "inconvenient" for the government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Obviously, you have to decide whether Penguin is telling the truth or the (former) Army chief is telling the truth. That is the issue," he added.

Pointing to a poster Opposition MPs were carrying near the Makar Dwar of Parliament during their protest, which read 'Narender Surrender', Gandhi said this has happened, and the Indo-US trade deal happened because of this.

Penguin Random House India (PRHI) has said it holds the exclusive publishing rights to former Army chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane's memoir titled Four Stars of Destiny, and clarified that the book has not yet been published, amid reports of unauthorised copies in circulation.

The clarification came after the Delhi Police registered an FIR over the alleged illegal circulation of the manuscript in digital and other formats.

In a statement issued on Monday, the publishing house clarified that no copies of the book -- either in print or digital form -- have been released to the public.

"Penguin Random House India would like to clarify that we hold the sole publishing rights for the book 'Four Stars of Destiny', a memoir by General Manoj Mukund Naravane, former Chief of the Indian Army. We wish to make it clear that the book has not gone into publication," the publisher said in a statement.

It further said that no copies of the book "in print or digital form -- have been published, distributed, sold, or otherwise made available to the public" by the company.

The publisher also warned that any version of the book currently circulating, whether in full or in part and in any format, including print, PDF or online copies, would amount to copyright infringement.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday observed that political fights increasingly end up being contested in courts, especially during election periods, Bar and Bench reported.

A Bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant , along with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and NV Anjaria, made the remark while hearing mentions of two petitions accusing Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma of hate speech. The petitions were mentioned for urgent listing before the top court.

During the hearing, advocate Nizam Pasha, appearing for one of the petitioners, informed the court about the allegations against the Assam chief minister.

There is a plea against hate speech by a member of a political party. There is a video also now by the Chief minister taking a shot at the minorities etc, Pasha submitted.

Responding to this, the Chief Justice said, The problem is when elections come, it is often fought here in supreme court only. We will see.

What the petitions allege

The petitions have been filed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] and senior communist leader Annie Raja. They challenge a public speech made by Sarma on January 27, as well as a video, which is now deleted, shared by the Bharatiya Janata Party's Assam unit on X.

In the January speech, Sarma allegedly made remarks targetting a particular community. According to the petitioners, the statements were communal and violated constitutional values. The plea also objects to a video posted on February 7, which shows the chief minister discharging a firearm towards an animated image of two visibly Muslim men, the news report said.

ALSO READ: Supreme Court to close hate speech pleas, keeps Noida assault case pending According to CPI(M), the video worsens communal tensions and sends a threatening message to minorities.

Controversial remarks in public speech

In his speech at a public gathering, Sarma reportedly said that 400,000 to 500,000 Miya voters would be removed from the electoral rolls and that Hemant Biswa Sarma and the BJP are directly against Miyas.

The term Miya is widely considered a derogatory reference to Muslims. The petitioners argue that such statements promote exclusion and discrimination against a minority community.

Video removed but still circulating

The CPI(M) plea notes that after widespread criticism, the BJP Assam unit removed the video from its official account.

"It is pertinent to note that following severe backlash over this video, it was removed from the official handle of BJPs state unit; nevertheless, the material continues to be widely circulated and disseminated through multiple other accounts and platforms," the petition states.

The party argues that despite deletion, the damage caused by the video continues due to its circulation on other platforms.

According to the petition, ministers at both the Union and state levels have a constitutional duty to protect national unity and promote fraternity.

The plea argues that any action or speech that promotes communal hatred or divides society violates this duty and falls outside the lawful scope of ministerial authority.

It further claims that the chief ministers conduct encourages social and economic exclusion of a minority community.

The petition contends that Sarmas actions attract criminal liability under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). It specifically refers to Sections 196, 197, 299 and 353, which correspond to Sections 153-A, 153-B, 295-A and 505 of the Indian Penal Code, the news report said.

The petitioner has asked the court to direct the registration of a first information report (FIR) against the Chief Minister and to order a probe by a special investigation team (SIT).
The Government has set up a task force on darknet and cryptocurrency under the multi-agency centre (MAC) to monitor platforms facilitating narco-trafficking, Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday.

In a written response, Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai said the Government has taken various steps for inter-agency coordination between the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), state anti-narcotics task forces (ANTFs) and border guarding forces to curb cross-border and inter-state drug smuggling.

Listing out the steps, Rai said the task force has been set up under the MAC mechanism with a focus on monitoring platforms facilitating narco-trafficking, sharing of inputs on drug smuggling amongst agencies/MAC members, interception of drug networks, continuous capturing of trends, modus operandi and nodes with regular database updates and review of related rules and laws.

In addition, a Joint Coordination Committee (JCC) has also been set up at the central and state levels to oversee significant drug seizure investigations.

"NCB collaborates with other agencies like Navy, Coast Guard, Border Security Force, and State ANTFs to carry out joint anti-drug operations," he said.

Rai said a centralised digital database, namely National Integrated Database on Arrested Narco-Offenders (NIDAAN), developed by the NCB in collaboration with the Inter-Operable Criminal Justice System (ICJS), has also been established to combat the drug menace.

"The NIDAAN portal integrates data of Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) offenders arrested by all Drug Law Enforcement Agencies across the country, including information such as identity details, photographs, fingerprints, case particulars and court-related information. NIDAAN picks its data from all India E Prisons and the database of NCB," he said.
Uttar Pradesh's budget size has more than doubled from 3.47 trillion in 2016-17 to an estimated 8.33 trillion in 2025-26, while capital expenditure rose from 69,790 crore to 1.47 trillion during the period, according to the Economic Survey tabled in the assembly on Monday.

Presenting the report on the opening day of the budget session, Finance Minister Suresh Kumar Khanna said the budget has expanded by 4.86 trillion over the past nine years, compared to an increase of 2.34 trillion between 2008-09 and 2016-17.

The survey described the state's fiscal position as balanced, noting that the public debt-to-GSDP ratio declined from 29.3 per cent in 2016-17 to 28.0 per cent in 2024-25, lower than national and global averages.

In the health sector, the allocation has reached a record 46,728.48 crore, accounting for 6.1 per cent of the total budget. The report claimed that citizens' out-of-pocket health expenditure has reduced and medical infrastructure has been strengthened.

Institutional deliveries increased from 34.74 lakh in 2021-22 to 41 lakh in 2024-25, marking an 18.02 per cent rise. Institutional births accounted for 96.12 per cent of total deliveries in 2024-25, while non-institutional deliveries declined by 50.44 per cent to 1.66 lakh.

The survey stated that free vaccination is being provided to children aged 0-5 years against 12 life-threatening diseases, including polio, tuberculosis, measles and Japanese encephalitis, and pregnant women are being immunised against tetanus.

Khanna said the number of medical colleges has increased from 36 in 2017 to 81 by the end of 2025, including 45 government and 36 private institutions.

The state currently has 38 state universities and 52 private universities.

On tourism, the report said arrivals in Uttar Pradesh recorded an increase by 2.4 times, reaching 156.18 crore in 2025. A record 66.30 crore visitors attended the Prayagraj Mahakumbh, it said.

In agriculture, the sector's contribution to the state economy increased from 24 per cent in 2017-18 to 24.9 per cent in 2024-25. Foodgrain production reached 737.4 lakh metric tonnes in 2024-25, raising the state's share in national output from 18.1 per cent to 20.6 per cent.

Per hectare gross value addition rose from 0.98 lakh in 2017-18 to 1.73 lakh in 2024-25. Paddy accounts for 13.1 per cent of the state's agricultural gross value, with area and production rising by 19.4 per cent and 23.6 per cent, respectively.

The report said around 65,000 food processing units are operational in the state, employing nearly 2.55 lakh youths, as Uttar Pradesh emerges as a food processing hub.

According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey 2023-24, 53.2 per cent of the workforce is engaged in agriculture and allied sectors, including 78.8 per cent of working women and 44 per cent of working men.

Khanna also told the House that a zero-tolerance policy towards crime has been implemented to strengthen women's safety.
Pulses were not part of the items mentioned in the joint statement for the interim framework, and the fact-sheet too does not clarify which pulses are being included. However, sources said the US has been pressing for inclusion of exports of lentils and yellow peas at zero duty to India. India now imposed 10 per cent duty on lentils that might go for the US.

The US mostly produces dried green lentils, which are priced higher than other variants of lentils that India imports annually from different countries.

India has traditionally accounted for 8-12 percent of the total pulses exported from the US, depending on the policy conditions.

In 2024, around $74 million - $76 million of pulses were sold to India, making it the fourth largest buyer of US pulses in the world, after Mexico, Canada and the European Union (EU).

Few weeks back, two prominent US Republican Senators Steve Daines from Montana and Kevin Cramer from North Dakota sent a letter to President Trump, urging favourable pulse crop provisions in any future trade agreements between the US and India. In your first term, we wrote to you on this issue, and you hand-delivered our letter to Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi during the 2020 trade negotiations with India, which helped bring our producers to the tableengaging Prime Minister Modi on pulse crop tariffs to enhance the economic cooperation between our countries would be mutually beneficial to both American producers and Indian customer, the senators wrote in the letter to President Trump.

Their main point of contention was the 30 per cent import tariff announced by India in December 30, 2025 on yellow peas effective from November 1, which according to the senators was unfair to the US pulse crop producers, exposing them to significant competitive disadvantage when exporting their high-quality product to India. But, the letter is also a pointer that India was not always a marginal player in the whole US pulses matrix.

Data shows that in 2015, India imported close to $136.19 million worth of pulses from the US, making it the number one buyer of US pulses, a position it retained in 2016 as well with $142.16 million worth of imports.

However, over the years, this position has been taken up by countries and blocks such as Canada, Mexico and the EU due to a combination of factors that included high prices, easier availability from other sources and increase in domestic production of varieties such as kabuli chana (peas).

Also, some traders said most pulses are now imported into India in containers, while in some countries it is still sold in bulk vessels. In fact, USDA data showed that between 2021 to 2023, India slipped to ninth position in the list of countries which bought pulses from the US.

During 2023-24, India imported close to 1.67 million tonnes of lentils of which Australia and Canada accounted for around 1.58 million tonnes (around 95 per cent).

In 2024-25, this number dropped to 1.21 million tonnes of which Australia and Canada accounted for almost 90 per cent.

Yellow peas have been the dominant segment of Indias overall pulses imports since the last two financial years. India imported close to 1.16 million tonnes of yellow peas in 2023-24 of which Canada and Russia accounted for around 83 per cent of the same. In 2024-25, India imported yellow peas at an all-time high of around 2.16 million tonnes in which shipments from Canada and Russia accounted for nearly 82 per cent.

Clearly, when it comes to pulses, India has been sourcing largely from Canada, Russia, Myanmar, Australia and even Mozambique, while imports from the US have risen, but are still small as compared to other countries.

According to the data from the United States Department of Agricultures (USDA) National Agricultural Statistics Service and the US Dry Pea and Lentil Council, the total pulses harvested area and estimated total production in 2024 (calendar year) were 2.4 million acres and approximately 1.6 million metric tonnes, respectively.

The data showed that pulses harvested area was higher in 2024 compared to 2020-2023, while pulse production was higher in 2024 compared to 2020-2023. The exception was the higher production of peas in 2020.

In the US, pulses production is largely concentrated in and around the states of North Dakota, Montana, Washington, and Idaho, with exports playing a critical role in their farm incomes.

According to reports, Montana and North Dakota alone account for over 80 per cent of all dry pea and lentil production for the entire US, which also includes chickpeas apart from the other two.

These states border Canada, which itself is one of the worlds main pulses growing nations and a major exporter of pulses to India.

Trade data shows that between December 2023 and October 2025 (the period when India allowed duty free imports of yellow peas), the country imported close to 4.06 million tonnes of yellow peas of which Canada alone accounted for 2.21 million tonnes (close to 48 per cent), followed by Russia at 1.19 million tonnes.

The US was behind by a long distance at just 22,275 tonnes.
The IndiaUS trade deal has brought agriculture back into the policy spotlight after New Delhi agreed to grant zero-duty or sharply reduced-duty access to a set of American farm and food products, while reiterating that its sensitive farm sectors remain protected.

The development has revived the debate around what genetically modified crops are, and why India remains deeply cautious about importing them, especially from the US, where GM farming is the norm.

What are GM crops?

Genetically modified crops are plants whose DNA has been altered using modern biotechnology to introduce specific traits, such as insect resistance or herbicide tolerance, with greater precision than conventional cross-breeding.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) notes that GM foods currently available internationally have undergone safety assessments and are not likely to present risks for human health, while also stressing that safety is assessed on a case-by-case basis and on national regulations.

In practice, GM traits are designed to help farmers manage pests, weeds, or climate stress. This technology differs from traditional breeding, which mixes genes within a crops broader family over several generations.

Why is the US central to the GM crops debate?

The US is among the worlds largest producers and exporters of GM crops. According to the United States Department of Agricultures Economic Research Service, more than 90 per cent of corn, upland cotton and soybeans in the US are produced using genetically engineered varieties.

This matters for IndiaUS trade because the American agricultural export basket is dominated by corn- and soybean-linked products, including animal feed inputs and processed derivatives. Even when the final product is not a GM seed or grain, the upstream supply chain often is.

What did the India-US trade deal change, and what did it not?

According to the joint statement on the trade deal, India has not opened the door to the most politically sensitive farm imports, such as US corn and soybeans, while offering zero-duty or reduced-duty access on select other items.

Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal has stressed that Indias agriculture and dairy sensitivities have been safeguarded, even as the agreement seeks to address broader trade barriers and expand market access.

The controversy lies in the fact that some of the newly emphasised zero-duty items, particularly dried distillers grains, are typically derived from US corn, which is predominantly genetically engineered.

Why does India resist importing GM farm products?

Indias resistance to importing GM-linked farm products reflects a mix of regulatory caution, political economy considerations, environmental risk assessment and trade strategy, rather than a blanket rejection of biotechnology.

At the regulatory level, India follows a precautionary biosafety framework. While GM crops approved internationally are assessed by bodies such as the WHO and Codex Alimentarius as safe for consumption, India requires prior domestic approval for every genetically engineered organism entering the food chain.

At present, commercial cultivation is permitted only for Bt cotton, a non-food crop, and no GM food crop has received full clearance for unrestricted use. A draft notification issued by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) in November 2022 proposed mandatory labelling for foods containing one per cent or more GM content and required import consignments to certify non-GM status.

Political economy concerns also play a key role. Agriculture continues to support a large share of Indias population, dominated by small and marginal farmers. Policymakers have long feared that opening the market to large-scale imports of GM-linked crops from the US, where farming is highly mechanised and subsidised, could depress domestic prices and disrupt rural livelihoods.

Environmental and biosafety concerns add another layer of caution. India is a centre of origin and genetic diversity for several crops, and regulators have repeatedly cited risks related to gene flow, biodiversity loss and long-term ecological impact. Experiences with Bt cotton, where initial gains were later offset in some regions by pest resistance , have reinforced official scepticism about treating GM technology as a permanent solution.

Traceability and enforcement challenges further complicate imports. Raw grains and feed ingredients are difficult to segregate and certify as non-GM once they enter bulk commodity supply chains. With over 90 per cent of US corn and soybeans genetically engineered, ensuring compliance at scale could prove costly and prone to leakages.

Why does the GM versus non-GM distinction matter in trade?

In global commodity markets, GM and non-GM supply chains can coexist, but only with segregation, testing and documentation. For importers, the issue is not just whether a product contains GM material, but whether it can be reliably certified under domestic rules.

This is why zero-duty access for items such as dried distillers grains and soybean oil has become contentious. Even if these products are not meant for direct human consumption, they influence the farm economy by affecting animal feed costs and edible oil prices. Policymakers face a trade-off between cheaper inputs and the political risk of appearing to dilute Indias GM stance.

How have farmer groups and political parties reacted?

Farmer groups and opposition parties have described the trade deal as a potential backdoor entry for GM-linked products and have sought greater clarity from the government.

The Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) said New Delhi must clearly spell out its position on US farm products commonly derived from genetically modified crops and used as animal feed. BKS general secretary Mohini Mohan Mishra said such products should not be allowed into the country under any circumstances, under any name, or condition.

The Samyukta Kisan Morcha warned that duty-free imports of dried distillers grains, soybean oil, red sorghum for animal feed, tree nuts, and fresh and processed fruits could hurt Indian farmers.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh raised concerns over the joint statements reference to additional products that were not specified, calling it far too open-ended and questioning whether it implied easing restrictions on GM crops and dairy products.

For now, the government maintains that the trade deal does not dilute Indias long-standing position on GM crops or open the door to unrestricted farm imports. However, as talks move towards a broader agreement and zero-duty access expands for select products, the distinction between processed inputs and GM-linked supply chains is likely to face closer scrutiny.
Speaking at the fifth Global Electric Mobility Summit organised by industry body SIAM, the automakers on Tuesday said that while EV adoption had picked up in recent years, limited availability of chargers, lack of uniform charging systems, and low consumer confidence continued to slow wider acceptance.

Shailesh Chandra, managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO) of Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles (TMPV), said charging infrastructure remains the one biggest barrier even as the market has matured. The government has been allocating funds, better coordination was required to scale up charging networks.

The EV ecosystem in India had evolved in phases, he said, with the company initially focusing on home chargers, then partnering Tata Power for public charging, before multiple charge point operators entered the market as EV volumes crossed 100,000 units.

However, he noted that the proliferation of charging apps and networks had created new challenges for consumers. There is a need for system thinking and aggregation so that the consumer experience improves, he said, stressing the need for coordination between vehicle manufacturers, power distribution companies and charge point operators.

Hyundai Motor India MD and CEO, Tarun Garg, said charging-related anxiety continued to affect customer behaviour, even as automakers localise components such as battery packs. He said assumptions that overnight home charging using alternating current (AC) chargers would be sufficient have proved inadequate.

Research shows that customers are apprehensive to take the vehicle out, Garg said, pointing to limited awareness about charger compatibility and availability. To address this, Hyundai introduced a charging management system that gave customers access to around 29,000 chargers, he said.

Garg said Indias EV penetration stood at about 4.4 per cent in 2025 and could be close to an inflection point. He added that perceptions around EVs were also changing. People are finding that it is actually a complete car from total cost of ownership and convenience. Why only a second car? It can be your first car, he said.

BMW Group India President and CEO, Hardeep Brar, highlighted the large gap between the number of EVs on Indian roads and available charging infrastructure. He said there were around 7.5 million electric vehicles in the country and roughly 30,000 public chargers, translating to a ratio of one charger for about 250 vehicles.

In developed markets like China and Norway, where EV penetration is over 40 per cent, the charger-to-vehicle ratio is about 1 to 20, Brar said, adding that India still has a very long way to go to reach that level.
The Andhra Pradesh government has exempted stamp duty and registration fees amounting to over 20 crore in favour of BPCL to facilitate the setting up of a greenfield refinery and petrochemical complex near Ramayapatnam Port in Nellore district.

G Sai Prasad, special chief secretary (FAC), Revenue (Registration. II) Department said the exemption pertains to the transfer of over 600 acres of land in Chevuru village, Gudluru mandal of Nellore district from Andhra Pradesh Maritime Board (APMB) to Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) and in turn from APIIC to BPCL.

"Government after careful examination of the matter, has decided to exempt the stamp duty for an amount of 17.6 crore and registration fee (including transfer duty) for an amount of 2.7 crore for transfer of land to an extent of 600.4 acres, out of 6,000 acres from APMB to APIIC and in turn from APIIC to BPCL," said Prasad in a government order (GO) on Monday.

More than a year ago, the Andhra Pradesh government had issued orders to allot 6,000 acres in five land parcels near Ramayapatnam Port on cost basis and commitment to provide financial incentives covering 75 per cent of the capital expenditure over 20 years on investment of nearly 97,000 crore to set up the refinery and petrochemical complex, the GO said.

These incentives flow from the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Development Policy 4.0, launched on October 16, 2024.

In May 2025, the government accorded permission to APMB chief executive to transfer 6,000 acres of land from the maritime board to APIIC to complete the process of allocation of lands to Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd's (BPCL) project, exempting stamp duty and registration fees.

Though the Inspector General of Registration and Stamps had stated that the total value of the land stretching up to an extent of 600.4 acres as per market value basic register is over 17.9 crore, the APIIC appraised it at over 136 crore at the rate of 22.6 lakh per acre.

Further, the Inspector General of Registration and Stamps stated that Nellore district registrar has estimated a stamp duty of over 8.8 crore and a registration fee of over 1.3 crore on the sale deed to be executed for transfer of land from APMB to APIIC and an equal amount under the same heads for further transfer of land from APMB to BPCL, amounting to a total of over 20.4 crore.

"As such, the total financial implications involved is 17,69,05,688 towards stamp duty and 2,72,16,260 towards registration fee, a potential revenue which as to be foregone by the state exchequer, in case of granting exemption," the GO added.

BPCL, which has a market cap of 1.67 lakh crore, is expected to set up a 9 to 12 MMTPA greenfield refinery cum petrochemical complex.

It is expected to invest 4,843 crore during the current financial year and 9,686 crore next year.

It will be investing 14,529 crore in 2027-28, 29,059 crore in 2028-29 and 38,745 crore in FY30, totalling 96,862 crore investment, according to an earlier GO.

The maharatna public sector enterprise will get a capital subsidy of 43.5 per cent in 15 instalments, 100 per cent GST refund for the operational phase, refund of SGST (including ineligible) and state share in IGST/CGST during construction.
This is in light of the rising number of financial frauds, including those by artificial intelligence (AI) tools.

International termination charge is an amount that any overseas carrier pays for calls landing on Indian telcos networks. While any foreign telecom services provider would only need to pay 0.35-0.65 per minute to an Indian firm, the charge becomes 3-3.5 per minute if calls from Indian telcos terminate on foreign telcos networks.

The disparity, industry executives said, was stark since the volume of incoming calls was far higher than outgoing. Therefore, it required intervention from the sectors regulator. According to data from GSMA India Consumer Scam Report of 2025, the country has high exposure to scams with 53 per cent of adults reporting lifetime exposure, and 42 per cent say the risk is increasing rapidly.

The report, reviewed by Business Standard, shows that victims most often cite messaging apps (46 per cent), SMS (37 per cent), email (33 per cent), social platforms (33 per cent) and voice (32 per cent), with search ads (19 per cent), QR/payment links (18 per cent) and even dating apps (14 per cent) being a part of the mix.

The report adds that 10 per cent believe they were personally targeted by AI-enabled scams, showing a strong signal that real-time OTP relays and convincing impersonation were already in play.

The report further notes that 65 per cent of victims lost money (14 per cent large losses), and many describe emotional distress (50 per cent), ongoing anxiety (43 per cent), and the time and effort (40 per cent) it took to put things right.

In the context of AI spam and scams rising, the call for raising international terminal charge levels has become stronger. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is looking to review the entire interconnection regulation that governs the sector, including international terminal charges, in a consultation paper issued in November last year.

The last time it reviewed the charges was in 2020, raising it from a fixed rate of 0.3, to the current range.

Aligning Indias international terminal charge framework with global rates will ensure a secure ecosystem that prioritises consumer protection. Higher charge will directly benefit the consumers leading to reduced exposure to financial fraud, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents top Indian telcos, said in its representation to Trai. Another executive said that a higher rate, at par with other global markets, would also bring down the chances of financial scams, impersonation fraud, data harvesting and even loss of personal data.

Telecom operators have invested heavily in infrastructure to curb spam, including using blockchain-based digital ledger technology, which has lowered spam within the country. But low termination rates incentivise foreign spammers to route large volumes of scam, phishing, and robo-calls that threaten customer safety and national security, the person said.

Countries like China, the UK, South Korea and even Vietnam have raised international terminal charges (in US dollars) at least two to three times in the last five years but ours has remained consistent. This means they get far higher margins than us and more negotiating room. Since we dont gain, we cannot pass on any benefit to our customers, said a senior company executive.

Indian private telcos along with public carrier BSNL, are aligned on the issue, with all seeking an upward revision of the ceiling to at least 4 per minute, going up to 5 a minute, and or aligning with global levels. As of FY25, ITC for China, the UK, South Korea, Vietnam, Turkey and Sudan, stood at $0.06, $0.03, $0.02, $0.06, $0.2 and $0.25, respectively.
However, an Indian government source said Dhaka has made significant concessions by opening sectors that were previously protected, in return for slight gains in the textiles sector.

Bangladesh is the worlds second-biggest garment manufacturer and is the main competitor of India in the US textile and apparel market, along with China and Vietnam. Under the agreement, US President Donald Trumps administration is set to trim US reciprocal tariffs on Bangladesh products from 20 per cent to 19 per cent, which means the tariff differential between India and Bangladesh has halved from 2 per cent to 1 per cent.

The US also committed to establish a mechanism that will allow for certain textile and apparel goods from Bangladesh to receive a zero reciprocal tariff rate. This mechanism will provide that a to-be-specified volume of apparel and textile imports from Bangladesh can enter the US at this reduced tariff rate, but this volume shall be determined in relation to the quantity of exports of textiles, e.g. US-produced cotton and man-made fibre textile inputs, from the United States, said a joint statement on Tuesday.

While CITI (Confederation of Indian Textile Industry) is awaiting clarity on the mechanism to be put in place by the US that will allow for certain textile and apparel goods from Bangladesh to receive a zero reciprocal tariff rate, it acknowledges that this opens a fresh challenge for Indias textiles and apparel exporters, for whom the US is their single-largest market, said Ashwin Chandran, CITI chairman.

This challenge is two-fold. First, the tariff differential between India and Bangladesh has halved from 2 per cent to 1 per cent, which is a matter of concern in a sector with narrow profit margins. Secondly, the US-Bangladesh Agreement on Reciprocal Trade could likely adversely affect Indias cotton yarn exports to Bangladesh, he added. Bangladesh is already among the leading exporters of textiles and apparel to the US, alongside China, Vietnam, and India. Any additional advantage for Bangladesh could further increase competition for Indian exporters.

A government official said the agreement has to be assessed in its entirety, rather than by individual provisions or sectors. On the other hand, India has been able to protect areas where Bangladesh has given greater market access.

According to the joint statement on the US-Bangladesh agreement, Bangladesh has committed to provide significant preferential market access for US industrial and agricultural goods, including chemicals, medical devices, machinery, and motor vehicles and parts, information and communication technology (ICT) equipment, energy products, soy products, dairy products, beef, poultry, and tree nuts and fruit.

However, the local spinning and fabric ecosystem in Bangladesh is still giving India an edge. Bangladesh exports about $44 billion of garments, of which 80 per cent ($35 billion) are cotton garments, implying $17-18 billion of yarn and fabric demand. However, its domestic spinning and fabric capacity can support only $3-4 billion, leaving a structural gap.

Even for the US market alone (70,000 crore), this constraint holds. Bangladeshs spinning, pre-treatment, and generation (SPG) sector cannot fully pivot to US cotton due to entrenched exposure to Europe and the UK. At best, only 20-25 per cent of yarn and fabric demand can be met internally; the balance must be outsourced to India and Vietnam, if rules permit. In such a scenario, Indian yarn and fabric exports benefit, said Prabhu Dhamodharan, convenor, Indian Texpreneurs Federation (ITF).

During the January to November period of 2025, textile imports from India and Bangladesh were set at $9.06 billion and $7.77 billion, respectively. Imports from India to the US dipped by 5 per cent, 30.1 per cent, and 31.4 per cent in September, October, and November, respectively. However, January to November imports from India increased by 2.3 per cent.

Now, the reciprocal tariff becomes zero for Bangladesh if made from US cotton, while India is high at 18 per cent. This zero tariff will be for a limited volume that will be determined by the US at a later date, said Sanjay Kumar Jain, managing director of Delhi-based TT Ltd and chairman of the ICC National Textiles Committee.
ACME Solar Holdings has been awarded Letter of Award (LOA) for 220 MW Solar with Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) project by Rewa Ultra Mega Solar (RUMSL). The project is part of a 440 MW tender floated by RUMSL for the Morena Solar Park in Madhya Pradesh. The tender was floated under tariff-based competitive guidelines (TBCB) for which an e-reverse auction was conducted in September 2025.

The project requires suppling power with maximum annual CUF of 35%, along with 4 hours of peak supply (2 hours each in the morning and evening) at 95% annual availability. Charging energy for the evening peak will be sourced from the solar plant, while energy for the morning peak would be supplied free of cost by the procurer during night hours. The land and evacuation infrastructure above 33 kV level would be provided by RUMSL as part of the facilities offered by the solar park developer. Additionally, the project also incorporates the benefit of reduced GST rates already passed through and will be required to adhere only to ALMM List-I (Approved List of Models and Manufacturers - List I).

The project would combine Solar and BESS technologies to meet the supply obligations for Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) tenor of 25 years. Going forward, PPA would be signed with Madhya Pradesh Power Management Company (MPPMCL) and RUMSL.

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Sales rise 9.47% to Rs 7.63 crore

Net profit of Gujarat Cotex declined 58.33% to Rs 0.05 crore in the quarter ended December 2025 as against Rs 0.12 crore during the previous quarter ended December 2024. Sales rose 9.47% to Rs 7.63 crore in the quarter ended December 2025 as against Rs 6.97 crore during the previous quarter ended December 2024.7.636.97-1.441.870.060.120.060.120.050.12

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Sales decline 0.82% to Rs 141.09 crore

Net profit of Harrisons Malayalam declined 31.79% to Rs 7.64 crore in the quarter ended December 2025 as against Rs 11.20 crore during the previous quarter ended December 2024. Sales declined 0.82% to Rs 141.09 crore in the quarter ended December 2025 as against Rs 142.25 crore during the previous quarter ended December 2024.141.09142.256.219.729.4512.907.6411.207.6411.20

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Hindalco Industries Ltd is quoting at Rs 974, up 1.01% on the day as on 12:49 IST on the NSE. The stock is up 63.46% in last one year as compared to a 12.62% gain in NIFTY and a 49.07% gain in the Nifty Metal index.

Hindalco Industries Ltd rose for a third straight session today. The stock is quoting at Rs 974, up 1.01% on the day as on 12:49 IST on the NSE. The benchmark NIFTY is up around 0.45% on the day, quoting at 25984.15. The Sensex is at 84465.17, up 0.48%. Hindalco Industries Ltd has added around 5.85% in last one month.

Meanwhile, Nifty Metal index of which Hindalco Industries Ltd is a constituent, has added around 8.2% in last one month and is currently quoting at 12129.45, up 0.94% on the day. The volume in the stock stood at 19.09 lakh shares today, compared to the daily average of 74.04 lakh shares in last one month.

The benchmark February futures contract for the stock is quoting at Rs 974.6, up 1.12% on the day. Hindalco Industries Ltd is up 63.46% in last one year as compared to a 12.62% gain in NIFTY and a 49.07% gain in the Nifty Metal index.

The PE of the stock is 30.29 based on TTM earnings ending September 25.

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The Indian rupee pared initial losses and settled on a positive note on Tuesday, higher by 9 paise at 90.57 (provisional) against the US dollar, supported by positive cues from domestic equities and weakening of the American currency in the overseas market. NIFTY50 index extended the upmove as United States and India reached a framework for an Interim Agreement on reciprocal trade. The index has zoomed near 26000 mark today and is keeping INR supported. The benchmark BSE Sensex rose by 208.17 points, or 0.25 percent, to 84,273.92, extending its rally into a third consecutive session. The broader NSE Nifty index ended up 67.85 points, or 0.26 percent, at 25,935.15 amid the weekly expiry of options contracts. Meanwhile, US dollar index tanked in global markets yesterday and currently quotes flat at 96.71, lingering near one-week low. At the interbank foreign exchange market, the rupee opened at 90.63 against the US dollar, then lost some ground to touch an intraday low of 90.77 and a high of 90.48 against the greenback.

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From Petroleum Development Oman

Ion Exchange (India) announced that its subsidiary, Ion Exchange and Company LLC, located in Oman, has been awarded contract from Petroleum Development Oman, for the Design, Build, Own, Operation and Maintenance agreement for Potable Water Facility and Sewage Treatment Facility in the South PDO Concession Area aggregating to OMR 73.46 Million for a period of twenty years (approximately Rs 1,730 crore for twenty years).

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Monarch Surveyors and Engineering Consultants has recently received Letter of Acceptance from Central Railway for updating, reconciling, certification and computerization of land plan of Pune- Miraj doubling work for handing over updated land map to open line Pune division in connection with Pune - Miraj doubling project. The total order value of the project is Rs. 5.89 crore. This is a significant development, and it is expected to positively impact the business operations of the Company.

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Sammaan Capital shares are banned from F&O trading on 10 February 2026.

Result Today:

Titan Company, Eicher Motors, Grasim Industries, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise, Britannia Industries, Oil India, Afcons Infrastructure, Balrampur Chini Mills, Dilip Buildcon, Edelweiss Financial Services, Escorts Kubota, Jubilant FoodWorks, Karnataka Bank, Samvardhana Motherson International, Torrent Power, TVS Supply Chain Solutions, United Breweries, Wakefit Innovations, and Wockhardt will release their quarterly earnings today.

IPO Data:

Aye Finance IPO Subscribed 12% on Day 1

The initial public offering (IPO) of Aye Finance saw an overall subscription of 12% on the first day of bidding. The issue was driven primarily by retail investors, whose portion was subscribed 26%.

The qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) segment was subscribed 13%, while the non-institutional investors (NIIs) category saw a muted response with just 1% subscription as of Day 1.

Fractal Analytics IPO Subscribed 9% on Day 1

The Fractal Analytics IPO garnered an overall subscription of 9% on the opening day of the issue. Retail investors led the demand, subscribing 35% of their allocated portion.

The non-institutional investors (NIIs) segment was subscribed 7% on the first day of bidding, while other categories witnessed relatively subdued participation.

Stocks to Watch:

Apollo Micro Systems reported a 40.62% year-on-year increase in consolidated net profit to Rs 25.68 crore in Q3 FY26, compared with Rs 18.26 crore in Q3 FY25. Revenue rose 69.96% to Rs 252.22 crore in Q3 FY26 from Rs 148.39 crore in the year-ago period.

Neuland Laboratories reported a 60.06% year-on-year decline in consolidated net profit to Rs 40.57 crore in Q3 FY26, compared with Rs 101.59 crore in Q3 FY25. Revenue increased 10.47% to Rs 439.71 crore from Rs 398.03 crore a year ago.

PNC Infratech reported a 5.67% year-on-year decline in consolidated net profit to Rs 76.73 crore in Q3 FY26, compared with Rs 81.35 crore in Q3 FY25. Revenue fell 18.33% to Rs 1,200.58 crore from Rs 1,470.01 crore a year ago.

Texmaco Rail & Engineering reported a 44.66% year-on-year decline in consolidated net profit to Rs 42.27 crore in Q3 FY26, compared with Rs 76.39 crore in Q3 FY25. Revenue fell 21.46% to Rs 1,041.6 crore from Rs 1,326.14 crore a year ago.

Bata India reported a 12.8% year-on-year increase in consolidated net profit to Rs 66.1 crore in Q3 FY26, compared with Rs 58.6 crore in Q3 FY25. Revenue rose 2.8% to Rs 945 crore from Rs 919 crore a year ago.

Gulf Oil Lubricants India reported a 21.9% year-on-year decline in consolidated net profit to Rs 76.4 crore in Q3 FY26, compared with Rs 97.9 crore in Q3 FY25. Revenue increased 10.6% to Rs 1,018 crore from Rs 920 crore a year ago.

Genus Power Infrastructures reported a 147.51% year-on-year jump in consolidated net profit to Rs 140.24 crore in Q3 FY26, compared with Rs 56.66 crore in Q3 FY25. Revenue surged 85.75% to Rs 1,122.36 crore from Rs 604.2 crore a year ago.

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Vedanta Ltd is quoting at Rs 689.35, up 1.41% on the day as on 12:49 IST on the NSE. The stock is up 63.57% in last one year as compared to a 12.62% spurt in NIFTY and a 49.07% spurt in the Nifty Metal index.

Vedanta Ltd gained for a third straight session today. The stock is quoting at Rs 689.35, up 1.41% on the day as on 12:49 IST on the NSE. The benchmark NIFTY is up around 0.45% on the day, quoting at 25984.15. The Sensex is at 84465.17, up 0.48%. Vedanta Ltd has risen around 9.88% in last one month.

Meanwhile, Nifty Metal index of which Vedanta Ltd is a constituent, has risen around 8.2% in last one month and is currently quoting at 12129.45, up 0.94% on the day. The volume in the stock stood at 74.6 lakh shares today, compared to the daily average of 245.39 lakh shares in last one month.

The benchmark February futures contract for the stock is quoting at Rs 690.3, up 1.54% on the day. Vedanta Ltd is up 63.57% in last one year as compared to a 12.62% spurt in NIFTY and a 49.07% spurt in the Nifty Metal index.

The PE of the stock is 53.03 based on TTM earnings ending December 25.

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At present, companies are required to appoint a Sebi-registered monitoring agency  typically a credit rating agency  only if the fresh capital raised exceeds 100 crore. The markets regulator is examining whether to lower this threshold to 50 crore or remove it altogether, a move that would expand oversight to a much larger pool of fundraisings, particularly by smaller issuers.

The issue was discussed at a meeting of Sebis primary market advisory committee last month, the sources said. An email seeking Sebi comment remained unanswered until going to press.

The regulator is also reviewing the disclosure framework governing monitoring reports. Under the current system, monitoring agencies submit quarterly reports to the issuer, which is then required to file them with stock exchanges within 45 days of the end of the quarter.

In practice, this process has often faltered. Often companies have either delayed submissions or failed to disclose reports, leaving investors with limited visibility on how funds have been deployed. In some cases, firms have also declined to share data or documents with monitoring agencies, or have failed to make payments to them, effectively stalling the oversight process, the people said.

To address these gaps, Sebis expert group has proposed allowing monitoring agencies to submit their reports directly to stock exchanges within the stipulated 45-day window, bypassing the issuer. The proposal is aimed at ensuring timely disclosures and reducing the scope for interference by listed entities.

Separately, the regulator is considering tougher action against companies that do not cooperate with monitoring agencies. Under the existing framework, a listed company can be fined 50,000 for non-cooperation. If such behaviour continues, Sebi may initiate further regulatory action, the sources said.

Monitoring agency reports typically track the deployment of funds against the stated objects of the issue. A companys board and senior management are required to provide formal comments on the findings, and the disclosures must be made public on the companys website and through stock exchange filings.

For SME IPOs, Sebi has already lowered the threshold for appointing a monitoring agency to 50 crore, with effect from March 2025.

Recent data suggest the impact on large issuers may be limited. Only three mainboard IPOs last year had a fresh issue size of less than 100 crore. However, investment bankers said that of the more than 200 IPO filings made during the calendar year 2025, a sizeable number of companies could be looking to raise less than 100 crore through fresh issues.

In an IPO, the total issue size can comprise a fresh issue, an offer for sale, or a combination of both. While proceeds from an offer for sale accrue to selling shareholders, funds raised through a fresh issue go to the company and are intended to be deployed for stated purposes such as expansion, debt repayment or working capital.

In 2025, 103 companies raised 1.75 trillion through mainboard IPOs, of which 64,419 crore, about 37 per cent, came from fresh issues. The reliance on fresh capital was even more pronounced among smaller firms. During the year, 267 companies raised 11,455 crore through SME IPOs, with 10,413 crore coming from fresh issues.

Expanded oversight scope
GIC RE stake sale buzz

GIC RE stock outlook

GIC RE stock chart

General Insurance Corporation of India RE (GIC RE), the state-owned reinsurance company's stock has been in limelight in recent trading sessions amid the Q3 earnings, and gained over 4 per cent in the last three trading sessions. That apart, the stock has been on radar as a potential disinvestment candidate.GIC RE on February 7 reported its Q3 results. The re-insurer posted a 6 per cent dip in Q3FY26 net profit at 1,519 crore when compared with 1,621 crore reported in Q3FY25. Total income rose by 10.3 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to 11,557 crore from 10,479 crore.For the nine-months ended December 2025, the re-insurer's registered a near 36 per cent growth in net profit at 6,138 crore. Underwriting losses narrowed by 37.6 per cent to 1,847.32 crore in 9MFY26.According to reports, the Indian government held roadshows in London to assess investor interest for a minority stake sale in the state-run reinsurer in December 2025. READ MORE Reports suggested that the government, which holds up to 82.4 per cent equity, intends to offload up to 10 per cent shareholding in GIC RE to meet Sebi's minimum public shareholding norm.The daily chart of GIC RE shows that the stock has been hovering around its long-term 200-day moving average (200-DMA) for the last eight months, since early June 2025. The long-term average now stands at 381 levels.Meanwhile, technical analyst Om Mehra of SAMCO Securities is bullish on GIC RE stock , and expects the stock to extend the rally from current levels."GIC RE has been consolidating within a broad range and is now showing improvement after defending a strong base in the 365  370 zone, supported by a breakout above the falling trendline on the daily chart. This move suggests that the corrective phase is losing momentum and a recovery is taking shape," explains Mehra.The analyst believes that the momentum oscillators and the traded volume are also in favour of the stock."The RSI reflects strengthening participation without entering an overstretched zone, while the MACD turning positive points to improving underlying momentum. Volumes have started to rise alongside the price, indicating better acceptance at higher levels rather than short-term covering. The DMI setup has also turned positive," says Mehra.On the upside, the analyst expects the stock to rally toward 400420 zone if the current momentum sustains, and as long as the stock holds above its support base.
Net inflows into gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) outpaced collections by active equity mutual fund (MF) schemes for the first time last month, pointing to a shift in investor preference as volatility in gold and silver prices grabbed headlines. Gold ETFs attracted net inflows of 24,040 crore in January, more than double the 11,647 crore recorded in December 2025. Silver ETFs saw an even sharper jump, with investors pouring in nearly 9,500 crore, up from 3,962 crore in December, according to data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi). The rise in inflows coincided with heightened volatility in precious metals. Gold prices ended January nearly 17 per cent higher in international markets, while silver gained 39 per cent despite a sharp fall in the final session of the month.

The surge suggests gold demand remained exceptionally strong, supported by investor preference for safe haven and diversification exposure. Part of this strength likely reflects fresh allocations at the start of the year, as investors rebalance portfolios and add hedges after a volatile phase across risk assets, said Nehal Meshram, senior analyst at Morningstar Investment Research India.

While investors poured record sums into precious metal ETFs, inflows into equity schemes weakened. At 24,040 crore, net equity inflows in January were the lowest in seven months.

The highlight in January, with no surprise, has been flows into gold and silver ETFs. Investors have diversified incremental flows from equities into precious metals, given the return profile in recent times, said Akhil Chaturvedi, executive director and chief business officer at Motilal Oswal Asset Management Company.

The decline in net equity inflows for the second consecutive month was driven mainly by higher outflows. Investors withdrew 41,639 crore last month, the highest in 18 months.

Gross inflows, though moderating, remained steady, supported by systematic investment plan (SIP) contributions. Equity funds, which account for most SIP inflows, recorded gross inflows of 65,667 crore in January, 5 per cent lower than December. SIP inflows held at a record 31,002 crore.

In the hybrid category, multi-asset funds continued to attract strong interest. These schemes, among the best-performing diversified MF offerings due to exposure to precious metals, drew more than 10,000 crore in inflows during the month.

Flows into hybrid, multi-asset and passive products  including higher allocations to gold and silver ETFs  reflect a measured approach to diversification and portfolio balance. Overall, MFs continue to see broad participation across varying market conditions, said Venkat Chalasani, chief executive of Amfi.
Investors poured money into gold ETFs (exchange traded funds) in January 2026 at a brisk pace, showed the latest data from Association of Mutual Funds of India (AMFI), with their net inflow into this category hitting nearly Rs 24,039.96 crore. This is double the amount invested in this category during December 2025.

The January inflow in Gold ETFs exceeded  albeit by a whisker  the net investment in growth/equity-oriented schemes in January, which stood at Rs 24,028.59 crore, AMFI data showed.

Experts attribute the sharp rise in investment into gold ETFs to investors need for safe-haven assets, and the willingness to diversify beyond equities amid geopolitical developments.

The recent rise in gold and silver has led to a sharp increase in demand for gold & silver ETFs as investors look for different avenues to gain exposure to precious metals. However, equities continue to remain the preferred asset class for investment from a long-term wealth creation point of view, said A Balasubramanian, managing director & chief executive officer at Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC.

By severely under-allocating to large-caps, believes Vikas Gupta, CEO and chief investment strategist at OmniScience Capital, investors have missed the opportunity to gain from the significantly mispriced large-cap financial and other stocks. Investors, he said, continued allocating to Gold ETFs at significantly elevated gold prices which might turn out to be a mistake in the long-term.

The flows into gold ETFs in January 2026, according to Saugata Chatterjee, President & Chief Business Officer, Nippon India Mutual Fund, suggests investors are keeping gold as part of portfoliosboth as a long-term allocation and as a hedgewhile steadily increasing the use of transparent, market-linked products. "However, it was heartening to see the large equity allocation going to flexi-caps, which gives the fund managers the capital to allocate to the mispriced stocks, including in large-caps or other segments. Multi-asset funds continue attracting more capital than flexi-caps, showing that investor behaviour turns more cautious exactly when the opportunity is the highest in equities, demonstrating recency bias, reacting to past returns rather than future expected returns of asset classes Gupta said.

While domestic and global cues can keep markets volatile in the near term, Chatterjee remains positive on Indias long-term growth prospects and the continued financialisation of household savings. "For retail investors, the right approach is to stay diversified, match products to time horizon, and continue systematic investing rather than reacting to short-term market noise," he said.
Pfizers share price jumped 11.2 per cent, logging an intra-day high at 5,296 on BSE. At 10:37 AM, Pfizer shares were trading 8.99 per cent higher at 5,188.6 per share. In comparison, the BSE Sensex was up 0.39 per cent at 84,393.6.

The buying on the counter came after the company released its Q3FY26 numbers on Monday, after market hours.

In the December quarter, Pfizer reported an 11 per cent rise in consolidated net profit to 1,41.84 crore, compared to 127.6 crore a year ago.

The companys revenue from operations was up 19.8 per cent to 645.03 crore during the quarter under review compared to 537.99 crore year-on-year (Y-o-Y).

The companys total income for the quarter came in at 683.24 crore, as compared to 580.75 crore a year ago.

Total expenses stood at 433.09 crore, compared to 408.31 crore year-on-year (Y-o-Y).

That apart, in December 2025, Pfizer launched a new medication, Rimegepant ODT, in India for migraine treatment in adults with a previous insufficient response to triptan, the usual drug used for migraine relief.

Rimegepant will be available in a 75 mg orally disintegrating tablet (ODT) form, designed for convenient administration without the need for water.

The drug is a calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) receptor antagonist. Such drugs block the CGRP receptor, which is involved in the transmission of pain signals in the head and neck, making it effective for treating migraines.

According to several studies, the anti-migraine market in India stood at around $197.6 million in 2024 and is projected to reach over $400 million by 2030.

Pfizer managing director Meenakshi Nevatia added that the treatment will help people with migraine manage pain more effectively and reclaim productive days sooner than with currently available options.

Pfizer is a research-driven biopharmaceutical company focused on developing medicines and vaccines, guided by its purpose of being in relentless pursuit of breakthroughs that change patients lives, according to its corporate website. The company says it is investing in science, technology, and data capabilities to support drug discovery, development, and manufacturing, while also highlighting commitments around corporate compliance, diversity and inclusion, environmental sustainability, human rights, and efforts to promote science-based health information. Pfizer also outlines its approach to global health access through partnerships and programs, and says it engages on health policy issues such as grants, working with healthcare professionals, and prescription pricing and value.
Autos enter 2026 with broad-based momentum as demand stays firm across segments

India's automobile sector has entered calendar year 2026 on a robust footing, with January wholesales reflecting healthy demand traction across most vehicle categories. Lean channel inventories at the end of December, combined with steady retail demand, enabled original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to step up dispatches at the start of the year. Growth has been visible across passenger vehicles (PVs), two-wheelers (2Ws), commercial vehicles (CVs), and tractors, underscoring a broad-based recovery rather than a segment-specific uptick.

Passenger vehicles delivered mixed but encouraging signals. While the December quarter was strong, retail trends in January moderated marginally compared with other segments, prompting continued use of discounts to sustain volumes. Even so, wholesale volumes (excluding one large unreported player) rose sharply year-on-year, aided by strong utility vehicle demand, new model launches, and inventory normalization following prior channel depletion. Export performance also remained supportive for select players, contributing to overall volume resilience.

Two-wheelers continued to outperform, with robust year-on-year growth across motorcycles, scooters, and three-wheelers. Retail momentum remained healthy, supported by improving rural sentiment, product refreshes, and expansion into new export markets. Scooter demand stood out, driven by new launches in the internal combustion engine segment and improving sentiment toward electric offerings. While exports grew at a slower pace for some manufacturers, domestic demand more than compensated, keeping overall volumes on a strong trajectory.

ALSO READ | Stocks to BUY today: Kotak Sec recommends JSW Steel, Acutaas Chemicals The commercial vehicle segment also maintained solid momentum despite a high base, with both heavy and light vehicles posting strong growth. Improving fleet operator profitability, favorable freight indicators, and positive consumer sentiment are expected to sustain demand in the coming months. On a year-to-date basis, CV volumes have grown in double digits, reinforcing confidence in a cyclical uptrend.

Tractors emerged as one of the strongest performers, extending the momentum seen since the start of the fiscal year. Higher reservoir levels, healthy crop patterns, improved minimum support prices, and better rural liquidity have translated into strong retail demand. January volumes rose sharply year-on-year, and the outlook for the remainder of the fiscal remains constructive.

Structurally, a notable trend is the pickup in demand for entry-level vehicles across both PVs and 2Ws, suggesting improving affordability and broader participation in the recovery. Following GST rationalisation, demand has remained resilient even after the festive season. With OEMs entering the final quarter with lean inventories and wholesale demand holding firm, discountsparticularly in PVsare expected to moderate gradually.

Overall, the sectors medium-term outlook appears favourable, supported by sustained demand, improving mix, and healthier operating leverage as volumes scale up across segments.

Best Auto Stocks to buy in India, Feb 10: MOFSL stock picks

TVS Motors | Share price target: 4,500

TVS Motors has been the only domestic two-wheeler OEM to consistently gain market share across key segments over the past decade, supported by strong execution and brand-building. This has translated into an earnings CAGR of ~23 per cent and a sharp improvement in RoCE to ~36 per cent from ~22 per cent over the past decade, highlighting the quality and sustainability of growth.

For Q3FY26, Ebit margin has expanded from ~8 per cent in FY19 to ~12.3 per centin FY25 and ~12.6 per cent in H1FY26. Backed by cost initiatives and operating leverage, we expect margins to improve by ~150bp to ~13.8 per cent by FY28E. We estimate TVS to deliver a revenue/Ebitda/PAT CAGR of ~21 per cent/26 per cent/29 per cent over FY2528E, driven by sustained market share gains, a strong launch pipeline and gradual margin expansion.

Maruti Suzuki | Share price target: 19,937

Maruti Suzuki continues to demonstrate its leadership strength in Indias passenger vehicle market, supported by a strong product mix, revived small-car demand, and expanding export base. In Q2FY26, revenue grew 13 per cent Y-o-Y with Ebitda margin at 10.5 per cent, ahead of estimates, driven by higher realizations and cost control, while PAT remained broadly in line. The GST rate cut has significantly boosted affordability in the small-car segment, leading to a strong festive season with over 400k retail sales. The newly launched Victoris and e-Vitara models have further enhanced MSIL's SUV positioning, while exports surged 42 per cent Y-o-Y and are on track to exceed guidance. With its robust SUV pipeline, multi-technology approach (CNG, hybrid, EV), and long-term focus on achieving a 50 per cent PV market share, we reiterate 'BUY', expecting a 17.5 per cent earnings CAGR over FY2528E.

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Disclaimer: This article is by Motilal Oswal Financial Services Research Desk. Views expressed are their own.
After Opposition parties on Tuesday afternoon submitted a notice to bring a resolution for the removal of Speaker Om Birla, the weeklong impasse in the Lok Sabha ended, with the House taking up the discussion on the Budget at 2 pm.

The deadlock had started on February 2 during the discussion on the motion of thanks to the Presidents address, with the Opposition accusing the government and the Chair of not allowing Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi to speak.

This had led to the suspension of eight Opposition MPs for the remainder of the Budget session and the unprecedented development of Prime Minister Narendra Modi staying away from the House and not replying to the debate on the Presidents address on February 4 evening.

Sources said Speaker Birla would not preside over Lok Sabha proceedings until the issue pertaining to his removal from office is settled. Article 96 of the Constitution bars the Speaker or Deputy Speaker from presiding over a sitting of the House while a resolution for removal from office is under consideration. Birla has a constitutional right to defend himself in the House if the resolution is discussed in the Lok Sabha.

The Speaker has directed Lok Sabha Secretary General Utpal Kumar Singh to examine the Oppositions notice, which has been signed by nearly 120 MPs. MPs from the Congress, Samajwadi Party, and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam have signed the notice, but not those from the Trinamool Congress.

Previous attempts to remove the Speaker have been unsuccessful. The Speaker can be removed from office by a resolution passed by the House through a simple majority. Article 94(c) of the Constitution provides for such a move.

According to former Lok Sabha Secretary General P D T Achary, the notice is examined at the preliminary stage to determine whether it contains specific charges, as only then can the Speaker respond. Article 96 gives the Speaker the opportunity to defend himself or herself in the House. If the notice is accepted, the Speaker asks members in favour of the resolution to stand up. At least 50 members must do so for the Speaker to grant permission for the resolution to be taken up for discussion and disposed of within 10 days.

The Oppositions notice stated that Gandhi was not allowed to complete his speech on February 2, which was not an isolated instance. On February 3, eight Opposition MPs were arbitrarily suspended for the entire Budget session and were being penalised merely for exercising their democratic rights, the notice said. It added that on February 4, a BJP MP was permitted to make wholly objectionable and personalised attacks on two former prime ministers without being reprimanded even once for disregarding established conventions and norms of propriety, in an apparent reference to remarks by Nishikant Dubey.

Penguin clarifies, Rahul rebuts

In the context of former Army chief M M Naravanes memoirs, Penguin Random House India (PRHI) on Tuesday clarified that an announcement about a book or its availability for pre-order should not be interpreted as publication.

The publishers clarification came after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi cited a 2023 social media post by Naravane informing people that the memoir in question, Four Stars of Destiny, was available now.

Speaking to reporters in the Parliament House complex, Gandhi read out Naravanes 2023 post on X. The point I am making is either Mr Naravane is lying, and I believe the (former) Army chief, I dont think he will lie, or Penguin is lying. Both cannot be telling the truth, Gandhi said, adding that the book is available on Amazon.

The Delhi Police has registered an FIR over the alleged illegal circulation of the manuscript in digital and other formats.
Union minister Kiren Rijiju on Tuesday said "very ugly scenes" could have taken place had the BJP MPs not been stopped and the party's women MPs been allowed to confront the Congress members who had come to the treasury benches on the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi was supposed to reply to the Motion of Thanks to the President's Address in the Lok Sabha.

Commenting on the video that showed opposition women MPs coming to the treasury benches on February 4, Rijiju asked who could justify the behaviour of the opposition members. He said the direction from the BJP leadership was very clear that members belonging to the ruling alliance must maintain the dignity of the House and no MP of the ruling party should get into physical confrontation with the "rude opposition MPs".

"The Congress party is proud of the most degrading behaviour by their MPs. If we had not stopped all the BJP MPs and allowed the women MPs to confront the Congress MPs, it would have led to very ugly scenes. We have very high consideration to protect the dignity and sanctity of Parliament," he told reporters here.

The parliamentary affairs minister accused the opposition MPs of disrupting proceedings in an unprecedented manner and claimed that the BJP and NDA MPs were very angry because of the behaviour of their Congress counterparts.

"The Congress MPs crossed the treasury benches and even reached the prime minister's seat. The Congress has shown no respect for the dignity of the House.

"The fact is, they are celebrating on their social media accounts, claiming that women MPs scared the prime minister. This is utterly shameful," he said.

Rijiju said the BJP women MPs have submitted a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla against the behaviour of the Congress members.

He said the Congress MPs even crossed the bench where the prime minister sits and went inside a few rows of the treasury benches and almost laid siege on the entire area.

"We had to control the BJP and NDA MPs. The BJP women MPs were very agitated at this behaviour of the Congress MPs.

"We stopped our MPs from physical confrontation. After that, these opposition MPs went to the speaker's chamber and threatened the speaker. The BJP women MPs have submitted a petition. Let us see how the speaker acts and what steps he takes," he said.

The BJP's women MPs, in a letter, have urged the Lok Sabha speaker to take the strongest possible action against the opposition MPs who have committed "heinous acts" like moving deep inside treasury benches, climbing the table and laying a siege on the prime minister's seat.

The Lok Sabha has been witnessing disruptions since February 2, after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was disallowed by the chair from quoting from an article based on excerpts of former Army chief M M Naravane's "unpublished memoir", which has references to the India-China conflict of 2020.

On February 4, Prime Minister Modi could not reply to the debate on the Motion of Thanks due to opposition protests. In an unprecedented move, the Motion of Thanks was passed on February 5 without the customary speech by the prime minister. The speaker read out the Motion of Thanks to the President for her address, and it was passed by a voice vote amid sloganeering by opposition members.

Birla said he received concrete information that many Congress MPs could carry out an "unexpected act" by reaching the spot where PM Modi sits and, therefore, he asked him not to come to the House to deliver his address.

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra refuted this.

Eight opposition members were suspended for the remainder of the Budget session for unruly behaviour in the House.
When New Delhi hosts the India-AI Impact Summit 2026 from February 16 to 20, the government is not pitching it as another global talking shop on artificial intelligence. Instead, India is trying to reposition the global AI debate away from fear-driven regulation and more towards deployment, delivery and development outcomes, particularly for the Global South, as announced by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

The summit, to be held at Bharat Mandapam, is being touted as the first global AI summit hosted in the Global South. Beyond symbolism, it reflects what India wants AI governance to prioritise in terms of access, scale and measurable public value.

Why is India calling this an impact summit?

Unlike earlier global AI gatherings, India has been explicit that the focus of this summit will not be on drafting binding rules or emergency safety frameworks. Instead, the stated aim is to generate actionable recommendations that can inform long-term AI governance rather than immediate regulation.

Officials have described the summit as impact-focused, meaning the emphasis is on how AI is already being used or can be used in governance, public service delivery, industry and sustainable development. This framing aligns with Indias broader pitch that AI should function as a strategic national tool to democratise technology and extend its benefits beyond advanced economies.

How is this different from earlier global AI summits?

The India-AI Impact Summit comes at the end of a three-stage evolution in global AI diplomacy. The AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park in November 2023 was dominated by concerns over catastrophic risks and produced the Bletchley Declaration. The Seoul summit in May 2024 expanded the scope to include innovation and inclusivity, while the Paris AI Action Summit in February 2025 pushed the conversation towards implementation and economic opportunity.

Indias intervention builds on this trajectory but shifts the centre of gravity. Rather than foregrounding existential risk or regulatory architecture, New Delhi is centring the discussion on outcomes such as what Electronics and IT Secretary S Krishnan has described as People, Planet and Progress.

What does People, Planet and Progress actually mean?

These three sutras, as the government has termed them, are the organising principles of the summit. People refers to human-centric AI systems that can improve access to services, protect rights and build trust, particularly in large, diverse societies. Planet focuses on sustainability, acknowledging rising concerns about AIs energy and resource footprint. Progress centres on productivity, innovation and economic growth, especially for countries still building digital capacity.

Together, these frameworks signal Indias intent to align AI development with welfare, inclusion and environmental limits rather than treating it as a purely commercial or strategic arms race.

Who is attending, and why does it matter?

The scale of participation is central to Indias ambition. The government expects delegates from over 100 countries, including 15 to 20 heads of government, more than 50 ministers and over 40 global and Indian chief executives. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to inaugurate the summit and host closed-door engagements with industry leaders.

Among the anticipated attendees are global technology figures such as Sundar Pichai and Dario Amodei, with Sam Altman also reportedly expected in New Delhi for side meetings. India has also invited China, which has participated in all previous AI summits, signalling New Delhis attempt to keep the forum broadly inclusive rather than bloc-driven.

What role do startups, research and language models play?

Beyond high-level diplomacy, India is using the summit to showcase domestic capability. The event will host a startup showcase featuring more than 500 AI startups and around 500 sessions, making it one of the largest AI convenings so far.

The government is also expected to launch indigenous AI language models, both foundational and small language models, aligning with the Rs 10,370 crore IndiaAI Mission. A dedicated Research Symposium on February 18 will bring researchers, policymakers and practitioners together, with a strong focus on Global South research that is often under-represented in global AI discourse.

What are Indias constraints behind the ambition?

The summit also comes amid structural challenges at home. India remains dependent on imported GPUs and advanced computing hardware, limiting self-reliance in AI infrastructure. Energy is another constraint facing Indias AI ambitions. As India courts global data centres backed by long tax holidays, it is also signalling openness to nuclear power as a future energy source for AI-driven data infrastructure, as highlighted by Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.

Hotel demand in Delhi reflects the summits scale

The summits reach is already visible in Delhis hospitality market. Five-star hotel room rates in central Delhi have surged sharply ahead of the event, with standard luxury rooms typically priced between Rs 20,000 and Rs 40,000 per night now selling at significantly higher peak-season tariffs.

Reports show peak prices touching Rs 45 lakh per night in some luxury categories, with travel portals indicating rates in excess of Rs 1 lakh per night across multiple properties. High demand and near-full occupancy, driven by tens of thousands of international registrations, are pushing prices beyond normal levels for the February travel window.
The India AI Impact Summit 2026 will be held from February 16 to 20 at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, positioning India at the centre of the evolving global debate on artificial intelligence. Hosted by the Government of India under the IndiaAI Mission, the five-day event will bring together governments, technology companies, researchers and civil society groups to discuss how AI is being governed, built and deployed.

Unlike earlier global AI summits that were largely shaped by safety concerns or regulatory coordination, the India meet is being framed around impact  that is, how AI is applied on the ground, who benefits from it, and how emerging economies fit into the global AI ecosystem.

The starting point: AI safety at Bletchley Park

The current series of global AI meetings began with the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park in the United Kingdom on November 12, 2023. Convened by the UK government, the summit concentrated almost entirely on the risks posed by advanced or frontier AI systems.

Its main outcome was the Bletchley Declaration, which was endorsed by 28 countries and the European Union, including the US, China, India and the UK. The declaration acknowledged both the opportunities and potential harms of AI, committing signatories to cooperate on evidence-based research into risks such as bias, misinformation and long-term safety concerns. Frontier AI companies, including OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Anthropic, also agreed to share safety testing information with governments.

However, participation at Bletchley Park was limited in scope. The discussions were mainly government-led, with safety as the dominant lens, and relatively little attention was paid to questions of deployment, economic impact or inclusion.

Broader participation in the Seoul summit

The AI Seoul Summit was held on May 2122, 2024 and marked the second phase of this process. Hosted by South Korea, the summit expanded participation beyond governments to include industry, academia and civil society.

The meeting produced the Seoul Declaration for Safe, Innovative and Inclusive AI, which was adopted by 11 countries and the European Union. It committed participants to work towards interoperable global governance frameworks, drawing on the G7s Hiroshima Process Code of Conduct. Sixteen major AI companies, including OpenAI, Google and Anthropic, pledged voluntary transparency around safety frameworks, risk thresholds considered intolerable, and mitigation measures.

Another group of countries, including the EU, agreed to collaborate on AI safety science, shared testing standards and risk identification, including severe harms such as misuse in chemical or biological contexts.

Seoul signalled a shift away from safety alone, placing greater emphasis on innovation and governance processes, while still keeping risk management at the core.

Paris AI summit and the turn towards action

The third major milestone was the AI Action Summit, held in Paris on February 1011, 2025, and co-chaired by French President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The summit drew more than 1,000 participants from over 100 countries, including international organisations, researchers, companies and civil society groups.

Unlike Bletchley and Seoul, the Paris summit placed action at the centre of its agenda, seeking concrete commitments around governance, economic impact and the societal implications of AI. Paris moved the conversation decisively towards implementation. Discussions covered public-interest AI, including digital public infrastructure and multilingual models; the future of work and skilling; trust, ethics and security; and global governance.

A joint declaration titled Inclusive and Sustainable Artificial Intelligence for People and the Planet was signed by 58 countries, though the US and the UK chose not to sign, citing concerns around regulation, national security and lack of clarity around AI governance.

The summit also saw the launch of the Current AI Initiative, backed by an initial $400 million, and the formation of a sustainability coalition focused on AIs environmental footprint.

What India is trying to do differently this time

Against this backdrop, the India AI Impact Summit is positioned as a next step rather than a repetition. According to government briefings, the emphasis is on moving from principles and declarations to deployment and outcomes.

One major distinction is scale. More than 35,000 registrations from over 100 countries have been reported ahead of the summit, with heads of government, ministers and senior executives expected to attend. Global technology leaders such as Sundar Pichai, Sam Altman, Jensen Huang and Bill Gates are listed among confirmed participants.

Another difference is geography. This is the first summit in the series to be hosted in the Global South. Indian officials have described this as an attempt to broaden who sets the agenda on AI, particularly for developing economies that are often users rather than designers of AI systems.

From discussion to deployment

The summits agenda is structured around impact areas such as employment, trust, safety and sectoral applications. Sessions are planned on AI use in healthcare, education and governance, alongside discussions on labour markets and model safety.

Alongside policy discussions, the event will host the India AI Impact Expo, showcasing deployable AI solutions from startups, research institutions and technology firms. This focus on working systems and real-world use cases marks a departure from earlier summits that were primarily centred on regulation and safety.
AI Impact Summit, which will kick off from February 16 in New Delhi. Over the past years, multiple government-backed projects and platforms have been rolled out around building AI systems that can work across Indian languages and across different formats such as text, speech and documents. Multilingual and multimodal artificial intelligence is set to be one of the core agendas for India at the upcoming, which will kick off from February 16 in New Delhi. Over the past years, multiple government-backed projects and platforms have been rolled out around building AI systems that can work across Indian languages and across different formats such as text, speech and documents.

Among these projects are the Adi Vaani platform under the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, the BharatGen programme backed by the Department of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), and the BHASHINI language platform under Digital India. Together, they point to a policy push that treats language and voice as core parts of Indias AI infrastructure rather than as add-ons.

What multilingual and multimodal AI means

Multilingual AI refers to systems that can understand and generate content in more than one language, including Indian languages that are often poorly represented in global datasets.

Multimodal AI refers to models that can work across different types of input and output, such as text, speech and images or documents, instead of being limited to only text-based interactions.

For public-facing systems, this matters because many government services and information flows rely on a mix of spoken queries, scanned documents and text forms. A multimodal system can, in principle, take a spoken question in an Indian language, read a document, and return an answer in speech or text. Several of the projects being backed by the government are designed around this idea, rather than around English-first, text-only models.

Why multilingual and multimodal AI matter for India

For India, the case for multilingual and multimodal AI is largely practical rather than theoretical. Government services, courts, welfare systems and local administrations operate across dozens of languages, and much of the information citizens interact with is not in a single, standardised format. Applications range from scanned forms and notices to spoken queries at service centres and helplines, making text-only and English-first systems a poor fit for large parts of the population.

India has hundreds of languages and dialects in active use, and a significant share of citizens rely primarily on regional or local languages for day-to-day interactions with the state. This creates a gap in access when digital systems are designed mainly around English or a small set of major languages. Multilingual AI systems are meant to reduce that gap by allowing the same service or interface to work across different languages without requiring separate, manual translations for each one.

The multimodal aspect addresses a different constraint. In many government workflows, information is not limited to typed text. It includes scanned documents, images, and spoken inputs. A system that can only process text leaves large parts of this information outside the digital workflow. Multimodal models are intended to handle this mix by combining text, speech and document or image understanding in a single pipeline.

This is also why many of the current government-backed projects are being framed around public services rather than consumer applications.

Platforms such as BHASHINI are being positioned for use in citizen-facing portals and administrative processes, while programmes like BharatGen are being funded to build a broader stack of text, speech and document-vision models for Indian languages.

The underlying policy logic is that without language and modality coverage, large sections of the population remain effectively excluded from digital systems, even if connectivity and devices are available.

Indias sovereign AI push: Platforms, programmes and startups

Much of Indias current work on multilingual and multimodal AI is being deployed through publicly funded platforms and research programmes, alongside a growing set of domestic startups working on language and vision models for Indian use cases.

One example is Adi Vaani, a translation platform for tribal languages launched by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs in beta last year. Developed by a consortium led by IIT Delhi with BITS Pilani, IIIT Hyderabad, IIIT Naya Raipur and several State Tribal Research Institutes, the platform currently supports languages such as Santali, Bhili, Mundari and Gondi, with more under development. According to the ministry, the system is meant to handle both text and speech translation and is being positioned for use in areas such as education, governance communication and documentation of oral traditions.

At a broader level, the government-backed BharatGen programme is aimed at building a full-stack, multilingual and multimodal AI system covering text, speech and document understanding. The project is being led by IIT Bombay with a consortium of other institutions and is supported through the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems, with Rs 235 crore routed via the Technology Innovation Hub at IIT Bombay. In addition, the programme has received further funding of Rs 1,058 crore under the IndiaAI Mission, taking total government support to over Rs 1,200 crore. BharatGen has already released multiple models, including a text model, speech recognition and text-to-speech systems, and a document-vision model designed to work with Indian-language content and formats.

ALSO READ: What makes India AI Impact Summit different from earlier global AI meetings

Alongside this, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is running BHASHINI as a language AI platform for public services. BHASHINI currently supports more than 36 languages in text and over 22 in voice, with hundreds of language models deployed across government websites and applications. The focus here has been on translation, speech recognition and text-to-speech tools that can be integrated into citizen-facing systems rather than standalone consumer products.

Outside the government system, several Indian startups are also working on what they describe as sovereign or India-focused AI models.

Bengaluru-based Sarvam AI, for instance, has published results on optical character recognition and speech models for Indian languages.

Krutrim, backed by Bhavish Aggarwal, is building a large multilingual language model focused on Indian contexts, while other companies and research groups, including initiatives such as AI4Bharat at IIT Madras, are working on open and commercial language models for Indian languages.

From policy to deployment: Where these systems are being used

So far, most of these multilingual and multimodal AI systems are being positioned first for use inside government workflows and public service delivery rather than as mass consumer products.

Platforms such as BHASHINI are being integrated into government portals and service interfaces, where translation, speech-to-text and text-to-speech tools can be used to make forms, advisories and help desks accessible in multiple languages. The Digital India BHASHINI Division has said the platform is already linked to hundreds of websites and live use cases across departments.

Similarly, BharatGens early demonstrations have focused on applications such as voice-based advisory systems for farmers, document question-and-answer tools for government records, and image-to-text or image-to-description systems for small businesses. These are designed to work with Indian languages and with inputs such as scanned documents or images, which are common in government and small-business workflows.

ALSO READ: India AI Mission warns no fees needed for AI Impact Summit registration

Adi Vaani, meanwhile, is being positioned more narrowly around tribal languages, with the stated aim of enabling translation, documentation and access to government information in languages that are often missing from mainstream digital platforms. At this stage, it remains in beta, with limited language coverage, but it reflects a similar approach of starting with public-sector and community-facing use cases.

The constraints: Data, quality and scale

Despite the scale of funding and institutional backing, these projects face practical challenges. One of the main issues is data. High-quality, labelled data in many Indian and tribal languages remains limited, especially for speech and for specialised domains such as legal or administrative documents. This affects both accuracy and reliability, particularly outside a small set of better-resourced languages.

Another constraint is variation. Indian languages differ widely in script, grammar, pronunciation and regional usage, which makes building a single system that works consistently across regions difficult. Even within the same language, dialect and accent differences can affect performance in speech systems.

There is also the question of scale and cost. Multimodal models that handle text, speech and documents require significantly more computing resources than text-only systems. This makes deployment across large government systems more complex, especially when these tools are expected to work in real time and at population scale.
OPPO has launched the K14X smartphone in the Indian market. The device is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 6300 processor and features a 6.75-inch HD+ display with a 120Hz refresh rate. It also offers several AI-based tools, including AI Eraser, AI Reflection Remover, AI Best Shot, and AI Unblur. According to the company, the phone includes improved thermal management to help maintain stable performance and smooth visuals during extended use.

WhatsApp is reportedly rolling out support for voice and video calling on its web client. As per a report by WABetaInfo, users can now place calls directly from WhatsApp Web, eliminating the need to install the desktop application. The rollout is happening in stages and is currently available to a limited set of users. At present, WhatsApp does not allow direct calling on the web client, requiring users to rely on the Windows or Mac app instead.

OpenAI has started testing advertisements for ChatGPT users on its Free and Go subscription plans in the US. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the company said that ads do not affect ChatGPTs responses and are clearly marked as sponsored, with a visual separation from answers. OpenAI said the move is intended to keep ChatGPT accessible to more users with fewer limits. Ads will appear only on lower-cost plans, while paid tiers such as Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education will continue to remain ad-free.

Snapchat has rolled out a new safety feature called Arrival Notifications, building on its existing Home Safe option. According to Snapchats blog, the feature allows users to automatically alert selected contacts when they arrive at destinations other than home, including classes, meetings, or travel stops. The company said the update aims to make location sharing easier and reduce the need to send manual updates.

Indian AI startup Sarvam AI has reported strong results across benchmarks focused on document understanding and Indian languages. The company said its models performed better than several widely used AI systems in these specific tests. The evaluations covered areas such as OCR, document layout analysis, and Indic language processing, where global models often struggle due to complex layouts and non-Latin scripts.

G-SHOCK has expanded its G-STEEL range in India with the launch of the GST-B1000 series. The company said the watch takes inspiration from its early designs while adopting a modern, all-metal construction. Based on the original DW-5000C concept, the GST-B1000 has been reworked into a metal form. Priced at Rs 29,995, it is available in black, blue, and green colour options. G-SHOCK added that the new model is slimmer and lighter than previous G-STEEL watches.

Nothing Phone 4a may launch in blue, pink and yellow colours UK-based consumer electronics brand Nothing appears to be gearing up for the launch of its Phone 4a series. The company recently shared a teaser suggesting that the upcoming lineup could arrive in multiple colours, including black, white, blue, pink, and yellow. In a post on X, Nothing wrote Soon, alongside an image of coloured dots forming the (a) logo used for its A-series devices. The series is expected to include two models: Phone 4a and Phone 4a Pro.

Discord is strengthening its age verification and teen safety measures. From next month, users who do not verify their age using a face scan or ID may face account restrictions. According to the companys blog, the update will be introduced in phases and will affect both new and existing users. Until verification is completed, accounts will be placed under stricter default settings that limit access to certain features and content.

Govt directs platforms to label AI content, deploy checks on misuse When New Delhi hosts the India-AI Impact Summit 2026 from February 16 to 20, the government is positioning the event differently from earlier global AI discussions. Rather than focusing on fear-based regulation, India aims to shift the conversation towards real-world deployment, delivery, and development outcomes, particularly for the Global South, according to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

The government has directed social media platforms to introduce measures to identify and regulate artificial intelligence-generated material. The order requires platforms to use automated tools to prevent content that is illegal, sexually exploitative, or deceptive.

The India AI Impact Summit, scheduled to take place from February 16 to 20 in New Delhi, will include discussions around democratising artificial intelligence under the themes of People, Planet, and Progress. Ahead of the event, the government has shared updates on the India AI Stack, outlining preparations to deploy AI systems at scale.

Multilingual and multimodal AI is expected to be a key focus for India at the upcoming AI Impact Summit starting February 16 in New Delhi. In recent years, several government-backed initiatives have been launched to develop AI systems capable of working across Indian languages and formats such as text, speech, and documents.

The India AI Impact Summit 2026 will be held from February 16 to 20 at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi. Hosted by the Government of India under the IndiaAI Mission, the event will bring together governments, tech companies, researchers, and civil society groups to discuss AI governance, development, and deployment.

Yotta Data Services and the Digital India BHASHINI Division have shifted the BHASHINI language AI platform from a global hyperscaler to an Indian cloud infrastructure. The platform has been moved to Yottas Government Community Cloud and Shakti Cloud, ensuring that data, models, and user interactions remain within India.

The India AI Mission has issued a warning about fraudulent activities linked to the AI Impact Summit. It clarified that there are no fees for registration, participation, or speaking at the event, which begins in New Delhi on February 16. This is an official alert issued by the India AI Impact Summit 2026 team for all participants, stakeholders, and the general public regarding fraudulent activities being carried out in the name of the Summit.
By Juliana Liu

China has never been shy about its commercial aviation ambitions. For decades, it has wanted to be the C in the ABCs of aerospace after Airbus SE and Boeing Co. But to achieve that goal, it must solve an engineering puzzle that only a handful of companies have ever cracked: building a reliable jet engine.

The risks of not doing so are evident  2025 was supposed to have been the year that Commercial Aircraft Corp of China Ltd., a state-owned aerospace manufacturer leading the self-sufficiency push, finally proved itself to be a potential contender. After delivering just 12 of its flagship C919 single-aisle jets in 2024, it announced an amped up schedule last March: 75 planes.

But in May, after Beijing angered Washington by restricting overseas sales of rare-earth minerals, the US retaliated by suspending the export of jet engines. And even though the ban was lifted weeks later following a truce, the damage was done. Comac ended up delivering only 15 of the C919 in 2025. That was 80 per cent short of the original target that was later cut to 25. The plane maker relies on engines produced by CFM International, a joint venture between GE Aerospace and Safran SA.

Comac isnt the sole manufacturer caught up in the aviation supply-chain snafu  a reality bemoaned by visitors at the Singapore Airshow, which ended on Sunday. Since the pandemic, Airbus and Boeing have struggled to deliver new jets, even as demand for air travel reached record highs. Both are experiencing unprecedented multi-year backlogs for their aircraft.

With more than 1,000 preliminary orders for the C919, Comac is working through its own backlog. Last years tussle with Washington has vindicated a longstanding push by Aero Engine Corporation of China, or AECC, to create a homegrown engine for the aircraft. The initiative is at the center of Chinas effort to make industrial giants the new pillar of the economy after the collapse of the property sector.

The propulsion system called the CJ-1000A began development in 2007. A model was shown publicly for the first time in 2011. While not much information is available, one of the godfathers of Chinas commercial aviation effort, Zhang Yanzhong, gave a rare update last August on state broadcaster CCTV. He struck a positive note, telling viewers to be patient because engines take about 20 years to develop and mature.

The technology is on track to secure a key airworthiness certification from Chinas aviation regulator  a process that could take up to two years, according to Li Hanming, an independent aviation expert. After that, the approved system must be installed in a C919 aircraft and tested again in a review that could take another two years. That means the engine, which is intended to replace the Leap 1-C from CFM International, would be commercially available by 2030 at the earliest.

Officials are said to be extremely cautious and moving slowly to certify the most complex and expensive part of any plane. Thats the right strategy given the numerous problems that have bedeviled even the most-experienced manufacturers. Three years ago, aircraft-engine maker Pratt & Whitney of RTX Corp. disclosed a manufacturing defect necessitating inspections of hundreds of engines that will stretch on for years.

Plane engines are exceptionally difficult to make because they must handle high pressure and heat while creating enough thrust to fly. But having consistent access to supply is crucial for Comac to live up to its ambitions.

According to aviation market intelligence and advisory firm IBA, the plane maker is expected to deliver a total of 86 C919s in 2030, assuming it is still using Western engines. Though that would demonstrate significant growth compared to last year, it's far short of the 240 or so annual deliveries  about 20 a month  needed to become a meaningful threat to Airbus and Boeing. Its hard to see how that can be achieved without a plentiful supply of homegrown engines and other parts.

Last week, US President Donald Trump promised to keep American airplane engine sales flowing in a call with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. But despite the bonhomie, the relationship is fragile. Tensions could flare at any time. Against this backdrop, AECC should redouble its efforts to commercialize an engine for the C919 if it wants to be a credible player taking on the commercial aviation duopoly.

According to Airbus, nearly 80 per cent of all anticipated new plane deliveries in the coming two decades will be of the single-aisle variety, a category that includes the C919. About 40 per cent will have been ordered years earlier. At 2025 delivery rates, it would take more than 10 years for the global aerospace industry to work through its backlog. Boeings 777X, a wide-body aircraft with space for more than 400, is already six years late to market and not expected to fly commercially until 2027.
India ranked 91st out of 182 countries and territories on the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for 2025, with a score of 39, according to the latest report released by Transparency International on Tuesday.

The index measures perceived levels of public sector corruption on a scale from zero, indicating a highly corrupt environment, to 100, indicating a very clean one.

The report said corruption continues to pose a challenge across the Asia-Pacific region. With an average regional score of 45 out of 100, high levels of corruption appear to have remained largely unaddressed over the past decade, it said.

Indias score over the years

Indias score rose by one point from 38 in 2024 to 39 in 2025. The data shows fluctuations over the past decade:

2013: 36

2014: 38

2015: 38

2016: 40

2017: 40

2018: 41

2019: 41

2020: 40

2021: 40

2022: 40

2023: 39

2024: 38

2025: 39

Regional trends in Asia-Pacific

The report showcased differences across the Asia-Pacific region. It said weak governance and limited accountability remain issues in several countries. Public frustration over corruption and governance concerns was visible in 2025, with protests led by young people in a number of countries.

In the Philippines, which scored 32, allegations of misuse of public funds linked to a flood relief project drew public anger. Indonesia, with a score of 34, saw protests where violence and disinformation were reported. In Nepal, which also scored 34, protests led to political change after a social media ban and wider concerns about corruption. Pakistan was ranked at 136.

The report said these developments reflect concerns that those in authority are using public office for private gain while failing to deliver public services, economic stability, and equal opportunities.

Countries showing improvement

According to the report, some countries in the region recorded improvement since 2012. Maldives scored 39, Vietnam 41, and Timor-Leste 44. The report attributed these gains to reforms aimed at strengthening oversight institutions and improving administrative systems. However, it said these countries continue to record relatively low scores and require further progress.

At the lower end of the index, Afghanistan and Myanmar each scored 16, while North Korea scored 15. The report said limited transparency, restricted civic space, and weak institutional checks leave these countries vulnerable to corruption.

Key regional findings

The report said eight of 32 countries in the region have improved since 2012, including Bhutan (71), Brunei (63), and Laos (34). Thailand (33) and Mongolia (31) showed a decline over the same period, with Mongolia facing concerns over the rule of law and civic freedoms.

Singapore (84), New Zealand (81), and Australia (76) recorded the highest scores in the region, ranking third, fourth, and 12th globally, respectively, it said.

As per the report, most countries in the region scored below the global average of 42. This group includes India (39), Bangladesh (24), and Indonesia (34).

The Corruption Perceptions Index, first released in 1995, is used to assess public sector corruption worldwide. It evaluates 182 countries and territories using data from 13 external sources, including the World Bank, World Economic Forum, private risk and consulting firms, and research organisations. The scores reflect the views of experts and business leaders.
Democrats have begun tentative talks with the White House on their demands for "dramatic" new restrictions on President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, trading offers just days before funding for the Department of Homeland Security is set to expire.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Monday that Democrats had sent the White House their list of demands for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal law enforcement agencies. The White House said it had responded with a counterproposal. No details were immediately available.

Time is running short, with another partial government shutdown threatening to begin Saturday. Among the Democrats' demands are a requirement for judicial warrants, better identification of DHS officers, new use-of-force standards and a stop to racial profiling. They say such changes are necessary after two protesters were fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis last month.

"Republicans, the clock is ticking," Schumer said on the Senate floor. "We have sent you our proposals and they are exceedingly reasonable." There were some small signs of progress. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday there has been a "good back and forth" between the sides on substantive issues and Republicans would send a counterproposal "soon." Still, it was unclear if the two sides could find agreement on the charged issue of immigration enforcement - and as rank-and-file lawmakers in both parties were skeptical about finding common ground.

Many Republicans have balked at the Democrats' requests and some have demands of their own, including the addition of legislation that would require proof of citizenship before Americans register to vote and restrictions on cities that they say do not do enough to crack down on illegal immigration.

And Democrats who are furious about ICE's aggressive crackdown have said they won't vote for another penny of Homeland Security funding until enforcement is radically scaled back.

"Dramatic changes are needed at the Department of Homeland Security before a DHS funding bill moves forward," House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Monday. "Period. Full stop."

Trump deals with Democrats

Congress is trying to renegotiate the DHS spending bill after President Donald Trump agreed to a Democratic request that it be separated out from a larger spending measure that became law last week. That package extended Homeland Security funding at current levels only through February 13, creating a brief window for action as the two parties discuss new restrictions on ICE and other federal officers.

The funding issue came to a head after ICU nurse Alex Pretti was shot and killed by a US Border Patrol officer in Minneapolis on January 24, and some Republicans suggested that new restrictions were necessary. Renee Good was shot by ICE agents on January 7.

While he agreed to separate the funding, Trump has not publicly responded to the Democrats' specific demands, and it is uncertain whether he would agree to any of them.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said late last week that the Trump administration is willing to discuss some items on the Democrats' list, but "others don't seem like they are grounded in any common sense, and they are nonstarters for this administration."

Democratic demands

Schumer and Jeffries have said they want immigration officers to remove their masks, to show identification and to better coordinate with local authorities. They have also demanded a stricter use-of-force policy for the federal officers, legal safeguards at detention centres and a prohibition on tracking protesters with body-worn cameras.

The Democrats say Congress should end indiscriminate arrests, "improve warrant procedures and standards," ensure the law is clear that officers cannot enter private property without a judicial warrant and require that before a person can be detained, it's verified that the person is not a US citizen.

Republicans have said they support the requirement for DHS officers to have body-worn cameras - language that was in the original DHS bill - but have balked at many of the other Democratic asks.

"Taking the masks off ICE officers and agents, the reason we can't do that is that it would subject them to great harm, their families at great risk because people are doxing them and targeting them," said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Monday. "We've got to talk about things that are reasonable and achievable." Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty said on "Fox News Sunday" that Democrats are "trying to motivate a radical left base." "The left has gone completely overboard, and they're threatening the safety and security of our agents so they cannot do their job," Hagerty said.

Consequences of a shutdown

In addition to ICE and US Customs and Border Protection, the homeland security bill includes funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Transportation Security Administration. If DHS shuts down, Thune said last week, "there's a very good chance we could see more travel problems" similar to the 43-day government closure last year.

Lawmakers in both parties have suggested they could separate out funding for ICE and Border Patrol and pass the rest of it by Friday. But Thune has been cool to that idea, saying instead that Congress should pass another short-term extension for all of DHS while they negotiate the possible new restrictions.

Many Democrats are unlikely to vote for another extension. But Republicans could potentially win enough votes in both chambers from Democrats if they feel hopeful about negotiations.

"The ball is in the Republicans' court," Jeffries said Monday.
Israeli military strikes on Monday killed three people west of Gaza City, according to the hospital where the casualties arrived.

Shifa Hospital reported the deaths amid the months-old ceasefire that has seen continued fighting. The Israeli army said Monday it is striking targets in response to Israeli troops coming under fire in the southern city of Rafah, which it says was a violation of the ceasefire. The army said it is striking targets "in a precise manner." The four-month-old US-backed ceasefire followed stalled negotiations and included Israel and Hamas accepting a 20-point plan proposed by US President Donald Trump aimed at ending the war unleashed by Hamas' October 7, 2023, attack into Israel. At the time, Trump said it would lead to a "Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace." Hamas freed all the living hostages it still held at the outset of the deal in exchange for thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and the remains of others.

But the larger issues the agreement sought to address, including the future governance of the strip, were met with reservations, and the US offered no firm timeline.

Top UN official concerned over Israel's West Bank decision The United Nations top official on Monday expressed concern about the Israeli security cabinet's decision to deepen the country's control over the occupied West Bank.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is "gravely concerned" and warned that the Israeli decision could erode the prospect of a two-state solution, spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

"Such actions, including Israel's continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory are not only destabilising but as recalled by the International Court of Justice unlawful," he said.

Israel 's security cabinet on Sunday approved measures that aim to deepen Israeli control over the occupied West Bank and weaken the already limited powers of the Palestinian Authority.

Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the measures would make it easier for Jewish settlers to force Palestinians to give up land, adding that "we will continue to bury the idea of a Palestinian state." Israel captured the West Bank, as well as Gaza and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three territories for a future state.

Rafah crossing improving, official says The Palestinian official set to oversee day-to-day affairs in Gaza said on Monday that passage through the Rafah crossing with Egypt is starting to improve after a chaotic first week of reopening marked by confusion, delays and a limited number of crossings.

Ali Shaath, head of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, told Egypt's Al-Qahera News that operations at the crossing were improving on Sunday. He said 88 Palestinians were scheduled to travel through Rafah on Monday, more than have crossed in the initial days since reopening. Israel did not immediately confirm the figures.

The European Union border mission at the crossing said in a statement Sunday that 284 Palestinians had crossed since reopening. Travellers included people returning after having fled the war and medical evacuees and their escorts. In total, 53 medical evacuees departed during the first five days of operations.

That remains well below the agreed target of 50 medical evacuees exiting and 50 returnees entering daily, negotiated by Israeli, Egyptian, Palestinian and international officials.

Shaath and other members of the committee remain in Egypt, without Israeli authorisation to enter the war-battered enclave.

The Rafah crossing opened last week for the first time since mid-2024, one of the main requirements for the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. It was closed Friday and Saturday because of confusion around operations.

Palestinian officials say nearly 20,000 people are seeking to leave Gaza for medical care unavailable in its largely destroyed health system.

Palestinians who returned to Gaza in the first days after the crossing reopened described hourslong delays and invasive searches by Israeli authorities and an Israeli-backed Palestinian armed group, Abu Shabab. Israel denied mistreatment.

Gaza's Health Ministry said on Monday that five people were killed over the previous 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 581 since the October ceasefire. The truce led to the return of the remaining hostages - both living captives and bodies - from the 251 abducted during the October 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war.

Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the attack. Israel's military offensive has since killed over 72,000 Palestinians, according to the ministry, which operates under the Hamas-run government and is staffed by medical professionals. The U.N. and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties.
Buckingham Palace said Monday that King Charles III will "support'' UK police assessing reports that the former Prince Andrew gave confidential information to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The statement came after police said they were examining reports that the former prince, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, sent trade reports to Epstein in 2010.

Thames Valley Police, which serves areas west of London, including the ex-royal's former home in Windsor, launched the inquiry after news organisations reported on emails that suggest the then-prince sent Epstein reports from a 2010 tour of Southeast Asia he took as Britain's envoy for international trade.
Russia has accused the US of attempting to prevent India and other countries from buying Russian oil, saying Washington is using a wide range of "coercive" measures, including tariffs, sanctions and direct prohibitions, to fulfil its objective of global economic dominance.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also accused the US of using "unfair methods" to suppress competitors by imposing sanctions on Russian oil companies.

"(The US) is attempting to control our trade, investment cooperation, and military-technical ties with major strategic partners, such as India and other BRICS members," Lavrov said in an interview with TV BRICS on Monday.

He said that the West is reluctant to relinquish its formerly dominant positions. "With the arrival of the (US President Donald) Trump administration, this struggle to suppress competitors became particularly pronounced and open," he said.

Lavrov said that Russia accepted America's proposal on Ukraine during the Alaska talks between President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Trump last year.

"We were told that the Ukrainian issue must be resolved. In Anchorage, we accepted the United States' proposal. To put it straightforwardly, they proposed, and we agreed - the problem should be solved," he said.

"Having accepted their proposals, we essentially fulfilled the task of resolving the Ukrainian issue and moving toward comprehensive, broad, mutually beneficial cooperation," he added.

"In practice, however, the opposite occurs: new sanctions are imposed, attacks on tankers are staged in international waters in violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and India and other partners are discouraged from purchasing affordable Russian energy, while Europe has long prohibited such purchases, forcing them to buy American liquefied natural gas at significantly higher prices. Thus, in the economic sphere, the US has effectively declared a goal of economic domination," he said.

Lavrov said that the US aims to control all energy supply routes for all leading countries across continents, including in Europe, where they monitor the Nord Stream pipelines, the Ukrainian gas transport system, and the TurkStream pipeline.

"I am highlighting this to emphasise that the US' objective is global economic dominance, implemented through a wide range of coercive measures inconsistent with fair competition, including tariffs, sanctions, direct prohibitions, and even restrictions on communication for some partners. We must take all this into account," Lavrov said.

"While remaining open, just like India, China, Indonesia and Brazil, to cooperation with all countries, including a major power such as the US, we are in a situation where the Americans themselves are creating artificial obstacles along the way," he said.

Trump, while announcing a trade deal with New Delhi last week, claimed India agreed not to procure crude oil from Russia.

In an executive order, Trump rolled back an additional 25 per cent tariff on India that he imposed in August last for India's procurement of crude oil from Russia.

In the order, the US said it would monitor whether India resumed Russian oil purchases directly or indirectly, and that would determine whether a 25 per cent tariff would again be re-imposed.

On Monday, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said India will maintain multiple sources for crude oil purchases and diversify them to ensure stability in the supply chain, with national interests remaining the "guiding factor" for the procurement.

Lavrov also said that Russia will actively support India's chairmanship of BRICS with its current agenda, which is "modern, highly-relevant" with an emphasis on counter-terrorism and energy security.

India formally assumed on January 1, 2026, the chairmanship of BRICS, a 10-member bloc comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, along with five new members.
Europe should brace for more moments of US hostility, French President Emmanuel Macron has warned, and should treat what he called the "Greenland moment" as a wake-up call to push through long-delayed reforms to strengthen the bloc's global power.

In an interview with several European newspapers, the French leader said the European Union should not mistake a lull in tensions with Washington for a lasting shift despite a pause in US threats over Greenland, trade and technology.

Macron urged EU leaders to use a summit in a Belgian castle this week to inject fresh energy into economic reforms to bolster the bloc's competitiveness and strengthen its ability to stand up to China and the United States on the world stage.

"When there's a clear act of aggression, I think what we should do isn't bow down or try to reach a settlement," Macron told Le Monde, the Financial Times and other newspapers in comments published on Tuesday. "We've tried that strategy for months. It's not working,"

Macron said the Trump administration was being "openly anti-European" and seeking the EU's "dismemberment". He said he anticipated further tensions with the Trump administration, including over Europe's regulation of digital technology.

"The US will, in the coming months  that's certain  attack us over digital regulation," Macron added, warning of potential US import tariffs from US President Donald Trump should the EU use its Digital Services Act to control tech companies.

'Europe needs protection, not protectionism'

Europe needed to be more resilient in the face of a double challenge from the United States and China, Macron said.

"We have the Chinese tsunami on the trade front, and we have minute-by-minute instability on the American side. These two crises amount to a profound shock  a rupture for Europeans," he continued.

Macron, whose second term finishes in spring 2027, renewed his call for the EU to embark on more common borrowing to help the bloc of 27 nations invest at scale and challenge the hegemony of the US dollar.

The EU used joint debt in 2020 to re-boot the European economy after the COVID-19 pandemic, but French attempts to make such tools permanent have faced stiff resistance from Germany and other more frugal northern member states.

Thursday's summit will include discussions around French-led plans for a "Made in Europe" strategy that would set minimum requirements for European content in locally manufactured goods.

The approach has split EU countries and alarmed automakers.
Paramount Skydance has enhanced its Warner Bros Discovery bid by offering shareholders extra cash for each quarter the deal fails to close after this year and agreeing to cover the breakup fee the HBO owner would owe Netflix if it walked away.

Even though Paramount did not raise its per-share offer, the sweeteners mark the company's latest attempt to woo Warner Bros shareholders in its prolonged battle with Netflix for control of some of the world's most prized TV and film assets.

Paramount has offered to pay shareholders a 25-cent per share "ticking fee" that will equal about $650 million in cash each quarter between the start of 2027 and the close of a deal with Warner Bros, Paramount said on Tuesday.

It did not raise its overall offer of $30 per share, or $108.4 billion including debt, for the whole of Warner Bros including cable assets.

But Paramount said it would fund the $2.8 billion termination fee that Warner Bros would owe Netflix if their $82.7 billion deal for its studio and streaming assets falls through.

Both Netflix and Paramount covet Warner Bros for its leading film and television studios, extensive content library and major franchises such as "Game of Thrones," "Harry Potter" and DC Comics superheroes Batman and Superman. Paramount, owner of CBS, would also acquire Warner Bros' television networks, which include CNN and TNT, assets that would be spun out into a separately traded company, Discovery Global, ahead of the Netflix merger.

Several analysts said the move signaled Paramount's confidence that the Netflix deal may fail to pass regulatory scrutiny and it would have an easier path to approval, but it may not be enough to sway investors waiting for a higher offer.

"The sweetened deal is unlikely to sway WBD away from Netflix and toward Paramount. Paramount is throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks," said Ross Benes, senior analyst at Emarketer.

"Outside of raising its price, Paramount's best chance at stealing WBD is from outside regulators blocking Netflix." Warner Bros Discovery and Netflix did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Warner Bros shares were 2 per cent higher, while Netflix gained 3 per cent and Paramount was up 1.5 per cent .

'MEANINGFUL ENHANCEMENTS'

Paramount also unveiled several other measures aimed directly at addressing criticisms about its offer from the Warner Bros board.

It said it would backstop Warner Bros' planned debt exchange, offering to fully reimburse the potential $1.5 billion fee owed to bondholders without reducing the separate $5.8 billion reverse termination fee owed to Netflix, if the merger deal with Warner Bros fails to close.

The company also said it certified compliance with the US.

Department of Justice's second request on Monday, triggering a 10-day waiting period and has already secured foreign-investment clearance in Germany. It added it is in talks with antitrust regulators in the US, the European Union and the UK.

"We are making meaningful enhancements backing this offer with billions of dollars, providing shareholders with certainty in value, a clear regulatory path, and protection against market volatility," Paramount CEO David Ellison said in a statement.

Paramount also raised the personal guarantee from Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison to $43.3 billion and expects to fund the deal with $54 billion of debt from Bank of America , Citigroup and Apollo.

The rival bidder called on Warner Bros directors to declare the amended offer a potential superior proposal, and resume negotiations.

Warner Bros could not immediately be reached for comment.

UNCERTAINTY AROUND DISCOVERY GLOBAL

Paramount said it is open to discussing "contractual solutions" with Warner Bros' board to address the possibility that Discovery Global's financial performance could continue to deteriorate beyond what it is projecting for its linear network business.

The company argued that Netflix's offer leaves Warner Bros shareholders exposed to significant uncertainty as the amount of cash they would receive depends entirely on Discovery Global's financial condition at the time of the spinoff.

Paramount estimated that if Discovery Global were spun off with leverage similar to Comcast spinning off most of its NBCUniversal cable networks to Versant, Netflix's cash consideration for the deal would fall to $23.20 per share.

The David Ellison-led company extended the deadline for its tender offer to February 20, giving it more time to convince investors that its proposal for the Hollywood studio was superior to a rival bid from Netflix. However, Warner Bros has repeatedly spurned Paramount's offer.

The US Department of Justice is reportedly examining whether Netflix engaged in anti-competitive practices as part of its regulatory review of the deal.

For Netflix, gaining access to Warner Bros' marquee assets from "Friends" to "Batman" could give it the cultural firepower to develop a new wave of streaming-first spinoffs, prequels and sequels.

It would also make Netflix the biggest global streaming player, with roughly half a billion subscribers.

Warner Bros will hold a special investor meeting to vote on the Netflix deal, with the streaming pioneer saying that the meeting was expected to be held by April.

Netflix had last month switched to an all-cash offer for Warner Bros without increasing its $82.7 billion price.

Warner Bros board has said the Netflix merger deal is superior to Paramount's bid because its investors would retain a stake in the separately traded Discovery Global.
A top Iranian security official will travel Tuesday to Oman, the Mideast sultanate now mediating talks between Tehran and the United States over the Islamic Republic' nuclear program aimed at halting a possible American strike.

Ali Larijani, a former Iranian Parliament speaker who now serves as the secretary to the country's Supreme National Security Council, likely will carry his country's response to the initial round of indirect talks held last week in Muscat with the Americans.

Larijani is due to meet with Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi, the chief intermediary in the talks, and Oman's Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. IRNA described the talks as "important," without elaborating on what message Larijani will carry.

Iran and the US held new nuclear talks last week in Oman. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking Sunday to diplomats at a summit in Tehran, signaled that Iran would stick to its position that it must be able to enrich uranium - a major point of contention with US President Donald Trump, who bombed Iranian atomic sites in June during the 12-day Iran-Israel war. That war disrupted earlier rounds of nuclear talks between Washington and Tehran.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to travel to Washington this week, with Iran expected to be the major subject of discussion, his office said.

The US has moved the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, ships and warplanes to the Middle East to pressure Iran into an agreement and have the firepower necessary to strike the Islamic Republic should Trump choose to do so. Already, US forces shot down a drone they said got too close to the Lincoln and came to the aid of a US-flagged ship that Iranian forces tried to stop in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf.

The US Transportation Department's Maritime Administration issued a new warning Monday to American vessels in the strait to "remain as far as possible from Iran's territorial sea without compromising navigational safety." The strait, through which a fifth of all oil traded passes, is in Iranian and Omani territorial waters. Those traveling into the Persian Gulf must pass through Iranian waters.
The United States and Bangladesh have finalised a bilateral reciprocal trade agreement aimed at deepening economic ties, but industry executives say it is unlikely to materially impact Indias pharmaceutical and medical device exports, despite concessions granted to Dhaka on tariffs and market access.

Under the revised framework, Bangladeshi exports to the US will attract a 19 per cent tariff, marginally lower than the 20 per cent imposed in August and sharply below the earlier reciprocal rate of 37 per cent.

In return, Dhaka has agreed to address non-tariff barriers (NTBs) by recognising vehicles built to US federal safety and emission standards, and accepting US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) certificates for pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

While the agreement signals deeper USBangladesh trade integration, industry experts say its implications for India, particularly in the automotive sector, are limited.

Bangladesh has very few medtech exports to the US, which may be even less than $50 million per annum. This mainly includes personal protective equipment (PPE), along with some hospital furniture, syringes and needles, a medical device executive told Business Standard.

In contrast, Indias medtech exports to the US were recorded at $787.57 million in FY25, a 9.55 per cent rise from $714.30 million in FY24.

Even though it is a small competitor, Pavan Choudary, chairman at the Medical Technology Association of India (MTaI), said that Dhaka retains some competitive advantage, especially in PPE exports.

The Bangladeshi government provides a 6 per cent cash incentive (subsidy) on the export of medical and surgical instruments and appliances, he said.

Choudary added that Bangladeshi manufacturers also benefit from a 50 per cent tax exemption on income derived from exports, a policy slated to last until at least 2028. This becomes their competitive advantage, particularly in PPE exports.

A pharma executive added that since the pharmaceutical sector is exempt from reciprocal tariffs, the question of Bangladesh gaining any competitive edge does not arise in this segment.

At $10.52 billion, the US market is the largest export destination for Indian pharma companies, accounting for 34.6 per cent of the countrys $30.38 billion worth of pharmaceutical exports in the financial year 2025 (FY25).

Bangladeshs pharmaceutical exports to the US are approximately $2025 million annually.

India retains a strong, often superior, competitive edge over Bangladesh due to its massive scale of low-cost generics and established FDA-approved supply chains, the analyst quoted above added.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday that the US relationship with China could be very productive and welcomed Beijing as a rival.

"The U.S.-China relationship now is in a very comfortable place. We are going to be rivals, but we want the rivalry to be fair," Bessent said during an appearance at the BTG Pactual CEO Conference, held in Sao Paolo, Brazil. "We do not want to decouple from China, but we do need to de-risk." Bessent is preparing to meet with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in coming weeks ahead of a planned visit to China by US.

President Donald Trump in April.

Treasury has not given details about the timing or venue for Bessent's meeting with He.

Bessent told the conference that the US was working on "retaking sovereignty" from China in strategic industries including critical minerals, semiconductors and medicines.

"We're always going to be competitors," he said. "And I'm of the view that competition makes you better, keeps you from stagnating."

In the long run, he said China would have to rebalance its economy, adding, "The world cannot have a situation where China persistently runs a $1 trillion trade surplus. That's just not possible."

Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer spoke with He by phone in December, and both sides agreed to promote the stable development of bilateral trade and economic ties, China's official Xinhua news agency reported at the time.

Bessent last met with He in Malaysia in October, when both sides discussed a framework agreement under which Beijing agreed to defer export controls on rare earth supplies and Washington dropped a 100 per cent US tariff on Chinese goods.

The US Treasury Secretary has said in recent weeks that China is on track to meet its commitments under a U.S.-China trade agreement, including the purchase of 12 million metric tons of US soybeans, by the end of February.
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick minimized his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein Tuesday even as he acknowledged visiting the disgraced financier at his private island in 2012 after Epstein was a convicted sex offender.

Lutnick, speaking to a Senate panel, described going to Epsteins island after being asked in Tuesdays hearing about Justice Department documents showing he had planned a visit.

I did have lunch with him, as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation, my wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies, Lutnick told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee.

Lutnick added, The only thing I saw with my wife and my children and the other couple and their children was staff who worked for Mr. Epstein on that island.

Justice Department documents released in recent weeks indicate Lutnick previously incorrectly characterized the extent of his relationship with Epstein.

In an interview on the Pod Force One podcast last year, Lutnick described moving into a house next door to Epstein in 2005 and being so troubled by him that he and his wife agreed to never be in a room with him again. So I was never in the room with him, socially for business or even philanthropy, he said.

The Justice Department documents also indicate that Lutnick and Epstein  who were neighbors in Manhattan  continued to exchange messages through 2018.

Still, Lutnick told the Senate panel, I did not have any relationship with him.

Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon expressed doubt about Lutnicks account.

The reason people are bothered is because last year, you said you cut off all contact, but there are eight incidences of interaction since then, Merkley said. In 2012 you were planning a trip to the private island with your family. That sounds like somebody you know well enough to call up and say, Lets get our families together.

Some lawmakers have called for Lutnicks resignation over his Epstein ties. The White House rejected those claims Monday.

President Trump has assembled the best and most transformative cabinet in modern history. The entire Trump administration, including Secretary Lutnick and the Department of Commerce, remains focused on delivering for the American people, said White House spokesman Kush Desai.
Bangladesh on Monday secured a reduced 19 per cent tariff under a trade agreement with the United States that would exempt some textiles and garments manufactured with US materials, interim government chief Muhammad Yunus said.

In an X post, he said Washington had "committed to establishing a mechanism for certain textile and apparel goods from Bangladesh using US-produced cotton and man-made fibre to receive zero reciprocal tariff in (the) US market".

Yunus, known for his pro-US stance, said the deal was reached after nine months of negotiations since April last year.

Meanwhile, the US Treasury Department or any office of the Trump administration made no immediate comment on the development.

According to Commerce Secretary Mahbubur Rahman, Bangladesh's key export-earning ready-made garments (RMG) made from cotton and synthetic fibres imported from the US would enjoy zero reciprocal duty under the deal.

He said the agreement was signed in Washington by Commerce Adviser Sheikh Bashir Uddin and US Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer. ALSO READ | Apparel industry lauds India-US interim trade deal as 'father of all deals'

Commerce ministry officials said apart from cotton, the deal includes provisions for importing US wheat, soybean, and LNG, refraining from imposing tariffs on e-commerce, complying with US-mandated intellectual property rights standards, and supporting US proposals for reforming the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

Bangladesh recently agreed to purchase 25 aircraft from US aerospace giant Boeing, with an estimated cost of Tk 30,000-35,000 crore as part of broader efforts to ease the US tariffs.

According to Bangladesh's Export Promotion Bureau (EPB), the US remains Bangladesh's largest export market.

The South Asian nation in August last year secured a reduction in US tariffs on its exports to 20 per cent, down from 37 per cent initially proposed by Washington.

Bangladeshi policymakers earlier said they expected the tariff could be brought down to 15 per cent.

Business analysts, however, said the deal offered much-needed relief to Bangladesh's apparel exporters as the RMG sector accounts for more than 80 per cent of its export earnings and employs some 4 million workers, mostly women, and contributes about 10 per cent to gross domestic product (GDP). ALSO READ | India-US trade deal major boost for 'Made in India' initiative: FM

The US earlier this month announced to lower tariffs to 18 per cent from 50 per cent for India, seeking New Delhi to halt Russian oil purchases and lower trade barriers.

The commerce secretary said the recently concluded US-India trade deal might have influenced Washington's decision to cut the tariff "possibly due to geopolitical considerations".

Bangladesh's closest competitor, Vietnam, received a 20 per cent reciprocal tariff, while Pakistan, Cambodia and Indonesia have also been subjected to a 19 per cent tariff.

The development comes as Bangladesh heads for the February 12 general election to choose new leadership and bring an end to the 18-month Yunus-led interim regime, which took charge after the fall of Sheikh Hasina's Awami League government following a violent student-led street campaign dubbed the July Uprising.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper have condemned the imprisonment of Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai and urged for him to be released on humanitarian grounds.

In a post on X, Rubio called it tragic and unjust. "The sentencing of Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong is an unjust and tragic conclusion to this case. We urge the authorities to grant Mr. Lai humanitarian parole", he said.

British Foreign Secretary Cooper, in a statement, said that Lai's case was raised directly with Chinese President Xi Jinping during UK PM Keir Starmer's visit to China . Cooper reiterated support to the people of Hong Kong and called on China to honour the commitments made under the Sino-British Joint Declaration.

"British National Jimmy Lai was today sentenced to 20 years in prison in Hong Kong for exercising his right to freedom of expression, following a politically motivated prosecution. Beijing's National Security Law was imposed on Hong Kong to silence China's critics. For the 78-year-old, this is tantamount to a life sentence. I remain deeply concerned for Mr Lai's health, and I again call on the Hong Kong authorities to end his appalling ordeal and release him on humanitarian grounds, so that he may be reunited with his family."

The statement read, "The Prime Minister raised Mr Lai's case directly with President Xi during his visit. That has opened up discussion of our most acute concerns directly with the Chinese government, at the highest levels. Following today's sentencing, we will rapidly engage further on Mr Lai's case. We stand with the people of Hong Kong, and will always honour the historical commitments made under the legally binding Sino-British Joint Declaration. China must do the same."

As per CNN, the sentence to Lai is the longest delivered under that law and makes him ineligible for parole until he is in his late 90s.

It further mentioned that Lai was found guilty of two national security charges and a sedition charge in December.
By Philip Aldrick

A typical lower-income British household would have to wait 137 years to see its living standards double, according to the Resolution Foundation  more than three times longer than in the past.

Publishing a new analysis of living standards, the think tank said high rents and low pay mean work is no longer a route out of poverty for millions of UK families.

In-work poverty has replaced unemployment at the heart of Britains economic malaise, the report said, warning of further political upheaval unless the trend can be reversed.

Resolutions warning, published Tuesday, comes with the incumbent Labour government in turmoil. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is under pressure to step down in light of his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as US ambassador in December 2024, despite Mandelsons links to sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.

Chief of staff Morgan McSweeney was forced out on Sunday for influencing the decision, and Tim Allan  Starmers director of communications  subsequently quit on Monday to allow a new Number 10 team to be built. Rivals for the Labour leadership are circling, with markets fearing a more left-wing government that might increase borrowing or dent growth with higher taxes.

Resolutions report, Unsung Britain, warned that a slowdown in living standards among the 13 million working-age households in the poorest half of the country is fuelling a turn to populism. Nigel Farages insurgent Reform UK party has jumped to the top of opinion polls, leaving Labour lagging behind. The concerns raised by the report also echo the affordability crisis gripping US politics.

If politicians want to regain the trust of the families, they need to get the economy growing again so that pay rises pick up, while also putting their specific needs at the heart of efforts to turn the country around, said Ruth Curtice, Resolution chief executive. If they fail to do so, the economic malaise facing Unsung Britain risks fuelling further political disruption.

The report showed incomes for poorer families are set to grow just 0.5% a year across the 2020s. At that rate it would take 137 years for lower-income families to double their living standards. In the 40 years to the mid-2000s, the typical disposable incomes of working-age families in the poorest half of Britain doubled, growing 1.8% a year in real terms.

The income slowdown for the lower-paid began in 2005 and has been driven by pay rises drying up. The average gross annual earnings of someone in a lower income family has increased by 7,700 ($10,500) since the mid-1990s to 18,000 today  but nearly three-quarters took place before 2005, Resolution said.

As a result, in-work poverty has become a bigger issue than worklessness. Most households living below the poverty line today have someone in work  55 per cent, up from 38 per cent in the mid-1990s. While the UKs progressive tax system means poorer households pay a smaller share of their income in tax  at 12 per cent compared with 31 per cent for the most well-off  tenants with a private landlord spend on average 43 per cent of their household budget on rent.
By Bloomberg News

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichis election victory is handing Chinese leader Xi Jinping a dilemma: Engage with Japans most popular post-war leader or continue a deep freeze with the USs top ally in Asia.

Takaichi emerged Sunday from a snap election with a historic majority that gives her a mandate for a more assertive foreign policy, just as China ramps up pressure. Since November, when she implied in parliament that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could prompt Japan to deploy its military, Beijing has imposed export controls and tourism curbs to pressure her to retract those remarks.

Chinese leaders must now decide whether to maintain economic pressure on Tokyo, or find an elegant off-ramp to the dispute. Takaichi has stated she wants stable relations with Beijing, but it remains politically impossible to take back her comments without appearing to compromise Japans security.

Several Japanese officials, who asked not to be identified speaking about a sensitive topic, said their hope is China will have little choice but to eventually re-engage because Takaichis strong domestic mandate means her administration will likely be around for the next few years.

At a press conference on Monday, Takaichi said Japan was continuing to communicate with China at various levels and would respond calmly and appropriately from the standpoint of Japans national interests.

But Chinese officials are showing little sign of budging. Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian told a regular briefing on Monday that Chinas policy toward Japan will not change because of any single election. He renewed a call for Takaichi to retract her remarks, adding: The Chinese peoples resolve to defend the countrys core interests is unwavering.

The message from Chinese analysts was similar: Takaichi should use her big win to send an olive branch to Beijing, rather than the other way around.

The general trend is that major Western nations, including NATO allies, are seeking to improve ties with Beijing, said Henry Wang Huiyao, founder of the Center for China and Globalization research group in Beijing. A wise politician knows when to go with the flow.

Trump, Yasukuni Shrine

The rift comes at a delicate moment for Donald Trump, as he tries to preserve a fragile trade truce with Beijing while maintaining support for Tokyo, an important security and economic partner. Underscoring that balancing act, Takaichi is set to travel to the White House for a summit next month, weeks before Trump makes the first visit of a US president to China in nearly a decade.

In the aftermath of her win, Trump praised Takaichis Peace Through Strength Agenda in a Truth Social post, reinforcing his push for US allies to ramp up defense spending. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote on X: When Japan is strong, the US is strong in Asia.

Already, Takaichi has flashed signs of a bolder stance toward Beijing. In response to a question during a television interview on Sunday evening, Takaichi said she was working on creating the right environment for a visit to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, where Japans war dead are commemorated. China regards the shrine a symbol of Japanese war-time atrocities.

Takaichis Liberal Democratic Party also won a two-thirds majority in parliament, giving it the ability to initiate constitutional change. She has long pushed for reform of the pacifist constitution, which was imposed by the US after World War II and never amended.

Any constitutional changes also requires approval of the upper house, where the LDP is much weaker, as well as a national referendum  meaning the process will likely take years, if it happens at all. Still, Takaichi on Monday vowed to press ahead with that goal.

I am committed to creating an environment in which a national referendum can be held as soon as possible to let the public decide on whether or not to amend the constitution, Takaichi said.

China has consistently warned Japan about embracing militarism since Takaichi returned to office. Some influential Chinese bloggers on Monday signaled concern over an emboldened Takaichi.

A More Dangerous Japan

What we will face is a more dangerous Japan, Niutanqin, a senior editor for the official Xinhua News Agency, wrote in a commentary for his blog on the social media platform WeChat. He cited the possibility for Takaichis government to revise Japans constitution, expand military spending, seek offensive weapons and even change its longstanding non-nuclear stance.

Japan is set to become more provocative on the Taiwan question, he wrote, referring to the self-ruled island China considers its territory.

Still, the scale of Takaichis election win could help to ease tensions in the long term if history is a guide. After Japans then-leader Shinzo Abe returned to power in 2012 with a sweeping election victory, and won another vote in 2014, a detente with Beijing emerged following tensions stemming from a territorial dispute.

Even then, the rapprochement played out in slow-motion with Xi and Abe not meeting until late 2014, when they sat down in Beijing on the sidelines of an APEC leaders summit. It took years for Japanese investment into China or Chinese tourist flows to Japan to recover, suggesting any thaw with Takaichi could be a long process.

Chinas hosting of the APEC leaders summit this November in Shenzhen could provide a similar venue for Xi and Takaichi to talk through their differences.

Red Line

Previous disputes with Japan, however, havent directly involved the question of Taiwan sovereignty, which could make Beijing more reluctant to ease off its pressure campaign. China has become increasingly intolerant for such perceived violations of its primary red line, concerned they would embolden separatists in Taiwan.

China downgraded diplomatic ties with Lithuania in 2021 after the Baltic nation let Taiwan open a de-facto embassy using the name Taiwan instead of Taipei, as is typically the case in other countries. In a phone call with Trump last week, Xi urged the US leader to handle the issue of arms sales to Taiwan with prudence in unusually specific language.

How the relationship between Asias top economies evolves depends on several data points, according to Jeremy Chan, senior analyst at Eurasia Group and a former US diplomat in China and Japan.

China will wait and see whom she appoints to her cabinet, how her state visit to Washington goes and whether she moves forward on her pledges to harden Japans defense against China, he said.
CARLOW Co Council unanimously passed a motion calling on the taoiseach, tanaiste and minster for agriculture to intervene and ask the chairman of Bord Bia, Larry Murrin, to step down from his role.

The motion was proposed at the Monday 9 February council meeting following an emergency meeting of the Carlow executive of the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) on Sunday 8 February in the Woodford Dolmen hotel.

Dozens of farmers and members from the IFAs Carlow branch were present in the council chamber while the motion was being discussed.

All 18 councillors supported the motion, which was passed by a show of hands.

Fine Gael cllr Ben Ward, who proposed the motion, said the issue facing the government was very simple and that Mr Murrin had to be removed from his position.

The head of Bord Bia was appointed by the minister for agriculture and the minister has the power now to remove him from the chair, cllr Ward said.

Sinn Fein cllr Jim Deane, who is a sheep farmer and a Bord Bia supplier, said the situation was disgraceful and that Larry Murrin was jeopardising the whole industry.

It is an absolute disgrace that one man can jeopardise Bord Bia, which all farmers are very proud of and over the last 32 years have built up to produce safe food, not only for people in this country but right around the world, cllr Deane said.

Carlow IFA members and councillors outside the County Council offices on Monday.

Independent cllr William Patton thanked the members of the IFA for their presence in the chamber and said that Mr Murrin had to be removed, adding: I have a masters degree in governance, but it doesnt take a masters degree to know when somethings wrong. It is plain and simple; you cant be two sides of the same table.

Fine Gael cllr and mayor of Carlow Paul Doogue, who seconded the motion, said the issue was black and white and that he sent a notice to over 200 Fine Gael councillors asking them to notify their local TDs about the seriousness of the issue ahead of a planned vote in the Dail on Wednesday.

I sent word to 245 councillors last night asking them to get on to their TDs and ministers to try and put an urgency on this before it goes to a vote on Wednesday, he said. I wish the IFA the very best of luck and I think they know that they have all councillors support here, he added.

Speaking to The Nationalist, former Fine Gael TD for Carlow and current representative for the county on the IFA national dairy committee, Pat Deering, said the IFA was happy with the result of the motion.

We were quite happy with the meeting; there was unanimous support for the motion, which came about as a result of the IFAs emergency meeting on Sunday night," Mr Deering said.

The emergency meeting on Sunday night was attended by 15 of the 18 county councillors, with the three not in attendance sending their apologies, while Fine Gael TD Catherine Callaghan, Sinn Feins Natasha Newsome Drennan TD and Fianna Fails minister of state Jennifer Murnane OConnor were also present.

About 100 farmers were in attendance, with the main issue being that the IFA and its farmers have lost confidence in Larry Murrin because of what they believe to be a conflict of interest after it emerged that Murrins company Dawn Farms was importing quantities of Brazilian beef into Ireland.

I have never seen as much anger and passion in a room, said Mr Deering.

There were a lot of questions asked to elected representatives, a lot of disquiet, a lot of anger. There was also a lot of people who wouldnt go to an IFA meeting at all, never mind on a Sunday night, but it just goes to show the level of anger and disquiet at the whole situation, he added.

Councillors and TDs in attendance were all supportive of the IFAs stance, which prompted the proposal that a motion would go before the council yesterday.

Catherine Callaghan, TD outlined what she had done to lobby behind the scenes for the duration of the dispute and that she was supportive of the IFA and farmers stance.

The same situation applied to minister Murnane OConnor.

Both deputies said they would lobby behind the scenes continuously, with minister Murnane OConnor stating that she would organise a meeting of all Oireachtas members in the constituency with the taoiseach in advance of the vote on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Natasha Newsome Drennan, who farms alongside her husband, said she would vote in favour of her partys motion calling on the government to remove Mr Murrin from his post.

In a recent interview with the Sunday Independent, Taoiseach Micheal Martin said the dispute had gone too far and warned that ongoing protests from the IFA and other farming groups risked sending the wrong message globally about Irelands food supply chain.

Both Micheal Martin and minister for agriculture Martin Heydon have expressed their full confidence in Mr Murrin.
CARLOW County Fire and Rescue Service has secured 4 million in capital funding to expand and modernise the Hacketstown Training &d Development Centre, it was announced at a Tullow municipal district meeting.

The funding, allocated by the National Directorate for Fire & Emergency Management (NDFEM), will finance a number of projects to provide modern facilities to meet training needs for firefighters across Ireland.

The announcement comes after the training centre recorded its busiest year on record, with over 1,200 firefighters completing training courses over 346 days in 2025. Some 133 days have already been booked for 2026.

Acting chief fire officer Ben Woodhouse said the funding followed 18 months of preliminary project appraisal, research of other UK training centres and preparing a business case application.

Im delighted to announce this great news for our training centre at Hacketstown and the local community, said Mr Woodhouse. The Hacketstown Training and Development Centre has become a leading training facility for Ireland. A key element of the development will be Irelands first fully enclosed carbonaceous fire training facility with smoke capture, management and filtration. This will significantly reduce smoke emissions, CO2 emissions and improve health and safety for learners and trainers.

Fire officer Woodhouse noted that while carbonaceous fire training is essential to prepare firefighters for real-world scenarios, it currently impacts the locality due to smoke travelling across the town.

Through my research and the awareness of the latest impacts of our training activities, it is evident that we need to develop our facilities to not only improve quality of training for firefighters to meet modern-day challenges in fire service operations but also to improve the local environment for the people who live, work, socialise and attend education facilities in the vicinity of the training centre, he said.

The development will also include a new training tower, site perimeter fencing, an underground confined space training facility, conversion of a training building to artificial heat non-carbonaceous via LPG, welfare facilities, car parking, site lighting and proposed buildings to house training fire appliances, security and administration.

Fire officer Woodhouse outlined the centres evolution since 2000, when it started with three shipping containers in a field to deliver training for Carlow firefighters.

It is now the busiest training centre in Ireland, excluding the OBI in Dublin, he said. Its the only training centre in the country that can deliver two, sometimes three, courses simultaneously. This year the centre has trained firefighters from fire authorities across Ireland  from Sligo and Donegal to Cork and Clare  as well as Dublin Airport Fire & Rescue Service, the Irish Defence Forces and the Irish Air Corps.

Courses delivered include QQI firefighting skills, QQI breathing apparatus, QQI compartment fire behaviour, pump operator, confined spaces, working at heights, road traffic collision, emergency first responder and cardiac first responder training.

The project will now enter planning, consultation and procurement processes.
SINN Fein MEP Kathleen Funchion has asked the EUs foreign policy chief to raise the case of a Kilkenny man who has been held by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for about five months despite holding a valid work permit.

In a statement issued today, 10 February, Ms Funchion, who has previously represented the Carlow-Kilkenny constituency before becoming an MEP, said she had written to EU high representative for foreign affairs Kaja Kallas requesting that her office make immediate contact with the US Authorities to seek the release of Seamus Culleton. The MEP said Mr Culleton, a Kilkenny native, has lived in the US for 20 years and that his detention is wholly unacceptable.

Mr Culleton, originally from Glenmore, Co Kilkenny, runs a plastering business in the Boston area and is married to US citizen Tiffany Smyth, according to the Irish Times.

The Irish Times reports he was arrested on 9 September 2025 while buying supplies at a hardware store in Massachusetts, and later transferred through ICE custody near Boston and in Buffalo, New York, before being flown to an ICE facility in El Paso, Texas.

According to his lawyer, Ogor Winnie Okoye, Mr Culleton entered the US in 2009 under the visa waiver programme and overstayed the 90-day limit, but later married a US citizen and began a lawful permanent residence process. The lawyer told the media he obtained work authorisation tied to his green card application.

It is reported that a judge approved his release on a US$4,000 bond at a November hearing and the bond was paid, but ICE continued to detain him. ICE later claimed he had signed documents agreeing to deportation, which Mr Culleton denies, disputing the signatures.

In a separate news story on Tuesday, the Guardian said Mr Culleton tol he fears for his safety in detention and quoted him describing the situation as torture, adding that Irelands Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was providing consular assistance and that the embassy in Washington was engaging with the US Department of Homeland Security at a senior level.

Ms Kallas, whom Ms Funchion is urging to intervene, has been the EUs high representative for foreign affairs and security policy since 1 December 2024.
Fiona Magennis

A defence expert witness in the case of a 51-year-old man who claims his conviction for the rape and murder of a Connemara schoolgirl was a miscarriage of justice has said DNA analysis was very much in its infancy at the time of his trial and technological advances in the intervening years have been huge.

John McDonagh was 27 when he was convicted in 2001 by a Central Criminal Court jury of the rape and murder of Siobhan Hynes (17), of Sconse, Lettermore, Connemara.

Hynes was found dead at Tismeain beach in the townland of Keeraunbeg in the early hours of December 6th, 1998.

McDonagh, formerly of The Demesne, Keeraunbeg, Carraroe, had pleaded not guilty but was convicted following three days of jury deliberations and sentenced to life imprisonment.

He is now seeking to utilise advances in technology and developments in expert knowledge to try to establish that his conviction was unsafe and demonstrate that there has been a miscarriage of justice in his case.

He has made a novel application to have certain trial exhibits undergo forensic testing and examination, arguing that fibres on Hynes person had not received adequate attention.

Dr Louise McKenna, of the State Forensic Science Laboratory, found "numerous" fibres on the jumper McDonagh wore that night which matched Ms Hynes's petrol-blue polyester fleece jacket and wine acrylic jumper. She also found fibres on the front and back of his jumper which matched fibres from Hynes's black socks.

Fibres from the fleece and the wine jumper were also found in the front passenger seat of McDonagh's car, and fibres from his red fluffy car-seat cover matched two red fibres found on Hynes's clothes.

McKenna said the fibres lent "very strong support to the proposition that Siobhan Hynes was in contact with John McDonagh's jumper and strong support for her being in his car."

McDonagh is now seeking to utilise advances in technology and developments in expert knowledge to try to establish that his conviction was unsafe and demonstrate that there has been a miscarriage of justice in his case.

In opening the appeal last December, Michael OHiggins SC, for McDonagh, said that the meat and veg of the case is in the affidavits of the experts.

The case was adjourned following two days of submissions after the three-judge court said they wished to hear evidence from the expert witnesses in the case.

During cross-examination on Tuesday, the third day of the appeal hearing, forensic expert for McDonagh Clare Jarman told counsel for the State Paul Carroll that while DNA testing was still useful at the time of the trial, it was very much in its infancy.

She said the advancements in the 20 years since had been significant, although she agreed the basic science remained the same.

Jarman said modern technology is more sensitive and current extraction methods are better able to clean samples and remove contaminants.

She told the court that acid phosphatase (AP) testing is used to identify the possible presence of seminal fluid.

In relation to clothing, she said the detectability of such material depended on whether the fluid was dry or wet when immersed in water. She said spermatozoa can sometimes remain, but identifying which areas of clothing to target can be difficult.

Jarman agreed that AP testing has been used for decades and decades and that immersion in water may cause the substance to be lost or degraded.

Carroll said the evidence in the case was that Hynes body had been left in a tidal area. He said Dr Dorothy Ramsbottom of Forensic Science Ireland, who prepared a report for the Director of Public Prosecutions, had noted that the facts of the case indicated a low likelihood of finding bodily or seminal fluid.

Jarman agreed that immersion in water would reduce the presence of acid phosphatase but said she could not say whether it would eliminate it entirely.

She told counsel the action of waves and seawater would have a more negative effect on evidence than distilled water.

Jarman also addressed Y-STR testing, describing it as useful in isolating male DNA in samples overwhelmed by female DNA.

She said immersion in water was a huge factor affecting detectability.

Jarman confirmed to Mr OHiggins in re-examination that six cotton buds were taken at the time and split, creating 12 potential test portions. She said only part of one had been tested, meaning 11 portions had not been examined. She said modern testing would involve combining extracts from all portions.

Ramsbottom later told the court that Y-STR profiling was not used in Ireland until 2016. She described the possibility of DNA surviving under fingernails as possible but highly unlikely and said testers at the time had carried out a pre-assessment to maximise evidential value.

She said in this case, testers looked at the fingernail scrapings even though the victim was in the water for up to 14 hours and there would have been a very low likelihood of finding anything under her nails. She said in this case there was a match to the victims own DNA.

Expert evidence was also heard from fibre specialists. Tiernan Coyle said he was unable to confirm the analytical findings in the case file and could not yet express an opinion on contact evidence.

Coyle said important developments have been made in microscopes over the past 25 years and this represented a significant advance in technology.

Amanda Lennon, a prosecution fibre expert, said while technology had advanced, the principles remained the same and further testing would be unlikely to advance the evidence.

She said the testing done at the time was robust and the case involved fibres transferred in multiple directions, with various types on two different garments and given the number involved and the multi-way transfer, further testing was likely to strengthen the evidence rather than the opposite.

The trial in 2001 heard that Hynes had celebrated her 17th birthday a week before she was murdered. She was raped by McDonagh, who then tried to choke her. After leaving her for dead, he drove his car back to Carraroe village and became involved in a fight.

Hynes disappeared from Carraroe village at around 12.50am. She left a car parked outside a local hotel to go to the toilet in a local chip shop, but she never came back. Earlier, when she tried to go to the toilet in a local pub, a doorman refused her entry because she was underage.

The hearing continues on Wednesday.

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can call the national 24-hour Rape Crisis Helpline at 1800-77 8888, access text service and webchat options at drcc.ie/services/helpline/ or visit Rape Crisis Help. In the case of an emergency, always dial 999/112.
By Cillian Sherlock, Press Association

There are a very small number of cases of Irish nationals in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention centres, Irelands Minister for Foreign Affairs has said.

The case of Seamus Culleton, who has been detained by Ice since September, gained national attention after his family raised his situation in the media this week.

Mr Culleton is originally from Co Kilkenny but has been living in the US for almost 20 years and is married to a US citizen.

I am aware of a small number of cases where people have directly reached out to our embassy teams Foreign Affairs Minister Helen McEntee

He was driving home after finishing work when he was detained by Ice agents in September 2025.

Mr Culleton said he had a work permit but was arrested and transported from Massachusetts to an Ice facility in El Paso, Texas.

Foreign Affairs Minister Helen McEntee said it was a really distressing situation for Mr Culleton and said her officials were working to support his family.

Asked on Tuesday if she was aware of other similar cases of Irish people with a right to be in the US being detained by Ice, she said: I am aware of a small number of cases where people have directly reached out to our embassy teams.

McEntee added: If there are other people in that type of scenario, please engage with our teams  were there to support them.

Asked if it was less than a dozen, she said: Yes, a very small number of cases.

Culleton said he would like Taoiseach Micheal Martin to raise his case with US President Donald Trump during his meeting at the White House in March for St Patricks Day.

Asked if he would do so, Martin told reporters on Tuesday that Government officials will see what more they can do in communication with the administration.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin said he empathises with the position Seamus Culleton is in (Liam McBurney/PA)

He said Government officials have been engaging with local officials and Ice about Mr Culletons case.

Speaking before a Cabinet meeting in Dublin, the Taoiseach said: We will see what more  with the Minister for Foreign Affairs  what we can do in terms of our communication with the administration.

I fully empathise with the position he is in, he has been in the United States quite a long time, hes married there.

Im not clear on the full background to it but certainly we would like to see him out of that facility.

Asked if he was broadly concerned about the US administrations approach to immigration enforcement, Martin said the Government has been concerned about undocumented Irish citizens for a long time through a range of US administrations.

He added: There is now a crackdown in America in terms of the implementation of migration law which we are concerned about in terms of how it affects the Irish undocumented.

Martin said the approach had been to seek legal channels to regularise the situation for Irish and US citizens in the States.

He said living in the US without status was a very difficult and dangerous position to be in.

Tanaiste Simon Harris said it was an extremely stressful time for Seamus Culleton and his family. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA.

Martin said it has been difficult to get consensus on the Hill as different nations lobby the US Congress for support on migration measures.

Meanwhile, Tanaiste Simon Harris said it is an extremely stressful time for Mr Culleton and his family.

Asked if Martin should raise the issue with Trump, he said: I take the point thats made about what may or may not happen on March 17, I would just make the point, theres a fair whack of time to go between now and March 17, and certainly Ireland and Irish authorities, through our diplomatic channels, will be continuing to engage, to make the point, to make their representations between now and then.

Of course, then the Taoiseach and the Government will judge where thats at.

Asked the same question, McEntee said there is always a time and a place to raise individual cases, and added: I have no doubt the Taoiseach will give it consideration but it is important to stress we are already providing assistance to Seamus.
PLANNING permission was approved on 30 January for a new funeral training centre to be built behind Burke McDermott Funeral Home on Railway Road, Carlow town. The centre will consist of a 211sq/m, single-storey building for two or three students at a time in funeral preparation.

Mortuary Science Ireland Ltd, which will occupy the site, submitted the application for the development on 13 July 2025.

Director of the company Cyril Gantley explained that they work with the British Institute of Embalmers, which offers the only worldwide qualification in the industry. Mortuary Science Ireland offers a three-year diploma course, which involves academic and practical elements. It teaches a maximum of ten or eleven students at a time to ensure they get the teachers undivided attention, said Mr Gantley.

Funeral services is an unregulated industry, he noted, and demand for accredited services has come from within the industry, from insurance companies and countries during repatriation arrangements.

Mr Gantley has operated Mortuary Science Ireland Ltd out of Athy, with the other director Susan Moran, since 2004. They deal with all aspects of funeral services, from the funeral to care of the deceased, explained Mr Gantley. They grew out of their current training centre in Athy and the opportunity to team up with Charles McDermott arose in Carlow.

Mr Gantley and Ms Moran are over the moon to have permission approved. Mr Gantley said: The whole positioning around the centre is fantastic, with the train station across the road making it an accessible location for students.

Burke McDermott, the existing funeral home, will remain operating as usual, and the new training centre will be open between 10.30am to 7.30pm, Monday to Friday. The permission granted by the council was subject to 14 conditions, relating to parking and traffic, environmental preservation and protection of the unique character of the site.
SIX transition-year students from Tyndall College, Carlow graduated from a STEM passport for inclusion programme at a recent ceremony held at Maynooth University.

The students a Lily Griffin Shortt, Kasper Kozinski, Bianca Harbua, Tatiana Leonard and Robyn Murphy a each earned a level 6 National Frameworks of Qualification (NFQ) university qualification. Their teacher Sarah Stafford also attended the ceremony.

Tatiana Leonard, teacher Sarah Stafford and Robyn Murphy from Tyndall College, Carlow at the STEM Passport for Inclusion graduation in Maynooth University

The programme, which was started in 2023, sees students from DEIS schools across Ireland given the opportunity to receive a university qualification, academic supports, work experience opportunities and mentorship from industry professions.

Professor Katriona OSullivan started the programme to break barriers and empower students from under-served backgrounds to pursue career pathways in science, technology, engineering and maths.

Since its launch, over 5,000 students have completed the programme with 920 graduating from it this year.

The programme is designed in partnership with Microsoft, but it also receives funding from Research Ireland, the Department of Education and Youth and other industry and education partners.

Research shows that after completing the programme, students show an eagerness to continue in STEM, with 79 per cent considering applying to study STEM at third-level, while 76 per cent are considering a career in STEM.
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Cemex Ventures has announced a new investment in Waste to Energy Advanced Solutions (WtEnergy), a startup developing technologies to convert non-recyclable solid waste and biomass into clean energy.

The venture capital arm of Cemex said the investment will support the scaling of WtEnergys technology, which produces low-carbon synthesis gas (syngas), clean hydrogen and other bioproducts. The solutions are intended to accelerate the integration of alternative, lower-carbon energy sources across Cemexs global clinker and cement manufacturing operations, a core pillar of its decarbonisation strategy.

WtEnergy represents exactly the type of solutions we seek to promote within our circular economy and clean energy strategy, said Alfredo Carrato, investment manager at Cemex Ventures. With this new investment, we are reinforcing our commitment to supporting startups that are redefining the industrys energy future and generating tangible value across the cement value chain.

Cemex Ventures said its decision to increase its involvement with WtEnergy reflects both technical progress and growing institutional support. In collaboration with Cemex, WtEnergy has received backing from the European Union to develop advanced waste-to-fuel conversion technology. The startup is also leading a EUR10m project at Cemexs Alcanar plant in Spain to convert biowaste into high-purity clean hydrogen.
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Domestic dispatches in Peru increased by 14.1 per cent to 1.129Mt in January 2026 when compared with 0.989Mt in January 2025, according to the countrys cement association, ASOCEM. Of this total 0.996Mt were dispatched by the associations members.

Cement production by ASOCEM members advanced by 12.5 per cent YoY to 0.975Mt in January 2026 from 0.867Mt while clinker production was up 23.9 per cent YoY to 0.742Mt from 0.599Mt over the same period.

Cement exports saw a 23.1 per cent increase to 12,596t in January 2026 from 10,200t while clinker exports fell from 73,600t to zero.

Cement imports into Peru grew by 36.2 per cent YoY to 68,479t in the first month of 2026 from approximately 50,000t in the year-ago period. Approximately 87.6 per cent of cement imports originated in Vietnam while 12.4 per cent was imported from neighbouring Chile. The average CIF import price improved by 6.9 per cent YoY to US$135/t via the land terminal of Tacna while via the port of Chancay, it declined 7.2 per cent YoY to US$64/t.

Clinker imports more than doubled to 91,384t in January 2026 from around 44,000t in January 2025. Volumes originated from South Korea (52 per cent) and Vietnam (48 per cent). Approximately 47,480t was imported via the port of Pisco, where the average CIF import price fell by 17.1 per cent YoY to US$40.02/t. Imports via the port of Callao reached 43,904t, imported at an average CIF price of US$60.53/t.
Artist Laura Scorey Artist, Alan Shuptrine in front of painting, Lace in the Cove Cascade by Bonny Burbank Shuptrine, acrylic, 40 X 40 inches Together by Carylon Cooper, Oil, 30 X 40 inches Held by Light by Karen Brown, Oil, 36 X 36 inches Previous Next

Shuptrine's Gallery announces the following upcoming events.



- Shuptrines Gallery Artist Reception: Artist Spotlight at the Gallery on Laura, works by Laura Scorey, Thursday, April 2 from 6-8 p.m. (formerly scheduled for April 9):



"Please join us for this gallery reception featuring artist Laura Scorey. Recently featured in The Scout Guide, Ms. Scoreys work is whimsical and ethereal, inviting viewers into each canvas to experience the world through her perspective. Rich in color and atmosphere, her paintings are inspired by the beauty that surrounds her and a deep appreciation for being fully present in the moment.

At the same time, her work reflects the full spectrum of life, capturing both its light and its darker, more contemplative depths."The exhibition will be on display through June 13.- Shuptrines Gallery Open House & Reception, Thursday, April from 6-8 p.m.:Shuptrines Gallery Open House will feature April spotlight artist Laura Scorey, as well as works by artists Bonny Burbank Shuptrine of The Painted Dress, Carylon Cooper and Karen Brown.Officials said, "In support of CADAS and their premiere fashion event, Fly Away-Titanium II featuring designer Christian Siriano, Bonny Burbank Shuptrine captures the essence of the dress - from wedding to runway - transforming the dress into a lasting work of art. Carylon Coopers figurative pieces and large canvases are influenced by and reflect her unwavering faith, and Karen Brown captures the beauty of ethereal vistas, landscapes and vibrant cityscapes."The works will be on display rotating in the gallery through June.- Artist, Alan Shuptrine Artist Residency at The Edwin Hotel, Chattanooga, Friday and Saturday, April 17-18:Alan Shuptrines Artist in Residency at The Edwin Hotel, Chattanooga, will be held the weekend of April 17-19.Recently featured in Chatter Magazine for his most recent exhibition in Scotland, the artist will be painting in the hotel common area and will be available to interact with visitors and guests. He will also provide a painting demonstration for visitors to watch his creative process in watercolor.The Edwin Hotel is located at 102 Walnut St. in Chattanooga.

Shuptrines Gallery is located at 2613 Broad St. in Chattanooga. The gallery is open Tuesday through Thursday from 10 a.m.-4 p.m., and by appointment. For more information, call 423-266-4453. Visit www.shuptrinesgallery.com for more examples of the artists works.
Amateur radio enthusiasts from across North Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee are invited to gather at the Dalton Fairgrounds at 500 Legion Dr. for the 44th Annual Dalton HamFest on Saturday, Feb. 28. Hosted by the Dalton Amateur Radio Club, the event has become a late-winter tradition for the regions ham radio community.Admission is $5, with free entry for youth ages 17 and under.Throughout the day, visitors can browse hundreds of tables packed with new and pre-owned radio equipment, accessories and supplies.The HamFest offers a unique opportunity to connect with fellow hobbyists, meet vendors and enjoy the camaraderie that defines amateur radio.Following a successful debut last year, the LaFayette Middle School Rambler Club will once again host a Kids Zone, featuring a hands-on, radio-themed craft designed to spark curiosity and learning. Families with middle schoolaged children interested in amateur radio are encouraged to stop by.Our HamFest brings together radio enthusiasts of all ages and experience levels, said Dalton Amateur Radio Club President Greg Williams. Its a great way to see what amateur radio is all about, talk with experienced operators, and enjoy the social side of the hobby. Well also be giving away some fantastic door prizes.Mr. Williams added that a new feature this year is a 50/50 raffle, with tickets available for just $1 each.At the end of the day, one lucky winner will take home half the pot, while the remaining funds will support our club and its activities. Were excited to introduce this as a fun way to give back and help support amateur radio in our community.The Dalton Amateur Radio Club has sponsored the HamFest for more than four decades. Each year, we look forward to the event and the strong support we receive from attendees, vendors, and volunteers, Mr. Williams said.For those interested in earning or upgrading their amateur radio license, testing sessions will be held at the Yellowstone Steak and Buffet across from the fairgrounds. Exams begin at 1 p.m., with a $15 testing fee. Participants may register on-site until 11:30 a.m. on the day of the event, or preregister at hamstudy.org/sessions/w4drc . Walk-in registration opens at 12:30 p.m.For more information, email w4drchamfest@yahoo.com.
A new law in Tennessee now allows facility dogs to be used to help victims and witnesses testify in courtrooms throughout the state with a judges approval.

Up until now, they have only been utilized in a handful of judicial districts during courtroom testimony, and also during forensic interviews.

Officials said, "These certified and highly trained dogs often bring comfort to vulnerable witnesses, like children, giving them an added sense of security when asked to discuss sensitive topics in often highly stressful situations, such as jury trials."

In April of 2025, the Tennessee Legislature passed a law, allowing facility dogs in every jurisdiction, with the judge's approval.

If someone would like to use a facility dog in their case, they first need to file a motion with the court. The judge will hear that motion and decide whether the circumstances warrant using a facility dog in that particular case. The facility dogs training and certification will be requested, along with certification from the dogs handler.

If someone would like to use a facility dog for their case, it is best to reach out directly to the local district attorneys office and Victim Witness Coordinator in their judicial district. If that judicial district does not currently have a facility dog available, the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference may be able to assist in providing a dog from another district to help with the case.
The Chickamauga, Ga., City Council on Monday night voted 4-1 to oust Mayor Trey Deck.

The vote came after the council members heard recorded interviews of several city employees about an incident in which the mayor allegedly told a female employee that she looked "hot" in her red pants and was a "ho" who could make money out on the street corner.

Also, a tape was played in which the mayor left a voice mail for a city employee that allegedly contained racist remarks.

Attorney Jeremy Penland called the proceedings unfair and said it was "a witch hunt, a lynching."

Outside counsel for the city said the lynching remark "was especially offensive" given the alleged remarks on the tape.

Attorney Penland has filed suit in behalf of the mayor in Walker County Superior Court, and there is a hearing on Friday.

The employee who had worn the red pants said, "He's always flirty around women. He says he's the mayor. He's untouchable."

She said he told her, "You can call me king or master." She said, "That made me disgusted."

Attorney Penland said Mayor Deck and the female employee often jokingly sparred with one another, including when she worked for a local bank. He said prior to that the woman had worked at the water company when now City Manager Micheal Haney was an official there. He said it was City Manager Haney who had brought her onto the city payroll. The attorney also said the woman had gotten charged in East Ridge with hitting a man, though it was later dismissed.

The mayor had been aware of the charges since Jan. 15, it was stated.

Mayor Deck issued a statement on Monday afternoon that he and his attorney did not plan to attend the meeting after a threatening call came in to the lawyer office.

He said, "The threat was immediately reported to law enforcement, and counsel for all parties associated with this afternoons meeting were immediately notified. The safety of our residents, elected officials, city employees, and first responders is our highest priority. Upon learning this information, my representatives immediately coordinated with local and regional law enforcement agencies. Given the seriousness of this matter, members of the public are strongly encouraged to evaluate whether in person attendance in necessary should the city council elect to move forward with the proceedings this evening.

"Those who choose to attend should expect heightened security procedures, limited access areas, and potential delays. Any suspicious activities should be reported immediately to law enforcement. The situation is being actively monitored and additional actions will be taken if warranted. The City will provide updates as appropriate. We appreciate the cooperation of the public as we take steps to ensure safety and maintain order while continuing the work of local government.

"Democracy survives on disagreement and our community survives on respect. I care more about protecting the citizens of Chickamauga than any outcome of tonights hearing. It is incumbent upon each citizen to uphold the values instilled in us as North Georgians and citizens of our great nation. We have the privilege to be tasked with upholding these principals during this time of political tension. I ask all of you to come together to support the legal process and allow justice to prevail. is denying any inappropriate conduct and said an effort to oust him is being carried out by City Manager Micheal Haney."

He also said that a planned hearing for Monday on the issue was not properly advertised.

A statement in behalf of the mayor says, "The Mayor provides this statement in an effort to fulfill campaign promises, particularly with respect for transparency to his constituents. For more than a month, the Mayor has been inundated with questions about the proceedings, but under advice of counsel, has not spoken on the issue. However, given the lengthy delay of the so called emergency and public sentiment, the Mayor believes the public is owed a response concerning certain aspects of the proceedings.

"First, the Mayor would like to address the improper nature and violation of the City Charter concerning the most recent published agenda. The Mayor contends the notice of hearing published by the City Manager is deficient and in violation of City Charter Section 3.12 in that it did not provide 48 hours notice. Notice was published on the Chickamauga City Website at 5:00 on Friday, February 6, setting the hearing for Monday, February 9, at 6 p.m. Specifically, Section 1-2 of the Citys Ordinance states that any notice period which provides for fewer than seven days shall not include weekends. Being that Notice was not issued until after hours late Friday afternoon, not enough time has run to properly commence a hearing.

"Furthermore, the City Manager has not provide three recently elected City Council members the opportunity to take their oaths of office pursuant to Section 3.11 of the Charter, which cannot occur until a regularly scheduled hearing. This special hearing does not qualify. Consequently, the City Council Members are not authorized to commence business on behalf of the City until such time as the oaths are lawfully administered in accordance with the City Charter. These issues only delay the hearing but do not stop the impending hearing. However, proper notice and procedure would permit the Mayor adequate time to petition the Court seeking injunctive relief, and provide time to be heard by the Court, in order to preserve the Mayors constitutional rights to due process. If the City is not willing to provide due process to the Mayor, then it must follow that the City is not willing to consider the due process rights of its citizens. The Mayor stands up for the rights of all citizens of the City of Chickamauga.

"Additionally, the Mayor recently obtained relevant evidence via open records request to City Hall, which was not provided by the City Attorney. This evidence provides, without a doubt, that the City Manager and at least one City Council member have considered the evidence without hearing the Mayors defense to the charges weeks before this hearing was set. This text message string, obtained by the Mayor in accordance with an open records request, clearly shows that said council member has already decided the Mayors fate before considering any evidence offered by the Mayor.

"Furthermore, this City Council member, and at least one other City Council member, are either direct business associates of the City Manager, Michael Haney, or have contracts with the City that were negotiated with and approved by the City Manager. Notwithstanding these conflicts, these City Council Members have failed to recuse themselves from deciding the Mayors case despite their clear conflicts of interest. Mr. Haney is responsible for initiating this removal action in retaliation for campaign promises made by the Mayor to remove Mr. Haney from his role as the City Manager. Notably, it is believed that Mr. Haney did not attend the previous meeting in order to avoid being called as a witness by the Mayors representative despite being the individual initiating and conducting the investigation into purported allegations of inappropriate comments made by the Mayor to city employees; an allegation which the Mayor vehemently denies."
Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel, P.C. congratulates the 2025-2026 John C. Stophel Distinguished Students from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga's (UTC) Gary W. Rollins College of Business for their exceptional achievements and dedication to academic excellence.This year's recipients include: John Dempsey, Management/HR Management; Kestutis Dubininkas, Data Analytics; Madison Goble, Accounting; Chandler Mason, Finance; Ana Morris, Entrepreneurship; Paige Proseus, Marketing; and Juliet Romines, Economics."We are proud to recognize these seven outstanding students for their remarkable academic achievements and service to their communities," said Chambliss President and Managing Shareholder Steve Barham."Their accomplishments reflect the integrity, dedication, and leadership that will serve them well as they continue in their professional journeys."The John C. Stophel Distinguished Student Award is given annually to recognize high-achieving business students who have made significant and meaningful civic contributions to UTC and the Gary W. Rollins College of Business while maintaining a strong academic record. Award recipients are chosen based on their outstanding leadership, commitment to community, and communication abilities, as well as a high level of self-motivation."This is an outstanding group of students," said Dr. Robert Dooley, Dean of UTC's Gary W. Rollins College of Business. "The John C. Stophel Distinguished Students are leaders among their peers. They demonstrate a strong commitment to academics and community service. Were honored by the commitment Chambliss has made to recognize their accomplishments and mentor them as they prepare for their careers."Chambliss established an endowment at UTC in 2008 to honor the legacy of John C. Stophel, whose leadership was instrumental in shaping our firm's culture following the merger that formed Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel, P.C. in 1997. Throughout more than 50 years of practicing law, Stophel led numerous civic, charitable and religious initiatives to benefit the Chattanooga community. Additionally, he served as chairman of the University of Chattanooga Foundation Board of Trustees from 2001 to 2004.
Mario Merriweather, a repeat offender with a 30-year criminal history, has been sentenced to federal prison for robbing a fast-food restaurant in Fort Oglethorpe and forcing restaurant staff into a walk-in freezer.

Undeterred by multiple stints in state prison, Merriweather repeatedly terrorized victims who were simply trying to go about their jobs, said U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg. His most recent attack on a Burger King restaurant has resulted in a significant sentence that demonstrates that criminals who try to have it their way by robbing citizens in this District will be held accountable and removed from the community.

No one should ever be terrorized physically or emotionally, like the victims in these violent armed robberies were, said Mitchell Jackson, special supervisory resident agent of FBI Georgias Cartersville office. The FBI is proud to work with our local law enforcement partners in helping to convict these repeat offenders at the federal level, where they face stiffer penalties and no opportunity for parole.

According to U.S. Attorney Hertzberg, the charges, and other information presented in court: On Oct. 26, 2023, Merriweather entered a Burger King restaurant just two miles south of the Tennessee-Georgia state line and brandished what appeared to be a pistol. He ordered one employee to empty the register and ordered all the employees into a walk-in freezer. One employee used his foot to stop the freezer from locking, and another employee immediately called 911.

One of the employees who escaped from the freezer was lawfully armed and chased Merriweather outside. When Merriweather turned and pointed what appeared to be a firearm at the employee, the employee fired two shots at Merriweather but did not hit him. Merriweather fled but passed out next to his vehicle. Responding officers found Merriweather flat on his back in the road near an air pistol and also recovered a Burger King bag stuffed with cash.

Merriweather has a long history of prior robberies, including convictions for robbing a Wendys and a Burger King in 2001, robbing two people in 2005, and robbing two banks in 2013.

Merriweather was sentenced by U.S. District Judge William M. Ray II to 11 years in federal prison to be followed by three years of supervised release. Merriweather was convicted on charges of interference with interstate commerce by robbery on Aug. 14, 2025, after he pleaded guilty.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Calvin A. Leipold, III prosecuted the case.
A homeless man is facing charges after fire investigators say he set different fires in a busy area of the city within a span of several hours.

At 8 a.m. on Sunday, Chattanooga Fire Department units were dispatcher to the Walgreens at the corner of Shallowford Road and Gunbarrel Road where someone had set bundles of cardboard on fire at the back of the business, which was open at the time. An employee smelled something burning and discovered the fire. Firefighters responded to Walgreens and extinguished the burning bundles.

Then at noon on Sunday, the CFD responded to the Shell station at 7022 Shallowford Road where brush was burning along the interstate after being intentionally set ablaze. CPD had a suspect in custody and he was positively identified by Walgreens employees as the same suspect from their fire earlier in the day.

Daniel Roden, 40, was arrested and charged with two counts of reckless burning and two counts of reckless endangerment for endangering the public with both fires.
It is not easy to follow the interactions of large molecules with water in real time. But this can be easier to hear than to see. This is how an international team deciphered the role of water in the collapse of PNIPAM.

Some polymers react to their environment with conformational changes: one of these is the polymer PNIPAM, short for poly(N-isopropylacrylamide). It is water-soluble below around 32 degrees Celsius, but above this temperature it precipitates and becomes hydrophobic. This qualifies it for smart sensor applications. But what actually happens between PNIPAM and the solvent water? Researchers at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, and the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign collaborated with sound production specialists from Symbolic Sound Corporation to investigate this question. Using sound representation, they were able to decipher the interaction of water molecules with PNIPAM for the first time. They report their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS on February 4, 2026.

Water pulls the strings The role of the solvent, water, often takes second billing when researchers analyze the motion of polymers such as proteins or human-engineered PNIPAM. And yet, water forms hydrogen bonds between water molecules and water and polymer, and these hydrogen bonds organize both the water structure and the polymer structure says Professor Martina Havenith-Newen, Holder of the Chair of Physical Chemistry II at Ruhr University Bochum and spokesperson for the Ruhr explores Solvation RESOLV Cluster of Excellence. Water plays an important role in how polymers expand or contract or fold inside of the solvent.

Scientists from Ruhr University Bochum, sonification specialists from Symbolic Sound Corporation, and researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign teamed up to see how PNIPAM contracts and expands in water, the universal solvent in the human body, and what the role of water is in this process. To do so, the postdoctoral researcher Wanlin Chen founded with the Henriette Scout program of the Alexander von Humboldt foundation, ran long supercomputer simulations that follow the motion of PNIPAM in water for billions of time steps.

Sound is key The conundrum was in the data analysis: there are so many thousands of water molecules around PNIPAM, and they form and break hundreds of hydrogen bonds with PNIPAM all the time, so it was hard to visualize using conventional computer visualization. The team brought on board Carla Scaletti and Kurt Hebel who are developing Auditory Analytics, a technique that uses sonification (turning data into sound) in a way complementary to visualization (turning data into videos or images). Sonification has the advantage with complex time series of data that the human brain is very good at discerning patterns in audio waveforms that arise from many near-simultaneous events, Martin Gruebele, a guest professor also funded by the Alexander von Humboldt foundation explains.

Using sonification, the researchers found that PNIPAM, as it contracts, does not form many direct hydrogen bonds, but rather its structure is organized by 'water bridges', where a water molecule makes links together two parts of PNIPAM. PNIPAM itself also forms an unusual bond where to hydrogen atoms stuck to nitrogen atoms lign up. All this could be heard and differentiated when different sounds were assigned to different bond types, even when dozens of those bonds form and dissolve at any given time.
Chinese doctors empower UNICEF staff in Sierra Leone with essential first-aid training

Xinhua) 11:00, February 10, 2026

FREETOWN, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The 26th batch of Chinese medical team provided an on-site first aid training program for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Sierra Leone staff at the UNICEF Head Office in Freetown on Monday.

The two-day training aims to equip participants with essential first aid skills, including cardiopulmonary resuscitation, trauma care, and emergency response techniques.

Liu Longfei, head of the medical team, expressed satisfaction in delivering this critical training. "On behalf of the Chinese medical team, we are happy to provide on-site first aid training to UNICEF Sierra Leone," he said.

He stressed that the initiative reflects their shared commitment to protecting lives in Sierra Leone. Since 2024, the team has extended its training efforts to other organizations, including students in the mining and medical sectors.

UNICEF Representative to Sierra Leone Rudolf Schwenk underscored the importance of the training for staff wellbeing. "At UNICEF, the well-being, safety, and security of our staff are central to our duty of care," he stated.

Schwenk highlighted that equipping colleagues with practical skills to handle medical emergencies is crucial for creating a safe and supportive work environment. "This training represents an important investment in staff wellbeing and emergency preparedness," he added.

Both Liu and Schwenk encouraged participants to actively engage in the practical sessions to maximize the benefits of the training.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Jimmy Lai. | Photo credit: Facebook/ Jimmy Lai

A Hong Kong court on Monday imposed a 20-year prison sentence on pro-democracy media tycoon and religious freedom advocate Jimmy Lai, delivering the most severe punishment yet under Beijings national security law in one of the citys most prominent prosecutions.

The decision represents the harshest penalty applied under the sweeping law since its enactment, underscoring Beijings tightening control over the semi-autonomous territory.

Lai, a 78-year-old Catholic and the founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily, was convicted in December on two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security and one count of conspiracy to publish seditious articles.

Prosecutors said the charges stemmed from allegations that Lai sought to encourage foreign sanctions against China and Hong Kong and from editorial content published by his pro-democracy outlet.

According to The Associated Press, a panel of three government-approved High Court judges declined to impose a life sentence. Judge Esther Toh ruled that 18 years of the new term would run consecutively with Lais existing nearly six-year sentence for fraud tied to a separate lease violation.

Lai, who holds British citizenship, has remained in custody for more than five years, much of that time in solitary confinement. He pleaded not guilty throughout his 156-day trial and testified for 52 days in his own defense.

Prosecutors accused him of conspiring with six former Apple Daily staffers, two activists, and others to press foreign governments  including U.S. officials  to impose sanctions or take hostile actions against Hong Kong and China, citing meetings he held with American politicians before the law took effect in 2020.

Beijing enacted the national security law after mass pro-democracy protests in 2019, and authorities have since used it to prosecute scores of activists, lawmakers, and journalists, sharply curtailing public dissent.

Lais defense team, led by attorney Robert Pang, argued for leniency based on his age, health concerns  including heart palpitations, high blood pressure, and diabetes  and the toll of prolonged solitary confinement.

Other defendants in the case, including former Apple Daily executives who pleaded guilty or testified for the prosecution, received prison terms ranging from six years and three months to ten years.

Press freedom advocates condemned the verdict, with the Committee to Protect Journalists calling the case Hong Kongs biggest media trial.

Western leaders have repeatedly urged Lais release, including U.S. President Donald Trump and British officials, who view the case as emblematic of Beijings expanding grip over Hong Kong.
Home News Al Mohler condemns Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear for using Bible to affirm LGBT ideology: 'stupid'

Quick Summary AI Summary Al Mohler condemns Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear for using the Bible to support LGBT ideology, calling it 'stupid.'

Mohler criticizes Beshear's veto of legislation banning body-deforming sex-change procedures for kids.

Beshear claims his actions are guided by the Golden Rule. An artificial intelligence-powered tool created this summary based on the source article. The summary has undergone review and verification by an editor. See Summary

Theologian Al Mohler condemned Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear's recent use of the Bible on "The View" to presumably explain why he vetoed legislation banning transgender procedures for minors, and warned theological liberalism has become a rival religion to biblical Christianity.

"These days, it's hard to be astounded by something absolutely ridiculous, or worse, coming from an officeholder when it comes to political office," Mohler, the president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, said in a Monday X post.

"And frankly, if you're coming up with a catalog of stupid things said on programs like ABC's 'The View,' you'd better get ready for a very long list. But I don't care how long your list is, this one's going to rank at the top of stupid."

"Gov. Beshear doesn't define his faith, except that it includes the Good Samaritan and the Golden Rule.



You are looking here at two different rival religions. You have historic, orthodox, biblical Christianity, and you have theological liberalism and whatever it produces next." pic.twitter.com/td9abkLIOn  Albert Mohler (@albertmohler) February 10, 2026

Mohler went on to show a clip of Beshear's Monday appearance on "The View," where he claimed his actions as governor are driven by his Christian faith.

"Most of the decisions I make are based on that Golden Rule that says we love our neighbor as ourself, and that parable [of] the Good Samaritan that says everyone is our neighbor," he said.

"And so, when I've taken actions like vetoing the nastiest piece of anti-LGBTQ legislation that ever came through my state, I described it in those terms. I said my faith teaches me that all children are children of God, and I didn't want people picking on those kids," he added to audience applause and approving nods from "The View" co-hosts.

Though Beshear did not specify which legislation he was referring to, Mohler suggested he was likely referencing Senate Bill 150, which banned prescribing puberty blockers and opposite-sex hormones for minors while requiring students in public schools to use the bathroom that aligns with their biological sex. The Kentucky General Assembly overruled Beshear's veto of the bill in 2023.

Last year, the General Assembly also overruled Beshear's veto of House Bill 495, which banned taxpayer-funded transgender procedures and rescinded his executive order restricting so-called "conversion therapy." Beshear accused the legislature at the time of behaving unconstitutionally and promoting "a dangerous and discriminatory practice that has led to the deaths of Kentucky children."

Noting that Beshear is vague in defining his faith apart from the Golden Rule and the Good Samaritan, Mohler said that the governor epitomizes one of the "two different rival religions" that have emerged with opposing views of Scripture and reality.

"You have historic, orthodox biblical Christianity, and you have theological liberalism and whatever it produces next," said Mohler, who discerned the cultural battles over "the LGBTQ+ revolution" have underlined the differences between the competing faiths "perhaps more than anything else in the modern age."

"One of them, Christianity, consistent with creation order and Scripture and the history of the Christian church, and the other one, which, frankly, is a new religion. It's cut the Bible down to size. It doesn't begin with Genesis 1, evidently, just the Golden Rule and the Good Samaritan," Mohler added.

Beshear, who is a deacon in the liberal mainline Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), has consistently used Christianity to affirm his liberal political positions. During an address to the 2024 Democratic National Convention, he echoed the line he used on "The View" nearly verbatim by appealing to the Golden Rule to suggest those who oppose abortion are lacking "underlying empathy" and not loving their neighbor as themselves.

"How we treat people transcends party lines. It goes right to the heart of who we are. My faith teaches me the Golden Rule  that I am to love my neighbor as myself. And the parable [of] the Good Samaritan says we are all each other's neighbors," Beshear said regarding pro-life policies that he alleged "give rapists more rights than their victims."

The Family Foundation, a Kentucky-based pro-life nonprofit, accused Beshear at the time of "completely twisting the Scripture to advance and support his radical agenda."

"To Biblically love one's neighbor, one must desire and act in ways to see our neighbor flourish. Championing the murderous practice of abortion that does not lead to a flourishing life, but rather to the termination of one's life, is the complete opposite of loving one's neighbor. Misrepresenting Scripture in this manner must be condemned," said the group.

Before abortion was banned in Kentucky in 2022 upon the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Beshear had also vetoed legislation to restrict abortion, including a 2020 Senate bill to protect infants born alive during an abortion attempt. A similar bill became law without his signature in January 2021.

In his 2025 State of the Commonwealth address, delivered to what NPR affiliate WUKY called "a notably small audience," Beshear used the Nativity story to admonish Republicans to be "thoughtful" regarding how their legislations might affect the marginalized. He described Mary as "an unwed teenager" whom "people in those days would judge, would look down on, would pass legislation against."

Beshear's implication prompted outrage from Kentucky state Rep. TJ Roberts, who said in an X post at the time that "Beshear using Mary, the Mother of God, to attack pro-life, pro-family, pro-faith, pro-freedom Kentuckians was beyond shameful  outright blasphemous."
Home News Church gets nearly $1M grant to honor people sold at former slave market

A church in Tennessee has secured a $996,000 grant to build a memorial in remembrance of enslaved people at the site of a former slave market near their sanctuary.

Calvary Episcopal Church in Memphis recently secured a two-year grant from The Mellon Foundation for the purpose of helping to fund the churchs The Legacy of 87 Adams project.

87 Adams Street was the location of a former slave market in Downtown Memphis, with research indicating that approximately 3,800 enslaved individuals were sold at the site.

The project traces its origins to earlier efforts to the Lynching Sites Project of Memphis, which found a misleading 1955 Tennessee Historical Commission marker at 87 Adams regarding Confederate commander Nathan Bedford Forrest.

The 1955 marker said that Forrests business enterprises made him wealthy without acknowledging that his business efforts at the site were centered on slave trading.

In 2018, members of our coalition collaborated to erect a new marker at this site, unearthing this history and holding a memorial service to remember the lives of those sold here, states the project's website.

We began the process of envisioning a lasting monument that aimed at revealing the full story, correcting historical inaccuracies, and fostering a space of reflection, learning, and dialogue.

The church seeks to create a future memorial and accompanying archive" to chronicle the stories of people sold at the location and those who purchased them.

The Christian Post reached out to Calvary Episcopal Church in Memphis, Tennessee, but a church spokesperson declined to comment.

The Rev. Scott Walters, rector of Calvary Episcopal, said in a statement that he is thrilled by the grant and hopes the memorial will greatly benefit the local community.

I am thrilled at the news that Calvary and our dedicated team of community partners will be able to build on the work weve done over the past nine years, stated Walters, according to Episcopal News Service.

We want the history of 87 Adams to be treated truthfully, in ways that foster healing and change in Memphis for decades to come.

A group of community members will oversee the process to select a memorial design, forge ties with local artists, and create community programming, reports ENS.
Home News Oklahoma officials reject creation of first Jewish charter school; appeal expected

Oklahoma officials have rejected an application to create a Jewish charter school, citing a recent court decision against the creation of a virtual Catholic charter school.

The Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board voted on Monday to reject the proposed religious charter school, known as Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School.

Gamla, which has four campuses in Florida, plans to appeal the Oklahoma school board's decision, according to the religious liberty law firm Becket.

Parents across the Sooner State deserve more high-quality options for their childrens education, not fewer, said Peter Deutsch, founder of the Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School, in a statement.

Yet [Republican Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond] is robbing them of more choices by cutting schools like Ben Gamla out. Were confident this exclusionary rule wont stand for long.

A coalition of groups  including Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, Education Law Center, Freedom From Religion Foundation and Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice  applauded the decision.

The progressive advocacy groups sent a letter to the state school board last week, imploring it to reject Ben Gamla's application on state and federal constitutional grounds.

By refusing to approve what would have been the nations first religious public school, the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board is protecting Oklahomans religious freedom, public education, and church-state separation, they said in a joint statement.

Were proud to be part of a large and diverse group of Oklahomans and people nationwide who are committed to defending Americas secular public education system.

Last November, Deutsch, a former Congressman from Florida, filed a letter of intent with the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board to launch a virtual Jewish religious charter school in Oklahoma.

"Ben Gamla envisions Oklahoma students gaining a rigorous, values-based education that integrates general academic excellence with Jewish religious learning and ethical development," wrote Deutsch at the time, according to the Oklahoma Voice.

Brett Farley, a member of the board of directors for St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which would have been the state's first religious charter school before it was struck down in court, was listed in Deutsch's letter as part of the founding team for the proposed Jewish school.

In June 2023, the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board voted 3-2 to approve the creation of St. Isidore, which would have been overseen by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Catholic Diocese of Tulsa.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond filed a complaint against the board in October 2023, and a coalition of liberal groups filed a lawsuit in July 2023.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled 7-1 against St. Isidore in June 2024. The majority concluded that the Catholic entity's approval violated the state constitution.

Although the charter school board unanimously voted to rescind the contract for St. Isidore due to the state high court's order, it also filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court.

In May 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a brief 4-to-4 per curiam opinion affirming the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling against the establishment of St. Isidore. Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself due to reported personal ties to a professor who was an early adviser to St. Isidore.
Home News First Baptist Dallas Pastor Robert Jeffress 'honored' by inclusion in 'Melania' film

Quick Summary AI Summary Pastor Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Dallas appears in the documentary 'Melania.'

Jeffress makes a cameo praying for President Donald Trump at a pre-inaugural event.

He expresses honor at being included in the film despite being unaware of it prior to its release. An artificial intelligence-powered tool created this summary based on the source article. The summary has undergone review and verification by an editor. See Summary

As the senior pastor of one of the most well-known churches in the United States, Pastor Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Dallas is accustomed to being up on stage.

On the big screen, however, is another matter entirely.

Jeffress, 70, makes a brief cameo in Melania, the new documentary about first lady Melania Trump, in which Jeffress was asked to pray for President Donald Trump at a pre-inaugural event in Washington, D.C., in January.

The film  which is distributed by Amazon Studios and earned over $7 million during its opening weekend  captured the cinematic moment, but Jeffress told The Christian Post on Monday he didnt even know he was in the movie until after its release. The night of the premiere for Melania, Jeffress said he was attending a private event in West Palm Beach when his phone started blowing up with text messages from people who had been at the premiere the first night of the film, saying, "You're in it. You're in it."

Jeffress recalled asking them, "What are you talking about? And they said, The new documentary on Melania."

Despite being caught off guard by the news, Jeffress said his inclusion in the film was an honor.

I was completely unaware of it, but I was honored to be a small part of the telling of the story of what happened to the Trump family in the 20 days leading up to the inauguration, he added.

On Jan. 31, Jeffress urged his followers on social media to go see Melania and called it a great movie everyone who loves our country should see!

While the film focuses primarily on chronicling the first ladys relationships with her family and how she navigates the pressures of living in the spotlight, Melania doesnt offer much insight into her private faith. But Jeffress said wherever she may be on her journey, he believes both the president and first lady are very sincere in their belief in the power and the importance of prayer, adding, Ive had the opportunity to pray for them publicly and in smaller gatherings, and they have always welcomed that and sometimes have requested it.

He recalled one candid encounter in the Oval Office with Trump and an unidentified highly decorated general in which the president referred to Jeffress as General Robert.

He said to the general, You know, General Robert is more powerful than you are. And the general kind of had a funny look on his face, and the president continued. He said, No, think about it. Every day Robert talks to the one who controls everything that happens in this universe,' said Jeffress. And I believe the president believes that. I believe he believes in a God who is in control, who is sovereign, and a God whose assistance we all need.

While Jeffress has been one of Trumps most visible supporters in the Evangelical community, he no longer serves in any official faith advisory role for the president, according to Fox News.

Jeffress told the outlet his relationship with Trump is an informal friendship that I've cherished for these last 10 years. I just basically like President Trump," he said. ... And I can tell you, he loves this country.
Home News Assemblies of God Executive Presbyter, Pastor Rod Loy, steps aside amid sex abuse allegation

Editor's note: This article contains graphic details of alleged sexual abuse.

Assemblies of God Executive Presbyter Rod Loy, who also leads one of the denominations largest congregations, has stepped aside from his role and will face an investigation following a recent lawsuit from a former member who claims he sexually abused her for 20 years, beginning when she was 16.

Rod Loy has voluntarily stepped aside from his duties as an executive presbyter during the districts investigation, the national office of the Assemblies of God told The Christian Post in a statement Monday.

An executive presbyter in the Assemblies of God is one of 21 members on the denominations national Executive Presbytery board. These high-level leaders function as policymakers and governing officials for the denomination. They oversee doctrinal integrity, fellowship policies, and regional matters, including ordained leadership and are elected to four-year terms.

Loy, who has been the senior pastor of First Assembly of God in North Little Rock, Arkansas, since 2001, was elected as the Gulf-area executive presbyter in August 2023. His church was ranked as the third-largest Assemblies of God congregation in the United States, with more than 16,500 members in 2017, according to official denomination records. First Assembly of God has also helped to plant more than 1,350 churches in 63 nations.

The claims of abuse are detailed in a civil lawsuit filed by 45-year-old Suzanne Lander in the Circuit Court of Pulaski County, Arkansas, on Jan. 26.

Lander names Loy and First Assembly of God in North Little Rock as defendants. Through her attorneys, Keith L. Langston and Basyle Boz Tchividjian  a grandson of the late evangelist Billy Graham  Lander accuses Loy of sexual assault and battery, and the tort of outrage.

Defendant Loys conduct was extreme and outrageous, beyond all possible bounds of decency, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community. Defendant Loy exploited his position as a trusted spiritual leader to systematically groom, manipulate, and sexually abuse a vulnerable sixteen-year-old girl who had survived years of parental sexual abuse and trafficking, the lawsuit claims. Defendant Loy used religious teachings and scripture to convince Plaintiff that God wanted her to submit to his sexual demands, telling her repeatedly that performing sexual acts pleased God and made her better in Gods eyes.

Lander alleges that only months after she began attending the church as a teenager in 1996, Loy, who was then serving as executive pastor, initiated sexual abuse.

Defendant Loy had previously demonstrated physical affection through hugging, which Plaintiff had never experienced before. Defendant Loy then began using a Nintendo gaming controller to touch Plaintiffs genitalia over her clothing, the complaint states. Defendant Loy soon progressed to using his hands to touch Plaintiffs genitalia over her clothing and then to putting his hands inside her clothing and rubbing his genitalia on her while she watched television in his home.

Lander alleged that Loy told her that God wanted her to please him sexually and used Scriptures like Hebrews 13:17 to get her to comply: Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

The lawsuit alleges that Loy's abuse of Lander spanned from 1996 to 2016, including while she was married. She alleges that from 1996 to 1998, when she was still a minor, Loy forced her to perform oral sex, performed oral sex on her, and raped her in multiple locations: his church office, the storage closet, nursery, Junior Super Church Room, church parking lot, and his home.

Defendant Loy consistently told Plaintiff: God wants you to have sex with me because I am your pastor."

Lander alleges that she was controlled by her pastor for the first 18 years of her adult life, and that he continued to leverage control over her life even after she got married and had children. The lawsuit claims Lander was finally able to escape Loys control after she and her family moved to Jonesboro in 2016.

She claims she only realized she had suffered abuse after she started therapy three years ago for complex PTSD, severe anxiety, depression, and neurological impairment.

Prior to this therapeutic breakthrough, Plaintiffs ability to perceive the abuse as abuse  rather than as what Defendant told her it was  had been destroyed by years of spiritual manipulation, psychological conditioning, and the unique vulnerabilities created by her traumatic childhood, the complaint states.

First Assembly of God in North Little Rock did not respond to a request for comment from CP on Monday, but the Arkansas District Assemblies of God told CP they would be investigating the allegations.

The Arkansas Assemblies of God takes all complaints against our affiliated pastors and credential holders, seriously. Our bylaws, as well as those of the General Council of the Assemblies of God, outline a well-established process in addressing such concerns, the organization said in a statement.

Our investigation of the accusations of misconduct will be conducted separately from any lawsuits or information that might surface in the news media. The pattern of our investigation will be the same pattern that is followed for all investigations regarding misconduct which includes conversations with both the accuser and the accused, they added.

In an appearance during the worship service at his church on Sunday, Loy did not mention the lawsuit, but was welcomed with supportive cheers and clapping from his congregation as he offered prayer and praise to God.

We trust you, Jesus. Our trust is in You. And thank you that you have always proved faithful and able and capable of our trust. We don't trust in a weak, powerless God. But we trust in a strong, mighty Savior who still saves and heals and delivers and sets free, Loy said. Our trust is in you, Lord. We love you in Jesus name.
Home News Trump claims he secured 2014 release of persecuted Christian Mariam Ibrahim: 'I did that'

Quick Summary AI Summary Trump claims he made a phone call that secured the release of Christian Mariam Ibrahim in Sudan.

Ibrahim was sentenced to death for apostasy before fleeing to the U.S. in 2014.

Critics question Trump's involvement, noting no evidence of his role in her release during the Obama administration. An artificial intelligence-powered tool created this summary based on the source article. The summary has undergone review and verification by an editor. See Summary

President Donald Trump claimed during last week's National Prayer Breakfast that he made a phone call that secured the release of Mariam Ibrahim, a persecuted Sudanese Christian mother who was released and fled to the United States during the Obama administration.

Toward the end of a digressive, hour-long address to the prayer breakfast last Thursday, Trump appeared to veer off the text of his prepared remarks when he highlighted the plight of Ibrahim and her daughter, Maya, both of whom were in attendance.

"Believers all over the planet rallied to Mariam's cause, prayed for her protection, and successfully pressured for her release," Trump said before drifting into an apparent ad-lib claiming he played a role.

"I did that. I did that. I did that with one phone call, actually," he said. "And she had such support, it was so easy. And when I explained it to the powers that be: 'Yes, sir, we will do it right away.' I just wish I knew earlier. But it's a big world with a lot of people."

Ibrahim, who spoke to The Christian Post in 2016 and has been living in the U.S. since 2014, made headlines that year when she was sentenced to death for apostasy in Sudan because she married Daniel Wani, a Christian man who was also a U.S. citizen.

Under Sharia law, Ibrahim was considered legally Muslim because her father was a Muslim, though she was raised as a practicing Christian by her Christian mother.

After being flogged with 100 lashes for alleged adultery, Ibrahim was imprisoned along with her baby son and spent Christmas 2013 in jail, where she gave birth to Maya while shackled to a prison floor. She claimed she was unsuccessfully pressured by prison guards for days to renounce Jesus Christ amid her suffering and humiliation.

After a Sudanese appeals court ordered her release following intense international pressure, Ibrahim told CP in 2016 that a fellow female inmate who was Muslim assisted in smuggling in a Bible and keeping it secret while also helping to care for her infant son. She later learned the woman converted to Christianity.

Robert P. George, a Princeton University professor who led the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) when Ibrahim was freed, said he had no memory of Trump playing a role in her release.

"As Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in 2014, I advocated for Mariam Ibrahim," George told CNN. "I do not recall Donald Trump being involved in the case or assisting our Commission's efforts."

"Of course, he was not president at the time. Whether he was working privately outside our view, I cannot say. It is certainly possible," George added.

A former Obama administration National Security Council official told the outlet they had no knowledge of Trump's involvement in the case and would be "very surpris[ed] if he were.

The Christian Post has reached out to Ibrahim for comment.

Trump drew criticism from some Evangelicals for the tone of his address to the National Prayer Breakfast last week, which opened with him joking about his remarks last fall that he is "maybe not Heaven-bound."

Trump also interweaved his administration's defense of religious liberty with personal attacks against his political opponents, specifically fellow Republicans Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., as well as Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Chip Roy, R-Texas, all of whom are Christians.
Home News Trump's Religious Liberty Commission sued by interfaith coalition alleging bias toward Christianity

Quick Summary AI Summary Interfaith coalition files lawsuit against Trump administration over Religious Liberty Commission.

Plaintiffs allege commission is unlawfully biased toward Christianity.

Defendants include President Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi. An artificial intelligence-powered tool created this summary based on the source article. The summary has undergone review and verification by an editor. See Summary

An interfaith coalition has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its Religious Liberty Commission, an entity within the U.S. Department of Justice, it contends, is unlawfully biased toward Christianity.

The complaint was filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of The Interfaith Alliance, the Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, Muslims for Progressive Values, Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund and Hindus for Human Rights.

Defendants named in the case include President Donald Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Religious Liberty Commission, and Mary Margaret Bush, the commission's designated federal officer.

This case challenges the composition and secrecy of the Religious Liberty Commission, the lawsuit reads. While this body is ostensibly designed to defend religious liberty for all Americans and celebrate religious pluralism it actually represents only a single Judeo-Christian viewpoint.

The Commissions members have promoted the primacy of a Judeo-Christian world view in the public sphere, advocated for discrimination against minority groups under the guise of religious liberty, and otherwise supported policies that threaten religious freedom for all those who do not conform to their particular worldview.

The Commission has also disregarded basic transparency requirements, including by failing to disclose transcripts, agendas, and other materials that would allow Plaintiffs and the public to follow and understand the Commissions work, the complaint alleged.

The groups maintain that the commission violates the Federal Advisory Committee Act, a 1972 law that curbs the Executive Branchs reliance on advisory committees deemed superfluous, secretive, and biased.

In response to the lawsuit, a Justice Department spokesperson defended the commission, stating that it provides "opportunities for Americans from all walks of life to share their testimonies, concerns, and recommendations to better support Civil Rights and religious freedom in the United States."

The Department of Justices mission is to uphold the rule of law and ensure fair and impartial justice for all Americans, which is an endeavor every American should support regardless of their political beliefs," the DOJ statement reads, according to Courthouse News Service.

The lawsuit states that the commission membership consists of almost exclusively Christians with one Orthodox Jewish Rabbi, all of whom believe that America was founded as a Judeo-Christian nation and must be guided by Biblical principles.

The plaintiffs are being represented by the progressive advocacy groups Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Democracy Forward Foundation.

The commissions true purpose and operations cant be squared with Americas constitutional promise of church-state separation, said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United, in a statement released Monday.

The commissions public meetings  most of which have been held at the Museum of the Bible and have been dominated by a very specific brand of Christian faith, Christian prayers, and predominantly Christian speakers  are a vivid example of this favoritism.

Trump launched the commission via an executive order in May, noting that it would have 14 members chosen by the president who serve as educated representatives of various sectors of society, including the private sector, employers, educational institutions, religious communities, and States, to offer diverse perspectives on how the Federal Government can defend religious liberty for all Americans.

The Commission shall advise the White House Faith Office and the Domestic Policy Council on religious liberty policies of the United States, the order continued.

Specific activities of the Commission shall include, to the extent permitted by law, recommending steps to secure domestic religious liberty by executive or legislative actions as well as identifying opportunities for the White House Faith Office to partner with the Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom to further the cause of religious liberty around the world.

The commission held its inaugural meeting last June at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., and was chaired by Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Those involved in the meeting included Dr. Ben Carson, Bondi, Notre Dame law professor Gerald Bradleyand Mark Rienzi, a professor at The Catholic University of America.

During his remarks at last years meeting, Rienzi alleged that attacks on religious freedom have changed over the generations from internal Christian disputes to attacks on religion itself from secular groups.

These days, frankly, I don't think it so much comes from religious people trying to use government to stamp out people with unpopular views, he told the commission.

I think it's now more often anti or irreligious folks who want to wield the government to stamp out views that are wrong. And I think the truth is, whether it's the religious people or the opponents of religion, it's wrong.

On Monday, the commission held its fifth hearing to discuss antisemitism and religious liberty issues in the private sector.
Home News In historic visit, Vance hails Armenia as 'bedrock of Christian civilization,' deletes reference to genocide

Quick Summary AI Summary Vice President JD Vance hailed Armenia as 'bedrock of Christian civilization' during his historic visit.

Vance signed an agreement with Prime Minister Pashinyan for a civil nuclear energy deal and U.S. exports of advanced technology.

Vance deleted a social media post referencing the Armenian genocide after his visit. An artificial intelligence-powered tool created this summary based on the source article. The summary has undergone review and verification by an editor. See Summary

Vice President JD Vance hailed Armenia as a bedrock of Christian civilization and culture and later deleted a post referring to the Armenian genocide during a historic visit to the war-torn country amid ongoing tensions between one of the world's first national churches and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

Vance arrived in Armenia on Monday, marking the first-ever visit by a sitting U.S. vice president or president as part of the Trump administration's push to offer economic incentives as it works toward a U.S.-brokered peace agreement to end the long-running conflict between Armenia and the neighboring Muslim-majority Azerbaijan.

The vice president signed an agreement with Pashinyan to move ahead with a civil nuclear energy deal, along with a U.S. pledge to export advanced microchips and surveillance drones to Armenia, according to Associated Press.

During the visit, Vance and second lady Usha Vance placed flowers at Tsitsernakaberd, the official state memorial dedicated to the up to 1.5 million Armenian Christians who were killed in the Armenian genocide of 1915-1916. The U.S., under former President Joe Biden, is among more than three dozen countries that have officially recognized the genocide committed under the Ottoman Empire, now modern-day Turkey.

While Vance initially shared a video of the visit on his official VP account on X with a caption stating Vance attended a wreath laying ceremony at the Armenian Genocide memorial to honor the victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide," it was deleted Tuesday morning.

A short time later, VP Press Secretary Taylor Van Kirk shared another post which omitted any reference to the Armenian genocide, only chronicling the Vances as they lay flowers at the eternal flame and sign the guest book on the final day of their visit to Armenia.

While it's not clear why the post was deleted, President Trump has in the past faced criticism from Armenian advocacy groups for his refusal to recognize the Armenian genocide, with some calling it a "disgraceful surrender to Turkish threats."

During a joint press conference with Pashinyan, Vance shared his admiration for Armenia and its rich Christian heritage.

This is one of the oldest Christian countries in the entire world, a true bedrock of Christian civilization and culture, the vice president said. As a devout Christian myself, I know the meaning of this country to the entire world and to the religion that the prime minister and I share."

The Vances arrived in the Armenian capital after a stop in Milan for the Winter Olympics. Vance travelled to Azerbaijan on Tuesday.

His visit comes just months after President Donald Trump hosted a peace summit at the White House with Pashinyan and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev on Aug. 8, where the two leaders signed a peace agreement and memorandum of understanding aimed at ending decades of conflict.

As part of the deal, Armenia, believed to be the first Christian nation dating back to 301 A.D., agreed to allow a transit corridor through its territory, named the "Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity." The U.S. will develop a route connecting Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan exclave, which are separated by a 20-mile-wide strip of Armenian territory. The corridor will operate under Armenian law.

Following the summit, Pashinyan hailed the agreement as a "significant milestone" in Armenian-Azerbaijani relations and expressed gratitude to Trump for his personal engagement and "resolute commitment to peace," which Pashinyan said made the agreement possible.

"We are laying a foundation to write a better story than the one we had in the past," the Armenian prime minister said.

The conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia dates back to the 1980s, when the mostly ethnic-Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh, broke away from Muslim-majority Azerbaijan.

After decades of conflict and a months-long military blockade, Azerbaijan launched an offensive in 2023, displacing over 120,000 Artsakh Armenians from their homes and into Armenia proper.

Vance's visit comes amid a 2026 election year and Pashinyan's ongoing dispute with church leaders. In the last year, the Armenian government has arrested several church leaders and four senior clerics, which has garnered criticism from international Christian rights activists.

The Armenian Apostolic Church and Pashinyan have been engaged in a tense standoff since mid-2024, following Armenia's agreement to cede several border villages to Azerbaijan as part of an effort to normalize relations. In response, church leaders helped organize mass demonstrations. Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, who led an opposition movement called Sacred Struggle and is from a border region impacted by the cession to Azerbaijan, was arrested with 13 others last June and charged with orchestrating a plot to overthrow the government.

From prison, Galstanyan wrote a letter to Vance last week stating that the "Christian Armenian nation faces an existential threat."

The Armenian government has charged archbishops and bishops with various charges, including plotting to overthrow the government, coercing citizens to join protests, obstructing judicial acts, and, in one case, involvement in planting drugs during a 2018 demonstration.

Church leaders have accused Pashinyan of attempting to override church leadership by branding Catholicos Karekin II, the global head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, a threat to national security.

Joel Veldkamp, the head of international communications at the Switzerland-based NGO Christian Solidarity International, is among advocates who have voiced concern about the escalating tensions between the church and government. He warned at a congressional briefing in November that the "Armenian prime minister's campaign against the church" could put diplomatic relations with the U.S. at risk.

President Trump has invested a great deal of his time, energy and political capital to promote the peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan," Veldkamp said at the time. "The administration is clearly enthusiastic about the potential here, and rightly so  a U.S.-mediated peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan promises a faster trade route across Eurasia that bypasses Russia and Iran and would greatly expand U.S. influence in this crucial region."
Home Opinion Every church in America needs armed security

On a recent Sunday morning in Minnesota, worshipers gathered expecting what Christians have done for 2,000 years: to sing, to pray, to hear the Word of God, and to seek peace in the presence of their Creator and Savior. Instead, they encountered chaos.

A group of activists forced their way into a worship service at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, shouting slogans, interrupting prayer, and deliberately desecrating a sacred space. The message was unmistakable: Even churches are no longer off-limits.

For many believers, this moment seemed like a line had been crossed. For others, it confirmed what they have quietly feared for years: Our churches are now seen by some as soft targets. And pretending otherwise puts lives at risk.

This is not isolated. Churches have been under attack for years now, and Christians need an answer that is wise, firm, and biblical. The disturbing truth is this: Every church in America needs armed security.

Not because Christians are called to live in fear. Not because we worship violence. Not because we lack faith in Gods protection. But because Gods Word affirms both spiritual trust and practical responsibility.

We lock our doors at night even though we pray for Gods protection. We wear seatbelts even though we trust God with our lives. We install smoke detectors even though we believe God is sovereign. Preparation does not negate faith; it reflects wisdom.

Proverbs 22:3 tells us, The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty. Scripture does not praise recklessness disguised as faith. It praises discernment. The idea that churches should remain unprotected in an increasingly hostile culture is not biblical. It is naive.

Across the country and around the world, violence against houses of worship is rising. In Canada, for example, an anti-Christian terror campaign in 2021 saw dozens of churches attacked, vandalized, or set on fire in response to a hoax. These are not distant headlines. They are warnings.

In the United States, the threats are growing. Churches have been burned, vandalized, attacked, and invaded. Pastors have been assaulted in their pulpits. Congregants have been murdered in pews, as we saw in last falls Minneapolis Catholic school shooting that terrorized a community and left families grieving. These are not imagined scenarios. They are headlines.

Yet many churches still operate as if none of this could ever happen to them. That false sense of security is deadly.

Some object to armed security on theological grounds, arguing that Christians are called to turn the other cheek. But turning the other cheek speaks to personal vengeance, not the responsibility to protect innocent life.

Jesus rebuked Peter for using a sword to advance a political revolt, not for the mere possession of a weapon. In fact, in Luke 22:36, Jesus told His disciples, If you dont have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. He acknowledged that dangerous times require readiness.

Scripture consistently affirms the moral duty to defend the innocent. Nehemiah armed workers rebuilding Jerusalem because enemies threatened their lives. They worked with one hand and held a weapon with the other. God did not condemn this. He blessed it.

Protecting families, children, and congregations from violent attack is not un-Christian. It is an expression of Christian love. Love does not mean passivity in the face of evil.

Church security is not about militarizing worship. It is about quietly and professionally placing trained, responsible individuals in positions to deter threats and respond if necessary. Most armed security teams never draw their weapons. Their presence alone prevents countless incidents from ever happening.

Criminals and agitators prefer soft targets. They seek places where resistance is unlikely. A church that communicates preparedness sends a clear message: This is not a place where violence will succeed.

Some fear that visible security sends the wrong message to visitors. But the most important message is the one sent to parents who entrust their children to church nurseries, to elderly members who cannot defend themselves, and to families who expect the church to be a place of refuge. Safety is not the enemy of hospitality; its the enabler of hospitality.

Others argue that God will protect His Church regardless of human action. God certainly can. But Scripture shows repeatedly that God works through people who take responsibility.

Noah built an ark. Joseph stored grain. Nehemiah built walls. Faith and action went hand in hand. Expecting divine intervention while refusing reasonable precautions is not faith, its presumption.

There is also a constitutional dimension to this issue. The First Amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion. That right is meaningless if Christians cannot gather without fear of being attacked or silenced by mobs. When churches are invaded and disrupted, it is not merely a disturbance; it is an assault on religious liberty.

Armed security does not replace law enforcement; it supplements it. Police cannot be everywhere at once. Response times, even under ideal conditions, can be several minutes. In a violent attack, several minutes is an eternity. An armed, trained individual already on site can stop a threat in seconds.

This is not theoretical. Numerous mass shootings in America have been stopped by armed citizens before police arrived. Lives were saved because someone was prepared.

Practical guidance from security professionals supports this. As Andrew Walker wrote in defense of church security teams, planning, training, and accountability are essential for protecting congregations without undermining Christian witness.

Churches often spend significant resources on sound systems, lighting, buildings, and programs. All of those things are secondary to the safety of the people inside those walls.

A church that cannot protect its flock is failing in one of its most basic responsibilities: Pastors are shepherds, and shepherds protect sheep from wolves.

Security teams should be composed of vetted, trained members who understand both defensive tactics and de-escalation. They should work discreetly, respectfully, and under clear policies. Many churches already have law enforcement officers, veterans, and responsible concealed carriers sitting in their pews every Sunday. Formalizing that protection is simply acknowledging reality.

The invasion at Cities Church should be a wake-up call. It was not an isolated outburst. It was a sign of a broader cultural shift in which hostility toward Christianity is becoming normalized. When activists feel emboldened to storm a church service, shout down prayer, and desecrate worship, we must recognize what time it is.

This is not about politics. It is about protecting sacred space. The early Church met in secret because hostile forces sought to destroy them. They took precautions while boldly proclaiming the Gospel. Todays Church must reclaim that same combination of courage and wisdom.

Armed security does not mean we stop preaching grace. It does not mean we stop welcoming sinners. It does not mean we abandon love.

It means we take evil seriously, value human life, and refuse to leave our people defenseless.

The church should be the safest place in a community. A place where families can worship without fear. A place where children can learn about Jesus without becoming collateral damage in someone elses political rage.

That safety will not happen by accident. It requires intentional preparation. Every church does not need a fortress, but every church does need a plan. In todays world, that plan must include armed, trained protection because faith without wisdom is not faith at all.

If we truly love our neighbors, care about our congregations, and believe in defending the innocent, the conclusion is unavoidable: Every church needs armed security.

Originally published at the Standing for Freedom Center.
Home Opinion Toxic empathy that excuses evil sees challenger in Mary Slessor

Empathy is widely celebrated in our public life. We are told it should guide our politics, shape our policies, and soften our judgments. To lack empathy is considered a moral failure; to appeal to it is often enough to settle an argument. Increasingly, empathy is not treated merely as a virtue, but as the highest moral authority  one before which all other considerations are expected to bow.

Empathy itself is not the enemy. Properly understood, it is a gift from God. Scripture calls us to weep with them that weep (Romans 12:15) and to bear one anothers burdens. A hard-hearted people is a dangerous people.

But there is something more dangerous still: empathy divorced from truth.

When empathy translates into compassion severed from sound moral judgment, responsibility, and long-term consequence, it ceases to be a healing force and becomes a tool  easily manipulated, emotionally charged, and politically weaponized. Feeling deeply is no guarantee of acting rightly. History offers sobering proof that when empathy and compassion are untethered from truth, they do not heal. By truth, I mean the moral reality God has revealed in Scripture, not the shifting sentiments of the age.

One life offers a clear illustration of this principle.

Recently, I came across a fascinating book titled Sources of Power in Famous Lives, published in 1936 and written by Walter C. Erdman. Near its conclusion is a chapter on Mary Slessor  a remarkable woman whom the author describes as one of Gods heroines, possessing a life story more incredible than the wildest fiction.

As a missionary, Mary Slessor served on the Calabar Coast of West Africa, in present-day Nigeria. There she walked alone in a region defined by violence, superstition, and the routine killing of unwanted children  particularly twins, whom local tribes believed were demons destined to bring death and calamity. Mothers who gave birth to twins were driven from their villages, condemned to wander like animals among the beasts.

This was only one of the horrors of that land and time. Writing of Calabar, Erdman cited the words of the great David Livingstone, who described it as a land mysterious and terrible, ruled by witchcraft and the terrorism of secret societies; where the skull was worshipped and blood sacrifices were offered to Jujus; where guilt was decided by ordeals of poison or boiling oil; where scores were murdered when a chief died; where men and women were bound and left by the waterside to placate the god of shrimps  a land of darkness and fear.

Mary lived among these people for decades. She confronted witch doctors, exposed secret murders, rescued children marked for death, and refused to treat these practices as cultural matters that should not be judged. Her influence became so undeniable that the British government eventually appointed her a consular agent in a district where its own officials had not yet dared to live. It was said that the Bible was her constant companion and guide.

Where our age excuses evil in the name of empathy, Mary Slessor allowed Scripture to discipline her compassion.

This tension is especially evident in our own cultural moment. Empathy is routinely elevated above truth, rather than ordered beneath it. When that happens, moral clarity is sacrificed in the name of sensitivity, and judgment is portrayed as cruelty rather than responsibility.

In our time, this problem has taken on a distinctly gendered dimension  not because women are morally deficient, but because many women possess a profound capacity for empathy. That capacity is a strength. When rightly ordered, it is a blessing to families, communities, and nations. When misdirected, it can be exploited.

Research helps explain why this dynamic is so influential today. Studies from institutions such as the Brookings Institution suggest that women, particularly younger women, are often more engaged than their male peers in certain forms of political activism, especially civic and cause-based activities frequently framed around social issues, community care, and perceived equity. Causes characterized by emotionally compelling terms often gain rapid traction among women, in part because empathy resonates so deeply with them. But when empathy is appealed to without sound moral guardrails, it can be redirected toward ends that undermine the very good it seeks to protect.

This misdirection is most evident when empathy is trained to recognize only one victim while rendering others invisible. Nowhere is this clearer than in the abortion debate. Appeals focus almost exclusively on the fear, hardship, or desperation of the mother, often narrated in deeply personal and emotionally charged terms, while the life of the unborn child is treated as an abstraction, a complication, or denied standing altogether. Compassion is narrowed rather than enlarged. Empathy is permitted to see one life clearly only by refusing to see another, and the unseen life is the one that dies.

A second manifestation appears when empathy ignores consequences. Increasingly, compassion is invoked to justify policies that weaken public safety or undermine family stability  calls to empty prisons without regard for victims, to dismantle parental authority in the name of protecting certain children, or to erode national borders based solely on heartbreaking stories. In each case, suffering is real and deserves concern. But policies shaped by emotion alone, without regard for long-term social cost, often impose their heaviest burdens on the very communities least able to absorb them.

These examples reveal the same underlying confusion: empathy has been elevated above truth rather than ordered to submit to it.

Here, Mary Slessors life provides a corrective.

She felt profound empathy for the people of the Calabar Coast. She was not emotionally detached, stern, or aloof. Her compassion was visceral. She grieved injustice and was moved by suffering. Yet she did something rare and bracing: she showed deep empathy without allowing it to become an excuse for injustice. She loved the people enough to confront their destructive practices  such as infanticide and violent superstition. Such compassion, disciplined by Scripture and not by feeling and consensus, willing to name sin plainly and not just oppose harm abstractly, willing to bear the cross of personal cost, is something almost nonexistent in our time.

In Mary Slessor, we see a vision of womanhood our age struggles to articulate  strong without being strident, tender without being naive, courageous without being cruel. She did not demand power; she exercised influence. She did not bend morality to fit the sentiments of the hour; she proclaimed Gods ways and called people to the wisdom of obedience. She did not discard her femininity or apologize for it. She revealed its true strength through sacrificial obedience, standing firm on the truth of Gods revealed will  even at great personal cost.

Our nation does not need less empathy. It needs better empathy  empathy informed by Gods truth, anchored in His moral reality, and willing to embrace a costly Christ-shaped obedience.

Mary Slessor reminds us that such compassion is neither harsh nor regressive. It is the means by which lives are truly saved, cultures are truly corrected, and the vulnerable are truly protected.

That lesson is not outdated.

It is urgently needed.
Home Opinion Why it took me more than 20 years to share my abortion story

For 20 years, I kept a haunting secret and told people I had lost a child when, in fact, Id had an abortion, as I was living inside a prison of torturous shame.

I share this anecdote because Im noticing how the pro-life movement, which I support, is grappling with its future, and as hardline measures are being proposed in some states. A bill, HB 1212, which proposed criminalizing women who procure abortions, was recently heard in a South Dakota legislative committee but was voted down. Emotions and tensions are running high.

I understand all the emotions people feel when it comes to abortion, especially Christians. But as these debates emerge, its important to consider the complex circumstances that surround pregnancies. Contrary to what some might assume, its not always cut and dry. I know because I have been on three different sides of pregnancy: once where I was pressured to abort but refused; once where I aborted after being misled by smooth-talking medical doctors; and another occasion where everything was ideal.

I first became pregnant at 18 and was encouraged by so many to abort, particularly since I was only 18. But I said no and will always remember walking into the crisis pregnancy center in my city and the love and the support that these strangers gave me. They didnt judge or shame me and taught me everything I needed to know about being a young mom.

That son is now 30.

My second pregnancy was even harder than the first. But even though I was married, doing it the right way didnt ensure a perfect outcome. An ultrasound revealed we were having a boy who had a Dandy-Walker cyst on his brain and a cleft lip and palate. Medical professionals explained to me that he had a hole in his brain, and a specialist sat me down and simply said I could do the right thing now and end this pregnancy, or the wrong thing and watch him die in my arms shortly after birth, and it was explained that it was the unselfish, humane thing to do. Still young and without much support, I mistakenly trusted these supposedly brilliant doctors who seemed to know everything when I knew so little, and I listened to their advice, and I had an abortion.

But then I stumbled on the physicians notes from my abortion that my doctor did not intend for me to see. Those notes read: Normal fetal cry from below to the head, all limbs accounted for. Reading those notes imprisoned my heart and mind for over 20 years. Nothing could have made me feel worse.

My third pregnancy was exactly how it should be in most peoples eyes. A difficult pregnancy, but blessed by all. A healthy baby, I was married and supported endlessly by my family. Hes now 26.

You might assume that after such an ideal pregnancy and a beautiful child comes into your world, that I could move on easily. As wonderful as it was having my two sons, there was a hole, a missing piece. One does not just let go of the shame when you have a baby after having an abortion. You wonder even more how things could have been different had you been stronger or wiser. And then the shame and guilt saturate you like the fires of Hell, and no one in the world knows how it feels but you.

Indeed, even after that third ideal pregnancy, my second one that ended in abortion tormented me, and it wasnt until one day, while sitting at church and listening to someone elses abortion story, that everything changed. I could hardly breathe during her entire presentation because of how relatable it was to mine. I took a step of faith, reached out to her, and her love and support completely changed my life. Until that moment, due to the shame I carried, Id told everyone I had lost a child, hoping that they would assume it was a miscarriage. But the woman who ministered to me that day was the first time someone loved me despite what I had done and told me that the Lord still loved me. In that moment, she removed my shame, gave me a voice, and empowered me to do likewise for other women.

And so, I implore you, advocates who seek to penalize women with punitive measures, please remember that many of us thought we were doing the right thing amid fraught circumstances. Pregnancy complications often clouded our reasoning, particularly when silver-tongued specialists in white coats misled us about our options. The abortion industry and its allies lie and deceive us during unnerving moments, bordering on coercion. They, not us, should be your targets.

The last thing we need is condemnation and being made to feel worse than we already do. While we know what abortion is, many of us were not fully informed about what it entailed, given the morally confusing, ideologically loaded pressures we faced from purported professionals.

Please, be the strangers who were there for me at the crisis pregnancy center to love me through it. Please, be there for all of Gods children, who are born into this world. And please, be there for the women like me who lived for decades in their own personal prison of shame.

All politics aside, you can never fully know who that girl or young woman facing a crisis pregnancy has or does not have in her life. You can never fully know the good or bad advice she was given that may have pressured her to do something she will regret. You can never know the fullness of her story. Be the only Jesus she may ever see and love her despite her mistakes.

Because if you do, shell go on to change the world and likely save many other babies and moms. I know because I was that girl before a strangers love and Grace found me.
Adobe, by Vitalii Vodolazskyi

A disability charity has been ordered to pay a lifelong Crohns disease sufferer more than 150,000 after a judge ruled it dismissed him unfairly.

Shared Lives South West in Devon was ordered by an employment judge to compensate William Drysdale-Wood after an unfair dismissal and discrimination ruling in April last year.

Drysdale-Wood was hired by the charity, which supports adults with autism and dementia, as a coordinator in September 2015.

His employment was terminated in September 2023 after two periods of absence.

The first came between November 2022 and January 2023 and was based on medical advice, while Drysdale-Wood attributed the second spell between 28 June and 14 July 2023 to the charitys failure to make reasonable adjustments.

Shared Lives South West was aware from the start that Drysdale-Wood had a lifelong Crohns disease condition with a degree of sickness absence, the court heard last year.

The former charity worker also contracted Covid-19 in January 2022 and was diagnosed with long Covid-19 and chronic fatigue in September that year.

In its termination letter, the charity said that while it had applied increased tolerance to Drysdale-Woods disability-related absence, his non-attendance had had an unreasonable impact on other staff members.

The charity stated that it felt the requirements of the role could not be fulfilled while mostly working at home, as there was an essential requirement to interact with people in the community, attend meetings and visit households of those supported.

Published last week, the remedy judgment reads: The claimants complaint of unfair dismissal and complaint of discrimination arising from disability (dismissal) was well founded.

In terms of the claimants health condition and prognosis, it was evident that the claimant faced significant challenges.

Compensation amount reviewed

In April 2025, the original liability judgment upheld Drysdale-Woods claims of unfair dismissal, discrimination arising from disability and failure to make reasonable adjustments.

It, however, dismissed all other reasonable adjustment allegations.

A remedy hearing to calculate compensation was subsequently ordered, and on 24 September last year an oral judgment was delivered.

Some 162,000 was initially calculated to be awarded to the claimant by the tribunal, but this was later subject to two rounds of change.

A day later on 25 September, the tribunal discovered that the taxable element had been calculated incorrectly and wrote to the parties proposing a correction.

The tribunal accepted this proposal, so the award increased from about 162,000 to 167,000 on 25 October that year.

Shared South West Lives then raised concerns about how state benefits had been applied.

The tribunal then reviewed the issue as part of a reconsideration application and reduced the award to about 152,745.

Shared South West Lives had an annual income of 8.6m in the year to March 2025, and an expenditure of 8.5m.

Civil Society has approached Shared Lives South West for comment.

The charity told CornwallLive last year that it was disappointed at the unfair dismissal and discrimination ruling.

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Chinas Nio is recalling 246,229 vehicles due to a software issue that poses safety hazards, marking the largest recall by a homegrown electric vehicle maker.

The recalled EVs include models ES8, ES6 and EC6 and were manufactured between March 16, 2018 and January 16, 2023, a statement released by the State Administration for Market Regulation on Monday said. Some of these vehicles have a software issue that could lead to a brief blackout of the instrument cluster and central control screen, it said.

The scale of the recall, equivalent to roughly three quarters of Nios 2025 sales volume, surpassed that of Xiaomis 1810.HK in September, when the tech firm issued a software update for over 115,000 of its popular SU7 electric sedans to fix potential safety issues involving assisted driving features.

Nio will carry out remote software updates for affected vehicles, and implement the upgrades through service centers when remote updates arent viable, the statement showed.

Separately, Chinese EV brand Zeekr will recall 38,277 vehicles due to safety hazards stemming from power batteries, according to another statement released by the market regulator on Monday.

(Reporting by Zhang, Chen and Woo; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Louise Heavens)
Singapores four telecom companies, Singtel, StarHub, M1 and Simba Telecom, were targeted by cyber espionage group UNC3886 in attacks last year, Singapores Cyber Security Agency said on Monday.

The agency said the hackers were able to penetrate and gain access to some parts of the telecom systems, but could not disrupt services and did not access personal data.

Related: These Five Technologies Increase The Risk of Cyber Claims

They also managed to exfiltrate a small amount of technical data; this is believed to be primarily network-related data to advance the threat actors operational objectives, the agency said.

Google-owned cyber security firm Mandiant has described UNC3886 as a China-nexus espionage group that has attacked defense, technology and telecommunications organizations in the United States and Asia.

Beijing routinely denies any allegations of cyber espionage, and says it opposes all forms of cyberattacks and is in fact a victim of such threats.

Related: Hackers Hit Sensitive Targets in 37 Nations in Spying Plot

The Chinese Embassy in Singapore did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mondays statement was the first time the government has revealed the type of infrastructure that UNC3886 targeted. Last July the government said it was responding to cyberattacks from the group targeting high-value strategic assets.

In a joint statement, the four companies said that all telcos face cyber threats such as Distributed Denial-of-Service, malware, phishing as well as more sophisticated advanced and persistent threats.

We adopt defense-in-depth mechanisms to protect our networks and conduct prompt remediation when any issues are detected, they said, adding that they work with government agencies and industry experts to improve security and resilience.

(Reporting by Yong; Editing by John Mair)
The U.S. labor board is abandoning a yearslong legal battle against Elon Musks SpaceX and signaling it will steer clear of future cases against the company.

Two years after issuing a complaint accusing the aerospace firm of firing eight engineers because of their involvement in an open letter criticizing Musk, the National Labor Relations Board said it was dismissing the case.

Related: Elon Musk Alone Cant Explain Teslas Owner Exodus

In a letter to the attorneys of the former employees, the labor board cited a recent opinion issued by a separate agency, the National Mediation Board, arguing that SpaceX engineers belonged under its jurisdiction rather than the NLRBs.

Accordingly, the National Labor Relations Board lacks jurisdiction over the Employer and, therefore, I am dismissing your charge, Danielle Pierce, a regional director of the agency, wrote in the letter seen by Bloomberg.

The NMB oversees railroad and airline companies such as American Airlines Group Inc., while the NLRB oversees most other private sector employers, including manufacturers like Boeing Co.

Related: Musk Seeks up to $134 Billion From OpenAI And Microsoft

The retreat by the NLRB is a victory for SpaceX, with former and current employees now having less legal recourse when alleging retaliation.

Under federal law, workers covered by the NLRB have a right to participate in a wide range of collective action aimed at improving their working conditions, with or without a union. Workers under NMB jurisdiction are covered by a different law, which lacks equivalent protections.

The legal system doesnt feel like its working like its supposed to, and it doesnt feel like its protecting workers the way its supposed to, said Paige Holland-Thielen, one of the fired engineers. I think that this is a sign of worse things to come in declawing the NLRB.

An NLRB spokesperson declined to comment. SpaceX, which has denied wrongdoing, did not immediately respond to an inquiry.

SpaceX had responded to the NLRBs 2024 complaint by suing the agency, arguing that its structure was unconstitutional. That lawsuit had led to an injunction from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals pausing the labor boards case against the company.

Jennifer Abruzzo, NLRB general counsel under former President Joe Biden, had rejected SpaceXs claim that allegations against the company should be handled by the NMB. After President Donald Trump fired her in January last year, SpaceX asked the labor board to reconsider the issue.

The NLRB general counsel office in April said it had decided to seek the mediation boards view in the interests of potentially settling the disputes with SpaceX.

The fired engineers argued SpaceX did not belong under the NMB because Congress never gave the agency jurisdiction over commercial space transportation, and because unlike airlines serving the general public, SpaceX offers rides only to hand-picked customers. But in a Jan. 14 opinion, the NMB sided with SpaceX, saying the company belonged under its jurisdiction because space transport includes air travel to get to outer space, and because the companys website lets anyone email it to try to purchase a trip.

The NLRB in December abandoned another Biden-era case against SpaceX, in which the agency had alleged terms in the companys severance and arbitration agreements, including confidentiality rules, were illegally coercive.

While the NLRBs latest reversal is likely to resolve SpaceXs ongoing lawsuit against the agency, the labor board still faces other challenges to its constitutionality: Since SpaceX filed its lawsuit in 2024, other companies including Amazon.com Inc. have filed similar cases, several of which are now pending in US courts.

The fired engineers have also sued SpaceX and Musk for sexual harassment and retaliation under California law. That lawsuit includes allegations that some of the plaintiffs experienced harassing comments from coworkers that mimicked Musks posts on social media and created a wildly uncomfortable hostile work environment.

SpaceX in December asked a federal appeals court to force that case into arbitration, after a lower court refused to do so.

Top photo: Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. Bloomberg.

Copyright 2026 Bloomberg.
Lloyds Bank Plc won religious discrimination lawsuits against two employees it punished for posting pro-Palestine messages on the banks internal chat, in a disciplinary process that London employment judges called heavy handed.

The employment tribunal dismissed the lawsuits from Afra Sohail and Aunngbeen Khalid saying the bank was right to remove the posts. The two women sued the bank in 2022 alleging discrimination on the basis of political and religious beliefs after the bank sanctioned and reported them to the Financial Conduct Authority for gross misconduct.

It was justified for Lloyds to remove the posts because of the polarizing effect of the subject matter and the workplace context but the disciplinary action went too far, according to the decision published last week.

The judges found that two women did not hold protected anti-Zionist beliefs in 2021, when they made the posts and the banks action were not based on religious discrimination, the judges found.

The women posted the comments in the days following an increase in violence between Israel and Palestine until a ceasefire was agreed in May 2021. The pair sought compensation and withdrawal of the banks disciplinary action.

The disciplinary action stays on the FCAs record for six years and can prevent individuals from finding a new job in finance

The court case was an example of the balancing act employers have to strike internally on divisive geopolitical events, with the Israel-Palestine conflict a delicate issue for companies to navigate. Unlike in the US, British companies cant fire employees on the basis of their political views unless they express them in a discriminatory or offensive manner.

Sohail, a customer adviser, left the bank in 2023 while Khalid, a fair assessment adviser, continued to work for Lloyds at the time of the trial in 2024. The lender denied all the allegations.

The bank doesnt curb free speech of employees and it doesnt have any policy to ban criticism of Israels government, the banks lawyers said during the trial. Lloyds spokespeople didnt respond to emails requesting comment.

Sohails post were strong and emotive while Khalids horrendously clumsy and insensitive but they did not target any section of Lloyds employees and were not antisemitic, the judges found after the trial.

Although we are disappointed by the outcome, we take strength from the tribunals clear recognition that anti-Zionist beliefs can be protected in law, Khalid said in a statement after the ruling.

Copyright 2026 Bloomberg.
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Federal officials say they had no plans to remove Haitians from Springfield before their Temporary Protected Status was set to end Feb. 3.

In a sworn statement filed Tuesday morning, Liana Castano, an assistant director for field operations at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said she was not aware of any plans to mobilize immigration officers to areas heavily populated by Haitian TPS holders.

ICE is engaged in daily enforcement activities across the country in various locations, including but not limited to Springfield, Ohio, and South Florida, according to Castanos declaration.

The appeals court asked for the information as it considers whether to set aside a lower court ruling that blocked the end of Temporary Protected Status earlier this month.

The appeals court has scheduled a hearing on the request for Thursday.

About 350,000 Haitians live in the United States under TPS. Many have been here for more than a decade, after the designation was first granted following Haitis devastating 2010 earthquake.

Since then, multiple administrations have renewed TPS, citing ongoing violence, political instability, and unsafe conditions in the country.

The Trump administration doesnt dispute the ongoing violence in Haiti. Instead, it argues there are signs of improvement and says Congress gave DHS  not the courts  the authority to decide when TPS should end.

About 15,000 Haitians live in the Springfield area, and as the Feb. 3 deadline approached, many families began preparing for the possibility of detention or removal.

Community leaders say people gathered important legal documents, made plans for who could look after their homes or belongings, and prepared paperwork to give temporary custody of their U.S.-born children to someone they trust.

If the termination had not been stayed, DHS would have acted to enforce the immigration laws in light of the termination, according to Castanos declaration.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has said DHS promised him at least 24 hours notice before any large-scale immigration enforcement or surge begins.
From left, Donald Trump and his girlfriend (and future wife), former model Melania Knauss, financier (and future convicted sex offender) Jeffrey Epstein, and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell pose together at the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida on Feb. 12, 2000. Davidoff Studios Photography | Archive Photos | Getty Images

President Donald Trump, in a call two decades ago to a Florida police chief, bashed his former friend Jeffrey Epstein and called Epstein's procurer, Ghislaine Maxwell, "evil," the now-retired cop recounted to FBI agents in 2019, according to a document released by the Department of Justice. Trump called the then-Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter "to tell him 'thank goodness you' [are] stopping [Epstein], everyone has known he's been doing this," Reiter told the FBI in October 2019, according to the FBI document, known as a 302. Reiter's name is redacted from the 302. But the document identifies the interview subject as the person who had been Palm Beach's police chief at the time of the department's investigation of Epstein, who was Reiter. Reiter told the Miami Herald, which first reported the document, that Trump called him in 2006, after the police department's probe of Epstein became publicly known. The document came to light hours after Maxwell's lawyer called on Trump to grant her executive clemency, so that she could speak "honestly" about what she knows. Maxwell, earlier Monday, refused to testify to a House committee.

Trump told Reiter that he had thrown Epstein out of his club, Mar-a-Lago, which is located in Palm Beach, the summary said. "Trump told him [Reiter] people in New York knew Epstein was disgusting," according to the FBI's 302 summary of its interview with Reiter. "Trump said Maxwell was Epstein's operative, 'she is evil and to focus on her,' " the FBI said in the 302.

U.S. President Donald Trump sits behind a bill he signed to end the partial government shutdown, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., Feb. 3, 2026. Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

Epstein later pleaded guilty to Florida state charges in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl, in exchange for avoiding federal criminal prosecution. Reiter's interview with the FBI in October 2019 came two months after Epstein killed himself in a New York federal jail after being arrested on child sex trafficking charges. During the 2006 call, "Trump told [Reiter] that he was around Epstein once when teenagers were present and Trump got the hell out of there," the summary said. "Trump was one of the very first people to call when people found out that they were investigating Epstein," the summary said. In an April 2019 email released last year by House Democrats, Epstein wrote to author Michael Wolff that Trump "knew about the girls," according to a copy of that message purportedly between the two men.

It is unclear what the phrase "knew about the girls" meant. Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein. The White House in November said, "The fact remains that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club decades ago for being a creep to his female employees." The White House, when asked for comment on Monday night by CNBC about the FBI summary, referred questions to the Department of Justice. The DOJ said, "We are not aware of any corroborating evidence that the President contacted law enforcement 20 years ago." The summary is among millions of documents made public by the DOJ in late January that are related to Epstein and to Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison term for crimes related to procuring underage girls for him to sexually abuse.

Ghislaine Maxwell and Donald Trump are shown in this image released by the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., U.S., on December 23, 2025 as part of a new trove of documents from its investigations into the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. U.S. U.S. Justice Department | Via Reuters
A man walks past the Alibaba logo displayed at its booth during the China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing, China July 16, 2025.

Robotics falls under the umbrella term dubbed "physical AI," which includes machines that rely on artificial intelligence, such as self-driving cars  an area China has prioritized as it competes with the U.S. for technological leadership.

One video released by Alibaba's DAMO Academy shows a robot identifying fruit and putting it in a basket. While these tasks seem simple, they involve complex AI that governs a robot's understanding of individual items as well as movement.

The model, called RynnBrain, is designed to help robots comprehend the physical world around them and identify objects.

Alibaba on Tuesday launched an artificial intelligence model designed to power robotics, as more tech giants push into the fast-growing field.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has been among the tech industry's most bullish on the sector and last year said AI and robotics represent "a multitrillion-dollar growth opportunity."

For Alibaba, the RynnBrain model gives it an entry point into the robotics market and continues the momentum it has seen with its Qwen family of AI models that are among the most advanced coming out of China.

Alibaba is not alone in creating models designed for physical AI. These AI "world models" are being developed by tech giants around the world. Nvidia has a number of models to train and run AI in robotics under the "Cosmos" brand, while Gemini Robotics-ER 1.5 is Google DeepMind's own version.

Elon Musk, one of the biggest proponents of robotics, is designing his own AI with Tesla 's Optimus.

When it comes to humanoid robots specifically, the machines designed to walk and move like humans, China is seen as forging ahead of the U.S., with companies planning to ramp up production this year.

Like its other models, Alibaba is pursuing an open source strategy with RynnBrain, meaning developers can use it for free. Open-sourcing models has been key for Alibaba to expand the use of its models to developers around the world.
Boeing Co. 737 Max airplanes at the company's manufacturing facility in Renton, Washington, US, on Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025.

Boeing said on Tuesday that it delivered 46 jets in January, the third highest for that month in the company's history, which included 38 of its best-selling 737 MAX jetliners and five 787 Dreamliners.

Last month's total was down from 63 deliveries in December, which is often the busiest month for deliveries.

Boeing beat European rival Airbus , which only delivered 19 aircraft last month, including 15 of its A320neo family of jets, three A220s and one A350.

Aircraft deliveries are closely watched by Wall Street because planemakers collect the majority of their payment when they hand over jets to customers.

Boeing received 107 new orders and four cancellations, for a total of 103 net new orders in January, topping Airbus' 49 net orders during the month.

Lessor Aviation Capital Group ordered 50 737 MAX jets from the U.S. planemaker, split evenly between the 737-8 and 737-10 variants, as it seeks to remain one of the world's largest leasing companies.

Air India finalized an order for 20 737-8s last month. At the same time, it publicly disclosed a previously placed order for 10 737-10s.

Boeing also received 34 new 787 orders, which included 30 from Delta Air Lines and four from Taiwan's EVA Airways .

Two 737s on order were canceled  one each from lessor BOC Aviation and Spain's Air Europa. Papua New Guinea's Air Niugini canceled orders for two 787s.

Boeing received more orders than Airbus last year for the first time in seven years.
Sebastian Lai, son of Jimmy Lai speaks during a press conference outside Downing street in London on Sept. 15, 2025.

China's embassy in London on Tuesday criticized the U.K.'s decision to expand a visa program for Hong Kong residents, calling the move an interference in its internal affairs after a court sentenced pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai to 20 years in prison under a national security law.

The U.K. on Monday expanded the British National Overseas, or BNO, visa scheme on Monday to allow children of BNO status holders  who were under 18 at the time of Hong Kong's handover to mainland China in June 1997  to apply for the route independently of their parents.

"BNO has misled Hong Kong residents to leave their homes, only to face discrimination and hardship in the U.K., living as second-class citizens," an embassy spokesperson said in a statement in Chinese translated by CNBC.

The embassy described the scheme expansion as "despicable" and "reprehensible."

"China has always firmly opposed the UK's manipulation and interference in China's internal affairs," the embassy spokesperson said.

The scheme was launched in 2021 after Beijing imposed the sweeping national security law on Hong Kong. Since then, more than 230,000 people have been granted visas, and almost 170,000 have relocated to the U.K.

The diplomatic tensions followed the sentencing of Lai by a Hong Kong court on Monday, in one of the city's most prominent prosecutions. That was the heaviest penalty ever meted out under the national security law.

The 78-year-old founder of the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper was a vocal critic of Beijing and was among the first prominent figures arrested in August 2020. He was jailed on charges of conspiring to collude with foreign forces and publishing seditious materials. Lai pleaded not guilty to all counts.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer raised the case with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a visit to Beijing last month, calling for the release of Lai, who is a British citizen. Critics and Lai's family have argued that the U.K. did not take sufficient and concrete steps to reverse the course.

The sentencing showed how the Beijing-imposed national security law has "criminalised dissent, prompting many to leave the territory," the British government said in a statement, adding it will "rapidly engage [with Beijing] further on Mr Lai's case."

The expanded visa route came amid what the British government described as a "deterioration of rights and freedoms" in Hong Kong. The government estimated that 26,000 people will arrive in the U.K. over the next five years.

Hong Kong's chief executive, John Lee, said Tuesday that Lai deserved the harsh sentencing for all the harm that he had done, including "using Apple Daily to poison the minds of citizens" and "colluding with foreign forces to take sanctions and hostile actions against China and Hong Kong."
Elon Musk's xAI has lost another founding member.

Tony Wu announced late on Monday that he resigned from the artificial intelligence startup, becoming the latest co-founder to leave the company. Others, including Igor Babuschkin, Kyle Kosic and Christian Szegedy, have also departed, and Greg Yang announced last month that he would be stepping back from his role to focus on his battle with Lyme disease.

"It's time for my next chapter," Wu wrote in a post on X. "It is an era with full possibilities: a small team armed with AIs can move mountains and redefine what's possible."

Wu's departure comes as xAI faces a consumer backlash and regulatory probes in multiple countries. The company's Grok AI chatbot and image generator allowed mass-creation and syndication of non-consensual, explicit, deepfake images that were based on photos of real people, including children.

Tesla CEO Musk launched xAI in 2023 alongside 11 other people in an effort to compete with rivals like OpenAI and Google . The company's stated goal was to "understand the true nature of the universe," according to its website at the time.

Last week, Musk announced that his rocket company SpaceX acquired xAI ahead of what could be a potentially massive IPO. The record-setting transaction is the largest merger of all time and values SpaceX at $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion, according to documents viewed by CNBC.

Musk previously merged xAI with X in a multibillion-dollar deal he announced last March.

--CNBC'a Lora Kolodny contributed to this report

WATCH: SpaceX takes on xAI cash burn after merger
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In Florida, a new genetic disease screening program allows parents of newborns to receive free whole genome sequencing at birth, putting the state at the forefront of newborn screening. The five-year pilot program, created in July via the Sunshine Genetics Act, is paid for by a mix of private and state funding, and requires parents to opt in to have their child tested. It's the nation's first state-backed genetic screening program.

Florida State Rep. Adam Anderson at a press event announcing the passage of the Sunshine Genetics Act.

The new law, passed unanimously in the Florida House of Representatives and Senate, was the end result of a tireless campaign through the legislature by Rep. Adam Anderson, the Republican sponsor of the bill. For Anderson, whose son, Drew, died in 2019 from Tay-Sachs disease, a rare genetic metabolic disorder, passage of the legislation was more than a political victory; it was affirmation that his decision to run for office will have an impact beyond what he initially envisioned.

Adam Anderson's son Drew. Adam Anderson

"When I first agreed to run for office, I never intended on working on rare disease policy," said Anderson. "But once I got elected, and I found myself serving on some health-care committees, I realized the impact that we can have, and I also realized pretty quickly the lack of support for the rare disease community that existed in government." The program aims to sequence the genomes of 100,000 newborns. The bill also establishes the Florida Institute for Pediatric Rare Diseases at Florida State University, and the Sunshine Genetics Consortium, a Florida-based network of universities and hospitals focused on expanding genetic research and testing. "The Sunshine Genetics Act is a very exciting, transformative, truly landmark piece of legislation  [it's] wild to think that, because it originated from my scribble notes on a cocktail napkin," Anderson added. "It took about eight or nine attorneys to fix what I put on paper and make it actually something that could be voted on and passed, but it's giving Florida a truly once-in-a-generation opportunity to lead the nation in genomic and precision medicine." "Precision medicine," sometimes referred to as "personalized medicine," uses a person's genetics, environment and lifestyle to help guide medical decisions. The bill passed through the legislature of a conservative state with overwhelming bipartisan support. "I think folks in other states are a little surprised that Florida beat them to this, which I find personally satisfying," Anderson said. "But the reality is we're not competing with these other states, right? This is a framework that I hope other states will adopt. I want other states to bring these kinds of programs there. This is not a Florida issue. It's not a New York issue. It's not a California issue."

The changing testing landscape

There is no federal law that requires insurers to pay for genetic testing for children without a demonstrated medical need. The Recommended Uniform Screening Panel, a list of disorders the Department of Health and Human Services recommends states screen for as part of the universal newborn screening programs, covers only 38 core conditions. There are thousands of rare diseases that doctors won't check for until a child starts to exhibit symptoms. By then, it's often too late. "So we're trying to really change the course of diagnosis altogether," said Katherine Stueland, CEO of GeneDx, a genetic testing company that's a partner of the Sunshine Genetics Act and a sponsor of the CNBC Cures Summit. "The earlier you diagnose, the earlier you have a world of options that can help prevent disease progression. And so it's unconscionable that it takes five years for anyone to get diagnosed with a genetic disease. That's the average. It's five years today, and we can provide an answer in 48 hours."

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Some studies have shown that it can take even longer than five years for rare disease patients to get diagnosed. One done by the rare disease advocacy group EveryLife Foundation found that once rare disease symptoms begin, on average it takes more than six years for a patient to receive an accurate diagnosis. And that's more than just lost time. It's also added cost for those families. The same study also looked at associated costs of seven rare diseases and found that families that had a delayed diagnosis spent an additional $86,000 to $517,000 per patient, depending on the disease, because of additional doctor visits, hospitalizations and other health-related trips. Early whole genome sequencing could help bring those costs down by potentially identifying genetic diseases before they become symptomatic. Meanwhile, the cost of genetic testing has never been cheaper. Stueland said that a decade ago, whole genome sequencing cost tens of thousands of dollars. Today she says her company can do it for about $3,500. In addition, more insurance plans and Medicaid programs are covering those costs, according to GeneDx. Today 36 states have Medicaid coverage for exome and genome testing, and 17 states cover rapid genome sequencing, GeneDx said.

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"I think we've done the hard work to reduce our turnaround times, to reduce our costs, to deliver health economic data," Stueland said. But as costs have come down and access to tests has expanded, awareness among general practitioners about how and when to deploy them remains low. Many prescribers don't realize that these are tests that can often be done in a pediatrician's office with a cheek swab, and don't think to apply them to their patients. But that could be starting to change. In June, the American Academy of Pediatrics updated its guidance to recommend that pediatricians order exome or genome sequencing as the first-line test for patients with global developmental delays or intellectual disabilities. It's the first time AAP has issued updated guidance on the issue since 2014, and could significantly shorten the diagnostic timeline for patients with a rare disease. GeneDx says it's making a push to make doctors more aware of that updated guidance. "Step one for us is we're really investing in education for pediatricians," said Stueland. "We have a massive educational investment to ensure that they know that the guidelines have been updated, and that genetic testing is not going to take months ... it's going to take a matter of days for us to get the information to them, and that insurance is paying for it."

A legacy for Drew

Enrollments in the Florida program, overseen by the Florida Institute for Pediatric Rare Diseases, will begin in March during baby well-check visits at Tallahassee pediatric offices. Early in the second quarter, the program will roll out at Tampa General Hospital, which delivers about 6,000 babies a year, and from there it's expected to grow to larger hospital systems. Anderson said that his goal is to scale the program across all of Florida, but he said he's had talks with representatives from other states who are interested in learning more about it. "Absolutely, it's scalable nationally. Absolutely. We've built it. We have the template for this," Anderson said. "It's something that can be done at the state level." "We don't have to wait for the federal government to enact these kinds of policies," he said. "It's hard to get things done in [Washington,] D.C. States can be much more nimble, and it just takes a champion." Anderson said that while he hopes Drew would have been proud of him for helping craft the Sunshine Genetics Act, the thought of that is not what's driving him.

Drew Anderson with his sisters in 2018. Adam Anderson
U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) (C), joined by House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI) and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN), speaks at a press conference following a House Republican Conference meeting at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 10, 2026 in Washington, DC.

House Republican leaders suffered a loss on a procedural vote Tuesday as fellow GOP lawmakers balked at voting to block challenges to President Donald Trump's tariffs through the summer.

The GOP rebellion on the vote, which failed 214-217, highlights divisions among House Republicans, a dynamic that could make it even harder for Speaker Mike Johnson,, R-La., to advance his and Trump's agenda through a narrowly divided Congress. Dissatisfied factions within the House GOP have revolted several times this Congress, forcing the release of files related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and supporting a failed Democratic effort to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies.

Johnson could only afford to lose one Republican on the measure, which would also have set the rules for debate on a bill to boost domestic production of critical minerals. Three Republicans joined every Democrat to defeat the rule.

If they choose to continue pursuing the tariff language, GOP leaders will now need to go back to the House Rules Committee and attach it to a new rule.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., a perennial thorn in the side of GOP leadership, was one of the Republicans to oppose the rule, along with Reps. Kevin Kiley of California and Don Bacon of Nebraska, as frustration over Trump's tariffs and leadership's maneuvering percolates within the Republican ranks.

Kiley told CNBC earlier on Tuesday that he objects to "this idea that everyone needs to stick together to bring a particular bill on the floor" because it makes the House "less of a democratic body."

"Article I of the Constitution places authority over taxes and tariffs with Congress for a reason, but for too long, we have handed that authority to the executive branch. It's time for Congress to reclaim that responsibility," Bacon posted to X after the vote.
Oil prices eased slightly on Tuesday after U.S. guidance for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz kept attention on tensions between Washington and Tehran.

Oil prices edged lower on Tuesday as the market waited for direction from news on diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Iran, efforts to end Russia's war in Ukraine and data on the U.S. economy and U.S. oil inventories.

Brent futures fell 24 cents, or 0.35%, to close at $68.80 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell 40 cents, or 0.62%, to settle at $63.96.

Traders are "hesitant to press either direction until there is a clearer signal from diplomacy, the next inventory prints, or any confirmation that supply flows are being materially affected rather than merely threatened," analysts at energy consulting firm Gelber & Associates said in a note.

Nuclear talks with the U.S. allowed Tehran to gauge Washington's seriousness and showed enough consensus to continue on the diplomatic track, Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday.

U.S. and Iranian diplomats held talks through mediators in Oman last week in an effort to revive diplomacy, after U.S. President Donald Trump positioned a naval flotilla in the region, raising fears of new military action.

"The market is still focused on the tensions between Iran and the U.S.," said Tamas Varga, oil analyst at brokerage PVM. "But unless there are concrete signs of supply disruptions, prices will likely start going lower."

About a fifth of the oil consumed globally passes through the Strait of Hormuz between Oman and Iran, making any escalation in the area a major risk to global oil supplies.

Iran and fellow Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq export most of their crude via the strait, mainly to Asia.

Iran was the third-biggest crude producer in OPEC behind Saudi Arabia and Iraq in 2025, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Tuesday she would propose a list of concessions that Europe should demand from Russia as part of a settlement to end the war in Ukraine.

The move is part of efforts to squeeze Russian revenue. Russia was the world's third-biggest crude producer behind the U.S. and Saudi Arabia in 2025, according to EIA data.

Indian Oil Corp bought six million barrels of crude from West Africa and the Middle East, traders said, as India steered clear of Russian oil in New Delhi's push for a trade deal with Washington.

In Venezuela, expanded U.S. licenses are expected to restore the South American OPEC member's oil production by mid-2026 to levels seen before a U.S. naval blockade in December, the EIA said on Tuesday.

U.S. retail sales were unexpectedly unchanged in December as households scaled back spending on motor vehicles and other big-ticket items, potentially setting consumer spending and the economy on a slower growth path heading into the new year.

Analysts said investors will scrutinize a slate of U.S. economic data releases scheduled for this week, including January's nonfarm payrolls report on Wednesday and inflation data on Friday, for clues to the Federal Reserve's interest rate path.

Central banks, like the Fed, raise and lower interest rates to keep inflation in check. U.S. President Trump has pressured the Fed to lower interest rates, which is politically popular because it reduces consumers' costs and can boost economic growth and energy demand, but could also result in an unwanted rise in inflation.

In the energy market, traders are waiting for weekly U.S. oil inventory data from the American Petroleum Institute trade group on Tuesday and the EIA on Wednesday. ,

Analysts forecast U.S. crude stockpiles rose by 0.1 million barrels last week. That compares with an increase of 4.1 million barrels during the same week last year and an average increase of 1.4 million barrels over the past five years (2021-2025).
After years of U.S. dominance, international and emerging markets equities are outperforming the domestic market despite the strong narrative of a U.S.-led artificial intelligence revolution. Are these early innings of a broader regime shift? Or is it just a trade as investors get cold feet with the massive AI capital expenditures and corresponding return on investment on that spend, before U.S. equities power ahead once again as AI becomes our reality? Investors cite the onshoring, reshoring, protectionist policies of the Trump administration combined with better valuations in overseas equity that are driving this rotation. At Inside Edge Capital we do like to know the data  earnings and economic  behind our investment decisions, but we also consider ourselves "visual investors." Looking at the charts gives us insight into key macro rotations happening in real time as markets discount the unknown, unreported future data. That's a key distinction that you must keep in mind: Price changes you see today are not in reaction to data that is printed today. Today's price changes are the markets discounting expected data six, nine, 12 and even 18 months from now. Let's get into the maps and try to answer the question of whether this is a regime shift or an overreaction to AI cold feet. This is the monthly closing chart of the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM) . You'll see EEM has rallied sharply since 2023 by about 78%, but there is precedent with a prior 83% and 85% rally is about as far as it'll go, suggesting there is resistance at around $65 in the chart  last price of $60.66. For your reference I've included the sector and country weights in the graphic. Notice that Asia-Pacific is about 75% of the weighting. Now we're going to look at "ratio charts." Instead of looking at one security by itself, we're going to divide one security into another one to see a ratio chart. It's a quick way to see relative performance of one security versus another. If the chart of ABC/XYZ ratio is going up, ABC is relatively stronger than XYZ. They both can be rallying or declining on their individual charts, but the ratio measures relative performance of one versus another. Below is a ratio chart of the S & P 500 index (SPX) and EEM dating back to 2004. You'll notice at the far left of the chart the SPX/EEM ratio is falling from 2004 to 2011, which is the last period when emerging markets outperformed U.S. markets. I often cringed when investors coming aboard at Inside Edge bring us prior managed portfolios with the "customary" 30% allocation to emerging markets to be "diversified." That 30% diversification cost the investor a pretty penny in terms of opportunity cost from 2011 to 2025. The ratio of SPX/EEM rallied 360% from 2011 to today, so emerging markets have underperformed U.S. equities by that much in 14 years. We've counseled against international market exposure until just recently. There is evidence that a regime shift might just be occurring, and we've begun adding international exposure to portfolios for the first time since we launched. The SPX/EEM ratio is pulling back, but there is potential for price support to come in and arrest this fall around the 115/110 zone. Looking beyond just the emerging markets, let's get a visual of the iShares MSCI ACWI ex U.S. ETF (ACWX) compared to the SPX. To be clear we're looking at the SPX/ACWX chart, so if the chart is moving higher, SPX is outperforming the all-world, excluding the U.S., ETF. SPX/ACWX has been in a clear uptrend until just recently in 2025 and is pulling back sharply. Yes, there is support  a price floor  sourced from the parallel uptrend channel, as well as the 200-week (four-year) moving average, as well as a former resistance/pivot zone (blue box) from 2023 to 2024. The ratio could indeed hold support and snap back higher in favor of the U.S. Or, if it breaks lower the regime shift could be here to stay for the foreseeable future. In the following two charts, we're looking at the one-year individual country stock market performance versus the SPX. Some of the outsized returns from countries like South Korea and Peru relative to the U.S. may seem jarring and overdone. However, looking at the above long-term charts of a decade or more of emerging and international market underperformance to the U.S., gives us a big picture perspective that it could be over, and we have a lot further to go to close the gap. I have my doubts and view it as a temporary overreaction to U.S. artificial intelligence overvaluation and adoption fears. Our mission is to not waste energy on the impossible task of predicting the future, but, instead, use that energy to fully assess today's reality of what the markets are attempting to discount into the future. We'll keep on rotating client portfolios into overseas markets in response to the markets continuing to discount a future that sees international economic growth outpacing the U.S. I have my doubts, but I am fully aware that we're not smart enough to predict the future. Instead, I am listening to what the market is trying to tell us today.  Todd Gordon, Founder of Inside Edge Capital, LLC We offer active portfolio management and regular subscriber updates like the idea presented above here . DISCLOSURES: Gordon owns EEM and EWW personally and in his wealth management company, Inside Edge Capital. All opinions expressed by the CNBC Pro contributors are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC, or its parent company or affiliates, and may have been previously disseminated by them on television, radio, internet or another medium. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND DOES NOT CONSTITUTE FINANCIAL, INVESTMENT, TAX OR LEGAL ADVICE OR A RECOMMENDATION TO BUY ANY SECURITY OR OTHER FINANCIAL ASSET. THE CONTENT IS GENERAL IN NATURE AND DOES NOT REFLECT ANY INDIVIDUAL'S UNIQUE PERSONAL CIRCUMSTANCES. THE ABOVE CONTENT MIGHT NOT BE SUITABLE FOR YOUR PARTICULAR CIRCUMSTANCES. BEFORE MAKING ANY FINANCIAL DECISIONS, YOU SHOULD STRONGLY CONSIDER SEEKING ADVICE FROM YOUR OWN FINANCIAL OR INVESTMENT ADVISOR. Click here for the full disclaimer.
A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Property Play newsletter with Diana Olick. Property Play covers new and evolving opportunities for the real estate investor, from individuals to venture capitalists, private equity funds, family offices, institutional investors and large public companies. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox. French building product conglomerate Saint-Gobain started its business more than 350 years ago, making the mirrors for the Palace of Versailles. Now it's set its sights on windows in U.S. homes  windows, walls, ceilings and other building materials. The company has invested close to $7 billion in the North American market in the last three years, making it the largest for the global company. While a previous strategy focused on growth through acquisition, the company is now investing in organic growth, expanding its existing manufacturing facilities and investing in others. It has more than 18,000 employees in North America at over 160 sites, and 2024 sales in the market (the latest available) came in at $10.5 billion. "We're doubling down in North America because the fundamentals in North America are very strong," Mark Rayfield, North America CEO for Saint-Gobain, told Property Play . "We're underbuilt in residential. There's a need for almost 4 million homes to be built in the U.S. to catch up with population growth, and there's a lot of renovation needed in commercial." Saint-Gobain is focusing on speed and affordability in construction through its materials, assembly and other tools, according to Rayfield. He pointed to the company's "One Precision" assembly system. It replaces traditional "stick-built" framing with factory-constructed wall, floor and roof panels. The system accelerates homebuilding by shifting the majority of labor to a controlled indoor environment, allowing for parallel processing where panels are fabricated at the factory while site preparation occurs simultaneously. The company says this can cut building cycle times by anywhere from 30% to 50%. It also eliminates typical on-site delays caused by weather, labor shortages and complex trade coordination. "If you're building a home, or you are a small homebuilder, you're building 10 to 15 homes a year. If you were to use this solution, you could build three times that number of homes, because the big time is framing in and weatherproofing the house," Rayfield said. Saint-Gobain's move to U.S. production in states such as Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and New York protects it from tariffs that are hitting so many of the nation's big homebuilders. Rayfield describes the company's strategy as "local for local," but admits that labor continues to be a big challenge. "We think we have to take ownership of training more people in construction and manufacturing, so we do a lot of work there, but there's always some headwinds," he said. Last fall, CertainTeed, a subsidiary of Saint-Gobain, finished a significant expansion at its Palatka, Florida, operation, making it the world's largest gypsum wallboard manufacturing plant. The expanded facility will produce CertainTeed's full line of gypsum wallboard products locally in the southeast U.S., in an effort to ensure supply chain reliability. With both deep-water port and rail access, the site provides an efficient distribution hub for the rapidly growing regional market, according to a release. Saint-Gobain has long been committed to sustainable materials and building more climate-resilient homes. Even as the political rhetoric in the U.S. moves away from climate-related goals, Rayfield contends there's still incentive to build efficiently, because there is no cost differential when using a prefab system. All of the components are meant to work together seamlessly. It's just a matter of putting the systems together and training the contractors on how to build it. And while sustainability may be out of political fashion, resilience is far from it, especially as weather events intensify due to climate change. "We need to make houses in California that are better prepared for fire, houses in the Southeast that can handle hurricanes and floods, houses in New England that can handle freezing and driving rain, and hail-resistant activities," said Rayfield. But he is still committed to using sustainable materials, recycled content and less energy in construction and manufacturing. This includes recirculating heat bumps and using electric and carbon-free energy. "We know we need to make products that are affordable for the customer, and where we can do that in a lower carbon footprint, we do," he said. "And resilience is the key to what we need to do going forward."
"There aren't anywhere close to the votes, not even close, to nuking the filibuster," Thune said at a press conference following a meeting of Senate Republicans on Tuesday. "So that idea is something, although it continues to be put out there.  That doesn't have a future."

Proponents of the voter-ID legislation are calling for changes to the chamber's rules.

The SAVE America Act, which was introduced in January, would require voters to prove their citizenship to register to vote in federal elections and would require certain forms of photo ID to cast a ballot. The measure is slated for a vote in the House this week but faces an uphill climb in the Senate where Democrats have vowed to use the filibuster to block the legislation, which they say could disenfranchise millions of Americans. Because of the filibuster rule, bills require 60 votes to advance in the Senate.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune , R-S.D., on Tuesday dashed a push from President Donald Trump and his allies to amend the Senate filibuster rule to speed passing controversial voter-identification legislation.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who is leading the push for the bill in the Senate, has called to abolish the so-called "zombie filibuster" and bring back an older form of the rule that requires objecting members to be physically on the floor and talking to delay legislation.

"Remember, the talking filibuster is best understood as the filibuster. Historically, senators have been required to speak in order to filibuster. You shouldn't be able to have the benefits of the filibuster without doing the work of the filibuster, and that means speaking," Lee said in a video posted to X on Tuesday.

The "talking" filibuster --- made famous by the movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" -- has not been regularly practiced since a Senate rule change in the 1970s, and even some supporters of the legislation have reservations about a reversion back to the old ways.

"I think getting rid of the filibuster would lead to more acrimony, more rapid shifts from right to left, and I think wouldn't be good for the country," Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who said he supports the voter-ID bill, told reporters on Tuesday. "I think the default position is liberty and that most legislation takes your liberty. And so I'm not a big fan of making it easier to pass legislation."

Filibuster reform aside, the voter-ID proposal is controversial and faces an uncertain fate in both chambers as Trump last week called for the federal government to take control of elections from states.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a GOP centrist, announced on X on Tuesday that she does not support the legislation.

"Not only does the U.S. Constitution clearly provide states the authority to regulate the 'times, places, and manner' of holding federal elections, but one-size-fits-all mandates from Washington, D.C., seldom work in places like Alaska," Murkowski said.

A similar version of the bill -- which was introduced by Lee and Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, last year but did not include a voter-ID requirements at the polls -- advanced out of the House in April with four Democrats joining their Republican colleagues in support.

One of those Democrats, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, said Monday that this iteration of the bill was "not even close to the same" as the one he previously supported.

"One requires that you prove your citizenship to register to vote. The other one is like, IDs at the ballot box. It's not an insignificant difference," Golden said. "Sounds like zero shot of going anywhere in the Senate They're just messaging to themselves."
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's logo is seen in the background beside a printed circuit board.

Taiwan has told Washington that its proposal to move 40% of the island's semiconductor supply chain to the U.S. was "impossible," Taipei's top tariff trade negotiator said in an interview.

Speaking on a local television broadcast Sunday, Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun said she had made it clear to Washington that the island's semiconductor ecosystem, built over decades, could not simply be relocated.

Taiwan's international expansion, including its investments in the U.S., is predicated on the notion that the industry remains' rooted in Taiwan and continues to expand domestic investments, she said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC.

The comments push back against onshoring targets outlined by U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in a CNBC interview in January, shortly after the latest U.S.-Taiwan trade agreement. Lutnick said he wanted 40% of Taiwan's entire chip supply chain to shift to the U.S. within President Donald Trump's ongoing term.

Under the deal, the Taiwanese government promised $250 billion in direct investments by its tech companies, with an additional $250 billion in credit provided for them to expand their production capacity in the U.S.

Washington on its part lowered levies on most goods from Taiwan to 15% from 20%, waived tariffs on generic drugs and ingredients, aircraft components and natural resources unavailable domestically, and promised higher quotas for tariff-free exports of Taiwanese chips to the U.S.
UBS lowered its outlook on the U.S. IT sector on Tuesday, striking a more cautious tone as it warned of "mixed investor reactions" to high capital expenditure and AI disruption. The Swiss investment bank downgraded the sector to neutral from attractive, citing three key reasons, including investors becoming more selective toward tech stocks, a rotation away from the sector, and fears that AI will replace software tools. The sell-off in software stocks was triggered by AI firm Anthropic releasing new AI tools that it said could handle professional workflows, which many traditional software companies sell as core products. Tech stocks rallied Monday as investors were hopeful the market could sustain its upward advance after the sell-off. The S & P 500 Software & Services Index, which has 140 constituents, was up around 3% on Monday. UBS noted that "software uncertainty could linger," as well as competition increasing for software companies. This makes it difficult for investors to "have conviction in the growth rate and profitability of firms in the software industry," UBS said in a note. "The amount of revenue being generated by AI at the moment doesn't stack up relative to the amount being spent," Mark Hawtin, head of global equities at Liontrust Asset Management, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Tuesday. "So that's just creating a picture out into the future, which is way more uncertain, way harder to predict, and investors don't like unpredictability." UBS also outlined that cloud service providers are reaching an unsustainable level of capital expenditure, which could be an "overhang" for investors, especially as spending is increasingly being funded by "external debt or equity financing," it wrote in the note. Hawtin also told CNBC's Steve Sedgwick and Ben Boulos that the spending plans of many Magnificent Seven companies have been a cause for concern. The four biggest hyperscalers, Alphabet , Microsoft , Meta , and Amazon , are set to spend almost $700 billion combined on AI this year. Amazon expects to spend $200 billion this year and is therefore looking at negative free cash flow of nearly $17 billion in 2026. "If I'm an investor, and I'm being offered $60 billion of cash flow today versus some cash flow in the future as a result of that spending, that creates uncertainty, and I should pay less for that," Hawtin said. "So the key for me with many of these Mag Seven names is that the risk has increased. They're becoming very capital-intensive. We don't know what the outcome of that capital expenditure is going to be, and therefore, we should pay less for them." The final reason UBS cited for the downgrade was that "tech hardware valuations look full," signaling that stocks are becoming increasingly expensive for investors. Investors should diversify exposure UBS clarified that ultimately the downgrade doesn't reflect a "negative view on technology as a whole," but stressed that there are more opportunities in AI than just in the tech and IT sectors. "We do think investors should review current exposures to U.S. technology or diversify exposures that are above benchmark level... investors should also review concentrated exposures to individual software firms, and particularly those 'pure play' companies that do not have diversified business models," UBS said. The bank recommended that investors diversify towards areas like banks, healthcare, utilities, communication services, and consumer discretionary.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard speaks on the phone while standing at the edge of a truck loading bay after the FBI executed a search warrant for the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center in relation to the 2020 election, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the matter, in Union City, Georgia, Jan. 28, 2026.

A referral by former Trump campaign lawyer Kurt Olsen led to the recent FBI raid that seized 2020 election ballots from a Fulton County, Georgia, elections center, a newly unsealed federal court document revealed Tuesday.

The document, an affidavit by FBI Special Agent Hugh Raymond Evans, said that the FBI is conducting a "criminal investigation into whether any of the improprieties" alleged to have occurred in voting processes and ballot counting in Fulton County in 2020 "were intentional acts that violated federal criminal laws."

"The FBI criminal investigation originated from a referral sent by Kurt Olsen, Presidentially appointed Director of Election Security and Integrity," the affidavit document in U.S. District Court in Atlanta says.

Olsen worked on efforts after the 2020 election to overturn President Donald Trump's loss in that contest to former President Joe Biden.

Evans' affidavit was submitted by federal prosecutors as part of an application asking a federal magistrate judge to sign a search warrant for the election center. Olsen reportedly was hired last fall to investigate election issues.

The affidavit was ordered unsealed by Atlanta federal court Judge J.P. Boulee, who was nominated by Trump, after the chairman of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners and county Board of Registration and Elections sued the federal government over the seizure of the ballots and sought their return.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was present at the election center on Jan. 28 when FBI agents raided the site and seized ballots.

Gabbard's presence and the raid itself have been strongly criticized by Democratic lawmakers and others concerned that President Donald Trump is undercutting confidence in the upcoming midterm elections while resurrecting long-discredited claims that he actually won the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

Gabbard has said was at the election center at the direction of Trump. The president, in turn, has said that Gabbard was there at the "insistence" of Attorney General Pam Bondi.

On Tuesday, two Democratic senators, Alex Padilla of California and Virginia's Mark Warner, called on Gabbard to immediately schedule an intelligence community briefing for senators on election security concerns ahead of the midterm elections.

"The request comes amid unprecedented investigations by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), purportedly to address 'evidence' of election vulnerabilities and manipulation of election results, which have not been substantiated," the senators' offices said in a statement.

The warrant signed by the magistrate judge in Georgia authorized the FBI to seize all physical ballots from the 2020 general election in Fulton County, including absentee ballots; tabulator tapes for every voting machine; and the vote rolls from the county.

The affidavit signed by Evans, the FBI agent, says, "Following the November 3, 2020, presidential election, there were many allegations of electoral impropriety relating to the voting process and ballot counting in Fulton County, Georgia."

"Some of those allegations have been disproven while some of those allegations have been substantiated, including through admissions by Fulton County," Evans wrote.

The agent said the investigation is focused on several "deficiencies or defects with the" 2020 election and tabulation of votes.

"The tabulator machines used by Fulton County are designed to create and save a scanned image of each ballot," Evans wrote. "Fulton County has admitted that it does not have scanned images of all the 528,777 ballots counted during the Original Count or the 527,925 ballots counted during the Recount."

"Fulton County has confirmed that during the Recount of votes, some ballots were scanned multiple times," the agent wrote. "Ballot images made available in response to public record requests show ballots with unique markings duplicated within the ballot images."

Evans also said that auditors who counted votes by hand reported vote tallies that were inconsistent with the actual number of votes within a batch, and that Fulton County reported two different vote tallies on the deadline to report recount results and on the subsequent day.

"If these deficiencies were the result of intentional action, it would be a violation of federal law regardless of whether the failure to retain records or the deprivation of a fair tabulation of a vote was outcome determinative for any particular election or race," the affidavit said.
U.S.-flagged ships have been advised to stay "as far as possible" from Iranian waters when navigating the Strait of Hormuz as tensions between Washington and Tehran remain elevated.

In a notice issued Monday, the U.S. Maritime Administration said ship captains should decline permission for Iranian forces to board U.S. vessels.

Boarding attempts, including moves to force commercial vessels into Iranian waters through small boats and helicopters, have occurred as recently as Feb. 3, the agency under the Department of Transportation said.

Should Iranian forces board a U.S.-flagged commercial vessel, crews were advised not to "forcibly resist the boarding party," the notice said. It added that refraining from forcible resistance does not imply consent or agreement to that boarding.

The advisory recommended that ships transiting eastbound in the Strait of Hormuz stay close to the Omani side of the waterway.

The guidance followed a round of indirect talks between the U.S. and Iran held in Oman on Friday, centered on how to approach discussions over Tehran's nuclear program. The meeting marked the first talks between the two countries since U.S. bombers struck three Iranian nuclear sites during a 12-day war with Iran last June.

Iran's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, described the talks as "a step forward," while signaling they would be the opening stage of a longer diplomatic process rather than a path to a quick resolution. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also told state media that the talks were a "good start."

President Donald Trump said the Oman talks were "very good" and that more sessions were planned, even as he warned Iran that failure to reach a deal would carry "very steep" consequences for Iran.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet Trump in Washington on Wednesday to discuss the U.S.-Iran talks. Israel, a close U.S. ally, has lobbied Washington to dismantle Iran's nuclear program, curb its ballistic missile program and end its support for militant groups in the region.
The Vatican Bank Tuesday launched two equity indexes tracking stocks that align with Catholic values. Its first foray into thematic investment products sets the bank up to potentially roll out other financial products, including ETFs in the future.

The bank, which reports to the Committee of Cardinals and the Pope, said Tuesday in a statement that the Morningstar IOR Eurozone Catholic Principles Index and the Morningstar IOR U.S. Catholic Principles Index include 50 medium and large-cap firms deemed to be consistent with Catholic ethical criteria, including prioritizing human bonds and social justice.

"Having benchmarks built in accordance with recognized Catholic ethical criteria allows us to make our performance assessment and reporting processes even more rigorous and transparent," Giovanni Boscia, Vatican Bank deputy director general and CFO, said in the statement. "This initiative reaffirms our commitment as a financial institution serving the Church, further strengthening the role of the [Vatican Bank] as a reference point for the Catholic world."

The Eurozone fund counts semiconductor supplier ASML Holding and telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom among its top holdings, while the US-based index's largest holdings include Meta Platforms and Amazon .

Their rollouts also open up the possiblity the indexes could be licensed for use in an exchange traded fund.

The debut comes as investors' appetite for ETFs and other thematic investment products grows. The global ETF market increased nearly 30% to top $14 trillion in 2024, per PricewaterhouseCoopers. And, the combined value of those funds could hit as much as $30 trillion by 2029, according to a PwC report dated March 2025.

Meanwhile, investment products rooted in social responsibility and other themes are appealing to certain slice of investors. The Ave Maria Mutual Funds, a fund family that allocates capital in accordance with Catholic teachings, said it had $3.8 billion in assets under management as of last year, per its website.

The Vatican Bank has been working to reform its image after a series of scandals. The Holy See-linked financial institution has faced several allegations of money laundering and ties with organized crime, particularly after the collapse of Milan-based Banco Ambrosiano in 1982. In 2021, former Vatican Bank president Angelo Caloia was found guilty of money laundering and embezzling millions of euros in connection with his role at the institution.




Days after India and the United States unveiled an interim trade deal, Washington has announced a separate trade arrangement with Bangladeshpromptly raising concerns that Indias hard-won advantage in textile exports could be diluted.Under the USBangladesh pact, American tariffs on Bangladeshi exports have been reduced to 19% from 20%, significantly lower than the 37% rate imposed in April 2025. More crucially, the agreement offers zero-duty access for certain apparel products, provided they are manufactured using US-origin cotton and man-made fibres.The announcement has sparked anxiety among Indian exporters, who fear the zero-duty clause could neutralise Indias relative tariff advantage under the IndiaUS deal, where the average textile tariff is expected to come down to around 18%.However, former diplomats and industry leaders speaking to CNBC-TV18 caution that the perceived threat may be overstated.At first glance, the numbers appear uncomfortably close18% for India, 19% for Bangladesh, with Bangladesh enjoying zero-duty access in select categories. But according to Jayant Dasgupta, former Indian Ambassador to the WTO, the structure of the Bangladesh deal itself limits its impact.From a reading of the text, this appears to be a tariff rate quota, not an unlimited zero-duty window, Dasgupta said. Its not that Bangladesh can import any amount of US cotton, convert it into garments, and export everything duty-free to the US.Even if Bangladesh were to fully utilise the quota, execution challenges remain significant.Industry veterans point to capacity bottlenecks that could prevent Bangladeshi exporters from fully leveraging the zero-duty provision.Bangladesh has issues in spinning capacity, high power costs, and unreliable power supply, Dasgupta noted. Its woven fabric industry is also far less modernised than its knitted segment.RK Vij, National President of the Textile Association of India, echoed this assessment, arguing that Indias upstream strength remains unmatched.India supplies about $3.5 billion worth of textiles to Bangladesh, of which nearly $1.8 billion is cotton and yarn, Vij said. Bangladeshs cost of spinning is higher than Indias, and logistics work in Indias favour.He added that sourcing cotton from the US would increase transit time and transportation costs, undermining any tariff benefit. From India, raw material reaches Bangladesh in five or six days by truck. US cotton cannot compete with that efficiency.The Bangladesh deal also fits into a broader, well-established US trade strategy.This is not new, Dasgupta said. The US has followed similar yarn-forward and fabric-forward rules in its CAFTA agreements. The idea is to push American raw materials out and bring value-added products back.Seen through this lens, the Bangladesh pact is less about undercutting India and more about advancing US domestic interests.The agreement also comes at a sensitive political moment for Bangladesh, days ahead of elections following the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Muhammad Yunus, the chief adviser to Bangladeshs interim government, said Washington had committed to establishing a mechanism under the deal.But even here, experts see limited long-term fallout for Indian exporters.Yes, there could be some short-term stress, Vij acknowledged. But Bangladesh ultimately has to buy from India. Vietnam, Myanmar and others are also competing for US market share.Crucially, Indias interim trade deal with the US is not yet final.The White House is expected to issue an executive order this week lowering the average tariff rate to 18%, followed by a detailed legal textcovering zero-duty concessions and non-tariff barriersby mid-March.This is exactly why India should push for more concessions now, Dasgupta said. Nothing is final. The US wants access to Indian industrial and agricultural markets, and those will not come free.Former Indian Ambassador to the US Meera Shankar agreed that India has legitimate grounds to seek parity.The Bangladesh deal was clearly a reaction to the IndiaUS agreement, she said. It undercuts India to some extent, and that makes it legitimate for India to ask for similar concessionsespecially in man-made fibres and select high-end cotton.Industry leaders say any additional concessions should be tied to critical raw materials.For man-made fibres, PTA and energy are key inputs, Vij said. If the US wants zero duty on certain exports to India, then PTA and energy should also be zero duty. That would directly strengthen Indias textile value chain.Shankar added that selective zero-duty imports could be examined if they are linked to guaranteed market access for Indian exports.While the USBangladesh textile pact has rattled sentiment, experts say Indias competitive position remains structurally strongerand the final outcome will depend on negotiations still underway.For now, the Bangladesh deal may be more headline risk than material threatbut with the clock ticking toward mid-March, Indias next moves will be critical.
Islamabad is reviewing Indias latest dam project on the Chenab in Jammu and Kashmir, according to a News18 report citing unnamed top sources in Pakistan's water resources ministry have indicated. India has commenced construction of the 5,129-crore Sawalkote Hydroelectric Project on the Chenab , the first major project to receive approval from the Narendra Modi government after it moved to set aside the Indus Waters Treaty.News18 had earlier reported that the Centre has directed authorities to expedite four significant hydropower schemes across the Chenab basin.Officials have been tasked with commissioning the Pakal Dul and Kiru projects by December 2026, completing the Kwar project by March 2028 and stepping up progress on the strategically sensitive Ratle Dam.New Delhi placed the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance in April 2025 in the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack, asserting that blood and water cannot flow together.By suspending the pact, India has halted data-sharing and prior notification obligations with Pakistan for projects on the Chenab. It has also declined to recognise rulings issued by the Court of Arbitration, terming them illegal.
Tata Motors arm bags 70,000-Yodha and Ultra T.7 vehicle order in Indonesia

Shares of Tata Motors Limited ended at 379.25, up by 1.95, or 0.52%, on the BSE.
The United States issued fresh guidance on Monday to commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping lane for Middle East oil supplies, as tensions simmered between Washington and Tehran over Irans nuclear programme.Iran has in the past threatened to close down the Strait of Hormuz, a portion of which lies within its territorial waters, and has at times seized commercial ships and oil tankers moving through the area, alleging smuggling.The US Department of Transportations Maritime Administration advised US-flagged commercial vessels to stay as far from Irans territorial waters as possible and to verbally decline Iranian forces' permission to board if asked, according to the guidance."It is recommended that US-flagged commercial vessels transiting these waters remain as far as possible from Irans territorial sea without compromising navigational safety," according to the guidance posted on its website.It also said crews should not forcibly resist Iranian forces if they board."If Iranian forces board a US-flagged commercial vessel, the crew should not forcibly resist the boarding party," it said.Iran's top diplomat said on Friday that nuclear talks with the U.S. mediated by Oman were off to a good start and set to continue, in remarks that could help allay concern that failure to reach a deal might nudge the Middle East closer to war.While both sides have indicated readiness to revive diplomacy over Tehran's long-running nuclear dispute with the West, Washington has said it also wants the talks to cover Iran's ballistic missiles, support for armed groups around the region, and human rights.President Donald Trump ratcheted up the pressure on Iran on Friday with an executive order imposing a 25% tariff on imports from any country that "directly or indirectly" purchases goods from Iran, following through on a threat he made last month.
Microsoft and Apple have for decades been seen as the Yin and Yang of the tech world, with Microsofts products portrayed as being for buttoned-corporate drones, while Apples were for the truth seekers and rebels  the people willing to stand up to those in power.

Those cliches reflected the way the companys founders and long-time CEOs were depicted as well: Steve Jobs the rebel, Bill Gates the business drone.

My, how times have changed. These days Apple CEO Tim Cook has become one of techs Sycophants-in-Chief to US President Donald J. Trump, while Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, in his own quiet way, has been the only tech exec to face the president down when necessary.
More than 1,000 Google employees have signed an open letter urging the company to sever its business ties with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), according to CNBC.

In the letter, the employees condemn what they describe as escalating violence linked to federal immigration operations and refer to several high-profile deaths in the US. They write that they are concerned about how the companys technology can be used by authorities. According to the letter, Google Cloud is used in connection with CBPs surveillance system, and the companys technology supports solutions used by ICE.

The employees demanded that management disclose all contracts and collaborations with the authorities and terminate them. In addition, the signatories want an internal information meeting about the companys agreements with the US Department of Homeland Security and military actors. They also call for concrete protective measures for employees, including expanded opportunities for remote work and support in immigration matters.
Under pressure from UK regulators, Apple and Google have reached an agreement to change how they operate their app stores in the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced on Tuesday.

The agreement means both companies will not discriminate against apps that compete with their own apps and services. They pledged to be more transparent with the app approval process and not to discriminate against third-party apps in App Store search engines.

Both tech firms also committed not to use data derived from third-party apps to benefit their own apps and services. Apple also committed to providing developers with an easier system with which to request access to platform features such as NFC for payments or Live Translation support in their apps. These commitments aim to provide app developers with confidence that they will be treated fairly in the future.
Europe's youth have more realistic view of China

11:04, February 10, 2026 By Kerry Brown,Zhang Li, Ivona Rajevac ( China Daily

MA XUEJING/CHINA DAILY

Editor's note: The Institute of European Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences released a survey report in Beijing on Feb 4 examining European youth's perceptions of China and China-EU relations. The report is based on a large-scale survey of nearly 20,000 respondents conducted across 36 European countries. Scholars and policy experts discussed the findings at the briefing. Below are excerpts of the remarks by three of the experts.

Opening their eyes to the real China

Europe stands at a critical juncture in evaluating its stance toward China, especially as the global geopolitical landscape grows increasingly complex in 2026. The survey findings reveal a nuanced mosaic of attitudes. Young Europeans, in particular, are engaging with China not merely through an ideological lens but by examining its tangible economic, technological and social footprint. This growing sophistication reflects both the accessibility of information through digital platforms and the lived realities of globalization, where China's influence touches supply chains, consumer goods, education and technology.

The perception of China as a significant player in global technology is gaining traction. For European youth, understanding China is no longer a simple matter of curiosity; it is increasingly about engaging with a country that is transforming before their eyes. Long-held notions of China as a technologically backward or peripheral actor are rapidly fading. China's investments in research and development now far exceed those of the United Kingdom, many European countries, and even the European Union in aggregate. In the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period, China is set to strengthen its capabilities in life sciences, pharmaceuticals, healthcare and other critical sectors.

Europeans  especially the youth  are recognizing that the knowledge asymmetry of the past, where Europe led in scientific and technological innovation, has diminished, if not disappeared entirely. In today's interconnected world, no geopolitical analysis can ignore China, and this awareness is particularly pressing as Europe's relationships with key allies, especially the United States, evolve. Early 2026 has already witnessed developments  such as US' strategic moves toward Greenland  that underscore fundamental shifts in international dynamics. In this context, understanding Europe's relationship with China is not just important but urgent.

Equally important is how Europeans, particularly young people, form their perceptions. Social media, for all its challenges, has opened windows into aspects of China that were previously inaccessible. Travel influencers without any prior connection to China are showcasing the country's high-speed rail, modern airports, advanced aviation and technology embedded in daily life  often surpassing European standards.

My own visit to China in October 2025 left a lasting impression. Observing the widespread use of robotics in everyday settings, I was struck not only by technological advancement but also by the remarkable contrast between contemporary Chinese life and what it was 10, 20, or 30 years ago. Today, information and imagery allow European youth to witness these changes directly, bridging understanding in ways that were previously impossible.

This evolving awareness, coupled with quantitative insights from the survey, offers a reason for optimism. Even amid global uncertainty, European engagement with China is meaningful  not only for the bilateral relationship but for the wider world. Constructive engagement demands that Europeans, particularly the younger generation, actively seek to understand China: its capabilities, its ambitions, and its role in global affairs. It is not enough to maintain goodwill; substantive knowledge and informed perspectives are essential for sustainable cooperation.

In sum, Europe's youth stand at a critical juncture. Their attitudes toward China will shape the trajectory of Europe-China relations in the years to come. Recognizing China's realities, moving beyond outdated perceptions, and engaging thoughtfully with this emerging global power are not just intellectual exercises  they are imperatives in a world where understanding, rather than ignorance, defines influence and opportunity.

Pragmatism and reality triggered China pivot

Europe's perception of China is shifting  particularly since the second term of the Trump administration. Recent months have seen dramatic changes in international relations, especially between the US and Europe, which in turn have influenced Europe's engagement with China. Yet, such shifts do not happen overnight; they unfold over years, even as Europe gradually adapts to the new strategic realities.

Traditionally, Europe's approach to China combined caution with selective engagement, viewing Beijing as both an economic competitor and a systemic rival. Today, China has become a key reference point for Europe to rethink its strategic space, economic dependencies and foreign policy options. The dominant narrative is moving away from ideologically framed value judgments toward a more pragmatic realism.

Internal European dynamics have been crucial. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed vulnerabilities in public health and industrial systems, prompting reassessments of reliance on foreign supply chains and critical technologies. Policy measures followed, including investment screening, subsidy adjustments and corporate social responsibility requirements for foreign firms  essentially, institutional safeguards against economic risks. The Russia-Ukraine conflict has further accelerated Europe's reflection on strategic autonomy, particularly in the context of US-China competition.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has emphasized that the current EU must act as a geopolitical actor. At the January 2026 Davos Forum, she reiterated that geopolitical shocks compel Europe to strengthen its independence. Internal policy adjustments thus form a foundation for Europe's evolving view of China: as Europe rethinks its own development path, China becomes an inescapable variable.

External factors matter too. Donald Trump's return to the White House stirred transatlantic tensions. Critiques at the Munich Security Conference framed Europe's primary threat as internal deviation from shared values, rather than Russia or China  an unacceptable notion for European leaders. Recent events, from the Greenland controversy to Davos debates, have reinforced European insistence on respect and agency, rather than acquiescence to external pressure.

Officially, EU discourse still balances competition with cooperation. De-risking China does not imply decoupling. Ursula von der Leyen describes EU-China relations as being at a "turning point", emphasizing competition and risk while preserving space for collaboration. Think tank analyses highlight three coexisting perspectives: pragmatists stressing continued cooperation, security-focused analysts emphasizing systemic risk, and strategic opportunists viewing China as a diplomatic leverage point.

Data support these assessments. Bruegel Institute notes Europe's reliance on China for critical materials like natural graphite and rare earth elements. Security concerns arise from trade imbalances, technological competition in advanced materials and sensors, and China's "dual-carbon" climate strategy, which pressures Europe to accelerate domestic decarbonization. Yet perhaps the most striking shift is in Europe's younger generation. Surveys of Europeans aged 18-35 show more positive views of China compared with the broader population. While roughly 65 percent of Europeans overall hold negative opinions, a significant portion of youth see China as a necessary partner, or at least as a complex actor beyond simple adversary labels. Countries like Hungary and Greece report that over half of young respondents hold favorable attitudes toward China. This emerging perspective may shape Europe's long-term strategic culture, influencing debates on trade, technology and diplomatic engagement.

In short, Europe's view of China has evolved from ideologically driven confrontation to strategic realism. Economically, Europe recognizes its dependence on China; ideologically, differences maintain cautious distance; strategically, China is a central, unavoidable factor. Importantly, the attitudes of Europe's youth hint at a generational layer to this shift, suggesting that Europe may increasingly balance competition with engagement rather than simply choosing sides. China is neither Europe's traditional ally nor a pure adversary  it is a pivotal player shaping Europe's strategic calculations in an era of great-power competition.

Turning youth exchanges into deeper China-EU cooperation

The perspectives of Europe's youth are particularly consequential for shaping the trajectory of Sino-European relations. Survey results reveal a paradox: although China remains geographically distant for most respondents, its economic, technological, and cultural influence is pervasive in daily life. Young Europeans interact with China through consumer products, social media, higher education and international business exposure, fostering a perception of China as both tangible and relevant.

Interestingly, the rise of China does not generate widespread fear. More than 80 percent of the respondents hold positive views of China, a remarkable figure given Europe's often skeptical political debates and media portrayals. Young Europeans acknowledge China's economic power, enduring civilization and ability to translate growth into global influence.

Regional differences are notable. Youth in Southeast Europe, the Balkans and southern Europe  particularly Spain  express the most favorable views, despite limited direct exchanges with China. In these regions, China symbolizes opportunity, development and alternative partnerships. By contrast, Northern and parts of Western Europe exhibit more caution. Young people there are more aware of China's global role and more attuned to the implications of its rising power. Even so, concern rarely translates into hostility; across Europe, positive engagement remains possible.

Geographical and social proximity also shape perceptions. Countries with closer economic and infrastructural ties to China, including parts of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, display the strongest affinities. Urban, educated, and economically stable populations tend to be more engaged, reflecting the intersection of mobility, education, and digital access. These findings suggest that targeted initiatives could reinforce positive perceptions and sustain long-term engagement.

But the positive sentiment alone is not sufficient. Goodwill exists but remains largely passive. The challenge is transforming favorable attitudes into a structured and sustainable engagement.

First, exchanges must be more inclusive. Current programs primarily benefit students from elite universities and high-income cities. Expanding affordable short-term exchanges, vocational education initiatives, and regional partnerships can broaden impact. Second, cooperation should address practical challenges. Initiatives in innovation, climate and sustainability, public health and professional training can engage young people directly. Third, youth exchanges must be balanced and reciprocal. Mutual recognition of degrees, internships, and career experiences, coupled with clear visa and career guidance, will reduce barriers. Finally, dialogue must allow candid discussion. Platforms for Europe-China youth should enable open debate on geopolitics, governance and global responsibility.

Europe's young people approach China with pragmatism, curiosity and respect. They are moving beyond simplistic binaries and seeing China through the intertwined lenses of economics, technology, and culture in a connected world. They acknowledge China's strength, recognize mutual interdependence, and remain generally optimistic about the future of China-Europe relations. What is currently lacking is infrastructure, accessibility, and continuity. If both sides invest in inclusive, practical, reciprocal and candid youth engagement, a generation of capable, cooperative, and globally-minded young leaders will emerge  ready to translate interest into tangible collaboration.

This emerging realism reflects not only China's global rise but Europe's own stakes in strategic autonomy and future competitiveness. The durability of China-Europe relations will depend on turning this understanding into sustained dialogue, practical cooperation, and meaningful youth exchanges. Investing in this "next-generation trust"  rooted in insight and engagement  may be the surest path to a relationship that is both stable and forward-looking, capable of weathering uncertainty while embracing opportunity.

(Web editor: Peng Yukai, Liang Jun)
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Molto panico in Downing Street yesterday. Wickets were falling. Master strategists were gobbling cyanide pills. Aides scurred right and left and further left, white-faced, trousers flapping.

Yet one figure appeared  at the time of writing, anyway  to be going nowhere. Jonathan Powell, the National Security Adviser, was safe in his roost. Why? Of all No 10's advisers, he was arguably the most culpable for the disarray of the Starmer Government.

You may not have heard of Jonathan Nicholas Powell. He prefers it that way. Whereas Peter Mandelson and Morgan McSweeney long seemed to relish their demonic reputations, Mr Powell is one of life's spectral figures. He is an eminence grise, a flitterer in the shadows, a half-sensed shape that shifts in the gloaming to whisper words in ears, impart viscous advice and ease his own survival prospects.

It is now widely accepted that Mr Powell was one of the two vital sidekicks who encouraged Sir Keir Starmer to appoint Lord Mandelson as our ambassador to Washington DC. The other was Mr McSweeney and he, accepting the dreadfulness of the mistake, has departed. Pouff! Gone in a puff of hemlock.

Like a midge on the windscreen of an accelerating car Mr Powell clings on for dear life, and so far his suction pads are working.

Although the title of National Security Adviser may not sound exciting, some at Westminster call Mr Powell 'the real Foreign Secretary'. Yvette Cooper occupies that great office of state in name, yet it is said she has little influence over policy or the major appointments.

It is to the tousle-haired Powell that Sir Keir defers on geopolitical strategy. It was he, not Ms Cooper, whom Sir Keir had at his side when he met China's president Xi Jinping in Beijing a fortnight ago. Powell was a picture of patrician languor that day, pushing back his chair from the table and crossing his legs. How conceited he looked. A year ago he was at the White House, too, carrying an enormous briefcase when Sir Keir met Donald Trump.

If Mr Powell, 69, looks to-the-manner born, it may not be surprising. His much older brother Charles was Mrs Thatcher's foreign affairs adviser. Jonathan himself joined the Foreign Office in 1979 and held various middle-ranking positions, possibly intelligence related, until he had a lucky break. In the early 1990s he was on a posting to Washington when he was told to get close to a 'no-hoper' presidential candidate Bill Clinton. When Mr Clinton entered the White House, Powell suddenly became the Foreign Office's hottest expert on US affairs.

Jonathan Powell is the National Security Adviser, though some at Westminster call him 'the real Foreign Secretary'

That good fortune brought him to the notice of Tony Blair, newly elected leader of the Labour Party, who was eager to muscle in with President Clinton. Blair asked Mr Powell to become his chief of staff. He remained in that job during the decade of Blair's premiership. When we handed Hong Kong over to the Chinese, Powell was there. When we did a deal with the IRA to stop their war, he was in the thick of things  it was almost as if he derived a thrill from meeting gnarled Provos who had led the terrorist campaign.

And after Manhattan's Twin Towers were destroyed, and as George W Bush's neo-cons took the US to war in Afghanistan and then Iraq, it was very much Powell who was supervising our involvement. The then British ambassador to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer, asked Downing Street how it wished him to proceed. Back came the message from Powell: 'Get up the a*** of the White House and stay there.'

If the instruction was coarse, simplistic, self-lowering, it was perhaps instructive. Mr Powell is one of those Left-wing baby boomers who has a low opinion of his own country. He is so ashamed of our history  so warped by post-imperial guilt  that he thinks we should grovel to foreign powers, or in the case of the IRA, to Ulster hoodlums.

In those Blairite days he worked closely with Peter Mandelson. Mandelson was so amused by Mr Powell's shimmering efficiency that he nicknamed him 'Jeeves', after the 'gentleman's gentleman' in PG Wodehouse's comic novels. The fictitious Jeeves has the ability to enter a room unnoticed. Jeeves always knows how to get his chinless wonder of a master out of scrapes.

Wodehouse's Jeeves is a benevolent figure. The same cannot be said of Powell. The Iraq War was an enormous mistake, costly in blood, treasure and historical consequences. It only emboldened Islamism. Hundreds of British service personnel died, as did hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

When Blair left No 10, his successor, Gordon Brown, did not retain Mr Powell's services. The Blairites and Brownites had got along badly, as Powell detailed in a joltingly indiscreet book.

When he published that bitchy account of the Blair-Brown struggles, he perhaps little suspected he would ever return to Downing Street. But when Sir Keir won the 2024 election, he soon appointed Mr Powell as his envoy to negotiate the so-called deal that has come to be called the Chagos Isles surrender. Britain offered to give away the ownership of its strategically vital air base in the Indian Ocean to Mauritius, which had no historical connection with the Chagos Isles.

More than that, Mr Powell agreed that we would pay billions of pounds for future use of this base  which we already own! The driving emotion behind this dreadful idea was, again, our old friend post-imperial guilt. When Donald Trump regained the US presidency in 2024, Britain had an excellent, professional ambassador, Karen Pierce. She knew the Trump team well. She was colourful, congenial and able to put the case of British interests without offending Mr Trump. But Downing Street  more particularly, Jonathan Powell  developed the view that Ms Pierce would not do. It was decided that a politician was needed. A man. Someone who could speak Trump's locker-room language.

Sir Keir Starmer was encouraged by Mr Powell to appoint Lord Mandelson as our ambassador to Washington DC

Trump is admittedly a rum piece of work, but would Ms Pierce not have been a better choice? The usual procedure is to trust the professional diplomats. And 'usual procedure', as we know, is Sir Keir's default setting. But someone talked him into defying civil service convention.

If you will permit me to join the dots, it may be worth recalling that when Powell became No 10's chief of staff in 1997, special arrangements had to be made to allow him and Alastair Campbell (both political appointees) to work in positions that should have been held by impartial mandarins.

The Blairites, most notably Powell, have never had time for civil service convention. They regard the rules as an inconvenience. They place greater premium on personal connections, 'who you know', on the nod-and-wink approach, politics as the milieu of rich men and schmoozers and pals. This is the foetid swamp in which the Mandelson appointment was made, with the connivance of both the fallen Brother McSweeney and the still-untoppled Powell.

Had Sir Keir only had more belief, in himself and his country, he would have kept Karen Pierce in place. A prime minister with some national pride might also have told international lawyers to take a running jump when they pressed him to surrender the Chagos Isles.

Instead we have a National Security Adviser (National Self-Loathing Adviser, more like) who reveres our country's critics and caves in to our opponents. And somehow, when so much else is falling to pieces, he survives. It is baffling. And wrong.
Jimmy Lai is a true hero who should be hailed around the world by anyone who believes in democracy and the fundamental right to speak without fear.

His life story is remarkable: a child who arrived in Hong Kong as a stowaway on a fishing vessel with a dollar in his pocket, he became a billionaire clothing and media magnate, only to be martyred by a dictatorship over his unbowed faith in freedom.

As Lai's son said, the decision by the Hong Kong court to hand this 78-year-old man a 20-year term in jail is effectively a death sentence, especially given his diabetes and heart problems  and after five years in the hell of solitary confinement.

'I know he is scared of never seeing his family again and scared of dying alone,' Sebastien Lai told me on Monday.

As a British citizen, his father could have left Hong Kong and lived out his twilight years in comfort. However, he chose to stay and fight for freedom.

The detention of this ailing old man should shame Beijing.

Sadly, it shames our own nation, too, since a succession of weak governments have kowtowed to China's goons in the pathetic hope of being handed a few crumbs from their economy, failing to show even a sliver of the courage displayed by Jimmy Lai.

There seems a chilling choreography to the latest capitulation by Sir Keir Starmer, despite his past as a human rights lawyer and China's arrogant breach of the 'One Country, Two Systems' deal agreed with Britain to protect Hong Kong's freedoms until 2047.

Jimmy Lai (pictured) was jailed for 20 years in Hong Kong on Monday after being found guilty of national security offences last December

Mr Lai's son, Sebastien Lai (pictured), said he knows his father is 'scared of never seeing his family again and scared of dying alone'

First came the Government's long-delayed consent last month for a new mega-embassy for China in a pivotal London position beside cables carrying critical financial information. Barely a week later, the Prime Minister flew off to Beijing on a high-profile trip.

And now  a few days after his return  we see the sickening sacrifice of this brave tycoon who fought so hard for the democracy that we claim to espouse.

Lai's extraordinary life reflects his nation's history. He was born on the mainland shortly before the 1949 takeover by Mao's Communists. His businessman father tried to hang himself before his eyes, having lost his wealth, before abandoning the family.

After his mother was sent to a labour camp, Lai worked as a child porter in a railway station. One day, he tasted chocolate for the first time after being given a bar as a tip and, hearing it came from Hong Kong, vowed to reach such a heavenly place.

Arriving in the British enclave aged 12, he was taken to work in a textile factory, weeping when he saw so much food at breakfast and sleeping on the floor.

Although penniless then, he went on to build his own factory and global clothing brand, then moved into the media with his Apple Daily newspaper on the basis that, as he put it: 'If I am delivering information, I am delivering freedom.' Lai  reportedly worth $1.2billion when arrested in 2020  fearlessly used his status and power to push for democracy.

Now his plight symbolises the tragedy of Hong Kong itself as China extinguishes the freedoms that made this place so dynamic and special.

There has been a torrent of hollow protests from some of the same politicians who have sold out democracy as they cuddle up to China's dictatorship. The Foreign Office whimpers that it will 'rapidly engage further' with Beijing over Lai's case.

Mr Lai, pictured in 2020 before a court appearance in Hong Kong, founded the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper which notably criticised Beijing and Hong Kong's governments

Yet as the last governor of Hong Kong Lord Patten rightly said, referring to a small cut in whisky taxes agreed during Starmer's jaunt: 'It was a tragedy that the only thing that came out of this trip was Johnnie Walker not Jimmy Lai.'

Politicians insist they always raise Lai's case in Beijing, although an insider once told me such moments are agreed in advance, then at the pre-arranged time the visitors raise human rights while their hosts pointedly ignore them.

Like the Russian activist Alexei Navalny  who died suspiciously in prison after returning to his country  Jimmy Lai is an inspirational figure with unwavering faith in freedom. 'I will stay and fight until the last day,' he said as the noose of repression tightened.

Yet the incarceration of this freedom fighter among killers and rapists in a maximum security prison serves also as a damning symbol of our subservient stance towards a barbaric regime intent on the destruction of our most precious liberties.

British intelligence chiefs have warned for years that China presents the most systematic challenge to our security, prosperity and values.

It engages in cyber-terrorism, intimidates dissidents who fled to this country for safety, steals intellectual property and imposes sanctions on MPs that dare criticise its bullying and brutality.

'We know we are on the right side of history and we're doing the right thing,' said Lai before his imprisonment. If only our pitiful politicians shared such determined faith in freedom.

Instead, they betray this brave man to kowtow to his captors.
We all have moments when we don't want to do something  such as file a tax return or clean the oven. But for some, their aversion to such tasks is so extreme they really cannot do them, because they have PDA  pathological demand avoidance.

The complexities of life with PDA are explored in a new book co-written by 'PDA-ers' Sally Cat and Brook Madera. Their resistance to doing things, they say, ranges from the banal (automatically saying no to any invitation, even if they might enjoy the occasion) to the extreme (refusing to pick up the drink beside you when you're thirsty because your body is 'demanding' you do so).

PDA, they say, can be outright dangerous  a friend of Cat's died of pneumonia 'because her demand avoidance made her avoid outpatient appointments'.

This is far more than pig-headedness, they say, it's 'an inborn drive to avoid anything, and everything, regardless of whether or not it would benefit us'. And the more it is expected they will do something, the more they resist.

Cat, in her 50s, from south-west England, and Madera, in her 40s, from Oregon, US, have both been educated to university level  yet neither has managed a career because their PDA has either caused them such panic they've had to flee the workplace, or they have suffered physical burnout.

Both now channel their energy into raising awareness of PDA  launching an online PDA training business for parents and carers.

PDA is not 'new'. It was first defined by British developmental psychologist Professor Elizabeth Newson in the 1980s, who worked with autistic children at a clinic at the University of Nottingham.

But now, thanks to social media, awareness of PDA is rising significantly, with a boom in online support services and Facebook groups.

Izzy Judd, pictured with husband Harry of the band McFly, revealed that one of their children, who is autistic, also has pathological demand avoidance

There are hundreds of videos on TikTok on PDA too  some have millions of views. Viewers are often directed to online tests that can 'help you figure out if you have pathological demand avoidance'.

Last year Izzy Judd, wife of McFly drummer Harry, revealed in a podcast that one of their children, who has autism, also has PDA. She said just asking their child to get dressed could trigger upset, so she has 'given up' making direct commands or asking too many questions of them.

Her disclosure was met by some as 'lazy parenting' but her experiences echo those of Cat and Madera with their own children who have PDA  who insist while many youngsters show a wilfulness, PDA children are a grade apart.

There is some debate on whether PDA is in fact a separate condition to autism, which campaigners say is key as those affected require different support.

PDA is not included in the DSM-5, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, used by psychiatrists to diagnose patients. Instead, it's generally regarded as a symptom of autism. The NHS says 'if a child who has been assessed as being on the autism spectrum and presents with a PDA profile this will be recognised and described within the child's assessment report and diagnosis'.

But Professor Newson saw PDA as distinct from autism, arguing it was 'not an autistic spectrum disorder; to describe it as such would be like describing every person in a family by the name of one of its [other] members'.

Cat and Madera agree, saying PDA traits are so specific it deserves clinical recognition as a separate condition; otherwise 'it can be hard to get diagnosed because PDA doesn't present like general autism and the autism spectrum wasn't designed with PDA in mind'.

Alongside demand avoidance, other traits include anxiety, a social and imaginative nature as well as a strong interest in people.

These, Cat and Madera say, do not accord with the traditional view of autism and mean that those with PDA require different support. For example, where autistic people generally thrive on routine, they say PDA-ers love flexibility.

In practical terms, this means that maintaining a PDA child's interest with novelty can be better than rigid routine.

However, the National Autistic Society says 'no research has found strong evidence for the group of traits proposed for PDA'.

It also notes that 'PDA-related products, such as training and conferences, have been promoted to parents and this creates a looping effect'. This, they say, leads parents or individuals to cherry-pick behaviours to 'reinforce their belief' in PDA.

Indeed, some leading autism researchers say the debate is a reflection of our increasingly broad understanding of the autistic spectrum  particularly how it presents in females  rather than being a distinct neurodiversity.

Both Cat and Madera have been diagnosed as autistic with a PDA profile  Cat had her adult autism diagnosis updated to include PDA in 2020 after an NHS assessment, then Madera in 2023  but they say 'we feel our PDA defines us more than our autism'.

Indeed, Cat says she didn't 'fit into online autism communities because I always wanted to fit in with others and learn how to communicate effectively, but this was frowned on in autism chat threads'. Madera, meanwhile, found there was always a 'part of myself that [I] didn't have a name for [which] was always there'  until connecting with online PDA communities.

The theory is that PDA is part of the 'fight or flight' response in an area in the brain called the amygdala, which processes emotions. For those with PDA, any demand  pleasurable or not  will kick in an anxiety response.

Madera and Cat argue PDA behaviours are even present in the womb.

'Anecdotal evidence for pre-birth PDA abounds,' they say, with Madera detailing the birth of her eldest who 'tried coming out face-first presentation so I had to get a C-section' as an example.

Another sign of PDA in babies, they say, is a seemingly relaxed or passive nature  based on self-reports from the PDA community. This may be 'demand avoidance against parents wanting them to hit milestones'.

They quote one mother of a PDA child saying: 'I thought my son couldn't sit up by the age of eight months old and was so worried until I realised, while leaving him alone in his cot and watching from the door semi-closed, that he could sit up perfectly; he would just not do it on command.'

Some might think these are just babies being babies  which Cat and Madera themselves admit is a possibility.

Brook Madera, who is in her 40s and from Oregon in the US, is co-author of The Insider Guide to PDA. She had her adult autism diagnosis updated to include PDA in 2023

Beyond babyhood, Cat and Madera advise 'low demand parenting' and say imperative language is a no-no. Requests like 'put your shoes on, it's time to go' should be replaced with declarative statements like, 'I'm getting ready to leave' which offers room for input.

Professor Gina Rippon, a neurobiologist who is an expert in autism and author of the book The Lost Girls of Autism, has a different view of PDA.

'PDA is part of the autism spectrum,' she told the Daily Mail.

'Neuroscientists and psychologists have done research asking if there is anything distinctive about PDA in terms of behavioural profiles  and 'not very' appears to be the consensus.

'There is, though, a huge amount of overlap with autism  in anxiety, sensory sensitivity and intolerance of uncertainty.

'However, there have been no brain imaging studies directly comparing PDA children with autistic children, which might reveal more.'

Professor Rippon  who is professor emeritus of cognitive neuroimaging at Aston University  says our understanding of autism has become more sophisticated than the traditional socially awkward 'Rain Man' stereotype.

This, she says, is particularly relevant for autistic women and young girls who are far more likely to develop adept social coping strategies and mask their autistic traits through things such as rehearsing elaborate social scripts before events.

'Not belonging,' she says, is a powerfully negative experience for autistic women.

It is this that she sees in the PDA-ers' insistence their interest in other people, for example, marks them apart from other autistic people.

'Yes, PDA is real and is certainly a neuroscientific pattern of behaviour  but it falls under a more nuanced understanding of autism.'

She adds: 'We are moving towards the idea that there are different types of autism.'

So will PDA-ers ever receive the clinical acknowledgment some believe they should?

Professor Rippon says: 'Work is already under way for a new DSM-6  possibly to be released in 2027/8  so watch this space as to whether PDA is included as a separate condition.'

The Insider Guide to PDA by Sally Cat and Brook Madera (Jessica Kingsley, 14.99).
We were winding our way down the Twin Coast Discovery Highway  a scenic loop road in New Zealand which runs from Auckland to the far northern reaches of the country  when the painkillers finally wore off.

Like a dam breaking, a creeping agony began to rush in, everywhere and all-consuming.

My brain felt as though it was pressing against the inside of my skull. My chest was tight as I bent over my knees and tried not to throw up. Every muscle and bone in my body seemed to be screaming.

Each time I tried to speak, the only noises that came out were strange, low sobs and groans. We were still half an hour away from the nearest hospital  and I felt like I was going to die.

This was not how I had pictured my Easter weekend with my boyfriend's family in New Zealand playing out.

Yet what started with a mild urinary tract infection (UTI) ended up putting me in hospital for four days and left me with months of physical and psychological repercussions.

I saw the diagnosis on my medical chart when I was finally discharged: Sepsis.

I didn't know what it meant at the time, but I now know that I have survived a life-threatening condition that kills 48,000 people in the UK each year. That's more than breast, bowel and prostate cancers combined.

Rosie Beveridge developed sepsis while she was on holiday with her boyfriend in New Zealand

That pain, that 'I feel like I am going to die' sensation  a known symptom of sepsis  is what it felt like when my immune system's response to infection spiralled out of control and it began to attack my organs.

Plummeting blood pressure is only the first in a series of unpleasant side-effects. If you're unlucky and don't get the right treatment in time, it can cause shock, organ failure and eventually death.

Sepsis can be triggered by any infection, from a simple cut on the finger through to meningitis. Up to 30 per cent of cases start with a UTI.

My UTI started the Wednesday before Easter, 2024, and it was mild so I didn't even go to the pharmacy.

But by the time we arrived at the beach in remote northern New Zealand, four hours north of Auckland, on Friday afternoon, my lower back had begun to ache, and the right side of my abdomen began to feel as though it was being stabbed.

Conscious of the fact that I was the girlfriend at the family event  and not wanting to make a fuss  I told myself it was nothing. By Friday evening, I was starting to feel achy all over.

At 7am on Saturday, I woke up and ran to the bathroom to vomit. My boyfriend checked on me as he got up to go fishing with the boys. He asked if he should stay but I waved him off. 'Don't be silly. It's a 24-hour bug.'

But by Saturday night, despite taking painkillers to get myself through the annual Taupo Bay Easter fishing competition, I couldn't walk due to the pain in my back and abdomen. Miserable and shaking, I crawled to bed.

I woke throughout the night in alternating sweats and shivers.

On Sunday morning, I told my boyfriend I needed to see a doctor. The stabbing pain in my side seemed to radiate out, and my lower back and legs felt as though the muscle had been tenderised. We agreed that if I still felt bad the next day, we would book an appointment.

I woke up on Monday morning with every symptom intensified, so we booked an appointment at the nearest hospital in Kawakawa; an hour's drive away. The first doctor I saw thought it could be appendicitis. This sort of misdiagnosis is not unusual, as Dr Ron Daniels, an NHS consultant in intensive care and founder and Chief Medical Officer of the UK Sepsis Trust, later told me.

'Sepsis can arise as a consequence of infection anywhere in the body, so it's almost as if no two people with sepsis look the same,' he explains.

At this rural New Zealand hospital my misdiagnosis with appendicitis is likely to have saved my life.

The hospital was too small to have an operating theatre, so I was sent to another hospital an hour away. It was there that they realised I was not suffering from appendicitis  and treated me for sepsis.

The memory of that car journey is blurry, but I remember being scared: I was 23, on the other side of the world from my family, swimming through a painful fog with every movement.

When we arrived my boyfriend went to talk to the front desk nurse and turned to find me curled up in a ball on the waiting room floor with my head pressed to the linoleum.

I remember being wheeled through the ICU as I vomited into a bowl, then being on a bed with the nurse struggling to get a drip into my arm. I was shaking so badly that two people had to hold me down to do it.

The doctors around me were murmuring quietly. 'Appendicitis?' 'Sepsis?' 'Peritonitis?'

They treated me with what Dr Daniels told me were the correct medical steps (known as the sepsis six) in those first few hours, including intravenous antibiotics and monitoring my vital signs, particularly blood pressure.

Thankfully, the immediate care I received in the ICU saved my life. This, tragically, is not the same for everyone.

Sepsis is so fast-moving that every minute matters.

As Dr Daniels put it: 'Every hour's delay in getting the right treatment can make a difference to the chance of survival, somewhere between about 1 and 2 per cent an hour.'

He emphasises that the most important thing in diagnosis is in empowering those affected and their family to speak up: 'There's no single diagnostic blood test we can do. So to get this right we need a public who are empowered to ask the question "Could it be sepsis?"'

Rosie on holiday with her boyfriend. What started with a mild urinary tract infection (UTI) ended up putting her in hospital for four days and left her with months of physical and psychological repercussions

Rosie in hospital during her sepsis ordeal. The next four days were a haze of a fever which didn't break for two days, she says

Later in the evening, once my condition was more stable, I was moved to a ward.

The next four days were a haze of a fever which didn't break for two days  despite the fluids and IV antibiotics  and consequently what felt like endless tests and scans: Bloods, urine, MRI, CT and ultrasound.

On the fifth day I was discharged. The doctors tentatively confirmed that they thought I had sepsis from a kidney infection, but, as Dr Daniels tells me, the source of the infection causing sepsis can be hard to identify  yet another roadblock for emergency doctors in treating sepsis effectively.

I could walk, but, too exhausted and weak to get far, I left hospital the same way I came in: In a wheelchair.

I'd gone to New Zealand to meet friends on a kumara (sweet potato) farm in the north-western reaches but despite my best efforts to stay upbeat, my recovery was slow and it was an incredibly lonely four weeks before I was able to join everyone out in the fields.

I was exhausted all the time and found it difficult to get out of bed each morning, often having to sleep again in the afternoon. It was as though a weight settled on my chest in those first few days after being discharged and did not truly lift for months.

This is not uncommon: Post-sepsis syndrome (PSS)  fatigue, anxiety and memory issues  affects up to 40 per cent of survivors and can last anywhere from a few weeks to the rest of a patient's life.

As Dr Daniels explains: 'Sepsis causes inflammation across all of the tissues in the body, with the death of cells occurring as a result. It's thought this cell death contributes to the complexity and range of symptoms in PSS.'

Now, almost two years on, my physical and mental health have recovered and most of my friends don't know it ever happened.

It's only when I see stories in the media where people die from sepsis, that I am brought back to that moment, in the Whangarei hospital waiting room, forehead pressed to the floor, terrified that I was going to die.

Dr Daniels explained that feeling for me. He said: 'This sense of impending doom is frequently described by survivors  when we consider the actions of a pet dog or cat when it is sick, they might take themselves off to die it appears that instinct is not restricted to animals.'

In other words, it seems to come from the deepest-rooted kind of instinct, that your organs and your body are shutting down.

Hanging up the phone with Dr Daniels, I sat in silence for a moment or two before bursting into tears.

Filled with a rushing sense of gratitude for both his work and the doctors in New Zealand who knew how to spot the signs, it finally sank in  nearly two years on  that without them, one of those tragic news stories might well have been me.

sepsistrust.org
Theyve been hailed as a medical miracle: GLP-1 drugs  the weight-loss injections sold as Wegovy and Mounjaro  have helped millions shed stubborn pounds and have been shown also to cut the risk of heart attack and stroke by around 20 per cent, even independently of weight loss. But are the drugs starting to lose their shine, with concerns emerging over their side-effects?

More than 1.6 million adults in England, Wales and Scotland used weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro between early 2024 and early 2025, according to new research published in the journal BMC Medicine.

With the increasing use of these GLP-1 drugs, anecdotal evidence suggests more people are also turning up in A&E with constant vomiting and dehydration and, more recently, complications linked to gallbladder disease and acute pancreatitis (sudden and potentially life-threatening inflammation of the pancreas).

Indeed, the medicines watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has just updated its guidance to doctors and patients after a spike in reported fatalities linked to acute pancreatitis.

Under its Yellow Card report scheme (for clinicians and the public to flag suspected side-effects), there were 1,143 reports of acute and chronic pancreatitis, including 19 deaths, in people taking GLP-1s between 2007 and October 2025.

Almost all of these  973 reports and 17 deaths  were recorded in 2025 alone. Most were linked to tirzepatide (brand name Mounjaro), with 807 reports; and 166 to semaglutide (Ozempic and Wegovy). There were also 146 reports involving liraglutide (Saxenda) and 61 for dulaglutide.

Patient leaflets for some GLP-1s, including Mounjaro, already list acute pancreatitis as an uncommon side-effect affecting up to one in 100 people. But the MHRA has now updated its own product information to highlight the small risk of severe acute pancreatitis in patients taking GLP-1s.

With the increasing use of these GLP-1 drugs, anecdotal evidence suggests more people are also turning up in A&E with constant vomiting and dehydration

This is not the only worrying development linked to the drugs. The number of operations performed by the NHS to remove gallbladders shot up by nearly 15 per cent in the past year  from 69,745 in 2023-24 to 80,196 in 2024/25, figures from NHS England show  something doctors blame on the increased use of GLP-1s.

Professor Ahmed Ahmed, a consultant gastrointestinal and bariatric surgeon at Imperial College Healthcare Trust in London, says the timing is no accident.

Its notable because you dont see that much fluctuation from year to year, he says. And I bet you itll be even higher next year. He notes that nothing else has changed, pointing to the explosion in use of weight-loss jabs over the past 18 months.

The most common reason for surgery to remove the gallbladder is gallstones (which are usually formed of cholesterol)  these are a recognised side-effect of any rapid weight loss.

When weight is lost quickly, the liver releases extra cholesterol into bile (a digestive fluid). At the same time, the gallbladder empties less often. This means bile stored there becomes thicker and more likely to form stones.

Gallstones are already listed in GLP-1 leaflets as a common side-effect, affecting up to one in ten people who use the jabs.

What worries doctors is not so much that gallstones occur per se (they dont always cause problems unless they block a duct in the gallbladder)  but the speed and scale at which complications are now appearing.

(Around 20 per cent of people with gallstones will need gallbladder removal, according to NHS England  as GLP-1 drives gallstones, the assumption is that more people will develop pain and need surgery.)

Professor Ahmed says the rise in gallstones because of GLP-1 use is also linked to a rise in cases of pancreatitis being reported.

If stones slip out of the gallbladder and block the pancreatic duct, they can trigger acute pancreatitis  this happens in around 3 to 7 per cent of people who develop gallstones. GLP-1 drugs may also have a direct effect on the pancreas itself, independent of weight loss, he adds.

Doctors say the rise in gallstones because of GLP-1 use is also linked to a rise in cases of pancreatitis being reported

Separately a number of patients in the US have now filed lawsuits against GLP-1 drug manufacturers claiming they were harmed by severe side-effects they werent warned about, including vision loss. UK law firms report they have also been contacted about similar complaints. But why are these more serious effects apparently emerging now?

Whats happening isnt without precedent  these reports about GLP-1s follow a familiar pattern seen with past blockbuster drugs, with problems sometimes only emerging once millions of people start using them longer term.

Vioxx was celebrated as a revolutionary painkiller that was easier on the stomach than traditional non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs, such as ibuprofen) when it was approved in 1999 in the US. However, as it became more widely prescribed, reports emerged showing it significantly increased the risk of heart attacks and strokes. The drug was pulled from the market in 2004, by which time an estimated 80 million people worldwide had taken it.

Sarah Jackson, a professor of behavioural science and health at University College London, says: Clinical trials are designed to show whether a drug works and to catch common side-effects, but theyre relatively small and tightly controlled.

With Mounjaro  now taken by millions  around 4,800 patients were included in the major trials.

Much rarer harms wont emerge until a drug is used more widely, adds Professor Jackson.

When drugs hit the real world, a broader range of patients start taking them  people with different underlying conditions, genetic dispositions (that affect how they metabolise drugs) or already taking other medications.

Or theyre using the drugs in ways not tested in trials which may lead to a different side-effect profile, says Professor Munir Pirmohamed, chair of the Commission on Human Medicines and a consultant physician at Royal Liverpool University Hospital.

Just five years ago, GLP-1s were barely in the public eye (Wegovy and Mounjaro for weight loss only launched in the UK in 2023). As the uptake of the drugs has been so rapid, doctors worry that people are now rushing to take them without properly understanding the risks involved.

While the precise mechanism remains unclear, semaglutide may, in very rare cases, cause sudden vision loss

And drugs surveillance systems are racing to keep up. For the MHRA, the popularity of GLP-1 drugs has triggered a rare move. Rather than relying on routine safety alerts via its Yellow Card scheme, it has issued dedicated, stand-alone guidance on the drugs, which will be revised as new risks are identified.

Last week, it issued a patient safety alert, warning that semaglutide may, in very rare cases, cause sudden vision loss.

It said the risk of the eye condition, non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION) appears small, affecting up to one in 10,000 users, but urged patients to seek urgent medical help if their sight changes suddenly.

The precise mechanism remains unclear, but its thought semaglutides rapid effects on blood sugar, blood pressure and body weight may affect blood flow to the optic nerve.

A study published in the journal JAMA Ophthalmology in 2024 found that patients with type 2 diabetes taking semaglutide had more than four times the risk of developing NAION compared to those on other diabetes drugs. For overweight patients, the risk was more than seven-fold.

This is one of the most worrisome side-effects associated with the GLP-1 class of drugs, says Cameron Stephenson, a lawyer with Levin Law, one of several US firms handling litigation involving more than 3,000 lawsuits against GLP-1 manufacturers. For the most part, its permanent vision loss and is obviously devastating.

He adds that many of the patients in the lawsuits also suffer from gastroparesis or some form of bowel obstruction, conditions that can require hospital treatment and even surgery. The plaintiffs allege that GLP-1 drug manufacturers were aware or reasonably should have been aware of the gastrointestinal problems and NAION side-effects and failed to adequately warn of these conditions. The labels for all of these drugs still do not adequately warn patients and healthcare providers of these conditions.

Sarah Moore, a partner at London-based legal firm Leigh Day, says they have been contacted by a number of people who believe they developed NAION after taking Mounjaro and claim the product information only indicates blurry vision but not sight loss.

Whether or not warnings to patients were adequate will likely be a point courts have to decide in future. The jurys out on whether its a true link, is the view of Mike Burdon, a consultant ophthalmologist at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham.

He points to a major study published in the American Journal of Ophthalmology in 2025, involving around 120,000 patients, which found no evidence that people taking semaglutide or other GLP-1 drugs were more likely to develop NAION than similar patients who were not on them.

Even if there is an association, NAION is rare  affecting perhaps ten in 100,000 people aged over 50 annually, he says. He adds: If you compare it with the good that the drug is doing in terms of treating diabetes, reducing weight, reducing the risk of hypertension and diabetic complications, you would say that the overall benefit on the whole outweighs any potential side-effect.

But what complicates this argument is that the boom in GLP-1s use isnt always being driven by medical need. Research suggests that just a fraction of the 1.6 million people in the UK who have used GLP-1 drugs for weight loss in the past year will have been given them on the NHS. NHS England expects to treat just 220,000 patients through its specialist programme over three years.

Dr Oksana Pyzik, an associate professor of pharmacy practice at University College London, warns that the reliance on self-reported medical history, weight, BMI and photographs  all of which are easy to manipulate  combined with minimal or no follow-up monitoring, creates an unacceptably low bar for access for GLP-1s.

While this may be legally permitted, it raises patient safety concerns, particularly for younger individuals who may misreport eligibility or underestimate the risks, influenced by celebrity influencers pushing the products and social media trends.

Professor Judith Korner, who directs the Metabolic and Weight Control Centre at Columbia University in the US, says: If patients are ordering these online, do they have someone to go to with medical knowledge about these medications in case something happens?

She warns that people react very differently to these drugs. Some need much lower starting doses, while others develop side-effects  such as severe nausea and vomiting, bowel problems or low blood sugar  that require careful adjustment or stopping treatment altogether. (Doctors say that side-effects are most likely to flare when the doses are increased  which they generally are, incrementally  when the body is still adjusting.)

Concerns are not limited to physical side-effects, with some research suggesting GLP-1 drugs could also affect mental health. This could be a blind spot as people with psychiatric conditions are usually excluded from drug trials, resulting, as leading researcher Professor Yi-Sun Yang, from Chung Shan Medical University in Taiwan, says, in a lack of data for understanding the long-term consequences of GLP-1 drug use.

In a study he led, published in Scientific Reports in 2024, based on eight years of data from more than 160,000 adults with obesity, people taking GLP-1 drugs had nearly three times the risk of depression and double the risk of anxiety and suicidal behaviour.

The findings echo earlier research published in JAMA Network Open in 2024, which analysed World Health Organisation safety data and found that people taking semaglutide were 45 per cent more likely to report thoughts of suicide or self-harm than those on other treatments.

One possible explanation is that GLP-1 receptors are found in the brains reward centre, where the drugs appear to dampen the effect of dopamine  the chemical that makes us feel pleasure and motivation.

Yet the evidence is mixed: Khalida Ismail, a professor of psychiatry and medicine at Kings College London, in a review of 80 trials involving 107,860 patients, in JAMA Psychiatry in 2025, found no evidence that GLP-1 drugs worsen mental health in clinical trials. As she told Good Health, all nine of my patients in [another] study described improvement in wellbeing and psychological health. They all described a reduction in food noise. That anxiety and impulsiveness around food dissipated.

And now the Food & Drug Administration in the US has just told Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk (which make Zepbound  the US version of Mounjaro for weight-loss  and Wegovy and Saxenda respectively) to remove warnings about suicidal thoughts and behaviour from the labels. This followed a study involving 107,910 patients, which found no increased risk of suicidal ideation or behaviour, or other psychiatric side-effects such as anxiety or depression. (The UK and EU have never had this warning in the first place.)

Yet there may remain concerns for people who are psychologically vulnerable. A study published in BMC Medicine last month found GLP-1 use was more common among people experiencing psychological distress. Professor Ismail says there is a worry about what happens when treatment stops if someone doesnt have proper support. When they stop it, everything comes flooding back, she says. All the negative thoughts and feelings come back.

For people with eating disorders  binge eating or emotional eating, for example  she warns that the drugs may suppress symptoms without addressing the underlying cause. Those patients, she explains, usually need psychological therapy alongside any medical treatment  but she says that is not happening enough.

Drugmakers stress that safety warnings are already in place.

Novo Nordisk told Good Health that gallstone disease occurred in 1.6 per cent of patients in Wegovy trials and is listed as a common side-effect. The company believes that the allegations in the lawsuits are without merit, and we intend to vigorously defend against these claims.

Eli Lilly says gallstones affect up to one in ten people using Mounjaro for weight loss, while pancreatitis is uncommon, affecting up to one in 100. It advises patients to discuss any history of pancreatitis or eye disease before starting treatment.

Despite the emerging concerns, doctors are clear that for the right patients, under proper medical supervision, these drugs can be life-changing. These are overwhelmingly a source of good, says Professor Korner. If someone has had a heart attack or stroke, you put them on this medication and you can reduce their risk of dying or having another event by around 20 per cent.

But the benefits must always outweigh risks, adds Professor Pirmohamed: That requires careful assessment of the individual patient and prescribing only when the balance is clearly in their favour.
After experiencing months of excruciating stomach pain and rapid weight loss, Tom Hayman begged his GP for help... only to be told that he was 'drinking too many fizzy drinks'.

But the father-of-one, 28, from Warrington, Cheshire, refused to accept he was simply suffering from acid reflux - and after a year of pleading, was referred for a scan which revealed cancer.

Speaking on his behalf, his heartbroken fiancee Mary Cooper, said: 'They were just fobbing us off with things like "you drink too many fizzy drinks".

'The doctor thought it was acid reflux, but this was coming from his liver area.

'I knew it wasn't right for him to be doubled over in pain.

'Tom was worried it was something sinister - but the doctor laughed and said he wouldn't have cancer at his age.'

Mr Hayman, who worked as a plumber, had been feeling unwell since the summer of 2024 but claims his symptoms were repeatedly brushed aside.

But scans later revealed the true cause - a neuroendocrine tumour that began in his pancreas and spread to his liver.

Tom Hayman with his fiancee Mary Cooper and their son Ronnie, four

Ms Cooper said: 'He's a 6ft 5ins lad who loves his food - but all of a sudden, it was like he started forgetting to eat.

'He just didn't want food. If he did eat, he'd get really bad stomach pains.

'He also started to lose a lot of weight.'

Despite fearing something was seriously wrong, Mr Hayman spent around six months going back and forth to his GP surgery with no answers.

Ms Cooper claims the GP suggested he undergo scans only because Mr Hayman appeared anxious.

The tests, carried out at Warrington Hospital early last year, changed everything.

Ms Cooper said: 'A day later, they rang to say they'd found something on his liver.'

Further tests in London confirmed the devastating diagnosis - a neuroendocrine tumour that had already spread, along with a blood clot on Mr Hayman's liver.

He was fobbed off repeatedly by his GP who said he was 'too young' to have cancer

There are two main types of neuroendocrine cancer: neuroendocrine tumours (NETs) and neuroendocrine carcinomas (NECs), which are fast growing. They are a group of cancers that start in the nerve and gland cells that make and release hormones.

The disease can develop in different parts of the body where there are hormone-releasing cells, such as the stomach, pancreas, lungs and bowel.

Symptoms include unexplained weight loss, tiredness, pain, diarrhoea, bloating, wind, heartburn, asthma-like symptoms, a flushing rash and a persistent cough.

Common misdiagnoses include irritable bowel syndrome, asthma, or menopause.

The couple were referred to Clatterbridge in May 2025 and have been researching treatment options ever since.

Ms Cooper said: 'Tom felt like he was not being listened to and almost mocked.

'Hearing the word cancer was overwhelming.

'It was all a bit of a blur, to be honest.

The family are fundraising for treatment in Germany which isn't offered in the UK

'We were both crying and the next thing we were thinking was - how are we going to tell our family and friends?

'What is his life going to be like now?

'We couldn't take in anything that was said during that appointment because our worlds had just stopped.

'I can't explain the feeling. It was just sadness and anger. There was a wave of emotions.

'You think about the future and buying a house, getting married, having more children - but you're asking whether these things are ever going to happen.'

With no cure available in the UK, the family's hope now lies overseas in Germany, where doctors offer dendritic cell therapy, a form of immunotherapy designed to help the body fight cancer.

Mary said Mr Hayman found out about the treatment through social media.

After reaching out to hospitals abroad and sharing Mr Hayman's medical notes, discussions about treatment options began.

Ms Cooper says her future husband remains positive as he battles the disease

The family are aiming to fundraise 50,000 which would cover medical fees, travel, accommodation, and time away from work while Mr Hayman focuses on getting better.

Despite everything, Ms Cooper says her partner remains positive - even when his health dips.

She said: 'He believes that if he thinks positively, then positive things will come.

'He takes everything in his stride.'

Their son Ronnie, four, is unaware of the seriousness of his dad's illness - but senses when something is wrong.

Ms Cooper said: 'He doesn't know what's happening, but he has seen when Tom's not unwell, which upsets him.

'We're just trying to keep life as normal as possible for him.'

Mary said she hopes sharing her future husband's story will raise awareness - particularly among young people whose symptoms may be ignored.

Neuroendocrine Cancer UK (NCUK) say that the disease affects 6,000 people a year in England and can take four years to be diagnosed. More than half of cases are diagnosed at an advanced stage.

Analysis by NCUK suggest rates of the disease rose by 371 per cent between 1995 and 2018, compared to 116 per cent for other cancers in the same period  apart from non-melanoma skin cancer.
It spares few, but could mens dreaded bald patch finally be beaten  with a twice-daily dab of lotion?

Thats the potential promise from two new clinical trials which found that a novel treatment, originally developed for acne, boosted hair growth by more than 500 per cent in six months.

The results appear so positive that shares in Cosmo Pharmaceuticals  the company behind the new lotion  rocketed by 40 per cent in a single day in December.

Dermatologists are calling the lotion, clascoterone, a gamechanger and the first genuine breakthrough in male pattern baldness in three decades.

Male pattern baldness, also known as androgenetic alopecia, is the most common type of hair loss in the UK, affecting 6.5 million men. It typically causes a bald patch on top of the head or a receding hairline, and tends to run in families.

It is triggered by a derivative of the hormone testosterone, dihydrotestosterone (DHT), which gradually shrinks genetically sensitive hair follicles, making hair progressively finer. Ultimately the hair growth mechanism in the follicle is switched off altogether.

The new lotion aims to combat this in a completely different way from the pills and potions currently available.

Existing treatments include minoxidil  better known by the brand name Regaine, which comes in foam or liquid form  which is thought to improve blood flow to hair follicles.

Male pattern baldness typically causes a bald patch or a receding hairline. It is triggered by a derivative of the hormone testosterone, dihydrotestosterone (picture posed by model)

But it doesnt work for everyone. Around 40 to 50 per cent of men experience limited benefit, and any gains fade once the man stops using the treatment.

Other options include finasteride and dutasteride, which are pills that lower DHT levels  but as DHT also supports libido and prostate function, they come with off-putting potential side-effects such as a lower sex drive.

Clascoterone is different as it blocks the action of DHT in the follicle itself, without causing these body-wide side-effects.

The formula used is five times stronger than that used for acne (marketed under the brand name Winlevi). The latter works by blocking the effect of hormones in the skins oil glands, reducing oil production and inflammation.

The two recent trials of clascoterone for baldness  called SCALP 1 and SCALP 2  involved 1,465 men across Europe and the US and are said to be the biggest hair-loss studies ever run for a topical treatment.

Each participant was treated with either the new lotion or a dummy version. The effects were measured by photographing and counting hairs in a tiny, tattoo-marked spot on the scalp, in order to compare the same patch each time.

After six months, one study showed a 539 per cent improvement in hair count in those using clascoterone lotion. In the other study, there was a 168 per cent improvement  but there was no similar benefit in the men using the dummy lotion.

The side-effects were limited to mild skin reactions, including redness or itching (but these also occurred in the men using the dummy product).

Thats a major point, because concerns about libido, erectile function and mood are significant barriers for many men considering oral finasteride or dutasteride, says Professor Maria Hordinsky, chair of the department of dermatology at the University of Minnesota, who led the trials.

Given how many men are affected and how many avoid treatment because current options dont fit their needs, the prospect of a novel, biologically targeted, well-tolerated topical therapy is genuinely exciting, she says.

Professor Desmond Tobin, a dermatologist at University College Dublin, believes the results are a very significant breakthrough, but notes that men have to commit to taking the treatment regularly and that cessation of use would likely restart the balding process again.

Other experts urge caution in reading too much into the results.

Professor Maria Hordinsky, chair of the department of dermatology at the University of Minnesota, led the trials on clascoterone

The 539 per cent figure can be very misleading if taken at face value, says Spencer Kobren, a hair-loss expert and founder of the American Hair Loss Association.

It does not mean five times more hair. It simply means the treatment performed better than the placebo in a very small, measured target area.

But that might still be enough to please some men, adds Professor Hordinsky. Patients tended to see fuller coverage and better density in the target area, not just a few extra hairs on imaging, she says.

And crucially, she says, the men using clascoterone noticed the visible difference themselves.

Like all hair-loss treatments, it works best early on  when you're thinning rather than completely bald.

Professor Hordinsky believes those who would benefit most include younger men with early-stage hair loss, those whove said no to finasteride because of side-effect fears and others who havent responded to minoxidil or want something that actually targets the underlying cause.

The treatment, which would almost certainly be prescription-only, isnt available yet. Cosmo plans to file for approval with medicines regulators in the US and Europe in the spring, meaning it could reach UK pharmacies later this year.

But Spencer Kobren has a warning.

When a hair-loss treatment gets media attention before it becomes widely available through pharmacies, we typically see unregulated grey-market versions surface quickly, he says.

These products often have unknown concentrations, no quality control, and can put consumers at real risk. His advice is to wait for the real thing.

This isnt the only new hair-loss treatment in the pipeline.

Another similar rub-on lotion called KX-826, which also blocks the action of DHT at the hair follicle, is in final trials  but so far has not produced the same benefit as clascoterone. In its most advanced study, men using the drug did grow more hair, but the increase was not significantly better than that seen with a dummy cream.

Another promising rub-on lotion is GT20029, which goes a step further than simply blocking male hormones. Instead, it is designed to break down the androgen receptor  the tiny docking point on hair follicles that male hormones latch on to, triggering hair thinning.

Existing treatments include minoxidil  better known by the brand name Regaine, which comes in foam or liquid form  which is thought to improve blood flow to hair follicles

In early trials, men using it experienced increased hair counts and few side-effects. But it is still several years behind clascoterone, and will need much larger studies before it can be considered for approval.

Other promising ways to banish baldness include tablets used on the NHS to treat rheumatoid arthritis. Known as JAK inhibitors, these have been found to trigger new hair growth in men and women with alopecia areata, a condition where the immune system mistakenly attacks healthy hair follicles, which affects around 400,000 people in the UK.

In 2024, the NHS approved the use of one of these drugs  ritlecitinib  for alopecia, after studies showed it blocked the effect of enzymes that stop hair from regrowing.

Even discarded umbilical cords could hold the secret to regrowth.

Thats because they are rich in stem cells (master cells that can turn into a range of different cell types)  and, according to lab experiments, these have the capacity to power the growth of healthy new hair when implanted into the scalp.

A recent study in China, published in Stem Cell Research & Therapy, found that stem cells extracted from umbilical cords at birth stimulated the growth of human hair follicles in balding men. Now a trial, involving 100 men and women with hair loss, is under way in the US to test the treatment.

For the first time in a generation, men worried about thinning hair may soon have something genuinely new to consider.
Of the 44 winning establishments, 13 of these cafes are located in London

A grab-and-go Pret does the job when you need a caffeine hit, but true coffee connoisseurs know independent coffee shops pour the best brews.

Now, a new survey has revealed Britain's top spots for your morning fix - spanning from the top of Scotland to the bottom of England.

Of the 44 winning establishments, 13 of these cafes are located in London.

From 10 filter coffees at Marylebone's Special Guests to iced lattes at Hammersmith's Carbon Kopi that will set you back a cool 4.65, these are not your average cups of joe.

After London, Manchester and Bristol were the most represented on the list, with four coffee shops each on the list, but the list isn't just made up of metropolitan hubs.

Portree, the capital of the Isle of Skye, and Falmouth, on the southern tip of Cornwall, also feature on this exhaustive list compiled by The Best Coffee Shops UK.

Each entry was judged based on criteria like consistency, innovation, customer service and barista experience to create a go-to guide for the country.

All four nations that make up the British Isles feature; England has 30 of the top 44 coffee shops, while Scotland has nine, Wales has three, and Northern Ireland has two.

A new survey has revealed Britain's top spots for your morning fix - spanning from the top of Scotland to the bottom of England. Pictured: A barista at work in Belfast's Cultura

From 10 filter coffees at Marylebone's Special Guests to iced lattes at Hammersmith's Carbon Kopi that will set you back a cool 4.65, these are not your average cups of joe. Pictured: A selection of coffees served at London-based Moonstruck

London is home to 13 of these top spots after The Best Coffee Shops UK gathered data from across the city, as a jury evaluated factors such as quality and community among others.

These jury results were then combined with a public vote and tallied to create a final list, according to TimeOut.

Originally from New Zealand, Carbon Kopi opened in Hammersmith and quickly became a go-to for coffee lovers in the neighbourhood.

Scandi-style Catalyst in Holborn was among The Best Coffee Shops UK's top pics, as was nearby Prufrock Coffee that runs its own barista training centre.

Hackney's Speciality Cafetiere uses a special water titration system to perfect its brews, while Curators combines good coffee with a greater purpose.

It is run by social enterprise Send Coffee that provides coffee training to people with special needs and disabilities.

Unveiling the rankings, The Best Coffee Shops UK said the organisation is committed to honouring 'excellence in the UK's speciality coffee scene' in a statement.

They added: 'Our mission is to celebrate excellence in the UKs speciality coffee scene by spotlighting outstanding coffee shops and sharing their dedication, quality and craft based on the evaluation criteria.'
Influencer Chinnu Papu has died by suicide aged 24.

The Indian content creator was found dead by her neighbors inside an apartment in Adoor, a village in the state of Kerala.

According to local news, Papu's body was taken to a local hospital where doctors pronounced her dead.

Her death has been registered as unnatural, and police have launched an investigation.

Papu had divorced her husband a month before her death and had recently moved to a rented house with her four-year-old son.

Speaking to Onmanorama, her father said she had become 'distressed' following the split but had made a 'conscious effort not to show it outwardly.'

'She would keep everything to herself and rarely shared her problems with us,' he said.

Papu amassed a following of 200,000 fans on Instagram, where she posted videos about her life in a rural village, regularly showing off local ingredients and cuisine.

Indian content creator Chinnu Papu has died by suicide aged 24

The social media star is survived by her four-year-old son, her brothers and her parents

Her last Instagram post was a clip of herself at a local market which she uploaded on February 3.

Devastated fans voiced their condolences in the comments.

'The one who made us happy without showing the sadness inside,' wrote one.

Another said: 'This smiling face is no more. Condolences.'

Papu's dad added that she would often travel on her own to film content for social media and that she would leave her son in his care.

She is survived by her son, an older and younger brother and her parents.

Papu's death comes just days after reports that popular influencer Angel Montoya died aged 30 after attempting a daring stunt during a livestream.

The Colombian content creator was found dead on January 30 - three days after he was recorded jumping off a bridge into the Cauca River for a viral stunt.

Papu's father told local news that she had not long divorced her husband

The social media star had amassed a following with her posts about rural Indian life

In the video, Montoya told viewers 'see you later' in Spanish before leaping.

Once he landed in the water, he attempted to swim in the river, but the current swept him away.

US Weekly reported that Montoya also appeared to have lost some mobility in his arm after making the jump.

Outlets reported that authorities, including the Bugalagrande Volunteer Fire Department and firefighters from neighboring municipalities, quickly responded.

But rescue attempts were difficult because of the river's high water levels after heavy rain in the area.

For help, call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline on 988.
A private group of wealthy Manhattan moms was bitterly divided over one member's latest conundrum: her nanny dressing 'inappropriately'... and her husband taking notice.

The concerned mother turned to peers in the Facebook group for Upper West Side parents looking for advice.

'We (particularly my husband) have a bit of an issue with how she dresses,' she began.

The nanny's crimes included wearing 'thin leggings... with no underpants' and 'tight shirts'.

'My husband mentions that he doesn't want our daughter to dress like that, but I think it also just makes him comfortable to work around her all day (he works from home),' she explained.

The advice was thick, fast and divided.

Dress codes can be tricky to navigate at the best of times... and one childcare worker appears to have made a fashion faux pas with her choice of work attire (stock image)

'She is your employee, you are the employer. Have her wear a uniform and that's it,' another member wrote.

'I'm a grown woman in my late 40s, I'd be so embarrassed if a client had to tell me I look inappropriate,' another woman, who said she was a massage therapist, shared.

'It's a job, dress professionally,' blasted another, in part.

Some even suggested giving the nanny a uniform, like nurse's scrubs, or a budget to buy more conservative clothes.

According to Nanny Magazine, there are some guidelines to follow when dressing for the job.

The publication suggests staying away from high heels, low-cut tops, and clothing containing 'messages on the booty.'

'While it's important to take pride in our appearance and look professional while working, it's crucial that we remain comfortable and ready for anything,' the publication said.
A home cook has shared the recipe for a 'tiramisu drawer' - but her twist on the classic Italian dessert instantly had thousands up in arms.

Juliette Moreno - who regularly shares her unique food creations on her social media - posted a 14-second video explaining how her version of the dessert is made.

'Let's restock my refrigerator tiramisu drawer,' she announced at the start, smiling as she held up the storage unit from her fridge.

'I restock this every week because I can't go a day without tiramisu.'

Demonstrating her creation, Juliette started by taking an empty fridge drawer - like the kind you'd use to store fruit and veg - and placing it on the kitchen bench.

Next, she soaked traditional tiramisu sponge biscuits - known as Ladyfingers - in coffee, just as a tiramisu recipe typically requires. But instead of layering them into a dish or even a container, she placed them directly into the fridge drawer.

'Just add layers of Ladyfingers, whipped cream and top with cocoa powder,' she cheerily continued, adding biscuit and cream until the entire drawer was filled.

She then opened the sliding fridge drawer to reveal the finished dessert. Also visible inside the refrigerator were a shelf of salad leaves above the tiramisu drawer and another below filled with raw chicken and other meats.

'If you're craving something sweet, it's so fun to just take a scoop. I think everyone needs this in their fridge,' she concluded in the post shared to her @itsmeju1iette account.

Home cook Juliette Moreno shared a video of her 'refrigerator tiramisu drawer' creation

The viral video has since been viewed six million times and has seen thousands weigh in - with the vast majority sharing their misgivings about the diabolical creation.

'I love dessert but no one needs a tiramisu drawer,' read one reply.

'Serious or not, it's gross that anyone even thought of this concept,' another said.

A third summed up the main sticking points, replying: 'I don't know what to get angry at the most, the fact it's in a drawer, that she's using whipped cream or the way she says tiramisu.'

Many viewers were concerned by the hygiene and freshness issues resulting from building the dessert directly into the fridge drawer.

'Today, let's make salmonella,' one joked.

'I love tiramisu but it's not worth the listeria,' agreed another.

'No way this is safe or sanitary,' said one reply.

Juliette's unique recipe shared to her @itsmeju1iette social media accounts showed her soaking classic Tiramisu Ladyfinger biscuits in a coffee brew... and then layering them directly into the empty fridge drawer

Juliette's unusual take on tiramisu attracted a litany of criticism - with the main ones concentred with the hygiene and contamination issues the drawer posed

Other hygiene-conscious viewers observed that the drawer had no lining and wasn't sealed or airtight.

Some wondered why she didn't simply use a baking dish or large container, which would be just as effective.

'Girl, invest in Tupperware,' urged one person.

Commenters were also aghast at the dessert living openly in the fridge without any enclosure, worrying about the potential for cross-contamination.

'That would absorb every odour in the fridge,' one pointed out, while another added that the dessert 'would taste like everything else you have in your fridge.'

'Wait until raw chicken drips into that drawer,' warned another comment.

Some speculated that cleaning fridge drawers isn't easy at the best of times, let alone when they're filled with a creamy dessert.

'The thought of cleaning that drawer is giving me anxiety,' read one reply.

The unusual tiramisu ridge drawer even caught the attention of Aussie TV chef Colin Fassnidge

The bizarre idea of using a chilled drawer - instead of a regular container or dish - also sparked loads of humorous responses - including one from Australia's very own TV chef, Colin Fassnidge.

'I use mine for soup,' the MKR judge jokingly replied, with his comment quickly attracting hundreds of likes and "crying-laughing" emojis.

Some responses quipped about other unlikely vessels that could be used to house tiramisu.

'I use my glove compartment. If we're running late, the kids literally have breakfast out of it,' joked one person.

'I don't have a fridge, will this work in a bathtub?' queried another.

'Emptied my fish tank and used that,' chimed in a third.

Many people were simply stunned at the sheer quantity of tiramisu in the drawer - along with Juliette's claim to eat it 'every week'.

'Are you actually eating all that?' asked one person.

Colin, pictured with fellow My Kitchen Rules judge Manu Feildel, jokingly replied to the viral video, saying that he preferred to fill his fridge drawer with 'soup'

Another replied: 'Oh my word I'd be as big as a refrigerator if I did that.'

Meanwhile, many say the funny side to the video.

'The real crime here is using whipped cream instead of mascarpone,' one joked.

'Mascarpone has left the chat,' joked another.

Purists were flabbergasted by the whole spectacle.

'I told my Italian husband I might try this. The word "divorce" came up a few times,' read one reply.

'I'm too European for this,' offered another.

'I AIN'T EVEN ITALIAN AND I'M OFFENDED,' shouted a third.

However, some appeared to be on board with Juliette's fridge dessert.

'This is genius,' one said.

'I'd bring the whole drawer into my bedroom with a massive serving spoon,' confessed another.

Juliette regularly shares pictures of her highly unique food creations to her social media channels

'This should be a staple drawer in every fridge!' laughed one reply, before adding, 'But thank God it's not!'

Others even felt inspired to create their own refrigerator dessert drawers.

'Now you got me wanting an ice cream drawer in my freezer to go with it,' said one person.

'Thinking about a banana pudding drawer,' added another.

Ultimately though, most agreed this was probably not Juliette's finest food creation.

'This is why you can't eat at anyone's house,' declared one person.

Another concluded: 'Never having tiramisu again after seeing this.'
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Following on from the success of its other Steam Genie products, Russell Hobbs has created the VacuSteam. A two in one steamer and handheld iron that also utilises suction for effective crease reduction on blouses, jeans, jumpers and more.

It has a small water tank, three heat and steam settings and a silky smooth sole plate all of which aims to give you an easy steaming experience.

Rather than replacing your iron, its designed to de-crease clothes that have light wrinkles or for garments that need a little refresh after being in the cupboard too long.

I use a traditional handheld steamer every week on my work clothes, so I was interested to see how this stacked up against my budget model. After testing the VacuSteam for a few weeks, Ive been impressed with how well it removes creases from clothing.

Louise also tested the Steam Genie to see how it would suit her busy lifestyle. Previously, she used an iron to decrease her clothes and dedicated one evening a week to ironing in bulk. Russell Hobbs' handheld steamer proved a 'game-changer' for decreasing anything from jeans to dresses on the go.

However, Louise and I both agree it does come with a few downsides, which means it not suitable for everyone.

The VacuSteam is two in one steamer and handheld iron that also utilises suction

Below youll find my full verdict, as well as what I liked and didnt like about the Steam Genie VacuSteam.

Russell Hobbs Steam Genie VacuSteam      Product Specs Tank capacity 200ml What we love Features Three settings, can be used with or without vacuum

Results Wrinkle-free clothes in one or two passes What could be better Weight Can be tiring to use for prolonged periods of time

Verdict

Russell Hobbs VacuSteam is, at its core, a well thought-out handheld steamer that offers dependable results on most everyday clothing items.

The suction feature does genuinely help with crease removal and I was able to get the creases out of most of my work clothes with relative ease because of this.

However, the noise levels from the suction settings might put some people off - I personally wasnt a fan as it meant I couldnt listen to music while doing my steaming.

Its also quick to heat up and easy to use, though it is not a replacement for ironing and the small 200ml water tank limits how long you can steam in one session.

On top of this, I personally found it difficult to hold for long periods of time.

If youre someone with weak wrists or suffer from fatigue, you might find this cumbersome compared to some other handheld steamers.

This also makes it not suitable for travel. While not huge in size, the Steam Genie is heavy.

Its best suited to people who want a fast, low-effort way to remove creases without setting up an ironing board - just don't expect miracles.

And if you're wanting a fuss-free steamer you can take away, you might want to look into the best travel steamers that are generally smaller and lighter.

How we test

When testing home products like handheld steamers, we're looking at two key areas - performance and useability.

While we don't hold garment steamers to the same standard as irons, we still expect them to live up to their claims. For the Vacusteam, this meant testing in multiple different fabrics over a number of weeks.

We used this instead of an iron on work clothes, occasion dresses and everyday items like t-shirts. Some of the garments were lightly creased, other more heavily so. This allowed us to get a full picture of just how effective the Steam Genie was across of three of its settings. We also took note of how long the water tank laster across these items, as it's quite small.

Some of the items we tested were lightly creased, other more heavily so

Alongside these performance tests, we also took note of how easy it was to use, how it felt in the hand and how comfortable it was to use over a prolonged period of time. Value for money and general design was also considered while writing the review.

Design and features

As is suggested in the name, the Steam Genie VacuSteam takes a slightly different approach to most classic steamer models. Alongside steam, it uses vacuum-like suction to pull fabric towards its heated ceramic plate. The idea is that this helps to keep the material taut while steaming, so the creases are easier to remove - it also means you dont end up ironing creases back into your clothes. Its quick to heat up too, the website states around 25 seconds and I found this to be fairly accurate.

The VacuSteam suction sole plate is a game changer but the water tank is a little small

For the most part, it feels solid and well put together but it is much heavier than basic steamers due to the addition of the suction system. The water tank holds 200ml and clips on and off for refilling, however unlike my cheaper model, it doesnt come with a cup or funnel accessory, which really helps to direct the water into the small opening. This means refilling can be a bit fiddly if you dont have your own cup to hand.

Three settings help you tackle a range of fabrics

There are three steam settings - steam only, low steam with suction and high steam with suction. I personally found the high steam and suction worked best but I also didnt like how noisy it was in use - I couldnt listen to music or a podcast while using it and I certainly wouldnt want to use it while people were asleep. Id suggest sticking to steam only if this is also a concern for you. A brush attachment is also included for thicker fabrics.

Performance

In use, the VacuSteam does a good job on everyday creases. The suction makes a noticeable difference compared with steam-only models, especially on shirts, T-shirts and light fabrics. Fabric stays flatter against the plate, which means fewer passes over the same area but this can be a hindrance rather than a help if youre trying to steam items with pleats - I have lots of dresses like this and the suction was occasionally more hassle than help.

Crease reduction is very good on some fabrics but some require more than one pass

Steam output is strong enough for cotton, denim and some heavier fabrics, though it still does not replace a traditional iron for heavily creased items, in these instances its still quicker to get the ironing board out. On delicate fabrics, the lower setting works well without the suction.

One downside is steam runtime. A full tank of water gives you enough steam for about five or six minutes, which is fine for a couple of outfits but not ideal if you are steaming a full wardrobe in one go

Value for money

At 89.99 full price, the VacuSteam sits in a price bracket above basic handheld steamers, many of which, like the Beldray Fold Away steamer cost under 40. What you are paying for here is the suction feature and faster crease removal.

Cheaper steamers will still remove wrinkles but usually require more time and repeated passes. Compared to premium steamers from brands like Philips, the VacuSteam is competitively priced while offering something slightly different.

If you only steam clothes occasionally, a budget model may be enough. If you rely on a steamer for light jobs several times a week, this model is more justified.

At full price, the VacuSteam is an investment but it might be worth it for some.

How does it rate online?

Overall, the Russell Hobbs Steam Genie VacuSteam scores well where it is sold in the UK. On Robert Dyas it has around 4.7 out of 5 from about 46 reviews, with many buyers saying it removes creases easily, heats up fast and feels well made.

Positive comments mention how simple it is to use and how good the results are on shirts and everyday clothes.

On Argos the overall rating is also around 4.7 out of 5 from customer reviews, suggesting most people are happy with its performance.

A few customers on Argos and other review sites give middling scores and say the VacuSteam simply didnt make much difference for them. Meanwhile, a few people who bought the product mention that it can be quite noisy in use and heavier or bulkier than they expected for a handheld steamer

How does it compare to similar products

Compared with most handheld steamers, the Steam Genie VacuSteam sits at the higher end of the price scale. Many basic models, such as the Beldray Fold Away steamer and the Tower Vertical handheld steamer cost between 20 and 40 and are perfectly fine for light crease removal. They are usually lighter but slow to heat and rely on steam alone and often need several passes on thicker fabrics.

Mid-range options such as the Philips 3000 Series, typically priced around 40 to 60, offer good steam output and fast heat-up times. These are easier to handle than the VacuSteam and better suited to travel or quick touch ups but they don't have suction or a heated press plate.

Russell Hobbs Steam Genie VacuSteam

FAQs

Do handheld clothes steamers actually work?

Yes, they do. Handheld steamers release hot steam into fabric, which loosens the fibres and helps wrinkles drop out.

They are particularly effective for everyday creases in items like shirts, dresses and T-shirts, especially when used on clothes hanging up. While they are quick and convenient, they don't give you the pressed finish you get from a traditional iron.

Does a handheld steamer clean your clothes?

A handheld steamer does not clean clothes in the same way washing them does - it will not remove dirt or stains. What it can do is freshen fabrics by reducing odours and helping to kill some surface bacteria using heat. This makes steamers useful for items that have been hanging up a long time or things are not ready for the wash yet, such as jackets, knitwear or curtains.

Is the Russell Hobbs Steam Genie good?

For most people, yes. The Russell Hobbs Steam Genie range, including the original 2in1 Steam Genie, is generally well regarded by users for being quick to heat up and easy to use. The VacuSteam model adds suction, which helps keep fabric flat and can make crease removal easier than with basic steamers. It's best suited to everyday clothes rather than heavy pressing though and like most handheld steamers, is not a full replacement for an iron.
NBC is facing an internal dilemma over whether to turn the kidnapping of Savannah Guthrie's elderly mother into what insiders believe could be the network's highest-rated Dateline episode, the Daily Mail can reveal.

Multiple sources told the Daily Mail that network executives are 'uncomfortable' with discussions about covering the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, 84, due to the optics of NBC taking advantage of one of their stars' tragic ordeal.

'Let's be honest  Dateline wants a hit, and everyone knows this could be the highest-rated episode they've ever had,' one insider said.

'There's no pretending otherwise. This story would pull massive numbers.'

Writing in his Substack, Rob Shuter explained that the broadcasting giant doesn't want to be seen to be 'profiting off' Savannah's pain.

Today show co-host Savannah, 54, has been absent from the air since her mother was snatched from her bed over a week ago.

Savannah was flanked by former fighter pilot brother Camron, 61, and poet sister Annie, 56, during an emotional video plea to her mother's captors.

Network bosses have privately acknowledged that the mystery surrounding Nancy's disappearance, and the bungling police probe into her kidnapping, could make for 'historic television,' according to sources.

Nancy, seen here with daughter Savannah, was abducted from her home in the early hours of February 1

'That's what makes it so uncomfortable,' a senior source explained. 'The ratings upside is undeniable.'

'Savannah Guthrie isn't just talent  she's effectively the boss at NBC. No one wants to upset her. No one.'

'Every conversation circles back to the same thing,' another insider added. 'What does Savannah want?'

The conversations have been ongoing since the investigation into Nancy's disappearance ramped up, with the FBI now involved.

But top bosses are battling with the idea that more coverage might help cops and Savannah's family to 'find answers'.

'People are walking on eggshells,' a production insider told the Daily Mail. 'Careers could be made or broken based on how this is handled.'

'There's a feeling that if Savannah even hints she's okay with it, the green light comes fast,' one source reveals.

'But if she's not comfortable, it's dead  no matter how big the ratings could be,' another insider said.

Nancy was last seen by her daughter Annie Guthrie and her son-in-law Tommaso Cioni, Annie's husband, on Saturday night

An aerial view shows media stationed outside the home of Nancy's home in Tucson, Arizona, as authorities continue to investigate

'This is the rare story where journalistic muscle, human tragedy, and massive ratings all collide. That's dangerous territory.'

'Everyone knows this could be historic television,' a final source said. 'But no one wants to be the executive who betrays Savannah's trust.'

Shuter also claimed that there have been discussions surrounding how an episode would look  with a ban on flashy promos, dramatic music and sensational teases.

NBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment by the Daily Mail, but they have publicly backed Savannah as she steps away from her duties to focus on her family, reflecting the widespread solidarity shown by her peers during the crisis.

Savannah's colleagues were among the first to lead an outpouring of support, as police in Tucson, Arizona, doggedly search for proof that her mother is still alive.

But just weeks ago, NBC insiders had been singing a very different tune, as ratings rose without Savannah on screen as she recovered from vocal surgery.

Her colleagues at the time said that Savannah was 'trying to laugh off' the ratings rise, but was really 'in full panic mode'.

Now, however, any private griping at her expense has been put aside, with all Today staff uniting behind her since the news of Nancy's kidnapping broke.

NBC is facing an internal dilemma over whether to turn the kidnapping of Savannah Guthrie's elderly mother into what insiders believe could be the network's highest-rated Dateline episode. Lester Holt (pictured) has been the full-time host at NBC's Dateline since last year

Savannah was flanked by former fighter pilot brother Camron, 61, and poet sister Annie, 56, during an emotional video plea to her mother's captors

Investigators believe that Nancy could still be alive and are treating the case as an abduction, with the family seemingly agreeing to pay a multi-million Bitcoin ransom by a deadline of 5pm on Monday.

Fox News have reported that the ransom could be as much as $6 million, but investigators have not confirmed that figure.

A series of alleged ransom notes were sent to the Guthrie family via multiple media outlets.

Savannah has used her Instagram account (with its 1.6 million followers) to post a series of videos directly addressing her mother's captors.

On Wednesday, she pleaded for proof of life. On Saturday, she shared an update, simply saying: 'We received your message and we understand.

'We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her. We will pay... this is very valuable to us.'

Investigators are still working to determine the veracity of the ransom notes, but they are being treated as real in the meantime.

Nancy was reported missing by family last Sunday at noon after she had failed to attend church.

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Police found blood, now confirmed to be hers, spattered on her front porch, with her daily essentials - phone, wallet and medications - all still inside.

She was last seen by her daughter Annie Guthrie and her son-in-law Tommaso Cioni, Annie's husband.

On Saturday night, Nancy had dinner at their nearby home and was driven back by family shortly before 10pm.

At 2.28am on Sunday, her pacemaker disconnected from her phone.

Ever since, there seems to have been very little in the way of substantial search developments.

Cops even initially turned the crime scene back to family, before returning hours later to put police tape back up.

Originally cops had said her son-in-law Tommaso, 50, had driven her home, but are now just saying it was a family member.

No suspect has been identified, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos reiterated at a press conference, while police insist there is no danger to the wider public.

Investigators have not ruled out that Nancy may have been targeted precisely because she is the mother of the famous Today show host.
For Jaquilina Landim it seemed harmless to start using buy now, pay later to purchase her childrens clothes and presents.

The 33-year-old from Ipswich says she was continually offered the option of paying this way, using companies such as Klarna, while shopping online and in person, so it felt like a natural option.

Unlike applying for a credit card or loan, buy now, pay later (BNPL) allows you to stagger payments for individual purchases, usually over three or four instalments, with just the click of a button at checkout.

There are usually no interest or charges unless you fail to pay back on time, in which case fees are often imposed. These can be up to 10 for a Klarna purchase and 24 for other providers, so can quickly mount up for regular users of multiple BNPL services.

Many of the largest clothing shops and online retailers, such as John Lewis, Boots, Shein, H&M and Next offer the payment option.

Jaquilina says: Its very in your face and seemed to be everywhere when you physically go to a shop and online at the payment page.

Even if youre not shopping, but youre scrolling on your phone, the adverts are everywhere. And it seemed a great idea because when you come to pay, you think, oh, Ill deal with that another day.

But problems soon started when Jaquilina became increasingly reliant on these short term shopping loans as she juggled expenses for her young family.

With multiple repayments due on various purchases, money was constantly leaving her bank account, and she couldnt keep track of where her income was going.

Jaquilina Landim from Ipswich was continually offered the option of using buy now, pay later to make purchases

Money Wellness has seen a 300 per cent increase in people with 'BNPL' debts asking for advice in the past three years.

She soon struggled to budget month to month, leading to her falling behind with council tax and energy bills. The burden was worsened by late-payment fees on these loans, which compounded the debt.

She says: I became very stressed and anxious. The amounts owed increased so fast even after I had already made several payments.

Because she was in so much debt she felt she couldnt afford to stop using BNPL to stay afloat.

Instead, she tried to reduce her usage gradually. However, this delay meant fees continued to accumulate.

I felt ashamed and found it hard to talk about, she says.

At her most vulnerable time, when she was between jobs soon after having her second child two years ago, Jaquilina owed 4,000 across numerous BNPL services and other bills. The strain became so severe that she found it difficult to cover essential living costs like the weekly food shop for her family.

Sadly, she is far from alone.

With UK consumers spending a whopping 30billion through BNPL last year, many inevitably end up falling behind and facing consequences.

One in four have reported missing payments, some of whom will have ended up being pursued by debt collectors.

Money Wellness, which helps people to manage their finances, warns there has been a 300 per cent increase in people with BNPL debts contacting it for advice in the past three years.

October to December 2025 was a record quarter for people seeking help, the organisation says.

And its experts anticipate this quarter will be even busier, with a further uptick driven by debts from Christmas spending starting to bite. Almost a third of those seeking help are aged between 26 and 35.

Buy now, pay later deals are increasingly being offered in-store as well as online

Money Wellness director of external relations, Sebrina McCullough, says the major problem is how BNPL is now being marketed and used.

When it started in the UK, BNPL was designed to help people manage large, unexpected expenses  such as spreading the cost of a broken washing machine.

In its first few years the average balance on BNPL accounts was 900, she says.

That has now dropped to 90 as consumers use it for small everyday purchases, including takeaways and parking at places such as Legoland Windsor and even parking fines.

So if you want to order a Chinese or a pizza, you can now pay for it in three instalments, says McCullough.

It means some people who come to us have over 100 different buy now, pay later transactions, and each one of them has a different payment date and a different payment amount.

So its hard to know if you can afford all those payments and immensely complicated just trying to remember which days things are going out, especially with different providers.

With so many payments coming out its very hard to keep track and budget, increasing the risk of late payment charges and plunging into a spiral of debt.

With multiple charges on purchases of just 30, the amount owed can add up very quickly, she adds.

Some providers, such as Klarna, are introducing measures to help customers see when the transactions are due.

But it doesnt take away from the fact that, for some customers, the sheer volume of payments going out mean they really struggle to check them all and make sure that they have the money in the bank to cover them, says McCullough.

Another problem is how easily available it is, which means many of those who come to them for help dont consider BNPL as real debt.

When they ask Money Wellness to help figure out what they owe, they mention credit cards or loans but only acknowledge BNPL when prompted, despite often having loads of them, she says.

People dont often recognise what theyre getting into when they use it is a credit agreement and the consequences that they could face if that goes wrong, she adds.

This problem is exaggerated by BNPL options being so easily available at online checkouts, so people opt for it rather than paying in full on their debit card.

Rebecca Bolton from Halifax began using buy now, pay later while dealing with the costs of a new child

Sebastian Siemiatkowski, who co-founded the company in 2005, with his wife Nina. He is valued by Forbes at $3.2billion (2.3billion)

Because repayments are spread over several instalments, consumers worry less about the total value of the products and only think about how much it is going to cost them in the first month, she says. As a result, they often end up spending more than they normally would.

Another person who struggled was mother of two Rebecca Bolton, 30, from Halifax. Rebecca began using buy now pay later while dealing with the costs of a new child in 2021.

The money went on Christmas and birthday presents and clothes for her five-year-old daughter.

I found it easier, she says. You buy now and worry about it later.

Rebecca has foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, a condition that affects her memory and concentration. She also has dyslexia.

She said it meant she never looked at the terms and conditions before using BNPL and payment dates and reminders were often missed, driving her into debt.

As the problems mounted, she began using BNPL even more to free up cash so she could pay off older debts.

The situation worsened after the birth of her second child, a son, three years ago, which put more pressure on her finances.

Things further deteriorated after the death of her grandfather, who had always been her financial lifeline and helped her cope in tough times.

Thats when it got very bad, because I knew I had no one to help me, she says.

The number of BNPL charges going out of her account meant she also struggled to pay council tax and other bills, and by last year she owed 7,000 to 20 separate creditors.

She started receiving messages from bailiffs warning about overdue payments.

It was very scary, especially having the children, she says.

By late summer last year, with council tax enforcement escalating, she went to Money Wellness which managed to get her a Debt Relief Order (DRO) that protected her from enforcement action.

Amid all the concerns about the rapid growth of this new loans industry, some changes are coming.

Until now, BNPL has largely operated outside consumer credit regulation. This means there has been no formal protection for customers against aggressive lending tactics. But from mid-July, its lenders will be overseen for the first time by the Financial Conduct Authority.

It means BNPL lenders will have to run stricter affordability checks and provide access to the Financial Ombudsman if there are complaints.

Meanwhile the industry continues to thrive.

Klarna celebrated hitting 11 million active customers in the UK last year where it is now used by 60,000 retailers.

Raji Behal, Klarna's head of southern and western Europe, UK & Ireland, described it as a huge moment for the company.

Weve gone from challenger to champion  and were just getting started, he said in a release at the time.

Its no idle boast. Globally, Klarna has 93million regular users and more than 675,000 merchants and continues to grow at a huge pace.

For its part, Klarna stresses spreading a purchase over three interest-free months is far safer than putting it on a credit card at 60 per cent APR.

A spokesman says: Klarna is built to prevent debt traps. We assess every purchase individually and cut off access if payments are missed.

Thats why serious debt problems are far more common with credit cards. If people mostly spent money they already have, used BNPL occasionally, and relied less on credit cards, wed see far fewer cases of debt.

However, consumer expert James Daley of Fairer Finance, warns that you may be better off using a credit card to take on debt in some instances. He says: Its all about time. If you really have a plan to pay within three months then buy now pay later is very convenient.

But if you are going to need longer to borrow, or to borrow a bit more, it would make more sense to get a zero per cent credit card which can last for up to a couple of years.

Not everyone can get one, but if you have a reasonable credit rating you should be able to.

He adds that most credit cards are also nowhere near 60 pc APR, with the average around 24 pc.

So for a small payment on buy now pay later, missed payment fees could make it work out more expensive than a credit card.

But you also need to remember that its normally a 12 charge for a missed payment on a credit card.

A spokesman for Klarna stresses its profits came from a cut of revenue from the retailer for each purchase made through Klarna and that while it did charge small and capped late fees there was no interest so it did not benefit if customers fell into debt. He also says takeaways made up a very small amount of spending on Klarna and it had not seen a trend towards smaller-value transactions.

Either way, its all very good news for Swedish entrepreneur Sebastian Siemiatkowski, who co-founded the company in 2005. He is valued by Forbes at $3.2billion (2.3billion).

Klarna went public on the New York Stock Exchange in September 2025 at a $15billion (11billion) valuation. Siemiatkowski owns a 7 per cent stake, now worth $537million.

In 2001 the Stockholm School of Economics graduate and his wife Nina showed the Wall Street Journal around their home in the Swedish capital, which was described as a kind of fairy-tale castle with an octagonal turret jutting up on the side.

Mrs Siemiatkowski told the paper that the home, which has marble clad bathrooms, a grand piano and extensive artworks, is her dream house and she had coveted it since passing it as a child.

Meanwhile, back in Ipswich, Jaquilina, who is currently working part time as a cleaner, is now starting to turn things around after receiving help from Money Wellness to help her budget and get a debt management plan.

The organisation also helped direct her to grants and council tax support for the other bills she had fallen behind on after spiralling into debt.

These days I keep a proper book full of the dates when Im paid and when I owe, she says. And after my experience, Ill never use buy now, pay later again.

Rebecca has a similar message.

She has deleted her BNPL accounts and says she will never use them again.

I feel like youre in a fog with them, she says. Id never go back because Id probably just end up in the same situation again. And Id advise anyone reading this not to start at all.

Have you successfully managed to clear a BNPL debt? moneymail@dailymail.co.uk
In the summer of 2025, Erin Niimi Longhurst and her husband, Thomas Durrands were navigating the joys and challenges of their first trip abroad with a small child.

Erin, 34, and Thomas, 35, had taken their then five-month-old son Haruki on a trip from home in east London all the way to Japan.

Making the most of their shared parental leave, the couple wanted to visit Erin's mother, and allow the extended family to meet their little boy for the first time.

'We stayed there for a month to introduce our son to my Japanese relatives, but also to take advantage of some extra childcare support through my mum who was excited to help out with grandmother duties,' Erin, a half-British, half-Japanese writer, said.

The trip went by without a hitch - until on 30 July, the day they were due to fly home, a major earthquake struck in Kamchatka, Russia.

This led to a tsunami warning in Japan, throwing the family's journey into disarray.

First holiday: Erin and Thomas took their five-month-old son to visit family in Japan

'What had been a lovely trip was marred due to the fact that, on the day of our return flight, there was a large earthquake in Russia, resulting in a tsunami warning which grounded all public transportation in Japan as a precaution,' said Erin.

'The tsunami warning was quite frightening when it happened as we were staying in the coastal town where my grandmother lives.'

Roads were closed, trains cancelled, and the family was therefore unable to make their originally planned return flight, due to the fact they were not able to get to the airport.

This led to them paying for another return flight the next day, once travel had re-opened, so that Thomas, who works as an anaesthetist in the NHS, could get home in time for work. The cost for the three last-minute tickets was 2,500.

'We had to book a flight for the next morning as soon as possible so Tom could get back to working at the hospital without disruption,' Erin said.

'Many others were in our situation so we had to scramble to book our flights after the Japanese Government gave the all-clear for trains and roads to be opened up again.'

The airline couldn't place them on another flight free of charge in that time, as so many passengers were waiting for new flights.

Thankfully they had taken out travel insurance to cover them in such an eventuality.

They had an annual multi-trip policy which they had booked with the website Multitrip.com, underwritten by the insurer Zurich and costing 119 for the year to cover the whole family.

When they returned home, and recovered from the stressful journey, they made a claim under the 'missed departure' part of the policy.

The family were stunned to have their insurance claim turned down after a tsunami cancelled their travel plans

They even included Japanese newspaper articles from the time, to prove that all transport was grounded and they couldn't get to the airport for their flight.

So they were stunned to have their claim turned down.

The reason? Their initial journey home included a connection via Bangkok, Thailand, rather than going direct to London.

In the small print of their insurance policy, it said they would be covered for a missed flight if 'you fail to arrive at the international departure point in time to board the public transport on which you are booked to travel on the final part of your return journey to the United Kingdom.'

The loophole, it seemed, was that because they had a connecting flight, the leg from Japan to Bangkok was not the 'final part' of the journey.

When Erin queried this, an email from Zurich's loss adjuster Gallagher confirmed that they weren't covered because the flight 'wasn't directly to the UK.'

Most people would reasonably expect that their full journey home would be covered, if they had an insurance policy that covered missed departures.

Erin tried to get some clarity from Multitrip and Zurich about why this wasn't made clearer when she took out the policy, but said she found herself 'struggling to speak to a human being.'

'We found it really confusing,' she said. 'Surely this policy should make it clearer that connecting flights aren't covered - we would of course have booked a different flight or chosen a different insurance policy if we had known.'

Should connecting flights be covered?

Since 2023, insurers have been subject to new standards brought in by the Financial Conduct Authority, which are known as the Consumer Duty.

The small-print 'final leg' clause that caught out Erin and her family is the sort of thing these rules were intended to nip in the bud.

The 'consumer understanding' section of the consumer duty rules reads: 'Consumers can only be expected to take responsibility for their financial decisions where firms' communications enable them to understand their products and services, their features and risks, and the implications of any decisions.'

With millions of holidaymakers travelling on connecting flights every year, whether or not an insurance policy covers the full journey should be stated upfront.

Had Erin's family been clearly informed that the second leg of their journey might not be covered, they would never have taken out the policy.

This is Money approached Zurich to ask whether it was right that the family had their insurance claim denied, and if so, whether its communication of this 'final leg' clause should have been more transparent.

It told us that Erin's claim should have been paid out, but that it was 'not correctly processed'.

A spokesman said: 'Having reviewed the claim for Thomas Durrands and Erin Niimi Longhurst, we recognise it should have been paid and are sorry it was not correctly processed.

'We are now resolving this by settling the claim in line with the policy limits, offering additional compensation for the inconvenience caused, and adding interest from the date the claim should have been paid.

'We apologise for the experience the family had and are taking steps to help ensure this does not happen again.'

Zurich paid the family compensation of 200 to reflect the inconvenience caused, and added 8 per cent simple interest to the settlement from the date the claim should have been paid.

Their insurance policy had a claim limit of 500 per person for missed departures, and an excess of 145 per person. In total, including interest and compensation, they will receive around 1,300.

Zurich's response suggested that the information the family was given about not being eligible due to their connecting flight was not correct.

This is Money therefore asked Zurich whether the claim was initially rejected because of the connecting flight.

Its only response was that the claim should have been subject to an 'escalation process', but that this did not happen. It added that it had taken steps to ensure this did not happen again.

This still leaves other families in the dark over whether they will be covered by insurance if they book a connecting flight.

Therefore, it is advisable to check the wording of your policy ahead of any trips. If it is unclear, as in Erin and her family's case, check with the insurer before you travel.
Moving house can be a ruinously expensive business.

My own transition from being a renter, a status I've sometimes enjoyed but often endured since I left home for university in 1996, to a London homeowner this year at the grand old age of 47 was no exception.

So, as the costs of a mortgage deposit, movers and stamp duty piled up, I was very much looking forward to handing back the keys to my rented flat in Stockwell, south London to the letting agents Foxtons.

But it didn't go as smoothly as that. Last week I was sent an automated message by Foxtons, the agent that managed the flat on my landlord's behalf.

It demanded payment of 200 for what was referred to as 'check out' charges.

Rob Crossan was surprised to receive an email asking him to pay a 200 fee when he moved out of his rented flat in South London

The thing is, such charges are unlawful, and have been for the last six years, since the Tenant Fees Act of 2019 was implemented.

It applies to any AST (assured shorthold tenancy - what the vast majority of Britain's private renters live under) that started after 1 June 2020.

What the act decrees is that almost all admin fees, whether they be for referencing checks, 'check in' or 'check out' fees or inventory charges are illegal.

I looked deeper into the law before responding to the letting agent giant. In simple terms, unless a fee appears in the list of permitted payments in Schedule 1 of the Act, then it is prohibited.

Charges that are allowed include things like the rent payment itself, a holding deposit or a capped security deposit.

So why did Foxtons send me an automated demand for payment via email and text, appearing to be for a fee that has been illegal for almost six years?

I sent a polite but firm email back to Foxtons, explaining the law and stating I would not be paying this 200 charge.

Within a couple of hours I received another automated email telling me that my charge had been removed.

It didn't seem as if this was down to a rogue employee of Foxtons making a mistake.

The email was entirely automated, which made me wonder if I'm not the only person who is still being issued with these unlawful demands when moving into, or moving out of a rented flat.

And given that the Tenant Fees Act has been in place for almost six years, it's hardly as if it can be called a brand new requirement, causing Foxtons to issue my charge by mistake while it updated its system to reflect the new rules.

Dan Wilson Craw, deputy chief executive of Generation Rent, said: 'It is very concerning that an apparently automated system could have generated a request for an illegal fee for Rob, and we hope Trading Standards will look into this.'

I spoke to a Foxtons spokesperson who referred me to the lettings department.

They sent me a statement by email which read: 'Following our review, we found that a payment link for the check-out charge - which had been requested by your landlord and which should have been sent to him - was mistakenly sent to you in error.

Mistake? Foxtons suggested 'human error' was to blame for the automated demand for money

'As soon as this was identified, the link was cancelled and reissued correctly to the landlord.'

But the 'identification' of the error wasn't made by Foxtons, it was made by me. I had to tell the letting agent that the fee was illegal before the charge was removed.

The question also remains as to why a charge, apparently intended for my landlord, was addressed to me personally and sent to my mobile phone and email address.

The press officer I spoke to suggested 'human error' was to blame for this entirely automated demand for money.

Do you think you have been charged illegal letting agent fees since June 2020? Read on for more information, and how to get your money back.

For me, I'm just grateful that I knew the law. It saved me 200 which, frankly, I'd rather spend on new curtains for my home, than put in the hands of Foxtons.

Tenant fees: What is the law? For any tenancy that started on or after 1 June 2020, almost all admin-type fees were made illegal and can't be charged to tenants. These include: Administration fees

Referencing/credit checks

Inventory fees (check-in/check-out)

Contract/tenancy drawing-up fees

Renewal or extension fees

Fees for compulsory professional cleaning The only landlord and agent charges that can still legally be required from a tenant, beyond the usual rent and deposits, are those that are either listed as permitted payments in the Act or that fall under the 'tenant default' category. These include: A capped holding deposit (up to one week's rent)

Default charges (e.g. replacement keys or late payment interest)

Charges for a tenant's request to vary, assign or surrender a tenancy

Early termination (surrender) costs where the tenant requests to end the tenancy early. If you are simply triggering a release clause in your contract then you cannot be charged extra. Importantly, a letting agent cannot simply call something an 'admin fee' or 're-letting cost' to get around the ban. It must genuinely fall within the narrowly defined permitted categories in the Act. Even if you decide to terminate your contract early, without a release clause, you still have some protection under the Tenant Fees Act. A June 2024 tribunal ruling insisted that charging 'lost rent' and similar fees to tenants on early exit is also a prohibited payment under the Tenant Fees Act; a clear warning that agents should not try to disguise banned charges as anything else.

What if you don't have an AST contract?

An AST (Assured Shorthold Tenancy) is the default form of residential tenancy in England if all of the following apply:

 The tenant is an individual (not a company)

 The property is the tenant's only or main home

 Rent is under 100,000 per year

 The landlord does not live in the property

While the Tenant Fees Act only applies to those with ASTs, it is possible that charging this type of fee on other types of contract would also be deemed illegal, if the issue ended up in court.

A tribunal in 2021 found that Foxtons had charged three tenants a prohibited fee of 750 as they moved into a property.

The fee was imposed on three tenants after they signed up for what was described as a short-term rental at a flat on Wandsworth Road in south London.

The tribunal found Foxtons was not legally able to impose the charge, stating that just because a tenancy is listed as a 'short term let', the same laws apply as they would on a standard AST.

In essence, calling something a short let does not magically take it outside the law and, in fact, the phrase 'short let' is not even a legal category anymore. It's now a marketing term sometimes used by letting agencies in an effort to get around the Tenant Fees Act.

How do I get my money back?

If Foxtons, or any other letting agency, have charged you a 'reference check' fee, a 'check in' or 'check out' fee or any other admin fee apart from the exceptions described above since 1 June 2020, it could be an unlawful charge.

You should contact your letting agent immediately if you think you have paid, or been issued with, an illegal charge over the last six years.

More information on your rights can be found on the Gov.uk website, and you can also contact Shelter or the Citizens Advice Bureau for further advice.

Alison Farrar, who leads on property and lettings for the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, says tenants should also report any concerns to their local council's Trading Standards team for advice and investigation.

'If your landlord has an agent, you can [also] make a complaint to the redress scheme the agent is a member of,' she adds.

This could be the Property Ombudsman or the Property Redress Scheme, and both have lists of estate agents registered with them on their websites.

'You can also raise a dispute with the company the deposit is lodged with if the landlord attempts to claim a banned fee from the security deposit,' Farrar adds.

Generation Rent's Wilson Craw adds that, as a last resort, tenants can also apply to the First-Tier Tribunal to have the payment returned.

'It is possible to check past decisions the Tribunal has made relating to the Tenant Fees Act to see if your case is likely to succeed,' he adds.

Farrar adds that tenants and their guarantors should keep an eye out for changes coming in on 1 May this year under the Renters Rights Act 2025.

This will stop landlords demanding more than one month rent in advance and stop them initiating bidding wars to secure properties. It will also allow tenants to have pets in rented properties unless there is a good reason to refuse.

Have you been charged an unfair admin charge on a tenancy? Get in touch: editor@thisismoney.co.uk
Chery - China's largest car exporter - is bringing yet another brand to British roads.

Lepas, a three-way portmanteau of 'leopard', 'leap' and 'passion', will arrive in the UK in late summer and introduce a range of 'new energy vehicles' to dealerships when it does.

The Lepas brand was only revealed internationally last summer.

Conceived for the European market, Lepas will be the fourth brand that Chery has launched in under three years, following on from Omoda in 2024 and Jaecoo and Chery in 2025.

Lepas has yet to reveal details about its first model but Autocar reports that it will bring its L4 and L6 crossovers with combustion, plug-in hybrid and battery-electric powertrains.

Lepas, a three-way portmanteau of 'leopard', 'leap' and 'passion', is the latest SUV brand from Chinese car giant Chery to arrive in the UK

The Lepas news comes after Omoda and Jaecoo and Chery sales success last year: The group saw the fastest-ever rise from 0 to 5 per cent market share in Britain, with a combined 5.3 per cent group market share.

Chery sold 53,600 of those cars in 2025 in the UK, with the Chinese newcomer outselling BYD, Tesla and even Mini.

It also outstripped Japanese rivals including Honda and Mazda.

The brand will 'balance efficiency, comfort, and advanced technology'.

Lepas say it will 'blend elegant design with innovation, making every drive both practical and inspiring'.

If you're wondering what Lepas SUVs will look like compared to Chery's other three brands then we point you in the direction of Chery Tiggo cars.

Currently there doesn't look to be much difference between the Chery Tiggo models and Lepas models.

Lepas will launch in late summer, and bring a range of 'new energy vehicles' to market when it does

Lepas models look most like Tiggo SUVs but Chery has shown journalists a new look for Tiggos that will differentiate the two SUV brands.

While Tiggos will become chunkier, Omoda cars will start to look more aggressive.

Lepas already sells cars in markets, such as Malaysia and South Africa, where the Lepas L4, L6 and L8 SUVs are on sale and look almost identical to Chery's 7, 8 and 9 models.

But Lepas has confirmed its making an L1, L2 and L3 SUV which will be more bespoke - these could be the ones coming to the UK.

We're told that Lepas will reveal more information in the coming weeks, including which models will be arriving first, and the brand says it is in the process of a 'phased introduction'.

This includes 'leadership appointments, retailer plans and the brand's ambition to establish itself as a distinctive new presence in the UK market.'
Last December, I received an email from a friend stating he had laryngitis.

He asked for my help purchasing 800 of Airbnb vouchers, which he wanted to give to a friend whose daughter has cancer.

Later the same day, my friend told me his email account had been hacked and that this had been a scam.

I asked my bank HSBC to stop the payment, but it failed to do so and wont reimburse me.

Please help.

L.A., Wirral

Tricked: A reader was tricked out of 800 in a callous Amazon voucher scam after their friend's email was hacked

Sally Hamilton replies: This winter has been a bad season for colds and flu, and it seems there has been a sharp rise in laryngitis cases, too  at least, if emails in my spam folder have anything to go by.

I have received numerous missives from people claiming to have laryngitis with an urgent request for me to contact them.

The scam starts with them accessing their victims email account and messaging their contacts, mimicking their style of writing.

The request is often for digital vouchers, as these can be spent quickly and become almost impossible to trace.

By claiming in the emails that the sender cant talk due to a sore throat, the crooks stop targets from phoning the sender and uncovering the scam.

You said your friend is religious with charitable convictions, meaning that the request was in character.

You purchased 400 of Airbnb vouchers through Amazon, which were sent straight to your friends email address.

You were then asked to buy 400 more as the scammers told you the first amount was not enough to cover the booking.

Amazon blocked this attempted purchase but you didnt want to let your friend down, so bought them using Tesco online instead.

A few hours later your real friend contacted you to say that his email had been hacked and it was all a scam. You rang HSBCs helpline, but it had closed for the day.

The next day you tried its online chat service. The bank told you it could not do anything until your payments, which were pending, were taken.

The call handler said she would keep an eye on the payments and block them. You destroyed the card you used and contacted Amazon, but the vouchers had been spent.

To have a chance of cancelling at this point, Amazon said it needed the voucher numbers, which you never had as they went straight to the scammer.

When you followed up on December 30, HSBC told you that as you had authorised the payments there was nothing it could do.

Let Me Know Have you worked your way to millionaire status? Tell me how you did it, whether its through investing in stocks, putting your money on properties, saving into your pension or even via a clever side-hustle. Email sally@dailymail.co.uk

Livid with this response, you came to me. I felt you had been given false hope by your bank so asked HSBC to reopen your case.

A few days later HSBC told you there are no dispute rights for gift voucher transactions.

Gift cards are treated as cash, which means you could not request a chargeback on your debit card.

HSBC said if it had known at the start the scam involved vouchers, it would not have suggested reimbursement. However, it recognised the poor service you received and offered 200 as an apology.

A spokesman says: We urge customers to stop and think, even if a message or call appears to be from someone you know, as this is a common tactic used by scammers.

Although grateful for my intervention you are taking your case to the Financial Ombudsman. I wish you luck.

Another reader, M.N., from Kent, fell for the same ruse, purchasing 500 of Airbnb vouchers via Amazon. He grew suspicious when asked to buy more.

On examining the emails he noticed the first one came from his friends correct email address, but all subsequent communications showed an address with an s added to the end of the surname.

Airbnb said without the voucher serial numbers, which he didnt have, there was nothing it could do. He asked for my help to retrieve the money from his bank, also HSBC.

Following my intervention, HSBC offered 250 as a goodwill gesture. As a thank you, you kindly donated 25 to the Marfan Trust, a charity I support.

People need to act fast if they wake up to this scam in time. By contacting the retailer swiftly, they might be able to cancel the order if it is being processed. If possible, make a note of the gift card numbers and PIN.

Airbnb says: While suspicious activity is rare, we take all reports seriously and investigate and take action.

Amazon warns: Review email senders before clicking on email attachments. Look for misspellings or added or substituted characters.

Smart meter tripled my energy bills

Utility Warehouse installed a smart meter at my home in September 2025.

I have storage heaters, which were previously on low-cost rates that offer cheaper energy at certain times of the day.

My bills were in the region of 60 a month in winter. They are now 199 a month. UW keeps asking for readings, even though they are sent automatically.

When I complain, I get a letter or email asking me to install a smart meter or to give meter readings.

I asked UW to send somebody round to check the meter and they told me I would have to pay for a visit.

L.K., Isle of Wight

Sally Hamilton replies: By the time you contacted me you felt pretty heated, not only because of UWs failure to resolve the high bills but also by its constant nagging to install a smart meter when you already have one.

You knew the sums couldnt be correct as the only electricity you had been using for weeks was powering the storage heaters left on while you were away caring for your terminally ill parents.

On my intervention, UW found the erroneous bills were caused by a technical blunder with the setup of your new meter, which has now been resolved.

UW agreed to credit your account with 325, which included the overcharged amounts and a goodwill gesture.

It confirmed you will now be on as cheap a tariff for your storage heaters as you were before the smart meter was installed.

It also promised to cease communications about installing a new meter.

Straight to the point I ordered a 263 jacket using a Selfridges gift voucher on its website and collected it in store. However, I decided to return the jacket as it didnt suit me and posted it back. I received an email saying my return had been rejected due to damaged buttons and having hair all over. I only tried the coat on once at home and didnt damage it. L.C., London Selfridges investigated and it has re-loaded the 263 on to your voucher. *** At the end of January, I arrived at the British Airways check-in desk in Antigua, in the Caribbean, to discover Id been downgraded on my flight to London Gatwick. I was supposed to have a seat in premium economy, but had to settle for economy instead and didnt receive an ample reason as to why. L.B., Essex British Airways says that, like all airlines, it sometimes sells more seats than are available. Under regulations, you are entitled to a 75 per cent refund of the fare paid for the segment on which you were downgraded, which will arrive within seven days. *** I often order items that are delivered by the courier firm DPD. However, my parcels are never delivered to me but are instead sent to random locations as DPD doesnt believe my property exists. As they dont take photos of their deliveries its impossible for me to discover where my parcels are. This has cost me a lot of money as sellers naturally will not reimburse me for missing parcels that DPD have marked as delivered. H.B., Mold DPD says the pin that identifies your house on its system was in the wrong place. This has now been resolved.
AstraZeneca reported a strong increase in revenue after robust sales of its cancer treatment drugs.

The FTSE 100-listed firm reported that sales and profit rose 8 and 11 per cent, respectively, in line with its forecasts.

It expects total revenue to grow by mid-to-high single-digit percentage, with core profit growth of low double-digit percentage.

It comes as chief executive Pascal Soriot guides the company towards its ambition of reaching $80billion in annual sales by 2030, even as US tariffs and policies remain volatile.

AstraZeneca reported a boost in revenues and profits following strong cancer drug sales

'The momentum across our company is continuing in 2026 and we are looking forward to the results of more than 20 Phase 3 trial readouts this year,' said Soriot.

Shares were up 0.5 per cent in early trading.

Cancer treatment drug sales jumped 20 per cent to $7.03billion, around 45 per cent of total revenues, but revenue from cardiovascular drugs slipped 6 per cent to $3.05billion.

Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG said: 'The numbers this morning continue to show how AstraZeneca seems to have its house in order when it comes to its drug pipeline.

'The outlook and recent performance more than justifies the recent surge in the share price which has finally seen it break higher after years of sideways trading.

'As Novo and others show, it's not easy to maintain investor interest, but Astra's broad stable of drugs shows it continues to deliver.'

AstraZeneca said it would raise its annual dividend by 3 per cent to $3.30.

The results are the first since AstraZeneca made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange.

While it is keeping its listings in London and in Stockholm, there have been fears that the drugs giant could switch its main listing to Wall Street.

AstraZeneca makes almost half of its revenues in the US and is targeting further expansion there.

Last July, the company said it plans around 36.5billion in investment in the US by 2030.
The rapid rise of women to the top of the telecoms industry continues with the appointment of Katie Milligan as the new chief executive of BTs infrastructure arm Openreach.

BT, which also owns the EE network has been led since 2024 by Allison Kirkby. Vodafone also has a woman at the helm  Margherita Della Valle - who has been in post since 2023.

Milligan, 44, who joined BT as a graduate trainee in 2004, replaces Clive Selley, who becomes chief executive of BT International.

In her previous role as Openreachs deputy chief executive, Milligan has been responsible for a new commercial and pricing strategy. The business has been facing vicious rivalry in the broadband market from the alt-nets, the 100 or so start-up providers, many funded by private equity. BT's Openreach network hosts EE, Sky, and Vodafone.

The Ayrshire-born Milligan is at home in the boardroom, but also conversant with every aspect of such complex technologies as the switching-over of telephone exchange systems from old copper networks to fibre.

New Openreach boss Katie Milligan says 'we need the country to digitise'

Driving her efforts is a passionate belief in the massive boost that improved connectivity could bring to workers and households, so growing the economy.

Milligan regards fast broadband as a 'lifeline' to companies and communities.

'We need the country to digitise,' she said

Thanks to upgrades, Openreach will have extended superfast fibre broadband to 25million homes by the end of this year. Whether the roll-out expands to 30million homes now hangs on the outcome of deliberations with the regulator Ofcom.

BTs market capitalisation is 19.7billion, following a 35 per cent jump in the shares over the past year.

Openreach, however, is considered to be more valuable than its parent. In a spin-out from BT, the business which employs about 28,000 people, worth could be as much as 30billion. This is based on its desirability to US pension funds requiring a reliable source of income.

Kirkby alluded to the possibility of a sale of Openreach last year. But in the final quarter she opted instead to focus on Openreachs lower loss of market share to the alt-nets, some of whom are buckling under higher borrowing costs.

Kirkby also reiterated her resolve to 'squeeze the short sellers' responding to renewed bets against the share price.

Vodafones share price has leapt by 63 per cent over the past year, reflecting that turnaround being executed by Della Valle who presided over last years merger with the Three network.

Like Milligan, she is passionate about the need for planning and other support to improve mobile and broadband services - which she regards as crucial to every aspect of working and family life.

A telecoms insider reflected yesterday that the trio of Kirkby, Milligan and Della Valle will represent a lobbying force difficult to ignore - because of their conviction and the expanding scale of the industry.

At present the annual revenues of the telecoms sector are 489 billion. But the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) is forecast to massive increase this total.
Tens of thousands of people are caught up in a scandal engulfing one of Britain's most generous pension schemes.

A customer service meltdown at the civil service pension scheme has worsened since the Daily Mail and This is Money revealed last week that some civil service pension members had been left without any retirement income for months.

The 86,000-case backlog has now swelled to 120,000, forcing the Government to look at providing emergency loans to those experiencing hardship as they wait for their money.

At the start of this month, some 8,500 retired civil servants had not yet received the pension payments they were due.

We have been inundated with messages from despairing employees past and present, laying bare the suffering caused by the chaos.

Many say they have been left waiting months to receive their payments or lump sums, while letters and phone calls are going unanswered, and grieving families tell us they are unable to sort out estates.

We have put a dossier of 20 of the most severe cases to Capita, the contractor which took over running the scheme in December.

Retired prison officer Jason Gould says the lack of retirement income has pushed him into rent arrears

In one case, retired prison officer Jason Gould says the lack of retirement income has pushed him into rent arrears and forced him to incur extra interest on debts.

The 58-year-old from Norfolk and his wife Lisa, 62, who has also just given up her job after a 44-year nursing career, fear their dream of retiring to Spain this spring is now in jeopardy.

Jason says he has not received any pension since he finished working at the end of December despite being promised his lump sum would arrive a few days after his retirement date.

He is concerned he will have to wait months longer. If so, he won't be able to prove his pension income to the Spanish authorities, which is required to extend his current visa. Without it, his and Lisa's future there is in doubt.

He says: 'I'm still finding it difficult to accept that this has happened to so many people when nobody seems to care or be able to help. Had I known, I wouldn't have retired.

'It's absolutely awful. I am in disbelief about the situation I find myself in. It keeps us awake at night  we were so looking forward to retiring and it's ruined it. What a dreadful experience.'

The civil service scheme is considered gold standard because members receive generous final salary or career average salary-linked pensions, which are guaranteed until they die.

But it was already mired in problems when Capita took over administration from MyCSP towards the end of last year.

Civil service boss Catherine Little has now drafted in the deputy boss of HMRC, Angela MacDonald, to oversee an urgent recovery plan. In a frank letter to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of MPs sent last month, she explained the troubles before and after the transition.

She describes 'significant concerns' about complaints regarding MyCSP, which was subject to two probes last year.

Problems were then 'further exacerbated' by a dispute between the Public and Commercial Services union and MyCSP, which led to a strike from July to December last year.

Little's letter says strike action contributed to a 'significant backlog of work', and then Capita experienced a very high volume of inquiries on its arrival  on average 3,600 calls per day, compared with around 1,300 a day under MyCSP.

But Little also criticises Capita for 'lower than expected levels of automation' and 'misjudged assumptions made on productivity for manual processes', which suggests that tasks are taking longer than needed and the company may need more manpower.

And she says the civil service is making interest-free bridging loans of 5,000, or 10,000 in exceptional cases, to help alleviate hardship for those experiencing delays getting pensions.

The chairman of the PAC, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, replied that people were 'currently experiencing intolerable levels of service', and that Capita will be appearing to give evidence to the committee on Thursday.

Former pensions minister Ros Altmann, who now sits in the House of Lords, says: 'I am told that Capita and the Cabinet Office were taken aback at how many urgent  and non-urgent  issues had not been dealt with, dating back way before Capita started and they have now had to pick up the pieces.

'I feel for all those who have been badly affected by this.'

Unite, a union representing many civil servants, condemned the appointment of Capita to run the scheme.

It said last week: 'Unite had previously issued stark warnings directly to the Cabinet Office about Capita's incompetence and highlighted its poor performance, but had reassurances that this contract was different to Capita's other contracts.'

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham adds: 'Capita's running of civil service pensions goes from chaos to calamity.

That a company which has shown repeatedly that it is incapable of running the pension scheme for 700 firefighters has been given the keys to the entire civil service scheme beggars belief.

'Unite will continue to highlight Capita's incompetence and pressure ministers to bring this service back in house at the earliest opportunity.'

Jason, who was in the Army for six years before spending the rest of his working life in the prison service, says: 'I have given over 41 years of public service and was therefore looking forward to a well-earned retirement.

'My job wasn't well paid but we were guaranteed a reasonable pension at the end.'

But, like other readers who have contacted us, he says the early days of his retirement have been spent on the phone waiting for Capita to answer and then getting no help when staff do pick up.

Jason adds: 'I informed them that my rent was due this week and that I had outstanding debts which I needed to pay off with my lump sum.

This made no difference to Capita  they simply apologised for the delay, and said they hoped to catch up sometime in the future but could not give a timescale.

'They said nothing would be done this week and to simply call back next week. I was repeatedly told 'we are where we are' and that I could not be given a date on which I would receive my pension and lump sum.'

Jason says the prospect of moving to Spain without his pension in place, and having to keep chasing Capita from there, was giving him and his wife sleepless nights.

They are hoping to buy a new home in Almeria in the south-east of the country, but he says: 'Without my lump sum and monthly pension payment, our long yearned for dream of living in Spain will be ruined through no fault of our own.'

He adds that the couple have decided to leave the UK because they believe the country is broken. 'The debacle with my pension is further proof of that. We also could not afford to retire and stay here as everything is so expensive compared to Spain.'

Outsourcing giant Capita is the administrator for the civil service pension scheme

Bereaved families are also caught up in the havoc, as they struggle to sort out their loved ones' finances. Capita was dealing with 6,300 death-related cases at the start of this month.

Gillian Bergonzi, 87, lost her 91-year-old husband Toni in November, but has not received anything further from the civil service pension scheme since his last payment in late October.

'I am entitled to three months' full pension and then half,' says Gillian, who lives in the West Midlands and whose husband worked for HMRC for 40 years.

'It is now February, what am I supposed to live on? Or are they hoping I die and they won't have to pay it at all? I'm finding it difficult living on only fresh air.'

Another reader, Mary, who preferred not to give her surname, says she took the difficult decision to retire from the civil service following the sudden death of her son last year.

She says: 'I too completed all the forms many months ago. And I had a couple of helpful calls with MyCSP before the transition of 'service' to Capita. Since then, total silence.'

The 60-year-old, who lives in Surrey, describes spending many hours trying to get through on the phone, being on hold for hours and then cut off.

Mary says: 'I am hoping you raising the profile of this might finally get traction for all of us, already stressed at giving up work, and for me personally dealing with untold grief.'

Demand: Unite general secretary Sharon Graham says Capita should be stripped of pensions contract

Daniel O'Brien and his wife Arlene are anxiously waiting for news about his pension to find out if he can retire on his 62nd birthday in March.

Daniel, who has been a civil servant for 40 years and lives in Argyll and Bute, Scotland, says: 'I have phoned, emailed umpteen times with no updates on whether I will be retiring and what my pension figures actually will be.'

We asked Capita to respond to Jason's case and address a further dossier of cases.

A spokesman says: 'Capita and the Cabinet Office are deeply sorry for the worry, frustration, and distress this has caused.

Both Capita and the Cabinet Office take this responsibility very seriously and are urgently working together to put this right, prioritising the most urgent cases.

'When Capita took over administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme on December 1, 2025, a backlog of 86,000 cases was inherited from the previous administrator.

'Since the transition we have been working towards reducing the inherited backlog and are also working on new cases.

'Capita expects to restore service levels for the most urgent cases by the end of February, with full recovery of the remaining priority cases to follow.'

Capita adds that it has more than 500 full-time staff working on civil service pensions, 50 per cent more than its predecessor MyCSP, and it is adding resources to handle more cases and deliver better response times at its contact centre.

Daniel and Arlene O'Brien: He has phoned and emailed 'umpteen times' but had no update on what his pension will be if he retires in March as planned

A spokesman for MyCSP says: 'MyCSP completed a comprehensive handover of the pension scheme with the new provider, which was overseen by the Cabinet Office.

'All outstanding work items were fully disclosed, discussed and reviewed with Cabinet Office senior management prior to commencement of the handover process.

'Over the course of its tenure administering the scheme, MyCSP consistently met the service levels set by the Cabinet Office as independently confirmed in the National Audit Office's assessment of performance.'

A Cabinet Office spokesman said: 'The service levels following the move to Capita have been unacceptable.

'An urgent recovery plan is under way, and our immediate priority is to stabilise the service and give current and former civil servants the service they deserve.

'An interest-free loan is being made available via departments to provide immediate financial support where it is needed.'

Have you been affected? Email: moneymail@dailymail.co.uk
She met her husband at a Halloween party while dressed as a Border Patrol agent.

In the last election, her father earned the nickname 'Trump turncoat' for backing Ron DeSantis' short-lived run for president.

Yet now, at just 27, Kingsley Wilson is the unlikely face of Donald Trump's rebranded 'Department of War'  a testament to the unpredictability around the peculiar routes to advancement in this administration.

As the Pentagon's answer to Karoline Leavitt, the former social media executive sits as the mouthpiece for the world's most powerful military.

However, mystery surrounds how she secured the post  and what mark she intends to make during her tenure.

The Pentagon's press secretary is married to John Wilson, a policy expert whose DC network proved crucial to her ascent. But insiders paint a complicated picture of the power couple, who wed in 2023, behind the podium.

'John's connections really helped introduce her to this world in a way she hadn't seen before,' a source close to both told the Daily Mail.

The same source recalls John's reputation during his time in Representative Matt Gaetz's office, prior to his marriage.

His former boss confirmed to the Daily Mail that John Wilson began his career in the office as an intern and progressed to become a Legislative Counsel.

At the age of just 27, Kingsley Wilson is the unlikely face of Donald Trump's rebranded 'Department of War'

Wilson met her husband at a Halloween party while dressed as a Border Patrol agent and married in 2023. (Pictured at the Kennedy Center Gala on September 27)

'He regularly prepared me for the biggest hearings and debates in Congress,' Gaetz explained.

'He was known to get around a little bit  had a player's reputation before he met Kingsley,' a former coworker told the Daily Mail. Other ex-colleagues recalled that he had a 'crass' demeanor.

Their relationship began in 2021.

John notably informed friends he found a catch, 'in the movement.'

Wilson, who began dating John in 2021, herself celebrated how they met in a nowdeleted tweet from October 2024: '3 years ago today I went to a Halloween party dressed as Border Patrol and met my husband. Be unapologetically rightwing. It will pay off.'

It has.

Wilson is now helping lead a communications revolution that's kicked legacy media out of the Pentagon building entirely, replacing traditional reporters with rightwing outlets.

Her pedigree didn't hurt.

Mystery swirls about how she landed the post  and what mark she intends to make in her tenure

Despite the duo's difference of opinions in presidential picks, Wilson wished her 'incredible' dad a happy Father's Day in 2023, which prompted one social media commentator to reply to the post, noting that 'just because she doesn't agree with him on a candidate doesn't mean she doesn't love her daddy'

As the Pentagon's answer to Karoline Leavitt, the former social media executive sits as the mouthpiece for the highstakes world of military intelligence

Wilson is the daughter of Steve Cortes, a former Trump adviser who switched teams and threw in for DeSantis early in the 2024 primary. Kingsley, meanwhile, endorsed Trump early through the DC Young Republicans, putting father and daughter on opposite sides of the Republican race.

Despite the duo's difference of opinions in presidential picks, Wilson wished her 'incredible' dad a Happy Father's day in 2023, which prompted one social media commentator to reply to the post, noting that 'just because she doesn't agree with him on a candidate doesn't mean she doesn't love her daddy.'

One former member of the DC Young Republicans dismissed her career as a 'nepo baby' trajectory, comparing her to Hollywood celebrities outshined by their children.

Her resume includes a quick rise at social platform Gettr  the Trumpaligned social media platform founded by former Trump senior advisor Jason Miller a stint at the hardline Center for Renewing America, and serving as national committeewoman for the D.C. Young Republicans.

Sources say her quick jump to the Department of Defense was largely driven to Gaetz. Her husband previously worked for Gaetz on Capitol Hill before also being placed in a Pentagon policy role.

'Gaetz was the in,' another Young Republican source explained.

The Daily Mail reached out to Gaetz for the story, who confirmed.

'Kingsley Wilson is an incredibly skilled communications professional. I observed her work at the Center for Renewing America with now OMB Director Russ Vought and was consistently impressed with her poise and unique ability to persuade. When she sought to serve in the Trump/Vance Administration, I gave her my highest possible recommendation, as did many others,' Gaetz told the Daily Mail.

Her resume includes a quick rise at social platform Gettr  the Trumpaligned social media platform founded by former Trump senior advisor Jason Miller a stint at the hardline Center for Renewing America, and serving as national committeewoman for the D.C. Young Republicans

Wilson, who began dating John in 2021, herself celebrated how they met in a nowdeleted tweet from October 2024: '3 years ago today I went to a Halloween party dressed as Border Patrol and met my husband. Be unapologetically rightwing. It will pay off'

Department of War Deputy Press Secretary Joel Valdez defended Wilson, telling the Daily Mail that the press secretary is focused on the President and Secretary's agenda  and that her focus is not on 'Washington insider b*******.'

'Any insinuation that Kingsley Wilson has advanced in her career solely due to her husband and his connections is plain wrong and insulting, particularly to those who have had the opportunity to witness her capabilities firsthand. Kingsley has earned her current position because of her talent as a communicator, her experience as a former political commentator, and in part because of her former work as a communications staffer for President Trump's past presidential campaign  accomplishments she earned before meeting her now husband,' Valdez said.

With the blessing and recommendations of some influential figures in the MAGA world, Kingsley jumped from online provocateur to one of the major faces of the Pentagon  an unprecedented move for one of the most sensitive communications jobs in the world.

'Trump world is based far more on actual capacity than dolled up resume. Center for Renewing America was basically an administration in waiting,' a high-level source that has worked closely with both Kingsley and John Wilson, explained.

Her predecessors, in Trump's first term, such as Alyssa Farah and Dana White, brought extensive resumes that included serving as press secretaries for the Vice President or as high-level staffers for the Senate Armed Services Committee before joining the Pentagon.

There are no known plans for Kingsley to hold another Pentagon briefing at this time.

She was the voice of 'Operation Midnight Hammer' and the administration's 'war' on narcoterrorists behind the podium all but one time when the 'newmedia' took over, and rarely does interviews with the press.

Wilson declined the Daily Mail's request for an interview.

'Trump world is based far more on actual capacity than dolled up resume. Center for Renewing America was basically an administration in waiting,' a high-level source that has worked closely with both Kingsley and John Wilson, explained

But critics say she's no Leavitt, the White House press secretary who commands a room.

'Karoline you know those people who, when they are in the room, demand attention? I wouldn't say that Kingsley does,' said a Pentagon new media source. It's very recorded. It's very performed. You can tell she has been prepping for the past five hours, literally just reading talking points.'

A longtime DC Young Republicans member was even more blunt: 'If I asked 20 random staffers who Kingsley is, they'd be like, who is that?'

A former White House aide tells the Daily Mail that the opinions on Kingsley's performance are 'mixed.'

The fear is that Wilson, insulated from tough questioning after the Pentagon purged traditional reporters, might crumble under real pressure.

'I feel like she could really get destroyed up there at that podium if the real hardhitting journalists were there,' the Pentagon source added. 'There are no offthecuff reactions. There's no humanity in the way she speaks.'

Jordan Conradson, a Gateway Pundit reporter now covering the Pentagon, defended her: 'I think Kingsley is great. I think she's very intelligent. She has a good grasp on what's going on, and she's able to convey the messaging very well.'

He praised the administration for 'propping up younger voices.'

Pentagon Spokesperson Kingsley Wilson posing with colleagues and friends in red white and blue

Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer tells the Daily Mail that he believes Kingsley has a bright future ahead of her in the Republican sphere.

'Kingsley literally grew up in the MAGA movement and is one of the most promising future leaders of it. She has been a key part of spreading the president's policies and achievements to new audiences of Americans,' Spicer said.

Laura Loomer, a member of the Pentagon's new media and Trump's self-described 'chief loyalty enforcer,' told the Daily Mail she 'plays it safe.'

Wilson has scrubbed her digital footprint since taking the role, deleting posts that reportedly ranged from questioning US involvement in conflicts abroad to promoting antiSemitic conspiracy theories on X.

'She's kind of like a ghost on everything now,' one source said. 'I guess that's because she doesn't want anyone to dig anything up in her forwardfacing role.'

Privately, those who know her describe Wilson as 'godly' and 'kind,' someone who 'always speaks to you with intention.'

'I've always gotten the impression from her that she was very much like, wants to be a mom and a wife,' a source friends with Kingsley said. 'I've never really gotten the impression that she wanted to be in that frontfacing type of role.'

Yet Pentagon insiders say she's accessible  to the right people. 'We have access to them. I think they shared their number with everybody,' Conradson said. 'Whenever I need something, really, I just shoot them texts.'

From her stance on kinetic strikes to freezing out 'legacy media gatekeepers,' Wilson is making clear the old rules are dead.

And as she predicted in that deleted Halloween post, being 'unapologetically rightwing' has paid off.

'There is no doubt that Mrs. Wilson is always prepared, uniquely qualified, and completely endorsed by myself and Secretary Hegseth to communicate our message to the American people,' Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell told the Daily Mail in response to the story.
She lived a life of untrammeled luxury thanks to the generosity of tycoon father, who even named his acclaimed vineyard after her in an act of paternal love.

But 58-year-old Serene Warren managed to break her late dad Ken Evenstad's heart after complaining that $283 million she received from the 2017 sale of his pharmaceuticals company was insufficient.

She sued her family for $228 million in damages in 2018, prompting furious pushback from her father and an estrangement that continued until his death in 2020.

Warren lost her claim in 2023 - but managed to have it partially-reinstated on appeal, with the Minnesota Supreme Court hearing it in November. A ruling is imminent.

Now the Daily Mail has unearthed heartbreaking new details of the gilded family's unseemly saga.

Evenstad, who made his fortune running pharma firm Upsher-Smith, made his feelings about Warren all too clear in a court filing, which the Daily Mail unearthed as the heiress waits to hear whether she can claim almost a quarter billion dollars in damages from her late father's estate.

Evenstad wrote: 'I'm hurt by the lack of gratitude from Serene and [her husband] Chris and for the incredible lifestyle they are able to live, because of gifts from Grace [Warren's mother] and me.

'I'm disappointed by the wasted time, energy, and money on legal fights rather than family harmony.

Pharmaceutical tycoon Ken Evenstad is pictured with his daughter Serene Warren. He died in 2020 estranged from his only daughter as she battled him over money

Father and daughter drink wine at the acclaimed Oregon vineyard named in her honor in happier times. Domaine Serene is now one of the top pinot noir producers in the United States

'This legal fight has also taken valuable time from our business - one that serves people through advances in healthcare,' Evenstad wrote in the 2019 note.

The dying father-of-two's anguish was particularly sharp, as Serene was once the apple of his eye.

In 1989, Evenstad named his newly-purchased Oregon vineyard Domaine Serene in her honor.

Domaine Serene subsequently grew to become one of the United States' most acclaimed pinot noir producers and was Evenstad's most treasured asset.

The combined success of the winery and Upsher-Smith afforded Warren an opulent lifestyle beyond the wildest imaginations of most Americans.

Evenstad and his wife Grace showered their daughter with cash, covered living expenses, private-school tuition for her three children, country-club dues, health-care premiums, payment for taxes and luxury cars, court papers said.

They even helped fund Warren and her husband's $3 million mansion on Lake Minnetonka and a number of apartments in Austin, Texas, the filings added.

Warren clearly enjoyed the trappings of her family's success, with the mother-of-three giving up work in 1994 aged 26 because she wanted to be a full-time mother.

Domaine Serene opened in 1989 - and it was also the scene of a huge argument which forever destroyed relations between Serene Warren, her father and her brother Mark

Ken Evenstad is pictured with his wife Grace at Domaine Serene. The couple bankrolled their daughter Serene's life, only for her to sue over claims they devalued her 25 percent stake in the family pharmaceuticals corporation

Warren's relationship with her family first went off the rails during a trip to the Domaine Serene vineyard in 2016, while she was mashing potatoes for a dinner with her dad.

She was upset that he had awarded her brother Mark an extra 1.5 percent of stock for quadrupling the value of the family firm to $1.1 billion.

Warren felt this award had diluted the value of her holding in Upsher-Smith and sought to quiz her dad about it while preparing dinner, according to her lawsuit.

That prompted Evenstad to explode into a rage at his other child, Warren said.

'He started shouting and pounded his fist on the counter and says that's a passive investment,' she wrote in her lawsuit, saying her father added that the business was none of her concern.

That was the last time Warren ever saw Evenstad. She cut-off her mother, father and brother for 'emotional protection,' missing her parents 50th wedding anniversary.

Serene's brother Mark Evenstad is pictured. An eight-figure bonus from his father prompted an angry lawsuit from his sister

After suing her family in 2018, Warren turned down a settlement offer of $150 million.

Evenstad raged at her during an interview with a mediator, alleging: 'I find it despicable when we have provided her with $250 million, and there's still more to come.

'What is she complaining about? ... What's unfair is for her to get as much as she's gotten, and she's never lifted a finger to help in any way.'

Warren's lawyers insisted she was just pursuing money that she was perfectly entitled to.

Tragically, the once-close father and daughter never reconciled. Evenstad is said to have pleaded with his daughter to come and visit him as he lay dying because he found it difficult to hear a voice over the phone.

But Warren made no contact and the pair remained estranged when he died of chronic pulmonary illness in fall 2020 as the Covid pandemic raged.

In 2023, Minneapolis Judge Edward Wahl ruled in favor of the Evenstads, awarding Warren just $41 million and ordering her to pay her own legal costs.

He branded her antics 'entitled' and shamed Warren for using 'tragic litigation' to air her family's dirty laundry in open court.

'The tragedy of this case is now compounded by the duty the court has to explain its decision in detail in a public forum,' Judge Wahl said in his ruling.

'The court takes no satisfaction in having to lay out in this detailed fashion what likely would have been better for all the principal players had it been resolved by private negotiation.'

Evenstad made his fortune after buying the then failing pharma firm Upsher-Smith for $1,500 in 1969, under his son Mark's leadership the company was valued at $1.1 billion

Serene Warren owns this lake side home in their $3 million home on Lake Minnetonka

He said Ken and his wife Grace, with Mark, all 'exemplify the characteristics of many successful, driven corporate executives' who work hard and accumulate the kind of knowledge that helps them make 'tough business decisions.'

He added: 'Serene and Chris, on the other hand, chose a different path.

'As a consequence of their life choices, Serene did not have the business experience and related skills and knowledge that Ken, Grace and Mark possessed when decision times critical to this litigation arose between 2016 and 2019.'

The judge said he could see why some decisions 'rankled', but failed to find that she had been defrauded.

A lawyer for the Evenstad family told the Daily Mail: 'The Evenstads are not interested in speaking right now.

'They just want this sad chapter in their lives to end - and hopefully the Minnesota Supreme Court will facilitate that.'

Serene Warren was contacted for comment.
As I made my way through the utterly empty, snow-covered streets and approached the dark-blue house on the corner, I felt a twinge of trepidation.

I am Jewish, which heightened the sense of foreboding as I prepared to show up unannounced at the home of a man accused of being a secret Nazi.

When 85-year-old Juergen Steinmetz opened the door, he spoke in a faint German accent, soft-spoken and polite as he invited me inside.

He made me feel welcome - even after I explained why I was there.

Steinmetz made headlines after being sued by a couple who bought his historic five-bedroom home in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, where he had lived for half a century.

The new owners purchased the property in 2023 for $500,000 but were horrified to discover basement tiling that appeared to form a swastika and a Nazi eagle.

Steinmetz - a first-generation German immigrant who arrived in the US aged five - appeared entirely unfazed by the media attention, instead seeming to enjoy the fact an unexpected visitor had shown up at his new home in Cleveland, Ohio, where he moved to be closer to his adult son after the death of his wife.

The couple who sued Steinmetz claimed he concealed the symbols and said that, had they known they were there, they never would have bought the house.

The case was dismissed, however. Steinmetz described it as 'just a nonsensical bunch of garbage.' 'I am just glad all that nonsense is over with and that chapter is closed,' he said.

Jeurgen Steinmetz made headlines after being sued by a couple who bought his home and found Nazi symbols in the basement

Steinmetz - a first-generation German immigrant who arrived in the US aged five - appeared entirely unfazed by the media attention

I made my way through the utterly empty snow-covered streets in Cleveland, Ohio, to look for the man accused of being a secret Nazi

As we sat down in his living room, I asked him outright if he was a Nazi.

Steinmetz adjusted his hearing aide awkwardly before answering in a calm and firm tone: 'No, not at all.'

He added: 'Everybody has their opinion but anyone who thinks that must have tunnel vision. That is my conclusion.'

Steinmetz pointed to his love for the diversity and openness of America as evidence he was not a bigot.

After fleeing war-torn Germany as a boy with his mother and brothers, Steinmetz made his way to Czechoslovakia before setting sail for America.

They eventually settled in Florida. One of his fondest childhood memories in his new country, he said, was that Americans would give him chocolates.

After he graduated high school he joined the US Army.

Steinmetz explained that the symbols in his basement had been painted over tiles as part of a joke when he was 'a young fella.'

At the time, he had been a pilot and had recently moved from Florida to Pennsylvania for a new job based out of Pittsburgh Airport.

'I never did the symbol as protest, just did it based on a book I was reading,' he said.

As a Jewish woman, there was some unease as I approached the dark blue house on the corner

Steinmetz holds a picture of his former home, which is now at the center of the controversy

After fleeing war-torn Germany as a boy with his mother and brothers, Steinmetz made his way to Czechoslovakia before setting sail for America

Two copies of Mein Kampf and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (in black with the Nazi symbol) sit prominently on his bookshelf - part of his fascination with the history of his homeland

Born in Hamburg in 1941, Steinmetz recalled fleeing Germany as a child, and the bombings which created his fascination with history.

'I was young. I was interested in history. I was a little rabble rouser. That was the type of guy I was,' he said.

He knew the symbols were controversial and that was part of the allure when he painted the tiles. But he claimed he 'subverted' their meaning.

'I knew what it was. I made sure I put it [the swastika] in backwards to make sure it wasn't the Nazi symbol,' he said.

Beyond his fascination, Steinmetz suggested the tiling was also some sort of innocent decorative decision.

'I liked to break up the monotony and I liked to show off,' he said.

Sitting in his living room by a wall of books, my eye caught at the corner a Nazi symbol beside two well-read copies of Mein Kampf and a black book with the swastika on it - which I would later learn is The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer.

Before I said anything, Steinmetz continued to defend his actions.

The tiles had been purchased at a clearance sale and he remembered thinking, 'What am I going to do with that?'

He eventually installed them on a portion of the basement floor, painted the symbols, and later covered them with a rug then 'forgot about it' for 50 years.

Steinmetz's previous five-bedroom home in Beaver County, Pennsylvania

The symbol that looks like a swastika Steinmetz put down more than 40 years ago on his basement floor in Pennsylvania

The owners believed that the Eagle on the basement floor looked like the Nazi Eagle

I bring his attention back to the books, to which Steinmetz said they were for self-education.

'I have all kinds of books on all different things. My mind is always wandering all over the world, and I am interested in everything.'

He gestured to his eclectic collection: history, aviation, travel, computers, National Geographic from 19112015, books on George Washington, the British militia, Revolutionary War accounts and atlases.

He talked about how much he hated conflict. 'War is hell,' he said. 'I know about war, we were all over the place,' he said, referencing how his family became refugees.

Steinmetz, who lived with his wife Ingrid in their Pennsylvania cottage with their three children since 1975, placed the home on the market after her death in 2022.

The new owners - Daniel and Lynne Rae Wentworth - had their dream home and Steinmetz moved to Cleveland to be closer to his adult son.

Six months after the sale, however, he was hit with a lawsuit accusing him of violating the Pennsylvania Real Estate Seller Disclosure Law.

The Wentworth's claimed he concealed the Nazi symbols and did not disclose them when they were buying the property.

According to court filings, the cost to replace the floor would exceed $30,000 and the imagery was so offensive that the couple could not reasonably live there.

Steinmetz maintained he never lied about the symbols and argued they were not as offensive as claimed.

The Pennsylvania Superior Court dismissed the couple's case.

The judges wrote: 'A basement that floods, a roof that leaks, beams damaged by termites these are the conditions our legislature requires sellers to disclose if known.'

Steinmetz, who lived with his wife Ingrid in their Pennsylvania cottage with their three children since 1975, placed the home on the market after her death in 2022

Pictures of the basement that was in the book that Steinmetz made for his wife - the tiles are covered by carpet

Steinmetz ended up in Florida with his mother and where he later met his wife, Ingrid, who was also of German-descent.

The couple eventually wed and moved to Pennsylvania where Steinmetz worked as a pilot.

He flew multiple aircraft, retiring at 55 after 28 years. His home reflects a life spent in flight: photos of planes, models on the dining room table, and a basement workshop full of tools.

In retirement, he and his wife traveled the US in an RV. 'It was some of the best time of my life,' he said.

Steinmetz, who called his family home, his 'castle' loved it so that he created a book called 'Our House in Beaver' that he gifted to his wife in 2016 for his birthday.

Now, in his new home Steinmetz, who is still learning how to life without his life partner, enjoyed the visit and his walk down memory lane on what otherwise would have just been a quiet Thursday.
The senior detective who failed to bring Steve Wright to justice over the 1999 murder of teenager Vicky Hall today spoke for the first time since the serial killer was jailed for her death  but didn't accept any responsibility for the botched investigation.

The comments were made as Suffolk Constabulary admitted for the first time that there were aspects of the case that could have been 'more prominent' in the minds of detectives.

Retired detective superintendent Roy Lambert headed the team that made a series of blunders which allowed Wright to remain at large for another seven years before he killed five prostitutes in Ipswich.

Mistakes included the serial killer's only surviving victim, Emily Doherty, informing police about an attempted abduction  and even giving a partial car number plate to officers  but being dismissed as a silly little girl.

Just 24 hours later, Wright would snatch Vicky as she walked home from the same nightclub Ms Doherty had attended the previous evening.

Wright, 67, was finally jailed for life with a minimum 40-year term on Friday after admitting Vickys murder following a cold case review that used modern DNA techniques to link him to the crime.

The sentencing judge asked if Suffolk Constabulary would hold an inquiry into what went wrong but the force has refused to commit to one  despite detectives now admitting other women may have fallen victim to the 'Suffolk Strangler'.

Mr Lambert, 74, told the Mail he was pleased with the conviction, saying Vickys family had finally been given some answers to who was responsible for her murder.

Retired detective superintendent Roy Lambert, pictured in 1999, was in charge of the botched investigation into the rape and murder of Vicky Hall, 17

The conclusion of the case shows the importance of cold case reviews and exploiting advances in technology and was a credit to Suffolk Constabulary, he added.

Mr Lambert continued: These cases never leave you. Im delighted with the outcome.

But he refused to be drawn on whether lessons had been learned as a result of the failed investigation 27 years ago or if he thought it had allowed Wright to kill any other women between 1999 and 2006.

You need to talk to Suffolk Constabulary, he said.

But in comments made by assistant chief constable Alice Scott, the force made a tacit admission that potentially vital clues may have been missed in 1999.

Referring to newlywed Ms Doherty's near-miss with the killer, she said: 'The line of enquiry around the attempted kidnap could have been more prominent in the original investigation.'

There was now 'more technology, while officers Continuing Professional Development [the process of ongoing training] had improved, she added, while violent offences towards females was a priority for the force.

'Constabularies are really committed to dealing with violence towards women and girls,' Ms Scott said.

Vicky was walking home from a nightclub when she was abducted by Steve Wright. Seven years later he would murder five prostitutes in Ipswich during a six-week period

Scene of crime officers search the area where Vicky's naked body was found in a water-filled ditch

Wright, 67, was already serving whole-life jail terms for the 2006 Ipswich murders when he was handed a life sentence with a minimum 40 years behind bars on Friday for Vicky's death

However, she insisted she couldn't 'say retrospectively whether that material [from the original investigation] could have gone on to prevent five women in Ipswich being murdered'.

Wright's ex-wife, Diane Cole, criticised Mr Lambert and the force, saying 'lives could have been saved' by a more thorough investigation.

She said: 'They should have looked at the evidence... there are so many unanswered questions.

'It's terrible. Lives could have been saved.'

Jim Duell, the father of Ipswich victim Tania Nicol, suggested an independent inquiry should look into the failings in the 1999 incidents.

If they [Suffolk Constabulary] made a mistake, then you could say theyre going to be quiet about it, he said.

If theyd caught him then, things could have been different.

Vicky was 17 when she went missing on the walk home to Trimley St Mary from the Bandbox nightclub in Felixstowe on September 19, 1999.

Assistant chief constable Alice Scott has admitted the attempted abduction of Emily Doherty could have been 'more prominent' in the minds of detectives

The serial killer's ex-wife, Diane Cole, said 'lives could have been saved' if police had properly investigated the attempted abduction of Emily Doherty and Vicky Hall's murder

She and her friend, Gemma Algar, walked around two miles together at 1am, stopping at a takeaway along the way, before parting company at 2.20am when they were just 200 yards from Vickys front door.

Her naked body was found 20 miles away in a water-filled ditch at Creeting St Peter five days later.

Police potentially had the opportunity to arrest Wright before he targeted Vicky but failed to act over Ms Dohertys attempted abduction.

During last week's Old Bailey hearing into the teenagers death, the court was told that she had provided an accurate description of Wright, his car and number plate after he stalked her.

But misogynistic officers didnt believe her, failed to make any notes or to log the crime and told the then 22-year-old to forget all about it. A formal statement was only taken two years later.

Miss Doherty, who had to hammer on a strangers door to ask for help as the serial killer hunted her, said in a victim impact statement: To this day, I am furious. I wasnt taken seriously. I was made to feel like a silly little girl.

She added: For 25 years, I have wondered What if? What if they had taken my statement  could Victoria be alive right now?

Wrights details were removed from a list of suspects for Vickys death in 2000, a month after police arrested a local businessman for her murder.

Mr Lambert, pictured recently, retired from Suffolk Constabulary in 2007 after serving with the force for 39 years

Mr Lambert  at the time the forces most experienced senior investigating officer  directed there be no further action and said the incident involving Ms Doherty didnt accord with the murder.

The 2 million prosecution of the innocent suspect ended with him being acquitted in 2001 after a jury heard soil evidence that detectives claimed tied him to the scene was common throughout East Anglia.

Meanwhile, Wright had sold the car used in both attacks, left work and moved to Thailand for a time.

After his return, he would go on to murder Gemma Adams, 25, Tania Nicol, 19, Anneli Alderton, 24  whose death was also investigated by Mr Lambert  Paula Clennell, 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29, over a terrifying six-week period as he stalked Ipswichs red light area.

He was given a whole life term in 2008 for those murders, with Suffolk Police continuing to tell Vickys family he was not responsible for her rape and murder.

It wasnt until the cold case review began in 2020 that Wright was declared a suspect for the first time. He was charged in 2024 on the basis of the new DNA evidence.

The Hall family have not criticised the force, although her father, Graham, said after the sentencing on Friday that they had endured 26 years of hell.

Vickys mother, Lorinda, never got to see her killer jailed for the offence as she passed away in hospital last month.

Anneli Alderton, Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol, Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls were murdered by Wright in 2006

Mr Lambert, who still lives in Suffolk, had been heading the investigation into the death of Anneli Alderton when he retired from the force in 2007 after 39 years service.

He remained with Suffolk Constabulary in a civilian position while Operation Sumac  the probe into the five prostitutes deaths  was completed.

Mr Lambert joined the force as a cadet from school in 1968 and during his time there he was awarded the Queens Commendation for Brave Conduct.

This followed an incident in 1981 when the then detective sergeant and a colleague were shot at by a criminal armed with a sawn-off shotgun.

Suffolk Police issued a statement after Wright's latest sentencing which congratulated investigating officers but made no reference to the errors that led to six women being murdered and the wrongful prosecution of an innocent man.

Referring to Ms Doherty's complaint, they said: 'The Constabulary is very sorry that the victim was disappointed by the initial response.'
Ahmed Al Ahmed shot to worldwide fame after he wrestled a weapon from a gunman during the Bondi Beach terror attack - but now he has taken his first tentative steps back to reality.

The 43-year-old disarmed terrorist Sajid Akram on December 14, but was then shot five times and sustained serious injuries to his shoulder and hand before being rushed to hospital for emergency surgery.

Footage of his heroic act went viral and a GoFundMe set up in his honour raised more than $2.5million as more than 43,000 people chipped in from around the world.

But despite becoming an instant multi-millionaire, being commended by world leaders and lauded as guest of honour at a $10,000-a-head Jewish gala dinner in New York, Mr Al Ahmed has not forgotten his humble beginnings or loyal customers.

His tobacco and gift shop, Cigara, in Sutherland, south of Sydney, remained closed after the shooting.

There were rumours that Mr Al Ahmed was going to sell it, but Daily Mail can reveal the father-of-two has had a change of heart and is planning on reopening his small business as early as this week.

Mr Al Ahmed surprised locals in Sutherland on Friday by telling them he is set to throw open the store's doors.

'It will be great to have him back,' one customer told Daily Mail. 'He is a great guy and now a hero too and we have missed having him around.'

Ahmed Al Ahmed is taking his first tentative steps back to his old life by planning to reopen his Cigara Tobacconist store in southern Sydney as early as this week

The business has been closed since December 14 when the 43-year-old was hospitalised after he was shot multiple times during the Bondi Beach terror attack

Footage of Mr Al Ahemd's heroic act on December 14 went around the world

The news is even more surprising after one of his friends claimed the shop had been sold while Mr Al Ahmed was in hospital undergoing surgery to remove bullets from his shoulder.

On Tuesday night, he revealed his recovery hit a hurdle almost two months on from being shot, with a nerve test 'confirming what he had feared' about his left arm and a potential loss of feeling in the limb.

'Doctors sent electric shocks through it again and again. Even at 100 mA, I felt nothing,' he said.

'That moment was painful, but it did not break me. I remember the days when I saved lives and made a difference. If I had that strength once, I will find it again.

'This phase is hard, but it is temporary. Healing takes time, and I am ready to fight for it. I ask everyone reading this to keep me in your prayers.'

Mr Al Ahmed had been operating his store, which sells gifts and toys, since 2021 with his proud parents describing it as a 'supermarket' during an interview.

According to surrounding shop owners, Mr Al Ahmed worked at his store every day.

In the days that followed the terror attack, flowers and cards were placed outside the closed shop thanking him for his bravery.

Mr Ahmed revealed he had a nerve test on his injured left arm on Tuesday and would keep fighting despite the disappointing news he appeared to have lost feeling in the limb

Mr Al Ahmed was met by the FBI in America and commended for his actions

More than $2.5 million was raised within days for Mr Al Ahmed

Last month, Daily Mail revealed that Mr Al Ahmed was involved in a punch-up at his shop which ended up in the local court.

In January 2025, while working in the stockroom, Mr Al Ahmed heard raised voices at the counter and went to investigate.

What followed was a bizarre confrontation with customer Dan Degney that spiralled into violence and left Mr Al Ahmed requiring hospital treatment.

Degney, who was charged and fined over the assault, then laid claim to a share of the $2.5million raised for Mr Al Ahmed.

The row unfolded after Degney, unhappy with the price of cigarettes, threw a cuddly toy from Mr Al Ahmed's shop on to the road.

'He said I was shoplifting and I didn't have anything - he may have saved all those people... but he owes me,' Degney said.

While Mr Al Ahmed has not publicly spoken about how he plans to spend his fortune, he has lashed out at those who disparaged the fund and accused him of 'milking it'.

'They forget I was shot five times, and two bullets are still in my body,' he said in a social media post. 'I live with that pain every day and night.'
Two hikers saved a woman on the verge of death after they followed a trail of her blood in the wilderness.

Saratoga Springs native Jacque Tietijen nearly died after a severe fall during a solo hike at Bridal Veil Falls, Utah, on February 3.

Tietijen, a seasoned mountaineer, has thousands of hikes under her belt, and had even tackled the perilous climb of Mount Everest, KSLTV reported.

'This isnt new to her. Shes been in dangerous conditions,' her sister-in-law Katherine told the outlet.

'Shes been on thousands of hikes, and this was just the one where something went wrong.'

What should have been a routine trek turned into a fight for survival, as her family believes she slipped and hit her head or was struck by a falling rock.

Tietijen lay unconscious at the bottom of a 45-degree slope for over an hour - until two good Samaritans stumbled upon her.

The hikers had followed her blood trail and discovered the critically injured mountaineer, leading to her rescue.

Saratoga Springs native Jacque Tietijen, she is a veteran hiker and mountaineer and has experience with perilous trails like Mount Everest

Two good Samaritans discovered her body after they followed a trail of her blood, and they were able to rescue her

'They took care of her, wrapped their coats around her, tried to get her body temperature up,' Katherine added.

Tietijen was later airlifted to Utah Valley Hospital, where she is being treated for critical injuries.

The outdoorswoman sustained horrific injuries, including brain bleeds and skull fractures, according to her GoFundMe.

She was also intubated and sedated while doctors continue to monitor her severe brain swelling.

'It will take a few days for the brain to show what its going to do,' her sister-in-law told the outlet.

'If it starts to swell too much, they will have to do emergency surgery and take a piece out of her skull to give the brain space to expand.'

Despite the harrowing injuries, her family hailed the rescuers as heroes and said they were grateful for likely saving her life.

'The fact that they not just noticed [the blood trail], but had the inclination to follow it and to investigate, that potentially has saved her life,' Katherine added.

Tietijen is battling life threatening injuries, including skull fractures and severe brain swelling

The mountaineers family set up a GoFundMe to support her recovery, which has raised nearly $25,000 of its $28,000 goal

Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon, Utah, where the woman was hiking before she sustained her critical injuries

'Our family is so grateful. There are no words to how grateful we are to those men.'

The mountaineers family set up a GoFundMe to support her recovery, which has raised nearly $25,000 of its $28,000 goal.

Although Tietijen is a veteran hiker, her family reminds others that injuries and accidents can happen to anyone.

They warn hikers and mountaineers to always follow basic safety rules to minimize danger.
The crew of a new CalMac ferry on its way to Scotland took part in a dramatic rescue at stormy seas.

MV Isle of Islay is on her way from Turkey, where it was built, but was forced to berth at Gibraltar amid worsening weather conditions in southern Europe.

However, the vessel had to take to the sea as conditions became too dangerous to remain alongside, with a crew member spotting the man in the water off the Moroccan coast.

Within minutes, a fast rescue draft was deployed to recover him and bring him onboard.

Having been looked after by the Scottish ferry crew over a number of days, he has now been handed over to authorities of Morocco.

Louis de Wolff, CalMacs fleet management director, said: CalMac crews are well-trained in acting fast to take part in rescues at sea, often supporting the coastguard in Scottish waters.

None of us expected MV Isle of Islay to be involved in a rescue so soon after being delivered, but it is testament to the professionalism of our crew that the individual was saved from dangerous sea and weather conditions in just a few minutes.

Windspeeds in the storm-hit area were consistently higher than 30 knots, gusting at over 50 knots last week.

A crew member from the MV Isle of Islay spotted the man in the water off the Moroccan coast

A fast rescue draft was deployed to recover the man and bring him onboard

The MV Isle of Islay which has completed her second set of sea trials in the Sea of Marmara

MV Isle of Islay is now at Almeria port in Spain and expected to continue her journey over to the norther part of the country later this week with a break in the conditions.

Shell head across the Bay of Biscay to reach UK waters when a suitable weather window allows to be done so safely.

Mr de Wolff added: Were bringing the vessel home in winter, when sea and weather conditions in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic, where well be headed next, are at their most treacherous.

This has been compounded by a series of storms hitting the Iberian peninsula over the last two weeks.

The crew continue to do a first-class job in bringing her closer to Scotland and we will confirm arrival details nearer the time.

MV Isle of Islay was officially handed over to CMAL by her Turkish builders in Yalova.

She is the first of four ferries being constructed at the yard and will serve Islay and Jura with a capacity of 450 passengers and 100 cars  or 14 commercial vehicles - when she enters service.
New York City's democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani appears to be heading towards his first collision course with the city's police after it was revealed that the force has been secretly using fake social media accounts to spy on targets online.

The covert practice, described by civil rights groups as the 'digital version of NYPD's well-documented infiltration of Muslim communities post-9/11', has sparked outrage among activists who are now urging the mayor to take action.

As a state legislator, Mamdani fought to ban such technologies, known as 'sock puppet' accounts for their deception.

Now in charge of the nation's largest police force, he's responsible for overseeing and disclosing specifics on surveillance technologies the NYPD uses to conduct investigations.

The controversy erupted last week, when the police department quietly published long-mandated disclosures online, revealing for the first time that it has for years used sophisticated software from California firm NTREPID to create fictitious online personas to track down violent criminals and terrorists.

Mayor Mamdani punted on the issue when contacted by the Daily Mail.

'We are gathering more information about these tools and look forward to discussing them and their uses with the police department,' his spokesman, Sam Raskin, said.

The highly sophisticated 'sock puppet' software was previously only known to be used by the US Department of Defense, enabling Central Command to secretly influence online conversations and spread pro-American propaganda overseas.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is facing his first major test in City Hall after a bombshell disclosure revealed the NYPD has been secretly using fake social media accounts to surveil targets online

The NYPD quietly admitted to using covert online personas in a disclosure buried among dozens of documents posted with no public announcement

While the actual contract was not shared, sources tell the Daily Mail the NYPD has a multi-million-dollar agreement with NTREPID and has been using the technology for years to infiltrate social media and engage with targets through fake identities which cannot be traced back to police.

The NYPD kept the contract a closely guarded secret, even after the City Council passed the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) Act in 2020 requiring it to disclose the surveillance programs.

The department has argued the technology allows them to root out terror plots and that such disclosures could hamper investigations.

But city legislators ratcheted up the POST Act in 2025 to require the department to name its vendors.

The department sent the disclosures to the city late last year, and they were posted last week on the city's website with no public announcement.

The name NTREPID is buried among 40 documents, listed once in a ten-page pdf titled Internet Attribution Management Infrastructure.

'The NYPD uses internet attribution management infrastructure, including NTREPID, to manage digital footprints and allow its personnel to safely, securely, and covertly conduct investigations and detect possible criminal activity on the internet,' the NYPD document states.

'The types of equipment utilized by the NYPD for its internet attribution management infrastructure include computer servers, internet lines, switches, modems, and routers, virtual private networks, remote desktop software, desktop and laptop computers, tablets, and smartphones from a variety of manufacturers,' it adds.

The Daily Mail can reveal that the NYPD quietly admitted to using covert online personas in a disclosure buried among dozens of documents posted with no public announcement last week

Documents showed the force has been using a software, supplied by California firm NTREPID, and previously associated with Pentagon and US military online influence operations overseas, to spy on targets online (file image)

The release caught the eye of the Legal Aid Society of New York City and the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), two civil rights organizations that have fought to prevent 'discriminatory' surveillance by law enforcement.

Both groups fought for the POST Act as well as state legislation seeking to ban police from leveraging fake social media accounts to surveil New Yorkers.

In 2023, then-Assembly member Mamdani sponsored the so-called Stop Fakes Act.

He co-authored a newspaper column that year blasting police for 'infiltration' of social media with phony accounts and used it to 'flag, surveil and arrest activists' around the country.

He argued that police have targeted black and brown youth, as well as teenagers based on 'out of context' social media posts.

The material then gets shared with prosecutors and used for massive gang sweeps that 'ruin young people's lives', the future mayor co-wrote in the column in City & State New York in June 2023.

Mamdani, 34, a longtime outspoken critic of the NYPD, has called the department 'racist' and a 'rogue agency,' though he has since apologized and softened his rhetoric.

While the department saw an exodus of cops in the months leading up to his mayoral win, he has largely avoided controversy by shifting his tone toward police and by maintaining the status quo, keeping Jessica Tisch as NYPD commissioner.

The revelations about police surveillance, however, could put this honeymoon period to the test.

Speaking exclusively with the Daily Mail, representatives from STOP and the Legal Aid Society said they were surprised by the news the NYPD uses advanced NTREPID technologies and now want Mamdani to follow through on his pre-mayoral campaign against so-called 'sock-puppet' technologies.

They also want the City Council to hold hearings on the new revelations.

'For years, STOP has fought for passage of the Stop Fakes Act to ban police use of fake social media accounts, a bill led by then Assembly member Mamdani,' William Owen, spokesman for STOP, told the Daily Mail Friday.

'As Mayor, Mamdani must continue rejecting NYPD's fake friend requests and fight back against social media surveillance.'

He described NTREPID as 'yet another one of these tools in NYPD's arsenal, bringing War on Terror surveillance tactics to New Yorkers' social media.'

'This is a digital version of NYPD's well-documented infiltration of Muslim communities post-9/11, and it must be stopped to protect New Yorkers' First Amendment rights,' he added.

The new disclosures expand on what is already known about the department's wide range of surveillance devices and technology, including the use of facial recognition software as well as portable devices that mimic cell phone towers to log data from phones.

Responding to the Daily Mail's request for comment, a spokesman defended the use of NTREPID saying such technologies are 'critical security and counter-terrorism tools' used to 'mitigate threats'

There is also detail on the Domain Awareness System, an AI-driven network controlling more than 18,000 security cameras across the city.

And there is a new disclosure about the NYPD's contract with Voyager Labs, a social media monitoring firm that claims it can predict 'extremism'.

Responding to the Daily Mail's request for comment, the NYPD defended its use of NTREPID and related surveillance technologies.

'These are critical security and counter-terrorism tools we use to mitigate threats,' a spokesman said. 'NYPD takes all appropriate steps to protect undercover accounts and our counterterrorism efforts.'

However, legal advocates have long argued that the department's lack of transparency and vast surveillance network makes it difficult to defend their clients or identify abuses.

The new disclosures have only raised levels of concern.

'Creating these fake social media profiles allows the NYPD to completely sidestep judicial process and enter private online spaces by deception, and get information that would typically require a warrant,' Michelle Dahl, executive director of STOP, told the Daily Mail on Friday.

'We cannot rely on the NYPD to monitor themselves,' she continued. 'We need to push for accountability and to end their use of deceptive social media practices.'

Jerome Greco, digital forensic director for the Legal Aid Society, told the Daily Mail that one thing he was particularly concerned about was the NYPD's vague explanation for how it used the technology.

The department stated that programs 'may only be used by NYPD personnel for legitimate law enforcement purposes or other official business of the NYPD.'

'Such vague language undermines the purpose of the POST Act and allows the NYPD to continue to hide from the public how it uses these tools,' Greco said.

An NYPD source told the Daily Mail that such fears were unfounded.

'We don't use any of this technology to target any particular ethnic or religious group,' the source said.

'You know who we're targeting? The people who want to kill New Yorkers.

'These tools help us unearth potential terror plots not just at home but overseas too,' the source continued.

'We have uncovered plots from here to England to Germany in the past couple years because of this technology.

'We're going to keep moving forward till maybe some crazy liberal leftist mayor decides to shut it down,' the source added.
A Jewish MP was forced to visit a school in secret after pro-Palestinian protestors threatened to target his trip over his links to 'Friends of Israel'.

Labour MP Damien Egan was meant to visit Bristol Brunel Academy in September last year but had to call off the plans after a campaign by far-Left members of staff at the school represented by the National Education Union (NEU) and Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC).

He was barred because of 'safeguarding concerns' after the activists, who claimed to be representing the views of teachers, parents, and residents, highlighted his links to Labour Friends for Israel.

To the NEU and PSC, forcing Mr Egan's cancellation was 'a win for safeguarding, solidarity, and for the power of the NEU trade union staff group, parents, and campaigners standing together.'

Mr Egan is the vice chairman of Labour Friends for Israel - a Parliamentary group which advocates for Israel, which it considers the 'historic homeland' of Jewish people, and a two-state solution to the conflict. It does not receive Israeli government funding.

The visit was rescheduled but teachers were not told, so Mr Egan made his visit in secret.

Mr Egan, Labour MP for Bristol North East acknowledged 'people have got a right to protest', but pointed to 'security considerations' for members of Parliament.

Mr Egan told The Times that he 'had a lovely visit, meeting the head and the school council, the children, the questions, it was fabulous'.

Labour MP Damien Egan was barred from visiting Bristol Brunel Academy in September last year after a campaign against his arrival

Mr Egan had to visit to school in secret after NEU and PSC members rallied against his links to Labour Friends of Israel

Jon Redford, the NEU's Bristol representative, told BBC Politics West that staff had 'no intention' of getting Mr Egan barred from his visit. He claimed there had only been a discussion that staff might wear keffiyeh scarves and watermelon badges, in support of Palestine, but the protest outside the school was 'entirely independent'.

Staff 'wanted to show their opposition to a supporter of a genocidal regime coming to their school,' he said. 'They wanted to show there was a different perspective, that he needn't expect complete support for his views.'

When asked what evidence there was, Reddiford pointed to his links to Labour Friends of Israel and his visit to the country.

Mr Egan defended his visit as 'a good thing' because it allowed him 'to go out and meet with people'.

Labour Friends of Israel's website says it is funded by 'the generosity of members of the Jewish community and those who share our commitment to the State of Israel'.

Egan, who became an MP after a 2024 by-election, told The Times: 'This group works with left-leaning organisations in Israel, but also in Palestine in the West Bank as well.

'They've been pushing the government to put money into a peace programme that will bring civil society organisations this year from Israel, from the West Bank, to come in and speak.'

An Ofsted inspection of Bristol Brunel Academy found 'no evidence of bias' in the day-to-day running of the school.

However, the trust that runs the school, Cabot Learning Federation (CLF), has agreed to commission an independent review of the decision to cancel Mr Egan's visit in September.

The CLF also cancelled a speaker from Israeli tech company Check Point Software Technologies at its summer conference last July following NEU pressure.

A CLF spokesman reportedly said: 'We were pleased to host Damien Egan MP for a productive visit to Bristol Brunel Academy on Thursday. He expressly asked that we did not share the plan for him to visit in advance, and we respected that request.

'Any safety concerns related to protest that have been raised in relation to Mr Egan's visit have come from outside the school.

According to the findings in the recent Ofsted inspection: 'No member of staff inspectors spoke with were aware of a proposed staff-led protest against the MP's visit.

'Inspectors heard that staff were proud of the inclusive nature of the school towards pupils, and there was often deep hurt expressed at the way their school was being portrayed.

'Regardless of how this has been reported elsewhere, there is no evidence that staff at the school proposed wearing specific items of clothing in response to a planned visit.'
Sir Keir Starmer was accused of a 'monumental diplomatic failure' in his recent talks with China after it jailed a British citizen for 20 years.

The Prime Minister claimed he had raised the case of Hong Kong democracy campaigner and media mogul Jimmy Lai during his high-profile meeting with President Xi Jinping.

But less than two weeks later the 78-year-old  who has already been in solitary confinement for more than five years - was handed what his son described as a 'death sentence' by a court in the Beijing-controlled territory.

Sebastien Lai told the BBC: 'Given his health, given that he has heart issues, given that he's lost 10kg over the last year alone, that's basically a death sentence.

'Surely a man who has given so much for liberty, for freedom deserves a bit of it himself.'

And daughter Claire Lai said: 'This is a heartbreakingly cruel sentence. Over the last five years, I have watched my father's health deteriorate dramatically and the conditions he's kept in go from bad to worse. If this sentence is carried out, he will die a martyr behind bars.'

Mr Lai  who gained British citizenship in 1996 before Hong Kong was handed over to the Chinese  was targeted for publishing outspoken criticism of Beijing in his Apple Daily newspaper as well as taking part in protests and vigils himself.

He was arrested just weeks after China passed its National Security Law for Hong Kong and has been behind bars since December 2020, with his supporters now increasingly alarmed about his deteriorating health.

Jimmy Lai, photographed during an interview in June 2020, was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment by a court in Hong Kong on Monday

A prison van believed to be carrying Jimmy Lai leaving West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts after his sentencing for 'conspiring to collude with foreign forces'

On Monday he was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment, the harshest sentence so far under the draconian law, for 'conspiring to collude with foreign forces'.

And, in the Commons, MPs lambasted Sir Keir for having failed to secure Mr Lai's release when he went to China just days after granting it permission to build a mega-embassy in London.

Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: 'Why did they not hold back on that planning permission to say to the Chinese government, you must release Jimmy Lai now and cancel this prosecution altogether, otherwise you will not get your Chinese Embassy?

'Instead of which, we've given it them free and for nothing. And the Prime Minister was treated like dirt while he was out there.'

Shadow Foreign Secretary Dame Priti Patel said: 'The fact that Jimmy Lai has been sentenced to 20 years, the longest sentence ever under the National Security Law, is not only a reflection of the cruelty inflicted by the Chinese Communist Party, but it's a monumental diplomatic failure of this feeble and gullible Prime Minister.

'Just over a week ago, he was with President Xi defending engagement with the CCP. He gave China permission for their super embassy spy hub but failed to secure Jimmy's release.'

There were also calls for the Government to impose sanctions on the prosecutors and judges involved in the 'sham trial'.

But Foreign Office minister Seema Malhotra insisted: 'The Prime Minister's recent visit allowed us to open up discussion and dialogue directly with the Chinese government at the highest level. There is absolutely no point trying to call for something when you are shouting into a void.

'We continue those discussions publicly and privately to secure the release of Jimmy Lai that is this government's priority.'
Locals are being 'held hostage' by tourists visiting their humble winter wonderland in California as they disregard laws and run rampant across the community.

Alpine County is littered with trash, broken sleds, and even human waste after every snowfall, as visitors come in droves, trespassing on private property and blocking roadways to get their share of playtime in the snow.

Residents of the rural community, just south of Lake Tahoe, told the San Francisco Chronicle that they've had enough.

'We have to do something about it,' Alpine County Supervisor Terry Woodrow said during a meeting last month after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.

The area's locals have assigned the term 'snowplayers' to tourists wreaking havoc inside the community.

'A lot of these "snowplayers" just come into the village, don't respect our property, trespass on county and private property, leave garbage and trash.'

Woodrow said the unwanted guests trespass on private property and refuse to leave. The chaos of visitors during the holiday weekend was eye-opening to officials who deal with this persistent issue.

She added how the snow-chasers are making the 1,200 residents of her small county feel 'held hostage.'

Alpine County residents are tired of 'snowplayers' coming to their community and leaving it littered with trash, broken sleds, and even human waste. Snowplayers are how the locals refer to tourists who are wreaking havoc on their community (Round-Valley Sno-Park pictured in 2025)

The visitors cause traffic for residents and at time hurt themselves in one instance a person died and in another someone was paralyzed (Stock Image)

Californians have few options for finding a place to live legally, safely, and affordably, the outlet noted.

There are only 18 state-managed snow parks, which become overcrowded on the weekends, causing sledders and those seeking low-level recreation in the snow to look elsewhere.

However, the snow sites quickly become chaotic, Ruth Loehr, public information officer for the California Highway Patrol's South Lake Tahoe Area, told the Chronicle.

'It's a lot of lawlessness,' Loehr said. 'If nobody is watching, nobody's going to follow the rules or do what they're supposed to do.'

On top of all the issues brought by the out-of-towners, they sometimes become victims themselves.

Loehr said that unofficial sledding hills have caused serious injuries and even a fatality; another person was also paralyzed.

During MLK weekend, traffic jams plagued the area due to visitors illegally parking along Highway 4.

Join the debate Should tourists face steep fines for trashing mountain towns?

California only has 18 state-managed snow parks which become overcrowded on the weekends causing sledders and those seeking low-level recreation in the snow to look elsewhere

Visitors are required to purchase a $15 Sno-Park permit before arriving at designated stores or online

A tow truck arrived to remove one of the illegally parked vehicles, and another driver was waiting patiently to pull into the now-free space, said Woodrow.

Visitors are required to purchase a $15 Sno-Park permit before arriving at designated stores or online.

She recently noted in her Board of Supervisors address that the snow players have been a constant issue.

'I say this every year, but you've got to take it seriously,' she told the board, according to the outlet.

County staffers believe that more law enforcement, higher parking citation fees, resident-only parking permits, and metered parking are among the few ways to combat unruly guests.

Additionally, officials added that fines for bad behavior could deter the snowplayers.

'$2,000 admission fee for that might change that behavior pretty quick, and I would definitely be in favor of a $2,000 fine for something like that,' suggested one supervisor at the meeting.
The latest prisons free-for-all proposed by an SNP commission is a criminals charter  and a new low for soft touch justice.

A panel of experts was assembled to come up with sentencing reforms but the real aim was to tell ministers what they want to hear.

Justice Secretary Angela Constance has been busy with the emergency release of hundreds of criminals from crowded jails.

But its a sticking plaster approach and the beneficiaries have a nasty though predictable habit of committing more crime.

So she set up a grandly named commission which spent months putting together a report numbering some 150 pages.

The central idea is to phase out jail sentences of up to two years by tying the hands of sheriffs and judges with heavy-handed tactics.

They will be told to toe the line by keeping criminals out of prisons or explain in writing why they didnt let them off with community service.

The commission, headed by a former chairman of the Scottish Police Authority, also recommends changing the law to ban sentences of less than a year.

Justice Secretary Angela Constance has come under pressure over the release of prisoners from Scotland's overcrowded jails

Reforms would see more 'soft touch' measures for criminals rather than jail sentences

Presumably, they want us to believe this will involve largely harmless, white-collar criminals  but were talking about many thousands, including thugs and sex offenders.

Then theres a cocktail of other barmy soft measures such as fixed penalties for threatening and abusive behaviour, more electronic tagging  and just about any other move you can think of that would allow criminals to dodge a spell behind bars.

The SNP scrapped automatic early release for prisoners serving more than four years, though it took them a long time to get round to it.

Now the commission of well-meaning stooges it cobbled together says we should go back to the old rules, under which prisoners were let out after serving two-thirds of their sentences. Its hard to imagine a more sickening surrender to the criminal fraternity  which was already rubbing its hands in glee at the hollowing-out of the single police service, now little more than a standing joke.

Now many of them can be assured that the worst that will happen is having to paint a park bench under a Community Payback Order, but theres a backlog and a high breach rate.

They may even be sent to a social worker after a direct referral from a police officer  did any of them sign up to administer this kid-glove treatment to criminals?

Maybe theyll end up giving out prizes for bad behaviour or a pat on the back and send the violent thug or housebreaker on their way.

The euphemistic term decarceration is used in the commissions lengthy, hand-wringing report, which amounts to cutting the number of prisoners by nearly half over the next decade.

The bill for a replacement for Barlinnie Prison in Glasgow has cost taxpayers 1bn so far

Ms Constance has opened the prison gates in cavalier fashion because jails are overflowing but her experts want to go further, supposedly in a more managed way.

The question that arises is whats the point in locking anyone up any more?

After ten years, there will be a relatively small rump of prisoners sitting round playing their Xboxes  with plenty of room to spread out.

Prisons are awash with drugs and the authorities seem unable to keep them out. Theres no reason to believe that would change with fewer inmates.

Holiday camp jails are part of the problem. In some cases highlighted by the Mail, inmates have been treated to fly-fishing and even a visit from a Zimbabwean dance troupe.

It doesnt seem to have occurred to any of the misguided liberals reporting to Ms Constance that the regime in jails should be toughened up to make them a genuine deterrent.

And if they were more effective at rehabilitating inmates then we wouldnt be having this circular, depressing debate.

In any sane universe Ms Constance would have been out of her job long ago over a long series of debacles.

AI is being mooted as a tool to help carry out risk assessments

But near the top of the list  if not at the very top  is the massively over-budget construction of the replacement for Barlinnie prison in Glasgow, which has cost taxpayers nearly 1billion so far.

These astronomic costs have been allowed to spiral out of control by a government whose financial incompetence is legendary.

Were all so accustomed to procurement scandals of this kind that its no longer a shock when one comes to light. But the Bar-L row beggars belief  time to rope in another judge for yet another public inquiry?

The SNP hasnt come close to managing prison capacity effectively and, when it has tried, it has made an appalling hash of it, as the breathtaking Barlinnie bill shows.

Its a mantra among the supposed experts in the criminal justice world that prisons dont work, so we shouldnt build more of them (though that would be a good start, if the costs could be reined in).

But if prisons could be made to work, we wouldnt need more of them.

The icing on the cake of the SNP commissions bizarre and repugnant wish-list  currently under consideration by Ms Constance  is artificial intelligence (AI). Martyn Evans, its chairman, told me last week AI could be deployed for risk assessment and even to help judges.

Does anyone trust the shambolic, mismanaged courts to get it right on AI, which tends to hallucinate (come up with wrong information)?

The idea is to release prisoners or keep criminals out of prisons, with the entire system overseen by computers, though were assured human beings will have a role.

Well, thats all right then  until things go horribly wrong, as they inevitably will.

Anyone whos seen Stanley Kubricks 2001: A Space Odyssey will know the potential for deadly blunders. It features a sinister robot called HAL, with a chillingly calm and menacing voice, which develops a mind of its own and wreaks havoc.

When IT failures allow a killer to strike again, who will be held to account?

A system where no human being can be blamed is something officialdom has always dreamed of  and now it may be about to become a reality.

As for victims, lip service is paid to them in the commissions report but theyre no more than an afterthought.

Ms Constance says acting on the recommendations will be a matter for an incoming government.

Well, an election is on the horizon and these plans dont look like a vote-winner (though they may prove popular among thugs and sex offenders).

But its a safe bet that the Nationalists would rush to enact all of them if they regain power in May  with the back-up of the Greens if needs be.

The only people likely to be won over by this toxic tosh are the criminals  the big winners under SNP rule.
A shock new poll shows Australian workers overwhelmingly believe working from home should be the default arrangement, not a shortterm pandemic perk, with pressure now mounting on the Fair Work Commission to enshrine the right in law.

With more than one million clerical and administrative employees potentially affected, the Australian Services Union is using the findings to push for landmark changes that could reshape the structure of office work nationwide.

Ahead of a pivotal Fair Work Commission hearing on Tuesday, polling of 1,000 workers reveals nearuniversal support for remote work rights.

A striking 87 per cent back a formal entitlement to work from home, and 60 per cent believe it should be the standard arrangement for any job that can be performed routinely.

The hearing marks the final stage of the Commission's review of the ClerksPrivate Sector Award, one of the nation's largest awards.

According to ABS data, about 1.8million Australians are clerical and administrative employees, of which about three-quarters are women.

The ASU is mounting a direct challenge to employer groups, arguing for the protection of overtime and penalty rates and insisting working from home be recognised as a right, rather than a privilege.

The union is also calling for sweeping new protections, including a requirement that workers receive at least six months' notice before mandating a return to the office.

According to ABS data, about 1.8million Australians are clerical and administrative employees, of which about three-quarters are women (office workers in Sydney are pictured)

ASU national secretary Emeline Gaske said the upcoming decision is likely to have significant flowon effects across other industry awards, potentially setting a new benchmark for how remote work is regulated nationwide.

'This is no longer just a trend, it's the new industrial standard,' she said.

'Working from home is more than just a convenience - it's a lifeline for workers balancing their jobs, families, and rising cost-of-living pressures.'

But despite the overwhelming support revealed in the polling, the data shows a substantial segment of employers are still failing to meet demand for flexible work.

Nearly onethird of workers (32 per cent) said they - or someone they know - have had a request to work from home rejected by their employer.

'It is concerning that nearly one-third of people are still facing barriers to flexible work,' Ms Gaske said.

'That is why a whopping 87 per cent of Australians are demanding specific workplace protections to ensure staff are not penalised or disadvantaged just for requesting to work from home.'

The bombshell findings undermine claims by major business groups that remote work harms productivity.

Ahead of a pivotal Fair Work Commission hearing on Tuesday, polling of 1,000 workers reveals nearuniversal support for remote work rights (stock image)

Twothirds of those surveyed said working from home offers fewer distractions than being in the office, making them more productive.

University of Melbourne researchers analysed 20 years of data compiled in the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey to understand how working from home can shape a person's mental wellbeing.

It found significant improvements to the wellbeing of people who were already living with mental health issues and who worked from home.
Reality TV celebrity Matt Wright displayed a 'cavalier' attitude in operating his helicopter from his home to the annoyance of neighbours, a judge has said, before imposing a $10,000 fine for breaching the rules.

The Outback Wrangler star, who is in jail for trying to pervert the course of justice following a fatal chopper crash, pleaded guilty to one count of contravening a development permit.

His lawyer Luke Officer asked Judge Greg Macdonald in the Darwin Local Court on Monday to show leniency to his client whose Supreme Court trial had been 'financially devastating' for him.

The judge said Wright had been issued an enforcement notice not to fly choppers to and from his home but he intentionally contravened that on April 26, 2024.

His offending was 'egregious, cavalier, indicative of someone who might be said to be thumbing their nose'.

'Landing helicopters in residential areas, albeit five-acre blocks, would be quite disturbing and disruptive to the peace of the neighbourhood,' Judge Macdonald said, noting a childcare centre was less than 500 metres away.

The judge said that in April 2024 the defendant's world was 'crumbling into a quagmire' of legal conflict and dispute.

He noted Wright's contributions to the community along with glowing character references given at his Supreme Court sentencing.

Before imposing the $10,000 fine the judge observed Wright had suffered a 'spectacular fall from grace' and said leniency was appropriate.

Outback Wrangler star Matt Wright was fined $10,000 on Monday after he pleaded guilty to contravening a development permit

The judge described Matt Wright's offending as 'egregious, cavalier, indicative of someone who might be said to be thumbing their nose'. Wright is pictured with his wife Kaia

Wright's neighbours complained to the Development Consent Authority in 2021, fed up at having noisy choppers landing and taking off near their bushland homes at Virginia, 30km from Darwin.

Wright appealed the authority's enforcement notice to the Northern Territory Civil and Administrative Tribunal, claiming he had the right to use his choppers 'like a motor car', but the tribunal disagreed.

The 46-year-old was not required to appear in court from jail on Monday.

Wright was in prison and had lost his air operating certificate and pilot's licence so there would be no repeat offending, Mr Officer said.

'He can't fly a helicopter any more and he's sold his property.'

Wright had run several successful tourism businesses but was now down to two operations after his costly Supreme Court trial, his lawyer said.

When asked by the judge what capacity Wright had to pay a fine, Mr Officer replied 'very little'.

Wright (pictured with his wife) was issued an enforcement notice not to fly choppers to and from his home which he intentionally contravened in April 2024

Wright remains behind bars for trying to pervert the course of justice following a fatal chopper crash which killed mate Chris 'Willow' Wilson

In the Supreme Court in December Acting Justice Alan Blow sentenced Wright to 10 months in prison on two counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice, suspended after he serves five months.

Wright lost his best mate and co-star Chris 'Willow' Wilson in a February 2022 chopper crash that left pilot Sebastian Robinson a paraplegic.

It happened during a crocodile-egg collecting trip in Arnhem Land while Mr Wilson was slung on a line below a chopper to drop onto nests in remote swampland.

Wright was accused of lying to crash investigators about the amount of fuel in the machine, of trying to get Mr Robinson to falsify flying hours and of asking a friend to 'torch' the helicopter's maintenance release.

On August 29, a jury found Wright guilty on the first two counts but could not reach agreement on the third torching accusation.

Prosecutors alleged Wright was worried investigators would learn his choppers' flying-hour meters were regularly disconnected to extend hours beyond official thresholds, with paperwork falsified to match.

The prosecution did not allege Wright caused the chopper crash, the death of Mr Wilson or Mr Robinson's injuries.

Wright plans to appeal the convictions.
Federal agents have boarded a Carnival cruise ship docked in Darwin amid allegations that foreign crew are being housed in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions while being paid as little as $2.50 an hour.

Australian Maritime Safety Authority inspectors boarded the Carnival Encounter on Monday morning to investigate reports of widespread skin infections, unsafe drinking water and allegations staff were pressured to work while seriously ill.

A spokesman said it was assessing potential breaches of the Maritime Labour Convention and the Navigation Act and would take enforcement action if required.

'AMSA has concluded our inspection of the vessel and a report of inspection has been provided to the Captain,' he said,

When pressed by the Daily Mail on whether any issues were found AMSA responded it would not be providing further comment on the matter.

The allegations were raised by the Maritime Union of Australia, which said crew from some of the world's poorest nations are being housed below deck in cramped cabins with poor amenities despite the ship operating almost exclusively in Australian waters.

MUA NT branch secretary Andy Burford accused Carnival of exploiting legal loopholes that exempt foreign crew from Australian workplace laws while 'generating billions of dollars in profit worldwide'.

'This is exactly what happens when you allow foreign-owned and controlled companies to sail the Australian coast, using Australian ports, carrying Australian passengers paying Australian fares, but who are completely immune from Australian law,' he said.

Assistant national secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia, Jamie Newlyn (pictured) has spoken out about the conditions of crew members working below deck

'Workers are [allegedly] being paid as little as $600-a-month and subjected to conditions no worker should accept.'

Assistant national secretary Jamie Newlyn said the issues under investigation were 'systemic across the cruise industry' and reflected the 'daily living and working environment' for staff who keep the vessels operating.

'These are the real conditions behind the scenes,' he said.

'This is the daily living and working environment of the people who keep these ships operating, serve passengers around the clock, and generate enormous profits for cruise company owners.'

Sydney branch organiser Shane Reside said Carnival's business model relied on 'complete domination' of a vulnerable, lowpaid workforce 'literally trapped at sea'.

'They're paid as little as $600-a-month and sometimes required to work in excess of 10 hours a day for in excess of 30 consecutive days,' he said.

'I don't think that any holiday is worth workers facing the kinds of exploitation that we've seen on these vessels.'

The Carnival Encounter is one of three Carnival Cruise Line vessels whose home port is in Australia but are staffed predominantly by foreign workers.

AMSA is investigating reports that staff suffering gastro and other infectious illnesses are pressured to continue working, despite the wellestablished risk of sick crew contributing to passenger outbreaks on cruise vessels.

An AMSA spokesperson said crew welfare is taken 'very seriously' and that the authority investigates all complaints received.

Australian Maritime Safety Authority inspectors boarded the Carnival Encounter on Monday morning to investigate reports of widespread skin infections, unsafe drinking water and staff allegedly pressured to work while seriously ill, including with gastro (stock image)

A Carnival spokeswoman said AMSA found no deficiencies during its inspection of Carnival Encounter in Darwin on Monday.

'As we stated emphatically at the time, Carnival has nothing to hide,' the spokeswoman said.

'The outcome of AMSA's inspection - with no followup action required - reinforces that fact.

'In contrast, the Maritime Union of Australia continues to use our crew as props in an ongoing attempt to increase its membership.'
Jeffrey Epstein was associated with a current top foreign government official, lawmakers have revealed after viewing redacted files.

Representatives Thomas Massie, a Republican, and Ro Khanna, a Democrat, revealed during a Monday press conference that six men are likely incriminated in the files.

The bipartisan duo has spearheaded the release of the Epstein Files since last July and pushed for a vote on their Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was eventually signed into law by President Trump.

Despite the law, they are still fighting for transparency as the DOJ released more than 3 million Epstein files on January 30, but the majority of them were heavily redacted.

Massie, of Kentucky, told reporters the files included an individual who is 'pretty high up in a foreign government' and urged Donald Trump's Justice Department to 'correct their mistakes'.

One document posted by Massie contains 18 redactions, four of them being men born before 1970.

Monday marked the first time members of Congress could view the unredacted files by visiting a Department of Justice building in Northeast Washington, DC, in person and accessing them on the DOJ's computers.

Representative Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, who also visited the DOJ office, said that the files contained several previously unreported young victims.

Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in 2005 in New York City

Representatives Thomas Massie, Republican from Kentucky, and Ro Khanna, Democrat from California, are leading the fight for the release of the Epstein files and are seen arriving at a Department of Justice office in Washington, DC, on February 9, 2026

'You read through these files, and you read about 15-year-old girls, 14-year-old girls, 10-year-old girls. I saw a mention of a 9-year-old girl today. I mean, this is just preposterous and scandalous,' Raskin said.

In his reference to a 9-year-old girl, it is unclear if Raskin was citing an email that included a formatting error.

Epstein's longtime girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell pleaded the Fifth and refused to answer questions over Jeffrey Epstein at a closed-door hearing on Capitol Hill.

The jailed British socialite appeared virtually before lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee for less than an hour on Monday.

Maxwell was deposed as part of the bipartisan congressional investigation into the Justice Department's prosecution and handling of the Epstein case.

Speaking with reporters on Capitol Hill following Maxwell's depositions earlier on Monday, Khanna also warned that the fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal could pose a serious threat to the British monarchy, arguing that the controversy extends far beyond individual wrongdoing and into the heart of the UK's political and social establishment.

Khanna said the Epstein case has exposed what he described as a culture of elite impunity, suggesting the monarchy is facing an unprecedented moment of vulnerability.

'This is the most vulnerable the British monarchy has ever been,' Khanna said, adding that the scandal could possibly bring about its downfall.

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Congressman Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat speaks with the media after viewing the unredacted version of the Jeffrey Epstein files at the Department of Justice, in Washington, DC, on February 9, 2026

Khanna pointed specifically to Prince Andrew's association with Epstein, as well as the involvement of prominent political figures such as Peter Mandelson, the former UK ambassador in DC, arguing that the release of Epstein-related files reveals a protected network of powerful individuals who have long escaped accountability.

According to Khanna, symbolic actions such as removing royal titles do not amount to meaningful accountability.

He also called out the silence from senior figures and said that King Charles III has a responsibility to address what he knew about the matter and when.

Khanna warned that if the British monarchy were to collapse under the weight of the Epstein revelations, the consequences would not be limited to the United Kingdom.

He said the scandal threatens to expose a broader transatlantic elite class, with implications reaching well beyond the royal family.
A young worker who lost his lower leg in a gruesome warehouse crash has endured a horrifying ordeal, his mother says, as the full extent of his injuries are revealed.

Zayne Krupowicz was working at Coco Republic's warehouse in Pemulwuy, in Sydney's west, when he collided with another pallet rider in February 2022.

The NSW District Court heard the electric pallet rider Mr Krupowicz was operating had crashed into a pallet rider operated by his colleague.

As a result of the collision, Mr Krupowicz suffered a compound fracture to his right foot, shockingly this later required his right leg to be amputated below the knee.

The Daily Mail is not suggesting Coco Republic is at fault.

Mr Krupowicz's mother, Julie Ann, described her son's ordeal as 'sheer agony'.

'My kind, caring, big-hearted son Zayne... had a terrible accident that has led to him broken and struggling to understand why this has happened to him,' she posted in a video seen by Daily Mail.

'The surgeons couldn't make a decision. Two-and-a-half weeks of sheer agony, not knowing what would happen.'

Zayne Krupowicz lost part of his right leg in the horror collision with another pallet rider

The incident happened in Coco Republic's warehouse in Pemulwuy in Sydney's west

The court heard Mr Krupowicz and his colleague were driving toward each other in reverse on the pallet riders, and swerved in the same direction to avoid one another

Ms Krupowicz said it had been a 'difficult case' as the main bone in Zayne's foot had rotated and snapped, and the main artery was damaged, with limited blood supply.

He underwent six operations to try to repair his foot but these proved unsuccessful, which required doctors to amputate below the knee.

'My boy was absolutely broken. Each day that passed he suffered tremendous amounts of pain - not only physical, [but] emotional pain that was overwhelming,' Ms Krupowicz said.

'My son's dreams and plans ripped away. Hearing him say he couldn't fight anymore, that he just wanted to die... and so they took his leg, leaving me with a shadow of my son.

'Everyday I pray that he will find the strength to make some kind of peace with his loss.'

The court heard the warehouse stored furniture and homewares, some weighing as much as 350kg, on full height racks in the warehouse that were accessed with the use of high-reach forklifts.

Most of these items were transported around the warehouse on pallets with the use of forklifts, pallet riders and pallet jacks.

The court heard Mr Krupowicz, who was an employee of Momentum Consulting Group Pty Ltd, was directed to work for Saveba Pty Ltd trading as Coco Republic in September 2021.

Managing Director of Momentum Consulting Group, John Patrick, offered an unreserved apology for the injury and associated stress sustained by Mr Krupowicz and his family

He was one of 28 workers directed to work there by the labour hire business between May 2021 and February 2022.

In a ruling handed down by Judge Andrew Scotting last week, Momentum Consulting was ordered to pay $125,000 after being found guilty of failing to ensure the health and safety of Mr Krupowicz.

Judge Scotting said the risk the labour hire workers faced 'included a risk of death'.

He also found a senior employee of Momentum Consulting had conducted an 'inadequate' work health and safety site inspection of the warehouse in May 2021.

'[She] failed to identify through her observations or through her enquiries of Saveba, the use of pallet riders at the warehouse and consequently the risks to the workers posed by their use,' Judge Scotting said.

'[She] failed to obtain a written position description from Saveba for the role of 'furniture assembler' and did not gain an adequate understanding of the work that would be performed by the labour hire workers at the warehouse.'

Judge Scotting noted Momentum Consulting had failed to verify that the labour hire workers were receiving appropriate training from Saveba, including a basic site induction.

It's understood Momentum Consulting later offered Mr Krupowicz training for a new office-based position, however he declined.

The court heard the labour hire business has now retrained all of its employees in relation to safety practices.

Saveba Pty Ltd was fined $390,000 in a separate court case held last year.
An artist has slammed the copycats who used his design to create a poster featuring alleged Bondi Beach shooter Naveed Akram with the word 'Aussie'.

Akram is currently facing 59 charges, including 15 counts of murder and 40 counts of wounding with intent to murder, after he and his father allegedly opened fire on a crowd celebrating Hanukkah by the Sea on December 14.

Last week, about 40 posters were seen around Melbourne with Akram's face on the day of the incident, alongside the bold, capitalised word 'Aussie'.

The images are copies of the iconic work by high-profile artist Peter Drew, 42, and use the same font and colour palette. Mr Drew is best known for his 2016 poster series that highlighted diverse figures who are Australian as a response to rising anti-immigration sentiment.

The poster also used the Daily Mail's exclusive news photo of Akram from the night of the massacre without written permission.

Mr Drew's posters feature Afghan cameleer Monga Khan, a young Jewish boy, and, more recently, the great-grandfather of NSW Nationals leader Gurmesh Singh.

But, on Tuesday, the copycat was revealed as far-right influencer Hugo Lennon, also known as 'Auspill', who is grandson of one of Australia's richest property developers, Tony Lennon.

'When I issued a challenge to anyone stupid enough to put their name to the posters I didn't think that trick would actually work,' Mr Drew told Daily Mail.

Far-right influencer Hugo Lennon - also known as Auspill - confirmed he was the creator of the vile posters of alleged Bondi Beach shooter Naveed Akram

About 40 posters were seen across Melbourne, copying high-profile artist Peter Drew's design

'I feel relieved to know the posters weren't made by anyone serious.

'Those boys lack spirit. That's their real problem. AUSSIE is bigger than any ideology.

'My honest opinion; it's just sad. These boys have their whole lives ahead of them but they're throwing it all away for online clout.

'I wish they had an older brother to shake some sense into them and say "Maybe don't make posters glorifying terrorists".'

The identity of the posters' creator was revealed in a rambling, 22-minute video by Lennon, who claimed Mr Drew's images of notable Australians from diverse ethnic backgrounds relayed the message anyone with 'two eyes and a mouth' could be a citizen.

As a result, he attempted to claim that 'anyone' could be Australian if they had the correct documentation or shared national values.

'The purpose of [my] project is to expose a contradiction in contemporary discourse around national identity,' the caption said.

This included 'the claim that Australianness is purely civic, infinitely fluid, and detached from history, continuity, or peoplehood'.

Mr Drew (pictured) said the copycats 'lack spirit' and that their posters were 'sad'

'Rather than arguing that point abstractly, the posters place that doctrine under pressure by running it to its logical limits and observing where audiences instinctively draw lines they often refuse to articulate,' Lennon claimed.

In the video, Lennon and fellow far-right, pro 'March for Australia' influencer 'SirDoug' were filmed walking through Melbourne to paste up posters of Akram.

They also included posters of US President Donald Trump.

Strangers, whose faces are blurred, can be seen posing beside one of the influencers who was holding the Akram poster on a bridge.

In another clip, a passerby can be heard calling out jovially to 'Auspill'.

Dr Dvir Abramovich, chair of the Anti-Defamation Commission, told Daily Mail the posters were an insult to grieving families after the Bondi Beach terror attack.

'What Hugo Lennon did is violence without a weapon,' he said.

'Taking the face of a mass murderer and pasting it onto Melbournes walls drags blood back onto the pavement.

Lennon's grandfather Tony Lennon is the millionaire ex-chairman of one of Australia's largest real estate development companies, Peet Limited (pictured, Lennon on the right with family)

'It reopens graves. It tells grieving families that their loss is a joke, a meme, a stunt for online applause.

'This is how extremism works in daylight. First you sanitise the killer. Then you stylise the killer.'

Victoria Police said they have launched an investigation after 'several posters of concern' popped up in Richmond, the CBD and its surrounds in January.

Officers have reviewed CCTV and enquiries are ongoing in relation to the offence of billposting and other, more serious offences.

Victoria Police have also liaised with Melbourne City Council regarding the incidents.

Lennon's grandfather Tony Lennon is the millionaire ex-chairman of one of Australia's largest real estate development companies, Peet Limited.

He retired last year but retained a sizeable shareholding, and has appeared multiple times on Western Australia's top-50 rich list with an estimated wealth approaching half a billion dollars.

A spokesperson for Peet told Daily Mail: 'Peet strongly condemns the recent views, actions, and commentary shared by Hugo Lennon.

'For clarity, he does not hold, and has never held, a position within Peet.

'Creating inclusive, diverse communities where everyone belongs is a core value for Peet.

'These values are central to the Peet business and are shared by its entire board.'
The Australian government has 'unreservedly' apologised to the grieving families of two teenage girls who died of methanol poisoning in Laos, after it emerged a secret court case had been held without their knowledge.

Best friends Holly Morton-Bowles and Bianca Jones, both 19, died while holidaying in Vang Vieng, north of the Laotian capital, Vientiane, in November 2024.

The Melbourne teens were among six foreign tourists staying at Nana Backpacker's Hostel who died after consuming methanol-laced drinks during happy hour.

Their heartbroken families have received little answers in their quest for justice and suffered another cruel blow when they learned that 10 hostel employees were recently found guilty of destroying evidence.

The hostel workers each received a suspended sentence and a $185 fine after the case played out in The People's Court of Vang Vieng in Laos.

They may also be handed exit visas following a 20-day appeal period.

Holly and Bianca's families say they found out about the court case not from the Australian government but from the loved ones of other poisoning victims.

'For us not to be told they're going ahead is abhorrent. There are no words,' Bianca's father Mark Jones told 9News on Monday.

Melbourne teens Bianca Jones and Holly Morton-Bowles were among six tourists who died from methanol poisoning at a backpackers hostel in Laos

Shuan Bowles and Mark Jones are furious that the Australian authorities kept them in the dark about the secret court case in Laos over their daughters' methanol poisoning deaths

Ten hostel staff were found recently guilty of destroying evidence. Each received a suspended sentence and a $185 fine (the Nana Backpacker's Hostel is pictured)

'The best word to describe it is disappointment,' Holly's father Shaun said.

The grieving fathers also lashed the reopening of the cursed hostel.

'To think that the Laos authorities believe that those involved in killing our daughters is worth $185 is disgraceful,' Mr Jones said.

'Six people died in that hostel and they've opened it again. It's beyond comprehension.'

Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has since issued a grovelling apology, saying it 'fell short' in its consular duties to the families.

'The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade apologises unreservedly for the failure to keep the families of Holly Bowles and Bianca Jones fully informed about the outcomes of the court case relating to the destruction of evidence following the death of a United States citizen at the Nana Backpackers Hostel in November 2024,' it said.

'The Department prides itself on its commitment to consular service and to ensuring that the interests of consular clients and their families are paramount.

'On this occasion, we fell short of our aspiration.'

Holly Bowles and Bianca Jones both would have turned 21 this year

The quest for answers continues for Melbourne fathers Mark Jones and Shaun Bowles (pictured at Bianca's funeral)

The department added that the destruction of evidence charges only related to the death of James Hutson, a 57-year-old US tourist.

No further charges will be laid in connection with the deaths, however, a man linked to the distillery where the tainted spirits were produced remains before the courts.

The fathers have also accused the Laotian government of failing to take accountability for the deaths and rushing the case to court.

'We were disgusted, really. It's very clear that they want an open-and-shut case so they can just move on,' Mr Bowles told the ABC.

'That's not being held to account.'

The families have since called on the Australian government to apply diplomatic pressure on authorities in Laos to provide an official explanation of the court proceedings and sentence.

'I have made it clear to my Lao counterpart that Australia expects full accountability,' Foreign Minister Penny Wong said.

'I have also made it clear that charges should reflect the seriousness of the tragedy which left six people dead, including Holly and Bianca.

'We continue to press Lao authorities on the cases relating to Holly and Bianca's deaths, and we will continue to support Holly and Bianca's families at this distressing time.'

English lawyer Simone White, 28, also died in the mass poisoning, along with Danish friends Anne-Sofie Orkild Coyman, 20, and Freja Sorensen, 21.
The world's richest man, Elon Musk, has unleashed a brutal salvo of posts against President Donald Trump's 'evil' former advisor Steve Bannon over his connections to Jeffrey Epstein.

'Bannon is evil,' Musk posted Monday on X in a stream of attacks the Tesla executive has unfurled against Trump's former adviser.

'That's a real selfie pic with Bannon & Epstein,' Musk posted alongside a photo of the two men in the pedophile's government file.

'Bannon was laundering money for evil people,' the entrepreneur wrote in another attack against the political advisor. 'Bannon's list of crimes is very long.'

Bannon, a notorious Republican political advisor who previously worked with Trump on his 2016 campaign, has recently caught flak for his lengthy correspondence with Epstein, revealed in the Department of Justice's and House Oversight Committee's latest document dump.

Musk also corresponded with the pedophile before Epstein's death, government files show.

Before he was arrested on sex trafficking charges in 2019, Epstein was working with Bannon to improve his public persona. Bannon had tried to help rehab Epsteins image, which had soured after the pedophile was convicted of prostitution with a minor in 2008.

Elon Musk and Steve Bannon have reignited their public feud on social media this week

Part of that work was to create a glowing documentary on Epstein to rescue the late financier's tarnished reputation.

Newly uncovered Epstein documents highlight the hundreds of texts, emails and other correspondence the two shared up until Epstein's July 2019 arrest.

The two were also messaging back and forth about a meeting in July 2019 before Epstein abruptly canceled it and was apprehended by law enforcement later that day.

The political advisor and Musk have long traded barbs online, but Bannon, who hosts a daily show called Bannon's WarRoom, has remained largely quiet about the latest round of Epstein.

Bannon has accused Musk, born in South Africa, of being an anti-American 'globalist' and a 'parasitic illegal immigrant' last year.

During the height of Musk and Trump's headline-grabbing feud over the summer, Bannon repeatedly bashed the billionaire.

'President Trump empowered him more than anyone's ever been empowered, and people like me said you're making a mistake,' Bannon said of Musk in June 2025. 'This is a bad guy. He's going to turn on us. He's also totally incompetent.'

Join the debate Do YOU think Elon Musk is right to go after Steve Bannon over his Epstein links?

Epstein and Bannon exchanged messages shortly before the pedophile was arrested by US authorities in July 2019

Musk has, in turn, gone scorched earth on Bannon, posting about the political advisor over half a dozen times in the past 48 hours.

The high-profile fight has forced some figures in the president's orbit to choose sides.

'Funny how Bannon's fellow antisemites and isolationists have not demanded that HE come clean about his well-established, video-taped relationship with Epstein,' conservative commentator Mark Levin wrote on Monday.

'[Elon Musk] certainly turned out to be right about Steve Bannon,' former Trump advisor Roger Stone wrote on X. 'No one has done more for free speech rights, and the first amendment then [Musk].'
Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt, 70, has been romantically linked to the 27-year-old German daughter of Bavaria's minister-president after the pair were spotted together at Davos.

The billionaire was seen with model Gloria-Sophie Burkandt at the high-profile global event in Switzerland last month. Now, Germany's biggest newspaper, BILD, is reporting that they are an item.

Their rumored romance - and 43-year age gap - have drawn intense attention on both sides of the Atlantic. Schmidt is 21 years older than Burkandt's father, Markus Soder.

BILD said Schmidt and Burkandt have spent a lot of time together in recent weeks, traveling across the United States, India and Europe. They are expected to attend the Munich Security Conference next week.

A source close to Schmidt's circle told the newspaper he would not formally describe the connection as a romantic relationship, saying instead that the two are 'close friends'.

Despite being married to his wife, Wendy, for 45 years, Schmidt has been recently linked to multiple young brunettes.

Eric Schmidt, 70, with 27-year-old Gloria-Sophie Burkandt at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January

Sources have insisted that the 27-year-old and Schmidt are just friends

Burkandt's father, Soder, is the leader of Germany's conservative Christian Social Union, placing her at the center of one of Europe's most influential political families.

She has built her own public profile as a model, author, and public speaker, while also serving as patron of the Richard Wagner for Children education initiative, linked to the Bayreuth Festival.

Burkandt herself hinted at the significance of the moment in a January 21 Instagram post from Davos.

'Being at the World Economic Forum and listening to conversations about AI and the future of Europe deeply moved me,' she wrote. 'When I imagine my future children, I hope they grow up in a world that protects curiosity, freedom, and compassion.'

According to German media reports, she studied economics, completed graduate degrees, and is pursuing doctoral work.

Her international lifestyle, splitting time between New York, Los Angeles, Munich, and Nuremberg, suggested she was already familiar with the lifestyle of the elite before Schmidt entered the picture.

According to BILD, Schmidt and Burkandt are believed to have met at Harvard University in late 2025. Shortly afterward, they began appearing together at major international gatherings.

A source close to Burkandt told the Daily Mail on Tuesday that BILD's reporting was 'full of inaccuracies' and explained how Schmidt and Burkandt did not meet at Harvard nor are they attending the Munich Security Conference together.

The source added that Schmidt did not take Burkandt to India and there is no romantic interest between them - only friendship.

The source also noted when Schmidt met with Burkandt in Davos last month, she was part of a wider group of people that he saw during the global meetup.

Schmidt's influence today extends far beyond Silicon Valley. He remains active in artificial intelligence, aerospace ventures, and philanthropy, shaping discussions about the future of technology and national security.

Burkandt has similarly positioned herself within global conversations about economics, education, and social development.

Schmidt, who led Google through its explosive growth into a global technology powerhouse, has been married to philanthropist Wendy Schmidt, 70, since 1980.

Join the debate What's YOUR take on the pairing?

Schmidt has been married to wife Wendy for 45 years. While they have not commented publicly on their marriage, they are rumored to be in an open relationship

Burkandt is a model, public speaker, and patron of the Bayreuth Festival's 'Richard Wagner for Children' project

Burkandt is the daughter of Markus Soder, right, the minister-president of Bavaria and leader of Germany's Christian Social Union

Burkandt has studied economics and is pursuing doctoral-level academic work, according to German media reports

Burkandt has lived and worked internationally, including spending extended time in New York and Los Angeles while building her career in media and public speaking

She serves as president of the Schmidt Family Foundation, which funds environmental and social initiatives worldwide.

The two reportedly have an open relationship, with Schmidt having been previously linked to glamorous younger women, including fashion designer Shoshanna Gruss, socialite Ulla Parker, PR executive Marcy Simon, Council on Foreign Relations communications VP Lisa Shields, pianist Cho-San Nguyen, former CNBC correspondent Kate Bohner, and former Olympic skater Alexandra Duisberg.

Schmidt and Wendy have maintained an unconventional marital arrangement and have never announced plans to divorce. They continue appearing together publicly.

His immense wealth, estimated to be in the tens of billions, has allowed him to operate at the highest levels of business, science, and international policy long after stepping down from day-to-day leadership at Google.

He was the CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011, and served as executive chairman from 2011 to 2018.

Schmidt's latest relationship follows a bitter and highly public legal dispute with tech entrepreneur Michelle Ritter, whom he dated after meeting through professional connections.

Ritter filed legal claims accusing Schmidt of abuse, surveillance, and coercive control - allegations he has forcefully denied.

Schmidt previously dated tech entrepreneur Michelle Ritter, who later filed for a temporary restraining order against the 70-year-old

Schmidt, right, frequently attends global forums such as the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he mingles with prime ministers such as Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu in 2021

In a court response, Schmidt called her claims 'demonstrably false' and described them as 'a blatant abuse of the judicial system.'

His attorney Patricia Glaser later told the Daily Mail that Ritter's filings were 'false and defamatory' and 'the latest desperate and destructive effort' to damage his reputation.

The legal fight stemmed from the collapse of both their romantic relationship and shared business ventures, including an AI startup Schmidt had backed with substantial investment.

The Daily Mail has reached out to both Schmidt for comment.
Last night at a protest rally in Sydney deliberately timed to coincide with the Israeli Presidents official trip to Australia to mourn the victims of the Bondi terrorism massacre, former Australian of the Year Grace Tame directed the assembled crowd to chant 'globalise the intifada'.

Tame would piously insist shes on the side of the righteous in doing so, however, the overwhelming majority of Australians would undoubtedly disagree.

Globalise the intifada is not a misunderstood plea for justice that deserves gentle interpretation.

Its a slogan with a body count in its shadow. Anyone chanting it in 2026 is choosing to drag that shadow into their own city, their own streets, their own politics.

On this occasion the person doing it happens to have once been the most celebrated person in Australia.

So what does 'globalise the intifada' mean?

Intifada literally translates as uprising, and in modern political life it is globally recognised as shorthand for two defining episodes in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which involved terrorism that included the deliberate targeting of civilians.

Added to that, the word globalise calls for a regional conflict - in this case between Israelis and Palestinians - to be exported elsewhere. It invites people, thousands of kilometres away, to imagine themselves as participants in an uprising.

Grace Tame screamed 'from Gadigal to Gaza, globalise the infitada' at a rally outside the Sydney Town Hall on Monday night

By bellowing 'from Gadigal to Gaza, globalise the infitada' in peaceful Sydney, from the steps of the town hall, Tame is pretending that these three words are not weighted with history.

If a slogan requires the public to forget where the words came from and what they meant it is misdirection - a rhetorical sleight of hand.

It is also playing political cosplay with other peoples trauma. And it is a reckless act because it invites the importation of hatreds from abroad onto our own shores.

What exactly does Tame think motivated the Bondi terrorists into action? A foreign ideology, in that case that of ISIS, that was brought to Australian soil, resulting in foreign hatreds being acted out here.

This is where intent becomes a convenient refuge for the irresponsible. The chants defenders claim they dont mean violence.

Indeed, I don't suggest that violence is Tame's intention. But in public life intent is not the only moral currency. Predictable effect matters.

If a phrase is widely understood as a call to replicate an uprising associated with violence, then choosing it is not a neutral act. It is knowingly choosing to be provocative - and then blaming the audience for being provoked.

And lets not forget last night's protest led to police being assaulted and wider violence. Although I don't suggest that Tame was responsible for the violence or assaults, she did choose to use a catch-cry that both major parties want banned, because of the damage it does to social cohesion.

Pro-Palestinian protesters face off with police outside the Sydney Town Hall on Monday night

Chanting 'globalise the intifada' doesnt lead to nuanced debate about international law or humanitarian corridors for starving Palestinians.

And it lands as an intimidation tactic for Jewish communities who have every reason to fear it.

That is precisely why the phrase is so poisonous: it collapses distinctions that matter. It blurs the line between criticism of a government and hostility towards an ethnic and religious community.

It takes a conflict and smears it onto diaspora populations who do not control Israeli policy and are not proxies for it. And it does that at the exact historical moment when antisemitism is again spiking in many Western societies, including ours.

There is also an ugly vanity at the centre of the chant. It allows comfortable Western activists to claim the moral adrenaline of revolutionary struggle without the discipline of peaceful persuasion.

It gives the speaker, in this case Tame, the thrill of being radical while leaving everyone else to absorb the anxiety it creates. That isnt principled activism. Its utter indulgence.

And it corrodes the very cause Tame claims to support. If the aim is to build durable support for Palestinian rights and security, the worst thing you can do is adopt language that a large portion of the public interprets as a call to violence.

It hands opponents an open goal. It distracts from humanitarian arguments. It turns a debate about policy into a debate about extremism. It pushes moderates away from the cause. It gives institutions every reason to clamp down on protests. Its extremely counterproductive.

There were fierce clashes between police and demonstrators

Naturally, the likes of Tame will claim victimhood when the backlash arrives. But if you insist on speaking in a way that predictably terrorises, or is heard as terrorising, dont feign innocence when society rejects it.

Ultimately, the chant is irresponsible because it treats social cohesion as collateral damage. It asks a multicultural democracy to import a conflicts most incendiary symbolism and pretend that nothing will happen here. When shockingly it already has.

If Tame or anyone else wants to stand with Palestinians, there is no shortage of language that does not carry the stench of civilian terror. No need for performative menace.

Tame should have her Australian of the Year title taken away. The only reason not to do so is that she would relish the martyrdom that would go with it.
Anas Sarwar wishes us to be in no doubt: he considers Sir Keir Starmer to be a close friend. Even as the Scottish Labour leader twisted the blade hed just plunged into the Prime Ministers back, he spoke of their bond.

This isnt easy, he told journalists gathered, yesterday afternoon, at a hastily-convened press conference in Glasgow.

And then Mr Sarwar struck blow after blow after blow. Biff! Hes my friend. Thwack! Hes dedicated his life to public service. Smash! Hes a decent man. This wasnt so much love bombing as a love kicking.

With the Prime Minister already wounded  perhaps fatally  over his catastrophic decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as US Ambassador despite knowing of his enduring friendship with paedophile sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, Mr Sarwar chose to break ranks.

The people of what he incessantly described as my country, Scotland were crying out for competent government. We have, said Mr Sarwar, an SNP government that is addicted to secrecy and cover-ups with devastating consequences.

Thats why, added the Scottish Labour leader, slipping on his knuckle- dusters, I have to be honest about failure wherever I see it.

The situation in Downing Street is not good enough. There have been too many mistakes. They promised they were going to be different, but too much has happened.

Have there been good things? Of course, there have been many of them, but no one knows them and no one can hear them because theyre being drowned out.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said his 'first loyalty and first priority' was to Scotland as he called for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to quit

Tone is vitally important in politics. Yesterday, Mr Sarwar struck the wrong one.

The straw currently threatening to break the back of Sir Keir Starmers career was made not by political incompetence or poor judgment but by his failure to recognise how morally repugnant it was for him to promote Peter Mandelson despite knowing of his friendship with a convicted paedophile.

Rather than focus on the victims, yesterday, Mr Sarwar seemed more concerned about his own political prospects.

I could have chosen, he said, to stay quiet and pretend everything was fine for the next three months.

But my first loyalty and my first priority is to Scotland.

The Scottish Labour leader loves his country, Scotland, so much that he is willing to make the great personal sacrifice of doing whatever it takes to become First Minister.

Asked how, after he had described Peter Mandelson as an old friend, people could take him seriously, Mr Sarwar said he was doing what he considered best for his country, Scotland.

Let me be clear, he said, Peter Mandelson is not someone or something I want to be associated with. Doubtless, that is so but Mr Sarwar is associated with that old friend, whether he likes it or not.

Within minutes of the Scottish Labour leaders press conference, Cabinet ministers began posting suspiciously similar messages of support for the Prime Minister across social media.

Turns out everything is just fine and Sir Keir Starmer is in it for the long run.

And if you happen to be a Labour MP and you dont believe that, well, youve not yet had a threatening call from the Labour whips office.
The public is being asked for help in the hunt for a serial rapist who targetted underage girls and women along the NSW Central Coast.

The sickening attacks are believed to have occurred between 1997 and 2000.

Detectives from the NSW Police Sex Crimes Squad said the man, who they believe is caucasian and would now be aged in his 70s, is suspected to have been responsible for the sexual assaults on two girls and four women.

The girls were as young as 16, while the women were aged between 23 and 77.

Police have identified two vehicles which they believe could crack the decades-old mystery of the rapist's identity.

One of those is a white Hyundai Excel which investigators believe was used in two of the attacks, reports the Daily Telegraph.

The other is a Toyota ute, believed to be linked to the man.

A picture of the ute has been released to the public in the hopes it may trigger the memory of Central Coast locals or visitors to areas such as Shelly Beach, Wamberal, Forresters Beach, Budgewoi, during the late 1990s.

NSW Police released this photo of a Toyota ute they believe may be linked to a series of attacks

The incidents were said to have occurred across the NSW Central Coast during the late 1990s

Detective Superintendent Jayne Doherty said police are now seeking the public's help

'Police never give up on seeking justice for victims. Sex Crimes Squad boss Detective Superintendent, Jayne Doherty, said.

'No matter how much time has passed, we continue to pursue every available avenue to identify those responsible for serious crimes.

'We recognise that as time passes, people's circumstances and allegiances change.

'Relationships shift, families grow apart, and individuals who may not have been willing or able to assist years ago may now feel differently. That's why we're renewing this appeal.'

The man, who was in his 40s when the attacks occurred, is believed to have a tanned complexion, a solid build and light-coloured hair.

He was estimated to be between 170cm and 180cm tall.
Two MPs want burning the Australian flag to be made illegal, arguing the act is not a 'harmless protest' and pointing to other countries that have outlawed flag burning.

Nationals backbencher Pat Conaghan and independent Rebekha Sharkie have introduced bills to criminalise burning the Australian flag after Indigenous leader Moojidji lit the flag while addressing a crowd at an Invasion Day rally in Brisbane last month.

Moojidji said he burned the flag to challenge Australia's legal legitimacy.

Sharkie took it further by including the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags.

She wants flag burners to be given a maximum twoyear sentence for a first offence and a minimum oneyear sentence for later offences.

She argued that Australia should follow France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Poland and other nations by banning the burning of the national flag.

'Burning a national flag is a criminal offence in many nations,' Sharkie said.

'Across Asia, it's an offence in India, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, or indeed, Israel.'

Indigenous leader Moojidji said he burned the flag to challenge Australia's legal legitimacy

The crowd at the Invasion Day rally last month cheered as the flag was set alight

'Across the Americas, whether you're in Argentina, Brazil, Cuba or Mexico, or even Nicaragua, it recognises that to burn or desecrate the national flag is a criminal offence.

'And in New Zealand, our neighbours, it carries up to a $5,000 fine.'

Sharkie rejected the idea that flag burning was freedom of expression when asked by Daily Mail.

'Burning of a national flag is not a freedom of expression. It's an action designed to divide and incite hatred. I recognise the importance of political expression, but there's a clear line between legitimate protest and burning a flag to deliberately inflame division,' she said.

'Australians have a long and proud tradition of free speech and peaceful protest, and this bill doesn't seek to undermine that.'

Conaghan also introduced an amendment to the Criminal Code to forbid burning, destruction, desecration or other serious dishonouring of the Australian National Flag or the Australian Red Ensign  Australia's maritime flag.

Conaghan argued on Monday that 'millions of Australians' supported his bill.

'Mr Speaker, the Australian flag and the Australian Red Ensign are not abstract ideas,' he told the House of Representatives.

Independent MP Rebekha Sharkie argued that burning a national flag was not a freedom of expression

Nationals backbencher Pat Conaghan wants the burning of the Australian flag to be illegal

'They are not props for political theatre. They are national symbols earned through sacrifice, service and a shared history. And when those symbols are burned or deliberately desecrated, it is not an act of harmless protest.

'It is an act that strikes at the heart of our nation, our respect and our cohesion.

'That is why we must seriously consider making the burning or desecration of the Australian flag and the Australian Ensign a criminal offence.'

His amendment suggests penalties of up to $16,500 or 12 months behind bars for a first flag burning offence.

A second offence would be a minimum sentence of 12 months, while non-citizens could have their visa cancelled.

In 2023, Conaghan conducted a survey, titled Pat's Biggest Survey 2023, where respondents from his electorate, Cowper, were polled about national issues.

The poll showed high levels of support for celebrating Australia Day on January 26.

Swimming great Dawn Fraser called for people who burn the Australian flag to be jailed or deported, following the Invasion Day protests last month.

Swimming legend Dawn Fraser has been vocal about flag burning and supports it being illegal

Many Indigenous Australians resent the national flag

'I think anyone who burns our flag does not respect our country,' she told News Corp.

'And if they don't respect our country, if they come from another country they should be sent back.

'But if they are Australians and they've burnt our flag, they should go straight to jail.'

Queensland Premier David Crisafulli condemned the Invasion Day protest incident as 'disgraceful' and confirmed he would support a federal ban on flag burning, while noting the issue falls outside state jurisdiction.

'It's a symbol of who we are as a nation,' he said. 'We should be proud of that.'

Sharkie also highlighted how the Albanese government did not support an opposition amendment to its anti-hate law reforms which would have made it a criminal offence to burn the Australian flag.

'The government didn't accept that,' she said.

'So this bill actually seeks to bring us all together to look at all three national flags and say the same rule should apply.

'And it also draws a line in the sand that says this behaviour is unacceptable.'

Federal leaders remain split, with some warning against escalating tensions while others argue national symbols deserve explicit legal protection.

Supporters of the Invasion Day protest said flag burning was a form of political expression.

Senator Pauline Hanson has called flag burners 'un-Australian.'

Both bills will be debated on Tuesday.

Daily Mail contacted Conaghan for further comment.
Buckingham Palace stands 'ready to support' police in any investigation of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

The King issued an unprecedented statement expressing his 'profound concern' at mounting allegations against his brother last night as the royal household stated it would, if asked, 'support' a police inquiry.

The development came as detectives probed new claims that Andrew leaked confidential data to Jeffrey Epstein when he was the UK's trade envoy.

Hours earlier, the Prince and Princess of Wales made their first public comment on the scandal, saying they were 'deeply concerned by developments' and their 'thoughts remain focused on the victims'.

The intervention, which could pave the way for a full criminal investigation into the former prince, followed a statement by Thames Valley Police confirming that it has widened its inquiry into alleged wrongdoing following a complaint by anti-monarchy group Republic.

Last week the force announced that it was assessing separate allegations, also filed by Republic, that a second woman was sent to the UK by Epstein for a sexual encounter with Andrew in 2010, mirroring claims made by the late Virginia Giuffre in 2014.

The former duke has not addressed the new allegations but has always denied any wrongdoing in his dealings with Epstein, or knowledge of his sex crimes.

Pressure had been mounting on the King to make a fresh statement following the release of three million Epstein documents by the US Department of Justice (DoJ).

King Charles expressed his 'profound concern' about the revelations surrounding Andrew following the release of the Epstein files

A photo from the Epstein files appears to show Andrew leering over an unidentified woman in what looks to be Epstein's New York home

The files have provided a wealth of evidence regarding the extent of Andrew's close relationship with the predatory billionaire.

This includes emails appearing to show that he shared confidential reports and investment opportunities with Epstein while working as a trade envoy in Asia from 2010 to 2011, after the disgraced financier was released from prison on child sex offences.

Buckingham Palace said last night: 'The King has made clear, in words and through unprecedented actions, his profound concern at allegations which continue to come to light in respect of Mr Mountbatten-Windsor's conduct.

'While the specific claims in question are for Mr Mountbatten-Windsor to address, if we are approached by Thames Valley Police we stand ready to support them as you would expect.'

It also reiterated the statement released on His Majesty's behalf last year  the first by any senior royal  in relation to Epstein's victims: 'As was previously stated, Their Majesties' thoughts and sympathies have been, and remain with, the victims of any and all forms of abuse.'

It is understood that the Palace has not yet been approached by police but was keen to signal its willingness to cooperate.

The statement is not thought to refer to earlier allegations regarding Andrew's sexual conduct, including claims that a second woman was trafficked by Epstein for sex with him at Royal Lodge.

Emails released by the DoJ suggest the former prince shared reports of official visits to Hong Kong, Vietnam and Singapore while he was a trade envoy.

Prince William, Andrew and Kate outside Westminster Cathedral on September 16 last year. The couple also released a statement saying they were 'deeply concerned' with the disgraced former prince today

Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein walk together in New York's Central Park on December 5, 2010

Thames Valley Police is investigating after Andrew was reported for suspected misconduct in public office and a potential breach of the Official Secrets Act, which carries a maximum life sentence.

A November 2010 email was forwarded by the former duke just five minutes after being sent by his then-special advisor, Amit Patel.

On Christmas Eve the same year, Andrew allegedly looped Epstein in on a brief about investing in the reconstruction of Helmand province in Afghanistan.

The King's brother was working as a trade envoy at the time, conducting meetings and talks for more than a decade until 2011. The messages were sent two years after Epstein was convicted for soliciting a minor for prostitution.

Thames Valley will have to determine whether Andrew can be classified as a 'public officer' for the latest allegations to be taken forward. Sources said it would have to seek legal advice and disclosure from the Government of any documents he signed to determine whether he committed an offence.

A spokesman for the force said it was assessing the information in line with its normal procedures.

Yesterday Dai Davies, former head of royal protection, said he had been calling for Andrew to 'face prosecution for six years' and urged police to act.

Scotland Yard is investigating Peter Mandelson over claims that he sent market-sensitive information to Epstein during the financial crisis. He denies any wrongdoing.
A chef who was found not guilty of murdering a rapist he found in his seven-month-old daughter's bedroom has won a confidential payout for being wrongly prosecuted.

Ben Batterham was acquitted by a NSW Supreme Court jury in November 2019 of murdering meth-addicted home invader Ricky Slater in Newcastle three years earlier.

Mr Batterham had been celebrating his 33rd birthday in Hamilton with a friend on March 26, 2016 - Easter Saturday - when he was confronted by Slater.

That evening, Mr Batterham's fiancee Monique Cameron and their seven-month-old daughter were at his parents' house next door.

While Mr Batterham and his friend were drinking and listening to music in the lounge room, 37-year-old Slater entered the premises about 3am.

Slater, who had a criminal record for offences including rape dating back to his teens, had been released from prison about three months earlier.

He was carrying three knives, cannabis and meth in his bag.

Once inside the house, Slater made his way to Mr Batterham's daughter's nursery and stole Ms Cameron's handbag. When confronted, Slater fled out a side door.

Ben Batterham, a chef who was found not guilty of murdering a rapist he found in his seven-month-old daughter's bedroom, has won a compensation payout for wrongful prosecution. Mr Batterham is pictured with his wife Monique

Mr Batterham was acquitted by a NSW Supreme Court jury in November 2019 of murdering meth-addicted home invader Ricky Slater (above) in Newcastle three years earlier

Mr Batterham chased Slater from his home and along several streets, making a call to Triple Zero on the way, before tackling him to the ground. He held Slater down, punched him repeatedly in the head and put him in a chokehold until police arrived.

Mr Batterham told police at the scene: 'Give me two minutes with him. I'll kill the dog.'

Slater was taken to hospital and his life support was switched off the next day after he had suffered three heart attacks.

Mr Batterham, who suffered a bite wound as well as cuts and bruises during his struggle with the 120kg Slater, was charged with murder and spent six weeks in jail.

He was eventually granted bail, which included a $200,000 surety on his parents' home.

Mr Batterham always insisted he had never intended to kill Slater and had only put his arm around the burglar's neck so he could not escape his hold.

A jury accepted Mr Batterham's assertion he had been making a citizen's arrest and cleared him of both murder and manslaughter.

Mr Batterham, who was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder following Slater's death, did not give sworn evidence but wrote a letter to the jury that was read out in court.

Ricky Slater, who had a criminal record for offences including rape dating back to his teens, had been released from prison before he died. He is pictured smoking a pipe

Mr Batterham had been celebrating his 33rd birthday at his home (above) in Hamilton with a friend on March 26, 2016 - Easter Saturday - when he was confronted by Slater

'I never intended to cause Mr Slater any serious harm. I wanted to apprehend him and get back what was stolen,' he wrote.

'I admit I was angry and I hit him, but I was only trying to keep him from getting away. He was constantly struggling and fighting, he bit me on the right arm.

'All I wanted was for him to stop.'

The jury was not told Slater had pleaded guilty to raping a 16-year-old girl in June 2007 after forcing his way into her home and threatening to stab her with a non-existent knife.

Justice Desmond Fagan ruled Mr Batterham should be paid costs, saying the charges against him should have been withdrawn on the medical evidence alone.

The judge also said Mr Batterham had acted reasonably when he chased down Slater, who was high on meth at the time.

Slater had scarring to his heart due to regular drug use, suffered liver disease and was obese, the court heard during Mr Batterham's two-week trial.

The Crown had argued Mr Batterham 'caused or substantially contributed to the death of Ricky Slater by application of pressure to his neck and downward pressure on his upper body'.

Mr Batterham (above) always insisted he had never intended to kill Slater and had only put his arm around the burglar's neck so he could not escape his hold

Toxicologist and pharmacologist Dr Michael Kennedy gave evidence that Slater died due to the high level of meth in his system and his existing heart condition.

'If he hadn't been taking methamphetamine it's highly unlikely he would have died,' Dr Kennedy said during the trial.

Justice Fagan determined the murder charge should have been withdrawn upon receipt of Dr Kennedy's report about Slater.

Mr Batterham acted 'lawfully and reasonably' in calling police then chasing down and restraining Slater, the judge found.

'Having seen and heard the evidence of all the eyewitnesses it does not appear to me that the restraint applied by Mr Batterham was excessive, putting aside the blows he dealt to Ricky Slater while holding him down,' he said.

'Those blows may have gone beyond the force that was reasonably necessary to restrain Slater and to prevent escape.

'But it has been clearly shown by every medical opinion offered in the case that they played no part in causing death.'

Mr Batterham filed a civil claim against the State of NSW in the Supreme Court seeking damages for wrongful prosecution and last Thursday the matter was resolved.

Slater was taken to hospital after his encounter with Mr Batterham and his life support was switched off the next day following three heart attacks. He is pictured with his mother

The case was discontinued after the parties agreed to a settlement, the terms of which cannot be disclosed.

Mr Batterham's solicitor Peter O'Brien told the ABC the agreement ended a difficult nearly decade-long ordeal for his client.

'For Ben Batterham, it has been a long and torturous process to have been charged, then to have been acquitted,' Mr O'Brien said.

'To have now settled a suit against the state in relation to the manner in which he was prosecuted, that's been a long and arduous process for him, and hopefully now he can move on with his life.

'It's a very good example of why prosecution authorities need to exercise the discretion to not proceed and to not bring proceedings that are inevitably doomed, as this one was.'

In March 2020, Mr Batterham told 60 Minutes on the night he found Slater in his daughter's room, he did what 'any father would have done'.

'This could happen to anyone,' he said. 'It could happen to you, it could happen to me.

'My head was doing backflips... I was very upset. It's my castle, people should always defend their homes.'
A Minnesota gubernatorial candidate has dropped out of the race after his daughter was found stabbed to death inside her home.

Hallie Marie Tobler, 22, the daughter of Republican gubernatorial candidate Jeff Johnson, was dead from multiple stab wounds inside her apartment at around 8.20pm on Saturday, police in St. Cloud said.

Her husband, Dylan Tobler, 23, also sustained life-threatening injuries - but officers believe his 'injuries are self-inflicted and that he is the person responsible for Hallie's injuries and death,' noting that they were found inside a locked apartment.

As of Sunday night, Dylan was reported in stable condition at St. Cloud Hospital, where he was in police custody, MPR News reports.

Charges against him are now pending, as the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension assists local authorities in its investigation.

In the meantime, the Republican Party of Minnesota announced that Johnson has suspended his campaign.

In a statement on the family tragedy, an update said party members are 'heartbroken' by the loss.

'There are no words that can adequately express the sorrow we feel for Jeff and his family,' party officials said in a statement. 'The loss of a child is unimaginable and our thoughts and prayers are with them as they grieve this devastating tragedy.

'Out of respect for his family and the enormity of this loss, Jeff has suspended his campaign for governor of Minnesota,' they continued.

'We ask all Minnesotans to join us in lifting up the Johnson family during this incredibly painful time.'

Hallie Tobler, 22, was found stabbed to death inside her St. Cloud, Minnesota apartment, with her husband, Dylan Tobler, 23, also facing life-threatening injuries. Police now believe he 'is the person responsible for Hallie's injuries and death'

Hallie was the daughter of Jeff Johnson, a former St Cloud City Council member who was running for governor

Johnson, a former St Cloud City Council member, was campaigning to succeed embattled Governor Tim Walz on a platform focused on fraud, crime and economic trouble, the St. Cloud Times reports.

He faced a crowded Republican field, which included MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and retired MMA fighter Brad Kohler, and received less than one percent of the vote in the state's caucus earlier this month.

Following the news of his daughter's untimely death, several of his former opponents shared their condolences.

Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, for example, issued a statement saying that 'the Johnson family is walking through an unspeakable tragedy right now and my prayers are with them every step of the way.

'As a parent, I can't imagine the grief and devastation they're experiencing right now,' she continued, asking her followers to 'Please join me in keeping the Johnsons in our thoughts and prayers as they navigate a situation that no family should have to endure.'

Another Republican gubernatorial candidate Peggy Bennett issued a statement Monday saying she 'cannot even imagine the heartbreak and sorrow that Jeff and his family are experiencing right now.

'My heart breaks for them,' she said. 'I am holding Jeff and his family up in prayer during this incredibly difficult and heartbreaking time.'

Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, who is widely viewed as the frontrunner in the governor's race, shared her condolences on X

Minnesota Representative Kristin Robbins, who was also running against Johnson in the primary, wrote on X: 'I am heartbroken for Jeff and his family over this horrifying tragedy. I can't imagine their grief.'

'Please join Brent and me in praying for Jeff and his family. May God be their refuge and strength in the days ahead.'

Even Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, who is widely viewed as the frontrunner in the governor's race, shared her condolences.

She said she and her husband 'are praying for all those who loved [Hallie] during this unimaginably difficult time.'
Pro-Palestine protesters will rally for a second consecutive night, just hours after violent clashes with police and dozens of arrests.

Thousands gathered at demonstrations across the nation on Monday night to protest Israeli President Isaac Herzog's arrival in Australia for a four-day visit.

Mr Herzog, whose prior comments a UN inquiry found might reasonably have been interpreted as inciting genocide against Palestinians, was invited to Australia by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in the wake of December's Bondi massacre.

The biggest protest outside Sydney Town Hall descended into wild scenes after rallygoers were pepper-sprayed and police were filmed throwing punches.

One video shared on social media shows a group of Muslim men praying before being ripped from their knees and taken away by police, while another showed a man with raised hands being repeatedly punched in the stomach by officers.

Police later confirmed that 27 protesters were arrested, including 10 who allegedly assaulted officers.

As NSW Police bosses and Premier Chris Minns spent Tuesday morning defending the actions of officers, the Palestine Action Group announced that a rally will be held outside Surry Hills Police Station from 5.30pm in response to Monday night's alleged 'police brutality.'

Protesters will also call for Minns' resignation and the arrest of Herzog.

Police hope there is no repeat on Monday night's ugly scenes at tonight's protest

27 protesters were arrested, including 10 who allegedly assaulted officers at Monday night's protest in Sydney

Genocide is a crime, protest is not. Be there tonight to stand up against Minns' police state, demand all charges be dropped, and demand accountability and charges be laid against police for their actions against peaceful protestors last night,' a social media post states.

Protest organiser Josh Lees slammed Monday night's scenes as a sickening display of police brutality, claiming that protesters were met with violence at the 'peaceful' demonstration.

'This was a violent attack on protesters, in order to roll the carpet out for someone who has incited a genocide in Gaza,' he said.

'Last night is exactly a result of the ramping up and up and up of police powers in this state of the crazy authoritarian announcements made by Chris Minns, and he clearly wanted us out of sight, out of mind, and that's why we refused to go to Hyde Park.

'I've been to many protests over the years, and this is the worst I've ever seen, where the police were absolutely off the chain.'

Lees hit back at Minns' suggestions that the protesters posed a threat to Jewish mourners gathered at the nearby International Convention Centre, where Herzog was a keynote speaker.

'There is no justification for last night whatsoever  Chris Minns is seemingly trying to bring a bit of Donald Trump's America to Sydney,' he said.

'That cannot be allowed. We will not stand for it.'

Protest organiser Josh Lees slammed Monday night's scenes as a sickening display of police brutality

NSW Police and Premier Chris Minns have defended the actions of officers

'We need to stand up against this kind of authoritarianism, this crackdown on protesters and unleashing in violence.

'There needs to be an investigation into the police brutality.'

NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon warned that protesters will be met with a 'significant police presence' but hopes there is no repeat of Monday night's ugly scenes.

'There's no difference to the approach to police. When protesters go, act lawfully, act peacefully, there will be no problem,' he told reporters.

'It will be the actions of protesters that determines what happens'

The violent clashes left Prime Minister Anthony Albanese heartbroken.

'I'm devastated by these scenes, these are really scenes that I think shouldn't be taking place,' he told radio station Triple M.

'The causes are not advanced by these sort of scenes - indeed they're undermined.'

Israeli President Isaac Herzog continued his controversial visit on Tuesday with a visit to a Jewish school in Sydney

Albanese issued this plea to those opposed to Herzog's visit.

'People will have different views about the Middle East and we have been critical and have received some criticism from the Israeli government,' he said.

'But we do need to be able to have people express any views peacefully in an appropriate way.'
An ex-ASIO spy claims they had raised concerns about Bondi Beach terrorist Sajid Akram voicing support for Islamic State six years before the attack.

Sajid, 50, killed 15 people in the December 14 massacre along with his alleged accomplice and son Naveed, who remains behind bars awaiting trial on 59 offences.

Sajid was shot dead by police during the attack.

Despite ASIO stating in the aftermath of the attack that the duo weren't on the authorities radar, a former undercover agent has now claimed he shared intelligence with the agency that showed the Akrams had been radicalised as early as 2019.

The agent, codenamed 'Marcus', told the ABC he provided information to ASIO about Naveed's links to an Islamic State (IS) cell in Australia, including that IS sympathisers were trying to brainwash him with propaganda videos.

Marcus also claims the group were discussing plans for terrorist attacks in Sydney, including smuggling guns from Lebanon.

The agent, who was posing as a radical cleric inside a street-preaching group known as Bankstown Street Dawah, was invited to a retreat with Naveed and Sajid in May 2019.

Isaac El Matari, the self-declared leader of Islamic State in Australia, also attended the retreat.

A former ASIO agent has claimed Sajid Akram voiced support for Islamic State in 2019

Isaac El Matari, who is the leader of Islamic State's cell in Australia, attended the same religious retreat with Sajid and Naveed Akram in May 2019

ASIO said court proceedings and the Royal Commission into Antisemitism 'constrained' them from responding to the ABC's questions (pictured ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess)

El Matari was arrested just months later after attempting to travel to Afghanistan to join IS and was sentenced to seven years in jail for terror offences.

When ASIO began investigating the associates of El Matari later that year, including Naveed, Marcus claimed Sajid was furious.

'He [Sajid] justified his [Isaac El Matari's] plans as it's required from us as Muslims  to support the Islamic State, to fight on behalf of them,' Marcus told Four Corners on Monday night.

'And if we couldn't do that, we have to do hijrah  emigrate to join them.

'After this conversation, I thought Sajid was more extremist than his son.'

Marcus told the program he reported to ASIO that he believed the pair were IS supporters.

Four Corners said it hadn't independently verified the substance of Marcus's specific conversations with ASIO or the Akrams.

Marcus, whose cover was later blown, said his relationship with ASIO began to fall apart in 2022.

Reporter Sean Rubinsztein-Dunlop on Four Corners' 'Bondi: Path to Terror' episode on Monday

He left Australia in 2023 and is now in hiding overseas after receiving death threats.

Just hours before the 'Bondi: Path to Terror' episode aired, ASIO accused the ABC of relying on uncorroborated claims from a 'single, unreliable and disgruntled source' and warned the broadcaster it may take further action.

'Four Corners' claims contain significant errors of fact,' ASIO said in a rare, preemptive statement on Sunday.

'The ABC's source mis-identified Naveed Akram. That is, the source claimed Naveed Akram said and did things that were actually said and done by an entirely different person. This source also has a track record of making statements that are untrue.'

The statement went on: 'Tragically, ASIO did not know what the perpetrators of the Bondi attack were planning  or indeed that they were planning anything.

'This is a matter of grave regret. It weighs on us heavily. But that does not mean additional resourcing would have prevented the attack or there was intelligence that was not acted on or that our officers made mistakes.'

However Marcus denied those claims.

'The allegation I am unreliable does not withstand scrutiny,' he told the ABC.

'If I were... ASIO would not have tasked me with infiltrating dangerous local and international terror networks and gathering important intelligence on their members.'
A coroner has ordered a further probe into the 'unnatural' death of a 25-year-old British man who was found in a Vietnam hotel.

Harleigh Jones, from Pontypridd in Wales, was found dead in his room in Ho Chi Minh City in June 2025, an inquest heard on Monday.

A post-mortem examination found he had a mix of prescription drugs in his system, including abapentin, pregabalin, olanzapine and benzodiazepines.

Dr Jason Shannon, who carried out the post-mortem at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital, provisionally gave Harleigh's cause of death as the combined effects of these drugs.

But Coroner Graeme Hughes said the young Briton's death would require a full inquest: 'I have sufficient reason to suspect that his death is unnatural.

'Following the post-mortem and toxicology reports it appears that drugs were impacted in the cause of his death.'

He ordered that the investigation into his death continue, adding that the case would be adjourned until the probe was over.

Harleigh is understood to have been working in comms for APW, a property investment firm that is headquartered in Dubai, at the time of his death.

Harleigh Jones (pictured), from Pontypridd in Wales, was found dead in his hotel room in Ho Chi Minh City in June 2025

The inquest was told that he had been living in Ho Chi Minh City at the time of his death, and had been working in property in southeast Asia for some time.

According to his LinkedIn, he had been living in the region since at least 2023.

Following his death, he was repatriated to south Wales and his funeral took place in Williamstown.
The man accused of killing a three-year-old British girl 56 years ago may finally be publicly named and photographed.

Cheryl Grimmer vanished from Fairy Meadow beach in Wollongong on January 12, 1970. Her family had only recently moved to Australia from Bristol a few months prior.

The year after she disappeared, a Manchester-born person - who was 15 at the time - admitted to killing the toddler, whose remains have never been found.

Police sought to confirm the truthfulness of the teen's confession but were not satisfied they had enough evidence to lay charges.

Known during legal proceedings only as 'Mercury', the man was charged with murder in 2017 after his unverified 1971 confession resurfaced.

The man's 2019 trial collapsed when a judge ruled the confession he gave as a teenager could not be used as evidence and he denies any involvement in Cheryl's disappearance.

Now, New South Wales Legislative Council MP Jeremy Buckingham is raising a motion to have the identity suppression order lifted.

Set to file the motion on February 11, he told The Mirror: 'We want the name published as well as his photos, there is no reason for the public not know who he is. The evidence against him is unassailable and he should be charged and convicted.

Jeremy Buckingham MP used parliamentary privilege to identify the man (pictured) as having been previously charged with the murder of Cheryl Grimmer in Wollongong

Cheryl Grimmer (above) disappeared from Fairy Meadow beach on January 12, 1970

'I have initiated a full parliamentary inquiry into missing persons and unsolved crimes and it will run throughout 2026. We want to interrogate the evidence and reveal that the criminal justice system has failed the victims and their families.

'We also want to fully ventilate the issues about how the police were unable to charge 'Mercury' in 1971 and were unable to prosecute him in 2019 for the abduction and murder of Cheryl Grimmer.

'The legislation pertaining to someone under 18 not being charged without an adult present was retrospectively applied.'

In October, Buckingham used parliamentary privilege to identify 'Mercury'.

Buckingham was acting on the wishes of Cheryl's family who gave the alleged killer a deadline to come forward and explain his confession or be named in parliament.

However, the Daily Mail still cannot publish the now 71-year-old man's identity because he was charged with having murdered Cheryl while he was a minor.

The little girl had been spending the day at the beach with her family, who had migrated from Bristol to Australia under the Ten Pound Poms scheme.

As the family was preparing to leave the beach, Cheryl ran laughing into the women's changing rooms and would not come out.

Too shy to enter to retrieve her, her older brother Ricki went to call their mother to help get Cheryl out of the block.

When he returned with his mother just 90 seconds later, Cheryl was nowhere to be found.

The man gave a detailed description of where he left Cheryl's body, what he did with the swimmers and where he dumped her beach towel. Cheryl is pictured with brother Ricki

Cheryl was snatched outside this shower block at Fairy Meadow Beach in January 1970. She was left alone for less than two minutes

Days after Cheryl vanished, a ransom note addressed to her father Vince and police was sent to Bulli police station, near where Cheryl was last sighted.

At the time, investigators appealed for anyone who recognised the handwriting in the note to come forward.

The letter promised to return Cheryl in exchange for $10,000 at the local library the following Saturday.

Police swiftly went to the media with the ransom note - a move Cheryl's surviving siblings now claim 'completely ruined' any hopes of finding her alive.

Fifteen months later, Mercury allegedly told police he had abducted Cheryl, who he had planned to sexually assault. He said he panicked when she would not stop screaming and killed her.

'I tied a handkerchief and a shoelace around her mouth to stop her screaming and with the other shoelace I tied up her hands,' Mercury stated in an interview on April 29, 1971.

'I was going to have sexual intercourse with her.

'I put my hands around her throat and told her to shut up I guess I must have strangled her. She stopped breathing and stopped crying and I thought she was dead, so I panicked and covered her up with bushes and run for it.'

Mercury gave police a detailed description of where he left Cheryl's body, what he did with the swimmers she was wearing and where he dumped her beach towel.

A coronial inquest held in 2011 found Cheryl had died but the cause and manner of her death remained undetermined. The coroner recommended police conduct further inquiries.

A re-investigation commenced in 2016 and Mercury's typed and signed confession was located, while further evidence was obtained by Wollongong detectives Damian Loone and Frank Sanvitale.

Mercury was interviewed and would not repeat his 1971 confession. He was arrested in Victoria in March 2017, extradited to NSW and charged with murder.

Mercury pleaded not guilty in September 2018, objecting to the admissibility of the 1971 interview, with the Crown accepting a trial could not proceed without it.
A prominent criminal barrister who was allegedly caught with child abuse material has been found dead.

Mark Dennis SC, 60, stepped off a flight from South-East Asia at Sydney Airport in January and was stopped by Australian Border Force officers, who pored through his phone, tablet, laptop, and a USB.

They allegedly found child abuse material and sexualised conversations with and about minors, and he was subsequently charged with possessing, distributing and importing child abuse material.

Police were called to his Leichhardt home, in Sydney's inner west, where the barristers body was found at 7.30pm on Monday, The Daily Telegraph reported.

NSW Police said a report will be prepared for the Coroner.

Australian Border Force officials intercepted Dennis at the airport in January and searched his luggage following 'intelligence led screening'.

'The matter was reported to the AFP for further investigation,' the Australian Federal Police said in a statement on Wednesday.

'AFP members attended and on further examination of the device, identified alleged child abuse material and sexualised conversations with and about minors.'

Barrister Mark Dennis SC (pictured), who was allegedly caught with child abuse material, has been found dead

Along with seizing his electronic devices at the airport, a search warrant was executed at Dennis' home where further electronic devices were seized.

The maximum penalty for the child abuse material charges is 15 years' imprisonment.

Dennis was granted bail during a court appearance on January 21.

During the hearing, prosecutor Jon Kisch said he had had chats with at least two people that allegedly revealed a sexual interest in children, and showed a 'willingness to subvert' consent laws.

Dennis was granted bail on January 22 this year

'There's a description of potentially a desire to rape a 16-year-old  I appreciate that's as far as it goes, but certainly very disturbing chats.'

Dennis had been practicing out of the prestigious Forbes Chambers - Sydney's top criminal law chambers - until his arrest on January 20, when his lawyer Michael Burke told the court his client would stop practicing law immediately.

Following his arrest, Dennis' name and profile were scrubbed from the Forbes Chambers website.

Last month, the Daily Mail revealed Dennis used the moniker Dark Menace - a play on his name - as part of his work email address.

Australian Border Force officials intercepted Dennis (pictured) at Sydney Airport in January and searched his luggage following 'intelligence led screening'

The alias was also used to publish a range of papers, including one about how to defend child sexual assault victims.

Dennis also co-founded the not for profit Reasonable Causes in 2020 to provide opportunities for disadvantaged Cambodians as young as six, but an online profile says he was travelling to Cambodia twice a year from 2010.

The Daily Mail understands he told colleagues about his philanthropic work with orphanages in Cambodia, saying he was helping install bathrooms and various facilities.

According to the Australian Charities and Not For Profit Commission, Reasonable Causes operated out of Cambodia, worked to improve the lives of locals from age six to 24, and partnered with a range of local children's charities.

Reasonable Causes made about $242,000 per year, comprising about $108,000 in donations alone.

Cambodia Children's Fund was one of the partner organisations that took funding from Reasonable Causes.

CEO Scott Neeson told Daily Mail financial assistance from the organisation has now been rejected.

He said Dennis once visited their site in Phnom Penh, but never left the side of staff on site.

'He was very firm and business-like,' Mr Neeson recalled.
Mi5 have warned university leaders that foreign spies could be watching them and to improve their defenses against Chinese coercion.

More than 70 vice-chancellors were called to a meeting with the intelligence agency last week and told to report foreign interference, intimidation and censorship from 'hostile states' to security services.

Beijing and other foreign powers are trying to influence university research and teaching around sensitive subjects, Sir Ken McCallum said.

These subjects include issues like the Tiananmen Square massacre, Uighur oppression, Tibet and Taiwan, the university bosses were told at the briefing, The Time reported.

Staff can be intimidated or approached through networking sites by people acting on behalf of foreign states and telling them to shut down research on topics that make authoritarian regimes 'feel uncomfortable'. They could also be paid off, McCallum said.

More covert methods include state-sanctioned operatives cozying up to staff to establish themselves as business or academic partners keen to foster research.

Once this relationship is established, it can then turn nasty, McCallum warned. One example is so-called lawfare, in which universities are threatened with costly legal action to put them off teaching or researching certain subjects.

The UK government has committed 3million to develop a secure platform for vice-chancellors and designated university security leaders to report such behaviour.

Sir Ken McCallum delivers the annual Director General's Speech at Thames House, October 2025

Those at the meeting were also told they can share their personal email address with experts at the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) for high level protection. These experts will warm them of suspicious activity.

The NCSC went further and offered 'personal internet protection' to counter highly personalised cyber attacks known as spear-phishing to get people to give up sensitive data.

The Department for Education is also setting up an advisory service to train and advise threatened academics.

Dan Jarvis, the security minister, told The Times that enemies 'seek to undermine British interests' and 'foreign interference has operated in the shadows of our universities and political institutions'.

He said: 'By launching a direct reporting route and drawing up plans for an advisory body, we are giving our institutions a straight line to security experts to report interference. We are making the UK the hardest possible target for those who seek to exploit our freedoms.'

One example pointed to at the meeting several times was at Sheffield Hallam University, which was criticised for shutting down work on the allegations of forced labour in the Xinjiang region.

Dan Jarvis speaking at Mansion House in London, December 2025

It emerged that the university was concerned her research would reduce the number of Chinese students coming to learn there, The Times reported, so Laura Murphy, professor of human rights and contemporary slavery, filed a lawsuit against them.

The university apologised but denied that the halting of her research was to protect the lucrative inflow of Chinese students.

Beijing has rejected the allegations of forced labour in Xinjiang, dismissing them as a smear campaign attempting to damage China's reputation.
A Brisbane family of healthcare workers is mourning an 'unimaginable loss' after two people were killed and three injured in a tragic weekend crash.

A head-on collision at Yarrabilba on Saturday claimed the lives of Jessica Ortiz, 33, and her father-in-law Jorge Ortiz, 65.

Her husband Damian, mother-in-law Patricia and two-year-old daughter Sylvie were seriously injured and remain in hospital.

The family was travelling in a white Volkswagen station wagon when it collided with a white Toyota HiLux on Waterford-Tamborine Road at Yarrabilba, south of Brisbane, just after 4.30pm on Saturday.

The 18-year-old HiLux driver, Izayiah Aitken, also died at the scene.

It's understood the family were travelling home from a day out when they were hit by the HiLux at high speed.

Horrific CCTV footage, seen by Daily Mail, showed the HiLux speeding southbound before veering into the path of the family's wagon, with the head-on collision sparking an inferno.

A fundraiser has been set up by family friend Russell Rackley.

The Brisbane family were returning from a day out with Damian's parents when they were hit

Jessica and Damian Ortiz welcomed their first child Sylvie in 2023 and married a year later

Jessica and her father-in-law Jorge Ortiz died in the horror crash on Saturday afternoon

Jessica worked as a practice nurse at the Queensland Knee Surgery Clinic since 2015

'We are coming together as friends and family to lift up the Ortiz family during an unimaginable loss,' Mr Rackley said.

'A tragic car accident took the lives of Jorge and Jess, leaving hearts broken and lives forever changed. As the family begins to face the days ahead, the road to healing will be long and incredibly difficult.

'We ask for your love, prayers, and support as we stand beside them and help carry them through this heart breaking time.'

It's understood Jessica was a practice nurse at the Queensland Knee Surgery Clinic, where she had worked for eleven years.

Practice manager Susan Edis told the Daily Mail Jessica was 'more than a colleague, she was family.'

A bio on the clinic's website describes Jessica as having 'an earnest enthusiasm to assist patients to recovery from their knee surgery safely and swiftly.'

Her in-laws, Patricia and Jorge Ortiz, were also involved in Queensland Health, with Mr Rackley describing them as having 'devoted their lives to serving the healthcare community.'

Patricia, 65, who is in a critical but stable condition in the Intensive Care Unit at Princess Alexandra Hospital as of Monday, is believed to be a Theatre Inventory Coordinator.

Jessica and Damian were excited to welcome little Sylvie in 2023, pictured at their gender reveal in October 2022

Jorge pleaded with bystanders to save Sylvie, two, before succumbing to his injuries

Theatre nurse Patricia Ortiz remains in the ICU in a critical but stable condition

Ms Ortiz, who is originally from Central America, started working at St Vincent's Private Hospital Northside Hospital when it first opened in 2001.

Her son Damian, 36, is now in a stable condition and is also receiving treatment at Princess Alexandra Hospital. Sylvie remains in a stable condition at Queensland Children's Hospital.

It comes as Yarrabilba locals, who came to the aid of the Ortiz family in the minutes after the crash, revealed Jorge used his last breath to tell them to save his injured granddaughter.

Muhammad Gohar, his wife Rabia Munir and their sons, Muhammad Aihab and Muhammad Salal, were at home when they heard the explosion.

'We pulled the baby out, she was covered in blood,' Aihab told the Courier Mail, describing how he broke the window with a hammer.

'It happened so fast  I kept asking other people what happened to the guy in the other car. By the time we were helping the other people, that car went up in flames.'

Ms Munir was able to grab two small fire extinguishers but they weren't enough to douse the flames.
The US military launched a lethal strike on a suspected drug-trafficking boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing two people and leaving a single survivor.

The strike, carried out Monday under the authority of US Southern Command, targeted what military officials described as a vessel linked to narco-trafficking organizations operating along known smuggling routes between South America and North America.

In a public statement posted to X, US Southern Command confirmed the deadly encounter, saying: 'On Feb. 9, at the direction of #SOUTHCOM commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations.'

The military added that 'two narco-terrorists were killed and one survived the strike,' and said US forces moved quickly to initiate rescue efforts for the lone survivor.

'Following the engagement, USSOUTHCOM immediately notified US Coast Guard to activate the Search and Rescue system for the survivor,' the command said.

In the immediate aftermath of the strike, rescue authorities scrambled to locate and recover the survivor, triggering a multinational search operation in the vast waters of the eastern Pacific.

A spokesperson for the US Coast Guard confirmed to CNN that Ecuadorian authorities had taken control of the rescue mission.

'Maritime Rescue Coordination Center Ecuador has assumed coordination of search and rescue operations,' the Coast Guard spokesperson said in a statement, adding that the US Coast Guard would provide technical assistance.

US Southern Command said the strike was carried out on February 9 by Joint Task Force Southern Spear in the eastern Pacific Ocean

The military said intelligence had tracked the vessel along routes widely used by drug smugglers, describing it as actively engaged in narcotics trafficking at the time of the strike.

'Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations,' Southern Command said.

The deadly encounter is the latest chapter in Operation Southern Spear, a controversial military campaign aimed at disrupting drug trafficking across maritime routes.

The Trump administration has defended the aggressive tactics, describing those targeted as 'unlawful combatants' and asserting that military force can be used without traditional judicial oversight based on classified legal findings from the Justice Department.

The boat attacks, which began in September 2025, have slowed in frequency since January - a month that only saw one strike after the raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

By contrast, the Pentagon struck more than a dozen boats in December 2025.

Monday's strike marks the third publicly reported attack this year and the second to leave a survivor following an attack.

The military said intelligence confirmed the vessel was traveling along known narco-trafficking routes at the time of the strike

Southern Command stated that 'two narco-terrorists were killed and one survived the strike'

A similar strike in January also killed two individuals while leaving one survivor.

Last week, the military said the death toll from the Trump administration's strikes on alleged drug boats was up to 128 people, with the inclusion of those presumed dead after being lost at sea.

That figure included 116 people who were killed immediately in at least 36 attacks carried out since early September in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, US Southern Command said.

Ten others are believed dead because searchers did not locate them following a strike.

Despite the administration's assertions, the strikes have drawn mounting scrutiny from lawmakers, legal experts, and human rights advocates.

Particular controversy surrounds an earlier strike last September, when a follow-up attack killed two crew members who had survived an initial strike.

Critics have raised concerns about whether sufficient evidence exists to conclusively link those targeted to drug trafficking operations, and whether lethal military force is justified in such circumstances.

CNN reported that the administration has presented limited public evidence connecting those killed in Operation Southern Spear to specific narcotics shipments or criminal organizations.

The legality of the strikes has also been questioned by military lawyers and legal experts.

The strike is part of Operation Southern Spear, a US military campaign targeting suspected narcotics trafficking vessels

Last week, the military said the death toll from the Trump administration's strikes on alleged drug boats was up to 128 people, including those presumed dead after being lost at sea

Multiple current and former military attorneys said the operations 'do not appear lawful,' raising alarms about the precedent set by using military force against suspected smugglers outside traditional war zones.

Meanwhile, the families of two Trinidadian nationals killed in a Trump administration boat strike in October sued the federal government earlier this month, calling the attack a war crime and part of an 'unprecedented and manifestly unlawful US military campaign.'

The suit is believed to be the first wrongful death case arising from the campaign and will test the legal justification of the attacks, which many experts say are a brazen violation of the laws of armed conflict.

President Donald Trump has said the US is in 'armed conflict' with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs.

But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of killing 'narcoterrorists.'
Senior Liberal frontbencher Angus Taylor is expected to resign from the shadow cabinet on Wednesday so he can challenge Sussan Ley for the party leadership.

Under Liberal Party rules, frontbenchers cannot remain in their roles if they oppose the leader, meaning Taylor must quit before formally launching his bid.

Taylor is widely expected to launch a leadership challenge by Friday, with a party-room ballot scheduled the same day, setting the stage for a high-stakes contest between him and Ley.

Taylor's resignation could trigger further departures, with shadow finance minister James Paterson and shadow home affairs minister Jonno Duniam also expected to step down if they refuse to back Ley.

For weeks, MPs doubted whether Taylor had enough support to mount a serious challenge, arguing simply changing leaders would not fix the Coalition's poor polling.

But Sunday's Newspoll, showing the Coalition's primary vote collapsing to a historic low of 18 per cent, has intensified internal anger and shifted momentum toward Taylor.

Ley's supporters insist she will not resign voluntarily, meaning only a formal leadership challenge can remove her.

Even before Taylor officially nominates, internal negotiations have begun over who would serve as his deputy if he wins.

Angus Taylor (pictured) is reportedly preparing to launch a leadership challenge against Sussan Ley

Ley (pictured) is understood to be unwilling to resign, meaning a challenge would be required to remove her

Join the debate Is changing the Liberal leader the real solution or just another distraction from deeper party problems?

Incumbent deputy Ted O'Brien is considered the frontrunner, largely because rival factions have struggled to unite behind an alternative.

Others are pushing moderate senator Jane Hume, arguing she could help Taylor appeal more broadly across the party.

On Monday, Hume warned that if the party's decline continues, changing leaders would make no difference.

'I don't know who's left. At this point, we're talking about a leadership contest between Sussan Ley and Andrew Hastie and Angus Taylor. None of them will have seats after the next election if this continues, so something's got to give,' Hume said.
The left-wing, anti-Zionist Jewish Council of Australia has admitted that several offensive and historically problematic names were published as signatories in its full-page newspaper ad opposing Israeli President Isaac Herzog's visit to Australia.

The errors - which the Council says 'slipped through the cracks' - included a vulgar Hebrew phrase and the names of Nazi concentration camp collaborators.

The advertisement, published this week in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, listed hundreds of names as Jewish signatories to an open letter declaring Herzog was 'not welcome' in Australia.

Among them were 'Milkek Tachat', a crude Hebrew insult meaning 'a**e licker', as well as Josef Heiden, Eliezer Gruenbaum and Carmen Mory - all notorious 'kapos' who collaborated with the Germans during Nazi-era concentration camps.

In modern-day usage, 'kapo' is a grave slur used to imply betrayal of the Jewish people, and it is often aimed at Jews perceived as insufficiently supportive of Israel.

When questioned by the Daily Mail about how these names appeared, the Jewish Council said a small number of false entries had 'slipped through the cracks' despite multiple review processes.

In a statement, the organisation - which is a favourite of pro-Palestinian groups who seek to claim they have Jewish support - said its open letter opposing Herzog's visit had prompted a rapid influx of submissions, making efforts to verify signatories' authenticity challenging.

'In less than two days, our open letter saying no to Herzog's visit received almost 1,000 Jewish signatures, of which almost 700 were published in the full-page advertisement,' a spokesperson told the Mail.

JCA said the names were added in error (pictured: JCA Executive Officer Sarah Schwartz)

The full page ad published by the Jewish Council of Australia featured offensive names

The Council said it undertook several checks to remove inappropriate or malicious submissions.

'We went through a number of review processes to delete duplicates, antisemitic and offensive names which were submitted by malicious actors,' said the spokesperson.

Despite these reviews, the published list still contained entries referencing kapos and other objectionable language.

The Council acknowledged some were not identified during its review. The four names mentioned in this article have now been deleted from the list of signatories.

'Unfortunately a handful of names with offensive and obscure historical references, and names of real Jewish people falsely submitted by others, slipped through the cracks.'

The Council stressed, however, that some names that may appear questionable were, in fact, legitimate Jewish signatories.

'Some Jewish people were also included in the list who are genuine signatories, but have the same names as others in the Jewish community. That cannot be avoided.

'The handful of false names are a tiny fraction of the nearly 1,000 Jews who signed the petition in 48 hours,' it said.

The Council has not confirmed whether it will publish a corrected list or issue further clarification.

The Jewish Council is a relatively new group, founded in early 2024, representing Australian Jews with antiZionist and proPalestinian views, and advocating against antisemitism.

It's unclear if being Jewish is a requirement for membership of the organisation, and the Mail notes that some of its biggest supporters online do not appear to be Jewish.

Notable figures who have promoted JCA content online include ABC personality Jan Fran, The Australia Institute analyst Amy Remeikis, and newsreader Narelda Jacobs.

The exact number of antiZionist Jews in Australia is unknown, but available surveys show they represent a small, if vocal, minority.

By contrast, the overwhelming majority of Australian Jews strongly identify with Israel and hold broadly Zionist views.
Gus Lamont's devastated mother Jessica Murray has fled her hideaway home in Adelaide after she moved out of the outback station where her son disappeared.

She had already left her parents' vast sheep farm homestead near Yunta, South Australia, when detectives revealed on Thursday that they believed Gus is dead.

Detective Superintendent Darren Fielke said they had ruled out the child wandering off or being abducted and now had a prime suspect within the Murray family.

'A number of inconsistencies and discrepancies' in statements given to police by family members had triggered the investigation now being considered a 'major crime'.

Det Supt Fielke stressed the four-year-old's mum and dad are not suspects in the boy's disappearance from Oak Park Station, 40km south of Yunta, last September.

In the wake of the revelation, Ms Murray left the sheep station, her childhood home where she lived with parents, mother Shannon and her transgender father, Josie.

She had been staying there temporarily after previously splitting with Gus's father, Joshua Lamont, before their son's disappearance.

She moved into her family-owned home in Adelaide, but the Daily Mail can reveal she has now fled that city bolthole too to move in with a friend.

Gus Lamont vanished on September 27 from his grandparents' sheep station

His devastated mother Jessica, pictured in 2019 with Joshua, has fled to Adelaide

On Monday, a neighbour in the Adelaide street confirmed Ms Murray left over the weekend.

'Are you looking for Jess?' said the neighbour. 'She's not there. My husband saw her pack up and leave a few days ago.

'She's gone to stay with a friend.'

Joshua also lived at the same city home for a time after Gus disappeared, but declined to comment when the Daily Mail approached him there in November.

Another neighbour said they hadn't seen Joshua for three weeks when he is believed to have moved out.

That coincided with a police raid when a vehicle, a motorbike and electronic equipment were seized from the Murrays' farmhouse, when the direction of the investigation suddenly changed.

His movements suggest he may have vacated the Adelaide home to make way for Ms Murray to move in with their one-year-old son, Ronnie.

On Tuesday, the Daily Mail revealed Mr Lamont and Ms Murray had split before Gus vanished, with Ms Murray and youngest son Ronnie living with her parents.

Joshua was seen in November at an Adelaide home thought to be owned by the Murrays

Police have repeatedly searched Oak Park Station, south of Yunta

Mr Lamont had moved into a ramshackle farmhouse which he was renovating in Belalie North, near Jamestown, 130km west of the Murrays' station.

A family friend told the Daily Mail their relationship broke down shortly after Ronnie's birth, but before Gus disappeared.

'I haven't seen Josh since Gus's disappearance happened, and I don't know where he is now,' said the local.

'But Josh and Jessica weren't together when it happened.'

The friend revealed the couple had never married, as new details of Gus's mother's childhood were also revealed for the first time.

Ms Murray has never commented publicly on her son's disappearance.

But locals say she is shy, quietly spoken, and was rarely seen in the area even before Gus went missing.

Ms Murray grew up in Jamestown, population 1400, where the Murrays once owned a home, two hours' drive from the sheep station her parents later inherited from Ms Murray's grandparents Vincent and Clair Pfeiffer.

Jessica attended Jamestown Community School, according to yearbooks at the local library

Jessica was described as a clever student, and was a member of a touch footy team

Josie Murray was pictured running errands in Jamestown in November

Josie's wife Shannon Murray was also seen in the car park of the local supermarket

Publicly available yearbooks at the town's library showed Jessica attended Jamestown Community School until at least 2002, when she was in year 10.

The source added that Jessica's biological father Josie - formerly known as Robert and nicknamed 'Snow' - began her gender transition while they were living in Jamestown.

Since police attended their property on January 14, both Shannon and Josie have been going about business as usual in South Australia's Mid North.

Shannon was seen running errands in Jamestown, two hours from Oak Park, last week, while Josie was spotted grabbing a cappuccino and a slice of red velvet cake from a Peterborough cafe in recent days.

While Mr Lamont and Josie and Shannon Murray have all been seen attempting to return to daily life after the loss of Gus, Jessica has not yet been seen in public.

Last week, Det Supt Fielke alleged a family member had stopped assisting their investigation after they were questioned about inconsistencies in their statements.

'As a result of these inconsistencies, and investigations into them, a person who resides at Oak Park Station has withdrawn their support for police and is no longer cooperating with us,' he revealed.

Reusable nappies were seen at the homestead in November

Police now believe Gus is dead, and was either accidentally or deliberately killed

'I can't give you any more information about the suspect, or where the suspect is, or why that person is a suspect.'

Shannon and Josie Murray both immediately retained separate high-profile defence lawyers in the wake of the explosive claims at the police press conference.

They said they were 'devastated' by the police announcement and insisted they were still cooperating with the investigation.

It is not suggested the couple have committed a crime.

Josie Murray has hired Adelaide criminal lawyer Andrew Ey, while Shannon Murray has sought the legal services of Casey Isaacs, also from Adelaide.

Mr Ey is a partner at Mangan Ey & Associates and has been involved in a number of high-profile criminal cases throughout his 15-year career.

Mr Isaacs is from Caldicott + Isaacs law firm and is also the president of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law.

The partner confirmed he had been engaged by Shannon, telling The Advertiser: 'We have been co-operating but we won't be commenting.'
Says 'temperature' needs to be turned down

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has dodged a question in Parliament about whether he will publicly condemn former Australian of the Year Grace Tame over her protest chant to 'globalise the intifada'.

Tame sparked calls to be stripped of her prestigious gong after addressing thousands at a large protest opposing the visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Monday evening.

During her speech, Tame led the crowd in chanting: From Gadigal to Gaza, globalise the intifada'. The word 'intifada' means uprising in Arabic and is used to refer to two violent incidents in Palestinian history.

During Question Time on Tuesday, Liberal MP Melissa McIntosh, the shadow communications minister, criticised Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek for falling short of specifically condemning Tames comments earlier in the day.

A senior member of the Prime Ministers cabinet, the Minister for Social Services and member for Sydney, today refused to specifically condemn Grace Tames conduct at a Sydney rally, where Tame chanted a vile anti-Semitic slur, McIntosh said.

Will the Prime Minister today show leadership, disassociate himself from these words and unequivocally condemn this disgusting display of anti-Semitism by the former Australian of the Year?

Albanese refused, warning MPs against politicising a devastating situation.

Tame (left) publicly supported Albanese when he was elected as Prime Minister in 2022

Tame (pictured) said 'From Gadigal to Gaza, globalise the intifada,' during her speech

We need to not continually look for political opportunities from what is a devastating situation. We need to turn the temperature down, Albanese replied.

Minutes later, Question Time ended for the day, with Albanese set to meet Herzog later day.

The phrase globalise the intifada was condemned by Jewish community leaders, who argued it invoked the violent uprisings historically associated with the term.

NSW Premier Chris Minns and Queensland Opposition Leader David Crisafulli have both pledged to ban the phrase.

Minns described the postprotest clashes as distressing and backed the police response, but also condemned the use of the term at the rally.

You know in the circumstances where six weeks ago we lost 15 members of the Jewish community to a hate crime, a violent terrorist uprising, thats what the consequences of globalise the intifada mean, a violent uprising in Sydneys streets.

I can only imagine what those families thought when they saw someone screaming it from the steps of Town Hall, the pain they would have gone through.

Its not a distant memory. Were talking about weeks ago their family members were mowed down and murdered because they were Jewish. (Grace Tame) can defend the saying - I thought it was, I thought it was terrible.

Melissa McIntosh (pictured) called on the Prime Minister to condemn Tame's comments

Daily Mail Political Editor Peter van Onselen said she should be stripped of her title.

Pauline Hanson also demanded consequences, joining others in calling for Tame to be stripped of her Australian of the Year title, claiming her remarks were incompatible with the honour.

'The National Australia Day Council (NADC) should revoke Grace Tame's Australian of the Year award for bringing both the award and this nation into disrepute,' she said.

'She remains an angry young lady whose rise to prominence went to her head.'

Tame's response to the controversy so far has been to post a video of her entire speech.
He was confronted by hecklers as he left Melbourne court

A neo-Nazi leader accused of leading an attack on an Aboriginal protest site has been called a 'racist' by a heckler outside court.

Thomas Sewell, 32, and 13 other men faced Melbourne Magistrates Court on Tuesday after being charged over the Camp Sovereignty incident.

Outside court, a member of the public confronted Sewell over his views and called him a racist.

It's alleged Sewell led the group that stormed the site after an anti-immigration protest in the Melbourne city centre in August.

The men, dressed in black, allegedly held down occupants of the Indigenous camp before kicking and punching them.

Three people were injured, with one woman requiring staples in her scalp to close a wound, the court was previously told.

Sewell and co-accused Nathan Bull, Timothy Holger Lutze, Augustus Coolie Hartigan, Ryan Williams and Blake Cathcart on Tuesday each requested an adjournment to March.

Sewell's lawyer Mathew Hopkins told the court he was in 'resolution discussions' with the prosecution and they needed some time.

Thomas Sewell, 32, and 13 other men faced Melbourne Magistrates Court on Tuesday after being charged over the Camp Sovereignty incident

Sewell was heckled by a passerby as he left the court on Tuesday

It's alleged Sewell led the group that stormed the site after an anti-immigration protest in the Melbourne city centre in August

Mr Hopkins said the facts of the case were still in dispute but the prosecutor confirmed the charges were 'not necessarily in issue'.

Outside court, Sewell told reporters the allegation the attack was unprovoked was disputed.

'If we can agree to the facts, then I'm happy to do what's needed to be done,' he said.

'This idea that I just walk around the street punching people for no reason... that's just a lie.'

Three of the accused - Zack Steven Dewaard, Billy Conheady and Haymish Busscher - formally pleaded not guilty to charges including violent disorder and affray.

They will each face trial in the Victorian County Court, with an initial directions hearing listed for March.

The other accused - Jake Crockett, Michael Nelson, Yan Zakharin and Michael Saarinen - will fight the allegations at a magistrates court committal hearing in May.

Jaeden Johnson was the only one to admit offending, pleading guilty to charges of violent disorder, assault by kicking and committing an indictable offence while on bail.

He will face a plea hearing in the County Court in August.
The director of a disability support services company has been charged by the corporate watchdog for allegedly siphoning off more than $800,000 for personal use.

Byson James Kete Turner, from Western Australia, served as the director of Links Support and Consulting Services Pty Ltd, an unregistered NDIS services provider.

He was charged by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) on Tuesday with eight counts of dishonestly using his position to gain advantage and two counts of failing to appear for an ASIC examination.

Mr Turner, who also uses the last name Attrill-Green, is accused of transferring $858,948 across 2,782 transactions between September 4, 2019, and July 18, 2022.

That money was allegedly sent to accounts for Sportsbet, Apple, TABTouch, NetLotto, LottoGo, Lotterywest, Oz Lotto and Plus500AU.

All the investigated accounts were made in Mr Turner's name.

It's also alleged on May 10, 2024, and May 30, 2024, Mr Turner did not attend two separate ASIC examinations, as ordered by the ASIC Act.

If convicted, Mr Turner could be looking at a maximum of 15 years behind bars for the alleged transfers, and two years for allegedly failing to appear at the examinations.

Byson James Kete Turner (above) is accused of funneling $858,948 from an unregistered NDIS provider, which he was the director of, into betting apps

Mr Turner allegedly used the money on Sportsbet, Apple, TABTouch, NetLotto, LottoGo, Lotterywest, Oz Lotto and Plus500AU

Links Support and Consulting Services was put under the control of a liquidator on February 14, 2023.

Mr Turner appeared in the Perth Magistrates Court on Friday.

He is set to return for a mention on April 17.

National gambling helpline: 1800 858 858
The probe into the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie was at a pivotal crossroads Tuesday as another ransom deadline passed without a resolution and the sheriff's department ceded negotiations to the FBI.

Today Show host Savannah Guthrie's 84-year-old mother was taken from her $1 million home in the Catalina Foothills neighborhood of Tucson, Arizona, in the early hours of February 1.

More than a week later, investigators admitted they still have not identified any suspects or persons of interest.

Efforts to negotiate with the alleged captors also stalled, as a digital wallet referenced in the first letter for a potential transaction remained empty, according to TMZ, which was sent a copy of the note.

The Guthrie family had been ordered to pay $6 million in Bitcoin by 5pm local time on Monday. Once the payment was made, the alleged kidnappers claimed they would return Nancy to Tucson within 12 hours, the outlet reported.

But after the ransom deadline passed, the FBI released a disheartening statement saying it 'is not aware of any continued communication between the Guthrie family and suspected kidnappers.'

The bureau is now leading all elements of the investigation in connection with Nancy's kidnapping, including alleged ransom notes.

The Pima County Sheriff's Office said feds are also handling 'communications involving the Guthrie family.'

That announcement came as Guthrie released her own video message, desperately pleading with the American public to help find her mother.

Savannah Guthrie issued an emotional plea to the American public on Monday for help finding her 84-year-old mother

Nancy Guthrie was taken from her $1 million home in the Catalina Foothills neighborhood of Tucson, Arizona, in the early morning hours of February 1

'I just wanted to come on and share a few thoughts as we enter into another week of this nightmare,' the 55-year-old Today show host began the emotional plea.

She then thanked the public for all their support amid her mother's disappearance.

'Because we believe that somehow, some way, she is feeling these prayers, and that God is lifting her in this moment and in this darkest place,' Guthrie said, adding that she and her siblings, Annie and Camron, 'believe our mom is still out there.'

'Law enforcement is working tirelessly, around the clock, trying to bring her home, trying to find her. She was taken and we don't know where,' she continued, telling the American public: 'We need your help.

'No matter where you are, even if you are far from Tucson, if you see anything, if you hear anything, if there's anything at all that seems strange to you, that you report it to law enforcement,' Guthrie asked.

'We are at an hour of desperation and we need your help,' she concluded.

The message marked the first time Guthrie spoke to the American people directly - and not to her mother's captors, criminal defense attorney Josh Ritter pointed out on Fox News's The Ingraham Angle.

'In fact, she didn't even reference them in that statement,' he said.

Guthrie and her siblings, brother Camron and sister Annie, said over the weekend they would pay the ransom money for their mother's safe return - but the digital wallet set up to receive the Bitcoin payment was still empty as a Monday deadline passed

The Pima County Sheriff's Office, led by Chris Nanos, has handed over the investigation into ransom notes received amid Nancy's disappearance to the FBI

He also said that Guthrie's choice of words was 'not as carefully curated' as seen in previous statements.

'In fact in previous statements, she was holding a piece of paper in front of her and almost reading directly from it because it was scripted, we believe, probably by federal agents,' Ritter noted.

'Here, she is speaking extemporaneously from the heart, and it seems the subtext of all of that is she's not really concerned about how her mother's captors are going to be receiving this - that this message is to the public and that they are desperate to just get any answers.'

CNN Senior Law Enforcement Analyst Andrew McCabe also suggested Guthrie's message meant that the family had not yet received a response to their previous videos directly addressing the possible captors.

'This message does not sound like the message that you would expect to hear from a family that is currently negotiating the return of their loved one,' he told the outlet, as authorities work to determine the veracity of the ransom demands.

Nancy's pacemaker - an implanted device that regulates someone's heartbeat - disconnected from her iPhone and Apple watch app around 2.30am on Sunday

She was last seen at this Arizona property. Investigators still do not have any suspects

Nancy was last seen at her home on January 31 after going to her eldest daughter Annie's house for dinner and a game night.

Annie's husband, Tommaso Cioni, was the last person to see Nancy after he dropped her off at her home around 9.48pm on January 31.

She was reported missing the following morning after she failed to show up at a friend's house to watch a church service - something out of the ordinary for Guthrie's elderly mother.

As the investigation into her kidnapping continues, the Pima County Sheriff's Office released a timeline they believe coincides with Nancy's final movements before she was abducted.

Around 1.47am on Sunday, her doorbell camera disconnected from her front door. A person was seen on camera, but video evidence was unavailable, Sheriff Chris Nanos said.

An analysis team found that the clip was not viewable and 'kind of loops and right and covers up', Nanos stated.

Her pacemaker - an implanted device that regulates someone's heartbeat - disconnected from her iPhone and Apple Watch app around 2.30am.

Pima County Sheriff's deputies returned to Nancy's home on Monday as the probe continued

Authorities said Monday night that the investigation has expanded and deputies are 'looking into 'new leads'

Chris Castorena, a private detective based in Phoenix, volunteering his time to search for Nancy, scans her street for clues

The Pima County Sheriff's Department's investigation has since expanded, with deputies looking into 'new leads,' officials said Monday, without releasing any further details.

'Many of you observed an active law enforcement presence at the Guthrie residences over the weekend,' the department said in a statement, after investigators were seen searching Annie's home, which is about four miles away from her missing mother's property.

They were seen taking photographs inside the property for several hours, though it is unclear what, if any, evidence had been collected.

Drone footage was also released showing investigators removing a floodlight from Nancys home amid revelations that a ransom note specifically referenced the fixture.

A security camera was also removed from the exterior of the property on Monday.

Such activity is now expected to continue through Tuesday, the sheriff's department said.

'This is all part of the investigative process, as the search for Nancy expands and new leads come in,' the department insisted.

'To preserve the integrity of this criminal investigation, details of that process are not being released at this time.'

Sheriff's deputies were seen searching Nancy's property

Authorities said they will continue to be present at the Guthries' family homes through Tuesday

Supporters left a rock outside Nancy's home, asking for prayers

The bureau also said that even more agents from across the country are being deployed to Tucson to aid in the investigation into Nancy's disappearance.

'We are currently operating a 24-hour command post that includes crisis management experts, analytic support and investigative teams,' a spokesman for the FBI said.

'But we still need the public's help.

'Someone has that one piece of information that can help us bring Nancy home. We need that person to share what they know.

'Please call us at 1-800-CALL-FBI.'

The agency is now offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of Nancy Guthrie and/or the arrest of anyone involved in her disappearance.

To that end, the bureau is planning to put up billboards featuring Nancy's photo, identifying information and a phone number to call with any tips.

They will be posted in four Texan cities, El Paso, San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas, as well as in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and San Diego and Los Angeles, in California.
A mother found strangled alongside her two young sons in a bed inside their Canadian home may have been a 'willing participant' in the events leading up to their deaths, a coroner's inquest has heard.

British Columbia investigators laid bare the chilling new details about the suspected family murder-suicide that led them to believe Janet Nguyen may not have resisted before she was killed by her husband, Christopher Duong.

Duong's body was also found in the same bed together with the couple's two young boys, aged two and four.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Corporal Matthew Blumberg testified at the inquest that evidence at the scene led investigators to believe Nguyen was 'a willing participant.'

The devastating discovery was made on June 13, 2023, when authorities entered the family's Prince Rupert home and found all four family members dead together in a single bed.

'The children had teddy bears at their feet,' Blumberg testified, describing the moment officers realized the full horror of what had unfolded.

The inquest heard that their boys, Alexander and Harlan, died of asphyxia, with toxicology and physical evidence indicating they had likely been drugged prior to their deaths.

'The children were drugged prior to being murdered, based on the cold medication located on scene, being consistent with their toxicology results,' Blumberg testified, according to Global News.

Investigators said the boys showed no outward signs of violence.

The bodies of Christopher Duong, Janet Nguyen, and their two sons were found in the same bed in their Prince Rupert, British Columbia home on June 13, 2023

RCMP Corporal Matthew Blumberg testified at the coroner's inquest that wife and mother, Janet Nguyen, was believed to have been 'a willing participant'

'It was observed that neither of the children had obvious signs of injury, but their lips were blue and their skin was pale,' Blumberg told the hearing.

Authorities believe Christopher Duong killed his children.

Police also testified that Nguyen died after being strangled with an electrical cord.

'Janet Nguyen was strangled with an electrical cord to the point it was extremely tight; she could not have done that to herself,' Blumberg said.

Despite the violent nature of her death, investigators found no evidence that she fought back.

Blumberg also testified there was 'no sign of a struggle' between Duong and Nguyen.

Adding to the disturbing timeline, investigators discovered that the couple had recorded a video outlining their final wishes.

Blumberg testified that police found a 'last will and testament' video recorded on their phones, in which the couple detailed guardianship plans and their wishes for their property.

Police testified that the children were believed to have been drugged prior to their deaths, based on cold medication found at the scene and toxicology results

Investigators testified that there was no evidence of outside involvement and concluded the deaths involved only the four family members found int the family home, pictured

The video was recorded the same day Duong was detained by police under the Mental Health Act and released hours later.

Phone records also revealed troubling internet searches conducted by Duong before the deaths.

Blumberg testified that investigators found searches including 'painless ways to kill oneself,' information about dropping children off at a fire station and flight-related searches.

The inquest heard Duong believed he and his family were in danger in the days before their deaths.

Police testified Duong told authorities he feared a 'hit' had been ordered against him.

He was found driving his family around in an apparent attempt to avoid being tracked, prompting police to detain him under the Mental Health Act.

His doctor later testified Duong appeared 'very friendly and calm and co-operative' and did not raise immediate concerns during assessment.

But Duong's father told police his son had become increasingly paranoid and had taken his children into a parked car and stayed there for hours.

He also warned that Duong and Nguyen would 'amp each other up,' and that Duong would 'feed her the fear.'

Police recovered a video described as the couple's 'last will and testament,' outlining guardianship plans and their wishes for their property. Analysis of Christopher Duong's phone revealed searches including 'painless ways to kill oneself,' according to inquest testimony

Investigators told the inquest they found no evidence anyone else was involved.

'The evidence on scene did not indicate that there was any outside people involved other than the four decedents located in the crime scene,' Blumberg testified, reported CBC.

Police said they conducted a full investigation but determined the deaths were consistent with a murder-suicide involving only the family.

The familys social media accounts painted a strikingly different picture from the horror investigators would later uncover.

Photos showed a smiling family of four, with Duong and Nguyen posing proudly beside their young sons in affectionate vacation pictures.

The parents appeared attentive and caring, while the children looked happy and secure, projecting images of a close-knit family that gave no outward signs of the fear and paranoia that would ultimately precede their deaths.

Duong was known to police and had previously been linked to drug trafficking and weapons offences, the inquest heard.

He had also suffered a traumatic brain injury in a serious car crash about a year before the deaths.

The coroner's inquest, which does not assign criminal blame, is focused on establishing facts and identifying ways to prevent similar deaths.

The family was found dead just three days after Duong had been detained and released from hospital.

Social services had planned to make contact with the family but had not done so before their deaths.
A man has been accused of biting a police officer shortly before he appeared on viral footage seemingly being assaulted by two cops at a pro-Palestine rally.

During the chaotic protests in Sydney on Monday night, triggered by the arrival of Israeli president Isaac Herzog, two NSW Police officers were seen repeatedly hitting the restrained man.

A video showed the man being held on the ground by two police on the tram lines running along George St, near Town Hall in Sydney's CBD, after crowds were ordered to disperse.

Footage shows the officer closest to the detained man's head hit him twice, while a second officer holding the man's hands behind his back also took several swings.

The arrested man has been identified as 28-year-old Jace Turner, reported The Australian, and he has been accused of biting one of the officers, breaking the skin.

He was charged with assaulting an officer in the execution of duty causing actual bodily harm and released on conditional bail on Tuesday.

Mr Turner was one of nine people charged after police made 27 arrests during the protest.

'Thousands of participants gathered at Town Hall and at the conclusion of the speeches, the crowd assembled on George Street indicating an intention to march,' NSW Police said in a statement.

Jace Turner (above) allegedly bit a police officer while being restrained on Monday night

Mr Turner was one of nine people charged following the protest

'A section of the crowd attempted to push past officers with the intention of marching, against the Public Assembly Restriction Declaration (PARD).

'The crowd were issued a number of directions by police to disperse in accordance with the PARD and Major Events Act.

'When participants failed to comply, officers moved to disperse the crowd, including anyone who had stopped and was blocking pedestrian access.'

The 27 arrested were taken to several police stations across Sydney.

'Paramedics treated a number of participants after OC spray was deployed,' NSW Police said.

'Five members of the public were taken to hospital for assessment while two officers were treated at the scene.

'Police are in the process of issuing an additional six people with Future Court Attendance Notices for refuse/fail to comply with direction under Part 14 to appear before court on a later date.

'Officers are continuing to investigate the actions of protestors with investigators reviewing body camera footage and social media vision from the event.'

Police were seen pepperspraying, arresting, beating and shoving demonstrators

A total of 27 people were arrested during the protest in Sydney CBD

Confronting footage and photos shared online showed protesters being peppersprayed, arrested, beaten and shoved by police.

One video showed a group of Muslim men leading a prayer on their knees before being hauled away by police.

In another widely shared clip, a man appeared to shove a police officer on a bicycle before raising his hands, after which several officers punched him repeatedly as shocked bystanders watched.

NSW Premier Chris Minns said he would not 'throw police under the bus' and argued that moving on the Muslim men praying was justified because other protesters had attempted to breach a police line.

'I appreciate the scenes on television didn't look good, but it would have been far, far worse,' he said.

'I support police in a very difficult set of circumstances, they were trying to keep the public safe, and the record shows they did everything possible to avoid these confrontations.'

Minns said police were forced to balance protest activity with a major religious gathering taking place at the same time, which he referred to as a 'secret event'.

'What we can reveal today that we couldn't say yesterday for operational reasons, is that there were 7000 Jewish mourners in the same city at the same time that police had to keep separate from protesters,' he said.

NSW Premier Chris Minns defended the actions of officers in a press conference on Tuesday

Minns repeated police proposals to hold the protest in Hyde Park and allow a march down College Street were rejected, leaving officers to manage what he described as a rapidly deteriorating situation on Monday night.

'Now that is a dynamic and difficult situation for NSW Police, and in the circumstances, you can't just look at an individual clip. You have to look at the last week of trying to de-escalate the situation that was rejected by the protester organisers,' he said.

'NSW Police tried everything possible to avoid a confrontation last night.

'I think a fair minded person would look at their engagement with the Palestinian Action Group over the last seven days and see repeated pleas from NSW Police to hold this protest in Hyde Park and have a march down College Street immediately or persistently rejected by the protest organisers.'
Nigel Farage has called on Britain to end the culture of working from home, claiming employees are 'more productive being with other fellow human beings'.

The Reform UK leader told 2,000 supporters at a rally in Birmingham that the UK needed an 'attitudinal change to hard work, rather than work-life balance'.

Mr Farage added that people work better 'as part of a team' in an office and described claims that staff are more productive at home as a 'load of nonsense'.

The politician, who is preparing to unveil his shadow cabinet, told the NEC: 'You can't go on the sick because you've got mild anxiety. But it is an attitudinal change that Britain needs. An attitudinal change to hard work, rather than work-life balance.

'An attitudinal change to the idea of working from home. People aren't more productive working at home  it's a load of nonsense. They're more productive being with other fellow human beings and working as part of a team.'

Remote working policies were introduced by thousands of companies in Britain during Covid-19 lockdowns, with office employees the most affected by them.

The number of people working from home doubled between late 2019 and early 2022, from 4.7 million to 9.9 million, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Latest official data from the start of 2025 showed 28 per cent of the UK workforce was in hybrid work, 13 per cent are fully remote and 44 per cent travel to work.

Nigel Farage speaks during a rally for Reform UK at the NEC Birmingham yesterday

Latest Office for National Statistics data from the start of 2025 showed 28 per cent of the UK workforce was in hybrid work, 13 per cent are fully remote and 44 per cent travel to work

But a growing number of big companies such as Amazon, Boots and JP Morgan have told their employees to get back in the office full-time over the past few years.

Mr Farage first pledged to end the 'working from home culture' ahead of the local elections last May, saying staff in Reform councils would be told: 'You either work from the office or you're gone.'

This came after former Asda and Marks and Spencer chief executive Lord Rose said in January last year that remote working policies had spawned a generation who are 'not doing proper work'.

He claimed at the time that working from home makes people less productive, linking it to the 'general decline' of the UK economy.

Yesterday, Mr Farage also said Reform UK was now on a 'general election war footing' and called on the Prime Minister to resign.

He told the crowd that Reform was ready to fight and win the next general election, and said he felt it could come around sooner than expected.

(From left) Suella Braverman, Robert Jenrick, Richard Tice, Nigel Farage, Lee Anderson, Andrew Rosindell, Sarah Pochin and Danny Kruger during the rally for Reform UK yesterday

Leader Nigel Farage arrives on stage during a rally for Reform UK party at the NEC Birmingham. Picture date: Monday February 9, 2026. PA Photo. Jacob King/PA Wire

Mr Farage added to the mounting pressure on Sir Keir Starmer to resign over his appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador, despite his friendship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

He said Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar's calls for Sir Keir's resignation meant it was 'virtually impossible' for Labour to fight the Scottish elections.

Mr Farage told how the May 7 elections would be 'crucial', but said he planned to unveil his shadow cabinet this week because the party has 'the right people'.

He also explained that Reform was working on plans to revolutionise the civil service.

The party has promised to axe 68,500 jobs in the civil service should they succeed at the polls and to reduce the salary bill by 17 per cent.

All of Reform UK's MPs joined the party leader on stage at the end of the rally as Mr Farage welcomed those who have joined the team before they launched branded T-shirts into the crowd.
An Irishman who has lived in the US for more than two decades has delivered a harrowing account of life inside an American immigration detention centre, branding the ordeal 'a torture'.

Seamus Culleton, originally from Glenmore in Co Kilkenny, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents last September.

This is despite him being married to an American citizen, running a plastering business in the Boston area, and having no criminal record - 'not even a parking ticket'.

Speaking publicly about his detention, he said he was struggling to cope with the psychological and physical toll of being locked up for nearly five months.

'I don't know how much more I can take,' he said, urging Irish Premier Micheal Martin to raise his case with President Donald Trump during his upcoming visit to Washington.

In an emotional appeal to Irish politicians, he said: 'Just try to get me out of here and do all you can, please. It's an absolute torture, psychological and physical torture. I just want to get back to my wife. We're so desperate to start a family'.

He added that while he was not afraid of other detainees, his fear lay elsewhere: 'I'm not in fear of the other inmates. I'm afraid of the staff. They're capable of anything.

'I'd be so grateful if we could just end this. I've been detained now for five months. It's just a torture,' he said.

Seamus Culleton, originally from Glenmore, Co Kilkenny, with his wife Tiffany Smyth, a US citizen

Speaking publicly about his detention, the father-to-be said he was struggling to cope with the psychological and physical toll of being locked up for nearly five months

ICE agents depart the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building on February 4, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Culleton entered the US in 2009 on a visa waiver programme and overstayed the 90-day limit, but after marrying a US citizen and applying for lawful permanent residence, he obtained a statutory exemption that allowed him to work, Culleton's lawyer, Ogor Winnie Okoye, told the Guardian.

'He had a work-approved authorisation that is tied to a green card application,' she said.

Okoye added that due to his detention, Cullton missed his final interview in October.

He was arrested on September 3, 2025, and transferred to an ICE facility in Texas, where he remains in custody while his immigration case winds through the US legal system.

Culleton said that when he was arrested, he was carrying a Massachusetts driving licence and a valid work permit issued as part of an application for a green card that he initiated in April 2025. He has a final interview remaining.

Describing conditions inside the detention centre to The Irish Times, he said: 'It's just a horrible, horrible, horrible place'.

He said there were 72 people in a tent the size of 16ft by 35ft room with no ceiling, with two rows of bunk beds on either side and a long table down the middle.

Culleton described the conditions at the camp as 'filthy', the toilets and showers as 'nasty', and that illnesses are rife among those being detained.

He said there was competition for food and said he had 'definitely' lost weight.

'There is no real quality of life here. I've been locked in the same room now for four and a half months,' Culleton told RTE's Liveline programme.

'I've had barely any outside time, no fresh air, no sunshine. I could probably count on both hands the amount of times I've been outside'.

Friends and family have urged him to stay positive, but he admitted morale is difficult to maintain.

'I try my best. I talk to my wife every day; she's my rock. I talk to my mother and sister most days. They're all rooting for me, I know that'.

The Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed it was aware of the case and had been providing 'consular assistance' through Ireland's consulate in Austin, Texas.

'Our Embassy in Washington, DC is also engaging directly with the Department of Homeland Security at a senior level in relation to this case,' a spokeswoman said.

A Government spokesman said the Taoiseach had been briefed and reiterated that diplomatic efforts were ongoing.

However, officials speaking anonymously acknowledged that Ireland has limited influence over US immigration proceedings, though assistance would continue.

Local TD John McGuinness said he had personally raised the matter with the Taoiseach and was seeking urgent intervention.

'I'll be asking for an immediate response in terms of contacting the White House,' he said.

He praised the Austin consulate but warned: 'It's really at a higher level that we need an intervention now. Action is required now'.

Culleton's sister Caroline echoed the call for urgency, saying the family felt they had no choice but to speak out publicly.

Tiffany said that she had attempted to reach senators and Trump about the case but had received no response

Culleton was arrested on September 3, 2025, and transferred to an ICE facility in Texas, where he remains in custody while his immigration case winds through the US legal system

'We had got to the point where we had to go public on it,' she said.

'I'm really hoping that I can get him to walk out those gates and get on with his life.'

She said she had not yet been contacted directly by Irish officials, but hoped public attention would help.

Media coverage, she said, would give her brother a 'bit of a boost' and 'a little bit of reassurance' that his family is doing all they can.

But the ordeal has taken a heavy toll on the family, with Caroline describing the events as 'devastating'.

She described the initial shock when Culleton first got detained, and spoke of how the family felt 'useless' as they are not allowed to visit him due to non-guaranteed visitation rights.

Culleton has been able to phone his mother daily from the detention centre, and has kept in close contact with his sister.

'There are no words. I mean the way they're being kept, and they're locked up, and he's only been allowed out a couple of times,' she said.

'They don't see the sunlight. They don't get out. Their health deteriorates.'

She said he has lost an 'awful lot of weight', adding that he has sores, infections, and hair loss.

She told the News at One programme that his ongoing detention was 'heartbreaking for our mother' and his extended family.

This week, his wife Tiffany managed to video call him for the first time since his arrest.

She said she did not hear from him for almost a week after an initial phone call following his arrest, and said she 'did not know if he was deported' and 'had no idea if he was safe'.

Asked if she had been allowed to visit her husband, she said ICE officially allows visits, but it is 'almost impossible to set one up'.

She had booked flights from Massachusetts to Texas to attend one of Culleton's court dates, but the hearing was moved on the day before her journey.

'He's a good man. I don't think anyone deserves this, but Seamus definitely doesn't deserve this,' she said.

Tiffany added that she had attempted to reach senators and Trump about the case but had received no response.
Nigel Farage has put Reform UK on a 'war footing' as he claimed Labour's descent into chaos means a general election could come as early as this year.

Rallying a 'people's army' in Birmingham, Mr Farage said he had opened applications on the party website for the 'brightest and best' to stand in the election.

He pledged to announce his Shadow Cabinet in 'the next few days' in preparation for a Reform government, with a focus on bringing in talent from outside politics.

The Reform leader told the 2,500-strong crowd he was determined to have a fighting-fit candidate list ready to contest an election if the Prime Minister resigns.

Mr Farage also called on Britain to end the culture of working from home, claiming employees are 'more productive being with other fellow human beings'.

Now you can have your say in the Daily Mail's latest poll  do you think Reform will win the next general election?

In yesterday's poll, Mail readers were asked: 'Should King Charles issue an official apology over Andrew's involvement in the Epstein scandal?' Out of more than 6,000 votes, 67 per cent of you said 'no' and 33 per cent said 'yes'
Wounded Keir Starmer assembled his Cabinet today after they 'looked over the precipice' and decided against ousting him - for now.

The PM has been around the table with senior ministers who subjected him to more than 24 hours of deathly silence in the wake of his chief aide's resignation over the Mandelson scandal.

They only finally rallied round after Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar demanded he quit - with questions swirling about what concessions and deals Sir Keir might have made for his survival.

Ed Miliband hinted this morning that the premier has agreed to a lurch to the Left to save his skin, saying he would be focusing on the 'class divide'. MPs have been heaping pressure on him to ramp up tax yet again to splurge more on public services and benefits.

Among those at Cabinet was Wes Streeting, who has been accused by No 10 insiders of being behind the coup plot.

The Health Secretary also released a tranche of messages with Mandelson yesterday that showed he condemned his government's 'no growth' strategy - but Sir Keir appears too weak to sack him.

According to No 10 Sir Keir thanked his ministers at the meeting for their support, adding that they were 'strong and united'.

Many in Labour still believe the PM is doomed, with the government having been forced to commit to releasing far more damaging internal messages with Mandelson.

He is facing losing his Cabinet Secretary Chris Wormald in the coming days, after the departure of right-hand man Morgan McSweeney and communications chief Tim Allan.

The party is fighting to hang on in the by-election for Gorton & Denton - a traditionally safe seat - on February 26.

And local elections in May are widely expected to be a bloodbath, with the looming catastrophe in Scotland thought to have sparked Mr Sarwar's dramatic assassination bid.

Nevertheless Sir Keir told the Cabinet: 'The whole of the Labour Party wants Anas Sarwar to become First Minister and will fight for a Labour government in Scotland.'

In other twists and turns today:

Labour's Welsh First Minister Baroness Morgan gave lukewarm backing to the PM, saying she supports him 'in the job he was elected to do';

Scotland Yard has warned other ministers not to follow Mr Streeting in releasing their WhatsApps to Mandelson;

Kemi Badenoch claimed 'some' Labour MPs had 'given us indications' that they would back a vote of no confidence in the PM.

Wounded Keir Starmer will assemble his Cabinet today after they 'looked over the precipice' and decided against ousting him - for now

Among those at Cabinet today was Wes Streeting (pictured with Science Secretary Liz Kendall), who has been accused by No 10 insiders of being behind the coup plot

Deputy PM David Lammy seemed in high spirits this morning despite the miserable state of the government

Nick Thomas-Symonds (left) and Darren Jones (right) were among the ministers who initially stayed quiet amid the mounting threat to the PM. Aides insisted they were busy working on policy issues

Ministers only finally rallied round after Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar (pictured) demanded Sir Keir's resignation

Angela Rayner is regarded as on manoeuvres for the leadership, but backed the PM to continue yesterday. She has still not resolved issues with HMRC over the unpaid stamp duty bill that forced her resignation as Deputy PM last September.

Unlike yesterday, Downing Street managed to persuade a Cabinet minister to make the government's case in broadcast studios this morning.

In a damning assessment of Sir Keir's first 18 months in power, Mr Miliband said this crisis 'has got to be a moment of change' and the government needs a 'much greater clarity of purpose'.

But the Net Zero Secretary urged MPs to 'moveon.org', telling BBC Breakfast: 'The Labour Party as a whole looked over the precipice and thought the right thing to do is to support our leader'.

He said: 'In a sense, yesterday was a moment of peril for the Prime Minister. I make no bones about that.

'But, as a collective body, the Cabinet, the Labour Party looked at the alternatives of going down this road of a chaotic leadership election, trying to depose a prime minister, and they said 'no, that's not for us'.'

In a signal that Sir Keir has bowed to MPs demanding a more left-wing policy platform, Mr Miliband told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'I tell you what angers Keir the most - it's class. It's the class divides...

'He exists to change that... I absolutely dispute the idea he's not somebody driven by burning passion about the injustices our country faces and how we need to change them.

'We need more of that. He knows we need more of that. I think we're going to see more of that.'

Mr Miliband said the idea that meant 'class war' was 'balderdash'.

'So many people from working class backgrounds are looked down upon in our country, are held back in our country,' he said.

'Whether it's from not getting an apprenticeship, not being able to rise up... Keir is about changing that. Not just social mobility for a few, but recognition for everybody, a decent life for everybody.'

Mr Miliband said voters want 'boldness in our answers' that 'meet the scale of what we are facing'.

'One of the big frustrations... Rachel has raised taxes on the wealthy and business - some people don't like that - in order that we can invest in the future, in public services - including energy in health, in education,' he said.

Mr Miliband said he was 'not going to run' for the Labour leadership in any potential contest.

It was put to him that his message sounded a bit like a leadership pitch, to which he replied: 'Absolute baloney.'

Asked whether he would rule out running, the Energy Secretary told Sky News: 'I'm not running for the leadership, no.'

Asked whether he would rule out running rather than saying he was not currently running, he said: 'Yes, yes, I'm not going to run.'

A weary Sir Keir was seen heading back to his No 10 bunker in a government car last night after the chaotic day.

Mr Sarwar, once an ally of Sir Keir, said there had been 'too many mistakes' in Downing Street.

'I have to be honest about failure wherever I see it,' he said. 'The distraction has to end, the leadership has to change.'

Mr Sarwar told the PM of his move in advance, triggering panic in No 10 and sparking a major rescue operation.

One Labour source said ministers were told to voice their support for the PM by the end of the day or face the sack.

Downing Street insiders accused Mr Streeting of being in league with Mr Sarwar, in a plot likened to the 2009 attempt to oust Gordon Brown.

That saw James Purnell quit Cabinet but the heir apparent David Miliband not follow suit, largely because Mandelson marshalled ministers behind Mr Brown.

Mr Streeting's spokesman told the Times: 'Wes did not ask Anas to do this, he did not co-ordinate with Anas on this. Anas is the leader of the Scottish Labour Party, he is his own man, and Wes has the highest respect for him.

'At the same time as Wes was in an interview saying that Keir needed a chance to set out his case and his plan, No 10 were briefing that Wes had told Anas Sarwar to make his statement. This is the problem.'

Sir Keir was already reeling from the departure of Mr McSweeney on Sunday, who was followed out of the door by the No 10 communications director yesterday morning.

John Healey (left) was mooted as a potential caretaker replacement for Sir Keir. Peter Kyle, right, was also at Cabinet

In a damning assessment of Sir Keir's first 18 months in power, Ed Miliband said this crisis 'has got to be a moment of change' and the government needs a 'much greater clarity of purpose'

Cabinet Secretary Sir Chris is on the brink of joining the Downing Street exodus - just a year after Sir Keir appointed him.

Private discussions were held about the possibility of replacing Sir Keir with an interim leader such as Defence Secretary John Healey.

But, with leadership rivals not ready to make their move and financial markets wobbling over the prospect of a chaotic contest, they finally bowed to No 10's demands to issue public statements of support.

In a belated flurry of posts on social media, which began as Mr Sarwar got to his feet, every member of the Cabinet gave the Prime Minister their broad support.

And in a defiant address to Labour MPs later, Sir Keir vowed to battle on, saying: 'Every fight I've ever been in, I have won.'
Jimmy Lai will die 'a martyr' behind bars, his sister warned, after Hong Kong's leader said the jailed pro-democracy tycoon deserved his 20-year prison sentence under the city's sweeping national security law.

The 78-year-old former media mogul and fierce critic of Beijing received the harshest punishment yet imposed under the China-backed legislation, with critics warning the term amounts to a life - and effectively a death - sentence.

In a statement released after the verdict, Lai's sister Claire branded the punishment 'heartbreakingly cruel', warning that 'if this sentence is carried out, he will die a martyr behind bars.'

Also speaking after the ruling, Hong Kong's leader John Lee said the sentence demonstrated the rule of law, insisting Lai's crimes were serious and claiming the outcome would bring 'great satisfaction' to the public.

Lai was convicted in December of conspiring to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security, and of conspiracy to publish seditious articles, offences that carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

His son Sebastien said the 'draconian' jail term was devastating for the family and life-threatening for his father, adding that it marked the 'total destruction of the Hong Kong legal system and the end of justice.'

Lai smiled and waved at his supporters when he arrived for the sentence. But before he left the courtroom, he looked serious, as some people in the public gallery cried.

Jimmy Lai will die 'a martyr' behind bars, his sister warned. In a statement released after the verdict, Lai's sister Claire branded the punishment 'heartbreakingly cruel', warning that 'if this sentence is carried out, he will die a martyr behind bars

The 78-year-old former media mogul and fierce critic of Beijing received the harshest punishment yet imposed under the China-backed legislation, with critics warning the term amounts to a life - and effectively a death - sentence

Lai was convicted in December of conspiring to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security, and of conspiracy to publish seditious articles, offences that carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment

When asked about whether they would appeal, his lawyer Robert Pang said no comment.

His co-defendants, six former employees of his Apple Daily newspaper and two activists, received prison terms of between 6 years and 3 months, and 10 years on collusion-related charges.

The former staffers and activists involved in Lai's case entered guilty pleas, which judges said helped reduce their sentences.

Judges said the penalties were also reduced because several of the defendants served as prosecution witnesses and that their evidence had 'significantly' contributed to Lai's conviction.

Judges ruled that Lai was the mastermind behind the conspiracies, increasing the starting point of his sentence as a result.

In their written ruling, three government-vetted judges said Lai was 'no doubt the mastermind of all three conspiracies charged' and therefore warranted a heavier sentence than the other defendants.

However, they reduced the penalty after accepting that Lai's age, health condition and time spent in solitary confinement would make his prison life more burdensome than that of other inmates.

The judges ruled that 18 years of Lai's sentence in the national security case should be served consecutively to the five years and nine months he is already serving for a separate fraud conviction.

Speaking after the ruling, Hong Kong's leader John Lee said the sentence demonstrated the rule of law, insisting Lai's crimes were serious and claiming the outcome would bring 'great satisfaction' to the public. Pictured: Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, stands next to Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee

Sir Keir Starmer shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on January 29. Starmer's government has called for the release of Lai, who is a British citizen

Lai was one of the first prominent figures to be arrested under the security law in 2020.

Within a year, some of Apple Daily's senior journalists also were arrested and the newspaper shut down in June 2021.

Lai founded Apple Daily, a now-defunct newspaper known for its fierce criticism of the governments in Hong Kong and Beijing.

His sentencing could heighten Beijing's diplomatic tensions with foreign governments, which have criticized Lai's conviction and sentence.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who is expected to visit China in April, said he felt 'so badly' after the verdict and noted he spoke to Chinese leader Xi Jinping about Lai and asked him 'to consider his release.'

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X that Lai's sentencing is an unjust and tragic conclusion to the case, urging authorities to grant Lai humanitarian parole.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's government also has called for the release of Lai, who is a British citizen.

U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper called the prosecution 'politically motivated,' saying the prison term is tantamount to a life sentence.

In Beijing, China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said Lai is a Chinese citizen and called him a major planner and participant in a series of anti-China destabilizing activities in Hong Kong.

He urged 'relevant countries' to respect the rule of law in Hong Kong and stop interfering in China's internal affairs

Legal experts warned the case could have far-reaching implications for journalists and academics operating in the city.

Urania Chiu, lecturer in law at Oxford Brookes University, said the ruling showed how broadly the offence of seditious intent could be interpreted, particularly where media engagement with international audiences was concerned.

Lai has been in custody for more than five years. In January, Pang said Lai suffered health issues including heart palpitations, high blood pressure and diabetes.

The prosecution said a medical report noted Lai's general health condition remained stable. The government said his solitary confinement was at Lai's wish.

Before sunrise on the day of sentencing, dozens of people queued outside the court to secure seats in the public gallery.

Among them was former Apple Daily employee Tammy Cheung, who said: 'Whatever happens, it's an end - at least we'll know the outcome.'

Hong Kong's decline in press freedom has accelerated since the security law was introduced, with the city ranking 140th out of 180 territories in the 2025 press freedom index compiled by Reporters Without Borders.

Police national security chief Steve Li welcomed the sentence, saying Lai had 'done nothing good for Hong Kong' that could justify leniency.

Authorities said assets linked to Lai's crimes would be confiscated.

Human Rights Watch Asia director Elaine Pearson described the 20-year sentence as cruel and unjust, warning it was effectively a death sentence.
A trainee at a top law firm drafted an 'agreement' to supply Jeffrey Epstein with 'beautiful women' to strip, play sexual games and swim naked with him.

The former Clifford Chance employee exchanged a series of messages with the late paedophile between 2011 and 2012 where she told him she could supply him with 'Russian and Austrian girls, both smart and blonde'.

In a document, signed between Epstein the 'beneficiary' and 'the apprentice', they agreed the sex offender would teach her about 'adult life' including 'sex if he wishes to do so'.

The correspondence was released as part of the latest tranche of the Epstein files which were published by the US Department of Justice two weeks ago.

The legal document, which appears to be tongue-in-cheek, was drafted on October 18, 2011.

The trainee lawyer, who worked in the firm's Paris office before leaving in 2012, has since said she was a victim of Epstein's abusive and controlling behaviour.

In one email, written three years after Epstein was jailed for soliciting sex from girls as young as 14, she wrote: 'I really would like you to teach me new things. As you asked I googled you.

'Well, maybe your passion is young girls as snowboarding is mine. I'm not scared anyway'.

A trainee at a top law firm drafted an 'agreement' to supply Jeffrey Epstein with 'beautiful women' to strip, play sexual games and swim naked with him

The trainee lawyer has since said she was a victim of Epstein's abusive and controlling behaviour

The tongue-in-cheek document said Epstein would be provided with full body massages and sexual games

And in the satirical legal document she said she could provide 'favours' including 'presenting beautiful women', 'accompanying for swimming naked' and 'stripping which includes taking clothes off slowly'.

She also said she could organise 'full body massages' and girls 'posing naked'.

Epstein had 'obligations' which 'may include teaching the apprentice to enjoy new sexual games to which she has never been exposed before,' the document added.

Epstein 'will try his best to take the apprentice to the United Nations building in New York for an excursion and a live conference during which the favours can be provided to the Beneficiary,' it continued.

In another email between the pair, Epstein asked if she had found him a new girlfriend, to which she replied: 'I dont like sharing, would like to keep you all for me. There might be two candidates if you want, Russian and Austrian girls, both smart and blond.'

She later wrote: 'What would you like me to bring you from Sweden? Except for girls?' and 'Do you want to see me or you are interested in me only because I found pretty girls for you?'.

In the document, signed between Epstein the 'beneficiary' and 'the apprentice', they agree the sex offender will teach her about 'adult life' including 'sex if he wishes to do so'.

Epstein, then 58, told her: 'If you want a job and you need to have sex to do it you have to accept sex', adding 'it's not whom you know but whom you blow'.

In another email, from late 2011, the trainee lawyer told the paedophile she was having a 'dispute' over sexual etiquette.

She wrote: 'Should I leave guys' place after sex like at 3-4 am or should I sleep there when its not my boyfriend?

Epstein is pictured with a young woman who appears to be in her underwear in a photograph released as part of the Epstein files

The trainee lawyer wrote: 'Well, maybe your passion is young girls as snowboarding is mine. I'm not scared anyway'

In one email she told Epstein about a sexual dispute she had, asking if she should leave a 'guys place after sex'

'I think, personally  I better stay  it makes guy feel good and not used while [the other woman] thinks of escaping right after she had her orgasm.'

She asked Epstein's opinion, adding: 'See how we keep ourselves busy at clifford chance, huh? :)'.

Meanwhile she complained about the work she was doing at Clifford Chance, stating the document she drafted was 'perfect legal work'.

She said the 'agreement', first reported by RollOnFriday, is 'such perfect legal work. You make me do some really fun stuff while Clifford just gives me translations'.

The correspondence were released alongside three million documents which have plunged the Labour Government into crisis amid former US ambassador Peter Mandelon's ties to the sex offender.

Clifford Chance is one of the world's largest law firms, with an annual revenue of 2.4 billion according to its latest financial report.

It is part of London's 'magic circle' which comprise the five most prestigious organisations.

A spokesperson for Clifford Chance said: 'The firm has never acted for Epstein. The correspondence is not related to the business of the firm.'
The mother of a four-year-old boy allegedly murdered in a high-speed hit-and-run sent frantic messages about being 'genuinely in fear of my life' as they were being chased, a court heard.

Owen Maughan, 27, and Patrick Maughan, 54, from Darenth in Kent, are accused of murdering Peter Maughan, who died in a crash on June 1 last year.

Erica Maughan, Peter Maughan's grandmother, has told a jury of the fear and panic her daughter and family felt during a pursuit carried out that evening.

Mrs Maughan said 'a thousand things' were going through her mind over the course of the four minutes in which her frightened daughter Hayley sent various WhatsApp voice notes before their car was rammed.

Hayley and her husband Lovell Mahon along with their two children, Peter and his one-year-old sister Annarica, were being pursued along the London-bound A2 in their Ford Ranger Wildtrak.

The car chasing them was another Wildtrak driven by her cousin Owen Maughan with his father Patrick in the front seat, jurors have been told.

Hayley also sent phone footage she had recorded of the tailing vehicle, saying it was 'driving on top of us' and how she feared for her life because it was 'trying to ram' them.

Mrs Maughan tried to keep her daughter calm and initially urged her to carry on driving to their home in Southfleet, Kent, in the hope they would be safe.

Pictured: Hayley Maughan and Lovell Mahon and their children Peter, four, and then one-year-old sister Annarica, who were all in the car as they were being chased

Peter could not be saved and was pronounced dead at Darent Valley Hospital just after 10pm

In her evidence read to Maidstone Crown Court, the grandmother revealed her panic as the pursuit continued, culminating in the fatal collision on New Barn Road, Southfleet, at 9.26pm.

In her subsequent statement made to police, she said Hayley's first messages, received at 9.22pm, had identified her cousin and described him as being 'mowldy' - a traveller term for drunk - and that he was 'driving on top' of them.

Her daughter then revealed that 54-year-old Patrick Maughan, who is also known as Francis, was also in the chasing Ford Ranger.

Jurors were told that Mrs Maughan, who was at home in Brakefield Road, replied to 'drive on' and ignore them.

In her statement read to the court on Friday, Mrs Maughan said: 'I was trying to keep things calm and quiet and to let it blow over.'

Hayley continued messaging her mother, saying: 'Told you they haven't stopped. I knew they wouldn't.'

Mrs Maughan told police she 'didn't think anything would come of it', adding: 'I was just trying to keep everything calm because I knew the children were in the car and I didn't want anything happening.'

Hayley then revealed how they had tried multiple times to get away but were still being followed, the court heard.

Hayley Maughan told her mother that Patrick Maughan (pictured), 54, was in the car that was chasing them

Peter suffered severe and devastating injuries to his head, chest and abdomen, jurors were told

Among the videos sent to Mrs Maughan was one at 9.24pm showing the two vehicles travelling side-by-side on the A2.

Hayley then messaged, saying: 'We have driven on 20 times. What is wrong with people? Man's trying to drive on top of us. Genuinely in fear of my life. He is trying to ram into us.'

In response, Mrs Maughan told her to make their way home before adding they should 'ram them'.

Explaining her remark, she said: 'I was so panicked I didn't really know what I was saying. There were a thousand things going through my head and I just wanted to get them home safe.'

Two more videos followed in which Hayley said they were still being tailed and then, in a voice note, she told her mother: 'I begged Lovell. I cried in the vehicle over my two children.

'They are not strapped in and a man is trying to drive on top of us.'

When she later spoke to police, she said Peter had a habit of removing his seatbelt and, in her panic as the chase unfolded, she had not double-checked.

She also told her mother in response to the 'ram them' comment that their Ford Ranger was 'all we have' and could not afford another.

However, within seconds, Mrs Maughan was urging them to 'pull in and jump out' before asking their whereabouts on the A2.

At 9.26pm, she then received another clip of phone footage showing the two vehicles side-by-side at the roundabout on the exit slip road at Pepperhill.

Lovell Mahon was shouting out of his window at Owen and Patrick Maughan, telling them 'children are in the motor'.

Within 12 seconds of that angry encounter and about 300m up New Barn Road, the family's pickup truck had been rammed in the rear at an estimated 60mph, the court heard.

The pickup truck spun out of control and rolled up to three times before coming to an upright halt and at a right angle across the road.

Mrs Maughan's subsequent calls and voice notes went unanswered.

'I didn't know what was going on, where they were. I was feeling so frightened for them. I had no idea what was going on,' she told police.

Following the smash and with debris scattered about, Owen, 27, and Patrick Maughan drove off in the direction of Longfield while passing motorists stopped to help.

A Tesla driver and his passengers were confronted by a screaming Hayley Maughan flagging them down with her bleeding daughter in one arm and a 'slumped' Peter in the other being held up under his armpits.

The occupants immediately took them to Darent Valley Hospital, with one attempting resuscitation throughout the journey.

The little boy could not be saved and was pronounced dead just after 10pm, having suffered severe and devastating injuries to his head, chest and abdomen, jurors were told.

While Hayley and Annarica escaped with minor injuries, Lovell Mahon, then 24, sustained multiple fractures and brain trauma, leaving him unlikely to walk again.

The prosecution argues that, for reasons unclear, the defendants were 'in a fury' when the two parties came together by chance on the A2.

The father and son had spent the afternoon and evening drinking in Rochester, consuming 25 lagers between them.

Hayley, Lovell and the children had been to Pepe's restaurant in Maidstone before the incident.

Despite being closely related, the court was told the two families had not spoken 'for years' following a rift between Hayley's father and his sister, Winifred - Owen's mother and Patrick Maughan's wife.

Hayley was said to have had 'a problem' with Owen's sister, Nicole, at a school, just a week or so before the alleged murder bid.

Sonny Maughan, Hayley's eldest sibling, told police in a statement that if the families saw each other they would 'look the other way'.

'I have had arguments with them over a few years but nothing that would cause such violence to be used,' he added.

Their youngest sibling, Sean, also told police: 'They are not considered our family and we don't speak to each other.'

Owen Maughan is now on trial accused of four offences - murder of Peter Maughan, causing grievous bodily harm (GBH) with intent to Lovell Mahon and attempting to cause GBH with intent to both Annarica Maughan and Hayley Maughan.

Patrick Maughan faces eight charges - murder and manslaughter in respect of Peter, causing the youngster's death by dangerous driving, three offences in respect of Mr Mahon, namely causing GBH with intent, inflicting GBH and causing serious injury by dangerous driving, and two of attempting to cause GBH with intent to Annarica and Hayley Maughan.

Owen Maughan has pleaded guilty to manslaughter, as well as causing serious injury by dangerous driving and inflicting GBH in respect of Lovell Mahon, jurors have heard.

It is the prosecution case that Owen Maughan used his truck as a weapon while being 'actively encouraged' by his father.

The trial continues.
China's AI content-labelling rules tame risks

Xinhua) 13:07, February 10, 2026

BEIJING, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- When Wang Hao, 43, a B&B owner of northwest China's Lanzhou City, posted a short video online last August celebrating his "new Maybach," congratulations poured in. So did phone calls from "old friends" asking for loans.

There was just one problem. The luxury car existed only on screen. The clip was generated by artificial intelligence (AI), but nothing on the screen said so.

"If I had posted it a month later," said Wang, who actually owns a van worth less than one-tenth of a Maybach. "People wouldn't have believed it." By then, China's new rules would have required the video to declare its artificial origins.

On Sept. 1, 2025, China ushered in a regulatory first in this field. Under the measures for identifying AI-generated content, AI-generated material published online was required to include both visible labels for audiences and invisible metadata for tracing responsibility.

The regulation came just in time as the AI user base in China expanded quickly and authorities called for tighter oversight. The number of generative AI users in China reached 515 million as of June 2025, up 266 million from December 2024, and nearly doubled in just six months, data from the China Internet Network Information Center show.

A VISIBLE FIX

The logic behind the rules is straightforward. As generative AI floods social media, regulators worry that fabricated images, videos and voices could mislead the public and fuel fraud. Labelling restores transparency without stifling innovation.

China's social media platforms have responded quickly. Short-video apps such as Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, and Kuaishou now prompt users to declare whether content is AI-generated, while audio-sharing platforms like Ximalaya add spoken disclaimers and text warnings.

Four months after the rules took effect, major AI content-generation platforms, including Doubao, DeepSeek, Qwen and Yiyan, have attached AI labels to more than 150 billion pieces of generated content, spanning text, images, audio and video. Meanwhile, leading social media platforms have applied prominent on-screen disclosures to more than 220 million items of AI-generated content.

According to a research team at Xi'an Jiaotong University, users' scepticism toward unfamiliar content has risen by nearly 40 percent since the rules took effect.

Moreover, because implicit labelling allows regulators to quickly identify both the tools used to generate content and the nodes through which it spreads, accountability has become markedly swifter.

In one cross-border investigation into AI-generated fake news, the time required to trace responsibility was cut from an average of 72 hours to just 12, the research team said.

"Introduction of AI content labelling rules has addressed long-standing industry pain points," said Wang Xuelian, general manager of an information technology company based in Gansu Province. "Under policy guidance, progress is visible, pointing to a more orderly and positive development trajectory for the sector."

NEW CHALLENGES

As visible labels spread, so do attempts to erase them. A search by reporters across major e-commerce platforms and social-media sites for phrases such as "AI mark removal" reveals a burgeoning grey market.

From basic tools costing just 9.9 yuan (about 1.4 U.S. dollars) to bespoke services priced at thousands, an openly advertised business has emerged around evading AI-generated content labelling.

More worrying is the sophistication. According to technical experts, evasion has evolved from simple cropping into a layered process involving metadata cleansing, repeated file-format conversions and cross-platform reposting. Content flagged on one platform may pass unnoticed on another.

"Because platforms apply different standards and possess varying levels of AI-detection capability, content that is required to carry an AI label on one platform may evade scrutiny on another after a simple change in format," said Shen Yulin, deputy director of the Gansu provincial computing center.

Shen added that anti-labelling techniques are far more than isolated tricks. "The result may be an escalating arsenal of tactics, fueling a new generation of increasingly sophisticated AI misuse," Shen said.

Experts and observers also say the penalties for violating the labelling rules are yet to be made clearer and the marks are yet to be standardized.

Jiang Yanshuang, an assistant research fellow at the China Institute of Education and Social Development at Beijing Normal University, argues that regulatory technologies on most platforms remain fragile.

Jiang suggests accelerating the standardisation of AI-labelling technologies, with clearer technical specifications tailored to different platforms and content types, to prevent regulatory blind spots created by technical inconsistencies.

"Only through multiple-layer defence and coordinated action," Jiang said, "can we steer AI away from unchecked expansion and towards becoming a genuine enabling tool for the wider economy."

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Sir Tony Blair's wife has claimed her husband had 'lost contact with reality' by the time he resigned as prime minister nearly two decades ago.

Speaking in a new Channel 4 documentary, Cherie Blair has reflected on Sir Tony leaving Downing Street in 2007 after ten years leading the country.

Mrs Blair said: 'Your skill as a politician is about knowing about the people and living with the people and understanding what the people want.

'Ten years of living in the goldfish bowl, you kind of lose contact with reality.'

She added that Sir Tony  who is the longest-serving Labour prime minister in British history - 'can make people think they hear what they want to hear'.

The three-part series also hears from Sir Tony himself, who says: 'One of the things you learn is that ultimately you sit in the seat. You've got to take the decision.'

Sir Tony's grown-up children, Euan, Kathryn and Leo, feature in the documentary  airing next Tuesday - along with his former spin doctor Alastair Campbell.

Mr Campbell talks about a moment when he found Sir Tony at his desk in No 10 late at night following the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Sir Tony Blair's wife Cherie Blair is interviewed in 'The Tony Blair Story' airing on Channel 4

Tony Blair - the longest-serving Labour prime minister in British history - with his family as they leave Downing Street for the final time in 2007

Cherie Blair talks to series director Michael Waldman in the new Channel 4 documentary

He says: 'It was one of those moments when I wished I could paint. It was an absolute portrait in the isolation of power.'

Mr Campbell adds of Sir Tony: 'He had real energy and restlessness.'

A trailer for the documentary released today also features clips from interviews with broadcaster Andrew Neil and former chancellor George Osborne.

Mr Neil is heard speaking about the 'whole obsession with spin', while a clip from Mr Osborne says: 'People lost faith in what government was telling them.'

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn also says: 'I think he's a man in denial.'

The clip concludes with the narrator saying the series has 'the full account in his words and featuring those closest to him', and Sir Tony says: 'Make your own judgment.'

Series director Michael Waldman wrote in the Radio Times today: 'His self-assurance rarely cracks, even when interrogated about what many view as his gravest mistake, the invasion of Iraq.

Sir Tony Blair is also interviewed in the new documentary which looks at his rise to power

Sir Tony Blair speaks to director Michael Waldman for the new Channel 4 programme

'Despite this conviction, what emerges is a level of emotion and psychological introspection that's rarely been seen on camera.'

He added that there was 'no doubt power changes a person', and Mrs Blair's reflections on her husband leaving office in 2007 were 'words that, perhaps, anyone in power should heed'.

The documentary will look at how Sir Tony took over as Labour leader in 1994 following the sudden death of John Smith - and how he talked close ally Gordon Brown out of running.

It will cover his landslide election victory in 1997, his work in Northern Ireland and Kosovo and the relationship he built with President George W Bush amid the 9/11 attacks and military action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Former president Bill Clinton and Condoleezza Rice appear in the documentary too, which also looks at how Sir Tony was forced out by Labour in 2007 and replaced by Mr Brown.

'The Tony Blair Story' airs on Channel 4 next Tuesday at 9pm
A 'free speech supporting' university in Wales has banned a Reform MP from giving a talk - saying it has 'zero tolerance for racism and transphobia'.

The Debating & Political Society at Bangor University declared Sarah Pochin, MP for Runcorn and Helsby, was not welcome to speak to its members.

In a statement, the society added it 'stands by the decision' as a committee and is 'proud' to announce the new ban - hoping other universities will follow suit.

A spokesman said: 'We stand by this decision as a committee. We have zero tolerance for any form of racism, transphobia or homophobia displayed by the members of Reform UK.

'Their approach to the lives of others is antithetical to the values of welcoming and fair debate that our society has upheld for 177 years.'

The society said it was 'proud to be the first of the debating unions to take a stand against Reform UK'.

'We strongly implore our fellow societies to join us in keeping hate out of our universities,' it concluded.

The Bangor Debating & Political society is the oldest student society in Wales - describing itself as 'the home for students who love to challenge ideas, explore diverse perspectives, and master the art of persuasion'.

In a statement, the society added it 'stands by the decision' as a committee and is 'proud' to announce the new ban - hoping other universities will follow suit

The Debating & Political Society at Bangor University (pictured) declared Sarah Pochin, MP for Runcorn and Helsby, was not welcome to speak to its members

Sarah Pochin said: 'So much for free speech in our universities. How can Bangor Universitys debating society be afraid of debate'

A statement adds: 'The Debating & Political Society continues to balance three aims: providing a welcoming space to learn public speaking and critical thinking, supporting competitive teams on the national and international stage, and running public debates that engage both the university and the wider community.

'As public discourse evolves, the societys commitment to reasoned, inclusive debate remains as vital as ever.'

Bangor University told the Daily Mail it distances itself from the sentiment expressed by its student debating society.

But Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf said: 'Bangor University has banned Reform and called us "racist, transphobic and homophobic".

'Bangor receives 30million in state funding a year, much of which comes from Reform-voting taxpayers.

'I am sure they wont mind losing every penny of that state funding under a Reform government. After all, they wouldnt want a racists money, would they?'

Ms Pochin, who was barred alongside party adviser Jack Anderton, added: 'So much for free speech in our universities. How can Bangor Universitys debating society be afraid of debate?'

Bangor University emphasised the social media post was issued by a student society and not by the university itself.

Jack Anderton was also barred from speaking at Bangor University. The 25-year-old 'Tik Tok guru' is a political campaigner and adviser to Reform

A spokesman added: 'Student societies are created and run by students through the independent Students Union.

'The views expressed by societies are their own and do not reflect University policy. Bangor University remains politically neutral and supports freedom of speech.

'Bangor University welcomes debate from across the political spectrum.'

The Bangor debating society is not the first student body to dictate its own political discourse.

Last year, the Daily Mail revealed the Biggest British debate competition in the world run by Oxford Union pressures hundreds of children as young as 14 to declare their gender pronouns every year.

Competitors at Oxfords Schools', aged 14-18, are instructed by organisers to specify whether they are 'he/she/they etc' at the start of each round.

Anyone who fails to comply with the equity policy may be disqualified from the contest 'with immediate effect'.

Oxford Schools' is the largest British Parliamentary school-level debate competition in the world, and the largest debating contest in the UK.

Thousands of students are invited to participate for Oxford Schools' every year with its Finals Day held in the historic Oxford Union (pictured/file image)

A statement unearthed by the Daily Mail reads: 'We operate a gender pronoun policy at Oxford Schools'

It states thousands of students are invited to participate every year and that last year, over 350 schools competed.

A statement unearthed by the Daily Mail read: 'We operate a gender pronoun policy at Oxford Schools. At the start of each debate, the judge will ask each speaker to introduce themselves with their name and their gender pronoun (such as he/she/they etc), or they may declare no preference.

'This is intended to stop people being misgendered, and prepares students for other competitions and university debating, where such policy is standard.

'Just as people like to be called by their correct name, so they should be called by the pronoun they feel most comfortable with.'

Helen Joyce, the director of advocacy for human rights charity Sex Matters, which campaigns for 'clarity about biological sex in law and life', said the policy was 'outrageous' and akin to 'indoctrination'.

She added: 'Its outrageous that schoolchildren are being made to pay lip service to gender identity beliefs in order to participate in a debate.

'Its very concerning that such a requirement is being used to teach children the fringe idea that everybody has a gender identity before those youngsters have learned to think critically. This is indoctrination, pure and simple.'

Last month, it emerged one in three students now say Reform UK should be banned from speaking on campuses.

A poll of around 1,000 students found 35 per cent think the party should be 'no-platformed' in universities  a record high for any political group.

When the same survey was carried out in 2022, only 26 per cent wanted the English Defence League banned, while in 2016 only 31 per cent wanted a ban for the British National Party.

In the latest poll, only 18 per cent of students thought all political parties should be allowed onto campuses.

The research, by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), comes after Reform UK repeatedly led opinion polls among the general electorate.

HEPI director Nick Hillman said: 'I am shocked that more than one in three students support banning Reform UK from university campuses.

'The best way to take down democratic political parties that you disagree with is surely through free, fair and fierce debate  whether that is on campus or beyond.'

Bangor University has been contacted for comment.
Former Australian of the Year Grace Tame has defended her controversial appearance at a pro-Palestine rally on Monday.

The 31-year-old took to social media on Tuesday night to declare she is 'not the story' and that the thousands of protesters who appeared at the rally were within their rights to peacefully protest the war in Gaza.

Tame led a chant at the conclusion of her speech to 'globalise the intifada' which refers to Palestine 'shaking off' oppression, or resistance against Israel, but has been interpreted by some as a call for violence.

'Politicians and the press can deflect onto me all they like, but I'm not the story,' Tame wrote on Tuesday.

'The story is that Israel stands accused by the International Criminal Court of committing genocide in Gaza, and so far - after over two years of innocent men, women and children being slaughtered - the only parties who've faced punishment are the victims themselves and critics of the state.

'Yesterday at a peaceful protest against the arrival of Israeli president Isaac Herzog on our shores, non-violent attendees acting well within their rights were met with unprovoked police brutality.

'This should terrify us all. Democracy is eroding before our very eyes.'

Outside Town Hall on Monday, Tame accused Herzog of engaging in 'incitement to genocide' and of having 'signed his name on bombs that were used to kill innocent women and children'.

Grace Tame (above) spoke at the Sydney pro-Palestine rally outside Town Hall

Tame called for the focus to be on the NSW Police response (above) to the protest, rather than her speech

The UN Human Rights Council in September alleged a genocide was occurring in Gaza, which Israel has relentlessly attacked following the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023.

Both Herzog and the wider Israel leadership have denied a genocide against Palestinians.

Despite Tame using that word, it was her use of the word 'intifada' which drew the most criticism.

Intifada means 'shaking off' in Arabic and is associated with uprisings and rebellion.

It's previously been used to describe two violent Palestinian protests against Israel in 1987 and 2000.

NSW Premier Chris Minns on Tuesday labelled Tame's use of the word 'terrible'.

'I thought that was a distressing scene,' he said.

'In the circumstances where six weeks ago we lost 15 members of the Jewish community to a hate crime, a violent terrorist uprising, that's what the consequences of 'globalise the intifada' mean, a violent uprising in Sydney's streets.

Join the debate What's your take on the speech?

Tame said of police's response to the protest (above), 'Democracy is eroding before our very eyes'

Chris Minns and Barnaby Joyce both criticised Tame's speech at the protest (above)

'I can only imagine what those families thought when they saw someone screaming it from the steps of Town Hall, the pain they would have gone through.'

Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce also took a swipe at Tame while talking with Sky News.

He called for her to be stripped of her Australian of the Year award.

'You have a responsibility, when given an honour by the Australian people, to basically conduct yourself in a way that inspires the harmonious nature of Australia,' Joyce said.

The behaviour of NSW Police on Monday night, which Minns refused to denounce, has come under massive scrutiny.

Footage online showed protesters being pepper sprayed, pushed and beaten by officers.

One of the most confronting scenes showed officers hauling off a group of praying Muslims.

The criticism culminated in a 'police brutality' protest outside Surry Hills Police Station on Tuesday night.
A drunk driver has been given a suspended sentence after road rage saw him drive into a fence and a bus before being stopped by have-a-go heroes.

Dennis Moldoveanu, 26, was described as 'off his nut' when he sped straight through a fence and into a bus after ramming a van at a petrol station in Hackney, east London, on October 8 last year

Onlookers including the van driver ran to the car to get the keys and driver out of the vehicle, with one man seen using a hammer to smash its windows.

Moldoveanu's driving was filmed by Jamie Walker, 24, who was in London for work and said he saw the black Seat enter the petrol station around 7am.

As the car tried to leave, a Hackney Council van blocked its path and the car rammed into it.

'It was pretty intense to be honest,' Jamie said.

'It was obvious to me that the driver was off his nut.

'After we'd seen how he was driving and the damage he was causing, we had to step in.'

The video appears shows a black Seat ramming into the back of a Hackney Council van

After a passenger from the Seat got out to confront the van driver, the car drove through a fence at the side of the petrol station

The construction worker from Newcastle said the van driver was trying to stop the car from driving away after ramming his vehicle.

'The car was swerving like crazy,' Jamie continued.

'It had already come in hot and hit some news stands at the front of the petrol station.

'Then when it tried to leave, the van in front was just about to pull out but the black car driver had no patience. Just went straight into him.

'The van then started reversing into the car to stop it from fleeing the situation.'

In the video a passenger gets out of the Seat, which appears to be an Arona model, and goes to the van's window to confront the driver.

The black car can be seen speeding off, smashing through a fence before trying to pull out on to the road, only to crash into a single-decker bus.

There was no route number displayed on the bus and no passengers are visible on the video.

With the Seat stuck, bystanders ran to the car.

As the Seat tried to pull out on to the road, it crashed into a bus and became stuck

Onlookers rushed to stop the driver, with one using a hammer to smash the car's rear window

Jamie said: 'At this point, anyone watching had figured out this driver was dangerous.

'So the van driver and other witnesses approached the car to try and remove the driver or the keys.

'People ended up using what they could to smash the windows.

'We soon realised the car had no key as it was brand new and had a button start.

'Police arrived a couple minutes later and took over.'

According to a number plate search, the petrol car was a 2025 model.

Moldoveanu pleaded guilty to drink driving, dangerous driving, driving without insurance and without a license.

He was handed an 11-month sentence, suspended for 18 months, at Wood Green Crown Court on Wednesday and was ordered to complete 150 hours of unpaid work and 20 days of rehabilitation activities.

If Molodveanu fails to complete these requirements within the 18 months, he will serve his prison sentence.

A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said officers were called at 7.10am on Wednesday 8 October last year after reports of a crash and a fight on Upper Clapton Road, Hackney.

They added: 'Met officers attended the scene and arrested a 25-year-old man on suspicion of criminal damage and dangerous driving while under the influence of alcohol.'
A British graduate who was passionately anti-guns was shot dead by her alcoholic father at his Texas home just hours after they had an argument about Donald Trump, an inquest was told today.

Lucy Harrison, 23, from Warrington, Cheshire, was killed as she prepared to fly home on January 10, 2025, following a post-Christmas break accompanied by her boyfriend.

A police report found she died of a gunshot wound to the heart after being 'shot by another person' from a 'medium range' at the house in Prosper, Texas, but a grand jury found that no one should be prosecuted.

Speaking at the time, her mother, Jane Coates, described the decision as 'baffling' and 'beyond comprehension'.

Today, at an inquest into her death, it emerged for the first time that Ms Harrison was fatally shot by her father in a bedroom at the property.

She was 'categorically anti-gun' and had previously expressed concerns that it was unsafe for her father  a senior executive at a fibre optics business, who had remarried  to have a firearm in the house with his young daughters around, it was told.

He suffered an 'alcoholic seizure' in 2023 which left him in an induced coma, the inquest was told, later going into rehab before suffering a 'relapse' in 2024, but had 'lied' to police in Texas about his drink problem.

Giving evidence, her boyfriend Sam Littler said she had argued with her father about Donald Trump on the morning of her death. The then President-elect was sentenced that day to an unconditional discharge following his conviction over 'hush money' paid to adult-film star Stormy Daniels.

A manslaughter investigation was launched after Lucy Harrison (pictured), 23, from Warrington, Cheshire, was killed at her father's house in Prosper, Texas, on January 10, 2025

Today, at an inquest into her death, it emerged for the first time that Ms Harrison was fatally shot by her father (pictured together)

She was visiting her father, Kris Harrison, who lives in Texas (Pictured: Kris Harrison's home)

Heartbreaking photos show Lucy playing in the snow with her half-siblings and boyfriend just hours before the tragedy occurred

Bodycam footage of police arriving at the house following the shooting showed Mr Harrison saying the gun 'went off' as he was showing it to his daughter.

'We were getting ready to go to the airport and we were talking about guns,' he tells the officer as a shocked-looking Mr Littler stands with his hands behind the back of his neck.

'I got it out and it just went off as she stood there,' Mr Harrison continued.

'It was in the bedside cabinet in a locked box. I took it out to look and it just went off.'

In her own statement, Mr Harrison's wife Heather said she 'heard a bang' from the master bedroom. She ran in and he said: 'Call 911.'

Mrs Harrison said her husband told her: 'Lucy and I were just looking at my gun because she wanted to see it before they left. I picked it up and it went off.'

In their evidence, Ms Harrison's boyfriend and mother insisted she would not have been interested in seeing her father's gun.

In his own written statement, Mr Harrison  who is not attending the hearing  said he had drunk a 500ml carton of white wine that morning.

After finishing it he dumped the empty container in a bin beside a 7/11 store.

But he said he believed he had finished drinking it before 10am and was not impaired by alcohol when his daughter was shot shortly before 3pm.

Speaking at the time of her daughter's death, her mother, Jane Coates (pictured arriving at the inquest today), described the decision as 'baffling' and 'beyond comprehension'

Giving evidence at the inquest today, her boyfriend Sam Littler (pictured, arriving at court today) said she had argued with her father about Donald Trump on the morning of her death

Lucy was found dead at the home of her father Kris (pictured) who works for a fibre optics firm in the States

Mr Harrison said he bought the 9mm Glock handgun as a 'home defence' weapon, meaning he did not need a licence as long as he did not take it out in public.

He had 'no prior experience and no formal training' over firearms, he said.

Mr Harrison said he and Lucy had been watching a 'news segment' about gun crime shortly before her planned departure.

'I said to her "I have a gun, do you want to see it?" She did, and so I went to the bedroom where I kept my gun,' he added.

Mr Harrison said the gun  which he had never previously fired - had bullets in the magazine, but he did not believe there were any in the chamber.

'As I lifted the gun to show her, I suddenly heard a loud bang. I didn't understand what had happened. Lucy immediately fell to the ground.'

'I was not under the influence at the time of the accident,' Mr Harrison said in his statement.

'I would have said if I had consumed an amount of alcohol that affected me.'

Mr Harrison said he and his daughter were 'best friends' and that it was always an 'emotional' day when she prepared to fly home to the UK.

'She meant the world to me.'

He added: 'There is not a day that goes by when I don't relive those events and I will carry the weight of those events to my grave.'

The inquest into the death of Lucy Harrison (pictured) is being held at Cheshire Coroner's Court

Lucy (pictured) had been due to fly back to Manchester on the day she was shot after spending Christmas in the States

In a statement read to the hearing, Officer Luciano Escalera, who attended the scene, said he smelt 'metabolised alcohol' on Mr Harrison's breath and asked him if he had been drinking.

He said Mr Harrison initially said he hadn't drunk alcohol since the day before, but that he then confessed to being an alcoholic, with Officer Escalera taking his gestures to mean he 'continuously drinks throughout the day'.

Officer Escalera added Mr Harrison then said he had drunk a 'small' carton of wine which he had finished at about 2pm, around 45 minutes before the shooting.

Meanwhile, Ms Harrison's boyfriend, Mr Littler, had no concerns that Mr Harrison had been drinking that day, although he said he 'always felt on edge' when they visited.

'There was a lot of very opinionated people in the house.'

Twice that morning Mr Harrison had driven alone to the shops, saying he needed to buy food for lunch and insisting no-one accompanied him as the snowy roads were 'dangerous'.

But Mr Littler said he did not see any alcohol brought into the house.

As they prepared to set off shortly before 3pm, Mr Harrison took his daughter by the hand in a 'mysterious' manner without saying anything and led her into his downstairs bedroom, Mr Littler said.

He was aware that the handgun was kept in a cabinet in that bedroom but had never seen it.

Within 15 seconds, Mr Littler heard a 'loud bang' from the bedroom which he initially thought was a 'prank' by Mr Harrison.

But on hearing Mr Harrison 'screaming', he and Heather 'darted' into the room and found Lucy collapsed on the floor.

His voice cracking with emotion, Mr Littler said he called 911, spotting a gun on the corner of the bed while he was on the line.

However he was unaware at this stage that she had been shot, he said.

Mr Harrison had previously spoken to him about taking his gun out of its case on seeing an outside security light come on and walking around 'like James Bond', only for the 'intruder' to be a racoon, Mr Littler said.

He was unaware whether Mr Harrison had received firearms training.

In a statement that was not read out in full at the inquest, but has been circulated by his lawyers, Mr Harrison said: 'Lucy was the light of my life. From the moment she was born, to watching her grow into the remarkable young woman she became  from her first steps to her graduation, where I cried with pride  was the greatest privilege of my life.

'Lucy adored her younger sisters, and our home was never truly complete unless she was in it  laughing, cuddling, and filling every room with joy.

'During her last visit, she wrote a letter saying that Texas was her home and that she felt lucky to be part of 'the best family in the whole wide world'. That letter is now one of our most treasured possessions.

'Losing Lucy has shattered all of us. I lost my best friend. My girls lost their big sister and hero, and her stepmum lost her bonus daughter who taught her how to be a mum.

'I fully accept the consequences of my actions, and there isn't a day I don't feel the weight of that loss  a weight I will carry for the rest of my life, and I know that nothing I say can ease the heartbreak this tragedy has caused.

'I cannot undo what happened, but I can honour Lucy by being the best father I can be to her sisters and by carrying her memory forward in everything we do. I am deeply sorry for the pain others feel from this tragedy. Lucy's spirit  her warmth, her humour, her kindness  will live on in all of us who loved her.'

A tribute from Lucy's mother and boyfriend (pictured together), released by Cheshire Police, said: 'Lucy was life. She lived it fiercely and fearlessly, not being afraid to feel all that life has to offer'

In a statement read to the court, Ms Harrison's friend Ella Gowing said she had 'confided' in her about her father's 'drink problem'.

She had also expressed concern about 'volatility' in her father's home which made her 'extremely anxious'.

The presence of a gun in the house created an 'unpredictable environment,' Ms Gowing added.

When Ms Harrison found out he had bought a gun, she was 'immediately really upset and disagreed with it', she said.

'She could not understand why Kris would bring this into his home.

'She was categorically anti-gun.'

She was worried about her younger half-sisters, she added.

'She did not want them to be around something so dangerous.'

Earlier Ms Coates became tearful when she gave her own evidence about her daughter's fatal holiday.

She said Lucy was 'not happy' that her father had a gun in the house, but there had been no specific incidents giving cause for concern on her visits.

She said Mr Harrison could become 'bold' while under the influence of alcohol.

Ms Coates said: 'She was not happy that he'd got a gun. She didn't like him having a gun in the house.'

Ms Coates said she last heard from her daughter 15 minutes before she was shot, at which point she and her boyfriend were 'packed up and ready to go'.

She and Mr Harrison had split up when their daughter was young, and he had lived in the US since Lucy was ten.

Lucy regularly visited her father and half-sisters in Texas, travelling there two to three times a year once she turned 18.

Paying tribute to her daughter, she described her as 'a real force of life'.

'She was sensitive, energetic, intelligent, funny and a really great human being.'

Lucy was 'passionate about things' and 'loved to have debates', she added.

In a statement read to the hearing, Officer Luciano Escalera, who attended the scene, said he smelt 'metabolised alcohol' on Mr Harrison's breath and asked him if he had been drinking.

He said Mr Harrison initially said he hadn't drunk alcohol since the day before.

But he then said confessed to being an alcoholic, with Officer Escalera taking his gestures to mean he 'continuously drinks throughout the day'.

He said Mr Harrison then said he had drunk a 'small' carton of wine which he had finished at about 2pm, around 45 minutes before the shooting.

Earlier, lawyers representing Mr Harrison unsuccessfully asked a coroner to step aside from the case, accusing her of being 'biased'.

Ana Samuel, representing Mr Harrison, accused senior coroner Jacqueline Devonish of conducting inquiries which were 'more akin to a criminal investigation' for allegedly failing to share documents with his lawyers.

But lawyers representing Mrs Coates accused her of staging 'an ambush' in an attempt to put off the inquest.

Setting out her arguments at Cheshire coroner's court, Lois Norris, on behalf of Ms Harrison's mother, told the coroner: 'You're going to have to deal with the events of how Ms Harrison came to be in the room, and whether alcohol had been consumed.'

Earlier Ms Coates (pictured arriving at the inquest today) became tearful when she gave her own evidence about her daughter's fatal holiday

Rejecting the application to recuse herself, the coroner said the submissions had failed to provide evidence of bias.

Ms Devonish said Mr Harrison  who is not attending the hearing  had been given ample opportunity to set out his account of what happened and respond to what other witnesses would say.

The coroner added that Mr Harrison had 'lied' to police in Texas about his drinking.

Along with her boyfriend, Ms Harrison was visiting her father, who is believed to have family in Southport.

They had been due to fly back to Manchester on the day she was shot after visiting family over the Christmas period.

Tragically she died the day she was shot at 3.47pm local time.

But Prosper Police Department said later that the case had gone through the courts in the US with 'no prosecution'.

Ms Harrison earned a first-class degree in fashion buying and merchandising at Manchester Metropolitan University before securing her 'dream job' at Boohoo as a buyer's admin assistant.

Speaking last June, Mrs Coates - a deputy manager at a primary school - said: 'Although we have tried so hard to prepare for this moment, it is a brutal outcome to accept.

'It is baffling and beyond comprehension to us, our families and friends, that there is to be no accountability for what happened to my daughter.

'The international element, coupled with a different legal system, practice, and thresholds, makes the outcome even harder and more frustrating to accept.'

She also thanked those around her for their support and said she hopes to engage with groups in Texas working to prevent gun deaths, something she says Lucy would have been a 'fierce advocate' for.

An autopsy report from Chester Gwin, MD assistant county medical examiner for Collin County, found she died as a result of a single gunshot wound fired by another person.

It also confirmed Lucy tested negative for alcohol and drugs and was pronounced dead at the Baylor Scott and White Medical Centre in Texas on January 10.

Just hours before being shot she was posing for photographs in the snow.

A tribute from Lucy's mother and boyfriend, released by Cheshire Police, said: 'Lucy was life. She lived it fiercely and fearlessly, not being afraid to feel all that life has to offer. Lucy unashamedly loved  she had a huge capacity to love and be loved.

'She was the embodiment of wonderful contradictions; she adored travel and being away, experiencing new places and cultures, yet at the same time, she loved nothing more than snuggling up in her pyjamas with her candles on at home.

'She could be dramatic and elaborate situations like it was the end of the world, yet she could also be straight talking and not afraid to have bold conversations.

'She was truly thriving in life and although this gives us great comfort, we are utterly heartbroken at the loss of our beautiful, gorgeous Luce.'

'I was not under the influence at the time of the accident,' Mr Harrison said in his statement.

'I would have said if I had consumed an amount of alcohol that affected me.'

Mr Harrison said he and his daughter were 'best friends' and that it was always an 'emotional' day when she prepared to fly home to the UK.

'She meant the world to me.'

He added: 'There is not a day that goes by when I don't relive those events and I will carry the weight of those events to my grave.'

Ms Harrison's funeral was held at St Elphin's Parish Church in Warrington on February 24 last year, with 400 people inside.

'At Lucy's funeral, my message to people was for them to continue to live their life fiercely and fearlessly like Lucy did,' her mother told the Liverpool Echo at the weekend.

'She wasn't afraid, she wasn't afraid to feel.'

The coroner will give her conclusion on Wednesday.
Jail guards overseeing Jeffrey Epstein used a decoy body to mislead reporters gathered outside the prison after his death, while his real corpse was secretly removed in a separate vehicle, newly unsealed files claim.

According to an internal memo, a jail supervisor told FBI agents that staff at Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center staged the ruse amid an intense media presence following Epstein's apparent suicide in 2019.

The files allege that boxes and sheets were arranged to resemble a human body and loaded into a white van marked as belonging to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, prompting reporters to follow it as it drove away.

Unbeknown to the media, Epstein's actual body was instead placed into a black vehicle that left the facility 'unnoticed,' allowing officers to transport the corpse privately.

The alleged deception was carried out after an official warned guards about the large number of journalists gathered outside the jail and said he would arrive at the loading dock with a separate black vehicle to remove the body.

The records also reveal investigators highlighted a handwritten note found inside Epstein's cell at the time of his death, which was not treated as a suicide note by the medical examiner.

The note, which investigators said was 'difficult to read', appeared to list grievances about jail conditions, including complaints about food, showers and bugs.

Prison guards are alleged to have used a decoy body to distract reporters gathered outside the jail as Epstein's body was transferred to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. This image shows his body being removed from a Lower Manhattan hospital, where he was pronounced dead

Newly released files allege that boxes and sheets were arranged to resemble a human body and loaded into a white van marked as belonging to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, prompting reporters to follow it as it drove away

Epstein's real corpse was secretly removed in a separate vehicle, newly unsealed files claim

The records also reveal that investigators later noted a handwritten note found inside Epstein's cell at the time of his death, although the medical examiner concluded it was not a suicide note

The records, included in a tranche of three million newly released documents, describe how officers responded to the heavy media presence outside the jail in the hours after Epstein's death.

After Epstein was pronounced dead at hospital, his body was returned to federal custody at the prison while arrangements were made for its transfer to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

One interview note states that because of the 'large news media presence,' staff devised a plan to 'thwart' reporters as the body was removed.

According to the document, officers 'used boxes and sheets to create what appeared to be a human body, which was put into the white OCME vehicle which the press followed, allowing the black vehicle to depart unnoticed with EPSTEIN's body.'

Other sections of the records describe how officers were stationed at a secure facility linked to the prison, where Epstein's body was guarded while fingerprinting and other procedures were carried out ahead of its transfer.

Epstein was being held in the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in New York on sex trafficking charges at the time of his death on August 10, 2019.

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Epstein was found dead in the Metropolitan Correctional Centre on August 10, 2019

He was found unresponsive in his cell early that morning by prison guards. After they tried to perform CPR, he was rushed to the New York Downtown Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The New York City medical examiner ruled that Epstein's death was a suicide by hanging, a conclusion that has been repeatedly questioned following a series of failures inside the jail.

Those failures included guards falling asleep on duty and malfunctioning surveillance cameras, issues that later became the focus of multiple investigations.

Prison records show that guards assigned to monitor Epstein did not conduct required checks during the overnight hours before his body was discovered.

Scheduled rounds at 3am and 5am were missed, according to official findings.

Furthermore, cameras positioned outside Epstein's cell were not functioning properly that night.

Investigators later confirmed that at least two surveillance cameras had malfunctioned, leaving critical gaps in visual monitoring of the area.

Because of those failures, officials were unable to establish a definitive timeline of Epstein's final moments.
Asking a female colleague if they are going through the menopause is not 'inherently offensive' and does not amount to harassment, an employment tribunal has ruled.

The ruling comes in a new judgement after office worker sued for sex harassment when her male manager asked her 'is someone going through the change?'

Co-ordinator Lucie Waller also complained that line manager Andrew Gregory told her 'You're just acting that way because you're going through the change'.

She lost her sex harassment case, with an employment tribunal ruling that it is not offensive to make a genuine enquiry to a female colleague to see if they are experiencing the menopause.

The employment tribunal, held in east London, heard she worked as a programme co-ordinator for Swann Engineering Group from April 2022.

The company is based in Braintree, Essex, and provides structural metalwork.

It was heard that Ms Waller told her line manager, Mr Gregory, in early 2024 that she was experiencing some health issues and had tests done to check whether her symptoms were due to the onset of the perimenopause.

East London Employment Tribunal found that the menopause comments, when 'taken together' with other matters, was conduct 'likely to destroy or seriously damage' trust between Ms Waller and the company

Ms Waller let her manager know when the tests turned out to be negative.

In June 2024, she lost her train of thought while speaking to Mr Gregory.

The tribunal heard: '(Ms Waller) alleges that (Mr Gregory) said to her 'Is someone going through the change?' thereby referring to the menopause.

'Later, on the same day, he is alleged to have made the following comment in a busy open plan office: 'You're just acting that way because you're going through the change'.'

The tribunal found that Ms Waller was not visibly upset by the first comment, and that this was why Mr Gregory made a similar comment later on the same day.

She later went to the ladies toilet where she became upset and emotional due to the comments and because of another personal matter.

Mr Gregory told the tribunal that there was a discussion about the menopause that day, but he couldn't remember making the comments Ms Waller alleged he had.

He said that Health and Safety Officer Ellie Parnham had started the conversation around the menopause in the office because 'she had chosen to be open about the symptoms' to 'encourage others to speak up about their experiences'.

The tribunal found: 'As a result, we find that it was not unusual for menopause issues to be raised in office conversations.'

Ms Waller made a complaint about Mr Gregory's comments relating to the menopause to the HR manager, who subsequently informed Mr Gregory.

He told the tribunal he found this complaint 'abhorrent'.

Mr Gregory then began 'cold shouldering' Ms Waller, who despite being awarded a pay rise that April, was then accused of underperforming and moved to the 'noisy', 'smelly' and 'dusty' office next door to a factory.

She resigned in July 2024, saying that she felt like she was left with no choice but to resign after her sex discrimination and bullying allegations were not dealt with adequately.

The menopause comments alone were not enough to win a claim of constructive unfair dismissal, Employment Judge Bruce Gardiner said.

'The comments contributed to some extent to a course of conduct amounting to a breach of the implied term of mutual trust and confidence', the judge said.

'By themselves they would not have been sufficient to amount to a breach of that term'.

But the judge said that when the comments were 'taken together' with two other matters  Ms Waller being placed on a performance improvement plan and being moved to a 'noisy and smelly' office next to a workshop - was conduct 'likely to destroy or seriously damage the trust and confidence' between Ms Waller and the company.

As a result, she won a claim for constructive unfair dismissal relating to her being forced into resigning because her boss 'cold shouldered' her when he found out she complained about him.

The judge also partially found in Ms Waller's favour over a claim for victimisation.

However, Judge Gardiner dismissed Ms Waller's harassment claim in its entirety.

Judge Gardiner said that it was 'not reasonable' for her to regard Mr Gregory's comments as 'violating her dignity'.

Judge Gardiner said Ms Waller was 'unduly sensitive' at the time due to personal matters.

The judge continued: 'Most pertinently, we note that staff in the office had spoken about the menopause in the past, prompted by the symptoms that Ms Parnham had herself been experiencing and by Ms Parnham's desire to foster a culture where menopause symptoms were spoken about more openly.

'(Ms Waller) had shared with Mr Gregory that she had undergone tests to see if she was undergoing the perimenopause; and had also shared that these tests had proved negative.

'Therefore, he was not making fun of some aspect of (Ms Waller)'s overall health.

'The comment itself was not inherently offensive, nor was it made to demean (Ms Waller) or in an attempt to get others to laugh at her.'

The amount of compensation she will receive for her successful claims is going to be decided in early 2026.
Documents within the Epstein files appear to show that 330 gallons of sulphuric acid were purchased for the paedophile's island on the day the FBI opened its investigation into the billionaire's trafficking charges.

According to a receipt and several email exchanges buried within the millions of files that were released on January 30, Epstein had six 55-gallon drums of the chemical delivered to Little St. James (LSJ) - his private island.

The sulphuric acid was purchased for 4,373 on June 12, 2018, coinciding with the date the FBI opened a federal investigation into Epstein's trafficking activities.

The request on the form reads: 'x 6 55 gal drums sulphuric acid w/fuel and insurance charge for transport; materials for conductivity probes; replacement pH and cable - RO Plant - LSJ'.

The revelation about the sulphuric acid sparked wild speculation on social media as to what Epstein needed it for, including to 'destroy evidence or even human remains' - despite there being no evidence of criminal use.

'One Epstein files email they requested 6 55 gallon drums of sulphuric acid, the only thing that is used for is to dissolve bodies,' one social media user speculated.

But further emails in the documents, dating back to 2013, suggest Epstein used sulphuric acid on the private island to purify water.

RO stands for Reverse Osmosis - a water purification system - while sulphuric acid is widely used in water treatment, specifically to soften, adjust pH, and enhance the efficiency of other chemicals during purification processes.

According to a receipt and several email exchanges buried within the millions of files released on January 30, Epstein had six 55-gallon drums of the chemical delivered to Little St. James (LSJ) - the financier's private island

The financier was accused of running 'a vast network' of underage girls for sex, with files recently released by the US Department of Justice, including photos, videos and emails taken from his private computers

Little St. James, a small private island formerly owned by the late financier Jeffrey Epstein and later sold by his estate to settle lawsuits, in the US Virgin Islands, November 29, 2025

Other than water treatment and RO system maintenance, no other explanation for the sulphuric acid is provided in the records.

Epstein died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while he awaited his trial on sex trafficking charges.

He was denied bail after being convicted for soliciting prostitution from a minor, for which he was registered as a sex offender.

The financier was accused of running 'a vast network' of underage girls for sex, with files recently released by the US Department of Justice, including photos, videos, and emails taken from his private computers.

The department said it would release more than three million pages of documents along with more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.

Within the newly released documents, Epstein emailed a woman asking her to purchase a Snow White costume just weeks before the former Barclays chief executive allegedly emailed him about the Disney princess.

In a message dated June 20, 2010, Epstein wrote to the unidentified woman: 'I would love to take photos of you in a Snow White costume. You can get it from the costume store,' to which she replied: 'Will get it!'

The exchange took place just three weeks before Jes Staley is alleged to have emailed Epstein on July 10, writing 'that was fun. Say hi to Snow White'.

This email - which Staley denies knowledge of - has since become one of the most controversial communications between the two men, whose relationship Staley has long insisted was strictly professional.

Another chilling email from what appears to be a second person, dated the same day, stated: 'The snow white was f***** twice as soon as she put her costume.'

The correspondence provides no information on the ages of the women involved, and there is nothing in the newly disclosed emails to suggest Staley was copied into or aware of the exchanges.

Join the debate What do you think the real purpose was behind the huge sulfuric acid order?

Epstein is pictured with a young woman who appears to be in her underwear in a photograph released as part of the Epstein files

More than three million new documents relating to the late sex offender were released by the US Department of Justice on January 30

It is also unclear whether all references to 'Snow White' relate to the same individual.

The files also include documents involving Epstein's relationship with disgraced royal Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

It comes after it was revealed that Andrew knowingly shared confidential information with Epstein from his official work as a trade envoy in Asia.

Emails in the files show the former prince passing on secret details of investment opportunities to the convicted paedophile following his visits to Singapore, Hong Kong, and Vietnam in 2010 and 2011.

This was after Epstein was first convicted for soliciting a prostitute and procuring a child for prostitution in 2008, for which he was jailed for 18 months.

Trade envoys are legally bound to confidentiality over sensitive, commercial, or political information from their visits abroad.

Emails suggest Andrew had told Epstein of his official upcoming trips to Singapore, Vietnam, Shenzhen in China, and Hong Kong on October 7, 2010.

He was then accompanied by business associates of Epstein on these visits, the BBC reported.

After the trip, he forwarded official reports of the visits to Epstein on November 30, five minutes after he had been sent them by his then special adviser Amit Patel.

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A photo from the Epstein files appears to show Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor leering over an unidentified woman in what looks to be Epstein's New York home

Jeffrey Epstein pictured with two unidentified women as part of a trove of files released by the US Department of Justice

In further emails from the files dated Christmas Eve 2010, it appears he sent Epstein a confidential briefing on investment opportunities in the reconstruction of Helmand Province, Afghanistan, which was being managed by the British armed forces and funded by UK government money.

The messages contradict Andrew's claim that he broke off his friendship with the paedophile in December 2010, which he asserted in his disastrous BBC Newsnight interview in 2019.

Another email has also opposed this claim, as it appears Andrew suggested Epstein should invest in a private equity firm he had visited a week before, on February 9, 2011.

Epstein was a convicted child sex offender at the time that all of these emails were sent.

Buckingham Palace also confirmed it stands 'ready to support' police in any investigation of Andrew.

King Charles issued an unprecedented statement expressing his 'profound concern' at mounting allegations against his brother last night as the royal household stated it would, if asked, 'support' a police inquiry.

Hours earlier, the Prince and Princess of Wales made their first public comment on the scandal, saying they were 'deeply concerned by developments' and their 'thoughts remain focused on the victims'.
A 12-year-old boy froze to death just 100 metres from where his father's body was found during a hiking trip to the Scottish Highlands, an inquest has heard.

Thomas Parry, 49, from Alsager, Cheshire, plunged to his death while scaling the steep and rocky Bidian nam Bian peak with his son, Richard Parry, on May 28, 2024.

Post mortem results show that while Richard survived the fall, he suffered a head injury and subsequently died of hypothermia a short distance away.

The inquest was told the pair were only in possession of a basic map that showed a GPS route and the contour lines of the mountain, but had no other features.

A mountain guide said Mr Parry had stopped him to ask for advice on how to ascend the peak on the day of their disappearance.

He said that he had advised the father and son that the terrain was steep and that there was a line of cliffs in the area by the summit.

The mountain guide added that the weather began to deteriorate around the time he saw the pair, with visibility stretching to only around 30 metres due to low cloud.

A witness report, which was read out at the inquest, said: 'On the day of their disappearance, the witness had been working as a mountain guide.

'He had been taking nine people around the area. As they descended the mountain, he spotted two males, who he thought looked around 50 and 10 years old.

Richard Parry, 12, from Cheshire, went missing with his father while hillwalking in the Scottish Highlands

Thomas Parry, 49, plunged to his death while scaling the steep and rocky Bidian nam Bian peak

A general view of the route leading to Bidean nam Biam at Glencoe in Scotland

'The deceased asked the witness for advice on how best to ascend the mountain.

'The deceased had an all-terrain map, which showed a GPS route, but was basic and only showed the contour lines of the mountain with no other features.

'The witness showed the deceased his map, which was more detailed, and explained that the ground was steep.

'He pointed out that there was a line of cliffs around the area surrounding the summit.'

The inquest was told Mr Parry contacted his wife, Gemma, at 7.35am on May 28 to let her know their plan before they headed home.

They were expected to return to Alsager at around 9pm that evening, but failed to show up or make further contact.

Gemma filed a missing persons report at 9am on May 29. Police Scotland picked up the investigation at 12.55pm that day.

Officers then confirmed they had found Mr Parry's car in the Three Sisters car park in Glencoe.

Following a search of the mountain, Mr Parry and Richard's bodies were found at around 7.25pm on May 29.

Procurator Fiscal, responsible for investigating suspicious deaths in Scotland, shared a report with the hearing held at Stoke Coroner's Court.

The inquest was told that Mr Parry had contacted his wife, Gemma, at 7.35am on May 28, 2024, to let her know their plan before they headed home. Pictured: Richard

It read: 'At about 12.50pm on May 29, police tracked the deceased's vehicle to the Three Sisters' car park.

'This is known as the starting point for the Bidian nam Bian climb.

'At 3pm, officers forced entry to the vehicle, where they discovered a mobile telephone, a bag for life, clothing, shoes, a picnic set, a Mountain Warehouse rucksack, a radar key, two sleeping bags and two toothbrushes - one of which clearly belonged to a child.

'At 3.37pm, the Glencoe Mountain Rescue team were notified and deployed to carry out an area search.

'They were supported by a Coast Guard rescue helicopter, and various teams from the Lake District who happened to be in the area training. Forty-four people were deployed in total.'

The police report concluded: 'At 7.25pm, the rescue volunteers found remains matching the deceased.

'It was observed he had significant injuries consistent with a fall from height. Life was declared extinct.

'Further up the slope was a rucksack, which contained his driving licence. The deceased's son was found about 100 metres away, also deceased.'

Dr Natasha Ingles conducted a post-mortem examination at the Department of Cellular Pathology in Inverness.

Speaking of Mr Parry, Dr Ingles said: 'I am of the opinion that this man has died as a result of head and chest injuries from the presumed fall whilst walking. He was not under the influence of drugs of alcohol.

'Whilst this could have been simply an accidental fall, a medical event cannot be entirely excluded. He was known to have suffered from leg pain, which could have led to a fall.'

Discussing Richard, she added: 'This boy died as a result of exposure to cold temperatures following a presumed, unwitnessed fall whilst walking with his father.

'There was evidence of a head injury, lower limb injuries and a superficial skin injury which was consistent with a fall.

'The bruising to the scalp indicates at least two blows to the head, which may have led to a loss of consciousness and the subsequent development of hypothermia.

'It should be noted a person can die of hypothermia in less than an hour. The risk would have been increased due to his young age and slim build.'

Senior Coroner Andrew Barkley accepted the proposed medical causes of death, stating that Mr Parry died as a result of head and chest trauma, while Richard passed as a result of exposure.

He concluded that the deaths were accidental.
A female train signaller has won a further 36,000 after sexist male colleagues watched pornography in front of her.

Network Rail worker Rowena Owens had already received a 138,012 payout after successfully suing for discrimination on appeal in 2024 following a five year legal battle.

Now she has been awarded an extra 36,669 in costs, meaning her total payout is 174,681.

Ms Owens complained about the behaviour of at least 16 colleagues at the male-dominated signal centre they worked at in Wimbledon, London.

She was quizzed about oral sex, had to put up with looking at images of topless women around the office, and said female train drivers were routinely unfairly criticised.

Her colleagues regularly watched porn in the office and in one instance waved a sex toy at her.

An employment tribunal held in Croydon, London, found there were at least 25 separate incidents of sex discrimination at the large signal centre.

The tribunal heard Ms Owens moved to the Wimbledon site in November 2015, where there were only 'two or three' women out of about 40 staff in total.

Network Rail worker Rowena Owens (not pictured) had already received a 138,012 payout after successfully suing when she complained about the behaviour of at least 16 colleagues at the male-dominated signal centre they worked at in Wimbledon, London

On her first day at work, when Ms Owens offered to make tea for her colleagues, a male signaller referred to by the tribunal as 'RS' said 'how do you like your oral sex, giving or receiving?'.

In December 2016, another colleague 'MB' watched a porn video while on duty and exclaimed 'there's nothing like a bit of dwarf porn' while his son was sat next to him.

After Christmas 2016, Ms Owens started noticing two of her colleagues, 'AF' and 'MB', walk behind her while she was working and deliberately burp loudly as they walked past.

Around this time 'WC' sat next to Ms Owens and deliberately burped loudly and continuously for in excess of 15 minutes until she eventually had to ask him if he was OK.

For many weeks after this, several male colleagues would burp during a shift with her and loudly say 'excuse me'.

The tribunal heard that, throughout her time working at Network Rail, her male colleagues made 'deliberate and gratuitous use of the word c***' around her 'on practically every shift' she worked.

Network Rail admitted 'in such an environment foul language is sometimes used', but did not condone this.

Male colleagues left newspapers open in the kitchen with pictures of naked women inside them on show. Ms Owens said if she closed the paper, when she returned to the kitchen it would be open on the same page again.

She also complained of how 'RS' looked at almost naked women 'with just two thin lines over their private parts' on a work computer.

Regarding these kinds of incidents, Network Rail said it 'did not condone any sort of pornographic material in the workplace and all employees have been trained in diversity and inclusion'.

'MB' once discussed rape scenes from movies for about 20 minutes with 'DT' and was 'expressing pseudo concern' while Ms Owens was the only woman in the room.

The tribunal heard Ms Owens complained about 'BF' coming back from the toilet and saying he had been 'spanking the monkey'.

Not every incident complained about was overtly sexual.

Ms Owens also said, after a mistake had been made, she overheard a male co worker saying 'this is what you get when you let women in the signal box', before going on to mention something about 'women's hormones'.

Ms Owens sued for discrimination, and won her case on appeal after her employment tribunal was heard in Croydon (pictured) in 2024

At one point in her time at Network Rail, Ms Owens was told by 'AF' she should sit on another male employee's lap 'to pacify him'.

Ms Owens was referred to at one time as 'the fat woman', and the men she worked with would whistle a Laurel and Hardy tune or play the Antiques Roadshow theme song near her.

She also said female drivers were criticised differently to how male drivers were when they made a mistake.

On at least three occasions, she said she heard 'PT' say things like 'do you think women should be in the workplace?' and 'I think women should be in the home' while she was the only woman working.

The tribunal heard how this same worker, 'PT' also brought in a sex toy and showed people while looking at Ms Owens and smiling for about 15 minutes.

Ms Owens claimed she was excluded from takeaway orders when male colleagues ordered food and was not made a vegetarian option at a team meal even though she was asked specifically about it.

She submitted a grievance in November 2017, highlighting these concerns and others, but it was dismissed.

After launching a claim of sex discrimination at the employment tribunal, the panel ruled all 25 incidents she complained about in her grievance were sex discrimination.

Employment Judge Anne Martin ruled: 'The Tribunal must consider whether [Network Rail] acted vexatiously, abusively,

disruptively or otherwise unreasonably in the conduct of the proceedings and whether its defence had reasonable prospect of success.

'The Tribunal must consider the whole picture of what happened in the case and to ask whether there was unreasonable conduct in defending the case and in doing so, to identify the conduct, what was unreasonable about it and what effects it had.

'There does not have to be a precise causal link between the unreasonable conduct in question and the specific costs being claimed.

'The Tribunal considers that it was unreasonable conduct for [Network Rail] not to have conceded that allegations 1 - 25 took place. [Network Rail] had upheld [Ms Owens'] grievance.

'The Tribunal consequently find that costs should be awarded in these circumstances and that the circumstances of this case are the exception rather than the norm.'

Initially in 2022 the panel ruled that although she had been the victim of sex discrimination Ms Owens had brought her case too late and her claims were dismissed.

However, she successfully appealed against that decision and when the case returned to the tribunal, Network Rail admitted liability and damages were awarded.
A paedophile who is suspected of having raped nearly 100 minors and murdering his mother and aunt has been detained in France.

The ex-teacher, Jacques Leveugle, 79, had been charged in 2024 for aggravated rape and sexual assault committed against 89 minors in multiple countries between 1967 and 2022. He has been in custody since.

Prosecutor Etienne Manteaux spoke to reporters in the southeastern city of Grenoble to publicise the case and appeal for witnesses and any other potential victims to come forward.

The crimes against the minors were allegedly committed in Germany, Switzerland, Morocco, Niger, Algeria, the Philippines, India, Colombia, and the French overseas territory of New Caledonia, where he worked as a freelance teacher and instructor, Manteaux said.

The number of victims was established from writings compiled on a USB drive by the man, which refer to 'sexual relations' with minors aged 13 to 17.

The USB stick on which the documents were stored by the man was discovered by his nephew, who was 'questioning his uncle's emotional and sexual life,' Manteaux added.

The document comprises 15 volumes, the prosecutor's office added.

In his 'memoirs', the suspect had also confessed to 'intentionally causing the deaths of two people', Manteaux said.

A public appeal notice bearing portraits, taken in different years and locations, of Jacques Leveugle, a 79-year-old man who have charged in 2024 for aggravated rape and sexual assault committed against 89 minors

During the investigation, Leveugle admitted to suffocating his mother, a terminally ill cancer patient, with a pillow in the 1970s, according to the prosecutor.

He also suffocated his 92-year-old aunt 'while she was asleep' - also with a pillow - in the 1990s, the prosecutor said.

Leveugle had murdered his aunt after 'he had to go back to the Cevennes, and she begged him not to leave'.

'He made the choice to kill her as well, and so, taking advantage of her sleep, took a pillow and suffocated her,' Manteaux added.

Manteaux said he wanted to make public the identity of the suspect, who was born in 1946 in Annecy, because 'this name must be known because the objective is to allow possible victims to come forward.'

The prosecutor has since launched an appeal for witnesses and 'to allow any other potential victims to come forward.'

Anyone who has witnessed or been a victim of this individual is asked to contact the Grenoble Gendarmerie Research Section.
Jeffrey Epstein asked a celebrity hairstylist if he would like Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to be at his 'Monday boom boom', a newly unearthed email has revealed.

The paedophile sent the message in November 2010 to French luxury brand mogul Frederic Fekkai.

In an email thread starting on November 11, Epstein asked the hairstylist where he is after the financier revealed he was in Paris for the week.

Fekkai responded a day later that he was 'In the uk'. There is not another message until just over two weeks later on November 27 when Epstein asks: 'Would you like prince Andrew at your Monday booom boom [sic].'

Father of three Fekkai replies: 'Yes.'

Epstein's email, uncovered by the Daily Mail in the latest tranche of documents released by the Department of Justice, was sent just days before the disgraced former prince's visit to New York.

He was pictured strolling in Central Park with the financier. Andrew later claimed in his disastrous interview with BBC Newsnight that he made the trip to America to end his relationship with Epstein.

The Daily Mail has contacted Fekkai's representatives for comment. He has previously denied being aware of Epstein's conduct.

An email released in the Epstein Files shows the paedophile financier asking celeb hairstylist Frederic Fekkai to be at his 'Monday boom boom'

Gillian Maxwell and Frederic Fekkai pictured together attending The Henry Street Settlement Dinner Dance and Auction in New York in October 2005

Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein walk together in New York's Central Park on December 5, 2010

Emails released by the DoJ showed a redacted number of people where having regular appointments at Fekkai's Upper East Side hair salon, the New York Times reported last week.

In May 2018, Lesley Groff, Epsteins executive assistant, emailed a redacted group of recipients in May 2018, telling them 'from now on Jeffrey would like you to please email me your request to go to Fekkai for any services'.

Fekkai is married to Shirin von Wulffen, the former head of PR at fashion giant Yves Saint Laurent.

He has styled the hair of many prominent women, including the former First Lady and Bill Clinton's wife, Hilary Clinton.

Epstein victim Johanna Sjoberg testified in 2024 that she overheard the financier on the phone talking about the hairdresser Fekkai and asking 'can we find some girls for him?'

On Newsnight in 2019, Andrew told Emily Maitlis what he said to Epstein during the visit in 2010: '"Look, because of what has happened, I don't think it is appropriate that we should remain in contact," and by mutual agreement during that walk in the park we decided that we would part company and I left, I think it was the next day and to this day I never had any contact with him from that day forward.'

The trip came two years after Epstein admitted soliciting a minor for prostitution - and Andrew stayed at the paedophile's house, which he later admitted was 'wrong'.

Fekkai is pictured here with his wife Shirin von Wulffen at the Ellis Islands Medals of Honor ceremony in New York last May

However, the Mail reported last week how more details on the visit have been found in some of the millions of documents connected to Epstein.

Separately, it was revealed Andrew went cap in hand to Epstein to settle a debt of $126,721 owed by his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson to her PA - shedding new light on what he may have been discussing with Epstein on their notorious Central Park walk.

Messages released as part of the so-called Epstein files revealed there was a 'very last-minute casual dinner' put together for Andrew, with Woody Allen and his wife Soon-Yi Previn and journalist Katie Couric said to have been among the invitees.

Others Andrew is said to have met during the trip were Latvian model Lana Zakocela, then 21; stand-up comedian Chelsea Handler; and talk show host Charlie Rose.

He is also thought to have seen former White House communications director George Stephanopoulos. There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing at the dinner.

One email revealed Hollywood publicist Peggy Siegal gave Andrew two copies of the film The King's Speech during a dinner when he was staying with Epstein in 2010.

Jeffrey Epstein's home in New York, where Andrew stayed during his visit in December 2010

Ms Siegal detailed some of what went on during the get-together in an email sent to Epstein on December 3 - appearing to make reference to Harvey Weinstein and how he would be 'angry' about her lending copies of The King's Speech to Andrew.

The disgraced movie mogul's production house, The Weinstein Company, was behind the film.

Messages between Epstein and Ms Siegal also revealed they ordered 'gold ballroom chairs' and had table flower arrangements.

A separate email to Epstein from an account on behalf of Ms Siegal showed a private screening of The King's Speech was being arranged for Andrew in November 2010.

The email from a woman called Stephanie was sent to a redacted address and forwarded to Epstein on November 3.

On December 4 - the day before Andrew and Epstein were photographed walking together through New York's Central Park - Epstein appeared to ask for 'new girls'.

An email to a woman called Irina asked: 'Anyone new for tonight?' She replied: 'Not yet, but I'm working on that! Do you want to see [redacted] or [redacted] again?'

This came only months after Epstein had offered Andrew a meeting with a 26-year-old Russian woman called Irina for dinner in London  but it is not clear if this was the same woman, reported The Sun.

Also on December 4, Epstein and Andrew went for a shopping trip at department store Barneys and had lunch with Next Model management founder Faith Kate.

Epstein later sent a driver to pick up model Zakocela from the airport and said he would put her up for 'one or two nights'.

Messages between Epstein and Soon-Yi show he asked her and Allen for 'Sunday bagels' for breakfast on December 5 before going for a walk with Andrew in Central Park.

Andrew is believed to have flown home on the evening of December 6.
Peter Mandelson was tasked with finding Jeffrey Epstein a young assistant and a house in Marrakesh, Morocco, according to newly-released emails.

In a message sent to the former Labour peer dated December 25, 2010, the disgraced financier wrote: 'Find me a new assistant ,multi lingaul, 22-25 , wants to travel.. or in additon fin a house in marrakcsh [sic].'

The correspondence was published as part of the latest tranche of over three million Epstein files released by the US Department of Justice (DOJ).

At the time of the email exchange, Epstein was already a registered sex offender, having been released from a Florida prison in July 2009 after serving 13 months of an 18-month sentence for soliciting prostitution from a minor.

Mandelson replied to the request, saying: 'You mean instead of Sarah?'

'In addition to,' the American millionaire clarified. 'Thank god,' Mandelson wrote back.

The exchange took place following another conversation between the pair, where in which Mandelson discussed extensively his goals for his 'post ministerial life', after serving as business secretary under Gordon Brown from 2008 to 2010.

He outlined plans concerning his advisory firm, Global Counsel, and his relationship with investment banks such as J.P. Morgan, HSBC, Barclays and Lazard.

'Reflecting on our phone call, I hope I can do something with JPM. I told Lazard that I have been asked to do an event in China for JPM as well as a dinner in Hanoi for Barclays and an evening in London for HSBC,' he wrote to Epstein.

'They say they happy with this [sic]. What they won't accept is my travelling round generally with another bank's name on my ticket. Where appropriate they want me to bear the Lazard brand - push business their way. Lazard will help my own and Global Counsel's brand.'

He continued: 'So if I am going to do something for JPM, it should be a discreet Global Counsel project, something that does not directly compromise my Lazard relationship and which also does not trample on Tony's territory.

'At this stage in my post ministerial life, I am learning. But I am a quick learner. My aim is to acquire enough knowledge and networks in time to participate in real deals. I do not want to live by salary alone. That's why I need to do as much as possible to build with JPM.'

Peter Mandelson was tasked with finding Jeffrey Epstein a young assistant and a house in Marrakesh, Morocco, according to newly-released emails

The exchange took place following another conversation between the pair, where in which Mandelson discussed extensively his goals for his 'post ministerial life'

A photograph of Lord Mandelson talking to a woman wearing a white bath robe was released as part of the Epstein files

Mandelson was sacked as Britains ambassador to Washington in September last year, after Downing Street said new information about the depth of his relationship with Epstein had emerged.

Emails published by the DOJ at the time showed the former cabinet minister offering emotional support to the financier in 2008, shortly before he pleaded guilty to sex offence charges and served time in Palm Beach County Stockade jail.

He encouraged Epstein to 'fight for early release', and wrote: 'Your friends stay with you and love you.'

Newly-released files from the latest drop of documents showed Mandelson apparently passing market-sensitive UK government information to Epstein, while he was business secretary under Brown.

They indicate that in 2009, Mandelson sent the financier a government memo about possible UK asset sales and tax changes, and in 2010 gave him advance notice of a European Union 500-billion-euro bailout package during the bloc's debt crisis.

Bank statements published by the DOJ appear to show that between 2003 and 2004, the paedophile paid a total of $75,000 (54,750) into bank accounts of which Mandelson  then a Labour MP  was understood to be a beneficiary.

These are payments that Mandelson says he believes to be 'false'.

More emails from 2009 indicate that Epstein sent a further 10,000 to Mandelson's now husband, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, for an osteopathy course.

Last Friday, Metropolitan police raided Mandelsons homes in north London and Wiltshire as part of an investigation into misconduct in public office.

Epstein was found dead in New York City's Metropolitan Correctional Center in 2019 while awaiting trail for sex trafficking charges

A photograph of Peter Mandelson getting a foot massage from a young woman appeared in the files released by the US Department of Justice

Mandelson was sacked as ambassador to Washington in September last year, after Downing Street said new information about the depth of his relationship with Epstein had emerged

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Ministers are under pressure to claw back a 50,000 payoff handed to Mandelson when he was sacked as US ambassador over his links to the disgraced financier last year.

Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden appealed on Sunday to Mandelson to give up the golden goodbye, but Shadow Foreign Secretary Dame Priti Patel said ministers had a duty to taxpayers to pursue the money rather than relying on him to do the right thing.

She said: A five-figure taxpayer funded payout for Lord Mandelson is a disgusting betrayal of Epsteins victims. Once again it raises very serious questions about the Prime Ministers judgment and his disgraced chief of staff Morgan McSweeney.

The Government must ensure Mandelsons golden goodbye is recovered in full.

Downing Street has refused to comment on the size of Mandelsons payoff or whether action is being taken to claw it back. A No 10 spokesman described it as an HR matter.

Following the revelations about his relationship with Epstein, Mandelson quit the Labour Party and resigned from the House of Lords, though he still holds the title of being a 'Lord', as removing that requires legislation.

Sir Keir Starmer has become engulfed by the growing scandal and is fighting for his political future, as critics call into question his judgment in appointing Mandelson as US ambassador.
Anthony Albanese and Israeli President Isaac Herzog have met to strengthen frayed ties after the Prime Minister's formal recognition of the State of Palestine last year.

The pair attended the Chabad Bondi synagogue in Sydney together on Tuesday night to honour the 15 victims killed in a terrorist attack at the iconic beach in December.

Just hours earlier hundreds of protesters gathered outside a police station in Surry Hills for a second night of protests against the President's visit. Monday's massive demonstrations in the CBD erupted in violence when rallygoers clashed with police.

The activists on Tuesday vowed not to be intimidated by authorities and declared the rally a success after dozens were pepper-sprayed and arrested.

Footage of Monday's protest showed officers punching some unruly protesters with 27 people arrested. Nine people, aged 19 to 67, were charged with offences including behaving in an offensive manner in a public place and resisting police.

One man was seen on footage with raised hands being punched repeatedly in the stomach by officers, while another clip showed a group of Muslim men praying before being ripped up from their knees and taken away by police.

Five members of the public were hospitalised, including two politicians and an elderly man and woman.

The sense of anger at Tuesday's protest was palpable, with goggle-wearing demonstrators chanting anti-police and anti-government slogans and accusing officers of 'brutality'.

A second night of protests in Sydney saw hundreds of pro-Palestine supporters turn out

At least 100 officers (above), on foot and on horseback, monitored a police brutality protest near Surry Hills Police Station on Tuesday evening

Anthony Albanese and Isaac Herzog attend the Chabad Bondi synagogue on Tuesday night

Herzog should not have been invited to Australia, Palestine Action Group spokesman Josh Lees told Tuesday's rally.

'In order to roll out the red carpet for him they crushed the rights of the people in this city to protest against him. We absolutely will not be intimidated,' he said.

The second protest came after the city bore witness to 'a very dark night' that included 'unprovoked violence and aggression' from police, Australia's special envoy to combat Islamophobia Aftab Malik said.

NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon described the assembly on Monday as a 'volatile' crowd.

Premier Chris Minns defended the actions of police and pointed to strong links between authorities and the Muslim community.

'NSW Police have had a strong and co-operative relationship with Sydney's Islamic and Arabic community, going back decades,' he said.

'But context is important and the circumstances facing police were incredibly difficult ... it was in effect in the middle of a riot.'

Mr Minns also criticised his MPs who attended Monday's rally and called out some speakers for attempting to march despite police restrictions preventing it.

Protesters on Tuesday turned up in goggles anticipating pepper-spray

Monday's protest (above) was triggered by the arrival of Israeli president Isaac Herzog

Labor MP Sarah Kaine, who spoke at the rally, rejected any suggestion she had incited violence.

'I got this almighty shove from my right and I went flying, lifted off the ground... and then this one copper just punched me as I was trying to get my balance,' she said just hours after returning from hospital.

'I only weigh 60kg, I'm only five foot three, I don't understand why they were attacking me. I'd said I was a member of parliament.

'I've never seen anything like it, it was so brutal.'

Officers restricted movement along most of the boundary of the demonstration site, forcing the large group into a gridlock.

Police issued a move-on order but the situation escalated as the densely packed crowd struggled to leave before officers rushed at protesters in an attempt to disperse the group.

Grandmother Jann Alhafny, 69, and grandfather Ian Payne, 78, met at Sydney Hospital after being injured by police in the protest.

Ms Alhafny suffered multiple fractures to her back and told the ABC she was trying to leave the rally when 'police just charged at everybody'.

Grandmother Jann Alhafny (above) was injured in Monday's protest and described police 'just charging at everybody'

Five people were hospitalised following the protest (above) on Monday

'I got really scared I was going to get suffocated and was yelling for help,' she said.

'He [the officer] was screaming 'get up, get up' and I said, 'I can't, I've injured my back'.'

Mr Payne, who was put in the bed next to Ms Alhafny, suffered a deep cut to his elbow that required six stitches.

'I'm not a professional protester but what I saw last night that's brought me into the real world. It was indescribably bad,' he said.

Mr Payne was injured alongside his daughter, Larissa, and Greens MP Abigail Boyd while standing near a group of praying Muslims.

Ms Boyd posted a picture from hospital in a neck braced and said she 'blamed Chris Minns'.

Community worker Paula Abood said she was assaulted by police on two occasions while trying to help other rally-goers who were being hit.

'I've never seen anything like this in my 40 years of marching the streets of Sydney,' she said.

Abigail Boyd (pictured) said she blamed Premier Chris Minns for her injury from the protest

There were reports of people throwing up after they were pepper-sprayed

NSW Police's response to Monday's protest triggered a gathering (above) on Tuesday

Herzog was invited to Australia after the Bondi terrorist attack.

He has faced scrutiny over 2023 comments which a UN inquiry found might reasonably have been interpreted as inciting genocide against Palestinians.

The president denies that claim and says his comments were taken out of context.

He and Albanese met with victims of the Bondi terror attack and local Jewish community at the Chabad of Bondi on Tuesday.

Herzog told Albanese the attack required 'broad, serious measures' and praised the hate speech laws introduced by the Albanese Government.

The pair also had dinner at Kirribilli House later Tuesday night.
The owner of a rowing business has lost a trademark battle with the University of Cambridge over his use of the historic city in his companys name.

Omar Terywall founded Cambridge Rowing, a business that introduces novices to the sport on the River Cam, and applied to register the name and a logo in 2022.

But the chancellor, masters and scholars of the university  which trademarked Cambridge several years ago to stop companies taking advantage of an implied link with the 800-year-old institution - lodged a formal objection, arguing that it must prevent misuse.

Mr Terywall, 46, had claimed the legal challenge was bonkers and accused the university of bullying.

But, following a hearing last summer, the Intellectual Property Office has now ruled against him  and order his firm to pay the universitys 2,400 costs.

In a written judgement, IPO hearing officer Rose Le Breton concluded there was a likelihood of confusion between Cambridge Rowing and the various services available from the university.

This meant there was no doubt that Cambridge Rowing would benefit unfairly from the educational establishments significant investment in its reputation and image of prestige created by its widely publicised achievements.

Ms Le Breton added this would lead to the company securing a commercial advantage as a direct benefit of the opponents reputation.

Omar Terywall founded Cambridge Rowing, a business that introduces novices to the sport on the River Cam, and applied to register the name and a logo in 2022

Mr Terywall said he was gutted at the ruling and was considering an appeal.

To say Im disappointed is an understatement, he told the BBC, adding local residents would be outraged that one entity owns the word Cambridge because it doesnt help the rest of the city prosper in any kind of way at all.

The businessman founded the firm in 2021 and claims to have introduced 5,000 novices to the sport since then.

In February the following year he applied to trademark the logo, which operates on the River Cam as Cambridge Rowing Experience, triggering the objection.

During the IPO hearing in July last year, barrister Guy Tritton, representing the university, told Ms Le Breton that the logo, which shows a shield with a rower and the name of the company, amounted to a nudge and a wink to the university.

Speaking before the ruling, Mr Terywall complained that taking ownership of the words Cambridge and rowing was bonkers.

He added: Nobody really owns the right to the word Cambridge and nobody can say that they own the word rowing either. It belongs to all of us.

The company is Cambridge Rowing Ltd and it is a Cambridge rowing experience. Its where we are and its what I do.

Mr Terywall argued: Nobody really owns the right to the word "Cambridge" and nobody can say that they own the word "rowing" either. It belongs to all of us.'

The legal challenge left him with no idea where to turn, he complained, because it is a huge, multi-billion-pound entity, while he operates a very small local business.

He continued: Its terrifying when youve got a big organisation like them coming after you I guess, yes, there is a form of bullying there.

The university, which was founded in 1209, has registered Cambridge as a trademark, including for sporting and cultural activities and sport camp services.

Downing College, which is part of the university, also holds a trademark for Cambridge Rowing Tank, an indoor training facility which has two ten-tonne pools.

The university - which takes part in an annual boat race against Oxford University each year - has objected to previous attempts by other companies to use Cambridge in their names.

It argues that the public knows that in the contexts of education, publishing, sport, academia and research, the word 'Cambridge' always refers to the 'University of Cambridge.

In 2021, following an objection, it was ruled that a brewery could not register Cambridge Blue as the name of a boat race-themed lager.

The hearing officer in that case said the name could give the false message that the goods had been authorised, recommended or approved of by Cambridge University, which would give the brewery an unfair advantage.

The University of Cambridge, which was founded in 1209, has registered Cambridge as a trademark, including for sporting and cultural activities and sport camp services

Cambridge University Boat Race crews training on the River Ouse near Ely in Cambridgeshire

During the Intellectual Property Office hearing in July last year, barrister Guy Tritton, representing the university, said the logo, which shows a shield with a rower and the name of the company, amounted to a nudge and a wink to the university

The university said in a statement that prior to the IPO case with Mr Terywall it had sought a compromise that would work for both parties, approaching discussions cooperatively and with no wish to stop the applicant trading'.

The applicant 'regrettably declined', which meant it had to 'oppose the application as it is often subject to third parties adopting names which deliberately or otherwise seek to gain advantage from the university's reputation.

The statement added: 'That matters. For example, time and again, "Cambridge" summer schools and other organisations trade unfairly off the Universitys international standing and renown, causing families worldwide to be misled.'

The deadline for Cambridge Rowing to appeal to the IPO is March 3.

The earliest known depiction of a rowing boat dates from about 5,800 BC and was discovered in Finland, according to World Rowing, the international governing body for the sport.
Nancy Guthrie was reported missing when she failed to attend a virtual church service she usually watched with friends, a family source has now claimed.

The 84-year-old typically tuned in to a broadcast from a New York City church, which her Today show host daughter, Savannah Guthrie, 55, attended in person, Fox News reported.

She and her fellow worshippers took turns watching the service at each other's houses, the source said.

When Nancy failed to turn up to join her unidentified friends on the morning of February 1, the alarm was raised, a source close to the family claimed.

Previously, it was reported that the virtual service took place at St Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Tucson, Arizona, where Nancy lives.

The Daily Mail revealed she had been attending church virtually since COVID, but there was no way to know who was watching livestreams from that congregation.

That raised questions about how Nancy could have been missed from the St Andrew's service.

One St Andrews congregant told the Daily Mail: Nancy always watches services with friends close to her home.

Savannah Guthrie's mother, Nancy, was taken from her $1 million home in the Catalina Hills neighborhood of Tucson, Arizona, in the early morning hours of February 1

Annie Guthrie and her husband, Tommaso Cioni, leaving their home on February 3. Cioni was the last to see Nancy before she disappeared

Shes done that since Covid. She never attends. And it was when she didnt turn up to her friends place for the group streaming that they go worried and told the family.

It was never a case of her being reported after failing to physically turn up to church.

The Daily Mail has not been able to verify the new claims made to Fox News.

On Monday evening, a second and final ransom deadline that is said to have demanded $6 million in Bitcoin for the return of Nancy passed with no sign of her.

Guthrie took to Instagram to plead for help ending her family's 'nightmare' and said they were 'desperate' for new leads.

Nancy's daughter, Annie, and son-in-law, Tommaso Cioni, realized she was missing around 11.10am last Sunday, the Pima County Sheriff's Office said.

They reported her disappearance to police at 12.15pm. Her phone, wallet, vital daily medications and car were all still at her $1 million Catalina Foothills home.

Nancy had dinner at the home of Annie and Cioni, just four miles away from her house, before Cioni dropped her back at her home around 9.45pm MT on January 31.

The Daily Mail takes you inside the kidnap case shocking America. Out now on all podcast platforms. Listen here

Guthrie was abducted from the $1million home she has lived in for more than 50 years

Cioni said he saw his mother-in-law enter her home through the garage before driving off.

Investigators found drops of blood on Nancy's front porch that were later confirmed to be hers and that her doorbell camera was disconnected at around 1.45am.

Less than 30 minutes later, her security camera detected movement. Her pacemaker stopped transmitting data to her Apple Watch and phone shortly afterwards, suggesting she had been taken out of the devices' range.

Nancy requires medication every 24 hours and it is unclear if whoever abducted her has ensured she has access to her medications.

The Pima County Sheriff's Office said it has no suspects and that there has been little new information about the case since last week.

A ransom note sent to multiple news outlets last week stipulated an initial deadline of Thursday evening, with a final deadline for Monday evening.

The notes are said to have made specific reference to damage to Nancy's home and the placement of a possession, both details that have not been shared with the public.

It is unclear if those specific pieces of information were accurate.

Guthrie said she and her family were taking the demands seriously but there has been no official update on whether the notes' contents have been verified and if their senders really are holding Nancy captive.

Efforts to negotiate with alleged captors also came to a standstill as a digital wallet referenced in the first letter for a potential transaction remained empty, according to, which was sent a copy of the note.

Once the payment was made, the alleged kidnappers claimed they would return Nancy to Tucson within 12 hours, the outlet reported.

After Monday's deadline passed, the FBI said it 'is not aware of any continued communication between the Guthrie family and suspected kidnappers...'

The bureau is now leading all elements of the investigation in connection with Nancy's kidnapping, including alleged ransom notes.

That announcement came as Savannah released a video message to her social media, pleading for help in finding her mother.

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The search escalated on Friday when forensics returned to her home for a third time to collect new evidence, including a car from her garage and a camera from her roof.

Earlier that day, PCSD Sheriff Chris Nanos told NBC News that he believes that Nancy is 'still alive.'

While Nanos offered an optimistic view of the search, he previously admitted that investigators are in a race against time.

The elderly woman is suffering from health problems and is believed to be without daily medications.

On Sunday, footage emerged from the property showing law enforcement officials using a pole to check inside a septic tank at the rear of the property.

Authorities also said a 'vehicle of interest' was identified and believed to have been seen at a Circle K convenience store in the Tucson area on Friday.

It is unclear what, if anything, was recovered during searches of Nancy and Annie's homes. NBC reported that Annie consented to the search.

The Daily Mail has previously revealed how the Pima County Sheriff's Office has been accused of making multiple mistakes in its search for Nancy.

A plane that could have combed the desert around her home in the first vital hours after the alarm was raised remained grounded because of staff shortages.

Nancy's home remained unsecured for much of last week, with sheriff's deputies erecting cordons to carry out subsequent investigations before disappearing again.

That has raised fears that any incriminating evidence may have been contaminated, potentially making future prosecution of her kidnappers more difficult.
An aide to New York City's socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani boasted her hatred of 'white woman behavior' on social media after she received a dirty look for taking a 40 minute phone call on the train.

Drashti Brahmbhatt, an advisor for Mamdani's 100-Day Planning and Implementation period, detailed the awkward encounter in November 2021 in a series of since-deleted tweets.

Brahmbhatt claimed she was riding the Metro-North Railroad when she received an 'important' call that 'could not wait', she wrote in tweets unearthed by Washington Free Beacon reporter Jon Levine.

She was 'speaking as softly as humanely possible' during her call, but claims the 'older white woman' sitting ahead of her turned around roughly 15 times to 'give me death glares'.

The Queens native said she confronted the woman before exiting the train, telling her: 'Excuse me, there's no need to give me death glares for quietly speaking on the phone. This is public transportation and you're allowed to quietly talk.'

The woman said her behavior was 'annoying', Brahmbhatt alleged, to which she responded: 'It's 2021 and we can stop practicing white civility'.

She claimed the woman stared at her 'dumbfounded' so she added, 'I don't need to follow white standards of "politeness".' The commuter allegedly replied, 'you have problems'.

Brahmbhatt admitted that she has been accused of exaggerating about 'how terrible white women are' and said that she knows 'this is obvi a very small problem and instance of "white woman" behavior but it still sucks!'

She concluded by adding that she hopes others 'can relate' to her experience.

Drashti Brahmbhatt, an advisor for Mamdani's 100-Day Planning and Implementation period, boasted her hatred of 'white woman behavior' on social media after she received a dirty look for taking a 40 minute phone call on the train

Brahmbhatt was appointed senior manager to Mamdani's transition and inaugural committee in November last year and has been serving as his advisor since January. Mamdani is seen during a press conference last week

Brahmbhatt was working for the NYC Civic Engagement Commission at the time of the alleged train incident, according to her LinkedIn.

She was serving as the director for NYC's first Citywide Participatory Budgeting program, which allowed New Yorkers aged 11 and older, regardless of citizenship status, to provide input on how officials spent $5 million of mayoral expense funding.

After two years with the program, Brahmbhatt accepted a role with Mayor Eric Adams' Office of Equity & Racial Justice.

She served as the director of equity planning and technical assistance and helped co-design and implement the first citywide racial equity planning process, her profile stated.

Brahmbhatt was appointed senior manager to Mamdani's transition and inaugural committee in November last year and has been serving as his advisor since January.

She earned her bachelor's degree in international relations from Brown University and her master's in public administration from Columbia University.

She also worked on Democrat Jaslin Kaur's city council campaign from November 2020 until August 2021. Kaur did not win the council seat in her Queens district.

Brahmbhatt used to be very vocal about her political ideas online, her since-deleted X account revealed.

Brahmbhatt detailed the awkward encounter in November 2021 in a series of since-deleted tweets that were recently unearthed by Washington Free Beacon reporter Jon Levine

Brahmbhatt, speaking at a 2021 rally calling for the impeachment of Governor Andrew Cuomo, used to be very vocal about her political ideas online

She made calls to 'defund and abolish the police' and criticized all politicians who have shown support for Israel.

She urged political leaders to 'take solidarity with Palestinians' and said she was proud to stand with NYC's Democratic Socialists of America party in its efforts to fight against what she called 'settler colonialism'.

She also wrote how she was proud of Mamdani for 'speaking up and centering Palestine in his organizing and as an elected official'.

Brahmbhatt appears to be a member of the Democratic Socialists of America  the same party in which Mamdani is affiliated.

It his unclear how long she and Mamdani have known each other, but her tweet publicly supporting his pro-Palestine stance was published in 2021.

The Daily Mail has approached Mamdani for comment, though it seems unlikely that he and his team will criticize Brahmbhatt over her tweets.

When mayoral aide Cea Weaver was met with public outrage over unearthed tweets that saw her targeting white NYC homeowners, Mamdani said he stood by Weaver.

His team, however, was understood to have been caught by surprise by her anti-white posts.

Brahmbhatt urged political leaders to 'take solidarity with Palestinians' in a 2021 tweet. She said she was proud to stand with NYC's Democratic Socialists of America party in its efforts to fight against what she called 'settler colonialism'

She also made calls to 'defund and abolish the police' in April 2021

Brahmbhatt appears to be a member of the Democratic Socialists of America  the same party in which Mamdani is affiliated

She criticized all politicians who have shown support for Israel, vowing to 'never show them any mercy & forgiveness'

Weaver, a progressive 'housing justice' activist, was named Mamdani's director of the city's Office to Protect Tenants on his first day as mayor.

The 37-year-old's tweets saw her call to 'impoverish the white middle class' and brand homeownership as 'racist' and 'failed public policy'.

She called to 'seize private property' and even made a racial claim that 'homeownership is a weapon of white supremacy.'
An NHS Trust which dismissed a schoolgirl suffering from sepsis as a 'diva teen' before she died in 'unbearable pain' has been fined just 1,250.

Chloe Longster, 13, passed away in 'unbearable pain' in November 2022 following delays in her care at Kettering General Hospital.

The 'fit and healthy, fun-loving teen' was admitted to A&E with pneumonia but died 18 hours later after developing sepsis.

Her mother, Louise Longster, said she repeatedly asked medics for help but was treated like a 'mum who had been on Google' while her daughter was brushed off as a 'diva teen'.

She said her daughter had been in so much pain she asked her whether she was going to die and said: 'It's haunting that the 13-year-old was the one who was right.'

But a coroner ruled Chloe's death was contributed to by neglect, and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) fined the NHS Trust 1,250 for failing its 'duty of candour'.

Mrs Longster said she is 'devastated' to learn there will be no further prosecution involving failings in her care, leaving the family with 'deep and unresolved concerns'.

Chloe Longster pictured with her mother Louise

Chloe, 13, passed away in 'unbearable pain' in November 2022 following delays in her care at Kettering General Hospital

Mrs Longster, from Market Harborough, Leicestershire, said: 'The formal outcome is a small fine.

'It is heartbreaking to reconcile this with the seriousness of the acts and omissions in Chloe's case, and with the scale of the investigation that followed.

'Chloe was taken from us when she should have been safe. She wasn't.

'After two years of investigation by the CQC into the circumstances surrounding Chloe's death, we have been told there will be no prosecution under Regulation 12, on the basis that the evidential threshold has not been met.

'The CQC has confirmed it identified a breach of the duty of candour (Regulation 22) and has issued the Trust with a fixed penalty notice.

'We understand this relates to the trust's failure to contact us until January 12, 2023, despite a serious incident being declared on December 8, 2022.

'There were serious incidents and omissions that those present would have been aware of at the time, and of the impact these could have on Chloe's chance of survival.

'Yet these were not disclosed to us when they occurred. Instead, information emerged slowly over many months.

'Taken together with the wider evidence, this has left our family with deep and unresolved concerns about how events were handled.

'Those present would have understood that this constituted a serious notifiable safety incident. For our family, this process has been devastating.

'At the moment we needed honesty, compassion, and transparency most, we received none of these.

'Instead, details of Chloe's care came out gradually, deepening our trauma and leaving us with unanswered questions.

'Throughout the investigation, we were repeatedly reassured that statutory time limits would not be a factor.

'Those limits expired on November 27, 2025, effectively closing off other legal avenues.

'We would have sought legal advice and considered judicial review.

'Chloe is owed transparency and accountability, as does her brother Tom, her cousins, especially Amelia, and our entire family.

'Chloe deserved better and families deserve honesty and compassion.'

Louise also told the BBC: 'The lack of recognition of the gravity of what had happened compounded the sense that Chloe was voiceless, and that neither she nor what happened to her mattered.

'It's maddening they've only been fined for that. It was and still is utterly heartbreaking.'

Chloe had been complaining of cold and flu symptoms before being taken to A&E.

Kettering General Hospital said it is 'deeply sorry' for the failings that contributed to Chloe's death

But Mrs Longster said pain relief for her daughter was 'delayed' and in her final hours she had been treated with 'contempt'.

Assistant coroner Sophie Lomas said at the time of the inquest Chloe might have survived if she had received appropriate treatment earlier.

She said: 'There were several missed opportunities to recognise Chloe's deteriorating condition.'

In a statement, Carolyn Jenkinson, CQC's deputy director of hospitals in the Midlands said the 1,250 fine was 'no way representative of the value of Chloe's life'.

Ms Jenkinson said: 'We continue to extend our deepest sympathies to the family of 13-year-old Chloe Longster, who sadly died while being cared for by Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust at Kettering General Hospital in November 2022.

'CQC found after a detailed investigation that the trust had failed to carry out their duty to be open and transparent, and as a result we issued them with a fixed penalty notice on Friday, December 5.

'This was in response to a breach of Regulation 20 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008, which requires health and social care services to have a duty of candour and be open and transparent about people's care.

'The trust has paid the fine and a banner informing people CQC has taken this action will remain on their page of CQC's website for three months.

'The amount of this fixed penalty notice is in no way representative of the value of Chloe's life, and is the amount that CQC is legally allowed to issue under these regulations.

'Any money paid in fines, is passed on to the Treasury by CQC.'

A spokesman for Kettering General Hospital said: 'The Care Quality Commission (CQC) made the decision to issue a fixed penalty notice to Kettering General Hospital for failures to communicate appropriately with a family under the NHS's duty of candour.

'We are deeply sorry for these failings and have looked closely at how we deliver information to families going forwards, making changes to try to ensure that duty of candour is delivered appropriately and in a timely way.'

Following the coroner's verdict in October 2024, Julie Hogg, the group chief nurse for the University Hospitals of Northamptonshire, had said the hospital 'failed to offer Chloe the care she deserved' admitting they 'should have done more'.

She added they had 'worked hard to make significant improvements', including management of patients with sepsis and those who are not 'getting better'.

She said: 'We have also increased our staffing levels and improved the way we communicate with our patients and their families.

'We realise there is still more to do but we are committed to ensuring that every patient receives the best care.'
A Utah man who pretended to be a king at princess-themed parties for little girls was leading a sickening double life buying and producing child pornography.

Perry Jay Hunter, 63, was sentenced to 27 years in federal prison on Monday for traveling to the Philippines to exploit children, the US Attorney's Office Central District of California told the Daily Mail.

The pedophile was also ordered to pay $3,000 in restitution for his despicable actions which prosecutors said occurred over the course of several years.

He admitted to one count of sexual exploitation of a child as part of a plea deal which saw 16 charges dropped.

The Midvale man had a registered LLC called Princess Festival. He 'role-played the king and various young girls got to play princess,' the US Attorney's Office said.

A 2014 poster from his business remains on his Facebook profile, showing him dressed as a king, bowing to a young girl in a pink princess gown who curtsies back at him.

Hunter started using WhatsApp to message parents in the Philippines about 'engaging in illicit sexual conduct with their daughters' in 2020, according to a criminal complaint.

The creep also 'appeared to solicit and pay for the production of child pornography,' per the document.

Perry Jay Hunter, 63, was sentenced to 27 years in federal prison on Monday for sexual exploitation of a child

Graphic content investigators found on his devices victimized children as young as three to five-years-old, investigators said.

Hunter traveled to the Southeast Asian country in September 2023 to meet with a mother he had been texting.

The complaint says that he 'discussed the illicit sexual acts he intended to perform' with the child in conversations with the woman leading up to the trip.

He returned to the US in October 2023 and landed at the Los Angeles International Airport.

Customs and Border Protection agents conducted a border search and went through his phone where they discovered child sex abuse material (CSAM).

The complaint says that he waived his Miranda rights while speaking with investigators and told them he had 'a sexual interest in young children' and that he paid a Filipina mother to take inappropriate pictures of her daughter.

He also admitted that he has sent tens of thousands of dollars to women for photos of themselves and their kids.

Hunter was arrested in December 2023 and charged with multiple crimes under Utah state law.

Hunter reportedly admitted to police officers that he was visiting the Philippines to exploit children

Hunter ran a business throwing princess-themed parties for kids. He had a poster from his Princess Festival business on his Facebook page, showing him dressed like a king, bowing opposite a little girl

Hunter was caught by CBP agents at Los Angeles International Airport (file photo)

He was transferred into federal custody in Los Angeles in October 2024, a spokesperson for the US Attorney's office told the Daily Mail.

While none of his charges were connected to the Princess Festival events he hosted, the investigator handling the complaint noted that they gave him 'access to children'.

He reportedly told agents in an interview: 'They had me in a king chair and I was on the chair, little girls would want to come up here, and I wouldnt let them sit on my lap because I didnt want any idea of that.'

The investigator also alleged that he discovered that a minor had accused Hunter of sexual assault in 2014.

The alleged victim told police that she was abused by Hunter after she and her mother moved in with him in 2013.

Hunter would allegedly touch her inappropriately and make sexual remarks toward her, per a police report.

The Daily Mail has reached out to Hunter's attorney, Lisa LaBarre, for comment.
A beloved sandcastle sculptor was banned from the beach area of an iconic San Diego hotel after quoting Mark Twain on one of his sculptures.

Bill Pavlacka, 64, spent nearly two decades of his life building the mini monuments on the sands outside of the Hotel del Coronado on the San Diego beachfront.

The hotel handed Pavlacka, also known as The Sandcastle Man, a letter ordering him to stay away earlier this month, which he said was down to a Mark Twain quote he inscribed on a castle.

The offending message from the American writer said: 'Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.'

Images of his creations that he shared to his social media over the years include quotes from Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, as well castles for religious holidays and to commemorate the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center.

Speaking with Fox5, he said the hotel started scrutinizing some of his castles last year which had political messages on them, with the one from Twain being the final straw.

He said: 'One of the messages was I love democracy, another one was I love freedom of speech.

'It seems like we are between to military bases, it seems like that's an American message.'

The 64-year-old was told after nearly two decades to pack up his tools and stay away from the beach near the ritzy San Diego hotel

The castle on which he quoted writer Mark Twain, seen here, was the last straw, Pavlacka said

Pavlacka also claimed that the hotel management had accused of him drinking alcohol on the beach, something which he denied to the outlet.

In a letter dated February 5, the hotel's Director of Human Resources D. Bradley McPherson told Pavlacka he was no longer welcome on hotel grounds.

'The decision is the result of conduct that violated Hotel policies. As outlined in a Second and Final Warning issued on October 16, 2025', it said.

The letter goes on to say that Pavlacka was ordered to avoid 'physical contact with guests' and to make sure all 'sandcastle content remain neutral'.

This extended to political messages or controversial messages, the letter continued, before adding that consuming alcohol was 'strictly prohibited'.

McPherson added: 'Since that warning, a new incident has been reported involving consumption of alcohol, resulting in a negative guest experience.'

In a statement to his social media, Pavlacka said: 'After nearly two decades, Hotel del Coronado and I have parted ways.

'Building sandcastles in front of the hotel, and meeting guests from all over the world has meant everything to me.

Pavlacka also claimed that the hotel management had accused of him drinking alcohol on the beach, something which he denied

The hotel's Director of Human Resources D. Bradley McPherson told Pavlacka he was no longer welcome on hotel grounds, the hotel is pictured here

Pavlacka has since packed up his things and moved to another area of the beach where he continues to build the mini monuments

'Although I was never an employee, I worked as an external contractor, and our relationship was mutually beneficial.

'I'm grateful for the many years I worked with them. While I'm saddened this chapter has ended, I'm excited for greater creative freedom ahead.'

Pavlacka has since moved his castles to an area north of the main lifeguard tower on the beach.

One resident who spoke with Fox said: 'A lot of people are standing behind him and supporting him, it sounds like there might have been a misunderstanding.'

When approached by the Daily Mail, Pavlacka said: 'I really appreciate all the people who are supporting my art', before declining to speak further.

The hotel said: 'We can confirm that Hotel del Coronado and The Sandcastle Man have parted ways effective February 5. We wish The Sandcastle Man continued success.'
Donald Trump indicated to police in Palm Beach in 2006 that everyone knew about Jeffrey Epstein's crimes and advised them to focus their investigation on associate Ghislaine Maxwell because she is 'evil,' according to the Miami Herald.

Buried in the Justice Department's latest release of 3.5 million Epstein files, is a four-page FBI memo on an interview conducted in October 2019 with a subject whose name was redacted.

The write-up includes the subject recounting Trump describing how 'he got the hell out of there' one time when he was around Epstein and 'teenagers were present.'

Former Palm Beach police chief Michael Reiter reportedly told the Miami Herald that he was the person referenced in the report who spoke to the FBI in October 2019 regarding a conversation he had with Trump during the Epstein investigation.

He claimed the conversation with the now-president occurred in July 2006  13 years before Trump denied knowing anything about Epstein's crimes, according to the Herald.

Trump told the redacted person that everyone in New York 'knew Epstein was disgusting,' according to the FBI memo. The interview subject also claimed that Trump was one of the first people to call the Palm Beach Police Department when the investigation into the financier became known.

'Thank goodness you're stopping him, everyone has known he's been doing this,' Trump said, according to the FBI memo.

Reached on Tuesday for independent confirmation of the identity of the redacted individual, a contact for the former Palm Beach Chief of Police told the Daily Mail: 'Michael Reiter is not participating in interviews at this time.'

Donald Trump reportedly revealed he knew about Jeffrey Epstein sex crimes despite in 2019 saying he wasn't aware of them, according to a new report based on a document discovered in the latest DOJ Epstein files drop

The Miami Herald reports that former Palm Beach police chief Michael Reiter (pictured) was the redacted individual who sat for an interview with the FBI in October 2019, and in that sit-down recounted speaking with Trump about the initial investigation into Jeffrey Epstein

Reiter retired as police chief in 2009 but was at the helm during the investigation into Epstein's child sex trafficking crimes in the 2000s.

Epstein was facing a hefty rap sheet, but ultimately reached a highly controversial plea deal and in June 2008 was convicted on Florida state charges for soliciting prostitution from just one minor girl.

The White House declined to comment to the Daily Mail and referred any questions to the DOJ.

And an official with the Justice Department denied that Trump ever called Reiter, sending a statement to the Daily Mail claiming: 'We are not aware of any corroborating evidence that the President contacted law enforcement 20 years ago.'

The only mention of Maxwell in the four-page FBI memo was Trump claiming she was Epstein's 'operative,' and telling the unnamed person who recounted the conversation 'she is evil and to focus on her'.

The revelation of Maxwell's further involvement comes on the heels of the 64-year-old disgraced British socialite pleading the fifth during a closed-door testimony before the House Oversight Committee on Monday.

Maxwell remains the only living person serving jail time in relation to Epstein's sex trafficking crimes. She began serving her 20-year sentence in June 2022.

Trump and First Lady Melania associated with Epstein and Maxwell through the 1990s and early 2000s.

One Epstein files email shows a chummy message signed 'Love Melania' sent to a Maxwell email address, further highlighting the close-knit relationship of the two couples.

Trump apparently told Reiter in 2006 that he booted Epstein from Mar-a-Lago, according to the Herald's report. This would corroborate the president's repeated claims that he kicked Epstein out of his club around 2007 for being a 'creep.'

In July 2019, a month before Epstein's shady prison death, Trump told reporters he had no knowledge of Epstein committing sex crimes against young women.

'No, I had no idea. I had no idea,' Trump said at the time.

Donald and Melania Trump associated with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in the 1990s and early 2000s, but the president says he kicked Epstein out of his club in 2007 for being 'creepy'

The report from the 2019 FBI interview, however, reveals that Trump may have known more about Epstein's crimes than he let on previously.

Epstein reached a deal with Florida prosecutors in 2007 and pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor and was handed down an 18-month prison sentence. He served 13 of those months and was permitted to leave the facility six days a week for 12 hours on work release, which he spent in his office.

He began serving his sentence in June 2008 and was released on July 22, 2009.

Questions remain over how Epstein and his lawyers were able to limit the scope of his crimes to just one case involving a 16-year-old-girl when, at the time, they had nearly 40 underage victims.

'It was very disappointing that the system failed in this case,' the redacted interviewee told the FBI.
Fed-up American Airlines flight attendants and pilots have slammed CEO Robert Isom and accused him of crippling the embattled company.

Two unions representing more than 44,000 American Airlines workers have issued furious statements hitting out at Isom in the last few days.

The Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA) and the Allied Pilots Association (APA) both blame the CEO for tanking profits and operational issues.

'This level of failure begins at the very top, with CEO Robert Isom,' Julie Hedrick, the president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA) said in a statement on Monday.

Her comments came just three days after the Allied Pilots Association (APA), which represents about 16,000 American Airlines pilots, shared a letter of its own blasting the airline's poor commercial performance.

The APFA has since issued a vote of no confidence in Isom and moved to halt the 'relentless downward spiral' they say he triggered.

The union cited 'chaotic and mismanaged operations during weather events' as one of its primary concerns.

American Airlines canceled more than 9,000 flights because of Winter Storm Fern in January, leaving staff sleeping on cold airport floors, according to the APFA.

American Airlines CEO Robert Isom is pictured at a 2020 news conference in Seattle. He has come under fire from his own workers over a series of failures at the airline

Julie Hedrick, the president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA) issued a statement Monday slamming Isom's leadership

The union said that when workers complained, Isom allegedly told them it was 'part of our job'.

'From abysmal profits earned to operational failures that have front-line workers sleeping on floors, this airline must course-correct before it falls even further behind,' Hendrick said.

'His tone-deaf leadership shows a complete disregard for the human element and is actively harming both American Airlines and the people who keep it running every day.'

Meanwhile the APA Board of Directors said that American Airlines is on an 'underperforming path' that will not 'close the gap' with its premium competitors.

Despite being the largest US air carrier, American Airlines has fallen alarmingly behind rivals Delta Air Lines and United Airlines.

The Fort Worth, Texas-based company only earned about six percent of the US airline industry's total profits in 2024 and 2025, according to S&P Capital IQ data.

Delta and United significantly outperformed American, earning roughly 56 percent and 43 percent, respectively.

Allied Pilots Association (APA) boss Nick Silva blamed Isom for American Airlines lagging behind rivals

An American Airlines plane is seen taking off from Los Angeles International Airport in 2018

Pilots and flight attendants at all three airlines earn a share of company profits.

'These failures have negatively impacted the financial performance of our company and frustrated all stakeholders, to include shareholders, for far too long,' the frustrated APA union wrote.

'While our premium competitors market capitalization has soared, Americans has soured.'

Isom responded to some of the concerns raised on Saturday, The New York Times reported.

He agreed to meet with the APA's leadership to discuss how Winter Storms Fern and Gianna were handled, pilot attendance policies and 'our business plan to return American to its rightful place atop the industry'.

Isom assumed the CEO role in March 2022. He also sits on the Board of Directors and was the company's president from 2016 to 2022.

He previously held senior executive finance, commercial, operations, strategy and international roles at GMAC LLC, Northwest Airlines and America West Airlines.

His career began at the manufacturing company Procter & Gamble.

Travelers wait at New York's La Guardia Airport amid travel chaos sparked by Winter Storm Fern. The AFPA said that operational issues caused by chaos from the storm led to flight attendants having to sleep on airport floors

Isom (left) is seen at the US Chamber of Commerce's Global Aerospace Summit in DC in 2023

Isom earned $15.6 million in 2024 between his salary and stock awards, according to the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations pay watch. He has an estimated net worth of $44 million.

While discussing American Airlines' quarterly performance last month, he claimed that 2026 will be the year that the company's efforts to improve customer service and increase revenue will 'start to bear fruit'.

The Daily Mail has reached out to American Airlines for comment.
A Colorado family say they are living in a freezing trailer with no running water after a contractor allegedly gutted their home and ran off with their life savings before finishing the job.

Nicole Chaves, 43, and her husband Mario, 44, claim they and their daughter Tillie, three, have been left virtually homeless.

The couple say they paid $219,000 to contractor Daniel Parker for renovations to their threebedroom, fourbathroom Fort Collins home last fall.

But Parker, owner of Stonebrook Construction Group, walked off the job on January 9 allegedly leaving them with an 'unlivable shell' of a property.

The family have been staying in a fifthwheel trailer in their backyard and say they have been forced to shower at a local gym ever since.

A GoFundMe launched by Nicole's sisterinlaw, Lucia, accused Parker of having 'stole[n]' the money.

Parker strenuously denies any wrongdoing and stated that his firm carried out more work than he has been paid for.

But the family insist they are the 'victims of a devastating construction fraud'.

Nicole Chaves, 43, and her husband Mario, 44, allegedly paid $219,000 for renovations to their Fort Collins home only to suffer 'devastating construction fraud'

The couple, along with their threeyearold daughter Tillie, have been forced to live in a trailer in their backyard

The couple say their living situation has been especially hard on their young daughter.

'She has been crying at night and just saying that she wants a house and she misses taking a bath,' Chavez told the Daily Mail.

'It was always meant to be temporary,' Chaves added, describing current conditions as 'crowded and uncomfortable'.

The trailer has three bunk beds on one end, a little kitchen table, a couch and one queen size bed.

Colorado's -10F winter has almost meant that the the family have been forced to carry one gallon jugs from the neighbor's spigot to dispose of their toilet waste.

Cooking has been abandoned in favor of microwaveable meals, as Chaves is unable to wash her hands or the food beforehand due to the lack of water.

Chaves added Tillie has been pleading to visit her grandmother in North Dakota 'so she can take a bath at grandma's house'.

The situation has become so dire that she will send the youngster to stay there, marking the first time the two have been apart.

Stonebrook Construction Group owner Daniel Parker has been accused of stealing the Chaves' money and not finishing their home. He denied the allegations

The Chaves were hoping to turn their threebedroom, fourbathroom '1972 fixerupper into a forever home'

'That wouldn't have happened if it wasn't because of this situation,' Chavez added.

The struggling mother is an occupational therapist who can work up to 19 days without time off, according to her sister's fundraiser.

Her husband Mario was described as working a 'physically demanding job doing semiconductor chip production'.

The home renewal was meant to turn their '1972 fixerupper into a forever home,' only for that to go awry.

'They aren't looking for a 'dream home' anymore,' the fundraiser said. 'They just need a safe, dry, and heated shell so they can move inside and finish the work, one room at a time.'

Their 1,364squarefoot home is worth around $682,000, although that valuation was made prior to the unfinished renewal.

The Chaves family also claimed that Parker failed to pay subcontractors. In turn, this allegedly leaves them facing potential liens on a currently unlivable residence.

'Construction did not start until September, and then he abandoned the project,' Chaves told KDVR.

Those dreams were dashed when their home went unfinished and was instead turned into a 'gutted, unlivable shell' according to the couple

The Chaves family said their home had not been winterized. They claim the contractor walked off the job on January 9

She added: 'We got an email saying he was terminating our contract for a breach of contract because we were contacting the subcontractors to find out if they had been paid.'

The Chaves family is hoping to raise $35,000 that will go towards structural repairs and restoring their home's heat and water systems.

As of Tuesday afternoon, about $8,500 of that goal had been achieved.

For now, Chaves is hoping to move into even 'just one small area of the house' while the rest of the construction gets figured out.

'If we can all live in one bedroom, at this point, that would be better than nothing,' she told the Daily Mail.

Parker told the Daily Mail that the Stonebrook Construction Group 'categorically denies the allegations contained in the GoFundMe campaign and related statements circulated by the homeowners and related third parties'.

He added that the project was never abandoned and that funds paid by the family were not 'pocketed'.

'Work ceased only after the homeowners materially breached the construction contract, including failure to comply with agreed payment terms and with the homeowners' obligation to not interfere with the subcontractor's work,' Parker told the Daily Mail.

A picture attached to the family's GoFundMe fundraiser described the home as 'not livable [sic]' after the unfinished reconstruction

The contractor also alleged the Chaves family still owed his company money.

'Stonebrook and its subcontractors performed more construction work at the homeowners' property than the homeowners have paid Stonebrook for,' he claimed.

Parker added that he 'look[ed] forward to working with the homeowners to resolve this matter'.
A Washington state mayor has sparked fury by proposing using $100,000 of police outreach funding to support an immigration group.

Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown said the money should be given to Spokane Immigrant Rights Coalition, which provides emergency support, such as temporary housing and child care.

'The Trump Administrations policies have torn families apart and resulted in job loss,' she said in a statement. 'These are valuable members of our Spokane community and providing financial support is [a] tangible way we can support them.'

The money would come from the police outreach funding, which is separate from the department's general budget, Councilwoman Kitty Klitzke said.

'That was a choice by [Police Chief Kevin] Hall, and its fair for him to make that choice if he feels that would improve the relationship between the community and police officers,' she said, according to The Spokesman-Review.

If approved, the funding injection would allow the coalition and its partners to support migrants with immigration hearings, interpretation services, and required medical exams, among other things.

However, not everyone is happy with the selection of the coalition, with Jennyfer Mesa, the executive director of Latinos En Spokane and former member of the coalition, saying it wasn't set up to properly administer the funds.

She also said the city never told her organization about the funding opportunity and argued the money should go to her agency instead.

Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown proposed $100,000 go to the Spokane Immigrant Rights Coalition, which provides emergency support, such as temporary housing and child care

The money will be coming out of the police outreach fund, which is separate from the department's general budget

Mesa also claimed her organization has had to fix mistakes made by the coalition on at least two occasions, including a case involving a 10-year-old elementary student.

Councilman Michael Cathcart also questioned the selection of the coalition, which has ties to Fuse Washington, an organization that supported Brown's election, according to The Spokesman-Review.

Fuse is run by Jim Dawson, who originally helped launch the coalition, but is no longer associated with it.

However, city hall has said the coalition was picked fairly and relevant organizations were notified.

If city council approves the money allocation, the $100,000 will be given to the coalition Community Justice Fund.

The funds cannot be used for lobbying or for legal representation, Deputy City Administrator Maggie Yates said.

The Daily Mail has reached out to Brown for comment.

'That was a choice by [Police Chief Kevin] Hall, and its fair for him to make that choice if he feels that would improve the relationship between the community and police officers,' Councilwoman Kitty Klitzke (pictured) said

The funds cannot be used for lobbying or for legal representation, Deputy City Administrator Maggie Yates said

Last year, citizens complained that Brown had made downtown Spokane a no-go zone with her poorly done crime policies.

One of her solutions to the city's fentanyl problem was to hand out free Narcan, which many Democratic cities have time. It came with the purchase of pipes and foils.

The legislation bans the sale of smoking paraphernalia in the downtown area, unless the items are sold with the overdose antidote, naloxone, commonly known as Narcan.

Residents remain unconvinced that Brown's soft justice policies are having a positive impact.

'Ive been on the east side of Washington State for fairly short time and Spokane has become a dump,' resident Sunny Earles said.

'Its embarrassing how city leaders let downtown of formerly a sweet little town go to hell.

'The downtown when I first came it was clean and safe now I dont go there. Last time. I was there a man was masturbating in the park with no clothing on his bottom half in front of children and people walking by. Nobody did anything it was gross.'
An Alabama woman who kidnapped her romantic rival before pushing her off a cliff has been sentenced to life in prison.

Loretta Kay Carr, 46, was jailed on Thursday for conspiring with her daughter to murder 38-year-old Mary Elizabeth Isbell in a mountainous National Park.

Isbell, who was last seen in late 2021, was thrown off a cliff in Little River Canyon National Preserve in Alabama by Carr and her 24-year-old daughter Jessie Kelly.

The pair were charged with Isbell's killing in 2023, and Carr pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and kidnapping on Thursday. Kelly pleaded guilty to murder last year.

'Carr tied herself with a rope to the barrier at the overlook, forced Isbell to climb over the barrier and then forced her off the side of the canyon,' District Attorney Summer Summerford said in a statement following Carr's sentencing.

Kelly was sentenced to 40 years in prison and is currently being held at the Cherokee County Jail, court records show.

The horror unfolded on October 18, 2021, when the killer mom and daughter went to Isbell's home to confront her about a relationship she had with Carr's boyfriend.

Authorities said there was a clear sign of struggle at the home.

Loretta Kay Carr, 46, was jailed on Thursday for conspiring with her daughter Jessie Kelly to murder Mary Elizabeth Isbell, 38, in a mountainous National Park. (Pictured: Carr and Kelly)

Mary Elizabeth Isbell, 38, was pushed to her death by Carr and her daughter Jessie Kelly

Carr pleaded guilty to both charges last week as part of a plea agreement, reducing her charge from capital murder. Her daughter, Kelly, also pleaded guilty last August to murder

Carr and Kelly attacked Ibsell, took her against her will, and placed her in their vehicle.

Later that night, they took Ibsell to Wolf Creek Overlook at Little River Canyon, where they pushed her to her death.

Isbell was reported missing by her ex-husband on December 27, 2021, and authorities searched for her to no avail until June 2023.

Police eventually identified Carr and Kelly as defendants, and a patchwork of statements from the duo along with witnesses led them to Ibsell's remains.

At the time, investigators said that the pair knew Isbell through another person, which DeKalb County Chief Investigator Nick Brown said was 'a boyfriend'.

A DeKalb County sheriff investigator described the crime as the most 'heinous' he had seen in his career.

The Daily Mail previously revealed that Carr had shared a photo of herself near the site of the murder, posting it in January 2019.

At a previous press conference, DeKalb County officials called the murder a 'brutal and inhuman' crime.

Carr, who's trial was originally scheduled for March 30, was originally facing the death penalty, court records indicate. She is currently being held at DeKalb County Jail, where she has been incarcerated since her arrest, Decatur Daily reported.

In the months leading up to her disappearance, Isbell was suspected of theft in DeKalb County.

At the time, investigators said that the pair knew Isbell (pictured) through another person, which DeKalb County Chief Investigator Nick Brown revealed as 'a boyfriend'

Isbell, who was last seen in late 2021, was thrown off a cliff in Little River Canyon National Preserve in Alabama. The national park is pictured above

The sheriff's office said the theft involved an apartment she was living in with her boyfriend, James Allen Wright.

James Wright was arrested by the sheriff's office in September 2021 and released to a Florida rehab facility in November 2021.

The sheriff's office said while he was in jail, Isbell was essentially homeless, moving between friends' houses and 'living where she could in DeKalb County.'

Her mother, Debbie Wood, told a local news channel in 2022 that Isbell got caught up entangled with a 'bad' crowd.

'I think she got mixed up with some wrong people,' she said.

She described Isbell's relationship with Wright as 'new but troubled,' saying they were always getting into fights.

District Attorney Summer Summerford said: 'This is an example of a senseless act destroying a family. A mother is left without a daughter, sisters are left without their sibling, and a son is left without his mother.'

'This family has been through so much, but they have walked with us and law enforcement throughout this process and have been so responsive and helpful.

'Please continue to pray for this family as they continue to figure out how to go through life without their loved one.'
A Honda car key has been found nearby to teeth and five bones in the search for a Belgian backpacker who disappeared two-and-a-half years ago.

Celine Cremer, 31, was backpacking through Tasmania and vanished while on a short hike to Philosopher Falls, near Cradle Mountain, in June 2023.

While forensic tests are not yet completed on the bones, or an earlier batch found weeks ago, Tasmanian Police Commander Nathan Johnston said on Tuesday night it had been confirmed the key belonged to Ms Cremer.

A specialist team searching a 350-metre section of the Arthur River, in the state's northwest, discovered the items on Sunday and Monday.

'The search undertaken over the past two days was thorough and methodical, and many of these items were located beneath debris, embedded in the riverbed itself,' Commander Johnston said.

'We are continuing our liaison with Celine's family to keep them informed as we review the search efforts to date.'

Search personnel from Tasmania Police, alongside Ambulance Tasmania wilderness paramedics, were winched into the area.

Due to poor weather conditions, the team were forced to camp overnight before finally being extracted on Monday evening.

Celine Cremer (above) disappeared while hiking in Tasmania in June 2023

Searchers on Sunday and Monday found five bones, car keys and teeth in the search for Ms Cremer

The forensic testing of the items is underway.

Searchers located other human remains and clothing on January 30 but forensic tests could take several weeks to complete.

That search was triggered when a bushwalker found remains, including a jawbone.

Ms Cremer was reported missing by her family on June 26, 2023, sparking a major search involving police and SES ground crews, specialist swift water rescue personnel, drones and a helicopter.

It's believed she set off on a walk and her car was found in the falls car park a day after police were alerted to the concerns for her welfare.

Cmdr Johnston confirmed a polar fleece jacket, likely Ms Cremer's, was among the items found by officers in January.

He said a bra and a thermal top had also been discovered, along with more bones.

'Whilst further forensic examination will need to be conducted to confirm the identity, due to the nature of the items located, and the location, we believe they are Celine's,' Cmdr Johnston said.

Ms Cremer (above) vanished while on a short hike to Philosopher Falls, near Cradle Mountain

Forensic testing on the remains found by searchers could take several weeks

Ms Cremer's mother Ariane Cremer took to social media to share information with friends.

She informed them she had been contacted by police who indicated it might take 'a lot longer than three weeks' to confirm the identity.

Responsibility will ultimately fall to the state coroner.
Gambling has become an increasingly popular and accessible practice in the US, exacerbating addictions and popping up in the most ordinary places.

Slot machines were even installed across a few Kroger supermarket locations last year, causing backlash among those who claim access to gambling is making Americans' lives worse.

One X user shared a photo of the gambling section at a Kroger in Georgia, adding that they were visiting their parents and were shocked to see the gambling machines at their local grocery store.

The post has since gone viral, with many offering their opinions on the controversial move.

'Really blows my mind that there isnt coherent political pushback to this. A way in which American life is getting rapidly worse,' one comment read.

'They have popped up everywhere in the Pittsburgh area. Drives me nuts!' another added.

Others noted that the sign above the gambling machines read 'skill games,' with one writing: 'Skill games might be the most absurd part of this.'

However, some argued that the machines weren't that out of the ordinary, with a former Nevada resident adding: 'I remember seeing these at stores when I lived in Reno as a kid. It's jarring but tbh it's not a whole lot different from people dumping money on lottery tickets, at least not from the gambler's/buyer's perspective.'

A social media user shared that they were shocked when they visited their parents' local Kroger grocery store and saw a section with slot machines. Pictured above is a photo the user shared of the gambling section, which was labelled as 'skill games'

Select Kroger locations installed slot machines last year. A spokesperson for the grocery store chain said at the time that they would benefit the Hope Scholarship Program (file photo)

The gambling machines were installed last year across select locations in Georgia, including Macon, Milledgeville, Warner Robins, South Fulton and Powder Springs.

Locals were divided on the move at the time. LJ Malone, a resident of Macon, criticized the decision in an interview with local Fox affiliate, WGXA News.

'If a grocery store's main job is to alleviate hunger and to give people fresh food options, why are they becoming casinos? It doesn't make sense,' Malone told the outlet.

Felicia Conn-Payton, a resident of South Fulton, told Fox 5 Atlanta that the gambling machines were a 'bad image' for her town.

'Upgrade the store and that will probably increase the revenue here. That's what we are looking for,' she said.

'We're not looking to have gaming slot machines inside a grocery store where families are trying to shop for groceries.'

Residents of the Powder Springs neighborhood launched a petition to remove the gambling machines, arguing that they attract crime.

The decision has generated backlash from residents who believe it contributes to addictions and attracts crime. Residents of Powder Springs started a petition to remove the machines at their Kroger location, pictured above

'Kroger's profit in 2024 was over $33 Billion. Adding these COAM machines is not helping our community,' the petition's description read.

'Kroger is taking advantage of people who have gambling addictions for profit.'

A spokesperson for the grocery store told Fox 5 Atlanta at the time that the locations were chosen with the 'customers' convenience and safety in mind.'

The statement added that the slot machines were partitioned off from the rest of the store and proceeds would support the Hope Scholarship Program, which provides scholarships and grants to youth in the state.

The Daily Mail has reached out to Kroger for additional comment.

Gambling has risen significantly in the US with the online gambling market specifically growing from $2.5 billion in 2018 to nearly $20 billion in 2025, according to data complied by Statista.

Statista also found that more Americans have participated in gambling, with 55 percent reporting they gambled in 2024 in comparison to only 43 percent in 2019.

The national commercial gross gaming revenue reached a whopping $71.92 billion in 2024, with a majority generated by casino slots and table games, per Statista.

Although gambling stimulates the US economy, it presents significant addiction concerns.

Shane Kraus, the director of the Behavioral Addictions Lab at the University of Nevada told the American Psychological Association that vulnerability is especially high among low-income individuals, young people, and men.
Doctor Who star Noel Clarke has been arrested on suspicion of attempted rape of a woman in her 20s.

Clarke, 50, was interviewed at Islington Police Station in north London this afternoon over the incident, alleged to have taken place in the capital in 2007.

He is accused of attempted rape, exposure and sexual assault by touching, all relating to the same woman.

Clarke was also questioned over alleged voyeurism in relation to a woman in her 20s which is said to have taken place in 2013.

He was initially arrested by officers from the Met Police at his home in Kensington last September over the later offence.

Last year he lost a libel case against the Guardian newspaper. Days later, he was arrested on suspicion of voyeurism.

A Metropolitan Police investigation led by Central Specialist Crime Command began shortly afterwards on September 1.

Noel Clarke, 50, was interviewed at Islington police station in north London this afternoon over the incident, alleged to have taken place in the capital in 2007

Today he was detained over the further alleged offences and later released on bail.

An investigation into the allegations continues.

A Met Police spokesman said: 'A man in his 50s was arrested on suspicion of attempted rape, exposure and sexual assault by touching on Tuesday, February 10. He was interviewed by detectives.

'This arrest relates to a sexual offence, which is alleged to have taken place in 2007 in London against a woman in her 20s.

'The man was also interviewed in relation to a voyeurism allegation, for which he was previously arrested in September 2025. This relates to an offence allegedly committed in 2013 at an address in London against a woman in her 20s.

'The man was bailed pending further enquiries and the Met's investigation continues.'

Last August, Clarke lost a libel case against the Guardian's reporting of allegations about his behaviour and was ordered to pay at least 3million in legal costs by a High Court judge.

The Guardian estimates its total bill is at least 6million.

Clarke shot to fame after portraying the role of Mickey Smith (left) alongside Billie Piper as Rose Tyler (right) in Doctor Who

Clarke filed for bankruptcy and was formally declared bankrupt on December 11.

He had denied the claims against him, and his lawyers previously said the newspaper had acted as the 'judge, jury and executioner' of his career.

Guardian News & Media (GNM) defended its reporting as being both true and in the public interest and, in a judgment in August, judge Mrs Justice Steyn agreed.

Clarke, who also starred in the Kidulthood trilogy, found fame after portraying Mickey Smith in Doctor Who between 2005 and 2010, and worked as a writer, producer and director.
London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan has been accused of 'turning driving into a luxury' as figures obtained by the Daily Mail showed the Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) had generated more than 500million since its 2023 expansion.

Transport for London (TfL) data showed that in the 29 months since it expanded to all London boroughs, the zone had generated 514,133,202 in levies and penalty income.

That amount is over 100million more than it made in the same length of time before its expansion.

For petrol cars to meet Ulez standards they must usually have been registered after 2005.

Most diesel cars registered after September 2015 are also exempt from the charge, which is based on emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulates.

Drivers of non-compliant vehicles who enter the zone must pay 12.50 on each day they enter unless they are exempt, such as taxis or transport for disabled people.

Those who fail to pay the charge by midnight on the third day after a journey could be fined and forced to pay up to 280 if they ignore the penalty charge notice.

In 2025 alone the Ulez generated a record-high income of 219million, compared to 215million in 2024.

Sir Sadiq Khan has been accused of 'turning driving into a luxury' with the Ultra Low Emission Zone

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Shadow Transport Secretary Richard Holden told the Daily Mail Sir Sadiq did not care about the capital's drivers.

'Labour's anti-driver obsession is pricing people off our roads and out of our capital,' he said.

The Basildon and Billericay MP added motoring policies were hitting working people, especially those who rely on vehicles to earn a living, saying they were 'essential for millions just to get around'.

Mr Holden continued: 'Sir Sadiq Khan and Sir Keir Starmer keep pretending it's about clean air, but really, it's about the cash. Half a billion pounds of it.

'They don't care about drivers and don't have the backbone to stand up for drivers and are turning driving into a luxury they and their mates can afford.'

The zone was also criticised in outer London boroughs, which were brought into the Ulez in its 2023 expansion.

Bob Blackman, Conservative MP for Harrow East, said he believed the new figures supported the idea that the Ulez 'is a straightforward revenue-raising exercise with minimal impact on air quality in outer London boroughs'.

He said the 'serious impact' had been on older drivers who 'cannot afford to change their vehicles' and on small businesses who 'have had to either scrap their vans or pass on the tax to their customers'.

'I know many small businesses who now live outside London who refuse to take on jobs due to the cost of motoring,' he added.

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TfL said Ulez net revenue was decreasing every year, taking into account operating costs, and more than 97 per cent of vehicles in London were now compliant.

Net income from the combined Ulez and Low Emission Zone (Lez), which covers most of Greater London and targets the 'most polluting heavy diesel vehicles', decreased from 170million in 2024 to 126.1million in 2025.

TfL does not publish these figures separately for the two zones.

Alex Williams, TfL's chief customer and strategy officer, said: 'Thanks to the Ulez, all Londoners are now breathing cleaner air and benefitting from improved air quality.'

He added any income generated from the Ulez, congestion charge and Lez was reinvested into the public transport network as required by law.

The Lez and congestion charge have generated 22.9million and 670million respectively since the 2023 Ulez expansion.

Last year it was revealed 438million was owed to TfL in total fines which had not been paid as motorists ignored penalty charge notices.

More than 100,000 cars had received five or more fines, with a further 76,000 having received ten or more.

In September Sir Sadiq warned repeat fine dodgers they could be made bankrupt if they failed to pay.

Shadow Transport Secretary Richard Holden told the Daily Mail Sir Sadiq did not care about the capital's drivers

TfL boasted about how it seized this Londoner's BMW after the owner didn't pay a ULEZ fine

It boasted about how its 'enforcement agents tracked down a persistent evader linked to 118 outstanding warrants' as it shared a photo of a BMW it seized

TfL said it would toughen its approach to a 'specific group of drivers' with long-running Ulez debts and open 'bankruptcy proceedings' against road users 'in extreme cases'.

Other penalties could include debtors having to pay off what they owe before selling any property or taking money directly from someone's wages.

TfL has also resorted to hunting down those who refused to pay Ulez fines, with images showing enforcers seizing cars.

It boasted about how its 'enforcement agents tracked down a persistent evader linked to 118 outstanding warrants' as it shared a photo of a BMW it seized.

Previously it suggested 'there can be a link between the behaviour of deliberate evasion and other areas of criminality'.

In October a breakthrough study found the Ulez expansion in 2023 had no significant impact on lowering air pollution.

Scientists at the University of Birmingham also said London still faces air pollution levels well above international health-based guidelines.
Kemi Badenoch today mocked Labour MPs for being 'too scared' to kick out Sir Keir Starmer in case they trigger a general election and go on to lose their jobs.

The Tory leader, during a visit to a McDonald's, told the Prime Minister he was still 'in a very dangerous place' despite him surviving an immediate coup attempt.

Sir Keir is enduring the worst crisis of his premiership over the Peter Mandelson scandal, with Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar leading calls for him to go.

But the PM was granted a reprieve yesterday when Labour ministers failed to follow Mr Sarwar over the top and publicly pledged their support to Sir Keir.

Speaking to reporters after preparing a sausage McMuffin and a hash brown in the McDonald's kitchen, Mrs Badenoch warned Sir Keir his leadership is still in jeopardy.

'I've got a lot of questions to ask him, but he is in a very dangerous place,' she said.

'The Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said the quiet bit out loud. Labour MPs and the Labour Party have lost confidence in their leader.

'But the MPs are too scared of losing their jobs, so they're not going to call an election, and they've given him a stay of execution.

'The sad thing is that the country is suffering from not being governed at all.'

Kemi Badenoch today mocked Labour MPs for being 'too scared' to kick out Sir Keir Starmer in case they trigger a general election and go on to lose their jobs

The Tory leader, during a visit to a McDonald's, told the Prime Minister he was still 'in a very dangerous place' despite him surviving an immediate coup attempt

During her stint in the kitchen of the Ruislip branch in north-west London, Mrs Badenoch wore a personalised name badge with her 'Leader of the Opposition' title

Mrs Badenoch demanded the release of the files showing how Lord Mandelson was appointed US ambassador by Sir Keir, despite his links to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

She said: 'Tomorrow at Prime Minister's Questions, the Prime Minister will need to explain why the documents he promised to release last week have not turned up yet.

'What are they covering up? The Cabinet Office has told ministers not to release their text messages like (Health Secretary) Wes Streeting did.

'I think that there's something they're trying to hide and I'm going to get to the bottom of it.'

Mrs Badenoch returned to a McDonald's kitchen on Tuesday some 30 years after working at the fast food restaurant as a teenager.

The Conservative leader prepared a sausage McMuffin and a hash brown but was warned she was 'too slow' by one staff member.

During her stint in the kitchen of the Ruislip branch in north-west London, she wore a personalised name badge with her 'Leader of the Opposition' title.

Asked how it felt to be back in a McDonald's kitchen, she said: 'I did have a sausage and egg McMuffin.

'It's been 30 years since I last worked at McDonald's but there are lots of good memories.'

Mrs Badenoch has previously claimed she 'became working class' while working at the restaurant chain as a 16-year-old.
Turning Point USA's political arm, Turning Point Action, has ignited a new firestorm following its latest round of primary election endorsements in Texas.

TP Action has endorsed Ken Paxton, Texas's current Attorney General, in the tight primary election against incumbent Senator John Cornyn.

Now TP Action's endorsement of Paxton is being viewed as a direct assault on the legacy of TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk, who preached Judeo-Christian values and encouraged young conservatives to get married and have children.

'Enter into marriage as a covenant, not a contract,' Kirk said in remarks at one of his events before his death.

Paxton's political career has been tarnished by allegations of corruption, an impeachment trial during which he was acquitted, and multiple allegations of adultery, including one with a Christian influencer, which led to his wife, Angela, filing for divorce last year.

The endorsement came hours after a University of Houston poll showed Paxton leading the Texas primary with 38 percent and Cornyn at 31 percent, with Congressman Wesley Hunt in 3rd with 17 percent.

That poll also showed Paxton besting Cornyn in a potential runoff, 51 percent to 40 percent.

The first round of voting in the Texas primary is March 3, and early voting starts next Tuesday, February 17th.

Turning Point Action's endorsement of Ken Paxton

Tracy Duhon, a Christian influencer and mother of seven, one of Paxton's alleged flings

Charlie Kirk, and his wife, Erika are seen in this photograph posted to her instagram account

'The movement that Charlie Kirk built has inspired millions, and Im proud to be standing alongside Turning Point Action in carrying on the fight to save this country and defend our freedoms,' Paxton said in a statement.

Kirk was assassinated during a speaking event on the campus of Utah Valley University last September, and his wife, Erika, has taken over leading the conservative non-profit ever since then.

TP Action is led by former top Kirk lieutenant Tyler Bowyer, according to the group's most recent IRS Form 990 filing.

Bowyer's own commitment to Kirk's legacy has been questioned, and Tucker Carlson's brother Buckley even noted on X this week that TPUSA should have fired @tylerbowyer in late September. Buckley Carlson has also accused Bowyer of sleeping with men in a nasty online attack.

Tucker has been a frequent guest at TPUSA's events over the last decade and even spoke at Kirk's memorial service in September.

Jonah Wendt, communications director for former Vice President Mike Pence's think tank advancing American freedom, noted the apparent hypocrisy of the endorsement plainly in a post on X: Charlie Kirk: 'Get married. Have children. Build a legacy.' Ken Paxton: 'Cheat on your wife. Get divorced. Run for higher office.'

Lawyer Tom Ryan also piled on in his own X post.

'Wow! Turning Point Action is endorsing for US Senate a guy who has been credibly accused of adultery, securities fraud, and much much more. Good job there TPA! Some real family values you got going there, I see,' Ryan wrote.

Cornyn campaign senior advisor, Matt Mackowiak, told the Daily Mail 'Senator Cornyn believes character matters.

He noted that 'character is on the ballot in this primary,' when asked to comment on the backlash TP Action has gotten for endorsing Paxton.

Paxton was impeached in 2023 due to claims that he hired a woman with whom he had an affair.

Paxton's wife, Texas State Senator Angela Paxton, announced last summer that she was filing for divorce from her husband, and that 'in light of recent discoveries' it was not within the best interests of their family for her to remain in the marriage.

Although she attended her then-husband's impeachment trial, Angela did not vote on the outcome. He was acquitted by the Senate.

On top of infidelity in his marriage, Paxton has also been accused of corruption on several occasions. He has never been convicted of a crime.

The Daily Mail has reached out to TPUSA, TP Action, and Paxtons campaign for comment.
Two transgender teenagers who were close friends at the same California school have died by suicide less than a year apart.

Summer Devi Mehta, 17, stepped into the path of a Caltrain on February 3, just 10 months after her classmate, Ash He, died the same way.

Mehta was a junior at Palo Alto High School in the Bay Area, while 15-year-old He was a sophomore.

Mehta left a suicide note explaining that she hoped her death would bring people together and raise awareness about the suicide crisis among the trans community.

Her family, who found her letter, wrote a heart-wrenching tribute to their daughter, which was published by The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ+ suicide prevention charity.

'The world was a scary place for her, as a transgender, autistic woman. It should not have been,' Mehta's heartbroken relatives wrote.

'It should have seen her for the wonderful, radiant and deeply empathetic person she was.'

According to her family, Mehta struggled with depression as well as the death of her best friend He, who identified as non-binary.

'All Summer wanted to do was make the people in her life happy, and be a good kid, a good friend, a good sister, a good daughter,' her family wrote.

Summer Devi Mehta (pictured) 17, stepped into the path of a Caltrain on February 3, just 10 months before her classmate, Ash He, died the same way

Ash He, a non-binary sophomore, died in the same way just 10 months before Mehta

Mehta left a suicide note explaining that she hoped her death would bring people together and raise awareness about the suicide crisis among the trans community

'Unfortunately, her brain convinced her that she wasn't going a very good job of that, though she absolutely was.'

Her family described her as 'the life of our lives,' and said she had been 'trying so hard' to cope with the loss of He and 'continue to be happy.'

'She wanted the world to be a better place, and she did all she could to make it that way,' the tribute read.

As part of her letter, Mehta also hoped to raise $1 million for The Trevor Project non-profit.

'This should never happen, to anyone, ever again, and yet every 40 seconds it does,' her family continued.

'Suicide is a leading killer of youth worldwide, and this crisis is especially severe for trans people.'

Her family recalled how Mehta had expressed fear over how the world was reacting to the trans community.

'Summer's life meant so much to so many people,' they said.

'She wanted it to have a lasting benefit to the movement of suicide prevention, especially trans suicide prevention. We all love and miss her dearly.'

According to her family, Mehta was incredibly kind and bright with a love for Dungeons and Dragons, theatre, her dogs, Minecraft as well as her family and friends.

A friend of Mehta's wrote on Facebook that she was a 'ball of light.'

'Summer, a child I worked with at camp a few years ago, was a ball of light. I received the news today that she took her life on Tuesday, and I am utterly heartbroken,' they said.

Mehta was incredibly passionate about theater, and performed as Elphaba in a school rendition of the musical Wicked

According to her family, Mehta was incredibly kind and bright with a love for Dungeons and Dragons, theatre, her dogs, Minecraft as well as her family and friends

'She transitioned in 2022 into her real, vibrant self. But, as we all know, there are cruel people in the world whom raise cruel children.'

Another theatre student said Mehta 'was such a lovely soul,' adding: 'She should still be here shining her light. It infuriates me that anyone could ever want to or enjoy pushing someone to that place, to feeling that death is the only escape from the pain.'

The Palo Alto Educators Association said the community was 'saddened by the loss of our student' and urged anyone struggling with mental health to call 988 to speak to a counselor.

'The teachers of Palo Alto Unified School District care deeply about our students. You are perfect just the way are you,' the post said.

Mehta is survived by her parents Monica Gupta Mehta and Nick Mehta, sister Asha, brother Leo and other extended family members.

'Nothing can make up for Summer's death, but we hope that it at least can be used as a catalyst to make the world a kinder place, and to prevent anyone else from dying in this way,' they wrote.

Her best friend, 15-year-old He, was remembered as someone who 'brought light, creativity and joy to those around them.'

'Ash had a deep passion for art and theater, using their immense talent to express themselves and bring people together,' a GoFundMe for their family said.

Her family described her as 'the life of our lives,' and said she had been 'trying so hard' to cope with the loss of He and 'continue to be happy'

Mehta's best friend, 15-year-old He, was remembered as someone who 'brought light, creativity and joy to those around them'

'Ashs kindness, creativity, and spirit touched so many lives.'

In an update, a family friend urged that depression 'is not a weakness,' but a 'serious, often silent struggle' that burdens many.

'Ash's story reminds us that behind every challenge is a person worthy of compassion, understanding, and unwavering support.'

For help, call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline on 988.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is coming to Washington for talks with President Donald Trump focused squarely on Iran's missile threat.

Netanyahu flagged Tehran's expanding arsenal as an imminent danger before departing Israel, setting up what promises to be a high-stakes discussion on how to counter the regime's advancing capabilities.

'We will talk about Gaza, the region, but first and foremost about Iran,' Netanyahu said to an Israeli outlet. 'I will present to Trump principles for negotiations with Iran  which are important for those who want peace and security in the Middle East.'

Netanyahu plans to present what he calls the 'restoration' of Iran's ballistic missile program  an move MiddleEast experts claim is part of a persuasion campaign to attack Iran.

This comes as a fleet of 112 C-17s aircrafts are reportedly headed to the Middle East.

A C-17 is a large, versatile military transport aircraft used by the U.S. Air Force and allies to deliver troops, cargo and humanitarian aid across the globe.

A NATO airbase in Germany has also been requisitioned for 24/7 flights as operational 'tempo' increases.

Before Netanyahu's visit was announced, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaie explained in a news conference in Tehran that the US has should act alone in their decision making for Iran, and not rely on Israel.

'Israel has proven to be a destructive party and is trying to undermine every channel of negotiation to resolve the crises in the region through diplomatic means,' he said.

He followed up by saying that Iran is squarely focused on coming to an agreement with the U.S. with the goal of lifting their sanctions.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in route to Washington D.C. today  planning to meet with President Donald Trump tomorrow

High-resolution imagery captured on 22 June 2025 shows clear evidence of entry holes consistent with the use of Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs) targeting Iran's Fordow nuclear facility

Iranian missiles are displayed in a park in Tehran, Iran, January 31, 2026

Right now, the TrumpNetanyahu meeting is expected to take place Wednesday  the only agenda item on the Prime Ministers schedule.

US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee is reportedly joining Netanyahu's flight for the second time.

Trump said the US had 'very good' talks with Tehran on Friday and that discussions would continue, but noted that the consequences for Iran would be 'very steep' if a deal was not reached.

The US had threatened military action against Iran during the peak of the protest movement that swept the nation earlier this year, which saw authorities launch a deadly crackdown to quell dissent.

There was no immediate indication that the two sides discussed the protests during Friday's Omanimediated talks.

Iran has branded the protests as riots fueled by its archfoes Israel and the US, and on Monday, supreme leader Khamenei called on the nation to show 'resolve' against foreign pressure.

'National power is less about missiles and aircraft and more about the will and resolve of the people,' Khamenei said, adding: 'Show it again and frustrate the enemy.'

A billboard displaying a map of potential targets in Tel Aviv, Israel, along with a warning message reading, 'You start, we finish!' is seen at Palestine Square, Tehran, February 9

Families gather at the Kahrizak Coroner's Office confronting rows of body bags as they search for relatives killed during the regime's violent crackdown on nationwide protests

At the talks in Oman, the US and Iran had agreed to discuss Tehran's nuclear program, though Washington and Israel also want to put the Islamic republic's ballistic missiles and its support for regional militant groups on the agenda.

Iran insists its nuclear program is for civilian purposes but Western powers and Israel believe it is seeking a nuclear weapon.

On Sunday, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran could envision 'a series of confidencebuilding measures concerning the nuclear program' in exchange for the United States lifting sanctions on the country.

But Araghchi insisted on Iran's right to continue enriching uranium.

Meanwhile, the secretary of Iran's top security body, Ali Larijani, said he will visit Oman on Tuesday for meetings with Omani authorities.

With the US giving no indication that the protest crackdown is still a potential issue in the negotiations, Iranian authorities appear to be tightening their grip.
A Chicago yacht owner was killed after confronting two women who sneaked onto his boat overnight to take Snapchat photos, police said.

Nabil Abzal, 63, drowned in Lake Michigan after the altercation around 2.43am on August 30, 2025.

He was escorting the trespassers off his vessel when he encountered Alexis Trader, 34, who allegedly punched him in the head sending him sprawling into the water, police said.

Trader allegedly unlocked the entrance to the dock where Abzal's yacht was moored, according to CWB Chicago.

Two women then boarded the 41-foot vessel and began taking snapshots for social media on the rear deck while Abzal was asleep below, police said.

Abzal discovered them and peacefully accompanied the women off the boat, authorities said.

When this happened, Trader allegedly punched Abzal in the head causing him to strike a metal grate and fall into the water.

Surveillance footage allegedly captured the sound of the brutal punch and showed Abzal falling into the water and sinking.

Nabil Abzal, 63, drowned in Lake Michigan on August 30, 2025, after he was allegedly punched in the face while escorting two women off his yacht after they trespassed on the vessel

Abzal was known as Captain Bill in his community. He was remembered as a 'humble man' by his wife Laura (not pictured)

Trader was arrested last Wednesday and charged with first degree murder.

After the altercation, Trader called 911 to report that the yacht owner had fallen into the water, prosecutors said.

He allegedly used the fake name Young James to speak with law enforcement, CBS Chicago reported.

Trader remained on the dock and spoke with police once they arrived, according to assistant Cook County state's attorney Mike Pekara.

A nearby fisherman also encountered Trader after hearing Abzal fall in.

Trader allegedly told him that someone had fallen into the water and suggested the fisherman dive in to help.

He then grabbed what appeared to be a wallet and left in a rideshare vehicle, according to prosecutors.

Divers with the Chicago Fire Department recovered Abzal's body about 10 minutes after police arrived and he was pronounced dead at the scene.

Alexis Trader, 34, was arrested last Wednesday and charged with murder in Abzal's death. Prosecutors said he had a lengthy criminal record before the fatal altercation

The woman were taking photos on board Abzal's yacht 'Gone' where he was sleeping below deck, police said

Abzal was affectionately known around his community as Captain Bill.

'He loved being Capt. Bill,' Laura Abzal, his wife, told the Chicago Tribune. 'But he was so much more than that.'

She honored her late husband as a, 'humble man who would be a bit embarrassed by all the attention he is receiving'.

Abzal would sleep on his boat four or five times per week during the summer, according to prosecutors.

Police said they identified Trader after reviewing surveillance footage, phone records from his 911 call and witness statements.

This included testimony from one of the women who boarded Abzal's yacht to take photos. She later appeared before a grand jury and identified Trader to investigators.

Abzal's death was only investigated as a murder when boat staffers found rolling papers and vapes aboard the ship.

Trader had an extensive criminal history before his alleged attack on Abzal, according to prosecutors.

Surveillance footage reportedly captured the confrontation which led to Abzal's death

Staff on Abzal's boat found vapes and rolling papers on the vessel. That led to police investigating his death as a murder

He currently faces at least three open cases, including charges tied to an alleged assault on a gas station attendant last January, two burglaries from April and a DUI arrest one week before Abzal's death.

In the gas station incident, Trader allegedly punched the clerk because he believed the worker was staring at him.

This broke the victim's nose and landed him an aggravated battery charge.

Trader was already being held in Cook County Jail when he was charged with murder in Abzal's death.

He has been behind bars since September in connection with the gas station attack.

On Thursday, Trader was ordered to remain detained while his trial is pending.

Cook County Judge John Hock said in a court order that Trader allegedly had a pattern of assaulting random people.

Trader's next court appearance is scheduled for February 23.

The Daily Mail has reached out to the Chicago Police Department for further comment.
Nancy Guthrie's son-in-law hasn't been seen in a week, but police and the FBI are able to search his home without his consent, even without a warrant.

Tommaso Cioni was the last person to see the missing mother of NBC anchor Savannah Guthrie before she disappeared in the early hours of February 1.

He and his wife, the Today host's sister, Annie Guthrie, live in a sprawling $675,000 ranch-style house about four miles from Nancy's home in Tucson, Arizona.

Annie has been a constant presence, appearing with her siblings, including brother Camron, in videos pleading with Nancy's kidnappers to bring her back unharmed.

She was with Savannah when she appealed for more information on Tuesday and shared horrifying new footage showing a masked figure wearing latex gloves outside Nancy's door on the night she vanished.

Only hours later, police detained a man in Rio Rico for questioning during a traffic stop. On Wednesday morning, the man was released.

But Cioni, 50, has not been seen since the Daily Mail spotted him and Annie leaving and returning to their home on February 3.

The Italian schoolteacher is believed to be holed up with his wife and her siblings in a $1.2 million mansion nearby inside a gated, residents-only compound away from prying eyes.

Despite his absence, Pima County Sheriff's deputies have searched Cioni's home multiple times, including a nighttime examination on Saturday.

Annie Guthrie and her husband, Tommaso Cioni, leaving their home on February 3. Cioni was the last to see Nancy before she disappeared

Annie and her husband Tommaso Cioni's $675,000 home where her siblings stayed when they first arrived in Arizona

Savannah Guthrie's mother, Nancy, was taken from her $1 million home in the Catalina Hills neighborhood of Tucson, Arizona, in the early morning hours of February 1

Annie was spotted at the home supervising officers as they again rummaged through the home, but Cioni was not seen.

However, police do not need his permission to search the house, even without a warrant, so long as Annie is there to allow them access.

Two US Supreme Court cases ruled that police can search a shared home - such as a marital residence - if one of its occupants is there and consents.

If another resident was present when police arrived to conduct a search and refused access, officers would have to return with a warrant.

This was determined in the Georgia v Randolph case in 2006 when a couple disagreed about allowing police access to their home.

But if the other resident was not physically present, their refusal would not prevent another occupant from letting the police inside.

A second case in 2014, Fernandez v California, decided this rule after a woman who was beaten in a domestic violence attack allowed police to search their shared apartment.

Her boyfriend refused police access when they first arrived, but was in custody when officers returned to conduct a search.

Pima County and federal records do not show any applications for warrants to search Annie and Cioni's property, indicating they were given permission.

Another terrifying image caught the suspect staring right into the lens of the Nest doorbell camera as he removed it

This masked figure was seen on Nancy Guthrie's doorstep on the morning of her disappearance

Whether Cioni objected to police searching the house he shares with Annie is unknown, and he may have already told police they could look inside whenever they wanted.

Cioni and Annie have been married since 2006 and have one young child.

'Many of you observed an active law enforcement presence at the Guthrie residences over the weekend,' police said on Monday,

This was after investigators were seen searching Annie's home, including taking photographs inside the property for several hours, though it is unclear what, if any, evidence had been collected.

Drone footage was also released showing investigators removing a floodlight from Nancys home amid revelations that a ransom note specifically referenced the fixture.

A security camera was also removed from the exterior of the property on Monday.

Such activity is now expected to continue through Tuesday, the sheriff's department said.

Last week, the Pima County Sheriff, Chris Nanos, said he had not ruled out Cioni or anyone else as a suspect in his investigation into the kidnapping of Nancy.

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Tommaso Cioni with his wife, Savannah's sister Annie Guthrie

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Nancy had dinner at the home of Annie and Cioni before Cioni dropped her off at about 9.45pm on January 31.

Cioni said he watched his mother-in-law enter her home through the garage before he drove off.

Investigators found drops of blood on Nancy's front porch that were later confirmed to be hers and that her doorbell camera was disconnected at around 1.45am.

Less than 30 minutes later, her security camera detected movement. Her pacemaker stopped transmitting data to her Apple Watch and phone shortly afterwards, suggesting she had been taken out of the devices' range.

Police on Tuesday released images of a suspect tampering with Nancy's security camera on the night she disappeared.

Clad in a ski mask, the figure was filmed tampering with Nancy's Nest doorbell camera. It is unclear if the individual is male or female, but some images appear to show facial hair above the top lip.

In releasing the images, FBI Director Kash Patel said that teams with the bureau and Pima County Sheriff's Department worked to recover the data in backend systems.

'As of this morning, law enforcement has uncovered these previously inaccessible new images showing an armed individual appearing to have tampered with the camera at Nancy Guthrie's front door the morning of her disappearance,' he said.

Cioni and Annie have been married since 2006 and have one young child

Investigators pictured carrying out a late-night search of Savannah's sister Annie's home late Saturday night amid a renewed hunt for evidence of her missing mom Nancy

What looks like a gun inside a holster appears to be clipped to the individual and one image shows what looks like a penlight in the suspect's mouth.

The masked assailant appeared to rip the Nest camera from its holder on the door frame. It was missing by the time sheriff's deputies arrived on the scene that morning, on February 1.

Subsequent video released by officials showed the individual attempting to cover the lens with a clenched fist before searching the area around the door and ripping a bunch of flowers from the entranceway and waving them at the camera.

Nancy did not have a subscription to Nest, which would have uploaded the images and saved them to a cloud storage platform. This meant investigators took longer to extract the images from her camera.

The images were released after investigators asked Nancy's household staff to submit DNA swabs they intend to check against samples found inside the grandmother's home.

Savannah shared the haunting stills to her own Instagram page, saying: 'We believe she is still alive. Bring her home.'
Keir Starmer has bowed to party demands to take Labour further to the left, a senior minister suggested today - as rival Andy Burnham presented the PM with his own alternative manifesto for power.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband hinted this morning that the premier has agreed to a lurch to the Left to save his skin, saying he would be focusing on the 'class divide'.

He spoke before the ambitious Greater Manchester mayor, personally blocked from making a return to Westminster by the Prime Minister last month to stifle a leadership challenge, gave Sir Keir his backing to stay in No10.

He also urged greater party unity, but in a very thinly veiled attack Mr Burnham accused politicians in London of getting 'too close to wealth' and being 'seduced' by free market economic solutions to social problems.

Among changes he suggested were a commitment to build 500,000 council and social homes by the end of the decade, and give councils the power to compulsorily purchase substandard homes from private landlords.

He also used his speech at a think tank conference to lament how privatisation of utilities had taken power away from the poor.

He is the latest top Labour figure to suggest the party is to alter alter tack as Sir Keir faces clarion calls to step down amid a major row over former US ambassador Peter Mandelson and his friendship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

MPs have been heaping pressure on the PM to ramp up tax yet again to splurge more on public services and benefits.

In other twists and turns today:

Labour's Welsh First Minister Baroness Morgan gave lukewarm backing to the PM, saying she supports him 'in the job he was elected to do';

Scotland Yard has warned other ministers not to follow Mr Streeting in releasing their WhatsApps to Mandelson;

Kemi Badenoch claimed 'some' Labour MPs had 'given us indications' that they would back a vote of no confidence in the PM.

The Greater Manchester mayor, personally blocked from making a return to Westminster by the Prime Minister last month, said he supported the Prime Minister but outlined a raft of major changes he believes are needed.

Wounded Keir Starmer will assemble his Cabinet today after they 'looked over the precipice' and decided against ousting him - for now

Ed Miliband hinted this morning that the premier has agreed to a lurch to the Left to save his skin, saying he would be focusing on the 'class divide'.

Sir Keir gathered ministers for a Cabinet meeting today thanking them for their support despite more than 24 hours of deathly silence in the wake of his chief aide's resignation over the Mandelson scandal.

They only finally rallied round after Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar demanded he quit - with questions swirling about what concessions and deals Sir Keir might have made for his survival.

The PM insisted they were 'strong and united'. But among those present was Wes Streeting, who has been accused by No10 insiders of plotting a coup, something he denies.

Health Secretary Mr Streeting also released a tranche of messages with Mandelson yesterday that showed he condemned his government's 'no growth' strategy - but Sir Keir appears too weak to sack him.

Addressing the Resolution Foundation's Unsung Britain conference, Mr Burnham said: Following recent events, I think the time has come to call an end to this era in British politics when politicians got too close to wealth, too seduced by the notion that deregulated markets would provide the solution when in fact they have been the problem for those on the lowest incomes.'

Outlining his effort to nationalise the bus service in Manchester he added: 'I would say that in recent decades Westminster politicians have not been prepared to do these hard things.

'But if we are serious about solving the simultaneous housing and cost of living crises then they will need to be so.

'Our aim as a country should be very explicit: lower rents, lower water bills, lower energy bills, lower rail fares, lower bus fares.'

Many in Labour still believe the PM is doomed, with the government having been forced to commit to releasing far more damaging internal messages with Mandelson.

He is facing losing his Cabinet Secretary Chris Wormald in the coming days, after the departure of right-hand man Morgan McSweeney and communications chief Tim Allan.

The party is fighting to hang on in the by-election for Gorton & Denton - a traditionally safe seat - on February 26.

And local elections in May are widely expected to be a bloodbath, with the looming catastrophe in Scotland thought to have sparked Mr Sarwar's dramatic assassination bid.

Nevertheless Sir Keir told the Cabinet: 'The whole of the Labour Party wants Anas Sarwar to become First Minister and will fight for a Labour government in Scotland.'

Angela Rayner is regarded as on manoeuvres for the leadership, but backed the PM to continue yesterday. She has still not resolved issues with HMRC over the unpaid stamp duty bill that forced her resignation as Deputy PM last September.

Unlike yesterday, Downing Street managed to persuade a Cabinet minister to make the government's case in broadcast studios this morning.

Among those at Cabinet today was Wes Streeting (pictured with Science Secretary Liz Kendall), who has been accused by No10 insiders of being behind the coup plot

Deputy PM David Lammy seemed in high spirits this morning despite the miserable state of the government

Nick Thomas-Symonds (left) and Darren Jones (right) were among the ministers who initially stayed quiet amid the mounting threat to the PM. Aides insisted they were busy working on policy issues

Ministers only finally rallied round after Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar (pictured) demanded Sir Keir's resignation

In a damning assessment of Sir Keir's first 18 months in power, Mr Miliband said this crisis 'has got to be a moment of change' and the government needs a 'much greater clarity of purpose'.

But the Net Zero Secretary urged MPs to 'moveon.org', telling BBC Breakfast: 'The Labour Party as a whole looked over the precipice and thought the right thing to do is to support our leader'.

He said: 'In a sense, yesterday was a moment of peril for the Prime Minister. I make no bones about that.

'But, as a collective body, the Cabinet, the Labour Party looked at the alternatives of going down this road of a chaotic leadership election, trying to depose a prime minister, and they said 'no, that's not for us'.'

In a signal that Sir Keir has bowed to MPs demanding a more left-wing policy platform, Mr Miliband told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'I tell you what angers Keir the most - it's class. It's the class divides...

'He exists to change that... I absolutely dispute the idea he's not somebody driven by burning passion about the injustices our country faces and how we need to change them.

'We need more of that. He knows we need more of that. I think we're going to see more of that.'

Mr Miliband said the idea that meant 'class war' was 'balderdash'.

'So many people from working class backgrounds are looked down upon in our country, are held back in our country,' he said.

'Whether it's from not getting an apprenticeship, not being able to rise up... Keir is about changing that. Not just social mobility for a few, but recognition for everybody, a decent life for everybody.'

Mr Miliband said voters want 'boldness in our answers' that 'meet the scale of what we are facing'.

'One of the big frustrations... Rachel has raised taxes on the wealthy and business - some people don't like that - in order that we can invest in the future, in public services - including energy in health, in education,' he said.

Mr Miliband said he was 'not going to run' for the Labour leadership in any potential contest.

It was put to him that his message sounded a bit like a leadership pitch, to which he replied: 'Absolute baloney.'

Asked whether he would rule out running, the Energy Secretary told Sky News: 'I'm not running for the leadership, no.'

Asked whether he would rule out running rather than saying he was not currently running, he said: 'Yes, yes, I'm not going to run.'

A weary Sir Keir was seen heading back to his No10 bunker in a government car last night after the chaotic day.

Mr Sarwar, once an ally of Sir Keir, said there had been 'too many mistakes' in Downing Street.

'I have to be honest about failure wherever I see it,' he said. 'The distraction has to end, the leadership has to change.'

Mr Sarwar told the PM of his move in advance, triggering panic in No10 and sparking a major rescue operation.

One Labour source said ministers were told to voice their support for the PM by the end of the day or face the sack.

Downing Street insiders accused Mr Streeting of being in league with Mr Sarwar, in a plot likened to the 2009 attempt to oust Gordon Brown.

That saw James Purnell quit Cabinet but the heir apparent David Miliband not follow suit, largely because Mandelson marshalled ministers behind Mr Brown.

Mr Streeting's spokesman told the Times: 'Wes did not ask Anas to do this, he did not co-ordinate with Anas on this. Anas is the leader of the Scottish Labour Party, he is his own man, and Wes has the highest respect for him.

'At the same time as Wes was in an interview saying that Keir needed a chance to set out his case and his plan, No 10 were briefing that Wes had told Anas Sarwar to make his statement. This is the problem.'

Sir Keir was already reeling from the departure of Mr McSweeney on Sunday, who was followed out of the door by the No10 communications director yesterday morning.

John Healey (left) was mooted as a potential caretaker replacement for Sir Keir. Peter Kyle, right, was also at Cabinet

In a damning assessment of Sir Keir's first 18 months in power, Ed Miliband said this crisis 'has got to be a moment of change' and the government needs a 'much greater clarity of purpose'

Cabinet Secretary Sir Chris is on the brink of joining the Downing Street exodus - just a year after Sir Keir appointed him.

Private discussions were held about the possibility of replacing Sir Keir with an interim leader such as Defence Secretary John Healey.

But, with leadership rivals not ready to make their move and financial markets wobbling over the prospect of a chaotic contest, they finally bowed to No 10's demands to issue public statements of support.

In a belated flurry of posts on social media, which began as Mr Sarwar got to his feet, every member of the Cabinet gave the Prime Minister their broad support.

And in a defiant address to Labour MPs later, Sir Keir vowed to battle on, saying: 'Every fight I've ever been in, I have won.'
A drug dealer has been jailed for seven years after rigging a series of houses with booby-traps inspired by classic Christmas movie Home Alone in efforts to protect his drugs enterprise.

Ian Claughton, from Grimethorpe, South Yorkshire, 'heavily protected' his home and two neighbouring houses with tripwires, crow-scarers and homemade pipe bombs as he attempted to defend his drugs business from would-be intruders.

Around 100 homes were evacuated for three days in May 2024 as police and Army bomb squad experts searched the properties of Ian and his ex-wife Lesley Claughton on Brierley Road.

The police found a series of traps as well as a homemade flamethrower, large amounts of cannabis, air guns, amphetamines and cash.

Footage shows Ian using the homemade flamethrower, which he told the court he made to 'wow' people during Bonfire Night.

The 60-year-old was jailed for seven years at Sheffield Crown Court today, while Lesley, 59, was handed a 21-month sentence, which is suspended by two years granted she does not reoffend.

Opening the trial to jurors last October, prosecutor Helen Chapman said: 'If you are sitting there thinking that this sounds a little like the film Home Alone, then you would be correct.

'In fact that is precisely what Ian Claughton said he was aiming for when he told the police about these devices.'

Ian Claughton, from Grimethorpe, South Yorkshire, (pictured) was jailed for seven years after rigging a series of houses with booby-traps inspired by classic Christmas movie Home Alone

Claughton, whose criminality was 'assisted' by ex-wife Lesley, made homemade pipe bombs

The couple were tipped off after Border Force at Heathrow Airport found five small five-shot revolvers ordered from China (pictured)

Fishing wire was found running across the length of one of the rooms at knee height, attached to an electrical connector and a battery pack, along with two high-powered air guns and a crossbow.

Ian told police the explosives were crow-scarers, used by farmers, which he had put into plastic piping and, in one case, into a bag of paint.

A large amount of cash was also found, including 27,000 sewn into a sofa, and cannabis plants were found growing in two of the homes.

The couple were tipped off after Border Force at Heathrow Airport found five small five-shot revolvers ordered from China, leading to an investigation by the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Organised Crime Unit.

Ian ordered the guns using Lesley's eBay account, who was described in court as 'assisting and encouraging' her ex-husband's criminality.

Ian - who was convicted of three counts of possessing prohibited firearms, possession of criminal property and possession of explosive substances - denied intending to hurt any visitors, despite leaving a series of notes around the properties.

One read: 'Now would be a good time to get measured up for your coffin'.

A large amount of cash was found at the properties, including 27,000 sewn into a sofa

Ian denied intending to hurt any visitors despite there being a series of notes around the properties

The police found a series of traps in the three houses as well as a homemade flamethrower and other weapons

Ian pleaded guilty to bringing a realistic imitation firearm into the country, being concerned in the production of cannabis and two counts of possession with intent to supply class B drugs.

He was cleared of a firearms charge relating to a stun gun after a trial at Doncaster Crown Court.

Lesley was found guilty of bringing a realistic imitation firearm into the country, possessing class B drugs with intent to supply, possession of criminal property and being concerned in production of cannabis.

Detective Superintendent Al Burns, of the Yorkshire Regional Organised Crime Unit, said: 'Ian Claughton is someone who was clearly involved in drugs offending to a very significant degree.

'He appears to have developed a siege mentality that saw him go to unusual and elaborate lengths to defend his home and his illicit contents from would-be intruders, drawing inspiration from Macaulay Culkin's character in the popular Christmas film Home Alone.'
A man fatally shot his partner inside their New York home before turning the gun on himself, police said.

Paul Trefimovich, 68, killed Valerie Kopetic, 63, inside their Port Jefferson home, Suffolk County Police Department confirmed.

Officers had arrived at the $800,000 home after being called to carry out a welfare check when Kopetic failed to appear for work on Monday.

When they arrived, officers found the couple dead from gunshot wounds inside the address.

Following an investigation they determined that Trefimovich murdered Kopetic before shooting himself.

It remains unclear at this time what led up to the fatal shooting, with police adding that they did not have any further information.

Valerie Kopetic, 63, died inside her Port Jefferson home after being gunned down by her partner

Trefimovich, pictured here, is said to have gunned down his partner before turning the gun on himself

Officers arrived at the home, seen here, after Kopetic failed to turn up for work on Monday

According to records Kopetic, in addition the Port Jefferson home, also owns a property in Florida.

She was employed as the Executive Director of the Long Island Adolescent and Family Services Inc, a social services agency.

The company confirmed her employment while adding that she worked out of their offices in Stony Brook, a short drive from her home. She had worked for over two decades.

In a statement, Suffolk County Police department said: 'Sixth Precinct officers responded to 135 Oakwood Road at 11:-7 am for a check the welfare call after Valerie Kopetic failed to appear at her job this morning.

'When officers arrived, they discovered two residents of the home dead from gunshot wounds.

'An investigation by Homicide Squad detectives determined Paul Trefimovich, 68, killed his domestic partner, Kopetic, 63, and then shot himself to death.'
Emmanuel Macron seamlessly blended into a crowd of workers as he toured new production lines at a French steel plant.

The French president was difficult to make out in a hard hat, protective goggles and a high-vis vest as he stood among employees wearing identical safety gear at ArcelorMittal's Dunkirk site.

Pictures show Macron smiling and giving a thumbs up as company executives announced 1.3billion (1.13billion) would be invested to replace one of the coal furnaces with an electric model due to begin operating in 2029.

Unions had previously feared the company would drop the plan, announced two years ago, to decarbonise the Dunkirk site by replacing two coal-fired furnaces with electric arc models.

'If we want to build cars and infrastructure in our Europe, we need to produce European steel and less carbon-intensive steel,' Macron said while meeting some of the site's 3,200 employees.

Half of the funding for the revamp will come from Energy Efficiency Certificates (CEE), a French investment programme financed by contributions from energy suppliers.

Emmanuel Macron seamlessly blended into a crowd of workers as he toured new production lines at a French steel plant

The French president was difficult to make out in a hard hat, protective goggles and a high-vis vest as he stood among employees wearing identical safety gear at ArcelorMittal's Dunkirk site



'With this strategic investment, ArcelorMittal confirms its commitment to France and Europe,' the company's head of flat steel products in Europe, Reiner Blaschek, said during Macron's visit.

The company has been pressing European officials to protect the steel sector as it faces intense competition, in particular from Asian rivals not subject to strict emission regulations.

While posting a rise in 2025 operating profit to $2.9 billion this week, it welcomed in particular reforms to an EU 'carbon tax' to offset the CO2 emissions of foreign firms

Arcelor's Dunkirk site is among the 50 biggest industrial sources of greenhouse gases in France, the government says.

With employees worried about job cuts if Arcelor scales back its European operations, leftist lawmakers have proposed nationalising the French operations, with a bill set for debate in the Senate on February 25.

'I must thank President Macron and the French government who - very early on - understood the challenges the European steel industry was facing,' Arcelor's CEO Aditya Mittal said in a statement.

'Their support, and in particular their efforts to drive changes to the mechanisms defending the steel market, will benefit the entire steel industry in Europe, starting here in Dunkirk.'

Pictures show Macron standing with employees as company executives announced 1.3billion (1.13billion) would be invested to replace one of the coal furnaces with an electric model due to start operating in 2029

Pictured: Workers take photos of Macron on their phones

The project was given the green light after ArcelorMittal secured a new long-term electricity deal with French state-owned power giant EDF from January 1, guaranteeing the plant a supply of cheaper, low-carbon energy.

The new furnace will replace one of Dunkirks coal-fired blast furnaces and is expected to produce up to two million tonnes of steel a year, the company said.

ArcelorMittal added that emissions per tonne of steel would be around three times lower than at the existing blast furnaces.

Half of the project will be funded by ArcelorMittal, with the remaining 50 per cent coming from a French energy-efficiency scheme.

The furnace is due to start operating in 2029.
A Chinese man who swept a California politician off her feet and helped fund her campaign has been sentenced to four years in prison for being a spy.

Arcadia Mayor Eileen Wang was previously engaged to Yaoning 'Mike' Sun, 65, of Chino Hills, who was jailed on Monday for acting as a political operative for China.

He pleaded guilty in October 2025 to one count of acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government.

In 2022, he helped his then-fiancee, Wang, win a seat on Arcadia's city council and worked as her campaign consultant.

Her campaign's financial records also showed that Sun paid for some of her travel expenses and his last-registered address was a home owned by Wang, according top the complaint seen by the Daily Mail.

Sun also previously served in China's Army, according to the filing, where the FBI was able to obtain photos of him and his co-conspirator John Chen in military uniforms.

First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli celebrated Sun's imprisonment on Monday, saying in a statement: 'Federal law enforcement will not allow hostile foreign nations to infiltrate the governance of our nations political bodies.

'The relentlessness of PRC intelligence operations in our country must be met by equal relentlessness on our part to secure, protect, and defend the United States.'

Arcadia Mayor Eileen Wang was previously engaged to Yaoning 'Mike' Sun, 65, who was sentenced on Monday to four years in prison for being a Chinese spy

Sun, who previously served in the Chinese Army, worked as Wang's campaign manger and helped pay for some of her travel expenses

Prosecutors said Sun exploited his role during the campaign to 'undermine our political processes and democratic institutions for the benefit of the Chinese Communist Party.'

'When Americans vote for elected officials, they expect them to represent the interests of their constituents  not those of a foreign adversary like the Chinese government,' Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI's Counterintelligence and Espionage Division said.

It appears Wang was unaware of the conspiracy, and will keep her political office. The Daily Mail has reached out to Wang for comment.

From 2022 to 2024, Sun worked as an operative for China without telling the US government, which is required by law.

While working undercover, he also surveilled the then-Taiwan President Tsai Ing-Wen during her April 2023 visit and reported her movements to China, prosecutors said.

Sun helped Wang win her political seat in Arcadia (pictured)

Sun's co-conspirator, John Chen, was sentenced to 20 months in New York jail

He and Wang worked together on a purported news website directed at the local Chinese American community from 2020 and 2023, prosecutors said.

On his LinkedIn, Sun listed himself as the director of the US News Center, which does not appear to exist anymore.

In February 2023, Sun wrote a report for Chinese officials to gain additional funding and tasks from the government. Part of his request included wanting $80,000 to fund a pro-China demonstration at a Fourth of July parade in Washington DC.

His co-conspirator, Chen, a former Chinese official, was sentenced to 20 months in prison in the Southern District of New York.

The two had previously discussed how elevating Wang's appeal would be helpful to them.
Princess Beatrice helped advise Sarah Ferguson on how to publicly backtrack when the former Duchess of York upset Jeffrey Epstein by calling him a paedophile, her mother said in an email.

Ms Ferguson claimed her eldest daughter, then 22, agreed with her that it was 'important' to brief the press that Epstein had 'done his penance' in prison for soliciting sex from girls as young as 14.

Fergie said Beatrice was present when she called a journalist in April 2011 to say it was 'wrong' to call Epstein a sex offender because he was now 'moving on with his life', newly unearthed emails show.

He was released from Palm Beach County Penitentiary in September 2009 after serving 13 months of an 18-month sentence.

She said she planned to tell the press: 'He [Epstein] was sent to prison for sexual offending but that he had done his penance and was out of jail.'

And revealing her daughter's support she said: 'Beatrice and I had a discussion and we agreed it was important.'

The Daily Mail has also found an email from Epstein in 2015 where he told a friend not to worry about meeting Beatrice at an event in Mexico because she 'liked' him. The paedophile famously attended her lavish Victorian-themed 18th birthday masked ball at Royal Lodge with Ghislaine Maxwell and Harvey Weinstein in 2006.

Beatrice's support for her mother almost 15 years ago came as the former Duchess of York tried to save her friendship with Epstein and was beset with financial problems. Epstein would try to broker a deal to help her stave off bankruptcy.

Eight years later, Beatrice played a key role in facilitating Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's catastrophic 2019 interview with BBC Newsnight.

Sarah Ferguson claimed that her daughter Princess Beatrice (pictured together at the polo in 2006) had discussed how to publicly backtrack on calling Jeffrey Epstein a paedophile

Epstein was said to be furious that Fergie had said he was a paedophile, which she denied to him

Beatrice apparently helped 'mastermind' her father's disastrous interview with Emily Maitlis and Newsnight at Buckingham Palace. It was claimed she attended a pre-production meeting to take notes

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As well as attending a pre-production meeting with producer Sam McAlister, with a notebook and pen, Beatrice famously became Andrew's 'alibi' during the interview when he claimed he was collecting her from a party at Pizza Express on the night he supposedly had sex with Virginia Giuffre.

All this came after Fergie took Beatrice and her younger sister Eugenie to visit Epstein in Florida as teenagers, days after his release from prison in 2009 - with the girls appearing to be bystanders caught up in their parents' relationship with the late paedophile.

Fergie also wrote in an email that her eldest daughter (together in 2017) had witnessed her call to a journalist where she said Epstein had 'done his penance' in prison

However, it now seems that Beatrice, according to her mother at least, took a more active role.

Beatrice and her younger sister Eugenie are said to be 'appalled' and 'embarrassed' by their parents' long friendship with Epstein.

But the latest batch of Epstein File emails shows that Sarah Ferguson told Epstein in July 2011 she had discussed how to restore his reputation with her eldest daughter.

Epstein was furious when, weeks earlier, Fergie said it had been a gigantic error by her to let him pay her debt.

She also said she abhorred paedophilia.

But privately, her emails reveal how Fergie told Epstein she wanted to find a way to correct her statement distancing herself from her old friend.

She then telephoned a senior journalist at the London Evening Standard to make sure he understood 'the severity of NOT making a mistake and getting it wrong about Jeffrey', she said.

The email, also sent to her PR advisor James Henderson, added: 'I duly did the call', and claimed that another aide was 'also witness to that call as well as Beatrice'.

Fergie also vehemently denied saying Epstein was a paedophile.

'I did NOT. I would NOT', she wrote, adding: 'I certainly would not want to hurt Jeffrey any more, by saying such an untruth.'

She went on: 'I hope we can calm all this down, Jeffrey tells me he is getting death threats... and he has lost $50million through 2x $25million deals going away.'

Beatrice has not been seen in public since the new Epstein Files engulfed the former House of York - and Fergie has gone into hiding.

But Eugenie has popped up on a job in the Gulf. She is a director of art dealer Hauser & Wirth and was working at a high-end contemporary art fair in Doha also attended by David Beckham this week.

She and Beatrice are said to be 'aghast' at their mother's embarrassing tranche of emails to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Sources close to the sisters also said they are 'appalled' and 'embarrassed' about the photos of their father crouching over a mystery woman lying on the floor in Epstein's New York mansion.

Sarah Ferguson took Beatrice and Eugenie as teenagers to meet Epstein days after he was released from jail for child prostitution offences in 2009.

Emails from Fergie to Epstein even talked about her youngest daughter's sex life, declaring in one that Eugenie had been away on a 'sh*gging weekend' when she was 19.

The Epstein Files show that Fergie and her daughters invited Jeffrey Epstein to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's intimate 50th birthday party at a royal palace just after his release from jail for child sex offences in 2009.

Eugenie is pictured with friend Caroline Daur, 30, working at an art fair in Qatar this week - the first time she has been seen in public since the latest Epstein Files

A picture of Andrew leering over an unidentified woman was released in the latest tranche of the Epstein documents that brought more shame on his family

Andrew also hosted Epstein, as well as Ghislaine Maxwell and Harvey Weinstein, at Royal Lodge for Beatrice's 18th birthday in 2006, after a warrant was out for the paedophile financier's arrest.

The former Duchess of York and her two daughters asked the convicted sex offender to bring his 'presents, presence and your humour' to the private event for family and friends in London.

Fergie, Beatrice and Eugenie had invited him to celebrate '50 years of Papa/Andrew' and informed him that the dress code for the party was 'suits and cocktail dresses'.

Ms Ferguson promised that the exclusive reception would feature some of her own 'mysterious mischief'.

The party was held on February 26, 2010 at St James's Palace and the former Duchess of York and her daughter had spent months organising it.

Also on the guestlist was Naomi Campbell, Sir David Frost and Lady Frost, Kazakhstani socialite Goga Ashkenazi, It girl Caroline Stanbury, TV presenter Tania Bryer, party girl Tamara Beckwith and Catrina Skepper, the former face - and body - of Cadbury's Flake adverts.

Paddy McNally, who dated Sarah Ferguson before she married the Prince, Heather Kerzner, then wife of wealthy hotel magnate Sol, billionaire banker Sir Evelyn Rothschild and Richard Branson's children Sam and Holly - who were guests of the Princesses - also attended.

Epstein replied 'not able' to the invitation sent in Fergie's name via Andrew's loyal aide, Amanda Thirsk.

The former Duke and Duchess of York are divorced but have remained very close to their daughters. In 2010 mother and daughters organised his 50th at a royal palace and asked Epstein to attend

The Epstein Files reveal that Sarah Ferguson and her daughters sent this invite to Epstein for Andrew's exclusive 50th bash. Fergie promised her 'mysterious mischief'

He was released from prison in September 2009, five months before the party, and Beatrice, Eugenie and their mother were so close to him they visited him in Florida five days after his release.

Epstein's invite to the royal palace came as it was revealed Fergie owed $126,721 to her PA of 18 years so Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor went cap in hand to Jeffrey Epstein to settle the debt.

Epstein was brokering a deal with one of her most loyal aides at the time of the party.

He would decline the St James's Palace party invite, emails show, but he did go to Andrew's 40th - which was thrown at Windsor Castle ten years earlier - along with Ghislaine Maxwell.
Keir Starmer effectively declared class war today as he made a desperate bid to quell a burgeoning Labour mutiny.

The PM said he was 'proud' to have the 'most working-class Cabinet' in history as he clings on to power in the wake of a series of rows and resignations of close allies.

The comments - on a visit to a community centre in Hertfordshire - came after ministers hinted Sir Keir had bowed to demands for a lurch to the Left as the price of propping him up in No10.

The Cabinet played happily families this morning despite the extraordinary chaos of yesterday - when senior ministers stayed silent as the premier was pushed to the brink of disaster by the furore around Lord Mandelson's friendship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Rival Andy Burnham has also ratcheted up the pressure on the PM by presenting his own manifesto for power, including a host of socialist policies like a major council housebuilding blitz.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said earlier that Sir Keir had recognised the need for a new approach after weeks and months of turmoil and would be focusing on the 'class divide'.

As he struggles to stabilise his leadership, Sir Keir said he would definitely lead the party into the next election and would fight for the government 'as long as I have breath in my body'.

'I will never walk away from the mandate I was given to change this country,' he said.

'I will never walk away from the people that I'm charged with fighting for, and I will never walk away from the country that I love, and that is the country who I truly believe we are, a compassionate, reasonable, live and let live country, a diverse country where, given half the chance, will help each other out.'

In other twists and turns today:

Labour's Welsh First Minister Baroness Morgan gave lukewarm backing to the PM, saying she supports him 'in the job he was elected to do';

Scotland Yard has warned other ministers not to follow Mr Streeting in releasing their WhatsApps to Mandelson, with Sir Keir giving a veiled rebuke to his rival;

Kemi Badenoch claimed 'some' Labour MPs had 'given us indications' that they would back a vote of no confidence in the PM.

Keir Starmer said he was 'proud' to have the 'most working-class Cabinet' in history - saying many people were deprived a 'fair chance' in life

Andy Burnham, blocked from making a return to Westminster by Sir Keir, said he supported the PM but outlined a raft of major changes he believes are needed

The Cabinet played happily families this morning despite the extraordinary chaos of yesterday - when senior ministers stayed silent as the premier was pushed to the brink of disaster

Wounded Keir Starmer will assemble his Cabinet today after they 'looked over the precipice' and decided against ousting him - for now

Ed Miliband hinted this morning that the premier has agreed to a lurch to the Left to save his skin, saying he would be focusing on the 'class divide'.

MPs have been heaping pressure on the PM to ramp up tax yet again to splurge more on public services and benefits.

Sir Keir gathered ministers for a Cabinet meeting today thanking them for their support despite more than 24 hours of deathly silence in the wake of his chief aide's resignation over the Mandelson scandal.

They only finally rallied round after Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar demanded he quit - with questions swirling about what concessions and deals Sir Keir might have made for his survival.

The PM insisted they were 'strong and united'. But among those present was Wes Streeting, who has been accused by No10 insiders of plotting a coup, something he denies.

Health Secretary Mr Streeting also released a tranche of messages with Mandelson yesterday that showed he condemned his government's 'no growth' strategy - but Sir Keir appears too weak to sack him.

In his speech this afternoon, Sir Keir said: 'I know what I'm fighting for and who I'm fighting for.

'I've got the most working-class Cabinet in the history of this country sitting round my Cabinet table and I'm really proud of that.

'Really proud of what they bring to the table, their personal journeys to get there, their experiences.

'But it is utter nonsense to suggest that everybody gets a fair chance in life, utter nonsense.

'I feel very strongly about this. I'm in that Cabinet as Prime Minister. Having come from a working-class background to be Prime Minister of this country.

'But that's the exception, that is not the rule. Even within my own family, my brother, who died last year, he had difficulties learning when he was growing up.

'He spent his adult life wandering from job to job in virtual poverty.

''This political system didn't work for him and there are millions of people in the same boat. Children in poverty, young people who don't get the opportunities they deserve.

'Millions of people held back because of a system that doesn't work for them who are not given the dignity, the respect, the chance that they deserve and I'm fighting for them.

'I am their Prime Minister and this is their Government. And I will never give up on that fight.'

At an event in London this lunchtime the ambitious Greater Manchester mayor gave Sir Keir his backing to stay in No10.

Mr Burnham was personally blocked from making a return to Westminster by the Prime Minister last month to stifle a leadership challenge.

He urged greater party unity, but in a very thinly veiled attack Mr Burnham accused politicians in London of getting 'too close to wealth' and being 'seduced' by free market economic solutions to social problems.

Among changes he suggested were a commitment to build 500,000 council and social homes by the end of the decade, and give councils the power to compulsorily purchase substandard homes from private landlords.

He also used his speech at a think tank conference to lament how privatisation of utilities had taken power away from the poor.

He is the latest top Labour figure to suggest the party is to alter alter tack as Sir Keir faces clarion calls to step down amid a major row over former US ambassador Peter Mandelson and his friendship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Addressing the Resolution Foundation's Unsung Britain conference, Mr Burnham said: 'Following recent events, I think the time has come to call an end to this era in British politics when politicians got too close to wealth, too seduced by the notion that deregulated markets would provide the solution when in fact they have been the problem for those on the lowest incomes.'

Outlining his effort to nationalise the bus service in Manchester he added: 'I would say that in recent decades Westminster politicians have not been prepared to do these hard things.

'But if we are serious about solving the simultaneous housing and cost of living crises then they will need to be so.

'Our aim as a country should be very explicit: lower rents, lower water bills, lower energy bills, lower rail fares, lower bus fares.'

Many in Labour still believe the PM is doomed, with the government having been forced to commit to releasing far more damaging internal messages with Mandelson.

He is facing losing his Cabinet Secretary Chris Wormald in the coming days, after the departure of right-hand man Morgan McSweeney and communications chief Tim Allan.

The party is fighting to hang on in the by-election for Gorton & Denton - a traditionally safe seat - on February 26.

And local elections in May are widely expected to be a bloodbath, with the looming catastrophe in Scotland thought to have sparked Mr Sarwar's dramatic assassination bid.

Nevertheless Sir Keir told the Cabinet: 'The whole of the Labour Party wants Anas Sarwar to become First Minister and will fight for a Labour government in Scotland.'

Angela Rayner is regarded as on manoeuvres for the leadership, but backed the PM to continue yesterday. She has still not resolved issues with HMRC over the unpaid stamp duty bill that forced her resignation as Deputy PM last September.

Unlike yesterday, Downing Street managed to persuade a Cabinet minister to make the government's case in broadcast studios this morning.

Among those at Cabinet today was Wes Streeting (pictured with Science Secretary Liz Kendall), who has been accused by No10 insiders of being behind the coup plot

Deputy PM David Lammy seemed in high spirits this morning despite the miserable state of the government

Nick Thomas-Symonds (left) and Darren Jones (right) were among the ministers who initially stayed quiet amid the mounting threat to the PM. Aides insisted they were busy working on policy issues

Ministers only finally rallied round after Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar (pictured) demanded Sir Keir's resignation

In a damning assessment of Sir Keir's first 18 months in power, Mr Miliband said this crisis 'has got to be a moment of change' and the government needs a 'much greater clarity of purpose'.

But the Net Zero Secretary urged MPs to 'moveon.org', telling BBC Breakfast: 'The Labour Party as a whole looked over the precipice and thought the right thing to do is to support our leader'.

He said: 'In a sense, yesterday was a moment of peril for the Prime Minister. I make no bones about that.

'But, as a collective body, the Cabinet, the Labour Party looked at the alternatives of going down this road of a chaotic leadership election, trying to depose a prime minister, and they said 'no, that's not for us'.'

In a signal that Sir Keir has bowed to MPs demanding a more left-wing policy platform, Mr Miliband told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'I tell you what angers Keir the most - it's class. It's the class divides...

'He exists to change that... I absolutely dispute the idea he's not somebody driven by burning passion about the injustices our country faces and how we need to change them.

'We need more of that. He knows we need more of that. I think we're going to see more of that.'

Mr Miliband said the idea that meant 'class war' was 'balderdash'.

'So many people from working class backgrounds are looked down upon in our country, are held back in our country,' he said.

'Whether it's from not getting an apprenticeship, not being able to rise up... Keir is about changing that. Not just social mobility for a few, but recognition for everybody, a decent life for everybody.'

Mr Miliband said voters want 'boldness in our answers' that 'meet the scale of what we are facing'.

'One of the big frustrations... Rachel has raised taxes on the wealthy and business - some people don't like that - in order that we can invest in the future, in public services - including energy in health, in education,' he said.

Mr Miliband said he was 'not going to run' for the Labour leadership in any potential contest.

It was put to him that his message sounded a bit like a leadership pitch, to which he replied: 'Absolute baloney.'

Asked whether he would rule out running, the Energy Secretary told Sky News: 'I'm not running for the leadership, no.'

Asked whether he would rule out running rather than saying he was not currently running, he said: 'Yes, yes, I'm not going to run.'

A weary Sir Keir was seen heading back to his No10 bunker in a government car last night after the chaotic day.

Mr Sarwar, once an ally of Sir Keir, said there had been 'too many mistakes' in Downing Street.

'I have to be honest about failure wherever I see it,' he said. 'The distraction has to end, the leadership has to change.'

Mr Sarwar told the PM of his move in advance, triggering panic in No10 and sparking a major rescue operation.

One Labour source said ministers were told to voice their support for the PM by the end of the day or face the sack.

Downing Street insiders accused Mr Streeting of being in league with Mr Sarwar, in a plot likened to the 2009 attempt to oust Gordon Brown.

That saw James Purnell quit Cabinet but the heir apparent David Miliband not follow suit, largely because Mandelson marshalled ministers behind Mr Brown.

Mr Streeting's spokesman told the Times: 'Wes did not ask Anas to do this, he did not co-ordinate with Anas on this. Anas is the leader of the Scottish Labour Party, he is his own man, and Wes has the highest respect for him.

'At the same time as Wes was in an interview saying that Keir needed a chance to set out his case and his plan, No 10 were briefing that Wes had told Anas Sarwar to make his statement. This is the problem.'

Sir Keir was already reeling from the departure of Mr McSweeney on Sunday, who was followed out of the door by the No10 communications director yesterday morning.

John Healey (left) was mooted as a potential caretaker replacement for Sir Keir. Peter Kyle, right, was also at Cabinet

In a damning assessment of Sir Keir's first 18 months in power, Ed Miliband said this crisis 'has got to be a moment of change' and the government needs a 'much greater clarity of purpose'

Cabinet Secretary Sir Chris is on the brink of joining the Downing Street exodus - just a year after Sir Keir appointed him.

Private discussions were held about the possibility of replacing Sir Keir with an interim leader such as Defence Secretary John Healey.

But, with leadership rivals not ready to make their move and financial markets wobbling over the prospect of a chaotic contest, they finally bowed to No 10's demands to issue public statements of support.

In a belated flurry of posts on social media, which began as Mr Sarwar got to his feet, every member of the Cabinet gave the Prime Minister their broad support.

And in a defiant address to Labour MPs later, Sir Keir vowed to battle on, saying: 'Every fight I've ever been in, I have won.'
A swindler student who tried to defraud hundreds of international applicants to UK universities in a scam worth up to 500,000 has been jailed.

Sibtain Hussain, 32, targeted the soon-to-be students demanding payments for proof of 'financial capability', 'student services', and 'accommodation deposits'.

The fraudster, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, created multiple phone numbers, email addresses, aliases and bank accounts to facilitate the scheme in a bid to avoid detection.

In 2018, unauthorised access was gained to Lancaster University's internal computer system and applicant data was stolen.

Hussain, who began studying at the same university in 2017, gained access to the stolen data and used it in the fraud scheme.

He persistently targeted more than 200 individuals by phone and email demanding sums up to 3,200.

More than 48,000 was sent by 23 students as a result of Hussain's efforts, but a large majority of payments were blocked by banks.

Sibtain Hussain, 32, tried to defraud hundreds of international applicants to UK universities in a scam worth up to 500,000

The fraud had the potential to generate more than 493,000 in illegal profits

Hussain created multiple phone numbers, email addresses, aliases and bank accounts to facilitate the scheme in a bid to avoid detection

When Hussain was arrested, two mobile phones and a wallet were seized which contained evidence linking him to the crimes such as this bank card

The fraud had the potential to generate more than 493,000 in illegal profits.

After receiving reports that applicants had been targeted, Lancaster University reported the data breach to the National Crime Agency (NCA) in July 2019.

An investigation was subsequently launched by the NCA with ongoing assistance from the university.

Officers identified and spoke to several of the targeted applicants including those who had made payments.

Multiple links between Hussain and various accounts associated with fraud were then identified.

When Hussain was arrested in July 2019 in Bradford, two mobile phones and a wallet were seized which contained evidence linking him to the crimes.

He initially denied the charges but later pleaded guilty at Leeds Crown Court in October 2025.

Hussain was sentenced yesterday to four and a half years for fraud and 12 months for money laundering.
President Donald Trump's Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was grilled by a Democratic lawmaker on Capitol Hill Tuesday over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, pointed fingers at Lutnick during a hearing of the US Senate Commerce Committee for continuing to do business with the pedophile long after he had previously said he cut ties - and even after Epstein was found guilty of sex crimes.

A file in the trove of Department of Justice documents shows Lutnick arranging a lunch for his wife, four children and another couple and their children with Epstein on his island in December 2012.

Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting a prostitute and procuring a child for prostitution in 2008.

Lutnick said last year in an interview with the New York Post that he cut ties with the financier after they first met in 2005 because he was too creeped out by the initial interaction and decided that he 'will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again.'

'You misled the country and the Congress based on your earlier statements suggesting that you cut off all contact when in fact you had not,' Van Hollen said to Lutnick, before asking him if he noticed anything inappropriate during the visit.

The secretary responded that he did not see anything other than staff working for Epstein on the island.

Van Hollen then doubled down on the timing of the trip, asking 'You realize that this visit took place after he had been convicted, right?'

Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick is grilled on Capitol Hill today. He faced questions over why he kept doing business with Jeffrey Epstein long after he had previously said he cut ties

Senator Chris Van Hollen pointed fingers at Lutnick during a commerce committee hearing

'I mean, you made a very big point of saying that you sensed that this was a bad person in 2005 and then of course in 2008 he was convicted of soliciting prostitution of a minor and, and yet you went and had this trip and other interactions,' Van Hollen said, highlighting the apparent hypocrisy.

Earlier in the hearing, Lutnick detailed that he first interacted with Epstein after buying the house next door to his in New York City, but was so disgusted that he did not maintain a relationship.

He visited his new neighbor with his wife, an interaction during which he was so creeped out by a massage table he saw in Epstein's house that he decided he wasn't worth maintaining a relationship with and cut off contact 'socially, for business or even philanthropy' in 2005.

Speaking with host of the New York Post's Pod Force One podcast Miranda Divine last year, Lutnick stated that 'if that guy was there, I wasn't going because he's gross.'

However, Lutnick described the meeting with Epstein in the following manner while testifying under oath before the committee on Tuesday.

'I did have lunch with him, as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation,' Lutnick said.

'My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies,' he said. 'I had another couple with - they were there as well, with their children.'

'And we had lunch on the island, that is true, for an hour,' he added.

'And we left with all of my children, with my nannies and my wife, all together. We were on family vacation,' he concluded.

Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, in an unidentified location

Epstein with two women in an image released by the US Department of Justice

Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie is one member of Congress who has called for Lutnick to resign over his Epstein ties

Little St James, a small private Caribbean island which was formerly owned by Epstein

Since the Department of Justice released over three million Epstein Files last month, Lutnick has faced calls to resign from at least a dozen members of Congress on Capitol Hill.

One of those members, Republican Congressman Thomas Massie, who spearheaded the release of the Epstein Files last year, told CNN's Manu Raju on Sunday that Lutnick should resign over his ties to Epstein.

'Look, Howard Lutnick clearly went to the island if we believe what's in these files. He was in business with Jeffrey Epstein. And this was many years after Jeffrey Epstein was convicted. You know, lightly sentenced, but was convicted for sexual crimes,' Massie told Raju.

'So, he's got a lot to answer for. But really, he should make life easier on the president, frankly, and just resign,' Massie added.
The Met Commissioner has blamed the shoplifting epidemic on storekeepers - insisting they 'don't report anything' and 'need to do better'.

Sir Mark Rowley was questioned by the Home Affairs Committee today on thieves who regularly 'clear whole shelves' and walk out of shops without paying.

It follows a 20 per cent rise in shoplifting last year - with police recording 530,643 offences in England and Wales.

However, Sir Mark has now placed the blame on shopkeepers, despite MPs questioning him over a lack over the lack of prosecutions.

The police chief said: 'We're determined to bear down on this. I recognise a very variable response from shops to shoplifting in their premises.

'We encourage them all to report it and the good stores have got really good security regimes and report it and help us out in ways that I'll come to in a moment. Some stores don't.'

He then added: 'Some of them don't report anything, if we go there they don't give us the CCTV of the crime, they won't give us any statements, they don't give their staff time to give statements and they don't pay their staff to go to court to give evidence.'

MP Joani Reid was seen frowning at the response after having informed Sir Mark that staff had told her they 'don't bother' to report thefts anymore.

Sir Mark Rowley (pictured) was questioned by the Home Affairs Committee today on thieves who regularly 'clear whole shelves' and walk out of shops without paying

MP Joani Reid (pictured) was seen frowning at the response after having informed Sir Mark that staff had told her they 'don't bother' to report thefts anymore

She added: 'They've stopped reporting it because there's no point'.

Ms Reid said she had witnessed a man raiding a store just this morning.

She said: 'We're not talking about one or two goods but he cleared the whole shelves, put them into a trolley and walked out the shop.'

Another MP, Margaret Mullane, later said: 'I represent an outer London borough and shoplifting is prolific.

'The shops are also cleared regularly around my seat.'

But Sir Mark doubled down on claims.

He said: 'I have challenged some sectors of the retail section to do better.'

The Commissioner admitted some national chains - like 'Boots' - were 'fantastic' and 'very serious about shoplifting normally'.

Last week it emerged thieves were pinching pinching 'posh eggs' by putting them in boxes of economy-range ones before heading to the checkout

He claimed: 'We're close to doubling the number of shoplifters we are prosecuting, we are using criminal behaviour orders to control the most dangerous offenders.'

Sir Mark added the Met is working with a group of 'major retailers' alongside a technology company to 'identify prolific shoplifters'.

Last week it emerged thieves were pinching pinching 'posh eggs' by putting them in boxes of economy-range ones before heading to the checkout.

One customer, Anita Wong, 53, discovered the ruse after purchasing a 4.50 ten-pack of eggs from her local Waitrose.

Upon opening the packaging, the Ealing resident found the premium eggs had been swapped for a cheaper, standard variety.

In a video posted on Instagram, she later said: 'This is what's happening in a lot of supermarkets at the moment.

'The more expensive eggs, people are actually decanting those into the less expensive egg boxes and buying them so the people who are buying the more expensive eggs are unwillingly buying the less expensive eggs.'

According to the most recent Office for National Statistics figures available, 530,643 shoplifting offences were reported in England and Wales for the year ending March 2025, a 20 per cent increase on the previous year and the highest figure since records began in 2003.

Cages have been introduced to protect staff and their goods - which include vape bars, tobacco and alcohol

According to the British Retail Consortium, losses from customer theft reached a record 2.2billion in 2023/24, with retailers investing 1.8billion on security measures such as CCTV last year.

Few shoplifters are prosecuted, with the Metropolitan Police reporting only 5.9 per cent of shoplifting incidents recorded by them led to a charge in the year ending March 2025.

The Daily Mail also revealed last summer that shoplifting is now so bad Sainsbury's staff are serving customers from inside cages with metal grating.

The prison-like security measure - dubbed 'an indictment of British social decay' - was put in place at Battersea Riverlight Local.

Cages were introduced to protect staff and their goods - which include vape bars, tobacco and alcohol.

Shoppers took to social media at the time to express their concern at the change.

Tom Sharpe said: 'I can't understand why this is being accepted. It certainly shouldn't be. Is there anyone arguing for law and order?'

Another person claimed the glass encasement was 'not as bad as the Tesco ones'.
Two boys, aged 12 and 13, have been rushed to hospital after being stabbed at a school in north London.

An urgent manhunt has been launched for the suspect - who police believe is a teenage boy.

The attack unfolded at Kingsbury High School on Bacon Lane in Brent at around 12.40pm today.

It is understood that the two victims are in life-threatening condition. One of them has been taken to a major trauma centre as a priority, the London Ambulance Service said.

The Daily Mail understands the two stabbings were on the school premises, but it is not known whether they were in a classroom.

Photographs from the scene show a number of emergency vehicles swarmed around the entrance to the school.

In a post on their website, Kingsbury High School said there had been a 'serious incident' at the site.

Staff have spoken directly to the parents and carers of the students involved, adding that the situation is now 'under control'.

Pictured: Emergency services at the scene of a stabbing at Kingsbury High School

An urgent manhunt has been launched for the suspect - who police believe is a teenage boy

Two boys, aged 12 and 13, have been rushed to hospital after being stabbed

The school was on lockdown earlier on Tuesday with no one able to enter or leave the grounds.

Parents were seen crowding around the gates to the school following the stabbing.

One mother of a Year 8 student told the Brent and Kilburn Times: 'I've been panicking, a lot of kids don't have their phones on them so I couldn't get through.

'They had to leave their bags and stuff.

'At least I have her now. It's awful - so awful - what happened, that someone would even bring a knife to a school.

'My daughter said that a fire alarm went off when it happened.'

Kingsbury High School is an academy school serving children aged 11 to 18, with both upper and lower sites.

According to the latest Department for Education information, it has 1,997 pupils.

It traces its origins to Kingsbury County School, which opened in 1925 in a building which had been the office of the former Aircraft Manufacturing Company. It moved premises in 1932.

Alumni include Wham's George Michael, jazz musician Courtney Pine, Floyd Steadman, the first black captain of the Saracens rugby team, and writer Ekow Eshun.

The London Ambulance Service said they were called at 12.41pm to reports of a stabbing on Bacon Lane.

The attack unfolded at Kingsbury High School on Bacon Lane in Brent at around 12.40pm today

Staff have spoken directly to the parents and carers of the students involved, adding that the situation is now 'under control'

They added: 'We sent resources to the scene including ambulance crews, incident response officers, an advanced paramedic, a paramedic from our tactical response unit and a clinical team manager.

'We also dispatched a trauma team in a car from London's Air Ambulance.

'We treated two patients in total. We took one patient to hospital and the other as a priority to a major trauma centre.'

Detective Chief Superintendent Luke Williams, who leads policing in north west London, said: 'We recognise that this incident will cause considerable concern within the community.

'We want to reassure local students, parents and local residents that we have deployed significant resources to the area and are doing everything we can to locate the suspect.

'Our thoughts are with the injured boys and I want to thank the paramedics and doctors who are providing them both with care.

'We'll provide further updates when we can.'

A spokesperson for the Met Police said the force believes the suspect is a teenage boy.

'Urgent enquiries are ongoing to locate him,' they added.

A spokesperson for Kingsbury High School said: 'We want to make you aware that there has been a serious incident at Kingsbury High School today.

'We are working closely with the relevant authorities and following all necessary procedures.

'The situation is now under control, and we have already spoken directly with the parents and carers of the students involved.

'We understand that this will be concerning. At present, it is not possible to enter or leave the school site while the response continues.

'We will provide further updates as soon as we are able to share confirmed information.'
A United Airlines passenger was shocked to find himself 8,000 miles away from where he needed to be after accidentally boarding the wrong flight.

The traveler was heading from Los Angeles to Managua, Nicaragua, with a layover in Houston, but mistakenly ended up in Tokyo instead.

As his three-hour flight turned into six, the passenger realized something was wrong and asked the flight attendant what the problem was.

But it was too late, and the man, who has not been identified, landed at Haneda Airport in the Japanese capital instead.

According to The Traveler, the traveler had to remain on board the aircraft as ground staff and immigration authorities handled the situation.

The outlet reported that his original ticket to Managua cost him $655.

The passenger stayed at a hotel in Tokyo for two nights as the airline found a way to get him to his original destination.

A spokesperson for the airline told the Daily Mail that they had contacted the Los Angeles United Airlines team to find out what happened and reimburse the passenger.

A United Airlines passenger was shocked to find himself 8,000 miles away from where he needed to be after accidentally boarding the wrong flight

The traveler was heading from Los Angeles International Airport (pictured) to Managua, Nicaragua, with a layover in Houston, but mistakenly ended up in Tokyo instead

'We followed up with the airport to understand how this happened, reached out directly to the customer to apologize for his experience and offered travel credits and reimbursement,' the spokesperson said.

Originally, United offered the passenger $300 in travel credit to apologize for the incident but later offered him $1,000, Fox News reported.

The revised amount was reportedly due to criticism following the passenger's incurred costs as he stayed in Tokyo, including purchasing clothes and his hotel fees, The Traveler reported.

The spokesperson reiterated advice given to flyers, stressing the necessity of being aware of their surroundings and checking their flight details.

'We always advise customers to monitor the signs at the gate and boarding announcements to make sure the aircraft they board is going to their intended destination,' the spokesperson added.

He eventually landed in at Haneda Airport in Tokyo (pictured) and stayed for two days, incurring hotel fees and was forced to buy clothes and essentials during his stay

The Daily Mail reached out to United Airlines for comment.

A similar incident unfolded onboard a United Airlines flight in 2017, when a woman took a flight in the wrong direction for 3,000 miles.

Lucie Bahetoukilae, who speaks no English, thought she was getting on a flight to Paris from Newark on May 5, 2017.

But the French speaker was horrified when she ended up in San Francisco.

The confusion came after United changed the gate number for her flight, but no announcements were made in French, and she did not receive any texts or emails.

The airline has since settled a confidential lawsuit with Bahetoukilae.
A traveler has ignited debate online after voicing his affinity for the middle seats of airplanes.

The argument resurfaced after content creator Joshua Whitt said last year on TikTok that 'the middle seat on an airplane is the best seat,' likening it to 'a midair cuddle that you don't deserve, but you are privileged to have.'

And it turns out Whitt wasn't alone. A growing number of travelers have claimed the middle seat deserves a reputation makeover.

For James Cashen, 26, a Brooklyn-based advertising worker who flies regularly to visit his girlfriend in Utah, the middle seat isn't a burden at all.

The frugal flyer told the New York Times he flies two or three times a month and, by his own admission, and often ends up in the middle to save some extra cash.

However, Cashen said it's up to the middle passenger to set the tone for the entire row, a task he takes on with pride: whether everyone zones out in silence or winds up having a warm, lively conversation.

'Embrace the leadership role,' he advised fellow middle-seaters. 'You're the glue' - as long as youre also reading the room and picking up on cues, like whether your neighbor has headphones in.

Travel writer and frequent flyer Gary Leff said the middle seat has more pros than perceived cons, and can even be used for strategy.

A growing number of travelers have claimed the middle seat deserves a reputation makeover

Joshua Whitt said last year on TikTok that 'the middle seat on an airplane is the best seat,' likening it to 'a midair cuddle that you don't deserve, but you are privileged to have'

The travel blogger said it wasnt unusual for passengers to deliberately choose a middle seat in an otherwise empty row, often leaving crew and fellow travelers puzzled about their motives.

Leff explained that some fliers were simply trying to boost their chances of having an empty seat beside them: couples typically avoided those rows since they couldnt sit together, increasing the odds of solitude.

He added that passengers in the middle have the luxury of still being able to peek out the window - often with a better angle than someone sitting on the aisle.

He also noted that the person in the middle only has to climb over one person to reach the bathroom, rather than two, reducing the risk that you'll have to wake a sleeping seatmate.

More importantly, Leff argued the middle seat had implied ethical perks.

Since window passengers can lean into the fuselage and aisle passengers can angle outward, the middle passenger has no such escape and is therefore entitled to both armrests.

In practice, that can mean more usable space than either neighbor enjoys.

'It can actually be more rewarding,' he said.

Join the debate Is the middle seat a hidden gem or just an uncomfortable necessity on flights?

Middle seat apologists argue that passengers in the middle have the luxury of still being able to peek out the window - often with a better angle than someone sitting on the aisle

Because the window and aisle seats allow passengers to lean outward, the middle passenger gets both armrests by default

Some airlines have recognized the middle seat's underdog status, and have rewarded who sacrificed their comfort.

Virgin Australia once ran a promotion offering prizes to passengers booked in the middle, while Spirit Airlines has given out bonus miles as a way reward passengers for choosing the less desirable seat.

Leff argued that middle seat loyalists also have better odds of making friends.

There's also a social bonus, he argued: sitting between two people doubles the chances of striking up a meaningful conversation, making a friend or, if you're lucky, meeting someone important who will stay in your life long after the aircraft lands.

Psychologist Dr Gillian Sandstrom, author of Once Upon a Stranger, said talking to complete strangers allows us to learn, make connections, stimulate our creativity and get more comfortable with uncertainty and rejection.

Sandstrom told the Guardian that although she personally does not prefer the middle-seat, she said she embraces the opportunity when it arises.

For those who end up in the middle and want to chat but dont know how to start, Sandstrom said the best moment is during takeoff or near landing.

She suggested simple openers such as asking what someone bought in duty-free or requesting tips about your destination.
The Epstein Files contain numerous instances in which the identities of people who sent concerning emails to the late paedophile have been redacted.

Included in the emails are repeated disturbing references to girls and young women, but the names of the senders are blacked out.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA), passed by Congress in November, compelled the Justice Department to release all of the records in its possession.

It did require the redaction of identifying information about Epstein's victims, who numbered more than 1,000 according to the FBI.

But the law said no records could be 'withheld, delayed, or redacted on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.'

Members of Congress were given access to unredacted versions of the files on Monday under strict conditions, and what they saw is likely to spur further outrage.

An image of Jeffrey Epstein released in the Department of Justice files

The identity of someone who sent a disturbing email to Epstein is redacted

'I saw the names of lots of people who were redacted for mysterious or baffling or inscrutable reasons,' Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin said. That included 'people who were enablers and cooperators'.

Republican congressman Thomas Massie said he discovered the names of six men whose identities were redacted, and who 'are likely incriminated by their inclusion in these files'.

Massie declined to provide their identities but said one 'is pretty high up in a foreign government'.

One of the earliest such redactions, chronologically, came on April 24, 2009, when Epstein sent an email to an associate saying: 'where are you? are you ok I loved the torture video.'

The unnamed person, replying from their BlackBerry, wrote: 'I am in china I will be in the US 2nd week of may.'

Epstein responded: 'Hope to see you.'

Massie said the email exchange appeared to be with 'a Sultan' and that the Justice Department should make his identity public.

An email exchange about a 'torture video' in which the name of Epstein's associate is redacted

Another controversial redaction features in a 2014 email in which the sender, whose identity is protected, told Epstein: 'Thank you for a fun night Your littlest girl was a little naughty.'

That email was sent on March 11, 2014, from an iPhone to Epstein's account jeevacation@gmail.com.

Everything in the email is readable except for the name of the sender, which is covered with two black bars.

The email was sent six years after Epstein was jailed for procuring a minor for prostitution.

'America deserves to know who the f*** this person is,' wrote one X user of the email sender, a sentiment supported by many others on social media.

In another 2017 email, a redacted sender emailed Epstein to say: 'I met (REDACTED) today. She is like Lolita from Nabokov , femme miniature :) So now I should send you her type of candidates only ?'

Join the debate Will the redacted Epstein files ever be publicly revealed?

An unnamed correspondent tells Epstein a girl is 'like Lolita'

Another person emailing Epstein in 2018 is redacted

A person telling Epstein about a 'sweet girl' has their name redacted in the files

Files released by the DOJ included numerous disturbing images of Epstein with young women

On March 19, 2018, another redacted associate sent Epstein an email saying: 'I found at least 3 very good young poor but we was so tired. I will cover up this week. Meet this one, not the beauty queen but we both likes her a lot.'

The files also contained a draft indictment from 20 years ago, which was drawn up before Epstein obtained a lenient 2008 plea deal for sex crimes in which he served 13 months.

The 56-page draft indictment listed three people as co-conspirators employed by Epstein, but their names are redacted.

There was also a chart showing Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, but there were four other people who were redacted - three employees and a 'girlfriend'.

Of the 'girlfriend' the chart says: 'Unknown if she actually recruited or abused any of the victims. Was rumored to be Epstein's "sex slave" and victims often described someone fitting her description as being involved in the sexual abuse during these massages.'

It says of one of the 'employees': 'Unknown if she was directly responsible for recruiting girls but at least 10 girls state she is the direct point of contact for scheduling his massage appointments.'

Republican congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) has been highly critical of redactions in the Epstein files

A draft indictment drawn up before Epstein's plea deal in 2008 contains three redacted names

In a March 31, 2017 email, a redacted associate emailed Epstein suggesting a woman for a job.

The unnamed person wrote that 'she wants the job badly. But not as pretty as other applicants,' adding that she was 'willing to do anything you ask her'.

Another candidate was described in the email as 'not very young but beautiful'.

In a separate exchange on November 21, 2015, Epstein wrote to a redacted associate: 'any friends for jeffrey while you are recovering?'

The unnamed emailer responded: 'I have one closest friend, but I don't think she's your type. Hmm.. Maybe this, just came to mh mind: Sweet girl. 20y. American.'

They included a picture, and Epstein responded: 'looks like you'.

The associate also sent a picture of an 'australian, super cool, 23y, lot of fun ;))' and told Epstein: 'Im always think about you when Im meeting new girls.'

In a 2013 email, a redacted sender from a modeling agency in Paris told Epstein: 'New Brazilian just arrived, sexy and cute, 19yo.'

The same year, a person whose name was redacted sent Epstein a photograph of a woman in a SpaceX shirt.

The following year, another redacted sender emailed Epstein from their iPhone to say: 'I cant take it anymore!!!!!!! I just saw the most beautiful little girl on Madison with long soft blonde hair.'

Another email from 2018 shows a redacted associate emailing Epstein to say: 'My favorite from Lithuania, (REDACTED), 19. Will meet when I am there.'

Epstein responded: 'full name instagram?'

A friend of Epstein emails him about being called a 'sexual pervert' but their name is redacted

An unnamed person emails Epstein about a 'beautiful little girl' they have seen in the street

On February 2, 2015, another redacted associate wrote to Epstein that they were getting 'hate letters' after reports in the press, and that 'being called a sexual pervert is no fun.'

They wrote to Epstein: 'the key are the 14 to 15 year old girlsi am a sexual pervert because i say they are now of a reproductive age?

'i do hope there is no legal jeopardy for you in this new flurry of activity and my heart goes out to you brother being called a sexual pervert is no fun less so if you have served time for the crime as i have notthey are calling me one merely for not urging your death by beheading.'

The person added: 'will be back in touch. hope you are fine and more than well protected.'

Democratic congressman Ro Khanna said there was 'no explanation why those people were redacted'.

He added: 'Our law was very clear. Unless something was classified, it required it to be unredacted.'
JD Vance has deleted a post honoring the victims of one of the largest systematic slaughters of Christians in history.

The Vice President's X account was purged of all mention of the Armenian Genocide just hours before he arrived in Azerbaijan on Tuesday.

The Islamic dictatorship actively denies the genocide took place, siding with its ally Turkey which condemns international efforts to recognize the mass slaughter.

More than 1.5 million Christian Armenians were wiped out by the Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1923.

A spokesman for Vance said the tweet was posted in error by a staffer.

'This is an account managed by staff that primarily exists to share photos and videos of the Vice President's activities,' the official told reporters.

Vance concluded a diplomatic visit to the Republic of Armenia earlier on Tuesday with a stop at the Armenian Genocide Museum alongside Second Lady Usha Vance.

Vance's official vice presidential account on X had posted a video noting that the Vice President and Second Lady 'attended a wreath-laying ceremony at the Armenian Genocide memorial to honor the victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide.'

Vance deleted a post honoring victims of the largest Christian slaughter in history

Over 1.5 million Christian Armenians were systematically killed by the Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1923

Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan on Tuesday

The post was later deleted and replaced with a statement removing any mention of the Christian slaughter.

Vance's press secretary Taylor Van Kirk later wrote: 'The Vice President and his wife lay flowers at the eternal flame and sign the guest book on the final day of their visit to Armenia.'

Vance, a devout Christian, never officially recognized the genocide during his visit to Armenia.

Vance has become the highest-ranking US official to ever visit Armenia.

His two-day trip included discussions about the Trump administration's recent peace negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The agreement struck by Trump ended a nearly four-decade war between the two Caucasus rivals. Trump has cited the agreement as one of the chief foreign policy accomplishments.

Vance signed a deal with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan that offers a pathway for the US to invest in the construction of a nuclear power plant in Armenia.

Shortly after visiting the Armenian Genocide memorial, Vance departed to Azerbaijan to meet with the country's longtime dictator and president Ilham Aliyev.

The Vice President signed a strategic partnership deal with Azerbaijan that includes economic and security cooperation with Washington.

Trump's diplomatic efforts with Armenia and Azerbaijan indicates Washington plans to expand it's influence in a region typically dominated by Russia.

The United States under former President Joe Biden officially recognized the Armenian Genocide in April 2021.

Biden became the first US president to use the term 'genocide' in an official annual commemorative statement of the slaughter.
A pilot in charge of flying the Air India plane that crashed last June, killing 260 people, turned off the fuel switches in a move that was 'almost certainly' intentional, Western sources have claimed.

The Boeing 787, bound for London Gatwick, crashed into a medical college 32 seconds after taking off from Ahmedabad Airport in India on June 12.

A total of 241 passengers were killed as well as 19 people on the ground. Only one passenger - British national Vishwash Kumar Ramesh - survived. Of the passengers, 53 were British.

Since the tragedy, investigators from India's Aircraft Accidents Investigation Bureau have been leading the probe into the cause of the crash.

They have been working with officials from the US' National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), as well as Boeing and the engine's manufacturer, GE Aerospace.

Western sources told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that the blame likely lay at the feet of the plane's captain, Sumeet Sabharwal.

Sabharwal was monitoring the plane at the time of the crash, while first officer Clive Kunder was in control.

The newspaper reported that investigators have found that the left engine was shut down before the right one. Given that captains always sit on the left, the paper reported that this pattern indicated Sabharwal had turned the engines off.

The Air India Boeing 787 bound for London Gatwick crashed into a medical college 32 seconds after taking off from Ahmedabad Airport in India on June 12

The back of Air India flight 171 is pictured at the site after it crashed in a residential area near the airport in Ahmedabad on June 12, 2025

Western sources told Italian newspaper Corriere della Serathat the blame likely lay at the feet of the plane's captain, Sumeet Sabharwal (pictured)

In one blackbox recording, one pilot was heard asking the other: 'Why did you turn off the engines?'

The other responded: 'It wasn't me.'

On top of this, Kunder's control stick appeared to be in a position that indicated he was trying to regain altitude in the final moments before the crash, whilst Sabharwal's stick was stationary.

According to simulations of the Boeing 787 plane, US experts found that it wasn't possible for both engines to shut down due to a technical fault, leaving human intervention, intentional or otherwise, as the only reasonable explanation.

And following an analysis of data from the plane's two black boxes in Washington, investigators ruled out human error as the cause of the engines being shut down.

The newspaper also reported that Indian officials have frustrated the investigation process over the past seven months.

Sources told Corriere that the conclusions of the report will be subjected to a 'political' evaluation with the aim of avoiding national controversy in India.

It is likely that the final report will be released between June 8 and June 12 this year, and may be toned down.

Despite the aim of avoiding controversy in India, US pressure and the threat of 'reassessing' the safety ratings of India's airlines pushed New Delhi.

Vishwash Kumar Ramesh seen recovering in India. He was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder and says he still struggles physically and mentally

Mr Ramesh was the sole survivor of the Air India disaster. For the first time since returning to the UK, he as revealed why he is still unable to speak to his family and how the incident has affected his life

Amid increasing investment in air travel, tourism and trade, the nation reportedly did not want its overall image to be damaged.

A source told Corriere: 'Admitting that one of the pilots was responsible for the plane's downfall is increasingly seen as a worthwhile sacrifice.'

The newspaper reported that the final report will be written to help improve aviation in India, and will likely add a recommendation to make continual assessments on the physical and mental wellbeing of pilots.

In November, sole survivor Mr Ramesh revealed why he is still unable to speak to his family following the deadly crash.

Footage shocked the world as he was seen walking away from burning wreckage with minor visible injuries, even as thick smoke poured into the sky.

But since returning to his home city of Leicester in England, Ramesh, who said he feels like the 'luckiest man' alive, has been struggling with severe post-traumatic stress disorder and can barely speak to his wife and four-year-old son.

Speaking publicly for the first time, he told BBC News: 'Now I'm alone. I just sit in my room alone, not talking with my wife, my son. I just like to be alone in my house.'

A family member cries upon hearing the news of her brother who died when the Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed in Ahmedabad, India, June 12, 2025. An Air India spokesperson previously said: 'Air India stands in solidarity with the families and those affected by the AI171 accident'

Firefighters work at the site of the crash near Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport

Seconds after taking off on June 12, two fuel switches in the cockpit of Air India Flight 171 were turned off, a preliminary report revealed

Horrifying footage showed the moment the plane crashed, with a massive fireball erupting in the horizon

His younger brother, Ajay, had been sitting a few rows away and died in the crash. He emotionally added: 'I lost my brother as well. My brother is my backbone. Last few years, he was always supporting me.'

The horror unfolded moments after take-off when flames engulfed the aircraft.

Ramesh previously explained from his hospital bed in India how he freed himself from seat 11A and crawled out of a gap in the fuselage.

During the interview, he broke down several times as he spoke alongside Leicester community figure Sanjiv Patel and spokesman Radd Seiger. Asked about his memory of the crash, he said: 'I can't say anything about that now.'

He described the pain he and his family are now forced to deal with.

'Physically, mentally, also my family as well, mentally my mum last four months, she is sitting every day outside the door, not talking, nothing,' he said. 'Every day is painful for the whole family.'

The survivor also spoke about ongoing injuries, saying he has constant pain in his leg, shoulder, knee and back. 'When I walk, not walk properly, slowly, slowly, my wife help,' he said. He has not worked or driven since the crash.

His advisers say he received a PTSD diagnosis in India but has had no treatment since he came back to Britain.

They claim he feels abandoned and that the family fishing business in Diu, India, which he ran with his brother, has collapsed.

Mr Patel said the family is 'in crisis, mentally, physically, financially' and insisted Air India executives should meet them.

'Whoever's responsible at the highest level should be on the ground meeting the victims of this tragic event,' he said. Mr Patel added that the tragic incident had 'devastated his family'.
Police are probing whether a double stabbing at a school in north London was a terrorist attack.

Two boys, aged 12 and 13, were rushed to hospital in a serious condition after the incident unfolded around 12.40pm at Kingsbury High School in Brent.

A 13-year-old has since been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and remains in custody. The weapon which officers believe was used has been recovered.

An investigation has been launched by the Metropolitan Police's counter terrorism unit, though the incident is not yet being treated as a terror attack.

Detective Superintendent Luke Williams told a press conference on Tuesday night that police received reports that one boy, 13, had been stabbed when they arrived at the scene.

They later discovered that another 12-year-old child had also been hurt.

The suspected attacker fled but was arrested by officers after an urgent manhunt was launched. It is not yet known whether they are male or female.

The Daily Mail understands that the stabbings took place on school premises but it remains unclear whether it was in a classroom.

Two boys, aged 12 and 13, were rushed to hospital in a serious condition after the incident unfolded around 12.40pm at Kingsbury High School in Brent

Police are probing whether a double stabbing at a school in north Londonwas a terrorist attack

Detective Chief Superintendent Luke Williams revealed on Tuesday evening that the incident is being investigated by the police's counterterrorism unit

One of the two victims was rushed to a major trauma centre as a priority, the London Ambulance Service said, with both of the boys' conditions understood to have, at one stage, been 'life-threatening'.

The headteacher of Kingsbury High School, Alex Thomas, described the attack as a 'deeply traumatic event for the whole school community'.

He wrote in a letter to parents and carers: 'I am very sorry to inform you that there was a serious incident at school today in which two students were stabbed. Our thoughts and best wishes are with our students and their families at this incredibly difficult time.

'We would also like to thank the emergency services for their swift response and our staff for the calm and dedicated way they supported students throughout the day. Students in the Lower School were kept in the playground at the request of the police while they began their investigations, they were incredibly patient and respectful of others during this time.'

Photos from the scene showed a number of emergency vehicles swarming around the school in the aftermath of the incident.

The site was on lockdown earlier on Tuesday, with no one able to enter or leave the grounds.

One mother of a Year 8 student told the Brent and Kilburn Times: 'I've been panicking, a lot of kids don't have their phones on them so I couldn't get through.

'They had to leave their bags and stuff.

Police were made aware the one boy, 12, had been stabbed when they arrived at the scene before finding that a 13-year-old was hurt a short time later

Photographs from the scene showed a number of emergency vehicles swarmed around the school in the aftermath of the attack.

The school was on lockdown earlier on Tuesday with no one able to enter or leave the grounds.

'At least I have her now. It's awful - so awful - what happened, that someone would even bring a knife to a school.

'My daughter said that a fire alarm went off when it happened.'

One father said children at the school were 'traumatised by what happened in front of them'.

Kingsbury High School is an academy school serving children aged 11 to 18, with both upper and lower sites.

According to the latest Department for Education information, it has 1,997 pupils.

It traces its origins to Kingsbury County School, which opened in 1925 in a building which had been the office of the former Aircraft Manufacturing Company. It moved premises in 1932.

Alumni include Wham's George Michael, jazz musician Courtney Pine, Floyd Steadman, the first black captain of the Saracens rugby team, and writer Ekow Eshun.

The London Ambulance Service said they were called at 12.41pm to reports of a stabbing on Bacon Lane.

They added: 'We sent resources to the scene including ambulance crews, incident response officers, an advanced paramedic, a paramedic from our tactical response unit and a clinical team manager.

'We also dispatched a trauma team in a car from London's Air Ambulance.

'We treated two patients in total. We took one patient to hospital and the other as a priority to a major trauma centre.'
A prisoner on day release from a Turkish prison shot his wife, daughter and mother dead before taking his own life.

Recep Cengiz, 35, was on an 11-day period of leave from a prison in Ankara, where he was serving a four-year sentence for fraud and armed threats, according to Turkish media.

Upon his temporary release, he travelled to the Kuscagz neighbourhood of the Turkish capital and confronted his mother, 57-year-old Azize Cengiz, and his eight-year-old daughter Azra on Monday, according to Haberler.

After getting into an argument with them, he reportedly shot and killed them, before stuffing their bodies into the boot of his car.

Cengiz then travelled to the home of his estranged wife, Beyzanur Ucan Cengiz.

After disguising himself as a courier, he shot her dead in her doorway.

The prisoner is said to have then turned the gun on himself.

It is not currently known why the tragedy unfolded. A police investigation into the matter is ongoing.

Following the tragedy, it was revealed that Recep was initially held in a closed prison before being transferred to an open prison.

Upon his temporary release, the prisoner travelled to the Kuscagz neighbourhood (pictured) of the Turkish capital and confronted his mother and daughter

He is also understood to have damaged the electrics at his wife's home in an apparent attempt to avoid being seen on CCTV.

The tragedy sparked fury from feminist groups, who decried the killings.

The Women's Solidarity Committees wrote on X: 'Last year, six women were killed by inmates who escaped prison or were out on temporary release.

'The justice and interior ministers said nothing and nobody was held responsible! And today, another inmate has again sowed terror.'

Turkish advocacy group We Will Stop Femicides also denounced the murders and called a protest in Ankara on Tuesday night.

Figures from the group show that in 2025, 294 women were killed by men and 297 women were found dead under suspicious circumstances, according to AFP.

Of those killed, 35 percent were murdered by their husbands, and 57 percent were killed with a firearm.
A tradie spent months preparing to kidnap and sexually abuse a young girl in his attic before the heinous plot was foiled by police.

Sickening details of the elaborate plan can now be revealed after Jason William Forbes, 39, was recently sentenced.

The Perth electrician pleaded guilty to multiple offences, including attempting to possess childlike sex dolls, using a carriage service to prepare or plan to engage in sexual activity with a child under 16, and possessing child exploitation material.

The Perth District Court heard that in the months prior to his arrest, Forbes scoped out schools and childcare centres for potential victims by impersonating a police officer.

He bought timber from Bunnings to transform the roof space in his Baldivis home into a soundproof 'panic room' to hide the child.

Detectives were tipped off by authorities and launched an investigation in July 2024 after Australian Border Force officials seized two bespoke child sex dolls that he had ordered.

When police raided his home, they found an 'elaborate mind map' outlining the abduction scrawled on a mirror in the master bedroom.

They also seized nappies, children's underwear, dolls and nearly 80,000 files of child exploitation material.

Jason William Forbes spent months preparing to kidnap and sexually abuse a young girl in his attic before police unearthed the heinous plot

An 'elaborate mind map' outlining the abduction was scrawled on a mirror in the master bedroom of Forbes' Baldivis home

His internet history revealed disturbing Google searches such as 'volunteer childcare work near me', 'how to build a panic room in the loft', 'knockout chemicals and gases' and 'how old can a child be left at home alone'.

The court also heard that Forbes used his Tesla to film children on a driveway less than two kilometres from his home and had blacked out windows of his Tesla in preparation to snatch a child.

The court heard Forbes told police that the mind map found in his master bedroom was research for a book he was writing and bought the fake cop badge because he liked to dress up.

His lawyer told the court that the attic had been modified to provide short-term accommodation to a relative.

Judge Darren Renton SC dismissed the claims.

'The timing of your searching about lofts in combination with the other searches you carried out indicates to me a correlation with your use of a carriage service in planning to procure a child for sexual activity rather than it being a merely innocent coincidence,' he told Forbes during sentencing.

Forbes was sentenced to almost seven-and-a-half-years behind bars and could be eligible for parole as early as late 2029.

Former neighbours and the new owner of Forbes' old home were shocked to learn about the chilling plot.

The court heard that Forbes transformed his attic (pictured in the top right hand corner) into a soundproof 'panic room' to hide the child

Forbes could be eligible for parole as early as late 2029

'I wanted to ring police to find out if any of images he had were of our children - it could have been our kids' one neighbour told reporters.

A father-of-four added: 'It's sickening. I think the police should have let us know what was going on.

'He had no interest in meeting any of us.'

Police hope the investigation puts would-be offenders on notice.

'This investigation is a clear example of early intervention preventing harm to children,' Sex Crimes Detective Acting Superintendent David Palmer said.

'Through the identification of concerning behaviour and extensive preparatory planning, WA Police were able to disrupt the offender's actions before any child was physically harmed.'
A judge on Tuesday ordered prosecutors to turn over a cell phone belonging to Fraser Bohm, the BMW driver accused of killing four Pepperdine University co-eds in a horrific car crash on Malibu's notorious Pacific Coast Highway.

Cops seized the phone after Bohm, 24, refused to give them the passcode to unlock it following the 2023 accident that took the lives of Niamh Rolston, 20, Asha Weir, 21, Peyton Stewart, 21 and Deslyn Williams, 21.

Bohm has pleaded not guilty to four counts of second-degree murder and four of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence on a stretch of road known locally as Dead Man's Curve. His attorneys argued that they needed Los Angeles Sheriff's Department to return his cell phone to retrieve data that could be 'critical' to his defense.

But prosecutors  who have been unable to get much information from the phone because they don't have the passcode  refused to return it, claiming that Bohm could 'modify alter or delete' the data hidden in it.

On Tuesday, at LA Superior Court in Van Nuys, California, Judge Thomas Rubinson made a compromise decision, ruling that the LA Sheriff's Department must deliver the phone in a secure bag to the laboratory of a defense-hired technical expert who will download its data while prosecutors observe to make sure 'nothing nefarious' happens.

The judge also ordered LA's District Attorney to turn over to the defense many thousands of pages of accident reports, witness statements and other information on 128 non-fatal crashes that happened on or near the scene of Bohm's crash in the 10 years prior and details of all speeding tickets handed out on that stretch for two years before.

Prosecutors argued that such a mountain of material was 'irrelevant, over-broad and unduly burdensome'.

'That's 128 accidents that have nothing to do with this case,' protested Deputy District Attorney Nathan Bartos Tuesday.

A judge on Tuesday ordered prosecutors to hand over Fraser Bohm's cell phone, despite warnings he could 'modify, alter or delete' hidden data investigators have been unable to access without the passcode he refused to give police

Bohm, 24, arriving at Van Nuys Superior Court on Tuesday. He is facing four counts of second-degree murder and four of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence in the deaths of four Pepperdine students

The four young women were struck and killed along the Pacific Coast Highway in an area known locally as 'Dead Man's Curve' on October 17, 2023

But Judge Rubinson agreed with defense lawyers that the information could help disprove the prosecution's theory of 'implied malice'  that Bohm knew speeding on that stretch of PCH could kill  which is needed to prove murder.

The four young women died on October 17, 2023, when Bohm, driving a red BMW he had been given on his 18th birthday smashed into three stationary vehicles in the parking lane on PCH next to where the girls were walking. The speed limit there is 45mph.

Prosecutors slapped Bohm with murder charges after retrieving the 'black box' from the car, which showed that he accelerated from 93mph to 104mph just two and a half seconds before the crash.

Bohm's defense team has argued that the deaths were the result of a tragic accident which happened when he was being chased in a 'road rage' incident, a scenario the DA insists there is no evidence to support.

Instead, said DDA Bartos at an earlier hearing, the four victims were killed 'because of the defendant's wanton disregard for the high probability of death caused by driving at over 100mph.'

In a 76-page new written motion to the court Tuesday, Bohm's attorneys took aim at the prosecution's accusations and asked Judge Rubinson to compel cops to give back the cell phone, 'so that the defense may conduct an independent extraction using his passcode.'

Insisting that Bohm was within his Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights to refuse to give cops his passcode, the motion added: 'Mr. Bohm's alleged speed is central to the people's theory of murder and remains sharply disputed.'

'The cell phone contains embedded data - including accelerometer data, motion data and detailed geolocation information. his data may independently corroborate or refute the prosecution's claims regarding Mr. Bohm's speed immediately before and at the time of the collision.'

The crash killed four Pepperdine University students, including Deslyn Williams, 21, (left) and Niamh Rolston, 20, who were sorority sisters and close friends

Peyton Stewart, 21, (left) and Asha Weir, 21, were members of Alpha Phi at Pepperdine University - and were pronounced dead alongside their two friends at the scene

Footage obtained by KTLA from the night of the crash show the mangled remains of his red BMW which he received as an 18th birthday present as part of his wealthy parents' divorce settlement

Bohm's attorney Jacqueline Sparagna, spurned as 'unfounded' the contention from prosecutors that 'if the phone is removed from the Sheriff's Department, it might receive external signals and the data in the phone could be altered, modified or deleted'.

She added that the DA's refusal to hand over the phone 'is not rooted in evidence preservation, but in the obstruction of the defense's access to critical evidence'.

And she pointed out that the crash was 'the only fatal collision' in five years.

'This data directly undermines the prosecution's claim that speeding in this location constitutes conduct whose natural and probable consequence involve a high degree of probability of death,' said Sparagna.

'Statistically, the data shows the opposite given that drivers frequently speed in that area and no other fatal accidents have occurred.'

Citing Bohm's Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights, defense attorney Jacqueline Sparagna rejected prosecutors' warnings that the phone could receive external signals and have its data altered, modified or deleted if returned

Bohm wore a white shirt and blue tie as he entered court with his mother Brooke for Tuesdays hearing

Bohm's father Chris, showed up in court in Van Nuys, California, for Tuesday's hearing

In their new motion, defense attorneys argued that if the prosecution's view that Bohm's alleged speed is sufficient to establish murder, his defense should be able to show how often drivers travel at high speed without causing fatal collisions.

Judge Rubinson declared that the request for five years of traffic tickets was 'very excessive' and ruled instead that Bohm's defense could only have two years of speeding tickets.

But he warned Sparagna, 'You're playing with fire here. A lot of these speeding tickets were for people who were only going say 60mph, not 90 or 100 (the speeds Bohm is alleged to have reached). How is that going to help your case?'

Looking grim-faced as he sat next to his defense team, Bohm  who was 22 and living in Malibu at the time off the crash  wore a gray suit, white shirt and blue tie at Tuesday's hearing.

He will remain free on $4million bail until another court appearance on April 9 where the judge is expected to set a date for trial - which Bohm's lead attorney Alan Jackson estimated would start in late June.

Meanwhile the grieving parents of the four victims have all brought wrongful death civil lawsuits against Bohm and are also suing the State of California, LA County, the City of Malibu and the California Coastal Commission, alleging dangerous road design on PCH and lack of safety standards.

All of the dead girls were seniors at Pepperdine's Seaver College of Liberal Arts where they were members of the Alpha Phi Sorority. They were due to graduate with the class of 2024 and later were awarded their Pepperdine degrees posthumously.
Labour has been accused of disrespecting Britain after Sir Keir Starmer's Government dropped 'His Majesty' from official communications.

The Government said it had made a 'strategic decision' to remove the reference to His Majesty The King in all public communications - instead replacing it with the bland 'UK Government'.

The change has been made without public announcement, consultation, or explanation, raising serious questions about Labour's attitude towards the Monarchy and Britain's proud traditions.

The Conservatives have denounced the move and branded it 'disrespectful towards Britain's history, culture, and constitutional settlement'.

The change emerged in response to a written Parliamentary question, with the Government confessing that references to 'His Majesty' are already no longer being used in the Government's communications with the public.

Cabinet Office Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds said: 'Since July 2024, guidance has been updated to reflect the new Royal Coat of Arms following the accession of His Majesty The King.

'A strategic decision has been made to adopt 'UK Government' as the primary identity for all public-facing communications.'

The Tories pointed the finger of blame at Sir Keir's deposed communications director Tim Allan, who became the latest casualty of the Mandelson scandal when he quit yesterday after just five months in the job.

The old HM Government logo used on official communications with the public, which the Government itself said was 'recognised and trusted by the public'

Labour's bland new ' UK Government' logo - it said it had made the change to 'provide clarity for the public'

Labour has been accused by the Tories of disrespecting Britain after Sir Keir Starmer's Government dropped 'His Majesty' from official communications

An old example of the HM Government logo on official communications with the public

Join the debate Is dropping royal references from government branding a necessary modern update or a reckless break with tradition?

The party said the change 'shows a lack of respect for Britain's national institutions and interests' and added that it will be Mr Allan's 'lasting legacy in Government'.

Shadow chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster Alex Burghart said: 'How typical that Labour should be trying to quietly obliterate tradition.

'What earthly good is caused by this change? It's just another depressing attempt to 'modernise' for modernisation's sake. Be in no doubt: the Conservatives will reverse this on day one.'

Guidance under the previous government said the default logo and branding for all official communications should be 'HM Government'.

Previous Government Communications Service guidance said: 'The HM Government identity is recognised and trusted by the public. As such it is the master brand for government communications and must be applied correctly and consistently.'

However new guidance published in June 2025 under Labour now says the default logo for public communications is: 'UK Government'. It adds that the new branding 'should feature [on] all communication and policy that affect the whole Union'.

It is not the first time Labour has been accused of removing references to the Royal Family from government. Under New Labour they rebranded 'HM Stationery Office' as the 'Office of Public Sector Information', and 'Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Fire Services' as the 'Chief Fire and Rescue Adviser'.

The Government said that 'HM Government has not been dropped as a style', and that 'it's just different in certain circumstances'.

A spokesman added: 'To provide clarity for the public, communications teams are advised to use 'UK Government' rather than departmental names and logos for announcements.

'This does not affect the use of 'His Majesty's Government', which continues on relevant official communications and records.'
Labour's 'one in, one out' migrant deal with France is facing a new legal challenge.

The policy which came into operation last summer face legal action in the High Court from 16 migrants on Wednesday.

Their challenge is understood to claim the deal breaches modern slavery laws and an international treaty which sets out how governments should deal with claims of human trafficking.

It opens up the prospect of Labour's flagship policy to deal with the Channel small boats crisis being brought to a halt by international treaties  of which former human rights barrister Sir Keir Starmer has been a staunch advocate.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said it was further evidence that Britain needed to leave international conventions in order to tackle the Channel crisis.

Labour scrapped the previous government's Rwanda asylum deal just as it was poised to finally get off the ground, and after the scheme had spent two years in legal limbo amid similar legal challenges.

A further 322 migrants reached the UK on Monday, pushing the total to have come under Labour past 66,000.

Earlier this week it emerged that more migrants have arrived during Sir Keir's time in Downing Street than under any other prime minister, overtaking the previous high of 65,811 under Boris Johnson.

Migrants sprint across Gravelines beach in northern France to board a smugglers' dinghy in August last year

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The record under Sir Keir has been reached in just over 19 months, compared with three years under Mr Johnson.

Border security and asylum minister Alex Norris said of the new legal action: 'Last-minute modern slavery claims must never be used to prevent the removal of illegal migrants.

'The Government will fight any legal attempt in the courts to frustrate their removal or deportation.

'These cases are exactly why we are reforming our laws to stop these last-minute claims and restore order and control to our border.'

Conservative frontbencher Mr Philp said: 'The Government's so-called 'one in, one out' policy was always a gimmick - just like their laughable claim to smash the gangs.

'Last year they let in 41,000 illegal Channel immigrants and only removed 300 to France.

'That's no deterrent.

'No wonder illegal Channel crossings are up 42 per cent since the election.

'And now even this gimmick faces legal challenge.

'We need to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the modern slavery treaty - then every illegal immigrant can be deported within a week of arrival with no messing around.'

The new legal action comes after initial claims last summer managed to delay  but not block  the first deportations to France.

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Tomorrow's hearing will look at whether interim injunctions should be granted in some of the 16 cases and seek to decide how other claims should proceed.

Some of the challenges are also understood to claim that male migrants sent back to France under the deal receive inadequate support.

The Channel crisis has now entered its ninth year and the total number of migrants to have reached Britain now stands at more than 193,000.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood admitted to MPs last week that the 'one in, one out' deal had 'obviously not dented the numbers yet'.

So far 367 migrants have been brought into the UK under the reciprocal terms of the treaty and only 305 have been removed, she said.

The scheme has 'probably not' affected migrants' decisions to cross the Channel, she told the Commons' home affairs select committee, and they 'may well be banking on it not working or not being able to be scaled up'.

She also declined to give a commitment that Labour's asylum reforms will start to see a fall in the number of small boat arrivals by next year.

There were 41,472 small boat crossings last year compared with 36,816 in 2024.

Asked whether she could confidently say numbers would go down by this time next year, Ms Mahmood said Labour's reforms would 'take some time to come into effect', adding: 'I can't guarantee I'm going to be in that position.'

Labour has announced it will reform modern slavery laws, the asylum appeal system and restrict the way migrants can use the ECHR's 'right to private and family life', but any changes are still some way off.
A prominent criminal barrister accused of serious child abuse offences took his life ahead of a likely jail term if found guilty - and with his career in ruins regardless of the outcome in court.

Mark Dennis SC, 60, was found dead by police inside his Leichhardt home in Sydney's inner west on Monday night, less than three weeks after he was charged with possessing child abuse material.

He had just stepped off a flight from South East Asia at Sydney International Airport when he was stopped by Australian Border Force officers, who searched his luggage and examined his phone, tablet, laptop, and a USB.

They allegedly found child abuse material and sexualised conversations with and about minors.

Dennis was subsequently charged with possessing, distributing, and importing child abuse material. He was later granted bail.

His legal career in tatters, he was facing up to 15 years behind bars and would be labelled as a child sex offender if found guilty of the charges.

Even if Dennis was acquitted, legal colleagues said that his career was over and he had nowhere else to go.

'If he was found guilty, he would have been sent to jail where he would have been regarded as the worst of the worst - a child sex offender,' a leading barrister told the Daily Telegraph.

Mark Dennis SC took his life after he was recently charged with a string of child abuse offences

The prominent criminal barrister (left) was found dead inside his home less than three weeks after he faced court and was granted bail

'People like that get killed in jail.

'He's 60 now - how on earth would he rebuild his career, pushing 70, as a convicted child sex offender?'

They added that even if Dennis was acquitted of the charges, the damage to his legal reputation was done.

Dennis had been practicing out of Forbes Chambers, Sydney's top criminal law chambers.

His name and profile were scrubbed from the Forbes Chambers website following his January 20 arrest.

'He was off the bar. He wound up his practice straight after being charged. His name was wiped from the website,' the barrister added.

Dennis was arrested at Sydney Airport on January 19 after getting off a flight from Cambodia, where he ran a child-focused charity, Reasonable Causes.

Along with seizing his electronic devices at the airport, a search warrant was executed at Dennis' home, where further electronic devices were seized.

Mark Dennis SC was facing up to 15 years behind bars and would labelled as a child sex offender if found guility

Daily Mail revealed last month that Dennis used the moniker Dark Menace - a play on his name - as part of his work email address, and also to publish a range of papers, including one about how to defend child sexual assault victims.

The alias was also used to publish a range of papers, including one about how to defend child sexual assault victims.

Dennis also co-founded the not-for-profit Reasonable Causes in 2020 to provide opportunities for disadvantaged Cambodians as young as six, but an online profile says he was travelling to Cambodia twice a year from 2010.

The Daily Mail understands he told colleagues about his philanthropic work with orphanages in Cambodia, saying he was helping install bathrooms and various facilities.

According to the Australian Charities and Not For Profit Commission, Reasonable Causes operated out of Cambodia, worked to improve the lives of locals from age six to 24, and partnered with a range of local children's charities.

Reasonable Causes made about $242,000 per year, comprising about $108,000 in donations alone.

Cambodia Children's Fund was one of the partner organisations that took funding from Reasonable Causes.

Even if Mark Dennis SC was acquitted, legal colleagues say that his career was over and had nowhere else to go

CEO Scott Neeson told Daily Mail financial assistance from the organisation has now been rejected.

He said Dennis once visited their site in Phnom Penh, but never left the side of staff on site.

'He was very firm and business-like,' Mr Neeson recalled.

If you or someone you know needs support, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636.
The wives of victims of the 1994 RAF Chinook disaster have spoken of their devastation for the first time as calls grow for a public inquiry.

Lynn Bunting, from Belfast, widow of Detective Chief Inspector Dennis Bunting, and Sue Angus, from Hampshire, widow of Major Gary Sparks, say the tragedy was preventable.

They appear in a Valentines Day film which has been sent to every Cabinet minister, as families step up their demands for answers from the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

The short film has been released by the Chinook Justice Campaign and also features Gaynor Tobias, whose husband John was killed in the crash.

The RAF Mark 2 Chinook crashed on the Mull of Kintyre on June 2, 1994, killing all 29 people on board, including the crew and officers from MI5, the Army, and the RUC.

The widows describe the enduring impact of the disaster and the additional pain which they say was caused by decades of unanswered questions surrounding the aircrafts airworthiness and the circumstances of the crash.

The film marks the families renewed appeal for public support, as they seek to reach 100,000 signatures on their petition for a full public inquiry into the tragedy.

Wreckage of the Chinook helicopter which crashed on the Mull of Kintyre in 1994

Sue Angus, whose husband Major Gary Sparks died in the Chinook tragedy, said the crash had 'devastated our lives'

Major Sparks with his daughters Esme, right, Lucy, and son Paddy

Also taking part in the film  which can be viewed on the campaign website and YouTube  are Mrs Buntings daughter Erin, and Lisa Fitzsimons, whose father Brian Fitzsimons died in the crash. Mrs Bunting said that 31 years on, and two months since MoD ministers promised to review our evidence, we are still waiting for answers.

This Valentines Day will be the 31st without my Dennis. And why? Because he and 28 others were put on a helicopter that was not airworthy, that the RAF and MoD knew was not airworthy and should not have been in the air.

Mrs Angus said she should be able to grieve in peace, but instead we have to continue this battle for honesty and clarity from the MoD.

Gaynor Tobias, from Watford, described her husband Lt Colonel John Tobias as 'everything you could look for in a partner'

Lt Col Tobias with his wife Gaynor and sons Matt, bottom left, and Andy

Lynn Bunting, from Belfast, whose husband Detective Chief Inspector Dennis Bunting died at the Mull of Kintyre in 1994 has decided to speak publicly for the first time ahead of Valentine's Day - the 31st she has spent 'without my Dennis'

Lynn Bunting with her late husband, DCI Dennis Bunting, and the couples children Connor, Shannon and Erin

Mrs Tobias, from Watford, Hertfordshire, said she and her children miss their role model husband and father every day.

A campaign spokesman said: These widows should not have to keep reliving their grief just to be heard.

An MoD spokesman said: 'The Mull of Kintyre crash was a tragic accident and our thoughts and sympathies remain with the families, friends and colleagues of all those who died. We understand that the lack of certainty about the cause of the crash has added to the distress of the families.

'The accident has already been the subject of six inquiries and investigations, including an independent judge-led review.

'Lord Coaker, Minister of state for defence, Al Carns, Minister for the armed forces, and Louise Sandher-Jones MP, Minister for veterans and people, met with representatives from the Chinook Justice Campaign in December to listen to their concerns first-hand.'
Few people under the age of about 30 even remember the last time Scottish Labour won a Holyrood election.

Since them the party has elected seven leaders, each one promising to lead Labour back into government. And every one of them has gone down to humiliating defeat, vanquished by a seemingly invincible SNP.

Anas Sarwar is the only Scottish Labour leader in that time  and the first ever since First Minister Jack McConnell  to have been given a second chance at Bute House, having led his party into its 2021 defeat.

And this time he is determined that nothing  absolutely nothing and nobody  is going to stand in his way.

When Mr Sarwar held a press conference to demand Sir Keir Starmer resign as Prime Minister, the Glasgow MSP knew he was taking the biggest risk of his career.

He also knew that culturally, the Labour Party is not the Conservative Party; it does not tolerate disloyalty towards its leader.

It has no long history of replacing the partys figurehead every couple of years, as happened during the second half of the Tories last stint in power.

Anas Sarwar speaking to the media at Glasgow's Trades Hall where he called on Sir Keir Starmer to quit

The pair were previously allies, with Sir Keir appearing on stage with Mr Sarwar at the Scottish Labour Party conference last February

Mr Sarwar is the first ever Labour leader since First Minister Jack McConnell to have been given a second chance at getting the keys to Bute House, having led his party into its 2021 defeat

But Mr Sarwar has made a political calculation, the logic of which cannot be denied. He was on course to become First Minister and end Labours dreadful electoral record in Scotland.

He was running rings around John Swinney, the latest hapless politician to try to revitalise the SNP after Nicola Sturgeons resignation and then Humza Yousafs chaotic year-long reign.

The SNP were heading to a well-deserved and long-overdue defeat the next time Scots went to the polls to elect a Scottish parliament.

But then Labour won the general election. And every-thing started to go wrong.

Keir Starmer didnt have much of a honeymoon before it became clear that he was totally unsuited to the job of leading a nation. Crisis after crisis, scandal after scandal and more U-turns than you could shake a stick at. Disappointed voters reacted by turning their backs on Labour at a national and a Scottish (and Welsh) level.

Suddenly, through no fault of his own, Mr Sarwars chances of becoming First Minister were crushed as Scots took umbrage at the UK governments countless unforced errors.

If only Sir Keir could be replaced by someone more politically skilled, maybe Scottish Labours fortunes could be revitalised in time for polling day in May.

Few believe Sir Keir can survive the next few weeks anyway. Even without the continuing shadow cast by his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as US ambassador, it is unlikely he will survive the expected defeat in the Gorton and Denton by-election, especially since it was Sir Keir himself who prevented Andy Burnham, one of the most popular politicians in the country, from being Labours candidate.

And even if he somehow survived the recriminations from a by-election defeat, he then has humiliation at the local and devolved elections to look forward to on May 7.

All of which might strengthen Mr Sarwars argument that ditching a failed leader would be worth it if Labours electoral prospects would be turned around as a result. Unfortunately for the Scottish Labour leader, thats not how his party thinks.

In 2009 it was clear to anyone who could read an opinion poll that Gordon Brown was going to lose the next general election. But those of us who believed he should be replaced by a more attractive leader (our preference was Home Secretary Alan Johnson) in order for Labour to retain office in the 2010 vote were outnumbered by those MPs who considered electoral victory less important than the principle of loyalty to Gordon.

It was no coincidence that a majority of those who thought this way had very large majorities that would likely survive a Conservative victory at the polls.

When I told Gordon to his face, at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, that the public had made their minds up about him, I was threatened with deselection as a Labour candidate and a vote of no confidence was debated by my own local party.

It was a shot across the bows for all those who dared to believe that electoral victory was more important than a single individual.

That remains the Labour mindset. Private criticism, an exchange of text messages, tearoom gossip condemning Sir Keir as a loser and wishing he would leave Number 10  that is all very well and entirely acceptable.

The real crime against Labour orthodoxy is when someone says publicly what the rest of the party is thinking. This week Anas Sarwar stands guilty of that crime.

He said what many Labour MPs and MSPs think and say privately, but there are many who wont forgive him for doing so. Treachery is a private affair, not to be carried out in public!

Nevertheless, despite the embarrassing lack of support Mr Sarwar has received, even from some of his own MSPs, his extraordinary gamble may yet pay off.

Devolution has not been kind to Scottish Labour.

While Welsh Labour has won every single devolved election since 1999 (though has fallen foul of the voters for exactly the same reason that Scottish Labour has in the last 18 months), Scottish Labour has struggled to convince Scots that it really will put the nation first in its dealings with the UK.

Welsh Labour was helped by Rhodri Morgan, who successfully fought to replace Tony Blairs preferred candidate as First Minister in the first year of devolution, confirming that he would not simply be a yes man for Downing Street.

Scottish Labour experienced no such disagreement with the UK party, successive leaders being seen as mere adjuncts to the UK party, willing to follow UK Labours lead.

That approach received its first major challenge when Johann Lamont, Scottish Labour leader from 2011 until 2014, accused the UK party of treating Scottish Labour like a branch office.

Did I detect a small element of nervousness in the tone of the First Minister when he attacked Mr Sarwar for opportunism this week?

Whether the Scottish Labour leaders gambit pays off, it will certainly be much more difficult for the SNP to dismiss Mr Sarwar as a branch office manager now he has demanded his own chief executive must resign.

The SNP have made much headway by claiming the Labour Party in Scotland is nothing but a pale imitation of London Labour. Thats one weapon that Anas Sarwar has just removed from the Nationalists armoury.

Let us not get carried away with Mr Sarwars principled stand. Like any politician, he has his own cynical motives and a burning ambition.

And theres nothing wrong with that. Indeed, show me a politician without ambition and I will show you a failure.

He sees his job as winning the Holyrood election and becoming First Minister  a noble ambition if ever there was one. And he is prepared to do anything to achieve it.

If that means speeding up the defenestration of a failed and failing Prime Minister along the way, that seems a reasonable price to pay.
Even Anas Sarwars close allies accept that he has now gambled his political future by demanding Sir Keir Starmers resignation  and that it may have backfired badly.

The Scottish Labour leader made his move on Monday morning after discussions over the previous three days with his inner circle of close confidantes.

He was encouraged to act by senior figures in the party who told him that all activists were hearing on the doors was anger about the Labour government and the handling of the Peter Mandelson scandal.

The tipping point was Thursday, when the Scottish Labour leader was regarded to have had a strong performance at First Ministers Questions raising concerns about the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital infections scandal, yet activists reported later that this was not getting any cut-through among voters because it was drowned out by fury about Sir Keir's government.

He wasnt acting alone  as was made clear when senior Scottish Labour figures including general secretary Kate Watson were in the audience for his major announcement at the Trades Hall in Glasgow.

One insider said: Last week was the straw that broke the camels back. They really felt they had Swinney on the ropes on the Queen Elizabeth hospital yet instead of questions being asked about why John Swinney is not resigning, all they were getting was that Keir Starmer should resign.

That frustration boiled over and the people who were working so hard out and about knocking on doors just felt we cannot cut through until we do something drastic to separate ourselves.

Whether it was the right decision or not time will tell. It was an undeniably drastic move but you can argue what has Anas got to lose at the moment?

Anas Sarwar called on Sir Keir Starmer to quit No 10 on Monday

Lord George Foulkes has been critical of the Scottish Labour leader's move

Mr Sarwar has been backed by left-wing MP Brian Leishman

The move seems to have opened up a Holyrood/Westminster divide in the Scottish Labour Party.

Even those who seem close to Mr Sarwar, including former Scottish Secretary Ian Murray, came out against the move and backed the Prime Minister.

So far, only two Scottish MPs  the perennial left-wing agitator Brian Leishman and the until now fairly anonymous Euan Stainbank  have backed Mr Sarwar. Many of the others at Westminster feel loyalty to the partys UK leader first, the Scottish leader second, with reports that one MP, Johanna Baxter, reportedly in tears at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party when she accused Mr Sarwar of treacherous behaviour.

Other Scots at Westminster, including the peers Baroness Helena Kennedy and Lord George Foulkes, have been heavily critical of the move, with the latter saying it now backfiring badly.

Several of the partys MSPs have rowed in behind their Scottish leader and backed the calls for the Prime Minister to resign, providing clear evidence that the party is bitterly divided.

While Mr Sarwar insisted that he was not making his statement on behalf of many others, the lack of support from anyone in the party south of the border has shocked those close to him.

His team insist the resignation call proves to voters that he is honest and trustworthy  and that instead of briefing behind the scenes he was upfront about his views and deserves credit for that.

But others in the party are furious about the way he presented his arguments  with Tony Blairs former director of political operations John McTernan accusing him of using the language of a Scottish nationalist after he said he was putting Scotlands interests first.

While some have claimed that Mr Sarwars approach proves that Scottish Labour is no longer a branch office, others in the party believe that rather than demanding the Prime Ministers resignation he should have been demanding shifts on policy like the ban on North Sea drilling.

Sir Keir is still widely regarded to have received only a stay of execution and will be battling for his future again, most likely after Mays elections.

But that means Scottish Labour now faces the prospect of having to campaign in the Holyrood elections with a Prime Minister in post that they publicly oppose  and Mr Sarwar will inevitably face endless questions about Sir Keir and Peter Mandelson.

One former Scottish Labour strategist said: I think he has shot himself in the foot. I dont think he has thought this through at all.

I dont see what he says for the next three months: Vote Labour but I hate the Prime Minister?

I think he was trying to prove he is more powerful than he actually is, and I genuinely dont understand it.

Senior figures in the party now believe that Mr Sarwar may even resign before the Prime Minister, since a bad Holyrood election result will now inevitably spell the end, with one source saying: The only thing I took from yesterday was hes not going to get his seat in the House of Lords when he loses.

Even those close to Mr Sarwar admit that he now looks isolated, and that he has gambled with his political future.

Its at that stage now, youve got to throw everything at it and see what happens in May, said one ally. But yeah its do or die, isnt it?
Anas Sarwar has been left out on a limb after his bid to oust Sir Keir Starmer came off the rails and stoked further divisions in his party.

The Scottish Labour leader failed to secure any significant support for a Downing Street coup, with potential challengers opting against making their move.

It also appeared to have backfired by increasing divisions within his party, with only two of Labours Scottish MPs publicly backing Mr Sarwars position, while prominent Scottish peers condemned his actions.

Even Mr Sarwars allies admit he has now risked making himself look isolated with less than three months to go before the Holyrood elections.

Sir Keir and his senior ministers yesterday launched a desperate attempt to repair the damage, with the Prime Minister lavishing praise on Mr Sarwar and insisting he is 100 per cent supportive of his bid to become First Minister.

Opponents last night highlighted that the Scottish Labour leader has been left isolated by the failure of his coup bid.

Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay said: Anas Sarwar is in danger of being left out on a limb.

His call for Starmer to go has sent Scottish Labour into complete meltdown only weeks away from a Holyrood election.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar called on Sir Keir Starmer to quit as Prime Minister on Monday

While they fight among themselves, we'll get on with standing up to John Swinneys failing SNP government, who must be booted out of office.

After another dramatic day of developments, Mr Sarwar has only secured the support of two Scottish MPs  Brian Leishman and Euan Stainbank.

One of his MPs, Johanna Baxter, was said to have been in tears at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party when she accused Mr Sarwar of treacherous behaviour.

Lord George Foulkes said: I think it was unwise and I told him so beforehand, and its backfiring I think.

Scottish peer Baroness Helena Kennedy also backed Sir Keir and claimed he was liberated by the resignation of his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney.

Sir Keir and his ministers desperately attempted to move on from the resignation call.

At a meeting of his political cabinet, Sir Keir insisted that "the whole of the Labour Party wants Anas Sarwar to become First Minister and will fight for a Labour government in Scotland.

Speaking to broadcasters later, he said: I've got a huge respect for Anas Sarwar. Obviously, he made his views known yesterday.

Despite Mr Sarwar's call for him to step down, Sir Keir said he was still '100 per cent supportive' of him being First Minister

But I want to be really clear that I'm 100 per cent supportive of Anas Sarwar to be the First Minister in Scotland, he'd be an incredible First Minister and I support him 100% without reservation.

Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander also told BBC Radio Scotland Breakfast that he had spoken to both the Prime Minister and Mr Sarwar and I can tell you sincerely there is a willingness to work together.

Potential leadership candidates including Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham also distanced themselves from Mr Sarwars call, while Welsh First Minister Eluned Morgan backed the Prime Minister but called the Peter Mandelson scandal deeply troubling.

Most Scottish Labour MPs avoided questions from the media on the way into talks in a Westminster committee room, although some said they support both Sir Keir and Mr Sarwar.

In a statement issued last night following the talks (TUE), MP Richard Baker, chairman of the Scottish Parliamentary Labour Party, said: The Scottish Parliament elections in May are a vital opportunity for our country to turn the page on two decades of SNP failure and choose the fresh leadership Scotland needs.

We agree the election in May must be about one thing and one thing only - Scotland.

Yesterday the Prime Ministers leadership was confirmed by the Cabinet and the PLP. We accept that there have been mistakes, thats why things now have to change and improve.

This has been a difficult week, but the Scottish Group is united in continuing to repair the damage of 14 years of Tory rule and is fully committed to electing a Scottish Labour Government in Holyrood and Anas Sarwar as our First Minister.

Sir Keir and Mr Sarwar pose for a selfie alongside the Prime Minister's former top aide Morgan McSweeney

Many of Labours MSPs stayed away from Holyrood yesterday and Mr Sarwar was also absent  although he released another campaign video saying that my first priority and my first loyalty is to Scotland.

But Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie doubled down on the calls for Sir Keir to resign.

Speaking to journalists at Holyrood, she said: Anas Sarwar is putting Scotland's interests first. He is absolutely right to do so. There have been too many mistakes, too many distractions. We need a change at Number 10.

But to be frank with you, this election is about getting rid of a failing SNP government, replacing it with the Scottish Labour government. It's a contest between John Swinney and Anas Sarwar for First Minister.

We need to fix the NHS, fix our schools, fix our justice system and invest in public services. That's what we're focused on doing.

Asked if Mr Sarwar had been left out on a limb by his party colleagues, she said: Absolutely not. This election is very much about getting rid of a failing SNP government. Anas Sarwar has done the right thing. He's put Scotlands interests first.

She added: We have made it perfectly clear - and I've heard it on doorsteps across my constituency - that people are disappointed with the pace of change that has been delivered by a UK Labour government.

There have been lots of good things delivered, but the noise of, you know, the drama that we're seeing just now is drowning that out.

What Anas Sarwar did yesterday, and he was right to do, is put Scotland's interests first. That's what matters to us. That's what will matter in the elections on the seventh of May.

Mr Leishman, MP for Alloa and Grangemouth, said: I think it's fair to say that Anas yesterday was honest, up front and very, very clear on his position.

So I don't think that can ever be represented as a miscalculation. I think what Anas said yesterday, he admitted it was a difficult decision for him but it was the right decision for Scotland, and that certainly chimes with the conversations that I'm having on the doorsteps in the Holyrood campaign.

But Mr Stainbank, MP for Falkirk, said: For the good of the country and the Labour Government, I agree with Anas Sarwar in his assessment yesterday that it is time that the Prime Minister resigns to allow for new leadership for the country.

Several Labour MSPs backed Mr Sarwars call, including Michael Marra, Katy Clark and Martin Whitfield.
Male suspects who identify as female will be allowed to demand to be searched by a woman police officer under proposed new rules.

A draft code of practice for stop and search states this should be allowed to happen when it is operationally feasible.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the terms man, woman, and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological sex rather than someones chosen gender.

But the code, published by Justice Secretary Angela Constance, appears to be defy the ruling despite Police Scotland chiefs coming under mounting pressure to change their procedures.

The draft guidelines on stop and search, which are now the subject of a public consultation, state that if a detainees gender identity differs from their biological sex (whether or not they have a gender recognition certificate), and the detainee expresses a preference to be searched by a constable of the same gender identity as the detainee, the police service, if operationally feasible, should identify an appropriate and consenting constable to conduct the search.

Searches of detainees by constables of the opposite sex require written consent from the detainee, a senior constable of the rank of inspector or above, and the constable conducting the search.

Meanwhile, officers retain the right to decline participation in the search of a transgender detainee.

The code states: This decision must be respected and constables will not face any career detriment as a result of such a refusal.

A police officer searching and questioning suspects

If no constable of the requested opposite sex is presently available to conduct the search, then the detainee will be supervised until a constable who consents to carry out the search is identified.

If no such officer can be found within a reasonable timeframe, or if the operational risk is deemed too great, the search will be conducted by a constable of the same sex as the detainee.

Scottish Tory equalities spokesman Tess White said: This shows that the SNPs extreme brand of gender ideology continues to have a stranglehold on Scotlands public sector.

It is just common sense that a biological man should never be able to demand that a female officer searches them.

This proposed guidance flies in the face of the Supreme Courts ruling.

John Swinney must intervene, rule out these changes ever getting the green light and guarantee all public bodies will follow the law.

Officers will be told that strip and intimate searches must be conducted by, or in the presence of, constables of the same [biological] sex as the detainee being searched.

The force has been at the centre of a series of rows over trans issues.

At a rally outside the Scottish parliament in September, Susan Smith of womens right group For Women Scotland was accused of damaging an umbrella belonging to trans activist counter-protester Tom Harlow.

Susan Smith, left, and Marian Calder, of For Women Scotland, celebrate as they leave the Supreme Court last April

An outcry led the force to apologise and confirm no crime was committed.

Defending the officers involved in November, Chief Constable Jo Farrell said: I recognise our officers are having to make difficult decisions in environments which are complex and difficult to navigate.

Commenting on stop and search, Ms Constance said: Stop and search powers remain a vital tool for police to tackle crime and keep people safe, provided it is exercised lawfully, proportionately and with respect for an individuals dignity and rights.

The revised code aims to improve clarity, transparency and safeguarding, while strengthening safeguards for children and vulnerable people, with clearer guidance on the steps officers should take before, during and after a search.

The consultation is an opportunity to listen, reflect and to strengthen public trust. I encourage everyone with an interest in justice, equality and community safety to take part.

Their views will help ensure the code remains robust, fair and fit for the future  supporting effective policing while upholding the rights and freedoms that define our society.
Karl Stefanovic has copped fierce criticism from Australian Muslim leaders after he suggested men performing prayers during a protest in Sydney may have been 'baiting' police.

Pro-Palestine protesters who gathered at Sydney Town Hall to protest Israeli President Isaac Herzog's arrival on Monday were pepper-sprayed, arrested, beaten and shoved by police.

One widely shared video showed a group of Muslim men kneeling in prayer before officers moved in and hauled them away. In one clip, a man was yanked to his feet and dragged aside by police as others pushed the group away.

However, on Tuesday morning, Today show host Karl Stefanovic suggested to NSW Premier Chris Minns that the action could have 'baited' police.

'So Muslims praying in the city as well, Premier  whether it was legitimate prayer or they were baiting police, who knows,' Stefanovic said.

'But that will be weaponised against the force, you know that.'

Minns later defended officers, claiming they had been dealing with a riot.

'I want to make it clear there is  no suggestion, under any circumstances, that police would have wanted to cause offence to people praying, or get in the way of people lawfully exercising their religion,' he said.

Today show host Karl Stefanovic suggested to Premier Chris Minns that men praying during the protest against Israeli President Isaac Herzog's arrival in Sydney could have 'baited' police

Men taking part in daily prayers at sunset were yanked to their feet by police sparking uproar in the Muslim community

'NSW Police have had a strong and cooperative relationship with Sydney's Islamic Arabic community going back decades. But context is important here.

'It was in effect in the middle of a riot. Now, police have to make critical, early decisions in those circumstances.

'I think fair-minded people would look at the context of that interaction before condemning New South Wales police.'

Australian Federation of Islamic Councils president Dr Rateb Jneid condemned Stefanovic's 'baiting' comment, saying worshippers were simply exercising their right to religious observance.

The prayer took place around sunset, when Muslims typically perform Maghreb, the fourth of five mandatory daily prayers.

'The suggestion that Muslims praying in public were somehow provoking police is wrong and deeply unfair,' Dr Jneid told the Daily Mail.

'This was Maghreb prayer, which occurs within a very limited time window, and people were simply exercising their lawful right to religious observance.

'Redirecting attention away from police conduct and onto worshippers engaged in prayer amounts to blaming those who were subjected to force, rather than scrutinising the use of that force itself.

On Tuesday, Minns claimed police were 'in the middle of a riot'

'It is the clear brutality of the actions of the police that is at issue here and this must be fully, and independently, investigated.'

The incident has also drawn condemnation from Australia's Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia, Aftab Malik, who described the footage as 'shocking NSW Police violence against Muslims praying'.

'I understand that NSW Police issued a move-on order to people in the street. A separate group broke away from protesters to pray in Town Hall Square,' he wrote on social media.

'This behaviour was unprovoked and unacceptable. This has to be condemned unequivocally. There cannot be any justification for this demeaning, aggressive and humiliating behaviour.'

Malik called on Premier Minns and the NSW Police Commissioner to apologise.

One of the attendees who led the prayer, Sheikh Wesam Charkawi, has said the group praying had stepped away from the crowd so as not to cause problems.

'We moved 60 or 70 metres away from police to pray,' he told Deepcut News.

'We walked all the way from George Street to the far end to be completely out of the way... We weren't blocking the pathway. The whole area around us was free and clear.

'There was no reason for police to come and hassle and antagonise people who were engaged in what is the most sacred thing to us.'
President Donald Trump reviewed the new security footage released by the FBI from Nancy Guthrie's home Tuesday afternoon, according to the White House.

Leavitt delayed the beginning of the White House press briefing, apologizing for the delay which she attributed it to the sudden development in the case.

Leavitt said she was with the president as they reviewed the new evidence in the case which she described as 'heartbreaking.'

'The president encourages any American across the country with any knowledge of the suspect to please call the FBI who continue to assist state and local authorities who are leading this investigation on the ground,' she added.

The shocking footage revealed a masked figure with a latex glove tampering with a security camera at the home. It was released just hours before police detained a person of interest in the case near Tucson, Arizona.

Leavitt said President Trump reacted to the footage with 'pure disgust.'

'It's heartbreaking to see now this footage really bring to life a story we've all been reading about and again we're just praying for the safety of Nancy Guthrie and that she will return home soon,' Leavitt said.

President Donald Trump reviewed the security footage Tuesday afternoon, the White House revealed

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt delayed the start of the press briefing as she reviewed the new footage in the case released by the FBI with President Trump

The release of the footage was a major development in the case, after ten days of law enforcement hunting for the mother of NBC anchor Savannah Guthrie since she was first reported missing.

'I don't think anybody will be satisfied until this case is brought to a close and Nancy Guthrie is returned home safely with her loved ones,' Leavitt told the Daily Mail when asked if the president was satisfied with the investigation.

Investigators indicated their belief that Guthrie was taken from her home against her will in a possible kidnapping or abduction. Reports of ransom notes have only escalated alarm about her safety.

Leavitt said that President Trump had not contacted Guthrie since his phone call with the anchor on February 4, but reiterated that they were following the case closely.

After that call, the president directed that all federal law enforcement be at the family's disposal for the search.

'We are deploying all resources to get her mother home safely. The prayers of our Nation are with her and her family. GOD BLESS AND PROTECT NANCY!' he wrote on social media.

New images and footage in the search for Nancy Guthrie were released Tuesday

U.S. journalist and television host Savannah Guthrie, accompanied by her siblings Annie and Camron, speaks in a video message as the search for their mother continues

'The prayers of this entire White House and with Savannah and her family at this time,' Leavitt said.

Guthrie was last seen entering her home in Tucson, Arizona, on the evening of January 31 after having dinner with her daughter, Annie, and son-in-law, Tommaso Cioni.

The president indicated on Saturday that investigators were making progress on the case, discovering 'very strong' clues.

'I think we could have some answers coming up fairly soon,' he said, adding that it 'could be definitive.'
Trump's top deportation official has long been wary of the optics surrounding his job and how missteps could derail President Donald Trump's sweeping immigration agenda.

Border Czar Tom Homan, a veteran law enforcement officer with decades of experience in immigration enforcement, expressed concern last summer over how to keep Americans on board with Trump's mass deportation mandate.

'I think the vast majority of the American people think criminal illegal aliens need to leave. And if we stick to that prioritization, I think we keep the faith of the American people,' Homan said in June 2025 in an interview for an upcoming book as immigration agents cracked down on Los Angeles.

Not only did the border czar prefer to target illegal immigrants with crimes in addition to their illegal entry, but Homan also wanted the Trump administration to address the hot-button issue of deportations with a veneer of compassion.

'And I think the more we do that, the more the American people will support what President Trumps doing. We got to do it and weve got to do it in a humane manner,' Homan said, according to 'Undue Process: The Inside Story of Trumps Mass Deportation Program,' scheduled for publication by an NBC reporter.

At the time, then-Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino was put in charge of local deportation operations in Los Angeles.

Soon, protests erupted in the city as locals clashed with immigration agents and the National Guard was deployed to settle things down. Bovino would also command agents in Chicago and Minneapolis.

Bovino crafted clever tactics to juice overall arrests, including Operation Trojan Horse, in which immigration agents were instructed to pop out of the back of a rental van to arrest suspected illegal immigrants outside of a Home Depot.

Border Czar Tom Homan has known for months that the Trump administration's deportation agenda could be derailed by negative public perception

Ex-Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino, who was recently stripped of his title, was the face of his department's heavy-handed deportation tactics

Homan recently announced that around 700 federal immigration agents in Minnesota would be sent home

But his brash approach soured his support within the Trump administration, and he was relieved of his duties after federal officers killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

His tenure coincided with a drop in support for ICE, according to the latest Daily Mail /JL Partners polling.

The latest survey released at the end of January shows that 53 percent of registered voters believe ICE and Customs and Border Protection's raids and their presence in U.S. cities should now end.

Even 19 percent of Republicans, nearly one-fifth, agree, while 71 percent of GOP voters believe the immigration raids should continue.

Now 47 percent believe that ICE should be disbanded, an uptick from 43 percent in a Daily Mail poll that was conducted Friday.

Since the deaths of the two Americans, Homan has been deputized by Trump to calm down the situation in Minnesota and make inroads with Democratic leaders who may initially be opposed to Trump's deportation orders.

During a press conference in Minneapolis last week, Homan announced that immigration agents would soon be pulled from the city and sent home after constructive talks with Democratic Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey - two individuals often chided by Trump.

Homan's willingness to work with the Democratic leaders underscores how the administration is set on a more targeted approach to deportations.

Join the debate How should America balance compassion with law when deciding who gets deported?

There were around 3,000 immigration agents in Minnesota at the operation's peak

Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino looks on as he and his convoy stop at a gas station, days after an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, U.S., January 13, 2026

'Maybe we can use a little bit of a softer touch,' on deportation operations, Trump said last week in an interview with NBC News.

Back in June, Homan expressed concern about stories circulating at the time about legal migrants getting arrested by federal agents.

'I think the more stories like that, people are going to question what were doing more,' the border czar said.

Still, all those who enter the US illegally are valid targets for immigration officials.

'When I say prioritize public safety threats, theyre just a priority. Ive said it many times: If youre in the country illegally, youre not off the table. If we find you while were out there looking, youre going to be arrested,' Homan stated in June.

'If we send a message to the world that, Well if you enter the country illegally, thats a crime but dont worry about it  just dont commit another crime and were not looking for you, we cant send that message,' he added.


Phone hacking claims brought against the Daily Mail by Prince Harry and six other public figures are preposterous, the newspapers former editor told the High Court yesterday.

Paul Dacre said he was astonished and appalled by the allegations levelled at the Daily Mail and The Mail On Sunday (TMOS), adding: I utterly refute those.

The editor-in-chief of DMG Media launched a staunch defence of the Daily Mail and its honest, dedicated journalists, and said he wanted to clear their names as he began his evidence at the trial.

Mr Dacre, 77, who was editor of the Daily Mail for 26 years, was the first witness called on behalf of Associated Newspapers, which publishes the Daily Mail and TMOS.

He told the court: Clearly I wish to clear my name, but Im much more concerned about the name of the Daily Mail and more pertinently the honest and dedicated staff who work for it.

Mr Dacre said allegations of voicemail hacking, landline phone interception and blagging of private information had cast an insidious dark shadow since the legal action was launched in 2022 and had sometimes in the small hours of the night  reduced me to rage.

The Duke of Sussex, Baroness [Doreen] Lawrence, the mother of murdered Stephen Lawrence, Sir Elton John and four other public figures claim they were targeted by private investigators, allegedly commissioned by journalists.

Associated Newspapers denies the allegations and has told the court its journalists relied on legitimate sources for information.

The first witness called on behalf of Associated Newspapers, which publishes the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday, was former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre, pictured arriving at The Royal Courts of Justice

In his witness statement, submitted to the court as his evidence in chief, Mr Dacre said he was immensely proud of the newspaper he had edited, praising its remarkable journalism and high professional standards.

He was most proud of the papers campaign for justice for Stephen Lawrence, the black London teenager killed by racist thugs, he said, and spoke of his personal shock that Baroness Lawrence was among those who accused the Daily Mail of misconduct.

Asked about the impact of the allegations on the claimants in the case, Mr Dacre told the court: My heart bleeds for Baroness Doreen Lawrence, but these are allegations at the moment.

He added that he had been profoundly angered by all the claims brought against the Daily Mail but had found the allegations made on behalf of Baroness Lawrence especially bewildering and bitterly wounding to me personally.

Throughout my 26-year editorship, this, of all my countless campaigns, many of which made a significant contribution to the public weal, is the campaign of which I am most proud and to which I devoted the most space, Mr Dacre said.

He also said it simply defies reason for the Daily Mail to use illegal methods to see if other newspapers were getting involved in the Lawrence campaign, later adding: The suggestion that we ran the campaign to generate exclusive headlines, sell newspapers and profit is sickeningly misplaced and bleakly cynical.

During cross-examination by David Sherborne, for the claimants, Mr Dacre faced questions over the use of inquiry agents by journalists on the Daily Mail and TMOS.

When it was put to him that the newspapers had spent more than 3million on private investigators, Mr Dacre replied that Associated Newspapers had accepted that some information obtained by its journalists from such an agent, Steve Whittamore, might have breached data protection law.

He said journalists had used Mr Whittamore and other agents as a fast way to get addresses and phone numbers, and said it had been a time when many had a hazy understanding of emerging data protection and privacy law.

Banks, councils and insurance companies also used the same agents, along with other newspapers and the BBC, he pointed out.

Mr Dacre said he had not known about the extent of newspapers use of inquiry agencies until an Information Commissioners Office report in 2006. He added: When I was aware of the extent of it, I brought the shutters down, I banned them in 2007.

No other newspaper did that, they carried on using those inquiry agencies. The BBC were using them until 2011.

In his witness statement, he denied he had lied to the Leveson Inquiry into Press standards in 2011 about the use of inquiry agents, phone hacking, computer hacking and payments to police.

The trial continues.
Nancy Guthrie's family has said they do not recognize the terrifying masked figure caught on camera outside her home as police detained a person of interest in the case near Tucson, Arizona.

Federal officers finally released doorbell camera footage from the home of Today show host Savannah Guthrie's mother on Tuesday, after ten days without any leads into the 84-year-old's disappearance.

Investigators started combing through bushes near her daughter Annie's home just hours after doorbell footage showed an armed figure clad in a ski mask and carrying a backpack, wearing black latex gloves. The suspect can also be seen tampering with the mother-of-three's Nest doorbell camera.

In the footage, the suspect rips the camera from its holder on the door frame. The device was missing by the time sheriff's deputies arrived that morning.

The individual also attempts to cover the lens with a clenched fist, then searches the area around the door before ripping a bunch of flowers from the entranceway and waving them at the camera.

Nancy's three children have since said they do not recognize the suspect in the video and are pleading with the public for help catching the kidnapper, NBC News reports.

'We believe she is still alive,' Today Show host Savannah Guthrie wrote as she shared the images to Instagram. 'Bring her home.'

Nancy Guthrie's family has said they do not recognize the masked man who was seen tampering with her Nest doorbell camera the night of her disappearance. The 84 year old is the mother of Today Show host Savannah Guthrie

A masked figure was seen on Nancy Guthrie's doorstep in the early hours of February 1

The individual stares right into the lens while holding some plants ripped from outside the Arizona home, seemingly to cover the Nest doorbell camera

Earlier in the day, officers were seen going door-to-door in the neighborhood around Annie Guthrie and her husband Tommaso Cioni's home, also asking nearby businesses for surveillance footage.

Other agents were seen searching a junkyard, bushes behind Annie and Tommaso's home as well as another house at the far end of their street.

Neighbor John Grove even told the Daily Mail that investigators asked to search a dry river bed on his property.

'The cops wanted to know if they could go through that wash next to my house - I said they could,' he recounted. 'I asked if it was related to the kidnapping and they said "We can't tell you that."

'They're playing their cards close to their chest,' Grove added.

'I just hope she didn't get into any difficulties around here - it's very harsh terrain,' he said. 'We had a guy the other day who just moved here and got lost and died.

'For someone like her, well, it wouldn't end well.'

Annie and Tommaso were the last people to see Nany before her disappearance on January 31, after she went to their house for dinner.

Tommaso then dropped her back off at her house at around 9.48pm and her garage door closed at approximately 9.50pm, according to police.

By 1.47am, Nancy's doorbell camera was disconnected, with the newly released footage showing the suspect ripping the camera from its holder on the door frame.

Officers from the Pima County Sheriff's Department searched through desert land as the investigation into Nancy's disappearance continued

Officers were seen surveilling the land and speaking to Annie's neighbors

Investigators are pictured going through Annie Guthrie's neighborhood

Another video released by officials showed the individual attempting to cover the lens with a clenched fist, then searching the area around the door, ripping a bunch of flowers from the entranceway, and waving them at the camera.

Another clip shared by the FBI showed the individual hunched over as they made their first approach to the door, bowing their head.

The terrifying footage was finally recovered on Tuesday after FBI agents and the Pima County Sheriff's Department conducted a deep dive into Nest's backend systems, as Nancy did not have a Nest subscription - which would have automatically uploaded the images and saved them to a cloud storage platform.

Savannah Guthrie has since shared the haunting stills on Instagram, saying: 'We believe she is still alive. Bring her home.'

Nancy was reported missing after failing to attend a virtual church service with friends, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said.

Since then, law enforcement has continued to comb over the home, which sits on a large lot on a street with no lights, while Guthrie and her two siblings, Annie and Camron, plead for help in finding their mother.

The figure raises their fist while wearing latex gloves, with apparent facial hair also visible, moments before the individual apparently removed the camera

Moments before the individual apparently removes the camera outside Nancy's home

Annie and Tommaso have said they realized Nancy was missing around 11.10am last Sunday, the Pima County Sheriff's Office said.

They reported her disappearance to police at 12.15pm. Her phone, wallet, vital daily medications and car were still at her Catalina Foothills home.

Cioni said he saw his mother-in-law enter her home through the garage before driving off the night before at around 9:45pm MT.

Investigators found drops of blood on Nancy's front porch that were later confirmed to be hers and that her doorbell camera was disconnected at around 1.45am.

Less than 30 minutes later, her security camera detected movement. Her pacemaker stopped transmitting data to her Apple Watch and phone shortly afterwards, suggesting she had been taken out of the devices' range.

Nancy requires medication every 24 hours and it is unclear if whoever abducted her has ensured she has access to her medication.

Guthrie and her two siblings, Camron and Annie, in a video they shared online asking for help

A ransom note sent to multiple news outlets last week set an initial deadline of Thursday evening and a final deadline of Monday evening.

The notes are said to have made specific reference to damage to Nancy's home and the placement of a possession, both details that have not been shared with the public.

It is unclear if those specific pieces of information were accurate.

Guthrie said she and her family were taking the demands seriously but there has been no official update on whether the notes' contents have been verified and if their senders really are holding Nancy captive.

Efforts to negotiate with the alleged captors also stalled, as a digital wallet referenced in the first letter for a potential transaction remained empty, according to TMZ, which was sent a copy of the note.

Once the payment was made, the alleged kidnappers claimed they would return Nancy to Tucson within 12 hours, the outlet reported.

After Monday's deadline passed, the FBI said it 'is not aware of any continued communication between the Guthrie family and suspected kidnappers.'

The bureau is now leading all elements of the investigation in connection with Nancy's kidnapping, including alleged ransom notes.
Native title holders have taken a case to the High Court to assert their rights over an aquifer after a horticulture company was granted a massive water allocation to grow fruit and vegetables in the desert.

Six native title holders from the Mpwerempwer Aboriginal Corporation attended a hearing in Canberra on Tuesday to challenge the licence issued for free by the Northern Territory government.

It authorises Fortune Agribusiness to extract 40 gigalitres of groundwater at Singleton Station every year for 30 years, equal to draining Sydney Harbour twice.

It is the largest groundwater licence issued in the NT as part of a plan to develop thousands of hectares on Singleton Station, south of Tennant Creek, into an intensive irrigated horticulture business.

Traditional Owners say the project threatens sacred sites, cultural survival and a fragile desert water system.

They say it risks permanently damaging an ancient aquifer, at least 40 groundwater-dependent sacred sites and community water supplies.

'When groundwater levels drop below the reach of roots of sacred trees and plants, they die. Animals connected to dreaming stories disappear,' the owners said in a statement.

Alyawarr Traditional Owner Frankie Holmes said water was central to people's identity and survival.

Traditional owners are challenging a massive water allocation to a horticulture company. (PR IMAGE PHOTO)

'Looking after land and country, especially sacred trees, is very, very important for us. Ancestors hand it over to us to look after these waters and these lands.'

Native title holder and Mpwerempwer director Dawn Swan said after six years of fighting the water allocation the High Court's decision to hear the case gave her hope.

'We have people living on the land and this is their dream to stay here for future generations,' she said.

Backing the owner corporation, Central Land Council general manager Josie Douglas said it was an important opportunity to have owners' concerns about the Singleton water licence taken seriously.

The council claims the water licence is worth between $70 million and $300 million.

'Yet the NT government is granting the licence free of charge to Fortune Agribusiness,' it said in a statement.

The Mpwerempwer Corporation has told the High Court the impact on Aboriginal cultural values was not taken into account by the NT government in granting the licence.

An appeal by Traditional Owners in the NT Supreme Court failed in May 2025.

The NT government said the courts had already correctly identified the law does not impose an obligation on a government minister to consider the impact on Aboriginal cultural values.

Fortune has called on the court to dismiss the appeal.
A second person has been charged with the death of an 18-month-old girl on the Isle of Wight.

Adrian Lawton, 31, of Newport, is accused of murdering and causing or allowing the death of Jayla-Jean McLaren and will appear at Southampton Magistrates Court on Wednesday.

It comes after Samara Glover, 27, appeared at Portsmouth Crown Court last week facing charges of murdering the infant. She also faces one charge of causing or allowing the death of a child.

She was remanded into custody ahead of a plea and trial preparation hearing on March 23, as a provisional trial was set for June 29.

Jayla-Jean died in hospital on August 3, 2025, after suffering serious injuries two days earlier, Hampshire Constabulary said.

In a statement previously issued through police, the girl's family said: 'Mummy, daddy, and nanny will always love you. Fly high princess.'

Jayla-Jean Mclaren died in hospital on August 3, 2025, after suffering serious injuries two days earlier

In a statement previously issued through police, the girl's family said: 'Mummy, daddy, and nanny will always love you. Fly high princess'

Speaking about the case, Detective Chief Inspector Gemma Hunter said: 'We understand that cases such as this are incredibly concerning and upsetting.

'However, we kindly ask that you do not speculate on this case, as it could potentially impact any future court proceedings.

'We will provide further updates on this investigation when appropriate.'
Riot police in Albania fired tear gas and water cannons at anti-government protesters after they lobbed Molotov cocktails and flares during a demonstration in the country's capital.

Thousands of opposition supporters demanding the end of Albania's current government flooded the streets of Tirana on Tuesday night and clashed with police.

Dramatic images showed fires being lit and fireworks being thrown at law enforcement.

Cops said that 16 protesters were treated in a hospital for burns and other injuries, adding that 13 were arrested during the protest.

Prime Minister Edi Rama's Government has come under fire over corruption allegations involving Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku, though Rama has resisted calls to dismiss her.

There have been growing demands that lawmakers lift Balluku's immunity from prosecution, which can only be done in a parliamentary vote.

Anti-corruption prosecutors have accused Balluku, who is also minister for energy and infrastructure, of interfering in public procurement for construction projects to favour certain companies, and have called for her immunity to be lifted.

Tuesday night's protest was attended by thousands of people, and it was the third such demonstration in recent months demanding Rama's resignation.

More than 1,300 police officers had been deployed to ensure security.

Previous protests also turned violent, with demonstrators throwing Molotov cocktails and rocks at police and a government building, and with authorities responding with tear gas and water cannons.

Opposition Democratic Party leader Sali Berisha, a former prime minister who has also faced corruption charges himself, described the protest as a 'peaceful uprising' that came at a critical moment for Albania.

A group of masked protesters gather as one of them fires a flare during an anti-government protest, triggered by a corruption investigation into Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku, in front of the Prime Minister's office in Tirana, Albania, February 10, 2026

Police officers hold shields outside the Prime Minister's office during an anti-government protest, triggered by a corruption investigation into Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku, in Tirana, Albania, February 10, 2026

An opposition supporter walks away from tear gas during an anti-government protest in Tirana, Albania, February 10 2026

Speaking at the protest, he accused Rama of 'declaring war on the justice system.'

Political analyst Mentor Kikia said it was unlikely that any major change would result from the protests.

'Citizens are distrustful, having consistently voted for the lesser evil to remove the greater evil from power,' he said.

'The current perception is that if Rama leaves, Berisha will return. One left power because of corruption, the other must also leave power because of corruption,' Kikia said.

Albania hopes to join the European Union, and is under close monitoring by the bloc as part of its accession process, which it hopes to complete by 2027.

However, international watchdogs say the country continues to suffer from widespread corruption.
A boy of 13 launched a stabbing rampage in a school on Tuesday, leaving two children fighting for their lives in a suspected terror attack.

In the middle of a classroom just before lunch, a teenager pulled out a knife and stabbed a 13-year-old boy in the neck and back while shouting 'Allahu Akbar', witnesses said.

Seconds later, a second boy aged 12 was knifed in front of screaming children at Kingsbury High School in Brent, north-west London.

Armed police raced to the school, but the knifeman had fled. A suspect, who has not been named, was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after being found hiding nearby around an hour later.

Sources said he was not a pupil at Kingsbury High, raising questions about how he managed to get into the school building with a concealed weapon.

On Tuesday, the two wounded boys were in a life-threatening condition in hospital. Scotland Yard said counter-terrorism police were leading the investigation amid suspicions it was an ideologically motivated attack.

Police have yet to formally declare that the stabbings were a terrorist attack as officers were still carrying out searches related to the suspect on Tuesday night.

Many of the youngsters who witnessed the stabbing spree were held in the school hall for several hours while police carried out inquiries.

A boy of 13 is accused of launching into a stabbing rampage in a north-west London school on Tuesday, leaving two children fighting for their lives in a suspected terror attack

In the middle of a classroom just before lunch, a teenager pulled out a knife and stabbed a 13-year-old boy in the neck and back while shouting 'Allahu Akbar', witnesses said

The attack unfolded at Kingsbury High School on Bacon Lane in Brent at around 12.40pm, police said

The father of one pupil said: 'He [the attacker] came into the school and my son saw him stab a child in the neck.

'Two boys were on the floor and the other children thought they were just playing. But then they didn't get up. It's awful.'

A woman said her sister was in the classroom next door when the attack started.

She said: 'They heard screaming and crying. Our parents are travelling and they saw it on the news and were so worried.

'My brother was really scared to go back to school. How can you after a stabbing?'

A father of another pupil added: 'My child is traumatised.'

Maeve O'Callaghan-Harrington, who lives locally, said she heard children sobbing as they left school with their parents.

She said: 'I walked outside and heard one boy saying, "Mummy, Mummy, it was in his neck".'

Detective Chief Superintendent Luke Williams said police were 'keeping an open mind as to any motivation behind the attack'.

He added: 'The suspect, who we believe to be 13, left the scene following the stabbing. After urgent inquiries, our officers arrested him and also recovered a weapon which we believe to have been used in the stabbing.

'The suspect was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and remains in custody for questioning by our officers.'

Scotland Yard said counter-terrorism police were leading the investigation amid suspicions it was an ideologically motivated attack (Pictured: Tuesday evening's Met Police press conference)

Police have yet to formally declare that the stabbings were a terrorist attack as officers were still carrying out searches related to the suspect on Tuesday night

Kingsbury headteacher Alex Thomas said: 'This has been a deeply traumatic event for the whole school community.

'We are working closely with the authorities.'

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said her thoughts and prayers were with the two victims and their families, adding: 'The police have arrested the suspect, and I would like to thank them for their rapid work in doing so. We must now give them the space to pursue their investigation.'

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson added: 'I am heartbroken to hear about the stabbings at a school in Brent.'

The leader of Brent Council, Muhammed Butt, said it was 'horrifying' to think that a youngster had carried out a knife attack in a school, adding: 'No parent should ever have to fear for their child's safety at school.'

Kingsbury High School is an academy with 1,997 pupils aged 11 to 18. It was previously known as the Kingsbury County School, whose alumni included George Michael, jazz musician Courtney Pine and Floyd Steadman, the first black captain of the Saracens rugby team.

London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan urged anyone with information about the attack to come forward, adding: 'My thoughts are with the family, friends and wider community in Brent following the appalling stabbings.

'This awful violence has absolutely no place in our city.

'A suspect has been arrested and I am in close contact with the Met as they investigate this terrible incident. The investigation is in its early stages and it's right the police are investigating every possible element.'
An answer provided by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt at Tuesday's press briefing may have unintentionally outed President Donald Trump for telling a brazen lie.

Leavitt was grilled on why Trump asked Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to help him rename New York's Penn Station to Trump Station.

On Friday, Trump told reporters on board Air Force One as he traveled to Florida for the weekend that it was Schumer's idea for the train station rebrand.

The New York Democrat quickly snapped back and said it wasn't.

'Absolute lie. He knows it. Everyone knows it,' Schumer posted to X.

Four days later, Leavitt didn't even bother correcting the framing of the question - that changing the name of the train station was, in fact, the president's idea.

'To your first question about the renaming, why not?' she responded.

'It was something the President floated in his conversation with - with Chuck Schumer,' she added - cementing Schumer's version of the story.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday may have inadvertently got President Donald Trump caught in a lie when she didn't push back on an assertion that it was Trump's idea to rename Penn Station after himself

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (left) said publicly that it wasn't his idea to have Penn Station named after President Donald Trump (right), which the president has been using as a bargaining chip after his administration paused funds for the Gateway Tunnel project

The New York Times reported earlier on Friday that top administration officials had told Schumer that he could get Trump to unfreeze the federal dollars meant to fund the Gateway Tunnel project if he agreed to help the president get the Trump name attached to Penn Station and Washington Dulles International Airport.

The Gateway Tunnel has been a long-needed infrastructure project to build a new rail tunnel to connect New York City and New Jersey.

It would replace - for a time - the current North River Tunnel, which was put into service in 1910, so it could be rehabilitated for modern rail travel.

The $16 billion project was halted on Friday - and won't resume until federal funds are released.

The Trump administration said the funds were paused over DEI - diversity, equity and inclusion - initiatives.

Trump and Schumer met at the White House in January to discuss the frozen funds.

Sources told the Times that Schumer refused Trump's request to help him with the name change.

If Schumer did acquiesce, even as the top Senate Democrat, he doesn't have direct oversight over either locale.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer pushed back on President Donald Trump's assertion that it was the New York Democrat's suggestion to rename Penn Station after Trump in a Friday night post on X

'Only one man can restart the project and he can restart it with the snap of his fingers,' Schumer said in his Friday X post.

To a question about whether it was appropriate for Trump to hold up the funds to get Penn Station named after him, Leavitt responded, 'as for the funding, the President has addressed that separately himself.'

New York's Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul said Tuesday at a press conference that the funds had been stopped 'because Donald Trump is throwing a temper tantrum,' amNewYork reported.

Trump has gone to great lengths to cement his legacy as a two-term president, even with nearly three years left in his term.

He's putting his mark on the White House by constructing a ballroom, which has been made more controversial by ordering the East Wing demolished before it went through an oversight process.

Trump had his name added to the Kennedy Center in mid-December - and then announced that the performing arts venue in Washington, DC would close for two years after July 4th festivities for renovations that would have a Trumpian flair.

He already showed off designs for marble to be added to the Kennedy Center's seats.

Trump has also green-lit Trump $1 coins to be minted to mark the country's 250th birthday, with detractors saying that it's un-American for a living president to be depicted on U.S. currency.
A First Nations woman who says she experienced a 'derogatory and humiliating' security check at a regional Coles supermarket has won the right to pursue a racial discrimination case.

Janice Edwards was using a self-scanning check-out at Coles in Dubbo, western NSW, in March 2024, when the machine registered an error and she asked a staff member for help.

Instead of clearing the error, the staff member did a security check by placing an image of Ms Edwards' face on the screen and playing video footage of her scanning groceries.

Ms Edwards told the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal that the staff member refused her requests to remove the image from the screen and instead re-scanned all of her items.

That process raised suggestions there was some kind of issue with Ms Edwards' scanning her groceries or there was an item that had been missed, the tribunal heard.

'There was, of course, no theft or attempt at theft by Ms Edwards,' tribunal senior member Jill Gatland said in a judgment handed down on Wednesday.

'However, the manner in which her request for assistance was handled left Ms Edwards feeling humiliated and embarrassed.'

Ms Edwards told the tribunal that she was familiar with the self-scanning technology, but believed the security check had been conducted in a 'derogatory and humiliating' manner because of her race.

Janice Edwards asked a staff member for help when the machine registered an error but a tribunal was told the employee then did a security check instead (stock image)

'She stated that she was treated unfairly and in a manner that a non-Indigenous person would not have been treated,' Ms Gatland said.

Ms Edwards was granted leave to pursue the complaint against Coles before the tribunal, after she challenged the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board's decision to drop their investigation into the incident.

The tribunal found it was clear Ms Edwards would not be able to finish her shopping unless she underwent the security check, which would be central evidence at a future hearing.

'I consider that Ms Edwards may be able to satisfy the tribunal at a final hearing that the terms on which she was allowed to make purchases from Coles were different because of her race,' she said.

Coles did not suggest 'in any way' in evidence to the tribunal that Ms Edwards was trying to steal anything.

'Indeed, there is no evidence whatsoever that Ms Edwards is anything other than an upstanding senior member of the community in Dubbo,' Ms Gatland said.

'To a great extent, the fact that there was no suggestion of misconduct on Ms Edwards' part rather underlines the point that she may have been treated differently because of her race.'

Evidence from a Coles customer service manager said the cameras at self-scanning check-outs can be oversensitive and staff were trained to 'never blame the customer'.

Join the debate Have you ever felt unfairly singled out while shopping, and how should stores handle such situations?

The case was listed for directions at a later date.

The Daily Mail has contacted Coles for comment.
The LAPD is now reviewing the findings of an explosive new investigation into the murder of Elizabeth Short, just weeks after the Daily Mail exclusively revealed the identity of a new suspect and a potential tie to the Zodiac killings.

The Daily Mail has learned that two LAPD detectives are currently assigned to the 1947 cold case known as the Black Dahlia murder.

This two-person team has recently reached out to members of investigative consultant Alex Baber's team, following the publication of his theory that Marvin Margolis - a military veteran and ex-boyfriend of Short who died in 1993 - was responsible for her murder.

The detectives have spoken with Baber's team, including highly regarded retired police officers working with him on the case, and have asked for contact information for people deemed relevant to the investigation.

As a result, Baber's team has shared its findings and the LAPD is now reviewing the investigation.

'While the case has technically been open for the last 79 years, it wasn't necessarily actively pursued,' Baber told the Daily Mail. 'It was never officially closed because it was a cold case - it just took the back burner.'

The shift appears to mark a significant step forward for a case that was notorious for its brutality yet has gone unsolved for close to 80 years.

It comes after the Daily Mail revealed in December how Baber had identified Margolis, also known by the alias Marvin Merrill, as the suspected perpetrator responsible for the two unsolved crimes.

Elizabeth Short, 22, outside John Marshall High School in Los Angeles. A new investigation has identified a suspect in her murder

On January 15, 1947, Short was found murdered in Los Angeles's Leimert Park neighborhood. Investigators are pictured here on the scene

Alex Baber sat down with the Daily Mail to share the latest developments in his investigation

Baber claimed to have solved the Zodiac killer's Z13 cipher, which was mailed to the press in April 1970, revealing the name Marvin Merrill.

He also unearthed a trove of circumstantial evidence linking the same man to Short's murder, including his surgical experience, the Zodiac motel where Short may have been murdered and a chilling sketch he drew while dying from terminal cancer.

The Daily Mail spent several months reviewing Baber's investigation, combing through hundreds of documents and records shared by his team.

Experts including retired LAPD homicide detectives Mitzi Roberts and Rick Jackson have publicly stated they believe he has solved the two cases.

Jackson told the Killer in the Code podcast he had spoken recently with one of the LAPD detectives assigned to Short's case.

'In reality, we have no control over where this goes once we make our notifications and communicate with law enforcement,' he said.

'But I do think they will look at it and make a determination. I think there's sufficient evidence for them to look at these cases and move forward to the extent where they can either definitely include him as the suspect, or eliminate him if that's what it shows - which I don't think will happen.'

Roberts previously led the LAPD's cold case team and was assigned the Black Dahlia case for around 15 years.

She said the evidence connecting Margolis to the two cases is 'overwhelming.'

'It's hard to think that this person is not the person who was responsible for killing the Black Dahlia. I really believe he's found the guy. He solved the Black Dahlia,' she said on the podcast.

Baber told the Daily Mail it 'feels good' to know that his investigation has led to a renewed focus on Short's case, and that the LAPD is committing to solving Short's murder after almost eight decades.

'The LAPD wants what we want, and we're working in the same direction,' he said.

'We both have the same endgame in mind and that is to identify who murdered Elizabeth Short.

'It's a shame that Elizabeth's sisters and mother have passed, but there are generations of Short's family members out there, and to give them answers would mean a lot to me and my team.'

While Margolis died in 1993 and therefore cannot be prosecuted, Baber said he hopes law enforcement can still officially close the case once and for all.

'I hope that it's officially closed, but you can't prosecute a dead guy so it will be up to the LAPD if they want to close it under whatever circumstances they deem suitable,' he said.

'For the first time in history, through the countless suspects that have been presented since January 1947, we actually have somebody that we can connect irrefutably to Elizabeth Short that may lead to her case being closed.'

Marvin Margolis (in a high school yearbook photo (left) and a later photo obtained and enhanced by Alex Baber (right)) has been identified by Baber as a suspect in both the Black Dahlia and Zodiac killings

When contacted by the Daily Mail, the LAPD downplayed the significance of its interest in Baber's investigation.

'The Black Dahlia case has been assigned to the RHD Cold Case Unit for decades. The investigation has been open and ongoing,' a spokesperson said.

'The detectives responsible for the case have not changed in the last year and a half and no new detectives have been assigned to look into that specific case.'

The Daily Mail previously reported how Baber's investigation had also drawn interest from the agencies with jurisdiction over the Zodiac case.

In September, Baber was asked to present his findings to four of the five California police departments where the Zodiac killings occurred - including the San Francisco Police Department, Napa County Sheriff's Office, Solano County Sheriff's Office and the FBI.

Since then, Jackson has also spoken with the San Francisco PD's lead investigator on the Zodiac case.

Margolis had been a prime suspect in the Black Dahlia case at the time - but his name has never before been linked to the Zodiac killings.

It was the morning of January 15, 1947, when Short, 22, was found murdered in a vacant lot in LA's Leimert Park neighborhood.

The killer had severed her naked body in two, just above the waist, and posed her torso on the grass with arms raised above her head - her lower body staged beneath, with her legs spread.

Pictured: A composite sketch and description circulated by San Francisco Police as they tried - in vain - to catch the Zodiac killer

The Z13 is widely believed to conceal the Zodiac's real name, with its 13-character code preceded by the teaser: 'My name is -' Baber believes he has finally decrypted it to reveal the name Marvin Merrill

Short's body had been sliced cleanly in two above the waist. There were chunks of flesh cut out of her body and a grotesque smile had been carved from the corners of her mouth into her cheeks

Chunks of flesh had been gouged from her left thigh and breasts, a four-inch gash sliced from her navel to lower abdomen where a criss-cross pattern had been slashed into her skin, and a grotesque smile carved from the corners of her mouth upwards into her cheeks.

Baber (pictured) hopes the Black Dahlia case can be solved once and for all

The cutting was precise, with care taken not to damage any vital organs, leading investigators to believe the killer had surgical experience.

There was also no blood at the scene, indicating Short had been slain elsewhere before her body was staged out in the open.

The brutality of the murder of the young woman from Massachusetts who had moved to Hollywood in search of stardom quickly became fodder for the press and public.

Within days, her killer began corresponding with the media, sending in some of the victim's possessions to a local paper and claiming responsibility for her horrific crime.

Despite the high-profile nature of the case - and extensive investigation - her killer was never caught.

Margolis was however named among 22 suspects during a Los Angeles grand jury inquest in 1949. He had been interviewed in the immediate aftermath of her murder and was sought for additional questioning by the grand jury investigators.

However, by that time, he had left LA and changed his name to Marvin Merrill, leaving police unable to locate him.

Pictured: The motel formerly known as the Zodiac Motel where Baber believes that Elizabeth Short was mutilated by her killer

Among the most damning pieces of evidence is one of the final sketches Merrill produced, depicting a naked woman named 'ELIZABETH' (pictured)

At the time of Short's murder, Margolis was enrolled as a medical student at the University of Southern California.

He and Short had been in a brief, allegedly volatile relationship months before her death, and she had confided in multiple people that she feared for her life at the hands of a jealous ex-boyfriend.

'It should be noted further that this suspect, Marvin Margolis, is the only pre-medical student who ever lived as a boyfriend with Beth Short,' the grand jury records said.

On January 14, 1947 - hours before Short's body was found - LAPD Officer Myrl McBride encountered a woman she later identified as Short hysterically crying at a downtown bus station. The woman said she had bumped into her 'insanely jealous' ex-Marine boyfriend, who had threatened to kill her if she went out with another man.

Among Short's known boyfriends and the suspects named in the grand jury records, Margolis was the only one with ties to the Marine Corps, Baber's investigation found.

Later that night, witnesses at a bus stop in North Long Beach reported hearing screams and seeing a woman being pinned down inside a passing black sedan, according to contemporaneous media reports.

That same night, a man driving a black sedan - and matching Margolis's description - approached at least three motels around San Pedro asking for a room with a bathtub for his wife, police said.

Around ten miles from those motels was the Zodiac Motel which advertised 'modern facilities' including 'bath.'

Baber believes this was the place where Short was taken by her killer, murdered and mutilated - and that this then became the inspiration for the Zodiac killer's name two decades later.

Between 1968 and 1969, the Zodiac killer began his campaign of terror over the Bay Area, killing at least five victims in four confirmed attacks.

The serial killer taunted the media and police, sending cryptic, threatening letters and complex ciphers to local newspapers.

Like the Black Dahlia case, the Zodiac killer was never caught and the case never closed - potentially until now.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor could be sent to prison if he is convicted of allegations relating to Jeffrey Epstein that are now being assessed by police.

Andrew Lownie, author of biography 'Entitled', insisted there were 'good grounds' for the disgraced royal to be investigated and charged with misconduct in public office.

Life imprisonment is the maximum sentence for convictions of the offence, covering serious wilful abuse or neglect of the power or responsibilities of the office held.

Thames Valley Police officers are now assessing suggestions that Andrew shared confidential reports from his role as the UK's trade envoy with sex offender Epstein.

There is nothing in the law stopping Andrew from being criminally prosecuted and jailed, given Charles is the only Royal Family member who has sovereign immunity.

Mr Lownie told the Daily Mail today: 'There are good grounds to investigate Andrew on sex trafficking - plenty of evidence now of women trafficked to him including at Royal Lodge  and misconduct in public office for sharing confidential information to business associates. There is a stronger case against him than Mandelson.'

But when asked whether Andrew could go to jail, Mr Lownie suggested he might flee to another country. He said: 'Assuming the Metropolitan Police and National Crime Agency do bite the bullet and investigate Andrew and they then say there are grounds to charge him, he'll be off to a country without an extradition treaty with UK.

'The last thing the Royal Family want is a trial airing their dirty laundry and the fact they have ducked dealing with Andrew for years. He was protected by the Queen and that has continued. His royal relative King Juan Carlos scarpered to Dubai as soon as corruption charges levelled against him.'

Andrew could move to Abu Dhabi, where he is said to have been offered a 16,000 square foot palace by friend UAE president Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

The King has told of his 'profound concern' at the allegations, with palace officials saying they 'stand ready to support' the police if approached over the claims.

Mr Lownie has previously claimed Andrew could go to prison over the allegations against him by the late Virginia Giuffre, which the former prince has always denied.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor rides a horse in Windsor Great Park near Royal Lodge last week

'Entitled' author Andrew Lownie says there are 'good grounds' for the royal to be investigated

In 2002, Princess Anne became the first Royal Family member to be convicted of a criminal offence when she was fined 500 after one of her dogs bit two children.

Anne also became the family's first member to have a criminal record after admitting a charge under the Dangerous Dogs Act over the incident in Windsor, following the case brought as 'Regina v Laurence, Anne Elizabeth Alice'  mother v daughter.

She also had several convictions for speeding, all dealt with without the embarrassment of a court appearance  in 1972, 1977, 1990 and 2000.

Anne's daughter Zara Tindall was banned from driving for six months in 2020 for doing 91mph in a 70mph zone.

Going back centuries, King Charles I was beheaded in 1649 for tyranny and treason after the English civil war.

And in 1586, Mary, Queen of Scots was executed after being convicted over the 'Babington Plot' plan to assassinate her cousin Queen Elizabeth I.

Now, the reignited crisis involving Andrew which has engulfed both the monarchy and Westminster has shown little sign of abating since the US authorities released millions of documents associated with paedophile financier Epstein on January 30.

The palace has not so far been approached by Thames Valley Police over the claims which relate to Andrew's time as the UK's special representative for international trade and investment.

But the fresh trove of documents released by the US Department of Justice has sparked a string of allegations against Andrew and led to police launching an investigation into Peter Mandelson over alleged misconduct in public office.

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Andrew and Charles at the Duchess of Kent's funeral at Westminster Cathedral last September

The email from the files appears to show Andrew forwarded on reports from his trade envoy trips to Epstein five minutes after he got them from his then-special adviser, Amit Patel

Among the claims are that a second woman was sent to the UK by Epstein for a sexual encounter with Andrew, and also that the former prince and Epstein asked an exotic dancer for a threesome in the latter's Florida home.

The latest allegation is that Andrew shared confidential reports of official visits to Hong Kong, Vietnam and Singapore in his role as the UK's trade envoy.

One email, dated November 2010, was forwarded by Andrew just five minutes after being sent by his then-special advisor, Amit Patel.

The former duke made the visits in his capacity as trade envoy in late 2010, conducting meetings and trade talks.

Additionally, on Christmas Eve 2010, Andrew looped Epstein in on a confidential brief on investment opportunities in the reconstruction of Helmand province in Afghanistan.

The messages come after Epstein's 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor for prostitution.

Andrew previously told BBC's Newsnight in 2019 he had cut off contact with the convicted paedophile in December 2010 during a visit to New York.

On February 9, 2011, Andrew told Epstein he had visited a private equity firm the week before and 'thought of you' as the financier, who was reportedly 'looking for somewhere for money to go'.

Official government guidance underscores that the role of a trade envoy carries a duty of confidentiality regarding sensitive information.

'This may include sensitive, commercial, or political information shared about relevant markets/visits,' the guidance read.

Join the debate Should royals face the same legal consequences as everyone else?

Andrew features a number of times in the documents, including images apparently showing him crouching over an unidentified woman in what appears to be Epstein's New York mansion

'This duty of confidentiality will continue to apply after the expiry of their term of office. In addition, the Official Secrets Acts 1911 and 1989 will apply.'

The former duke served as the UK's special representative for trade and investment between 2001 and 2011.

Vince Cable, business secretary at the time, told the BBC of the emails: 'I was unaware of Andrew... sharing information about investment opportunities [in Afghanistan] before, this is the first I've heard of it.'

Graham Smith, chief executive of anti-monarchy campaign group Republic, confirmed to the Daily Mail that he had reported the allegations to police.

The former duke features a number of times in the latest release of documents, including images apparently showing him crouched over an unidentified woman in what appears to be Epstein's New York mansion.

In 2022, the former duke paid millions of pounds to Ms Giuffre, his main accuser, despite claiming never to have met her.

The King later stripped him of his titles following the posthumous release of a book by Ms Giuffre, who alleges she was trafficked by Epstein and his former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, at the age of 17.

In the latest statement from Buckingham Palace yesterday, a spokesman said: 'The King has made clear, in words and through unprecedented actions, his profound concern at allegations which continue to come to light in respect of Mr Mountbatten-Windsor's conduct.

Graham Smith (pictured in 2023), chief executive of anti-monarchy campaign group Republic, has reported Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to Thames Valley Police

'While the specific claims in question are for Mr Mountbatten-Windsor to address, if we are approached by Thames Valley Police we stand ready to support them as you would expect.

'As was previously stated, Their Majesties' thoughts and sympathies have been, and remain with, the victims of any and all forms of abuse.'

The Prince and Princess of Wales meanwhile publicly addressed the Epstein scandal for the first time yesterday, with Kensington Palace saying they were 'deeply concerned' at the 'continued revelations' and that their thoughts 'remain focused on the victims'.

The comment from Buckingham Palace came after the King was heckled for the second time in a week about Andrew.

He arrived at Clitheroe train station yesterday morning to greet crowds at the start of an awayday to Lancashire, when a man shouted: 'How long have you known about Andrew?'

The rest of the crowd booed after the question was asked.

Just hours later, Thames Valley Police confirmed it was assessing claims that Andrew shared confidential reports with Epstein.

Former BBC royal correspondent Peter Hunt has called on the King to publicly make clear that Andrew should testify before US congress over his links to Epstein, and to support removing his brother from the line of succession.

King Charles III leaves Clitheroe railway station in Lancashire yesterday to meet well-wishers

Mr Hunt said: 'The royals are rattled and rightly so, with the statement from William and Kate failing because it contains warm words, but no hard action.

'It's now time for King Charles to make clear publicly that he believes Andrew should testify before US lawmakers and that legislation needs to be passed to remove his brother as eighth in line to the throne.

'If he doesn't, Charles runs the risk of his reign being remembered as one where the British monarchy failed to properly support Epstein's victims.'

Andrew, who was stripped of his titles by the King last year, has always denied any wrongdoing and last week finally left Royal Lodge for the King's private Sandringham estate, with Charles personally funding his new life with an annual stipend.

The King also faced heckling on a visit to Dedham, Essex, last week, when a man shouted: 'Charles, Charles, have you pressurised the police to start investigating Andrew?'

Kensington Palace's statement is the first time the views of the prince and princess have been known on the scandal.

William arrived in Saudi Arabia for the start of his solo three-day tour of the Middle East country yesterday, spending his first day with the Saudi ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

A photo of Jeffrey Epstein which was in the latest files from the US Department of Justice

Ahead of the visit, a Kensington Palace spokesman said: 'I can confirm that the Prince and Princess of Wales have been deeply concerned by the continued revelations. Their thoughts remain focused on the victims.'

Much of the work of the Royal Family in recent weeks has been overshadowed by the ongoing Epstein scandal, despite the King's attempts to draw a line under the matter when he banished Andrew in October by stripping him of his right to be a prince and of his dukedom.

The Duke of Edinburgh was the first member of the Royal Family to publicly speak out since the Epstein documents were released, saying last week in Dubai that it was important to 'remember the victims' when asked how he was 'coping'.

William and Kate supported the King's decision to strip his brother Andrew of his Prince and Duke of York titles and HRH style, a move that ended his public life.

The couple also shared the sentiments of the Buckingham Palace statement at the time, which said: 'Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.'

In 2022, the late Queen stripped her son Andrew of his honorary military roles and he gave up using his HRH style, in a dramatic fallout from the civil sex case brought by Ms Giuffre, who died last year from suicide.

Ms Giuffre alleged she was forced to have sex three times with Andrew, which he vehemently denies, including when she was 17, and also during an orgy, after she was trafficked by Epstein.

Andrew paid millions to settle the civil sex case with her in 2022, despite insisting he had never met her. He has always denied any wrongdoing.
Ahead of Prince Williams oh-so-important visit to Saudi Arabia, he and Kate addressed the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein scandal which has swamped the Royal Family. A Kensington Palace spokesman released a statement on their behalf: I can confirm The Prince and Princess have been deeply concerned by the continuing revelations.

Their thoughts remain focused on the victims.

Lord alive, if Wills and Kate think this anodyne message, which reads like it was written by AI, will do anything to distance themselves from the horrible stench of Uncle Andrews decades-long friendship with one of the worlds most prolific convicted sex traffickers and a convicted paedophile, then theyre living in cloud cuckoo land.

The statement  not even from the mouths of Wills and Kate themselves  fails to make mention of Andrew, despite the continuing gruesome revelations that have emerged in the latest tranche of financier Jeffrey Epsteins emails released by the US Department of Justice. The photograph of Andrew taken in Epsteins New York mansion, his eyes gleaming red in the camera flash as he, lasciviously to me, poses on all fours over a young woman whose identity has been redacted, is particularly disturbing.

Even King Charles managed to do better than his eldest son, confirming last night his official position on the ongoing saga, with a Palace spokesperson saying: The King has made clear, in words and through unprecedented actions, his profound concern at allegations which continue to come to light in respect of Mr Mountbatten-Windsors conduct.

To his credit, the King has strained every sinew and legal fibre to banish his brother from Royal Lodge and strip him of all his titles.

Putting it plainly, if William and Kate value their own survival, they must act in the same spirit  calling Andrew out and distancing themselves from him forever, rather than releasing a wishy-washy statement that says nothing.

If William and Kate value their own survival, they must act in the same spirit  calling Andrew out and distancing themselves from him forever, rather than releasing a wishy-washy statement that says nothing, writes Amanda Platell

The photograph of Andrew taken in Epsteins New York mansion, his eyes gleaming red as he lasciviously poses on all fours over a helpless young woman whose identity has been redacted, is particularly disturbing, writes Amanda Platell

Are they really empathising with the young women allegedly (a word I am required to use) procured for Andrew by Epstein, or are they just trying to get ahead of the headlines?

Of course, the most prominent of Andrews alleged victims is the late Virginia Giuffre, who claimed she was forced to have sex with him aged just 17 in the London home of Epsteins madam Ghislaine Maxwell, as well as on two other occasions in New York and one on Epsteins private island. Virginia wrote in her book Nobodys Girl  released after her untimely death last year  that she believed Andrew felt entitled to have sex with her whenever he wanted because he was a Prince of the British realm.

Since then, thanks to the newly released documents and emails between Andrew and Epstein, other alleged victims have emerged. What about the hot young Russian woman Epstein supposedly procured for him, or the adolescent girls reportedly hired to attend naked pool parties with Andrew?

The late, disgraced Jeffrey Epstein

True, the Cambridges arent to blame  it was our beloved late Queen who turned a blind eye to her favourite sons monstrous behaviour. Sadly, it will remain a stain on her otherwise unblemished and magnificent reign that, if she knew about them, she did not clamp down on her sons sexual proclivities.

Andrew should have faced the music when Virginia first made her accusations against him in 2021 in a US lawsuit alleging sexual assault. He should have faced his day in court. If he was innocent and could prove it, why did our late Queen protect him by seemingly contributing 12million to help him silence his accuser?

Andrews denials that he ever met Virginia  and his ludicrous claim that he was at Pizza Express in Woking with his daughter the night he was supposedly pictured with her  now ring hollow after emails have emerged from Ghislaine, now serving 20 years in prison, appearing to confirm that the photograph of them taken in the mews house is real.

If the Prince and Princess of Wales want any place of influence in the modern #MeToo world, they must stand up now and condemn Andrew and offer real solace to his victims.

For the sad fact is, we now have a monarchy more challenged than ever before. A beloved institution, which only 40 years ago had an 80 per cent popularity rating, is now supported by just 51 per cent of Brits.

The monarchy can hardly rely on an ageing Queen Camilla, who has a YouGov popularity rating barely above that of the exiled Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

Nor will its popularity swell with King Charles speaking, as he did in his recent Netflix documentary, about how we should all live in harmony. Pass the sitar-strumming Kumbaya, My Lord!

The royals are clearly not reading the room. They are facing a very real existential crisis  but they just dont seem to get it.

William and Kate have a real chance to carve out a path for a modern monarchy. But in a world of social media storms in which Generation Z take a much dimmer view of the Royal Family, nothing other than their complete and unequivocal condemnation of Andrews actions will do.

Or heaven help us, this will truly be the end of the monarchy.
Jeffrey Epstein discussed how Sarah Ferguson was considering going bankrupt ahead of a 'big meeting' at Royal Lodge when her finances were in peril, emails have suggested.

The paedophile financier was told that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and his former wife wanted to hold the summit at their Windsor mansion on September 1, 2010.

An unidentified person sent an email to Epstein two days earlier on August 30, saying 'F writes me below. It's better if I do NOT go, correct? PA says its up to me.'

'F' is believed to be Fergie and 'PA' is thought to refer to then-Prince Andrew.

The message quoted by that person from Fergie said: 'Can you come down to Royal Lodge on sept 1st .. Wednesday.. To a big meeting of the way ahead of ME! Prince Andrew is calling it for 10.30am and then lunch afterwards.

'I would really need your help, not just then, but maybe we can talk today, tomorrow. I am worried I need a ceo to run me.. Cannot do this without you.'

Epstein replied to the email from the person, saying: 'Ask Andrew what he wants.. she said they might suggest her going bankrupt. when i spoke to her last week. I think you need to go. otherwise, she will go after you.'

The messages are among more than three million documents relating to Epstein that were released by the US Department of Justice on January 30.

The emails have also revealed Andrew went cap in hand to Epstein to settle a debt of $126,721 owed by Fergie to her PA - shedding new light on what he may have been discussing with Epstein on their infamous Central Park walk.

Sarah Ferguson and Andrew at the Duchess of Kent's funeral in London on September 16, 2025

Emails exchanged between Jeffrey Epstein and an unidentified woman about Fergie's finances

The files showed money-spinning schemes for Fergie were also a frequent topic of conversation between Andrew and Epstein, with one email suggesting Vladimir the 'Russian billionaire' who 'will finance everything'.

In another, Andrew suggested selling Nigerian oil to China for which his ex-wife could 'make around $6million'.

Even one of Epstein's advisers, David Stern, described this as 'very fishy'.

Mr Stern, a Hong Kong investor with ties to Epstein who became a director of Andrew's Pitch@Palace initiative, wrote to Epstein in September 2010 describing Andrew's latest financial wheeze.

His email read: 'PA has asked me to see a guy who has access to Nigeria oil and when selling it to China (or somebody else) F [Sarah Ferguson] can make around $6m.'

Mr Stern said: 'This seems very fishy.'

A year previously, on September 11, 2009, Mr Stern emailed Epstein that the then Duchess of York wanted him to go with her to meet 'Vladimir (she didn't know the family name but says he is a Russian billionaire)', adding: 'She thinks he will finance everything in case you will not.'

After the meeting, Mr Stern reported that the billionaire was Vladimir Zemtsov, a Russian-born businessman who 'seems substantial, pragmatic and for Russian standards discreet'.

He was 'willing to evaluate' paying off Ms Ferguson's debts, it was said.

Mr Stern said the Russian wanted a professional firm to manage Ferguson's 'branding and merchandise' and would be prepared to 'pay off the debt if the hired professional firm believes that the revenue side is more than the debt'.

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A meeting was called at the 30-room property Royal Lodge in Windsor in September 2010

A photo of Jeffrey Epstein which was in the latest files from the US Department of Justice

A further meeting would be held over dinner in New York in a week, said Mr Stern. There are no further details about what they were all discussing.

A spokesperson for Vladimir Zemtsov told the Mail that he had been 'targeted' by Mr Stern and Ms Ferguson who asked him to invest in the publication of a series of children's fairytales.

They said he had 'made clear' that he could only invest in a 'professionally-scoped and supported business prospect', and when he heard nothing further he had not followed up on the possibility.

According to the spokesperson, Zemtsov had been entirely unaware that his conversations were discussed with Epstein, with whom he has never had any association.

By November that year, Mr Stern was suggesting Ms Ferguson was '10million' in the red, and was advising that her 'option one' was 'bankruptcy'.

He added that option two was 'deal with John Caudwell (English, founder of Phones4U) who wants 50% of her life earnings going forward for 10m, meaning paying off her debt'. He added: 'This offer needs to be verified if it's real!'

A spokesman for John Caudwell said: 'Sarah Ferguson and John Caudwell were long-time acquaintances who initially met through John Caudwell's support for some of Sarah Ferguson's charity work. Sarah Ferguson later approached John Caudwell to discuss a potential business transaction to help clear her debt.

'To be absolutely clear, until now, John Caudwell was unaware that Sarah Ferguson was consulting Jeffrey Epstein or anyone else on this matter. John Caudwell has never met or had any association or correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein.

'John Caudwell ultimately decided not to go through with the business transaction at the time.'

Andrew was Britain's trade envoy from 2001 to 2011, and during that time emails show he was forwarding official documents to Epstein, a Wall Street financier.

On November 30, 2010, the duke forwarded an email from his Buckingham Palace office that contained reports prepared by officials following a recent trip he had made to Hong Kong, Shenzhen in China, Vietnam and Singapore.

The same month, Epstein felt able to ask Andrew to make representations on his behalf to the then Emir of Qatar when the Gulf ruler was on a state visit to the UK.

Epstein asked the prince to 'punch my card' with Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. Andrew said Hamad had gone by then, but that a message had been passed on.

Then on Christmas Day that year, Andrew forwarded to Epstein a 'confidential brief' on investment opportunities in Afghanistan's Helmand province.

Join the debate What's YOUR take on Fergie's emails?

Melania Trump, Andrew, Gwendolyn Beck and Jeffrey Epstein at Mar-a-Lago in Florida in 2000

Separate emails also shed new light on Andrew's walk in Central Park with Epstein  given the former prince had gone cap in hand to Epstein to settle a debt of more than $125,000 that his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson owed to her PA of 18 years.

The infamous picture of Andrew and Epstein on December 5 came at a time when Fergie was mired in debt - but Epstein bailed her out.

Andrew told Epstein, then convicted of child sex offences, they would 'play some more soon' as they discussed settling her debts, one document shows.

'It would seem we are in this together', Andrew told him.

Fergie's personal assistant, Johnny O'Sullivan, had been owed $126,721 in wages and the tuition costs for an MBA at Columbia University that his boss had promised to pay for.

Three months after Andrew and Epstein strolled through Central Park, the convicted sex offender brokered a deal with Mr O'Sullivan for around half the money, although he dragged his heels about paying and called Fergie's loyal aide a 'little sh*t'.

Fergie would later admit having Epstein pay her bills was a 'gigantic error of judgement'.

Epstein stepped in to broker the deal with Mr O'Sullivan - and kept Andrew directly up to date.

In an email to Andrew he wrote: 'He [Johnny] said he would take 60k in wages, pay tax and be done.. I don't trust him at all, and a payment from me at the moment if disclosed to the press would look like a payoff for the little sh*t.'

Andrew's ex-wife Sarah Ferguson is pictured with a mystery woman in the Epstein files

Andrew replied: 'I'm just as concerned for you! Don't worry about me! It would seem we are in this together and will have to rise above it! Let me know if you want me to deal with J wages. Otherwise keep in close touch and we'll play some more soon!!!!'.

It was signed 'A', for Andrew.

Epstein appears to have paid - but initially resisted.

Another email shows how Mr O'Sullivan was left waiting.

He wrote to Andrew's private secretary Amanda Thirsk on February 7, 2011: 'Please can you let me know what's happening re paying off my Columbia student debt.

'Both the Duke and Duchess have asked what's happening but I don't have any information to share with them.'

Around ten days later he wrote again: 'Dear Amanda, I have expressed my concern to you that despite all our concerted efforts I still remain unpaid. The financial arrangements have been agreed directly between the Duke, the Duchess and I for some 2 months.

'Yet from what I understand there is no plan in place to pay me the $59,933 I am now clearly owed. I agreed to reduce the amount I am owed by the Duchess in wages from $72,596 to $59,933 in order to reach an agreement with the Duke and Duchess.

'The Duchess then emailed me, twice, to say that my offer was acceptable to both her and the Duke. I did not waive my right to receive this money lightly given the debts incurred as a result of this nonpayment and resulting struggle I have endured to try and support myself and pay for my MBA course at Columbia.

'This is completely unacceptable to me and in conflict with the spirit of good faith by which I thought agreement bad [sic] been reached. If I am not paid what I am owed, in fill [sic], by this coming Monday I will instruct lawyers.

'In that case I will also look at going for the full amount since my agreement to the reduced figure was given on the basis of a prompt payment. I hope it will not come to this'.

It is not known if and when it was paid - but a document discovered on Epstein's own desk suggested it was.

A 2015 picture of Epstein's desk showed on it was a letter that titled 'Settlement - John O'Sullivan'.

It stated that an agreement for the reimbursement of $59,933 had been made between Mr O'Sullivan, and the former Duke and Duchess.

Another email, seen by the Telegraph, suggests that he did pay.

Epstein wrote: 'Whatever we think of him we are going to have to deal with him one way or another.'

He added: 'He wants to get as much money as he can, I am trying to structure something where he signs papers and they are held until his money is received, otherwise he will get the money not sign and use the money to sue.

'He is trying to divide and conquer I hope you can deal with him as I don't think I can do anymore my end'.

During her marriage, Fergie spent wildly on staff, holidays, parties and flowers - with no regard for settling bills.

She reportedly had debts in excess of 3.7million by 1994 and became well-known for running up huge bills in stores such as Harrods without paying.

Andrew has always strenuously denied any wrongdoing.
Confused removal van drivers were spotted taking Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's belongings to the wrong Norfolk home on Tuesday.

The disgraced former Prince is living in a modest cottage at Wood Farm on the Sandringham Estate after being evicted from the Royal Lodge in Windsor last month.

Andrew is expected to stay at his current temporary residence until April, when renovations at his permanent new home at Marsh Farm in Wolferton will be complete.

However van drivers appeared to mix up the two addresses when delivering more of Andrew's belongings on Tuesday, as they were pictured heading around the corner to Marsh Farm.

They later made their way to the ex-Royal's cottage and stayed there for half an hour unloading boxes.

Andrew has not been seen for a week, with insiders revealing that he is 'lonely and bored' at his new abode.

A Waitrose food delivery van was spotted pulling into his residence last Friday and an Amazon driver also dropped off a package over the weekend.

Meanwhile pictures from the Sandringham Estate on Monday revealed that Andrew is still caring for the late Queen Elizabeth's corgis. The two pets were seen being taken for a walk by his private protection.

Confused removal van drivers were spotted taking Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's belongings to the wrong Norfolk home on Tuesday

They headed to Marsh Farm, the residence where Andrew will be living in April, rather than his current home at Wood Farm

They stayed at the ex-Royal's modest cottage for half-an-hour, when they eventually found it, unloading boxes

Andrew, 65, and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, 66, adopted the dogs, named Muick and Sandy, after the Queen's death in September 2022.

However amid the Jeffrey Epstein scandal which has seen the younger brother of The King stripped of his titles, doubt was cast over whether he would continue looking after them.

In a cryptic statement shared in October 2025 before Andrew's eviction, Buckingham Palace confirmed that the late Queen's dogs would 'stay with the family'.

Yet reports which emerged a short time later suggested that King Charles wanted to remove Muick and Sandy from his younger brother's care.

It means that Ferguson will be without the dogs while she continues her search for a new accommodation of her own.

News of the corgis staying with Andrew came just hours before King Charles spoke out for the first time about the allegations levelled against his sibling.

Following revelations about Andrew's friendship with Epstein, it was claimed on Monday that the Andrew knowingly shared confidential information with the paedophile financier.

The King expressed his 'profound concern' over the allegations in a statement shared by Buckingham Palace.

Andrew has not been seen for a week, with insiders revealing that he is 'lonely and bored' after being evicted from his luxurious lodge (Pictured in December 2022)

Pictures from the Sandringham Estate on Monday revealed that Andrew is still caring for the late Queen Elizabeth's two corgis, as they were spotted being walked by his private protection

A spokesman said on Monday evening: 'The King has made clear, in words and through unprecedented actions, his profound concern at allegations which continue to come to light in respect of Mr Mountbatten-Windsor's conduct.

'While the specific claims in question are for Mr Mountbatten-Windsor to address, if we are approached by Thames Valley Police we stand ready to support them as you would expect.

'As was previously stated, Their Majesties' thoughts and sympathies have been, and remain with, the victims of any and all forms of abuse.'

Prince William and Princess Kate also addressed the scandal involving Andrew for the first time earlier on Monday.

Speaking to journalists in the Saudi capital Riyadh that morning, a Kensington Palace spokesman said: 'I can confirm the Prince and Princess of Wales have been deeply concerned by the continuing revelations.

'Their thoughts remain focused on the victims.'

Emails in the files show the former Prince passing on secret details of investment opportunities to the convicted paedophile following his visits to Singapore, Hong Kong and Vietnam in 2010 and 2011.

This was after Epstein was first convicted for soliciting a child for prostitution in 2008, for which he was jailed for 18 months.

Trade envoys are legally bound to confidentiality over sensitive, commercial or political information from their visits abroad.

Emails suggest Andrew had told Epstein of his official upcoming trips to Singapore, Vietnam, Shenzhen in China and Hong Kong on October 7, 2010. He was then accompanied by business associates of Epstein on these visits, the BBC reported.

News of the corgis still being under Andrew's care came on the same day that The King spoke out about the allegations against his brother for the first time (The pair pictured together in September 2025)

After the trip, he forwarded official reports of the visits to Epstein on November 30, five minutes after he had been sent them by his then special adviser Amit Patel.

In further emails from the files dated Christmas Eve 2010, it appears he sent Epstein a confidential briefing on investment opportunities in the reconstruction of Helmand Province, Afghanistan, which was being managed by the British armed forces and funded by UK government money.

The messages contradict Andrew's claim that he broke off his friendship with the paedophile in December 2010, which he asserted in his disastrous BBC Newsnight interview in 2019.

Another email has also opposed this claim, as it appears Andrew suggested Epstein should invest in a private equity firm he had visited a week before on February 9, 2011.

Epstein was a convicted child sex offender at the time that all of these emails were sent.

Sir Vince Cable, who was then business secretary, told the BBC: 'I was unaware of Andrew... sharing information about investment opportunities [in Afghanistan] before, this is the first I've heard of it.'

Official guidance for envoys reads that 'the role of a Trade Envoy carries with it a duty of confidentiality in relation to information received. This may include sensitive, commercial, or political information shared about relevant markets/visits.

'This duty of confidentiality will continue to apply after the expiry of their term of office. In addition, the Official Secrets Acts 1911 and 1989 will apply.'

Andrew has been a key figure of scrutiny for years over his friendship with Epstein, which has come to new heights in recent weeks and months. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Globe-trotting Sarah Ferguson is plotting an astonishing comeback to public life  very much without her beleaguered ex-husband, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

The former Duchess of York, it can be revealed, is lying low while she 'gets her head together', having recently spent a few days with friends in the French Alps before moving on to the United Arab Emirates.

She has also been spending time with her youngest daughter, Princess Eugenie, 35, who has been in the region for work, attending an art fair in Doha, Qatar, in her role as a director at dealer Hauser and Wirth.

However, far from issuing a public mea culpa over continuing revelations regarding her friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Ms Ferguson, 66, is understood to be already scouting around for a new PR team to represent her as she plans her return to the UK.

Sources say she has openly told friends: 'I need to get back to work. I need money.'

Fascinatingly, she has also made it clear that this future does not include her ex-husband, despite once describing them as 'the happiest divorced couple in the world'.

Until recently they continued to live together at Royal Lodge, Andrew's vast Windsor mansion, a staggering three decades after their split.

Over the years the former royal has repeatedly publicly championed her former husband, describing him as a 'kind, good man' and a 'fabulous father', while neatly side-stepping the growing allegations being levelled against him.

Fergie has been spending time with her youngest daughter, Princess Eugenie, 35, (right), who has been attending an art fair in Doha, Qatar, in her role as a director at Hauser and Wirth (pictured together in 2017)

Sarah Ferguson is plotting an astonishing comeback to public life without her beleaguered ex-husband, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Pictured: The former couple with their daughters Beatrice (left) and Eugenie (right)

But she is now said to have told a friend: 'When I come back I am going to have to put some distance between myself and Andrew.'

It is understood Ms Ferguson will not join him at his new home on the King's Sandringham estate in Norfolk, and is planning to remain 'in the Windsor area', where she will either buy or rent her own home.

But friends believe she is 'kidding herself' if she thinks she can pick up where she left off and return to any kind of normal life.

Emails between the ex-duchess and Epstein show her repeatedly chasing him for money to pay off her debts, as well as practical support over a considerable period of time.

They contain evidence she remained in close contact with him after he was released from prison for sex offences against children, even taking her two daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, to have lunch with him five days after his release.

She also privately issued a grovelling apology to Epstein for publicly denouncing him, claiming she only did so to protect her career as a children's author.

She told him he had been a 'steadfast, generous and supreme friend'.

Last week, the Daily Mail reported that friends seemed keen to emphasise the disparity in the allegations facing Ms Ferguson and Andrew.

Eugenie is pictured with friend Caroline Daur, 30, working at an art fair in Qatar this week

While the evidence about her dealings with Epstein is deeply troubling, she has not been accused of any criminal activity  unlike the King's brother, who has denied any wrongdoing.

Sarah is now said to be 'deeply concerned' about her two daughters, who have been dragged into the scandal by their parents.

At last week's Art Basel fair in Doha, Eugenie's friend Caroline Daur put a comforting arm around the princess as they posed for a picture, which the model later shared on Instagram.

And while the King has moved to protect his nieces by inviting them to family events, others, it seems, are not so keen.

A source said: 'Sarah is upset that their names have apparently been taken off the guest lists for red-carpet and charity events.'

Regarding her return to the UK, another source said: 'I don't know whether Sarah is just deluded or desperate. She is 66 and has no home and no discernible income.

'The public is disgusted by what they have read. And how would she pay a new PR team to rescue her reputation?

'She is said to be looking to bounce back, in typical Fergie style. I'm just not sure the public will buy it.'
If you've felt particularly chilly over the last few weeks, you're not alone.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) has confirmed that last month was the coldest January in Europe for 16 years.

In the final weeks of the month, the Northern Hemisphere experienced severe cold waves thanks to a 'meandering polar jet stream', which spilled icy air into Europe and North America.

This led to Europe experiencing its coldest January since 2010  with average temperatures hitting just 2.34C.

However, it was a very different story in the Southern Hemisphere.

There, recordbreaking heat led to wildfires in Australia, Chile, and Patagonia, as well as flooding in South Africa and Mozambique.

'January 2026 delivered a stark reminder that the climate system can sometimes simultaneously deliver very cold weather in one region, and extreme heat in another,' said Samantha Burgess, Strategic Lead for Climate at the European Centre for MediumRange Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).

'While human activities continue to drive longterm warming, these recent events highlight that resilience and adaptation to increasing extremes are key to prepare society for heightened climate risk in the future.'

The Copernicus Climate ChangeService (C3S) has confirmed that last month was the coldest January in Europe for 16 years

Europe experienced its coldest January since 2010  with average temperatures hitting just 2.34C. Pictured: a skier skies past the Eiffel Tower on January 7

Worldwide, January was the fifthwarmest on record, with an average surface air temperature of 12.95C.

That's 0.51C above the 19912020 average, and 1.47C above preindustrial temperatures.

Europe was particularly chilly, with an average temperature of just 2.34C, which is 1.63C below the 19912020 average.

'Widespread cold conditions occurred across Fennoscandia, the Baltic States, eastern Europe, Siberia, and the central and eastern United States,' CS3 explained.

In contrast, the largest warmerthanaverage temperatures occurred across the Arctic, most notably in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Baffin Bay, Greenland, and the Russian Far East.

'Aboveaverage temperatures were also recorded across southern South America, northern Africa, central Asia, and most of Australia and Antarctica,' CS3 added.

If you live in the UK, you probably won't be surprised to learn that January was also wetter than average in much of western, southern, and eastern Europe.

CS3 said: 'Heavy precipitation led to flooding and associated damage and disruption in many regions, including the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, the western Balkans, Ireland and the UK.'

Worldwide, January was the fifthwarmest on record, with an average surface air temperature of 12.95C

Outside of Europe, Canada, northern Mexico and southern USA, central Asia, easternmost Russia and Japan, southeastern Brazil, northern Australia and southern Africa all had wetterthanaverage conditions.

However, drierthanaverage conditions were seen in large parts of central Europe, as well as in northwestern coastal and southern USA, southern parts of China, much of extratropical South America and much of southern and western Australia.

As part of its analysis CS3 also looked at the extent of sea ice at the North and South Poles.

In the Arctic, the average sea ice extent last month was six per cent below average.

'Regionally, sea ice concentrations were much below average in the northern Barents Sea, between Svalbard and Franz Josef Land, as well as in Baffin Bay and the Labrador Sea, coinciding with muchaboveaverage surface air temperatures in those regions,' the experts said.

Over in the Antarctic, the monthly sea ice extent was eight per cent below average.

'Sea ice concentrations around Antarctica were above average in the Weddell Sea, but generally below average in other ocean sectors, particularly in the Bellingshausen Sea,' CS3 added.
Scientists have solved the mystery of how the building blocks of life formed on a 4.6billionyearold asteroid, and it could rewrite our own origin story.

In 2023, NASA's OSIRISREx mission recovered 121.6 grams of material from the asteroid Bennu as it drifted through the solar system.

This rocky rubble was found to contain molecules called amino acids, which combine to make proteins that form the basis of all biological life.

How these molecules formed on a freezing rock 105 million miles (168 million kilometres) from the sun was a total mystery  until now.

Previously, scientists thought that amino acids could only form through a process involving liquid water and relatively warm conditions.

However, scientists from Pennsylvania State University discovered that these amino acids actually formed in the cold, radioactive environment of the early universe.

This discovery hints that the basic ingredients of life on Earth could have been delivered by a frozen asteroid just like Bennu.

Colead author Dr Allison Baczynski says: 'It now looks like there are many conditions where these building blocks of life can form, not just when there's warm liquid water.'

Scientists analysing samples from the asteroid Bennu (pictured) have finally solved the mystery of how the building blocks of life formed on a 4.6billionyearold space rock

After NASA's mission returned with material from Bennu, tiny samples of this precious dust were distributed to research centres around the world.

Shockingly, scientists soon discovered that this ancient space rock was carrying a wide array of organic molecules.

Scientists found sugars essential for life, a mysterious 'gumlike' substance, and a collection of amino acids.

At Pennsylvania State University, scientists focused on the molecule glycine  the simplest of all the amino acids with just two linked carbon molecules.

These tiny molecules can be combined to make more complex amino acids, which are then combined to make proteins and eventually the earliest forms of life.

This is why glycine is considered an important sign of the chemical reactions that eventually led to life on Earth

According to some scientists, the fact that glycine has been found in asteroids and comets suggests life's fundamental ingredients might have formed in space before coming to Earth.

Previously, the main theory for how glycine formed was something called Strecker synthesis, in which chemicals like ammonia and hydrogen cyanide react in the presence of water.

In 2023, NASA's OSIRISREx mission recovered 121.6 grams of material from the asteroid Bennu (pictured) and found that it contained chemicals called amino acids that are essential for life

Asteroid Bennu: Key facts Age: 4.6 billion years Diameter: 500 metres Surface temperatures: 73C to 116C Average distance form the sun: 105 million miles (168 million kilometres) Orbital period: 1.2 years Composition: Largely clay materials like those found on midocean ridges on Earth Advertisement

However, that doesn't seem to have been the case for the molecules found inside Bennu.

The researchers used specialised equipment to look for subtle differences in the weight of atoms, called isotopes.

These tiny atomic differences can give scientists information about where a chemical, the conditions that created it, and the kinds of reactions that took place.

The researchers compared their measurements from Bennu with amino acids from the Murchison meteorite, a carbonrich space rock that landed in Australia in 1969.

Colead author Dr Ophelie McIntosh says: 'What's a real surprise is that the amino acids in Bennu show a much different isotopic pattern than those in Murchison.

'These results suggest that Bennu and Murchison's parent bodies likely originated in chemically distinct regions of the solar system.'

The chemicals on the Murchison meteorite likely formed via Strecker synthesis under warm, wet conditions that can also be found on Earth.

Those on Bennu, by contrast, likely formed via a very different set of processes.

The researchers looked at differences in the weight of atoms, known as isotopes, and found that these amino acids likely formed in the icy cold, radioactive environment of the early solar system

The researchers suggest these amino acids formed as primordial ice was bombarded with radiation in the very earliest days of the solar system.

This suggests that there might be more ways for amino acids to form than had previously been thought, increasing the chances that these vital chemicals formed in space.

Dr Baczynski says: 'Our results flip the script on how we have typically thought amino acids formed in asteroids.

'There's much more diversity in the pathways and conditions in which these amino acids can be formed.'

In the future, the researchers want to look at even more samples from different asteroids and see what kinds of amino acids they might contain.

Dr Baczynski adds: 'We want to know if they continue to look like Murchison and Bennu, or maybe there is even more diversity in the conditions and pathways that can create the building blocks of life.'
A tiny copper-alloy tool long overlooked in a museum collection is reshaping what archaeologists know about the origins of human engineering.

Researchers said the artefact shows ancient Egyptians were using a mechanically sophisticated rotary bow drill more than 5,300 years ago.

The object, cataloged as 1924.948 A in the University of Cambridge's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, has now been identified as the earliest known metal drill.

The finding pushes back the timeline for advanced drilling technology by more than two millennia, forcing scholars to rethink when complex mechanical tools first emerged.

First excavated a century ago from a cemetery at Badari in Upper Egypt, the tool shows wear consistent with rotary drilling.

The tool contained arsenic and nickel, with notable amounts of lead and silver, suggesting deliberate engineering choices and pointing to early material trade or shared technical knowledge across the ancient Mediterranean.

Lead author Dr Martin Odle from Newcastle University said: 'This re-analysis has provided strong evidence that this object was used as a bow drill, which would have produced a faster, more controlled drilling action than simply pushing or twisting an awl-like tool by hand.

'This suggests that Egyptian craftspeople mastered reliable rotary drilling more than two millennia before some of the best-preserved drill sets.'

Researchers said the artefact shows ancient Egyptians were using a mechanically sophisticated rotary bow drill more than 5,300 years ago, far earlier than previously believed

When archaeologist Guy Brunton first documented the object in the 1920s, he described it simply as a small copper awl with leather wrapped around it.

The brief classification led the artefact to be largely overlooked for nearly a century.

Microscopic analysis revealed wear patterns inconsistent with simple puncturing or scraping. Fine striations, rounded edges, and a subtle curve at the tip indicate the tool was repeatedly rotated, pointing to sustained rotary drilling rather than basic piercing.

Researchers also found six coils of extremely fragile leather thong still wrapped around the shaft, which they said provides direct evidence of a bow drill system.

In such a mechanism, a string wound around the drill shaft is driven back and forth by a bow, rapidly spinning the tool to cut into material.

'Behind Egypt's famous stone monuments and jewelry were practical, everyday technologies that rarely survive archaeologically,' Odle said.

'The drill was one of the most important tools, enabling woodworking, bead production, and furniture making.

Bow-powered drills appeared frequently in New Kingdom tomb scenes, and several complete examples from that era survive.

Pictured is the Khufu Pyramid, also known as the Great Pyramid, in Giza Pyramid Complex, dating to about 1,000 years after the ancient drill was crafted

The Badari discovery is far older, dating to Naqada IID, and suggests Egyptians had perfected fast, controlled rotary drilling nearly two millennia before those later depictions.

Naqada IID, a late Predynastic period around 3300 to 3200 BC, saw the inception of kingship, writing, and organized religion, which would become the basis of the classical Egyptian civilization.

A study released in December revealed a discovery that changes what we know about ancient Egypt.

The discovery rewrites the timeline of Egypt's early dynasties, placing the rise of the New Kingdom nearly a century later than previously thought.

The New Kingdom, which lasted from 1550 to 1070 BCE, was Egypt's peak of power, wealth, and territorial expansion, the era of famous rulers like Tutankhamun.

It began with the 18th Dynasty, founded by Pharaoh Ahmose I, who reunited Egypt and expelled the Hyksos invaders, restoring central authority after a period of fragmentation.

Now, scientists have confirmed that the massive Santorini (Thera) volcanic eruption occurred before the reign of Ahmose, meaning the 18th Dynasty, and the New Kingdom itself, rose later than previously believed.

Until now, historians had often assumed the eruption might have coincided with the early New Kingdom, and some researchers even tried to link it to specific pharaohs, including Hatshepsut, Thutmose III or Ahmose I.

The breakthrough comes from radiocarbon dating of Egyptian artifacts from the 17th and early 18th Dynasties.

Researchers examined a mudbrick stamped with Ahmose's name, a linen burial cloth, and wooden funerary figures called shabtis, all of which were directly tied to known pharaohs and their temples.

Because these objects are anchored to specific historical contexts, their ages provide a reliable snapshot of the period.

The study shows that the eruption predates these artifacts, reshaping how historians understand the rise of Egypt's most powerful period.
A Code Orange air quality alert has been issued for thousands on Tuesday due to high levels of air pollution.

The alert covers the Liberty and Clairton area in Pennsylvania, including Clairton, Glassport, Lincoln and Port Vue, as well as the Susquehanna Valley, including Dauphin, Lebanon, Cumberland, York and Lancaster counties.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) warned that pollution levels may become unhealthy for sensitive groups, including children, the elderly, and people with asthma, heart disease, or other lung conditions.

Those in these groups are advised to avoid outdoor exercise or strenuous activity, as even brief exposure can cause coughing, shortness of breath, chest discomfort or eye and throat irritation.

The poor air quality is caused by elevated fine particulate matter (PM2.5) trapped near the ground by a combination of light winds, snow cover, and morning temperature inversions, which prevent pollutants from dispersing.

National Weather Service (NWS) forecaster David Martin explained that these inversions occur when a layer of warm air sits above cooler air at ground level, keeping smoke, haze, and other pollutants stagnant.

The alert is expected to remain in effect throughout the day, and officials urge residents to stay informed, limit outdoor activities, and take protective measures, such as keeping windows closed or using air purifiers indoors.

While the general population may not be severely affected, caution is essential for those most at risk.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) warned that pollution levels may become unhealthy for sensitive groups, including children, the elderly, and people with asthma, heart disease, or other lung conditions (STOCK)

The Air Quality Index (AQI) uses a color-coded system to communicate the potential health risks of air pollution.

Green indicates that air quality is satisfactory and poses little or no risk. Yellow means air quality is generally acceptable, but some individuals who are unusually sensitive to pollution may be affected.

An orange level signals that members of sensitive groups, such as children, the elderly, or those with respiratory or heart conditions, may experience health effects, while the general public is less likely to be impacted.

Red indicates that some people in the general population may experience health effects, and sensitive groups may face more serious consequences.

A purple rating is a health alert, meaning the risk of adverse effects is increased for everyone. The most severe level, maroon, is a health warning of emergency conditions, with everyone more likely to be affected.

A study released last month showed exposure to toxic pollutants may increase the risk of developing devastating neurological conditions, a study suggests.

Researchers in Sweden evaluated 1,000 patients diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a terminal neurodegenerative disease that attacks neurons in the brain and spinal cord responsible for motor functions.

Also called Lou Gehrig's disease and motor neuron disease in the UK, ALS affects about 30,000 Americans and kills in just two to five years as the neuron damage attacks the body's ability to move, eat and breathe. About 5,000 die every year.

The causes are largely unknown, but recent research suggests environmental contaminants could lead to inflammation that attacks neurons in the brain and spinal cord.

In the new study, researchers compared ALS patients both to siblings and healthy controls and tracked their exposure over 10 years to the pollutants PM2.5, PM10 and nitrogen dioxide.

PM2.5 are a group of microscopic particles that are emitted directly into the air from fossils fuels burned from factories and gasoline-powered stoves and cars, as well as burning wood in fireplaces. These can penetrate deep into the lungs and bloodstream, while PM10, which includes dust and pollen, infiltrates the airways.

Nitrogen dioxide, meanwhile, is a gas that comes from burning fossil fuels.

The team found exposure to even small amounts of pollutants over the course of 10 years increased the risk of developing ALS by up to 30 percent. Additionally, the likelihood of the disease progressing more quickly went up by 34 percent.
Travelling between England and Scotland - or, in this case, London and Edinburgh - is simple, and with a range of options including air, train and bus travel, it's never been easier to move between the two.

One traveller, however, decided to deduce which mode of transport is the quickest, by pitting them against each other.

Scott Manson, who runs a YouTube account called Planes, Trains, Everything, tested out train and plane travel between the cities to find which would emerge victorious.

He shared a video on his account, captioning it: 'With the help of a stopwatch I travel between the two capitals - one way by LNER and the other by British Airways.

'On paper each will take five hours, but in reality?'

Scott said in the clip: 'I'm going to be racing from Black Sheep Coffee in Princes Street in Edinburgh to Black Sheep Coffee in High Holborn, just around the corner from Oxford Street. From the retail heart of Edinburgh to the retail heart of London.'

Scott begins by taking an LNER train from Edinburgh Waverley, giving himself 10 minutes to walk there from the coffee shop.

He adds during the journey: 'This is quite a fast train, only four hours and 17 minutes, and it only stops at Newcastle and York.

On the way out, Scott took a train from Edinburgh Waverley, the city's main station

Scott Manson started by taking the LNER train from Edinburgh to London

'That's going to give the train a little bit of an advantage, because some of these trains down to London stop at about 12 different places.'

He shares scenes from his journey, including magnificent views across the landscape and English countryside.

After a short delay at Peterborough, Scott continues on his journey.

He pulls into London King's Cross after four hours and 34 minutes, then heads to the London Underground to get the Piccadilly line train westbound to Holborn.

Upon arrival at Holborn station, he heads outside to locate Black Sheep Coffee - with his stopwatch reading four hours and 53 minutes.

After a quick coffee, Scott turns around to take the return journey back to Edinburgh.

He says: 'This is actually the part I'm most worried about. I have to catch the Underground to Bank, and then connect onto the DLR. Every time I use that system, I get lost... this is where it could all go pear-shaped.'

Fortunately, he catches his flight at London City Airport and makes it to Edinburgh Airport.

Join the debate What matters more to you when travelling: saving time, saving money, or reducing your carbon footprint?

On the return leg of his journey, Scott opted for a flight with British Airways

Finally, he takes the tram back into the city centre to return to the coffee shop where it all began.

The conclusion? It took four hours and 49 minutes by plane.

He adds: 'Carbon emissions by train: 12 kilos of CO2. By plane: 165 kilos of CO2. So it's definitely the greener option to go by train.'

He also says going by train was far less stressful than navigating the airport.

In terms of cost, his train cost 60, while his flight was 95 - meaning train travel was also cheaper.

But train travel was marginally slower than plane travel - although, with a four-minute difference, it might still be worth it to take the train, given the price and eco-friendly advantages.
While the idea of living abroad is appealing to many Brits, making a permanent move can be a daunting prospect - from managing visa requirements to juggling living costs and settling on which belongings to bring along.

As a result, more people are opting for short-term relocations, which offer a low-risk way to experience a new country before settling down.

Interest in temporary relocation has surged in the past year, with curious Brits making 834,700 searches related to short-term moves abroad, and three-quarters of UK-based 18-30-year-olds noting they're open to temporarily living and working abroad.

Research from a 2024 study into expat sentiment shows practical considerations play a major role in planning the move.

Staying connected with friends and family is key, with 36 per cent of respondents prioritising this, while others consider finances (32 per cent), language barriers (29 per cent) and fears of regretting the decision (21 per cent).

By trialling life abroad with these supports in place, prospective expats have the opportunity to explore a new life overseas with the safety net of an end date.

In light of this, a new study has revealed ten countries across the globe that make it simplest for Brits to try life overseas.

It analysed various factors to rank the leading nations, such as visa accessibility, minimum monthly wage requirements, average monthly rent cost, visa cost, and estimated monthly living costs for a single person.

A new study has listed ten countries that make it easier for Brits to trial a relocation, assessing factors such as minimum monthly income requirements, visa costs and average monthly rent costs

Taking the top spot is Japan (pictured: Tokyo) - the only country to offer a free 12-month visa to UK nationals

Despite its distance from the UK, Japan has emerged as the best country overall for Brits to try life abroad, as it stands out as the only nation to offer a free 12-month visa for UK nationals.

As well as a free visa, it combines a low minimum income requirement of 417, below-average living costs of 623.30, and speedy visa processing times (up to two weeks).

Interest is steadily on the rise, with searches for 'Japan working holiday visa' up 30 per cent in the past month.

East Asia dominates the top of the rankings, with South Korea following closely in second place.

It offers one of the lowest barriers to trial relocation - requiring a minimum monthly wage of just 146 and a 50 application fee, as well as boasting a two-week visa processing period.

Taking the third spot is Serbia, the highest-ranking European destination on the list.

With its close proximity to the UK, low living costs of 536 per month, and average monthly rent in the city centre under 400, it's an ideal choice for Brits wanting to test drive a new life abroad without venturing far.

The remaining seven countries ranked as easiest for trial relocations are: Turkey, New Zealand, Mexico, South Africa, Slovenia, Hungary, and Malaysia.

Offering one of the lowest barriers to trial relocation is South Korea (pictured), which follows in second place with its two-week visa processing times and 50 application fees

In third place is Serbia, the highest-ranking European country on the list thanks to its 400 average monthly rent costs and close proximity to the UK

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The study shows that low living costs appear to influence where people eventually settle on for trial relocations, with countries like Turkey and Malaysia offering monthly costs well below the average.

Mike Harvey, managing director of 1st Move International, which conducted the study, said: 'For many Brits considering a move overseas, trialling life abroad first offers a practical way to explore a new country without the pressure of a permanent commitment.

'Whether they are taking an extended holiday to explore the country, its landscape, culture and people, or working abroad as a digital nomad.

'Living abroad for a shorter period of time can help people understand day-to-day costs, housing, healthcare and lifestyle, while reducing the financial and emotional risks often associated with relocation. If they find the shorter stay in a country enjoyable, it often leads to a permanent move.'
Pizza's hardly a controversial dish  whether it's a classic margherita or pepperoni or one with more adventurous toppings, the delicacy is a go-to for many of us.

Thankfully, the world's best pizzas for 2026 have been revealed by Time Out  and the top spot has gone to a restaurant in the States rather than Italy.

And it's good news for Brits too, as two UK spots have made the list. Here are the best 18 places in the world to get your pizza fix...

1. Mamas Too, New York

The Cacio e Pepe at Mama's Too in New York takes the winning spot in this definitive ranking of the best pizzas in the world.

Hailed for its extreme creaminess, it's made with whipped mascarpone, aged mozzarella, Pecorino Romano, parmigiano reggiano and cracked black pepper.

The pizzeria has two branches, in the West Village and Upper West Side, and has received critical acclaim from the New York Times and positive reviews on Tripadvisor.

2. 180grammi Pizzeria Romana, Rome

Salty flavours reign in the Pizza Capricciosa at 180grammi Pizzeria Romana in Rome

Pizza Capricciosa from 180grammi Pizzeria Romana in Rome, Italy, comes in second place.

The dish is a margherita pizza laden with artichokes, ham, olives, mushrooms and often an egg.

Food lovers have been known to go out of their way to visit the pizzeria, which gets its name from the perfectly weighed 180g of dough used to make each dish.

Short Road Pizza in London's marinara pizza comes in at the third spot

Short Road Pizza in London's marinara pizza, with pomodoro, garlic puree, spicy chimichurri, burrata and Sicilian anchovies, comes in at the third spot  and it was voted National Pizza of the Year in 2025.

With branches in Bethnal Green and Leyton, the pizzeria's specialty is crispy, thin crust pizza.

Join the debate Where is YOUR favourite pizza made?

4. Pizzeria da Attilio, Naples

Nothing beats a margherita pizza  and this one at Pizzeria da Attilio in Naples makes the top five in the world

Number four goes to the Pizza Margherita at Pizzeria da Attilio in Naples, Italy's veritable foodie hub.

A classic is a classic for a reason, and it's easy to understand why the dish has won such acclaim.

This restaurant has served Neapolitan-style pizza since the Second World War and features homely, intimate designs inside.

5. Pizza Marumo, Tokyo

While Japanese flavours might not seem a natural addition to pizza, Pizza Marumo, Tokyo, breaks the mould

The Japanese Umami pizza at Pizza Marumo, Tokyo, takes the next spot on the list.

It's a unique concoction, with dried shiitake mushroom cream sauce, mozzarella, pecorino, mackerel, bonito flakes, kombu, green onions, sesame and soy sauce.

Featuring Italian-Japanese fusion cuisine, the pizzeria is a must-try for anyone visiting Tokyo.

6. Little Kitcheners Pizzeria, Johannesburg

In Johannesburg, Little Kitcheners Pizzeria's Pepperoni & Hot Honey Pizza combines salty pepperoni with sweet honey flavours

Little Kitcheners Pizzeria's Pepperoni & Hot Honey Pizza takes spot number six on the list.

The cool Johannesburg spot maintains a distinctly traditional Italian vibe.

While South Africa might not be the first place that comes to mind when considering the world's best spots for pizza, it's clear the country is rising on the foodie scene.

7. Civerinos, Edinburgh

Fancy a thick slice of pizza? Or perhaps a thinner crust? Both are on offer at Civerinos, Edinburgh

New Haven style pizza at Edinburgh's Civerinos comes in seventh place.

The dish features Italian sausage, marinara, burrata, pepperoni, rosemary, black pepper, parsley and garlic oil.

With branches in Glasgow and Edinburgh, the pizzeria has an old-school charm and reasonable prices.

8. Kalis, Buenos Aires

'Dripping with flavours and layers' is the best way to describe pizza from Kalis, Buenos Aires

The artisan New York-style pizza at Kalis in Buenos Aires comes next, sold by the slice.

The eatery keeps a short menu, and everything is made in-house.

With crisp, thin slices and with food eaten while standing, it's a vibrant spot in the Argentinian capital.

9. Baldoria, Madrid

The Bufala Fest at Baldoria in Madrid  a city famous for its foodie culture

San Marzano tomato sauce, buffalo mozzarella DOP, confit cherry tomatoes, crispy parmesan, basil and lemon pesto are the core ingredients in the Bufala Fest.

Taking spot number nine, the pizza is made by Baldoria in Madrid.

Featuring a short menu with exciting toppings, it's a must-visit in the Spanish capital.

10. Bella Brutta, Sydney

Clams might not seem like the most obvious pizza topping  but Bella Brutta, Sydney, makes it work

Rounding out the top 10 is the clam pizza at Bella Brutta in Sydney.

With surf clams, Pecorino, fermented chilli, garlic, parsley and lemon, it's a unique and delicious pizza to try.

In line with Sydney's vibrant food scene, this pizzeria also features other options such as a potato pizza  and one topped with cavolo nero.

11. Pizza Connection, Cape Town

Avocado on pizza? It's the winning choice for South African eatery, Pizza Connection

The winner from this Cape Town restaurant is aptly named 'the Capetonian'.

The toppings are an intriguing mix of San Marzano tomato, fior di latte, pancetta, red onion, avocado, and EVO Oil.

With Naples-style or Roma-style base options, it's an excellent break from the meat-heavy South African dishes you'd be likely to sample if you're visiting Cape Town.

12. Millys Pizza in the Pan, Chicago

In Chicago, only one thing can win: a thick-crust pie pizza.

Millys Pizza in the Pan's deep-dish layered pizza, naturally, then makes the best pizzas in the world list.

With options including 'Clickbait', 'Craigslist.org' and 'Only Pans', the range of intriguingly titled pizzas here is well worth a try.

13. Diamond Slice, Copenhagen

Drizzled with sauce and dripping in cheese, the Nbluja from Diamond Slice, Copenhagen, is worth a slice

The Nbluja from Diamond Slice, Copenhagen comes in 13th place on the list.

It entails a mix of spicy Nduja, Danish blue cheese and red onion  a real punch of flavour.

Diamond Slice is also located in a cool spot with an excellent outdoor ambience, in Copenhagen's Blagards Plads.

14. Oobatz, Paris

Parisian pizza? Perhaps it's worth a try at Oobatz

Paris is more often associated with bakeries, pastries and bread than pizzerias, but that hasn't stopped this restaurant making the list.

Number 6 at Oobatz, Paris comes in 14th place  and it's a unique concept option.

If you order this dish, the chef has free rein when it comes to choosing toppings, as it's a 'surprise' pizza. Locals have reported ordering it multiple times and receiving a different pizza on each occasion.

15. Officina Local, Rio de Janeiro

A white base is not for everyone, but Officina Local in Rio de Janeiro's Umbria pizza could be worth a try

Officina Local in Rio de Janeiro's Umbria pizza comes in 15th place in the list.

It features mushrooms, black garlic and a white cheese base including mozzarella and ricotta cheese.

The highlight? The taste of truffle, which adds a powerful, flavourful kick to this pizza.

16. Lupita, Lisbon

The epitome of controversy, this pineapple pizza, from Lupita, Lisbon, is ranked as one of the best

You'll either love it or hate it, but the pineapple pizza at Lupita in Lisbon takes the 16th spot.

With bacon, various kinds of cheese, pickled onion and  of course  pineapple, it won't be for everyone. But it could just be your favourite.

The pizzeria's credentials are solid, too, having been ranked among the top 50 pizzas in Europe in 2023.

17. Fiata by Salvatore Fiata, Hong Kong

With many delicious options, Fiata by Salvatore Fiata, in Hong Kong, has excellent pizzas

The ASalcissa pizza, with onion cream, fior di latte cheese, caramelised red onions, and fresh Italian sausage, is next up.

The rich dish from Fiata by Salvatore Fiata in Hong Kong comes in 17th place in the list, and is noted for its blend of sweet and savoury flavours.

The pizzeria ranked third in the 50 Top Pizza Awards list for the Asia-Pacific region in 2025, so you can rest assured the spot is well worth a visit.

18. Mercado 20 de Noviembre, Oaxaca

With Mexican flavours, this pizza, from Mercado 20 de Noviembre in Oaxaca, Mexico, is almost like a taco or fajita

Finally, rounding out the list of the world's best pizzas is the Tlayuda from Mercado 20 de Noviembre in Oaxaca, Mexico.

While the country may be better known for its tacos, this pizza is hugely impressive.

It brings to life the flavours of Mexico, including refried beans, Oaxacan cheese, mushrooms, red peppers and avocado.

Surprisingly, it's even topped with cactus.
As the reign of remote working continues, more and more young Brits are heading overseas to live as 'digital nomads' or find better opportunities elsewhere.

So much so that 87,000 British nationals aged 16-24 reportedly left the UK in 2025, with many citing the cost of living as a key factor behind their decision.

While a large number of British expats have headed for the sunny shores of luxurious destinations such as Dubai and Sydney, there are many budget-friendly options becoming popular.

The cheapest countries for Gen Z expats have now been revealed, based on wage affordability, safety, healthcare quality, environmental factors, equality and connectivity.

The top spot? Luxembourg, a small European country surrounded by Belgium, France and Germany.

Luxembourg was found to be the most affordable country for Gen Z expats, with living expenses accounting for just 15.5 per cent of average wages.

Thats a notably lower share than in Mexico (40.2 per cent) or Greece (33.5 per cent), which are the least affordable.

Beyond affordability, Luxembourg also scores highly for quality of life, offering strong digital infrastructure, excellent healthcare standards, and a solid Global Peace Index.

Luxembourg city is known for its great quality of life, perfect for young workers

Surprisingly, the United States comes in second place. Here, living costs account for 17 per cent of average wages, supported by high earning potential and access to one of the worlds most developed job markets.

The US also leads in digital connectivity, boasting some of the fastest broadband speeds, making it particularly appealing for remote workers.

Belgium ranks third, with living costs 17.3 per cent of average wages, combining stable incomes with affordable living costs.

Its central location in Europe, reliable public transport, and relatively strong LGBT equality score make it especially attractive to young expats seeking affordability.

In fourth and fifth place are Australia and Canada, both popular expat destinations.

Spain ranks in sixth place, with living expenses accounting for just 18 per cent of average wages.

In seventh and eight place are Slovenia and the Netherlands.

Rounding out the top 10 are New Zealand and Lithuania.

The digital connectivity and work opportunities in the US bring it into second place

The most affordable countries for Gen Z living abroad 1. Luxembourg 2. United States 3. Belgium 4. Australia 5. Canada 6. Spain 7. Slovenia 8. Netherlands 9. New Zealand 10. Lithuania Advertisement

The study was carried out by international health insurance specialists William Russelll.

It comes after it was recently revealed more and more young people are seeking 'micro-retirement' and a chance to travel without having to wait for the traditional retirement age.

Workers aged 18 to 24 were the most likely to take time off as a result of stress (35 per cent), compared to just 10 per cent of workers aged 55 and over.

Bangkok in Thailaind was found to be one of the most popular cities for micro-retirements.
Europe's busiest airport has been unveiled - and the bustling hub has maintained its status as the most crowded on the continent for the fourth year in a row.

It comes as 11.2 million flights took off across Europe in 2025 - four per cent more than in 2024.

While average daily arrivals and departures into and from UK airports saw a two per cent increase compared to 2024, there were notably higher year-on-year traffic levels across virtually all the busiest European countries, airlines and airports.

In light of this, a new study has uncovered Europe's most energetic hub - and Istanbul has earned the top spot.

The larger of two international airports serving the Turkish capital, Istanbul Airport saw an average of 1,490 flights arriving and departing every day last year, a six per cent increase from 2024.

As Istanbul continues to lead as Europe's busiest airport for the fourth consecutive year, it appears the top five rankings remain identical to last year.

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol follows in second place with 1,351 daily flights in 2025, while London Heathrow places third with 1,315 flights.

In fourth place is Paris Charles de Gaulle, which saw an average 1,314 flights across 2025, followed by Frankfurt, Germany's busiest international airport, in fifth with 1,261 daily arrivals and departures.

Istanbul Airport (pictured), the larger of two international airports serving the Turkish capital, has maintained its status as Europe's busiest hub for the fourth consecutive year

Following closely in second place is Amsterdam Schiphol Airport (pictured), which saw an average of 1,351 daily flights in 2025

However, data shows most of the top 30 busiest airports improved their departure punctuality in 2025 compared to the previous year.

According to Eurocontrol, 76.1 per cent of flight arrivals were punctual in 2025 - 3.5 per cent higher than in 2024, despite a four per cent rise in traffic.

This means that nearly one in four flights still faced delays.

Ivaylo Danailov, CEO of flight compensation specialists SkyRefund, which conducted the study, said: '2025 was something of a paradox for European air travel.

'While we saw a recovery towards pre-pandemic traffic levels and a significant drop in total cancellations, the passenger experience remained blighted by delays, with nearly a quarter of flights failing to arrive on time.

'For passengers, this means that while your flight is more likely to take off than it was in 2024, it is statistically more likely than ever to land late enough to trigger compensation under EU261/UK261 regulations.

'Travellers should remember that a three-hour delay is often worth up to 600 (522), regardless of what the airline may attribute it to.'

Meanwhile, in the UK, two British airports have been given the accolade no hub would want - to be named amongst the world's most stressful places to catch a plane.

In third place is London Heathrow (pictured) with an average of 1315 daily flights

Europe's Top Ten Busiest Airports 2025 1. Istanbul 2. Amsterdam 3. London Heathrow 4. Paris Charles de Gaulle 5. Frankfurt 6. Antalya 7. Rome Fiumicino 8. Munich 9. Barcelona 10. Palma de Mallorca Advertisement

A report by Travel Insurance comparison service, iSelect, listed both Gatwick Airport and Manchester amongst the top 10 places around the world that are likely to leave you with shredded nerves if you're flying from them in 2026.

While Gatwick, the UK's second-largest airport, ranked eighth in the list, Manchester made the top three - but was pipped to the top spot by Newark Liberty International Airport in the US, with Humberto Delgado Airport in Portugal placing second.

The London airport was under 'constant operational pressure' because of its single runway, the findings said, with minor disruptions often escalating, particularly at the height of the summer holiday season.

Meanwhile, Manchester found itself named as the world's third most stressful airport thanks to continual congestion and 'operational disruption' - with an average flight delay time of 23 minutes and a baggage claim delay score of 69%.
Japan's cherry blossom is a spectacle many Brits dream of seeing - the instantly recognisable pink scenery is an item on many people's bucket lists.

But with average costs of 2,810, for many that dream is unlikely to become a reality.

There's an alternative options much closer to home that offers the same amazing landscapes - at a mere fraction of the price.

Majorca, with warmer temperatures not picking up until May, is hardly unknown territory.

But what many don't know is during February and into March, the island packs a floral punch to rival the bucket list spot.

The almond trees that define the island's landscape were introduced centuries ago and have since thrived owing to their tolerance of dry, poor soil - and look very similar to the cherry blossom Japan is known for.

Over time, the almond trees became one of the most reliable and widespread fruit trees on the island, contributing to rural life for generations with almonds becoming the basis for many local products.

Nowadays, Majorca is home to an estimated four to seven million almond trees, with big concentrations in Son Servera and the Levante region.

Almond trees in Majorca rival the pink cherry blossom trees many seek out in Japan

Travel experts at First Choice have advised that peak almond blossom season runs from the end of January all the way through to early March, depending on local temperatures that year, with the best results typically in mid-February.

Trips to the Eastern beachside spot of Cala Millor make for a great base to explore the fauna.

Situated just a five-minute drive from the almond blossom dense Son Servera area, it also promises blue flag beaches and amusement parks.

But the real draw is the price.

First Choice have trips to Cala Millor in prime almond blossom season from just 263 per person for five nights, including flights.

For a trip to Osaka for cherry blossom season you could be looking at around between 1,200 - 2,000 for flights, with hotels ranging between 110135 per night.

That totals as much as 2,810 for a week in Japan's cherry blossom season.

That's nearly 10 times (90.8 per cent) more expensive than Majorca's offering.

Almond blossom season in village Caimari in Majorca, Balearic Islands, Spain

Kevin Nelson, managing director for First Choice, said: 'Brits are tired of saving destinations for 'someday'.

'They want experiences that feel bucket-list-worthy but actually fit into their budgets and availability.

'Majorca's almond blossom is a great example of a dupe that works for budget-conscious yet experience-focused travellers.'

So, if you're looking for a bucket-list worthy natural spectacle, without the price tag, Majorca should be top of your list for a last-minute escape.
A fan favourite Coronation Street star is taking a break from the ITV soap - to film exit scenes for a rival programme.

Catherine Tyldesley returned to the cobbles in October 2025, reprising her role as Eva Price.

Upon her comeback, Eva became the new landlady of The Rovers Return, running the pub along with new partner Ben Driscoll (Aaron McCusker) and their blended family.

The 42-year-old actress also portrays main character Kate Woods in Channel 5 drama The Good Ship Murder.

She is now reportedly due to fly to Malta this spring to shoot her departure.

A source told The Sun newspaper's TV Biz column: 'Cath spoke to her bosses at Corrie about taking some time off to film her Good Ship exit and they agreed.

Catherine Tyldesley returned to Coronation Street as Eva Price late last year, after a seven year absence

Eva made a comeback to Weatherfield alongside her new family the Driscolls, including partner Ben and his mother Maggie (pictured)

Prior to reprising her role as Eva, Catherine had been starring in Channel 5 drama The Good Ship Murder alongside former Corrie co-star Shayne Ward

'When she agreed to return to the soap there was a lot of uncertainty about whether or not she would be able to go back, but fortunately it's all working out.'

The Good Ship Murder series three comes to an end this month, ahead of the start of filming on series four later this year.

Catherine appears alongside her former Corrie co-star Shayne Ward (Jack Grayling) in the crime drama, and her character Kate is expected to bow out of series four with a 'happy ending'.

The source added: 'There was talk about possibly killing off her character but in the end bosses decided that she would get a happy ending.

'The writers are delighted that Cath is able to return to film her exit.

'Cath and Shayne have formed such an incredible partnership on-screen and the viewers deserve to see how it all ends for them.'

Catherine's Corrie return came following a seven-year absence from Weatherfield.

Shortly afterwards, the star told how she thought the soap's bosses were trying to bring back an 'old school Corrie vibe' on the show.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, she said: 'What Kate Brooks, our wonderful producer, has done is bring back an old school Corrie feeling.

'She is super passionate about that and she is a big Corrie fan and that was one of the reasons I agreed to come back, was because of her vision for the show and where she wanted to take it.

'Finding those character-led storylines, with strong women at the forefront is something Corrie has always done so well and that the audience seem to crave, and I think Kate is feeding that.

Coronation Street bosses have reportedly granted Catherine time off to film her exit from The Good Ship Murder

'It's important to move with the times but also know who your target audience is, everyone kept saying they want that 'Old school Corrie vibe, we want it be character led' and I feel the show is nailing that.'

In early 2025, Catherine was first reported to be returning to Coronation Street - with bosses said to have been trying to entice her back for years.

A source told The Sun: 'Cath has been away for a while and worked on countless other projects but she really missed Corrie.

'They've tried to get her back a few times but the stars have never aligned.

'But when she was approached with the idea for Eva's return, it was too good of an opportunity to pass up.'

During her previous tenure on the cobbles, Eva had a relationship with Aidan Connor (Shayne Ward) but he had an affair with Maria Connor (Samia Longchambon).

As an act of revenge when she found out, Eva faked a pregnancy and spent Aidan's savings on a pink Range Rover.

The pair later become engaged but Maria burst into the wedding to expose the truth about the fake pregnancy.

A short time later, Eva discovered that she was actually pregnant with Aidan's baby but agreed to give the child to her half-sister Toyah Battersby (Georgia Taylor).

Soon after that, Aidan took his own life in 2018, and Eva became attached to baby Susie and left the cobbles in the back of a taxi with her.

Meanwhile, Catherine went on to appear in shows including short-lived sitcom Scarborough.

Coronation Street airs on ITV1 and is available to stream on ITVX.
A beloved Channel 4 drama that launched the careers of a number of Hollywood stars is set to return for a reboot, 21 years after it was last on screen.

The hit series, which ran from 2001 to 2005 over four seasons, was set in the beachside neighbourhood of St Kilda, Australia.

Starring the likes of Claudia Karvan, Samuel Johnson and Deborah Mailman, the series followed the lives of a group of young adults living in the same block of flats.

The Secret Life of Us drew focus on their pursuits of love, careers, and their personal identities as they navigated the complexities of growing up.

The show launched the career of actor and filmmaker Joel Edgerton, who went on to become a huge star in Hollywood after starring in the series as William McGill.

The star was recently nominated for a Golden Globe in the Best Actor category for film Train Dreams, which hit the silver screen in 2025.

Beloved Channel 4 drama The Secret Life of Us, that launched the careers of a number of Hollywood stars, is set to return for a reboot 21 years after it was last on screen

The series, which starred Samuel Johnson, Claudia Karvan and Deborah Mailman, ran from 2001 to 2005 over four seasons

He played the leading role of Robert Grainer in the movie, an orphaned logger in early 20th-century America as he builds a life and suffers serious tragedy.

Elsewhere, the actor has starred in 2012 film Zero Dark Thirty, Oscar and BAFTA winning The Great Gatsby and 2010 hit Animal Kingdom.

Joel, 51, gained further recognition as Owen Lars in the Star Wars franchise.

While actress Deborah, who portrayed the central character Kelly Lewis, went on to become one of Australias best-loved actresses.

She starred in the likes of Offspring, The Sapphires, Redfern Now, and Cleverman.

Speaking at RMITs 100 Years of Television symposium, co-creator and producer Amanda Higgs revealed the show has been in talks for a reboot.

She revealed: 'Theres a lot of talk, well, not a lot theres a tiny bit of talk about whether well do Secret Life again.'

Ruling herself out of returning to the series, Amanda continued: 'No! I am too old to make that show. I think if youre creating for younger audiences, you have to have that younger sensibility.'

Joel (right) played William McGill in the hit TV series

Joel, 51, gained further recognition as Owen Lars in the Star Wars franchise - and was recently nominated for a Golden Globe

Joel and Deborah aren't the only stars of the series that went on to have successful TV and film career - with much of the cast returning to screens after the show was axed 21 years ago.

Samuel Johnson found his big break in acting after landing the role of scruffy, womanising writer Evan Wylde in The Secret Life of Us.

It wasn't until he was cast as Molly Meldrum in the Channel Seven mini-series Molly (2016) that Samuel really made a career comeback.

His portrayal of the veteran music critic was widely praised, and he was awarded the Gold Logie for Most Popular Personality in 2017.

During that acceptance speech, Molly himself took to the stage to deliver a rather bizarre anecdote - and Samuel graciously let him enjoy the spotlight.

Claudia Karvan, 45, portrayed Dr Alex Christensen in The Secret Life of Us.

Her career afterwards has seen her appear in numerous Australian productions - including Puberty Blues, The Time of Our Lives and, most recently, Newton's Law.

While Ben Mendelsohn, 48, who starred in just five episodes of The Secret Life of Us as Rob, went on to enjoy a successful career in American film and television.

He is a familiar face thanks to roles in Hollywood blockbusters, like Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, The Dark Night Rises, and Mississippi Grind.
Lord Of The Flies fans have praised the BBC for 'producing a masterpiece' with 'absolutely impeccable acting' from its child stars.

The highly anticipated series, which was adapted from William Golding's 1954 novel of the same name by Adolescence co-creator Jack Thorne, hit screens on Sunday (February 8).

The story follows a group of schoolboys stranded on an uninhabited island after a plane crash  who are left to fend for themselves and maintain civilisation.

It all starts to go wrong when one of the youngsters, Jack, played by Lox Pratt, develops a bloodthirsty love for hunting  and all order falls apart.

The BBC synopsis teases: 'Stranded on an island, a gang of schoolboys create their own community  but when the rules vanish, the beast within awakens.'

It was met with mixed reviews from critics and at-home viewers after its release, divided over 'excellent acting' but 'not great script' and the 'cinematic camerawork'.

Lord Of The Flies fans have praised the BBC for 'producing a masterpiece' with 'absolutely impeccable acting' from its child stars

The highly anticipated series, which was adapted from William Golding's 1954 novel of the same name by Adolescence co-creator Jack Thorne, hit screens on Sunday (February 8)

However, dozens of fans have rallied to heap praise on the new BBC adaptation, admitting they binged all four episodes in one go.

Taking to social media, one penned: 'Haunted me when we read it at school in the 70s, this series is stunning beautifully shot and absolutely impeccable acting, its still as haunting to me now as a mature adult as it did as a child.

Another chimed in: Beautifully filmed, well paced and great performances from the young cast. As I watched I just thought this is what the BBC does brilliantly.'

A third agreed, admitting they had watched the entire series - according to Metro - that the BBC had 'produced a masterpiece.

While someone else penned that 'the best drama they have seen on the BBC for years, praising the stars for their exceptional performances.

It comes after other viewers hit out the first episode which left them 'switching off' after noticing a 'horrific' issue with the series to do with the 'camera lens' choice.

A number of the scenes appear to have been filmed using a 'fish eye' lens, an ultra-wide-angle type of camera lens that captures an extremely wide, sometimes panoramic, field of view.

The effect, which is often used in cinema to create surreal or dream-like perspectives, causes a distinct, distorted image in the background and edges of a shot, including curved and blending lines.

Dozens of fans have rallied to heap praise on the new BBC adaptation, admitting they binged all four episodes in one go

A number of the scenes appear to have been filmed using a 'fish eye' lens, an ultra-wide-angle type of camera lens that captures an extremely wide, sometimes panoramic, field of view

Taking to X, formerly Twitter, one viewer hit out: 'I love the Lord Of The Flies book but this filmmaking style is horrific. This is too "cinematic". It's only bleedin' TV!'

Another agreed: 'Nope. Can't watch this fish eye lens car crash,' as a third chimed in: 'Feels off - is it the colours, fisheye lenses shots, kid actors or general vibe. Not sure.'

'Really *not* a fan of the fisheye lens they're using on Lord Of The Flies and blurred distorted periphery,' a fourth fan wrote of the camera choice.

While a fifth added: 'What's going on with the camera work, why is the cameraman in the sea? Did someone get a fish eye lens for Christmas?'

'Sorry, the BBC's Lord Of The Flies is proving to be a hot mess,' another remarked, as someone else wrote: 'Something not quite right about this.'

Another penned: 'Look at me screams the cinematographer - takes you out of the film and gives a surreal disorienting feel we don't need.'

'This is unwatchable, terrible cinematography, someone's dialled up the "Vivid" filter to 100,' another critic raged, as one concluded: 'While everyone is raving about Lord of the Flies on BBC, I'm not, I'm switching off.'

Others hit back against the criticism, with one writing: 'Very impressed by the new adaptation of Lord of the Flies so far,' with another stating: 'Enjoying it so far, what fantastic actors.'

Lord Of The Flies continues Sunday at 9pm on BBC One and is available to stream in full on iPlayer.
A first look at MobLand series two shows Tom Hardy and Joanne Frogatt filming a seemingly steely clash between their characters.

The Paramount+ crime drama launched last year, with Tom, 48, playing Harry Da Souza, who works as a fixer for the Harrigan crime family.

Downton Abbey alum Joanne, 45, portrays Harry's wife Jan de Souza - mother to their teenage daughter, Gina (Teddie Allen).

The pair were snapped together during filming of a tense scene for the upcoming second series.

On the banks of London's River Thames, Tom looked out into the distance with a reflective expression.

Other pictures from filming appear to show the characters locking horns as they stand face-to-face.

A brooding Tom Hardy was snapped filming series two of his hit Paramount+ crime drama MobLand

Tom was joined by co-star Joanne Frogatt, who plays on-screen wife Jan, with the characters seemingly involved in a tense confrontation

MobLand launched on the streamer last year and follows the story of warring crime families in London

The star-studded cast also includes acting heavyweights Pierce Brosnan and Dame Helen Mirren as Conrad and Maeve Harrigan.

Rounding out the ensemble are Paddy Considine, Janet McTeer, Toby Jones and Lara Pulver, to name just a few.

MobLand was created by Ronan Bennett, with executive producers including Guy Ritchie and Jez Butterworth.

It was renewed for a second series in June 2025, having launched on the streaming platform three months earlier.

Last month, a colossal fireball engulfed a warehouse near the River Thames on Sunday night, as director Guy Ritchie pulled off a huge stunt for the new series.

The drama lit up London's skyline as an explosion tore through a warehouse near Newham, shocking locals and sending flames high into the sky.

Emergency services were placed on standby as filming commenced for the second series of the Paramount+ show.

One stunned local said: 'We heard this massive bang and the whole sky lit up orange.

'For a second we thought something had gone terribly wrong - then we realised it was a film set. It was absolutely mental.'

While the gritty series tells the story of warring crime families in London, a real-life personal battle is also said to be taking place between the stars.

Insiders on the set said relations between Dame Helen Mirren and Tom have become 'extremely strained' as they film the second series.

Sources told The Mail on Sunday that Dame Helen, 80, is 'getting increasingly frustrated' at heartthrob Hardy's attitude on set.

Downton Abbey alum Joanne, 45, was snapped on the banks of London's River Thames for filming

Tom plays the lead character, Harry Da Souza, who works as a fixer for the Harrigan crime family

MobLand was created by Ronan Bennett, with executive producers including Guy Ritchie and Jez Butterworth

One said: 'Tom's character is charming. He's the calm one but it is quite the opposite when the cameras stop. Dame Helen is a joy, she is a total pro and she has worked with so many people over the years.

'But she is getting increasingly frustrated with Tom and his attitude. He can be late to filming too and that is annoying for Dame Helen, who is extremely professional and disciplined.

'His tone is something Dame Helen doesn't like, along with his lateness. She expects better. She holds people to a high standard. She's 80. She's been there and seen it all.

'The behind-the-scenes crew watch it all and believe that she no longer looks as happy working on scenes with him. It has all become quite personal between them.

'It feels like Tom is winding her up. There is much chatter that he swaggers around like he's the king.

'He is very, very arrogant. It's a fantastic show and everyone loves working on it. It's such a shame there is this undertone.'

Another source says Hardy, who is married to Peaky Blinders actress Charlotte Riley, 43, has a tendency to get cross behind the scenes.

A representative for the actor didn't respond when asked if he wished to comment.

MobLand series one is available to watch on Paramount+.
EastEnders fans were left furious by how the BBC soap wrote out Jay Brown - branding it the 'worst way' possible.

Jay - played by Jamie Borthwick - was last seen by viewers in August 2025, having debuted back in 2006.

The long-standing character left off-screen to care for his poorly grandfather Bert (Dave Hill) who lives in the north of England.

In today's (February 10) episode, Jay's stepdaughter Lexi (Isabella Brown), who is still in Walford, received a letter from him.

She learned Jay and his new girlfriend, Elena, were expecting a baby - and they invited Lexi to join them for half-term.

Viewers were far from impressed with this update, as one wrote on X: 'I know they've had to write Jay out somehow but this is the worst way to explain his exit.

EastEnders revealed what has become of Jay Brown (Jamie Borthwick) away from Walford - and fans are not happy

Tonight's (February 10) episode showed Jay's stepdaughter Lexi (Isabelle Brown) getting an update about him

Jay had been married to Lexi's late mother Lola (Danielle Harold) and was last seen on-screen in September 2025

'Why would he get a woman pregnant off screen? It makes no sense and it feels OOC.

'Also Jay would never drop Lexi the way he has. He could've just been recast.'

Another added: 'They shouldve wrote Lexi off with him and have her move out with jay instead of ruining his character.'

A third remarked: 'Totally agree. Jay would never abandon Lexi: he promised Lola to look after her.'

A fourth chimed in: 'I agree, he adored Lexi and promised Lola, he wouldn't have done this.'

Fans weren't impressed with the storyline the BBC writers cooked up

The character's exit came as actor Jamie, 31, was axed from the show in September 2025.

Meanwhile, Jamie had been suspended from EastEnders earlier in the year after a video of him using a disabled slur surfaced online.

Despite rumours Jamie would return to Albert Square, BBC bosses made the decision to sack the disgraced actor from the show.

In a statement, a spokesperson for BBC Studios said: 'We can confirm that Jamie Borthwick will not be returning to EastEnders.

'We do not comment on individual matters.'

Jay first arrived in Albert Sqaure as a 12-year-old troublemaker, later joined by Bert and largely absent father Jase (Stephen Lord).

After Jase's murder in 2008, Jay was taken in by the Mitchell family, who came to see him as a surrogate member.

Sometimes known as Jay Mitchell, he had a brotherly dynamic with Lexi's biological father, Ben Mitchell.

He also had a relationship with and later married Lexi's late mother, Lola Pearce (Danielle Harold).

Elsewhere, it comes as a fan favourite character has recently returned to Walford for a short stint.

Jake Moon has made a comeback to Albert Square, with actor Joel Beckett reprising the role.

He originally featured from 2004 to 2006, but made a cameo in 2024 as he reunited with Chrissie Watts (Tracy-Ann Oberman).

It comes as EastEnders brought back Jake Moon - played by Joel Beckett - for a short stint back in Albert Square

Chrissie made a shock comeback herself in 2025, where fans learned she had been manipulating Jasmine Fisher (Indeyarna Donaldson-Holness).

Working together, the pair had been behind tormenting Zoe Slater (Michelle Ryan) for weeks.

Ben Wadey, Executive Producer added: 'I'm delighted to welcome Joel Beckett back to the role of Jake Moon and EastEnders for this storyline.

'Jake's return will be a shock for many, but the biggest shocks of all will surround Jake and what he discovers about Christmas'

EastEnders airs on BBC One and is available to stream on iPlayer.
A child star who rose to fame on the hit police drama Hill Street Blues died in hospital nearly nine months ago - yet no one in Hollywood knew of his passing until now.

Zero Hubbard worked almost non-stop until 2003, but when roles dried up, his death in May 2025 went completely unnoticed outside his circle of family and close friends, the Daily Mail can reveal.

No public obituary was ever issued, and there is virtually no record of his passing at age 54 on May 16 apart from a GoFundMe appeal that raised less than half its target.

Hubbard was best known for playing Betty Thomas's adopted son, Fabian DeWitt, on Hill Street Blues, appearing in 14 episodes from season three through season seven (19831987). He also had guest roles on TV series including LA Law, Tribes, Cagney and Lacey, Pacific Blue, Trapper John MD, and Diff'rent Strokes.

The actor was hospitalized with breathing difficulties, fever and chills, and his condition took a turn for the worse after he developed pneumonia and a rhinovirus infection, his sister Barbara Hubbard told the Daily Mail.

'Doctors immediately put him on antibiotics, he was unresponsive. He quickly developed heart and respiratory failure requiring intubation and when we were advised there was no chance of recovery, one of his sons made the heartbreaking decision to take him off life support,' his sister said.

Hubbard was best known for playing Betty Thomas's adopted son, Fabian DeWitt, on Hill Street Blues

Zero Hubbard, who worked almost non-stop as a child star, died at the hospital nearly nine months ago - but his passing remained a secret, with no public obituary

Hubbard, born Zerondrick, took on many guest roles after Hill Street Blues before opportunities ran out by 2003

'Ultimately the decision rested in the hands of his son. But there were those family members, including me, who felt we were rushing to judgement and should give him more time, but sadly the decision was out of our hands.'

Hubbard's life was marked by tragedy. At just 16, his mother was shot and killed in a liquor store over a money dispute, and according to his sister Barbara, he carried the guilt with him until he died

While Hubbard, whose real first name was Zerondrick, played countless characters on screen, his own life often unfolded like a TV drama.

'Sadly, Zero went to his grave blaming himself for our late mother's brutal murder,' said Barbara. 'Our mother raised nine kids in the Watts area of Los Angeles, and she often depended on welfare to care for us all.

'When Zero was 16, he had been working as an actor for a few years, and whenever his agent would send his checks, he would take them to the little corner liquor store to cash,' his sister said.

'He suggested mom take her welfare checks there too, and because she would walk home from the store with cash, she always carried a gun.

'One day, there was an argument over the fact that Zero owed the store a couple hundred dollars for something, and they wanted mom to pay.

Barbara said her brother was hospitalized with breathing problems, went into heart and respiratory failure, and when doctors saw no chance of recovery, his son decided to remove him from life support

After his mother was killed, Hubbard was taken in and later adopted by Betty Bridges, a well-respected acting teacher in the Black community and the mother of child actor Todd Bridges (pictured right with his mother)

After being taken into the Bridges' home, he landed a role on an episode of Diff'rent Strokes, acting alongside Todd, who played Willis

Hubbard pictured with (from left) his sister Barbara's father, her daughter Timeca, and her niece Tanika. He was one of nine siblings

'The argument ended with my mom drawing her gun and another man in the shop shooting her in the back with a shotgun.'

After his mother's death when he was only 16, Zero was taken in by Betty Bridges, the mother of Todd Bridges, who he would later become castmates with on Diff'rent Strokes.

'The boy always dreamed of being a star,' said one long-time friend. 'His big break came when Betty took Zero under her wing, agreeing to give him free acting lessons if only he could get to her acting classes. He jumped at the chance.'

Betty was highly respected within the African American acting community, Barbara told the Daily Mail.

When he expressed interest in taking her class, Betty recognized his talent despite his financial struggles and offered to let him attend for free.

'Once a week he would board a city bus on his own and take it into the city,' said the friend.

'Zero told me he owed his success to Betty. When his mom died, and he was going to be sent out of town to live with a relative, Betty told him that not only could he move in with her and her kids, she was also willing to adopt him.

After Hollywood turned its back on him, Hubbard moved to Flagstaff, Arizona, to manage a health and massage spa. He married and divorced several times and was father to 10 kids

His destitute financial situation led the family to set up a GoFundMe to raise money for a memorial and cover funeral costs

Todd attended the memorial and helped pay for the service which was held in June

'From that moment on he became a part of her family.'

By the time showbiz turned his back on him, Hubbard had been married and divorced a couple of times and was father to 10 kids.

Needing to reinvent himself and pay the bills, he moved to Flagstaff, Arizona, where he went on to manage a health and massage spa.

But he continued to struggle financially, and when he died, his bank account was empty.

Had he lived until 55, he likely would have qualified for his SAG pension - a lifeline that could have eased their burden.

Instead, relatives were forced to set up a GoFundMe page to cover the cost of his funeral.

'We did our best to give Zero a small intimate send-off,' said his sister Barbara. 'We had a little memorial service for family and a few close friends, and Todd Bridges and his brother Jimmy attended.'

Barbara also stated that Todd helped pay for the service that was held in June.

'Zero had a difficult life,' adds his sister. 'He was kind, but he struggled. He never got over the fact our mother died over a problem he had with the store.

'And for the rest of his life, I think my brother blamed himself for my mother's murder,' she says.

'I know that in the end, guilt took a toll on him and on his health. I loved him dearly, and I miss him terribly. And I hope he is finally at peace.'
She bragged about their sex life during Monday night's episode of Married At First Sight.

And now new photos of Gia Fleur and Scott McCristal prove the pair were still going strong as they moved into their Sydney apartment during filming of the Channel Nine experiment.

The couple were the picture of domestic bliss as they went shopping at their local Woolies.

Gia and Scott stocked up on all the essentials, including popcorn for romantic movie nights and some bottles of wine.

The disability support worker, 35, showed off her gym-honed figure in skin-tight activewear, slipping into a pair of tiny mauve bike pants and a matching wraparound top.

Meanwhile, entrepreneur Scott, 32, rugged up from the cold in a North Face puffer jacket over his shorts and T-shirt combo.

New photos of Gia Fleur and Scott McCristal prove the pair were still going strong as they moved into their Sydney apartment during filming of the Channel Nine experiment

In a sweet moment, the genetically-blessed duo cosied up at the cash register as they paid for their shopping.

Gia also bumped into fellow bride Melissa Akbay during their errands run and the pair were spotted chatting in the aisles of the supermarket.

The outing comes after they filmed the very first dinner party, where Gia and fellow bride Bec Zacharia had a fiery dinner table clash over who had the better sex life.

The heated argument occurred in front of the entire cast, after Gia bluntly boasted to the table about how amazing her bedroom antics were with her husband Scott - much to Bec's annoyance.

'It was an instant connection between me and Scott. We didn't want to have sex straight away, so we waited until day four,' Gia proudly told her co-stars at the dinner table.

'We tried to hold off but we couldn't! I feel like I have known him for a year.'

However, Gia's admission did not go down well with her co-star Bec, 35, after her husband Danny Hewitt previously admitted he was struggling to feel any sexual chemistry with her.

'Shut up! She feels like her relationship is so good right now and she is in this dream place. Like, I am really happy for her that she had good sex, but to see her with that massive smile on her face... shush! Like, read the room,' Bec vented to producers.

The couple were the picture of domestic bliss as they went shopping at local Woolies

In a sweet moment, the genetically-blessed duo cosied up at the cash register as they paid for their shopping

They stocked up on all the essentials, including popcorn for romantic movie nights and some bottles of wine

The tension culminated in a game of one-upmanship between the bombshell brides, as Bec attempted to then boast about how much better her honeymoon was compared to Gia's.

'I can't fault Scott, we had such a good honeymoon!' Gia boasted, to which Bec cheekily jumped in with: 'We went to Fiji for a week!'

'It was so good, so much fun!' Bec added, before asking Gia and Scott where they went on their romantic getaway.

'Townsville!' the pair replied in unison, prompting Bec to burst into laughter over their honeymoon in remote Queensland.

'Gia and Scott went to Townsville... Not Fiji! I'm sure they had a nice time though,' Bec quipped to producers.

A furious Gia did not hold back when later slamming her rival to producers.

'Bec is yuck! Like what is your f***ing problem? It was just rude, she is rude!' Gia sniped.

'Like, "Oh, you went to Townsville!". You know what, Townsville was lovely. And it seems we got on better than you and your man!'

Gia showed off her gym-honed figure in skin-tight activewear, slipping into a pair of tiny mauve bike pants and a matching wraparound top

Gia also bumped into fellow bride Melissa Akbay during the shopping trip and the pair were spotted chatting in the aisles of the supermarket

Meanwhile, Bec later accused Gia of being 'fake' and sniped that she was unfairly judging her relationship with Danny.

The night soon took a fiery turn after Gia bragged that she had more sex with Scott than Bec had with Danny.

'What's good for the hole is not always good for the soul,' Bec sniped to producers.

Bec recently hit back at rumours she made a slur about the busty blonde.

Speaking to Daily Mail, the Adelaide local addressed allegations she branded Gia a 'trashy s**t' at a tense hen's night.

'That would have been TV gold,' Bec said bluntly.

'If I had said that, there is absolutely no way it would have been left on the cutting room floor. It did not happen.'

Bec explained that while she and Gia clashed almost immediately, the tension stemmed from a personality mismatch.

'I think we are fundamentally very different people,' she said.

'In real life, our friendship groups wouldn't overlap. That's just the truth,' she continued.
She is the proud recipient of an Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe among her many accolades.

And helping Olivia Colman build her stellar career has been her equally creative and supportive husband, Ed Sinclair.

The director has worked behind the scenes to help shape some of her most successful projects to date.

So it's clear that Olivia and Ed have a successful working relationship.

Yet last week, Olivia raised eyebrows when she revealed she has always described herself as the 'gay man' in their marriage.

So what is the secret to Olivia and Ed's 25-year marriage?

Olivia Colman's unique approach to 'surviving' her 25-year marriage after revealing she feels non-binary and describes herself as a 'gay man' to husband Ed Sinclair (pictured in 2022)

Last year, Olivia revealed the surprising secret behind her long-lasting marriage, claiming that they don't argue.

'It's our 25th wedding anniversary next year. We've been together 31 years,' Olivia told Amy Poehler on the Good Hang podcast.

Asked why she thinks they've lasted so long, she replied, 'We're not big fighters, which apparently isn't very healthy.

'We have learned over the years - but really late on actually - to sometimes [think], if that was annoying, just wait.

'And it doesn't work for everyone, I know that, but I think it's much better to wait until the calmer moments to go, "Can we talk about that moment? I did find that a little weird and is that OK that I'm saying this and yes I was a bit cross that day..."'

On how she 'survived' marriage, she told The Guardian that they shrug off various annoyances, explaining: 'Its been 30 years. Its not bad to be a bit annoyed with each other.'

The actress, who won the Best Actress Oscar in 2019 for her role in The Favourite opposite Emma Stone, added she's still physically attracted to Ed all these years later.

'He's my best friend and I fancy him, which is quite nice,' she said.

Last year, Olivia revealed the surprising secret behind her long-lasting marriage, claiming that they don't argue (pictured in August 2025)

Olivia previously said he plays a very supporting role at home.

'He's always there when I'm feeling like I did a bad job or something, so we're there to pick each other up,' she has said.

Joking about his career switch from actor to screenwriter, she added: 'We worked out very early on that it's much better if he's a writer, I'm an actor and we don't talk about it. It's much easier not to talk about the work.'

Olivia and Ed met in the 1990s while attending school in Cambridge.

They fell in love while rehearsing for a Cambridge Footlights production of Alan Ayckbourn's Table Manners.

The actress revealed she spent six weeks memorising the words to a song he liked and also learnt his timetable.

'I sort of stalked him,' she told Bustle. 'Which I don't condone. It did work in our case.

'I remind him every day that he is a very lucky man.'

At the time, Olivia was studying to teach at Homerton College, Cambridge, while Ed initially studied law at Cambridge University.

Join the debate How do changing ideas about gender and identity shape long-term relationships and marriage today?

The couple are parents to three children: two sons, Hall, 18, and Finn, 20, and a 10-year-old daughter

Ed soon shifted to the arts and attended the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School to pursue acting.

He's appeared in small roles, most notably in the BBC's Look Around You, before becoming a screenwriter and film producer.

Ed wrote the 2021 Sky drama series Landscapers starring Olivia and David Thewlis, and recently produced The Roses starring Olivia and Benedict Cumberbatch as a husband and wife at war.

Recalling the first time she saw him, Olivia told Them: 'I'd gone to two of the rehearsals and there was no one particularly fanciable there. Then I walked in and I saw his left-hand profile.

'At the time he was smoking a ciggie, his feet were crossed, and he's got this lovely bump in his nose and I saw his side profile and just went, "Oh my God, I'm going to marry him."

'I had proper thunderbolts: that's him, that's him! Poor thing, he didn't know.'

In a typically self-deprecating manner, Olivia claimed that while she vividly remembers the first time she met Ed, the feeling wasn't mutual. 'He genuinely can't remember it,' she said.

She previously told the Daily Mail in 2013: 'My husband and I were very lucky. We met when we had nothing and we loved each other then. So we were all right.

'We were 20 and he was also an actor. If you meet at that age then you're fine.'

Last year, Olivia admitted that she's scared of sex scenes because it feels like she's cheating on her husband

The couple are parents to three children: two sons, Hall, 18, and Finn, 20, and a 10-year-old daughter.

Their firstborn, Finn, was born in 2005 while Hall joined the family in 2007.

Their daughter came along in 2015 while Oliva was filming The Night Manager.

Opening up about the challenges of filming while pregnant, she told Radio Times: 'I just can't retain my lines like I normally would.

'I've got a bit of nappy brain going on.'

Despite being a big name herself, the pair have opted to keep their children away from the spotlight.

'Ed being at home also means that he can look after the children if I'm away, and he's a far better parent than me,' she joked to the Daily Mail.

'So, although I miss the kids terribly if I'm away working, I know our little boys are in the best possible hands.

'When I get back they go, "Oh no, she's not going to cook is she? She's bound to burn something!"'

While they spent many years living in London, the pair moved to the countryside in Norfolk during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The actress explained at the time how paparazzi made living in a major city 'difficult'.

She told Vogue: 'Yeah. I was scared. At one point, there were two cars chasing us and I was having a sort of meltdown, terrified.

'I was crying and they were laughing.'

It comes after Olivia said she has always 'felt sort of nonbinary' as the actress opened up about her identity

Last year, Olivia admitted that she's scared of sex scenes because it feels like she's cheating on her husband.

Olivia shared on Good Hang: 'Anything where I have to show any skin, I don't like. Pretending to have sex I don't like it. I feel like I'm being unfaithful.

'Even when they go, "You can wear your jeans," or a cushion between you. I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that.'

Olivia and Amy both applauded the actors who take on the task comfortably, with the hot saying: 'The people that are good at it, I'll watch them all day long, and they're comfy. But the on-screen orgasm'

The actress said: 'No, absolutely not Thank God for intimacy coordinators,' before mentioning that she's been told to just imagine the sun is hitting her face when she's supposed to fake an orgasm.

Last week, Olivia said she has always 'felt sort of nonbinary' as she opened up about her identity in a new interview.

The actress said she has never felt comfortable with rigid gender roles, including in her own marriage.

The star, who is promoting her new role in queer film Jimpa, explained: 'Throughout my whole life, I've had arguments with people where I've always sort of felt nonbinary.

Olivia's comments come as she stars in new queer film Jimpa, playing a mother who takes her nonbinary child to visit their gay father abroad (pictured with co-star John Lithgow)

'I've never felt massive feminine in my being female. I've always described myself to my husband as a gay man.

'And he goes, "Yeah I get that." And so I do feel at home and at ease.'

She added to Them: 'I don't really spend a whole lot of time with people who are very staunchly heterosexual... The men I know and love are very in touch with all sides of themselves.

'I think with my husband and I, we take turns to be the "strong one", or the one who needs a little bit of gentleness. I believe everyone has all of it in them. I've always felt like that.

'I'm not alone in saying, "I don't feel like it's binary." And I loved that. I came away from making this film with, yeah, I knew I wasn't alone.

Nonbinary is a term used to describe a person's gender identity that falls outside the traditional male and female binary.
Tamzin Outhwaite gushed she feels 'so confident' as she revealed the amazing results of her 4,950 non-surgical facelift treatment on Tuesday.

The British actress, 55, looked sensational as she shared before and after pictures from having eight NeoGen nitrogen plasma facials over a year.

The EastEnders star visited Dr Maryam McMillan at the Ambra Clinic in Finchley after seeing the incredible results Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas had from the procedure.

Speaking candidly about her journey, Tamzin shared the results while staying true to her conviction to avoid cosmetic surgery.

She said: 'When I looked in the mirror and I just could see that my face just never looked as good as it used to. At my age I know it's hard to avoid this but I'd really started to notice the difference and it was getting me down a bit.

'I'd also lost some weight and my face looked like it was sagging and dropping, so I decided to do some research on what could be done to improve things.'

Tamzin Outhwaite gushed she feels 'so confident' as she revealed the amazing results of her 4,950 non-surgical facelift treatment on Tuesday

The British actress, 55, looked sensational as she shared before and after pictures from having eight NeoGen nitrogen plasma facials over a year

Tamzin insisted it is important that she avoids injectables and surgery as she must have an expressive face to continue being a successful actress.

She continued: 'I definitely didn't want to go under the knife. I didn't want any form of face-lift, and I'm extremely wary of having injectables because I'm an actor and I need to have an expressive face.

'It's essential for me to have a natural look, not a frozen face, but I was still keen to find out alternative ways to improve my appearance and a friend advised me to give NeoGen a try.

'After doing a bit of research, I could see that Shirley Ballas had got an amazing result with these treatments and now looks about 10 years younger, so I thought I'd give it a go.'

NeoGen is a non-invasive procedure that uses super-heated nitrogen gas to stimulate skin rejuvenation. It creates a controlled heating which tricks the skin into creating large amounts of collagen and elastin, proteins found in the body which give skin its youthful appearance.

Dr McMillan said: 'NeoGen was a good fit for Tamzin because her busy work schedule means she can't afford to have any down-time.

'She would often have filming and auditions which required her to look presentable just 24 hours after a treatment, and that is perfectly possible with NeoGen and so we managed to work around her many acting commitments.

'NeoGen treatments are relatively pain-free but at each session we would apply a numbing cream for 40 minutes prior to the procedure so that there was no discomfort.

The star visited Dr Maryam McMillan at the Ambra Clinic in Finchley after seeing the incredible results Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas had from the procedure

Speaking candidly about her journey, Tamzin shared the results while staying true to her conviction to avoid cosmetic surgery

She said: 'I didn't want to go under the knife. I didn't want any form of face-lift. I'm extremely wary of having injectables because I'm an actor and I need to have an expressive face'

'The NeoGen treatment itself would take around 30 minutes, and would cover her neck, top of her chest, and her whole face including around the sensitive eye area.'

Tamzin added that she asked Dr McMillan to focus on areas she was desperate to improve like her jawline and around her eyes.

The Wives actress added: 'After the first three treatments I could really see a major improvement, the general texture of the skin was improved, and where it had looked a bit dull and lifeless before it was now really radiant and more dewy.'

It comes after Tamzin said she's 'never been happier' after spending the longest stretch of her life without a man.

She revealed she's loving single life and has no plans to rush into dating, despite recently joining a dating app, following her split from 34-year-old personal trainer Tom Child.

In a refreshingly honest chat, Tamzin admitted she struggles to keep up with the app and isn't thrilled at the thought of getting back into the dating scene.

She told The Sun: 'I'm single, I've tried the dating apps. I'm on one now but I keep forgetting to check it.

'I just can't imagine actually going on the date and going back to the small talk. It will happen one day but I'm certainly not waiting for it. I've been single for over a year now and I'm loving it too much.'

The TV favourite, who shot to fame as Mel Owen in EastEnders back in 1998, hasn't spent this much time single in her adult life, having gone from long-term relationship to long-term relationship for decades.

Tamzin explained: 'I owe it to myself to be single, because I haven't been single for this long, ever. I have always been in relationships. I actually like being on my own, it's really nice.'

'It's essential for me to have a natural look, not a frozen face, but I was still keen to find out alternative ways to improve my appearance and a friend advised me to give NeoGen a try'

'After the first three treatments I could really see a major improvement, the general texture of the skin was improved, and where it had looked a dull before it is now, really radiant and dewy'

Her break-up with Tom last year came six years after they first got together.

Tamzin later described it as the 'most respectful and mature' break-up she'd ever experienced - a far cry from her painful 2013 divorce from actor Tom Ellis, who she accused of multiple infidelities.

Despite her growing popularity on screen, Tamzin says love isn't currently a priority, with life as a mum to daughters Florence, 17, and Marnie, 12, taking up too much of her time.

And it's not just parenting that's keeping her busy.

Tamzin's acting career is booming with recent roles in ITV's The Tower and Channel 5's The Wives.

She even joined Strictly Come Dancing's Christmas special last year, though ruled out doing the full series, joking: 'I don't have the patience or the bones at this stage - or muscles.'

Tamzin has also taken health into her own hands, revealing that she dropped a dress size before filming The Wives by ditching booze and exercising daily over six weeks.

In total, Tamzin had a course of eight low energy NeoGen sessions over a year which cost just under 5,000 plus aftercare with Allskin Med Growth Factor serum and Ameri-Vita Liver Support anti-ageing drinks.
Patti Hansen was one of the biggest names in modeling in the 1970s and 1980s as she represented healthy living.

The siren also acted in films and hit red carpet events in Hollywood.

Now the Harper's Bazaar favorite has proved she still has her stunning good looks as she posted a new image to Instagram in a rare move.

The wife of 82-year-old Rolling Stones musician Keith Richards - whom she wed in 1983 - had a fresh tan and light locks as she posed on a beach.

The 5ft9in star was modeling a fun outfit.

The Staten Island native wrote in her caption, 'Thanks so much @watskinofficial for sending me this cool protective sunwear.'

Patti Hansen was one of the biggest names in modeling as she represented healthy living; seen here in 1976. This week she shared a rare photo of herself to Instagram

The model in her salad days wearing a blue Jantzen bathing suit in an image taken by Arthur Elgort for Conde Nast in the 1970s

The looker also landed on the cover of Cosmopolitan, left, and Vogue, right

This blue-eyed beauty with strawberry blonde hair got her start as a young teen.

Hansen, who is part Norwegian, was discovered by photographer Peter Gert at age 14.

After Gert took Hansen to a party hosted by Wilhelmina Cooper, former model and owner of the Wilhelmina Models, Cooper signed the teen to her agency.

Hansen then moved from Staten Island into New York City to get a jump on her new career.

She picked up modeling jobs while studying at the Professional Children's School in Manhattan.

One of her first gigs was posing for the cover of Seventeen magazine as he looked like a girl next door.

Years later she graduated to the covers of Vogue and Glamour where sick 1970s glamour was key.

Wearing a blue-gray off-the shoulder skintight dress for Vogue in 1975

Hansen posed for a portrait in 1976 in New York City

In June 1977, she posed for the cover of the summer issue of GQ magazine

The star with husband Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones in 2001

And she often showed off her figure in sexy low-cut dresses on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine.

The charismatic star then was in a Calvin Klein campaign and posed for Revlon as well as Courreges.

She then went to acting with the film They All Laughed with Audrey Hepburn and Hard To Hold with Rick Springfield.

Later was seen in a Guerlain ad and campaigns for Italian fashion house Versace.

She wed Keith in 1983 in Mexico and they live in Connecticut now. In addition to Theodora, they have daughter Alexandra.

She models for Vogue and has been in French Playboy.

Here the star is seen in a new Instagram post made this week; she is 69-years-old

Her husband Richards is one of the most famous musicians of all time as he is best known for his guitar playing and rock 'n' roll lifestyle.

Richards is an original member, guitarist, secondary vocalist, and co-principal songwriter of the Rolling Stones.

His songwriting partnership with the band's lead vocalist Mick Jagger is one of the most successful in history.

Richards was born in and grew up in Dartford, Kent.

After graduating college he started playing with Jagger, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, Ian Stewart and Brian Jones in The Rolling Stones.

And he has acted too: He appeared in two Pirates of the Caribbean films as Captain Teague, father of Jack Sparrow.

In 1989, Richards was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
White House reiterates Trump opposes Israeli annexation of West Bank: report

Xinhua) 13:34, February 10, 2026

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- A White House official reportedly reiterated on Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump remains opposed to Israel's annexation of the West Bank, two days ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's scheduled visit to Washington.

"A stable West Bank keeps Israel secure and is in line with this administration's goal to achieve peace in the region," the official was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Trump has repeatedly said that he will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank, which is seen as a "red line" for Arab leaders and a key element of the U.S.-drafted peace deal ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict last year.

"I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank. I will not allow it. It's not going to happen," Trump told reporters in the White House in September.

However, the report does not say Trump will block all settlement expansion, but that he opposes formal annexation of the territory.

Trump is expected to hold talks with Netanyahu on Iran at the White House on Wednesday, according to a brief statement from Netanyahu's office. The two leaders last met in December.

Israel's security cabinet approved decisions on Sunday to deepen control over the West Bank and expand Jewish settlement there, sparking widespread condemnation.

On Monday, the foreign ministers of eight Arab and Muslim countries condemned in the strongest terms the "illegal" Israeli decisions aimed at entrenching settlement activity. Later, the EU and the UN also voiced condemnation over the Israeli move, calling it "another step in the wrong direction" and having "no legal validity."

Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East War, areas widely recognized as the basis for a Palestinian state under the two-state solution.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Married At First Sight groom Luke Fourniotis has broken his silence on his crumbling relationship with Melissa Akbay, revealing he felt isolated, rejected and shut out long before the experiment had even properly begun.

In an interview with Daily Mail, Luke, 30, admitted watching the first Dinner Party back was deeply confronting, saying it forced him to relive one of the loneliest nights of the experiment so far.

'It definitely brought back a lot of memories,' Luke said. 'I remember finding it so hard just to get through that dinner party. I felt really awkward and really alone.'

While other couples laughed, bonded and leaned into the experience, Luke said it was painfully clear his marriage was already on shaky ground.

'I was looking around the room and everyone else was getting along,' he explained. 'Mel and I were the only ones who weren't. Seeing that was really hard.'

What made it worse, Luke said, was watching Mel be warm and engaging with everyone else while giving him nothing in return.

Married At First Sight groom Luke Fourniotis (pictured) has broken his silence on his crumbling relationship with Melissa Akbay

Speaking to Daily Mail, the 30-year-old farmer revealed that he felt isolated, rejected and shut out long before the experiment had even properly begun. Both pictured at first Dinner Party

'She was friendly, loud, funny, laughing, having the best time with everyone else,' he said. 'And I was getting absolutely nothing. That was almost worse because it showed me she could be that person. She just didn't want to be that person with me.'

Despite the growing emotional distance, Luke said he was still hopeful at that stage that things could improve.

'Of course I was hopeful,' he said. 'It was still early days. We'd only been on the honeymoon. I was thinking maybe she just needed more time to warm up.'

He admitted he was confused by Mel's behaviour, particularly because she had not yet been upfront about her lack of attraction.

'I was scratching my head wondering why it wasn't working,' he said. 'I kept asking myself what I was doing wrong. Why doesn't she even want to be friends with me?'

Luke said he repeatedly tried to understand what Mel needed from him to build attraction, but claims he was shut down every time.

'I asked her so many times, is there anything else I can do for you?' he said. 'And she always just said no. There's nothing else you can do.'

To Luke, that response was frustrating and disheartening.

'It definitely brought back a lot of memories,' Luke said. 'I remember finding it so hard just to get through that dinner party. I felt really awkward and really alone'

While other couples laughed, bonded and leaned into the experience, Luke said it was painfully clear his marriage was already on shaky ground

'If you want to make a relationship work, there's always something you can do for the other person,' he said. 'Surely there's something. But she never really tried to think about it.'

Watching the other couples thrive only compounded his pain.

'It was a punch in the guts,' he admitted. 'That's what you want. I wanted that experience too. To walk into that first dinner party with someone you're getting along with.'

While he said he was genuinely happy for the other couples, Luke conceded it made his own situation feel impossible to ignore.

'At the dinner party, you can't escape it,' he said. 'Reality sets in that it's not going well.'

Luke also admitted watching Mel tell expert John Aiken that she would make an effort for the right man was upsetting.

'It hurt watching that back,' he said. 'She said she was willing to make it work with someone who looked a certain way, but when I came along, she didn't really try at all.'

Asked what he believes could still turn things around, Luke said the pressure to force romance needed to be stripped away.

What made it worse, Luke said, was watching Mel be warm and engaging with everyone else while giving him nothing in return

Despite the emotional toll, Luke said the overwhelming public support since the episode aired has been validating

'Right now, we don't even have a friendship,' he said. 'That's the most basic building block. Forget intimacy. Forget romance. We need a friendship first.'

Despite the emotional toll, Luke said the overwhelming public support since the episode aired has been validating.

'It's been super validating,' he said. 'When you're in there, you don't get that validation. You don't know how it's coming across.'

He added that several castmates have since reached out after seeing the episodes play out.

'A couple of them said, I'm so sorry, I didn't realise it was this bad,' he revealed. 'They said she genuinely gave you nothing from the start.'

As Revelations Week continues on MAFS, Luke's emotional honesty is resonating with viewers, even as his marriage hangs by a thread.

For now, he says the support has helped him trust his instincts.

'It makes me feel like however I was feeling in there was completely true,' he said.

As Revelations Week continues on MAFS, Luke's emotional honesty is resonating with viewers, even as his marriage hangs by a thread. For now, he says the support has helped him trust his instincts

Luke's claims now appear to align with images published by Daily Mail last August showing the couple living strikingly separate lives just one week into apartment living

Luke's claims now appear to align with images published by Daily Mail last August showing the couple living strikingly separate lives just one week into apartment living.

In the photos, Melissa was seen wandering Sydney alone, headphones in, snacking on a chocolate bar and staring down at her phone.

She appeared withdrawn, disengaged and deep in thought.

Luke, meanwhile, was photographed elsewhere, upbeat and smiling, dressed in gym gear with a flower tucked behind his ear as he stretched before heading out for a jog.

At the time, production sources brushed it off as a couple needing space.

Insiders now say the images were an early warning sign.

'That wasn't a rough patch,' one source told Daily Mail. 'That was a marriage where one person had already checked out.'

According to multiple insiders, Mel made it clear early on that she was not attracted to Luke and had little interest in building any kind of connection.

According to multiple insiders, Mel made it clear early on that she was not attracted to Luke and had little interest in building any kind of connection

'She didn't want to get to know him,' a source said. 'And that included not wanting to be friends.'

While Luke allegedly tried to open conversations and find common ground, Mel is said to have shut down discussions and kept interactions surface-level.

'She didn't lean in,' an insider said. 'She leaned away.'

Insiders also point to Mel's alleged lack of interest in Luke's family, particularly his sisters, as another red flag.

'She showed no curiosity,' one source claimed. 'No effort to connect. No warmth.'

Perhaps most damaging, sources say, was the contrast in Mel's behaviour.

'She was cold to Luke behind closed doors,' one insider said. 'But completely different with everyone else.'
Sydney Sweeney shared a glimpse at her toned midriff while out in New York City on Monday.

The blonde bombshell, 28, stepped out in an oversized men's blue button-up, which she left partly undone to show off her boxers.

The boxers are from her lingerie brand SYRN, which she recently launched.

The Euphoria star's look was completed with oversized blue jeans and a pair of white heels. Her long blonde hair cascaded down her back in loose locks.

The actress shielded her eyes with a pair of black sunglasses and sparkled up her look with diamond earrings.

Sweeney officially launched SYRN last month, positioning the label as a direct competitor to powerhouse brands like Kim Kardashian's Skims and Rihanna's Savage X Fenty.

Sydney Sweeney, 28, shared a glimpse at her toned midriff while out in New York Cityon Monday

The blonde bombshell stepped out in an oversized men's blue button-up, which she left partly undone to show off her boxers

The line offers 44 sizes, ranging from 30B to 42DDD, and is organized into four distinct 'modes': Comfy, Playful, Romantic and Seductress.

Earlier in the day the A-list actress became the latest star to ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

Sweeney kicked off Monday's trading session for American Eagle Outfitters, the clothing brand she has served as the face of - and one which inadvertently plunged her into controversy.

Smiling, clapping, and posing alongside the staff, it seems the controversial 'great jeans' campaign Sweeney starred in last year for American Eagle was now behind her.

Sweeney received the red carpet welcome for her Wall Street adventures, strutting inside in style before making her way through the first floor of the stock exchange.

She was surrounded by various AE executives as she rang the bell from the stock exchange's legendary balcony, offering polite applause once the clanging erupted.

Over the summer, Sweeney found herself at the center of a heated controversy after she appeared in an American Eagle ad featuring the tagline 'Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans,' a pun on 'great genes'.

The phrase  and Sweeneys blonde good looks - ignited a heated debate online when it launched in July with many accusing the company of promoting eugenics and white supremacy. Some even compared the ad to 'Nazi propaganda'.

Join the debate Is Sydney Sweeneys new SYRN lingerie range a hit?

The boxers are from her lingerie brand SYRN, which she recently launched

The Euphoria star's look was completed with oversized blue jeans and a pair of white heels. Her long blonde hair cascaded down her back in loose locks

The actress shielded her eyes with a pair of black sunglasses and sparkled up her look with diamond earrings

Sweeney officially launched SYRN last month, positioning the label as a direct competitor to powerhouse brands like Kim Kardashian's Skims and Rihanna's Savage X Fenty

Earlier in the day the A-list actress became the latest star to ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange

For another outing later that day, she worked a corset inspired denim dress and knee-high boots

In a recent interview with People, the Euphoria star said that staying silent about the controversial ad only fueled the uproar.

'I was honestly surprised by the reaction,' Sweeney said. 'I did it because I love the jeans and love the brand. I dont support the views some people chose to connect to the campaign.

'Many have assigned motives and labels to me that just arent true,' she added.

American Eagle took a strong stance against the backlash, maintaining the campaign focused on personal style, confidence and authenticity.

'"Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans" is and always was about the jeans,' the company stated in an August 1 post on Instagram. 'Her jeans. Her story. We'll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.'

Sweeney insisted shes 'against hate' and 'leads with kindness,' and the reason shes confronting the issue now is to banish the negative energy.

'Anyone who knows me knows that Im always trying to bring people together. Im against hate and divisiveness,' said the star.

'In the past my stance has been to never respond to negative or positive press but recently I have come to realize that my silence regarding this issue has only widened the divide, not closed it.

'So, I hope this new year brings more focus on what connects us instead of what divides us.'

The actress first addressed the furor over her American Eagle ad in a November interview with GQ, saying she did a jean ad and was too busy filming to notice the backlash.

Her SYRN line offers 44 sizes, ranging from 30B to 42DDD, and is organized into four distinct 'modes': Comfy, Playful, Romantic and Seductress.

'I did a jean ad. I mean, the reaction definitely was a surprise, but I love jeans. All I wear are jeans. Im literally in jeans and a T-shirt every day of my life,' she told the magazine.

'I knew at the end of the day what that ad was for, and it was great jeans, it didn't affect me one way or the other.

'I've always believed that I'm not here to tell people what to think. I know who I am. I know what I value. I know that I'm a kind person. I know that I love a lot, and I know that I'm just excited to see what happens next. And so I don't really let other people define who I am.'

Her response at that time was perceived by some media critics and fans as dismissive.

Despite an initial drop, the campaign soon reached its goal by standing out in a competitive market.

After the ad debuted, the buzz and debate enabled American Eagle to win a huge number of new customers. Soaring sales led to jean sell-outs and boosted investor interests.
Miranda Kerr stayed true to her roots as she enjoyed a night out in New York this week.

The Aussie supermodel, 42, looked stunning dressed head to toe in Aussie label Zimmermann.

The mother-of-four showed off her incredible figure in a nude corset bodysuit and a pair of high-waisted indigo wash jeans.

She accessorised with a metallic clutch and gold jewellery, including a pair of large hoop earrings.

The ageless beauty revealed her natural beauty by wearing hardly any makeup on her flawless visage and had her chocolate locks coiffed in bouncy waves.

Miranda raved about the hotel lobby lighting in the caption of her photos as she posed up a storm on the premises.

Miranda Kerr stayed true to her roots as she enjoyed a night out in New York this week

The Aussie supermodel, 42, looked stunning dressed head to toe in Aussie label Zimmermann

The stunner recently shared a rare insight into her co-parenting relationship with ex Orlando Bloom.

The businesswoman, who shares son Flynn, 15, with the Pirates of the Caribbean actor, 49, branded their set-up as 'harmonious' in an interview last week.

Miranda and Orlando first started dating in 2007, before marrying in 2010, with the pair breaking up three years later.

Sitting down with Paul C Brunson's We Need to Talk podcast, Miranda said: 'From day one, Orlando and I had done a lot of spiritual work, and forgiveness was a big part of that, forgiving each other, forgiving ourselves, creating peace within the situation.

'And we both knew that the relationship was not bringing out the best in each other.'

She continued: 'So when we made that decision to separate, I said to him, "Let's always put the needs of Flynn first". Like, let's not make it about us.

'Let's make it about what's in the best interest for Flynn. But at the same time, let's make sure that we completely forgive each other, make peace with each other, because otherwise it really weighs on you.'

Miranda is now married to husband Evan Spiegel, who she has three other children with; Hart, seven, Myles, five, and 23-month-old Pierre.

The mother-of-four showed off her incredible figure in a nude corset bodysuit and a pair of high-waisted indigo wash jeans

She accessorised with a metallic clutch and gold jewellery, including a pair of large hoop earrings

Despite moving on, the star added she always knew Orlando would be in her life, so wanted it to be as 'harmonious' as possible.

She said: 'When you have a child with someone else, they're always going to be that person's parent for the rest of their life, and there are going to be situations when you're going to need to talk if you like it or not.

'So why not make it harmonious? Why not make it more peaceful?'

Last year Miranda proved how close both her family and Orlando's are, as she addressed his split from Katy Perry after nine years.

Speaking on Australia's KIIS FM's Kyle and Jackie O show in September, Miranda confirmed the couple's split was amicable.

'Was it mutual?' host Kyle Sandilands asked.

'Yes, and I actually just saw them both on the weekend. We were celebrating [their daughter] Daisy's birthday,' Miranda revealed.

'We're one big, happy family. Katy is amazing, I love her. And Orlando obviously,' she continued, before adding: 'If you do have animosity, it only hurts yourself.'

The ageless beauty revealed her natural beauty by wearing hardly any makeup on her flawless visage and her chocolate locks out in bouncy waves

Katy and Orlando were first linked when they attended a Golden Globes afterparty together in January 2016, and have been on and off in the intervening years.

Early in their romance, they hit the headlines when Orlando was spotted completely naked during a paddle-boarding romp with Katy in Sardinia.

They broke up in 2017 but had reignited their romance by the following year.
Scott McCristal has hit back at claims that he is legally married to a stunning blonde who looks just like his Married At First Sight bride Gia Fleur.

Speculation is rife that Scott was still hitched to American woman Marisa McElory when he applied to appear on the reality series last year.

However, the 33-year-old Queensland businessman ended the marriage ended three years ago.

The pair were granted a divorce on May 5th, 2022, by the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, according to legal documents viewed by Daily Mail.

Marisa sparked a firestorm when she replied to a fan's comment on Instagram that questioned whether Scott was married.

'You didn't hear EX, because I'm still legally his wife!' Marisa wrote.

Scott McCristal (left) has hit back at claims that he is legally married to a stunning blonde who looks just like his Married At First Sight bride Gia Fleur (right)

Marisa's sister backed up the claim, writing, 'Sister of the bride here! They are still legally married in the States.'

Scott and Marisa's San Diego, California wedding was documented on the official Exclusive Diamonds by Ronnie Instagram account in 2019.

In addition to images of the couple saying, 'I do,' Marisa was shown holding up wedding papers after the ceremony.

Marisa, who bears a striking resemblance to Scott's MAFS bride Gia, is an American fitness instructor and former boxer.

She is based between California and the Gold Coast.

It comes after Scott, who has appeared on a string of reality shows including Million Dollar Island, Blind Date and Holey Moley, clapped back at claims he only signed up to the experiment for fame.

Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail after his wedding to Gia, Scott said he could not care less about critics questioning his motives.

'People can think whatever they want,' Scott said.

Speculation is rife that Scott was still hitched to American woman Marisa McElory (pictured) when he applied to appear on the reality series last year. However, the 33-year-old Queensland businessman ended the marriage ended three years ago

Marisa, who bears a striking resemblance to Scott's MAFS bride Gia (pictured), is an American fitness instructor and former boxer. She is based between California and the Gold Coast

'They don't know me. Everyone who knows me knows I'm not here for clout.'

Scott, who has previously appeared on reality TV, said comparing his stint on Blind Date and Holey Moley to Married At First Sight was missing the point entirely.

'Those shows were years ago, like 2018. They were fun games,' he said.

'This is completely different. This is your whole life. You're investing your relationship and your time into someone.'

He added that the decision to join the experiment was not taken lightly.

'I put my business on the line for a long time. That's a lot for me to do,' he said.

'So obviously I'm serious about it. If people don't believe that, I don't really give a shit.'

Scott revealed he was approached to do the show and initially turned it down several times before eventually agreeing.

Scott and Marisa's San Diego, California wedding was documented on the official Exclusive Diamonds by Ronnie Instagram account in 2019 (above). Pictured marrying Gia

'I actually said no a few times,' he said.

'But then I thought, if I don't do this, I'm never going to find someone. It forced me to compromise and make time for someone.'

He said meeting Gia at the altar was an instant spark.

'The moment I turned around, I had a big smile. Our eyes locked, she was happy, she was laughing and the energy was just there,' he said. 'The sparks were flying.'

Scott said the pair clicked immediately and barely stopped talking.

'We were just asking each other a thousand questions. We were vibing straight away,' he said.

While viewers saw chaos around Gia's wedding morning, including her anxiety over revealing she has a child, Scott said his own preparation was the complete opposite.

'For me, it was just me and my two brothers. We were chilling,' he said. 'Two completely different getting-ready experiences.'

Scott, who has appeared on a string of reality shows including Million Dollar Island, Blind Date and Holey Moley, clapped back at claims he only signed up to the experiment for fame

Photos prove Scott and Gia were still going strong as they moved into their Sydney apartment during filming of the Channel Nine experiment

Gia bragged about the couple's sex life during Monday night's episode of Married At First Sight.

And photos prove the pair were still going strong as they moved into their Sydney apartment during filming of the Channel Nine experiment.

The couple were the picture of domestic bliss as they went shopping at their local Woolies.

Gia and Scott stocked up on all the essentials, including popcorn for romantic movie nights and some bottles of wine.

The disability support worker, 35, showed off her gym-honed figure in skin-tight activewear, slipping into a pair of tiny mauve bike pants and a matching wraparound top.

Meanwhile, entrepreneur Scott rugged up against the cold in a North Face puffer jacket over his shorts and T-shirt combo.
Lewis Hamilton has so far enjoyed dates with Kim Kardashian in a British countryside retreat, a five star Paris hotel and the Super Bowl.

But proving he is very much part of the family, he also recently enjoyed a low key night in with his new love interest and her sisters.

Kim shared a hilarious video of the group night, which saw her attempt the Titanic viral trend with her sisters Khloe Kardashian and Kylie Jenner.

Whilst the camera focused on the sisters' hilarious tries at the couple challenge, fans quickly noticed Lewis' voice in the background as he cheered Kim on.

A male voice with a British accent could be heard shouting at Kim 'push away, push away' before laughing as she fell to the floor after Khloe tried and failed to lift her.

'We all heard Lewis Hamiltons voice in the background right?' commented one fan on the vid which was shared by Kim, Khloe and Kylie on their Instagram accounts on Monday night.

Lewis Hamilton enjoyed a family night in with Kim Kardashian and her sisters with his voice heard in the background of a hilarious home video shared by Kim on Monday

The video was shared 24 hours after the new couple hard launched their romance at the Super Bowl at California's Levi's Stadium

'am I the only one who can hear lewiss laugh?' 'Lewis hamilton's laugh + voice in the background is killin me,' agreed others.

The video was shared 24 hours after the new couple hard launched their romance at the Super Bowl at California's Levi's Stadium.

Sunday night was the first public outing for Kim and Lewis after conducting their secret romance behind closed doors.

The pair were spotted enjoying the showdown between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots, amid reports they are enjoying a 'secret romance'.

It comes days after Kim and Lewis were pictured checking in to upmarket hotel Estelle Manor.

The pair were seen arriving with a motorcade in tow at the five-star establishment in the English Cotswolds, which is frequented by the rich and famous.

They enjoyed an intimate dinner and a couple's massage as part of a romantic weekend getaway to the A-list favourite spot in the Cotswolds.

Kim jetted into the UK on her $125million private jet to spend just time with her new beau at the exclusive venue, with three bodyguards protecting the couple.

Kim shared a hilarious video of the group night in, which saw her attempt the Titanic viral trend with her sisters Khloe Kardashianand Kylie Jenner

Whilst the camera focused on the sisters' hilarious tries at the couple challenge, fans quickly noticed Lewis' voice in the background as he cheered Kim on

A male voice with a British accent could be heard shouting at Kim 'push away, push away' before laughing as she fell to the floor after Khloe tried and failed to lift her

Then they both travelled to Paris where Kim was promoting her Nike SKIMS line.

A lip reader has unmasked the conversation between the two at the Super Bowl as Lewis seemingly promised Kim that she would meet his mom in a viral clip from the broadcast.

'No I don't take just any girl to my mom, I mean you're gonna meet someday, she is very excited to see you,' he reportedly said to Kim, according to expert Nicola Hickling, who is the founder of LipReader.

Hickling told the Daily Mail that Kim appeared to 'shuffle uncomfortably in her seat' and covered her face 'before replying with a simple "okay"'.

Meanwhile body language expert Judi James revealed to the Daily Mail how Kim used a 'hot and cool' flirting technique that left Lewis 'purring'.

'Firstly, there is the pose that registers undivided attention between them, which is a form of non-verbal stroke when you're on a date,' James said, dissecting their interaction.

'We all heard Lewis Hamiltons voice in the background right?' commented one fan on the vid which was shared by Kim, Khloe and Kylie on their Instagram accounts

'Kim actually leans back to take in Lewis visually as he speaks and this flattering "stroke" produces a "purr" response from him which is visible in the way his facial features soften and he talks through a smile of pleasure.'

James noted that, 'Kim adds to the flirting when the tip of her tongue appears at the side of her mouth. This is usually seen as a gesture of playful desire or interest.'

'But then she seems to switch to a very smart technique of intense interest followed by distraction, suddenly looking away after bathing Lewis in her interested gaze.'

James observed: 'She even brings one hand up to touch her hair and hide her face from him. This hot/cool body language technique is used to capture someone's attention and to get them to coax the signals of interest back again.

'Kim's hand to hair gesture looks like a preen here, suggesting she sees Lewis as a very suitable "catch" to show off with pride at this public event.'

Lewis Hamilton is said to be wanting to spend as much time with Kim Kardashian as possible amid their intense schedules

A few hours after the Monday video was shared, Lewis posted from Bahrain, with insiders revealing that the F1 star wants to spend as much time with Kim as possible amid their intense schedules.

The couple appear to be going from strength to strength, having spent time together in LA with Kim's family.

New reports have claimed Kim's family 'adore and approve' of Lewis, with the pair 'keen to keep their romance moving forward'.

A source said: 'Kim and Lewis's relationship is intense but they are both keen to keep moving forwards. He wants to spend as much time with her as possible, especially as he'll be back getting ready for the new F1 season in a couple of weeks.

'Lewis has been in LA, spending time with Kim and her family. They all adore him, especially her mum Kris [Jenner], who has loved having Lewis around.

'They're all really approving of this relationship. They just want to see Kim happy', according to The Sun.

Daily Mail has contacted Kim and Lewis' representatives for comment.
Doechii has made a statement by adding 'lesbian' to the bio of her new Instagram account.

The rapper, 27, (real name Jaylah Hickmon) looks to have created a new profile to accompany her 'official' one and has chosen to signify her sexuality.

Explaining why she wanted to make the new account she wrote in one of the two posts now up that she wants a space to 'express Jaylah the human outside of Doechii the artist.'

The secondary account has the handle @gutsgritsglamour and the bio reads: 'home life  wellness  books/essays  clubbing  lesbian  luxury  travel  beauty  music  side quests  fashion  film.'

She previously spoke about her sexuality with Gay Times in October 2024, saying: 'I think I've always been gay. I always knew I was gay.

'I'm currently bisexual. I am with a woman now and I have always known that I loved women. I've been very, very aware from an early age.'

Doechii has made a very clear statement by adding 'lesbian' to the bio of her new Instagram account

The rapper, 27, (real name Jaylah Hickmon) looks to have created a new profile to accompany her 'official' one and has chosen to signify her sexuality

Doechii hasn't mentioned her girlfriend since then, nor did she reveal who it was. There have never been any public sightings of them together.

She has had an incredible few years in music and recently won Best Music Video at the Grammys for her hit Anxiety.

She proudly posed with her award after the show.

However her UK fans missed out on an opportunity to see her perform last summer when she pulled out of performing at All Points East Festival in August.

She was due to perform on the Saturday of the event but the festival announced that she would no longer be doing her set in a social media statement.

They said on Instagram: 'We're very sorry to announce that Doechii will no longer be performing at her upcoming shows.

'She is an incredible artist, and, like all of her fans, we were hugely excited to see her on stage. All Points East has an amazing line-up including RAYE, Tyla, JADE, Jyoty, Nao and many more, and it's set to be a truly unforgettable day.'

Doechii also pulled out of Forwards Bristol festival and cancelled her performance on Thursday at Rock en Seine in Paris that month.

Fans were devastated about the news as they demanded a good replacement for her act - which ended up being FKA Twigs.

The secondary account has the handle @gutsgritsglamour and the bio reads: 'home life  wellness  books/essays  clubbing  lesbian...'

She has had an incredible few years in music and recently won Best Music Video at the Grammys for her hit Anxiety

It came a few weeks before Doechii declared she was 'right' to call out President Donald Trump for his protests crackdown last summer, after being praised by fans for her impassioned speech at the BET Awards.

The rapper used her acceptance speech at the ceremony to address the protests in downtown Los Angeles over mass deportations and ICE raids, which at the time the President responded to by deploying the National Guard in a controversial move.

Speaking to British Vogue last year, Doechii addressed the decision saying: 'I'm not that desensitised, and it felt right. I felt like I needed to use that moment, and they were live, so it wasn't s**t they could do about it.'

The hitmaker also posed for an eye-catching shoot with the publication, where she stunned in a dramatic sheer beaded gown and a fun orange feathered mini dress.

As accepted her first ever BET Award for Best Female Hip Hop Artist in June, Doechii used her acceptance speech to address the unrest over ICE raids in LA.

After thanking BET for her honour, she said: 'As much as I'm honored by this award, I do want to address what's happening right now outside of the building,' she said to applause.

'There are ruthless attacks that are creating fear and chaos in our communities in the name of 'Law & order.' Trump is using military forces to stop a protest,' she added.

'I want you all to consider what kind of government it appears to be one every time we exercise our democratic right to protest, the military is deployed against us,' she added.

She previously spoke about her sexuality with Gay Times in October 2024, saying: 'I think I've always been gay. I always knew I was gay...'

'What type of government is that? People are being swept up and torn from their families, and I feel it's my responsibility as an artist to use this moment to speak up for all oppressed people,' she said to more applause.

'For black people. For Latino people, for trans people. For the people in Gaza. We all deserve to live in hope and not in fear. I hope we stand together. My brothers and my sisters, against hate, and we protest against it. Thank you, BET!' she concluded.

During her British Vogue interview, Doechii also shared the goals she has in the creation of her music.

She said: 'I want to preserve this tradition and the roots of it, but I want to do it in a way that's digestible for drunk kids at a festival.'
Beverley Callard has said she's feeling 'positive and strong' after being diagnosed with breast cancer as she shared a health update to fans.

The Coronation Street legend, 68, revealed she is battling the disease during a chat show appearance in Ireland to promote her new role on soap opera Fair City.

Beverley had reassured fans the cancer was caught early, but would need to return to the UK for radiotherapy and surgery.

In a fresh update on Monday, the actress told fans she is now back home in Norfolk after taking the ferry with her husband Jon McEwan and their dogs.

Speaking on camera, Beverley said: 'I really want to say thank you so much to everyone for your wonderful messages. Everybody has been truly fantastic.

'And I also want to say I'm feeling really positive and I'm very strong. I begin hospital stuff and everything now I'm home.

Beverley Callard has said she's feeling 'positive and strong' after being diagnosed with breast cancer as she shared a health update to fans

The Coronation Street legend, 68, revealed she is battling the disease during a chat show appearance in Ireland to promote her new role on soap opera Fair City (pictured on Friday)

Announcing her diagnosis last Friday on The Late Late Show to host Patrick Kielty, Beverley revealed she received the news just 20 minutes before filming her first scenes in her new role

'Everything begins this week. On Wednesday, they're testing lymph nodes and lymph glands and all of that and I will keep everybody updated.

'I'm so appreciative of all the love that's coming, thank you.'

Announcing her diagnosis last Friday on The Late Late Show to host Patrick Kielty, Beverley revealed she received the news just 20 minutes before filming her first scenes in her new role.

She explained: 'I'd had some tests just before I left the UK and literally 15 to 20 minutes before [her first scene] I was in my dressing room at Fair City, getting ready to go on, and I was quite nervous and thinking, "I hope everybody thinks I'm all right, whatever".

'And my consultant rang me and said, "you've got to come back to the UK". I said, "well I can't possibly, you know, I've just taken a new job I'm away for a month".'

Beverley added: 'I'm fine. I'm absolutely fine. My head was a bit mashed for the first few days. It's very early stages, and I'm along with, you know, thousands of other women as well.'

The soap star has signed up to play Lily, the long-lost mother to already established Fair City character Gwen (Emily Lamey) on the RTE show.

Previously released promotional pictures show Beverley getting into character, with the star wearing a black leather jacket in one.

Beverley played the iconic Liz McDonald on and off in the ITV soap from 1989 until 2020 (pictured in 2010)

The soap star has signed up to play Lily, the long-lost mother to already established Fair City character Gwen (Emily Lamey) on the RTE show

Last month Beverley was forced to hit back at claims she was on weight-loss jabs after showing off her slim frame

Another shows the actress dressed in a cream ruffled jacket and denim jumpsuit as she poses next to a 'Welcome to Carrigstown' sign.

Last month Beverley was forced to hit back at claims she was on weight-loss jabs after showing off her slim frame.

In a video to fans addressing her weight loss, she said she has been 'working her a**e off' her whole life and has been heavily involved in fitness.

Beverley confirmed that her incredible physique was not because of 'any weight loss jabs' but was just her hard work.

She went on to say that she 'would not knock anybody' for using the jabs and urged people 'to do what they need to do'.
She celebrated her 50th birthday on Tuesday, and as she enters a new decade in her life, Keeley Hawes is also tackling a new challenge in her career - a love story.

The actress' new project Falling is a drama about finding love during middle age, and discussing why she took on the role, Keeley explained that she was tired of seeing the same narrative on screen.

Referencing the TV adaptation of Sally Rooney's romance novel, which starred Paul Mescal, 30, and Daisy Edgar-Jones, 27, she told Hunger Magazine: 'There isn't a "Normal People" for midlife and yet theres so much to mine in that age group.'

Keeley's six part Channel 4 series sees her play a nun called Anna, who meets a Catholic priest just once at her convent, but when their coats brush as he is leaving she realises she has fallen in love with him.

Based on a true story, she later receives a letter saying he feels the same way and the pair leave the Church and get married.

And for Keeley, her own long-lasting marriage to Matthew Macfadyen happened in a very similar and impulsive 'love at first sight' way.

There was just one problem, Keeley was already married with a young son when they met.

Why Keeley Hawes, 50, is putting 'middle-aged love' on the map with her new drama after her marriage to Matthew Macfadyen, 51, began unconventionally with an 'awful' realisation

Keeley and her husband are lauded for having one of the strongest marriages in Hollywood after meeting on the set of Spooks 23 years ago, but it wasn't smooth sailing to begin with

The actress and her husband Matthew are lauded for having one of the strongest marriages in Hollywood after meeting on the set of Spooks 23 years ago in 2002.

In October, the pair celebrated 21 years of marriage, with Keeley taking to Instagram with a selection of loved up snaps, in what became one of her most liked posts, as she penned: '21 years. No notes. Love you with all my heart.'

Speaking to You Magazine she said: 'It doesn't feel like 21 years, by any means. We just sort of have a nice time. And also, you become more relaxed [as you get older].

'It would be weird to have a marriage where things don't go up and down occasionally in 21 years, but we're very happy.'

Explaining it is the simple things that have resulted in their lasting relationship she said that now their children have left home they make sure to do things together, particularly travelling and spending time for each other.

Yet their road to happily ever after was by no means smooth sailing, with Matthew previously describing the moment he fell in love with Keeley as 'awful.'

At the time Keeley, who was then 26, was newly married to DJ Spencer McCallum, with whom she shares 25-year-old son Myles.

Speaking to the Mail On Sunday in 2005, Matthew confessed he was in turmoil when he first met Keeley as he realised he had feelings for a married woman.

He explained: 'It was awful because I realised I'd fallen for her. We weren't having an affair and it was a slow process. But I knew the effect she had on me.

Join the debate Is it ever justified to leave a marriage for someone youve just fallen for?

The six part Channel 4 series sees Keeley play a nun called Anna, who meets a Catholic priest just once at her convent, but when their coats brush as he is leaving she realises she has fallen in love with him (pictured in the series with Paapa Essiedu)

In 2005, Matthew confessed he was in turmoil when he first met Keeley as he realised he had feelings for a married woman (pictured in Spooks in 2004)

In October, the pair celebrated 21 years of marriage, with Keeley taking to Instagram with a selection of loved up snaps as she penned: '21 years. No notes. Love you with all my heart'

'She's gorgeous. Everyone who meets her will tell you the same thing.'

At first Keeley and Matthew struck up a friendship, with the actress also insisting that nothing happened between them until her marriage ended, saying: 'I'm sure nobody would believe we never had an affair but we really didn't.'

Speaking about the fairytale moment they first said the L word, Keeley recalled: 'Matthew just came straight out with it and said "I love you" in the rain one day. I thought, "Oh dear, here we go.'

Choosing to leave her marriage, Keeley's divorce from Spencer was finalised in 2004 but Keeley has revealed there is no bad blood with her ex, explaining: 'Spencer and I were best friends before we married, and weve managed to stay that way.

'Happily, both my husband and my ex-husband get along brilliantly. They are both generous people, to each other and to the children.'

In November 2004, she wed Matthew after the pair eloped.

Matt recalled: 'We rang a mate each to come along as witnesses and people brought little throwaway cameras to take pictures.

'I read a poem and Keeley cried her eyes out. It was wonderful and romantic.

'Keeley was heavily pregnant with our daughter and the whole thing seemed perfect to me... To get married, celebrate my 30th and then become a father, in quick succession, was fantastic.'

They welcomed their first child, daughter Maggie, the following month, and their son Ralph two years later in 2006.

The following year, the couple worked together again on a new project as they appeared in 2007 comedy Death at a Funeral.

They also co-starred in Stonehouse in 2023, dramatising the life and times of disgraced British government minister John Stonehouse.

The series followed love cheat Labour MP John Stonehouse, who faked his own death before running off with his mistress and later being exposed as a spy.

While playing the jilted wife in the show, Keeley insisted that her union was the complete opposite to that of politician John and Barbara.

She told the Mirror: 'We have worked together before, but not for several years. And so when this came up, it seemed like the perfect project on so many levels really, mostly because the Stonehouses are so different to Matthew and I and to our relationship.

'So its nice to see us, I think, and interesting for people who may know that we are married to see us as the "other" couple.'

Keeley said: 'It would be weird to have a marriage where things don't go up and down occasionally in 21 years, but we're very happy'

In November 2004, she wed Matthew after the pair eloped and a month later they welcomed their daughter Maggie. Their son Ralph was born two years later (pictured in 2005)

She told Matthew: 'It was really wonderful. It was very jolly, wasnt it?'

He responded: 'Yeah, it was very difficult working with Keeley.

'Shes... it was hard. It was hard. No, thats a silly answer. It was joyful working with Keeley. It was nice, wasnt it?'

He added to Town & Country: 'We got to see each other, which is really nice. So often were sort of scattered in different countries. But the idea of going to work together was just great. We even took the dog.'

Despite Keeley and Matthew's hectic schedules they make sure to keep their marriage spark alive when torn apart on shoots.

Matthew told The Evening Standard back in 2021: 'Keeley and I have a three-week rule  neither of us wants to be apart for any longer. So after three weeks on my own, I started to go a bit mad.

'You start to think. "What am I doing?" I'd be walking around Brooklyn, thinking, "where do I live?" It was odd and hard.'

For the lovesick pair, they'll do whatever it takes to go the distance, with Keeley telling The Telegraph in 2010: 'I love being married to Matthew, and I know Matthew loves being married too.

'It ties everything up and it's a statement to each other and to the world. Marriage and being a mother are absolutely crucial to my happiness and my life.'

She added to The Daily Mail's You magazine: 'You have to work at it. We still fill up the dishwasher and put a wash onthats lifebut you also have to make the effort to be romantic.

'When life takes over, going out to dinner together isnt top of your list, but before you know it, the children are older and around less and youre sort of back together again. I couldnt love him more. It helps that hes the nicest man in the world.'

The couple prove to be each other's biggest champions when they're not working together.

They also co-starred in Stonehouse in 2023, dramatising the life and times of disgraced British government minister John Stonehouse (pictured)

When Keeley was nominated for a BAFTA in 2015 for her role in Line of Duty, Matthew told The Big Issue: 'It is so exciting  about f***ing time!' (pictured in 2019)

When Keeley was nominated for a BAFTA in 2015 for her role in Line of Duty, Matthew told The Big Issue: 'It is so exciting  about f***ing time!

'Trying to keep our careers going and focus on our family is tricky, but that is part of the fun. How do we make this work? Will we traumatise the children if we are not there for a few weeks?

'But when one of us is working away, the other is usually at home.'

And as the star turns 50, she is happier than ever: 'You hear people saying it, don't you, that when you get to a certain age, you think, "Well, I've never been happier. I wouldn't want to be in my 20s again.".

'Not that there was anything wrong with my 20s, but as you grow older you just relax. And I have relaxed.'
Mel B's daughter Phoenix Chi Brown held hands with a friend as they attended a Maison Perrier event in London on Monday evening.

The 26-year-old nepo baby - whose father is Dutch dancer Jimmy Gulzar, posed for photos with her pal where they wrapped their arms around each other.

Phoenix cut a casual figure for the bash as she wore a loose-fitting blue shirt along with a pair of black trousers.

Styling her locks into blonde dreads, she completed her look with black shoes and a matching handbag.

Her friend also opted for a simple look with a white, striped shirt with a black tie and matching trousers.

Phoenix is an aspiring artist and DJ and performed at Glastonbury last year.

Mel B's daughter Phoenix Chi Brown held hands with a friend as they attended a Maison Perrier event in London on Monday evening

The 26-year-old nepo baby- whose father is Dutchdancer Jimmy Gulzar, posed for photos with her pal where they wrapped their arms around each other

Her mother Mel B formed The Spice Girls with Victoria, Geri Halliwell, Mel C and Emma Bunton.

It comes after Phoenix revealed that her mum once told her: 'I'm the famous one and you're not' as she insisted she won't be a 'shadow' of her success.

Speaking to The Daily Mail the daughter of Scary spice said she quickly realised she had to find her own path in life as she addressed nepo baby claims.

She had never shied away from the viral term, even releasing Channel 4 documentary, Born in the Limelight  Nepo Babies: Untold, last year - which saw her explore the advantages and challenges that come from being the child of a celebrity.

The star now does DJ work and exhibits her art in London as she makes a career for herself.

She said in a candid interview last September: 'I'm discovering who I am, what I like, who I like, where I want to be. It's a lot of questions, and I just got to figure out the answers, but I'm here for the journey.'

She credits her mother for teaching her to step out of the shadow of fame.

Phoenix revealed: 'My mum kind of let me know that 'I'm the famous one and you're not.'

Phoenix cut a casual figure for the bash as she wore a loose-fitting blue shirt along with a pair of black trousers

Phoenix's mother Mel B formed The Spice Girlswith Victoria, Geri Halliwell, Mel Cand Emma Bunton (pictured together in 2022)

'That quickly made me realise that I got to find who I am and not be a shadow. So I've just had a journey with that.'

Indeed, Phoenix is well aware that the Spice Girls is the cornerstone of her mother's fame and is the reason why she is often labelled a 'nepo baby'.

It's a subject she tackled head-on in her Channel 4 documentary, Born in the Limelight  Nepo Babies: Untold.

She said of the show: 'I was so nervous to do it just because it was such a taboo subject.

'I was like, well, it can go in one or two ways, people can absolutely hate it, mug me off, or they can actually listen and question themselves on it not just being about celebrities, it's everywhere and it's all-around life.'

And as for the 'nepo baby' tag?

Phoenix says: 'It is what it is. I'm not going to shy away from the fact, I am a nepo baby, so go ahead, call me that. But my name is Phoenix.'
Max George has revealed he was rushed to hospital in the middle of the night as he shared a photo from A&E.

The Wanted star, 37, was fitted with a pacemaker in December 2024 after his mum Babs noticed he had 'turned blue' and insisted he should go to A&E.

He later had a second procedure to fix a misplaced wire and has kept his followers updated on his regular hospital visits.

But taking to Instagram on Tuesday morning, Max revealed he was rushed to Accident and Emergency in the middle of the night as he shared a photo of himself with a cannula in her arm.

In the photo, Max could be seen sitting in a chair at A&E and he told fans: 'what now ffs... This sh** ALWAYS happens in the middle of the night. Poor Albert [dog emoji].'

In a second picture, Max shared a selfie with his face looking bright red as he was covered by a towel, captioned: 'Running HOT.'

Max George has revealed he was rushed to hospital in the middle of the night as he shared a photo from A&E on Instagram on Tuesday

The Wanted star, 37, was fitted with a pacemaker in December 2024 after his mum Babs noticed he had 'turned blue' and insisted he should go to A&E

His latest hospital visit comes just weeks after he was forced to return to hospital for a scan.

Posting on his Stories, the musician shared a clip waiting outside an X-ray area in a hospital.

He captioned the upload: 'Another scan...' and then followed it up with an update on his visit.

Walking through the corridors, he said: 'So I'm just at the hospital in the building where I had all my heart surgeries done.

'I can't say it's good to be back, because it's not.

'I've just had a scan done on my chest because I've had a bit of an issue with one of my lungs, apparently,' he went on.

'Should be fine. It's just a precaution, but yeah. Back in my old second home.'

He signed off with a thumbs-up and a good weekend wish to his followers.

In a second picture, Max shared a selfie with his face looking bright red as he was covered by a towel, captioned: 'Running HOT'

Max's latest hospital visit comes just weeks after he was forced to return to hospital for a scan in January

His girlfriend, Maisie Smith, has recently revealed she has grown closer than ever to Max, almost a year on from his heart surgery.

The former EastEnders actress, 24, revealed in a new interview how this time last year, 'no one knew what was going to happen' after he underwent a life-saving operation.

11 months later, she has confirmed their bond is stronger than ever and that she fell in love with him all over again.

The couple recently starred together in Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War Of The Worlds in March, playing husband and wife.

Last year, Max wrapped the American leg of The Wanted's 2.0 Tour alongside his bandmate Siva Kaneswaran.

Speaking about how he is getting on following his health scare, Maisie told The Sun: 'He still has hard days and better days, but he's definitely getting stronger again and it's nice to see him performing.'

She added: 'So yeah, he's doing well.

'No one knew what was going to happen this time last year, so it's really nice to see him doing what he was born to do.'

Maisie said she went to watch her boyfriend perform in New York, which she described as 'a nice feeling to see him do that after the year he's had.'
Holly Willoughby's sister Kelly has shared a touching tribute to her as she celebrates her 45th birthday on Tuesday.

Kelly, who is the older sister of the former This Morning presenter, took to Instagram to share a sweet throwback snap to mark her day.

The wholesome capture showed Holly and Kelly together as young children as she boasted an adorable smile.

Alongside the photograph, Kelly wrote: 'Happy birthday @hollywilloughby.forever Snow White to my Rose Red.

'May your day be filled with butter icing and bubbles. Love you endlessly.'

Holly and Kelly have shown they are incredibly close and spend summer holidays together with their families, with Holly having a luxury 2million property on the Portuguese Algarve.

Holly Willoughby's sister Kelly has shared a touching tribute to her as the presenter celebrates her 45th birthday

Kelly, who is the older sister of the former This Morning presenter, took to Instagram to share a sweet throwback snap to mark her day

Last August she shared an insight into her sun getaway with her sibling as she posted snaps from her balcony with the picturesque sunset in the background.

Holly looked stunning in a patterned one-shouldered dress.

Completing her summery look, she styled her hair into beachy waves and opted for minimal makeup.

While Kelly wore a plunging white linen dress which was cinched in at the waist with a wrap around belt.

Kelly is also the managing director of Holly's lifestyle brand Wylde Moon.

However, almost five years after its launch, it can be revealed that the business has dropped its jewellery line, and its podcast, and also seems to have parted company with its hair, beauty, style and energy editors.

In a filing to Companies House last month, Wylde Moon listed just two employees  understood to be Holly and her sister.

When it launched in 2021, it said it had a team of 14, and many contributors were listed on the website. No contributors are listed or credited any more.

Spice Girl Emma Bunton also wished Holly a Happy Birthday in her own Instagram throwback post

Holly and Kelly are incredibly close and spend summer holidays together with their families, with Holly having a luxury 2million property on the Portuguese Algarve

Last week it was revealed Holly and her TV executive husband Dan Baldwin have sold their 6.4million London home

Meanwhile, last week it was revealed Holly and her TV executive husband Dan Baldwin have sold their 6.4million London home.

Records confirm the Edwardian changed ownership in 2024 after the couple moved their children out of the above when the horrifying kidnap, rape and murder plot against Holly emerged.

Security guard Gavin Plumb was unanimously convicted of soliciting murder and encouraging or assisting others to rape and kidnap Holly following a trial at Chelmsford Crown Court last year.

The 38-year-old from Harlow, in Essex, was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 16 years.
Margot Robbie branded Amanda Holden a 'legend' as they necked a beer and gin 'shoey' during a morning interview.

The actress, 35, spoke to Amanda, 54, on Heart Radio to promote her latest film Wuthering Heights which is released in cinemas on Friday.

During the interview, Amanda brought along a pair of shoe-shaped bottles so the pair could have 'shoeys' - when someone drinks out of a shoe as a party piece. It is popular in Australia as a celebratory ritual.

Amanda said: 'I've got you a little present only because it's nearly lunchtime so I feel this is legal. As an Australian, I know you like shoeys.'

'I literally just told someone what a shoey is,' Margot replied.

Amanda then revealed the shoe-shaped bottles, one with beer, which she gave to Margot, and one with gin, which she drank herself.

Margot Robbie branded Amanda Holden a 'legend' as they necked a beer and gin 'shoey' during a morning interview

Margot Robbie branded Amanda Holden a 'legend' as they necked a beer and gin 'shoey' during a morning interview

'This is actual beer. You can either go for a real one or a non-alcoholic one,' she said.

'I mean, obviously the real one. This is a very elegant shoey. Usually you do it out of some mangy old sneaker,' Margot said.

'Cheers darling,' Amanda said as they both enjoyed their drinks.

Speaking about Wuthering Heights, Margot said the film has gone down well with her friends.

'My friends who've seen it twice, they want to see it again. I've got a friend flying over for the London premiere because she wants to see it again,' she said.

She also praised the film's director Emerald Fennell and the 'tone' she set during the production.

'Emerald is our leader who is always encouraging you to bare your soul. I never felt like I was going too far with my performance. I knew she'd protect me in the edit. I just had to give it my everything,' she said.

It comes after Margot revealed that early in her career, an unnamed actor gave her a book that she thought essentially told her to 'eat less.'

During the interview, Amanda brought along a pair of shoe-shaped bottles so the pair could have 'shoeys' - when someone drinks out of a shoe as a party piece

It comes after Margot revealed that early in her career, an unnamed actor gave her a book that she thought essentially told her to 'eat less'

'Very, very early in my career, an actor I worked with, a male actor, gave me a book called Why French Women Don't Get Fat,' the 35-year-old Australian actress recalled when she was asked about the worst gift she had ever received.

'It was essentially a book telling you to eat less,' Robbie continued in reference to the book, which was written by Mireille Guiliano and published in 2007.

Margot, who stars opposite Euphoria star Jacob Elordi in Wuthering Heights, recalled her outrage at her male costar after he gave her the book.

'I was like, "Whoa, f*** you, dude,"' she said.

Lest her fans try to piece together the clues to figure out which of her famous leading men might have given her the book, Robbie emphasized that she was given the book many years ago.

She said she was given the book 'really back in the day,' and she suggested that it wasn't an A-lister who had presented it to her, because she had 'no idea where he would even be now.'

That cued Charli to glance directly into the camera and joke, 'Your career's over, babe.'

Robbie reiterated, 'He essentially gave me a book to let me know that I should lose weight. I was like, "Wow."'

Although the actress shared few clues as to who might have given her the book, its 2007 publication was notably several years before she made the jump to American screens.

Margot starred on the single-season period drama Pan Am on ABC from 2011 to 2012, and then in 2013, she got her big break when she starred opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese's modern classic, The Wolf Of Wall Street.

Since then, she has acted almost exclusively with major stars, so her claim that she hasn't kept up with the actor's career would fall flat.

Listen to Heart Breakfast with Jamie Theakston and Amanda Holden weekdays from 06:30  10:00 across the UK and on Global Player.
Clara McGregor posted an insight into her 30th birthday which she celebrated with her mother and father after patching up her feud with her dad Ewan.

The daughter of Ewan and his ex-wife Eve Mavrakis previously publicly branded his new wife Mary Elizabeth Winstead a 'piece of trash' during a fallout with the couple.

Clara made her dislike for their relationship known when their relationship came to light, after meeting while filming the third series of the TV series, Fargo.

Both parties announced their respective divorces in May 2017, before they were snapped looking cosy and kissing the following October.

However despite Clara's statements about their relationship, it all appears to be water under the bridge now and she has seemingly repaired her relationship with Ewan and Mary, after admitting she regretted her public outburst.

This was suggested in the smiley snaps she posted of herself with her parents at her birthday over the weekend, after turning 30 on February 4.

Clara McGregor posted an insight into her 30th birthday which she celebrated with her mother and father after patching up her feud with her dad Ewan

Clara also posted a picture having dinner with her mother Eve, 59, to celebrate her milestone. She did not mention if she also attended the party

Clara posted a beaming selfie with her arm wrapped around her father Ewan at her birthday party, where she sported a pretty lace mini dress and heels.

Clara also posted a picture having dinner with her mother Eve, 59, to celebrate her milestone. She did not mention if she also attended the party.

The bash looked like a rowdy affair with Clara and her loved ones boogying the night away on a colourful, back lit dance floor.

Other snaps reveal she was given a slice of pie with a candle and also a slice of cake, iced with the words 'Happy Birthday Clara'.

It is not clear whether Ewan's wife Mary, who he shares his youngest child, Laurie, five, with was in attendance at Clara's party.

While Clara and her father appeared to have long resolved their issues now, she did initially side with her mother following their split.

In 2018, Clara admitted she regretted branding her father's new girlfriend at the time a 'piece of trash'.

In July earlier that year, the production designer posted the scathing comment under an image of her father's girlfriend on an Instagram fan page dedicated to the star.

However, Clara remorsefully said that while it 'wasn't the most mature way to go about things', she kept seeing criticism towards her mother Eve after she was continuously tagged in the picture of Mary.

She sported a pretty lace mini dress and heels

The bash looked like a rowdy affair with Clara and her loved ones boogying the night away on a colourful, back lit dance floor

Other snaps reveal she was given a slice of pie with a candle

In a candid interview with Barbara McMahon in The Times, Clara admitted she was 'angry and upset' at the situation.

'There had been a lot building up to it and a lot to deal with, not to make excuses or anything, but, yeah, it wasnt my finest moment. But Im not afraid to speak out if I feel strongly about something,' she admitted.

Clara ensured to detail the situation in depth: 'I kept being tagged in this photograph and I was seeing negative things about my mum.

'I said how I felt and I didnt want to apologise for it. It wasnt the right way to go about things, but its a hard thing to wrap your head around when you feel you had this idea of what the family unit is and then to have that shift. Its very weird.'

Touching upon the day the surprising picture emerged of Ewan kissing Mary, Clara admitted that she already knew about the demise of his marriage to her mother, Eve Mavrakis.

Clara confessed: 'The picture surfaced on my little sisters birthday, but my dad didnt know it was going to come out. He didnt want us to see that, but, you know, there were paparazzi following them around.

Despite their recent family drama, Clara has insisted that she is 'close with her dad.'

She revealed: 'I love him and I always will. The relationships not going to end because of this.

The group were seen throwing it back on the dance floor with Clara leading the way

Clara looked chic in a red satin top and navy trousers

Clara appeared to be having the time of her life at her birthday celebration

She posted a snap with a group of friends

Another slice of cake featured the words: 'Happy 30th Birthday Clara'

'We are incredibly close and despite me strongly disagreeing with how hes gone about things, Ill always love him, and I hope hes happy, you know?

'I wish them all the best, but Im staying out of that, for sure,' she concluded.

Clara had previously taken to the comments section of an image from a fan page for the Fargo star, to lash out at the page administrators for calling Mary beautiful.

A seemingly enraged Clara hit out in the comments section, as she penned: 'Most beautiful and talented woman on earth? (laughing faces) Oh man y'all are delusional. The girl is a piece of trash (smiley face) x'.

Ewan controversially filed for divorce from Eve in March 2018  six months after being spotted kissing Mary.

Ewan and Mary have gone from strength to strength ever since and jokingly called for more films they could be in together during a recent public appearance

'I love to work with you so much. I've been lucky enough to do it three times, and I want to do it more and more,' Ewan told his wife from the stage.

'Mary and I are now here in Scotland, so to save us the pain of having to be apart, maybe you could come up with lots of Scottish films that we can be in together.'

Ewan McGregor shared his Scottish BAFTA with Mary Elizabeth Winstead on Sunday, paying tribute to his wife during the glitzy Glasgow ceremony

The couple first met on the set of the FX series Fargo in 2016, when they both joined the cast for season three, playing each other's love interests.

At the time of the shoot, the actor was still married to Eve Mavrakis, with whom he shares four daughters, and Mary Elizabeth was married to Riley Stearns.

But eventually, both of their marriages ended and the co-stars began dating soon afterwards.

They worked with each other again on the 2020 superhero film Birds Of Prey and the 2024 historical drama series A Gentleman in Moscow.

The couple welcomed their first child together, a son named Laurie in June 2021, after nearly four years of dating and tied the knot during a private backyard ceremony in LA in April 2022.
Jennifer Garner is back as the suspense builds in the first look at season two of Apple TV+s The Last Thing He Told Me.

The actress, 53, reprises her role as Hannah, a woman searching for her husband Owen (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) after his sudden disappearance in the series based on Laura Daves No. 1 New York Times bestseller.

Season two raises the stakes as Owen suddenly reappears after five years on the run, leaving Hannah and her stepdaughter Bailey (Angourie Rice) scrambling to reunite their family before old secrets catch up with them.

New photos show Garner wrapped in a blanket as she speaks with Coster-Waldau on a balcony - a striking moment that confirms the long-lost couple have finally crossed paths again.

Another image shows the Alias alum in a striking black-and-white dress, while a separate shot captures her mid-chase, sprinting down the street alongside Rice.

The first-look images arrive as Garner celebrates her baby food company reaching a valuation of nearly $845 million and opens up about co-parenting with her ex-husband Ben Affleck.

Jennifer Garneris back as the suspense builds in the first look at season two of Apple TV+s The Last Thing He Told Me

The 53-year-old actress reprises her role as Hannah in the series based on Laura Daves No. 1 New York Times bestseller, racing to reunite her family with stepdaughter Bailey (Angourie Rice) after her husband Owen (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) reappears following five years on the run

The star got candid about motherhood while promoting a new collaboration between her Once Upon A Farm baby food brand and Carter's.

I just have so much heart for young parents and how much you want to do everything right, the 53-year-old mother of three said. Ive been there. I know that pressure.

The actress shares three children - Violet, 20, Fin, 17, and Samuel, 13 - with her ex-husband Ben Affleck, 53.

Affleck also weighed in on parenting in the spotlight earlier this month, reflecting on the challenges of raising children as a public figure.

You put something on your children when you have a public life and thats complicated, he told E! News.

We really want to give them room to figure out what they want to do, he added, explaining why he and Garner avoid pushing their children toward any specific career path.

He continued: I wouldnt push them into that. Theyre brilliant and lovely and wonderful and we love them and were proud of them. And hope that they dont waste their life acting.

Samuel and Fin are currently full-time students, while Violet - who attends Yale University - has carved out a path for herself as an activist.

Another image shows the Alias alum sprinting down the street alongside Rice

The first-look images arrive as Garner celebrates her baby food company reaching a valuation of nearly $845 millionand opens up about co-parenting with her ex-husband Ben Affleck

Garner and the Oscar-winning filmmaker married in 2005, announced their separation in 2015, and finalised their divorce three years later.

The actress has also been making waves in the business world, following the highly anticipated IPO of her baby food company, which saw shares climb beyond their debut.

Once Upon a Farm, the organic childrens food brand co-founded by Garner, debuted on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday with a valuation nearing $845 million.

The successful launch signals renewed momentum for consumer IPOs after a slow 2025.

The company was originally founded in 2015 by Cassandra Curtis and Ari Raz, with Garner joining two years later alongside former Annies CEO John Foraker as a co-founder.

Garner previously explained that the mission behind the brand resonated deeply with her own experience as a parent.

You could buy organic, fresh, refrigerated food for your dog or cat, but not for your baby, she told Yahoo Finance.

She was doing it with this tiny company - the first HPP, refrigerated, organic, fresh baby food - and I just wanted to be involved.

Once Upon a Farm, the organic childrens food brand co-founded by Garner, debuted on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday with a valuation nearing $845 million; (Garner with son Samuel)

I met John, and we started talking about how we could build a purpose-driven company together, Garner added.

We shook hands at the end of our first meeting. Im in if youre in - and here we are.

Once Upon a Farm now offers a wide range of products for children of all ages, from cold-pressed pouches and pantry snacks to frozen meals and oat bars.

The brand is stocked by major retailers including Target, Kroger and Walmart, with many of its recipes inspired by Garners century-old family farm in Locust Grove, Oklahoma.
Christina Haack, 42, slipped back into a skimpy bikini for some fun in the sun this week as she partied like a rock star.

The Flip Or Flop veteran was on vacation in Florida with her boyfriend Christopher Larocca, when she shared sizzling photos to Instagram.

'Living my champagne life to the fullest,' she wrote in her Instagram caption as she held onto a champagne glass while in a swimming pool.

The beauty wore an ivory swimsuit that flashed her flat tummy, as she added a black cap and sunglasses.

Her partner is the CEO of telecoms company Network Connex.

This comes after she revealed in October that she and the 53-year-old businessman actually started dating in October 2024. Fans had thought they first sparked up their romance in October 2025.

Haack split from her third husband, Josh Hall, in the summer of 2024.

Christina Haack, 42, has slipped back into a skimpy bikini for some fun in the sun

The Flip Or Flop veteran was on vacation in Florida with her boyfriend Christopher Larocca, and shared sizzling photos to Instagram

In August 2025, she gushed about Larocca.

'Meeting an unexpected good man who has his own amazing career, life & hobbies (who also happens to have zero jealousy) can at times feel strange for someone who has had the opposite,' she said, referring to Larocca.

She continued: 'At 41 Im finally learning about safe communication, independence during commitment and a relationship that is NOT 0-100.'

'I am for sure guilty of putting pressure on others. Facing my own insecurities has forced me into doing the shadow work Ive been avoiding.. its time to break the cycle,' she declared.

Haack rose to fame in the 2010s when she starred in her first TV program Flip Or Flop opposite her first husband Tarek El Moussa.

That show ran for 10 series, and Haack and El Moussa had two children together, Taylor Reese, 13, and Brayden James, 10.

In May 2016, however, the married couple got into an explosive fight, and police were even called to their home in response to a 'possibly suicidal male with a gun', according to Us Weekly reports.

Join the debate What's your take on Christina's 'champagne life'?

'Living my champagne life to the fullest,' she wrote in her Instagram caption. Her partner is the CEO of telecoms company Network Connex

They enjoyed martinis with friends at a bar

Then there was a festive dinner party with other couples

She also wore a black crop top with a long skirt when heading into Nikki Beach

The couple addressed the fight at the time, dismissing it as an 'unfortunate misunderstanding' and added 'the police were called to our house in an abundance of caution. There was no violence and no charges were filed.'

They divorced in 2018, but managed to keep working together on their show. (El Moussa is now married to Selling Sunset star Heather Rae Young.)

Just before Haack and El Moussa's divorce was finalized in 2018, Haack started dating another real estate reality TV star, Ant Anstead.

They met through a mutual friend and got married less than a year later, in December 2018.

They welcomed a son, Hudson London, in 2019, but then split a year later.

On Instagram, Anstead claimed the split wasn't his decision, writing: 'I have remained silent while holding on to hope. I never gave up on us. I pray Christina's decision brings her happiness.'

Anstead has since moved on with Bridget Jones star, Renee Zellweger.

In somewhat of a familiar pattern, just before Haack's divorce from Anstead was finalized, Haack started dating a new man, another real estate agent, Josh Hall.

Haack then married Hall in April 2022 and shared photos of the wedding to her social media accounts, writing: 'Everything in life has led me to where I am right now, which is exactly where I want to be.'

But sadly their wedded bliss didn't last long and, just over two years later, in July 2024, Hall filed for divorce citing irreconcilable differences.

The reality TV star and her beau in Hawaii last month

Since beginning her romance with Larocca the pair have made memories across the globe together.

This includes drinking champagne on a private jet and sharing a kiss in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Despite initially expressing hesitancy over the idea of ever walking down the aisle again, she confessed she has already thought about tying the knot with Larocca.

While appearing on SiriusXM's Radio Andy, Haack joked she liked how often she has changed her last name given her three marriages.

'I kind of like it  I'm going to change it again,' she said.
Katherine Ryan has revealed she has gone under the knife for a full facelift to 'reclaim her identity' after being pregnant six times in the last five years.

The comedian, 42, said the 16,000 invasive procedure took place just eight weeks after she gave birth to her fourth child, Holland, last October.

While she had hinted about having cosmetic work done at the time, she has not disclosed any details until now.

'The surgery was a facelift. Yes, a full facelift - a little bit of fat transfer to my cheekbone area, and a small bleph[aroplasty],' she said on her podcast, Telling Everybody Everything, on Tuesday.

'A bleph is when they take a tiny bit of your eyelid skin, though not too much, and then they'll usually - to avoid hollowness, put a little bit of fat back in there too. So I had some fat put in like my upper face, my eyelids, and then I had a facelift.'

Katherine added that the surgery was as much an emotional milestone as a physical one after being pregnant six times in five years, having suffered three miscarriages alongside the births of her three children with husband Bobby Koostra.

Katherine Ryan has revealed she has gone under the knife for a full faceliftto 'reclaim her identity' after being pregnant six times in the last five years (pictured in February 2026)

The comedian, 42, said the 16,000 invasive procedure took place just eight weeks after she gave birth to her fourth child, Holland, last October (pictured in October)

'Almost metaphorically I needed to do something, to reclaim my identity, to reclaim my autonomy, to claw back the face that I had in, like, 2019,' she said.

'I am not crazy. I'm not trying to wind it back to 2006. I'm just trying to look the way I did, like, pre-COVID, pre-six pregnancies in five years.'

She had the surgery with Dr Nick Rhodes at the Coppergate Clinic in York, where a full face lift costs upwards of 16,000.

'He is an esteemed consultant plastic surgeon who has trained many of these London guys who charge more,' Katherine added.

'I have seen a lot of his before-and-after work, both in photos and in the flesh. I know real people who've been to see him. I think that is very important when choosing a surgeon.

'And just like Dr. Steven Levine, who did Kris Jenner, said to me, I believe that you and your surgeon have to have the same idea of what pretty is. Dr. Nick Rhodes has done some work on my friends. I think they look beautiful.'

The Canadian star, who shares baby Holland, Fred, four, and Fenna, three, with husband Bobby Kootstra - and has a 16-year-old daughter, Violet, from a previous relationship - said she had 'zero out of ten pain' after the surgery.

'The beauty is you're pretty numb afterwards,' she explained. 'I was bruised, and I was swollen, and I think I am still a little bit swollen. But basically, I just went about my daily life from day one.

Katherine's surgery was as much an emotional milestone as a physical one after being pregnant six times in five years, having suffered three miscarriages alongside the births of her three children with Bobby (pictured with daughter Holland)

'The surgery was a facelift. Yes, a full facelift - a little bit of fat transfer to my cheekbone area, and a small bleph[aroplasty],' she said (pictured in February 2026)

'They sent me home with some paracetamol. If I had needed stronger drugs, I think that was available, but I didn't. I took ibuprofen, paracetamol for like three days.'

She said that just weeks after the surgery, 'I went to Christmas parties. I took the kids to Lapland. I went to the Royal Hall for carolling. I did all of the Christmas stuff. I looked after a newborn baby.'

She continued: 'It's important for my marriage that Bobby and I - we both get to enjoy the kids - I think that we should both have the same amount of physical damage.

'And after all those babies... We did not have the same amount of physical damage. Bobby's still a hunk, and my face has gotten fat and thin, and fat and thin, and fat and thin.'

The star said she was pleased Dr Rhodes talked her out of a lip lift, telling her it would not suit her face shape. 'Because I followed his guidance, and I had a beautiful skilled surgeon do my facelift, it doesn't look wild,' she said.

Katherine admitted, however, that her eldest daughter Violet had been worried about the results at first.

'She was concerned because she was like, this is going to look horrible. You're going to come back looking totally different,' Katherine recalled. 'And I don't look different at all. I look a little bit refreshed. My neck is amazing.'

She said the surgery has given her a 'super snatched little teensy lollipop neck' that she never had, even in her twenties, and dismissed years of trying to achieve the same results with filler and lasers.

Katherine had the surgery with Dr Nick Rhodes at the Coppergate Clinic in York, where a full face lift costs upwards of 16,000 (pictured in December 2022)

'You get to a point where if you really want to pull it back, you just need a facelift,' she said.

Katherine pushed back against the idea that facelifts are only for older women or always result in an unnatural look, paying tribute to the late Joan Rivers while challenging outdated perceptions.

'People assume that a facelift always looks botched, or always looks crazy, or always looks like you've been in a wind tunnel,' she said. 'But it's for anyone who feels like they have lost a lot of skin elasticity, and they want to mend that laxity with surgery.'

She also rejected suggestions she should have waited until she was older, saying: 'The clue is in the name. If I wanted to lift my face, then the surgery that I needed was a facelift.'

The comedian, who has always been refreshingly open about her cosmetic procedures - including breast augmentation in her early twenties and regular Botox with aesthetician Dr Nina Bal - had alluded to undergoing cosmetic work in December but did not reveal the specific procedure at the time.

She also took aim at women who lie about getting cosmetic treatments, adding: 'One of the most important things that you can do following a facelift surgery, or probably any surgery on your face, is ice it.

'I was really following the rules, icing my face a lot, and I laughed because I thought of some of these celebrities who are around my age who look suspiciously amazing all of a sudden, and they love to say, like, "I've just been icing my face".

'And I held the ice pack to my jaw. I thought, yeah, b****, I've been icing my face too - as part of my recovery from a facelift! These women are having facelifts.'
Michelle Keegan and Mark Wright were spotted locked in a rare public display of affection as they kissed at a train station on Tuesday.

The actress, 38, who is set to star in the new Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben adaptation, looked as loved-up as ever with her husband of 10 years.

Mark, 39, wrapped his arms around his wife as they embraced, after she drove up in their black Range Rover at a station in Cheshire.

Former Corrie star Michelle looked stylish in a brown leather trench coat with a pair of blue jeans and boots, while accessorising with a red beanie.

Meanwhile, Mark was dressed for the cold in a black padded jacket with a pair of black cargo-style jeans and white trainers.

It was a scarce sight for the typically private couple to be so publicly cosy, as they showed no desire to hide their affection for one another.

Michelle Keegan and Mark Wright were spotted locked in a rare public display of affection as they kissed at a train station on Tuesday

The actress, 38, who is set to star in the new Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben adaptation, looked as loved-up as ever with her husband of 10 years

Mark, 39, wrapped his arms around his wife as they embraced, after she drove up to the station in Cheshire

It seems they are set to be apart again, after Michelle spent time in Los Angeles recently for work mingling with Reese and Harlan.

She is set to hit Hollywood in the film adaptation of their joint new novel, and it seems preparations could be underway.

In an update shared to her Instagram Story last week, Michelle revealed she had touched down in California as she headed out to lunch.

Harlan and Reese have teamed up to write the new crime thriller Gone Before Goodbye.

As Michelle has worked with Harlan before on his Fool Me Once adaption Reese is reportedly keen to get her back on board.

The novel sees an indomitable woman, trapped in a conspiracy she helped create but cant understand.

She searches for the truth that could expose a conspiracy woven throughout the exclusive world of the global Uber Elitebut at an unfathomable cost to Maggie herself.

Former Corrie star Michelle looked stylish in a brown leather trench coat with a pair of blue jeans and boots, while accessorising with a red beanie

Meanwhile, Mark was dressed for the cold in a black padded jacket with a pair of black cargo-style jeans and white trainers

It was a scarce sight for the typically private couple to be so publicly cosy, as they showed no desire to hide their affection for one another

Taking to Instagram Michelle also shared her love for the Hollywood actress as she shared a sweet snap with both Reese and Harlan.

She penned: 'When two geniuses collide.. Gone Before Goodbye is made! (I can confirm Reese Witherspoon is everything youd imagined her to be, what a woman)'.

Reese then replied: 'So wonderful to meet you .. finally!'

Michelle starred as Maya Stern in Fool Me Once, alongside Joanna Lumley in the series adaptation of Harlan's novel, which quickly shot to the top of Netflix charts worldwide.

Harlan has previously gushed over the star's talent and has previously said he would be keen to work with Michelle again.

Her character's demise in Fool Me Once left Harlan 'kicking himself' and seeking a plot, no matter how far-fetched, that could see her reprise her role in the second instalment.

A source close to Michelle previously told the Daily Mail: 'Michelle and Harlan really bonded during the Fool Me Once filming and he thinks she's amazing.

'He believes Michelle is a big part of the show's stratospheric success.

'They were having a real heart to heart at the National Television Awards recently and Harlan was saying that he was absolutely gutted that he killed off her character and that he'd do anything to bring her back from the dead so that they can have a much-longed for sequel.'

Rumours of Hollywood surrounded Michelle after the success of Fool Me Once in 2024, and the star confirmed she would consider re-locating if the perfect role came along.

It seems they are set to be apart again, after Michelle spent time in Los Angeles recently for work

Mark and Michelle hugged each other at the station

Harlan and Reese have teamed up to write the new crime thriller Gone Before Goodbye and are reportedly keen to get Michelle on board

Michelle recently shared a sweet photo after meeting up with Reese at the book launch

During the trip, Michelle revealed Palma had reached a major milestone as she shared a sweet photo of her crawling on the beach

Her latest trip comes after she enjoyed a sun-soaked winter getaway to the Middle East with her husband Mark Wright and their 10-month-old daughter, Palma.

During the trip, Michelle revealed Palma had reached a major milestone as she shared a sweet photo of her crawling on the beach.

She posted an adorable photo of herself and husband Mark Wright watching their baby girl crawling on the beach to them.

The family enjoyed a 2k-per-night stay at the lavish Rixos Premium Saadiyat Island hotel in Abu Dhabi.

Michelle and Mark looked happier than ever as the former TOWIE star wrapped an arm around the Netflix actress.

Michelle looked incredible as she layered a white linen jumpsuit over a brown bikini while husband Mark donned a black shirt and matching shorts.

The proud parents couldn't contain their smiles as they watched Palma crawl towards them in the sand.
The Epstein Files contain numerous instances in which the identities of people who sent concerning emails to the late [child predator] have been redacted.

Included in the emails are repeated disturbing references to girls and young women, but the names of the senders are blacked out.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA) passed by Congress in November compelled the Justice Department to release all of the records in its possession.

It did require the redaction of identifying information about Epstein's victims, who numbered more than 1,000 according to the FBI.

But the law said no records could be 'withheld, delayed, or redacted on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.'

Members of Congress were given access to unredacted versions of the files on Monday under strict conditions, and what they saw is likely to spur further outrage.

Redacted Epstein Emails Examined by Lawmakers

'I saw the names of lots of people who were redacted for mysterious or baffling or inscrutable reasons,' Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin said. That included 'people who were enablers and cooperators.'

Republican congressman Thomas Massie said he discovered the names of six men whose identities were redacted, and who 'are likely incriminated by their inclusion in these files.'

Massie declined to provide their identities but said one 'is pretty high up in a foreign government.'

One of the earliest such redactions, chronologically, came on April 24, 2009 when Epstein sent an email to an associate saying: 'where are you? are you ok I loved the torture video'.

The unnamed person, replying from their BlackBerry, wrote: 'I am in china I will be in the US 2nd week of may.'

Epstein responded: 'Hope to see you'.

Massie said the email exchange appeared to be with 'a Sultan' and that the Justice Department should make his identity public.

Epstein Files Include Explicit Emails From Redacted Senders

Another controversial redaction features in a 2014 email in which the sender, whose identity is protected, told Epstein: 'Thank you for a fun night Your littlest girl was a little naughty.'

That email was sent on March 11, 2014 from an iPhone to Epstein's account jeevacation@gmail.com.

Everything in the email is readable except for the name of the sender, which is covered with two black bars.

The email was sent six years after Epstein was jailed for procuring a minor for prostitution.

'America deserves to know who the [expletive] this person is,' wrote one X user of the email sender, a sentiment supported by many others on social media.

In another 2017 email, a redacted sender emailed Epstein to say: 'I met (REDACTED) today. She is like [expletive] from Nabokov , femme miniature :) So now I should send you her type of candidates only ?'

On March 19, 2018 another redacted associate sent Epstein an email saying: 'I found at least 3 very good young poor but we was so tired. I will cover up this week. Meet this one, not the beauty queen but we both likes her a lot.'

Draft Indictment Lists Redacted Co-Conspirators

The files also contained a draft indictment from 20 years ago, which was drawn up before Epstein obtained a lenient 2008 plea deal for [sexual] crimes in which he served 13 months.

The 56-page draft indictment listed three people as co-conspirators employed by Epstein, but their names are redacted.

There was also a chart showing Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, but there were four other people who were redacted - three employees and a 'girlfriend.

Of the 'girlfriend' the chart says: 'Unknown if she actually recruited or abused any of the victims. Was rumored to be Epstein's "[sexual] slave" and victims often described someone fitting her description as being involved in the sexual abuse during these massages.'

It says of one of the 'employees': 'Unknown if she was directly responsible for recruiting girls but at least 10 girls state she is the direct point of contact for scheduling his massage appointments.'

Emails Contain Suggestions and Descriptions of Women

In a March 31, 2017 email, a redacted associate emailed Epstein suggesting a woman for a job.

The unnamed person wrote that 'she wants the job badly. But not as pretty as other applicants,' adding that she was 'willing to do anything you ask her.'

Another candidate was described in the email as 'not very young but beautiful.'

In a separate exchange on November 21, 2015, Epstein wrote to a redacted associate: 'any friends for jeffrey while you are recovering?'

The unnamed emailer responded: 'I have one closest friend, but I don't think she's your type. Hmm.. Maybe this, just came to mh mind: Sweet girl. 20y. American.'

They included a picture, and Epstein responded: 'looks like you'.

The associate also sent a picture of an 'australian, super cool, 23y, lot of fun ;))' and told Epstein: 'Im always think about you when Im meeting new girls.'

In a 2013 email, a redacted sender from a modeling agency in Paris told Epstein: 'New Brazilian just arrived, sexy and cute, 19yo.'

Khanna Says No Explanation Given for Redactions

The same year, a redacted person sent Epstein a photograph of a woman in a SpaceX shirt.

The following year, another redacted sender emailed Epstein from their iPhone to say: I cant take it anymore!!!!!!! I just saw the most beautiful little girl on Madison with long soft blonde hair.'

An email from 2018 shows a redacted associate emailing Epstein to say: 'My favorite from Lithuania, (REDACTED), 19. Will meet when I am there.'

Epstein responded: 'full name instagram?'

Democratic congressman Ro Khanna said there was 'no explanation why those people were redacted.'

He added: 'Our law was very clear. Unless something was classified, it required it to be unredacted.'

Report: Epstein bombshell as link to 'senior government official' revealed in redacted files

Jeffrey Epstein was associated with a current top foreign government official, lawmakers have revealed after viewing redacted files.

Representatives Thomas Massie, a Republican, and Ro Khanna, a Democrat, revealed during a Monday press conference that six men are likely incriminated in the files.

The bipartisan duo has spearheaded the release of the Epstein Files since last July and pushed for a vote on their Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was eventually signed into law by President Trump.

Despite the law, they are still fighting for transparency as the DOJ released more than 3 million Epstein files on January 30, but the majority of them were heavily redacted.

Massie, of Kentucky, told reporters the files included an individual who is 'pretty high up in a foreign government' and urged Donald Trump 's Justice Department to 'correct their mistakes'.

One document posted by Massie contains 18 redactions, four of them being men born before 1970.

Read the full story here
Thousands of Costco shoppers have been affected by the collapse of a gift card company, leaving vouchers unusable at hundreds of participating restaurants.

Synergy World, Inc., a San Diegobased firm founded in 1995, built its business around restaurant gift cards and loyalty programs.

At its peak, Synergy cards were accepted at more than 300 restaurants across multiple US cities.

The company has now filed for bankruptcy, effectively rendering its gift cards worthless.

A notice posted on Synergy's website confirmed the shutdown, stating: 'We are in the process of winding down and anticipating filing for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Protection, a process that will take several months.'

The notice added: 'The Synergy Restaurant Gift Card Program will officially conclude January 31, 2026, after which all Synergy Restaurant Gift Cards (plastic cards and eGift) will no longer be redeemable.'

Under Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which involves liquidation, gift cards are classified as unsecured claims - the lowest priority for repayment - meaning consumers typically receive little or no compensation.

While some businesses temporarily honor gift cards during early restructuring, they often become invalid once operations cease entirely.

Thousands of Costco shoppers have been hit by the collapse of a gift card company, with the certificates no longer useable

As news of the bankruptcy spread, shoppers rushed to determine whether their cards could still be used.

AnnaMargarita DeJesus shared a warning on Instagram, writing: 'To all my family and friends whom we gifted Synergy cards from Costco last Christmas - we just saw this notification, and I know it's such an unfortunate event.

'You still have time today to redeem these cards, so if you haven't started cooking lunch or dinner, now is the opportunity to take your family out.'

Others were less fortunate.

Keegan Mortensen of New Mexico wrote on Facebook on January 30: 'Synergy gift cards are no more. I called all the restaurants that said they were accepting the cards through Saturday.

'None of them can accept the cards because Synergy shut the system down early. I can't get ahold of anyone at Costco.

'Mine were given to me as a gift, so I'm not sure if I can do anything.'

In a follow-up post, Mortensen added that Costco may issue refunds to the original purchaser.

A notice posted on Synergy's website confirmed the shutdown

'If you received [the card] as a gift and have a membership, it sounds like a return is possible,' he wrote.

Daily Mail has contacted both Synergy World and Costco for comment and is awaiting responses.

The situation highlights a broader issue with gift cards in the US.

According to a recent Capital One Shopping report, 64 percent of American consumers purchase gift cards as holiday presents. Yet many are never redeemed.

Analysts estimate that 43 percent of US adults currently hold unused gift cards, with the total value of unspent balances reaching approximately $23 billion nationwide.
Las Vegas is under fresh pressure as new figures show home prices slipping, fewer deals getting done and more properties sitting unsold.

The typical price for a house in January was $470,000 - down 3.1 percent from a year earlier, according to new data from Las Vegas Realtors.

Condos and townhomes also saw declines, with a median sale price of $283,750, down 3.2 percent from a year ago and far below the October 2024 peak of $315,000.

Fewer homes are being bought. Just 1,825 homes, condos and townhomes changed hands in January, an 8.4 percent drop compared with the same month last year.

At the same time, unsold homes are piling up.

Nearly 6,200 houses on the market had not had a single offer in January - up 19 percent from a year ago - while the number of condos and townhomes still looking for buyers jumped 25 percent to 2,377.

The slowdown on Las Vegas' property front comes as the gambling mecca is battling a brutal drop in tourism amid soaring prices at hotels and restaurants.

The slide has continued into 2026. Overall visitor numbers in 2025 were down 7.4 percent compared with the year before, and December alone saw a steep 9.2 percent fall.

Las Vegas is facing more challenges in its housing market as new data shows home prices falling and sales slowing

But the ailing property market in the region also mirrors broader trends in the US. Analysts at JP Morgan Global Research expect home prices nationwide to go nowhere in 2026, as extra supply cancels out any modest rise in demand.

While US home sales ended 2025 on a steadier footing after a weak year, any pickup this year is expected to be slow.

Analysts say recent policy changes - including two new housing reforms announced by the Trump administration - are unlikely to move the needle much.

In Las Vegas, the slower pace of sales has left more homes sitting on the market. At the current pace, it would now take nearly five months to sell everything thats listed, up from just over three and a half months a year ago.

Homes and condos are also taking longer to sell, with fewer than two-thirds of properties moving within 60 days - a drop from last year.

Cash buyers, once a major force in the market, now make up just 26 percent of sales. Forced or distressed sales remain rare, accounting for less than 1 percent of transactions.

Overall, the total dollar value of home sales fell 5.3 percent compared with January last year, even as condo and townhome sales jumped 14.6 percent - a sign some buyers may be trading down.

Together, the figures show a housing market that is clearly cooling, undoing some of the rapid gains and record-breaking sales seen earlier in the decade.

They also raise fresh questions about the outlook for homeowners, sellers and the wider Las Vegas economy.

According to JP Morgan Global Research, national home prices are expected to stall at 0 percent in 2026, with modest gains in demand likely offset by rising supply

On the rental front, prices in Las Vegas have also begun to ease.

Some areas of the Las Vegas Valley saw rents fall by nearly 15 percent over the past year.

'Rent prices have definitely softened over the last 12 months, and that's been helpful for the overall community in Las Vegas,' said realtor David Brownell.

He noted that while home sale prices have slowed and declined, they remain high relative to local incomes.

'So that little softening in the market, I think, has made it better, but prices are still high across the board,' he added.
Agnico Eagle Mines (NYSE:AEM  Get Free Report) (TSE:AEM) is expected to announce its Q4 2025 results after the market closes on Thursday, February 12th. Analysts expect Agnico Eagle Mines to post earnings of $2.14 per share and revenue of $3.3985 billion for the quarter. Individuals can check the companys upcoming Q4 2025 earning summary page for the latest details on the call scheduled for Friday, February 13, 2026 at 11:00 AM ET.

Agnico Eagle Mines Stock Performance

Shares of AEM stock opened at $209.64 on Tuesday. Agnico Eagle Mines has a 52 week low of $92.11 and a 52 week high of $225.00. The company has a market capitalization of $104.96 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.60, a PEG ratio of 0.48 and a beta of 0.63. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $186.09 and a 200 day simple moving average of $165.68. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.01, a quick ratio of 1.31 and a current ratio of 2.12.

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Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on AEM. Wall Street Zen cut Agnico Eagle Mines from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a report on Saturday, January 31st. Raymond James Financial restated an outperform rating and issued a $225.00 price target on shares of Agnico Eagle Mines in a research note on Wednesday, January 14th. Weiss Ratings lowered Agnico Eagle Mines from a buy (a-) rating to a buy (b) rating in a report on Monday, January 12th. Royal Bank Of Canada downgraded Agnico Eagle Mines from an outperform rating to a sector perform rating and lifted their target price for the stock from $185.00 to $205.00 in a report on Wednesday, December 10th. Finally, Scotiabank boosted their target price on shares of Agnico Eagle Mines from $219.00 to $276.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Monday, January 26th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nine have issued a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Buy and an average target price of $230.64.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of AEM. Horizon Investments LLC lifted its position in Agnico Eagle Mines by 129.6% during the third quarter. Horizon Investments LLC now owns 248 shares of the mining companys stock worth $42,000 after purchasing an additional 140 shares during the period. WFA of San Diego LLC acquired a new position in shares of Agnico Eagle Mines in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $107,000. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of Agnico Eagle Mines by 25.2% in the 2nd quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 929 shares of the mining companys stock valued at $110,000 after buying an additional 187 shares in the last quarter. NorthRock Partners LLC bought a new stake in shares of Agnico Eagle Mines during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $206,000. Finally, Hancock Whitney Corp acquired a new stake in shares of Agnico Eagle Mines during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $217,000. Institutional investors own 68.34% of the companys stock.

Agnico Eagle Mines Company Profile

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Agnico Eagle Mines Limited (NYSE: AEM) is a Canadian-based senior gold producer headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. The company is principally engaged in the exploration, development, production and reclamation of gold-bearing properties. Agnico Eagle pursues both greenfield and brownfield exploration to expand its resource base and operates a portfolio of producing mines and development projects to generate long-life gold production.

Its core business activities span the full mining lifecycle: grassroots and advanced-stage exploration, prefeasibility and feasibility studies, mine construction, underground and open-pit mining, ore processing and metal recovery, and post-mining reclamation and closure.

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GE Aerospace (NYSE:GE  Get Free Report)s stock price dropped 1.3% during trading on Monday . The company traded as low as $316.39 and last traded at $316.89. Approximately 4,693,300 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 22% from the average daily volume of 6,042,942 shares. The stock had previously closed at $321.00.

GE Aerospace News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting GE Aerospace this week:

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Analyst Ratings Changes

GE has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Zacks Research raised GE Aerospace from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating in a report on Tuesday, January 27th. UBS Group set a $374.00 price target on shares of GE Aerospace and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Friday, January 23rd. Wolfe Research boosted their price objective on shares of GE Aerospace from $340.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Monday, January 12th. Bank of America increased their target price on shares of GE Aerospace from $310.00 to $365.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Monday, October 27th. Finally, BNP Paribas Exane decreased their price target on GE Aerospace from $305.00 to $290.00 and set an underperform rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, January 23rd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, sixteen have given a Buy rating, one has given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $319.00.

GE Aerospace Trading Down 1.3%

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.00, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a current ratio of 1.04. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $306.86 and a 200 day simple moving average of $295.82. The stock has a market cap of $332.36 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 38.93, a PEG ratio of 2.96 and a beta of 1.40.

GE Aerospace (NYSE:GE  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 22nd. The company reported $1.57 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.43 by $0.14. The business had revenue of $11.90 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.27 billion. GE Aerospace had a return on equity of 35.52% and a net margin of 18.98%.The businesss revenue was up 17.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $1.32 earnings per share. GE Aerospace has set its FY 2026 guidance at 7.100-7.400 EPS. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that GE Aerospace will post 5.4 EPS for the current year.

GE Aerospace Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, April 27th. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 9th will be paid a $0.47 dividend. This represents a $1.88 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.6%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 9th. This is an increase from GE Aerospaces previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. GE Aerospaces dividend payout ratio is presently 17.69%.

Insider Buying and Selling at GE Aerospace

In other news, SVP Amy L. Gowder sold 4,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $305.73, for a total transaction of $1,222,920.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president owned 16,535 shares of the companys stock, valued at $5,055,245.55. This represents a 19.48% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, VP Robert M. Giglietti sold 3,035 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $305.51, for a total transaction of $927,222.85. Following the transaction, the vice president owned 10,583 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,233,212.33. The trade was a 22.29% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last three months, insiders sold 45,398 shares of company stock worth $13,837,171. Insiders own 0.21% of the companys stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On GE Aerospace

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. REAP Financial Group LLC acquired a new position in GE Aerospace in the third quarter valued at $25,000. Marquette Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of GE Aerospace in the 3rd quarter valued at about $26,000. Barnes Dennig Private Wealth Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of GE Aerospace by 147.2% in the 3rd quarter. Barnes Dennig Private Wealth Management LLC now owns 89 shares of the companys stock valued at $27,000 after purchasing an additional 53 shares in the last quarter. Bare Financial Services Inc grew its holdings in shares of GE Aerospace by 81.1% during the 2nd quarter. Bare Financial Services Inc now owns 96 shares of the companys stock worth $25,000 after purchasing an additional 43 shares during the period. Finally, Roble Belko & Company Inc increased its position in GE Aerospace by 98.1% during the 3rd quarter. Roble Belko & Company Inc now owns 103 shares of the companys stock worth $31,000 after purchasing an additional 51 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 74.77% of the companys stock.

About GE Aerospace

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GE Aerospace (NYSE: GE) is the aerospace business of General Electric, focused on the design, manufacture and support of aircraft engines, integrated propulsion systems and related aftermarket services. The company serves commercial airlines, airframers, business and general aviation operators, and defense customers, providing propulsion solutions for a broad range of aircraft types from singleaisle airliners to widebody and military platforms.

Its product portfolio includes a family of commercial and military jet engines as well as spare parts, components and systems engineering.

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Humana (NYSE:HUM  Get Free Report) is expected to be announcing its Q4 2025 results before the market opens on Wednesday, February 11th. Analysts expect the company to announce earnings of ($4.01) per share and revenue of $32.0804 billion for the quarter. Individuals may review the information on the companys upcoming Q4 2025 earning report for the latest details on the call scheduled for Wednesday, February 11, 2026 at 8:00 AM ET.

Humana Stock Performance

Shares of HUM opened at $189.64 on Tuesday. The company has a current ratio of 2.02, a quick ratio of 2.02 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68. Humana has a 12-month low of $186.00 and a 12-month high of $315.35. The stock has a market cap of $22.81 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.77, a PEG ratio of 1.61 and a beta of 0.44. The company has a 50-day moving average of $250.49 and a two-hundred day moving average of $262.76.

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Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

HUM has been the topic of several analyst reports. Wells Fargo & Company cut Humana from an overweight rating to a cautious rating in a report on Wednesday, January 7th. Truist Financial reduced their target price on Humana from $300.00 to $285.00 and set a hold rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, November 10th. Morgan Stanley restated an underperform rating on shares of Humana in a report on Thursday, December 18th. Robert W. Baird dropped their price objective on shares of Humana from $280.00 to $264.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, December 11th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group decreased their target price on shares of Humana from $313.00 to $310.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, January 26th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, nine have issued a Hold rating and five have given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $293.21.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Larson Financial Group LLC increased its holdings in Humana by 114.1% during the 3rd quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC now owns 152 shares of the insurance providers stock worth $40,000 after purchasing an additional 81 shares during the last quarter. Fulcrum Asset Management LLP acquired a new stake in shares of Humana during the third quarter worth approximately $42,000. BOKF NA increased its stake in shares of Humana by 4,125.0% in the third quarter. BOKF NA now owns 169 shares of the insurance providers stock worth $44,000 after buying an additional 165 shares during the last quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. raised its holdings in Humana by 40.3% in the second quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 571 shares of the insurance providers stock valued at $140,000 after acquiring an additional 164 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sunbelt Securities Inc. boosted its stake in Humana by 18.1% during the 3rd quarter. Sunbelt Securities Inc. now owns 719 shares of the insurance providers stock valued at $187,000 after acquiring an additional 110 shares during the last quarter. 92.38% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Humana Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Humana Inc (NYSE: HUM) is a health insurance company headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, that primarily serves individuals and groups across the United States. The company is best known for its Medicare business, offering Medicare Advantage plans and prescription drug (Part D) coverage, alongside a range of commercial and employer-sponsored group health plans. Humanas products are designed to cover medical, behavioral health and pharmacy needs for members, with particular emphasis on seniors and Medicare-eligible populations.

In addition to traditional insurance products, Humana provides care-management and wellness services intended to support chronic-condition management, preventive care and care coordination.

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Kobe Steel, Ltd. (OTCMKTS:KBSTF  Get Free Report) traded down 3.9% on Monday . The stock traded as low as $14.66 and last traded at $14.66. 175 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 28% from the average session volume of 244 shares. The stock had previously closed at $15.25.

Kobe Steel Trading Down 3.9%

The company has a fifty day moving average price of $13.50 and a 200-day moving average price of $12.27.

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About Kobe Steel

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Kobe Steel, Ltd., commonly known by its brand name KOBELCO, is a diversified Japanese industrial company headquartered in Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture. Established in 1905, the firm has grown from a regional ironworks into one of Japans leading integrated steel producers. Kobe Steels core operations encompass the production of a wide range of steel products, including high-tensile and stainless steel, steel plates, bars, and wire rods. Beyond steelmaking, the company has also built expertise in nonferrous metals, welding materials, and advanced manufacturing technologies.

In its nonferrous segment, Kobe Steel manufactures aluminum and copper products used in automotive, aerospace, and electrical applications.

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Region Group (ASX:RGN) reported first-half FY26 results highlighted by higher earnings, resilient operating metrics across its convenience-based retail portfolio, and an upgraded full-year outlook. Chief Executive Officer Anthony Mellowes said the result was underpinned by strong operational performance and a fully hedged interest position, while Chief Financial Officer David Salmon pointed to comparable income growth and expansion in funds under management.

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Key first-half results

For the half, Region delivered funds from operations (FFO) of AUD 0.079 per security, up 3.9% from December 2024. Adjusted funds from operations (AFFO) were AUD 0.069 per security, up 3% from December 2024, and matched the distribution per security of AUD 0.069, representing a 100% AFFO payout ratio in line with guidance.

Statutory net profit after tax was, which management said included an increase in the fair value of investment properties.

Assets under management rose to AUD 5.4 billion, up 3.9% from 30 June 2025, supported by valuation growth and an increase in funds under management. Net tangible assets (NTA) increased 3.6% to AUD 2.56 per security, driven by the fair value uplift.

Portfolio operations and leasing trends

Regions portfolio occupancy improved to 97.7% as of December 2025, up 20 basis points. Specialty vacancy improved to 4.5% from 5.4% at June 2025. The portfolio weighted average lease expiry (WALE) edged down by 0.1 years to 4.8 years.

Management emphasized the nondiscretionary mix of the portfolio, noting that over 88% of gross rent is generated from nondiscretionary tenants. Anchors account for 45% of gross rent, with specialties and mini-majors contributing the remaining 55% and focused on categories including food, liquor, retail services, farms, and healthcare. The group has 87 centers owned 100% by Region and geographically diversified across Australia.

On trading, Region reported 3.1% comparable moving annual turnover (MAT) growth, with growth by category cited as:

Supermarkets: 3.1%

Discount department stores: 3.7%

Mini-majors: 1.7%

Nondiscretionary specialties: 3.73%

Discretionary specialty tenants: 3.6% (improved)

Specialty sales productivity was reported at AUD 10,265 per square meter. Management said tobacco sales were excluded, consistent with the June 2025 results.

Leasing activity included 177 specialty leasing deals at an average leasing spread of 3.4%. New leases recorded an average spread of 7%, while renewals were relatively flat, with management noting that a small number of deals can skew half-year outcomes. Mellowes attributed weaker renewal spreads to three dealstwo banks and one pharmacythat were completed on less favorable terms to retain those tenants.

Region also reported average annual fixed rent reviews of 4.3% per annum, applied across 96% of specialty and kiosk tenants. The average specialty rent increased to AUD 930 per square meter, representing annualized growth of 5% since December 2022. Tenant retention for expiring leases was 79%.

Capital management, valuations, and funding

Regions weighted average capitalization rate firmed by 10 basis points to 5.87% since June 2025, on top of a 10 basis point firming in the second half of FY25. The property valuation movement for the period included a AUD 129 million increase, comprising a AUD 92 million fair value increase and AUD 37 million in capital expenditure. Management described fair value increases of roughly 3% since June 2025, with about 1.7% attributed to cap rate compression and the remainder to valuation NOI growth over the period.

The balance sheet was described as healthy, with gearing of 32.7%, at the lower end of the target range. The group continued an on-market buyback, purchasing 6.7 million securities during the half at an average price of AUD 2.39 for around AUD 16 million. Since the buyback announcement in April 2025, Region has bought back 8.9 million securities at an average price of AUD 2.37 for a total consideration of AUD 21 million. Salmon said FY26 guidance does not assume any further buyback activity.

On funding, Region issued a six-year AUD 300 million medium-term note in November 2025, which management said was 3.6x oversubscribed and priced at a borrowing margin of 1.22%. Proceeds were used to repay bank debt. Region reported total debt facilities of AUD 1.9 billion with approximately AUD 355 million of capacity available and no debt expiries until FY28.

The weighted average cost of debt increased from 4.3% to 4.6% during the half, and management said it expects this to decrease slightly to 4.5% for the full year. Region reported that 100% of debt is hedged or fixed in FY26 at an average rate of 2.89%, with hedging of 87% in FY27 and 70% in FY28.

Transactions, reinvestment, and funds management

In January 2026, Region settled the acquisition of Treendale Home and Lifestyle Centre for AUD 53 million at a 6.4% initial yield. Management said the large-format center is directly opposite Regions existing Treendale Shopping Centre, creating management efficiencies, and noted the sites zoning provides potential for additional retail (including supermarkets) over time. In Q&A, Salmon said the guidance upgrade reflected earnings accretion from Treendale versus funding costs, and from funds management expansion.

Region also increased its capital deployment forecast. It spent AUD 32 million in the first half and expects around AUD 65 million for FY26, up about AUD 15 million, mainly due to development projects related to center expansions at North Orange (NSW), Newcastle MarketTown (Newcastle), and Greenbank (southwest Brisbane). Management indicated it generally targets 6%+ yield on capital deployment.

Within funds management, the Metro Fund acquired Dalyellup Shopping Centre in Western Australia for AUD 36 million in November 2025, increasing funds under management to AUD 752 million (up 5.7% from June 2025). The Metro Fund also exchanged on the acquisition of three additional strata properties at West Village in Brisbane valued at AUD 89 million, with two settled in January 2026 and the remainder expected to settle by June 2026.

Guidance upgrade and leadership transition

Assuming no significant change in market conditions, Region upgraded its FY26 guidance to:

FFO of AUD 0.16 per security (up from AUD 0.159), representing 3.2% growth on FY25

(up from AUD 0.159), representing 3.2% growth on FY25 AFFO of AUD 0.141 per security (up from AUD 0.14), representing 2.9% growth on FY25

Management said the upgrade was largely driven by transactional activity, including Treendale and funds management initiatives, and reiterated that no additional transactions or capital initiatives are assumed beyond those already announced.

Mellowes said the results presentation would be his final one after 14 years leading the group, adding that Greg Chubb will become CEO and Managing Director effective 9 March.

About Region Group (ASX:RGN)

Region Group (RGN) includes two internally managed real estate investment trusts owning a portfolio of convenience-based retail properties located across Australia. Region invests in retail properties predominantly anchored by non-discretionary retailers, with long leases to tenants such as Woolworths Limited, Coles Limited and companies in the Wesfarmers Limited group. Region Group comprises two registered managed investment schemes, Region Management Trust (ARSN 160 612 626) and Region Retail Trust (ARSN 160 612 788).

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Scorpio Tankers (NYSE:STNG  Get Free Report) will likely be posting its Q4 2025 results before the market opens on Thursday, February 12th. Analysts expect the company to announce earnings of $1.30 per share and revenue of $238.9250 million for the quarter. Investors may review the information on the companys upcoming Q4 2025 earning report for the latest details on the call scheduled for Thursday, February 12, 2026 at 9:00 AM ET.

Scorpio Tankers Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:STNG opened at $67.78 on Tuesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.46 billion, a PE ratio of 11.47 and a beta of -0.25. The company has a current ratio of 4.81, a quick ratio of 4.75 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25. Scorpio Tankers has a 1-year low of $30.63 and a 1-year high of $69.19. The businesss 50 day moving average is $56.28 and its 200-day moving average is $55.50.

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Hedge Funds Weigh In On Scorpio Tankers

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Merewether Investment Management LP bought a new stake in shares of Scorpio Tankers during the third quarter worth approximately $38,471,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership lifted its holdings in Scorpio Tankers by 68.3% during the 3rd quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 806,049 shares of the shipping companys stock worth $45,179,000 after purchasing an additional 326,973 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Scorpio Tankers by 91.9% in the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 642,673 shares of the shipping companys stock valued at $25,148,000 after purchasing an additional 307,815 shares during the period. Credit Agricole S A acquired a new position in Scorpio Tankers in the 3rd quarter valued at $16,703,000. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE grew its holdings in Scorpio Tankers by 14.9% in the 2nd quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 633,167 shares of the shipping companys stock valued at $24,776,000 after buying an additional 82,302 shares in the last quarter. 54.64% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts have weighed in on the stock. Jefferies Financial Group reaffirmed a buy rating and issued a $70.00 price target on shares of Scorpio Tankers in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Moffett Nathanson raised shares of Scorpio Tankers to a neutral rating in a research report on Monday, January 12th. Evercore set a $80.00 target price on shares of Scorpio Tankers and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Monday, November 3rd. Bank of America downgraded Scorpio Tankers from a buy rating to an underperform rating in a research note on Friday, January 9th. Finally, B. Riley Financial restated a buy rating and issued a $80.00 price target (up from $75.00) on shares of Scorpio Tankers in a report on Thursday, October 16th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have assigned a Buy rating, three have issued a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $71.00.

Check Out Our Latest Analysis on STNG

Scorpio Tankers Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Scorpio Tankers Inc (NYSE: STNG) is an independent provider of marine transportation services, specializing in the carriage of refined petroleum products. The companys core operations focus on moving clean petroleum cargoessuch as gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and naphthaon a global scale. By catering to both spot and time charter markets, Scorpio Tankers enables energy companies, refiners and traders to manage their supply chains with flexibility and reliability.

The companys fleet is composed of modern, eco-designed product tankers, including medium range (MR) and long range (LR) vessels.

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Toyota Motor (NYSE:TM  Get Free Report) issued an update on its FY 2026 earnings guidance on Monday morning. The company provided EPS guidance of 17.782-17.782 for the period, compared to the consensus EPS estimate of 18.150. The company issued revenue guidance of $324.6 billion-$324.6 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $322.5 billion.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on TM shares. Zacks Research raised Toyota Motor from a strong sell rating to a hold rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 3rd. Wall Street Zen cut shares of Toyota Motor from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Sunday, November 16th. Weiss Ratings reissued a hold (c) rating on shares of Toyota Motor in a research note on Wednesday, January 21st. Finally, Erste Group Bank raised shares of Toyota Motor from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note on Friday, October 31st. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, two have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Toyota Motor has a consensus rating of Hold.

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Toyota Motor Stock Down 0.8%

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Toyota Motor

Shares of NYSE TM traded down $1.89 during mid-day trading on Monday, reaching $242.33. The company had a trading volume of 373,814 shares, compared to its average volume of 337,131. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $218.03 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $204.29. Toyota Motor has a 52-week low of $155.00 and a 52-week high of $246.36. The company has a current ratio of 1.25, a quick ratio of 1.10 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61. The stock has a market cap of $326.52 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.77 and a beta of 0.62.

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Palisade Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Toyota Motor in the third quarter valued at approximately $49,000. Headlands Technologies LLC increased its stake in Toyota Motor by 93.2% in the second quarter. Headlands Technologies LLC now owns 510 shares of the companys stock valued at $88,000 after purchasing an additional 246 shares during the last quarter. Transamerica Financial Advisors LLC lifted its position in Toyota Motor by 13.9% during the second quarter. Transamerica Financial Advisors LLC now owns 607 shares of the companys stock worth $104,000 after buying an additional 74 shares during the period. Shelton Capital Management acquired a new stake in Toyota Motor in the 3rd quarter worth about $201,000. Finally, Legacy Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Toyota Motor in the 3rd quarter worth about $214,000. 1.48% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Toyota Motor Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Toyota Motor Corporation is a global automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. Founded in 1937 by Kiichiro Toyoda as an offshoot of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, the company builds and sells a broad range of vehicles and related products under the Toyota and Lexus brands. Toyotas operations encompass vehicle design, manufacturing, parts supply, and distribution through a worldwide dealer network, as well as complementary businesses such as vehicle financing and mobility services.

The companys product lineup includes passenger cars, SUVs, pickup trucks, light commercial vehicles and heavy-duty commercial vehicles, along with engines and vehicle components.

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Barclays PLC (NYSE:BCS) posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday. The financial services provider reported $0.46 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.42 by $0.04, Zacks reports. Barclays had a net margin of 21.26% and a return on equity of 8.19%. The firm had revenue of $72.64 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.23 billion.

Here are the key takeaways from Barclays conference call:

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Barclays met all its 2025 targets , reporting ROTE 11.3%, revenue up 9% to 29.1bn, a 61% costincome ratio, a 52bp loanloss rate, and announced 3.7bn of shareholder distributions (1.2bn dividend, 2.5bn buybacks) while finishing the year at the top of its 1314% CET1 range.

, reporting ROTE 11.3%, revenue up 9% to 29.1bn, a 61% costincome ratio, a 52bp loanloss rate, and announced 3.7bn of shareholder distributions (1.2bn dividend, 2.5bn buybacks) while finishing the year at the top of its 1314% CET1 range. Management upgraded guidance to ~31bn group income in 2026, expects >12% ROTE in 2026 and is targeting >14% by 2028, while planning to return >15bn to shareholders over 202628 and doubling discretionary investment to fund cloud, data and AI.

The structural hedge has become a larger, more predictable income pillarhedge income rose 1.2bn to 5.9bn (46% of group NII exIB/HO), average duration extended to 3.5 years, and 6.4bn of gross hedge income is locked for 2026 (17bn over three years).

has become a larger, more predictable income pillarhedge income rose 1.2bn to 5.9bn (46% of group NII exIB/HO), average duration extended to 3.5 years, and 6.4bn of gross hedge income is locked for 2026 (17bn over three years). The group is rebalancing toward higherreturn UK franchises20bn of the 30bn RWA growth target delivered, six consecutive quarters of mortgage growth, UK corporate lending +18% YoY, and Barclays UK NII is guided to 8.18.3bn in 2026 with >20% ROTE for the UK businesses.

The U.S. Consumer Bank faces nearterm credit pressuresmanagement expects a higher throughthecycle USCB loanloss rate (~500bp550bp in 2026) due to stage migration after acquisitions and retained American Airlines nonperformers, which will elevate impairment in 2026 before normalizing.

Barclays Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE BCS traded up $0.13 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $26.29. The companys stock had a trading volume of 2,152,627 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,448,665. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 5.94, a current ratio of 1.41 and a quick ratio of 1.41. The stock has a market capitalization of $91.12 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.11, a PEG ratio of 0.41 and a beta of 0.96. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $25.53 and a 200-day moving average price of $22.37. Barclays PLC has a 12-month low of $12.14 and a 12-month high of $27.70.

Barclays Announces Dividend

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

The company also recently declared a dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, March 31st. Investors of record on Friday, February 20th will be issued a dividend of $0.3069 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 20th. This represents a yield of 232.0%. Barclayss payout ratio is 14.75%.

BCS has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a buy (b-) rating on shares of Barclays in a research note on Tuesday, December 23rd. Royal Bank Of Canada reiterated an outperform rating on shares of Barclays in a report on Thursday, October 23rd. Morgan Stanley restated an overweight rating on shares of Barclays in a report on Monday, November 24th. Citigroup restated a neutral rating on shares of Barclays in a research report on Thursday, January 22nd. Finally, Zacks Research downgraded shares of Barclays from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 28th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy.

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More Barclays News

Here are the key news stories impacting Barclays this week:

Institutional Trading of Barclays

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Evergreen Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Barclays by 3.3% during the second quarter. Evergreen Capital Management LLC now owns 24,518 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $456,000 after buying an additional 781 shares during the period. Laird Norton Wetherby Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Barclays by 1.3% during the third quarter. Laird Norton Wetherby Wealth Management LLC now owns 74,175 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $1,533,000 after purchasing an additional 982 shares in the last quarter. HUB Investment Partners LLC increased its position in shares of Barclays by 8.7% in the second quarter. HUB Investment Partners LLC now owns 18,946 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $352,000 after purchasing an additional 1,522 shares during the last quarter. Scotia Capital Inc. raised its stake in Barclays by 1.5% in the third quarter. Scotia Capital Inc. now owns 104,995 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $2,170,000 after purchasing an additional 1,525 shares in the last quarter. Finally, CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC lifted its position in Barclays by 31.7% during the third quarter. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC now owns 6,616 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $137,000 after purchasing an additional 1,591 shares during the last quarter. 3.39% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Barclays Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Barclays PLC (NYSE: BCS) is a British multinational bank and financial services company headquartered in London. The firm provides a broad range of banking and financial products to individual, corporate and institutional customers. Its core activities span retail and business banking, credit cards and payments, corporate and investment banking, and wealth and investment management.

In retail and business banking, Barclays offers deposit accounts, mortgages, personal and business loans, and card services.

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Allianz Asset Management GmbH boosted its holdings in Bath & Body Works, Inc. (NYSE:BBWI  Free Report) by 58.8% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 263,628 shares of the companys stock after acquiring an additional 97,640 shares during the period. Allianz Asset Management GmbHs holdings in Bath & Body Works were worth $6,791,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the business. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust boosted its holdings in shares of Bath & Body Works by 24.6% in the 2nd quarter. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust now owns 1,842 shares of the companys stock valued at $55,000 after buying an additional 364 shares during the period. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. lifted its position in Bath & Body Works by 3.7% in the 3rd quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 16,700 shares of the companys stock valued at $430,000 after purchasing an additional 600 shares during the last quarter. State of Wyoming increased its stake in shares of Bath & Body Works by 6.2% in the second quarter. State of Wyoming now owns 11,294 shares of the companys stock valued at $338,000 after purchasing an additional 661 shares during the period. Vident Advisory LLC raised its holdings in shares of Bath & Body Works by 2.8% during the second quarter. Vident Advisory LLC now owns 25,229 shares of the companys stock valued at $756,000 after buying an additional 692 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geneos Wealth Management Inc. grew its holdings in Bath & Body Works by 217.7% in the 1st quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 1,169 shares of the companys stock worth $35,000 after buying an additional 801 shares in the last quarter. 95.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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Bath & Body Works Stock Up 0.3%

Shares of NYSE:BBWI opened at $23.12 on Tuesday. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $21.02 and a two-hundred day moving average of $24.27. Bath & Body Works, Inc. has a 12-month low of $14.27 and a 12-month high of $41.87. The firm has a market capitalization of $4.73 billion, a P/E ratio of 7.11, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.02 and a beta of 1.54.

Bath & Body Works Announces Dividend

Bath & Body Works ( NYSE:BBWI Get Free Report ) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 20th. The company reported $0.35 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.40 by ($0.05). The firm had revenue of $1.59 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $1.64 billion. Bath & Body Works had a negative return on equity of 47.35% and a net margin of 9.50%.The firms revenue for the quarter was down 1.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.49 earnings per share. Bath & Body Works has set its FY 2025 guidance at 2.870- EPS and its Q4 2025 guidance at 1.700- EPS. Equities research analysts expect that Bath & Body Works, Inc. will post 3.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 6th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 20th will be paid a $0.20 dividend. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.5%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 20th. Bath & Body Workss payout ratio is presently 24.62%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts have issued reports on the company. Bank of America reduced their price target on Bath & Body Works from $40.00 to $32.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, November 20th. New Street Research set a $26.00 target price on Bath & Body Works in a research report on Monday, November 24th. Raymond James Financial restated a market perform rating on shares of Bath & Body Works in a report on Wednesday, November 12th. Citigroup dropped their price target on shares of Bath & Body Works from $35.00 to $21.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, November 21st. Finally, Robert W. Baird set a $20.00 price objective on Bath & Body Works in a research report on Wednesday, December 17th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and thirteen have assigned a Hold rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $23.53.

View Our Latest Stock Report on BBWI

Insider Activity

In other Bath & Body Works news, Director Francis Hondal bought 3,343 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 21st. The stock was purchased at an average price of $14.99 per share, for a total transaction of $50,111.57. Following the purchase, the director directly owned 21,554 shares in the company, valued at $323,094.46. This trade represents a 18.36% increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director Steven E. Voskuil acquired 20,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 21st. The stock was bought at an average price of $15.04 per share, for a total transaction of $300,800.00. Following the purchase, the director owned 33,925 shares of the companys stock, valued at $510,232. The trade was a 143.63% increase in their position. Additional details regarding this purchase are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders acquired a total of 33,513 shares of company stock valued at $500,442 in the last quarter. 0.27% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

About Bath & Body Works

(Free Report)

Bath & Body Works, Inc is a leading specialty retailer focused on personal care, home fragrance and complementary products. Through its flagship Bath & Body Works brand, the company offers a diverse assortment of shower gels, lotions, fragrance mists, candles and home fragrance items. Its product portfolio also includes the White Barn Candle Co range of premium scented candles and diffusers. Bath & Body Works serves consumers through a combination of brick-and-mortar stores and e-commerce platforms, delivering seasonal collections, limited-edition releases and signature scent lines.

Founded in 1990 as part of Limited Brands (now L Brands), Bath & Body Works opened its first store in New Albany, Ohio, and quickly expanded across the United States.

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Want to see what other hedge funds are holding BBWI? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Bath & Body Works, Inc. (NYSE:BBWI  Free Report).

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Pagaya Technologies, Hut 8, Tempus AI, BigBear.ai, SentinelOne, SoundHound AI, and Fluence Energy are the seven Artificial Intelligence stocks to watch today, according to MarketBeats stock screener tool. Artificial intelligence stocks are shares of companies whose primary business involves developing, producing, or commercializing AI technologies  including AI software and platforms, machine-learning models and applications, specialized hardware (like AI chips), and cloud or service providers that enable AI deployment. For investors, these stocks offer targeted exposure to potential revenue and productivity gains from AI-driven innovation but also carry elevated risks from hype-driven valuations, rapid technological change, regulatory uncertainty, and intense competition. These companies had the highest dollar trading volume of any Artificial Intelligence stocks within the last several days.

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Pagaya Technologies (PGY)

Pagaya Technologies Ltd., a product-focused technology company, deploys data science and proprietary artificial intelligence-powered technology for financial institutions and investors in the United States, Israel, the Cayman Islands, and internationally. The company develops and implements proprietary artificial intelligence technology and related software solutions to assist partners to originate loans and other assets.

Hut 8 (HUT)

Hut 8 Corp., together with its subsidiaries, acquires, builds, manages, and operates data centers for digital assets mining, computing, and artificial intelligence in the United States. It operates in four segments: Digital Assets Mining, Managed Services, High Performance Computing Colocation and Cloud, and Other.

Read Our Latest Research Report on HUT

Tempus AI (TEM)

Tempus AI Inc. is a technology company advancing precision medicine through the practical application of artificial intelligence principally in healthcare. The company provides AI-enabled precision medicine solutions to physicians to deliver personalized patient care and in parallel facilitates discovery, development and delivery of optimal therapeutics.

Read Our Latest Research Report on TEM

BigBear.ai (BBAI)

BigBear.ai Holdings, Inc. provides artificial intelligence-powered decision intelligence solutions. It offers national security, supply chain management, and digital identity and biometrics solutions. The company also provides data ingestion, data enrichment, data processing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, predictive analytics, and predictive visualization solutions and services.

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SentinelOne (S)

SentinelOne, Inc. operates as a cybersecurity provider in the United States and internationally. Its Singularity Platform delivers an artificial intelligence-powered autonomous threat prevention, detection, and response capabilities across an organization's endpoints, cloud workloads, and identify credentials, which enables seamless and autonomous protection against a spectrum of cyber threats.

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SoundHound AI (SOUN)

SoundHound AI, Inc. develops independent voice artificial intelligence (AI) solutions that enables businesses across automotive, TV, and IoT, and to customer service industries to deliver high-quality conversational experiences to their customers. Its products include Houndify platform that offers a suite of Houndify tools to help brands build conversational voice assistants, such as Application Programming Interfaces (API) for text and voice queries, support for custom commands, extensive library of content domains, inclusive software development kit platforms, collaboration capabilities, diagnostic tools, and built-in analytics; SoundHound Chat AI that integrates with knowledge domains, pulling real-time data like weather, sports, stocks, flight status, and restaurants; and SoundHound Smart Answering is built to offer customer establishments custom AI-powered voice assistant.

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Fluence Energy (FLNC)

Fluence Energy, Inc., through its subsidiaries, offers energy storage products and solution, services, and artificial intelligence enabled software-as-a-service products for renewables and storage applications in the Americas, the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The company sells energy storage products with integrated hardware, software, and digital intelligence.

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Wesbanco Bank Inc. trimmed its holdings in Bloom Energy Corporation (NYSE:BE  Free Report) by 60.3% in the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 75,832 shares of the companys stock after selling 115,168 shares during the period. Wesbanco Bank Inc.s holdings in Bloom Energy were worth $6,413,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the business. N.E.W. Advisory Services LLC purchased a new stake in Bloom Energy during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $32,000. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust increased its holdings in shares of Bloom Energy by 250.9% in the third quarter. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust now owns 393 shares of the companys stock valued at $33,000 after purchasing an additional 281 shares during the period. Elevation Point Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of Bloom Energy in the second quarter valued at approximately $36,000. NewEdge Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of Bloom Energy by 674.7% during the first quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 1,867 shares of the companys stock worth $37,000 after purchasing an additional 1,626 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Cranbrook Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Bloom Energy during the third quarter worth $39,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 77.04% of the companys stock.

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Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have issued reports on the stock. Royal Bank Of Canada set a $143.00 price objective on shares of Bloom Energy in a research note on Tuesday, January 20th. Susquehanna lifted their target price on shares of Bloom Energy to $157.00 and gave the company a positive rating in a report on Wednesday, October 29th. Robert W. Baird set a $172.00 price target on shares of Bloom Energy in a research note on Tuesday, January 27th. BTIG Research raised their price objective on shares of Bloom Energy to $165.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Friday. Finally, BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on Bloom Energy to $149.00 and gave the stock a market perform rating in a research report on Friday. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eleven have given a Buy rating, ten have given a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Bloom Energy has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $128.29.

Insider Buying and Selling at Bloom Energy

In other Bloom Energy news, insider Satish Chitoori sold 2,085 shares of Bloom Energy stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $104.08, for a total transaction of $217,006.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 229,880 shares in the company, valued at approximately $23,925,910.40. The trade was a 0.90% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Maciej Kurzymski sold 3,264 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $86.48, for a total value of $282,270.72. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 90,005 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,783,632.40. The trade was a 3.50% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 14,639 shares of company stock valued at $1,496,660. Insiders own 3.50% of the companys stock.

Bloom Energy Trading Up 8.4%

Shares of Bloom Energy stock opened at $155.06 on Tuesday. The company has a 50-day moving average of $119.60 and a two-hundred day moving average of $94.19. Bloom Energy Corporation has a 12-month low of $15.15 and a 12-month high of $176.49. The company has a current ratio of 4.40, a quick ratio of 2.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.98. The stock has a market cap of $36.67 billion, a PE ratio of -408.05, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 11.56 and a beta of 3.07.

Bloom Energy (NYSE:BE  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 5th. The company reported $0.45 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.25 by $0.20. Bloom Energy had a positive return on equity of 8.38% and a negative net margin of 4.37%.The business had revenue of $777.68 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $647.59 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.43 EPS. The companys quarterly revenue was up 35.9% on a year-over-year basis. Bloom Energy has set its FY 2026 guidance at 1.330-1.480 EPS. On average, research analysts anticipate that Bloom Energy Corporation will post -0.23 EPS for the current fiscal year.

About Bloom Energy

(Free Report)

Bloom Energy is a clean energy technology company that designs, manufactures and deploys solid oxide fuel cell systems for on-site power generation. Its flagship product, the Bloom Energy Server, converts natural gas, biogas or hydrogen into electricity through an electrochemical reaction, offering customers a reliable, low-carbon alternative to grid power. The company also provides a suite of services that includes system installation, remote monitoring and preventative maintenance to ensure long-term performance and uptime.

Founded in 2001 by Dr.

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Candriam S.C.A. lifted its position in Cigna Group (NYSE:CI  Free Report) by 3.0% during the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 77,163 shares of the health services providers stock after buying an additional 2,214 shares during the quarter. Candriam S.C.A.s holdings in Cigna Group were worth $22,242,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in CI. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. boosted its position in shares of Cigna Group by 119.5% in the third quarter. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. now owns 90 shares of the health services providers stock worth $26,000 after buying an additional 49 shares during the period. Solstein Capital LLC purchased a new stake in Cigna Group in the 2nd quarter worth about $29,000. Chilton Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in Cigna Group during the 2nd quarter worth about $30,000. Princeton Global Asset Management LLC grew its stake in Cigna Group by 115.6% during the 2nd quarter. Princeton Global Asset Management LLC now owns 97 shares of the health services providers stock valued at $32,000 after acquiring an additional 52 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Collier Financial acquired a new position in shares of Cigna Group in the 3rd quarter valued at about $34,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 86.99% of the companys stock.

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Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on CI shares. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their target price on shares of Cigna Group from $310.00 to $333.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Monday. Zacks Research upgraded Cigna Group from a strong sell rating to a hold rating in a research note on Monday, January 5th. Royal Bank Of Canada cut their price target on Cigna Group from $344.00 to $333.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research note on Friday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price target on Cigna Group from $428.00 to $375.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, November 4th. Finally, Barclays cut their price objective on shares of Cigna Group from $305.00 to $303.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research report on Friday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, sixteen have given a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $329.84.

Cigna Group Trading Up 0.9%

Shares of CI stock opened at $294.75 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $78.74 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.29, a P/E/G ratio of 1.04 and a beta of 0.27. Cigna Group has a 12-month low of $239.51 and a 12-month high of $350.00. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $275.19 and a 200 day moving average price of $283.70. The company has a quick ratio of 0.76, a current ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.74.

Cigna Group (NYSE:CI  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 5th. The health services provider reported $8.08 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $7.88 by $0.20. The business had revenue of $72.50 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $69.53 billion. Cigna Group had a net margin of 2.17% and a return on equity of 19.46%. Cigna Groups revenue was up 10.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $6.64 earnings per share. Cigna Group has set its FY 2026 guidance at 30.250- EPS. Research analysts forecast that Cigna Group will post 29.77 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Cigna Group Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 19th. Investors of record on Thursday, March 5th will be issued a $1.56 dividend. This is a boost from Cigna Groups previous quarterly dividend of $1.51. This represents a $6.24 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.1%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, March 5th. Cigna Groups dividend payout ratio is currently 27.23%.

Cigna Group Company Profile

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Cigna Group (NYSE: CI) is a global health services company that offers a broad portfolio of healthcare products and insurance solutions for individuals, employers, and governments. Its core businesses include medical and behavioral health plans, dental and vision coverage, pharmacy benefit management, and supplemental health products. Cigna serves a mix of commercial, Medicare, and Medicaid customers and provides workplace benefits such as group health plans and disability and life benefits for employers.

In addition to traditional insurance products, Cigna operates health services and care-delivery platforms designed to manage costs and improve outcomes.

Further Reading

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Cardinal Health (NYSE:CAH  Get Free Report) had its price target raised by JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $209.00 to $243.00 in a research note issued to investors on Tuesday,MarketScreener reports. The firm presently has a neutral rating on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co.s target price suggests a potential upside of 7.47% from the companys previous close.

CAH has been the subject of a number of other research reports. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lifted their price target on Cardinal Health from $195.00 to $208.00 and gave the company a hold rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 18th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a buy (b) rating on shares of Cardinal Health in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Cardinal Health from a buy rating to a strong-buy rating in a report on Saturday, November 8th. Morgan Stanley set a $255.00 price objective on Cardinal Health in a research note on Friday. Finally, Barclays assumed coverage on shares of Cardinal Health in a report on Monday, December 8th. They issued an overweight rating and a $243.00 price target on the stock. Fifteen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Cardinal Health currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $242.56.

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Cardinal Health Stock Down 0.1%

Cardinal Health stock opened at $226.12 on Tuesday. The firms fifty day moving average is $207.28 and its 200 day moving average is $180.77. Cardinal Health has a 12-month low of $120.72 and a 12-month high of $230.81. The company has a market capitalization of $53.21 billion, a PE ratio of 32.38, a PEG ratio of 1.48 and a beta of 0.64.

Cardinal Health (NYSE:CAH  Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, February 5th. The company reported $2.63 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $2.31 by $0.32. Cardinal Health had a negative return on equity of 92.50% and a net margin of 0.68%.The business had revenue of $65.63 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $64.88 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.93 EPS. The firms revenue was up 18.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts expect that Cardinal Health will post 7.95 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Cardinal Health

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Strategy Asset Managers LLC bought a new position in shares of Cardinal Health during the 3rd quarter valued at about $775,000. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. boosted its position in Cardinal Health by 15.3% during the third quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 37,833 shares of the companys stock valued at $5,938,000 after buying an additional 5,030 shares during the period. Atle Fund Management AB increased its holdings in shares of Cardinal Health by 13.1% in the third quarter. Atle Fund Management AB now owns 30,297 shares of the companys stock worth $4,755,000 after buying an additional 3,500 shares during the period. National Pension Service lifted its stake in shares of Cardinal Health by 7.2% in the 3rd quarter. National Pension Service now owns 500,340 shares of the companys stock valued at $78,533,000 after acquiring an additional 33,673 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Baird Financial Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Cardinal Health by 107.2% during the 2nd quarter. Baird Financial Group Inc. now owns 99,393 shares of the companys stock valued at $16,698,000 after acquiring an additional 51,416 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 87.17% of the companys stock.

About Cardinal Health

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Cardinal Health is a multinational healthcare services and products company headquartered in Dublin, Ohio. Tracing its roots to the early 1970s, the company has grown into a major provider of supply chain and distribution services for the healthcare sector. Cardinal Health operates across a range of service lines that support hospitals, health systems, pharmacies, physician offices and clinical laboratories.

The companys core activities include the wholesale distribution of branded and generic pharmaceuticals, the supply and distribution of medical-surgical products, and the provision of logistics and inventory management solutions.

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CVS Health (NYSE:CVS  Get Free Report) issued an update on its FY 2026 earnings guidance on Tuesday morning. The company provided earnings per share guidance of 5.940-6.140 for the period, compared to the consensus earnings per share estimate of 7.160. The company issued revenue guidance of -.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts have recently commented on the company. Wolfe Research boosted their price target on CVS Health from $85.00 to $100.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Monday, December 8th. Leerink Partners boosted their target price on CVS Health from $86.00 to $95.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Thursday, October 16th. Evercore raised their price target on shares of CVS Health from $85.00 to $95.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their target price on shares of CVS Health from $103.00 to $102.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a report on Thursday, November 13th. Finally, Weiss Ratings restated a hold (c-) rating on shares of CVS Health in a report on Monday, December 29th. Nineteen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $94.82.

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CVS Health Stock Performance

NYSE CVS traded up $2.06 on Tuesday, reaching $77.83. The stock had a trading volume of 3,824,552 shares, compared to its average volume of 9,764,484. CVS Health has a 1-year low of $54.06 and a 1-year high of $85.15. The company has a market cap of $98.80 billion, a P/E ratio of 204.33, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.72 and a beta of 0.50. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $78.56 and a two-hundred day moving average of $75.87. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.83, a current ratio of 0.83 and a quick ratio of 0.63.

CVS Health (NYSE:CVS  Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, February 10th. The pharmacy operator reported $1.09 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.99 by $0.10. The firm had revenue of $105.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $103.67 billion. CVS Health had a net margin of 0.12% and a return on equity of 11.45%. The businesss revenue was up 8.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $1.19 EPS. CVS Health has set its FY 2026 guidance at 5.940-6.140 EPS. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that CVS Health will post 5.89 EPS for the current year.

CVS Health Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, February 2nd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 22nd were given a $0.665 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, January 22nd. This represents a $2.66 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.4%. CVS Healths payout ratio is presently 700.00%.

Key Headlines Impacting CVS Health

Here are the key news stories impacting CVS Health this week:

Institutional Trading of CVS Health

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Caitong International Asset Management Co. Ltd grew its holdings in CVS Health by 407.2% during the 3rd quarter. Caitong International Asset Management Co. Ltd now owns 350 shares of the pharmacy operators stock worth $26,000 after acquiring an additional 281 shares during the period. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC grew its position in CVS Health by 40.0% in the 3rd quarter. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC now owns 700 shares of the pharmacy operators stock valued at $53,000 after purchasing an additional 200 shares during the period. WFA of San Diego LLC bought a new stake in shares of CVS Health during the second quarter worth about $86,000. Sittner & Nelson LLC lifted its position in CVS Health by 164.7% in the 3rd quarter. Sittner & Nelson LLC now owns 1,607 shares of the pharmacy operators stock valued at $121,000 after acquiring an additional 1,000 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Johnson Financial Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of CVS Health by 94.9% during the third quarter. Johnson Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,928 shares of the pharmacy operators stock valued at $145,000 after buying an additional 939 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.66% of the companys stock.

About CVS Health

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CVS Health Corporation is a diversified healthcare company that operates a large network of retail pharmacies, pharmacy benefit management services and health care solutions. Headquartered in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, the company traces its roots to the early 1960s and has grown into an integrated provider of prescription drugs, overthecounter products, clinical services and health insurance offerings. Its operating model combines retail pharmacy locations and instore clinics with broader pharmacy and health plan capabilities.

Key business activities include CVS Pharmacy retail operations, MinuteClinic walkin medical clinics and HealthHUB locations that offer expanded clinical services.

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Wabash National (NYSE:WNC  Get Free Report) had its price target lifted by stock analysts at DA Davidson from $9.00 to $11.00 in a research report issued to clients and investors on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has a neutral rating on the stock. DA Davidsons price target would indicate a potential downside of 3.08% from the companys previous close.

WNC has been the topic of a number of other reports. Zacks Research upgraded Wabash National from a strong sell rating to a hold rating in a report on Monday, January 5th. Weiss Ratings cut shares of Wabash National from a hold (c-) rating to a sell (d+) rating in a report on Monday, January 26th. Wall Street Zen raised Wabash National from a sell rating to a hold rating in a report on Sunday, November 9th. Finally, National Bankshares set a $9.00 price objective on Wabash National in a report on Thursday, October 23rd. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Reduce and an average price target of $10.00.

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Wabash National Price Performance

Shares of Wabash National stock traded up $0.20 during trading hours on Tuesday, reaching $11.35. 104,671 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 657,234. The company has a market capitalization of $459.90 million, a P/E ratio of 2.32 and a beta of 1.67. Wabash National has a 1 year low of $6.78 and a 1 year high of $13.50. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 1.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.21. The business has a fifty day moving average of $9.79 and a two-hundred day moving average of $9.69.

Wabash National (NYSE:WNC  Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, February 4th. The company reported ($0.93) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.77) by ($0.16). The firm had revenue of $321.45 million during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $318.32 million. Wabash National had a net margin of 13.71% and a negative return on equity of 22.80%. The firms revenue was down 22.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned ($0.02) EPS. As a group, research analysts predict that Wabash National will post 0.94 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Wabash National

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. First Trust Advisors LP acquired a new stake in shares of Wabash National in the 2nd quarter valued at about $32,629,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership lifted its holdings in Wabash National by 305.8% during the 3rd quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 640,850 shares of the companys stock worth $6,325,000 after purchasing an additional 482,942 shares during the last quarter. Millennium Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Wabash National by 864.3% during the first quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 459,547 shares of the companys stock worth $5,078,000 after purchasing an additional 411,889 shares during the period. CenterBook Partners LP boosted its stake in shares of Wabash National by 263.6% in the second quarter. CenterBook Partners LP now owns 494,457 shares of the companys stock valued at $5,256,000 after buying an additional 358,478 shares during the period. Finally, Jane Street Group LLC raised its stake in Wabash National by 204.3% in the first quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 463,191 shares of the companys stock valued at $5,118,000 after purchasing an additional 310,998 shares in the last quarter. 97.05% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wabash National Company Profile

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Wabash National Corporation (NYSE: WNC) is a leading designer and manufacturer of transportation equipment and supply chain solutions. The companys product portfolio includes dry freight van trailers, refrigerated vans, tank trailers, platform trailers, flatbeds and composite bodies. Wabash National also offers railcar products and modular building solutions, serving customers in a wide range of end markets such as food and beverage, chemicals, agriculture, waste management and construction.

Founded in 1985 and headquartered in Lafayette, Indiana, Wabash National has built a reputation for innovation in lightweight materials, advanced manufacturing processes and telematics integration.

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FT Vest S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Target Income ETF (BATS:KNG  Get Free Report) shares reached a new 52-week high during trading on Tuesday . The company traded as high as $52.74 and last traded at $52.7340, with a volume of 108594 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $52.45.

FT Vest S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Target Income ETF Price Performance

The business has a fifty day moving average of $50.19 and a 200-day moving average of $49.64. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.05 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.48 and a beta of 0.83.

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FT Vest S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Target Income ETF Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a monthly dividend, which was paid on Friday, January 30th. Investors of record on Wednesday, January 21st were issued a $0.362 dividend. This represents a c) dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 8.2%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, January 21st. This is an increase from FT Vest S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Target Income ETFs previous monthly dividend of $0.34.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

About FT Vest S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Target Income ETF

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in KNG. Trust Co. of Vermont acquired a new stake in shares of FT Vest S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Target Income ETF during the 3rd quarter valued at $30,000. JPMorgan Chase & Co. grew its holdings in shares of FT Vest S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Target Income ETF by 846.6% in the 2nd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 975 shares of the companys stock worth $48,000 after acquiring an additional 872 shares during the last quarter. Colonial Trust Advisors acquired a new stake in shares of FT Vest S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Target Income ETF during the second quarter worth $61,000. Twin Peaks Wealth Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of FT Vest S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Target Income ETF during the second quarter valued at $84,000. Finally, SBI Securities Co. Ltd. boosted its position in shares of FT Vest S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Target Income ETF by 53.3% in the 2nd quarter. SBI Securities Co. Ltd. now owns 2,033 shares of the companys stock valued at $100,000 after purchasing an additional 707 shares during the period.

(Get Free Report)

The FT Cboe Vest S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Target Income ETF (KNG) is an exchange-traded fund that mostly invests in large cap equity. The fund tracks an equal-weighted index of US large-cap companies that have increased dividends for at least 25 years, with a partial overlay of covered call options. KNG was launched on Mar 26, 2018 and is managed by First Trust.

Further Reading

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AG Mortgage Investment Trust (NYSE:MITT  Get Free Report) and Arbor Realty Trust (NYSE:ABR  Get Free Report) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, valuation, dividends, earnings, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current recommendations for AG Mortgage Investment Trust and Arbor Realty Trust, as provided by MarketBeat.

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Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score AG Mortgage Investment Trust 0 3 5 0 2.63 Arbor Realty Trust 5 1 1 0 1.43

AG Mortgage Investment Trust currently has a consensus price target of $9.17, suggesting a potential upside of 9.01%. Arbor Realty Trust has a consensus price target of $9.38, suggesting a potential upside of 19.20%. Given Arbor Realty Trusts higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Arbor Realty Trust is more favorable than AG Mortgage Investment Trust.

Earnings and Valuation

Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio AG Mortgage Investment Trust $408.49 million 0.65 $55.74 million $0.93 9.04 Arbor Realty Trust $1.17 billion 1.32 $264.64 million $0.80 9.83

This table compares AG Mortgage Investment Trust and Arbor Realty Trusts revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

Arbor Realty Trust has higher revenue and earnings than AG Mortgage Investment Trust. AG Mortgage Investment Trust is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Arbor Realty Trust, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility & Risk

AG Mortgage Investment Trust has a beta of 1.69, indicating that its stock price is 69% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Arbor Realty Trust has a beta of 1.39, indicating that its stock price is 39% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

27.3% of AG Mortgage Investment Trust shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 57.3% of Arbor Realty Trust shares are owned by institutional investors. 3.8% of AG Mortgage Investment Trust shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 3.8% of Arbor Realty Trust shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares AG Mortgage Investment Trust and Arbor Realty Trusts net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets AG Mortgage Investment Trust 11.03% 13.88% 0.59% Arbor Realty Trust 20.07% 11.63% 2.13%

Dividends

AG Mortgage Investment Trust pays an annual dividend of $0.92 per share and has a dividend yield of 10.9%. Arbor Realty Trust pays an annual dividend of $1.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 15.3%. AG Mortgage Investment Trust pays out 98.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Arbor Realty Trust pays out 150.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. AG Mortgage Investment Trust has increased its dividend for 2 consecutive years.

Summary

Arbor Realty Trust beats AG Mortgage Investment Trust on 9 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About AG Mortgage Investment Trust

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AG Mortgage Investment Trust, Inc. operates as a residential mortgage real estate investment trust in the United States. Its investment portfolio includes residential investments, including non-agency loans, agency-eligible loans, re-and non-performing loans, and non-agency residential mortgage-backed securities, as well as commercial loans and commercial mortgage-backed securities. The company qualifies as a real estate investment trust for federal income tax purposes. It generally would not be subject to federal corporate income taxes if it distributes at least 90% of its taxable income to its stockholders. AG Mortgage Investment Trust, Inc. was incorporated in 2011 and is based in New York, New York.

About Arbor Realty Trust

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Arbor Realty Trust, Inc. invests in a diversified portfolio of structured finance assets in the multifamily, single-family rental, and commercial real estate markets in the United States. The company operates through Structured Business and Agency Business segments. It primarily invests in bridge and mezzanine loans, including junior participating interests in first mortgages, and preferred and direct equity, as well as real estate-related joint ventures, real estate-related notes, and various mortgage-related securities. In addition, the company offers bridge financing products to borrowers who seek short-term capital to be used in an acquisition of property; financing by making preferred equity investments in entities that directly or indirectly own real property; mezzanine financing in the form of loans that are subordinate to a conventional first mortgage loan and senior to the borrowers equity in a transaction; junior participation financing in the form of a junior participating interest in the senior debt; and financing products to borrowers who are looking to acquire conventional, workforce, and affordable single-family housing. Further, it underwrites, originates, sells, and services multifamily mortgage loans through conduit/commercial mortgage-backed securities programs. The company qualifies as a real estate investment trust for federal income tax purposes. It generally would not be subject to federal corporate income taxes if it distributes at least 90% of its taxable income to its stockholders. Arbor Realty Trust, Inc. was incorporated in 2003 and is headquartered in Uniondale, New York.

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Hillenbrand (NYSE:HI  Get Free Report) issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday. The company reported ($0.03) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.63 by ($0.66), FiscalAI reports. The company had revenue of $540.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $607.10 million. Hillenbrand had a net margin of 1.61% and a return on equity of 12.69%.

Hillenbrand Stock Performance

HI opened at $31.99 on Tuesday. The stocks 50 day simple moving average is $31.82 and its 200-day simple moving average is $28.73. The company has a current ratio of 1.22, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.05. The stock has a market cap of $2.26 billion, a PE ratio of 52.44 and a beta of 1.40. Hillenbrand has a 1 year low of $18.36 and a 1 year high of $35.48.

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Hillenbrand Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, December 31st. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 16th were issued a dividend of $0.2275 per share. This represents a $0.91 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.8%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, December 16th. This is a boost from Hillenbrands previous quarterly dividend of $0.23. Hillenbrands payout ratio is 149.18%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Hillenbrand

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Bank of America Corp DE boosted its holdings in shares of Hillenbrand by 8.6% in the 2nd quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 682,387 shares of the companys stock worth $13,696,000 after acquiring an additional 53,908 shares in the last quarter. Cooper Creek Partners Management LLC raised its position in Hillenbrand by 28.1% in the 3rd quarter. Cooper Creek Partners Management LLC now owns 546,241 shares of the companys stock valued at $14,770,000 after purchasing an additional 119,964 shares during the last quarter. UBS Group AG boosted its stake in Hillenbrand by 21.0% in the third quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 425,297 shares of the companys stock worth $11,500,000 after purchasing an additional 73,812 shares in the last quarter. Voloridge Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in Hillenbrand by 1.0% in the third quarter. Voloridge Investment Management LLC now owns 266,222 shares of the companys stock worth $7,199,000 after purchasing an additional 2,659 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership bought a new stake in shares of Hillenbrand during the third quarter worth $6,875,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 89.09% of the companys stock.

A number of research firms have weighed in on HI. CJS Securities reissued a market perform rating and set a $32.00 target price on shares of Hillenbrand in a research report on Thursday, October 16th. Weiss Ratings reissued a hold (c) rating on shares of Hillenbrand in a research report on Monday, December 29th. Finally, DA Davidson reaffirmed a neutral rating and issued a $32.00 target price on shares of Hillenbrand in a report on Thursday, November 20th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a Hold rating, Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $32.00.

Check Out Our Latest Report on Hillenbrand

About Hillenbrand

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Hillenbrand, Inc, headquartered in Batesville, Indiana, is a global industrial company specializing in engineered equipment and process solutions. Through its Coperion division, Hillenbrand designs and manufactures compounding and extrusion systems, polymer and food processing equipment, bulk material handling technologies and associated automation. These offerings support a variety of end markets, including plastics, chemicals, food, pharmaceutical and minerals, helping customers optimize production efficiency and product quality.

Tracing its roots to the Batesville Casket Company founded in 1906, the organization evolved through strategic acquisitions and expanded its focus on process technologies.

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Huntington Ingalls Industries (NYSE:HII  Get Free Report) had its price objective increased by investment analysts at Citigroup from $450.00 to $465.00 in a research report issued to clients and investors on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a buy rating on the aerospace companys stock. Citigroups price objective would indicate a potential upside of 16.24% from the companys previous close.

HII has been the topic of a number of other research reports. Weiss Ratings reiterated a hold (c) rating on shares of Huntington Ingalls Industries in a report on Thursday, January 22nd. Wall Street Zen downgraded Huntington Ingalls Industries from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research note on Saturday, January 31st. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price target on shares of Huntington Ingalls Industries from $384.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Tuesday, January 20th. Melius Research upgraded shares of Huntington Ingalls Industries from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report on Monday, January 5th. Finally, TD Cowen lifted their price objective on shares of Huntington Ingalls Industries from $320.00 to $350.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Friday, October 31st. Five analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Huntington Ingalls Industries presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $345.50.

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Check Out Our Latest Analysis on HII

Huntington Ingalls Industries Trading Down 1.4%

HII stock traded down $5.77 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, hitting $400.05. 115,593 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 651,237. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $370.96 and a 200-day simple moving average of $315.44. The firm has a market capitalization of $15.70 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.10, a PEG ratio of 1.60 and a beta of 0.34. Huntington Ingalls Industries has a 12-month low of $159.41 and a 12-month high of $436.14. The company has a quick ratio of 1.06, a current ratio of 1.13 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53.

Huntington Ingalls Industries (NYSE:HII  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 5th. The aerospace company reported $4.04 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $3.72 by $0.32. Huntington Ingalls Industries had a return on equity of 12.28% and a net margin of 4.85%.The firm had revenue of $3.48 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.09 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $3.15 earnings per share. Huntington Ingalls Industriess quarterly revenue was up 15.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts predict that Huntington Ingalls Industries will post 13.99 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Huntington Ingalls Industries

In related news, CEO Christopher D. Kastner sold 15,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $321.06, for a total transaction of $4,815,900.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 68,139 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $21,876,707.34. The trade was a 18.04% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, VP Edmond E. Jr. Hughes sold 850 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, November 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $315.44, for a total transaction of $268,124.00. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president directly owned 8,731 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $2,754,106.64. This trade represents a 8.87% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 16,637 shares of company stock worth $5,331,276. Insiders own 0.86% of the companys stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Huntington Ingalls Industries

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Korea Investment CORP acquired a new stake in shares of Huntington Ingalls Industries during the 2nd quarter worth about $1,604,000. Primoris Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new stake in Huntington Ingalls Industries during the third quarter worth about $2,260,000. CWA Asset Management Group LLC increased its holdings in shares of Huntington Ingalls Industries by 51.2% during the third quarter. CWA Asset Management Group LLC now owns 24,746 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $7,125,000 after buying an additional 8,384 shares in the last quarter. Markel Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Huntington Ingalls Industries by 13.9% in the 2nd quarter. Markel Group Inc. now owns 20,500 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $4,950,000 after acquiring an additional 2,500 shares in the last quarter. Finally, SS&H Financial Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in Huntington Ingalls Industries by 76.7% during the 3rd quarter. SS&H Financial Advisors Inc. now owns 8,120 shares of the aerospace companys stock valued at $2,338,000 after purchasing an additional 3,525 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 90.46% of the companys stock.

Huntington Ingalls Industries Company Profile

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Huntington Ingalls Industries (NYSE: HII) is Americas largest military shipbuilding company and a leading provider of professional services to the U.S. government. Headquartered in Newport News, Virginia, HII designs, constructs and maintains nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, submarines and other complex vessels for the U.S. Navy. The companys products include nuclear aircraft carriers, Virginia-class and Columbia-class submarines, as well as amphibious assault ships, destroyers and cutters.

Established in 2011 as a spin-off from Northrop Grummans shipbuilding operations, HII traces its heritage to two historic builders: Newport News Shipbuilding, founded in the 19th century, and Ingalls Shipbuilding, founded in 1938.

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Invesco CEF Income Composite ETF (NYSEARCA:PCEF  Get Free Report)s share price reached a new 52-week high during trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $20.25 and last traded at $20.2450, with a volume of 14105 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $20.23.

Invesco CEF Income Composite ETF Trading Up 0.0%

The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $19.96 and a 200 day moving average price of $19.91. The stock has a market capitalization of $828.63 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.11 and a beta of 0.78.

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Invesco CEF Income Composite ETF Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a monthly dividend, which was paid on Friday, January 23rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, January 20th were given a $0.1301 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, January 20th. This represents a c) dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 7.7%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

About Invesco CEF Income Composite ETF

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. CX Institutional purchased a new position in shares of Invesco CEF Income Composite ETF during the 3rd quarter worth $35,000. Advisory Services Network LLC purchased a new position in Invesco CEF Income Composite ETF during the third quarter worth about $40,000. WFA of San Diego LLC purchased a new position in Invesco CEF Income Composite ETF during the second quarter worth about $45,000. International Assets Investment Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Invesco CEF Income Composite ETF in the 4th quarter worth approximately $57,000. Finally, Global Retirement Partners LLC increased its holdings in Invesco CEF Income Composite ETF by 11,170.5% in the 3rd quarter. Global Retirement Partners LLC now owns 4,959 shares of the companys stock valued at $99,000 after purchasing an additional 4,915 shares during the last quarter.

(Get Free Report)

PowerShares CEF Income Composite Portfolio (the Fund) seeks investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance of the S-Network Composite Closed-End Fund Index (the Index). The Fund will normally invest at least 80% of its total assets in securities of funds included in the Index. The Index tracks the overall performance of a global universe of United States listed closed-end funds that are organized under the laws of the United States selected by S-Network Global Indexes LLC (the Index Provider).

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iShares MSCI Taiwan ETF (NYSEARCA:EWT  Get Free Report) hit a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $71.66 and last traded at $71.4360, with a volume of 678801 shares changing hands. The stock had previously closed at $70.76.

iShares MSCI Taiwan ETF Stock Up 1.0%

The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $65.86 and a 200 day simple moving average of $63.78. The company has a market cap of $8.04 billion, a PE ratio of 17.58 and a beta of 0.94.

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Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. BNP Paribas Financial Markets boosted its stake in shares of iShares MSCI Taiwan ETF by 393.4% during the 2nd quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 2,085,693 shares of the exchange traded funds stock worth $119,719,000 after purchasing an additional 1,662,985 shares during the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership grew its stake in iShares MSCI Taiwan ETF by 2,378.2% during the 2nd quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 1,905,456 shares of the exchange traded funds stock valued at $109,373,000 after purchasing an additional 1,828,566 shares in the last quarter. Schroder Investment Management Group raised its stake in shares of iShares MSCI Taiwan ETF by 4,066.3% in the 2nd quarter. Schroder Investment Management Group now owns 1,677,273 shares of the exchange traded funds stock valued at $97,030,000 after purchasing an additional 1,637,015 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. boosted its holdings in iShares MSCI Taiwan ETF by 12.8% in the third quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 1,254,110 shares of the exchange traded funds stock worth $79,786,000 after purchasing an additional 142,464 shares during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in iShares MSCI Taiwan ETF by 15.0% during the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,136,467 shares of the exchange traded funds stock valued at $72,200,000 after purchasing an additional 148,000 shares during the period.

iShares MSCI Taiwan ETF Company Profile

Ishares MSCI Taiwan Index Fund (the Fund) is an exchange-traded fund. The Fund seeks investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance, before fees and expenses, of the MSCI Taiwan IndexSM (the Index). The Index consists of stocks traded primarily on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The Fund invests in a representative sample of securities included in the Index that collectively has an investment profile similar to the Index. Due to the use of representative sampling, the Fund may or may not hold all of the securities that are included in the Index.

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Jeffersonville Bancorp (OTCMKTS:JFBC  Get Free Report) released its earnings results on Tuesday. The bank reported $0.77 EPS for the quarter, Zacks reports. Jeffersonville Bancorp had a net margin of 35.75% and a return on equity of 12.53%.

Jeffersonville Bancorp Stock Performance

Shares of OTCMKTS JFBC traded up $0.62 during trading on Tuesday, hitting $24.80. The company had a trading volume of 6,150 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,712. Jeffersonville Bancorp has a 52 week low of $18.81 and a 52 week high of $25.25. The businesss 50-day moving average is $22.69 and its 200 day moving average is $22.14. The company has a market cap of $104.90 million, a P/E ratio of 8.76 and a beta of 0.22.

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Jeffersonville Bancorp Company Profile

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Jeffersonville Bancorp, Inc is a bank holding company headquartered in Jeffersonville, Indiana. Through its wholly owned subsidiary, Jeffersonville Bank, the company offers a range of retail and commercial banking services tailored to individuals, small businesses and communities across southern Indiana. As a community-focused institution, Jeffersonville Bancorp emphasizes personalized customer relationships and local market expertise.

The companys core deposit products include checking and savings accounts, money market accounts and certificates of deposit.

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Macro Bank Inc. (NYSE:BMA  Get Free Report) declared a monthly dividend on Monday, February 9th. Investors of record on Thursday, February 19th will be given a dividend of 0.3822 per share by the bank on Thursday, February 26th. This represents a c) dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.9%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, February 19th. This is a 7.5% increase from Macro Banks previous monthly dividend of $0.36.

Macro Bank has increased its dividend payment by an average of 0.2%per year over the last three years. Macro Bank has a dividend payout ratio of 36.3% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Macro Bank to earn $10.43 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $4.26 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 40.8%.

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Macro Bank Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:BMA opened at $92.66 on Tuesday. The company has a current ratio of 1.16, a quick ratio of 1.16 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.30. Macro Bank has a 52 week low of $38.30 and a 52 week high of $106.15. The firms 50 day moving average is $92.25 and its two-hundred day moving average is $73.90. The firm has a market capitalization of $5.92 billion, a P/E ratio of 42.35, a PEG ratio of 0.98 and a beta of 1.46.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Macro Bank ( NYSE:BMA Get Free Report ) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, November 26th. The bank reported ($0.39) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.67 by ($1.06). The company had revenue of $625.90 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $590.57 million. Macro Bank had a net margin of 6.11% and a return on equity of 8.15%. Analysts anticipate that Macro Bank will post 7.84 earnings per share for the current year.

BMA has been the topic of several research analyst reports. UBS Group initiated coverage on Macro Bank in a research note on Wednesday, November 19th. They set a buy rating and a $130.00 target price on the stock. Itau BBA Securities upgraded shares of Macro Bank from a market perform rating to an outperform rating in a research note on Monday, October 27th. Citigroup upgraded shares of Macro Bank from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note on Monday, November 3rd. Weiss Ratings restated a sell (d) rating on shares of Macro Bank in a research report on Monday, December 29th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Macro Bank to a strong-buy rating in a research note on Monday, November 10th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have given a Buy rating, two have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $103.75.

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Macro Bank Company Profile

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Macro Bank (NYSE: BMA) is the American depositary receipt program of Banco Macro SA, one of the largest privately owned banks in Argentina. Headquartered in Buenos Aires, the institution delivers a comprehensive suite of banking solutions to retail, corporate and agricultural customers across the country. Through its extensive branch network and digital platforms, Macro Bank aims to serve diverse client segments with tailored financial products and services.

The banks offerings span traditional deposit accountsincluding checking, savings and term depositsalongside payment and transaction services.

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Mizuho Financial Group (NYSE:MFG  Get Free Report) and Bank of Communications (OTCMKTS:BCMXY  Get Free Report) are both large-cap finance companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, profitability, risk, institutional ownership, dividends, valuation and earnings.

Dividends

Mizuho Financial Group pays an annual dividend of $0.15 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.5%. Bank of Communications pays an annual dividend of $0.86 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.0%. Mizuho Financial Group pays out 26.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Bank of Communications pays out 22.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Bank of Communications is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

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Profitability

This table compares Mizuho Financial Group and Bank of Communications net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Mizuho Financial Group 12.31% 9.23% 0.35% Bank of Communications 18.19% 7.70% 0.62%

Earnings & Valuation

Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio Mizuho Financial Group $59.30 billion 2.05 $3.92 billion $0.57 17.18 Bank of Communications $75.42 billion 0.85 $13.02 billion $3.87 5.55

This table compares Mizuho Financial Group and Bank of Communicationss top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

Bank of Communications has higher revenue and earnings than Mizuho Financial Group. Bank of Communications is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Mizuho Financial Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility & Risk

Mizuho Financial Group has a beta of 0.37, indicating that its share price is 63% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Bank of Communications has a beta of -0.17, indicating that its share price is 117% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and price targets for Mizuho Financial Group and Bank of Communications, as provided by MarketBeat.

Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score Mizuho Financial Group 0 1 1 0 2.50 Bank of Communications 0 0 0 0 0.00

Institutional & Insider Ownership

3.3% of Mizuho Financial Group shares are held by institutional investors. 0.0% of Mizuho Financial Group shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Mizuho Financial Group beats Bank of Communications on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Mizuho Financial Group

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Mizuho Financial Group, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in banking, trust, securities, and other businesses related to financial services in Japan, the Americas, Europe, Asia/Oceania, and internationally. It operates through Retail & Business Banking Company, Corporate & Institutional Company, Global Corporate Company, Global Markets Company, Asset Management Company, and Others segments. The company provides deposit products; syndicated, housing, and card loans; business matching services; and advisory services related to overseas expansions, and mergers and acquisitions-related services. It also offers consulting services, including asset management and asset succession; payroll services; and sells lottery tickets issued by prefectures and ordinance-designated cities. In addition, it offers fund management, underwriting of equity and bonds, risk hedging products, etc. for corporate customers; solutions based on capital management, business strategy, and financial strategy; real estate services; advisory services and solutions, such as advice on proposals on various investment products to financial institutions; and financial services that include funding support and public bonds underwriting. Further, the company offers corporate finance and transaction banking srvices; sales and trading services; investment products; pension funds; and ALM and investment services, including stable capital raising and balance sheet management, as well as management of fixed income, equity, and other securities portfolios. Additionally, the company provides online banking, cash management solutions, currency transaction, trade finance, custody, yen correspondence settlement, and research and consulting services; trust, securitization and structured finance, and stock transfers; and private banking and information technology-related services. Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.

About Bank of Communications

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Bank of Communications Co., Ltd. provides commercial banking products and services in China. The company offers savings deposit products, including demand deposits, lump-sum deposits and withdrawal, time deposit of small savings for lump-sum withdrawal, interest withdrawal on principal deposited, time-demand deposit, call deposit, swap management, and education deposit; personal certificate of deposit; salary financing A; and foreign currency deposit. It also provides credit, quasi-credit, and debit cards; new housing and second-hand mortgage loans and unsecured personal loans; personal wealth management advisor services; and precious metal and commodity trading services. In addition, the company offers corporate structured deposit and corporate certificate of deposit; corporate cash management; industrial chain finance program comprising prepayment financing, inventory financing, accounts receivable financing and accounts payable financing; syndicated loans; corporation overdraft; investment banking services; and offshore banking services, such as repayment financing, inventory financing, accounts receivable financing and accounts payable financing, and forex currencies. Further, it provides bond account activation, bond distribution, and transaction services; related bond escrow and settlement, pledge registration, and principal and interest payment services; training and consulting services for cooperative banks; cross-border inter-bank payments system services; consignment sales of precious metal products; bond underwriting distribution; third party bond depository services; bank derivatives transfer; b-share transfer; bankfutures transfer; standard warehouse warrant pledged financing; institutional investment consulting, wealth management, and insurance services; and clearing and settlement services for future markets. The company was founded in 1908 and is headquartered in Shanghai, the Peoples Republic of China.

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Shares of National Australia Bank Ltd. (OTCMKTS:NABZY  Get Free Report) hit a new 52-week high during trading on Tuesday . The company traded as high as $16.00 and last traded at $15.8277, with a volume of 122 shares. The stock had previously closed at $15.73.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts have commented on the stock. UBS Group upgraded shares of National Australia Bank from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating in a report on Tuesday, January 27th. Macquarie Infrastructure upgraded National Australia Bank from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. Finally, Zacks Research raised National Australia Bank from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating in a research report on Monday, January 12th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $38.00.

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National Australia Bank Stock Performance

About National Australia Bank

The company has a current ratio of 1.23, a quick ratio of 1.23 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.88. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $14.27 and a 200 day moving average of $13.98.

(Get Free Report)

National Australia Bank (OTCMKTS: NABZY) is one of Australias largest banking groups, offering a broad range of financial services to retail, small business, corporate and institutional customers. Its core activities include personal and business banking  such as deposits, home and business lending, credit cards and payment services  as well as wealth management, insurance, markets and specialist lending. The bank provides transaction and cash management solutions, financing and advisory services to corporate clients and institutional investors.

Headquartered in Melbourne, NAB traces its corporate origins to a 1982 merger between the National Bank of Australasia and the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney, with precursor institutions dating to the 19th century.

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TD Cowen upgraded shares of Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY  Free Report) to a hold rating in a report released on Monday,Zacks.com reports.

Other research analysts have also issued research reports about the company. UBS Group lowered their price target on Occidental Petroleum from $45.00 to $43.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, December 12th. Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of Occidental Petroleum from a hold rating to a sell rating in a report on Sunday, January 11th. Piper Sandler increased their price target on shares of Occidental Petroleum from $46.00 to $47.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 28th. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price objective on shares of Occidental Petroleum from $44.00 to $42.00 and set a hold rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 20th. Finally, Morgan Stanley cut their target price on shares of Occidental Petroleum from $51.00 to $50.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research note on Friday, January 23rd. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, eleven have assigned a Hold rating and five have given a Sell rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Occidental Petroleum presently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $47.48.

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Occidental Petroleum Stock Down 0.9%

Occidental Petroleum stock traded down $0.42 during mid-day trading on Monday, reaching $46.24. The companys stock had a trading volume of 1,259,898 shares, compared to its average volume of 11,504,893. The businesss 50 day simple moving average is $42.45 and its 200 day simple moving average is $43.42. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.73, a quick ratio of 0.71 and a current ratio of 0.94. Occidental Petroleum has a 12 month low of $34.78 and a 12 month high of $52.58. The company has a market capitalization of $45.56 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.04 and a beta of 0.41.

Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY  Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Monday, November 10th. The oil and gas producer reported $0.64 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.48 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $6.62 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $6.66 billion. Occidental Petroleum had a net margin of 7.81% and a return on equity of 12.35%. The companys quarterly revenue was down 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.00 EPS. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Occidental Petroleum will post 3.58 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director William R. Klesse bought 5,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 16th. The shares were bought at an average price of $38.98 per share, with a total value of $194,900.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 218,913 shares of the companys stock, valued at $8,533,228.74. This trade represents a 2.34% increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. 0.49% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Occidental Petroleum

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in OXY. University of Texas Texas AM Investment Management Co. bought a new stake in shares of Occidental Petroleum in the second quarter valued at about $27,000. Activest Wealth Management boosted its holdings in Occidental Petroleum by 68.5% in the 4th quarter. Activest Wealth Management now owns 750 shares of the oil and gas producers stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 305 shares during the period. City Holding Co. grew its position in shares of Occidental Petroleum by 250.0% during the 3rd quarter. City Holding Co. now owns 700 shares of the oil and gas producers stock worth $33,000 after purchasing an additional 500 shares in the last quarter. Binnacle Investments Inc bought a new position in shares of Occidental Petroleum during the third quarter worth approximately $35,000. Finally, Hantz Financial Services Inc. raised its position in shares of Occidental Petroleum by 1,193.9% in the second quarter. Hantz Financial Services Inc. now owns 854 shares of the oil and gas producers stock valued at $36,000 after buying an additional 788 shares in the last quarter. 88.70% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About Occidental Petroleum

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Occidental Petroleum Corporation (OXY) is an international energy company engaged primarily in the exploration, production and marketing of oil and natural gas. The company conducts upstream activities to discover and produce hydrocarbons and operates complementary midstream and marketing functions to transport and sell its production. Occidental also owns a chemicals business that manufactures and sells industrial chemicals and related products for a range of end markets.

Occidentals operations are concentrated in the United States, with a significant presence in the Permian Basin, and it maintains exploration and production activities in several international regions, including parts of the Middle East, Latin America and Africa.

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Optimum Communications (NYSE:OPTU  Get Free Report) is anticipated to issue its Q4 2025 results before the market opens on Thursday, February 12th. Analysts expect the company to announce earnings of $0.02 per share for the quarter. Interested persons may review the information on the companys upcoming Q4 2025 earning report for the latest details on the call scheduled for Thursday, February 12, 2026 at 8:30 AM ET.

Optimum Communications Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:OPTU opened at $1.64 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $770.52 million, a P/E ratio of -0.41 and a beta of 1.51. Optimum Communications has a 1-year low of $1.52 and a 1-year high of $3.20. The firms 50 day simple moving average is $1.76 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $2.10.

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Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Evercore set a $2.50 price objective on shares of Optimum Communications in a research report on Friday, November 7th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a sell (d-) rating on shares of Optimum Communications in a research note on Wednesday, January 21st. Barclays decreased their price target on shares of Optimum Communications from $3.00 to $2.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, November 7th. Zacks Research downgraded shares of Optimum Communications from a hold rating to a strong sell rating in a report on Friday, January 16th. Finally, Citigroup cut their price objective on Optimum Communications from $3.25 to $2.75 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, November 12th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has issued a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of Reduce and a consensus price target of $2.55.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Optimum Communications

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Geode Capital Management LLC bought a new position in Optimum Communications in the 4th quarter valued at $10,324,000. Millennium Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Optimum Communications by 31.0% during the third quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 11,463,764 shares of the companys stock valued at $27,628,000 after purchasing an additional 2,711,903 shares in the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its position in Optimum Communications by 46.6% during the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 6,397,047 shares of the companys stock valued at $17,016,000 after acquiring an additional 2,031,971 shares in the last quarter. P Schoenfeld Asset Management LP bought a new stake in Optimum Communications during the second quarter valued at about $4,280,000. Finally, First Trust Advisors LP bought a new stake in shares of Optimum Communications in the 2nd quarter valued at about $3,829,000. 54.85% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Optimum Communications Company Profile

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Altice USA, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides broadband communications and video services in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. It offers broadband, video, telephony, and mobile services to approximately five million residential and business customers. The companys video services include delivery of broadcast stations and cable networks; over the top services; video-on-demand, high-definition channels, digital video recorder, and pay-per-view services; and platforms for video programming through mobile applications.

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ProPetro Holding Corp. (NYSE:PUMP  Get Free Report) was down 5.8% during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The company traded as low as $11.05 and last traded at $10.8890. Approximately 96,473 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 97% from the average daily volume of 2,915,860 shares. The stock had previously closed at $11.56.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Zacks Research upgraded shares of ProPetro from a strong sell rating to a hold rating in a research note on Thursday, October 23rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded ProPetro from a neutral rating to an overweight rating and raised their target price for the company from $7.00 to $13.00 in a research note on Wednesday, December 10th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a sell (d-) rating on shares of ProPetro in a report on Monday, December 29th. Piper Sandler upped their target price on ProPetro from $16.00 to $17.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 14th. Finally, Wolfe Research upgraded shares of ProPetro to a buy rating and set a $13.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, December 10th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, ProPetro presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $12.67.

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ProPetro Trading Down 4.4%

Hedge Funds Weigh In On ProPetro

The firm has a market capitalization of $1.15 billion, a P/E ratio of -64.94 and a beta of 0.77. The company has a current ratio of 1.26, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11. The companys fifty day moving average is $10.26 and its 200-day moving average is $7.82.

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Trek Financial LLC bought a new stake in shares of ProPetro in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $57,000. Dark Forest Capital Management LP acquired a new position in ProPetro during the third quarter worth $57,000. MQS Management LLC bought a new position in shares of ProPetro during the third quarter valued at $58,000. PharVision Advisers LLC acquired a new stake in shares of ProPetro in the 2nd quarter valued at $60,000. Finally, Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new stake in shares of ProPetro in the 2nd quarter worth about $60,000. 84.70% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

ProPetro Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

ProPetro Holding Corp is a publicly traded oilfield services company that specializes in hydraulic fracturing and well completion solutions for exploration and production operators. Headquartered in Midland, Texas, the company delivers a comprehensive suite of pressure pumping services designed to optimize reservoir stimulation and enhance hydrocarbon recovery. Its integrated approach encompasses well design, proppant selection, fluid systems and pressure management to support clients development targets across unconventional plays.

The companys core offerings include high-pressure fracturing, coiled tubing, cementing, acidizing and flowback services, all supported by in-house logistics and digital monitoring tools.

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A number of firms have modified their ratings and price targets on shares of Snap-On (NYSE: SNA) recently:

2/10/2026  Snap-On had its buy rating reaffirmed by analysts at Roth Mkm. They now have a $409.00 price target on the stock, up previously from $385.00.

2/7/2026  Snap-On was downgraded by analysts at Wall Street Zen from a buy rating to a hold rating.

2/6/2026  Snap-On was given a new $375.00 price target on by analysts at Robert W. Baird.

1/30/2026  Snap-On was given a new $370.00 price target on by analysts at Robert W. Baird.

1/21/2026  Snap-On had its buy (b) rating reaffirmed by analysts at Weiss Ratings.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Nicholas T. Pinchuk sold 22,607 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $339.15, for a total transaction of $7,667,164.05. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 826,364 shares in the company, valued at approximately $280,261,350.60. This trade represents a 2.66% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, SVP Jesus Arregui sold 3,831 shares of Snap-On stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $337.28, for a total transaction of $1,292,119.68. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president directly owned 2,642 shares in the company, valued at $891,093.76. The trade was a 59.18% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last three months, insiders sold 48,036 shares of company stock valued at $16,792,028. 3.90% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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SnapOn Incorporated (NYSE: SNA) is a designer, manufacturer and marketer of tools, diagnostic equipment, repair information and shop equipment for professional users. The companys product range includes hand and power tools, tool storage and cabinets, diagnostic scan tools and software, shop equipment such as lifts and tire changers, and specialized specialty tools for automotive, aviation, marine and industrial applications. SnapOn also offers information and workflow solutions that combine diagnostic data, repair procedures and parts information to support professional technicians.

Founded in 1920 and headquartered in Kenosha, Wisconsin, SnapOn has established a long history in the professional tools market.

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SVB Wealth LLC raised its position in iShares Intermediate Government/Credit Bond ETF (BATS:GVI  Free Report) by 21.1% in the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm owned 65,328 shares of the companys stock after acquiring an additional 11,364 shares during the period. SVB Wealth LLC owned approximately 0.20% of iShares Intermediate Government/Credit Bond ETF worth $7,019,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of GVI. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its holdings in shares of iShares Intermediate Government/Credit Bond ETF by 3.5% in the 2nd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 582,293 shares of the companys stock worth $62,183,000 after purchasing an additional 19,637 shares in the last quarter. Oarsman Capital Inc. raised its holdings in iShares Intermediate Government/Credit Bond ETF by 4.1% during the second quarter. Oarsman Capital Inc. now owns 322,816 shares of the companys stock worth $34,474,000 after buying an additional 12,715 shares during the last quarter. Horizon Bancorp Inc. IN raised its holdings in iShares Intermediate Government/Credit Bond ETF by 6.9% during the third quarter. Horizon Bancorp Inc. IN now owns 286,189 shares of the companys stock worth $30,747,000 after buying an additional 18,437 shares during the last quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors lifted its stake in shares of iShares Intermediate Government/Credit Bond ETF by 5.7% in the second quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 183,828 shares of the companys stock valued at $19,631,000 after buying an additional 9,923 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bessemer Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of iShares Intermediate Government/Credit Bond ETF by 5.2% during the third quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 165,297 shares of the companys stock valued at $17,759,000 after buying an additional 8,116 shares during the last quarter.

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iShares Intermediate Government/Credit Bond ETF Price Performance

BATS:GVI opened at $107.42 on Tuesday. iShares Intermediate Government/Credit Bond ETF has a one year low of $104.02 and a one year high of $108.07. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $107.36 and a 200-day moving average of $107.33.

iShares Intermediate Government/Credit Bond ETF Company Profile

The iShares Intermediate Government\u002FCredit Bond ETF (GVI) is an exchange-traded fund that mostly invests in investment grade fixed income. The fund tracks a market-value-weighted index of US Treasury, agency and investment-grade corporate bonds with remaining maturities of 1-10 years. GVI was launched on Jan 5, 2007 and is managed by BlackRock.

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SVB Wealth LLC grew its position in shares of Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY  Free Report) by 11.6% in the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 7,918 shares of the companys stock after acquiring an additional 820 shares during the quarter. SVB Wealth LLCs holdings in Eli Lilly and Company were worth $6,042,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of LLY. Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. purchased a new position in Eli Lilly and Company in the second quarter worth about $27,000. Evolution Wealth Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Eli Lilly and Company in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Steph & Co. boosted its holdings in shares of Eli Lilly and Company by 290.0% in the 3rd quarter. Steph & Co. now owns 39 shares of the companys stock worth $30,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares during the period. Financial Gravity Companies Inc. bought a new position in shares of Eli Lilly and Company during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $31,000. Finally, Bare Financial Services Inc increased its position in shares of Eli Lilly and Company by 263.6% during the 2nd quarter. Bare Financial Services Inc now owns 40 shares of the companys stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares during the last quarter. 82.53% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Eli Lilly and Company Trading Down 1.2%

Shares of NYSE LLY opened at $1,045.08 on Tuesday. Eli Lilly and Company has a twelve month low of $623.78 and a twelve month high of $1,133.95. The firm has a market cap of $988.00 billion, a PE ratio of 45.54, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.91 and a beta of 0.39. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $1,052.00 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $901.47. The company has a quick ratio of 1.24, a current ratio of 1.55 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.71.

Eli Lilly and Company Increases Dividend

Eli Lilly and Company ( NYSE:LLY Get Free Report ) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 4th. The company reported $7.54 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $7.48 by $0.06. Eli Lilly and Company had a return on equity of 112.50% and a net margin of 31.66%.The firm had revenue of $19.29 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.85 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $5.32 earnings per share. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 42.6% on a year-over-year basis. Eli Lilly and Company has set its FY 2026 guidance at 33.500-35.000 EPS. Analysts expect that Eli Lilly and Company will post 23.48 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, March 10th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 13th will be paid a dividend of $1.73 per share. This is a boost from Eli Lilly and Companys previous quarterly dividend of $1.50. This represents a $6.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.7%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 13th. Eli Lilly and Companys payout ratio is 26.14%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research analysts have commented on the stock. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on shares of Eli Lilly and Company from $1,290.00 to $1,313.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Thursday, February 5th. Rothschild & Co Redburn upped their price target on shares of Eli Lilly and Company from $775.00 to $830.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a report on Monday, January 26th. Scotiabank reissued an outperform rating and issued a $1,300.00 price objective on shares of Eli Lilly and Company in a research note on Thursday. Zacks Research lowered Eli Lilly and Company from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Friday, January 30th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reiterated a buy (b-) rating on shares of Eli Lilly and Company in a report on Monday, December 22nd. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have assigned a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $1,207.29.

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Eli Lilly and Company Company Profile

(Free Report)

Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) is a global pharmaceutical company founded in 1876 and headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. The company researches, develops, manufactures and commercializes a broad range of medicines and therapies for patients worldwide. Eli Lilly maintains operations and commercial presence across North America, Europe, Asia and other regions, serving both developed and emerging markets. The company has been led in recent years by President and Chief Executive Officer David A.

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Shares of Swedbank AB (OTCMKTS:SWDBY  Get Free Report) have earned an average rating of Reduce from the seven brokerages that are currently covering the firm, MarketBeat.com reports. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation and four have issued a hold recommendation on the company.

Several research firms recently issued reports on SWDBY. Barclays reiterated an underweight rating on shares of Swedbank in a report on Wednesday, December 10th. Citigroup reaffirmed a neutral rating on shares of Swedbank in a research note on Tuesday, January 20th. Morgan Stanley reissued an underweight rating on shares of Swedbank in a research note on Monday, November 24th. The Goldman Sachs Group lowered Swedbank from a hold rating to a sell rating in a report on Thursday, December 4th. Finally, Zacks Research lowered shares of Swedbank from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Monday, January 12th.

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Swedbank Price Performance

Swedbank stock opened at SEK 40.06 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.83, a quick ratio of 1.50 and a current ratio of 1.50. The companys fifty day moving average price is SEK 35.95 and its 200 day moving average price is SEK 31.82. The stock has a market capitalization of $45.08 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.53 and a beta of 0.67. Swedbank has a 1 year low of SEK 19.16 and a 1 year high of SEK 40.58.

Swedbank (OTCMKTS:SWDBY  Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 29th. The financial services provider reported SEK 0.77 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of SEK 0.67 by SEK 0.10. The business had revenue of SEK 1.84 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of SEK 1.79 billion. Swedbank had a net margin of 30.27% and a return on equity of 15.87%. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Swedbank will post 2.34 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

About Swedbank

(Get Free Report)

Swedbank AB is a major Swedish banking group headquartered in Stockholm that provides a broad range of financial services to retail, corporate and institutional clients. The banks operations focus on traditional banking functions such as deposit-taking, lending and payment services, as well as wealth management and insurance solutions. Swedbanks franchise is centered on serving households, small and medium-sized enterprises and larger corporate customers, with an emphasis on everyday banking and long-term client relationships.

Products and services offered by Swedbank include savings and current accounts, mortgages and consumer lending, business loans and transaction banking, payment and card services, and digital banking platforms.

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Shares of Tompkins Financial Corporation (NYSEAMERICAN:TMP  Get Free Report) saw unusually-strong trading volume on Tuesday . Approximately 134,529 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 122% from the previous sessions volume of 60,637 shares.The stock last traded at $85.9450 and had previously closed at $85.18.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

TMP has been the topic of several analyst reports. Piper Sandler assumed coverage on Tompkins Financial in a research note on Wednesday, December 3rd. They issued a neutral rating and a $74.00 target price on the stock. Zacks Research upgraded shares of Tompkins Financial to a hold rating in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Hold rating, According to MarketBeat, Tompkins Financial has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $74.00.

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Tompkins Financial Stock Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.60, a current ratio of 0.95 and a quick ratio of 0.95. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $75.67 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $69.97. The company has a market cap of $1.23 billion, a PE ratio of 7.61 and a beta of 0.79.

Tompkins Financial (NYSEAMERICAN:TMP  Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Friday, January 30th. The financial services provider reported $1.78 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $1.77 by $0.01. Tompkins Financial had a net margin of 27.82% and a return on equity of 11.19%. The firm had revenue of $257.30 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $136.16 million. Equities analysts predict that Tompkins Financial Corporation will post 5.46 EPS for the current year.

Tompkins Financial Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Sunday, February 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, February 13th will be given a $0.67 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 13th. This represents a $2.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.1%. This is an increase from Tompkins Financials previous quarterly dividend of $0.65. Tompkins Financials payout ratio is 52.53%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Tompkins Financial

In other Tompkins Financial news, Director Ita M. Rahilly purchased 1,463 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 21st. The stock was purchased at an average price of $68.36 per share, with a total value of $100,010.68. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 10,511 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $718,531.96. This trade represents a 16.17% increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Corporate insiders own 4.50% of the companys stock.

Institutional Trading of Tompkins Financial

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of Tompkins Financial by 95.4% in the third quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 551 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $36,000 after acquiring an additional 269 shares during the last quarter. IFP Advisors Inc lifted its holdings in shares of Tompkins Financial by 59,550.0% during the 4th quarter. IFP Advisors Inc now owns 1,193 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $87,000 after acquiring an additional 1,191 shares during the period. Eurizon Capital SGR S.p.A. bought a new stake in shares of Tompkins Financial in the 4th quarter valued at about $171,000. Quantbot Technologies LP acquired a new stake in Tompkins Financial in the 2nd quarter valued at $151,000. Finally, Allworth Financial LP lifted its holdings in Tompkins Financial by 3,207.7% during the second quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 2,580 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $162,000 after acquiring an additional 2,502 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 69.11% of the companys stock.

Tompkins Financial Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Tompkins Financial (NYSEAMERICAN:TMP) is a bank holding company headquartered in Ithaca, New York, that provides a diversified range of financial services. Through its principal banking subsidiary, Tompkins Trust Company, the firm offers commercial and consumer banking products including checking and savings accounts, mortgage loans, and credit facilities. Beyond traditional banking, Tompkins Financial delivers asset management, trust and estate planning, retirement services and investment advisory solutions.

In addition to its core banking operations, Tompkins Financial operates Tompkins Insurance Agencies, which offers property and casualty, life and health insurance coverages to individuals and businesses.

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Wartsila (OTCMKTS:WRTBY  Get Free Report) saw strong trading volume on Tuesday . 34,672 shares changed hands during trading, an increase of 277% from the previous sessions volume of 9,202 shares.The stock last traded at $8.32 and had previously closed at $8.34.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have commented on WRTBY shares. Citigroup reiterated a sell rating on shares of Wartsila in a research report on Thursday, January 22nd. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reaffirmed a hold rating on shares of Wartsila in a report on Thursday. Pareto Securities lowered Wartsila from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research report on Monday, January 19th. Finally, Barclays restated an underweight rating on shares of Wartsila in a research report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, Wartsila currently has an average rating of Strong Sell.

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Wartsila Stock Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 0.90. The stock has a market capitalization of $24.47 billion, a PE ratio of 35.96 and a beta of 1.23. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $7.51 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $6.55.

Wartsila (OTCMKTS:WRTBY  Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, February 4th. The company reported $0.07 earnings per share for the quarter. The business had revenue of $2.33 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.42 billion. Wartsila had a return on equity of 25.05% and a net margin of 9.08%. Research analysts expect that Wartsila will post 0.18 EPS for the current year.

Wartsila Company Profile

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Wartsila (OTCMKTS: WRTBY) is a Finnish technology company specializing in sustainable solutions for the marine and energy sectors. Founded in 1834 and headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, Wartsila designs, manufactures and services equipment ranging from marine engines and propulsion systems to complete power plants. The companys Energy Business provides flexible gas, multi-fuel and hybrid power plants, as well as long-term operation and maintenance services. In its Marine Business, Wartsila delivers integrated systems for ship design, digital operations and lifecycle support.

With a presence in over 80 countries, Wartsila serves shipowners, shipyards, power producers and utilities around the world.

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WESCO International (NYSE:WCC  Get Free Report) posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday. The technology company reported $3.40 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $3.82 by ($0.42), FiscalAI reports. WESCO International had a return on equity of 13.12% and a net margin of 2.81%.The business had revenue of $6.07 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $6.03 billion. WESCO International updated its FY 2026 guidance to 14.500-16.500 EPS.

WESCO International Trading Down 4.3%

Shares of WCC stock opened at $301.73 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $14.68 billion, a PE ratio of 23.67, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.00 and a beta of 1.45. WESCO International has a 1 year low of $125.21 and a 1 year high of $319.67. The stocks 50 day simple moving average is $272.54 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $242.21. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.18, a current ratio of 2.09 and a quick ratio of 1.20.

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WESCO International Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, December 31st. Shareholders of record on Friday, December 12th were given a dividend of $0.4538 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, December 12th. This represents a $1.82 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.6%. WESCO Internationals dividend payout ratio is 14.27%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts have recently commented on the stock. Royal Bank Of Canada raised shares of WESCO International from a sector perform rating to an outperform rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $262.00 to $302.00 in a report on Wednesday, November 19th. KeyCorp boosted their price target on shares of WESCO International from $300.00 to $304.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Monday, January 26th. Barclays increased their price objective on shares of WESCO International from $274.00 to $302.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Monday, January 12th. Wall Street Zen cut WESCO International from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Saturday, January 17th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on WESCO International from $260.00 to $290.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Friday, January 16th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have assigned a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, WESCO International currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $266.00.

Get Our Latest Report on WESCO International

Institutional Trading of WESCO International

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. BNP Paribas Financial Markets boosted its stake in WESCO International by 516.8% during the second quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 41,354 shares of the technology companys stock worth $7,659,000 after buying an additional 34,649 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. boosted its stake in shares of WESCO International by 6.2% during the 3rd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 324,068 shares of the technology companys stock worth $68,541,000 after purchasing an additional 19,056 shares during the period. Gamco Investors INC. ET AL bought a new position in WESCO International during the 2nd quarter valued at about $573,000. Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio raised its position in WESCO International by 0.9% in the 3rd quarter. Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio now owns 83,734 shares of the technology companys stock worth $17,710,000 after purchasing an additional 777 shares during the period. Finally, Danske Bank A S bought a new stake in WESCO International in the third quarter worth about $127,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 93.75% of the companys stock.

WESCO International Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

WESCO International, Inc is a leading global distributor of electrical, industrial, communications and utility products, serving a diverse customer base across maintenance, repair and operations (MRO), original equipment manufacturing (OEM) and construction markets. The company offers a comprehensive portfolio of products ranging from power distribution and automation solutions to data communications, security systems and lighting controls. Through an extensive branch network, WESCO provides critical components and valueadded services that help organizations streamline operations and improve reliability in their facilities and infrastructure.

In addition to its broad product offering, WESCO delivers advanced supply chain management and logistics solutions designed to optimize inventory levels, reduce downtime and lower overall procurement costs.

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Zanaga Iron Ore Company Limited (LON:ZIOC  Get Free Report) fell 20% during trading on Tuesday . The company traded as low as GBX 6.25 and last traded at GBX 6.72. 34,561,191 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, an increase of 929% from the average session volume of 3,359,332 shares. The stock had previously closed at GBX 8.40.

Zanaga Iron Ore Price Performance

The company has a 50-day moving average of GBX 7.60 and a 200-day moving average of GBX 7.65. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.00, a quick ratio of 2.83 and a current ratio of 0.08. The stock has a market cap of 56.60 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -9.71 and a beta of 2.44.

About Zanaga Iron Ore

(Get Free Report)

Zanaga Iron Ore Company Limited, an investment holding company, engages in the exploration and development of iron ore properties. Its flagship asset is the 100% owned Zanaga Iron Ore Project located in the south west of the Republic of Congo. The company was formerly known as Jumelles Holdings Limited and changed its name to Zanaga Iron Ore Company Limited in October 2010. Zanaga Iron Ore Company Limited was incorporated in 2009 and is based in Road Town, the British Virgin Islands.

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Applied Finance Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (NYSE:UNH  Free Report) during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund bought 8,200 shares of the healthcare conglomerates stock, valued at approximately $2,831,000.

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A number of other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Guerra Advisors Inc bought a new position in shares of UnitedHealth Group in the third quarter worth about $1,059,000. Berkshire Hathaway Inc bought a new position in UnitedHealth Group in the 2nd quarter worth about $1,572,193,000. Murphy Pohlad Asset Management LLC grew its stake in UnitedHealth Group by 21.8% in the second quarter. Murphy Pohlad Asset Management LLC now owns 4,425 shares of the healthcare conglomerates stock worth $1,380,000 after purchasing an additional 791 shares in the last quarter. Carnegie Investment Counsel raised its position in UnitedHealth Group by 2.2% during the 3rd quarter. Carnegie Investment Counsel now owns 105,621 shares of the healthcare conglomerates stock valued at $36,471,000 after purchasing an additional 2,316 shares in the last quarter. Finally, EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of UnitedHealth Group by 48.9% during the 2nd quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 5,790 shares of the healthcare conglomerates stock worth $1,806,000 after buying an additional 1,901 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 87.86% of the companys stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts recently weighed in on UNH shares. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lowered shares of UnitedHealth Group from a buy rating to a hold rating and set a $333.00 price objective for the company. in a research note on Wednesday, October 29th. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price objective on shares of UnitedHealth Group from $400.00 to $370.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, January 30th. Royal Bank Of Canada lowered their target price on UnitedHealth Group from $408.00 to $361.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 28th. Evercore raised UnitedHealth Group to a strong-buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 6th. Finally, KeyCorp reiterated an overweight rating on shares of UnitedHealth Group in a research note on Wednesday, January 28th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seventeen have assigned a Buy rating, nine have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $372.13.

UnitedHealth Group Trading Down 0.5%

Shares of NYSE:UNH opened at $275.17 on Tuesday. UnitedHealth Group Incorporated has a 1 year low of $234.60 and a 1 year high of $606.36. The firm has a market capitalization of $249.26 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.86, a P/E/G ratio of 1.27 and a beta of 0.41. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.72, a current ratio of 0.79 and a quick ratio of 0.82. The businesss 50-day moving average is $324.91 and its 200 day moving average is $323.43.

UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 27th. The healthcare conglomerate reported $2.11 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.09 by $0.02. UnitedHealth Group had a net margin of 2.69% and a return on equity of 14.79%. The firm had revenue of $113.22 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $113.38 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $6.81 EPS. UnitedHealth Groups revenue was up 12.3% on a year-over-year basis. UnitedHealth Group has set its FY 2026 guidance at 17.750- EPS. On average, research analysts predict that UnitedHealth Group Incorporated will post 29.54 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

UnitedHealth Group Company Profile

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UnitedHealth Group Inc is a diversified health care company headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota, that operates two primary business platforms: UnitedHealthcare and Optum. Founded in 1977, the company provides a broad range of health benefits and health care services to individuals, employers, governmental entities and other organizations. Its operations span commercial employer-sponsored plans, individual and Medicare and Medicaid programs, and services for customers and health systems in the United States and selected international markets.

UnitedHealthcare is the companys benefits business, administering health plans and networks, managing provider relationships, and offering coverage products for employers, individuals, and government-sponsored programs.

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Jefferies Financial Group upgraded shares of Dunelm Group (LON:DNLM  Free Report) to a buy rating in a research note released on Monday morning, Marketbeat reports. Jefferies Financial Group currently has GBX 1,075 price objective on the stock.

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Several other research firms have also issued reports on DNLM. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft cut their price target on Dunelm Group from GBX 1,360 to GBX 1,200 and set a buy rating for the company in a report on Friday, January 16th. Panmure Gordon cut their price objective on Dunelm Group from GBX 995 to GBX 830 and set a sell rating for the company in a research note on Monday, January 19th. Shore Capital Group reduced their target price on shares of Dunelm Group from GBX 1,300 to GBX 1,200 and set a buy rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 27th. Royal Bank Of Canada raised shares of Dunelm Group to an outperform rating and lifted their price target for the company from GBX 1,200 to GBX 1,300 in a report on Monday, November 3rd. Finally, Berenberg Bank reduced their price objective on shares of Dunelm Group from GBX 1,480 to GBX 1,425 and set a buy rating for the company in a research note on Friday, January 16th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of GBX 1,216.67.

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Dunelm Group Trading Up 0.7%

Insider Activity

Shares of DNLM stock opened at GBX 936.50 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 236.84, a current ratio of 1.04 and a quick ratio of 0.16. The company has a market cap of 1.90 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.19, a PEG ratio of -10.32 and a beta of 1.18. Dunelm Group has a 1 year low of GBX 836.61 and a 1 year high of GBX 1,249. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of GBX 1,058.25 and a 200-day moving average price of GBX 1,113.67.

In related news, insider Karen Witts bought 10,790 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 1st. The shares were purchased at an average price of GBX 1,104 per share, with a total value of 119,121.60. 34.15% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Dunelm Group Company Profile

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Dunelm is the UKs market leader in homewares with a purpose to help create the joy of truly feeling at home, now and for generations to come. Its specialist customer proposition offers value, quality, choice and style across an extensive range of c.70,000 products, spanning multiple homewares and furniture categories and including services such as Made to Measure window treatments.

The business was founded in 1979 by the Adderley family, beginning as a curtains stall on Leicester market before expanding its store footprint.

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Winslow Asset Management Inc. decreased its stake in shares of Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY  Free Report) by 1.9% during the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 31,616 shares of the companys stock after selling 609 shares during the period. Eli Lilly and Company accounts for 4.5% of Winslow Asset Management Inc.s investment portfolio, making the stock its 5th largest position. Winslow Asset Management Inc.s holdings in Eli Lilly and Company were worth $24,123,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

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Other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of Eli Lilly and Company by 78,621.2% in the second quarter. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 11,552,336 shares of the companys stock worth $9,005,392,000 after buying an additional 11,537,661 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in Eli Lilly and Company in the 2nd quarter worth about $8,827,714,000. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Eli Lilly and Company by 1.5% in the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 80,407,430 shares of the companys stock valued at $62,680,004,000 after acquiring an additional 1,183,038 shares in the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. boosted its position in shares of Eli Lilly and Company by 13.4% during the 2nd quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 4,766,865 shares of the companys stock valued at $3,715,913,000 after acquiring an additional 564,736 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board grew its holdings in shares of Eli Lilly and Company by 87.2% during the second quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board now owns 1,152,281 shares of the companys stock worth $898,238,000 after purchasing an additional 536,679 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.53% of the companys stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

LLY has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Leerink Partners raised their target price on shares of Eli Lilly and Company from $1,234.00 to $1,296.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Thursday, February 5th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of Eli Lilly and Company from $1,150.00 to $1,300.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. Guggenheim cut their target price on shares of Eli Lilly and Company from $1,163.00 to $1,161.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, January 20th. The Goldman Sachs Group set a $1,260.00 target price on Eli Lilly and Company in a research note on Thursday. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein restated an outperform rating on shares of Eli Lilly and Company in a research report on Friday, December 19th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have given a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $1,207.29.

Eli Lilly and Company Stock Performance

Eli Lilly and Company stock opened at $1,045.08 on Tuesday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.24, a current ratio of 1.55 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.71. The company has a market capitalization of $988.00 billion, a PE ratio of 45.54, a P/E/G ratio of 0.91 and a beta of 0.39. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $1,052.00 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $901.47. Eli Lilly and Company has a twelve month low of $623.78 and a twelve month high of $1,133.95.

Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 4th. The company reported $7.54 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $7.48 by $0.06. The firm had revenue of $19.29 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $17.85 billion. Eli Lilly and Company had a return on equity of 112.50% and a net margin of 31.66%.The companys revenue for the quarter was up 42.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm earned $5.32 earnings per share. Eli Lilly and Company has set its FY 2026 guidance at 33.500-35.000 EPS. Research analysts expect that Eli Lilly and Company will post 23.48 EPS for the current year.

Eli Lilly and Company Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, March 10th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 13th will be paid a dividend of $1.73 per share. This represents a $6.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.7%. This is a boost from Eli Lilly and Companys previous quarterly dividend of $1.50. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 13th. Eli Lilly and Companys payout ratio is currently 26.14%.

Key Eli Lilly and Company News

Here are the key news stories impacting Eli Lilly and Company this week:

About Eli Lilly and Company

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Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) is a global pharmaceutical company founded in 1876 and headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. The company researches, develops, manufactures and commercializes a broad range of medicines and therapies for patients worldwide. Eli Lilly maintains operations and commercial presence across North America, Europe, Asia and other regions, serving both developed and emerging markets. The company has been led in recent years by President and Chief Executive Officer David A.

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Ibstock (LON:IBST  Free Report) had its target price trimmed by Jefferies Financial Group from GBX 165 to GBX 145 in a research report released on Monday, Marketbeat.com reports. The firm currently has a buy rating on the stock.

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IBST has been the topic of a number of other research reports. Berenberg Bank cut their price objective on shares of Ibstock from GBX 150 to GBX 135 and set a hold rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, January 21st. Royal Bank Of Canada cut their price target on shares of Ibstock from GBX 210 to GBX 170 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, October 15th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Ibstock presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of GBX 160.

Check Out Our Latest Research Report on IBST

Ibstock Price Performance

Ibstock Company Profile

IBST opened at GBX 132.80 on Monday. The firm has a market capitalization of 524.17 million, a PE ratio of 44.27, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.47 and a beta of 1.34. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 46.91, a current ratio of 1.37 and a quick ratio of 1.19. The businesss 50-day moving average is GBX 134.58 and its two-hundred day moving average is GBX 135.98. Ibstock has a 1 year low of GBX 113.78 and a 1 year high of GBX 200.50.

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Ibstock plc manufactures and sells clay and concrete building products and solutions to customers in the residential construction sector in the United Kingdom. The company offers bricks and masonry, which includes facing and engineering bricks, brick slips, special shaped bricks, walling stone, architectural masonry, prefabricated components, eco-habitats, and padstones and lintels, as well as facade systems; roofing products comprising roof tiles and accessories, and chimneys; and flooring and lintels, such as beam and block flooring, insulated flooring, hollowcore, and screed rails.

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Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT  Get Free Report) traded up 2.3% during trading on Monday following a dividend announcement from the company. The company traded as high as $638.97 and last traded at $638.19. 1,570,681 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 27% from the average session volume of 2,156,113 shares. The stock had previously closed at $623.58.

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The newly announced dividend which will be paid on Friday, March 27th. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 2nd will be paid a dividend of $3.45 per share. This represents a $13.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.2%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 2nd. Lockheed Martins dividend payout ratio is currently 64.22%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have recently commented on LMT. Morgan Stanley set a $675.00 price objective on Lockheed Martin in a research report on Wednesday, February 4th. TD Cowen raised their price target on Lockheed Martin from $600.00 to $670.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a research note on Friday, January 30th. DZ Bank cut Lockheed Martin from a buy rating to a hold rating and set a $665.00 price target for the company. in a report on Tuesday, February 3rd. UBS Group increased their price objective on shares of Lockheed Martin from $580.00 to $663.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a report on Monday, February 2nd. Finally, Citigroup raised their target price on shares of Lockheed Martin from $592.00 to $673.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Thursday. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, fourteen have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Lockheed Martin presently has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $612.50.

Lockheed Martin Stock Up 2.3%

The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $530.22 and a 200-day moving average price of $488.63. The firm has a market cap of $146.83 billion, a PE ratio of 29.70, a PEG ratio of 1.12 and a beta of 0.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.05, a quick ratio of 0.94 and a current ratio of 1.09.

Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT  Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The aerospace company reported $5.80 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $6.33 by ($0.53). Lockheed Martin had a net margin of 6.69% and a return on equity of 108.53%. The business had revenue of $20.32 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $19.84 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $7.67 EPS. The companys quarterly revenue was up 9.1% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts expect that Lockheed Martin Corporation will post 27.15 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Trading of Lockheed Martin

Large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. United Financial Planning Group LLC acquired a new position in Lockheed Martin during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $25,000. Barnes Dennig Private Wealth Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Lockheed Martin by 285.7% during the third quarter. Barnes Dennig Private Wealth Management LLC now owns 54 shares of the aerospace companys stock valued at $27,000 after purchasing an additional 40 shares during the period. Grey Fox Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Lockheed Martin during the third quarter worth $27,000. Mid American Wealth Advisory Group Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Lockheed Martin during the second quarter worth $28,000. Finally, Twin Peaks Wealth Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Lockheed Martin in the second quarter valued at $29,000. 74.19% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Lockheed Martin

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Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE: LMT) is a global aerospace and defense company that designs, develops and manufactures advanced technology systems for government and commercial customers. Formed through the 1995 merger of Lockheed Corporation and Martin Marietta, the company is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, and focuses on providing integrated solutions across air, space, land and sea domains. Its primary customers include the U.S. Department of Defense, NASA and allied governments around the world.

Lockheed Martins product and service portfolio spans military aircraft, missile and fire-control systems, missile defense, space systems and satellite technologies, sensors and precision weapons.

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Newmont Corporation (NYSE:NEM  Get Free Report)s share price traded up 4.8% during mid-day trading on Monday after Royal Bank Of Canada raised their price target on the stock from $120.00 to $125.00. Royal Bank Of Canada currently has an outperform rating on the stock. Newmont traded as high as $121.11 and last traded at $120.80. 7,377,601 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 30% from the average session volume of 10,493,124 shares. The stock had previously closed at $115.32.

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Other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports about the stock. BNP Paribas Exane cut shares of Newmont from an outperform rating to a hold rating and set a $97.00 price objective for the company. in a research report on Friday, December 5th. TD Cowen raised their price target on Newmont from $89.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a hold rating in a research note on Thursday, January 22nd. UBS Group reaffirmed a buy rating and set a $160.00 price objective on shares of Newmont in a research report on Friday, January 30th. Jefferies Financial Group increased their price objective on Newmont from $120.00 to $136.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Tuesday, January 20th. Finally, Macquarie Infrastructure raised their target price on Newmont from $115.00 to $126.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Friday. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of Buy and an average target price of $124.83.

Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on NEM

Insider Activity at Newmont

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

In other news, Director Bruce R. Brook sold 2,080 shares of Newmont stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $92.36, for a total transaction of $192,108.80. Following the sale, the director owned 32,709 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,021,003.24. The trade was a 5.98% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link . Company insiders own 0.05% of the companys stock.

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in NEM. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Newmont in the 2nd quarter valued at $919,170,000. Invesco Ltd. grew its position in Newmont by 45.0% during the 2nd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 15,587,917 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $908,152,000 after purchasing an additional 4,839,447 shares during the last quarter. Boston Partners increased its stake in Newmont by 4,090.7% in the second quarter. Boston Partners now owns 4,643,057 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $272,558,000 after purchasing an additional 4,532,263 shares during the period. LSV Asset Management acquired a new position in Newmont in the second quarter valued at $187,206,000. Finally, Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. raised its holdings in shares of Newmont by 172.2% in the third quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 4,304,215 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $362,888,000 after buying an additional 2,723,044 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 68.85% of the companys stock.

Newmont Stock Up 4.8%

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 2.04 and a quick ratio of 1.74. The firms 50 day moving average price is $107.62 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $89.60. The firm has a market cap of $131.82 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.76, a P/E/G ratio of 0.88 and a beta of 0.40.

About Newmont

(Get Free Report)

Newmont Corporation (NYSE: NEM) is a leading global gold mining company engaged in the exploration, development, processing and reclamation of gold properties. The companys core business centers on the production of gold, with additional byproduct metals produced from its operations. Newmont operates a portfolio of longlived mines and development projects, and its activities span the full mine life cycle from early-stage exploration through to mining, milling and closure.

Founded in 1921 and headquartered in Greenwood Village, Colorado, Newmont has grown through organic development and strategic acquisitions.

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Several analysts have recently updated their ratings and price targets for Axis Capital (NYSE: AXS):

2/2/2026  Axis Capital was given a new $141.00 price target on by analysts at Mizuho.

2/2/2026  Axis Capital had its buy rating reaffirmed by analysts at UBS Group AG.

1/30/2026  Axis Capital was given a new $130.00 price target on by analysts at UBS Group AG.

1/30/2026  Axis Capital had its buy rating reaffirmed by analysts at Jefferies Financial Group Inc.. They now have a $122.00 price target on the stock.

1/30/2026  Axis Capital had its price target lowered by analysts at Wells Fargo & Company from $124.00 to $121.00. They now have an overweight rating on the stock.

1/30/2026  Axis Capital had its price target raised by analysts at Royal Bank Of Canada from $125.00 to $130.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

1/29/2026  Axis Capital had its buy rating reaffirmed by analysts at Roth Mkm. They now have a $120.00 price target on the stock.

1/29/2026  Axis Capital had its price target lowered by analysts at Bank of America Corporation from $119.00 to $115.00. They now have a neutral rating on the stock.

1/22/2026  Axis Capital was downgraded by analysts at Weiss Ratings from a buy (a-) rating to a buy (b) rating.

1/13/2026  Axis Capital had its price target raised by analysts at Wells Fargo & Company from $118.00 to $124.00. They now have an overweight rating on the stock.

1/7/2026  Axis Capital had its neutral rating reaffirmed by analysts at The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.. They now have a $110.00 price target on the stock.

1/6/2026  Axis Capital had its price target raised by analysts at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods from $121.00 to $130.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

1/6/2026  Axis Capital had its neutral rating reaffirmed by analysts at Bank of America Corporation. They now have a $115.00 price target on the stock, down previously from $116.00.

12/29/2025  Axis Capital had its buy (a-) rating reaffirmed by analysts at Weiss Ratings.

12/22/2025  Axis Capital was upgraded by analysts at Weiss Ratings from a buy (b+) rating to a buy (a-) rating.

12/15/2025  Axis Capital is now covered by analysts at Mizuho. They set an outperform rating and a $133.00 price target on the stock.

12/15/2025  Axis Capital was upgraded by analysts at Mizuho to a strong-buy rating.

Axis Capital Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 15th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, December 31st were paid a dividend of $0.44 per share. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.7%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, December 31st. Axis Capitals dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 14.21%.

AXIS Capital Holdings Limited, through its subsidiaries, provides various specialty insurance and reinsurance products in Bermuda, the United States, and internationally. It operates through two segments, Insurance and Reinsurance. The Insurance segment offers professional insurance products that cover directors' and officers' liability, errors and omissions, employment practices, fiduciary, crime, professional indemnity, medical malpractice, and other financial insurance related coverages for commercial enterprises, financial institutions, not-for-profit organizations, and other professional service providers; and property insurance products for commercial buildings, residential premises, construction projects, property in transit, onshore renewable energy installations, and physical damage and business interruption following an act of terrorism.

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Midwest Trust Co grew its stake in Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE:UNP  Free Report) by 2.8% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 281,036 shares of the railroad operators stock after purchasing an additional 7,759 shares during the quarter. Union Pacific makes up approximately 0.9% of Midwest Trust Cos holdings, making the stock its 28th biggest holding. Midwest Trust Cos holdings in Union Pacific were worth $66,428,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

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A number of other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Union Pacific in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $1,856,340,000. Fisher Asset Management LLC lifted its stake in Union Pacific by 0.7% during the second quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 6,398,715 shares of the railroad operators stock worth $1,472,217,000 after purchasing an additional 46,436 shares during the last quarter. Amundi boosted its holdings in Union Pacific by 35.6% in the second quarter. Amundi now owns 4,782,577 shares of the railroad operators stock worth $1,134,236,000 after purchasing an additional 1,255,231 shares during the period. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its stake in Union Pacific by 32.8% during the second quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 3,152,042 shares of the railroad operators stock valued at $725,222,000 after purchasing an additional 778,411 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Union Pacific by 22,618.2% during the second quarter. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 2,624,636 shares of the railroad operators stock worth $603,876,000 after purchasing an additional 2,613,083 shares during the period. 80.38% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

UNP has been the subject of several research reports. Royal Bank Of Canada set a $280.00 price target on shares of Union Pacific in a report on Thursday, December 18th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft set a $245.00 target price on Union Pacific in a report on Thursday, December 11th. Raymond James Financial reissued a strong-buy rating on shares of Union Pacific in a report on Tuesday, January 27th. The Goldman Sachs Group restated a neutral rating and set a $267.00 price objective on shares of Union Pacific in a research report on Tuesday, January 27th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their target price on Union Pacific from $270.00 to $265.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, January 28th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirteen have assigned a Buy rating and ten have given a Hold rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $258.32.

Union Pacific Trading Up 0.7%

Shares of UNP stock opened at $254.46 on Tuesday. Union Pacific Corporation has a 1 year low of $204.66 and a 1 year high of $254.94. The firm has a market capitalization of $150.94 billion, a PE ratio of 21.26, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.75 and a beta of 0.98. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $234.32 and a two-hundred day moving average of $227.64. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.64, a quick ratio of 0.60 and a current ratio of 0.91.

Union Pacific (NYSE:UNP  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 27th. The railroad operator reported $2.86 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $2.92 by ($0.06). The company had revenue of $6.09 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $6.15 billion. Union Pacific had a net margin of 29.12% and a return on equity of 40.89%. Union Pacifics revenue for the quarter was down .6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $2.91 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts expect that Union Pacific Corporation will post 11.99 EPS for the current year.

Union Pacific Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, March 31st. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 27th will be issued a $1.38 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 27th. This represents a $5.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.2%. Union Pacifics dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 46.12%.

Union Pacific Profile

(Free Report)

Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE: UNP) is one of the largest freight railroad companies in the United States. Its principal operating subsidiary, Union Pacific Railroad, has roots that trace back to the Pacific Railway Act of 1862 and the construction of the first transcontinental rail link completed in 1869. The company is headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, and operates as a holding company for rail transportation and related services.

Union Pacifics core business is the movement of freight by rail across an extensive rail network serving the western twothirds of the United States.

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Winslow Asset Management Inc. cut its stake in shares of The Charles Schwab Corporation (NYSE:SCHW  Free Report) by 3.8% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 154,132 shares of the financial services providers stock after selling 6,006 shares during the quarter. Charles Schwab makes up about 2.8% of Winslow Asset Management Inc.s portfolio, making the stock its 10th largest position. Winslow Asset Management Inc.s holdings in Charles Schwab were worth $14,715,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

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Several other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of SCHW. Rockland Trust Co. lifted its stake in shares of Charles Schwab by 8.9% in the third quarter. Rockland Trust Co. now owns 263,231 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $25,131,000 after buying an additional 21,611 shares in the last quarter. First National Trust Co lifted its position in Charles Schwab by 82.2% in the 3rd quarter. First National Trust Co now owns 89,224 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $8,518,000 after acquiring an additional 40,257 shares in the last quarter. Wealthfront Advisers LLC lifted its position in Charles Schwab by 9.5% in the 3rd quarter. Wealthfront Advisers LLC now owns 184,221 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $17,588,000 after acquiring an additional 15,973 shares in the last quarter. Navellier & Associates Inc. boosted its stake in Charles Schwab by 39.7% during the 3rd quarter. Navellier & Associates Inc. now owns 10,755 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $1,027,000 after purchasing an additional 3,055 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. increased its holdings in Charles Schwab by 1.3% during the 3rd quarter. Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. now owns 39,169 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $3,739,000 after purchasing an additional 494 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 84.38% of the companys stock.

Trending Headlines about Charles Schwab

Here are the key news stories impacting Charles Schwab this week:

Insider Buying and Selling at Charles Schwab

Charles Schwab Price Performance

In other Charles Schwab news, insider Jonathan S. Beatty sold 3,072 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $98.00, for a total value of $301,056.00. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 11,923 shares in the company, valued at $1,168,454. The trade was a 20.49% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website . Also, Chairman Walter W. Bettinger sold 162,462 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $103.90, for a total value of $16,879,801.80. Following the transaction, the chairman directly owned 529,346 shares in the company, valued at $54,999,049.40. This represents a 23.48% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing . Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 272,077 shares of company stock valued at $28,285,973. Company insiders own 6.30% of the companys stock.

Shares of NYSE:SCHW opened at $107.15 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $190.40 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.99, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.85 and a beta of 0.94. The companys 50-day moving average is $100.55 and its 200 day moving average is $96.71. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47, a quick ratio of 0.58 and a current ratio of 0.58. The Charles Schwab Corporation has a fifty-two week low of $65.88 and a fifty-two week high of $107.27.

Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 21st. The financial services provider reported $1.39 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.32 by $0.07. Charles Schwab had a net margin of 37.01% and a return on equity of 22.07%. The business had revenue of $6.34 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $6.19 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.01 earnings per share. The companys revenue for the quarter was up 18.9% on a year-over-year basis. Charles Schwab has set its FY 2026 guidance at 5.700-5.800 EPS. On average, equities research analysts forecast that The Charles Schwab Corporation will post 4.22 earnings per share for the current year.

Charles Schwab Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 27th. Investors of record on Friday, February 13th will be paid a $0.32 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 13th. This is a positive change from Charles Schwabs previous quarterly dividend of $0.27. This represents a $1.28 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.2%. Charles Schwabs dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 23.18%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on SCHW. Barclays raised their target price on Charles Schwab from $125.00 to $126.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Monday, January 26th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft restated a buy rating and set a $131.00 price objective on shares of Charles Schwab in a research note on Thursday, January 22nd. UBS Group upped their target price on shares of Charles Schwab from $123.00 to $125.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, January 22nd. JMP Securities reissued a market outperform rating and set a $110.00 price target on shares of Charles Schwab in a research report on Friday, October 17th. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on shares of Charles Schwab from $139.00 to $148.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Monday, December 22nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, sixteen have given a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $115.65.

Check Out Our Latest Research Report on SCHW

Charles Schwab Company Profile

(Free Report)

Charles Schwab Corporation (NYSE: SCHW) is a diversified financial services firm that provides brokerage, banking, wealth management and advisory services to individual investors, independent investment advisors and institutional clients. Its primary offerings include retail brokerage accounts, online trading platforms, Schwab-branded mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), retirement plan services, custodial services for independent Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs), and banking products through Charles Schwab Bank.

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The funeral of a well-known and highly-respected businesswoman, who passed away suddenly on Friday, will take place tomorrow (Tuesday).

The untimely death of Helen Shivers (nee Eves) has sent shockwaves through the south Derry community.

Alongside her husband Charlie, the mother-of-four, who lived in Castledawson, helped to build the foundations of the family business, Shivers Business Park.

The business park on the Hillhead Road, Toomebridge houses more than 30 businesses and employs upwards of 300 people.

In 2021, Helen was named Northern Ireland Businessperson Of The Year in recognition of her contribution to Northern Irish business.

A native of Co Fermanagh, Helen developed a 'strong work ethic' at an early age according to Ederney Community Development Trust, based in Helen's home village.

Paying a heartfelt tribute to the much-loved grandmother, the organisation said: Born and raised in Gortgeran, Ederney, Helen was one of ten children in a busy and close-knit family. From an early age she developed a strong work ethic and a love of people, beginning her first job in a retail shop at just 14 years old. She thrived on meeting customers and took great pride in every role she undertook, a passion for work and enterprise that would remain with her throughout her life.

At the age of 21, Helen left Ederney to marry her husband Charlie, a plumber, and together they settled in County Derry. In those early years, Helen played a vital role in building the foundations of the family business. Working tirelessly behind the scenes, she managed administration, purchasing and accounts, helping to run the growing operation from a humble hayshed on the farm. What began as a small family venture was driven forward by Helens determination, vision and unwavering belief in what they could achieve together.

While travelling to a wedding in London, Helen spotted a derelict industrial site for sale at Toome, Co Antrim, a moment that would change the course of her working life. Seeing potential where others saw ruin, she and Charlie purchased the property and began transforming it. This marked the beginning of Helens successful journey into the commercial property sector. With the support of her husband and children, she helped grow the business park from a shell of old buildings into a thriving hub that now houses more than thirty-two businesses and provides employment for over 300 people.

Helen's Requiem Mass will take place tomorrow, Tuesday, February 10, at 2pm in the Church of St Mary, Lavey. A private cremation will follow.

Helen is survived by her husband Charlie, children Cathal, Laura, Jayne and Rachel and extended family circle.
Sinn Fein's Caoimhe Archibald MLA and Councillor Kathleen McGurk have been selected by East Derry members to contest the 2027 Assembly election.

Speaking after the selection convention last night (Monday), Caoimhe Archibald MLA said: I am honoured to once again receive the confidence of party members in East Derry. It is a privilege to represent this constituency, and I remain absolutely committed to delivering for workers, families and communities.

At a time when people are facing rising costs, pressure on public services and a lack of investment, Sinn Fein is focused on protecting workers, supporting local businesses, expanding apprenticeships and securing good, well-paid jobs.

"My priority is ensuring East Derry gets its fair share and has a strong voice at the Executive table.

Kathleen McGurk said: I am delighted to have been selected to run alongside Caoimhe Archibald MLA in East Derry.

I have worked hard as a councillor to stand up for local communities and to deliver for people on the ground. I now want to take that work to the Assembly, fighting for better public services, investment and opportunities for East Derry.

Both candidates said the selection of a strong Sinn Fein team underlined the partys determination to strengthen republican representation in the constituency with a strong mandate to deliver progressive change across Ireland.

Caoimhe Archibald said: Sinn Fein is leading the way in campaigning for and delivering progressive change, north and south.

Returning two strong and effective republican MLAs in East Derry as part of a strengthened Sinn Fein team will increase our ability to deliver for communities and ensure local priorities are reflected in Executive decision-making.

Councillor McGurk added: Just as I have done as a councillor, if elected to the Assembly, I will be a strong, accessible voice for local people and part of a Sinn Fein team committed to delivering for East Derry at every level of government.
For many students at the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE), applying for a scholarship through the CAFRE Industry Support Programme offers the opportunity to complete a oneyear paid placement with a leading agrifood business.

Successful students also receive a 2,500 cash payment to support secondyear study costs.

For Anna Short, a BSc (Hons) Sustainable Agriculture student at Greenmount Campus, securing a scholarship through the CAFRE Industry Support Programme with Pilgrims Europe has set her on a career path she is now excited to pursue.

Anna comes from a sheep farm between Moneymore and Cookstown, where agriculture has always been part of everyday life.

Combined with her involvement in Moneymore Young Farmers Club, this inspired her to study agriculture.

Through her scholarship with Pilgrims Europe, Agriculture Division, Anna has gained experience across several poultry teams, including hatcheries and the broiler production team.

The rotational nature of the programme has helped her understand the industry from several angles, an experience she described as invaluable.

Her first role was at the Donaghmore Hatchery, a broiler hatchery where she worked on incubation profiles across different chicken breeds, gained experience in chick dispatch and logistics, and managed small operational projects. She then moved to Carn Hatchery, where she expanded her understanding of breeder operations and supported quality control and process management.

Anna is now part of the Broiler Team at Nutts Corner, initially assisting in running a broiler farm for a full crop of birds. She is currently covering a Farm Compliance Manager role which is a significant achievement for a placement student. She helps prepare farms for Red Tractor audits, ensures animal welfare standards are upheld, and manages compliance documentation.

Anna credits her studies for giving her a strong foundation.

In second year, we completed a module on Sustainable Pig and Poultry Production, and it gave me a solid grounding before my placement. Subjects we covered in class such as ventilation, bedding, and temperature are now part of my daily work. Seeing the science behind broiler environments in action has greatly reinforced my understanding, she said.

One of the biggest surprises has been her enthusiasm for poultry.

I never thought Id enjoy working in poultry so much, but its been great, she says. Its definitely where I see myself after graduating.

Pilgrims Europe also places strong emphasis on personal and leadership development. Anna meets regularly with other placement and graduate students from across the UK and Ireland for threeday development sessions focused on communication, time management, and understanding individual working styles. These events have helped her build a strong professional network.

Ive met people from every level of the business, including heads of UK agriculture teams, she says. Those connections will make a real difference when I start applying for jobs.

Looking ahead, Annas ambitions are clear: After I finish my degree, Id love to come back to Pilgrims Europe, whether through their graduate programme or in a fulltime role. I know its a fantastic place to start my career. Im so glad I took this placement. The opportunities Ive been given since last June have been incredible.

Annas experience demonstrates just how beneficial a placement year can be. It offers students realworld application of academic learning, exposure to different sectors within agriculture, increased confidence through responsibility, professional development opportunities, and greater clarity on future career direction.

Join us at our Agriculture Open Day at Greenmount Campus on Friday 13 March to discover how our industry partnerships, placement opportunities, and handson learning can kickstart your agricultural career. Book your place at cafre.ac.uk
With over 50 years of collective service to Derry Credit Union, two senior and long-serving staff members were honoured at a special dinner in the Bishops Gate Hotel on Tuesday last.

Chief Executive Officer Joan Gallagher and Education and Training Officer Mary Crumley were celebrated with the DCU President, Delma Boggs describing the service that both ladies have given to Derry and the local community as something that might never be seen again.

In attendance at Tuesdays function were president of the Irish League of Credit Unions, Brendan Jenkins, vice president Patricia Doherty, Derry Credit Union president Thelma Boggs, Derry Credit Union board of directors, staff and family members.

The two retirees were presented with glass crystal vases and bouquets of flowers with speeches from both ILCU and DCU presidents, before a sumptuous dinner was enjoyed by all in attendance.

Addressing the function, Delma Boggs, President, Derry Credit Union said: With over 50 years of combined service, our esteemed colleagues Joan and Mary have been the heart and soul of Derry Credit Union. Their innovative leadership has not only built a stronger institution but a more connected community, leaving a legacy of empowerment and integrity that will inspire and impact us for generations to come in Derry and beyond.

READ NEXT: Heartfelt send-off for Derry Credit Union stalwarts Joan and Mary

Ms. Boggs also paid a special tribute to long-term board member Leo Simpson who has held the post of director for fifty years.

She added: Indeed, we are also very proud of our very own Leo Simpson who was presented with a special medal from the Irish League of Credit Unions here tonight. This is a truly remarkable achievement for Leo and, of course, for Derry Credit Union.

The two ladies addressed the attendance thanking everyone for their kind wishes and both stating that they were looking forward to their retirements but would also keep all at Derry Credit Union close to their hearts.

Joan will now take up the role as Parliamentarian at the Irish League of Credit Unions AGM and Mary will remain involved in a voluntary role in the Derry Credit Union.
Derry Magistrate's Court heard today how a van was observed driving the wrong way along Queen's Quay before going up a one way street and proceeding up Shipquay Street.

Iamandi Sorin (48) a Romanian national of no fixed abode admitted a series of driving offences that occurred on February 9 in the early hours of the morning.

The court heard that after being observed going the wrong way police stopped the van driven by the defendant and there wasa strong smell of alcohol.

Several empty beer bottles were found in the van and the defendant refused to give a preliminary breath sample.

Sorin was arrested and refused and evidential breath test.

READ NEXT: Bail granted to Derry man facing non-fatal strangulation and domestic abuse charges

The court was told that the van was registered to a Dublin company.

A defence solicitor said that the defendant was unfamiliar with the area as he was on a short term contract.

She said he had admitted having one bottle of beer but said others used the van and the other bottles may have belonged to them.

Sirin was fined 600 with an immediate warrant and disqualified from driving for 12 months.
No new restaurants in Great Britain and Ireland have been awarded the illustrious three Michelin star rating, despite much speculation Irelands first would be named.

Michelin revealed its latest guide at a ceremony in Dublin on Monday night, the first time the event has been held in the country.

Ten restaurants retained their three Michelin star status, but no new names were added to the prestigious list.

There had been predictions Ireland had been chosen to host the event because the countrys first three star restaurant would be added to the guide.

Two eateries, Row on 5 and Bonheur by Matt Abe, both in London, were elevated to two-star status.

Among the 20 recipients of their first Michelin star is Fifty Two at Rudding Park in Harrogate  which is known for its Dessert Islands Discs, where guests choose music to play and chef Adam Degg said they try to create a party in the restaurant.

Mare by Rafael Cagali became the first Michelin stared restaurant in Brighton and Hove in nearly 50 years.

Two Restaurants Newly Awarded Two MICHELIN Stars in The MICHELIN Guide Great Britain & Ireland 2026From the latest Two-Star restaurants to 20 new One-Stars and five Special Awards, discover everything you need to know from The MICHELIN Guide Ceremony 2026https://t.co/AzM6wSXDOt pic.twitter.com/upeF3Z5zkm  The MICHELIN Guide (@MichelinGuideUK) February 9, 2026

A Galway restaurant, The Pullman  which is housed in two restored Orient Express carriages, also picked up a star.

Alexander Claridge, of The Wilderness in Birmingham  which also collected its first star, said the city doesnt take itself too seriously, but it is serious about food.

When you love what you do, its easy and we love what we do, was John Wyer of Forest Avenue in Dublins response when his restaurant was awarded a star.

The 2026 Young Chef Award went to Tom Earnshaw of Bohemia on Jersey.

He said he was inspired by walking his dog on the beach, saying it is one of the benefits of working on an island, and adding: Just nice to get away from it all sometimes.

Sebbs in the centre of Glasgow received the Exceptional Cocktail Award.

Shwen Shwen in Kent was named Opening of the Year, it describes itself as bringing the flavours of Sierra Leone to the heart of Sevenoaks.

Maria Bradford said her familys restaurant literally represents the underrepresented.

New MICHELIN-Star Restaurants for 2026 in Great Britain & Ireland Discover all of Great Britain & Irelands brand-new MICHELIN-Star restaurants, from grand historic settings to neighbourhood hauntshttps://t.co/7v3gh3Z9gq pic.twitter.com/crXvzj8lT6  The MICHELIN Guide (@MichelinGuideUK) February 9, 2026

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay handed out the prize for Sommelier of the Year, which went to Roxane Dupuy of Row on 5 in London.

He also gave out the Service Award which went to Barbara Nealon of Saint Francis Provisions in Kinsale, Co Cork.

When asked what makes great services, she quipped just liking your customers.

Green stars were also awarded to seven restaurants who have embraced a responsible and mindful approach to gastronomy.

In a video address played during the ceremony, the guides international director, Gwendal Poullennec, described the evening as a true historic event for Irish hospitality.

He added that it was a milestone that recognises not only exceptional cooking, but the people, places and passion that define Irish food culture and hospitality.
A collaborative approach must remain in the removal of illegal flags, the representative body for police officers has said.

It comes as the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) issues new guidance to officers around the approach to the removal of material they receive complaints about.

These range from paramilitary flags, racist displays and items on bonfires.

Deputy Chief Constable Bobby Singleton told the Northern Ireland Policing Board last Thursday that police receive complaints around public displays almost every day, but these spike around particular times of year.

He said they have issued a new service instruction to officers around what is expected of them, how they should respond, how to report and how to investigate the incidents.

There has been significant public and stakeholder criticism in the past of the services response, he said.

Theres also been criticism from people when they say that were not acting consistently it leaves people with the perception at times that we maybe dont care about their concerns, or worse, that were somehow complicit with some of the sentiment thats being displayed as well.

So this service instruction really sets out the organisations position. It aims to assist the officers and staff in understanding our legal obligations, and importantly, it aims to make sure that were consistent in our approach to reported incidents and crimes, and being consistent in our approach is key.

He added: So were really clear that when it comes to the display of any material that constitutes an offence, the PSNI has a clear obligation to act, in particular where the continued display of that material is or would cause harm.

This will principally be about us investigating, because thats what our core responsibility is. Importantly, though, we will still retain the discretion to determine what steps can be lawfully taken within our statutory functions and in accordance with human rights.

The emphatic thing in this policy position is, however, that not making a decision, doing nothing or failing to act is not an option.

In terms of the removal of material, he said the primary responsibility for that still rests with the land or property owner.

But if we suspect that there is an offence and material has been placed in such a way that it can be removed quickly and easily, at no risk to the attendant police, the instruction is very clear that we expect our officers to remove that where they can do it and they can do it safely, he said.

Its worth saying as well that for many years, contentious displays have been removed voluntarily through negotiation and mediation, and that does remain an option available to us.

It can prevent a recurrence of material or proliferation of it. But at the same time, our experience also tells us that as much utility as there is in that approach, it can also take a significant amount of time to achieve that, and then that attracts further risks in terms of public confidence and reputation as well.

He also said the PSNI is in the process of developing revised MOUs with key parties including the Department for Infrastructure and housing providers.

The chairman of the Police Federation for Northern Ireland Liam Kelly emphasised that police cannot be solely responsible for the removal of items.

There remains a collaborative approach to the removal of illegal flags, he said.

The police cannot be solely responsible for their removal.

Uppermost for this federation is the safety and wellbeing of officers who will be asked to undertake this work.

We are under-strength and under-resourced and that has to be taken into account if and when officers are asked to move in to areas where illegal flags are flying.

Paramilitary and sectarian flags specifically cause offence and have no place in this community.

Obviously, officers will comply with service instructions and full account must be taken of the need to avoid or minimise exposure to any associated disorder.
Abu Dhabi-based technology holding group G42, and a consortium comprising IT services company the FPT Corporation and consumer-focused business the Viet Thai Group have signed a framework cooperation agreement to develop sovereign AI capabilities and cloud infrastructure across Vietnam.

The initiative, say the partners, aims to support Vietnam's ambition to become an AI-native society and a leading AI hub in Southeast Asia, while ensuring national data sovereignty and digital resilience.

The agreement formalises a comprehensive partnership and establishes the legal, financial and regulatory framework required to advance deployment across the country.

Backed by consumption commitments of up to US$1 billion, the partnership is said to represent a significant milestone in Vietnam's and the region's digital transformation journey.

The consortium and G42 say they bring together complementary strengths essential for national-scale deployment.

The FPT Corporation, Vietnam's largest information technology services company with operations across more than 30 countries, provides technical expertise and local market knowledge. The Viet Thai Group, whose portfolio companies span coffee, foodservice, retail, and logistics, is expected to contribute strategic capabilities and cross-sector insights. G42 brings advanced AI infrastructure capabilities.

Under the agreement, the consortium and G42 will deploy significant cloud capacity across three data centre locations in Vietnam, delivering high-performance AI and cloud services to support public and private sector workloads.

The initiative aligns with G42's broader mission to build a global and inclusive intelligence grid, interconnecting advanced AI infrastructure, cloud platforms, and governance frameworks to enable AI capabilities on demand, while respecting national sovereignty

Through this infrastructure, it is hoped that Vietnam will gain the technical foundation to develop national AI initiatives across both public and private sectors, digitising services and deploying AI-powered solutions tailored to national priorities.

Beyond infrastructure development, the partnership includes plans for national AI skilling and workforce development programmes designed to support AI adoption across government, industry and academia.

Following the signing of the framework agreement, the consortium and G42 say they will advance to the next phase of execution, including finalising workload distribution between public and private sectors, securing regulatory approvals for public cloud adoption, and commencing site development for data centre infrastructure.
Pan-African telecoms network services provider Paratus Group announced on Monday it has switched on a new terrestrial fibre route in East Africa connecting cities in Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda and Uganda.

Paratus said the newly activated 2,000-km G2M (Goma-to-Mombasa) fibre route runs directly from Mombasa on the Kenyan coast to Goma in the eastern DRC, with stops in Kigali (Rwanda), Kampala (Uganda) and Nairobi (Kenya).

The G2M route features direct interconnections into key data centres in each city, promising resilient, high-capacity connectivity designed specifically for carriers, ISPs and enterprise clients operating across borders. The route is already carrying traffic for its first wholesale customers.

Paratus Group COO Martin Cox described the G2M route as a critical step in enabling East Africas digital economy.

By creating a protected route from the coast all the way into Goma, were giving operators and enterprises direct, reliable access to global capacity, he said in a statement. It dramatically improves resilience and performance, while opening new commercial opportunities across Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and the DRC.

Cox added that the route significantly strengthens Paratus Groups East African footprint, creating a continuous, fully integrated regional network that complements its broader East-West fibre backbone that runs from Maputo to Swakopmund and interconnects with the Equiano subsea cable, as well as its LEO satellite footprint in Goma, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya.

The G2M route strengthens everything weve already built in East Africa and makes Paratus the natural connectivity partner for businesses that operate across borders, he said.

Paratus is fully licensed in all East African countries through its subsidiary operating companies, Paratus Rwanda, Paratus Uganda and Paratus Kenya, in partnership with Roke Telkom in Uganda and MoveOn Telecoms in Kenya.

Last November, Paratus launched its Paratus 500 service that leverages all of its licenced fibre and satellite operations in 15 sub-Saharan markets as a single network.
China builds world's largest express delivery network, fueling dynamic economy

14:03, February 10, 2026 By Han Xin ( People's Daily

Speed, scale and connectivity are defining features of China's modern logistics system, offering a clear view into the nation's economic vitality.

A case in point is the "cherry express." Riding this dedicated route, a cargo aircraft carrying over 100 tons of fresh cherries can fly from Chile to Ezhou Huahu International Airport in central China's Hubei province in just 25 hours. From there, an integrated rail-road-air transport network swiftly delivers the fruit to destinations across the country.

Such efficiency has become increasingly visible to consumers. Earlier this year, many netizens remarked that even the delivery of Spring Festival goods now comes with "China speed."

This is one snapshot of China's rapidly evolving logistics sector. Behind that speed is the world's largest express delivery network, serving the country's vast population. In 2025, China handled nearly 200 billion parcels, up 13.6 percent year on year, ranking first globally for 12 consecutive years.

Parcels are automatically sorted at a delivery center of a logistics company in Shapingba district, southwest China's Chongqing municipality. (Photo/Sun Kaifang)

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (20212025), postal coverage in rural and border areas expanded significantly. The number of service outlets increased by nearly 1.5 times compared with five years ago, and all natural villages in border areas now have access to postal services.

Though small in size, parcels connect online and offline markets, link production with consumption, and serve as a barometer of economic vitality. Exploring how China built the world's largest logistics network offers deeper insight into a dynamic and thriving China.

Historically, this achievement demonstrates how China's reform have transformed its economy. The first private express delivery companies emerged in 1993 and developed steadily. A major turning point came in 2009, when revisions to the postal law clarified the legal status of private courier firms.

Major companies accelerated network expansion, seizing the momentum and scaling up rapidly. As a result, China now handles about 10 billion express parcels a month -- roughly what used to be its annual total.

Over more than three decades, China's express delivery sector has repeatedly reached new milestones. Growing alongside the country's reform, the expanding delivery network has become a vivid example of a vibrant China in motion.

From a real-world standpoint, this global lead highlights the advantages of China's super-large market.

A drone is on a delivery mission in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang province. (Photo/Wang Chuan)

Placing orders on a smartphone and receiving parcels at the doorstep has become routine for Chinese consumers. Behind this convenience lies a strong synergy between e-commerce and express delivery. Today, more than 80 percent of China's parcel volume originates from e-commerce transactions. In 2025, the value of physical goods sold online and delivered via express services exceeded 14 trillion yuan ($2.01 trillion).

Growing together, e-commerce and express delivery have effectively unlocked consumption potential. Initiatives like "e-commerce expansion to western regions" have helped break through the "last mile" of consumption, steadily enlarging areas offering free shipping. The advantages of China's vast market continue to emerge. Take Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in the northwest, for example: since the introduction of free-shipping services, the average daily volume of inbound parcels has risen by nearly 1 million, strongly supporting rapid growth in online retail sales of physical goods.

Looking to the future, this world's largest logistics network is increasingly driven by new quality productive forces.

Handling over 10 billion parcels each month -- equivalent to processing about 6,000 parcels per second -- requires robust technological support to keep such enormous volumes moving smoothly. That support comes from advanced technologies.

In smart warehouses, handling robots glide along tracks while vertical robots move tirelessly between floors. On sorting lines, AI-powered vision systems identify and route parcels with speed and precision. At the last mile, unmanned delivery vehicles work seamlessly alongside couriers to improve efficiency. Across collection, sorting, transportation and delivery, next-generation information technologies are taking effect, making the delivery network denser, smarter and more efficient.

The rapid growth of the express delivery network also mirrors China's broader infrastructure upgrade. Across the country, the world's largest and most advanced high-speed rail network links north and south; the world's largest expressway network serves hundreds of millions of people; and the world's largest 5G network blankets vast urban and rural areas alike. Tangible and intangible networks interweave, infusing a mobile China with renewed vitality.

The road ahead is long, but the stride is steady and confident. As technological innovation and industrial innovation deepen their integration, and as the development of a unified national market advances further, the world's largest express delivery network will become smarter and more accessible, contributing to a more connected future.

(Web editor: Peng Yukai, Liang Jun)
The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) is a vital savings tool for your post-retirement life. It is something built through monthly contributions from both you and your employer. Even though traditionally many have opted to visit the EPF offices to trace their investments, modern technology is more efficient in that regard. Furthermore, you can also access your amount instantly online with the help of your Universal Account Number (UAN). Interestingly enough, some of the options do not even require you to log into the portal for a seamless experience to stay updated about your wealth! Whether you like the digital way or look to some offline options, staying updated about your corpus is easier than you think. Lets dive into an informative article that discusses the most efficient way to check your PF amounts.

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How to check the PF balance online

The government of India allows all the PF beneficiaries to check their PF balance online. All you need is a stable internet connection, your UAN number and password. Here are two easy methods you can use to check your PF balance online:

1. Check the PF balance online using the EPFO portal

The easiest way to check your PF balance online is with the help of the EPFO portal. Follow the easy steps below to do so:

1. Open a web browser on your computer or mobile.

2. Go to the EPFO login page.

3. Log in using your UAN number and password.

4. Verify using OTP, which is sent to the registered mobile number.

5. Once verified, the users can select their member ID and view the passbook.

The passbook shows employee contribution, employer contribution, and pension amount.

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2. Check the PF balance online with the help of the UMANG app

Heres how you can use the UMANG app to check the PF balance:

1. Download and install the UMANG app on your device.

2. Register using your Aadhaar-linked mobile number.

3. Look for the EPFO services section and select View Passbook.

4. Verify using OTP and choose the employer account.

Once done, youll see the full PF statement can be viewed and downloaded.

How to check the PF balance offline

While checking the PF balance online is easy and quick, that may not be feasible for everyone or at certain times, like when youre at a location with poor internet connectivity. However, you need not worry, as the government also allows you to check the PF balance offline. Here are two easy ways to do so:

1. Check the PF balance online via SMS

Follow the easy steps below to check the PF balance by sending SMS:

1. Launch the Messages app on your Android or iOS device.

2. Type EPFOHO UAN ENG and send the SMS to 7738299899.

Note: The last three letters can be changed to receive details in other Indian languages.

Once you send the SMS, youll receive a message with PF details in reply shortly.

Also read: Apples new MacBook Pro laptops get revised launch timelines: All details

2. Check the PF balance online using a missed call

If you want to check your PF details using the missed call feature, then you can follow the easy steps below:

1. Head to your Phone app on your Android or iOS device.

2. Give a missed call to 9966044425 from your Aadhaar-registered mobile number.

3. The call will disconnect automatically.

Now, youll shortly receive an SMS with the details regarding your PF balance. The details usually contain content like the member ID, last contribution, and total balance.

Note: The UAN must be active and linked with a bank, Aadhaar, or PAN.

How to check EPF balance for exempted establishments?

Employees working in exempted establishments cannot check their PF balance on the EPFO portal, as their PF contributions are managed by a private or company-run trust. However, for such employees the PF balance details can be found on monthly salary slips.

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Other than that, the employees can also access the companys internal employee portal, if available, to check their PF balance. Furthermore, they can also go ahead and contact the HR department to get their latest PF balance information.

Why cant I check my PF balance online?

There can be several reasons why you are unable to check your PF balance online. Some of the most common reasons are as below:

You may not have a stable internet connection.

The EPFO app or the UMANG app is down.

The mobile number used may not be linked with the UAN.

The UAN might not be activated yet.

There may be a mismatch between Aadhaar details and PF records.

KYC details may be incomplete or pending approval.

The employee may be working in an exempted establishment.

The UAN may have been activated recently, and passbook access is not yet available.
Salesforce has quietly reduced its workforce at the start of this month, with around 1,000 employees losing their jobs as the company deepens its use of artificial intelligence. The cuts affect teams across marketing, product management, data analytics, and parts of the Agentforce AI group. Several affected workers shared their departures on LinkedIn, bringing the changes into public view. The layoffs have arrived alongside notable leadership changes, adding to a broader sense of transition inside the company. Salesforce has not issued an official statement on the job losses so far, leaving employees and observers to piece together details from reports and online posts as uncertainty continues to spread across the workforce.

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The job cuts come as Salesforce places a stronger focus on artificial intelligence across its operations. Chief executive Marc Benioff has said the company needs fewer people in some roles as AI handles more routine tasks. In August last year, Benioff said Salesforce reduced its customer support staff from about 9,000 employees to nearly 5,000 by using AI tools. He framed the move as a shift toward efficiency, with software taking over work that once required large teams.

Also read: OpenAIs AI hardware device launch reportedly delayed to 2027, heres why

Agentforce sits at the centre of this push. Benioff has described it as central to every Salesforce product, saying it allows businesses to use AI agents to complete tasks more efficiently. Since its launch, he has said the tool has seen broad adoption, with thousands of customers putting it to use. The company has promoted Agentforce as a way to reduce manual work while maintaining service quality.

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At the same time, Salesforce is going through leadership changes. Since December, five senior officials have publicly shared plans to leave the company. During the same period, the company also announced that it had promoted six new executives to senior positions. All these announcements are an indicator of the reshaping of leadership that is currently taking place.

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Information about the layoffs became public when the companys past employees discussed their departure on the social platform LinkedIn. Around nine employees stated they received layoff notices. However, two employees confirmed the information to Business Insider.

Despite the job losses, Salesforce raised its revenue forecast in December, citing strong demand for its AI offerings. The company is expected to release its fourth-quarter earnings later this month, as employees and investors watch for signs of direction in 2024.
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There are too many examples of people who are given relatively short sentences for heinous crimes, the Tanaiste has said.

Simon Harris said he would engage with Justice Minister Jim OCallaghan over sentencing for those convicted of child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

Speaking to reporters before Cabinet on Tuesday, the Tanaiste also said prison capacity should not be a factor in determining sentencing or granting of bail.

Asked about people receiving suspended sentences for possession of child sexual abuse material, Mr Harris said: We need to take a very, very serious approach here and use all of the tools at our disposal to make sure we keep our children safe.

He added: It is absolutely sickening. It goes against every fibre in our being when we see anybody engaging in such depraved crimes against children not meeting the full rigours of what I think Irish people expect in relation to justice.

Ill certainly talk to the Minister for Justice in relation to what the most effective way is in taking this forward.

On relation to reform of bail laws being considered by Mr OCallaghan, Mr Harris said there was a need to deal with prison capacity in relation to that too.

The Fine Gael leader said: If you look at it purely from a demographic point of view  without wishing to increase the percentage of people in prison  that the population has grown so significantly at a time when prison capacity hasnt grown.

We are going to need to increase prison capacity. Were hearing too many examples of people who are given relatively short sentences and not serving at all.

He added: No doubt, even at a subconscious level, that must have an effect on some of the decisions being made by the court if they are aware that there isnt adequate prison capacity.

A lack of prison capacity should never be a reason that in any way interferes consciously or subconsciously in relation to the sentencing or the granting or not granting of bail.
There are around five to six cases of Irish citizens detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), the Taoiseach has said.

Micheal Martin said the cases vary in terms of status but said the Government would do everything it can to help Seamus Culleton, who has been detained by Ice since September.

Mr Culleton is originally from Co Kilkenny but has been living in the US for almost 20 years and is married to a US citizen.

He was driving home after finishing work when he was detained by Ice agents on September 9 2025.

Mr Culleton said he had a work permit but was arrested and transported from Massachusetts to an Ice facility in El Paso, Texas.

He has detailed horrible conditions at the facility, which he likened to a modern-day concentration camp.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has alleged that when Mr Culleton arrived in the US in 2009 under a visa waiver programme, where people can stay in the US for 90 days without a visa, he did not leave after this period.

A pending green card application and work authorisation does not give someone legal status to be in our country, Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to the Press Association.

Being in detention is a choice. We encourage all illegal aliens to use the CBP Home app to take control of their departure. The United States is offering illegal aliens 2,600 dollars and a free flight to self-deport now.

We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the US the right legal way to live the American dream. If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return.

These claim that there are subprime conditions at ICE facilities are false. Ice has higher detention standards than most US prisons that hold actual US citizens.

Foreign Affairs Minister Helen McEntee said it was a really distressing situation for Mr Culleton and said her officials were working to support his family.

Asked on Tuesday if she was aware of other similar cases of Irish people with a right to be in the US being detained by Ice, she said: I am aware of a small number of cases where people have directly reached out to our embassy teams.

Ms McEntee added: If there are other people in that type of scenario, please engage with our teams  were there to support them.

Mr Martin later told the Dail that Irish officials were were aware of five-to-six cases.

Mr Culleton said he would like the Taoiseach to raise his case with US president Donald Trump during his meeting at the White House in March for St Patricks Day.

Asked if he would do so, Mr Martin told reporters on Tuesday that Government officials will see what more they can do in communication with the administration.

He said Government officials have been engaging with local officials and Ice about Mr Culletons case.

Speaking before a Cabinet meeting in Dublin, the Taoiseach said: We will see what more  with the Minister for Foreign Affairs  what we can do in terms of our communication with the administration.

I fully empathise with the position he is in, he has been in the United States quite a long time, hes married there.

Im not clear on the full background to it but certainly we would like to see him out of that facility.

Asked if he was broadly concerned about the US administrations approach to immigration enforcement, Mr Martin said the Government has been concerned about undocumented Irish citizens for a long time through a range of US administrations.

He added: There is now a crackdown in America in terms of the implementation of migration law which we are concerned about in terms of how it affects the Irish undocumented.

Mr Martin said the approach had been to seek legal channels to regularise the situation for Irish and US citizens in the States.

He said living in the US without status was a very difficult and dangerous position to be in.

Mr Martin said it has been difficult to get consensus on the Hill as different nations lobby US congress for support on migration measures.

Meanwhile, Tanaiste Simon Harris said it is an extremely stressful time for Mr Culleton and his family.

Asked if Mr Martin should raise the issue with Mr Trump, he said: I take the point thats made about what may or may not happen on March 17, I would just make the point, theres a fair whack of time to go between now and March 17, and certainly Ireland and Irish authorities, through our diplomatic channels, will be continuing to engage, to make the point, to make their representations between now and then.

Of course, then the Taoiseach and the Government will judge where thats at.

Asked the same question, Ms McEntee said there is always a time and a place to raise individual cases, and added: I have no doubt the Taoiseach will give it consideration but it is important to stress we are already providing assistance to Seamus.
A 32-year-old man who sprayed graffiti on a parochial house in north Louth, was convicted in Australia of arson, Dundalk district court heard last week.

James McArdle of Villas Isis, Dulargy, Ravensdale, who appeared by videolink, pleaded guilty to entering the curtilage of the parochial house in Ravensdale on January 14th last and damaging the exterior wall of the parochial house with paint on the same date.

Court presenter Sgt Richie Browne outlined how gardai had received a report of James McArdle entering the grounds of the property and he was captured on CCTV footage walking up the laneway and spraying graffiti on the wall.

He was known to the injured party and was wearing the same clothing as in the CCTV footage when gardai searched his home.

Sgt Browne added that the making of a victim impact statement had been canvassed but it was not forthcoming.

He said Mr McArdle has a number of previous convictions - two in this jurisdiction from 2016 under the Road Traffic Act for failing to produce insurance and driving without a driving licence, but he described those in Australia as quite significant.

Judge Nicola Andrews replied They are arson and recalled how she had heard evidence in relation to those in a bail application for a separate previous matter, which Sgt Browne said was withdrawn by the State.

The court heard the defendant had been convicted in Melbourne Magistrates Court in August 2023 of burglary, criminal damage by fire, the theft of two motor vehicles and two counts of unlawful assault for which sentences totalling seven months and 28 days were imposed, with 228 days spent in custody taken into consideration.

Defence counsel Niall Mackin BL said his client had alcohol in his system on the night in question, he had been feeling stressed and anxious over the Christmas period and has been in custody since January 16th.

He added he had got a job bricklaying before he went into custody and is hopeful of being able to take it up on his release from prison.

The lawyer said his client has an eight week old child and hopes to be a substantial father figure to them and stressed that becoming a father has changed his perspective.

Judge Andrews imposed a six month sentence with the final two months suspended for 24 months and remanded him in custody until next Wednesday (February 11th) when he will appear in person to sign a bond to be of good behaviour during that period.
Louth TD Ged Nash, said has formally written to Ministers Colm Brophy (FG) and Jim OCallaghan (FF) ahead of the expiry of the International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) contract with the D hotel in Drogheda, this month.

The Labour TD said that for local economic reasons, the government must allow the deal to expire on the agreed date, and that the hotel needs to be restored to full tourism use to help boost Drogheda.

Deputy Nash said he spoke with Minister for Migration Colm Brophy this week, and has been raising the expiration of the contract with the Minister for Justice Jim OCallaghan, for weeks now, via Parliamentary Questions.

He commented: The contract is due to fall this month. The last government promised that a two-year deal was a two-year deal. They must not renege on that. The future of tourism in Drogheda, and efforts to promote our town depend on restoring bed capacity in our largest hotel.

We will recall that all kinds of promises were made by agents for the hotel owners, when the deal was signed in February 2024, that when this arrangement ended, that they had great plans for the hotel. They need to keep their side of the bargain too and the focus needs to be placed on the promised delivery of high-standard, State-run services.

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In the course of my work in the last two years supporting local activists, I have represented individuals and families who have had to make formal complaints to IPAS and the Department in relation to a host of issues relating to this accommodation.

I made a formal request to the Department two weeks ago for details of the range and nature of complaints made by residents in the last two years, and I look forward to receiving this information in due course."

Deputy Nash added: We are still waiting for the State to do the job it should be doing  providing appropriate, human rights informed accommodation and services to those who are seeking international protection in Ireland.

"This is the approach that is needed but there is little evidence of it, despite the promises made. Both for local economic reasons and in the best interests of vulnerable applicants themselves - excessive reliance on hotels needs to end.
Independent councillor for Drogheda Paddy McQuillan has accused Louth County Council of failing the town.

It came at the February meeting of Drogheda Borough District during a motion from fellow Independent councillor Kevin Callan which called for the restoration of Drogheda Borough Council.

During the debate, Cllr McQuillan said since the reform of local government in 2014, Drogheda has "gone backwards at 100 miles an hour...we've dereliction everywhere".

"Weve gone so backwards over the last few years, Louth County Council have failed Drogheda," he said.

David Jones, Director of Services with Louth County Council rejected the claim and called for Cllr McQuillan to withdraw the comment.

Cllr McQuillan refused to withdraw the statement.

Independent councillor Declan Power agreed with Cllr McQuillan and said Drogheda has faced a "clear governance deficit" since the reforms.

He said Drogheda does not have the governance structure to reflect its scale and ambition and said "decision making has become more distant and less visible."

Cllr Power said the restoration of borough councils is not about nostalgia, but effective governance. He said the changes would be a practical and achievable step.

Read Next: Major boost for Drogheda and Dundalk in Living Cities Initiative

During the same debate, Cllr Callan called for a meeting with the relevant ministers, including Taoiseach Micheal Martin and Tanaiste Simon Harris.

He said Louth County Council has had to deal with the repercussions of the local government reformat, which he called "not a good piece of legislation at all".

Cllr Callan called for meeting to take place after the Local Democracy Task Force report is published, which is due later this month.

Labour councillor Pio Smith said the power lies with the Taoiseach, who he said "has indicated he interested in the restoration of Borough Councils".

Sinn Fein councillors Debbie McCole said she supported the motion, but said she was "cautious of any moves to restore the borough council in its previous form", and said there needs to be a plan in place for the future.

Fellow Sinn Fein councillor Eric O'Donovan also offered his support for the motion, but said it should not just be a change in "pen or paper" and instead should restore the ability for councillors to have "more power and more control over our areas".

Fine Gael councillor Ejiro O'Hare Stratton said the return of borough councils would be the first step towards autonomy and give back the town its own identity and heritage.

Cllr O'Hare Stratton acknowledged the work of Louth County Council, but said it would give councillors a sense of their own accountability.

"We can then go you're not delivering for us on our roads, on our housing, on our streets."

Finally, Mayor of Drogheda, Cllr Michelle Hall also supported the motion, and said Ireland has the worst local democracy in Europe, only compared to Hungary, which she described as a "totalitarian state".

However, Fianna Fail councillor James Byrne said the 2014 reforms are unlikely to change as "it's a relatively new concept", but said it could see a return of similar powers and structures of Borough Councils, "without actually doing a complete overhaul of districts".

According to Cllr Smith, The Local Democarcy Task Force Report is set to be published on February 25th.

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.
Childrens Books Ireland is recruiting young readers in Louth to participate in its Junior Juries programme for the 2026 KPMG Childrens Books Ireland Awards. The Awards shortlist was announced by RTEs Rick OShea at a special event held in the Crescent Arts Centre in Belfast.

School classes, youth groups, book clubs and early childhood settings from Louth can register at the Childrens Books Ireland website, and make a selection of suitable titles from the shortlist and send their feedback and scores to Childrens Books Ireland.

One lucky group will be chosen to have an in-person workshop from a Childrens Books Ireland author or illustrator for their participation in the programme.

In 2025, just under 12,000 readers across the island of Ireland took part in the Junior Juries programme. This year, one winning artist will accept the highly-coveted Junior Juries Award on 18th May, taking place as part of the International Literature Festival Dublin.

Read also: Louth-based designer to take centre stage at this years ARC Fashion Show

Speaking at the shortlist announcement, Elaina Ryan, CEO of Childrens Books Ireland said: This years KPMG Childrens Books Ireland Awards shortlist has something to delight every kind of reader. There are stories steeped in Irish mythology, tales of bravery and resilience and books that will move you to tears  or make you cry laughing.

"Its wonderful to see how childrens literature and publishing in Ireland is evolving through this diverse, excellent shortlist. Our warm congratulations go to the authors, illustrators and publishers whose wonderful work we are so proud to champion.

The shortlisted titles will be in contention for six awards at the KPMG Childrens Books Ireland Awards ceremony on Monday, 18th May, taking place as part of the International Literature Festival Dublin.

The awards include the prestigious KPMG Childrens Books Ireland Book of the Year, alongside categories celebrating excellence in fiction and illustration, and the highly-coveted Junior Juries Award, which is selected by young readers from across the island of Ireland.

This years shortlist includes:

Letters to a Monster  This inventive picturebook tells the story of Sophie, who, fed up with the monster who has been hiding under her bed, decides to confront the situation head on! Written by Laureate na nOg Patricia Forde and illustrated by Sarah Warburton (Bloomsbury Childrens Books) The Doomsday Club  A debut authored novel set in Dublin that blends adventure, fantasy and humour as school students Jack, Conan and Yash make a strange discovery in the school yard. Written by Kevin Moran (The OBrien Press) Solo  A contemporary young adult verse novel that tells the story of Daisy as she learns to cope with heartbreak, friendship fall outs and Leaving Cert stress. Written by Grainne OBrien (Little Island Books) Puisin na mBrog  This charming picturebook is an Irish language retelling of the popular tale Puss in Boots. Written by Fearghas Mac Lochlainn and illustrated by Paddy Donnelly (Futa Fata) My Name is Jodie Jones  This young adult novel centres a neurodiverse narrator, Jodie Jones, who is struggling to reconcile with her experience of a terrorist attack. It is a celebration of individuality that does not shy away from darker themes. Written by Emma Shevah (David Fickling Books) The Waters and the Wild  This verse novel follows the character of Rowan after her fathers death and thoughtfully deals with the subjects of death, loss and fear. Written by Eilish Fisher and illustrated by David Rooney (Puffin) This That What  A colourful, rhyming picturebook with accessible text that tells the story of Kiki Dime and her very busy brain. Written by Katy Ashworth and illustrated by Colleen Larmour (Puffin) Stealing Happy  Young adult fiction set in Scotland that brings the reader into the inner life of thirteen-year old Sonny who is living with Tourettes syndrome. A vivid, funny and gripping read that deals with family drama, fear, friendship and even a heist. Written by Brian Conaghan (Bloomsbury YA) Dont Trust Fish!  A hilarious debut authored picturebook that is filled with reasons why fish are untrustworthy creatures and likely plotting your downfall. Written by Neil Sharpson and illustrated by Dan Santat (Andersen Press) Skipshock  Young adult fiction that takes the reader on a train from Cork to a whole world of different time zones. A science-fiction story with multilayered power dynamics and an electrifying romance. Written by Caroline ODonoghue (Walker Books)

Speaking at the shortlist announcement, Claire Browne, Partner at KPMG Belfast said: Once again, weve been impressed by the breadth of imagination and creativity in these books for children and young people. KPMG is proud to sponsor the Childrens Books Ireland Awards and to celebrate these shortlisted books, which we believe will bring joy to all readers, young and old, for many years to come.

The KPMG Childrens Books Ireland Awards and Junior Juries programme are supported by the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaion and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland National Lottery Funding.

Damian Smyth, joint Head of Literature and Drama at the Arts Council of Northern Ireland said: The books we connect with in childhood are often the ones which we hold in our hearts for life and these annual awards recognise some of the most outstanding books published in the last year across a range of age categories and genres. Congratulations to all of the immensely talented writers and illustrators who have made this years shortlist.
Nikki Campbell, Niall Gallagher and Grainne McKeown from Local Enterprise Office Louth were joined by An Cathaoirleach Cllr Sean Kelly; Director of Services Thomas McEvoy of Louth County Council; as well as Miriam Simon, President of Drogheda Chamber; Hannah McDonnell, President of Dundalk Chamber; and Pauline Clarke, President of Network Louth, to launch this years programme

Local Enterprise Week Louth 2026 returns from 26 March 2026, with a dynamic programme designed to support entrepreneurs, start-ups, and established businesses across County Louth.

Delivered by Local Enterprise Office Louth, in partnership with leading local and national business organisations, Local Enterprise Week is an annual celebration of enterprise, innovation, and ambition. The 2026 programme offers practical supports, expert insights, and valuable networking opportunities for businesses at every stage of development.

Events kick off on Monday, 2nd March at Bellingham Castle with a hands-on Launch Event designed for local SMEs. Your Digital Journey is a practical workshop that helps business owners assess their digital strengths and identify clear, achievable actions to improve performance and scale.

Featuring real stories from local businesses, practical tips, and an inspiring keynote on digital innovation, the session explores how simple tools, automation, and technologies such as AI can save time, streamline operations, boost competitiveness, and support growth. Business owners will leave with practical insights and tools ready to use right away.

Read also: Louth-based designer to take centre stage at this years ARC Fashion Show

Cathaoirleach of Louth County Council, Cllr. Sean Kelly explains: Local Enterprise Week gives Louth businesses the opportunity to step back, gain fresh perspectives and access practical supports in one focused week. We encourage businesses from across the county to take part, connect with peers and make the most of what promises to be a highly impactful programme.

David Conway, Chief Executive of Louth County Council, added: This is an exciting week for the Louth business community. We are proud to support a week that empowers ambition, fosters innovation, and showcases the remarkable talent that exists across our county.

"Local businesses and entrepreneurs are central to Louths economic and social development. They support vibrant and growing towns, deliver sustainable jobs, and create new opportunities for communities. I encourage businesses and aspiring entrepreneurs alike to get involved, attend a workshop or seminar, make business connections, and take full advantage of the opportunities this week offers. Louth is a great place to be innovative.

Head of Enterprise at Local Enterprise Office Louth Nikki Campbell continues: Throughout the week, we are delighted to co-host events in collaboration with key stakeholders. These include Dundalk Chamber and Newry Chambers Cross Border Trade & Economic Conference. Google and Enterprise Europe Network will host the National Development Summit.

"Drogheda Digital Hub will play host to the ever-popular Business Advice Clinics. Boyne Valley Flavours will stage a food-sector learning event. Drogheda Chamber and The Mill Enterprise Hub are delivering the Secrets to Success business breakfast, while Network Ireland Louth will host the From Start-up to Scale-Up event.

"This strong partnership approach reflects the shared commitment to enterprise development across the county.

Nikki continues And if youre thinking about starting a business but dont know where to start, sign up for our Make Your Idea Happen: Your First Step into Business event taking place virtually from 10am-12pm on Wednesday, 4th March.

The week concludes on Friday, 6th March with the Louth Enterprise Awards, the flagship networking event of Local Enterprise Week. This celebratory lunch recognises the countys most innovative and resilient businesses and offers a prime opportunity to network with peers across Louths business community.

Nikki Campbell concludes: Most events are free of charge and open to all, but places are limited and demand is always high, so early booking is strongly advised. For full programme details and to book your places, visit www.localenterprise.ie/louth
After serving more than 500 lunches in a day, the new head chef at Penny Dinners, Jack Revell, takes time out to go to the gym.

Its a good way to wind down after a very busy morning, explains Jack, who starts work at the new state-of-the-art facility on James Street in Cork city at 6am every day.

He is a busy man.

On the first day, a trial day, when I started working in the Penny Dinners kitchen, I thought, this is incredible, he recalls.

I am cooking fine dining and using my skills for the people who most need it. And who really appreciate it, says Jack, from Carrignavar.

Is he surprised at the amount of people availing of the free services provided at the new centre, named the Catriona Twomey Wellness Centre, that provides meals, alongside expanded services such as recovery meetings, mental health workshops and arts/drama classes?

The new centre is amazing, says Jack. I was blown away by the magnitude and volume of people coming to Penny Dinners. It was eye-opening.

Hundreds of people make good use of the facility every day.

Catriona Twomey is amazing too.

Catriona is a powerhouse, says Jack. We can serve between 500 to 700 people hot dinners every day. People from all walks of life come along to the centre for a hot nutritious meal.

They might have just enough money to cover rent, petrol, etc. But maybe not enough to feed themselves properly.

We have all seen the rising cost of living these days. Here at Penny Dinners, we dont judge, we help.

Jack works quickly and diligently to get through the lines of people queuing up every day for a hot meal. He gets great job satisfaction.

I like rolling up my sleeves and being busy, getting stuck in, says Jack. I like busy. I can handle busy.

He feeds the masses queuing up for a hot dinner every day.

It could be any of us, says Jack. It could be you tomorrow, or it could be me.

Having spent his formative years in Saudi Arabia, and spending time working in Holland, how did Jack come full circle back to Cork and work in the career of his choice?

My mum is a nurse and she and my dad, who was in the RAF, lived in Saudi Arabia where I spent the first five years of my life, says Jack.

There was no access to baby food, so my mum cooked everything from scratch for me. I give her credit for my good taste!

The apple didnt fall far from the tree.

I can still remember the exquisite taste of my grannys Christmas pudding, says Jack.

Growing up, I had a fascination with cooking.

Coming back to Carrignavar and going to school, Jack developed a love for Home Economics.

When the pupils got a choice to choose subjects after Transition year, I gave up tech graph and opted for Home Economics, he says.

I wanted to know everything about food, even its biology.

I got enough points in my Leaving Cert to do culinary studies for two years in what was then CIT. It was a great course.

Jack wanted to be hands-on in bars and restaurants.

I worked as a kitchen porter in the Wilton Bar when I was a teenager, he says. I wanted to be in the environment of hospitality, and I saw that as a stepping stone. I learned a good work ethic there. The place was always busy.

Mum was always in the background, encouraging her son to achieve his goal of becoming a chef supreme.

She was my critique when I cooked, says Jack.

Nice job if you can get it!

Jack laughs.

She took the job very seriously!

After graduating from CIT, Jack went to work in Fota Island Resort as a commis chef, working his way up the ranks.

I got a great insight into a huge kitchen operation where there were between 15 and 20 chefs in one section, says Jack.

It was huge, like on TV. I saw how the hierarchy worked. I was hooked.

Jack Revell starts his day at Penny Dinners at 6am.

I was totally obsessed with my job, adds Jack.

My weekends were Mondays and Tuesdays when I met friends who were also off work the same days as me.

He brought his work home too.

I tried out dishes at home, says Jack. I tried out new cooking techniques. I was totally obsessed.

When Jack spread his wings and his skills, travelling to Holland for three years, he missed the food.

I missed Irish food and I missed the Cork way to be, he says.

At Penny Dinners in James Street, Jack rediscovered Irish food and the Cork way to be.

I have a great team, three great chefs from around Europe who bring an international flavour to our cooking, says Jack.

I am super-excited being head chef here.

He still likes to be hands-on, feeling right at home in the kitchen.

We take turns doing the washing-up! Our volunteers are fantastic. We all make a great team who work very well together.

Cork is a good place to be.

Cork businesses like Kavanaghs Fine Foods and Shannonvale Foods are very generous with their donations, as are many Cork businesses as well as businesses further afield, says Jack.

All the food is fresh and the vital food supplies are essential to our operations.

We rely on public donations to stay up and running. Using excess fresh food stock to good advantage is a good way to avoid waste. I hate waste.

Jack hits the ground running each day.

Being busy is just great, he says. Being back in Cork at Penny Dinners is just great.

I am always aware that good nutrition for good health is very important.

Jack knows that he has a very important job.

Providing good nutritious dinners for people in need is incredible for me, he says. It is a win-win.

Penny Dinners was founded in 1888 and operated in Little Hanover Street for 75 years. It provides a hot nutritious meal every day from 9am to 1pm at 13, James Street.
Local representatives have called on Cork City Council to address what has been described as completely unacceptable traffic congestion at Lehenaghmore, which has been leaving commuters in gridlock for more than an hour due to road closures.

While a spokesperson for the local authority confirmed recently that the Lehenaghmore Rd improvement scheme is on course for substantial completion by February of next year, works that are currently underway are causing deep frustration among residents.

The project, funded by the National Transport Authority, begins at Tramore Rd Roundabout, runs South along the Pouladuff Rd to Barretts Junction, and then follows the Togher Rd northwest to the Route 14 bar.

Once completed, the scheme will deliver new footpaths, safe pedestrian crossings, safer roads for motorists with improved junctions and sightlines, new public transport and cycle facilities, and improved public lighting and traffic calming measures.

However, due to the scheduled closure of the Pouladuff Rd last week, to facilitate works which are intended to last for up to four weeks, commuters travelling in the area reported prolonged delays, seeing motorists stuck for up to 90 minutes at a time.

Sinn Fein councillor for the area, Joe Lynch, along with his party colleague Sinn Fein TD Donnchadh O Laoghaire have called on the council to examine alternative approaches to mitigate congestion.

What happened at Lehenaghmore was completely unacceptable, said Mr Lynch.

Hundreds of people were late for work, for school and for hospital appointments.

We share the serious frustration of residents, and unfortunately this is part of a pattern of people in Lehenaghmore not getting adequate respect.

This is in no small part due to the poor notice given to residents of the road closure, he added.

And he said he was deeply frustrated by the councils failure to ensure the contractor had highlighted the situation well in advance to residents.

We are calling on the council and contractors now to engage to find alternative methods of easing traffic during this closure and that lessons are learned, he continued.

Mr O Laoghaire said congestion in the area has caused a huge disruption to people, particularly those with children or additional responsibilities, through no fault of their own.

We have been in touch with both Cork City Council and the contractor, and have relayed the residents anger and concerns, said Mr O Laoghaire.
The man credited with first writing down the phrase The United States of America has been honoured on the Cork street where he was born nearly three centuries ago.

Stephen Moylan was born on Blarney St in 1737, the son of a well-off Catholic merchant on Shandon. His older brother Francis would become bishop of Cork, while his other brother, John, would serve with him in the American Revolutionary War.

Stephen moved to Philadelphia in 1768, where he founded the Friendly Sons - and later Daughters - of St Patrick, and in 1775 he joined the Continental Army, going on to become a general and serving as aide-to-camp to George Washington.

He raised a regiment - the 4th Continental Light Dragoons, also known as Moylan's Horse - and the troops would be noted for taking to the field in captured British uniforms, which they dyed green.

An important figure in American history, he is principally remembered today as the first person recorded to write down the words, The United States of America, in a letter dated January 2, 1776.

TAOISEACH

On Saturday, Taoiseach Micheal Martin and the Lord Mayor of Cork, councillor Fergal Dennehy, unveiled a commemorative plaque to Mr Moylan at the Blarney St and Surrounding Areas Community Association at the Rock Community Centre.

With this year marking the 250th birthday of the United States of America, Saturdays event was supported by Irish America 250, a group set up to highlight the importance of the Irish contribution to Americas founding story.

The Taoiseach said Stephen Moylan was an early example and reminder of the significant contribution of the Irish diaspora to the United States.

This is a living link, best expressed by the almost 10% of Americans today of Irish ancestry, and I was delighted to meet with many Irish-Americans who travelled to Cork especially for this event, Mr Martin said.

The Lord Mayor said Stephen Moylan was a beacon of the enduring transatlantic friendship between Ireland and America.

Today we remember a Blarney Street man who served the cause of liberty.

Tom Coleman, chairperson of the Blarney St and Surrounding Areas Community Association, said Stephen Moylan connected the history of Blarney St to the founding history of the US.

Morgan OSullivan, of Irish America 250, said Stephen Moylan was remembered as a true patriot, from his fighting for American independence, to his coining of the phrase the United States of America.
A planning application for the development of a new school campus to accommodate Le Cheile Secondary School and Gaelscoil an Chaisleain in Ballincollig will be submitted before the end of the year.

In a letter to parents, Le Cheile principal Nicola Barrett stated that, following a presentation of the stage one concept design report to the Department of Education on January 30, the project has been progressed to stage 2a, developed design.

This will include the preparation and submission of the planning application by the end of this year.

Both schools have been operating out of temporary premises since they opened in 2021 and 2017 respectively, with the site for the new school campus being first identified in 2020.

Significant step

Ms Barrett said: This is a significant step forward in the delivery of long-awaited permanent accommodation for Le Cheile.

This is a hugely positive step for us. The design reflects what matters most to us  wellbeing, inclusion, and active learning.

This milestone gives real confidence that our students and staff will soon have a permanent building that supports both academic and personal development.

The new site premises, at Lisheens in Ballincollig, plans to accommodate 1,000 pupils for Le Cheile Secondary School and 500 pupils for Gaelscoil an Chaisleain.

The plans include general classrooms, specialist rooms, a library, dining facilities, a PE hall and dedicated special education needs (SEN) units.

Cautious welcome

Sinn Fein councillor Joe Lynch has cautiously welcomed progress.

The anticipation of parents with children in the schools, as well as the wider community in Ballincollig, was that the development of the new school campus would proceed rapidly once the site was acquired by Cork City Council two years ago.

It has taken longer than expected to move through the Department of Educations laborious project approval process, but it is welcome that this has now happened.

The schools say a planning application for the project will be submitted before the end of the year. I now want the Department of Education to seriously prioritise delivery of the new schools, so that both of them get the buildings and the facilities they deserve, and so that Ballincollig gets the school places it needs.
A customer experience leader at the McDonalds restaurant in Douglas, who is the companys oldest worker in Ireland, has been named Cork Person of the Month for January.

Originally from the Philippines, Thelma Beltran arrived in Cork in 2001 and joined the Douglas team as a crew member. In the 25 years since, she has become a popular figure in the locality.

Ms Beltran, 62, says she loves working and has no plans to retire.

I love my job, she said. Being part of a great team, getting to know the people of Douglas, and helping make our customers days that little bit special is really satisfying. I plan to keep working here as long as Im enjoying it, and hopefully thats for many more years.

Awards organiser Manus OCallaghan said: Thelmas commitment to putting smiles on peoples faces and providing exceptional service is outstanding.

Her journey, leaving her home country to build a life here and embed herself so seamlessly in the local community, is inspiring. Shes a really worthy winner.
Cork County Council is proposing to introduce traffic calming measures for Cloughduv village.

The proposed works on the L2216, the main road passing through the mid Cork village, include footpaths/buildouts, a raised table, zebra controlled pedestrian crossing, uncontrolled pedestrian crossings, markings and sinage.

The measures aim to reduce vehicle speeds and improve road safety for all road users in Cloughduv. Details of the plans were discussed at the January Macroom municipal district council meeting.

Fine Gael county councilor Ted Lucey told The Echo that he feels traffic calming measures would be welcomed by residents living in Cloughduv.

There is a pile of new houses being built there now at the moment. There is a lot of people after moving into the Cloughduv village. So traffic calming, it was very important to push for that, and we have it got now. I would think in the very near future that there will be works happening there.
The National Labor Review Board (NLRB) has dropped a case accusing SpaceX of illegally firing eight employees who criticized the company's CEO Elon Musk, The New York Times. The employees were originally fired in 2022 after circulating a letter that referenced reports of Musk's sexual misconduct and called the executive "a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment." The NLRB filed a complaint claiming the firing was illegal in 2024.

Originally, SpaceX's opposition to the NLRB's case was that the agency is unconstitutional, The New York Times writes. Complaints about the NLRB's independence and power are not uncommon. Amazon has previously claimed that the board's structure "violates the separation of powers," a critique the company has made even more recently about the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The NLRB dismissed its SpaceX case following an even more unusual line of argument, though: that regulating SpaceX actually fell under the jurisdiction of the National Mediation Board, the government agency that handles mediation in the airline and railway industries.

Because the company will technically let anyone book a space flight with it, and it operates under a license from the Federal Aviation Administration, SpaceX's lawyers argue it should be treated like an airline. According to The New York Times, the National Mediation Board issued a decision affirming that logic in January, and not long after, the NLRB dismissed its SpaceX case using the same line of thinking.

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Elon Musk and his companies maintain a close relationship with the Trump administration. Musk spent over $250 million to help re-elect President Donald Trump, and he briefly served as a special government employee overseeing budget cuts and layoffs across various government bodies as part of the Department of Government Efficiency. The NLRB gave up its own authority to regulate, rather than it being stripped of funding or employees, but the decision still fits a larger pattern of independent agencies being disempowered during the second Trump administration.
Last year the UK declared that Apple and Google were a duopoly with "strategic market status" in the mobile platforms market, making them subject to special regulations. However, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will not regulate Google and Apple's app stores like the EU has done. Rather, government plans to enforce its own digital markets rules in a "pragmatic" way by accepting "commitments" from Apple and Google in areas like app rankings, the CMA announced.

Google and Apple agreed to work with the CMA to address concerns on the following matters: app review, app ranking, use of data and interoperability process. Effectively, regulators require the tech giants to treat developers fairly, particularly when they compete against Google and Apple's own apps. However, the UK's rules are more like suggestions and "not legally binding in any case," former CMA director Tom Smith told the Financial Times.

This is in stark contrast to Europe's Digital Markets Act, which forced Apple to make changes to open up iOS features and data to rivals, allow app installations from outside its Store and reduce fees collected on purchases.

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That could change if the companies fail to comply with its measures, though. The CMA plans to check metrics like the number of apps approved or rejected, app review times and developer complaints received. New requirements could then be brought forward if deemed necessary. "For example, if we find Apple is routinely declining interoperability requests without good reason... we could bring forward specific interoperability requirements. Non-compliance would also mean we would be unlikely to consider commitments as a similar approach in [the] future."

Google said in a blog today that it "welcomed the opportunity to resolve the CMA's concerns collaboratively." Apple, meanwhile, seemed similarly pleased with the deal. "The commitments announced today allow Apple to continue advancing important privacy and security innovations for users and great opportunities for developers, an Apple spokesperson told Bloomberg.

The UK is possibly taking a light touch on app store rules to avoid antagonizing the Trump administration. Earlier today, French President Emmanuel Macron predicted that the US could go after the EU on areas like data privacy, digital taxation and the plan of multiple EU countries to ban children from social media. "The US will, in the coming months  thats certain  attack us over digital regulation," Macron said at a special summit yesterday.
A New York attorney involved in multiple high-profile hip-hop lawsuits is seeking to withdraw from federal cases involving Sean "Diddy" Combs and Fat Joe, citing severe mental health struggles, a move that has drawn strong pushback from opposing counsel and scrutiny from the court.

Tyrone Blackburn, who has represented accusers in cases against some of the music industry's biggest names, told a federal judge in New Jersey that he is seeking a leave of absence from his legal practice and attempting to step away from several pending matters. The request comes amid ongoing litigation that has placed Blackburn at the center of public attention and legal controversy.

According to AllHipHop, Blackburn informed U.S. District Judge Jamel K. Semper said that he has been dealing with severe depression, anxiety, and chronic sleeplessness following a year marked by personal tragedy and professional pressure.

In a statement to the court, Blackburn described the impact of recent losses on his health. He said, "Since Labor Day, I have experienced the deaths of four individuals close to me," adding that the losses had a "profoundly detrimental effect" on his mental, physical and emotional well-being.

Blackburn argued that those challenges intensified due to backlash stemming from his representation of accusers in widely publicized cases. He has represented women who accused rapper T.I. and his wife, Tameka "Tiny" Harris, of drugging, sexual assault and other abuse, urging prosecutors in Georgia and California to open criminal investigations.

He has also filed civil complaints against Diddy on behalf of music producer Lil Rod and against Fat Joe on behalf of the rapper's former hypeman, Terrance "T.A." Dixon. Dixon has alleged sexual assault, coercive labor, and other misconduct, including a claim that he was forced to perform thousands of sex acts in a $20 million lawsuit. Fat Joe has denied all allegations.

The dispute escalated further when Blackburn offered a different explanation for missing scheduled depositions in the Fat Joe case. In a separate filing to another judge, Blackburn cited medical issues as the reason for his absence.

In that filing, he stated, "I am currently prescribed multiple medications, including narcotics and antibiotics, to assist with the pain and recovery from the procedures. My doctors expect that I will remain on these medications for approximately six to eight weeks. In light of these circumstances, I am presently unable to prepare for or attend the depositions scheduled in this matter."

Fat Joe's legal team rejected that explanation. Responding in court filings cited by AllHipHop, attorney Joe Tacopina challenged Blackburn's credibility.

He said, "Mr. Blackburn's purported medical issues lacks credibility, particularly given that Mr. Blackburn managed to finalize and file a sprawling 254-paragraph complaint for an unrelated matter in New Jersey state court on the same day he was scheduled to defend Mr. Dixon's deposition."

U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Rochon has since ordered Blackburn to explain why he is attempting to withdraw from representing his clients and why the case against Fat Joe should not be dismissed or result in sanctions. The issue is expected to come before the court on Feb. 10, pending Blackburn's appearance.

In separate news, a civil sexual assault lawsuit against Sean "Diddy" Combs has taken a major turn after a court ordered Christopher Wallace Jr., the son of the late Notorious B.I.G., to formally respond to allegations that he aided Combs, according to HotNewHipHop.

The suit, filed by record producer Hay in 2025, accuses Combs and Wallace of sexual battery, false imprisonment and emotional distress stemming from alleged incidents in 2020 and 2021, which both Combs and Wallace deny.

Wallace, who has since countersued Hay for defamation, must respond by Feb. 13, while Combs' legal team maintains the claims are "false and defamatory," as the case continues alongside a separate, expedited federal appeal for Combs.

Originally published on Music Times
Blake Garrett, a former child actor best known for playing Plug in the 2006 family film "How to Eat Fried Worms," has died at the age of 33.

His mother, Carol Garrett, confirmed his death on Monday, saying that he passed away on Sunday, February 8, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The family is still waiting for autopsy results from the medical examiner to determine the official cause of death.

Carol told the outlet that her son had gone to an emergency room in Oklahoma the week before his death after experiencing intense pain. He was diagnosed with shingles, a viral infection known to cause severe nerve pain. She said she believes Garrett may have tried to manage the pain on his own and that his death could have been a tragic accident, according to Deadline.

His mother also shared that Garrett had been living in Tulsa for the past three years and had turned his life around after achieving sobriety. She described him as having lived a fulfilling life in recent years.

Garrett was born Nolan Blake Garrett on September 14, 1992, in Austin, Texas. He started acting at the age of 8, taking on lead roles in local theater productions such as "Aladdin and His Magical Lamp" and "Peanuts: A Charlie Brown Tribute." His stage work also included performances in "The Wizard of Oz," "Annie," and "Grease."

At just 10 years old, he joined the traveling arena show "Barney's Colorful World International Tour," performing from 2003 to 2004. He also appeared in the 2004 special "Barney's Colorful World, Live!" TMZ reported.

His biggest role came in 2006 when he was cast as Plug in "How to Eat Fried Worms," a film adaptation of Thomas Rockwell's 1973 children's book directed by Bob Dolman. The movie follows a boy named Billy, played by Luke Benward, who bets the school bully Joe, played by Adam Hicks, that he can eat ten worms without getting sick.

"I play the bully's henchman," Garrett told The Oklahoman newspaper in a 2006 interview. "But everybody got along on the set."

The young cast of the film, which also included Hallie Kate Eisenberg and Alexander Gould, won the Young Artist Award for Best Young Ensemble Cast in a Feature Film in 2007, as per E! News.
Megyn Kelly is quite sure that the police are really digging into the case of Tommaso Cioni, "TODAY" co-host Savannah Guthrie's brother-in-law, after the disappearance of Savannah's 84-year-old mother, Nancy Guthrie.

Kelly shared her thoughts on her SiriusXM show that she thinks law enforcement "is taking a very serious look" at Cioni and went on to say that she was in agreement with Ashleigh Banfield's news report that Cioni "may be the prime suspect" in Nancy's kidnapping.

On February 4, Banfield quoted a "very reliable" law enforcement source when she first made the public statement and then she reiterated it on Kelly's radio show the same day.

Kelly noted that Cioni has largely remained absent from public view since Nancy's disappearance. "He has not been in any of the videos," she said, referring to clips shared online by Savannah, her sister Annie, and their brother Camron.

None of the siblings' spouses appear in those videos.

Savannah Guthrie's Influence on Coverage

Kelly hinted that Savannah might have some sway over the way the media talks about the case, especially in relation to the privacy of her family.

She observed that "TODAY's" coverage of the search at Annie's Tucson home seemed cautious. "It's interesting to watch NBC in the mornings on the Today show to see what they're reporting on this case, because there's no question in my mind, it will have been blessed by Savannah. There's zero doubt that they are asking her, 'Are you comfortable with this?'" Kelly explained, according to Radar Online.

The searches of Annie's home were described by Kelly as "consensual, as opposed to, via a search warrant." She inferred that Savannah likely wants to avoid creating the impression that a family member, such as Cioni, could be in trouble.

Investigation Details and Timeline

Cioni and Annie have lived in Tucson since marrying in 2006.

NewsNation reporter Brian Entin, guest of Kelly on SiriusXM, stated that the two were last seen getting out of Nancy's house in a car on February 3. It is believed that the authorities are checking the surveillance footage of a Circle K gas station nearby which might show the activities at the time of the disappearance.

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos first spoke to The New York Times that Cioni was the last person to see Nancy, saying he had given her a ride home after a family dinner on January 31 and made sure she was safely inside. Nancy was reported missing shortly after 2 a. m. the next day. Still, Nanos later explained that it was a "relative" who brought her home and refused to say whether it was Annie or Cioni.

In a subsequent press conference, Nanos stated that no prime suspects or persons of interest had been identified.

Kelly emphasized that while she cannot confirm Cioni's involvement, she trusts Banfield's reporting. "I don't know that he did this, but I do believe her reporting that they are taking a very serious look at him," Kelly said.

Savannah made a video appeal, urging the public to help. "Law enforcement is working tirelessly around the clock to bring her home, trying to find her. She was taken, and we don't know where, and we need your help," she said. She called the situation "a nightmare" and "an hour of desperation, " stressing the need for finding her mother as soon as possible.
Wendy Williams may see a possible path back to daytime television following the cancellation of Sherri Shepherd's show, though sources say a return remains unlikely.

The end of Shepherd's program has reportedly reignited hope for the former talk-show host, who has long dreamed of reclaiming her daytime TV time slot.

A longtime confidant told Rob Shuter's Substack, "Wendy misses being on TV more than anything. She still thinks of that hour as hers."

Those familiar with the situation say there are no immediate plans for Williams to resume broadcasting.

A network source was clear: "There is zero plan to bring Wendy back to daytime TV. That chapter is closed. Permanently."

Williams reportedly never fully forgave Shepherd for taking over her former slot after "The Wendy Williams Show" ended.

One insider explained, "In Wendy's mind, that seat was borrowed  not inherited. She felt replaced, not relieved."

The tension between the two shows ran deep enough that Williams avoided visiting Chelsea Studios in New York, where Shepherd taped. "Wendy wouldn't drive down that block. It was too painful. Too symbolic," a source said.

Now that Shepherd's show has officially ended, Williams is said to be following developments quietly.

A friend explained, "She thinks, 'If Sherri couldn't keep it, maybe they'll come back to me.' But that's wishful thinking." For Williams, television has long been central to her identity. "TV was Wendy's oxygen. And losing it broke her heart," one source noted.

Williams is also navigating significant personal challenges, including the recent death of her father, Thomas Williams Sr., at age 94.

Health Updates and Legal Battles

Williams' legal team has also addressed her medical condition, which has been central to her conservatorship.

In December 2025, her lawyer Joe Tacopina told ABC News' "Nightline" that a neurologist specializing in Alzheimer's disease, Dr. Samuel E. Gandy, evaluated Williams and disagreed with a prior diagnosis of primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia.

Tacopina stated, "Williams does not have frontotemporal dementia," and attributed her cognitive struggles to alcohol use. He added that since Williams "does not drink alcohol," she could potentially exit her court-appointed conservatorship "by year's end."
Prince Harry is said to be planning a strategic move to mend his relationship with his estranged brother, Prince William, as the Prince of Wales takes steps to become king.

Harry, 41, is believed to have secretly worked out a plan, which a source has termed a " carefully timed diplomacy mission and battle plan" to end the dispute between the brothers, reports Radar Online.

The Duke of Sussex's idea is expected to align with the Invictus Games next year in Birmingham, which could be the first public occasion for the siblings to greet each other since Queen Elizabeth II's funeral in 2022.

According to a palace staff member, the event might be an "olive branch moment something symbolic but safe, under the banner of a cause everyone can support."

The same palace aide continued that if the pair of brothers were to be seen together, the royal family would, in effect, be communicating that they were getting over the past bad relations that have troubled them recently.

The relationship between Harry and William has been tense ever since Harry got married to Meghan Markle in 2018 and the couple subsequently moved to California.

One royal source remarked that there is no indication from William's side that he is willing to reopen that door.

"He's deeply protective of his family and feels that too much damage was done in public for things to simply be smoothed over."

The source added that William's caution is not stubbornness but a desire to avoid further public emotional fallout.

Harry Willing to Make the First Move

Sources suggest Harry recognizes the stalemate cannot continue indefinitely.

Another insider explained to Radar, "Harry seems to realize that one of them has to blink, and he's willing to be that person. He knows the clock is ticking  William's role is evolving, the monarchy is changing  and it's in everyone's interest to lower the temperature before the weight of the Crown shifts again."

The source noted that Harry's recent communications with his father, King Charles III, reflect a broader effort to extend an olive branch to the family.

"Harry's approach now is about quiet signaling rather than grand statements. He wants to show he can be part of the fold again without stirring the pot  reminding the family, and the public, that he can support the institution in his own way," a palace insider added.

The insider explained that the work is slow and that the two are taking small steps to win back each other's trust, per PEOPLE, and without their finding out. William is less accessible, the source said, but Harry still believes that if he is "consistent, " the "ice" between them will eventually "melt."

Cancer-stricken King Charles III, 77, has also tried to mend fences. The monarch and Harry had tea at Clarence House last year and, according to the aides, this meeting was "a respectful" and "cautious reset."

A royal commentator suggested that Charles may now be more open to understanding Harry's perspective.

"In private, he may acknowledge that father and son have both made mistakes, but he's old enough  and wise enough now  to see how his own choices shaped Harry's sense of isolation," the commentator said. The source noted that Charles appears to be seeking a measure of peace before it's too late.
Reports say Brooklyn Beckham has severed ties with a majority of his longtime friends and family.

Ex-friends and family are left wondering who they can trust as he makes life with his wife Nicola Peltz the center of his world.

The eldest Beckham son, 26, shot to a new level of fame last month when he publicly accused his parents, David and Victoria Beckham, of "controlling the narrative" of his life in a very long Instagram Stories post.

A source has revealed to The Sun that Brooklyn hasn't been spotted with any of his London friends for over five years, which is a sign of his changed loyalties since marrying Peltz in 2022.

Those closest to him were also noticeably absent from the couple's vow renewal at Nicola's family estate in New York last August.

Instead, the newlyweds celebrated with Nicola's inner circle, including Georgina Chapman and Adrien Brody, the report said.

Old Friendships Fracture

Anais Gallagher, daughter of Oasis star Noel Gallagher, reportedly felt "really blindsided" when she realized she had been blocked by Brooklyn.

The two had been close before his marriage, sharing what sources described as an "incredibly close" and "flirty" bond. However, tensions reportedly arose after Anais criticized Brooklyn's widely panned photography book as "offensive."

A source told The Sun, "If you've ever crossed him, he won't forget  and as the war with his parents drags on, he's taking note on who has his back and who clearly doesn't."

Similarly, Rocco Ritchie, who grew up alongside Brooklyn and Jack Ramsay, was left out of the 2025 vow renewal celebrations despite attending the 2022 wedding.

In 2017, Brooklyn described both Rocco and Jack as friends he had "known ... since I was very young." But insiders say "there's now been a real shutdown" between him and his old UK friends. "It's like the marriage to Nicola meant he started a whole new life with new people around him," the source added.

Ramsay Siblings and Selena Gomez Affected

Jack and Holly Ramsay are reportedly no longer on speaking terms with Brooklyn. He is said to have skipped Holly's winter wedding to Adam Peaty in December 2025, even though the rest of the Beckham family attended.

A source told the outlet, "David and Victoria see Gordon and Tana almost as family ... Brooklyn doesn't appear to see many of his friends he hung out with before Nicola anymore and that is very sad."

Selena Gomez, who once joked about being in a "throuple" with Brooklyn and Nicola, also appears to have been cut off. Sources indicate that the breakup left Gomez feeling betrayed, although Peltz reportedly missed Selena's wedding due to "strict preparation" for a new role. A Daily Mail source noted, "She and Brooklyn wish Selena and Benny all the best."

Some of Brooklyn's former romantic partners, including Afton McKeith and Tallia Storm, have shared thoughts on his distancing from friends and family.

According to Hello! Magazine, McKeith noted Brooklyn "felt as though the world was constantly waiting for him to muck up" and suggested his parents could have "protected him more."

Storm recalled an incident during a charity gala when Victoria Beckham allegedly prevented her from attending, telling The Mirror, "Obviously, Victoria didn't like me or whatever."
WaRTAK advancement supports nuclear deterrence

NEW YORK, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Persistent Systems, LLC ("Persistent"), a leader in mobile ad hoc networking (MANET), announced that the U.S. Air Force awarded the company a $7 million contract to upgrade the Wave Relay Tactical Assault Kit (WaRTAK) program for securing convoys carrying strategic nuclear assets.

As countries around the world accelerate their nuclear capabilities, the United States continues to ready its assets for protecting the nation. Convoys that transport our nuclear assets between Air Force bases and missile fields will deploy approximately 100 MPU5s utilizing our Wave Relay MANET and Cloud Relay beyond-line-of-sight capabilities. The 20th Air Force will use MPU5s and supplementary equipment to create a common digital map and provide reliable connectivity between vehicles, personnel, and a command center.

"Nuclear assets are on alert 24/7/365 for strategic deterrence, and airmen and women require the most advanced networking technology to secure these critical assets," said Ed Topps, Vice President, Business Development at Persistent Systems. "Warfighters will have an automated PACE (Primary, Alternative, Contingency, Emergency) Plan, with multiple frequency bands and beyond line-of-sight capabilities providing the constant connectivity needed for faster decision making in remote areas."

Introduced in 2016 using earlier-generation MPU4s, the WaRTAK program is upgrading to MPU5s, which will deliver unmatched scalability and mobility, along with increased bandwidth, improved security, and enhanced data fusion capabilities. This supplements an earlier WaRTAK upgrade for $14.6 million from 2020.

"With more data throughput, accredited security, and faster onboard computing, we are delivering the commercial technology Secretary of War Hegseth is calling upon from industry," said Topps.

In addition, Persistent will continue to support Global Strike Command by rolling out a 25,000 square mile MANET across three Air Force bases as part of the Regional Operation Picture (ROP) program. ROP is a $75.5 million contract, awarded to Persistent in 2023, to provide network capabilities for security forces in missile fields.

About Persistent Systems, LLC

Persistent Systems, LLC is a global Defense Tech provider of mobile networking solutions for military, first responder, government, and commercial markets. We engineer our Wave Relay MANET and Cloud Relay technology to transmit voice, video, and situational awareness under the most difficult conditions. Through the Wave Relay Ecosystem, an alliance of industry-leading companies, Persistent unites warfighters, UGVs, UAVs, sensors, cameras, and devices on a common network. Persistent was founded in 2007 and has offices in New York City, Colorado, North Carolina, Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/air-force-nuclear-convoys-upgrade-wartak-network-for-7-million-302682923.html

SOURCE Persistent Systems, LLC
A prominent think tank is promoting the chance state residents have on the 2030 ballot to hold a state Constitutional Convention, and Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte will headline the policy dinner where Mountain States Policy Center will feature the possible rewrite of the states foundational document.

The event on Feb. 24 will feature a speech by Gianforte, include the centers recommendations for the 2027 Montana Legislature, and showcase the centers series about a possible Constitutional Convention.

A spokesperson for the Governors Office said Gianfortes remarks will cover only his tax policy priorities for the 2027 legislative session and are not related to the Constitutional Convention.

Focused on Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Washington, the Mountain States Policy Center describes itself as a policy-focused research group that promotes free enterprise, limited government and individual liberty.

Chris Cargill, executive director of the center, said this week the center hopes to bring in new members with the event, although it isnt a fundraiser.

He said the center has studied what a Constitutional Convention might look like and is doing legwork and publishing a series of articles about the Montana Constitution in advance of the possibility.

In the series, the centers senior fellow and constitutional scholar Rob Natelson is advocating that Montanans vote for a new convention. Natelson is a former faculty member at the University of Montana law school.

The Montana Constitution is relatively young, adopted in 1972. The state has a provision that allows voters to consider holding a new Constitutional Convention every 20 years. The next question could be on the 2030 ballot.

Montana code states that unless otherwise submitted earlier, the Secretary of State will put the question of a Constitutional Convention on the general election ballot in 1990 and then every 20 years from the last time.

Thats very unique compared to a lot of the other states that dont necessarily have that ability, Cargill said.

Tuesday, Natelson said his interest in the Montana Constitution came out of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club visit to Missoula in 2000.

Out of concern about the motorcycle gang, the city brought in extra law enforcement, and Natelson said the Hells Angels behaved well, but riots broke out between the citys imported police officers and residents.

Article II Section 33 of the Montana Constitution prohibits the importation of armed persons, and Natelson started studying whether the city had violated the state Constitution; he determined it had, contrary to a finding by a city-appointed review committee.

That project led to his interest in the state Constitution in general and its ratification, said Natelson, now based in Colorado.

In the course of his research over the years, Natelson said he became disappointed in both the criticism and praise of the Constitution, which he said tended to be all or nothing.

The critics thought the Constitution was the creation of the devil, and advocates seemed to think the Constitution was holy writ, Natelson said. And the answer is its neither.

This is going to sound horrible, but its a fairly unremarkable state Constitution that needs some changes.

His assessment isnt the only one, of course. Friends of the Constitution, a group that formed in 2022 after the 50th anniversary of the state Constitution to inspire appreciation for the document, describe it as exceptional.

Montanas 1972 Constitution is unique in that it empowers Montana citizens with the most tools and responsibilities of any constitution in the country, the Friends group says on its website.

Natelson, however, said one problem is the materials used to push ratification of the 1972 Constitution didnt always accurately represent it, and the most salient example involves the environmental rights.

The Constitution says the state shall provide for a clean and healthful environment, but during ratification, advocates said the provision was directed only at the Legislature, and it was not for the courts to determine, Natelson said.

Since then, he said, the Montana Supreme Court has seized jurisdiction over the environmental clauses and has been imposing its version of the wording.

I think its fair to say if people could look ahead as to what happened with the environmental rights, they never would have ratified the Constitution, Natelson said.

Mountain States Policy Center has been publishing Natelsons series, including the most recent one Tuesday about water. In an earlier post, Natelson said the following:

The constitutions preamble is a beautiful statement consistent with Americas founding creed: We the people of Montana ... to secure the blessings of liberty for this and future generations do ordain and establish this constitution. But as we go further into the document, we find blemishes. For example, Article II, Section 1 correctly states that All political power is ... derived from the people, but then avers that government ... is instituted solely for the good of (the) whole, rather than to protect individual rights.

In 1990, Montanans opposed the idea of holding a Constitutional Convention with 82% of the vote, and in 2010, they did the same, but with 58.5%.

State statute says that if a majority of those voting on the question answer in the affirmative, the Legislature shall provide for the calling of a constitutional convention at its next session.

Natelson said its too early to tell if Montanans would support a new Constitutional Convention, but he believes its possible.

In 2010, he said, no campaign was pushing for one, yet the number of people in support still rose.

I would not be writing the series if I did not think there was a chance that they would, Natelson said.

Natelson also was a featured speaker at this weekends Montana GOP Winter Kickoff in Great Falls. (He said his participation in the policy dinner is pending, but if he attends, he anticipates hell be asked to speak.)

In recent years, many Republicans have been displeased with the judiciary and its orders overturning conservative legislation as being unconstitutional.

(Gianforte has been among them, although the spokesperson from his office did not address whether he supports a new Constitutional Convention.)

In 2021, then-Rep. Derek Skees, R-Kalispell, used strong language to advocate that Montanans get rid of the state Constitution.

The courts have humongously failed, and we need to throw out Montanas socialist rag of a constitution, Skees said in a Flathead Beacon story in 2021.

Skees was referring to a court injunction that stopped bills restricting abortion based on the Constitutional right to privacy in Montana.

However, Evan Barrett, with Friends of the Montana Constitution, said polling by a number of different organizations shows strong support for the document across political parties  albeit in general, not tied to a specific issue.

He said thats because Montanans know the state Constitution protects them when it comes to privacy, the right to vote, their rights when it comes to standing trial, and more.

Its written to protect the citizens from the excesses of government, Barrett said. So it has an appeal to people of all political persuasions.

Barrett said the Friends of the Constitution group opposes a Constitutional Convention. Rather, he said, if someone has a problem with the Constitution, they can take on an amendment.

Were one of the few states that has an initiative process for our Constitution, Barrett said. So we have no shortage of efforts at amending the Constitution.

He said Natelson has pointed out that most of those efforts are defeated, and he believes thats part of the process too  then they didnt deserve to be supported.
A Leicestershire farmer has been fined almost 11,000 in a case Trading Standards say underlines the importance of strict cattle movement records and TB testing.

John Andrew Hawley, who traded as Leicestershire Livestock from Six Hills Farm near Melton Mowbray, appeared at Leicester Magistrates Court on 4 February.

He admitted three offences relating to cattle movement reporting and tuberculosis controls, after prosecutors said repeated failures had put animal health and the food chain at risk.

Hawley was fined 3,999 and ordered to pay a victim surcharge of 1,600 and prosecution costs of 5,300, bringing the total penalty to 10,899.

Leicestershire County Council Trading Standards said the case highlighted why cattle traceability and TB testing are fundamental to disease control and consumer confidence.

The combination of cattle traceability and rigorous TB testing is absolutely vital in protecting both the food chain and the wider agricultural sector, said Gary Connors, head of regulatory services.

The court heard Hawley, who has farmed for more than 50 years and has recently retired from the business, bought cattle from farms and markets across the UK, fattening them before sending them to slaughter.

Concerns were raised by the Animal and Plant Health Agency in 2024, after inspections identified breaches of licence conditions.

Trading Standards then began monitoring cattle movement records and found ongoing non-compliance, despite previous advice and formal warning letters.

Between January and May 2025, officers found the majority of cattle movements on and off the holding were either notified late or not reported at all to the British Cattle Movement Service.

In one instance, 55 cattle sent to slaughter in April 2025 entered the human food chain without any movement notification being made.

When questioned, Hawley said cattle were recorded as soon as it is possible to do so.

The case also involved serious breaches of TB controls. Hawley failed to carry out a whole-herd TB test within the required timeframe, leading to the holding losing its officially TB-free status and being placed under movement restrictions.

Despite those restrictions, he unlawfully moved cattle both on and off the farm before the controls were lifted.

A later TB test could not be completed because seven cattle listed on official records could not be accounted for.

BCMS checks showed their deaths had not been reported within the required seven days, adding to concerns over record keeping.

Trading Standards said repeated failures to comply with the rules can have far-reaching consequences beyond individual farms.

When individuals choose to ignore repeated advice, warnings and legal notices, they put animal health, public health and the rural economy at risk, Mr Connors said.

Hawley told investigators that injury, paperwork difficulties and administrative delays contributed to the breaches, and said he sends between 3,000 and 4,000 cattle to slaughter each year.

Trading Standards said the case serves as a reminder that late movement reporting and missed TB testing deadlines can result in significant penalties for farmers and livestock businesses.
KFC is increasing its investment in British poultry, committing to spend almost 100m a year on UK chicken as it expands domestic sourcing across its menu.

The move comes as food businesses face growing pressure to strengthen UK supply chains while improving welfare standards in livestock production.

By the end of 2026, 35% of the chicken sold by KFC UK & Ireland will be sourced from British farms, bringing total domestic supply to 82,700 metric tonnes a year.

The increase follows a decision to source chicken wings from British farmers for the first time, adding one of the brands most popular products to its UK supply base.

To support the change, KFC is raising its annual spend on British chicken by around 10m, taking total yearly investment to almost 100m, through an expansion of its long-standing partnership with 2 Sisters Food Group, one of the UKs largest poultry processors.

Wings are a key part of KFCs offering, with more than 164 million sold in the UK last year, equivalent to over five every second. Demand is expected to grow further as consumption of fried chicken continues to rise.

Only boneless chicken will continue to be sourced from overseas, as UK producers are currently unable to supply enough chicken breast to meet consumer demand.

Alongside boosting British sourcing, KFC said it is also raising welfare standards across its UK supply base.

All British chicken served by KFC is now reared at a maximum stocking density of 30kg per square metre, giving birds 20% more space than the industry standard, with additional daylight and enrichment provided on farms.

The company said all of its British-sourced chicken comes from farms meeting independently verified standards, delivered through partnerships with suppliers including 2 Sisters Food Group and Pilgrims Europe.

Marc Hayes, Yum! chief supply chain officer for Europe, said: At KFC we want to back British farmers and are always looking for opportunities to increase our British sourcing in a balanced sustainable way.

He added that the decision reflects collaboration with suppliers during a challenging period for the sector, citing avian flu outbreaks pressuring supply, at a time of higher demand.

Hayes said KFC was proud to have worked with partners so that all our British chicken [is] now be reared with 20 per cent more space than the industry average.

Ranjit Singh, president of 2 Sisters Food Group, said the increased sourcing represented a positive and important investment in the future of UK agriculture.

He said the move would ensure British farmers are supported to produce poultry that meets consumer expectations and high welfare standards, underlining the long-term nature of the partnership.

The investment highlights the growing influence of major food brands in shaping both supply resilience and welfare standards within the British poultry industry.
A new life-saving initiative designed to help farmers respond to serious on-farm accidents has been backed by MPs and industry leaders at a reception in parliament.

Farming charity RABI hosted its Rural Parliamentary Reception to formally showcase FarmersAid, a free support initiative aimed at guiding people through the crucial first moments after a major farm incident.

The launch comes against the backdrop of farming remaining one of the UKs most dangerous professions accounting for around 20% of workplace deaths despite employing just 1% of the workforce.

With many farms remote and emergency services often delayed, family members and colleagues on site are frequently the first responders during the most critical minutes.

The event featured farmer and trained nurse Harriet Cowan, best known for her role on Clarksons Farm, who spoke about the importance of early action following serious injuries.

Farming is a huge part of my life, but its also incredibly dangerous, she said.

Around 27 people are killed on farms every year and thats not something we should accept.

Clinicians describe the first ten minutes after a serious injury as the Platinum Ten  a short window where calm, informed action can shape outcomes before help arrives.

FarmersAid has been developed with clinical and frontline emergency expertise to provide real-time guidance for common serious on-farm accident scenarios while emergency services are on the way.

Harriet said: As a trained nurse, I know how important those first few minutes are when someone is seriously injured.

Knowing what to do can save a life and FarmersAid puts that knowledge in your pocket, she added.

The reception was hosted by Sarah Dyke MP, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for rural affairs, who said farming safety remains a pressing concern.

Farming is fundamental to our food security and rural economy, yet it remains one of the most dangerous professions in the UK, she said.

The number of people losing their lives in on-farm accidents each year is tragic and unacceptable.

She described FarmersAid as an initiative that will save lives and urged those working on or around farms to download it when it becomes available.

It forms part of RABIs wider 20252030 strategy, strengthening prevention, preparedness and practical support alongside its established wellbeing services.

FarmersAid will be available to download from June 2026, with a public launch planned at the Royal Cornwall Show.

Farmers and rural workers are being encouraged to register in advance and ensure the app is accessible on phones across the farm, so vital guidance is close at hand in an emergency.
Nearly all farmers believe their sustainability work is being ignored, despite widespread action already taking place on farms across the UK.

New research shows 92% of farmers feel their efforts to operate more sustainably go unrecognised by the wider food supply chain.

The findings raise concerns over how future environmental targets and policy-led change can be delivered if farmers feel increasingly disconnected from decision-makers.

The results come from Pinstone Pulse, a new insight tracker launched by specialist PR and communications agency Pinstone.

Despite frustration over a lack of recognition, the report suggests farmers remain willing to adapt. Around 61% said they would make significant changes to how their businesses operate, while already implementing an average of eight sustainable practices on farm.

Catherine Linch, managing director at Pinstone, warned that on-farm progress risks being overlooked, widening the gap between farmers, policymakers and the supply chain.

We know sustainability expectations are increasing, but whats being delivered on-farm is often overlooked, she said.

The report identified major barriers to further progress, including conflicting policies, the cost of adopting new practices and the use of jargon around sustainability, with certain terms proving polarising.

Definitions and policies have become broader and more fragmented, creating expectations that are difficult for farmers to plan and invest against, Mrs Linch explained.

She added that clearer communication is essential if farmers are to feel involved rather than excluded from the sustainability debate.

The findings also highlight how important language is so they feel part of the conversation, she said.

One of the strongest messages from the research is that farmers are not opposed to change itself, but to being asked to change without proper understanding or support.

Farmers arent resistant to change; theyre resistant to being asked to change if they dont feel that ask is coming from a place of understanding, Mrs Linch said.

That lack of recognition is also reflected in low levels of trust.

The report found that 85% of farmers would go further to run a more sustainable business with the right financial backing, but confidence in government remains particularly weak.

Just 5% of farmers said they trust the government as a credible voice on sustainability, raising questions over how effectively policy-driven change can be achieved.

The message from farmers is clear  sustainability is already happening on-farm, but itll only accelerate if policy makers and the supply chain build greater trust, Mrs Linch said.

Without stronger economic incentives and clearer engagement, the report suggests progress could stall despite farmers readiness to act.
Farmers in the south west are being urged to tighten security around machinery after a stolen telehandler was used in a ram-raid at a Co-op store in Plympton.

Devon and Cornwall Police have released footage of the incident as part of an appeal, warning the crime highlights how farm machinery is being targeted by organised gangs.

The burglary took place at around 1.45am on Monday 2 February at the Co-op on Glen Road.

A John Deere telehandler, stolen from the Smithaleigh area near Piggeries Farm, was used to ram the wall of the store, allowing thieves to remove two cashpoint machines and steal a large sum of cash.

Detectives say at least four people were involved, arriving in multiple stolen vehicles.

Detective Constable Andrew Trott-Rodgers said police believe the raid could be linked to other similar offences across the country.

Following extensive enquiries we now believe that this incident could be connected to several other ram-raid burglaries which have happened in the last four months across the country, he said.

We believe that this incident, and those which we believe are linked, have been carried out by a highly sophisticated and organised criminal gang.

Police say the telehandler and other vehicles used in the raid were later abandoned, with several found burnt out in nearby woodland.

Officers are urging farmers and rural businesses to remain vigilant and review machinery security, as thieves continue to target agricultural equipment for use in serious crimes.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police on 101 quoting reference 50260027042, or report anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
Actor Kartik Aaryan has begun filming for his upcoming project Naagzilla, with the current schedule unfolding across multiple locations in Delhi. The shoot recently caught public attention when the star was spotted filming at Laxmi Nagar Metro Station, with fan-shot clips quickly circulating online and fuelling curiosity around the production.

According to details learned by Hindustan Times about the ongoing schedule, the team has already been shooting in the capital for several days, with plans to continue for more than a week. The actor is central to this leg of filming, which spans varied settings chosen to anchor key sequences in the narrative. Among the locations already covered are the banks of Yamuna ghat, where an important scene was staged, and Sector 54 in Dwarka. Dilli Haat in Pitampura has also served as a prominent backdrop for the films unfolding story.

The production is operating under notably tight security protocols. Measures reportedly include restricted access on set and a strict no-phone policy to prevent leaks and maintain secrecy around the projects details. Such precautions suggest the makers are keen to preserve the films intrigue as it moves through production.

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Directed by Mrighdeep Singh Lamba, Naagzilla is envisioned as the beginning of a larger cinematic venture rather than a standalone film. The project is being mounted as a trilogy, with production backing from Karan Johar and Mahaveer Jains respective banners. This scale points to an ambitious rollout, positioning the film as a major undertaking within Kartik Aaryans upcoming slate.

While further details about the plot and timeline remain under wraps, the buzz around the Delhi schedule has already heightened anticipation. With its multi-location shoot and franchise ambitions, Naagzilla is shaping up to be one of the actors more closely watched projects currently in production.

Also Read: PHOTOS: Sara Ali Khan, Kartik Aaryan and More at Anurag Basus House for Saraswati Puja
Actor Ajith Kumar is no stranger to speaking his mind when it comes to fan conduct, especially in public spaces. Known for openly discouraging disruptive behaviour at temples, airports and events, the actor has once again found himself at the centre of an online conversation following a motorsports appearance in Abu Dhabi.



Ajith recently took part in a race at the Yas Marina Circuit, one of the worlds most prestigious Formula One tracks. During the event, a video surfaced on social media showing the actor firmly addressing someone from the crowd. Please behave yourself. This is not a theatre. Please, Ajith can be heard saying. The clip has since gone viral, drawing widespread reactions from fans and netizens alike.



According to reports, Ajith also requested fans not to call him Thala or raise slogans during the motorsports event, stressing the need for silence and discipline so that he could focus on racing. The moment resonated strongly online, particularly among those familiar with Ajiths consistent stance on maintaining decorum outside cinema halls.



A Consistent Stand Against Fan Frenzy



This is not the first time Ajith has urged fans to maintain restraint. Over the years, several images and videos have emerged showing the actor politely but firmly asking admirers to avoid noise or crowding, whether during personal visits, religious outings or professional commitments unrelated to films. For Ajith, motorsports is not a spectacle tied to his star image but a serious pursuit that demands concentration and respect for safety protocols.



The Abu Dhabi race also saw a few familiar faces from the film industry turning up to watch Ajith in action. Actor Sivakarthikeyan was among those present at the circuit. Sharing his experience later, the Amaran and Parasakthi star wrote, Pure passion, commitment, dedication and resilience - experienced it live, felt the adrenaline rush. An inspiring day spent with an inspiring person. Always look up to you, my dear AK sir.



Filmmaker Venkat Prabhu, who collaborated with Ajith on 2011s Mankatha, also reflected on witnessing the actor race live. Taking to Instagram, Venkat Prabhu wrote, What we carefully stage with cameras, he chooses to live for real. No retakes. No stunt doubles. No safety net of cinema. Just courage, discipline, and an uncompromising love for the sport. Seeing Ajith Kumar racing on the Yas Marina Circuit shook me in a way words cant explain. This is beyond imagination. Beyond cinema. This is a man who lives his truth.





View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sivakarthikeyan Doss (@sivakarthikeyan)



Racing First, Stardom Later



Ajiths passion for motorsports is well documented. From competing in professional racing events to supporting motorsport talent through his own initiatives, the actor has consistently maintained that racing is a space where celebrity worship has no place. His latest interaction at Yas Marina only reinforces that belief, even if it means disappointing fans expecting cinematic heroism off-screen.



As reported earlier, director AL Vijay is currently working on a documentary that chronicles Ajiths motorsports journey, offering a closer look at the actors life on the track and the discipline that drives him beyond cinema.



On the film front, Ajith is expected to return to India shortly to begin shooting for his next project with Adhik Ravichandran, following their collaboration on Good Bad Ugly. Until then, the viral Yas Marina video stands as yet another reminder of an actor who refuses to blur the line between fandom and personal space.







Also Read: Pics: Ajith Kumars Passion for Racing Stuns Sivakarthikeyan








Victoria, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 9, 2026) - ALUULA Composites Inc. (TSXV: AUUA) (OTCQB: AUUAF) ("ALUULA" or the "Company") today reported its financial results for the three and twelve month periods ended October 31, 2025 ("Q4 2025" and "FY 2025" respectively). All currency amounts noted are in Canadian dollars.

Fiscal 2025 marked a year of momentum for ALUULA, with strong sales growth, increasing binding purchase commitments, and gross margins within the Company's 40-45% target range.

"Q4 2025 was ALUULA's strongest quarter to date, extending the momentum from Q3 and delivering record annual sales of $7.9 million, confirming strong market demand for ALUULA's high-performance, ultra-light, no-sew, recycle-ready composite fabrics," said Sage Berryman, CEO and President of ALUULA. "The results also reflect our disciplined pricing, cost control, and operational efficiencies, with Q4 delivering a positive net income for the core business. In 2026, we will build on this foundation as we transition from early-stage disruption to sustainable growth, increase manufacturing capacity, expand our presence in key markets, and deepen relationships with global partners. To support this next phase, we will pursue additional funding options to accelerate our growth."

Key Q4 2025 Highlights

Sales for Q4 2025 were $2,916,427 compared to $1,666,861 in Q4 2024, representing a 75% increase quarter over quarter. Performance Outdoor sales increased 92% (or $1,319,075) compared to Q4 2024, with windsports up 109%, supported by optimized SKU selection and larger volume orders.

Open sales orders at October 31, 2025 stayed consistent with July 31, 2025 at over $3 million as the Company received new sales orders at a pace that matched production.

Cost of sales in Q4 2025 increased to $1,671,980 compared to $1,015,256 in Q4 2024.

Gross Margins increased to 43% compared to 39% in Q4 2024.

Validated a new method of manufacturing and successfully produced and shipped the first samples at a 1.5-meter width to customers.

Net comprehensive income from continued operations was $77,742 compared to net comprehensive loss from continued operations of $1,166,371 in Q4 2024. Q4 2024 loss was largely due to a deferred tax expense adjustment during the period relating to the IFRS treatment of deferred tax assets. If this adjustment had been excluded, net comprehensive loss from continued operations would have been $339,070.

Key FY 2025 Highlights

Sales for FY 2025 were $7,873,221 compared to $6,359,229 in FY 2024, a 24% increase. 23% increase in sales from Performance Outdoor In packs and bags, 8 additional brands successfully launched products in FY 2025, with a majority of brands that launched in FY 2024 making follow-on orders during FY 2025. Commercial Industrial channel increased by 34% in FY 2025 compared to FY 2024, primarily due to continued demand from a key customer in the wind power vertical market.

Cost of sales increased to $4,527,891 in FY 2025 compared to $3,756,656 in FY 2024, ending 2025 with gross margins at 42%, remaining in the anticipated range of 40-45% even during a year of growth.

Operating expenses excluding non-cash share-based compensation expense were $3,622,090 in FY 2025 compared to $4,554,341 in FY 2024. The decrease is primarily due to higher bad debt and warranty expenses in FY 2024.

Share-based compensation in FY 2025 was $708,742 compared to $113,927 in FY 2024. During the year, ALUULA modified certain stock option grants to provide meaningful equity incentives essential for attracting and retaining top talent to support long-term growth objectives. The modifications were accounted for in accordance with IFRS 2, Share-based Payment, and were the primary driver of the increase; without these modifications, FY 2025 share-based compensation would have been in line with historical levels.

Net and comprehensive loss from Ocean Rodeo's discontinued operations was $229,850 in FY 2025, compared to a net and comprehensive loss of $1,302,590 in FY 2024, representing a decrease of $1,072,740. This decrease is a result of declining operating costs and spending controls put in place as operations were wound down, as well as a deferred tax expense recognized in FY 2024 but not in FY 2025.

Outlook

ALUULA has built a strong foundation as an emerging leader in advanced composite materials, delivering exceptional strength, durability, and recyclability through its proprietary UHMWPE based materials. Our patented process produces adhesive-free, mono-material fabrics that are waterproof, UV-resistant, and designed for circularity, offering a performance and environmental advantage over traditional composite materials. As an ingredient brand, ALUULA materials have become a visible mark of quality and innovation across partner products in outdoor and wind power, and now building in defense, and aerospace applications. This growing presence has strengthened brand recognition and expanded customer adoption.

ALUULA closes fiscal 2025 with a robust base of contracted revenues, consistent gross margins, and a validated manufacturing capability ready for expansion. Our premium ingredient brand strategy and marquee partnerships in industrial, commercial, and performance outdoor markets are translating into strong revenue growth and enhanced market visibility. With a solid open sales orders book and binding purchase agreements, we anticipate continued momentum, subject to capacity constraints, as new manufacturing investments ramp up.

The priorities for the coming fiscal year are clear: secure and deploy growth capital, scale manufacturing capacity, deepen strategic partnerships, and continue to expand the technology portfolio. While near-term revenue conversion and margins may be slightly tempered by capacity investments and fewer productive manufacturing days in early 2026, these efforts are essential for supporting our transition from early-stage disruption to durable, repeatable growth. Management remains focused on managing margins through this phase, maintaining high operating leverage, and advancing the Company's leadership in both technological and environmental performance, with the goal of driving sustained value for shareholders.

Financial Statements and Management's Discussion and Analysis

This earnings press release should be read in conjunction with ALUULA's audited consolidated financial statements for the year ended October 31, 2025 and the related management discussion and analysis, which can be found on ALUULA's website and its issuer profile on the System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval Plus at www.sedarplus.ca.

About ALUULA Composites

ALUULA is an ultra-light, high performance and recycle-ready composite materials brand that enhances the performance of outdoor gear as well as commercial and industrial equipment. Proudly owned and manufactured on the Canadian west coast, ALUULA's innovation is driven by a deep understanding that equipment does not need to sacrifice performance for sustainability. ALUULA's materials are known for their unique construction capabilities and their ability to make products lighter, stronger, and more sustainable.

aluula.com | (TSXV: AUUA) (OTCQB: AUUAF)

ALUULA's Brand Partners

The term "brand partners" does not refer to formal partnerships with our customers. The term refers to marketing relationships with our customers who use ALUULA's technology as a brand ingredient in their products.

TSX Venture Exchange

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Statements

The information in this news release includes certain information and statements about management's view of future events, expectations, plans, and prospects that constitute forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to: the Company's growth plans, the Company's plan to increase manufacturing capacity, the Company's plan to pursue additional funding opportunities, the Company's future focus on Commercial Industrial and defense applications, and the Company's plan to expand technology portfolio's. These statements are based on assumptions subject to significant risks and uncertainties as described in the Company's management discussion and analysis. Because of these risks and uncertainties and as a result of a variety of factors, including the timing and receipt of all applicable regulatory, corporate third-party approvals, the actual results, expectations, achievements, or performance may differ materially from those anticipated and indicated by these forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurances that the expectations of any forward-looking statement will prove to be correct. Except as required by law, the Company disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions, changes in factors affecting such forward-looking statements or otherwise.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283335

Source: ALUULA Composites Inc.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - February 9, 2026) - Jaguar Uranium Corp. (NYSE American: JAGU) (the "Company"), a South American uranium exploration and development company focused on uranium discoveries in Argentina and Colombia, announced today the pricing of its initial public offering of 6,250,000 Class A common shares, at a price of $4.00 per share to the public for a total of $25 million of gross proceeds to the Company, before deducting underwriting discounts and offering expenses.

The Company has granted a 30-day option to the underwriters to purchase up to 937,500 additional shares representing 15% of the shares sold in this offering, solely to cover over-allotments, if any. All of the shares are being offered by the Company. The shares are expected to begin trading on the NYSE American tomorrow, February 10, 2026, under the symbol "JAGU". The offering is expected to close on February 11, 2026, subject to customary closing conditions.

Jaguar Uranium intends to use the net proceeds on the implementation of its business plan for its assets, including exploration, development plans, and property maintenance, as well as for general corporate purposes.

"This transaction is a pivotal milestone that positions our Company for the next chapter of disciplined, focused growth," said Steven Gold, Chief Executive Officer. "With this strengthened foundation, combined with our unique and advanced assets in South America, we are well positioned to help address the substantial and growing supply gap in the global uranium sector, a challenge expected to persist well into the foreseeable future."

Titan Partners, a division of American Capital Partners, is acting as sole bookrunner for the offering.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy these securities, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

About Jaguar Uranium Corp.

Jaguar Uranium is a uranium exploration and development company focused on uranium discoveries, engaged in uranium exploration. Its portfolio is comprised of two (2) uranium exploration projects in Argentina and one (1) uranium exploration project in Colombia. Jaguar maintains significant land holdings in Colombia and Argentina, which offer substantial exploration potential. The Company's properties are located within mining-friendly jurisdictions and are supported by established infrastructure. The Company intends to embark on an exploration program to establish and grow resource levels with the goal of introducing new uranium production to help address the expanding global supply deficiency.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, including statements about the completion, timing and size of the initial public offering, the commencement of trading on the NYSE American, the Company's intention to use the net proceeds to implement its business plan for its assets and the Company's ability to help address the substantial and growing global uranium supply gap. These forward-looking statements are based on a number of material factors and assumptions, including the execution of planned exploration activities, the availability of required personnel, equipment, permits and property access, the application of net proceeds as budgeted, the timely satisfaction of closing conditions for the offering and management's internal planning parameters relating to timing, costs, commodity prices and foreign exchange rates. Each forward-looking statement is subject to the inherent uncertainties in predicting future results and conditions and no assurance can be given that the initial public offering discussed above will be completed on the terms described or at all. Completion of the proposed initial public offering and the terms thereof are subject to numerous factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company, including, without limitation, market conditions, failure of customary closing conditions and the factors discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of the prospectus that forms a part of the registration statement, in the form last filed with the SEC. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release and the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283341

Source: Jaguar Uranium Corp.
TOKYO, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Wacom has been honored with the Ub Iwerks Award at the 53rd Annie Awards, recognizing its longstanding contribution to the animation industry through digital pen and ink technologies and its enduring role within the global animation community.

Presented by ASIFA-Hollywood, the Ub Iwerks Award celebrates technical advancements that have had a significant and lasting impact on the art and industry of animation. The award recognizes innovations that have helped shape animation production practices and expand creative possibilities over time. Named after animation pioneer Ub Iwerks - whose groundbreaking work helped shape some of the medium's earliest iconic characters - the award honors those who continue to push the medium forward.

For decades, Wacom's digital pen and ink technologies and creative tools have been widely adopted in animation production environments around the world. From early concept development and storyboarding to animation and compositing, Wacom's tools have supported artists in bringing hand-drawn expression into digital workflows, helping bridge traditional techniques with evolving production methods.

"When Wacom was first suggested to the ASIFA-Hollywood Board of Directors, many of us were genuinely surprised, having assumed the company had already received this honor. It quickly became clear, however, that this was exactly the right moment to recognize their contributions," said Aubry Mintz, Executive Director of ASIFA-Hollywood.

"Wacom has become an industry standard in professional digital pen and tablet technology, to the point where it is nearly impossible to find a studio or production that does not rely on their tools in some capacity."

Beyond its technology, Wacom has also been recognized for its long-standing support of the creative community through educational initiatives and ongoing industry collaboration.

"We are deeply honored to receive this recognition from the Annie Awards," said Nobu Ide, President and CEO of Wacom. "This award is especially meaningful to us because it does not recognize a single product or moment in time, but rather the long-standing role Wacom has played alongside the animation community.

For decades, we have worked closely with creators, studios, educators, and partners around the world, learning from them and evolving together as animation itself has evolved. This recognition belongs to the entire creative ecosystem that has trusted, supported, and continuously challenged us over the years.

We remain committed to supporting the future of animation by empowering creators and contributing to the communities that inspire our work every day."

The Annie Awards are widely regarded as the animation industry's most prestigious honors, celebrating excellence across creative and technical disciplines. Wacom's receipt of the Ub Iwerks Award places the company among a distinguished group of individuals and organizations recognized for advancing the medium through innovation.

About Wacom

Wacom is a global leader in digital pen solutions, offering intuitive tools for writing and drawing. Our products are trusted across creative fields - from studios and classrooms to healthcare - supporting students and professionals alike. Wacom pen technologies also power many pen-enabled PCs, tablets, and phones through partnerships with top tech brands.\

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View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/wacom-honored-with-ub-iwerks-award-for-longstanding-contribution-to-animation-at-the-53rd-annie-awards-302682669.html
Pender Harbour, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 9, 2026) - The Pender Harbour and Area Residents Association (PHARA) has today filed a Notice of Civil Claim in BC Supreme Court, seeking to have the DRIPA struck down and declared of no force and effect.

The constitutional challenge argues, among other things, that the DRIPA:

is beyond the province's constitutional authority,

breaches the democratic rights of citizens by leaving them governed by an entity they had no say in electing, and

illegally tries to tie the hands of future governments by dictating what types of laws they must pass (so as to be "consistent" with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples).

In 2024, PHARA filed a petition seeking to challenge the DRIPA and a related Order in Council that proposed to give the shishalh Nation statutory decision-making powers under what is known as a DRIPA "section 7 agreement". Government has since rescinded that specific Order in Council and signed an agreement with the shishalh Nation to pursue other section 7 decision-making in the Sunshine Coast. As such, this change of litigation procedure was required.

Since its passage in 2019, the DRIPA has been guiding the BC government's entire Indigenous reconciliation agenda and has been widely employed by the government in statutory amendments, permitting processes, and land use planning. It has also been relied upon by the BC courts in recent litigation including the August 2025 decision in Cowichan Tribes v. Canada, where the court held the Land Title Act does not protect private property owners from aboriginal title claims.

"It is clear that the DRIPA has become a major concern for many British Columbians," said PHARA Director Sean McAllister. "We believe people are starting to wake up to the reality of what DRIPA means for people's lives and livelihoods, and it is time for a court to consider - for the first time - whether it is even within the province's legal authority to have passed such a law."

PHARA's Notice of Civil Claim can be found at the following link or on the PHARA home page at www.phara.ca. Anyone interested in supporting this litigation can make a donation at PHARA's GoFundMe page at Fundraiser by Pender Harbour and Area Residents Association: Help Us Protect Property Rights and Constitutional Democracy.

ABOUT PHARA

PHARA is a volunteer organization which exists to support the vitality of the communities of Pender Harbour and Egmont areas as excellent places to live, work and play for residents and visitors. The Association provides a structure that allows residents to identify issues of broad community concern and have them effectively addressed.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283356

Source: Pender Harbour and Area Residents Association
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - February 9, 2026) - BeWhere Holdings Inc. (TSXV: BEW) (OTCQB: BEWFF), a leading innovator in low-power 5G IoT asset tracking solutions, today announced the launch of BeBatt, the first release in its fifth-generation asset tracking device family. Designed to eliminate the hurdles of high cost and frequent maintenance, BeBatt offers enterprise-grade reliability in a compact form factor at the company's most competitive price point to date.

As industries move toward "connecting everything," BeBatt provides the economic and operational bridge required for mass-scale adoption. By combining upwards of 10-years of operational lifespan with cost savings, BeWhere is enabling companies to track a wider range of assets that were previously cost-prohibitive to monitor.

The BeBatt Advantage: Efficiency at Scale

BeBatt leverages a refined LTE-M and NB-IoT architecture, purpose-built for deep indoor penetration and remote rural coverage. Key features include:

Hybrid Power Excellence: A replaceable lithium battery paired with a supercapacitor, extending operational life up to 10 years.

Universal Location Intelligence: Seamlessly switches between GNSS for precision outdoor tracking and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) for complex indoor environments.

Actionable Sensor Suite: Real-time alerts for motion, tilt, and light-based tamper detection, intended to minimize loss and optimize asset utilization.

Lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): A reduction in device cost combined with minimal maintenance requirements for up to 10 years.

"BeBatt represents a pivotal shift for our customers," said Alban Hoxha, Chief Technology Officer at BeWhere. "We didn't just want to build a better tracker; we wanted to improve total cost of ownership within the IoT marketplace. By delivering improved performance in challenging environments at a reduced price point, we are making expanded deployment a reality for the global logistics and industrial sectors."

Optimized for the Modern Supply Chain

Fully integrated with BeWhere's cloud platform and APIs, BeBatt is ready for immediate deployment across transportation, construction, healthcare, and government sectors. Whether monitoring industrial equipment in a warehouse or tracking high-value cargo across borders, BeBatt provides the heartbeat of data needed for intelligent AI management platforms.

Availability: BeBatt is available for order starting today. For technical specifications, visit BeWhere.com or contact BeWhere's Account Executives.

About BeWhere Holdings Inc.

BeWhere (TSXV: BEW) (OTCQB: BEWFF) specializes in low-power 5G IoT wide-area tracking technology, creating remote monitoring solutions that address cost, power, and environmental challenges. Over the last 6 years, the company has experienced rapid growth, collaborating with Fortune 500 companies, top resellers and installers to deploy hundreds of thousands of trackers across numerous sectors, including transportation, construction, logistics, utilities, health, and government.

BeWhere's tracking solutions are designed to be both cost-effective and simple to implement, significantly expanding the scope of assets that can be connected. These connected devices generate data that powers intelligent AI management platforms. By increasing the number of connected devices, BeWhere enhances the capabilities and growth potential of AI solutions.

Follow BeWhere on LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube.

Cautionary Statements Regarding Forward-Looking Information

Certain statements in this press release constitute forward-looking statements, within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements that are not historical facts, including without limitation, statements regarding future estimates, plans, programs, forecasts, projections, objectives, assumptions, expectations, or beliefs of future performance, are "forward-looking statements".

We caution you that such "forward-looking statements" involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual and future events to differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to commercial operations, including technology development, anticipated revenues, projected size of market, and other information that is based on forecasts of future results, estimates of amounts not yet determinable and assumptions of management.

These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties relating to, among other things, technology development and marketing activities, the Company's historical experience with technology development, uninsured risks. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements except as required by law.

The Company's unaudited Consolidated Financial Statements for the period ended September 30, 2025 and 2024, together with its corresponding Management's discussion and analysis can be found under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedarplus.ca and on the Company's website at www.bewhere.com.

NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (as that term is defined in the Policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283366

Source: BeWhere Holdings Inc.
HONG KONG, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- On 28 January, The Shaw Prize Foundation announced the establishment of The Shaw Prize in Computer Science, joining the existing prizes in Astronomy, Life Science and Medicine, and Mathematical Sciences.

The inaugural Selection Committee, comprising world-leading experts, will select the first laureate(s). Nominations will open from September to November 2026, with the announcement scheduled for spring 2027.

Leading the committee is Professor Jennifer Chayes, Dean of the College of Computing, Data Science, and Society at UC Berkeley. She pointed to the committee's diverse composition as a core strength: "Our committee brings together extraordinary expertise from around the globe, reflecting the international and interdisciplinary nature of computer science today. This diversity ensures a balanced, inclusive, and rigorous evaluation process."

Professor Tony Chan, who chaired the Planning Committee that shaped the new prize, joins the Selection Committee as a member. A former President of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, he hoped that The Shaw Prize "will lend its prestige and track record to recognize true outstanding contributions to computer science."

Another former university president on the committee is Professor John L Hennessy, who served as President of Stanford University for 16 years and received the 2017 ACM A.M. Turing Award. "I hope The Shaw Prize," he said, "brings deep recognition of the importance and intellectual depth of computer science as a field."

The committee includes another three Turing Award laureates - Professors Jack Dongarra, Yann LeCun, and Joseph Sifakis. Professor Dongarra, a 2021 Turing awardee and currently Research Professor Emeritus at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, said it is a privilege to help define this new prize from the ground up: "I hope the Prize signals that bold, field-defining ideas-especially recent ones-are seen, valued, and celebrated by the global community."

Professor Sifakis, a 2007 awardee and currently Emeritus CNRS Research Director at Verimag Laboratory, addressed the field's deepest challenges: "The answer to the quest for intelligence lies in exploring mental phenomena and understanding how consciousness arose in living organisms."

Professor LeCun, Executive Chairman at AMI Labs and Jacob T. Schwartz Professor of Computer Science at New York University, received the Turing Award in 2018. He served for many years as Chief AI Scientist at Meta.

"Computing is one of the most important human capabilities", said Council Chairman of HKUST, Professor Harry Shum. He recognised the power of computer science: "We are reaching human intelligence level quickly. This is going to have unprecedented and profound impact to humanity, mostly beneficial, but not without many concerns."

Concluding the perspectives, Professor Jeannette M Wing, Executive Vice President for Research and Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University, said: "It's a tribute to computer science for The Shaw Prize Foundation to recognize our field and to honor those who have not only provided a scientific understanding of computation, but also developed technology that has transformed every aspect of our lives."

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DUBAI, UAE, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Fapon, a global leader in life sciences, is showcasing its comprehensive one-stop IVD solutions at WHX Labs Dubai 2026, taking place from February 10 to 13 at the Dubai World Trade Centre. Leveraging its cutting-edge technologies and two decades of industry experience, Fapon is highlighting key offerings such as its Alzheimer's Disease (AD) blood testing solution as part of its innovative product portfolio. Through flexible collaboration models, Fapon provides end-to-end localization support - from technical assistance to local production - empowering partners globally to advance their local IVD industries.

At the exhibition, Fapon is presenting its Local Manufacturing Solutions, encompassing chemiluminescence immunoassay (CLIA), clinical biochemistry, lateral flow assay (LFA), and molecular diagnostics platforms. These solutions offer full-chain technology transfer, covering everything from core raw materials and reagent solutions to open-system instruments, R&D know-how, and production processes. This comprehensive approach assists partners in establishing complete local industrial capabilities - from R&D and production through to commercialization - enabling them to meet regional market demands effectively.

A key highlight is Fapon's advanced Alzheimer's Disease (AD) blood testing solution, which supplies a complete set of raw materials and bulk reagents for core biomarkers including p-tau 217, p-tau 181, A40, A42, GFAP, and NfL. These biomarkers exhibit high sensitivity and specificity and correlate strongly with predicate kits and established clinical diagnostic tests, empowering IVD manufacturers worldwide to develop more accurate and reliable AD assays.

Fapon is also demonstrating its chemiluminescence one-stop solution, including the Shine series CLIA analyzers covering throughputs from 120 T/h to 900 T/h, over 70 self-developed reagent solutions, and supporting core raw materials. Additionally, Fapon is showcasing its high-performance raw material portfolio, such as recombinant quality control and calibrator raw materials (including RF, HbA1c, and HIV/HIV-P24) and LAMP solutions for rapid molecular diagnostics, underscoring its strong upstream support in diagnostic development.

Supported by high-standard facilities spanning over 100,000 m and a global R&D and manufacturing network, Fapon continues to bring innovative, locally adaptable solutions to the market. The company currently serves over 70 countries and regions and partners with more than 2,500 organizations worldwide, remaining dedicated to building stronger collaborations to advance regional healthcare progress.

About Fapon

Fapon, a globally leading life sciences organization, is redefining the R&D paradigm in diagnostics and therapeutics through a cutting-edge "AI-driven + a closed loop of dry and wet experiments" model. This approach significantly accelerates novel biomarker/target discovery and translation. The company has established an integrated business structure that combines AI-powered innovative discovery, one-stop diagnostic solutions and novel therapies. Its products and services have covered the full spectrum of health management across the entire lifecycle, and accelerated the development of precision medicine.

Follow us on LinkedIn (Fapon) or visit us at https://en.faponbiotech.com/

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ST. PETERSBURG, FL / ACCESS Newswire / February 9, 2026 / The Rise Collective proudly announces the creation of Roam Hospitality, a new, independently built hotel and F&B management company designed to redefine what modern hospitality can be. In an industry dominated by venture-backed, private-equity-driven, and publicly traded operators, Roam is taking a different path - one that puts creativity, experience, and people at the center.

Across the industry, many beloved boutique brands have been absorbed by large public hospitality groups. Hyatt's acquisitions of The Standard and Bunkhouse, along with Hilton's acquisition of Graduate Hotels, reflect a long-standing trend of consolidation. While these rollups bring scale, they often reduce what made these brands special in the first place.

"In VC-backed, PE-backed or publicly traded environments, the P&L becomes the north star," said Elliott Caldwell, co-founder of The Rise Collective. "Creativity gets replaced with consistency, and the soulful, one-of-a-kind experiences guests love become diluted. When you partner with a shareholder-driven management company, you're partnering with a company built to serve investors, not owners and not guests."

Roam Hospitality was created to be the alternative.

"Roam will win because we don't answer to shareholders," said Michael Elefante, co-founder of The Rise Collective. "We answer to hotel owners and guests. That gives us the freedom to obsess over experience instead of earnings calls."

Roam Hospitality enters the market with strong momentum. The company's first hotel is scheduled to go live next month, several management deals are nearing completion, and Roam has multiple F&B proposals out for high-level, design-driven concepts. The Rise Collective's vertically integrated ecosystem spanning construction, design, operations, and investor networks provides Roam with a unique advantage as it scales nationally.

Roam Hospitality is positioned to become one of the only nationwide, large-scale, bootstrapped hospitality companies of the modern era, proving that independence isn't just a structure but a strategic advantage.



Originally posted on https://rise-collective.com/the-rise-collective-announces-the-launch-of-roam-hospitality.

CONTACT:

Albert Brown

Digital Marketing Manager

albert@rise-collective.com

6195862817

SOURCE: The Rise Collective

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/real-estate/the-rise-collective-announces-the-launch-of-roam-hospitality-1135435
Das Borsenjahr 2026 ist fur viele Anleger ernuchternd gestartet. Tech-Werte straucheln, der Nasdaq 100 tritt auf der Stelle und ausgerechnet alte Favoriten wie Microsoft und SAP rutschen zweistellig ab. KI ist plotzlich kein Ruckenwind mehr, sondern ein Belastungsfaktor, weil Investoren beginnen, die finanzielle Nachhaltigkeit zu hinterfragen.



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In unserem aktuellen Spezialreport stellen wir funf Aktien vor, die genau in dieses neue Marktbild passen: solide, gunstig bewertet und mit attraktiver Dividende. Werte, die nicht nur laufende Ertrage liefern, sondern auch bei Marktkorrekturen Sicherheit bieten.



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Nayagam brings over two decades of leadership experience in technology services, regional expertise, client success and driving sustainable growth.

His career spans executive positions at DXC Technology, IBM and CSC.

NTT DATA, a global leader in AI, digital business and technology services, today announced the appointment of Seelan Nayagam as the new Chief Executive Officer for Asia Pacific at NTT DATA, Inc., effective March 16, 2026, based in Singapore. Nayagam succeeds John Lombard and will report directly to NTT DATA, Inc. President and CEO, Abhijit Dubey.

Nayagam brings over two decades of leadership experience in driving digital transformation, enterprise technology services and sustainable growth across Asia Pacific and global markets.

Nayagam joins NTT DATA from DXC Technology where he led operations across Asia Pacific and Middle East Africa, accountable for multi-billion-dollar revenue, profitability, strategy, portfolio diversification and governance. He spearheaded digital and cloud transformation initiatives for Fortune 500 clients, enabling modernization and resilience, critical in today's fast-moving environment. Previously, he held senior roles at CSC and IBM. Leading IBM's Asia Pacific Application Management portfolio, Nayagam drove significant business growth and transformed the sales discipline across more than 20,000 team members.

"Seelan's executive leadership and wealth of experience in driving digital transformation comes at a pivotal time as we partner with our clients to deliver solutions for their transformation journeys in the era of AI," said Abhijit Dubey, President and CEO, NTT DATA, Inc. "His strong track record in delivering profitable growth through strategic client initiatives will play a key role in accelerating our growth and innovation across the Asia Pacific region. We're delighted to welcome Seelan to NTT DATA as we deliver on our mission to accelerate client success and positively impact society through responsible innovation."

Dubey added, "I would also like to take the opportunity to thank John Lombard for his excellent leadership during his many years with our company, which was instrumental in helping NTT DATA transform and setting the stage for future success. We all wish him well in the future."

"I am very excited to be joining NTT DATA, Inc. on March 16th as part of Abhijit Dubey's management team. The company is going through an incredible transformation to lead in the AI era. It will be an honour to lead the Asia Pacific team and further drive client success and sustainable growth across the region," said Seelan Nayagam. "I cannot wait to get started, meet our clients, partners and colleagues and help drive the next era of digital and AI transformation."

Nayagam holds a B.Sc. with honours in Computer Science and Accounting from the University of Buckingham in the United Kingdom.

About NTT DATA

NTT DATA is a $30+ billion business and technology services leader, serving 75% of the Fortune Global 100. We are committed to accelerating client success and positively impacting society through responsible innovation. We are one of the world's leading AI and digital infrastructure providers, with unmatched capabilities in enterprise-scale AI, cloud, security, connectivity, data centers and application services. Our consulting and industry solutions help organizations and society move confidently and sustainably into the digital future. As a Global Top Employer, we have experts in more than 70 countries. We also offer clients access to a robust ecosystem of innovation centres as well as established and start-up partners. NTT DATA is part of NTT Group, which invests over $3 billion each year in R&D.

Visit us at nttdata.com

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The 55% year on year surge was fuelled by late-stage mega rounds, indicating a maturing ecosystem to address NATO's capability needs.

Munich retained its position as Europe's #1 DSR hub, with the UK attracting the most VC funding and Central and Eastern Europe showing the largest growth.

AI dominated the sector, underpinning 44% of all DSR funding.

An exclusive new report by Dealroom and the NATO Innovation Fund shows that European DSR (Defence, Security and Resilience) startups secured a record $8.7 billion in venture capital in 2025. The surge was fuelled by late-stage mega-rounds to support breakthrough technologies that help address critical capabilities for NATO nations from freedom of operations mobility, to awareness and decision making, and the security of critical technologies

Record funding surge powers DSR Startups to meet NATO nations' most urgent security needs

Funding for DSR startups increased by 55% year on year and is nearly four times higher than five years ago. It outpaces the broader European VC market, which grew just 16% over the past year. The increase indicates that both innovators and investors across Europe are rallying to develop, back and scale technologies that address the capability needs of European NATO nations, while also capitalising on the opportunities generated by Allies' pledge to invest 5% of their Gross Domestic Product in defence and security.

"Across Europe, DSR continues to scale rapidly, with business growth evident across markets and substantial venture capital deployed through large rounds," said Sander Verbrugge, Partner, NATO Innovation Fund. "With proven revenue streams and clear trajectories for continued growth, the opportunity is now for the remainder of capital providers from banks to private equity to step in and support the next phase of funding for late-stage DSR companies."

Late-stage investment tripled to $4.7B, signalling a maturing ecosystem, and was driven by investments in technologies addressing key defence and security challenges. AI dominated the sector, underpinning 44% of all DSR funding the highest share in six years as autonomous systems, defence optimised computing and AI-enabled decision making became critical to next-generation capabilities.

Germany and the UK lead in DSR investing, with Finland, Spain, Norway and Bulgaria on the rise

The report reveals where Europe's DSR capital is concentrated, with the UK and Germany continuing to lead the charge and new countries emerging as regional hubs. Highlights include:

The UK leads Europe in total VC funding for DSR startups attracting $2.9 billion in 2025 and $9.9 billion since 2020, though Germany is closing the gap with $2.1 billion raised in 2025 and $5.4 billion since 2020.

though Germany is closing the gap with $2.1 billion raised in 2025 and $5.4 billion since 2020. Germany and the Netherlands recorded the highest share of national VC funding allocated to DSR companies in 2025 at over 15% each , underlining strong national commitment to the sector and alignment with industrial policy priorities.

, underlining strong national commitment to the sector and alignment with industrial policy priorities. Central and Eastern Europe showed the fastest growth in deal velocity, with rounds increasing 2.7x since 2020.

with rounds increasing 2.7x since 2020. Munich retained its position as Europe's leading DSR hub with $1.7 billion raised, reflecting its strong industrial base, access to defence customers and deep talent pool. Sofia and Oslo both rose in prominence, making it into the top European cities for VC investment for the first time in five years.

"Munich's leadership is shaped by its strong industrial base, diverse international talent, and a vibrant deep tech ecosystem-all of which are driving future growth," said Daniel Metzler, Co-Founder CEO, Isar Aerospace. "This ecosystem is enabling next-generation space and defence companies to scale faster and move from innovation to deployment."

Startups are growing, fostering partnerships and generating revenue at pace

Translating increased investments into real defence, security and resilience capabilities for Europe requires adoption of those technologies by governments at scale. The report shows early signs that many startups are already generating revenue, and gaining access to the full capital stack required for further growth, cementing their role in Europe's technological sovereignty and security. Highlights include:

Contracts and Partnerships: Though data on contracts is limited, the report reveals that defence primes are increasingly investing and establishing strategic development partnerships with DSR startups . In addition, DSR startups are increasingly winning public tenders , particularly in the drone industry.

Though data on contracts is limited, the report reveals that . In addition, DSR startups are , particularly in the drone industry. Access to the Full Capital Stack: Although VC financing remains the key source of income for DSR startups, debt and grants are increasing, indicating the maturing of the DSR ecosystem.

Although VC financing remains the key source of income for DSR startups, indicating the maturing of the DSR ecosystem. Consolidation: M&A activity is at an all time high - 4x more than four years ago driven by neo-primes acquiring startups to grow their offerings and expand geographically. On the other hand, no public listings took place this year, despite a flurry of listings in 2021.

"While capital continues to flow into a sector that has never been more strategically important, investment alone doesn't automatically translate into stronger European defence capabilities. What matters is how effectively DSR startups and scaleups are turning funding into real technologies, real contracts, and real operational impact," said John Ridge, Chief Adoption Officer, NATO Innovation Fund. "European ministries of defence have a critical role to play by making it easier for startups and scaleups to compete for acquisition contracts and by reshaping the relationships between new entrants and established defence primes."

Click here to read the full report.

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Contacts:

Amalia Kontesi

amalia@nif.fund
BERLIN, Feb.10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Corruption is worsening globally, with even established democracies backsliding amid a concerning picture of long-term decline in leadership to tackle corruption, according to the 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), released today by Transparency International.

The 31st edition of the CPI shows that the number of countries scoring above 80 has fallen from 12 a decade ago to just five in 2025. Democracies, traditionally stronger performers on anti-corruption, are experiencing a worrying decline, including the United States, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, France and Sweden.

Another concerning pattern is a crackdown on civic space. Since 2012, 36 of the 50 countries with significant score declines have also experienced reduced freedoms of expression, association and assembly, making it harder for journalists and civil society to speak out against corruption.

In 2025, young people led major anti-corruption protests, particularly in countries in the bottom half of the CPI where scores have stagnated or fallen in the past decade. In Nepal and Madagascar, protesters criticised leaders for abusing power while failing to deliver basic services and economic opportunity, leading to the fall of both governments.

Transparency International is warning that the absence of bold political leadership in the global fight against corruption is weakening international anti-corruption efforts and reducing pressure for reform in countries around the world.

Francois Valerian, Chair of Transparency International, said:

"Corruption is not inevitable. We know what works when it comes to holding power to account for the common good: democratic accountability, independent oversight, and a free, open civil society. At a time when we're seeing a dangerous disregard for international norms from some states, we're calling on leaders to act with integrity and live up to their responsibilities to provide a better future for people everywhere."

Transparency International is calling on governments to:

Renew political leadership on anti-corruption by fully enforcing laws, implementing international commitments and strengthening transparency, oversight and accountability.

Protect civic space by ending attacks on journalists, NGOs and whistleblowers and halting efforts to restrict independent civil society.

Close secrecy loopholes that allow corrupt money to move across borders, including by strengthening beneficial ownership transparency and regulating professional enablers.

Spokespeople are available for interviews. Please contact: press@transparency.org

The report, results, methodology, press releases and graphics are available here!

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February 10, 2026

Amsterdam, the Netherlands -Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), a global leader in health technology, today announced that Roy Jakobs is proposed to be re-appointed as its President/Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Management.

The decision to propose the re-appointment of Roy Jakobs reflects the Supervisory Board's recognition of the progress made since 2022 and its confidence in his leadership as Philips enters the next phase of driving profitable growth. The proposal will be submitted for approval at the upcoming Annual General Meeting of Shareholders (AGM), to be held on May 8, 2026.

"Roy Jakobs has demonstrated clear leadership, strong execution and a relentless focus on strengthening Philips amid an uncertain macro environment," said Feike Sijbesma, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Royal Philips.

"Roy has built a strong foundation, enhanced financial resilience and created an impact-driven culture with a highly engaged team focused on delivering better care for more people through meaningful innovation. Since his start, significant progress has been made in addressing the Respironics recall and continuing to improve Philips' culture of patient safety and quality. Supply chain operations are resilient and adaptive as evidenced by the company's management of tariffs. The organization is simpler, leaner and more agile with EUR 2.5 billion productivity savings achieved. The senior leadership team is renewed, and the culture focused on performance, growth, execution and innovation. Company growth is restored, margins materially increased and positive cash generation resulted in a robust balance sheet. The Supervisory Board is confident that Roy is the right leader to continue guiding Philips with ongoing focus and accountability to create long-term sustainable value for all stakeholders."

Later today, Roy Jakobs will present Philips' plan to drive profitable growth to deliver sustainable value at the company's Capital Markets Day.

More information about Philips' 2026 AGM will be published in due course. Additional information on Philips' Board of Management and Executive Committee can be found here.

For further information, please contact:

Michael Fuchs

Philips Global External Relations

Tel.: +31 614 869 261

E-mail: michael.fuchs@philips.com

Dorin Danu

Philips Investor Relations

Tel.: +31 205 977 055

E-mail: dorin.danu@philips.com

About Royal Philips

Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) is a leading health technology company focused on improving people's health and well-being through meaningful innovation. Philips' patient- and people-centric innovation leverages advanced technology and deep clinical and consumer insights to deliver personal health solutions for consumers and professional health solutions for healthcare providers and their patients in the hospital and the home.



Headquartered in the Netherlands, the company is a leader in diagnostic imaging, ultrasound, image-guided therapy, monitoring and enterprise informatics, as well as in personal health. Philips generated 2024 sales of EUR 18 billion and employs approximately 67,000 employees with sales and services in more than 100 countries. News about Philips can be found at www.philips.com/newscenter.

Attachment
LIUYANG, China, Feb. 10, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On the evening of February 6 local time, Liuyang fireworks dazzled the night sky in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), with a stunning 10-minute special pyrotechnic display.

A Media Snippet accompanying this announcement is available by clicking on this link.

This pyrotechnic show was fully planned and executed by Liuyang Jiteng Fireworks Group Co., Ltd. and served as a highlight of the 2026 UAE "Happy Spring Festival - Hunan Culture in the UAE" event.

As the "Hometown of Chinese Fireworks," Liuyang City in Hunan Province has long established its fireworks products as a shining calling card for Hunan culture as it makes its way onto the world stage. In 2025, despite facing pressures, Liuyang's fireworks industry forged ahead, with its industrial chain value once again surpassing the 50 billion yuan mark, reaching a total of 50.58 billion yuan, representing a year-on-year increase of 0.7%, with particularly remarkable export performance.

The surge in Liuyang fireworks' global popularity is underpinned by the increasingly close economic and trade cooperation between Changsha and the UAE. In recent years, Changsha and the UAE have adhered to the principle of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation, continuously deepening economic and trade exchanges and achieving fruitful results. Using light as a brush and flames as music, this immersive Spring Festival cultural feast not only sent warm New Year wishes to the local people but also struck up a brand-new symphony of the global outreach of Hunan culture and the in-depth integration of China-UAE economic and trade cooperation.

Source: Liuyang Jiteng Fireworks Group Co., Ltd.

Contact person: Mr. Zou, Tel: 86-10-63074558
GelreDome Arnhem to host one-night-only show in the Netherlands on June 6, 2026

ARNHEM, Netherlands, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Ye, the artist globally known as Kanye West, will return to Europe with a one-night-only concert at GelreDome in Arnhem, the Netherlands, on Saturday, June 6, 2026. The performance will mark Ye's first European live concert since 2014 and his first appearance in the Netherlands since 2013.

The Arnhem date will serve as the first European stop of Ye's return to the continent. While another performance is scheduled later this summer in Reggio Emilia, Italy (July 18, 2026), the GelreDome show will open this limited run of European dates.

"We look forward to welcoming Ye to GelreDome. This is an event of international scale and a special moment for Dutch audiences," said a spokesperson for GelreDome. "We expect significant demand."

Ye is widely regarded as one of the most influential artists of the past decades, with a lasting impact not only on music but also on fashion, design, and popular culture. His live performances are known for their distinctive artistic vision and large-scale production.

The concert at GelreDome is organized by J.Noah Live, which has been producing international concerts and tours for more than twenty years.

Pre-registration for the presale is available as of today through the official channels of GelreDome and J.Noah. The presale begins Thursday, February 12 at 10:00 AM CET, followed by the general on-sale on Friday, February 13 at 10:00 AM CET.

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HELSINKI, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Modirum Platforms has joined the Digital Defence Ecosystem Finland (DDE), strengthening the national network that accelerates secure, resilient and innovative digital defence capabilities. The membership supports Modirum Platforms' goal of expanding its role in Europe's dual-use and new digital defence technology landscape and contributing its deep expertise to shared national and international objectives.

As a new DDE member, Modirum Platforms brings significant competencies in mission-critical communications, real-time situational awareness, AI-driven analytics, advanced cybersecurity, and secure digital infrastructure design. The company's solutions-including the development of its M Orbit multimodal situational awareness platform-enable defence and security actors to operate more effectively in increasingly complex and data-intensive environments.

"We are committed to ensuring that organisations protecting citizens and critical infrastructure have secure and sustainable digital platforms," says Petri Anttila, GM of Modirum Platforms. "DDE provides the collaboration environment needed to scale these capabilities across Finland and the wider European market."

Modirum Platforms' membership follows the successful participation of its sister company, Modirum Gespi, whose network expansion within DDE has opened new market opportunities. The company sees similar potential for Modirum Platforms, particularly in areas such as protection of critical infrastructure, secure communication ecosystems, and advanced data-driven defence technologies.

DDE Finland connects companies, research organisations and public-sector stakeholders to accelerate innovation in defence and dual-use technologies. Modirum Platforms' addition further strengthens the ecosystem's capabilities and supports the broader development of Finland's defence industry and digital resilience.

Media Contacts

Tero Silvola,

CEO, Modirum Platforms

Email: tero.silvola@modirumplatforms.com

Sami Honkaniemi,

COO, Modirum Platforms

Email: sami.honkaniemi@modirumplatforms.com

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With intelligent solutions for condition monitoring of industrial equipment and sustainable offerings for bearing remanufacturing, SKF will present itself at maintenance 2026 on 25 and 26 February in Dortmund. In addition, visitors can benefit from an attractive trade fair offer for an SKF Quick Collect Sensor. SKF can be found in Hall 7, Booth 7501.

DORTMUND, Germany, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- More than 6,000 industry professionals from across Europe are expected to attend this industrial kickoff event of the year. After a one-year break, SKF returns with a broad portfolio. The focus lies on solutions for both stationary and mobile condition monitoring, with new offers presented at the booth.

For stationary use, the SKF IMx1 starter package provides an ideal entry into intelligent machine monitoring-easier and faster than ever! It is cost-efficient, ready for immediate use, and can be scaled as needed. With wireless plug-and-play technology, the Observer Mobile App, and AI-supported analytics, anomalies can be detected early to prevent unplanned machine downtime. Whether motors, pumps, or fans, the system adapts flexibly to all requirements and is ready to use within minutes.

For mobile use, SKF is introducing a brand-new version of the proven SKF Quick Collect Sensor. The enhanced CMDT 392 is a user-friendly, Bluetooth-enabled handheld sensor that connects seamlessly to the free SKF Quick Collect app on a tablet or smartphone. For new orders placed at maintenance 2026, customers purchasing a Quick Collect Sensor CMDT 392 (single unit or kit) will receive a 15% discount on SKF's non-binding price recommendation valid at the time of purchase.

A visit to the SKF booth will also be worthwhile for operators of large rotating equipment. They can learn about SKF's extensive bearing remanufacturing services, which help save costs compared with purchasing new bearings, improve the CO2 balance, and often shorten delivery times.

SKF condition monitoring expert Benjamin Pfannes explains: "We offer useful tools and applications for nearly all plant operators to help plan maintenance intervals more effectively and reduce machine downtime. Together with my on-site colleagues, I'm happy to introduce visitors to our condition monitoring portfolio. We will find the right solution for everyone."

Overview of SKF offerings at maintenance 2026:

SKF Bearing Remanufacturing

SKF Multilog IMx-8 / 16 / Plus

SKF Enlight Collect IMx-1

SKF Quick- & Pro-Collect System

SKF Microlog Analyzer dBX

SKFTLDD System - lubrication system monitoring via dashboard

SKF Client Needs Analysis (CNA)

You can find us in Hall 7, Booth 7501.

SKF Quick Collect Sensor.

Remanufactured bearings.

Benjamin Pfannes/SKF.

Since 1907, SKF has been making some of the world's most innovative bearings, seals, lubrication systems, condition monitoring solutions, and services to reduce friction. Less friction means more energy saved and by reducing it, we make industry smarter, more competitive, and more energy efficient, building a more sustainable future where we can all do more with less. SKF is represented in approximately 130 countries and has around 17,000 distributor locations worldwide. Annual sales in 2024 were SEK 98,722 million and the number of employees was 38,743. www.skf.com

SKF employs around 5,500 people in Germany. Approximately 3,200 of these work in Schweinfurt, the headquarters of SKF GmbH and the SKF Group's largest production site.

SKF is a registered trademark of the SKF Group.

Press contact:

Holger Laschka

+49 9721 56-2384

+49 171 7743003

holger.laschka@skf.com

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Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - TempraMed Technologies Ltd. (CSE: VIVI) (FSE: 9DY) ("TempraMed" or the "Company"), a medical-technology innovator transforming how temperature-sensitive medications are stored and managed, is excited to announce the rollout of its products across Super-Pharm, Israel's largest and most prominent pharmacy and health-retail chain, operating nationwide and serving millions of consumers annually.

The rollout makes TempraMed's portfolio of temperature-protection products broadly accessible to patients managing insulin, epinephrine auto-injectors, and other temperature-sensitive medications through one of the country's most trusted healthcare platforms.

This expansion represents a meaningful commercialization milestone for TempraMed, significantly increasing visibility, point-of-care access, product education and consumer adoption potential in a core market where chronic conditions such as diabetes and anaphylaxis are prevalent.

"This is an exciting inflection point for TempraMed, as we continue to execute on our defined commercialization strategy in Israel, a core market for us, and as well Globally," said Ron Nagar, CEO of TempraMed. "Super-Pharm is a cornerstone of healthcare in Israel and rolling out our products to Super-Pharm substantially expands our consumer reach and reinforces TempraMed's position as the category leader in personal medication temperature protection and management. This is another step in executing our strategy to scale through high-traffic retail and healthcare channels. We will now have access to millions of potential customers across Israel through our national pharmacy roll out strategy as well as access to large HMO customers."

Strategic Significance

The Super-Pharm rollout complements TempraMed's recent institutional and pharmacy-based expansions and further strengthens its defined, multi-channel distribution strategy, which includes:

Global Healthcare Payors, networks and HMOs

National retail pharmacy chains in core markets

Online and direct-to-consumer platforms

The placement within Super-Pharm provides a combination of product accessibility, education, and validation, supporting sustained demand and repeat customer purchases. This, together with the recent roll out to Maccabi Pharm provides adoption and support from two significant national pharmacy chains and reinforces TempraMed's brand leadership in medication protection.

The Company views Israel as a strategic launch and validation market for broader international expansion, with successful retail rollouts serving as a blueprint for additional partnerships in Europe, North America, and other high-growth regions.

About TempraMed Technologies Ltd.

TempraMed Technologies Ltd. Is a global medical device company with a portfolio of innovative, temperature-controlled medication storage solutions. Founded with the mission to safeguard the effectiveness of life-saving medications, TempraMed develops patented, FDA-registered, thermal insulation devices that work 24/7 without batteries or external power. With a product line already in market including VIVI Cap, VIVI Cap Smart, VIVI Epi, and VIVI Med, TempraMed enables patients and healthcare providers to confidently manage temperature-sensitive medications anywhere, anytime. With operations in North America, Europe, and Asia, TempraMed will continue to expand globally offering a solution for medication protection and adherence.

Cautionary Statements

This press release contains "forward-looking statements or information". Forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as: anticipate, intend, plan, goal, seek, believe, project, estimate, expect, strategy, future, likely, may, should, will and similar references to future periods. Examples of forward-looking statements in this press release include, but are not limited to, statements regarding: the anticipated benefits and scope of the Super-Pharm retail rollout across Israel; the Company's ability to drive consumer awareness, education, and adoption of its products through national retail pharmacy channels; expectations regarding sustained demand and repeat customer purchases resulting from the Super-Pharm partnership; the Company's ability to expand through institutional healthcare channels, including HMOs, payors, and additional retail pharmacy partners; the strengthening of the Company's brand presence and category leadership in medication temperature protection; the Company's multi-channel distribution strategy, including global healthcare payors, national retail pharmacy chains, and direct-to-consumer platforms; the use of the Israeli market as a strategic launch and validation market for broader international expansion; and the Company's ability to replicate the retail rollout model in Europe, North America, and other high-growth regions. Forward-looking statements are neither historical facts nor assurances of future performance. Instead, they are based only on our current beliefs, expectations and assumptions regarding the future of our business, future plans and strategies, projections, anticipated events and trends, the economy and other future conditions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of our control. Our actual results and financial condition may differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements include, among others, the Company's ability to maintain and expand its commercial relationship with Super-Pharm; risks related to the success and scalability of the national retail pharmacy rollout; the Company's ability to generate sustained consumer demand and repeat purchases through the Super-Pharm pharmacy network; the Company's ability to secure additional partnerships with retail pharmacy chains, HMOs, payors, and institutional partners in Israel and internationally; risks related to market acceptance and adoption of the Company's temperature-protection products by consumers and healthcare providers; the Company's ability to manage supply chain, logistics, and distribution across a national retail pharmacy network; regulatory and compliance risks in Israel and other international markets; the adequacy of the Company's cash flow and earnings to support ongoing commercialization efforts; the availability of future financing and/or credit; competition from existing or new entrants in the temperature-controlled medication storage market; general economic, market, or business conditions in Israel and globally; currency exchange rate fluctuations; loss of key employees and consultants; and other risks described in the Company's public filings.

Any forward-looking statement made by us in this press release is based only on information currently available to us and speaks only as of the date on which it is made. Except as required by applicable securities laws, we undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283343

Source: TempraMed Technologies Ltd
Montreal, Quebec--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Defence Therapeutics Inc. (CSE: DTC) (FSE: DTC) (OTCQB: DTCFF) ("Defence" or the "Company"), a publicly traded biotechnology and precision intracellular drug-delivery company, reported on its Scientific Advisory Board ("SAB") meeting held on January 30, 2026, focused on advancing the strategic positioning of Accum for antibody-drug conjugate ("ADC") applications.

The discussion brought together complementary expertise spanning ADC chemistry and development, experimental design and translational science, and value creation and partnering strategy, enabling an in-depth and highly constructive exchange on Accum's role in improving intracellular delivery of ADC payloads. The conversation focused on identifying the most critical scientific questions to address, refining development priorities, and aligning data generation with the expectations of future clinical and pharmaceutical partners.

"This was an exceptionally valuable discussion that helped us sharpen both our scientific focus and our strategic direction," said Maxime Parisotto, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer of Defence Therapeutics. "The insights shared by our advisors are directly informing how we design our next studies, ensuring that we generate the data that matter most to advance Accum toward the clinic and position the platform for meaningful partnerships."

The discussion benefited from the complementary expertise of Rob Leanna, PhD, whose experience in ADC development, drug-linker chemistry, and clinical advancement was shaped through his long tenure at AbbVie; Danny Chui, PhD, who brought deep insight into ADC design and translational science informed by his significant work at Zymeworks, Abdera Therapeutics, and Kairos Therapeutics; and Brendan Hussey, PhD, who contributed a value-creation and partnering perspective grounded in clinical development, strategy, and capital formation. Together, their input is guiding the next phase of Accum development as the platform advances toward clinical translation and strategic partnerships.

As a result of this multidisciplinary dialogue, Defence Therapeutics is refining its Accum ADC development roadmap to better align platform capabilities with clinical development requirements and partnering considerations, with the goal of enabling more effective and better-tolerated ADC therapies. This approach reinforces Accum's potential as a next-generation intracellular delivery solution for complex biologics. To explore partnering opportunities or schedule a meeting, please contact info@defencetherapeutics.com.

About Defence Therapeutics:

Defence Therapeutics is a publicly traded biotechnology company committed to making cancer treatment more effective and safer. Using its Accum precision drug delivery platform, Defence is working to enhance the potency of ADCs and other complex biologics at lower doses, with the goal of reducing side effects and improving access to advanced therapies. By pursing cutting edge science, and collaborating with pharma and biotech partners, Defence strives to bring transformative therapies to patients who need them most. To learn more about Defence Therapeutics and explore partnering opportunities, please visit www.defencetherapeutics.com or contact info@defencetherapeutics.com.

Cautionary Statement Regarding "Forward-Looking" Information

This release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that the Company expects to occur, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include regulatory actions, market prices, and continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by applicable securities laws, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.

Neither the CSE nor its market regulator, as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE, accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/282529

Source: Defence Therapeutics Inc.
Sheffield-based commercial finance platform selected for regulatory innovation event

SHEFFIELD, United Kingdom, Feb. 10, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FundingSearch.com has been invited to participate in the Financial Conduct Authority's SME Finance TechSprint this week, marking a significant milestone as the intelligent matching platform simultaneously opens its doors to commercial lenders across the UK.

The invitation recognises FundingSearch's alignment with the FCA's Open Finance vision and its innovative approach to addressing inefficiencies in the commercial finance market. The platform will demonstrate its verified financial data integration and intelligent matching capabilities at the regulatory event.

"This invitation validates everything we've built," said Phillip Evans, Founder and CEO of FundingSearch. "We're not waiting for 2030 to implement Open Finance principles. We're delivering them now. The FCA's recognition comes at the perfect moment as we welcome lenders onto the platform."

FundingSearch has now opened its lender onboarding process, inviting banks and alternative finance providers to join a marketplace that promises to transform how commercial finance deals are matched and processed. The platform reduces lender due diligence time by 60% through verified financial data integration with Xero and Sage accounting software.

The intelligent matching system addresses a critical industry inefficiency. Commercial finance brokers currently spend 20+ hours per deal researching suitable lenders manually. FundingSearch reduces this to minutes through AI-powered algorithms that analyse verified financial data against lender criteria.

Lenders joining the platform receive pre-qualified applications with live P&L, balance sheet and cash flow data pulled directly from accounting software. This eliminates the manual document chase and reduces mismatched applications by up to 50%.

Evans, who spent decades as a commercial finance broker before founding FundingSearch, built the platform to solve problems he experienced firsthand. "I built the platform I wish existed when I started broking," he said. "The technology gap between mortgage broking and commercial finance is shocking. We're closing that gap."

The platform covers the full commercial finance spectrum, including asset finance, invoice finance, working capital, trade finance, merchant cash advance and property finance. Following UK market establishment, FundingSearch plans expansion into Ireland, Australia and Canada.

Commercial lenders interested in joining the platform can register at www.fundingsearch.com .

Notes to Editors:

FundingSearch.com is a Sheffield-based commercial finance technology platform launching February 2026. The company provides intelligent matching between SME borrowers, commercial finance brokers and lenders through verified financial data integration.

Media Contact:

Phillip Evans

Founder & CEO, FundingSearch.com

phill@fundingsearch.com

07970 500425

www.fundingsearch.com
EQS-News: Choithram International Foundation / Key word(s): Miscellaneous

Dubai Cares, UAE Food Bank and Choithrams launch fifth "Double Blessings" Ramadan campaign, uniting the community in giving as one family



10.02.2026 / 09:40 CET/CEST

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.





Dubai Cares, UAE Food Bank and Choithrams launch fifth "Double Blessings" Ramadan campaign, uniting the community in giving as one family

Popular campaign continues to support education and food security programmes across vulnerable communities, reaching hundreds and thousands of beneficiaries

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, February 10, 2026/APO Group/ -- Choithrams ( www.Choithrams.com ), the UAE's favourite community supermarket brand, has launched the fifth edition of its "Double Blessings" Ramadan campaign, strengthening its partnership with Dubai Cares and the UAE Food Bank, both operating under the umbrella of Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives (MBRGI). The initiative, now a familiar fixture of the holy month, seeks to mobilise residents and visitors alike in support of education and food-relief programmes for communities most in need.

Download Inforgraphic: https://apo-opa.co/4qpRhGo

Running until the end of March 2026, the campaign invites customers to donate virtual biryani boxes for AED 10 or food boxes for AED 20 at checkout counters across all Choithrams stores in Dubai, as well as online at www.Choithrams.com . All proceeds will be directed through Dubai Cares and the UAE Food Bank to ensure that essential food supplies and educational resources reach vulnerable families locally and globally.

L.T. Pagarani, Chairman of Choithrams Group, said: "Double Blessings has grown into a shared tradition of giving, shaped by the generosity of our customers and partners. Each year, we witness how small acts of kindness multiply into meaningful impact. We are grateful for the support of our customers, partners and stakeholders and remain committed to ensuring that the spirit of Ramadan reaches those who need it most."

Double Blessings has grown into a shared tradition of giving, shaped by the generosity of our customers and partners

Now recognised as one of the UAE's most consistent community-driven Ramadan initiatives, Double Blessings continues to bring together diverse groups-residents, tourists, families, and young volunteers-around a common purpose: extending compassion beyond one's immediate circle.

Dubai Cares, which has partnered with Choithrams since 2007, said the initiative continues to play a role in sustaining education programmes in communities facing protracted crises. "The needs are growing, not shrinking," said Abdulla Ahmed Alshehhi, Chief Operating Officer at Dubai Cares. "Partnerships like this allow us to maintain support for children whose access to education is fragile at the best of times. Ramadan is a moment when the UAE comes together, and we hope that momentum carries through this year as well."

The UAE Food Bank, which distributes donated meals through its network of partners, said the 2026 campaign aligns with the country's designation of the year as the Year of the Family.

Manal Obaid Bin Yaroof, Head of the Executive Team of the UAE Food Bank, said: "This campaign reflects the UAE Food Bank's commitment to strengthening food security while reinforcing the values of compassion, solidarity, and shared responsibility that define our society, particularly during the holy month of Ramadan. By supporting families in need, we are not only addressing food insecurity, but also contributing to stronger, more resilient communities. Initiatives such as Double Blessings demonstrate how collaboration between the public, private, and humanitarian sectors can translate generosity into meaningful, lasting impact."

Every year, Choithrams' Double Blessings campaign continues to demonstrate how corporate partnerships, community participation and humanitarian values can converge to deliver tangible, life-changing support during the holy month.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Choithram International Foundation.

Download Image: https://apo-opa.co/3O2v1oR (Running until the end of March 2026, the Double Blessings campaign invites customers to donate virtual biryani boxes for AED 10 or food boxes for AED 20 at checkout counters across all Choithrams stores in Dubai, as well as online at Choithrams.com; All proceeds will be directed through Dubai Cares and the UAE Food Bank to ensure that essential food supplies and educational resources reach vulnerable families locally and globally (Photo Courtesy: Dubai Cares)

Download Audio: https://apo-opa.co/3O6SOE7 (Dubai Cares, UAE Food Bank and Choithrams launch fifth "Double Blessings" Ramadan campaign, uniting the community in giving as one family)

Download Video: https://apo-opa.co/4trrNv3 (Running until the end of March 2026, the Double Blessings campaign invites customers to donate virtual biryani boxes for AED 10 or food boxes for AED 20 at checkout counters across all Choithrams stores in Dubai, as well as online at Choithrams.com; All proceeds will be directed through Dubai Cares and the UAE Food Bank to ensure that essential food supplies and educational resources reach vulnerable families locally and globally (Photo Courtesy: Dubai Cares))

IACAD Permit# PRHCE-005228345

Contact Choithrams:

Kirti Malhotra

Email: kmalhotra@choithrams.com

About Choithrams:

Choithrams is a successful group with associates in diverse fields including manufacturing, distribution, commodities, retailing This rich combination brings to the group a huge fund of experience and resources. Choithrams came to UAE in 1974 and its chain of over 50 supermarkets have made it a household name in the Emirates.

Follow us on Twitter at @ choithramsuae or check our website: www.Choithrams.com

About Dubai Cares:

Since its inception in 2007, Dubai Cares, part of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives, has been working towards providing children and youth in developing countries with access to quality education through the design and funding of programs that aim to be impactful, sustainable and scalable. To date, the UAE-based global philanthropic organization has successfully launched education programs reaching over 116 million beneficiaries in 60 developing countries.

Dubai Cares plays a key role in helping achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, which aims to ensure inclusive and quality education for all, and promote lifelong learning by 2030, by supporting programs in early childhood development, access to quality primary and secondary education, technical and vocational education and training for youth as well as a particular focus on education in emergencies and protracted crises. Moreover, Dubai Cares adopts a strategic approach to improve student enrollment and learning outcomes through an integrated school health and nutrition model that is made up of school-based deworming activities, school feeding, and WASH (Water, Sanitation & Hygiene) in schools.

Dubai Cares is a civil society organization formally associated with the United Nations Department of Global Communications (UN DGC), as well as a registered non-government organization under IACAD, the charitable activities regulator in Dubai. The UAE-based global philanthropic organization is authorized to raise funds through direct donations and fundraising campaigns, as well as process all permit approvals with IACAD.

Volunteerism is a powerful tool to Dubai Cares in order to engage people in tackling development challenges. Dubai Cares rallies the UAE wider community through a large spectrum of volunteering and awareness initiatives that are linked to its global mandate.

To learn more, please visit www.DubaiCares.ae

About UAE Food Bank:

The UAE Food Bank is a non-profit charitable organisation launched January 4th 2017 under the umbrella of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives (MBRGI).

It is committed to distributing food to those in need while eliminating food waste by collaborating with local authorities, as well as local and international charities, to create a comprehensive ecosystem to efficiently store, package and distribute excess fresh food from hotels, restaurants, and supermarkets. It is the first Food Bank in the United Arab Emirates.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Homeland Uranium Corp. (TSXV: HLU) (OTCQB: HLUCF) (FSE: D3U) ("Homeland" or the "Company") reports the completion of its Phase II exploration drilling program at the 100%-owned Coyote Basin Uranium Project (the "Project") (see Figure 1).

The Company completed 33 drillholes totaling 5,423 metres (17,792 feet) of Reverse Circulation drilling, exceeding the originally planned 5,300 metres (17,388 feet). Phase II drilling was designed to further evaluate the near-surface mineralized trend that contains an inferred historical uranium and vanadium resource of 35.4 million pounds of U3O and 17.7 million pounds of V2O5 (private internal report, Western Mining Resources, Executive Summary, Coyote Basin Uranium District, Rio Blanco and Moffat Counties, Colorado, January 1980). Drilling intersected elevated and locally anomalous radioactivity in all completed Phase II drillholes.

Roger Lemaitre, President and CEO of Homeland Uranium, stated, "The completion of our Phase II drilling program represents an important step forward in advancing the Coyote Basin Project. Drilling has consistently confirmed the presence of near-surface elevated radioactivity across a broad area. The continuity observed in both the central and southern portions of the Project provides confidence in the scale of the system and supports the geological interpretation developed to date. With drilling now complete, we look forward to receiving the geochemical results to further refine our understanding of the Project and guide future exploration."

The Coyote Basin Project is located in northwestern Colorado, near the communities of Rangely and Meeker, within the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau (Figure 1). The Colorado Plateau is a regionally significant uranium province that spans Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico and hosts numerous sandstone-hosted uranium deposits.

Central Project Area: Elevated Radioactivity

Three northeast-southwest-oriented drill sections were completed in the central portion of the Project, comprising ten drillholes (CB-RC-0046 to CB-RC-0055; see Figure 2). This drilling was designed to evaluate the area of the historical mineralization defined by Western Mining Resources ("WMR") and to follow up on a reported historical drill intercept containing 0.826% U3O in historical drillhole CB-101 (private internal report, Western Mining Resources, Executive Summary, Coyote Basin Uranium District, Rio Blanco and Moffat Counties, Colorado, January 1980).

Downhole probe results from this area indicate a broadly laterally continuous, but locally variable near-surface interval of elevated to locally anomalous radioactivity extending from surface to depths of approximately 50 metres (164 feet) to 150 metres (492 feet) and covering an area approximately 800 metres (2,624 feet) by 400 metres (1,312 feet). This radioactivity is associated with similar rock types encountered within the Southern Project Area drilling that includes shales, claystones, and fine-grained sandstones. Locally anomalous values were typically on the order of 300 counts per second ("cps") or less, with the higher values occurring over narrow intervals on the scale of tens of centimetres.

Southern Project Area: Lateral Continuity of Elevated Radioactivity

Drilling in the southern portion of the Project area comprises 23 drillholes (see Figure 3) and was designed to evaluate the extent of historical uranium mineralization reported by previous operator WMR. Results from the Phase II Drilling Program has defined a laterally continuous horizon of elevated radioactivity extending over an area of approximately 1,000 metres (3,280 feet) east-west by 600 metres (1,968 feet) north-south, which remains open for expansion to the south and east (see the Company's news releases dated December 15, 2025, December 22, 2025, January 8, 2026, and January 22, 2026 available on the Company's website at https://www.homeland-uranium.com/news-releases or under its profile on SEDARplus.ca).

Anomalous values encountered in the southern drill area typically range between approximately 400 and 600 cps, with one localized peak value of approximately 2,300 cps recorded over an interval of approximately 10 centimetres.

Geochemical samples collected from the completed drillholes have been shipped to SGS Laboratories in Lakefield, Ontario, for analysis. Homeland will report geochemical and assay results once they have been received, compiled, and reviewed by the Company.

Quality Assurance/Quality Control

All drillholes are radiometrically logged using a calibrated QL40 SGR Spectral Gamma Ray downhole probe, which collects continuous spectral gamma measurements along the length of the drillhole. Gamma values are collected and reported as Counts Per Second. The probe response is calibrated using coefficients derived from the probe's most recent factory calibration and through comparison of probe responses to geochemical assay data from previously sampled intervals.

Spectral gamma tools measure natural radioactivity, and in situations where the uranium decay series is in equilibrium, such gamma readings can be converted into equivalent concentrations of uranium, thorium, and potassium. However, if the uranium decay series is not in equilibrium, conversion of spectral gamma into equivalent concentrations of uranium may not be accurate, a phenomenon known as uranium disequilibrium. Uranium disequilibrium has been documented to occur at the nearby former producing Maybelle Uranium Mine, located approximately 29 km (18 miles) northeast of the Coyote Basin Project (see Global Uranium & Enrichment's news release dated July 29, 2025 which can be found at https://wcsecure.weblink.com.au/pdf/GUE/02972557.pdf),

As a first step in determining the accuracy of QL40 SGR Spectral Gamma Ray downhole probe and determining whether uranium disequilibrium may occur at Coyote Basin, Homeland's geological team used a portable hand-held XRF (SciAps X-555 REE Analyzer) to test drill cuttings for the presence of uranium. Enough discrepancies have occurred when comparing the results of the Spectral Gamma Ray downhole probe and the XRF that additional geochemical and assay sampling will be required before uranium grades can be accurately determined.

Homeland has collected samples from each 5 ft interval of the drill holes for geochemical analysis which will be sent to SGS Laboratories in Lakefield, Ontario. SGS Lab is certified ISO 17043: General requirements for proficiency testing. All SGS laboratories are required to participate in SGS's internal Proficiency Testing (PT) program: Laboratory Quality Systems International (LQSi) program, the largest PT program in the mining world. The SGS LQSi program currently involves over 100 laboratories on a regular basis, both SGS and non-SGS participants. SGS LQSi holds accreditation to the conformity assessment standard ISO 17043: General requirements for proficiency testing.

All depths and intervals reported are drilled depths and downhole lengths, unless otherwise stated. True thicknesses have not yet been determined.

About Homeland Uranium Corp.

Homeland Uranium is a mineral exploration company focused on becoming a premier US-focused and resource-bearing uranium explorer and developer. The Company is 100% owner of the Coyote Basin and Cross Bones uranium projects in northwestern Colorado.

The Coyote Basin Project is reported by Energy Metals Corporation in its quarterly Management Discussion and Analysis dated September 30, 2006 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") to contain an estimated historical resource of 8,850,000 tons grading 0.20% U3O8 and 0.10% V2O5 totaling 35.4 million pounds of U3O8 and 17.7 million pounds of V205 (see Energy Metal's SEC disclosure at https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1361605/000106299306003601/exhibit99-2.htm). This resource was calculated by the previous project operator, Western Mining Resources, based on a 1978-79 program of surface sampling, coring, drill hole chip sampling and gamma logging of 24 widely spaced holes (private internal report, Western Mining, Executive Summary, Coyote Basin Uranium District, Rio Blanco and Moffat Counties, State of Colorado, January, 1980).

The Company is not treating the Coyote Basin historical resource estimate as current mineral resources and the reader is cautioned not to rely on either of these estimates. A Qualified Person (as defined under National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101")) has not done sufficient work to classify the historical resources from the project as current mineral resources or mineral reserves nor can the Company or the Qualified Person comment on the quality or verify the data obtained from the assay sampling programs from the project that were used to determine these historical resource estimates, as such information was not included in the historical reports acquired by Homeland. The Company is not treating the historical resource estimate as current mineral resources or mineral reserves and the Company and the Qualified Person is unable to compare the historical resource estimate to the CIM's current resource classification system at this time. The Coyote Basin Project any future NI 43-101 mineral resource estimate will require considerable further evaluation which will include completion of the Phase I drilling program and may require addition drilling to follow-up Phase 1 results.

Qualified Person

Nancy Normore., P.Geo., the Company's Vice President, Exploration, is a Qualified Person as defined in NI 43-101, and has reviewed and approved the technical content of this news release.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Figure 1 - Location of Homeland Uranium's Coyote Basin Project.

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/10583/283383_44b57bec546aabd5_002full.jpg

Map references: 1: S.M. Hall, B.S. Van Gosen, R.A. Zielinski, 2023. Sandstone-hosted uranium deposits of the Colorado Plateau, USA. Ore Geology Reviews 155 (2023) 105353; 2: Finch, W. I., 1991, Maps showing the distribution of uranium-deposit clusters in the Colorado Plateau uranium province: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-2080, 1 plate.

Figure 2 - 2026 Completed drillholes during Part 1 of Phase 2 - Coyote Basin Project - Central Area

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/10583/283383_44b57bec546aabd5_003full.jpg

Figure 3 - 2025 Completed drillholes during Part 1 of Phase 2 - Coyote Basin Project - Southern Area

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/10583/283383_44b57bec546aabd5_004full.jpg

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283383

Source: Homeland Uranium Corp.
Vancouver, British Columbia,--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Neotech Metals Corp. (CSE: NTMC) (OTCQB: NTMFF) (FSE: V690) ("Neotech" or "the Company") announces that it has amended the escrow terms set out in the letter of intent ("LOI") dated February 12, 2024 between the Company and VR Resources Ltd. ("VR"), with respect to the Hecla-Kilmer ("H/K") property, such that all shares issued to VR pursuant to the LOI that were subject to the previous contractual escrow will now be released from escrow and be free-trading immediately, replacing the previously stipulated 30-month escrow release period.

The Company is also pleased to announce that it has received $133,500 in Canadian funds from the exercise of warrants.

2025 Hecla-Kilmer Drill Campaign Update

Neotech Metals completed approximately 8,000 meters of drilling this year at H/K, as well as re-logging and re-assaying approximately 1,900 meters of core drilled by the previous owner, VR Resources Ltd., between 2020-2023 for the full rare earth suite and is to be included in the Maiden Resource Estimate ("MRE"), expected to come in 2026.

Assays are currently pending on all samples and will be released upon completion.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

Reagan Glazier, Chief Executive Officer and Director

Neotech Metals Corp.

About the Neotech Metals

Neotech Metals Corp. is a mineral exploration company dedicated to discovering and developing valuable mineral resources within promising jurisdictions around the world. With a strong commitment to environmental stewardship and sustainable practices, Neotech is positioned to make a positive impact while maximizing the potential of its exploration properties.

The company has a diversified portfolio of Rare-Earth Element and Rare Metals projects, including the Hecla-Kilmer, located 20 km from the Otter Rapids 180MW hydroelectric power generation station and active Ontario Northway railway, along with its TREO and Foothills projects located in British Columbia. All three projects are 100% wholly-owned.

Qualified Person

Technical Information for this news release has been prepared in accordance with the Canadian regulatory requirements set out in National Instrument 43-101. Jared Galenzoski VP Exploration, P.Geo., and Qualified Person, has reviewed and approved all of the data and statements made for this news release.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain information contained herein constitutes "forward-looking information" under Canadian securities legislation. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "will", "will be" or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "will" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made and they are from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or forward-looking information subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results to be materially different, including receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals. Although management of the Company have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. The Company will not update any forward-looking statements or forward-looking information that are incorporated by reference herein, except as required by applicable securities laws.

The CSE has not reviewed, approved, or disapproved the contents of this press release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283332

Source: Neotech Metals Corp.
ZOLL, an Asahi Kasei company that manufactures medical devices and related software solutions, announced today that Zenix, the company's most clinically advanced and easy-to-use professional monitor/defibrillator, is approved under the European Union (EU) Medical Device Regulation 2017/745, commonly referred to as EU MDR.

The Zenix monitor/defibrillator is a groundbreaking device that redefines efficiency, clarity, and intelligence in both EMS and hospital settings. Built from years of feedback from customers, Zenix combines intuitive design with powerful functionality to enhance patient care and automate workflows for ease-of-use. Featuring a large, durable touchscreen, Zenix provides critical information when it's needed. With on-the-fly customization, healthcare professionals can make real-time adjustments, helping them stay in control during high-pressure situations.

Equipped with ZOLL's innovative Real BVM Help and exclusive Real CPR Help technology, Zenix gives healthcare providers real-time clinical feedback to improve ventilation quality and deliver high-quality CPR.1 The advanced technology of Zenix empowers EMS teams and hospital clinicians to make informed, confident decisions and ensure they are delivering exceptional patient care, every time.

"Whether you are a hospital clinician or an EMS professional, the ZOLL Zenix monitor/defibrillator is designed to work the way you work," said Elijah White, President of ZOLL Acute Care Technology. "Zenix is our most advanced monitor/defibrillator, and yet it's incredibly easy to use-virtually all functions of the device are accessible with three screen-touches or less. Along with the X Series, R Series and ZOLL M2, Zenix extends ZOLL's leadership in professional monitors/defibrillators with unique features and intuitive design."

For more information, visit www.zoll.com/zenix.

About ZOLL

ZOLL, an Asahi Kasei company, develops and markets medical devices and software solutions that help advance care and save lives, while increasing clinical and operational efficiencies. With products for defibrillation and cardiac monitoring, circulation enhancement and CPR feedback, supersaturated oxygen therapy, data management, ventilation, therapeutic temperature management, and sleep apnea diagnosis and treatment, ZOLL provides a comprehensive set of technologies that help clinicians, EMS and fire professionals, as well as lay rescuers, improve patient outcomes in critical cardiopulmonary conditions. For more information, visit www.zoll.com.

About Asahi Kasei

The Asahi Kasei Group contributes to life and living for people around the world. Since its foundation in 1922 with ammonia and cellulose fiber businesses, Asahi Kasei has consistently grown through the proactive transformation of its business portfolio to meet the evolving needs of every age. With 50,000 employees worldwide, the company contributes to a sustainable society by providing solutions to the world's challenges through its three business sectors of Healthcare, Homes, and Material. Its healthcare operations include devices and systems for critical care, products and services for the manufacture of biotherapeutics, and a growing portfolio of specialty pharmaceuticals. For more information, visit www.asahi-kasei.com.

Asahi Kasei is also dedicated to sustainability initiatives and is contributing to reaching a carbon neutral society by 2050. To learn more, visit www.asahi-kasei.com/sustainability/.

1 Drennan et al. 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2024.110381. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39299509/

Copyright 2026 ZOLL Medical Corporation. All rights reserved. ZOLL, Zenix, Real BVM Help, Real CPR Help, X Series, R Series and M2 are registered trademarks of ZOLL Medical Corporation and/or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries. Asahi Kasei is a registered trademark of Asahi Kasei Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260210764283/en/

Contacts:

Matt Hogan

ZOLL

978-805-6561

media@zoll.com
The symposium will bring together industry leaders, experts and wine lovers for four days of tastings, masterclasses, winemaker dinners, presentations and debate.

Tickets are now on sale for the 11th Institute of Masters of Wine International Symposium, taking place in Adelaide, Australia, 15-18 April 2027, supported by our hosts, the South Australian Government, and major sponsor Wine Australia.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260210863840/en/

Institute of Masters of Wine International Symposium, Adelaide 2027, official logo

Tickets available at www.imwsymposium.com.

Sessions include an exploration of how the industry can rebuild relevance, a deep-dive into the latest old vines research, debate around viticultural gene technologies and discussion on how winemakers can maintain balance in a changing climate.

Tastings include a 'unicorn' tasting of some of the world's most sought-after wines, an old vs young vines tasting featuring pairs of wines made especially for the Symposium and a masterclass comparing the same wines bottled under both corks and screwcaps.

Symposium favourites return: the Master of Wine winemakers tasting, themed lunches, opening night BBQ, winery dinners and closing night Gala. Nine curated trips to Australia's wine regions are also available.

Dr Martin Cole, Wine Australia CEO, commented: "The Symposium provides Australia with a fantastic opportunity to put our most dynamic wine producers, wines and world-class regions in front of the global wine community. We're confident that guests will come away with a renewed perspective on Australian wine and share their discoveries around the world."

Joe Szakacs, South Australian minister for trade and investment, said: "As a Great Wine Capital, Adelaide is the undisputed home of Australian wine and we're extremely proud to host the 2027 IMW Symposium. South Australia has 18 unique wine regions and more than 700 wineries, making our state the perfect destination for the global wine calendar's premier event."

Sarah Harrison, IMW executive director, added: "The Institute is thrilled to bring the Symposium to Australia. Registrations are open to all and we look forward to seeing the greatest minds of the wine community come together."

About the Institute of Masters of Wine

The IMW is a membership organisation whose mission is to foster excellence, interaction and learning across the global wine community. Home to the renowned Master of Wine study programme, the IMW advances wine knowledge through education, events and the work of its members-the Masters of Wine.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260210863840/en/

Contacts:

Media enquiries: Adam Jones, IMW: +44 207 383 9139 ajones@mastersofwine.org
WIZZ Link introduces nearly 8,000 new route options across Wizz Air's growing network; Passengers across Europe and beyond can now choose multiple destinations through a single booking experience

BUDAPEST, Hungary, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Wizz Air, Europe's most emissions-efficient airline has launched WIZZ Link, a new digital platform developed in partnership with travel technology company Dohop, enabling passengers to book multi-leg journeys in a single transaction. The new platform marks a milestone in Wizz Air's effort to make multi-city, low-cost travel simpler and more accessible.

Many travellers, especially across Europe, build routes not through direct flights but by combining multiple segments - for example, from London to Budapest and then to Abu Dhabi. Today, they often need to search for each segment manually, compare schedules, check baggage rules and fare conditions and purchase tickets in separate transactions. On average, they spend up to five hours before a trip to manage their bookings, which takes time and increases the chance of mistakes, and in many cases, leads travellers to aggregators where other airlines compete for the same booking, leaving them abandoned during disruptions.

With WIZZ Link, travellers can now book self-transfer flights and access nearly 8,000 new origin-and-destination combinations through wizzlink.wizzair.com, including key connecting points such as Budapest, Rome, London, Warsaw, and Tirana.

Passengers can make multi-segment travel in one purchase, expanding the reach and flexibility for their travel with Wizz Air. This helps the airline keep customers within the WIZZ ecosystem, increase average booking value and loyalty, while enabling travelers to purchase seats, priority services, food, and other add-ons for all flight segments in a single transaction.

WIZZ Link is powered by Dohop's RetailConnect technology, which enables the airline to create and manage its own flexible flight transfers while maintaining complete control over pricing, distribution, and the customer experience. Travellers booking through WIZZ Link can also add ConnectSure , a protection service that provides assistance in case of delays, cancellations, or missed flights, ensuring peace of mind throughout their entire trip.

Michael Delehant, Senior Chief Commercial and Operations Officer at Wizz Air, said: "Online Travel Agencies continue to command a large share of the online market - over a third of travellers book flights via OTAs nowadays. At the same time, multi-leg itineraries already account for a meaningful share of traffic and are expected to grow toward low double digits of all flight bookings. WIZZ Link helps keep these multi-segment sales inside our ecosystem, lifting conversion and segments per passengers. And for the passengers themselves, the service offers added convenience and choice, bringing together Wizz Air's extensive network coverage within a single, connected booking experience.WIZZ Link represents a strong step forward for our Customer First Compass commitments and for Wizz Air's long-term growth. This launch is a key milestone in our strategy to make air travel even more accessible, connected, and customer-centric."

The partnership with Dohop supports Wizz Air's commitment to expanding its network through new digital capabilities that further simplify travel. Dohop's technology powers connected travel solutions for more than 100 airlines worldwide, enabling new forms of connectivity that complement traditional airline partnerships while reducing the complexity of legacy interline systems.

Hugh Aitken, Chief Operating Officer at Dohop, said: "WIZZ Link demonstrates how low-cost carriers can use alternative interline technology to expand their network efficiently and offer passengers a better way to connect. We are proud to support Wizz Air as it takes this important step in simplifying travel across Europe, creating new travel options and improving the passenger experience, all while keeping the process simple and cost-efficient for the airline."

The launch of WIZZ Link strengthens Wizz Air's position as one of Europe's leading ultra-low-cost carriers and aligns with its broader strategy to use technology and partnerships that enhance network connectivity, operational efficiency, and customer experience.

ABOUT WIZZ AIR

Wizz Air operates a fleet of 259 Airbus A320 and A321 aircraft. A team of dedicated aviation professionals delivers superior service and very low fares, making Wizz Air the preferred choice of 63.4 million passengers in 2025 financial year. Wizz Air is listed on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker WIZZ. Wizz Air has also been recognized as the "Most Sustainable Low-Cost Airline" between 2021-2025 by World Finance Sustainability Awards. In 2025, Wizz Air topped the major airlines' emissions ranking, as presented by Cirium, an aviation analytics company, thanks to its work reducing emissions intensity. Most recently, it was awarded Sustainable Airline of the Year 2025 at the Airline Economics Sustainability Awards Gala in September 2025.

For more information: communications@wizzair.com

Follow us on Instagram: @wizzair

Follow us on Facebook: @wizzair

Follow us on LinkedIn: @wizzair

Follow us on X: @wizzair

Follow us on TikTok @wizzair

Notes for Editors:

Anchored in four key pillars - Product, Price, Service and Communication - the Customer First Compass outlines Wizz Air's future direction and renewed commitment to its customers, from investing in state-of-the-art technology, improving reliability, and delivering enhanced customer support. The transformation marks a step change in how the airline services its customers. The airline will be investing 14 billion over the next three years to enhance every customer touchpoint to ensure that punctuality, affordability, innovation and service shape every journey.

outlines Wizz Air's future direction and renewed commitment to its customers, from investing in state-of-the-art technology, improving reliability, and delivering enhanced customer support. The transformation marks a step change in how the airline services its customers. The airline will be investing 14 billion over the next three years to enhance every customer touchpoint to ensure that punctuality, affordability, innovation and service shape every journey. All Wizz Air flights are operated on Airbus A320 aircraft with 180 seats, Airbus A320neo with 186 seats, A321 aircraft with 230 seats and Airbus A321neo aircraft with 239 seats.

For free pictures of aircraft, crews and logo library please visit https://wizzair.com/en-gb/information-and-services/about-us/press-office/ .

. For more information about Wizz Air sustainability efforts please see Annual report FY2025 from page 179.

About Dohop

Dohop, headquartered in Reykjavik, Iceland, is a leading provider of alternative interline solutions. By facilitating air-to-air and air-to-ground alternative interline partnerships, Dohop empowers airlines to unlock unlimited connections and tap into new demand through new partnership opportunities. Dohop also provides connection protection services for passengers with a high-performing 4.1 TrustScore.

Founded in 2004, Dohop's team of over 100 passionate travel technology experts empowers more than 100 airlines and travel providers, including easyJet, Transavia, Air France, Vueling, and Air Transat, to create new opportunities for connecting journeys. For more information, visit www.dohop.com. For media inquiries, please get in touch with vhorwell@thinkinkpr.com.

 According to Cirium's 2025 review, the most emissions-efficient major airline globally is Wizz Air, with an intensity of 53.9 gr CO2 per passenger per kilometre.

 The research, conducted by Expedia Group and Luth Research, July 2023.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2890000/Wizz_Air_Dohop__Expands_its_Network_Capabilities_with_the_Launch_of_WIZZ_Link.jpg

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Shanghai, China--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Frost & Sullivan has conducted comprehensive research on the medical aesthetic injection products industry and published the "2025 Blue Book on the Industry Development Status and Future Trends of Medical Aesthetic Injection Products". The blue book aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the current landscape, market prospects, challenges, and opportunities for Chinese medical aesthetic injection products. (To read the 2025 Blue Book on the Industry Development Status and Future Trends of Medical Aesthetic Injection Products, visit: https://hub.frost.com/current-status-and-trends-of-medical-aesthetic-injection-products/)

With the continuous upgrading of the medical aesthetics industry, injectable products have become a major market focus. A range of injectable products has already gained broad consumer recognition, with hyaluronic acid, collagen, and botulinum toxin-based injectables being particularly popular. At the same time, new materials such as hydroxyapatite, agarose, and elastin are advancing through R&D and regulatory pathways, expanding product choices.

In recent years, improved regulatory policies have accelerated the overall development of the medical aesthetics industry, creating opportunities across the entire value chain. Medical aesthetic injectable products are becoming increasingly diversified, driven by innovation in raw materials, manufacturing processes, and application strategies. With continued technological progress and more sophisticated consumer demand, further innovation in medical aesthetic injectable products is expected.

Medical aesthetic injectables mainly include hyaluronic acid-based, collagen-based, regenerative materials such as polylactic acid, and botulinum toxin-based products. Hyaluronic acid, collagen, and regenerative materials are regulated as medical devices, while botulinum toxin is classified as a medical toxic drug. The emergence of materials such as hydroxyapatite, agarose, and elastin highlights the growing diversity of injectable products.

As China's medical aesthetics market matures, companies are placing greater emphasis on brand strength and quality control. Leading brands continue to expand market share through strong R&D and reliable product quality. Competition now extends beyond product performance to innovation capability, service quality, and marketing, driving more differentiated brand positioning.

Collagen-based products are also developing rapidly. Recombinant collagen, produced via synthetic biology, features virus-free safety, low immunogenicity, and high purity, making it suitable for injectable applications. Animal-derived collagen, sourced from natural tissues, offers proven biocompatibility and tissue repair performance based on long-term clinical use.

Currently, multiple companies are expanding their presence in the collagen segment, strengthening both technological innovation and production capacity. As demand continues to rise, more collagen-based products are expected to enter the market, offering broader choices for consumers.

In the botulinum toxin segment, clinical research activity remains strong. More than ten companies in China currently have injectable botulinum toxin products in clinical development.

Its recombinant type A botulinum toxin for adult upper limb spasticity has completed Phase II clinical trials and is preparing for Phase III. Significant improvements in MAS scores have been observed across multiple muscle groups compared with baseline.

The 2025 Blue Book on the Industry Development Status and Future Trends of Medical Aesthetic Injection Products highlights the following:

Chapter 1: Overview of Medical Aesthetic Injection Products

Chapter 2: Status and Trend Analysis of the Hyaluronic Acid Industry in Medical Aesthetic Injection Products

Chapter 3: Status and Trend Analysis of the Collagen Industry in Medical Aesthetic Injection Products

Chapter 4: Status and Trend Analysis of Regenerative Materials

Chapter 5: Status and Trend Analysis of the Botulinum Toxin Industry in Medical Aesthetic Injection Products

Chapter 6: Status and Trend Analysis of Exosomes in Medical Aesthetic Injection Products

Chapter 7: Status and Trend Analysis of Other New Medical Aesthetic Injection Materials

Chapter 8: Selected Companies in the Medical Aesthetic Injection-Related Fields

Key Topics Covered:

Overview of Medical Aesthetic Injection Products Definition of Medical Aesthetics Definition and Classification of Medical Aesthetic Injection Products Industry Chain Analysis of Medical Aesthetic Injection Products Policy and Regulation of Medical Aesthetic Injection Products in China Analysis of China's Medical Aesthetic Injection Market Analysis of Drivers for the Development of China's Medical Aesthetic Injection Products Industry Status and Trend Analysis of the Typical Medical Aesthetic Injection Products - Hyaluronic Acid, Collagen, Regenerative Materials, Botulinum Toxin, Exosomes, Other New Materials including Hydroxyapatite, Agarose, Silk Protein, Chitosan, etc. Definition, Structure, and Classification Applicational Advantages Development History Mechanism of Action Current Industry Status and Key Products Market Analysis Future Development Trends Selected Companies in the Medical Aesthetic Injection-Related Fields

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today's market participants. For more than 60 years, Frost & Sullivan has been supporting the Global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector, and investors in developing growth strategies.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/278033

Source: Hmedium
LG Presented Region-Optimized Clothing Care, Kitchen and Cleaning Solutions at LG InnoFest 2026 MEA

News Summary:

LG Electronics hosted LG InnoFest 2026 MEA in Abu Dhabi, presenting AI-powered clothing care, kitchen, built-in kitchen and cleaning solutions designed for MEA markets.

The Clothing Care Solution zone highlighted the company's AI Core-Tech-powered residential laundry innovations as well as new solutions supporting LG's expansion into the commercial laundry sector.

The Kitchen Solution zone presented integrated kitchen offerings, including the latest refrigerators, dishwashers and a new microwave oven.

The Built-in Kitchen Solution zone illustrated LG's competitiveness in the premium kitchen segment with a comprehensive built-in lineup, including new refrigerator and oven models.

ABU DHABI, UAE, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- LG Electronics (LG) introduced a comprehensive lineup of AI-powered home solutions tailored for the Middle East and Africa (MEA) at LG InnoFest 2026 MEA, which took place in Abu Dhabi from February 3-5. Under the theme "Innovation, Forward Together," the exhibition highlighted LG's latest developments across clothing care, kitchen, built-in kitchen and total cleaning solutions, with a focus on user-centric design and regional relevance.

Returning after a seven-year hiatus, LG InnoFest is the company's signature regional event for key partners and media. Designed as a "festival" that celebrates innovation, cooperation and the Life's Good philosophy, LG InnoFest 2026 MEA reflects LG's long-term commitment to, and growing presence in markets throughout the MEA region.

AI Core-Tech Powers Next-Generation Clothing Care Solutions

LG is strengthening its residential laundry lineup for the MEA with appliances that combine larger capacities, premium design and proprietary AI Core-Tech. The latest models deliver a more intelligent and efficient washing and drying experience with features such as AI Wash and AI Dry.

The lineup is led by the award-winning 29-inch LG SIGNATURE WashCombo, a premium all-in-one washer-dryer with the world's largest capacity. LG also showcases an expanded LG WashTower lineup, introducing a new 25-inch model alongside existing 24-inch and 27-inch versions to support a wider range of installation environments. LG WashTower products integrate a separate washer and dryer into a single vertical structure to improve usability and space efficiency.

Making its debut at InnoFest, the new 27-inch WashCombo is ideal for larger households with its impressive 25-kilogram washing capacity and 21-kilogram drying capacity. Equipped with LG's DUAL Inverter HeatPump technology, the model is designed to support stable, effective drying performance and enhanced energy efficiency. LG's laundry solution range also includes a new front-load washer with a sleek, flat design, an integrated LCD display, and the company's advanced AI Direct Drive (AI DD) motor, which optimizes washing performance based on load weight and fabric characteristics.

Leveraging its considerable expertise in residential laundry, LG is also presenting solutions for the commercial laundry sector. These include app- and API-based solutions that provide partners with robust tools for remote monitoring and management.

Kitchen Solutions with Intelligent Features and Built-In Design

Under the concept of "Fit & Max," LG's new kitchen appliances prioritize built-in aesthetics and intelligent, user-centric functionality. In the refrigerator category, the LG InstaView French Door model features the Zero Clearance hinge for a perfect fit in any kitchen, along with AI Fresh technology for optimal cooling performance based on usage patterns. A new bottom freezer model also incorporates the Zero Clearance hinge and a seamless modern look that instantly elevates the surrounding environment. With diverse options to suit any lifestyle, LG's fridge lineup at InnoFest 2026 MEA reinforces the company's status as the No.1 1) refrigerator brand in the region.

One of the highlights of the company's cooking appliance showcase, the flagship SolarDOM All-in-One Microwave Oven has received its first full redesign in more than a decade. The new model adopts a subtle semi-built-in design and replaces the physical buttons with a 2.4-inch LCD interface. Cooking convenience has been enhanced with up to 60 Auto Cook menus, along with newly added functions such as Air Fry. Wi-Fi connectivity enables remote monitoring and control through the LG ThinQ app.

The latest dishwasher lineup features QuadWash Pro, an advanced technology that creates jets of micro-scale air bubbles to enhance cleaning performance and shorten wash cycles, delivering gleaming glasses and spotless dishes in less time. AI SenseClean technology automatically adjusts wash times and rinse cycles based on the level of contamination to ensure optimal results. With all these upgrades, the 1-Hour Wash & Dry function will be available with full coverage, enabling users to complete a full wash-and-dry cycle in as little as 39 minutes.

Built-In Kitchen Collection Optimized for the MEA

Tailored to the preferences of local customers - and bolstering the company's competitiveness in the premium kitchen segment - the new LG built-in collection offers large capacity solutions that blend high technology with understated minimalist design. The Wide Combi built-in refrigerator has been expanded to a width of 690 millimeters (up from 540 millimeters), increasing internal capacity to 385 liters (up from 233 liters). The Inverter ProBake built-in oven heats food faster and more evenly than a conventional oven, utilizing a BLDC motor-driven bidirectional fan to ensure consistent, efficient heat distribution.

Total Cleaning for Smarter Living

In addition, the exhibition features LG's total cleaning solutions incorporating advanced AI features. Highlights include the LG Wet & Dry stick vacuum with an automatic water supply system, as well as a new robot vacuum equipped with 100-degree Celsius steam mopping and a space-friendly, table-type station with a concealed design.

"LG is committed to delivering user-centric, locally optimized solutions that make everyday life more convenient for customers across the Middle East and Africa," said Phil Jung, region representative of LG's Middle East and Africa Region. "Through continuous innovation and meaningful partnerships, we aim to create lasting value and shared growth in this dynamic region."

1 Based on GfK annual cumulative sales value data, 2021-2025; freestanding refrigerator category; six Middle East & Africa countries: Israel, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Egypt, and Morocco.

About LG Electronics Home Appliance Solution Company

The LG Home Appliance Solution Company (HS) is a global leader in home appliances and AI home solutions. By leveraging industry-leading core technologies, the HS Company is committed to enhancing consumers' quality of life and promoting sustainability. The company develops thoughtfully designed kitchen and living appliance solutions and has recently integrated LG's Robot Business Division to incorporate advanced robot technologies into its home solutions. Together, these products offer enhanced convenience, exceptional performance, efficient operation and sustainable lifestyle solutions. For more news on LG, visit www.LGnewsroom.com .

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2890914/LG_AI_HOME_SOLUTIONS.jpg

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Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Provenance Gold Corp. (CSE: PAU) (OTCQB: PVGDF) ("Provenance" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the appointment of Luke Schranz as Vice President of Exploration, effective immediately.

Mr. Schranz will be responsible for the day-to-day operations, planning and overseeing all aspects of the Company's technical programs with a dedicated focus on elevating and advancing the discovery at Eldorado.

Mr. Schranz has extensive leadership and on-the-ground experience working and managing drilling, geologic mapping, and prospecting programs in the western U.S. and globally. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Geology and Geological Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Master of Science in Geology from the University of Nevada in Reno. Mr. Schranz has worked on several large projects including roles as technical project manager at South32's Roosevelt Project, consultant for Kinross at the Kettle River-Curlew Project, senior geologist and director of technical services at Scout Discoveries Corp, and ore control geologist at Hecla Mining Company's Fire Creek Mine.

Rob Clark, Provenance's President, comments, "We are thrilled to welcome Luke to Provenance. We are confident that Luke's leadership, focus and dedication will propel our exploration plans forward with meticulous thoroughness and maximum efficiency. With an aggressive exploration program planned for 2026, Luke's deep expertise in gold exploration and execution will be instrumental for our Company's advancement."

Paramount Gold Grassy Mountain Gold Project Federal Approval

Provenance would like to congratulate Paramount Gold on the recent signing of a Record of Decision (ROD) on January 29th by the Bureau of Land Management for their Grassy Mountain Project located to the south of Provenance's Eldorado project, both in Malheur County. The ROD for the Grassy Mountain Gold Project is the federal approval that completes the NEPA environmental review and allows the project to advance from permitting into a construction-ready, "shovel-ready" stage on federal lands, and paves the way for additional development of mining projects on federal lands in eastern Oregon.

Core Assays

The Company is awaiting assay results for six diamond core holes recently completed at Eldorado East. Core drilling focused primarily on the new discovery area at Herman (see Press Release dated November 5, 2025) as well as a previously unexplored area between zones 2 and 3 in the Tyee area. As of this date, assays remain pending for this core drilling program and will be released once received and reviewed.

Options

In connection with this appointment, the Company has issued 1,250,000 options exercisable at $0.30 per share that vest 20% every six months and exercisable for four years.

Qualified Person

The technical content disclosed in this press release was independently reviewed and approved by Jo Price, P.Geo., M.Sc., a technical advisor to the Company and a Qualified Person as defined under National Instrument 43-101.

About Provenance Gold

Provenance Gold Corp. is a precious metals exploration company focused on its flagship Eldorado Gold Project in eastern Oregon. The Company is actively advancing the project through systematic drilling, geological modeling, and expansion of its mineralized zones. Provenance's portfolio also includes additional exploration-stage assets in Nevada, USA. For further information, please visit the Company's website at https://provenancegold.com or contact Rob Clark at rclark@provenancegold.com.

Safe Harbor Statement: Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange, nor its regulation services provider, accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release. This news release may contain certain "Forward-Looking Statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities laws, including statements regarding advancing the discovery at Eldorado; the exploration program planned for 2026; the release of the results from the core drilling program; and the Company's future plans and intentions. When or if used in this news release, the words "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "target, "plan", "forecast", "may", "schedule" and similar words or expressions identify forward-looking statements or information. Such statements represent the Company's current views with respect to future events and are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by the Company, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, political and social risks, contingencies and uncertainties. Many factors, both known and unknown, could cause results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements that are or may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among other things: risks related to uncertainties inherent in drill results; and risks associated with executing the Company's plans and intentions. These factors should be considered carefully, and readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release and the Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements or information to reflect changes in assumptions or changes in circumstances or any other events affecting such statements and information other than as required by applicable laws, rules and regulations.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283391

Source: Provenance Gold Corp.
EQS-News: Sirma Group Holding / Key word(s): Miscellaneous

Sirma to Dual List on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on 24 February 2026



10.02.2026 / 10:59 CET/CEST

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.





Sirma to Dual List on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on 24 February 2026

Sirma Group Holding AD (Sirma), [Ticker SIRM | WKN: A142WT | ISIN: BG1100032140], one of the leading technology players in Southeastern Europe, has announced that it will be dual listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on 24 February 2026.

Sirma was first listed on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE) in 2015. Now, ten years later, it has achieved another significant milestone by being listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FSE). This accomplishment highlights Sirma's long-term commitment to transparency, its engagement with international capital markets, and its pursuit of sustainable growth throughout Europe and beyond.

It signifies a natural advancement in the company's growth, following over a decade as a publicly listed entity serving an increasingly international clientele.

Tsvetan Alexiev, Chief Executive Officer of Sirma Group Holding AD, shares

" This is a defining moment for Sirma. It reinforces our decision to take a bold step forward to one of Europe's most established financial centers. We see this as a positive signal for international investors and for Bulgarian companies ready to compete on a global stage."

The Frankfurt listing is intended to enhance Sirma's visibility among international institutional investors, improve liquidity, and support its next phase of growth - particularly in AI-driven enterprise platforms and sector-specific solutions. The move also underscores the company's confidence in the eurozone framework as a stable foundation for long-term value creation.

###

About Sirma

Founded in 1992, Sirma Group Holding (Sirma) is a trusted software technology partner that has been a pioneer in artificial intelligence technologies since its inception. With over 33 years of experience and more than 800 experts, Sirma combines deep vertical knowledge with cutting-edge AI to power the industries the world relies on. The company specializes in custom software development, system integration, and IT consulting, with deep expertise in banking, insurance, healthcare, transportation, logistics, retail, travel and hospitality, and the public sector. Its AI-driven solutions turn complex data into actionable insights, driving growth and efficiency for hundreds of clients worldwide.Headquartered in Sofia and listed on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange [BSE: SIRM/SGH], Sirma operates globally through offices in the USA, UK, Germany, Albania, Romania, Brazil, and UAE.

###

Contacts:

Stanislav Tanushev, Director Investor Relations & Sustainability

stanislav.tanushev@sirma.com ; ir@sirma.com

Press: press@sirma.com
MoU sets up collaboration on industrial development, commercial deployment and investment opportunities for Advanced Air Mobility in Saudi Arabia

Vertical believed to be the only eVTOL OEM actively assessing both in-country manufacturing and investment opportunities with a Ministerial body in the Kingdom

Partnership aligned to the Kingdom's Vision 2030 and Vertical's global scale-up strategy

Vertical Aerospace ("Vertical" or the "Company") [NYSE:EVTL], a global aerospace and technology company pioneering electric aviation, today announced the signing of a strategic three-party Memorandum of Understanding ("MoU") with Abdel Hadi Abdullah Al-Qahtani Sons Group of Companies (Tariq Al-Qahtani Brothers) ("AHQ Group"), a leading Saudi industrial conglomerate, and the Saudi National Industrial Development Centre ("NIDC"), part of the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260210942356/en/

Vertical Aerospace CEO Stuart Simpson with executive leadership from AHQ Group and NIDC at the MOU signing in Riyadh.

The MoU, signed in Riyadh, establishes a framework to explore the development of a long-term Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) ecosystem in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, aligned with Vision 2030, the country's national programme to diversify its economy and build advanced industrial capability.

Building an AAM ecosystem aligned with Vision 2030

Under the MoU, the parties will evaluate a broad set of opportunities spanning manufacturing localization, commercial eVTOL operations and potential investment and incentive opportunities, supporting Vertical's certification programme and long-term growth. Saudi Arabia represents one of the largest and most attractive emerging markets for AAM globally, with the potential to support the operation of over 1,000 Valo aircraft Vertical's industry leading commercial aircraft.

As a leading Saudi industrial group, AHQ Group will support the evaluation of industrial, commercial and investment structures required to establish a scalable and sustainable AAM ecosystem in the Kingdom.

Together, Vertical, AHQ Group and NIDC will explore how Saudi Arabia can become a regional hub for electric aircraft manufacturing, battery systems and AAM services, supporting Vision 2030's ambitions for industrial diversification, highly skilled job creation and clean transport.

Stuart Simpson, CEO of Vertical Aerospace, said: "Saudi Arabia is one of the most strategically important future markets for Advanced Air Mobility. Signing this MoU here in Riyadh reflects the Kingdom's ambition to build a world-class aerospace industrial capability under Vision 2030. Partnering with AHQ Group and NIDC brings together deep industrial expertise, capital strength and a shared commitment to establishing Saudi Arabia as a regional leader in this new sector."

Chairman Tariq Abdel Hadi Al-Qahtani, AHQ Group, said: "Advanced Air Mobility represents a new frontier for Saudi Arabia's industrial and mobility ambitions. Through this MoU with Vertical Aerospace and NIDC, we are exploring potential investment opportunities to build a scalable, globally competitive AAM ecosystem that combines advanced manufacturing, sustainable mobility and long-term economic value. AHQ Group brings deep industrial experience and local insight, and we see this partnership as an important step in supporting Vision 2030's goals for diversification, innovation and high-quality job creation."

Eng Saleh Al Solami, CEO of the National Industrial Development Centre (NIDC), added: "This MoU reflects NIDC's mandate to enable advanced industries and attract high-value manufacturing to the Kingdom. Advanced Air Mobility has the potential to become a strategic industrial sector for Saudi Arabia, spanning aircraft manufacturing, battery systems and future mobility services. Working with Vertical Aerospace and AHQ Group allows us to assess potential pathways for localisation, investment and incentives, positioning the Kingdom as a regional hub for next-generation aerospace technologies in line with Vision 2030."

Valo engineered for the region

Valo will be Vertical's certification electric aircraft, designed to fly up to 160km at speeds of 240 km/h with zero operating emissions and engineered to meet airliner-level safety standards. Vertical is also developing a hybrid-electric variant, offering increased range and mission flexibility.

Valo has been engineered to operate in hot, high-demand environments, making it particularly well-suited to Saudi Arabia and the wider GCC region. Key characteristics include:

High payload capability to support full commercial operations in extreme heat;

Operating performance up to 50 degrees Celsius or 122 degrees Fahrenheit.

Advanced thermal management systems to ensure reliability, performance and passenger comfort.

Batteries installed in the fuselage, thermally isolated from solar radiation and extreme heat.

Designed to the most rigorous safety standards under UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certification requirements.

About Vertical Aerospace

Vertical Aerospace is a global aerospace and technology company pioneering electric aviation. Vertical is creating a safer, cleaner, and quieter way to travel. Valo is a piloted, four-passenger, Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft, with zero operating emissions. Vertical is also developing a hybrid-electric variant, offering increased range and mission flexibility to meet the evolving needs of the Advanced Air Mobility market.

Vertical combines partnerships with leading aerospace companies, including Honeywell, Syensqo and Aciturri, with its own proprietary battery and propeller technology to develop the world's most advanced and safest eVTOL.

Vertical has c.1,500 pre-orders of Valo, with customers across four continents, including American Airlines, Avolon, Bristow, GOL and Japan Airlines. Certain customer obligations are expected to be fulfilled via third-party agreements. Headquartered in Bristol, UK, Vertical's experienced leadership team comes from top-tier aerospace and automotive companies such as Rolls-Royce, Airbus, GM, and Leonardo. Together, they have previously certified and supported over 30 different civil and military aircraft and propulsion systems.

Forward-Looking Statements

This Press Release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that relate to Vertical's current expectations and views of future events. We intend such forward-looking statements to be covered by the safe harbor provisions for forward-looking statements as contained in Section 27A of the Securities Act and 21E of the Exchange Act. Any express or implied statements contained in this release that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements regarding the expected benefits of the Memorandum of Understanding by and among Vertical, Abdel Hadi Abdullah Al-Qahtani Sons Group of Companies and the Saudi National Industrial Development Centre disclosed herein, including a framework to explore the development of a long-term Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) ecosystem in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the design and manufacture of Valo, including its operations in hot climates, the features and capabilities of Valo and the hybrid-electric variant, expectations surrounding pre-orders and commitments, business strategy and plans and objectives of management for future operations, including the building and testing of Vertical's prototype aircrafts on timelines projected, completion of the piloted test programme phases, selection of suppliers, certification and the commercialization of Valo and the hybrid-electric variant, and Vertical's ability to achieve regulatory certification of Vertical's aircraft products on any particular timeline or at all, the transition towards a net-zero emissions economy, Vertical's ability and plans to raise additional capital to fund Vertical's operations, Vertical's plans to mitigate the risk that we are unable to continue as a going concern, Vertical's plans for capital expenditures, as well as statements that include the words "expect," "intend," "plan," "believe," "project," "forecast," "estimate," "may," "should," "anticipate," "will," "aim," "potential," "continue," "is/are likely to" and similar statements of a future or forward-looking nature. These forward-looking statements reflect Vertical's current views with respect to future events and are not a guarantee of future performance. Actual outcomes may differ materially from the information contained in the forward-looking statements as a result of a number of factors, including, without limitation, the important factors discussed under the caption "Risk Factors" in Vertical's Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") on March 11, 2025, as such factors may be updated from time to time in Vertical's other filings with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements contained in this release speak only as of the date hereof and accordingly undue reliance should not be placed on such statements. Vertical disclaims any obligation or undertaking to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained in this release whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than to the extent required by applicable law.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260210942356/en/

Contacts:

For more information:

Justin Bates, Head of Communications justin.bates@vertical-aerospace.com +44 7878 357 463

Samuel Emden, Head of Investor Affairs samuel.emden@vertical-aerospace.com +44 7816 459 904
The 18th edition of the International Fruit and Vegetable Trade Fair will run from 6 to 8 October at IFEMA MADRID.

MADRID, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- From 6 to 8 October, Fruit Attraction will turn Madrid into the world's major meeting point for the fruit and vegetable industry. Organised by IFEMA MADRID and FEPEX the fair is heading towards its 18th edition. The application period for participation is now open.

Under the slogan Where the essence of the industry connects with the world, and after last year's success, Fruit Attraction returns stronger than ever to continue building the future of the industry.

Fruit Attraction will cover more than 78,000 macross ten halls at IFEMA MADRID (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 and 14), showcasing products, solutions, new varieties, formats, trends and innovations from over 2,400 companies.

The offer will be organised into four specialised areas: Fresh Produce, Auxiliary Industry, Fresh Food Logistics and Innova&Tech. This year, the potato takes central stage as the fair's featured product, while Fruit Attraction is set to break a new participation record, with more than 121,000 professional visitors expected from 152 countries.

Fruit Attraction expects to provide a platform for international promotion with the 'International Buyers Programme'. In this regard, the SpanishMinistry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, ICEX and FEPEX, will invite 700 large buyers, retail purchasing managers, importers and wholesalers from more than 50 countries. Additionally, the 'Guest Importing Countries' programme will take place, featuring China and the United Arab Emirates.

Participating in Fruit Attraction gives companies advantages such as gaining visibility and international positioning in a highly specialised environment; direct access to buyers and distributors from around the world; access to professional contacts (real business); and first-hand insight into the trends and innovations shaping the fruit and vegetable market.

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2888761/Fruit_Attraction_Halls.jpg

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2778519/5776327/Fruit_Attraction_Logo.jpg

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A joint initiative by Swiss companies LatticeFlow AI and Unique AI translates Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) guidance into technical assessments applied in real banking environments

Switzerland has marked a new milestone in how AI is governed and deployed in financial services. In a first-of-its-kind joint initiative, Swiss-based companies LatticeFlow AI and Unique AI have delivered a FINMA-aligned technical blueprint that translates the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) principles into concrete technical assessments, providing banks with audit-ready evidence to evaluate, deploy and continuously oversee AI systems across banking-specific use cases, such as Know Your Customer (KYC), chatbot assistants, and Anti-Money Laundering (AML).

The assessment, available on this page, was conducted by LatticeFlow AI on the Investment Insights Agent, an agentic AI solution developed by Swiss-founded fintech Unique AI. The solution is designed to personalize investment recommendations and overall investment rationales for relationship managers and client advisors, enabling faster, more informed decision-making.

By mapping FINMA's guidance (FINMA guidance 08/2024) to measurable technical controls (including testing, monitoring, explainability, and model robustness), the blueprint shows how banks can move from policy and abstract principles to audit-ready evidence.

The assessment performed by LatticeFlow AI evaluates how an agentic AI system behaves in practice. It provides evidence on whether the system delivers consistent and reliable outputs, how it responds to changing inputs and user interactions, and whether human users can understand, challenge, and override its recommendations when needed. This is critical for financial institutions, where AI is increasingly used to inform decisions, while accountability must remain with the bank teams.

The assessment was applied to an AI system already deployed across financial institutions. Unique AI is among the fastest growing fintech companies, with more than 40 institutional clients and over 30,000 financial professionals using its solutions globally. Leading Swiss and international institutions, including Pictet, Julius Baer, BNP Paribas, SIX Group, and Helvetia, are using Unique AI's technology and can now apply the new blueprint to back their AI governance on evidence and build trust on the AI systems in use.

"Trust in AI is built through concrete evidence, not through abstract policies. By connecting FINMA's guidance and principles with deep technical assessments, we provide banks with the evidence they need to make informed decisions and accelerate AI adoption safely and responsibly," said Petar Tsankov, CEO and Co-Founder of LatticeFlow AI.

Dr. Sina Wulfmeyer, Chief Data Officer at Unique AI, said: "In financial services, innovation only scales when it is built on trust. As AI becomes part of core investment and advisory workflows, banks need continuous technical evidence that these systems are reliable, transparent, and safe to use. This blueprint reflects our commitment to building AI that meets the expectations of Switzerland's highly regulated financial sector and can be deployed with confidence in practice."

Beyond this specific initiative, the blueprint highlights Switzerland's growing role as a global reference for practical, evidence-based AI governance. By translating regulatory expectations into deep, technical assessments that work in real financial environments, this blueprint developed by LatticeFlow AI and Unique AI reflects a distinctly Swiss "walk-the-talk" approach to building global trust in AI.

About LatticeFlow AI

LatticeFlow AI sets a new standard in AI governance through deep technical assessments that enable evidence-based decisions and empower enterprises to accelerate AI adoption with confidence. As the creator of COMPL-AI, the world's first EU AI Act framework for Generative AI developed with ETH Zurich and INSAIT, the company combines Swiss precision with scientific rigor to operationalize AI governance built on evidence and trust.

About Unique AI

Unique AI is a Swiss-founded AI company transforming financial operations with advanced agentic AI solutions. Trusted by financial institutions, Unique AI automates complex middle- and back-office processes to increase efficiency while ensuring compliance and security at scale. Unique AI delivers secure, enterprise-grade solutions that empower teams to turn complex financial documents into confident decisions and reduce regulatory and investment risk.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260210905211/en/

Contacts:

Media Enquiries:

Gloria Fernandez, Marketing Director

media@latticeflow.ai

LatticeFlow AI
BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Gyala Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing innovative cell therapies for hematologic malignancies, today announced the initiation of a Phase I/IIa clinical trial of GYA01 following authorization from the Spanish Agency of Medicines and Medical Devices (AEMPS).

The study will evaluate GYA01, a first-in-class CAR-T cell therapy targeting the CD84 protein, in patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) or T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL), diseases with poor prognosis and limited treatment options. CD84 is an emerging therapeutic target characterized by high expression in leukemic cells.

The trial is being conducted at Hospital La Fe in Valencia and Hospital Clinic Barcelona, two internationally recognized reference centers in acute leukemias and advanced cellular therapies. It is an open-label, single-arm, interventional study designed to assess the safety, tolerability, and preliminary efficacy of GYA01 and includes a dose-escalation phase followed by an expansion phase.

Gyala Therapeutics and Hospital La Fe have received 3.7 million in funding from Spain's Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities through the CPP 2024 program to conduct the study.

GYA01 has demonstrated strong preclinical activity in models of AML and T-ALL, with results published in Leukemia in 2025. There are currently no approved CAR-T therapies for either indication.

Investor contact:

Claudio Santos, PhD

claudio.santos@gyalatx.com

+34602672187

Media contact:

Gemma Escarre Comms

gyala@gemmaescarre.com

+34667761524

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View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/gyala-therapeutics-initiates-phase-iiia-clinical-trial-of-a-car-t-cell-therapy-in-acute-leukemias-with-limited-treatment-options-302681402.html
Ireland's reputation as a world-class culinary destination was celebrated this evening as the MICHELIN Guide UK Ireland Awards were held in Ireland for the very first time, celebrating the country's exceptional chefs, restaurants and producers on an international stage.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260209670808/en/

Foret Restaurant, Dublin

At a ceremony hosted in Dublin, MICHELIN unveiled its latest selection for the UK Ireland, with a number of Irish restaurants recognised for their creativity, craftsmanship and commitment to quality, marking a significant moment for Ireland's evolving food scene and its growing appeal among international diners.

The ceremony included the announcement of the MICHELIN Stars, the Bib Gourmands for great value dining, and a series of Special Awards recognising outstanding individuals and teams in hospitality. Eight Irish restaurants were awarded in total at the ceremony.

New Irish Winners MICHELIN Guide UK Ireland 2026

Michelin Star

Chef John Wyer, Forest Avenue, Dublin One Star

Chef Angelo Vagiotis, The Pullman at Glenlo Abbey, Co. Galway One Star

Bib Gourmand Awards

Foret, Dublin

Farmgate Lismore, Lismore, Co. Waterford

Beau, Belfast, Co. Antrim

Borgo, Dublin

Bigfan, Dublin

MICHELIN Service Award

Barbara Nealon, Saint Francis Provisions, Kinsale, Co. Cork

Several Irish restaurants already recognised by Michelin retained their stars this year, including the intimate Variety Jones and iconic two-star Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud, both in Dublin, and the Oak Room at Adare Manor in Co. Limerick.

A Destination Defined by Place, Produce and People

Ireland's MICHELIN-recognised restaurants reflect a food culture deeply rooted in place, seasonality and provenance. From coastal kitchens showcasing the Wild Atlantic Way's seafood to rural restaurants built around small-scale farming and foraging, Irish chefs continue to translate the island's natural larder into dining experiences that attract global attention.

Holding the MICHELIN Awards in Dublin for the first time signals Ireland's growing influence within the international culinary landscape and reinforces food as a key motivator for travel to the island. For overseas visitors, MICHELIN-recognised restaurants offer a gateway into Ireland's wider food culture. On the compact island, exceptional food is always within easy reach, with a top-notch offering that combines fine dining with historic pubs, vibrant local food markets and immersive producer experiences all delivered with the relaxed, welcoming approach that defines Irish hospitality.

"We are delighted to bring The MICHELIN Guide Ceremony to Dublin, a city whose energy and creativity mirror the vitality of the region's gastronomy. Hosting the event here highlights Ireland's growing place on the culinary map and the excellent of chefs across Great Britain Ireland. Dublin offers the perfect setting to celebrate the talent and passion that drive our industry forward," said Gwendal Poullenec, International Director of The MICHELIN Guide.

To plan your next foodie break, visit www.ireland.com

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260209670808/en/

Contacts:

For more information, please contact:

Hazel Davis

Central Publicity

Tourism Ireland

hdavis@tourismireland.com
ROME, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- IRBM, a leader in early drug discovery research, has announced a major scientific breakthrough with the discovery of a novel and potent allosteric inhibitor targeting the Zika virus (ZIKV) protease (NS2B-NS3). The findings, published in Nature Communications (doi: 10.1038/s41467-026-68943-x), demonstrate the molecule's efficacy in preclinical models and represent a promising new approach to combat ZIKV infections.

Mosquito-borne ZIKV poses a serious public health threat due to its association with severe neurological complications. With no approved antivirals or vaccines currently available, there is an urgent need for new treatment options.

IRBM scientists identified a small molecule that binds to a previously uncharacterized allosteric site on the NS2B-NS3 protease, a key enzyme required for viral replication. The inhibitor effectively suppressed protease activity in biochemical and cellular assays and demonstrated significant antiviral activity in animal models. It also exhibited a favorable safety and pharmacokinetic profile, supporting its potential for clinical development. Notably, this mechanism may extend to other flaviviruses including dengue, yellow fever, and West Nile, suggesting broader therapeutic potential.

IRBM's integrated approach, combining high-content phenotypic screening, computational modeling, mechanistic enzymology, iterative medicinal chemistry, and ADME profiling allowed the team to rapidly advance from initial hit identification to preclinical candidate selection.

"This discovery marks an important milestone in antiviral drug development," said Carlo Toniatti, MD, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer at IRBM. "By leveraging cutting-edge medicinal chemistry and integrated screening technologies, our team has delivered a novel ZIKV protease inhibitor with compelling preclinical activity."

The achievement, funded by the Region of Lazio, is the result of a collaborative initiative originating from CNCCS, and it opens a promising path toward targeted antiviral therapies that could fill a critical gap in global public health preparedness. It also reinforces the joint commitment of CNCCS and IRBM to tackle rare and neglected diseases with innovative science.

"Innovation in drug discovery never happens alone. At IRBM, we aim to act as a bridge between academic discoveries and the clinic, and the success of this project demonstrates the impact that effective public-private partnerships can have on advancing new therapies," added Matteo Liguori, CEO and Founder of IRBM.

About IRBM IRBM is a leading research organization specializing in early drug discovery. With decades of expertise and a proven track record of delivering innovative preclinical candidates, IRBM is known for its rigorous, multidisciplinary approach to designing and executing complex experiments for the toughest drug discovery challenges. IRBM advances programs across a wide spectrum of modalities and therapeutic areas, including antivirals, oncology, neuroscience, rare diseases, and beyond.

About CNCCS CNCCS is a public-private consortium between IRBM, CNR, ISS, and the University of La Sapienza, which acts as a lead factory for drug discovery programs, integrating a chemical compound repository with a high-throughput screening (HTS) platform. Its mission is to act as a bridge between academic research and pharmaceutical development, with a particular focus on targeting rare, neglected, and poverty-related diseases.

Website: www.irbm.com

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View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/irbm-reports-breakthrough-in-zika-virus-drug-discovery-302683450.html
Highlights:

Hole LMD-121: 3.1 metres grading 1,286 g/t silver and 9.0 g/t gold including 0.9 metres grading 3,102 g/t silver and 25.1 g/t gold



Hole LMD-118: 1.4 metres grading 16.4 g/t gold and 81g/t silver including 0.6 metres grading 34.7 g/t gold and 180 g/t silver



Confirmation of high-grade mineralization in the northwest extension of the West Feeder Zone - five additional step-out holes pending along northwest strike

Confirmation of high-grade veins hosted in andesitic sills, previously interpreted to be a barren host rock

Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Astra Exploration Inc. (TSXV: ASTR) (OTCQB: ATEPF) (FSE: S3I) ("Astra" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the first batch of assays consisting of six DDH holes from the Phase II drill program at the La Manchuria Gold and Silver Project in Santa Cruz, Argentina. Assays remain pending for 19 holes.

Astra's CEO, Brian Miller, commented:

"New sources of high-grade veins continue to emerge at La Manchuria. Drilling has revealed the system is open along strike in both directions, at depth below previous drilling, laterally in new parallel structures, and now we can definitively add additional host rock units to that list. We've proven that high-grade gold and silver exist beyond nearly every previously interpreted constraint, which bolsters our original thesis that La Manchuria has the potential to host a multi-million-ounce high-grade deposit."

Miller continues:

"It is important to keep in mind that these results are from a small portion of the property, which itself now has unconstrained potential - and there are numerous regional targets which show potential for expansion, all centralized within a large project area of spectacular fertility. We are eager to commence with the fully-funded second half of Phase II to further expand the system. Applying the knowledge we've gained by opening the system locally will improve our odds of success and reduce dilution as we grow the system regionally."

Program Details

A total of 25 drill holes were completed in late 2025 totaling 5,119 metres (see Dec 1, 2025 news release, "Astra Provides Progress Update on Phase II Drill Program at La Manchuria Gold and Silver Project, Argentina"). The drill program focused on expanding the near-surface footprint of the system with shallow (<200m vertical depth) drill holes. The Company plans to commence geophysical surveys in February and commence with the second half of Phase II (~5,000 metres) in March 2026.

Drill Results and Discussion

The six drill holes reported herein were focused primarily on the Main Zone area (Figure 1), each of which intersected at least one noteworthy gold and/or silver interval (Table 1). The regular occurrence of both gold and silver grade demonstrates the fertility of the system even at shallow system depths.

Figure 1: Phase II holes drilled to date with assays for the first six holes highlighted in yellow. Dashed line in dark blue shows approximate location of long section in Figure 2.

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

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West Feeder at Main Zone

The West Feeder contains some of the thickest veins and highest grades currently known at La Manchuria. LMD-121 and LMD-118 extended the high-grade vein at depth and along strike to the northwest, respectively (Figure 2). LMD-121 returned a significant mineralized interval, beginning at 224.4m downhole (~170m vertically below surface) of 3.1 metres grading 9.04 g/t Au and 1,286 g/t Ag, including a higher-grade sub-interval of 0.9 metres grading 25.14 g/t Au and 3,102 g/t Ag. The interval is comprised of two, banded, quartz-adularia-sulphide veins hosted within an andesitic sill. This interval is of particular importance, being the first intercept of vein hosted, high grade gold and silver intersected within andesitic host rocks. The andesitic sill is approximately 25 metres thick and is underlaid by a pyroclastic sequence (Figure 3) which is a common host to high-grade veins. This revelation adds new potential for high-grade veins at depth.

Figure 2: Long section of the West Feeder in the Main Zone (location shown in Figure 1 by dark blue dashed line) with interpreted downthrown target areas. Completed Phase II holes in blue pending assay results. LMD-118 and LMD-121 in red. Resistivity values expressed in ohm-m.

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

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Figure 3: Cross section of LMD-121 showing the depth extension of the veins at the West Feeder. Gold and silver results are in grams per tonne (g/t). Photo is the sample with 0.9m grading 25.14 g/t Au & 3,101.7 g/t Ag. Hole LMD-121 deviated upwards and intersected the vein approximately 25m above the targeted depth.

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

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LMD-118 intersected several quartz-adularia-sulphide banded veins and veinlets hosted within pyroclastic rocks and an andesitic sill (Figure 4) located in an upthrown structural block west of the Main Zone (Figure 2). The most significant interval was hosted in an andesitic sill underlain by pyroclastic sequence (similar to LMD-121) and returned 1.4 metres grading 16.44 g/t Au and 81 g/t Ag, including a higher-grade interval of 0.6 metres grading 34.67 g/t Au and 180 g/t Ag within a quartz-adularia-amethyst banded vein (see Figure 4 photograph). This structure represents a 60 metre down dip step out of mineralization intersected in LMD-113 which returned 1.3 metres grading 17.3 g/t Au and 61 g/t Ag.

Figure 4: Cross section of LMD-118 showing the depth extension of the veins at the West Feeder. Gold and silver results are in grams per tonne (g/t). Photo is the sample with 0.6m grading 34.67 g/t Au & 180.30 g/t Ag.

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

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East Feeder at Main Zone

LMD-119, LMD-120 and LMD-116 were designed to test, from north to south, the eastern portion of the Main Zone, referred to as the East Feeder, which is now interpreted to dip toward the southwest. All holes intersected low-sulphidation epithermal (LSE) veins and veinlets, returning multiple gold and silver intervals along their lengths (Figure 1 and Table 1). These results further support and refine the shallow bulk disseminated mineralization model for the Main Zone.

LMD-120 and LMD-119 tested the northern extension of the East Feeder beneath post mineral cover and intersected at least three zones of shallow LSE-style mineralization with anomalous precious metal values (>1 g/t AuEq). These results indicate that the mineralized system remains open to the north within a downthrown structural block and warrants further drill testing at depth, particularly within underlying pyroclastic host rocks.

LMD-116 intersected multiple massive to banded quartz-chalcedony-sulphide veins and veinlets between 7 metres and 211 metres downhole, all hosted within rhyolitic tuffs. The most significant intersection of 1.1 metres grading 2.77 g/t Au and 41.9 g/t Ag corresponds to the down-dip projection of the Argentum vein at approximately 150 metre vertical depth. LMD-116 demonstrates that shallow disseminated mineralization within the East Feeder remains open in all directions.

Basalto Zone

LMD-117 was the first drill hole of the current program to test the structurally complex Basalto Zone and was designed to evaluate mineralization below Phase I drill hole LMD-105. LMD-117 intersected two zones of mineralization associated with shallow-level banded quartz-chalcedony-amethyst veins and veinlets hosted within an andesitic sill. Anomalous grades within the andesitic sills are encouraging, giving the possibility for higher grades in the underlying pyroclastic host rocks.

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Table 1: Assays from the first six holes of Phase II drilling at La Manchuria using cutoff grade of 0.5 g/t AuEq. Ag:Au ratio of 60 using $3,600 Au and $60 Ag. Recoveries of 94% for Au and 85% for Ag is an average based on three regional mine operations1 and are reflected in AuEq and AgEq values above. Table shows results greater than 1 g/t AuEq. Estimated true widths are approximately 85% of widths reported herein.

Sampling Procedures

Drill samples consisted of HQ core which were split in half, sampled, bagged, and tagged by Astra's geological team and then delivered to the Alex Stewart International Argentina laboratory in Mendoza. Drill samples were prepared with P5 code and then analyzed with fire assay for gold (Au4-50) and multi-elements by ICP (ICP-AR 39). Silver (>200 g/t) over-limits were analyzed by gravity method (Ag4A-50). A total of 131 Blanks and 154 standards (4 different Au and Ag grades) were used as QAQC for the group of 2,831 samples.

About the Company

Astra Exploration Inc. is a precious metals exploration company based out of Vancouver, BC that is actively building a portfolio of high-quality projects in some of the most important mining jurisdictions in Latin America.

The La Manchuria gold-silver project in Santa Cruz, Argentina, over which Astra has an option to acquire 90% interest from the owner, Patagonia Gold Corp, is a high-grade gold and silver low sulphidation epithermal (LSE) deposit located in the prolific Deseado Massif which hosts multiple world-class LSE precious metals deposits including Cerro Vanguardia and Cerro Negro, Santa Cruz, Argentina.

The 100% owned Pampa Paciencia gold and silver project in northern Chile is located in the Paleocene mineral province in proximity to such major operating mines as Spence and Sierra Gorda. The project shares several important geological similarities to other Paleocene LSE gold-silver deposits including Faride and El Penon.

The 100% owned Cerro Bayo project in northern Chile is located in the Maricunga belt approximately 20 km from the Refugio Mine. The project hosts a high sulphidation epithermal (HSE) +/- porphyry gold system with similarities to the Salares Norte deposit to the north in the same belt. The Maricunga belt is one of the most endowed regions in the world for gold and copper deposits.

Qualified Person

The technical data and information as disclosed in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Darcy Marud, who is an Independent Director of Astra. Mr. Marud is a Practicing Member of the Association of Professional Geoscientists of Ontario and is a qualified person as defined under the terms of National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

References:

1 Sources:

Steinmann, Michael, March 2006

Manantial-Espejo Project Canadian Standard NI 43-101, Santa Cruz Province, Argentina Prepared for Minera Triton Argentina, S.A.

https://panamericansilver.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Manantial-Espejo-Technical-Report.pdf

Goldcorp - Third Quarter Report, September 30, 2017

https://s24.q4cdn.com/382246808/files/doc_financials/mda/2017/MD-A-FS-2017Q3-Website.pdf

AngloGoldAshanti - Technical Report Summary, Cerro Vanguardia, A Life of Mine Summary Report, December 31, 2021

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067428/000162828022007855/a2021_-xcerroxvanguardia.htm

Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release may contain certain "Forward-Looking Statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities laws. When or if used in this news release, the words "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "target, "plan", "forecast", "may", "schedule" and similar words or expressions identify forward-looking statements or information. These forward-looking statements or information may relate to the Company's business activities; exploration on the Company's properties including drilling at the La Manchuria project. Such statements represent the Company's current views with respect to future events and are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by the Company, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, political and social risks, contingencies and uncertainties. Many factors, both known and unknown, could cause results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements that are or may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, without limitation: development of the industry in which the Company operates; risks associated with the conduct of the Company's business activities; risks relating to reliance on the Company's management team and outside contractors; currency fluctuations; risks regarding the failure to generate sufficient cash flow from operations; laws and regulations governing the industry in which the Company operates; the ability of the communities in which the Company operates to manage and cope with the implications of COVID-19; the economic and financial implications of COVID-19 to the Company; operating or technical difficulties; employee relations, labour unrest or unavailability; stock market volatility; conflicts of interest among certain directors and officers; lack of liquidity for shareholders of the Company; litigation risk; and other risk factors disclosed in the Company's public disclosure documents available on the Company's profile at www.sedarplus.ca. Readers are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements or forward-looking information. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, there may be other factors that cause results not to be anticipated, estimated or intended. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements or information to reflect changes in assumptions or changes in circumstances or any other events affecting such statements and information other than as required by applicable laws, rules and regulations.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283339

Source: Astra Exploration Inc.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Vortex Metals Inc. (TSXV: VMS) (FSE: DM8) (OTCQB: VMSSF) ("Vortex" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has engaged the services of Global One Media Limited ("Global One Media") to produce and distribute video interviews, company news, and other similar services for investor marketing and wider investors' outreach.

Commenting on the Global One Media engagement, Bastien Boulay, CEO of Global One Media said, "with the vast majority of young adults turning to social media for investment advice, we are thrilled to be able to introduce and enhance Vortex Metal's exposure to Millennial and Gen Z investors in particular, who typically consume investment information on digital channels such as YouTube, TikTok or Spotify. By presenting the information in a way that is relevant to them and easy to digest and understand, we aim to help Vortex Metals develop a dynamic online following across all their social media channels.

"Vortex has assembled a compelling portfolio of copper-gold exploration assets. Its Volcanogenic Massive Sulfide (VMS) projects in Oaxaca, Mexico, were founded by a legendary mine finder, who made multiple discoveries, including Los Filos Gold and Silver Mine, and are highly prospective. Its Illapel project is in a well-known mining area and next to an operating mine. I look forward to working closely with Globe One Media's team in outlining and educating the wider investors' audience about Vortex Metals, stated, Mr. Michael Williams, Interim CEO and Director".

The term of the agreement with Global One Media (the "Global One Agreement") commenced on February 1st, 2026, and ends on July 31st, 2026. The Global One Agreement may be renewed after the initial term upon the mutual agreement of the Company and Global One Media. Under the terms of the Global One Agreement, the Company has agreed to pay Global One a monthly cash fee of USD$6,000. There are no performance factors impacting the compensation of Global One Media, and Global One Media will not receive any securities of the Company as compensation. Global One Media does not have any interest, directly or indirectly, in the Company. The Global One Agreement is subject to regulatory approval by the TSX Venture Exchange.

About Global One Media

Global One Media (www.globalonemedia.com) is a full-service investor-focused digital marketing agency solving the needs of publicly traded companies. They deliver creative and effective solutions for digital market awareness and brand positioning across all industries, specializing in content creation and investor engagement for listed and pre-IPO companies. Leveraging their 'Stocks To Watch' global network and community-driven channels, they help public companies dominate their sector amid the digital and social media landscape, tell their story in an engaging manner, and reach millions of investors around the world.

About Vortex Metals Inc.

Vortex Metals Inc. is a copper-gold focused exploration and development company with a diversified portfolio of exploration projects in Chile and Mexico. Vortex holds an option to acquire up to 80% interest in the brownfield Illapel Copper Project in Chile and through its Mexican subsidiary Empresa Minera Acagold, S.A. de C.V., it owns 100% interest in two drill-ready high-potential copper-gold volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) properties, Riqueza Marina and Zaachila, in Oaxaca, Mexico. The Company emphasizes responsible exploration, community engagement, and environmental stewardship to meet the rising global demand for copper.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Forward-Looking Statements

This release includes statements and information that may constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking statements relate to future events or future performance and reflect the expectations or beliefs of management of the Company regarding future events. Generally, forward-looking statements and information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "intends" or "anticipates", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "should", "would" or "occur". This information and these statements, referred to herein as "forward-looking statements", are not historical facts, are made as of the date of this news release and include without limitation, statements regarding discussions of future plans, estimates and forecasts and statements as to management's expectations and intentions with respect to, among other things, the intended use of proceeds raised under the Offering and the receipt of final regulatory approval from the TSXV.

These forward-looking statements involve numerous risks and uncertainties and actual results might differ materially from results suggested in any forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, among other things, that the Company will not receive the required regulatory approvals or approval from the TSXV in connection with the Offering and that the Company will not use the proceeds of the Offering as currently anticipated.

In making the forward looking statements in this news release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including without limitation, that the Company will use the proceeds of the Offering as currently anticipated and that the Company will receive approval from the TSXV in connection with the Offering. Although management of the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement, forward-looking information or financial outlook that are incorporated by reference herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283359

Source: Vortex Metals Inc.
Chinese slippers win over global consumers as industry upgrades

People's Daily Online) 14:26, February 10, 2026

On average, one out of every eight people worldwide wears slippers from Neikeng town in Jinjiang, southeast China's Fujian Province. Every second, 40 pairs of slippers leave Jinjiang for global markets.

Neikeng is home to nearly 2,000 enterprises across the supply chain. It produces over 1 billion pairs of slippers annually, with total industry output exceeding 30 billion yuan ($4.32 billion).

From scorching Southeast Asian streets to the apartments of young Americans, Chinese-made slippers have become fashionable staples for consumers worldwide.

Photo shows slippers produced in Jinjiang, southeast China's Fujian Province. (Photo/mnw.cn)

In Yiwu, east China's Zhejiang Province  known as the world's capital of small commodities  the global presence of Chinese slippers is even more striking.

The peak sales season for cotton slippers is now underway. At the warehouse of Yiwu Tina Slipper Co., Ltd., company head Liu Bo leads his team in rushing to fulfill orders. Meanwhile, in Osaka, Japan, Tina Slipper's showroom, which opened last May, is drawing numerous Japanese clients.

The company has specialized in slipper manufacturing for over 20 years, with products sold across Europe, the Americas, Japan and South Korea. Last year alone, it sold more than 8 million pairs of slippers in Japan.

In a livestream session for Tina Slipper, a team from Malaysia recently showcased slippers priced at around 120 yuan, selling 40,000 pairs in just three hours.

"Over the past two years, as livestream e-commerce surged in Southeast Asia, we seized the opportunity by partnering with top local agencies, successfully penetrating local markets with sales doubling year after year," Liu said.

Since 2024, the company has continued expanding in Southeast Asia. Over the past year, sales in the region have grown fivefold compared to previous levels.

Market research indicates that the global slipper market reached $30 billion in 2024, up 7.2 percent year on year, becoming one of the fastest-growing consumer product categories in international trade.

As the world's primary slipper supplier, China is upgrading its slipper industry through intelligent manufacturing, health-oriented design and eco-friendly practices. Production and exports of slippers continue to rise steadily, with products mainly destined for diverse markets including Europe, the Americas, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, establishing slippers as a highly competitive category in China's light industry exports.

Chinese slippers' global appeal stems from technology-driven innovation and upgrades across the entire supply chain.

Workers produce slippers in a company in Jinjiang, southeast China's Fujian Province. (Photo/mnw.cn)

From supercritical foaming technology to new foam materials and bamboo charcoal, Chinese slipper manufacturing techniques are continually evolving, steadily enhancing product comfort and functionality.

Inside the factory of Jieyang Shenglubao Footwear Ltd. in Jieyang High-tech Zone, Jieyang, south China's Guangdong Province, dozens of machines and midsole equipment churn out pairs of Luofu slippers, bestsellers in overseas markets.

"This is our independently developed Luofu slipper series. The core innovation lies in transforming what was once considered simple footwear into functional products that combine ultimate comfort with fashionable design," said Zheng Jiechun, foreign trade manager at Shenglubao Footwear.

"In terms of materials, the independently developed thermoplastic rubber midsole offers cushioning, lightness and an enhanced wearing experience," Zheng said, adding that built-in arch support based on big data analysis ensures comfort during long hours of standing or walking.

Fast design, development, production, and innovation ensure that consumers can access new products quickly. This industrial chain advantage and rapid response mechanism enable Chinese slipper companies to capture shifts in global market trends and adjust product strategies flexibly.

Rapid small-batch production is key to winning over the new generation of consumers, said Chen Zhihua, brand director at Fujian Jiajiale Shoes Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

Through digital systems, the brand has cut new product development cycles from 45 days to 15 days and reduced minimum order quantities from 3,000 to 300 pairs.

"This means we can rapidly develop exclusive products and turn a profit for specialized markets, whether that's a niche outdoor community in the Netherlands or a yoga studio in Los Angeles," Chen said.

An official from the Jieyang Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology noted that the city has a complete shoe industry ecosystem with a robust supply chain. In 2025, the city had 116 shoe enterprises above designated size, with a total industrial output value exceeding 5 billion yuan and local export value reaching 946 million yuan.

Cultural appeal has become a crucial factor for Chinese slippers in overseas markets. Meanwhile, China's slipper exports are shifting from product to brand exports and from price to value competition.

In January last year, Yiwu Selection  a brand export collection store  opened in the Yiwu International Trade Market, featuring multiple slipper products from Tina Slipper. The store was launched by Zhejiang China Commodities City Group Co., Ltd. in partnership with the Yiwu Brands Association.

"We've now opened Yiwu Selection stores in 11 countries, and we'll keep expanding channels to grow our overseas presence," Liu said. He's currently negotiating with German and French clients to establish directly operated stores in those countries.

As competition intensifies, Chinese slipper companies are increasingly prioritizing brand building. In 2024, export prices for Chinese slippers with proprietary brands or IP collaborations rose significantly. Chinese slipper enterprises are enhancing their pricing power through branding strategies.

Cross-border e-commerce has also driven new international growth opportunities.

"The rise of cross-border e-commerce has opened smoother overseas channels for small and micro enterprises," said Zhang Zhenjie, deputy general manager at Jinjiang Xiangtai Shoes Co., Ltd., in the company's dust-free laboratory.

"For overseas channels, we leverage cross-border e-commerce platforms, which serve not only as sales channels but also as proving grounds for new products and brand flagship stores," Zheng explained. "We also partner with regional overseas chain supermarkets and boutique home-goods stores offline, offering customized colorways or co-branded packaging."

(Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun)
ZUG, Switzerland, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- BSV Association today announced formal recognition under the EU's Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) framework through its collaboration with Zumo and work with the MiCA Crypto Alliance, alongside co-authoring a new white paper aimed at supporting the practical implementation of Europe's first comprehensive crypto regulation.

Rather than focusing on theory, the initiative centres on execution, providing regulators, enterprises and public sector bodies with clear technical standards and compliance guidance for deploying blockchain within MiCA's legal framework.

The milestone places BSV among the first public blockchain ecosystems to work directly with policymakers, researchers and market participants to translate MiCA's requirements into operational infrastructure, ensuring digital assets can be used within clear, enforceable and auditable regulatory boundaries.

The joint white paper sets out how scalable public blockchains can meet supervisory expectations around transparency, traceability, consumer protection and accountability, while giving institutions a blueprint for compliant deployment at scale.

Under MiCA, BSV is classified as 'other crypto asset (OTH)', distinct from Asset Referenced Tokens (ARTs) and Electronic Money Tokens (EMTs). It is a decentralised, peer-to-peer digital asset native to the BSV Blockchain, not backed by any issuer or asset and conferring no ownership, dividend or governance rights.

The BSV digital asset is fully fungible, enabling seamless peer-to-peer payments, functioning as a unit of account, and serving as the transaction payment instrument that secures network operations. Together, these core functions underpin a protocol that does not rely on staking, delegated validation, or governance structures, reinforcing its role as neutral public infrastructure and making it well suited for regulated markets and institutional use.

By aligning with MiCA's requirements and contributing to shared standards, the Association aims to provide businesses and governments with the legal certainty and technical assurance needed to move from pilots to production deployments.

Asgeir Oskarsson, Managing Director of BSV Association, said:

"Regulation is not a barrier to innovation, it is the foundation for trust and long-term growth. Europe has set a clear rulebook with MiCA and the next step is implementation. Our work with the MiCA Crypto Alliance focuses on turning regulatory intent into practical standards that enterprises and public institutions can deploy against."

Juan Ignacio Ibanez, General Secretary of the MiCA Crypto Alliance, added:

"MiCA's success depends on credible, technically sound infrastructure that can demonstrate compliance in practice. BSV Association's engagement shows how public blockchains can operate within regulatory guardrails while delivering transparency and accountability. This collaboration helps bridge the gap between policy and real-world adoption."

Neshma Emile, Head of GTM & Sustainability Products at Zumo said: "We believe the future of crypto adoption will be defined by leadership in sustainability, transparency and regulatory trust. Not by box-ticking. By working with forward-thinking organisations like BSV, we're showing how sustainability and compliance-led design can deliver verifiable, auditable infrastructure that regulators and institutions can rely on. This is how crypto firms turn compliance into a competitive advantage. "

Monty Metzger, CEO of LCX, said: "Europe's Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation provides a landmark framework to bring digital asset markets into accountable, transparent, and institutionally trusted infrastructure. At LCX we've structured our regulated exchange and compliance systems to meet the evolving demands of MiCA and Liechtenstein's TVTG framework, enabling projects to access deep European liquidity within a clear legal guardrail. Collaborating with industry innovators like the BSV Association demonstrates how forward-looking blockchain ecosystems can operationalise MiCA's principles and bring compliant, scalable digital assets to professional and retail participants alike."

The partnership reflects a broader shift across Europe towards enterprise grade, compliant blockchain networks that prioritise legal certainty, oversight and measurable outcomes, signalling the market's transition from experimentation to regulated deployment.

About BSV Association

BSV Association is a Switzerland based non-profit organisation that serves as the global advocate for the BSV blockchain. Its mission is to advance adoption and unlock the full potential of BSV as a scalable, secure and energy-efficient public blockchain built for data integrity, enterprise solutions and government applications. The Association supports developers, enterprises and public sector institutions by fostering innovation, encouraging regulatory compliance and promoting real-world use cases that demonstrate blockchain's value on a global scale. Through education, developer engagement, strategic partnerships, public policy initiatives and technological advancement, BSV Association is committed to driving sustainable growth and long-term utility of blockchain technology.

About the MiCA Crypto Alliance

The MiCA Crypto Alliance, founded by Exponential Science, was established to accelerate the responsible implementation of the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation. By connecting researchers, policymakers and market participants, the Alliance provides shared standards, data-driven research and public tools that make regulatory compliance practical, verifiable and transparent.

About Zumo

Zumo is the UK-based digital asset platform enabling businesses to launch and scale crypto products with confidence. Combining modular, API-first infrastructure with deep expertise, Zumo is the trusted partner for crypto firms, fintechs and financial institutions entering and operating in the UK market. Zumo is recognised for its sustainability-led approach and its contribution to industry guidance on decarbonisation and digital asset sustainability. A pioneer of sustainability in crypto, Zumo enables firms to demonstrate ESG leadership while addressing evolving regulatory and reporting expectations. Zumo is a trading name of Zumo Financial Services Limited (FCA reference 901033) and Zumo Technology Limited. ZUMO is a registered trademark of Blockstar Holdings Limited (EU TM Reg No. 17996331). Find out more at zumo.tech

About LCX

LCX (Liberty Crypto Exchange) is a regulated digital asset exchange and blockchain ecosystem headquartered in Vaduz, Liechtenstein. Founded in 2018, LCX is regulated by the Financial Market Authority of Liechtenstein as a Trusted Technology Service Provider and operates under Liechtenstein's Token and Trusted Technology Service Provider Act (TVTG) with multiple regulatory registrations. LCX is also progressing through EU Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) licensing to support compliant asset trading and token issuance across Europe. The LCX platform offers secure spot trading, fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-crypto markets, tokenisation services, regulated token sales, custody, price oracles, and advanced trading tools, all designed to bridge traditional financial markets with digital asset innovation. Through a compliance-first approach and institutional-grade infrastructure, LCX empowers projects and users to engage with digital assets under clear, enforceable regulatory standards.

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Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE:ICE), a leading global provider of technology and data, today announced that the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has granted recognition to ICE Benchmark Administration Limited (IBA) as a third-country benchmark administrator under Article 32 of the EU Benchmarks Regulation (EU BMR).

ESMA's recognition decision means that IBA's 'significant' EU benchmarks the ICE Swap Rate and the LBMA Gold Price remain available for use by 'supervised entities' in the European Union under the EU BMR.

"IBA is pleased to have been granted recognition by ESMA," said Clive de Ruig, President of ICE Benchmark Administration. "This decision ensures IBA's EU-based clients can continue to use the ICE Swap Rate and the LBMA Gold Price without disruption and demonstrates our ability to apply robust governance and best-in-class technology to give market participants confidence in the information they depend upon."

In addition to being recognised by ESMA, ICE Benchmark Administration is authorised and regulated by the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority for the regulated activity of administering a benchmark. ICE Benchmark Administration administers a number of other benchmarks pursuant to this authorisation, including the LBMA Silver Price, the ICE Term Reference Rates, and the ICE RFR Indexes. These benchmarks are not currently in scope of the EU BMR and, accordingly, are not currently subject to any EU-usage restrictions.

About Intercontinental Exchange

Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE: ICE) is a Fortune 500 company that designs, builds and operates digital networks that connect people to opportunity. We provide financial technology and data services across major asset classes helping our customers access mission-critical workflow tools that increase transparency and efficiency. ICE's futures, equity, and options exchanges - including the New York Stock Exchange - and clearing houses help people invest, raise capital and manage risk. We offer some of the world's largest markets to trade and clear energy and environmental products. Our fixed income, data services and execution capabilities provide information, analytics and platforms that help our customers streamline processes and capitalize on opportunities. At ICE Mortgage Technology, we are transforming U.S. housing finance, from initial consumer engagement through loan production, closing, registration and the long-term servicing relationship. Together, ICE transforms, streamlines and automates industries to connect our customers to opportunity.

ICE Benchmark Administration, a subsidiary of ICE, was founded to provide benchmark and other administrative services that bring certainty and predictability to the operation of global financial and commodity markets. IBA reserves all rights in its benchmark methodologies and settings. ICE Swap Rate and ICE Benchmark Administration are registered trademarks of IBA and/or its affiliates.

Trademarks of ICE and/or its affiliates include Intercontinental Exchange, ICE, ICE block design, NYSE and New York Stock Exchange. Information regarding additional trademarks and intellectual property rights of Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. and/or its affiliates is located here. Key Information Documents for certain products covered by the EU Packaged Retail and Insurance-based Investment Products Regulation can be accessed on the relevant exchange website under the heading "Key Information Documents (KIDS)."

Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 Statements in this press release regarding ICE's business that are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements" that involve risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of additional risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see ICE's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, including, but not limited to, the risk factors in ICE's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, as filed with the SEC on February 5, 2026.

Category: EXCHANGES

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260210766140/en/

Contacts:

ICE Media Contact:

Jess Tatham

jess.tatham@ice.com

+44 7377 947136

media@ice.com

ICE Investor Contact:

Steve Eagerton

steve.eagerton@ice.com

+1 904 571 0530

investors@ice.com
NetBox Copilot accelerates operations and automation, while providing self-service to non-IT teams

NEW YORK, Feb. 10, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, NetBox Labs , the central nervous system for networks and infrastructure, announced the general availability of NetBox Copilot, an interactive AI agent embedded directly into the NetBox platform.

As AI agents rapidly move from experimentation into production operations, IT teams are finding that most agents lack the accurate operational context required to be trusted in production environments. NetBox delivers a critical foundation for automation. It is a comprehensive semantic map for infrastructure that enables NetBox Copilot with complete infrastructural context. NetBox Copilot is agentic AI that is grounded in a company's network and infrastructure data providing trustworthy answers, reliable automation and enterprise-ready governance -- all conducted in natural language.

The new capability will allow thousands of NetBox users to accelerate their work, while expanding access to infrastructure data across security and operations teams and executives, as well as other non-IT teams.

NetBox Copilot Delivers Deeply Contextual Results

With GA, NetBox Copilot expands from inquiry into workflow execution, enabling infrastructure teams to automate changes to their infrastructure, not just explore data.

Teams can use NetBox Copilot to:

Validate data completeness and quality ("Which devices are missing IP addresses?")

Investigate changes for troubleshooting and compliance ("Who changed this prefix last week?")

Assess impact before maintenance ("What depends on this switch?")

Plan capacity across sites and infrastructure ("How much rack space is available in Denver?")

Build automation workflows and operational playbooks ("Create an Ansible playbook to deploy switch configs")

Apply changes directly to NetBox ("Add another server to the NYC datacenter" - write operations available in NetBox Enterprise and NetBox Cloud)

By embedding AI directly into NetBox's UI and permissions model, NetBox Copilot makes infrastructure data more accessible to NetOps/NOC teams, IT operations managers, and less-frequent NetBox users who need quick answers without navigating APIs or complex UI workflows.

AI Built for Infrastructure Teams

NetBox Copilot reflects the industry shift toward AI agents that move beyond answers into autonomous operational workflows, with the controls required for enterprise adoption.

"Network and infrastructure teams lag devops and cloud teams in automation, in the face of massive complexity. Yet the demand to automate networks and infrastructure has exploded in the last two years," said Kris Beevers, CEO and Co-Founder of NetBox Labs. "NetBox Copilot was built to help meet that demand-providing a natural language interface that allows engineers, operators, and managers alike to quickly get answers, validate infrastructure data, and automate workflows without deep NetBox expertise. NetBox Copilot rings in a new automation era and the next evolution of how teams manage networks and infrastructure. Finally, network and infrastructure operations teams can begin to automate more of their work with the tool that makes most sense for them - natural language."

NetBox Copilot's GA release includes major new capabilities for NetBox Cloud and NetBox Enterprise customers, including:

Enterprise-grade governance , with bring-your-own-model access and enhanced privacy controls

, with bring-your-own-model access and enhanced privacy controls Options for data retention and management

Write operations , enabling NetBox Copilot to automate approved changes directly in NetBox

, enabling NetBox Copilot to automate approved changes directly in NetBox Improved administration and credit management



Enterprise-Ready AI Grounded in Your Unique Infrastructure Data

Unlike generic AI assistants bolted onto infrastructure tools, NetBox Copilot is purpose-built to understand NetBox's unique and comprehensive infrastructure data model. NetBox Copilot delivers:

Native awareness of NetBox relationships and context

Zero-friction deployment in seconds, with no server changes required

SOC 2 Type II certification

No training on customer data-ever

Enterprise controls for model choice, governance, and retention



NetBox Copilot is embedded directly into all NetBox editions- NetBox Community, NetBox Cloud, and NetBox Enterprise-leveraging existing authentication and RBAC controls. It is also part of the broader NetBox AI ecosystem alongside the NetBox MCP Server, with future expansion planned across the NetBox Labs product portfolio including NetBox Discovery, NetBox Assurance, NetBox Observability, and more.

Availability of NetBox Copilot

NetBox Copilot is generally available today across NetBox editions. Enterprise governance enhancements and NetBox Copilot's features for automating changes in NetBox are now available for NetBox Cloud and NetBox Enterprise customers. Additional private deployment options will continue rolling out to meet enterprise data sovereignty requirements.

NetBox Copilot is available to everyone in the NetBox community for free, as part of a generous free tier, with scale-up pricing based on usage and additional features for NetBox Cloud and NetBox Enterprise customers.

Enable NetBox Copilot using the quickstart:

https://netboxlabs.com/docs/copilot/quickstart/

Want a walkthrough or deeper dive?

https://netboxlabs.com/contact-us/

About NetBox Labs

NetBox Labs makes sense of complex networks and infrastructure. As the commercial steward of open source NetBox, the most popular platform for operating, automating, understanding and securing complex networks and infrastructure, NetBox Labs delivers a world-class portfolio of open, composable products across network discovery, assurance, operations and observability. NetBox Labs fosters and invests in a vibrant community of tens of thousands of network and infrastructure professionals. Top companies like ARM, Cisco, Constant Contact, CoreWeave, J.P. Morgan, Kaiser Permanente, and Riot Games trust NetBox Labs to understand, operate and transform their critical infrastructure.

Media Contact: Rhiannon Pacheco - press@netboxlabs.com
Edmonton, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Sranan Gold Corp. (CSE: SRAN) (OTCQB: SRANF) (FSE: P84) (Tradegate: P84) ("Sranan" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into an option agreement (the "Agreement") with Lawantino N.V. (the "Vendor") to acquire up to a 100% interest in the 18,468-hectare Lawantino Gold Property (the "Property") situated in southeastern Suriname. The acquisition of the Property, which is currently the focus of extensive artisanal alluvial mining (see Figure 1), strengthens Sranan's position within the highly prospective Guiana Shield, a region recognized for structurally controlled gold mineralization. The Company now controls 47,500 hectares of high-potential land for exploration.

The Property is strategically located along the same deep-seated regional structure, the Central Guiana Shear Zone (CGSZ), that hosts Founders Metals' Antino Gold Project and Miata Metals' Sela Creek Project, two of the most active gold exploration projects in Suriname.

The Company has confirmed the presence of extensive active artisanal alluvial mining (see Figure 2) with multiple generations of mining (miners return to the same sites with more effective equipment). Sampling of limited saprolite exposure encountered shear-hosted quartz veins cutting granite near the contact with basaltic rocks. Two samples returned 4.24 and 1.88 grams per tonne gold, which are considered significant given the limited evaluation completed.

Oscar Louzada, Sranan's CEO, stated: "The Lawantino acquisition is a strategic addition to our Suriname exploration portfolio, strengthening our position along a proven and highly prospective structural corridor. The Project benefits from favourable geology, clear evidence of gold endowment through ongoing artisanal mining, and proximity to two active gold exploration projects. Lawantino fits well with our disciplined growth strategy and complements our ongoing work at Tapanahony as we continue to build value through systematic exploration."

Sranan's initial exploration program will focus on integrating areas of artisanal mining with satellite interpretation, geological mapping, geochemical sampling, and structural analysis to prioritize targets for future trenching and drilling. The approach is to develop targets quickly and efficiently. A variety of lithologies observed in mine workings, including basalt, siltstone, and other metasediments, suggest a variety of potentially favourable lithologies and structures to test.

Auracle Geospatial Science Inc. ("Auracle") was contracted by Sranan to analyze the structural complexity of the Lawantino Property by means of its proprietary Mapped Underworld Dimension (MUD SAR) remote-sensing system. Results from Auracle's analysis show a distinct increase in fracture density in association with abundant small-scale miners (see Figure 3). A similar increase in fracture density is observed on the east portion of the Lawantino Property.

Lawantino Agreement Terms

Pursuant to the terms of the Agreement, dated February 5, 2026, Sranan may earn a 100% interest in the Property by making cash and share payments and completing exploration-related expenditures. Over a 5-year period, the Company may earn 90% interest in the Property by making total cash payments of US$1,900,000, issuing 1,800,000 common shares to the arm's-length Vendor, and completing exploration expenditures on the Property totaling US$1,700,000. Upon completion of the 90% earn-in, the Vendor will retain a 10% interest in the Property and a 2% net smelter return royalty ("NSR") on all metals production from the Property. There was no finder fees paid.

Sranan may repurchase the 2% NSR for US$3.0 million and, upon the establishment of a minimum 750,000-ounce measured and indicated gold resource, may acquire the remaining 10% interest in the Property based on an independent valuation.

Table 1: Summary of Lawantino Property Agreement Earn-in Obligations

Milestone Cash

Payments Shares

Issued Work

Commitments Paid upon signing $100,000 - - Within 14 days of the Binding Agreement Execution Date ("BA Date") $150,000 - - 6-month anniversary of the BA Date $250,000 600,000 $150,000 1st anniversary of the BA Date $200,000 200,000 $250,000 2nd anniversary of the BA Date $150,000 150,000 $250,000 3rd anniversary of the BA Date $200,000 200,000 $350,000 4th anniversary of the BA Date $250,000 250,000 $300,000 5th anniversary of the BA Date $600,000 400,000 $400,000 Total $1,900,000 1,800,000 $1,700,000

Figure 1. Location of the Lawantino Property, along the CGSZ, showing major drainages and areas of small-scale mining.

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/10997/283308_94a3d6ef64bd5aaa_001full.jpg

Figure 2. Scouting flight showing extensive, active alluvial mining (December 23, 2025)

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/10997/283308_94a3d6ef64bd5aaa_002full.jpg

Figure 3. Fracture Density Image generated by Auracle using MUD SAR. Red areas indicate more intense ground preparation favourable for gold. Active areas of small-scale mining in bright yellow. The CGSZ cuts southeast to northwest through the concession.

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/10997/283308_94a3d6ef64bd5aaa_003full.jpg

Dr. Dennis LaPoint, EVP of Exploration and Business Development, states, "I am very excited about this new acquisition along the same structural trend of the CGSZ that hosts two active gold exploration projects. Lawantino complements our ongoing drilling program at our Tapanahony Gold Project and demonstrates that Sranan will continue to expand our portfolio of gold projects based on our extensive knowledge of Suriname. The agreement with Lawantino N.V. represents a major step in expanding our footprint within Suriname's highly prospective southeastern part of the Marowijne greenstone belt along one of the major controlling structures for large gold deposits. A strength of the Sranan team is our ability to develop early-stage projects into potential new discoveries. I first reviewed this area in 2007 when held by Canarc, so I am very pleased with our cooperation and relationship with Lawantino shareholders."

Samples were prepared and assayed by Filab in Paramaribo, Suriname. All samples >2 g/t Au were re-assayed with 50-gram re-assay and gravimetric assay. Standard QA/QC procedures were followed and showed a satisfactory level of reproducibility. The Company notes that the drill intercepts may not represent true underlying mineralization. Core logging, photography, and sampling are completed under strict industry standard QA/QC protocols (Oreas certified reference materials, assayed coarse blanks, duplicates of core).

Qualified Person

Dr. Dennis J. LaPoint, Ph.D., P.Geo., a "qualified person" as defined under National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information contained in this release. Dr. LaPoint is not independent of Sranan Gold, as he is the Company's EVP of Exploration and Corporate Development.

About Sranan Gold Corp.

Sranan is engaged in the business of mineral exploration and the acquisition of mineral property assets in Suriname. The Company's flagship Tapanahony Project covers 29,000 hectares in one of Suriname's most prolific artisanal gold mining districts.

For more information, please visit www.sranangold.com.

THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE HAS NOT APPROVED NOR DISAPPROVED THE CONTENT OF THIS PRESS RELEASE.

Forward-looking Statements

Certain statements in this release constitute "forward-looking statements" or "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including, without limitation, the successful completion of the acquisition of the Lawantino Gold Project as discussed in this press release, the timing, nature, scope and details regarding the Company's exploration plans and results at its projects. Such statements and information involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company, its projects, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or information. Such statements can be identified by the use of words such as "may", "would", "could", "will", "intend", "expect", "believe", "plan", "anticipate", "estimate", "scheduled", "forecast", "predict" and other similar terminology, or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. These statements reflect the Company's current expectations regarding future events, performance and results and speak only as of the date of this release. Further details about the risks applicable to the Company are contained in the Company's public filings available on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca), under the Company's profile.

Forward-looking statements and information contained herein are based on certain factors and assumptions regarding, among other things, the estimation of mineral resources and reserves, the realization of resource and reserve estimates, metal prices, taxation, the estimation, timing and amount of future exploration and development, capital and operating costs, the availability of financing, the receipt of regulatory approvals, environmental risks, title disputes and other matters. While the Company considers its assumptions to be reasonable as of the date hereof, forward-looking statements and information are not guarantees of future performance and readers should not place undue importance on such statements as actual events and results may differ materially from those described herein. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements or information except as may be required by applicable securities laws.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283308

Source: Sranan Gold Corp.
State-of-the-Art Hydromet Plant To Be Built in Idaho

"The Critical Minerals and ZEO Company"

~ Antimony, Cobalt, Tungsten, and Zeolite ~

DALLAS, TX / ACCESS Newswire / February 10, 2026 / United States Antimony Corporation ("USAC," "US Antimony," or the "Company"), (NYSE American:UAMY)(NYSE Texas:UAMY), a leading producer and processor of antimony, zeolite, and other critical minerals, and the only fully integrated antimony company in the world outside of China and Russia, is pleased to announce a new Joint Venture ("JV") together with Americas Gold and Silver Corporation ("Americas") ("USAS") to construct a new state-of-the-art hydromet processing facility on lands being contributed to the JV located immediately adjacent to Americas active silver, copper, and antimony mines.

The ownership of the JV is 51% Americas and 49% US Antimony, with US Antimony serving as the managing member. All major decisions will be decided by a newly formed committee of equal representation from both JV partners.

The primary goal of this new relationship is greater control over the processing necessary for the three primary critical minerals being mined by Americas (copper, silver and antimony) now and into the future. The common goal is to generate greater overall recoveries at a significantly lower cost to all parties, which in-turn improves profitability for the JV. This new project becomes the first-of-its-kind commercial-scale hydromet processing center located in North America, where UAMY has an exclusive license for this technology.

The property in Idaho where the new hydromet facility will be constructed already has obtained all the necessary primary permits, with the exception of the construction permits. This accomplishment by Americas significantly improves our timeline by allowing for immediate construction plans which are now underway. The most significant permits obtained are as follows:

IDEQ Idaho Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (IPDES) which is essentially the Discharge permit;

IDEQ Stormwater to operate the tailings facility; and

IDWR Dam Safety Certificate to operate the tailings facility.

Commenting on today's announcement, Mr. Gary C. Evans, Chairman and CEO of US Antimony stated, "It has become apparent after meeting with management at Americas that our two companies have very similar characteristics as well as similar aggressive growth initiatives underway in our various fields. Both of our respective management leadership teams are aligned with similar entrepreneurial desires to continue to be innovators in the critical mineral space. All minerals being mined by Americas are deemed 'critical'. As we all know, our country is playing 'catch-up' today with our adversaries and we are combining today both of our financial and management resources to more quickly make advancements in the US based critical mineral space. With our new innovative, one-of-a-kind processing center, we believe we will be 'fast tracking' to further accomplish that mutual goal. While other companies in the space are talking about years to be in production and potential processing of ore, we continue our progress today. Since this project scope directly aligns with the interest and objectives of the various federal government agencies regarding its overall critical mineral objectives, we have already prepared the necessary paperwork for submittal to hopefully achieve government funding."

The Chairman and CEO of Americas Gold and Silver Corporation, Mr. Paul A. Huet, commented, "Today's Agreement with US Antimony to build an antimony processing facility at the Company's Galena Complex is a major milestone in unlocking significant value for Americas shareholders. The JV will provide Americas the opportunity to leverage our position as the largest antimony producer in the United States to become as a significant player in the downstream antimony market and realize value being left on the table under our current offtake terms for by-product antimony contained in the silver concentrate produced form Americas Galena Complex.

Under the Agreement, once the JV Facility is operational, Americas will be paid for the antimony we mine at market terms. On top of that, Americas will also capture 51% of the profits from the processing side of the JV business. In other words, in the future, Americas and its shareholders will have exposure to the downstream profits from antimony production that is not currently being realized.

The idea of working together with the US Antimony team on a JV in Idaho's Silver Valley came together very quickly after our respective teams met and it became apparent we had a similar style and sense of purpose in how we operate. There was immediate positive energy from the US Antimony team to collaborate with our team to harness the collective strengths of our respective businesses to build value together. We believe the JV is a win-win transaction for both Americas and US Antimony to create value for our respective shareholders. Americas is already the largest antimony producer in the United States, poised for significant growth. US Antimony is a proven and well-established player in the downstream antimony processing business with strong technical knowledge, significant antimony marketing networks and extensive contacts with the US government and industrial customers to provide this critical mineral in various finished products. Importantly, the JV will provide an entirely "made in the USA" solution from mine to finished product for Antimony.

The timing of today's Agreement meshes very well with our expected ramp-up of antimony production coinciding with our move towards mining high-grade silver-copper-antimony tetrahedrite ore. In 2025 alone, we produced 561,000 pounds of antimony contained in concentrate from the Galena Complex and we're just getting started. We are very excited to roll up our sleeves and work together with the US Antimony team to write the next chapter and do our part to strengthen the U.S. based critical mineral space."

About USAC:

United States Antimony Corporation and its subsidiaries in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada ("USAC," "U.S. Antimony," the "Company," "Our," "Us," or "We") sell antimony, zeolite, and precious metals primarily in the U.S. and Canada. The Company processes third party ore primarily into antimony oxide, antimony metal, antimony trisulfide, and precious metals at its facilities located in Montana and Mexico. Antimony oxide is used to form a flame-retardant system for plastics, rubber, fiberglass, textile goods, paints, coatings, and paper, as a color fastener in paint, and as a phosphorescent agent in fluorescent light bulbs. Antimony metal is used in bearings, storage batteries, and ordnance. Antimony trisulfide is used as a primer in ammunition. The Company also recovers precious metals, primarily gold and silver, at its Montana facility from third party ore. At its Bear River Zeolite ("BRZ") facility located in Idaho, the Company mines and processes zeolite, a group of industrial minerals used in water filtration, sewage treatment, nuclear waste and other environmental cleanup, odor control, gas separation, animal nutrition, soil amendment and fertilizer, and other miscellaneous applications. During 2024 and 2025, the Company began acquiring mining claims and leases located in Montana, Alaska and Ontario, Canada in an effort to expand its operations as well as its product offerings.

Learn more about United States Antimony Corporation at www.usantimony.com.

Forward-Looking Statements:

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, without limitation, statements regarding the Company's future operations, production levels, financial performance, business strategy, market conditions, demand for antimony, zeolite, other critical minerals, and precious metals, expected costs, and other statements that are not historical facts. These statements are based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts, and projections about the industries in which the Company operates, as well as management's beliefs and assumptions. Words such as "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "believes," "seeks," "estimates," "may," "will," "should," "could," and variations of these words or similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in such statements, including, but not limited to: fluctuations in the market prices and demand for antimony and zeolite; changes in domestic and global economic conditions; operational risks inherent in mining and mineral processing; geological or metallurgical conditions; availability and cost of energy, equipment, transportation, and labor; the Company's ability to maintain or obtain permits, licenses, and regulatory approvals; changes in environmental and mining laws or regulations; competitive factors; the impact of geopolitical developments; and the effects of weather, natural disasters, or health pandemics on operations and supply chains. Additional information regarding risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially is included in the Company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including the most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q.

The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof.

Investor Relations Contact:

Jonathan Miller, VP, Investor Relations

4438 W. Lovers Lane, Unit 100

Dallas, TX 75209

E-Mail: Jmiller@usantimony.com

Phone: 406-606-4117

Media Relations Contact:

Edge Consulting, Inc.

Anthony D. Andora

1560 Market Street, Ste. 701

Denver, Colorado 80202

Email: Anthony@EdgeConsultingSolutions.com

Phone: 720-317-8927

About Americas Gold and Silver Corporation

Americas Gold & Silver is a rapidly growing North American mining company producing silver, copper, and antimony from high-grade operations in the U.S. & Mexico. In December 2024, Americas acquired 100% ownership of the Galena Complex (Idaho) in a transaction with Eric Sprott, former 40% Galena owner, in exchange becoming Americas' largest shareholder at ~14%. This unitized Galena as a cornerstone U.S. silver asset and the nation's largest antimony mine. In December 2025, Americas acquired the fully permitted, past-producing Crescent Silver Mine (9 mi from Galena), creating significant potential future synergies through shared infrastructure & processing. Americas also owns & operates the Cosala Ops. in Mexico. Americas is fully funded to aggressively grow production at the Galena Complex, Crescent and in Mexico with an aim to be a leading North American silver producer and a key source of U.S.-produced antimony.

SOURCE: United States Antimony Corp.

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/metals-and-mining/united-states-antimony-corporation-announces-significant-new-joint-venture-with-a-1135448
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESS Newswire / February 10, 2026 / Metallic Minerals Corp. (TSX.V:MMG)(OTCQB:MMNGF)(FSE:9MM1)("Metallic" or the "Company") is pleased to provide a strategic update on its 100%-owned, 171 square-kilometer Keno Silver project ("Keno Silver" or the "Project") in Canada's Yukon Territory, one of the world's highest-grade silver districts and host to more than 300 million ounces of past production and current reserves and resources1. The Project is directly adjacent to Hecla Mining Company's ("Hecla") Keno Hill mining and milling operations, Canada's largest and highest grade primary silver producer.

Greg Johnson, Chairman and CEO, stated, "With gold and silver prices reaching new highs in January 2026 and silver prices having more than tripled over the past year to current levels, investors are refocusing on high-quality, low political-risk primary silver opportunities. Metallic's Keno Silver project is a district-scale exploration and resource growth opportunity anchored by an NI 43-101 mineral resource, with multiple known deposits open for expansion and a growing pipeline of high-priority targets. Importantly, the Project directly adjoins Hecla's producing Keno Hill operations, where ongoing exploration and mine development continue to highlight the exceptional endowment and discovery potential of the broader Keno Hill district."

"The Keno Silver project is a core component of Metallic's twin-asset district-scale portfolio, providing exceptional growth potential and leverage to silver prices, alongside our copper-silver-gold-PGE La Plata project in Colorado and our growing portfolio of Yukon alluvial gold and silver production royalties. We are advancing our assets through ongoing exploration, resource expansion, and technical evaluation as interest in silver and broader critical mineral supply continues to strengthen."

Keno Silver Project Highlights

Keno Silver offers rare, district-scale exposure to primary silver in a proven mining camp with existing regional infrastructure and an operating mill next door, supporting a clear potential pathway from discovery to production.

District-scale, 171 km land position in the historic Keno Hill silver district, directly adjacent to Hecla's producing Keno Hill operation (see Figure 1).

Metallic has consolidated the eastern and southern part of the district adjoining Hecla since 2016, completing over 19,701 meters of drilling in 168 holes.

Total (underground and open-pit) NI 43-101 Inferred Mineral Resource of 18.2 Moz silver equivalent ("Ag Eq") at 223 g/t Ag Eq across four deposits (Formo, Fox, Caribou and Homestake). 2

The 2024 NI 43-101 mineral resource was estimated for near-surface material using a conservative silver price of US$22.50/oz, with significant resource expansion upside at today's materially higher silver prices.

Resources defined on only 4 of 12 advanced target areas tested to date, with 40 additional target areas identified and ready for drill testing.

Drill results demonstrate potential for bulk-tonnage, low-cost, scalable silver production in addition to selective high-grade mining opportunities, with mineralization starting at surface to less than 250 meters depth.

Impressive past drill results: FOR23-03 returned 46.1 m grading 249.6 g/t Ag Eq (99.1 g/t Ag, 0.52 g/t Au, 0.65% Pb, and 2.62% Zn), for a grade thickness of 11,494 gram-meter ("GxM"), with multiple internal higher-grade zones including 3.3 m of 1,413 g/t Ag Eq (562.4 g/t Ag, 0.20 g/t Au, 2.35% Pb and 20.3% Zn) (see Table 1).

Recent drilling has revealed a previously unrecognized gold-rich vein system at Formo, with multiple multi-gram gold intercepts up to 24.8 g/t Au at 0.5 m and at 10.4 g/t Au at 1.5 m (see Table 3).

In 2026, Metallic initiated a VRIFY AI and machine-learning workflow to refine and prioritize drill targets, integrating 2025 geologic mapping and new interpretations of structural and stratigraphic controls on mineralization.

Planned 2026 exploration at Keno Silver will focus on resource expansion drilling at the four current resource areas, resource definition drilling at additional advanced stage targets and testing of recently identified high-priority targets, with a planned program of approximately 5,000 meters.

Figure 1 - Keno Silver District Geology and Deposits

*See Footnotes 1, 3 and 5, below, for information on historic production and current resources in the district.

Figure 2: Keno Silver Project Soil Geochemistry and 2026 Target Areas

Keno Silver Project Overview

The Company announced its first NI 43-101 Inferred Mineral Resource Estimate ("2024 MRE") for the Keno Silver project in February 2024. The total (underground and open-pit) Inferred MRE across four deposits-Formo, Fox, Caribou and Homestake-totals 18.2 Moz of contained silver equivalent at 223 g/t Ag Eq in 2.5 million tonnes ("Mt"), based on a US$22.50/oz silver price assumption. The average grade includes 120 g/t Ag, 0.10 g/t Au, 0.80% Pb and 1.77% Zn.

Importantly, these four deposits represent only 4 of 12 target areas with drill-confirmed mineralization to date, and Metallic has identified 40 additional targets across the property since 2016 that remain untested. All known deposits have been evaluated primarily with shallow drilling and remain open for expansion along strike and at depth. The deepest drilling completed to date, at the Formo deposit, extends to approximately 250 meters vertical depth.

To date, Metallic has completed 19,701 meters in 168 drill holes across the Project. Based on the contained Ag Eq ounces outlined in the 2024 MRE, this equates to approximately 1,000 Ag Eq ounces per meter drilled, underscoring both the productivity of the Keno Hill district and the effectiveness of the systematic targeting approach.

Formo is the largest contributor to the current resource estimate and has returned numerous wide, high-grade intercepts from 2020 through 2024, providing a strong foundation for continued resource growth (see Table 1).

Ongoing Project Advancement and 2026 Planning

Since the 2024 drilling campaign and 2024 MRE, Metallic has continued to advance Keno Silver through stepwise fieldwork, data integration, and target refinement in support of a larger, phased drilling program planned for 2026.

During the 2025 field season, the Company completed detailed mapping and systematic rock and soil sampling across multiple high-priority targets. These programs refined existing drill targets and expanded the inventory of priority areas for follow-up, particularly where broad silver-lead-zinc geochemical anomalies align with interpreted structures and geophysical trends. Metallic has also initiated a VRIFY AI / machine-learning workflow to integrate datasets and prioritize targets for drill testing.

Based on these results, preparations are underway for a 2026 drill program focused on: (1) resource expansion at known deposits, (2) follow-up drilling on recently identified mineralized zones, and (3) first-pass drilling of high-priority untested targets generated through integrated exploration work.

Current silver prices may support an updated Mineral Resource Estimate in 2026 and, subject to results and market conditions, a scoping-level evaluation of potential production scenarios at Formo later in the year.

Keno's exploration portfolio now includes more than a dozen targets with encouraging early results and dozens of additional undrilled targets, underscoring the project's district-scale upside in a proven, high-grade silver camp.

Formo Deposit - Core Silver Resource with Emerging Gold Upside

The Formo vein system has demonstrated potential for both selective high-grade mining and broader, potentially scalable mineralization, with drilling returning multiple intervals greater than 20 meters in width (see Table 1).

In addition, drilling at the Formo deposit continues to demonstrate continuity of silver-dominant mineralization and has confirmed a previously unrecognized, gold-rich vein set spatially associated with the main Formo silver system. Gold-bearing veins have now been identified in seven drill holes, with thirteen separate intervals reported; eight of these intervals returned grades greater than 5.0 g/t Au at widths ranging from 0.50 m to 1.50 m (see Figure 3 and Table 3). The gold-rich veins appear to be oriented obliquely to the main Formo silver vein, suggesting a broader multi-phase mineralized system and additional discovery potential.

The emerging gold component may provide added value potential in future resource growth, subject to additional drilling.

Table 1 - Summary of Significant Keno Silver Project Drill Results (Caribou, Fox, Homestake Target Areas)

Notes to Table 1, 2 and 3 reported values: 1) Ag Equivalent is presented for comparative purposes using conservative long-term metal prices (all USD): $26.00/oz silver (Ag), $2,300/oz Gold, $1.00/lb lead (Pb), $1.30/lb zinc (Zn). 2)Recovered Silver Equivalent in Table 1 is determined as follows: Ag Eq g/t = [Ag g/t x recovery] + [Au g/t x recovery x Au price/ Ag price] + [Pb % x 10,000 x recovery x Pb price / Ag price] + [Zn% x 10,000 x recovery x Zn price / Ag price]. In the above calculations: 1% = 10,000 ppm = 10,000 g/t. 3)The following recoveries have been assumed for purposes of the above equivalent calculations: 95% for precious metals (Ag/Au) and 90% for all other listed metals, based on recoveries at similar nearby operations. 4)Intervals are reported as measured drill intersect lengths and may not represent true width.

Table 2 - Summary of Significant Gold Intercepts from Formo Target Area Drilling

Table 3 - Summary of Significant Silver Mineralized Intervals from Formo Target Area Drilling

Figure 3 - Formo Long Section with Grade x Thickness Contours and Drilling Highlights, Looking NW

*See Table 1 notes regarding reported values. For additional information see 1) See Metallic News Release April 7, 2021, on drill results at the West Keno target; 2) See Metallic News Release May 26, 2022 on drill results at the Keno Silver Project; 3) See Metallic News Release January 30, 2023, on drill results at Keno Silver Project; 4) See Metallic News Release January 10, 2024, on drill results at the Formo target.

With final planning underway, Metallic plans to return to the field in 2026 with an ambitious drill program. With silver prices more than triple the conservative US$22.50/oz assumption underpinning the 2024 MRE it creates a compelling opportunity for an updated Mineral Resource Estimate in 2026 and, subject to results and market conditions, a scoping-level evaluation of potential production scenarios at Formo later in the year.

Option Grant

The Company is pleased to announce that, subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSX-V"), it has granted an aggregate of 1,700,000 stock options (the "Options") to certain directors and officers under the Company's shareholder-approved Long-Term Performance Incentive Plan (the "LTIP"). Each Option is exercisable to acquire one common share of the Company at an exercise price of $0.40 per share, based on the five-trading-day volume-weighted average price of the Company's common shares on the TSX-V as of February 9, 2026. The Options expire five years from the date of grant and vest over time in accordance with the terms of the LTIP. All Options are subject to the policies of the TSX-V.

About the Keno Silver Project

The Keno Silver project is a 171 km, 100%-owned district-scale silver project in Canada's Yukon Territory, one of the world's highest-grade silver districts and host to more than 300 million ounces of past production and current reserves and resources1. The Project is directly adjacent to Hecla's Keno Hill mining and milling operations, Canada's largest and highest grade primary silver producer. The Project hosts an NI 43-101 Inferred Mineral Resource of 18.2 million ounces silver equivalent across multiple deposits, and benefits from established road and power infrastructure. The Keno Silver project is located in the Traditional Territory of the First Nation of Na-Cho Nyak Dun.

About Metallic Minerals

Metallic Minerals Corp. is a resource-stage exploration company advancing copper, silver, gold, platinum group elements, and other critical minerals at the La Plata project in southwestern Colorado, and high-grade silver exploration at the Keno Silver project in the Yukon Territory, adjacent to Hecla Mining's Keno Hill silver operations. The Company is also one of the largest holders of alluvial gold claims in the Yukon and is building a production royalty business through partnerships with experienced mining operators.

Metallic is led by a team with a strong track record of discovery and exploration success across multiple precious and base metal deposits in North America, with extensive experience in project development, permitting, and project financing. The Company integrates advanced data analytics into its exploration process to support target generation, accelerate discovery, and unlock value across its portfolio.

Metallic's project districts have a history of significant mineral production and benefit from existing infrastructure, including road access and nearby power. The Company's team has been recognized for environmental stewardship practices and is committed to responsible and sustainable resource development, engaging and collaborating with Canadian First Nation groups, U.S. Tribal and Native Corporations, and local communities to support long-term project advancement.

Upcoming Events

Metallic's management team will be participating in several upcoming key industry events over the coming months and welcomes the opportunity to meet with investors and stakeholders:

Red Cloud Pre-PDAC 2026 Showcase - Toronto, Canada, February 26-27, 2026. Metals Investor Forum - Toronto, Canada, February 27-28, 2026. PDAC 2026 - Toronto, Canada, March 1-4, 2026. Swiss Mining Institute Conference - Zurich, Switzerland, March 18-19, 2026. SAFE Summit 2026 - Washington, D.C., USA, April 27-28, 2026. Top Shelf Partners - Washington, D.C., USA, May 17-19, 2026 Top Shelf Partners - Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA, May 20-22, 2026.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

Website: metallic-minerals.com Phone: 604-629-7800

Email: info@metallic-minerals.com Toll Free: 1-888-570-4420

Footnotes:

Cathro, R. J. (Bob). Great Mining Camps of Canada 1. The History and Geology of the Keno Hill Silver Camp, Yukon Territory. Geoscience Canada, Sept. 2006. ISSN 1911-4850; Boyle, R.W., 1965. "Geology, Geochemistry, and Origin of the Lead-Zinc-Silver Deposits of the Keno Hill-Galena Hill Area, Yukon Territory". Bulletin 111, Geological Survey of Canada. Keno Silver Mineral Resource Estimate see news release dated February 26, 2024 and Technical Report dated April 12, 2024, entitled "Mineral Resource Estimate for the Keno Silver Project, Yukon, Canada", with an effective date of February 1, 2024. The Mineral Resource has been estimated by Allan Armitage, Ph.D., P. Geo of SGS Geological Services who is an independent Qualified Person. In addition to the company website, the Technical Report is available under the Company's profile at sedarplus.ca.

Qualified Person

The disclosure in this news release of scientific and technical information regarding exploration projects on Metallic Minerals' mineral properties has been reviewed and approved by Scott Petsel, P. Geo, President, Metallic Minerals Corp., who is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"). Mr. Petsel is not independent of the Company.

Quality Assurance / Quality Control

All samples were prepared by Bureau Veritas' (BV) Whitehorse, Yukon facility and geochemically analyzed at the BV laboratory in Vancouver, British Columbia. All samples were prepared using BV code PRP70-250, which crushed, split, and pulverized 250 grams of core to 200 mesh pulps. These pulps were then analyzed by 37 Element 1:1:1 Aqua Regia Digestion followed by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-ES/MS) analyses (BV Code AQ202). Over-limit silver, lead, and zinc samples were further analyzed with multi-acid digestion and atomic absorption spectrometry (BV Code MA404). Samples with over-limit gold (and silver when over-limit was reached via multi-acid) were re-analyzed using a 30-gram fire assay fusion with gravimetric finish (BV Code FA530).

All results have passed the QAQC screening by the lab and the company utilizes a quality control and quality assurance protocol for the project, including insertion of blanks, duplicates, and certified reference materials approximately every tenth sample. Certified reference materials were acquired from OREAS North America Inc. of Sudbury, Ontario, and CDN Resource Laboratories Ltd. Of Langley, British Columbia for the 2023 drill program at the Keno Silver project.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts including, without limitation, statements regarding potential mineralization, historic production, estimation of mineral resources, the realization of mineral resource estimates, interpretation of prior exploration and potential exploration results, the timing and success of exploration activities generally, the timing and results of future resource estimates, permitting timelines, metal prices and currency exchange rates, availability of capital, government regulation of exploration operations, environmental risks, reclamation, title, statements about expected results of operations, royalties, cash flows, financial position and future dividends as well as financial position, prospects, and future plans and objectives of the Company are forward-looking statements that involve various risks and uncertainties. Although Metallic Minerals believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on a number of material factors and assumptions. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include failure to obtain necessary approvals, unsuccessful exploration results, unsuccessful operations, changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined, results of future resource estimates, future metal prices, availability of capital and financing on acceptable terms, general economic, market or business conditions, risks associated with regulatory changes, defects in title, availability of personnel, materials and equipment on a timely basis, accidents or equipment breakdowns, uninsured risks, delays in receiving government approvals, unanticipated environmental impacts on operations and costs to remedy same and other exploration or other risks detailed herein and from time to time in the filings made by the Company with securities regulators. Readers are cautioned that mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Mineral exploration, development of mines and mining operations is an inherently risky business. Accordingly, the actual events may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. For more information on Metallic Minerals and the risks and challenges of their businesses, investors should review their annual filings that are available at sedarplus.ca.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: Metallic Minerals Corp.

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/metals-and-mining/metallic-minerals-provides-keno-silver-project-update-and-details-2026-exploratio-1135485
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Hertz Energy Inc. (CSE: HZ) (OTCQB: HZLIF) (FSE: A340) ("Hertz Energy", the "Company" or the "Issuer") is pleased to announce a non-brokered private placement of up to 5,000,000 units of the Company (the "Units") at a price of $0.40 per Unit for gross proceeds of up to $2,000,000 (the "LIFE Offering") pursuant to the Listed Issuer Financing ("LIFE") exemption available under Part 5A of National Instrument 45-106 - Prospectus Exemptions. Each Unit will consist of one (1) common share in the capital of the Company (a "Common Share") and one-half of one Common Share purchase warrant (each whole warrant, a "Warrant"). Each Warrant will be exercisable to acquire one Common Share (a "Warrant Share") at a price of $0.60 per Warrant Share for a period of 24 months from the date of issuance.

The gross proceeds from the LIFE Offering will be used for exploration work to be conducted at the Company's recently announced Crag and Rod properties, together with and including the Craig silver-lead-zinc deposit (the "Craig Silver Project"), located in east-central Yukon, and the Company's other exploration projects including the Lake George Antimony-Tungsten-Gold Project ("Tungmony") in New Brunswick, in addition to working capital purposes. The recently announced option agreement to acquire 100% interest in the Crag and Rod projects, situated within a prospective sub-belt of the ~175-kilometre-long Rackla Belt, a region recognized for hosting some of Yukon's highest-grade silver-lead-zinc and gold mineralization, was a significant development milestone for Hertz, positioning it at the forefront of Canadian silver exploration. The Craig Deposit is a drill-defined silver-lead-zinc asset that remains open along strike and at depth, offering significant potential for resource expansion. The Crag-Rod Project will be a core focus of the Company's exploration initiatives into 2026, and represents a consolidated and contiguous property that includes a 14-kilometre mineralized corridor hosting multiple under-explored zones such as Discovery, Trent, Azure, Nadaleen, and Scott. Historical drilling has returned numerous high-grade intercepts, including intervals exceeding 200 g/t silver with substantial lead and zinc values (refer to the Company's press release dated January 28, 2026).

There is an offering document (the "Offering Document") related to the LIFE Offering that can be accessed under the Company's profile at www.sedarplus.ca and at the Company's website at www.hertz-energy.com. Prospective investors should read this Offering Document before making an investment decision. The securities offered under the LIFE Offering will not be subject to a hold period in accordance with applicable Canadian securities laws.

Flow-Through (FT) Offering

The Company also intends to offer up to 6,000,000 flow-through units of the Company (the "FT Units") at a price of $0.50 per FT Unit for gross proceeds of up to $3,000,000 (the "FT Offering"). Each FT Unit will consist of one (1) Common Share to be issued as a "flow-through share" within the meaning of the Income Tax Act (Canada) and the Taxation Act (Quebec) (each, a "FT Share") and one half of one Warrant, with each Warrant having the same terms as in the LIFE Offering.

The gross proceeds from the issuance and sale of the FT Units will be used on the Company's recently optioned for 100% interest Crag and Rod properties in Yukon, along with the Company's Lake George Antimony-Tungsten-Gold Project ("Tungmony") in New Brunswick, to incur "Canadian Exploration Expenses" as such term is defined under subsection 66.1(6) of the Income Tax Act (Canada) and will qualify as "flow-through mining expenditures" as defined in subsection 127(9) of the Income Tax Act (Canada). The qualifying expenditures will be incurred on or before December 31, 2027, and will be renounced to the subscribers with an effective date no later than December 31, 2026, in an aggregate amount not less than the gross proceeds raised from the issuance of the FT Shares.

All securities issued in connection with the FT Offering will be subject to a statutory hold period of four (4) months and one (1) day following the date of issuance in accordance with applicable Canadian securities laws.

The Company has also agreed to pay qualified finders and brokers a cash commission of 7.0% of the aggregate gross proceeds of the LIFE Offering and FT Offering, and such number of one-half of one Common Share purchase warrants (the "Broker Warrants") as is equal to 7.0% of the number of Units and FT Units sold under the LIFE Offering and FT Offering. Each whole Broker Warrant shall be comprised of two (2) one-half of one Common Share purchase warrants, and will entitle the holder to purchase one Common Share at an exercise price equal to the Offering Price for a period of 24 months following the date of issuance.

The closing of the LIFE Offering and FT Offering is expected to occur on or about February 28, 2026, or such other earlier or later date as the Company may determine.

This news release is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy the securities in the United States or in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to qualification or registration under the securities laws of such jurisdiction. The securities referred to in this news release have not been, nor will they be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), and such securities may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. persons absent an exemption from registration under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable U.S. state securities laws. "United States" and "U.S. person" are as defined in Regulation S under the U.S Securities Act.

Cautionary Statements

All scientific and technical information contained in this news release are historical in nature unless otherwise stated. Historical results referenced herein have not been verified by the Company's Qualified Person and should not be relied upon.

Qualified Person Statement

All scientific and technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Paul Teniere, P.Geo., a Geological Consultant to the Company and considered a Qualified Person for the purposes of NI 43-101.

About Hertz Energy Inc.

The Company is a British Columbia based junior exploration company primarily engaged in the acquisition and exploration of energy metals mineral properties. The Company is focused on advancing the Crag and Rod properties, together with and including the Craig silver-lead-zinc deposit, located in east-central Yukon, situated within the Craig Belt, a prospective sub-belt of the ~175-kilometre-long Rackla Belt, a region recognized for hosting some of Yukon's highest-grade silver-lead-zinc and gold mineralization. The Company's lithium exploration projects include the Agastya Lithium Project in James Bay, Quebec. Hertz Energy's 100% owned Harriman Antimony Project in the Gaspe Region of Quebec and the Lake George Antimony-Gold-Tungsten Project in New Brunswick are part of the Company's growing property portfolio.

For further information, please contact Mr. Kal Malhi or view the Company's filings at www.sedarplus.ca.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Cautionary Statement Regarding "Forward-Looking" Information

This news release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". Forward-looking statements in this news release include but are not limited to, statements about the LIFE Offering and the FT Offering, the anticipated use of proceeds therefrom, and related matters. Factors that could cause future results to differ materially from those anticipated in forward-looking statements in this news release include the tax treatment of the FT Shares. All statements in this new release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that the Company expects to occur, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "Deposits", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, continued availability of capital and financing, political and regulatory risks associated with mining and exploration, risks related to environmental regulation and liability. the potential for delays in exploration or development activities or the completion of feasibility studies, risks and uncertainties relating to the interpretation of drill results, the geology, grade and continuity of mineral deposits, risks related to the inherent uncertainty of production and cost estimates and the potential for unexpected costs and expenses, results of prefeasibility and feasibility studies, the possibility that future exploration, development or mining results will not be consistent with the Company's expectations, and general economic, market or business conditions. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those Deposited in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by applicable securities laws, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.

Not for distribution to the U.S. newswire or for dissemination in the United States

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283376

Source: Hertz Energy Inc.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Mercado Minerals Ltd. (CSE: MERC) ("Mercado" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has received an exploration drill permit for its Copalito Project ("Copalito" or the "Project") in Sinaloa, Mexico. The Company has been preparing for its inaugural 3,000-metre diamond drill program at Copalito, which is expected to commence in the first quarter of this year.

Drilling Permit

The permit authorizes the Company to utilize both existing and newly constructed drill pads on the Project. The initial 3,000-metre diamond drill program is designed to test extensions of known veins, conduct infill drilling, evaluate targets at depth, and drill newly identified targets. This program will build on the 81 historical diamond drill holes and extensive prospecting completed by the previous operator.

Geophysics Surveys

Mercado and its LiDAR contractor have completed the drone-based LiDAR survey. Data compilation and interpretation are now underway. A high-resolution UAV magnetic survey is currently in progress and is expected to be completed within the coming week.

Field Exploration Program

Mercado's geological team in Mexico continues to advance fieldwork, including re-logging and re-sampling selected historic drill core. The team has been actively mapping and prospecting previously un-explored areas of the Project. Approximately 30% of the surface exploration program is complete. A soil sampling program has commenced to support the geochemical characterization of the known mineralized vein field and to investigate previously un-explored areas of the project to aid in the identification of new drill targets.

About Mercado Minerals Ltd.

Mercado Minerals Ltd. (CSE: MERC) is a silver-focused exploration company targeting the next world-class discovery in Mexico's emerging Western Silver Belt, part of the prolific Sierra Madre Occidental mining district. With a proven team boasting extensive experience in Mexican exploration, Mercado is actively advancing multiple projects across more than 3,000 hectares. The Company is committed to creating shareholder value through disciplined exploration, strategic growth, and discovery-driven results.

Forward-Looking Statement (Safe Harbor Statement):

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. The use of any of the words "anticipate," "plan," "continue," "expect," "estimate," "objective," "may," "will," "project," "should," "predict," "potential" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. In particular, this press release contains forward-looking statements concerning the Company's exploration plans and the intended use of proceeds from the Offering. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on these statements because the Company cannot provide assurance that they will prove correct. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release, and, except as required by law, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283364

Source: Mercado Minerals Ltd.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Metalsource Mining Inc. (CSE: MSM) (OTCQB: SFRIF) (FSE: E9Z) (the "Company") is pleased to announce a non-brokered private placement financing of up to 10,050,000 units in the capital of the Company (each, a "Unit") at a price of $0.75 per Unit, for gross proceeds of up to $7,537,500 (the "Offering"), which shall have one sole placee.

Each Unit purchased will include one common share and one-half of one transferable common share purchase warrant. Each whole Warrant (a "Warrant") will entitle the holder to purchase one additional common share for a period of three (3) years at a price of $1.00 per common share.

All securities issued in connection with the Offering will be subject to applicable statutory hold periods in accordance with Canadian securities laws. The Offering is subject to receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals, including approval of the Canadian Securities Exchange.

About Metalsource Mining Inc.

Metalsource Mining Inc. is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on advancing high-potential mineral assets through modern, systematic exploration and value-driven discovery.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains certain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the ability to obtain required regulatory approvals, changes in market conditions, exploration risks, and other risks disclosed in the Company's filings available on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by applicable securities laws.

Not for distribution to United States newswire services or for release publication, distribution or dissemination directly, or indirectly, in whole or in part, in or into the United States.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283354

Source: Metalsource Mining Inc.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Scottie Resources Corp. (TSXV: SCOT) (OTCQB: SCTSF) (FSE: SR80) ("Scottie" or the "Company") is pleased to report new assays from its 2025 drilling of various zones within the Blueberry Contact Zone, at the Scottie Gold Mine Project ("Scottie Gold Mine" or the "Project"). The road-accessible Project is located 35 kilometres north of Stewart, BC, and is the subject of a newly released Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") entitled Scottie Gold Mine Project (Bird et al., October 28, 2025, Scottie Gold Mine Project, SEDAR+).

Scottie continues to deliver strong results from its 2025 drill program at the Blueberry Contact Zone, reinforcing the quality and continuity of high-grade mineralization withing the Scottie Gold Mine Project. The latest assays include multiple high-grade gold intercepts from both the BB Vein and Fifi Vein zones, highlighted by 30.42 g/t gold over 5.60 metres and 9.67 g/t gold over 8.85 metres.

These zones represent shallow well-defined areas of mineralization that form an important component of the early underground mine plan outline in the Project's recently release PEA. The results further demonstrate strong grade continuity across wide vein zones, supporting confidence in mine design assumptions and near-term production potential.

Ongoing geological modelling and re-interpretation, incorporating the full dataset from the 2025 drilling campaign continues to refine the Company's understanding of the Blueberry Contact Zone. This work is directly informing target generation and drill prioritization for the upcoming field season with a focus on expanding known high-grade zones and testing new conceptual targets emerging from the evolving geological model.

"These results continue to validate the strength of the Blueberry Contact Zone, delivering multiple high-grade intercepts from vein zones integral to the early years of our underground mine plan," said Thomas Mumford, President of Scottie Resources. "We're seeing improving continuity across wide, high-grade structures, which is encouraging from both a mining and development perspective. We continue to incorporate last years drilling into our modelling, further augmenting our drill planning for this coming season and providing us confidence in our ability to grow and enhance the value of this system."

Table 1: Highlight results from new drill assays (uncut) - Blueberry Contact Zone

Drill Hole

From

(m) To

(m) Width*

(m) Gold

(g/t) Silver

(g/t) Sub Zone SR25-446

18.20 19.25 1.05 1.19 28.00 BB Vein

100.50 102.50 2.00 3.25 6.00 Fifi SR25-447

185.70 194.30 8.60 2.43 1.17 Fifi

254.90 256.30 1.40 2.48 0.00 Lemoffe SR25-449

158.00 161.00 3.00 1.12 0.00 Fifi

211.25 214.00 2.75 5.19 1.67 Fifi SR25-450

126.15 135.00 8.85 9.67 4.41 Fifi including 129.75 133.80 4.05 17.05 39.00 Fifi including 131.80 133.80 2.00 25.90 17.50 Fifi SR25-451

154.40 156.40 2.00 6.09 17.00 Fifi

208.30 209.30 1.00 1.50 16.00 Lemoffe SR25-452

75.60 76.60 1.00 2.27 20.00 Fifi

254.00 256.10 2.10 44.31 7.52 Fifi

298.00 299.00 1.00 2.10 14.00 Lemoffe SR25-453

242.40 243.40 1.00 1.10 6.00 Lemoffe

245.80 246.80 1.00 1.19 3.00 Lemoffe SR25-455

255.10 256.10 1.00 2.10 0.00 Fifi

267.75 270.75 3.00 24.27 9.67 Fifi including 267.75 268.75 1.00 57.20 19.00 Fifi SR25-458

95.60 97.60 2.00 1.66 114.50 BB Vein

102.60 105.00 2.40 2.42 0.00 BB Vein

161.00 163.40 2.40 9.62 7.00 BB Vein

186.00 189.00 3.00 1.47 0.00 BB Vein SR25-459

119.25 130.30 11.05 1.74 1.00 BB Vein including 119.25 120.25 1.00 9.30 3.00 BB Vein

139.60 145.20 5.60 30.42 15.41 BB Vein SR25-460

237.00 255.00 18.00 3.93 0.00 BB Vein including 252.00 255.00 3.00 17.80 0.00 BB Vein

326.55 328.85 2.30 5.68 129.43 BB Vein

334.30 335.30 1.00 1.67 10.00 BB Vein SR25-462

126.40 129.50 3.10 3.19 0.00 Fifi

*True width of the intervals has not yet been established by drilling

Figure 1: Segmented vertical long section of the Blueberry Contact Zone illustrating the distribution and status of drilled targets from the 2025 season and the reported results thus far, relative to intercepts from previous drilling campaigns.

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/11118/283342_d24a2fbd64d53a48_002full.jpg

Figure 2: Overview plan view map of the Blueberry Contact Zone, illustrating the locations of the reported drill results, cross-sections (Figures 3 - 6), and the distribution of the modelled sulphide-rich cross-structures.

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/11118/283342_d24a2fbd64d53a48_003full.jpg

Figure 3: Cross-section displaying Scottie Gold Mine intercepts from drill holes SR25-450 and -451.

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/11118/283342_d24a2fbd64d53a48_004full.jpg

Figure 4: Cross-section displaying Scottie Gold Mine intercepts from drill hole SR25-449 and - 452.

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/11118/283342_d24a2fbd64d53a48_005full.jpg

Figure 5: Cross-section displaying Scottie Gold Mine intercepts from drill hole SR25-459.

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/11118/283342_d24a2fbd64d53a48_006full.jpg

Figure 6: Cross-section displaying Scottie Gold Mine intercepts from drill hole SR25-460.

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/11118/283342_d24a2fbd64d53a48_007full.jpg

About the Scottie Gold Mine Project

Over the past six years, exploration at the Scottie Gold Mine Project has delivered exceptional results - highlighted by the discovery of four new high-grade zones (Blueberry Contact Zone, Domino, D-Zone, and P-Zone) and the expansion of several historically drilled targets (Scottie Gold Mine, C-Zone, Bend Vein, and Stockwork).

A clear spatial relationship has emerged between these high-grade zones and the contact with the Jurassic-aged Texas Creek Plutonic Suite, providing a powerful framework for ongoing targeting. Detailed geological, structural, mineralogical, and geochemical studies now point to a shared mineralizing event across the property - linking the deposits into a broader, interconnected system with significant growth potential.

The Blueberry Contact Zone, located 2 km northeast of the 100%-owned past producing Scottie Gold Mine in BC's Golden Triangle, has rapidly advanced from a lightly drilled high-grade vein showing into a major growth target. The target was significantly advanced during Scottie's 2019 drill program when an interval was intersected in a new N-S oriented zone adjacent to the main Blueberry Vein. The drill results received from 2020 - 2024, coupled with surficial mapping and sampling suggest that the N-S mineralized trend is a controlling structure that hosts an array of SW-trending, sub-parallel, sulphide-rich veins that obliquely crosscut it which host high-grade gold. As of the end of 2024, the extent of the N-S zone, defined by the contact between andesite and siltstone units of the Hazelton Formation and the presence of the cross-cutting sulfide-rich structures, has a drilled strike length of >1,550 metres and has been tested to >525 metres depth. The Blueberry Contact Zone is located on the Granduc Road, 20 kilometres north of the Ascot Resources' Premier Mine. Newmont's Brucejack Mine is located 25 kilometres to the north.

The Company has recently completed a PEA which evaluates a low-capital DSO operation to deliver a gold-rich gravel product to Asian copper/precious metals smelters. At a gold price of US$2600/oz the project estimates an after-tax NPV(5%) of $215.8 M CAD with an IRR of 60.3%. By design, the operation will eliminate the need for a gold processing plant and tailings facility, thereby significantly reducing the capital required and resulting in a minimal environmental footprint, resulting in an initial capital cost of $128.6 M CAD. The project envisages a shallow open pit on the Blueberry Zone to start, followed by underground production from both Blueberry and the past-producing Scottie Gold Mine. The PEA also evaluates a toll milling scenario through the nearby Premier Mill, which results in an after-tax NPV(5%) $380.1 M CAD and an IRR 89.9%.

Scottie's 2025 Bulk Sample program exemplifies the unique characteristics of this mining project, and its ability to rapidly progress. From permitting to mining, crushing, transporting, shipping and sale of the product, the program was executed in under a year, generating an estimated $9M in new revenue. With this proven pathway, Scottie's has confidence in the simplicity and efficiency of its DSO model.

Quality Assurance and Control

Results from samples taken during the 2025 field season were analyzed at SGS Minerals in Burnaby, BC. The sampling program was undertaken under the direction of Dr. Thomas Mumford. The majority of drill core was NQ in diameter, with select holes of HQ size primarily taken for geomechanical purposes. Prior to sampling drill core was cut in half lengthwise, with half sent for assay and the remaining half kept in Stewart, BC. Standards, blanks, and duplicate samples were taken at intervals and frequencies that meet or exceed industry best practices. A secure chain of custody is maintained in transporting and storing all samples. Gold was assayed using a fire assay with atomic absorption spectrometry and gravimetric finish when required (+9 g/t gold). Analysis by four acid digestion with multi-element ICP-AES analysis was conducted on all samples with silver and base metal over-limits being re-analyzed by emission spectrometry.

Dr. Thomas Mumford, P.Geo., non-independent President of the Company, a qualified person under National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical information contained in this news release on behalf of the Company.

ABOUT SCOTTIE RESOURCES CORP.

Scottie Resources holds 100% interest in the Scottie Gold Mine Property, which includes the high-grade, past-producing Scottie Gold Mine and the adjacent Blueberry Contact Zone. The Company also owns a 100% interest in the Georgia Project, host to the past-producing Georgia River Mine, as well as the Cambria, Sulu, and Tide North properties. In total, Scottie controls approximately 58,500 hectares of highly prospective mineral claims within the Stewart Mining Camp in British Columbia's Golden Triangle-one of the world's most prolific mineralized districts.

Scottie's current resource estimate on the Scottie Gold Mine Project includes a total of 703,000 gold ounces at an average grade of 6.1 g/t (Inferred category) in 3.6 millon tonnes, highlighting the development potential for a significant near-surface, high-grade deposit. The Company's strategy is to continue expanding this resource and to define additional mineralization around past-producing mines through systematic drilling and surface exploration.

The Company has recently completed a PEA for the Scottie Gold Mine. The PEA outlines a robust Direct-Ship Ore (DSO) development scenario with strong economics and significant upside through a potential toll-milling option utilizing excess capacity at the nearby Premier mill. The base case DSO project delivers an after-tax NPV(5%) of $215.8-$668.3 million at gold prices of US$2,600-$4,200/oz, respectively. Under the toll-milling scenario, project economics improve substantially, with an after-tax NPV(5%) of $380.1-$831.7 million (no agreement currently in place). The PEA estimates initial capital costs of $128.6 million, average annual production of ~65,400 oz gold over seven years, and a payback period of 1.7 years for the after-tax DSO case-reduced to just 0.9 years under the toll-milling opportunity at US$2,600/oz.

Additional Information

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date such statements were made. The Company expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283342

Source: Scottie Resources Corp.
A major milestone for Blockchain.com, a homegrown company that began in York and evolved into a global crypto leader headquartered in London

LONDON, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Blockchain.com today announced that it has officially been registered with the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to operate as a crypto asset business. Founded in the UK, Blockchain.com has spent over a decade at the heart of the British crypto ecosystem as both a service provider and an active investor. The registration cements the company's presence in the UK and sets the foundation for a new chapter of institutional and retail growth.

This registration enables Blockchain.com to deliver brokerage, custodial, and institutional-grade crypto services across the UK in compliance with one of the world's most respected financial regulations.

"Blockchain.com is a company with deep British roots. We started this journey in York and grew it in London," said Peter Smith, CEO, Founder and Executive Chairman at Blockchain.com. "We've been part of the UK's tech landscape for over a decade, and we've always believed in the importance of getting this right. We are committed to working hand-in-hand with the FCA and UK policymakers as they shape the permanent regulatory framework, ensuring the UK remains a global leader in financial innovation."

This comes on the heels of the company securing its MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets) license last year, a major step that allows the company to provide crypto services across all 30 European Economic Area (EEA) countries under one unified regulatory framework.

"As one of the longest-running crypto companies in the world, this registration reflects a long-term commitment to building responsibly within one of the world's most respected regulatory environments," said Nic Cary, Co-founder and Vice Chairman at Blockchain.com. "We're proud of the talent we've built here and look forward to continuing to work in close partnership with UK regulators as the sector evolves."

The registration comes at a pivotal time for the UK's digital asset sector. As the government and the FCA develop their comprehensive regulatory regime, the company intends to apply for authorisation gateway opening later this year, with the goal of securing full authorisation under the new permanent regime when it takes effect in 2027.

This regulatory milestone builds on Blockchain.com's presence across more than 70 jurisdictions worldwide. This solidifies the company's UK operations in preparation for the next generation of financial innovation, including:

Offering digital asset custody and wallet services to UK customers

Supporting enterprise-grade compliance and treasury tools for institutions

Expanding access to brokerage services in alignment with FCA standards

Strengthening partnership potential with regulated financial entities in the UK

Since 2011, Blockchain.com has processed over $1.2 trillion in crypto transactions and served more than 90 million wallets globally. Its legacy of security, compliance, and innovation continues to define its leadership in the evolving digital asset space.

About Blockchain.com

Blockchain.com is connecting the world to the future of finance. The global leader in crypto services helping millions across the globe access cryptocurrency. Since its inception in 2011, Blockchain.com has earned the trust of more than 90 million wallets and over 40 million verified users, and has facilitated over $1.2 trillion in crypto transactions. Visit Blockchain.com for more information.

Media Contact: press@blockchain.com

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Youth-focused platform completes rigorous audit process and six-month Elevate-Pathways program to earn membership alongside 60 companies including Google, Meta, and Microsoft

Wizz, the social discovery app for GenZ to build community globally, today announced it has become a member of the Tech Coalition. This global industry alliance is dedicated to combating online child sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA). Wizz is now one of only three European companies among the Coalition's membership, which includes major platforms such as Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Snap, Inc..

Building on Wizz's existing safety ecosystem, its membership follows participation in Tech Coalition's Elevate pilot program, a six-month initiative designed to help platforms operationalize child safety practices at scale. Wizz is the first company to join Tech Coalition after completing the program.

As one of only three European companies in the Tech Coalition, Wizz brings a distinct perspective to the alliance. While the EU leads globally on tech regulation through the Digital Services Act and AI Act, European platforms remain underrepresented in industry safety coalitions, a gap Wizz is helping to close.

Through the program, Wizz implemented enhanced detection tools, established reporting protocols and reporting to the National Center for Missing Exploited Children (NCMEC), and updated its Child Safety Standards with guidance from leading experts.

"We built Wizz from day one with safety embedded into how the platform operates. Joining the Tech Coalition reflects our belief that child safety is a shared responsibility," said Thomas Donninger, CEO and Founder of Wizz. "This allows us to contribute what we've learned as a Gen-Z-focused platform while continuing to strengthen our practices alongside industry leaders as part of an ecosystem."

Tech Coalition membership requires a rigorous audit of safety systems, moderation practices, and reporting processes. Wizz was validated across governance, proactive moderation, age assurance, and civil society collaboration. During the Elevate program, Wizz implemented several critical safety enhancements:

Integration of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) detection tools from Thorn, enabling hash matching and classifiers to identify known and new child sexual abuse material

Establishment of automated and manual reporting flows to NCMEC's CyberTipline, the nation's centralized reporting system for the online exploitation of children

Updated Child Safety Standards and Community Guidelines

Training for moderation teams on identifying and responding to Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (OCSEA) content

Employee wellness resources to support teams working with sensitive material

Wizz's safety infrastructure is built on a network of European technology partners, including UK-based Yoti for age estimation, and French companies Bodyguard for text moderation and Webhelp for manual content review.

"Wizz's membership is a clear signal of their commitment to child safety and the tangible improvements they've made through our Elevate program," said Sean Litton, President and CEO of Tech Coalition. "From enhanced detection and reporting capabilities to updated standards and training, their progress reflects real leadership in raising safety standards. We are proud to welcome Wizz to Tech Coalition and look forward to building on this progress together."

Wizz will participate in Tech Coalition working groups on topics including financial sextortion prevention, trust and safety transparency, and age assurance. The company will also contribute insights from its experience with age estimation systems and safety-by-design frameworks.

For more information about Wizz's safety practices, visit https://wizzapp.com/safety-hub. For more information about the Tech Coalition, visit www.technologycoalition.org.

About Wizz

Wizz is a friend-finding app where young people can connect authentically and safely with peers, free from the pressures of traditional social media. With no likes, followers, or algorithmic feeds, Wizz focuses on meaningful one-to-one conversations. Safety is embedded into the platform through age and profile verification, pre-delivery content moderation, and behavioral monitoring. Learn more at www.wizzapp.com.

About Tech Coalition

The Tech Coalition is a global member association that unites tech companies to combat online child sexual exploitation and abuse. Today, their 60 members include some of the world's most influential platforms, spanning search, social media, gaming, dating, AI, and financial services. No single company can tackle this alone but together, they're building a safer digital world for children.

Learn more at www.technologycoalition.org.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260205497378/en/

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Media:

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mila.che@agenceformat.com
ExaGrid, the industry's only Tiered Backup Storage solution with AI-Powered Retention Time-Lock (RTL) that includes a non-network-facing tier (creating a tiered air gap), delayed deletes and immutability for ransomware recovery,today announced that CRN-a brand of The Channel Company-has selected Sam Elbeck, ExaGrid's Vice President of Americas Sales and Channel Partners, for inclusion on the prestigious 2026 CRN Channel Chiefs list. This annual recognition celebrates IT vendor and distribution executives who are shaping channel strategy and driving innovation and partnership across the industry.

"It's an honor to be named to the Channel Chiefs list again this year," said Sam Elbeck. "We are committed to the channel and view our partners as an extension of ExaGrid. We collaborate closely on every opportunity to ensure mutual success. Our channel philosophy centers on building long-term relationships grounded in honesty, integrity, and transparency. We strive for ExaGrid to be known as the easiest company to work with by being flexible, responsive, and partner-focused while delivering high margins, strong incentives, and exceptional support. Together, we create a win-win model that drives growth, loyalty, and trust across the channel ecosystem."

ExaGrid works with resellers and distributors worldwide. The ExaGrid channel programs are designed to be easy for partners, with support from the ExaGrid sales team and without milestone commitments. ExaGrid is known for having a Tiered Backup Storage system that "just works," is not oversold or undersized, and provides its customers with the best customer support in the industry with an assigned level 2 technical support engineer, ensuring that partners' customers are well taken care of. ExaGrid provides its reseller partners with a registration program to protect accounts and margins, and SPIF incentives.

The annual CRN Channel Chiefs list spotlights the most influential leaders across the IT channel, celebrating those who champion collaboration, drive innovation and empower their partners and customers to achieve shared success.

"Leaders recognized as CRN Channel Chiefs this year have demonstrated unwavering commitment to their partners and the broader IT channel. Their vision, passion and drive for innovation continue to shape the future of our industry. We are proud to celebrate their achievements and the positive impact they make every day," said Jennifer Follett, Vice President, U.S. Content, Executive Editor, CRN.

CRN's 2026 Channel Chiefs list is featured online at www.CRN.com/ChannelChiefs.

About ExaGrid

ExaGrid provides Tiered Backup Storage with a unique disk-cache Landing Zone, long-term retention repository, scale-out architecture, and comprehensive security features. ExaGrid's Landing Zone provides for the fastest backups, restores, and instant VM recoveries. The Repository Tier offers the lowest cost for long-term retention. ExaGrid's scale-out architecture includes full appliances and ensures a fixed-length backup window as data grows, eliminating expensive forklift upgrades and planned product obsolescence. ExaGrid offers the only two-tiered backup storage approach with a non-network-facing tier (tiered air gap), delayed deletes, and immutable objects to recover from ransomware attacks.

ExaGrid has physical sales and pre-sales systems engineers in the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Benelux, Brazil, Canada, Chile, CIS, Colombia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Nordics, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, and other regions.

Visit us at exagrid.com or connect with us on LinkedIn. See what our customers have to say about their own ExaGrid experiences and learn why they now spend significantly less time on backup storage in our customer success stories. ExaGrid is proud of our +81 NPS score!

ExaGrid is a registered trademark of ExaGrid Systems, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

About The Channel Company

The Channel Company (TCC) is the global leader in channel growth for the world's top technology brands. We accelerate success across strategic channels for tech vendors, solution providers, and end users with premier media brands, integrated marketing and event services, strategic consulting, and exclusive market and audience insights. TCC is a portfolio company of investment funds managed by EagleTree Capital, a New York City-based private equity firm. For more information, visit thechannelco.com.

Follow The Channel Company: LinkedIn, X, and Facebook

 2026 The Channel Company, Inc. CRN is a registered trademark of The Channel Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Natalie Lewis

The Channel Company

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ExaGrid

mdomenichelli@exagrid.com
Geordie AI Selected for Monitoring and Governing AI Agents in Real Time

LONDON, Feb. 10, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Geordie AI , the security and governance platform for agentic AI, has been named one of the Top 10 Finalists for the RSAC 2026 Conference Innovation Sandbox for pioneering how enterprises adopt and scale agentic AI while balancing innovation and risk. Geordie will present its technology to a panel of renowned industry judges and a live in-person audience on Monday, March 23 at RSAC 2026 Conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.



The RSAC Innovation Sandbox contest is widely considered one of the world's premier opportunities for the cybersecurity startup community as promising young cybersecurity companies showcase their groundbreaking technologies and compete for the title of "Most Innovative Startup." The competition is commonly recognized as a catapult for success as the Top 10 Finalists have collectively celebrated more than 100 acquisitions and received $17.8 billion in investments over the last 20 years. Geordie will have three minutes to pitch the panel of judges before a question-and-answer round. Each of the Top 10 Finalists will receive a $5 million investment to drive cybersecurity innovation .



"Building a safer society starts with bold ideas, new technologies, and real-world solutions," said Cecilia Marinier, Vice President, Innovation & Scholars, RSAC. "This year's Top 10 RSAC Innovation Sandbox Finalists provide a preview of what real innovation looks like to help solve the vexing problems the industry is currently tackling."

Autonomous AI agents introduce a fast-growing class of security and governance challenges. These systems act independently, adapt over time, and operate across platforms beyond the visibility of traditional controls. This leaves many security teams effectively "AI blind" as critical decisions and actions occur inside agentic platforms or between agents.

Geordie was built from the ground up to accommodate the architecture and realities of agents, delivering the foundation to govern agentic AI at enterprise scale. By collecting data from code, endpoints, and APIs, Geordie creates a unified view of agent activity and risk across the enterprise, closing the visibility and control gap agents introduce. This holistic perspective enables deep insight into where agents exist, how they're configured, what they can access, and how they behave over time. From this understanding, Geordie provides a comprehensive assessment of security, regulatory, and operational risk across the entire agent ecosystem. These risks are proactively managed through Beam, Geordie's industry-first risk mitigation engine, which contextually guides agent decisions in real time to keep them aligned with enterprise policies.

"Every CISO we speak with is facing the same problem: agentic AI is accelerating faster than their ability to see and govern it," said Henry Comfort, CEO and cofounder of Geordie. "Organizations want speed, but security teams lack visibility into agent existence, behavior and risk. Without that visibility, a new layer of invisible attack surface emerges. Geordie delivers the foundation to govern agentic AI at enterprise scale."



The RSAC Innovation Sandbox contest kicks off at 9:30 AM PT on Monday, March 23 and winners will be announced at approximately noon the same day. The panel of renowned expert judges includes: David Chen , Head of Global Technology Investment Banking at Morgan Stanley; Larry Feinsmith , Head of Global Technology Strategy, Innovation & Partnerships at JPMorganChase; Paul Kocher , Independent Researcher; Niloofar Razi , Operating Partner at Capitol Meridian Partners; and Nasrin Rezai , SVP & CISO at Verizon. Dr. Hugh Thompson , RSAC Executive Chairman and Program Committee Chair of RSAC Conference, will return to host the contest.

For more information regarding RSAC 2026 Conference, taking place at the Moscone Center in San Francisco from March 23-26, please visit https://www.rsaconference.com/usa .

About Geordie AI

Geordie's purpose-built AI agent security and governance platform helps organizations scale innovation safely by enabling real-time agent visibility, risk intelligence, and proactive risk mitigation. Founded in 2025 by cyber and AI experts from Snyk, Veracode, and Darktrace, Geordie's mission is to provide the backbone for safe and scalable adoption of agentic AI in the enterprise. In December 2025, Geordie was named the Black Hat Europe 2025 Startup Spotlight winner. Geordie is backed by leading cybersecurity investor Ten Eleven Ventures and global venture capital firm General Catalyst. For more information, visit www.geordie.ai .

About RSAC

As the cybersecurity industry's convening authority, RSAC brings together diverse minds to exchange perspectives, knowledge, and ideas. RSAC provides the world's leading platform for uniting and advancing the cybersecurity community to create a safer society. RSAC is at the cutting edge of cybersecurity innovation and education. The company's flagship event, RSAC Conference, is the largest and most influential global gathering in cybersecurity. RSAC gives cybersecurity professionals a platform to connect and grow. To learn more, visit OneRSAC.com .

Media Contacts:
BELFAST, Northern Ireland, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Cumulus Neuroscience (Cumulus; The Company), a global digital health company focused on advancing neuroscience clinical trials and patient care through improved data, has entered the Japanese market through a new customer relationship with Shionogi & Co., Ltd. (Shionogi), a major research-driven pharmaceutical company based in Japan.

Shionogi will leverage the Cumulus NeuLogiq Platform to generate objective neurophysiological data for S-898270, a novel therapeutic agent that selectively inhibits phosphodiesterase-4D (PDE4D) to enhance the early and late stages of memory formation. The study will be conducted in Japan, representing Cumulus' expansion into the Asian biopharma market. To support this and future studies, the NeuLogiq Platform has been translated into Japanese and Cumulus has expanded their team to support local clinical trial operations in Japan.

Designed with 10 of the world's leading pharma companies, NeuLogiq is an AI-based, multi-domain digital biomarker platform that provides biopharma partners and collaborators with a suite of state-of-the-art tools to help advance the discovery and development of new therapies for neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative conditions.

"We have been working with the team at Shionogi since late 2024 and are impressed by their thoughtful approach to integrating NeuLogiq digital endpoints into the S-898270 Phase 1 study protocol," said Brian Murphy, PhD, Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Cumulus. "In July, our team presented data from CNS-101, our real-world observational study, at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference 2025 confirming that repeated home-based digital cognitive endpoints are more sensitive to disease progression than the ADAS-Cog 13 composite benchmark, the primary cognitive scale used in Alzheimer's clinical trials today to determine drug efficacy. We are confident that NeuLogiq endpoints will add discriminative power to the S-898270 study and are excited to enter the Japanese market in collaboration with the talented team at Shionogi."

The initial engagement between Cumulus and Shionogi was executed under a study start-up project focused on streamlining the inclusion of NeuLogiq EEG and cognitive biomarkers that are translational, multi-modal and scalable for the S-898270 Phase 1 study based on preclinical data and scientific literature. The S-898270 Phase 1 study is ongoing and enrolling healthy controls in early 2026.

Cumulus supports precision in CNS clinical trials for its industry partners by enabling remote monitoring of patients across multiple domains of brain function. To learn more, visit www.cumulusneuro.com .

About Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's is a progressive disease that affects brain function, memory, and other cognitive abilities. It is the most common cause of dementia, affecting millions of people worldwide. Symptoms usually develop slowly and worsen over time, including memory loss, confusion, difficulty with language and communication, mood swings, and changes in behavior and personality. While there is no known cure, there are currently over one hundred Alzheimer's disease clinical trials underway.

About Cumulus Neuroscience

With a mission to generate the data and insights required to accelerate diagnosis and management of central nervous system (CNS) disorders for millions of patients and caregivers around the world, Cumulus Neuroscience is advancing NeuLogiq, an AI-based, multi-domain digital biomarker platform to enable better, faster decision making in neurology and neuropsychiatry clinical trials and patient care. Designed for and with 10 of the world's leading pharma companies, the platform enables decentralized trials and is already making a difference in the development of therapies for Alzheimer's Disease, depression and schizophrenia.

Designed to provide an industry-wide standard for real-world measurement of disease progression, Cumulus combines patented technology, in-house expertise and key industry partnerships to capture large amounts of real-world, clinical data repeated over time, across multiple behavioral and physiological domains in the patient's home - all with an EEG headset synced to a novel, tablet-based neuro-assessment platform. Together with machine learning (ML) analytics and the world's largest database of annotated, longitudinal, neurofunctional data, Cumulus simplifies and improves the robustness of neuroscience clinical trials to provide the best and most cost-effective assessment of CNS treatment outcomes.

About Shionogi & Co., Ltd.

Shionogi & Co., Ltd. is a 146-year-old global, research-driven pharmaceutical company headquartered in Osaka, Japan, that is dedicated to bringing benefits to patients based on its corporate philosophy of 'supplying the best possible medicine to protect the health and wellbeing of the patients we serve'. The company currently markets products in several therapeutic areas including anti-infectives, pain, CNS disorders, cardiovascular diseases and gastroenterology. Shionogi's research and development currently target two therapeutic areas: infectious diseases and pain/CNS disorders. For more information on Shionogi & Co., Ltd., please visit https://www.shionogi.com/global/en.

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New platform eliminates scheduling friction through conversational AI assistants that work on your domain

FT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- IgniteTech, the enterprise software powerhouse known for leading the AI transformation revolution, today announced Adminio AI , a groundbreaking, patent-pending platform that eliminates the tedious back-and-forth of meeting coordination through intelligent, persona-based AI assistants. Building on the proven technology foundation of IgniteTech's Eloquens AI and MyPersonas platforms, Adminio AI advances the company's vision of putting powerful AI capabilities in the hands of business professionals. The announcement was made at GenAI Expo during IgniteTech's keynote address kicking off the event held in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, where IgniteTech serves as Presenting Sponsor.

"Scheduling meetings consumes valuable hours every week that could be spent on actual work," said Eric Vaughan, CEO of IgniteTech. "The data is staggering: professionals waste 3 hours per week managing calendars, that's 7.5% of work time just coordinating schedules. Poor scheduling costs businesses $100 billion annually in lost productivity, translating to $25,000 per employee per year. With Adminio AI, we're giving every professional their own AI executive assistant that works entirely through email. Just CC your Adminio AI assistant on any scheduling request and they handle everything: checking calendars, coordinating time zones, negotiating times, and confirming meetings. No booking links. No friction. Just booked time," added Vaughan.

Adminio AI operates as a named persona - like a real executive assistant - that users interact with conversationally via email. Each user gives their Adminio AI assistant a name and CC's them on scheduling requests, just as they would a human EA. The platform works on the customer's own domain, ensuring seamless brand integration and eliminating the friction of external email addresses. The AI handles multi-party coordination across time zones, manages calendar conflicts, and maintains context throughout complex negotiations. When situations require higher-touch coordination or human judgment, Adminio AI automatically brings the designated human manager into the conversation via CC, ensuring critical decisions always have human oversight. This "Human-In-The-Loop" facility is a hallmark of all IgniteTech's enterprise-grade AI innovations.

Built on IgniteTech's patent-pending AI technology from Eloquens AI, Adminio AI delivers enterprise-grade capabilities from day one. The platform offers comprehensive integration with Microsoft 365, Google Gmail and GFI's KerioConnect, making it accessible to organizations of all sizes regardless of their email infrastructure.

Key features include:

Custom Domain Deployment: Works on your domain name, not a third-party address

Works on your domain name, not a third-party address Persona-Based Interaction: Users name their AI assistant and interact naturally via CC or direct email

Users name their AI assistant and interact naturally via CC or direct email Human-in-the-Loop Oversight: Each Adminio AI persona has a designated human manager who gets CC'd when higher-touch coordination or problem-solving is needed

Each Adminio AI persona has a designated human manager who gets CC'd when higher-touch coordination or problem-solving is needed Multi-Party Coordination: Seamlessly manages scheduling across internal and external participants

Seamlessly manages scheduling across internal and external participants Intelligent Time Zone Management: Automatically tracks and converts across global time zones

Automatically tracks and converts across global time zones Calendar Access Control: Permitted access to internal calendars drives intelligent coordination for external participants

Permitted access to internal calendars drives intelligent coordination for external participants Conversational Rescheduling: Handles changes and conflicts through natural email dialogue

Handles changes and conflicts through natural email dialogue Global Language Support: Native handling of over 160 languages without translation

Native handling of over 160 languages without translation Enterprise-Grade Security: GDPR and SOC-2 compliant with advanced protection for sensitive communications

GDPR and SOC-2 compliant with advanced protection for sensitive communications Regional Data Residency: Available in both EU and US regions to meet data sovereignty requirements

The platform emerged from IgniteTech's own AI internal effort to reduce the significant executive and administrative time consumed by traditional scheduling. The company's widely documented AI-first workforce evolution, which saw over 80% of staff replaced due to resistance to AI adoption , including Vaughan's own chief of staff, created the urgent need for an AI scheduling solution. "When I had a gap with someone in that role, I realized every professional faces this same challenge," said Vaughan. "Most people don't have the luxury of an executive assistant, and those who do are increasingly finding that traditional approaches can't keep pace with global, distributed teams that need 24x7 and multi-lingual capabilities." Early internal deployment demonstrated dramatic efficiency gains, with people reclaiming many hours per week previously lost to calendar coordination.

Adminio AI will launch in Q1 2026 in three editions to suit different organizational needs:

Professional Edition: Designed for individual professionals managing their own meeting coordination

Designed for individual professionals managing their own meeting coordination Business Edition: Optimized for small to medium teams requiring collaborative scheduling

Optimized for small to medium teams requiring collaborative scheduling Enterprise Edition: Built for large organizations with complex, high-volume scheduling needs across global teams

Each edition scales features like meeting volume, calendar integrations and number of managed relationships to match organizational requirements.

Be among the first to experience Adminio AI when it launches. Visit adminio.ai to sign up for early access and watch the product demo video.

About IgniteTech

Founded in 2010, IgniteTech is a leading AI-first enterprise software company. With a track record of successful acquisitions and rapid innovation, IgniteTech's solutions power businesses worldwide. The company's AI product portfolio includes MyPersonas for cloning expertise, Eloquens AI for intelligent email communication, and now Adminio AI for meeting coordination - all built on the company's patent-pending AI-enabled data structures.

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For Business Inquiries: success@ignitetech.ai

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Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Nevada Organic Phosphate Inc. (CSE: NOP) (OTCQB: NOPFF) ("NOP" or the "Company"), a B.C. based leader in organic sedimentary phosphate exploration, is pleased to announce continued progress in the interpretation of assay results from the first six drill holes within the Upper Phosphatic Zone ("UPZ") at Murdock Mountain. The weighted average grade of 10.93% P2O5 is now supported by a growing body of geochemical evidence showing that the material is not simply a phosphate ore, but a naturally balanced, multi-nutrient mineral fertilizer and soil conditioner aligned with the needs of organic and regenerative agriculture.

Ongoing analysis indicates meaningful concentrations of calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron, manganese, silicon, and trace micronutrients, all occurring in forms compatible with organic production systems. This creates a slow-release nutrient profile that supports soil health, microbial activity, and long-term fertility, key attributes for growers seeking alternatives to synthetic fertilizers.

"These assay results continue to validate the strategic importance of Murdock Mountain," said CEO Robin Dow. "We are defining a uniquely clean and naturally balanced phosphate system at a time when growers, distributors, and regulators are all demanding lower-risk nutrient sources. The chemistry we are seeing, with low impurities, meaningful co-nutrients, and slow-release phosphorus, aligns directly with the needs of organic and regenerative agriculture."

Clean Chemistry: Ultra-Low Contaminants and Regulatory Strength

The UPZ continues to demonstrate an exceptionally clean geochemical signature. Heavy metals including cadmium, arsenic, lead, and chromium occur at levels far below AAPFCO and USDA organic thresholds, and the absence of radionuclide concerns further differentiates NOP from many global sedimentary and igneous phosphate sources.

This low-impurity profile reduces certification risk for organic growers and provides a defensible regulatory advantage as global contaminant limits tighten. In a market where many phosphate products struggle with cadmium and other regulated impurities, NOP's chemistry stands out as inherently compliant and low-risk.

"As global contaminant limits tighten, clean phosphate sources are becoming increasingly scarce," said Director Garry Smith P.Geo. "NOP's low cadmium, low arsenic, and low radionuclide signature reduces regulatory friction for growers and positions the Company to compete in premium fertilizer markets where compliance and purity matter."

NOP believes its UPZ material will align directly with a Premium, Low-Risk, Multi-Benefit Input. Its combination of clean phosphorus, high natural calcium, and beneficial co-nutrients positions it as a premium, low-risk input capable of differentiating NOP from phosphate suppliers whose products often require dilution or mitigation to meet organic standards.

Naturally Occurring Co-Nutrients That Enhance Soil Health

The UPZ contains a suite of nutrients at concentrations high enough to deliver measurable agronomic benefit, strengthening NOP's positioning as a multi-nutrient, soil-health-positive phosphate.

Primary Beneficial Nutrients

Nutrient Assay

Level Agronomic Role Value to Organic

Agriculture Calcium

(CaO) 28.96% pH buffering, root strength, soil structure Major co-benefit in acidic soils Magnesium

(MgO) 1.83% Chlorophyll formation, enzyme activation Supports plant vigor and photosynthesis Silicon

(SiO2) 36.54% Stress tolerance, disease suppression Increasingly recognized in organic systems Iron

(Fe2O3) 1.23% Chlorophyll formation, microbial activity Enhances soil biology and plant health Zinc

(Zn) 233 ppm Enzyme activation, root development Common deficiency in acidic soils Manganese

(Mn) 90 ppm Photosynthesis, disease resistance Beneficial in weathered soils Molybdenum

(Mo) 8 ppm Nitrogen fixation, nitrate reduction Critical for legumes and soil microbes Sulfur

(S) 0.5% Helps build proteins, enzymes, or chlorophyll precursors. Helps microbial mineralization and unlocks organic N

Secondary Beneficial Nutrients

Nutrient Assay

Level Agronomic Role Copper

(Cu) 40 ppm Supports photosynthesis and disease resistance Cobalt

(Co) 2.2 ppm Required by nitrogen-fixing bacteria Strontium

(Sr) 618 ppm Benign; often associated with improved Ca uptake

These elements occur at supportive levels and contribute to soil biological function, especially in organic systems.

Clean Chemistry Advantage





Heavy Metals (ppm)



Element NOP

(sedimentary) USA

(sedimentary) Brazil + Peru (sedimentary) Spain

(sedimentary) Kola

(igneous) As 8.8 5-20 3-15 5-20

Cd 2.99 5-30 1-20 5-25

Cr 392 50-300 50-250 50-300 100-500 Cu 39.9 5-50 5-40 5-40 5-30 Hg 0.201







Ni 78.6 10-100 10-80 10-100 20-150 Pb 4.5 5-30 5-25 5-25

Zn 233 20-150 20-120 20-150 10-80

NOP's sedimentary phosphate maintains low levels of regulatory-sensitive elements (As, Cd, Pb, Hg), supporting a "clean chemistry" narrative aligned with organic certification expectations.

Global Benchmarking: NOP Consistently Plots at the Clean End of Global Ranges

NOP's major oxide, heavy metal, and trace element chemistry consistently falls within, and often below, global sedimentary phosphate ranges. This includes:

Low cadmium relative to U.S., South American, and European sedimentary deposits

Low arsenic and lead compared to many commercial sources

Significantly lower uranium than most sedimentary phosphates

No red-flag elements or anomalies

These characteristics strengthen NOP's position as a strategically attractive source for premium fertilizer markets.

Major Oxides %

Element NOP

(sedimentary) USA

(sedimentary) Brazil + Peru (sedimentary) Spain

(sedimentary) Kola

(igneous) Al2O3 3.43 1-3 1-3 1-3 <1 CaO 28.96 40-50 40-50 38-48 48-55 Fe2O3 1.23 1-3 1-3 1-3 2-4 K2O 1.22







MgO 1.83 0.3-1.5 0.3-1.5 0.3-1.5 1-3 MnO2 0.02 trace trace trace trace Na2O 0.3 0.2-0.6 0.2-0.6 0.2-0.6 1-3 P2O5 10.93 24-32 28-34 24-30 35-39 SiO2 36.54 5-20 5-20 5-20 2-10 TiO2 0.2 0.1-0.4 0.1-0.4 0.1-0.4 0.2-0.6 LOI 0.2 3-8 3-8 3-8



Incidental Liming Benefit: NOP's sedimentary phosphate contains ~29% CaO, equivalent to roughly 52% CaCO3

While NOP does not market the product as a liming material, this naturally occurring calcium provides growers with added agronomic value by helping moderate soil acidity and improve nutrient availability. Importantly, the material contains negligible magnesium and is not dolomitic under agronomic or regulatory definitions.

This dual-benefit profile of clean phosphorus + natural calcium, further differentiates NOP from conventional phosphate sources without triggering liming material regulatory requirements.

Critical & Strategic Elements (ppm)

Element NOP

(sedimentary) USA

(sedimentary) Brazil + Peru (sedimentary) Spain

(sedimentary) Kola

(igneous) La 101.5 20-150 30-200 20-150 200-800 Ce 39.9 40-200 50-250 40-200 300-1000 Y 137.1 50-200 50-250 50-200 200-600 Th 3.52 2-20 2-20 2-20 20-80 U 19.6 50-150 40-120 40-120 10-80

NOP's U content is dramatically lower than most sedimentary deposits.

Selected Elements (ppm)

Element NOP

(sedimentary) USA

(sedimentary) Brazil + Peru (sedimentary) Spain

(sedimentary) Kola

(igneous) Ba 314 100-500 100-400 100-500 50-200 Co 2.2 1-10 1-10 1-10 2-15 Li 10.9 5-20 5-20 5-20 5-30 Mn 90 50-300 50-300 50-300 100-500 Mo 8.06 1-10 1-10 1-10 1-5 Rb 33.1 5-40 5-40 5-40

Sr 618 300-1500 300-1500 300-1500 500-2000 V 94 20-150 20-150 20-150 50-200 Zr 8.9 5-50 5-50 5-50 50-200

NOP shows no anomalies or red-flag elements, fully aligned with global norms.

Other Elements (ppm)

Element NOP

(sedimentary) USA

(sedimentary) Brazil + Peru (sedimentary) Spain

(sedimentary) Kola

(igneous) Be 0.9







Cs 1.59







Ga 4.54 2-10 2-10 2-10 5-20 Ge 0.18







Hf 0.2





1-3 In 0.017







Li 10.9 5-20 5-20 5-20 5-30 Nb 2.1 1-10 1-10 1-10 10-50 Sb 0.93







Sc 4.5 2-10 2-10 2-10 10-30 Se 12 1-10 1-10 1-10

Sn 0.5







Ta 0.07





1-5 Tl 0.62







W 0.5









Source of regional geochemical ranges: IFDC (2010); IFDC Technical Bulletins; USGS Open-File Reports and Professional Papers (USA, Brazil, Peru, Spain, Kola); IAEA TECDOC-1360 (2003); FAO/IAEA fertilizer contaminant reports; IGME Spain geological bulletins; DNPM/CPRM Brazil and INGEMMET Peru phosphate deposit reports; Russian Academy of Sciences publications on the Khibiny and Lovozero apatite-nepheline deposits; European Commission JRC technical reports.

In Summary, NOP's 11% P2O5 UPZ material is emerging as a clean, multi-nutrient, soil-health-positive phosphate with:

A naturally balanced suite of macro- and micronutrients

Ultra-low contaminants and radionuclides

Strong alignment with organic and regenerative agriculture

A defensible regulatory and market advantage

A chemical profile that differentiates NOP from global phosphate suppliers

"The Upper Phosphatic Zone is demonstrating a remarkably consistent geochemical signature across the first six drill holes," added Director Garry Smith, P.Geo. "Calcium, magnesium, silicon, iron, zinc, manganese, and molybdenum all occur at agronomically relevant levels, and the impurity profile remains exceptionally low. This is not a single-nutrient ore body - it is a multi-nutrient mineral input with a clean chemistry advantage that is increasingly rare in global phosphate deposits."

NOP's "Major Oxides" assays shown above are weighted averages and believed to be representative of the Upper Phosphatic Zone (UPZ) intercepted in the first 6 drill holes. All other assays are weighted averages from UPZ intercepts from the first 3 drill holes.

Drill hole Location Coordinates (WGS 84)

DDH Pad UTME UTMN Elev m TD m Dip Az deg MM25-1 P4 724404 4568973 1949 82.60 -90 0 MM25-2 P3 724767 4569272 1896 125.73 -90 0 MM25-3 P7 724344 4568766 1987 71.32 -90 0 MM25-4 P8 724100 4568690 2018 99.67 -90 0 MM25-5 P8 724100 4568690 2018 92.96 -65 120 MM25-6 P9 723830 4568439 2018 78.30 -90 0

Interpretations presented in this news release are based on the first six drill holes, they are preliminary in nature and may not be representative of results from future drilling.

The interpretive technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Garry K Smith, P.Geo., a Director and Qualified Person, as defined in "National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

The drilling and assay results from the drilling program so far completed have been approved by Independent Qualified Person: Kenneth Tullar, B.Sc. Geol. Eng., P. Geo., AIPG Certified Professional Geologist (CPG-11142), an independent, qualified person ("QP") as defined by NI 43-101. Mr. Tullar was responsible for overseeing all phases of the drilling program, including logging, labelling, bagging and transport from the project to ALS Laboratory Services (ALS) in Elko, Nevada. Major Oxides including Phosphate (P2O5) assaying was by ME-XRF24 whole-rock analysis: Samples were fused with lithium borate and analyzed by X-ray fluorescence (XRF). All other assays, including Heavy metal assaying, was by ME-MS61 trace element analysis: Samples were digested using a near-total four-acid procedure (HNO3, HClO4, HF and HCl) and analyzed by ICP-MS and ICP-AES. Quality assurance quality control ("QA/QC") consisted of certified reference materials (standards) and blanks inserted on site along with duplicates, standards and blanks inserted by ALS. The assay results summarized above have been carefully reviewed with reference to the QA/QC results. Standard sample chain of custody procedures were used during drilling and sampling campaigns until delivery to the analytical facility.

Nevada Organic Phosphate Inc. (CSE: NOP) (OTCQB: NOPFF)

NOP is a junior exploration company with an organic sedimentary raw rock phosphate bed, 6.6 kilometres long, in northeast Nevada. Additional applications extend the potential strike of rock phosphate to over 30 kilometres. This is believed to be the only known large-scale organic sedimentary phosphate project in North America. It is situated close to the main highway to Montello/Elko, Nevada, and near the rail head to California.

For More Information

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its regulations services providers have reviewed or accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release may contain forward-looking statements and information ("FLSI") within the meaning

of applicable securities laws. FLSI may include expectations, anticipations, beliefs, opinions, plans, intentions, estimates, forecasts, projections, guidance or other similar statements and information that are not historical facts. All statements which are not historical statements are considered FLSI. All FLSI is based on assumptions, which may prove inaccurate, and subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including without limitation those risks and uncertainties identified in the Company's public securities filings, which may cause actual events or results to differ materially from those indicated or implied in FLSI. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance or value on FLSI. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in any FLSI in this news release are reasonable at the present time, it can give no assurance that such FLSI will prove to be correct. Any FLSI in this news release is made as of the date hereof and the Company undertakes no obligations to publicly update or revise any FLSI, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless required by applicable securities laws. Any FLSI in this news release is expressly qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283325

Source: Nevada Organic Phosphate Inc.
Pope Leo XIV shared his hope that "this important event might awaken feelings of friendship and fraternity, strengthening awareness of the value of sport at the service of the integral development of the human person."

NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESS Newswire / February 10, 2026 / International Olympic Committee news

By William Imbo

Pope Leo XIV has sent "warm greetings" ahead of the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, saying he hopes "healthy competition will contribute to building bridges between cultures and peoples" and promote welcoming, solidarity and peace.

The message was issued in a telegram dated 29 January and signed by the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. It was addressed to the Archbishop of Milan, Mario Delpini, for the welcoming celebration at the Church of San Babila, where the Olympic Cross of athletes was received ahead of the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics (6 February).

In the telegram, the Pope said he hoped the ceremony would "energise feelings of friendship and fraternity", reinforcing the value of sport "in the service of integral human development".

The statement in full is as follows:

"To his Excellence the Most Rev. Bishop Mario Delpini, Archbishop of Milan, Milan:

Pope Leo XIV addresses warm greetings to all participating in the welcome celebration in the Church of San Babila of the Olympic Cross of sportsmen at the opening of the Milan-Cortina Olympic and Paralympic Games. He hopes that this important event will energise feelings of friendship and fraternity, strengthening awareness of the value of sport in the service of integral human development. The Holy Father assures his prayer that these days of healthy competition will contribute to building bridges between cultures and peoples, promoting welcoming, solidarity, and peace. With these wishes, the Supreme Pontiff is pleased to send the desired Apostolic Blessing, a pledge of constant divine assistance.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin

Secretary of State of His Holiness"

The Winter Olympics are scheduled to run from 6 to 22 February 2026, followed by the Winter Paralympics from 6 to 15 March 2026.

Picture by Franco Origlia/Getty Images

View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from International Olympic Committee on 3blmedia.com.

Contact Info:

Spokesperson: International Olympic Committee

Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/international-olympic-committee

Email: info@3blmedia.com

SOURCE: International Olympic Committee

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Sydney, Australia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Central Iron Ore Ltd. (TSXV: CIO) (the "Company") is pleased to announce a non-brokered private placement financing for gross proceeds of up to $216,046.22 through the issuance of up to 3,000,642 units (the "Units") at a price of $0.072 per Unit (the "Offering").

Each Unit shall consist of one ordinary share in the capital of the Company (each, a "Ordinary Share") and one Ordinary Share purchase warrant (each, a "Warrant"). Each Warrant shall entitle the holder thereof to purchase one Ordinary Share at a price of $0.12 per Ordinary Share until October 15, 2030.

Gross proceeds raised from the Offering will be used for contribution to the Company's South Darlot joint venture, drilling at the Company's British King Mine Area, and for corporate and general working capital purposes.

Closing of the Offering is subject to receipt of all necessary corporate and regulatory approvals, including the approval of TSX Venture Exchange. All securities issued in connection with the Offering will be subject to a hold period of four months plus a day from the date of issuance and the resale rules of applicable securities legislation.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons as defined under applicable United States securities laws unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

THIS NEWS RELEASE IS NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. Although the Company believes that such information is reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking information is typically identified by words such as: believe, expect, anticipate, intend, estimate, postulate and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions investors that any forward-looking information provided by the Company is not a guarantee of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward looking information as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, the state of the financial markets for the Company's equity securities, the state of the market for iron ore or other minerals that may be produced generally, recent market volatility; variations in the nature, quality and quantity of any mineral deposits that may be located, the Company's ability to obtain any necessary permits, consents or authorizations required for its activities, to raise the necessary capital or to be fully able to implement its business strategies and other risks associated with the exploration and development of mineral properties. The reader is referred to the Company's disclosure documents for a more complete discussion of such risk factors and their potential effects, copies of which may be accessed through the Company's page on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283406

Source: Central Iron Ore Limited
Ottawa, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Mayo Lake Minerals Inc. (CSE: MLKM) ("Mayo Lake" or "Company") is pleased to report the results of its Annual & Special Meeting held on January 23, 2026, in Carp, Ontario, and to provide an operational update on preparations for its 2026 field season.

The Company previously announced its 2026 trenching and drilling campaign on January 26, 2026:

https://www.mayolakeminerals.com/uploads/1/4/1/8/141817088/mayo_lake_announces_2026_drilling___trenching_plans_january_26_2026.pdf

Annual Meeting Results

A total of 31,536,883 shares, representing 28% of the outstanding common shares were voted. The shareholders approved all matters presented at the Meeting:

Directors re-elected: Dr. Vern Rampton (100%), Lee Bowles (100%), Jeff Ackert (100%), and Gregory LeBlanc (99.7%). The latter three are independent.

Auditor reappointed: Jones & O'Connell LLP (100%).

Share consolidation authorized: Shareholders unanimously approved a special resolution authorizing the Board to consolidate the outstanding shares at a ratio of not less than one new share for every three outstanding shares, subject to the Board determining that such consolidation is in the best interests of the Company. The Board does not currently intend to proceed with a consolidation.

Operational Status: Contractor Negotiations and Mobilization

Following the Company's previously announced programs, Mayo Lake is exploring, the availability of drilling, trenching, and logistics companies in order to finalize timing and contracts. One on one meetings with various contractors were initiated at the AME Roundup in Vancouver in late January with timelines to be announced once contracts are finalized.

CEO Comment

Dr. Vern Rampton, President and CEO, commented, "It was abundantly clear from the positively charged atmosphere at the recent AME Roundup that the financing environment has become highly supportive of junior exploration companies, both in the Yukon and right across Canada. In particular, funding activity across the Tombstone Gold Belt continues to increase, kick-stated by several recent gold discoveries and the ongoing development of other projects in the Mayo-Keno area. We believe Mayo is well positioned to participate in this momentum with our plans for substantial drilling and trenching programs at our two flagship projects: the Carlin-Roop silver discovery and the Anderson Gold Trend, which hosts numerous identified drill targets. We are making good progress with contractors and other active parties in the region and look forward to confirming our mobilization plans as agreements and permits are finalized."

Regional Context: Tombstone Gold Belt and Mayo-Keno area.

The Mayo-Keno area lies within the Tombstone Gold Belt (TGB), a prolific corridor hosting intrusion-related and epizonal mineralizing systems, including Reduced Intrusion-Related Gold Systems (RIRGS), high-grade silver veins, skarns, and polymetallic vein systems. Recent discoveries and resource expansions across the district have increased exploration activity and investor interest.in the TGB. Notable nearby resources include:

Banyan Gold: AurMac deposit with reported pit-constrained Indicated resources of 2.27 M oz Au (112M t at 0.63 g /t) and Inferred resources of 5.45 Moz Au (260.0M t at 0.60 g/t). . (1 )

Sitka Gold: Blackjack and Eiger deposits with Indicated resources of 1.29 M oz Au (40.0M t at 1.01 g/t) and Inferred resources of 1.18 M oz Au (612.0M t at 0.75 g/t). . (2 )

Victoria Gold: Eagle and Olive deposits with Measured & Indicated resources of 4.66 Moz Au; Raven Deposit with Inferred resources of 1.07 Moz Au (19.9Mt at 0.59 g/t).. (3)

Hecla Mining: Silver. Proven and Probable reserves of 64.4M oz Ag (2.64M t at 24.3 oz Ag/t) plus Inferred resources of !9.24M oz Ag (1.3M at 14.8M oz Ag/t) as of Dec.31,2024. Production is ongoing at Keno Hill. ( 4)

Snowline Gold: Rogue Project; Measured & Indicated resources: 7.44 Moz Au (204M t at 1.21/t) and Inferred resources of 0.89M oz Au (44.5M t at 0.62 g /t).

Banyan, Sitka, Snowline and Hecla all have strong market support. Victoria is currently under bankruptcy protection and is now for sale with a restart of full production expected once a purchase is finalized.

These district-scale results support continued exploration across the belt and provide geological context for Mayo Lake's 2026 exploration program.

Mayo Lake Project Portfolio- totals 145.6 km and reflects the district's multi-commodity potential.

Project 1- Silver Flagship-Carlin-Roop (44 km): Targeting Keno-style high-grade silver; the Carlin West prospect exhibits geological characteristics comparable to historic high-grade deposits in the district.

Project 2- Gold Flagship- Anderson-Davidson (86 km): Hosts the Anderson Gold Trend (48sq. km.), where more than 10 km of linear gold-in-soil anomalies have been outlined which are interpreted as the surface expressions of subsurface gold veining and at depth intrusion-related mineralization.

Project 3- Diversified Metals Flagship- Edmonton (15 km): A broad magnetic low combined with anomalous gold, silver, and base-metal geochemistry and positive SGH signatures suggest a buried intrusion with multi-element potential.

There is no assurance that exploration will define mineral resources comparable to those of nearby companies; however, the geological setting and recent district activity provide a strong rationale for Mayo Lake's planned work programs.

Qualified Person. The technical and scientific information contained within this news release has been written by Dr. Vern Rampton, P.Eng., a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standard of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101").

SEE FIGURES (MAPS) ON NEXT PAGE ________________________________________________________________________________

1 Technical Report, AurMac Property, Mayo Mining District, Yukon Territory, Canada, effective date August 20, 2025; prepared by Marc Jutras, P.Eng. Ginto Consulting Services Inc., Tysen Hantelmann, P. Eng., of JDS Energy and Mining Inc. and Deepak Malhotra, Ph.D. of Forte Dynamics).

2 Clear Creek Property, RC Gold Project, NI 43-101 Technical Report, Dawson Mining district, Yukon Territory, effective date January 21, 2025; prepared; by Ronald G. Simpson, P. Geo, of GeoSim Services Inc.

3 Technical Report for the Eagle Gold Mine, Yukon Territory, Canada, effective date - December 31, 2022; prepared by Nico Harvey, P. Eng., Paul Gray, P. Geo., Jeff Winterton, P.E., all of Victoria Gold; Marc Jutras, P. Eng., of Ginto Consulting Inc., and Michael Levy, P.E. of JDS Energy & Mining Inc.

4 Hecla Mining, Annual Report, December 31, 2024.

5 Independent Preliminary Economic assessment for the Rogue Project Yukon, Canada on August 27, 2025; prepared by Robert McCarthy, P.Eng., Edward Saunders, P. Eng., Ignacio Garcia Schmidt, P.Eng., Mauricio Herrera, P.Eng., Megan Miller, P. Eng., Soren Jensen, P.Eng., Jeff Clarke, P. Geo., Adrian Dance, P. Eng., Heather Burrell, P. Geo., Steven C. Haggarty, P.Eng., Daniel Redmond, P. Geo. of SRK Consulting (Canada) Inc.

Figure 1. The Tombstone Gold Belt.

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/5471/283369_ad7c75b8a45f6aa8_002full.jpg

Figure 2. Mayo-Keno District: Tombstone Gold Belt Property Owners and Deposits.

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/5471/283369_ad7c75b8a45f6aa8_003full.jpg

About Mayo Lake Minerals Inc. (Mayo)

Mayo is actively engaged in the exploration, discovery and development of three precious metal properties covering 145.6 square kilometres in the Mayo- Keno area of the Mayo Mining District. All properties lie within the traditional territory of the Na-Cho Nyak Dun First Nation. The Mayo-Keno area lies within the Tombstone Gold Belt, where Reduced Intrusion Related Gold Deposits are attracting exploration and mine development, witness Victoria Gold's Eagle gold mine, Hecla Mining's silver mines at Keno and projects being actively moved forward toward mine development by Banyan Gold, Sitka Gold, and Snowline Gold.

Carlin-Roop is a 44 sq.km. property with evidence suggesting the presence of high-grade silver common to the Keno Hill Silver District. The Carlin West zone has the same footprint and similar characteristics to the Elsa Mine, which produced 30M ounces of silver at 128 ounces Ag/ ton. Mayo's 86 sq, km. Anderson-Davidson property has produced enough positive data to envisage a major mining camp in its Anderson Gold Trend where over 10,000m of linear gold in soil anomalies have been outlined. These anomalies are probably the surface indication of subsurface gold veining. At Edmonton, a broad magnetic low probably indicates an alteration halo over a buried intrusion. The presence of anomalous gold, silver and base metal geochemical anomalies in combination with positive SGH anomalies could point to a major multi-element deposit.

The Mayo-Keno region is currently buzzing with activity as a result of recent discoveries that have propelled the Tombstone Gold Belt into the spotlight. Readers can access more details on the company's website at https://www.mayolakeminerals.com/.

NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO NEWS WIRES OR R DISSEMINATED IN THE UNITED STATES

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information. This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. These statements relate to future events or future performance. All statements other than statements of historical fact may be forward-looking statements or information. The forward-looking statements and information are based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by management of Mayo. Although management of Mayo believe that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking statements and information are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements and information since no assurance can be given that they will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements and information are provided for the purpose of providing information about the current expectations and plans of management of Mayo relating to the future. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such statements and information may not be appropriate for other purposes, such as making investment decisions. Since forward-looking statements and information address future events and conditions, by their very nature, they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release.

The forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release are made as of the date hereof and no undertaking is given to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements or information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless so required by applicable.

END OF PRESS RELEASE

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283369

Source: Mayo Lake Minerals Inc.
As headlines are dominated by AI-driven workforce restructuring, a deeper enterprise risk is emerging: organizations that fail to design human-AI collaboration into daily work are eroding productivity, speed, and competitiveness. Datatonic says the next phase of enterprise AI will be defined not by automation alone, but by governed, human-in-the-loop systems that turn AI into a workforce multiplier.

LONDON, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Public debate around artificial intelligence has been dominated by workforce reduction, but for enterprise leaders, the real threat is more subtle yet more damaging. Companies that fail to embed AI into human workflows are falling behind as productivity stalls; decision cycles stretch, and competitors move faster with hybrid human-AI operating models.

"AI isn't just about replacing tasks. It's about redesigning how work gets done," said Scott Eivers, CEO of Datatonic . "The biggest risk we see in the market is productivity leakage when AI exists in isolation from the people who actually run the business."

Boards and executive teams are entering 2026 under pressure to show returns on years of AI investment. Yet, according to Massachusetts Institute of Technology research reported in Fortune, as many as 95% of AI pilots are not pulling their weight. Many initiatives stay trapped in pilot mode, disconnected from core operations and governed poorly enough to limit trust among users. The result: AI systems generating insights that are never translated into action, leaving human teams to carry the same - or greater - operational burden as pre-AI times.

From Replacement Narratives to Real Collaboration

Datatonic's work with global enterprises shows that the most effective AI programs are not yet fully autonomous. Instead, they are built around human-in-the-loop (HiTL) models that combine AI's speed with human judgment, accountability, and domain expertise.

One of the most mature examples is agent-assisted software development. Enterprises have moved beyond "vibe coding," where AI generates code from loose prompts to spec-driven development models. In these environments, humans define, validate and even test the specification and execution plan before AI agents build modular features at scale, accelerating delivery without sacrificing control.

A similar pattern is emerging across finance, operations, and customer workflows.

Streamlined Data Operations: GenOps workflows, where humans and AI agents collaborate to streamline data operations. The result: less manual effort, while approvals, exception handling, and escalation stay with humans.

GenOps workflows, where humans and AI agents collaborate to streamline data operations. The result: less manual effort, while approvals, exception handling, and escalation stay with humans. Finance Automation: For back-office and finance departments, AI-driven document processing is achieving up to a 70% reduction in invoice-processing costs whilst ensuring finance teams retain approval authority and anomaly resolution.

"These aren't replacement stories," said Andrew Harding, CTO of Datatonic. "They're partnership stories. Humans create evaluation systems, validate plans, set guardrails, and make decisions. AI executes at speed and scale. That combination is where real enterprise value shows up."

Trust, Governance, and the Path to Autonomy

Despite hype around fully autonomous agents, Datatonic warns that most enterprises lack the operational maturity to deploy them safely. Critical gaps remain in agent supervision, security controls, and governance frameworks that define what AI systems can access, process, and change. Agents should operate in secure, enterprise approved shared-runtime environments which automatically mandate organisational policy whilst supporting governance and observability.

Before autonomy can scale, organizations must implement clear boundaries, approval checkpoints, and performance baselines. As models evolve, evaluation systems are essential to ensure AI continues to operate as intended, while guardrails protect against unintended actions or non-compliant outputs.

"As trust builds, companies can responsibly delegate more to AI," Harding said. "But skipping governance doesn't build speed - it creates risk."

Measuring What Matters

For enterprises under board scrutiny, success is no longer measured by novelty. Datatonic advocates for clearly documented ROI for every AI system, tied to quantifiable business outcomes, including reduced churn, faster cycle times, or measurable cost savings. Where possible, performance data should be embedded directly into agent platforms so leaders can see, in real time, whether AI is delivering on its promise.

Looking ahead 12 to 24 months, Datatonic expects enterprise work to compress from weeks to hours as agents handle preparation, analysis, and validation. Meetings will shift from status updates to decision-making. In some cases, AI agents will be used to test and invalidate ideas before teams commit resources.

"The future looks like expert departments run by smaller, nimble teams - finance, HR, marketing - each amplified by AI. It's about higher leverage." Eivers said.

Future AI Action

For enterprise and business leaders planning their next AI phase, Datatonic urges a reset: move beyond replacement narratives and invest in human-centered, governed AI systems that integrate directly into how work happens.

"The companies that win will be those that teach people to work with AI - not around it," Eivers said.

About Datatonic

Datatonic is a global Data and AI consultancy and 10-time Google Cloud Partner of the Year, helping enterprises turn data and AI into clear, measurable business outcomes. As an end-to-end partner, Datatonic drives rapid transformation across strategy, architecture, deployment, enablement, and continuous optimization, empowering organizations to scale AI impact. Learn more at datatonic.com.

References:

Gartner. Gartner Predicts Over 40% of Agentic AI Projects Will Be Canceled by End of 2027. June 25, 2025.

June 25, 2025. Estrada, Sheryl. MIT Report: 95% of Generative AI Pilots at Companies Are Failing. Fortune, Aug. 18, 2025.

Fortune, Aug. 18, 2025. IDC & Lenovo. CIO Playbook 2025: It's Time for AI-nomics. 2025.

2025. Datatonic. GenOps at Vodafone on Google Cloud. Case study.

Case study. Datatonic. Reducing Invoice Processing Costs with BigQuery, DocAI and GenAI. Case study.

Media Inquiries:

Karla Jo Helms

JOTO PR

727-777-4629

jotopr.com

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/ai-didnt-break-the-workforce-bad-implementation-did-302683793.html
Rimouski, Quebec--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Puma Exploration Inc. (TSXV: PUMA) (OTCQB: PUMXF) (the "Company" or "Puma") is pleased to announce that Canadian Copper (CSE: CCI) has agreed to fulfill all obligations outlined in the Option Agreement for the Murray Brook West Project, dated March 1, 2024 (see March 4, 2024 News Release) by issuing 1,179,090 CCI shares to Puma, thereby acquiring 100% interest in the project.

The original Option Agreement (the "Agreement") between Puma and Canadian Copper, signed on June 30, 2021 (see July 6, 2021 News Release), required a final payment of $2M CAD for Puma's copper projects. In 2024, the Agreement was amended to allow CCI to sell its interests in the Chester and Turgeon Projects while preserving its option to acquire a 100% interest in the Murray Brook West Project. In connection with the combined sale of the Turgeon and Chester Projects, Puma received cash payments totalling $970,023 CAD and 23,951,040 shares of Eastern Metals Ltd. (renamed Raptor Metals Ltd) (ASX: EMS amended to ASX: RAP) (see January 14, 2026 News Release). The outstanding balance of $589,545 CAD for Murray Brook West was agreed upon at the closing of the Turgeon Sale Agreement. At the time, the 30 VWAP for CCI shares was $ 0.50, prompting Canadian Copper to issue 1,179,090 CCI shares to Puma instead of a cash payment.

Marcel Robillard, Puma's CEO, stated, "I am very pleased to conclude this transaction with Canadian Copper. I want to thank all the parties involved in this journey, some of whom were there from the very beginning. I especially want to congratulate Simon Quick on his leadership and all he's accomplished at Canadian Copper since its inception and listing in 2021. With CCI's planned strategic acquisition of the Caribou Mine and 2026 exploration activities focused on expanding the Murray Brook deposit resource and advancing regional targets across the 18 km contiguous Caribou Horizon, Canadian Copper is well poised for success."

With the Canadian Copper transaction now closed, Puma is actively structuring the public listing of a new exploration company derived from its 84%-owned subsidiary, Murray Brook Minerals Inc. This new entity will focus on critical minerals, namely copper, silver, cobalt, bismuth and indium, supporting Puma's ongoing efforts to innovate and diversify within the resource sector. The new venture fits well within New Brunswick's newly-launched Comprehensive Minerals Strategy. At present, the proposed transaction is conceptual, and there is no guarantee it will proceed or be completed. More updates will be provided as the project moves from concept to reality.

Successful Implementation of DEAR Strategy

Since 2019, Puma has pursued its DEAR corporate strategy-Discovery, Exploration, Acquisition, and Royalties-to innovate in capital raising and limit share dilution. As the largest claim owner in Northern New Brunswick, Puma remains on the lookout for new opportunities in the region.

Asset spin-offs and current holdings

Following its gold discovery at Williams Brook in 2021, Puma spun off its base metal assets, including Murray Brook West, Chester, and Turgeon, to ensure their proper development and build long-term value.

As a result, Puma currently holds (share prices at market close on Feb. 9, 2026):

11,181,058 shares of Canadian Copper (CSE: CCI), trading at $0.71 CAD ($7.93M)

23,951,040 shares of Raptor Metals Ltd (AUX: RAP), trading at $0.059 AUD ($1.41M AUD)

2,700,000 shares of BWR Exploration Inc. (TSXV: BWR), trading at $0.02 CAD ($54.0K)

23,644,165 shares of Murray Brook Minerals (not publicly listed)

Puma also maintains the following net smelter return (NSR) royalties:

2% NSR on Murray Brook West

2% NSR on Chester West

1% NSR on Nicholas-Denys

1% NSR on Beresford Copper

2% NSR on Little Stull Lake

About Puma's Assets in New Brunswick



Puma has an impressive portfolio of prospective gold landholdings strategically located near roads and infrastructure in Northern New Brunswick, including the Williams Brook Project and the McKenzie Gold Project. Both are located near the Rocky Brook Millstream Fault ("RBMF"), a major regional structure formed during the Appalachian Orogeny and a significant control for gold deposition in the region. Puma's work to date has focused on the Williams Brook property, but prospecting and surface exploration on its other properties, particularly McKenzie Gold, have confirmed their potential for significant gold mineralization. The Williams Brook Project was optioned to Kinross Gold in October 2024.

About Puma Exploration



Puma Exploration is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on identifying and developing a pipeline of precious metals projects in New Brunswick, near Canada's Renowned Bathurst Mining Camp. Puma has a long history in Northern New Brunswick, having worked on regional projects for over 23 years.

Puma's successful exploration methodology, which combines traditional prospecting methods with detailed trenching and cutting-edge technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, has been instrumental in understanding the region's geology and associated mineralized systems. Armed with geophysical surveys, geochemical data, and consultants' expertise, Puma has developed a cost-effective exploration tool to discover gold at shallow depths and maximize drilling results.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Statements: This press release may contain forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements involve several known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements of Puma to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date the statements were made, except as required by law. Puma undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. The quarterly and annual reports, as well as the documents submitted to the securities administration, describe these risks and uncertainties.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283407

Source: Puma Exploration Inc.
Recognition at the TMT Finance Awards EMEA 2026 for Telekom Srbija Group's international corporate Eurobond demonstrates the company's leadership in global telecom finance

Telekom Srbija Group has been honoured with the Europe Telecom Deal of the Year award at the prestigious TMT Finance Awards EMEA 2026, recognising excellence in telecom financing. The award was given for its US$900 million corporate Eurobond, listed on Euronext Dublin.

The award celebrates outstanding dealmaking in the telecom sector across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The distinguished accolade highlights Telekom Srbija's strategic success in executing a high-profile international financial transaction that strengthened investor confidence and expanded the company's footprint in capital markets. This marks a significant milestone in Telekom Srbija Group's continued growth and global recognition.

Vladimir Lucic, CEO of Telekom Srbija Group, said: "We are incredibly proud that our Eurobond has been recognised as Europe Telecom Deal of the Year. This award reflects not just the success of the transaction, but the confidence global investors have in our strategy, our financial strength and our long-term vision for growth. It reinforces our commitment to innovation, financial discipline and international leadership in the telecom sector."

The US$900 million international corporate Eurobond, listed on Euronext Dublin, was issued through a syndicate of leading banks, including Bank of America, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, and more, and supported by top legal advisors, including Gecic Law and Clifford Chance, marking a significant achievement for the Group in international finance.

About the Award

The TMT Finance Awards EMEA are among the most respected accolades for dealmaking and investment in the telecom, media and technology sectors. Winners are selected by an independent panel of judges and reflect excellence across financing, M&A, and digital infrastructure transactions in EMEA.

About Telekom Srbija Group

The Telekom Srbija Group, headquartered in Serbia and operating in 13 countries across Europe and beyond (SER, BIH, MNE, CRO, SI, NMK, TUR, AUT, CH, GER, USA, NL, BE), is one of the largest and fastest-growing telecommunications operators in Southeast Europe, and a leader in digital transformation in the Western Balkans. With nearly 14 million subscribers and more than 13,000 employees, the Group provides services in four key segments: fixed telephony, mobile communications, internet, and multimedia.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260210234689/en/

Contacts:

Ivana Bajovic

ivanabajo@telekom.rs

+381 64 650 7300
LONDON, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Market Overview

Credence Research Inc. has released a new assessment of the Europe Retail Pharmacy Market, highlighting steady and resilient growth across the region. The market is projected to expand from USD 380,566.14 million in 2024 to USD 489,130.36 million by 2032, registering a CAGR of 3.19% from 2025 to 2032. This growth reflects the sector's ability to adapt to changing consumer behavior, healthcare delivery models, and regulatory environments across Europe.

Retail pharmacies remain a critical access point for prescription medicines, over-the-counter products, and primary healthcare support. Their role continues to evolve as pharmacies integrate digital tools, expand service offerings, and respond to rising healthcare needs linked to aging populations and chronic disease prevalence.

Key Growth Drivers Shaping the Market

Rising incidence of chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular conditions, and respiratory disorders remains a central driver of demand. Patients increasingly rely on retail pharmacies for regular medication access, disease monitoring support, and health consultations. At the same time, Europe's aging population continues to expand, increasing long-term demand for prescription drugs, OTC medicines, and age-related care products.

Another strong growth catalyst is the rising demand for over-the-counter medications and self-care products. Consumers across Europe are becoming more proactive in managing minor health conditions, preventive care, and wellness needs. Retail pharmacies have responded by broadening product portfolios and positioning themselves as accessible health hubs within local communities.

Digitalization and E-commerce Integration

Digital health adoption is transforming the Europe retail pharmacy landscape. Pharmacies are increasingly integrating e-commerce platforms, online prescription refills, and home delivery services to improve convenience and access. E-pharmacies and hybrid models now allow consumers to combine in-store services with online ordering and virtual consultations.

Technological integration also supports personalized medication management, digital prescriptions, and health tracking tools. These services appeal strongly to tech-aware consumers seeking faster access and greater control over healthcare decisions. The continued growth of telemedicine and mobile health applications is expected to further strengthen pharmacy relevance in Europe's digital health ecosystem.

Market Trends Influencing Competitive Positioning

Personalized healthcare services are gaining prominence as pharmacies offer tailored medication guidance, wellness consultations, and chronic disease management support. This shift enhances customer trust and strengthens long-term loyalty, particularly among elderly and chronic care patients.

Sustainability has also emerged as a key trend. Retail pharmacies across Europe are reducing plastic use, promoting eco-friendly packaging, and expanding ranges of natural and organic products. These practices align with strong consumer demand for environmentally responsible healthcare retailing.

Online pharmacy expansion continues to reshape competition. During recent years, online prescription volumes increased sharply across several European markets, reinforcing digital channels as a permanent component of pharmacy operations rather than a temporary alternative.

Browse the report and understand how it can benefit your business strategy - https://www.credenceresearch.com/report/europe-retail-pharmacy-market

Regional Market Dynamics

Western Europe accounts for the largest share of the Europe Retail Pharmacy Market, driven by countries such as Germany, the UK, France, and the Netherlands. These markets benefit from advanced healthcare systems, high spending levels, and strong adoption of digital pharmacy services. Southern Europe follows with steady growth supported by rising health awareness and increasing demand for preventive care products, despite economic pressures in some countries.

Eastern and Central Europe are emerging as growth pockets, where improving healthcare access, rising incomes, and expanding digital platforms are supporting pharmacy sector development. Regulatory diversity across the region continues to influence market pace and investment priorities.

Segmentation

Based on Type of Pharmacy

Chain Pharmacies

Independent Pharmacies

Hospital Pharmacies

Mail Order Pharmacies

Online Pharmacies

Based on Type of prescription

Prescription Drugs (Rx)

Over-the-Counter (OTC) Drugs

Based on Service offered

Medication Dispensing

Health Screenings

Vaccination Services

Consultation and Counseling

Chronic Disease Management

Based on Product Type

Generic Drugs

Branded Drugs

Based on Application

Oncology

Diabetes

Neurology

Others

Based on Customer

Paediatric

Adults

Geriatric

By Region

North America

U.S.



Canada



Mexico

Europe

Germany



France



U.K.



Italy



Spain



Rest of Europe

Asia Pacific

China



Japan



India



South Korea



South-east Asia



Rest of Asia Pacific

Latin America

Brazil



Argentina



Rest of Latin America

Middle East & Africa

GCC Countries



South Africa



Rest of the Middle East and Africa

Market Challenges and Regulatory Considerations

Regulatory complexity remains a key challenge, as pharmacy operations must comply with varying national laws governing pricing, reimbursement, advertising, and data protection. Changes in EU and country-level policies require ongoing operational adaptation and investment, particularly for cross-border operators.

Intense competition and pricing pressure also affect margins. Consumers increasingly compare prices across physical and online pharmacies, pushing retailers to balance affordability with service quality. The rise of generics and self-care products further reshapes revenue structures, encouraging pharmacies to diversify services beyond traditional dispensing.

Competitive Landscape

The Europe Retail Pharmacy Market is moderately concentrated, with established chains and expanding digital players shaping competition. Leading companies such as Boots, McKesson Europe, and Phoenix Pharmahandel maintain strong regional presence through extensive store networks, diversified product offerings, and integrated supply chains.

Global healthcare and retail groups, including CVS Health and Walgreens Boots Alliance, continue to strengthen competitive positioning by expanding digital capabilities, wellness services, and pharmacy-led care models. Independent pharmacies remain relevant by focusing on personalized service, local trust, and niche healthcare needs.

Key Player Analysis

CVS Health

Boots Walgreens

Cigna

Walmart

Kroger

Recent Industry Developments

March 2025 - Health Care Service Corporation announced the completion of its acquisition of The Cigna Group's Medicare businesses and CareAllies. Cigna reiterated it would continue providing pharmacy benefit services for an agreed post-closing period.





March 2025 - Walgreens Boots Alliance agreed to be taken private in a transaction valued at up to $24 billion, a move expected to influence the group's long-term strategy, including its UK operations.





October 2025 - CVS Health completed its acquisition of selected Rite Aid and Bartell Drugs assets, including stores and prescription files, with final transactions concluded by Sept. 30, 2025.





Future Outlook

Looking ahead, Credence Research expects digital health integration and e-pharmacy platforms to play a central role in market evolution. Preventive healthcare, wellness products, and chronic disease management services will gain importance as consumer expectations shift toward holistic health support.

The aging population will continue to drive prescription demand, while telehealth integration will reshape how pharmacies deliver advice and care. Sustainability initiatives, strategic partnerships, and selective mergers will further influence market structure as pharmacies seek scale, efficiency, and differentiation.

"Retail pharmacies in Europe are no longer just medication outlets," said a Mitul Dean senior healthcare analyst at Credence Research. "They are becoming integrated health access points that combine digital convenience, personalized care, and preventive services to meet changing consumer expectations."

Reasons to Purchase this Report:

Take an in-depth look at the market through qualitative and quantitative analyses, considering both economic and non-economic factors, with segmentation and sub-segmentation details provided in terms of market value (USD Billion).





Identify regions and segments expected to experience the fastest growth or dominate the market, with a detailed analysis of geographic consumption patterns and the factors driving or hindering market performance in each region.





Stay informed about the competitive environment, with rankings of major players, recent product and service launches, partnerships, business expansions, and acquisitions from the past five years.





Access detailed profiles of major market players, including company overviews, insights, product benchmarking, and SWOT analysis, to understand competitive advantages and market positioning.





Explore the present and forecasted market landscape, with insights into growth opportunities, market drivers, challenges, and constraints for both developed and emerging regions.





Benefit from Porter's Five Forces analysis and value chain insights to evaluate various market perspectives and competitive dynamics.





Understand the evolving market scenario, including potential growth opportunities and trends expected in the coming years.





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Strengthens Trane Technologies' position as a full-service partner for data center cooling

Scales LiquidStack's advanced liquid cooling technology, to meet next-generation high-density AI-scale workloads

Trane Technologies (NYSE: TT), a global climate innovator, announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire LiquidStack, a global leader in liquid cooling technology for data centers, headquartered in Carrollton, Texas.

LiquidStack solutions are engineered to meet the unprecedented demands of generative AI and hyperscale computing. Data centers and high-performance compute organizations rely on LiquidStack for high-density liquid, direct-to-chip and immersion cooling solutions that improve efficiency, sustainability and performance.

Building on Trane Technologies' minority investment in LiquidStack in 2023, this acquisition enhances Trane Technologies' data center thermal management solutions, spanning chillers, heat rejection, controls, liquid distribution, and on-chip cooling, and will scale LiquidStack's pioneering technology globally.

The acquisition includes LiquidStack's highly skilled global team and manufacturing, engineering and research and development operations in Texas and Hong Kong. Upon closing, LiquidStack will operate globally within the Commercial HVAC business unit of the Trane Technologies Americas segment.

"Rising chip-level power and heat densities combined with increasingly variable workloads are redefining thermal management requirements inside modern data centers," said Holly Paeper, President, Commercial HVAC Americas, Trane Technologies. "Customers need integrated cooling solutions that scale from the central plant to the chip and can adapt as performance demands continue to evolve. LiquidStack's direct-to-chip and immersion cooling capabilities and talent, combined with Trane's systems expertise and global footprint, strengthen our ability to deliver end-to-end, future-ready thermal management across the entire data center ecosystem."

LiquidStack co-founder and CEO Joe Capes will join Trane Technologies in a leadership role and will continue to lead the LiquidStack business.

"LiquidStack has been on a mission to innovate and deliver the most advanced, powerful and sustainable liquid cooling solutions," said Joe Capes, CEO, LiquidStack. "Joining Trane Technologies enables us to accelerate that mission with the resources, scale and global reach needed to power next-generation AI workloads in the most demanding compute environments. We are very excited to expand our impact and continue our growth as part of Trane Technologies."

The transaction is expected to close in early 2026, subject to closing conditions. Financial terms were not disclosed.

This bolt-on acquisition follows Trane Technologies' proven model of adding leading technologies that enhance its core businesses and scaling them to deliver strong returns over time. This follows the company's recently-announced acquisition of Stellar Energy, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2026.

About Trane Technologies

Trane Technologies is a global climate innovator. Through our strategic brands Trane and Thermo King, and our environmentally responsible portfolio of products and services, we bring efficient and sustainable climate solutions to buildings, homes, and transportation. Learn more at tranetechologies.com.

About LiquidStack

LiquidStack is the respected leader in liquid cooling for information technology hardware, telecommunications, and blockchain systems. Having pioneered the world's highest density, most efficient, and sustainable liquid cooling solution in 2012, our advanced liquid cooling solutions continue to serve as the backbone for highly scalable and environmentally safe hyperscale, colocation, neocloud, enterprise, edge, and blockchain data centers. LiquidStack's universal direct-to-chip CDUs, DataTank, EdgeTank, CryptoTank, MicroModular and MacroModular systems and services are enabling real-time advancement of computing and communications while supporting a sustainable planet. Learn more at liquidstack.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of securities laws, which are statements that are not historical facts, including statements that relate to the acquisition of LiquidStack and the anticipated impact of the transaction on the Company's strategic initiatives and sustainability commitments. These forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. Factors that could cause such differences can be found in our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, as well as our subsequent reports on Form 10-Q and other SEC filings. New risks and uncertainties arise from time to time, and it is impossible for us to predict these events or how they may affect the Company. We assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260209846233/en/

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Media Contact:

Travis Bullard

+1 919-802-2593

Media@tranetechnologies.com

Investors Contact:

Zachary Nagle

+1-704-990-3913

InvestorRelations@tranetechnologies.com
A new generation of AI-powered robots moving from research labs into the real world is fueled by AI tech companies and analysts forecasting a multitrillion-dollar market. The vision is to give artificial intelligence its own robot body. What are the trends, challenges, and commercial applications? The International Federation of Robotics has released its new positioning paper "AI in Robotics".

"AI is transforming the field of robotics at a rapid pace," says Takayuki Ito, President of the International Federation of Robotics. "Integrating AI into robotics enhances capabilities, increases efficiency and improves adaptability. This development is transforming AI from a supporting technology into a powerful enabler, opening the door to wider robot adoption across industries."

New Vision for AI in Robotics

Robot and chip manufacturers recently are investing in dedicated hardware and software that simulate real-world environments. This so-called Physical AI allows robots to train themselves in virtual environments and operate by experience, rather than programming. The excitement about embodied AI has drawn attention from major tech players and governments around the world.

In the United States, companies like Amazon, Tesla, and NVIDIA have announced record-breaking investments. Venture capital is pouring into a growing ecosystem of startups focused on specialized robot applications.

In Europe, ABB announced it had signed an agreement to divest its robotics division to Japan's SoftBank Group, combining ABB Robotics' with SoftBank's capabilities in AI.

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) announced a dedicated action plan to accelerate embodied AI, positioning it as "future industry" critical to China's economic transformation.

Outlook

Over the next five to ten years, AI is expected to be widely adopted in various robotics applications. Because AI increases efficiency, reduces errors, and maintenance costs, companies often see a quicker return on investment (ROI) compared to non-AI systems.

Content overview

How AI is supporting robotics Industries at the forefront AI is reshaping work Macroeconomic Trends impacting AI Safety and security for AI in Robotics

FREE DOWNLOAD "AI in Robotics" position paper by IFR

https://ifr.org/papers/download

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Contacts:

Press contact

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PRESS OFFICER

Carsten Heer

phone +49 (0) 40 822 44 284

E-Mail: press@ifr.org
NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESS Newswire / February 10, 2026 / Environment, Health, Safety and Sustainability conferences offer a chance to break out of busy routines and devote time to expanding knowledge and freshening perspectives. And there's no better time to connect with people who uniquely understand the challenges and rewards of working in this important industry.

The slate of EHS&S conferences taking place in 2026 across the United States is packed with expert speakers, inspiring topics, and opportunities to connect with peers who are also working to create a safer and healthier world. Put these key events on your calendar for the coming year.

GREENBIZ 26

Dates: February 17-19, 2026

Location: Phoenix, Arizona

Event Details: Join the dynamic GreenBiz community to harness the knowledge of experts, peers and new voices to help you learn what's next in decarbonization, biodiversity, supply chains, strategic communications, and more. Join 2,500 professionals and accelerate your career with connection, sharing, and learning.

Website: https://trellis.net/events/greenbiz/

(Image Credit: Trellis.net)

REUTERS RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS USA 2026

Dates: May 5-6, 2026

Location: Boston, Massachusetts

EventDetails: Sustainable business is now the imperative. Rising pressures for immediate sustainable action and leadership, increasing legal risks, and complex financial realities are making the effective integration of sustainability across all functions fundamental to long-term business success.

This event brings together CEOs, senior sustainability, legal, communications and finance executives to share their actionable ideas and insights on how to collaborate, communicate, and comply to ensure your organization leads on sustainable action. Join to gain the tools to successfully integrate sustainability across core functions, master reporting efficiently and effectively, and engage with key stakeholders for maximum impact.

Website:?https://events.reutersevents.com/sustainable-business/responsible-business-usa

(Image Credit: Reuters)

NAEM OPEX26 + TECH26 - EHS Operational Excellence & EHS + ESG Data & Reporting Conference

Date: April 14-16, 2026

Location: St. Petersburg, Florida

EventDetails: NAEM's OPEX26 EHS Operational Excellence conference focuses on EHS management strategies and leading best practices to reduce risk, embed compliance into your business culture, and reach new levels of operational excellence. NAEM's EHS+ESG Conference brings together corporate "in-house" leaders focused on EHS and sustainability outcomes and ESG reporting with the marketplace of software, digital solutions, and technology providers.

Website: https://www.naem.org/events/

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2026?AIHA Connect



Date: June 1-3, 2026

Location: New Orleans, Louisiana

EventDetails: Since 1939, AIHA's annual conference has been vital for occupational health and safety professionals. Targeting a broad audience, AIHA Connect provides knowledge through sessions, lectures, demonstrations, and development courses, ensuring participants can protect worker health and improve workplace safety.

Website:?https://aihaconnect.org/

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Alliance for Water Stewardship 10th Global Water Stewardship Forum

Dates: June 23-24, 2026

Location: Edinburgh, Scotland

Event Details: The AWS Global Water Stewardship Forum is a key event in which AWS community of members, implementers, and stakeholders share knowledge and learning on the evolution of water stewardship practice and forge new directions through dialogue and partnerships. Held in Edinburgh, Scotland, since 2016, it has become the must-attend event for the international water stewardship community.

Website: https://a4ws.org/global-water-stewardship-forum/

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WORLD WATER WEEK 2026

Dates: August 23-27, 2026

Location: Stockholm, Sweden, and Online

Event Details: For over 30 years, the Stockholm International Water Institute has organized World Water Week. World Water Week 2026 is focused on Water for People and Progress.

Website: https://www.worldwaterweek.org/

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VPPPA's 2026 Safety+ Symposium

Dates: August 30-September 2, 2026

Location: Nashville, Tennessee

Event Details: For over 30 years, the VPPPA Safety + Symposium is the only national educational event for VPP worksites to achieve and maintain safety and health excellence. Attendees will have a unique opportunity to interact and directly learn from other safety professionals, industry leaders and federal agencies. Interaction with these safety professionals will help improve your company's safety program through educational seminars, round-table discussions, and collaboration with other safety professionals.

Website: http://safety.vpppa.org/

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2026 NATIONAL SAFETY COUNCIL CONGRESS & EXPO

Dates: September 11-17, 2026

Location: Indianapolis, Indiana

Event Details: For more than 100 years, safety, health and environmental professionals have turned to the world's largest annual safety event for industry-leading technology, education, networking opportunities and the tried-and-true products and services needed to stay at the forefront and remain competitive within the industry.

Website: https://www.congress.nsc.org/NSC2026/Public/Enter.aspx

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SUSTAINABLE BRANDS: SB'26

Dates: June 8-10, 2026

Location: San Diego, California

Event Details: Sustainable Brands '26 is a global event for regenerative brands and leaders. According to their website, "For more than 17 years, Sustainable Brands (SB), a female-founded Public Benefit Corporation, has convened a community of courageous optimists reshaping the future of commerce worldwide. SB is where purpose, credibility, and authenticity meet - and also where today's business and brand leaders come to learn, get inspired, and engage with one another to share new ideas that can help them deliver sustainable business value through innovation for environmental and social benefit."

Website:?https://events.sustainablebrands.com/conferences/sustainablebrands/

(Image Credit: Sustainable Brands)

FORUM26: NAEM EHS & SUSTAINABILITY MANAGEMENT FORUM

Dates: October 12-14, 2026

Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota

Event Details: NAEM's EHS & Sustainability Management Forum is the largest annual gathering for environment, health and safety, and sustainability (EHS&S) decision-makers. Join your peers from leading companies, get exposed to new ideas, and come away energized and ready to implement what you've learned.

Website:?https://www.naem.org/events/read/2026/10/12/conferences-events/forum26-ehs-sustainability-management-forum

(Image Credit: NAEM)

Looking for a different type of conference? Contact us or check out our news and webinar pages to see what Antea Group is up to.

View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Antea Group on 3blmedia.com.

Contact Info:

Spokesperson: Antea Group

Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/antea-group

Email: info@3blmedia.com

SOURCE: Antea Group

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/business-and-professional-services/the-best-ehs-and-sustainability-conferences-to-attend-in-2026-1135532
JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA / ACCESS Newswire / February 10, 2026 / The 2026 tax filing season began Monday, January 26, and everybody is expecting bigger refunds this year due to the 2025 tax changes. In the prior filing season, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) processed over 140 million individual returns, with roughly 60% of taxpayers receiving refunds averaging around $3,000.

The dramatic increase stems largely from retroactive tax benefits included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) . Notable changes include temporary federal tax deductions for tipped wages and overtime hours, as well as an expected higher standard deduction for the 2026 tax year and beyond.

The law also created a $10,000 maximum annual deduction for auto loan interest on new vehicles with final assembly in the United States, which includes many foreign-brand vehicles. However, the deduction only applies to new vehicles (not used), loans (not leases), and personal use (not business). It also phases out for taxpayers with incomes above $100,000 for single filers or $200,000 for joint filers.

It seems like the most significant relief is reaching service and manufacturing workers who regularly earn tips or long overtime hours. Workers can now deduct up to $25,000 in tipped income and $12,500 (single filers) in overtime taxable wages. In other words, that's meaningful savings for hourly employees nationwide. For example, a restaurant server who worked double shifts and accumulated significant tips throughout the year previously faced a hefty tax bill. Now, by deducting a portion of this income, they retain more of their hard-earned money, enabling better financial planning and more disposable income for essentials or small luxuries.

The expanded standard deduction provides additional relief throughout various income brackets, while the auto loan interest deduction offers particular value to families with debt on American-made vehicles. Combined, these provisions represent a major policy shift that benefits working households.

The marketing team at Priority Tire recently conducted comprehensive research to understand how consumers are spending their tax refunds. They surveyed around 5,000 customers nationwide, and the findings show that most recipients are directing funds toward everyday necessities, such as groceries and household essentials.

Strategic household investments are also gaining traction among recipients. For example, travel seems to be making a notable comeback, with approximately 20% more vacation and trip reservations compared to last spring. This suggests that families feel more financially comfortable spending on leisure after several years of a constrained budget.

However, one of the most striking trends is in automotive maintenance. The survey data revealed that consumers are prioritizing the two elements most critical to vehicle safety: new tires and brake system improvements.

"We're seeing customers who've been putting off maintenance finally able to take care of their vehicles," said a Priority Tire representative. "It's rewarding to help them address safety concerns they've had to delay, so they can drive with confidence knowing their cars will stay reliable for years to come."

Additionally, the data suggest that the combination of larger refunds and the new auto loan deduction provides both the financial capacity and the incentive for vehicle owners to maintain their existing vehicles rather than put off important safety repairs.

?The deadline for filing 2025 tax returns falls on Wednesday, April 15, 2026. The IRS expects to process more than 164 million individual tax returns this filing season, which is among the highest totals recorded. Tax officials strongly encourage electronic filing combined with direct deposit, as this ensures refunds arrive within the typical 21-day processing period. However, it's important for filers to be aware of common refund delays caused by errors in their submissions or by the need for additional identity verification. Paper filings can greatly extend wait times, especially during peak submission weeks.

As filing season continues through mid-April, similar spending patterns are predicted as more households receive their refunds and determine how best to allocate the additional funds.

Contact: Daniel Stipic

Phone: (484) 588-5293

E-mail: daniel@prioritytire.com

SOURCE: Priority Tire

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/automotive/new-2026-tax-relief-sparks-wave-of-household-and-vehicle-spending-1135495
TIRANA, Albania, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Today marks the one-year anniversary of Mayor Erion Veliaj's unjust and unlawful detention by the Special Structure Against Corruption and Organized Crime ("SPAK") in Albania. Over the past 365 days, Mayor Veliaj's case has become the prime example of Albania's overuse and abuse of pre-trial detention. Mayor Veliaj has been detained despite a clear absence of evidence that he is a flight risk, would obstruct justice, or would or could re-commit the alleged crimes of which he had been accused.

In the past year, Mayor Veliaj's case has emerged as a glaring example of how nascent democracies like Albania's can trample on an individual's basic due process rights through a flawed political persecution.

From February to July last year, Mayor Veliaj was detained without even being charged with the actual crimes for which he was held in custody.

In September, his detention was cited by the Municipal Council of Tirana as the basis on which it sought to remove him from his position as Mayor - a maneuver apparently aimed at disenfranchising the voters of Tirana who had elected him to three terms.

Just last month, Mayor Veliaj - who has chosen to defend himself against SPAK's charges - was completely denied access to over 60,000 pages of evidence from which he can prepare and mount a defense at trial.

Recently, SPAK prosecutors have argued that Mayor Veliaj's continued detention in jail is justified because he relied on U.S. counsel to advocate for him when it became obvious that he could not feasibly do so himself. This is not due process; it is punishment for advocacy and a blatant violation of his right to defend himself.

"From day one, this case has been a political persecution marred with outrageous abuses of due process. Today marks a full year of this continuing injustice," said Daniel J. Fetterman, a partner in the law firm of Kasowitz and one of Mayor Veliaj's international counsel. "Mayor Veliaj's case has all of the earmarks of a political show trial and his treatment falls well below any acceptable U.S. and European standards of fairness, due process, and justice."

But there are signs that Mayor Veliaj's treatment isn't going unnoticed. In November of last year, the Constitutional Court rejected the Municipal Council's attempt to remove Mayor Veliaj from office, affirming his mandate and ensuring that he remains the Mayor until 2027. Albanian media outlets have identified the punitive nature of SPAK's approach to Mayor Veliaj, calling it a "repressive mentality" akin to a "new Chinese revolution" that relies on sponsored propaganda to justify civil rights abuses. Foreign outlets, like the EU Reporter, have echoed similar sentiments, observing the "slow unravelling of Albania's justice system" in a case that "shows clear signs of political motivation" falling "well short of European standards." And in December, the Albanian Ombudsman - the People's Advocate - issued a report finding that the security measures governing Mayor Veliaj's medical treatment in detention were unreasonable and violated his privacy.

Notably, the international community has publicly recognized the flaws in Mayor Veliaj's ongoing pre-trial detention. 76 Mayors and Representatives of the "B40 Balkan Cities Network" - who hail from political parties and backgrounds across the ideological spectrum - issued a joint letter denouncing the detention of Mayor Veliaj. They adopted a finding in the 2025 Venice Commission Report of the Council of Europe that "the use of pretrial detention against sitting mayors constitutes a serious risk to democratic governance" because it "effectively disenfranchises citizens by sidelining their chosen representatives without due process."

Mayor Veliaj's detention must end. Continuing to detain Mayor Veliaj and denying him fundamental due process rights like the ability to review the evidence against him betrays Albania's democratic promise, casts serious doubt on the progress of its reforms, and may jeopardize its EU accession goals.

Global leaders, democratic organizations, and the media should continue to keep the spotlight on this injustice and demand Erion Veliaj's immediate release from pre-trial detention.

Contact: Shannon O'Reilly, (212-547-1290, soreilly@kasowitz.com)

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Powered by Elevate, CIX Startup Awards is the Largest National Showcase of Canada's Most Innovative Emerging, Early, and Growth-Stage Startups

TORONTO, ON / ACCESS Newswire / February 10, 2026 / Elevate has announced the 2026 CIX Startup Awards winners: fourteen exceptional Canadian startups from across the country making an impact in health, climate, defence, fintech and marketing. Over half are impact ventures and three-quarters have female founders or C-level executives. The winners were selected from a pool of over 370 applications, reviewed by 94 leading North American investors.

These award recipients will present in person at the CIX Summit on March 25, 2026 at the Design Exchange in Toronto, connecting with 600+ investors, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders from across North America's technology ecosystem.

The 2026 CIX Startup Award Recipients :

Emerging Category Recipients:

PRE Inc. (Marketing Tech)- Toronto, ON

Sonaro (Healthtech)- Montreal, QC

Cashew Research (Marketing Tech)- Calgary, AB

Elle, MD Biotechnologies (Healthtech)- New Minas, NS

Xubin Aerospace (Defense Tech)- Oakville, ON

Early Category Recipients:

Qidni Labs (Medtech)- Kitchener, ON

WeavAir (Climate Tech)- Toronto, ON

Pontosense (Medtech)- Toronto, ON

MedMe Health (Healthtech)- Toronto, ON

LiORA (Climate Tech)- Calgary, AB

Growth Category Recipients:

Venn (Fintech)- Toronto, ON

Eavor Technologies (Climate Tech)- Calgary, AB

Loopio (Sales Automation)- Toronto, ON

Hiive (Fintech)- Vancouver, BC

A 19-Year Legacy of Celebrating Canada's Tech Leaders

Over the last 18 years, CIX's awards program has elevated Canada's most promising startups to an international audience. This year's fourteen winners join an illustrious alumni list including Brim Financial, Float Financial, SRTX, ApplyBoard, Clio, League, Wealthsimple, Ada, and Dapper Labs.

The CIX Selection Committee , comprised of over 90 esteemed investors including representatives from Altos Ventures, Antler, Forum Ventures, Inovia Capital, Golden Ventures, Mighty Capital, Panache Ventures, and White Star Capital, evaluated more than 370 submissions, based on six criteria: Business Model, Quality of Offering, Innovation, Market Opportunity, Management Depth, and Leadership team Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. To avoid bias, a minimum of 15 investor judges evaluated each application.

"It is a challenging time for entrepreneurs, and so it was wonderful to see the quality of this year's CIX winners," said Neha Kera, Managing Partner at Innovobot Resonance Ventures and CIX Startup Awards Co-Chair. "We are eager to see what else they will accomplish in the years to come, and I hope everyone can learn more about them at CIX".

"The competition was intense with over 350 applicants, and our selection committee did a stellar job in selecting the winners," said Matthew Leibowitz, Managing General Partner, Plaza Ventures and CIX Startup Awards Co-Chair. "We're thrilled to shine a spotlight on this year's recipients and can't wait to meet them at CIX Summit."

A Critical Platform in Challenging Times

Amid ongoing trade tensions between the USA and Canada and the lowest level of Canadian VC investment since 2020, the CIX Summit remains steadfast in its commitment to strengthen Canada's startup ecosystem. The March 25 program facilitates crucial connections between Canadian founders and North American investors while featuring discussions with Canadian unicorn startup leaders who have lessons to share with others taking the same path.

What to Expect at CIX Summit 2026

The program includes founder pitches, networking sessions, interactive roundtables, and 1-on-1 meetings between founders and investors.

Meeting Exchanges: Over 75 investors from across North America will take 1:1 meetings with founders. As each investor will take multiple meetings, there are over 450 meeting opportunities at this year's Summit.

CIX Investor Forum: A closed-door, exclusive gathering of North American VCs and LPs to network and have off-the-record conversations on the latest trends shaping early-stage and growth investing.

CIX Founder Forum: Practical guidance on raising your seed round with confidence, structuring your cap table to maintain control as you scale, and unlocking non-dilutive capital to extend runway without giving up equity.

Secure Early Bird tickets before February 26, 2026 at CIXSummit.com

About Elevate

Elevate is a Canadian non-profit that unites world-class innovators to catalyze transformation in the Canadian tech ecosystem. Through year-round programs and events, including the annual Elevate Festival and CIX Summit , Elevate places a spotlight on Canadian innovation, facilitates global connections with startups and investors, and inspires Canadians to embrace a go-for-gold mentality to help shape the future of the Canadian innovation economy. Elevate has hosted global icons such as First Lady & Author Michelle Obama, Businesswoman & TV personality Martha Stewart, CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman, Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and U.S. Vice President Al Gore, each of whom has inspired millions of people. Learn more at Elevate.ca .

Media can apply for a media pass and access more images by visiting https://cixsummit.com/press-room.

For award winner and CIX Summit interview inquiries, please contact: Amanda Connon-Unda, Senior Director, Marketing and Communications, Elevate: amanda@elevate.ca

SOURCE: Elevate

the-2026-cix-startup-award-recipients

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/business-and-professional-services/fourteen-of-canadas-top-startups-named-as-2026-cix-startup-award-1134859
TORONTO, ON / ACCESS Newswire / February 10, 2026 / Predictiv AI Inc. (CSE:PAI)(FWB:7IT) (the "Company" or "Predictiv AI"), is pleased to announce the establishment of the Company's Asia Regional Office, to support commercial engagement, partnerships, and implementation activities across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

The establishment of the Asia Regional Office follows the Company's completion of its Reverse Takeover (RTO) and commencement of public trading, and is designed to support Predictiv AI's ongoing international business development and operational activities.

Purpose of the Asia Regional Office

The Asia Regional Office has been established to support Predictiv AI's regional engagement with enterprise customers, government stakeholders, academic institutions, and strategic partners. The office is designed to facilitate regional coordination, implementation support, and partnership development related to the Company's vertical AI platforms. The Asia Regional Office will operate as a regional coordination and engagement hub supporting business development, partnerships, and implementation activities.

"Establishing a regional presence in Asia is a practical step in aligning our technical capabilities with the markets we serve," said Suman Pushparajah, Chief Executive Officer of Predictiv AI. "This expansion strengthens our ability to work closely with partners, support implementation activities, and ensure our AI solutions are deployed in a responsible and operationally effective manner."

Regional Leadership

The Asia Regional Office will be led by Dr. Subha Fernando, a senior academic and researcher who currently serves as Professor in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Moratuwa.

Dr. Fernando holds a Doctor of Engineering (Dr.Eng) from Nagaoka University of Technology, Japan, and brings extensive academic and applied research experience in learning systems, autonomous agent systems, and optimization, with work spanning multiple business domains and industry verticals. Her career includes peer-reviewed research as well as collaborative, application-driven initiatives across both academic and industry environments.

Commenting on the appointment, Dr. Fernando noted, "Successful AI adoption depends on aligning technical models with operational realities. The objective of this role is to support practical, scalable AI implementation through close collaboration with industry and institutional partners."

Academic Appointments Supporting Applied AI Capabilities

In connection with the Asia Regional Office, Predictiv AI has engagedtwo senior academic professionals to support applied research and implementation activities across hardware-integrated AI systems and healthcare-focused reasoning models, including early-stage solution validation in collaboration with enterprise and public-sector stakeholders.

B.H. Sudantha, Specialist- IoT & Intelligent Embedded Systems

The Company has appointed B.H. Sudantha, Senior Lecturer and Former Dean of the Faculty of Information Technology at the University of Moratuwa, as Specialist - IoT, Embedded Systems, and Smart Intelligent Systems.

Sudantha has academic and applied experience in electronics, embedded systems, IoT, smart sensor networks, and edge computing, and has participated in and led research initiatives involving environmental monitoring, IoT and Embedded systems, and real-time data acquisition. His background includes academic leadership roles and prior industry experience in telecommunications systems.

Dr. Visula Abeysuriya, Specialist- Small Language Models (SLMs) & Expert Reasoning (Health Sector)

The Company has also appointed Dr. Visula Abeysuriya, Senior Lecturer in Immunology and Biostatistics at the University of Colombo, as Specialist- Small Language Models (SLMs) & Expert Reasoning, with a focus on healthcare-related applications.

Dr. Abeysuriya is a medical doctor (MBBS) and holds advanced academic qualifications in public health, epidemiology, biostatistics, and applied statistical modeling, including a PhD in Public Health. His professional background includes clinical practice, epidemiological research, and academic publications related to infectious diseases, immunology, and health outcomes analysis.

International Operations

The Company believes that regions across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East continue to represent areas of interest for AI adoption across sectors including infrastructure, healthcare, mobility, and enterprise systems. The Asia Regional Office is designed to support coordination and engagement activities related to these regions; however, the timing, scope, and outcomes of any related initiatives remain subject to market conditions, regulatory considerations, and other factors.

About Predictiv AI Inc.



Predictiv AI Inc. is a Canadian artificial intelligence company focused on developing vertical AI applications for defined industries. The Company's products address fleet operations and communications, including fleet management software, AI-based agents for voice, chat, and SMS, and tools designed to support structured operational workflows. For more information, please visit www.predictiv.ai.

Company Contact



Suman Pushparajah

Chief Executive Officer & Director

416-388-8886

Forward-Looking Statements



This news release includes forward looking statements that are subject to assumptions, risks and uncertainties. Statements in this news release which are not purely historical are forward looking statements, including without limitation any statements concerning the expected future operating performance of the Company's business. Although the Company believes that any forward-looking statements in this news release are reasonable, there can be no assurance that any such forward looking statements will prove to be accurate. The Company cautions readers that all forward looking statements, are based on assumptions none of which can be assured and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such risks and uncertainties and should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

The forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release are made as of the date hereof and no undertaking is given to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements or information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless so required by applicable securities laws or the CSE. The forward-looking statements or information contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.

SOURCE: Predictiv AI, Inc.

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/computers-technology-and-internet/predictiv-ai-establishes-asia-regional-office-to-support-expansio-1135542
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Nevada Organic Phosphate (CSE: NOP) (OTCQB: NOPFF) is pleased to announce that the company is presenting a live virtual corporate update hosted by Existing Agency Inc. on February 17 at 3pm ET.

Existing Agency invites current shareholders, and all interested parties to register for the webinar and participate in the live Q&A session at the end of the presentation moderated by Existing Agency Inc.

The replay will be emailed out to all webinar registrants proceeding the event and will also be available on the Existing website.

For more information and to register: https://weareexisting.short.gy/nevada-organic-webinar

Commodities to be covered: Phosphate





Upcoming February 17 Nevada Organic Phosphate webinar

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/11851/283414_4e3d535914aea893_001full.jpg

About Nevada Organic Phosphate

A junior exploration company with an organic sedimentary raw rock phosphate bed, 6.6 kilometres long, in northeast Nevada. Additional applications extend the potential strike of rock phosphate to over 30 kilometres. This is believed to be the only known large-scale organic sedimentary phosphate project in North America. It is situated close to the main highway to Montello/Elko, Nevada, and near the rail head to California.

About Existing Agency Inc.

Existing Agency is a creative and digital agency dedicated to fuelling innovation, impact, and influence. As collaborative media strategists and brand builders, we combine visionary creativity with data-driven insights to craft impactful solutions across social media management, content creation, paid amplification, design, branding, video production, and web development. From mining companies to consumer-packaged goods brands, we work seamlessly across sectors to bring ideas to life through strategy-backed storytelling. With an in-house team handling everything from audience research and community growth to video production and website delivery, we empower brands to connect meaningfully, engage effectively, and grow sustainably.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283414

Source: Existing Agency Inc.
Expanding Service Capabilities and Strengthening Nationwide Support

GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA / ACCESS Newswire / February 10, 2026 / Michelli Weighing & Measurement ('Michelli') announced the acquisition of Greenville Scale Company ('GSC'), a respected provider of scale service, calibration, sales, and weighing system development in South Carolina and the surrounding region. This strategic acquisition supports Michelli's continued growth and expands its ability to serve customers with enhanced technical expertise and broader geographic reach.

For over 90 years, GSC has set the standard for excellence in the scale industry and built a strong reputation for quality, service, and accuracy. With locations in Greenville, Lexington and Charleston, South Carolina, GSC is known for customer commitment, integrity, and technical expertise.

"We're excited to welcome Greenville Scale Company to the Michelli Weighing & Measurement family," said Bobby Feigler, CEO of Michelli. "Greenville Scale has built an outstanding reputation in our industry. Their commitment to service and to their customers' success closely mirrors our own. This merger strengthens our ability to support customers across the Southeast while preserving the invaluable local expertise that the GSC team has cultivated over the years."

"We're excited to join the Michelli family and combine our strengths," said Bert Baxter, General Manager, Greenville Scale Company. "We've spent over 90 years building strong relationships with our customers and a reputation for quality service. Joining Michelli allows us to preserve that legacy while gaining access to expanded resources and expertise that will benefit both our employees and our customers."

Founded in 1947, Michelli Weighing & Measurement provides calibration, repair and service, in addition to equipment sales, for a wide range of precision and industrial weighing systems. Through this acquisition, Michelli further strengthens its technical expertise and service network as it continues to expand its national presence.

Drew Gilbert, Partner, Summit Park, added: "This acquisition is a strong strategic fit for Michelli. Greenville Scale expands our footprint in key Southeast markets while reinforcing our long-term vision of building a best-in-class measurement organization with a nationwide footprint to support our customers."

Both companies will continue operating under their current brands during the transition period, with a full rebrand of Greenville Scale Company planned for 2027. Together, Michelli and Greenville Scale Company will leverage their combined experience and resources to deliver unmatched service, quality, and value to customers.

For sales or service inquiries, contact info@Michelli.com or visit www.Michelli.com/contact to find your nearest location.

About Michelli Weighing & Measurement

Michelli Weighing & Measurement provides service, calibration, equipment sales, and rentals from 47 service areas across 18 states. Since 1947, Michelli has been a trusted expert in scales and precision measurement equipment. The company offers top-quality measurement solutions ranging from precision instruments to industrial weighing systems, including both standard NIST-traceable and ISO 17025-accredited calibration services. On-site, mobile, and in-lab service options are available.

SOURCE: Michelli Weighing & Measurement

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/industrial-and-manufacturing/michelli-weighing-and-measurement-announces-acquisition-of-greenville-1134867
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Atomic Minerals Corporation (TSXV: ATOM) ("Atomic Minerals" or the "Company") announces the signing of the contract to undertake an airborne gradient magnetometer survey at its 26,073.5 hectare Mozzie Lake uranium project located in northern Saskatchewan.

Main Points

Atomic has executed the geophysical contract with Axiom Exploration Group Ltd., a multi-faceted geological and geophysical consulting group based in Saskatoon and delivered the deposit for survey commencement prior to month end

The survey will be helicopter gradient magnetics totaling 2963 line km at 100m line spacing

Upon completion of the survey Axiom will also complete a 3D inversion of the magnetics data

"We are pleased to kick of our 2026 exploration season with airborne magnetics at Mozzie Lake. The objective of the survey is to identify the structures and units hosting the uranium and then trace them along strike and also look for repeats within the plus 26,000 hectare property. Follow-up ground truthing and prospecting is also fully-funded and will commence as soon as conditions permit," stated Clive Massey, President and Chief Executive Officer.

The Mozzie Lake project lies within the Pinkham Lake zone of the Charlebois-Higgingson Lake uranium district approximately 25 kilometres northeast of the Athabasca basin. Two programs of diamond drilling in 1967 and 1968 identified an historic estimate of 208,300 tons grading 0.118 per cent triuranium octoxide, approximately 491,588 pounds of U3O8 within pegmatite intrusions.

The historic estimate was disclosed in Kings Resources Company Exploration - 1968 Permit 3 Area Athabasca Mining District, Saskatchewan by B.G. Gislason and C.M Trigg Dated November 1968. The Company feels the historic estimate is relevant because it speaks to the potential of the Mozzie Lake property and reliable as it was completed to the standards of the day by competent geologists. The historic estimate appears to be calculated from cross sections, under the assumption that the pegmatite bodies hosting the mineralization are conformable with the enclosing rock. Only mineralized sections grading 0.05 per cent U308 or greater were included in the calculation. The historic estimates are classified as drill indicated, which would be comparable to an inferred resource. The Company would need to twin a number of the 1967 and 1968 drill holes to move the historic estimate to an inferred resource.

Atomic Minerals cautions investors a qualified person has not done sufficient work to classify the historical estimate as current mineral resources and further cautions that the Company is not treating the historical estimate as current mineral resources.

R. Tim Henneberry, PGeo (British Columbia), an adviser to the Company, is the qualified person under National Instrument 43-101 responsible for the technical contents of this news release and has approved the disclosure of the technical information contained herein.

About the Company

Atomic Minerals Corporation is a publicly listed exploration company on the TSXV, trading under the symbol ATOM, led by a highly skilled management and technical team with a proven track record in the junior mining sector. Atomic's objective is to identify exploration opportunities in regions that have been previously overlooked but are geologically similar to those with previous uranium discoveries. These underexplored areas hold immense potential and are in stable geopolitical and economic environments.

The Company's property portfolio includes assets with significant technical merit in three proven uranium districts. ATOM holds the Lisbon Valley, Harts Point, 10 Mile and Dolores projects on the prolific Colorado Plateau, southwestern United States, with historic production of 597 million pounds of U3O8. The Company holds the Mozzie Lake project, with its historic resource, in the prolific Athabasca region of Saskatchewan, Canada and holds the Mount Laurier property in Otish Mountain District of Quebec, Canada.

For additional information about the Company and its projects, please visit our website at www.atomicminerals.ca.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor their Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Statements:

This news release contains certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking" statements. Forward looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in forward looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by law, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283418

Source: Atomic Minerals Corp.
Legacy Modernization That Accelerates, Secures, and Scales

BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI / ACCESS Newswire / February 10, 2026 / Sanciti AI, a next generation AI product and Solutions company is proud to announce the launch of LEGMOD Agentic AI, a groundbreaking legacy modernization solution powered by the Sanciti AI platform. LEGMOD is designed to modernize legacy applications into new technologies that are scalable, cloud enabled and efficient. This is achieved by Sanciti AI's orchestration of a series of agents driven by the LEGMOD Agent. LEGMOD not only modernizes old code, it also removes security vulnerabilities, generates test scripts and builds the complete set of documentation.

LEGMOD was built with medium and large enterprises in mind who are faced with massive technical debt from old technologies, old code without documentation or knowledge of the functions within the application due to turnover and poor documentation of business requirements. Many modernization initiatives fail or fall behind because IT Teams upgrading these systems do not fully understand the business requirements, nor do they have the tools to analyze which features or functions are really being used and needed for the business in today's world. LEGMOD replaces cumbersome and costly analysis with Gen AI agents such as RGEN Agent which will ingest the old code, any old documentation and provide a business summary, extract detailed technology stack, data model and more. By embedding Sanciti's Agentic AI directly into the modernization delivery model, modernization can be achieved faster, cost effectively and securely. This approach ensures transparency, intelligence, and security across the entire modernization lifecycle, providing senior management with the visibility needed to make informed decisions and achieve predictable outcomes.

Our AI-driven model is different because AI is not an add-on; it is embedded into how we work. Utilizing the Sanciti AI ecosystem, we enable organizations to move forward with confidence rather than being forced to start from scratch. A Scientific, Data-Driven Approach to Modernization, LEGMOD utilizes a comprehensive, five-pillar approach to ensure predictable outcomes:

Portfolio Intelligence & Application Mining: LEGMOD builds an intelligence codebase from the ground up using actual code rather than documentation. This provides full visibility into application portfolios, complexity scoring, and dependency mapping.

Wave Planning & Business Case Optimization: Applications are grouped into modernization waves based on business criticality, compliance risk, and value potential, providing a clear roadmap and cost vs. savings projections.

Re-Engineering & Architecture Design: The solution supports the creation of future-state architectures and user stories aligned with cloud-native and microservices designs.

Migration & Testing: Leveraging Sanciti AI's SDLC capabilities, LEGMOD accelerates efforts such as COBOL-to-Java modernization while significantly improving quality and reducing manual effort.

Application Retirement: For systems ready to be decommissioned, LEGMOD ensures safe archival and compliant end-of-life documentation.

"In today's enterprise world, AI is key to success in technology. With LEGMOD and the orchestration of other agents on Sanciti AI, we are helping our clients move away from risky, one-size-fits-all transformations to modernize strategically with a focus on value, speed, and measurable outcomes." States Varchasvi Shankar, President/CEO of V2Soft, "By embedding Sanciti AI directly into our delivery model, we provide the intelligence and transparency needed to transform outdated systems into modern, AI-ready platforms without disrupting core operations, allowing organizations to move forward with confidence while saving up to 50% on development effort."

Why LEGMOD Agent?

Code-Based Intelligence vs. Tribal Knowledge

Predictability over Guesswork

Agentic AI Collaboration

Comprehensive Lifecycle Coverage

Measurable Efficiency Gains

Enterprise-Grade Security

Scalability Across Portfolios

Realizing measurable enterprise value through Sanciti AI's leading generative AI framework, clients can save up to 50% on development effort and achieve a faster time-to-market. The platform's agents, including RGEN for requirements extraction and TESTAI for autonomous testing, CODEGEN for Code Generation to ensure that modernized systems are high-quality and secure from day one.

Sanciti AI is a subsidiary of V2Soft, a 27-year-old Michigan Technology company.

About V2Soft

V2Soft is a CMMI 3 and ISO 27001,45001, 14001 certified, global technology leader, headquartered in Michigan. With offices in six countries and a portfolio of over 1,000 clients. V2Soft provides innovative AI solutions across industries including Automotive, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Finance, Retail, Government and Energy.

Media Contact

Raymond Drzala, Global Marketing Director, V2Soft, Inc., +1 248-904-1717, rdrzala@v2soft.com

SOURCE: V2Soft, Inc

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/computers-technology-and-internet/sanciti-ai-launches-legmod-agentic-ai-a-revolutionary-ai-driven-l-1135408
Recognized for Extraordinary Humanitarian Leadership and Ongoing Support of Ukrainian Children

GUAYNABO, Puerto Rico, Feb. 10, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- inGroup International proudly announces that its Co-Founder and CEO, Michael Hutchison, has been awarded the Honorary Award of the Kyiv Chamber of Commerce and Industry in recognition of his significant personal contributions to charitable initiatives and his active, sustained cooperation with the Chamber during one of Ukraine's most challenging periods.

The honor, the highest granted to foreign nationals, acknowledges Michael's unwavering support for Ukraine, Ukrainian inCruises Partners and Members, and the charitable foundation Stand with Ukraine, established under the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Ukraine. The foundation provides critical psychological and physical rehabilitation services for children affected by the ongoing war.

"On behalf of the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the leadership of the Stand with Ukraine Charitable Foundation, and our friends in Ukraine, we would like to thank Michael for his continued support and humanitarian efforts over the last few years," said Valeriy Korol Vice President for International Relations of the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. "His assistance has directly helped more than 800 Ukrainian children who have been deeply affected by the war. Together with the families of these children, we recognize Michael's civic commitment and the humanist principles he upholds."

The children helped with this program are evacuated from frontline regions or returned from occupied territories-many having lost their homes, their sense of safety, and, in some cases, one or both parents.

"Receiving this honor from the Kyiv Chamber of Commerce and Industry is humbling and meaningful," expressed Michael Hutchison, inGroup CEO and Co-Founder. "The courage and resilience of the Ukrainian people, especially the children who have endured so much, continue to inspire me every day. I'm grateful for the opportunity to support the Stand with Ukraine foundation and work alongside so many dedicated individuals helping restore hope, healing, and a sense of possibility for these children."

Beyond financial support Mr. Hutchison has traveled twice to Ukraine to visit the children's rehabilitation camp. During these visits, he spent meaningful time with the children, participating in therapeutic activities and workshops, engaging in creative and recreational programs, and sharing moments of connection designed to foster healing, hope, and resilience.

About inGroup International and inCruises

inCruises is a division of inGroup International and the world's largest subscription-based travel club. Since launching in 2016, inCruises has booked more than 600,000 guests and offers nearly 200,000 cruise, hotel, and resort options worldwide. Members earn and redeem Reward Points to save on travel through the inCruises platform, available in 17 languages.

inCruises continues to make a measurable difference in its Members' lives while providing a world-class business opportunity to its growing Partner team. The company is deeply committed to being a positive global corporate citizen, actively supporting Mercy Ships and other humanitarian efforts.

For more information, visit in.Group and inCruises.com .

Contact: Beatriz Diaz Vazquez beatriz.diaz@in.group
Fort Lauderdale, Florida--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Business strategist and serial entrepreneur Michel Piette today announced the release of a complementary ebook, The 1-Hour Breakthrough, designed to help solopreneurs improve execution, reduce overwhelm, and make consistent progress without increasing workload or risk of burnout.

The ebook addresses a common challenge facing solo business owners: difficulty translating ideas, strategies, and learning into sustained execution. While access to information has never been greater, many solopreneurs struggle to apply what they know in a focused and repeatable way.

Piette refers to this disconnect as the Execution Gap-the gap between knowing what to do and consistently doing it.

"Most solopreneurs don't have an idea problem," Piette said. "They have an execution problem. The 1-Hour Breakthrough was created to give them a simple structure for focusing on the right work and following through consistently."

The 1-Hour Breakthrough ebook introduces readers to Piette's execution framework, including the 5 Big Ds, which define what to focus on in a business, and the 8 X-Factors, which address the behavioral habits that support consistent execution. The guide is designed to be practical and actionable, offering solopreneurs a clear starting point for improving follow-through without adding complexity.

The ebook is available at no cost and can be accessed online at: https://michelpiette.com/free-ebook/

About Michel Piette

Michel Piette is a serial entrepreneur who has built seven multi-million-dollar businesses over the past 30 years. He is the creator of the 5 Big Ds, the 8 X-Factors, and the 1-Hour Breakthrough framework. His work focuses on helping solopreneurs simplify execution, cut through overwhelm, and build businesses that scale-without burnout or guesswork.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283427

Source: Jeremy McGilvrey
Millions of engineers can now design with trusted DwyerOmega components using ready-to-download CAD models on TraceParts.

MICHIGAN CITY, INDIANA / ACCESS Newswire / February 10, 2026 / DwyerOmega, a global leader in precision sensing and measurement technology, has taken a major step toward accelerating engineering design workflows by making its popular flow, pressure and temperature products available on the TraceParts CAD-content platform.

The move gives millions of engineers, designers and system integrators instant access to high-fidelity CAD models across DwyerOmega's portfolio. These models enable detailed 3D system configuration using DwyerOmega's sensors, components and instruments, streamlining everything from early-stage concepting to final prototyping.

Explore DwyerOmega's library of 3D CAD models and configuration tools now on TraceParts.

All CAD models are available in multiple formats-including SOLIDWORKS, Inventor, CATIA V5, AutoCAD, STEP, and STL-for faster validation, cleaner integrations, and dramatically reduced development cycles.

"We want engineers to be able to work with DwyerOmega products without friction," said Cyrus Grimes, Director of Product Content. "Providing our CAD models on TraceParts lets engineers configure and validate designs quickly, using data they can trust."

DwyerOmega's sensors and measurement systems support mission-critical applications across industries such as process control, automation, environmental monitoring, and advanced manufacturing. By delivering CAD models directly into the design tools engineers use daily, the company is helping customers minimize rework, improve accuracy, and bring innovations to market faster.

Joining the TraceParts network has connected DwyerOmega with a global community of more than 4.7 million registered engineers and designers, significantly expanding the visibility and accessibility of its technologies. The partnership ensures that DwyerOmega's solutions are discoverable and immediately usable in real-world engineering workflows.

About DwyerOmega

DwyerOmega is a leading global manufacturer of precision measurement and control solutions, trusted across a wide range of industrial and controlled-environment applications. Our technologies help customers monitor, manage, and optimize critical processes with confidence.

With a portfolio of industry-leading brands, DwyerOmega has a longstanding commitment to innovation and quality-and a mission to improve the world, one measurement at a time. For more information visit www.dwyeromega.com .

Technical Inquiries

Cyrus Grimes

Director, Product Content

cgrimes@dwyeromega.com

Media Inquiries

Madeline Grove

Corporate Communications Manager

mgrove@dwyeromega.com

SOURCE: DwyerOmega

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/industrial-and-manufacturing/dwyeromega-expands-digital-engineering-tools-with-3d-cad-models-for-fl-1134131
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Metalsource Mining Inc. (CSE: MSM) (OTCQB: SFRIF) (FSE: E9Z) (the "Company") is pleased to announce that, further to its press release earlier today, it has increased its non-brokered private placement financing by $3,000,000, increasing the number of units from up to 10,050,000 units to up to 14,050,000 units in the capital of the Company (each, a "Unit") at a price of $0.75 per Unit, for gross proceeds of up to $10,537,500 (the "Offering").

Each Unit purchased will include one common share and one-half of one transferable common share purchase warrant. Each whole Warrant (a "Warrant") will entitle the holder to purchase one additional common share for a period of three (3) years at a price of $1.00 per common share.

Eric Sprott, through 2176423 Ontario Ltd., a corporation beneficially owned by him, will acquire 1,333,333 of the additional Units pursuant to the Offering for total consideration of $1,000,000. The remainder of the Offering is fully subscribed.

Mr. Sprott is a shareholder holding more than 10% of the Company's common shares. The issuance of Units to Mr. Sprott is considered a related party transaction within the meaning of Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). The Company relies on exemptions from the formal valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements provided under sections 5.5(a) and 5.7(a) of MI 61-101 on the basis that Mr. Sprott's participation in the Private Placement will not exceed 25% of the fair market value of the Company's market capitalization. The Company will file a material change report in respect of the related party transaction.

Pursuant to the CSE, the warrants held by Mr. Sprott, an Insider as set out above, will be subject to a limitation on the exercise whereby he may not exercise any warrants if such exercise would result in Mr. Sprott owning 19.99% or more of the voting rights attached to the Company's securities at the time of exercise, including any securities held by parties acting in combination or in concert with Mr. Sprott (the "Warrant Exercise Limitation"). The Warrant Exercise Limitation also applies to the 1,700,000 warrants issued to Mr. Sprott on December 31, 2025 which have an exercise price of $0.40 and expire on December 31, 2027.

All securities issued in connection with the Offering will be subject to applicable statutory hold periods in accordance with Canadian securities laws. The Offering is subject to receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals, including approval of the Canadian Securities Exchange.

About Metalsource Mining Inc.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains certain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the ability to obtain required regulatory approvals, changes in market conditions, exploration risks, and other risks disclosed in the Company's filings available on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by applicable securities laws.

Not for distribution to United States newswire services or for release publication, distribution or dissemination directly, or indirectly, in whole or in part, in or into the United States.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283450

Source: Metalsource Mining Inc.
Calgary, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Copper Fox Metals Inc. (TSXV: CUU) (FSE: HPU) ("Copper Fox" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that its recently announced non-brokered private placement of up to $3,000,000 in gross proceeds (the "Offering") is fully subscribed and has received conditional approval from the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV"). The Offering consists of 4,615,384 common shares ("Shares") at a price of $0.65 per Share and is expected to close on February 27, 2026.

In accordance with applicable securities legislation, securities issued pursuant to the Offering are subject to a hold period of four months plus one day from the date of the completion of the Offering. The net proceeds raised from the Offering will be used to continue exploration and development activities on Copper Fox's 100% owned Van Dyke, Eaglehead, Mineral Mountain and Sombrero Butte projects, working capital and general corporate and administrative purposes of the Company.

About Copper Fox

Copper Fox is a Canadian resource company focused on copper development and exploration in the United States and Canada. Copper Fox and its subsidiaries own 100% of the Van Dyke ISCR project, a development stage, potential near term, mid-size copper mine in Arizona and a 25% interest in the Schaft Creek Joint Venture with Teck Resources Limited (75% interest and Operator) which hosts the Schaft Creek copper-gold-molybdenum-silver project in British Columbia's Golden Triangle. In addition, Copper Fox owns 100% of the resource stage Eaglehead polymetallic porphyry copper project in northwestern British Columbia and the Sombrero Butte and Mineral Mountain advanced exploration stage porphyry copper projects located in the prolific Laramide age copper province in Arizona. For more information on Copper Fox's mineral properties and investments visit the Company's website at www.copperfoxmetals.com.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

Elmer B. Stewart

President and Chief Executive Officer

Neither TSX Venture Exchange Inc. nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange Inc.) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to sell any of the securities described herein in the United States. The securities described in this news release have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available. This news release is not for distribution in the United States or over United States newswires.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of the Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information is generally identifiable by use of the words "believes," "may," "plans," "will," "anticipates," "intends," "budgets," "could," "estimates," "expects," "forecasts," "projects" and similar expressions, and the negative of such expressions. Forward-looking information in this news release includes statements about: the size and terms of the Offering and the use of the proceeds therefrom; and the approval of the TSXV.

In connection with the forward-looking information contained in this news release, Copper Fox and its subsidiaries have made numerous assumptions regarding, among other things: the Company will receive all required approvals, including the final approval of the TSXV for the Offering; the Company will be able to close the Offering as expected, including the size and terms of the Offering; investor demand will remain strong; and the Company will not require additional subscriptions for the Offering. While Copper Fox considers these assumptions to be reasonable, these assumptions are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies. Additionally, there are known and unknown risk factors which could cause Copper Fox's actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information contained herein. Known risk factors include among others: final approval for the Offering will not be obtained from the TSXV; investor demand may weaken; the Offering will not complete at the time or in the amount expected, or at all, or on the terms as set out in this news release and the news release of the Company dated February 5, 2026; and the exemptions intended to be relied upon by Copper Fox in completing the Offering may not be available.

A more complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties facing Copper Fox is disclosed in Copper Fox's continuous disclosure filings with Canadian securities regulatory authorities at www.sedarplus.ca. All forward-looking information herein is qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement, and Copper Fox disclaims any obligation to revise or update any such forward-looking information or to publicly announce the result of any revisions to any of the forward-looking information contained herein to reflect future results, events, or developments, except as required by law.

NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES

OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283473

Source: Copper Fox Metals Inc.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Questcorp Mining Inc. (CSE: QQQ) (OTCQB: QQCMF) (FSE: D910) (the "Company" or "Questcorp") is pleased to announce that it will offer (the "Offering") up to 10,000,000 units (each, a "Unit") by way of non-brokered private placement at a price of $0.20 per Unit for gross proceeds of up to $2,000,000. Each Unit will consist of one common share of the Company (each, a "Share") and one-half-of-one share purchase warrant (each whole share purchase warrant, a "Warrant"). Each Warrant will entitle the holder to acquire an additional common share of the Company at a price of $0.30 for a period of thirty-six months following closing of the Offering, provided that holders will not be permitted to exercise Warrants until 60 days following closing of the Offering.

The Company expects to utilize the proceeds of the Offering for exploration work at the Company's La Union Gold and Silver Project and North Island Copper Project, and for general working capital purposes.

The Units to be issued under the Offering will be offered for sale pursuant to the listed issuer financing exemption under Part 5A of National Instrument 45-106 - Prospectus Exemptions, as amended by CSA Coordinated Blanket Order 45-935 - Exemptions from Certain Conditions of the Listed Issuer Financing Exemption (collectively, the "Listed Issuer Financing Exemption"), in all provinces of Canada, except Quebec, and other qualifying jurisdictions, including the United States. The Units offered under the Listed Issuer Financing Exemption will be immediately "free-trading" under applicable Canadian securities laws.

There is an offering document (the "Offering Document") related to this Offering that can be accessed under the Company's profile at www.sedarplus.ca and at the Company's website at https://questcorpmining.ca/. Prospective investors should read this Offering Document before making an investment decision.

In connection with completion of the Offering, the Company may pay finders' fees to eligible third-parties who have introduced subscribers to the Offering. Completion of the Offering remains subject to receipt of regulatory approvals.

This press release is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy the securities in the United States or in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to qualification or registration under the securities laws of such jurisdiction. The securities being offered have not been, nor will they be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and such securities may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. persons absent registration or an applicable exemption from U.S. registration requirements and applicable U.S. state securities laws.

About Questcorp Mining Inc.

Questcorp Mining Inc. is engaged in the business of the acquisition and exploration of mineral properties in North America, with the objective of locating and developing economic precious and base metals properties of merit. The Company holds an option to acquire an undivided 100% interest in and to mineral claims totaling 1,168.09 hectares comprising the North Island Copper Property, on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, subject to a royalty obligation. The Company also holds an option to acquire an undivided 100% interest in and to mineral claims totaling 2,520.2 hectares comprising the La Union Project located in Sonora, Mexico, subject to a royalty obligation.

This news release includes certain "forward-looking statements" under applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the intended use of proceeds from the Offering; closing of the Offering; and filing of the Offering Document. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results and future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties, uncertain capital markets; and delay or failure to receive board or regulatory approvals. There can be no assurance that such forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283435

Source: Questcorp Mining Inc.
ProLogium's future gigafactory will deliver manufacturing of fourth generation solid-state lithium ceramic batteries to accelerate electrification and strengthen Europe's industrial and technology battery sovereignty

TAIPEI, Taiwan and DUNKIRK, France, Feb. 11, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ProLogium Technology today held the groundbreaking ceremony for its gigafactory in Dunkirk, France, officially launching construction and marking an additional step towards the creation of a European value chain. ProLogium will start on-site construction of its European "Superfluidized All-Inorganic Solid-State Lithium Ceramic Battery" mass-production platform. The ceremony marks the transition from project planning to physical execution, thanks to the support of the French government and authorities, the first facility for the group outside Taiwan that confirms ProLogium's long term industrial presence in France.

Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic, said: "ProLogium has chosen France, and specifically Dunkirk, to establish its first electric battery gigafactory in Europe. This is a source of French pride, creating jobs in the Dunkirk area and supporting the decarbonization of our economy. As we have done for ProLogium, we will continue, with consistency, to enhance the attractiveness of France and our territories for future industries. This is an issue of French and European sovereignty, as well as an economic, social, and climate imperative."

Vincent Yang,Founder and CEO of ProLogium Technology: "This groundbreaking marks a pivotal step from innovation to scalable manufacturing. Building on our proven production experience, we are bringing our mass-production platform to Europe and will build the Dunkirk lines with a platform mindset-from equipment installation and process windows to quality systems-to ensure consistent, industrial-scale output. From today, we are executing against clear milestones toward start-of-production and ramp-up, while deepening collaboration with local partners to strengthen a resilient supply chain aligned with Europe's energy transition and industrial ambitions."

Roland Lescure, Minister for the Economy, Finance, and Industrial, Energy and Digital Sovereignty:

"Setting foot for the first time on the site of this future gigafactory, I can see how our industrial ambition is becoming a reality. With ProLogium, we are reaching a key milestone for French and European industry. My objective is clear: to make France the leader in technological sovereignty in batteries, through projects that drive innovation and create the jobs of the future."

Mathieu Lefevre, Minister Delegate for Ecological Transition:

"Industrial ecology lies at the heart of France's economic policy, thanks to the reforms implemented since 2017. With the ProLogium gigafactory in Dunkirk, a major industrial project is taking shape in support of the ecological transition and our industrial sovereignty. Through the Green Industry Act and the France 2030 plan, the State is creating the conditions to accelerate the deployment of low-carbon industries across our territories and to build strategic sectors such as batteries."

Sebastien Martin, Minister Delegate for Industry:

"The laying of this first stone embodies our industrial strategy: producing the technologies of tomorrow in Europe. With ProLogium in Dunkirk, France is strengthening its industrial sovereignty, creating highly skilled jobs, and building leadership in next-generation batteries. This is how we develop a competitive, innovative, and sustainable industry that supports our economic and climate independence."

Nicolas Forissier, Minister for Foreign Trade and Attractiveness:

"By choosing to establish itself in Dunkirk, ProLogium is investing in a strong industrial territory, well connected to Europe and capable of supporting cutting-edge production. This project demonstrates France's ability to attract long-term industrial investment and to turn technological innovation into productive activity and jobs."

Xavier Bertrand, President of the Hauts-de-France Region:

"ProLogium's decision to choose Dunkirk and the Hauts-de-France region is no coincidence. It reflects the choice of a region that has fought hard to build an ecosystem capable of creating this battery valley and the jobs that come with it. This first stone symbolizes far more than a factory: it represents the industrial revival of our region and proves our ability to stay one step ahead. Industry has a future in Hauts-de-France!"

Patrice Vergriete,Mayor of Dunkirk and President of the Dunkirk Urban Community: "This groundbreaking ceremony marks the beginning of a great adventure for Dunkirk and ProLogium. This project will create the industrial jobs of tomorrow, at the heart of a cleaner, more innovative, and more competitive industry. It is the beginning of a transformation that demonstrates, once again, Dunkirk's ability to attract innovation in the service of responsible and sustainable development."

Maurice Georges,Chairman of the Board of Dunkirk Port: "The laying of this foundation stone is excellent news for the port of Dunkirk. ProLogium, the second gigafactory to be established in the region, based on new-generation solid-state batteries, strengthens the heart of the Hauts-de-France battery valley. To support this project, Dunkerque-Port has invested in the development of the Grande Industrie 2 zone at the West Port. The port welcomes this new step, which is part of a collective effort with the State, the Dunkirk Urban Community, and the Hauts-de-France region, and which contributes to the emergence of a major industrial hub and the generation of new maritime and land flows."

Dunkirk Mass-Production Platform: Advancing from Construction to Industrial-Scale Production

Built on ProLogium's mass-production readiness and long-term investment commitment, the project aims to deliver safer, higher-performance next-generation batteries while strengthening Europe's battery technology and supply-chain sovereignty.

The Dunkirk site will establish a local manufacturing system-covering production, quality, and supply-chain collaboration-designed around an all-inorganic solid-state electrolyte architecture to balance safety, performance, and manufacturability at scale. ProLogium will work with European partners to strengthen supply-chain resilience and accelerate battery localization aligned with long-term electrification and industrial-security priorities.

Why Dunkirk: Investment-Ready Ecosystem, Logistics Connectivity, and a Fast-Growing Decarbonized Industrial Cluster

ProLogium selected Dunkirk for its strategic position as a northern European industrial and logistics hub and its investment-ready environment. ProLogium will benefit from the support of RTE, which is acting as co-project manager responsible for the high-voltage connection essential to the plant, which will have direct access to carbon-free and competitive energy thanks to its immediate proximity to the Gravelines nuclear power plant.

The region offers multimodal connectivity- maritime, inland waterways, rail, and road-enabling efficient logistics, a reduction in the carbon footprint of its transport, and access to surrounding markets. Dunkirk is also positioning itself as a rapidly growing carbon-free industrial cluster, supported by coordinated public and private initiatives. This technology will push the boundaries of electric vehicles in terms of range, safety, fast charging, residual value, low-temperature performance, repairability, and recyclability. It therefore offers a highly competitive value proposition and helps to remove the main technical barriers to the adoption of electric vehicles and redefine industry standards for batteries. ProLogium technology will also pave the way for applications beyond mobility alone.

This environment strongly aligns with France's reindustrialization and energy transition objectives.

Accelerating France Gigafactory Build-Out to Support Europe's Electrification

ProLogium has leveraged its Taoyuan gigafactory in Taiwan-operational since 2024 and having delivered more than 600,000 cells-to scale industrial readiness. The Dunkirk project roadmap includes:

2023: Secured French government subsidies

2025: Obtained environmental approval and construction permit

2026: Official groundbreaking; start of construction

2028: Fab 1, Phase 1 completed; start of Gen4 mass production (0.8 GWh)

2029: Capacity ramp-up

2030: Fab 1, Phase 2 completed; full operation at 4 GWh

2032: Phase 2 completed; total capacity reaches 12 GWh

In addition, the Company has already secured reserved land at the Port of Dunkirk for future expansion. Over the long term, and in line with market demand, the site has the potential to scale progressively to 48 GWh, reinforcing Europe's position as a key manufacturing hub for next-generation batteries.

sam@prologium.com
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Planet Ventures Inc. (CSE: PXI) (OTC Pink: PNXPF) (FSE: P6U1) ("Planet Ventures" or the "Company") announces that it has granted stock options (the "Options") to certain directors, officers, consultants and employees the Company to purchase 4,250,000 common shares (the "Shares") in the capital of the Company pursuant to the Company's omnibus incentive plan. The Options are exercisable at an exercise price of $0.25 per Share for a period of two (2) years from the date of grant. The Options shall vest immediately.

The Company further announces that it has retained Financial Star News Inc. ("FSN") on a non-exclusive basis to render marketing services to the Company concerning the development of the Company's capital markets performance (the "Services"). In exchange for the Services, the Company has agreed to pay FSN a cash fee of USD$750,000 plus applicable taxes for the term of the Services and the Company will also grant FSN 750,000 stock options exercisable at $0.25 for a period of two years from the date of grant.

Apart from the aforementioned options, the Company will not issue any securities to FSN as compensation for its services. The contact information for FSN is: Financial Star News Inc., 701 West Georgia Street, Suite 1500, Vancouver, BC V7Y 1C6. The contact person of FSN is: Roop Mundi, email: info@thefinancialstar.com phone: +1 (778) 707 - 0363.

About Planet Ventures Inc.

Planet Ventures Inc. is an investment issuer that actively invests in disruptive companies across high-growth industries. Planet aims to build long-term shareholder value through strategic investments in innovative businesses.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283422

Source: Planet Ventures Inc.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Sego Resources Inc. (TSXV: SGZ) ("Sego" or "the Company") has increased its non-brokered private placement announced in News Release, February 5, 2026 from $800,000 to $955,600 due to strong investor demand.

The funds will be used for exploration and general working capital at its Miner Mountain copper-gold project near Princeton, BC, subject to regulatory approval.

The Miner Mountain project is an Alkalic Porphyry Copper-Gold mineralization which encompasses near-surface disseminated gold mineralization and the new December, 2025-discovered porphyry copper mineralization at the Billy Zone. This lies adjacent to the existing South Gold Zone. Additionally, a second deeper copper-gold porphyry has now been indicated at depth, 1200 metres northeast at the Cuba Zone. (See News Releases December 19, 2025, February 2, 2026, and February 5, 2026).

Private Placement

The offering will now consist of 15,926,665 units at $0.06 per unit for gross proceeds of $955,600.

Each unit will consist of one common share and one common share purchase warrant. Each warrant will entitle the holder to purchase an additional common share at $0.10 for three years from the closing of the private placement. The warrants will contain an acceleration clause that will be in place 4 months and one day after the units are issued. If at any time after the date that is four months and one day after the closing date the closing trading price of the Common Shares on the TSX Venture Exchange is greater than Canadian $0.18 per Common Share for a period of ten (10) consecutive Business Days, then the Company may give notice thereof and, in such case, the Expiry Time shall be 5:00 p.m. (Vancouver time) on the 30th day after the date on which such notice is deemed to have been given by the Company to the Holder.

There will be no Finder's Fees paid on the placement.

Insiders will participate in the private placement.

This offering will be subject to the completion of formal documentation, receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals, including the TSX Venture Exchange and other customary conditions. All of the securities sold pursuant to the offering will be subject to a four-month-and-one-day hold period from the date of closing.

The Company also plans to utilize British Columbia Instrument 45-536 which opens private placements to non-accredited investors provided the purchaser has obtained advice regarding the suitability of the investment and that advice has been obtained from a person that is registered as an investment dealer in the jurisdiction and any other exemptions that may be applicable. Completion of the private placement is subject to the TSX Venture Exchange approval.

There is no minimum offering size for the private placement and the maximum number of units proposed to be issued is 15,926,665 units for gross proceeds of $955,600. The Company fully expects to spend the funds as stated; there may be circumstances, for sound business reasons, where a re-allocation of funds may be necessary.

None of the securities issued in the Offering will be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "1933 Act").

There is no material change about the issuer that has not been generally disclosed.

About the Project

Sego is 100% owner of the Miner Mountain Project, an alkalic copper-gold porphyry and gold exploration project located near Princeton, British Columbia. The property is 2,056 hectares in size and is 15 km north of the Copper Mountain Mine operated by Hudbay Minerals Inc. Sego has a Memorandum of Understanding with the Upper Similkameen Indian Band on whose Traditional Territory the Miner Mountain Project is situated. Sego has received an Award of Excellence for its reclamation work on the Miner Mountain Project.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. No regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained in this news release.

This release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statement of historical facts that address future production, reserve potential, exploration drilling, exploitation activities and events or developments that the Company expects re forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, exploitation and exploration successes, continued availability of capital and financing, general economic, market or business conditions. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and those actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283485

Source: Sego Resources Inc.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Kuya Silver Corporation (CSE: KUYA) (OTCQB: KUYAF) (FSE: 6MR1) ("Kuya" or the "Company") announces that, pursuant to its 10% rolling equity incentive plan, it has approved the grant of 350,000 restricted share units ("RSUs") and 1,525,000 stock options ("Options") to acquire common shares in the capital of the Company (each a "Common Share"), to certain directors, officers, employees and consultants (the "Equity Grant"). The Options are exercisable until February 10, 2031 at a price of $1.00 per Option and are subject to vesting provisions. The RSUs will vest and convert into Common Shares, for no additional consideration, unless otherwise decided by the Board on vesting, in tranches. Any Common Shares issued pursuant to the Equity Grant, are subject to a hold period expiring June 11, 2026, unless written approval to issue the Common Shares without the hold period is obtained from the Canadian Securities Exchange.

About Kuya Silver Corporation

Kuya Silver is a Canadian-based mineral exploration and development company focused on acquiring, exploring, and advancing precious metals assets in Peru and Canada. Its flagship Bethania Silver Project in Peru was a historic producer of silver, lead and zinc. The Bethania Mine was officially re-started in May 2024.

Reader Advisory

This news release contains statements that constitute "forward-looking information," including statements regarding the plans, intentions, beliefs, and current expectations of the Company, its directors, or its officers with respect to the future business activities of the Company. The words "may," "would," "could," "will," "intend," "plan," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "must," "next," "propose," "new," "potential," "prospective," "target," "future," "verge," "favourable," "implications," and "ongoing," and similar expressions, as they relate to the Company or its management, are intended to identify such forward-looking information. Investors are cautioned that statements including forward-looking information are not guarantees of future business activities and involve risks and uncertainties, and that the Company's future business activities may differ materially from those described in the forward-looking information as a result of various factors, including but not limited to fluctuations in market prices, successes of the operations of the Company, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market, and business conditions. There can be no assurances that such forward-looking information will prove accurate, and therefore, readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of the risks and uncertainties. The Company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking information except as required under the applicable securities laws.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283424

Source: Kuya Silver Corporation
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - ALUULA Composites Inc. (TSXV: AUUA) (OTCQB: AUUAF) (the "Company" or "ALUULA") is pleased to announce a "best efforts" brokered private placement offering (the "Offering") for aggregate gross proceeds of C$10,002,300 consisting of 3,031,000 units of the Company (the "Units") at a price of C$3.30 per Unit (the "Offering Price"). The Offering will be conducted on a "best efforts" basis by Canaccord Genuity Corp. as sole agent and bookrunner (the "Agent").

Each Unit will consist of one common share in the capital of the Company and half of one common share purchase warrant (each whole warrant, a "Warrant"). Each Warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one common share of the Company at a price of C$4.29 per common share at any time on or before that date which is 24 months after the closing date of the Offering. The Company may accelerate the expiry of the Warrants if the common shares of the Company trade on the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV") (or any other Canadian stock exchange on which they are then listed) at a volume weighted average price of C$8.25 or more per common share for thirty (30) consecutive trading days, subject to the terms of the Warrants. The Warrants will not be transferable.

The Units will be offered by way of the listed issuer financing exemption under Part 5A of National Instrument 45-106 - Prospectus Exemptions ("NI 45-106"), as amended by Coordinated Blanket Order 45-935 - Exemptions from Certain Conditions of the Listed Issuer Financing Exemption (the "Order"), in all of the provinces and territories of Canada. Pursuant to NI 45-106 and the Order, the Units issued to Canadian residents under the Offering will not be subject to resale restrictions. The Company is relying on the exemptions in Part 5A of NI 45-106 and the Order and is qualified to distribute securities in reliance on the exemptions included therein.

The Units are expected to be offered to investors in other qualifying jurisdictions, including the United States. The Company expects to offer Units to persons in the United States pursuant to Rule 506(b) of Regulation D (including "Qualified Institutional Buyers" as defined in Rule 144A who are also "Accredited Investors") adopted by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act").

The Company has granted the Agent an option to purchase up to an additional 15% of the number of Units sold pursuant to the Offering (the "Additional Units") at a price per Additional Unit equal to the Offering Price, any time up to 48 hours prior to the closing date of the Offering (the "Agent's Option"). The Agent shall be entitled to the same cash commission and agent's warrants in respect of any Additional Units issued and sold upon exercise of the Agent's Option.

The Company intends to use the net proceeds from the Offering for expansion of manufacturing capacity through building a new facility and for general administrative and working capital purposes.

The Offering is expected to close on or about February 24, 2026, or such other date that is within 45 days from the date of this news release, as the Company may decide. The Offering remains subject to certain conditions, including, but not limited to, the receipt of all necessary approvals, and compliance with the policies of the TSXV. The Company has engaged Genthod Global Advisory SA as a finder in connection with the Offering.

There is an offering document related to the Offering that will be made available under the Company's profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. The offering document will also be made available on the Company's website at www.aluula.com. Prospective investors should read this offering document before making an investment decision.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy securities in the United States, nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. The securities being offered have not been, nor will they be, registered under the U.S. Securities Act or under any U.S. state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws.

About ALUULA Composites Inc.

ALUULA is an ultra-light, high performance and recycle-ready composite materials brand that enhances the performance of outdoor gear. Proudly owned and manufactured on the Canadian west coast, ALUULA's innovation is driven by a deep understanding that equipment does not need to sacrifice performance for sustainability. ALUULA's materials are known for their unique construction capabilities and their ability to make products lighter, stronger, and more sustainable.

www.aluula.com | (TSXV: AUUA)

Forward-Looking Statements:

Certain information contained herein constitutes "forward-looking information" under Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to: the Offering, the Over-Allotment Option, completion of the Offering, the expected closing date of the Offering and the use of proceeds of the Offering. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "anticipates", "anticipated", "expected", "intends", "will" or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "will" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made and they are from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or forward-looking information subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results to be materially different, including receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals and the timing thereof. Although management of the Company have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. The Company will not update any forward-looking statements or forward-looking information that are incorporated by reference herein, except as required by applicable securities laws.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States. The securities referenced herein have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for account or benefit of, U.S. Persons (as defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act) unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws, or an exemption from such registration requirements is available.

Neither TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Not for Distribution to US Newswire Services or for Dissemination in the United States

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283456

Source: ALUULA Composites Inc.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Nexus Uranium Corp. (CSE: NEXU) (OTCQB: NEXUF) (FSE: JA7 ("Nexus" or the "Company") announces that it has entered into a debt settlement agreement with a certain arm's length creditor to settle $81,000 in outstanding debt (the "Debt Settlement"). Pursuant to the Debt Settlement, the Company has agreed to issue approximately 42,408 common shares of the Company at a deemed price of $1.91 to the arm's length creditor.

The Company intends to complete the Debt Settlement to preserve the Company's cash for working capital and improve its financial position by reducing its existing liabilities. The Debt Settlement is expected to close shortly, subject to customary closing conditions, including, but not limited to, finalizing all contractual documentation and receipt of all applicable regulatory approvals, as applicable, including compliance with the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange (the "CSE").

The Debt Settlement shares will be subject to a four month hold period in accordance with applicable Canadian securities laws and the policies of the CSE.

About Nexus Uranium Corp.

Nexus Uranium is a Canadian exploration company focused on uranium projects in North America. In the United States, the Company holds the Chord, Wolf Canyon, Deadhorse, and RC projects in South Dakota, and the South Pass project in Wyoming. The Great Divide Basin project in Wyoming is now under option to Canamera Energy Metals Corp. In Canada, Nexus holds the Mann Lake project in Saskatchewan's Athabasca Basin. For more information, visit www.nexusuranium.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain information contained herein constitutes "forward-looking information" under Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to: the completion of the Debt Settlement on the terms and timing described herein, the receipt of required regulatory approvals and the intended benefits of the Debt Settlement. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "anticipates", "anticipated" "expected" "intends" "will" or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "will" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made and they are from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or forward-looking information subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results to be materially different, including receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals. Although management of the Company have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. The Company will not update any forward-looking statements or forward-looking information that are incorporated by reference herein, except as required by applicable securities laws.

Neither the CSE nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283446

Source: Nexus Uranium Corp.
Agreement establishes Pakistan Subnet of Internet Computer Platform (ICP), supports tamper-proof digital infrastructure, enables local AI-native software development and pilots national messenger app

The Pakistan Digital Authority (PDA) and the DFINITY Foundation today signed an MoU to advance sovereign AI-native digital infrastructure in Pakistan, ensuring sensitive data remains in-country while enabling secure, modern software systems built for the AI era.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260210476471/en/

As part of the partnership, DFINITY will support the creation of a dedicated Pakistan Subnet on its Internet Computer Platform (ICP), a sovereign cloud designed to host tamper-resistant software, national-scale applications, and AI-powered systems that can create and operate independently of foreign cloud infrastructure.

The collaboration also includes plans for a National Messenger application enabling private, verifiable communications; expanded access to Caffeine, an AI platform incubated by DFINITY; 1,500 Caffeine licenses to create applications and capacity-building initiatives across government, education, and entrepreneurship. DFINITY will also establish a local presence in Pakistan, reinforcing long-term collaboration and technical engagement in the country.

"This partnership marks an important step in Pakistan's digital evolution," said Dr. Sohail Munir, Chairperson of the Pakistan Digital Authority. "By investing in sovereign cloud infrastructure and modern AI-ready platforms, we are strengthening national resilience, supporting innovation, and creating new opportunities for our public institutions, students, and entrepreneurs."

Chief Scientist and Founder of DFINITY and Caffeine, Dominic Williams, added: "Pakistan is taking a forward-looking approach to digital infrastructure. By establishing a Pakistan Subnet and investing in sovereign, tamper-proof systems, the country is laying the groundwork for software and AI applications that are secure, verifiable, and built to serve national priorities. This partnership enables Pakistan to build, own, and operate AI and cloud services on its own terms."

Caffeine empowers people to build and deploy production-ready apps and services to the Internet Computer by describing what they want in natural language, removing traditional barriers such as the need for engineering teams and complex development pipelines. Caffeine is used by solo builders, municipalities, banks, and public institutions worldwide. Three months after launch, users have executed more than 3.4 million build prompts.

DFINITY created the Internet Computer, an open network providing a serverless sovereign cloud allowing governments, institutions and individuals to run tamper-proof and resilient software with full ownership and free from foreign provider and intelligence agency access. Investing over $500 million in research and development, DFINITY's team composed of engineers and researchers formerly from Google, Apple, IBM, and Meta, have published more than 1,500 papers, earned 88,000+ citations, and contributed 190+ patents across distributed systems, cryptography, and advanced computing.

About The Pakistan Digital Authority

The Pakistan Digital Authority (PDA) is the national government body mandated to architect, govern, and drive Pakistan's digital transformation through a unified, whole-of-government approach. Established under the Digital Nation Pakistan Act 2025, PDA serves as the country's central authority for digital policy, data and AI governance, national digital infrastructure, and shared government platforms-ensuring interoperability, security, and alignment across federal, provincial, and sectoral entities. As the engine behind Pakistan's digital future, PDA sets the standards, builds the Digital Infrastructure, and coordinates the national ecosystem so that every ministry, province, and institution moves together toward a modern, efficient, and technology-driven Pakistan National Digital Masterplan.

About DFINITY

DFINITY is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to researching and developing the Internet Computer, a network that transforms the Internet into a public sovereign cloud capable of hosting the next generation of software and services. Since 2016, DFINITY has grown into a leading tech R&D organization, employing renowned computer scientists and researchers in Zurich and San Francisco.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260210476471/en/

Contacts:

comms@dfinity.org
The agreement includes a strategic equity investment in Eclipse by BNP Paribas

Eclipse, a leading battery storage, development, and energy trading company, and BNP Paribas, one of the largest banks in the Eurozone, today announced a strategic partnership to accelerate the deployment of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) and strengthen Europe's energy resilience. This partnership includes a strategic equity investment in Eclipse by BNP Paribas.

Through its proprietary algo trading software, Flowstream, Eclipse optimizes battery energy storage assets in real-time for its own and third-party assets. As an integrated BESS player, Eclipse develops, owns, and operates industrial-scale energy assets. The company currently has a pipeline of 16 projects in France and Belgium, representing a total capacity of 850 MW.

The partnership with BNP Paribas provides asset owners with tailored financing solutions for BESS projects, as well as hedging instruments to manage merchant risk and reduce asset-level cost of capital. This collaboration will enable Eclipse and BNP Paribas to jointly offer long-term offtake solutions, leveraging BNP Paribas' credit strength and structuring capabilities and Eclipse's state of the art optimization and continuous trading expertise to support the financing and scaling of battery storage projects. The partnership builds on BNP Paribas' long-standing expertise in the European physical and financial power markets, where the bank has been actively trading electricity for over 20 years.

Augustin Derville, Co-founder CEO, Eclipse, said: "Eclipse has developed unmatched expertise across the Battery Energy Storage System value chain, combining project development with grid-scale optimization capabilities. This dual business model gives us a unique understanding of market dynamics. The partnership with BNP Paribas will enable us to deliver long-term revenue solutions to our clients, and robust asset financing to support the growth of battery storage across Europe."

"This innovative partnership between BNP Paribas and Eclipse reflects our shared commitment to building a more resilient energy infrastructure for Europe," commented Olivier Osty, Deputy COO, BNP Paribas Group and CEO, BNP Paribas CIB. "By combining Eclipse's expertise in industrial-scale battery storage with BNP Paribas' financial and structuring capabilities, we are developing solutions that enhance market flexibility, efficiency, and sustainability, helping utilities, IPPs, and corporates navigate the transition while contributing to the EU's broader objectives of energy resilience and strategic autonomy."

As the global energy landscape continues to evolve, electricity demand is rising, driven by the electrification of transport, buildings, and industrial processes, as well as population growth. Renewable energy is expected to meet almost all new demand, with electricity representing half of global energy consumption by mid-century. This transformation demands agile, innovative market structures to support decentralization, system stability, and sustainability.

Europe's power markets offer extensive opportunities for investment in renewable generation, energy storage, and related infrastructure. The partnership between Eclipse and BNP Paribas is well-positioned to play a crucial role in financing this next generation of energy assets, supporting the energy transition, while enhancing energy security and market stability for producers and consumers across Europe.

About Eclipse

Eclipse is an infrastructure technology company focused on the development and operation of Battery Energy Storage systems (BESS), enhanced by proprietary optimization and trading algorithms. Its fully operational algorithmic trading platform is directly connected to European power exchanges, enabling real-time optimization across multiple revenue streams, including revenue stacking and continuous trading, while preserving battery performance. In parallel, Eclipse operates as an Independent Flexibility Provider, developing, owning and operating grid-scale BESS projects. The company also expands its asset base by originating optimization contracts for third-party BESS owners, bringing additional systems under management.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260210795626/en/

Contacts:

For further information, please contact: hello@eclipse-flow.com
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Aegis Critical Energy Defence Corp. (CSE: QESS) (OTCQB: QESSF) (FSE: JG6) ("Aegis" or the "Company") is excited to announce that Aegis and its partners, including Quantum eMotion, SEETEL New Energy, and Malahat Energy Systems, have formed working groups to drive integration with BESS, targeting a late Q2 rollout for our new collaborative product. Aegis provides a comprehensive corporate update highlighting major milestones in its strategic energy technology roadmap, ongoing business development activities, and relevant sector growth dynamics for investors and shareholders.

Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) Market & Industry Dynamics

Aegis continues to advance its core Battery Energy Storage Systems ("BESS") offerings into critical infrastructure, defence, industrial, and AI data centre markets at a time of robust sector growth. These macro trends underline growing demand for resilient grid support and mission-critical uptime solutions-a strategic area of focus for Aegis.

Long-Term 2 (LT2) Bid Participation - Ontario Capacity Stream

Aegis, through its subsidiary project company Cordelia BESS Inc., has posted a $500,000 bond and submitted a proposal in response to the Independent Electricity System Operator's ("IESO") Long-Term 2 ("LT2") Request for Proposals - Capacity Stream (C1), expected outcome of LT2 is Q2 2026. The bid contemplates development of a ~90 MWh grid-scale BESS project in Ontario adjacent to an existing substation, subject to the IESO's evaluation, regulatory approvals, and commercial conditions. The LT2 process is designed to secure dispatchable capacity amid forecasted demand growth associated with electrification and industrial activity.

Formation of Homeland Nuclear Energy Inc. - SMR & Micro-Reactor Focus

In a strategic extension of its product portfolio, Aegis announced the official formation of its new wholly-owned subsidiary, Homeland Nuclear Energy Inc., dedicated to the development, integration, and deployment of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and Micro Modular Reactors (MMRs) within hybrid energy systems. Homeland Nuclear will focus on:

Standardized nuclear-to-microgrid integration interfaces;

Carbon-free power solutions for remote communities, strategic ports, and defence installations;

Regulatory leadership and safety-oriented deployment pathways.

The launch aligns with emerging global and defence sector interest in scalable baseload nuclear systems that can meet energy security and decarbonization objectives-an area where projected SMR market capacity is forecast to grow materially over the next decade.

Aegis also executed a Memorandum of Understanding ("MOU") with Malahat Energy Systems Inc. and Ontario Tech University to advance research and development of hybrid nuclear energy architectures that integrate SMRs with BESS and intelligent controls. This collaboration positions Aegis at the nexus of next-generation dispatchable energy solutions for mission-critical and industrial use cases.

Partnerships & Confidential Framework Agreements - Key Highlights

Strategic Partnerships & Commercial Expansion

Aegis is expanding into high-growth critical infrastructure sectors through a strategic partnership with Pixii Americas Inc.

Under the agreement, Aegis will supply next-generation battery solutions designed for telecom network resilience, uptime, and performance.

Telecommunications Sector Engagement

Aegis is in active discussions with a top-three Canadian telecommunications operator.

Discussions focus on deployment opportunities to strengthen network reliability across major markets.

These engagements reflect strong market demand for integrated, resilient energy solutions that support uninterrupted service delivery.

Joint Steering Committee to Accelerate Quantum-Secure Battery Integration for Critical Infrastructure

Following the previously announced collaboration between Aegis Critical Energy Defence Corp. and Quantum eMotion Corp. (TSXV: QNC) (OTCQB: QNCCF):

Joint Development Steering Committee has completed its first working session

Technical architecture to integrate Quantum eMotion's hardware-based QRNG chips into Aegis' next-generation energy storage systems, including QRNG-secured firmware and encrypted BMS is underway

IP co-ownership and commercialization framework confirmed under Canadian jurisdiction

Prototype systems targeted for Q1 2026 field trials with Canadian defence, telecom, and utility partners

Organizational Development & Maritime Strategy

Aegis appointed a Chief Maritime Officer Raoul Jack PEng with 30 plus industry experience most recently Managing Partner of Vard Electro a key supplier to Canada Defence and Maritime industries.

Role supports expansion into Maritime, Arctic, and mobile energy deployment strategies.

Focus areas include integrating BESS and hybrid power systems across:

Arctic & Defence Alignment

Appointment aligns with increased geopolitical focus on the Arctic, driven by: Climate change Shipping access Resource development National security considerations

Arctic and sub-Arctic regions require ruggedized, modular energy solutions due to: Extreme cold Limited grid access Logistical constraints High reliability requirements

Aegis is aligning its capabilities with the needs of NATO-aligned governments, supporting energy resilience for: Ports and naval facilities Radar and communications installations Forward operating bases Other defence-critical nodes



U.S. Market Expansion

Aegis initiated its first operational installation in the United States, marking a major milestone in North American growth.

In February 2026, Aegis began installing the first unit of a multi-unit deployment program in the Carolinas and later in February scheduled for Indiana installations.

Aegis's modular BESS solutions address challenges related to: Grid reliability Peak demand constraints Operational uptime requirements

Management views this as a foundational reference project for future U.S. opportunities in

life sciences

Data centres

Advanced manufacturing

Critical infrastructure sectors

Investor & Shareholder Outlook

Aegis's strategy spans: BESS deployments Nuclear-hybrid innovations Global partnerships

defence, data centres, industrial hubs, and remote infrastructure.

Strategic Technology Partnerships

Aegis continues collaboration with: Ontario Tech University SEETEL New Energy SuperQ Quantum eMotion Corp. University of Alberta Seaspan Northwest Mettech Pixii Americas Inc.

Joint development efforts target: Quantum-secured energy storage Defence-grade power systems Integration with SMRs and MMRs Cyber-resilient, quantum-safe energy platforms



Spin-Out of Hydrogen Storage Asset

Aegis entered into an Arrangement Agreement and Plan of Arrangement (Feb 3, 2026) with its wholly-owned subsidiary Greentech Hydrogen Innovations Corp.

Patent-pending hydrogen storage and distribution system (Application No. 18/839,337) will be transferred to Spinco via the Arrangement.

Spinco will become a reporting issuer in BC, Alberta, and Ontario upon completion.

Board believes the Arrangement will:

Streamline reorganization of the hydrogen asset

Allow Aegis to focus on sales and strategic partnerships

Support commercialization of quantum-secured energy storage and defence systems

Highlights:

On February 2, 2026, Aegis and Subco entered into a debt settlement agreement whereby Subco agreed to settle $83,314.39 of debt for the total consideration of 4,165,719 common shares of Subco ("Subco Shares") at a deemed price of $0.02 per Subco Share. As a result of the debt settlement, Subco has a total of 4,165,819 Subco Shares issued and outstanding, all of which are owned by Aegis.

Pursuant to the Arrangement, Aegis shall distribute 3,749,319 Subco Shares (the "Spin-Out Shares") to the shareholders of Aegis (the "Aegis Shareholders") on a pro rata basis in a manner whereby Spinco will issue 3,749,319 Spin-Out Shares to the Aegis Shareholders, subject to rounding down of the fractional shares and subject to the exercise of the rights of dissent such that the Aegis Shareholders (other than dissenting shareholders) will become holders of the Spin-Out Shares, with Aegis holding the balance of 416,500 Subco Shares.

Upon completion of the Arrangement, (i) the Asset held by Subco, which is the Company's pre-existing wholly-owned subsidiary, will become the Asset of Spinco, (ii) Spinco will become a reporting issuer in the Provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario, (iii) each Aegis Shareholder will continue to be a shareholder of the Company, (iv) all Aegis Shareholders will have become shareholders of Spinco, and (v) Aegis will retain its working capital for its assets, and subject to meeting the continuous listing requirements will remain listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange (the "CSE") and continue to trade under the trading symbol, QESS, as a technology company.

Required Approvals:

The Arrangement is subject to the approvals of the Supreme Court of British Columbia (the "Court"), the Aegis Shareholders at the annual general and special meeting to be scheduled for April 7, 2026 (the "Meeting"), and the CSE.

Details of the Arrangement will be provided in a management information circular that will be mailed to all Aegis Shareholders prior to the Meeting. At the Meeting, the Aegis Shareholders will be asked to vote on a special resolution approving the Arrangement, among other resolutions.

The Arrangement Agreement will be posted on the Company profiles on SEDAR+, the CSE and the OTCQB.

Share Distribution Record Date:

The Share Distribution Record Date will be determined by the board of directors of the Company and will be announced in advance by way of a news release following required approvals. No outstanding warrants or options of the Company will be exchanged for warrants or options of Spinco.

The Company will provide further updates to confirm the mailing of the Meeting materials and voting information.

About the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO)

The Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) is the Crown corporation responsible for operating and planning the electricity system and wholesale electricity market in the Province of Ontario. Established under the Electricity Act, 1998, the IESO manages Ontario's bulk electricity system and ensures the reliable supply of electricity across the province.

About Quantum eMotion

Quantum eMotion Corp. (TSXV: QNC) (OTCQB: QNCCF) (FSE: 34Q0) is a Canadian deep-tech company developing quantum-safe cybersecurity solutions based on its patented Quantum Random Number Generator (QRNG) and Entropy-as-a-Service platform, securing data and communications for the quantum era. For more information, visit https://www.quantumemotion.com/

About SEETEL New Energy

SEETEL New Energy Co. Ltd. (TW: 7740) is a Taiwan-based manufacturer and systems integrator specializing in high-performance lithium battery modules and energy-storage systems for global industrial and grid applications.

Learn more at www.homelandnuclearenergy.com

About Ontario Tech University

Ontario Tech University is a leading public research institution with strengths in nuclear engineering, energy systems, cyber security, and applied technology - home to Canada's only fully accredited undergraduate nuclear engineering program and the Centre for Small Modular Reactors. For more information visit https://ontariotechu.ca/

About Pixii Americas Inc.

Pixii Americas Inc leads the way in delivering innovative Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), empowering a secure and sustainable energy future. With our North America headquarters in Littleton, Colorado, we combine decades of expertise in power conversion, modular design, and advanced energy management to address the evolving demands of the energy storage sector. Pixii takes pride in adhering to the highest standards of quality and security. www.pixii.com

About Malahat Energy Systems Inc.

MES, an Indigenous-led enterprise affiliated with the Malahat Nation, will play a central role in system development, manufacturing, and Indigenous participation across defence and clean energy. For more information, visit https://malahatbattery.com.

About Aegis Critical Energy Defence Corp.

Aegis Critical Energy Defence Corp. (CSE: QESS) (OTCQB: QESSF) (FSE: JG6) develops and integrates advanced battery energy storage systems for defence, critical infrastructure, industrial, and AI data centre applications. Through strategic partnerships with Indigenous communities and global technology leaders, Aegis delivers rugged, intelligent, and secure energy systems designed for the next generation of mission-critical operations.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains statements that constitute "forward-looking statements." Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause Aegis Critical Energy Defence Corp.'s actual results, performance or achievements, or developments in the industry to differ materially from the anticipated results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "projects," "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will," "would," "may," "could" or "should" occur.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/283493

Source: Aegis Critical Energy Defence Corp.
This year, Tamannaah Bhatia entered the retail space by launching her own contemporary fine jewellery brand, Tamannaah Fine Jewellery

Gone are the days when Bollywood actresses were just actresses. Theyve put a strong foot in the business space and are leaving a mark as successful businesswomen. In addition to winning hearts with varied roles and meaningful projects, these actresses are also spreading their wings in business sectors, including fine jewellery, clothing, cosmetics, skincare & more.

Tamannaah Bhatia - Tamannaah Fine Jewellery

This year, Tamannaah Bhatia entered the retail space by launching her own contemporary fine jewellery brand, Tamannaah Fine Jewellery, focusing on modern, minimalist and versatile pieces. Staying deeply involved in the brand, right from its production to retail, Tamannaah builds it around the philosophy Beyond the Occasion, one that aims to reflect how modern women live today. With a flagship store in Mumbai, Tamannaah has just stepped into entrepreneurship and is all set to build her own empire!

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Alia Bhatt - Ed-a-Mamma

Alia Bhatt owns the kids wear brand, Ed-a-Mamma, launched in 2020. The brand stands out among others by serving a range of naturally sourced and sustainable apparel for children.

Katrina Kaif - Kay Beauty

Katrina Kaif ventured into business with Kay Beauty in 2019, launching Indias first celebrity-owned beauty brand. Katrinas Kay Beauty slowly expanded its reach to over 300 retail stores in more than 1600 cities, and is currently going strong with a massive consumer base.

Kriti Sanon - Hyphen

In 2023, Kriti Sanon launched Hyphen, a skincare brand that aims to provide realistic and simplified skincare solutions. As the brands Chief Customer Officer, Kriti Sanon participates in various zones of the brand, including research, design, testing and customer satisfaction.

Deepika Padukone - 82E

Deepika Padukone is the proud owner of a skincare brand 82E. The self-care brand, launched in 2022, features products made using Indian ingredients.

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The production banner, sources say, believes the actor should compensate the company for the damages incurred, which are reportedly as staggering as Rs 40 crore

Farhan Akhtar and Ranveer Singh announced Don 3 with a lot of fanfare and excitement two years back. But the blockbuster success of Dhurandhar has changed everything it seems. Post the iconic success of the film, it seems the leading man has a different outlook about the kind of film he should be a part of. He quit the film and another side of the story says he was ousted due to his demands.

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The Don 3 fiasco intensifies

A source on anonymity told Variety India, Ranveer claims he left the project because he wasnt happy with the script. He kept asking for changes to be made and didnt like what the final draft read. Excel, on the other hand, claims that they went ahead with pre-production only after Singh gave his go ahead.

The production banner, sources say, believes the actor should compensate the company for the damages incurred, which are reportedly as staggering as Rs 40 crore. An official statement from both the parties is awaited as the issue continues to intensify. The Producers Guild of India (PGI) is now likely to act as the mediator.

What an earlier source said

A source close to the development told Pinkvilla, With Dhurandhars massive success, Ranveer is very clear about the kind of films he wants to do next. He is keen to collaborate with filmmakers like Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Lokesh Kanagaraj, and Atlee, and at the same time, he doesnt want to be seen in back-to-back gangster films, especially since Dhurandhar is already established in that space. Thats one of the reasons he has asked Jai Mehta to prepone the shoot of Pralay. Ranveer is keen on fast-tracking the project and bringing it on floors sooner than planned.

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Now that he has walked out of Don 3, Singh is now personally involved in aligning dates and schedules for Jai Mehtas film to ensure the film moves quickly, the source added.
Advocate Vijayan Subramanian submitted the letter on behalf of the production house. The matter is expected to be listed on February 10 before Justice P T Asha

The producer of actor Vijays film Jana Nayagan has moved the Madras High Court Registry to withdraw a writ petition filed against the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC).

The counsel for KVN Productions informed the Madras High Court Registry that the production house intends to withdraw its writ petition related to actor Vijays film  Jananayagan filed against CBFC.

Advocate Vijayan Subramanian submitted the letter on behalf of the production house. The matter is expected to be listed on February 10 before Justice P T Asha.

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_Jana Nayagan_ was planned for a Pongal release on January 9 and is being described as Vijays last film. The actor has entered politics and has launched his own political party, Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK).

The film ran into trouble when the CBFC decided to hold back its certification on the grounds that certain scenes in the movie could potentially hurt religious sentiments. A single judge then asked the CBFC to give the film a U/A 16+ certificate, which brought short-term relief.

However, the CBFC later moved to a division bench of the High Court, which stayed the single judges order on January 9.

This led the producers to approach the Supreme Court, asking for an urgent stay on the High Courts decision. However, the apex court refused to intervene.

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CBFC tight-lipped amid _Jana Nayagan_ certification controversy

s release was originally scheduled for January 9, 2026, during the Pongal festive window but was postponed when the CBFC failed to grant a censor certificate in time. Amid growing speculation about the boards next steps, D. Balamurali, the CBFC Chennai Regional Officer, said he could not comment on the matter, as per a report in The Hindu.

All our examination process is confidential. We cannot reveal anything until a certificate is issued. The law prohibits sharing of any such information, he told the daily adding that the public would be informed once a decision is finalised.

With added inputs from agencies
Days after India inked a trade agreement with the US, Bangladesh has done the same. As per the deal, the Trump administration will slash tariffs on Bangladeshi goods to 19 per cent, one per cent less than before. Meanwhile, US levies on Indian exports are now pegged at 18 per cent

Bangladesh has secured a reduced 19 per cent tariff rate with the United States under a trade agreement signed between the two countries on Monday (February 9). File image

Just days before Bangladesh goes to the polls  scheduled for February 12  it signed a reciprocal tariff agreement with the United States. On Monday (February 9), the two nations inked a deal as a result of which US tariffs on Bangladeshi goods have been set at 19 per cent, one per cent lower than the previous 20 per cent.

Bangladeshs Trade Advisor Sheikh Bashiruddin and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer signed the much-discussed trade agreement on Monday night, following which Muhammad Yunus, the chief adviser heading Bangladeshs interim government, said that the agreement was a major step towards protecting jobs and strengthening Bangladeshs position in the global textile supply chain.

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Notably, the tariff agreement with the US comes just days after India signed its own deal with Washington, resulting in comparisons being drawn between the two agreements.

So, whats in the US-Bangladesh deal and how does it compare to Indias?

US-Bangladesh tariff agreement

On Monday night, at 10 pm local time, Bangladesh and the US signed a tariff agreement, following which the countrys existing duty on Bangladeshi exports has been reduced by one per cent. As a result, the duty on Bangladeshi products has been reduced from 20 to 19 per cent.

According to an official statement issued by Dhaka, the agreement was signed on the Bangladesh side by Commerce Adviser Sheikh Bashir Uddin and National Security Adviser Khalilur Rahman, and on the US side by Ambassador Jamieson Greer, the US Trade Representative.

Greer praised Yunus and the negotiating team for their efforts in concluding the agreement. This agreement will strengthen Bangladeshs position in US trade policy, he said, as quoted in the statement.

Ambassador Greer joined Bangladeshs Adviser Sheikh Bashir Uddin in signing the USBangladesh Agreement on Reciprocal Trade. Image Courtesy: @USTradeRep/X

The reduction in tariff to 19 per cent is good news for Bangladesh. Initially, the Donald Trump-led administration had levied a 37 per cent tariff against the Asian nation in April last year. It was then brought down to 20 per cent last August.

Following the signing of the deal, Yunus, in a statement on X, noted, In addition, the US committed to establishing a mechanism for certain textile and apparel goods from Bangladesh using US-produced cotton and man-made fibre to receive zero reciprocal tariff in the US market.

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Bangladesh, US sign reciprocal tariff agreement



WASHINGTON DC, February 9: The Agreement on Reciprocal Tariff between Bangladesh and the United States was signed on Monday. On the Bangladesh side, the signatories were Commerce Adviser Sheikh Bashir Uddin and National Security  Chief Adviser of the Government of Bangladesh (@ChiefAdviserGoB) February 9, 2026

The reduction of reciprocal tariff from 20 per cent to 19 per cent will grant further advantage to our exporters, while zero reciprocal tariff on specific textile and apparel exports from Bangladesh will give substantially added impetus to our garments sector, he said.

Pharmaceutical products from Bangladesh will also enjoy zero-duty access to the US market. Other items, including fish and paperboard, will also receive zero-duty treatment.

As per the deal, Bangladesh has agreed to provide significant preferential market access for US industrial and agricultural products, including chemicals, medical devices, machinery, motor vehicles and parts, soy products and dairy goods, beef, poultry, tree nuts, and fruit. Moreover, it will also ease non-tariff barriers by accepting US vehicle safety and emissions standards, recognising US Food and Drug Administration certifications, and removing import restrictions on remanufactured goods, the White House added.

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The deal also states that Biman Bangladesh, the national aircraft carrier of the country, will purchase 14 Boeing aircraft.

Why this deal matters for Bangladesh

Under the agreement, Washington is committed to working towards duty exemptions for certain textiles and apparel. And this is crucial for Bangladesh, as it is the worlds second-biggest garment manufacturer.

This sector is, in fact, the backbone of Bangladeshs economy  it accounts for more than 80 per cent of total export earnings; it employs around four million workers, and contributes 10 per cent the nations gross domestic product (GDP).

According to industry insiders, the lower tariff rate could help Bangladeshi manufacturers stay competitive in the US market, which remains one of their largest export destinations.

How the Bangladesh-US deal compares to India

The timing of Bangladeshs deal with the US is curious; it comes just a week after US President Donald Trump announced that Washington and New Delhi had agreed to a trade deal, as a result of which tariffs on Indian exports would be reduced.

India and the US signed a trade deal last week after which tariffs on Indian goods were reduced to 18 per cent. Representational image/PTI

Now, US tariffs on Indian exports is down to 18 per cent  one per cent lower than Bangladesh. Indian officials and analysts have said the lower tariff gives Indian exporters a marginal pricing advantage in the American market.

A joint statement released days later also revealed that India will purchase $500 billion worth of US goods over five years. As per the deal, India has promised to reduce its standard tariffs on all US industrial goods as well as several food and agricultural products. The United States, on the other hand, will only lower reciprocal tariffs that currently apply to about 55 per cent of Indian exports - bringing them down from 50 per cent to 18 per cent.

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Its important to note here that Bangladeshi textiles with US cotton or man-made fibre will attract zero per cent tariff, whereas Indias apparel to the US will see a 18 per cent tariff. This gives Dhaka an edge over India.

Comparing tariffs in the region

As per the deal, the tariffs on Bangladeshi goods will be 19 per cent. Meanwhile, levies on Indian goods to the US has been set at 18 per cent.

Incidentally, the US tariffs on Bangladesh  19 per cent  are the same as those levied on Pakistan. Other countries that have a 19 per cent tariff are Malaysia and Thailand.

However, Laos and Myanmar are subject to substantially higher tariffs of 40 per cent, whereas China is anywhere from 34 per cent to 37 per cent.

Outside Asia, some of the steepest US tariffs apply to Brazil at 50 per cent and South Africa at 30 per cent.

By comparison, the countries enjoying the lowest tariff treatment from the United States include the United Kingdom at 10 per cent, and the European Union, Switzerland, Japan, and South Korea at approximately 15 per cent.

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With inputs from agencies
India is set to clear a Rs 3.25 lakh crore deal for 114 Rafale F4 fighter jets from France, its largest-ever combat aircraft purchase. The acquisition will reshape the Indian Air Forces combat strength, boost indigenous manufacturing, and make India a global Rafale production and maintenance hub

Indian Air Force's Rafale fighter jets fly past during the "Aero India 2021" air show at Yelahanka air base in Bengaluru, India, February 3, 2021. File Image/Reuters

India is moving closer to finalising what would be the most expensive and strategically significant combat aircraft acquisition in its history, a decision that could shape the Indian Air Forces operational posture for decades.

Under the long-delayed Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft (MRFA) programme, New Delhi is preparing to approve the purchase of 114 Dassault Rafale F4 multirole fighter jets from France through a government-to-government framework estimated at around Rs 3.25 lakh crore.

The proposal is expected to receive a key clearance from the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) in the coming days, setting the stage for final contract signing during French President Emmanuel Macrons visit to India later this month.

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If executed as planned, the agreement would not only replenish the Indian Air Forces rapidly depleting fighter squadrons but also establish India as a global production and maintenance hub for the Rafale platform, second only to France itself.

Explained: India-France Rafale deal

At the heart of the MRFA deal is the acquisition of 114 Rafale F4 aircraft exclusively for the Indian Air Force.

The fleet composition includes 88 single-seat fighters and 26 twin-seat trainer variants, all configured for land-based operations.

None of the aircraft covered under this proposal are intended for naval use, which is already under a separate process to induct of Rafale-Marine jets for the Indian Navy.

The massive figure of Rs 3.25 lakh crore reflects not only the aircraft themselves but also a broader package that includes weapons, simulators, spares, training, upgrades, industrial infrastructure, and long-term maintenance support.

Once the full order is delivered, the Indian Air Forces Rafale inventory is expected to rise to nearly 150 aircraft. India had previously inducted 36 Rafales under a 2016 agreement, which marked the platforms first entry into Indian service.

In parallel, the Indian Navy signed a separate contract in April 2025 for 26 Rafale-M jets intended for aircraft carrier operations, with deliveries expected to continue into the early 2030s.

Taken together, these acquisitions will result in India operating around 176 Rafale fighters across the Air Force and Navy, making it the largest Rafale operator in the world and surpassing even the French armed forces in terms of total fleet size.

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Fly-away first, then Made in India

One of the defining features of the MRFA deal is its staggered delivery structure, designed to balance the Indian Air Forces immediate operational needs with long-term indigenisation goals.

Under the current plan, the first 18 Rafale aircraft will be delivered in fly-away condition, meaning they will be fully manufactured in France and handed over ready for operational deployment.

These initial deliveries are expected to begin around 2030, allowing the IAF to start replenishing its squadron strength without waiting for domestic production lines to be established.

The remaining 96 aircraft will be produced in India through licensed manufacturing. A final assembly line will be set up at the Dassault Reliance Aerospace Limited (DRAL) facility in Nagpur. This facility, now a subsidiary of Dassault Aviation, is expected to become a cornerstone of Indias combat aircraft manufacturing ecosystem.

Over time, the Nagpur assembly line is expected to serve not only Indian requirements but also contribute to Dassaults global Rafale supply chain.

Indigenisation roadmap for the Rafale

Indian industry is set to play a central role in the Rafale F4 programme. Several domestic firms, including Tata, Mahindra, Dynamatic Technologies Limited, and more than three dozen other companies, are expected to be part of the supply chain.

Various reports have indicated that Tata has already secured contracts to manufacture Rafale fuselages for export orders.

The indigenisation strategy follows a phased approach. While the initial level of local sourcing is expected to be around 30 per cent, the long-term objective is to raise indigenous content to approximately 60 per cent over time.

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This trajectory mirrors the approach adopted in other recent defence programmes, such as the C-295 transport aircraft project.

For context, Indias indigenous Tejas fighter currently has an indigenous content level of about 62 per cent.

Officials involved in the Rafale programme have indicated that while the starting indigenisation figures may appear modest, the broader ecosystem encompassing engines, maintenance, spares, and upgrades could significantly increase the real domestic value generated by the project.

Dassault Aviation has also committed to establishing a comprehensive Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul ecosystem in India. In addition to airframe support, Safran is expected to set up facilities related to the M88 engine used by the Rafale.

These initiatives are aimed at reducing lifecycle costs, improving fleet availability, and positioning India as a long-term sustainment hub for the platform.

Production capacity amid rising global demand

As of December 2025, Dassault Aviation reported a backlog of 220 Rafale aircraft, including 175 export orders and 45 for France. This figure remained unchanged from the previous year, though the composition of export and domestic orders shifted.

Dassault currently has the capacity to manufacture around 25 Rafales per year, a figure that is planned to increase to 50 annually.

The proposed Indian final assembly line is expected to have a capacity of approximately 24 aircraft per year, a significant contribution to global production volumes, with analysts suggesting that Indias Rafale numbers could increase over time.

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Explained: Rafale variants and their roles

While the Rafale is often discussed as a single platform, it exists in multiple variants designed to meet different operational needs. All versions share a common aerodynamic design and avionics architecture, but differ in structure, crew configuration, and mission profiles.

The Rafale C is a single-seat fighter designed for land-based air force operations. It is the lightest and most agile variant, optimised for air superiority and strike missions.

The Rafale B is a twin-seat version, also land-based, which includes a second cockpit for a Weapon Systems Officer. While initially conceived primarily for training, operational experience demonstrated the value of a second crew member for complex missions such as deep strikes and nuclear deterrence roles.

The Rafale M is the naval variant, designed for aircraft carrier operations. It features a reinforced airframe and landing gear to withstand the stresses of deck landings, a strengthened arrestor hook, and specialised nose gear designed to assist with catapult launches.

Due to these structural modifications, the Rafale M is heavier than its land-based counterparts and carries one fewer hardpoint.

Indias MRFA deal is focused entirely on land-based variants for the Air Force, while the Navys requirements are being met separately through the Rafale-M acquisition.

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Evolution of Rafale standards

Beyond physical variants, Rafales are defined by their standards, which represent progressive upgrades in sensors, software, connectivity, and weapons integration.

The Indian Air Force currently operates Rafales in the F3-R configuration, which includes advanced features such as an Active Electronically Scanned Array radar, long-range air-to-air missiles, and modern targeting pods. Under the MRFA agreement, all Indian Rafales will be upgraded to the F4 standard, including those already in service.

The F4 upgrade focuses heavily on enhancing connectivity and network-centric warfare capabilities. It introduces new satellite communication links, improved intra-flight data sharing, upgraded mission computers, and software-defined radios.

These changes are intended to allow Rafales to operate more effectively as part of a connected battlespace, sharing information seamlessly with other aircraft, ground stations, and command networks.

The contract also includes provisions for upgrading Indian Rafales to the F5 standard when it becomes available.

The F5 configuration, expected around 2030, is being designed to operate alongside unmanned systems, including loyal wingman drones, extending the platforms relevance into the next generation of air combat.

Why Rafale is a game-changer for the Indian Air Force

As of early 2026, the Rafale represents the most advanced combat aircraft in Indian Air Force service and is widely regarded as its primary force multiplier.

The aircrafts defining feature is its omnirole capability, which allows it to conduct multiple mission types  including air superiority, ground attack, reconnaissance, and nuclear delivery  within a single sortie.

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Central to this capability is the Rafales sensor suite. Its radar can track multiple aerial targets simultaneously while also supporting precision engagement.

Weapons integration also enhances the platforms reach. Long-range air-to-air missiles give the Rafale a decisive advantage in beyond-visual-range combat, while stand-off strike weapons allow it to engage high-value targets deep inside hostile territory.

Precision-guided munitions provide flexibility across a wide range of operational scenarios.

Indias Rafales incorporate a set of India-specific enhancements that distinguish them from those operated by other countries. These modifications are designed to address the unique operational conditions faced by the Indian Air Force, particularly in high-altitude and extreme weather environments.

Among these enhancements are systems that allow reliable engine starts in cold (like in the Leh region) and rarefied air, specialised electronic warfare equipment tuned to regional threat profiles, advanced helmet-mounted displays that improve pilot situational awareness, and towed decoys designed to divert incoming missiles.

The urgency behind the MRFA deal is driven in large part by the Indian Air Forces declining squadron strength.

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The service is authorised to operate 42 fighter squadrons but currently has around 29, a gap that has widened as legacy aircraft such as the MiG-21 retire faster than replacements can be inducted.

At the same time, India faces a risky regional security environment marked by increased military coordination between China and Pakistan. In this context, the Rafale offers a proven platform with relatively low integration risk and rapid induction timelines.

If approved and executed on schedule, the Rafale F4 programme is expected to form the backbone of the Indian Air Force through the 2030s.

By providing a stable, high-capability fleet, the deal is intended to buy time for indigenous programmes such as the Tejas Mk-2 and the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft to mature.

Delays in the MRFA programme, however, could exacerbate existing capability gaps.

With inputs from agencies
The long-running legal and censorship issue around actor Vijays Jana Nayagan film will end today (February 10) as the makers have decided to withdraw the writ petition filed against the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) from the Madras high court. Also, several Latin American countries will launch their first free, collaborative, and open-source AI Latam-GPT today

Thalapathy Vijays last film Jana Nayagan was all set to release on January 9. File image

Its set to be a busy Tuesday. Latin America is set to launch its first free, collaborative, and open-source AI Latam-GPT today. Meanwhile, the producer of Vijays Jana Nayagan film has filed plea to withdraw the case against Central Borad of Film Certification amid row.

NCP (SP) MLA Rohit Pawar is set to announce details regarding the death of former Maharashtra Deputy CM Ajit Pawar.

The 98th Oscars Nominees Luncheon will take place today. Here is all that is set to take place across the world today.

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Jana Nayagan maker to withdraw case

The producer of Vijays Jana Nayagan has officially moved to withdraw its writ petition against the censor board. In a letter submitted to the Madras High Court Registry, the producer confirmed they have opted to take the film before a revising committee instead of continuing the legal battle.

The petition is scheduled to appear before Justice PT Asha today, marked specifically for withdrawal. This follows a move by KVN Productions LLPs counsel, Vijayan Subramanian, who formally communicated that his client no longer wishes to move forward with the lawsuit.

Launch of Latam-GPT

Several Latin American countries are set to launch Latam-GPT, the regions first large artificial intelligence language model, today. Developed as an open-source project, it aims to boost AI accessibility and reflect the unique cultural and linguistic diversity of Latin America.

The project is led by Chiles National Center for Artificial Intelligence (CENIA) in collaboration with over 30 regional institutions. Work on Latam-GPT began in January 2023, with support from the regional development bank CAF and Amazon Web Services (AWS). The model is based on Llama 3 technology and is trained using both regional supercomputing facilities and cloud systems, including those at the University of Tarapaca in Chile.

Some of its aims are to understand local cultures and dialects, promote the preservation of indigenous languages, support the development of public service chatbots and educational tools, and finally provide a cost-effective, open-source alternative for regional innovation.

Seychelles President and wife to visit Taj Mahal

The President of Seychelles, Patrick Herminie and his wife, Veronique Herminie, will visit the iconic Taj Mahal in Agra today. The Agra district administration, police, and ASI have made full preparations for the Taj Mahal visit.

President Patrick Herminie of Seychelles arrived in India on February 5. His visit will last until February 10. He assumed the presidency of Seychelles in October 2025. This is his first visit to India since becoming president.

NCP (SP) leader to present details on Ajit Pawar plane crash

NCP (SP) leader Rohit Pawar is set to present details on the plane crash involving the death of Maharashtra Deputy CM Ajit Pawar and four others in a plane crash near Baramati.

The presentation will specifically explore why and how the crash occurred, incorporating insights from technical experts, pilots, and aviation specialists who have raised concerns about the incident.

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The crash involved a chartered Learjet 45 that was attempting to land at the Baramati table-top airstrip amid reported poor visibility. It resulted in five fatalities, including Ajit Pawar and his personal security officer.

Union Minister Murlidhar Mohol confirmed that the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) and the DGCA have recovered the black box and are currently conducting a technical analysis.

Oscars Nominees Luncheon

The 98th Oscars Nominees Luncheon will take place on February 10. This annual private event, hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, will bring together the years Oscar contenders for a celebratory lunch and the tradition of taking the class photo of all nominees.

The luncheon serves as a relaxed, non-competitive gathering for nominees across all 24 categories, from major stars to behind-the-scenes craftspeople, to celebrate their achievement before the main ceremony.

This is year the expected attendees include top nominees for the 98th Academy Awards, such as Michael B Jordan (Sinners), Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another), Timothee Chalamet (Marty Supreme), Emma Stone (Bugonia), and Jessie Buckley (Hamnet).

Ronald Heath to be executed in Florida for 1989 murder

Ronald Palmer Heath is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Friday at 6:00 pm at the Florida State Prison. This marks the first execution in Florida for 2026, following a modern-era record of 19 executions in the state last year.

Heath was convicted of first-degree murder, armed robbery, and forgery of Michael Sheridan, a traveling salesman from New York. On May 24, 1989, Heath and his brother, Kenneth, met Sheridan at a bar in Gainesville. They lured him to a wooded area under the guise of smoking marijuana, where they robbed him.

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According to court records, Heath stabbed Sheridan in the neck with a hunting knife and attempted to slit his throat. When the knife proved too dull, he ordered his brother to shoot Sheridan twice in the head.

With inputs from agencies
Ghislaine Maxwell refused to answer questions during a US congressional deposition, invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Her silence sparked criticism from Democrats as well as Republicans, as the US Congress works to expose Epsteins abuse network

Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted and jailed associate of the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, addresses the House Oversight Committee in a closed-door video deposition during their meeting in Washington, DC, US, February 9, 2026 in a still image from video. Image/GOP Oversight via Reuters

Ghislaine Maxwell, a former associate and partner of Jeffrey Epstein, is currently serving a 20-year federal prison sentence after being convicted in 2021 for her role in facilitating the sexual abuse of teenage girls.

During a closed-door US congressional deposition conducted via video link from a federal prison camp in Texas on Monday, she declined to respond to questions from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, repeatedly invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

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Her decision drew criticism from both Republicans and Democrats on the committee, who said the hearing yielded no new testimony that could advance their investigation into how Epstein was able to operate for years while maintaining access to elite circles.

Video later released by the committee showed Maxwell seated at a conference table, dressed in a brown prison-issued uniform, with a bottle of water in front of her, as she repeatedly stated that she was asserting my Fifth Amendment right to silence.

The Fifth Amendment: What it protects and how it works

Ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, the Fifth Amendment contains five distinct guarantees, including the requirement for grand jury indictments in serious criminal cases, protection against double jeopardy, due process rights, limitations on government seizure of private property, and the privilege against self-incrimination.

It is this last protection that Maxwell relied upon during her deposition.

The privilege against self-incrimination allows a witness to refuse to answer questions when truthful responses could contribute to their own criminal exposure.

Courts have long recognised that testimony does not need to amount to a direct confession to trigger this protection; even statements that could serve as a link in the chain of evidence may qualify.

Legal doctrine describes the Fifth Amendment as shielding individuals from what has been termed the cruel trilemma  the forced choice between lying under oath, refusing to answer and facing punishment, or providing information that could lead to prosecution.

Invoking the Fifth is not an all-encompassing silence.

Witnesses generally must assert the privilege in response to specific questions. Routine or non-incriminating inquiries, such as identifying oneself, typically do not qualify unless the information itself carries criminal implications.

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The legal consequences of invoking the Fifth also vary depending on the setting. In criminal trials, juries are explicitly instructed that no adverse inference can be drawn from a defendants silence.

Civil proceedings, by contrast, may allow judges or juries to interpret a refusal to testify negatively.

Congressional hearings fall into a separate category altogether. While invoking the Fifth carries no automatic legal penalty in such forums, there are no formal restrictions preventing lawmakers or the public from forming their own conclusions.

As of 2026, the United States Supreme Court continues to require that Fifth Amendment protections be invoked clearly and explicitly. Remaining silent without asserting the right is generally insufficient under existing case law.

How the committee reacted to Maxwells testimony

Committee chairman James Comer said the deposition fell far short of expectations. This is obviously very disappointing. We had many questions to ask about the crimes she and Epstein committed, as well as questions about potential co-conspirators, he told reporters after the session concluded.

Audrey Strauss, acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York, points to a photo of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, during a news conference in New York on July 2, 2020. File image/AP

Democratic members echoed that frustration while accusing Maxwell of attempting to use the congressional forum to advance her own legal interests rather than cooperate with investigators.

US Representative James Walkinshaw of Virginia said, What we did not get were any substantive answers to the questions that were asked that would advance our investigation.

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He characterised Maxwells conduct as part of a broader strategy aimed at securing presidential intervention. What we did get was another episode in her long-running campaign for clemency from President Trump. And President Trump could end that today - he could rule out clemency for Ghislaine Maxwell, the monster.

US Representative Melanie Stansbury, a Democrat from New Mexico, offered a similar assessment, saying, Its very clear shes campaigning for clemency.

Republican lawmakers also rejected the idea outright. US Representative Anna Paulina Luna responded publicly after the deposition, writing on social media, NO CLEMENCY. You comply or face punishment, followed by, You deserve JUSTICE for what you did you monster.

What Maxwells legal team has said

Maxwells attorney, David Oscar Markus, made clear that her refusal to testify was rooted in ongoing legal challenges to her conviction. He told lawmakers that she has a pending habeas petition arguing that her trial was constitutionally flawed.

In a statement posted on X and submitted to the committee, Markus said he advised Maxwell to invoke the Fifth Amendment because the petition demonstrates that her conviction rests on a fundamentally unfair trial.

He also linked Maxwells willingness to testify to the prospect of presidential clemency.

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If this Committee and the American public truly want to hear the unfiltered truth about what happened, there is a straightforward path. Ms. Maxwell is prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump, Markus wrote.

In separate remarks, he asserted that both Trump and former US President Bill Clinton were not involved in wrongdoing related to Epstein. He stated that Trump and Clinton are innocent of any wrongdoing, and added that Ms. Maxwell alone can explain why, and the public is entitled to that explanation."

The White House, when questioned about Maxwells appeal, pointed reporters to earlier statements from Trump indicating that a pardon or commutation was not under active consideration.

Maxwells legal efforts extend beyond clemency. She has continued to challenge her conviction through the courts, arguing that she was wrongfully convicted.

While the Supreme Court rejected her appeal last year, her legal team submitted a new request in December asking a federal judge in New York to review what they described as substantial new evidence suggesting constitutional violations during her trial.

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What next for Maxwell and Epstein files

The deposition took place amid the US Justice Departments release of millions of internal Epstein-related records, following legislation passed by Congress last year mandating public disclosure.

The release has become a major point of contention, with lawmakers and victims advocates raising concerns over how the documents were handled.

As part of an agreement with the Justice Department, members of Congress were granted access to more than three million unredacted files in a secure reading room at a Washington office.

Lawmakers were limited to four computers, prohibited from bringing staff, and allowed only handwritten notes.

US Representative Jamie Raskin, the senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, spent several hours reviewing the documents and said the scope of the material made comprehensive analysis daunting.

He told reporters that even if lawmakers devoted all their time to the task, it would still take us months to get through all of those documents.

Raskin and other Democrats criticised the Justice Department for failing to adequately protect victims identities, including the inadvertent release of nude photographs.

Jennifer Freeman, an attorney representing survivors, said, Over and over we begged them, please be careful, please be more careful. The damage has already been done. It feels incompetent, it feels intimidating and it feels intentional.

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Democrats also accused the department of continuing to withhold information that could shed light on Epsteins associates.

US Republican Representative Thomas Massie, who sponsored the disclosure legislation, said that after reviewing the unredacted files, he identified six men that are likely incriminated by their inclusion.

Massie said he believed those individuals should face accountability and noted that he could potentially name them during a speech on the House floor, where constitutional protections would shield him from legal action.

Massie and Democratic Representative Ro Khanna also said some records remained partially obscured, likely because the FBI provided redacted versions to the Justice Department.

Khanna said the files reinforced the conclusion that it wasnt just Epstein and Maxwell who were involved in the abuse of underage girls.

The document release has triggered political fallout across the Atlantic as well, including in the United Kingdom, where Prime Minister Keir Starmer has faced pressure following revelations that a former British ambassador to Washington had maintained close ties with Epstein.

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Raskin warned that despite the scale of the scandal, accountability for US political figures remained elusive.

Im just afraid that the general worsening and degradation of American life has somehow conditioned people not to take this as seriously as we should be taking it, he said.

Also Watch:

With inputs from agencies
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has weathered mounting pressure over the Peter Mandelson-Jeffrey Epstein controversy, senior resignations, and internal Labour dissent. Backed by key ministers, Starmer has refused to quit, buying time as investigations, elections and political tests loom for his fragile government

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer adjusts his glasses as he waits to deliver his speech at Horntye Park Sports Complex in St Leonards, UK, February 05, 2026. File Image/Pool via Reuters

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is confronting the gravest challenge to his leadership after his as appointment of Peter Mandelson as the United Kingdoms ambassador to the United States was put under the lens.

Damaging revelations linked to Jeffrey Epstein, followed senior resignations inside Downing Street and internal dissent within the Labour Party has placed Starmers leadership under unprecedented strain less than two years after Labour returned to power.

Despite the scale of the pressure, Starmer has chosen to resist calls to step aside, telling his party and the country that he intends to fight on.

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How the Epstein files crisis reached Starmer

The current turmoil has its roots in the resurfacing of documents connected to the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, whose criminal history and associations continue to reverberate across political systems on both sides of the Atlantic.

Although Starmer has repeatedly stated that he never met Epstein and is not implicated in any wrongdoing, the controversy has focused sharply on his judgment in appointing Peter Mandelson to one of Britains most important diplomatic roles in 2024.

Mandelson, a senior and long-standing Labour figure, was dismissed as ambassador to Washington in September after emails emerged showing that he had maintained a personal relationship with Epstein even after Epsteins 2008 conviction for sex offences involving a minor.

The issue escalated dramatically after US authorities released a new tranche of Epstein-related files on January 30. These documents further detailed Mandelsons interactions. This renewed political pressure on Starmer and shifted the issue from one of individual misconduct to the

Starmer moved to address the fallout by apologising publicly to Epsteins victims and acknowledged his own error in trusting Mandelsons account of events. He said he was sorry for having believed Mandelsons lies.

At the same time, he committed to publishing documents linked to Mandelsons appointment, arguing that these would demonstrate that officials had been misled about the nature of Mandelsons ties to Epstein.

However, the release of those documents has proven complicated. Government officials have said publication could take weeks because the material must be vetted on national security grounds and checked for any overlap with an active police investigation.

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The process was further complicated when Starmers initial proposal for No 10 to oversee the release prompted anger among backbenchers, leading to a decision that the cross-party intelligence and security committee would instead determine what is made public.

Mandelson is now facing a police inquiry that relates to documents suggesting he may have passed sensitive government information to Epstein more than a decade ago, including material connected to discussions around possible UK asset sales and tax changes during the global financial crisis.

The offence under investigation carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Mandelson has not been arrested or charged, and no allegations of sexual misconduct have been made against him. He has also not commented publicly on the claims.

How Starmers chief of staff took the fall

On Sunday, Starmers chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, resigned after accepting responsibility for advising the prime minister to appoint Mandelson. In a statement, McSweeney said he advised the prime minister to make that appointment, and I take full responsibility for that advice.

Downing Street Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney arrives for the annual Lady Mayors Banquet at the Guildhall in London, UK, December 1, 2025. File Image/Reuters

McSweeneys departure marked a significant moment for the Labour leadership. He had been Starmers most influential aide since 2020 and was widely regarded as a central architect of Labours landslide general election victory in July 2024.

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His role in shaping Labours campaign strategy and organisational discipline made him one of the most powerful figures in the prime ministers inner circle.

However, McSweeney had also become a lightning rod for criticism within the party, with some Labour figures blaming him for a series of political misjudgements and communications failures since the election.

His resignation was followed swiftly by that of Tim Allan, Starmers communications chief, compounding the sense of instability at the top of government and leaving the prime minister without two of his most senior advisers in the space of days.

Senior Labour MP Emily Thornberry described McSweeney as a divisive figure and said his departure created an opportunity for a reset. She also commented on Starmers leadership style, saying he is a good leader in that he is strong and clear. I think that he needs to step up a bit more than he has.

Others within the party, however, warned that losing McSweeney risked leaving Starmer weakened and isolated at a critical juncture.

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How internal Labour dissent shook Starmer

The pressure only heated up further when Anas Sarwar, leader of the Scottish Labour Party, publicly called on Starmer to resign, becoming the most senior Labour figure to do so.

Speaking at a press conference, he said there have been too many mistakes and argued that the distraction needs to end and the leadership in Downing Street has to change.

Sarwar said his decision had been made with a heavy heart, citing the need to defend Scotlands political interests at a time when Labours support north of the border has declined since the 2024 election.

His intervention added to an already febrile atmosphere in Westminster, where MPs were openly questioning the prime ministers judgment and authority.

Starmer responded by refusing to accept the calls to quit. Addressing Labour MPs behind closed doors in Parliament on Monday evening, he adopted a combative tone.

Every fight I have ever been in, Ive won, he told the meeting. He also made clear that he had no intention of stepping away from office, saying, Im not prepared to walk away from my mandate and my responsibility to my country.

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In a broader statement, Starmer framed the crisis as a test of resolve not just for himself but for the Labour government as a whole. He warned against plunging the country into instability and argued that his focus remained on preventing the rise of the hard-right Reform UK party.

How UK Cabinet members backed Starmer

Despite visible divisions, Starmer received backing from senior members of his Cabinet and from figures seen as potential leadership contenders. UK Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy urged unity, writing on X, We should let nothing distract us from our mission to change Britain and we support the Prime Minister in doing that.

UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper echoed the sentiment, saying, At this crucial time for the world, we need his leadership not just at home but on the global stage.

Angela Rayner, a former deputy leader and widely viewed as a possible successor, also moved to support Starmer publicly. She said he has my full support and later added on X, I urge all my colleagues to come together, remember our values and put them into practice as a team. The Prime Minister has my full support in leading us to that end.

Labour MPs who attended the closed-door meeting said the prime minister managed to stabilise the mood in the room. Chris Curtis acknowledged that the session was tense but said, Of course, there were tough moments. But he really brought the room round. Another MP told Reuters bluntly that he [Starmer] is safe for now.

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A Downing Street spokesperson stated that Starmer had a clear five-year mandate from the British people to deliver change, and that is what he will do.

How Opposition attacked Starmer

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch accused Starmer of repeated failures and questioned his ability to govern. She said the prime minister has made bad decision after bad decision and argued that his position now is untenable.

In a separate interview with Sky News, she added, Hes like a plastic bag blowing in the wind. We need him to get a grip and if he cant do it then someone else in the Labour Party needs to do that, or they should have an election.

Starmer has sought to shift attention toward what he describes as a broader political battle against Reform UK, which has been polling ahead of Labour in several surveys.

He warned that the partys agenda would tear this beautiful country apart, and described the campaign to defeat it as the fight of our times. He told MPs, As long as I have breath in my body, Ill be in that fight.

Labours continued struggle in the polls, along with its inability so far to reverse economic stagnation, had already prompted quiet discussion of a leadership challenge even before the Mandelson revelations emerged.

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Why Labour wants to avoid a change in leaders

Under the UKs parliamentary system, a change of prime minister does not automatically require a general election. If Starmer were to resign or face a successful internal challenge, the Labour Party would hold a leadership contest, with the winner assuming the role of prime minister.

The prospect has revived memories of recent Conservative instability. Between the 2019 and 2024 general elections, the Conservatives cycled through three prime ministers, including Liz Truss, whose tenure lasted just 49 days.

Starmer had campaigned on a promise to end the political chaos of those years, positioning Labour as a force for stability.

Labour MP Clive Efford warned colleagues against repeating what he described as the Conservatives mistakes. He said critics should be careful what you wish for, telling BBC, I dont think people took to the changes in prime minister when the Tories were in power. It didnt do them any good.

What next for Starmer-led Labour

Although Starmer has survived the immediate threat to his leadership, a series of looming events could yet prove decisive. A by-election scheduled for February 26 in a Manchester seat that Labour won comfortably in 2024 now carries the risk of a damaging result.

There is a real prospect that Labour could finish behind both the Greens and Reform UK, a scenario that would only increase pressure on the prime minister.

UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves, a key Starmer ally, is preparing to deliver a spring statement on March 3. She is keen to avoid the leaks and reversals that undermined the autumn budget and has stressed the need to project stability and certainty to financial markets.

There have been reports that she faces pressure to delegate the statement to a junior minister to downplay its significance.

Beyond Westminster, elections scheduled for May 7  covering local councils, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Senedd  are widely regarded as the most serious electoral test of Starmers leadership to date.

With the prime minister recording the lowest approval rating of any serving leader, expectations within Labour are low.

Policy challenges also remain acute. A schools white paper expected later this month is set to outline Labours plans for special educational needs provision in state schools, an area already under intense financial strain.

Spending on SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) is projected to reach 14 billion within two years, and warnings have been issued that the escalating costs could bankrupt four out of five English councils.

For now, Keir Starmer remains in office, having weathered a storm that threatened to engulf his leadership. By accepting responsibility, removing senior aides, apologising publicly and securing visible backing from his cabinet, he has managed to buy himself time.

With inputs from agencies
With days to go before the long-awaited Bangladesh political polls on February 12, the country has witnessed a fresh round of violence with 40 people being injured. Unfortunately, this is nothing new

Bangladesh continues to be haunted by political violence.

With just days to go before the long-awaited political polls on February 12, with the Muhammad Yunus interim overseeing the vote, Bangladesh has witnessed a fresh round of violence.

Dozens of people, including several women, were injured in clashes between the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami. Unfortunately, this is nothing new. Bangladesh has been suffering from political violence ever since the country got its independence from Pakistan in 1971.

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Lets take a closer look at how political violence keeps cropping up during Bangladesh elections.

What happened now?

According to India Today, over 40 people were injured on Sunday night amid claims of cash being handed out to voters at a Jamaat programme. This came after BNP workers turned up at the event, which led to Jamaat rounding up their own workers.

The ensuing confrontation on the streets, which continued into the early hours of the morning, left dozens injured. The outlet noted that around half a dozen people have been injured in poll-related violence in Bangladesh over the past few weeks.

On Saturday, local media reported that over 100 people were injured after supporters of BNP candidates clashed in four districts.

According to Al Jazeera, well over a dozen party activists have been killed since December 11, the day the Bangladesh Election Commission pronounced the poll dates. According to local media reports, BNP activists and leaders comprise 13 of the 16 victims.

Prothom Alo, a Bangla daily, reported that seven of the victims were shot dead, underlining the widespread presence of illegal firearms. This includes Hasan Mollah, 42, a local BNP leader in Keraniganj, on January 23, and BNP activist Azizur Rahman Musabbir on January 7.

Those within the party have been left alarmed. Police say there was no political motive [behind Musabbirs killing], but fear doesnt disappear, Kazi Shawon Alam, a leader of the BNPs student wing in Dhaka, told the outlet. We dont want killings or confrontation with anyone. But the reality is, during elections, violence feels inevitable.

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The BNP isnt alone. Anwarullah, a 65-year-old ward-level leader of the Jamaat, was killed in his West Rajabazar neighbourhood in Dhaka in what police claim was a burglary. But perhaps the most high-profile killing came on December 12, just a day after the poll announcement.

Sharif Osman Hadi, a spokesperson and leading organiser of Inquilab Mancha, was shot by motorcycle-borne gunmen in broad daylight in Dhaka. Hadi had emerged as an outspoken critic of both India and former prime minister Sheikh Hasina. He was taken to Singapore for advanced medical treatment after his condition deteriorated.

An activist holds a poster of Sharif Osman Hadi, senior leader of the student protest group Inqilab Mancha, who was shot outside a mosque, during a demonstration to condemn the attack in Dhaka on December 15, 2025. AFP

However, on December 18, it was announced that Hadi had succumbed to his injuries. News of the development resulted in an outpouring of violence across Bangladesh. Yunus at the time had vowed that no leniency will be shown to Hadis killers, urged citizens to remain calm and avoid being misled, advising people to stay away from propaganda and rumours, and refrain from any rash decisions.

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He claimed Hadi was an enemy to the defeated forces and fascist terrorists, an apparent reference to the now-disbanded Awami League. Their evil efforts to frighten the revolutionaries will be completely thwarted, Yunus added.

Rights organisation Ain o Salish Kendra counted 158 people killed and more than 7,000 injured in political violence between August 2024 and December 2025.

According to The Diplomat, many of these pre-poll violence incidents are clashes between supporters of party-nominated candidates and rebel contenders. This has held particularly true for the BNP. There are also clashes between supporters of the BNP and Jamaat.

A history of violence

The Bangladesh Peace Observatory (BPO) has claimed that 49 deaths occurred around the 1991 election, 21 deaths occurred around the 2008 election, and 142 deaths occurred around the hotly disputed 2014 polls.

As per The Diplomat, the 2008 polls, conducted under army rule, were regarded as the least violent elections in Bangladeshs history.

The 2014 election, boycotted by both the BNP and Jamaat, witnessed at least 21 people killed on election day. Voting was halted at around 400 polling centres due to violence. The BBC reported that at least 18 people were killed on polling day, while dozens of others were killed in the run-up to the election.

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This is the first election being held since the Sheikh Hasina regime was toppled in August 2024. Reuters

The outlet reported that more than 150 voting centres were set ablaze, while the Election Commission said polls were held in only 147 districts. Meanwhile, candidates from 153 other districts were elected unopposed, CNN reported. BNP leader Khaleda Zia had called on her supporters to completely boycott what she derided as a scandalous farce.

In 2018, UN human rights experts recorded 47 incidents of election-related violence prior to the polls. They said at least eight were killed and more than 560 injured.

A two-horse race

The election is largely regarded as a showdown at the polls between the BNP and the Jamaat. The BNP has tried to fly the banner of Bangladesh First, while the Jamaat is trying to rally the religious base. However, the Jamaat coalition includes nearly a dozen parties, including the student-led National Citizen Party, which helped topple the Hasina government.

This is the first election being held since the Sheikh Hasina regime was toppled in August 2024. While Hasina herself fled to India, her Awami League party has been barred from the polls and its leaders have been imprisoned or gone into exile.

Yunus, the chief adviser to the interim government, has claimed that the election will be a grand festival. He has vowed to make this the most free, fair and peaceful vote in the countrys history and to lay the foundation for a new Bangladesh. But history shows this is easier said than done.

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Chairman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Tarique Rahman. Reuters

Bangladesh has said over 157,000 police officers, backed by 100,000 soldiers and other security forces, will guard Thursdays vote.

We are 1,000 per cent confident about doing our part, Inspector General of Police Baharul Alam told reporters in Dhaka.

Alam said police had assessed that more than 24,000 polling centres have been marked as either high-risk or moderately risky for possible unrest, violence or ballot stuffing  more than half of the 42,000 centres nationwide.

The location of some centres is very remote, and there is intense competition and hostility among candidates and their supporters, he said, adding that 1,300 police guns looted during the 2024 unrest have still not been recovered.

In high-risk and moderately risky centres, police will carry out patrol duty with body-worn cameras for the first time. Alam said the police were determined to ensure the polls were peaceful, but said he accepted that distrust of his force remained.

It is quite understandable why people do not trust the police, he said. Over the last 15 years, based on what we have delivered  in fact, for the last 150 years  our predecessors mostly beat people.

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Some are hopeful.

People couldnt even vote during national elections. People had no voice, Mohammad Rakib, 21, said. I hope the next government, whoever comes into power, will ensure this freedom of expression.

Violence a feature of polls

Experts are unsurprised.

Violence is a feature of elections in Bangladesh, Thomas Kean, a senior consultant on Myanmar and Bangladesh for the International Crisis Group, told Anadolu.

While it is unfortunate to see political conflict increase as the election approaches, we should not be entirely surprised. He added that there are a number of factors that are contributing to this violence, such as ideological rivalries and political polarisation.

Zakaria Polash, a Bangladesh-based author and political analyst, added, The situation is charged up. Tension is growing because the parties in contest are seeing the election as a do-or-die situation.

It is now clear that the Jamaat and the NCP are now on the same alignment, looking forward to reforms if they can come into power, while the BNP seems to be slightly reluctant to accept all proposed reforms if they come into power, Polash added.

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He said this has resulted in the entire divide has been classified as the pro-reform vs. status quo binary.

With inputs from agencies
Sweden has introduced new rules for those seeking citizenship. Starting in June, aspirants will have to wait eight years before applying and undertake a language test

Pedestrians walk along a street in the Old Town of Stockholm, Sweden. File image/Reuters

For those hoping to become citizens of Sweden, the path just became tougher. On Monday (February 9), the Swedish government introduced plans for stricter rules on gaining citizenship, with the plans set to come into force in June.

Since 2015, governments have been tightening immigration policies, when around 160,000 asylum seekers sought refuge in Sweden. But the present minority coalition government is betting that an even more restrictive line on immigration will prove popular with voters in Septembers parliamentary election.

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What are the changes to acquire Swedish citizenship? Why have they been introduced?

What are the new requirements for Swedish citizenship?

The Swedish government has proposed stricter requirements for people seeking citizenship.

Firstly, those aspiring Swedish citizenship will need to be residents of the country for eight years. Previously, this threshold was five years.

Aspirants will have to take a language and culture test.

Those aspiring for Swedish citizenship, will also have to show a monthly income of at least 20,000 Swedish crowns (Rs 2.02 lakh).

People with a criminal record, in Sweden or abroad, will have to reside in Sweden longer before they can apply. For instance, those who have served a four-year prison term will require to wait 15 years before applying.

What do authorities have to say?

According to Swedish Migration officer Johan Forsell, the changes are historic. He further said that the reforms are intended to make citizenship the culmination of an integration process based on personal effort and work.

Ludvig Aspling, the Sweden Democrats migration policy spokesperson stated that the new rules would mark a significant tightening compared to previous investigations.

Tony Haddou, another migration policy spokesperson, criticised the plan adding that it will make life more difficult for immigrants. It is a disgusting view of humanity that creates uncertainty, insecurity and worry, especially when it occurs in combination with the government wanting to tear up permanent residence permits, Haddou told news website AA.

When will the new proposal come into effect?

The new immigration process proposals are expected to come into force on Swedens National Day  June 6.

Why is Sweden tightening its citizenship rules?

Immigration in Sweden has become a hot topic in the recent past. Recent data reveals that Sweden has had its lowest level of asylum seekers since 1985, claiming that lower numbers create better conditions for successful integration.

According to Swedish Migration Minister Johan Forssell, asylum applications fell by 30 per cent in 2025 compared to previous years.

This is in stark difference to Swedens past immigration policies. In 2014, at the start of a period when the number of people arriving to Europe from countries rose sharply, then Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, urged Swedes to open your hearts to newcomers.

With inputs from agencies
Dr Jared Cooney Horvath, a former teacher-turned-neuroscientist, revealed that Gen-Z has become the first generation ever to score lower than the generation before it. According to Horvath, the cause is directly linked to the growing use of what he calls educational technology or edtech

Dr Jared Cooney Horvath, a former teacher-turned-neuroscientist, revealed that Gen-Z has become the first generation ever to score lower than the generation before it. Image Courtesy: Pixabay

Is Gen-Z less intelligent than millennials?

The debate got a fresh boost after a report from Dr Jared Cooney Horvath, a neuroscientist and educator.

Horvath, a PhD and MEd, reignited the discussion after submitting written testimony on his findings before the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

The neuroscientist said that Gen-Z is the first generation ever to score lower than the previous generation.

According to Horvath, the cause is directly linked to the growing use of what he calls educational technology (edtech), including computers and tablets.

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Lets take a closer look at Horvaths claims.

Turned into skimmers

Using extensive datasets and worldwide trends, Horvath claimed that Generation Z, those born between 1997 and the early 2010s, shows noticeable cognitive decline compared to the previous generation. This is particularly true when it comes to attention span, memory, reading skills, numeracy, problem-solving and overall IQ.

Horvath has argued that their reliance on digital technology in school hinders their cognitive development. Gen-Z intelligence has dropped despite spending more time in school than children did in the 20th century, the neuroscientist added.

Horvath said Gen-Z is lagging behind because they are learning from short videos and reading brief sentences that summarise much larger, more comprehensive ideas. The educator also notes that the human brain was never wired to learn from short clips.

Dr Jared Cooney Horvath, a neuroscientist and educator, testified before the US Senate. Image Courtesy: LinkedIn

More than half of the time a teenager is awake, half of it is spent staring at a screen, said Horvath, who has taught at universities around the world, including Harvard and the University of Melbourne in Australia.

He testified before Congress on January 15, reported The New York Post.

Humans are biologically programmed to learn from other humans and from deep study, not flipping through screens for bullet point summaries, he added.

Learning from screens has turned them into skimmers. Without heavy lifting, even beautiful minds can turn to mush.

Horvath clarified that he is not anti-tech. Im pro-rigour. He advised limiting students screen time. He wants students and schools to return to the old days when kids had to crack open a book to pass a test.

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Horvath told the Senate, A sad fact our generation has to face is this: Our kids are less cognitively capable than we were at their age. Every generation has outperformed its parents, until Gen-Z.

Horvath, who is also a founder of LME Global, an Arizona-based group that bridges research and classroom practices to improve academic outcomes, said that this development is not limited only to the US.

Across 80 countries, if you look at the data, once countries adopt digital technology widely in schools, performance goes down significantly. Any time tech enters education, learning goes down, Horvath was quoted as saying.

Is deep reading declining?

A survey from the National Literacy Trust (2024) shows that just one in three children aged 818 enjoys reading in their spare time, and merely about one in five reads every day, The Times of India reported.

Research from the University of Florida and University College London (2025) showed that in the US, daily reading among older students and adults has nosedived by more than 40 per cent over the past two decades.

A student takes classes online with his companions using the Zoom APP at home during the coronavirus disease outbreak in El Masnou, north of Barcelona, Spain. File image/Reuters

The effects of this decline became especially evident during the Covid-19 school closures. Research from Stanford University showed that second and third-grade students oral reading fluency lagged nearly 30 per cent behind expected benchmarks, the news outlet reported.

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Meanwhile, studies from Harvard University outlined further concerns. They revealed that gaps in phonological processing, the ability needed to decode written language, appear as early as 18 months, long before children start school.

Researchers say reading habits have declined, and deep focus has become rare.

Decline does not always mean decay

Some students have spoken up about the rising debate over screen time, Artificial Intelligence (AI), short-form content and declining reading habits.

Gauri Tiwari, 19, a BCom student at Graphic Era University in Dehradun, told India Today, I feel we are more straightforward and express ourselves better than earlier generations, but we lack patience and rely too much on technology for everything. Our decision-making ability is heavily influenced, and our inability to listen often lands us in trouble. We are risk-takers.

Mayank Rathi, 24, a UPSC aspirant, added, Increasing dependence on AI may lead to a disconnect from ground realities. However, decline does not always mean decay. Sometimes it signals transition.

Researchers say reading habits have declined, and deep focus has become rare. Image Courtesy: Pixabay

Digital technology did not dumb us down; it enabled us to have all the knowledge in the world at our fingertips, igniting curiosity that our parents could hardly dream of, Manya Chauhan, 21, who works in Gurugram, said.

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Amid the ongoing debate, it remains to be seen if this will be a long-term trend and the impact it could have.

With inputs from agencies
A landmark case against social media giants Meta and YouTube has begun in Los Angeles. In opening arguments, the plaintiffs lawyers argued that the firms didnt just build apps, they built traps. This is the first of several high-profile legal cases against social media this year, which could reshape the way Big Tech engages with children

Parents who lost children to social mediarelated harms hold a vigil ahead of the social media addiction trial in Los Angeles, California. On Monday, lawyers began their opening statements in the landmark case. File image/Reuters

On Monday (February 9), a lawyer for a 20-year-old woman got up in a Los Angeles court, pulled three wooden childrens blocks from his bag, and placed them on top of each other.

This case is as easy as ABC, said Mark Lanier, the attorney. Addicting, brains, children.

These were the opening remarks in a landmark trial in which the plaintiff, named Kaley or KGM, accused Meta, which owns Instagram and YouTube, of building their platforms to be addictive, leading to personal injury and other harm.

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The trial is expected to proceed with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify on February 18, while Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri will take the witness stand on February 11.

But whats so special about this trial? What does it mean for these big tech companies?

Whats the trial all about?

The lawsuit being heard in a Los Angeles court centres around a 20-year-old woman from Chico, California, KGM, who says she experienced an addiction to several social media apps that resulted in other mental health issues; she developed anxiety, body dysmorphia, and suicidal thoughts.

Speaking on behalf of KGM, Lanier stated that his client became hooked on YouTube and Instagram as a child because the apps are like digital casinos, with features such as endless swiping that are comparable to the handle of a slot machine. They didnt just build apps, they built traps, Lanier said. They didnt want users, they wanted addicts.

The opening statements in the social media addiction trial, stated that social media companies design addictive products that cause personal injury. File image/AP

On the other hand, Metas lawyers, in their opening statement, argued that KGMs mental health struggles were not a result of social media but the conditions at home. There is no dispute in this case that shes experienced mental health struggles, said Paul Schmidt, a lawyer representing Meta. Was it Instagram or other causes? Thats the hearthstone that well talk about.

So, whats so special about this trial?

This trial, which is expected to last six to eight weeks, will be the first time that Big Tech executives will answer to accusations in front of a jury. Reports state that the jurors in the trial wont be deciding if specific content on the platforms was harmful. Instead, theyll decide whether social media companies were negligent when they created and tweaked their products to encourage people to spend more time on them.

As Matthew Bergman, founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center, told WIRED, The fact that we are simply able to start a trial is a monumental victory on behalf of families. We will expect testimony from the corporate executives at the highest level, we will expect documents that have never seen the light of day to be made public, we will expect the social media companies to blame everybody except themselves.

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Haley Hinkle, policy counsel at Fairplay, an organisation that works to protect kids from Big Tech, also concurred that this is a big moment in the fight against social media. This is going to be the first time a jury is going to hear arguments about what the social media companies knew about the risks of the design of their platforms and how they acted on the types of information they had, she told WIRED, adding that the jury will decide if the companies were negligent, and if they should have warned young users about the risks.

Another reason this trial is so important is that it is a bellwether. Bellwether trials are when a large number of plaintiffs have filed a lawsuit against the same defendants products. A small number of cases are handpicked as test cases to be representative of the large pool of plaintiffs. The goal of such trials is to help foresee what the future litigation of all cases might look like.

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Theres a total of 1,200 lawsuits, all of which allege that social media companies are addictive by design, a bit like tobacco in the 1990s.

Another reason why this trial is special is that it doesnt delve into Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 law that typically offers social media companies immunity from liability related to the user-generated content posted on their platforms. Instead, the plaintiffs are focusing their cases on alleged app-design flaws.

What do all the trials have in common?

Many are comparing the social media trial to those brought against Big Tobacco in the 1990s. The lawyers argue that Big Tech companies intentionally designed and built their social media products to be addictive.

Borrowing heavily from the behavioural and neurobiological techniques used by slot machines and exploited by the cigarette industry, [d]efendants deliberately embedded in their products an array of design features aimed at maximising youth engagement to drive advertising revenue, the lawsuit alleges.

Like the cigarette industry a generation earlier, [d]efendants understand that a child user today becomes an adult user tomorrow.

In over 1,200 cases, the plaintiffs allege that social media companies are addictive by design, a bit like tobacco in the 1990s. File image/AP

The lawyers have pointed to features such as infinite scroll, auto video play, and algorithmic recommendations, stating that these have led to compulsive social media use.

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Joann Bogard, an Indiana resident, whose son died attempting the viral choking challenge, told The Times, This is our Big Tobacco moment. Parents across the country are going to actually see the evidence that these products are harmful. These companies perfectly design their algorithms to create that addictive piece. Just like Big Tobacco, you create addiction and keep those consumers for life.

Unfortunately, many of those consumers dont get to have a long life. They die from this product. Thats how my son died. The algorithm chose to send him harmful content, unsolicited, and this is why we dont have him here today.

Whats at stake in this trial?

The outcome of the first trial against social media companies is of significance. As this trial is similar to those coming in this year, the verdict will be seen as a sign of what is to come. A victory for KGM could open the floodgates, while a defeat could dash the hopes of plaintiffs still in the queue.

Eric Goldman, law professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, told PBS News that it will offer legal experts their first opportunity to see how Americans respond to the idea that

The verdict in the trial could change the way social media platforms deliver their content to children. File image/AFP

The verdict in the trial could also change the way social media platforms deliver their content to children. A win in this trial could also open them up to future litigation and lead to monetary damages, as well as change how social media is designed.

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Daryl Lim, law professor at Penn State Dickinson Law, also told PBS News that the case could have implications for how future courts handle Section 230. This trial is really testing whether these claims concern user speech, where Section 230 is a powerful shield, or product design, where the shield may not apply in the same way.

As Laura Marquez-Garrett of the Social Media Victims Law Center in Washington told The Times, This is a big moment, no matter what happens. What the worlds about to see over the next several weeks and months are documents, expert testimony, former employees, current employees, people having to account for the things they said and did.

And thats what weve never had when it comes to these products. Weve never had transparency.

With inputs from agencies
Smart glasses are the new technology that is emerging as a tool to harass women online. So-called manfluencers are covertly recording women while trying to pick them up and posting their videos on social media without consent

Men are finding new ways to make public spaces unsafe for women. Many male social media influencers have started using smart glasses to secretly record women and upload their videos online without consent.

Such clips often attract misogynistic remarks, mostly by other men. These videos are taken using a built-in camera in glasses, which are growing in popularity. This is the latest example of how technology is being deployed to abuse women.

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Lets take a closer look.

Women filmed secretly with smart glasses

Several women have faced harassment after being secretly filmed by men wearing smart glasses.

Dilara, who worked at a London store, was approached by a tall man who said, I swear red hair means youve just been heartbroken.

He continued chatting with her as they entered a lift and he later asked Dilara for her phone number, reported BBC.

Unbeknownst to her, the 21-year-old was being secretly filmed by the man on his smart glasses, which appear like normal eyewear but have a tiny camera that can record video.

The clip was posted on TikTok, where it amassed 1.3 million (13 lakh) views. I just wanted to cry, Dilara told the BBC.

As her number was in the video, she faced a constant barrage of phone calls and messages, sometimes even in the middle of the night.

She told the British broadcaster that men arrived at her workplace using the opening line from the viral video or inquiring about her social media details.

Dilara was not the only victim of the technology. The man who recorded her had posted dozens of secretly filmed videos on TikTok, offering tips to men on how to approach women.

Kassy Zanjani, a 25-year-old social worker in Vancouver, Canada, was approached by a man wearing sunglasses at a fast-food restaurant.

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He said something along the lines of, I saw you from outside, and youre so f***ing gorgeous I had to come say hi, she was quoted as saying by Independent. Immediately, because he was wearing his sunglasses, I was kind of weirded out. I thought I would just politely reject him and say that I have a boyfriend.

A week later, Zanjanis friend sent her a video posted on Instagram of her entire conversation with the stranger. He had secretly recorded their interaction through his smart eyewear.

It was very anxiety-provoking being secretly filmed without my awareness or consent, and for that to then be posted in this manner  that I dont think is rooted in any good intentions, she said. I think hes purposefully targeting intoxicated women, vulnerable women, to elicit a response from them to use as content.

A man walked up to Toluwa while she was waiting for her flight in an airport lounge in Washington, DC. The duo started talking and exchanged numbers. It was only after she reached home and trawled his social media that Toluwa found he had posted various videos of himself trying to pick up women at airports, CNN reported.

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Toluwa said she was in contact with him over text and he sent her the footage he had secretly filmed of her, saying he wanted to run it past her before sharing it online. She said that despite her not explicitly consenting to upload the clip on social media, he went ahead and did it anyway.

It blows up and to the point where people are sending me this video, someone came up to me in Union Market, which is a large space in DC, and shoved it in my face and was like, is this you?

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wears the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, as he delivers a speech presenting the new line of smart glasses, during the Meta Connect event at the companys headquarters in Menlo Park, California, US, September 17, 2025. File Photo/Reuters

A 56-year-old woman found out she was filmed by a man last summer on a beach in West Sussex without her knowledge after getting a call from her son. He had received texts from friends saying your mums gone viral.

Kim told BBC that a man wearing smart sunglasses had struck up a conversation with her by praising her on her bikini. He asked her about where she lived and tried to connect with her on Instagram. As they chatted, Kim ended up sharing details about her employer and family.

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In the veil of dating advice, the man posted two videos online, which racked up 6.9 million (69 lakh) views on TikTok and more than 100,000 likes on Instagram.

Kim pleaded with the man to remove information about her work and personal life from it, but he did not.

She said she received thousands of messages from men, with some being sexual: People saying name your price to see your naked body or do you have an OnlyFans?

A British woman, identified as Millie, was secretly recorded by a man wearing Meta glasses on Sydneys Bondi Beach last February. He approached her and repeatedly asked for her number. Millie had no idea that he was filming the conversation.

I felt really uncomfortable and I didnt know how to get him to leave, Millie told Australian show The Project. Her friend in the UK shared the TikTok video with her, which had gone viral with over a million views. I felt absolutely embarrassed, distraught, upset, crying  I didnt want to leave my bed, she said.

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On January 6, David Williams, 47, pleaded guilty to voyeurism at Warrington Magistrates Court in England after recording sex with a woman without her explicit consent using a pair of smart glasses. He was fined 800 and ordered to pay a 320 surcharge and court costs of 85, reported The Telegraph.

Who are manfluencers?

There has been a rise of manfluencers who are covertly filming women to create misogynistic content online.

This term is used to describe a group of social media figures who create content targeting men. While some of this content is innocuous like fitness videos, others perpetuate stereotypes and biases against women.

In online spaces, women are often positioned as a conquest, prize or reward, Stephanie Wescott, a feminist academic, writer and speaker, and a lecturer in Education, Culture and Society at Australias Monash University, told CNN.

She warned that smart glasses can be exploited by content creators as they offer a clear message about power, specifically that men can be watching, recording and therefore controlling womens images in public spaces without their knowledge and therefore, that the public spaces belong to men.

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ALSO READ: How Musks Grok is dehumanising women by digitally undressing their images on X

Is law protecting women?

In many cases, women who have been secretly filmed by strangers have requested that the poster and/or social media platform on which the content was uploaded remove the footage.

However, they have received mixed responses.

Zanjani in Canada had contacted both Meta and TikTok. While the video was taken down from Instagram, TikTok did not respond.

Dilara, the store worker in London, had also reported her video to TikTok. However, the tech firm told her there were no violations.

After BBC contacted it, TikTok later took down the video and, in a statement, said it would remove videos that have flouted its community guidelines on bullying and harassment.

There is no law to protect women from such secret recordings in many countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States, which generally allow the filming of people in public spaces without their consent.

Charities and experts in the UK warn that these videos may not fall into any specific category of content defined as unlawful by the British Online Safety Act.

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Kim, another victim, has called for introducing laws to protect people from being filmed without their consent.

Nobodys got the right to film other people and exploit them and sexualise them, make money out of them without their permission, she told BBC.

Are smart glasses safe?

Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses were worn by the men who approached Kim and Dilara. The demand for these smart glasses has increased, with two million (20 lakh) pairs sold between October 2023 and February 2025, as per eyewear maker EssilorLuxottica.

Meta has defended its smart glasses, pointing out that they have an LED light that activates whenever someone videos or photographs content.

A spokesperson from Meta told Independent that the glasses have an LED light that activates whenever someone captures content, so its clear to others that the device is recording, and [it] features tamper detection technology to prevent people from covering that light.

They added: Our terms of service clearly state that users are responsible for complying with all applicable laws and should not tamper with the product. As with any recording device, including phones, people should use smart glasses in a safe, respectful manner, which includes not engaging in harmful activities like harassment, infringing privacy rights, or capturing sensitive information.

However, there are many videos online that demonstrate how the light on the glasses can be covered or completely disabled.

Makers of smart glasses are prioritising profit over womens safety and wellbeing, and need to instigate safety measures, Rebecca Hitchen of the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW) told BBC.

The coalition has raised potential safety issues relating to women being non-consensually filmed, especially when footage of them shared online includes their personal details, such as their location or phone number.

The safety risks of this are huge, as is the subsequent level of harassment, trolling and doxxing many are subjected to when videos are posted online, Hitchen said.

EVAW has called on the UK government to ensure legislation is being adapted to respond to such emerging threats.

The very act of being filmed without your consent for a nefarious purpose is a violation of womens rights to privacy and to exist freely in public space, Hitchen said to CNN.

Smart glasses are therefore not an exciting innovation  for women, they present a new threat to our everyday lives.

With inputs from agencies
The US has accused China of secretly carrying out a nuclear test in June 2020, a week after the Galwan Valley clash in which 20 Indian soldiers died. Beijing has dismissed these claims as outright lies. But what do nuclear monitoring systems reveal?

China's JL-3 intercontinental-range submarine-launched ballistic missiles displayed during a military parade in Beijing. The UUS has accused China of carrying out a secret nuclear test in 2020. File image/Reuters

On February 5, the last remaining nuclear treaty between the United States and Russia, the New Start treaty, expired, giving rise to fears of a nuclear arms race. And if US claims are to be believed, then nuclear proliferation is already underway, as the Trump administration accused China of conducting secret nuclear explosive tests.

What exactly has the US accused China of? Is there any truth to the American claims? We get you the answers.

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What does US claim about Chinas nuclear testing?

Last Friday, a day after the New Start treaty lapsed, the US Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Thomas DiNanno, at a Geneva convention, accused China of carrying out secret nuclear testing in 2020.

Today, I can reveal that the US government is aware that China has conducted nuclear explosive tests, including preparing for tests with designated yields in the hundreds of tonnes, Thomas DiNanno, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, said during a speech at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Switzerland. The PLA [Chinas Peoples Liberation Army] sought to conceal testing by obfuscating the nuclear explosions because it recognised these tests violate test ban commitments.

He added that China used decoupling, which is a method to decrease the effectiveness of seismic monitoring, to hide its activities from the world.

China has conducted nuclear explosive tests, including preparing for tests with designated yields in the hundreds of tons China has used decoupling  a method to decrease the effectiveness of seismic monitoring  to hide its activities from the world. China conducted one such  Under Secretary of State Thomas G. DiNanno (@UnderSecT) February 6, 2026

In his speech, the US undersecretary noted that Beijing conducted one such test on June 22, 2020. If this is true, then the test was conducted just a week after India and Chinese soldiers had faced off in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh. The clashes killed 20 Indian soldiers, while Chinese casualties were reportedly said to be more than 30. However, Beijing officially acknowledged the death of only four of its soldiers.

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As Firstpost noted in a video report, If the allegation is true, it means China may have been testing nuclear capability during one of the most dangerous phases of the India-China border crisis in decades.

This isnt the first time that the US has levelled such allegations against China. In October 2025, US President Donald Trump had made similar accusations, albeit without providing any further details. They (China and Russia) seem to all be nuclear testing, Trump then said to reporters. We dont do testing  we halted it years ago. But with others doing testing, its appropriate that we do also.

China has dismissed US claims as outright lies and that the nation has always honoured its commitment to the moratorium on nuclear testing. File image/AP

What is Chinas response to US claims?

China has outrightly denied US claims of conducting a nuclear test, calling them outright lies and accusing Washington of making excuses to start up its own trials.

On Monday (February 9), the Chinese foreign ministry told AFP, The US allegations are completely groundless and are outright lies. China firmly opposes the US attempt to fabricate excuses for its own restarting of nuclear tests.

Shen Jian, Chinas ambassador for disarmament affairs, was also quoted by South China Morning Post as saying that Beijing acts prudently on nuclear issues. China notes that the US continues in its statement to hype up the so-called China nuclear threat. China firmly opposes such false narratives, Shen said, adding that Washington is the culprit for the aggravation of the arms race.

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Later on social media, Shen said, China has always honoured its commitment to the moratorium on nuclear testing.

1/6 #NewSTART China has no intention of engaging in any arms race with any other country. I reiterated Chinas principled positions on nuclear arms control at todays CD plenary https://t.co/y648cYQt0e  Amb. SHEN Jian (@Amb_ShenJian) February 7, 2026

The spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, DC, also outrightly denied the US accusations, telling CNN that it adheres to its nuclear testing moratorium.

The US claims that the Chinese test was not a classic mushroom-cloud event, but rather a hundred TNT equivalent explosion. File image/AP

But does evidence back US claims on Chinas nuclear test?

Following the US allegations, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, which verifies if nuclear testing has been carried out, noted that its monitoring systems had not picked up any evidence of China testing its nuclear arsenal.

Robert Floyd, the bodys executive secretary, stated that the monitoring systems did not detect any event consistent with the characteristics of a nuclear weapon test explosion at the time of the alleged Chinese test, adding that that assessment remains unchanged after further detailed analyses.

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Regarding reports of possible nuclear tests with yields in the hundreds of tonnes, on June 22, 2020, the CTBTOs IMS did not detect any event consistent with the characteristics of a nuclear weapon test explosion at that time. Subsequent, more detailed analyses have not altered that determination, he said. Any nuclear test explosion, by any state, is of deepest concern.

However, Daryl Kimball, the Executive Director of the Arms Control Association, suggested that there are nuclear tests that could avoid being detected. If this was a very, very low-yield test explosion it is possible that it could be hidden from the CBTBO monitoring stations, he explained to CNN.

However, what is raising more questions around the US claims is that the State Department made no mention of any testing in China in its international arms control compliance report, which was published in 2025. Furthermore, the Pentagon made no such claims in its annual report to Congress on Chinese military developments, which was published in December 2025.

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But many experts point to the fact that China has engaged in a massive expansion of its nuclear arsenal, both in terms of warheads and delivery systems. This also includes the construction of huge new fields of silos for intercontinental ballistic missiles. In fact, according to US assessments, China has around 600 warheads in its stockpile, a number that is on track to grow to 1,000 by 2030 and 1,500 by 2035.

Its unknown what comes next in this environment, but many hope that a new nuclear treaty can be signed into effect soon.

With inputs from agencies
Bangladeshs trade deal with the United States will see tariffs reduced to 19 per cent. The US will also impose zero duty on textiles and apparel from Bangladesh using American cotton. This could be a double whammy for India. Heres how

Bangladeshs trade deal with the United States has sparked concerns in India. While Dhakas tax rate of 19 per cent is higher than Washingtons tariffs on India  18 per cent, Bangladesh has secured an exemption from levies on textiles and apparel using American cotton.

This could deliver a double blow to Indias textile industry by reducing Indias competitive advantage and bringing down its cotton exports. We explain how.

US zero duty on some Bangladesh textiles

The US and Bangladesh announced a trade deal on Monday (February 9), lowering tariffs on merchandise exports from Dhaka to 19 per cent from the previous 20 per cent. America will also charge zero reciprocal tariffs on certain textile and apparel goods from Bangladesh.

The US will further reduce the reciprocal tariff to 19 per cent, which was originally set at 37 per cent and later reduced to 20 per cent in August last year. In addition, the US committed to establishing a mechanism for certain textile and apparel goods from Bangladesh using US produced cotton and man-made fiber to receive zero reciprocal tariff in the US market, Bangladesh Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus office said in a statement on X.

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As per the statement on the US-Bangladesh Agreement on Reciprocal Trade, The United States commits to establish a mechanism that will allow for certain textile and apparel goods from Bangladesh to receive zero reciprocal tariff rate. This mechanism will provide that a to-be-specified volume of textile and apparel exports from Bangladesh can enter the United States at this reduced tariff rate, but this volume shall be determined in relation to the quantity of exports of textiles, eg. U.S. produced cotton and MMF textile inputs, from the US.

Why textile matters to Bangladesh

Bangladesh is the second-largest textile exporter globally after China.

The South Asian countrys readymade garment exports to the US stood at about $7.6 billion between April and November of 2025, more than twice Indias $3.26 billion during the period.

The apparel industry forms the backbone of Bangladesh, with the clothing sector accounting for more than 80 per cent of the countrys total export revenue.

Bangladeshi garment workers make clothing in the sewing section of a factory in Gazipur, Bangladesh, April 9, 2025. File Photo/Reuters

The textile industry employs around four million (40 lakh) workers in Bangladesh. The Trump administrations decision to allow certain clothing and textile goods from the country to enter the US free of tariffs is set to give Bangladesh a competitive edge in the market.

ALSO READ: Textiles, gems & more: The sectors that will benefit from India-US trade deal

Impact on India

India, which recently struck a trade deal with the US, had an advantage over several other Asian countries with one of the lowest tariff rates of 18 per cent.

International trade expert and former trade negotiator Abhijit Das told Indian Express, Till late last night, we were under the impression that we would be able to expand our exports of textiles and clothing to the United States because we would be facing a reciprocal tariff of 18 per cent whereas some of our competitors, such as Bangladesh, would face 19 per cent, some of the others, such as Vietnam, would face 20 per cent, etc.

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However, the US slashing of duties on goods from Bangladesh produced with American cotton and man-made textiles to zero has come as a challenge for India.

Das added, The size of the quota is not known, but what is quite likely to happen is that the perceived tariff advantage, which we imagined we would have over Bangladesh by about one percentage point, gets reversed into a tariff disadvantage of 18 per cent compared to Bangladesh.

The US-Bangladesh trade deal is likely to be a double whammy for India. On the one hand, it will make Bangladesh textile exports cheaper in the American market. On the other hand, there are fears that it could hit Indias cotton yarn exports to Bangladesh.

This challenge is two-fold. First, the tariff differential between India and Bangladesh has halved from two per cent to one per cent, which is a matter of concern in a sector with narrow profit margins. Second, the USBangladesh Agreement on Reciprocal Trade could likely adversely affect Indias cotton yarn exports to Bangladesh, Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) chairperson Ashwin Chandran said to Moneycontrol.

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India exported $1.47 billion worth of cotton yarn (570 million kg) to Bangladesh in 2024-2025. It sent 12-14 lakh bales of cotton to Bangladesh last year.

Bangladeshs about 20 per cent of garment exports and Indias 26 per cent of cotton apparel exports are to the US.

According to the data from Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), cotton yarn was Indias top export to Bangladesh, worth $109 million in November 2025.

A Bangladesh exporter can use 10 per cent US cotton and claim that he has used 100 per cent US cotton. How will the US determine traceability of the raw material? As Bangladesh is very strong in apparels, we may stand to lose, KM Subramanian, president of the Tiruppur Exporters Association, told The Hindu.

Bangladesh does not grow cotton or produce manmade fibre. It has to buy MMF yarn or cotton from the US for the reciprocal tariff of 19 per cent to be waived. But, the MFN rate will continue. The time taken to receive the US cotton and the transport and storage costs should be taken into consideration. Further, not all products can be made from American cotton. So, the product mix should change and supply chain should be realigned in Bangladesh. This will not be an overnight change. It will all take time and we should see how practical it is. This is going back to the quota regime that existed before 2000, Siddhartha Rajagopal, executive director of the Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council, said to The Hindu.

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Industry experts are hoping that New Delhi will be able to secure a similar exemption on apparel goods like Bangladesh.

Tirupur Exporters Association president said a tariff exemption for Indian garments made with US cotton will boost exports without harming domestic farmers.

We urge the government to take up this matter with US authorities at the earliest under Executive Order 14257, he told Moneycontrol.

Indias textiles and apparel sector has already faced growing challenges in exports, particularly from Bangladesh and Vietnam.

Bangladesh, which is a least developed country (LDC), has received several tariff reductions globally through the generalised system of preferences.

While these tariff advantages have helped Dhakas textile industry gain an edge over Indias textile exports in Western markets, India has also signed a number of trade deals, including with the UK and the European Union. The latest trade deal with the US will also bring down tariff barriers for its own textile exports.

With inputs from agencies

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Anutin Chanvirakuls Bhumjaithai Party secured 193 seats in the 500-member House of Representatives, positioning it to form the next government with the help of coalition partners. A conservative party has won the most seats in a general election in Thailand for the first time in the 21st century

Thailand's Prime Minister and leader of Bhumjaithai Party Anutin Charnvirakul (right) speaks with journalists at the party headquarters while waiting for the results in the general election in Bangkok. File image/AP

Thailands political parties were considering their options Monday after the conservative Bhumjaithai Partys decisive election victory showed that voters chose stability over change, analysts said.

This will be the first time in the 21st century that a conservative party has won the most seats in a general election, and it is a seismic shift in Thai politics, Ken Lohatepanont, a University of Michigan doctoral candidate, remarked in his online newsletter about Thai politics.

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Electoral politics since 2001 had been dominated by populist parties loyal to billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra, who served as prime minister until he was ousted by an army coup in 2006, setting off a tussle for power against Thailands conservative royalist-military establishment.

Looking for coalition partners

In the short term, the signs point toward continuity, consolidation, and a relatively smooth transition into government  much to the bitterness of reformist and progressive forces, said Napon Jatusripitak, director of the Center for Politics and Geopolitics at Thailand Future, a Bangkok-based think tank.

Bhumjaithai won 193 seats in the 500-member House of Representatives, positioning it to form the next government and return incumbent Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul to office. However, it will still need to recruit coalition partners to attain the 251 House votes required to elect the prime minister.

While the progressive Peoples Party, which finished second with 118 seats, has ruled out joining a Bhumjaithai coalition, the populist Pheu Thai Party, in third place with 74 seats, has left the possibility open. Bhumjaithai has not yet revealed its intentions.

Border conflict let Anutin play the patriotism card

Bhumjaithais surge in popularity followed its self-presentation as a defender of the nation during the Thailand-Cambodia border conflict, which strengthened nationalist sentiment among voters, said Purawich Watanasukh, a political scientist at Bangkoks Thammasat University.

Thailand twice last year fought with Cambodia over competing territorial claims along their border.

Thailands Prime Minister and leader of Bhumjaithai Party Anutin Charnvirakul (Center) leave after a press conference at the party headquarters following the general election in Bangkok. File image AP

He said a second aspect that gave Bhumjaithai a big boost was strategic alliances it made with regional power brokers who, for decades, have been carrying out voter canvassing in rural villages.

Editors Picks 1 Thai authorities arrest man for smuggling rhino horns concealed in meat

At the same time, Bhumjaithai expanded beyond its rural roots by appointing accomplished technocrats to Anutins government, said Kevin Hewison, a senior Thai scholar, making the party more appealing to the middle class.

The reformists are seen as out of step with the new nationalism

The Peoples Party had been expected to replicate the success of its predecessor, Move Forward Party, in 2023, when it won the most seats but was blocked from taking power by conservative lawmakers.

While it captured all 33 seats in Bangkok on Sunday and easily topped the separate party preference ballot, its calls for reform of the militarys role in politics apparently did not resonate with the nationalist sentiment prevailing at the time of the border conflict with Cambodia.

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That position had been popular at the time of the 2023 election, when voters appeared tired of nine years of uninspired military-dominated governments.

Looking ahead, the Peoples Party is facing the same kind of trouble that brought down Move Forward, which was dissolved by the Constitutional Court in 2024.

The National Anti-Corruption Commission on Monday ruled that 44 former lawmakers from Move Forward committed a serious ethical violation by attempting to propose an amendment to a law that criminalizes defamation of the monarchy.

The 44 include Peoples Party executives and its leader, Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut. The ruling will be forwarded to the Supreme Court, which could bar them from political activity and holding public office.

The once-mighty Pheu Thai Party takes a hit

The Pheu Thai Party faces an uncertain future after suffering its worst performance in decades, even losing its traditional stronghold in Chiang Mai, patron Thaksins hometown.

It alienated some pro-democracy supporters in 2023 by breaking its campaign promise not to align with pro-military parties and instead forming a government with them.

It also angered conservatives when then-Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, Thaksins daughter, was found to be too chummy with Cambodias leader Hun Sen in a leaked phone call last year. She was kicked out of office for an ethics violation, giving Anutin his chance to take her place.

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Already weakened further by its disappointing election performance, joining a coalition with Bhumjaithai may be Pheu Thais only political lifeline, said Hewison.
Schitts Creek actor Catherine OHaras cause of death has been revealed. The comic star died of a pulmonary embolism, with rectal cancer listed as the long-term cause of death. A pulmonary embolism occurs when a blood clot blocks a blood vessel in the lungs

Catherine OHara, the actor known for the hit comic series Schitts Creek, died of a pulmonary embolism. According to her death certificate in the United States, rectal cancer has been listed as the underlying cause.

The Home Alone actors sudden demise on January 30 came as a shock for many, with tributes pouring in from her co-actors and even Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. She most recently appeared in the Emmy-winning comedy The Studio and The Last of Us.

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What is pulmonary embolism, OHaras cause of death? We take a look.

Catherine OHaras cause of death revealed

Catherine OHara died from a pulmonary embolism, the death certificate released by the Los Angeles County Public Health Department and shared by TMZ on Monday (February 9) revealed.

It also listed rectal cancer as the long-term cause of death. As per BBC, the certificate indicated she had been receiving treatment for the cancer since March 2025.

Hollywood actor Catherine OHara had rectal cancer. File Photo/Reuters

The oncologist who signed off on the certificate last saw her on January 27. The Canadian-born comic actor passed away at a hospital in Santa Monica, California, last month.

An initial statement from her representatives had said that she died following a brief illness.

Collaborators, including Eugene Levy and Dan Levy, paid tributes to OHara, who won an Emmy as the dramatic, wealthy matriarch Moira Rose in Schitts Creek.

Show creator and co-star Eugene Levy told People magazine that he has had the honor of knowing and working with the great Catherine OHara for over fifty years.

Words seem inadequate to express the loss I feel today, he said.

Co-creator Dan Levy, who played OHaras son David on the show, described her as family before she ever played my family.

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He further wrote on Instagram that he would cherish every funny memory I was fortunate enough to make with her.

OHaras another on-screen son in Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost In New York, Macaulay Culkin, also paid an emotional tribute on Instagram.

Mama. I thought we had time. I wanted more. I wanted to sit in a chair next to you, he wrote. I heard you. But I had so much more to say. I love you. Ill see you later.

What is pulmonary embolism?

A pulmonary embolism occurs when a blood vessel in the lungs is blocked by a blood clot. The clot restricts and stops blood flow to an artery in the lung, according to Mayo Clinic.

The life-threatening condition happens when a clot forms in another part of the body, such as the leg or arm, and travels through the veins to the lung. Deep vein thrombosis is a blood clot that forms in one or more of the deep veins in the body.

A pulmonary embolism hinders the flow of blood to the lungs, reduces oxygen levels and raises blood pressure in the pulmonary arteries, as per the Cleveland Clinic.

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Symptoms of pulmonary embolism

The symptoms of a pulmonary embolism can differ, depending on the severity of the clot.

These include difficulty in breathing, chest pain that rises with breathing and coughing up blood. Some may even faint if their heart rate or blood pressure drops suddenly.

Other symptoms entail fever, dizziness, excessive sweating, leg pain or swelling or both, and discoloured skin, called cyanosis

How dangerous is a pulmonary embolism?

Pulmonary embolism can be life-threatening as the clot blocks blood flow to the lungs. This can result in heart or lung damage and even death, as per the Cleveland Clinic.

Pulmonary embolism is one of the most common heart and blood vessel diseases globally, following heart attack and stroke.

Whos at risk?

People suffering from a blood clot in their leg, or deep vein thrombosis, are more vulnerable to developing pulmonary embolism. Those sitting in cramped positions during long periods of time when travelling via plane or car are at a higher risk of blood clots.

People suffering from trauma or injury to a vein, possibly from surgery, a fracture or varicose veins, those using hormonal-based contraception or hormone replacement therapy, smoke or have diabetes are also vulnerable.

Age, weight, history of heart failure, heart attack or stroke and pregnancy are also risk factors for the condition.

What is rectal cancer?

Rectal cancer slowly forms on the inner lining of the rectum. It is the third most common cancer in the digestive system, after colon cancer and pancreatic cancer.

Cancer screening like colonoscopies help detect clumps of abnormal cells, or polyps, that can turn into cancer.

Its symptoms include rectal bleeding, diarrhoea, constipation, abdominal pain, weakness, and sudden weight loss.

With inputs from agencies
New research suggests that the standard diabetes test may not properly measure the blood sugar levels in millions of Indians. The study was published in The Lancet Regional Health: Southeast Asia journal. Lets take a closer look

Is the diabetes test inaccurate in India?

New research suggests that the standard diabetes test may not properly measure the blood glucose levels in millions of Indians. The study was published in The Lancet Regional Health: Southeast Asia journal.

But what do we know about the study? Have millions of diabetes patients in India been misled?

Lets take a closer look

The HbA1c test

According to MedlinePlus.gov, the haemoglobin A1C (HbA1C) test is used to determine if a person has diabetes. The test measures your blood sugar levels, also known as glucose, over the past two or three months. Glucose is a type of sugar in your blood. Your cells use glucose to make energy.

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The test can check your average glucose level for the past three months. This is because glucose sticks to haemoglobin via protein for the duration that the red blood cells live.

These red blood cells usually live for around three months. It does this by measuring the percentage of haemoglobin with glucose attached to your red blood cells. This is because, as your blood glucose levels increase, more and more glucose will attach itself to your haemoglobin.

The HbA1C test can be used to check:

Type 2 diabetes: When the body does not produce enough insulin or does not use insulin effectively.

Prediabetes: When blood glucose levels are higher than normal but not enough to be diagnosed as diabetes.

The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends A1C testing for diabetes and prediabetes if:

You are over 45

Are overweight or obese

Have a parent or sibling with type 2 diabetes

Suffer from high blood pressure or high cholesterol levels

Have heart disease or have had a stroke

Are physically active fewer than three times a week

Have had gestational diabetes

Doctors may also recommend this test if you have symptoms of diabetes, including:

Feeling very thirsty

Urinating (peeing) a lot

Losing weight without trying

Feeling very hungry

Blurred vision

Numb or tingling hands or feet

Fatigue

Dry skin

Sores that heal slowly

Having more infections than usual

The test is conducted via a blood sample that is drawn from your arm using a needle. This is then placed in a vial and sent for analysis.

The test diagnoses diabetes or prediabetes as follows:

Normal: A1C below 5.7 per cent

Prediabetes: A1C between 5.7 per cent and 6.4 per cent

Diabetes: A1C of 6.5 per cent or higher

What we know about the study

Researchers who put together the study in T_he Lancet Regional Health: Southeast Asia_ journal have claimed that the test may not accurately measure blood sugar in vast swathes of the Indian population.

They said this is particularly of concern in areas with a high prevalence of anaemia, haemoglobinopathies, and red blood cell enzyme (G6PD) deficiency, the Lancet study has said.

Essentially, the problem is that the conditions that are prevalent in India impact red blood cells and haemoglobin  which is exactly what the HbA1c test measures.

This is true of:

Anaemia, particularly the iron-deficient variety

Inherited haemoglobin disorders such as sickle cell disease and other types

G6PD deficiency, which is an issue with genetic enzymes

These conditions can affect how long red blood cells live or the amount and structure of haemoglobin, which can, in turn, distort HbA1c levels. This means that some people might wrongly show a lower or higher HbA1c than their true blood sugar level, resulting in doctors missing, delaying or wrongly classifying diabetes.

This can have real-world impacts.

For example, those with undiagnosed G6PD deficiency could see their diabetes diagnosis delayed by an average of four years if doctors use only the HbA1c test.

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This can result in treatment starting late and patients suffering eye, heart and kidney problems.

Those with undiagnosed G6PD deficiency could see their diabetes diagnosis delayed by an average of four years if doctors use only the HbA1c test. Representational image/Pixabay

Relying exclusively on HbA1c can result in misclassification of diabetes status, Professor Anoop Misra, author of the study and chairman of Fortis C-DOC Centre of Excellence for Diabetes, told New Indian Express. Some individuals may be diagnosed later than appropriate, while others could be misdiagnosed, which may affect timely diagnosis and management. Similarly, monitoring of blood sugar status may be compromised, he added.

Things could be even worse outside the big cities.

Business Today quoted the National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS-5) as saying that over 57 per cent of women and about 25 per cent of men in India are anaemic.

Dr Shashank Joshi, co-author of the study and an endocrinologist from Joshi Clinic, Mumbai, told New Indian Express: Even in well-resourced urban hospitals, HbA1c readings can be influenced by red blood cell variations and inherited haemoglobin disorders. In rural and tribal areas, where anaemia and red blood cell abnormalities are common, the discrepancies may be greater.

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What do the researchers suggest?

The authors of the study have offered a solution.

They recommend adding other tests to the HbA1c, including:

Oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT)

Self-monitoring of blood glucose

Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM)

Additional blood tests, including checking for anaemia or G6PD deficiency

They recommended that the standard oral glucose tolerance test  which measures blood sugar after fasting and again two hours after a glucose drink  should remain the standard for diagnosing prediabetes and diabetes.

They added that HbA1c may be used in addition to these other tests.

We recommend combining HbA1c with glucose-based tests such as the oral glucose tolerance test, self-monitoring of blood glucose, or continuous glucose monitoring, depending on local resources, the researchers wrote.

Why this matters

The warning comes at a time when India is facing a massive burden of diabetes cases. According to an Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)-led survey published in 2023, around 10 crore Indians are suffering from diabetes and 13.6 crore Indians have prediabetes.

With inputs from agencies
New MEA data shows that more than half of all complaints by Indian students abroad in 2025 came from Russia, raising concern amid rising reports of discrimination, harassment, and expulsions.

Students studying in Russia said that discrimination was common and often came from peers of other nationalities.

A recent knife attack that injured four Indian students in Russia has renewed concern about student safety, as updated data from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) shows the country has become the largest hotspot for reported exploitation and racial discrimination.

According to figures cited by The Times of India, Indian students across 196 countries filed around 350 complaints in 2025. Of these, more than 200 came from Russia alone.

Authorities and student groups have been alarmed by the rapid increase in cases. Indian students filed 68 complaints in 2023, rising to 78 in 2024 before jumping to 201 in 2025.

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Russia continues to attract students  especially for medical courses  due to lower fees and easier admissions. Many come from states including Rajasthan, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. However, the growing number of complaints has raised questions about safety and welfare.

Students report discrimination and harassment

Students studying in Russia told the outlet that discrimination was common and often came from peers of other nationalities. Some alleged mental harassment by universities, including threats of expulsion over minor mistakes. Many said they avoided reporting incidents due to fear of retaliation, visa complications or expulsion.

Representatives of Foreign Medical Graduates (FMG) associations said racial profiling, verbal abuse and lack of institutional support had become frequent problems. Complaints are rarely taken seriously. Students suffer in silence as universities often sideline them, said D Kaushal, coordinator of All FMGs.

Kaushal also claimed that while Russian rules allow universities to admit around 200 foreign students, some institutions enrol more than 1,200. According to him, students are later expelled  sometimes even in their sixth year  in violation of regulations. Such expulsions leave students in severe financial and psychological distress, he said.

Students turning to other countries

Owing to the worsening situation, FMG groups said more Indian students were now opting for countries such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The number of Indian students choosing Russia has declined significantly, by at least 50 per cent, in recent years due to these issues, said Manoj Kumar, president of the FMGs Association of India. He added that Russia had become less attractive since the RussiaUkraine war began in 2022.

Responding to a recent Lok Sabha query on exploitation faced by Indians overseas, Kirti Vardhan Singh, Minister of State for External Affairs, said that Indian missions were closely engaged in supporting students. Dedicated officers have been posted in Indian missions and posts overseas to handle education and student welfare-related matters, he said.

Our missions maintain regular contact with Indian students enrolled abroad and brief them on challenges and threats, if any, he added.
Murty, a nominated member of the Upper House, credited the shift in perception to Indias steady development and leadership over the past decade and a half, referring to policies under a great leader without naming Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Author and Rajya Sabha MP Sudha Murty on Monday said Indias global image has undergone a significant transformation over the past 15 years, drawing on her own experiences abroad to illustrate the change.

Speaking during the Rajya Sabha discussion on the Union Budget 2026, Murty recalled feeling sad and humiliated during her first visit to the United States in 1979, when immigration officials questioned her about conditions in India and treated her dismissively. She contrasted that experience with a visit about a decade ago, when US officials praised Indias progress and described Indians as enterprising and hardworking.

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Murty, a nominated member of the Upper House, credited the shift in perception to Indias steady development and leadership over the past decade and a half, referring to policies under a great leader without naming Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

She said the 1979 experience proved to be a turning point in her life. Quoting advice from her husband, Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy, she said lasting respect comes from performance and contribution. The couple, she added, resolved to give back to the country through sincere work.

Describing her later visit to the US, Murty said customs officials treated her warmly and acknowledged Indias thriving technology ecosystem, comparing Bengaluru to Silicon Valley. She said officials also pointed to the rise of Indian startups and noted the global presence of Indian food and businesses, adding that many Americans now travel to India for affordable medical and dental care.

Murty linked the improved global perception to consistent economic growth, stable governance and long-term policymaking, saying progress takes time but can strengthen Indias standing on the world stage.

She also recounted a recent interaction with UK immigration officials, who were sceptical when she listed 10 Downing Street as her London address, noting that few believed a simple elderly woman could be the mother-in-law of then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Welcoming provisions in the Union Budget, Murty praised proposals related to infrastructure, womens hostels in every district and markets for women entrepreneurs. She also called for expanded cultural initiatives, including Project Mausam, aimed at strengthening ties across the Indian Ocean region through cultural diplomacy.

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If you are a reader, there is nothing that will enchant and delight you more than being in a quaint little village or town surrounded by books, and having the luxury of time to soak all of it in.

Destination travel" usually involves chasing sun-drenched beaches, lush green forests, or archaic palaces, or high octane skylines.However, some towns now have a different reason to attract visitors. Known as Book Towns, these are small, often isolated villages that have avoided economic decay by transforming the written word into their primary local industry.

The concept is simple but transformative: by clustering secondhand and antiquarian bookshops in a concentrated area, these towns become magnets for bibliotourism. Naturally, heaven on earth really, for anyone who adores books.

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1. Hay-on-Wye, Wales:

Long before niche tourism was a buzzword, Richard Booth had a problem. In 1961, his hometown of Hay-on-Wye was facing the slow death common to many rural Welsh villages. His solution was eccentric and warm: he bought up empty storefronts and even the local castle  and stuffed them with millions of secondhand books imported from America and across the UK.

Booths most famous stunt was declaring himself King of the village and establishing it as an independent book kingdom. Today, the legacy of his work is visible in every alleyway. Books are sold in traditional shops, yes, but they also occupy honesty shelves tucked into stone walls where passersby leave coins in a jar. Hay-on-Wye remains the gold standard, proving that a towns identity can be successfully forged in stories.

More from Lifestyle New Chinchero airport to redefine visitor experience to Machu Picchu and Sacred Valley

2. Paju Book City, South Korea:

If the European book town model is about looking backward at history, Paju Book City is a bold leap into the future. Located on a reclaimed floodplain near the DMZ, Paju was built from the ground up to be a modernist utopia for the publishing world. It isnt just a place to buy books; it is a place where they are born.

Every building in Paju is an architectural statement, housing hundreds of publishers, printers, and designers in a campus-like setting. The Forest of Wisdom is its crown jewel  a massive, open-access library where the shelves act as towering wooden skyscrapers, reaching heights of nearly 30 feet. In Paju, a book is treated as a sacred architectural element, creating a serene, academic atmosphere that feels worlds away from the neon chaos of nearby Seoul.

3. Wigtown, Scotland:

Perched on the edge of the Machars peninsula, Wigtown is a town that has mastered the art of literary festivals. Named Scotlands official Book Town in 1998, it serves as a cultural hun for the region. With a population of under 1,000 people and over a dozen bookshops, the ratio of literature to humans is heavily skewed in favor of the former.

What sets Wigtown apart is its immersive spirit. Beyond the events that define its annual autumn festival, the town is famous for The Open Book a bookstore with an apartment above it that visitors can rent. This allows travelers to switch roles from customer to shopkeeper for a week, experiencing the daily rhythm of life in a community where a quarter-of-a-million volumes live within walking distance of the sea.

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4. Obidos, Portugal:

Obidos magic lies in its Books as Infrastructure philosophy. Here, the local government and businesses have collaborated to ensure that literature stays embedded in everything everyone does.

The town is home to the Grande Livraria de Santiago, a stunningly gorgeous bookstore located inside a 13th-century church. Instead of pews and altars, visitors find labyrinthine shelves of Portuguese and English titles.

The literary hijacking of space extends to the towns organic markets, where you might find a rare first edition resting next to a basket of locally grown fruit. For those who cant bear to leave, the Literary Man Hotel provides a sanctuary where guests are surrounded by 50,000 volumes, ensuring the stories swarm them.

5. Torup, Denmark:

In the Danish village of Torup, the book town concept has been filtered through a lens of sustainability and trust. Part of an eco-village movement, Torups literary scene is decentralised and community-oriented. There are no corporate megastores here; instead, literature is found in book wagons and converted stables.

The town operates largely on an honesty system. Whether its a shelf at a farm entrance or a stall in a disused workmans hut, readers are expected to browse, select their treasures, and leave their payment in a designated jar. It is a refreshing departure from the transactional nature of modern retail, (cough cough, Waterstones) emphasising the idea that a book is what moves us, rather than a product of the industry.

6. Montereggio, Italy:

Montereggios connection to books is seemingly ancient. In the 1400s, this Tuscan hilltop village was the home of itinerant booksellers brave people who would pack wicker baskets with heavy volumes and hike across the Italian mountains to reach distant fairs.

This history is etched into the very stones of the village. The streets are named after the families who carried those baskets, and the town of 50 residents remains a bastion of literary heritage. Every August, the village hosts a prestigious book award and a fair that draws collectors from across Europe. It is a place where the history of the traveling book has finally found a permanent, peaceful home.

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7. Lilleputthammer, Norway:

It is the worlds only Childrens City of Books, designed at a 1/4 scale to make children feel like the masters of their own domain.

The town is organised into delightful little themed houses  ranging from a Picture Book House to a Youth Literature hub, where the decor and the collection are specifically curated to foster wonder.

Nearby, Oslos Biblo Tyen continues this mission with a library for teenagers where adults are strictly forbidden. These Norwegian initiatives prove that for a book town to survive, it must treat the youngest readers with as much respect as the veteran scholars. It is the perfect way to ignite curiosity and lure little ones to pick a book up.

8. College Street, Kolkata:

College Street is home to the worlds largest secondhand book market, where stalls are stacked so high they form canyons of paper.

College Street is a testament to the sheer scale of the written word. Its where youll find the historic Indian Coffee House, where for decades, some of the worlds greatest thinkers have argued over coffee and stories and thought.
The long delayed Chinchero International Airport is expected to open in late 2027 and promises to dramatically reshape travel to one of South Americas most visited destinations.

High in Perus Andes, a large airport is taking shape near the village of Chinchero, Located just 30 kilometres from the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu. The long delayed Chinchero International Airport is expected to open in late 2027 and promises to dramatically reshape travel to one of South Americas most visited destinations.

Supporters see it as a turning point for regional tourism, while critics fear it could place unbearable strain on a fragile heritage site.For decades, reaching Machu Picchu has required long journeys involving flights to Cusco, winding road trips, and train rides through the Andes.

According to the BBC, the new airport could increase visitor numbers by as much as 200 percent. While this easier access may excite travellers, it has also raised serious concerns among local residents and conservation groups.

Supporters of the project argue that the airport will deliver much needed economic growth to a largely under developed region. As per Perus Ministry of Transport and Communications, the project has already created more than 5,000 construction jobs.

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Once operational, officials estimate that up to one million people working directly or indirectly in tourism could benefit.

Local authorities believe better air connectivity will encourage visitors to stay longer and explore lesser known destinations across the Sacred Valley, not just Machu Picchu and Cusco.

For rural communities that are often overlooked, this could mean new investment, improved infrastructure, and fresh opportunities linked to hotels, guides, transport, and handicrafts.

Spreading tourists across a wider area may also help reduce pressure on Machu Picchu itself, which already faces strict daily visitor limits.

However, critics fear the opposite could happen. Plans for the airport were first proposed in 1978 and have since been delayed by funding gaps, construction problems, and repeated allegations of corruption. Some observers still question whether the project will ever be fully completed.

Justin Francis, CEO of Responsible Travel, has been one of the most vocal critics. He warns that placing a major airport so close to Machu Picchu risks damaging Perus most important tourism asset.

According to Francis, the real challenge is not poverty but heavy dependence on a single attraction. He argues that making Machu Picchu easier to visit in a single day could lead to overcrowding and long term harm.

As construction continues, the debate around Chinchero International Airport highlights a familiar global tourism dilemma. How to balance economic development with cultural preservation.

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Record number of Indians are travelling to Morocco. As per the Moroccan National Tourism Office (MNTO), the surge is driven by better air connectivity, rising interest in experiential travel, and growth in young travellers.

While Moroccos global trajectory remains robust, the Indian market has emerged as a standout success story. Credits/Pixabay

Morocco, also called the Kingdom of light, welcomed a record-breaking 19.8 million global tourists, marking a 14% increase from the previous year. This feat solidifies its position as Africas top destination.

While Moroccos global trajectory remains robust, the Indian market has emerged as a standout success story. As per the Moroccan National Tourism Office (MNTO), Indian arrivals have reached a significant milestone of 53,697 visitors, representing a 31% year-on-year growth and a staggering 224% increase compared to 2019 levels.

This remarkable momentum is a testament to the immense growth potential we see in the Indian market and the success of our intensified efforts to showcase Moroccos unique heritage, says Jamal Kilito, Country Manager  India, MNTO.

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According to MNTO, the surge in Indian arrivals is driven by increasing air connectivity, rising interest in luxury and experiential travel, and a growing segment of affluent young travellers from metro and non-metro cities.

Indian wedding, incentive and leisure travel segments are also showing strong momentum, contributing to Moroccos expanding market footprint in South Asia.

Why Morocco?

The history of a country is one of the events considered worthy of remembrance, which perfectly applies to Morocco.

With several dynasties that have succeeded one another over the years: the Idrisside dynasty, the Almoravid dynasty, the Almohad dynasty, the Merinid dynasty, the Saadian dynasty and the Alaouite dynasty, Morocco has gained international consideration as a multicultural country, with several types of heritage recognized as World Heritage by UNESCO.

Morocco is one of the go-to destinations for discovery lovers, the most fascinated by nature, history, the art of living and Moroccan hospitality. The experience gained during their journeys in Morocco leave them pleasantly satisfied with their stay.

Whats the Kingdom of Light?

Marrakech, Marketplace, Morocco. Credits/Morocco

The Morocco - Kingdom of Light campaign was launched by the Moroccan National Tourism Office to promote the country after the COVID-19 pandemic, showcasing its cultural richness,, and artistic inspiration.

The country is characterized by a specific quality of light that illuminates its landscapes, particularly during golden hour, reflecting off the Atlantic coast, the desert sands, and the vibrant architecture.

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The title reflects the vibrant, sun-drenched, and intricate artistic traditions, including, zellij tiles,, and, lantern-lit medinas, which create a distinctive visual and sensory experience.

Reaching Morocco

Indian citizens traveling to Morocco require a visa, which can be obtained as an e-Visa for eligible applicants (holding valid US, UK, Schengen, etc., visas) or a traditional sticker visa. Essential documents include a passport valid for at least 6 months, completed application form, photos, flight tickets, and accommodation proof.

Before departure, it is essential to submit and track your applications for E-Visa or AEVM (Electronic Travel Authorization to Morocco) through the portal Acces Maroc.

Travelling by air

With 25 airports scattered all across Morocco, there are several airports in Morocco that are able to serve your needs, while providing you with banking services, foreign exchange agencies, shopping malls, catering and relaxation areas.

The airport of Marrakech-Menara, being considered as the most beautiful airport in the world according to the 2017 ranking by the Skyteam Alliance. It unites 19 world airlines, has a cultural identity that brings together authenticity and modernity.

The National Airports Office (ONDA) is committed to providing you with the best service according to the highest international standards, serving you with the all existing airlines.

Where to stay and what to do?

There are various options of accommodation. From luxury hotels, to country campings and bivouacs, to budget-friendly hostels. All in an atmosphere of hospitality, well-being, and friendliness, for an ideal say in the sunny land.

MNTO suggest a few tours which are a must explore.

The honey road is one of the most pleasant excursions in the heart of the Imouzzer mountain region of the Ida-Outanane. Located in the northern region, a few kilometers from Agadir, the town of Imouzzer is famous for its honey and beautiful waterfalls. This famous beekeeping tour begins in the valley of paradise.

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One can also discover Morocco by cruise. Take a seat on the boat and get started for an eye-opening experience. Head out to the best stopover by the sea in Morocco, for an unforgettable stay.

For a special time in imperial cities, dive into the countrys most important heritage sites and uncover the secrets of glorious dynasties

Uncover the untainted beauty of the Moroccan Desert. The south of Morocco is the gate that leads to Sahara desert. In the middle of these stretches of sand, discover a world of dunes, sunshine and tranquility.

What to eat?

Renowned for its delectable and various dishes, Morocco was classified second in the 2017 ranking of the best gourmands global destinations, according to a famous British blog.

The kingdom offers to its visitors an exceptional culinary experience. Marrakech, Fez, Agadir and Rabat are among the most tempting culinary destinations. More than 15 Moroccan restaurants are amongst the thousand best restaurants worldwide.

Tajine, Pottery. Credits/Pixabay

Couscous, Tajine, Harira, Pastilla, Rfissa are some of delectable items rooted in the rich history and culture of Morocco.

Things to know before planning a trip

Morocco is a land of contrasts. Bathed to the north by the waters of the Mediterranean, to the west by those of the Atlantic Ocean. It is also criss-crossed by the Rif and Atlas mountains and is subject to all sorts of climatic influences.

The official currency unit of Morocco is the Moroccan dirham (DH) which is abbreviate (MAD).

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1 MAD = 9.95 Indian Rupee (as on date)

In Morocco, like most countries in the world, you can pay by cash or credit card. When paying by credit card, the exchange rate applied is the current rate. The maximum commission depends on each issuing institution, it is generally 1%.

Visiting a country, is also learning a new language.

Morocco has two official languages, **Arabic** and Amazigh. French is also spoken and understood by almost all Moroccans.

Spanish is widely spoken in the northern and southern regions of Morocco.

The Amazigh language, whose alphabet is Tifinagh, is the common heritage of all Moroccans.

Classical or literary Arabic is only used in administrative contexts. Darija (Moroccan dialect) is the oral language used in Morocco, which is a mixture of Arabic, Amazigh, French and Spanish.
From disputed ballots and snap elections to historic landslides and democratic pushback against extremism, 2026 is shaping up as a year of political reckoning

As governments rise and fall across continents, choices at the ballot box will reverberate far beyond national bordersreshaping alliances, testing institutions, and redefining the global political order, with significant implications for India. File image/ PTI

The year 2026 opened with an unmistakable signal: politics across the world is entering a decisive phase. January alone saw three major elections across Africa, Asia and Europe, setting the tone for what is set to be one of the most electorally dense years in recent history. By the end of the year, more than 40 countrieshome to nearly one-fifth of the global populationwill have gone to the polls, with outcomes likely to reshape domestic politics, economic strategies and global alignments.

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January: Authoritarian Endurance, Democratic Tests

In Africa, Ugandas long-serving President Yoweri Museveni extended his grip on power yet again. The 81-year-old leader, who first rose to power as a rebel commander in 1986, was declared the winner with 72 per cent of the vote, according to the election commission. His closest challenger, pop star-turned-politician Bobi Wine, secured 25 per cent and promptly dismissed the outcome as fake, accusing authorities of ballot stuffing.

Musevenis victory, while widely anticipated, came amid serious concerns. The United Nations said the election campaign was marked by widespread repression and intimidation, including crackdowns on opposition ralliesunderscoring the shrinking space for political dissent in the country.

Asias first election of the year delivered an even starker verdict. Myanmars military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party swept the countrys tightly controlled three-phase general election, securing overwhelming majorities in both chambers of parliament. The party won 232 of 263 seats in the Pyithu Hluttaw, the lower house, and 109 of 157 seats in the Amyotha Hluttaw, the upper chamber.

Held amid an ongoing civil war and widespread repression, the election was swiftly rejected by the 11-member Asean bloc, while human rights organisations and several Western governments dismissed it as a sham.

Europes January contest, by contrast, played out within a competitive democratic framework. Portugals presidential election produced no outright winner in its first round, though Antonio Jose Seguro, a former leader of the Socialist Party, edged ahead of far-right Chega leader Andre Ventura. Pre-election surveys had consistently shown Ventura commanding strong support, raising fears of a breakthrough for the far right. With no candidate securing an absolute majority, the race headed to a run-off scheduled for early Februarythe first such contest in Portugal in four decades.

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February: Snap Elections and Surprises

February began with a political flourish, featuring one scheduled presidential election in Europe and two snap elections in Asia.

Japan delivered the months most dramatic result. Although no parliamentary election was due, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, Japans first woman to hold the office, called a snap poll for 8 February, just three months after taking office. It was a risky move, particularly as her Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had been weakened by a political funding scandal.

The gamble paid off spectacularly. Takaichis LDP secured a historic landslide, winning 316 of the 465 seats in the Lower Houseenough for a two-thirds supermajority on its own and the highest proportion of seats ever won by a single party in post-war Japan. Together with its coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party, the ruling bloc captured an astonishing 352 seats. The opposition Central Reform Alliance, hastily formed before the election, was reduced to just 49 seats.

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Calling the result a mandate for bold change, Takaichi said voters had endorsed major shifts in economic, fiscal and security policyareas that had drawn fierce opposition. For the 64-year-old conservative leader, the result was a powerful vindication.

Portugals presidential run-off, meanwhile, offered a different kind of clarity. Antonio Jose Seguro decisively defeated Andre Ventura, winning 66.7 per cent of the vote to secure a five-year term. While the Portuguese presidency is largely ceremonial, Seguros victory was widely seen as a rejection of the far right. Yet Venturas 33.3 per cent sharemaking him the first extreme-right candidate to reach a run-offhighlighted the growing influence of populist movements in Portugal and across Europe.

Asias third February election took place in Thailand, where a snap poll returned the ruling Bhumjaithai Party to a commanding position. With around 90 per cent of votes counted, the conservative-royalist party appeared on course to win 194 seats in the 500-member House of Representatives, comfortably ahead of the reformist Peoples Party.

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The outcome marked a shift from recent elections, signalling voter preference for continuity and establishment politics amid regional uncertainty. As The New York Times noted, the vote was a resounding success for Bhumjaithai leader Anutin Charnvirakul, who had called the snap election to pre-empt a possible no-confidence motion.

Elections to Watch: A Crowded Global Calendar

Beyond the opening months, the rest of 2026 promises even greater political turbulence.

Bangladeshs general election on February 12 stands out as one of the most consequential in South Asia. It is the first vote since Sheikh Hasinas Awami League government was toppled by student-led protests in August 2024. With Hasina in exile, Khaleda Zia deceased, and the Awami League barred from contesting, the field is fractured. Alongside the election, voters will decide a referendum on the July Charter, which proposes sweeping constitutional reforms.

Nepal follows with parliamentary elections in March, triggered by a Generation Z uprising that forced the resignation of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and installed former Chief Justice Sushila Karki as interim leader. With 114 parties contestingmany newly formed and youth-ledthe vote reflects deep political churn.

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In Europe, Hungarys April parliamentary election could prove pivotal. Prime Minister Viktor Orban, in power since 2010, faces his toughest challenge yet from Peter Magyars Tisza Party. The result will shape Hungarys domestic trajectory and its delicate balancing act between the European Union and Russia.

Latin Americas spotlight falls on Colombia in May and Brazil in October. Colombias presidential race will determine whether the country can revive stalled peace processes and contain rising violence. Brazils election, meanwhile, sees President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva seeking a fourth term amid economic uncertainty and political polarisation.

Africas electoral calendar is equally heavy. Ethiopias June general election is expected to reaffirm Prime Minister Abiy Ahmeds dominance, despite concerns over fairness. South Sudan, after years of delay, is scheduled to hold its first-ever elections in December, a milestone following a brutal civil war that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

Finally, Israels October parliamentary election will be the first since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, and the devastating Gaza war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a credible challenge from former premier Naftali Bennett, with polls suggesting a close contest.

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Overlaying all of this are the US midterm elections in November, which are certain to command global attention. As Fortune magazine has observed, history suggests a high likelihood that President Donald Trumps party will lose seats, potentially weakening his hold on Congress.

A Year of Consequence

From disputed ballots and snap elections to historic landslides and democratic pushback against extremism, 2026 is shaping up as a year of political reckoning. As governments rise and fall across continents, the choices made at the ballot box will reverberate far beyond national bordersreshaping alliances, testing institutions and redefining the global political order.

(The author is a multi-disciplinary thought leader with Action Bias and an India-based impact consultant. He is President of Advisory Services at BARSYL. Views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect Firstposts position.)
The India-US interim trade agreement is a significant, positive development in bilateral economic ties. Yet, the broader relationship remains subject to the unpredictable whims and transactional demands of the Trump administration

On February 7, 2026, India and the United States reached a landmark interim trade agreement framework, signalling a major de-escalation of trade tensions. This interim deal serves as a bridge towards a more comprehensive Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA), which is expected to be signed in mid-March 2026. After the interim agreement was signed, President Donald Trump issued an executive order rescinding a punitive 25 per cent duty on all imports from India over its purchases of Russian oil, the White House said.

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The key highlights of the interim agreement are significant. The US has reduced import duties on Indian goods from a peak of 50 per cent down to 18 per cent. This marks a critical de-escalation of trade tensions. Indian exporters in labour-intensive industriessuch as textiles, apparel, leather, gems, and jewellerygain immediate competitiveness with the 18 per cent tariff rate, which is lower than that of regional rivals like Vietnam and China. The agreement is expected to open a $30 trillion market for Indian exporters, particularly benefiting MSMEs and labour-intensive sectors. The framework agreement establishes a path towards zero tariffs on high-value items like generic pharmaceuticals, aircraft parts, and diamonds upon the deals final conclusion.

Both nations have committed to strengthening supply-chain resilience and coordinating on investment reviews and export controls to counter non-market policies of third parties. While this clause uses diplomatic language, it is a strategic effort to counter Chinas economic influence and reduce reliance on Chinese-dominated supply chains.

India has agreed to eliminate or significantly reduce tariffs on all US industrial goods and a broad range of agricultural products like tree nuts, soybean oil, and wine. However, the interim agreement includes specific provisions designed to protect the interests of Indian farmers by ring-fencing sensitive agricultural sectors while simultaneously expanding market access for Indian agricultural exports. The agreement ensures that India does not have to grant duty concessions on products considered critical to domestic food security and rural livelihoods. India has completely protected sensitive agricultural and dairy products from tariff reductions. These include wheat, rice, maize, soy, poultry, milk, cheese, and meat products. India has emphasised that safeguarding farmers interests was a non-negotiable core principle from the outset of negotiations.

The interim agreement provides that India intends to purchase $500 billion of US goods over the next five years, focusing on energy (oil, gas, coking coal), aircraft, precious metals, and technology like Graphic Processing Centres (GPUs). This commitment is a cornerstone of a broader agreement that reduces US tariffs on Indian goods to 18 per cent and aims to more than double bilateral trade to $500 billion annually by 2030.

Civil aviation will be one of the largest components of the $500 billion plan. Boeing alone may see orders worth $80 billion to $100 billion when including engines, avionics, and long-term maintenance contracts. Additionally, India will gain duty-free access to the US for certain aircraft parts, and the US will remove national security tariffs previously imposed on Indian aviation components. India also intends to purchase substantial amounts of US precious metals as part of the five-year, $500 billion commitment.

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A core condition of the deal involves India significantly reducing its reliance on Russian crude oil in favour of energy imports from the US and potentially Venezuela. Russian crude has been sold to India at deep discounts ($10-11 below Brent). Replacing this with market-priced US crude may increase Indias annual import bill, though analysts suggest the overall impact on the bill might be less than 2 per cent. Recently, India has reportedly begun to slow its purchases from Russia. In January, they were around 1.2 million barrels per day, and are projected to decline to about 1 million bpd in February and 800,000 bpd in March.

The interim agreement states: In the event of any changes to the agreed-upon tariffs of either country, the United States and India agree that the other country may modify its commitments. This provision is intended to act as a safeguard clause. Thus, if one country unilaterally raises tariffs beyond the agreed levels, the other side can immediately revoke or adjust its own concessions without breaching the overall spirit of the framework. It reinforces the transactional nature of current US-India trade, where every strategic or economic concession is tied to a specific reciprocal benefit. As both nations work towards a full Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA), this clause ensures neither side is locked in to a deal if the other sides domestic policy shifts. It acts as a deterrent, incentivising both countries to uphold their commitments on sensitive issues, such as Indias reduction of Russian oil imports or the USs maintenance of the 18 per cent tariff rate.

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However, India will remain excluded from the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP). The U.S. had terminated Indias status as a beneficiary developing nation effective June 5, 2019, due to failure to provide equitable and reasonable access to its markets. The revocation affected roughly $5.6 billion worth of Indian exports, including agriculture, handloom, and engineering items. Despite recent diplomatic efforts and interim trade discussions, India has not been reinstated, meaning it is not receiving the duty-free benefits that other developing nations currently enjoy under the US GSP programme. Securing GSP restoration remains an important diplomatic goal, but GSP restoration is not a purely executive decision; it requires the US Congress to pass legislation to reauthorise the programme. India must strive to get its GSP status restored in future negotiations.

On balance, however, the interim agreement on the India-US trade deal is a significant, positive development in bilateral economic relations. It marks a shift towards a more collaborative trade environment, designed to benefit both nations through tariff reductions, increased market access, and strategic economic alignment. Industry groups in India have welcomed the agreement as a historic milestone for manufacturing, innovation, and stronger economic security cooperation between the two countries. The agreement safeguards Indias sensitive agriculture and dairy sectors, with no tariff concessions on key products like wheat, rice, pulses, and milk.

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However, while the interim agreement on the trade deal offers a temporary breathing room and a new framework for economic engagement, the broader relationship remains subject to the unpredictable whims and transactional demands of the Trump administration. In summary, the interim agreement provides a momentary reduction in tensions, but the relationship is perpetually subject to swift, transactional changes by the US administration.

(The writer is a retired Indian diplomat and had previously served as Ambassador in Kuwait and Morocco and as Consul General in New York. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views.)
The UK has asked the parents to speak to their children about the harmful effects caused by social media as the government readies itself to ban the usage of social media for under 16 following Australia.

Social media addiction among children, know the implications from a psychologist (Photo: Reuters)

Britain on Tuesday encouraged parents to speak to their children about the harmful content they could encounter online as the government looks into the pros and cons of an Australian-style ban on social media for under 16s.

Citing research that showed half of parents had never spoken to their children about harmful content, the government said the You Wont Know Until You Ask campaign would provide them with the support and advice they needed to start conversations.

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Technology Minister Liz Kendall said she knew many parents were worried about what their children see and do online.

We are determined to give children the childhood they deserve and prepare them for the future, she said.

That is why we are supporting parents with this campaign and launching a consultation on how young people can live and thrive in the age of social media."

The campaign will help parents navigate safety settings on social media platforms and start conversations on topics like misinformation and harmful content, the government said.

It will be supported by TV ads and content on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, initially in Yorkshire, northern England, and the Midlands, the government said.

The campaign launches weeks after the government said it was prepared to take robust action to protect children online, with an Australian-style social media ban for children under 16.

Ministers are due to visit Australia, which imposed its ban in December, to look at their approach. Kendall has said Britain was weighing the same age threshold as Australia.

Spain, Greece, France, Slovenia and the Czech Republic have in recent weeks also said they were considering similar restrictions as attitudes harden against technology that some say is designed to be addictive.

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(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by Firstpost staff)
Canada suspends flights to Cuba after Havana warns airlines it will run out of jet fuel, triggering cancellations, emergency repatriation plans and fresh concerns for the islands tourism-dependent economy

Canada has responded to Cubas deepening jet fuel crisis, with Air Canada suspending flights to the island after being warned that fuel supplies are about to run out.

The airline said it would cancel services to Cuba and operate empty planes to bring home roughly 3,000 passengers already on the island, after Cuban authorities alerted carriers that aviation fuel would soon be unavailable at major airports, reported Reuters.

Other international airlines are now scrambling to adjust schedules, refuel in third countries or rethink operations altogether.

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Cuba informed airlines it expects to run out of jet fuel this week, with shortages likely to last until at least mid-March. Nine airports, including Havanas Jose Marti International Airport, are expected to be affected.

Some European and Russian airlines are exploring workarounds such as carrying extra fuel or stopping in nearby countries like the Dominican Republic to refuel. But industry officials warn these measures add cost, complexity and delaysand may not be sustainable if the crisis drags on.

Also read | US announces $6mn in aid to Cuba while fuel blockade triggers severe shortages

Energy crisis worsens

The jet fuel shortage is part of a broader energy crunch gripping Cuba, which relies heavily on imported oil and refined products. Supplies from key partners have dwindled, leaving the island struggling to meet basic fuel needs for transport, power generation and aviation.

The crisis has already hit daily life, with frequent power cuts and fuel rationing. Now, the aviation sectorcritical to tourism and foreign currency earningsis feeling the impact.

Tourism is one of Cubas most important sources of income, and prolonged flight disruptions could deal another blow to an economy already under strain. Airlines and travel operators say uncertainty over fuel availability may discourage visitors and force further cancellations. For now, carriers are monitoring the situation closely.

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Russias foreign minister Sergei Lavrov accuses the US of trying to control Moscows ties with India, saying Washington uses sanctions and pressure to shape global trade and strategic partnerships

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov took a sharp dig at the United States on Monday, accusing Washington of trying to exert control over Russias relations with India and other major partners. In an interview with TV BRICS, Lavrov said the US is attempting to influence everything from trade to military-technical cooperation, a charge that comes amid growing geopolitical tensions.

Lavrov claimed that Washington is seeking to control our trade, investment cooperation, and military-technical ties with major strategic partners, such as India and other BRICS members, suggesting that American pressure on New Delhis defence and economic choices is part of a broader strategy.

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  Lavrov: Wests dollar-centered world order is doomed as BRICS clout surges



The BRICS countries growth rates and GDP PPP volumes have substantially exceeded the combined GDP of the G7, Russian FM Lavrov told TV BRICS pic.twitter.com/FuKJeBWmLL  Sputnik (@SputnikInt) February 9, 2026

US economic tactics draw fire

Speaking amid strained relations with the West, Lavrov also used the interview to criticise what he described as US moves aimed at economic dominance.

He said that despite rhetoric about cooperation, actions such as sanctions and restrictions on energy and trade have made a significant impact.

In practice, however, the opposite occurs: new sanctions are imposed, attacks on tankers are staged in international waters in violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and India and other partners are discouraged from purchasing affordable Russian energy, he said.

The Russian foreign minister framed these tactics as part of a broader effort by Washington to shape global ties and limit Russias influence, especially in emerging groupings such as BRICS. Thus, in the economic sphere, the United States has effectively declared a goal of economic domination, Lavrov said, adding that Moscow is seeking alternative mechanisms for cooperation with its partners.

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Balancing relations with India

Lavrovs comments also echoed Moscows longstanding emphasis on strategic ties with New Delhi. Russia has publicly acknowledged Indias independent foreign policy and long-standing partnership with Moscow, even as New Delhi deepens cooperation with Western nations. Russia has said that Indias relations with the United States or any other country are not a benchmark for their own ties.
The Australian PM did not budge from his position of inviting Herzog to the country, the first visit by an Israeli leader after the deadly Bondi Beach attack

Israeli President Isaac Herzog (L) speaks after laying a wreath for victims of the December 14, 2025 gun attack at the Bondi Pavilion, in Sydney, on February 9, 2026. (AFP)

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said that he is devastated over the violent clashes between police officials and protestors who are demonstrating against Israeli President Isaac Herzogs visit to Sydney.

These are scenes that I think shouldnt be taking place, Albanese said. His comments came after police arrested 27 protestors late on Monday.

The Australian PM did not budge from his position of inviting Herzog to the country, the first visit by an Israeli leader after the deadly Bondi Beach attack. Albanese defended Herzogs visit by saying it would help the Jewish community heal, but received opposition from pro-Palestinian groups in Australia.

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Video footage of the protests, which drew an estimated 6,000 people, appeared to show several physical confrontations between police and demonstrators outside Sydneys Town Hall and surrounding areas, including officers apparently punching protesters and dragging away Muslim men who were praying.

Worst clashes in history

Rally organiser Palestine Action Group said that the violent clashes between police and protestors are the worst ones seen in recent years.

We should have had the right to march, Josh Lees from the group told ABC News, adding that all of this could have been avoided if police had allowed protestors to march from Town Hall to either the New South Wales Parliament or Hyde Park.

Meanwhile, protestors have planned another rally in Sydney on Tuesday outside the citys police station, calling for charges against many people to be dropped and for police officers who had used physical force to be investigated.

Pro-Palestinian groups are opposed to Herzogs visit, as the UN commission last year concluded that the president was among Israeli leaders who incited the commission of genocide against Palestinians via their speeches and statements.

Herzogs speech

Herzog visited Sydney on Monday to honour the 15 people killed when gunmen opened fire during a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach on December 14. The president laid a wreath outside the Bondi Pavilion in heavy rain during a sombre service attended by members of the Australian Jewish community.

He said people of all faiths would overcome this evil and that the bonds between good people of all faiths and all nations will continue to hold strong in the face of terror, violence and hatred.

Herzog told the community that their pain was felt by all Jews, adding that he had travelled to express solidarity and offer strength. The four-day visit has been welcomed by many Jewish Australians, with Alex Ryvchin of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry saying the trip would lift the spirits of a pained community.

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The Bangladesh government has announced housing and financial assistance for the family of Dipu Chandra Das, a young Hindu man who was lynched in Mymensingh district last December

A portrait of Dipu Chandra Das, a Hindu man who was beaten to death by a mob, hangs alongside images of Hindu deities inside his home in Tarakanda village, Mymensingh District, Bangladesh, on January 9, 2026. AP File

The Bangladesh government has announced housing and financial assistance for the family of Dipu Chandra Das, a young Hindu man who was lynched in Mymensingh district in December last year, even as recent incidents have renewed concerns over the security of religious minorities ahead of national elections.

Dipu Chandra Das was beaten and burned to death on December 18, 2025, in the Square Masterbari area of Bhaluka Upazila. Media reports at the time said he was allegedly hanged from a tree and set on fire by a mob after being accused of making defamatory remarks. The killing was widely described as an act of communal violence and sparked condemnation within Bangladesh and abroad.

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On December 23, 2025, Education Adviser C R Abrar visited Dass family at their home in Mokamiakanda village under Banihala Union in Tarakanda Upazila, acting on the advice of the Chief Adviser, and conveyed the governments condolences.

As Das was the sole breadwinner of his family, authorities have announced a compensation package aimed at ensuring their long-term financial security. The assistance includes the construction of a permanent house and direct financial support for family members.

According to a MoneyControl report, citing official statements, the programme will be implemented under the supervision of the Upazila Nirbahi Officer of Tarakanda.

The National Housing Authority has approved an allocation of BDT 2.5 million for the construction of the house. In addition, the government will provide BDT 1 million each to Dass father and wife, as well as a fixed deposit of BDT 500,000 for the future of his child, added the report.

The announcement comes amid growing scrutiny of minority rights and communal safety in Bangladesh as the country approaches elections.

Compensation announced, questions remain

As Dipu Chandra Das was the sole breadwinner of his family, the government has announced a compensation package aimed at ensuring their financial security. The assistance includes the construction of a permanent house and direct monetary support.

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Officials said the programme will be implemented under the supervision of the Upazila Nirbahi Officer of Tarakanda. The National Housing Authority has approved BDT 2.5 million for house construction, while BDT 1 million each will be given to Dass father and wife. A fixed deposit of BDT 500,000 will also be created for his childs future.

Speaking on Tuesday, Education Adviser C R Abrar described the killing as a heinous crime and said it had no place in our society.

The efforts the government has made to assist his family are nothing compared to a life lost, he said, adding that the state would ensure justice. The way Dipu Das was murdered by spreading communal frenzy is a shame for the entire nation. Only justice can free us from this shame.

Abrar said the state respects freedom of expression for all communities but stressed that no individual has the right to take the law into their own hands.

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Pattern of minority violence persists

Despite the announcement, critics say compensation cannot substitute for systemic failures to protect minorities. The move comes amid continued reports of attacks on Hindus, raising concerns that authorities are responding after the fact rather than preventing violence.

In a separate incident, another Hindu businessman, Sushen Chandra Shekhar, was stabbed to death inside his shop in the Trishal area of Mymensingh district. The 62-year-old rice trader was attacked late at night by unidentified assailants, who fled after pulling down the shops shutter. Police said the motive remains unclear.

Rights groups say such incidents reflect a broader climate of fear, particularly during politically sensitive periods. Advocacy organisations report that dozens of Hindus have been killed in recent months, with hundreds more alleging attacks on homes, businesses and places of worship.

Arrests made, but trust still low

Abrar said 12 people directly involved in the killing of have been arrested and that the investigation is ongoing. He said all those responsible would be prosecuted.

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However, minority groups and civil society activists remain sceptical, arguing that arrests and compensation have failed to deter repeat violence.

As Bangladesh heads toward elections, the killings of Dipu Chandra Das and Sushen Chandra Shekhar have reinforced fears that minorities remain vulnerable despite official assurances.

With inputs from agencies
Brazil is reviewing a new US Argentina trade deal, fearing it exceeds Mercosurs limits on bilateral pacts and undermines the blocs unity.

Brazil has launched a detailed review of a freshly announced trade agreement between the United States and Argentina. Officials worry it breaches the strict guidelines of Mercosur, the South American trade alliance, potentially weakening the blocs collective bargaining strength.

Initial findings raise concerns

Diplomats in Brazil are poring over the pact, made public by Washington last Friday. Early assessments suggest it stretches beyond the boundaries Mercosur sets for individual member deals with outside nations. Two well placed sources indicate the agreement touches on roughly 200 products, exceeding Argentinas quota of 150 exceptions granted last year amid rising global trade frictions under US President Donald Trump.

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An Argentine representative insists the tariff cuts for American goods fit squarely within their allowed list. Brazilian authorities, however, see a clear overrun and plan to scrutinise every detail to ensure fairness.

Mercosur rules under pressure

The bloc, formed three and a half decades ago, curbs members from pursuing independent trade links to preserve unified negotiations. Last year saw temporary relaxations to the common external tariff, giving Brazil and Argentina 150 slots each, with Uruguay and Paraguay receiving more generous allotments.

Sources point out further hurdles like rules of origin, service provisions, and technical standards that could complicate matters. Argentinas push, led by President Javier Milei a close Trump confidant, may prove hard to square with prior exemptions.

Past tensions within the bloc

Mercosur has weathered repeated challenges as nations chase separate trade paths, though no one has sealed a rogue pact until now. Uruguay came close to a US free trade deal in 2006 but retreated over expulsion threats. It has since eyed a similar link with China, irking partners Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay.

In 2019, under then President Jair Bolsonaro, Brazils finance chief threatened withdrawal, decrying the blocs drag on ambitions. Neither Bolsonaro nor his successor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva followed through with a formal exit.

At a recent briefing, Argentinas Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno dismissed Mercosur barriers, noting Milei could enact portions by decree while a full investment treaty awaits parliament.

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Potential next steps

Brazilian officials stress adherence to established protocols. One remarked that any confirmed violation would trigger a Mercosur Council meeting to chart a response. The blocs next summit looms in late June in Asuncion, where Paraguay passes the rotating chair to Uruguay.

Senior levels in Brasilias government must weigh in, though the matter has not yet reached Lula. Governments in Brazil and Uruguay stayed silent on queries, while Paraguay and Argentinas foreign offices along with the US State Department offered no immediate reply.

The saga underscores deepening strains in Mercosur as members balance loyalty to the group against enticing bilateral prospects.
Desperate for state protection against a wave of US seizures, dozens of shadow fleet tankers are abandoning flags of convenience to fly under Russian jurisdictionraising the stakes of global maritime conflict.

The US, the UK and France have recently stepped up controls of 'shadow fleet' ships (AFP)

In a dramatic shift across the high seas, dozens of dark fleet oil tankers are abandoning traditional flags of convenience to re-register under Russian jurisdiction. The move, described by maritime analysts as a desperate bid for state protection, comes as the United States and its allies intensify efforts to seize vessels bypassing international sanctions.

The trend picked up pace in December 2025, following the US seizure of the supertanker Skipper off the coast of Venezuela. Fearful of similar enforcement actions, shadow fleet operatorswho transport sanctioned oil from Russia, Iran, and Venezuelaare betting that Moscows sovereign protection will act as a deterrent against Western boarding parties.

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A sudden surge in registration

According to figures from Starboard Maritime Intelligence, at least 26 vessels have re-registered in Russia since early December. The scale of the flag-hopping is unprecedented: 18 of those registrations occurred in December alone. By comparison, only 15 vessels had made the switch over the entire five-month period preceding the surge.

The story is really a persistent, global reflagging of dark-fleet tankers, Mark Douglas, a maritime domain analyst at Starboard Maritime Intelligence, told DW News. Its unlikely to stop at this number.

Geopolitical stakes and state protection

While tankers typically use flags of convenience from nations like Panama or the Cook Islands to avoid regulation, those registries offer little defense against US naval or Coast Guard intervention. By flying the Russian tricolor, owners are shifting the conflict from a regulatory dispute to a potential state-level confrontation.

This may offer a new potential solution for the illicit dark-fleet networks, but it also raises the stakes. It underscores that sanctions evasion is no longer just a maritime compliance problem, but a strategic challenge involving state protection and geopolitical risks, Charlie Brown, a senior adviser at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) told Bloomberg.

The risks were recently highlighted during the chase of the Bella 1 (renamed Marinera). After being pursued by US forces, the crew painted a Russian flag on the hull in an attempt to signal sovereign protection. Despite the tactic, and reports of a Russian naval escort being dispatched, the vessel was ultimately intercepted near Iceland.

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What are the long-term risks for Russia?

While the tactic provides a temporary shield, observers warn it could create significant long-term liabilities for Moscow. By bringing hundreds of ageing, poorly maintained, and uninsured tankers under its direct jurisdiction, Russia assumes responsibility for any environmental disasters or collisions these zombie ships might cause.

Furthermore, flag-hopping undermines the legitimacy of Russias own merchant marine. If the trend continues, the global maritime community may begin viewing the Russian flag itself as a primary indicator of illicit activity.
Ethiopia is reportedly hosting a covert camp in its western Benishangul-Gumuz region to train thousands of Rapid Support Forces fighters for Sudans civil war, with sources alleging UAE funding and support.

A new report has uncovered claims that Ethiopia is quietly running a camp to train thousands of fighters for the Rapid Support Forces, a powerful militia involved in Sudans civil conflict. The revelation points to an alarming escalation that could draw more regional powers into one of Africas most dangerous wars.

Growing signs of regional involvement

The existence of the camp is said to be the first clear indication of Ethiopias direct role in Sudans war. According to several officials and diplomats familiar with the matter, the facility is being used to prepare thousands of recruits from Ethiopia and neighbouring countries to fight alongside the RSF. The sources believe that the United Arab Emirates has financed the site, provided equipment, and supplied military instructors.

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Although representatives from the UAE have rejected any connection to the conflict, insiders within Ethiopia have described a detailed security report that attributes logistical support and funding to the Gulf state. The camp reportedly represents a major development in the balance of power within Sudan, where battles have intensified in the southern regions.

Sudans war and its human toll

The war in Sudan started in 2023 after a confrontation between the national army and the RSF during a planned transition to civilian rule. What began as a political rivalry soon turned into a brutal war that has devastated towns, displaced millions, and spread severe hunger across the country. Refugees continue to flee toward neighbouring nations such as Egypt, Chad, Libya and South Sudan, creating one of the largest humanitarian crises in Africa.

Each side in the conflict has drawn support from international allies, raising concerns that the fighting could spill across borders. Several countries are believed to be providing covert assistance through weapons, training, or strategic coordination.

Detailed accounts of the alleged camp

Fifteen individuals familiar with the camps construction and operation, including Ethiopian officials and foreign diplomats, have described the sites growing activity since last year. Satellite images have been studied alongside internal government documents and diplomatic messages, all pointing to the development of a large training complex in western Ethiopia. The camp is located in the remote Benishangul Gumuz region, close to the border shared by Ethiopia, Sudan, and South Sudan.

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Construction is said to have begun in April, with major expansion seen from October onward. Initial work involved clearing forest land and establishing metal roofed buildings. Later images showed hundreds of tents, supply vehicles, and heavy equipment arriving at the site. Observers described several long convoys of trucks transporting recruits toward the camp in November. By December, thousands of trainees were reportedly present, with new infrastructure continuing to appear well into January.

Numbers and leadership

Security documents claim that more than four thousand RSF fighters were undergoing training at the site in early January. The materials also identify General Getachew Gudina, head of the Defence Intelligence Department within Ethiopias military, as the leading figure behind the establishment of the camp. Officials and diplomats have confirmed his involvement. However, the general has remained unreachable for comment, and no public statement has been made by the Ethiopian government or the RSF.

Sources suggest that although most recruits are Ethiopian nationals, some come from South Sudan and Sudan, including individuals from the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement North. The aim, they said, is to reinforce RSF units fighting in the Blue Nile region. Some trainees have already crossed the border to support combat operations there.

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Construction activity near Asosa

The camp lies near the town of Asosa, where increased vehicle traffic has been observed throughout the construction period. Machinery and supplies, including bulldozers and diggers, were reportedly moved through the town every day. Satellite images show a continuous expansion of the camp, with new earthworks, tents, and shipping containers being added by January.

The sites capacity may reach ten thousand fighters once completed. Trucks bearing logos of a well known Emirati logistics company were seen along the route to the camp, suggesting possible private sector involvement, though this has not been officially confirmed.

Drone infrastructure and airport conversion

Nearby Asosa airport, located just over fifty kilometres from the camp, has undergone significant redevelopment since mid 2025. Analysts have detected a new hangar, extended paved areas, and installations associated with unmanned aerial vehicle operations. Experts believe this upgrade could reflect an effort by the Ethiopian military to establish a regional drone command centre.

Sources inside Ethiopia suggest that the country now operates several such drone facilities, including the one near Asosa. The positioning of these bases on Ethiopias western edge allows surveillance and rapid response near the Sudanese frontier while protecting key sites such as the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

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Strategic and political implications

Some diplomats and security specialists fear that the proximity of the training camp to the dam, Africas largest hydroelectric project, could place it at risk if the area becomes militarised. The camp lies only about one hundred kilometres from the structure, which is vital to Ethiopias national economy.

The airports renovation is said to have been partly funded by the UAE, further deepening suspicions about the Gulf states involvement in the regions unfolding power struggle. Since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to office in 2018, Ethiopia and the UAE have cultivated close political and military ties. In addition to billions in financial support and investment, both countries recently signed an agreement to develop their respective air and defence capabilities.

An uncertain outlook

As of now, neither Ethiopias government nor the RSF has publicly addressed the reports concerning the training camp. The Sudanese army has not commented either. Should the allegations prove accurate, they would represent a major expansion of external influence in Sudans war, increasing fears that the conflict could reshape alliances and security dynamics far beyond its borders.

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Landmark trial begins as Instagram and YouTube face allegations of intentionally addicting a teen, sparking global debate over social media safety, mental health, and platform accountability

In a case that lawyers, parents and tech watchdogs say could reshape how social media platforms are held accountable, a major trial involving Instagram and YouTube has begun in a California state court.

The lawsuitone of the first of hundreds expected this yearcentres on whether design elements in these apps intentionally hooked a young user and contributed to lasting harm.

The plaintiff, a now20yearold woman identified by her initials KGM, and her mother argue that features like endless scrolling, autoplay and push notifications kept her engaged at young ages and ultimately played a role in anxiety, body image issues and suicidal thoughts.

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This case is about two of the richest corporations who have engineered addiction in childrens brains, said attorney Mark Lanier in opening statements. The swipe, for a child, like Kaley, this motion is a handle of a slot machine. But every time she swipes, its not for money, but for mental stimulation.

What the trial is about

KGMs lawsuitfiled in 2023targets Meta Platforms, which owns Facebook and Instagram, and Alphabet, Googles parent company, which owns YouTube. She claims she began using YouTube at age six and Instagram at age nine, and that the platforms attentiongrabbing design made it difficult to stop using them.

Her legal team presented internal company documents they say show the firms designed features to maximise engagement among young users rather than prioritising wellbeing. If successful, the case could pave the way for similar lawsuitssome 1,500 already filedand force changes in how apps are built and regulated.

Defendants brace for a long fight

Meta and YouTube deny the allegations and say other factors may explain KGMs struggles. A Meta spokesperson commented, we strongly disagree with these allegations and are confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people. A YouTube representative said the lawsuits claims are simply not true and that safety and healthy experiences have been priorities for the platform.

Executives from both companiesincluding Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Instagram head Adam Mosseri and YouTubes Neal Mohanare expected to testify in the coming weeks. The trial, likely to run into March, is being watched closely.
Lebanon has been rocked by a bizarre scandal in which a poor auto mechanic posed as a Saudi prince to deceive the nations elite  telling MPs how to vote in the prime ministers election and arranging meetings between politicians at the behest of a sheikh. Heres how the con unfolded.

The photograph shows the empty presidential chair at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon. (Photo: Reuters)

Lebanon has been rocked by a bizarre scandal in which a poor auto mechanic fooled the nations elite into doing his bidding.

For months, Moustafa al-Hasian posed as a Saudi prince and spoke to many politicians, guiding their votes in parliament and arranging their meetings with powerful people at the behest of Khaldoun Oraymet, an influential Sunni sheikh in the country, according to the Financial Times.

Al-Hasian, who posed as Saudi prince Abu Omar, lobbied in favour of Nawaf Salam in last years prime ministerial election and convinced some MPs to change their votes in his favour  though Salams victory was assured anyway.

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Al-Hasian was so convincing that a parliamentary candidate gave Oraymets son a car before taking it back. Another politician allegedly asked al-Hasian to help his son win equestrian medals in Saudi Arabia.

After the scam unravelled in recent weeks, the authorities detained al-Hasian and Oraymet and charged them with fraud, blackmail, influencing politicians and their voting decisions, impersonation, and disturbing Lebanese relations with Saudi Arabia.

The episode has laid bare how foreign influence works in Lebanon and how open Lebanese politicians are to joining hands with foreign powers real or perceived to benefit themselves and harm rivals.

The real victim of Abu Omar is us, the Lebanese people, because the Lebanese people are led by politicians who can be easily manipulated, Imad Salamey, a political scientist at the Lebanese American University, told FT.

How auto mechanic & sheikh conned Lebanons whos who

Al-Hasian and Oraymet ran their scheme through a British phone number.

As per the FTs report, al-Hasian used to talk to politicians and Lebanese elites on the phone and his accent from the Wadi Khaled area in the countrys north apparently resembled the Saudi dialect to the untrained ear. That worked in their favour.

But it was not just backbenchers who fell for the con. A former prime minister, Fouad Siniora, also fell for it.

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The FT reported that Siniora put al-Hasian on the phone with former MP Bahia Hariri so the Saudi prince could offer condolences for the death of her husband.

In the most outrageous instance, hours before Lebanese parliament voted for a new prime minister last year, a group of MPs received a call from Abu Omar. Over the speaker, they heard the purported Saudi prince warning them against voting for Mikati. He said these were instructions from the Saudi royal court.

The MP who took the call from Abu Omar told fellow MPs that he often spoke to the Saudi prince, one of the MPs part of the call told FT.

Ahmed al-Kheir, one of the parliamentarians part of the call, separately said that the fake Saudi princes intervention worked and some MPs in their group changed their votes in favour of Salam.

Saudi prince scam lays bare foreign influence

The scam carried out by al-Hasian at the behest of Oraymet exemplifies how much the political elite have surrendered to the decisions of foreign powers: theyd do anything just by hearing the Saudi accent, Sami Atallah, founding director of the Beirut-based The Policy Initiative think tank, told FT.

Theyre so desperate for signals and nudges from their benefactors that theyre not even verifying that information, let alone challenging or questioning it, Atallah further said.

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Salamey said the scam preyed on Lebanons sectarian political system, where rival factions of Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, and Christians jockey for overseas patrons to cement their authority at home. Among Lebanons Sunni politics, Saudi Arabia has long held sway.

Most of the political elite pride themselves on being backed by foreign states like Saudi Arabia or Iran or the United States, and they use this to impose or emphasise their power within their own community first and then vis-a-vis other sectarian communities, said Salamey.
We think that, in view of the agenda [at the EU leaders summit], this distracts a little from what its actually all about, namely that we have a productivity problem, a senior German government official, who is close to the chancellor, said on Tuesday

France's President Emmanuel Macron, Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer pose as they meet on the sidelines of the two-day Nato's Heads of State and Government summit, in The Hague, Netherlands, June 24, 2025. File Image/Pool via Reuters

Ahead of a summit of European Union leaders scheduled for Thursday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merzs government has rejected French President Emmanuel Macrons call for a joint EU borrowing scheme.

In an interview with six European media outlets published on Tuesday, Macron urged Europe to introduce new common borrowing, often referred to as eurobonds, to boost investment in strategic sectors. He framed the proposal as an economic necessity if the bloc is to remain competitive with the United States and China.

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According to a Politico report, Berlin dismissed the proposal just hours after the interview was published, underscoring continuing divisions between France and Germany on key economic and political issues.

The disagreement marks the latest in a series of tensions between Macron and Merz, who have clashed in recent months over trade policy and approaches to dealing with US President Donald Trump.

We think that, in view of the agenda [at the EU leaders summit], this distracts a little from what its actually all about, namely that we have a productivity problem, Politico quoted a senior German government official, who is close to the chancellor and was granted anonymity to speak candidly, as saying on Tuesday.

It is true that we need more investment, the official said. But to be honest, this belongs in the context of the Multiannual Financial Framework, the official added, referring to the blocs budget for 2028-2034, which is currently being negotiated.

Berlins rejection of Macrons proposal came ahead of an EU leaders retreat at a Belgian castle on Thursday, where competitiveness is set to dominate discussions.

While the blocs 27 leaders are not expected to agree on concrete outcomes, the meeting is intended to identify key priorities for a follow-up EU summit scheduled for March in Brussels.

Ahead of the meetings, Berlin is pressing for three main objectives: deepening the EUs single market, accelerating and expanding trade agreements, and reducing bureaucracy, according to Politico, citing German official.

On competitiveness, Chancellor Friedrich Merz has increasingly diverged from Macron, who has advocated more protectionist policies and an interventionist industrial approach. Merz has instead moved closer to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on economic policy.

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The German government has also called for sweeping reforms to the EU budget.

It cannot continue as before, with two-thirds of the budget going exclusively to consumptive spending in the areas of agriculture and cohesion, the official said.

We hope that the member states that are now calling for new funding will also participate in these reform efforts. It cannot be that people call for more money but then fail to tackle the reforms.

The official added, European over-indebtedness does not come without a cost.

With inputs from agencies
Transparency Internationals global index shows both the US and UK falling to their lowest integrity scores amid mounting political scandals

Transparency Internationals latest global index of corruption shows both the United States and the United Kingdom falling to their lowest rankings, with the watchdog warning that prolonged political scandals, weakened safeguards and declining governance standards are driving a sharp erosion in public integrity across the two countries.

The UK is set to remain under sustained scrutiny over political standards this year, Transparency International noted, following disclosures about the relationship between Labour grandee and former ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson and convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

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The organisation said the revelations have added to existing concerns about governance and accountability, reinforcing fears that political scandals could further damage public confidence.

Daniel Bruce, chief executive of Transparency International UK, said the situation reflects a deeper and more persistent problem.

This persistent decline is not a temporary blip  it risks becoming a defining feature of our political culture, Bruce said.

Call for decisive government action

Bruce said restoring trust would require clear and meaningful reforms.

The UK government must demonstrate that it is serious about restoring integrity. That means taking bold action to remove big money from politics, delivering genuinely open government, and ending the cronyism that undermines public trust in our institutions.

The government has announced plans to strengthen standards in public life, including a mechanism to remove disgraced peers and a review of the existing framework governing lobbying.

US sees further fall in corruption ranking

The report also highlighted developments in the United States, which slipped from 28th place to 29th, overtaken by Lithuania, and recorded its lowest ever score of 64.

Transparency International said the US could face further decline based on its assessment of recent developments.

While the surveys used for the report were conducted during 2025, Transparency International said they did not account for all events from that year, the first year of Trumps second presidency.

The organisation pointed to the use of public office to target and restrict independent voices such as NGOs and journalists, the normalisation of conflicted and transactional politics, the politicisation of prosecutorial decision-making, and actions that undermine judicial independence.

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South African President Cyril Ramaphosa expressed his countrys support for efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict during a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa expressed his countrys support for efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict during a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.

The two leaders also discussed cooperation in key international fora such as BRICS and the G20, Reuters quoted the South African presidency as saying in a statement.

President Ramaphosa and President Putin pledged their support to the process of returning South Africans fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, the office said.

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South Africas government had earlier reported in November that 17 of its citizens had joined mercenary forces in Ukraine and had sent distress calls seeking assistance to return home.

On the bilateral relationship, President Ramaphosa welcomed the engagements with Russia aimed at advancing the development of a mutually beneficial trade and investment framework within the Russia-South Africa comprehensive strategic partnership.

With inputs from agencies
Bangladesh has secured a 19 per cent tariff rate from the United States in a trade deal that eases pressure on its key garments sector.

Bangladesh has secured a reduced 19 per cent tariff rate with the United States under a trade agreement signed between the two countries on Monday (February 9). File image

Bangladesh has secured a reduced 19 per cent tariff rate from the United States under a trade agreement announced on Monday, offering relief to its export-driven economy. In return, Dhaka will open its dairy, beef and poultry markets to American exporters.

According to a joint statement, certain textiles and garments made using US-produced cotton and man-made fibre will also receive tariff exemptions in the US market.

Notably, the deal eases pressure on Bangladeshs ready-made garments sector, which has faced uncertainty due to higher proposed US tariffs.

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Zero tariffs for select textile exports

Muhammad Yunus, chief adviser of Bangladeshs interim government, said the US had agreed to establish a mechanism allowing selected Bangladeshi textile and apparel products made with American raw materials to receive zero reciprocal tariffs. He said the agreement followed nine months of negotiations that began in April last year.

Preferential access for US industrial goods

Under the agreement, Bangladesh will provide preferential market access to a wide range of US-made products, including cars, motorcycles, motor vehicles and parts, medical devices, machinery, information and communication technology equipment, energy products and soy-based goods.

The White House also confirmed preferential access for US agricultural and food products such as dairy goods, beef, poultry, tree nuts and fruit.

Farm and food tariffs to be cut to zero

Bangladesh will reduce tariffs to zero on several American farm and food products once the agreement comes into force. Items covered include poultry, pork, seafood, rice, corn and other cereal grains.

Investment financing and non-tariff reforms

Washington said it would explore investment financing in Bangladeshs critical sectors through institutions such as the Export-Import Bank of the United States and the US International Development Finance Corporation, subject to eligibility and applicable laws, in partnership with US private firms.

Bangladesh has also agreed to ease non-tariff barriers by accepting US vehicle safety and emissions standards, recognising US Food and Drug Administration certifications, and lifting import restrictions on remanufactured goods.

Commercial deals and energy purchases

As part of the broader agreement, Bangladesh has committed to purchasing around USD 3.5 billion worth of US agricultural products, including wheat, soy, cotton and corn. The deal also includes energy imports valued at approximately USD 15 billion over 15 years, as well as aircraft procurement.

In a related move aimed at easing US tariffs, Bangladesh has agreed to buy 25 aircraft from Boeing in a deal estimated at Tk 30,00035,000 crore.

Garments sector key to the economy

The ready-made garments industry accounts for more than 80 per cent of Bangladeshs total export earnings, employs around four million people and contributes about 10 per cent to the countrys gross domestic product.

According to the Export Promotion Bureau, the United States remains Bangladeshs largest export market.

Regional competitiveness and labour commitments

Bangladesh had earlier secured a reduction in US tariffs to 20 per cent in August last year, down from an initially proposed 37 per cent. With the latest cut to 19 per cent, the country is now positioned to compete closely with India, which faces an 18 per cent tariff rate.

As part of the agreement, Bangladesh has also pledged to uphold internationally recognised labour rights and strengthen environmental protections.
Ali Larijani will discuss the latest regional and international developments as well as economic cooperation between Iran and Oman

Secretary of the National Security Council, Ali Larijani is welcomed by the Minister of the Royal Office in the Sultanate of Oman, Sultan bin Mohammed al Numani, upon his arrival in Muscat, Oman, February 10, 2026. Reuters

Irans top security official, Ali Larijani, visited Oman on Tuesday, days after the country hosted Tehran and the US for talks aimed at easing tensions and discussing the formers nuclear programme.

Larijani, Secretary of Irans Supreme National Security Council, is a close aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and will likely meet Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi and Omans Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said, Irans state agency IRNA said. Badr al-Busaidi is the chief negotiator in the US-Iran talks.

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They would discuss the latest regional and international developments as well as economic cooperation between Iran and Oman, the news agency said. Larijani will then head to Qatar, according to Irans foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei.

Meanwhile, the news agency has also reported that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held a series of calls with leaders from Turkiye, Egypt and Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to give them a briefing on the latest round of talks.

Destructive influence

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus upcoming visit to Washington has irked Tehran, which has warned of destructive influence on diplomacy ahead of the leaders meeting with US President Donald Trump.

Our negotiating party is America. It is up to America to decide to act independently of the pressures and destructive influences that are detrimental to the region, said Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei in a weekly press briefing.

The Zionist regime has repeatedly, as a saboteur, shown that it opposes any diplomatic process in our region that leads to peace.

The June experience was a very bad experience. Therefore, taking these experiences into account, we are determined to secure Irans national interests through diplomacy, Baqaei added.

On Saturday, Netanyahus office said in a statement that the Israeli premier believes any negotiations must include limitations on ballistic missiles and a halting of the support for the Iranian axis  referring to Irans allied armed groups in the region.

With inputs from agencies
Russia is facing renewed scrutiny over allegations that it is coercing migrants from Central Asia  including women  into joining its military campaign in Ukraine, often by offering freedom from prison in exchange for enlistment

Russia is facing renewed scrutiny over allegations that it is coercing migrants from Central Asia  including women  into joining its military campaign in Ukraine, often by offering freedom from prison in exchange for enlistment.

According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the case of an 18-year-old Central Asian woman held in pretrial detention in the Russian city of Omsk has brought renewed attention to the practice.

The woman, identified as Dilbar, has been detained for months on drug-smuggling charges and alleges she was beaten, shocked with a taser and threatened by prison officers.

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According to her account, she was given a stark choice while in custody: face up to 15 years in prison or join Russias war effort in Ukraine in return for her release.

Russia hosts millions of migrant workers from the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, many of whom are vulnerable to pressure due to their legal status. Thousands of Central Asian men are believed to have joined Russian forces since the war began, some lured by promises of lucrative employment, while others  particularly convicts and detainees  were allegedly forced into military service.

A smaller number of Central Asian women are also believed to have enlisted, though their exact number remains unknown. Rights groups and observers say cases like Dilbars raise concerns about coercion and the treatment of migrant detainees within Russias criminal justice system.

A coerced choice

Dilbar, a citizen of Kyrgyzstan whose name has been changed to protect her identity, may soon be among a small but growing number of Central Asian women recruited for Russias war in Ukraine.

Mom, forgive me, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty quoted Dilbar as writing in a recent letter to her mother. If they give me a longer sentence, Ill go to war. Theyll pay me there, and Ill be free in a year.

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Dilbar was arrested in October, a year after moving to Russia from the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh. She was detained in Omsk while walking with friends and charged with drug offenses, which she denies. Human rights activists say Central Asian migrants, including women, are often arrested on fabricated drug charges.

According to her sister, Dilbar was offered a role as a cook in the Russian military in Ukraine, with a promised payment of 2 million rubles (about $26,000) for a one-year contract.

Prison officials allegedly told her she would be released after completing the term. Her sister, who asked not to be named for security reasons, traveled from Kyrgyzstan to attend Dilbars court hearings and urged her not to enlist.

We often hear that people who go to Ukraine dont come back alive, she told RFE/RLs Kyrgyz Service.

She added that their father, also a migrant worker in Russia, joined the war in 2023 and is now missing.

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Recruiting convicts and detainees

Russia has recruited tens of thousands of prisoners to fight in Ukraine in exchange for reduced sentences, a move aimed at offsetting heavy battlefield losses and avoiding a new mobilization. The Defense Ministry and the private Wagner mercenary group have actively sought recruits in prisons.

Among them are believed to be hundreds of women, both Russian citizens and foreigners. Some are recruited for combat roles, while others work as cooks, cleaners, nurses, and paramedics.

One of them was Gulbarchin, a Kyrgyz woman serving a 12-year sentence in a prison near Moscow. In a letter to her family in late 2023, she said prison officials compiled a list of inmates with long sentences for potential recruitment.

Everyone with long sentences was included [on the list], she wrote, adding that she refused to sign up.

Ezgulik, a human rights group based in Uzbekistan, says it has received letters from relatives of dozens of imprisoned Uzbek women alleging coercion by prison authorities. Umida, whose sister is jailed in Russia, said the pressure is severe.

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Theyre deprived of food for 10 days to break the prisoners will and convince them to go to the war, she told RFE/RL. Some girls have tried to commit suicide to avoid being sent to war.

Russian denies recruiting women

Russian authorities deny recruiting women for combat, describing their service as voluntary. Officials say more than 37,500 women serve in the armed forces, with another 270,000 working in civilian military roles, but have not disclosed how many  particularly foreign nationals  have been sent to Ukraine.

Kyrgyz immigration lawyer Mirlan Toktobekov said most Central Asian women are assigned support roles, though some do end up on the front lines.

Women can be hired as cooks, medics, nurses, doctors, or other positions, he said. There are women working in teams repairing military equipment. And there are also those who fight at the front. Their participation is much smaller compared to men, but it exists.

Russian prisoner rights activist Olga Romanova said many female inmates are misled about the risks.

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Theres no Internet in womens prisons, she said. They only know whats shown on television. They think theyll work as nurses. They dont understand where theyre really going.

Central Asian governments have repeatedly warned citizens against participating in foreign wars, which is a criminal offense punishable by long prison terms, though only a limited number of cases have so far reached the courts.

With inputs from agencies
Gen Eirik Kristoffersen has warned that Moscow could target Norways far north in a wider Nato conflict, while criticising Donald Trumps remarks on Greenland and Afghanistan

General Eirik Kristoffersen, head of the Norwegian Armed Forces, poses for a picture in his office in central Oslo, Norway, on September 26, 2022. Reuters File

Norways army chief has said Oslo cannot exclude the possibility of a future Russian invasion of the country, suggesting Moscow could move on Norway to protect its nuclear assets stationed in the far north.

In an interview with the Guardian, Gen Eirik Kristoffersen, Norways chief of defence, said, We dont exclude a land grab from Russia as part of their plan to protect their own nuclear capabilities, which is the only thing they have left that actually threatens the United States.

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He said that Russia does not have conquest goals in Norway in the same way as it has in Ukraine or other former Soviet territories, but said much of Russias nuclear arsenal is located on the Kola peninsula, a short distance from the Norwegian border, including nuclear submarines, land-based missiles and nuclear-capable aircraft.

These would be crucial if Russia came into conflict with Nato elsewhere.

We dont take that off the table, because its still an option for Russia to do that in order to make sure that their nuclear capabilities, their second strike capabilities are protected. Thats sort of the scenario in the high north that we plan for, he said.

Kristoffersen was also sharply critical of recent comments by Donald Trump on Greenland, as well as of the US presidents unacceptable claims that allied countries had not served in frontline positions in Afghanistan, while US troops had done the bulk of the fighting.

It didnt make sense what he said and I know that all my American friends from Afghanistan know that, said Kristoffersen, a career army officer who served several tours in Afghanistan.

We were definitely in the frontline. We did all the full spectrum of missions, from arresting Taliban leaders to training Afghans to doing surveillance. We lost 10 Norwegians. I lost friends there. So we all felt it doesnt make sense, he said.

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At the same time, I felt that this is President Trump. I never saw him in Afghanistan. He doesnt know what hes talking about when he says these things. A president should not say these things, but it didnt really affect me. But my concern was for the Norwegian veterans, the relatives of the people we lost, soldiers we lost, he added.

Kristoffersen has served as Norways chief of defence since 2020, overseeing the armed forces and the countrys intelligence service during a period of major upheaval in European security following Russias invasion of Ukraine. The conflict has reshaped regional defence planning, with Sweden and Finland joining Nato and Norway reinforcing its northern border with Russia.

Kristoffersen said that while Norway continues to factor in the possibility of a conventional Russian invasion, Moscows current approach is more fragmented.

If you prepare for the worst, there is nothing that prevents you from also being able to counter sabotage and more hybrid threats, he said.

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Despite tensions, he noted that Norway and Russia maintain limited military-to-military contact, including cooperation on search-and-rescue operations in the Barents Sea and regular border meetings.

Kristoffersen said he has recommended establishing a military hotline between Oslo and Moscow to prevent escalation caused by miscalculation, adding that Russian activity in the far north has been less aggressive than in the Baltic Sea.

So far, what we have seen of airspace violation in our area has been misunderstandings. Russia is conducting a lot of [GPS] jamming, and we think that the jamming also affects their aircraft. They havent said that, but we see that when something like violating the airspace happens its usually because of a lack of experience from the pilots. When we talk with the Russians, they actually respond in a very professional and predictable way, he said.

On Svalbard, Norways Arctic territory governed by a 1920 treaty that bans militarisation and hosts a Russian settlement, Kristoffersen said Russia is respecting the treaty and that Oslo has no plans to militarise the area. He dismissed Moscows accusations of stealth militarisation as propaganda.

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Addressing Trumps claims that China and Russia have military ambitions in Greenland, Kristoffersen described the remarks as very strange.

We have a very good overview of what is happening in the Arctic from our intelligence service and we dont see anything like that in Greenland  We see Russian activity with their submarines and also their underwater programme in the traditional part of the Arctic  but its not about Greenland, its about reaching the Atlantic, he said.

Asked whether Denmark and its allies could repel a hypothetical US military takeover of Greenland, Kristoffersen replied: They wont do it, so its a hypothetical question.

He added a broader warning about military occupation: If Russia is learning something from the war in Ukraine, I think its that its never a good idea to occupy a country. If the people dont want it, its going to cost you a lot of money and a lot of effort and in the end you will actually lose. To occupy in the first place is often very easy, but to keep the occupation going is very, very hard. And I think all expansionist powers have experienced that.

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With inputs from agencies
More than 4,500 suspected IS detainees have been moved from Syria to Iraq in an ongoing US-led transfer operation

Boys along a road wave to an approaching US military mine-resistant ambush protected (MRAP) armoured fighting vehicle moving in a convoy transporting Islamic State group detainees being transferred to Iraq from Syria. (AFP)

Syria and Iraq have received thousands of detainees as part of a relocation initiative overseen by the United States military, following the capture of Kurdish-held areas by Syrian government forces. The operation began last month, and the detainees transferred include Syrians, Iraqis, Europeans, and other nationalities.

A spokesperson for the Iraqi governments security information unit, Saad Maan, told AFP that 4,583 detainees had been brought into Iraq to date. They form part of a wider group of around 7,000 suspects whose transfer began after Syrian government forces took control of zones previously held by Kurdish fighters.

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IS conflict

In 2014, the Islamic State group swept through large areas of both Syria and Iraq, carrying out massacres and subjecting women and girls to sexual slavery. Iraq, backed by US-led forces, declared the defeat of IS in 2017, while the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces pushed the group back in Syria by 2019.

The Syrian Democratic Forces subsequently imprisoned thousands of suspected jihadists and held tens of thousands of their relatives across several camps.

In Iraq, where detention facilities already house significant numbers of IS suspects, courts have issued hundreds of death sentences and life terms for terrorism-related convictions, including cases involving foreign fighters.

Iraqs judiciary confirmed earlier this month that it had launched investigations into the individuals transferred from Syria, marking the latest phase of the process.
A senior European intelligence official says Russian President Vladimir Putin has little interest in ending the war in Ukraine and believes he can outmaneuver the United States in negotiations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has little interest in ending Russias nearly four-year war in Ukraine and believes he can outmaneuver the United States in negotiations, according to a senior European intelligence official.

Kaupo Rosin, head of Estonias foreign intelligence service, said Moscow is deliberately prolonging talks with Washington and has no intention of engaging in meaningful cooperation. Speaking ahead of the release of Estonias annual security report, Rosin said intelligence drawn from Russian internal discussions shows that US officials remain Russias primary adversary in the Kremlins thinking.

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There is absolutely no discussion about how to really cooperate with the US in a meaningful way, Rosin said, adding that Russia is focused on buying time rather than compromising.

Russia remains a long-term security threat

Estonias security assessment concludes that Russia is unlikely to attack NATO in the immediate future but warns that Moscow continues to pose a serious threat as it rebuilds and expands its military capabilities.

Although Russian officials publicly claim to support a negotiated settlement, Rosin said there is little evidence they are prepared to soften their demands. Recent US-brokered talks between Russian and Ukrainian envoys have been described as constructive by both sides, but they have produced no tangible progress on key issues.

According to Rosin, Putin remains convinced that Russia can ultimately achieve its objectives on the battlefield.

In his head, he still thinks that he can actually win, Rosin said, noting that this belief continues to shape Moscows negotiating strategy.

White House disputes intelligence assessment

US officials have pushed back on Rosins conclusions. A White House official said American negotiators have made tremendous progress toward ending the conflict, pointing to recent prisoner exchanges as evidence of diplomatic momentum.

The official cited an agreement reached in Abu Dhabi involving the US, Ukraine and Russia that led to the release of more than 300 detainees, calling it a sign that talks are moving forward.

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June deadline raises stakes

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last week that Washington has set a June deadline for Ukraine and Russia to reach a settlement, reflecting President Donald Trumps desire to accelerate peace efforts. Trump has announced similar timelines in the past, though they passed without clear consequences.
Statement by Beijing marks rhetorical shift as India and China seek to stabilise ties during talks on the sidelines of the BRICS Sherpa Meeting in New Delhi

The national flags of India and China are seen on display at an Indian restaurant in Beijing. The last year saw a recalibration of India-China ties, partially owing to Donald Trump's actions. File image/AFP

China on Tuesday said that it understands and respects Indias aspirations for permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council, signaling a notable rhetorical shift amid cautious efforts by both sides to stabilise relations after years of strain.

Chinas Executive Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu conveyed the position during talks with Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri in New Delhi on February 10, according to an official readout.

The meeting was held on the sidelines of the BRICS Sherpa Meeting hosted by India.

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China understands and respects Indias aspirations for UNSC membership, the Ministry of External Affairs said, quoting Mas remarks.

The statement marks a departure from Chinas long-standing reservations over Indias bid for a permanent seat on the Security Council, even as New Delhi and Beijing seek to rebuild diplomatic engagement following prolonged tensions.

According to the statement, the two sides held friendly, candid and in-depth communication on the international and regional situation, respective internal and external policies, international and regional issues of shared interest, and China-India relations.

Both sides underlined that given the complex and profound changes in the international situation, China and India should work together to earnestly implement the important common understandings reached between President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, view and handle China-India relations from a strategic and long-term perspective, and uphold the strategic perception that China and India are cooperative partners instead of rivals, and the two countries are each others development opportunity instead of threat, the statement said.

China and India should deepen mutual trust and expand cooperation, properly manage differences, and promote the development of China-India relations along a sound and steady track, it added.

Bilateral ties have shown signs of improvement since Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping met in Kazan in October 2024, their first meeting since relations deteriorated following tensions in eastern Ladakh beginning in AprilMay 2020.

The two leaders last met in August 2025 on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin.

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The Chinese Foreign Ministry said both sides agreed to support each others work as BRICS chair in 2026 and 2027 respectively, and to back multilateralism and the central role of the United Nations.

It said the two countries also agreed to strengthen cooperation among the Global South, safeguard international fairness and justice, work towards a multipolar world, and contribute to peace and development in Asia and beyond.

In a separate statement, Indias Ministry of External Affairs said the two sides exchanged views on a wide range of bilateral, regional and international issues, with discussions focusing on recent progress in stabilising ties and ways to advance engagement.

Both sides underscored the importance of peace and tranquility in the border areas for overall progress in bilateral relations. They reiterated their commitment to implement the guidance provided by their leaders including on the need to proceed from a political and strategic direction to approach issues and concerns related to bilateral trade, the statement said.

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The foreign secretary noted the successful resumption of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra and expressed hope for its further expansion. Both sides recognised the need for an early conclusion of an updated Air Services Agreement and agreed to continue taking practical steps on visa facilitation and promoting people-to-people exchanges.

The discussions also covered multilateral cooperation, including in the context of Indias BRICS chairship this year.

With inputs from agencies
Russian strikes on Sloviansk killed an 11 year old girl and her mother, wounding 16 others including a 7 year old child, as Moscows forces near the Donetsk city.

Russian strikes on Ukraines eastern city of Sloviansk killed an 11-year-old girl and her mother in attacks that left 16 others wounded, authorities in the embattled Dontesk region said Tuesday.

Moscows troops have been edging towards Sloviansk, a city in the Donetsk region that briefly fell to separatist forces in 2014 and had a population of around 100,000 before Moscow invaded in 2022.

The dead are an 11-year-old girl and her mother. Among the wounded is a 7-year-old girl, regional official Vadym Filashkin wrote on social media.

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Separately, on the Russian-occupied side of the southern Zaporizhzhia region, Moscow-installed authorities said a Ukrainian attack on a village funeral procession had killed one person and wounded six others.

Russian state media TASS, citing church authorities, said the victim was a priest.

Russian-installed official Yevgeny Balitsky said the procession was taking place in the village of Skelky on the Dnipro river.

And the governor of Russias border Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said a Ukrainian attack killed a man driving a truck in a border village.

Donetsk prosecutors later said the number of wounded civilians in Sloviansk had increased to 16, publishing images of badly destroyed houses.

Sloviansk Mayor Vadym Lyakh said Russia struck the city with glide bombs around 10:00 am local time (0800 GMT) and that one of the wounded was a seven-year-old child.

One of the strikes hit a private house, Lyakh said.

Ukraines national police published a video of a completely crushed house covered in rubble.

The wider Donetsk region, where Sloviansk is located, is one of five regions the Kremlin claims is part of Russia.

Moscows forces are around 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the city.

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There has been no diplomatic breakthrough, despite a US push, to resolve the war.

Later this month marks four years since Russia launched its invasion, which has turned into Europes deadliest conflict since World War II.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Firstpost staff.)
South Korean Finance Minister Koo Yun-cheol said the government will review US investment projects until the enabling law is passed. Under the trade deal with the United States, South Korea is supposed to invest $350 billion in the United States.

South Korea's President Lee Jae Myung (R) receives US President Donald Trump for a special dinner hosted in his honour and state leaders at the Hilton Gyeongju hotel in Gyeongju on October 29, 2025. AFP file

South Korean Finance Minister Koo Yun-cheol on Tuesday said the government will review projects for US investments until the enabling laws passage, according to KBS World.

Under last years trade deal, South Korea is expected to invest $350 billion in the United States in exchanged for tariff-reduction from 25 per cent to 15 per cent.

US President Donald Trump has been frustrated at the slow implementation of the trade deal. He has slammed the South Korean government for the delay in the passage of the law that would implement the deal. Last month, he warned to raise tariffs on South Korea to 25 per cent over the delay.

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Koo said that it would take around three months for the bill to pass and become law. In the meantime, he said the government will conduct reviews to prevent unnecessary misunderstandings or undermining of trust between the two sides.

Koo made the announcement while presiding over a ministerial meeting on the fulfilment of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) about US investments.

Trumps frustration and threats to raise tariffs have spooked South Korea and pressed the administration into speeding up the implementation of the trade deal.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Tuesday urged the National Assembly speed up the trade deal-related legislation and warned that the current pace leaves the country dangerously exposed to rising global trade pressures. He urged parliamentarians to unite your efforts and prioritise national interests, especially in matters concerning foreign relations irrespective of party affiliations.

With the current pace of legislation, it is extremely difficult to respond proactively to these changes in the international community. To support trade negotiations with other countries, advance regulatory innovation and secure momentum for a major national transformation, a wide range of legislation aimed at strengthening Koreas competitiveness is urgently needed, Lee further said.

Earlier, the National Assembly on Monday set up a special committee to handle legislation for the investment pledge under the trade deal with the United States.

Under the trade deal with the United States, in exchange for tariff-reduction from 25 per cent to 15 per cent, South Korea would invest $350 billion in the United States. Of these investments, cash investments up to $200 billion would be capped at $20 billion a year and another $150 billion would be invested in shipbuilding operations in the United States.

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Keir Starmer has begun his tenure as UK prime minister amid a long-running pattern of political instability, with no leader having completed a full term in nearly two decades and fresh controversy now adding to the pressure on his government.

Keir Starmer has taken office at a time when completing a full term as UK prime minister has become the exception rather than the rule.

The last leader to see out a full term was Tony Blair, who left office in 2007 after a decade in power. Although Blair won three elections in 1997, 2001 and 2005, he stepped down before completing his third term, ushering in a prolonged period of political instability at the top of British politics.

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A revolving door at Downing Street

Blair was succeeded by Gordon Brown, whose tenure was shaped by the global financial crisis and ended with defeat in the 2010 general election. David Cameron followed, serving from 2010 until 2016, when he resigned after the Brexit referendum delivered a result he had opposed. Theresa May then took over but failed to unite Parliament around her Brexit deal, resigning in 2019.

Boris Johnson went on to win a decisive mandate later that year, only to quit in 2022 amid scandals and growing pressure from within his own party. His successor, Liz Truss, lasted just seven weeks after her economic plans triggered market turmoil. Rishi Sunak stepped in to steady the government and served from 2022 to 2024, but ultimately led the Conservatives to defeat, clearing the way for Starmers victory.

With nearly two decades having passed since a prime minister last served a full term, Starmer entered Downing Street already facing a modern political record that has proved unforgiving to those who try to last.

That pressure has now intensified with the fallout from the links between veteran politician Peter Mandelson  appointed by Starmer as Britains ambassador to the United States  and the late, disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The appointment has drawn sharp criticism across the political spectrum, including from within Starmers own Labour Party.

Starmer removed Mandelson in September after emails revealed that he remained in contact with Epstein even after the latters conviction for sex offences involving a minor. Further emails released by the US Justice Department have since shown that Mandelson passed on sensitive information to Epstein in 2009, when he was serving as a member of the Labour Cabinet.

Pressure mounts on Starmer

The controversy has placed Starmer under mounting pressure, with some Labour figures calling on him to step down. The crisis has already claimed senior scalps. Starmers chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, resigned on Sunday after taking responsibility for backing Mandelsons appointment, while Director of Communications Tim Allan quit a day later.

The loss of two senior aides in quick succession underscores the scale of the turmoil as Starmer attempts to draw a line under a crisis that has engulfed his government.

Leadership speculation grows

As the scandal deepens, speculation over potential successors has intensified. Figures seen as harbouring leadership ambitions include Health Secretary Wes Streeting, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood and former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, who resigned last year after admitting she had underpaid tax on a house purchase  an investigation into the matter remains ongoing.

Andy Burnham, the popular mayor of Manchester, has also been mentioned, though longstanding convention requires the prime minister to be a member of Parliament, making him ineligible unless he first secures a Commons seat.

For Starmer, the Epstein-linked controversy has become an early and severe test  one that risks placing him squarely within Britains recent pattern of short-lived premierships rather than breaking it.

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Thai authorities arrested a Vietnamese man at Bangkoks airport after finding more than 11 kilograms of rhino horns hidden inside wrapped meat linked to an international trafficking network

All rhino species are protected under international law, and trade in their horns is banned. (File/Reuters)

Thai authorities arrested a 36-year-old Vietnamese man for allegedly smuggling more than 11 kilograms of rhino horns concealed inside wrapped meat, the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation said on Tuesday. The arrest took place on Monday at Suvarnabhumi Airport after officials noticed irregularities during an X-ray scan of his checked luggage.

The man had travelled from Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and was en route to Laos, transiting through Ethiopia and Thailand, according to the department.

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Rhino horns concealed in polystyrene icebox

Authorities seized six pieces of rhinoceros horn and around 12 kilograms of unidentified meat used to hide them inside a polystyrene icebox. The department said the detection occurred after staff acted on security screening anomalies.

Sadudee Panpakdee, director of the departments CITES division, told AFP that the value of the horns and the exact type of meat used had yet to be determined. The items were sent to a wildlife forensic laboratory for further analysis.

If convicted, the suspect faces a prison sentence of up to 10 years and a fine of up to one million baht ($32,000). All five rhino species are protected under international law, and trade in their horns is strictly banned.

Thailand continues to be a major transit hub for wildlife smugglers, who move high-value endangered species through the country for sale on the black market across Asia. Authorities have increased monitoring as trafficking networks grow more sophisticated.
The governments HR department, the Office of Personnel Management, has proposed ending the rights given to federal employees to challenge their dismissal in front of the independent Merit Systems Protection Board

A US Marine stands guard outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington, DC. AFP

The Trump administration is pushing for a legal option that will limit fired federal employees from challenging their dismissals in courts, according to a government plan released on Monday.

The governments HR department, the Office of Personnel Management, has proposed ending the rights given to federal employees to challenge their dismissal in front of the independent Merit Systems Protection Board. Instead, fired workers would need to appeal to OPM, an office whose director reports to US President Donald Trump.

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Trumps second presidency last year began with mass firings of federal employees. This year, the president is making it almost impossible for the fired workers dispute their dismissals by firing members of government offices that enforce job protections for federal employees.

Grievance redressal body sees spike in cases

Meanwhile, the Merit Systems Protection Board, which mediates disputes between federal workers and their employers, saw a spike in new cases after Trump took office last year. The boards caseload jumped 266 per cent from October 1, 2024, to September 30, 2025, according to government records, compared to the same period the year before.

The new proposal, on the other hand, would give the administration free rein to terminate huge swaths of the federal workforce without meaningful independent oversight, said Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union for US federal workers.

This is all part of a deliberate attempt to dismantle the nonpartisan civil service. On their own, and taken together, these actions unlawfully concentrate removal authority in OPM and directly undermine the statutory framework Congress established to ensure an independent, professional, and nonpartisan civil service, Kelley added.

OPM defends move

At the same time, OPM spokesperson McLaurine Pinover has assured that the agency will be impartial and fair. The goal is to give the workers timely correction when errors occur, she said, adding that agencies should be able to restructure responsibly and fairly.

Congress gave OPM the authority to set how reduction-in-force appeals are handled, and this rule puts that responsibility to work. It replaces a slow, costly process with a single, streamlined review led by OPM experts. That means agencies can restructure without years of litigation, and employees get faster, fairer resolution if mistakes occur," Pinover said.

OPM believes that there is little added value from the review that an Article III court could provide relative to OPMs adjudicatory venue, the proposal states.
The US military killed two people and left a third survivor in its latest strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat in the eastern Pacific, bringing the total fatalities from similar operations to at least 130

Two were killed, and one survived the strike. (X)

The US military said on Monday that it killed two people in its latest strike against an alleged drug-smuggling boat in the eastern Pacific. The attack formed part of a broader campaign targeting vessels that the military described as operating on established narcotics routes, according to a statement by US Southern Command.

Two narco-terrorists were killed and one survived the strike, the command said in a post on the social media platform X, adding that the US Coast Guard had been informed to activate search and rescue operations for the survivor.

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Long-running campaign targeting smuggling vessels

The strike was the latest in a series of lethal actions that began in early September under the administration of Donald Trump, which has characterised its operations as part of a broader effort against alleged narco-terrorists operating out of Venezuela. These boat strikes have expanded from the Caribbean to the eastern Pacific and brought the total number of people killed in such attacks to at least 130 across 38 reported operations.

Administration officials have not provided definitive public evidence linking the targeted boats to drug trafficking, and this lack of transparency has fuelled debate about the legality of the campaign. Critics have questioned whether the military has sufficient proof that the vessels were involved in smuggling.

Last month, the relatives of two Trinidadian men who died in an October strike filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the US government, alleging the action was wrongful. That legal case has raised further questions about the campaigns justification under international and domestic law.
Ukraines Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said the two countries have signed a letter of intent for large-scale joint projects in the defence-industrial sector"

An armoured convoy of Russian troops drives in Russian-occupied part of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region on July 23, 2022. (Photo: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)

Ukraine and France will start joint weapons production soon, as trilateral talks with Russia and the US are not yielding any breakthroughs. The Ukrainian defence minister made the announcement as he hosted his French counterpart in Kyiv.

Ukraines Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said the two countries have signed a letter of intent for large-scale joint projects in the defence-industrial sector. He said, We are moving from supplies to joint production and long-term solutions that systematically strengthen our defence.

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However, neither Ukraine nor France have specified the kind of weapons that they will co-produce. The two countries also discussed new shipments of French weapons and military equipment to Kyiv.

In November, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron signed a letter of intent for the possible provision of up to 100 Rafale fighter jets  the crown jewel of French combat aviation  to Ukraine.

Russian strikes in Ukraine

Russia has continued to strike Ukraine despite engaging in talks to end the war. A barrage of Russian drones and missiles on Ukraine overnight killed at least four people in cities across the country, including a 10-year-old boy.

The Ukrainian air force said Russia had launched 11 ballistic missiles and 149 drones  including Iranian-designed Shaheds  at the country from Sunday evening into the early hours of Monday.

Air defence units downed more than one hundred drones and several of the missiles, they added without elaborating.

Zelenskyy claims US pressure

Meanwhile, Zelenskyy has said that Washington is pushing Ukraine and Russia to end the war by June this year.

The United States has proposed for the first time that the two negotiating teams  Ukraine and Russia  meet in the United States, probably in Miami, in a weeks time, Zelensky told reporters in comments made public last weekend.

The US has mediated two rounds of negotiation between the two sides in Abu Dhabi since January, brokering a major prisoner exchange but failing to reach a breakthrough on territory.

With inputs from agencies
The advisory was published by the US Maritime Administration on Monday, calling on ship captains not grant permission to Iranian forces to board their ships

Women walk on a beach in Khasab, on northern Oman's Musandam Peninsula, overlooking the Strait of Hormuz. File image/AFP

The US has issued a warning for its ships travelling to the Strait of Hormuz, asking operators to stay as far away from Iranian waters as possible, as talks between the two countries falter.

The advisory was published by the US Maritime Administration on Monday, calling on ship captains not grant permission to Iranian forces to board their ships.

If Iranian forces board a US-flagged commercial vessel, the crew should not forcibly resist the boarding party. Refraining from forcible resistance does not imply consent or agreement to that boarding, the guidelines say.

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They added, It is recommended that US-flagged commercial vessels transiting these waters remain as far as possible from Irans territorial sea without compromising navigational safety. When transiting eastbound in the Strait of Hormuz, it is recommended that vessels transit close to Omans territorial sea.

The two rounds of talks between Washington and Tehran have reached a stalemate, with many observers concerned that US President Donald Trump would resort to military action against Iran.

How ships have become collateral damage of geopolitical tensions

Historically speaking, commercial vessels have often faced the brunt of tensions between two warring parties, and West Asia has especially witnessed many such attacks. For instance, the Iran-Iraq conflict in the 1980s prompted both countries to attack each others ships so often that it came to be known as the Tanker War.

More recently, Yemens Houthi group launched attacks on Israel-linked vessels in the Red Sea, describing their campaign as an effort to end what they called Israels genocidal war on Gaza.

In June last year, after Israel bombed targets in Iran, an Iranian lawmaker hinted that closing the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping route connecting the Gulf to the Indian Ocean, could be a potential response if the conflict escalates.

Iran-US talks

Irans Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi last week said Tehran is fully prepared to defend itself against any excessive demands or adventurism by the United States, as the Oman-mediated talks between the two sides conclude.

Speaking in Muscat alongside Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi, Araghchi said Iran would pursue diplomacy to protect its national interests. Iran maintains full readiness to defend the countrys sovereignty and national security against any excessive demands or adventurism by the United States, he said, as Trump declined to rule out military action against Tehran.

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Bangladesh secures a reduced 19% US tariff and limited exemptions for garments made with American materials, offering relief to exporters after months of negotiations with Washington

The Muhammad Yunus regime has been accused of kowtowing to religious extremists since it came to power after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government

Bangladesh and the United States have agreed a bilateral trade deal that trims US tariffs on Bangladeshi goods to a flat 19 %, offering a welcome boost to Dhakas crucial garment industry. The pact, signed after more than nine months of negotiations, also includes special exemptions that could let certain apparel and textile products enter the US market duty-free, provided theyre made with US cotton or synthetic fibres.

Bangladeshs interim chief adviser, Muhammad Yunus, announced the deal on X, saying Washington had committed to establishing a mechanism for certain textile and apparel goods from Bangladesh using US-produced cotton and man-made fiber to receive zero reciprocal tariff in (the) US market.

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The agreement marks a significant development after the US had in 2025 proposed much higher dutiesinitially up to 37%that were later eased to 20%. That reduction had already provided some relief for exporters who depend on the United States for a large share of their sales.

Chief Adviser of the interim government of Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus, tweets, "The Agreement on Reciprocal Tariff between Bangladesh and the United States was signed on Monday... The US will further reduce reciprocal tariff to 19%, which was originally set at 37% and later pic.twitter.com/zkBh21nLa7  ANI (@ANI) February 9, 2026

A deal with broader trade implications

Under the new deal, Bangladesh has also agreed to open its markets wider for American industrial and agricultural products, and to address non-tariff barriers such as vehicle standards and regulatory recognitions. These concessions are part of efforts to deepen bilateral economic ties beyond textiles.

Trade analysts say the pact comes at an opportune moment as Bangladesh heads into national elections, with garment exports forming the backbone of its economy, employing millions and generating a large share of foreign earnings.

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While key segments of Bangladeshs apparel sector could benefit from lower tariffs, the deal also reflects Washingtons growing influence in shaping trade rules in South Asia, following similar agreements with other countries in the region.

Importantly, the trade deal comes just days ahead of the national election on February 12, widely seen as a crucial moment for Bangladeshs political future, especially after the ouster of long-time leader Sheikh Hasina and the dramatic reshaping of the countrys political landscape.
US Republican Congressman Greg Steube has moved to end the H-1B visa programme by introducing a new bill in the US House of Representatives, arguing that the system harms American workers and benefits corporations that rely on foreign labour.

The H-1B visa process involves filing a Labour Condition Application (LCA) with the US Department of Labour, which has now gone offline as a result of the shutdown. Reuters

US Republican lawmaker Greg Steube has introduced legislation aimed at eliminating the H-1B visa programme, a key pathway that allows American companies to hire highly skilled foreign professionals. The bill, titled the Ending Exploitative Imported Labour Exemptions (EXILE) Act, seeks to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to scrap the programme entirely.

Steube, who has represented Floridas 17th congressional district since 2019, announced the move on X, saying he had filed legislation to shut down the H-1B system. He argued that the programme has been misused by corporations to import cheaper foreign labour, suppress wages and reduce job opportunities for US workers.

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American workers have been ripped off by the corrupt H-1B visa programme for far too long, Steube wrote, accusing companies of prioritising profits over domestic employment.

Follows earlier Republican push

The proposal echoes earlier efforts by fellow Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, who had introduced the End H-1B Now Act before resigning from Congress. Greenes bill sought to end the programme while allowing a limited, temporary exemption for a small number of medical professionals.

What the EXILE Act proposes

According to a press release from Steubes office, the EXILE Act aims to address concerns that prioritising foreign labour undermines the economic well-being of US citizens and national interests. The legislation would amend Section 214(g)(1)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, effectively abolishing the H-1B visa.

If passed, the bill would reduce the number of H-1B visas to zero from 2027 onward, bringing the programme to an end.

Claims of worker displacement

Steube cited several examples to support his case, alleging that the programme has been used to displace American workers. He claimed the H-1B system has prevented more than 10,000 US physicians from accessing residency programmes while allowing over 5,000 foreign-born doctors to enter. His office also pointed to layoffs at major companies, alleging that more than 16,000 Microsoft employees were displaced following the approval of over 9,000 H-1B visas in 2025.

The press release further cited earlier cases, including layoffs at Disney in 2015 and at Southern California Edison in 2014, where foreign workers were reportedly hired through the H-1B programme.

Industry warns of economic impact

The proposal comes despite repeated warnings from industry leaders and analysts about the importance of H-1B professionals to the US economy. A recent Forbes report noted that major technology companies rely heavily on H-1B workers for artificial intelligence development. The visa is also used to address shortages of specialised teachers and to staff rural hospitals that struggle to attract trained medical professionals.
Juan Pablo Guanipas arrest sent a chilling message to those pushing for democratic reforms in Venezuela  especially Machado who is pondering a return to her homeland from exile in the United States

People react to the news of the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, after US military actions in Venezuela this morning, in Doral, Florida, near Miami, on January 3, 2026. AFP file/Representational

Venezuelan Nobel peace laureate Maria Corina Machado said Monday that armed government agents had kidnapped a close ally  hours after he was released from prison and demanded democratic elections.

Machado said a group of heavily armed men in civilian clothes seized Juan Pablo Guanipa, 61, in the Los Chorros district of Caracas.

The former National Assembly vice president had walked out of jail Sunday as part of a slow-moving wave of political prisoner releases.

The Public Prosecutors Office later confirmed Guanipa had been detained for violating the terms of his release and would be placed under house arrest, without providing details.

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Guanipas son Ramon Guanipa demanded proof of life.

He didnt violate any of the conditions of his release, and we dont know where he is, he said.

Guanipas arrest sent a chilling message to those pushing for democratic reforms in Venezuela  especially Machado who is pondering a return to her homeland from exile in the United States.

Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, a key figure in the repressive administration of Nicolas Maduro before the leftist president was ousted in a US raid last month, blamed the stupidity of the opposition for Guanipas fate.

Nothing happened until the stupidity of some politicians, who thought they could do whatever they wanted and stir up trouble in the country, Cabello told reporters, claiming Guanipa had violated his parole conditions.

Machado said Guanipas detention undermined promises to end decades of repression and de-facto one-party rule, but said she was still determined to return to Venezuela.

This does not affect my return in the slightest. Quite the opposite, she insisted.

During a few hours of freedom, Guanipa met relatives of political detainees and challenged authorities to respect the results of the 2024 presidential election Maduro is widely accused to have stolen.

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You dont want to respect it? Then lets go to a (new) electoral process, Guanipa told AFP on Sunday.

Winds of change?

Guanipa was first arrested in May 2025 on charges of terrorism, money laundering and inciting violence, accusations rights groups say were widely used to silence critics under Maduro.

His renewed detention came on the eve of a scheduled vote in Venezuelas National Assembly to grant amnesty to political dissidents and others.

But Tuesdays parliamentary sitting was abruptly delayed to Thursday, and it was not known whether the so-called Amnesty Law for Democratic Coexistence would remain on the agenda.

The bill, spearheaded by interim president Delcy Rodriguez, had been hailed as a potential turning point for the South American nation, a month after Maduro was snatched from a Caracas compound and spirited to the United States to face trial.

Rodriguez has tentatively cooperated with Washington since then, promising a slice of Venezuelas vast oil reserves and a major political opening.

Rights group Foro Penal said there have been nearly 400 prisoner releases since Rodriguez took charge.

But reforms have been slow, and much of the military-backed government remains unchanged. Rodriguez herself was a key Maduro defender who had served as his vice president.

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Rights groups estimate about 700 people are still waiting to be freed.

US congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar, a close ally of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, said Guanipa must be released immediately.

If anything happens to him, there will be very grave consequences. The United States is watching, she wrote in a post in Spanish.

Political prisoner Albany Colmenares was among those released to jubilant scenes over the weekend.

Flag-waving family and friends cried freedom and rushed to hug her as she emerged from Tocuyito prison west of Caracas Sunday.

Many good things are coming for our country, Colmenares said. We will continue to work very hard for that, and we ask you to continue accompanying us.
In 16 years, the United Kingdom has seen six prime ministers but Larry the Cat has remained the Chief Mouser. In fact, he is the third-longest-serving occupant of 10 Downing Street  outlasting iconic figures such as Margaret Thatcher and Sir Winston Churchill.

Larry the Cat, the Chief Mouser to the British Cabinet Office, keeps watch outside 10 Downing Street, London. (Photo: Alberto Pezzali/AP)

In the past 16 years, the political instability has been such that that five British prime ministers have come and gone and the sixth Sir Keir Starmer could soon be on his way out. But Larry the Cat has remained in the office for all these years and endeared himself to the realm as the symbol of the British spirit.

Larry arrived at 10 Downing Street in 2011 as the Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office and has served the realm for more than 15 years  not just protecting the Prime Ministers Office from rats and mice but also endearing himself to staffers, visiting world leaders, and journalists who have documented his life for years.

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In the meantime, only one out of five prime ministers David Cameron has completed their term.

While prime ministers failed to stabilise the politics, Larry steered Number 10 through the Brexit referendum, the chaotic withdrawal from the European Union (EU), the Covid-19 pandemic, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine and shadow war with Europe.

So far, six British prime ministers have served in the Larry era.

They include Cameron, the only one to complete the term, and Liz Truss, the shortest-serving prime minister who resigned after 49 days.

British Prime Ministers who have served under Larry the Cat

Prime Minister Party Tenure Start Tenure End Length of tenure David Cameron Conservative 11 May 2010 13 July 2016 6 years, 63 days Theresa May Conservative 13 July 2016 24 July 2019 3 years, 11 days Boris Johnson Conservative 24 July 2019 6 September 2022 3 years, 44 days Liz Truss Conservative 6 September 2022 25 October 2022 49 days Rishi Sunak Conservative 25 October 2022 5 July 2024 1 year, 254 days Keir Starmer Labour 5 July 2024 Incumbent Ongoing

At Number 10, Larry has been at the centre of some of the most memorable visuals, such as playing with former US President Barack Obama, delaying US President Donald Trumps motorcade by napping under his limousine, and frequently getting clicked with world leaders ranging from French President Emmanuel Macron to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Justin Ng, a photographer who is often part of the Number 10s press pool, told Guardian that Larrys steadfastness and his unparalleled ability to appear at the right moment and pose for all of us makes him so endearing to everyone.

Then-US President Barack Obama meets Larry the Cat along with then-British Prime Minister David Cameron at 10 Downing Street in 2011. (Photo: White House)

A Downing Street source previously told Guardian: The minute something happens on the street, especially an official visit, like clockwork, hell be out the front. He loves the red carpet.

Despite such an outsized role in British polity, Larrys official description on the PMOs website is quite modest.

Larry spends his days greeting guests to the house, inspecting security defences and testing antique furniture for napping quality. His day-to-day responsibilities also include contemplating a solution to the mouse occupancy of the house. Larry says this is still in tactical planning stage, the website modestly states.

Photo: Network 18

Larry 3rd-longest-serving Downing Street occupant

In the British history, Larry is the third-longest-serving occupant of 10 Downing Street  outlasting iconic figures such as Margaret Thatcher and Sir Winston Churchill. In modern times, no one comes close.

Only Sir Robert Walpole, who served as the prime minister for 20 years between 1721 and 1742, and William Pitt the Younger, who served for 18 years in two terms (1783-1801, 1804-06), have served longer than Larry at the seat of the British government.

Rank Occupant Role Tenure(s) at Downing Street Total time served 1 Sir Robert Walpole Prime Minister 3 Apr 1721  11 Feb 1742 20 years, 315 days 2 William Pitt the Younger Prime Minister 19 Dec 1783  14 Mar 1801; 10 May 1804  23 Jan 1806 18 years, 343 days 3 Larry the Cat Chief Mouser 15 Feb 2011  Incumbent 15 years+ 4 Robert Jenkinson, Earl of Liverpool Prime Minister 8 Jun 1812  9 Apr 1827 14 years, 305 days 5 Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury Prime Minister 23 Jun 1885  28 Jan 1886; 25 Jul 1886  11 Aug 1892; 25 Jun 1895  11 Jul 1902 13 years, 252 days 6 William Ewart Gladstone Prime Minister 3 Dec 1868  20 Feb 1874; 23 Apr 1880  23 Jun 1885; 1 Feb 1886  25 Jul 1886; 15 Aug 1892  5 Mar 1894 12 years, 126 days 7 Frederick North, Lord North Prime Minister 28 Jan 1770  27 Mar 1782 12 years, 58 days 8 Margaret Thatcher Prime Minister 4 May 1979  28 Nov 1990 11 years, 208 days 9 Tony Blair Prime Minister 2 May 1997  27 Jun 2007 10 years, 56 days 10 Winston Churchill Prime Minister 10 May 1940  26 Jul 1945; 26 Oct 1951  5 Apr 1955 9 years, 273 days

Larry also apparently has his own standards. Reportedly, he refused to pose with Starmers Cabinet early in the term and did not allow Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy and disgraced former minister Matt Hancock to stroke him.

But its not always rosy. Larry has had frequent confrontations with another cat, Palmerston, who lived at the Foreign Office, that were seen publicly.

But, when a police officer at the Downing Street was asked if they ever intervened, they said they never stepped in.

Oh no, no. You dont get involved in a cat fight, the officer told Guardian.
Russia Accuses Ukrainian Intelligence Of Plot To Assassinate Top General

By Mike Eckel February 09, 2026

Russia officials said the man they identified as the gunman who shot the No. 2 general in the Russian military intelligence agency purportedly told them he was recruited by Ukrainian intelligence.

The February 9 statement by the Federal Security Service -- Russia's main domestic intelligence agency -- was the first time investigators have formally accused Ukraine of involvement in the shooting of Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseyev.

The agency, known as the FSB, also released more surveillance video footage, including a nearly minute-long clip in which the alleged shooter -- identified as 65-year-old Lyubomir Korba -- was shown confessing to the crime.

In the days following the February 6 shooting of Alekseyev, who is second in command at the military intelligence agency widely known as the GRU, authorities have released a daily drip of videos and accusations about the alleged plot.

Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, had earlier alleged Ukrainian involvement but provided no evidence. Kyiv rejected that accusation.

According to the security agency and investigators, Alekseyev was initially shot twice in the stairwell of a Moscow apartment building by a person disguised as a food delivery courier. As he fended off the attack, he was shot a third time, before the gunman fled.

Officials said Alekseyev underwent emergency surgery but was fully expected to recover.

Authorities alleged that Korba, a Ukrainian-born Russian citizen, was the gunman. He was reportedly extradited to Moscow from Dubai over the weekend.

In the video, which could not be independently verified, the man said he was recruited by Ukraine's SBU security agency in August 2025 in the western Ukrainian city of Ternopil and received training in Kyiv. He said he was promised $30,000 in cryptocurrency if he killed Alekseyev.

Another man, Viktor Vasin, was identified as an accomplice, and officials accused him of being linked to the late anti-corruption crusader, Aleksei Navalny. A third alleged accomplice reportedly fled to Ukraine.

The FSB also accused Polish intelligence of involvement in recruiting Korba.

Alekseyev is at least the fourth general to have been attacked, or killed, since the start of the all-out Russian invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago.

Investigators have released few details as to the nature of the shooting plot. Officials have blamed Ukraine for past attacks. Lavrov pointedly blamed Kyiv for the Alekseyev shooting, without providing evidence.

As the GRU's deputy commander, Alekseyev has overseen or been implicated in multiple, often audacious, sabotage or assassination operations around the world.

Among other things, he has been accused of involvement in the near-fatal 2018 Novichok poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal in Britain and the cyberhack of US political parties two years earlier.

He has also been linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a St. Petersburg restaurateur who co-founded Russia's most notorious mercenary company, Wagner Group. Prigozhin died in a plane crash in August 2023, which Western intelligence officials later concluded was an assassination.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-general-shooting- assassination-plot-ukraine/33673166.html

Copyright (c) 2026. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Intelligence agencies provide briefings on foreign interference

Press release

MI5 and cyber security services deliver rare briefings to Vice Chancellors and political parties to harden the UK's resilience against foreign interference.

From: Department for Education, Cabinet Office, Home Office, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and The Security Service, National Cyber Security Centre, Dan Jarvis MBE MP, and The Rt Hon Baroness Smith of Malvern

Published 9 February 2026

Britain is strengthening its defences against hostile state interference with new briefings and support to protect our universities, researchers and political system.

Senior leaders from over 70 universities attended a security briefing delivered by MI5 Director General Sir Ken McCallum and National Cyber Security Centre CEO Richard Horne, to increase understanding of how foreign interference can manifest, including attempts to shape and censor research or teaching, along with how to resist and report it.

The rare event, only the second of its kind and the largest to date, was hosted by Security Minister Dan Jarvis and Skills Minister Jacqui Smith. It was followed by a separate second-of-its-kind security briefing for officials from all UK political parties, underscoring a non-partisan commitment to recognising and resisting attempts to manipulate the political process and our democratic values.

It comes as 3 million is being invested in a package of measures to tackle the issue in our world-class universities. The new Academic Interference Reporting Route will enable senior leaders at universities to report concerns directly to the government, including security services. This will enable individual concerns to be acted on more quickly, whilst also building a bigger picture of the threats facing UK institutions.

The Department for Education will consult the sector on the design of a new proactive advisory service, alongside further guidance and training.

New guidance has also been published today to help staff and students understand the concerns, where to go for support and how to respond.

This support will help to give the sector the confidence and support they need to research and teach without fear of consequence or pressure from foreign states, helping to restore them as engines of opportunity, aspiration, and growth.

Skills Minister Jacqui Smith said:

Our universities' world-class reputation makes them a prime target for foreign states and hostile actors, who seek to erode that reputation by shaping or censoring research and teaching. We do not take this lightly. We are working together across government and with universities themselves to defend the UK's thriving academic environment. By working together and sharing information, we are standing united against political pressure from foreign state actors.

Security Minister Dan Jarvis said:

Today we've taken tough action to make the UK a harder target for foreign interference. We have to be clear-eyed that our world-class universities and democratic processes are being targeted by states who want to undermine our way of life. That's why we're launching a new tool to help universities get support from security experts, as well as making sure people at the heart of our democracy know how to report foreign interference.

Sir Ken McCallum detailed the sophisticated methods used by hostile actors to shape research and teaching content in higher education, including the use of professional networking sites and financial lures to cultivate relationships with academic staff and students.

The briefing for Vice Chancellors was first announced by the Security Minister in November as part of the Counter Political Interference and Espionage Action Plan.

When briefing political parties, Sir Ken McCallum provided an overview of the evolving threat landscape, focusing on how foreign powers seek to interfere in our democracy and political processes.

Arif Ahmed, Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom at the Office for Students, said:

Free speech and academic freedom are fundamental values that are essential to the mission of higher education. We've always been clear that universities must resist external state threats to academic freedom, and that suppression of research because of the disapproval of a foreign government is unacceptable in practically any circumstances. I look forward to working with students, staff, universities and colleges and government to develop effective responses to these significant and growing threats.

Dr Tim Bradshaw, Chief Executive of the Russell Group, said:

As global research leaders and educators of around 750,000 students a year, our universities have a vital role to play in the shared responsibility of national security. We have always valued the government's genuinely collaborative approach on these issues. The new single point of contact for advice on foreign interference will empower institutions to report and take action more swiftly and confidently, knowing there is support in place. This will help us maintain our learning environments as places where all students and staff can continue to inquire, study and discuss ideas freely.

Vivienne Stern MBE, Chief Executive of Universities UK, said:

Universities UK works closely with UK ministers, government departments, and security agencies to help protect our universities against foreign interference, and we welcome the spirit of partnership which this government has exhibited. We should not tolerate any form of coercive, deceptive, or criminal activity from a hostile actor that seeks to undermine the UK's strategic national interests. It is precisely because UK universities are world-leading that they may become targets for hostile actors. UUK remains committed to facilitating long-term capacity building and awareness raising and to working collaboratively with government to enhance our sector's resilience and to equip universities to pursue international collaboration that is trusted, secure and sustainable.

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Contracts

Contracts for Feb. 9, 2026

AIR FORCE

Alabama Institute for Deaf & Blind, Talladega, Alabama, was awarded a $15,000,000,000 maximum, firm-fixed-price blanket purchase agreement for Warner-Robins Air Logistics Complex AbilityOne Procurement List items. This contract provides for all the tools, parts, materials, and equipment offered from AbilityOne Procurement List website. Work will be performed at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, and is expected to be completed by Feb. 5, 2029. This contract was a sole source acquisition. Fiscal 2026 through 2029 working capital funds are being utilized on this agreement with no funds being obligated at time of award. The Air Force Sustainment Center Installation Maintenance Contracting Division, Robins AFB, Georgia, is the contracting activity (FA8571-26-A-0003).

NAVY

RSI Amentum Environmental Solutions LLC,* San Francisco, California (N62473-26-D-5205); Aptim Radiological Services LLC, San Diego, California (N62473-26-D-5206); ECC Expeditionary Constructors LLC, Burlingame, California (N62473-26-D-5207); Ferma Corp., Newark, California (N62473-26-D-5208); and Integrated Demolition and Remediation Inc.,* Anaheim, California (N62473-26-D-5209), were awarded a combined $999,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for demolition services at the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard at San Francisco, California, and other large-scale demolition requirements within the Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command (NAVFAC) Southwest area of operations. Fiscal 2026 operations and maintenance (Navy) funding in the amount of $25,000 will be obligated at contract award. Each contract consists of a base period of two years and three one-year option periods. This contract was competitively procured via the Sam.gov Contract Opportunities website, with five offers received. NAVFAC Southwest, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity. (Awarded Feb. 5, 2026)

RTX Corp., East Hartford, Connecticut, is awarded a not-to-exceed $230,559,766 fixed-price-incentive (firm target), cost-plus-incentive-fee, advanced acquisition, undefinitized contract for the procurement of long lead time materials, parts, components, and efforts necessary to protect the F135 Lot 20 propulsion system delivery schedule in support of the production of 138 propulsion systems for the Air Force, Marine Corps, Navy, non-U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) partners, and Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers. Work will be performed in East Hartford, Connecticut (17%); Indianapolis, Indiana (10%); Middletown, Connecticut (8%); Kent, Washington (7%); North Berwick, Maine (4%); EL Cajon, California (3%); Cromwell, Connecticut (3%); Whitehall, Michigan (3%); Portland, Orgeron (2%); San Diego, California (2%); South Bend, Indiana (2%); Columbus, Georgia (1%); Hampton, Virgina (1%); Manchester, Connecticut (1%); Cheshire, Connecticut (1%); Elmwood Park, New Jersey (1%); and various locations within the continental U.S. (34%), and is expected to be completed in May 2031. Fiscal 2025 aircraft procurement (Air Force) funds in the amount of $35,220,000; fiscal 2025 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $26,627,000; non-U.S. DOD partner (Navy) funds in the amount of $42,683,926; and FMS funds in the amount of $126,028,840, will be obligated at the time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competed. Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N0001926C0118).

Telephonics, Farmingdale, New York, is awarded a $16,022,537 modification (P00002) to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price cost-plus-fixed-fee contract (N0001925C0115). This modification adds scope for the production and delivery of 29 P-8A AN/UPX-43(V) Identification Friend Foe Interrogators (IFFI) to include eight sets for the Navy, 14 sets and three spares for the government of Canada, and three sets and one spare for the government of Germany, and 25 P-8A IFFI-Trays. Additionally, this contract procures associated repair of repairables, technical support, and firmware updates in support of the P-8A aircraft. Work will be performed in Farmingdale, New York, and is expected to be completed in April 2028. Fiscal 2024 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $4,932,817; and Foreign Military Sales customer funds in the amount of $11,089,721, will be obligated at the time of award, $4,932,817 of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competed. Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.

ARMY

Southwest Range Services LLC, Las Cruces, New Mexico, was awarded a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for White Sands Missile Range mission support services. The amount of this action is $445,943,100. Bids were solicited via the internet with three received. Work will be performed in Las Cruces New Mexico, with an estimated completion date of July 17, 2031. Fiscal 2025 research, development, test, and evaluation, Army funds in the amount of $3,079,914.63 were obligated at the time of the award. Mission Support Services, White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, is the contracting activity (W51EW7-26-C-A001).

DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY

General Electric Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, has been awarded a maximum $14,166,872 firm-fixed-price contract for F110 main fuel controls. This was a competitive acquisition with two responses received. This is a four-year contract with no option periods. The performance completion date is June 30, 2029. Using military service is Air Force. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2026 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is Defense Logistics Agency Weapons Support, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (SPRTA1-26-F-0089).

The Boeing Co., St. Louis, Missouri, has been awarded a maximum $13,933,848 modification (P00006) to an undefinitized delivery order (SPRPA1-24-F-0051) against a three-year basic ordering agreement (SPRPA1-21-D-001U) for the performance-based support contract. This was a sole-source acquisition using justification 10 U.S. Code 3204 (c)(1), as stated in Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1. The performance completion date is Sept. 16, 2027. The military services are Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine Corps. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2026 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is Defense Logistics Agency Weapons Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

*Small Business

https://www.defense.gov/News/Contracts/Contract/Article/3728360/

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Nikol Pashinyan and JD Vance make statements for media representatives

Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia

09.02.2026

Following the meeting between the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan and US Vice President JD Vance, a document signing ceremony between the Republic of Armenia and the United States of America took place. Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan and US Vice President JD Vance signed a joint statement on the completion of negotiations on the Agreement on Cooperation between the Government of the Republic of Armenia and the Government of the United States of America in the Field of Peaceful Use of Nuclear Energy.

Nikol Pashinyan and JD Vance then made statements summarizing the results of the meeting.



Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, in particular, noted:

''Honorable Vice President J.D. Vance,

Esteemed Members of the U.S. Delegation,

Dear Colleagues,

It is a great honor to host today the Vice President of the United States of America, J.D. Vance, and his delegation, who are on an official visit to Armenia. This visit is of truly historic and symbolic importance. This is the first visit by a US Vice President to the Republic of Armenia. It takes place in the context of unprecedented realities of establishing peace and stability in the South Caucasus and reflects the depth of the strong and strategic partnership forged between the Republic of Armenia and the United States of America.

Dear Mr. Vice President, our first meeting at the White House on February 7, 2025 had great importance for the events that subsequently unfolded.



Taking this opportunity, I would like to once again express the gratitude of the Government of the Republic of Armenia to the President of the United States of America, Mr. Donald Trump, and also to you, for organizing the Washington Peace Summit on August 8, 2025, through which we gave a strong boost to Armenia-US bilateral relations, and with the personal involvement of President Trump, we established peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

After the Washington Peace Summit, President Aliyev and I nominated President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize through a joint letter, and I have great hope that the President will rightfully receive this award in 2026.

Vice President J.D. Vance's visit is a crucial step in institutionalizing peace and expanding the Armenia-US strategic partnership. I presented to Mr. Vance the positive processes underway in the South Caucasus, as well as the details of the discussions that took place a few days ago in Abu Dhabi between me and the President of Azerbaijan, which were aimed at potential new steps for strengthening peace between our countries.

On this occasion, I also reaffirmed Armenia's commitment to supporting the peacekeeping mission of the US government, including the activities of the Board of Peace, the charter of which I had the honor of signing on January 22 this year, during the official ceremony in Davos.

I would also like to note that I have received and gladly accepted President Trump's invitation to participate in the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace on February 19.

The Vice President and I have both underlined the importance of consistently implementing one of the most important achievements of the Washington Peace Summit, the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity project, in accordance with the framework for the implementation of the TRIPP project signed on January 13 this year between the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia and the US Secretary of State. We have reaffirmed that this project, in addition to the most serious peace dividends, will also have regional and global significance, developing unhindered communication between West and East.

We expressed our satisfaction with the preparatory works for the implementation of the project, as well as the progress of the feasibility studies that were launched a few days ago.

We also discussed with Mr. Vance the prospects for complete deblocking of the region - as essential guarantees of stability and peace in the South Caucasus. I believe that in this context, it is also of great importance to bring to its logical conclusion the ongoing dialogue in the Armenia-Turkey normalization process, including the opening of the Gyumri-Kars railway.

We also jointly underscored the significant achievements in bilateral relations, including in the fields of artificial intelligence and innovative technologies. I am pleased to note that the memorandum signed between Armenia and the United States on August 8 in the field of semiconductors and artificial intelligence will bring to life the megaproject of the company Firebird building an artificial intelligence plant and data center in Armenia.

In this regard, one should note the recent approval of the issuance of export permits for the next batch of super-powerful chips produced by NVIDIA, for exportation to Armenia.

I hope that the close and transparent cooperation established between Armenia and the United States in the high-tech sector will allow us to further develop and strengthen the mutually beneficial partnership between Armenian and US companies.

In addition, Vice President Vance and I signed today a Joint Statement on the Completion of Negotiations on the "1,2,3 Agreement" for Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation between the governments of the Republic of Armenia and the United States of America.

This agreement will open a new chapter in the deepening energy partnership between Armenia and the United States, and will contribute to the diversification of Armenia's energy resources by implementing safe and innovative technologies.

I also expressed my gratitude for the long-standing support provided to Armenia by the United States in the field of nuclear security and expressed willingness to further develop sectoral cooperation in areas of greatest importance to both countries.

We have also made significant progress in the field of Armenia-US military and defense partnership. In continuation of the bilateral long-term security cooperation and the "Eagle Partner" military exercises ongoing for three consecutive years now, Armenia has acquired from the United States "V-BAT" unmanned aerial vehicles, the effectiveness of which has been proven through extensive use experience, and which will significantly contribute to the strengthening of our defense capabilities. I expressed hope that this transaction, implemented under the US Foreign Military Sales program, will serve as a basis for expanding our future cooperation.

We noted that Armenia and the United States are committed to developing a mutually beneficial partnership in securing the extraction and supply chains of critical minerals and rare earths.

Naturally, we also touched on institutional reforms in Armenia and the continuation of the long-standing support provided by the United States in this direction, in particular, matters of strengthening the state structures of the Republic of Armenia and developing their capacity.

In relation to the latter, I highlighted the support provided to Armenia for capacity development under the "Crossroads of Peace" program.

We both emphasized that relations between Armenia and the United States are stronger today than ever, and we expressed our commitment to further develop them for the benefit of our peoples.

Honorable Vice President;



I would like to once again welcome you, your wife, the esteemed Usha Vance, and your beautiful family: I say to you - welcome to Armenia,   , and express our gratitude for your commitment to further developing the strong ties between Armenia and the United States.

Thank you!''

US Vice President JD Vance noted, ''Thank you Mr. Prime Minister. It's great to be here in Armenia and I am especially grateful that you described the second lady as the esteemed Usha Vance. ... I think she is going to expect me to call her esteemed Usha Vance in the future. You created these expectations.

This is a beautiful country. A country that the President of the United States is very proud to partner with, the President of the United States is very proud to have great relationship with, and I know President Trump sends his best regards to you personally, but also to the people of Armenia.

And what President Trump and the Prime Minister have accomplished together is really visionary, peace is now made by cautious people, by people who are now too focused on the past, peace is made by people who are focused on the future. And because the Prime Minister made such a great progress, had such great relationship with both me and the President of the United States, we are not just making peace for Armenia, we are also creating real prosperity for Armenia and the United States together.

So much of the great economic cooperation that we are going to announce today would have been impossible without your leadership, without the peace you committed your country to, and without of course the President of the United States's leadership. I am grateful for all of those things because really do believe that tonight marks a new beginning for Armenia and the United States and the partnership that our countries can have together.

Now I want to announce a few things, the Prime Minister announced a few of them, but I want to review what we have done here and what we will continue to work on together. So, first of all, he mentioned this incredible tech deal, the United States was proud to issue a number of export licenses for the sale of high powered Nvidia chips. What does it mean? It means new markets for American workers and for American businesses, but it also means greater prosperity for the People of Armenia. These are chips that simply do not exist in most countries of the world, they are now going to be developed in the data scanners using those chips are going to be built and in fact are already being built because of the Prime Minister's leadership and we are very happy to partner on that. I mean great things for the American workers and I think great things for the people of Armenia as well.

We are also very proud to announce that our nations have completed negotiations a 123 Civic Nuclear Cooperation Agreement. Once that is completely set up, it will pave the way for the American and Armenian companies to strike deals on civil nuclear projects. That means up to 5 billion dollars in initial US exports plus an additional 4 billion in long term support through fuel and maintenance contracts.

This is a classic win-win for both Armenia and the United States of America. This means stronger energy security for my own country and I also think it means stronger energy security for Armenia, and it also will create a lot of new jobs back home in the United States. It means small modular reactors, American technologies will be coming to this country. Again, this is one of the few countries where we feel confident enough to invest at this level, to send this kind of technology and this is happening because of the Prime Minister's leadership.

I am also very proud to talk about the TRIPP Enterprise Fund. I think hear or are familiar with TRIPP with the historic transformation that it's going to bring to the regio. But let me say a couple of additional things. It is going to open up a whole new world of trade, transit and energy flows in this region of the world, and it will create unprecedented connections between Armenia and its neighbors. That's great for the prosperity of the people of Armenia, but it is also important for enduring peace, because when you create this interconnected economies, energy sectors, and so forth, it means that this region can have an enduring peace. We don't just want to make peace with the Prime Ministers and the President's leadership, we also want to make sure that that peace endures, and that is something we are accomplishing here today.

A couple of other things I would like to announce. There is a lot, this is a busy agenda here and we are very proud of it. What will do the TRIPP Fund is that a lot of private capital is going to flow for building railroads, pipelines, and again, building the interconnectedness that will create real prosperity for the region and also allow the peace agreement to stick.

I also was very happy with the Prime Minister just a couple minutes ago to see some of the new drone technology that we will be selling to Armenia. Yes, President Trump knows very well, the very best way to ensure you have peace is to establish real deterrence, and the best way to establish real deterrence is with the best military technology in the world and the United States has that. And for the first time we are announcing a major sale of military technology, 11 million dollars in surveillance and drone technology to the Armenians and to our good friend Mr. Prime Minister. He is going to use that to secure his country and to make sure that the peace we are creating sticks. That means for the United States more jobs and more investment in our own defense technology sector.

So let me just close by saying that what's happening today is truly historic. I am proud to be the first Vice President of the United States to visit this beautiful country, am very excited to see a little more tomorrow, I am excited about the dinner we are going to have and I know that the last thing standing between that dinner, I will try to speak very fast here, over the closing couple minutes. But this is the oldest Christian country in the entire world, a true bedrock of the Christian civilization and culture. And as a Christian myself, I know the meaning of this country to the entire world and to the religion that the Prime Minister and I share. So the people of Armenia and the great Prime Minister, I want to thank you for your partnership, President Trump is committed to this partnership and so I am. We are thrilled to take the next step. God bless you''.

The Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia and the Vice President of the United States of America answered the questions of the media representatives.

Question - Mr Prime Minister, can you let us know if in your conversations you discussed Iran and the situation in the region and what the goals and objectives would be of the United States and Armenia given the recent diplomatic efforts?

Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan - I am sure that you have already noticed from our statements that there is one goal at the core of cooperation between the United States and the Republic of Armenia, and that goal is peace and stability. And all our actions and cooperation with the United States are aimed at peace and stability. And I am convinced that this goal is achievable. We already see, I also had the opportunity to say in my opening remarks at the expanded-format meeting that it is very important to record that the peace that was declared, proclaimed on August 8, 2025, is already being expressed on the ground, in reality. And let me say that the cooperation between the United States and the Republic of Armenia is a peaceful cooperation, and it will always be so.

Question - I address my question to Mr. Vice President. Mr. Vice President, although you referred to the TRIPP project in your speech, I would like you to elaborate a little: how would you assess the progress at this point, how much investment does the United States expect or plan to make in this project, and what economic benefits does it expect from the project?

Vice President of the United States of America JD Vance - Well, in terms of the amount of investment, we have talked to a number of partners in the region, but also across the world, they are very interested in it. They think it's a very fairly investment opportunity. We actually spent a fairly amount of time talking today about how we can make things go faster, the Prime Minister wants things to go as fast as possible, because again, this interconnectedness, economic development is good for prosperity, but it is also good for peace. The United States is certainly going to play a very positive and constructive role in this. But I don't think that money is the issue. There is actually a lot of capital interested in this particular project, there are a lot of people across the world who think they can make a good return by investing in Armenia and investing in this TRIPP project.

The question is how we get the peace deal into a good next phase, how we keep the Prime Minister in a good place so that he can focus on the future. I know elections are coming up, we talked about that. But to the extent my endorsement does means anything, he certainly has it, because this is a guy who can build long-term partnership to make things like this stick. This has not happened overnight, but I think we have already made great progress in just months, since August 8.

Question - Mr. Vice President, would the US allow Iran limited uranium enrichment or whatsoever, what's the redline in the negotiations?

Vice President of the United States of America JD Vance - Well, I think the President will make the ultimate determination about where we draw the red lines in the negotiations. If you ho back to the original negotiations that happened between us and the Iranians, the President was trying very very hard to strike a constructive deal that would be good for the United States, but frankly the entire Administration agreed that if the Iranians were smart enough to have made that agreement, it would have been good for them too.

We are obviously much more focused tonight on the issues that are related to the US-Armenia cooperation. But as where the President exactly wants to set red lines in the negotiations, as you guys know, he typically does that privately, he does not announce what he is going to do in the negotiations, because he thinks it can strand them. In private, I think he has a lot of good conversations with his team and with others the days and weeks to come, but with all respect to our friends from the media, I think the President will preserve decisional space for himself, and that means not revealing too many of his cards publicly.

Question - One more question on Iran negotiations. Has the violent crackdown of the protestors in Iran been part of those negotiations. Does the US want to push for any kind of human rights assurances to be part of the deal?

Vice President of the United States of America JD Vance - I think Mr. President said publicly that. It's been very much part of the negotiations we have had. It's one of the things that the President made a very strong demand is that, you know that the prisoners who were going to be executed, the crackdown was of course very brutal and violent. The President and the entire Administration said that we stand with the people of Iran, we stand with the right of peaceful protests across the world and of course the people who want to exercise their right in Iran. But absolutely, the President has made it part of the conversations, not just with Iran, but the peoples all across the region.

Question - Mr. Prime Minister, in your speech you mentioned what work has been done so far after the documents signed on August 8, and you also mentioned in general what directions we have expectations in the future. Please, give a general assessment of the current level of Armenia-US relations, the progress of the work being carried out, and what specific actions we can expect in the near future, thank you.

Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan - I think this scene emphasizes the level of Armenia-US relations. Today, the level of our relations is higher than ever, but it is very important that with the Vice President we emphasized the great potential for the further development of our relations.

In fact, yes, we are at the highest point today, but only the agenda that we mentioned in our speech, only the implementation of that agenda will expand the scope of our cooperation many times over. And this is very important. We have established a strategic partnership, but it is important to note that we can now demonstrate concrete expressions of military partnership that are tangible and visible.

And, of course, my special appreciation to the President of the United States, Donald Trump, for his personal contribution. But I have also thanked Vice President James D. Vance several times today, including in a personal conversation, for his personal contribution, because we know that the meeting that took place at the White House on February 7, 2025, and our very meaningful conversation and discussion, was of key importance for further events.

Moreover, I specially thanked Mr. Vice President, for what? Because at the time of that meeting, the White House was still in the process of transformation, I suppose that even Mr. Vice President had not yet fully settled into that working environment. And I appreciate very much that under those circumstances he considered that conversation important, and we calmly discussed for quite a long time and in detail the possibilities, the agenda that could lead to today's point, and that deserves special appreciation.

And when I returned to Yerevan, the signals that the Vice President of the United States had already given the relevant instructions had reached Yerevan before me, and this, of course, is a unique manifestation of responsibility and professionalism, for which I, of course, expressed my words of appreciation and assurance of respect to Mr. Vice President.

Next, the spouse of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, Anna Hakobyan, hosted the wife of US Vice President James D. Vance, Usha Vance, at the presidential residence.

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The Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia and the US Vice President discuss bilateral joint programs and issues related to the further development of strategic cooperation

Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia

09.02.2026

A meeting was held between the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan and the Vice President of the United States of America James D. Vance, who is in the Republic of Armenia on an official visit.

The Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia and the US Vice President first welcomed the members of the delegations of the two countries, then Nikol Pashinyan and JD Vance had a private meeting. The discussions continued in expanded formats.

Prime Minister Pashinyan noted in his speech: "Dear Mr. Vice President, I welcome you and your delegation to the Republic of Armenia.

Your visit is truly historic, because you are the first Vice President of the United States and the highest-ranking official of the United States to ever visit the Republic of Armenia. And this, I believe, is not only a ceremonial nuance, but also reflects the developments that have been taking place in the relations between Armenia and the United States in recent years, and especially over the past year. And I want to, as I had the opportunity to tell you today, emphasize my meeting with you at the White House a year ago, which, as time would show, was of great significance for further developments.

I would like to express my gratitude to the President of the United States, Mr. Trump, and to you for organizing the summit in August last year, as a result of which peace is established between Armenia and Azerbaijan. A few days ago, we had a meeting with the President of Azerbaijan in Abu Dhabi, and our impression is that this peace, as one might say, is already very close to the point, if not already crossed, which we can consider irreversible. Now our main task is to implement one of the most important points of the peace process and the Washington Declaration, the TRIPP project, in accordance with the framework that the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia and the Secretary of State of the United States adopted on January 14, that is, between the two governments."



US Vice President JD Vance, in turn, noted: "Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister, thank to the delegation gathered here. You have a great team, we resolved all the issues during the bilateral meeting, so the teams do not need to work.

I convey the greetings of our President to your nation, your country. Prime Minister Pashinyan has truly been a partner, and we express our gratitude for the personal friendship and cooperation, partnership. There is much to discuss, our next event, which will take place soon, we will make statements, so as not to repeat. Let me say that this is a very wonderful country, I am very grateful for the personal hospitality, not only to me, but also to my family.

This is one of the oldest Christian nations in the world, and I am very grateful to both you and your administration. I truly believe that you have the opportunity to not only establish a historic, stable, irreversible peace, but now we are at a point where Armenia will become a very serious pillar of economic development in this region, which will also bring prosperity to the people of Armenia, which will also be transferred upon the people of the United States. I am very happy, it is an honor for me to be the first Vice President to visit Armenia."

The Prime Minister of Armenia and the US Vice President were then presented with the details of the TRIPP project, the Firebird company's plan to build an artificial intelligence factory and data center in Armenia, as well as the capabilities of the "V-BAT" drone purchased by Armenia from the United States.

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4th Infantry Division showcases Ivy Sting 4: A leap forward in command and control

By U.S. Army Public Affairs February 9, 2026

WASHINGTON -- On Feb. 6, the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, Colorado, completed Ivy Sting 4, a significant demonstration of the Army's Next Generation Command and Control, or NGC2, program. This event marks another stepping stone in the Army's efforts to enhance operational capabilities through advanced technology and accelerated delivery for Soldier-led experimentation.

During a media roundtable, key leaders discussed the progress and achievements of Ivy Sting 4. Mr. Joe Welch, executive director for Transformation and Training Command, or T2COM, emphasized the importance of rapid prototyping and the integration of commercial technologies. "The way that we're handling the entire portfolio is being driven off the success we've demonstrated so far in NextGen C2," Welch stated. He highlighted the need for a commercial-first strategy, which allows for quicker fielding and technology refresh cycles.

Maj. Gen. Pat Ellis, commanding general of the 4th ID, elaborated on the evolution of the Ivy Sting series. "Sting 4 is our largest exercise to date, and it represents exponential growth from our initial events. We are using this as a warfighting tool to enable lethality on the battlefield," Ellis explained. He noted that the exercise has grown in complexity, with more units and Soldiers involved than in previous iterations.

Lt. Col. Shawn Scott, commander of the 4th Squadron, 10th U.S. Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Armored Brigade, 4th ID, shared insights from the ground level. "The technology we employed allowed us to execute our individual soldier tasks more efficiently and effectively," Scott said. He described how his squadron evaluated various technologies in simulated combat scenarios, demonstrating the capabilities of NGC2 in a denied environment.

The Ivy Sting 4 exercise not only focused on command and control but also addressed critical areas such as airspace management and medical logistics. Ellis noted the importance of airspace deconfliction, stating, "We want to ensure that our helicopters and drones can operate safely without conflict."

As the Army continues to refine its command and control capabilities, the feedback from Soldiers participating in these exercises is invaluable. "Our Soldiers are excited to be heard and to shape the technology that will be used in the future," Ellis added.

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Dynamic Front 26: How NATO Allies are Mastering the Distributed Battlefield in Romania

By Capt. Regina Koesters February 9, 2026

CINCU, ROMANIA -- In the rolling hills of central Romania, eight NATO nations gathered at the Land Forces Combat Training Center Getica with their eyes fixed on the virtual battlefield for the initial phase of Dynamic Front 2026.

This year, U.S. Army Soldiers assigned to Multi-Domain Command Europe had the unique opportunity to train alongside NATO Allies and partners as they executed a command post exercise utilizing the Romanian simulation center in Cincu.

Modern warfare continues to shape artillery operations and requires a multi-domain approach to effectively fight and win. Exercises like Dynamic Front 26 are critical to test capabilities that counter anti-access/ area denial (A2/AD), and counter mass and momentum through multi-domain kill webs.

Through numerous years of training, NATO Allies and partners have proven their ability to execute live-fire missions together. As a result, Multi-Domain Command Europe has now shifted the strategic focus to simulation and command and control to test multinational integration of fires across a distributed battlefield.

U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Caleb Ayers, master gunner for launcher fires and a lead planner for the exercise assigned to Multi-Domain Command Europe, emphasized how Dynamic Front leverages technology to increase interoperability and maintain the advantage.

"The purpose of the exercise at this moment is to test artillery cooperation across Europe. Dynamic Front helps everyone to operate in a distributed battlefield through the Artillery Systems Cooperation Activities (ASCA) connections," said Ayers.

ASCA is a software program designed to allow shared data using the same tactical internet network across multiple nations. The technology creates a common digital language, increasing the speed and accuracy of multinational fire mission processing and reducing the likelihood of errors.

"You can have missions going across multiple countries with one control. For Dynamic Front 26, we have our control here in Romania, but we have missions that can go to Germany, Poland, and Spain. We can disperse across the entire theater and maintain that communication," said Ayers.

During execution of the command post exercise, ASCA served as the universal translator and allowed NATO participants to act as a unified front to protect the Alliance. Regardless of nationality or location on the battlefield, the exercise confirmed U.S. and NATO's ability to share information instantly and accurately to deliver precision fires.

Spanish Armed Forces Lt. Col. Francisco Morejon, commander of the 1-63 Multiple Launch Rocket System Battalion, Field Artillery Command Spain, spoke on how his unit effectively utilized these systems to communicate over 1500 miles away.

"This exercise is very important because it demonstrates the interoperability we have in terms of fires and command and control systems. We receive fire missions from 8th Brigade (Romania) and we translate it into real targets using the same command and control systems to connect to our platoons in Spain," said Morejon.

Through the simulation, NATO forces replicated realistic scenarios and tested their ability to operate collectively in complex, contested operational environments. The command post exercise affirmed U.S. and NATO's commitment to deterrence and stability across the European theater.

Ultimately, Dynamic Front continues to demonstrate how Allied forces fight as one team when it matters most. U.S. and NATO forces have now transitioned to the live fire portion across four different countries to validate the digital command and control with tangible, real-world effects.

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Statement by Minister Anand on political situation in Haiti

Global Affairs Canada

Statement

February 9, 2026 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada

Yesterday, the Honourable Anita Anand, Minister of Foreign Affairs, issued the following statement:

"February 8, 2026, marked the end of the mandate of the Transitional Presidential Council in Haiti.

"This transition represents an important step toward stability for Haiti. Canada looks to Prime Minister Fils-Aime and his cabinet to work diligently to improve the security situation and organize general elections to restore the sovereign and constitutional right of the Haitian people to choose their leaders.

"At this critical moment, the interests and well-being of the Haitian people must remain at the heart of all efforts.

"Canada stands ready to continue assisting the Haitian people to restore security, organize elections and ensure that Haitian solutions are front and centre."

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Joint statement: Second High-Level Dialogue between Sweden and Colombia

Government Offices of Sweden

Statement by Maria Malmer Stenergard

Published 09 February 2026

Joint statement by Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs Maria Malmer Stenergard and Colombian Minister of Foreign Affairs Rosa Yolanda Villavicencio on 9 February 2026.

The Second High-Level Dialogue between Sweden and Colombia was held in Stockholm today. The meeting was chaired by Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs Maria Malmer Stenergard and Colombian Minister of Foreign Affairs Rosa Yolanda Villavicencio. The dialogue reaffirmed the commitment of both countries to continue strengthening a bilateral relationship built on decades of cooperation, trust and shared values.

In preparation for the High-Level Dialogue in Stockholm, more than 30 institutions from both countries participated in two technical working groups in order to evaluate concrete progress and identify opportunities to further deepen cooperation in strategic areas such as peace, security, sustainability, energy transition, trade, education and economic development. These achievements are the result of more than a year of work following the signing of the Bilateral Partnership between Colombia and Sweden, established between Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson in 2024.

The ministerial dialogue in Stockholm provided an opportunity to further develop the longstanding relationship between Colombia and Sweden, marked by Sweden's support for durable and sustainable peace in Colombia, cooperation in the area of sustainability, the advancement of inclusive development initiatives and collaboration in strategic economic sectors. During the dialogue, both countries agreed on the importance of a renewed Swedish strategy for development cooperation with Colombia. They also reaffirmed the importance of multilateralism, international cooperation, and respect for international law, including the UN Charter.

Both governments agreed that the Second High-Level Dialogue consolidated a strategic platform to advance a dynamic and results-oriented bilateral agenda, reaffirming their willingness to continue building - together - a relationship that contributes to the wellbeing of their societies and the strengthening of international cooperation. The ministers agreed that protocols from the technical discussions will be exchanged.

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Israeli soldiers kidnap senior official of Lebanon's Islamic Group party

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Feb 9, 2026

Tehran, IRNA -- Israeli forces have kidnapped a senior official of Al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group), a Sunni political party in Lebanon.

The group said in a statement on Monday that Atwi Atwi was abducted by Israeli forces after they raided his home overnight in the town of Habbariyeh, southern Lebanon.

Atwi was forcibly taken to an undisclosed location after Israeli soldiers assaulted his family during the raid, the group said, holding the regime "responsible for any harm that may befall him," according to the statement carried by Israeli media.

The statement also described the kidnapping as part of ongoing Israeli violations of Lebanese sovereignty, saying that the abduction aimed to intimidate local residents and pressure them to abandon their lands.

The Islamic Group called on the Lebanese government to press parties monitoring the ongoing ceasefire to secure Atwi's release and to halt all Israeli incursions into Lebanon.

The ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon came into force in late November 2024 to stop months-long clashes that had later expanded into intense airstrikes on areas across Lebanon, including the capital Beirut. Israel, however, has violated the ceasefire on a daily basis, conducting attacks on Lebanon, particularly the south. The ceasefire was mediated by France and the United States.

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New Israeli resolutions aimed at intensifying land grab, illegal settlements: Hamas

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Feb 9, 2026

Tehran, IRNA -- The Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas has slammed the Israeli cabinet approval to expand illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, warning that the regime's new decisions will not create any rights for the occupiers.

In a statement on Sunday, Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem said the Israeli expansionist plan was aimed at swallowing up all Palestinian land and displace its original inhabitants, calling the moves a real existential threat.

He said the new resolutions of the Netanyahu cabinet are also an attempt to harm the authorities of Palestinian municipalities and institutions, especially in Hebron, as imposing a fictitious sovereignty and changing geographical and legal realities are part of the agenda of the occupying regime.

Calling for national unity to resist occupation and stand against Israel's settlement, annexation, Judaization projects, the Hamas spokesperson noted that the Palestinians will never surrender to these occupation policies and will continue to adhere to their historical rights.

The statement continued by saying that Arab and Islamic countries should assume their historical responsibility in confronting the occupiers and their plans through practical and serious measures, including severing ties with the Israeli regime and expelling its ambassadors from their capitals.

At the end of the statement, Hamas also called on the United Nations, the international community and all international institutions to exert pressure on Israel to stop its aggression and punish officials for their continuous crimes against the Palestinian people.

Earlier on Sunday, the Israeli cabinet approved measures that change the legal and civil framework in the occupied West Bank to strengthen Israeli control.

According to the Israeli media, the decisions included repealing a Jordanian-era law barring the sale of Palestinian land to Jews, unsealing land ownership records, and transferring building permit authority in a Hebron settlement bloc from the Palestinian municipality to Israel's civil administration.

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Genocide in Gaza is ongoing: UN special rapporteur

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Feb 9, 2026

Tehran, IRNA -- UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Francesca Albanese, has said the genocide in the Gaza Strip is ongoing and has not ended.

Albanese said Palestinian people are more aware than anyone that the situation on the ground remains unchanged and that most countries around the world have not taken effective action to stop the genocide and, instead, have provided the Israeli regime with political, economic, and military support, according to paltodaytv.com.

Albanese also criticized Western media outlets, saying they have largely ignored realities on the ground and promoted the regime's narrative of the war.

She stressed that the international community must act urgently to ensure justice for the Palestinian people, adding that Palestine will ultimately be free and the Palestinian people will achieve freedom.

The Israeli regime launched its war on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, with declared goals of eliminating Hamas and securing the return of Israeli captives. The regime failed to achieve these objectives and later agreed to a prisoner swap deal with Hamas.

Hamas announced on October 17, 2025, that an agreement had been reached to end the war and exchange prisoners. The regime's armed forces confirmed the implementation of a ceasefire the following day, though it continues to obstruct its full execution.

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Child among four killed as Israel attacks southern Lebanon in ceasefire breach

Iran Press TV

Monday, 09 February 2026 7:00 PM

Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon have killed four people, including a 3-year-old child, in a fresh violation of the 2024 ceasefire agreement.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said three of the victims died when an Israeli strike hit a vehicle in Yanooh town, Tyre district, on Monday.

According to the statement, another civilian was shot dead by Israeli forces in the town of Aita al-Shaab in the Bint Jbeil district.

Meanwhile, two individuals were targeted with sound bombs from an Israeli drone while at the Aita al-Shaab cemetery.

Israeli forces also arrested Atwi Atwi, the leader of the Islamic Group, at his home in al-Habbariyeh town in the Arqoub region.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam decried the abduction as "a blatant attack on the country's sovereignty", and tasked Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji with taking immediate action and following up on the case with the United Nations.

Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire agreement that took effect on November 27, 2024. Under the deal, Tel Aviv was required to withdraw fully from the Lebanese territorybut has kept forces stationed at five sites, in clear violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and the terms of the November 2024 agreement.

Since the implementation of the ceasefire, Israel has violated the truce agreement multiple times through repeated assaults on Lebanese territory.

Lebanese authorities have warned that the regime's violations of the ceasefire threaten national stability.

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Hezbollah leader: Main challenge facing Lebanon is Israeli-US aggression

Iran Press TV

Monday, 09 February 2026 5:56 PM

Hezbollah's secretary general says Israeli-US aggression is the primary challenge facing Lebanon, calling resistance the only viable solution to the lingering crises.

Sheikh Naim Qassem made the remarks in a televised speech on Monday afternoon as he addressed the inauguration ceremony of the Lebanon Medical Center in al-Hadath, which was attended by prominent Lebanese civil and medical figures.

"The primary challenge facing Lebanon is the Israeli-US aggression, and the only solution is to resist and remain steadfast. This aggression is sapping Lebanon's economic, social, and demographic capabilities," he said.

The Hezbollah chief noted that the Israeli regime pursues expansionist schemes in Lebanon and across West Asia, and relies on coercion, occupation, crimes and genocide to attain these objectives at the expense of Lebanon and its development and existence.

"We cannot prevent aggression by means of mere words or undue reliance on Americans. We can actually prevent it through force, solidarity and unity. The Israeli military was expelled from southern Lebanon through force, steadfastness and tremendous sacrifices made," Sheikh Qassem said.

The Hezbollah leader noted that enemies have been humiliated and deterred despite forty-two years of struggles to destabilize Lebanon.

Sheikh Qassem went on to emphasize that Lebanon will not submit to Hezbollah's total disarmament, demanded by Israel and the United States, as it will strip the country of the right to defend itself.

"Over the past 15 months, Americans have resorted to various methods in a bid to put an end to Lebanon's strength and resilience. The central issue pivots around disarmament, elimination of defense capabilities, and renunciation of resistance. This amounts to neutralization of Lebanon's capabilities and strength," he stated.

The Hezbollah leader pointed out that all US-led pressures to disarm Hezbollah have failed because they lack legitimacy and violate the right of self-defense as enshrined in the constitution.

Sheikh Qassem added that Washington tried through diplomatic means to obtain what it could not get through force.

He condemned the US efforts to prevent reconstruction in Lebanon, calling on all walks of Lebanese society to contribute to rebuilding the country.

The Hezbollah chief also hailed a recent visit made by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam to southern Lebanon, calling it a positive step.

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Muslim nations condemn Israel's new West Bank settlement laws

Iran Press TV

Monday, 09 February 2026 5:19 PM

Muslim countries have condemned Israeli regime's latest move to facilitate settler activity in the occupied West Bank, calling it the most dangerous push yet toward illegal annexation and the displacement of the Palestinian people.

A statement issued by the Saudi Foreign Ministry on Monday said that eight Muslim-majority countries had called on the international community to "compel Israel to halt its dangerous escalation" of efforts to illegally annex the occupied West Bank.

The statement condemned "in the strongest terms" a series of measures adopted by the Israeli cabinet a day earlier, which are aimed at accelerating settlement growth and tightening Israeli control over the Palestinian territory.

The decisions effectively remove obstacles that have limited settlement expansion for decades, including confidentiality rules on land registries and a Jordanian-era law that prohibits land sales to Israelis in the territory.

They also revive a land acquisition committee, dormant for over 20 years, to facilitate large-scale purchases intended to secure settlement land for future generations.

Two notorious Israeli cabinet ministers, finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and war minister Israel Katz, have championed the measures, with experts believing they aim to bolster their political support ahead of elections.

Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates said in the statement that the Israeli regime is attempting to create "a new legal and administrative reality" to displace Palestinians and illegally annex the West Bank, which it occupied in 1967.

The signatories reaffirmed the Palestinian right to "self-determination and statehood," despite recent comments by Smotrich that the new measures are meant to "bury the idea of a Palestinian state."

They also denounced Israel's attempt to impose "unlawful Israeli sovereignty" by transferring planning and construction authority in areas such as Hebron, Bethlehem, and parts of the West Bank from the Palestinian Authority to the Israeli regime.

Analysts say the changes to land ownership and purchasing procedures will be legally difficult to reverse, leading to a significant expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, which is home to some 3.3 million Palestinians.

They warn that Israel could demolish Palestinian-owned buildings in Area A of the occupied West Bank under the pretext of protecting archaeological and heritage sites, a responsibility assigned to the regime under the new measures.

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Norwegian ambassador resigns over expanding Epstein-linked scandal

Iran Press TV

Monday, 09 February 2026 6:27 AM

Norway's Foreign Ministry says diplomat Mona Juul will step down from her post following a "serious lapse in judgment" connected to her past contacts with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Juul had been suspended earlier this week from her role as ambassador to Jordan and Iraq while the ministry examined links revealed in a large cache of US government documents related to Epstein.

The inquiry concluded that the matter had undermined confidence in her ability to continue in the position.

"Juul's contact with Epstein represents a grave error of judgment and makes it difficult to restore the trust required for such a role," Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said in a statement on Sunday.

Juul, 66, has held several high-profile diplomatic posts, including ambassador to the Israeli regime, the United Kingdom, and the United Nations, and previously served as a junior government minister.

Through her lawyer, she said she chose to step aside because the circumstances made it impossible for her to effectively perform her duties, and that she would continue to cooperate fully with authorities.

The ministry also announced a review of past government funding to the International Peace Institute, a New York-based think tank led until 2020 by Juul's husband, Terje Rd-Larsen.

Rd-Larsen, a former cabinet minister, has previously acknowledged and apologized for his association with Epstein. His lawyer said he had no objection to a renewed examination, noting that the National Audit Office had already investigated the matter in previous years.

Juul and Rd-Larsen gained international recognition in the 1990s as key facilitators of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Epstein revelations have also drawn in other high-profile Norwegians, including Crown Princess Mette-Marit, who recently issued a renewed public apology through the royal palace.

On Tuesday, Craig Mokhiber, former head of the New York office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said Mona Juul and Terje Rd-Larsen, the Norwegian husband-and-wife team widely credited with engineering the Oslo process, took personal loans from Epstein and that "their children were reportedly left $10 million in Epstein's will."

Epstein, who had connections to numerous powerful figures, including US President Donald Trump, Britain's former Prince Andrew, and former US President Bill Clinton, was arrested in 2019 on federal charges of sex trafficking minors.

Two months later, he was found dead in a New York jail cell. His death was officially ruled a suicide, though the circumstances have fueled years of speculation about his high-profile associates and possible efforts to conceal the full scope of his crimes.

Under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed by Congress, the DOJ released files on Epstein and his accomplices and enablers.

Some of the sex trafficker's emails reveal correspondence suggesting he acted as a private diplomat and intelligence fixer for a range of political figures.

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Israeli forces kill three Palestinians, including teen, in raids across Gaza Strip

Iran Press TV

Monday, 09 February 2026 6:10 AM

Israeli forces killed three Palestinians, among them a 16-year-old, in different raids across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, amid continued breach of the ceasefire agreement with the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.

Medical sources said on Sunday that Israeli occupation forces shot and killed the 16-year-old, identified as Mohammed al-Sarhi, near Salah al-Din Mosque in the Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City.

The shooting took place amid Israeli fire in the area, which residents described as part of near-daily incidents in zones under Israeli military control since the ceasefire began in October 2025.

Palestinian sources had earlier confirmed the killing of a teenager in the same neighborhood, later identifying the victim as al-Sarhi.

The incident fits a broader pattern of shootings in areas where civilians attempt to move, inspect their homes, or retrieve belongings in neighborhoods close to Israeli positions.

In the northern town of Beit Lahia, Salem Rouhi al-Sous, 33, was killed by an explosive device linked to Israeli occupation forces. An 18-year-old, identified as Nabil Hassan al-Sous, was injured in the same blast.

In a separate incident in central Gaza, Naseem Abu al-Ajeen, 20, was shot dead east of Deir al-Balah after Israeli gunfire swept the area.

The killings occurred in different locations within hours, highlighting the widespread use of lethal force across the Strip despite the ceasefire remaining formally in place.

Israeli warplanes and artillery also targeted several areas in southern Gaza. Airstrikes struck Rafah, while another attack hit eastern Khan Yunis, including a water reservoir.

The strike compounded an already dire water crisis across the Gaza Strip, where damaged networks rely on minimal pumping capacity and emergency repairs.

Earlier in the day, additional shelling and air attacks hit multiple areas, particularly zones under Israeli military presence.

Images from northern Gaza showed extensive devastation in the Jabaliya refugee camp following repeated bombardment in recent days.

The escalation unfolded as Gaza's medical system faces a deepening collapse. Hospitals continue to operate with extreme shortages of medicine, equipment, and specialized staff.

Thousands of patients suffer from life-threatening conditions as treatment is unavailable inside Gaza and remains out of reach abroad.

Gaza health authorities report that more than 1,200 patients have died while waiting for Israeli permits to seek treatment outside the territory, with movement restrictions blocking evacuation even in critical cases.

Fuel shortages, dwindling supplies, and exhausted personnel have forced hospitals to ration services while coping with casualties from repeated military assaults.

Since the ceasefire took effect in October last year, Palestinian authorities have documented hundreds of violations involving shootings, bombardment, and attacks on civilian infrastructure.

These violations have killed at least 580 Palestinians and wounded more than 1,500 others, while bodies continue to be recovered from areas previously unreachable.

The Israeli military acts of aggression continue as the second phase of the ceasefire agreement has come into effect.

Furthermore, the Board of Peace (BOP), proposed by US President Donald Trump and tasked with overseeing compliance with and advancing the next phase of the agreement, has so far failed to curb ongoing Israeli violence and ensure protection for civilians.

Since its genocidal assault on Gaza on October 7, 2023, the occupying entity has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians and wounded over 171,000, the majority women and children.

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Vance Arrives In Armenia As US Looks To Consolidate Caucasus Peace Plan

By RFE/RL's Armenian Service February 09, 2026

US Vice President JD Vance arrived in Armenia on February 9 to kick off a four-day visit to the Caucasus in support of a US-brokered peace deal and to push a strategic transit corridor Washington sees as central to reshaping trade, energy, and influence in the region.

Vance, the highest-ranking US official to visit Armenia from the Trump administration so far, landed in the capital, Yerevan, some six months after the country signed a US-brokered a deal with Azerbaijan aiming to end more than 40 years of conflict over the Karabakh region.

Vance is meeting with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and other senior Armenian officials and will later head to Baku for talks with officials in the Azerbaijani capital on February 10-11, according to the White House.

"I believe that we are at the point where we can actually have Armenia serve as an important instrument for economic development in this region of the world, which will both persist and maintain the peace agreement, but also could lead to a lot of prosperity for the people of Armenia, and importantly to me, to the people of the United States," Vance said as he headed into a meeting with Pashinian.

"So we're going to keep on working on these things. This visit is just an important step."

Vance's trip is heavily focused on developing economic relations with the two countries, which US officials have said will help build trust between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

As part of the path to peace, a proposed 43-kilometer road-and-rail corridor, to be called the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), would run through Armenia and link Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave while opening a new East-West trade artery bypassing Russia and Iran.

Armenia and Azerbaijan had been locked in conflict since the late 1980s over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but long controlled by ethnic Armenian separatists.

In September 2023, Azerbaijan retook full control of Karabakh following a military offensive.

Last summer, leaders from the two countries agreed on a major deal-- brokered by Washington -- aimed at ending decades of conflict, including two full-scale wars.

The agreement gives the United States leasing rights to develop the transit corridor, which would run through southern Armenian territory along the border with Iran.

The corridor would eventually include a rail line, oil and gas lines, and fiberoptic lines, allowing for the movement of goods and eventually people.

Protesters Call On Vance

More than 20 Armenian human rights groups sent an open letter to Vance, urging the US vice president to help secure the release of Armenians currently detained in jails in Azerbaijan.

A group of Karabakh refugees rallied outside Pashinian's official residence calling on Vance to press for the prisoners' release.

Last week, an Azerbaijani military court handed down lengthy prison sentences to Armenian separatist leaders in a war crimes trial.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/vance-armenia-us- caucasus--trump-azerbaijan/33673456.html

Copyright (c) 2026. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Defence Minister's meeting with the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Sweden in Bucharest

Romania - Ministry of National Defence

Press release No. 23

09.02.2026

On Friday, February 6th, Minister of National Defence, Radu Miruta, had a meeting with the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Sweden to Romania, Her Excellency Anna Hallerman, at the Ministry of National Defence headquarters.

The two officials exchanged views on current developments in the field of security and defence, as well as on the main priorities of common interest, both bilaterally and at Euro-Atlantic level.

During the talks, the Defence Minister highlighted the solid level of bilateral cooperation, based on common values and both states firm commitment to strengthening European security. In this context, Radu Miruta stressed the importance of close coordination within the EU and NATO, in order to effectively manage current security challenges and strengthen the deterrence and collective defence posture on the entire eastern flank, from north to south.

Minister of National Defence also reiterated the importance of providing continued support to Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova, in the strategic context characterized by instability and complex threats and against the background of the security situation in the Black Sea region.

At the end of the meeting, the MoND official expressed the Romanian side's willingness to maintain a constant and constructive dialogue, expressing the belief that the cooperative relationship between Romania and the Kingdom of Sweden in the field of defence would continuously enhance and contribute significantly to strengthening regional and Euro-Atlantic security.



The Press Office

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Statement by the Republic of Slovenia on Recent Developments in the Occupied West Bank

Republic of Slovenia - Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs

9. 2. 2026

The Republic of Slovenia expresses its grave concern regarding Israel's recent decisions and measures in the occupied West Bank, which risk further entrenching an unlawful situation on occupied Palestinian territory.

Slovenia reiterates its long-standing position that Israel has no sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem. Unilateral actions aimed at expanding settlements, altering the legal and administrative status of the territory, or advancing de facto annexation are illegal under international law and must cease immediately.

These measures are in clear contradiction with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, which affirms that Israeli settlements have no legal validity, and with the 2024 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, which confirmed the unlawfulness of Israel's policies and practices in the occupied Palestinian territory and the obligation to bring them to an end.

Slovenia strongly opposes all actions that undermine the viability of the two-state solution, fuel tensions on the ground, and jeopardise the Palestinian people's right to self-determination. Such steps run counter to international efforts aimed at de-escalation, stability, and a negotiated political solution.

Slovenia calls on Israel to reverse these measures, fully respect international humanitarian law, and comply with its international obligations. Slovenia further urges the international community to act consistently in upholding international law and supporting a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace based on the two-state solution.

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Spanish Government condemns latest decisions by Israeli Government against West Bank

Spain - Ministry of Foreign Affairs

PRESS STATEMENT 018

9 FEB 26

The Spanish Government strongly condemns the Israeli Government's decisions to repeal the law limiting the acquisition of real estate and the registration of property in the West Bank, as well as the administrative measures granting it jurisdiction over violations of water management, environmental damage or damage to archaeological sites in Areas A and B. These decisions are contrary to international law, alter the statu quo in the West Bank, and threaten the viability and territorial and political unity of a Palestinian State in accordance with the 1967 borders, comprising Gaza and the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capita.

The Government reiterates its concern about the successive decisions of the Israeli Government affecting the West Bank, expanding settlements, which are illegal under international law. In this regard, it insists on its condemnation of the approval in December of 19 new settlements, or developments in the E1 project. These measures and any attempt at annexation are unacceptable and jeopardise current efforts to implement the Peace Plan and the ceasefire, increasing the risk of triggering a new wave of violence.

The Spanish Government urges the Israeli Government to comply with its obligations as an occupying power under the Fourth Geneva Convention, and to put an end to its expansionist offensive and the impunity that protects the settlers. We urge all parties to respect their obligations under resolution 2803, and to work towards the implementation of the two-State solution, in accordance with the New York Declaration.

-NON OFFICIAL TRANSLATION-

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Board of Peace Should Consider Root Causes of Palestinian-Israeli Conflict - Lavrov

Sputnik News

20260209

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday that he would like the Board of Peace to address the underlying causes of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

"I would really like this collective body, which was created on the initiative of [US] President Trump, to really consider the underlying causes of the [Palestinian-Israeli] conflict," Lavrov said at the 15th Middle East Conference on the sidelines of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

Lavrov also said that although the Board of Peace had been formed and subordinate structures established, its actual authority remained unclear.

"The Board of Peace has been established. Structures subordinate to the Board of Peace have been created, including an executive structure of Palestinian technocrats. But their actual powers are unknown," Lavrov said at the 15th Middle East Conference on the sidelines of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

In January, US President Donald Trump announced the formation of the Board of Peace and invited heads of about 50 states to join.

Russia still has no clarity on international stabilization forces in Gaza, Lavrov said.

"Outbreaks of violence persist, and there is no clarity at all about other components of this plan, including the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip, the disarmament of Hamas, the organization of humanitarian aid and the organization of executive leadership of this Palestinian enclave, in the context of involving the Palestinian National Authority in this process, and in the context of implementation of the UN decision on the creation of a unified Palestinian state," Lavrov explained.

The situation in the Middle East in not expected to not ease in the near future, Lavrov also said.

"Unfortunately, at this stage, I do not think that [the situation in] this region [the Middle East] will calm down soon, despite the huge number of initiatives that we all know about," Lavrov said at the Valdai International Discussion Club.

All of this has happened and continues to happen, and now there are Yemen, Sudan, and the echoes in the Middle East, of course, are being caused by what's happening around Somalia, against the backdrop of the main trend, the minister said. And the trend is to drive the Palestinian issue into a dead-end, hopeless impasse, he added.

Russia welcomes the mediation efforts of Oman in the negotiation process between Iran and the United States, Lavrov said.

Russia is closely following the situation around Iran, the minister said, adding that a diplomatic solution is necessary.

"We welcome the mediation efforts of the Sultanate of Oman. Yesterday, I had a detailed conversation with my friend ... [Omani Foreign Minister Badr] Al Busaidi. And, of course, we believe that there should be a peaceful settlement here," Lavrov said at the 15th Middle East Conference on the sidelines of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

The minister added that Russia is interested in the full normalization of relations between Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Lavrov also said that Russia, including together with Chinese colleagues, is in constant contact with its Iranian friends. The minister added that Russia is concerned about Iran's future.

 Sputnik

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Joint Statement on the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS Meeting on Iraq and Syria

US Department of State

Media Note

Office of the Spokesperson

February 9, 2026

The text of the following statement was released by the Governments of the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Begin Text:

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia hosted a meeting of senior diplomatic and defense officials from the Small Group of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS/Daesh in Riyadh on February 9, 2026. Saudi Vice Foreign Minister Waleed A. Elkhereiji opened the meeting, which was co-chaired by U.S. Ambassador to Turkiye and Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack.

Participants expressed their appreciation to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for hosting the meeting and for its continued role in supporting regional and international efforts to counter terrorism and promote stability.

Participants welcomed the comprehensive agreement between the Government of Syria and the Syrian Democratic Forces, including the permanent ceasefire and arrangements for the civil and military integration of northeast Syria. They noted the Government of Syria's stated intention to assume national leadership of counter-ISIS efforts and expressed appreciation for the sacrifices made by the Syrian Democratic Forces in the fight against ISIS/Daesh. Participants also thanked the Government of Iraq for its continued leadership in the Defeat ISIS campaign.

The participants reaffirmed their priorities, including the swift transfer and safeguarding of ISIS detainees, third-country repatriation, the dignified reintegration of families from al-Hol and Roj camps to their communities of origin, and continued coordination with Damascus and Baghdad on the future of the Defeat ISIS campaign in Syria and Iraq. Participants welcomed the Syrian government as the 90th member of the D-ISIS Coalition. Coalition members underscored their readiness to work closely with the Syrian government and encouraged members to provide direct support to Syrian and Iraqi efforts.

Coalition defense officials highlighted the close coordination between diplomatic and military lines of effort. Participants received briefings on the current Defeat ISIS campaign, including ongoing detainee transfer operations. Officials commended Iraq's efforts to securely detain ISIS fighters and welcomed Syria's assumption of responsibility for detention facilities and displacement camps housing ISIS fighters and their family members. Participants reiterated the need for countries to take responsibility for and repatriate their nationals from Iraq and Syria.

Coalition members thanked Iraq for its leadership and recognized that the transfer of detainees into Iraqi custody is essential to regional security. They reaffirmed their shared commitment to defeating ISIS/Daesh in Iraq and Syria and pledged continued support to both governments in securing ISIS-affiliated detainees.

End Text

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Joint Statement by the Foreign Ministers of Turkiye, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE, 9 February 2026

Republic of Turkey Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The Foreign Ministers of the Republic of Turkiye, the Arab Republic of Egypt, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Republic of Indonesia, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the State of Qatar, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates condemned in the strongest terms the illegal Israeli decisions and measures aimed at imposing unlawful Israeli sovereignty, entrenching settlement activity, and enforcing a new legal and administrative reality in the occupied West Bank, thereby accelerating attempts at its illegal annexation and the displacement of the Palestinian people. They reaffirmed that Israel has no sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territory.

The Ministers warned against the continued expansionist Israeli policies and illegal measures pursued by the Israeli government in the occupied West Bank, which fuel violence and conflict in the region.

The Ministers expressed their absolute rejection of these illegal actions, which constitute a blatant violation of international law, undermine the two-state solution, and represent an assault on the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to realize their independent and sovereign state on the 4 June 1967 lines, with occupied Jerusalem as its capital. Such actions also undermine the ongoing efforts for peace and stability in the region.

The Ministers affirmed that these illegal measures in the occupied West Bank are null and void and constitute a clear violation of UN Security Council resolutions, particularly Resolution 2334, which condemns all Israeli measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character, and status of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, as well as the 2024 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, which found that Israel's policies and practices in the occupied Palestinian territory and its continued presence is illegal, affirmed the necessity of ending the Israeli occupation, and the nullity of the annexation of occupied Palestinian lands.

They renewed their call on the international community to fulfill its legal and moral responsibilities and to compel Israel to halt its dangerous escalation in the occupied West Bank and the inciting statements of its officials.

They stressed that the fulfillment of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination and statehood, based on the two-state solution in accordance with resolutions of international legitimacy and the Arab Peace Initiative, remains the only path to achieving just and comprehensive peace that ensures security and stability in the region.

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FCDO Statement on expansion of Israeli control over the West Bank

Government response

An FCDO statement on the Israeli Security Cabinet's decision to expand Israeli control over the West Bank.

From: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and The Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP

Published 9 February 2026

An FCDO spokesperson said:

The UK strongly condemns the Israeli Security Cabinet's decision yesterday to expand Israeli control over the West Bank. The major changes to land, enforcement, and administrative powers proposed in the West Bank will harm efforts to advance peace and stability. The UK has been clear: any unilateral attempt to alter the geographic or demographic make-up of Palestine is wholly unacceptable and would be inconsistent with international law. We call on Israel to reverse these decisions immediately. A two-state solution remains the only viable path to long-term peace with a safe and secure Israel living alongside a viable and sovereign Palestine.

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UNHCR's Salih calls for global shift from managing to resolving displacement

UNHCR - United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

Press releases

9 February 2026

GENEVA -- The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Barham Salih, today urged Member States to pursue a decisive shift in the global response to displacement, calling for a measurable reduction in long-term aid dependency and a renewed commitment to international protection, solutions, responsibility-sharing and peace efforts.

Salih made the comments in his first briefing to Member States since assuming office at the start of the year, setting out an ambitious direction for UNHCR, including a comprehensive reform agenda to strengthen effectiveness.

"Humanitarian assistance saves lives and must continue wherever needs arise," he said. "But when emergency tools become the long-term default, and entire generations remain trapped in dependency, we are not building sustainability. We must measure success by whether people can rebuild their lives."

Salih stressed that providing international protection remains vital. "The responsibility to uphold the 1951 Refugee Convention is as important as ever," he said, noting that 2026 marks the 75th anniversary of the milestone accord.

Nearly 117 million people are now forcibly displaced, including 42.5 million refugees, with the vast majority living in a limbo lasting years or decades without a meaningful prospect of a solution or the chance to rebuild. They may be safe from immediate violence, but they are excluded from national systems and often forced into long-term dependence on aid - and this should not be seen as inevitable.

Salih laid out a strategic objective of reducing substantially the number of refugees in protracted displacement dependent on humanitarian assistance over the next decade. This, he said, requires:

advancing voluntary repatriation, local integration, and resettlement;

linking humanitarian action with development and peace efforts;

expanding opportunities for self-reliance; and

strengthening inclusion in national systems.

Salih began his tenure by visiting a number of displacement settings, witnessing the promise of inclusion-centred policies as well as the acute needs of emergency contexts. In Kenya, he saw the benefits of enabling refugees to work, study and integrate. Visiting Chad, where refugees continue fleeing Sudan's conflict, revealed "the scale of need and the limits of available resources." His visits to Turkiye and Jordan focused on Syrian refugees and the conditions necessary for a safe and voluntary return.

These situations, he added, show UNHCR's dual responsibility: "to save lives today, and to prevent lives from becoming trapped in indefinite displacement tomorrow."

The High Commissioner also announced an independent management review to strengthen UNHCR's efficiency, accountability and financial transparency following a period of fiscal contraction, in line with the UN80 and humanitarian reset initiatives. He pledged clearer prioritization, outcome-based benchmarks and enhanced real-time budget monitoring to demonstrate value for money.

"This is not about reducing ambition," he said. "It is about aligning ambition with resources so that the people we serve do not pay the price for inefficiency." UNHCR is seeking $8.5 billion for its 2026 operations, with $1.574 billion already recorded.

Salih thanked donors for their support in 2025 but noted an increase in "earmarking" of funds - tying their use to certain situations or themes - and the need for more predictable, flexible funding. He also announced a stronger push to diversify financing, which will be supported by the upcoming creation of a Global CEO Council.

Salih pledged a practical partnership with Member States: "If we stabilize the organization, anchor reform in protection, and focus the international effort on durable solutions, we can deliver more effectively for refugees, host communities, and States alike."

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West Bank: New Israeli measures further erode prospects for two-State solution

9 February 2026 - UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres voiced grave concern on Monday over the reported decision by the Israeli security cabinet to authorize a series of administrative and enforcement measures in Areas A and B in the occupied West Bank.

The measures would make it easier for Jewish settlers to take over Palestinian land, thus expanding Israel's power in the territory, according to media reports.

The UN chief warned that the current trajectory on the ground - including this decision - is eroding the prospect for the two-State solution, according to a statement issued by his Spokesperson.

Settlements are illegal

He reiterated that all Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and their associated regime and infrastructure, have no legal validity and constitute a flagrant violation of international law, including relevant UN resolutions.

"Such actions, including Israel's continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory are not only destabilizing but - as recalled by the International Court of Justice - unlawful," the statement said.

The Secretary-General called on Israel to reverse the measures.

He also urged all parties "to preserve the only path to lasting peace, a negotiated two-State solution, in line with relevant Security Council resolutions and international law."

Heading off course

UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric was asked about the statement during his regular briefing to journalists in New York.

"These decisions are not moving us in the right direction," he said.

"They are driving us further and further away from a two-State solution and from the ability of the Palestinian authority and the Palestinian people to control their own destiny."

Ongoing aid efforts in Gaza

Meanwhile, humanitarians in the Gaza Strip continue to respond to the immense needs of the population despite impediments and a challenging operating environment.

The UN and partners are serving hundreds of thousands of meals each day, in addition to providing digital cash and monthly rations, Mr. Dujarric said.

Colleagues report that Gaza City continues to face a severe shortage of drinking and domestic water despite the recent re-opening of the valve on the Mekorot supply line there that connects Israel to Gaza for fresh water.

Water and hygiene support

Currently, only 6,000 cubic metres of water are reaching people in Gaza City every day, with significant losses in hard-to-reach areas.

"To mitigate this shortfall, we and our partners have increased water production and trucked deliveries from groundwater wells and private sector desalination plants," he said.

Aid partners have distributed over 100,000 water jerry cans across the Gaza Strip since late January, he added.

They have also provided over 700,000 bars of soap, over 25,000 hygiene kits, over 400 household latrines, and 250 anti-lice kits

Explosive ordnance threat

Since Wednesday, humanitarians working in mine action have conducted over 200 assessments of potential explosive hazards in support of the removal of debris.

They reached over 10,000 children and adults last week with education warning them of the risks of explosive ordnance which remains a major threat.

Thirty-three explosive ordnance incidents have been reported since the ceasefire came into effect last October, resulting in nine deaths and 65 injuries.

Restrictions and limitations

UN aid coordination office, OCHA, noted that humanitarians continue to be hampered by restrictions, including limitations on the entry of so-called "dual use" items and those listed as non-humanitarian in nature.

This includes spare parts and certain shelter materials.

Humanitarian operations are also being undermined by Israel's de-registration of some international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and restrictions imposed on the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees - UNRWA - and sister agencies.

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NZ Army continues to strengthen Singapore partnership

New Zealand Defence Force

Singapore's Chief of Army recently visited Wellington to discuss both nations' progress, visions and challenges, as well as mark a significant milestone with Singaporean personnel training in Waiouru.

10 February, 2026

At a time of increased strategic competition the value of long-established and authentic relationships continue to play a vital role.

One such recent visit was conducted by Major General Cai Dexian, the Singapore Chief of Army.

He and his team were welcomed to Wellington at Pukeahu National War Memorial where both chiefs paid tribute to fallen soldiers before a series of briefings held at Defence House.

Discussions included insights into both armies' training modernisation, how each service is approaching innovation and the adoption of autonomous systems, as well as discuss upcoming significant multinational exercises where both Singapore and New Zealand are set to attend.

New Zealand's Chief of Army, Major General Rose King, said the opportunity to conduct honest and open dialogue with close partners is vital in the current environment.

"We are at a point in time where the value of partnerships and military relationships based on trust and authentic peer-to-peer engagement is more important than I remember during the course of my career," said Major General King.

"Singapore has been an important partner to us for many years and they play a pivotal role when it comes to upholding a peaceful and prosperous Indo Pacific. Having the opportunity to host Major General Cai and his team just cemented that partnership further, and showed us that our partnership is not only in a good place, but continues to evolve and strengthen."

Singapore is a key partner to New Zealand in the Indo Pacific Region, and along with Australia, the United Kingdom and Malaysia form the Five Powers Defence Agreement (FPDA).

Soldiers and personnel from the Singapore Army are also regular visitors to New Zealand, with gunners from the 24th Battalion, Singapore Artillery, having conducted the exercise in the Waiouru Military Training Area for nearly 30 years.

The variety and challenging terrain of the Central Plateau, combined with the relevant and necessary space required to train artillery and heavy weapons systems, makes Waiouru a unique landscape across the Pacific.

"It was fantastic to see them in action here one last time," said Major General King.

"We acknowledge that it is the end of an era for our Singaporean friends, because the SSPH has become such an important weapon system not only for them, but also for us as we have hosted them here for so many years. At the same time, we're excited to see what the next chapter brings for their artillery battalion."

Singaporean personnel were among more than 140 personnel to link up at Linton Military Camp in November last year for the annual Command Post Exercise Suman Warrior.

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White House reiterates Trump opposes Israeli annexation of West Bank: report

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 13:34, February 10, 2026

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- A White House official reportedly reiterated on Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump remains opposed to Israel's annexation of the West Bank, two days ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's scheduled visit to Washington.

"A stable West Bank keeps Israel secure and is in line with this administration's goal to achieve peace in the region," the official was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Trump has repeatedly said that he will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank, which is seen as a "red line" for Arab leaders and a key element of the U.S.-drafted peace deal ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict last year.

"I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank. I will not allow it. It's not going to happen," Trump told reporters in the White House in September.

However, the report does not say Trump will block all settlement expansion, but that he opposes formal annexation of the territory.

Trump is expected to hold talks with Netanyahu on Iran at the White House on Wednesday, according to a brief statement from Netanyahu's office. The two leaders last met in December.

Israel's security cabinet approved decisions on Sunday to deepen control over the West Bank and expand Jewish settlement there, sparking widespread condemnation.

On Monday, the foreign ministers of eight Arab and Muslim countries condemned in the strongest terms the "illegal" Israeli decisions aimed at entrenching settlement activity. Later, the EU and the UN also voiced condemnation over the Israeli move, calling it "another step in the wrong direction" and having "no legal validity."

Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East War, areas widely recognized as the basis for a Palestinian state under the two-state solution.

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Russo-Ukraine War - 09 February 2026 - Day 1446

Su M Tu W Th F Sa 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

A number of claims and counterclaims are being made on the Ukraine-Russia conflict on the ground and online. While GlobalSecurity.org takes utmost care to accurately report this news story, we cannot independently verify the authenticity of all statements, photos and videos.

On 24 February 2022, Ukraine was suddenly and deliberately attacked by land, naval and air forces of Russia, igniting the largest European war since the Great Patriotic War. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "special military operation" (SVO - spetsialnaya voennaya operatsiya) in Ukraine in response to the appeal of the leaders of the "Donbass republics" for help. That attack is a blatant violation of the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine. Putin stressed that Moscow's goal is the demilitarization and denazification of the country. The military buildup in preceeding months makes it obvious that the unprovoked and dastardly Russian attack was deliberately planned long in advance. During the intervening time, the Russian government had deliberately sought to deceive the world by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

"To initiate a war of aggression... is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." [Judgment of the International Military Tribunal]

The French Ministere des Armees et des Anciens combattants reported that on the ground, the pace of operations remains slowed down due to extreme weather conditions and the territorial gains of the belligerents are very limited. The Russian Armed Forces maintain their pressure on the Donbass front and in the south, towards Zaporizhzhia. The Ukrainian Armed Forces continue their attacks in the Kupyansk sector.

It also reported that the Russian Armed Forces target the same oblasts in eastern Ukraine on a daily basis. During the night of February 6 to 7, a massive strike also hit energy installations in the west of the country, in an attempt to cut off electricity flows coming from EU countries. Over the last 48 hours, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have targeted energy objectives in the Belgorod, Saratov and Bryansk oblasts, as well as military-interest targets in Redkino (130 km northwest of Moscow), and in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.



The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that in total, since the beginning of this day, there have been 159 combat clashes. Defense forces stop Russian occupiers, exhaust their combat potential and inflict effective fire on the entire frontline.

The Russian enemy made one rocket strike, using 2 rockets, 43 aviation strikes, dropped 113 controlled air bombs. In addition, used 4034 kamikaze drones and carried out 2089 shelling of settlements and positions of Ukrainian troops.

In the Northern Slobozhansky and Kursk directions today, one confrontation took place, the Russian enemy carried out 54 shelling of the positions of Ukrainian troops and settlements.

In the South Slobozhansky direction, Russian forces five times attacked the positions of Ukrainian units in the area of the settlements of Prylipka, Zelene and Vovchansk.

In the Kupians 'komu direction, the Russian enemy attacked three times in the areas of Pi any and Dovgen ky. One battle is going on.

In the Lyman direction, Ukrainian soldiers stopped five Russian attacks in the areas of Stavkiv, Drobishevy and Novoselivka.

In the Slavic direction, Ukrainian defenders repelled 12 Russian attempts to advance towards Paradise-Oleksandrivka, Lake, Dronivka, Zakitnogo and Platonivka.

In the direction of Kramators komu, the Russian opponent tried to advance towards Stupocok.

In the Konstantinivka direction, the Russian occupiers today stormed the positions of Ukrainian defenders 12 times near the settlements of Konstyantinivka, Kleban-Bik, Rusin Yar, Stepanivka, Illinivka and Novopavlivka. One attack is underway.

Russian troops made 36 attacks in the Pokrovsky direction. The Russian occupiers tried to advance in the areas of settlements Sofiyivka, Rodinske, Mirnograd, Pokrovsk, Kotline, Udacne, Molodetske, Novopidgorodne, Novopavlivka, Ivanivka, Filia and Dachne.

According to preliminary estimates, 57 Russian occupants were eliminated and 35 injured in this direction; 6 units of car equipment destroyed and damaged. 19 personnel cover ups and destroyed the cannon of the Russian enemy.

In the Oleksandrivsky direction, according to the information, Ukrainian units stopped two Russian attacks in the Ivanivka area.

17 Russian attacks took place in the Gulyaipil direction: in the area of Gulyaipol and in the direction of Zlagoda, Dobropillya, Zalizny, Zelenoy, Zagirny and Svyatopetrivka. Also the Russian enemy caused air strikes near Gulyajpil s .kogo, dibrova, charming and vozdvizhivka.

In the Orihivs komu direction, theRussian enemy twice attacked the positions of Ukrainian defenders in the areas of Stepnogirsk and Malih scherbakiv.

In the Pridniprovsk direction, the Russian enemy's offensive actions did not occur.

In other directions, no significant changes in the environment have been recorded at this time.

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported that the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation.

The Sever Group of Forces improved the tactical situation. Losses were inflicted on formations of an assault regiment of the AFU and a territorial defence brigade near Iskrikovshchina, Kharkovka, Pokrovka, and Ugroyedy in Sumy region.

In Kharkov region, units of a mechanised brigade, a motorised infantry brigade of the AFU, a territorial defence brigade, and a Ukrainian border service detachment have been hit near Kazachaya Lopan, Grafskoye, Petropavlovka, Okhrimovka, Tikhoye, and Malaya Volchya in Kharkov region.

The AFU losses amounted to up to 205 troops, one armoured fighting vehicle, and 10 motor vehicles. One electronic warfare station and three ammunition and materiel depots were neutralised.

The Zapad Group of Forces' units took more advantageous lines and positions. Russian troops inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of two mechanised brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and a national guard brigade close to Borovaya, Nechvolodovka, Kovsharovka, Shiykovka in Kharkov region, Koroviy Yar, Sosnovoye, and Aleksandrovka in the Donetsk People's Republic.

The enemy lost more than 130 troops, 10 motor vehicles, and four ammunition depots.

Units of the Yug Group of Forces improved the situation along the front line. Three mechanised brigades, a mountain assault brigade, an assault brigade, a motorised infantry brigade, an AFU UAV battalion, and a territorial defence brigade were hit near Alekseyevo-Druzhkovka, Reznikovka, Nikiforovka, Berestok, Kramatorsk, and Konstantinovka in the Donetsk People's Republic.

The AFU losses amounted to up to 125 troops, one German-made Leopard tank, one U.S.-made M113 armoured personnel carrier, four armoured fighting vehicles, 10 motor vehicles, and one field artillery gun. One materiel depot was destroyed.

The Tsentr Group of Forces' units took more advantageous lines and positions. Losses were inflicted on manpower and hardware of three mechanised brigades, a jaeger brigade, an airmobile brigade, an assault regiment of the AFU, three national guard brigades, and the Azov Special Operations Brigade close to Maryevka, Grishino, Novofedorovka, Toretskoye, Novy Donbass, Shevchenko, Krasnoyarskoye, Belitskoye, Dobropolye, Svetloye in the Donetsk People's Republic, Novopodgorodnoye, and Novopavlovka in Dnepropetrovsk region.

The AFU losses amounted to more than 240 troops, two armoured fighting vehicles, and eight motor vehicles.

The Vostok Group of Forces' units continued to advance into the depths of enemy defences. Losses were inflicted on formations of a mechanised brigade, an assault brigade, and three assault regiments of the AFU close to Zelenaya Dibrova, Nezhenka, Zaliznichnoye, Staroukrainka, Rizdvyanka, Vozdvizhenka (Zaporozhye region), Kommunarovka, and Pokrovskoye (Dnepropetrovsk region).

The enemy lost up to 355 troops, five armoured fighting vehicles, and two motor vehicles.

Units of the Dnepr Group of Forces inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of a mountain assault brigade of the AFU near Orekhov in Zaporozhye region.

Up to 20 troops, one armoured fighting vehicle, six motor vehicles, and two materiel depots have been neutralised.

Operational-Tactical Aviation, attack drones, missile troops and artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces have inflicted damage on the infrastructure of a military airfield, fuel and power complex and transport infrastructure used in the interests of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as temporary deployment areas of Ukrainian armed formations and foreign mercenaries in 142 areas.

Air defence systems shot down three guided aerial bombs and 72 fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles.

In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 670 aircraft, 283 helicopters, 112,996 unmanned aerial vehicles, 650 anti-aircraft missile systems, 27,568 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,661 MLRS vehicles, 33,163 field artillery guns and mortars, and 53,959 special military vehicles have been neutralised.

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Wyoming National Guard Soldiers complete advanced wildfire behavior training

By Maj. Craig Heilig February 9, 2026

CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- For Soldiers assigned to the Wyoming National Guard's Training Center Command, understanding how a wildfire moves can mean the difference between a controlled response and a dangerous situation that shifts without warning.

That reality was at the center of the S-290 Intermediate Wildland Fire Behavior course held at the Southeast Wyoming Wildland Academy in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Feb. 7-8, 2026. The 40-hour course strengthened participants' ability to safely evaluate and predict wildfire behavior during emergency operations, skills that directly support missions across the state.

Developed by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group, the course focuses on how weather, topography and fuels interact to influence fire behavior  factors that can change rapidly and place firefighters at risk if not properly understood.

"Understanding fire behavior is about keeping Soldiers safe while they accomplish the mission," said Craig Heilig, spokesman for the Southeast Wyoming Wildland Academy. "This course gives our personnel the tools to make informed decisions in rapidly changing wildfire environments."

Soldiers from Training Center Command operations and firefighting sections attended the training, building a shared understanding that strengthens coordination during real-world wildfire response efforts. Those skills are particularly critical at Camp Guernsey, where Guard personnel routinely support firefighting and emergency operations during wildfire season.

The S-290 course emphasizes recognizing early indicators of changing fire behavior, helping firefighters anticipate hazards before they escalate. This advanced level of situational awareness is a key factor in reducing risk on the fireline and preventing accidents during suppression operations.

Beyond immediate safety benefits, completion of S-290 also supports long-term professional development. The course is a prerequisite for leadership positions such as Firefighter Type 1, Crew Boss, Engine Boss, and Incident Commander Type 5, preparing Soldiers to assume greater responsibility during complex incidents.

As a nationally recognized qualification under the National Interagency Incident Management System, S-290 ensures Wyoming National Guard Soldiers can integrate seamlessly with local, state and federal partners during multi-agency wildfire responses.

Ultimately, the training supports a mission that extends beyond the fireline. By applying these skills during wildfire operations at Camp Guernsey and across Wyoming, trained Soldiers help protect lives, property and the natural landscapes communities depend on.

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Coast Guard, CBP, Homeland Security Task Force partner agencies apprehend stowaway smuggler, seize $5 million in cocaine in San Juan Harbor

United States Coast Guard

Press Release | Feb. 9, 2026

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Coast Guard Station San Juan and Sector San Juan Boarding Team members working with Homeland Security Task Force - San Juan Region partner agencies apprehended a stowaway smuggler and seized 10 bales of cocaine in San Juan Harbor, Puerto Rico, Jan. 28, 2026.

The seized contraband weighed a combined total of 358kgs/789.25 pounds and is estimated to have a wholesale value of more than $5 million. The apprehended suspect faces federal prosecution on drug trafficking charges.

Sector San Juan Command Center watchstanders received a VHF Channel 16 marine radio communication from inbound Tug vessel Signet Thunder at approximately 5:48 a.m., Jan. 28, 2026, while the vessel was towing the barge San Juan-JaxBridge to the Old Army Terminal port facility in San Juan Harbor. The tug Signet Thunder reported that a crewmember from an assist tugboat had boarded the barge and sighted a stowaway onboard. The tugboat further relayed they would hold position and wait for assistance. Watchstanders directed Station San Juan to launch and alerted Customs and Border Protection's Caribbean Air and Marine Branch and Office of Field Operations, and Puerto Rico Police Joint Forces of Rapid Action marine units which also responded.

Watchstanders issued an Urgent Marine Information Broadcast to advise vessel traffic to be on the lookout for distress. Shortly thereafter, the Station San Juan boat crew sighted and recovered one person and 10 bales of suspected contraband from the water. Once pier side, Sector Boarding Team and Customs and Border Protection Office of Field Operations officers completed a boarding of the Signet Thunder and the barge and found no other stowaways or contraband onboard. The suspect and seized contraband were transferred to Homeland Security Task Force-San Juan law enforcement partners at Coast Guard Base San Juan, Puerto Rico.

"This case highlights a great response and interoperability between Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, and Puerto Rico Police responding units and the strong collaboration within Homeland Security Task Force - San Juan partner agencies to secure the nation's Eastern Caribbean maritime borders from illicit drug trafficking," said Cmdr. Matthew Romano. Sector San Juan chief of response. "We commend the actions of the tugboat Signet Thunder which reflect positively on the maritime community and the important role they play in safeguarding our nation's navigable waterways. We are proud to stand the watch alongside our Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice and our local law enforcement partners as we continue to combat illicit trafficking throughout the waters of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands."

The Coast Guard is part of a whole-of-government approach to protect our maritime approaches in the Eastern Caribbean and secure our nation's borders by interdicting drug smuggling activities at sea and dismantling Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) and Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCO), including narco-trafficking and human smuggling operations.

This counterdrug interdiction is part of the Homeland Security Task Force HSTF initiative established by Executive Order 14519. Protecting American People Against Invasion. The HSTF is a whole of government partnership dedicated to eliminating criminal cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and human smuggling and trafficking rings operating in the United States and abroad. Through historic interagency collaboration the HSTF directs the full might of the United States law enforcement towards identifying, investigating, and prosecuting the full spectrum of crimes committed by these organizations, which have long fueled violence and instability within our borders. In performing this work, the HSTF places special emphasis on investigating and prosecuting those engaged in child trafficking or other crimes involving children. The HSTF further utilizes all available tools to prosecute and remove the most violent criminal aliens from the United States. HSTF San Juan Region comprises agents and officers from Coast Guard Sector San Juan, the Coast Guard Investigative Service; the Drug Enforcement Administration Caribbean Division; the Federal Bureau of Investigation San Juan Field Office; United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement - Homeland Security Investigations; U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Office of Field Operations, Air and Marine Operations Caribbean Branch, and U.S. Border Patrol Ramey Sector; the United States Marshals Service Districts of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands; the U.S. Postal Inspection Service Miami Division - San Juan Field Office; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives - Miami Field Division; the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area - Puerto Rico / Virgin Islands; the Transportation Security Administration - Federal Air Marshal; the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of State Bureau of Diplomatic Security - RAC San Juan, the United States Secret Service and the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Puerto Rico.

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Taiwan condemns 'political persecution' after Jimmy Lai gets 20-year sentence

ROC Central News Agency

02/09/2026 03:14 PM

Taipei, Feb. 9 (CNA) Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Monday "strongly condemned" what it called the "political persecution" by Chinese authorities after Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai () was sentenced to 20 years in prison under the Hong Kong National Security Law (HKNSL).

In a statement, MAC said it "condemns the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Hong Kong government for using national security as a pretext to suppress freedom and human rights."

As Taiwan's top government agency handling cross-Taiwan Strait affairs, MAC urged the Chinese and Hong Kong authorities to "stop the political persecution and immediately release Lai."

MAC's response came after the Hong Kong High Court earlier Monday sentenced the 78-year-old Lai to 20 years in prison, the longest sentence handed down so far in a national security case since the HKNSL took effect in the former British colony on June 30, 2020.

The sentence followed a High Court ruling on Dec. 15 last year that found Lai guilty on two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces under the HKNSL, as well as one count of conspiracy to publish seditious materials under the Crimes Ordinance, a colonial-era law.

A longtime critic of Beijing, Lai is regarded by supporters as a pro-democracy activist. He founded Apple Daily in Hong Kong in 1995 -- two years before the city's handover to China -- and later launched a sister publication in Taiwan in 2003.

The Hong Kong newspaper, known for its pro-democracy stance, was forced to close in June 2021 after authorities froze its assets and arrested senior staff. The Taiwan edition ended operations in August 2022, citing organizational challenges.

Citing what it described as Hong Kong's "painful experience," MAC urged the public in Taiwan to safeguard their "hard-won freedoms" and called on the international community to remain alert to Beijing's erosion of human rights and to stand with Taiwan in "defending the democratic front line."

International groups also condemned the sentencing. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) denounced the jail terms given to Lai and six former Apple Daily executives on Monday, which ranged from six years and nine months to 10 years.

"This court decision underscores the complete collapse of press freedom in Hong Kong and the authorities' profound contempt for independent journalism," RSF Director General Thibaut Bruttin said in a statement.

Bruttin urged democratic countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States to exert pressure on Chinese authorities to secure the release of Lai -- a British citizen -- and other jailed journalists, warning that Lai's 20-year prison term "must not become a death sentence."

(By C.C. Li)

Enditem/kb

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Hong Kong: Spokesperson Statement on the sentencing of Jimmy Lai

European External Action Service (EEAS)

09.02.2026

EEAS Press Team

The EU deplores the heavy prison sentence of 20 years imposed on British citizen and media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai by the Hong Kong High Court on 9 February 2026. The EU reiterates its call for the immediate and unconditional release of Jimmy Lai, also in consideration of his advanced age and health condition.

The politically motivated prosecution of Jimmy Lai and the former Apple Daily executives and journalists harms Hong Kong's reputation. The EU calls on the Hong Kong authorities to restore confidence in press freedom in Hong Kong, one of the pillars of its historic success as an international financial centre, and to stop prosecuting journalists.

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'Jimmy Lai is a Chinese citizen,' FM spokesperson says, refuting Western claims on Lai's case and urging countries to stop interfering in China's internal affairs

Global Times

By Global Times Published: Feb 09, 2026 04:07 PM

"I would first like to point out that Jimmy Lai is a Chinese citizen," said Lin Jian, spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, on Monday in response to a question about the latest sentencing in Lai's case, as well as the mention of Lai as a British national by the British prime minister during his visit to China, and the call by US President Donald Trump for China to release Lai.

Lai was a principal planner and participant in a series of anti-China and Hong Kong-disrupting incidents. His actions seriously undermined the bottom line of the principle of "One Country, Two Systems," gravely endangered national security, and severely harmed Hong Kong's prosperity, stability, and the well-being of its residents; therefore, he deserves severe punishment under the law, Lin stated.

Hong Kong is a society governed by the rule of law. The HKSAR judicial authorities perform their duties in accordance with the law, uphold the authority of the law, and safeguard national security in a manner that is reasonable, lawful, and beyond reproach. The central government firmly supports the HKSAR in safeguarding national security in accordance with the law and in punishing crimes that endanger national security, the spokesperson said.

Practice has shown that the better the National Security Law for Hong Kong is implemented, the more stable and secure Hong Kong society becomes, Lin said. The rights and freedoms of the vast majority of Hong Kong residents are better protected, Hong Kong's "golden brand" continues to shine, and the practice of "One Country, Two Systems" can proceed steadily and sustainably, the spokesperson added.

Regarding remarks by foreign countries, Lin said that relevant judicial cases are purely internal affairs of the HKSAR. China urges relevant countries to respect China's sovereignty and Hong Kong's rule of law, refrain from making irresponsible remarks about judicial proceedings in the HKSAR, and stop interfering in Hong Kong's judicial affairs or in China's internal affairs in any form.

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Multiple central govt's authorities in HKSAR voice support for 20-yrs-imprisonment sentence of anti-China riots instigator Jimmy Lai

Global Times

By Global Times Published: Feb 09, 2026 03:25 PM

Multiple central government's authorities in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) expressed firm support on Monday for the HKSAR in fulfilling its constitutional responsibility to safeguard national security and in lawfully handing down a sentence decision in the Jimmy Lai case after the High Court of the HKSAR on Monday morning sentenced Lai, an instigator of anti-China riots in Hong Kong, to 20 years in prison.

This sentence sends a stern and forceful message that no matter who it is, anyone who dares to challenge laws safeguarding national security will be severely punished, the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, said in a statement on Monday.

The sentence imposed on Lai fully demonstrates the HKSAR's firm resolve to safeguard national security and powerfully underscores the spirit of the rule of law, the office said.

The sentence handed down to Lai fully reflects Hong Kong society's united indignation against the ringleaders of anti-China and Hong Kong-disrupting activities, and strongly upholds fairness and justice, the office added.

Lai was found guilty in December by the High Court of the HKSAR on two charges of conspiring to collude with external forces and a charge of conspiracy to publish seditious materials. Mitigation hearing for Lai's case began on January 12 and concluded on January 13, according to Xinhua News Agency.

The defendants in the national security case include Lai, Apple Daily Limited, Apple Daily Printing Limited, and Apple Daily Internet Limited, all facing charges of conspiracy to publish seditious materials and conspiracy to collude with external forces. Lai was also facing a separate charge of conspiring to collude with external forces, per Xinhua.

The trial officially commenced on December 18, 2023, and has been presided over by three judges appointed under the national security law in Hong Kong, Xinhua said.

During the 156 days of public hearings, 2,220 pieces of evidence and more than 80,000 pages of documents were fully presented in court, and 14 prosecution witnesses testified in person and were carefully cross-examined. The facts of Lai's crimes in colluding with external forces to endanger national security were clear, the evidence was solid and sufficient, and the proceedings were open, transparent, rigorous, compliant, fair, and just, with all of Lai's lawful rights fully protected. The 855-page conviction judgment was based on clear reasoning, a spokesperson from the central government's office for safeguarding national security in HKSAR, said on Monday.

The trial process fully demonstrated that Lai was a principal planner and participant in a series of anti-China and Hong Kong-disrupting incidents. He long manipulated media tools to create and spread rumors, foment division, incite hatred, glorify violence, and even clamored about "fighting for the US." He acted as an agent and advance operative of external anti-China forces, was a behind-the-scenes "instigator" of the "amendment bill unrest," and was truly a ringleader of anti-China and Hong Kong-disrupting activities. He was the mastermind behind the three charges of conspiring with external forces to endanger national security, the spokesperson said.

His actions seriously endangered national security, severely challenged the constitutional order of the HKSAR, and gravely harmed Hong Kong's prosperity, stability, and the well-being of its residents. His crimes were grave and, according to law, deserved severe punishment, the spokesperson added.

A spokesperson from the central government's liaison office in the HKSAR said this sentence fully reflects the HKSAR's firm determination and strong resolve to punish, in accordance with the law, criminal acts and activities that endanger national security.

During the lawful trial and fair adjudication of Lai's case, some politicians from countries such as the US and the UK ignored the basic norms of international relations, disregarded the strict national security laws of their own countries, and ignored the conclusive evidence in the Lai case, the spokesperson said.

They colluded with anti-China and Hong Kong-disrupting figures who had absconded abroad, openly supported and shielded Lai, glorified his actions, and attempted to intervene and exert pressure, seeking to absolve him of his crimesthereby fully exposing their barbaric nature and the hypocrisy of their double standards, the spokesperson noted.

Lai's crimes are heinous and numerous. His 20-year imprisonment sentence demonstrates the rule of law, upholds justice, and is deeply gratifying to the public, the HKSAR Chief Executive John Lee said on Monday in a social media post.

For a long time, Lai used Apple Daily to poison the minds of citizens, incite hatred, distort facts, deliberately sow social division, and glorify violence. He openly begged external forces to impose sanctions on the China and the HKSAR, sacrificing the well-being of the people, betraying the country, and harming Hong Kong. The evidence against him is overwhelming, and he has received the punishment he deserves, Lee said.

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Hong Kong High Court sentences anti-China riots agitator Jimmy Lai 20 years in prison; ruling demonstrates dignity of rule of law in HK, legal expert says

Global Times

By Chen Qingqing Published: Feb 09, 2026 01:12 PM

"Jimmy Lai is a Chinese national," said Lin Jian, spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, on Monday. Lai was the principal mastermind and perpetrator behind the series of riots that shook Hong Kong. His moves seriously breached the principles and bottom line of One Country, Two Systems, endanger national security and hurt Hong Kong's prosperity and stability and Hong Kong residents' wellbeing. There is every reason to bring him to justice, Lin said.

Those remarks were made just hours after the High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) on Monday morning sentenced Jimmy Lai, an instigator of anti-China riots in Hong Kong, to 20 years in prison.

Lai was found guilty in December by the High Court of the HKSAR on two charges of conspiring to collude with external forces and a charge of conspiracy to publish seditious materials. Mitigation hearing for Lai's case began on January 12 and concluded on January 13, according to Xinhua News Agency.

The defendants in the national security case include Lai, Apple Daily Limited, Apple Daily Printing Limited, and Apple Daily Internet Limited, all facing charges of conspiracy to publish seditious materials and conspiracy to collude with external forces. Lai was also facing a separate charge of conspiring to collude with external forces, per Xinhua.

Wide ranging reaction

Inside the courtroom, as the judge read out the verdict, Lai kept his head lowered throughout with a grave expression. When the 20-year imprisonment sentence was announced, someone in the courtroom audience stood up, raised a hand, and shouted "Good!", a brief exclamation that voiced the long-held hopes of many for justice to be done, according to local media including Sing Tao Daily.

Multiple central government authorities in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) expressed firm support on Monday for the HKSAR in fulfilling its constitutional responsibility to safeguard national security and in lawfully handing down a sentence decision in the Lai's case.

This sentence sends a stern and forceful message that no matter who it is, anyone who dares to challenge laws safeguarding national security will be severely punished, the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, said in a statement on Monday.

For many Hong Kong residents, Jimmy Lai and Apple Daily are associated with the violent unrest in 2019. Chu Kar-kin, a Hong Kong resident who personally experienced the 2019 "black violence" riots, told Global Times after the court handed down its sentence on Monday that the verdict was "deeply satisfying."

Chu recalled that during that period in 2019, a cloud of violence hung over Hong Kong society, severely disrupting the daily lives of residents. Whether commuting to work or school, dining out, or shopping, people were gripped by anxiety and fear. MTR stations were defaced with graffiti and heavily damaged, street violence was frequent, and residents worried they could be attacked at any moment by black-clad mobs, seriously undermining normal social order. For families with children in particular, the experience cast a long and indelible shadow over their children's growth. "Justice may be delayed, but it is never denied," Chu said.

In addition to orchestrating the riots in Hong Kong, Lai also made heinous remarks about China.

In July 2019, Lai attended a conversation hosted by the US think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where he made an outrageous and extremist statement, openly urging the US to use nuclear weapons against China, CGTN reported.

His extremist, anti-human rhetoric was widely condemned as reckless and dangerous, drawing strong criticism from multiple sides, per CGTN.

The court's ruling strictly adhered to the principles of legality and proportionality in sentencing, Willy Fu, a law professor who is also director of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong & Macao Studies, told the Global Times on Monday.

"Based on conclusive evidence that had been fairly examined in court and on the relevant legal provisions, the court assessed the actual and potential threats posed by Lai's criminal conduct to overall national security and ultimately imposed a corresponding severe sentence, fully reflecting Hong Kong's fine tradition of the rule of law," Fu said.

Lai's 20-year imprisonment sentence is an inevitable outcome of Hong Kong's judicial system safeguarding national security and the dignity of the rule of law. It demonstrates a firm stance that any act endangering national interests will be met with severe punishment under the law, a local legal expert said on Monday.

"Lai's crimes have long been irrefutable in the face of overwhelming evidence. For years, he colluded with external forces, pleaded for foreign countries to impose sanctions on China and Hong Kong, and openly challenged the fundamental principle of 'One Country, Two Systems'," Louis Chen, member of the Hong Kong Election Committee, told the Global Times.

Lai's case underscores the fairness and impartiality of the rule of law in Hong Kong and shows that no one is above the law, Lau Siu-kai, a consultant from the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies who is also a senior policy advisor, told the Global Times on Monday.

"In the past, many believed that Lai wielded enormous influence in Hong Kong and, emboldened by backing from external forces, was beyond the reach of legal action," Lau said.

The ability of judges and prosecutors to withstand pressure from the United States and Western countries, and to carry out judicial and law-enforcement duties without fear or favor, will also enhance Hong Kong's resolve and capacity to uphold the rule of law on the international stage, thereby boosting its international image and attractiveness as an investment destination, Lau noted.

Lai's crimes are heinous and numerous. His 20-year imprisonment sentence demonstrates the rule of law, upholds justice, and is deeply gratifying to the public, the HKSAR Chief Executive John Lee said on Monday in a social media post.

Refuting Western smears

Lai's 20-year imprisonment sentence on Monday was also covered by some mainstream Western media outlets, such as New York Times and BBC, which attempted to use the case to smear China.

Some legal experts and officials in the HKSAR have been repeatedly refuting some Western media reports about Lai, saying that by portraying Lai as a so-called "democracy and press freedom fighter", these reports were trying to smear the status of HKSAR's judicial system.

The UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper claimed that the sentence is a "politically motivated prosecution" aimed at Lai "for exercising his right to freedom of expression," Sky News reported on Monday.

On Monday, the Commissioner's Office of the Chinese Foreign Ministry in the HKSAR said in an article addressed to foreign media outlets stationed in the city that reporting on the Lai case in an objective and impartial manner is the responsibility of the media. It sincerely hopes that foreign journalists based in Hong Kong will respect the city's independent judicial ruling, uphold professional journalistic ethics, adhere to principles of objectivity and fairness in their reporting, and refrain from politicizing legal issues.

Facts have proven that when the law on safeguarding national security in Hong Kong is implemented well, there is greater assurance for security and stability in Hong Kong, for the rights and freedoms of Hong Kong residents, for Hong Kong's reputation, and for the steady and sustained implementation of One Country, Two Systems, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin said.

The judicial case is purely an internal affair of the Hong Kong SAR. We urge relevant countries to respect China's sovereignty, respect the rule of law in Hong Kong, not make irresponsible remarks on the Hong Kong SAR's handling of the case, and not interfere in Hong Kong's judicial affairs and China's internal affairs in any form, the spokesperson noted.

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Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian's Regular Press Conference on February 9, 2026

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the People's Republic of China

Updated: February 09, 2026 19:14

On February 10, Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi will attend and address the opening session of the First APEC 2026 Senior Officials' Meeting in Guangzhou.

Kyodo News: The Liberal Democratic Party won a landslide victory in yesterday's Lower House election which would keep Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in power. What foreign policy does China expect from the new government led by Takaichi?

Lin Jian: The election is the internal affair of Japan, but this election reflected some deep-seated and structural issues as well as certain emerging views, trends and developments, which deserve serious examination by people with insights in Japan and the international community. The lessons of history are still fresh in memory and should not be left behind. We urge those running the Japanese government to take seriously rather than brush aside the concerns of the international community, follow the path of peaceful development rather than return to militarism, and abide by the four political documents between China and Japan rather than go back on commitments made. If Japan's far-right forces miscalculate and act recklessly, they will be met by resistance from the Japanese people and serious backlash from the international community.

China's policy on Japan has been stable and consistent, and will not change because of one election. We once again urge Japan to retract the erroneous remarks of Sanae Takaichi on Taiwan, and take concrete actions to demonstrate the necessary sincerity to uphold the political foundation of China-Japan relations. Our message is very clear: The Chinese people remain unwavering in our determination to safeguard the nation's core interests, defend the outcomes of WWII victory and postwar international order, and fight back and thwart any form of provocation and reckless behavior of forces against China.

TV Asahi: When asked about a possible visit to the Yasukuni war shrine in an interview after the election, Sanae Takaichi said she is working to "create an environment." What is China's comment?

Lin Jian: The Yasukuni war shrine is a spiritual tool and symbol of Japanese militarists' war of aggression. The shrine honors 14 convicted Class-A war criminals responsible for Japan's aggression in the 1930s and 40s. The nature of the issue concerning the Yasukuni war shrine is whether Japan is able to rightly perceive and deeply reflect on its history of militarist aggression. The issue bears on human conscience, the political foundation of China-Japan relations and the credibility of Japan as a nation. Amnesia of history means betrayal, and denial of responsibility spells relapse. This year marks the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Tokyo trials. In such a special year, Japan in particular needs to face squarely and reflect on its history of aggression, be prudent on historical issues such as the Yasukuni war shrine, not repeat history and make a clean break with militarism with real actions.

AFP: Jimmy Lai was sentenced to 20 years in prison today for what Hong Kong authorities have declared national security crimes. Lai is a UK citizen and his case was raised by Prime Minister Keir Starmer on his recent trip to China. President Donald Trump has also previously asked China to release Lai. What is the Foreign Ministry's comment on his sentencing today?

Lin Jian: Jimmy Lai is the principal mastermind and perpetrator behind the series of riots that shook Hong Kong. His moves seriously breached the principles and bottom line of One Country, Two Systems, endangered national security and hurt Hong Kong's prosperity and stability and Hong Kong residents' wellbeing. There is every reason to bring him to justice.

Hong Kong upholds the rule of law. The judicial authorities of the Hong Kong SAR perform their duties in accordance with the law to uphold its sanctity and safeguard national security. This is legitimate, justified, lawful and beyond reproach. The central government firmly supports the Hong Kong SAR in safeguarding national security and punishing criminal activities that endanger national security in accordance with the law.

Facts have proven that when the law on safeguarding national security in Hong Kong is implemented well, there is greater assurance for security and stability in Hong Kong, for the rights and freedoms of Hong Kong residents, for Hong Kong's reputation, and for the steady and sustained implementation of One Country, Two Systems.

Jimmy Lai is a Chinese national. The judicial case is purely an internal affair of the Hong Kong SAR. We urge relevant countries to respect China's sovereignty, respect the rule of law in Hong Kong, not make irresponsible remarks on the Hong Kong SAR's handling of the case, and not interfere in Hong Kong's judicial affairs and China's internal affairs in any form.

TV Tokyo: There is a view that China's recent tough stance toward Japan had a significant impact on the outcome of Japan's election yesterday. What is your assessment of this?

Lin Jian: China never interferes in other countries' internal affairs and firmly opposes any erroneous words and deeds that interfere in China's internal affairs, infringe on China's core interests, violate international law and basic norms governing international relations and disrupt regional peace and stability. China's policy toward Japan is clear and maintains continuity and consistency. Whichever leader or political party is in power in Japan, they must abide by the four political documents between China and Japan and Japan's own pacifist Constitution, and honor Japan's commitments and international obligations.

TV Tokyo: Following Japan's election results, many posts have appeared on Chinese social media expressing concern about a rightward shift in Japan. How does the Chinese government view this reaction?

Lin Jian: Japanese militarists once led Japan to the war of aggression, committed horrendous crimes against Japan's Asian neighbors and the world, and also inflicted untold suffering on the Japanese people. No one should forget the potent lessons of history. Only by truly learning those lessons can one look to the future. Whether Japan will stick to the path of peaceful development and take concrete actions to earn the trust of its Asian neighbors and the international community, or go against the trend of history and challenge the post-war international order, is a serious question for those running the Japanese government and people with insights in Japan.

TV Asahi: The Liberal Democratic Party won Japan's Lower House election. Commenting on Sanae Takaichi's election victory, U.S. President Donald Trump said that he wished Takaichi "great success" in passing her "peace through strength agenda." What is China's comment?

Lin Jian: The election is Japan's domestic affair. The way that the U.S. and Japan handle their bilateral relations should be conducive to keeping the region peaceful and stable.

AFP: It's been reported that U.S. President Donald Trump's Board of Peace will hold a leaders' meeting in Washington, D.C. on February 19. That's next Thursday. Can the Foreign Ministry confirm that China was invited to this meeting? If so, will China attend and who?

Lin Jian: We previously answered questions concerning the Board of Peace and have nothing to add.

AFP: China has overturned the death sentence of Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, according to a Canadian official and Schellenberg's lawyer. Does the Foreign Ministry have comments on this decision? Can it be seen as a signal of improving relations between China and Canada?

Lin Jian: We've learned that relevant Chinese judicial authorities recently reviewed the death penalty case and issued a ruling. For anything specific, I'd refer you to competent authorities.

Let me stress that Chinese judicial authorities handle the case and make the ruling independently in accordance with the law.

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China issues white paper on HKSAR safeguarding national security, move welcomed as coming at 'exactly the right time'

Global Times

By Chen Qingqing Published: Feb 10, 2026 11:33 AM

China's State Council Information Office on Tuesday released a white paper titled "Hong Kong: Safeguarding China's National Security Under the Framework of One Country, Two Systems," according to the Xinhua News Agency.

Speaking with reporters on Tuesday morning, John Lee, Chief Executive of the HKSAR, said the release of the white paper is "of great significance and has come at exactly the right time," according to local media reports.

Lee said he had drawn three key understandings from the white paper - the struggle to safeguard national security in Hong Kong has never ceased, risks still exist, and constant vigilance is required; national security is a matter under the central authorities' purview, and Hong Kong supports the implementation of the National Security Law at the national level; high-level security is needed to safeguard the development of the One Country, Two Systems endeavor.

The white paper delivers a stern warning to traitors who endanger national security, Lee said. Referring to the verdict in Jimmy Lai's case, Lee noted that it shows Lai's crimes were numerous and egregious, that he seriously harmed the interests of the HKSAR and the country, and that he shamelessly acted as a pawn of external forces. The ruling, he said, demonstrates justice being upheld.

The release of the white paper, shortly after the High Court of the HKSAR handed down a 20-year-imprisonment sentencing on anti-China instigator Jimmy Lai, carries clear significance in setting the record straight and articulate political and legal principles, thereby firmly rebutting unreasonable accusations from some West countries, a senior policy advisor in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) told the Global Times on Tuesday.

Consisting of five parts in addition to a preface and a conclusion, the white paper details the unrelenting fight for safeguarding national security in Hong Kong and the central government's fundamental responsibility for national security matters concerning Hong Kong, Xinhua said.

In the white paper with over 12,497 words, it said the Chinese government is publishing this document to review Hong Kong's endeavors in safeguarding national security and the experience and insights gained in the process, and also to clear up confusion and misunderstandings surrounding the issue to build consensus, and to ensure the high-quality development of the policy of One Country, Two Systems with high-standard security.

The white paper also reviewed the protracted fight around the local legislation on national security required by Article 23 of the Basic Law, the 2019 turmoil posed by the greatest challenge for safeguarding national security in Hong Kong, and how central government and local government responded to the 2019 turmoil including reinforcing the legal framework and enforcement mechanisms for safeguarding national security in the HKSAR, improving the region's electoral system and governance, and implementing the principle of patriots administering Hong Kong.

In the chapter III of the white paper, it reviewed the HKSAR's achievement in fulfilling its constitutional responsibility for safeguarding national security including completing legislation under Article 23 of the Basic Law, continuously improving Hong Kong's legal system for safeguarding national security and taking strong law enforcement and judicial actions to safeguard national security

After the High Court delivered the sentencing on Lai's national security case, some Western countries, as they routinely do, voiced opposition and raised so-called doubts. Against this backdrop, the central authorities released this white paper, which carries clear significance in setting the record straight, Lawrence Tang Fei, a member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

Through this white paper, the full context of the matter is laid out clearly, and the relevant political ethics and principles of the rule of law are systematically clarified, fundamentally explaining how China as a whole, and the Hong Kong SAR in particular, have handled the issue in accordance with the law, Tang said.

The High Court of the HKSAR on Monday morning sentenced Jimmy Lai, an instigator of anti-China riots in Hong Kong, to 20 years in prison.

Lai was found guilty in December 2025 by the High Court of the HKSAR on two charges of conspiring to collude with external forces and a charge of conspiracy to publish seditious materials. Mitigation hearing for Lai's case began on January 12 and concluded on January 13, according to Xinhua.

The purpose of the white paper is also to elaborate on the central authorities' primary responsibility and lawful practice in safeguarding national security in Hong Kong under the framework of One Country, Two Systems, and to make clear that no internal or external hostile forces will be allowed to undermine Hong Kong's One Country, Two Systems, its prosperity and stability, or national security, Lau Siu-kai, a consultant from the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies who is also a senior policy advisor, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

"It also serves as a warning and deterrent to the US and Western forces," Lau said, noting that given the severe and complex international situation, and the fact that some Western countries remain determined to contain China and will continue to use Hong Kong in various ways to endanger national security and the city's security, the white paper in effect makes clear that the central authorities will not relax their efforts in safeguarding national security.

Multiple central government agencies expressed the support for the release of the white paper, hailing its far-reaching significance.

The white paper comprehensively reviews the course of Hong Kong's efforts to safeguard national security, elaborates in depth on the central government's principled positions on this issue, and systematically summarizes the experience and insights gained in safeguarding national security under the framework of One Country, Two Systems, a spokesperson from the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council said on Tuesday.

The white paper is of major and far-reaching significance for fully, accurately, and unswervingly implementing the One Country, Two Systems policy, further advancing Hong Kong's work on safeguarding national security, and ensuring high-quality development of the One Country, Two Systems endeavor with a high level of security, the spokesperson said.

The white paper points the way for further advancing Hong Kong's work in safeguarding national security and injects strong momentum into building broader consensus on using high-level security to ensure the high-quality development of the One Country, Two Systems endeavor, a spokesperson from the central government's office for safeguarding national security in HKSAR said on Tuesday.

The liaison office of the central government in the HKSAR said on Tuesday that the white paper helps people gain a more comprehensive understanding that safeguarding national sovereignty, security, and development interests is the highest principle of the One Country, Two Systems policy, develop a deeper appreciation of the situation, tasks, and practical requirements facing Hong Kong in safeguarding national security, and more accurately grasp the direction and pathways for implementing the holistic national security concept and using high-level security to ensure high-quality development.

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Chinese Embassy in UK, Mission of China to EU reject claims of UK, EU on sentence of Jimmy Lai, urge them to refrain from interfering in China's internal affairs

Global Times

By Global Times Published: Feb 10, 2026 12:33 AM

Both the Chinese Embassy in the UK and the Mission of China to the EU rejected the latest claims made by the British side and the EU External Action on the sentencing of anti-China riots instigator Jimmy Lai on Monday, urging the British and the European sides to stop interfering in China's internal affairs.

We firmly oppose the UK side's erroneous comments and urge the UK side to respect China's judicial sovereignty and stop interfering in Hong Kong's rule of law and China's internal affairs, a spokesperson from the Chinese Embassy in the UK, said in a statement on Monday, in response to a statement issued by the British side on the 20-year-imprisonment sentence handed down by the High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region on Monday.

The High Court of the HKSAR on Monday morning sentenced Jimmy Lai, an instigator of anti-China riots in Hong Kong, to 20 years in prison.

Lai was found guilty in December by the High Court of the HKSAR on two charges of conspiring to collude with external forces and a charge of conspiracy to publish seditious materials. Mitigation hearing for Lai's case began on January 12 and concluded on January 13, according to Xinhua News Agency.

The UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper claimed that the sentence is a "politically motivated prosecution" aimed at Lai "for exercising his right to freedom of expression," Sky News reported on Monday.

The facts make it clear that Jimmy Lai was by no means "exercising his right to freedom of expression", as claimed by the UK side, but was instead a principal culprit who harmed China's fundamental national interests and the well-being of Hong Kong residents and betrayed his country, the spokesperson said.

In response to the EU External Action's statement on Lai's sentence on Monday, the Mission of China to the EU said in a statement on Monday that the EU statement disregards facts and legal principles, openly interferes in Hong Kong's judicial affairs, and constitutes a blatant intrusion into China's internal affairs. Chinese side expresses strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition.

Lai was the principal planner and participant in a series of anti-China and anti-Hong Kong incidents. His actions seriously undermined the fundamental principle of "One Country, Two Systems," gravely endangered national security, and severely harmed Hong Kong's prosperity, stability, and the wellbeing of its residents. There is every reason to bring him to justice, the Mission of China to the EU said.

Hong Kong is a society governed by the rule of law. The SAR's judicial authorities independently and impartially handled Lai's case in full accordance with the law; the proceedings were fair, reasonable, and legally sound, leaving no grounds for criticism, the Mission of China to the EU said.

Hong Kong affairs are purely China's internal matters, and no external forces have the right to interfere. We urge the EU to genuinely respect China's sovereignty and Hong Kong's rule of law, refrain from making irresponsible remarks on the SAR's judicial cases, and refrain from interfering in Hong Kong's judiciary or China's internal affairs in any form, it noted.

The spokesperson from the Chinese Embassy in the UK also noted that Hong Kong has long returned to China, and that British colonial rule over Hong Kong has long ended. The Sino-British Joint Declaration has long fulfilled its historical mission.

The constitutional and legal basis for the Chinese government's governance of Hong Kong lies in the Chinese Constitution and Hong Kong's Basic Law, not the Sino-British Joint Declaration. The UK side must stop using the Joint Declaration as a pretext to interfere in Hong Kong affairs, the spokesperson noted.

We urge the UK side to recognize the prevailing trend, abandon double standards, stop shielding criminals, and refrain from any words or actions that interfere in Hong Kong's rule of law and China's internal affairs, the spokesperson said.

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Central gov't office for safeguarding national security in HKSAR supports Jimmy Lai sentencing

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 09:33, February 10, 2026

HONG KONG, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- A spokesperson for the Office for Safeguarding National Security of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) said on Monday that the office firmly supports the sentencing decision made by the HKSAR judiciary on Jimmy Lai in accordance with the law.

The 156-day public trial, which involved the examination of 2,220 exhibits, over 80,000 pages of case files and testimonies of 14 prosecution witnesses, had established that Lai colluded with external forces to endanger national security, the spokesperson noted. The judicial process was open, transparent, rigorous, fair and just, with Lai's legal rights protected.

The trial demonstrated that Lai was a main orchestrator and participant in anti-China activities aimed at destabilizing Hong Kong, said the spokesperson. He acted as a proxy and pawn of external anti-China forces, as well as the mastermind behind the three crimes, including conspiring to collude with external forces to endanger national security.

"The punishment fit the crime," said the spokesperson.

Certain Western politicians' vile attempt to exploit Lai's case to damage the environment and foundation of Hong Kong's rule of law is doomed to fail, the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson stressed that the office will work with the HKSAR to resolutely and effectively prevent and block external interference.

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Russia vows 'all possible assistance' to Cuba as US squeezes oil supplies

Iran Press TV

Monday, 09 February 2026 6:53 PM

Russia has expressed its readiness to provide "all possible assistance" to Cuba as the United States intensifies its illegal blockade of oil supplies to the Caribbean country.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov made the remarks on Monday.

The administration of US President Donald Trump has, over the past month, deprived Cuba of its largest source of oil and plunged the island nation into a rapidly worsening energy crisis.

He said Russia is aware of the "truly critical" situation in Cuba and maintains close contact with its Cuban friends through diplomatic and other channels.

"The stranglehold imposed by the United States is already causing a lot of difficulties for Cuba," he added.

Moscow and Havana are discussing "possible ways to resolve these problems or at least provide all possible assistance."

Since it abducted Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro in early January, the Trump administration has also ramped up pressure on Cuba with talk of "regime change".

It has also barred Venezuelan oil or money from reaching Cuba and pressured Mexico to stop its shipments, threatening to slap tariffs on any country that sells oil to the Latin American country.

The Cuban government announced measures including fuel rationing, power outages and a four-day workweek for employees at state-run companies to ensure fuel supplies for key sectors.

In an X post, David Adler, co-general coordinator of Progressive International, said that "right now, Donald Trump is laying siege to the island of Cuba: asphyxiating its people, shuttering its hospitals, starving them of food."

On February 5, the G77 + China economic bloc reaffirmed its solidarity with Cuba and called on Washington to end its "economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed on Cuba for more than six decades".

Unilateral US measures are "contrary to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and international law," it added in a statement.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said last week that his government is willing to talk to the United States, just so long as it is "without pressure".

Cuba has received messages from the presidents of China and Russia, along with many others from across the world, he added. "They expressed their support, commitment, and determination to continue collaboration and cooperation with Cuba and Venezuela."

Meanwhile, Stephane Dujarric, a spokesperson for United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, warned that the UN chief is "extremely concerned about the humanitarian situation in Cuba, which will worsen, if not collapse, if its oil needs go unmet."

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Cuba suspends airline refueling amid US economic pressure

Iran Press TV

Monday, 09 February 2026 9:39 AM

Cuba has directed international airlines to suspend refueling operations on the island for one month following US measures that have disrupted essential oil supplies, significantly worsening the nation's energy crisis.

Cuban aviation authorities on Monday informed foreign carriers that aviation fuel would no longer be available at the country's airports.

The suspension, effective from midnight Monday, applies to both regional and long-haul flights, an official at a European airline stated on condition of anonymity.

Consequently, airlines are now required to make technical refueling stops abroad, resulting in operational delays and increased costs.

Air France confirmed that its aircraft would refuel elsewhere in the Caribbean, while other carriers are expected to rely on airports such as Cancun, Punta Cana, or Nassau.

Nearly 400 scheduled weekly flights are affected, placing additional strain on international air services to and from the island.

The crisis stems from a pronounced escalation in US measures against Cuba. Washington halted oil shipments from Venezuela following a military operation that resulted in the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in early January.

Subsequently, US President Donald Trump issued an executive order imposing the threat of tariffs on nations that continue supplying oil to Cuba.

Mexico, which has supplied oil to Cuba since 2023, has also come under US pressure. Trump stated that Mexico would cease shipments under the threat of tariffs, further constraining Cuba's access to energy.

The impact has been acute, as Cuba produces only approximately one-third of its fuel requirements and relies heavily on imports to maintain electricity generation, transportation, and aviation services.

In response, the Cuban government implemented emergency measures to mitigate the crisis. These include a four-day work week for state-owned enterprises, restrictions on fuel sales, reductions in interprovincial bus and rail services, and temporary closures of certain tourist facilities.

School days have been shortened, and universities have eased in-person attendance requirements to alleviate energy consumption.

The fuel shortage has heightened the risk of widespread power outages, with electricity plants struggling to sustain supply.

Cuban officials have stated that the current US strategy seeks to "strangle" the island's economy, worsening fuel shortages and power cuts that had already become more frequent in recent years.

President Miguel Diaz-Canel has affirmed that Cuba remains open to dialogue with the US, but only under conditions free from external pressure.

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North Korean military will 'widen fighting front' this year: Kim Jong Un

Iran Press TV

Monday, 09 February 2026 10:53 AM

North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un has said that the nation's military is expected to "widen its fighting front" to defend effectively against the enemy.

Speaking on Sunday at an event marking the 78th anniversary of the creation of the Korean People's Army (KPA) during a visit to the defense ministry, Kim said that North Korean forces were in store for major changes in 2026.

The North Korean leader emphasized that this year will be a year of "tremendous transformation" for the KPA as the fighting frontline will become wider and the demand for more strenuous efforts will increase.

"This year is a grand year of transformation, in which our military's fighting front must widen further and we must struggle more boldly," Kim said, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reporting on Monday.

Kim said new weapons will allow the military to play an "outstanding" role in the coming years.

North Korean military capabilities are to be "further enhanced ... in the coming five years," Kim said, without further elaborating on the matter.

"The coming five years that will be indicated by the Ninth Congress of the Party will be years when our army's outstanding role that no one else can perform will become further enhanced," he noted.

In his speech at the event, Kim also recognized soldiers still fighting alongside Russians in the war against the Western-backed Ukrainian forces.

He praised the country's soldiers for "carrying out the order of their homeland in combat positions in the faraway alien land."

Kim had previously announced Pyongyang's commitment to "unconditionally support" Moscow in fighting on the frontline against Ukraine and its Western backers.

His visit came ahead of the North's key party congress set for late February, where Kim is expected to announce his major policies on the military, diplomacy, the economy, and other areas for the next five years.

In the Eighth Party Congress in 2021, North Korea unveiled a list of high-tech weapons that Kim vowed to develop, including military spy satellites, solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles, and a nuclear-powered submarine.

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The Daily Press Briefing (02/09/2026)

France - Ministere de lEurope et des Affaires etrangeres - Press briefing

Statements by the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs Spokesperson

Press briefing

Published on February 9, 2026

Summary

MALAYSIA

Conversation between Jean-Noel Barrot and his Malaysian counterpart (Feb. 9, 2026)

Jean-Noel Barrot spoke by phone with his Malaysian counterpart, Mohamad Hasan, on February 9. He thanked him for the Malaysian authorities' support in enabling Tom Felix to return promptly to France following his acquittal.

The two Ministers also discussed expanding bilateral relations, particularly in the areas of business, defense, hybrid threats and critical minerals.

They also addressed regional challenges.

HAITI

End of the Transitional Presidential Council mandate (Feb. 9, 2026)

France takes note of the end of the Transitional Presidential Council's mandate on February 7, in line with the political agreement of April 3, 2024. It applauds the orderly transition of executive power from President Laurent Saint-Cyr to the Cabinet of Ministers, led by Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime.

It encourages the Haitian government to continue strengthening the Haiti National Police and Haitian Armed forces and to step up efforts to combat criminal gangs and their means of support, particularly through the Haitian legal system.

France will continue to back the Haitian security forces and will support the deployment of the Gang Suppression Force (GSF) in line with UN Security Council resolution 2793. It will continue to provide humanitarian aid to the most vulnerable members of the population and will maintain its solidarity-based investment policy in Haiti.

It calls on all political actors and all components of civil society to work together with the interim authorities to promote stability, security and a return to constitutional and democratic order in Haiti through free, inclusive elections.

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Raksha Mantri holds bilateral talks with Minister of National Defence of Hellenic Republic in New Delhi

India - Press Information Bureau

Ministry of Defence

Joint Declaration of Intent inked to strengthen defence industrial collaboration

Bilateral Military Cooperation Plan 2026 exchanged

Posted On: 09 FEB 2026 6:56PM by PIB Delhi

Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh held a bilateral meeting with Minister of the National Defence of the Hellenic Republic Mr Nikolaos-Georgios Dendias in New Delhi on February 09, 2026. Both Ministers reiterated that the India-Greece Strategic Partnership is based on shared values of peace, stability, freedom, and mutual respect.

The two countries decided to expand capacity of their respective indigenous defence industries through partnership between India's 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' and Hellenic defence reforms under 'Agenda 2030'. A Joint Declaration of Intent on strengthening the defence industrial cooperation between India and Greece was signed which is a starting point for developing a five-year roadmap.

The Defence Ministers discussed various issues of regional peace and security and acknowledged deepening bilateral defence cooperation and strategic ties. A Bilateral Military Cooperation Plan for 2026 was also exchanged, charting the course for military engagements between the Armed forces of both countries.

Convergence between both the ancient sea faring nations on various key maritime issues was also highlighted. The Greek side announced the positioning of a Greek International Liaison Officer at Information Fusion Center-Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR), Gurugram.

Prior to the meeting, the Greek Defence Minister laid a wreath at the National War Memorial, and paid homage to the bravehearts who made the supreme sacrifice in the service of the nation. He also inspected the Tri-service Guard of Honour at Manekshaw Centre.

During the stay, the Hellenic Delegation also visited key Defence & Industrial establishments at Bengaluru, and interacted with DPSUs, Defence Industry and Start-up representatives New Delhi. The visit reaffirms Strategic Partnership between India and Hellenic Republic, which is based on long-standing warm and close relationship between both countries and peoples.

***

VK/Savvy

(Release ID: 2225523)

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Iran reportedly briefs China, Russia on US nuclear talks; move is routine coordination and a bid for balance to US pressure: expert

Global Times

By Shen Sheng Published: Feb 09, 2026 10:43 PM

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran has briefed Moscow and Beijing on the details and progress of its negotiations with Washington over differences regarding Iran's nuclear program, Russian media outlet RIA Novosti reported Monday. A Chinese expert said the move reflects routine coordination under the strategic partnership and shows Iran actively seeking support and balance amid a complex geopolitical environment.

A day earlier, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi wrote on social media platform X that he had held meetings with the Chinese and Russian ambassadors in Tehran following his visit to Beijing and the talks in Oman.

Zhu Yongbiao, director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at Lanzhou University, told the Global Times on Monday that Iran keeps China and Russia closely briefed as part of routine coordination under its strategic partnerships and because, as permanent members of the UN Security Council, they can help counterbalance US influence.

Zhu said Iran also seeks their backing to dilute US pressure and, if needed, mobilize diplomatic and political support, using timely updates to sync positions, strengthen its negotiating leverage and avoid isolation in the US-Iran standoff.

According to multiple media reports, the US and Iran held indirect negotiations in Oman on February 6. US President Donald Trump described the talks on February 6 as "very good," stating that Iran "wants a deal very badly" and warning that "if they don't make a deal, the consequences are very steep." Araghchi, after the talks, said they had a "good start," with both sides agreeing to continue negotiations, but emphasized that refraining from threats and pressure is a necessary precondition for any dialogue.

According to Iranian state agency IRNA, the foreign minister also stated Saturday that if the US launches an attack, Iran would not take action against the US homeland but would respond against US military bases in the Middle East region. He added that Iran would not attack neighboring countries, with actions limited to US military bases in the region.

The US side has also continued to ramp up pressure. Trump signed an executive order on February 6 imposing a 25 percent tariff on imports from any country that "directly or indirectly" purchases goods from Iran, just hours after the first round of nuclear talks concluded in Oman, the National News reported.

The current situation in Iran is highly complex and volatile, and although talks have begun, the risk of war has not been eliminated, Zhu said.

The anecdotal Pentagon's "pizza index," which tracks business loads of pizza shops around the Pentagon and reportedly suggesting the workload of the department, surged again on Sunday. According to tracking account Pentagon Pizza Watch, District Pizza Palace, an eatery one mile from the Pentagon, saw a 250 percent surge; We, The Pizza at the same distance followed at 149 percent; and Extreme Pizza, half a mile away, reached 143 percent.

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Uranium transfer abroad not on agenda of Oman talks, nuclear chief says

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Feb 9, 2026

Tehran, IRNA -- The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Mohammad Eslami, has refuted claims that the transfer of enriched uranium out of the country was discussed in recent nuclear talks with the United States in Oman.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Eslami rejected speculations about the removal of enriched uranium from the country.

He emphasized that the issue has not been part of the negotiation agenda between Iran and the United States, noting that while some countries submitted proposals intended to assist the talks, the matter was not addressed during the negotiations in Muscat.

When asked whether the dilution of Iran's 60-percent enriched uranium had been raised in talks with the US, Eslami said it would depend on whether all sanctions were lifted in return.

Eslami also said that Iran's relations with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) continue, adding that the Agency has an outstanding obligation regarding the military attack on safeguarded facilities in June 2025.

He noted that if Iran operates under IAEA supervision, holds Agency certification, and is part of its credibility framework, the IAEA cannot remain silent about such attacks.

Regarding facilities that were not targeted in the Israeli and US strikes in June, Eslami said IAEA inspectors have conducted visits under continued cooperation and with authorization from Iran's Supreme National Security Council. Inspections of undamaged sites have taken place since the attacks, and visits to other facilities are scheduled in the coming days.

He stressed that Iran's rights under IAEA regulations must be upheld, noting that the Agency is responsible for encouraging and supporting the peaceful use of nuclear technology in Iran.

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Iran says it seeks result-oriented talks despite deep distrust of US

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Feb 9, 2026

Tehran, IRNA -- Iran is fully serious about negotiations that have recently begun and is seeking genuine, result-oriented talks, provided the other side shows the same level of commitment, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Monday.

Speaking to ambassadors and heads of foreign missions based in Tehran ahead of the anniversary of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, Araghchi said a deep wall of mistrust remained due to US behavior in past years, including over the past year.

"Unfortunately, there is a very large wall of distrust, stemming from the conduct of the United States in previous years and even in the past year," he said. "We were engaged in negotiations in the previous round when those events occurred, and an attack was carried out against us."

Araghchi was referring to an Israeli-imposed 12-day war against Iran last June, saying that calls for Iran's "unconditional surrender" at the outset were later replaced by demands for an "unconditional ceasefire". He said the events highlighted the resilience of the Iranian people.

"What became clear in all these developments was the resistance of the Iranian people," he said, adding that this resistance had redirected attention back to diplomacy.

"There is no solution to Iran's nuclear issue except through diplomacy," Araghchi said.

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Pezeshkian calls Iran-US talks 'good opportunity' for 'fair' nuclear deal

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Feb 9, 2026

Tehran, IRNA -- President Masoud Pezeshkian has described the new round of negotiations between Iran and the United States as a very good opportunity for achieving a fair and just resolution to the nuclear issue.

Pezeshkian made the remarks during a ceremony marking the 47th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, attended by foreign ambassadors in Tehran, Iran's capital, on Monday.

He said the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic is grounded in dignified interaction, mutual respect, and shared interests, adding that Tehran has always considered dialogue and diplomacy as sustainable solutions to regional and international issues.

Referring to recent nuclear negotiations facilitated by neighboring countries, Pezeshkian described the talks as an important opportunity to reach a fair and balanced agreement, stressing that Iran seeks guarantees for its nuclear rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the lifting of what he called unjust sanctions.

Pezeshkian also invited countries around the world to engage in sincere cooperation, expressing Iran's readiness to enhance economic, trade, and diplomatic relations, particularly with neighboring countries and those in the region.

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IRGC chief hails Intelligence Organization's role in safeguarding the Corps

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Feb 9, 2026

Tehran, IRNA -- Major General Mohammad Pakpour, commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), has praised the IRGC Intelligence Organization for its "irreplaceable" role in safeguarding the Corps and its members.

In a message marking the anniversary of Operation Valfajr 8 and its "wise" designation as the Day of the IRGC Intelligence Protection Organization, General Pakpour described the body as one of the strategic reserves of the IRGC.

"The IRGC Intelligence Organization, as one of the strategic reserves of this sacred institution, has over more than four decades, through silent, continuous and intelligent efforts, played an irreplaceable role in safeguarding the IRGC against the enemy's sinister attempts and conspiracies aimed at infiltration, disruption and creating instability," he said.

He added, "Intelligent prevention, safeguarding spirituality, insight and organizational integrity, and continuous vigilance have provided the ground for the successful execution of the IRGC's critical and sensitive missions across various arenas."

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Committed personnel, modern equipment secure Iran's borders: Ground Force chief

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Feb 9, 2026

Tehran, IRNA -- The commander of the Iranian Army Ground Force has said that committed manpower and up-to-date equipment are the main pillars of security along the country's borders, stressing that the presence of advanced and mobile units has strengthened stability in the southeast.

Speaking during a visit to Sistan and Baluchestan Province, Brigadier General Ali Jahanshahi said the deployment of mobile offensive units, rapid reaction forces, drone units, electronic warfare capabilities and Army Aviation in the region has played a key role in preserving, enhancing and sustaining border security.

During the visit, Jahanshahi assessed the combat readiness of Army Ground Force units stationed along Iran's southeastern borders.

Referring to coordination among the armed forces, he said the vigilance and cohesion of Iran's military institutions have contributed to the high level of power of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the region.

He added that Iran's borders have "always and in all periods" been threatened by enemies, but the strong presence of Army Ground Force units, border guards and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has ensured that no insecurity or potential threat has materialized.

The commander also underlined the importance of proper training and the use of modern combat methods, saying they have boosted the Ground Force's capabilities and created deterrence against adversaries.

Jahanshahi noted that enemies are now seeking to create divisions among the public through psychological operations, but said the awareness of the people and Iran's military capabilities have rendered such efforts ineffective.

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Parliament holds closed session to discuss recent Iran-US indirect talks

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Feb 9, 2026

Tehran, IRNA -- The Parliament has held a closed session in the presence of Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of Iran's Armed Forces Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi to review important regional and international issues as well as the recent indirect talks between Iran and the United States, lawmaker Alireza Salimi said.

Speaking to IRNA on Monday, Salimi said the Parliament closed session was held in the presence of Abbas Araghchi and Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi.

Earlier on February 6, Araghchi had described the indirect talks between Iran and the United Stated in Muscat as a "good start", noting that both sides intended to continue the talks.

He said that both sides agreed that the talks need to be continued but the time and manner of the next round of talks are yet to be decided.

"Our concerns were conveyed, and our interests, the rights that the Iranian people have, and all the things that needed to be said were conveyed in a very good atmosphere," he said, adding that "the views of the other side were also heard".

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Iran could dilute 60% enriched uranium if 'all sanctions lifted': Nuclear chief

Iran Press TV

Monday, 09 February 2026 4:02 PM

The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) said any potential dilution of 60% enriched uranium would depend entirely on whether all sanctions against the country are lifted.

Mohammad Eslami made the remarks in Tehran on Monday while speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the inauguration of the "Electrical and Radiation Safety" Laboratory.

Addressing recent speculations regarding the potential removal of enriched uranium from Iranian soil, he dismissed the reports as "content pursued by various pressure elements" against Iran.

"Such a matter has fundamentally not been on the agenda," Eslami clarified, adding that the proposal may have come "from a country or individual thinking it might help."

Iran and the United States held new nuclear talks on Friday, with both sides signaling that further discussions are expected soon.

The two countries had previously conducted five rounds of negotiations before the US-Israeli agression in June, but those efforts yielded no breakthrough.

Before US and Israeli strikes on its nuclear facilities, Iran had enriched uranium to 60 percent, exceeding the 3.67% limit set under the now-defunct 2015 nuclear agreement with the United States and other countries.

Iran possessed around 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium before the US-Israeli agression, and the fate of this stockpile has been a central focus of discussions.

In May 2018, US President Donald Trump unilaterally and illegally withdrew the US from the nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions under the so-called "maximum pressure" campaign.

When asked about the possibility of Iran's nuclear file being referred to the UN Security Council, Eslami emphasized that the outcome depends entirely on the political will and "honesty" of the Western parties.

"It depends on how truthful they are and to what extent they wish to avoid repeating their past mistakes," he said.

"If they have the sincerity to set aside nuclear pretexts and stop creating problems for the Iranian people, the situation will change. However, their current trend of using every tool to disrupt the country's progress will never succeed; it has failed in the past and will fail in the future, whether in the Board of Governors or the Security Council," the AEOI chief added.

Eslami reiterated that Iran operates strictly within the framework of Safeguards and the law, noting that despite years of intensive inspections, there has not been a single report of non-compliance.

Criticizing IAEA's silence on attacks

Iran's nuclear chief slammed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for its silence over military attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities.

He pointed out that the Agency has an "unfulfilled duty" to condemn attacks on sites that are under its own supervision and certification.

"If we are under the Agency's supervision and hold its credentials, the IAEA cannot remain silent or display unprofessional, political behavior regarding such incidents," Eslami stated.

Iran proposed a plan at the IAEA General Conference to bar attacks on safeguarded nuclear facilities, but the United States formally blocked it, he said.

Regarding the current status of interactions, Eslami confirmed that cooperation continues for facilities that were not targeted in US-Israeli military strikes.

"With the authorization of the Supreme Council [of National Security], IAEA inspection teams have visited and monitored these centers since the conflict," Eslami said.

He added that a few remaining sites are scheduled for inspection "in the coming days," confirming that technical engagement remains active within the safeguards framework.

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Exclusive: Armed Forces spokesman says Iran will never give in to US pressure amid talks

Iran Press TV

Monday, 09 February 2026 2:56 PM

Iran will not surrender to US pressure or demands while pursuing negotiations with Washington, Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi, spokesman for the Iranian Armed Forces, said in an exclusive interview with Press TV.

His remarks came after a fresh round of indirect talks between Iranian and US representatives was held on Friday in Muscat, Oman.

The general highlighted coordination and unity between Iran's military and diplomatic apparatus, urging the negotiating team to continue the talks with strength as they are backed by the nation and the Armed Forces.

"But we, as the Iranian Armed Forces, are ready for any potential scheme hatched by the US against our country, and we will respond appropriately, at the right time."

Iranian and American delegations, led by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, resumed nuclear talks in Muscat on February 6, months after Israel's aggression of June 2025.

Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Al Busaidi was shuttling between the sides, with the talks being held indirectly as before.

Speaking at the end of the Omani-mediated talks, the Iranian foreign minister said the negotiations with the United States were a "good start" and could be continued.

The negotiations followed weeks of tensions as the United States deployed air and naval forces to the region and threatened to attack the Islamic Republic again. Iran insists it will not give up diplomacy but stands ready to repel any act of aggression.

Iran more prepared than ever to respond to aggression

In response to a question about the level of Iran's military preparedness and deterrence capabilities of the Armed Forces, Shekarchi said Iran stands at a "very high level" to respond to the enemies' moves.

Since the 12-day war, the Armed Forces have been boosting their preparedness to confront any "strategic mistake" by the enemies, he said.

The Iranian Armed Forces are now at even a higher level of readiness than before, the general stated.

Shekarchi reiterated the Armed Forces' resolve to defend the nation and Iran's territorial integrity and to boost their offensive capabilities in the face of any miscalculation by the enemies.

Iran will hit more US and Israeli targets if attacked

Shekarchi warned the United States and Israel against any new act of aggression, saying the response would be more painful and decisive.

"If they make another mistake, certainly this time the response will be much more decisive and the geography of the war will be expanded."

The spokesman warned that the US and Israeli interests across the entire region would be endangered.

"We will expand our targets beyond those targets during the 12-day war and their economic interests. We will create economic problems and issues for the United States," he said.

The general said whoever joins the United States in a potential strategic mistake against Iran will be added to Iran's list of targets.

He vowed that the US and Israel would bear the consequences of any potential new mistake, saying, "During the 12-day war, they just got very heavy blows from the Iranian side, and this time it will be much more, much heavier."

"Whoever joins the Americans and the Zionist entity in their war against Iran, in their aggression, giving them airspace or other assets, we will defend our territory with power, with strength, and based on our trust in divinity."

He said Iran's adversaries are engaged in psychological warfare to intimidate the Iranian public. Such efforts have failed, he said.

"We are not after war. We have never been after initiating a war in the region, and if a war starts, it will be to the disadvantage of the whole region."

Israel launched an unprovoked attack on June 13, 2025, just two days before the sixth round of Iran-US talks was scheduled in Muscat. The United States also joined the aggression and struck Iranian nuclear sites.

On June 24, Iran, through its successful retaliatory operations against both the Israeli regime and the US, managed to impose a halt to the unlawful aggression that killed at least 1,064 people in the country.

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Iran seeks result-oriented talks, progress depends on US seriousness: Araghchi

Iran Press TV

Monday, 09 February 2026 2:04 PM

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says the Islamic Republic is taking nuclear negotiations with the United States seriously and is seeking genuine, result-oriented talks.

Nonetheless, the Iranian minister said, progress depends on the other side demonstrating an equal degree of commitment and seriousness.

Araghchi made the remarks in Tehran on Monday as he addressed a gathering of foreign ambassadors on the occasion of the 47th anniversary of the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

He said Iran is approaching the negotiations with seriousness, and is pursuing real talks aimed at achieving results, provided that the other side also shows seriousness and preparedness for negotiations focused on outcomes.

Araghchi said the Iranian people resist when addressed in the language of force but respond positively when treated with respect.

The top Iranian diplomat further said there is a large wall of distrust between Iran and the US, stemming from the behavior of the latter in past years.

He also voiced hope that trust could be established to enable negotiations to achieve tangible results.

Araghchi expressed optimism for the coming year, voicing hope for an atmosphere of peace and calm in which diplomacy prevails over war and the region enjoys greater stability and tranquility.

He emphasized that Iran's policy relies on strong collaboration with neighboring countries, hoping that all parties would unite to maintain peace and stability in the region while avoiding any escalation or confrontation.

A new round of Iran-US nuclear negotiations, mediated by Oman, was held in the Omani capital on Friday. The discussions were facilitated by Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi.

Speaking to IRIB news agency after the talks, Araghchi described the talks as a good start, saying that Iran's positions and concerns were clearly conveyed to the US negotiators.

Iran insists on its legal right to enrich uranium on its own soil, describing the issue as a red line in the talks. Tehran says any technical measures can only be considered within a framework that recognizes this right, warning that preconditions beyond it would be viewed as a sign of bad faith.

Iran held five rounds of talks on a replacement for the 2015 nuclear deal, but a planned sixth round was canceled following US-Israeli airstrikes on the country and its nuclear facilities in mid-June.

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Iran pursuing diplomacy while strengthening defense power simultaneously, Qalibaf says

Iran Press TV

Monday, 09 February 2026 9:05 AM

Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf says Iran is pursuing diplomacy and strengthening its defenses in parallel as it confronts its adversaries.

"We all believe that diplomacy and defense are two sides of the same coin, which proceed in coordination, with the utmost intelligence, and in accordance with the orders and directives of the Leader of the Revolution," Qalibaf said at a session of Parliament on Monday.

He added that Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi attended Parliament's closed-door session earlier in the day, during which issues pertaining to the latest round of indirect nuclear negotiations between Iran and the United States were discussed. "It was a very good session," Qalibaf said.

Iranian and American delegations, led by Araghchi and US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, resumed nuclear talks in the Omani capital Muscat on Friday, eight months after Israel's war against Iran last June. Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Al Busaidi was shuttling between the sides, with the talks being held indirectly as before.

Speaking at the end of the Omani-mediated talks, the Iranian foreign minister said the new round of indirect nuclear negotiations with the United States was a "good start" and could be continued.

"The decision on how to proceed with the negotiations will be made after consultations with the capitals," he added.

The negotiations came as the United States had deployed air and naval forces to the region and threatened to attack the Islamic Republic again.

Iran says it will not give up diplomacy but stands ready to repel any act of aggression.

Iran halts unveiling of defense achievements for security concerns: Defense Ministry

Iran's Defense Ministry spokesperson Brigadier General Reza Talaei-Nik said on Monday that the country has currently halted the unveiling of defense achievements.

He explained that the latest defensive achievements have joined the country's defense units and have been employed in both offensive and defensive operations, but they will not be put on display in current conditions for "security considerations and to preserve the element of surprise."

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Iran Launches Crackdown On Reformist Politicians After Mass Protests

By RFE/RL's Radio Farda February 09, 2026

Iran has arrested several prominent reformist politicians as the authorities widen their crackdown on dissent following mass anti-government protests that posed one of the biggest threats to the clerical establishment in years.

Iranian media reported the arrests of Ebrahim Asqarzadeh, Mohsen Aminzadeh, and Azar Mansuri -- members of the Reformists Front coalition -- on February 8. Javad Emam, the spokesman for the coalition, was arrested on February 9.

The authorities used brute force to put down weekslong nationwide protests that erupted in late December, killing several thousand people, according to human rights groups. Since then, the authorities have launched a campaign of mass arrests and targeted prominent activists and political figures.

Tehran has blamed the unrest on "rioters and armed terrorists" who it said were backed by its archenemies, Israel and the United States.

It was not immediately clear what the four reformist politicians had been charged with. The Mizan news agency, which is affiliated with Iran's judiciary, said on February 9 that "elements active in the interests of the Zionist regime and the United States" had been arrested. Four people were arrested and charged, it said, without offering more details.

Mizan accused the four of working to "destroy national cohesion by making accusations and spreading untrue positions against the country" during the mass protests.

Mansuri has led the Reformists Front since 2023. She served as an adviser to former reformist President Mohammad Khatami. Asqarzadeh is a former member of parliament, and Aminzadeh is a former deputy foreign minister who served under Khatami.

Political activist and former political prisoner Hossein Razzaq told RFE/RL's Radio Farda that the authorities are cracking down on any form of dissent. That includes, he said, reformists who "see themselves as loyal to the Islamic republic."

The Reformists Front has been highly critical of the authorities in the past.

In a statement issued during the state crackdown on the mass protests, the coalition said that "a large segment of Iranian citizens have lost their trust in all the institutions and capacities that were supposed to protect, represent, and pursue their demands."

After the 12-day war against Israel in June 2025, the Reformists Front warned that "incremental collapse" awaited the country ifit did not adopt fundamental reforms.

The arrests of the four reformists came soon after Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, who has been imprisoned repeatedly, was sentenced to a new prison term of 7 1/2 years, her foundation said in a statement on February 7.

In the wake of the mass protests, jailed opposition leaders have called for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to step down and demanded an investigation into the widespread killing of protesters.

The US-based HRANA rights group says it has verified 6,961 deaths, mostly protesters, and has another 11,630 cases under investigation.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-reformist- mohammadi-protests/33673330.html

Copyright (c) 2026. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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IAEA to Inspect Several Iranian Nuclear Facilities in Next Few Days - Iran Vice President

Sputnik News

20260209

TEHRAN (Sputnik) - The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will inspect a number of Iranian nuclear facilities in the coming days, Iranian Vice President and head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Mohammad Eslami said on Monday.

"After the war [between Iran and Israel in June 2025, IAEA inspectors] conducted an inspection of facilities that were not attacked, and in the coming days they will inspect a number of other facilities," Eslami said, as quoted by the Tasnim news agency.

The country had earlier urged the UN nuclear watchdog to clearly define and codify what measures should apply "if a country's nuclear industry, which is under the agency's supervision, comes under a military attack."

Israel launched surprise attacks on Iran's nuclear and military sites in June, sparking a 12-day war that saw the US bomb Iran's civilian nuclear program facilities.

 Sputnik

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Iraq executes ex-Saddam official over 1980 killing of Shia cleric Baqir al-Sadr

Iran Press TV

Monday, 09 February 2026 4:11 PM

Iraq has executed a former senior security official from Saddam Hussein's regime for his role in the 1980 execution of prominent Shia cleric Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr, the government announced on Monday.

The National Security Service said Saadoun Sabri al-Qaisi was found guilty of "grave crimes against humanity," including the killings of al-Sadr, members of the al-Hakim family, and other civilians.

The report did not specify when al-Qaisi, a former major general under Saddam who was arrested last year, was executed.

Al-Sadr, one of the most prominent critics of Saddam's Baathist regime, was arrested in 1980 along with his sister, Bint al-Huda, a revered scholar and activist, after they openly condemned the regime's repression of Shia activists.

During their detention, they were tortured before being executed by a firing squad on April 8, 1980.

The execution sparked widespread outrage at the time and remains a symbol of repression under Saddam's rule.

Since the 2003 fall of Saddam, Iraqi authorities have prosecuted former officials accused of "crimes against humanity" and abuses against political and religious opponents.

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Statement by Prime Minister Carney on the results of the general election in Japan

Prime Minister of Canada - Mark Carney

February 9, 2026

Ottawa, Ontario

"On behalf of the Government of Canada, I congratulate Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae on her victory in Japan's general election.

At a time of global uncertainty and instability, Canada and Japan are reliable strategic partners. We have recently strengthened cooperation across a range of priorities - including trade and investment, energy and critical minerals, and security in support of a free, open, and stable Indo-Pacific.

Together, we can elevate the long-standing relationship between Canada and Japan to create greater certainty, security, and prosperity for both our peoples."

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PM Takaichi's Coalition Wins Supermajority in Japan Snap Election

Sputnik News

20260209

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), led by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, won a resounding victory in the elections to the key lower house of parliament, securing more than two-thirds, or 316 of the 465, seats, the best result in two decades.

This will allow the party to pass bills even if they are rejected in the upper house, where the party does not have a majority, without relying on votes from lawmakers from other political parties.

Based on Sputnik's analysis of the LDP's results under previous leaders, this was its best result in 20 years. Previously, the party's record number of seats was won under Junichiro Koizumi in 2025 (296 seats) and Shinzo Abe in 2012 (294 seats).

The election commission data for Sunday's vote was broadcast live on major television networks.

Together with its coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party (Nippon Ishin no Kai), which won 36 seats, the LDP now holds 352 of the 465 seats.

 Sputnik

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A high-level Libyan delegation called on Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif at Prime Minister's House, today.

Prime Miinister's Office - Islamic Republic of Pakistan

February 03, 2026

Islamabad: 03 February 2026

A high-level Libyan delegation called on Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif at Prime Minister's House, today.

The Libyan delegation included H.E. Dr. Osama Saad Hamad, Prime Minister of the Libyan Government, Field Marshal Khalifa Abu-al-Qasim Haftar, Commander-in-Chief of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces and Lieutenant General Saddam Khalifa Haftar, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar and Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, NI (M), HJ, COAS & CDF, were also present during the meeting.

During the discussions, both sides exchanged views on matters of mutual interest and underscored the importance of strengthening bilateral relations. The meeting reflected the shared desire to enhance cooperation in areas of common concern and to promote peace, stability, and development at regional and international levels.

Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif reaffirmed Pakistan's commitment to fostering friendly relations with Libya and emphasized the importance of continued engagement and dialogue. The Libyan leadership appreciated Pakistan's role and expressed interest in expanding collaboration between the two countries.

The meeting concluded with an understanding to maintain close contact and explore avenues for future cooperation.

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Defense chief, S. Arabia hold talks, sign MOU on defense R&D

KOREA.net

Feb 09, 2026

By Kim Seon Ah

Minister of National Defense Ahn Gyu-Back and Saudi Minister of Defense Khalid bin Salman Al Saud on Feb. 8 held talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on bilateral cooperation in defense research and development between Korea's Agency for Defense Development and the Arab country's Prince Sultan Defense Studies and Research Center.

Held on the occasion of the third Saudi World Defense Show in Riyadh, the meeting saw Minister Ahn stressing Korea as a key partner in Saudi Vision 2030 and suggesting expanding mutually beneficial and future-oriented cooperation in defense and the defense industry. He also asked Minister Khalid to visit Korea this year.

The Saudi official said both sides have a "future-oriented strategic partnership" and that he hopes Korean technological know-how and experience will help boost his country's defense capabilities.

The two ministers hailed the signing of the MOU as laying the basis for joint cooperation in research and development and defense technology.

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Russia will not launch attack on Europe but will respond forcefully if struck: Lavrov

Iran Press TV

Monday, 09 February 2026 6:16 AM

Russia has no intention of launching a military attack on Europe, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said, warning, however, that Moscow would respond decisively to any military aggression.

In response to remarks by European officials making claims of a potential military conflict with Russia, the top Russian diplomat told NTV in an interview aired on Sunday that Moscow had no intention of waging war with the neighboring countries in Europe.

"We have no intention of attacking Europe," Lavrov said, adding, "There is no reason to do so."

Lavrov noted that the Russian Federation would only attack Europe if it were to be attacked first.

"If Europe acts on its threats to prepare for war against us and initiates an attack on the Russian Federation, it will face a full-fledged military response from our side, with all available military capabilities," he clarified.

Russia has in the past blamed the EU for creating obstacles and even "sabotaging" the peace process, instead of paving the way to a permanent peace in Ukraine.

In an interview with TASS in late December, Lavrov pointed out that European officials were openly making preparations for war with Russia.

Lavrov pinned the blame on the Europeans for Brussels' providing continuous support to Kiev in fighting against Russian troops.

He said, the "European war party" is betting its "political capital on inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia." He added that "almost all European countries, with few exceptions, have been pumping the Kiev regime full of money and weapons."

Lavrov said the EU leaders were making efforts to derail the US-brokered Ukraine peace initiative kicked off by US President Donald Trump.

Russia launched its "special military operation" in Donbass in February 2022 to "liberate, demilitarize, and denazify" the Russian-speaking region in eastern Ukraine, according to Russian authorities.

EU officials have justified increased military spending by citing the need to defend NATO's eastern flank against Russian expansion.

General Carsten Breuer, the top military commander in Germany, warned in December that his nation must be prepared for a potential war with Russia by 2029.

Russia dismisses such claims as warmongering rhetoric.

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Press release on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's meeting with Tanzanian Minister of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation Mahmoud Thabit Kombo

9 February 2026 19:37

161-09-02-2026

On February 9, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with Tanzania's Minister of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation Mahmoud Thabit Kombo who is in Moscow on a special mission. The Tanzanian Foreign Minister conveyed a message for President of Russia Vladimir Putin from President of Tanzania Samia Suluhu Hassan.

The ministers discussed a wide range of issues related to the further strengthening of the traditionally friendly relations between Russia and Tanzania, with a special focus on expanding cooperation in trade, economic, and investment spheres. The importance of consistently advancing previously reached agreements was emphasised in the context of preparations for the third session of the Joint Intergovernmental Russian-Tanzanian Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation, scheduled for May 2026.

When discussing current international and regional matters, the parties noted their shared principled positions in support of a polycentric world order, as well as the principles of justice and equality in international affairs. They reaffirmed their mutual commitment to further deepen constructive cooperation and coordinate efforts on pressing global and regional issues within the framework of the United Nations and other multilateral formats.

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Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's opening remarks during his talks with Minister of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation of Tanzania Mahmoud Thabit Kombo, February 9, 2026

9 February 2026 19:31

160-09-02-2026

Mr Minister,

It is a pleasure to receive you.

I am ready to accept the message entrusted to you.

The communication from President of Tanzania Samia Suluhu Hassan will be conveyed without delay to President Vladimir Putin.

We eagerly await the visit of President Samia Suluhu Hassan to Russia. She holds an invitation. As soon as she identifies suitable dates, we will be delighted to welcome her to our country. I trust you will accompany her.

I must emphasise that our two nations share a long history of relations. This year marks the 65th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Russian Federation and Tanzania. Today, we can discuss the commemoration of this milestone - through the exchange of messages, as well as various events and exhibitions.

I wish to note my satisfaction with the close cooperation between Russia and Tanzania in international fora, notably the United Nations, as well as within the framework of the Russia-Africa strategic partnership.

We are presently negotiating the dates and venue for the third Russia-Africa Summit. As you will recall, we have also instituted a ministerial-level meeting format. The first Ministerial Conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum was convened in Sochi in November 2024, followed by the second conference in Cairo in December 2025.

There are many subjects which it would be productive to discuss today with a view to further strengthening our collaboration. I look forward to hearing your assessments regarding our bilateral cooperation across the economic, commercial, financial, cultural, and educational domains.

It is a pleasure to welcome you once again.

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Speech by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at 15th Middle East Conference, Moscow, February 9, 2026

9 February 2026 15:42

159-09-02-2026

Thank you, Mr Baklanov.

Thank you for inviting me to the latest forum, this time the 15th anniversary forum of the Middle East Conference hosted by the Valdai International Discussion Club.

You are absolutely right. The Middle East is the focal point of numerous global processes. Even if they originate elsewhere, many of these processes spill over into the Middle East in one way or another conflicting with the interests of other countries. Much to my regret, I don't think things in this region will calm down anytime soon, despite the vast number of initiatives we are all aware of.

Many of them emerged shortly after the Arab Spring, when in 2011 the West set out to ravage undesirable regimes in Libya and Syria. Thankfully, not much blood was shed in Tunisia. The regime there changed without significant casualties. Iraq is on that list, too, of course, but Iraq was before the Arab Spring. Since then, we haven't seen any developments that would be reassuring for political scientists and those who genuinely seek to promote peace. All of this has happened and continues to happen.

Developments are underway in Yemen and Sudan. The ripple effect of the developments in Somalia can be felt in the Middle East, especially after Somaliland had been recognised recently by our Israeli colleagues, and the ensuing reaction from Mogadishu.

All of this is unfolding against the backdrop of the principal trend which is driving the Palestinian issue into a hopeless impasse. This isn't the first time this is happening, as the previous Trump administration promoted the Abraham Accords when the Saudi Arabian King's 2002 Arab Peace Initiative was turned upside down. It proclaimed the creation of a Palestinian state and the recognition of Israel by the entire Arab world. Everyone hoped that this would actually come to pass. Moreover, after the Arab League endorsed this Saudi Arabian initiative, it was also endorsed at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation summit in Beirut. All Islamic countries unanimously backed the initiative to recognise Israel in the context of the creation of a viable Palestinian state in accordance with UN resolutions. The Abraham Accords dramatically changed the sequence of events. First, everyone was supposed to recognise Israel, and, they said, we'll see what happens next. We are now observing what stood behind "we'll see."

An extensive discussion focusing on Donald Trump's peace plan took place at the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council. We welcomed this plan, which, above all, was designed as the first step down the path of putting an end to bloodshed, resolving hostage issues, and exchanging dead bodies. In this sense, it is a positive development.

On the other hand, relapses into violence continue unabated. There is no clarity at all regarding the other components of this plan, including the complete withdrawal of Israeli IDF troops from the Gaza Strip, the disarmament of Hamas, the provision of humanitarian aid, and the organisation of executive leadership for this Palestinian enclave in the context (I emphasise again) of involving the Palestinian National Authority in this process and implementing UN decisions on the creation of a single Palestinian state.

At this point, nothing is clear with regard to these matters. It is likewise unclear what exactly these international security forces which are also part of this plan will be doing, and how they will go about doing it as all these issues have not been clearly spelled out in the resolution submitted by our American colleagues to the UN Security Council.

We held consultations with them and explained the issues that remain unresolved in both this resolution and the plan itself. They nevertheless decided to put this particular draft to the vote. We were compelled to abstain. Some even believed that such a resolution should not be allowed to pass and ought to be further refined. However, we received an insistent request from all Arab countries, our friends, including the Palestinians, not to block this resolution. That is why we and the People's Republic of China abstained.

This, however, has not brought the components of this plan that I just listed any closer to the implementation. We get convinced on a daily basis that more efforts are needed. Yes, a Peace Council has been established, as have bodies subordinate to it, including an executive body made up of Palestinian technocrats. Their real powers remain unknown. We hope that these issues will be clarified all the more so as our American colleagues have now suddenly announced a transition to the second phase of implementation of President Trump's plan. This phase includes reconstruction work and humanitarian issues.

The prospect of creating a Palestinian state remains the key issue. The arrangements can be made to provide temporary housing for the Palestinians. As you may be aware, nothing in this world is more permanent than a temporary solution. Everyone understands this. I would very much like this collegial body created at the initiative of President Trump to truly address the underlying causes of the conflict. Israel should be involved, because the issue is about creating two states. I'm diving deep into history and into details that directly affect the future of this entire region.

I cannot help but say that we are closely following the Iran-related developments. We welcome the mediation efforts offered by the Sultanate of Oman. Yesterday, I spoke at length with my friend, the head of the Sultanate of Oman's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Badr Al Busaidi. We believe this issue must be settled peacefully.

We understand that, as in the case of Palestine, some of the direct participants in the process may be tempted to use force and finish off their opponents, so to speak. However, this is the wrong approach. It will only lead to more problems and will in no way resolve the issue or ensure the security of any country. I think you are well aware of it. Therefore, we and our Chinese colleagues remain in constant contact with our Iranian friends. We are concerned and worried about Iran's future.

There are many other angles to the Middle East situation. The region is in turmoil. Regarding Iran, we are interested in complete normalisation of relations between Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council. After Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran restored diplomatic relations, I believe the door is now open. Regarding the conflict in Yemen, we are witnessing a trend towards cooperation among external players, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. We welcome this as well.

The Syrian situation has an extensive history of interaction between Russia, Turkiye, Iran, and other neighbouring countries. Libya also requires constant attention, as does Iraq, for that matter. Things in Iraq are not as hopeless as in Libya, and the differences there are not as acute. However, the fallout of the 2003 aggression, which undermined the foundations of statehood, has not yet been overcome.

Events are currently unfolding in Syria. In addition to maintaining unity and interethnic and interfaith harmony in the Syrian Arab Republic, the Kurdish issue has also become a pressing issue, affecting not only Syria but many other countries in the region as well. The events currently unfolding around the Syrian Kurds also deserve a separate discussion. This, as I earlier said, is an issue of regional dimension.

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No Grounds for Talks About New Negotiations With US on New START - Russian Deputy Foreign Minister

Sputnik News

20260209

NEW DELHI (Sputnik) - There are no grounds for talking about launching new negotiations with the United States on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Monday.

"There is currently no basis for discussing the launch of such a negotiation process. We have repeatedly spoken about the need to see deeper, far-reaching changes for the better in the US approach to the issues we are discussing," Ryabkov said on the sidelines of the BRICS Sherpa meeting in New Delhi, adding that when US policy towards Russia changes for the better, then the preconditions for launching a corresponding dialogue will arise.

Russia regrets that the US administration perceives the New START Treaty as something that requires replacement with something else, the deputy foreign minister added.

"In any such hypothetical process, nothing would come of it without the involvement of the United Kingdom and the French Republic, as the United States' closest allies, both possessing nuclear weapons and, in the current, highly tense international situation, pursuing a highly aggressive course toward our country. Therefore, ignoring their nuclear arsenals would be irresponsible. They must be at the negotiating table, I repeat, if and when something like this becomes relevant," Ryabkov also said.



 Sputnik

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Moving 40% of Taiwan chip production to U.S. 'impossible': Vice premier

ROC Central News Agency

02/09/2026 04:54 PM

Taipei, Feb. 9 (CNA) Taiwan's trade negotiators told the United States that Taipei would not relocate 40 percent of its semiconductor production to the U.S., and that its most advanced technologies would remain in Taiwan, Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun () said Sunday.

"I told the U.S. side very clearly -- that's impossible," Cheng, who led the negotiation team, said in an interview that aired Sunday night on the CTS television channel.

Cheng was referring to remarks by U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in January, in which he said his goal was to bring 40 percent of Taiwan's chip supply chain to the U.S.

In the interview, Cheng said Taiwan's almost 90-percent market share in advanced semiconductor production was the result of an ecosystem developed over several decades, and could not be "moved" to the U.S.

"I told the U.S. side, we can't distribute production capacity, but we can expand our layout in the U.S.," Cheng said.

Cheng also defended the broad outline of the agreement with the U.S., under which Washington will lower tariffs on Taiwanese goods from 20 percent to 15 percent, placing Taiwan on an equal footing with competitors such as Japan, South Korea, and the European Union.

In return, Taiwanese semiconductor and tech companies will invest US$250 billion in the U.S. based on their own plans, while the Taiwanese government will provide US$250 billion in credit guarantees to facilitate the investments.

Cheng said the structure of the deal -- independent investment by companies combined with government financial guarantees -- was an example of the "Taiwan model," and differed from the investment pledges made by Japan and South Korea.

It also means that Taiwan and the U.S. will have to work together, using the Taiwan model, to build supply chains and meet their strategic goals, she said.

Cheng said Taiwan's science parks would not be relocated to the U.S., and that she had made clear during negotiations that Taiwan's most advanced semiconductor technology would not be transferred to other countries.

"It needs to be carried out in Taiwan, where there is a comprehensive ecosystem for continuous research and development," she said.

Taiwan's semiconductor firms "will only rationally expand their investments to other countries after they have set up factories in Taiwan and confirmed they can mass produce," Cheng said.

For that reason, the most advanced R&D and manufacturing processes must be "carried out first in Taiwan," she said.

Officials from the United States and Taiwan are expected to sign and release the full terms of the tariff agreement in the coming days or weeks.

The deal must then be sent to Taiwan's opposition-controlled Legislature for approval.

(By Kao Chien-hua, Yeh Su-ping and Matthew Mazzetta)

Enditem/kb



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PLA activities in the waters and airspace around Taiwan

ROC Ministry of National Defense

2026.02.10

Issuing AuthorityPolitical Warfare Bureau

PLA activities in the waters and airspace around Taiwan

1.Date:

6 a.m. Feb. 9 (Mon.) to 6 a.m. Feb. 10 (Tue.) (UTC+8)

2.PLA activities:

4 sorties of PLA aircraft and 8 PLAN ships operating around Taiwan were detected as of 6 a.m. (UTC+8) today. 4 out of 4 sorties entered Taiwan's southwestern ADIZ. ROC Armed Forces have monitored the situation and employed CAP aircraft, Navy ships, and coastal missile systems in response to detected activities.

1150210_PLA activities in the waters and airspace around Taiwan

1150210_PLA air activities in the vicinity of Taiwan

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Starmer faces immense pressure as top aides quit over Mandelson scandal, may erode current administration's political trust base: expert

Global Times

By Fan Anqi and Li Yu Published: Feb 09, 2026 09:39 PM

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's director of communications Tim Allan has resigned, Sky News reported Monday, following Starmer's chief of staff Morgan McSweeney quitting his role over a scandal related to the appointment of Peter Mandelson as the envoy to the US, who reportedly has ties with Jeffrey Epstein.

The recent developments have put immense pressure on Starmer, per Sky News. A Chinese expert said that neither the communications director nor the chief of staff is a member of the cabinet - and at the moment, their departure is unlikely to deliver an immediate substantive shock to the Labour government. However, the expert noted that the case has undermined the political trust base and poses a real challenge to the current administration.

Allan said in a brief statement sent to local media that "I have decided to stand down to allow a new No10 team to be built. I wish the PM and his team every success," Xinhua reported.

McSweeney said he took "full responsibility" for advising Starmer to hire Peter Mandelson as US envoy, despite Mandelson's known connections to the convicted pedophile financier Epstein. He said the decision "undermined trust in Labour, the country and politics itself," reported the Guardian.

Starmer is set to face the Parliamentary Labour Party on Monday amid anger over the appointment of Mandelson as ambassador to the US, according to Sky News. Currently, Starmer has asked his deputy chiefs of staff, Jill Cuthbertson and Vidhya Alakeson, to be acting chiefs of staff.

Per a Bloomberg report, UK government officials were bracing for cabinet ministers to privately tell the prime minister to stand aside or threaten their resignations if he doesn't. One aide to a cabinet minister said it was 50-50 whether Starmer would last the week.

The Bloomberg report noted that losing the top aide leaves Starmer exposed at a time when frustrated members of government are braying for change at the top, with Health Secretary Wes Streeting and former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner touted as contenders to succeed him.

Wang Yiwei, a professor at the School of International Studies of Renmin University of China, told the Global Times on Monday that Mandelson's connection with Epstein has undermined the political trust base of the Labour Party and Starmer administration. As such, seeking to repair trust through resignations of those involved and a clear break from controversial figures emerged as a strategic choice.

Wang noted that although the chief of staff plays an important role in political operations, he is not a member of the cabinet. Therefore, his departure is unlikely to deliver a substantive institutional or legal shock to the Labour government at the moment.

For Starmer personally, it may bring some political pressure, but it largely reflects a backlash driven by wider public sentiment.

While some MPs called for Starmer to resign, others defended him. Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said in an interview with Sky News that Starmer, who was just voted in 18 months ago in a general election, "His task is by no means complete, barely begun."

McFadden said that it is "not good for the country" to change its prime minister every 18 months, which could "lead to chaos and uncertainty, economically, politically and reputationally around the world."

Since 2016, the UK has had six prime ministers in less than 10 years. While the maximum legal term is five years for each premiership, frequent leadership changes have become the norm rather than the exception.

The frequent turnover of British prime ministers has already had a negative effect, resulting in a decline in competitiveness, with underlying economic and social governance issues remaining fundamentally unaddressed, Wang said. He added that from a broader perspective, this is not unique to the UK but a common challenge facing Western countries, reflecting a deeper structural dilemma.

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Russian Armed Forces Strike Ukrainian Energy and Infrastructure Facilities

Sputnik News

20260209

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russian forces carried out attacks on the infrastructure of a military airfield, fuel and energy complex facilities and transport infrastructure used in the interests of the armed forces of Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday.

"The operational-tactical aviation, strike unmanned aerial vehicles, rocket troops and artillery of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation battlegroups have struck the Ukrainian infrastructure of a military airfield, facilities of the fuel and energy complex and transport infrastructure, as well as temporary deployment points of Ukrainian armed formations and foreign mercenaries in 142 districts," the ministry said in a statement.

Russia's Vostok battlegroup has eliminated up to 355 Ukrainian soldiers

has eliminated up to 355 Ukrainian soldiers Ukraine has also lost over 240 soldiers in battles with the Tsentr battlegroup and up to 205 soldiers with the Sever battlegroup

 Sputnik

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Work on Ukrainian Settlement Process Continues - Kremlin

Sputnik News

20260209

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Work on the Ukrainian settlement process continues, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.

"Work continues," Peskov told reporters, commenting on the Ukrainian settlement process.

The understandings reached between Russia and the United States in Anchorage are crucial points that can shift the settlement process in Ukraine, Peskov said.

"We do not want to go into details. We are still convinced that it is in the best interest of things to conduct these conversations behind closed doors, not to engage in some kind of public, megaphone diplomacy in this case. The understandings that were reached in Anchorage clearly are the cornerstones. And it is precisely these understandings that can shift the settlement process and allow us to achieve a breakthrough," Peskov told reporters.

The set of understandings reached during the negotiations between Russia and United States in Alaska is the "spirit of Anchorage," Peskov explained.

Russia has not yet received a response to the initiative to contribute the funds from its frozen assets to the Board of Peace, Peskov said.

"Such a proposal was indeed made by the President of Russia. We have not received an answer yet," Peskov told reporters, answering a question if there was any clarity about the frozen funds that Russia had proposed sending for the reconstruction of Palestine.

The Russian Foreign Ministry is studying the proposal to join the Board of Peace, Peskov added.

"The topic of the Board of Peace is still being worked out by the Foreign Ministry together with our allies and partners, in accordance with the instructions of the President of Russia," the spokesman explained.

The situation in Cuba is critical, Russia is aware of this, Peskov also said.

"The situation is really critical in Cuba. We know that. We are in intensive contact with our Cuban friends through diplomatic and other channels," Peskov told reporters, adding that Russia is discussing with Cuba ways to solve problems and provide all possible assistance to the country.

The "chokehold methods" used by the United States bring many difficulties for Cuba, the official said.

 Sputnik

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Statement by Minister Andrii Sybiha on a Full Ban on Entry to the EU for Russian Citizens Involved in Aggression Against Ukraine

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine

09 February 2026 11:29

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Andrii Sybiha: "There needs to be a total EU-wide entry ban for Russian citizens who took part in Russian aggression against Ukraine.

First, it's about the long-term national security of European states and the protection of their citizens from Russian thugs.

Second, this will set the right price for the wrong choices: each Russian who signs a contract to invade Ukraine must know that he also signs himself a lifelong entry ban to Europe. Estonia has already demonstrated leadership by implementing relevant national decisions and proving that the mechanism works. Now it is time to expand this to the entire European Union, and I urge my EU colleagues to take this step seriously.

This is about strengthening the security of Europe. ".

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Andrii Sybiha held phone talks with Secretary for Foreign and Political Affairs of San Marino Luca Beccari

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine

09 February 2026 13:31

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Andrii Sybiha: "I was pleased to have a good conversation with San Marino's Foreign Minister Luca Beccari.

We focused on advancing our bilateral dialogue and practical cooperation.

I thanked San Marino for its consistent support for Ukraine.

I briefed my colleague on security situation and Russia's ongoing terror against critical infrastructure and civilians.

We also discussed urgent needs of Ukraine's energy sector.

I invited my colleague to visit Ukraine."

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There Will Be Significant International Events This Week - on Defense and Security. In Europe, Our Position Will Be Sufficiently Represented, and the Same Applies to the United States - Address by the President

President of Ukraine

9 February 2026 - 20:47

I wish you health!

Briefly about today. Energy is the top priority - this is fully understood across the state. Significant resources are engaged in all regions, and we are further increasing them: expanding the number of crews and strengthening support programs for people and for entrepreneurs.

Today, we spoke with Ukraine's Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko. The Government will make the procurement of new equipment more accessible for apartment buildings, so that homeowners associations can purchase more generators and other equipment that is so crucial amid electricity shortages. The government officials will also expand the support program for owners of private homes to ensure autonomous power supply. These are, in effect, two new programs, and in the near future government officials are to present all details of the programs to the public. As for the programs already in place, reports were also presented today. Applications from sole proprietors are coming in actively for payments that help maintain and repair generators - nearly 20,000 such applications have already been submitted. The zero-percent loan program for purchasing generators has already reached half a billion hryvnias and will continue to grow - sufficient funds are available within the program. Today, I also instructed that the Warmth Packages program be additionally scaled up - so that 40,000 packages are delivered this week. The program will continue operating. I thank Naftogaz for its support of this program.

I would also like to commend Ukrzaliznytsia - all of its specialists. The conditions are extraordinarily difficult. Russian strikes are hitting our logistics virtually every day - targeting facilities that support rail operations and the rolling stock itself. Many routes are dangerous, but our railway continues to operate.

I thank the first responders of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine for their real effectiveness. Every day, they work at energy facilities, extinguish fires, and help people and communities get through this difficult time. The results achieved by everyone currently involved in dealing with the aftermath of the strikes and in recovery efforts benefit all of Ukraine and contribute to the strength of our state and to Ukrainians' ability to endure this winter and the war as a whole.

There was a discussion with the Minister of Defense of Ukraine, with our diplomats, and with members of the negotiating team. Everyone in our country needs to be more active so that now, in February, there is not a single day wasted in strengthening Ukraine and advancing our ability to end the war in a dignified and reliable way. An important result has now been achieved on Starlink - I would like to thank the Minister of Defense; this is one of the significant changes. We also need to finalize all issues related to supplying the army, including predictable and sufficient supplies of drones and other equipment to the troops.

There will be significant international events this week - on defense and security. In Europe, our position will be sufficiently represented, and the same applies to the United States. In practice, our negotiating team is working every single day on the documents and proposals that could deliver results at the upcoming meetings. Most importantly, our partners must be aligned the same way we are in Ukraine: peace is needed, and reliable security guarantees are the only real foundation for peace and for preventing the Russians from breaking agreements through strikes or hybrid operation of some kind.

There are no countries left in Europe that do not know what Russian interference is and what Russian destabilization operations can look like. Everyone also sees what Russian murderers, Russian missiles, and Russian drones are doing. Protection from this and ensuring security must be tangible and lay the groundwork for a lasting peace. The documents on guarantees are ready. There is no alternative to security. There is no alternative to peace. There is no alternative to rebuilding our country. I thank everyone around the world who is helping! Thank you for every single action in support of life and people right now.

Glory to Ukraine!

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Featured

Education minister proposes national cultural dress day for schools

Mohammed Ali Feb - 10 - 2026 , 15:24 1 minute read

The Minister for Education, Haruna Iddrisu, has proposed a national day for Ghanaian students to wear traditional attire in schools across the country, as part of efforts to preserve and promote local cultural identity.

The call was made in Accra on February 10, 2026, during the closing ceremony of the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology.

Speaking at the event, Mr Iddrisu said such a day would allow learners to showcase the diversity of Ghanas cultural heritage while fostering national pride.

Probably, we should declare a day when every Ghanaian learner must go in culturally fitting dress to observe our day nationwide so that each culture, each society, will reflect its values and culture as we observe it, he said.

The proposal was made alongside remarks on the role of education, science, and innovation in national development. Mr Iddrisu noted that while advances in quantum science and technology are important, nurturing Ghanaian values through education remains equally important.

He also shared a light-hearted anecdote about cultural attire debates, recalling a friendly discussion between Ghana and Zambia over what constitutes traditional smock attire.

By linking cultural awareness with education, Mr Iddrisu said the initiative could make national celebrations more participatory and reflective of Ghanas diverse societies.

This gathering in Accra brings together leaders in science, policy, and education at an important moment for the international community, he said, adding that educational initiatives grounded in both science and culture are important for shaping the nations future.
Featured

Upper West Region: Firefighters contain market blaze, avert spread to shops

Jemima Okang Addae Feb - 10 - 2026 , 13:14 1 minute read

Firefighters from the Nadowli Fire Station in the Upper West Region have successfully contained a market fire, preventing it from spreading to nearby shops and residential buildings.

The Ghana National Fire Service responded to a distress call at 1:15 pm and promptly dispatched a fire appliance with a four-member crew to the scene.

Upon arrival, firefighters swiftly laid hoses and brought the blaze under control by 2:28 pm, before fully extinguishing it at 4:20 pm.

Although an estimated 40 to 50 temporary market stalls were destroyed in the fire, the rapid response of the crew ensured that permanent stores and surrounding houses were spared.

Firefighting efforts were initially hampered by challenges in accessing water.

However, the situation was resolved through the intervention of the Nadowli District Chief Executive, Mary Haroona, with support from a DRIP water tanker, which enabled firefighters to complete the operation.
Roads minister on why Suame interchange has been reduced from four-tier

Previous article: Roads minister on why Suame interchange has been reduced from four-tier

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AGI ready for 24-Hour Economy, calls for stimulated investment, stronger supply chains

Daily Graphic Feb - 10 - 2026 , 07:57 3 minutes read

The Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) has commended the government and Parliament for the passage of the 24-Hour Economy Authority Bill, 2025 and expressed its readiness to partner the government to ensure effective implementation of the initiative.

The countrys largest grouping of industrial concerns said the initiative represented a bold step towards unlocking Ghanas economic potential through round-the-clock productivity, supported by a framework that stimulated investment, strengthened supply chains and positioned Ghana as an export-led economy.

A statement issued by the AGI in Accra yesterday and signed by its President, Pharm Kofi Nsiah Poku, said the countrys macroeconomic indicators were showing positive trends.

To sustain and deepen these gains  achieved through the efforts of the President, the Minister of Finance, and the Governor of the Bank of Ghana  there is a critical need to diversify our export base, it said.

According to the AGI, the passage of this Bill was timely, as export diversification remained essential to the long-term sustainability of Ghanas economic recovery.

The association believes its effective implementation will create jobs, increase productivity, boost exports, and reduce reliance on imported goods, saying, these outcomes will strengthen Ghanas economic resilience and long-term stability.

Legal framework

The AGI expressed satisfaction at the establishment of a legal framework to coordinate policy implementation and facilitate incentives to support continuous industrial operations.

We expect strong regulatory oversight, effective public-private coordination, mobilisation of investment, and the provision of infrastructure to support 24-hour operations, the statement said.

We particularly welcome the proposed incentives, including tax rebates for multi-shift operations, subsidised night-time electricity tariffs, and fast-track import duty waivers for production equipment, the AGI added.

It explained that those incentives would enable small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in manufacturing, agro-processing and export sectors to expand operations, create jobs and increase local production.

The association said while such incentives might reduce government revenue in the short term, supporting local industry would drive structural transformation, broaden the future tax base, and enhance long-term growth and fiscal stability.

In light of the implementation challenges associated with the Tax Exemptions Act, 2022 (Act 1083), AGI would like to see the new framework ensure efficient and transparent access to fiscal and monetary incentives for firms participating in the 24-hour value chain, the statement said.

As the policy is rolled out, AGI said it expected the authority to integrate beneficiaries of existing initiatives, such as One District, One Factory (1D1F), and extend similar support.

It said many of those facilities were currently operating below capacity and, therefore, they must be supported to revive production, strengthen industrial output, and create additional jobs.

AGI aligned

The AGI said it remained aligned with the strategic pillars of Grow24, Build24, and Make24, and was ready to partner the government to ensure effective implementation of this initiative.

The success of the 24-Hour Economy will ultimately depend on strong coordination, policy consistency, and sustained engagement with industry, the association stressed, and recommended continuous collaboration with the private sector to ensure the policy delivered its intended impact.

The association also reaffirmed its commitment to work closely with the government in developing the necessary regulations to support successful implementation.
Featured

Kumasi Shoe Factory underutilised - 1,500 Jobs at risk

Daily Graphic Feb - 10 - 2026 , 12:45 6 minutes read

The Kumasi Shoe Factory could create 1,500 new jobs within months under the governments 24-hour Economy programme, but it remains largely idle due to the lack of a ready market.

State security agencies, which perhaps have the biggest combined demand for boots and shoes, still import footwear annually in defiance of a directive to buy them locally.

In 2014, President John Mahama  during his first term in office  directed all state agencies to procure their footwear from the Kumasi Shoe Factory, which is partly state-owned.

However, the directive appears somewhat relaxed with the passage of time.

The factory, now operating with just 41 workers, has purchased four new sandals assembly lines expected to arrive next month, and is also refurbishing existing machinery to support round-the-clock production.

Officials from partner companies in the Czech Republic are already in Ghana to service and renovate old equipment as part of the expansion of the Kumasi Shoe Factory.

According to the Board Chairperson of the company, Dr Karl Laryea, the factory was prepared to move immediately to a three-shift system, but full implementation would depend on strict enforcement of procurement directives to security agencies in particular.

We intend to ensure that the governments 24-hour Economy programme is fully integrated into our operations to create more jobs for the teeming youth, he said.

The factory is jointly owned by the Ghana Armed Forces and the Czech Republic-based company, Knights a.s., operating in Ghana through its subsidiary, Knights Ghana Limited.

Dr Laryea said more than 1 million had been invested in new machinery, with additional funds used to refurbish older equipment in 2025.

When fully operational, the four new assembly lines are expected to enable the production of between 10 million and 15 million pairs of school sandals annually, in addition to security services boots and other assorted footwear.

Dr Laryea said the main obstacle facing the factory was not machinery, labour or capital, but the failure of state institutions to comply with government procurement directives.

The agencies include the Ghana Police Service, Ghana National Fire Service, the Ghana Immigration Service, the National Disaster Management Organisation, and the National Service Secretariat.

Last year, the Minister for the Interior, Muntaka Mohammed-Mubarak, again directed all security agencies under the Ministry for the Interior to stop importing footwear and procure it locally from the Kumasi Shoe Factory.

Calls placed to the Ministry of the Interior were answered, but officials indicated that they were in a meeting and would revert, but no feedback was received as of the time of filing this report.

The Prisons Service, however, said it sourced its boots and shoes from the services own factory at the James Camp Prison facility in Accra.

FLASHBACK: Dr Karl Laryea (right), Board Chairman of Knights Ghana Limited, showing President John Dramani Mahama some of the shoes produced at the factory when he visited in 2014

A source from the service told the Daily Graphic that all boots and shoes supplied to personnel of the service were always manufactured at the services own factory, and not imported.

All efforts to reach the other security agencies to check on whether they procure from the company proved futile.

The Head of Public Relations (PRO) of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS), DO II Desmond Ackah, did not respond to a text message sent to him and was unable to answer follow-up phone calls.

The Acting Director of Public Relations of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF), Naval Captain Veronica Adzo Arhin, responded to our message but did not address the questions, saying she would revert.

Non compliance

According to Dr Laryea, none of the agencies had so far complied with the new directive.

We have formally written twice to the agencies since the directive was issued last year, and made repeated attempts to engage them, but we have received no response, he said.

Instead, he said, the agencies continued to import footwear from India, China and the United Kingdom, amongother countries.

Dr Laryea dismissed claims that the factorys products were of low quality, saying samples provided to the agencies through the Interior Ministry had passed all required tests.

It is not true. Samples were offered to them, and they later attested to the quality, he said.

He added that the agencies had refused to provide their size specifications, known as size rolls, which were required for production.

Instead, he said, some had asked the factory to produce footwear without confirming sizing and promised to purchase it later.

This is impractical and risky. If we produce and they come with different sizes, we will not be able to meet their demand, and it will become another excuse for them to buy from outside.

They do not want to buy.

That is why they refuse to give their size rolls, Dr Laryea stated.

The factory currently operates at about eight per cent of its installed capacity of 700,000 pairs of assorted security boots and shoes per year.

Dr Laryea said the full implementation of the 24-hour Economy programme would require firm enforcement of government procurement directives for locally produced goods.

One thing is to tell them to go and buy. The second thing is to enforce that order, he stressed.

He, therefore, called on the government to ensure that funds allocated to security agencies for footwear procurement were channelled directly through the factory to guarantee compliance.

Giving orders without enforcement achieves nothing. What we need now is for the government to create the market, and we will produce at full capacity, he said.

Decline, lost jobs

Dr Laryea said the factorys decline reflected decades of policy failure.

In the 1960s, when Ghanas population was about six million, the factory employed roughly 1,800 workers.

Today, with a population of about 35 million, the workforce has shrunk to 41.

When the company was resuscitated in 2012, it employed about 200 workers, with projections to expand to 800 workers within two to three years.

Instead, the workforce steadily declined over the years due to the lack of sustained orders from the government.

Dr Laryea said the previous government rejected proposals to include the factory under the One District, One Factory programme.

We do not need further incentives or equipment to implement the 24-hour Economy.

We have everything we need.

What we require is clear policy direction and strict enforcement to stop unnecessary importation of security services shoes and boots by the security agencies, he said.
Next article: Roads minister on why Suame interchange has been reduced from four-tier

Local Govt Ministry presents sanitation equipment to Greater Accra MMDAs

Augustina Tawiah Feb - 10 - 2026 , 09:57 3 minutes read

The Ministry of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs (MLGCRA) has commissioned and handed over sanitation cleaning tools and equipment to the 29 metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) in the Greater Accra Region.

The items, which included 550 waste bins, 970 rakes, 1,000 shovels, 1,600 hand gloves, 120 wellington boots, 1,000 long brooms and 100 wheelbarrows, are intended to enhance the operational capacity of the (MMDAs) to undertake routine and emergency sanitation activities, to improve the effectiveness of monthly clean-up exercises under the National Sanitation Day, to encourage environmental health officers and sanitation staff in enforcing sanitation standards and ultimately contribute to cleaner communities, safer environments and healthier populations across the Greater Accra Region.

The Deputy Minister of MLGCRA, Rita Naa Odoley Sowah, who presented the equipment to the metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives (MMDCEs) of the assemblies yesterday, explained that the items had been carefully selected to respond to the practical sanitation needs of MMDAs and to complement existing resources at the district level.

Pillar

Ms Sowah said environmental sanitation remained one of the most critical pillars of public health, urban resilience and sustainable development, pointing out that the challenges people faced, ranging from indiscriminate waste disposal to flooding, cholera outbreaks and environmental degradation, required deliberate investment, strong leadership and operational readiness, especially at the district level.

She said the government, for its part, had demonstrated renewed resolve in that regard through the reintroduction and institutionalisation of the National Sanitation Day; the allocation of dedicated resources for sanitation activities and the continuous strengthening of MMDAs to deliver their sanitation mandates.

Ms Sowah said, while the government had made this investment, results would only be achieved if the equipment was used responsibly, effectively, efficiently and for the intended purpose.

She, therefore, charged the MMDCEs to provide the necessary leadership and oversight on the use of the items and for coordinating directors to ensure proper asset management and accountability.

For environmental health officers, she charged them to deploy the tools effectively in improving sanitation outcomes in their respective jurisdictions.

Let me emphasise that these assets must be properly documented, adequately secured and properly used to justify the confidence the government has placed in our local authorities, she said.

She urged all stakeholders to work collaboratively to sustain the gains of National Sanitation Day, promote behavioural change at the community level and build a culture of cleanliness, responsibility and environmental stewardship, adding that sanitation was not the responsibility of the government alone, but one that required the collective effort of assemblies, traditional authorities, religious leaders, community leaders, the private sector, civil society and the entire citizenry.

Why Accra

The Chief Director of the ministry, Alhaji Amin Abdul-Rahaman, explained that the ministry decided to restrict the distribution of the equipment to MMDAs in the Greater Accra Region for now because Accra was the first port of call to the country; therefore, if it was clean, visitors would pick up a positive image about Ghana.

He said later, when the ministry had more resources, it would reach out to the other regions with similar equipment.

The Dean of the Greater Accra MMDCEs, Daniel Narh Sowah, who spoke on behalf of his colleagues, expressed gratitude to the ministry and gave an assurance that the equipment and tools would be put to good use in order to make Accra, which was considered the gateway to Ghana, cleaner.
Next article: Woman found in septic tank at Kasoa

Featured

MahamaCares to fund specialist medical training - WACS honours President

Kester Aburam Korankye Feb - 10 - 2026 , 12:52 4 minutes read

President John Dramani Mahama has outlined the governments comprehensive vision to improve healthcare delivery, revealing that a portion of the Ghana Medical Trust Fund, otherwise known as MahamaCares, has been dedicated to the training of specialist doctors.

At an event where he was inducted as an Honorary Fellow and Grand Patron of the West African College of Surgeons (WACS), President Mahama said the holistic vision extended beyond training more surgeons to strengthening entire healthcare ecosystems, including anaesthesia, nursing, diagnostics, and blood services.

He consequently pledged his administration's resolve to bolster surgical healthcare systems across the sub-region.

We're not only responding to today's needs but also deliberately investing in the specialist workforce required for timely, safe and high-quality care in the years ahead, President Mahama said.

The President made the declaration when he delivered the keynote address at the opening of the 66th Annual Scientific Conference and General Meeting of the college in Accra yesterday.

Aligning with the conference theme, Capacity Building in Surgery, President Mahama said the Ghana Medical Trust Fund, which was established last year, was a critical instrument in the national response to non-communicable diseases.

He announced the governments decision to settle an outstanding financial obligation owed to the college following discussions with the Minister of Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, who was present at the event.

As was mentioned, there is an outstanding bill. We will take up that cost and still express appreciation to you for what you have done, President Mahama said.

His assurance invited applause from the gathering of surgeons and medical professionals from across West Africa and beyond.

Striking a personal and humble note at the start of his speech, President Mahama humorously questioned his own fortitude in the face of surgical procedures, recounting his tendency to run out of the operating theatre during his wifes Caesarean sections.

I wonder whether I really deserve to come away, he quipped, before offering profound gratitude to the profession.

You saved many lives. And may God richly bless you, he said.

He formally accepted the honours bestowed upon him, stating: I accept these recognitions on behalf of all the people of Ghana, with humility and renewed commitment to support the work of the college.

Call for innovation

President Mahama issued a strong call for gender equity in surgical training and leadership, indicating that it was a practical necessity for stronger, more resilient health systems.

He further encouraged the college to harness innovation, including artificial intelligence and digital tools, to advance surgical education and practice.

Addressing the pressing challenge of health worker migration, the President advocated practical measures to enhance working conditions, career pathways, and professional recognition to retain skilled personnel.

He commended WACS for its decades of service in standardising training and producing a significant proportion of the sub-regions surgical workforce, acknowledging the college as an indispensable partner in building a resilient health system.

The President officially declared the conference open, wishing delegates fruitful deliberations and a pleasant experience of Ghanaian hospitality.

The week-long conference has drawn hundreds of surgeons, anaesthetists, obstetricians, gynaecologists, and other specialists to discuss advancements and collaborative strategies for improving surgical outcomes in West Africa.

Affordability

Mr Akandoh raised concerns about the financial difficulties that confronted patients in accessing health care.

He said affordability remained one of the strongest factors affecting health outcomes.

Across our countries, the clinical pathway is often defeated by the financial pathway.

Patients delay care because they cannot pay, Mr Akandoh said.

The minister then outlined steps being taken by the government to address those challenges, including strengthening prevention and early detection systems through free primary health care.

We are scaling out the quality-focused free primary healthcare initiative to strengthen early detection and referral, he said.

Mr Akandoh further mentioned efforts to improve the financial stability of the National Health Insurance Scheme, and confirmed the rollout of the Ghana Medical Trust Fund.

We are also implementing the Ghana Medical Trust Fund to support catastrophic costs for priority chronic conditions, including cancers, chronic kidney disease, and cardiovascular disease, the minister said.
Four arrested after clash with NAIMOS team at illegal mining site in Nzema East

Next article: Four arrested after clash with NAIMOS team at illegal mining site in Nzema East

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Ghanas corruption score remains at 43 as ranking falls to 76th globally

Mohammed Ali Feb - 10 - 2026 , 10:20 4 minutes read

Ghana has scored 43 out of 100 in the 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index, maintaining the same score for the sixth consecutive year while falling five places to rank 76th among 182 countries assessed, Transparency International Ghana announced on February10 2026.

The anti corruption organisation linked the lack of movement partly to the withdrawal of corruption cases involving members of the governing administration through 60 40 settlements, which it said raised public concern and lowered expectations created by the publication of Operation Recover All Loot.

Transparency International Ghana said the unchanged score shows government anti corruption efforts are not making enough impact, pointing to continuing weaknesses in enforcement, political accountability and institutional performance.

Ghanas performance reflects persistent weaknesses in enforcement, political accountability, and institutional effectiveness. Addressing this requires urgent action to strengthen the justice system, safeguard institutional independence, regulate political party financing, and ensure transparency in public office, the organisation stated in a press release.

Ghana scored 42 in 2024, meaning the one point increase to 43 in 2025 represents marginal improvement. The country has stayed around a score of 43 since 2020, which Transparency International Ghana said does not amount to change under the index methodology.

Ghanas corruption perception has declined from its peak score of 48 in 2014. The rating fell to 40 in 2017 before improving to 41 in 2018 and 2019, which Transparency International Ghana linked to public reaction to a change in government at the time.

The organisation said the index score should be treated as an early signal rather than a final judgement, adding that the countrys position points to corruption challenges, weak compliance with legal rules and institutions under strain. It also cited interference in the work of the judiciary and law enforcement agencies, as well as executive influence, as factors shaping public perception.

The report noted that steps taken in 2025 to increase transparency in corruption investigations and prosecutions, including actions by the Office of the Special Prosecutor and the removal of the former Chief Justice, have not led to an improved perception rating.

Transparency International Ghana called for reforms, including strengthening the justice system and protecting its independence. The organisation welcomed the Chief Justices decision to fast track the establishment of anti corruption courts, which it said would speed up the hearing of related cases.

It also urged Parliament to pass the Community Tribunal Bill, which remains among measures awaiting attention during the current sitting. Other proposals include adopting the National Ethics and Anti Corruption Plan, promoting ethical conduct, improving the business environment, revising political party financing rules, protecting civic space and media freedom, and raising awareness among designated non financial businesses and professions of their anti money laundering duties.

TI Ghana reiterates that the CPI serves as a warning signal, not a verdict. However, Ghanas performance reflects persistent weaknesses in enforcement, political accountability, and institutional effectiveness, the statement said.

Defensive responses will not change perceptions; consistent action will. With sustained political will and measurable reforms, Ghana can rebuild public trust and improve its anti corruption outcomes over time.

Sub Saharan Africa ranked lowest on the global index of 182 countries. Ten of the 49 countries in the region have deteriorated since 2012, while seven have improved over the same period. The regional average score stands at 32 out of 100, which Transparency International linked to misuse of public funds and low political integrity among leaders.

Globally, corruption levels are rising, with even established democracies recording higher levels amid declining leadership standards. The global average score stands at 42 out of 100, the lowest level in more than a decade.

Mr Francois Valerian, Board Chair of Transparency International, said: In an interconnected world, we need both national action and multilateral cooperation to protect the public interest and tackle shared challenges like corruption. At a time when were seeing a dangerous disregard for international norms from some states, we need to protect a rules based global order that is grounded in transparency, accountability to citizens and respect for human rights.

The Corruption Perceptions Index, launched in 1995, scores 180 countries and territories based on perceptions of public sector corruption, drawing on data from 13 external sources including the World Bank, World Economic Forum, private risk and consulting firms and think tanks.
Featured

Gifty Oware-Mensah's bid to refer case to Supreme Court fails

Justice Agbenorsi and Joselyn Kafui Nyadzi Feb - 10 - 2026 , 15:28 2 minutes read

The High Court in Accra has dismissed an application seeking to refer portions of a practice direction which require accused persons in criminal trials to file the list of defence witnesses and their address to the Supreme Court for constitutional interpretation.

The application was filed by a former Deputy Executive Director of the National Service Authority (NSA), Gifty Oware-Mensah, who has been accused of causing financial loss of more than GH38 million to the state.

During case management conference, the trial court directed the accused person to file the list of defence witnesses and their address.

It is the contention of her lawyers that the order for her to file the list of defence witnesses and their addresses was inconsistent with Article 19(2)(c) of the 1992 constitution, the provision that presumes anyone charged with a criminal offence as innocent until proven guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction.

Practice directions are not part of the laws of Ghana but form part of the administration of justice.

The Practice Direction Disclosure and Case Management in Criminal Proceedings 2018, which was developed in 2018 and signed by the former Chief Justice, Sophia Akuffo, governs criminal trials to ensure expeditious trials and proper management of cases.

Specially 2(3) (a), compels an accused person to disclose the names and addresses of all witnesses he or she intends to call at the case management stage.

It states, Without prejudice to the constitutional presumption of the innocence of the Accused person, the Accused person shall, for purposes of case management, disclose the names and addresses of all witnesses he expects to call, should the Court call upon him to enter into his defence at the close of case for the Prosecution.

It is this portion that the accused, through her lawyer, Gary Nimako Marfo, is challenging.

It is based on this that the accused was praying the court to refer the issue raised to the Supreme Court for interpretation.

However, trial judge today, dismissed the application to refer the case to the Supreme Court on grounds that the accused failed to demonstrate the need for interpretation to warrant a stay of proceedings.

The case has been adjourned to February 18, 2026 for the consideration of an application for stay of proceedings to be determined.
Featured

GN Savings and Loans licence revocation appeal: Court grants BoG leave to file written submissions

Justice Agbenorsi Feb - 10 - 2026 , 10:47 2 minutes read

The Court of Appeal has granted the Bank of Ghana (BoG) leave to file its written submissions in the case in which Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom is challenging the license revocation of GN Savings and Loans Company Limited.

A three-member panel of the second highest court which granted the leave today (Feb 10) gave the BoG seven days to file the written submissions.

Per the orders of the court, the parties in the case also have seven days to file their response, if any, to the written submissions that would be filed by the BoG.

The application for extension of time to file written submissions was filed by counsel for the BoG, Kweku Boamah Kwakye

The case at the Court of Appeal is challenging the High Courts decision by Justice Gifty Agyei Addo, which upheld the revocation of the financial companys license.

Dr Nduom was represented by Dr Nana Kweku Ndoum, while the Coconut Grove Beach Resort and Conference Centre Limited was represented by Barbara Brown with Nana Ofori Owusu, Vice President at Groupe Ndoum, representing the Groupe.

The Bank of Ghana was also represented by Marcus Owusu Peprah, an in-house counsel.

Background

On January 4, 2019, GN Bank Limited was reclassified as a savings and loans company, and consequently, renamed GN Savings and Loans Company Limited.

Seven months later, August 16, 2019, the BoG, then under the leadership of Dr Ernest Addison, revoked the operating licence of GN Savings and Loans Company Limited and appointed Eric Nana Nipah as Receiver as part of the banking sector clean-up exercises.

The same month, Groupe Nduom, owners of GN Savings and Loans Company Limited, led by Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, challenged the revocation of the licence in the High Court, Accra.

On January 24, 2024, Justice Addo, upheld the revocation of licence.

It is this judgment of the High Court that the owners of GN Savings and Loans Company Limited, led by Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, are challenging at the Court of Appeal.
Featured

OSP releases Baba Jamal on self-recognisance bail after interrogation

Justice Agbenorsi Feb - 10 - 2026 , 16:56 1 minute read

The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) has released the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Parliamentary Candidate for Ayawaso East, Baba Jamal, on self-recognisance bail after several hours of interrogation.

His lawyer, Victor Kwadjoga Adawudu, who confirmed the development to Graphic Online, said his client was questioned over alleged vote-buying linked to the partys parliamentary primary held on Saturday, February 7.

He explained that Mr Jamal was also interrogated over an alleged assault on an officer of the OSP who was dispatched to serve an invitation letter on the parliamentary candidate.

Counsel maintained that his client had no knowledge of items allegedly being distributed in his name.

He added, If he was aware and being a lawyer, he would have told the people the position of the law.

Read also: Vote buying allegations: NDC investigative committee clears Baba Jamal for Ayawaso East by-election
Featured

President Mahama calls emergency Cabinet session over cocoa sector

Mohammed Ali Feb - 10 - 2026 , 11:08 2 minutes read

President John Dramani Mahama has called an emergency Cabinet meeting to address challenges in the cocoa sector, the Minister of State in charge of Government Communications, Felix Kwakye Ofosu has announced.

The meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, February 11, 2026, comes as the sector faces delayed payments to farmers, unsold cocoa beans at the ports and financing constraints affecting Licensed Buying Companies.

The Chief Executive of COCOBOD, Mr Randy Abbey, acknowledged on February 6, 2026, there were difficulties with payments.

Cocoa farmers deserve an apology, Mr Abbey said at a media briefing and added that COCOBOD, the Ministry of Finance and the government were working to address the issues.

Industry players have said thousands of farmers have experienced delays in receiving payment for cocoa delivered since November 2025.

The Minority Caucus in Parliament has said COCOBOD owes Licensed Buying Companies more than GH10 billion for cocoa already delivered.

Mr Abbey said at a press conference that although COCOBOD has sold more than 530,000 tonnes this season, about 50,000 metric tonnes remain at the ports without buyers.

The challenges relate partly to pricing conditions on the world cocoa market. Ghana pays farmers about GH58,000 per tonne, while world prices were around $4,200 per tonne as of February 6, 2026, representing a 57 per cent decline from the same period last year. Ghanas total production and export costs stand at about $6,300 per tonne.

Ghanas cocoa financing system has changed in recent seasons. The traditional syndicated loan arrangement was not available for the 2024 2025 season, leading to the use of alternative financing models, including a 60 40 arrangement and later an 80 20 model for the current season.

The Cabinet meeting is expected to consider payment options, review pricing arrangements and examine longer-term financing measures for the cocoa sector.
Featured

President Mahama swears in APRM governing council ahead of peer review

Mohammed Ali Feb - 10 - 2026 , 15:23 1 minute read

President John Dramani Mahama has sworn in members of Ghanas National African Peer Review Mechanism Governing Council in Accra on Tuesday February, 10, 2026.

The Council will oversee the countrys participation in the upcoming peer review under the African Peer Review Mechanism.

President Mahama described the African Peer Review Mechanism as an important tool for assessing governance reforms and guiding policy direction, and said Ghana stands ready to take part in the second-generation peer review scheduled for next week on the margins of the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The APRM provides an important platform for evaluating our governance systems and shaping reforms that strengthen democracy and accountability. We are ready to participate fully and to lead this process, President Mahama said.

The Governing Council, which will oversee the review, is chaired by Professor Akua Kuenyehia.

In brief remarks, Professor Kuenyehia thanked the President and said the Council would uphold transparency and the independence of governance institutions in carrying out its work.

Other members of the Council include Dr Joseph Whittal, Chairman of the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice, Mr Joseph Obeng, Mr David Ofosu-Dorte and Mrs Cornelia Amoah.

The Council is expected to guide Ghanas engagement in the peer review process and contribute to governance reforms arising from the exercise.
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Baba Ali acclaimed NPP candidate for Ayawaso East

Daily Graphic Politics Feb - 10 - 2026 , 06:57 1 minute read

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has officially announced Baba Ali Yussif, the current Constituency Secretary of the party, as its parliamentary candidate for the Ayawaso East Constituency by-election scheduled for March 3, 2026.

The decision was made after extensive consultations by the National Executive Committee (NEC) with key stakeholders, and a unanimous recommendation by the Candidate Search Committee, chaired by former General Secretary of the party, John Boadu.

A statement signed and issued by the General Secretary of the NPP, Justin Kodua Frimpong, said based on the Committees report, the party last Sunday, convened an expanded Constituency Executive Committee meeting and a Delegates Conference in the Constituency.

It said at that meeting, Baba Ali Yussif was unanimously acclaimed by delegates as the NPPs Parliamentary Candidate for the Ayawaso East by-election.

The party called on all members, supporters, and sympathisers of the NPP to rally solidly behind Baba Ali Yussif, who represented the partys best opportunity to secure victory in the forthcoming by-election.

The NPP further appealed to the good people of Ayawaso East to vote massively for Baba Ali as their next Member of Parliament, in order to help restore hope, effective representation, and prosperity to the constituency.
Infinix is unveiling the Note 60 series soon, and a week ago the RAM and storage amounts were revealed for the Note 60, Note 60 Pro, and Note 60 Ultra. Now, a pre-order link shared by Infinix's Instagram account for Nigeria outs some more details about the Note 60 Pro.

The phone is confirmed to be powered by the Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 SoC, as previously revealed by its FCC certification. One of the Note 60 Pro's unique selling points will undoubtedly be its dot matrix display that's part of the big camera island. This reminds us of the Nothing Phone (3), and it looks like Infinix really liked Nothing's idea, so it decided to come up with its own version.

The Note 60 Pro has a display with "1.5K" resolution and 144Hz refresh rate, and a 6,500 mAh battery with "self-healing tech". According to our tipster, at least one of the three models in this line will support 30W wireless charging. Hopefully Infinix will reveal all the details soon.

Thanks for the tip!

Source
Oppo recently confirmed that it plans to launch its next foldable after the Chinese New Year. Now, a tipster has revealed the foldables launch timeline for China and select markets. Meanwhile, Oppo has also officially confirmed the Find N6 moniker.

Based on Oppos earlier comments, we figured the Find N6 would debut in late February or early March. However, a tipster now claims that Oppo will unveil its next foldable on March 17, with the launch set to take place in China as well as select markets, including South Asia and the EU.

Oppo Find N5

However, the tipster adds that the device will not launch in India, a move that isnt entirely surprising, considering its predecessor, the Find N5, was also skipped in the country.

Meanwhile, Oppo has officially begun teasing the Find N6. In a video shared on Weibo, Zhou Yibao, head of Oppos Find series, revealed that the company recently held an internal product showcase for the device. In the video, the Find N6 is claimed to feature the shallowest display crease in the industry.

Oppo Find N5

The Oppo Find N6 is expected to offer a 200MP primary rear camera, a 50MP periscope telephoto unit, and a 50MP ultrawide camera. It is said to sport a thin and lightweight design, support an AI-powered stylus, and be offered in Titanium and Orange color options.

It is rumored to be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC and pack a 6,000mAh battery with 80W fast charging support.

Oppo Find N5

These are the best offers from our affiliate partners. We may get a commission from qualifying sales. 512GB 16GB RAM  1,428.00  1,696.00 Show all prices

Source 1 (In Chinese)  Source 2  Via
In our vibrant expanse of the Western Pacific, Guam and Micronesia are standing at a pivotal economic crossroads.

It is 2026, and the traditional way weve always done it is no longer a viable compass.

From the massive military buildup on Guam to the evolving eco-tourism models in the Federated States of Micronesia, the region is facing a common challenge: a widening gap between available jobs and the local skill sets required to fill them.

On Guam alone, several businesses have shut their doors with an uncertainty of ever reopening or coming back. The solution isnt just hiringit is a radical, region-wide commitment to targeted, industry-driven training to adapt whats left and what industries we can bring in, and what we can strengthen that we still have.

Lets look at what we can strengthen.

The construction sector is currently the engine of the regions economy. With the expansion of Marine Corps Base Camp Blaz and the high-stakes implementation of missile defense infrastructure, the demand for skilled trades has reached a fevered pitch. However, the days of relying solely on imported H-2B and H-1B labor is shifting.

Programs like the Guam Registered Apprenticeship Program, GRAP, and the GCA Trades Academy have become the gold standard for bridging this gap. By using a Learn while you Earn model, local residents are transitioning from entry-level laborers to certified journeymen in electricity, HVAC, and carpentry.

In 2026, the focus has moved toward stackable credentialsshort-term certifications that allow a worker to gain a specific skill, enter the field immediately, and return for more advanced training later. This flexibility is essential for a workforce that often balances family obligations with career growth.

In the hospitality industry, the post-pandemic recovery has matured into a demand for high-touch, specialized service. Visitors to Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands are no longer just looking for a room; they are looking for cultural immersion.

Consequently, Guam Community College and regional tourism boards have pivoted their training to include cultural competency, digital hospitality management, and sustainable blue economy practices.

The future of work here lies in the Lodging Management and ProStart programs. These initiatives are training the next generation of chefs and hotel managers to integrate local flavors and CHamoru and Micronesian values into international service standards.

Many on the islands would consider the most critical sector for workforce development to be health care. Micronesia has long grappled with a brain drain of medical professionals. To combat this, 2026 has seen an explosion in local nursing and public health pathways.

The Pacific Public Health Fellowship Program is a prime example of how regional cooperation is creating a pipeline for homegrown epidemiologists and health administrators. Industry expansion in wound care is also growing.

Focusing on Certified Nursing Assistants to Registered Nursing pathways at institutions like the University of Guam and the College of Micronesia-FSM, the region is trying to reduce its dependence on off-island travel nurses.

Training here isnt just clinical; its about telehealth proficiency and rural health managementskills specifically adapted to the geography of our islands.

The Future of Work in Micronesia isnt a distant tech-utopia; it is the practical application of education to industry. Whether its a carpenter mastering green building techniques or a nurse learning to manage a remote clinic via satellite, the message is clear: Training is the bridge.

As we look forward to the remainder of the decade, the prosperity of our islands depends on our ability to view every worker not as a fixed asset, but as a student in a lifelong classroom.
Education committee chair Sen. Vincent Borja will host a community education town hall at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 19, at the John F. Kennedy High School Gymnasium.

The town hall will serve as an open forum for students, families, teachers, school administrators, and community members to share concerns, experiences, and ideas related to public education.

It is part of Borjas ongoing commitment to engaging students, parents, educators, and stakeholders where they arein their schools and communitiesand ensuring their voices remain central to education policy decisions, the senator's office said in a media release Tuesday.

This comes as a new leadership is now in place at the Guam Department of Education.

Community engagement cannot be a one-time event, Borja said in a statement. This town hall is about continuing the conversation, especially during a period of transition. Our students, parents, and educators deserve a seat at the table, and this is one way we make sure that happens.

Participants are encouraged to speak on issues that matter most to them and to hold leaders accountable for progress and follow-through.

Good policy starts with listening, Borja said. We need to hear whats working, whats not, and what needs to change. This is how we make better decisions and ensure our actions reflect the real needs of our schools.

Community members interested in participating or providing testimony may contact Borja's office at (671) 969-8423 or via email at contact@senatorvinceborja.com for additional information.
After two rounds of pay increases, extra retention pay and bonuses, and a push for promotions, the Guam Police Department is still about 155 officers short of what it needs.

Needed staff positions also push GPD up to about a total of 201 vacancies, which would take $8.8 million annually to fill, according to testimony the police command shared with lawmakers during a Tuesday oversight hearing.

Despite retention efforts in recent years, officials said GPD still has issues keeping officers on the force and isnt recruiting fast enough.

A presentation from Col. Joseph Carbullido showed the department needs 107 more officers across the Highway Patrol Division, village precincts, and the Special Operations Division to get officers off of extended 12-hours shifts, and onto ideal 10-hour days.

In the Investigations Bureau, another 48 officers are needed, according to Carbullidos presentation.

GPD responded to over 24,000 calls last year, and made 773 arrests, he showed, but did so with minimal staffing.

We are maintaining a high enforcement standard, Carbullido said. But as these call volumes show, specifically in the (Central Precinct Command) and (Dededo Precinct Command) corridors, we are doing so at an operational tempo that is simply not sustainable.

Maj. Andrew Quitugua told senators that at all times, GPD has to keep a minimum of officers out on patrol, and at each precinct.

Sometime last year, I believe in June, we required officers to report for overtime work to meet that minimum manpower, Quitugua said.

GPD spent over $4 million on overtime last fiscal year, according to administrative services officer Nellie Asanuma.

And because a 25.59% base pay increase for officers in 2024 did not factor in overtime costs, the department is consistently short.

I dont want to say were going to run into the negative, Asanuma said. But I am consistently monitoring our accounts every payday.

Carbullido said recruitment continues to be a struggle.

This is not an easy job to do. Its a very difficult job. Its not for everyone, Carbullido said.

A yearly police recruit training cycle might start with 50 people who get past the basic screening, but GPD would be lucky to have 10 left at the end.

Carbullido said hes seen instances of newly trained officers turning in their resignation.

Other law enforcement agencies also offered similar or better pay, for less responsibility.

Its not all about the money. You can give people money, but are they willing to perform the job thats required? the colonel said.

Capt. C.N. Castro added that the current training cycle does have 10 officers left in it.

But Castro said GPD had just lost one officer to retirement, and another three to other local and federal law enforcement agencies.

So this cycle of 10, were only going to gain six, Castro said. So its very dire, we need to address the system.

Recruit cycles have to go faster than once a year, Maj. Fred Chargualaf told senators.

Chargualaf said the Department of Administration needs to allow for more examinations, something Chief of Police Stephen Ignacio is now working on.

I know when I first got in, we were having cycles back to back, Chargualaf said.

He said at the time, GPD had five training cycles in the course of about two years.

Chargualaf said with the department now pushing for eligible officers to get quickly promoted, more new recruits would be more likely to stay on, once they get in.

Besides recruitment, the current crop of GPD leadership is aging, Carbullido told senators.

He noted at one point during the hearing that every uniformed GPD officer at the Legislature on Tuesday may be eligible for retirement.

Other positions, $8.8M total

Besides the 155 uniformed officers needed, Carbullido also pointed to 46 vacancies in the Forensics Bureau and Services Bureau.

All told, GPDs recruitment ask amounted to about $8.8 million in salaries annually.

These are actual numbers that we really need, Carbullido said.

GPD oversight chair Sen. Shawn Gumataotao scrutinized a $9.3 million lapse in GPDs budget for fiscal year 2025. He questioned why the money had gone unspent.

Nellie Asanuma, GPD administrative services officer, said she was tracking a lapse closer to over $8 million from fiscal 2025.

But that lapse was caused by an issue with how GPD handled funds for a pay adjustment, Asanuma said.

Payroll funds were put into a separate account for the department, she said, but GPD ended up drawing down from its regular General Fund account to cover the cost.

The department then tried to move its regular expenditures into the pay adjustment account, but the process took too long. By the time it was done, the agency did not have time to do procurement by years end.

She said the department had not used any of the lapsed funding in fiscal 2026.

And with overtime expenses to account for this fiscal year, based on my projection, were going to probably run...were going to go into a negative.
Superior Court Judge Arthur Barcinas on Monday denied Cameron Jose Guerrero's request to dismiss the criminal charges against him that include theft and credit card fraud, after claiming he was attacked in jail that resulted in his injuries.

Guerrero said government actions placed him in danger.

With the judge's denial of the motion to dismiss, trial resumed. Guerrero on Monday appeared before Barcinas.

Guerrero is facing 18 charges related to a series of vehicle thefts, burglaries and credit card fraud after evading police for more than a month.

During Mondays hearing, the judge said the defenses request to dismiss the case wasnt supported by any evidence, even though they argued that Guerrero was attacked in jail after information about a possible cooperating witness was revealed in court.

The decision followed a hearing last week in which defense attorney Thomas Fisher accused the government and the Public Defender Service Corporation of reckless conduct that he said led to Guerrero being beaten while housed at the Department of Corrections.

"Its almost entirely fact driven due to what, well, Ill characterize it as recklessness by the government and the Public Defender Service Corporation, he told the court. They placed my clients life in danger, he suffered a beating, because they disclosed, as a court knows, they disclosed that they were trying to flip Shaun Sablan against Mr. Guerrero.

Sablan, Guerreros co-defendant, was at the center of that alleged effort. On Sept. 25, 2025, Guerrero was linked to another car burglary in Mangilao, and surveillance footage, along with statements from accomplices Tian Lizama and Sablan, showed he planned and carried out multiple thefts and used stolen credit cards from the vehicles.

Police attempted to apprehend Guerrero on Sept. 25, but he evaded capture, driving at high speeds on narrow residential roads, nearly hitting other vehicles. Police eventually ended the pursuit after losing him.

Fisher said the assault amounted to aggravated assault and left Guerrero fearful for his safety in custody.

He suffered the injury because of it, and he has to reflect now, because hes in the custody of the Department of Corrections, whether or not he is safe within the Department of Corrections and clearly not, he said.

Fisher pointed to reported jail violence, particularly a riot that injured several pretrial detainees and prompted a lockdown last Friday at DOCs adult correctional facility in Mangilao.

According to at least one source, several people have been hospitalized, he said.

Fisher argued Guerrero was transferred to the Mangilao facility to intimidate him into staying silent, creating pressure over whether he could safely testify in his own defense.

It puts him in an incredible dilemma of whether or not he wants to take the stand on his own behalf, he said.

Fisher urged the court to impose consequences, saying that careless disclosure of information in open court put Guerrero directly in danger.

There has to be some consequence for this erosion again, of the justice system, and we think that a strong message needs to be sent.

Prosecuting attorney Neil Michael Bonavita countered that the defense relied on argument rather than evidence and said the Office of the Attorney General does not control inmate housing.

I heard a lot of argument and no evidence, not within Mr. Fishers motion other than a single court citation, where you ask for relief under an extraordinary remedy announced by the Supreme Court, which isn't for the facts and circumstances of this matter," he told the court. The AG's office has no control over what DOC manages, that we can make requests. We can make inquiries, but we dont manage prisoners. They do.

Bonavita said safety concerns raised by former defense counsel for co-defendant Sean Sablan were communicated to DOC officials.

In the process, I attached that as exhibit one to the response I happen to have copied in that email, he said, adding that DOC officials acknowledged the concern and sought to separate inmates.

He referenced discovery materials indicating that Guerrero declined medical treatment after the alledged incident.

Bonavita said the records show Guerrero provided only minimal information in his own handwriting and refused to give additional details or seek care. He also said claims linking the assault to Sablan were not supported.

All of this information about another prisoner, its innuendo that he was attacked by a prisoner named Sablan, Bonavita said. But it wasnt Sean Sablan because he was in Hagatna."

Fisher disputed that account, saying Guerrero declined treatment out of fear.

He refused treatment and signed it within the company of the jailer who had failed to negotiate or to protect him, Fisher said, also accusing the government of backdating records.

The court ordered the production of medical evidence by the fourth. It didnt happen, Fisher said.

Bonavita rejected that claim, noting that the injury report had been requested and received on the same day as the hearing and that any further evidence cited was merely argument.

After denying the dismissal request, Barcinas addressed scheduling concerns, citing the need to manage jurors across multiple cases.

He said he intended to avoid delays that could burden jurors.

I dont want to suspend the Guerrero trial and have the jurors go through a lot of replay, Barcinas said. I want to bring them back in and have them discharge their duties and obligations to the court so that they can move on with their own lives.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to visit Hungary and Slovakia




Haiti - Security : Certified security agents at the Ministry of Agriculture





The Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development (MARNDR), Western Department, has taken a major step forward by organizing intensive specialized training for its security officers, aimed at raising protection standards within the department.



To ensure high-level expertise, the Minister called upon the firm Protection and Risk Management S.A. (PRM Security), a leader in the security field. Two training sessions were conducted, focusing on essential skills:



 Access control to sensitive buildings;



 Implementation of risk prevention measures;



 Intervention techniques in the event of an emergency or major natural disaster.



During the certificate presentation ceremony, Vernet Joseph, the Minister of Agriculture, warmly thanked PRM Security for its "professionalism and technical contribution". He also took the opportunity to congratulate the officers for their discipline and commitment, before reaffirming, "We will modernize and professionalize the security service for central bodies, and I sincerely hope that this training will be replicated in all Departmental Directorates."



Jean Paul, the representative of PRM Security, assured everyone, "The officers are now fully equipped to ensure the physical security of the Ministrys staff and buildings."



The most moving testimony came from Osmain Austene, Head of Security "In 25 years of service within the Ministry, this is the first time a training program of this scale has been organized for us. I thank Minister Vernet Joseph for this remarkable initiative, which I consider historic and highly beneficial."



This ceremony not only concludes a training cycle; it marks the beginning of a new era for security at the Ministry, with the goal of a robust and professional protection system.



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - FLASH : WIPO Global Prizes 2026, Call for Nominations





The Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MCI) informs creators, entrepreneurs, and especially the academic community that the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), dedicated to innovation and creativity, has opened applications for the 5th edition of the WIPO Global Prizes 2026, a competition celebrating startups and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) that use intellectual property to develop their business and generate a positive impact.



These prizes recognize companies that use intellectual property rights as a strategic asset to develop their activities and have a tangible impact.



In 2026, 11 companies will be recognized :

 10 Awards across all sectors of the economy (including health, agri-food, the environment, creative industries, and ICT)

 1 Thematic Award:

SMEs in Sport, in line with the theme of World Intellectual Property Day 2026

 2 Special Mentions:

- Best Female Entrepreneur

- Best Young Entrepreneur



The evaluation focuses on :

 The robustness of the business model and intellectual property protection strategy;



 The clarity of the intellectual property commercialization plan;



 The company's internal intellectual property culture;



 The company's contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).



The winners benefit from global visibility through the WIPO-UN system, a personalized six-month mentorship program on intellectual property asset commercialization and business strategy, networking opportunities with investors, companies, institutions, and service providers offering exclusive benefits to winners, and an invitation to Geneva for the awards ceremony during the WIPO Assemblies.



Last year, this ten-day event brought together more than 1,600 delegates, including ministers, heads of intellectual property offices, and senior government representatives who negotiate the international treaties governing the global intellectual property ecosystem.



Building on this visibility and support, several past winners have reported concrete developments such as fundraising efforts, expansion into new markets, new patent filings, and the strengthening of their intellectual property strategies.



In 2025, the competition received over 780 applications from 95 countries, a 20% increase compared to the previous year.



Entrepreneurs from all sectors and regions of the world, representing the 194 UN member states, can submit their applications until March 31, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Central European Time.



The application form is available in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian at : https://www.wipo.int/en/web/awards/w/news/2026/apply-now-wipo-global-awards-2026?lang-gt=fr



For more information : global.awards@wipo.int



WIPO website : https://www.wipo.int/portal/en/index.html



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Economy : NATCASH accelerates financial inclusion





Natcash, the mobile wallet platform developed by National Telecom S.A. (NATCOM), continues to solidify its central role in Haitis digital financial ecosystem by expanding access to financial services and streamlining official remittance flows for the Haitian diaspora.



Launched to meet the needs of the unbanked population, Natcash offers a simple, secure, and user-friendly digital solution. Using mobile phones, users can perform essential transactions, including money transfers, bill payments, and cash pickup/withdrawal services, thus facilitating their gradual integration into the formal economy.



In the area of cross-border services, Natcash has integrated international money transfer services via CamTransfer and Unitransfer, guaranteeing the Haitian diaspora in other countries a fast, transparent, secure, and reliable way to send funds directly to the Natcash wallets of their family members in Haiti.



On the technological front, Natcash utilizes advanced security features, including biometric authentication, transaction geolocation, and proprietary anti-fraud systems to ensure accurate, real-time processing. These innovations not only meet individual needs but also support small businesses and a nationwide agent network.



To date, Natcash has built a vast ecosystem with millions of accounts and an agent network reaching even the most remote areas of Haiti. The platform actively creates jobs, promotes cashless payments, and improves financial literacy.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















For a long time, the use of Google's reCAPTCHA was a data protection tightrope walk for European website operators. The service is intended to protect against bots and spam. However, the type of data processing regularly caused headaches in legal departments. Until now, Google largely acted as an independent "data controller" when analyzing user behavior. This meant that the US company itself decided how and for what purposes the information collected in the background was processed  often with reference to the general Google data protection regulations. This era of non-bindingness is now coming to an end.

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As Google has announced, a change of direction is imminent. As of April 2, 2026, the tech giant will globally change the operating model of reCAPTCHA. The service will transform from an offering with its own data sovereignty to classic order processing.

This integrates the bot protection into the ranks of professional Google Cloud Services and will in future follow the same compliance requirements that customers already know from the hyperscaler's cloud platform. The step goes beyond a formal adjustment of the terms and conditions: it shifts the power balance in data processing in favor of the operators.

Role reversal in data responsibility

In practice, the transformation means that from spring onwards, website operators themselves will step into the role of "Data Controller". They will determine the purpose and means of data processing, while Google will merely act as "Data Processor". Google will therefore only process the data collected on the customer websites according to strict instructions from the respective operators.

The company is thus responding to ongoing criticism from data protection advocates. They complained that user data from security queries could flow unnoticed into the advertising group's huge profiling pools. With the new structure, a clear dividing line is drawn: the collected information may henceforth only be used for the provision, maintenance, and security of the reCAPTCHA service itself.

The change will be particularly noticeable for users. Anyone who visits a website protected by reCAPTCHA will often still see a reference to Google's privacy policy and the company's terms of use in the small logo badge. These references will disappear from the effective date. Since users are no longer subject to the general Google terms and conditions, the direct legal link in the widget is omitted. Google proactively urges its customers to remove existing manual references to the Google Privacy Policy in connection with reCAPTCHA from their presences to comply with the new legal situation.

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Seamless transition and legal clarity

Technically, the transition is expected to be largely seamless for admins. Google assures that there will be no interruptions in service. Existing site keys will remain valid. The functionality of security features such as Account Defense or SMS protection will also remain untouched. The strategic integration is interesting: since all Classic keys have already been migrated to the Cloud platform, processing will now uniformly take place within the framework of the so-called Cloud Data Processing Addendum. This addendum is intended to provide companies with the necessary legal certainty, as data processing is now limited to threat detection and fraud prevention for specific purposes.

The change comes at a critical time. In an era where AI is used not only for defense but also for creating increasingly sophisticated bots, the need for reliable verification tools is growing. Website operators can, in principle, argue in the future with significantly fewer concerns that the use of the tool serves to safeguard legitimate interests in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This is because the risk of violating user rights through uncontrolled tracking is, for the time being, off the table.

(des)

Don't miss any news  follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn or Mastodon. This article was originally published in German. It was translated with technical assistance and editorially reviewed before publication.
The EU pact enters force in summer 2026 and requires extensive legislative changes across member states. Finlands Interior Ministry has prepared a draft package of almost 600 pages. The Deaconess Foundation says the proposal marks the widest overhaul of asylum law in decades and places efficiency ahead of human rights.

A major reform of Finlands asylum and migration system faces criticism from the Deaconess Foundation, which says the planned national implementation of the EU migration and asylum pact weakens legal safeguards and threatens equal treatment.

The organisation said the government has room under EU rules to protect fundamental rights but has chosen a different path. Anne Hammad, a migration expert at the Deaconess Foundation, said Finland is moving away from safeguards rather than using national discretion to protect them.

National discretion in EU member states can be used in a way that respects human rights and legal safeguards. Finland is not making use of this, and the direction appears to be the opposite. Hammad said.

The EU pact aims to strengthen preparedness, resources, and efficiency in asylum, reception, and migration systems. It also seeks to improve the blocs ability to respond to changing migration pressures. The Deaconess Foundation said those goals do not justify measures that weaken access to justice or undermine protection for vulnerable applicants.

The Interior Ministry has framed the reform as necessary to speed up asylum procedures. The foundation said faster processing remains a valid aim when paired with respect for basic rights. The organisation said the current proposal fails to meet that balance.

Making the asylum process more efficient is a legitimate goal. It should be done in a way that ensures that applicants in vulnerable positions receive not only an efficient process, but also treatment that respects fundamental rights and equality throughout the application procedure. Hammad said.

The Deaconess Foundation said the reform package was prepared on a tight schedule despite its scale, and that several elements risk undermining a dignified asylum process.

The draft law narrows practical access to free legal advice and legal aid. The group said this weakens applicants ability to understand and challenge decisions. Shorter appeal deadlines add pressure on people who already face language barriers and trauma.

The organisation also raised concern about unaccompanied minors. Changes to the system of legal representatives for children arriving without guardians risk gaps in protection.

Under the proposal, the right to work lawfully begins only after six months from lodging an asylum claim. The group said this delays self-sufficiency and hinders early integration into society and working life.

The Deaconess Foundation said strict procedural deadlines limit the ability of authorities to identify special needs. This affects people who have suffered persecution, torture, or war-related trauma.

Careful assessment of some asylum seekers situations takes time. A tightened timetable risks overlooking a person in a particularly vulnerable position. Hammad said.

The foundation warned that the scale of the reform, combined with a strict implementation schedule, risks overloading authorities.

Border authorities, the Finnish Immigration Service, and courts face new duties under the pact. Added pressure risks reducing decision quality and consistency, according to the group. Unequal treatment becomes more likely when workloads rise and timelines tighten.

A tight implementation timetable combined with the scale of the reform increases the risk that the workload of border authorities, the Finnish Immigration Service, and the courts will grow in a way that weakens the quality of the process and, in turn, equal treatment, Hammad said.

The organisation called for revisions that strengthen access to legal aid, allow sufficient time for assessments, and protect children and other vulnerable groups. It said efficiency and rights do not conflict when laws are drafted with care.

HT
Jimmy Lai, mastermind of crimes endangering national security, sentenced to 20 years in prison

Xinhua) 08:14, February 10, 2026

HONG KONG, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) on Monday sentenced Jimmy Lai, an instigator of anti-China riots in Hong Kong, to 20 years in prison for three crimes endangering national security.

The sentence was announced along with penalties for other defendants in the national security case. Eight defendants received imprisonment terms ranging from six years and three months to 10 years. The three corporate defendants, namely Apple Daily Limited, Apple Daily Printing Limited, and Apple Daily Internet Limited, were each fined 3,004,500 Hong Kong dollars (about 384,477 U.S. dollars).

In the sentencing of Lai, the court found that Lai was the "mastermind and driving force" behind conspiracies to collude with external forces and to publish seditious materials. After considering Lai's grave criminal conduct as well as his mitigation, the court handed down the sentence of 20 years' imprisonment, with two of the years overlapping with the prison term Lai is currently serving.

Central government agencies in Hong Kong, as well as local authorities, have voiced support for the sentencing.

The sentence of 20 years' imprisonment imposed on Jimmy Lai manifested that the rule of law is upheld and justice is done, and also brought great relief to all, said HKSAR Chief Executive John Lee.

Lai betrayed the country and harmed the HKSAR, causing damage to the interests of the country and the HKSAR. His conviction is supported by overwhelming evidence, and he for sure deserves his punishment after all the harm he has done, Lee said.

"The court's judgment illustrates that the rule of law in Hong Kong is robust," Tang Ping-keung, secretary for security of the HKSAR government, told reporters on Monday.

Over the years, Lai and his syndicate have misled people with fake news and false information, inflicting irreparable harm on society, said Tang. Even after the enactment of the national security law in Hong Kong, the defendants in the case continued with their crimes for some time until after they were arrested by the police, Tang noted.

The heavy sentence clearly reflected the very serious nature of the offences committed by Lai, said Tang.

The sentencing fully demonstrated judicial fairness and the authority of the rule of law, and reflected the HKSAR's firm determination and strong will to lawfully punish criminal acts and activities endangering national security, said a spokesperson for the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the HKSAR.

The facts proved once again that the despicable dealings of external forces and anti-China elements seeking to destabilize Hong Kong are ultimately futile, said the spokesperson.

"The punishment fit the crime," said a spokesperson for the Office for Safeguarding National Security of the Central People's Government in the HKSAR.

The 156-day public trial, which involved the examination of 2,220 exhibits, over 80,000 pages of case files and testimonies of 14 prosecution witnesses, had established that Lai colluded with external forces to endanger national security, the spokesperson noted. The judicial process was open, transparent, rigorous, fair and just, with Lai's legal rights protected.

The ruling of Jimmy Lai's case has represented not only the fulfillment of justice, but also a clear warning to anyone who attempts to challenge legal boundaries, said a spokesperson for the Commissioner's Office of the Chinese Foreign Ministry in the HKSAR in an open letter to foreign media agencies based in Hong Kong.

The spokesperson called on journalists of foreign media outlets to respect the independence of Hong Kong's judicial process, uphold journalistic professionalism, and report on the case with objectivity and fairness, refraining from politicizing legal matters.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
President Donald Trump said he is considering sending a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East in case negotiations with Iran fail.

"We have an armada that is heading there and another one might be going," Trump told Axios' Barak Ravid on Tuesday.

A U.S. official confirmed to the outlet that there are indeed discussions about the possibility. The strike group would join the USS Abraham Lincoln and its group.

However, Trump said Tehran "wants to make a deal very badly" and is engaging in a serious manner. "Last time they didn't believe I would do it," Trump said in reference to the attack against the country's nuclear facilities in June. He said back then "they overplayed their hand" but this time things are "very different."

The outlet noted that Iran has noted that it won't discuss any issues other than its nuclear program, clarifying that it is not willing to give up enriching uranium.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to visit Washington on Wednesday. "He also wants a deal. He wants a good deal," Trump said about Netanyahu.

Speaking to press, the Israeli prime minister said he would "present to the president our outlook regarding the principles of these negotiations  the essential principles which, in my opinion, are important not only to Israel, but to everyone around the world who wants peace and security in the Middle East."

Ali Larijani, a top adviser to Iran's supreme leader and secretary of the country's national security council, reacted to the visit in a social media publication, saying: "Americans must think wisely and not allow him, through posturing, to imply before his flight that 'I want to go and teach Americans the framework of the nuclear negotiations.' They must remain alert to the destructive role of the Zionists." He is set to meet Qatari officials in Doha on Wednesday, with U.S. officials believing he could be conveying the country's positions ahead of a new round of talks with the U.S.

Originally published on Latin Times
On a small birch wooden key card, a forest celebration is unfolding. A Mexican gray squirrel leaps between branches while a yellow-billed tern flashes through the canopy. A tree frog peeks curiously from a leaf. Nearby, an Asian elephant, a great hornbill, a red-breasted parakeet, and a Yunnan snub-nosed monkey gather in a lively woodland scene. Together, animals and plants become cheerful hosts of a grand forest party.

This playful illustration reflects a growing philosophy in nature-based hospitality: that even the smallest objects can carry stories that reconnect guests with the natural world.

Designing a Key Card as a Miniature Ecosystem

Crafted from birch, the wooden key card itself is a tactile reminder of the forest. Its organic texture contrast with conventional key cards, offering guests a sensory connection to nature the moment they check in.

The forest party theme uses gentle personification and cartoon storytelling to transform the card into a miniature ecosystem. Each animal is intentionally chosen to represent biodiversity across regions, inviting curiosity and conversation. Children, in particular, are drawn to the colorful characters. They begin to ask questions: What animal is this? Where does it live? Why is it important?

In this way, the key card becomes a quiet educational tool  a small gateway to learning about wildlife and ecological balance.

Planting Seeds of Environmental Awareness

At its heart, the project is about nurturing emotional connections with nature. Research and experience alike suggest that people protect what they feel connected to. By presenting wildlife in a joyful, accessible way, the forest party scene encourages empathy for living landscapes.

For families staying in nature-oriented accommodations, the card often becomes a keepsake. Children carry it, examine it, and invent stories about the animals. These moments of imagination plant early seeds of environmental stewardship, linking travel memories with positive feelings toward the natural world.

When Hospitality Becomes Storytelling

In nature-based stays, sustainability is not only about materials and operations; it is also about narrative. Objects like wooden key cards can express a propertys values in subtle but memorable ways. They signal a commitment to low-impact design while celebrating the beauty and diversity of ecosystems.

The forest party key card embodies a simple idea: hospitality can be playful, meaningful, and environmentally conscious at the same time. By placing a tiny celebration of nature in the palm of each guests hand, it transforms an everyday object into an invitation to observe more closely, to wonder more deeply, and to care more thoughtfully for the forests that inspire it.

ABOUT GCSTIMES

Since 2011, GCSTlMES has pioneered sustainable development, evolving from smart card R&D to sustainable material innovation. Today, we stand as a global platform for sustainable solutions.

Sustainability is our foundation. Through technological innovation and creative solutions, GCSTlMES delivers diverse services and tangible products, positioning ourselves as both manufacturers and innovators.

GCSTlMES believes technology should empower human progress and cultural preservation. By integrating sustainability into technology, we aim to make it "warm" and purposeful. Our products serve as cultural ambassadors, promoting local heritage worldwide.

Brand Portfolio: GCS, AUROkeys, Xenyra, and Glint Spot, offering sustainable smart cards, creative (custom-shaped) key cards sustainable supplies, cultural gifts, and bespoke design and related services.

Currently, GCSTlMES has five operational centers in China, US, UAE, France, and Australia, along with 14 subsidiaries and offices worldwide. Its services extend to over 140 countries and regions supporting more than 100,000 international hospitality group in achieving low-carbon and sustainable development goals.

GCS Times

MKT Team
GREENVILLE, S.C.This year marks the 30th Anniversary of Hospitality America, a hotel management company built on three decades of partnership, performance, and people-first hospitality. Founded in 1995 by Chris Cargen, Hospitality America continues to build on its strong foundation under the leadership of President and CEO Ben Campbell, who stepped into the role two years ago following the retirement of Cargen, the companys former chief executive.

As we mark 30 years, our focus remains unchangeddisciplined operations, strong partnerships, and consistent execution, Campbell said. Our growth over three decades has been built on trust earned from owners and developers who select Hospitality America to operate their assets and from associates who deliver for guests every day.

Since its inception, Hospitality America has received recognition for design, growth, and organizational performance, including being recognized by USA Today as a Top Workplace for two consecutive years and named a Top Workplace for frontline workers. The company was ranked #22 on the South Carolina 50 Fastest Growing Companies list and is a recipient of the South Carolina Excellence in Business Award for employee retention.

Hospitality has always been, and will always be, a people business, and we dont shy away from the fact that labor remains one of the industrys greatest challenges, Campbell said. As a management company, its our responsibility to create an environment where associates feel supported, respected, and engaged, regardless of which property they serve. When we invest in our people and give them the tools, culture, and leadership they deserve, they deliver better experiences for guests and stronger results for owners. That commitment has never been more important than it is today.

Honoring 30 Years Through Associate-Led Engagement

In recognition of its milestone, Hospitality America is launching a series of associate-led internal initiatives designed to honor the companys legacy while investing in the people and communities that will shape its future. Guided by the companys PEACH values (Passionate, Excellence, Adaptable, Community, Humble) and curated through its Culture and Leadership Committees, these initiatives are intended to foster connection, celebrate shared history, and create opportunities for meaningful participation across the organization.

Planned anniversary initiatives include:

A company-wide volunteer engagement goal aligned with Hospitality Americas commitment to community impact, encouraging associates to contribute time and service within the communities where they live and work.

A 30-year storytelling and recognition series highlighting associates, hotels, and moments that have shaped Hospitality Americas culture and growth over three decades.

Best practice and knowledge-sharing forums designed to capture institutional knowledge, operational excellence, and leadership lessons from across the portfolio.

Associate recognition moments that honor long-tenured team members and emerging leaders who exemplify Hospitality Americas values in action.

To further enhance its portfolio scale and data-driven operations this year, Hospitality America is leveraging enterprise technology to support consistent operating standards, transparency, and informed decision-making across the managed portfolio, including:

Hotel Effectiveness for labor analytics and productivity benchmarking

for labor analytics and productivity benchmarking Transcendent for facilities management and preventive maintenance oversight

for facilities management and preventive maintenance oversight Ramp as the standardized corporate card and expense platform

as the standardized corporate card and expense platform Sage Intacct to enhance accounting controls, reporting, and financial visibility

Looking Back, Forging Ahead

While many in the industry experienced slow growth in 2025, Hospitality America expanded its managed portfolio through new openings and development milestones across the Southeast and Midwest. Notable additions and development milestones included Element Charleston Airport (North Charleston, S.C.); Hotel Avail, Tapestry Collection by Hilton (Rogers, Ark.); Sundry Hotel, Tapestry Collection by Hilton (Springdale, Ark.); and Home2 Suites by Hilton (Murrells Inlet, S.C.). Marked portfolio tenure milestones, including five years for Home2 Asheville Airport; 30 years for Hampton Inn MiamiCoconut Grove/Coral Gables; and one year for Motto by Hilton Bentonville Downtown.

Hospitality America works in close coordination with ownership groups to support capital improvement initiatives across several managed hotels. Renovation and upgrade initiatives were completed or advanced at Hampton Inn Columbia Downtown Historic District (S.C.); SpringHill Suites by Marriott Roanoke (Va.); Hampton Inn & Suites Miami Downtown/Brickell (Fla.); Hampton Inn & Suites Baton Rouge Downtown (La.); Hampton Inn MiamiCoconut Grove/Coral Gables (Fla.); and Hampton Inn & Suites Greenville Downtown RiverPlace (S.C.).

Hospitality America strengthened its executive leadership team to support portfolio scale, operational consistency, and organizational resilience. Kellie Hanselman was promoted to Vice President of Sales and Ryan Sistare appointed Vice President of Operations. These appointments reinforce Hospitality Americas focus on leadership continuity, internal advancement, and disciplined execution across its managed portfolio.

As we mark 30 years, our focus remains unchanged; we will stay disciplined in our operations, strong in our partnerships, and consistent in our execution, Campbell said. Our growth over three decades has been built on the trust we earned from owners and developers who select Hospitality America to operate their assets, and from associates who deliver for guests every day.

About Hospitality America

Hospitality America is a hotel management company based in Greenville, SC, with a portfolio of award-winning properties across the Southeastern United States. The company specializes in operating top-performing hotels that deliver exceptional guest experience and commercial success. Recognized in 2024 and 2025 by USA Today as a Top Place to Work. For more information, please visit www.hospitalityamerica.com

Barb Worcester

Owner, President at PRPRO

14409305770

Hospitality America
Deka acquires Andaz Vienna Am Belvedere from Hyatt and Signa - Image Credit Hyatt



A summary of European hotel transactions provided by HVS

Deka acquires Andaz Vienna Am Belvedere from Hyatt and Signa

German REIT Deka Immobilien, on behalf of its open-ended WestInvest InterSelect fund, has acquired the five-star, 303-room Andaz Vienna Am Belvedere in Austria for approximately 92 million (about 303,600 per room), from a joint venture between affiliates of Hyatt Hotels & Resorts and Austrian real estate developer Signa Development Selection AG. The property is situated near Vienna Central Station in the citys Belvedere Quarter urban development area, a 10-minute walk south of Belvedere Palace. Designed by Renzo Piano and opened in 2019, the hotel includes two restaurants, two bars and six meeting rooms. The property is leased to Munich Hotel Partners (MHP) on a long-term basis. From April 2026, it will be rebranded as the Hyatt Regency Vienna under a franchise agreement.

Set Hotels acquires Occidental Menorca, Punta Prima in Spain

Menorca-based Spanish owner-operator Set Hotels has acquired the four-star, 374-room Occidental Menorca, Punta Prima on the Balearic Island of Menorca in Spain. The property is situated on the south-east tip of the island by the Punta Prima beach, some 10 kms south of the islands airport and capital city, Mahon. The hotel includes a restaurant, three bars and two pools. Following the acquisition, Set Hotels will rebrand the property as Seth Punta Prima, bringing its portfolio to a total of eight hotels, all located on Menorca.

Compagnie du Mont-Blanc and Beyond Places acquire RockyPop Chamonix in France from Assas and Extendam

French tourism company Compagnie du Mont-Blanc, together with French operator Beyond Places, has acquired the three-star, 148-room RockyPop Chamonix - Les Houches in France from French owner-operator Assas Hotels and French private equity firm Extendam. The Chamonix ski resort is situated near Mont Blanc, close to both the Swiss and Italian borders, an hours drive southeast of Geneva. The hotel includes a restaurant, bar and seven meeting rooms. Assas Hotels created the RockyPop brand 10 years ago, and the Chamonix property marks the brands first franchise, with Compagnie du Mont-Blanc set to operate the hotel under a franchise agreement.

Kingstone Real Estate acquires Premier Inn Rosenheim from S&P

German real estate investment company Kingstone Real Estate has acquired the three-star, 145-room Premier Inn Rosenheim City Lokhofe Hotel in Rosenheim, Germany, from German real estate developer S&P Commercial Development. The hotel forms part of a wider transaction within the commercial complex of the newly completed Lokhofe district development, which also includes office and retail spaces, with a combined area of 16,600 sqm. The hotel opened in 2024 and includes a restaurant and bar. Rosenheim is a city of around 64,000 inhabitants, located about an hours drive southeast of Munich.

BlackRock acquires Excelsior by Geisel in Munich from Geisel family

BlackRock Real Estate, the property investment arm of American asset manager BlackRock, has acquired the four-star, 114-room Hotel Excelsior by Geisel in Munich, Germany, from the local Geisel hotelier family. The acquisition was financed through funds from BlackRocks value-add strategy. The hotel is situated in central Munich by the main train station, a 10-minute walk from the old town. It includes a restaurant, bar and five meeting rooms. British operator Siggis Capital is set to operate the hotel.

KKR and Baupost sell Delta Hotels by Marriott Birmingham to private investor

New-York based global investment company KKR & Co. Inc and Boston-based investment manager Baupost Group have sold the four-star, 106-room Delta Hotels by Marriott Birmingham in the UK to a private investor. The property is situated in central Birmingham, a five-minute drive from Birmingham New Street train station. The hotel was renovated in 2023 and includes a restaurant & bar and five meeting rooms. In December 2025, KKR and Baupost also sold the four-star, 382-room Delta Hotels Heathrow Windsor in Slough, UK, as reported in this newsletter.

RoundShield acquires Corinthia Lake Como development from Roncoroni family

London-based private investment management firm RoundShield, through its Putter fund, has acquired the Corinthia Lake Como development, located at the Menaggio and Cadenabbia Golf Club on Lake Como, Italy, from the Roncoroni family. The site, adjacent to Italys second-oldest golf course, will be developed into the five-star, 58-room Corinthia Lake Como by Italian real estate investment manager Kervis SGR S.p.A. The project will include three branded residences, a golf club, a spa, and a lakefront club with direct access to the water. Subject to final planning approvals, opening is targeted for late 2028. Corinthia Hotels Group is set to manage the hotel.

HVS is the world's leading consulting and valuation services organization focused on the hotel, restaurant, shared ownership, gaming, and leisure industries. Established in 1980, the company performs more than 4,500 assignments per year for virtually every major industry participant. HVS principals are regarded as the leading professionals in their respective regions of the globe. Through a worldwide network of over 50 offices staffed by 300 experienced industry professionals, HVS provides an unparalleled range of complementary services for the hospitality industry. For further information regarding our expertise and specifics about our services, please visit www.hvs.com.
Organ Mountains Inn  Historia Collection (White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico) - Image Credit IHG Hotels & Resorts



IHG Army Hotels has completed renovations at properties on Fort Polk in Louisiana, Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, and White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, with additional upgrades planned into 2026 and a new Candlewood Suites opening at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

IHG Army Hotels, in partnership with Centinel, has completed renovations at several properties on U.S. Army installations as part of the ongoing Privatization of Army Lodging (PAL) program, which began in 2009. The IHG Army Hotels portfolio includes more than 13,000 rooms across 40 Army installations.

At Fort Polk, Louisiana, the Magnolia House and Cypress Inn the first branded IHG Army Hotels properties and inaugural PAL hotelsunderwent a multi-million dollar renovation project in 2025. The project included comprehensive interior and exterior renovations, updated room configurations to better support extended training stays and permanent change-of-station transitions, and an expansion of room capacity to 98.

At Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, the former Foster Lodge was rebranded as a Holiday Inn Express and received updates to 66 guest rooms, including the addition of kitchenettes for both short visits and extended stays. Communal spaces were enhanced with a redesigned lobby and covered outdoor patio. Additional improvements included energy-efficient LED lighting, landscaping, new furniture, fixtures, HVAC equipment, flooring, a new Suite Shop, fitness center, renovated laundry facility, and new elevators.

At White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the Organ Mountains Inn became the 16th hotel to join the IHG Army Hotels Historia Collection. Originally built in 1951, the property was renovated with a new climate-control system, motion-sensing LED lighting, Energy Star appliances, a redesigned lobby, expanded fitness and dining facilities, and new guest-room furnishings. The Inns 58 rooms were updated to maintain the buildings historic character while adding modern amenities.

Additional renovations are planned to begin or continue into 2026. A newly constructed Candlewood Suites is scheduled to open at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

IHG Army Hotels operates through a partnership with Centinel, the owner and developer responsible for the PAL programs modernization efforts. The companys properties include brands such as Holiday Inn Express and Candlewood Suites, with a focus on ongoing modernization of on-post lodging for service members, their families, and guests.
Guyana Selected to Host 2026 Caribbean Tourism Organization Conference - Image Credit CTO



The Caribbean Tourism Organization has announced that Guyana will host the State of the Tourism Industry Conference in October 2026, marking the first time the country will stage the event.

The Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) has selected Guyana to host its State of the Tourism Industry Conference (SOTIC) in Georgetown from October 5 to 9, 2026. This marks the first time Guyana will stage the conference since its inception.

SOTIC is the CTOs principal forum for examining critical issues, sharing innovation, and shaping the future direction of Caribbean tourism. The event brings together Caribbean tourism leaders, international delegates, policymakers, youth representatives, journalists, and industry stakeholders.

The most recent edition of SOTIC was held in Barbados under the theme Reimagining Caribbean Tourism: Research, Relevance and the Road Ahead. For 2026, CTO has set the theme One Caribbean: Infinite Experiences, with a focus on community-centered tourism experiences.

Susan Rodrigues, Guyanas Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, described the selection as a milestone reflecting growing regional confidence in Guyanas tourism leadership and its expanding role in regional dialogue. Rodrigues said the event positions Guyana as a major player in the Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) tourism segment.

CTO Secretary-General and CEO Dona Regis-Prosper emphasized the organizations focus on community-centered tourism experiences under the 2026 theme and cited Guyana as a destination that exemplifies these priorities. Regis-Prosper noted the regions resilience and commitment to building an inclusive, future-ready tourism sector, with these themes expected to feature prominently during the Guyana-hosted conference.

Details on registration, programming, and venue will be announced through official CTO and Guyana Tourism Authority channels as planning advances.
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School officials are hoping to use an ADA grant to renovate the bathrooms and possibly the entryway at Clarksburg School.

Clarksburg School Eyeing ADA Improvements This Summer

CLARKSBURG, Mass.  School officials are hoping to take the next stop in renovations to the 60-year-old school with a refit of the bathrooms.

Some upgrades had been done but there have been issues with obsolete parts and making them compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

"There's multiple bathroom issues. Every bathroom and the, obviously, we talked about the front entryway with the dangerous concrete," said Superintendent John Franzoni at last week's School Committee meeting. "There's some other things about the exterior, the brick and mortar, ... we look at the garage this summer because we're concerned about some of the access to the outdoors in that area, along with paving issues and the grease trap in the kitchen."

The town was able to get an ADA grant through the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission and has some funds put away in stabilization that could be used toward the project.

Town Administrator Ronald Boucher and Thomas Bona, who's taken on the oversight of several construction projects at the school, agreed to get some estimates on the bathroom work and the cement entry during school vacation next week.

"My goal was, if we could start that work right after school ends in June, we could front load the grant money there so we could use that first because we got to probably do an extensive abatement, I can pretty much guarantee you on whatever ones we decide to do," Franzoni said.

He anticipates a "pretty extensive renvation," and thought it important to get some numbers to see whether it was worth pursuing as it could take up a chunk of the stabilization account. It might be better to do the entryway first if it's a more reasonable project, he said.

Bona thought the entryway could be made a lot nicer at not much expense.

The entrance is a covered cement pad. Bona said the ceiling was opened up during the summer's roofing project and that the structure was solid. The cement pad is heaving and will be need to removed and replaced. He also thought a wall of some kind should enclose part of the entry as a barrier.

With Select Board Chair Daniel Haskins, they agreed to reach out to some contractors to walk through the bathrooms and entry next week to get a rough estimate of the costs.

Franzoni said he'd like to get the bids out this spring so construction can be done as soon as school gets out in June. The summer program will shift to Gabriel Abbot Memorial School in Florida after five years in Clarksburg. The program will be smaller because of reduced funding and its coordinator, Jordan Rennell, is now the school union's business administrator.

"Given that it was such an extensive program, we haven't been able to do a full cleaning here either," he said. "This building could use a little attention over this summer in particular."

In other business, the School Committee evinced its interest in a regionalization study of the five-town school union. The union of elementary school is already involved in a study to regionalize the three North Berkshire high schools (McCann Technical is already regionalized).

"We've never had much success with that, because two of our member districts have not been agreeable to it," aid Franzoni. "But we can bring up again to see if there is an appetite to explore that as well."

Rowe recently declined further study in joining the Mohawk Trail Regional School District. The other towns are Florida, Savoy and Monroe.

School Committee member Mary Giron said the smaller schools need to consider the long term as Clarksburg right now covers half the school union budget.

"Even if they think they're OK, and they're in a great financial situation, and the others are not, and if something happens to us because we're not, then they won't be able to survive," she said. "And they're not looking that far down the road. They're just looking at where they are. ...

"Nobody wants to lose their school. I get that, but maybe there's ways we can do things, I don't know, but I really think it needs to be explored."

The school union member are planning to vote on a proposal by Clarksburg to change, at least for this year, the assessment percentage but that has been delayed because of heating issues Monday in Florida, where the committee was to meet.
Pittsfield Health Board Advises Outreach Program

PITTSFIELD, Mass.  The Board of Health is advising against a public camping ordinance.

Instead, it recommends an alternative community response program that connects unhoused individuals with resources.



On Wednesday, the board approved its recommendations for addressing housing insecurity in the city, which will go to the City Council on Tuesday. The controversial camping ordinance was sent to the health officials in September 2025, and they have determined it is not the best approach for Pittsfield.



After months of consideration and a visit to the Northampton Division of Community Care, they recommend piloting an alternative community response program with two new homeless service coordinators who would begin work in the spring.



"We believe that a public health and a continued thoughtful community outreach plan will provide the best chance at addressing the challenge of homelessness in our community," the plan reads.



"This effort must be driven by metrics, and anchored by strong partnerships with existing public and municipal service agencies. This also means that there will still be enforcement actions required for illegal behaviors, but our overall emphasis will be social action and follow-up support."



It comes with seven recommendations: Take the camping ordinance off the table; develop an alternative community response program within the Health Department; create and maintain a community resource asset map; drive the program and processes with data through a HIPAA Compliant data system; staff training; a focus on homelessness related issues in public spaces in the downtown area; and to strengthen the relationship with Pittsfield Police Department co-responders without a dispatch-based system.






iciHaiti - 10 Scholarships : MOFA Taiwan Scholarship Program 2025, Applications open





The Haitian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announces that Taiwan (Republic of China) is offering 10 scholarships under the MOFA Taiwan Scholarship Program 2025 to Haitian students wishing to pursue their studies in Taiwan for the 2026-2027 academic year.



Admission Requirements :

 Be a Haitian citizen and hold a valid passport;



 Be under 23 years of age;



 Have a good command of English;



 Have obtained a minimum average of 7.5/10 on the Baccalaureate exam;



 Have a certified copy of the high school diploma and transcript;



 Have a medical certificate and a certificate of good conduct.



Interested candidates may submit their application until Friday, March 6, 2026, to one of the following addresses:

 Ministry of Religious Affairs : 15 Mangones Street, Petion-Ville;

 North Departmental Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Vaudreuil Administrative Complex;

 By email : bourses.maec@diplomatie.ht



IH/ iciHaiti


















AboitizPower has expanded the capabilities of its MobileAP platform with the introduction of Billease via QR Ph, offering customers across five major distribution utilities a more flexible and consumer-friendly way to settle their electricity bills.

The MobileAP app now supports Billease payments for customers served by:

Visayan Electric  covering Cebu City, Mandaue City, Talisay City, and the municipalities of Consolacion, Liloan, San Fernando, Minglanilla, and Naga in Cebu

Davao Light  serving Davao City, Panabo City, and parts of Davao del Norte

Cotabato Light  covering Cotabato City and portions of Sultan Kudarat and Maguindanao del Norte

Subic EnerZone  serving SBFZ (Subic Bay Freeport Zone), Olongapo City, and nearby areas

Lima EnerZone  providing power to the LIMA Estate in Lipa and Malvar, Batangas

This integration marks a significant milestone in digital payments for utility services in key regional markets. For Billease, the rollout marks its most extensive utility partnership to date.

A New Way to Pay: Seamless, Flexible, and Interest-Free

With Billease now part of MobileAPs payment flow, customers can:

Settle electricity bills with 0% interest until their next declared payday or

Convert their balances into installments of up to six months.

This is a first among traditional electric utilities operating across these regions.

This feature is powered by the QR Ph national standard, ensuring secure, fast, and interoperable QR-based payments nationwide.

How It Works

Download or open the MobileAP app Select Billease as the payment method A QR Ph code is instantly generated Upload or scan this QR code inside the Billease app Choose to pay on payday at 0% interest or convert to installments

Key Billease Features via QR Ph

0% interest until the next payday

No minimum bill amount required

Use up to the customers available Billease credit

Installment terms of up to six months

No service fees for QR Ph transactions

Integrating Billease into MobileAP reflects our commitment to empowering the evolution of our cities, said Melody Lim, Head of Customer Experience at AboitizPower. By offering accessible and flexible pay-later options, we are putting our customers firstenabling millions of households across Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao to better manage their day-to-day finances. This partnership represents a meaningful step forward in modernizing utility payments and advancing a more inclusive, digitally enabled payment ecosystem across the regions served by our distribution utilities.

"This partnership with MobileAP and Billease demonstrates how digital financial services can democratize access to essential utilities beyond Metro Manila," said Kurt Molina, Head of POS Product at Billease. "We're proud to enable millions of Filipino households to manage their electricity payments with greater flexibility and control."

The move highlights the rapid rise of digital-first financial services and their adoption in essential sectors like energy marking a shift from NCR-centric innovation to a truly nationwide modernization effort.

Customers served by Visayan Electric, Davao Light, Cotabato Light, Subic EnerZone, and Lima EnerZone can begin using Billease for bill payments on MobileAP immediately.
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A Chinese policy white paper on Hong Kong called for stronger national security to counter foreign interference, a day after a Hong Kong court sentenced former media mogul Jimmy Lai to 20 years in jail.

The jail term for the 78-year-old British citizen and former founder of the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper, was the heaviest so far under the China-imposed national security law. It concluded the landmark case that was closely watched by western powers.

The white paper, titled "Hong Kong: Safeguarding China's National Security Under the Framework of One Country, Two Systems, was issued by Chinas State Council, or cabinet, to outline a vision to strengthen security and economic development in the former British colony.

Hong Kong, enjoying high-standard security, is bound to overcome all risks and challenges on the journey forward, and remain as steady as a rock in a turbulent world, the paper stated.

Intervention and sabotage by hostile external forces must be guarded against, and the systems and mechanisms for countering foreign sanctions, intervention, and long-arm jurisdiction should be further improved.

open image in gallery File: Police lead Hong kong pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai (C) away from his home after he was arrested under the new national security law in Hong kong on August 10, 2020 ( AFP via Getty Images )

It called for a holistic approach to national security as its guiding principle and claimed Hong Kong lacked a sound legal system and enforcement mechanisms in the past, which allowed political strife and societal chaos to persist.

It urged the authorities to improve risk monitoring and early warning systems to effectively defuse major risks. Greater attention should be given to security in unconventional areas such as finance, shipping, trade, and the protection of overseas interests, it added.

Hong Kongs leader, John Lee, welcomed the white paper, saying it is of great significance and has come at exactly the right time.

open image in gallery FILE - Protesters march on the streets against an extradition bill in Hong Kong, Sunday, June 16, 2019 ( Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. )

He said Lais sentence sent a solemn warning against malicious plots of collusion with external elements and endangering national security.

Critics say the sweeping national security law has been used to clamp down on dissent and dismantle the citys pro-democracy opposition following mass protests in 2019.

The publication of the so-called white paper came as western government and the US allies strongly criticised Lais sentence.

The verdict has essentially been called a death sentence and a life term for Lai, who is battling a number of health-related issues in solitary confinement in a high security prison for the last five years.

The Keir Starmer government in the UK, which has come under fire for failing to secure the British nationals freedom, said it is pushing for Lais release from jail on humanitarian grounds.

Downing Street rejected suggestions that the sentence showed Mr Starmers visit to China last month had failed to work, arguing it meant there was a "stronger chance of securing a positive outcome" for him as opposed to "just talking into a void".

Asked whether Sir Keir had been misled by the Chinese president during their talks, the prime minister's official spokesman said the UK "condemn(s) this politically motivated prosecution" and "we'll continue to raise this case at the highest levels of the Chinese government, as indeed the prime minister minister did directly".

In the US, secretary of state Marco Rubio described the sentence as an unjust and tragic conclusion to the case and urged Hong Kong authorities to grant Lai humanitarian parole. Former president Donald Trump has previously appealed to Chinese leader Xi Jinping for Lais release and is expected to visit Beijing in April.

Such white papers on Hong Kong are released periodically by China, outlining Beijing's latest policy stance towards the China-ruled city that returned from British to Chinese rule in 1997.

The previous white paper in 2021 outlined Hong Kong's democratic development after a revamp of the electoral system to ensure only "patriots" could run for public office  a move criticised by some countries as an erosion of democratic freedoms by marginalising opposition democrats.
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The Dalai Lama has denied ever meeting paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein after he was named dozens of times in the latest release of the Epstein files.

The office for the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism released a statement on Sunday in response to social media posts... attempting to link His Holiness the Dalai Lama with Jeffrey Epstein.

There are more than 150 references to the Dalai Lama in the full Epstein library, which includes more than 3 million new pages added by the US Justice Department at the end of January.

In correspondence from 2015, Epstein told associates of his plans to meet with Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama. One email to Epstein asked if a dinner with the Buddhist leader was fixed, to which Epstein only replied: Talk Tomorw [sic].

open image in gallery The Dalai Lama issued the statement after the latest Epstein files revealed emails from the paedophile that included the spiritual leaders name ( AP )

The Dalai Lama, now 90, is not accused of any wrongdoing. In a new statement, his office denied that he had ever met Epstein.

Some recent media reports and social media posts concerning the Epstein files are attempting to link His Holiness the Dalai Lama with Jeffrey Epstein, it read.

We can unequivocally confirm that His Holiness has never met Jeffrey Epstein or authorised any meeting or interaction with him by anyone on His Holinesss behalf.

The latest tranche of emails suggests that Epstein was trying to arrange a dinner with the Dalai Lama, famous linguist Noam Chomsky and Woody Allen in May 2015.

Epstein wrote on 10 May 2015 that a fun dinner would be dali lama [sic]. woody allen chomsky?, adding: lets do it.

open image in gallery Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his prison cell in 2019. The US government faces pressure to release the documents they have about his case ( US Department of Justice )

Joi Ito, responding, implied Epstein had not yet met the exiled leader, writing, Yes. First step would be to meet Tenzin and suggesting an unnamed student could get us the Dalai Lama.

The next day, Epstein emailed a contact saved as Soon Yi Previn, Allens wife, writing: im working on the dalai lama for dinner.

Four days later, he received an email from scientist Lawrence Krauss, asking: is dinner with woody and dali lama [sic] on may 19th fixed?

The Dalai Lama is the head of Tibetan Buddhism and has lived in exile since 1959, when he fled to northern India following unrest over the Chinese occupation of Tibet.

open image in gallery Epstein appeared to have suggested a date to get dinner with the Dalai Lama in May 2015 ( Department of Justice )

He officially gave up political duties in 2011 to the Tibetan government in exile, but remains the foremost religious leader of the Tibetan community and diaspora.

The 14th Dalai Lama was also caught in controversy in 2023 after asking a child to suck his tongue at his temple in Dharamashala.

In widely shared footage, the Dalai Lama was heard asking a young boy to kiss him on his cheek and then his lips after the boy asked if he could give him a hug.

The Dalai Lama pressed his forehead to the childs before sticking out his tongue and saying and suck my tongue. The video attracted criticism from rights activists.

Penpa Tsering, the head of Tibets government in exile, defended the Dalai Lama at the time, saying his actions were innocent and only demonstrated his affectionate behaviour.

The office of the Dalai Lama apologised for the hurt his words may have caused, explaining that his Holiness often teases people he meets in an innocent and playful way, even in public and before cameras, but adding: he regrets the incident.
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A South Korean official was expelled from his political party for suggesting the country import Vietnamese and Sri Lankan women to boost the declining birth rate.

Kim Hee Soo, the governor of the southern Jindo county in South Jeolla province, was facing an uproar after his televised remarks last week triggered a diplomatic protest from Vietnam. Mr Kim was addressing a town hall meeting when he spoke about measures to address the countrys declining birth rate.

He said South Korea could import young unmarried women from places like Sri Lanka or Vietnam to be married off to young men in rural areas".

The Vietnamese embassy in Seoul issued a statement to condemn Mr Kim's remarks, saying that his words were "not simply a matter of expression but a matter of values and attitudes towards migrant women and minority groups". Many people in the country called him out for his comments, deeming them inappropriate.

Mr Kim issued an apology, saying he sincerely bows his head in apology to the Vietnamese and Sri Lankan people for the use of terms such as import that undermines human dignity, local media reported.

He said he used inappropriate language while attempting to address policy approaches. The South Jeolla Province issued an apology over Mr Kim's "inappropriate remarks", which it said "have caused deep pain to Vietnamese people and to women".

We will reinforce internal oversight and prevention systems to ensure discriminatory language or conduct does not recur, while reminding public officials of their responsibilities and the impact of public statements, it added.

Mr Kim belonged to the Democratic Party, which voted unanimously to expel him from his position, a party spokesperson said on Monday.

The town hall meeting was convened to discuss a potential merger of nine cities and counties in the province with Gwangju Metropolitan City. Gwangju is South Korea's sixth-largest metropolis.

South Korea has one of the lowest birth rates in the world and has injected billions of dollars into measures to boost its declining birth rate and maintain population stability.

Some projections estimate that the countrys 50 million population could drop by half in 60 years.
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South Korean officials raided several intelligence and military sites as part of an expanding probe into suspected drone flights into North Korea that have renewed political tensions between the rivals.

A joint military and police task force said it searched 18 locations on Tuesday, including the countrys main intelligence agencies.

Officials said three active-duty soldiers and one intelligence agency employee were under investigation after the raid on the Defence Intelligence Command and the National Intelligence Service.

The investigation began after North Korea claimed in January that it shot down a drone near its Kaesong city. North Korean officials released photos of the drones debris and aerial pictures of buildings it had allegedly captured on the way in.

Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, had urged Seoul to investigate the drone incidents and warned that any provocations would end in a terrible situation.

South Koreas government initially denied any official role. President Lee Jae Myung said such an action would be like firing a shot into the North. He also warned his countrymen against flying drones north of the border, comparing it to starting a war.

He added that such action was creating unnecessary confrontation with North Korea and could negatively impact his country. However, investigators are now examining whether individuals linked to state agencies were involved.

In a statement, the task force said it will thoroughly establish the truth behind the drone incident through analysis of seized materials and a rigorous investigation of the suspects.

Prosecutors have already charged three civilians connected to the scandal. One of them has reportedly said he launched a drone to monitor radiation levels near North Koreas Pyongsan uranium facility.

The Pyongsan plant is believed to be the countrys primary uranium mining and milling site, where raw uranium ore is processed into yellowcake, a concentrated form of uranium.

The investigation is also tied to the ongoing trial of former president Yoon Suk Yeol. Prosecutors allege he illegally ordered drone missions into the North to help justify declaring martial law in late 2024. Yoon was later impeached and removed from office after the attempt failed.

According to prosecutors, Yoon and others tried to provoke Pyongyang by flying drones over its capital and sending anti-North leaflets. They alleged the group conspired to create conditions that would allow the declaration of emergency martial law.

Relations between the two Koreas remain tense. North Korea has said drones from the South dropped propaganda over Pyongyang last year, while Seoul has accused the North of sending trash-filled balloons across the border.

Since taking office, Mr Lee has tried to ease tensions. He removed propaganda loudspeakers near the border and hinted that an apology to North Korea might be necessary, saying: I feel I should apologise, but I hesitate to say it out loud.

He added: I worry that if I do, it could be used as fodder for ideological battles or accusations of being pro-North.
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Ernest Zacharevic, the Lithuanian street artist behind one of Penangs most photographed murals, has filed a lawsuit against AirAsia after discovering that his artwork had been reproduced on the body of a commercial aircraft without his permission.

The suit is the latest development in a dispute that began in November 2024, when Zacharevic revealed on social media that his 2012 mural Kids on Bicycle had been incorporated into the livery of an AirAsia aircraft.

The mural, painted during the George Town Festival in 2012, depicts two children riding a bicycle mounted onto a wall in George Town, Penang, where Zacharevic lives and owns a studio.

The piece has drawn visitors from around the world and is widely regarded as one of Malaysias most recognisable pieces of street art. Zacharevic has been likened to the famous British street artist Banksy, and one of his works featuring a woman carrying a Chanel bag walking and a man with a knife on the other side of the wall was painted over by local officials in 2013.

Zacharevic realised in October 2024 that his mural had been incorporated into the livery of an AirAsia aircraft without permission, when a friend tagged me in an Instagram story capturing the plane on the runway.

About a month later in November 2024, I saw it on the runway myself when I was taking a flight from the Penang International Airport, he told The Independent.

open image in gallery Ernest Zacharevic said he saw his mural on the runway when he was taking a flight from the Penang International Airport ( Supplied )

He posted an image of the plane on social media and tagged AirAsia and its founder Tony Fernandes, writing: I think we need to talk.

At the time, Zacharevic said that his team attempted to reach AirAsia but found it difficult to navigate corporate channels. The livery was removed from the plane and the airline later said it was in discussions with the artist.

Those discussions have since ended some months ago, the artist confirmed.

Zacharevic said that while the events between October and November 2024 are the primary reason behind him filing the suit, earlier instances dating back to 2016 are also part of the dispute.

I believe the issues involved require adjudication in the courts, Zacharevic said, confirming that he has begun proceedings in the Kuala Lumpur high court against AirAsia Berhad and its holding company, Capital A Berhad.

Zacharevic is alleging in the suit that the defendants have reproduced, displayed, and adapted the Artwork without his knowledge, licence, or authorisation. On that basis, he is claiming copyright and moral rights infringement, along with passing off and unlawful interference with his trade.

The airline confirmed it was discussing the matter with Zacharevic after he first raised concerns, with AirAsias then-marketing chief Rudy Khaw saying they were working on it. Theres been no public comment from the airline since, however, and AirAsia did not respond to a request for comment when approached by The Independent.

open image in gallery Children On A Bicycle by Lithuanian artist Ernest Zacharevic ( Supplied )

The airline had not informed him or been in touch with him regarding the use of his work before the aircraft entered commercial service, he said. Zacharevic has also confirmed that he has not made any licensing agreement with AirAsia over using his work.

He said the plane flew to international destinations, including Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand, and had been in service for around two months while carrying his design.

The distortion of my Kids on Bicycle artwork, the modification made to the tone, proportion, and scale of my artworks to fit onto the body of the livery of an aircraft are all issues that I take serious objection to, as any artist would, Zacharevic said, referring to his moral rights claim.

He is also alleging passing off, arguing that the scale and visibility of use of one of my most important artworks on the body of an aircraft gave the impression that he had endorsed and allowed its use.

The aircraft livery, Zacharevic has maintained, was not an isolated incident.

Over the past 10 years or so, my Kids on Bicycle artwork has been used in numerous marketing and promotional campaigns without my prior consent or approval  this included cheap flight / free seats campaigns, accommodations + flights promotions, launch of new food delivery app, etc, he said.

I did formally send my objections sometime ago, however the instances were too numerous for me to pursue on each one of them without draining my resources.

According to the suit, he is seeking declaratory relief recognising his rights as the artist, orders restraining further unauthorised use, removal and destruction of infringing materials, and appropriate monetary remedies.

Beyond financial compensation, Zacharevic said the case is about artistic control.

Beyond monetary compensation, what I am seeking for is the court's recognition that artists like myself should be able to control the commercialisation of our artworks, he told The Independent.

We spend many years training and honing our crafts, and it is only just and right that we are fairly remunerated when other corporate entities profit from our artworks. This right of livelihood is fundamental, and deserves protection in the eyes of the law.
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Retro is back, again.

Fashion, like so much else, seems to pass through circles in time and, right now, plenty of the brands that those growing up in the 1970s, 1980s or 1990s might remember are back in the shops and on the streets.

Theyre not just having a mini-revival, though.

Top CEOs of multibillion-dollar corporations identify with the lasting power of these brands, not just their fleeting reappearance.

Its a big part of the reason one iconic British brand has just been bought up: Gola.

open image in gallery The iconic British brand Gola has just been bought and will be revitalised for the UK market ( Marubeni Gola )

The purchase last month was part of a wider acquisition that saw a Japanese firm, Marubeni, buy up the Jacobson Group, which also owned, or held licences, to the likes of fellow footwear brands, Lonsdale and Dunlop.

And its a deal which could, in time, see Gola be a front and centre brand once more on home soil  but also wider afield.

Who is Marubeni?

Its worth noting that while Jacobson was a large, family-founded firm, the company which has now bought them out is an altogether different beast.

The Financial Times, which is owned by the Japanese media group Nikkei, reported the buyout was for more than $64m (46m); there are no publicly released details of the purchase, but those close to the deal have reaffirmed toThe Independent a similar amount.

Marubeni Corporation, on the other hand, is a publicly listed company in Tokyo, valued by market capitalisation at 8.7tn yen  thats around $56bn (41bn). For context, thats around the size of the bank Standard Chartered, or the business that owns the UKs own major stock listing firm, the London Stock Exchange Group.

The biggest shareholder in Marubeni is Berkshire Hathaway  until very recently, the giant group led by legendary investor Warren Buffett, now stepped down from the CEO role.

Within the Japanese firm, the next generation division is focused on company growth through acquisitions  investments and mergers to get new business, in the words of one executive, with a new forward-looking focus on consumer businesses, having previously been skewed towards investments, trading and B2B.

Company executives told The Independent that from the first identification of Jacobson as a target to the deal being completed was just three months.

Gola the standout  but not where you think

Gola may turn out to be the jewel in the crown  but it wasnt initially the main attraction and was, if anything, a brand Marubeni executives only discovered the importance of during the analysis and diligence process.

When Jacobson came on the radar, we found this established brand out of the UK, and it fits our strategy, explained Marubenis chief operating officer, Toshihiro Fukumura, to The Independent.

We see the clear trend in retro and heritage sneakers, so it was a perfect fit  and we decided to jump in and make a full swing on the transaction.

Given the financial power and global spread of the new owners, its clear they will have the capacity to push whichever brands they wish into the public eye, in whichever market they see fit.

And its not necessarily in the UK where the first major impact could be  with a US-based subsidiary, RG Barry, the actual company within Marubeni, which will house and distribute Gola and other footwear brands.

Retro is a real trend  its happening everywhere, Japan, the US, UK and Europe. But what were finding is nuances are slightly different in each region, said Mr Fukumura.

open image in gallery The new owners of Gola want to capitalise on the global trend in retro and heritage sneakers ( Gola Marubeni )

In the US, its fashionable retro brands which are more skewed towards women, not men. Gola shoes are actually gaining popularity among women in the US.

In the UK, its the same trend for retro, but consumers look more towards authenticity  its difficult to explain, but its clearly different to the trend in the US. We would like to revitalise Golas brand, focusing on this retro trend in the UK, but we understand it requires time and effort  we need analysis and to have customised designs to be more appealing to British consumers, relative to current competitors.

Jacobson had previously reported a rise of 38 per cent in sales in 2024, which Gola contributed significantly towards as its popularity surged once more, with last year having been expected to show increased revenue growth of 40 per cent.

Gola will be pushed to the main target market in the US, as well as attempting to be revitalised in the UK.

The future

Integration of the newly purchased brand is already underway  but the deal-making is far from over, with active transactions on the go while Gola and the gang are repositioned within RG Barry.

This is a long-term play. We want to grow Gola  we are different to some private equity firms, who have to exit  they have to acquire and sell. We have our strategy, which is very much long-term, said Mr Fukumura.

There will soon be other brands youre familiar with coming out of the very same company; only last week, licensing rights were secured for certain products under the Clarks and Timberland brand names, both familiar sights on UK high streets. This week, Japanese beauty brand Etvos was added to the Marubeni mix, further expanding the aggressive push into consumer businesses.

But the 120-year-old Gola and other brands from Jacobson are the first. They will set the path for the expansion that Marubeni want.

Now, whether consumers come to see Gola as a brand for now again  or merely one for a certain age group to look back fondly at  will determine the success of the strategy and, perhaps, how frequently the iconic logo is seen on the streets.
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A 13-year-old boy was arrested and a counter-terror investigation has been launched after two pupils were stabbed at a school in Brent.

Police were called to Kingsbury High School in north-west London at 12.40pm on Tuesday, to reports that a 13-year-old boy was stabbed. Officers found a 12-year-old boy had also been stabbed.

Both the injured boys are in a serious condition and receiving urgent care, police said. One was taken to a major trauma centre, and the other to hospital.

Officers from Counter-Terrorism Policing London have taken over the investigation, as London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan warned anyone with information there was no honour in staying silent.

open image in gallery Police talked to pupils at Kingsbury High School who may have seen what happened ( Ben Whitley/PA )

Superintendent Luke Williams, who leads policing in northwest London, said: The suspect, who we believe to be 13, left the scene following the stabbing.

After urgent inquiries, our officers arrested him and also recovered a weapon which we believe to have been used in the stabbing.

The suspect was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and remains in custody for questioning by our officers.

open image in gallery Police arrested the alleged suspect after several hours ( PA Wire )

He said police were keeping an open mind as to any motivation behind the attack.

However, due to the surrounding circumstances, the investigation is now being led by officers from Counter-Terrorism Policing London who are working closely with our local officers in response to this incident, Mr Williams said.

The investigation has not currently been declared a terrorist incident, and the investigation team will now be working at pace to gather any evidence and to establish the full circumstances of what's happened as quickly as possible.

He said the victims were understood to be in a serious condition.

open image in gallery Detective Chief Superintendent Luke Williams said counter-terrorism officers were leading the investigation ( PA Wire )

Police officers spoke to pupils in a school hall more than three hours after school finishing time, and worried parents gathered at the school entrance.

The mother of one pupil told the Barnet Borough Times: Ive been panicking  a lot of kids don't have their phones on them so I couldn't get through.

They had to leave their bags and stuff.

At least I have her now. Its awful  so awful  what happened, that someone would even bring a knife to a school.

London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan urged anyone with information to contact police, adding: There is no honour in staying silent.

This awful violence has absolutely no place in our city, he said.

The schools headteacher said in a letter to parents and carers the stabbings were a deeply traumatic event for the whole school community.

Alex Thomas wrote: We are working closely with the authorities and I will provide further updates as soon as I am able to share confirmed information. Please keep the students and their families in your thoughts.

open image in gallery Shabana Mahmood said her thoughts and prayers were with the victims ( PA )

Home secretary Shabana Mahmood said her thoughts and prayers were with the children stabbed in the shocking attack.

She wrote on social media: The police have arrested the suspect, and I would like to thank them for their rapid work in doing so. We must now give them the space to pursue their investigation.

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson said she was heartbroken, and Dawn Butler, MP for Brent East said she was deeply shocked and saddened.

The leader of Brent Council, Muhammed Butt, said: No parent should ever have to fear for their childs safety at school, and it is horrifying to think of how someone so young came to be in possession of a weapon capable of causing such harm.

Kingsbury High School is an academy school for children aged 11 to 18, with both upper and lower sites.

It has 1,997 pupils, according to the Department for Education.

Singer George Michael and jazz musician Courtney Pine both went there.
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A paedophile who triggered a 2m police investigation with false accusations about a VIP abuse ring has been freed from jail under the governments early release scheme.

Carl Beech was jailed in July 2019 for 18 years after he made a series of lurid and false allegations about being raped and abused by a group of high-profile politicians and public figures.

Claims by the 58-year-old fantasist, who was known as Nick before a court allowed him to be named, triggered Operation Midland, a 16-month investigation by the Metropolitan Police that saw raids on the homes of Lord Brittan, as well as D-Day veteran Lord Bramall and ex-Tory MP Harvey Proctor. Beech had also named the former prime minister Sir Edward Heath and the late Labour MP Greville Janner.

The probe ended in 2016 without a single arrest after police determined Beech had made a series of baseless allegations, including that he witnessed three murders.

Beech was jailed for 15 years for perverting the course of justice, 18 months for fraud and 18 months for voyeurism and possessing indecent images, all to be served consecutively.

open image in gallery Operation Midland was launched off the back of lurid and false allegations made by fantasist Carl Beech ( Crown Prosecution Service )

The court was told at his trial that Beech had collected Category A images, which can include those showing child rape, bestiality and sadism.

He was not due to be released until he had at least completed half of his sentence in March 2028.

Yet Beech is one of thousands of prisoners who was released early due to overcrowding issues in prison.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: Carl Beechs crimes were shocking and had far-reaching consequences, and our thoughts remain with all those affected.

Offenders released on licence are subject to strict conditions and can be returned to prison immediately if they breach them.

open image in gallery Court artist sketch of Carl Beech, known as Nick, who was on trial at Newcastle Crown Court ( PA )

Mr Proctor, the last living victim of Beechs accusations, told The Telegraph: I treat the early release of Carl Beech from his 18-year prison sentence in the same way that I treat the man himself: with cold contempt and icy disdain.

God willing, Mr Beech now has many years in which to rebuild his life. I do not. He stole the twilight of my years from me, and from my partner. The damage he inflicted was deliberate, calculated and devastating.

Mr Proctor added it was beyond appalling and a profound injustice that he and the others who were falsely accused are not viewed as victims of Beechs crimes under the law, and hence not informed of the release.

Additionally, Beech had made a fraudulent claim to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority and used part of a 22,000 payout to buy a new Ford Mustang.

The fantasist had also drafted a book that he intended to publish for profit, and had cost the Metropolitan Police a good deal more than 2m and diverted officers from other duties at a time of stretched public resources, according to the court case at the time.

The judge ruled Beechs false allegations could deter real abuse victims from coming forward, because of fears they wont be believed, telling the defendant: You acted out of motives of financial gain, personal pleasure, malice and attention seeking. You have no remorse.
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A drug dealer who was inspired by the film Home Alone to booby-trap his house has been sent to prison for seven years.

Ian Claughton rigged his home, in the former pit village of Grimethorpe in South Yorkshire, with tripwires and home-made pipe bombs in order to protect his drugs business from would-be intruders.

About 100 houses had to be evacuated in May 2024 as police searched three neighbouring houses connected to Claughton and his ex-wife Lesley Claughton.

They found a series of traps as well as a home-made flamethrower, large quantities of cannabis, amphetamines and cash.

On Tuesday, Ian Claughton was jailed for seven years at Sheffield Crown Court by Judge Graham Reeds, who said he was a drug dealer who used these weapons to protect (his) cannabis growing operation.

Lesley Claughton was sentenced to 21 months in prison, suspended for two years.

open image in gallery Police found a home-made flamethrower at Ian Claughtons house ( Yorkshire and Humber Regional Organised Crime Unit/PA Wire )

Opening the trial to jurors last October, prosecutor Helen Chapman said: If you are sitting there thinking that this sounds a little like the film Home Alone, then you would be correct.

In fact that is precisely what Ian Claughton said he was aiming for when he told the police about these devices.

When police entered one of the heavily protected houses they found a fishing wire running across the length of one of the rooms at knee height, attached to an electrical connector and a battery pack.

Ian Claughton told police the explosives were crow-scarers, used by farmers, which he had inserted into plastic piping and, in one instance, into a bag of paint.

Other devices found in the property consisted of banger fireworks inside piping, sealed with foam, and with wires and a coiled spring.

A stun gun was found behind a fridge-freezer and a homemade flame-thrower was discovered in a workshop.

open image in gallery Pipe bombs found at Ian Claughtons home ( Yorkshire and Humber Regional Organised Crime Unit/PA Wire )

Other weapons found at the properties included two high-powered air guns and a crossbow.

A large amount of cash was also discovered, including 27,000 sewn into a sofa.

Cannabis plants were found growing in two of the houses, including some in tents in hidden rooms.

Detectives from the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Organised Crime Unit executed the warrants after Border Force found a package of imitation firearms ordered from China, addressed to Lesley Claughton.

The package was opened at Heathrow Airport and five small silver-and-black folding five-shot revolvers were found.

The court heard this was ordered by Ian Claughton using Lesley Claughtons eBay account.

open image in gallery A sign at Ian Claughton's home ( Yorkshire and Humber Regional Organised Crime Unit/PA Wire )

A three-day multi-agency operation saw dozens of residents evacuated as a 100-metre cordon was put in place in Grimethorpe while Army bomb squad experts were called in.

Ian Claughton, 60, pleaded guilty to bringing a realistic imitation firearm into the country, being concerned in the production of cannabis and two counts of possession with intent to supply class B drugs.

He was convicted of three counts of possessing prohibited firearms, possession of criminal property and possession of explosive substances after a trial at Doncaster Crown Court.

He was cleared of a firearms charge relating to a stun gun.

Lesley Claughton, 59, was found guilty of bringing a realistic imitation firearm into the country, possessing class B drugs with intent to supply, possession of criminal property and being concerned in production of cannabis.

open image in gallery A crossbow was among the weapons found at the address ( Yorkshire and Humber Regional Organised Crime Unit/PA Wire )

Detective Superintendent Al Burns, of the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Organised Crime Unit, said: Ian Claughton is someone who was clearly involved in drugs offending to a very significant degree.

He appears to have developed a siege mentality that saw him go to unusual and elaborate lengths to defend his home and its illicit contents from would-be intruders, drawing inspiration from Macaulay Culkins character in the popular Christmas film Home Alone.

When he tried to import realistic-looking firearms from China, which were diligently intercepted by UK Border Force staff, we became involved and carried out raids on his addresses.

The modified booby-trap devices officers found at his address, alongside an array of other weapons, had the appearance of home-made bombs and obviously caused us serious concerns, which were rightly met with an appropriate multi-agency response to safeguard the public until military experts could declare the scene safe.

This caused significant disruption and concern in the local community over a number of days, and we hope all those affected can take some comfort and reassurance from seeing Claughton and his ex-partner being criminally held to account.
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A man shot his daughter at his home in the US after the pair had an argument about Donald Trump, an inquest has heard.

Lucy Harrison, a fashion buyer from Warrington in Cheshire, had been staying with her father, Kris Harrison and his family in the Dallas, Texas suburb of Prosper when she died.

An inquest into the 23-year-olds death is being held at Cheshire Coroners Court.

On Tuesday, Lucys boyfriend, Sam Littler told the inquest that he had travelled with her to the US, where her father had moved when she was young, for a holiday.

He said Lucy would often become upset with her father when he spoke about his ownership of a gun.

The inquest also heard that Mr Harrison had previously been to rehab for alcohol addiction.

On the morning of 10 January, when Lucy and Mr Littler were due to return home to the UK, there was a big argument between Lucy and her father about Mr Trump, who was to be inaugurated as president, Mr Littler said.

Kris and Lucy ended up having quite a big argument which led to Lucy running upstairs and being upset.

He said Lucy had asked her father: How would you feel if I was the girl in that situation and Id been sexually assaulted?

Mr Harrison had replied that he had two other daughters who lived with him so it would not upset him that much, Mr Littler said.

He told the coroners court that later that day, about half an hour before they were to leave to go to the airport, Lucy had been in the kitchen, when her father took her by the hand and led her into his ground floor bedroom.

About 15 seconds later he heard a loud bang and then heard Mr Harrison screaming for his wife, Heather, he said.

Mr Littler said: I remember running into the room and Lucy was lying on the floor near the entrance to the bathroom and Kris was just screaming, just sort of nonsense.

Ms Harrisons mother, Jane Coates, said her daughter, who worked for fashion brand Boohoo, was a real force of life.

She said: She cared. She was passionate about things. She loved to have debates about things that meant a lot to her.

Mr Harrison did not attend the hearing to give evidence.

Ana Samuel, representing him, made an application at the start of the hearing for coroner Jacqueline Devonish to recuse herself from the case, saying a fair-minded observer may conclude there was a real possibility she was biased.

She said the inquest had been conducted in a manner more akin to a criminal investigation than a fact-finding inquiry.

Lois Norris, representing Ms Coates, said the application was an ambush by Mr Harrisons legal team.

She said Mr Harrison was the person in the room who shot Ms Harrison and the only person who was in the room when it happened.

Ms Devonish refused the application to recuse herself.

The inquest is expected to conclude on Tuesday.
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Three in five young people say they are worried about artificial intelligence (AI) being used to make inappropriate pictures of them, a survey has found, as more and more teenagers report they are using AI.

More than one in 10 (12 per cent) teenagers aged 13 to 17 said they have already seen people their age using AI to create sexual pictures and videos of other people, according to a survey by the UK Safer Internet Centre and Nominet to mark Safer Internet Day.

It comes after the UKs data regulator opened a formal probe into X and xAI over their compliance with UK law after the chatbot Grok was used to generate sexual deepfake images without consent.

Nearly two thirds (65 per cent) of 2,000 parents said they were concerned about AI being used to make inappropriate pictures of their children, while 60 per cent of eight to 17-year-olds said they were concerned about someone using AI to make inappropriate pictures of them.

12 per cent of people polled said they had already seen someone using AI to make inappropriate images of them ( fizkes - stock.adobe.com )

Despite concerns, nearly all (97 per cent) of 2,000 young people between eight and 17 surveyed said they are using AI, and more than half (58 per cent) believed it makes their lives better.

More than two in five (41 per cent) young people said AI can provide emotional support, while more than a third (34 per cent) said explicitly it can help with mental health and feelings.

A third of parents (33 per cent) are worried about the impact of AI on their childs cognitive and learning development, while a similar amount (35 per cent) of young people said AI has made them personally less creative.

Parents underestimated how often children said they were using AI to help with their homework (31 per cent vs 54 per cent), and half (50 per cent) of young people said they have seen others their age using AI to do their home or schoolwork for them.

National Education Union (NEU) general secretary Daniel Kebede said the findings show the extraordinary scale of AI use among young people.

While the curriculum review recognised the need for AI to appear more on the curriculum, teachers, students and parents cannot afford to wait 18 months for changes, he added.

Mr Kebede said: Young people are already using AI at an unprecedented rate, including for their homework and studying.

Yet the evidence is clear that the risks of AI use in education, particularly for young peoples learning and development, overshadow the benefits.

Equally concerning is the number of young people who are relying on AI for emotional support, and those worried about AI being used to create inappropriate images of them.

These findings must serve as a clarion call for Government to act urgently to ensure that children have the information, support and resources they need to make informed, safe and ethical decisions about AI.

While the movement against social media for children and phones in schools has been gathering momentum, the Government has championed the benefits of AI learning tools for schools.

The Department for Education has announced that more than 1,000 schools and colleges will be recruited to try out new technologies to aid learning, and AI tutoring is set to be available for disadvantaged students in all schools by the end of 2027.

Mr Kebede told MPs last year he had real concerns about the potential long-term impact of AI and cognitive decline in children.

However, schools watchdog Ofsted has found teachers are largely positive about the potential of AI to cut workload and support teaching.

Ofcom launched an investigation into X and its chatbot several weeks ago, and X has since said it has brought in measures to address the issues raised.

Technology secretary Liz Kendall said: This research shows that young people are embracing AI in remarkable ways; using it to learn and save time. This is exactly how we want technology to support people of all ages. But its true benefits wont be realised until AI is both safe and accessible to everyone.

We are investing in safe AI tutors for disadvantaged children and upskilling millions of people across the country, while launching a national conversation on how we build a safer, fairer and more empowering digital future for every child.

We are also clear that no-one should be victim to AI being weaponised to create abhorrent explicit content without their consent. Thats why we brought forward a new criminal offence to ban it.
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Most of the British public believes King Charles should encourage Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to give evidence in relation to the Epstein files, according to a new poll.

Mr Mountbatten-Windsor has been at the centre of further scandal after the latest tranche of documents relating to disgraced paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein were released by the US Department of Justice last month.

When asked if the King should make his brother give evidence to US law enforcement, an overwhelming 82 per cent of respondents believed that he should, according to the YouGov poll conducted for Sky News.

Only 6 per cent believe that the King should not encourage him. The survey, conducted on over 2000 members of the British public, is thought to be the first test of public opinion since the latest release.

open image in gallery Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was a friend of both Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein ( PA )

King Charles, Queen Camilla and Prince William have all been heckled while on public appearances since the controversy.

But it appears that a significant number of people (45 per cent) believe that the King has done all he can to distance himself from his brother. Some 39 per cent of respondents believed he could be doing more. Only 35 per cent believed the King should make an official apology to Epsteins victims, while 45 per cent believe he should not.

Mr Mountbatten-Windsor was forced to move out of the Royal Lodge last week and is expected to live on his brothers Sandringham Estate. A majority of people, 63 per cent, disagreed with the move and believe he should not be allowed to live on the grounds.

Thames Valley Police has already revealed that it is assessing claims that Mr Mountbatten-Windsor shared confidential information with Epstein during his role as trade envoy.

open image in gallery King Charles has expressed profound concern about the allegations surrounding his brother ( Getty )

Meanwhile, US vice president JD Vance has backed calls by prime minister Keir Starmer for Mr Mountbatten-Windsor to appear before congress to testify about his links to the billionaire.

Congressman Ro Khanna said that the controversy could spell the end of the monarchy, adding that stripping him [Andrew] of his title is not enough.

Emails appear to show the former duke sharing reports of official visits to Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Singapore in 2010.

open image in gallery Pictures appear to show Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor crouched over an unidentified woman ( US Department of Justice )

One email, dated November 2010, was forwarded by Mr Mountbatten-Windsor just five minutes after being sent by his then special adviser, Amir Patel.

He appeared to loop Epstein in on a confidential brief on investment opportunities in the reconstruction of Helmand Province, Afghanistan, on Christmas Eve 2010.

Among the released documents were pictures of Mr Mountbatten-Windsor crouching over a person lying on the floor, while he touches her abdomen. The photos were undated and not captioned.

open image in gallery JD Vance believes Mr Mountbatten-Windsor should testify before the US congress ( Reuters )

Other emails appear to show a legal letter in which it is claimed that Mr Mountbatten-Windsor asked an exotic dancer for a threesome at the late paedophiles Florida home, wishing he were still a pet in Epsteins family, and asking the sex offender if it was good to be free after being released from prison for child sex offences.

Emails from Epstein show the financier asking Mr Mountbatten-Windsor to arrange for private time after an invitation to have dinner at Buckingham Palace.

Mr Mountbatten-Windsor was stripped of his royal honorifics, including both his HRH style and princed title, and was forced to step down from royal duties in 2019.

He has vehemently denied any wrongdoing throughout the scandal.

Charles is reported to have expressed profound concern about the allegations surrounding his brother.

A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said earlier this week: The King has made clear, in words and through unprecedented actions, his profound concern at allegations which continue to come to light in respect of Mr Mountbatten-Windsors conduct.

While the specific claims in question are for Mr Mountbatten-Windsor to address, if we are approached by Thames Valley Police we stand ready to support them as you would expect.

As was previously stated, Their Majesties thoughts and sympathies have been, and remain with, the victims of any and all forms of abuse.
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Bonding benches are being introduced to English Heritage properties to help parents who take their children on historic day trips meet fellow family adventurers.

In an effort to tackle the growing issue of parental isolation, bonding benches will be introduced to all the charitys castles and historic houses to help new parents develop their support networks by starting conversations with fellow visitors.

The bonding benches will be installed across the historic sites ahead of the half-term holidays, located in areas where families tend to gravitate, such as playgrounds or open grassland. The benches will feature sliders which can be moved between up for a chat and craving quiet, depending on your mood.

open image in gallery Bonding benches will be brought to the charitys 400 sites across England ( English Heritage )

It follows recent research from the NCT (National Childbirth Trust) that shows 62 per cent of new parents feel lonely or isolated at least some of the time, while 87 per cent feel overwhelmed. The report released last month also found that almost a quarter (23 per cent) of new parents said they did not have a strong support network around them.

Families make up around 35 per cent of all visits to English Heritages more than 400 sites, which include medieval castles, Roman forts and even a Cold War bunker, so the charity felt well placed to try and bring like-minded parents together. With the new initiative, their hope is to help families take the first step to starting up conversations with people and making connections while their children play.

open image in gallery The charity's bonding benches will have sliders to give families a choice of meeting new parents ( English Heritage )

Emma Fernandes Lopes, assistant operations director at English Heritage, said: As parents, we are hardwired to prioritise our childrens wellbeing. We bring them out to wonderful places like English Heritage sites to explore the outdoors and expand their horizons. But we often forget that the key to childrens wellbeing is actually found in whether their parents feel happy and supported.

Modern parenthood can be a really isolating experience. Many parents live a long way away from their extended families and have no support network to lean back on, and its often a real challenge to make friends who hold the same values and interests. With families making up more than a third of all English Heritage visits, we want to use our sites to help parents make those essential connections.

open image in gallery NCT-led walks will also be introduced to certain sites to help new parents bond ( English heritage )

The charity will also host communal activities for young families and NCT volunteer-led sling and buggy walks at selected sites. These free, volunteer-led walks hope to enable new, pre-school and expectant parents to meet up in the fresh air and share experiences. They will be held at Audley End in Essex, Kenwood in North London, Marble Hill in South West London, Wrest Park in Bedfordshire and Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire.

More volunteers are being sought to lead walks at other English Heritage sites.
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Hundreds of flood alerts and warnings are in place across the UK on Monday after the Met Office issued weather warnings for more heavy rain this week.

Bands of heavy rain are set to batter parts of the south of England and Wales as a yellow weather warning is in place during Monday afternoon and evening, the forecaster said.

At least 10 to 15mm of rain is likely fairly widely with 20 to 30mm expected in areas exposed to strong south to south-easterly winds, as the showers move in an easterly direction.

open image in gallery Heavy rain will batter the south of England and Wales on Monday ( Met Office )

The Met Office warned that flooding on roads could cause travel disruption, impacting bus and train services, and also affect homes and businesses. There is also a chance of some interruption to power supplies, the forecaster warned.

Further yellow weather warnings have been issued for persistent and at times heavy rain over Scotland all day on Tuesday and Wednesday, with a sprinkling of snow.

Around 15 to 30mm of rain could fall widely on Tuesday, with 40 to 60mm possible in places over higher ground, impacting Central, Tayside, Fife and Grampian. Some snow may affect the highest roads in Aberdeenshire by the end of Tuesday.

open image in gallery Tuesday's rain warning will cover parts of north-east Scotland ( Met Office )

On Wednesday, a further 20 to 30mm of rain could fall, with potential for another 40 to 60mm building up over high ground.

As freezing levels lower from the North, snow is likely to fall above 300 to 400m, especially across Aberdeenshire, Angus and Perthshire, where 5 to 10cm of snow may accumulate by the end of Wednesday.

open image in gallery Wednesday's weather warning is set to cover a wider part of Scotland ( Met Office )

Meanwhile, the Environment Agency has issued 108 flood warnings, where flooding is expected across England, and 218 flood alerts, where deluge is possible. A map shows south Wiltshire and Dorset, as well as parts of Gloucestershire and the West Midlands, would be hotspots for flooding.

Only two flood alerts and four warnings are in place across Scotland on Monday, while Wales has seven alerts in place.

The UK continues to face a persistent rainy spell, after the Met Office confirmed last week that rain had been recorded on every day of the year so far.

open image in gallery There are hundreds of flood alerts and warnings in place across England on Monday ( Environment Agency )

After recording 36 days of rain in a row, Met Office spokesperson Stephen Dixon told The Independent: Rain has been reported somewhere in the network every day of the year so far. While amounts are trivial on some days, and some areas will have seen dry days, the UK has seen a wet start to the year, particularly in Northern Ireland and southern England.

This has largely been down to a succession of fronts or low-pressure systems arriving from the west, bringing heavy rain at times, as well as damaging winds for some. Theres little sign of a let-up in the current forecast, with further unsettled weather in the coming days and over the weekend.

open image in gallery The Scottish Environment Protection Agency has numerous flood alerts active ( PA Wire )

Northern Ireland recorded its wettest January in 149 years  the second wettest on record after Storm Chandra brought record-breaking rainfall across a number of UK sites. Katesbridge in County Down recorded a staggering 100.8mm of rain, far surpassing the previous site record of 38.2mm from 2005, on 26 January.

Dunkeswell Aerodrome in Devon reached 52.8mm, while Hurn in Dorset, Cardinham in Cornwall, and Plymouth Mountbatten in Devon all exceeded their previous daily records.

open image in gallery Already, parts of Leicestershire have seen flooded roads ( PA )

Met Office weather forecast for the week

Monday

A grey start for many with outbreaks of rain and drizzle. Staying largely cloudy, although some brighter spells possible. Heavy rain and strong winds pushing into the South West with a risk of flooding. Rather mild in the South.

Cloudy skies for most tonight with further outbreaks of rain. Heavy rain and strong winds gradually easing in the South West.

Tuesday

Another dull start with outbreaks of rain and drizzle. A spell of heavy rain will move into the South, followed by sunshine and showers. Staying cloudy and damp elsewhere.

Outlook for Wednesday to Friday

Staying unsettled at first with further outbreaks of rain for many. Turning colder and brighter on Friday with a chance of snow showers, particularly in the North and East.
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The former editor of the Daily Mail has said he has only a vague memory of a box containing invoices worth 3m from private investigators being discovered in the newspapers offices.

Paul Dacre, 77, told the High Court he really didnt know the details behind the documents, which were uncovered by a paralegal in the managing editors office in October last year.

Asked about the ledgers found by lawyers, he said: I know there has been a most enormous search by Baker McKenzie for every document in this case. I do have a vague memory of a box being found late in the day.

Seven high-profile figures, including Prince Harry, Sir Elton John and actress Elizabeth Hurley, are bringing legal action against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), claiming that the publisher unlawfully obtained medical information, tapped landlines and hacked their phones.

ANL has strongly denied the allegations and any wrongdoing, and argued that the claimants had brought the case too late.

open image in gallery Paul Dacre said in written evidence that it was inconceivable that anyone at the Daily Mail would have carried out the alleged activities ( PA )

In a written statement to the court, Mr Dacre said: The grave and sometimes preposterous allegations made in these proceedings have astonished, appalled and  in the small hours of the night  reduced me to rage.

He said allegations of phone hacking made by Baroness Doreen Lawrence have been especially bewildering and bitterly wounding to me personally, after the newspapers 15-year campaign for her son Stephen Lawrence, who was murdered in a racist attack in 1993.

On the front page of the papers 14 February 1997 edition, the paper labelled five men  Gary Dobson, Neil Acourt, Jamie Acourt, Luke Knight, and David Norris  as murderers and challenged them to sue the newspaper for libel.

Taking to the witness stand last week, Baroness Lawrence claimed that the Daily Mail was pretending to support her in getting justice, but just wanted the credibility of supporting a black family.

Her claims relate to five articles published between 1997 and 2007, with her lawyers claiming she was extensively targeted by private investigators working on behalf of ANL.

At the start of his evidence on Tuesday, Mr Dacre told the court: My heart bleeds for Baroness Doreen Lawrence.

In his written evidence, he said that it was inconceivable that anyone at the Daily Mail would have carried out the alleged activities.

open image in gallery Doreen Lawrence is among a group of seven high-profile individuals bringing legal action against ANL ( PA )

Throughout my 26-year editorship, this, of all my countless campaigns, many of which made a significant contribution to the public weal, is the campaign of which I am most proud and to which I devoted the most space.

He also said it simply defies reason for the Daily Mail to use illegal methods to see if other newspapers were getting involved in the Lawrence campaign, later adding: The suggestion that we ran the campaign to generate exclusive headlines, sell newspapers and profit is sickeningly misplaced and bleakly cynical.

Mr Dacre later said the claims had had a deeply upsetting and sometimes traumatic impact on staff at the paper, adding: I have witnessed the anguish of honest, dedicated journalists who, for three years now, have had an insidious dark shadow hanging over their lives.

The former editor, who is now editor-in-chief of ANLs holding company DMG Media, said journalists across Fleet Street had a hazy understanding of data protection during this period, and inquiry agents had been used by other papers, including the BBC.

He said: Indeed, it was the fact that others were using these agencies that, I believe, gulled us into believing that the services they provided must be above board. If I had thought something illicit or illegal was going on, then I would have been forthright in stopping it from happening.

Mr Dacre added that a second Information Commissioners Office report on privacy was a huge wake-up call and that he previously had not been aware of the extent his journalists had been using search agencies.

As a result, Daily Mail journalists were blitzed with warnings, memos and letters to comply with data protection laws, and, in April 2007, banned the use of inquiry agents altogether.

David Sherborne, representing a group of the complainants, previously told the London court that the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday had been engaged in unlawful information gathering over at least two decades, and knew they had skeletons in their closet.

He said: There is evidence, indisputable evidence, in the documents that Associated journalists and senior executives were commissioning and approving the acquisition and use of unlawfully obtained information, and they must have known that.

That is why we say this was no clean ship, far from it.

The trial before Mr Justice Nicklin is due to conclude in March, with a judgment in writing due at a later date.
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French authorities have successfully rescued 66 individuals from a small boat in the English Channel after its engine failed, highlighting the persistent dangers of attempting the perilous crossing.

The incident unfolded on Sunday night off the coast of Pas-de-Calais, according to local prefecture rescuers.

A statement from the French authority on Tuesday confirmed the rescue operation.

"After the migrant boat suffered an engine failure, the patrol vessel launched its rescue boat and made contact, progressively rescuing all 66 people on board before heading to the port of Calais for medical care and assistance by shore-based teams," it read.

Authorities reiterated warnings against such journeys, stating: "This maritime area is one of the busiest in the world, and navigation conditions are difficult both in summer and winter, particularly for makeshift and overcrowded vessels."

This latest rescue comes as an inquiry into the deadliest Channel crossing on record, which saw 27 people die in November 2021, concluded that small boat crossings "must end" to prevent further fatalities.

open image in gallery Starmer and Macron previously agreed that joint action was needed on small boat crossings ( Simon Dawson/No 10 Downing Street )

That tragedy involved a crowded inflatable boat capsizing, with only two survivors found nearly 12 hours after initial calls for help.

Despite the risks, Home Office figures reveal 1,208 people have already successfully crossed the Channel this year.

This comes after small boat crossings hit a record high in the first half of 2025.

Gunes Kalkan, from the charity Safe Passage International, commented on the recent rescue: "Thankfully no-one lost their life in this latest incident in the Channel.

But, with the lack of safe routes to the UK for people seeking protection, we fear there will be more deaths this year. No-one would risk their life this way needlessly.

The relatively few refugees who come to the UK are simply trying to reach somewhere they believe they have the best chance of rebuilding a safe life."
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Keir Starmer is a prime minister who cannot catch a break, even as he breaks cover to launch a fightback to save his premiership.

Moments after he delivered a put up or shut up message to his critics and rivals in a moment of defiance over his future as prime minister, news broke that Lord Matthew Doyle, the man he chose as his first director of communications and then personally appointed to the Lords, had been suspended by Labour over links to a paedophile.

The latest chapter in this ongoing crisis for the prime minister, which comes as he tried to draw a line under the chaos within the party after the most turbulent day of his premiership so far, threatens to bring Starmer right back to the brink.

It was Starmers admission he had appointed Peter Mandelson to the role of US ambassador  despite knowing of his ongoing relationship with Jeffrey Epstein  that led to him losing his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, and the subsequent questions over his judgement and integrity, which led to calls for a change of leader.

Now, he faces tough questions about a different Labour peer.

open image in gallery Sir Keir Starmer broke cover as he attempted to renew his premiership ( PA Wire )

Lord Matthew Doyle campaigned for Sean Morton in 2017 after he had been charged over indecent images of children, saying he believed his assertions of innocence, but the councillor later admitted having the images.

In a statement, Lord Doyle apologised unreservedly for supporting Moray councillor Morton before the case against him had concluded.

He said he also had extremely limited contact with Morton after his conviction.

For a party that has been repeatedly accused of being too slow to act, this latest news is the last thing Starmer needs.

Moments before Lord Doyles apology, the prime minister was surrounded by Union Jack pennants in a community centre in Hertfordshire, insisting that he would never walk away from the mandate I was given to change this country.

Making his first public appearance since surviving the hardest day of his premiership so far, Starmer said: I will never walk away from the people that I'm charged with fighting for. And I will never walk away from the country that I love.

The defiant statement is reminiscent of one from another beleaguered prime minister more than three decades ago. In 1995, John Major told his critics it was time to put up or shut up as he resigned as leader of the Conservative Party, challenging the right-wing cabinet minister Sir John Redwood to run against him in a leadership bid. Politicians quickly rallied behind Mr Major and he saw off the threat.

But that piece of political drama was three years from a narrowly won general election in the making  not a mere 19 months since winning one of the biggest majorities in history.

It was clear that, after the failed coup on Monday  with Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar apparently in the role as fall guy  Starmer needed to come out, face the public and issue a defiant message to show he will not back down.

But he was speaking to the Labour Party as much as he was the room. That message may well have been aimed at health secretary Wes Streeting, who is being accused by MPs of being behind Sarwars stunning press conference in which he called on Starmer to go.

The health secretary has publicly given Starmer his backing. But his unilateral decision to release his WhatsApp and email exchanges with the disgraced Lord Mandelson  revealing he disagreed with government policy on the Middle East and economy  was also a challenge to Starmers authority.

open image in gallery Starmer made Matthew Doyle a peer despite knowing of his association with a convicted paedophile ( Parliament TV )

Streeting claimed he was simply clearing his name and proving he had nothing to hide about his links to the former US ambassador. The prime ministers spokesman refused to back Streeting over the move, and reiterated that due process should be followed while the material is being handled by police.

But the fact he was not sacked underlined the prime ministers lack of authority  and emphasised why he needed to come out the next day to win it back.

As this latest crisis with Doyle underlines, Starmer is still very vulnerable. He has to get through a very difficult by-election in Gorton and Denton later this month and then, if he survives that, an even more fraught local and devolved election on 7 May.

But, now that he is free of the baggage of his former chief of staff, McSweeney, as well as McSweeneys supporters like former director of communications, Tim Allan, Starmer has a chance of a moment of genuine renewal.

In showing his defiance, the PM should be free at last to speak from the heart and prove he is the very prime minister that everyone thought he would be when he was elected in a landslide victory in July 2024.

The fightback  and the message that he is not afraid to make himself front and centre of his governments push  is a start.

open image in gallery Prime minister John Major also had a put up and shut up moment in 1995 ( PA )

But there will be some who remember that Major saw off the pretenders to his crown, but then led his party to a catastrophic general election defeat two years later.

Starmer will now not only have to shake off the stench of sleaze and scandal, he will need to prove he wont follow the same path as Major and can be a winner beyond surviving attempted coups.
In our world of government by rumour, it seems that the cabinet secretary will soon be the latest senior figure to leave the prime ministers side  albeit having nothing to do with the Mandelson scandal.

Chris Wormald is expected to depart after a little over a year in the role, an extremely short tenure. Antonia Romeo, permanent secretary at the Home Office, is reported to be in line to replace him. Its a significant appointment.

Why is Wormald off?

Its not because of the Epstein/Mandelson affair. The recent turmoil in No 10 presents the prime minister with an opportunity to make further changes to the wider Downing Street team. Wormald was sceptical about reforming the civil service in the way ministers would like, and the prime minister would like someone more attuned to him (even though Wormald was actually appointed by Keir Starmer, in December 2024). His predecessor, Simon Case, was a Boris Johnson appointment; he replaced Mark Sedwill, who was let go prematurely because Johnson and his adviser Dominic Cummings felt that he wasnt embracing their style of governance. Plus ca change.

Who is Antonia Romeo?

A very well respected figure who has been considered for the top job in the British civil service at least once before. Before running the Home Office, she was permanent secretary at the Ministry of Justice for four years, and before that she held the same role at the Department for International Trade; she also served in New York as consul general.

Unlike so many of her predecessors, shes not a civil service lifer. She was appointed as a civil service economist in 2020 having enjoyed a career in the private sector at a strategic consultancy firm, Oliver Wyman. She has a degree in PPE from Oxford, but also has advanced qualifications from the London School of Economics and an Advanced Management Programme diploma from Columbia Business School. Her greatest benefit might be breaking up the boys club atmosphere in Downing Street.

As well as being able and experienced, Romeo is presumably up for reshaping the Downing Street machine in line with Starmers vision. One principal competitor  Ollie Robbins, head of the Foreign Office team  is tainted by his involvement in Mandelsons appointment as ambassador (and also, for some, by his role as a Brexit negotiator under Theresa May). There is a feeling that Starmer made a mistake in choosing Wormald as a safe pair of hands, when different qualities were really required.

What does the cabinet secretary do?

Aside from the management of the civil service itself, the job is what the incumbent wants to make it. The cabinet secretary is the prime ministers principal non-party-political adviser, but is also there to ensure the efficient and ethical government of the country. As such, they work with the prime ministers chief of staff and political advisers as well as ministers.

Will Romeo and Starmer make No 10 run more smoothly?

The odds are against it. The Partygate scandal, and the wider chaos of the Johnson-Cummings years, highlighted how difficult it is to achieve success with a quasi-presidential, centralised system driven by a prime minister, in what is still a cabinet and parliamentary framework of government.

In her report on Partygate, Sue Gray complained about the dysfunctional interactions between No 10, the prime ministers office and the (separate but overlapping) Cabinet Office during the pandemic. She suggested the creation of a prime ministers department with its own permanent secretary, additional to the cabinet secretary, but this never came to pass.

Starmer last year made the novel appointment of Darren Jones to the new role of chief secretary to the prime minister, but the challenge of meshing political strategy, policymaking, career civil servants and Spads (special advisers) remains unresolved  as it has, more or less, since Lloyd George created the Cabinet Office in 1916 to deal with the exigencies of the Great War.
Close Starmer hits out at Jim Ratcliffe over colonised by immigrants claim

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Angela Rayner and Andy Burnham have joined forces to criticise Sir Keir Starmers pub tax grab.

The two Labour figures have both been tipped as potential rivals of Sir Keir Starmer, who faces leadership questions as he seeks to reset his Downing Street operation.

It comes after controversies surrounding the appointments of Lord Peter Mandelson and Lord Matthew Doyle despite their association with sex offenders.

Both suggested Sir Keir should cut VAT to ease pressure on struggling businesses, with Ms Rayner saying at a nighttime economy summit in Liverpool: I mean, I talked about the challenges on business rates, the challenges on VAT. The challenges, yes, the minimum wage going up and the living wage and the costs of energy.

Mr Burnham, later on, said: I personally would support permanently a lower business rates regime for hospitality businesses for exactly the same reason, according to The Telegraph.

Sir Chris Wormald is the latest of Sir Keirs top team to step down as as the UKs top civil servant and head of the civil service by mutual agreement, the Cabinet Office announced on Thursday.
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Sir Keir Starmer is clinging on after surviving the toughest day of his premiership so far this week, when Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar became the most senior Labour figure to call for him to quit.

The prime minister has been at the centre of a political storm since admitting he was aware of Peter Mandelsons relationship with Jeffrey Epstein even after his conviction for child sex offences when he appointed him as US ambassador.

Figures across the political spectrum  including MPs in his own party  have been questioning the prime ministers judgement, with some declaring its over for him.

Morgan McSweeneys departure  the man who was responsible for Sir Keir becoming the leader of the Labour Party, the architect of the subsequent election victory and central figure in running the government  on Sunday failed to quell growing questions over whether or not the prime minister can continue in his job.

The PM was also hit by the resignation of Downing Street director of communications Tim Allan, further fuelling doubts over his future.

But the heat intensified even further on Sir Keir on Monday when the previously loyal Mr Sarwar urged him to step down over the Mandelson-Epstein scandal, saying he had made too many mistakes. Sir Keir responded defiantly, insisting he was not going anywhere, before telling a meeting of Labour MPs: Ive won every fight Ive ever been in.

The lack of a concerted effort by MPs to depose Sir Keir - and his Cabinet coming out to back him publicly on Monday afternoon - suggests the immediate danger may have passed.

But it only takes one candidate to garner 20 per cent of the MPs to stand against him, and Sir Keir is in serious trouble. So who would that person be, and could they unite a warring party?

open image in gallery The furore comes after months of speculation about Sir Keirs leadership of the Labour Party, with senior figures appearing to position themselves as his successor ( House of Commons )

Angela Rayner

The former deputy prime minister is being openly discussed as a replacement for Sir Keir, despite her resignation less than six months ago over her personal tax payments.

Angela Rayner raised eyebrows on Wednesday when she got to her feet in the Commons and made it clear she would vote against the governments attempt to restrict the release of full vetting documents relating to Lord Mandelsons appointment.

Ms Rayner, the MP for Ashton-under-Lyne in Greater Manchester, is viewed as a potential successor to Sir Keir or, if she did not run herself, as someone whose support could have a significant influence on the outcome of any contest.

open image in gallery Sir Keir Starmer has said he would like to see Angela Rayner return to government ( Lauren Hurley/Downing Street )

Many in the trade unions have been eager to see Ms Rayner get the top job and were already plotting her return days after she quit. She is believed to be preparing for a contest, having declared last month: Im not dead yet.

Last week, the prime minister suggested Ms Rayner has a future role to play in government, and said he wanted to bring her back to the front line at the right point.

Andy Burnham

Andy Burnham has been the most talked about threat to Sir Keirs leadership in recent months, with speculation about a potential challenge having grown since mid-2025.

Last year, Mr Burnham repeatedly failed to rule out a Labour leadership bid and has been regularly tipped as the leading candidate to take over should Sir Keirs position as prime minister become untenable.

He was the focus of such rumours at the Labour Party conference in September, when he revealed that MPs were privately urging him to challenge Sir Keir.

Earlier this month, tensions came to a head when a parliamentary seat in the north west came up for grabs after Gorton and Denton MP Andrew Gwynne stepped down.

The Greater Manchester mayor applied to run under the Labour banner in the historically safe seat  but was blocked by the partys National Executive Committee (NEC).

Critics have accused Sir Keir and his allies of preventing Mr Burnhams candidacy for factional reasons, fearing a leadership challenge from the mayor as both Labours poll ratings and his personal approval ratings flounder.

open image in gallery Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham ( PA )

Wes Streeting

There is widespread speculation that supporters of health secretary Wes Streeting will launch a bid to replace Sir Keir following months of uncertainty and suffering in the polls.

Just this week, as questions around Sir Keirs future reached fever pitch, the health secretary took the controversial decision to publish communications between himself and Lord Mandelson which contained severe criticism of the PMs economic and Middle East policies.

The publication broke collective responsibility and would normally lead to a sacking, but Mr Streeting justified it by saying it was necessary to deal with with smears that had been made about his relationship with the disgraced former Labour peer.

However, many have seen it as a clear attempt to distance himself from the PM and make it clear that he is ready to step in to his role when the time is right.

It comes after a briefing war within Downing Street in recent months, targeting the health secretary over his perceived ambitions to succeed Sir Keir.

It was also reported earlier this month that senior figures had been pushing for Mr Streetings removal from Cabinet for disloyalty, amid deepening splits in the prime ministers top team.

open image in gallery Wes Streeting has denied trying to launch a coup ( Reuters )

Mr Streeting has previously voiced his concerns about the direction of the government, and hit out at a toxic culture in No 10 when briefings against him was made public in November.

The 43-year-old health secretary is charismatic and the one cabinet minister who can connect with the public  as long as they are not striking resident doctors.

The former National Union of Students' presidents main weakness is that he is seen as too far to the right of the party, but he remains a more charismatic version of Sir Keir with less qualms about being compared to the Tories.

Shabana Mahmood

Another candidate who has been tipped for the top job is the home secretary, who was effectively endorsed by former prime minister Tony Blair last year.

Amid previous speculation that Sir Keir could be forced to step down as prime minister, Shabana Mahmood has emerged among the front runners to succeed him.

open image in gallery Another candidate who has been tipped for the top job is home secretary Shabana Mahmood ( PA )

Her biggest issues are similar to Mr Streeting. Like him, she is seen as being on the right of the party and it is unlikely both could run.

Ed Miliband

The left is looking for a candidate and there is a good chance they may turn to someone who had a go as leader before.

The 56-year-old is a hate figure for the rightwing press because of his net zero policies but this only acts as a plus with members of the party.

open image in gallery Ed Miliband has had a shot at the Labour leadership before ( Getty )

A bit like former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Mr Miliband has found new life and purpose in life after leadership. He is now the evangelist for green energy and net zero when the world needs one.

Gone is the cowed and shrunken man who led the party to defeat in 2015  he has been replaced by a man who is a serious contender to lead the party again with a new vigour.
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The family of a 93-year-old woman who died after wandering away from a Connecticut nursing home in subzero temperatures has raised questions about the facilitys response to the tragedy.

Margaret Peggy Healey, a resident of Bickford Health Care Center in Windsor Locks and a former Catholic school French teacher and nun, was reported missing from the home at 4.45 a.m. Sunday morning, according to First Alert 4.

She was soon found lying unresponsive in a snow drift in its driveway, wearing only pajamas and sneakers.

Windsor Locks Police Lt. Paul Cherniak said staff rushed Healey inside, attempted to revive her and warm her with blankets before calling for emergency medical support.

It appears that they brought her in from the outdoors when she was outside face down in the snow bank, and they began warming techniques with blankets, trying to bring her body temperature back up, he said.

open image in gallery Margaret Healey, a 93-year-old former Catholic school teacher and nun, who was found dead in the snow after wandering away from a nursing home in Windsor Locks, Connecticut ( Family Photo )

She did not make it, unfortunately, and by the time we were called, there was a pronouncement [of death] at 6.46 a.m.

Officers wrote in their preliminary report about the incident that, due to various factors present, (age, extreme cold weather, and overall medical health condition) the cause of death is currently undetermined.

The official cause will be ultimately determined by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

Cherniak said the nursing home had waited almost two hours before calling the police and commented, We dont want to point fingers as to wrongdoing. We dont know if thats the case. We are still in the middle of it all. But in a case like that, for future reference you would call Emergency Medical Services and police as fast as you can.

Clare Kindall, Healeys niece, said law enforcement had told her the nursing home also delayed in calling for an ambulance, raising questions about its handling of the situation.

As a family, we are all grieving about this, she said. Obviously, we have some pretty significant concerns. It was bitterly cold that night. It was below 0 degrees without wind chill.

She was out in her pajamas and sneakers. Ten or 15 minutes, shes in hypothermia. We have a lot of questions Were hoping she didnt suffer. It just adds to your pain.

According to NBC Connecticut, the precise temperature at the time Healey stepped outside was -1 degree, with the wind chill making it feel closer to -15.

open image in gallery Bickford Health Care Center in Winter Locks, Connecticut, the nursing home from which Healey disappeared ( First Alert 4 )

Kindall explained that her aunt had been diagnosed with Alzheimers, had a history of wandering off and wore an ankle bracelet to alert her carers if she passed through a doorway without authorization.

She has an ankle bracelet, and at least when I would take her out to lunch or something, the alarm would go off, Kindall said.

So, my experience was the ankle bracelet worked. I dont know if there were subsequent problems with the system, but my personal experience was that it worked.

The Independent has reached out to Bickford Health Care Center for comment.

The Connecticut Department of Public Health said in a statement: DPH was informed over the weekend of the death of a resident at the Bickford Health Care Center.

Our hearts go out to her family and friends. DPH is prohibited from disclosing or discussing the existence of an investigation until any such investigation is closed and findings are issued.

Kindall paid tribute to her late relative, whom she had spent time with on the Saturday prior to her death, watching the Winter Olympics, by saying: Aunt Peggy was a great aunt, shes the kind who would take you up horseback riding and take you to events, spoil you.

She was great with her family. She loved animals, and she loved her students.
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Mexicos most populous state has announced heightened health screening at schools and recommended face mask use for students and staff, as the country grapples with a burgeoning measles outbreak.

This decision by Mexico state follows similar preventative measures introduced last week in Jalisco, the epicentre of the nations largest outbreak. In Jalisco, masks are now mandatory in schools across its capital, Guadalajara, Mexicos second-largest city.

As of 6 February, Mexico had recorded 2,143 confirmed measles cases nationwide, with nearly 6,000 additional suspected cases.

Jalisco alone accounted for over half of these confirmed infections, though cases have now been identified from Mexicos northern to its southern borders.

The health department for Mexico state, which borders Mexico City on three sides, confirmed that students temperatures would be checked upon school entry, alongside a renewed push for vaccination campaigns.

The initial surge in measles cases began last year in the northern border state of Chihuahua. Officials traced this outbreak to an eight-year-old unvaccinated Mennonite boy who had visited relatives in Seminole, Texas, a known centre of the US outbreak.

open image in gallery As of 6 February, Mexico had recorded 2,143 confirmed measles cases nationwide, with nearly 6,000 additional suspected cases. ( Associated Press )

While the Chihuahua outbreak has since been brought under control, confirmed measles cases are now present in all 32 of Mexicos states.

Scientists say rising outbreaks across the hemisphere are linked to declining vaccination rates.

Jalisco health authorities announced Thursday that masks will be required in Guadalajara schools across seven specific neighborhoods for the next 30 days.

Jalisco was the first Mexican state to take such measures as medical groups urged the local government to take urgent action, marking the countrys first such public health mandate since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Classes were also recently suspended in 15 schools in Jalisco and the central state of Aguascalientes due to outbreaks of the highly contagious airborne virus.

open image in gallery While the Chihuahua outbreak has since been brought under control, confirmed measles cases are now present in all 32 of Mexicos states. ( Associated Press )

Mexico state Health Secretary Macarena Montoya Olvera said Monday that the outbreak in the state is under control and that the cases have so far been light. The federal government has confirmed 40 cases there.

Mexico City has launched an aggressive vaccination campaign. As of last Friday, there were 166 confirmed cases.

The Pan American Health Organization issued an epidemiological alert last week following a surge of measles cases across the Americas.

Canada lost its measles-free status in November and the same could happen to the United States and Mexico.
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A $2.6 million apartment in Trump Tower turned out to be a particularly poor investment decision for one foreign buyer, who says the one-bed, two-bath property has shed nearly half its value over the past 10 years  and is now suing the real estate advisor who recommended it.

Monaco resident Riccardo Grande Stevens bought the 47th-floor unit in November 2015, exactly six months after Donald Trump rode down his eponymous buildings golden escalator to announce his candidacy for the White House, according to a multimillion-dollar lawsuit obtained by The Independent.

Of roughly 40 investment properties Stevens, 65, acquired under the guidance of Richard Tayar, a Florence, Italy native whose New York City-based brokerage firm promises to transform ownership into an unparalleled experience, Stevenss complaint, filed on Monday in state court, flags the purchase of the Trump Tower apartment as especially ill-advised.

At the time, Mr. Stevens, relying on Mr. Tayar, believed he was investing in properties that were being sold below market value, which would appreciate over time and also generate rental income, the complaint contends. Sadly, it has since come to light that this was not the case.

It says Tayar steered Stevens into the 1,000-square-foot Midtown Manhattan pied-a-terre, and other money-losing purchases around the city, even though he personally knew that they were fundamentally unsound deals and highly unfavorable investments.

open image in gallery A pricey abode in Donald Trump's eponymous New York City building is at the center of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit brought by aggrieved purchaser Riccardo Grande Stevens ( AFP via Getty Images )

Prices in Trump-branded buildings dropped in value by nearly 25 percent between 2013 and 2023, according to a study published the following year by The New York Times. Apartments in Trump Tower did the worst of all, with the average price per square foot collapsing by nearly 50 percent during that same period, according to CityRealty. Removing the Trump name from a building removes the loss associated with it, real estate economist Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh told the Times. (At the time, Eric Trump denied the report and questioned the figures presented.)

Stevens, an Italian national, is the son of the late Franzo Grande Stevens, who was for decades the personal attorney to legendary industrialist and Fiat head Gianni Agnelli. A financier and avid footwear collector, Stevens owns more than 700 pairs of shoes, according to his website.

In New York, during a visit to the MoMA Stevens was captivated by a pair of loafers that Gianni Agnelli had purchased in a shop near the museum, his bio says. As soon as he finished his tour of paintings by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, he rushed to the boutique Agnelli had recommended to him to find the same pair. Agnellis style certainly influenced Riccardo Grande Stevenss own approach to clothing, which remains deeply rooted in the good taste and typical style of the Turinese.

Tayar did not respond on Tuesday to requests for comment.

open image in gallery Monaco-based financier Riccardo Grande Stevens is suing his real estate advisor over the allegedly ill-advised purchase of a Trump Tower apartment he claims has lost nearly half its value ( Getty )

When Stevens first met Tayar, the 45-year-old licensed real estate agent suggested that Mr. Stevens establish a real estate portfolio in the United States, mainly in New York, which Mr. Tayar would manage thereafter, according to the complaint, which is now pending in Manhattan County Supreme Court.

Tayars brokerage team, Columbus International, boasts of maintaining an elite property management division, and claims to offer white-glove service and precision, discretion and tailor-made attention, the complaint states.

Based upon Mr. Tayars purported experience and knowledge, Mr. Stevens decided to pursue a real estate portfolio with Mr. Tayar and Columbus as the property manager, it continues.

Tayar identified dozens of investment opportunities for Stevens, who bought some 40 properties in the New York area, the complaint goes on. However, it claims, Tayar received a commission on each sale, and therefore had a financial incentive to convince Mr. Stevens to purchase properties, even those that were not likely to pay off in the long run.

One particularly poor investment decision involved a unit purchased at Trump Tower, located at 721 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10022, the complaint states. On or about November 23, 2015, Mr. Stevens purchased apartment 47H in the Trump Towers [sic] for the sum of $2,650,000.00.

But, the complaint maintains, Due to the units high common charges, it was not well suited for generating rental income. Nevertheless, Mr. Tayar convinced Mr. Stevens to proceed with the purchase.

Today, according to the complaint, apartment 47H is worth about $1.6 million, a loss of some 40 percent.

On top of the sales commissions Tayar was receiving, as well as rental commissions for securing tenants, Stevens was paying him $104,000 a year in property management fees to oversee his portfolio, the complaint says. Yet, it alleges, Tayar made matters worse by failing to find an occupant for the Trump Tower apartment and instead moved in himself, while neglecting to pay Stevens any rent at all.

The bank account used for the portfolio was held in Stevenss name, but Tayar had power of attorney and exercised full control over it, according to the complaint. Last October, Stevens received a 90-day notice related to unpaid common charges for one of his units, and was threatened with foreclosure.

In light of this troubling notice, Mr. Stevens directed counsel to review the portfolio, and the results were shocking, the complaint states. The investigation revealed that Mr. Tayar and Columbus committed fraud because the reports were completely fabricated and did not accurately reflect the true financial condition of the portfolio.

All the while, Tayar had been providing Stevens with inaccurate and fraudulent reports showing that the portfolio was profitable when, in fact, required expenses were not even being paid, according to the complaint.

open image in gallery Monaco resident Riccardo Grande Stevens is suing his real estate advisor over what he says was a bad investment recommendation  buying an apartment in Trump Tower ( AFP via Getty Images )

In fact, approximately twenty-eight (28) of the units had liens filed against them for unpaid common charges, with some delinquencies dating back to 2022, the complaint states. Even worse, two of the units were in active foreclosure proceedings.

Had Tayar properly managed the properties, Stevens would have realized $1,322,507.44 in profits, the complaint says. Instead, it alleges, as of October 2025, the account balance was just $608,334.96.

Moreover, this amount did not represent actual profit, as Mr. Stevens was required to pay $455,189.31 in outstanding property taxes  which Mr. Tayar had represented were already paid  and has already spent thousands of dollars on common charges, including significant interest charges, for obligations that Mr. Tayar had likewise represented were already paid, the complaint states.

While the full extent of the damage is yet to be determined, the amount of the unpaid common charges, taxes, and loss of rental income stands at $2 million, at minimum, according to the complaint. Stevens estimates his total losses at no less than $3 million, which he is now seeking from Tayar, plus pre-judgment and post-judgment interest, as well as attorneys fees and court costs.

Stevenss attorneys, Adam Leitman Bailey and Danny Ramrattan, declined to comment.
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A federal judge has temporarily halted a California law that sought to prohibit federal immigration agents from concealing their faces while on duty. Despite the block, agents will still be mandated to display clear identification, including their agency and badge number.

California became the first state to enact such a ban on facial coverings for most law enforcement officers, a measure signed into law in September following a summer marked by high-profile Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in Los Angeles.

The Trump administration subsequently filed a lawsuit in November, contending that the legislation jeopardised officer safety by exposing them to harassment, doxing and violence, and unconstitutionally regulated the federal government.

Judge Christina Snyder issued the preliminary ruling, explaining that the mask ban, as implemented, did not extend to state law enforcement authorities, thereby discriminating against federal agencies. This decision could carry significant national implications as other states grapple with how to manage federal agents enforcing the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.

The ruling could have national implications as states grapple with how to deal with federal agents enforcing the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. ( Reuters/Octavio Jones )

It left open the possibility to future legislation banning federal agents from wearing masks if it applied to all law enforcement agencies, with Snyder writing "the Court finds that federal officers can perform their federal functions without wearing masks. The ruling will go into effect Feb. 19.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill in September banning some law enforcement officers from wearing masks, neck gaiters, and other facial coverings. It was slated to go into effect Jan. 1 but was put on hold due to the lawsuit.

In addition to exempting state law enforcement officers, it made exceptions for undercover agents, protective equipment like N95 respirators or tactical gear, and other situations where not wearing a mask would jeopardize an operation. Snyder sided with the federal government, which argued this exemption was discriminatory against federal agents.

Newsom also signed into law a measure requiring law enforcement to wear clear identification showing their agency and badge number while on the job, which was challenged by the federal government but upheld by the judge.

California State Sen. Scott Weiner, who proposed the original bill to ban facial coverings, said Monday he would immediately introduce new legislation to include state police in the law.

ICE and Border Patrol are covering their faces to maximize their terror campaign and to insulate themselves from accountability, Weiner said in a news release. We will ensure our mask ban can be enforced.

At a Jan. 14 hearing, Snyder repeatedly asked the governments lawyer, Tiberius Davis, to explain why banning masks would impede the federal law enforcement in carrying out their duties, if officers rarely wore masks prior to 2025.

Davis cited claims by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that there has been a multifold increase in assaults and threats against federal officers. He also brought up an incident in Los Angeles where three women are being accused of livestreaming while following an ICE agent home and posting the address on Instagram.

There is real deterrence on the officers safety and ability to perform their duties, Davis said.

Cameron Bell, California Department of Justice attorney, challenged his claims, saying there was no concrete evidence that federal agents cant perform their duties without facial coverings.

Bell referenced declarations from U.S citizens who have been detained by federal agents but thought they were being kidnapped.

Its obvious why these laws are in the public interest, Bell said.

The federal government also argued in legal briefs that allowing Californias legislation could lead other states to be emboldened to impose similar unconstitutional restraints.

Davis cited a statement from Newsom in July 2025 during an interview posted online where he discussed the mask ban bill, saying, It appears that we dont have the legal authority for federal agents but we do for other law enforcement authorities.

Los Angeles County supervisors voted in December to enact a local ordinance banning law enforcement from wearing masks that went into effect Jan. 8. However, the sheriffs department said it would not enforce the ordinance until after the court ruled on the statewide mask ban. The Los Angeles Police Department had also said it wouldnt enforce the mask ban.
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An immigration court judge has terminated deportation proceedings against Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University scholar whose arrest last March by masked ICE agents on the street is among the defining images of the Trump administrations aggressive deportation campaign.

The Department of Homeland Security failed to meet its burden to prove that the Turkish doctoral student needed to be deported, and an immigration court judge terminated the case, her lawyers told a federal appeals court Monday.

The filing was included in Ozturks case before a federal appeals court in New York, where she continues to challenge the constitutionality of her arrest and detention.

I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that despite the justice systems flaws, my case may give hope to those who have also been wronged by the U.S. government, Ozturk said in a statement.

Though the pain that I and thousands of other women wrongfully imprisoned by ICE have faced cannot be undone, it is heartening to know that some justice can prevail after all, she said.

open image in gallery An immigration judge has terminated removal proceedings against Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was arrested and threatened with deportation for writing an op-ed critical of Israels war in Gaza ( Reuters )

Administration officials publicly accused Ozturk of engaging in activities in support of Hamas, but internal documents from State Department officials admitted there was no evidence that Ozturk engaged in any antisemitic activity or made any public statements indicating support for a terrorist organization.

Ozturk had co-authored an op-ed in a student newspaper that criticized university leaders for dismissing students concerns about Israels war in Gaza. Nevertheless, administration officials  relying on a pro-Israel activist group that created an online directory of student activists  canceled her student visa and signed a warrant for her arrest.

Plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were covering their faces when they grabbed Ozturk while she was walking near her home in Somerville, Massachusetts, on March 25 last year.

She was held inside an ICE detention center in Louisiana, more than 1,000 miles away, for more than six weeks.

Dozens of internal memos unsealed in a separate lawsuit revealed how Secretary of State Marco Rubio personally directed officials to deport several high-profile activist figures, including Ozturk and Columbia Universitys Mahmoud Khalil.

One senior diplomat repeatedly cautioned Rubio that stripping visas and green cards over actions inextricably tied to speech protected under the First Amendment would likely fail in court.

In a lawsuit seeking her release, Ozturks legal team argued that her arrest and detention was retaliatory and unconstitutional in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments.

On May 9, six weeks after her arrest, a federal judge ordered her release from detention on bail, which the Trump administration appealed. Oral arguments were heard by a three-judge panel in September and a decision is still pending.

open image in gallery The Trump administration specifically targeted Ozturk and Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil (pictured) for their Palestinian activism ( REUTERS )

Despite her victory, the Trump administration continued to push for her removal in immigration court.

Unlike federal district courts, immigration courts operate under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice and under the direction of the office of Attorney General. The proceedings and filings are generally not public, and the judges decision that Ozturk cannot be deported was filed under seal.

Under the governments view, it could punitively detain any noncitizen in retaliation for her speech for many months, so long as it simultaneously institutes removal proceedings  no matter how unmeritorious  all without any federal court review of the lawfulness of detention at any time, her lawyers wrote to the federal appeals court Monday.

The Independent has requested comment from the Justice Department.

In a statement, Ozturks legal team condemned the Trump administrations weaponization of immigration system to target dissent.

It has manipulated immigration laws to silence people who advocate for Palestinian human rights and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, according to Mahsa Khanbabai of Khanbabai Immigration Law.

Secretly revoking the visa of someone who has maintained their lawful immigration status as an excuse to detain them and place them into deportation proceedings, on the basis of free speech, is Kafkaesque, she said. I hope that other immigration judges will follow [the judges] lead and decline to rubber stamp the presidents cruel deportation agenda.

Ozturk says she is grieving for others who do not get to see the mistreatment they have faced brought into the light.

When we openly talk about the many injustices around us, including the treatment of immigrants and others who have been targeted and thrown in for-profit ICE prisons, as well as what is happening in Gaza, true justice will prevail, she said.
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Former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino has returned to Fox News after announcing his departure from the bureau in December, after less than a year in the role.

Bongino, 51, an ex-Secret Service agent turned conservative podcaster prior to joining President Donald Trumps administration, previously appeared regularly on Fox as a guest contributor and as the host of Unfiltered with Dan Bongino between 2021 and 2023.

He made his first appearance since departing the FBI Monday evening on Sean Hannitys primetime show to discuss the apparent kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie, mother of NBC News anchor Savannah Guthrie, who disappeared from her home in Tucson, Arizona, on January 31.

A reported ransom deadline in the case of the missing 84-year-old, whom law enforcement believes was taken against her will, has now passed and there have been no subsequent updates about the victims health or whereabouts.

We believe our mom is still out there, the Today show host said in her latest Instagram video. We need your help.

The FBI, meanwhile, has said that they have no contact with the alleged kidnappers.

The FBI is not aware of any continued communication between the Guthrie family and suspected kidnappers, nor have we identified a suspect or person of interest in this case at this time. Additional personnel from FBI field offices across the nation continue to deploy to Tucson, the agency said in a statement on Monday.

open image in gallery Dan Bongino makes a guest appearance on Hannity on Fox News on Monday February 9, 2026 to discuss the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie ( Hannity/Fox News )

Discussing the Guthrie mystery with Hannity, Bongino said: I see three possibilities. The first is that this was obviously a kidnapping  an intended kidnapping for a ransom payment.

The second possibility is that this was just a crime that went awry. Someone was at the house, maybe it was a burglary, something went bad, and you have some bad actors committing another crime by requesting a ransom for something they didnt do, just to take advantage of a situation like this.

The third possibility is that there may have been some kind of medical emergency or something, and maybe this was not a kidnapping. When you cant find someone in a crime scene like this right away, within the first couple of days, you either have really good, surgical-type operators, or the story youve been told  or believed  might not be the story.

Bongino appeared not to enjoy his time with the FBI, complaining during an appearance on Fox and Friends last May about the toll the job's demands were taking on him and his family.

I gave up everything for this, he told the networks breakfast show. I stare at these four walls all day in D.C., by myself, divorced from my wife  not divorced, but I mean separated, divorced  and its hard. I mean, we love each other, and its hard to be apart.

open image in gallery Bongino did not appear to enjoy his time at the FBI, complaining on Fox and Friends last May about the toll the job was taking on his personal life ( Getty )

People ask me all the time, Do you like it? I say, No, I dont.

His situation did not improve after the Department of Justice and the FBI put out a memo last July declaring that there was no evidence that Jeffrey Epstein was murdered in prison in 2019 and that the disgraced financier had left behind no client list incriminating his powerful friends.

Instead of killing off the many conspiracy theories surrounding the Epstein case  some of which FBI Director Kash Patel and Bongino himself had stoked and entertained in their previous lives as podcasters  the memo only served to pour gasoline on the fire, ultimately leading to the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act through Congress and the subsequent release of the governments documents.

Patel and Bongino, meanwhile, found themselves under attack from the MAGA-aligned communities in which they had once been central players.

When his departure from the bureau was announced last year, Fox anchor Laura Ingraham expressed little surprise, telling her viewers that he loved his lucrative media life and wanted to get back to it.

Trump appears to hold no animosity towards Bongino over his departure, recently appearing as a guest on his revived Rumble podcast and making headlines by suggesting Republicans should nationalize the voting process during elections in order stop crooked blue states from allowing illegal immigrants to vote.
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Democrats and Republicans in Washington are approaching something very familiar at the end of this week: A shutdown deadline.

The House and Senate began a two-week countdown at the onset of February, sidelining funding for the Department of Homeland Security into a short-term continuing resolution and punting it. Now, that deadline is drawing close and the Senate is struggling to reach an agreement around a plan for the longer term.

With ICE and related agencies now responsible for two fatal shootings of Americans in Minneapolis, where a massive immigration enforcement surge is underway, Democrats are eyeing a vote to extend DHS funding with varying degrees of distaste. Led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the opposition party presented Republicans with a list of demands for reforms to the agencies that include an end to masked agents, limiting the scope of raids, and the securing of judicial warrants for searches. Republicans have signaled openness to some of the demands, but call others non-starters.

Answering questions from reporters on Capitol Hill, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on Monday that the two sides were making progress towards a deal, and added that he could be open to another short-term continuing resolution at the end of the week.

Sen. Mike Rounds, speaking to The Independent, added that a short-term CR was probably the best we can expect from the Democrats.

But there is still no definitive declaration from either party regarding how this plays out. The party has found some Republicans sympathetic to their desires to reform ICE and DHS amid Donald Trumps mass deportation enforcement controversies, which are believed to be harming voters perception of Republicans ahead of the midterms, but its unclear whether Senate Democrats will hold out for all 10 points on their list or vote to re-authorize DHS funding after achieving only some  or none at all.

open image in gallery Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer have laid out a 10-point list of demands for reforming ICE and DHS ( AP )

The partys Senate caucus, angering their House colleagues, backed down from a similar red line last year when a number of members broke ranks to end the longest government shutdown in history without forcing Republicans to come to the table and extend subsidies for Americans on Obamacare plans.

Over the weekend, Sen. John Fetterman told Fox News that he had no idea where his partys red line actually was.

Commenting that it was unlikely Democrats would strike an agreement on all 10 suggested reforms, the Pennsylvania Senator told Sunday Morning Futures that he was unsure how much ground his party was willing to give, and added that a shutdown was likely at the end of the week.

If I had to say now, they probably expect that there will be a shutdown because things are [...] committed to do that, Fetterman said.

open image in gallery Sen. John Fetterman said on Sunday that he expects DHS to shut down after the deadline at the end of the week ( Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved )

With senators in both parties likely to accept a continuing resolution if a deal isnt struck, that isnt particularly probable. And Thunes outlook for the likelihood of a deal being struck sounded much more positive on Monday than it did last week, when the Senate GOP leader floated a year-long continuing resolution to keep DHS funded at current levels, sidestepping the issue entirely. Some members are due to travel abroad for the Munich Security Conference at the end of the week, complicating the efforts to meet the deadline even further.

But progressives in the House, some of whom are adamantly opposed to funding DHS at all without even more dramatic changes, are still reportedly concerned that Senate Democrats have already given up too much leverage on the DHS funding fight, and are waiting to see what (if anything) gets hammered out.

And with Republicans lack of a public counter-proposal, its still totally unclear how far the GOP is willing to go to keep DHS open. Schumer made that clear last week, telling reporters: Nothing will get done until we know what Republicans are for.

In late January, the president told reporters at a Cabinet meeting that his team was in direct talks with Democrats to avert a shutdown. Theres no sign of that dynamic now, as the Senate has largely taken over the negotiating process. That could pose an issue for the White House, given that some GOP senators like Susan Collins have spoken out about the scope of the ICE operations taking place in states around the country and the president could be pressured to accept any legislation to keep DHS open that makes it through both chambers.

Thune blamed that silence on the Democrats on Thursday.

open image in gallery Senate Majority Leader John Thune has not made clear what reforms Republicans would support to ICE and DHS, if any ( AP )

Our team, our folks have tried to get with them, to sit down at the table and with the White House to reach an agreement, he claimed. Theyre not engaging.

Jeffries, on Sunday, said the opposite was true. He added that his partys caucus in the House was not willing to accept anything less than the full implementation of their 10 reforms for DHS.

We haven't heard back from the White House or Mike Johnson or Leader Thune, claimed Jeffries. Either they're going to agree to dramatically reform the way in which ICE and other immigration enforcement agencies are conducting themselves ... or they're making the explicit decision to shut down the Coast Guard, shut down FEMA and shut down TSA, and that would be very unfortunate.
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The fallout from the three million documents released from the Justice Department as part of the Epstein files continues to embroil high-profile politicians and businessmen as more revelations are uncovered.

Justice Department officials unredacted the names of six men, including Les Wexner, the former CEO of Victorias Secret, at the request of lawmakers leading the campaign for more transparency. The members of Congress accused officials of redacting the names of potential co-conspirators as well.

Tuesday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick admitted to visiting Epsteins Caribbean island in 2012 after claiming, four months ago, he had been so disgusted by the disgraced financier he had cut ties with him in 2005. That was after documents indicated Lutnick had a further-reaching relationship than he had previously suggested.

Kimbal Musk, the brother of Elon Musk, also denied any wrongdoing associated with Epstein, claiming his name was mentioned in the files because of a newsletter he sent out.

Here are the latest developments with the Epstein files.

open image in gallery As reporters go through the three million pages of Epstein files, more revelations about powerful people connected to the disgraced financier are uncovered ( AFP via Getty Images )

Epstein got his girlfriend into Columbia University dental school

A series of documents and emails shows that Epstein used his wealth and connections to powerful people to get his girlfriend, Karyna Shuliak, into Columbia Universitys dental school after she was initially rejected.

Email exchanges show Epstein reached out to a friend who worked as a professor at the school, met with administrators for drinks, managed to have the schools alumni prep Shuliak for entrance exams, had her unfinished credits from a Belarusian dental school transferred over and made a $100,000 donation to a project run by the dean of the school.

Ultimately, Shuliak was accepted.The Independent has asked Columbia College of Dental Medicine for comment.

Kimbal Musk denies meeting Epstein multiple times

Kimbal Musk, the brother of Elon Musk, denied meeting with Epstein multiple times and explained that his name appears in the Epstein files because of a newsletter he sent out.

My only meeting with that demon was in his New York office during the day. I never met with him again and I never went to his island, Kimbal Musk said on X. Email exchanges show that Kimbal Musk turned down an invitation to Epsteins island in January 2013 and, at one point, personally emailed Epstein to tell him he got divorced.

Elon Musk also exchanged emails with Epstein, including some that appeared to show the two planning a trip to Epsteins island. Elon Musk denies ever going to the island or any wrongdoing.

Justice Department unredacts names of six men under pressure from lawmakers

The Justice Department unredacted the names of at least six men named in the Epstein files alongside Maxwell and Epstein under pressure from Republican Rep. Thomas Massie and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna.

After reviewing the unredacted versions at the Justice Department, Khanna and Massie questioned why the men, who did not appear to be survivors of Epsteins abuse, had their names censored.

DOJ officials then unveiled the names: Leslie Wexner, the former CEO of Victorias Secret, who was also named as a potential co-conspirator; Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, the CEO of DP World; Salvatore Nuara; Zurab Mikeladze, Leonic Leonov and Nicola Caputo.Wexner has denied allegations of wrongdoing. The other named people have not been formally accused of wrongdoing.

Lutnick admits to visiting Epsteins island

Lutnick admitted to visiting Epsteins island in the U.S. Virgin Islands with his family in 2012 but emphatically denied any wrongdoing during an unrelated Senate hearing Tuesday morning.

I did have lunch with him as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation, Lutnick said after being questioned by Senator Chris Van Hollen.

open image in gallery Lutnick said he and his family did not witness anything suspicious while on Epstein's island for a brief period of time in 2012 ( Getty Images )

My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies. I had another couple, they were there as well with their children and we had lunch on the island. That is true. For an hour. Then we left.

The new revelation comes after reports contradicting a claim Lutnick made as recently as October, when he said he met Epstein once in 2005 but was so disgusted that he was never in the room with him socially, for business or even philanthropy.

However, documents in the Epstein files suggested Lutnick and Epstein scheduled to have drinks in May 2011, spoke various times over the phone beginning in 2009, and that Epstein donated $50,000 to a philanthropic dinner recognizing Lutnick in 2017.

Lutnick insisted Tuesday that nothing untoward occurred while he and his family were on the island and he did not witness anything other than staff tending to Epstein.

However, lawmakers have seized on the revelation to call for Lutnick to resign.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump still supports Lutnick, referring to the commerce secretary as a very important member of Trumps team.

Lutnick has not been accused of any offenses and has denied any wrongdoing. Being mentioned in the Epstein files does not in itself imply any wrongdoing.

Trump reportedly thanked Florida police for investigating Epstein in 2006

Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter told FBI agents that Trump called the police department in July 2006 to thank them for investigating Epstein, claiming everyone has known hes been doing this.

A transcript of a 2019 FBI interview with the now-former police chief, released in the Epstein files, indicates the president may have known about Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwells activities with young women and girls prior to Epsteins 2008 state conviction.

open image in gallery Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein ( Getty )

Trump recommended the police focus on evil Maxwell, Reiter told the FBI.

Reiter told the Miami Herald that the FBI interviewed him in October 2019 about his departments investigation into Epstein. He said Trump called him in July 2006.

When asked, in July 2019, if he had any knowledge that Epstein molested underage women, Trump told reporters, No, I had no idea. I had no idea.

In July 2025, reporters asked Trump if he knew why Epstein had recruited female staffers from Mar-a-Lago. Trump responded, No, I dont know really why.

Epstein paid Les Wexner $100 million after theft allegations

An internal Justice Department memo suggests attorneys for Les Wexner, the billionaire former CEO of Victorias Secret, told federal prosecutors Epstein repaid him $100 million for stealing or mishandling hundreds of millions of dollars.

The memo states Epstein was the primary financial adviser to Wexner beginning in the 1990s, amassing real estate, a private plane and other luxuries owned by Wexner or his businesses. However, after corporate lawyers took over Wexners finances, they reportedly discovered a significant amount of funds had been misappropriated.

To avoid drawing attention as Epstein was facing his first set of legal problems in Florida, Wexner agreed to a private settlement of $100 million. Wexner said he broke off relations with Epstein after that and had no subsequent contact with him. There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by Wexner.

open image in gallery Reps Massie (left) and Khanna have railed against the Justice Department for improperly redacting names of people associated with Epstein and Maxwell ( Getty )

Justice Department unredacts names from potential co-conspirator list

The Justice Department unredacted the names of people listed alongside Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, potential co-conspirators Monday evening, under pressure from two lawmakers.

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna were among lawmakers who reviewed unredacted versions of the Epstein files at the Justice Department, and criticized officials for redacting the names of Wexner; Lesley Groff, Epsteins executive assistant; and Karyna Shuliak, Epsteins former girlfriend.

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche why Wexners name was unredacted in the first place.
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The FBI raided an elections office in Georgia and seized ballots from the 2020 presidential election in connection with a federal investigation into deficiencies or defects into Donald Trumps loss in the state, according to newly unsealed documents.

An affidavit for the search signed by a judge last month reveals that the investigation followed a referral from Trumps former campaign-linked attorney Kurt Olsen, who is now working in the White House directly under the president.

The document from FBI Special Agent Hugh Raymond Evans says federal law enforcement agencies launched a criminal investigation into whether any of the improprieties alleged during the ballot-counting process in Fulton County were intentional acts that violated federal criminal laws.

That investigation was sparked by Olsen, who worked closely with Trumps campaign in 2020 to challenge election results as part of a Stop the Steal movement that was largely rejected by courts across the country.

He was later sanctioned by a federal judge for false, misleading and unsupported factual assertions in support of Republican Kari Lakes unsuccessful attempt to overturn her loss in the 2020 race for Arizona governor.

open image in gallery FBI agents seized 2020 election ballots from Fulton County, Georgia, during a raid that sprang from a criminal referral from Trumps former campaign-linked attorney Kurt Olsen, according to newly unsealed documents ( Reuters )

The FBI criminal investigation originated from a referral sent by Kurt Olsen, Presidentially appointed Director of Election Security and Integrity, according to the affidavit.

The latest revelations follow growing scrutiny from voting rights advocates and Democratic officials in the wake of last months raid, which appears to be fueled by familiar claims and conspiracy theories amplified by the presidents allies and debunked by top election officials.

Allegations in the affidavit appear to be largely based on complaints that were previously made in court or to the states election board. It cites several witnesses whose names are redacted but whose actions mirror the efforts from Trumps allies to challenge the states results, which were largely tossed out and disproven.

It also does not name any alleged offenders or suggest who is responsible for the alleged criminal activity.

Following the November 3, 2020, presidential election, there were many allegations of electoral impropriety relating to the voting process and ballot counting in Fulton County, Georgia. Some of those allegations have been disproven while some of those allegations have been substantiated, including through admissions by Fulton County, according to Evans affidavit.

This warrant application is part of an FBI criminal investigation into whether any of the improprieties were intentional acts that violated federal criminal laws, he wrote.

This affidavit was much weaker than I suspected, according to election law expert David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research. No allegations of intent, no allegations of election theft, no allegations of foreign interference, and no allegations that the statute of limitations doesnt apply.

After five years and dozens of court cases, this is all theyve got? he asked. If taken at its word, this entire affidavit at most alleges human error after a late night during a global pandemic, all of which had no impact on the outcome of the race.

open image in gallery Federal law enforcement is investigating deficiencies or defects from the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, which Trump lost ( AP )

Georgias ballots were counted three times three different ways following the 2020 election and challenges to the results withstood scrutiny each time. The FBI is now investigating alleged deficiencies or defects in those counts.

Over nine hours on January 28, the FBI seized roughly 700 boxes of election records, according to filings from Fulton County officials.

Agents seized copies of ballots, numbered lists of voters, voting machine information, and mail-in ballots and envelopes.

Fulton County officials, meanwhile, are suing the Department of Justice to get those records back.

The FBI showed callous disregard for the Constitution with a raid that appeared designed to intimidate voters and violate their First Amendment rights, according to a motion from Fulton County Board of Commissioners chair Robb Pitts.

Knowing that the federal government can physically seize and rummage through election records, long after the election has been certified, will predictably chill voter participation and undermine voters confidence in the security and secrecy of their ballots, he argued.

Trump-appointed District Judge J.P. Boulee then ordered the administration to publicly reveal the arguments that persuaded a magistrate judge to approve the search, saying that the disclosure of an affidavit was critical given the importance of the publics access to judicial proceedings.

Pitts, however, argued there is little reason to have confidence that the affidavit establishes probable cause, given the lengthy history of widely debunked voter fraud theories surrounding the case.

Fulton County has been at the center of the election denial movement in the wake of Trumps loss, culminating in a sweeping racketeering indictment accusing the president and his allies of conspiring to overturn the outcome.

The FBIs search follows the collapse of the criminal case against the president, who was accused of leading a criminal enterprise with a so-called fake elector scheme to falsely assert his victory while seeking to seize control of voting machines, intimidate election workers, and push the states top election official to find votes he would need to win.

open image in gallery The FBIs admission of Kurt Olsens role in the probe follows mounting questions about the presence of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who reportedly put Trump on speakerphone so he could talk to agents at the scene ( REUTERS )

Trump has reportedly directed U.S. spy agencies to share sensitive intelligence about the 2020 election with Olsen, and the CIA confirmed to Politico that the agency is ensuring that he has the access necessary to do his work.

He has reportedly also conferred with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Agency.

The FBIs admission of Olsens role in the criminal probe also follows mounting questions about the presence of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who was photographed at the scene of the raid as FBI agents were hauling boxes and other evidence into trucks.

Trump reportedly ordered her to oversee the seizure, and Gabbard reportedly put the president on speakerphone to speak with agents who were handling evidence.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the presidents former criminal defense attorney, told CNN last week that Gabbard was not part of the investigation but remained a key part of the administrations focus on election integrity  but he could not explain why Gabbard was present.

DNI simply has no authority over local election admin or enforcement of election crimes, Becker told reporters this month.

It is highly troubling to see she was there and on the phone, he said. Who knows what she was doing and what she had access to?

That evidence had an unbroken chain of custody up until the moment the president and his national intelligence director inserted themselves into the scene, making her a material witness in that proceeding, according to Becker. I can only imagine what Donald Trumps defense attorney would have said if President Bidens DNI had traveled down to Mar-a-Lago during the seizure of Trumps residence.
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TJ Sabula, a Ford worker who heckled President Trump during a January factory visit in Michigan, still has his job and has not been disciplined, according to his union.

"TJ, we got your back," United Auto Workers Vice President Laura Dickerson reportedly said on Monday during a speech in Washington, D.C., as part of the UAWs national political conference.

During the event, UAW President Shawn Fain also praised the 40-year-old line worker.

"That's a union brother who spoke up," Fain said, reports The Detroit News. "He put his constitutional rights to work. He put his union rights to work.

During a January 13 visit to a Ford truck factory in Dearborn Sabula and the president had a memorable back-and-forth exchange.

open image in gallery A Ford auto worker who heckled Trump last month remains employed and hasnt been disciplined, his union said ( AFP/Getty )

The 40-year-old called Trump a pedophile protector, in an apparent reference to the administrations handling of the Epstein files.

The president responded by mouthing an expletive and raising his middle finger towards the worker, then reprising his TV catchphrase from The Apprentice and telling Sabula, Youre fired.

Sabula, a member of UAW Local 600, told The Washington Post at the time he is a political independent and has supported Republicans in the past.

As far as calling him out, definitely no regrets whatsoever, Sabula explained, though he said he was worried he would be targeted for political retribution for embarrassing Trump in front of his friends.

I dont feel as though fate looks upon you often, and when it does, you better be ready to seize the opportunity, Sabula told the paper. And today I think I did that.

open image in gallery The Trump administration has not released the full Jeffrey Epstein files, missing a deadline in 2025 legislation compelling their release ( PA Media )

After the incident, a White House official told The Independent the presidents response was appropriate.

A lunatic was wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage, and the president gave an appropriate and unambiguous response, White House director of communications Steven Cheung said.

Crowd-funding pages raise more than $800,000 for Sabula, who was suspended after the interaction with Trump.

The Trump administration still has not released the full Epstein files, despite blowing past a statutory deadline to do so. Administration lawyers say they are still reviewing the materials to protect victim confidentiality.

A group of Epstein survivors united for an ad that aired ahead of yesterdays Super Bowl.

After years of being kept apart were standing together, the eight women said as they called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to release the remaining records.
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A seven-year-old boy just wants to go back to school. A nine-year-old girl was on her way to Disney World. A 12-year-old boy is watching families around him no longer have hope.

Letters from inside a sprawling immigration detention center in rural Texas glimpse what life is like for a growing number of immigrant families with children, from the voices of children themselves.

The letters, collected by ProPublica, were published as the Dilley Immigration Processing Center comes under heightened scrutiny from members of Congress and advocacy groups while Donald Trumps administration accelerates a mass deportation effort that has increasingly targeted immigrants with families.

The children  some of whom say they have been held there for months  are bored, overwhelmed with sadness, losing out on schoolwork, bracing for verbal abuse from detention center staff, and frustrated by what they see as an unjust immigration system that punishes families who are trying to support them, and who fear returning to the countries they fled. They miss their normal lives, friends and classmates, some of whom are hundreds of miles away.

I dont want to be in this place, wrote 7-year-old Mia. I want to go to my school, I miss my grandparents, I miss my friends, I dont like the food here, I miss my school, I dont like being here, I am bored here, I dont feel so good in this place, I already want to leave this place, I miss my uncles, I hope to leave here soon.

open image in gallery A growing number of immigrant families are being detained at a rural facility in Texas as the Trump administration turned its focus on people with families in the countrys interior ( AFP via Getty Images )

A surge of family detentions

Immigration and Customs Enforcement detentions have exploded over the last year, with more than 70,000 people being held at any given point inside detention centers across the country.

While the federal government does not publicly disclose information about children in immigration custody, data from advocacy groups, attorneys and investigative news organizations suggest that a growing number of those detainees are children.

The Dilley detention center, which is operated by private prison firm CoreCivic, is roughly 70 miles south of San Antonio. Joe Bidens administration stopped holding families there in 2021, but Trump re-opened the facility as his administration began pursuing immigrants with families who have spent years living in the countrys interior.

Roughly 3,500 detainees, more than half of them children, have cycled through the facility since it reopened, according to an analysis from ProPublica.

open image in gallery Dilley Immigration Processing Center in rural Texas has come under heightened scrutiny after measles outbreaks and allegations from lawmakers, attorneys and detainees about conditions inside ( AP )

Children generally cannot be detained for longer than 20 days, though court filings and testimony collected by ProPublica suggest many children are being held there for weeks or months at a time, including two teenage brothers who have been there for four months.

Jorge said he celebrated his 14th birthday in Dilley with a small cake made with commissary cookies. He spends most of his days sleeping.

Fear of returning

Nine-year-old Maria traveled from Colombia to visit her mother in Florida, where the family was planning to visit Disney World. ICE officers detained them upon her mothers arrival from New York and then sent them to Texas.

Maria said she fainted twice inside Dilley.

When I arrived every night I cried and now I dont sleep well, she wrote. I felt that being here was my fault and I only wanted to be on vacation like a normal family.

Maria and her mother were later deported to Colombia.

Fourteen-year-old Ariana and her mother were detained in New York City December 1 during a regular check-in with ICE, which they are required to attend as they await a decision from an immigration court judge in their asylum case.

Ariana, who is originally from Honduras, fears that she will be forced to return.

I have never felt so much fear to go to a place as I feel here every time I remind myself that once I go back to Honduras a lot of dangerous things could happen to my mom and my younger siblings [who] havent been able to see their mom in more than a month, she wrote.

Inside Dilley, all you will feel is sadness and mostly depression, she wrote.

open image in gallery Immigrant families are routinely detained immediately after immigration court appearances or during routine check-in appointments at ICE offices ( Getty Images )

Recent detainees include five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and two-year-old Chloe Renata Tipan Villacis, along with their fathers.

Liam and his father Adrian Conejo Arias were ordered released from the facility earlier this month, and Chloe was ordered to the custody of a family attorney, but their cases have fueled outrage against the Trump administrations expansive efforts to arrest and quickly remove thousands of people from the country.

The two children were among at least seven students from the same school district detained by federal agents in recent weeks, ranging in age from five to 17 years old, according to Zena Stenvik, the superintendent for Columbia Heights Public Schools.

In letters obtained by ProPublica, children say theyre falling behind in school without access to appropriate education inside.

Alexander Perez, a 15-year-old from the Dominican Republic, told ProPublica that classes at Dilley consist of mixed age groups with only 12 students at a time for one hour lessons on a first-come, first-served basis.

One instructor turned a social studies lesson into what felt like a lecture about immigration policy, he said.

If we have recreational activities and classes designed to help us disconnect from what were experiencing here, why the need to ask ourselves these questions? he told ProPublica. I didnt think that was right.

People are always sick

ICE confirmed at least two measles cases inside the Dilley center this month after lawyers representing immigrants inside raised alarms over the possibility of an outbreak and a wave of reported illnesses among children.

Another recent lawsuit alleges detention center staff failed to provide adequate medical care for a gravely ill 18-month-old girl who was hospitalized with life-threatening respiratory illnesses after ICE allegedly ignored her parents pleas for aid.

open image in gallery Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro, left, met with five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father Adrian Conejo Arias after their lawsuit alleging wrongful detention inside Dilley sparked international outrage against Trumps deportation campaign ( Rep. Joaquin Castro )

In their letters provided to ProPublica, the children say people inside are always sick and detention staff dont care.

The only thing they tell you is to drink more water and the worst thing is that it seems like the water is what makes people sick here, wrote 12-year-old Ender.

They dont have schools, doctor, all they have are nurses, wrote Ariana. If you need medical attention the longest you have to wait is 3 hours, but to get any medicine, pill, anything it takes a while, there are various viruses people are always sick.

Homeland Security insists that detainees in ICE custody have access to the best healthcare many aliens have received in their entire lives.

It is a longstanding practice to provide comprehensive medical care from the moment an alien enters ICE custody, according to assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin. This includes medical, dental, and mental health intake screening within 12 hours of arriving at each detention facility, a full health assessment within 14 days of entering ICE custody or arrival at a facility, and access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care.

DHS has repeatedly defended its detention of children with immigrant parents and has urged families to take control of their departure from the United States with the CBP Home app.

We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way to live the American dream, McLaughlin said. If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return.
Close Irish man held in ICE detention centre describes modern day concentration camp

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A Democratic lawmaker asked acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief Todd Lyons whether he believes he is going to hell following two shootings by ICE agents, during a contentious congressional hearing Tuesday.

"How do you think judgement day will go for you with so much blood on your hands? New Jersey Rep. LaMonica McIver asked Lyons.

McIver  who was indicted on federal charges in May for allegedly interfering with immigration agents outside of a detention facility was admonished by the committees chairman for her line of questioning.

Lyons was one of three Trump immigration officials who testified before the House Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday as President Donald Trumps immigration crackdown faces growing scrutiny from lawmakers and the broader public.

How many ICE agents have been fired for their conduct in Minnesota? Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat, asked Lyons earlier in the morning. Swalwell was referencing the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis.

Lyons refused to provide a number, saying, Im not going to speak about personnel actions, but Ill get you that data.

Meanwhile, Republican committee chairman Rep. Andrew Garbarino spoke in support of federal immigration enforcement personnel.

Enforcing immigration law is not optional, he said. Everyone should have the same goal of keeping America safe.

According to a recent Quinnipiac survey, 63 percent of Americans disapprove of the way ICE is enforcing immigration laws, while 34 percent approve.
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The White House has deleted a post from Vice President JD Vance's account that commemorated massacres of Armenians as a "genocide," saying the message that was likely to irk U.S.-allied Turkey was posted in error.

Vance, who was on a two-day trip to Armenia, visited the Tsitsernakaberd Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan during the first-ever visit by a U.S. vice president to the South Caucasus republic.

There, he and wife Usha Vance participated in a ceremonial laying of a wreath of carnations, chrysanthemums and roses at the site, which honors the 1.5 million Armenians who lost their lives in the final years of the Turkish-led Ottoman Empire.

Vance's official X account later described the visit as designed "to honor the victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide."

After the post was deleted, a Vance aide who declined to be named said the message was posted in error by staff who were not part of the traveling delegation.

Vance's visit was aimed at promoting agreements the Trump administration struck with Armenia and Azerbaijan ( POOL/AFP via Getty Images )

"This is an account managed by staff that primarily exists to share photos and videos of the Vice Presidents activities," said a spokesperson for Vance, referring to his own comments, which did not include the phrase "genocide."

TRUMP'S TIES TO TURKEY

Turkey is a NATO ally of the United States and President Tayyip Erdogan has maintained close ties with President Donald Trump, including supporting the U.S. diplomatic initiative on Gaza.

Turkey accepts that many Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed in clashes with Ottoman forces during World War One, but contests the figures and denies the killings were systematically orchestrated and constitute a genocide.

Although the U.S. Congress and Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, have both recognized the 1915 massacres as a genocide, Trump avoided that language in his own statement on the killings last year.

The social media deletion came four days after the White House defended, and then deleted, a racist depiction of former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama as apes posted to Trump's Truth Social account.

Trump later told reporters that he had not watched the entire video before a White House aide posted it to his account.

Asked by a reporter whether his visit to the memorial was intended to recognize a genocide, Vance said, "Obviously, it's a very terrible thing that happened little over 100 years ago, and something that was just very, very important to them culturally.

"So I thought out of a sign of respect, both for the victims, but also for the Armenian government that's been a very important partner for us in the region, to Prime Minister Pashinyan, I wanted to go and pay a visit and pay my respects."

Vance's visit was aimed at promoting agreements the Trump administration struck with Armenia and Azerbaijan to build towards peace after nearly 40 years of war between the Caucasus rivals. Trump has presented those diplomatic efforts as among the chief accomplishments of his time in office.

In Armenia, Vance signed a deal with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan that could pave the way for the U.S. to build a nuclear power plant there.

On Tuesday, he traveled to Azerbaijan and signed a strategic partnership deal encompassing economic and security cooperation, as Washington seeks to expand its influence in a region where Russia was once the main power broker.
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The U.S. military announced on Monday that it carried out a strike on a vessel in the eastern Pacific, killing two individuals and leaving one survivor, in the latest such incident.

The administration of President Donald Trump has recently championed its success in targeting suspected drug trafficking vessels.

The military confirmed on X that the vessel was "engaged in narco-trafficking operations."

Reuters could not immediately verify the information.

Ecuador's Maritime Rescue Coordination Center is coordinating the search and rescue operations, the U.S. Coast Guard said in a statement, adding that it is providing technical support.

Earlier today, military forces boarded a sanctioned oil tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the vessel from the Caribbean Sea. T ( AP Photo/Alex Brandon )

This is the third known attack since the raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro last month.

Strikes carried out under the Trump administration against alleged drug boats have now resulted in 130 fatalities, following Mondays incident. This tally emerges amidst the broader efforts of the Trump administration to assert control over a South American countrys oil resources.

The administration has previously seized seven tankers as part of this strategy.

Earlier today, military forces boarded a sanctioned oil tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the vessel from the Caribbean Sea. The operation is part of an "oil quarantine" designed to pressure Venezuela, which faces U.S. sanctions on its crude exports.

Venezuela has reportedly relied on a "shadow fleet" of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle oil into global supply chains, circumventing these restrictions. The intercepted ship was among several that fled the Venezuelan coast in early January, following the raid to apprehend Maduro.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed the boarding on Monday, telling shipyard workers in Maine that his instructions to military commanders were clear: "the only guidance I gave to my military commanders is none of those are getting away." He added, "I dont care if we got to go around the globe to get them; were going to get them."

Last week, the U.S. military carried out another deadly strike on a vessel accused of trafficking drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, resulting in two fatalities.

U.S. Southern Command confirmed on social media that the boat was targeted because it "was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific. A video accompanying the post depicted the vessel engulfed in flames after the strike.

This incident occurred just hours after U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made an unsubstantiated claim on his personal social media account. He asserted that "some top cartel drug-traffickers" in the region "have decided to cease all narcotics operations INDEFINITELY due to recent (highly effective) kinetic strikes in the Caribbean." However, no supporting details or evidence were provided for this declaration.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.
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Forget gas-burning stoves. The new front in the culture wars could be your portable gas cans.

That is judging by a legislative push by Alabama representative and avowed AR-15 fan Barry Moore, who last month received the coveted endorsement of Donald J. Trump in his run for the U.S. Senate.

His target is the modern portable petroleum canister, which generally has a special anti-spill nozzle and no air vents in order to comply with federal emissions regulations.

These newer, slower-pouring cans have long incensed small-government conservatives, and frustrated some ordinary users. But the issue got a new boost last July when the Trump administration declared that it would "Make Gas Cans Great Again by Improving Flow."

"For years, farmers, construction crews, small businesses, and homeowners have been forced to use government-mandated, slow-pour, spill-prone gas cans that break easily and make simple tasks harder," Moore wrote last month in a press release introducing his new 'Freedom to Fuel Act', which would exempt "portable fuel containers" from EPA regulations.

Senate Republicans have also proposed rolling back the EPA rules, calling vented gas cans the most trustworthy, reliable tool that people in this country use every day ( Donald Gruener / iStock )

"The Freedom to Fuel Act is one more step toward eliminating outdated rules and bringing policy that makes the American people's lives easier back to Washington."

At issue is a 2007 decision by the EPA requiring manufacturers to limit the amount of extra gasoline that could leak from portable containers each day, either by spillage or by evaporation.

The reason, according to the non-profit outlet Inside Climate News, was simple: gas cans were a substantial source of toxic gas and pollutant emissions and reducing them would help protect Americans' health.

"Gasoline fuels are highly volatile and evaporate easily from containers that are not sealed or closed properly," the EPA wrote in a 2007 report [PDF].

"Although an individual gas can is a relatively modest emission source, the cumulative [toxic gas] emissions from an estimated population of 80 million gas cans are quite significant."

It estimated that gas cans were responsible for roughly 327,000 tons of hydrocarbon emissions, with a "substantial portion" due to owners leaving their gas cans open.

Some Republicans are also trying to repeal the Children's Gasoline Burn Prevention Act, passed in 2008, with bipartisan support in order to prevent children from dying or being injured by fires or fume inhalation caused by open gas cans.

Barry Moore has represented Alabama in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2021 and is now running for the Senate.

"Barry Moore is a good friend, fighter, and WINNER, and has my Complete and Total Endorsement to be the next United States Senator from Alabama  BARRY WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!" wrote Trump on Truth Social last month.
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Donald Trumps Department of Justice wants to throw out a contempt case against his former adviser Steve Bannon as the longtime far-right media figure continues to appeal his conviction.

Bannon already served a four-month prison sentence inside Club Feb for defying subpoenas to testify to a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack. He failed to convince several federal judges and the Supreme Court to let him stay out of jail while he appeals.

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro on Monday signed a one-page motion asking a federal judge to toss his case altogether.

The government has determined in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice, the filing says.

But the Trump administration  which continues to try to rewrite the history of the Capitol attack and undermine the findings of the prosecutors and committees surrounding it  now appears to be asking the Supreme Court to agree that the committee was unlawfully composed in the first place.

open image in gallery The Justice Department is asking a federal judge to drop charges against Steve Bannon after he was convicted of and served prison time for defying congressional subpoenas for his testimony to the January 6 committee ( REUTERS )

Solicitor general D. John Sauer asked the justices Monday to answer whether Bannon is entitled to relief from his contempt of Congress convictions based on an argument that the committee that subpoenaed him was unlawfully composed, when he did not raise such an argument to the committee itself.

A federal grand jury found Bannon guilty of contempt in two instances, including refusing to sit for an interview with the committee, and then refusing to provide documents about his efforts supporting Trumps campaign to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election.

If District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, agrees with the governments motion to dismiss the case, Bannons jury conviction could be erased and his appeal at the Supreme Court would likely end.

Today the Department of Justice told the Supreme Court that Steve Bannons conviction arising from the J6 Unselect Committees improper subpoena should be vacated, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement Monday. Under the leadership of Attorney General Bondi, this Department will continue to undo the prior administrations weaponization of the justice system.

The committees final report found that the Trump campaign supported a multi-part conspiracy to reverse his election loss while the president failed to stop a mob of his supporters from launching an assault inside the halls of Congress to do it by force.

Bannon was initially sentenced in October 2022 and his conviction was upheld on appeal in 2024.

Before reporting to a low-security prison in Danbury, Connecticut to begin his four-month prison sentence in 2024, Bannon called himself a political prisoner.

I am proud to go to prison, he said while still streaming to his War Room broadcast. This is what it takes to stand up to tyranny.

open image in gallery Trumps Justice Department is taking up the presidents posture to downplay the events of January 6 following his pardons for every member of the mob and threats to prosecute investigators who charged him and other in connection with the attack ( REUTERS )

Trump had previously pardoned Bannon in a separate case after he was arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering in connection with a fundraising scheme for a U.S-Mexico border wall, sparing him a federal trial.

Last year, he avoided prison time by pleading guilty to defrauding donors as part of a plea arrangement in New York on state-level money laundering and conspiracy charges in connection with the scheme.

On his Truth Social as Bannon was ordered to prison in connection with his contempt case, the president demanded the criminal prosecution of members of the January 6 committee.

He falsely claimed that they had deleted and destroyed evidence that remains publicly available.

The unAmerican Weaponization of our Law Enforcement has reached levels of Illegality never thought possible before, he wrote at the time. INDICT THE UNSELECT J6 COMMITTEE FOR ILLEGALLY DELETING AND DESTROYING ALL OF THEIR FINDINGS!

Bannon was the second person within Trumps inner circle to go to jail in connection with efforts to evade the committees subpoenas for its wide-ranging probe.

Former Trump aide Peter Navarro had similarly refused to comply with a subpoena and also served a four-month prison sentence after he was found in contempt of Congress.

The Justice Department dropped its defense of Navarro in that case, and a federal appeals court will decide whether his conviction can be overturned.
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President Donald Trumps proposed Independence Arch could pose a danger to flights in the Washington, D.C., area, according to a new report.

Trump is pushing to install a 250-foot-tall arch in the nations capital to celebrate the countrys 250th anniversary this year, according to CNN. The arch would be placed between the iconic Lincoln Memorial and the Arlington National Cemetery.

Trump said hed like the arch to be the biggest one of all as he spoke to reporters on Air Force One earlier this month. "We're the biggest, most powerful nation, he added.

At 250 feet, the arch would be taller than both the White House and the Lincoln Memorial. But that height could also create concerns about air safety in the region, CNN reports.

Thats because the arch would be placed near a corridor used by flights approaching from the north, an area where planes fly at an altitude of just 492 feet, according to CNN.

open image in gallery President Donald Trumps Independence Arch could be so tall that it creates air safety concerns, a new report reveals ( AFP/Getty )

open image in gallery Trumps arch would overtake Mexico Citys Monumento a la Revolucion, the worlds tallest memorial arch, by 30 feet ( AFP via Getty Images )

The height and design plans of the Arch have not been finalized at this time, a White House official told The Independent.

Any reporting otherwise is speculation. The Trump Administration looks forward to completing this project safely in the near future, the official said.

The Federal Aviation Administration, when reached for comment, referred The Independent to the White House.

Experts have raised other concerns about Trumps proposed arch. Bryan Clark Green, an architectural historian and historic preservationist who has served on the National Capital Planning Commission, told CNN he had reservations about its size.

The idea of doing a monument in this site could be really compelling if it were scaled properly and sized properly, he said. I think this is entirely too big. Its just going to absolutely dominate the site, dominate the monuments around it.

Its placement could also obstruct the view between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington House, a major landmark in the Arlington National Cemetery and the home of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, CNN reports.

Earlier this month, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told The Independent the arch is going to be one of the most iconic landmarks not only in Washington, D.C., but throughout the world.

open image in gallery President Donald Trumps Independence Arch could obstruct the view between the Lincoln Memorial and the Arlington National Cemetery, a new report says ( AFP via Getty Images )

open image in gallery Trumps proposed arch would be the second-tallest monument in D.C., behind only the Washington Monument ( Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. )

President Trumps bold vision will be imprinted upon the fabric of America and be felt by generations to come. His successes will continue to give the greatest Nation on earth  America  the glory it deserves, he said.

Trumps arch, if built to stand at 250 feet, would dwarf similar monuments around the world. The Arc de Triomphe in Paris measures 164 feet, while Mexico Citys Monumento a la Revolucion, the worlds largest memorial arch, stands at 220 feet.

Over the last year, Trump has undertaken several projects that have impacted Washington-area landmarks.

Last year, he tore down part of the White Houses East Wing to make room for his $400 million ballroom addition. He also added his name to multiple buildings in the area, including the Kennedy Center and the U.S. Institute for Peace.

While the arch is expected to get the approval of two D.C.-based review bodies stacked with Trump allies, it could face hurdles at steps that require public input, CNN reports.

This isnt about whether an arch is good or bad. Its about whether a 250-foot structure that would dwarf the Lincoln Memorial and block iconic views of Arlington National Cemetery would harm historic resources and should be sited elsewhere, Greg Werkheiser, an attorney who specializes in historic preservation, told CNN.

Will the president follow the laws that give the public a voice in these decisions? he added.
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President Donald Trump seemed to be aware of Jeffrey Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwells activities with teenage girls and young women before the 2006 state charges against the pedophile financier, a document in the Epstein files suggests.

In a 2019 FBI interview, former Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter reportedly told federal investigators that Trump was among the first people to call the police department in July 2006, to thank them for investigating Epstein and recommended they look into evil Maxwell.

Trump called the [Palm Beach Police Department] to tell him, thank goodness youre stopping him, everyone has known hes been doing this, the FBI transcript says.

Trump allegedly told Reiter that people in New York knew Epstein was disgusting and that he was once around Epstein when teenagers were present but that he got the hell out of there.

The newly-reported transcript appears to contradict the presidents claim that he had little to no knowledge of Epsteins crimes before he was charged with solicitation of prostitution in Florida.

open image in gallery The president was reportedly among the first people to call the Palm Beach Police Department about the investigation into Epstein ( US Department of Justice )

When asked, in July 2019, if he had any knowledge that Epstein molested underage women, Trump told reporters, No, I had no idea. I had no idea.

In July 2025, reporters asked Trump if he knew why Epstein had recruited female staffers from Mar-a-Lago. Trump responded, No, I dont know really why.

Reiters name is redacted in the transcript. But he confirmed to the Miami Herald that the FBI interviewed him in October 2019 about his departments investigation into Epstein. Reiter said Trump called him in July 2006.

A Department of Justice official said they were unaware of any corroborating evidence that the President had called law enforcement 20 years ago.

When asked about the recent report on the FBI transcript, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, Look, it was a phone call that may or may not have happened in 2006. I don't know the answer to that question." She reminded reporters that Trump has remained consistent in kicking out Epstein for being a creep.

The FBI transcript is the latest development from the Epstein files that suggests the president may have been more aware of Epsteins activities than he has publicly admitted.

open image in gallery Trump appears in photos and references in the Epstein files due to the pairs former friendship, though he has denied any wrongdoing and never been accused of a crime associated with the disgraced financier ( House Oversight Committee )

Trump and Epstein were friends through the 1990s and early 2000s, but the two had a falling out after Trump learned Epstein and Maxwell had stolen women staffers from Mar-a-Lagos spa. There are also reports that they had fallen out over a real estate deal in Florida in 2004.

Epstein and Maxwell often recruited young women and sometimes girls into their orbit under the pretense of performing massages.

As a result of their former friendship, Trump is named in the Epstein files  however, he has denied any wrongdoing and never been formally accused of a crime associated with Epstein. Being named in the Epstein files does not imply guilt.

Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence for a child sex trafficking conviction, has also said that Trump did not participate in Epsteins crimes. She reiterated the point Monday following a recorded deposition with the House Oversight Committee.

In a 2019 email between Epstein and author Michael Wolff, the disgraced financier claimed Trump knew about the girls but did not go into detail about what that could have meant.

Trump made insinuations about Epsteins penchant for young women. In a 2002 New York Magazine interview, Trump said Epstein was a lot of fun to be with and that it is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.

Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had given Epstein a birthday note in 2003 that was written within a drawing of a naked womans body. The message to Epstein reportedly said, May every day be another wonderful secret. Trump denied the legitimacy of the birthday letter and sued the publication for $10bn.
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President Donald Trumps plan to have private donors fund his new $400 million White House ballroom may cost him the entire project, as a federal judge will soon decide whether the administration is allowed to rely on fundraising to bypass congressional approval.

U.S. District Judge Ricard Leon says he may rule this month on a lawsuit filed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in December to halt the ballrooms construction, according to the Washington Post.

Trump has argued that using private donations to pay for the project keeps the burden off taxpayers, but critics say the plan highlights a lack of transparency about how the expansion is being funded.

Democrats and watchdog groups have raised questions about the arrangement, which relies on donations from big corporations and businesses. The donations are then routed through a nonprofit intermediary, which also profits, having received millions of dollars in fees, according to the Post.

The Trump administration has already found a lengthy list of donors, including Big Tech giants Amazon, Apple, Google, HP and Microsoft  as well as other well-known companies like Coinbase, Lockheed Martin, Palantir Technologies and T-Mobile.

open image in gallery A federal judge will soon decide whether President Donald Trumps administration is allowed to rely on private donations to fund its new $400 million ballroom expansion, according to a report ( Getty Images )

open image in gallery Trump has previously said that using donations to fund the project keeps taxpayers from fronting the bill ( AFP via Getty Images )

Most of the donors have declined to say how much theyve given. However, the watchdog group CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) says at least 22 companies involved in the project failed to disclose their donations in lobbying filings.

During a hearing for the lawsuit brought by the National Trust for Historic Preservation held in January, Leon shared his reservations about proceeding without congressional approval. He also questioned whether Trump possessed the statutory power to dismantle the East Wing and build a ballroom in its place without explicit oversight or authorization from Congress.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, is urging the Trust for the National Mall, a nonprofit managing the projects donations, to clarify its role and share information about the donations it has received.

The organization declined to provide details to the Post about the gifts, but said it collects between 2 and 2.5 percent of each donation as part of a management fee. A spokesperson said the fee is standard practice.

The White House has declined to specify how much money has been raised for the project, which has doubled in cost from its initial estimate of $200 million last summer.

open image in gallery Soon after plans for the ballroom were announced, the East Wing was demolished without and public review process. ( Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. )

President Trump is generously donating his time and resources to build a beautiful White House ballroom, a project which past presidents only dreamed about, White House spokesman Davis Ingle said. Since announcing this historic plan, the White House has been inundated with calls from generous Americans and American companies wishing to contribute.

In October, Trump hosted an opulent gala dinner for some of his sponsors in the East Room of the White House  which coincided with the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, lasting 43 days.

Soon after plans to replace the East Wing with a new ballroom were announced, demolition began without any extensive public review process. The ballroom is projected to be approximately 90,000 square feet, and the attached New East Wing complex will include a new office for the First Lady, a movie theater and commercial kitchen.

No president is legally allowed to tear down portions of the White House without any review whatsoever  not President Trump, not President Joe Biden, and not anyone else, the lawsuit filed in December says.

However, in December Leon declined to immediately pause construction of the project, and Trumps Department of Justice is moving to ensure that doesnt change.

open image in gallery Trump was sued in December by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which is challenging the legality of the project ( Getty Images )

A DOJ filing asked a federal judge overseeing the lawsuit to stay any injunction on the construction over alleged national security concerns, ABC News reported.

"[A]s the Secret Service attested, halting construction would imperil the President and others who live and work in the White House," the administration argues in the filing.

The Trump administration said it will also be submitting a second classified statement from the Secret Service to further support its argument that stopping construction at the site will "endanger national security and therefore impair the public interest."

The filing claims that leaving the project incomplete would be a risk to national security. The DOJ filing comes after Judge Leon first made it clear he was skeptical of Trumps claim that he could use private donations to fund the ballrooms construction.
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The frigid air that has gripped much of the United States is starting to ease for some, though some unlucky parts of the country may see yet another round of snowfall this weekend.

Much of the Midwest has been warming, while the eastern part of the country hasnt been as lucky. To add insult to injury, early models circulating on social media show either rain, snow or ice hitting the Northeast through the holiday weekend.

The middle part of the country is going to be warming. Theyll see temperatures warmer than they should be at this time of year through at least Friday, Tom Kines, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather, told The Independent.

While warming in the Midwest is certain, whats to come in the Northeast this weekend remains up in the air.

As far as snow is concerned in the East, theres only the potential later in the weekend or very early next week. This would be from a storm that hasnt moved to shore on the West Coast yet. Its got a lot of ways to go. Theres still a lot of question marks with it, Kines said.

open image in gallery Parts of the Northeast may see more snow this weekend, depending on the path an incoming storm takes across the country, forecasters said ( Getty Images )

A storm is set to move into Northern California over the next few days, ending the Golden States snow drought with the biggest rain and snow seen in months.

Precipitation is expected to linger over the next day or two before the storm moves over the Rocky Mountains  but where the storm heads from there is still a mystery.

From there, if it starts to track more toward the Northeast, there could be some snow or ice or even rain for parts of the Northeast, Kines said.

However, the storm may also stay south of New York City, Philadelphia and Boston, bringing little precipitation to that region.

Theres still a lot of possibilities out there, Kines added.

Meteorologists wont have a better idea of whats to come in the Northeast this weekend until later this week, Kines said.

open image in gallery A storm moving into California this week may track toward the northeast by the weekend, forecasters said ( AP )

Two major winter storms have left much of the U.S. blanketed in snow, as temperatures remain below freezing, preventing the piles of snow and ice from melting. The extreme cold has persisted, and will likely continue for much of the Northeast through the end of the week, according to Kines.

Were not talking about temperatures in the 50s or 60s, temperatures are going to trend closer to where they should be at this time of the year, Kines said.

In the meantime, areas from Upstate New York to New England may see one to three inches of snowfall starting Tuesday afternoon.

Areas of higher elevation in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine could see up to eight inches, according to the Fox Forecast Center.

A storm is also expected to hit southeastern parts of the country over Valentines Day, bringing widespread rain and thunderstorms, according to AccuWeather.

The storm has two potential tracks: One that would keep the Northeast dry and the Southeast wet, and another that would also dump even more snow, ice and rain on the Northeast.
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A white supremacist who murdered 51 Muslims at two mosques in New Zealands deadliest mass shooting wanted to be described as a terrorist, a court appeal hearing was told.

Brenton Tarrant, 35, was sentenced to life in prison without a chance of parole after pleading guilty to terrorism, murder and attempted murder for his hate-fueled massacre of worshipers including children at two Christchurch mosques during Friday prayers in 2019.

The Australian man is now seeking to recant the admissions he made in 2020, saying solitary confinement and other prison conditions made him irrational and mentally unwell.

New Zealands Court of Appeal in Wellington is considering Tarrants bid in a five-day hearing.

If the three-judge panel discards his guilty pleas, the case would return to court for trial.

Shooter's change of mind is examined

Tarrant first pleaded not guilty to the charges he faced, then reversed his position before his trial was due to begin.

He told the appeals court on Monday that he felt forced into his admissions by nervous exhaustion brought on by constant solitary confinement, surveillance by prison staff, lack of access to reading materials and almost no contact with the outside world.

open image in gallery Brenton Tarrant is now seeking to recant the admissions he made in 2020, saying solitary confinement and other prison conditions made him irrational and mentally unwell ( New Zealand Court of Appeal )

Lawyers who represented him during the period when he entered both sets of pleas told the court Tuesday that they had laid a complaint about his prison conditions early in his confinement. Prison officials were dismissive of his grievances, the lawyers said.

They said, however, that restrictions on Tarrant eased later and they didn't think his environment had harmed his ability to make decisions. Tarrant said on Monday that he had masked symptoms of serious mental illness in an effort not to appear weak or to reflect poorly on others who held his racist views.

Crown lawyers suggested to Tarrant on Monday that he had many opportunities to raise concerns about his mental health and or request a postponement of his trial. No witness has so far agreed with Tarrant that his conditions were so onerous and his mental state so poor that he wasn't fit to plead guilty.

Shooter was told a political trial wasnt possible

One issue at the heart of the case is whether Tarrant always intended to admit the charges or planned to contest them.

Tarrant said Monday that he had meant to defend himself at a trial, while his lawyers said Tuesday that they were sure he intended to plead guilty due to the overwhelming evidence against him, which included his Facebook livestream of the massacre and a racist manifesto he posted online before the attack.

open image in gallery Brenton Tarrant was sentenced to life in prison without a chance of parole after pleading guilty to terrorism, murder and attempted murder for his hate-fueled massacre of worshipers including children at two Christchurch mosques during Friday prayers in 2019 ( AP )

Shane Tait, who previously acted for Tarrant, said his client had wanted to argue during a trial that he had been defending New Zealand  a country he migrated to with a view to committing the attack  from immigrants.

Tait assured Tarrant that such a defense wasn't available under New Zealand law, he told the court.

Brenton, what am I going to tell the jury if we go to trial?" Tait said he had asked Tarrant. His client had responded, Dont worry, it wont get that far," Tait said.

Both Tait and Tarrant's other then-lawyer Jonathan Hudson said it was important to their client that he be convicted on the terrorism charge and he refused to allow his lawyers to attempt to negotiate it away in exchange for guilty pleas to the murder and attempted murder charges.

He wanted to be described as a terrorist, Hudson said.

The appeal outcome is due later dmits he

Bids to appeal convictions or sentences in New Zealand must be made within 20 working days. Tarrant was two years late in seeking an appeal, filing documents in 2022.

He told the court on Monday that his bid had been late because he hadnt had access to the information required to make it.

open image in gallery The massacre in Christchurch was New Zealand's deadliest mass shooting ( Getty Images )

The judges are expected to release their decision at a later date. If they reject Tarrants attempt to have his guilty pleas discarded, a later hearing will focus on his bid to appeal his sentence.

The hearing was the first time that Tarrant, who appeared by video conference from prison, had been seen or heard from in court for years. He appeared pale and thin, with a shaved head and black-framed glasses.

Some of those bereaved or injured by his violence watched a live feed of proceedings from a courtroom in Christchurch, telling reporters afterward of their exasperation and anger that he was allowed to keep revisiting his case in court.

Theres definitely no remorse at all," said Rashid Omar, whose son Tariq Omar was murdered, adding that the proceedings appeared to be a game to Tarrant.

We are very, very strong, Omar said. "Were not going to be bullied by him.
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Australian politicians urged restraint on Tuesday after police in Sydney clashed with people protesting against the visit of the Israeli president Isaac Herzog, who is accused of inciting a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Police made at least 27 arrests amid allegations of excessive force used against protesters and rights groups, reports said. Violence broke out on the evening of 9 February after thousands of people gathered near Sydney Town Hall to oppose Mr Herzogs visit.

The New South Wales Police said officers moved to clear the area after demonstrators attempted to breach blockades, resulting in arrests. Ten people were accused of assaulting police officers.

Tear gas and pepper spray were used to disperse the crowd, while television footage showed officers pushing protesters back and restraining some of them on the ground. Police said there were no reports of serious injuries.

Prime minister Anthony Albanese said he was devastated by the scenes and called for peaceful protests.

Australians want two things. They dont want conflict brought here. They want the killing to stop, whether its Israelis or Palestinians, but they do not want conflict brought here, he told radio station Triple M.

The causes are not advanced by these sorts of scenes  they are undermined.

open image in gallery A protester receives assistance after being pepper-sprayed by police ( Getty )

The protests came as Mr Herzog began a four-day state visit focused on commemorating victims of a December attack at a Jewish festival at Bondi Beach, where 15 people were killed in what authorities described as Australias worst mass shooting in 29 years.

He laid a wreath and two stones brought from Jerusalem at Bondi Pavilion and met survivors and families of those killed. When one Jew is hurt, all Jews feel their pain, he said, adding he was there to embrace and console the bereaved families.

We were shaken to our core when we first heard about the Bondi Beach attack. Our heart missed a beat, like all Israelis and all Jews. And Im here to express solidarity, friendship, and love, Mr Herzog said.

And I also believe that this is an opportunity to upgrade the relations between Israel and Australia because we are two democracies that share values together and we are confronting the roots of evil from all over the world. And we should do so together, he added.

He said the stones would remain as a reminder that people of all faiths and nations will continue to hold strong in the face of terror, violence and hatred, and that we shall overcome this evil together.

open image in gallery Police surround protesters on George Street, Sydney, on Monday ( Getty )

Security was tight during the visit, with police snipers visible on rooftops. Mr Herzog is also due to visit Melbourne and Canberra before returning to Israel on Thursday.

Authorities had granted police rarely used powers during the Sydney protest, including directing crowds to move, restricting access to areas and searching vehicles.

A legal challenge by the Palestine Action Group against those restrictions was dismissed by a Sydney court on 9 February, preventing them from marching from the Town Hall to the New South Wales parliament. Mr Herzog was not present at the protest site.

New South Wales premier Chris Minns defended police actions, saying officers were required to make rapid decisions in tense and volatile circumstances. I understand theres criticisms of New South Wales Police, I just want to make it clear they were caught in an impossible situation, he said.

open image in gallery Herzog meets with students during a visit to Moriah War Memorial College on Tuesday ( Getty )

Police commissioner Mal Lanyon said officers had shown restraint.

Police did what they needed to do, which was to hold the line and then form and move the protesters back with a view to dispersing them, he said. Having an angry and violent mob marching on police is not a situation that I want our officers in.

Protest organisers and participants disputed that account. Palestine Action Group Sydney said demonstrators were surrounded and unable to leave.

The police began charging the crowd with horses, indiscriminately pepper-spraying the crowd, punching and arresting people, the group said.

Abigail Boyd, an opposition Green lawmaker in the state parliament, said she had been punched by officers while attempting to vacate the site.

I have a very sore arm and shoulder where they punched me. Im really in shock, she told a press conference.

open image in gallery Many protesters have accused Herzog of committing war crimes in Gaza ( Getty )

Protests were also held in Melbourne, where police said 5,000 people gathered outside downtown Flinders Street Railway Station, then marched several blocks to the State Library, blocking evening peak-hour traffic. A 20-year-old woman was arrested after allegedly burning flags and damaging a tram stop.

The visit has drawn mixed reactions within Australias Jewish community. Mainstream Jewish organisations welcomed Mr Herzogs presence, while the Jewish Council of Australia published open letters and newspaper advertisements signed by hundreds of Australian Jews stating: Herzog does not speak for us and is NOT WELCOME HERE.

We refuse to let our collective grief be used to legitimise a leader whose rhetoric has been part of inciting a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and has contributed to the illegal annexation of the West Bank, said the councils executive officer, Sarah Schwartz.

Mr Herzog rejected accusations that he had incited a genocide and said protests against him sought to undermine and delegitimise Israels right to exist. Jewish leaders initiated the invitation extended by governor general Sam Mostyn at Mr Albaneses request.

open image in gallery Isaac Herzogs four-day trip aims to console Australia's Jewish community after the Bondi Beach attacks last year ( AFP/Getty )

The Australian prime minister and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu have been openly hostile toward each other since the Australian announced six months ago that his government would recognise a Palestinian state.

He welcomed what he described as positive steps by the Australian government to address antisemitism following the Bondi Beach attack, including new hate-speech legislation and the establishment of a royal commission to investigate antisemitism.

Amnesty International Australia condemned what it called the unnecessary and disproportionate use of force by police and called for an independent investigation.

The right to protest is protected under international law. What we witnessed last night was a serious assault on those rights and a deeply troubling display of State-sanctioned violence, said Mohamed Duar, the organisations Occupied Palestinian Territory spokesperson.

Police said further rallies were planned, including a demonstration outside police headquarters in Sydney on 10 February, as debate over the visit and the handling of protests continued.
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The suspect of an attack on a top Russian general has been extradited to Moscow after being arrested in Dubai, according to Russias security service.

Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev was shot in an alleged assassination attempt on Friday, and is currently recovering in hospital after undergoing surgery.

Lyubomir Korba, a Russian citizen who Moscow says was working under Kyivs instructions, has now been detained in Dubai and is now in detention in Russia.

Ukraine denies all involvement in the attack, which comes following a spate of killings of senior military officers in Moscow last year that were linked by Russia to Ukraine.

Here is everything we know about the shooting of a senior military intelligence officer so far.

open image in gallery Vladimir Alexeyev was reportedly involved in the 2018 Salisbury poisonings ( Russian Defence Ministry )

What happened?

On Friday, Alexeyev was shot several times by an unidentified person in a residential building of northwest Moscow, according to the Russian Investigative Committee.

A manhunt was instantly launched for the shooter and a criminal case was opened for attempted murder.

Moscow said the attacker fired three shots before fleeing to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the hours after the attack.

Investigators conducted a thorough inspection at the scene, during which they discovered the murder weapon - a Makarov pistol with a silencer and three rounds of ammunition, said Svetlana Petrenko a spokesperson for the Russian Investigative Committee (ICR). She added that forensic tests are being carried out on the gun.

On Saturday, Russian newspaper Kommersant, citing a source close to the investigation, reported that the two suspects would soon be interrogated before being charged.

open image in gallery The assassination attempt took place in a residential building in northwest Moscow ( REUTERS )

Korba, a Ukrainian-born Russian citizen, has been extradited to Moscow after being arrested by authorities in Dubai, on suspicion of gravely injuring Alexeyev, Russian security officials said on Sunday.

On Sunday, Russian president Vladimir Putin thanked his UAE counterpart Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan for helping with Korbas detention during a phone call on Saturday evening, Russian agencies reported, citing Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.

Who is Lt Gen Alexeyev?

The Ukrainian-born 64-year-old has served as the first deputy head of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (GRU) since 2011. He was decorated with the Hero of Russia medal for his role in Moscow's military campaign in Syria.

Alexeyev was placed under sanctions by the EU and UK after they accused the GRU of being responsible for the 2018 Salisbury nerve agent attack.

He has also been accused of interfering in the 2020 US presidential election by instructing officials in Kyiv to accuse Donald Trumps opposing candidate, Joe Biden, of money laundering via Ukrainian holding company Burisma.

He has also held close ties with paramilitary and mercenary groups, such as the Wagner group led by the late Yevgeney Prigozhin. Kommersant reports that he was one of the paramilitary groups founders.

open image in gallery A police officer comes out of a residential building where the assassination attempt on Alexeyev took place in Moscow ( Reuters )

What have Moscow and Kyiv said?

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov described the assassination attempt as an act of terrorism which he said showed Kyivs determination to engage in constant provocations, aimed in turn at derailing the negotiation process.

Moscows Federal Security Service (FSB) has now said that the attempted assassination of general Vladimir Alexeyev was ordered by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), according to Interfax news agency.

Kyiv has denied any involvement in Friday's attempted assassination.

Russia said that the suspected shooter, Korba, had been questioned after he was extradited from Dubai. A suspected accomplice, Viktor Vasin, has also been questioned. Moscow said a woman named as Zinaida Serebritskaya, who has left for Ukraine, was also thought to be involved, but did not elaborate on how.

Korba and Vasin, the FSB said, had "confessed their guilt", the FSB added. Korba was recruited by the SBU in August 2025 in Ternopil, western Ukraine, underwent training in Kyiv and was paid monthly in crypto-currency. For killing Alexeyev, Korba was promised $30,000 by the SBU, the FSB said.

It added that Polish intelligence was involved in his recruitment, but authorities in Warsaw are yet to comment.
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A memorial for the victims of a fire at a New Year's party in Switzerland went up in flames on Sunday, likely caused by candles left inside.

The makeshift monument had been set up to honour the 41 people killed on 1 January at Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana, a Swiss resort town popular with British skiers.

Valais police said the tent, filled with candles, flowers and messages, caught alight shortly before 6am on Sunday, damaging some of the tributes.

Thanks to the swift intervention of the emergency services, the fire was brought under control quickly, a statement read, adding that nobody was injured. Several memorial items were damaged by the flames. The book of condolences was saved.

open image in gallery Valais police said the book of condolences was saved and that nobody was hurt in the blaze ( Valais Police )

The fire is believed to have started from candles left on a table in the centre of the memorial, according to initial reports.

Police have ruled out the involvement of a third party, adding that the memorial is being rebuilt.

Families are still awaiting the results of an investigation into the New Years Day fire, which killed dozens and injured 115 people.

Those killed in the disaster were aged 14 to 39, with only four aged over 24. A former British schoolgirl was previously named among those killed in the blaze.

Many of those injured are still being treated in hospital for severe burns.

The fire was caused by sparklers carried by a bar worker sitting on the shoulders of a colleague and spread within seconds. Some victims were found collapsed next to a locked rear exit, according to police transcripts.

open image in gallery The memorial was set up to honour the victims in the days after the tragedy ( AP )

Others were piled together near the main exit, which became a fatal chokepoint, while others died in the basement before they could flee, according to the transcripts and photographs from the case files.

Four people are under investigation, bar owners Jacques and Jessica Moretti and a former and a current local official. Authorities have acknowledged that the bar had not undergone safety checks for five years.

The Morettis and the town's mayor, who admitted missed inspections, have expressed regret.

At the end of January, hundreds of people marched alongside grieving parents through the lakeside town of Lutry near Lausanne, carrying a large banner demanding truth and justice.

"Today, we are just asking for justice and truth and afterwards we will mourn," Laetitia Brodard-Sitre, who lost her 17-year-old son Arthur in the fire, told a crowd of people carrying white roses on 31 January.

The fire has tested relations with neighbouring Italy, which lost nationals in the blaze and has protested the release on bail of the bar's owner.
Ghislaine Maxwell refused to answer any questions during a US House Oversight Committee meeting on Monday (9 February).

Maxwell, the convicted associate of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, pleaded the Fifth Amendment which invoked her right to remain silent.

Republican House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer described her decision as very disappointing but expected.

"We had many questions to ask about the crimes she and Epstein committed, as well as questions about potential co-conspirators."

Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, would only testify if President Donald Trump granted her clemency, her lawyers said.
Company is developing RNAi medicines

Aerska has now raised a total of $60m

Dublin-based biotech firm Aerska has raised $39m (33m) in funding to help it advance development of its technology.

Aerska is developing medicines that use RNA interference (RNAi), a recently-introduced approach that switches off harmful genes linked to brain diseases.

Such medicines are capable of reaching the brain to treat neurological diseases, such as Alzheimers, at their source.

It brings to $60m the total that has been raised by the company, following an 18m seed fundraising announced last year, which was co-led by Age1, Backed VC and Speedinvest.

Aerska was co-founded by Jack OMeara, a former co-founder of RNA medicine firm Ochre Bio, a start-up that targeted the development of RNAi drugs to treat liver diseases.

The other Aerska co-founders are David Hardwicke and Stu Milstein.

The LSP Dementia Fund of EQT Life Sciences co-led the $39m series A financing in Aerska. The other co-lead was Age1.

Proceeds from the fundraising will support continued development of Aerskas antibody-oligo conjugate platform.

Additionally, the funding will be used to advance Aerskas brain shuttle technology to improve delivery of RNAi therapeutics across the blood-brain barrier to treat a range of neurological diseases.

The ability to systemically administer RNAi therapies to the brain unlocks a powerful new approach to treating neurodegeneration, said Mr OMeara.

Dr Philip Scheltens, partner and head of EQTs LSP Dementia Fund, said that Aerskas approach offers hope for preserving cognitive function and quality of life.

The teams strategy of upstream intervention, combined with a focus on the genetic forms of neurological disease, positions them to transform outcomes for populations who have been underserved by current therapeutic approaches, he said.

Aerska is also making targeted investments in data science capabilities to advance a precision medicine strategy for neurology, starting with programmes in genetic forms of Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease.

Delivering genetic medicines to the brain has been hindered by the blood-brain barrier. While RNAi has proven effective in the liver, its potential impact in the central nervous system (CNS) has been limited by delivery.

Neurological diseases remain one of the greatest challenges in medicine, with limited options to alter the course of disease," Mr O'Meara last year.

He added: "By integrating brain shuttles with RNA therapeutics, we aim to enable precise, durable gene silencing in the CNS. We're pairing this with a strategy to match the intervention to the right patient, at the right stage of their disease."
Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon has called an urgent meeting of key agrifood stakeholders this week amid an escalating row over Bord Bia, farmer confidence and quality assurance schemes.

The move comes amid sustained pressure from the Irish Farmers Association (IFA), whose protests and lobbying efforts have intensified ahead of a key Dail vote on the Bord Bia chair Larry Murrin.

In a statement issued this afternoon, Minister Heydon said recent public debate around Bord Bia, Quality Assurance Schemes and traderelated matters has highlighted the need for constructive dialogue and a reassessment of how these systems operate for farmers.

There has been significant debate in recent weeks around Bord Bia, Quality Assurance Schemes and how they operate in practice for farmers, he said.

I believe there is a real opportunity now for constructive dialogue to address the specific issues that have been raised and, importantly, to improve the experience for farmers while protecting the integrity and value of our quality assurance systems.

The minister said the objective of the meeting is to ensure that Bord Bias schemes are futureproofed and continue to deliver tangible benefits, stressing their importance for maintaining market access and consumer confidence.

Stakeholders have been asked to meet before the end of the week. The agenda will also include wider issues such as CAP post2027, EU budget pressures, water quality and the Nitrates Derogation, animal disease challenges such as bluetongue, generational renewal supports and farm safety.

The discussions, he said, will feed directly into the ongoing midterm review of Food Vision 2030.

The announcement comes as IFA has launched a major lobbying drive targeting Government backbenchers ahead of Wednesday nights vote on the Governments countermotion expressing confidence in Mr Murrin.

Last week Sinn Fein tabled a motion declaring that farmers had lost confidence in the Bord Bia chair following revelations that Dawn Farms, the company he leads, imports Brazilian beef. The motion calls on the minister to use statutory powers to remove Mr Murrin from office.

The Government has rejected this and instead drafted a motion backing the chair. While the numbers favour the Government, the IFA has been actively canvassing rural TDs, several of whom voiced concerns about Mr Murrin at the Joint Oireachtas Agriculture Committee last week.

The row has created significant tension between the farming organisation and the Government, with no evident resolution.

In its latest move, the IFA has requested a meeting with the Agriculture Committee to deliver what it says is a right of reply before Wednesdays vote.
No new bluetongue cases emerge

The virus remains confined to the four nearby herds first detected in late January

The Department has confirmed there are no immediate plans for restriction zones or animal movement controls. Photo: Getty

Ciaran Moran Tue 10 Feb 2026 at 06:30

Farmers will breathe a cautious sigh of relief this week as no further cases of bluetongue virus have been identified following the initial cluster in Wexford.
A US national described "in detail" how he strangled his 66-year-old father with his bare hands, putting a "full fist into his throat", just over an hour after arriving at a five-star midlands resort, a Central Criminal Court jury has heard.

Opening the trial of Henry McGowan, who has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his father by reason of insanity, the prosecuting barrister also said that, despite being notified by the UK's metropolitan police that the accused was travelling to Ireland and there was some concern for his welfare, gardai failed to locate him at Dublin airport.
Gardai to strengthen ties with Colombian police in crackdown on drug-trafficking gangs

Ireland has become a key hub for South American cartels transporting cocaine to Europe

Justice Minister Jim OCallaghan is to seek government approval for the agreement. Photo: PA

Robin Schiller Tue 10 Feb 2026 at 06:30

Gardai will to strengthen operational ties with Colombian police as part of an intensified strategy to target gangs trafficking cocaine into Europe.
Galway man bizarrely blames whiskey, a spiked drink and a kick in the head from a horse

A fairy whisperer who sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl on a flight to Boston bizarrely claims he has no recollection of the attack because he had a few whiskeys, his drink was spiked and he got a kick in the head from a horse.
Hospital emergency departments are again in the grip of overcrowding with 711 patients, including 23 children, treated on trolleys and chairs on Tuesday, nurses have warned.

The worst-hit was University Hospital Limerick where 125 patients are waiting for a bed, with 68 on trolleys in University Hospital Galway.

Hospital overcrowding has been particularly problematic on the west coast and midwest for quite some time. Today over 59pc of patients on trolleys are in a hospital along the western seaboard, Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) Assistant Director of Industrial Relations for the West and Midwest Colm Porter said.

We need to see a serious attempt to de-escalate the chronic level of overcrowding in all hospitals in the west and north-west. The HSE must use all tools and capacity available to them immediately.

This level of overcrowding coupled with unsafe nurse staffing is creating an incredibly dangerous situation for our members and the patients they want to treat in a safe and timely manner, Mr Porter said.

The HSEs own figures showed that 71 people are waiting for a bed for over 24 hours, including 13 over 75 years of age.

Hospitals are also reliant on surge capacity for 722 patients  using facilities which should be reserved for people with appointments..

Several hospitals have had to issue appeals to the public in the last week because of overcrowding.

Tipperary University Hospital, which according to the HSE had 38 patients waiting for a bed on Tuesday, said it was extremely busy and experiencing significantly high levels of activity with large numbers of people presenting to the emergency department.

A spokesperson for the hospital said many of those attending need to be admitted for ongoing treatment which is leading to pressure on bed availability.

The hospital is currently dealing with high levels of activity and patients with respiratory and serious illnesses. This is also impacting on bed capacity across the hospital. These ongoing pressures are resulting in significant delays being experienced by patients in the emergency department who are waiting for a bed to become available on a ward.

Every effort is being made to discharge patients who are ready to go home so that beds will become available for patients who need to be admitted, at the earliest opportunity.

Our hospital is committed to treating everyone who presents at the emergency department; people who are seriously injured or ill are assessed and treated as a priority and those who do not require urgent care may experience long waiting times.

We ask that the public consider their care options. If your health problem is not an emergency you should contact your GP during normal surgery hours or the GP out of hours service, in the first instance.

On Friday, Kerry University Hospital (UHK), where 31 were on trolleys today, warned it was seeing a surge in attendances.

Damien Moyles, Operations Manager at UHK said: "If you have a genuine emergency, please come to the emergency department immediately and our hard-working team will take excellent care of you. However, we are experiencing a surge in patient presentations and must take in the sickest people first. Everyone arriving to the emergency department is clinically assessed and seen in order of priority. Anyone with a less serious condition will face a lengthy wait and should review all other options.

He added: The public can help the hospital team by considering other health services, such as GPs, SouthDoc, pharmacists, and injury units. Injury Units often have shorter waiting times and provide consultant-led assessment and treatment, including X-rays, fracture treatment, burns treatment, and wound care. The injury units in Mallow, Bantry and even Cork city are as easily accessible to some Kerry residents as UHK.
Some hospitals had zero success meeting treatment target times in 2024

Paula Connor had a heart attack at 44. She has warned people to take unusual symptoms seriously and seek medical help. Photo: Michael Mac Sweeney

Fewer than one in two heart attack patients called for help within an hour of the start of symptoms, while many are not getting emergency treatment on time, a new national audit has revealed.

The audit, released today, showed that, in 2024, just 45pc of patients summoned aid within an hour of feeling unwell, down from 49pc in 2023.

Delays in treatment have also emerged. Just 77pc of eligible patients received primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) to urgently unblock arteries. That figure was 86pc in 2017.

The concerning trends were highlighted in the Irish Heart Attack Audit National Report 2024 from the National Office of Clinical Audit (NOCA), which examined data from 1,615 patients who had heart attacks.

It also found that only 61pc patients received primary PCI within the recommended two hours after a heart attack was diagnosed.

Timely PCI reduces risk of death, but not all hospitals have the facility to provide it. Of the patients who initially presented at a hospital that doesnt provide the treatment, only 3pc made the 30-minute door-in-door-out target for transfer to a PCI centre.

More than one in two of those who arrived directly by ambulance to a PCI centre achieved the 30-minute door-to-balloon target.

Smoking continues to be a major risk factor, contributing to heart attacks at younger ages. Currently, 36pc of patients who experience a heart attack are active smokers.

Nine in 10 patients had at least one cardiovascular risk factor, the most prevalent of which were high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

While mortality remains within expected ranges, the report shows how many heart attack patients are not getting timely treatment to have the best chance of survival.

Joe Galvin, a consultant cardiologist at the Mater Hospital, said the report shows a 13pc increase in heart attack cases since 2017  a figure that slightly outpaces national population growth.

It is a situation that requires immediate and co-ordinated action

Writing in the report, Prof Galvin said it also brings to light a concerning decline in the proportion of patients receiving timely reperfusion therapy (thrombolysis)  a critical medical treatment  since 2017, dropping from 67pc to 58pc.

There were delays in diagnosing heart attack in hospitals without a specialist PCI centre, as well as separate delays in calling and arrival time of ambulances.

Several hospitals had zero success in transferring patients to primary PCI centres within the 90-minute target time in 2024. Prof Galvin, who co-leads the HSE heart programme, said it was a situation that requires immediate and co-ordinated action.

Paula Connor had a heart attack at 44. She has warned people to take unusual symptoms seriously and seek medical help. Photo: Michael Mac Sweeney

News in 90 seconds - Tuesday, February 10

Ronan Margey, national clinical lead for the audit, said the report highlights the need for a renewed focus on public awareness, system-level process improvement and targeted risk factor management to reduce the incidence and improve the treatment of heart attack in Ireland.

The report said the delivery of primary PCI and thrombolysis should not depend solely on geographic proximity to PCI centres.

The report recommends optimising the use and timeliness of primary PCI, and supporting hospitals to review local processes that influence early diagnosis and faster transfer times, shortening door-to-balloon times.

Paula Connor with her husband, Robert

Paula Connor from Midleton, Co Cork, shared her personal experience of having a heart attack at the age of 44 when she was on a trip to Sligo.

She said: I didnt realise what was happening. I just felt faint and had pressure in my arms.

I was lucky to get help quickly and receive life-saving treatment.

My message is simple: dont ignore unusual symptoms, and call 112 or 999 straight away. Acting fast can save your life.

I asked a friend to take me to the hospital, still thinking it was nothing serious. By the time I arrived at Sligo University Hospital I felt nauseous.

A porter noticed that I did not look well and asked that I be seen quickly. Within minutes, I was told I was having a heart attack.

I was given life-saving clot-busting medication and airlifted by army helicopter to University Hospital Galway.

When we arrived, I was rushed to the coronary care unit.

During an angiogram, the cardiologists discovered multiple blockages in the arteries in my heart and told me I needed cardiac bypass surgery.

In response to the report, HSE chief clinical officer Colm Henry said: We acknowledge there are improvements to be made and, to that end, the HSEs National Heart Programme has developed an action plan to address the findings.
Ireland found in breach of European charter on overtime for Defence Forces members

The European Organisation of Military Associations and Trade Unions (EUROMIL) raised the complaint on behalf of the Defence Forces

Stock image

Laura Lynott Mon 9 Feb 2026 at 18:59

Ireland has been found in violation of the European Social Charter (ESC) - with inadequate remuneration for work on public holidays and a lack of overtime pay for members of the Defence Forces.
A former senior official at the Department of Transport has been named head of the recently-established Housing Activation Office set up by the Coalition last year to cut through infrastructural blockages and speed up housing delivery.

Garret Doocey was on Tuesday appointed Deputy Secretary General with responsibility for housing activation as the Coalition continues to grapple with the housing crisis following the introduction of a number of measures to cut through delays.

Mr Doocey takes up the role following controversy last year over the senior position  or so-called housing tsar  proposed by Housing Minister James Browne.

Nama chief executive Brendan McDonagh had been lined up to head up the new office, but the retention of his existing 430,000 salary torpedoed the move after Fine Gael blocked it last May.

Mr Garret Doocey

News in 90 seconds - Tuesday, February 10

The Government publicly advertised the job at the end of last year  with a much reduced salary of up to 217,000. That put it at the deputy secretary general (civil service) level.

Mr Doocey previously held a number of roles in the Department of Transport in the Corporate, Maritime and Public Transport areas  including responsibility for major infrastructural programmes such as Bus Connects, Dart +, MetroLink and national roads, the Department of Housing said on Tuesday.

Before joining the civil service, he worked in the private sector.

The appointment follows the launch last month of a new 1 billion infrastructure fund with state agencies and local authorities now able to apply for additional funding in a bid to speed up housing supply.

The 1bn fund will be overseen by the Housing Activation Office, which was set up last year and is made up of senior officials from the Department of Housing and a number of state agencies.

The initial call will be open to councils and the Land Development Agency, but sources in Government stressed the funding will only be used to construct public infrastructure projects, such as water and transport links, which can be shown to activate housing delivery in urban areas.
Tech companies should be treated as publishers and should no longer be allowed to behave like free riders on the bus when it comes to using copyrighted content to train AI tools, an Oireachtas committee has been told.
A more prescient Keir Starmer might have anticipated that anointing a man dubbed the Prince of Darkness for Britains most crucial diplomatic post was destined to cast a long shadow.

Cascading events suggest the British prime ministers grip on the keys to No 10 Downing Street could be slipping. While many a political obituary has begun with the words it seemed like a good idea at the time, the appointment of Peter Mandelson was always fiendishly problematic given what was on the public record concerning his relationship with billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

The exit of two of Starmers top aides has not been enough to sate the appetite for his dethronement, as Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwars call for his head is the latest blow. He is the most senior member of the Labour Party to make such a demand.

But the appeal has galvanised cabinet members to back their beleaguered leader  for now. Deputy prime minister David Lammy said on X: Keir Starmer won a massive mandate 18 months ago, for five years to deliver on Labours manifesto that we all stood on. We should let nothing distract us from our mission...

While housing secretary Steve Reed said: Keir led our party to victory and won a mandate for change.

Last week, Starmer made a public apology to Epsteins victims for having believed Mandelsons lies. He also agreed to release the vetting reports around his appointment. Starmers fate may hinge on public reaction to these.

All of this puts the spotlight on Starmers judgment.

But 50pc of YouGov respondents said the prime minister should resign, including 37pc of his own voters. Were it not for the fact that it is so difficult for Labour MPs to remove their party leader, and that there is no immediate successor to step up, Starmers fate might already be sealed.

There is also a consensus that the death knell could come with Mays local elections, should results prove as dismal as predicted. There is a growing recognition among MPs that the Epstein files will be regarded retrospectively as the beginning of the end.

Should this be the case, Starmer may have no one to blame but himself. His dismissal of Mandelson came last September after that latters warm correspondence with Epstein was exposed. But after the latest release of files, Mandelson is the subject of an investigation by Britains Metropolitan Police.

As well as allegations that he shared sensitive government information with Epstein when serving as business secretary at the time of the 2008 financial crisis, its also alleged that in 2009 he may have also shared sensitive market information.

Nor should it be forgotten he was twice forced to resign from ministerial roles in scandal. All of this puts the spotlight on Starmers judgment.

Only months ago, US president Donald Trump was still dismissing the Epstein files as a hoax and a distraction. Concerns must rightly centre on the victims. One cant help but sense that on both sides of the Atlantic, the full reverberations from this episode have yet to be fully felt.
Bright new plan in Cork for towering student accommodation on an eyesore site in city centre

A 503-bed student accommodation is proposed on the site of the former Tax Office.

A render of the proposed development at Sullivan's Quay

Kevin Galvin Tue 10 Feb 2026 at 17:20

A prominent eyesore in Cork City could be given new life, following the submission of a planning application for a mega 503-bed student accommodation building at the site of the former Tax Office.
An Coimisiun Pleanala have requested further information and clarity about a controversial battery storage facility proposed to be constructed at a site west of Newmarket.

This move comes in the wake of Cork County Councils decision to grant a 10-year planning permission to Neoen Renewables Ireland Limited for the project.

Neoen, a renewable energy group received conditional permission for an energy storing facility in Curraduff, Newmarket.

The plans consist of a 10-year planning permission for an energy storage facility  of a 35-year lifespan  at Curraduff.

The planning permission comes with 28 conditions.

The works will see energy storage containers installed on concrete plinths; underground electrical and communications cabling; electrical inverters and transporters as well as security fencing and security gates.

Other stipulations include an upgrade of the existing agricultural entrance  which can be accessed from the L5039; an on-site access track; pole-mounted security cameras; and all associated and ancillary site development, landscaping and reinstatement works.

Residents and local community groups near the town of Newmarket in North Cork have voiced strong objections against plans for a battery energy storage system (ESS) facility in the area.

Public meetings have been held over recent months and over 200 objections have been submitted so far.

One of the major points raised is the close proximity of the proposed facility to residential housing.

Other key points of concern for residents include the potential effects on the biodiversity of the area and the health of the River Blackwater, in the case of potential battery leaks.

Against this backdrop, An Coimisiun Pleanala have requested certain information to be provided on or before May 5 this year for the purpose of enabling it to determine the appeal.

An Coimisiun Pleanala has requested further detail in the form of a fire risk management plan, an emergency response plan, details of the quantity and confirmation of how firefighting water will be sourced and or retained within the proposed development site.

Other information sought by An Comisiun Pleanala includes more clarity on the drainage proposals designed to manage rainfall and fire water runoff and a detailed methodology for fire water storage management along with any proposed mitigation measures.

Fine Gael TD for Cork North West John Paul OShea said there are significant concerns locally about fire risks and pollution. The plan submitted doesnt have enough detail on it about a fire risk management plan. Where is the fire water storage plan? The other thing mentioned was pollution. There can be a runoff from these things into the local rivers and that is a huge concern as well. An Comisiun Pleanala have come back saying this is an issue for them as well and they want more information on it.

People in the community are very worried about these issues, said Deputy OShea. It is good that An Comisiun Pleanala is asking the tough questions and it is up to the group to now respond. It was due to be decided by March or April, but now this letter has given them until May 5 to respond. It will be the autumn probably before a decision is reached.

The Cork TD said there is a united consensus in the community against the battery storage facility. We dont have enough guidelines around it, and it is something that I am continuing to fight nationally for in the Dail. We dont have guidelines ourselves in Ireland, so they are asking to follow the UKs model. We need to make sure if they are going to do it, they better make sure that every angle is covered from a fire and health and safety point of view. Our preferred option is that they refuse it.

There is a need for battery storage in Ireland. It is part of our environment plan, no doubt about it, but the location is key. There are plenty of places that are more remote than a mile and a half outside Newmarket town. There was a good bit of shock and disappointment when the planning was approved, he added.

We want reassurances, reiterated Deputy OShea. We didnt get the reassurances prior to the permission being granted and that is why we made our observations known. It is up to the company to provide complete clarity and transparency. An Comisiun Pleanala really want this detailed information. It is important it goes through the process.

Mr OShea said there is significant unity within the parish of Newmarket. The community are fully united on the basis that they think it is the wrong location and there hasnt been a significant application and documentation provided for it. If An Comisiun Pleanala cant make a decision on what was submitted, that reassures us as a community that we didnt the right information at the start.

Fine Gael councillor Trish Murphy who hails from Newmarket said the location for the proposed battery storage facility is not suitable. I am all for renewable energy, but it is not the right place. There are adjoining houses to it. It is a very scary situation. Our concerns are the same as to what An Comisiun Pleanala are looking for now which is kind of a positive.

There is total unity against the battery storage facility. The guidelines need to be much tighter. There is a load of houses up that road. There is a big fear of the unknown. We will remain hopeful, she added.
Oscar-winning actress Brenda Fricker is to be awarded the Freedom of the City of Dublin, following the approval of her nomination by Dublin City Council.

The conferral was proposed by Dublin Lord Mayor Ray McAdam and endorsed by councillors on Monday evening, with Ms Frickers name set to be inscribed on the Roll of Honorary Freedom of Dublin under the Local Government Act 2001.

Speaking after the decision, Mr McAdam said the award recognised a lifetime of artistic contribution and the pride Fricker has brought to the capital and to Ireland.

Brenda Fricker is one of Dublins most distinguished cultural figures and it is a source of immense pride that our city is recognising her in this way, he said.

Actress Brenda Fricker (Photo by Ted Dayton/WWD/Penske Media via Getty Images)

My mayoral theme is Celebrating Dublin, and tonight we do exactly that by honouring a great Dublin woman whose talent, integrity and craft have represented our capital city with distinction across a lifetime of extraordinary work.

Brendas Academy Award winning performance in My Left Foot was a landmark moment for Irish acting and Irish cinema. But what makes her career so special is the body of work that followed, marked by honesty, depth and a rare ability to bring warmth and toughness in the same breath. Her performances have helped tell Irish stories and have become part of family life across generations.

This honour is not simply about international acclaim. It is about contribution and the pride Brenda has brought to Dublin and to Ireland.

Her work also has a personal resonance in our own family. My son Iarlaith loves Home Alone 2 and knows Brenda as the Pigeon Lady, a role that continues to be discovered by a whole new generation.

Brenda Fricker in 1990 with her Oscar.

"My wife Niamh has often spoken about how films like A Time to Kill helped inspire her own path into law and public service. That is the quiet reach of great work. It travels, it endures, and it can help shape lives.

We look forward to welcoming Brenda Fricker for the formal conferral in due course, he added.

Ms Fricker made history in 1990 when she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Mrs Brown in My Left Foot, becoming the first Irish woman to receive an acting Oscar. Her performance opposite Daniel Day-Lewis remains one of the most celebrated in Irish cinema.

While her Oscar win marked a defining moment, Mr McAdam said it was the depth and longevity of her career that set her apart.

Ms Frickers screen career has spanned decades, with notable roles in The Field, A Time to Kill, Veronica Guerin and Inside Im Dancing, as well as her widely loved turn as the Pigeon Lady in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

Mr McAdam also spoke of the personal reach of Frickers work, saying her performances continue to resonate across generations.

The Freedom of the City is the highest honour Dublin City Council can bestow and has previously been awarded to figures including Nelson Mandela, John F Kennedy, Mother Teresa, U2, Gay Byrne and Brian ODriscoll.

While the title carries no financial benefit, it is traditionally associated with historic ceremonial privileges, including the right to bring goods into the city without paying customs duties and the right to pasture sheep on common ground within the city boundaries.

A date for the formal conferral ceremony has yet to be confirmed.
Dorothy Creaven with scholarship recipient Jescintha George Poruthur and Professor Laoise McNamara, Head of the School of Engineering at University of Galway. Photo: Andrew Downes, Xposure.

University of Galway has announced the inaugural recipient of a new scholarship supporting women in engineering and digital health.

Jescintha George Poruthur, a postgraduate student on the MSc in Medical Electronics and Digital Health, has been named as the inaugural recipient of the Maev Creaven Scholarship.

Dorothy Creaven established the scholarship in memory of her sister, Maev Creaven, a University of Galway graduate and healthcare innovator. An Electronic Engineering graduate, Maev Creaven was widely regarded as a pioneer in her field in Ireland, combining her scientific training with a commitment to wellbeing, education and practical innovation in healthcare.

Dorothy Creaven said: Maev believed in pushing the boundaries of innovation in healthcare and encouraging people to think beyond conventional paths.

This scholarship was established in her memory to support women who are applying engineering and technology in ways that can genuinely improve lives. My family and I are proud to see her name associated with a programme that looks forward and supports the next generation of healthcare innovators.

Programme Director of the MSc in Medical Electronics and Digital Health at University of Galway Professor Edward Jones said they are very proud of Ms Poruthur as the inaugural recipient of the Maev Creaven Scholarship.

[Jescintha] is a wonderful example of the energy and commitment to innovation in medical device technology that we aim to foster in this programme, reflecting the values  innovation, compassion, and impact  that defined Maevs work. We thank Dorothy for creating a lasting tribute to her sisters contribution to healthcare.

Head of the School of Engineering at University of Galway Professor Laoise McNamara, said they are sincerely grateful to Ms Creaven for establishing the scholarship.

This scholarship was created in honour of our former student Maev Creaven and reflects her strengths, passions, and commitment to these fields. This scholarship will support talented students with the potential to thrive, creating a legacy that will inspire and empower our graduates to make a meaningful difference in engineering and digital health.
After thriving in detention, a high-risk placement may jeopardise his future, says judge

A teenager charged with wielding two machetes at a college campus in Kerry has been released from detention for the first time since his September arrest.

At court in Killarney on Monday, the teen appeared before Judge David Waters, who praised his achievements in detention. The boy, represented by solicitor Padraig OConnell, pleaded guilty.

If you want to make something in your life, Im not going to stand in your way, said the judge. My job is to give you that opportunity to do that.

That morning, the teenager woke in Oberstown Children Detention Campus, a facility for children in the north of County Dublin and his residence of the last four months. By mid-afternoon, he was released on bail and stepping into sunshine outside the Killarney courthouse, on his way to a new residence in State care.

His initial charges included assault, possession of an offensive weapon, and the production of an article intended to cause injury in a dispute on September 23. It was alleged in court he attacked a former friend with two machetes at the Tralee campus, causing students to flee in fear for their safety.

When first taken into custody, Judge Catherine Ryan told the boy to seize opportunities offered at Oberstown.

On Monday, the court heard he had done so.

Before the boy arrived, the judge discussed plans for the boys residency and release from custody.

The judge noted the teens positive probation report.

Hes indicated that hes happy with the structure and everything it provides for him, he said. It appears [he] is keen to make a go of things when he comes out. Maybe he gets an education.

An official told the court the teen was highly engaged, had done well with Christmas exams, demonstrated insight and appeared deeply motivated to continue his education.

Hes thrived on the structure and routine, said the care worker. Its the first time in his life hes had this level of structure.

His health, sleep and appearance had dramatically improved, she told the court.

But the question of an appropriate placement remained.

At present, its been very difficult to find a placement for him in the country, she said.

It was noted the only place in Ireland that agreed to home him was in the same region he had previously lived, presenting concerns for the judge that the teens former associates would get their claws into him.

Although the State had set up social supports, the judge noted his young age made him vulnerable.

The judge stressed the location was not ideal.

The bottom line is, we dont have anything but that place, he said.

Moving him to a different town was the very best way to protect him, said Judge Waters. But thats not an option.

He noted that the teenager had experienced the most horrific trauma in his past and he deserve[d] every chance.

The Tusla representative expressed a preference to have more time to organise appropriate accommodation.

He does have insight, said the judge. Thats why we give him every opportunity.

The teenager arrived in the Killarney courthouse by early afternoon.

Court was cleared when he entered.

Judge Waters advised the boy to follow the directions of social and probation workers and to take advantage of education offered.

I hope you take that opportunity, maybe youll realise your real potential, he said.

The judge cautioned the teen that, after turning 18, he would be treated as an adult.

Adult prison is nothing like Oberstown, said Judge Waters.

He added, Id much prefer if you didnt go back to prison.

The judge remanded the boy on bail until February 25. He will not be required to attend court on that date.

To meet bail conditions, he must reside in Tusla accommodation, attend all probation meetings, make use of addiction services and complete any recommended knife-crime related programmes.

Please take advantage of this, he said to the teen. You have a great future ahead of you, if you take advantage of this.

The boy nodded in agreement, surrounded by a social worker, a probation officer and other State workers who appeared happy.

He exhaled deeply.

Funded by the Courts Reporting Scheme
Both entrances to Teffia Park were closed off to traffic on Monday night.

A blue coloured blanket can be seen lying inside a garda cordon outside Longford Garda Station.

Gardai have launched a major investigation into the circumstances behind a double stabbing in a midlands town that has left two men in a serious condition in hospital.

The pair, who are aged in their late 30s and 20s respectively, were assaulted in Longford town at around 9pm on Monday night.

Gardai sealed off an area close to the towns Teffia Park estate after the incident.

A blue coloured blanket can be seen lying inside a garda cordon outside Longford Garda Station.

A second scene outside Longford garda station was also cordoned off after the younger of the two victims was found dumped just yards from the front entrance to the station.

Forensic officers carried out an examination of the latter scene where the man, who is from the Galway area, was treated and subsequently rushed to Mullingars Midland Regional Hospital.

The cordoned off scene in Longford town's Teffia Park estate.

News in 90 seconds - Tuesday, February 10

Officers attached to the Garda Armed Support Unit (ASU) were also drafted in overnight as unformed officers and detectives carried out door-to-door enquiries in the area.

One line of inquiry is the violent scenes may have been prompted by an ongoing feud that has steadily intensified between two warring factions in the midlands town over recent weeks.

Gardai are investigating following an alleged incident of assault that occurred in the Longford town area on Monday 9th February, 2026 at approximately 9pm, a garda spokesperson said.

Two males (20s and 30s) received serious injuries and were taken to Mullingar Hospital for treatment.

Both entrances to Teffia Park were closed off to traffic on Monday night.

Gardai are appealing to anyone who witnessed the incident to come forward. Road users who may have camera footage, including dash-cam and were travelling in the area of Teffia Park, Longford, at the time are asked to make this footage available to investigating gardai.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Longford garda station on (043) 3350570, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any garda station.
Cathaoirleach Wexford County Council Cllr Jim Codd pictured with Jane Kavanagh (The Star Project), Paula Doyle (Star HSCL), Emily O'Rourke (Wexford Local Development) and the traveller exhibitors and families at the opening of the Traveller Kids art exhibition in the Wexford County Council buildings, Carricklawn in 2025. Pic: Jim Campbell

An exhibition which features artwork from traveller children from schools across Wexford has recently begun at Gorey Library.

The exhibition opened in February and is an initiative run by the Supporting Travellers and Roma (STAR) project, following the release of STARgazers: Terrific Tales and Tremendous Triumph in May 2025.

The exhibition is currently taking place at Gorey Library and will run until Monday, February 23 and exhibits a unique collection of stories, original artwork, and an innovative audio experience to display the experiences and perspectives of young people from the Traveller community in County Wexford.

The exhibition in Gorey will feature an exhibition of artwork form the book and give visitors a look into how it was put together.

The book was created by Traveller children with support from the STAR project, childrens author Caroline Busher and was funded by SETU. Each story is accompanied by artwork created by the children themselves, which reflects their personal stories and cultural heritage.

The book also allows readers to scan a QR code on the page to listen to audio recordings of the children sharing their stories to honour a Traveller tradition of oral storytelling and a personal nod to their cultural heritage and allows listeners to engage with the stories how they have been shared across generations.

The unique collection was previously exhibited in the County Hall in April 2025, and showcased the artwork created by Traveller children from Clonroche National School, Adamstown National School, Colaiste Abbain, Taghmon National School, Marshalstown National School and Enniscorthy Community College.

STARgazers: Terrific Tales and Tremendous Triumph was officially launched at SETU Wexfords Summerhill Road Campus in May 2025.
Motocross lovers in Wexford were seen supporting the funeral procession as bikers accompanied the remains of Johnathon (Johno) Lawlor on his final journey towards St. Kevin's Church in Tara Hill, Gorey.

From Ballinakill, Courtown, Johno, aged 31, was a beloved member of the motocross community in Ireland and will be remembered for his bubbly character and love for the sport.

Motorcyclists in different coloured jackets and styled bikes lined the street on Saturday, February 7, as riders paid respects to Johno Lawlor through a ride of honour.

Once the procession made its way inside, a photo of Johno Lawlor in his motor gear on his much-loved motorcycle could be seen on the altar.

In a heartfelt speech about her brother, Vickileigh Lawlor, paid tribute to Johno and acknowledged the large crowds of mourners and wave of motorbikers who came to say a final goodbye to Johno. Holy moly, didnt he make an entrance, loud and proud standing out as always, she said.

She further said Johno was a man of many things, and few words. You could put any number of descriptive words to his name, loving caring compassionate, arrogant, obnoxious, fruitful, but never bad, Vickileigh continued.

The late Johnathon (Johno) Lawlor.

She remembered growing up with her brother, sharing fond memories of their childhood. He was pretty much born the person he was leaving us, he just grew bigger over the years, she said.

She further shared a story of trying to get Johno interested in horse riding, as a way to keep their horse, Champ. When Johno first started racing he was given a nickname which stuck with him for life.

We tried everything to convince him to ride and keep Champ  not a hope of it he had zero interest in it and that was Johno. Johno would do anything for anyone but if he didnt want to do something there wasnt a hope, he was doing it  regardless of who you are or what is what, she added.

We loved each other underneath all the bickering and snarling, even if we didnt say it to each other.

My children loved their uncle Johno, and he will be missed forever.

Ride of Honour for Johno Lawlor. PHOTO: Sabrina Ffrench

Johnos best friend, Steo paid tribute to him, calling him a huge part of his life and the older brother he never had, meeting him through motocross racing at a young age.

I still remember the first time we saw him pull into the paddock, He arrived in this massive red truckand someone said, here comes horsebox lads and that was it, from that moment on Johno had a new name and it stuck with him for life, he said.

Ride of Honour for Johno Lawlor. PHOTO: Sabrina Ffrench

Today's News in 90 - Wednesday February 11

Rest easy Johno, you were loved more than you will ever know. Keep the wheels turning, the gears jamming and look down on us all. Me and the lads will help mind the fort while youre awaywe will be here when you need us, Steo added.

A number of symbols were brought to the altar, including a life jacket to symbolise Johnos love of the sea and adventure. A spanner and food basket, containing the infamous famous tuna tin and food some of his favourites foods.

Also included were photos of Fifi and Teddy, Johnos dogs who he loved to walk on Tara Hill and the beaches. Finally, a number plate was brought to the altar to symbolise the hard work and determination he put into his love for bikes.

For 31 years, Johno filled the world and the lives of you people who loved him with energy, laughter, loyalty and love he was as the symbols brought forward to the alter attest, said Fr Tomas Kehoe.

Happiest on a bike among noise, immersed in engines, speed the thrill of racing and he had a great gift of understanding of how things worked.

Ride of Honour for Johno Lawlor. PHOTO: Sabrina Ffrench

Fr Kehoe spoke of the memories and stories he had heard of Johno, and used the words including kind, empathetic, generous, annoying and bullish to summarise the stories had heard from mourners. He further spoke of his hearty laugh and the joy he brought to gatherings.

Kate, Johnos cousin, spoke of the train station theory, she read a poem to honour John:

Life is like a train station - people come and go some stay for a few stops.

Some ride with you for miles, some leave before youre ready to say goodbye.

But every person teaches you something even if they are not meant to stay forever.

The key is knowing when to hold on and when to let them catch their next train.

Because everyone is not on the same journey, and thats okay.
Pictured in the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening were Vince Stafford, Fionn Stafford, Andrew Black Cullen, Ryan Stafford, Barry O'Dowd, Jay O'Dowd and Lee Smith. Photo: Jim Campbell

Demi and Ian Frayne pictured at the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening. Photo: Jim Campbell

Rosie Cullen, Niamh Conlon, Orla Gavin, and Nadine O'Gorman pictured at the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening. Photo: Jim Campbell

Jim Pender and Ciaran Byrne were at the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening. Photo: Jim Campbell

Pictured in the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening were Deborah Roche, Kevin Bradley, Ian Edwards and Emer Kehoe. Photo: Jim Campbell

Pictured in the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening were Ella, CJ, Colin and Mia Wright. Photo: Jim Campbell

Sean and John Higgins from Enniscorthy were at the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening. Photo: Jim Campbell

Pictured in the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening were Ciara Parnell, Tony Nolan, Lisa Nolan, Sarah Nolan, and Chloe Kavanagh from Oylegate and Bree. Photo: Jim Campbell

Pictured in the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening were Ja Ling and Tony Brady. Photo: Jim Campbell

Pictured in the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening were Marguerite Murphy and Aoife Grace. Photo: Jim Campbell

Pictured in the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening were Brian Smith, Laura Cullen, Alan Corcoran, and Padraig Murphy. Photo: Jim Campbell

Chloe Kavanagh and Sinead Moloney from Oylegate were pictured at the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening. Photo: Jim Campbell

Pictured in the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening were Elaine Mitten and Charlotte Corrigan. Photo: Jim Campbell

Florin and Merean Oliver from Arklow were at the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening. Photo: Jim Campbell

Pictured in the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening were Laura Walsh, Grainne Tyrrell,, Niamh McCormack and Suzanne Wylde. Photo: Jim Campbell

Marguerite Furlong and Ciaran Whitty from New Ross pictured in the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening. Photo: Jim Campbell

Bobby kenny and Brian Smith at the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening. Photo: Jim Campbell

Pictured in the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening were Rebecca and Paraic Turner. Photo: Jim Campbell

Eve Scallan (Forth Mountain) and Eddie Manning (Rosbercon, New Ross) were at the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening. Photo: Jim Campbell

Sophie and Rachel Kehoe from New Ross were at the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening. Photo: Jim Campbell

Pictured in the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening were Brendan Mulligan (Mayglass) and Mary Anne Foley (Bunclody). Photo: Jim Campbell

Ian Doyle and David Maguire were pictured in the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening. Photo: Jim Campbell

Annette Moroney, Catherine Laffan, Dee Wylde, Sinead Dempsey and Roisin Doyle from Glynn Barntown Camogie Club were pictured at the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening. Photo: Jim Campbell

John, Joe, and Sean Boyce were pictured at the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening. Photo: Jim Campbell

Pictured in the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening were Mia Rowe and Sophie Bergin. Photo: Jim Campbell

Pictured in the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening were Abbie Bolger, Emily Bolger, Keith Bolger, Chloe Bolger, and Sasha Lovelace. Photo: Jim Campbell

Pictured at the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening were David Martin (Event Manager), David Maguire (Wexford Credit Union), Mayor Cllr Garry Laffan, Marian O'Leary (Organising Committee) and Liam Hore (Event Co-ordinator). Photo: Jim Campbell

Despite doubts about the viability of the annual event earlier on Thursday due to weather warnings, the Wexford Credit Union Night Run once again proved to be a fantastic community event, with over 500 participants taking to the streets.

Following discussions by event manager Dave Martin and event coordinator Liam Hore, with key supporting stakeholders, An Garda Siochana, Wexford Civil Defence and Wexford County Council, a lunchtime decision was taken to proceed with the run as planned.

At 6.30pm event coordinator Liam Hore gave further guidance to volunteer marshals for the route as DJ Martin Gordon got the tunes going in the race marquee.

MC Dave Dempsey gave instructions to the over 500 participants with pre-race information and guidance. Then, Mayor of Wexford Cllr Garry Laffan led the count down and started the race at 7.30pm.

The excitement and atmosphere was amazing, said organiser Marian OLeary. Photographers and spectators waited in Anne Street with bated breath for the runners to cross the line. All runners had the choice of water and bananas to assist them. And huge congratulations to all who ran.

Pictured in the Wexford Credit Union Night Run on Wexford Quays on Thursday evening were Vince Stafford, Fionn Stafford, Andrew Black Cullen, Ryan Stafford, Barry O'Dowd, Jay O'Dowd and Lee Smith. Photo: Jim Campbell

Following the race a tea or coffee and the wonderful donuts from Kelly's Bakery were much appreciated by all who took part.

There was a wonderful community spirit, and uplifting moments were shared by all post-race. Our volunteer crews joined also, without their assistance this wouldnt happen.

The event provided a platform for runners of all ages and abilities, including families and children to more competitive athletes, and there was a vibrant and electric atmosphere throughout the course. It remains one of those rare events that manages to be both family-friendly and a serious sporting challenge at the same time.

This years run was held in aid of two very worthwhile local causes, the Irish Kidney Association and High Meadows Community Hub and the level of support shown by runners, volunteers and spectators alike was impressive.

Wexford Credit Union say they are delighted to continue supporting an event that brings such positivity, energy and community spirit to the town year after year.
CIE Tours, the largest carrier of US visitors to Ireland every year, held its annual awards of excellence, celebrating Irish hoteliers and tourist experience operators, including two Wexford businesses, who have been singled out by the 30,000 visitors who came to Ireland with CIE Tours in 2025.

Now in its 34th year, an annual highlight within the tourism industry, the prestigious accolades are awarded based on post-stay feedback from CIE Tours customers. This annual survey has played a key role in developing Irelands tourism offering and raising standards across the sector since its inception.

A number of Irish tourism partners were honoured at the event, including The Dunbrody Famine Ship Experience in New Ross, and Johnstown Castle who were crowned the Visitor Experience Winners of Wexford.

Sean Canney TD, Transport Minister, acknowledged the commitment of tour operators across Ireland and paid tribute to the award recipients. These awards are a testament to the high standards of quality that each operator holds and is a well-deserved recognition of their work in welcoming CIE Tours visitors to Ireland, providing them with unique and unrivalled experiences.

Tourism is a vital part of the Irish economy, impacting every town and village across the country and is a key source of employment for people in many rural communities. The government recognises the importance of the sector and recently launched a National Tourism Policy Statement which sets out a clear ambition to enhance tourisms economic contribution, support regional development, and ensure the industry remains inclusive, sustainable, and adaptable to future challenges. This is supported by the provision of 233m in Budget 2026 for the Tourism Services programme which aims to drive regional development and employment in the sector.

Aidan Murphy, Chairman, CIE Tours, also commented on the impact of visitors to Ireland. He said: CIE Tours has been playing a leading role in promoting Ireland as a tourist destination for almost 95 years and continues to perform at a high level on the international stage which has had a significant impact on the Irish economy. As a market leader in the USA, one of the most competitive markets in the world, CIE Tours has helped to increase the number of U.S. visitors to Ireland, who contribute to 31pc of visitor spend, which amounted to 1.87bn in 2024.

Meanwhile, commenting on the importance of partnerships, Stephen Cotter, Managing Director, CIE Tours said; 2025 was another landmark year for CIE Tours, when we booked over 250,000 bed nights throughout Ireland. That we can offer a unique experience unrivalled by any other country is due in no small part to our many partners who work closely with us, taking the feedback from our visitors and continuously refining their offering.

Our support for tourism destinations is bringing vital revenue to towns and villages across the country.

We are continuously developing our offering, developing new and sustainable tours that will allow our visitors to experience the very best that Ireland has to offer.

CIE Tours is the leading inbound tour operator for North American visitors to Ireland for over 90 years and in that time has brought over three million visitors from North America to Ireland.
Students in Wicklow with special educational needs have received a huge boost as more supports have been announced in Education Therapy Services (ETS), while additional special classes have also been sanctioned for schools across the county.

Oonagh Kenny, the principal of Marino Special School in Bray, who recently spoke of the huge challenges faced by her students as a fundraiser was launched to provide for a sensory room, said news that the school will be among the first 45 special schools in the country to benefit from new therapy services was a very positive development for the students.

It follows the announcement by Education Minister Hildegarde Naughton that therapists will be embedded within school communities, ensuring children can access support in their places of learning every day.

Calling it wonderful news for our school community, Ms Kenny said she welcomed the proposed therapy supports and recognises the significant positive impact these services will have on our students with complex needs.

Our staff are eager to work collaboratively with the ETS therapists to ensure we provide the best possible support for our students' development and wellbeing. We look forward to establishing strong working relationships with the therapy team and to working together to address the multifaceted needs of our students.

We are grateful to the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) for including us in this important initiative and acknowledge the ongoing support of local public representatives in the work of Marino Special School.

Tanaiste Simon Harris, taking to Instagram to share the news, paid tribute to the staff at Marino School for their incredible dedication to the children in their care.

For too long, families have faced stress and delays accessing therapy supports for their children, the Wicklow TD said. This will make a real difference. The service will be delivered by the NCSE, with engagement with Marino and all schools in the first phase taking place in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, Wicklow TD Malcolm Byrne was hugely encouraged by the addition of St Johns Senior National School in Arklow to the list of schools in the county that have been sanctioned for a new special class.

This is a really positive development for a great school and continues the governments commitment to invest in special education, he said.

The Arklow school joins another Bray school, Ravenswell Primary School, as the Education Minister announced another tranche of 38 special education classes sanctioned by the NCSE nationally for the 2026/2027 school year.

Commenting on the addition of Ravenswell, the Tanaiste said the new classes will help ensure that students with special needs receive the tailored education they deserve.

I want to thank Minister Hildegarde Naughton for her continued commitment to expanding special education provision and I look forward to continuing to work with her to deliver for families across the country, he said.

I look forward to engaging with Ravenswell Primary School and schools across County Wicklow to see what more we can do to deliver for families and children with additional needs."

Previously this month, five special classes were for Dominican College, Wicklow town (1); Greystones Community College, Greystones (2); St Joseph's Templerainey, Arklow (1); Coolfancy NS, Carnew (1).
Two major Wicklow tourist businesses and attractions, Russborough House and Glendalough Visitors Centre, were both honoured at the CIE Tours Annual Awards of Excellence.

CIE Tours, the largest carrier of US visitors to Ireland every year, held its 34th awards of excellence at Trinity College Dublin, celebrating Irish hoteliers and tourist experience operators who have been singled out by the 30,000 visitors who came to Ireland with CIE Tours in 2025.

Russborough House and Glendalough Visitor Centre received merit awards in the Leinster Visitor Experience category.

Chairman of CIE Tours, Aidan Murphy, said: CIE Tours has been playing a leading role in promoting Ireland as a tourist destination for almost 95 years and continues to perform at a high level on the international stage which has had a significant impact on the Irish economy.

"As a market leader in the USA, one of the most competitive markets in the world, CIE Tours has helped to increase the number of U.S. visitors to Ireland, who contribute to 31pc of visitor spend, which amounted to 1.87 billion in 2024.

Managing director of CIE Tours, Stephen Cotter said: 2025 was another landmark year for CIE Tours, when we booked over 250,000 bed nights throughout Ireland. That we can offer a unique experience unrivalled by any other country is due in no small part to our many partners who work closely with us, taking the feedback from our visitors and continuously refining their offering.

Our support for tourism destinations is bringing vital revenue to towns and villages across the country.
Hong Kongs most vocal China critic, media tycoon Jimmy Lai, was sentenced yesterday to 20 years in jail, ending the citys biggest national security case that has fuelled global concerns about Beijings clampdown on freedoms in the former British colony.

Lais sentence on two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and one for publishing seditious materials ends a legal saga that has lasted nearly five years.

The 78-year-old UK citizen had denied all the charges against him, telling the court he was a political prisoner facing persecution from Beijing. Lai, founder of the feisty and now shuttered Apple Daily newspaper, was first arrested in August 2020 and was convicted last year.

His sentence was within the harshest penalty tier for offences of a grave nature, reflecting the fact that he was the driving force behind persistent foreign collusion conspiracies, the three judges said in announcing their verdict.

They cited prosecution evidence that the conspiracies had sought sanctions, blockades and other hostile acts from the US and other countries while involving a web of individuals including Apple Daily staff, activists and foreigners.

Six former senior Apple Daily staffers, an activist and a paralegal were also sentenced to jail terms ranging from six to 10 years.

In the present case, Lai was no doubt the mastermind of all three conspiracies charged and therefore he warrants a heavier sentence, the judges said.

The EU, US, UK, Australia, Japan and Taiwan expressed concerns about the impact of the sentencing.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio called the sentence unjust and tragic, saying it showed the lengths to which China would go to silence advocates of basic freedoms in Hong Kong. Mr Lai and his family have suffered enough. The United States urges the authorities to grant Mr Lai humanitarian parole, Mr Rubio said in a statement, echoing similar calls from the UK and UN rights chief Volker Turk.

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in London urged the UK to respect Chinas judicial sovereignty and stop interfering in Hong Kongs rule of law and Chinas internal affairs. The spokesperson also said the UK should stop shielding criminals.

The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, under Chinas State Council, said the sentence was a solemn and powerful declaration that whoever dares to challenge the law on safeguarding national security will be severely punished.

Hong Kongs leader John Lee said: [Jimmy Lai] has committed numerous heinous crimes, and his evil deeds were beyond measure.

Dozens of Lais supporters queued for days to secure a spot in the courtroom. I feel that Mr Lai is the conscience of Hong Kong, said a man in the queue.

Lais lawyer, Robert Pang, declined to comment when asked whether Lai would appeal, saying he has 28 days to do so.
The media moguls efforts are crushed by law introduced after 2020 protests

Jimmy Lai, founder of Apple Daily, became outspoken after the Tiananmen Square massacre. Photo: Reuters

Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and media mogul Jimmy Lai was being heralded by supporters as the citys conscience yesterday after he was sentenced to 20 years in prison on national security charges.

Once a penniless teenage refugee who arrived in Hong Kong as a stowaway, Lai rose to become one of the citys most influential media tycoons and has now become its most prominent political prisoner.

Lai (78) has been handed the longest sentence so far under Hong Kongs controversial national security laws, which were introduced in 2020 following a period of city-wide protests.

The UK government has condemned his jailing as tantamount to a death sentence for the media mogul, while other countries including Japan have also spoken out.

The sentencing represents an effort by Beijing to quash what they see as a destabilising presence, but also the failure of foreign governments  particularly the UK, of which Lai is a citizen  to secure either a more lenient sentence or his release.

Lai has already spent five years behind bars for his role in Hong Kongs 2019 pro-democracy protests, yet only two of those were counted as time already served, meaning he will not leave prison under his current sentence under 2044. He would be 96.

The sentencing came only days after Britains prime minister Keir Starmer flew to China for the first trip to the country by a UK leader in eight years, amid pressure from human rights groups to press for the release of the UK national.

Chinese president Xi Jinping. Photo: Reuters

Concluding his trip on January 31, Mr Starmer said he raised the case during his meeting with Xi Jinping and that he had a respectful discussion regarding his imprisonment in the former British colony.

Lai, who founded the Apple Daily newspaper, which was forced to close after a police raid and asset freeze in June 2021, had pleaded not guilty to two charges of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces, and a charge of conspiracy to publish seditious material.

But after a two-year trial, three judges handed down a guilty verdict, with Judge Esther Toh saying Lais actions left no doubt that he had harboured resentment for the Chinese government.

She said that the court was satisfied that Lai was the mastermind of conspiracies against the Chinese government and his evidence was at times contradictory, inconsistent and unreliable.

Who is Jimmy Lai?

Born in mainland China, Lai fled to Hong Kong aged 12 by stowing away on a fishing boat, where he began work as a child labourer in a garment factory.

He built his fortune through fashion empire Giordano, before becoming an outspoken democracy advocate following the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, when hundreds, if not thousands, of protesters fighting for political reforms in Beijing were killed.

In 1994, Lai became a full UK citizen. Despite having never held a Chinese or Hong Kong passport, he is regarded as a Chinese citizen by Hong Kong authorities.

Lai began the producing Chinese-language and pro-democratic newspaper Apple Daily before the 1997 handover of Hong Kong from the UK to China, as he aimed to maintain freedom of speech in the territory.

The paper was openly critical about the Chinese government.

Why was he imprisoned?

A known pro-democracy campaigner, Lai was known to Chinese authorities ahead of the 2019 protests in Hong Kong, prompted by Beijings growing crackdown on wide-ranging freedoms through the national security law.

Lai described the legislation as a death knell for Hong Kong, and his Apple Daily was critical of the reforms while being supportive of the protesters.

On August 10, 2020, Lai was arrested alongside his sons on the accusation of collusion with foreign forces and fraud.

Later that year he became the first high-profile figure to be charged for allegedly conspiring and colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security, under the new legislation.

He has since been charged and banned on separate cases of unlawful assembly and other crimes relating to pro-democratic protests in Hong Kong.

British prime minister Keir Starmer. Photo: PA

On December 15, Lai was found guilty on multiple charges of sedition and foreign collusion in a landmark moment for the citys draconian national security laws and sliding press freedoms.

Judges depicted Lai as the orchestrator of a campaign aimed at pressuring foreign governments to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and China, allegedly with the goal of bringing about the downfall of the ruling Communist Party. Lai has denied all the charges.

The sentencing yesterday capped a legal saga spanning almost five years. Lais sentence of 20 years was within the harshest penalty band of 10 years to life imprisonment for offences of a grave nature and is the most severe punishment meted out yet under the new laws.

The three judges said Lais sentence was enhanced by the fact that he was the mastermind and driving force behind persistent foreign collusion conspiracies.

Lais declining health

Lai has spent much of his imprisonment in solitary confinement  and his son has been outspoken about fears over his health.

The millionaires son, Sebastien Lai, claimed last year that his father, who suffers from diabetes, had lost a significant amount of weight and that he had been denied independent medical care.

Lais lawyer, Robert Pang, told the court that he had experienced some episodes where he felt that he was collapsing and had heart palpitations, prompting the court to adjourn proceedings and order that he be provided with a heart monitor and medication.

The Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, a US-based non-profit advocacy organisation, said Lai was an iconic figure in the battle between those who uphold democratic values and Hong Kongs authoritarian government.

Responding to his conviction in December, its UK and Europe director Mark Sabah said: The trial against Jimmy Lai has been a grotesque exercise in legal subversion and chicanery  a show trial masquerading as justice.

But whats actually been on display is the complete and total destruction of Hong Kongs reputation as a global legal centre.

My father has been treated inhumanely, his son Sebastien previously told The Independent.

But he is defiant and strong.
Call for him to resign comes from Scottish Labour Party leader

British prime minister Keir Starmer refused yesterday to heed calls to quit, even from the leader of his party in Scotland, pledging to fight on after his appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador plunged his government into crisis.

Under pressure over the appointment of Mr Mandelson, whose close ties to Jeffrey Epstein have come into full focus, Mr Starmer has attempted to change the narrative.

But a demand from Scottish Labour Party leader Anas Sarwar for him to quit and the departure of a second senior aide in as many days did little to stop the questions over his judgment and ability to govern.

The resignation of communications chief Tim Allan followed the exit of Mr Starmers closest aide, Morgan McSweeney, who said he took responsibility for advising on the appointment of Mr Mandelson.

Despite Mr Sarwars intervention, Mr Starmer received messages of support from his top ministers and some potential leadership rivals, and a positive reception at a meeting of Labour Party lawmakers suggested there would be no imminent move to oust him.

After having fought so hard for the chance to change our country, Im not prepared to walk away from my mandate and my responsibility to my country, or to plunge us into chaos, as others have done, Mr Starmer told the meeting, saying his focus was preventing Nigel Farages Reform UK from taking power.

Morgan McSweeney, former chief of staff to Keir Starmer. Photo: Getty

That is my fight, that is all of our fight, and were in this together.

Downing Street sources characterised the prime minister as absolutely determined as he appeared before MPs hours after Mr Sarwar said he should quit.

But they added he acknowledged his operation had not been open or inclusive enough and, in a meeting described by MPs present as broadly positive towards him, pledged to give more weight to the views of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

At last nights meeting, there were more than 30 interruptions for applause from MPs, although one critic of the prime minister compared the scene with the Battle of the Little Bighorn  the Wild West massacre also known as Custers Last Stand.

The prime minister also paid tribute to his former chief of staff, Mr McSweeney, and apologised again for his decision to appoint Mr Mandelson as ambassador to the US.

He also issued a rallying call to his MPs, urging them to unite against Reform UK, describing the fight against the party as the fight of our lives.

He said: It goes to the heart and soul of who we are as a party, as a government and as a country. What it is to be British. And, if they ever get in, they will divide, divide, divide. And it will tear this beautiful country apart. That is the fight of our times.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar speaks to the media during a press conference. Photo: Getty

Ill tell you this, he added. As long as I have breath in my body, Ill be in that fight, on behalf of the country that I love and I believe in, against those that want to tear it up.

Earlier, Mr Sarwar, speaking in Scotland where Labour has seen its support slump since the 2024 election, said it was with a heavy heart that he had to defend Scotland and call for a change of leader in London.

The distraction needs to end and the leadership in Downing Street has to change, he told a press conference.

In response, a Downing Street spokesperson said Mr Starmer had a clear five-year mandate from the British people to deliver change, and that is what he will do.

With his statement, Mr Sarwar became the most senior Labour figure to call for Mr Starmers resignation, and did little to quell a febrile mood in Westminster.

Government borrowing costs rose, reflecting investors concerns that a more left-wing Labour leader who was willing to borrow and spend more could take over. The climb in yields, along with the value of the pound against the euro, later eased after the potential successors came out in support of Mr Starmer.

He is safe for now

With Mr Starmer losing his fourth communications director, his record in government is under scrutiny, including the gaffes and policy U-turns that have tainted his almost two years in power.

Its painful, said one Labour lawmaker on condition of anonymity. Its like watching a fatal car crash in slow motion.

But Mr Starmer was greeted at the meeting with a round of applause from the Labour members of parliament, and one lawmaker who was there told Reuters: He is safe for now.

He also received a show of support from deputy prime minister David Lammy, finance minister Rachel Reeves and foreign minister Yvette Cooper, among others. Angela Rayner, his former deputy who is seen as a leading leadership candidate, offered him her full support.

I urge all my colleagues to come together, remember our values and put them into practice as a team, she said on X. The prime minister has my full support in leading us to that end.

With Mr McSweeneys departure on Sunday, Mr Starmer had hoped to reset the narrative and attempt to return to an agenda he has so far failed to keep any focus on: tackling the cost-of-living crisis and boosting the British economy.

British prime minister Keir Starmer with Peter Mandelson last February. Photo: PA

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch accused Mr Starmer of being unable to run his government.

Hes like a plastic bag blowing in the wind, she told Sky News. We need him to get a grip and, if he cant do it, then someone else in the Labour Party needs to do that, or they should have an election.

The new scandal over Mr Mandelson, who was sacked as ambassador to the US in September, came after files released by the US justice department last month included emails suggesting Mr Mandelson had leaked discussions on possible UK asset sales and tax changes to Epstein during the financial crash.

Mr Mandelson has not commented publicly on allegations he leaked documents and did not respond to messages seeking comment. He is now under police investigation for alleged misconduct in office.

Mr Starmer has defended his own actions, accusing Mr Mandelson of creating a litany of deceit about his Epstein ties and promising to release documents on how he was appointed.
Ghislaine Maxwell refuses to answer questions at US committee

Buckingham Palace said yesterday it was ready to support any police investigation into King Charles younger brother after emails suggested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor might have shared confidential UK trade documents with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Mountbatten-Windsor, already cast out of the royal inner circle over his close relationship with Epstein, has faced fresh scrutiny since the recent publication of millions of new documents relating to the late disgraced US financier.

The king has made clear, in words and through unprecedented actions, his profound concern at allegations which continue to come to light in respect of Mr Mountbatten-Windsors conduct, a palace spokesperson said.

In the latest files released in the US, emails suggest he shared official UK trade documents with Epstein in 2010, after Epsteins conviction for child sex crimes, leaking information from his then role as an official government envoy.

King Charles meets famers during his visit to Clitheroe Auction Mart in Lancashire. Photo: PA

Andrew shared confidential trade information with Epstein during envoy role

The documents appear to show that Mountbatten-Windsor forwarded Epstein reports about Vietnam, Singapore and other places, which he had been sent in relation to an official trip.

Trade envoys are usually barred from sharing sensitive or commercial documents. The 65-year-old second son of the late Queen Elizabeth has always denied any wrongdoing and has not responded to requests for comment since the latest release of Epstein files.

Thames Valley Police said the issue had been reported to them and that they were assessing whether to formally investigate.

The palace added: While the specific claims in question are for Mr Mountbatten-Windsor to address, if we are approached by Thames Valley Police, we stand ready to support them as you would expect.

As was previously stated, their majesties thoughts and sympathies have been, and remain with, the victims of any and all forms of abuse.

Mountbatten-Windsor was forced to quit all official royal duties in 2019 over his ties with Epstein and, last October, Charles removed his title of prince. Last week, he was forced to move out of his royal mansion.

In 2022, he settled a lawsuit brought by Virginia Giuffre which accused him of sexually abusing her when she was a teenager, through her association with Epstein. Ms Giuffre died by suicide last April.

While the royal family have attempted to distance themselves from Mountbatten-Windsor, he remains a thorn in their side. Charles, how long have you known about Andrew and Epstein? a man shouted from the crowd as the king arrived in Clitheroe, north-west England, the second time he had been heckled in a week.

Meanwhile, Epsteins former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell refused to answer questions at a deposition before the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform yesterday, according to politicians, drawing criticism from both Republican and Democratic members of the committee.

We had many questions to ask about the crimes she and Epstein committed

Maxwell, who was found guilty in 2021 for her role in helping Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls and is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence, invoked her fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination and declined to answer questions, politicians said after the deposition.

This is obviously very disappointing. We had many questions to ask about the crimes she and Epstein committed, as well as questions about potential co-conspirators, the committees chairman, Republican representative James Comer, told reporters.

Democrats on the committee accused Maxwell of using the deposition to campaign for clemency from US president Donald Trump and called on the Republican president to rule out such a move.

Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Photo: AP

What we did not get were any substantive answers to the questions that were asked that would advance our investigation, James Walkinshaw, a Virginia Democrat, said.

What we did get was another episode in her long-running campaign for clemency from President Trump. And President Trump could end that today  he could rule out clemency for Ghislaine Maxwell, the monster.

Suhas Subramanyam, a Democratic representative, said that Maxwell appeared robotic and unrepentant throughout yesterdays hearing.

David Markus, a lawyer for Maxwell, said he advised her to invoke the fifth amendment as she has a pending habeas petition that demonstrates that her conviction rests on a fundamentally unfair trial.

If this Committee and the American public truly want to hear the unfiltered truth about what happened, there is a straightforward path. Ms Maxwell is prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump, Mr Markus said in a statement to the committee posted on X yesterday.
William (left) with the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud during his visit. Photo: PA

Britains Prince William has begun the most important foreign visit of his public career, travelling to Saudi Arabia and being hosted by the countrys controversial leader.

The Prince of Wales began a three-day visit to the Gulf state, at the request of the government, to strengthen ties with one of the UKs closest Middle East allies and a major religious and political player in the region.

The future king met with Saudi leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, followed by a private dinner at his farm in a world Unesco site in the Saudi capital.

London and Riyadh are hopeful the two men, who have met before, will develop a connection, with any burgeoning relationship between the two royals likely to set the tone for Anglo-Saudi relations for decades to come.

But the crown prince, known as MBS, is a controversial figure to the West, the head of an absolute monarchy whose regime has been accused of human rights violations, while the ruler is alleged to have links to the brutal murder of a Washington Post journalist.

The Saudi rulers reputation was badly damaged by a US intelligence determination that claimed he had ordered the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

A source said about the Saudis: They are delighted that hes here [William].

The fact that hes a prince and the future king matters enormously. They want it to be a friendship that lasts.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Photo: AFP

Ahead of the visit, William and his wife Kate issued their first public statement about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal  which has seen Williams uncle Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor stripped of his titles after years of being dogged by sex allegations involving Epstein.

A Kensington Palace spokesperson said: I can confirm that the Prince and Princess of Wales have been deeply concerned by the continued revelations. Their thoughts remain focused on the victims.

The statement was issued a few hours ahead of the princes arrival in Riyadh and there was a real sense from Kensington Palace they wanted the position of the prince and princess to be known so William could focus on the trip.

But the Epstein scandal escalated after Thames Valley Police said it is assessing claims that Andrew shared confidential reports from his role as the UKs trade envoy.

William was greeted at King Khalid International Airport, after arriving on an RAF plane, by the deputy governor of Riyadh, Prince Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Abdulaziz.

After a welcome gahwa  Arabic coffee flavoured with cardamon  and a brief chat with dignitaries in the royal terminal, the prince was whisked off for his first royal engagement with the crown prince.

William and the crown prince toured the Unesco World Heritage Site, At-Turaif in the Diriyah area of the capital, the birthplace of the Saudi Kingdom, and later sat down for talks.
Migrants on board a wooden boat in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea in 2025. Photo: Simone Boccaccio

Two babies are among at least 53 people dead or missing after an inflatable migrant boat sank off Libya, the UN migration agency said.

It is the latest tragedy on a dangerous route for those seeking a better life in Europe.

The UNs International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said that the boat with 55 African migrants on board departed Libyas western town of Zawaiya shortly before midnight on Thursday.

Around six hours later it began taking on water and capsized on Friday morning north of the town of Zuwara. Two Nigerian women survived the shipwreck and were rescued by Libyan authorities, the IOM said.

One of them said she lost her husband, while the other reported losing her two babies.

Trafficking and smuggling networks continue to exploit migrants along the central Mediterranean route, the UN agency said.

These networks make profits through using unseaworthy boats to sail migrants from the chaos-stricken Libya to European shores, it added.

Libya has in recent years emerged as the dominant transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East, even though the North African nation has plunged into chaos following a Nato-backed uprising that toppled and killed long-time autocrat Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The number of migrants reported dead or missing in 2026 on the central Mediterranean route now stands at 484, according to the IOMs missing migrants project.

Last year saw more than 1,300 migrants dead or missing on that route, it said.

These repeated incidents underscore the persistent and deadly risks faced by migrants and refugees attempting the dangerous crossing, it said.

Human traffickers in recent years have benefited from the chaos in Libya, smuggling in migrants across the countrys lengthy borders, which it shares with six nations.

The migrants are usually forced to sail on crowded, ill-equipped vessels, including rubber boats.

Those who are intercepted and returned to Libya are held in government-run detention centres rife with abuses, including forced labour, beatings, rapes and torture  practices that amount to crimes against humanity, according to UN-commissioned investigators.

The abuse often accompanies efforts to extort money from families of those held, before the migrants are allowed to leave Libya on traffickers boats.
Substation is hit leaving 80,000 without power in city bordering Poland

Soldiers prepare tea at their position on the frontline in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, on Saturday. Photo: AP

Damaged cars are seen in the courtyard of a residential neighbourhood following Russia's airstrike in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, on Sunday. Photo: AP

An elderly woman reacts after her home was destroyed in a Russian airstrike on a residential neighbourhood in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, on Sunday. Photo: AP

Russian overnight drone attacks across Ukraine killed at least four people, including a mother and her 10-year-old son, and knocked out power for tens of thousands of people, Ukrainian officials said yesterday.

The boy and his mother were killed in the attack on a residential area in the town of Bohodukhiv in the eastern Kharkiv region, the regional prosecutors office said.

It said six people had been hurt in the attack on the region, which has been a frequent target of attacks in the nearly four-year war that started with Russias full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022.

Ukraines Air Force said Russia had launched 11 ballistic missiles and 149 drones against Ukraine overnight. Of these, 116 drones were shot down or neutralised and some missiles were intercepted and did not reach their targets, it said.

The attacks on Ukraine have continued despite ongoing US-brokered peace talks with Russia. President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the Trump administration wants Moscow and Kyiv to find a solution on how to end the war before the summer.

A massive Russian drone attack on the southern port city of Odesa killed one and injured two others, regional governor Oleh Kiper said.

Residential infrastructure and a gas pipeline were also damaged, Mr Kiper added on the Telegram messaging app.

A drone attack in the northern Chernihiv region killed a 71-year-old man and injured at least four others, its governor, Viacheslav Chaus, said.

People were asleep, Mr Chaus said, adding that the attack had destroyed some buildings completely and damaged others. Nine people, including a 13-year-old girl, were also injured in a drone attack in the south-eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, its governor, Oleksandr Hanzha, said.

Russia damaged a high-voltage substation near the city of Novovolynsk in the western Volyn region that borders Nato member Poland, local mayor Borys Karpus said, leaving more than 80,000 consumers without power.

Critical infrastructure in the city was now running off generators as workers try to restore electricity supplies, he said.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. Photo: AP

Since last autumn, Moscow has intensified its attacks on the Ukrainian power grid and other energy infrastructure, leaving millions without power and heating in freezing temperatures.

There were also new attacks overnight on railway infrastructure in the Sumy and Chernihiv regions, Ukrainian National Railways said.

Meanwhile Russias Federal Security Service (FSB) said yesterday that the men suspected of shooting one of the countrys most senior military intelligence officers had confessed that they were carrying out orders from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

Ukraine has denied any involvement in Fridays attempted assassination of Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev, deputy head of Russias GRU military intelligence service. Mr Alexeyev has regained consciousness after surgery.

Russia said that the suspected shooter, a Ukrainian-born Russian citizen named by Moscow as Lyubomir Korba, had been questioned after he was extradited from Dubai. A suspected accomplice, Viktor Vasin, has also been questioned.

Russian forces are trying to press forward around the city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine

The FSB said in a statement that both Mr Korba and Mr Vasin had confessed their guilt and given details of the shooting which they said was committed on behalf of the Security Service of Ukraine.

The FSB did not provide any evidence that Reuters was able to immediately verify. It was not possible to contact the men while they were in detention in Russia. The SBU could not be reached for comment on the FSB statement.

The FSB said Mr Korba was recruited by the SBU last August in Ternopil, western Ukraine, underwent training in Kyiv and was paid monthly in crypto-currency. For killing Mr Alexeyev, Mr Korba was promised $30,000 by the SBU, the FSB said. The FSB said Polish intelligence was involved in his recruitment.

Russian forces are trying to press forward around the city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, Kyivs military said yesterday, hoping to conclude a months-long campaign to seize the strategic hub as Moscow seeks to capture the whole of the Donetsk region.

Ukraine has struggled to halt slow Russian advances around Pokrovsk and elsewhere along the 1,200km front line.

Kyivs General Staff said yesterday its forces still held the northern part of Pokrovsk, a city with a pre-war population of 60,000, and were also defending the smaller city of Myrnohrad nearby.

Pokrovsk, a railway nexus, has been the site of fierce fighting since last year. Its fall would mark Russias biggest battlefield victory since it seized the eastern city of Avdiivka in early 2024.

Moscow claimed late last year to have captured Pokrovsk, which Kyiv denied.

People evacuate wounded dogs after a Russian aerial strike hit a stray dog shelter in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. Photo: AP

Analysts say Russia has captured only about 1.3pc of Ukrainian territory since early 2023, though its aerial bombardments have inflicted heavy damage in recent months.

Ukraines 7th Rapid Response Corps, which oversees defences in the area, said Russia was pressing in the Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad area by exploiting insufficient Ukrainian air defences, using guided bombs and controlling heights and flanks with their greater manpower.

The group, whose map showed nearly all of Pokrovsk and much of Myrnohrad to be under Russian control, described the current fighting as the last battles for the two cities.

Nearly four years after its full-scale invasion, Russia occupies almost a fifth of Ukraines territory, including the Crimean Peninsula and parts of eastern Ukraine occupied before the war.

Russia is demanding that Ukraine relinquish the remaining 20pc of the industrialised Donetsk region that it has been unable to conquer, something Kyiv refuses to do.

Moscow has pledged to keep fighting until it achieves its war aims and says the issue of territory is of fundamental importance to the ongoing peace talks.

Polls show that a majority of Ukrainians say it would be unacceptable to cede the rest of Donetsk, which includes the heavily defended, so-called fortress cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, in exchange for peace.
A Palestinian pushes an elderly woman on a wheelchair under a closed Israeli gate near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Photo: Reuters

Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates led regional states yesterday in condemning Israels move to ease settlement expansion and widen its powers in the West Bank, a step critics said went in the direction of annexing occupied land.

Sundays decisions by Israels security cabinet will make it easier for Jewish settlers to buy land in the West Bank and give Israeli authorities more power to act in areas supposedly under full Palestinian control, two senior Israeli ministers said.

One of them, ultra-nationalist finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, said in announcing the decisions that the government would continue to kill the idea of a Palestinian state.

A joint statement by foreign ministers of Middle Eastern and some other Muslim countries, including Egypt and Turkey, denounced the decisions as a violation of international law that would undermine the vision of a two-state solution as well as stability in the region.

They said the moves meant to entrench Israeli settlement of the West Bank, displacing Palestinians and imposing unlawful Israeli sovereignty there.

Annexing the territory has long been a priority of far-right parties in prime minister Benjamin Netanyahus coalition.

Most nations have long backed the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel

Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey all have diplomatic relations with Israel. Saudi Arabia has said it will not establish such relations until the formation of a Palestinian state.

Most nations have long backed the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel as the best way to resolve the generations-old conflict and see the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, as the largest part of that future state.

Israeli defence minister Israel Katz and Mr Smotrich issued a joint statement explaining the decisions of the five-member security cabinet, which were not published in full.

The security cabinet decided to repeal a law dating from Jordans control of the West Bank before 1967 to make land registries public rather than confidential and to remove a requirement for a permit from a civil administration office. They said these moves would make it easier for Jews to purchase land in the West Bank.

Hagit Ofran from the Israeli settlement watchdog group Peace Now said the decision was barred by international law and represented a step towards annexation of the West Bank.

The decision to allow every Israeli the right to buy land in the West Bank without government approval, without inspection, is also another way of saying its normal life. Its not occupied territories, its like part of Israel, she said.

Annexation is opposed by US president Donald Trump, who last year said he would not allow Israel to carry out such a step.

Its not going to happen, Mr Trump, who is expecting Netanyahu at the White House for a meeting tomorrow, said in September.

In Hebron, a West Bank city with extensive archaeological remains and a significant Israeli settler community, Palestinians voiced dismay at the decisions.
Israel wants strict limitations on Tehrans ballistic missile programme

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit Washington this week, amid fears in Israel that Donald Trump will strike a weak deal with Iran.

Mr Netanyahu had been expected to travel to the US in mid-February for the first meeting of Mr Trumps Board of Peace.

But the meeting was brought forward after the initial round of US-Iran talks in Oman on Friday. Jared Kushner, Mr Trumps son-in-law, and Steve Witkoff, his special envoy, represented the US.

Israel is demanding that any agreement reached at the talks includes limitations on Tehrans ballistic missile programme and its support for terrorist groups, rather than only its nuclear ambitions. Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, has said he wants talks to extend well beyond Irans nuclear programme.

However, there is unease in Israel that Mr Trump will ultimately favour a narrow deal on nuclear enrichment that will do nothing to address Israels other concerns.

While the talks were initially hailed as positive, Abbas Araghchi, Irans foreign minister, has since ruled out his country giving up uranium enrichment.

Some observers have said that may have been directed at appeasing hardliners at home, rather than a negotiating tactic.

Yesterday, Irans atomic chief said he could agree to dilute the most highly enriched uranium in exchange for all sanctions being lifted.

Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organisation, said: The possibility of diluting 60pc enriched uranium ... depends on whether, in return, all sanctions are lifted or not.

In Iran, several prominent reformist politicians have been arrested in a sweeping crackdown on those who criticised the regimes deadly suppression of protests. The arrests target leaders of the Reformist Front, a coalition of 27 parties that supported president Masoud Pezeshkian in the 2024 elections.

It suggests hardliners are moving to silence any voices that might complicate nuclear negotiations or challenge the regimes narrative about the protests and the talks.

Security forces detained Azar Mansouri, head of the Reformist Front, Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, Mohsen Aminzadeh, Javad Imam, spokesman for the coalition of moderate political groups, and Ali Shakouri Rad, a member of the Central Council of the Union of the Nation Party.

As thousands of protesters were killed last month, the Reformist Front issued a statement saying a large part of Iranian citizens have lost their trust in all institutions and capacities that were supposed to be the refuge, representative and pursuer of their demands.

The group called for the formation of an independent truth-finding committee and a transparent and frank report to the Iranian people.

It also demanded that the supreme national security council explains how, with the presence of this volume of security, intelligence and law enforcement institutions, according to their own official accounts, such a large number of unknown armed elements were able to be active throughout the country and systematically and mercilessly kill thousands of Iranian citizens.

That question has struck at the heart of the Iranian regimes narrative about the protests.

It implicitly challenges whether the official accounts of the violence were accurate.

The Islamic Republic has blamed the deaths on foreign-backed terrorists and unknown armed elements rather than acknowledging security forces opened fire on protesters.

Mehdi Karroubi, whose son was arrested yesterday, issued a statement after the crackdown,saying that Irans dire situation is the direct result of destructive domestic and international interventions and policies by Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader.

( Telegraph Media Group Holdings Ltd)
Trump told police chief 'everyone' knew about Epstein, FBI document says



A newly uncovered FBI interview raised new questions about US president Donald Trump's assertion he knew nothing about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's crimes, while Trump's commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, has faced a barrage of questions from lawmakers about his own ties to the financier.





The day's developments underscored how the fallout from the Epstein scandal remains a major political headache for the Trump administration, weeks after the Justice Department released millions of Epstein-related files to comply with a bipartisan bill.





The files have also created crises abroad after revealing new details of Epstein's ties to prominent people in politics, finance, business and academia.





In July 2006, as Epstein's first sex crime charges became public, the police chief in Palm Beach, Florida, received a call from Trump, according to the summary of a 2019 FBI interview with the police chief that was among the files.





The police chief, Michael Reiter, cited Trump as having told him: "Thank goodness you're stopping him, everyone has known he's been doing this."





Trump is alleged to have told Reiter that people in New York knew about Epstein and advised him that Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's associate, was "evil," according to the document.



Trump is also alleged to have said he had once been around Epstein when teenagers were present and that he "got the hell out of there".





Reiter, who retired in 2009, confirmed the details of the FBI interview to the Miami Herald, which first reported its existence.





Asked about the reported conversation, the Justice Department said, "We are not aware of any corroborating evidence that the president contacted law enforcement 20 years ago."





Trump was friends with Epstein for years, but they had a falling out before Epstein's first arrest, Trump has said. The president has repeatedly said he was unaware of Epstein's crimes.





White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday that Trump has been "honest and transparent" about ending his association with Epstein.





"It was a phone call that may or may not have happened in 2006," she said. "I don't know the answer to that question."





Separately on Tuesday, Lutnick sought to distance himself from Epstein while testifying at a Senate hearing, alleging he "barely had anything to do with" him.





The Justice Department files included emails that showed Lutnick appears to have visited Epstein's private Caribbean island for lunch in 2012, seven years after he claimed to have cut off all ties. The revelations have prompted calls from both Republicans and Democrats for him to resign.





Lutnick told senators that the two men had met only three times over 14 years and that the lunch, which included his family, occurred simply because he was on a boat near the island.





"I know and my wife knows that I have done absolutely nothing wrong in any possible regard," Lutnick said at the hearing.





But the emails contradicted Lutnick's previous statements that he vowed in 2005 never to see Epstein again, after Epstein, his neighbor at the time, showed Lutnick a massage table at his townhouse and made a sexually suggestive comment.





Republican Representative Tom Massie told CNN on Sunday that Lutnick should "make life easier on the president, frankly, and just resign."





Leavitt told reporters at the White House on Tuesday that Trump "fully supports" Lutnick.





Congressional Democrats also introduced legislation on Tuesday intended to make it easier for adult victims of sex trafficking to sue their abusers, even many years later.





Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Representative Teresa Leger Fernandez announced the bill alongside Epstein victims and Virginia Giuffre's family. The proposal  Virginia's Law  is named after Giuffre, one of Epstein's most prominent accusers, who died by suicide last year.





Epstein was found dead in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial. While officially ruled a suicide, his death has prompted years of conspiracy theories, including some that Trump himself amplified to his supporters during his 2024 presidential campaign.





Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for her role in helping Epstein abuse teenage girls, sat for a deposition before the U.S. House's oversight committee on Monday but refused to answer any questions.



Reuters




Madhya Pradesh Shops & Establishments Act Amendment: Digital Compliance Reforms and Employer Implications

In December 2025, Madhya Pradesh amended its Shops & Establishments Act to fully digitize labor compliance, moving registration, inspections, and closures to online systems. The state also permitted women to work night shifts, subject to enhanced safety safeguardsunderscoring its push for easier compliance and more inclusive employment.

Indias state of Madhya Pradesh (MP) has enacted the Second Amendment to its Shops & Establishments Act, 1958, reinforcing its move towards a fully digitized compliance ecosystem. The amendment modernizes how establishments are registered, monitored, and inspected, with all key processes now routed through state government-notified online systems.

Madhya Pradesh S&E Act: Key highlights of the 2025 amendment

The primary objective of the amendment, introduced via extraordinary gazette published on December 15, 2025, is to modernize the compliance framework. This includes online registration of establishments, electronic maintenance of records, automated issuance of certificates, and technology-driven inspection mechanisms.

Transition to a fully digital compliance framework

The amendment formally incorporates the following digital mechanisms into the Act:

Central inspection system: A state-notified online platform for the scheduling, allocation, conduct, and monitoring of inspections. Labor department portal: The official portal for registration, modification, compliance updates, and closures.

All statutory interactions under the Act are now routed exclusively through these systems.

Revised registration process for establishments

Section 6 of the Madhya Pradesh S&E Act now mandates online registration of establishments. Employers must apply for registration on the notified portal within 30 days from the date the Act (i.e., December 15, 2025) becomes applicable to the establishment. The application should be submitted in the prescribed format along with the applicable fee and include details such as:

The name of the employer and management personnel, Address and date of commencement of business, Name and category of the establishment (shop, commercial establishment, hotel, restaurant, theatre, etc.) Any other prescribed particulars.

Upon submission of the required information and payment of fees, the registration certificate will be automatically generated by the portal. The digital certificate must be prominently displayed at the establishment. The registration fee is to be prescribed under the rules but cannot exceed INR 2,500 (US$27.6) per establishment.

To register under the revised MP S&E Act, companies can visit the official website; click here: labour.mp.gov.in

Mandatory online updates for changes

The S&E amendment places a statutory obligation on employers to ensure that any change in the registration details submitted under Section 6 is updated on the portal within seven days of such change.

Once the information is updated, the portal will automatically revise the register of establishments and generate an amended or fresh registration certificate, as required. This provision ensures real-time accuracy of establishment records.

Online intimation of closure

Under the revised Section 8 of the Madhya Pradesh S&E Act, employers are required to intimate the closure of an establishment within 10 days of such closure through the online portal.

Following this update, the establishment is removed from the register of establishments, and the corresponding registration certificate is digitally cancelled. This ensures formal closure is reflected in the state government records without manual intervention.

Changes to inspection powers

The amendment also revises the inspection framework under Section 41. Inspectors are now authorized to enter establishments allotted through the central inspection system, reinforcing the role of technology in inspection allocation and oversight.

Additionally, a safeguard has been introduced for smaller establishments. Inspectors are restricted from exercising inspection powers in establishments employing 20 or fewer workers, unless prior permission is obtained from the Labor Commissioner or an authorized officer. This provision aims to reduce unnecessary regulatory burden on small businesses.

ALSO READ: Gujarat Shops & Establishments Update: New Rules for Employers

Action points for employers in Madhya Pradesh

1. Review registration coverage

Confirm that all establishments in Madhya Pradesh are registered on the Labor Department portal.

Ensure digital registration certificates are available and displayed at each workplace.

2. Validate existing information

Verify the accuracy of the employer, manager, address, category, and commencement details.

Rectify discrepancies promptly through the portal.

3. Establish internal update controls

Implement processes to ensure changes are reported within the 7-day statutory timeline.

Clearly assign responsibility to HR, compliance, or operations teams.

4. Prepare for digitized inspections

Familiarize relevant teams with the central inspection system.

Maintain statutory records and certificates in accessible digital formats.

5. Plan for new establishments or closures as per latest amendment

Complete registration for new establishments within 30 days of commencement.

Intimate closures within 10 days and confirm digital cancellation of registration.

6. Train HR and compliance teams

Update internal SOPs to reflect the digital compliance framework.

Night shift employment of women in Madhya Pradesh (June 2025)

On June 27, 2025, the state issued two notifications under the Shops and Establishments Act, 1958, and the Factories Act, 1948, revising the framework for employing women during night shifts. These notifications replace earlier orders.

Shops and commercial establishments

Women may be employed between 9:00 pm and 7:00 am (IST), subject to conditions including:

Written consent from women employees Minimum deployment of five women per night shift CCTV surveillance and presence of women security personnel Compliance with the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, and the POSH Act, 2013

Factories

Women may be employed between 8:00 pm and 6:00 am (IST), subject to stricter safeguards, including:

Safe transportation to and from the workplace Well-lit and secure premises Women wardens and supervisors where lodging is provided At least one-third women supervisory staff during night shifts A mandatory 12-hour rest interval between shifts Full compliance with the POSH Act

Policy direction

Together, these measures signal Madhya Pradeshs new approach to workforce participation. While shops and commercial establishments benefit from streamlined conditions, factories are subject to enhanced safeguards reflecting operational and safety considerations. The framework balances expanded employment opportunities for women with robust protections.

(US$1 = INR 90.52)
Textile exemptions and market access commitments

Image credit : X/Maga_Trigger | Bangladesh US trade pact brings 19% tariff

Aircraft orders, energy imports and defence purchases

Image credit : X/Maga_Trigger | President Donald J. Trump

Labour, environment and tariff reductions

Regional context and economic significance

Image credit : X/Maga_Trigger | The White House said the agreement provides significant preferential market access

Bangladesh has secured a reduced 19 per cent tariff rate on exports to the United States under a reciprocal trade agreement signed by the two countries on Monday. The deal includes exemptions for certain textile and garment products manufactured using US-origin cotton and man-made fibres, offering targeted relief to Bangladeshs export-heavy apparel sector.Muhammad Yunus, chief adviser to Bangladeshs interim government, said Washington had committed to establishing a mechanism that would allow selected Bangladeshi apparel and textile goods produced with US materials to enter the American market at zero reciprocal tariff. The arrangement follows months of negotiations aimed at easing trade barriers between the two sides.The White House said the agreement provides significant preferential market access for US industrial and agricultural products in Bangladesh. These include chemicals, medical devices, machinery, motor vehicles and parts, soy products, dairy items, beef, poultry, tree nuts and fruit.Bangladesh has also agreed to relax several non-tariff barriers. According to US officials, Dhaka will accept US vehicle safety and emissions standards, recognise certifications issued by the US Food and Drug Administration, and lift import restrictions on remanufactured goods.The deal outlines measures intended to improve regulatory alignment and reduce friction in bilateral trade, particularly in sectors where access has historically been limited by differing standards.Both sides highlighted recent and planned commercial transactions linked to the agreement. These include aircraft procurement, approximately $3.5 billion in purchases of US agricultural goods, and an estimated $15 billion in imports of US energy products over a 15-year period.According to the 32-page agreement released by the Office of the US Trade Representative, Biman Bangladesh Airlines plans to purchase 14 Boeing aircraft, with options for additional orders. The airline first announced its intention to buy Boeing jets last July while trade negotiations were ongoing.Bangladesh will also acquire an unspecified quantity of US military equipment and reduce defence purchases from certain countries, according to the agreement.Bangladesh committed to upholding internationally recognised labour rights and strengthening environmental safeguards as part of the deal. Yunus said the agreement followed nine months of negotiations that began in April last year.In August, Bangladesh had already secured a reduction in US tariffs on its exports to 20 per cent, down from the 37 per cent initially proposed by Washington, providing interim relief to apparel exporters.Under tariff schedules released by the USTR, Bangladesh will reduce high duties to zero on several farm and food products, including poultry, pork, seafood, rice, corn and cereal grains, once the agreement takes effect.Other tariffs will be cut by 50 per cent initially and then phased down to zero over five or ten years, depending on the product. For example, the current 53.6 per cent duty on almonds will be eliminated over a decade, while the same rate on four-stroke auto rickshaw engines will be removed within five years.Bangladeshs 19 per cent tariff rate is slightly higher than the 18 per cent rate agreed for imports from India last week under a separate arrangement with the Trump administration, though that deal still requires further negotiations before being finalised.US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Bangladesh is the first South Asian country to complete a reciprocal trade deal with the United States, calling it a meaningful step toward opening markets, addressing trade barriers and creating new opportunities for American exporters.The ready-made garments sector remains central to Bangladeshs economy, accounting for more than 80 per cent of export earnings, employing around four million workers, and contributing roughly 10 per cent to gross domestic product.Bangladesh is set to hold elections on Thursday after being governed by an interim administration since August 2024, when former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India.Most US tariffs under the agreement will be set at a flat 19 per cent. However, Bangladeshi-made pharmaceutical ingredients and aircraft parts will be exempt from duties, in line with treatment extended to other countries that have signed tariff-reduction deals with the Trump administration.
Image credit : X/@omegawatches | What started as a luxury brand appearance quickly spiraled into one of the most viral celebrity moments of the year.

OMEGA gala turns into an unexpected crossover event

Image credit : X/@616_gum | As the two actors took the stage together, George Clooney reacted to Park Bo Gum's visuals.

George Clooney reacts to Park Bo Gum's visuals - and chaos ensues

Viral X clip sends fans into meltdown mode

Cant even blame him have u seen bogum https://t.co/Mqdg7mmazZ pic.twitter.com/GAMIW6cOvn





 #1 hate page  is seeing bts (@andfuckfeminism) February 9, 2026

there are people meeting each other that have never met each other before https://t.co/8xuq6SmlJi





 gigi (@ptriiichor) February 9, 2026

I thought this was one of those fake quotes until I watched the video  https://t.co/1Z9SkJSYGz





 SunG   STILL MAD FER IT (@sunglasssbb) February 9, 2026

Park Bo Gum's 2026 projects keep momentum soaring

The Village Barber

Life in a rural barbershop is anything but ordinary! Park Bo-gum, Lee Sang-yi, and Kwak Dong-yeon turn every day into charm, laughs, and magical stories. 





#TheVillageBarber 





Premieres 11 February | Every Tuesday 22:30 (GMT+8)





#tvNAsia #BestKoreanEntertainment pic.twitter.com/KEikWaNZIm





 tvN (@tvN_Asia) February 9, 2026

Dream of a Peach Blossom Land

Hollywood royalty George Clooney has officially entered his unexpected K-drama era - and fans cannot stop talking about it. The American superstar, long hailed as one of the most handsome men in Western cinema, stunned audiences with a brutally honest and wildly dramatic reaction to Korean actor Park Bo Gum's real-life visuals. What started as a luxury brand appearance quickly spiraled into one of the most viral celebrity moments of the year.The moment unfolded at the opening gala hosted by OMEGA in celebration of the 2026 Olympic Winter Games. As global ambassadors for the luxury watch brand, both Clooney and Park Bo Gum arrived as the very first guests, instantly commanding attention.What fans didn't expect? The evening would turn into a full-blown internet spectacle.As the two actors took the stage together, Park Bo Gum spoke warmly about his excitement for the event and openly admitted he never imagined meeting George Clooney in such a setting. That's when Clooney decided to steal the show.Responding to Park's comments, Clooney began with a compliment, calling the Korean star, "He's a very sharp guy." But the tone quickly shifted from polished praise to jaw-dropping honesty.Then came the line that launched a thousand memes."It's very frustrating for me because at 64, I look at him and I wanna kill myself." The room erupted. Fans online did too.The clip of Clooney's reaction spread like wildfire across X (formerly Twitter), with K-drama fans and Hollywood watchers alike losing their minds over the unexpected candor.Many called it the ultimate cross-industry validation moment for Park Bo Gum, while others joked that Clooney had perfectly summed up how the internet feels every time the actor appears on screen.What was meant to be a formal Olympic-themed gala instantly turned into one of the most talked-about celebrity interactions of the year.While the viral moment dominates headlines, Park Bo Gum's career continues to expand at full speed in 2026. The actor is currently appearing in tvN's reality show, which premiered on January 30, 2026. The series shows a softer, grounded side of Park as he works as a barber in the countryside, far removed from palace intrigue and designer suits.He is also set to star in the upcoming historical film, directed by Jang Hoon. Park will take on the role of Prince Anpyeong, with filming scheduled to continue through early 2026.With Hollywood icons openly stunned by his presence and major projects lined up, Park Bo Gum's global star power shows no signs of slowing down.
Invictus games could offer a symbolic public moment

Image credit : X/PrinceHarry_e | Prince Harry is reportedly working on a carefully timed plan to ease tensions with Prince William

Williams caution and the longstanding tensions

Image credit : X/queenofmemes80 | Prince Harry & Meghan Markle

Harry willing to make the first move

Quiet signals, family outreach, and Charles role

Image credit : X/CountdownHarry | Prince Harry may be willing to make the first move with Prince William

Prince Harry is said to be considering a carefully planned effort to mend his strained relationship with his brother, Prince William, as the Prince of Wales takes steps toward becoming king. According to reports, the Duke of Sussex, 41, has privately developed what one source described as a carefully timed diplomacy mission and battle plan aimed at ending the long-running dispute between the brothers.The plan was reportedly shared with Radar Online, which cited sources familiar with the situation. The timing of Harrys proposed move is believed to be deliberate, reflecting awareness of the shifting dynamics within the royal family as Williams role continues to evolve.Sources suggest that Harrys strategy may align with the Invictus Games scheduled to take place next year in Birmingham. The event could potentially mark the first public interaction between Harry and William since Queen Elizabeth IIs funeral in 2022.A palace staff member told Radar Online that the occasion could function as an olive branch moment, describing it as something symbolic but controlled, taking place under the banner of a cause that attracts broad support. According to the aide, such a moment would be designed to minimize risk while signaling a willingness to move forward.The same palace source said that if the brothers were seen together publicly, it would effectively communicate that the royal family was working to move past recent tensions that have affected internal relationships.The relationship between Prince Harry and Prince William has remained strained since Harrys marriage to Meghan Markle in 2018 and the couples subsequent move to California. Since then, the divide has deepened, with sources indicating that there is currently no clear signal from Williams side that he is ready to reopen communication.One royal source said there is no indication that the Prince of Wales is willing to take steps toward reconciliation at this stage. The source added that William is deeply protective of his family and believes that too much damage was done publicly for matters to be easily resolved.According to the same source, Williams position is not rooted in stubbornness but in caution. The concern, the source said, is avoiding further emotional fallout in the public eye.Sources close to the situation suggest that Prince Harry understands the current stalemate cannot continue indefinitely. An insider told Radar Online that Harry appears to recognize that one of them needs to take the first step and that he is prepared to do so.The source explained that Harry is aware that time is a factor, noting that Williams responsibilities are increasing and that the monarchy itself is undergoing change. According to the insider, Harry believes it is in everyones interest to reduce tensions before the burden of the Crown fully shifts.Sources also indicate that Harrys recent communications with King Charles III reflect a broader effort to extend an olive branch to the family. According to insiders, Harry is now focused on subtle gestures rather than public declarations.One palace insider said Harry wants to demonstrate that he can be part of the family again without provoking controversy, showing that he can support the institution in his own way.The process, according to PEOPLE, has been slow, with both sides taking small steps to rebuild trust. William is described as less accessible, but Harry reportedly believes that consistent effort could eventually ease tensions.King Charles III, 77, who is undergoing cancer treatment, has also attempted to improve relations. He and Harry reportedly met for tea at Clarence House last year, an encounter described by aides as a respectful and cautious reset.A royal commentator suggested that Charles may now be more open to understanding Harrys perspective, acknowledging privately that mistakes were made on both sides. According to the commentator, the King appears to be seeking a sense of peace within the family before time runs out.
Image credit : Instagram| German woman praises Indian friends after losing credit card

Support from friends sparks viral admiration

Image credit : Instagram| German traveller rescued by Indian friends generosity in India

When friendship transcends distance and nationality

Image credit : Instagram| Lost credit card sparks German tourists gratitude to Indian friends

A German traveller recently shared an uplifting story about friendship and generosity after losing her only credit card during a trip to India. The incident, which quickly went viral on Instagram, has highlighted the warmth, reliability, and sense of community among her Indian friends.Jennifer, 29, from Berlin, recounted the tense moment she realised her credit card was missing, only to be met with remarkable support from her friends in India. Screenshots from WhatsApp conversations, included in the viral video, show her friends immediately offering help, checking in constantly, and even sharing UPI IDs to ensure she had access to funds.Based on a true story. Never experienced more help than in India, read the caption accompanying her post. Jennifer emphasised that she never had to worry, as her friends ensured she had everything needed to continue her trip smoothly. She later repaid them, underscoring the trust and generosity at the heart of this experience.The video shows Jennifers friends going beyond simple reassurance. They coordinated solutions, guided her on practical steps, and provided financial support without hesitation. One text overlay in the clip read, Never underestimate Indian friends and their willingness to help, perfectly capturing the spirit of the episode.Social media users quickly responded, expressing admiration for the swift and selfless support she received. Many shared personal stories of similar experiences, reinforcing the idea that Indian hospitality and community spirit often leave a lasting impression on visitors. One user wrote, My first week in India, I lost my purse, and the person who found it returned it the next day. Only possible in India. Another commented, Indian hospitality is unmatched in the entire world. So glad everything worked out for you.The incident not only warmed hearts but also sparked wider discussions about trust, human kindness, and the bonds that can form even in short-term friendships. Jennifers experience has resonated far beyond her own circle, highlighting how acts of generosity can make a lasting impact.Jennifers story serves as a poignant reminder of the universal value of empathy and support. In a world often dominated by stories of misfortune or mistrust, this tale stands out for its positivity and humanity. It shows that even in moments of crisis, genuine friendship can provide reassurance, practical solutions, and lasting memories.The video has inspired many online, with viewers praising not just the immediate help but the underlying generosity of spirit that made the assistance possible. Jennifers experience is a testament to the connections that transcend nationality, reminding us that kindness and solidarity know no borders.
From Seattle stress to Delhi bliss

Image credit : Freepik | Gen Z Leaves US Jobs for a Better Life

But what really changed?

Purchasing power on steroids: In India, even a fraction of a US salary goes a lot further. Living in his family home, Chadha cut rent by 80 per cent and said his savings rate hit 90 per cent. Suddenly, what seemed like a normal pay cheque in Seattle became 'dynasty wealth' in Delhi.

In India, even a fraction of a US salary goes a lot further. Living in his family home, Chadha cut rent by 80 per cent and said his savings rate hit 90 per cent. Suddenly, what seemed like a normal pay cheque in Seattle became 'dynasty wealth' in Delhi. Time, family and house help: Loneliness and long commutes were gone for Chadha. Now instead of frozen dinners, he enjoys chai with his parents every evening. Plus, he has a cook and a driver, giving him time to focus on hobbies and self-growth.

Loneliness and long commutes were gone for Chadha. Now instead of frozen dinners, he enjoys chai with his parents every evening. Plus, he has a cook and a driver, giving him time to focus on hobbies and self-growth. Bye-bye Visa anxiety: Working in the US often comes with a constant worry about visas. But moving back to India eliminated that stress and let him focus on building products and exploring personal ideas.

I left my job as a Developer at Microsoft in US, and moved to India for a remote job opportunity.

















It changed my life for better:

















1. The "PPP" Superpower: In Seattle, $250k is "comfortable."

















In Delhi, it is "Dynasty Wealth" (Family House). My rent dropped 80%. My savings rate















 Ujjwal Chadha (@ujjwalscript) February 9, 2026





The bigger trend: Why is Gen Z rethinking abroad jobs?

Some of the major reasons are:

Cost of living mismatch: $100K+ in the US may only feel like a 'comfortable' salary, while in India, it can translate into significant wealth.

$100K+ in the US may only feel like a 'comfortable' salary, while in India, it can translate into significant wealth. Remote work makes it possible: with companies offering remote roles, Gen Z doesn't have to move abroad to access high-paying jobs.

with companies offering remote roles, Gen Z doesn't have to move abroad to access high-paying jobs. Work-life balance: Long travel hours, expensive rents and loneliness abroad push people to look for happiness over a big pay cheque.

Image credit : Freepik | Why Young Techies Are Returning Home

Rise in reverse migration wave

Image credit : Pexels | The Reverse Migration Trend

Imagine earning $250,000 (Rs 2 crore) a year, working for Microsoft in the US, and thinking... "I could actually live better somewhere else." Sounds wild, right? But that's what Ujjwal Chadha, an Indian developer, did, and his story might just explain why so many young Indians are rethinking the dream of working abroad.Chadha worked at Microsoft in the US for over three years. By anyone's standards, $250K is a huge salary. But here's the catch: in Seattle, it felt 'comfortable' at best.Rent, frozen dinners, two-hour commutes and no family around made life feel expensive and lonely.Hence, he made the bold move to quit his job, got a remote role in India and moved back home, and this turned out to be a life-changing moment for Chadha. And his quality of life? Totally transformed.I didnt step down. I stepped up, Chadha wrote on his X post.Well, Chadha's story isn't unique or new. In recent times, increasingly, young Indians are returning home after stints abroad or skipping the US or Europe dream entirely, but why?Turns out, the dream of working in the US isn't as dreamy as it used to be. With H-1B visa uncertainty making life abroad stressful, more Indian techies are packing their travel bags and heading home.A LinkedIn date shows a 40 per cent jump in professionals updating their location in Q3 2025, which is a serious reverse migration trend.While for Gen Z, it is proof that chasing big salaries abroad isn't the only path to success. Sometimes, this is the best career move that brings you closer to family, a better lifestyle and zero visa drama.
Greece has joined a coalition of European nations pushing for unified legislation to ban or strictly limit social media access for children under 15, Digital Governance Minister Dimitris Papastergiou announced.

In an interview with state broadcaster ERT, Mr. Papastergiou confirmed Athens is coordinating with

Spain , and Denmark to combat the mental health risks posed by addictive algorithms. He argued that age-based restrictions are urgent, noting that minors increasingly communicate solely through "images and hearts without real interaction."

The proposed framework targets platforms with continuous video feeds and may utilize digital tools like a "Kids Wallet" for strict age verification. However, Mr. Papastergiou acknowledged that state regulation requires parental support to be effective.

"Childrens digital lives cannot remain unregulated," Mr. Papastergiou said, also calling for stricter oversight of online gaming and artificial intelligence to protect youth from deepfakes and deceptive content.

Separately, the minister unveiled plans to modernize road safety enforcement, announcing a tender for thousands of digital cameras nationwide to automatically penalize speeding and mobile phone use while driving.

   iefimerida.gr
New details about the 54-year-old Hellenic Air Force wing commander who was spying for China.
The Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) has urged the national assembly to approve mandatory and real-time transmission of election results from polling units to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) servers ahead of the 2027 general election.

The call comes after the senate passed the Electoral Act, which excluded the provision for real-time transmission of results.

The senates decision has sparked widespread criticism, with political figures, including Peter Obi, the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate in the 2023 elections, leading a protest to the national assembly complex on Monday.

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The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) had also threatened mass action over the development.

In a statement on Monday, co-signed by Eze Anaba, president of the guild, and Onuoha Ukeh, general secretary, the editors said the ongoing controversy over the senates position on result transmission is fuelling doubt and mistrust in Nigerias electoral process.

The NGE said the senates decision to allow electronic transmission of results without making it mandatory and immediate contradicts the expectations of many Nigerians and undermines efforts to strengthen electoral credibility.

According to the guild, the development has sparked public outrage, deepened tensions between citizens and the senate, and could discourage voter participation in future elections.

At a time when Nigerians are demanding mandatory and immediate transmission of results, and as countries around the world adopt electronic transmission to enhance transparency, the senates position leaves much to be desired, the statement reads.

The editors described the development as a missed opportunity to promote transparency and accountability, warning that it weakens democratic governance and confidence in elections.

The guild called on the national assembly, as the senate prepares to harmonise its position with that of the house of representatives on Tuesday, to ensure that the final provisions of the electoral law make real-time transmission of results compulsory.

According to the NGE, digitalising elections through real-time transmission will improve transparency, efficiency and accuracy, reduce disputes and controversies, and significantly curb electoral fraud.

Nigerians are watching the national assembly closely, the editors said.

They added that anything short of mandatory and immediate transmission of election results would be out of step with contemporary electoral practices and could erode public trust.
US Congressman, Rep Riley Moore, has said that genocide of Christians must end in Nigeria.

In a statement posted on his verified X handle on Monday, Moore said the responsibility of ending the menace falls on Nigeria and her citizens.

The lawmaker was reacting to last weeks abduction of a Catholic Priest, Rev. Fr. Nathaniel Asuwaye of Holy Trinity Parish in Kaduna.

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Gistmania reports that suspected bandits killed three people and abducted a Catholic priest along with 10 others during a fresh attack in Kaduna State.

Reacting to the development, Rep Moore said, Please join me in praying for the safe return of Rev. Fr. Nathaniel Asuwaye of Holy Trinity Parish in Kaduna who was kidnapped alongside 10 others.

Three of his parishioners were brutally murdered by radical Islamic jihadists during the attack. The last week has been some of the most horrifically bloody days in recent history for Christians across Nigeria.

The genocide of Christians must end, and it falls squarely on the Nigerian governments shoulders to defend its citizens  all of its citizens  and end this violent persecution. Please keep praying for our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Nigeria now ranks 142nd out of 182 countries in the 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), scoring 26 out of 100, according to Transparency Internationals latest assessment of public sector corruption.

The new position is down two places from the nations 140th spot on the 2025 CPI ranking.

The ranking places Nigeria behind 33 other African countries, spotlighting persistent governance challenges in Africas most populous nation.

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With this, Nigerias score remains well below the global average of 43.

The CPI, released on Tuesday, ranks countries on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). Transparency International reported that the global average dropped to 42, with more than two-thirds of countries scoring below 50.

Nigeria retained its score from 2024 but fell from 140th to 142nd place, reflecting stagnation in anti-corruption efforts.

In Africa, Seychelles topped the ranking with 68 points, followed by Cabo Verde with 62, Botswana 58, and Rwanda 58.

Other countries ahead of Nigeria include Mauritius, Namibia, Senegal, Ghana, South Africa, Tanzania, Morocco, Tunisia, Kenya, and Egypt.

Nigeria shares its 142nd position with Cameroon, Guinea, Kyrgyzstan, Guatemala, and Papua New Guinea.

Transparency International warned that corruption remains a serious global threat, fueled by declining political will, weakening democratic institutions, and lack of decisive leadership.

Were seeing a concerning picture of long-term decline in leadership to tackle corruption, Maira Martini, Chief Executive Officer of Transparency International, said in a statement on Tuesday.

At a time of climate crisis, instability, and polarisation, the world needs accountable leaders and independent institutions to protect the public interestyet, too often, they are falling short.

The organisation noted that 148 countries have either stagnated or worsened since 2012, while only 32 countries have significantly reduced corruption.

It warned that corruption diverts resources from essential services, undermines climate action, and erodes human rights worldwide.

Nigerias CPI scores have fluctuated over the years but remained consistently low. In 2019, the country ranked 146th with 26 points. It dropped to 154th with 24 points in 2021, improved slightly to 145th with 25 points in 2023, and rose to 140th with 26 points in 2024.

Over the period from 1996 to 2023, Nigerias CPI average stood at 21.48, reaching an all-time high of 28 points in 2016 and a record low of 6.9 points in 1996.

The country remains below the sub-Saharan African average of 33, reflecting entrenched governance challenges, selective enforcement, and institutional weaknesses.

The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) attributed Nigerias modest improvements in 2024 to the prosecution of corruption suspects, increased asset recovery, and greater cooperation with international partners, including the repatriation of stolen funds from France and the United States.

Executive Director Auwal Rafsanjani Musa said domestic efforts by the EFCC and ICPC, coupled with investigative journalism and civil society advocacy, strengthened accountability.

He also noted that digitisation of governance processes, including automated tax collection and procurement systems, contributed to Nigerias improved transparency.

Corruption scandals involving top officials continue to dominate public discourse. Yahaya Bello, former governor of Kogi State, faces charges for misappropriating over N110 billion in public funds.

He was arraigned in two Abuja courts in November 2024, pleaded not guilty, and was remanded at the EFCC facility before being granted bail.

Former EFCC Chairman Abdulrasheed Bawa was suspended in 2023 over corruption allegations, raising questions about accountability within anti-graft agencies.

Investigations into the misuse of COVID-19 relief funds, electoral fraud, and fuel subsidy scams continue, while former Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele was arrested for alleged financial mismanagement.

Civil society organisations, including CISLAC, continue to push for strict enforcement of the Proceeds of Crime Act and reforms to strengthen Nigerias anti-corruption framework.
The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has expressed profound optimism that the persistent political crisis in Rivers State is nearing a final resolution following a decisive fresh intervention by President Bola Tinubu.

Speaking to journalists on Tuesday in Abuja after inspecting several ongoing projects in the territory, the minister underscored the presidents role as a unifying figure whose leadership was essential in addressing the friction between the states executive and legislative arms.

He said, I believe that by the grace of God, this will be the last time the president will be bothered with this issue and that this will be the last time the Rivers people will need to hear this kind of discord.

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Wike emphasised the authority of the presidents counsel, noting that the president is the father of the nation, and when a father speaks, his children must listen and do the needful to ensure peace and progress.

Reflecting on the specifics of the truce and the expectations for both the Rivers State House of Assembly and Governor Siminalayi Fubara, the minister was clear about the path forward.

He said, The House of Assembly will do what they are supposed to do, and I am confident that the governor will also carry out the acts required of him to ensure this peace is sustainable.

Wike maintained that the commitment to stability is now the priority, stating that the most important thing is for Rivers State to move forward, and we are grateful to Mr President for his tireless commitment to ensuring that we reach this understanding.

The state assembly, which is seen as loyal to Wike, had recently begun impeachment moves against the governor. As part of measures to find a political solution to the matter, President Tinubu had on Monday summoned Wike and Fubara to the Presidential Villa to mediate in the feud.
A United States federal judge has openly criticised the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for prolonged delays in releasing records linked to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu.

The records were requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by transparency advocate Aaron Greenspan in 2022.

They relate to a long-standing narcotics investigation from the early 1990s, during which Tinubu forfeited $460,000 to the US government.

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Judge Beryl A. Howell of the US District Court for the District of Columbia expressed frustration over what she described as endless postponements by both agencies.

In a ruling dated February 3, she said the case had dragged on for more than three years without meaningful progress.

According to court filings, the FBI and DEA have repeatedly missed court-ordered deadlines, offering new dates without clear explanations.

Judge Howell warned that the delays were unacceptable and issued firm instructions that must be followed.

In 2023, the FBI announced plans to release about 2,500 pages of Tinubus records in batches of 500 pages per month.

However, the process was halted after Tinubu objected, arguing that releasing the documents could negatively affect him while his presidential election victory was still before Nigerias Supreme Court.

Judge Howell approved the pause at the time. But even after the Supreme Court upheld Tinubus election, the FBI and DEA continued to seek further extensions.

Judge Howell noted that the FBI had failed to release a single document, despite several projected completion dates that were repeatedly shifted.

She said the bureau had not provided a reliable end date for producing the requested records.

Her ruling highlighted how deadlines moved from August 2025 to September, then December, January 2026, and again to February, with what she described as minimal justification.

While the DEA has released some documents, Judge Howell criticised the agency for withholding others without clear timelines.

The DEA claimed some files were sent to other agencies for consultation but did not say when reviews would be completed.

The judge ordered the DEA to submit a detailed Vaughn index explaining why 50 pages were redacted and 172 pages withheld.

For 12 remaining records, she directed a DEA agent to file sworn affidavits explaining, page by page, the status of each document and efforts made to speed up their release.

Judge Howell also instructed the FBI to submit sworn statements explaining its repeated failure to meet deadlines. She made it clear that continued delays would no longer be tolerated.

President Tinubu has consistently denied any involvement in drug trafficking, maintaining that he committed no wrongdoing.
The exterior of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) building in Washington, is photographed March 22, 2013. Read more

Thanks to new changes in the tax law caused by 2025s One Big Beautiful Bill  specifically with regard to new deductions for tipped and overtime income  the U.S. Treasury Department expects many taxpayers to receive refunds this year.

The bill was passed in July [and many] working Americans didnt change their withholding, so theyre going to be getting very large refunds in the first quarter, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a December interview broadcast on NBC10. So I think were going to see $100 [billion]-$150 billion of refunds, which could be between $1,000 to $2,000 per household.

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Sounds great. But be careful. If youre in line to get your tax refund, you better make sure youre prepared to share your bank account information with the Internal Revenue Service. Otherwise you could experience significant delays.

A new IRS rule that affects 2025 tax returns is now requiring taxpayers to provide their bank account and routing numbers to receive refunds timely via direct deposit.

The IRS will still process individual income tax returns (Form 1040 series) filed without bank account information. However, the agency will temporarily freeze the refund until the taxpayer provides direct-deposit information or requests a paper check. More importantly, if incorrect bank account information is submitted, the IRS will freeze those direct deposits until the issue is resolved.

Many taxpayers havent fully grasped that shift yet, said Mitchell Gerstein, a senior tax adviser at Isdaner & Company in Bala Cynwyd. If you are hesitant to share bank information with the IRS, we explain that electronic payments are now the default.

Some may not feel comfortable sharing their bank information with the government, and ultimately providing this information is voluntary. But, according to Philadelphia CPA Jacob Cohen, not doing so will create headaches and delays.

If a taxpayer does not want to share the information, their refund will take longer to process and the IRS will still attempt to collect banking information before they issue a refund check, he said. The refund could be delayed several weeks at a minimum, but likely longer.

Not everyone will be affected by this rule. The IRS says international taxpayers, minors, prisoners, taxpayers with religious exceptions, and decedent taxpayers will receive paper check refunds as in the past.

And the IRS will still be making payments by check for now for those who request it. But they do plan on phasing out that ability in the coming years.

If you do not have an account, wed recommend setting up a basic no-fee checking account in person at a reputable bank, or even online with certain banks like Ally Bank or Discover Bank," Cohen said. The IRS offers the ability to split your refund into up to three accounts for retirement, savings, and checking.

What if you dont have a bank account and dont want to open one?

There are other options for those without bank accounts.

Treasury does offer alternative options such as prepaid debit cards, credit cards, or approved digital wallets such as PayPal, says Gerstein. Many reloadable prepaid cards like Netspend and Bluebird provide a routing and account number that you can use for direct deposit.

Make sure to check with your mobile app provider or financial institution to confirm which numbers to use.

The IRS also recommends visiting the FDIC website or using the National Credit Union Administrations Credit Union Locator Tool to find a bank or credit union and how to choose the right account for you. If you are a veteran, you can use the Veterans Benefits Banking Program (VBBP) for access to financial services at participating banks

If you decide to go fully digital, Philadelphia CPA David Lopez recommends setting up your online account and also creating an account on ID.me. This program is used by several government and non-government agencies and allows you to track the status of your tax refund.

For the IRS, you can use the ID.me platform to review your tax documents for the past seven years, run reports on your income and wages, and obtain tax documents that you may have displaced, he said. Users can see if you owe, if you have a refund, and [can] even make payments in installments if needed.

Typical refunds are processed within 21 days for an e-filed return and six weeks or more if sent by mail, according to the IRS. Refunds will take even longer if corrections are needed or bank information isnt included. Wheres My Refund will have the latest information on your return.

Why is the IRS pushing so hard for electronic payments?

Gerstein says the real benefit for both individuals and businesses is faster, more secure refunds and fewer lost checks with an immediate payment confirmation. Most accounting experts say that the IRS does process refunds via direct deposit faster than by check and that its the quickest way to do business with the agency.

Our advice is simple, he said. Set up an IRS online account, double-check your bank routing and account numbers, and dont ignore IRS letters.
When Vanguard Group outsourced more than 1,300 retirement-plan office jobs to Infosys in 2020, both companies pitched the deal as a win for the Philadelphia region, not just another cost-cutting move.

India-based Infosys called it a first step in attracting work from other U.S. financial employers.

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But with Infosys moving jobs back to Vanguard, the Trump administration discouraging visas for foreign workers at U.S. contractors, and Vanguard opening a large tech center in Hyderabad, India, that deal now looks as though it may have been a high point in U.S. outsourcing, not a sign of bigger things ahead.

Vanguard spokespeople in 2020 stressed that Infosys planned to use the outsourced workers to open a Mid-Atlantic Center of Excellence facility in Malvern.

Infosys officials said they hoped to hire more U.S. workers to outsource work from financial companies into the center under a veteran Vanguard manager, Martha King.

It was the largest-ever deal signed in Infosys history, Pravin Rao, chief information officer, told investors in a conference call the day after the deal.

The stock jumped 15% on the news. Infosys president Mohit Joshi promised to improve retirees investment experience and set a higher service standard.

But the expected new business didnt materialize. Infosys growth slowed after 2020. The companys stock is now worth less than when it signed the Vanguard deal, and its major U.S. office centers are elsewhere.

The Vanguard arrangement itself has partly unraveled. Infosys is in the process of transitioning services back to Vanguard, according to a report an Infosys official in Atlanta sent to the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry on Jan. 27.

As a result, 248 remaining Infosys employees who work on Vanguard projects are being laid off this spring and summer. That includes 70 record-keeping account administrators, 32 project managers, and others in smaller categories.

All but 10 will be offered jobs at Vanguard, according to the note, which referred state officials with any questions to a manager at Infosys Business Process Management (BPM) group in India.

That Infosys BPM outsourcing unit, initially financed by New York-based Citibank, had grown through the 2000s and 2010s by acquiring other outsourcing firms in the United States, Europe and Australia, adding business even as the backlash against outsourcing U.S. jobs grew.

The outsourcers tended to have lower pay. Vanguard employees who made the switch to Infosys got reduced benefits. New hires were paid lower rates than Vanguard veterans, according to former Vanguard and Infosys employees.

President Donald Trump has said he will curtail H-1B visas for foreign workers who come in the U.S. to work for outsourcing companies and other contractors and added $100,000 yearly application fees, though these have not been applied to all H-1B employers.

H-1B remains an important source of technology workers for U.S. government contractors and for state government contractors in Pennsylvania,New Jersey, and other states.

Two people familiar with Vanguard operations says it will continue to have some work done by Infosys and other tech outsourcing contractors.

Vanguard and Infosys declined to answer questions about what work Infosys will continue to perform for Vanguard.

Vanguard offered a general statement: Were proud to attract top talent to deliver the best possible outcomes for our clients. We also value our relationships with outside specialists who bring unique skillsets and the flexibility to allow us to deliver for our clients.

A check of U.S. H-1B visa records shows Infosys relied less on foreign workers for its U.S. operations since signing the 2020 Vanguard deal  whether because it hired more Americans as promised or also because of a slowdown in new business.

The total of Infosys H-1B visa holders in the U.S. peaked at around 21,000 in 2019, the year before the Vanguard deal, falling steadily to around 5,800 last year. The number of Infosys visa holders in Malvern dropped even more steeply over that period, the records show.

But during the same period, Vanguards own use of H-1B visas for company employees increased, from an average of under 100 a year from 2020 to 2023, to more than 200 in each of the last two years.

The visa holders include Vanguards $625,000-a-year-salary head of investor advice and wealth management, a post occupied by Canada native Johana Rotenberg, and its $300,000-a-year head of fraud strategy, now occupied by a banking-industry veteran, Pooja M, from India. Veteran Vanguard managers receive most of their pay as fund bonuses.

Most of the Vanguard H-1B visa workers were paid between $100,000 and $200,000 a year. Roughly half of the Infosys visa workers were paid $100,000 a year or less.

Inquirer staff writer Joe Yerardi contributed to this article.
Staff at the Esperanza Academy Charter High School have unionized amid a period of turmoil at the North Philadelphia school. Read more

Esperanza Academy Charter High School teachers and staff have unionized.

The brand-new Esperanza High School Collective, a chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, now represents nearly 80 staff at the school.

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The move comes during a period of turmoil at the school, after some employees were laid off abruptly in December. Current and former staff say there have been sudden and arbitrary changes at the school, including larger class sizes and fewer staff working directly with children.

Union recognition was hard fought  a majority of the staff signed union cards in the fall, but the Esperanza administration declined to voluntarily recognize the collective.

Instead, the AFT had to go through the National Labor Relations Board, which held an election in late January. In all, 87% of the Esperanza Academy Charter High School staff voted to unionize. (Staff at Esperanzas elementary and middle schools have not unionized.)

Wendy G. Coleman, president of AFT Pennsylvania, said the organization was thrilled to welcome Esperanza Academy high school staff.

These dedicated educators and staff work tirelessly to ensure that their students receive the best possible education, and AFTPA is ready to work just as diligently to help them secure better class sizes, higher wages, and adequate resources for every member in their first contract, Coleman said in a statement. As we know, our members working conditions are our students learning conditions, and were excited to see what the future holds for the Esperanza High School Collective in their first contract.

Esperanza is the sixth of Philadelphias 81 charter schools to form a union; the vast majority of Pennsylvania charters are not unionized.
Students, staff, and community members who support Lankenau High School  including some dressed as trees, bees, and a Lorax  packed a community meeting at the school Wednesday. The Philadelphia School District proposes closing the city's only environmental sciences magnet, citing issues including low enrollment. But the school system had a hand in limiting enrollment. Read more

Lankenau Highs 11th-grade class is tiny  just 25 students.

Thats one of the reasons why closing the school is for the best, Philadelphia School District Associate Superintendent Tomas Hanna said at a community meeting last week.

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At small schools, Hanna said, programming options are limited and whats left behind is very difficult environment for young people.

 READ MORE: Phillys building plan would close this high-performing magnet. Lankenau is fighting back.

The district proposes merging Lankenau into Roxborough High as an honors program  a move that officials say will maximize opportunities for students at both schools. That proposal has been met with fierce opposition from the Lankenau community, whose members say stripping the school of its identity and removing it from its unique location on 400 wooded acres is unjustifiable.

But the district is responsible for some of the enrollment issues at Lankenau and some of the other 20 schools that Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. has recommended for closure. Schools with large numbers of empty seats were targeted under the plan, which the school board is expected to vote on this winter.

When the school system dramatically revamped its special-admissions process in 2021, moving to a centralized lottery from a system where principals had discretion over who got into the districts 37 criteria-based schools, enrollment dropped at some magnets.

For the 2022-23 school admissions cycle, Lankenau, Motivation, Parkway West, and Parkway Northwest  four of the 20 schools tagged to close  had dozens of unfilled seats in their ninth-grade classes.

The district set academic standards for admission to those schools, and stopped allowing schools to admit students who were close to meeting academic requirements and who demonstrated they would be a good fit for the individual schools, as had been done in the past. (Officials said they wanted to centralize admissions to avoid demographic imbalances at schools; those four magnets did not have a history of them.)

The districts using Lankenaus tiny now-junior class to justify closings infuriated many, including Matthew VanKouwenberg, a science teacher at the school.

Lankenaus size is a district-designed and district-created problem, VanKouwenberg said. Though the lottery was begun for equity reasons, the result is disastrous.

But Tonya Wolford, the districts chief of evaluation, research, and accountability, said Lankenau, Motivation, Parkway West, and Parkway Northwest had declining numbers of students applying prior to the lottery changes.

And for years, those schools accepted large numbers of students who didnt meet the districts criteria, Wolford said.

Dramatic enrollment drops after district orders

The data are clear: After the district pushed changes to the admissions process, the four schools all saw dramatic drops in enrollment  and some of them never recovered.

Motivation, in West Philadelphia, had a freshman class of 83 students and a total enrollment of 336 in 2022-23. It saw a 77% drop in its ninth- grade class  just 19 freshman in 2023-24. The school now has 151 students, and the district wants to close it and make it an honors program inside Sayre High School. It is operating at only 15% of its full capacity.

Lankenau, in Upper Roxborough, had 91 freshman in 2022-23, then 31 in 2023-24, a 66% decline. It now enrolls 225 students. The school is using 49% of its capacity.

Parkway Northwest had 77 ninth graders in 2022-23, then dropped to 30 in 2023-24, a 61% decrease, and is 60% full. Its got 248 students this year, and the district wants to close it and make it an honors program of Martin Luther King High.

 READ MORE: How Parkway West is building a pipeline of teachers

And Parkway West had 54 freshman in 2022-23, then 19 the following year, a 65% decrease. It now has just 140 students, and is using 40% of available seats. Its proposed to close and become part of Science Leadership Academy at Beeber.

A staffer who worked at Parkway West as the special-admissions process changes rolled out said they were devastating to the school, which typically filled three-quarters of its slots for incoming ninth graders with students who qualified on every measure, and a quarter by feel.

We found kids who maybe missed one criteria, but they were good kids, and had strong recommendations, said the staffer, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to a reporter.

When Parkway West lost that ability, its enrollment tumbled, and never recovered.

Lankenau community members say interest in their unique school has never waned, but the size of their incoming classes continues to be limited by the district  even beyond the admissions changes.

For the applicant class set to start high school in the fall, 107 students listed Lankenau as their first choice, staff said, and 95 have accepted Lankenaus school board offer.

But since 2022-23, district officials have limited Lankenau to two sections of ninth graders, and with class sizes capped at 33. So despite having interest and students enough for 99 freshmen, it wont have staff for more than 66.

In the last few years, staffers said, more than 66 students show up at the start of the school year. But with only enough teachers for 66, classes are overcrowded and some students end up transferring out.

That is the only reason we lose enrollment, said Erica Stefanovich, a Lankenau teacher. We wouldnt be in this situation if they hadnt put us in it. This is an artificial problem.

But, Wolford said the trend lines were clear for Lankenau and other schools.

In 2019-20, for instance, the prior to the districts admissions changes just 34 students met Lankenaus criteria, but 81 students accepted offers for the ninth-grade class, Wolford said. That same year, eight students qualified for Parkway Northwest on paper, but 34 were admitted, according to district data.

Schools like Lankenau and Parkway Northwest were existing without following the criteria, said Wolford.

Trees, bees, and a Lorax

Lankenau is putting up a spirited battle to stay open.

Last week, an overflow crowd  more than 100 students, staff, parents, representatives from Lankenaus many partner organizations, and community members  packed the school for a student showcase and district-led meeting about the closure. Some students dressed as trees, bees, and a Lorax, the Dr. Seuss character who speaks for trees  to emphasize the importance of their schools setting amid 400 acres of woods.

First, Lankenau students wowed visitors with presentations  about their study of natural resources, about the experience of foraging for ingredients to brew their own artisan teas  and then, it was down to business. Lankenau is too small, officials said, and the district must find ways to offer a more equitable experience for all students.

I dont discount that there is magic inside of these walls, Deputy Superintendent Oz Hill said. What Im sharing with you is if we can take that magic and enhance it with more extracurricular activities, more expanded academic programming, the skys the limit.

The parents, students, and staff in the audience werent having it.

Lankenau was just certified to become the states only three-year agriculture, food, and natural resources career and technical education program  a designation that took years to achieve, and cannot transfer to a new building.

Officials are proposing closing Lankenau a year and a half from now; thats not enough time for the district to reapply for the designation for a new Lankenau-inside-Roxborough CTE program.

District officials said at the meeting that they believe their close relationship with the state education department will give them enough time to get a new Roxborough program certified in time for the Lankenau closing.

Multiple parents told district leaders they would not send their children to Roxborough High.

And Akiraa Phillips, a Lankenau ninth grader, said she couldnt imagine attending school in another setting.

In Lankenaus current setting, learning doesnt stop at the desk. Our campus is the classroom, Akiraa said. We learn science by being in it. Here, we dont just talk about ecosystems, climate, and sustainability, we walk through it. That kind of learning sticks with you. You cant stick this into any random building and expect it to work.

The community turned out in full force, but politicians and other decision-makers were in the room, too. Three school board members, including president Reginald Streater, attended the meeting.

State Sen. Sharif Street (D., Philadelphia), the front-runner to replace U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans in Congress, said he was against closing the school, but noted that the decision didnt rest with him, and said the state needed to better fund schools because we have not met our obligation to fully fund the program.

And Councilmember Cindy Bass said she was particularly incredulous that the district was attempting to close a successful magnet  Lankenau has a 100% graduation rate.

If it works, why are you breaking it? Bass said. I do not understand what the logic and the rationale is that we are making these kinds of decisions. Were not just closing a school, were disrupting the lives of young people.
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The Di Bruno Bros. store at 385 Lancaster Ave. in Wayne, as seen in 2021. Read more

As the final two of three Di Bruno Bros. stores to close this month approached their last days, the wind-down was visible on the shelves. Cheeses, meats, breads, and prepared foods vanished first, followed by deeply discounted packaged goods that remained.

The Di Bruno locations in Wayne and the Franklin Residences in Center City, at Ninth and Sansom Streets, will close permanently on Wednesday, with no immediate clarity about what comes next. (The companys original Italian Market store and Rittenhouse Square shop remain open.)

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The closing of Di Brunos Ardmore branch last Wednesday, however, is already reshaping the future of Suburban Squares Ardmore Farmers Market, where the Italian-goods purveyor opened in 2011 and eventually became the dominant tenant.

Toward the end of its run, the Ardmore location of Di Bruno Bros. occupied more than half of the markets stalls. Rather than replacing it with another large operator, the market will be reconfigured to accommodate multiple smaller food tenants, said Douglas Green, a principal at MSC Retail, which handles leasing for Kimco Realty Corp., which owns Suburban Square.

Di Brunos just kind of got too big, Green said. It limited cuisine diversity and pushed them into specialty items and cuisines that werent really their core business.

An MSC Retail brochure shows four available spaces ranging from roughly 600 to 800 square feet, several of them divisible. Existing vendors  including Stoltzfus Meats, Ardmore Produce, Ardmore Seafood, Malvern Buttery, Sushi Sei, Tabouli, and the Ultimate Bake Shoppe  would remain, with additional future opportunity areas identified near the dining zones.

The idea is to break the space up into smaller units, create more cuisine diversity, and ideally replace the Italian specialty concept, Green said.

Green said his firm is already negotiating with multiple potential occupants, including chefs and restaurant groups from Philadelphia interested in suburban expansions. Theres been a tremendous amount of interest  honestly more than I ever would have imagined, and Im not saying that in a sales-y way, he said.

For customers, the swiftness of Di Bruno Bros. three-store shuttering has been striking.

Brendan Burland, an insurance consultant who lives in Bryn Mawr, stopped by the Wayne location Friday for lunch with a friend and found the bar closed and the shelves reduced to discounted goods.

No bread, no meats, no fresh cheeses, Burland said. It was depressing  a total ghost town.

Burland said the stores restaurant program had been losing its spark even before the final weeks. The bar menu had become less inspiring over the last few years, he said. It started to feel like, Heres some pizza and some sandwiches, instead of something interesting or unique.

What he will miss most are the basics that made Di Bruno Bros. a destination. Their product line was pretty substantial. My buddy and I even joked that we should become cheesemongers, he said, adding we know nothing about it other than we like to eat cheese.

The retrenchment follows the 2024 acquisition of Di Bruno Bros. by Browns Super Stores, which owns a dozen ShopRite and Fresh Grocer stores in the region. Later that year, Wakefern Foods, a grocery co-op that includes Browns, obtained the Di Brunos trademark and branded products.

Sandy Brown, the companys executive vice president, said when talks began with Di Bruno Bros. in 2023, it was facing significant financial challenges and was at risk of not being able to continue operating.

We even stepped in ahead of the acquisition to help ensure they could get through the 2023 holiday season, because many suppliers had already begun limiting deliveries due to concerns about the companys stability, Brown said.

That disruption in supply contributed to declining sales and worsening store conditions, she said. Our goal from day one has been to stabilize the business, protect the brand, and preserve an important part of Philadelphias history, Brown said. We believed  and still believe  that Di Bruno Bros. is worth saving.

The move is a shift from the Browns company announcement in December 2024 that it planned to open an additional 12 to 15 Di Bruno stores in the coming decade.

Sandy Brown said the company decided to prioritize the iconic locations in the Italian Market and Rittenhouse because these sites continue to anchor the brand.

She said all 69 retail workers at the three closing stores were offered positions elsewhere within Di Bruno Bros. or at Browns Super Stores, with no loss of pay or benefits. About 70% are expected to remain, she said, while three supervisory positions were eliminated. Workers had complained on social media about the abruptness of the planned closings.

While plans are coming together for the Ardmore location, the future of the Wayne and Franklin spaces remains unresolved. A representative for Equity Retail Brokers said the Wayne space is not yet on the market. MSC Retail, which also handles commercial leasing at the Franklin location, said that space is also not yet being marketed.
Philly apparently didnt get a rise out of Taylor Chip.

The Lancaster County cookie and ice cream company abruptly shuttered its stores in Center City and Fishtown in the last week with no notice. They had been open for less than a year and a half.

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In an email late Tuesday, a Taylor Chip representative said the company planned to file for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11, which would enable it to continue operating while restructuring its financial obligations. In addition to the two Philadelphia locations, a store in Lancaster was also closed, leaving the eight-year-old company with four locations, all in Central Pennsylvania, and an e-commerce business.

The company said it had signed Philadelphia leases in late 2022 expecting a timeline and costs similar to past openings, which typically took about three months. Instead, permit delays turned what was planned as a six-month rollout into nearly two years. Without investors, the company relied on creative financing to continue moving forward, it said. The Philadelphia stores performed well but could not generate enough profit to offset the debt created during the delays, it said.

Taylor Chip, which launched in 2018 as a home-baking project by husband-and-wife Doug and Sara Taylor, joined a burgeoning trend of high-priced cookie shops in Philadelphia in fall 2024. The owners prided themselves on the shops vast cookie selection: 24 to 30 varieties available at all times. Their enormous treats, weighing more than 5 ounces and priced at $5.25 apiece, touted local ingredients and house-made inclusions.

Heavy social media marketing accompanied the September 2024 debut of a Taylor Chip beneath a nail salon at 1807 Chestnut St. in Rittenhouse, as well as the opening in a storefront at 1828 Frankford Ave., near Berks Street. Fishtowners, in particular, were irked over a lower-tech promotion that festooned parked cars with fliers made to look like tickets.

The Fishtown and Rittenhouse stores were the sixth and seventh locations for the budding business, but Doug Taylor told The Inquirer for a 2025 story on the big cookie trend that the companys goal was to open 40,000 stores in 100 countries.

Around the time of the Philadelphia openings, Taylor Chip was pursuing plans for a multimillion-dollar production facility in Lancaster County. That project fell through last year.

Taylor Chip has been adept at securing grants, including a $470,076 Pennsylvania Dairy Investment Program grant in 2019 (later extended) to support dairy-based processing, and a $510,971 Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure grant announced in 2025 to launch ice-cream production and expand processing to new markets with Pennsylvania dairy farms.

Lately, the company has been touting its new seed oil-free protein cookie and the success of live sales on TikTok.

In December, Doug Taylor told Bloomberg News that even on a slow day, Taylor Chip can generate as much in sales in a few hours livestreaming on TikTok as the company does during a full day at one of its stores.

Taylor also said the company had hired a full-time livestream host and was building a facility in Pennsylvania with two live video studios.

This article has been updated with a company statement about the reason for the closing.
The American Medical Association is teaming up to create a system to review vaccine safety and effectiveness, traditionally a role for the CDC. Read more

The American Medical Association and a leading public health research group focused on vaccines are teaming up to create a system to review vaccine safety and effectiveness, mirroring a role long played by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The groups, which will operate independently from the federal government, say their work is needed because the CDCs vaccine review process has effectively collapsed. The parallel effort will initially focus on reviewing immunizations for influenza, COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, ahead of the coming fall respiratory season.

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The groups will not be making vaccine recommendations but will provide the evidence reviews to state health officials, clinicians, and others making vaccine decisions.

The nations largest physician organization and the Vaccine Integrity Project at the University of Minnesota will convene leading medical professional societies, public health groups, and healthcare organizations to ensure a deliberative, evidence-driven approach to produce the data necessary to understand the risks and benefits of vaccine policy decisions for all populations  the approach traditionally used by the federal government, according to a joint statement announcing the effort Tuesday.

The involvement of the AMA is significant because the doctors group has traditionally focused on issues such as physician reimbursement, billing practices and the economics of medical practice  not on broad public health evidence reviews. Its decision to help stand up a parallel vaccine review process reflects how seriously medical leaders view the breakdown of confidence in the federal governments vaccine system under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

This signals a really important foray for them to come into this space, said Jeanne Marrazzo, chief executive of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. It shows the considerable concern around where we are going with evidence-based recommendations.

For decades, the CDCs outside panel of vaccine experts  the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices  set the standards for which vaccines the agency should recommend and who should get them. Even though the recommendations were guidance, not law, physicians, school systems, health insurers and others broadly adopted them. The vaccine panel, in coordination with CDC staff, conducted extensive data reviews of benefits and risks, and held exhaustive discussions during its public meetings before voting to make new vaccine recommendations or change existing ones.

But Kennedy fired all 17 members of the vaccine panel in June and replaced them with a handpicked group that included several vaccine skeptics. The Department of Health and Human Services has also disallowed several doctors groups that had long provided input from participating in the panels work groups, the teams that do the detailed analysis for the full committee.

Since then, the panel has made recommendations that have been strongly criticized by public health and medical experts, including voting in December to drop the long-standing recommendation that all newborns be given the hepatitis B vaccine.

Andrew Nixon, an HHS spokesman, said the claim that ACIPs evidence-based process has collapsed is categorically false. ACIP continues to remain the nations advisory body for vaccine recommendations driven by gold standard science. He added, While outside organizations continue to conduct their own analyses and confuse the American people, those efforts do not replace or supersede the federal process that guides vaccine policy in the United States.

The new effort comes after the acting CDC director, a top deputy to Kennedy, took the unprecedented step of reducing the number of vaccines that the United States routinely recommends for every child. Leading public health experts and medical organizations raised alarms, saying the shift, which bypassed vaccine experts at CDC and its vaccine advisory panel, could weaken protections against preventable deadly disease.

Everything that has been done since the new ACIP has all been about ideology and not based on science, said Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesotas Center for d Research and Policy, which established the Vaccine Integrity Project last year.

Osterholm said the new initiative is an attempt to fill a huge black hole in public health and medical practice.

It is our duty as healthcare professionals to work across medicine, science, and public health to make sure the U.S. has a transparent, evidence-based process by which vaccine recommendations are made, said Sandra Adamson Fryhofer, an AMA trustee and the organizations liaison to the CDC vaccine panel. Together, we are committed to ensuring the American public has clear, evidence-based guidance that inspires confidence when making important vaccination decisions.

The Vaccine Integrity Project published an evidence review and convened panels that looked at scientific studies on COVID-19, influenza, and RSV vaccines in 2025, and is conducting a review of the HPV vaccine.
The volume of bariatric surgeries has fallen as the popularity of weight-loss drugs has grown. Read more

At Roxborough Memorial Hospital in Philadelphia, surgeon Piotr Krecioch has his hands full launching a program offering surgical interventions to treat obesity.

One in three Philadelphians are living with obesity, putting them at higher risk of chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease, but these days fewer are seeking the bariatric surgical procedures long considered a leading medical treatment for the condition.

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Im trying to start a bariatric program at probably the worst possible time you can ever imagine because everybodys losing patients, and I dont even have a patient to begin with, Krecioch said.

Tower Healths Reading Hospital recently closed its bariatric surgery program, and other local health systems have seen declines in weight-loss operations approach 50%.

Independence Blue Cross, the Philadelphia regions largest insurer, said the number of bariatric surgeries it paid for dropped by half in the five years ended June 30.

Those shifts in the bariatric surgery landscape have followed the meteoric national rise in the use of GLP-1s and related drugs for weight loss.

So far, the drugs have benefited patients by allowing them to avoid an invasive surgery. With bariatric surgery, people lose weight because the procedures restrict the amount of food a person can eat. Drugs in a class known as GLP-1s make people feel full longer.

For hospitals, the upheaval in treatment options cuts into a profitable business line and adds to the financial pressure health systems have been experiencing since the pandemic.

Despite the ever-increasing popularity of GLP-1s for weight loss like Novo Nordisks Ozempic and Wegovy and Eli Lillys Mounjaro and Zepbound, its too soon to write off bariatric surgery as an option, some doctors say.

Insurers are imposing limits on coverage because of the long-term cost of the drugs compared to surgery, and doctors are watching for side effects that may emerge as more people take the drugs for longer periods of time.

Its not the first time a new technology has reduced surgical volumes.

Whenever a less-invasive treatment has come along, surgical volumes always have taken a beating, said Prashanth R. Ramachandra, a bariatric and general surgeon at Trinity Health Mid-Atlantics Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital. Declines in peptic ulcer and open heart surgeries are past examples of the phenomenon, he said.

Such industrywide moves away from profitable procedures can create financial challenges for individual clinics or independent hospitals, said Daniel Steingart, who leads the nonprofit healthcare practice at Moodys, a major credit ratings agency.

But I also see it as an opportunity, because theres other patients out there, theres other services that can be provided. This is a matter of the management team being nimble, he said.

Sharp decline in bariatric surgeries

National data show a 38% decline in bariatric surgeries from the beginning of 2024 through September, according to data firm Strata Decision Technology. Comparable local data were not available.

A substantial portion of the drop is from patients who previously had bariatric surgery but regained weight, physicians say. In the past, they would have had a type of surgery called a revision. Now, those patients are more likely to start taking GLP-1s, local doctors said.

Only two Philadelphia-area health systems provided details on changes in bariatric surgery volumes in recent years as GLP-1s for weight loss took off.

At the University of Pennsylvania Health Systems three Philadelphia hospitals, the annual number of bariatric surgeries has fallen by more than half, from a peak of 850 three or four years ago to around 400 in the year that ended June 30, said Noel Williams, a physician who leads Penns bariatric surgery program.

At Mercy Fitzgerald in Darby, the number fell from an annual peak in the 220-230 range to about 125 last year, Ramachandra said.

The volume at Mercy Fitzgerald was likely buoyed by the closure of the bariatric surgery program at nearby Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland.

Tower did not provide details on the Reading closure, which was part of cutbacks Tower announced in early November. The program closed last month after a 60-day notice to the state health department.

Main Line Health, which only offers bariatric surgery at Bryn Mawr Hospital, said surgeries have declined, but provided no details.

Virtua Health did not provide comparable data but said that its Virtua Complete Weight Management Program, which opened in spring 2024 to expand into medication treatments, experienced a 35% increase in visits last year.

The number of bariatric procedures is also down at Temple University Health System, but patients with complex conditions and more severe obesity are still coming to Temple for surgery, said David Stein, who is surgeon-in-chief at Temple University Hospital.

To adapt to this rapid change in medicine, Temple is adopting a multidisciplinary approach to the disease, building on what is done in cancer care, Stein said.

Jefferson Health did not respond to requests for information about its bariatric surgery program.

How health systems are responding

While full-scale closures like Readings are unusual, cutbacks are occurring broadly.

When the bariatric surgeon at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center retired amid declining numbers of surgeries across the entire system, Penn did not replace him, Williams said.

Penn does the procedures locally at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and at Pennsylvania Hospital.

If the numbers were to continue the way they are now, Williams said, we may want to consolidate into one of our hospitals in the city.

Outside of Philadelphia, Penn has bariatrics programs at Lancaster General Hospital and Penn Princeton Medical Center.

After Jefferson Health acquired Einstein Healthcare Network in late 2021, it consolidated bariatric procedures at Jefferson Abington Hospital, according an Inquirer analysis of inpatient data through 2024 from the Pennsylvania Health Cost Containment Council.

Jefferson did not respond to a request for information about the changes.

Not the end for bariatric surgery

GLP-1s dont mean the end of bariatric surgery, even though the procedures are not likely to return to previous peaks, physicians said.

Some patients dont respond to GLP-1s and others cant tolerate them, which means they remain candidates for surgery, Williams said. Surgery is still recommended for patients who are considered severely obese, with body-mass indexes over 50, he added.

Outcomes cannot yet be compared over the long-term. Ramachandra and other doctors are keeping their eye on the ratio of fat loss and muscle loss in patients taking GLP-1s compared to those who have bariatric surgery. Losing muscle can lead to falls and fractures.

A study published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that bariatric surgery is associated with a favorable ratio of fat loss.

At Roxborough Memorial Hospital, Krecioch, who also works as a general surgeon, sounds optimistic as he works on his new program. He became a Roxborough employee in April 2024 after eight years at Mercy Fitzgerald, where he worked with Ramachandra.

Kreciochs strategy for years has been to offer weight management services in addition to surgery. Patients come for a GLP-1, giving him a chance to build a long-term relationship.

I have a feeling that these people are going to come back to my office, he said. Im gonna keep seeing them, and that they will actually convert to bariatric surgery at some point."

Editors note: This article has been updated with information from Temple University Health System.
Amy and John Nardi, who met at McGillin's in 1997, at the bar during the first reunion for couples who met there. Read more

McGillins Olde Ale House, the 166-year-old pub in Center City long owned by the same family, has determined that being a matchmaker is a strategic advantage in a crowded industry.

Of course they serve draft beer, Philly cheesesteaks, and wings  but the bar has leaned especially hard into being, in its own description, the place where more couples have met than anywhere else in Philadelphia.

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At McGillins first reunion for such couples this month, attendees seemed less like regulars at a bar and more like alumni of the same beloved college club, touched by those who came before and rooting for those to follow.

Everyone wore red-and-white name tags with the year their significant McGillins romantic event had taken place. The upstairs bar, where couples sat under tinsel hearts and drank from frosted glasses, was warm and close. There was merch; the crowd clapped especially hard for long marriages.

It was also a media event: four TV news stations, as well as the Philadelphia Citizen and The Philadelphia Inquirer, came to capture the famous McGillins couples. Irene Levy Baker, the bars longtime publicist and author of the new book Cheers to McGillins, Phillys Oldest Bar which has its own chapter devoted to mating magic, is clearly good at her job.

She is in touch with more than 200 couples who found love at the bar, and McGillins has so far filled up four guestbooks of signatures and anecdotes: Met New Years Day 2002. Engaged 9/22/12. Met here in 1996 when I was waitressing. Still together in 2024!

We actually met for the first time one bar stool over. I was eating a grilled cheese sandwich, said Emily Dowling, 28, sitting beside her husband, Giacomo Trevisan, after a keynote presentation of McGillins love stories. Dowling and Trevisans name tags were marked 2022.

On the fateful night that year, Dowling was out with a friend and Trevisan was visiting for the first time, having just arrived in the United States on an extended work trip from Italy. Hearing him speaking Italian, Dowling asked what had brought him to town.

I was impressed that a girl would just start talking to me. In Italy, it doesnt work like that, Trevisan, 32, said.

The two got married less than a year later. They closed out the night of their wedding with a drink at McGillins.

In a world of loneliness and dating app dread, in which people pay matchmakers and make PowerPoint presentations and even take out billboards looking for love, there is a certain nostalgia to the idea that a bar, with salvaged oak tables and framed liquor licenses dating back to 1871, is the best place to find it. At some point, the legend probably becomes self-fulfilling.

During an interview, Baker googled where do couples meet in Philadelphia, and the AI summary dutifully reported that couples in Philly meet in classic old spots like McGillins Olde Ale House.

Diane and John Davison, for example, met in 1969: He was a regular, she was a first timer. The downstairs bar was smoky and packed. Patrons passed glasses of beer hand-to-hand above the crowd because no one could reach the bar.

I remember the first time I saw her face, John said. Nice smile.

I remember the night, Diane, 79, said. John and I dont exactly agree on some of the details.

The two have been married for over 50 years, and the bar is an intimate part of their story. Johns brother, who has since passed away, also met his wife at McGillins. Just before Christmas, John celebrated his 80th birthday there, and the other diners sang to him.

Both Baker and Christopher Mullins Jr., who co-owns the bar with his parents, have theories about why McGillins is a magnet for connection: its unpretentious, its approachable. The tables are close. The beer obviously helps.

At night it can get packed, but the atmosphere during the day is cozy; a fire crackles in the downstairs grate and patrons order soup for lunch.

We dont want to be old-fashioned and forgotten, but we want it to be the same kind of feel that people experienced 50 years ago, Mullins said.

Of course, there are some differences. Kaitlynn Capoferri, 32, mentioned wanting to get wings and beers at McGillins  on her Tinder profile. So Amanda Capoferri, 32, asked her on a date to the bar in 2017.

When Amanda proposed at the bar three years later, All I could get out of my mouth after stumbling to pull the ring out of my pocket was, I know how much you love McGillins, and I can only hope that you love me as much. (Theyve been married for four years).

Its all part of the lore, carefully curated and growing by the day.

There is one guy who sometimes comments on the Facebook page and hell say, I met my wife there and were divorced now, Baker said. She wasnt deterred. Im like, Well, Im glad you found love here once. Be sure to come back.
YEREVAN, Armenia  Vice President JD Vance landed in Armenia on Monday  a country that no sitting U.S. vice president or president has visited before  as the Trump administration offered economic opportunities while it works to advance a U.S.-brokered deal aimed at ending a decades-long conflict with Azerbaijan.

Vance and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed an agreement to push forward negotiations on a civil nuclear energy deal, and Vance said the U.S. was ready to export advanced computer chips and surveillance drones to Armenia, and invest in the countrys infrastructure.

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The visit comes after Pashinyan joined a deal at the White House in August with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev where the leaders signed agreements reaffirming their commitment to signing a peace treaty. The text of the treaty was initialed by foreign ministers, which indicates preliminary approval. But the leaders have yet to sign the treaty and parliaments have yet to ratify it.

Peace is not made by cautious people, said Vance, who planned to travel to Azerbaijan on Tuesday. Peace is not made by people who are too focused on the past. Peace is made by people who are focused on the future.

The August deal between the two former Soviet republics calls for the creation of a major transit corridor dubbed the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity. It is expected to connect Azerbaijan and its autonomous Nakhchivan exclave, which are separated by a 20-mile-wide patch of Armenian territory.

The land bridge had been a sticking point in resolving a conflict that lasted for nearly four decades over control of the Karabakh region, known internationally as Nagorno-Karabakh. The region had been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since 1994. A six-week war in 2020 resulted in Azerbaijan regaining control of parts of the region and the surrounding areas. In September 2023, Azerbaijan launched a blitz that forced the separatist authorities to capitulate. After Azerbaijan regained full control of Karabakh, most of its 120,000 Armenian residents fled to Armenia.

Vance said that the Armenian prime minister had his endorsement in upcoming elections and he emphasized that the country was among the oldest to have identified as Christian.

Pashinyan expressed his gratitude toward President Donald Trump and Vance, noting that he had accepted an invitation to participate in the first meeting of Trumps Board of Peace on Feb. 19 in Washington. The group, founded by Trump, is overseeing the ceasefire plan in Gaza.

He said Vances visit was of truly historic and symbolic importance and it reflects the depth of the strong and strategic partnership forged between the Republic of Armenia and the United States of America.

The vice president and his wife, Usha, arrived in Yerevan after spending four days in Milan at the Winter Olympics with their family. They were greeted with a red carpet, an honor guard, and a delegation of officials. Armenian and American flags hung from poles from as the delegation drove to the vice presidents meeting, with some demonstrators on the side of the road, including one with a sign that said, Does Trump support Devils?
Philadelphia police crime scene unit gathers evidence at shooting by off-duty sheriff at 7300 block of Bunting Place, early Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. An off-duty Philadelphia sheriff's deputy and a family member shot a teen, allegedly trying to steal their car. Read more

An off-duty sheriffs officer shot a 17-year-old in Southwest Philadelphia early Tuesday morning.

Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small told reporters the off-duty officer saw the teenager, who has not been identified, breaking into his private vehicle around 3:32 a.m. on the 7300 block of Bunting Place.

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For reasons unknown at this time, the officer, and a member of the officers family, fired their guns at the teen inside the car, Small told reporters.

Four shots total were fired, according to Small, before the teen fled the scene.

Around 20 minutes later, a teenager was transported by a private vehicle to Presbyterian Medical Center, where the officer involved in the shooting identified the wounded teen. The teenager was placed in stable condition.

Small noted that the teen was in possession of commonly used car theft tools, like a screwdriver, extra key fob, and other items. He told reporters at the scene that investigators found four spent shell casings and newly broken locks on the cars doors.

The teenager was placed in custody at the hospital with charges pending.

The off-duty sheriffs officer and their family member are uninjured and cooperating with the investigation. The family member involved in the incident had a license to carry the firearm used in the shooting, Small said.
U.S. Border Patrol agents remove a person from their vehicle in St. Paul, Minn., in January. Read more

Many Americans were shocked by the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of federal immigration agents. Many more were repulsed by the federal governments lack of transparency, victim blaming, and obfuscation of the facts regarding the shootings.

But as border residents can tell you, whats playing out in places like Chicago and Minneapolis is, in many ways, nothing new.

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Although the administration has taken that lack of accountability to a nauseating low  interfering in federal and local investigations  impunity around immigration enforcement did not begin when Donald Trump took office.

Since 2010, more than 300 people have been killed in incidents involving on-duty Border Patrol agents, according to a tally kept by the Southern Border Communities Coalition. Out of that number, 74 have been killed by agents using force.

Those figures are likely an undercount, as the agency has a history of failing to report deaths its agents are involved in. It also consistently fails to seriously discipline agents who face abuse complaints. A 2017 report by the American Immigration Council found a host of problems with the complaint system and investigation process, resulting in little accountability.

Focusing on the use-of-force killings, I am not saying that all 74 were unjustified. As Gil Kerlikowske, who led U.S. Customs and Border Protection from 2014 to 2017, told me, agents often work by themselves in rural border stretches and can run into dangerous smugglers.

But as Kerlikowske also told me, when he arrived at CBP, the agency had an outdated use-of-force policy that wasnt available publicly, had no internal affairs division, and the only tools available to agents were firearms.

 READ MORE: Trumps immigration crackdown also threatens Americans pocketbooks | Luis F. Carrasco

Theyve always had a culture thats distinct, you know, going back to their early days, he said. They did have that kind of Wild West kind of culture.

Thats putting it mildly. While Kerlikowske instituted a series of important reforms around use of force, which he said his successors continued and improved upon, deep lasting change is slow and difficult.

As a 2021 report detailed, the agency has been steeped in institutional racism and has committed violent acts with near impunity since its creation in 1924. Lest you think that attitude got left behind last century, in 2019, a Facebook group that included around 9,500 current and former agents was found to be littered with racism and misogyny.

While Ive known Border Patrol agents who zealously enforce the law while never losing sight of their humanity, who would hand over their lunch to a hungry migrant they just detained, current and former CBP agents were involved in the killings in Minnesota.

The men who shot Pretti were identified by ProPublica as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and CBP officer Raymundo Gutierrez. Jonathan Ross, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who killed Good, began his law enforcement career in 2007 as part of the Border Patrol.

I hate to be cynical, but if past is prologue, President Trump and administration officials neednt have bothered putting their thumb on the scale after the shootings. The few times agents are held to account, the result is rarely justice.

In the last 35 years, only three Border Patrol agents have been charged and tried for killing someone in the line of duty. In all three cases, juries failed to convict.

 READ MORE: Alex Pretti is the latest victim in the Trump administrations drive for dominance | Luis F. Carrasco

Michael Elmer was charged with second-degree murder after the 1992 shooting of Dario Miranda Valenzuela in Nogales, Ariz. Elmer fired 12 shots, hitting Valenzuela twice in the back. He then moved the body and didnt immediately report the incident, according to the Arizona Daily Star. He was acquitted.

Nicholas Corbett was charged with murder for killing Francisco Javier Domingo Rivera near Douglas, Ariz., in 2007. The agents account did not match up with eyewitness testimony or the physical evidence. The Cochise County Attorneys Office eventually declined to prosecute after two trials ended in hung juries.

Lonnie Swartz was tried twice, once for second-degree murder and later for involuntary manslaughter, in the 2012 shooting death of 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez. I was an opinion writer at the Daily Star in Tucson, Ariz., when this case went to trial in 2018. The facts were undeniable: Swartz shot across the Nogales border fence into Mexico a total of 16 times. He stopped and reloaded. He hit the unarmed Elena Rodriguez eight times in the back and twice in the head from an elevation of around 14 feet.

That two juries found Swartz not guilty is unconscionable.

Taken in total, the message that federal immigration agents keep receiving  from the government and from juries  is that they can continue to operate with impunity.

Those who have long advocated for reform in these agencies say perhaps things will begin to change as a result of the deaths of Good and Pretti because they were white Americans. But this isnt about race or immigration status, its about unchecked power.

Kerlikowske, at least, is optimistic about what happens once Trump is out of the White House.

The Border Patrol isnt trained to work in cities. Thats not why they hired on. They didnt hire on to go work in Chicago or Minneapolis, he said. I think the vast majority of these folks will be happy to be back doing what they were doing.

Lets hope that when they do, they do so with a renewed commitment by the government to transparency and accountability. Otherwise, it may be back to business as usual.
Montgomery County elected officials forcefully condemned a Monday ICE arrest in which agents broke down a familys front door, lambasting officers for what the leaders described as needless cruelty.

We are here for one reason, to say that this kind of brutality is completely unacceptable, said State Sen. Art Haywood, a Democrat who represents parts of Montgomery County and Philadelphia, during a news conference Tuesday in Norristown.

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Neighbors watched in Lower Providence on Monday as a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement action turned into an hours-long siege, with the street blocked off and more than a dozen government vehicles outside a home in an effort to take one man into custody.

The local leaders comments came amid a national debate over President Donald Trumps deportation agenda, following violent operations in Minnesota in which federal agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens last month.

ICE agents, if you can hear me, do not follow these cruel orders that violate the basic dignity that we all recognize, and for all immigrants who are terrified  we stand with you, Haywood said.

ICE officials in Philadelphia did not respond to a request for comment.

Montgomery County has become a hot spot for ICE activity, and the Norristown area has come under particular scrutiny, with about one-third of the population identifying as Latino. In July, in one of its most high-profile operations in the Philadelphia region, ICE arrested 14 people at a food market near Norristown, about two miles north of the home where Mondays arrest took place.

Rachel Rutter, an attorney and the executive director of Project Libertad, was at the scene of the arrest Monday.

She said it appeared the man was going to work when agents attempted to stop his car, and the vehicles tapped. Each blamed the other, she added. The man, who was not immediately identified, subsequently went inside the home at Ridge Pike and North Barry Avenue in Lower Providence Township.

By about 10 a.m., agents had arrived and moved into positions around the property. Videos showed the road blocked off with yellow police tape.

Some agents approached the house, Rutter said, and at least one could be seen waving at someone who was filming from inside. Rutter said family members told her federal agents later obtained a warrant and subsequently broke through the door to arrest the man.

The Department of Homeland Security statement said Wednesday that ICE was conducting a targeted operation to arrest Jose Manuel Cordova Lopez, a Mexican national who overstayed his visa after it expired in 2021 and who in 2025 was charged with driving under the influence.

To try to evade arrest, DHS said, he weaponized his vehicle and rammed an ICE vehicle, then fled into his house and refused to come out. ICE subsequently obtained a criminal warrant and arrested him, the agency said.

On Tuesday, elected officials said they were especially concerned with the manner in which Mondays arrest was carried out.

Janine Darby, a Lower Providence Township supervisor, described seeing at least 20 unmarked vehicles, some with Uber stickers, along with agents from ICE and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. She added that an ambulance was called for a family member in the house who had been punched in the face.

Inside the home, what I saw was devastating, Darby said. Children crying, a family in shock, and a home destroyed after agents broke down the door.

State Sen. Katie Muth (D., Montgomery) said that ICE arrests make communities less safe and less trusting of law enforcement.

You allow this kind of unlawful behavior without due process to happen to one person, it can happen to anyone, Muth said.

Montgomery County Commissioner Neil Makhija, a Democrat and vice chair of the board, said Tuesday that its incredibly important that we continue to show that we are taking steps to protect every residents rights.

Immigration activists have repeatedly called for Montgomery County officials to adopt a formal ordinance or resolution to officially become a welcoming county.

The Democratic-led board of commissioners has not done so, citing limits to its power and concern about creating a false sense of security for immigrants. Last year, county officials approved a policy limiting communication between county employees and ICE and said they would not honor prison-detainer requests without a signed judicial warrant, and the commissioners confirmed that the county will not participate in ICEs 287(g) program, which authorizes local governments to assist in immigration enforcement.

Local stakeholders have called for all 62 municipalities in the county to enact their own welcoming provisions to limit cooperation with ICE. As of early December, six of them had done so.

State Rep. Greg Scott (D., Montgomery) said community advocacy is crucial, adding that residents witnessing and recording ICE activity are documenting reality.

Keep on recording, keep that spare battery pack in your pocket, he said. Keep it in your car, keep your phones charged. We got to keep recording to hold people accountable.
Analilia Mejia appeared to cement victory in the Democratic primary to replace New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill in Congress after her top opponent conceded Tuesday morning.

Its a massive upset win for the progressive movement.

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Mejia led the race with a razor-thin margin when former U.S. Rep. Tom Malinowski, the closest contender, conceded. The Associated Press has still not called the race five days after the election as the race remains tight, but Malinowskis concession will enable Mejia to focus on campaigning for her April 16 contest against Republican Joe Hathaway.

The progressive, an Afro-Latina, shared a gif of Bad Bunny overwhelmed with emotion as he stood last week to receive the coveted album of the year Grammy for Debi Tirar Mas Fotos  the first Spanish album to get the honor.

She delivered a victory speech a couple of hours later on a livestream that kicked off with about two dozen supporters from unions and progressive groups chanting abolish ICE, tax the rich, and Mejia for Congress.

Mejia said she wants to represent every voice in the district and said the victory was not hers alone.

This isnt a race in which one individual won, she said. This is a race in which the community stepped up and said, In this moment, what we want are real representatives who will listen to the people, who will ask questions about what is keeping you up at night, who will prioritize your interest over special interests.

There were 13 candidates in the special primary for the open North Jersey seat, but as the results poured in Thursday it became a race between Mejia, a progressive endorsed by the Working Families Party, and Malinowski, a moderate who represented a neighboring district before losing his reelection bid in 2022.

Analilia deserves unequivocal praise and credit for running a positive campaign and for inspiring so many voters on Election Day, Malinowski said in a statement Tuesday.

Malinowski initially appeared to be in the lead Thursday night, which led multiple outlets and the Democratic National Committee to prematurely declare the race in his favor. Mejia picked up steam and moved ahead of him as the night went on, and publications issued retractions.

In response, Mejia shared on social media the famous 1948 photo of President Harry Truman holding up the Chicago Tribunes erroneous Dewey Defeats Truman headline.

Mejia, the daughter of Colombian and Dominican immigrants, has repeatedly said that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement cannot be reformed and should therefore be abolished as President Donald Trumps immigration enforcement tactics become increasingly scrutinized across the country.

She said at a news conference Friday that her position resonated with voters, and that the agency must be replaced by something that isnt violent, that isnt shooting Americans in the streets, that is respecting our Constitution.

She made the case during her campaign that any old blue just wont do and that she is unbought and unbossed.

Malinowski raised nearly three times as much as Mejia through Jan. 16, according to Federal Election Commission data.

Her victory is a major breakthrough for New Jerseys progressive movement in what has become a fairly reliably blue district that includes parts of Essex, Morris, and Passaic Counties. It comes on the heels of a progressive victory in the crowded Jersey City mayoral race.

It also adds another feather to the cap of the national progressive movement after the victory of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who was supported by some of the same high-profile progressives as Mejia, including U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders (Ind., Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.).

Sherrill, who remained neutral in the primary, said in a statement Tuesday that she endorses Mejias campaign to replace her seat in Congress.

Ive known Analilia for years  Ive seen her dedication to expanding opportunity and fighting for working people. I know she will be a great partner in Congress whether it is fighting for the Gateway Tunnel or to protect our Constitutional rights," Sherrill said, referencing a major infrastructure project Trump halted.

Mejia will enter the April special election as a heavy favorite against Hathaway, the former Randolph mayor who ran unopposed in the Republican primary. A regular primary will take place less than two months later, on June 2, for the midterm elections in November. That means the winners term will last only through this year.

The progressive, who grew up in Elizabeth, lives with her husband and two kids in Glen Ridge in Essex County, where she says she has resided for 13 years.

She said Friday that garnering name recognition was an uphill battle since she was one of the last candidates to join the crowded race. Even though mail ballots went out before many voters had the chance to get to know her, her team made it up by being on the ground and having the most extensive field operation possible, she added.

Mejia has most recently worked as the co-executive director of Popular Democracy, a network of organizations across the country that call for transformational change for Black, brown and low-income communities, according to its website.

She has a long resume in activism, politics, and government, including working as the national political director for Sanders 2020 presidential campaign, the deputy director for the U.S. Labor Departments Womens Bureau under former President Joe Biden, the executive director of the New Jersey Working Families Party, and a union organizer before launching her bid for the seat.

She said she also campaigned for Sherrills gubernatorial bid last year, whose organizers prioritized reaching Spanish-speaking voters. Mejia spoke in both English and Spanish in her victory speech.

Her victory is the latest example of how the Democratic establishment in New Jersey is losing its grasp on primaries in the state.

That is largely because New Jersey redesigned its primary ballot system last year to get rid of its county line ballot. The long-held system was advantageous to candidates supported by their local party apparatus, and progressive activists like Mejia worked for years to dismantle it to give other candidates a shot.

Malinowski had the endorsement of the Morris County Democratic Committee, and the other local committees supported candidates who fell behind the two front-runners.

AIPACs attacks on Malinowski

A thorn in Malinowskis side was a series of attacks funded by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel national lobbying group, on issues unrelated to Israel. The method may have backfired, since Mejia has been more critical of Israel than the former House member.

United Democracy Project, a super PAC funded by AIPAC, attacked Malinowski in ads for voting with Trump by supporting bipartisan legislation that included funding for federal immigration enforcement. It also went after him for undisclosed stock trading while in Congress, for which he had received previous scrutiny.

Patrick Dorton, a spokesperson for the super PAC, told the New York Times that Malinowski is not sufficiently supportive of Israel because he has talked about putting conditions on aid for the country.

The group spent nearly $2 million on the race, according to Adimpact, which tracks TV and other spending by campaigns.

Malinowski, who generally supports Israel, said in his concession statement that the results of the race cannot be understood without looking at the dishonest ads funded by the group.

I wish I could say today that this effort, which was meant to intimidate Democrats across the country, failed in NJ-11, he said. But it did not. I met several voters in the final days of the campaign who had seen the ads and asked me, sincerely: Are you MAGA? Are you for ICE?

He said he will oppose any candidates AIPAC backs in the June primary when the seat is again on the line.

Mejia said AIPACs attacks demonstrate the influence money has over American politics, but she rejected the notion AIPAC played a decisive role in the race.

What they didnt do is win this for us, she said. How we won it was people power. How we won it was talking to folks. How we won it was knocking at doors. How we won it was being ready at every moment.
A former City Council staff member said she was sexually harassed by Sharif Street Jr., a member of a prominent political family. Read more

After Sharif Street Jr. got into a highly public fight at Mayor Cherelle L. Parkers 2024 inauguration ceremony, his boss, City Councilmember Jim Harrity, extended him some grace.

Harrity, who credits Street Jr.s father, State Sen. Sharif Street (D., Philadelphia), with giving him a second chance earlier in his own career, kept the junior Street on staff as a special assistant, saying the incident was a lapse in judgment.

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But according to another staff member in Harritys office, it was not the only transgression.

Shanelle Davis, a former constituent services representative, filed a federal lawsuit last week against the city claiming that she told supervisors months before the inauguration fight that Street Jr. had sexually harassed her while she was at work, including twice grabbing her and making sexualized comments about her body.

She said in the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, that no action was taken and Street Jr. remained on staff.

Davis is seeking unspecified damages from the city, which she claims violated state and federal laws related to gender-based discrimination. Street Jr. is not named as a defendant in the suit, but he is mentioned throughout the 13-page filing.

Davis complaint portrays a dysfunctional workplace environment in the City Hall office, including an alleged physical altercation between Street Jr. and another staffer for which no one was reprimanded. Davis, who is Black, claimed another colleague in Harritys office made racist comments, including hurling the N-word toward her.

Davis, who was hired in late 2022, said in the lawsuit that she was fired for underperforming at her job about a year later, after Harrity won reelection.

Her attorney did not respond to a request for comment Monday. Street Jr. did not respond to calls seeking comment.

Harrity, a Democrat who represents the city at-large and was a longtime aide to the elder Street, said in a statement that he categorically denounce[s] workplace harassment, or any conduct that undermines a respectful and professional work environment.

He declined to comment further, citing the ongoing legal proceedings. A spokesperson for the city law department also declined to comment.

The lawsuit is the latest legal trouble involving Sharif Street Jr., 26, who over the last three years has pleaded guilty to criminal offenses in Philadelphia, Montgomery, and Delaware Counties. In August, his employment with the city was terminated the week he pleaded guilty to charges in connection with the inauguration assault and another incident.

Street Jr. comes from one of Philadelphias most well-known political families. His grandfather is former Mayor John F. Street, his mother is Common Pleas Court Judge Sierra Thomas Street, and his father is a state senator and the former head of the state Democratic Party who is now running for a seat in Congress.

Anthony Campisi, a spokesperson for the elder Sharif Streets congressional campaign, said the state senator had no knowledge of the sexual harassment allegations.

Sharif loves his son unconditionally and has supported his son through personal troubles, like so many parents across Philadelphia, Campisi said. That being said, Sharif unequivocally condemns sexual harassment in all its forms and is looking for the legal process to play out.

City Council President Kenyatta Johnson, who took over as leader of the chamber in 2024, declined to comment. Under City Council rules, individual members are responsible for hiring and terminating their own employees.

Street Jr. was arrested several times over three years while working in City Hall as an assistant in Harritys office, court records show. Davis lawsuit comes about six months after Street Jr.s employment in Harritys office ended, according to payroll records.

In January 2024, Street Jr. punched a security guard at the entrance to Parkers inauguration ceremony at the Met Philadelphia on North Broad Street. He told The Inquirer at the time that he was defending his grandfather, the former mayor, whom he said the guard had grabbed because they were trying to enter at a back entrance without waiting in line.

I saw my grandfather get grabbed and I just sort of blacked out, Street Jr. said. His father defended him at the time, saying the security guard had initiated the altercation.

Later that month, Street Jr. was charged in connection with a hit-and-run from the previous August that left a 14-year-old injured.

The two cases were consolidated in Common Pleas Court, and Street Jr. pleaded guilty in August to charges of assault and causing an accident that resulted in an injury. According to prosecutors, he was sentenced to 60 days in jail.

Four months later, when he was no longer working in city government, Street Jr. was briefly jailed in Delaware County following what police in Upper Darby described as a prolonged struggle during a traffic stop. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, a summary offense.
A Massachusetts man was convicted last week in federal court in Boston for engaging in a scheme in which he provided an applicant with the answers to the states commercial drivers learners permit exam.

Frank Castro was convicted of unlawful production of an identification document, according to U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley. A federal district court scheduled sentencing for May 7, 2026. Castro was indicted by a federal grand jury in April 2024.

Massachusetts requires drivers to obtain a learners permit before they can obtaining a commercial drivers license from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV).

Prosecutors said that in October 2021, Castro told an undercover agent that he could help him obtain a permit for $3,000. Castro explained to the undercover agent that the agent would need to sneak a Bluetooth device into the testing area at the RMV, place the device into his ear, then cover it with headphones used during the exam. Castro explained that once connected via Bluetooth he would be able to hear the audio questions and provide the undercover agent with the correct answers.

On or about Dec. 22, 2021, the undercover agent deposited $3,000 into Castros bank account before proceeding to the RMV in Danvers to take the exam. Castro provided the exam answers to the undercover agent via the Bluetooth connection in real time during the exam. The undercover agent passed the exam with Castros unlawful assistance and received a permit.

Topics Commercial Lines
Rhode Island-based Beacon Mutual Insurance Co. has experienced a ransomware attack and is in the process of determining what information and persons may have been affected.

The workers compensation insurer said it received an alert on January 14, 2026, regarding suspicious activity on its network. In response, the company said it disconnected certain systems, launched a forensic investigation with external cybersecurity experts, and managed to restore operations by January 20.

The ransomware tracking site, Ransomware.Live, has posted information indicating that the threat group INC Ransom is claiming responsibility for the attack.

The INC Ransom leaked screenshot on the site claims that the breach affected 275 GB of uncompressed/internal files and confidential information including personally identifiable information (PII) of employees, claimants, and insured workers; internal financial statements, correspondence and operational content; detailed workers compensation claims data and medical records, and more.

A Beacon Mutual spokesperson confirmed it was a ransomware attack but could not confirm the identity of the attacker or what information may have been affected at this time.

Yes, this was a ransomware attack, Michelle Pelletier of the companys communications team stated in an email. To ensure the integrity of the ongoing investigation, we are not able to provide additional details at this time.

She said the company has contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and will cooperate in their investigation.

The company said it is also working with experts on an analysis of the potential data involved in the incident. If the investigation finds there was unauthorized access to or acquisition of personal information, the company said it will notify individuals whose information was involved.

Beacon Mutual, headquartered in Warwick, is the main provider of workers compensation insurance in Rhode Island. It also writes in Massachusetts and Connecticut. In 2024, it generated more than $118 million in revenue and employs about 100 people.

The company said it maintains a comprehensive information security program in keeping with recognized industry standards and it reviews and updates its safety measures as part of an ongoing risk management process.

Like all organizations, Beacon operates within a dynamic threat environment in which security risks may arise despite reasonable and appropriate safeguards, the company said on its website.

Last August, Farmers Insurance warned of a data breach that could impact more than one million customers. Last June Erie Insurance experienced a month-long network outage caused by a cyberattack but reported it was not a ransomware attacks and no data was breached. Around the same time, Philadelphia Insurance reported it was hit with a cyberattack that did not involve ransom and some data was stolen.

Topics Carriers Cyber Workers' Compensation Talent
Two-thirds of nurses who walked out of major hospitals in New York City a month ago have reached preliminary agreements with their employers and may end the strike this week, the union representing 15,000 striking nurses said on Monday.

The strike at three healthcare networks  Montefiore, Mount Sinai and NewYork-Presbyterian  led to staffing shortages and a state of emergency declared by New York Governor Kathy Hochul to allow out-of-state and foreign staff to cover for striking nurses.

The state of emergency, which took effect on January 9, was set to expire on Sunday, but Hochul extended it until the end of Tuesday.

More than two-thirds, or 10,500 out of 15,000 striking nurses at Mount Sinai and Montefiore hospitals are expected to vote on their new contracts from Wednesday to Friday. If the deal is ratified they would return to work on Saturday, New York State Nurses Association, the union that represents nurses, said on Monday.

As of Monday afternoon, NewYork-Presbyterian and its 4,200 striking nurses had not reached a tentative agreement, according to the union.

A Montefiore spokesperson confirmed the tentative agreement but, noting it had yet to be ratified, would not say more.

Mount Sinai hospitals did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

NewYork-Presbyterian said it had agreed to a comprehensive proposal presented to all parties early on Sunday.

NewYork-Presbyterian accepted the proposal which includes the same wage increases for all three hospitals, as well as preserves the pension, maintains our nurses health benefits, and includes increased staffing levels, the hospital said in an email.

NYSNA said preliminary agreements with Mount Sinai and Montefiore were a victory and included a 12% increase in salaries over the life of the three-year contract, maintaining health benefits for nurses, measures against workplace violence and protections for immigrant and trans patients and nurses.

The progress toward ending the strike in New York City comes as 31,000 nurses at non-profit healthcare system Kaiser Permanente continue to strike in California and Hawaii. As that strike entered the third week on Monday, 3,000 lab and pharmacy workers joined the nurses, according to the unions representing them.

(Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova, editing by Donna Bryson and Aurora Ellis)

Topics New York
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is opening an investigation into the fatal chemical release that occurred on January 27, 2026, at the Woodland Pulp facility in Baileyville, Maine.

The incident at the pulp production facility resulted in the death of one person, a 20-year old University of Maine student who was a intern at the facility. Nine other workers were injured, two of them seriously.

According to initial information submitted by the company, the incident may have involved the mixing of concentrated sulfuric acid with sulfurous compounds in an enclosed process sewer, resulting in the generation and release of hydrogen sulfide, a highly toxic gas, in the bleach plant area of the facility.

Woodland Pulp produces pulp that is sold to companies that make paper. It is the largest employer in Washington County, with approximately 310 employees.

The company laid off about one-third of its employees for a month in November and reopened in December. The company told the The Maine Monitor that the extended downtime was due to declining prices in the global pulp market.

CSB Chairperson Steve Owens said CSBs investigation will examine the circumstances surrounding the release, including the companys chemical handling practices, process safety systems, and emergency response actions.

The CSB is a nonregulatory federal agency charged with investigating incidents and hazards. The board does not issue citations or fines but makes safety recommendations.
Helix Underwriting Partners Bermuda, the multi-line independent managing general agent, announced the launch of its London property offering, Helix International, which has been trading since the start of the year, in partnership with PartnerRe Insurance Programs.

The program provides capacity for direct and facultative property within the London market.

The London D&F program offers capacity of up to $5 million, on all-risk property coverage for a diverse client base, from small businesses to large corporations, with total insured values exceeding $100 million. Coverage will be available through selective wholesale and retail relationships.

Our expansion into the London market demonstrates our commitment to delivering a full suite of solutions across multiple access points for our clients, commented Nik Luking, head of Worldwide Property and a founding partner of Helix. We are more than a capacity provider  we are addressing frustrations with restrictive underwriting and slow processes. Helix International, together with our existing platforms, will deliver comprehensive coverage and solutions by leveraging strong relationships, advanced data, and cutting-edge technology.

Being part of an established managing agent with Helixs respected leadership, and pairing that with world-class capacity from PartnerRe is highly exciting, according to James Robertson, head of Property London for Helix International. The opportunity to start with a blank slate and being entrusted to build out the Helix International brand alongside one of the most respected insurance markets in the world who shares our vision for delivering exceptional solutions to brokers and clients is outstanding. We look forward to re-engaging with our trading partners and colleagues across the market.

Joel Livingston, head of Insurance Programs at PartnerRe, said: This expansion underscores PartnerRes strategy of forging long-term alliances with partners that share our culture, values, and areas of expertise. Helix has consistently demonstrated underwriting excellence, and its distinctive approach to operating in high-risk, high-complexity markets across multiple classes makes this a perfect partnership.

About Helix International Ltd.

Helix International Ltd, was established in 2025 by Helix Underwriting Partners, an MGA dedicated to delivering customized insurance solutions for complex risk profiles. Founded in 2018 as Bermudas first multi-line independent MGA, Helix underwrites property, casualty and professional lines out of its hubs in Bermuda, the United States and the United Kingdom on behalf of highly-rated carrier partners and reinsurers.

Source: Helix Underwriting Partners

Topics New Markets Insurance Wholesale Property London
South Korean officials blamed a massive data leak last year at Coupang on management failure, rather than a sophisticated cyberattack, and urged the e-commerce giant to fix vulnerabilities in its security systems.

Announcing the first findings of a government-led probe, the Science Ministry said on Tuesday a former Coupang engineer, who was aware of flaws in the authentication process, broke into the system in April, a breach that lasted until November. The same person had attempted to gain access in January, it said.

Coupang Korea, operated by U.S.-listed Coupang Inc., faced a public and lawmaker backlash over the breach. The incident added to trade friction with Washington over concerns Korean authorities had gone beyond normal regulatory enforcement in their treatment of the U.S.-listed company.

Its more of a management problem than an advanced attack, Choi Woo-hyuk, deputy minister for cyber security and network policy, told a press conference, citing lax oversight of authentication systems.

The attacker exploited user authentication vulnerabilities to access user accounts without a proper login and caused large-scale unauthorized information leaks, the ministry said.

It also called on the police to investigate Coupang for trying to restrict the investigation by deleting some data, accusing it of defying a government order to preserve data.

The ministry said the leak exposed personal data of about 33.7 million customers, including names and phone numbers.

Coupang said in a statement that it would take all necessary steps to prevent further harm and continue strengthening safeguards to prevent a recurrence.

It said a software program written by the former employee generated around 140 million queries but there was no evidence that any other party had accessed or viewed the data, which did not include payment or login information.

Coupang reiterated that data retained from around 3,000 user accounts was later deleted, adding there was no evidence any secondary harm had arisen.

Coupang Needs Tighter Security

The ministry accused the former employee, who left the firm in November 2024, of stealing an internal security key, known as a signing key, which it said was used to generate fake login tokens and gain unauthorized access to customer accounts.

It said the staff member had designed and developed parts of Coupangs user authentication system, and the company had failed to immediately invalidate the developers signing key after they left the company, which it said was not an adequate security system.

Coupang needs to introduce a detection and blocking system for electronic access cards that do not go through the normal issuance process, the ministry said.

It added that it could not comment on whether more than one person was involved in the breach and needed to wait for the results of a police investigation.

South Korean Justice Minister Jung Sung-ho said in January that an arrest warrant had been issued in December for the Chinese national who had previously worked at Coupang.

Arrest Warrant

The police investigation is ongoing and the personal data watchdog is also investigating the incident.

Coupang faces a tax audit in South Korea and a legal complaint filed by the countrys parliament against its founder and former executives after they failed to show up for parliamentary hearings last year.

The ministry accused Coupang of violating the information-network law by failing to report the breach within the required 24-hour period and it planned to impose an administrative fine of up to 30 million won ($20,596) under the law.

Coupang reported the data breach to its chief information security officer at 4:00 p.m. local time on November 17 and reported it to authorities at 9:35 p.m. on November 19, the ministry said, a period of more than 53 hours.

(Reporting by Heekyong Yang and Hyunjoo Jin, Additional reporting by Heejin Kim and Kyu-seok ShimEditing by Ed Davies, Kirsten Donovan)
Greece and Malta have emerged as the main obstacle to a European Union proposal to replace a Russian oil price cap with a ban on the services needed to ship the fuel.

The two southern European countries raised concerns about the move at an EU ambassadors meeting on Monday where the blocs latest sanctions package was presented, according to people familiar with the matter.

They expressed fears that the switch may affect Europes shipping industry and energy prices, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

Both nations also asked for clarifications on proposals to sanction foreign ports for handling Russian oil and to tighten ship seller oversight to cut down on vessels ending up in Moscows fleet, the people added.

A Greek government spokesperson declined to comment. Nestor Laiviera, a Maltese government spokesperson in Brussels, said the country was engaging in the technical discussions to ensure that the eventual outcome will be implementable.

Last week, the European Commission, the EUs executive arm, proposed replacing an existing price cap on Russian oil sales with a ban on the services needed to move the oil.

The proposal, which would hit insurance and transport providers, reflects the price caps struggles to severely curtail Moscows oil revenue. Its the centerpiece of the EUs 20th sanctions package targeting Moscow for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which is entering its fifth year.

The measure would be conditional on the backing of the Group of Seven nations, which collectively implemented the price cap at the end of 2022.

The US position on the change is unclear, said the people. The EU had previously adopted a ban on many services before the price cap was introduced.

Read More: EU Commission Proposes Further Sanctions on Russian Oil Trade and Financial Services

Elsewhere, the EU is considering lifting sanctions on two Chinese banks after having received commitments from Beijing over itssupport for Russias war against Ukraine, the people said.

The commission did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The EU sanctioned the two banks, Heihe Rural Commercial Bank and Heilongjiang Suifenhe Rural Commercial Bank, last August. The move prompted Beijing to target two small banks in the EU.

China remains Russias main war-time enabler, some of the people said, providing Moscow with the bulk of the critical supplies it needs to make weapons.

The EUs latest package does include proposals to sanction several companies in China and elsewhere that are allegedly supplying Russias war machine with key components. It also targets cryptocurrency operators and a small number of banks in Central Asia and Laos that it claims arehelping Moscow evade the blocs sanctions.

Additionally, the EU has proposed applying its anti-circumvention tool for the first time, which would see machine tools and certain radio equipment banned from being exported to Kyrgyzstan. But Germany is concerned that could impact bilateral relations with the country, said the people. One alternative is to introduce quotas based on pre-war trade data instead of a full ban, the people added.

A German government spokesperson declined to comment, referring to remarks made on Monday.

We coordinate these matters confidentially within the European framework as part of the EU sanctions, Foreign Ministry spokesman Josef Hinterseher told reporters.

The new sanctions proposal also includes export restrictions worth more than 360 million ($429 million) on goods such as rubber and chemicals, as well as import bans valued at more than half a billion euros, including on several metals, and a quota on ammonia imports.

EU sanctions require the backing of all member states to be approved and could change before theyre adopted. The bloc is aiming to finalize the package by the end of February.

Photograph: Oil tankers and container ships off the coast of Athens. Photo credit: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

Related:

Copyright 2026 Bloomberg.

Topics Europe Energy Oil Gas Russia
Chevron Corp. acquired a ranch in West Texas whose owner had been waging a legal battle accusing the US energy giant of negligently spilling toxic water and crude oil on the 22,000-acre property.

The sale of Ashley Watts Antina Ranch was recorded on Feb. 3 by the Crane County Clerk, according to public records. The buyer was listed as Crane Property Holdings, a company that has the same address as Chevrons office in San Ramon, California. No price was disclosed, as is typical under Texas law.

Chevron and Watt reached a confidential settlement in December, a month before the case was scheduled for trial. Both a Chevron spokesperson and Watts attorney, Daniel Charest, said the case was resolved under a mutually agreed settlement and declined to comment on the terms.

The Chevron spokesperson added that the company will continue to comply with its obligations under Texas law and will work with regulators to remediate any wells as needed.

The legal dispute dated back to 2021, when Watt and her lawyer Sarah Stogner discovered oil leaking from an old well that had supposedly been cemented shut decades ago. They traced ownership of the well to Gulf Oil, a predecessor of Chevron, and later discovered multiple leaking wells on the property. The pollution forced Watt to remove her cattle from the ranch and put the sites water supply at risk.

Several other properties around the Permian, Americas biggest oil field, began having the same problem, with some sending geysers of toxic water 100 feet into the air for weeks at a time. Stogner dubbed them zombie wells and the issue began garnering attention on social media. Experts determined the cause was oil companies over-injecting fracking wastewater under the ground, which subsequently then burst through old well casings and onto the surface.

Chevron re-plugged several wells on Antina Ranch and attempted to remediate others. But Watt and Stogner accused the company of taking shortcuts and failing to address the underlying problem, which was rising underground water pressure. Chevron denied the claims, saying there was no evidence of a field-wide blowout and accusing Watt of restricting access to the property for its workers.

Its now widely accepted that oil companies in the Permian Basin are injecting too much water underground in certain areas, and the industry is working on other disposal methods. A Bloomberg News investigation found last year that the state regulator authorized operators to shift their disposal from deep geologic areas, where water injection was causing earthquakes, to shallow ones even though they knew of the risk to old wells.

The sale of Watts ranch to Chevron covers all water on the property, according to public records. It also includes any other water from any and all depths and reservoirs formations depths and horizons beneath the surface of the land.

Photo: Scientists take samples of produced water from a crumbling former oil well on Antina Ranch in 2024. Photographer: Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle/Getty Images

Copyright 2026 Bloomberg.

Topics Mergers & Acquisitions Texas Energy Oil Gas
States in the U.S. West are grappling with an unusually warm, arid winter that is ramping up fire risk in some areas, driving utilities to take drastic precautions, including sometimes shutting off the power in a bid to keep their equipment from sparking a potentially ruinous blaze.

Across large pockets of Texas, New Mexico and Colorado, fine grasses and brush that fuel fires have dried out as La Nina largely holds significant rain and snow at bay a pattern thats projected to continue into the spring. As fire weather alerts from the U.S. National Weather Service loomed in December and January, Xcel Energy Inc. ordered multiple rounds of preventative power cuts in Colorado for more than 50,000 customers, many in the Boulder and Fort Collins areas, reaching into the Rocky Mountains.

Related: Massive Wildfire Liabilities Push Utilities to Use AI to Stop Blazes

The shutoffs, known as public safety power shutoffs, are enacted so that during scorching, windy weather, power lines wont inadvertently spark a blaze. Those moves are deeply unpopular, but Xcel says they were necessary. Behind the scenes, Xcel executives were heeding advice from a team of weather scientists as they decided where and when to cut the flow of power. It all starts with meteorology, says Paul McGregor, the companys vice president of wildfire risk management.

Its part of a broader trend across the utility industry, as companies beyond California  where PSPS programs were pioneered  seek to limit their risk of starting a deadly fire, and with it, their financial liability. Interventions like burying lines underground can dramatically reduce fire risk, but can cost billions and take years to complete. Depending on where you live and how risky the conditions are, your power provider might tell you its turning off your lights for 18 hours or several days. Proactive safety shutoffs are sometimes employed at utilities from Hawaii to Texas.

Hundreds of customers near Carson City, Nevada, lost power shortly before Christmas as high winds raged and fire risk spiraled, according to press reports, while residents outside Cheyenne, Wyoming, were told to prepare for a potential shutoff amid similar weather conditions in January.

Before he worked at Xcel, McGregor worked at Pacific Gas & Electric Co., the utility serving northern and central California. The company rolled out a shutoff program in 2018, building on an idea pioneered by San Diegos utility. Since its first proactive power cut, PG&Es meteorology team has developed a system that has inspired other utilities to create their own shutoff programs, advising how best to track conditions and design shutoff protocols that can be deployed quickly.

In a control room in PG&Es San Ramon, California office, a giant map looms, dotted with transmission lines, cutting across mountains and valleys, running alongside rivers and streams. Its here that Scott Strenfel, PG&Es senior director of meteorology and fire science, along with his team of seven forecasters, monitors the weather and decides when the risk of fire is too great to keep energy flowing across the utilitys vast transmission and distribution system.

Strenfel, 43, is widely regarded as an industry leader on managing fire threats. Hes also a weather nerd who got sent to the principals office at his Southern California middle school for being disruptive every time it rained. Strenfel was working at PG&E in 2017 when the utilitys equipment sparked a string of catastrophic fires across Northern California. Mounting lawsuits and public pressure led the company to begin rolling out preventative shutoffs. (A series of wildfires led PG&E to file for bankruptcy in 2019.)

How scientists make the call to cut the power is a complicated nexus of data, technology and human judgment. Its a man-machine mix, Strenfel says. Models arent perfect. And making the right decision can be agonizing.

I wouldnt want that job, says San Jose State University fire weather scientist Craig Clements, who Strenfel studied with while he was at the school. Its probably the most stressful  and one of the more important  meteorology positions in the world.

At the heart of their operations is data. The utility, which provides power to more than 5 million customers, now operates more than 1,600 weather stations perched atop its power lines in remote mountain passes, which report real-time wind speeds, wind gusts, humidity and temperature at least every 10 minutes. The company tracks how much moisture is packed into grasses and brush, to determine how quickly they could ignite. It also purchases global forecast models from multiple sources and relies on models from third-party brokers such as Technosylva, which designs weather forecasting and fire prediction software.

Californias fire risk has been low in recent weeks, thanks to atmospheric rivers that brought heavy, soaking rains to the West Coast in early winter. That rain also fueled an outgrowth of fine grasses, which started to die off in some areas as the weather turned hot and dry. Wetter, cooler conditions are finally expected to move back into the West later this month  but the long-term pattern suggests they may not stick around.

The meteorologists at PG&E remain vigilant. In a daily meeting, Strenfel and his coworkers look at the AI-powered models, which consider both the probability of utility equipment sparking a fire as well as potential damage, and discuss the risks. The machine learning models make recommendations on whether to shut off power or not, and if things are cusp-y, the meteorologists take a closer look. If conditions are ripe for a deadly conflagration, meteorologists monitor conditions 24/7 alongside a senior PG&E executive.

Theres a lot at stake: PG&Es neighbor, Edison Internationals Southern California utility, is facing hundreds of lawsuits alleging its equipment started the Eaton fire, which killed 19 people and razed part of the community of Altadena one year ago during a record-breaking windstorm. The utility later said it detected a fault on one of its transmission lines near the time the fire started.

Despite Californias recent run of catastrophic blazes, wildfire acreage across the state nearly halved last year, down to about 525,000 acres from over one million acres in 2024, according to Cal Fire. Over the last few years, PG&E has narrowed the scope and duration of its preventative outages, and PG&E customers who experienced disruptive PSPS shutoffs decreased by 64% in 2025 compared to the year prior.

But the companys use of unplanned outages has remained high: PG&E and other utilities can enable fast-trip safety settings, which prevent fires by quickly cutting cut the flow of power if a tree limb or other object strikes a line. In 2025, roughly 839,000 customers experienced fast-trip outages  only a slight improvement over the previous year.

Massive shutoffs are rare, like the one PG&E leveled on October 27, 2019. It was a year after the deadly Camp Fire, and Strenfel advised the utility to take nearly one million customers offline amid record-strong winds and perfect wildfire conditions. The company had only shut off the power due to fire risk a handful of times  and never to so many customers at once. There was severe blowback: refrigerated insulin lost, C-PAP breathing machines out of power, hospitals and schools shuttered. PG&E was subsequently fined over $100 million by the state utility regulator. Strenfel remembers seeing a video of downtown Napa in a total blackout and feeling mixed emotions. It could have been done much better, he said.

Yet hes comforted by the fact they prevented something big. In the days following the widespread power shutoff, the biggest in PG&E history, the utility found more than 550 instances of damage on lines, which could have resulted in a spark.

Nobody is ever going to know that because it didnt happen, says atmospheric scientist Scott Capps, formerly with fire prediction software provider Technosylva. Its a damned-ifyou-do, damned-if-you-dont decision if you turn the power off.

Top photo: Scott Strenfel in the Meteorology and Fire Science room. Photographer: Manuel Orbegozo/Bloomberg.

Copyright 2026 Bloomberg.

Topics Trends
A Colorado funeral home owner who stashed 189 decomposing bodies in a building over four years and gave grieving families fake ashes was sentenced to 40 years in state prison.

During the sentencing hearing, family members told Judge Eric Bentley they have had recurring nightmares about decomposing flesh and maggots since learning what happened to their loved ones.

Related: Judge Rejects Deal for Funeral Home Owner Accused of Stashing 190 Bodies

They called defendant Jon Hallford a monster and urged the judge to give him the maximum sentence of 50 years.

Bentley told Hallford he caused unspeakable and incomprehensible harm.

It is my personal belief that every one of us, every human being, is basically good at the core, but we live in a world that tests that belief every day, and Mr. Hallford your crimes are testing that belief, Bentley said.

Related: Families of Loved Ones Left Decaying in Colorado Funeral Home Owed $950M

Hallford apologized before his sentencing and said he would regret his actions for the rest of his life.

I had so many chances to put a stop to everything and walk away, but I did not, he said. My mistakes will echo for a generation. Everything I did was wrong.

Motivated By Greed

Hallfords attorney unsuccessfully sought a 30 year sentence, arguing that it was not a crime of violence and he had no prior criminal record.

His former wife, Carie Hallford, who co-owned the Return to Nature Funeral Home, is due to be sentenced April 24. She faces 25 to 35 years in prison.

Both pleaded guilty in December to nearly 200 counts of corpse abuse under an agreement with prosecutors.

During the years they were stashing bodies, the Hallfords spent lavishly, according to court documents. That included purchasing a GMC Yukon and an Infiniti worth over $120,000 combined, along with $31,000 in cryptocurrency, pricey goods from stores like Gucci and Tiffany & Co. and laser body sculpting.

Clearly this is a crime motivated by greed, prosecutor Shelby Crow said. The Hallfords charged more than $1,200 per customer, and the money the couple spent on luxury items would have covered the cost to cremate all of the bodies many times over, Crow said.

The Hallfords also pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges after prosecutors said they cheated the government out of nearly $900,000 in pandemic-era small business aid. Jon Hallford was sentenced to 20 years in prison in that case, and Carie Hallfords sentencing is pending.

A plea agreement in the corpse abuse case calls for the state prison sentence to be served concurrently with the federal sentence.

Heartbroken Families

One of the family members who spoke at the hearing was Kelly Mackeen, whose mothers remains were handled by Return to Nature.

Im a daughter whose mother was treated like yesterdays trash and dumped in a site left to rot with hundreds of others, Mackeen said. Im heartbroken, and I ask God every day for grace.

As she and others spoke of their grief, Jon Hallford sat at a table to their right, wearing orange jail attire and looking directly ahead. The courtrooms wooden benches were full of relatives of the deceased and also journalists.

The Hallfords stored the bodies in a building in the small town of Penrose, south of Colorado Springs, from 2019 until 2023, when investigators responded to reports of a stench from the building.

Bodies were found throughout the building, some stacked on top of each other, with swarms of bugs and decomposition fluid covering the floors, investigators said. The remains  including adults, infants and fetuses  were stored at room temperature.

The bodies were identified over months with fingerprints, DNA and other methods.

Investigators believe the Hallfords gave families dry concrete that resembled ashes.

After families learned that what they received and then spread or kept at home were not actually their loved ones remains, many said it undid their grieving process, while others had nightmares and struggled with guilt.

Lax Regulations

One of the recovered bodies was that of a former Army sergeant first class who was thought to have been buried at a veterans cemetery, FBI agent Andrew Cohen said.

When investigators exhumed the wooden casket at the cemetery, they found the remains of a person of a different gender inside, he said. The veteran, who was not identified in court, was later given a funeral with full military honors at Pikes Peak National Cemetery.

The corpse abuse revelations spurred changes to Colorados lax funeral home regulations.

The AP previously reported that the Hallfords missed tax payments, were evicted from one of their properties and were sued for unpaid bills, according to public records and interviews with people who worked with them.

In a rare decision last year, Judge Bentley rejected previous plea agreements between the Hallfords and prosecutors that called for up to 20 years in prison. Family members of the deceased said the agreements were too lenient.

Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

Copyright 2026 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Homeowners
Elon Musks Vegas Loop, a network of underground tunnels to ferry passengers in Teslas, was under fresh scrutiny this week from Nevada lawmakers who raised concern about alleged workplace safety and environmental violations.

Lawmakers spent hours grilling state safety officials over alleged violations by the Boring Company, the Musk-owned venture with tunneling projects also planned in Nashville and Dubai. Company officials declined to attend but provided written answers defending the project.

Related: A Texas Congressman Is Helping Musk Pitch $760M Tunnel Project for Flooding

I think they are a company that acts like they are kind of above the law and want to play by their own set of rules, Democratic Assemblymember Howard Watts, whose district includes the tunnel project, told The Associated Press.

First opened in 2021, the Vegas Loop offers free rides around the Las Vegas Convention Center and charges between $4 and $12 for rides to some hotels, casinos and the airport. The Teslas can be hailed by website or accessed at stations. The Boring Company is approved to build 68 miles (109.44 kilometers) of tunnels and 104 stations over the next few years in Vegas, a city that lacks fast and robust public transit.

Vegas Mayor Shelley Berkley praised the project in January after the city issued a permit for a new tunnel.

The city is excited to bring an innovative transportation option to downtown Las Vegas and create another way for visitors to experience all that the city has to offer, she said.

Fines Levied Against The Company

The Boring Company has been accused of breaking multiple safety and environmental rules. Between 2020 and 2026, 17 complaints were filed with the Nevada State Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Last year ProPublica reported the company was accused of nearly 800 environmental violations for its Las Vegas project.

Of those 17 complaints, one resulted in an inspection with eight proposed citations, including claims that 15 to 20 employees were injured after getting burned with accelerants and that there were no showers available for employees who got sprayed with the accelerants. Several other complaints are still open. The Boring Company has paid nearly $600,000 in fines, most of which went to the local water reclamation district for discharging untreated wastewater. The company is fighting around $355,000 in fines with Nevadas OSHA and the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection.

The company did not return emails seeking comment from The Associated Press. But in a letter to lawmakers, the company emphasized its safety procedures, including daily inspections and workplace safety training.

Related: Elon Musk Loses Bid to Dismiss SEC Lawsuit Over Twitter Stake

Watts on Tuesday also highlighted a September 2025 incident in which a worker suffered a crushing injury inside a tunnel after being pinned between two 4,000-foot pipes. Firefighters used a crane to extract him from the tunnel opening, Watts said.

In a September statement to local news outlets, the company said it was investigating the incident and that the safety and well-being of its employees are top priority. It added that the employee was in stable condition and doing well.

Watts said lawmakers may bring forward legislation when they return to session next year to speed up the process for assessing violations and shorten the timeline for contesting them.

The scrutiny in Nevada comes as Musks company has started construction in Nashville on the Music City Loop despite opposition from some Nashville officials concerned about safety, transparency and a lack of local input. The initial 13-mile stretch of tunnels will connect the citys airport and downtown.

Fines Withdrawn

Last year, the state withdrew over $425,000 of fines stemming from a May 2025 incident in which two firefighters received chemical burns while on the site for a training exercise.

The reports from OSHA had mistakes and anomalies, meaning they likely wouldnt be able to meet the high burden of proof required to justify the fines, Salli Ortiz, the agencys legal counsel, told lawmakers. The state learned the two firefighters had opted to not wear a second layer of protective clothing, and The Boring Company conducted six safety meetings with the fire department in advance of the drill, according to inspection reports.

Democratic lawmakers criticized Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo and his administration for going soft on the company.

The idea that there is external pressure that is swaying my decision making, or our divisions decision making, or that theres any pressure that comes from me as a result of pressure from on high is incorrect, Kris Sanchez, director of the state Department of Business and Industry, told lawmakers Tuesday.

Easy Transport gor Conventiongoers

The tunnel system is already a hit with many visitors, especially during conventions like the annual Consumer Electronics Show in January. On a recent weekday, a stop at the Las Vegas Convention Center had a steady stream of Teslas picking up and dropping off people.

San Diego resident Devin Newcomb, a frequent visitor, said the Vegas Loop helps him get around the city, and it will only help more when it is extended to places like the Venetian.

Its awesome. I love it, he said.

Florida resident Samantha Mingola has been using Vegas Loop while attending an expo at the convention center. She said it is easier to set up than other rideshares, and it has been convenient because she is staying at a hotel with a loop station.

Still, she said she worries the tunnels could cave in and is unsure about a company run by Musk.

Its a good idea but it scares me, Mingola said on her way to the station.

Copyright 2026 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Pollution
Half of children aged 8-12 are being exposed to the risk of engaging with strangers, as they have no parental restriction on their gaming and chatting online, a survey has found.

As the Government mulls a ban on social media for children under the age of 16, the research also suggests that 80% of 12-year-olds have at least one account on a social media platform.

Online safety charity CyberSafeKids said the data also suggests that a quarter of parents do not understand the games and apps that their child uses.

Our research shows many children are navigating complex online spaces largely alone, with little meaningful parental oversight, its CEO Alex Cooney said.

They are using platforms not designed for their age or safety, often sharing photos and videos without understanding who can see them or how far they can spread.

Released to coincide with Safer Internet Day 2026 and the launch of CyberSafeKids new Same Rules Apply parental awareness campaign, the survey collected the views of more than 3,300 primary school children aged 8-12 and over 1,700 parents.

An overwhelming majority of these children (93%) go online to game or use apps, often on platforms designed for older users.

CEO and co-founder of CyberSafeKids Alex Cooney said children are 'often sharing photos and videos without understanding who can see them or how far they can spread.' File picture

Just 39% of 8- to 12-year-olds said their parents can check, monitor or control what they do online, which the charity said leaves many exposed to inappropriate content or contact from strangers.

More than a fifth (21%) of children surveyed had some of their accounts set to public while 17% said they had friends or followers who do they not know offline.

Boys were more likely than girls to have accounts set to public, with 10% of boys having no privacy settings enabled at all.

Almost a third (31%) of children post photos or videos of themselves online, most commonly on TikTok, which is set to face off with the European Commission over the latters view that the platforms addictive design must change.

Snapchat, YouTube, and Whatsapp are also platforms where children share images, with girls more likely to do so than boys.

The responses given by children also suggest a lack of parental oversight, with just 47% of them saying there are rules in place at home about having accounts set to private or sharing photos or videos of themselves online.

Meanwhile, many parents feel ill-equipped to handle their childrens online habits with less than half (47%) using parental controls and nearly a quarter (23%) saying they wouldnt know where to begin.

Irish Examiner columnist and child and adolescent psychoanalytical psychotherapist Colman Noctor. Picture: Patrick Browne

Even when parents set rules, almost half (49%) say theyre not always enforced.

The charity called for decisive action from the Government and recommended an immediate and comprehensive ban on nudify and pornify apps as well as mandatory online safety and digital media literacy education embedded in the school curriculum.

Ms Cooney added: Without clear guidance, children may overshare  and with the rise of nudification tools and AI girlfriend apps, their content can be altered and misused, putting them at serious risk. Parents cannot manage this alone and urgently need stronger, effective regulation to help keep children safe online.

Child and adolescent psychoanalytical psychotherapist and Irish Examiner columnist Colman Noctor added: While the exposure to inappropriate content is a real and present concern, we must also be aware that spending excessive time online compromises the development of social interaction skills and emotional resilience.

We need to help young people to learn the skills of self regulation by role modelling healthy behaviour and protecting them from the allure of online technology.
There are as many as six Irish citizens being held by Donald Trump's immigration enforcement agency, ICE.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin confirmed he had been made aware of five to six cases where Irish citizens have been detained by ICE, after Kilkenny man Seamus Culleton spoke of his detention by the immigration agency in Texas.

Mr Culleton, who was initially detained in Boston in September, said he had feared for his life in the Texan detention centre, describing it as a modern day concentration camp.

You just dont know whats going to happen on a day-to-day basis. You dont know if theres going to be riots, you dont know whats going to happen. Its a nightmare, Mr Culleton said, speaking from the detention centre on RTEs Liveline on Monday.

The Irishman has lived in the US for almost 20 years and is married to a US citizen.

During leaders questions in the Dail, Mr Martin said he first became aware of Mr Culletons case on Monday, following media reports about the Irishman being held in the detention centre.

Obviously, the Department of Foreign Affairs became aware of the case in October and have been dealing and providing consular assistance to Seamus Culleton and the family via the team in Austin, at the consulate general and the embassy in Washington DC, Mr Martin said.

Asked directly if there were other Irish citizens being held in similar conditions to Mr Culleton, Mr Martin said there are a number of cases.

It could be five to six cases, but they vary in terms of status, in terms of each individual case.

The Taoiseach said the Government is concerned about the conditions faced by Mr Culleton.

Labour leader Ivana Bacik raised the issue, saying: Seamus is a man who has lived in the US for 17 years, who runs a successful business in Boston, who married his American wife Tiffany Smith last April but he has now spent more than half of his married life behind barbed wire in this camp, Ms Bacik said.

Why? Because he was lifted off the street by ICE on his way to the shops after being kept waiting for his green card following long delays.

Ms Bacik described Mr Culletons experience as shocking.

It appears, beyond doubt, to breach American commitments under the UN Convention against torture and cruel or degrading treatment, Ms Bacik said.

She accused the Government of failing to assist Mr Culleton, urging them to use every diplomatic lever to secure his release.

In response, Mr Martin said the Government will be doing everything we can.

But we have to do it in a way that can really help him," he said.

We cant promise because we dont control American migration law or practice for that matter, but we can engage. We have and we will.

The Taoiseach said the main goal is for Mr Culleton to secure status in the US.

Lets not do anything that could make that more difficult. This cannot be resolved in the public domain.

Mr Martin said every country has laws surrounding migration, citing the Governments attempts to regularise undocumented Irish in the US.

He said it is a traumatic and difficult position for any undocumented Irish to be in, saying they are always watching over the shoulder.

Speaking on Monday, Mr Culleton said he had been detained on September 9 by ICE while returning goods to a Home Depot store.

He said he believed he was legally covered, having received a work permit to remain in the US a month earlier and was just about to receive my green card.

Tadhg McNally is Political Correspondent.
A Cork man confessed to assaulting a 35-year-old businesswoman and social media influencer in Cork city centre almost two years ago in what was described as a case of mistaken identity.

25-year-old Conor Greaney, of Farranferris Avenue, Farranree, Cork, was arraigned at Cork Circuit Criminal Court on the single count on the indictment. He replied: Guilty, to the charge that at about 9.40am on March 7, 2024, outside the GPO on Oliver Plunkett Street, Cork, he assaulted Dublin boutique owner Selina Regazzoli, who was 35 at the time, causing her harm.

Prosecution barrister Mary ODwyer said a victim impact statement would be sought by the prosecution in advance of sentencing.

Elaine Audley, defence barrister, said the defendant was keen for sentencing to proceed in the present sessions of Cork Circuit Criminal Court. Judge Helen Boyle adjourned sentencing until February 23.

Garda Orla Moriarty of Anglesea Street Garda Station originally arrested and charged Mr Greaney with the assault on Ms Regazzoli, causing her harm.

Garda Moriarty said at an earlier court hearing that gardai would allege Mr Greaney approached Ms Regazzoli outside the GPO while she was walking to work and that he struck her in the face in what was unprovoked attack on an innocent victim.

She said Mr Greaney hit and pushed Ms Regazzoli, who fell and suffered a dislocation and fracture to her right ankle and she had to be taken by ambulance to Cork University Hospital to undergo surgery.

Garda Moriarty said the entire incident was captured on CCTV, which clearly identified Mr Greaney as Ms Regazzolis assailant, and he had admitted the assault when questioned by gardai.

Mr Greaney had stated at interview following his arrest that Ms Regazzoli was not the intended target of his attack, Garda Moriarty said.

The accused said he did not know Ms Regazzoli and the assault on her was a case of mistaken identity as his intended victim was someone who was harassing him.

I feel terrible, Im disgusted with myself. I am not a monster, I didnt intend to go as hard as I did. I didnt intend to break anyones bones. I meant to more or less frighten the woman I thought it was somebody else that was harassing me, he said at the earlier hearing.
Property developer Michael OFlynn is back before the High Court for another round in his objection to the personal insolvency arrangement (PIA) of his former business partner and neighbour John ODriscoll.

The developer claims that Mr ODriscoll from Ovens, Co Cork, owed him in the region of 950,000 and was allegedly not insolvent when he sought and was granted a PIA by the courts. The developer is objecting to the ODriscoll PIA coming into effect and wants the circuit court decision to be set aside.

The High Court previously heard the alleged debt arose from a 2.2 million personal guarantee given to Mr OFlynn concerning liabilities of pub operator Ezeon Entertainment Ltd, which was established by Mr ODriscoll. Rugby coach and former Irish player Ronan OGara was a co-guarantor on the loan agreement and filed an affidavit as part of the dispute.

In the PIA, Mr OFlynns debt was listed as a contingent liability and given a nominal value of 1, because he had not proved it during the PIA process. In an affidavit to the High Court, Mr OFlynn said he was deeply upset by the actions of Mr ODriscoll in the matter.

I have been a loyal and supporting family friend for years. I have no vendetta or wish to have a personal dispute with Mr ODriscoll. In my view there was a lack of disclosure by the debtor to the PIP and thus a lack of verification and investigation of figures. With the issues that have now arisen, there is an issue of trust and faith in the personal insolvency system, he added.

The case has come before the High Court by way of an appeal against the granting of a PIA to John O'Driscoll, who is a brother of former Irish rugby international Mick ODriscoll.

Counsel for Michael OFlynn, Martin Hayden SC with Keith Farry BL, told the court that it is their case that at the time the debtor, Mr ODriscoll, was not insolvent. Counsel claimed it was a contrivance, a pre-pack PIA.

It is contended by the OFlynn side that Mr O'Driscoll did not meet the eligibility criteria in relation to a PIA and was allegedly cash flow and balance sheet solvent.

In his affidavit, Mr OFlynn, who was not present in court, said he wished to make clear that he was not paid 1 or any sum during the PIA and he said he has not accepted or cashed any postal order.

He said he was of the view that the setting aside of the ODriscoll PIA would allow the parties to get to the bottom of the correct figures and it appeared to him that there was alleged material non-disclosure and the Ezeon debt was an excluded debt.

In the High Court on Tuesday, counsel for the Personal Insolvency Practitioner in the ODriscoll case, Keith Rooney BL, contended that if Mr OFlynn had put in his proof of debt in the insolvency process, the four years before the courts in the case, including all the way to the Supreme Court, could have been avoided.

He did not do that for reasons best known to himself, counsel said. He added that Mr O'Flynns position is of his own making.

Two years ago a five-judge Supreme Court held that Mr OFlynns objection to the PIA should be heard by the High Court. Previously, the High Court, rejected Mr OFlynns attempt to object to the PIA finding that he lacked standing due to having failed to prove his debt at an earlier stage of the process.

However, the Supreme Court ruled in November 2023 that Mr OFlynn obtained a right to contest in court the debt plan despite earlier failing to prove his debt and the case was remitted back to the High Court.

Ms Justice Nessa Cahill reserved her decision.
The Government is set to scrap the Dublin Airport passenger cap, with new laws set to be approved by Cabinet at a meeting this morning.

Transport minister Darragh OBrien will formally seek Cabinet approval for the new laws today, with the expectation being that the legislation will be in place before summer.

The legislation will give the transport minister powers to either revoke or amend the existing 32m passenger cap.

It also precludes the introduction of a future cap on passengers for Dublin Airport.

Government sources said the move to remove the cap is due to the strategic national importance of Dublin Airport, adding that it is important to ensure Ireland remains connected to global markets.

Dublin Airport operator DAA has repeatedly called for the cap to be lifted, stating there is a need to increase the number to 40m per year.

The cap itself was initially introduced in 2007 as a planning condition for the construction of Terminal 2, with concerns being raised about the possible impact on roads in North Dublin.

The Government is also arguing that the removal of the cap will ensure DAAs infrastructure application can proceed to a decision without delays.

This application includes an expansion to Pier 1, which would increase the aircraft capacity at the airport by six.

Basic income for the arts

Meanwhile, culture minister Patrick ODonovan will update Cabinet on the timeline for the introduction of the permanent basic income for the arts scheme.

Artists who are successful will be on the scheme for three years, and they will begin receiving payments from September.

There will be 2,000 artists on the scheme in 2026, with each receiving 325 per week.

After three years, there will be a three-month period where payments are tapered off.

Infrastructure guidelines

Cabinet will also be updated about changes to the infrastructure guidelines, with public expenditure minister Jack Chambers to say it will cut 20 weeks off the approval process for major projects.

The guidelines are a framework for managing spending on major projects. This includes the removal of external assurance processes, with the Department of Public Expenditure to carry out its own checks.

Mr Chambers has also removed requirements for ministerial signoff in the late approval process, with it instead able to be done by a department official.

Defence Forces framework

Meanwhile, defence minister Helen McEntee will tell ministers she plans to publish an updated framework for improving the Defence Forces.

Ms McEntee is expected to say the updated plans will focus on workforce planning, including increasing recruitment and ensuring retention, alongside the regeneration of both the Naval Service and Air Corps.

Living city initiative

Elsewhere, Tanaiste Simon Harris will update Cabinet on the rollout of the updated living city initiative, which was expanded in Budget 2026.

The scheme itself aims to tackle vacancy and dereliction by offering tax reliefs on the cost of converting residential or commercial buildings.

It has been extended to Athlone, Sligo, Letterkenny, Drogheda and Dundalk, with local authorities providing maps for where the tax reliefs will apply.

Mr Harris will tell Cabinet the updated scheme will open for applications over the summer.
One leader is toast. If hes not gone by the time you read this, it wont be too much longer, barring a political miracle. Theres no easy way back. Theres something really sad about it.

The other leader will go on for three more years at least and do immense damage in the process. Theres no way of stopping it. Theres something deeply tragic about that.
The FBI said on Monday it is unaware of any continued communication between Savannah Guthries family and suspected kidnappers more than a week after the Today show hosts mother went missing.

The FBI has still not identified any suspects or persons of interest in the mysterious disappearance of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, said Connor Hagan, a spokesperson for the FBI.

Savannah Guthrie said the family was at an hour of desperation in a video released on Monday, just hours before a purported ransom deadline apparently set by her mums abductors.

She did not mention the deadline in the video, saying her family in Arizona continues to believe her mother is out there and hearing everyones prayers.

Today show host Savannah Guthrie (Evan Agostini/AP)

She was taken and we dont know where, and we need your help, Guthrie said in the video posted on Instagram, urging people nationwide to be on the lookout.

No matter where you are, even if youre far from Tucson, if you see anything, if you hear anything.

The mysterious disappearance and search has riveted the country  from President Donald Trump, who spoke with Savannah Guthrie last week, to the online sleuths who have flooded social media with tips, theories and rumours.

The FBI is now asking for the publics help on digital billboards up in several major cities in Texas, California, Arizona and New Mexico. The FBI has offered a 50,000-dollar (36,500) reward for information.

Multiple news outlets received alleged ransom letters during the past week. At least one letter made monetary demands and set deadlines for receiving the money. The first deadline passed last Thursday but a second one was set for Monday evening.

Law enforcement officials declined to affirm that the letters were credible but said all tips were being investigated seriously. The Pima County Sheriffs Department said on Monday that law enforcement tip lines have received thousands of calls.

Authorities say they have growing concerns about Nancy Guthries health because she needs daily medication. She is said to have a pacemaker and has dealt with high blood pressure and heart issues, according to sheriffs dispatcher audio on broadcastify.com.

Savannah Guthrie expressed hope on Monday that her mum was still alive.

We believe that somehow, some way, she is feeling these prayers, she said, and that God is lifting her even in this moment and in this darkest place.

In a video on Saturday, she said the family was prepared to pay for her mothers return: This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us, and we will pay.

Nancy Guthries home in Tucson, Arizona (Ty ONeil/AP)

Authorities believe Nancy Guthrie was taken against her will from her home just outside Tucson. She was last seen there on January 31 and reported missing the next day after not attending church.

DNA tests showed blood on Mrs Guthries front porch was a match to her, and her doorbell camera was disconnected in the early hours of Sunday morning, Pima County sheriff Chris Nanos has said.

Outside the home on Monday, neighbours strolled by on their morning jogs and walks, while a county sheriffs deputy remained stationed out front.

Law enforcements work at Guthrie residences will continue on Tuesday as part of the ongoing investigative process, including the expansion of the search and follow-up on new leads, the Pima County Sheriffs Department said in a statement on Monday.

Detectives and agents carried out follow-up work in the neighbourhood and other locations over the weekend as part of the investigation, the Pima County Sheriffs Department said on Sunday.

Investigators have not identified any suspects, persons of interest, or vehicles connected to this case, the department said.

Investigators on Saturday were inside daughter Annie Guthries home, about four miles from Nancy Guthries house. On Sunday, an investigator was seen using a pole to search an underground tank behind Nancy Guthries home.
The white supremacist who murdered 51 Muslims in New Zealands deadliest mass shooting was pleased to be charged with terrorism, his former lawyer has told a court deciding if the man was in a fit state to admit his crimes.

Brenton Tarrant, 35, was sentenced to life in prison without a chance of parole after pleading guilty to terrorism, murder and attempted murder for his massacre of worshippers including children at two Christchurch mosques during Friday prayers in 2019.

The Australian man is now seeking to recant the admissions he made in 2020, saying solitary confinement and other prison conditions made him irrational and mentally unwell.

New Zealands Court of Appeal in Wellington is considering Tarrants bid in a five-day hearing. If the three-judge panel discards his guilty pleas, the case would return to court for trial.

Jonathan Hudson, left, and Shane Tait gave evidence (Mark Baker/AP)

Tarrant first pleaded not guilty to the charges he faced then reversed his position before his trial was due to begin.

He told the appeals court on Monday that he felt forced into his admissions by nervous exhaustion brought on by constant solitary confinement, surveillance by prison staff, lack of access to reading materials and almost no contact with the outside world.

Lawyers who represented him during the period when he entered both sets of pleas told the court on Tuesday that they had laid a complaint about his prison conditions early in his confinement. Prison officials were dismissive of his grievances, the lawyers said.

They said, however, that restrictions on Tarrant eased later and they did not think his environment had harmed his ability to make decisions. Tarrant said on Monday that he had masked symptoms of serious mental illness in an effort not to appear weak or to reflect poorly on others who held his racist views.

Crown lawyers suggested to Tarrant on Monday that he had many opportunities to raise concerns about his mental health and or request a postponement of his trial. No witness has so far agreed with Tarrant that his conditions were so onerous and his mental state so poor that he was not fit to plead guilty.

One issue at the heart of the case is whether Tarrant always intended to admit the charges or planned to contest them.

Tarrant said on Monday that he had meant to defend himself at a trial, while his lawyers said on Tuesday that they were sure he intended to plead guilty due to the overwhelming evidence against him, which included his Facebook livestream of the massacre and a racist manifesto he posted online before the attack.

Shane Tait, who previously acted for Tarrant, said his client had wanted to argue during a trial that he had been defending New Zealand  a country he migrated to with a view to committing the attack  from immigrants.

Mr Tait assured Tarrant that such a defence was not available under New Zealand law, he told the court.

Brenton, what am I going to tell the jury if we go to trial? Mr Tait said he had asked Tarrant. His client had responded, dont worry, it wont get that far, Mr Tait said.

Both Mr Tait and Tarrants other then-lawyer Jonathan Hudson said it was important to their client that he be convicted on the terrorism charge and he refused to allow his lawyers to attempt to negotiate it away in exchange for guilty pleas to the murder and attempted murder charges.

Brenton Tarrant carried out the attack in 2019 (Mark Mitchell/Pool Photo via AP)

He wanted to be described as a terrorist, Mr Hudson said.

Bids to appeal against convictions or sentences in New Zealand must be made within 20 working days. Tarrant was two years late in seeking an appeal, filing documents in 2022.

He told the court pn Monday that his bid had been late because he had not had access to the information required to make it.

The judges are expected to release their decision at a later date. If they reject Tarrants attempt to have his guilty pleas discarded, a later hearing will focus on his bid to appeal against his sentence.

The hearing was the first time that Tarrant, who appeared by video conference from prison, had been seen or heard from in court for years. He appeared pale and thin, with a shaved head and black-framed glasses.

Some of those bereaved or injured by his violence watched a live feed of proceedings from a courtroom in Christchurch, telling reporters afterward of their exasperation and anger that he was allowed to keep revisiting his case in court.

Theres definitely no remorse at all, said Rashid Omar, whose son Tariq Omar was murdered, adding that the proceedings appeared to be a game to Tarrant.

We are very, very strong, Mr Omar said. Were not going to be bullied by him.
The EU has moved closer to creating offshore centres for migrants and asylum seekers, after centre-right and far-right MEPs united for tougher migration policies.

MEPs voted for legal changes that will give authorities more options to deport asylum seekers, including sending people to countries they have never been to.

Under the new rules, expected to apply from June, a person seeking asylum can be deported to a country outside the EU, even if they have only passed through it, or to a place to which they have no link, as long as a European government has signed an agreement with the receiving state.

The vote effectively underwrites Italys deal with Albania and the Dutch governments agreement with Uganda on the deportation of people whose asylum claims in the Netherlands have been turned down.

In a separate vote, MEPs also voted to create an EU list of safe third countries, meaning that people from those places will face fast-tracked procedures and may find it harder to claim asylum.

The list includes all EU candidate countries, including Georgia and Turkey, where the EU has expressed concerns about government crackdowns on the opposition in 2025. The safe list also includes Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Kosovo, Morocco, and Tunisia.

Rights groups have raised the alarm about the inclusion of Tunisia, where President Kais Saied has cracked down on civil society and opposition figures have been jailed for up to 66 years by politically controlled courts. Tunisian forces have also forced back migrants to remote desert regions, where some have died of thirst.

A coalition of 39 NGOs said in a statement before Tuesdays vote that designating Tunisia as a safe country of origin deprived Tunisian nationals of their right to an individual, fair, and effective assessment of their asylum claims, while giving the Tunisian authorities a renewed carte blanche to continue their systematic violations against migrants, civil society and the wider civic space.

Alessandro Ciriani, an Italian MEP, who led the European Parliaments work on the safe countries of origin list, hailed the result: This is the beginning of a new phase: Migration is no longer endured but governed.

He said: For too long, political decisions in migration policy have been systematically called into question by divergent judicial interpretations, paralysing state action and fuelling administrative chaos.

Ciriani is member of Giorgia Melonis Brothers of Italy party, which has clashed with Italian and European judges, who have ruled against the governments arrangements with Albania.

In 2024 an Italian court ruled that seven men at the Albanian facility would be transferred to Italy, disagreeing with the safe country of origin argument presented by Italy.

Italy had argued that the men could be transferred to their safe home countries of Bangladesh and Egypt, but the judges said there was a lack of transparency in how safety was assessed.

The EU has been tightening refugee rules since more than 1.3m people claimed asylum during the 2015 migration crisis, but the trend has accelerated with electoral gains by nationalist and far-right parties.

In the search for innovative solutions, EU leaders in 2024 endorsed the concept of offshore return hubs  processing centres for people denied asylum in the EU.

The right-wing Dutch government announced last September it had reached a deal with Uganda to enable the deportation of Africans denied asylum in the Netherlands. Denmarks Social Democrat government had previously explored processing asylum claimants in Rwanda, but never went ahead.

Last year 155,100 people risked their lives travelling in unseaworthy boats across the Mediterranean, while 1,953 died or went missing, according to the UN refugee agency.

The deadly toll has continued in the first weeks of 2026. As many as 380 people were feared drowned after a boat from Tunisia sailed into a cyclone last month.

Supporters of the new measures argue they undermine the business model of people smugglers.

People who genuinely need protection must receive it, but not necessarily in the European Union. Effective protection can also be provided in a safe third country, while individual assessment remains fully guaranteed, said Assita Kanko, a Flemish nationalist politician.

The International Rescue Committee described the votes as deeply disappointing.

The new safe third country rules are likely to force people to countries they may never have set foot in  places where they have no community, do not speak the language and face a very real risk of abuse and exploitation, said the IRCs senior advocacy adviser, Meron Ameha Knikman.

The two laws were passed with strong support from the centre-right European Peoples party (EPP) and three nationalist and far-right groups.

The votes were the latest sign of a new dynamic in the European Parliament after the election of a record number of nationalist and far-right MEPs to the right of the traditional Christian Democrats in 2024.

While critics accused the EPP of breaking the cordon sanitaire, voting lists revealed a more complex picture. The centre-left was deeply divided, with significant minorities of socialist and centrist MEPs voting in favour of the new laws, while many centrists abstained.

Guardian
The acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the US defended his agencys officers before Congress on Tuesday, standing behind their tactics and saying they would not be intimidated as they carried out the presidents mass deportation plans.

Todd Lyons was one of the three heads of agencies implementing President Donald Trumps immigration agenda to testify in a hearing called after the shooting deaths of two Americans at the hands of federal officers.

They faced fierce questioning from Democrats, and support from most Republicans, over how they were prosecuting immigration enforcement inside American cities.

Federal agents conducting immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis (Ryan Murphy/AP)

Let me send a message to anyone who thinks they can intimidate us. You will fail, said Mr Lyons, who blamed elected officials and protesters for escalating rhetoric that he claimed endangered his officers.

Mr Lyons, who at various points declined to comment directly on the killings of the two US citizens, said his officers would not be deterred.

We are only getting started, he said in opening remarks.

Mr Trumps immigration campaign has been heavily scrutinised in recent weeks, especially after the shooting deaths in Minneapolis.

Rodney Scott, who heads US Customs and Border Protection, left to right, Joseph Edlow, director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Todd Lyons, acting ICE director (Tom Brenner/AP)

The agencies have also faced criticism for a wave of policies that detractors say trample on the rights of both immigrants facing arrest and Americans protesting against the enforcement actions.

Tuesdays testimony is unlikely to quell simmering tensions over the centrepiece policy of Mr Trumps second term.

Mr Lyons, the acting ICE director, Rodney Scott, who heads US Customs and Border Protection, and Joseph Edlow, who is the director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, spoke in front of the House Committee on Homeland Security in a hearing that lasted roughly three-and-a-half hours.

It is the first time all three have appeared in Congress since the department received a huge infusion of money from Congress last summer and since immigration enforcement operations intensified across the country.

Under Mr Lyons leadership, ICE has undergone a massive hiring boom and immigration officers have deployed in beefed-up enforcement operations designed to increase arrests and deportations.

Todd Lyons said his officers would not be deterred (Tom Brenner/AP)

The officials spoke at a time of falling public support for how their agencies are carrying out Mr Trumps immigration vision. Their testimony comes as Democratic politicians in Congress are demanding restraints on immigration officers before agreeing to fund the Department of Homeland Security.

The agency heads warned the country would be less safe if federal funds expired at the end of the week.

Tuesdays hearing was called after federal officers shot and killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good, which sparked outrage across the country and demands for accountability and reform.

Mr Lyons and Mr Scott said standard operating procedures were being followed in investigations into the January shootings.

Since Mr Trump returned to the White House, Customs and Border Protection has taken on a significant role in arresting and removing illegal immigrants from inside the country.

Mr Scott said standard operating procedures were being followed in investigations into the January shootings (Tom Brenner/AP)

This increased activity has become a flashpoint for controversy and marks a break from the agencys traditional job of protecting borders and controlling who and what enters the country.

Meanwhile, Minnesota governor Tim Walz said on Tuesday that he expected the federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota would end in days, not weeks and months, based on his recent conversations with top Trump administration officials.

The Democratic governor said at a news conference that he spoke on Monday with border tzar Tom Homan and with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles on Tuesday morning.

Mr Homan took over the Minnesota operation in late January after the second fatal shooting by federal officers and amid growing political backlash and questions about how the operation was being run.

Were very much in a trust-but-verify mode, Mr Walz said.

It would be my hope that (border tzar Tom Homan) goes out before Friday and announces that this thing is done, and theyre bringing her down and theyre bringing her down in days. That would be my expectation

He added that he expected to hear more from the administration in the next day or so about the future of what he said has been an occupation and a retribution campaign against the state.

While Mr Walz said he was hopeful at the moment because every indication I have is that this thing is winding up, he added that things could change.

It would be my hope that Mr Homan goes out before Friday and announces that this thing is done, and theyre bringing her down and theyre bringing her down in days, Mr Walz said.

That would be my expectation.

Officials with the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the governors remarks.
Human Rights Watch  (Jerusalem)  Israeli forces escalated their atrocities in 2025, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, acts of genocide, and ethnic cleansing against Palestinians, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2026. Israeli forces killed, maimed, starved, and forcibly displaced Palestinians and destroyed their homes and civilian infrastructure at a scale unprecedented in the recent history of Israel and Palestine.

Israels campaign in Gaza resulted in the killing of more than 69,000 Palestinians, including more than 19,000 children, according to Gazas Health Ministry. An October US-brokered ceasefire led to the release of the remaining living Israeli hostages in Gaza and hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli detention, most without trial or charge. But grave abuses, including the Israeli authorities crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution against Palestinians, persist.

The rules-based international order that grew out of the ashes of World War II is under assault amid the carnage and destruction in Gaza, said Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. The ceasefire has not stopped Israels crimes, nor should it stop other countries from taking urgent action to address ongoing abuses and ensure justice.

In the 529-page World Report 2026, its 36th edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices in more than 100 countries. In his introductory essay, Executive Director Philippe Bolopion writes that breaking the authoritarian wave sweeping the world is the challenge of a generation. With the human rights system under unprecedented threat from the Trump administration and other global powers, Bolopion calls on rights-respecting democracies and civil society to build a strategic alliance to defend fundamental freedoms.
Vancouver, BC, February 10, 2026  TheNewswire - Silver North Resources Ltd. (TSX-V: SNAG) Silver North or the Company) is pleased to announce the closing of its previously announced brokered private placement (the Offering) for aggregate gross proceeds of C$11,576,985, which includes the exercise in full of the agents option. Pursuant to the Offering, the Company sold 4,982,461 units of the Company (the Units) at a price of C$0.40 per Unit (the Unit Price) and 17,114,286 flow-through units of the Company that were sold to charitable purchasers (the Charity FT Units, and together with the Units, the Offered Securities) at a price of C$0.56 per Charity FT Unit.

Each Unit consists of one common share of the Company and one-half of one common share purchase warrant (each whole warrant, a Warrant). Each Charity FT Unit consists of one common share of the Company to be issued as a flow-through share within the meaning of subsection 66(15) of the Income Tax Act (Canada) (each, a FT Share) and one-half of one Warrant. Each whole Warrant entitles the holder to purchase one common share of the Company at a price of C$0.56 at any time after April 10, 2026 to February 10, 2029.

Red Cloud Securities Inc. (Red Cloud) acted as sole agent and bookrunner in connection with the Offering. As consideration for their services, Red Cloud received aggregate cash fees of C$810,388.92 and 1,546,772 non-transferable common share purchase warrants (the Broker Warrants). Each Broker Warrant is exercisable to acquire one common share of the Company at the Unit Price at any time on or before February 10, 2029.

The Company intends to use the gross proceeds from the Offering for exploration and related programs on the Companys Haldane and Veronica properties in Yukon Territory as well as for working capital and general corporate purposes, as is more fully described in the Amended Offering Document (as herein defined).

The gross proceeds from the sale of Charity FT Units will be used by the Company to incur eligible Canadian exploration expenses that qualify as flow-through mining expenditures as both terms are defined in the Income Tax Act (Canada) (the Qualifying Expenditures) related to the Companys Haldane and GDR projects on or before December 31, 2027. All Qualifying Expenditures will be renounced in favour of the subscribers of the Charity FT Units effective December 31, 2026. If the Qualifying Expenditures are reduced by the Canada Revenue Agency, the Company will indemnify each Charity FT Unit subscriber for any additional taxes payable by such subscriber as a result of the Companys failure to renounce the Qualifying Expenditures as agreed.

In accordance with National Instrument 45-106 - Prospectus Exemptions (NI 45-106), 15,696,747 Offered Securities (the LIFE Securities) were issued to Canadian purchasers pursuant to the listed issuer financing exemption under Part 5A of NI 45-106, as amended by Coordinated Blanket Order 45-935  Exemptions from Certain Conditions of the Listed Issuer Financing Exemption (the Listed Issuer Financing Exemption). The securities issuable from the sale of the LIFE Securities to Canadian purchasers are immediately freely tradeable in accordance with applicable Canadian securities legislation. 6,400,000 Charity FT Units were issued pursuant to available exemptions from the prospectus requirement under NI 45-106, other than the Listed Issuer Financing Exemption (the Non-LIFE Exemptions). The securities issuable from Charity FT Units issued pursuant to the Non-LIFE Exemptions are subject to a hold period in Canada ending on June 11, 2026.

There is an amended and restated offering document (the Amended Offering Document) related to the Offering that can be accessed under the Companys profile at www.sedarplus.ca and on the Companys website at www.silvernorthres.com.

The closing of the Offering remains subject to the final approval of the TSX Venture Exchange.

The securities described herein have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the U.S. Securities Act) or any state securities laws, and accordingly, may not be offered or sold within the United States or the US persons except in compliance with the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities requirements or pursuant to exemptions therefrom. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any securities in any jurisdiction.

About Silver North Resources Ltd.

Silver Norths primary assets are its 100% owned Haldane Silver Project (next to Hecla Mining Inc.s Keno Hill Mine project), the Tim Silver Project (under option to Coeur Mining, Inc. in the Silvertip/Midway District, BC and Yukon) and the GDR (Veronica) project also in the Silvertip/Midway district. Silver North also plans to acquire additional silver properties in favourable jurisdictions.

The Company is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol SNAG, trades on the OTCQB market in the United States under the symbol TARSF, and under the symbol I90 on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

For further information, contact:

Jason Weber, President and CEO

Sandrine Lam, Shareholder Communications

Tel: (604) 807-7217

Fax: (888) 889-4874

To learn more visit: www.silvernorthres.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/SilverNorthRes

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/silvernorth-res-ltd/

NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE. STATEMENTS IN THIS NEWS RELEASE, OTHER THAN PURELY HISTORICAL INFORMATION, INCLUDING STATEMENTS RELATING TO THE COMPANY'S FUTURE PLANS AND OBJECTIVES OR EXPECTED RESULTS, MAY INCLUDE FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS. The forward-looking statements and information in this news release include, without limitation, statements regarding the intended use of proceeds from the Offering and the FINAL APPROVAL OF THE OFFERING FROM THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS ARE BASED ON NUMEROUS ASSUMPTIONS AND ARE SUBJECT TO ALL OF THE RISKS AND UNCERTAINTIES INHERENT IN RESOURCE EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT. AS A RESULT, ACTUAL RESULTS MAY VARY MATERIALLY FROM THOSE DESCRIBED IN THE FORWARD- LOOKING STATEMENTS.

NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWS WIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Oreterra Metals Corp. (TSXV: OTMC) (OTCID: RMIOD) (FSE: D4R0) (WKN: A421RQ) ("Oreterra" or the "Company") (previously, Romios Gold Resources Inc.) is pleased to announce that it intends to complete a non-brokered private placement financing for aggregate gross proceeds of up to $6,000,000 through the issuance of a combination of hard-dollar units ("HD Units") of the Company at a price of $0.45 per HD Unit and flow-through units ("FT Units") at a price of $0.50 per FT Unit (collectively, the "Offering"). Closing of the Offering is scheduled for March 20, 2026. The majority of the gross proceeds from the sale of both the HD Units and the FT Units will be used to carry out the first-ever drilling in the approaching field season of the large-scale Trek South porphyry copper-gold prospect located in northwestern B.C. The Trek South prospect is new to science, having been revealed by ice melt in recent years, and consists of stacked, high-order alteration, geochemical and geophysical anomalies. It is located in BC's Golden Triangle, adjacent to Teck-Newmont's Galore Creek deposits in ideal terrain, and close to partially completed infrastructure. A comprehensive NI 43-101 technical report on the Trek property dated January 20, 2026, can be found at www.oreterra.com and on the Company's issuer profile at www.sedarplus.ca. An investor presentation summarizing the Trek South prospect can also be found at www.oreterra.com.

In connection with the Offering, the Company has entered into a fiscal advisory agreement with Canaccord Genuity Corp. ("Canaccord"). Subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV"), the Company shall compensate Canaccord in the amount of $25,000, payable in HD Units of the Company (the "Compensation Units") to be issued at C$0.45 per Compensation Unit with the same terms as HD Units. In addition, 6% finder's fees in cash or securities, or a combination of both, may be payable by Oreterra in connection with the Offering, subject to the rules of the TSXV.

Insiders may participate for up to 10% of the Offering. Such insider private placements will be exempt from the valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of Multilateral Instrument 61-101 ("MI 61-101") by virtue of the exemptions contained in sections 5.5(a) and 5.7(1) (a) of MI 61-101 in that the fair market value of the consideration for the securities of the Company which will be issued to the insiders will not exceed 25% of its market capitalization.

Financing Details

Each HD Unit, priced at $0.45, will comprise one (1) common share of the Company and one (1) common share purchase warrant (each an "HD Warrant"). Each HD Warrant will entitle the holder thereof to acquire one additional common share of the Company at an exercise price of $0.60 per share for three years following the closing of the Offering.

Each FT Unit, priced at $0.50, will comprise one (1) common flow-through share of the Company (each an "FT Share"), and one (1) common share purchase warrant (each an "FT Warrant"). Each FT Warrant will entitle the holder thereof to acquire one additional common share of the Company at an exercise price of $0.60 per share for three years following the closing of the Offering.

The FT Shares will qualify as "flow-through shares" (within the meaning of subsection 66(15) of the Income Tax Act (Canada) (the "Tax Act"). An amount equal to the gross proceeds from the issuance of the FT Shares will be used to incur eligible resource exploration expenses which will qualify as (i) "Canadian exploration expenses" (as defined in the Tax Act), and (ii) as "flow-through critical mineral mining expenditures" (as defined in subsection 127(9) of the Tax Act) (collectively, the "Qualifying Expenditures"). Qualifying Expenditures in an aggregate amount not less than the gross proceeds raised from the issue of the FT Shares will be incurred (or deemed to be incurred) by the Company on or before December 31, 2027 and will be renounced by the Company to the initial purchasers of the FT Shares with an effective date no later than December 31, 2026. The net proceeds from the issuance of HD Units will be primarily used for exploration activities at the Company's Trek property, as well as for general working capital purposes.

It is expected that the Offering will close on or about March 20, 2026, or such other date or dates that the Company may determine (the "Closing Date"), subject to the receipt of all required regulatory approvals, including the approval of the TSXV. All securities issued in connection with the Offering will be subject to a hold period of four months and one day from the Closing Date, in accordance with applicable Canadian securities laws.

The securities described herein have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or any state securities laws, and accordingly, may not be offered or sold within the United States except in compliance with the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities requirements or pursuant to exemptions therefrom. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any securities in any jurisdiction.

Qualified Person

The technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by John Biczok, P.Geo., Vice President, Exploration for Oreterra and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.

About Oreterra Metals Corp.

Oreterra Metals Corp. commenced trading on February 2, 2026, under the new ticker OTMC, following a months-long effort to restructure the former Romios Gold Resources Inc. Management took on the task because it believes the Company's wholly-owned Trek South porphyry copper-gold prospect represents, based upon the impressive results of the spectrum of geosciences applied to the target area to date, among the finest new targets of its kind in BC's Golden Triangle. The Company recently released (news, January 22, 2026) a National Instrument 43-101 Technical Report for the Trek property which recommends two initial phases of drilling at Trek South, for execution in the approaching 2026 field season. A copy of the Technical Report is available on the Company's website at www.oreterra.com, and on the Company's SEDAR+ issuer profile at www.sedarplus.ca.

Additional wholly-owned Company property interests include two former producers in Nevada: the Kinkaid claims in the Walker Lane trend covering numerous shallow Au-Ag-Cu workings over what is believed to be one or more porphyry centres (source: J. Biczok, P.Geo, June 2025, Kinkaid Gold-Copper-Silver Project, www.oreterra.com), and the Scossa mine property in the Sleeper trend which is a former high-grade gold producer (source: J. Biczok, P.Geo, July 2025, Scossa Historic Gold Mine Property, www.oreterra.com). The Company also holds a 100% interest in the large Lundmark-Akow Lake Au-Cu property adjacent to the northwest of the Musselwhite Mine in northwestern Ontario, where drilling by the Company has produced highly encouraging, broad VMS-style Au-Cu intersections.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release includes certain "forward-looking statements" which are not comprised of historical facts. Forward-looking statements include estimates and statements that describe the Company's future plans, objectives or goals, including words to the effect that the Company or management expects a stated condition or result to occur. Forward-looking statements may be identified by such terms as "believes", "anticipates", "expects", "estimates", "may", "could", "would", "will", or "plan". Since forward-looking statements are based on assumptions and address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Although these statements are based on information currently available to the Company, the Company provides no assurance that actual results will meet management's expectations. Risks, uncertainties and other factors involved with forward-looking information could cause actual events, results, performance, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to failure to identify mineral resources, delays in obtaining or failures to obtain required governmental, environmental or other project approvals, political risks, inability to fulfill the duty to accommodate First Nations, uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future, changes in equity markets, inflation, changes in exchange rates, fluctuations in commodity prices, delays in the development of projects, capital and operating costs varying significantly from estimates and the other risks involved in the mineral exploration and development industry, and those risks set out in the Company's public documents filed on SEDAR. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information, which only applies as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed time frames or at all. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law.

NOT FOR DISSEMINATION, DISTRIBUTION, RELEASE, OR PUBLICATION, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN OR INTO THE UNITED STATES OR FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Minaurum Silver Inc. (TSXV: MGG) (OTCQX: MMRGF) ("Minaurum") is pleased to report results from the first holes of its Phase 2, 50,000-meter resource-expansion drill program at the Alamos Silver Project ("Alamos") in Sonora, Mexico. The program is targeting the Europa, Promontorio, and Travesia vein zones and has returned multiple high-grade silver intersections (Table 1, Figures 1-4).

Highlights include:

12.35 m of 408 g/t silver equivalent ("AgEq"), including 3.20 m of 1,277 g/t AgEq (Hole AL25-163)

(Hole AL25-163) 2.35 m of 374 g/t AgEq (Hole AL25-153)

"Hole AL25-163 confirms the continuity of high-grade silver mineralization well beyond the current inferred resource in the Europa Vein Zone," said Darrell Rader, President and CEO of Minaurum Silver. "Stepping out 250 metres and intersecting strong grades and widths demonstrates the scale of the system. With the mineralization remaining open both down dip and along strike, these results support our strategy to significantly expand the Alamos resource with continued drilling."

Europa Vein Zone

The defined resource of the Europa vein zone occupies about 1 km of its surface-traced 3-km strike length. Recent assay results extend high-grade mineralization along strike, particularly the 1 km extension to the south at Europa. Hole AL25-163 intersected a significant wide interval of 12.35 m zone averaging 408 g/t AgEq, including 3.20 m of 1,277 g/t AgEq (1,032 g/t Ag, 0.278 g/t Au, 0.692% Cu, 5.477% Pb, 2.379% Zn). Hole AL25-154 returned 1.05 m of 231 g/t AgEq, including 0.25 m of 700 g/t AgEq (355 g/t Ag, 1.86 g/t Au, 1.45% Cu, 0.77% Pb, 1.89% Zn) (See Table 1, Figures 2 and 3).

Figure 1. Plan view showing locations of Travesia, Quintera, Promontorio, and Europa vein zones. Click to enlarge.

Figure 2. Longitudinal section of Europa vein zone, showing locations of highlighted mineralized intersections. Click to enlarge.

Figure 3. Cross section of Europa and Nueva Europa vein zones, showing hole AL25-163. EV=volcanic rocks, CZ=marble and skarn, GR=granodiorite. Click to enlarge.

Table 1. Assay Highlights for Europa Vein Zone - Europe Sur, Europa and Europa Norte. Hole locations are shown in Figure 2 and 3.

Weight-averaged silver-equivalent grades are based on 1) October 1, 2025 Long-term CIBC Global Mining Group Analyst Consensus Commodity Price Forecast: Ag $29.73/tr oz, Au $2,646/tr oz, Cu $4.34/lb, Pb $0.92/lb, Zn $1.21/lb; 2) Metallurgical recovery assumptions:88.3% for Ag, 88.5% for Au, 75.5% for Cu, 83% for Pb, and 75% for Zn; and 3) Refinery payable assumptions: 95% for Ag, 95% for Au, 96.5% for Cu, 95% for Pb, and 85% for Zn.

EUROPA SUR Hole From

(m) To

(m) Interval

(m) Ag

g/t Au

g/t Cu

% Pb

% Zn

% AgEq

g/t AL25-154 99.50 100.65 1.15 95 0.01 0.19 0.32 1.11 143 131.55 131.75 0.20 349 0.05 0.31 0.48 1.58 425 220.20 221.25 1.05 132 0.45 0.44 0.25 0.69 231 including 220.20 220.45 0.25 355 1.86 1.45 0.67 1.89 700 263.70 265.20 1.50 4 0.87 0.01 0.02 0.20 89 AL25-155 174.25 175.35 1.10 57 0.09 0.12 0.74 1.59 125 AL25-156 440.30 441.00 0.70 35 0.00 0.09 0.40 1.13 75 AL25-157 245.10 248.45 3.35 43 0.02 0.11 0.30 0.90 80 including 247.15 248.10 0.95 107 0.07 0.16 0.89 2.22 193 AL25-158 45.75 47.30 1.55 41 0.00 0.02 0.12 0.11 49 AL25-163 280.20 292.55 12.35 318 0.09 0.35 1.60 0.90 408 including 280.20 287.20 7.00 523 0.14 0.44 2.78 1.36 659 which includes 280.20 283.40 3.20 1032 0.27 0.69 5.47 2.37 1277 and 285.80 287.20 1.40 149 0.05 0.38 0.90 0.68 220 and 289.80 292.55 2.75 85 0.02 0.39 0.05 0.42 132 AL25-164 121.45 123.00 1.55 41.2 0.00 0.02 0.08 0.03 46 AL25-166 255.35 255.70 0.35 46.4 0.00 0.23 0.47 1.19 102 280.30 281.35 1.05 110 0.05 0.85 0.14 0.36 199 including 281.00 281.35 0.35 155 0.12 2.41 0.31 0.92 402 AL25-167 289.40 289.75 0.35 64 0.02 0.18 0.10 0.75 101 298.35 298.85 0.50 236 0.05 0.27 0.78 1.77 318

EUROPA Hole From

(m) To

(m) Interval

(m) Ag

g/t Au

g/t Cu

% Pb

% Zn

% AgEq

g/t AL25-150 368 370.25 2.25 107 0.02 0.20 1.61 1.55 193 including 368.5 369.05 0.55 272 0.03 0.26 4.72 1.84 432 AL25-152 161.5 166.1 4.6 77 0.07 0.32 0.39 1.15 144 including 164.5 165.45 0.95 90 0.11 0.63 0.49 1.74 202 AL25-153 129.05 131.4 2.35 240 0.06 0.70 1.76 1.46 374 including 130.85 131.4 0.55 487 0.16 0.95 4.25 2.09 714 AL25-164 121.45 123.00 1.55 41.2 0.00 0.02 0.08 0.03 46

EUROPA NORTE HoleID From

(m) To

(m) Interval

(m) Ag

g/t Au

g/t Cu

% Pb

% Zn

% AgEq

g/t AL25-162 450.00 450.40 0.40 48 0.01 0.17 0.47 0.68 88

Promontorio Vein Zone

The 1 km-long Promontorio vein zone consists of multiple veins including the Veta Grande and Veta Las Guijas veins. Drilling to date at Promontorio and Promontorio Sur has intersected mineralization in epithermal vein-hosted cutting volcanic and intrusive rocks in addition to skarn/carbonate-replacement (CRD) mineralization hosted by limestone in the footwall of the vein zones. Hole AL25-159 continued mineralization and intersected 4.40 m of 154 g/t AgEq including 1.35 m of 189 g/t AgEq in an epithermal vein (Table 2, Figure 4).

Travesia - La Quintera Vein Zones

The Travesia vein zone lies to the north of the Promontorio zone and continues north in the hanging wall of the La Quintera vein zone. Hole AL25-165 aimed at the Travesia and La Quintera vein zones in the northern part of the Travesia-Quintera zone, and intersected narrow but encouraging mineralization of 0.95 m of 148 g/t AgEq, including 0.40 m of 221 g/t AgEq in the extension of the Travesia vein.

Figure 4. Longitudinal section of Travesia-Promontorio vein zones, showing locations of highlighted mineralized intersections. Click to enlarge.

Table 2. Assay Highlights for Travesia-Promontorio Vein Zone. Hole locations are shown in Figure 4.

Weight-averaged silver-equivalent grades are based on October 1, 2025 Long-term CIBC Global Mining Group Analyst Consensus Commodity Price Forecast: Ag $29.73/tr oz, Au $2,646/tr oz, Cu $4.34/lb, Pb $0.92/lb, Zn $1.21/lb. Metallurgical recovery assumptions applied are 88.3% for Ag, 88.5% for Au, 75.5% for Cu, 83% for Pb, and 75% for Zn. Refinery payable assumptions applied are 95% for Ag, 95% for Au, 96.5% for Cu, 95% for Pb, and 85% for Zn.

PROMONTORIO Hole From

(m) To

(m) Interval

(m) Ag

g/t Au

g/t Cu

% Pb

% Zn

% AgEq

g/t AL25-151 390.85 391.35 0.5 32 0.00 0.03 0.23 0.02 40 AL25-159 102.35 106.75 4.40 28 0.04 0.32 1.03 3.43 154 including 104.60 105.95 1.35 35 0.03 0.37 1.01 4.62 189 AL25-161 182.30 182.80 0.50 96.3 0.16 0.18 0.22 0.63 145 AL25-162 450.00 450.40 0.40 48 0.01 0.17 0.47 0.68 88

TRAVESIA Hole From

(m) To

(m) Interval

(m) Ag

g/t Au

g/t Cu

% Pb

% Zn

% AgEq

g/t AL25-165 72.80 73.75 0.95 105 0.00 0.37 0.23 0.24 148

Share Issuance Update

The Company wishes to clarify its news release filed on December 11, 2025 and material change report filed on December 18, 2025. The aggregate number of units issued pursuant to the Companys brokered private placement which closed on December 11, 2025 was understated by one unit and the Company now wishes to correct this disclosure to reference a total of 69,444,443 units (previously disclosed as 69,444,442 units). In addition, insider participation was understated by one unit and should be corrected to a total of 191,223 units (previously disclosed as 191,222 units). Please refer to the Companys December 11, 2025 news release for additional details relating to the private placement.

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Minaurum Silver Inc. (TSXV: MGG) (OTCQX: MMRGF) (FSE: 78M) is focused on advancing and expanding its high-grade, 100% owned, production-permitted Alamos Silver Project in southern Sonora, Mexico. The Alamos Project hosts a National Instrument 43-101-compliant inferred mineral resource of 55 million ounces of silver equivalent, grading 320 g/t AgEq. Led by a team of proven silver-mine builders with a track record of advancing projects from discovery through development, Minaurum has assembled a strong pipeline of exploration and development assets across Mexico and the United States.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

"Darrell A. Rader"



Darrell A. Rader

President and CEO

Data review and verification

Stephen R. Maynard, Vice President of Exploration of Minaurum and a Qualified Person (QP) as defined by National Instrument 43-101, reviewed and verified the assay data, and has approved the disclosure in this News Release. Verification was done by visual inspection of core samples and comparison to assay results. Assay results have not been checked by re-analysis. No factors were identified that could materially affect the accuracy or reliability of the data presented in this news release.

Analytical Procedures and Quality Assurance/Quality Control

Preparation and assaying of drilling samples from Minaurum's Alamos project are done with strict adherence to a Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) protocol. Core samples are sawed in half and then bagged in a secure facility near the site and then shipped either by a licensed courieror by Company personnel to ALS Minerals' preparation facility in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico. ALS prepares the samples, crushing them to 70% less than 2mm, splitting off 250g, and pulverizing the split to more than 85% passing 75 microns. The resulting sample pulps are prepared in Hermosillo, and then shipped to Vancouver for chemical analysis by ALS Minerals. In Vancouver, the pulps are analyzed for gold by fire assay and ICP/AES on a 30-gram charge. In addition, analyses are done for silver, copper, lead, and zinc using 4-acid digestion and ICP analysis. Samples with silver values greater than 100 g/t; and copper, lead, or zinc values greater than 10,000 ppm (1%) are re-analyzed using 4-acid digestion and atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS).

Quality-control (QC) samples are inserted in the sample stream every 20 samples on average, and thus represent 5% of the total samples. QC samples include standards, blanks, and duplicate samples. Standards are pulps that have been prepared by a third-party laboratory; they have gold, silver, and base-metal values that are established by an extensive analytical process in which several commercial labs (including ALS Minerals) participate. Standards test the calibration of the analytical equipment. Blanks are rock material known from prior sampling to contain less than 0.005 ppm gold; they test the sample preparation procedure for cross-sample contamination. In the case of duplicates, the sample interval is cut in half and then quartered. The first quarter is the original sample, the second becomes the duplicate. Duplicate samples provide a test of the reproducibility of assays in the same drilled interval. When final assays are received, QC sample results are inspected for deviation from accepted values. To date, QC sample analytical results have fallen in acceptable ranges on the Alamos project.

When final assays are received, QC sample results are inspected for deviation from accepted values by the QP. To date, QC sample analytical results have fallen in acceptable ranges on the Alamos project.

ALS Minerals is independent of Minaurum Silver and is independent of the Qualified Person.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. "Forward-looking information" includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to activities, events or developments that the Company expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future. Generally, but not always, forward-looking information and statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", or "believes" or the negative connotation thereof or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved" or the negative connotation thereof.

In making the forward-looking information in this release, Minaurum has applied certain factors and assumptions that are based on Minaurum's current beliefs as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to Minaurum. Although Minaurum considers these assumptions to be reasonable based on information currently available to it, they may prove to be incorrect, and the forward-looking information in this release are subject to numerous risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause future results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking information.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Minaurum does not intend, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to, update or revise any forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Sitka Gold Corp. (TSXV: SIG) (FSE: 1RF) (OTCQB: SITKF) ("Sitka" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the immediate appointment of Louis Archambeault to its Board of Directors as an independent director.

Mr. Archambeault is a senior mining executive with over 20 years of experience spanning corporate development, strategy, capital markets, and technical project development across the mining sector. His background includes senior roles in strategy and corporate development, mining-focused private equity, and investment banking, as well as board experience with publicly listed exploration companies.

Mr. Archambeault brings a strong combination of technical and commercial expertise, with experience supporting mining projects from early-stage exploration through to commercial production, including capital allocation strategy, project financing, and M&A transaction execution. He has worked closely with management teams and boards on strategic planning, governance, and engagement with institutional investors and strategic partners.

"We are very pleased to welcome Louis to Sitka's Board," said Cor Coe, Director and CEO of Sitka. "Following the exploration success at our flagship RC Gold Project, Sitka is advancing into the next phase of project development. The Company is planning a 60,000 metre exploration program and the subsequent completion of a Preliminary Economic Assessment. Louis' experience across project development, capital allocation, and strategic decision making will be an important addition to our team as we execute these next steps."

Mr. Archambeault holds a bachelor's and master's degree in mining engineering and has authored technical and financial research in the mining sector. He brings a disciplined, long-term perspective to board oversight, with a focus on value creation, governance, and risk adjusted decision-making.

In connection with the appointment of Mr. Archambeault to the Board, the Company has granted Mr. Archambeault 700,000 incentive stock options (the "Options"). The Options are exercisable at $0.90 per Share for a period of three years from the date of grant and are subject to the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange.

About Sitka Gold Corp.

Sitka Gold Corp. is a well-funded mineral exploration company headquartered in Canada with over $45 million in its treasury and no debt. The Company is managed by a team of experienced industry professionals and is focused on exploring for economically viable mineral deposits with its primary emphasis on gold, silver and copper mineral properties of merit.

The Company is currently advancing its flagship RC Gold Project - a 431 square kilometre, district-scale property with year-round road access and 11 reduced intrusion related gold deposit targets strategically located in the heart of the Tombstone Gold Belt just a 2-hour drive from Dawson City, Yukon. To date, the Company has discovered three gold deposits at the RC Gold which currently has pit-constrained, open mineral resources that are contained in two zones: the Blackjack and Eiger gold deposits with 1,291,000 ounces of gold in 39,962,000 tonnes grading 1.01 g/t gold in an indicated category and 1,044,000 ounces of gold in 34,603,000 tonnes grading 0.94 g/t gold in an inferred category at Blackjack and 440,000 ounces of gold in 27,362,000 tonnes grading 0.50 g/t gold in an inferred category at Eiger. These resource estimate numbers are supported by the January 2025 technical report for RC Gold, prepared in accordance with NI 43-101 standards, entitled "Clear Creek Property, RC Gold Project NI 43-101 Technical Report Dawson Mining District, Yukon Territory", prepared by Ronald G. Simpson, P. Geo., of GeoSim Services Inc. with an effective date of January 21, 2025. This report is available on SEDAR+ and on the Company's website. An updated technical report, which will include an initial MRE for the newly discovered Rhosgobel deposit, which is the third deposit discovered to date at RC Gold, is anticipated to be announced in Q1 of 2026.

In addition to the RC Gold Project, the Company has a comprehensive portfolio of several other highly prospective mineral properties across North America, including the Alpha Gold Project in Nevada, the Burro Creek Gold and Silver Project in Arizona and the Coppermine River Project in Nunavut, all of which are 100% owned by Sitka.

*For more detailed information on the Company's properties, please visit our website at www.sitkagoldcorp.com.

Upcoming Events

Sitka Gold will be attending and/or presenting at the following events*:

PDAC: Toronto, ON: March 1 - 4, 2026

Swiss Mining Institute: Zurich, Switzerland: March 18-19, 2026

*All events are subject to change.

The scientific and technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Cor Coe, P.Geo., Director and CEO of the Company, and a Qualified Person (QP) as defined by National Instrument 43-101.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF

SITKA GOLD CORP.

"Donald Penner"

President and Director

For more information, contact:

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary and Forward-Looking Statements

This release includes certain statements and information that may constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking statements relate to future events or future performance and reflect the expectations or beliefs of management of the Company regarding future events. Generally, forward-looking statements and information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "intends" or "anticipates", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "should", "would" or "occur". This information and these statements, referred to herein as "forwardlooking statements", are not historical facts, are made as of the date of this news release and include without limitation, statements regarding discussions of future plans, estimates and forecasts and statements as to management's expectations and intentions and the Company's anticipated work programs.

These forwardlooking statements involve numerous risks and uncertainties and actual results might differ materially from results suggested in any forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, among other things, market uncertainty and the results of the Company's anticipated work programs.

Although management of the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement, forward-looking information or financial out-look that are incorporated by reference herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. We seek safe harbor.
TORONTO, Feb. 10, 2026 /CNW/ - NEO Battery Materials Ltd. ("NEO" or the "Company") (TSXV: NBM) (OTC: NBMFF), a low-cost, silicon-enhanced battery developer that enables longer-running, rapid-charging batteries for drones, robotics, and electronics, is pleased to appoint 4-star General (Ret.) Chang-Jun Ko to its Board of Directors as an independent director, strengthening the Company's strategic integration with South Korea's defense sector and government stakeholders.

General Ko is a highly respected senior military leader of the Republic of Korea (ROK) Army, having most recently served as Acting Chief of Staff of the ROK Army and as the 46th Commander of the Second Operational Command. Over a 36-year distinguished military career, he has held multiple senior command and leadership roles overseeing complex defense operations, force readiness, and large-scale military organizations across the Korean Peninsula.

The appointment reflects NEO's focus on expanding its engagement within South Korea's defense and national security ecosystem as the Company advances high-performance battery technologies for drones, unmanned systems (UAS), and defense-related technology applications. General Ko brings deep expertise in field-use requirements and procurement protocols within the ROK Army and the Ministry of National Defense, including active relationships across defense, government, and relevant public-sector organizations.

As a board member, General Ko will provide strategic and operational guidance on defense sector engagement and effective pathways for navigating Korea's military procurement and acquisition process. His experience and insights are expected to support NEO's effort to align battery performance, quality, and costs with the standards required for military and government use.

General Chang-Jun Ko expressed: "I am greatly pleased and excited to join NEO Battery Materials at a time when high-performance battery and energy technologies are becoming vital to defense drone and physical AI systems. NEO's competitive edge in providing a customized battery solution using the domestic supply chain opens a key growth and development opportunity in addressing the critical battery supply deficit concern in South Korea, the United States, and all relevant Western governments. I look forward to supporting the Company as it deepens its engagement with Korea's defense ecosystem and advances battery solutions suited for military operational environments."

Appointment of Target IR & Communications

NEO is also pleased to enter into an investor relations agreement (the "Agreement") with 260814 Ontario Inc. (dba Target IR & Communications) ("Target IR") for investor relations and communications services to increase the Company's visibility within the Canadian capital markets and to streamline overall corporate messaging, IR planning and investor outreach, in addition to supporting digital marketing initiatives. Under the terms of the Agreement, effective February 9, 2026, Target IR will receive a monthly service fee of CAD 8,500 (plus applicable taxes) for an initial term of six months, with the option to renew on a quarterly basis thereafter. Target IR is at arm's length relationship with the Company and does not have any direct or indirect interest in the Company or its securities. Target IR's principal, Salisha Ilyas, currently owns 51,000 common shares of the Company. The Company will not issue any securities to Target IR or its principal as compensation.

Based in Toronto, Target IR is a strategic IR firm serving growing and emerging publicly listed companies, with over 35 years of combined experience working alongside technology, mining and healthcare clients. With TSX/TSX-V, NYSE, and LSE experience, the firm's dedicated team leverages their deep IR, strategic communications and capital markets expertise to plan and execute proactive investor relations programs.

The Agreement is subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange.

About NEO Battery Materials Ltd.



NEO Battery Materials is a Canadian battery technology company focused on developing and producing silicon-enhanced lithium-ion batteries in drones, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), robotics, unmanned systems, electronics, electric vehicles, and energy storage systems for AI data centers. With a patent-protected, low-cost manufacturing process, NEO Battery enables longer-running and ultra-fast charging batteries and provides end-to-end battery solutions from materials selection, cell architecture, and process optimization. The Company aims to be a globally-leading producer of high-performance lithium-ion battery components and materials, building a secure, robust battery supply chain in North America. For more information, please visit the Company's website at: https://www.neobatterymaterials.com/.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

Spencer Huh

Director, President, and CEO

This news release includes certain forward-looking statements as well as management's objectives, strategies, beliefs and intentions. All information contained herein that is not clearly historical in nature may constitute forward-looking information. Generally, such forward-looking information can be identified notably by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to: volatile stock prices; the general global markets and economic conditions; the possibility of write-downs and impairments; the risk associated with the research and development of battery-related technologies; the risk associated with the effectiveness and feasibility of battery material, electrode, and cell technologies that have not yet been tested or proven on commercial scale or under real-world operating conditions; the risks associated with battery-related manufacturing process scale-up, including maintaining consistent material, component, and cell quality, production yields, and process reproducibility at a pilot, semi-commercial, or commercial scale; the risks associated with compatibility of existing battery chemistries, formulations, components, or designs; unforeseen risks associated with entering into and maintaining collaborations, joint ventures, partnerships, or commercial contracts with battery cell manufacturers, original equipment manufacturers, and various companies in the global battery and downstream end-user supply chain; the risks associated with the failure to develop and produce commercially viable battery-related products or that technical goals may not be achieved within expected timelines or budgets under a joint development or collaboration; the risks associated with the Company's technologies and products not meeting performance requirements or customer specifications; the risks that prototype and pilot-scale products do not advance into commercially produced products or translate into commercial orders; the risk associated with battery components and cell purchase orders and offtake supply that may not be fulfilled in full, on time, or at all as actual revenue realization depends on delivery schedules, achievement of technical milestones, and customer acceptance and validation; the risk associated with losing official vendor registration or status with existing customers; counterparty risk upon delivery of prototype and commercial products; the risks associated with constructing, completing, securing, and financing pilot, semi-commercial, and commercial battery materials, components, and cell manufacturing facilities including the Canadian and South Korean facilities; the risks associated with potential delays or increased costs with site preparation, equipment procurement and installation, and facility commissioning; the risks associated with integrating silicon anode material production, electrode manufacturing, and cell assembly within a single operational cluster or the Company's business portfolio; the risks associated with supply chain disruptions or cost fluctuations in raw materials, processing chemicals, and additive prices, impacting production costs and commercial viability; the risks associated with uninsurable risks arising during the course of research, development and production; competition faced by the Company in securing experienced personnel, contracts and sales, and financing; access to adequate infrastructure and resources to support battery materials, components, and cell research and development activities; the risks associated with changes in the technology regulatory regime governing the Company; the risks associated with the timely execution of the Company's strategies and business plans; the risks associated with the lithium-ion battery industry and end-users' demand and adoption of the Company's silicon anode technology and battery products; market adoption and integration challenges, including the difficulty of incorporating silicon anodes and silicon battery products within battery manufacturers and OEMs' systems; the risks associated with the various environmental and political regulations the Company is subject to; risks related to regulatory and permitting delays; the reliance on key personnel; liquidity risks; the risk of litigation; risk management; and other risk factors as identified in the Company's recent Financial Statements and MD&A and in recent securities filings for the Company which are available on www.sedarplus.ca. Forward-looking information is based on assumptions management believes to be reasonable at the time such statements are made, including but not limited to, continued R&D and commercialization activities, no material adverse change in precursor, raw material, equipment, and relevant cost prices, development and commercialization plans to proceed in accordance with plans and such plans to achieve their stated expected outcomes, receipt of required regulatory approvals, and such other assumptions and factors as set out herein. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information. Such forward-looking information has been provided for the purpose of assisting investors in understanding the Company's business, operations, research and development, and commercialization plans and may not be appropriate for other purposes. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is made as of the date of this presentation, and the Company does not undertake to update such forward-looking information except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
TORONTO, ON / ACCESS Newswire / February 10, 2026 /Lahontan Gold Corp. (TSXV:LG) (OTCQB:LGCXF) (FSE:Y2F) (the "Company" or "Lahontan") is pleased to announce more analytical results from our 2025 maiden drilling program at the Company's satellite West Santa Fe project, located only 13 km from Lahontan's flagship asset, the Santa Fe Mine project, in Nevada's prolific Walker Lane. These assay results are from two additional reverse-circulation rotary ("RC") drill holes at West Santa Fe and are summarized below. Additional drill results are expected shortly.

WSF25-03R: 41.2 metres (15.2 - 56.4m) grading 1.94 g/t Au Eq including 9.1 metres (42.7 - 51.8m) grading 4.14 g/t Au Eq: A shallow intercept of oxide gold and silver mineralization with a high-grade core: 4.14 g/t Au Eq. The drill hole correlates with gold and silver mineralization reported in an adjacent historic drill hole (M81-61) and allows Lahontan to continue validating the historic drill hole database (please see cross section below). Individual intercepts in WSF25-03R contain up to 12.88 g/t Au Eq , corresponding to an east-west trending fault structure that controls higher grade precious metal mineralization in this portion of the West Santa Fe hydrothermal system (1.52m, 44.20 - 45.72m; 11.30 g/t Au, 135.0 g/t Ag).

WSF25-01R: 6.1 metres (38.1 - 44.2m) grading 1.53 g/t Au Eq. The drill hole targeted structure on the very east end of the south mineralized zone, successfully intercepting key fault-controlled precious metal mineralization. The system remains open to the east, an area of old underground workings and anomalous surface geochemistry (please see plan map below).

Notes: Au Eq equals Au (g/t) + ((Ag g/t/60)*0.70). Silver grade for calculating Au Eq is adjusted to consider estimated metallurgical recovery reported by Kappes Cassiday (1982). True thickness of the intercepts is estimated to be 70-85% of the drilled interval. Numbers may not total precisely due to rounding.

Kimberly Ann, Lahontan Executive Chair, President, CEO, and Founder commented: "The high-grade drill results seen in WSF25-03R confirm the tenor and distribution of gold and silver mineralization seen in historic drilling at West Santa Fe. The Company is excited that these initial results are very similar to, in terms of both grade and geometry, assays reported for the older drilling. Given the apparent size of the hydrothermal system, Lahontan believes that there is significant upside to the West Santa Fe project and the project has the potential to augment Mineral Resources already defined at the nearby Santa Fe Mine project*. Additional drilling is planned for West Santa Fe this Spring."

Cross section through drill hole WSF25-03R, West Santa Fe project, Nevada. The results from this drill hole compare favorably with historic drilling, both in the grade of gold mineralization and the geometry. The results in part validate the historic drill hole data and together, demonstrate that gold and silver mineralization is open down-dip to the north-northwest.

Drill hole location map for WSF25-01R and -03R West Santa Fe Project, Nevada. The surface projection of known mineralization, based on historic drilling, is shown in red. Proximity to the Santa Fe Mine project is highlighted by the inset map.

The Company has also received analytical results for the final five RC drill holes completed at the York deposit, part of the Company's Santa Fe Mine project. Two of the drill holes were lost in a fault zone and therefore abandoned due to difficult drilling conditions (YOR25-003R and -006R), while two of the remaining three holes specifically targeted the margins of the York system for use in mine planning and to determine the potential margins of a future open pit (YOR25-005R and -008R, please see below).

The final drill hole, YOR25-07R, was a condemnation hole located on the waste rock dump of the historic York open pit. Interestingly, the upper 12.2 metres of YOR25-007R, all in mine dump material, graded 0.27 g/t Au. The historic (1993) cut-off grade at the York deposit was approximately 0.5 g/t Au. Given the gold content seen in this limited sampling, the waste rock dumps at York may have the potential to host significant tonnages of material that could be processed in future mining operations.

Notes: Au Eq equals Au (g/t) + ((Ag g/t/60)*0.70). Silver grade for calculating Au Eq is adjusted to consider historic metallurgical recovery as described in the Santa Fe Project Technical Report. True thickness of the intercepts is estimated to be 80-100% of the drilled interval. Numbers may not total precisely due to rounding. *The results for YOR25-004R were reported in a press release dated January 13, 2026.

Drill hole location map for the York area, Santa Fe Mine Project, Nevada. The outline of the PEA pit shell from the Santa Fe Mine Project Technical Report* is shown with the red dashed line. Gold mineralization intercepted by YOR25-004R remains open to the north along the York fault.

QA/QC Protocols

Lahontan conducts an industry standard QA/QC program for its core and RC drilling programs. The QA/QC program consisted of the insertion of coarse blanks and Certified Reference Materials (CRM) into the sample stream at random intervals. The targeted rate of insertion was one QA/QC sample for every 16 to 20 samples. Coarse blanks were inserted at a rate of one coarse blank for every 65 samples or approximately 1.5% of the total samples. CRM's were inserted at a rate of one CRM for every 20 samples or approximately 5% of the total samples.

The standards utilized include three gold CRM's and one blank CRM that were purchased from MEG, LLC of Lamoille, Nevada (formerly Shea Clark Smith Laboratories of Reno, Nevada). Expected gold values are 0.188 g/t, 1.107 g/t, 10.188 g/t, and -0.005 g/t, respectively. CRM's with similar grades are inserted as the initial CRM's run out. The coarse blank material comprised of commercially available landscape gravel with an expected gold value of -0.005 g/t.

As part of the RC drilling QA/QC process, duplicate samples were collected of every 20th sample interval at the drill rig to evaluate sampling methodology. Samples were collected from the reject splitter on the drill rig cyclone splitter. Samples were collected at each 95- to 100-foot (28.96 - 30.48m) mark and labeled with a "D" suffix on the sample bag. No duplicates were submitted for core.

All drill samples were sent to American Assay Laboratories (AAL) in Sparks, Nevada, USA for analyses. Delivery to the lab was either by a Lahontan Gold employee or by an AAL driver. Analyses for all RC and core samples consisted of Au analysis using 30-gram fire assay with ICP finish, along with a 36-element geochemistry analysis performed on each sample utilizing two acid digestion ICP-AES method. Tellurium or 50-element analyses were performed on select drill holes utilizing ICP-MS method. Cyanide leach analyses, using a tumble time of 2 hours and analyzed with ICP-AES method, were performed on select drill holes for Au and Ag recovery. AAL inserts their own blanks, standards and conducts duplicate analyses to ensure proper sample preparation and equipment calibration. We have all results reported in grams per tonne (g/t).

About Lahontan Gold Corp.

Lahontan Gold Corp. is a Canadian mine development and mineral exploration company that holds, through its US subsidiaries, four gold and silver exploration properties in the Walker Lane of mining friendly Nevada. Lahontan's flagship property, the 28.3 km2 Santa Fe Mine project, had past production of 359,202 ounces of gold and 702,067 ounces of silver between 1988 and 1995 from open pit mines utilizing heap-leach processing. The Santa Fe Mine has a Canadian National Instrument 43-101 compliant Indicated Mineral Resource of 1,539,000 oz Au Eq(48,393,000 tonnes grading 0.92 g/t Au and 7.18 g/t Ag, together grading 0.99 g/t Au Eq) and an Inferred Mineral Resource of 411,000 oz Au Eq (16,760,000 grading 0.74 g/t Au and 3.25 g/t Ag, together grading 0.76 g/t Au Eq), all pit constrained (Au Eq is inclusive of recovery, please see Santa Fe Project Technical Report and note below*). The Company plans to continue advancing the Santa Fe Mine project towards production, update the Santa Fe Preliminary Economic Assessment, and drill test its satellite West Santa Fe project during 2025. For more information, please visit our website: www.lahontangoldcorp.com

* Please see the "Preliminary Economic Assessment, NI 43-101 Technical Report, Santa Fe Project", Authors: Kenji Umeno, P. Eng., Thomas Dyer, PE, Kyle Murphy, PE, Trevor Rabb, P. Geo, Darcy Baker, PhD, P. Geo., and John M. Young, SME-RM; Effective Date: December 10, 2024, Report Date: January 24, 2025. The Technical Report is available on the Company's website and SEDAR+. Mineral resources are reported using a cut-off grade of 0.15 g/t AuEq for oxide resources and 0.60 g/t AuEq for non-oxide resources. AuEq for the purpose of cut-off grade and reporting the Mineral Resources is based on the following assumptions gold price of US$1,950/oz gold, silver price of US$23.50/oz silver, and oxide gold recoveries ranging from 28% to 79%, oxide silver recoveries ranging from 8% to 30%, and non-oxide gold and silver recoveries of 71%.

Qualified Person

Brian J. Maher, M.Sc., CPG-12342, is a "Qualified Person" as defined under Canadian National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, and has reviewed and approved the content of this news release in respect of all technical disclosure other than the Mineral Resource Estimate as noted above. Mr. Maher is Vice President-Exploration for Lahontan Gold and has verified the data disclosed in this news release, including the sampling, analytical and test data underlying the disclosure.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

Kimberly Ann

Founder, CEO, President, and Director

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

Lahontan Gold Corp.

Kimberly Ann

Founder, Chief Executive Officer, President, Director

Phone: 1-530-414-4400

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Website: www.lahontangoldcorp.com

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Except for statements of historical fact, this news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates at the date the statements are made and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements including, but not limited to delays or uncertainties with regulatory approvals, including that of the TSXV. There are uncertainties inherent in forward-looking information, including factors beyond the Company's control. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Additional information identifying risks and uncertainties that could affect financial results is contained in the Company's filings with Canadian securities regulators, which filings are available at www.sedar.com
Edmonton, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Sranan Gold Corp. (CSE: SRAN) (OTCQB: SRANF) (FSE: P84) (Tradegate: P84) ("Sranan" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into an option agreement (the "Agreement") with Lawantino N.V. (the "Vendor") to acquire up to a 100% interest in the 18,468-hectare Lawantino Gold Property (the "Property") situated in southeastern Suriname. The acquisition of the Property, which is currently the focus of extensive artisanal alluvial mining (see Figure 1), strengthens Sranan's position within the highly prospective Guiana Shield, a region recognized for structurally controlled gold mineralization. The Company now controls 47,500 hectares of high-potential land for exploration.

The Property is strategically located along the same deep-seated regional structure, the Central Guiana Shear Zone (CGSZ), that hosts Founders Metals' Antino Gold Project and Miata Metals' Sela Creek Project, two of the most active gold exploration projects in Suriname.

The Company has confirmed the presence of extensive active artisanal alluvial mining (see Figure 2) with multiple generations of mining (miners return to the same sites with more effective equipment). Sampling of limited saprolite exposure encountered shear-hosted quartz veins cutting granite near the contact with basaltic rocks. Two samples returned 4.24 and 1.88 grams per tonne gold, which are considered significant given the limited evaluation completed.

Oscar Louzada, Sranan's CEO, stated: "The Lawantino acquisition is a strategic addition to our Suriname exploration portfolio, strengthening our position along a proven and highly prospective structural corridor. The Project benefits from favourable geology, clear evidence of gold endowment through ongoing artisanal mining, and proximity to two active gold exploration projects. Lawantino fits well with our disciplined growth strategy and complements our ongoing work at Tapanahony as we continue to build value through systematic exploration."

Sranan's initial exploration program will focus on integrating areas of artisanal mining with satellite interpretation, geological mapping, geochemical sampling, and structural analysis to prioritize targets for future trenching and drilling. The approach is to develop targets quickly and efficiently. A variety of lithologies observed in mine workings, including basalt, siltstone, and other metasediments, suggest a variety of potentially favourable lithologies and structures to test.

Auracle Geospatial Science Inc. ("Auracle") was contracted by Sranan to analyze the structural complexity of the Lawantino Property by means of its proprietary Mapped Underworld Dimension (MUD SAR) remote-sensing system. Results from Auracle's analysis show a distinct increase in fracture density in association with abundant small-scale miners (see Figure 3). A similar increase in fracture density is observed on the east portion of the Lawantino Property.

Lawantino Agreement Terms

Pursuant to the terms of the Agreement, dated February 5, 2026, Sranan may earn a 100% interest in the Property by making cash and share payments and completing exploration-related expenditures. Over a 5-year period, the Company may earn 90% interest in the Property by making total cash payments of US$1,900,000, issuing 1,800,000 common shares to the arm's-length Vendor, and completing exploration expenditures on the Property totaling US$1,700,000. Upon completion of the 90% earn-in, the Vendor will retain a 10% interest in the Property and a 2% net smelter return royalty ("NSR") on all metals production from the Property. There was no finder fees paid.

Sranan may repurchase the 2% NSR for US$3.0 million and, upon the establishment of a minimum 750,000-ounce measured and indicated gold resource, may acquire the remaining 10% interest in the Property based on an independent valuation.

Table 1: Summary of Lawantino Property Agreement Earn-in Obligations

Milestone Cash

Payments Shares

Issued Work

Commitments Paid upon signing $100,000 - - Within 14 days of the Binding Agreement Execution Date ("BA Date") $150,000 - - 6-month anniversary of the BA Date $250,000 600,000 $150,000 1st anniversary of the BA Date $200,000 200,000 $250,000 2nd anniversary of the BA Date $150,000 150,000 $250,000 3rd anniversary of the BA Date $200,000 200,000 $350,000 4th anniversary of the BA Date $250,000 250,000 $300,000 5th anniversary of the BA Date $600,000 400,000 $400,000 Total $1,900,000 1,800,000 $1,700,000

Figure 1. Location of the Lawantino Property, along the CGSZ, showing major drainages and areas of small-scale mining.

Figure 2. Scouting flight showing extensive, active alluvial mining (December 23, 2025)

Figure 3. Fracture Density Image generated by Auracle using MUD SAR. Red areas indicate more intense ground preparation favourable for gold. Active areas of small-scale mining in bright yellow. The CGSZ cuts southeast to northwest through the concession.

Dr. Dennis LaPoint, EVP of Exploration and Business Development, states, "I am very excited about this new acquisition along the same structural trend of the CGSZ that hosts two active gold exploration projects. Lawantino complements our ongoing drilling program at our Tapanahony Gold Project and demonstrates that Sranan will continue to expand our portfolio of gold projects based on our extensive knowledge of Suriname. The agreement with Lawantino N.V. represents a major step in expanding our footprint within Suriname's highly prospective southeastern part of the Marowijne greenstone belt along one of the major controlling structures for large gold deposits. A strength of the Sranan team is our ability to develop early-stage projects into potential new discoveries. I first reviewed this area in 2007 when held by Canarc, so I am very pleased with our cooperation and relationship with Lawantino shareholders."

Samples were prepared and assayed by Filab in Paramaribo, Suriname. All samples >2 g/t Au were re-assayed with 50-gram re-assay and gravimetric assay. Standard QA/QC procedures were followed and showed a satisfactory level of reproducibility. The Company notes that the drill intercepts may not represent true underlying mineralization. Core logging, photography, and sampling are completed under strict industry standard QA/QC protocols (Oreas certified reference materials, assayed coarse blanks, duplicates of core).

Qualified Person

Dr. Dennis J. LaPoint, Ph.D., P.Geo., a "qualified person" as defined under National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information contained in this release. Dr. LaPoint is not independent of Sranan Gold, as he is the Company's EVP of Exploration and Corporate Development.

About Sranan Gold Corp.

Sranan is engaged in the business of mineral exploration and the acquisition of mineral property assets in Suriname. The Company's flagship Tapanahony Project covers 29,000 hectares in one of Suriname's most prolific artisanal gold mining districts.

For more information, please visit www.sranangold.com.

THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE HAS NOT APPROVED NOR DISAPPROVED THE CONTENT OF THIS PRESS RELEASE.

Forward-looking Statements

Certain statements in this release constitute "forward-looking statements" or "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including, without limitation, the successful completion of the acquisition of the Lawantino Gold Project as discussed in this press release, the timing, nature, scope and details regarding the Company's exploration plans and results at its projects. Such statements and information involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company, its projects, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or information. Such statements can be identified by the use of words such as "may", "would", "could", "will", "intend", "expect", "believe", "plan", "anticipate", "estimate", "scheduled", "forecast", "predict" and other similar terminology, or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. These statements reflect the Company's current expectations regarding future events, performance and results and speak only as of the date of this release. Further details about the risks applicable to the Company are contained in the Company's public filings available on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca), under the Company's profile.

Forward-looking statements and information contained herein are based on certain factors and assumptions regarding, among other things, the estimation of mineral resources and reserves, the realization of resource and reserve estimates, metal prices, taxation, the estimation, timing and amount of future exploration and development, capital and operating costs, the availability of financing, the receipt of regulatory approvals, environmental risks, title disputes and other matters. While the Company considers its assumptions to be reasonable as of the date hereof, forward-looking statements and information are not guarantees of future performance and readers should not place undue importance on such statements as actual events and results may differ materially from those described herein. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements or information except as may be required by applicable securities laws.
Dieppe, New Brunswick--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Canadian Gold Resources Ltd. (TSXV: CAN) ("Canadian Gold" or the "Company") is pleased to provide an operational update on its maiden 2025 diamond drill program at the Company's 100%-owned Lac Arsenault Project in Quebec's Gaspe Peninsula. The Company is also pleased to announce that it has initiated its 2026 Lac Arsenault diamond drilling program.

2025 Maiden Lac Arsenault Diamond Drilling Program

The Company's maiden diamond drilling program was completed on December 23, 2025. Drill core samples have been submitted to an accredited laboratory for assay, with results expected in the second half of February. The 58-hole program was designed to validate historical drill data, assess the continuity of mineralization, and provide a basis for a maiden NI 43-101-compliant mineral resource estimate. Detailed core logging indicates that mineralization intersected in the first phase of drilling is consistent with surface observations and is characterized by major vein structures accompanied by stockwork-style arrays of subsidiary veins developed within a shear zone. Similar subsidiary veins have historically returned gold-bearing assays. However, historical drilling results are not necessarily indicative of the presence or continuity of mineralization that may be encountered in the Company's current drilling program, and there can be no assurance that comparable results will be achieved.

2026 Lac Arsenault Diamond Drilling Program

In early January, the Company initiated its 2026 Lac Arsenault diamond drilling program, which is anticipated to encompass approximately 40 drill holes. Current drilling is focused on targets generated from an Induced Polarization ("IP") survey completed in September, which delineated the zone hosting major vein systems and associated stockwork-style veining.

The IP survey was completed across the Baker-Mersereau structural corridor, where preliminary interpretation has identified multiple high-priority anomalies that closely resemble the geophysical response associated with the known high-grade Baker vein. The data also outlines the position and continuity of the Mersereau vein and highlights possible near-surface stockwork zones up to 100 metres wide within what the Company refers to as the Stockwork Target Corridor.

Management Commentary

Ron Goguen, President and CEO of Canadian Gold Resources, commented: "Completion of our maiden drill program represents an important milestone for Canadian Gold and provides the foundation for advancing Lac Arsenault toward a maiden NI 43-101-compliant mineral resource. With assays pending and a second drill program now underway targeting high-priority IP anomalies along the Baker-Mersereau structural corridor, we believe the Company is well positioned to continue evaluating the scale and continuity of mineralization across this emerging gold system."

IP Survey Lines, Gridded Chargeability & Planned Drill Holes

About the Lac Arsenault Project

The Lac Arsenault Property, located in Quebec's Gaspe region, lies along the Grand Pabos Fault within the Gaspe-Newfoundland tectonic belt. This structure is interpreted to share geological characteristics with prolific gold-bearing systems such as the Cadillac-Larder Lake Fault Zone in Abitibi and the Cape Ray-Valentine Lake Shear Zone in Newfoundland. The property hosts several high-grade, epithermal-style vein systems, including the Baker, Mersereau, and Dunning veins, with historical exploration outlining significant gold-silver-base metal mineralization that provides a strong platform for the Company's current work. Covering more than 3,600 hectares, Lac Arsenault is strategically located near tidewater at New Richmond, Quebec, offering excellent road, power, and rail infrastructure within one of Canada's most established mining jurisdictions.

Historical Resource Estimate Disclosure (NI 43-101 2.4)

Stevenson, L. (1975): 40,000 tonnes grading 15.43 g/t Au and 197 g/t Ag (Esso Minerals Canada).

Cote, R. (1996): 199,580 tonnes grading 9.59 g/t Au (~61,536 contained oz Au).

These historical estimates predate NI 43-101 and were based on sampling, trenching, and drilling using manual polygonal methods. A Qualified Person has not completed sufficient work to classify the estimates as current mineral resources or reserves. The Company is not treating them as current and further verification is required.

These historical estimates pre-date the adoption of current CIM Definition Standards (2014) and therefore cannot be directly compared to modern resource categories (i.e., "Inferred," "Indicated," or "Measured"). The terminology and estimation methodologies used at the time are not compliant with current CIM categories, and no classification equivalence is implied.

The Company considers these historical estimates to be relevant, as they demonstrate the presence of significant gold and silver mineralization at shallow depths within the Baker and Mersereau vein systems, which remain priority targets for verification and expansion. However, their reliability is uncertain because the underlying data, methods, and QA/QC procedures are not adequately documented to current standards. The Company is not treating the estimate as current.

To the Company's knowledge, there are no more recent mineral resource estimates available for the Lac Arsenault Property that would supersede these historical figures.

To bring these into compliance, Canadian Gold plans to:

Conduct systematic drilling to confirm grades and geometry;

Complete verification sampling and density determinations;

Build a validated geological model with modern QA/QC protocols;

Commission an independent NI 43-101 compliant resource estimate.

Qualified Person Statement

The scientific and technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Mark Smethurst, P.Geo., Director of Canadian Gold and a Qualified Person under NI 43-101.

About Canadian Gold Resources Ltd.

Canadian Gold Resources Ltd. (TSXV: CAN) is a junior exploration company advancing three high-grade gold properties totaling ~16,000 hectares in Quebec's Gaspe Peninsula. The Company's strategy is to unlock the potential of historically explored assets through modern exploration and development, supported by a management team with a proven track record in discovery and project advancement.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Canadian Gold trades on the TSX Venture Exchange under the ticker CAN and has 36,667,221 common shares outstanding.

Forward-Looking Statements Disclaimer:

This news release contains "forward-looking statements," including but not limited to statements regarding anticipated exploration activities, timing, objectives, and potential outcomes of the drill program. Forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these statements. Canadian Gold disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, except as required by applicable securities laws.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Homeland Uranium Corp. (TSXV: HLU) (OTCQB: HLUCF) (FSE: D3U) ("Homeland" or the "Company") reports the completion of its Phase II exploration drilling program at the 100%-owned Coyote Basin Uranium Project (the "Project") (see Figure 1).

The Company completed 33 drillholes totaling 5,423 metres (17,792 feet) of Reverse Circulation drilling, exceeding the originally planned 5,300 metres (17,388 feet). Phase II drilling was designed to further evaluate the near-surface mineralized trend that contains an inferred historical uranium and vanadium resource of 35.4 million pounds of UO and 17.7 million pounds of VO (private internal report, Western Mining Resources, Executive Summary, Coyote Basin Uranium District, Rio Blanco and Moffat Counties, Colorado, January 1980). Drilling intersected elevated and locally anomalous radioactivity in all completed Phase II drillholes.

Roger Lemaitre, President and CEO of Homeland Uranium, stated, "The completion of our Phase II drilling program represents an important step forward in advancing the Coyote Basin Project. Drilling has consistently confirmed the presence of near-surface elevated radioactivity across a broad area. The continuity observed in both the central and southern portions of the Project provides confidence in the scale of the system and supports the geological interpretation developed to date. With drilling now complete, we look forward to receiving the geochemical results to further refine our understanding of the Project and guide future exploration."

The Coyote Basin Project is located in northwestern Colorado, near the communities of Rangely and Meeker, within the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau (Figure 1). The Colorado Plateau is a regionally significant uranium province that spans Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico and hosts numerous sandstone-hosted uranium deposits.

Central Project Area: Elevated Radioactivity

Three northeast-southwest-oriented drill sections were completed in the central portion of the Project, comprising ten drillholes (CB-RC-0046 to CB-RC-0055; see Figure 2). This drilling was designed to evaluate the area of the historical mineralization defined by Western Mining Resources ("WMR") and to follow up on a reported historical drill intercept containing 0.826% UO in historical drillhole CB-101 (private internal report, Western Mining Resources, Executive Summary, Coyote Basin Uranium District, Rio Blanco and Moffat Counties, Colorado, January 1980).

Downhole probe results from this area indicate a broadly laterally continuous, but locally variable near-surface interval of elevated to locally anomalous radioactivity extending from surface to depths of approximately 50 metres (164 feet) to 150 metres (492 feet) and covering an area approximately 800 metres (2,624 feet) by 400 metres (1,312 feet). This radioactivity is associated with similar rock types encountered within the Southern Project Area drilling that includes shales, claystones, and fine-grained sandstones. Locally anomalous values were typically on the order of 300 counts per second ("cps") or less, with the higher values occurring over narrow intervals on the scale of tens of centimetres.

Southern Project Area: Lateral Continuity of Elevated Radioactivity

Drilling in the southern portion of the Project area comprises 23 drillholes (see Figure 3) and was designed to evaluate the extent of historical uranium mineralization reported by previous operator WMR. Results from the Phase II Drilling Program has defined a laterally continuous horizon of elevated radioactivity extending over an area of approximately 1,000 metres (3,280 feet) east-west by 600 metres (1,968 feet) north-south, which remains open for expansion to the south and east (see the Company's news releases dated December 15, 2025, December 22, 2025, January 8, 2026, and January 22, 2026 available on the Company's website at https://www.homeland-uranium.com/news-releases or under its profile on SEDARplus.ca).

Anomalous values encountered in the southern drill area typically range between approximately 400 and 600 cps, with one localized peak value of approximately 2,300 cps recorded over an interval of approximately 10 centimetres.

Geochemical samples collected from the completed drillholes have been shipped to SGS Laboratories in Lakefield, Ontario, for analysis. Homeland will report geochemical and assay results once they have been received, compiled, and reviewed by the Company.

Quality Assurance/Quality Control

All drillholes are radiometrically logged using a calibrated QL40 SGR Spectral Gamma Ray downhole probe, which collects continuous spectral gamma measurements along the length of the drillhole. Gamma values are collected and reported as Counts Per Second. The probe response is calibrated using coefficients derived from the probe's most recent factory calibration and through comparison of probe responses to geochemical assay data from previously sampled intervals.

Spectral gamma tools measure natural radioactivity, and in situations where the uranium decay series is in equilibrium, such gamma readings can be converted into equivalent concentrations of uranium, thorium, and potassium. However, if the uranium decay series is not in equilibrium, conversion of spectral gamma into equivalent concentrations of uranium may not be accurate, a phenomenon known as uranium disequilibrium. Uranium disequilibrium has been documented to occur at the nearby former producing Maybelle Uranium Mine, located approximately 29 km (18 miles) northeast of the Coyote Basin Project (see Global Uranium & Enrichment's news release dated July 29, 2025 which can be found at https://wcsecure.weblink.com.au/pdf/GUE/02972557.pdf),

As a first step in determining the accuracy of QL40 SGR Spectral Gamma Ray downhole probe and determining whether uranium disequilibrium may occur at Coyote Basin, Homeland's geological team used a portable hand-held XRF (SciAps X-555 REE Analyzer) to test drill cuttings for the presence of uranium. Enough discrepancies have occurred when comparing the results of the Spectral Gamma Ray downhole probe and the XRF that additional geochemical and assay sampling will be required before uranium grades can be accurately determined.

Homeland has collected samples from each 5 ft interval of the drill holes for geochemical analysis which will be sent to SGS Laboratories in Lakefield, Ontario. SGS Lab is certified ISO 17043: General requirements for proficiency testing. All SGS laboratories are required to participate in SGS's internal Proficiency Testing (PT) program: Laboratory Quality Systems International (LQSi) program, the largest PT program in the mining world. The SGS LQSi program currently involves over 100 laboratories on a regular basis, both SGS and non-SGS participants. SGS LQSi holds accreditation to the conformity assessment standard ISO 17043: General requirements for proficiency testing.

All depths and intervals reported are drilled depths and downhole lengths, unless otherwise stated. True thicknesses have not yet been determined.

About Homeland Uranium Corp.

Homeland Uranium is a mineral exploration company focused on becoming a premier US-focused and resource-bearing uranium explorer and developer. The Company is 100% owner of the Coyote Basin and Cross Bones uranium projects in northwestern Colorado.

The Coyote Basin Project is reported by Energy Metals Corporation in its quarterly Management Discussion and Analysis dated September 30, 2006 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") to contain an estimated historical resource of 8,850,000 tons grading 0.20% U 3 O 8 and 0.10% V 2 O 5 totaling 35.4 million pounds of U 3 O 8 and 17.7 million pounds of V 2 0 5 (see Energy Metal's SEC disclosure at https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1361605/000106299306003601/exhibit99-2.htm). This resource was calculated by the previous project operator, Western Mining Resources, based on a 1978-79 program of surface sampling, coring, drill hole chip sampling and gamma logging of 24 widely spaced holes (private internal report, Western Mining, Executive Summary, Coyote Basin Uranium District, Rio Blanco and Moffat Counties, State of Colorado, January, 1980).

The Company is not treating the Coyote Basin historical resource estimate as current mineral resources and the reader is cautioned not to rely on either of these estimates. A Qualified Person (as defined under National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101")) has not done sufficient work to classify the historical resources from the project as current mineral resources or mineral reserves nor can the Company or the Qualified Person comment on the quality or verify the data obtained from the assay sampling programs from the project that were used to determine these historical resource estimates, as such information was not included in the historical reports acquired by Homeland. The Company is not treating the historical resource estimate as current mineral resources or mineral reserves and the Company and the Qualified Person is unable to compare the historical resource estimate to the CIM's current resource classification system at this time. The Coyote Basin Project any future NI 43-101 mineral resource estimate will require considerable further evaluation which will include completion of the Phase I drilling program and may require addition drilling to follow-up Phase 1 results.

Qualified Person

Nancy Normore., P.Geo., the Company's Vice President, Exploration, is a Qualified Person as defined in NI 43-101, and has reviewed and approved the technical content of this news release.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Figure 1 - Location of Homeland Uranium's Coyote Basin Project.

Map references: 1: S.M. Hall, B.S. Van Gosen, R.A. Zielinski, 2023. Sandstone-hosted uranium deposits of the Colorado Plateau, USA. Ore Geology Reviews 155 (2023) 105353; 2: Finch, W. I., 1991, Maps showing the distribution of uranium-deposit clusters in the Colorado Plateau uranium province: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-2080, 1 plate.

Figure 2 - 2026 Completed drillholes during Part 1 of Phase 2 - Coyote Basin Project - Central Area

Figure 3 - 2025 Completed drillholes during Part 1 of Phase 2 - Coyote Basin Project - Southern Area
Edmonton, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Sankamap Metals Inc. (CSE: SCU) ("Sankamap" or the "Company") is pleased to announce assay results from its Oceania Project on the Fauro Property. The preliminary exploration program on Fauro's 24,000-hectare ("Ha") property located in the Shortland Islands, Western Province, Solomon Islands, included grab samples during a November 2025 site visit. These samples returned multiple high-grade gold (Au) and silver (Ag) results at the Meriguna Target, including up to 116 grams per tonne (g/t) Au and 87.5 g/t Ag.

CEO, John Florek, commented: "Once again, our work at the Fauro Property has delivered very high-grade results. At Meriguna, about 2.5 kilometres north of the Kiovakse target, which previously returned exceptional gold and copper values (see press release dated July 16, 2025), we continue to see compelling evidence of a robust mineralized system.

The scale of mineralization and the strength of the grades encountered across the property underscore its significant discovery potential. Importantly, multiple analogous geophysical signatures along the rim of the caldera remain untested, providing substantial upside as we advance our exploration program."

Highlights

Meriguna returned several high-grade gold values, of up to 116 g/t Au , and an average grade of 16.4 g/t Au across all rock samples.

Silver values show a strong correlation with gold, returning assays of up to 87.5 g/t Ag .

Visible gold was identified throughout the property in surface alluvial workings from local artisanal miners at the Meriguna Prospect.

Meriguna and the Kiovakse target demonstrate strongly comparable alteration and mineralized signatures highlighting the potential scale and continuity of mineralization across the area.

The team is advancing and refining mineralized zones to generate high-priority drill target.

A phased 2026 exploration program will continue systematic sampling to validate historical results, followed by targeted geophysical surveys. All data will be integrated to design a focused drill program aimed at confirming historical intersections and testing extensions of mineralization that remain open at depth and along strike.

Discussion of Results

The Meriguna target at the Fauro Property continues to deliver highly encouraging results and is located approximately 2.5 km from the Kiovakse target, highlighting the broader prospectivity of the area. The November 2025 site visit successfully validated historical data while generating new geological vectors to refine and prioritize future drill planning. As summarized in the accompanying table (see Table 1), surface sampling returned multiple high-grade gold results, including exceptional assays of up to 116 g/t Au, underscoring the presence of a robust mineralizing system at Meriguna.

These high-grade gold values, together with consistently elevated gold, silver, and copper results from both the Meriguna and nearby Kiovakse targets, underscore the effectiveness of the Company's focused and systematic exploration strategy. Collectively, the results support the presence of a strong epithermal system and continue to advance multiple high-priority targets across the Fauro Property.

Table of Results

Sample ID Year Au (g/t) Ag (g/t) D09101 2025 1.09 <0.5 D09104 2025 2.47 0.6 D09105 2025 1.39 28.2 D09106 2025 13.4 23.3 D09107 2025 4.7 45.3 D09108 2025 0.84 8.5 D09109 2025 0.97 7.5 D09110 2025 3.08 7.9 D09111 2025 7.83 21.4 D09112 2025 81.1 37 D09113 2025 116.0 87.5 D09114 2025 2.09 4.5 D09115 2025 10.5 43.2 Table 1: Select rock samples and assay results collected over the Meriguna Target Area in November, 2025.

Figure 1: Fauro tenement boundaries with magnetic overlay and target area locations.

Figure 2: Fauro Property-Meriguna target illustrating historical trench highlights with new sample locations from November, 2025 sampling

Figure 3: Selected rock samples from Meriguna target, Fauro.

Property Description

The Fauro Property is strategically located along a regional Cu-Au trend hosting major deposits, including Lihir and Panguna1. Fauro shares key tectonic and geological features with these deposits and lies within a largely underexplored region.

1Lihir containing 71 Moz Au:

Proven and Probable: 310 Mt containing 23 Moz Au at 2.3 g/t

Indicated: 520 Mt containing 39 Moz Au at 2.3 g/t

Measured: 81 Mt containing 5 Moz Au at 1.9 g/t

Inferred: 61 Mt containing 4.9 Moz Au at 2.3 g/t

Panguna containing 19.3 Moz Au + 5.3 Mt Cu:

Indicated: 1.5 Mt containing 16.1 Moz Au at 0.33 g/t and 4.6 Mt Cu at 0.3%

Inferred: 300 Mt containing 3.2 Moz Au 0.4 g/t and 0.7 Mt Cu

Next Steps at the Property - 2026 Exploration

Historical drilling, surface sampling, and geophysical work at the Fauro Property have highlighted multiple near-surface epithermal gold systems. Recent rock sampling at the Meriguna Target has confirmed significant surface gold mineralization.

A phased 2026 exploration program will continue systematic sampling to validate historical results, followed by targeted geophysical surveys as warranted. All data will be integrated to design a focused drill program aimed at confirming historical intersections and testing extensions of mineralization that remain open at depth and along strike.

Quality Assurance and Control Procedures

Sample preparation and analysis was completed at the Brisbane, Australia ALS Global Facility accredited by the National Association of Testing Authorities (NATA) and compliant with international standards ISO/IEC 17025. Samples were analyzed using Four acid digestion methods on 34 elements: HF-HNO3-HCIO4 acid digestion, HCL leach and ACP-AES. Gold was analyzed using the Fire Assay technique with a 50g sample under the ALS code Au-AA26. A secure chain of custody procedure was maintained in storing and transporting samples. Sankamap uses industry standards for collecting samples taken on the Fauro property, internal quality assurance and quality control (QAQC) procedures were followed by ALS.

About Sankamap Metals Inc.

Sankamap Metals Inc. (CSE: SCU) is a Canadian mineral exploration company dedicated to the discovery and development of high-grade copper and gold deposits through its flagship Oceania Project, located in the South Pacific. The Company's fully permitted assets are strategically positioned in the Solomon Islands, along a prolific geological trend that hosts major copper-gold deposits; including Newmont's Lihir Mine, with a resource of 71.9 million ounces of gold (310 Mt containing 23 Moz Au at 2.3 g/t P+P, 520 Mt containing 39 Moz Au at 2.3 g/t indicated, 81 Mt containing 5 Moz Au at 1.9 g/t measured, 61 Mt containing 4.9 Moz Au at 2.3 g/t Inferred).

Exploration is actively advancing at both the Kuma and Fauro properties, part of Sankamap's Oceania Project in the Solomon Islands. Historical work has already highlighted the mineral potential of both sites, which lie along a highly prospective copper and gold-bearing trend, suggesting the possibility of further, yet-to-be-discovered deposits.

At Kuma, the property is believed to host an underexplored and largely untested porphyry copper-gold (Cu-Au) system. Historical rock chip sampling has returned consistently elevated gold values above 0.5 g/t Au, including a standout sample assaying 11.7% Cu and 13.5 g/t Au3; underscoring the area's significant potential.

At Fauro, particularly at the Meriguna Target, historical trenching has returned highly encouraging results, including 8.0 meters at 27.95 g/t Au and 14.0 meters at 8.94 g/t Au4. Complementing these results are exceptional grab sample assays, including historical values of up to 173 g/t Au4, along with recent sampling by Sankamap at the Kiovakase Target, which returned numerous high-grade copper values, reaching up to 4.09% Cu. In addition, limited historical shallow drilling intersected 35.0 meters at 2.08 g/t Au4, further underscoring the property's strong mineral potential and the merit for continued exploration. With a commitment to systematic exploration and a team of experienced professionals, Sankamap aims to unlock the untapped potential of underexplored regions and create substantial value for its shareholders. For more information, please refer to SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca), under Sankamap's profile.

Newcrest Technical Report, 2020 (Lihir: 310 Mt containing 23 Moz Au at 2.3 g/t P+P, 520 Mt containing 39 Moz Au at 2.3 g/t indicated, 81 Mt containing 5 Moz Au at 1.9 g/t measured, 61 Mt containing 4.9 Moz Au at 2.3 g/t Inferred) Bougainville Copper Ltd. Annual Report, 2016 (1.5 Mt containing 16.1 Moz Au at 0.33 g/t and 4.6 Mt Cu at 0.3 % Indicated, 300 Mt containing 3.2 Moz Au 0.4 g/t and 0.7 Mt Cu Inferred) Historical grab, soil and BLEG samples from SolGold Kuma Review June 2015, and SolGold plc Annual Report 2013/2012 September 2010-June 2012 press releases from Solomon Gold Ltd. and SolGold Fauro Island Summary Technical Info 2012

QP Disclosure

The technical content for the Oceania Project in this news release has been reviewed and approved by John Florek, M.Sc., P.Geol., a Qualified Person in accordance with CIM guidelines. Mr. John Florek is in good standing with the Professional Geoscientists of Ontario (Member ID:1228) and a director and officer of the Company.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS,

s/ "John Florek"

John Florek, M.Sc., P.Geol

Chief Executive Officer

Sankamap Metals Inc.

The Canadian Securities Exchange has not approved nor disapproved this press release.

Forward-Looking Statements

Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements in this release constitute "forward-looking statements" or "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws including, without limitation, the timing, nature, scope and details regarding the Company's exploration plans and results at its projects. Such statements and information involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company, its projects, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or information. Such statements can be identified by the use of words such as "may", "would", "could", "will", "intend", "expect", "believe", "plan", "anticipate", "estimate", "scheduled", "forecast", "predict" and other similar terminology, or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. These statements reflect the Company's current expectations regarding future events, performance and results and speak only as of the date of this release.

Forward-looking statements and information contained herein are based on certain factors and assumptions regarding, among other things, the estimation of mineral resources and reserves, the realization of resource and reserve estimates, metal prices, taxation, the estimation, timing and amount of future exploration and development, capital and operating costs, the availability of financing, the receipt of regulatory approvals, environmental risks, title disputes and other matters. While the Company considers its assumptions to be reasonable as of the date hereof, forward-looking statements and information are not guarantees of future performance and readers should not place undue importance on such statements as actual events and results may differ materially from those described herein. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements or information except as may be required by applicable securities laws.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - February 9, 2026) - Cartier Silver Corporation (CSE: CFE) ("Cartier Silver" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has closed today its previously announced brokered private placement (see press release dated January 22, 2026) with Centurion One Capital Corp. (the "Agent") acting as lead agent and sole bookrunner, by the issuance, including the exercise in full of the option granted to the Agent, of an aggregate of 10,000,000 common shares of the Company (the "Shares") at a price of $0.30 per Share (the "Issue Price") for aggregate gross proceeds of $3,000,000 (the "Offering"). Dickinson Wright LLP acted as counsel to the Company, and MLT Aikins LLP acted as counsel to the Agent in connection with the Offering.

The net proceeds of the Offering will be used for further exploration and drilling on the Company's Los Chorrillos Project in Potosi, Bolivia and general working capital purposes.

Thomas Larsen, Chief Executive Officer of the Company commented: "Cartier Silver is pleased to have successfully completed this financing which significantly strengthens our balance sheet as we advance the Los Chorrillos Project. Proceeds will be directed toward continued exploration, resource expansion, and technical studies aimed at unlocking the project's full potential. We are particularly pleased to welcome Centurion One Capital as anchor investor in this financing. Their support underscores the technical merit of Los Chorrillos and our disciplined approach to systematic development as we move the asset toward its next key milestones."

In connection with the Offering, the Agent received: (i) a cash commission of $240,000; and (ii) an aggregate of 800,000 broker warrants (the "Broker Warrants"), with each such Broker Warrant entitling the holder to acquire a Share at the Issue Price for a period of 36 months from the date of closing of the Offering (the "Closing Date"). The Company also paid a corporate finance fee to the Agent by the issuance of an aggregate of 500,000 Shares at the Issue Price.

The securities issued under the Offering have a hold period of four months and one day from the Closing Date.

Insiders of the Company (the "Insiders") acquired an aggregate of 1,300,000 of the Shares issued under the Offering. Each of the Insider's participation in the Offering constitutes a "related party transaction", as defined under Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). A formal valuation was not required under MI 61-101 as the Company is not listed on any of the stock exchanges specified in MI 61-101. Minority shareholder approval was also not required as the fair market value of the consideration for the transaction involving the Insiders does not exceed 25% of the Company's capitalization as of the date hereof.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933 (the "U.S. Securities Act"), as amended, or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available.

ABOUT CARTIER SILVER CORPORATION

Cartier Silver is an exploration and development Company focused on discovering and developing its silver property assets, including the Chorrillos Project and claims staked by the Company's subsidiary, all of which are located in the Potosi Department of southern Bolivia. The Company also holds significant iron ore resources at its Gagnon Holdings in the southern Labrador Trough region of east-central Quebec, and the Big Easy gold property in the Burin Peninsula epithermal gold belt in the Avalon Zone of eastern Newfoundland & Labrador.

For further information please visit Cartier Silver's website at www.cartiersilvercorp.com.

ABOUT CENTURION ONE CAPITAL CORP.

Centurion One Capital's mission is to ignite the world's most visionary entrepreneurs to conquer the greatest challenges of tomorrow, fueling their ambitions with transformative capital, unparalleled expertise, and a global network of influential connections. Every interaction is guided by our core values of respect, integrity, commitment, excellence in execution, and uncompromising performance. We make principal investments, drawing on the time-honored principles of merchant banking, where aligned incentives forge enduring partnerships. Centurion One Capital: A superior approach to investment banking.

The CSE has not reviewed nor accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Statements in this release that are not historical facts (including, without limitation, the use of proceeds from the Offering) are "forward-looking statements" and readers are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance, and that actual developments or results, may vary materially from these "forward-looking statements".

Not for distribution to U.S. newswire services or for release, publication, distribution or dissemination, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, into the United States
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2026) - Honey Badger Silver Inc. (TSXV: TUF) (OTCQB: HBEIF) ("Honey Badger" or the "Company") is pleased to share that the company has recognized additional critical minerals potential at its 100%-owned Hy project in the Yukon, including high values of indium, bismuth, copper, and tungsten across several zones at the property.

The Company's Executive Chairman, Chad Williams, commented, "We are excited to showcase more important critical mineral potential within the Honey Badger project portfolio, this time at our 100% owned Hy property. With increasing demand for building a domestic supply chain of critical minerals in Canada, we continue to leverage assay data from all our properties, and Hy is no exception. We have identified, for the first time, several untested zones containing very high values of indium, bismuth, copper, and tungsten along with high-grade silver, lead and zinc. The Hy property is also road accessible, making the added critical mineral potential even more attractive when considering the known silver potential. We are very excited for future work to be completed at Hy. Based on the public data of similar properties in other mining companies, we believe that Honey Badger's market capitalization can be justified by Hy alone. Significantly, we have 6 other 100%-owned, silver-rich properties, including 3 that are more advanced and contain historic established mineral resources totaling approximately 150 million AgEq ozs, plus another property called Plata which is the single best exploration target that I have seen in my career."

Background on Hy

The Hy project is a road-accessible, 7,160 ha land package located approximately 150km north of Watson Lake, Yukon in the prolific Selwyn Basin (Fig. 1). The property hosts several zones of high-grade silver-lead-zinc skarn mineralization related to the intrusion of Cassiar suite felsic intrusive rock into reactive carbonate host rock. Skarn assemblages are known to occur up to 30m in width and often contain multiple lenses of mineralization throughout. Despite proven mineralization from historic drill intercepts such as 77.7 g/t Ag, 0.93% Pb, and 1.73% Zn over 6.99m (DDH 70-18) and 70.7 g/t Ag, 1.57% Pb, and 2.18% Zn over 6.82m (DDH 70-16), there has been no drilling completed at the property since 1980. Since then, exploration at Hy has focused on adding new targets and developing the geological model using a combination of detailed field mapping, prospecting, soil sampling, as well as magnetic and EM data, resulting in the identification of new breccia-hosted and fracture-controlled targets that differ from the traditional skarn model. Many of these new targets, as well as many historic targets have never seen any drilling. A recent review of historic property reports and assay data in the context of critical mineral potential has identified widespread, high-grade values of indium, bismuth, copper and tungsten, as well as tellurium, which now give the Hy property an important additional layer of exploration optionality and economic importance.

Figure 1. Distribution of rock sample grades for silver (Ag) across the Hy project, Yukon. Inset map in the bottom left corner shows the approximate location of the Hy project within the Yukon.

Critical Minerals Potential

Although there has been some sporadic mention of rare minerals at Hy in historic assessment reports, this is the first time that Honey Badger Silver has documented the presence of these minerals through a re-evaluation of assay data and as a focused critical minerals opportunity. The identification of high-grade indium, bismuth, tungsten, copper, and tellurium adds a compelling layer of critical minerals potential to the established silver-lead-zinc skarn mineralization at Hy. Indium, bismuth, tungsten, and tellurium are globally scarce elements critical to semiconductors, advanced alloys, renewable energy technologies, and high-performance electronics. The Hy dataset reports elevated values including up to 179.5 ppm indium, bismuth exceeding the analytical upper detection limit of 1.0% (not reanalyzed and therefore representing a minimum value), 0.27% tungsten oxide (WO), and up to 171 ppm tellurium. These are high concentrations for these rare critical minerals, especially in a district better known for precious and base metals. In a time of strong global demand driven by the clean energy transition, and advanced manufacturing, this diversification strongly enhances Hy's strategic value and upside for future exploration and development in the Yukon.

Indium (In)

The highest indium grade recorded at Hy is 179.5 ppm In, collected from outcrop in the northern SilverTung zone (Fig. 2). Samples with high indium values above 50 ppm comprise a tight ~1.5 x 1.5 km area around the SilverTung zone within the northwestern corner of the property. Out of 276 samples, 34 exceed grades of 10 ppm In, and 19 exceed grades of 50 ppm In.

Bismuth (Bi)

The highest recorded bismuth value returned an overlimit value of >1.0% Bi that was not reanalyzed and thus represents a minimum concentration, collected from a 30 cm chip sample from outcrop in the southern SilverTung zone, along with 791 g/t silver (Fig. 2). Similar to indium, samples with high bismuth values over 1000 ppm form a fairly tight ~1.5 x 1.5 km cluster around the SilverTung zone within the northwestern corner of the property, but also comprise a ~1.5 km long northwest-southeast trend at the Miko zone, in addition to a string of elevated values above 200 ppm Bi to the northwest of Miko near the bulk of historic drillholes. Of the 276 samples, 50 samples contain bismuth grades above 200 ppm, and 14 samples exceed grades of 1,000 ppm.

Figure 2. Distribution of rock sample grades for indium (top), and bismuth (bottom) across the Hy project, Yukon.

Tungsten (WO3)

The highest tungsten grade reported is 0.27% WO 3 , collected in a grab sample from a historic trench in the southern SilverTung zone (Fig. 3). Several other high tungsten values over 0.1% are also from the southern SilverTung zone, with some values >300 ppm sporadically occurring to the north. High tungsten values also overlap with high bismuth values that comprise a ~1.5 km long northwest-southeast trend in the Miko zone, with some elevated tungsten values also in samples to the northwest. Out of 276 samples, 19 contain tungsten grades above 300 ppm, and 6 contain grades over 1,000 ppm.

Copper (Cu)

The highest reported copper grade of 4.9% Cu is from a sample collected in the southern SilverTung zone (Fig. 3). Copper grades are more variably distributed across the Hy property, but areas such as the southern SilverTung zone, northeastern SilverTung zone, and Miko zone show more consistent high-grade samples generally above 1000 ppm Cu. Out of 276 samples, 17 contain grades above 0.5% Cu (5,000 ppm), and 7 exceed grades above 1.0% Cu (10,000 ppm).

Figure 3. Distribution of rock sample grades for tungsten (top), and copper (bottom) across the Hy project, Yukon.

Next Steps

Although future work at Hy will continue to focus on the silver potential, recognizing the presence and high-grade nature of the critical minerals shown above is a massive added layer of optionality at the project. Coupled with the fact that the project is road-accessible, the Hy project presents an exceptional opportunity to explore for classic skarn-related silver-lead-zinc mineralization, with potential to add substantial value through the presence of these rare critical minerals that occur with the silver. Areas where these minerals are concentrated such as the SilverTung and Miko zones are largely unexplored with minimal or no drilling and will be the focus of future exploration work.

QAQC

Rock Samples

Grab samples and chip samples of rocks are selective by nature and are collected to characterize mineralization and confirm the presence of target elements. Grab and chip samples are inherently selective and may not be representative of the overall or underlying mineralization on the property.

The rock samples reported above were collected between 2013 and 2015. Sample preparation and multi-element analyses for rock samples were carried out at ALS Minerals' laboratories in Whitehorse, Yukon, and North Vancouver, BC, respectively. Upon receipt at the laboratory, samples were weighed and logged in. Samples were then dried and fine crushed to better than 70% passing 2 mm. Crushing quality control testing was performed by ALS as part of their internal QA/QC procedures. A representative split of each sample was obtained using a riffle splitter. The split was then pulverized to 85% passing 75 microns, with pulverizing quality control testing conducted by ALS.

All samples were subjected to a four-acid digestion and analyzed for a 48-element suite by ICP-MS using ALS method ME-MS61.

Ore-grade elements were analyzed as follows:

Silver (Ag) - Four-acid digestion with ICP-AES finish (Ag-OG62)

Copper (Cu) - Four-acid digestion with ICP-AES finish (Cu-OG62)

Lead (Pb) - Four-acid digestion with ICP-AES finish (Pb-OG62)

Zinc (Zn) - Four-acid digestion with ICP-AES finish (Zn-OG62)

For samples collected in 2013 only:

Over-limit values for lead were reanalyzed using method Pb-VOL70, a volumetric titration procedure. Gold was analyzed using a 30 g fire assay with ICP-AES finish (Au-ICP21).

Quality control is maintained by ALS through the insertion of blanks, standards, and duplicates in accordance with their internal QA/QC protocols.

Qualified Person

Technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Benjamin Kuzmich, P. Geo., a consultant, who is a Qualified Person (QP) for the purpose of National Instrument 43-101 "Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects".

About Honey Badger Silver Inc.

Honey Badger Silver is a unique silver company. The company is led by a highly experienced leadership team with a track record of value-creation, backed by a skilled technical team. Our projects are located in areas with a long history of mining, including the Sunrise Lake project with a historic resource of 12.8 Moz of silver at a grade of 262 g/t silver (and 201.3 million pounds of zinc at a grade of 6% zinc) Indicated and 13.9 Moz of silver at a grade of 169 g/t silver (and 247.8 million pounds of zinc at a grade of 4.4% zinc) Inferred(2) located in the Northwest Territories and the Plata high grade silver project located 165 km east of Yukon's prolific Keno Hill and adjacent to Snowline Gold's Rogue discovery. The Company's Clear Lake Project in the Yukon Territory has an unclassified historic resource of 5.5 Moz of silver at a grade of 22 g/t silver and 1.3 billion pounds of zinc at a grade of 7.6% zinc(3). The Company also has a significant land holding at the Nanisivik Mine Area located in Nunavut, Canada that produced over 20 Moz of silver between 1976 and 2002(4). We own 10,000 ozs of silver yielding 12% per annum. In each instance, the reliability of the historical resource estimates (the "Historical Estimates") are considered reasonable, but a qualified person has not done sufficient work to classify the foregoing Historical Estimates as current mineral resources, and the Company is not treating the estimates as current mineral resources. There is no technical report associated with the Historical Estimates. The Historical Estimate contains categories that are not consistent with current CIM definitions. The Company considers the Historical Estimates to be relevant for the proper understanding of its mineral properties, however, significant data compilation, re-drilling, re-sampling and data verification may be required by a Qualified Person for the Historical Estimates to be in accordance with NI 43-101 standards and to verify the Historical Estimates as current mineral resources. No more recent estimates of the mineral resources or other data are available to the Company. There can be no certainty, following further evaluation and/or exploration work, that the historical estimates can be upgraded or verified as mineral resources or mineral reserves in accordance with NI 43-101.

(1) Khorshidi, N. (2025). Antimony in Canada: Challenges and opportunities in critical mineral supply and demand. FACETS, 10, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1139/facets-2025-0079

(2) Sunrise Lake historic resource (2000-2003): Indicated 1.522 million tonnes grading 262 grams/tonne silver, 6.0% zinc, 2.4% lead, 0.08% copper, and 0.67 grams/tonne gold and Inferred 2.555 million tonnes grading 169 grams/tonne silver, 4.4% zinc, 1.9% lead, 0.07% copper, and 0.51 grams/tonne gold. The resource estimate for the Sunrise Deposit was carried out by Silver Standard Resources Inc. (SSR) using a classical polygonal method that relied on 72 diamond drillholes and an average density of 4 t/m3. Drill hole intercepts were taken directly from the drill logs (CBA 1998). Polygons were created within AutoCAD and AutoCAD calculated the areas. Horizontal widths were calculated using the ratio of core length to the width used by CBA in their 1998 estimate. Intercepts not used by CBA were measured on the cross sections. The intercepts were composited primarily using a geological cut-off based on the sulphide content and a nominal 30 g/t Ag grade. Internal values below 30 g/t were included for geological continuity if the composite remained above cut-off. Stringer mineralization was included where silver grades were above 30 g/t and occasionally lower if base metal grades were high. It is assumed the upper 100 m could be mined by open pit methods and the stringer mineralization would have to be removed to access the massive sulphides. The classification of the mineralization is based on the number of drill holes on a section and the continuity of the mineralization. The main massive sulphide horizon has been drilled on sections spaced 40 m apart, and above the -280 m elevation, the down dip continuity of the horizon has been tested with holes 25 to 30 m apart down dip. All mineralization in the massive sulphide horizon above 280 m is considered an Indicated Resource while the near surface stringer mineralization and the massive sulphides below 280 m are considered to be Inferred Resources. Forty holes define the massive sulphide Indicated Resource horizon. In a 2003 report to SSR, Roscoe Postle Associates Inc. (RPA) concluded SSR's resource estimate was reasonable based on approximating a NSR using typical smelter contracts, assuming metallurgical recoveries based on the limited metallurgical testing and on the following price assumptions: USD$ 5.50 per ounce silver, USD$ 400 per ounce gold, USD$ 0.45 per pound zinc, USD$ 0.25 per pound lead, and USD$ 0.80 per pound copper, as well as a USD$ 75 transportation cost, and a CDN$ 1.45:USD$ 1.00 exchange rate.

(3) Clear Lake historic Resource (2010): Inferred 7.76 million tonnes grading 22 grams/tonne silver, 7.6% zinc, and 1.08% lead. In 2010 SRK was engaged to complete a NI 43-101 compliant resource estimate for the Clear Lake deposit for Copper Ridge Explorations Inc. The estimate was made utilizing 1,842 assays from within the deposit, from a total of 13,168 m of drilling in 63 historical drill holes. An average density of 4.07 gm/cc was used, based on a limited number of field measurements that were confirmed in the laboratory, and with a minimum thickness of 2 m. Mineral resources were estimated by ordinary kriging in 12m by 12m by 9m blocks. The mineral resources are reported at a 4% (Pb+Zn) cut-off. Pb grades have been capped at 1.5% and Ag grades were capped at 60 g/t. Although SRK placed this resource in the inferred category due to uncertainties related to the historical nature of the available data, they noted that most of the resource has been drilled at a sufficiently close enough spacing to support indicated classification. The above information has been taken from a news release by Copper Ridge dated January 18th, 2010, as no technical report is publicly available.

(4) Geological Survey of Canada, 2002-C22, "Structural and Stratigraphic Controls on Zn-Pb-Ag Mineralization at the Nanisivik Mississippi Valley type Deposit, Northern Baffin Island, Nunavut; by Patterson and Powis."

For more information, please visit our website www.honeybadgersilver.com.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation that is based on expectations, estimates, projections and interpretations as at the date of this news release, including without limitation, the potential of the Nanisivik project. Any statement that involves discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, interpretations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often but not always using phrases such as "expects", or "does not expect", "is expected", "interpreted", "management's view", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", "plans", "budget", "scheduled", "forecasts", "estimates", "believes" or "intends" or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results "may" or "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking information and are intended to identify forward-looking information. This forward-looking information is based on reasonable assumptions and estimates of management of the Company at the time such assumptions and estimates were made, and involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Honey Badger to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking information.

Such factors include, but are not limited to, risks relating to capital and operating costs varying significantly from estimates; delays in obtaining or failures to obtain required governmental, environmental or other project approvals; uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future; changes in equity markets; inflation; fluctuations in commodity prices; delays in the development of projects; other risks involved in the mineral exploration and development industry; and those risks set out in the Company's public documents filed on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca) under Honey Badger's issuer profile. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information, which only applies as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed timeframes or at all. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law.
Russians are recruiting teenagers in Ukraine via Telegram. The latter receive voice messages on their phones with this kind of content:

I am primarily interested in the arson of military cars. Specifically, I am interested in green or camouflage-coloured cars with black licence plates. Do you see any around? Check the courtyards for them in the evening. Walk around, take photos, and send them to me. I take a look, and if the car fits the description, you get to work, in the night time as well. And when youre ready, you turn on the video. You pour fuel all over the windshield, and then all the way to the trunk. You turn on the video as you set the car on fire. You record about seven seconds of it lighting up nicely.

Go to a safe place and send me a video. And tell me where to transfer the money. Ill pay two thousand dollars for one car. You understand that if I transfer such an amount to a bank account, it may be blocked. People will ask where the money came from. If you dont know how to use a crypto wallet, Ill teach you. Theres nothing complicated about it. Ill make a transfer to crypto, and then you can pull the money out of your crypto wallet onto any account. The next job can be done at home. Ill pay five thousand dollars for it. If youre interested, Ill tell you all about it. I have a lot of guys working for me. They all do their jobs cautiously and no one gets caught.

Not everyone is offered USD 2,000. Seventeen-year-old Mykhailo S., a Chernihiv native, was promised a reward of 8,000 Ukrainian hryvnia (180 USD), according to the official statement posted on the regional police website immediately after the teenagers arrest.He is the stepson of a deminer, Volodymyr S., who died of his injuries last August after an attack in Mykolaiv that killed three of his colleagues on the spot on 14 February 2025.

Every two months, law enforcement officers detain minors who have collaborated with Russian special services. Three cases are already in court, Ihor Kondratiuk, prosecutor of the Department for the Protection of Childrens Interests and Countering Domestic Violence of the Chernihiv Regional Prosecutors Office, reports. All cases are similar. Russian special services find children on Telegram. They offer easy money. At first, the tasks are innocent: put up posters, write graffiti on a wall, take photos of a shop, etc. Sometimes, as an encouragement, they may send a small amount of money for this job. Then they give more serious tasks: photograph military facilities, set something on fire, etc.

The first cases of minors being apprehended were reported in August 2024. Since then, seven have been caught red-handed. Most of these children come from decent families.

Every two months, law enforcement officers detain minors who have collaborated with Russian special services, Ihor Kondratiuk, prosecutor of the Department for the Protection of Childrens Interests of the Chernihiv Regional Prosecutors Office, reports.

The first minor to be convicted for high treason

According to the investigation, in March 2025, Mykhailo was tasked with setting fire to a railway relay cabinet at the Chernihiv train station in order to disrupt train traffic. He was supposed to record his actions on video using his mobile phone to provide evidence to his supervisor. Mykhailo took a solvent as igniter and went to the station. In broad daylight. He poured it over the cabinet and set it on fire. Someone noticed it in time and called the police. The cabinet was not disabled, only blackened.

Evidence proving his involvement in the crime  a mobile phone with a video recording of the criminal act, as well as containers with flammable liquid  were found and seized from the young man by law enforcement officers. Mykhailo was convicted in early October. The court sentenced him to five years in prison. He became the first minor since 2022 to be convicted of high treason in Chernihiv, Maryna Yushchenko, press secretary of the regional prosecutors office, said.

However, in accordance with the Criminal Code, the court suspended his sentence for a probationary period of two years. During this time, the convicted teenager is not allowed to leave Ukraine without the permission of the authorities, must regularly register with the probation services, and must notify the authorities of any change in his place of study, work or residence. Probation means that the convicted teenager may be sent to serve the five years of imprisonment if he violates the terms of probation (for example, by committing a new crime). If the probation period is completed without incident, the sentence will be considered served.

Two other cases in Chernihiv and Nizhyn

Mykhailo is not the only one who was tempted by promises from Russian special services. Currently [The original version of this article was published in October 2025], two high-profile cases involving teenagers accused of treason and sabotage are under consideration in the courts of Chernihiv and Nizhyn. Sofia F. from Chernihiv was 16 years old when she was detained on 25 November 2024. She was supposed to identify and transmit to the aggressor the coordinates of air defence missile systems and radar stations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine defending the border area. To cover up her surveillance actions, the young girl would call a taxi, use it to drive around the area and secretly record the targeted locations, Ukraines security services (SBU) stated at the time. The SBU detained her as she was photographing a defence facility. Investigators established that the suspect was in direct contact with a staff member of Russias Main Intelligence Directorate, with whom she communicated via an anonymous chat in a messenger app. A mobile phone containing evidence was seized from the suspect during house search. Based on the collected evidence, security service investigators handed the suspect a notice of suspicion for treason committed under martial law. She faces life imprisonment with confiscation of property.

Sofias father is a military man. She lived with her mother and stepfather. I believe that the girl was unlawfully brought to criminal responsibility, Serhii Kozyr, Sofias lawyer from Kyiv, says. The trial began in April 2025. The accused denies her guilt. [By October 2025 her case was at the stage of court hearings.]

17-year-old Vitaliy K. has been in pre-trial detention centre for one year now. The investigation established that he and three friends of the same age  Nazar Zh., Ruslan M. and Yevheniy S.  set fire to relay cabinets on the railway tracks between Nosivka and Nizhyn. The young men are from Nosivka. They were released on bail almost immediately. But Vitaliy remains in custody. He needs 242,000 hryvnia (5,600 dollars) to be released on bail. His family does not have that kind of money. His mother is a single parent raising four children; his father is deceased.

According to the investigation, Ruslan M. found this job after Russians wrote to him on Telegram. The first task was carried out by four people. The second was done by two. They were arrested in early October 2024. A railway worker caught them in the act and called the police.

How to qualify these acts?

The case is currently under consideration by the [Nizhyn City district] court. We are examining the written evidence of the prosecution, Yevheniy Muzychuk, a lawyer from Kyiv for Vitaliy, Nazar, and Ruslan, says. This is my first case under the sabotage article, although I have 25 years of experience. I am a former prosecutors investigator and have been a defence lawyer in criminal cases for 20 years. If the Security Service of Ukraine had correctly classified my clients actions from the start, Vitaliy would not have spent a year in custody. I am confident that my clients were arrested under article 113 [sabotage] unlawfully. I am convinced that there was no sabotage in their actions. There were no victims or casualties, and the train did not derail. There was no such intent in their actions. There was also no intention to cause harm to the State in general, as opposed to a specific train. I am going to prove that the young men had no criminal premeditation, intent or motive.

In Muzychuks view, his clients are guilty of two crimes, as one action constitutes two offences under Articles 277 of the Criminal Code (damage to transport networks and vehicles) and 194 (intentional destruction or damage to property resulting in harm). My clients admit their guilt. They deserve a suspended sentence. I have filed a motion to change the charges from Article 113 to Articles 277 and 194. Not all crimes can be acquitted, but I am in favour of giving a repentant person a chance. And give them a probationary sentence. Someone like that will then be of more value to society.

The lawyer says he went through dozens of verdicts in Ukraine for arson of a railway relay cabinet. The judges classified such cases under Articles 277 and 194. And under these articles, suspects are placed under house arrest or night-time house arrest. Vitaliy would have been at home helping his mother, brothers and sisters. But now, when I look at him, it makes me want to cry. The purpose of punishment is to reform and rehabilitate. But the minor was thrown behind bars. What the boys did was a serious crime, but it wasnt murder. Their goal was to make money. Some wanted to help their parents, others wanted to buy a motorcycle.

How much did the Russians offer the boys? After the first arson, they were paid 14,000 hryvnia [320 dollars]. They were caught after the second attack.

I often give my own example, the lawyer said. When I was 15, I was also a troublemaker with my friends, and we almost stole a piece of machinery. The police caught us. They gave us a warning. They said, Go, and dont let this happen again. I graduated from school with honours. I graduated from the academy with a top grade distinction. At 15, kids dont understand what a crime is. But we treat them the same as 50-year-old men with life experience. This must also be taken into account. The decision must be lawful and fair.

Expendable material

We are talking about two criminal offences. Treason  when information about the location of military personnel, military facilities and places of deployment are recorded and transmitted. Sabotage  photographing and setting fire to railway facilities and civilian infrastructure. All with the intent to disrupt ordinary functioning.

When a person is suspected of committing these crimes, only one preventive measure is applicable  detention. Even if they are minors. However, the court may set a bail. Once paid, the child can be released.

For high treason, the age of legal responsibility is 16 years. For sabotage, it is 14 years. According to the Criminal Code of Ukraine children who have not reached this age but are at least 11-years old may be subject to compulsory educational measures. These may include placing the child under parental supervision or sending the child to a special educational institution or boarding school until they reach the age of majority.

A defence lawyer and psychologist must be present during investigative measures involving teenagers. The goal is to avoid psychological trauma in the future. One of the parents is designated as legal representative and has the right to participate in all investigative actions involving the child. The parent acts on the childs behalf.

The Russian special services cynically recruit minors and effectively rob them of their lives. They are expendable material that they use for sabotage, and they are considered casualties, a Security Service of Ukraine employee says.

This report was produced thanks to a grant by Fondation Hirondelle/Justice Info. A full version of this article was published on October 27, 2025, in "Vest Gazeta".
Russian forces killed an 11-year-old girl and her mother in bomb strikes on the embattled city of Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine, local authorities announced on Tuesday.

Seven more people were wounded in the attack on the industrial hub that Russian forces are slowly clawing their way towards.

"The dead are an 11-year-old girl and her mother. Among the wounded is a 7-year-old girl," regional official Vadym Filashkin wrote on social media.

He posted images showing several buildings on fire and windows blown out from rooms scattered with debris.

Filashkin said rescue workers were at the scene and that the number of casualties was still being determined.

"Every day in (the) Donetsk region brings new and ongoing war crimes by the Russians," he added.

The wider Donetsk region, where Sloviansk is located, is one of five regions the Kremlin claims as part of Russia.

In 2014, Kremlin-backed separatists briefly captured Sloviansk amid the war in eastern Ukraine that erupted following nationwide pro-democracy protests and the Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula.

Ukraine retook control after a few months and has held it since, with Russian forces around 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the city.

Before Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, Sloviansk had a population of around 100,000.

Separately, Russian-installed officials in the southern Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia said two people had been killed by Ukrainian forces over the last 24 hours.
Heavy security was deployed Tuesday after automatic gunfire rang out near Conakry's central prison in the Guinean capital's administrative centre where the presidency is located, according to an AFP journalist and witnesses.

The reason for gunfire in the west African nation, which is ruled with an iron fist by strongman Mamady Doumbouya, was not immediately clear.

"I heard the sound of vehicles speeding by, I rushed to the window and heard automatic gunfire," said Thierno Balde, an accountant who works in the neighbourhood, confirming similar accounts by other witnesses.

Neighbours of the prison said the shooting began shortly before 9:00 am (local and GMT) and lasted just more than a half hour.

Security blocked access to the area late Tuesday morning, although all routes to the prison were later reopened, an AFP journalist saw.

At least three armoured vehicles belonging to the special forces were also visible in front of the prison and three ambulances were seen leaving it.

Abdouramane Doukoure, a retired civil servant, said he was heading past the prison in a car when he "heard the gunshots. Since there was a traffic jam, we all rushed in different directions to escape."

Another resident, whose home is next to the prison, reported hearing gunfire inside the facility but "as we speak, things have calmed down".

"We don't know for how long," the resident added.

- Prison break -

Guinea's central prison is no stranger to violent episodes.

In 2023, nine people died in a jailbreak that saw armed commandos briefly pluck ex-dictator Moussa Dadis Camara from the facility.

He and three former officials who were on trial over a 2009 massacre during his presidency were taken from the prison.

Camara and two others were quickly returned, with one evading capture for months.

Camara and about 10 other former military and government officials, including the three colonels, stood accused over a massacre in 2009 carried out by security forces loyal to the then junta leader.

Some 156 people were killed and at least 109 women were raped at a political rally attended by opposition supporters in a Conakry stadium on September 28 and in the days that followed, according to a UN-mandated inquiry.

Camara was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to 20 years but was later pardoned by Guinea's current leader.

Doumbouya, who overthrew civilian president Alpha Conde in September 2021, ruled the country as head of its junta until last month, when he was sworn in as president following elections.

Since its 1958 independence, Guinea has had a complex history of military and authoritarian rule.

The country is rich in minerals, but more than half of its inhabitants live below the poverty line, according to World Bank figures for 2024.

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Russia had been widely expected to launch a massive strike on Ukraine, but the evening crew at one of the country's frequently targeted power stations could do nothing to prepare.

Hours later, two missiles slammed into the plant, finishing off the destruction of a unit already ravaged in an earlier bombardment.

It is just one of the sites decimated by the most intense wave of Russian attacks on Ukraine's energy grid of the four-year war.

Kyiv and its allies accuse Moscow of trying to plunge Ukraine into a humanitarian crisis, cutting off electricity, heating and water to civilians with temperatures touching multi-year lows of minus 20C in Kyiv.

Days after the recent strike, in a visit to the undisclosed facility by AFP, the air still smelled burnt.

A frozen crow was encased in the snow. Stray dogs roamed the wreckage, weaving between huge charred twisted pipes and silent idle turbines.

The site -- now resembling a post-industrial wasteland -- has been wiped out by multiple Russian strikes.

It is unclear when, or if, production can be restored there.

"I would like to say months, but it will probably take years," said Oleksandr, 53, head of the production management department.

AFP reporters visited the plant, run by private operator DTEK, as part of rare press access to a site Ukraine considers critical infrastructure. The location and full names of most employees can not be revealed.

- 'Crying' -

"I've worked at this plant for 27 years, I just feel like crying," said Volodymyr, a 53-year-old shift supervisor.

His team was working the night of the most recent strikes.

"Hundreds of workers and engineers are here around the clock, day and night, to repair as much as possible," said DTEK's communications manager Oleksandr Kutereshchyn.

AFP saw excavators scooping debris, and dozens of first responders and employees clearing rubble.

Since Russia invaded in 2022, Ukraine's energy infrastructure has been attacked more than 220 times, according to Kyiv.

The International Criminal Court in 2024 issued arrest warrants for top Russian military figures over the missile attacks on power plants, which the court's prosecutors said constituted a war crime.

Ukrainians have termed their own word for the barrage -- "Kholodomor", a reference to the Holodomor, the 1930s famine orchestrated by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin that Kyiv considers a genocide.

Literally, it translates as "death by cold".

- 'Our life' -

The attacks do more than just knock out the power -- they also sap the morale, particularly of the communities of workers and families that have been built around the plants.

When Russia last struck, "the guys came right away to help -- even those who were off or on vacation," Volodymyr told AFP.

"This is our life, you understand?"

Ania, 22, who lives in the nearby town said her mother has worked for 30 years as an administrator with DTEK.

"All these people have spent half their lives working there. And now everything is destroyed," she told AFP.

Restaurant manager Veronika, 24, is getting tired of the electricity only turning on for 60-minute stints every six hours.

Her aunt works at the the plant, which is located behind a forest that backs on to her house."Of course it's frightening," when Russia attacks, she said.

But she is determined.

"You end up getting used to it. The most important thing is that people, children, don't suffer. Metal can be rebuilt. Even if some say everything is ruined, that's not true."

She added: "The plant's chimneys are still standing, and so are we."
US Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday visited Azerbaijan, arriving from Armenia as part of a regional trip aimed at consolidating a US-brokered peace process between the Caucasus neighbours.

The visit follows US President Donald Trump's mediation last year of a peace agreement between the historical rivals Baku and Yerevan, which have fought two wars over the Karabakh region.

Vance sparked controversy by deleting a post from the @VP account on X that said he and his wife had laid a wreath "at the Armenian Genocide memorial to honour the victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide."

His office said the post was published in error by staff not part of the delegation.

Armenia has long sought international recognition of the World War I-era killings of some 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide.

Turkey rejects the label, estimates Armenian deaths at 300,000 to 500,000 and claims that as many Turks died in civil strife after many Armenians sided with invading Russian forces.

Last year, in his message marking the tragedy's anniversary, Trump avoided describing the massacres as genocide -- reversing the stance taken by his predecessor Joe Biden.

- Strategic partnership -

In Baku, Vance met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev before the two signed a strategic partnership agreement between the United States and Azerbaijan.

Vance said the agreement "will formalise that partnership and make it very clear that the United States-Azerbaijan relationship is one that will stick".

The United States will "ship some new boats to Azerbaijan to help you with territorial waters protection", he told Aliyev as they made statements to the press.

Aliyev said relations between the two countries "are entering a new phase", including in defence cooperation, "through equipment sales".

"We will continue cooperation in the field of security and will work together on counterterrorism operations."

On Monday, Vance held talks with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Yerevan.

The visit is expected to advance a flagship transport communications project integrating the two countries into a new east-west trade route.

Azerbaijan seized Karabakh in a 2023 lightning offensive, ending three decades of rule by Armenian separatists.

At a White House summit in August 2025, Trump brokered an agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan that saw the two countries commit to renouncing claims on each other's territory and refrain from using force.

- 'Peace and prosperity' -

Before the meeting with Aliyev, Vance said the issue of Armenian separatist leaders imprisoned in Azerbaijan was "certainly going to come up" in talks with Azerbaijani leaders.

Last week, a military court in Baku handed lengthy sentences, including life jail terms, to Armenian separatist leaders in a war crimes trial.

More than 20 Armenian human rights groups sent an open letter urging Vance to help secure the release of Armenian detainees in Azerbaijani jails. Karabakh refugees held a rally in Yerevan with the same demand.

The US State Department said the visit would "advance President Donald Trump's peace efforts and promote the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP)".

The TRIPP is a proposed road-and-rail corridor designed to link Azerbaijan with its Nakhchivan exclave, cut off from the mainland by Armenian territory, while integrating the region into a wider east-west trade route connecting Central Asia and the Caspian basin to Europe.

Washington has presented the project as a confidence-building measure following decades of conflict between the two countries.

Aliyev said the TRIPP "will make another contribution to peace, development and cooperation in the region".

Azerbaijan sees the opening of regional communications as the main precondition for signing a comprehensive peace treaty with its rival.

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X
Bangladesh's leading prime ministerial hopeful Tarique Rahman said on Tuesday he faces "huge" challenges if he wins elections this week, vowing to repair a country he said was looted under the previous ousted government.

If victorious on Thursday, the leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) said his first priority would be restoring security to end the political turmoil that has gripped the country since the overthrow of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina's autocratic rule by a 2024 youth-led uprising.

"We need to ensure a normal situation in the country, so that people are safe," Rahman told AFP.

But he warned the task ahead in the South Asian nation of 170 million people would be daunting.

"The economy has been destroyed," he said, accusing the ousted government of neglecting ordinary citizens.

"The health system has been destroyed in the last regime, the energy sector has been destroyed".

Rahman's BNP is a frontrunner in the polls, but faces a stiff challenge from a coalition led by Jamaat-e-Islami, the country's largest Islamist party.

Soft-spoken Rahman, sitting in his office underneath gold-framed portraits of his late parents -- former Bangladesh leaders Ziaur Rahman and Khaleda Zia -- said he was confident of a decisive victory.

"We expect that we will have a clear mandate from the people -- a big mandate," he said, adding he did not foresee the need for a coalition beyond his current party alliance.

"We'll have enough seats to form our own government."

- 'Try to do better' -

Rahman, 60, returned to Bangladesh in December after 17 years in exile in Britain during Hasina's rule.

He assumed the leadership of the BNP from his mother, three-time prime minister Khaleda Zia, who died in December aged 80, just days after he returned.

"They were they, I am me," he said, referring to his famous parents, but stressing he too had spent a lifetime in politics. "I will try to do better than them."

Among the top of the list of tasks he will face if elected will be to tackle the economic woes of the world's second-largest producer of garments.

"There are serious challenges ahead of us -- we need to tackle the economic situation," he added.

"There are a huge number of unemployed. We need to create businesses for these young people to have jobs," he said, adding he was particularly worried about the economic situation faced by women.

- 'Neighbourly relationship' -

With relations between Bangladesh and neighbouring India strained, Rahman struck a careful note on foreign ties.

"The interest of my people, and the interest of my country, comes first," he said, but adding that Bangladesh nevertheless wanted "at least a neighbourly relationship" with the countries surrounding it.

Hasina, 78, is currently in hiding in India and was sentenced to death in absentia for crimes against humanity in November.

She was once praised for overseeing Bangladesh's rapid economic rise, but she also presided over a government that crushed dissent and is accused of rampant theft, especially from large-scale public infrastructure projects.

"What we see is that in the name of mega projects, mega corruption has taken place," said Rahman.

"A few people were made very rich. But the rest of the country, the whole population, they were left with nothing."

But Rahman said he opposed banning political parties by law.

Bangladesh's interim government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, has barred Hasina's Awami League from contesting the vote.

"Of course, if someone is involved in some kind of crime, they need to be punished as per the law," he said.
A well-known Guinean prisoner involved in an infamous 2009 stadium massacre was transferred from Conakry's central prison Tuesday, a prosecutor said, as witnesses and an AFP journalist reported automatic gunfire near the facility.

Heavy security was deployed around the prison following the rapid shots and both armoured vehicles and ambulances were seen in the area.

The prisoner, Aboubakar Sidiki Diakite, known as Toumba Diakite, is serving a 10-year sentence for his role in the September 2009 killing of 156 people and the rape of at least 109 women by pro-junta forces under then-dictator Moussa Dadis Camara.

During "a surprise search and security check" at the Conakry central prison, Diakite "displayed an aggressive attitude by refusing to submit to the search, while also making threats against the security officers", according to a prosecutor from the Conakry Court of Appeal whose statement was posted on the justice ministry's Facebook page.

As a result of the "alarming situation, which was compromising security at the facility", authorities transferred Diakite to Coyah prison, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Conakry.

Diakite's lawyers denounced the move "in the strongest terms possible", calling the transfer an "arbitrary measure" that was "contrary to the law", in a statement sent to AFP.

Authorities did not explicitly link the transfer to the heavy automatic gunfire heard Tuesday morning.

Diakite, who was arrested in Dakar in 2016 and extradited to Guinea in 2017, is expected to be released next year after serving his 10-year sentence.

The September 2009 massacre and rapes took place during and after a political rally attended by opposition supporters in a Conakry stadium and is one of the darkest chapters in Guinean history.

Diakite, an aide de camp to Camara, was serving as commander of the presidential guard at the time of the massacre.

Camara was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to 20 years but was later pardoned by Guinea's current leader, Mamady Doumbouya.

Conakry's central prison, located near the presidency, government institutions and army headquarters, is no stranger to violent episodes.

In 2023, nine people died in a jailbreak that saw armed commandos briefly pluck Camara and three former officials from the facility.

Camara and two others were quickly returned, with one evading capture for months.

- Prison problems -

Tuesday's rapid gunfire began shortly before 9:00 am (local and GMT), lasting just more than half an hour.

"I heard the sound of vehicles speeding by, I rushed to the window and heard automatic gunfire," said Thierno Balde, an accountant who works in the neighbourhood.

Abdouramane Doukoure, a retired civil servant, said he was going past the prison in a car when he "heard the gunshots".

"Since there was a traffic jam, we all rushed in different directions to escape."

Another resident, whose home is next to the prison, reported hearing gunfire inside the facility.

Since independence from France in 1958, Guinea has had a complex history of military and authoritarian rule.

Doumbouya, who overthrew civilian president Alpha Conde in September 2021, ruled Guinea as head of its junta until last month, when he was sworn in as president following elections.

Guinea is rich in minerals, but more than half of its inhabitants live below the poverty line, according to World Bank figures for 2024.

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The News in Brief Tuesday, February 10, 2026

The European Union may include Georgia's Kulevi port in its 20th package of sanctions on Russia, according to Radio Liberty. The proposal, obtained by the outlet's Central Service, identifies ports outside Russia that are used for shipping Russian crude oil or petroleum products under "irregular and high-risk" practices.In response to the report, Georgian Dream Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said that Georgia does not believe its port activities violate EU sanctions. "We don't think anything is happening there that contradicts the sanctions policy," Kobakhidze told Radio Liberty. He added that the Georgian government is ready to provide detailed information and discuss the matter with the European Commission. "We are ready, of course, for discussion," he said.The port of Kulevi, located on Georgia's Black Sea coast, is specifically named in the EU's draft list, alongside another port in Indonesia. The previous 19th package of EU sanctions against Russia and Belarus was adopted in October 2025.Kobakhidze emphasized Georgia's willingness to cooperate with EU authorities. "We are ready to present detailed information to the European Commission specifically on this topic," he said.The Georgian Dream government has reversed its controversial decision to merge Tbilisi State University (TSU) and Georgian Technical University (GTU), Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced during a briefing at the government administration.According to Kobakhidze, the move follows consultations with GTU's rector and professors. "We have agreed that the Georgian Technical University and Tbilisi State University will no longer merge," he said. "In addition, within the framework of the one city-one faculty principle, GTU will be transformed into a purely technical university. Only disciplines that were part of GTU's curriculum before the 1990s will be offered going forward, while non-technical programs will continue under an interim regime for the next two years."Kobakhidze stressed that the decision respects the autonomy and historical focus of GTU, preserving its technical profile while maintaining a transitional period for existing programs.The government's original plan to merge the two universities, announced on January 29, was met with sharp criticism from the academic community. TSU's Senate stated that the initiative was "not substantiated or appropriate" and urged active dialogue with all stakeholders before moving forward. Similarly, GTU's academic council opposed any measures that would restrict the university's independence, calling for the suspension of the merger until a consensus was reached.






Tuesday, February 10, 2026 - City lawyer and High Court advocate, Kamami Njoroge, is facing allegations of misconduct after being accused of inappropriate behavior towards his former Secretary during her time at his firm, Kamami Njoroge & Co Advocates.

According to sources, the lawyer made advances towards the former Secretary over a period of four years, which she repeatedly rejected.

He harassed the former Secretary for almost four years, a source revealed.

After refusing his advances, he physically assaulted her, prompting her to report the matter to the police.

He ended up chocking her after she said no. Mtu ananyongwa because you said no to a man, the source added.

The case reportedly stalled after the lawyer bribed police for a cover-up.

The Kenyan DAILY POST






Tuesday, February 10, 2026 - Another former law student at Kabarak University has come forward and accused Law Lecturer Edmond Shikoli of misconduct.

According to the former student, the lecturer allegedly made advances towards her while she was in her third year of study.

She claims that after she rejected him, he retaliated by deliberately failing her in one of the units.

I got a D and I have never healed to date, she lamented, adding that some of her former classmates can corroborate her claims.

The woman said the experience left her emotionally stressed and that she has struggled to forgive the lecturer for what she believes was unfair targeting after refusing his alleged advances.

I spit whenever someone mentions his name, she said.

Shikolis name surfaced in a recent broader expose in which some advocates and law lecturers were accused of preying on junior female lawyers and students.

The Kenyan DAILY POST






Tuesday, February 10, 2026 - Kenyan digital content creator, Hoch Muhoro, has candidly shared his personal journey, revealing that he was once dumped by a woman because he still lives with his parents at the age of 47.

Speaking during an interview with comedian Oga Obinna, Muhoro admitted that lifestyle differences have often made it difficult for him to sustain relationships.

Asked directly if a woman had ever left him because of his living arrangement, he responded simply: Yes.

Muhoro explained that while many women prefer a fastpaced social life, he enjoys a calmer routine.

I like to go out early, enjoy oldschool music, and head home before late hours.

But these Kilimani girls want to be taken to clubs at midnight.

By the time Im ready to leave at 11 p.m., thats when the party is just starting, he said.

Behind his decision to remain with his parents lies a deeply personal tragedy.

Muhoro revealed that he lost his sister in November 2002, leaving him as the only surviving child.

We were only two in our family. I am the firstborn, and when my sister passed away, I saw the pain my parents went through.

There is nothing as heartbreaking as watching your dad break down. I thought the best way was to stay close to them, he shared.

Living with his parents, he said, brought him peace and healing.

Over time, he even began creating content with them, which strengthened their bond.

At some point they tried to push me to move out, but I told them, This is the only way Im healing. Seeing you happy is my joy, Muhoro added. Watch>>> below






Tuesday, February 10, 2026 - Kenyan digital content creator, Pritty Vishy, has stirred online debate after encouraging women to prioritize themselves and consider living childfree.

In a statement shared on her Instagram stories on Tuesday, February 10th, 2026, she urged women to focus on personal wellbeing rather than bowing to societal pressure to have children.

She argued that many men enjoy the idea of fatherhood but shy away from the responsibilities of raising children.

Men dont love kids, they love the process of making kids.

They love telling their friends and society they have kids.

If men were the ones to get pregnant, they would never do it.

So women, please choose yourselves and be childfree, she wrote.

Her remarks follow earlier comments where she said she would rather face financial struggles alone than raise children in hardship.

Vishy has also spoken openly about caring for her nonverbal autistic sister, noting that while she isnt financially welloff, she is grateful not to have additional responsibilities.

At least Im broke on my own. Imagine being broke with two kids, she shared on January 7th.





The Kenyan DAILY POST
By Cillian Sherlock, Press Association

An air route between Dublin and Donegal will be kept under weekly review, the Transport Minister has said, amid concern about impacts on cancer treatments.

Donegal Cancer Flights and Services has expressed concern that changes to the Public Service Obligation (PSO) route will cut off a medical lifeline and genuine same-day access for cancer patients and others.

The group helps cancer patients with booking flights, counselling support and other information.

The route currently operates most days with morning and afternoon departures from Donegal, and lunchtime and evening return flights from Dublin.

The current PSO contract is due to expire on February 25 and it is believed it will be replaced with an earlier first round-trip starting from Dublin and a much later evening service both ways.

I see the people coming in, I see how financially stretched they are and it is very heavy on the heart. Mary Coyle, Donegal Cancer Flights and Services

Donegal Cancer Flights and Services had sought a meeting with Transport Minister Darragh OBrien on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, OBrien committed to meeting representatives from Donegal Cancer Flights and Services but said he could not engage with them on Wednesday as he will be in London.

He said there had to be independent public procurement processes and added that he wants to ensure that flights continue beyond the end of the existing contract.

We need to execute this so that people can book flights from February 25.

The department has assured me it will be kept under weekly review with a three-month review to it.

OBrien said he had personally questioned whether flights used by those using cancer services would continue.

In relation to those who are accessing cancer services here in Dublin, I think the morning and evening flights  and Ive asked those questions myself  will ensure that that service continues.

Weve got to make sure that theres connectivity between it.

Donegal Cancer Flights and Services organiser Mary Coyle welcomed efforts to ensure flights continue beyond February 25th, but urged Mr OBrien to meet people on the ground in Donegal who rely on the flights for their medical treatments.

She told the Press Association: I would invite him to come to Donegal to see first-hand what it is like up here, how rural it is, and have an idea of how this will impact them.

A Department of Transport official will meet the group on Wednesday in OBriens absence.

Coyle predicted that the proposed earlier flight from the capital would be empty.

She explained how the group has been working with the Irish Cancer Society and Dublin oncology departments to arrange transport to morning appointments for patients who could be at risk.

She also said that the changed timetable may leave no seats available at short notice  and drive up the price of tickets.

A lot of these people, we would organise assistance for them because theyre ill.

So they would have to navigate their way to a taxi and find accommodation for the night.

This is people who are not working, or pensioners that already are stretched for money  so its not viable, it doesnt make sense.

Coyle added: I see the people coming in, I see how financially stretched they are and it is very heavy on the heart.

Then you have people in Dublin making decisions that have no idea what its like living in Donegal.
By Bairbre Holmes, Press Association

No new restaurants in Ireland have been awarded the illustrious three Michelin star rating, despite much speculation Irelands first would be named.

Michelin revealed its latest guide at a ceremony in Dublin on Monday night, the first time the event has been held in the country.

Ten restaurants retained their three Michelin star status, but no new names were added to the prestigious list.

A Galway restaurant, The Pullman, which is housed in two restored Orient Express carriages, picked up its first star.

When you love what you do, its easy and we love what we do, was John Wyer of Forest Avenue in Dublins response when his restaurant was awarded its first star.

There had been predictions Ireland had been chosen to host the event because the countrys first three-star restaurant would be added to the guide.

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey handed out the Service Award, which went to Barbara Nealon of Saint Francis Provisions in Kinsale, Co Cork.

When asked what makes great services, she quipped just liking your customers.

He also gave out the prize for Sommelier of the Year, which went to Roxane Dupuy of Row on 5 in London.

Two eateries, Row on 5 and Bonheur by Matt Abe, both in London, were elevated to two-star status.

Two Restaurants Newly Awarded Two MICHELIN Stars in The MICHELIN Guide Great Britain & Ireland 2026

From the latest Two-Star restaurants to 20 new One-Stars and five Special Awards, discover everything you need to know from The MICHELIN Guide Ceremony 2026https://t.co/AzM6wSXDOt pic.twitter.com/upeF3Z5zkm  The MICHELIN Guide (@MichelinGuideUK) February 9, 2026

Also on the list of 20 recipients of their first Michelin star is Fifty Two at Rudding Park in Harrogate, which is known for its Dessert Islands Discs, where guests choose music to play and chef Adam Degg said they try to create a party in the restaurant.

Mare by Rafael Cagali became the first Michelin-starred restaurant in Brighton and Hove in nearly 50 years.

Alexander Claridge, of The Wilderness in Birmingham  which also collected its first star, said the city doesnt take itself too seriously, but it is serious about food.

The 2026 Young Chef Award went to Tom Earnshaw of Bohemia on Jersey.

He said he was inspired by walking his dog on the beach, saying it is one of the benefits of working on an island, and adding: Just nice to get away from it all sometimes.

Sebbs in the centre of Glasgow received the Exceptional Cocktail Award.

Shwen Shwen in Kent was named Opening of the Year, it describes itself as bringing the flavours of Sierra Leone to the heart of Sevenoaks.

Maria Bradford said her familys restaurant literally represents the underrepresented.

New MICHELIN-Star Restaurants for 2026 in Great Britain & Ireland



Discover all of Great Britain & Irelands brand-new MICHELIN-Star restaurants, from grand historic settings to neighbourhood hauntshttps://t.co/7v3gh3Z9gq pic.twitter.com/crXvzj8lT6  The MICHELIN Guide (@MichelinGuideUK) February 9, 2026

Green stars were also awarded to seven restaurants who have embraced a responsible and mindful approach to gastronomy.

In a video address played during the ceremony, the guides international director, Gwendal Poullennec, described the evening as a true historic event for Irish hospitality.

He added that it was a milestone that recognises not only exceptional cooking, but the people, places and passion that define Irish food culture and hospitality.
Alison O'Riordan

A Ukrainian refugee has described how she awoke to find her "jealous" ex-partner pinning her down and demanding to be told "the truth" about her "lover" before trying to murder her by stabbing her 15 times.

In her victim impact statement, Viktoriia Pavlenko said former soldier Hryhorii Sryotenko had "absolutely mad eyes" before launching the attack, in which he repeatedly stabbed her in the face and body.

Last October, Sryotenko (51) with an address at Banna Beach Holiday Homes, Ardfert in Co Kerry, pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of Pavlenko at that location on January 13th, 2024.

Sryotenko was previously charged with false imprisonment, assault causing serious harm and the production of a knife during a dispute.

Pavlenko said in her statement that she and her daughter had to leave Ukraine in 2022 when the war broke out and "look for a shelter somewhere in a safe place".

The victim said life improved when they came to Ireland and it gave them "a feeling of peace and tranquility" but that "everything changed completely" on the day of the attack.

In her statement, Pavlenko said she met Sryotenko in Ireland and they were neighbours.

"At first everything was good, we planned our future life together. But then he turned out to be very jealous. He started to accuse me of saying and doing things I've never said or done"," she said.

At this point, the victim said she started to suspect her partner had some mental health problems. She said they separated in November 2023 but still lived in the same house.

"I will never forget January 13. I was sleeping peacefully in my bed when I heard a strange noise. I opened my eyes and at first I didn't realise what was going on. I saw Hryhorii in my bed, sitting on me with a knife in his hands.

"His eyes were absolutely mad. He threatened to stab me if I didn't tell him the truth about my lover. I didn't have any lover so I didn't understand what he was talking about. Then he stabbed me on my face and body. I don't know how many times because I was shocked.

"I shouted and luckily his son heard and came into the room and saved me. Truly speaking, I have rather vague memories of that day, mainly because of the pain, fear and shock".

Pavlenko said she was taken to University Hospital Kerry and then Cork University Hospital, where she was operated on for her injuries. The court heard she had 15 stab wounds on her body.

She said she spent weeks in hospital and then months recovering from the injuries and doing special exercises for rehabilitation. "I should admit that it was a rather difficult time for me".

The victim said that "step by step" she is coming back to a normal life with the help of her daughter and her friends.

Detective Garda Anthony Wharton detailed the events of the morning of January 13th, telling Paul Murray, prosecuting, that the defendant comes from Ukraine, was a former soldier and had been injured in the Crimean conflict in 2014.

The detective said Sryotenko, who has no previous convictions, attempted to enlist when the Ukraine war broke out but was not accepted due to his injuries. He then came to Ireland.

Under cross-examination, Det Gda Wharton agreed with Mark Nicholas with Maria Brosnan, defending, that Sryotenko and Pavlenko had lived together in 2022, formed a romantic bond and were planning "a new life".

Nicholas said as their relationship continued, his client became jealous but was never aggressive until this incident.

He said Sryotenko had "an unshakeable belief" that his partner was being unfaithful to him. He said the victim tried to convince her partner that it was not true.

The officer said the victim started to notice her partner acting strange around Christmas 2023 and as he would look at a blank screen for a long time and was not talking. He said the defendant presented as "very depressed" and was mixing up reality with his imagination.

The witness said Sryotenko continued to believe Pavlenko was being unfaithful to him and the couple split in 2023. He said the defendant could not shift this belief so the couple didn't get back together.

Det Gda Wharton said "things came to a terrible end" on the morning of January 13th, when the defendant burst into Pavlenko's room. The witness said the victim was startled and Sryotenko "pressed on her about her faithfulness" and proceeded to cut her.

During interviews with gardai, the detective said Sryotenko admitted stabbing the victim but denied attempting to kill her. The defendant said he had done something terrible and was happy Pavlenko was still alive.

Det Gda Wharton agreed with counsel that one cut was quite near the windpipe muscles but that the passage hadn't been ruptured.

Justice David Keane remanded Sryotenko in custody until March 16th, when probation and psychological reports will be before the court.

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Vivienne Clarke

The former special envoy to the US John Deasy has claimed that Ireland no longer has the necessary contacts to make things happen when they need to happen in Washington DC.

Highlighting the case of Seamus Culleton, Deasy said that such situations are only resolved quickly when they are politicised and publicised.

Speaking on RTE radios News at One, Deasy questioned what kind of representation Culleton had received from the Irish consulate in Austin Texas over the last five months since he was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Boston.

Culleton, from Glenmore in Co Kilkenny, Mr Culleton was picked up by ICE agents last September and taken to a detention centre in Texas, where he remains.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs earlier on Tuesday said that Culleton's case was brought to the attention of [the] department before Christmas or late last year". She said that they had been "providing support and consular assistance to him".

"I acknowledge it's a really distressing situation for him and we want to do everything that we can to support him," she said.

Micheal Martin said he would like to see Seamus Colleton freed from the ICE facility. He said the issue of the undocumented Irish in the United States has been a concern for quite some time, not just during the current administration.

Deasy said that locking up any Irish citizen in this manner, for this length of time cant be tolerated in any circumstances.

Deasy called for someone in the Dail to seek a record of the communications between Seamus Culleton, his family and the Irish Consulate in Austin and in Washington and a record of what they then did or didn't do in the last five months.

That is the critical thing because it can't be tolerated and you know any Irish citizen should not be left in this kind of a situation for this length of time.

I think some politicians have understood for some time that we have a problem with representation in Washington and this is just another example of it. We do need professional political operatives with in-depth contacts with Republicans and we don't have that in Washington.

We don't have the requisite necessary contacts within the Republican Party to make things happen when we need them to happen and that's a big problem.

Deasy said the bottom line was that if a relative of his had been locked up like Culleton he would ensure that it got political quickly.

When these cases pop up it seems to me that the only times there is a result... is when it gets politicised and when it gets publicised. We found that out recently with a couple of well-known cases.

Politics doesn't change. It's about contacts, relationships, it's about people knowing who's in power and turning that lever.

"Unfortunately, we don't have that kind of influence and access that we used to have."
AN ELDERLY man charged with 117 counts of marital rape through 29 years of marriage was sent for trial to the Central Criminal Court.

The man who cant be named has an address in Kildare, and was appearing in Naas District Court to receive his Book of Evidence.

The sheer scale of the charges became apparent straight away when Sergeant Mary Meade  as is protocol  offered the final four digits from the sample charge sheet which prompted the judge to comment: its like looking for a needle in a haystack".

"If you could put a yellow sticker (post it note) in this, as he held the sheaf of 117 charges.

The charges make up most of the book, which means there is little evidence, commented Judge Desmond Zaidan.

That would be my clients position as well, concurred Tim Kennelly defending.

Sgt Meade told the court the couple got married on date in the Seventies.

The (alleged) assaults began one week after marriage, and continued through 29 years of marriage.

It happened practically every week after that, she said.

The nature of the allegation? Its actual rape, not sexual assault? the judge sought clarity, and Sgt Meade agreed.

Sgt Meade also alleged that on a date in 2005 the defendant made threats to kill or cause serious harm.

My client will deny each and every one of them, said Mr Kennelly.

These are very serious charges, Mr Kennelly, said the judge.

My client is taking this very seriously, said Mr Kennelly.

The Central Criminal Court is basically the High Court sitting in its criminal capacity, explained the judge to the defendant.

They only hear two offences here  murder or rape."

The judge granted Mr Kennelly legal aid for his expenses, as well as for serious and junior counsel.

At this point the judge noticed three members of the public in the gallery for what was an in camera case, and enquired who they were.

When told it was that some were the couple's grown children, the judge ordered all three to leave.

Thats different, said the judge, when Mr Kennelly protested.

The injured party has a right to attend, but adult sons? I dont know, said the judge.

If she has left the building sergeant, will you extend the courts sympathies? said the judge.

He then sent the man forward for trial to the present sittings of the CCJ which began on 12 January.
A NEWBRIDGE man has spoken out after his wife was clamped just minutes after making a purchase at her local Lidl supermarket, warning other shoppers to be aware of strict parking enforcement rules.

Paul Nolan, who lives in Newbridge, said his wife Trisha was clamped in the car park of Lidl in Newbridge despite being a regular customer and having just completed her shopping.

According to Paul, the incident happened after his wife visited the store, made her purchase and returned to her car with her groceries.

Because there are no public toilet facilities at the shop, she then walked to the nearby Whitewater Shopping Centre to use the bathroom. When she returned a short time later, she discovered her car had been clamped.

She had literally just completed her shopping and put the groceries into the back seat, Paul said. There was only a six-minute gap between the time on the receipt and the time the car was clamped. Whoever clamped her would have seen her come out with the shopping and load the car.

Both receipts viewed by the Kildare Nationalist show that the woman had made her purchase at 2.15pm and had been clamped at 2.21pm  just six minutes after paying for her groceries.

He said the couple shop at the store every week and spend several hundred euro there each month.

Paul said: It would be one thing if someone left their car there all day and went elsewhere without buying anything, but she was a genuine customer and was gone only a few minutes because there are no toilet facilities on site.

Paul said his wife, who he described as very quiet and gentle, was upset by the incident. The clamp release fee was 120, which the couple paid.

When they raised the issue in-store, they were told parking enforcement is handled by a third-party operator and that staff could not intervene, though they could submit an appeal.

Paul later contacted Lidl head office but said he felt the response did not address his concerns.

The people in the shop they said, look, you can appeal the thing, but theres nothing we can do.

It's Lidl's property so someone's profiting from this and I can't imagine, knowing Lidl, that it's not Lidl, said Paul.

It's like Ryanair just catching people whose bags are a little bit too big. It's just another revenue stream for Lidl from where I'm sitting.

The Kildare Nationalist has contacted Lidl for comment regarding parking enforcement at the Newbridge store and it confirmed.

Our car park is managed by third-party company CPMS to ensure it is used appropriately, remains a safe space for our customers and to ensure that all customers can avail of our parking facilities.

Clear signage is in place throughout our car parks to advise of the policy and active clamping.

Lidl continued: Typically, customers are permitted to only shop within the Lidl store when using our parking facilities and can remain for up to two hours.

Lidl has also claimed that it has worked with the company CPMS to resolve the couples issue.

Paul said he did not expect to be reimbursed but wanted to highlight the situation publicly to alert other shoppers.

I kind of feel a sense of obligation to let people know that even the most minor infringement, and you're going to get done at that car park.
KILDARES Local Enterprise Office supported the creation of 417 jobs in the year 2025, which was recently revealed by Minister for of State for Employment, Small Business and Retail, Alan Dillon, TD. This marks a substantial 29% increase from the 323 jobs created by LEO Kildare in 2024, and the fifth consecutive year of job growth.

Nationally, the Local Enterprise Offices across the country now supports 40,285 jobs across 7,148 small businesses, the highest level since the Local Enterprise Offices were established in 2014.

In 2025 alone, LEO client companies created 7,261 new jobs, with a net jobs gain of 2,479  a 7% rise on 2024. Of the jobs created, 82% were outside of the Dublin region.

Commenting on the results, Jacqui Mc Nabb, Head of Enterprise, Kildare County Council said: These figures highlight the significant impact that the Local Enterprise Offices and their clients are making in driving economic growth across the country. The creation of over 7,000 jobs is only a small part of the role that LEOs are playing in fostering entrepreneurship and growing enterprise in towns, villages and communities all over Ireland

These jobs and clients figures only reflect those who have received financial funding from their LEO and do not capture the thousands more that receive the likes of Lean, Green and Digital supports or training and mentoring. The numbers today are immensely positive and reflect the resilience of the small business sector and we look forward to growing our work with these businesses in 2026 and to help those who have a great idea to get started.
By Cillian Sherlock, Press Association

Changes to a public service air route are down to people in Dublin making decisions that have no idea what its like living in Donegal, a campaigner has said.

It comes amid concern that a changed timetable for the Public Service Obligation (PSO) route between Donegal and Dublin will cut off a medical lifeline for cancer patients.

Donegal Cancer Flights and Services has expressed concern to changes to the route which currently operates most days with morning and afternoon departures from Donegal, and lunchtime and evening return flights from Dublin.

The contract is due to expire on February 25th and it is believed it will be replaced with an earlier first round-trip starting from Dublin and a much later evening service both ways.

Donegal Cancer Flights and Services helps cancer patients with booking flights, counselling support and other information.

It said the new timetable removes the midday service and takes away a guarantee of genuine same-day access for cancer patients and others travelling for essential medical care.

The group, which has been running since 2017, said this would fundamentally undermine the purpose of a PSO route.

I see how financially stretched they are and it is very heavy on the heart Mary Coyle

Organiser Mary Coyle told the Press Association that the service cannot book flights for patients past February 25th because of the uncertainty.

Coyle predicted that the proposed earlier flight from the capital would be empty and expressed concern that it would not be prioritised, leaving Dublin Airport.

She explained how the group has been working with the Irish Cancer Society and Dublin oncology departments to arrange transport to morning appointments for patients who could be at risk.

She also said that the changed timetable may leave no seats available at short notice  and drive up the price of tickets.

A lot of these people we would organise assistance for them because theyre ill.

So they would have to navigate their way to a taxi and find accommodation for the night.

This is people who are not working, or pensioners that already are stretched for money  so its not viable, it doesnt make sense.

Coyle emphasised that Donegal did not have other infrastructure in terms of rail routes.

She said she did not believe Transport Minister Darragh OBrien understands how the people of Donegal rely on these flights.

I see the people coming in, I see how financially stretched they are and it is very heavy on the heart.

Then you have people in Dublin making decisions that have no idea what its like living in Donegal.

Calling for the timetable to remain the same, she added: Theres a bit of dignity and compassion here for patients that are up for treatment or up waiting for kidney transplants of children that are ill.

In search of an urgent meeting with OBrien, members of the group told his department they would be travelling to Dublin on Wednesday.

However, the group has been informed he will not be available on the day.

Coyle said her group will continue to seek a meeting with OBrien as soon as possible.

A spokeswoman for OBrien said he will be away on government business and will send a representative to meet the group instead.

In a statement, the spokeswoman said: An early morning flight departing from Donegal and the evening return flight from Dublin, which is relied on by many, including critical care patients, to ensure a daily round trip to Dublin, will continue to be facilitated.

The minister is acutely aware of the importance of this critical service for the people of Donegal who are dependent on it and has arranged for a representative to meet with Donegal Cancer Flights and Services in Leinster House, as the minister is away on government business.

The group will hand over a petition signed by more than 15,000 people, calling on the Government to protect the PSO air service as it is.
High Court Reporter

A vulnerable minor who is subject to a court order directing Tusla to place her in secure care has recently absconded from a private accommodation placement, amid ongoing concern about her involvement with an adult man, the High Court has heard.

Tusla, the child and family agency, has not complied with the order to detain the child in secure care, due to a lack of available beds the States three secure care units.

Highly troubled and vulnerable children aged 11 to 17 can be detained in a secure care unit, known as special care, on foot of a High Court order sought by Tusla.

Judge John Jordan, who manages the High Courts special care list, on Monday said it was not surprising that the girls situation was getting worse in circumstances where she should be in special care, but is not.

It seems pointless pointing out to the CFA [Child and Family Agency] that special care orders are not part of an a la carte menu they are made and should be complied with, he said.

Alan D P Brady, counsel for the girls court-appointed advocate, said reports available to the court set out the extent of the deterioration of the girls situation in a recent accommodation placement with a private provider.

Brady said the girl had engaged in assaults on staff at the placement, and said there was concern about the minors involvement with an adult man.

The judge noted instances of violence, aggression, absconding, drinking, self-harm and consorting with an older person recorded in the reporting before the court.

Paul Gunning, barrister for Tusla, said the private accommodation provider had recently informed his client that it was discharging the minor from the placement, describing this as a regrettable development. The childs previous foster family agreed to take her in, he said.

Tuslas non-compliance with the order directing the childs placement in secure care is the subject of a separate lawsuit, which seeks a court declaration that the agency is in contempt of court orders.

In another case, the judge described as a reasonably good story so far the case of a child who was previously without a special care bed, but is now in a secure unit.

Sarah McKechnie, barrister for Tusla, said the child is keeping to himself in the unit, and is described as quiet and mannerly.

McKechnie noted that the childs sibling had been informed that a drug debt owed by the detained child had been transferred to the sibling. The judge noted that this was a matter for the gardai.

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Isabel Hayes

A woman who was allegedly sexually abused by seven of her family members has told a court she is so angry after hearing one of her brothers told gardai he never had sex with her.

The woman, who is deaf, signed I am so angry and left the room where she was being cross-examined via videolink at the Central Criminal Court trial on Tuesday.

Roderick O'Hanlon, defending, was cross-examining the woman in relation to her allegations against his client, her 32-year-old brother.

This man, referred to as Accused E, is accused of 16 counts of sexual abuse against his sister over an eight-year period between 2003 and 2011.

He has denied nine counts of anal rape and seven counts of raping her.

O'Hanlon put it to the woman that when her brother was interviewed by gardai in relation to the allegations against him, he at first said he had no recollection of the allegations.

He's in trouble, the woman replied.

O'Hanlon put it to the woman that her brother was then able to tell gardai he never had sex with (her) on any occasion, at any time.

I am so angry, the woman replied, before standing up and leaving the videolink room.

Seven men, aged between 32 and 55, are on trial in the Central Criminal Court in relation to a combined total of 103 charges against them  of which 98 counts pertain to the main complainant.

They are her four younger brothers and three uncles.

They are accused of sexually abusing her at various stages over a 17-year period between 1996 and 2013 and deny any wrongdoing. None of the parties involved can be named for legal reasons.

The woman is giving evidence via video-link and through two interpreters  an Irish Sign Language (ISL) interpreter and a deaf relay  as well as an intermediary who is a linguistics expert. There are also two interpreter monitoring teams present in court to ensure the woman is being interpreted correctly.

Charts and symbols are also being used to assist the woman to communicate, with the court hearing she has challenges communicating timelines in terms of calendars and sequence.

When the trial resumed after a short break, O'Hanlon put to the woman that it was unlikely that Accused E, then aged nine, would have travelled to the family home to commit the offences against her.

The court has heard evidence that Accused E was living with other family members during part of the period when he is alleged to have sexually abused her.

It's (his) fault, the complainant said.

The intermediary told the court that she did not believe the complainant fully understood the question, and a break was taken to work through the questions.

After the break, Mr O'Hanlon again submitted to the woman that her brother would not have committed offences against her when he wasn't living in the same home and when the home was full of family members and would not have been empty as the woman has asserted.

The woman told the jury her brother was telling lies and she was telling the truth.

The trial continues before Ms Justice Biggs and an extended jury panel of 14 jurors.

Charges

Accused A  the woman's 55-year-old uncle - is accused of a single count of raping her on a date between December 2009 and April 2011. He has denied the charge.

Accused B (48)  another uncle - is accused of eight counts comprising rape, oral rape and anal rape of the complainant on dates between December 2008 and December 2010. He has denied the charges.

Another three of her younger brothers are also accused of sexually abusing her over varying periods of time.

Accused C (34) is accused of 45 counts  22 of rape and 23 counts of anally raping her over a 12- year period between 2001 and 2013.

Accused D (33) is accused of 22 counts of sexually abusing his sister over an 11-year period on dates between 2002 and 2013. He has pleaded not guilty to 19 charges of rape and three counts of anal rape.

Another brother, Accused F (also 32), has denied five counts  three counts of anal rape and two counts of raping his sister on dates between 2007 and 2010.

A third uncle, Accused G (45), has denied a single count of raping her on a date between 1996 and 1997.

Accused C is further charged with the sexual abuse of two of his younger sisters. He is charged with one count of sexual assault in relation to one sister, Complainant 2, on a date between 2005 and 2006 when she was a child. He is also charged with two counts of rape and one of anal rape of this woman on dates between 2016 and 2019.

He is also charged with one count of anally raping a third sister, Complainant 3, on dates between 2013 and 2014.

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can call the national 24-hour Rape Crisis Helpline at 1800-77 8888, access text service and webchat options at drcc.ie/services/helpline/ or visit Rape Crisis Help. In the case of an emergency, always dial 999/112.
A Kilkenny man has admitted he is living in fear for his life after being detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last September.

Seamus Culleton, who is married to a US citizen, has lived in the US for 20 years and held a Massachusetts driving license and a valid work permit at the time of his arrest.

Mr Culleton remains in custody after being pulled over by ICE on the way home from working at the plastering business he owns.

He was subsequently taken to a detention centre in New York and latterly El Paso.

READ NEXT: 'A gentleman' - Kilkenny in mourning following death of much loved publican

The Glenmore native told RTE's Liveline programme that living conditions in the centre are like a 'modern day concentration camp.'

"I'm in fear for my life here, people have been killed by staff here," he told the programme.

"I've been locked in the same room now for four and a half months. I've had barely any outside time. No fresh air, no sunshine.

"I'm just locked in this room all day, every day," he explained.

"The conditions here are filthy," he added.

More to follow...

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Moves to abolish the Dublin Airport passenger cap expose a fundamental dishonesty in the Governments approach to climate targets, the Green Party has said.

Transport Minister Darragh OBrien secured Cabinet approval on Tuesday to draft laws that could lift or scrap the divisive measure.

The 32 million passenger cap, a planning condition issued by the local authority where the airport is based, has come under legal and political scrutiny.

Concerns have been raised that it could hamper the Irish economy and connectivity if maintained, while others say it should not be lifted as Ireland attempts to halve its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

Ryanair chief executive Michael OLeary has criticised Taoiseach Micheal Martin and the Government for not removing the cap over a year after entering office.

Transport Minister Darragh OBrien said it was a very detailed and complex piece of legislation, but added that he expects it to be brought to the Oireachtas on an expedited basis.

Theres three principles that are enshrined in the legislation, and one is the power to amend the existing cap, the power to revoke a cap, but also, very importantly, looking into the future, to include any acquisition of a cap into the future based on any future application, he said.

He said that national infrastructure as critical as Dublin Airport should not be overseen by a local authority and they would look to deem the airport as critical infrastructure.

Green Party leader Roderic OGorman said the Government needed to be honest about limits to growth in Dublin Airport.

Mr OGorman, who served in Cabinet alongside Mr OBrien in the previous coalition, said the current passenger cap system was inappropriate as it treated 100 passengers on one 747 the exact same way as 100 different people taking 100 private airline flights.

He said that the airport should be regulated around carbon emissions and noise pollution.

We need a system that regulates growth of Dublin Airport, looking at the challenges that it creates, the noise pollution for communities in the immediate area, and carbon emissions for the wider country.

But this Government continues to kind of push this idea that there are no limits on anything, no limits on the growth of Dublin Airport, no limits on the number of new data centres we can put onto our grid, no limit to the number of new roads that we can build.

And theyve already almost joyously jettisoned our 2030 targets and any effort to actually meet those.

He added: Ultimately, were all going to pay for this, because those 2030 targets, if theyre not met, theres going to be very substantial fines that Ireland are going to have to pay.

Asked if environmental concerns had gone out the window, Business Minister Peter Burke said theyre absolutely not.

If you look at aviation, technology is moving fast, but it still has a journey to go, he said.

Were an island economy, were not going to essentially push the airport into the abyss and have no more growth for our economy, no more growth for the tourism sector.

So I think as an island economy, thats very clear, air connectivity is pivotal to our success story as a country.

Asked if he had been in touch with Mr OLeary on the issue, he said he had not been.

The decision comes a month after Mr OLeary criticised the Government over doing very little on the passenger cap, housing or infrastructure in the first 13 months in office.

Its not like theyve been busy passing other legislation last year, Mr OLeary said of the passenger cap at a high-profile press conference in Dublin.

The airline chief said the passenger cap should be scrapped before St Patricks Day.
An Irish mans description of immigration detention facilities are false, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said.

Seamus Culleton has been detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) since September.

He has described horrible conditions at the facility, which he likened to a modern-day concentration camp.

In a statement to the Press Association on Tuesday, DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said: These claims that there are subprime conditions at Ice facilities are false.

Ice has higher detention standards than most US prisons that hold actual US citizens.

Mr Culleton is originally from Co Kilkenny but has been living in the US for almost 20 years and is married to a US citizen.

He was driving home after finishing work when he was detained by Ice agents on September 9 2025.

Mr Culleton said he had a work permit but was arrested and taken from Massachusetts to an Ice facility in El Paso, Texas.

The DHS has alleged that when Mr Culleton arrived in the US in 2009, under a visa waiver programme, allowing people to stay in the US for 90 days without a visa, he did not leave after this period.

A pending green card application and work authorisation does not give someone legal status to be in our country,

Being in detention is a choice. We encourage all illegal aliens to use the CBP Home app to take control of their departure. The United States is offering illegal aliens 2,600 dollars and a free flight to self-deport now.

We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the US the right legal way to live the American dream. If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return.

These claims that there are subprime conditions at Ice facilities are false. Ice has higher detention standards than most US prisons that hold actual US citizens.

Foreign Affairs Minister Helen McEntee said it was a really distressing situation for Mr Culleton and her officials were working to support his family.

Asked on Tuesday if she was aware of other similar cases of Irish people with a right to be in the US being detained by Ice, she said: I am aware of a small number of cases where people have directly reached out to our embassy teams.

Ms McEntee added: If there are other people in that type of scenario, please engage with our teams  were there to support them.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin later told the Dail that Irish officials were were aware of five to six cases.

He said the cases vary in terms of status but the Government would do everything it could to help Mr Culleton.

Mr Culleton said he would like the Taoiseach to raise his case with US President Donald Trump during his meeting at the White House in March for St Patricks Day.

Asked if he would do so, Mr Martin said on Tuesday that Government officials will see what more they can do in communication with the administration.

He said Government officials have been engaging with local officials and Ice about Mr Culletons case.

Speaking before a Cabinet meeting in Dublin, the Taoiseach said: We will see what more, with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, what we can do in terms of our communication with the administration.

I fully empathise with the position he is in, he has been in the United States quite a long time, hes married there.

Im not clear on the full background to it but certainly we would like to see him out of that facility.

Asked if he was broadly concerned about the US administrations approach to immigration enforcement, Mr Martin said the Government has been concerned about undocumented Irish citizens for a long time through a range of US administrations.

He added: There is now a crackdown in America in terms of the implementation of migration law which we are concerned about in terms of how it affects the Irish undocumented.

Mr Martin said the approach had been to seek legal channels to regularise the situation for Irish and US citizens in the States.

He said living in the US without status was a very difficult and dangerous position to be in.

Mr Martin said it has been difficult to get consensus on the Hill as different countries lobby US congress for support on migration measures.

Meanwhile, Tanaiste Simon Harris said it was an extremely stressful time for Mr Culleton and his family.

Asked if Mr Martin should raise the issue with Mr Trump, he said: I take the point thats made about what may or may not happen on March 17, I would just make the point, theres a fair whack of time to go between now and March 17, and certainly Ireland and Irish authorities, through our diplomatic channels, will be continuing to engage, to make the point, to make their representations between now and then.

Of course, then the Taoiseach and the Government will judge where thats at.

Asked the same question, Ms McEntee said there is always a time and a place to raise individual cases, and added: I have no doubt the Taoiseach will give it consideration but it is important to stress we are already providing assistance to Seamus.
Chair of the Kilkenny Local Community Safety Partnership, Cllr. Pat Fitzpatrick, and Community Safety Coordinator Maria OShea recently met with the Minister for Justice, Jim OCallaghan, as he addressed all local authorities at the first national meeting of Local Community Safety Partnerships.

The Minister confirmed that members have now been appointed to 34 Partnerships, with 31 having held their inaugural meetings and elected their Chairs and Vice Chairs.

This national gathering marked a key milestone in the development of Irelands new communitycentred approach to safety, bringing LCSP representatives together to strengthen collaboration and share learning.

TAP HERE FOR MORE LOCAL NEWS

Minister Jim OCallaghan said:

Today marks a significant step in advancing the new Local Community Safety Partnership model, bringing together those who will lead its delivery and strengthen our approach to community safety.

"The next step for each partnership is to develop and implement their own, tailored community safety plan. Bringing together local representatives, community groups and state agencies will allow each Safety Partnership to develop a plan that identifies meaningful actions in response to community safety needs in their own area.

I want to wish the Chairs and members of the Local Community Safety Partnerships the very best and thank them for being a part of this innovative new approach to community safety. Their willingness and commitment to working collaboratively as members will be the key to success of their respective partnerships.

The new partnership will expand on the previous joint policing committee to include wider community, voluntary, and statutory involvement, all working together to improve safety across the county.
Shenandoah, IA (51601)

Today

Sunshine and some clouds. High 62F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies during the evening will give way to cloudy skies overnight. Low 38F. Winds light and variable.
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An unidentifiable "bucket of brown liquid" was one of the reasons a Dublin restaurant was forced to shut down in January.

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) released their latest batch of enforcement and closure orders, which saw four restaurants in the country hit with closure orders.

Three Closure Orders were served under the European Union (Official Controls in Relation to Food Legislation) Regulations, 2020.

One of the restaurants forced to shut was Chillers Restaurant & Lounge in Dublin.

Among the reasons it was forced to shut was due to a "bucket full of brown unidentifiable liquid containing white pipes beneath the sink in the bar area."

The report also said the floor beneath the microwave area was in poor repair and damaged such that it cannot be cleaned

adequately.

The inspection also found an accumulation of grease deposits in the ceiling tiles above a utensil wash sink, and dirty uniforms being stored in a dry goods store.

Closure orders were also issued to the White Sands Hotel (Closed area: the small kitchen ground floor), on the Coast Road, Portmarnock, Co Dublin.

Rodent activity led to the closure of the small kitchen on the ground floor.

A closure issue was also issued to OConnells Foodstore in Bansha, Co Tipperary.

The inspection found to have food with use by dates for the purpose of sale or supply, including milk with a use by date of January 15th, being found during an inspection on January 19th.

In the Shamrock Lodge in Finglas, Co Dublin, who were issued a closure order served under the FSAI Act, 1998, the kitchen was also closed off after it was found to have a severe leak that required four or five buckets to be placed on the floor, which the FSAI said "posed a grave and immediate danger to public health."

Commenting today, Mr Greg Dempsey, Chief Executive, FSAI, highlighted the need for food businesses to implement a rigorous food safety management system with their business.

Inspectors are finding recurring incidents of unhygienic practices and rodent infestations in food businesses. Implementing and maintaining a food safety management system is a basic requirement and should be of the highest importance for food businesses. Maintaining a clean premises is not a nice to have - it is a basic legal requirement.

"All food businesses have a duty of care to their customers to serve food that is prepared in a clean premises and is safe to eat. There is no excuse for bad practice.
MORE than 700 people packed the Woodford Dolmen Hotel, Carlow recently for an uplifting evening of conversation and hope in memory of the late Sharon Brennan from Killeshin.

The charity event, Stories with Miriam OCallaghan, was organised by the family of Sharon who tragically died by suicide in 2025, with all proceeds going to Pieta House to support their vital work in suicide prevention and mental health.

Hosted by broadcaster Miriam OCallaghan, the evening featured guest speakers exploring themes of resilience and community spirit through real-life stories. Among those taking part were GAA president Jarlath Burns, all-Ireland winning captains Gavin White and Ronan Maher, and entertainers Al Porter and Rorys Stories. Gavin brought the Sam Maguire Cup to the event.

Paul was particularly moved when Jarlath and the all-Ireland captains paid tribute to Killeshin GAA for supporting the family through difficult times.

Jarlath Burns, Gavin White and Ronan Maher  I suppose, you could say they are the holy trinity of the GAA and having them paying homage to our club meant a lot, said Paul Brennan, Sharons husband and chairman of Killeshin GAA. It was talking about suicide, but it was designed to be uplifting and hopeful and it did just exactly that. It sent the message out to people that might be contemplating something  to talk to someone.

Paul continued: The biggest thing I would have got from the night was that there was hope there. Miriam did a great job recognising that in rural Ireland a GAA club can become the spine of the community and help people out in hard times.

Sharons sister Fiona Grace also spoke courageously about the familys experience. She said: This night is about remembering Sharon in the way she lived with love, kindness and positivity.

Paul emphasised the importance of Pietas work, noting that while the government funds 20% of its services, the remaining 80% must be fundraised. Its an important service. When we rang them, they came out to the house and stayed as long as we wanted them to. It was a cup of tea by the fire, not an office environment.

If you have been affected by any of the issues in this article, contact Pieta on 1800 247 247 or text HELP to 51444.
By Jonathan McCambridge, Press Association

A suicidal patient walked unnoticed from the emergency department of a Belfast hospital shortly before he died, a coroner has found.

Coroner Anne-Louise Toal said a delay in assessing 50-year-old Stephen Loughead at the Mater Hospital was a missed opportunity to potentially prevent his death in March 2024.

The coroner said Loughead from north Belfast should have been assessed by a doctor within 10 minutes, but instead was not called for two hours, by which time he had already left the hospital.

I do find there was a missed opportunity to assess him in a timely manner, which may have prevented his leaving the emergency department on that day and the tragic events that followed Coroner Anne-Louise Toal

Toal delivered her findings in the inquest at Belfast Coroners Court on Tuesday.

She told the court that Loughead had attended Musgrave PSNI station in the early hours of March 15th 2024 and was clearly experiencing deteriorating mental health.

The coroner said police took him to the emergency department of the Mater Hospital but did not accompany him inside.

Toal said this action was contrary to the joint guidance between police and hospitals.

However, she said the failure to accompany him to ED did not alter the way in which he was treated.

Toal said Loughead waited more than an hour to be triaged, in excess of the target time of 15 minutes.

The coroner said he was correctly triaged as a higher-risk category two patient.

She said he was then brought to wait in a chair beside the nursing station, the only area of the hospital available for observation of higher risk patients.

The inquest was held at Belfast Coroners Court (Liam McBurney/PA)

The coroner said: Due to staffing pressures, it was not possible to closely monitor him as was appropriate and as a result it is unknown what time he left the department, other than it was after he was last seen at 7.30am.

Toal said that as Loughead was recognised as being actively suicidal, he should then have been seen by a doctor within 10 minutes.

She said: Due to chronic severe pressures existing within the ED, he was not called for another two hours, by which time he had left the emergency department unnoticed.

I find the environment in the emergency department and the protracted wait in a noisy and busy unit exacerbated his condition and contributed to his leaving the department before being assessed and this represents a missed opportunity to treat the deceaseds suicidal ideation at that time.

The coroner said it was not possible for her to say if the patient would have been detained at the hospital if he had been assessed earlier.

But she added: I do find there was a missed opportunity to assess him in a timely manner, which may have prevented his leaving the emergency department on that day and the tragic events that followed.

The coroner said emergency department staff are in an unenviable position.

She said: It is a stark reality that, as per the evidence heard by this inquest, was the deceased to walk into the Mater ED today, it is unlikely that anything would change in the way that he was dealt with, not due to a lack of want or care, but due to a chronic lack of resources in a milieu of increasing pressures.

Stephen Loughead was pronounced dead at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast (Liam McBurney/PA)

The coroner said Loughead was last seen by nursing staff at the morning handover at 7.30am and at some point in the next hour he left the hospital and travelled towards the city centre.

She said Loughead was later seen in the River Lagan after 9am.

Despite a rescue operation, Loughead died in the Royal Victoria Hospital from hypoxic brain injury caused by cardiac arrest as a result of drowning.

The coroner passed on her condolences to the family before closing the inquest.

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can freephone the Samaritans 24 hours a day for confidential support at 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org.

You can also freephone the national Bereavement Support Line run by the HSE and Irish Hospice Foundation at 1800-80 70 77 (Monday-Friday 10am-1pm), and the contact information for a range of mental health supports is available at mentalhealthireland.ie/get-support/.

In the case of an emergency, or if you or someone you know is at risk of suicide or self-harm, dial 999/112.
Palmer Township police are searching for a woman they say shopped for groceries at Weis Markets and then left the store without paying.

The woman entered the supermarket around 11 a.m. Saturday at 3011 William Penn Highway. She was seen on store surveillance camera selecting numerous food items, valued at roughly $100, police said.

Township Police Officer Maurice Burton said she stuffed a large purse with the items. The woman then fled in a 2009 Nissan Rogue with Pennsylvania registration.

Township police are investigating the incident as a theft.

The woman is shown in surveillance photos as having long, dark curly hair and wearing a gray hat, plaid jacket, black leggings and dark boots. She also was seen carrying the tan purse.

Those with information or can identify the woman are asked to email Burton at mburton@palmerpd.org.
As New Jersey officials continue to question immigration enforcement tactics by President Donald Trumps administration, lawmakers are considering a bill that would prohibit officers from wearing masks in the state.

The bill, S3112, would prohibit all law enforcement officers in New Jersey from wearing any face coverings or disguises while interacting with the public, with limited exceptions.

The measure follows criticism that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents regularly wear masks, which the agency says protects them from online harassment and doxxing. Critics say the masks stoke fear and limit accountability.

Unmasking ICE agents has emerged as a key demand by Democrats in negotiations in Congress over funding for the agency.

The proposed New Jersey law, sponsored by state Sen. Benjie Wimberly, D-Passaic, has been referred to the Senate Law and Public Safety Committee. An identical bill in the Assembly is scheduled to be debated and voted on by the Public Safety and Preparedness committee on Thursday.

Under the bill, officers at the federal, state, county and municipal levels would be barred from concealing their faces during official public interactions. Exceptions include undercover assignments, protective face shields that do not obscure identity, physiciansupported use of medicalgrade masks such as N95 respirators, and masks worn during statedeclared smoke emergencies.

Violations would be a disorderly persons offense, punishable by a $500 to $1,000 fine, up to six months in jail, or both, according to the proposal. The bill would take effect immediately upon enactment.

The legislation would need to be passed by both houses of the Democratic-controlled state Legislature and signed by the governor to become law.

ICE officials did not immediately respond to a request to comment on the proposed masking law.

The debate over ICE agents wearing masks comes as Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrills administration continues to clash with the Trump administration over immigration enforcement. Federal officials have threatened to withhold funding from states that keep restrictions on local police cooperation with immigration authorities.

During last weeks confirmation hearing for acting state Attorney General Jennifer Davenport in Trenton, state Sen. Jon Bramnick, R-Union, pressed her about reports of federal officers wearing masks during general public operations.

When you take a look at our state and local law enforcement officers across the state and the operations they do  you just dont see that, Davenport said.

Thats good, Bramnick interjected. I want to see the person whos hitting me over the head with a club or something.

Lets hope that does not happen, Davenport quipped.

When asked during her confirmation hearing, Davenport would not give an opinion on whether the law should be passed.

Whether that is something that should be banned or a law, I leave that to this body, she said, referring to the state Legislature.

Bramnick also pressed Davenport on whether she would be willing to arrest ICE agents if she had reasonable belief they were violating state law. Davenport said she would support prosecuting ICE agents if they break New Jersey law.
Team Haiti sent two athletes to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina, although it is what they are wearing that is making the most waves for their team for the winter games.

Originally, the two skiers were set to compete in uniforms designed by Italian-Haitian designer Stella Jean featuring one of Haitis founding fathers sitting atop a red horse, according to the Associated Press.

However, that did not sit well with the International Olympic Committee, which told Team Haiti to get rid of the symbol on the uniforms.

Heres what was originally on the uniforms and how Team Haiti navigated the controversy.

Why was Team Haiti forced to remove a controversial figure from its uniforms?

According to the AP, Team Haitis uniforms originally featured Toussaint Louverture, a former slave who organized a revolution that eventually founded Haiti in 1804.

The IOC ruled that the image of Louverture violated Olympic rules because it depicted a political symbol.

This is because the Olympic Charter states that competing countries must stay politically neutral.

Sports organisations within the Olympic Movement shall apply political neutrality, the Olympic Charter stated. No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.

What did Team Haiti do after it was forced to remove the controversial figure?

Fashion designer Jean came up with a creative solution to preserve the uniforms symbolism while keeping in line with IOC rules.

She organized a few Italian artisans to paint over Louverture, leaving in place an image of a charging red horse in a tropical rainforest.

On the back of the uniforms, the word Haiti is displayed against a blue sky.

Rules are rules and must be respected, and that is what we have done, Jean told the AP. But for us, it is important that this horse, his horse, the generals horse, remains. For us, it remains the symbol of Haitis presence at the Olympics.
A convicted sex offender who horrifically raped and assaulted his then partner in a Moore Abbey woods in Monasterevin telling her he had dug her grave, has been jailed for 10 years.

Dylan McMahon (31) of Kilpatrick, Kildangan, Monasterevin, was convicted of rape, aggravated sexual assault, false imprisonment and making threats to kill or cause serious harm on July 17, 2022 following a Central Criminal Court trial last year.

While attacking her, the court heard McMahon pushed dog faeces, sticks and leaves in her mouth to the point she couldn't breathe before he led her through the woods, telling her he had dug her grave and she was going to die that day.

He also pleaded guilty to assault causing harm on the same date during the trial.

The court heard the woman wishes to retain her right to anonymity, but has no difficulty with McMahon being named.

McMahon has 36 previous convictions. He is currently serving a sentence of six years with the final year suspended for theft and assault causing harm to a sex worker in March 2019, which was imposed in Mullingar Circuit Criminal Court.

He is also serving a consecutive two-year and nine-month sentence for offences including robbery, imposed by Naas Circuit Criminal Court and has an earliest release date in 2033.

McMahon sustained a traumatic brain injury in 2015 following a road traffic accident. He does not accept the verdict of the jury, the court was told.

Imposing sentence on Monfay, February 9, Mr Justice Patrick McGrath said the relationship between McMahon and the woman was an aggravating factor. He noted the prolonged and repeated nature of the attacks, the appalling level of degradation visited upon the woman and the effect on her, describing her victim impact statement as harrowing.

McMahon interrupted the hearing several times, at one point saying: It's a joke, your Honour.

Mr Justice McGrath said he would have no hesitation imposing the headline sentence of 15 years, but added the court must consider the impact of McMahon's traumatic brain injury and mental health difficulties on his culpability, noting there is no other mitigation.

The judge imposed a sentence of 12 years, with the final two years suspended for five years on strict conditions. He directed that this sentence should run consecutively to the sentence imposed by Mullingar Circuit Criminal Court, as McMahon was on bail for those offences when he committed these offences.

The conditions imposed on the suspended portion of the sentence include that McMahon places himself under the supervision of the Probation Services for five years post-release, and refrains from alcohol or other illicit substances.

After entering the bond, McMahon told the court: I dont agree to be sentenced for rape, which I did not do. I agree to the bond. Ive no choice but to agree to the bond.

The judge granted an application from the defence to extend legal aid in event of an appeal.

An investigating garda outlined during a previous sentence hearing that McMahon and the woman met online and began a relationship.

The woman lived in a different part of the country and would often stay at McMahon's home in Kildare.

On the day in question, the court heard both parties had taken some drink, then McMahon left the house. He returned and asked the woman to accompany him to a nearby shop with a man who had arrived in a van.

McMahon asked the woman to withdraw 300 to pay for cocaine, but she could only withdraw 100. She gave the cash to McMahon, who was unhappy that it was less than 300.

The van driver dropped McMahon and the woman near the entrance to Moore Abbey Woods.

McMahon took some cocaine, then started to assault the woman as they began to walk through the woods.

Evidence was heard that McMahon subjected the woman to a sustained assault by punching her, grabbing her hair, kicking, spitting and striking her with his fists.

McMahon also threatened the woman, telling her: You are going nowhere, your grave is in here.

The assault continued as they walked through the wood and the woman was bleeding from her face and chin.

While in the woods, McMahon forced the woman to the ground, then subjected her to an aggravated sexual assault before raping her.

He pushed leaves, sticks and dog faeces into her mouth, leaving the woman struggling to breathe.

When he was finished, McMahon stood up and made a victory gesture. They continued to walk through the woods, with McMahon repeating the threats to kill her and place her in a grave.

Two women were passing nearby and the victim went to them for support. She was also helped by women at a halting site, one of whom described the victim as missing patches of hair. The woman was bruised all over after the incident.

The family at the halting site looked after the woman, later bringing her home.

Mr Justice McGrath said those who assisted the woman were good Samaritans and noted the particular kindness and care they showed her.

When arrested, McMahon denied the allegations and claimed the woman had assaulted him, leaving him with bruises and marks.

In a victim impact statement, the woman said McMahon seemed nice at first and she never expected he would be capable of raping me or would try to take my life in such a violent way.

She said she genuinely thought her life was over, and believed him when he said he had my grave dug for me.

The injured party said she was grateful for the support of the two women, adding: If not for them, I thought I would be killed.

She described experiencing flashbacks, nightmares and being constantly on edge. The woman said she was unable to return home and has been living in homeless accommodation.

She said she hopes by speaking out that it will stop harm coming to another person and while she can never forgive or forget what McMahon has done, she hoped to be able to move on in the future.

Carl Hanahoe SC, defending, said his client maintains his innocence in relation to the sexual crime and the false imprisonment charge.

However, he said McMahon wished to apologise for the assault he committed on the day in question, which he pleaded guilty to at trial.

He said McMahon suffers from a traumatic head injury which he said would render his time in custody more difficult.
A US national described "in detail" how he strangled his 66-year-old father with his bare hands, putting a "full fist into his throat", just over an hour after arriving at a five-star midlands resort, a Central Criminal Court jury has heard.

Opening the trial of Henry McGowan, who has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his father by reason of insanity, the prosecuting barrister also said that, despite being notified by the UK's Metropolitan Police that the accused was travelling to Ireland and there was some concern for his welfare, gardai failed to locate him at Dublin airport.

The trial jury panel also heard that the accused was under the delusion that the person he was killing was not his father but "an imposter", with expert psychiatrists for both the prosecution and defence in agreement that Henry McGowan was experiencing a relapse of schizoaffective disorder when he killed his father.

Mr McGowan (31), with an address at Clinton Street, Brooklyn, New York, in the United States, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to the murder of John McGowan (66) at Ballyfin Demesne, Ballyfin, on November 12, 2024.

Opening the prosecutions case on Tuesday, February 10, Will Fennelly BL told the court that the trial would hear from expert consultant psychiatrists for both the prosecution and defence, who have the same opinion that a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity was open to the jurors.

Outlining the facts of the case, Mr Fennelly said shortly before 8 pm on November 12, 2024 investigators received a phone call alerting them to an incident which occurred in a cubicle off the swimming pool at Ballyfin Demesne hotel.

Mr Fennelly said the jury would hear that gardai went to the Ballyfin hotel after 8 pm and found John McGowan in a state "of at least serious injury, if not death". Emergency services arrived, and John McGowan was pronounced dead in due course.

He said the focus of attention then moved to John McGowan's son Henry, and a garda investigation ensued.

Counsel told the panel that shortly before 11 pm on November 11, Henry McGowan arrived at Dublin airport on a flight from London. The barrister said the Metropolitan Police had notified An Garda Siochana in Dublin airport that the accused was coming and expressed some concern for his welfare. He said gardai had looked for Henry McGowan at the airport but could not locate him.

There will be evidence, Mr Fennelly said, that the accused went to one of the airport car parks, where he discarded his baggage and personal items, including his phone and passport. The lawyer said the accused then made his way into Dublin.

He said Henry McGowan told gardai in his interviews that he ran into the city centre.

At 8.30am on November 12, the accused presented himself at the emergency department of the Mater Hospital, where he spoke with medical staff. Henry McGowan told them he was having mental health challenges and was seeking some assistance.

In the meantime, counsel said John McGowan was en route from the US because his son Henry had been in phone communication from Paris with his family in the preceding days. "There was an exchange between the accused and family members, which caused considerable concern as to his welfare," said the lawyer.

Henry McGowan, counsel, said, had previously encountered challenges with his mental health, and there was a concern that the accused was not taking his medication.

Mr Fennelly said that John McGowan arrived at Dublin airport from New York on November 12 and went to his son at the Mater Hospital around midday. The evidence will be that a prescription was issued for the accused's mental health difficulties and that both men left the hospital at 3.40 pm.

The McGowans then took a taxi to Ballyfin Demesne, where John McGowan told the general manager that he had "a bit of a concern" his son hadn't been taking his medication, but that there was nothing to worry about at this point. The manager found the accused perfectly normal and engaging, said the barrister.

The accused was later shown to the pool and given a pair of swimming togs to use.

The court will hear evidence that shortly afterwards, a member of staff observed the accused walking along the poolside naked and notified the manager.

In the interim, John McGowan had also gone to the swimming pool area and was observed on CCTV speaking to his son. The accused was lying naked on a pool lounger, but put on a robe before both men went into the cubicle area.

Counsel said the father and son remained in the cubicle area for a number of minutes, after which the accused emerged naked and jumped into the pool. He then got out, wrapped a towel around him and left the area.

The accused, counsel said, met the two staff members coming down to see him because of what they had observed earlier.

When the manager enquired about the accused's father, counsel said the jury would hear that Henry McGowan said "he is not my father".

The court will hear that the manager went back down to the dressing area off the pool, where he found John McGowan lying on the ground. The deceased's body and upper head were covered with a rob,e and there was a pool of blood.

"He was at least in a very seriously injured state," said the barrister.

Two members of staff brought John McGowan out of the area and performed CPR, but he was pronounced dead by a doctor shortly after this.

Mr Fennelly said gardai arrived at the hotel around 8.15 pm and found the accused sitting in the library, looking at a fire. He was dressed in clothes that belonged to his father.

When asked what happened, the accused told gardai that he had hurt his father. The accused continued to speak, saying: "I killed who I thought was my father...downstairs I hit his head against the wall and strangled him".

The accused was formally arrested when gardai were advised that John McGowan was dead. Mr Fennelly said the cause of death was asphyxia due to manual strangulation and compression of the mouth.

Mr Fennelly said the jury will hear that the accused was brought to a psychiatric unit in the midlands the next morning, where he was assessed by a psychiatrist and deemed fit for interview. The accused was also prescribed certain medication.

Henry McGowan was interviewed on four occasions by gardai, where he told them that he had been diagnosed with a bipolar condition at 27 years old. The accused also told officers that he had been hospitalised in the US in relation to this and was on a programme of medication.

The accused indicated he had stopped taking his medication and while in Paris, he found his psychosis was becoming elevated.

The jury will hear that the accused also told gardai he had killed his father and that he couldn't make "sense of the thoughts that go through my head". The accused also said: "I don't look back on the decision, I'm not looking back".

Counsel said the accused told detectives that he had strangled his father in a bathroom and had told the deceased he would "always love him as he had his last breath".

Henry McGowan further said he had grabbed his father by the chest and pushed him hard, before strangling him on the bathroom floor with his bare hands.

READ ALSO: Court hears plea from American over father's murder in Laois at Ballyfin Demense

The barrister said the accused had described in detail killing his father and told gardai it was difficult to choke him. Counsel said Henry McGowan went on to say: "I counted to 49 and when I got to 49 he was breathing and had a pulse. I counted on 20 seconds longer and he stopped. He kept gasping for air".

The accused continued saying: "I was seething and physically tired..once he hit his head and was on the ground he wasn't resisting. I then put a full fist into his throat using full force. I pushed down on his Adam's apple but he kept breathing. I then put full force on his throat with my knuckles. It was shocking how long it took. I say it took in the region of eight minutes".

Counsel said defence witness Dr Stephen Monks examined the accused, finding that he had experienced a relapse of schizoaffective disorder and was suffering from an acute psychotic episode.

READ ALSO: "Your grave is here" - man jailed for rape in Monasterevin woods

The court heard that the psychiatrist found the accused did not know the true nature and quality of the act, was deluded that the person he was killing was not his father but "an imposter" and that he did not know what he was doing was wrong. "He believed he was morally justified and duty bound and could not refrain," said counsel.

A psychiatrist for the prosecution, counsel said, found the accused was also suffering from schizoaffective disorder and accepted the conclusion reached by Dr Monks as to his mental state at the time. "The psychiatric evidence is not disputed in the case," concluded counsel.

The trial continues this afternoon before Mr Justice Paul McDermott and a jury of six men and six women.
Anger among rank-and-file members of the IFA over Larry Murrin's Bord Bia chairmanship and the Government's support for him was evident at the Laois IFA AGM, where a special debate attracted upwards of 500 farmers from across the county.

Many speakers at the meeting at Abbeyleix Manor told Government TDs in attendance that they fully support the association's national leadership in demanding that Mr Murrin resign over the revelation that his business has imported Brazilian beef to Ireland.

The farmers were also seething with the Government, not just for standing by Mr Murrin but also for how they believe they have been treated and portrayed by Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon and other members of the Government over the issue.

There was also outrage at the meeting over the treatment of six farmers and IFA members during their occupation protest at the Bord Bia HQ in Dublin, which is now in its second week.

The strength of the feeling among farmers on the issue was also reflected in the huge number of people who gathered in Abbeyleix for the meeting. Just under 50 farmers attended last year's AGM compared to the 500 who thronged the meeting which was attended by the IFA President Francie Gorman and the association's Director General, Damian McDonald.

The Laois branch invited local Government TDs Sean Fleming of Fianna Fail and Willie Aird of Fine Gael to listen and respond to the discontent.

Mr Gorman made clear to the two Laois representatives that they must tell their leaders that 'they can't bully the people of rural Ireland' on the issue. MORE BELOW PHOTO.

Independent TD Brian Stanley, Sinn Fein Senator Maria McCormack were also present as were Laois councillors John King, Ben Brennan, Catherine Fitzgerald, Tommie Mulligan, Conor Bergin, Ollie Clooney, Barry Walsh and Paddy Buggy also attended.

Laois IFA Chairman Henry Burns told farmers that the meeting was an opportunity for members give their side of the story. He said the IFA leadership had 'no choice' but to mount a protest at the Bord Bia HQ.

He said it is very unusual for the IFA to seek a resignation, but the options are clear as far as the association is concerned, which is that Larry Murrin must step down.

"The guy who is in charge of setting the rules broke the rules - it is as simple as that," he said.

Mr Burns said Bord Bia was the last place in the world the IFA would want to protest at, and the association continues to support quality standards.

The IFA National Livestock Chairperson, Declan Hanrahan from Borris-in-Ossory, was upset that the chair of Bord Bia, which demands high standards from Irish farmers, is importing Brazilian beef.

"It's a disgrace that he would bring that in," he said.

He claimed that the meat was imported for purely commercial reasons, something that is not compatible with being the chair of Bord Bia. Mr Hanrahan was also angry at how farmers have been 'belittled' by Bord Bia, the Government and Minister Heydon. He also attacked Minister Hildegarde Naughton for attributing a rise in Irish beef exports to Bord Bia and not producers.

"The first rung on the ladder is the farmer," he said. MORE BELOW PHOTO.

He warned that the Government need to be aware of their rural voter base.

"There are a lot of politicans who are going to have to look at themselves and ask - what got me over the line? I will ask them if they lose their seat at the next election, will Larry Murrin ring them up the following morning and say hard luck, that was tough, but you did well by your country, and you did well by Dawn Farm Foods?

"But you will have the farmers to face, and they are the ones who supported this Government and supported everyone across the political spectrum.

"So, I think it is a complete disgrace that that man can remain at the top of Bord Bia and we as farmers supporting it - 57,000 farmers," he said.

He insisted that these farmers have no choice if they want to sell their beef but to be part of the Bord Bia Quality Standards.

Liam Delaney, Laois IFA Vice-Chair, praised the leadership for the position taken and all farmers who have supported the protest in Dublin and elsewhere.

"What's wrong is wrong, it's as simple as that...It is outrageous, and it has to go," he said.

He was critical of the Government parties' engagement with a recent Sinn Fein Dail motion calling for Mr Murrin to resign.

"There was a serious motion brought, and they made dirt of it," he said.

Another speaker questioned the morality of Mr Murrin's business position.

"Larry Murrin might not have broken any laws, but what he is doing is immoral. He is substituting the best beef in the world with the worst beef in the world," he said.

He called for Mr Morrin's resignation, adding that all the "decent farmers in the country" want him out.

Seamus Duggan called the situation an "absolute joke".

"His (Mr Murrin's) own company cannot be compliant with the rules he has set," he said.

He was angry at how the IFA protesters at Bord Bia HQ are being treated.

"It is nothing short of disgusting," he said. MORE BELOW PHOTO.

Another speaker was concerned as to what shoppers' perception of the products being sold is due to the controversy.

"The politicans better wake up very quickly before the reputational damage of Bord Bia and our product is completely destroyed," he said.

Pat Hennessy said the campaign is unprecedented.

"I never saw such unity in the IFA, and we are going to stick together, and if they want a battle, this is only going to get stronger," he said.

Paul Hyland insisted that Mr Murrin is playing by different rules than he, as Bord Bia Chair, has set for farmers.

"We do not need to apologise for anything. We need to stand firm. We owe it to the six people in Dublin. The crowd here is evidence that this campaign is growing," he said.

He warned that the money and work done by Bord Bia in promoting Irish beef cannot be damaged by the campaign.

"We don't want to burn down our own hayshed. The only people stopping this from ending is with Mr Murrin and the political leaders who have it in their gift to remove this man from his office. We are not going to stop until he is removed," he said.

Another speaker believed that the structures of Bord Bia must be reviewed to protect farmers in future to ensure board members do not have a conflict of interest.

Tom Cushen called on TDs to be more vocal.

"When they come around next (election) time, I hope farmers think of what they have done now," he said.

The IFA President also spoke at the meeting. While he said there has been good engagement with politicians on many levels, he urged the Government politicans present to take a stance.

"You have got to stand up to the leadership in your parties and not allow them to bully the people of rural Ireland," he said to loud applause.

Mr Gorman, who is a Bord Bia board member, said the IFA had sought dialogue with the Government, but said the solution rests in the Department of Agriculture.

READ ALSO: All the Laois farming news

"The Taoiseach and Tanaiste do micro-manage (Government) Departments. This is something that the Minister for Agriculture can sort out if he wants to, but there is no willingness there," he said.

He said how Bord Bia operates is a really important issue for farmers and those occupying the offices are the biggest supporters of the agency.

"The idea that we are not proud of Bord Bia and don't see the importance of it is absolute nonsense. It is just not credible for the chairman of our meat marketing board, who is doing nothing illegal, to bring meat and poultry from Brazil and we still don't know how much he is bringing in," he said.

He said it is not right that the Origin Green logo is being used to give value to Brazilian farmers.

All of the councillors and TDs voiced their support for the farmers. However, Dep Fleming and Dep Aird stopped short of saying they would vote against a Dail motion tabled by Sinn Fein.
Laois Fianna Fail members proudly welcomed Taoiseach Micheal Martin to the county last Saturday, February 7, for a gala night kicking off national centenary celebrations of the revolutionary party's foundation.

Led by a Killeshin Pipe Band lone piper, the Taoiseach and his wife Mary were welcomed into the Midlands Park Hotel, Portlaoise where a packed crowd of 350 politicians both serving and retired, their families and Fianna Fail party members and supporters were all in celebratory form.

They included Deputy Sean Fleming, former MEP Liam Hyland, former Junior Minister John Moloney from Mountmellick, councillors Catherine Fitzgerald, Seamus McDonald, Paschal McEvoy, John Joe Fennelly and Padraig Fleming, along with Senator Fiona O'Loughlin from Kildare and MEP Barry Cowen, whose brother the former Taoiseach Brian Cowen was unable to attend on the night.

Liam Hyland, now aged in his 90s, stood at length after the gala dinner and gave a speech that reportedly drew tears from the audience.





Photos: Alf Harvey

He talked about his father being interned in the Curragh by the British and losing everything including their family farm for the cause.

Liam Hyland said that they never lost the spirit of public service and commitment to the party from its foundation in 1926.

An Taoiseach noted in his dinner speech that through good times and bad Laois Fianna Fail has always been one of our strongest local organisations  known for its commitment to our partys values and the democratic republican tradition which has defined us from our first days.

He acknowledged in his absence Brian Cowen as a true democratic Irish republican.

An Taoiseach with the Laois Fianna Fail committee.

Mr Martin noted Cllr Seamus McDonald who marked 40 years as a councillor last year, the late Paddy Lalor a Vice President of the European Parliament, and Liam Hyland, John Moloney and Laois TD Sean Fleming one of the most hard-working members of Dail Eireann.

We face serious challenges, but no one can deny how far our country has come. This didnt happen by chance. It came from the choices made by the Irish people and the leadership of Fianna Fail and its programme of progressive republicanism, An Taoiseach said.

Also guests were members of the Ukrainian and Pakistani community in Laois with Naeem Iqbal who unsuccessfully contested the last local elections. Other previous unsuccessful FF candidates there included Joey Kennedy and Austin Stack.

There was an historical display of old election posters stored up by members, including a vintage framed 'Welcome to Fianna Fail Country poster, printed by the Leinster Express that was presented as a gift to An Taoiseach.

There were copies of the Irish constitution for all to take home.

The Taoiseach spoke at the event to the Leinster Express.

This is a major event to celebrate 100 years of Fianna Fail in existence, and to pay tribute to all of the representatives at national and local level since the foundation, who have made an enormous contribution to the development of this country, the development of Laois and internationally.

And we look forward to the next centenary now, the Taoiseach Micheal Martin said.

Standout moments when we look at the history, Bunracht na hEireann the first of its kind in the world in many ways, a constitution by popular referendum.

Also a constitution that put limits on the power of those elected, very unusual that any revolutionary body would get into power and put limits on their power, at a time when fascism was all over Europe.

Free education, the housing scheme that ended the tenements, those are some of the significant social achievements of the party.

Also being a party of international engagement, in the League of Nations, the United Nations, and bringing us into the European Union. We remain proudly internationalist in our outlook, he said.

See photos from the night here.

Laois FF secretary Eimhin McEvoy from Ballyfin spoke.

1926 is the founding of our party and it's been an amazing 100 years of achievement. Back in 1926, there had just been a famine, 26% of the adult population was unemployed, 50% of the urban population lived in slums, 38% in rural areas lived in mud cabins.

On the brighter side, Ballyfin House with 600 acres sold for 10,000, and a pint of Guinness was 2 and a half pence.

There's been a transformation in Ireland, in life and the economy, and Fianna Fail has been at the very forefront of that, due to foresight, and making the hard and often unpopular decisions, Eimhin said.

WATCH: Video of Laois Fianna Fail's celebration night with Taoiseach Micheal Martin

William Delaney is chair of Laois Fianna Fail.

It's a special night for us and for Fianna Fail in general, he told the Leinster Express / Laois Live.

This event kicks off the national celebration. We are the first event nationally to commemorate the 100 years of Fianna Fail. For the Taoiseach and the party, that's a big deal for us to host the Taoiseach and look back on our own history.

Read next: Laois school's failte mor for Minister for Education

I'm not sure if he'll be visiting every constituency but we made sure and got him in early for Laois.

The first Laois Fianna Fail member to be elected was PJ Gorry, but before him was a man who was a member of Sinn Fein at the time, and then transferred over, called Thomas Tynan from Ballybrittas.

We've had members of the party represent us at Seanad level, Minister level, junior Minister and two MEPs so we have been well represented, William said.
Stern warnings about the effects of climate change were heard at a recent Kildare County Council (KCC) meeting.

The comments were heard at the latest Clane-Maynooth Municipal District meeting, which was held on Friday, February 6 last.

The discussion initially began when KCC heard a motion which was submitted by Labour Party Cllr Angela Feeney, who motioned for KCC to include the social housing units in Old Greenfield, Maynooth, in its Housing Retrofit Programme.

Her motion was seconded by Independent Cllr Padraig McEvoy.

Responding to Cllr Feeneys motion, KCC explained via the report it presented at the meeting that it receives a fixed annual retrofit allocation of funds from the Department [of Transport, Climate, Energy and the Environment], which is fully assigned for the current year.

READ NEXT: 'Dismay' at River Barrow flooding in Kildare and other counties

KCC further said: "It is anticipated that future allocations will increase, enabling more units to be addressed.

"Subject to resources, Departmental approval and additional funding for ancillary works, KCC intends to return to Old Greenfield as a priority in 2027, aligned with Maynooths decarbonising zone status."

Speaking further on the matter, Cllr Feeney said that she welcomed KCCs specific comments that it would prioritise the matter.

Cllr Feeney also urged KCC to "seriously engage" with the people who live in the area.

A representative for KCC, who was also present at the meeting, gave assurances to Cllr Feeney that KCC would liase with her in relation to the matter.

'A COMMON THEME'

Another KCC member, Marian Higgins, who is its director of services for climate, community, environment and water-related matters, then spoke: "There is a common theme here regarding the impact of climate on transportation."

She further said: "Our weather isn't going to improve, and there will be more [bad weather] in the future.

"It is incumbent for us to work towards these [climate-friendly] actions in order to make these changes."

Cllr McEvoy also decided to give his view on the topic of climate change.

READ NEXT: Help wanted for Asian hornet monitoring project in Kildare

He told the attendees: "During Covid [referring to the Covid-19 pandemic], the will of the State came down to trying to do what was necessary."

Cllr McEvoy also expressed concerns for the proposed construction of more data centres in Ireland.

He further said that he was critical of a recent decision which was taken by the Department of Public Expenditure to disband its climate division.

Coming back into the conversation, Cllr Feeney said: "It is so important for KCC and councillors to work together, and to see what we can do."

She added: "It sounds cheesy, but is is true."

Labour Party Cllr Angela Feeney, who submitted the original motion (Photograph supplied by Cllr Feeney), and Independent Cllr Padraig McEvoy, who issued a warning about the effects of climate change (Photograph credit: kildarecoco.ie)

READ NEXT: Nature and recreation amenity sought for this Kildare region

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.
A well-known business in County Kildare has released a heartfelt statement to the public following a bereavement.

Last week, the bar and restaurant Judge Roy Beans, which is located in Newbridge, announced that it would temporarily close following the passing of its owner, the late Vivian Carroll.

Mr Carroll, a popular businessman who also owned Harrigan's Bar and Grill in Newbridge, was officially laid to rest on Saturday, February 7 last.

Many locals in the town, as well as fellow business people and political representatives, paid tribute to his memory following his death.

UPDATE

Taking to social media today, Judge Roy Beans revealed that the premises will be reopening soon.

The business said: "We will be reopening this Wednesday [February 11, 2026].

"Thank you everyone for all your support."

Judge Roy Beans added: "We are excited to welcome everyone back in."

A number of people in the comments expressed their joy at the news, with one saying: "Delighted to hear that youre opening.

"It will be hard for everyone, but Vivian wouldnt want it any other way."

Mr Carroll, who is predeceased by his dad Michael and brother Jason, is sadly missed by his loving wife Breda, children Christian, Sadhbh, Elliott and Roan, mother Cecelia, sister Michelle, brother Patrick, mother-in-law Bridie, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, nephews and nieces, extended family, relatives, friends and all of his work colleagues.

The late Vivian Carroll (RIP)
Sinn Fein TD for North Kildare, Reada Cronin, who stood alongside workers in Naas General Hospital yesterday as they protested against staffing deficits, has said that the government is to blame for the substandard conditions currently in the hospital.

According to the INMO, it has tried to engage Health Service Executive (HSE) management on the matter of staffing, but claimed that "no substantive action has been taken to increase staffing in line with agreed safe staffing frameworks".

Speaking at the protest yesterday afternoon, Deputy Cronin said that staffing conditions have deteriorated so much that it is now affecting patient safety and staff wellbeing.

Deputy Cronin said: I fully support the nurses and staff at Naas General Hospital in their strike action. This staffing crisis didnt happen by accident. Its the result of years of political choices, warnings ignored and frontline workers taken for granted.

READ NEXT: No school places for 30 children in this Kildare town

The government have ignored repeated calls from the INMO to invest in our health service here in Naas, and we are seeing the consequences bear out today. I spoke with so many nurses who have different versions of the same story to tell. Underinvestment in the hospital, poor working conditions, overworked, underpaid.

These workers should be enjoying their break on lunch today, a break that I am sure is rarely given to them because of how much they are worked. There are currently 70 vacancies on the nursing staff that havent been filled, while the nurses and staff are asked to pick up the pieces. This is completely unsustainable.

Deputy Cronin called on the government to implement a long-term plan for Naas General Hospital to ensure adequate staffing and proper conditions.

For example, she said, agency nurses need more stable, full-time work, instead of the the on-call, part-time nature of the work they do.

Nurses, Deputy Cronin said, are being pushed to breaking point, and patients are paying the price.

Deputy Cronin concluded: That is on the Government. I will continue to support the nurses and staff of Naas General hospital until conditions improve and their demands are met.

According to a representative for the INMO, the organisation intends to continue its work-to-rule action again today (Tuesday, February 10 2026).
Waterways Ireland has advised all masters of vessels and users of the Grand Canal that the 18th Level at Prosperous, Co Kildare is closed to navigation until further notice.

The closure follows a vehicular impact on Healy's (Bonynge) Bridge late on Wednesday, February 4 2026.

The collision caused bridge debris to enter the water and has resulted in damage to the parapet.

Waterways Ireland has stated that the damage poses a significant risk to navigation and public safety.

Healy's (Bonvnge) Bridge is located between Robertstown and Lock 18, Downings South, Co Kildare: https://maps.app.goo.gl/wfUxtAGqyieeGbNa9

Waterways Ireland wishes to inform the public that as a consequence of the incident on February 4 last, the lowering of the 18th Level and associated works previously scheduled and detailed in Marine Notice No. 14 of 2026 is postponed until further notice.

A statement issued by Waterways Ireland read: Waterways Ireland will issue a further update as soon as more information regarding the repair timeline and reopening becomes available.

Waterways Ireland regrets any inconvenience caused and thanks canal users for their understanding and cooperation during this unplanned closure.

READ NEXT: Kildare's main hospital is the least overcrowded in the region today
Sinn Fein TD for Kildare South, Shonagh Ni Raghallaigh has said the government's rent Bill will mean renters in Kildare could see rents jump by 20.7%, or 3,564 a year.

Deputy Ni Raghallaigh said the government has shafted renters with these new rules, as vulture funds and landlords will be allowed to hike up the rents of 60,000 people every year.

She said Sinn Fein will oppose this legislation tooth and nail, adding We need to end the rip-off, ban rent increases and make rents affordable".

Deputy Ni Raghallaigh said: Fianna Fail/Fine Gaels Rent Hike Bill will allow vulture funds and big landlords to hike up the rents of 60,000 people every year. This will mean paying thousands more in rent from March 1st.

READ NEXT: Government has 'completely failed' nurses in Kildare hospital  TD

This is the most profound change to rent regulation in a decade which will allow landlords to reset rents to market rates at the start of new tenancies and every six years after that. From March 1st of this year, more and more renters will be subject to this new market rent reset rule, meaning already unaffordable rents will be hiked up even further.

Deputy Ni Raghallaigh said that for Kildare renters, the changes equate to rent hikes of 3,564 a year  a massive 20.7% increase compared to current average rents.

Across the state, the Sinn Fein TD stated, this means rents could jump by an average 3,000 a year.

This is truly scandalous. Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have shafted renters yet again. They are being made to pay the price for the governments failed housing policy.

Government should be focused on bringing rents down, not caving in to the demands of vulture funds and big landlords for ever higher rents.

Sinn Fein will oppose this legislation tooth and nail. Rents in Kildare are already too high, renters simply cannot take further hikes.

We need to end the rip-off, ban rent increases and make rents affordable.

Stop Fianna Fail/Fine Gaels Rent Hike Bill.
St Patricks N.S., Newbridge, Kildare has been announced as one of the recipients of a book-gifting programme which will bring hundreds of new books and resources to its students in 2026.

Designed by national charity and arts organisation Childrens Books Ireland, the Every Child A Reader programme is a year-long support provided to select schools which helps to foster a love of reading in their students and wider school community.

As part of this project, each school will have their own dedicated Champion of Reading, an author or illustrator assigned to the school who will host a series of live workshops throughout the year with students.

These creative and engaging sessions will help promote a love of reading, writing and illustrating amongst class groups.

Delivered by the team at Childrens Books Ireland, the Every Child a Reader programme will bring a diverse collection of excellent contemporary titles to students in 28 primary schools this year, including St Patricks NS.

Through this initiative Childrens Books Ireland provides schools with a library of 250 books covering all ages, interests, genres and issues which represent the richness and diversity of Irish society. As well as hundreds of brilliant new books, chosen schools will receive supports and resource packs as well as bookmarks, bunting and stickers to celebrate their new library books.

READ NEXT; No school places for 30 children in this Kildare town.

Other materials such as curated reading guides, lists and further guidance will also be given to schools and families to encourage a love of reading that endures beyond the school gates.

We are absolutely thrilled to be chosen as one of the participating schools in the Every Child a Reader Programme this year. We have recently opened a new extension to our school, which has afforded us the opportunity to set up a dedicated library space. The brand new selection of books and support from Childrens Books Ireland has already

generated a great buzz and enthusiasm for reading here in St Patricks. It is so important to have a new selection of books that reflects the lives and experiences of our community. These books really are the best of the best.

Our Champion of Reading, Molly Harris, has also begun her workshops and class visits, sharing her experiences as a reader and author and instilling her love of literacy throughout our school community. - Stephen Lynch, Home School Community Liason and Literacy Co-ordintor for St Patricks N.S.

Given the lack of sustainable funding for school libraries from the Irish government, it is unsurprising to see a demand for free book-gifting programmes such as Every Child A Reader for primary students and Everyone A Reader for secondary students. In 2025, Childrens Books Ireland received over 1,000 applications from primary and secondary schools for the limited number of spaces for the book-gifting programmes commencing in 2026. Of 907 applications received from primary schools only 28 of these could be selected to receive the support provided through the Every Child A Reader programme.

According to Education and Advocacy Manager, Dr. Becky Long, the volume of submissions was, evidence of the tremendous level of need, both in relation to a lack of physical books in schools, and a lack of new, contemporary and inclusive books.

Childrens Books Ireland believes that every student on the island of Ireland deserves access to books and a chance to fall in love with reading.

This Spring, Childrens Books Irelands various book-gifting programmes will be launched in 39 different schools, bringing the power of stories to primary and secondary schools across the island of Ireland.

Learn more about the work of Childrens Books Ireland on www.childrensbooksireland.ie
An air route between Dublin and Donegal will be kept under weekly review, the Transport Minister has said, amid concern about the possible impact on cancer treatments.

Donegal Cancer Flights and Services has expressed concern that changes to the Public Service Obligation (PSO) route will cut off a medical lifeline and genuine same-day access for cancer patients and others.

The group helps cancer patients with booking flights, counselling support and other information.

In a statement, Donegal Airports chairman, Garry Martin, said the changes to the route outlined in a new contract does not meet the spirit or intent for a PSO route.

He added: It appears that it favours the requirements of the airline, to maximise income and profitability, at the expense of customer service and at the cost to the taxpayer.

The route is operated by Emerald Airlines and, until now, was available most days with morning and afternoon departures from Donegal, and lunchtime and evening return flights from Dublin.

The current PSO contract is due to expire on February 25 and it is believed it will be replaced with an earlier first round-trip starting from Dublin and a much later evening service both ways.

The chairman, board of directors and management of Donegal Airport said they had been told of the decision to execute a new contract on Tuesday afternoon.

They said they were extremely disappointed this was happening despite a written request to the Minister for Transport to hold off until they had concluded legal advice on the issue.

They said: It was known by the Department officials since receipt of the tender in October 2025 that there were material changes proposed to the existing contract.

Adding the change in flight times neither meets the needs of customers nor do they make any commercial sense.

They said airport management only became aware of a change to flight times on January 13 because airline crews were discussing changes to their rosters.

They say, since then, Department for Transport officials had refused to engage with them.

Donegal Cancer Flights and Services had sought a meeting with Transport Minister Darragh OBrien on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Mr OBrien committed to meeting representatives from Donegal Cancer Flights and Services but said he could not engage with them on Wednesday as he will be in London.

He said there had to be independent public procurement processes and added that he wants to ensure that flights continue beyond the end of the existing contract.

We need to execute this so that people can book flights from February 25.

The department has assured me it will be kept under weekly review with a three-month review to it.

Mr OBrien said he had personally questioned whether flights used by those using cancer services would continue.

In relation to those who are accessing cancer services here in Dublin, I think the morning and evening flights  and Ive asked those questions myself  will ensure that that service continues.

Weve got to make sure that theres connectivity between it.

Donegal Cancer Flights and Services organiser Mary Coyle welcomed efforts to ensure flights continue beyond February 25 but urged Mr OBrien to meet people on the ground in Donegal who rely on the flights for their medical treatments.

She told the Press Association: I would invite him to come to Donegal to see first-hand what it is like up here, how rural it is, and have an idea of how this will impact them.

A Department of Transport official will meet the group on Wednesday in Mr OBriens absence.

Ms Coyle predicted that the proposed earlier flight from the capital would be empty.

She explained how the group has been working with the Irish Cancer Society and Dublin oncology departments to arrange transport to morning appointments for patients who could be at risk.

She also said that the changed timetable may leave no seats available at short notice  and drive up the price of tickets.

A lot of these people, we would organise assistance for them because theyre ill.

So they would have to navigate their way to a taxi and find accommodation for the night.

This is people who are not working, or pensioners that already are stretched for money  so its not viable, it doesnt make sense.

Ms Coyle added: I see the people coming in, I see how financially stretched they are and it is very heavy on the heart.

Then you have people in Dublin making decisions that have no idea what its like living in Donegal.

Emerald Airlines has been contacted for comment.
Former Land Administrator of the late William Zenah Estate, Anthony T. Cole spoke to the media on the land crisis in Liberia.
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Ghanas BOST (Bulk Oil and Storage Terminal) Energies Limited representative and Fabian Michael Lai, President and CEO of NOCAL signed on behalf of their respective governments.
COUNCILLORS are to lobby Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill to open a centre in the region to support victims of sexual assault.

At this months full council meeting, members supported a motion from Social Democrats councillor Shane Hickey-OMara to open a Satu, or a Sexual Assault Treatment Unit locally.

These facilities offer free, confidential medical care, forensic exams, and support for people after sexual assault.

READ MORE: Update on plans for new facility to tackle overcrowding at University Hospital Limerick

Limerick is the only city in Ireland not to have a centre, and the northside councillor says it must change.

In Limerick, survivors receive a service that is not in line with those of other cities. They are unable to receive health checks, or the storage of evidence, and, crucially, they must present to the gardai who then take over control of their journey, he said.

Cllr Hickey-OMara said survivors often have mixed experiences of dealing with gardai.

He accused Ms MacNeill of a dereliction of care towards local survivors.

His party colleague, Cllr Elisa ODonovan seconded the motion.

She said survivors in Limerick have to call 999 or 112.

How horrific is it if someone who has been sexually assaulted, or raped, and they have to call 999, and they cant ring a number to get through to a healthcare professional, she said.

Support for the motion also came from Cllr Ursula Gavan, Independent.
A FORMER London bus driver hailed a hero after recovering a necklace which one of his passengers had stolen from her may receive one of Limericks top civic honours.

Mark Hehir - described as one of our own by a local councillor - is originally from Southill and his mother Elsie still lives in Janesboro.

The 62-year-old has made headlines in both Ireland and Britain after he was dismissed from his job with bus firm Metroline, where he worked as a driver.

READ MORE: Associate of Dundon McCarthy gang jailed for 15 years for fatally shooting man in Limerick 19 years ago

It came after he saw a man on board the service he was working push past a passenger and steal her necklace from around her neck before escaping.

Mr Hehir chased after the culprit and returned the necklace to its rightful owner. The thief, however, reappeared and walked towards the bus where he threw a punch at the driver.

Mr Hehir responded in self-defence by hitting the thief once, and restraining him until the police arrived.

The incident led him to be dismissed from his employment. After a lengthy process, the dismissal for gross misconduct was ruled to be fair.

However, there has been praise for the former bus drivers actions on both sides of the Irish Sea, and here in Limerick, a bid is to be made to afford him a civic reception, with a decision set to be made by council in the coming weeks.

Fine Gaels Sarah Kiely, a neighbour of Mr Hehirs mother led the calls, writing to council bosses.

Describing him as one of our own, she added: Mark did exactly what his instinct told him. That says huge amounts about his character, his upbringing and the type of person he is. He put himself in harms way to try and help somebody.

The councils priomh-chomhairleoir, Cllr Catherine Slattery, who will organise a reception should it be approved, added: I think it was awful he got fired from his job. He got penalised for doing the right thing.
A US national described "in detail" how he strangled his 66-year-old father with his bare hands, putting a "full fist into his throat", just hours after arriving at a five-star Ballyfin Demense hotel, a Central Criminal Court jury has heard.

Opening the trial of Henry McGowan, who has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his father by reason of insanity, the prosecuting barrister also said that, despite being notified by the UK's Metropolitan Police that the accused was travelling to Ireland and there was some concern for his welfare, gardai failed to locate him at Dublin airport.

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The trial jury panel also heard that the accused was under the delusion that the person he was killing was not his father but "an imposter", with expert psychiatrists for both the prosecution and defence in agreement that Henry McGowan was experiencing a relapse of schizoaffective disorder when he killed his father.

Mr McGowan (31), with an address at Clinton Street, Brooklyn, New York, in the United States, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to the murder of John McGowan (66) at Ballyfin Demesne, Ballyfin, on November 12, 2024.

Opening the prosecutions case on Tuesday, February 10, Will Fennelly BL told the court that the trial would hear from expert consultant psychiatrists for both the prosecution and defence, who have the same opinion that a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity was open to the jurors.

Outlining the facts of the case, Mr Fennelly said shortly before 8 pm on November 12, 2024 investigators received a phone call alerting them to an incident which occurred in a cubicle off the swimming pool at Ballyfin Demesne hotel.

Mr Fennelly said the jury would hear that gardai went to the Ballyfin hotel after 8 pm and found John McGowan in a state "of at least serious injury, if not death". Emergency services arrived, and John McGowan was pronounced dead in due course.

He said the focus of attention then moved to John McGowan's son Henry, and a garda investigation ensued.

Counsel told the panel that shortly before 11 pm on November 11, Henry McGowan arrived at Dublin airport on a flight from London. The barrister said the Metropolitan Police had notified An Garda Siochana in Dublin airport that the accused was coming and expressed some concern for his welfare. He said gardai had looked for Henry McGowan at the airport but could not locate him.

There will be evidence, Mr Fennelly said, that the accused went to one of the airport car parks, where he discarded his baggage and personal items, including his phone and passport. The lawyer said the accused then made his way into Dublin.

He said Henry McGowan told gardai in his interviews that he ran into the city centre.

READ NEXT: Funeral details announced for man killed in bus crash in Dublin who 'always had a smile'

At 8.30am on November 12, the accused presented himself at the emergency department of the Mater Hospital, where he spoke with medical staff. Henry McGowan told them he was having mental health challenges and was seeking some assistance.

In the meantime, counsel said John McGowan was en route from the US because his son Henry had been in phone communication from Paris with his family in the preceding days. "There was an exchange between the accused and family members, which caused considerable concern as to his welfare," said the lawyer.

Henry McGowan, counsel, said, had previously encountered challenges with his mental health, and there was a concern that the accused was not taking his medication.

Mr Fennelly said that John McGowan arrived at Dublin airport from New York on November 12 and went to his son at the Mater Hospital around midday. The evidence will be that a prescription was issued for the accused's mental health difficulties and that both men left the hospital at 3.40 pm.

The McGowans then took a taxi to Ballyfin Demesne, where John McGowan told the general manager that he had "a bit of a concern" his son hadn't been taking his medication, but that there was nothing to worry about at this point. The manager found the accused perfectly normal and engaging, said the barrister.

The accused was later shown to the pool and given a pair of swimming togs to use.

The court will hear evidence that shortly afterwards, a member of staff observed the accused walking along the poolside naked and notified the manager.

In the interim, John McGowan had also gone to the swimming pool area and was observed on CCTV speaking to his son. The accused was lying naked on a pool lounger, but put on a robe before both men went into the cubicle area.

Counsel said the father and son remained in the cubicle area for a number of minutes, after which the accused emerged naked and jumped into the pool. He then got out, wrapped a towel around him and left the area.

The accused, counsel said, met the two staff members coming down to see him because of what they had observed earlier.

When the manager enquired about the accused's father, counsel said the jury would hear that Henry McGowan said "he is not my father".

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The court will hear that the manager went back down to the dressing area off the pool, where he found John McGowan lying on the ground. The deceased's body and upper head was covered with a robe and there was a pool of blood.

"He was at least in a very seriously injured state," said the barrister.

Two members of staff brought John McGowan out of the area and performed CPR, but he was pronounced dead by a doctor shortly after this.

Mr Fennelly said gardai arrived at the hotel around 8.15 pm and found the accused sitting in the library, looking at a fire. He was dressed in clothes that belonged to his father.

When asked what happened, the accused told gardai that he had hurt his father. The accused continued to speak, saying: "I killed who I thought was my father...downstairs I hit his head against the wall and strangled him".

The accused was formally arrested when gardai were advised that John McGowan was dead. Mr Fennelly said the cause of death was asphyxia due to manual strangulation and compression of the mouth.

Mr Fennelly said the jury will hear that the accused was brought to a psychiatric unit in the midlands the next morning, where he was assessed by a psychiatrist and deemed fit for interview. The accused was also prescribed certain medication.

Henry McGowan was interviewed on four occasions by gardai, where he told them that he had been diagnosed with a bipolar condition at 27 years old. The accused also told officers that he had been hospitalised in the US in relation to this and was on a programme of medication.

The accused indicated he had stopped taking his medication and while in Paris, he found his psychosis was becoming elevated.

The jury will hear that the accused also told gardai he had killed his father and that he couldn't make "sense of the thoughts that go through my head". The accused also said: "I don't look back on the decision, I'm not looking back".

Counsel said the accused told detectives that he had strangled his father in a bathroom and had told the deceased he would "always love him as he had his last breath".

Henry McGowan further said he had grabbed his father by the chest and pushed him hard, before strangling him on the bathroom floor with his bare hands.

The barrister said the accused had described in detail killing his father and told gardai it was difficult to choke him. Counsel said Henry McGowan went on to say: "I counted to 49 and when I got to 49 he was breathing and had a pulse. I counted on 20 seconds longer and he stopped. He kept gasping for air".

The accused continued saying: "I was seething and physically tired..once he hit his head and was on the ground he wasn't resisting. I then put a full fist into his throat using full force. I pushed down on his Adam's apple but he kept breathing. I then put full force on his throat with my knuckles. It was shocking how long it took. I say it took in the region of eight minutes".

READ NEXT: 'We're all heartbroken' - Newstalk's Ciara Kelly opens up after death of 'lovely' sister

Counsel said defence witness Dr Stephen Monks examined the accused, finding that he had experienced a relapse of schizoaffective disorder and was suffering from an acute psychotic episode.

The court heard that the psychiatrist found the accused did not know the true nature and quality of the act, was deluded that the person he was killing was not his father but "an imposter" and that he did not know what he was doing was wrong. "He believed he was morally justified and duty bound and could not refrain," said counsel.

A psychiatrist for the prosecution, counsel said, found the accused was also suffering from schizoaffective disorder and accepted the conclusion reached by Dr Monks as to his mental state at the time. "The psychiatric evidence is not disputed in the case," concluded counsel.

The trial continues this afternoon before Mr Justice Paul McDermott and a jury of six men and six women.
THE Milk Market has unveiled a new mural art installation entitled, Limerick You're A Lady.

Limerick Civic Trust, Limerick Chamber and the Limerick Milk Market were jointly awarded colourful help under the umbrella of the Dulux Lets Colour Project community initiative, which lends supports to local community projects all over Ireland.

Limerick Chamber shared the opportunity with their members as Lets Colour Limerick, coordinating submissions and subsequently the Milk Market was awarded help in the form of a team of volunteers to inject colour into the market area.

The mural by local artists Des and Ina Langford of Desina Grafix celebrates the life of Catherine Hayes embodying the spirit and success of Limerick women in the city.

READ MORE: Limerick designer unveils immersive, lived-in home concept at Copenhagen Fashion Week

The Milk Markets manager, David Fitzgerald commented: We were keen to make a historical colourful mark on the perimeter of the building, but equally we wanted to say something more about the market overall.

David explained: This is an opportunity to recognise the strength of the Women of Limerick for their contribution to the heart of the city, those who traded and trade today at this national historical landmark.

Often unsung, they have always had the vision and grit to trade supporting their families, while today in this age these women are creating exciting new business start-ups.

Dr Stephen Griffin of Limerick Civic Trust described the project as a valuable collaboration between city stakeholders which contributes to the improvement of an important hub in the city centre. Promoting civic pride is one of the key aims of Limerick Civic Trust.

Volunteers from Limerick Civic Trust joined a team from the Dulux Lets Colour Project as well as social enterprise charity, Volunteer It Yourself, which mentors young people in painting and construction skills to make the transformation.

All exterior doors facing on the streetscapes received a colourful makeover in heritage colours by Dulux Heritage to reflect the creative colourful personalities that trade within the walls of the market.
Andrew Lo, a finance professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technologys Sloan School of Management, says not yet. Large language models like Copilot or ChatGPT arent suited to being used as financial advisers because they are the digital equivalent of sociopathssmooth, persuasive and devoid of empathy.

If an adviser powered by artificial intelligence is able to communicate both good and bad financial advice with the same pleasant and convincing affect, its clients will rightfully view this as a problem," Lo and one of his graduate students, Jillian Ross, wrote in 2024 in an article for the Harvard Data Science Review. (Todays robo advisers, like those offered by Betterment and Wealthfront, went into action before the era of large language models and arent built on them for the most part, so Los critiques dont apply to them.)

Still, people are already using AI tools for help with their finances. This past August, a survey of 11,000 individual investors in 13 countries commissioned by eToro, a trading and investment platform, found that 19% were already using ChatGPT-style AI tools to manage their portfolios, up from 13% in 2024.

That worries Lo. The AI people are using now can be dangerous, especially if the user isnt fully aware of the biases, inaccuracies and other limits" of large language models, he wrote in an email.

Understanding ethics

Despite his reservations about current AI models, Lo believes that large language models will eventually be able to help investorsespecially people with small accounts and limited experience with investing. In fact, he is working to build one that is specialized for financial advice. He doesnt plan to charge for it, he says.

Los goal is to develop an AI financial adviser that is a true fiduciarynamely, an entity that always puts the clients interests first and tailors its advice to their particular needs, including emotional needs. He thinks it will take something less than four more years.

To get there, it will need a rich understanding of financial ethics, he says. For that, he proposes feeding the model all the laws, regulations and court cases involving questions of financial ethics in the U.S., from the Securities Act of 1933 up to the latest fraud trial.

This rich history can be viewed as a fossil record of all the ways that bad actors have exploited unsuspecting retail and institutional clients," he and Ross wrote. The hope is that the large language model will learn from its training what not to do.

Lo acknowledges that a large language model might use its newfound knowledge of financial rights and wrongs to choose the wrongs because LLMs dont have ethics built in. To counter such misuse, he says, authorities will need to fight fire with fire, developing AI models that detect crime by auditing users tax returns, for example.

Large language models arent good at math, which is a problem when it comes to financial planning. Lo said the models will need to hand off the number-crunching part of the job to specialized financial-planning software.

The human touch

But knowledge is only part of the solution. An AI financial adviser will also need digital equivalents of empathy, humility and a sense of fairness, Lo says.

Those humanlike qualities wont emerge simply by making AI more powerful, he says. Instead, AI models will require specialized modules that produce analogs" of empathy (since as machines they cant actually be empathetic). These modules would correspond to specialized bits of the human brain, Lo says.

Lo has taught generations of MIT students who went on to careers on Wall Street. He also developed what he calls the adaptive markets hypothesis, which uses the principles of evolution to explain behaviors such as loss aversion and overconfidence.

Evolution occurs through random variation and natural selection: The strong survive and reproduce; the weak perish. Lo wants to use a kind of computer-accelerated natural selection to spur the development of better AI models.

Peter Coy is a writer in New York. Follow him at petercoy.substack.com. He can be reached at reports@wsj.com.
European stocks were muted on a mixed batch of earnings, with Kering SA rallying on better-than-expected results, while BP Plc dropped after halting share buybacks.

The Stoxx Europe 600 Index was little changed at the close. BP declined 6.1% after the oil major slashed a $750 million quarterly stock repurchase program. Kering SA rose 11% after it reported Gucci sales that fell less than anticipated in the final months of 2025.

The insurance sector posted the biggest losses. US peers dropped on Monday as the launch of an AI tool from privately held online insurance shopping platform Insurify sparked concerns about industry disruption. Chemicals and auto stocks outperformed.

The regional benchmark stalled after managing to outperform US peers so far this year, thanks to a relatively smaller exposure to tech. The focus is now on the earnings season for clues on consumer health and the potential impact from a stronger euro.

MSCI Europe companies have so far posted a 1.8% rise in quarterly profits, compared with analyst estimates of 1.3%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence.

What strikes me is that there is little indulgence for when companies miss expectations, the market is severe with misses and does not reward beats that much, said Karen Georges, a fund manager at Ecofi Investissements in Paris.

In other individual stocks, Koninklijke Philips NV rose 12% after its top executive said strong demand helped temper the impact from tariffs. Ferrari NV surged 11% as the Italian supercar maker issued new targets for 2026 that reassured investors about its ability to sustain growth and margins.

Standard Chartered Plc shares fell 5.7% after its Chief Financial Officer Diego De Giorgi, one of the front-runners to lead the bank, unexpectedly resigned after about two years in the role.

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Elon Musks Starlink satellite constellation violates international law while blurring the line between commercial and military technologies, Iranian and Russian diplomats said at a United Nations meeting.

The illegal operation of Starlink in Iran violates the nations sovereignty and amounts to unauthorized military use of a commercial satellite mega-constellation, read a statement delivered by the Islamic Republic late Monday at a UN scientific meeting in Vienna.

The Kremlins delegation suggested SpaceXs network could be in violation of a provision of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, ratified by the US and more than 100 other countries, requiring satellite operators to take into account the interests of other space actors.

Having large networks run by private companies is hardly in line with the interest of the long-term sustainability of outer space activities and use of outer space, the Russian statement added.

The criticism at the meeting of the UNs Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space shows how Starlink is upending geopolitics as usual.

SpaceX, which operates the network of some 9,600 satellites, didnt immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Starlink service has become a key communication link for Ukrainians fighting against Russias invasion, as well as Iranian opposition forces that took to the streets last month.

Even though Starlink is technically illegal in Iran, an estimated 50,000 terminals have been smuggled into the country in recent years. Those connections allowed protesters to coordinate activities even as authorities blacked out other forms of communication.

The Vienna meeting isnt the only UN forum where Iran has taken its fight against SpaceX. Tehran has also argued at the Geneva-based International Telecommunication Union, the UNs agency for digital technologies, that the network violates rules prohibiting use of telecom services not authorized by national governments.

Russia is demanding international negotiations aimed at limiting the number of new satellites, as well as clarification of the military use of satellite frequencies registered for commercial purposes.

The use of mega-constellations is focused in the hands of private companies and this is hardly in line with the interest of the long-terms sustainability of outer space, according to Russias statement.

SpaceX is currently consulting with banks before launching an initial public offering expected to raise as much as $50 billion.

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Mumbai: Adani Enterprises Ltd said on Tuesday that a US agency is investigating the companys transactions to see if it traded in Iranian petroleum products that were under American sanctions, making it the third parallel US probe into the ports-to-power conglomerate.

The Adani Group flagship firm said in a regulatory disclosure that it made a voluntary outreach to the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) after The Wall Street Journal reported on 2 June 2025 that US prosecutors were investigating whether it imported Iranian liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). The company did not disclose when it made this outreach.

Following its voluntary engagement with the OFAC, the US agency on 3 February made a request for information (RFI) to Adani Enterprises through its counsel, the company said in its exchange filing.

In the RFI, OFAC has also indicated that it is conducting a civil investigation of the Companys transactions processed through US financial institutions that may have involved, directly or indirectly, Iran or interests of persons subject to US sanctions against Iran, Adani Enterprises said.

The Company is voluntarily engaging and fully cooperating with OFAC and will supply the requested information, the company further said.

The OFAC is a US Department of the Treasury agency that administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions.

This opens a third investigation into the Ahmedabad-based conglomerate by US prosecutors. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have filed a criminal suit and a civil suit, respectively, against billionaire promoter Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani, alleging that they paid bribes to unnamed government officials in India and did not disclose it to US investors while raising capital.

The Adani Group did not respond to Mints queries pertaining to the timing of its voluntary outreach to the OFAC. The OFAC did not comment, either.

Stock of Adani Enterprises settled 1% lower at 2,227.55 on the BSE on Tuesday, compared to a 0.25% gain in the benchmark Sensex. The company made the disclosure during market hours.

The WSJ had reported last June that it conducted an investigation into a group of LPG tankers travelling between Adanis Mundra port in Gujarat and the Persian Gulf. It said that these vessels exhibited behaviour that was typical of vessels trying to obscure their activities. For instance, a tankers tracking data showed that it was at the Khor al Zubair port in southern Iraq on 3 April 2024, but satellite images from the day did not show the ship being present there. Instead, a similar-looking ship was present the same day at an LPG terminal in Tonbuk, Iran.

This ship eventually unloaded LPG at the Mundra port, the WSJ reported.

The Adani Group had denied these allegations back then. It said that it did not engage in any trade with any entity facing US sanctions.

Also Read | Adani SEC case clears service hurdle, heads for long US court battle

Further, LPG trade was a relatively small part of its overall business, accounting for just 1.5% of Adani Enterprises FY25 revenue of just over 1 trillion, the company said.
Apollo Hospitals on Tuesday beat Street estimates in the quarter ended December, led by strong demand for specialty care and double-digit growth across businesses. The hospital chain reported revenue of 6,477 crore, up 17% year-on-year, while profit after tax climbed 35% to 502 crore.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (Ebitda) grew 27% to 965 crore and its margin slightly expanded to 14.90% 13.78% a year ago.

Brokerages polled by Bloomberg had estimated revenue to grow to 6,326.5 crore and PAT at 489.6 crore.

Chief executive Dr Madhu Sasidhar told Mint that the growth was boosted by the high specialty service lines, especially CONGO specialties and transplants. CONGO refers to the cardiac, oncology, neurosciences, gastroenterology and orthopaedics divisions that have now become a significant growth driver for the chain.

Growth in the December quarter, typically not seasonally strong for the hospital, is not a one -off, but more so [due] to a very high level of intentionality from how we recruited, invested in infrastructure, and even set up our marketing, sales, and digital activities, he said.

In the previous quarter too, the dip in seasonal infections was outweighed by growth in CONGO specialties, lifting revenue up 13% y-o-y. Revenues from CONGO specialties were up 16% during the reporting quarter, the company said in its investor presentation.

High-complexity, multi-disciplinary care will remain a focus and a growth driver for the hospital that includes CONGO segments, but also other areas such as critical, high complexity care, said Sasidhar. So, that is an area of focus. But we also operate a large number of hospitals in different geographies and different markets, tier-II and tier-III markets where there will be a significant mix of medical and surgical CONGO and low complexity care as well.

Notably, the growth came primarily on the back of existing beds, as incremental bed additions were operationalized late in the quarter. In the future, there is also going to be the effect of additional beds that come up, said Sasidhar.

In Q3, Apollo had commissioned beds in Pune; this quarter, it will commission hospitals in Hyderabad, Kolkata and Bengaluru. Apollo Hospitals had earlier announced a plan to add over 3,500 beds over the next five years, with an investment of 5,400 crore.

Business-wise earnings Apollo's hospitals services business saw a 14% growth in revenue to 3,183 crore, while its PAT was 422 crore, up 21%.

Apollo Health and Lifestyle Ltd, its retail and diagnostics arm, saw its revenue rise 20%, primarily driven by growth in diagnostics. Primary care revenue and Ebitda grew by 20% and 19% year-on-year, respectively, due to enhanced corporate and partner outreach, the company said.
Google parent Alphabet, in its annual financial report last week, highlighted the potential impact of artificial intelligence on its advertising business and noted that huge commitments in the field could leave the company with some excess capacity, as per a CNBC report.

During the analyst call, too, CEO Sundar Pichai told stakeholders that compute capacity was a matter of concern for executives. Power, land, supply chain constraints, how do you ramp up to meet this extraordinary demand for this moment? he added, the CNBC report added.

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Concerns over AI? What Alphabet said To meet the compute capacity demands of AI training and inference, as well as traditional cloud computing services, we are entering into significant leasing arrangements with third-party operators, which may increase costs and operational complexity. Large commercial agreements could also increase liabilities and obligations in the event of nonperformance by us, our counterparties, or vendors, Alphabet said in the filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (US SEC).

There is also concern over Google's own AI product (Gemini AI) cannibalizing Search and impacting its ad business revenues as less people use the tool. This too was acknowledged in the filing, the CNBC report added. We and our competitors are constantly adjusting to meet this shift and provide new and evolving advertising formats. There is no assurance that we will adapt effectively and competitively to meet this shift, and that such advertising formats, strategies, and offerings will be successful, it stated.

Google's Q4 ad revenue increased 13.5% from a year earlier to $82.28 billion, showing that so far, it has managed to stave off most of the impact.

Notably, the tech giant raised $20 billion in its biggest-ever US dollar bond sale on 9 February, as it seeks to fund AI-related ambitions, Bloomberg reported, citing sources. Alphabet didnt respond to queries, it added.

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Alphabet's biggest-ever US dollar bond sale  All we know Alphabet is borrowing far and wide to finance its sprawling AI ambitions. According to a Bloomberg report citing sources, the company originally intended to raise $15 billion but raised $20 billion in its biggest-ever US dollar bond sale on Monday.

Besides this, first-time deals are also being planned in the UK and Switzerland, including a rare sale of 100-year bonds  marking the first time a tech company has tried such an offering since the dotcom frenzy of the late 1990s, the report added.

It reported that Alphabet last week said its planning for as much as $185 billion in capex this year, more than it has spent in the past three years combined, as it invests heavily in data centres critical to its AI ambitions. The company said the investments are already boosting revenue, as AI encourages more online searching.
Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast  the world's latest YouTuber by subscriber count  has purchased Step, a Gen Z-focused financial services application. This marks Beast Industries entry into fintech with a focus on serving younger users.

Step is advertised as an all-in-one money app for teens and young adults to manage money, build credit and access financial tools.

Announcing that his company has purchased Step, the 27-year-old influencer on Instagram said, Nobody taught me about investing, building credit, or managing money when I was growing up. Thats exactly why were joining forces with Step.

I want to give millions of young people the financial foundation I never had. Lots to share soon, he added.

Beast Industries has not disclosed how much it paid for Step.

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About Step Founded in 2018 by fintech veterans CJ MacDonald and Alexey Kalinichenko, Step offers credit and debit cards and interest-bearing accounts. However, it is technically not a bank, but rather a financial services platform backed by fintech giant Stripe.

Step partnered with Evolve Bank & Trust, a consumer banking company, for banking services in 2022. The platform also includes a Step Visa Card, an account for saving, spending, sending money and investing, with no monthly fees.

"We're excited about how this acquisition is going to amplify our platform and bring more groundbreaking products to Step customers," Step CEO and founder CJ MacDonald said in a statement.

In a press release, Beast Industries said over 7 million users of Step, a technology platform and in-house fintech team, would complement its large digital audience and philanthropic initiatives.

This acquisition positions us to meet our audiences where they are, with practical, technology-driven solutions that can transform their financial futures for the better, Jeff Housenbold, CEO of Beast Industries, said in a statement.

The contestants on MrBeast's videos could perhaps benefit from Step's goal of teaching financial literacy.

About Beast Industries MrBeast boasts more than 450 million YouTube subscribers -- the most in the world -- with his channel specialising in absurd contests and globe-trotting philanthropic ventures.

Videos can cost millions of dollars to produce, with a team of around 300 people.

He has spun that success into a television game show on Amazon Prime Video, as well as a pop-up amusement park in Saudi Arabia dubbed Beast Land.

His snack brand, Feastables, meanwhile, rakes in hundreds of millions in sales, rivalling the revenue from the YouTube videos that first made him famous.

Beast Industries has been fundraising over the past year, including a recent $200 million investment from Bitmine Immersion Technologies, the largest corporate holder of the cryptocurrency Ether and chaired by Fundstrats Tom Lee.
MUMBAI: Samara Capital has wrapped up its second fund with the sale of portfolio company SMS Integrated Facility Services to larger peer SILA Solutions Pvt Ltd, backed by Norwest Venture Partners, a top executive at the private equity firm said. The deal values SMS at an enterprise value of close to 270 crore.

The exit caps a 2014-vintage fund that delivered a gross internal rate of return of about 25% and returned more than 7,500 crore to investors, underscoring Samaras track record as it seeks to close its third fund in the coming months and taps domestic capital for the first time.

The second fund, raised in 2014 with a corpus of 3,000 crore including co-investments from limited partners, made ten investments, all of which generated positive returns, the firm said.

We could have waited longer to extract significantly higher value, but it is equally important to return capital to our investors in a timely manner while still optimising value," Anchit Gupta, managing director at the firm, said in an interview. The Ebitda multiple we achieved is in line with or marginally higher than listed peers and comparable business-to-business companies," he explained.

Fundraising push

The timing of the exit is significant as Samara works towards closing its third fund over the next two months. Historically, the firm has raised capital largely from overseas investors, but Fund III has also drawn interest from domestic entities.

Around three years ago, the window for domestic investors in private equity opened up meaningfully for high-quality funds," he said. We saw this as a strategic opportunity. These investors, often large family houses with operating businesses, create a powerful flywheel for us across deal flow, ideation, and diligence."

While Samaras global fund has completed its final close, the domestic sleeve of Fund III is expected to close by March or April. We have already been actively investing from both pools of capital over the last few years," Gupta noted.

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Some of Samara's prominent exits from the second fund include the sale of Spoton Logistics to Delhivery; a stake sale in AIG Hospital to Quadria Capital; the sale of Lotus Surgicals to Tube Investments and Premji Invest; and the sale of a stake in Oaknet Healthcare to Eris Lifesciences.

The firm also offloaded stakes in Sahajanand Medical Technologies (SMT) Ltd, First Meridian Business Services Pvt. Ltd and Paradise Food Court Pvt. Ltd through a $150 million continuation fund led by TR Capital in 2023.

Samara invested in the facilities management space in 2017, betting on the formalisation of a fragmented industry dominated by family-run businesses. The firm also saw tailwinds from rising office penetration, increased outsourcing, and the entry of multinational companies, alongside digitization of labour laws.

On the operational front, Samara initially pursued an aggressive consolidation strategy. Our aim was to aggressively acquire companies in the first 18 months and build one of the largest facilities management platforms in India," Gupta said. We diligenced nearly a dozen assets, but the sector was largely unorganised and family-run. In many cases, business quality and earnings were not aligned, so we chose not to pursue acquisitions where standards did not meet our threshold."

That discipline was tested during the pandemic.

Operational turnaround

Midway through the investment period, the covid-19 pandemic created severe headwinds as clients shifted to remote work and facilities management operations remained dependent on on-site activity. During covid, our primary focus shifted to staying resilient," Gupta said. We were dealing with a nearly 30% decline in revenues, and navigating that period successfully laid the foundation for the recovery and exit we eventually achieved."

As part of the turnaround, Samara appointed Tarun Ramrakhiani as chief executive in 2021 and repositioned SMS as an engineering-led, technology-enabled platform, introducing new offerings across safety, sustainability, energy management and facilities operations. The firm also hired younger talent and realigned leadership.

SMS now offers housekeeping, security, hospitality and select technical and value-added services. Its acquisition of Awfis Care, the facilities management arm of Awfis Space Solutions, further supported revenue growth. The company competes with players such as Quest Corp, ISS Facility Services, UDS (Updater Services), BVG India Ltd and Compass Group.

Samara ran a broad and competitive sale process for SMS, but strategic buyers emerged as the strongest contenders given operating and scale synergies, Gupta said.

The firm acquired a little over 90% of SMS in 2017 and scaled the business to roughly 2.5x its entry level, with Ebitda tripling over the same period. The company is tracking about 700 crore in revenue in the current fiscal year after reporting 522.5 crore in revenue and a profit of 10 crore in FY25.

SILA, which acquired SMS, was incorporated in 2009 by brothers Sahil Vora and Rushabh Vora and provides facilities management, project management and general contracting services across corporate, industrial, residential and hospitality segments.

The company operates in more than 125 cities and employs over 22,000 people, with revenues of about 913.9 crore as of March 2025, according to an Icra report. Historically, SILA has funded acquisitions through promoter capital and equity raised from Norwest Venture Partners, which holds a significant stake in the company.
IT industry veteran Raj Jegannathan, who was serving as a Vice President at Elon Musk-led Tesla, announced his resignation through a social media LinkedIn post on Tuesday, 10 February 2026.

To the teams: You are exceptional. Thank you for being partners and for teaching something new every day. As I move on, I do so with a full heart and excitement for what lies ahead. Thank you Tesla for this wonderful opportunity! said Jegannathan in his post.

Who is Raj Jegannathan? Raj Jegannathan, who has more than 25 years of experience working in the IT sector, started out as a self-employed software developer back in 2002.

LinkedIn data showed that in April 2007, the veteran founded his own company named Visali Technologies, and was heading its IT operations, including managing IT Services and Development.

In 2011, he joined Virgin America as a Contractor, working as a Senior Systems Admin. His profile highlights that he used to provide infrastructure support to Virgin America Airlines.

In March 2012, Raj Jegannathan joined iOPEX Technologies in Chennai, and after spending nearly 6 months at the company, he joined Tesla as a Senior Staff Engineer in California.

Since then, he climbed up the corporate ladder becoming Director of platfoms, HPC, cloud and security at Tesla, only to later become the Vice President of IT/AI infrastructure, business apps and Infosec in January 2025.

On the educational front, Jegannathan holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science degree from St. Joseph's College of Arts and Science, and later he also finished his Master of Computer Applications (MCA), Computer Science from Sacred Heart College.

How was it working at Tesla? After more than a decade working at the company, the industry veteran termed his experience at Tesla as one with continuous evolution, contributing to several divisions in the firm.

Also Read | Elon Musk announces end of Tesla's Model S and X amid record revenue decline

It is challenging to encapsulate 13 years in a single post. The journey at Tesla has been one of continuous evolution. From the technical intricacies of designing, building, and operating one of the world's largest AI clusters to impactful contributions in IT, Security, Sales, and Service, it has been a privilege to serve, he said.

Raj Jegannathan also said that a full understanding of the business is essential as the company enables its teams with the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to achieve their goals across products and customers.
(Bloomberg) -- FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried filed a long-shot request for a new trial on the charges for which hes currently serving a 25-year prison sentence, arguing that new witnesses can refute the prosecutions case that he defrauded the cryptocurrency exchanges customers.

The motion, dated Feb. 5 but docketed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, was filed pro se, meaning Bankman-Fried, 33, is representing himself. The filing is separate from a formal appeal of his 2023 conviction. It was sent to the court clerk by Bankman-Frieds mother, retired Stanford Law Professor Barbara Fried.

A three-judge appeals panel is currently considering his appeal, which claims that rulings by the trial judge tainted the verdict. The judges appeared skeptical of his lawyers arguments at a November hearing.

Alexandra Shapiro, Bankman-Frieds appellate lawyer, declined to comment on his request for a new trial. Fried said her sons brief has been in the works for a long time. He wanted to write it in his own voice, she said.

A jury found Bankman-Fried guilty of seven criminal counts including fraud and conspiracy, agreeing with prosecutors that he illegally transferred billions of dollars from FTX customer accounts to an affiliated hedge fund, Alameda Research. Risky investments by Alameda contributed to FTXs collapse amid a broader crypto downturn in 2022.

The trial marked a stunning downfall for a figure who had once been the public face of cryptocurrency, with a fortune estimated at $26 billion.

In his Tuesday filing, Bankman-Fried contended that two former FTX executives who didnt testify at trial, Daniel Chapsky and Ryan Salame, could counter the prosecutions narrative about the crypto exchanges financial condition. Salame, who separately pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison.

At Bankman-Frieds appeal hearing, Shapiro argued that US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw the trial, wrongly blocked the defense from telling jurors there was plenty of money to repay investors, despite the collapse of FTX in 2022.

Kaplan also blocked Bankman-Frieds lawyers from presenting evidence about advice the former CEO got from lawyers, after an unusual hearing in which the judge put Bankman-Fried on the stand for three hours, outside the presence of the jury, to preview his proposed testimony.

Bankman-Fried, who is confined in a federal prison south of Los Angeles, asked that a different judge be assigned to consider his motion for a new trial, saying Kaplan had demonstrated manifest prejudice toward him.

Along with his legal efforts, Bankman-Fried and his parents have been exploring means of obtaining a pardon from President Donald Trump.

(Updates with detail from the filing and background.)

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
A Union budget effort to march corporates into India's new low-tax regime may deal a one-time blow to several companies following the old tax regime. Restrictions on tax credits under minimum alternate tax (MAT) may force startups and power sector firms to shift to the new regime, or contend with the higher cost of staying in the old regime, experts said.

Under the old tax regime, companies are required to pay minimum alternate tax (MAT) at 15% of book profits when their tax liability, after claiming deductions, falls below the MAT level. If their taxable income after accounting for exemptions is below 15%, they must still pay MAT at 15%, but they get back the difference as creditscalled deferred tax asset in accounting parlancewhich can be used in later years.

While lowering MAT to 14%, the budget sought to disallow businesses in the old regime from using such set-offs in future. The set-offs continue in the new regime, but even there, the use of credits has been cappeda company can use only 25% of the available tax credit in any year.

Experts said this will lead to partial or full write-down of MAT credit, potentially impacting profits and net worth for some businesses in the old regime.

Companies in the businesses of electricity generation, transmission and distribution, who get income tax deductions under section 80 IA (4) of Income Tax Act, 1961 as well as start-ups, who get tax exemption, under 80 IAC will have to evaluate if it makes sense for them to switch to the new tax regime from 1 April," explained Ved Jain, former president of accounting rule maker Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

The budget proposal does not force any company to switch to the new regime, but companies have to evaluate which regime is beneficial to them, in light of the proposed amendment. If they switch to the new regime, they have the advantage of setting off up to 25% of future tax liability using MAT credit," said Jain.

For companies with large accumulated MAT credits or weak profit outlook, the change could translate into one-off hits to earnings and increased volatility in effective tax rates. Over the years, the government has been phasing out many existing tax incentives under the old tax regime, to nudge businesses to migrate to the new regime. Despite the new tax regime having a lower rate, many companies stay on in the old regime until the expiry of tax breaks, which are given for multiple years starting from a cut-off date.

Unused MAT credits due to the legislative changes effectively lose economic value, experts said. These deferred tax assets can be recognized in financial statements to the extent it is probable that future taxable profits will be available against which the MAT credits can be utilized.

Managements should, based on their decision on whether to transition to the new tax regime or continue under the existing regime, reassess assumptions around deferred tax assets, including MAT credit, and evaluate whether sufficient convincing evidence exists to support their recoverability. This decision may also affect the measurement of other deferred tax balances," said Amit K. Agarwal, partner and leader, accounting advisory, BDO India.

Where recovery is doubtful, partial or full writedowns may be required, along with enhanced disclosures of key judgements and estimates," said Agarwal.

MAT was introduced broadly in its current format in the 1996-97 budget by the then finance minister P. Chidambaram to address the issue of companies reporting book profits, but keeping their tax liability too low, taking advantage of various tax deductions and exemptions.

Also Read | Recent reforms effectively a new direct tax code: CBDT chief

Union budget for FY27 proposed that from 1 April 2026 (tax year 202627), MAT is proposed to be recharacterized as a final tax in the old regime and with no new MAT credits accruing for payments made from this date.

The MAT rationalization not only alters corporate tax liabilities but also influences financial statement reporting, requiring careful judgement under accounting standard Ind AS 12/ ICAI guidance note to ensure that recognised balances reflect the changed economic reality of MAT credit utilization, experts said.
New Delhi: While the framework for the IndiaUS interim trade agreement is broadly positive for the economy, it could push up Indias energy import basket and affect metals, according to a report by investment bank SBI Capital Markets (SBICaps).

Several export-oriented sectors, including textiles, leather, plastics, rubber, organic chemicals, and seafood, are set to benefit from duty-free access for nearly half of Indias exports to the US, the report said.

While an overall positive for the economy, the impact of the deal on the cost of the Indian energy import basket, besides the impact of items in Section 232 (mainly metals), is yet to be fully felt, the report said.

The concern comes amid US claims that India has committed to reducing purchases of Russian oil and would buy more from the US and Venezuela. Experts suggest that diversion from Russian oil may impact India's crude import cost as Russian oil is now available at a discount of $8-12 per barrel.

Ratings agency Icra Ltd estimates that replacing Russian crude with market-priced oil would increase Indias import bill by less than 2%.

The report said that by the end of 2025, India faced some of the highest US tariffs among emerging markets, at about 50%. That changed in 2026, with India signing trade agreements with both the US and the European Union.

The US has agreed to 18% tariffs on most items, with the removal of the punitive 25% levy imposed on Russian oil imports by India.

Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal had said on Saturday India is set to gain zero-duty access for goods worth around $44 billion, nearly half of its merchandise exports to the US, under the first phase of the IndiaUS bilateral trade agreement.

Also Read | How an obscure item in India-US trade deal is stirring the pot

Goyal said India has ensured carefully crafted exemption lines for products including dairy items, soyameal, lentils, cereals and millets, fruits like bananas and strawberries, green peas, honey, ethanol for fuel blending and genetically modified (GM) foods.

Sector-specific tariffs imposed under Section 232 will continue for steel, aluminium and copper at 50%. In auto components, the existing 25% tariff will be eliminated on half the import volume, while the remaining half will continue to attract the same duty.

Goldman Sachs Research on Monday revised its 2026 GDP estimate for India by 20 basis points to 6.9%. It said the reduced tariffs on Indian exports under the framework for the India-US interim trade agreement would boost the economic growth of the country.

Also Read | Three points in India-US trade deal divorced from reality

On the budget, the SBI arm said it recognised that further measures were needed to boost the manufacturing segment, which has shown green shoots in the previous few quarters.
Euphoria review: It's been days since the Telugu film Euphoria released in theatres, but fans cannot stop talking about it. Helmed by Gunasekhar, the film stars Bhumika Chawla, Sara Arjun, Nassar, Rohith, Vignesh Gavireddy, Likhita Yalamanchali, Addala Prudhviraj and others. As the film continues to trend online, here's what the audience liked and disliked about the film.

Euphoria audience review Calling it a hard-hitting film, many praised the climax scene of Euphoria.

Taking to X, formerly Twitter, a user praised the film and its background music. The post read: A hard hitting social drama dealt with unique narrative approach. Perfect cast with peak performances and BGM. Only thing which I love here is genuine film making towards real- life incidents. Highness during the climax part and I would say PEAK CLIMAX (sic).

Another detailed review called the film thoughtful but with its surface-level writing. #EuphoriaTheFilm definitely has the potential to address many burning issues. The story has multiple branches and storylines, so the narrative that #Gunasekhar wanted to tell feels slightly sanitised. The story presents one of the possibilities where the law works without loopholes and without pressure from higher officials on honest police officers, the post added.

The user continued to explain, Some scenes felt like the director took the easy way out. The plotlines were given convenient endings that didnt always serve the story well, though this could also be seen as catering to the audiences preferred route. Many movies dealing with subjects like gang ra*e and the POCSO law revolve around the victims or the investigation process to uncover the truth. However, Euphoria explores an uncharted territory, what happens to the families of the convicted. This is where veteran actress #BhumikaChawla comes in. As stated in the trailer and promotional events, she plays the mother of one of the convicts. The film explores the struggle of an honest mother who has to face the reality of her son turning into an unapologetic criminal.

Calling it an emotion-focused film rather than logic, a different user said, #Euphoria left me with mixed feelings, mainly due to that clusterf**k of a second half. After a really interesting first half, the screenplay takes a very weird turn. It definitely needed a better treatment. Director Gunasekhar probably focused on the emotions but lost at logics (sic).

Euphoria first half vs second half Similarly, another one also praised the first half of the film over the second.

The first half of the film is neat with engaging police proceedings. Although it feels like a documentary at times it still keeps us hooked to the plot. However after a decent first half the second half loses its tempo (sic), wrote the user.

Someone else shared, #EuphoriaTheFilm had great intentions that don't really translate onto the screen. Although the first half is watchable but it exhausts you and the incoherent second half makes matters weak. Really loved the idea but except music everything else was a let down (sic).

See more posts:

Euphoria: Plot, trailer Euphoria focuses on a group of boys who assault a young girl. When they are eventually punished and sent to juvenile jail, one of them changes for bad, highlighting the importance of parenting.

Watch trailer:
Ahead of the release, the controversy around the Yash-starrer Toxic has made its way to Reddit. Previously, reports claimed that a First Information Report was filed against the makers of the film for the alleged cutting of forest trees in Bengaluru. It was said that the land was cleared to create the film set.

Toxic controversy over cutting down forest trees The FIR was filed against the Canara Bank General Manager and Hindustan Machine Tools (HMT) General Manager, reported news agency ANI. India Today had released before and after satellite images of the forest land where, allegedly, a significant portion of trees were axed illegally.

Sharing the old images, a user wrote on Reddit, Karnataka Environment Minister Eshwar has alleged that hundreds of trees were illegally felled on forest land within the HMT premises in Peenya, Bengaluru, to create space for the set of the Toxic, starring Yash.

Netizens react to old images Reacting to the old news, a user wrote sarcastically in the comments, Toxic: Coming not just in cinemas but in your lungs as well. What kinda stupidity is this ?? Destroying ecosystem for movies not acceptable ?? Then whats the point of studios are built, added another.

One more said, Living upto film title.

Someone else commented, Really Toxic.

Karnataka Environment Minister Eshwar Khandre urged officials to take action against the cutting of trees on the forest land, which was reportedly occupied by HMT. Eshwar had told ANI, I personally visited the land where Toxic movie is being shot.. Hundreds of trees have been illegally cut down for the filming of the movie on forestland under HMTs jurisdiction, which is visible in satellite images We will take necessary actions against the people who violated the rules. Cutting trees in forestland without legal permission is a punishable offence.

However, it is not the only controversy faced by the film.

More controversy for Toxic Recently, the makers dropped a teaser of Toxic, grabbing eyeballs. While many praised the much-awaited film teaser, the Aam Aadmi Partys Womens Wing of the state filed a complaint to the Karnataka State Womens Commission.

Reacting to it, CBFC chairperson Prasoon Joshi told India Today that the teaser of Toxic didn't go through the censor board since it was a teaser.

I dont think I would give any comment right now, he said.

Joshi added, "I dont think unless the things are applied to the certification board. Sometimes, I also want to clarify that a lot of things you see on YouTube and other digital platforms, at times they are not certified. So people think that everything they are seeing is certified.

Digital media, a lot of things you see, have not gone through the process of certification. So sometimes its very unfair what people see on OTT, YouTube and other digital platforms, assume that this has been certified by the CBFC. And the truth is, it has not, Joshi clarified.

When will Toxic release Meanwhile, Toxic, helmed by Geetu Mohandas, stars Yash, Kiara Advani, Nayanthara, Tara Sutaria, Tovino Thomas, Huma Qureshi, Akshay Oberoi and Rukmini Vasanth.
New Delhi, Feb 10 (PTI) Filmmaker Angel Manuel Soto, who directed Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista in "The Wrecking Crew", says he was attracted to the action story as it features the two actors with very different energies play off against each other.

Described as a buddy cop action-comedy, the film follows two half-brothers, a loose cannon cop and a disciplined Navy SEAL, who must work together to unravel a conspiracy behind their father's murder in Hawaii.

Written by Jonathan Tropper of "This is Where I Leave You" and "The Adam Project" fame, the film premiered on Prime Video on January 28. The movie has received good reviews for the way it tackles the story of two estranged brothers.

Soto, 43, said both Bautista and Momoa were able to bring a lot of who they are in real life and that was a beautiful thing to experience.

"That's why those characters feel lived in, and their chemistry is so unique. It's because they're actually playing heightened versions of themselves. Dave brings his monk-like presence. He has this unique presence and he's very rigid. And in real life, he's a very disciplined guy. And his character is not that different. It's almost like this is what the extreme version of yourself could be," Soto told PTI in a virtual interview.

"Jason, same thing... He brings that nihilistic, fun, explosive energy to the set. The same way that he's in real life and you see him on social media is not that different from the way he handles acting. He will come and he will explore and he will keep it spontaneous," he said.

Soto, who has directed "Charm City Kings" and "Blue Beetle" in the past, credited Tropper of writing a fun and yet sensitive story around the two stars.

"The part that got me excited about the whole exploration of this genre was the fact that Tropper weaved in a very important part that is often left out of action movies -- which is having our heroes who are testosterone-driven, and the action is explosive. But there's a moment of vulnerability that is not just a payoff," Soto said.

According to the director, everything in the movie builds up to the moment where "two grown-a** men" finally have a moment where their walls come down and they are vulnerable with each other.

"A lot of times, we don't dive enough in these types of movies, because there's this misconception that real men don't ask questions, real men don't show emotions. And we believe that is the opposite. If you embrace that side of you, you're going to be able to be the man that you're meant (to be)," he added.

Setting the movie in Hawaii was also a deliberate choice as generally such high-octane action movies are shot in cities.

"Our biggest references and the shoulders that we know we stand on, like 'Lethal Weapon' or '48 Hours', everything takes place in downtown LA.

"For us, it was like, how can we embrace the homage of these films, but paint it on a tropical picture? You cannot hide the tropical landscape, you cannot hide the sun in Hawaii. So let's embrace it and make it part of it and give a different texture to a genre that embraces the cultural identity of a place."
The Trump administration is planning this week to repeal the Obama-era scientific finding that serves as the legal basis for federal greenhouse-gas regulation, according to U.S. officials, in the most far-reaching rollback of U.S. climate policy to date.

The reversal targets the 2009 endangerment finding," which concluded that six greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare. The finding provided the legal underpinning for the Environmental Protection Agencys climate rules, which limited emissions from power plants and tightened fuel-economy standards for vehicles under the Clean Air Act.

This amounts to the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States," EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in an interview.

The final rule, set to be made public later this week, removes the regulatory requirements to measure, report, certify, and comply with federal greenhouse-gas emission standards for motor vehicles, and repeals associated compliance programs, credit provisions, and reporting obligations for industries, according to administration officials.

It wouldnt apply to rules governing emissions from power plants and other stationary sources such as oil-and-gas facilities, the officials said. But repealing the finding could open up the door to rolling back regulations that affect those facilities.

The move is likely to be seen as a victory for the fossil-fuel industry, which for years has pushed back against federal climate regulations. Since taking office, President Trump has sought to repeal rules that his allies in the oil-and-gas industry have cited as overly burdensome. Trump has framed fossil fuels as vital to economic and national security, and he has argued that expanded reliance on them will help lower energy prices.

The decision to repeal the endangerment finding might also create fresh uncertainty for companies with global operations, which could find themselves caught between lower environmental standards at home and a higher baseline for emissions rules abroad. A void at the federal level might prompt states to implement their own regulations, and create new legal exposure for companies.

Environmental groups have said they would challenge a rollback in the courts, and it could be years before litigation is resolved. The administration could decline to enforce rules and fines while a legal process unfolds. Several unsuccessful attempts to revise or repeal the endangerment finding" have been made in recent yearsincluding in the courts.

The Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit advocacy group, has said that rolling back the endangerment finding would eliminate some of our most vital tools to protect people from the pollution that causes climate change." The group said the administration was trying to steer Americans toward dirtier, more dangerous and more destructive air.

On inauguration day last year, Trump signed an executive order directing the EPA to submit an assessment on whether the endangerment findingwhich the Obama and Biden administrations used to set greenhouse gas emission limits on vehicles, power plants and large industrial facilitiesshould be kept in place. The EPA announced a proposal to rescind the finding last July.

Officials said the rollback would equate to more than $1 trillion in regulation cuts, though they didnt provide details on how they came up with the number. They said that rescinding the finding would result in an average per-vehicle cost savings of more than $2,400. Public health and environmental groups have said federal climate regulations help prevent hundreds of thousands of premature deaths each year.

The rollback of the endangerment finding is one of several energy- and climate-related announcements the administration is planning to make this week as part of a campaign to address high energy costs. Public polling shows that voters view the high cost of livingincluding electricity pricesas a primary concern heading into this years midterm elections.

More energy drives human flourishing," Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in an interview. Energy abundance is the thing that we have to focus on, not regulating certain forms of energy out."

Trump is set to hold an event Wednesday at the White House with Zeldin and Energy Secretary Chris Wright to announce a new executive order that directs the Defense Department to enter into agreements to buy electricity from coal-fired power plants. The administration will also award funding to five coal plants in West Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina, and Kentucky to recommission and upgrade the facilities. Trump will be awarded the inaugural Undisputed Champion of Coal" award by the Washington Coal Club, a pro-coal group with ties to the fossil fuel industry, administration officials said.

Conversations are under way between the Defense Department and Energy Department to identify facilities and coal plants, officials said.

Wright said in an interview that Trumps effort to re-energize the coal industry would allow the U.S. to meet its artificial-intelligence goals, re-industrialize and stop a rise in electricity prices. Our goal is to drive down the price of energy for Americans," he said.

In addition, administration officials said the Tennessee Valley Authority is expected to soon vote to keep two coal plants operating after they were previously slated to come offline.

The attorney generals of states led by Democrats including Massachusetts, New York and California in a September comment letter opposed the proposed rescission of the endangerment finding. They said the move would violate settled law, Supreme Court precedent and scientific consensusand endanger the lives of millions of Americans.

Analysts say that some states might want to step in and enact their own legislation in the absence of a federal standard for regulating emissions. California has previously asserted that if greenhouse gas emissions dont fall under the federal purview, then it doesnt need approval from EPA to regulate tailpipe emissions. The state is the largest car market in the U.S.

Some legal experts note that the U.S. auto industry didnt ask for a reversal of the endangerment finding, and will likely continue to invest in reducing emissions to remain competitive globally and in anticipation of a potential future reversal.

Write to Meridith McGraw at Meridith.McGraw@WSJ.com and Benoit Morenne at benoit.morenne@wsj.com
Bengaluru/Mumbai: Indias HPV vaccine market is seeing a clear revival after years of low uptake, with digital health platforms and private healthcare providers reporting a sharp rise in demand amid growing awareness of cervical cancer prevention.

On PharmEasy, a digital-first diagnostics and pharmacy company backed by Prosus and Temasek, HPV vaccines now account for nearly 25% of total vaccine sales, making it one of the fastest-growing segments within its preventive healthcare portfolio. The rise reflects growing consumer awareness and easier access through digital channels, particularly in urban India.

HPV vaccination has seen substantial growth on PharmEasy, driven by rising awareness about preventive healthcare and the convenience we offer," said Gaurav Verma, head (B2C) at PharmEasy. Features such as at-home vaccination, flexible scheduling and free administration have helped reduce friction for consumers, enabling families to prioritise the vaccine, he added.

HPV, or human papillomavirus, is linked to several types of cancer, most commonly cervical. Indias HPV vaccine market was worth 91 crore as of January 2026, on a moving annual total basis, according to pharma intelligence platform Pharmarack. US-based drugmaker Merck's Gardasil dominated the market with 70 crore sales. From January 2024 to January 2026, HPV vaccine sales volume has grown more than 87% to 333,160 units, according to Pharmarack.

Early signs of increased momentum are also visible on the screening side, though experts emphasize that gains are emerging from a very low base, said Kuldeep Singh Sachdeva, chief medical officer at Molbio Diagnostics, which sells molecular test kits for detection of high-risk HPV genotypes - strains or variants of the virus.

Earlier, only about 2% of the eligible population was getting screened for HPV. There has been about a 12% increase compared to last year," he said, adding that Indias large population means even small percentage gains translate into significant absolute numbers.

Rising demand

According to PharmEasy, vaccine adoption remains strongest in metropolitan cities including Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune. Women account for nearly 70% of HPV vaccine purchasers, while the 2635 age group has emerged as the most active cohort. Tier-I and urban-adjacent markets contribute around 15% of demand, with another 15% coming from tier-II, tier-III and smaller citiesa share the company says is gradually increasing as awareness spreads beyond large cities.

India continues to bear a heavy burden of HPV-related diseases, with more than 120,000 new cervical cancer cases diagnosed annually, according to the France-based Global Cancer Observatory. It is the second-most common cancer in India in women, accounting for 22.86% of all cancer cases in women and 12% of all cancer cases in both men and women, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

While the vaccine sales uptick is seen as an encouraging sign, experts warn that affordability remains a major constraint.

Given the high out-of-pocket cost of HPV vaccines, adoption continues to be skewed towards higher-income urban populations," said Srikanth Mahadevan, director at Deloitte India. With per-dose prices ranging from about 1,500 to over 11,000 depending on the brand, Mahadevan said cost continues to limit wider uptake.

For girls aged 9-14, a two-dose series of vaccines is recommended, while for individuals aged 15-45, a three-dose schedule is prescribed.

Mercks Gardasil and Gardasil 9, as well as Serum Institute of Indias (SII) indigenously-developed Cervavac are the main vaccine brands available in the Indian market. While SIIs Cervavac is the most affordable, it is not widely available yet, doctors said.

Gardasil 9, which covers nine HPV strains, offers broader protection, including against genital warts and additional infections, making it superior to the quadrivalent versions that mainly protect against cervical cancer," said Dr. Manisha Kulkarni, senior consultant at Sahyadri Hospitals, Pune. Gardasil 9 is, however, also the most expensive and can cost between 9,000 and 11,000 per dose, she said.

Queries emailed to Merck and SII remained unanswered till press time.

Doctors say changing patient behaviour is also contributing to rising interest in HPV vaccination and testing. Patients are becoming more proactive in seeking information around the vaccine and the testing," said Dr. Tanaya Narendra, a gynaecologist and health educator popularly known as Dr Cuterus. She said counselling is now being driven not only by doctors, but also by social media, awareness initiatives and corporate health campaigns offering workplace vaccinations.

There has been a sea change in the kind of information that is available," Narendra said, noting that although the HPV vaccine was introduced in 2006, conversations around vaccination and cervical cancer prevention have become far more open and frequent over the past two decades.

Professional associations like the Federation of Obstetric and Gynecological Societies of India (FOGSI), Indian Medical Association (IMA), and the Indian Academy of Pediatrics (IAP) have been driving campaigns to raise awareness and increase the scope of vaccinations.

FOGSI ran two programmes for cervical cancer in 2025, which included a pan-India awareness campaign and a screening initiative piloted in Varanasi. Our gynecologists also need sensitisation, who in turn can sensitise people," FOGSI's immediate past president Dr. Sunita Tandulwadkar told Mint.

A major gap is the lack of pan-India data, which requires private and public healthcare synergies, Dr. Tandulwadkar said. The association has been in constant dialogue with the health ministry for this, as well as for policy shifts to increase affordability of the vaccine, she Tandulwadkar added.

Industry observers say the recent momentum reflects sustained awareness-building efforts by healthcare providers, labs and digital platforms, alongside the entry of newer domestic vaccine options that have broadened choice. However, they caution that current growth remains uneven.

The recent increase in HPV vaccine sales reflects improved awareness and access, particularly in urban markets," said Aryaman Tandon, managing partner (healthcare and lifesciences) at consultancy Praxis Global Alliance. However, this growth is largely concentrated in metro cities and driven by private clinics, labs and digital health platforms, rather than indicating widespread population-level adoption," he added.

Mahadevan said that inclusion of the HPV vaccine in the central immunisation programme could be a major inflection point" for improving penetration by enabling scale, lowering costs and normalising vaccination as routine preventive care.

Evidence from state-led initiatives highlights the impact of public-sector involvement. School-based vaccination programmes in states such as Sikkim and Punjab have reported coverage rates exceeding 90% among targeted girls by removing cost barriers and simplifying access through government systems.

Without broader public-sector integration, experts warn that reliance on private healthcare channels risks fragmented and uneven protection. Screening rates for cervical cancer also remain extremely low outside urban centres, reinforcing concerns that HPV prevention efforts may continue to benefit a limited segment of the population unless backed by national-scale immunisation and screening strategies, Deloittes Mahadevan added.
With telecom operators now blocking or flagging nearly 400 million suspected spam calls and messages every day, Indias telecom regulator is looking to widen its current enforcement framework alongside a willingness to tighten the rules if gaps persist, while moving toward a full rollout of a digital consent system for commercial communications.

In an interview with Mint, Anil Kumar Lahoti, chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), said the regulator is reviewing the existing framework governing telemarketers to identify areas where responsibilities are not being met and is open to strengthening the rules if required. Lahoti also said Trai is moving toward a full rollout of the Digital Consent Acquisition (DCA) framework, beginning with banks, after pilot results showed the system worked technically.

Lahoti, who completed two years in office last month, added that recommendations for the next spectrum auction have entered the final stages and are expected to be submitted to the government within a month.

Edited excerpts:

How is the regulator checking the spread of spam?

Trai has taken many measures to reduce the number of unsolicited commercial communication over the last year and a half. The commercial communication today is taking place through registered telemarketers. Currently, every commercial call or message is scrubbed against the customer's preference register. As a result, approximately 75 million calls or SMS are blocked daily.

In addition, telecom operators are also flagging spam to users coming from 10-digit phone numbers to the tune of about 320 million a day, as per December data. So overall, about 400 million spam calls and messages are either being blocked or flagged on a daily basis.

Also Read | Why blocking numbers is not ending the pesky calls and spam menace

What are the main challenges in curbing spam?

Trai has its DND (Do Not Disturb) App that lets users register their mobile number under DND to avoid unwanted commercial or telemarketing calls.

However, the challenge is that of the 1.16 billion mobile subscribers, only 220 million have registered their preference on the DND platform. This means that about 80% of users are still open to receiving unwanted calls. The regulator is making efforts to educate consumers on the same.

What is Trais stance on regulating telemarketers through a separate authorization?

It would not be correct to say that telemarketers are not regulated today. Telemarketers are regulated through the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) platform. No telemarketer can engage in commercial communication unless they are authorized on this platform.

Having said that, Trai is actively engaged with stakeholders to identify specific gaps where responsibilities by telemarketers are not being met. If the current rules prove insufficient, the regulator is open to strengthening the existing TCCCPR (Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations) to fix responsibilities.

Does that mean Trai is not moving ahead with a separate authorization regime for telemarketers?

We are engaged with telecom operators and telemarketers to identify any gaps and issues. We will take appropriate action accordingly.

What is the status of the user consent framework for commercial communication?

The new Digital Consent Acquisition (DCA) framework aims to make consent for all promotional calls and SMS digital and visible to the consumer. They will have control to revoke these consents.

A pilot to seek user consent for these commercial communications was conducted with telecom operators and 11 banks, and the results showed that the system worked fine technically. The regulator is now moving toward a complete rollout for these entities and will involve the Indian Banking Association (IBA).

How is Trai handling legacy consents already given by users?

Banks hold a lot of legacy consents. To manage this transition without starting from zero, the regulator is allowing these entities to upload existing consents to the digital platform based on their own certification.

The regulator decided against notifying every consumer because sending crores of notifications would itself create a massive spam event. Since consumers are already receiving messages based on these consents, the status quo is maintained, but the data is digitized for better management.

However, users will be able to check their legacy consent and revoke the same once the data is uploaded to the DLT platform.

Have discussions taken place with banks on fraud prevention?

Yes, extensive discussions have taken place. As a result, banks as principal entities were required to whitelist thousands of URLs. Now, any SMS containing a URL that has not been whitelisted by the bank is blocked. Additionally, banks must ensure that any telemarketer sending messages on their behalf is strictly authorized and part of a traceable chain.

From now onwards, all service and transactional calls, such as OTPs, balance alerts, or important notifications, from banks, insurance companies, and mutual funds will originate from the 160 series numbers, while all telemarketing calls will continue to originate from the 140 series. This will help users identify genuine calls.

Reports suggest the 160 series could complicate loan recovery and increase costs for physical collection agents. How do you see this?

There were some discussions on the same, but no need for intervention was felt there. A key feature of the 160 series is that it cannot be blocked by users on the DND. We do not see visibility of the 160 numbers as the primary obstacle to recovery.

Trai is also working on the next spectrum auction. What is the timeline?

We have completed the consultation phase and are currently working on the recommendations to the government. We expect to complete the same in a month.

The last auction was held in 2024, where telecom operators bought spectrum worth 11,340 crore.
Bankers in the small but lucrative market for debt swaps are now struggling to complete deals.

Designed to help developing nations cut their debt burdens and protect the environment in a single product, the swaps are seeing potential borrowers hit the brakes, according to bankers and consultants interviewed by Bloomberg. With emerging-market bonds rallying, such deals often no longer make financial sense, they said. At the same time, some governments are skeptical of the environmental focus the swaps have, they added.

Antonio Navarro, a former Credit Suisse banker whos now a managing partner specialized in such deals at boutique credit fund ArtCap Strategies, says the gains gripping emerging-market debt mean that a lot of the deals initiated in the past year are now being reconsidered, and in some cases have been put on hold.

Debt swaps, structured so as to lure private money by using risk-mitigation features such as public guarantees, have long been seen as a key plank in financing nature conservation in the developing world. As recently as May last year, BloombergNEF estimated there might be over $1 trillion of total debt eligible for such swaps. But since 2021, only about $6 billion worth of deals involving private capital have actually been completed, BNEF data show.

The products, which entail switching out old  often distressed  debt at more favorable rates, require months of preparatory work including identifying the right projects, carrying out the scientific work, seeking the guarantee from a multilateral lender, all of which comes at a substantial fee, Navarro said.

And under the current market conditions, with yields on a growing number of emerging-market government bonds near or even below those of US Treasuries, the maths simply doesnt work, he said.

At the same time, issuers are growing increasingly dissatisfied with the environmental focus the deals have typically had, according to Bloomberg interviews with public finance representatives, bankers and lawyers involved in the transactions. The worry is that goals such as preserving mangroves are sidelining health and poverty-related challenges that local populations consider far more urgent, they said.

The development feeds into a wider shift in tone around environmental programs. Last year, billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates warned against letting climate concerns overshadow issues such as healthcare in poorer communities. In a memo published ahead of the COP30 climate summit in Brazil, Gates called for a refocus on the metric that should count even more than emissions and temperature change: improving lives.

Andrew Dabalen, the World Banks chief economist for Africa, says a key weakness of debt swaps targeting environmental goals has been concerns about country ownership.

Focus on nature-based targets was always driven by either the guarantors of debt, or non-government actors, he said in an interview. But for the products to have lasting value, it has to be a government basically saying, This is our priority. This is where we want to invest the savings in, Dabalen said.

Audrey Alevina, whose Gabon-based firm Alevina & Partners worked on the countrys $500 million debt-for-nature swap back in 2023, says many governments in Africa have long had an ambivalent attitude toward conservation finance. Its generally been viewed as less urgent than basic services like electricity, water, education, and healthcare, all of which remain critically deficient or entirely lacking, she said.

Debt swaps have existed since the late 1980s, though deals back then were small and didnt involve private investors. In 2021, Credit Suisse bankers teamed up with The Nature Conservancy, a nonprofit, to bring private capital into the mix. Banks to have helped arrange swaps in recent years include Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Standard Chartered Plc. UBS Group AG, which acquired Credit Suisse in 2023, has also been involved in the market.

Private investors in debt swaps say theres still demand for nature-related goals.

Yes, the bonds might be tightening, but there will still be opportunities to replace expensive private debt that some sovereigns have taken on, said Jake Harper, senior investment manager and emerging-markets private-credit lead at Legal & General Investment Management. He also cautions against lumping all emerging markets into one basket.

There are, of course, different countries and different situations globally, and while weve seen an influx of capital into emerging markets, its important to look at which countries those are, Harper said.

Ramzi Issa, a former Credit Suisse banker who played a key role in opening up the debt-swap market to private capital half a decade ago, says theres plenty of room for growth.

Even with the rally in the emerging markets, these types of transactions can still help countries to reach fiscal goals such as reducing their refinancing risk, diversifying funding sources, or flattening their repayment curve, he said.

Issa, whos now a managing partner at Enosis Capital, a boutique private credit firm he co-founded, says he and his team are actively exploring opportunities with our partners in several countries across Africa, Latin America, and Asia.

Marisa Drew, chief sustainability officer at StanChart, says criticism of nature-focused deals has centered on the notion that theyre very, very prescriptive for the borrower.

A debt swap will have restrictive parameters associated with the use of proceeds for the very reason that you want to make sure that the desired impacts are delivered, she said.

The Trump Effect

The market for swaps targeting environmental goals is also facing other headwinds. The US International Development Finance Corporation , once a major player in debt-for-nature swaps, has signaled reluctance to engage in such deals since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, according to conservation officials interviewed by Bloomberg.

The US used to be a big player but its not a priority for the current administration, says Thomas Sberna, coastal and ocean resilience head for east and southern Africa for the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Back in late 2023, Sberna had suggested it might be possible to raise $5 billion in swaps targeting conservation goals for the region he oversees. Now, the enabling environment for that sort of operation is not the best, he said.

Martin Callow, acting portfolio lead for nature bonds at TNC, said the nonprofit is very keen to get through what he characterized as a current lull in dealmaking. A key stumbling block, according to TNC, is the fact that the DFC has pulled back from guaranteeing debt-for-nature swaps.

A spokesperson for the DFC said its currently looking at various development goals, without elaborating further, in response to a Bloomberg request for comment.

Meanwhile, swaps targeting non-environmental goals are gaining ground.

Kenya and Benin are in talks for development swaps, Dabalen said last month. And World Bank President Ajay Banga told Bloomberg last year the institution was looking at nine development-focused swaps across Africa and Asia.

Kenya also completed a swap targeting food security in December, with the help of the DFC. And Angolas finance ministry says its now planning swaps focused on health and education. A possible nature-related swap listed in Angolas borrowing plan in mid-2024 wasnt mentioned in the countrys latest official update.

Catherine Burns, managing director of NatureVest, The Nature Conservancys investment unit, says the nonprofit is delighted that debt swaps are now providing an opportunity and model to achieve other types of benefits beyond nature conservation.

Were having to do transactions a little bit differently and with some new stakeholders, she said. But were still moving forward.

With assistance from Helene Durand.

2026 Bloomberg L.P.
Auto stocks sit at the intersection of economic cycles, consumer demand, and capital discipline.

When the cycle turns favourable, companies with scale, brand strength, and execution consistency tend to pull ahead, compounding value without drawing attention. The GST rate cut on vehicles has reignited demand by improving affordability.

That is where blue-chip auto names stand out.

These companies have strong market presence, brand loyalty, diverse revenue streams in the domestic and export markets, and strong balance sheets. Over time, they have shown an ability to protect margins, reinvest through cycles, and adapt to shifts in technology and regulation.

This editorial focuses on five such blue-chip auto stocks.

#1 Bajaj Auto

Bajaj Auto is a diversified automotive company engaged in the design, manufacturing, and sale of 2-wheelers (2W), electric vehicles (EV), and 3-wheelers (3W). The company targets the 125 cc-plus and 150 cc-plus segments.

Bajaj Auto has also acquired a controlling stake in struggling brand KTM, increasing its stake to nearly 75%. It manufactures KTM bikes in India for both domestic sales and exports to markets such as Austria. Its currently driving a turnaround plan for KTM AG.

From a financial perspective, revenue increased 19% year-on-year (YoY) to 15,220 crore, crossing the 15,000 crore quarterly revenue milestone for the first time.

Bajaj's volume growth was lower than the industry's (15-17%) in Q3 FY26. Ebitda increased 22% to a record 3,160 crore, while margins expanded to 20.8%. Profit after tax (PAT) grew 21% to 2.540 crore.

Looking ahead, the management aims to outpace industry growth in the 125 cc-plus and 150 cc-plus segments. Bajaj has outlined a strategy to regain market share, especially in the 150 cc-plus segment.

The company acknowledged a product lifecycle "asymmetry," noting that competitors offer newer products in the premium segments. To correct this, Bajaj launched seven product interventions (upgrades and refreshes) between November and January. This will be followed by eight more over the next four months.

In the 125 cc-plus category, the management confirmed plans for a new brand in the 125 cc segment and for potential expansion of the Dominar portfolio, while also exploring new formats such as off-road bikes.

In the geographic mix, the export business is expected to be robust. In the top 30 overseas markets (accounting for 75% of the industry) are expected to see Bajaj's market share increase.

A significant focus for 2026 will be the operational turnaround of KTM AG (Austria), which will be fully consolidated into Bajaj Auto's results on a line-by-line basis starting FY27.

The E2W business hit EBITDA breakeven, and the overall EV portfolio now delivers double-digit EBITDA margins.

#2 Hero MotoCorp

Hero MotoCorp is the worlds largest 2-wheeler manufacturer, a title it has held for 25 consecutive years.

Under the new CEO, Harshvardhan Chitale, Hero is focusing on areas where it has historically been underrepresented but sees growth potential. These five pillars are scooters, premium motorcycles, global business, EV, and parts & accessories.

Hero is aggressively expanding its EV footprint under the VIDA brand. VIDA's market share expanded to 10.8% in Q3 FY26, driven by the new VIDA V1 and VX2 portfolio.

VIDA reported revenue of 4.5 bn in Q3. The company approved an additional investment of 2.7 bn in Euler Motors, an electric commercial vehicle manufacturer.

In the global business, the company recently entered European markets, including Italy, Spain, and France. In Q3 FY26, export volume grew 41%, with the premium portfolio accounting for 40% of global volumes.

To capture the higher-margin segment, Hero is expanding its portfolio and retail experience for premium motorcycles. The company has expanded its 2025 Harley-Davidson lineup with models such as the H-D X440T, Road Glide, and Street Glide.

While traditionally a motorcycle-dominant player, Hero is gaining traction in scooters, with the highest Q3 market share in the 125 cc scooter segment in five years. Growth was driven by the Xoom and refreshed Destini portfolios, which now account for over 50% of scooter volumes.

The parts and accessories segment is a key revenue driver. Business revenue grew 8% in Q3 FY26 to its highest-ever quarterly revenue of 1,670 crore.

Overall, the management expects demand to remain strong in Q4 FY26. But Hero anticipates industry growth to moderate to high single digits in FY27.

The companys revenue grew 21% YoY to 12,330 crore in Q3 FY26, driven by 16% volume growth. Ebitda rose 23% to 1,810 crore, while the margin was 14.7%. The net profit (excluding the impact of one-time exceptional charge due to new labour codes) increased 20% to 1,440 crore.

#3 Maruti Suzuki India

Maruti Suzuki's product mix spans the passenger vehicle market, from entry-level hatchbacks to premium SUVs and EVs. It is a leader in the mass market segment.

The company has shifted its focus to the growing SUV segment, with models such as the Grand Vitara, Jimny, Fronx, Brezza, and Invicto.

Maruti has entered the EV space with the e-VITARA, its first electric vehicle. Its already being exported to 29 countries, including the UK.

The company is currently experiencing robust demand following GST reform, which reduced taxes by 5-10%. Maruti grew faster in the domestic market, at 22%, outpacing the industry's 20.5% growth.

The company has a healthy order book of around 175,000 vehicles. Inventory is at an all-time low of just three-four days. The company is currently supply-constrained rather than demand-constrained.

The management remains cautious about the long-term sustainability of this growth once the initial euphoria of the tax cuts settles.

Also Read | Maruti Suzuki prepares 500,000 capacity boost as GST delivers record revenue

To meet the surging demand, Maruti is aggressively expanding its production capacity. A second plant at the Kharkhoda facility is scheduled to be operational by April 2026.

A fourth production line at the existing Gujarat facility is being commissioned. Each of these new lines will add 250,000 vehicles annually.

From a financial standpoint, revenue increased 28.7% YoY to 49,900 crore in Q3 FY26, driven by 17.9% volume growth.

The mini segment saw significant recovery with 27.9% growth, and compact cars grew 25%. UVs (SUVs) continued to perform strongly, with 20.8% growth.

Operating Ebitda grew 10% to 5,570 crore, while margins stood at 11.7%, down 210 bps. Higher commodity prices, a one-time provision, and price reduction on some models impacted margins.

As a result, net profit rose 3.7% to 3,790 crore, weighed down by a one-time provision of 590 crore due to the new labour code.

#4 TVS Motor

TVS Motors, part of the TVS Group, is India's leading manufacturer of 2W/3W vehicles. Its portfolio also includes Norton Motorcycles (UK) and TVS Ebike Company AG in Switzerland.

Revenue rose 37% YoY to 12,480 crore in Q3 FY26, driven by a 27% increase in sales volume and outperformance across multiple categories.

Domestic ICE 2W sales grew 21%, outpacing the industry growth of 16%. Export business exports grew 35%, outperforming the industry export growth of 23%.

Total ICE 2W sales grew 25%, compared to industry growth of 17%. EV sales grew 40%, reaching 106,000 units compared to 76,000 units in Q3 of the previous year.

With operating leverage, operating Ebitda grew 51% to 1,640 crore, while margins expanded 120 basis points (bps) to 13.1%. As a result, the net profit increased 51% to 940 crore.

Also Read | Why govt wants vehicle tests to get more real

Looking ahead, the company expects the two-wheeler industry to grow by more than 15% in Q4 and to outpace broader industry growth. This follows a strong Q3, during which the industry grew 20% following the GST reduction, which has positively impacted demand.

TVS' growth is expected to be driven by strong demand for its products in the domestic and export markets. In the international market, Africa and Latin America continue to grow, while Sri Lanka is recovering. The European market may take a few more quarters for performance to improve.

The positive momentum could continue in the first half of FY27 as the benefits of GST reduction fully permeate the market.

The company is focused on scaling up its EV business and achieving profitability in this segment. The management is confident the EV business will be Ebitda positive as volumes grow and margins improve.

The company has also revised the investment guidance upwards to 2,900 crore. It's investing in capacity expansion to meet demand for the iQube and to ramp up production of the TVS Orbiter.

The company is also preparing to launch new Norton products (Manx and Atlas families) in 2026. These products target the super-premium luxury segment, with a differentiated strategy planned for India.

#5 Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles

Tata Motors, part of the Tata Group, is a leading global automobile company. It sells PVs, UVs, and CVs in about 125 countries. It also has a presence in the premium PV market via Jaguar Land Rover (JLR).

It leads the CV segment in India and ranks third in the PV segment. Moreover, it dominates the electric vehicle (EV) segment, holding a 46.3% market share as of December 2025.

Tata Motors expects to outperform the industry, targeting mid-teens growth for FY26.

The Sierra is a primary volume driver, having secured over 70,000 bookings on its first day. Production is being ramped up to meet this demand.

Other growth levers include the Punch facelift, the introduction of petrol variants for Harrier and Safari, and a re-entry into the fleet segment.

The pain in the JLR business continues to persist. Following the cyber incident that significantly impacted Q3, production at key plants (Solihull and Nitra) has fully normalised.

The management expects Q4 FY26 production to return to normal levels with no residual issues from the cyber event. JLR is entering a significant launch phase. Deliveries are scheduled to commence this year. JLR continues to face challenges in the Chinese market.

From a financial perspective, revenue declined 25.8% YoY to 70,100 crore, weighed down by JLR. The India business delivered its best-ever revenue of 15,320 crore in Q3 FY26, up 24%.

Wholesale volumes increased 22.5%, while EV volumes grew 50%. JLR volumes, on the other hand, declined 43.4%. The Ebitda margin declined 80 bps to 7%, while the profit before tax was flat at 300 crore.

Also Read | Aftershocks from the JLR cyberattack batter Tata Motors PV

Bottomline

These companies illustrate how scale, brand strength, and good execution can shape outcomes across cycles in the auto sector.

Each business reflects a different approach to growth, through exports, premiumisation, electric mobility, or capacity expansion, while operating within the same evolving industry environment.

That said, the recent increase in commodity prices could act as a headwind.

Observing how large, established players navigate shifts in demand, technology, and regulations can provide insight into the broader direction of India's auto sector.

However, instead of relying on hype, investors need to carefully analyse the company's fundamentals, including financial performance, corporate governance practices, and growth strategies.

Happy investing.

Disclaimer: This article is for information purposes only. It is not a stock recommendation and should not be treated as such.

This article is syndicated from Equitymaster.com
Buy or sell stocks: The Indian stock market traded cautiously positive on Monday, with benchmark indices opening higher after the announcement of an interim framework for the IndiaUS trade deal. Supportive cues from broader Asian markets also helped sustain the positive momentum through the session. However, despite the early uptick, participation remained selective, as investors refrained from aggressive positioning ahead of key global and domestic macro cues.

Sectoral action remained positive, with buying interest in PSU banks, consumer durables, realty, defence, pharma and auto stocks, while IT stocks showed mixed trends amid ongoing assessment of global technology developments. Overall, the market appears to be in a phase of gradual recovery and consolidation, with the near-term direction likely to be driven by global macro developments, currency movements and the sustainability of risk-on sentiment reflected in foreign fund flows.

Stock market today Vaishali Parekh, Vice President  Technical Research at Prabhudas Lilladher, believes the Indian stock market sentiment is positive, and an optimistic approach may fuel the Nifty 50 index towards its peak zone of 26,350. The Prabhudas Lilladher expert said the Nifty 50 index is facing a hurdle in the 25,800-25,850 zone.

Speaking on the outlook of the Nifty 50 today, Vaishali Parekh said, The Nifty 50 index witnessed a gap-up opening near the 25,900 zone and remained rangebound with bias maintained strong, with active participation witnessed from the broader markets to support the benchmark index and anticipating a further rise in the coming days. The index would have the near-term support near the 100-period MA at the 25,500 zone, and on the upside, with overall bias and trend maintained with an optimistic approach, can retest the previous peak zone near the 26350 levels in the coming days.

On the outlook of the Bank Nifty today, Parekh said, The Bank Nifty index opened on a strong note near the 60800 zone with SBI leading from the front and PSU Banks also showing active participation to improve the overall sentiment, expecting further gains in the coming days. On the downside, the index would have the important near-term support at the 59,500 zone, which needs to be sustained, and, on the upside, can retest the recent peak zone near 61800 levels with most of the frontline banking stocks poised for further gains.

Parekh stated that immediate support for the Nifty 50 index is located at 25,700, while the resistance level is at 26,100. The Bank Nifty is expected to have a daily range of 60,000 to 61,400.

Vaishali Parekh's stock recommendations for today Regarding stocks to buy today, Vaishali Parekh recommended three buy or sell stocks for intraday trading: PI Industries, Samvardhana Motherson, and Cipla.

1] PI Industries: Buy at 3214, Target 3500, Stop Loss 3100;

2] Samvardhana Motherson: Buy at 122, Target 128, Stop Loss 120; and

3] Cipla: Buy at 1348, Target 1365, Stop Loss 1335.
Eternal share price rallied as much as 6.70% to 308.05 apiece in Tuesday's session on heavy trading volumes. According to data available on NSE, the trading volume of the stock stood at 9.91 crores as of 3.15 pm. Meanwhile, on the BSE, total traded shares came in at 48 lakh, more than double the two-week average of 22.21 lakh shares.

The new-age stock opened at 291 in the early morning session on Tuesday, as compared to the previous close of 288.85.

According to a report by Moneycontrol, a large block deal was executed in Eternal, wherein 1.19 crore shares of the company changed hands. The block deal was worth close to 344 crore, the report added. However, Mint could not independently verify this.

Eternal stock has surged over 8.37% in the past five sessions and 6.61% in a month, signalling investor interest in the counter following its Q3 results and leadership change.

Eternal's recent business developments According to a Business Standard report, Eternal on Monday announced the launch of a dedicated AI-powered hotline aimed at streamlining the onboarding process for delivery partners. According to a company statement, as quoted by BS, the call triggers an AI-enabled WhatsApp journey through which onboarding and background verification are completed within minutes.

On February 6, the company informed in an exchange filing that Zomato Netherlands B.V., a step-down subsidiary of Eternal, has been officially dissolved.

We wish to inform you that Zomato Netherlands B.V., a step-down subsidiary of Eternal Limited (formerly known as Zomato Limited) has been dissolved with effect from January 27, 2026. The Company received communication confirming the same yesterday, i.e., February 05, 2026, it said.

Meanwhile, on January 21, Deepinder Goyal stepped down as the company's managing director and CEO.

I am writing to formally tender my resignation as Director, MD & CEO of the Company, along with various committees I am a part of, effective from the close of business hours on February 1, 2026, Goyal said in an exchange filing.

Goyal further informed that Albinder Dhindsa (Albi) will be Eternal's new Group CEO.

Eternal Q3 results 2026 highlights The company posted a robust set of earnings for the December quarter. Eternal's Q3 net profit grew 73% year-on-year (YoY) to 102 crore for the December quarter.

Consolidated revenue from operations surged more than threefold to 16,315 crore, compared with 5,405 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.

Consolidated adjusted EBITDA rose 28% YoY and 63% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) to 364 crore. Business-to-consumer NOV (net order value) climbed 55% YoY and 11% QoQ to 25,732 crore, surpassing an annualised run rate of 1 lakh crore, the company said.

The company added that the recovery in food delivery NOV growth continued, with Q3FY26 NOV increasing 16.6% YoY and 4.5% QoQ. Gross order value (GOV) expanded 21.3% year-on-year and 5.2% sequentially.

Eternal noted that its quick commerce NOV growth remained strong at 121% YoY and 14% QoQ, despite the impact of GST changes and seasonal factors.

"Like-for-like NOV growth stood at 130%+ YoY. As many as 211 net new stores were added in the quarter, taking the total store count to 2,027 stores as at the end of the quarter (about 70 stores short of our guidance of 2,100 stores)," said the company.

Eternal share price: Should you buy or sell? Brokerage firm Emkay Global Financial Services has maintained a buy rating on the Eternal stock; however, it cut the target price by 14% to 370 from 430.

We remain convinced about the long-term opportunity in QCom in India, strong underlying unit economics of the business at maturity, and Blinkits superior execution versus other players. However, we are concerned about the near-term increase in competitive intensity due to new entrants. The QCom industry is in a land-grab phase, which means that the path to optimal profitability will be slow, and volatile, in our view. The stock trades at 38x FY28 EV/EBITDA. We maintain BUY, but cut TP by 14% to Rs370, the firm said in a recent report.

Also Read | Elitecon International share price hits 5% upper circuit for third straight day

Meanwhile, brokerage firm Axis Securities has also given buy rating to the stock, with a target price 360, saying that Zomato has built a resilient business model by securing multiple strategic verticals and delivering broad-based growth, from long-term prespective.

Near-term challenges, such as rising competitive intensity and rapid store expansion, are likely to keep profitability under pressure. Consequently, we recommend BUY and value the stock at 360/share based on an SOTP valuation, implying a 27% return from the CMP, the brokerage firm added.
A short video clip circulating on X shows Larry Fink, chairman and chief executive officer of BlackRock, speaking in an interview with CNBC, where he downplayed the obsession with short-term market movements and fears around asset bubbles.

The clip, shared by an X user Documenting Saylor, captured Fink urging investors to focus on participation over prediction, particularly at a time when technology stocks and cryptocurrencies continue to see sharp swings.

Its not about our markets going up and down is there a bubble in crypto or is there a bubble in technology its about being in the market throughout the cycle, he said in the clip. The comment reflects a view he has consistently held: that attempts to time markets often do more harm than good for long-term investors.

Larry Fink is among the most influential figures in global finance. As co-founder, chairman and CEO of BlackRock. His public comments on markets, investing behaviour and economic trends are closely watched by institutional investors, policymakers and retail participants alike.

Fink's Investment Strategy Fink has long argued that wealth creation is driven by staying invested through full market cycles rather than reacting to short-term volatility.

Speaking at a fireside chat in Mumbai alongside Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, Fink urged investors to look beyond short-term volatility and focus on what he described as the era of India. He argued that sustained participation in capital markets, rather than attempts to time entries and exits, is central to long-term wealth creation.

Also Read | DIIs overtake FIIs in Nifty50: How SIP flows are reshaping Indian stock markets

According to Fink, capital that remains parked in low-yield savings instruments or on the sidelines fails to benefit from compounding, which has historically driven superior outcomes over long investment horizons.

He has also extended this thinking to technology and artificial intelligence. While acknowledging that some companies and business models may fail, Fink has said he does not see AI as a broad speculative bubble. Instead, he has warned that underinvestment could prove more damaging, particularly as global competition in AI accelerates and the technology becomes embedded across industries.

Finks comments on crypto, technology, AI and emerging markets reflect a single, consistent philosophy: markets will always be volatile, narratives will constantly shift, but long-term participation is what allows capital to compound. As debates around bubbles flare up once again, the BlackRock CEOs viral reminder serves as a counterpoint to short-term panicurging investors to stay the course through the full market cycle.
The Indian stock market benchmark indices, Sensex and Nifty 50, are likely to open higher on Tuesday, tracking positive global market cues.

The trends on Gift Nifty also indicate a strong start for the Indian benchmark index. The Gift Nifty was trading around 25,990 level, a premium of nearly 75 points from the Nifty futures previous close.

On Monday, the Indian stock market ended higher, with the Nifty 50 closing above 25,850 level.

The Sensex rallied 485.35 points, or 0.58%, to close at 84,065.75, while the Nifty 50 settled 173.60 points, or 0.68%, higher at 25,867.30.

Heres what to expect from Sensex, Nifty 50, and Bank Nifty today:

Sensex Prediction Sensex crossed the psychological 84,000 mark for the first time in several sessions, supported by a recovery in high-beta financials and heavyweight industrials.

Market breadth remained healthy, with the advance-decline ratio favoring the bulls, suggesting that mid-cap stocks are finding favor once again. Immediate support for Sensex is now at the 83,500  83,700 zone. On the upside, reclaiming and sustaining the 84,400  84,500 resistance zone is essential for a complete trend reversal toward previous all-time highs, said Mayank Jain, Market Analyst, Share.Market.

Nifty OI Data In the derivatives segment, significant put writing at the 25,800 strike and strong call writing at the 26,000 strike define a narrow near-term trading range.

Overall, traders are advised to adopt a buy-on-dips approach near key support levels and wait for a decisive breakout above resistance before initiating fresh directional positions, said Aakash Shah, Technical Research Analyst at Choice Equity Broking.

Nifty 50 Prediction Nifty 50 formed a Doji candle, indicating indecision among market participants.

A small red candle was formed on the daily chart with a gap up opening. After a massive rally and a consolidation in the early part of February, the market bounced back smartly and sustained above the hurdle of 25,800 levels. The opening upside gap of 3rd February is still open partially and that has been added with Mondays up gap. This is a positive indication and signals a formation of bullish runaway gap, which are normally formed in the middle of uptrend, said Nagaraj Shetti, Senior Technical Research Analyst at HDFC Securities.

According to him, the underlying trend of Nifty 50 remains positive, and the next upside levels to be watched are around 26,000 and 26,350 in the near term. Immediate support is placed at 25,700.

Nilesh Jain, Head  Technical and Derivatives Research Analyst (Equity Research), Centrum Broking Ltd. noted that the Nifty 50 index reclaimed its 50-DMA placed around 25,795, which is likely to act as immediate support.

Momentum indicators remain supportive, with the MACD already signaling a buy crossover and the RSI sustaining above the 50 level. The overall structure appears positive, with an upside potential towards 26,000, a decisive break above this level could trigger short covering and lead the index towards 26,200, said Jain.

Mayank Jain said that the immediate support for Nifty 50 is placed in the 25,750  25,800 range, where the 25,800 Put strike has seen significant Open Interest (OI) buildup, reinforcing it as a key floor.

Conversely, immediate resistance is visible in the 25,950  26,000 range, with a formidable hurdle at 26,000 where Call writers remain most aggressive. A decisive daily close above 26,000 would be required to trigger a fresh rally toward the 26,300 level, said Jain.

Bank Nifty Prediction Bank Nifty index ended 548.80 points, or 0.91%, higher at 60,669.35 on Monday, and the index is holding above all key moving averages, with a positive crossover among short-term moving averages.

For Bank Nifty, the immediate resistance is placed in the 60,800  60,900 zone, making it a crucial supply area to watch. Any sustained move above this zone could lead to Index continuing its up move on the upside towards 61,300, followed by 61,600 in the near term. On the downside, the zone of 60,40060,300 zone is likely to act as a strong support, said Sudeep Shah, Head - Technical and Derivatives Research at SBI Securities.

Om Mehra, Technical Research Analyst, SAMCO Securities noted that the rebound from recent lows on daily chart has retraced toward the 0.236 Fibonacci level near 60,830 and the 0.382 level around 60,250, where the index is currently stabilising.

Also Read | Stock recommendations for 10 February from MarketSmith India

Holding above these retracement levels indicates that the pullback is being absorbed within the broader uptrend. The RSI is placed near 60, holding comfortably above the mid-zone, while the DMI setup shows the positive directional line firmly above the negative line. The ADX is near 20, indicating steady but controlled trend strength. The hourly chart continues to reflect a bullish setup, said Mehra.

According to him, the immediate support is placed in the 60,300  60,200 zone, followed by a stronger base near 59,600, which aligns with key Fibonacci and moving-average levels. On the upside, 60,90061,100 remains the immediate resistance band.

Nifty Bank remains positioned close to its record highs. A buy-on-dips approach may remain preferable in the near term, as long as 59,640 is protected, he added.
Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha has demanded that the government abolish the Long-Term Capital Gains Tax (LTCG) on equities for individual investors. The demand comes after the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced an increase in Securities Transaction Tax (STT) on derivatives trading in the Union Budget 2026-2027.

Speaking during the Budget discussion in the upper house of the Parliament, the Aam Aadmi Party MP welcomed the STT hike on futures & options (F&O) trading, but urged the Finance Minister to make LTCG on equities nil for individual investors, in line with many other countries, to avoid disincentivising investors.

STT was introduced in 2004 by the then Finance Minister P. Chidambaram to replace LTCG and curb tax evasion, covering equity and derivatives.

Also Read | NSE hopes govt will review STT hike on equity futures

On February 1, 2026, FM Sitharaman proposed increasing STT by 150% on futures transactions and by 50% on options transactions. As per the Budget proposal, STT on futures will be increased to 0.05% from 0.02%, and STT on options transactions will be raised to 0.15% from 0.01%.

Chadha praised the governments move to hike the STT on F&O trades, as it can curb reckless speculation, noting that nearly 90% of retail investors lose money in derivatives.

I welcome the hike in STT (security transaction tax) on derivatives as it can curb reckless speculation. Nearly 90% of retail investors lose money in F&O, turning markets into gambling. When STT was originally introduced, LTCG was zero. But now with both STT and LTCG in place, investors are disincentivised. I urge the govt to abolish LTCG on equities for individuals, as done in Switzerland, Singapore, UAE & others, Chadha wrote in a post on X, with a video of his Rajya Sabha speech on Monday, February 9.

Also Read | STT hike further stacks the odds against retail traders

He believes this will boost household wealth, reduce speculation, and shift savings from gold and real estate into equities.

My Demand: Make Long Term Capital Gain TAX on Equities NIL for individual investor, Chadha wrote.
The government brought unit-linked insurance plans (Ulips) under the tax net in 2021 to discourage their sale as investment-only products and to bring some parity with mutual funds, an investment product they are often pitted against.

Now, maturity proceeds from high-value Ulips are taxed as capital gains under the current rules. So, if you purchase a Ulip with an annual premium of at least 2.5 lakh, the maturity proceeds are now taxed as capital gains. In other words, your gains will be taxed at 12.5% after the first 1.25 lakh. For lower-ticket Ulips, the maturity proceeds will remain tax-exempt as long as the sum assured is at least 10 times the annual premium. Death proceedsor money the nominees getremain tax-free regardless of the ticket size.

While high-value Ulips have come under the tax radar, they continue to enjoy certain advantages over mutual funds purely from a taxation standpoint. First, the capital gains tax is a flat 12.5% and does not vary even for debt exposure within a Ulip. Second, you do not incur capital gains tax when switching between fund options within the same Ulip.

This also explains why Ulips are increasingly adopting a mutual fund-like approach, launching new fund offers and mirroring the categorization seen in mutual funds. But before you choose a Ulip for its tax advantage and fund switching flexibility, understand the product limitations and why a simpler route of mutual funds may still offer a more hygienic approach to investing.

The tax advantage

Ulip is a bundled investment product that comes with a wrapper of life insurance. Unlike traditional products, the costs are transparent. Upfront costs like policy allocation charges are deducted from the premium that you pay, and the rest is invested in the funds of your choice. The remaining costs, such as mortality costs and fund management costs, are then deducted from the invested corpus.

Also Read | How a three-digit score became your financial passport

Earlier, Ulips usually offered three broad categories of aggressive, moderate, and conservative options, but now, Ulips offer mutual funds like new fund offers (NFOs). The number of fund options has more than doubled, in line with the growth in mutual fund schemes. To offer investors a variety for different market situations, NFOs are being launched in Ulips," said Naveen Goel, co-founder and chief executive of insurance aggregator PolicyX.com.

What works squarely in favour of Ulips is the tax-free switching between funds and the associated tax advantages. So, if you wish to move from an aggressive to a conservative strategy, or even from large-cap to small-cap exposure, you can do so within the same Ulip without triggering capital gains tax.

In contrast, a mutual fund investor would need to redeem units, incur capital gains tax, depending on whether the fund is equity or debt and the holding period, and then reinvest in another fund. Such tax leakages can meaningfully hurt long-term returns.

Its also important to note that high-value Ulip investors incur only one type of capital gains tax, at 12.5%, after the first 1.25 lakh (across all capital assets) is tax-exempt. In other words, while a debt fund investor in mutual funds will end up paying tax at the slab rate (for purchases made post April 2023), Ulip investors with exposure only to debt funds will continue to pay tax at 12.5%.

View Full Image It's important to note that for other non-Ulips insurance cum investment products, the maturity proceeds are taxable at slab rates if the annual premium exceeds  5 lakh and the policies are issued after April 2023.

Ulips are long-term investment products, hence the distinction between short-term and long-term tax won't apply. Even though Ulips have debt and equity investments both, the Finance Bill 2025 terms it as a capital asset, unlike debt mutual funds, and taxes the same at 12.5% for high-premium Ulips for the maturity benefit handed over from 1 April 2026," said Raju Shah, partner at RCSPH & Associates.

It's important to note that for other non-Ulips insurance cum investment products, the maturity proceeds are taxable at slab rates if the annual premium exceeds 5 lakh and the policies are issued after April 2023.

Individuals in the maximum tax slab are happy even with high-premium Ulips being taxed as they can switch between fund options as many times as they want without attracting capital gains tax until final withdrawal or maturity," said Ajay Sehgal, managing director at Allegiance Financial.

While switching between funds will require an understanding of the markets and investment goals, the flexibility is clearly a selling point. Individuals who are looking for long-term investment are willing to take advantage of low fund management charges and free fund switches of such plans to achieve their long-term objective," said Satishwar B., managing director and CEO of Bandhan Life Insurance Ltd.

But costs bite

Ulips come with tax advantages, but from a structural standpoint, the product has limitations.

Also Read | Why under-priced group health insurance hurts policyholders

Devang Shah, 43, whose 7 lakh Ulip investment grew by only 4.4 lakh since 2017, experienced it first-hand. His investment in mutual funds invested in a similar theme had returned far more, and thats when he realized how early upfront costs can eat into the returns.

The portion of invested money is higher in mutual funds as under Ulips one loses 10-15% in the first year itself, which excludes mortality premium. Additionally, 4-5% arent invested in the subsequent year due to charges," said Shilpa Arora, chief operating officer at Insurance Samadhan.

This, according to Deepali Sen, certified financial planner and founder of Srujan Financial Services Llp, means that Ulips lose out on the most productive years due to expenses. The compounding gains are the highest in the first five years," she explained.

It should be noted that while Ulips have fund management charges in the range of 0.5-1.25%, there are many other charges applicable, including premium allocation, policy administration, mortality/risk charge, miscellaneouscharges, and even switching charges beyond the free switches annually, which can meaningfully impact returns. Make sure you take note of these costs as well.

But cost is not the only setback; Ulips also come with a tiny sliver of insurance that doesn't really cater to any real insurance need. Shahs life insurance cover was hardly 10 lakh, which isnt sufficient to cover his housing loan and the family's overall income-replacement needs in case of an untoward event.

Strict lock-ins

By itself, a long-term product lock-in may not hurt, but when accompanied by unscrupulous sales tactics, it may feel like a trap. One cant surrender and withdraw Ulip during the initial five years. The elderly are sold Ulip claiming it is a fixed deposit, but during medical emergencies, they cant withdraw," said Arora.

And this is not a one-off. According to Tarun Bahri, co-founder and CEO of Policy Exchange, a premium funding firm, many investors do not have the funds to continue paying the premium. About 40% of investors approaching us want to exit Ulip, while 20% take a loan against the policy to keep funding premium," he said.

This fact has also been captured by the Reserve Bank of Indias Financial Stability Report. According to the December 2025 report, a significant 37% of life insurance payouts in 2024-25 came from early exits, surrenders, and withdrawals rather than from policy maturities (35%) or death claims (7.5%), indicating dissatisfaction.

The way out

Despite the obvious advantage of Ulips, financial planners recommend keeping your needs separate. Pure term life insurance and separate investments are far more valuable than the tax-outgo claims of financial planners.

Also Read | Investors can use these mutual funds to override their behavioural biases

It is better to keep investment and insurance separate due to both the expense ratio and the inertia to move out despite a lack of performance. Under Ulip, one cant move out of one fund management style to choose another. One shouldnt make taxation the focal point for objective investment allocation, but performance and the ability to move out if need be," said Vivek Rege, founder and CEO of V R Wealth Advisors.
Over a month after facing massive disruptions in its flight operations, IndiGo said on Tuesday, February 10, it maintains an optimal staffing level to ensure smooth and stable operations. The statement comes as regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation's (DGCA) temporary pilot duty norm relaxations for the country's largest airline come to an end.

Multiple reasons including inadequate regulatory preparedness, deficiencies in system software support and shortcomings in management structure and operational control at IndiGo had led to the December disruptions. The watchdog had also curtailed the carrier's winter schedule flights by 10 per cent.

Certain relaxations in implementing FDTL norms were approved until February 10 as the airline saw 2,507 flights cancellations between December 3 and 5. IndiGo, which saw its domestic market share slump to 59.6 per cent in December from 63.6 per cent in November, operates around 2,200 flights daily.

On January 20, the DGCA said sustained regulatory oversight as well as corrective measures have helped stabilise operations at IndiGo, and the airline now has an adequate number of pilots to ensure compliance with the new flight duty norms without disruptions.

The watchdog had then said that there were 2,400 pilots in Command (PICs) as against the requirement for 2,280, and the number of First Officers was 2,240 compared to the requirement for 2,050.

An airline spokesperson said, As assured to the regulatory authorities earlier, we are maintaining an optimum pool of employees, including pilots, to ensure stable operations across our network. Also Read | IndiGo didn't raise red flags before cancellations, govt tells Parliament  Will set an example'

The airline was also given temporary exemption, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Murlidhar Mohol told the Rajya Sabha.

He said that the temporary exemption was given from the "provisions of Clauses 3.11 and 6.1.4 of FDTL CAR 7/J/III ...up to 10.02.2026 solely to support operational stabilisation in view of public interest".

These clauses pertain to night duty time for pilots and flight landings in night time.

The Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP) has emphasised the importance of implementing the revised FDTL without providing any exemptions to address pilot fatigue issues.

"The importance of FDTL cannot be over emphasised and all regulatory bodies strictly follow these rules in the interest of pax safety. The growing aviation sector in the country must ensure safety through total implementation of rules and increased oversight of the air operators. Air safety should always be non-negotiable," FIP President C S Randhawa said in a letter to Civil Aviation Secretary Samir Kumar Sinha on Sunday.
Amid ongoing disputes over late industrialist Sunjay Kapurs inheritance, the Delhi High Court on Tuesday asked his mother, wife and family members to "peacefully" resolve their differences.

Calling it a "sorry" situation, the High Court said they must not let God's "blessing" of financial wealth turn into a "curse".

Justice Mini Pushkarna asked the counsels of Sunjay Kapur's mother Rani Kapur, wife Priya Kapur, and his sister Mandhira Kapur Smith to sit together to resolve the issues in a manner that everyone's interest was safeguarded.

Financial blessing should not become a curse, says HC "Any chance of mediation? Dirty linen is being washed in court. God has blessed you with financial wealth," the court said during the hearing.

Also Read | Priya Sachdeva files defamation case against Sunjay Kapur's sister

"All of you should try to respect relations ...Way forward is resolution in a peaceful manner. Blessing should not become a curse. Efforts need to be from both sides," the court orally observed.

The High Court was hearing a lawsuit filed by 80-year-old Rani Kapur against her daughter-in-law, Priya Kapur, and others, seeking that their purported family trust be declared "null and void".

Rani Kapur, in her lawsuit, alleged that the "RK Family Trust", which was established in her name in October 2017, was a product of "forged, fabricated and fraudulent" documents.

Sunjay Kapur's mother also alleged that she had been wrongly divested of all her rights, assets and legacy.

During the hearing, Justice Pushkarna observed that Priya Kapur should see that it was the plaintiff's husband who "founded everything" and the fruits of his labour should be shared by all.

Sunjay Kapur passed away on 12 June 2025 after collapsing during a polo match in England. He reportedly suffered a sudden cardiac arrest.

The HC issued notice to Rani Kapur on an application by Priya Kapur seeking rejection of the lawsuit. It also issued notice to Priya Kapur and other defendants on Rani Kapur's application to stay the disbursal of dividends of a company to the daughter-in-law and to preserve the estate.

Rani Kapur has sought a direction from the HC to permanently restrain the defendants  her daughter-in-law Priya Kapur and others, including grandchildren, from utilising or acting in furtherance of the "RK Family Trust" in any manner whatsoever.

Also Read | Priya Sachdev says Rani gets over 21 lakh a month amid Sunjay Kapur family row

Rani Kapur claimed that she was the sole beneficiary of the entire estate of her late husband, Surinder Kapur, who was the promoter of several businesses, including the 'Sona Group of Companies', and a "systematic fraud" was committed on her when the assets were transferred to the Trust.

"By means of a complex web of illegal transactions undertaken by the defendant Nos. 1 to 9 (Priya Kapur and others) in an unfortunate collusion with the plaintiff's now deceased son, late Mr. Sunjay Kapur, all the plaintiff's assets vest in one fraudulent trust titled - RK Family Trust, without her knowledge," the lawsuit said.
Chief Justice of India Surya Kant remarked on Tuesday that when elections come, they are often fought in the Supreme Court. He made the statement when a plea against Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma was mentioned in the court.

Himanta Sarma got embroiled in a controversy after the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) X handle posted a video with the caption: Point blank shot.

The video, which went viral in no time, reportedly showed Sarma taking aim and firing with a rifle at members of a particular community. The video has been taken down after the backlash.

Sarma was also accused of making discriminatory remarks against the Muslim community.

According to Bar and Bench, the chief minister allegedly said at a public gathering that four to five lakh Miya voters would be removed from the electoral rolls and that Hemant Biswa Sarma and the BJP are directly against Miyas.

The term Miya is used to address Muslims in a derogatory manner.

The controversy erupted ahead of the Assam Assembly Elections, which will take place this year.

'Elections often fought in Supreme Court'  what's the case? The Communist Party of India (Marxist) moved the Supreme Court seeking directions against Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma over the derogatory remarks.

A bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and NV Anjaria took note of the submissions of lawyer Nizam Pasha, appearing for a few CPI and CPI(M) leaders, against Sarma and said it will consider listing the plea, news agency ANI reported.

"We seek urgent intervention of this court with respect to disturbing speeches made by the sitting CM of Assam, including a recent video posted where he is shown as shooting at members of a particular community. Complaints filed, but no FIR is registered," the lawyer was quoted by Live Law as saying.

Meanwhile, CJI Surya Kant said, The problem is, as soon as elections come, part of the election is fought in the Supreme Court. That is the problem. We will find out and will give a date.

Earlier, Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind had also moved court against Sarma's speech, Bar and Bench reported. According to their submissions, hate speech targeting religious communities and personalities constitutes an aggravated constitutional wrong.

Owaisi files complaint against Assam CM On Monday, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi lodged an official complaint with the Hyderabad police, seeking criminal action against Himanta Biswa Sarma over a now-deleted video, describing it as "genocidal hate speech".

In a post on X, Owaisi said he had approached the Hyderabad City Police Commissioner on Monday, alleging that the video showed Sarma symbolically shooting at persons "very obviously depicted as Muslims."

"I have lodged an official complaint with @CPHydCity demanding criminal action against Himanta Sarma for his (now deleted) violent video showing him shooting Muslims. Unfortunately, genocidal hate speech has become the norm."

He also claimed that the imagery and phrases used in the video, including "Point blank shot" and "No Mercy", were intended to outrage religious feelings, promote communal hatred, and incite violence.

Assam CM reacts  I am ready to go to jail Reacting to Owaisi filing an official complaint with the police against him, Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Monday that he has no objection to being arrested and asserted that he stands by his words that he is against Bangladeshi infiltrators.
Nazrin Abdul



US-Azerbaijani trade relations have recently entered a new and more structured phase. The first bilateral business mission between Azerbaijan and the United States, organized toward the end of last month, marked an important milestone in institutionalizing economic dialogue between the two countries. The mission focused on key strategic sectors, including energy and digital transformation, defense and transport, agriculture and healthcare, finance, and investments - areas that reflect both Azerbaijans diversification agenda and US global commercial priorities.

Within the framework of the US Chamber of Commerce business mission to Azerbaijan, a high-level roundtable was held at the Ministry of Economy. The delegation was led by Kush Choksi, Senior Vice President of the US Chamber of Commerce for the Middle East, Central Asia, and Turkiye. During the discussions, it was emphasized that AzerbaijanUS relations, supported by the political will of both governments, have evolved to the level of a strategic partnership. This political foundation has created favorable conditions for broadening economic cooperation beyond its traditional energy-centered model.

From an analytical perspective, the emphasis on macroeconomic stability and sustainable development during the roundtable was not coincidental. Azerbaijan is positioning itself as a predictable and reform-oriented economy at a time when global investors are increasingly sensitive to risk, supply chain disruptions, and regulatory uncertainty. The countrys efforts to expand the non-oil and gas sector - combined with incentives for entrepreneurs, digitalization reforms, and investment-friendly policies -signal a clear intention to attract long-term, technology-driven foreign capital rather than short-term speculative inflows.

Transport and logistics also emerged as a strategic theme. Azerbaijans geographic location and expanding transport corridors offer US companies potential access to wider regional markets, including Central Asia and Europe. New transport connections are expected to increase Azerbaijans relevance not only as a trading partner but also as a transit hub, adding a geopolitical dimension to economic cooperation.

US company representatives expressed satisfaction with Azerbaijans business environment and signaled strong interest in deepening partnerships. The participation of executives from global corporations such as Apple, ExxonMobil, bp, Boeing, Visa, Mastercard, Shell, Meta, and Honeywell underscores the breadth of US commercial interest. This diversity suggests that bilateral relations are gradually moving from sector-specific engagement toward a more comprehensive economic partnership.

The current momentum can be traced back to the Memorandum of Understanding signed on August 8, 2025, which laid the groundwork for intensified cooperation in strategic investment and regional economic integration. Notably, the scope of cooperation now includes artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, and advanced technologies - areas that could redefine the future trajectory of AzerbaijanUS economic relations.

Trade structure and current dynamics

Despite the growing political and strategic dialogue, trade figures indicate that AzerbaijanUS trade remains asymmetric and concentrated. According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), Azerbaijan exported a total of $27.2 billion in 2024, ranking 71st globally. Exports to the United States totaled $74.9 million, dominated by aluminum plating ($31.7 million), explosive ammunition ($8.13 million), petroleum resins ($6.51 million), ferroalloys ($6.79 million), and diamonds ($2.51 million).

This export structure reflects limited product diversification and highlights the challenge Azerbaijan faces in scaling up non-energy exports to the US market. While Azerbaijan is the largest US trading partner in the South Caucasus, its share in total US imports remains modest, indicating untapped potential rather than underperformance.

Historically, energy has been the backbone of bilateral economic relations. Since Azerbaijan regained independence in 1991, US companies have played a pivotal role in developing the countrys oil and gas sector. Over time, this cooperation has expanded, but energy still defines the strategic core of the relationship.

The United States is Azerbaijans second-largest investor, with over 250 US-invested companies registered in the country. Foundational agreements, including the 1993 Agreement on Commercial Relations and the 1997 Agreement on the Protection and Promotion of Mutual Investments, have provided legal stability and investor confidence. The AzerbaijanUS Economic Partnership Commission, established in 2007, has further strengthened institutional ties through regular meetings in Baku and Washington.

Trade trends: Rapid growth, structural imbalance

Trade statistics over recent years show rapid growth, particularly on the import side:

Year Import Export Trade turnover

2022 $479.8M $90.3M $570.1M

2023 $888.1M $16.0M $904.1M

2024 $1,617.93M $135.03M $1,752.96M

The sharp increase in trade turnover in 2024 indicates intensifying economic interaction. However, the persistent trade deficit highlights Azerbaijans reliance on US high-value imports such as machinery, aircraft, engines, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, and advanced technologies. While these imports support modernization and productivity gains, they also underline the need for Azerbaijan to enhance export competitiveness in value-added sectors.

Azerbaijans exports to the US - ranging from crude oil and agricultural products to carpets, textiles, chemical goods, and electronic equipment - remain fragmented. Expanding these exports will likely require compliance with stricter US standards, branding strategies, and deeper integration into global value chains.

Beyond trade: Technology and energy security

Cooperation in space and high technology represents another strategic layer of the relationship. Partnerships with US companies such as Orbital Sciences Corporation and Space Systems/Loral for the Azerspace-1 and Azerspace-2 satellites demonstrate that bilateral cooperation extends into advanced technological domains.

Energy cooperation remains the cornerstone. US participation in the Contract of the Century and support for the Southern Gas Corridor underline Washingtons recognition of Azerbaijans role in regional and European energy security. Continued US involvement in projects such as AzeriChiragGunashli and the extension of production-sharing agreements signal that energy, while evolving, will remain central to the partnership.

In conclusion, US- Azerbaijan trade relations are transitioning from an energy-dominated model toward a more diversified and strategic framework. While trade volumes are growing rapidly, the qualitative transformation of exports and deeper integration into high-value sectors will determine the long-term sustainability of this relationship. If current reforms and investment initiatives translate into concrete projects, US -Azerbaijan economic cooperation may enter a new phase - one defined not only by energy security, but also by innovation, connectivity, and shared strategic interests.
Former Union Minister and BJP MP Narayan Rane was admitted to a private hospital in Mumbai on Tuesday after he complained of uneasiness, news agency PTI said, quoting unnamed sources.

Rane, 73, was moved to Jaslok Hospital in the afternoon, where doctors, after an initial check-up, recommended his admission for further treatment, the report said.

The hospital has not yet issued any health bulletin.

The Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg MP has significantly reduced his public appearances since winning the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

Who is Narayan Rane? Last month, Rane dropped hints about retirement, claiming he had now "decided to sit at home" and look after his family's business interests.

Rane was a Union Cabinet Minister in Narendra Modi-led Union Government, handling the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) portfolio from 2021 until June 2024.

Earlier, he served as a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha (20182024) and held ministerial positions in the Maharashtra state government, including Chief Minister in 1999 and various cabinet roles like Industry and Revenue.

Rane began his political career with the Shiv Sena, rising through the ranks in Maharashtra, before later joining the Congress and eventually forming his own outfit, the Maharashtra Swabhiman Paksha. His party merged with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2019, aligning him with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

Known for his strong base in the Konkan region and his long political journey across party lines, he has been both a state leadership figure and a national-level leader within the BJP

(With PTI inputs)
Former Chief Minister of Punjab Capt Amarinder Singh has been admitted to a hospital in Mohali. Amarinder Singh was admitted to Fortis Hospital on Monday, February 9, and according to the reports, the former chief minister has been admitted for a knee replacement surgery.

The knee surgery was done and Capt Amarinder Singh is now stable, a Tribune report said. Following the procedure, the former chief minister was moved to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) where he's being observed, a report said.

Transport Minister of Haryana Anil Vij had visited Capt Amarinder Singh in the hospital; a picture of their meeting had surfaced on social media. The image depicted Capt Amarinder Singh seated on a hospital bed, with Anil Vij standing beside him and conversing with him.

Also Read | Amarinder Singh accuses Punjab govt of doing nothing' on Khalistan issue

Amarinder Singh was recently in news when he called the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rigid, unlike the Congress which, he said, was more open to consultation. Congress, he said, used to consult its leaders and had a more democratic system.

The decisions are taken at the upper level, even in the Congress, the decisions were taken at the top level, but they used to consult us, everyone  MLAs, MPs views were taken. Here, I dont think anyone has asked.Congress is more flexible in taking views, the BJP, I find, is a bit rigid in its approach, he was quoted as saying by The Hindu.

I am not being consulted by the BJP. I have 60 years of political experience but I cannot force myself on them, Amarinder Singh was quoted as saying.

Also Read | Gurugram shocker: Man jumps to death from office building

Amid internal discord within the Punjab Congress, Amarinder Singh stepped down as chief minister in September 2021. The leadership change that brought Charanjit Singh Channi to the helm followed and Amarinder Singh quit the party and formed his own  the Punjab Lok Congress (PLC)  that eventually merged with the BJP in 2022.

Amarinder Singh joined the BJP in the presence of its senior leaders in Delhi. Amarinder Singh made the announcement of joining the BJP after he met Union Home Minister Amit Shah on September 12, 2022 in Delhi.
In a disturbing turn of events, two separate tragedies were reported from the Delhi suburb of Gurugram.

In the first incident, a manager at a private company reportedly plunged to his death from the eighth floor of his office building in Sector 49, while in the second incident, a 26-year-old female professional was discovered dead in her residence at GLS Society on Sohnas Damdama Road.

In the first case, local authorities identified the deceased as 34-year-old Varun Shankar, a Bengaluru native who held a managerial role in a firm situated near Spaze IT Park.

Police reports indicate that at approximately 4 AM on Tuesday, Shankar allegedly leapt from an eighth floor balcony, resulting in immediate death. No formal explanation or suicide note was found at the scene.

Officials from the Sector 50 police station arrived shortly after being alerted to the situation. They secured the site and transported the body to the mortuary for further examination. Currently, investigators are notifying Shankars family and questioning his colleagues to understand his final hours.

The police are also scrutinising his mobile phone records and reviewing CCTV recordings from the office building.

"We are examining the footage from the CCTV cameras installed in the office of the deceased. The postmortem will be conducted only after the family members arrive in Gurugram. Further action will be taken based on the facts that emerge in the case," said Inspector Sukhbir, Station House Officer, Sector 50 police station, according to a PTI report.

Woman kills herself In Sohna, a 26-year-old woman named Kiran allegedly took her own life in the GLS Society Complex. Her body was found suspended from a ceiling fan inside her apartment. Similar to the first incident, law enforcement confirmed that no suicide note was present at the location.

Kiran, originally from Faridabads Dabua Colony, was employed by an international firm based in the Rozka Meo Industrial Area. She shared a flat in Tower 4 with her brother, Akash, who is also a private sector employee. The siblings had reportedly attended a wedding on Sunday. Upon returning, Kiran retired to her room; however, when her brother checked on her at 8:00 AM the following morning, he discovered her body and immediately contacted the police.

Nepalese woman found hanging at PG accommodation in Gurugram A woman -- a resident of Nepal -- who arrived in Gurugram recently, allegedly died by suicide at a paying guest (PG) accommodation in Badshahpur police station area in Gurugram, an official said on Saturday.

According to police, the body was found hanging from a ceiling fan at the PG facility located on Fazilpur Road.

No suicide note has been found on the scene, the official said, adding that the body has been taken into custody and shifted to a mortuary and family of the deceased has been informed.

The deceased -- identified as Kalpana (23), a resident of Nepal -- had rented the room at the PG in Badshahpur area on February 2, police said.
The Indian Air Force's proposal for purchase of 114 more Rafale fighter jets will be brought before the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) ahead of the arrival of French President Emmanuel Macron.

Macron is scheduled to visit India for an AI Summit in New Delhi from February 15 to 17.

The DAC is headed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.

As per the proposal, India will purchase 18 off-the-shelf Rafales from French manufacturer Dassault Aviation, while the remaining 96 fighter jets will be made in partnership with private sector companies in India. A number of these jets would be twin-seater aircraft to be used for training.

The council is expected to accord Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) to the IAF for the acquisition of 114 Rafale multi-role fighter aircraft. Under Indias defence procurement rules, AoN from the council is the first formal step in the acquisition process. The approval from the Defence Procurement Board has already been granted.

Also Read | 3.25 lakh crore proposal for 114 Rafale jets to be discussed next week

After the DAC's nod, commercial negotiation is the next step; and then the plan will need clearance from the Cabinet Committee on Security chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Officials had earlier told Hindustan Times that the overall capability boost from the proposed 114-aircraft acquisition could cost around 3.25 lakh crore.

India already has 36 Rafale fighter jets, which were also deployed during Operation Sindoor against Pakistan. They were among the fighters which played a key role in India's strikes on terror and military installations in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir following the Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 people were killed.

Rafale jets are equipped with advanced weapons systems including Scalp missiles, Meteor air-to-air missiles and Hammer precision-guided bombs.

Also Read | 3.25 lakh crore proposal for 114 Rafale jets to be discussed next week

During Operation Sindoor, these weapons not only destroyed terror bases in Pakistan but also Pakistani aircrafts.

Last October, Air Chief Marshal AP Singh made a strong case for faster induction of new military hardware into the air force, including fighter jets.

He said the Rafale was one of the options to strengthen the IAFs combat fleet, while underlining the requirement for 114 multi-role fighter aircraft to be manufactured in India through a partnership between a foreign original equipment manufacturer and an Indian company.

The proposal is coming before DAC after it was given the green signal by the Defence Procurement Board last month. The DPB is headed by defence secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh.
Netflix India on Tuesday informed the Delhi High Court that the Manoj Bajpayeestarring film Ghooskhor Pandat will be renamed. The submission was made before Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav during a hearing on a petition seeking to halt the films release, citing its title as offensive and defamatory", as reported by PTI.

"The producer has taken a conscious decision in light of the concern that has arisen to change the title of the film from 'Ghooskhor Pandat' to an alternate title which more accurately reflects the film's narrative and intent," recorded Justice Kaurav in the order.

'Ghooskhor Pandat' is produced by filmmaker Neeraj Pandey.

Netflix's senior counsel further said the film, which is in editing stage, is a fictional police drama, and the title led to "unintended interruptions" which did not align with the film's content.

The court was informed that all promotional material has also been taken down.

In view of the stand taken by Netflix, the court closed the proceedings on the petition, observing that "nothing more was required to be adjudicated".

Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma, representing the Centre, told the court that the government had been informed that all promotional material related to the film had been withdrawn.

Netflixs announcement of the Neeraj Pandeydirected and produced film earlier this month triggered widespread backlash on social media, with many users calling the title casteist and offensive.

Petitioner Mahender Chaturvedi, an acharya by vocation, claimed that the "malicious" association of pandat with corruption and bribery was an attack on the reputation and dignity of his community.

The title, the petition argued, insulted religious and cultural identity, and creative liberty could not be used as a shield to propagate defamatory narratives.

In the petition, Chaturvedi sought a stay on the release and streaming of the film. He also prayed for a direction to the central government to take "appropriate action" against the OTT platform as per the law.

The impugned title 'Pandat' and content amount to collective defamation, as they deliberately associate a well-recognised religious and social designation with corruption and bribery, thereby maligning and lowering the reputation of an entire community in the eyes of the public, the plea claimed.
A couple and their three underage children were discovered dead in their home in Khapparpur village of Mathura on Tuesday, with authorities suspecting the incident to be a case of mass suicide, PTI reported, citing police.

Police have also found a suicide note and a message written on a wall besides a video made by the patriarch of the family, the police said.

Details about the contents of the suicide note and the video were not immediately known.

Also Read | Daily routines that affect mental health: 6 ways to stay strong this New Year

Mathura Senior Superintendent of Police Shlok Kumar said the deceased have been identified as Manish Kumar (35), a farmer, his wife aged around 32 and their three minor children -- two daughters and a son.

They were found dead inside a room of their house, he said.

The police said they received information about the incident from Manish Kumar's brother.

When the children didn't come out in the morning to play, Manish's brother went inside the house after jumping the wall and broke open the door, and found his family members dead.

He was accompanied by other villagers, the SSP said, adding that the bodies have been sent for post-mortem examination.

Help is available! Check free 247 suicide prevention helpline numbers Tele-MANAS (Govt. of India): 14416 / 1800-891-4416

KIRAN Mental Health Helpline (Govt.): 1800-599-0019

Also Read | Seeking mental health advice from AI? Treat it only as psychological first aid

Vandrevala Foundation (Call/WhatsApp): 9999-666-555

Sneha Foundation (Chennai, national access): 044-24640050

If you or someone else is in immediate danger, please call 112 right away. Help is always available.
A court has ordered YouTuber Ajey Nagar, widely known as CarryMinati, to refrain from posting defamatory, vulgar, and abusive content about filmmaker Karan Johar, as reported by PTI.

In his plea, Karan Johar contended that Nagar and Deepak Char (manager of Carry Minati channel) made defamatory statements in their videos and uploaded them to their YouTube channel, according to a report by LiveLaw.

He noted that the remarks were so vulgar and abusive that they needed to be removed immediately. Johar further noted that although Nagar has taken down the original video, it had already been viewed by millions, and others are now creating reels and short clips, further circulating the content on social media, LiveLaw reported.

The court also directed social media platforms to remove Nagars existing videos targeting the filmmaker. On Monday, Civil Judge P.G. Bhosale passed the interim order in a suit filed by Karan Johar against Nagar.

Also Read | Youtuber CarryMinati buys minority stake in esports firm Big Bang Esports

In addition to the YouTuber, several othersincluding his manager Deepak Char, One Hand Clap Media Pvt Ltd, Google, and Metahave been named as defendants in the case.

Johar, represented by DSK Legal, filed the suit claiming that certain videos circulating on social media sought to ridicule him and damage his reputation and goodwill, painstakingly built over decades.

The YouTuber's lawyer submitted that he had already deleted the videos and other material in question, and hence, there was no cause of action left.

The civil judge, after hearing all the sides, held that "prima facie it appears that the defendant no 1 and 2 (Nagar and Char) have made defamatory statements and used vulgar language against the plaintiff", and passed the temporary injunction. It also asked Meta platform to take down the videos, PTI reported.
Penguin Random House India issued a clarification on Monday, 9 February, after a controversy erupted over a memoir by former Indian Army Chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane  Four Stars of Destiny.

The publisher said it holds the sole publishing rights for Four Stars of Destiny and that the book has not gone into publication and no copies, print or digital, have been published, distributed, sold, or made available to the public.

In a statement, Penguin Random House India said that unauthorised distribution of any copy of the book amounts to copyright infringement.

Penguin India's full statement Penguin India said, In light of recent public discourse and media reporting, Penguin Random House India would like to clarify that we hold the sole publishing rights for the book Four Stars of Destiny, a memoir by General Manoj Mukund Naravane, former Chief of the Indian Army.

We wish to make it clear that the book has not gone into publication. No copies of the book - in print or digital form - have been published, distributed, sold, or otherwise made available to the public by Penguin Random House India, the publisher said.

Penguin India added that any copies currently in circulation, in any format or on any platform, constitute copyright infringement and must be immediately ceased.

Any copies of the book currently in circulation, in whole or in part, whether in print, digital, PDF, or any other format, online or offline, on any platform, constitutes an infringement of PRHI's copyright and must immediately be ceased, it said.

Also Read | What Gen Naravane said about his unpublished book?

The publisher added that it will exercise remedies available under law against the illegal and unauthorised dissemination of the book.

"Penguin Random House India shall be exercising remedies available in law against the illegal and unauthorised dissemination of the book," it said in a post on X.

It added, "This statement is being issued to place the publisher's position on record."

Controversy over Naravane's memoir A political row erupted over Naravane's unpublished book after the Leader of Opposition, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, sought to quote from the "pre-print" during his speech in Lok Sabha on the motion of thanks on the President's Address last week.

Gandhi wanted to read the excerpt from the article about the 2017 Doklam stand-off with China, but could not due to continued interruptions by Union cabinet ministers, including Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh.

The treasury benches strongly opposed his remarks.

After facing several adjournments on the issue, the House last week adopted the motion of thanks by voice vote amid sloganeering by opposition benches.

Delhi Police files FIR Meanwhile, the Delhi Police took cognisance of information found on various social media platforms and news forums claiming that a pre-print copy of the book Four Stars of Destiny is being circulated, ANI reported.

Also Read | Army Chief Gen Naravane takes charge as head of Chiefs of Staff Committee

Delhi Police said on Monday that they have filed an FIR regarding the circulation of an unpublished book by Naravane on social media. The Special Cell reportedly filed a case into the purported leak/breach of a yet to be approved publication.

Delhi Police officials said they have taken up an investigation into the claims of the availability of a pre-print copy of the book.
Days after the firing incident outside superstar director Rohit Shettys home in Mumbai's Juhu, Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh has received a threatening WhatsApp voice note, news agency PTI reported.

The voice note allegedly demanded a ransom amount running into crores. After receiving the threat, the Dhurandhar actor informed the Mumbai Police, following which security outside his residence was stepped up. The sender is claimed to be an associate of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang.

The police have initiated a probe and are making efforts to identify and track down the person who sent the voice note. Officials said more information will emerge as the investigation progresses.

Following the tightening of security at the housing complex where Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone live, the societys management approached the police seeking clarity on the extensive presence of police personnel and private security guards. The management stated that the increased security arrangements have caused inconvenience to several residents, as multiple guards, including some who are armed, have been moving through shared areas of the premises.

The incident comes on the heels of the firing outside Rohit Shettys home. An investigation led by the Mumbai Crime Branch has revealed that the vehicle used in the firing was sourced from Pune.

The Lawrence Bishnoi gang has taken responsibility for the gunfire reported outside Shettys Mumbai residence in the early hours of Sunday, February 8, while Pune Police have detained five individuals in connection with the case.

Suspects arrested Recently, assailants fired four rounds outside Rohit Shetty's residence. Soon after, police arrested four suspects on February 1.

On February 5, all five accused arrested in the matter were sent to six days of police custody by Mumbai's Esplanade Court (Killa Court). They were produced before the court alongside the other accused in the case.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Nationalist Congress Party (SP) president Sharad Pawar, who was admitted to a private hospital in Pune on Monday after being diagnosed with a chest infection, and enquired about his health and well being, according to multiple reports.

The 85-year-old Rajya Sabha member was taken to Ruby Hall Clinic on Monday afternoon from his residence in Baramati, in Pune district, after he complained of breathing difficulties and a persistent cough. His daughter, Supriya Sule, shared that he will require a five-day course of antibiotics.

How is Sharad Pawar now? Dr Simon Grant, Physician and Trustee, Ruby Hall Clinic, confirmed that Pawar is recovering well, noting his vital signs are normal, and his overall clinical condition is steadily improving.

"As a precautionary measure, he continues to remain under observation. His treatment is being carried out strictly as per Ruby Hall Clinic's established medical protocols, and all investigations are being closely monitored," the statement mentioned.

The hospital said that further decisions on the course of treatment would be made based on his clinical progress and urged party workers and well-wishers not to gather on the premises so that regular patient care is not affected, according to ANI.

Meanwhile, NCPSP leader Rohit Pawar shared an update on Sharad Pawars condition on Monday, saying the veteran politician was doing well.

Sharad Pawar's health is very good right now. His tests have been done there. He has not been kept in the ICU. He has been kept in a private room there. He doesn't need any support there right now. Once the reports come, it will be decided whether he will be kept in Pune or Mumbai, Rohit Pawar told reporters.

He added that a decision on whether Pawar will remain in Pune or be moved to Mumbai would be taken after the medical reports are received, saying, Pawar came here in a private vehicle, and everything is normal.

The NCP suffered a major loss last month after the death of its chief and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawa, the nephew of Sharad Pawar, in a plane crash. Following his death, Ajit Pawars wife, Sunetra Pawar, was sworn in as the states Deputy Chief Minister.

Earlier this month, Sharad Pawar said he was pleased with Sunetra Pawars appointment as Deputy Chief Minister. He also spoke about ongoing discussions regarding a possible merger between the two factions that emerged after the party split, saying that Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had no authority to comment on those talks as he was not fully informed about them.
The search for Nancy Guthrie entered its 12th day on Thursday as investigators say they have fielded thousands of tips after the release of surveillance footage taken from her doorbell camera, but appear no closer to solving the case.

The Pima County Sheriffs Department expanded its call for video from people within a 2-mile radius of the 84-year-olds home north of Tucson, Ariz., of any suspicious activity. The sheriffs department also said that several items of evidence, including gloves, were recovered and are being submitted for analysis. Its unclear whether authorities believe the gloves are the same as those worn by the person seen in the footage.

On Thursday afternoon, the FBI released a new description of the suspect based on forensic evidence from the doorbell camera. He is described as approximately 59 - 510 tall, with an average build. The agency also provided specific details of the backpack he is believed to have been wearing and announced that it was increasing its reward for information leading to Guthries location to $100,000.

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The FBI said that its agents conducted an extensive search along multiple roadways in Guthries Catalina Foothills neighborhood on Wednesday. The search came hours after authorities released a man who had been detained for questioning for several hours in connection with her apparent abduction. The man, a delivery driver who identified himself as Carlos, told reporters outside his home in Rio Rico that he had not heard of the Guthrie case but hoped police would solve it.

I hope they get the suspect, he said. Because Im not it.

Officials say they have received more than 18,000 tips since the investigation began, including over 4,000 since doorbell camera images of what the FBI described as an armed individual on the morning of her disappearance were released.

Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today show cohost Savannah Guthrie, was last seen at around 9:45 p.m. on Jan. 31, when she was dropped off at her home by family members after dinner, police said. She was reported missing around noon the next day after she did not show up at a friends house to watch an online church service.

Anyone with information is encouraged to reach out to the Pima County Sheriffs Department tip line at 520-351-4900 or the FBI tip line at 1-800-CALL-FBI.
Actor Rajpal Yadav broke his silence about his financial distress moments before surrendering at Delhis Tihar Jail on Thursday in connection with a cheque-bounce case. The 54-year-old actor, popular for his comic roles in films such as Bhool Bhulaiyaa (2007) and Dhol (2007), said he was left with no money or support from friends, leaving him with no option but to surrender.

Who is Rajpal Yadav? Rajpal Yadav is a well-known Indian Bollywood actor and comedian famous for his comic timing and memorable roles in Hindi films.

View full Image A user on X recreates Rajpal Yadav, aka Chota Pandit, from Bhool Bhulaiyaa's iconic scene. ( X )

He gained recognition with a negative role in Jungle (2000) but became especially popular for slapstick comic performances in movies like Phir Hera Pheri, Hungama, Mujhse Shaadi Karogi, Bhool Bhulaiyaa and Partner. Hes also appeared in serious roles in films such as Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon and Ardh.

What happened to Rajpal Yadav? Yadav surrendered after the Delhi High Court rejected his plea seeking additional time. He had been directed to surrender by February 4 but failed to comply, prompting the court to refuse any further relief. The bench also observed that all individuals are equal before the law, irrespective of their profession.

According to a PTI report, in its 2 February order, directing Yadav to surrender by 4 PM on 4 February, the high court criticised his conduct, noting that he had repeatedly violated undertakings given to the court to repay the complainant, M/s Murali Projects Pvt Ltd.

Also Read | Tej Pratap announces 11 lakh assistance for actor Rajpal Yadav

The court pointed out that Yadav was required to pay 1.35 crore in each of the seven cases against him and ordered that the amount already deposited with the Registrar General be released to the complainant.

The order further recorded that two demand drafts of 75 lakh had been deposited in October 2025, while a sum of 9 crore was still outstanding. On 4 February, the court declined to grant Yadav any further extension to surrender before jail authorities.

On February 4, the court declined to extend the deadline granted to Yadav to surrender to the jail authorities.

Here's what Rajpal Yadav said Speaking to Bollywood Hungama about his situation, Yadav earlier explained his financial difficulties, saying, Sir, kya karoon? Mere paas paise nahin hain. Aur koi upaay nahin dikhta (sir, what to do? I dont have the money to pay back. Cant see another way out).

Why is Rajpal Yadav in debt? A report by India Today stated that the case was filed in 2018 against Rajpal Yadav and his wife, Radha Yadav, for allegedly failing to repay a 5 crore loan taken from a Delhi-based businessman in 2010.

Also Read | Delhi High Court declines relief to Rajpal Yadav, upholds surrender order

According to the report, the money was borrowed to finance Yadavs directorial debut, Ata Pata Laapata. Although the film was eventually released in 2012, the loan was not repaid, which led to legal action and later culminated in the cheque-bounce cases.

What is the net worth of Rajpal Yadav in rupees? As of 2025, Rajpal Yadavs estimated net worth is around 80 crore, based on reports that include his earnings from films, endorsements and other ventures, Moneymint reported.

According to a report by Moneymint, Rajpal Yadav also owns approximately 2.2 hectares of agricultural land, valued at around 40 lakh, and a 5,000-square-foot house in Ratikheda village, Madhya Pradesh, worth about 30 lakh. His real estate asset properties include Seth Enclave Colony near Kachhari, Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh, which originally belonged to his father, Naurang Yadav, Monemint reported.

Sonu Sood to help Rajpal Yadav Actor Sonu Sood extended his support to Rajpal Yadav after the actor surrendered at the Tihar Jail on February 5 for a series of cheque dishonour cases against him.

Taking to his X handle, Sonu Sood announced financial support to Rajpal Yadav by offering him a small signing amount, "adjustable against future work", for his upcoming film.

Sonu Sood wrote, "Rajpal Yadav is a gifted actor who has given years of unforgettable work to our industry. Sometimes life turns unfair, not because of talent, but because timing can be brutal. He will be part of my film, and I believe this is the moment for all of us producers, directors, colleagues to stand together."

Sonu Sood called his offering an act of preserving the dignity of the 'Chup Chup Ke' actor and not "charity". He also urged the film industry, including producers, directors and colleagues, to stand together and show solidarity beyond professional ties for the actor.

"A small signing amount, adjustable against future work, is not charity, it's dignity. When one of our own is going through a tough phase, the industry must remind him he's not alone. This is how we show we are more than just an industry," wrote Sonu Sood.
The Manipur government has imposed a curfew in Litan village and the surrounding areas of Ukhrul district following violence that erupted on Saturday night after a member of the Tangkhul Naga community was allegedly assaulted by seven or eight people in Litan village in Ukhrul district.

Police said shots were fired on Tuesday morning, leading the state government to suspend internet services in the district for five days and impose a curfew, according to PTI.

Officials said the issue was initially resolved through discussions between the victims side and the chief of Litan Sareikhong, with both agreeing to settle the matter according to customary practices and to hold a meeting on Sunday. That meeting, however, never happened.

Instead, authorities said villagers from the nearby Sikibung area allegedly attacked the residence of the Litan Sareikhong chief. The group was also reported to have fired multiple rounds while moving past the Litan police station.

By Sunday night, tensions escalated further as members of two tribal groups clashed in heavy stone pelting in the village, leading the administration to impose prohibitory orders.

Around midnight on Monday, several homes belonging to members of the Tangkhul Naga community at Litan Sareikhong were allegedly set ablaze by Kuki militants.

How many houses have been burnt? State Home Minister Govindas Konthoujam said the situation on the ground remained tense, adding that Deputy Chief Minister L Dikho was present at the site and engaging with local residents.

He said that although both communities settled the matter through local mediation, tensions surfaced after the follow-up meeting failed to take place. Soon after reports of further arson emerged, with 17 houses burned by 5 am on Tuesday, bringing the total number of gutted homes to 21. Konthoujam added that, in response to ongoing reports of violence, additional security forces had been deployed, according to PTI.

View full Image Security personnel deployed after property after a violent clash between the Tangkhul and Kuki tribes at Litan village, in Ukhrul on Monday. (ANI Video Grab) ( ANI Video Grab )

Manipur CM says incident was result of 'misunderstanding' Earlier on Monday, Chief Minister Y Khemchand Singh, in a post on social media, urged all communities to remain calm and uphold peace.

He said he had visited RIMS Hospital in the morning to meet those injured in the Litan incident in Ukhrul district. He assured them that the government would provide all necessary medical assistance to support their recovery.

Singh said, "The incident, arising out of a misunderstanding, is now under control. I appeal to all communities to exercise restraint, uphold the rule of law, and maintain peace and harmony," the CM added.

Manipur police said that they have deployed senior officials to the Litan area and are closely monitoring the situation on the ground.

Meanwhile, security forces continued search and area-dominance operations in sensitive and vulnerable pockets across multiple districts, resulting in the recovery of weapons and ammunition.

Also Read | Yumnam Khemchand Singh sworn in as Manipur CM

The previous day, forces seized a .303 rifle along with a magazine, two single-barrel 12-bore guns, four 9 mm pistols with magazines, and 36 hand grenades from the Ngarou Chengjel hill range near Nongdam village under the jurisdiction of Lamlai Police Station in Imphal East district.
As the national capital of Delhi witnesses skyrocketing five-star hotel prices due to the rising travel demand into the city for the upcoming India AI Impact Summit 2026, travellers are demanding that the central government mandate a price ceiling on hotel room rates, according to a LocalCircles survey released on 10 February 2026.

The LocalCircles survey received responses from more than 34,000 people located across 307 districts of India. The report also mentioned that 67% of the respondents were men, while 33% of the survey respondents were women.

The survey, which was collected through the company's platform, received responses from 47% people belonging to Tier 1 cities, 30% from Tier 2 cities, and 23% were from Tier 3, Tier 4, and other rural districts.

Why are Delhi hotel prices skyrocketing? India is hosting the India AI Impact Summit 2026 at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, from 16 February 2026 to 20 February 2026, an event which is set to be attended by thousands of delegates from all around the world.

Also Read | Delhi five-star hotel prices skyrocket amid India AI Impact Summit

Delhi hotel prices are skyrocketing due to the high travel demand into the city as the hotels in the national capital deal with the higher-than-usual occupancy rates over the rising footfall.

According to a recent PTI report, the summit is expected to record strong footfall from the global community as people from over 100 countries are set to attend the event, which already has more than 35,000 registrations.

Govt price caps on room rate in focus? LocalCircles survey showed that when people were asked about how should India regulate hotel prices, 74% of the respondents to the survey said that they are looking forward to a government body which can be appointed to resolve complaints related to profiteering by hotels.

However, in the same survey, 26% of the total 11,324 respondents said that they feel that the government or any regulator should not be appointed to regulate hotel room prices.

Also Read | Draft income tax rules: Threshold to show PAN for these transactions increased

22% of the same respondent pool said that the government should consider establishing a ceiling structure and have the competition watchdog (Competition Commission of India - CCI) look into complaints from the people who were facing issues due to the alleged pricing of the hotel rooms in India.

To sum up, 74% of consumers surveyed indicated that they are in favour of a government body being appointed to resolve complaints related to profiteering by hotels, according to the survey report.

LocalCircles' report also highlighted that 57% of its 11,628 respondents to the query said that they have faced at least one or more instances where a hotel had charged them an exorbitant price for the room.
In Bengaluru, police have arrested a male spa therapist working at a luxury hotel, according to the Deccan Herald. The arrest follows a complaint from a Canadian woman. The woman has accused him of inappropriate behaviour during a massage session.

The woman, aged 44, was staying at the hotel while attending a conference in Bangalore city as part of a Canadian government delegation. According to her complaint, the 32-year-old therapist allegedly touched her in an unacceptable manner inside the hotel spa.

The incident is reported to have occurred at the hotel on Palace Road in the Central Business District (CBD), which falls under the Vidhana Soudha police station limits.

Police officials have confirmed that a case was registered and the accused was taken into custody for questioning, according to the publication.

Investigators are examining statements, hotel records and possible surveillance footage. According to authorities, further legal action will depend on the evidence collected and the outcome of the inquiry.

The woman was receiving a massage at the hotel spa when the therapist allegedly acted in an inappropriate manner, according to the complaint. She alleged that he had opened the treatment room door while she was in a vulnerable condition, leaving her distressed and humiliated.

The woman reported the incident to hotel management immediately. But, her concerns were not treated seriously, she claimed.

Instead of starting formal action, the hotel reportedly refunded 7,000 of the 10,000 fee and advised her not to take the matter further. She later approached the police and filed an official complaint seeking action against the therapist and any responsible staff.

Based on her statement, police registered the case and started an investigation into the alleged misconduct and the hotels response.

How social media played a role Bengaluru City Police came to know about the incident through a social media post. A Twitter (now X) user, Surya Pratap Rana, posted the details of the alleged incident.

A foreign woman, a delegate from the Canadian government, was in Bengaluru to attend a high-level conference at PCPA. During her stay, she paid 10,000 for a professional massage at this hotel, Rana wrote.

According to the user, the woman was threatened into silence after confronting the man.

Shaken and in shock, she sought help. What followed from the hotel management is deeply alarming, Rana added.

Only 7,000 was refunded, not the full amount. The identity of the accused staff member was withheld. Management allegedly attempted to downplay the incident. Follow-up calls were blocked instead of addressed, he further wrote.

Rana added, This is not just a hotel issue. This is about womens safety, tourist safety, and Indias international reputation. When a foreign government delegate attending a high-level conference is treated this way at a reputed international hotel, what message does this send to the world?

The user also shared a FaceTime screen recording while he was speaking with the delegate.

The man seen here is apologising is the one that was threatening her and asked to stay quiet about what happened, the user wrote.

As he tagged Bengaluru Police, it replied: Please provide the exact location of the incident happened and DM your contact number.

The user later thanked ACP Dr Priyadarshini Ishwar Sanikopp for swift action. He later shared a redacted message of the FIR details.
It has been two weeks since the US Department of Justice (DOJ) released its final set of documents in connection with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and new disclosures are still emerging, including evidence that US President Donald Trump once contacted a Florida police official probing the sex-trafficking case in the mid-2000s.

According to the document, the former police chief of Palm Beach (Florida), Michael Reiter, in an interview with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), noted that he received a call from Trump to say, "thank goodness youre stopping him, everyone has known hes been doing this."

The latest revelation brings focus back on Trump, who has consistently denied any wrongdoing despite his name being mentioned in the released files. He has repeatedly said that he cut off contact with Epstein more than two decades ago from Mar-a-Lago, after he discovered that Epstein poached employees from the club's spa.

What did Trump say? The document dated 23 April 2020, contains details of what Trump told the ex-official, who was interviewed by the federal agency. Trump further stated that people in New York knew Epstein was disgusting and that Maxwell was EPSTEIN's operative, "she is evil and to focus on her", the document reads.

The ex-Palm Beach police chief goes on to say that Trump was one of the very first people to call the police when he found out that they were investigating Epstein. According to the document, the official added that Trump even said back then that once, he was around Epstein when teenagers were present, and added that he got the hell out of there.

An ABC News report citing sources stated that the alleged call from Trump occurred in July 2006, around the same time that the details of the police investigation became public.

Maxwell seeks clemency The document, which was first reviewed by the Miami Herald, has come to light hours after Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's girlfriend and associate, sought clemency from Trump during her closed-door deposition on Monday (local time).

Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence at a Texas prison for her involvement in sex trafficking. During the congressional hearing, Maxwell invoked the Fifth Amendment and remained silent throughout.

In a social media post, Maxwell's lawyer said that she was ready to speak "honestly and completely", given that Trump grants her clemency. Clemency is a type of pardon, a power that the President has under the US Constitution (Article II, Section 2, Clause 1).

In a statement to the Republican House Oversight Committee, her lawyer said that both Trump and former President Bill Clinton "are innocent of any wrongdoing", but that can only be explained by Maxwell.

Jeffrey Epstein case The case against late wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein stemmed from a complaint made in 2006 by the parents of a 14-year-old girl, who was reportedly molested by Epstein at his Florida residence. While Epstein pleaded not guilty, later in 2008, he pleaded guilty to two felony charges, including soliciting a minor for prostitution. With Epstein pleading guilty, he was able to avoid federal prosecution and served a reduced sentence in a county jail.
Amid the Epstein files controversy, billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed on Tuesday that many of sex offender Jeffrey Epsteins child victims were "turned into traffickers themselves once they reached adulthood".

Musk further suggested that granting these individuals amnesty would encourage them to testify.

Also Read | Did Donald Trump act as whistleblower in Epstein case?

Reposting a question on why Epsteins victims still havent named names, Musk said, Most of the child victims were turned into traffickers themselves by Epstein after age 18. By making them commit crime with him, Epstein ensured their silence more than any NDA possibly could. They should be offered amnesties in order to testify.

See the post here:

The U.S. Justice Departments release of millions of internal documents connected to Jeffrey Epstein has revealed the late financier and convicted sex offenders links to major influential people across business, academia, government, and royalty.

Epstein used his wealth and connections to build relationships with influential people worldwide over several decades. Many of these connections reportedly persisted even after his 2008 conviction on prostitution charges involving an underage girl.

Earlier in the day, U.S. lawmakers began examining the unredacted files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and raised concerns that some names had been removed from the publicly released records.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA), passed overwhelmingly by Congress in November, required the Justice Department to release all documents in its possession related to Epstein.

It required the redaction of the names or personal identifying information about Epstein's victims, who numbered more than 1,000 according to the FBI.

Dozens of victims come forward The Epstein investigation began in 2005 after the parents of a 14-year-old girl reported that she had been molested at Epsteins Palm Beach, Florida, home, according to a report by AP.

Authorities later identified at least 35 girls with similar accounts, revealing that Epstein was paying high schoolage students $200 to $300 for sexualized massages.

After the FBI became involved, federal prosecutors prepared indictments against Epstein and some of his personal assistants who arranged the girls visits and payments.

However, then-Miami U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta struck a deal, allowing Epstein to plead guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution from an underage girl. He was sentenced to 18 months in jail and was released by mid-2009.

In 2018, a series of Miami Herald stories about the plea deal prompted New York federal prosecutors to take a fresh look at the accusations.

Epstein was arrested in July 2019. One month later, he killed himself in his jail cell.

Most of the child victims were turned into traffickers themselves by Epstein after age 18. They should be offered amnesties in order to testify.

A year later, prosecutors charged Epsteins longtime confidant, Ghislaine Maxwell, saying shed recruited several of his victims and sometimes joined the sexual abuse. Convicted in 2021, Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison term, AP reported.

(With inputs from agencies)
Under questioning by Democrats on Tuesday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick admitted that he met Jeffrey Epstein twice after the financiers 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minorcontradicting his earlier assertion that he had severed ties with Epstein in 2005, as reported by Associated Press.

Lutnick once again played down the extent of his relationship with the disgraced financier, who was previously his neighbour in New York City, while appearing before Democrats during a Senate Appropriations Committee subcommittee hearing, AP reported.

Here's what Lutnick said As reported by AP, Lutnick described their contact as a handful of emails and a pair of meetings that were years apart. I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with him, Lutnick told lawmakers.

But Lutnick is facing growing scrutiny, including calls for his resignation, from lawmakers after the release of case files on Epstein contradicted Lutnick's claims on a podcast last year that he had decided to never be in the room with Epstein again after a 2005 tour of Epstein's home that disturbed Lutnick and his wife.

Records have emerged showing Lutnick's plans in 2012 to meet Epstein for lunch in Little Saint James, notoriously known as Epstein Island, AFP reported.

"We had lunch on the island, that is true, for an hour," Lutnick told a Senate committee hearing, as reported by AFP.

But he stressed that he was with his wife, children and nannies. "We were on family vacation," he said.

"Over a 14-year period, I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with that person," Lutnick told the Senate Appropriations Committee, as reported by AFP.

The billionaire was referring to the period beginning in 2005, when he moved into a New York residence where Epstein lived nearby. He said he met Epstein while they were both living in New York.

Who is Howard Lutnick? Lutnick, a member of President Donald Trumps Cabinet, has become the highest-profile U.S. official to face bipartisan calls for his resignation following disclosures about his ties to Epstein.

His acknowledgement comes as lawmakers grapple with questions of accountability in light of the revelations emerging from what have become known as the Epstein files.

View full Image A 2012 email indicates that Howard Lutnick was planning a visit to Jeffrey Epsteins private island.

In countries like the United Kingdom, the Epstein files have triggered resignations and the stripping of royal privileges, but so far, U.S. officials have not met the same level of retribution.

Senators want to dig into Lutnick's ties to Epstein As reported by Associated Press, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, the Democrat who questioned Lutnick, told him, "There's not an indication that you yourself engaged in any wrongdoing with Jeffrey Epstein. It's the fact that you believe that you misled the country and the Congress based on your earlier statements."

Sen. Van Hollen (D-Md.) stopped short of calling for Lutnicks resignation on Monday but requested documentation detailing any of his connections to Epstein.

It's absolutely essential that he provide Congress with those documents, given the misrepresentations he's made, and then we'll go from there, he said.

Also Read | Did Donald Trump act as whistleblower in Epstein case?

Lutnick during the Senate hearing said he would give that request some thought, adding, I have nothing to hide.

However, several Senate Republicans were also questioning Lutnick's relationship with Epstein, AP reported.

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said the visit to Epstein's private island would raise questions. And Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told reporters, It's something I'm concerned with.

Tillis stayed away from calling for Lutnick to leave his post, but added that he would do himself a service by just laying exactly what and what did not happen over the course of what seems to be an interesting relationship that included business entanglements.

A pair of House members call for resignation Meanwhile, House lawmakers who spearheaded the push to release the Epstein files are now calling for Lutnicks resignation. Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky made the demand over the weekend after emails surfaced suggesting meetings between Lutnick and Epstein.

Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, joined Massie in pressuring Lutnick out of office on Monday.

Based on the evidence, he should be out of the Cabinet, Khanna said.

He added, It's not about any particular person. In this country, we have to make a decision. Are we going to allow the rich and powerful people who are friends and (had) no problem doing business and showing up with a pedophile who is raping underage girls, are we just going to allow them to skate?

AFP reported that Democratic Senator Adam Schiff said Monday that "Lutnick has no business being our Commerce Secretary, and he should resign immediately."

It's not about any particular person. In this country, we have to make a decision. Are we going to allow the rich and powerful people who are friends and (had) no problem doing business and showing up with a pedophile who is raping underage girls, are we just going to allow them to skate?

He added that Lutnick's earlier denial of dealings with Epstein "raise serious concerns about his judgement and ethics."

(With inputs from agencies)
Buckingham Palace has said it is prepared to assist Thames Valley Police as the force assesses allegations involving Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and his links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In a statement, the Palace said it would cooperate fully if approached by investigators.

While the specific claims in question are for Mr Mountbatten-Windsor to address, if we are approached by Thames Valley Police we stand ready to support them as you would expect, a spokesperson said.

The statement added that the King has made his position clear on the seriousness of the allegations.

The King has made clear, in words and through unprecedented actions, his profound concern at allegations which continue to come to light in respect of Mr Mountbatten-Windsors conduct.

Allegations linked to newly released Epstein files Thames Valley Police is examining claims that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor shared confidential government documents with Epstein while serving as a UK trade envoy, Sky News reported.

Emails released as part of the latest tranche of Epstein files appear to show Andrew forwarding what are described as visit reports relating to Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shenzhen following a South East Asia trip in late 2010, the news outlet stated.

Another email exchange dated Christmas Eve 2010 appears to show him sharing confidential information about investments in Afghanistan with Epstein, the news outlet said.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has denied any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.

William and Kate break their silence In their first statement on the ongoing Epstein scandal, the Prince and Princess of Wales said they were deeply concerned by the latest revelations.

Speaking ahead of Prince Williams arrival in Saudi Arabia, a Kensington Palace spokesperson told journalists in Riyadh: I can confirm The Prince and Princess have been deeply concerned by the continuing revelations. Their thoughts remain focused on the victims.

The statement marks a notable intervention by the Waleses, who have so far stayed silent publicly as the files continued to emerge.

In October, following the decision to strip Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor of his titles and residence, Buckingham Palace said the King and Queens utmost thoughts were with victims and survivors  a stance that Prince William was said to fully support.
One person was shot at Thomas S. Wootton High School in Rockville, Maryland, on Monday (February 9), prompting a campus-wide lockdown. Montgomery County police confirmed that a suspect is in custody in connection with the shooting.

Officers were dispatched at 2:15 p.m. following reports of shots fired at the school, a suburb of Washington, D.C.

Were just still in lockdown, the police are here, the kids are all in the classrooms, said Tabitha Davis, a school administrator, adding that further details were not immediately available.

Rockville, the county seat of Montgomery Countythe states most populous countyremains on high alert as authorities investigate the incident. No additional injuries have been reported at this time.

Police are urging residents to avoid the area while the investigation continues.
Nancy Guthrie Search Highlights: A US television host whose family has been in the national spotlight for a week after her elderly mother was reportedly abducted, said on Monday that she and her siblings had reached an hour of desperation".

Nancy Guthrie, 84, the mother of NBC News Today show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, is believed to have been taken from her home in Tucson, Arizona, late on January 31 or in the early hours of February 1, triggering a wide-ranging search that has captured public attention across the country, according to AFP.

On Monday, Savannah Guthrie issued a new video appeal urging the public to help locate her mother, who has ongoing heart conditions and relies on regular medication.

In an emotional Instagram message, Guthrie said, As we enter into another week of this nightmare... thank you so much for all of the prayers and the love that we have felt, my sister and brother and I, and that our mom has felt.

She added that investigators are continuing their efforts, saying, Law enforcement is working tirelessly around the clock trying to bring her home, trying to find where she was taken, and we don't know where.

Nancy Guthrie disappearance: timeline of events

Saturday, Jan. 31  Family gathering marks last confirmed sighting

At about 5 pm, Guthrie took an Uber to her daughter Annies home for a family dinner and game night. She was later driven back home at 9:48 pm by her son-in-law, Tommaso Cioni.

Sunday, Feb. 1  Suspicious activity detected, authorities notified

At 1:47 am, Guthries doorbell camera went offline. A short time later, at 2:12 am, the system registered motion at the home, though no video footage was captured. Around 16 minutes after that, her pacemaker stopped transmitting data to the app on her phone.

Monday, Feb. 2  Family makes first public appeal

During a press conference, authorities said they believed Guthrie was abducted from her home during the night and taken against her will. Savannah Guthrie later released a statement reported by NBCs Today show, saying, On behalf of our family, I want to thank everyone for the thoughts, prayers, and messages of support. Right now, our focus remains on the safe return of our dear Nancy.

At 1:47 am, Guthries doorbell camera went offline. A short time later, at 2:12 am., the system registered motion at the home, though no video footage was captured. Around 16 minutes after that, her pacemaker stopped transmitting data to the app on her phone.

Tuesday, Feb. 3  Public appeal continues as ransom notes surface

Savannah Guthrie again appealed for prayers on Tuesday as efforts to locate her mother continued, while authorities urged the public to keep coming forward with information.

Wednesday, Feb. 4  Family releases second video statement

Four days after Nancy Guthrie disappeared, Savannah Guthrie and her siblings, Camron and Annie Guthrie, released a video statement responding to the ransom note.

Thursday, Feb. 5  Authorities confirm forensic findings as deadline passes

Local officials shared a detailed timeline of the case and confirmed that forensic testing showed the blood found at the entrance of Nancy Guthries Tucson home belonged to her.

Friday, Feb. 6  FBI expands search after second ransom note

The FBI rolled out digital billboards across the Southwest, including California, Arizona and New Mexico, and restarted its investigation by re-examining Guthries home for new leads.

Saturday, Feb. 7  Guthrie siblings pledge to comply with demands

Savannah Guthrie and her siblings, Annie and Camron, issued another video message addressing the ransom demand. We received your message, and we understand, Savannah Guthrie said. We beg you now to return our mother to us so we can celebrate with her. It is the only way we will have peace. She added, This is very valuable to us, and we will pay.

Sunday, Feb. 8  Investigators revisit Guthrie home

Investigators returned to Nancy Guthries home eight days after she was last seen as the search entered another phase.

What is the ransom demanded in Nancy Guthrie missing case?

The individuals believed to be behind the abduction of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie reportedly demanded a ransom of $6 million in Bitcoin, setting a deadline of Monday, February 9. The demands were communicated through ransom notes sent to media organisations, which initially cited a lower amount of $4 million before increasing it to $6 million.

Meanwhile, authorities have said they believe the missing woman is still alive and confirmed that blood found on her doorstep was hers.
Canberra has formally protested against the penalties slapped on those responsible for the deadly methanol poisoning of two young Australian women in Laos.

Holly Morton-Bowles and Bianca Jones, both aged 19, died after they were served alcohol laced with methanol at Nana Backpacker Hostel in November 2024.

Two Danish women, a US tourist and a British woman also died.

Last month, 10 staff were found guilty of destroying evidence, with each person receiving a suspended sentence and a $185 fine.

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No further charges will be laid but a man from the distillery where the spirits were made could face legal action.

The action came after a lengthy police investigation and has sparked outrage from the families of the victims, who have demanded Labor ramp up diplomatic pressure on Laos.

Sussan Ley kicked off Question Time on Tuesday by asking what the Albanese government would do.

As a mother I was devastated to see the fathers of Bianca Jones and Holly Morton-Bowles front the media today following revelations that those responsible for the deaths of their girls have received fines of just $185, the Opposition Leader said.

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The families had to learn this from a British victims family. Government officials have apologised today.

What action will the Prime Minister now take to seek justice for these beautiful girls?

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says his government has protested the penalties. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Thanking Ms Ley for her question, Anthony Albanese said the deaths were an absolute tragedy.

All our hearts go out to the loved ones and friends of Holly Morton-Bowles and Bianca Jones, he said.

Like so many young Australians do, they set off overseas together for fun and adventure to expand their horizons in the world.

What occurred is an absolute tragedy.

They should be with us today looking back on a trip full of happy memories made together.

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Instead their loved ones are still mourning a devastating loss.

The Prime Minister went on to say revelations of the penalties and how the families learned of them have added to the heart break of their families.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has apologised unreservedly for their failure to ensure that the families were informed and that is an entirely appropriate thing for them to do, Mr Albanese said.

The Foreign Ministers made it clear to her counterpart in Laos that Australia expects full accountability and the charges should reflect the devastating seriousness of this incident.

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Six lives that were lost, including Holly and Biancas, and we will continue to engage Laos authorities on these cases and everything we and ban cans families at this distressing time.

Every day is tough

The girls fathers, Shaun Bowles and Mark Jones, earlier on Tuesday revealed they were not kept in the loop during a court case at The Peoples Court of Vang Vieng.

Speaking to the Nines Today Show, Mr Jones said the outcome was devastating.

Every day is tough, and when you get news that we received last week that our daughters lives are valued at $185 its pretty devastating, Mr Jones said through tears.

Holly Morton-Bowles and Bianca Jones were both aged 19. Picture: Supplied

Mr Bowles said that his family found out about the fines through the parents of British backpacker Simone White  who also died from methanol poisoning at the hostel at the same time as Holly and Bianca.

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Simones father Neil sent us through a message that he got from the British authorities and passed it on to all of us, Mr Bowles explained.

Unfortunately thats how we found out about the outcome.

Mr Bowles said that given six people died as a result of the mass methanol poisoning, for fines of just $185 to be distributed was a complete disappointment.

To think that the Laos authorities believe that those who were involved in killing our daughters is worth $185 is absolutely disgraceful, Mr Jones said.

We cant get into the country. Theres nothing more we can do. We need the government to do something because we are out of options, Mr Bowles said.

The father of Bianca Jones has expressed outrage over the fines. Picture: Supplied

Canberra reacts

Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had been in regular communication with the families.

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I have made it clear to my Lao counterpart that Australia expects full accountability, Senator Wong said.

I have also made it clear that charges should reflect the seriousness of the tragedy which left six people dead, including Holly and Bianca.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is aware that the Vang Vieng District Court sentenced individuals over the destruction of evidence in relation to the death of a US citizen.

We continue to press Lao authorities on the cases relating to Holly and Biancas deaths, and we will continue to support Holly and Biancas families at this distressing time.

Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles died from methanol poisoning in Laos. Picture: 60 Minutes

Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Michaelia Cash echoed the families in a statement demanding Mr Albanese immediately summon the Laotian ambassador.

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Australians are rightly shocked, she said.

Four other tourists, two Danish women, a US tourist and a British woman, also died in this mass poisoning event.

A year ago we learned the Laos government was refusing Australian Federal Police assistance in the investigation.

A year ago Australians were told by the Albanese government that the matter was in hand.

At the time the leader made the point on Channel 7s Sunrise.

We now know there has been no meaningful justice for Holly and Bianca, and their families did not learn of these outcomes from their own government but via the British womans family.

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Senator Cash added that Australia makes a significant contribution to Laos through our foreign aid program and other development assistance.

The Albanese government should remind the Laotian government of the important contributions Australian taxpayers make to key programs in Laos in-line with the friendship between our two countries.

It is in that same spirit of friendship and co-operation that Australians rightly have an expectation of proper justice and accountability for the deaths of two young Australians.
Meta and YouTube, two of the world's biggest social media companies, on Monday (local time) faced trial in Los Angeles over their platforms' addictive features. The tech majors are accused of intentionally creating social media platforms that are addictive, CNN reported.

Lawyers representing a 20-year-old woman, identified as Kaley or by the initials KGM, said the platforms design and engagement-driven features had negatively affected her mental health. The landmark trial is the first among many that are set to hold the platforms accountable for the harm done to children who use them.

According to the plaintiff, the tech companies are being accused of creating platforms that have addictive features, and led her to develop anxiety, body dysmorphia, and suicidal thoughts. However, Meta and YouTube lawyers previously said that they would argue that a difficult family life was, in fact, responsible for the plaintiff's mental health challenges.

Also Read | Landmark trial accusing social media companies of addicting children to their platforms begins

'Digital Casinos' The plaintiff's lawyer termed Instagram's parent company, Meta, and YouTube as "digital casinos", saying the apps endless scroll feature creates dopamine hits that can lead to addiction. "This case is about two of the richest corporations that have engineered addiction in childrens brains," her lawyer said, adding, "The swipe, for a child, like Kaley, this motion is a handle of a slot machine. But every time she swipes, its not for money, but for mental stimulation.

Sharing internal documents from Meta and YouTube, Kelly's lawyer claimed that among the platforms' goals was to attract young kids and tweens. According to a decade-old strategy from Meta, if the company wanted to ''win big with teens,'' it must bring them in as tweens.

According to media reports, parents and safety advocates have sought more online guardrails. The trial marks a crucial moment of accountability.

Tech giants deny charges Tech giants like Meta have long denied these charges, claiming that they have rolled out "safety features" such as parental controls, content restrictions, and "take a break" reminders.

Ahead of the opening statement on Monday, a Meta spokesperson said, "We strongly disagree with these allegations and are confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people.

YouTube spokesperson said these claims are "simply not true", and added providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work.

Also Read | Meta cuts off teen access to characters on Instagram and Facebook

Ban on social media apps for teens a necessity? Amid increasing scrutiny over social media platforms, several countries are now mulling an Australia-like ban on social media apps for children under the age of 16. Earlier in January, the UK's House of Lords backed a ban, with the Starmer government running a consultation for three months, which ends in the summer. Under the consultation, the officials will discuss and outline several measures to eliminate harmful internet use among children.

On January 21, the House of Lords voted in favour of banning children under 16 from social media, BBC reported. While some people claimed that it would help in protecting the well-being of the children, others argued that it might do more harm than good.

In a related step, Frances lower house of parliament voted on January 27 to bar children under the age of 15 from accessing social media, citing rising concerns over online bullying.

Denmark, Spain, and Greece are also reportedly studying a similar social media ban, Al Jazeera reported.

India considers Australia-like ban for children under 16? On January 21, Bloomberg reported that India's southern state of Andhra Pradesh is also studying a similar ban to that of Australia on children under 16 years. Nara Lokesh, Minister of Technology and Human Resources, told Bloomberg, "As a state, we are studying Australias under-16 law, and yes, I believe we need to create a strong legal enactment."

Lokesh further stated that he strongly felt that youngsters under a certain age should not be on social media, because they dont understand what they are seeing.

Lokesh's remarks came after the Madras High Court, in December 2025, urged the central government to consider passing legislation similar to that of Australia, prohibiting the use of social media by those under the age of 16.
Savannah Guthrie, co-host of TODAY, took to Instagram on Monday (February 9) to appeal for public assistance in locating her mother, Nancy Guthrie, who has been missing since January 31. In a heartfelt message, she thanked supporters for their ongoing prayers and urged anyone with information to come forward.

Thank you so much for all of the prayers and the love that we have felt, Savannah Guthrie said. My sister and brother and I and our mom have felt this love, because we believe that somehow, somehow, she is feeling these prayers and that God is lifting her, even in this moment and in this darkest place.

She added: We believe our mom is still out there. We need your help. Law enforcement is working tirelessly around the clock trying to bring her home, trying to find her. She was taken, and we don't know where. And we need your help. Please bring her home. She needs you. All of you.

Savannah's latest appeal for help comes after she and her two siblings publicly appealed on social media to the person or people claiming to have their mother, saying they were willing to pay the ransom being demanded  reportedly as much as $6 million.

Trump monitoring investigation The White House confirmed that President Donald Trump has been following the case closely. President Trump is receiving frequent updates, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday.

Trump previously said he had directed all federal law enforcement agencies to assist local authorities in Arizona. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on February 9, he said the investigation was progressing very well and that he expected answers coming up fairly soon.

Searches continue Authorities conducted a consent search at the home of Annie Guthrie, Nancys daughter, on Saturday night. NBC News reported that investigators were conducting additional searches to ensure no evidence had been missed previously.

During the Saturday search, deputies as per the news outlet were seen carrying items from the home, including what appeared to be a white case and a brown grocery-size bag.

The Pima County Sheriffs Department confirmed the investigation is ongoing, noting that follow-up searches continue at multiple locations. No suspects, persons of interest, or vehicles have been identified.

Ransom note deadline about to end Authorities are also investigating two alleged ransom notes tied to Nancy Guthries disappearance. The first deadline, reportedly set for February 5, has passed. A second deadline was reportedly set for February 9 at 5 p.m. local time.

TMZ reported receiving one note stating that Nancy Guthrie was safe, but scared, and the message demanded payment in Bitcoin. Meanwhile, KGUN 9 in Tucson reported receiving a note demanding $6 million and threatening Guthries life if the family did not comply.
Amid hundreds of pages in the Economic Survey 202526 devoted to Indias growth trajectory, fiscal arithmetic and industrial ambitions, a small section flags a quieter but persistent economic drag on rural livelihoods: the steady erosion of village commons.

These commonsgrazing lands, ponds and other community-managed resourcesupport the daily needs of millions of rural households and play a critical role in agriculture, water security and climate resilience. Yet they remain poorly mapped, weakly governed and vulnerable to encroachment and misuse.

Drawing on the Economic Survey and official data, Mint explains why reviving village commons is increasingly central to rural incomes, farm productivity and sustainable growth.

What are village commons and how extensive are they?

Village commons, defined by the National Sample Survey Organisation in its 1998 survey, include community-managed grazing lands, ponds, water bodies and other shared natural resources. Around 15% of Indias geographical area falls under this category.

According to the 2011 Census, India has roughly 66 million hectares of common land, much of it comprising biodiversity-rich ecosystems. These ecosystems provide 34 distinct services that support the livelihoods of nearly 350 million rural people, supplying food, fodder, fuelwood, timber, organic manure and seeds. They also deliver non-material benefits such as clean air, water purification, soil conservation, carbon sequestration and flood control.

Together, these ecosystem services generate an estimated annual economic value of about $90.5 million and contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly poverty reduction, sustainable livelihoods and environmental protection.

Why does revival matter for the rural economy?

Reviving village commons is increasingly central to rural economic stability. These shared resources meet the daily needs of millions of households, particularly small farmers, landless labourers and women, who depend on commons for fodder, fuel and water.

"Reviving village common land is critically important, as nearly 25% of the income of landless farmers comes from these resources. In their absence, farmers are forced to travel long distances, leading to a loss of both time and productive labour," said Lakhwinder Singh, professor of economics at the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Thapar University.

Healthy commons support agriculture by recharging groundwater, improving soil fertility, preventing erosion and moderating local microclimates. This lowers cultivation costs, stabilizes yields and improves farmers ability to cope with climate variability, droughts and floods. Degraded commons, by contrast, intensify rural distress by raising costs and reducing productivity.

Protecting and restoring commons also supports rural incomes, conserves biodiversity and sustains ecosystem services such as water security and soil protection, making them a pillar of sustainable and inclusive development.

"Reviving CPRs can also generate local employment through restoration activities such as pond rejuvenation, pasture development and renewable energy projects, while strengthening community institutions and participatory governance," said Vijay Kuzur, a social activist based out of Jharkhand.

What is the government doing?

The social and economic costs of degraded commons are felt most sharply in rural areas, where livelihoods remain closely tied to natural resources. In response, the government has rolled out multiple initiatives aimed at restoration.

These include Mission Amrit Sarovar to rejuvenate village water bodies and the SVAMITVA (Survey of Villages and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas) Yojana to map village commons and private properties. Village pond restoration is also being pursued through national programmes such as the Repair, Renovation and Restoration of Water Bodies under PM Krishi Sinchai YojanaHar Khet Ko Pani, and the Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch The Rain.

Combined with tools such as GIS-based registries and capacity-building efforts, these initiatives aim to arrest degradation and enable systematic rejuvenation.

What would sustainable revival require?

Reviving village commons sustainably requires coordinated action by governments and local communities.

First, commons need to be formally recognized as a distinct land-use category, with sub-categories that allow accurate assessment, monitoring and targeted policy intervention. Karnataka and Rajasthan offer examples of multi-tier institutional frameworks that map and document common natural resources, improving identification and management.

Second, effective utilization can be strengthened through community participation, solarization and sewage treatment facilities that convert village waste, including plastic, into usable resources. These measures address environmental degradation while restoring the livelihood functions of commons.

Third, capacity building of local body officials is critical. Structured training can equip rural administrators with the skills needed for participatory and sustainable management of common property resources.
You start planning the rest of your life: telling your spouse you may eventually become incapacitated; looking into long-term memory care; checking off as many bucket list items as you can.

Six months later, another neurologist finds the opposite: You dont have Alzheimers and arent at risk of developing it.

Divergent diagnoses for Alzheimers are the result of different criteria for diagnosing the disease. Some doctors worry the differing approaches can result in patients going misdiagnosed, or worse, being prescribed medications with potential negative health effects.

The problem highlights a larger question: How should Alzheimers disease be defined? Is it a biological disease based solely on the presence of brain proteins? Or is it a more complicated diagnosis that involves weighing risk and other factors?

The Alzheimers Association 2024 criteria for diagnosis requires evidence of the brain protein amyloid. At the International Working Group, a global consortium of neurologists and researchers, its criteria requires three things: the presence of amyloid; tau, another biomarker of Alzheimers disease; and cognitive symptoms.

Dr. Gayatri Devi, director of Park Avenue Neurology in New York City, is a neurologist who says over the past year she has seen an increasing number of patients who were told they had Alzheimers disease when they didnt. One patient, a human-resources executive, had erroneously been diagnosed with Alzheimers based on a faulty PET scan of his brain that had read positive for amyloid and his own fears of memory issues because he had missed an important meeting.

He was then started on monoclonal antibodies despite the fact that he didnt need them. A subsequent spinal tap showed no amyloid or tau. The patient didnt have Alzheimers disease and isnt expected to develop it given his late-60s age and the fact that it takes years for amyloid plaques to build up, she says.

Thats why we need to be really cautious in giving someone a diagnosis," says Devi, who wrote a recent opinion piece published in the Annals of Internal Medicine outlining concerns about the different diagnostic criteria.

While the Alzheimers Association criteria define the disease by amyloid pathology in the brain, it says testing and treatment should occur only if a patient has cognitive symptoms.

But doctors like Devi say this isnt always done in practice. Symptoms can be variable and subjective, and caused by other factors. Who, after all, doesnt feel like they have a lapse in memory at times?

Many people who are worried about prevention will go for testing," she says. A lot of us have memory issues. We are all multitasking. So symptoms are difficult to define and difficult to self access."

Amyloid alone shouldnt define Alzheimers disease, she says. Roughly 25% to 45% of seniors with no memory complaints have amyloid and most dont develop dementia, studies have found.

Medicalizing everyone with amyloid in their 70s and 80s is a problem," she says. Monoclonal antibodies that are indicated for the early treatment of Alzheimers disease, for example, have a risk of brain hemorrhages and bleeds.

The Alzheimers Association says amyloid is a good proxy for tau. But the current tests for amyloid arent sensitive enough to detect a few amyloid plaques in the brain.

So when a PET scan or spinal tap is positive for amyloid plaques, it almost always means there are also tau tangles present, says Dr. Clifford Jack, a radiologist and professor at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and first author of the Associations criteria.

Symptoms of Alzheimers disease typically dont surface until about 15 years after amyloid and tau is detectable in the brain, says Jack.

So of course symptoms are a feature of the disease, but they dont define the presence of the disease," he says.

There are ongoing clinical trials to determine whether people with amyloid, but without cognitive symptoms, could benefit from taking monoclonal antibodies. Until those are done, people without symptoms shouldnt be tested for amyloid and tau and shouldnt be treated in the event they get a positive test, Jack says.

Some doctors say the different definitions of Alzheimers disease are leading to estimates that are grossly inflated.

You cant diagnose 47 million Americans with Alzheimers disease," says Dr. Richard Isaacson, a preventive neurologist at the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Boca Raton, Fla., and Atria Health and Research Institute in New York. These Americans have biological markers of Alzheimers disease risk starting in their brain and detectable in their blood. It doesnt mean all 47 million Americans have a stigmatizing diagnosis like Alzheimers."

Isaacson strongly disagrees with the contention that Alzheimers is a biological disease. Alzheimers manifests in myriad ways, he says. Some patients may have tau with no amyloid. Others have amyloid without tau.

Just like having high cholesterol doesnt mean you will have a heart attack, having biomarkers like amyloid doesnt mean youre going to develop Alzheimers disease, he says.

Dr. David Wolk, a neurologist and director of the University of Pennsylvanias Disease Research Center, says the debate comes down to semantics: having a disease versus being at risk of it.

Wolk says the danger of relying on cognitive symptoms and amyloid alone is that not all physicians will fully investigate cognitive symptoms that may have another cause.

It is common for someone, for example, to have cognitive symptoms caused by another source, such as vascular disease in the brain. But a person may also test positive for amyloid and be erroneously diagnosed with Alzheimers disease.

It wouldnt surprise me if there are some patients who are receiving these medicines and have Alzheimers biology but it may not be a cause of their symptoms," he says.

Dr. Reisa Sperling is a neurology professor at Harvard Medical School who runs studies testing antiamyloid drugs in asymptomatic people with amyloid in their brain. She says the goal is early intervention.

She says the International Working Groups criteria requiring cognitive impairment to diagnose Alzheimers disease is problematic, likening it to requiring someone with diabetes to wait until they have blindness or kidney failure to be diagnosed. All disease begins before symptoms, and most diseases are better treated before people walk into your office with clear impairment," Sperling says.

Devi says the psychological impact of being told you have Alzheimers when you dont is profound. Until the medical community can better agree on how to both diagnose early Alzheimers disease and determine whether early treatment helps, patients should avoid unnecessary testingespecially with the advent of easily accessible blood tests.

Write to Sumathi Reddy at Sumathi.Reddy@wsj.com
In China, a fashion influencer with 3 million followers on social media has apparently become a victim of identity theft. Chen Xin has accused her long-time personal assistant of deception.

According to the social media influencer, the assistant spent 6 years pretending to be a wealthy Chinese student at Harvard Medical School, the South China Morning Post reported.

The woman, Jiang, allegedly accessed Chens home using stored passwords, wore her luxury clothing and used personal items to stage photographs.

She also reused unused images taken by Chen, using artificial intelligence (AI) to replace Chens body with her own, SCMP reported.

Investigations suggest Jiang never travelled abroad. Instead, she altered IP data while using stolen photos of overseas students to support the false story.

The woman even hosted a livestream about intelligent womens self-growth and reportedly earned about 1.14 million yuan (nearly 1.5 crore) in viewer tips.

According to Chen, the scheme was uncovered only after a stranger warned her. The case has drawn attention online, raising concerns about privacy and digital identity.

It also highlights the risks influencers face when entrusting close employees with personal access.

According to a social media user, Jiang claimed to be Chen Xins sister after some followers had recognised Chens home in her photos. To support the lie, Jiang even shared the homes location and used Chens identity to date people online.

When Chen tried to check the account, she found herself blocked. She had to use a friends profile to uncover the fraud.

The influencer was shocked to learn that Jiang had been faking her identity for more than 2 years. She has been working as Chens personal assistant for six years.

Also Read | Influencer to raise AQI, stray dog issues in meeting with Delhi CM

According to Chen, Jiang first approached her as a fan and pleaded for financial help. Instead of giving money, Chen offered her a job, a steady income and a chance to learn new media skills.

Chen trained Jiang fully. She needed to work only for a few days a month. It also allowed her to take other jobs. When Jiang recently requested leave to care for her injured father, Chen also sent financial support.

One social media user reacted, I am shocked that she went as far as using AI to steal her employers photographs.

She was so vain that she worked so hard to pretend to be someone else, and so stupid to ignore the fact that nothing remains a secret on the internet, SCMP quoted another user as commenting.

Influencer's reaction The influencer said the discovery had left her deeply hurt and betrayed. After the confrontation, Jiang admitted she had acted wrongly out of vanity.

Chen first chose not to pursue legal action. She asked Jiang to apologise publicly and return the money earned from the fake livestream.

Jiang initially agreed but later refused to do it. She blocked Chen and denied most claims, admitting only limited misuse of photos and clothing.
Three major pre-poll surveys offer a hint at the likely outcome of the Bangladesh Elections. Two of those surveys indicate clear electoral dominance by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), while the third one suggested a close fight between the BNP and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami.

The crucial polls, scheduled for February 12, pose a key test for the two alliances led by the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami after the ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Who is likely to win? Here's what pre poll surveys say:

1. EASD survey A survey carried out by the Eminence Associates for Social Development (EASD) revealed that the BNP-led alliance could win approximately 208 seats (of 300) in the Bangladesh election, the Dhaka Tribune reported.

Suggesting that voters may prefer the BNP, the survey claimed that Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islamiled alliance may secure 46 seats. In addition, the Jatiya Party is projected to win three seats, other parties four seats, and independent candidates 17 seats, the report added.

The results were based on the opinions of around 41,500 respondents - 26,560 were men (64%) and 14,922 were women (36%)

As per the local media report, a total of 66.3 percent of respondents expressed their intention to vote for the BNP, while Jamaat-e-Islami ranked second with 11.9 percent support.

The NCP received 1.7 percent support. Among others, the Jatiya Party secured 4 percent support, while independent candidates accounted for 2.6 percent.

The survey reportedly suggested that the BNP enjoys strong support among women voters, with 71.1 percent expressing support for the party.

It claimed that a significant portion of voters who previously supported Hasina's Awami League are now in favour of political change.

EASD Chief Executive Officer Shamim Hayder Talukdar was quoted by Dhaka Tribune as saying that 80 percent of former Awami League voters expressed intention to vote for the BNP in the upcoming election  and 15% said they would support Jamaat-e-Islami.

2. IILD survey shows tight race The opinion survey by the International Institute of Law and Diplomacy (IILD) revealed that while the BNP-led alliance was clearly ahead in terms of overall vote share, the Jamaat-led electoral alliance was leading in constituencies where victory appeared assured.

According to a report in Prothomalo, the survey suggested that the Jamaat-led alliance could secure a definite victory in 105 constituencies, whereas the BNP-led alliance could be assured of victory on 101 seats.

It said candidates from other parties may win in 19 constituencies.

The survey further claimed that the BNP-led alliance may secure 44.1 percent of the vote, while an electoral alliance of 11 political parties led by Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami could receive 43.9 per cent.

The findings also indicated a closely fought contest in 75 constituencies between candidates of the two alliances.

The survey reportedly included 63,115 voters nationwide. Of them, 36,634 were men, accounting for 57.59 per cent of respondents, while 26,981 were women, representing 42.41 per cent, Prothomalo reported.

NRC poll A survey by the Nationalist Research Cell (NRC) echoed BNP's advantage and projected that the BNP could secure 77 percent of the vote and win 220 seats.

Meanwhile, Jamaat-e-Islami was projected to win 57 seats, with the rest split among smaller parties and independents.

Know about Bangladesh Elections in brief: Bangladesh's national elections will be held on February 12, and the results will be announced on February 13.

The Jatiya Sangsad or Parliament of Bangladesh has 350 elected members, who, like its neighbour, India, serve five-year terms. However, only 300 members are elected by the people for their respective constituencies.

The remaining 50 seats are reserved for women and are filled by a vote of the 300 members based on proportional representation, the Indian Express explained.

A political party or coalition must win 151 of the total 300 seats (more than half) to form a government in the country. Members for the remaining 50 seats reserved for women are elected later.

This year, the contest is between two alliances  one is led by the BNP (currently headed by former PM Khaleda Zia's son Tarique Rahman).

Another is a tie-up between Jamaat and the National Citizen Party (NCP), a group formed by student leaders of the 2024 uprising that ousted Sheikh Hasina. The alliance also includes other Islamist parties.
Days after hundreds of new pictures were released as part of the Epstein Files, a picture featuring both Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, has emerged, dragging both tech moguls into a new controversy. According to the reports, the image has been revealed as one of the images from the Epstein Files, showing Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk attending an intimate dinner  possibly with Jeffrey Epstein.

While Jeffrey Epstein does not appear in the dinner photograph, reports indicate that he may have been the one who captured it. There is also no indication if he spoke with either of the two businessmen.

Jeffrey Epstein had emailed himself the picture in August 2015. In an email later that month, the disgraced financier mentioned he had dinner with zuckerburg, mu=k, thiel hoffman, wild. He also mentioned that LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman and Palantir chairman Peter Thiel, too, had attended the dinner. They were not seen in the image.

According to a 2019 Vanity Fair report, Reid Hoffman hosted a dinner that was attended by Musk, Zuckerberg, and Epstein. A Meta representative had later mnentioned that the Meta chief met Jeffrey Epstein, but in passing one time, and did not communicate with Epstein again following the dinner.

In a response to Vanity Fair in 2019, Elon Musk had said that Epstein is obviously a creep and Zuckerberg is not a friend of mine.

Meanwhile, the links between former UK ambassador to Washington and Jeffrey Epstein has turned into a full-blown crisis for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer who is fighting to keep his job. He has, however, vowed to fight for it.

Some lawmakers in Keir Starmer's center-left party have called on him to resign for his judgment in appointing Peter Mandelson to the high-profile diplomatic post in 2024 despite his ties to the convicted sex offender.

Also Read | Musk mocks Zuckerberg as US probes privacy breach charges against WhatsApp

The leader of the Labour Party in Scotland, Anas Sarwar, joined those calls Monday, saying there have been too many mistakes" and "the leadership in Downing Street has to change.

Starmers chief of staff and his communications director have also quit in quick succession. But Starmer has insisted that he will not step down. "Every fight I have ever been in, I've won," he told Labour lawmakers at a meeting in Parliament. I'm not prepared to walk away from my mandate and my responsibility to my country," Starmer told lawmakers.
French President Emmanuel Macron will visit India from February 17 to 19, Indias Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Tuesday.

During his three-day visit to India, Macron will hold wide-ranging talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi besides attending the AI Impact summit.

The French President will participate in the AI ImpactSummit being hosted by India in New Delhi next week, said the MEA statement.

Both the leaders will hold talks on strengthening bilateral ties across a wide spectrum of areas, the MEA said in a statement.

Earlier, President Macron visited India from 25 to 26 January 2024 to take part as guest of honour in Indias Republic Day celebrations at the invitation of Modi.

Also Read | IAF's proposal to buy 114 more Rafales to go before DAC ahead of Macron visit

PM Modi and Macron will also discuss regional and global issues of mutual interest, including cooperation in the Indo-Pacific.

The two leaders will also visit Mumbai to jointly inaugurate the 'India-France Year of Innovation', the MEA said.

The Year of Innovation 2026 initiative will be celebrated throughout the year in both countries and aims to deepen collaboration in innovation, technology, research, and people-to-people exchanges.

Last year, India and France signed a declaration of their intent to establish a partnership on advanced and small modular nuclear reactors during Modi's visit to France.

"This visit follows Prime Minister Modi's visit to France in February 2025 and reflects the mutual trust and depth of the India-France Strategic Partnership, as well as the shared commitment of the two countries to deepen it further," the MEA stated in the statement.

In February 2025, PM Modi co-chaired the AI Action Summit with President Macron in Paris.

AI Impact Summit The India-AI Impact Summit will be held from February 16 to 20 at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, marking the first global AI summit to be hosted in the Global South.

Also Read | France lawmakers pass bill to ban social media for children under 15

The Expo, spanning over 70,000 square metres, is expected to feature more than 300 exhibitors from 30 countries across 10 thematic pavilions, showcasing AI's transition from research and pilots to large-scale deployment.

The Summit builds on India's development-focused approach to AI, aligns with the IndiaAI Mission and Digital India Initiative, and emphasises translating global AI discussions into practical, people-centric outcomes.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Saturday said that he was optimistic negotiations with the United States could restart in the near future, while again underscoring Irans non-negotiable positions and cautioning Washington against any military action.

The discussions on Friday between the long-time adversaries took place against the backdrop of a significant US military buildup in the region, following Irans harsh response to protests that erupted in late December over economic hardships.

On Saturday, Araghchi cautioned that Iran would respond to any US attack by striking American military installations in the Gulf, saying such retaliation would focus on regional bases rather than the United States itself. It would not be possible to attack American soil, but we will target their bases in the region, he told Al Jazeera.

He added, We will not attack neighbouring countries; rather, we will target US bases stationed in them. There is a big difference between the two."

According to the Wall Street Journal, Iran is believed to possess about 2,000 medium-range ballistic missiles capable of striking targets throughout the region, along with shorter-range missiles that can reach US military bases in the Gulf.

Iran's key midrange ballistic missiles that can reach major US bases across Middle East The Khorramshahr missile is regarded as Irans most powerful and sophisticated liquid-fueled weapon, carrying an ultra-heavy warhead with a range of up to 2,000 kilometres, putting all of Israel, many US military installations across the Middle East, and parts of southeastern Europe within reach; among the potential targets are Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the US Naval Support Activity in Bahrain, and other American bases located in Kuwait, Iraq, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, according to an NDTV report.

Also Read | Khamenei skips key meeting with air force generals for first time in 37 years

The Sejjil medium-range ballistic missile has a reported range of up to 2,000 kilometres, enabling it to strike targets throughout the Middle East, including Israel, as well as parts of southeastern Europe; within its potential reach are Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the US Naval Support Activity in Bahrain, several installations in Kuwait such as Camp Arifjan and Ali Al Salem Air Base, Iraqs Al-Asad Air Base, and other key US military assets in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey.

The Emad and Ghadr-1 are advanced medium-range ballistic missiles with ranges of about 1,700 kilometres, giving them the capability to strike targets such as Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the US Naval Support Activity in Bahrain, key facilities in Kuwait including Camp Arifjan and Ali Al Salem Air Base, Iraqs Al-Asad Air Base, Al Dhafra Air Base in the UAE, Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, and installations in Jordan and Syria.

The Fattah-1, Haj Qasem and Kheibar Shekan missiles, all prominent systems developed mainly by Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, have ranges of roughly 1,400 kilometres and could reach US and allied bases including Al Udeid in Qatar, Ali Al Salem and Ahmed Al Jaber Air Bases in Kuwait, the US Naval Support Activity in Bahrain, Al Dhafra Air Base in the UAE, and sites in Jordan and Syria.

The Dezful missile, a medium-range ballistic missile with an estimated range of around 1,000 kilometres, is capable of targeting locations such as Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, Ain al-Assad Air Base in Iraq, Camp Arifjan and Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, the US Naval Support Activity in Bahrain, Al Dhafra Air Base in the UAE, and parts of eastern Saudi Arabia including Prince Sultan Air Base.

Meanwhile, Iranian authorities have said that 3,117 people died during the unrest, releasing a list of 2,986 names on Sunday. Officials said most of those killed were security personnel and civilians not involved in the demonstrations, according to AFP.
US President Donald Trump is set to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington on Wednesday (local time), amid growing regional tensions, AFP reported.

Netanyahu is likely to press Trump, asking him to adopt a stricter stance over Iran's ballistic missile programme during the next round of talks. The upcoming meeting will be the sixth between the two leaders since Trump took office in January 2025, and it comes days after officials from Tehran and Washington held talks in Muscat, the capital of Oman, following which Trump said another round of talks will take place.

The report, citing a statement from Netanyahu's office, said he will highlight Israels concerns over Irans missile arsenal in discussions with Trump, along with Tehran's nuclear programme. It further said that Netanyahu believes any negotiations must include limitations on ballistic missiles and a halting of the support for the Iranian axis.

Iran warns of 'destructive influence' over Netanyahu's visit Following the announcement of the meeting between Trump and Netanyahu on Wednesday, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson warned that Netanyahu's visit would have a destructive influence on diplomacy that is detrimental to the region.

In a weekly press briefing, the spokesperson said, "Our negotiating party is America. It is up to America to decide to act independently of the pressures and destructive influences that are detrimental to the region," the Times of Israel reported. The Iranian spokesperson further added, "The Zionist regime has repeatedly, as a saboteur, shown that it opposes any diplomatic process in our region that leads to peace."

US-Iran talks In a bid to revive diplomacy, Washington and Tehran officials held negotiations in Oman on 6 February. The talks came amid the buildup of a US military presence in West Asia in response to Iran's violent repression of nationwide anti-government protests that took place in December 2025 and continued in January.

Following the talks between the two sides, Trump said that the US had "very good" talks on Iran, adding that more were planned for next week. However, he continued with the pressure on Tehran, stating that if they did not make a deal over its nuclear programme, "the consequences are very steep".

Iran has so far refused to broaden discussions with the U.S beyond its nuclear programme, even as reports indicate that Washington is seeking to include Tehrans ballistic missile activities and its backing of militant groups in the talks.

In recent weeks, amid growing unrest in Tehran, Trump threatened to bomb Iran if the two sides did not reach a deal. Washington sent thousands of troops, including an aircraft carrier, along with other warships as well as fighter jets. Iran, on the other hand, vowed to respond to the US' attack with force and threatened to strike the US' military assets in West Asia and Israel, BBC reported.
Think 1970 GM muscle cars. Your mind probably went to the fabled Chevelle SS 454 LS6, or perhaps the Pontiac GTO Judge that collectors fight over. Great options, but there's one GM muscle car from the 1970 model year that barely gets a mention these days, even though it was powerful and quick enough to run with, and in some period tests outrun, many of the eras quickest muscle cars. This muscle car didn't need a crazy appearance package or other wild styling elements to show that it was the baddest GM muscle car of the day. Instead, it maintained a relatively low-key appearance and let its doom-bringer of an engine do all the talking.

Its massive torque and big block punch earned a serious reputation in period road tests, but for some strange reason, it doesn't get the recognition it deserves, and as a result, prices have remained fairly grounded compared to its rivals. So, without further ado, meet the 1970 Buick GS455.

1970 Buick GS 455: GM's Baddest Muscle Car That No One Remembers

Image Credit: Sicnag - 1970 Buick GS 455 Stage 1 Coupe, CC BY 2.0/Wiki Commons

As GM's semi-luxury brand, Buick wasn't known for offering performance-oriented models, but after Pontiac built the GTO in 1964 and launched the muscle car craze, even they couldn't resist the urge to join the horsepower wars. So, barely a year after the GTO debuted, Buick introduced the Gran Sport (GS), a high-performance version of the intermediate-sized A-body Skylark.

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The Skylark GS was only sold as a two-door hardtop coupe, pillared coupe, or convertible, and was equipped with the legendary 401 cubic-inch Nailhead V8. This move not only marked a drastic shift in Buick's modus operandi, but it also went against the ill-advised GM engine ban, which prevented its brands from installing engines larger than 400 cubic inches in intermediate-sized cars. The GS's engine was officially listed as 400 cubic inches, though.

The GS was a smash hit, and by the 1968 model year, Buick promoted it to a separate model based on the two-door Skylark's chassis and body. The 1968 GS 400 also received an updated design that made it one of the best-looking muscle cars of the day. Buick had also phased out the aging Nailhead V8 from 1967 onwards, replacing it with a new 400 cubic-inch V8 that made a respectable 340 hp and 440 lb-ft of torque, but it often found itself outgunned on paper by the most extreme big-block Fords and Hemi-powered Mopars of the day. Even within the GM family, the GS was often rated below some GM siblings in peak horsepower, and that didnt sit right with Buick engineers, with the high levels of internal competition among GM brands back then.

Then 1970 came and changed everything. 1970 was a huge year for the GS, but even more consequential for GM as a company. The top brass finally came to their senses and lifted the engine ban, which was akin to uncaging a predator that had sat and watched helplessly for years as cross-town rivals dominated the muscle car market with their unrestricted big blocks. Buick engineers were ready to run wild, and they dropped a gargantuan 455 cubic-inch V8 into the GS, creating the 1970 GS 455.

The Torquey GS 455 Was Buick's Contribution to the Muscle Car Golden Age

Image Credit: Kieran White from Manchester, England - 1970 Buick GS Convertible, CC BY 2.0/Wiki Commons

The Golden Age of muscle cars, which lasted from the mid-1960s to the early '70s, produced some of the most iconic muscle cars. While GM did have some contenders, including models like the 1969 Hurst/Olds that found a way around the ban, it largely missed out since the restrictions prevented its intermediate-sized models from achieving their full potential. Thankfully, they lifted the ban in 1970 and everyone let loose.

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Since in this era GM divisions largely relied on their own engine families, Buick, Pontiac, and Oldsmobile all installed different versions of 455 cubic-inch V8s in their A-body cars, but Buick's execution created a ferocious monster that showed the others who's boss. The GS 455's behemoth of an engine made 350 hp at 4,600 rpm and a crazy 510 lb-ft of torque at 2,800 rpm. In that era, manufacturers sometimes quoted conservative power figures, which is why period testers and later builders have often argued the output was conservative. Buicks engine also featured a thin-wall casting block, which made it lighter than rivals, further improving its power-to-weight ratio - it was about 150 lbs lighter than a Chevy 454.

While the 350-hp figure was easy to brush off, with many rivals already past the 400-hp mark, the car's 510 lb-ft of torque was tough to beat, especially considering that it was achieved at just 2,800 rpm. This massive torque figure and the sheer speed at which it was delivered are why the GS 455 was often nicknamed the Torque King. It was often cited as a torque benchmark for American performance cars of its era; later performance cars like the 2003 Viper (525 lb-ft) surpassed it.

The Stage 1 Package Took It up a Notch

Image Credit: Mr.choppers - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0/Wiki Commons

For those who wanted more oomph, Buick offered the Stage 1 package, which had been introduced in the 1969 model year. In the 1970 GS 455, the $199 Stage 1 package increased horsepower to a still-underrated 360 hp thanks to high-flow engine cylinder heads, a hotter cam, and a specially tuned Quadrajet four-barrel carb. The cooling system and suspension system also got some upgrades, resulting in a car that could cover the quarter mile in 13.38 seconds at over 105 mph, according to period tests from Motor Trend Magazine.

While these figures put the 1970 GS 455 Stage 1 in the same conversation as rivals like the 1970 Chevelle SS 454 LS6 and Pontiac GTO Judge (Ram Air IV), the GS 455 remains a forgotten relic of the past while the Chevy and Pontiac continue to bask in endless acclaim today. One reason behind this is the GS 455's image of a Gentleman's muscle car since, despite having so much power under the hood, it still catered to Buick's traditional luxury-oriented buyers and had upscale features like plush bucket seats, woodgrain trim, a center console, deluxe steering wheel, and a relatively quiet and comfortable cabin.

The 1970 GS 455 Is a Rare Sight

Image Credit: Mr.choppers - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0/Wiki Commons

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The GS 455 checked all the boxes muscle car purists had and looked set to dominate the rest of the '70s, but sadly, its reign was short-lived, with stricter emission restrictions forcing Buick to reduce its power output in 1971 to a measly 315 hp and 450 lb-ft of torque for the standard GS 455 and 345 hp and 460 lb-ft for the Stage-1-equipped version. If the GS 455 was the GM swan song for the muscle car era, 1970 is when it hit the highest notes.

Buick produced 9,470 non GSX GS 455 models in 1970, with 2,697 of them equipped with the Stage 1 package. This is not a car youre likely to run into in the wild too often. The convertibles are far rarer than the coupes, accounting for 1,184 of the GS 455 total, with only 232 of those equipped with the Stage 1 package. Even more of a unicorn is the GSX package, whose numbers weve not included in the 9,470 figure, but more on that shortly.

The GSX Was Even Meaner and Rarer

Image Credit: Charles from Port Chester, New York - Buick Skylark GSX 455 Stage 1 (1970), CC BY 2.0/Wiki Commons

With the muscle car wars in full swing in 1970, Buick hatched a plan to build a high-performance, limited-production halo car that could face off against industry giants like the Chevelle SS and Pontiac GTO Judge. At the same time, Buick wanted something to drive more showroom traffic to the redesigned 1970 A-body, which is why they decided to build a special version of the GS 455 - the GSX.

Not everyone wanted a Gentleman's muscle car, and Buick knew that. Some gearheads wanted to announce their performance intentions, even while parked, and that's exactly what the GSX offered. The hardtop-only GSX package cost $1,195 on top of the GS 455's $3,283 price tag, and for that, gearheads got an exclusive choice of either Saturn Yellow or Apollo White paint color, distinctive black stripes, front and rear spoilers, and a functional hood-mounted tachometer. On the performance side, the GSX package mandated a heavy-duty suspension, stiffer shocks and springs, and power front disc brakes; quick-ratio power steering was optional. Like the GS 455, the GSX also had the Stage 1 option that took things a notch higher. Buick ended up producing just 678 GSXs in 1970, according to most sources, with 400 of them equipped with the Stage 1 package.

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Unlike the 1970 GS 455, the GSX gets more respect in automotive circles, even though it was mostly an appearance package with similar levels of performance as the more introverted GS 455. Sure, its rarity has something to do with it, but the normal GS 455 surely deserves more respect, right?

The 1970 GS 455 Is an Attainable Collector Muscle Car Today

Image Credit: Greg Gjerdingen from Willmar, USA - 70 Buick GS Stage 1 (Clone), CC BY 2.0/Wiki Commons

The 1970 GS 455 is a gorgeous golden era muscle car with a beast of an engine, genuine performance credentials, and relatively low production numbers, particularly in Stage 1 guise. This kind of recipe usually pushes prices into levels that mortals of meager means wouldn't be able to afford, but for some reason, the 1970 GS 455 is surprisingly attainable. According to the Hagerty Valuation Tool, a 1970 GS 455 sport coupe is valued at $29,800 in #3 good condition, and Classic.com shows recent sales as low as $38,000 on November 7, 2025. The Stage 1 Package expectedly commands a premium and Hagerty lists a 1970 GS 455 Stage I sport coupe at $50,300 in #3 good condition, with Classic.com showing sales as low as $51,000 on November 11, 2025. Convertibles may fetch considerably more, especially the 232 units with the Stage 1 package.

While these prices may not qualify as cheap, they're far below the GSX, which sold for $154,000 at Mecum Indy on May 16, 2025 in standard form and $236,500 for a Stage 1 example at Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale on January 24, 2025. We don't even want to go into 1970 Chevelle SS 454 prices, which sold for $440,000 at Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale on January 24, 2026.

The 1970 GS 455 may not attract as many oohs and aahs as the more flashy and famous rivals from its era, but its prices put it within reach, even though it's equipped to offer better performance-per-dollar than more famous contemporaries. In the world of everything automotive, we call that a no-brainer.
Ambergris is a waxy substance produced by sperm whales to protect their digestive tract from indigestible debris. Once expelled, it floats to the surface, washing up as flotsam on beaches around the world. Ambergris also happens to be highly effective at stabilizing volatile perfume notes, significantly extending how long they remain active on human skin. As a result, it became one of the most sought-after substances in the fragrance industry.

As its commercial value grew, demand for this rare biological substance increased to the point where it cost $10,000 per pound. Rather than waiting for chance discoveries of ambergris, whalers began hunting sperm whales, killing a countless number in the process. Since only one in every 100 sperm whales has ambergris, this became one of the most wastefuland cruelobjectives of the whaling industry.

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For centuries, we have extracted rare and exotic compounds from animals for human use. The triumphal robes of victorious Roman generals were dyed in Tyrian purple, a pigment so rare it took 10,000 Mediterranean snails to produce a single gram. When we learnt that diabetes mellitus could be treated with insulin, we extracted this hormone from pig pancreaskilling 23,000 pigs to produce just a single pound.

In retrospect, it is hard to see bio-farming as anything but cruel and wasteful. But it was only after international moratoriums were imposed that trends began to reverse. Its now almost impossible to source natural ambergris for large-scale commercial use and the perfumery industry has turned to synthetic alternatives, just as the medical industry has for insulin.

But despite these advances, many industries still rely on animal-derived substancesbecause of molecular complexity, regulatory obstacles or the perceived superiority of natural products in some applications.

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Each year, the blood of nearly half a million Atlantic horseshoe crabs is harvested to test for bacterial endotoxins. Since the crabs blue blood has a protein that clots instantly when it comes in contact with bacterial endotoxins, it remains our most reliable way to ensure the safety of vaccines, intravenous fluids and implantable medical devices. The production of antivenoms for snake, scorpion and spider bites still requires milking venom from live animals and injecting it into horses or sheep to harvest antibodiesa dangerous, slow and expensive process.

Beyond ethical concerns, animal biofarming also poses significant health and environmental risks. The production, storage and consumption of animal-sourced products risk the spread of infectious diseases, which no biosecurity system or containment measures can definitively prevent. The environmental cost of raising, feeding and maintaining animals solely to harvest a single molecule or organ is becoming increasingly difficult to justify. The question is not whether we should quit extractive biofarming, but why our systems remain structured around it at all.

While advances in recombinant DNA technology and industrial bioprocessing have enabled the mass production of some biological molecules, many of the most valuable compoundsparticularly those involved in immune response and toxicologyhave proven difficult to replicate. Their three-dimensional structures are complex, their binding behaviours subtle and their effectiveness often depends on interactions that remain poorly understood. In practice, the biological machinery of animals has continued to outperform our best attempts at imitating them.

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In a recent paper, scientists described a radically different approach. By using generative artificial intelligence (AI), they were able to design synthetic antivenom proteins from scratch. Rather than harvesting antibodies from animals, they used an AI system called RFdiffusion to generate entirely novel protein binders whose shapes were engineered to precisely match specific venom toxins they were targeting. These binders act like molecular caps, attaching tightly to the venom toxins and preventing them from docking onto human cells.

The results were striking. In laboratory tests, these synthetic binders successfully neutralized the toxic effects of black-necked spitting cobra venom on human cells even when introduced after exposure. In live animal tests, mice survived doses that would have otherwise been fatal. Most importantly, since these binders were highly specific, they narrowly targeted venom toxins without triggering a broader immune response.

The significance of this experiment extends well beyond snakebite treatment. It demonstrates that computational systems can now reliably produce what we once depended on living organisms to provide us. Advances such as these are making it possible to replace traditional biofarming with specifically designed alternatives. Because these molecules are engineered from scratch, they can be made to be more stable than their animal counterparts, reducing the need for cold chains and easing various other storage constraints.

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For centuries, we have extracted molecules from animals, treating our fauna as a resource to be mined. Computational biology offers a fundamentally different paradigmone in which value comes not from chance discovery, but from deliberate design. This shift is not technological, but conceptual. Instead of foraging for what nature happens to produce, we can deliberately build what we actually need.

The author is a partner at Trilegal and the author of The Third Way: Indias Revolutionary Approach to Data Governance. His X handle is @matthan.
Foreign investment in Indian equities got off to a good start in February. By Friday, more than 8,100 crore worth of Indian shares had been bought by foreign portfolio investors. This follows their liquidation of over 62,000 crore worth of stocks in the previous three months.

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Though these are still early days, the purchases seem consonant with a wave of economic optimism over an India-US trade deal in the works. Does this mark a turning point for foreign inflows? A cloud of gloom has lifted.

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Earlier, as foreign investors exited, the rupee had slid, reducing the appeal of Indian assets. For this dynamic to durably reverse, India needs an insurge of foreign direct investments too. Perhaps New Delhis deal promise to vastly expand imports from the US is predicated on booming capital inflows overall, the flip side of an enlarged current account deficit.

How far equity prices go, however, would still depend on whether corporate earnings take a sharper incline than seen in their recent record. In other words, several factors must work in tandem to boost stock indices. For now, its a relief that household money going into mutual funds isnt all thats supporting stock prices.
It is not often that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governors statement on monetary policy includes an announcement that directly touches the lives of Indians at large. Repo rate changes and liquidity measuresthe stuff that such statements are usually made ofare one stage removed, as their impact plays out through the banking system.

This time, however, citizens were direct beneficiaries of a proposal aimed at better customer protection.

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On Friday, Governor Sanjay Malhotra said that RBI would introduce a framework to compensate bank customers up to 25,000 each for losses incurred in fraudulent transactions of small value. These constitute roughly 65% of online frauds in India.

Notably, victims would not be asked any questions in such cases, so the scheme is expected to cover even those who disclose an OTPthe one-time password used by banks to confirm a customers identity. While victims and their banks will each be required to bear 15% of the transaction value, RBI will pay the rest from its Depositor Education and Awareness Fund.

Draft guidelines are to be issued soon. Before the central bank does that, however, it should pause and reconsider the proposal. Is it rushing into an area beyond its remit with an idea best left to the government?

Given the gravity of the problem, nobody can quarrel with RBIs intent. In the last six years alone, nearly 53,000 crore has been lost to cyber-crime. Whether this is an appropriate bank-regulatory answer to the menace, though, is unclear.

Safety measures such as lagged credits and additional authentication for vulnerable user classes (like senior citizens), plus improved financial literacy and public education, apart from the use of loss insurance, may comprise a better approach. Perhaps banks could also be nudged to minimize the frequency of their app redesigns, complex upgrades of which can confuse UPI users.

True, both the government and RBI have been doing a great deal to spread awareness and protect citizens from cyber fraud. Recently, RBI proposed a discussion paper on how best to enhance the safety of digital payments. Yet, their efforts so far do not seem to have had the desired effect, going by the growing incidence of such crimes.

It is another matter that law enforcers have largely proven ineffective in tracking down fraud perpetrators and bringing them to book.

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The RBI proposal of a compensatory mechanism presents a domain-overlap problem. Central banks should not allow their hearts to rule their heads. Their primary mandate is to maintain price stability, with the objective of growth-support a close second or parallel priority.

In India, the central bank already has plenty on its plate. Apart from being the issuer of currency and our monetary authority, RBI is also the banker to the Union and state governments (as well as banks), regulator of the banking sector, manager of foreign exchange and supervisor of our system for payments and settlements. In addition, it has a developmental role.

Experience has shown that the narrower their remit, the better the performance of central banks. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell put it well. Speaking in the context of the US central banks role in fighting climate change, he said the Fed should not wander off to pursue perceived social benefits that are not tightly linked to its statutory goals and authority." These, he added, are best left to elected branches of government. Indias Reserve Bank, likewise, would be best served by sticking to its knitting.
Singapore has been put on notice. The city-state has long wrestled with how to lift its birth rate. But despite an array of incentives, couples arent showing much interest in larger families, or having any at all. The challenge is shared by most successful nations. Ultra-low fertility is a byproduct of rapid development and elevated living standards. South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and China all have rates of fertility well below 2.1, the level at which demographers say a society reproduces itself.

Leaders are far from comfortable with the trend. Singapore is still crunching the numbers for 2025, though they are unlikely to improve much from the prior year. Im not likely to give good news," Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong told a conference last week.

Singapore had hoped for a boost in 2024. Instead, the rate, which measures the average number of kids a woman has in her childbearing years, was stuck just below 1.0. The figure has been retreating for decades; when the country became independent 60 years ago, it was around 4.5.

In the absence of a meaningful boost, the low level raises profound questions about the role of immigration, robotics and artificial intelligence. The countrys residents are also getting older; the government has warned that the republic will soon be a super-aged" society.

Unlike Japan, South Korea and China, Singapore strives to attract the workers it needsespecially in industries it considers strategic such as technology, engineering and finance. In important ways, the it is better placed than peers to overcome the hurdles. Yet there are limits: Since an electoral setback in 2011, the ruling party has emphasized that topping up the population wont come at the expense of jobs for citizens.

Should governments just give up? Even if measures like increased paternity leave, baby bonuses and a raft of tax incentives fail to move the fertility needle to a significant degree, that doesnt mean they are bad policy. And its possible that families could again start to expand in a marked way. Its not a lifetime ago that officials fretted about an overcrowded planet.

Just dont expect miracles. Financial approaches to low fertility do not account for the powerful shift in values that has driven the move to smaller families," Jennifer D. Sciubba, Michael S. Teitelbaum and Jay Winter wrote in their new book, Toxic Demography: Ideology and the Politics of Population.

Values could transform but because of the long-lasting momentum of demographic change, countries in which such counter shifts might occur after their populations were already declining would continue to register negative growth for several decades." In short, shoring up languishing fertility requires patience.

That doesnt mean these Asian economic stars have taken an irrevocable turn for the worse. By many metrics, they deserve praise. Gross domestic product is high and, when measured per capita in the case of Singapore, stratospheric. Each ascended to prominence in the post-World War II era characterized by falling trade barriers and capital mobility. But pre-eminence in exports did not by itself generate demographic challenges. Family planning was vital to national security as well as finances. Countries had to thrive, not just survive.

If governance was geared for keeping a lid on headcount, the opposite is now true. But it isnt being pursued with the same vigour: Some countries strongly promoted sterilization and, in the case of China, which enforced a one-child policy, additional kids led difficult lives. (They were often denied registration cards essential for education, healthcare and the ability to move in search of better employment opportunities.) Now China is so keen for families to get larger its even taxing condoms. Restrictions are gone but the problem remains.

Its one thing to galvanize residents around the need to lift fertility. Dire predictions arent the solution. One South Korean minister warned in 2023 that the country risked extinction. Reports on Chinas economic slowdown are now accompanied by grim-framed updates on its shrinking population. By this measure, the big news of 2025 wasnt US tariffs or the record trade surplus, but the steepest annual drop in population since the Mao Zedong era. This retreat has been a long time in the making.

Its not just about redirecting state actions. Women want careers, children cost a lot, housing is expensive and men still arent doing anywhere near their fair share at home. (A paper last year by Nobel laureate Claudia Goldin urged men to be dependable dads.) Singapore is right that fertility news isnt likely to be encouraging. But we didnt suddenly arrive at this moment. Solutions wont come overnight, if they ever do. Bloomberg

The author is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian economies.
A fresh political row has erupted in Maharashtra after RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat reportedly described insistence on language and periodic agitations over it as a kind of disease at an event in Mumbai on February 8.

The remarks triggered a sharp response from the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) president Raj Thackeray, who accused Bhagwat of belittling linguistic and regional identities that have historically shaped Indias federal structure.

Raj Thackeray said on Tuesday that if RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat if of the opinion that protesting for one's language is a "disease", then a majority of the states in the country suffer from it.

In a post on X, Thackeray also claimed that those who attended Bhagwat's programme here on February 7-8 to mark the RSS centenary did not come out of love for him but out of fear of Narendra Modi's government.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), however, dismissed the remarks, saying people attend Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's (RSS) programmes voluntarily and with discipline.

On the issue of Marathi language and identity, the ruling BJP said Marathi is a matter of pride, but stressed that a language should remain a medium of communication rather than conflict.

Thackeray noted that the regional sentiment in the southern states like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka is fervent. There is a similar sentiment in Punjab, West Bengal and even in Gujarat.

When hordes of people from four to five states in the country go to different states, act arrogantly there, reject the local culture, insult the local language, create their own vote banks, it leads to resentment among locals, leading to outbursts, he noted.

Will Bhagwat call it a disease? The MNS president asked.

RSS chief interaction in Mumbai During an event in Mumbai over the weekend, Bhagwat interacted with people from diverse walks of life and answered a series of questions. On the language row, he had said the "localised disease" should not spread.

Reacting to it, Thackeray said, "If Bhagwat feels love for language and state is a disease, then a majority of the states in the country suffer from it."

Thackeray said Bhagwat did not give these "sermons" to Gujarat when thousands of people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were driven away from there. Why were such lessons not given to Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Punjab? he asked.

"Bhagwat can show the courage of making such remarks because Marathi manoos are tolerant, but more than that, those in power are spineless," he claimed.

The MNS and Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena (UBT) contested last month's municipal corporation polls on the plank of Marathi identity and the 'sons of the soil' issue.

"For us, the Marathi language and the Marathi people are of paramount priority. Linguistic and regional identities will remain in this country, and so they will in Maharashtra too! This is our right, and whenever such situations arise, Maharashtra will rise with full fury," the MNS chief said.

The MNS leader further said he respects the Sangh's work, but it should not indirectly take a political stand. And if it does, then it must first pull up the government that's "imposing Hindi (which isn't even the national language) across the country," and then come teach us about harmony.

Raj Thackeray also said Bhagwat should not teach him Hindutva. When Hindus are attacked, the MNS will do whatever it can as Hindus.

The MNS was the party that took out marches against the Raza Academy "riots", protested against loudspeakers on mosques, and took a stand against the massive loudspeakers and DJs during Hindu festivals that trouble citizens, he pointed out.

"We call out what's wrong as wrong. When will you (Bhagwat) speak up like that? When will you speak about the chaos in the name of Hindutva across the country - the way women are made to dance during kanwar yatras in north India?" he said.

In 2014, India was ninth in beef exports and today it's second, yet the drama of cow slaughter politics continues, inflaming sentiments. When will Bhagwat speak on it? Raj Thackeray asked.

BJP responds Responding to the comments, BJP state chief spokesperson Keshav Upadhye in a post on X said the MNS leader needs to come out of his "misconception" that people attend RSS events out of fear.

Upadhye said that Raj Thackeray should dispel the misconception. It's wrong to assume that just as people come out of fear of MNS, the same must be happening elsewhere. People participate in RSS shakhas, rallies and most events willingly and in an orderly manner, the BJP leader asserted.

He said many RSS activities are held early in the morning or at dawn and therefore may not be visible to everyone.

"The RSS has gained social acceptance over a hundred years of work, while self-serving political parties like the MNS have faded within a few decades. Thackeray should reflect on this," he said.

Referring to the issue of Marathi language and identity, Upadhye said Marathi is a matter of pride, but any language should serve as a medium of communication, not conflict.

He said that when insistence on Marathi turned into hatred for other languages and led to loss of lives, credibility on the issue was lost.

If Bhagwat feels love for language and state is a disease, then a majority of the states in the country suffer from it.

Upadhye also said there was no need to offer advice to the RSS, adding that the organisation stands for dialogue, not confrontation.
The US and Iran each struck a positive tone about the start of diplomatic talks, though analysts remain skeptical that the engagement will be enough to head off US airstrikes.

The timeline and terms of the negotiations remain unclear after an opening round of talks on Friday that President Donald Trump cast as very good and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian hailed as a step forward. But developments since those discussions started only underscore the persistent tension between the two sides.

Over the weekend, Iran continued its crackdown on dissidents, risking Trumps ire after he held back on strikes due to Iranian assurances that it would halt protester executions. On Monday, the US warned American vessels to steer clear of Iranian waters, spooking oil markets and renewing the prospect of conflict.

Analysts see almost no chance of a serious deal given that Iran wants to limit negotiations to its nuclear program. The US, meanwhile, has previously demanded that Iran give up its ballistic-missile program, stop supporting military groups and end a crackdown on protesters.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to push Trump to demand more Iranian concessions in a White House meeting on Wednesday.

Talks will ultimately break down, and so we probably will still see strikes at some point, said Bloomberg Economics analyst Dina Esfandiary. The key question is how long talks go before breaking down, and how long Trumps patience endures.

Also complicating the talks is the balancing act that Trump has to strike with his repeated and public threats of airstrikes on Iran and his boasts that a US armada is assembling in the Middle East.

His administration is also emboldened after a successful special operations raid that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in January. Trump has said on social media that like with Venezuela, the US Navy is ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary.

With the markets weighing the chances of US airstrikes against a TACO  an acronym for Trump Always Chickens Out  a Bloomberg Economics analysis found Trump has been more likely to follow through on threats in his second term.

The US also has shifted its position multiple times. Trump originally wanted to protect Iranian protesters and later decided on a deal to constrain Tehrans nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

For talks to actually lead to something meaningful, they will have to include certain things, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week, just before the talks began. And that includes the range of their ballistic missiles. That includes their sponsorship of terrorist organizations across the region. That includes the nuclear program, and that includes the treatment of their own people.

For Tehran, though, agreeing to the broader slate of US demands would amount to total capitulation  giving up weapons and regional policies that have been core to Irans geopolitical, regional and core survival strategies since the 1979 revolution. The country also is grappling with a crumbling economy and months of domestic unrest that have been the most significant threat to the regime in several decades.

At the same time, Trump pulled the US out of the 2015 Iran nuclear accord in his first term  and has even reneged on trade pacts with Canada and Mexico, making any eventual accord unreliable at best  even if the two sides manage to come to some agreement.

If you were looking at a Venn diagram, there is no overlap, said Naysan Rafati, a senior analyst on Iran at the Crisis Group, of the conflicting priorities. When it comes to the potential of a military confrontation, were nowhere close to out of the woods.

While US and Israeli strikes in June degraded Irans military capabilities  with Trump claiming that its nuclear program had been obliterated following Operation Midnight Hammer  Tehran can still hit back.

With Iran facing threats from within on top of those from the US, the country has cause to fear for its survival and theres no real way to tell how fiercely the regime will retaliate, said Michael Singh, a managing director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Even if they cant win, theyll try to make a conflict costly for the United States, Singh said, adding that US insistence on a more comprehensive deal increases the chance of clashes. Its a very high bar. And so if thats really your bar, you have to assume that military strikes are definitely the most likely outcome.

2026 Bloomberg L.P.
New Delhi: The Centre on Tuesday brought in a stricter compliance regime for social media companies such as X, Facebook, Instagram, and Telegram, among others, by formally notifying a law aimed at combating the misuse of artificial intelligence (AI) through deepfakes and other sensitive synthetic content.

At the same time, it removed a contentious proposal of watermarking 10% of practically any online content, a move hailed by lawyers, industry stakeholders and policy consultants as a victory for the industry.

In the amended Information Technology (IT) Rules, 2026 notified on Tuesday, social media intermediaries will only need to label AI-generated and modified content that such information appears to be real, authentic or true and depicts or portrays any individual or event in a manner that is, or is likely to be perceived as indistinguishable from a natural person or real-world event.

The watermark proposal was part of the initial draft for AI rules that Meity had published on 22 October.

Alongside, the government has sharply tightened enforcement timelines for taking down objectionable material from digital platforms.

Non-consensual sexual imagery  including deepfakes  must be removed by a platform within two hours instead of 24 hours previously. Any other unlawful content is to be removed by intermediaries within three hours of a user report or a government or court order, instead of the previous 36-hour timeline.

Complaints related to content linked with defamation, harassment and other legal violations will need to be resolved within 36 hours, instead of 72 hours.

Further, the timeline for grievance resolution officers of digital platforms to produce a final verdict in case of user reports has been brought down from 15 days to seven.

Social media platforms will also need to inform users about privacy laws, policies, prohibited content and recourse available to them at least once every three months, instead of once a year from before.

Failure to comply with the new timelines will attract criminal litigation under the countrys existing social media intermediary laws. Companies falling under the intermediary definition will have to comply with this law starting 20 February, giving them a 10-day window.

Also Read | Will 2026 be a turning point for AI in India?

Even as the stricter timelines have been flagged by some as a move that could find industry pushback, the government is firm that compliance is not a challenge.

Platforms have demonstrated the capacity to act within minutes  tech companies have very clever technical features and resources seen at exhibitions, which allow them to do much more than they sometimes admit, a senior government official with direct knowledge of the proceedings said. The three-hour window is a reasonable obligation given their technological capabilities.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also dismissed concerns of potential censorship through the new rules. Government takedown requests constitute a tiny fraction, less than 1-2%, of total takedowns, while the vast majority are done by platforms enforcing their own community guidelines, the official said.

Queries sent to Meta, Google, YouTube and X were not immediately answered at the time of publication.

Also Read | Centre notifies amended IT rules to enhance transparency, accountability in content removal by intermediaries

Industry feedback Prima facie the final set of rules appears to be fairly balanced, and have removed the primary objections that the industry had floated in terms of the 10% watermarking rule, said Ashish Aggarwal, vice-president and head of public policy at industry body Nasscom. The timeline revisions, while potentially subject to pushback from certain quarters, is in keeping with the idea that it only takes a few seconds or minutes for AI platforms to generate explicit or unlawful content to be generated, and then disseminated.

Aggarwal further said that most such filtering is also automated today, and is not done manually. The operations part should therefore not be a key challenge but obviously each platform needs to assess the implications and we need to understand if there are, importantly, challenges as all intermediaries will fall under this definition, he added.

Others, however, said that the latest amendment is adding a compliance burden to companies as a result of the definition of AI content in India.

While the notified form of AI rules tries to address some of the critical issues that our society has been grappling with, one of the key challenges in compliance is rising from the fact that the definition and coverage of intermediary in India has become heavily convoluted and complicated, said Supratim Chakraborty, partner at law firm, Khaitan & Co.

An intermediary is currently defined as any platform that is protected against any form of prosecution by law, provided they comply with any intermediary rules mandated by the Centre. Such platforms typically host varying forms of content hosted by users, and claim limited liability in law provided they take steps mandated by law to prohibit harm.

Chakraborty added that if the intention was to simplify regulation on ground and implement a progressive regime for cutting-edge technologies, India may consider separate definitions for intermediaries / digital businesses working in the field of AI, and not offer a blanket definition covering varied kinds of businesses which cannot be necessarily clubbed under the same head.

Rutuja Pol, partner at fellow law firm Ikigai, added that the 10-day window to comply with the amendments will likely require all intermediaries to come up with modified or even new workflows and processes in order to comply practically overnight.

More importantly, the sweeping classification of all AI tools as intermediaries, continues to perpetuate the flaw with intermediary classification that 2025 AI governance guidelines itself recognise, she added.
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP)  Chile on Tuesday launched the first open-source artificial intelligence language model trained on the diverse cultures of Latin America, aiming to better reflect regional realities and strengthen the regions presence in the global AI race.

Latam-GPT is the result of a two-year regional effort led by the National Center of Artificial Intelligence of Chile, CENIA, and supported by over 30 institutions across eight Latin American countries.

Artificial intelligence is the greatest technological revolution of recent times, and from Latin America and the Caribbean, it is strategic and urgent that we play a role, Chilean President Gabriel Boric said Tuesday after the launch, noting that the new system will be key to adding Latin American data and identity to AI.

Announced at the February 2025 Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris, the project launched in early 2023 to address linguistic biases in models trained primarily on English data. Rather than competing directly with consumer tools like ChatGPT or Google Gemini, Latam-GPT acts as a foundational infrastructure for future regional applications.

Latam-GPT is trained with a proportion of Latin American data that previously did not exist online and was not included in existing models, said Rodrigo Duran, executive director at CENIA. This allows for more accurate, correct and efficient performance when it comes to Latin America and the Caribbean.

Latam-GPT is trained on data from private sources obtained through strategic partnerships across the region, as well as synthetic data used to address areas identified as underrepresented, said Gabriela Arriagada, a researcher at CENIA and head of the projects ethics team. Developing Latam-GPT required collecting more than eight terabytes of data, equivalent to millions of books.

When we talk about incorporating Latin American culture, we are referring to a training approach designed to address data that reflects cultural realities, identifying where gaps exist in other models, understanding their shortcomings, and gradually building knowledge to improve that representation, Arriagada added.

Latam-GPT is a very important milestone for Latin America, as it contains data that captures each countrys particularities, said Luis Chiruzzo, an engineering professor at the University of the Republic in Uruguay not involved with the project.

That provides some assurance that, at the very least, everyone is included in the training, Chiruzzo added.

For now, the project will operate primarily in Spanish and Portuguese, with plans to incorporate Indigenous languages in later stages.

The development of Latam-GPT means the region now has the technical capacity to build AI models, according to Duran, the executive director at CENIA.

The fact that Latin America has come together to form a collaborative group is a very positive sign. It shows that Latin America can develop and understand how to create this technology, which also has important implications for regulation, because you cannot regulate something you do not understand, he added.

Chiruzzo believes it will be difficult for Latam-GPT to compete with larger corporations with greater resources.

Still, its an important step forward and will make it possible to start positioning ourselves in the world of language models with our own voice, Chiruzzo said.

The race for AI leadership has led countries to rethink their policies and initiatives for developing AI technologies. The United States, China and the European Union have more than half the worlds most powerful data centers to develop and support AI systems, according to data published by Oxford University. Africa and South America have almost no AI hubs, according to the report.

Chile has been racing to expand its role in the AI boom over the past few years by attracting new talent and building new data centers. In June last year, President Boric said in his State of the Union speech that the country must embrace AI, adding that a country that does not invest in artificial intelligence risks falling behind in tomorrows global landscape.

Latam-GPT was developed with just $550,000 in funding from CENIAs budget and the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF). The team used Amazon Web Services cloud to develop its first version, which will be launched at the end of February. The subsequent versions will be trained on a supercomputer at the University of Tarapaca in northern Chile, which costs about $4.5 million, starting in the first semester of 2026.

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The AI Impact Summit is all set to be held in India from 16 February to 20 February. As per a government release, the event will mark the first global AI summit to be hosted in the Global South. It will be held at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi and will serve as a centre for conversations around AI policy, research, industry, and public engagement.

The all-important event is expected to be attended by some of the biggest names in the AI industry and the tech world. Here's a look at the top names who are already confirmed to attend the AI Impact Summit:

Who is attending AI Impact Summit? CEOs of almost all major AI companies will be attending the AI Impact Summit in India. This includes Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and Mistral AI CEO Arthur Mensch.

Moreover, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is also confirmed to be attending the AI Impact Summit. Other heavyweights in the tech world attending the event include Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Microsoft President Brad Smith, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, Accenture CEO Julie Sweet, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, and Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora.

Former Meta Chief Scientist and AMI Labs founder Yann LeCun will also be attending the summit. Meanwhile, Yoshua Bengio, often regarded as the godfather of AI, is also among the attendees.

As for the Indian heavyweights, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani and Tata Sons Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran are confirmed to attend the event, along with Infosys co-founder and chairman Nandan Nilekani, Bharti Enterprises Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal, TCS CEO K. Krithivasan, Infosys CEO Salil Parekh, and HCLTech chairperson Roshni Nadar Malhotra.

What is the agenda for the AI Summit? As per a government release, the focus of the AI Impact Summit 2026 will be on translating global discussions into development outcomes aligned with national priorities under the IndiaAI mission and Digital India initiative.

The summit will be anchored on three foundational pillars, or Sutras, of People, Planet, and Progress, along with seven Chakras of multilateral cooperation: Human Capital, Inclusion for Social Empowerment, Safe and Trusted AI, Resilience, Science, Democratizing AI Resources, and AI for Economic Growth.
Credit: Stephen Lew-Imagn Images

When UFC first announced its $7.7 billion media rights deal with Paramount last summer, one key component was that some events would be simulcast on CBS.

One month into the deal, we now know the first show to air on network television and what it will look like.

On Tuesday, Paramount announced that a portion of its UFC 326 show on Saturday, March 7, will be broadcast on CBS. Per the release, CBS will air select bouts from the prelims and main card from 8 p.m.-10 p.m. ET, meaning that the main event lightweight bout between Max Holloway and Charles Oliveira will air exclusively on Paramount+, which will air the entirety of the card beginning at 7 p.m. ET.

Paramount+ and CBS will partner to air UFC 326: HOLLOWAY vs. OLIVEIRA 2, LIVE on Saturday, March 7, marking the first UFC event ever to appear on the broadcast network. pic.twitter.com/uKjpPQdpAR  Paramount UFC (@paramountufc) February 10, 2026

CBS will simulcast the final hour of the prelims and the first hour of the main card, giving broadcast viewers access to a significant portion of the card, but not the main event. That could serve as a template for CBSs role in the UFC-Paramount partnership, generating additional exposure for the MMA giant while still requiring viewers who want to watch the main event to subscribe to Paramount+.

At this point, it has not yet been announced how many UFC events on Paramount+ will also be simulcast in part on CBS. UFC president Dana White, however, has strongly suggested that one of those shows will be the highly anticipated June 14 show at the White House, which is expected to be the most high-profile event in the promotions history.

That might be on CBS, you know what I mean? White proclaimed during an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show after the Paramount deal was first announced last August. How about that? Fight card, from the White House, live and free on CBS, the network. Come on.
Jury selection starts in trial for father of Apalachee High School shooting suspect in Georgia

Jury selection has begun in the trial of Colin Gray, whose teenage son is accused of killing two students and two teachers at a Georgia high school in September 2024
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UPDATE: After multiple allegations of sexual, inappropriate, and offensive conduct, Chickamauga Mayor Trey Deck was voted out of office after the City Council approved his removal in a 4-1 vote. New details from an internal investigation are shedding further light on complaints filed by city employees.

The Chickamauga City Council voted on January 13 to move forward with a public hearing after the findings were formally presented. Documents shown during that presentation outline allegations from several employees describing sexual, inappropriate, and offensive conduct.

According to witness statements included in the findings, the mayor allegedly made sexually suggestive comments about a female employees appearance and joked about placing her on a street corner to make money. Another employee told investigators the woman appeared uncomfortable and attempted to deflect the interaction.

The employee later reported confronting the mayor about the language. She described feeling awkward and stunned by the encounter and said she did not believe the remarks were intended as a joke.

Additional witness statements describe instances in which the mayor allegedly touched employees without consent, including patting shoulders and backs, despite verbal objections such as dont touch me, according to the investigation summary.

Investigators also cited a voice recording found on a city employees phone. A transcription of that recording, shown to council members, contains racial language, including racial slurs, along with erratic and aggressive remarks, according to the findings.

Employees also told investigators the mayor frequently asserted his authority, telling staff he was the mayor and suggesting he was untouchable, documents show.

Although the mayor and his attorney had previously said they would not attend the hearing due to alleged threats, Mayor Decks legal counsel, Jeremy Penland, was present and strongly opposed the findings. Penland argued that the investigation violated Decks due process rights and said he looked forward to cross-examining the witnesses.

This is ridiculous, and I think everybody here knows it is, Penland said. All we want is a fair fight.

City councilwoman Rhonda Jacks set the motion in action to remove Deck, and councilmember Lee Miller seconded it.

Councilmember Matthew Nave voted against the mayor's removal, saying, "I could not in a right conscience vote to remove the mayor looking at that evidence." Nave says a lack of transparency prevented him from joining his fellow council members. "I wasn't convinced. I'm not convinced. I had more questions that were left unanswered."

City officials have not yet announced what steps will be taken next or whether Deck plans to challenge the councils decision.

The Chickamauga City Charter says the Mayor Pro Tem will take the office of mayor for the rest of the term.

Evitte Parrish will be taking over the role until the next election, which is in 2028.

PREVIOUS STORY: Chickamauga Mayor Trey Deck received a threat of violence on Monday, February 9, ahead of his scheduled removal hearing. The mayor's attorneys released a second statement that says they will not attend the public hearing due to safety concerns.

It states:

"Earlier today, the Office of Mayor Deck released a statement concerning the public safety of all who plan to attend the city council meeting tonight. While the investigation is ongoing, the mayors office is unable to provide any more information so as not to interfere with law enforcement.

After much discussion with family, friends, and counsel, the mayor, and his representatives, have made the decision to not appear before the city council this evening to ensure their safety and the safety of all in attendance. The mayors counsel previously contacted the attorneys for the city council to inform them of the decision.

Once again we encourage all members of the community to remain safe and ask anyone with information to contact the Chickamauga Police Departments nonemergency line at 706-375- 3172."

The Office of Mayor Deck first released a public safety notice on Monday at 1:00pm.

According to the letter, Deck's office became aware of information indicating a potential threat of violence associated with the city council meeting, which is scheduled for Monday at 6:00pm.

"The law firm of Penland, Romans & Rayburn, GP received a phone call from an individual early on Monday who disclosed a threat to harm the mayor and the attorneys representing the mayor during tonights City Council meeting," the letter states.

Mayor Deck's office says the threat was reported to law enforcement.

In the letter, the mayor's office encouraged the public to evaluate whether they will attend the meeting in person.

In addition, they state that the public should expect heightened security procedures, limited access areas and potential delays.

Officials ask that the public report any suspicious activity to law enforcement.

Read Mayor Deck's full public safety notice here:

Prior to the notice of threats, Mayor Deck's attorneys released a public statement on Sunday, February 8 regarding the city's efforts to remove him from office.

The letter says that the City of Chickamauga's most recent published agenda about the February 9 hearing is improper and violates the city charter. It says the notice did not give 48 hours' notice and therefore is in violation of Section 3.12 in the city charter.

The letter also claims that the city manager and one council member have already decided Mayor Deck's fate prior to considering evidence. It states:

"Additionally, the Mayor recently obtained relevant evidence via open records request to City Hall, which was not provided by the City Attorney. This evidence provides, without a doubt, that the City Manager and at least one City Counsil member have considered the evidence without hearing the Mayors defense to the charges weeks before this hearing was set. This text message string, obtained by the Mayor in accordance with an open records request, clearly shows that said council member has already decided the Mayors fate before considering any evidence offered by the Mayor. Furthermore, this City Council member, and at least one other City Council member, are either direct business associates of the City Manager, Michael Haney, or have contracts with the City that were negotiated with and approved by the City Manager. Notwithstanding these conflicts, these City Council Members have failed to recuse themselves from deciding the Mayors case despite their clear conflicts of interest."

The letter claims that the efforts to remove Mayor Deck from office are "retaliation for campaign promises made by the mayor to remove Mr. Haney from his role as city manager."

Read full public statement here:

PREVIOUS STORY: The attorney for Chickamauga Mayor Trey Deck has filed a lawsuit claiming the way city council members are attempting to remove him from office is unconstitutional. He is asking for the removal process be stopped, but the city has now scheduled a date for the new hearing.

The mayor received a letter from council members on January 15 notifying him of a removal hearing; however, the letter did not state the cause for the hearing.

Decks attorney, Jeremy Penland, alleges in the lawsuit that he attempted to obtain subpoenas to prepare a defense, but the citys attorney refused, stating that the city charter does not allow subpoenas in removal proceedings.

Penland notes that the city limited each side to 45 minutes of argument and five minutes for closing, as was stated in the city's social media post regarding the hearing.

He adds that the city did not consult with him prior to publicly announcing the hearing on social media.

The lawsuit claims that city officials interfered with the mayors ability to prepare a defense and even threatened disciplinary action against his attorney.

Mayor Deck is asking a judge to halt the removal proceedings and allow them to move forward only if proper due process is followed.

The lawsuit also seeks compensation for damages and attorneys fees.

The citys public hearing to remove Mayor Deck was postponed to find a larger venue after a large turnout at the originally scheduled meeting left many people unable to enter the building.

The City of Chickamauga has now rescheduled the hearing date for the removal of the mayor for Monday, February 9 at 6:00pm. It will take place at the Chickamauga Civic Center.

The city says overflow seating will be available outdoors, and a live broadcast of the hearing will be provided.

Read the city's full statement and the lawsuit filed by Deck and his legal counsel below:

PREVIOUS STORY: The City of Chickamauga says the hearing scheduled about the removal of Mayor Trey Deck is due to certain "allegations" made against him.

In a statement posted to social media Saturday evening, January 31, the city says they are following legal advice, as the allegation is a "human resources matter that requires discretion for everyone involved."

UPDATE: Chickamauga City Council to reschedule hearing to remove mayor The City Council voted to place the hearing on the agenda, prompting questions from residents who say they want more transparency from local government.

City admin say the mayor's attorney was provided notice and evidence about the allegations back on January 15.

They say Mayor Deck will be given a "fair hearing" where he will be able to provide his defense.

The public hearing, which was postponed Friday afternoon after the venue capacity was too small for everyone who showed up, has not yet been rescheduled.

However, the City Council meeting scheduled for Monday, February 2 at 6:00pm has been canceled.

We are working to learn more about this situation.

PREVIOUS STORY: Chickamauga council members are rescheduling a public hearing that would determine the removal of their city mayor due to an overflow crowd.

Council members haven't released any information as to why Mayor Trey Deck might be removed, and residents who showed up today say they feel uninformed and are pushing for answers.

That meeting took place at the Chickamauga Civic Center, where residents stood outside its doors expressing their frustrations over what they call a lack of transparency from officials.

"As far as I'm aware, we've never had to do this before, says Matthew Nave, a Chickamauga city councilmember. This is one of those things that when you run for city council or for mayor, you never expect this to happen."

Dozens could be seen crowding the hall's entrance and peering through windows, shouting and yelling.

"I saw a bunch of people and thought, Lord, have mercy, says Chickamauga resident Fred Ufford. Some of them were really complaining and getting irate about it, but I dont really think that was necessary.

That meeting was over almost as soon as it began after one council member voted to postpone it because of the crowd overflow.

"I instantly knew there was no way everybody was getting in, Nave says. There was a sign on the door that said 66. I had no idea the capacity was 66, so, as soon as the meeting started, I basically made a motion to kill the agenda, change the venue, and we're gonna postpone it.

While most residents were okay with the change, a bigger question remains.

Three weeks later, and there's no clear answer.

"The reason we haven't come out and said exactly what this is about is because, if I was in this scenario, if they were trying to remove me and there were accusations about me or things people were saying about me, I would not want those pushed out until I had a defense, Nave says. That's what this meeting should have been, and that's what it will be: the mayor getting a defense to the accusations."

But council members' decision to safeguard that information has led to public speculation.

"It's no secret the city and the council members have taken a lot of heat over how we handled the transparency of this process, and I agree with a lot of the criticism, " Nave says, referring to the reasoning behind the meetings rescheduling.

Residents tell me they feel left in the dark.

"I'd like to know what's going on, and I haven't heard anything. It's quiet, says Ufford.

If Trey needs to be removed, and they have a valid reason, I will support that, but I was very unhappy when I got here, and people were leaving because the venue was not sufficient, says resident Evelyn Garmany.

Garmany, who has lived in Chickamauga her entire life, also says, I have lived here a long time, and Ill probably die here, but all I care about is people know the truth about anything that goes on, and were able to have a say.

Council members say they plan to reschedule the meeting soon, and answers are on the way: they just need a little time and a larger building.

As council members, we go into this with an open mind, Nave says. We hear the evidence, we hear the defense, and we have to make up our mind as well.
Senator Joe Flaherty has sharply criticised the Dept of Educations NDP plan for school projects to commence in Co Longford in 2026-27.

Whilst welcoming the rapid progress on the amalgamation project for St Mels College and Mean Scoil Mhuire in Longford town, which will see work start on an extension at St Mels College to facilitate the first intake of students in 2027, several other critical projects have literally been stalled.

Read more: Longford TD 'disappointed' as many schools at 'choking point' omitted from building list

He said: I worked very hard to achieve and was very proud of the emphasis on education facilities in Co Longford throughout the lifetime of the last government. In total 43m was invested in capital projects across our network of schools and this included extensions and / or refurbishments for 14 schools and a new build special education school at St Christophers.

An ambitious commitment to special education under former Minister, Norma Foley, also saw the rollout of 26 special education classes in the county over the past five years. In addition work on extensions at Templemichael College and St Michaels in Longford town are progressing.

The Longford Senator added: It very disappointing to see a number of key projects left in limbo and at a time when the Minister of Education has included no fewer than ten projects in her own constituency. This is a Fine Gael programme and it has patently failed Co Longford.

Plans for a major extension at Mercy Ballymahon were announced in March 2020 and were progressing and the expectation was that the project would now proceed to planning. Said the Senator: It isnt featured in the two year plan and it is hugely disappointing for the largest school in the county.

There is a similar setback for St Matthews NS, Ballymahon, one of the biggest national schools in the county and where we saw plans for an extension announced last November and it too has been omitted from the two year plan.

Senator Flaherty said that Ballymahon Vocational School has been one of the most progressive secondary schools in the Midlands over the last number of years and plans for an extension there were first announced in February 2021. Said the Senator: It also fails to feature in this two year plan. In effect three major and much needed schools project for one of the fastest growing towns in the country are now in limbo.

Read more: Longford locals encouraged to attend meeting about possible playground plans

Senator Flaherty also lamented the lack of progress and commitment for planned extensions for both Moyne Community School and Lanesboro Community College.

He said: This new plan has overlooked four secondary school projects for Co Longford and it is deeply disappointing.
A scheme offering artists a set weekly income for a three-year period will set Ireland apart from other countries in how it values creativity, a minister has said.

In 2022, a pilot was launched in Ireland trialling a basic income of 325 euros for 2,000 artists.

Artists applied for the scheme and were assessed for their eligibility before 2,000 were chosen by a randomiser software.

An analysis of that pilot found that for every euro invested, society received 1.39 euros in return.

It also found that while the total cost for the pilot from 2021 to 2025 was around 114 million euros, this was offset by nearly 37% through tax revenues and savings in welfare payments.

In Budget 2026, Minister for Arts and Culture Patrick ODonovan secured 18.27 million euros in funding to make the scheme permanent.

The Basic Income for the Arts scheme (BIA), which is hoped to be available from September, will operate in three-year cycles to select 2,000 artists for the 325-euro payment.

Artists can apply for one cycle every six years, so if an artist is selected for the 20262029 cycle, they will not be eligible for the payment in the next cycle but can apply after that.

Launching the permanent scheme at Bewleys Cafe in Dublin city, Mr ODonovan said the scheme was a gigantic step forward and a start that he hoped they could build on.

He said: Im delighted to be the minister, for the first time in the history of the State, to be able to say that we now have, on a permanent basis, a basic income structure that will really revolutionise and, in many ways, set Ireland apart from other countries with regard to how we value culture and creativity.

Mr ODonovan said that while at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris last week and in Canada the week before, audiences were absolutely agog upon hearing about the basic income scheme.

He said: This is a start  and I didnt put in the memorandum to the Government this morning because I didnt want the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to be put on life support just yet  but it is a start, and it is a start that I hope as minister over the next couple of years to be able to grow on.

Asked by reporters why the number of artists being selected and the amount being paid had not been increased, Mr ODonovan said it was due to the amount of funding made available and that he would like to see both increased.

The reason that its been started at 2,000 is because thats the budget envelope that we got from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform for a full calendar year, he said.

But I hope to be able to grow that over the next couple of years, and that will obviously involve negotiations between myself and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform and our department officials.

But it is an aspiration of mine over the lifetime of the Government, over the next four to five years, to try and increase that number, because I can see very clearly from the metrics just how important it is.

Asked about whether issues with the scheme where artists with disabilities had their welfare supports cut if they accepted the basic income, Mr ODonovan said the Department of Social Protection assesses it as income from self-employment, so the situation there remains.

He said that it was a time in the world when artists were afraid to be critical of the government.

Mr ODonovan said: I dont care what artists or the cultural sector say about the Government or anything like that, because whatever they say, whatever they do when it comes to politics, is a sign of the strength of our democracy and is a sign of the strength of our maturity as a country.

Because if the world ever needed people to be creative, to be different, to stand out from the fold, it is now.

He said that while Ireland does not have a big military, thank god, his next project would be cultural diplomacy and said the work of Culture Ireland was soft diplomacy at its best.

Mr ODonovan added: I think that Ireland has outshone an awful lot of countries in the last number of months, in particular when it comes to the small, little country having a great voice.
A meeting of the US-led anti-Islamic State coalition in Saudi Arabia was held on February 9. (SANA)

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al Shaibani took part in a meeting of the US-led anti-Islamic State coalition in Saudi Arabia on February 9. Syria joined the coalition in November as its 90th member. The meeting took place after a January 29 agreement between the Syrian government and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that enables the government to deploy forces to areas of northeastern Syria that the SDF has controlled for 10 years. This transition process is ongoing, with concerns arising over the humanitarian situation in the Kurdish city of Kobani.

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani and intelligence chief Hussein al-Salama are participating in the meeting of Political Directors of the International Coalition to Defeat ISIS, being held in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, Syrias state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported. US Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack, who also met with the Syrian foreign minister, wrote on X that Syrias participation in the D-ISIS Coalition meeting in Riyadh marks a new chapter in collective security.

A joint statement by the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, issued after the coalition meeting, praised the recent agreement between the Syrian government and the SDF. They [the participants] noted the Government of Syrias stated intention to assume national leadership of counter-ISIS efforts and expressed appreciation for the sacrifices made by the Syrian Democratic Forces in the fight against ISIS/Daesh, the statement said. In addition, the statement referenced the transfer of Islamic State detainees from Syria to Iraq and the coalitions continued coordination with Iraq and Syria regarding the campaign against the jihadist group. Coalition members underscored their readiness to work closely with the Syrian government and encouraged members to provide direct support to Syrian and Iraqi efforts, the statement said.

SDF commander Mazloum Abdi met with French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot in Erbil on February 6. The SDF noted in a post on X that the meeting covered the importance of protecting the Kurdish regions of Syria and Kurdish rights. The SDF also emphasized the importance of integrating its forces with the government, including members of its Womens Protection Units, which served alongside the SDF in the war on the Islamic State. France is concerned about a possible resurgence of the Islamic State in Syria, Le Monde noted.

Since the agreement between the SDF and Syrian government, the government has deployed Interior Ministry forces to Al Hasakah and Qamishli in northeastern Syria. A meeting was held in Al Hasakah on February 10 to continue coordination between the forces in eastern Syria, North Press Agency reported. Syrian government officials also visited Qamishli airport on February 9.

However, the transition has faced hurdles in the Kurdish city of Kobani in northern Syria on the border with Turkey. On February 9, the Kurdish outlet Rudaw Media Network reported that Kobani was under a crippling humanitarian siege, with a local politician warning that the situation is heading toward a catastrophe as residents face severe shortages of food, water, electricity, fuel, and medical supplies.

Kurdistan24 reported on February 10 that the UN is concerned about conditions in the city. The echoes of calm that followed the SDFDamascus agreement have not translated into relief on the ground for Kobani, where failing services and displacement continue to define daily life despite a measurable drop in violence, the report stated. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on February 10 that a woman had died due to challenges in reaching a medical center in the Kobani countryside.

Neither Syrian state media nor the SDF on its official X page have mentioned the situation in Kobani over the last several days, leaving both sides stances on the situation unfolding in the city unclear.

Reporting from Israel, Seth J. Frantzman is an adjunct fellow at FDD and a contributor to FDDs Long War Journal. He is the senior Middle East correspondent and analyst at The Jerusalem Post, and author of The October 7 War: Israel's Battle for Security in Gaza (2024).
A work of history that began as an overview of the 20th century has now become a prophetic warning for the 21st: The experts are more often than not wrong. About everything.

What we call Western civilization is in a precarious state today, challenged by the loss of religious values, a threat from aroused Islamic radicalism, romantic notions of collectivism, and a dangerous decline in the value of freedom of speech and thought. Paul Johnson, a non-academic historian and an example of the amateur being superior to the professional, in his study of the West from World War I to the 1980s, Modern Times, traced the roots of this crisis to the malign influences of certain key European figures: Nietzsche, Darwin, Marx, and Freud, each of whom undermined Europes confidence in its beliefs and traditions. He argued that Nietzsches death of God and rejection of the religious impulse created the vacuum that would be filled with the 20th centurys new messiahs: Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. Although published originally in 1983 and revised in 2001, I think there is still much we can learn from Modern Times in these our own harrowing times.

Johnsons history begins, unlike most studies of the 20th century, not with political developments leading up to the outbreak of World War I but with the impact of the thought of highly influential cultural figures. In 20 long and detailed chapters, he traces the key events that brought the West to a near collapse and then to a rallying led by Pope John Paul II, President Ronald Reagan, and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, among others, who are the heroes of the century in his view.

For Johnson, World War I was a catastrophe that destroyed European progress and eventually led to the world of totalitarianism that cursed the next three decades. He rejects the idea of historical inevitability. The war and its aftermath were a choice that ended with European civilization left in the hands of inferior or weak leaders. Among those he singles out for leaving the West in a parlous state are Tsar Nicholas II, whose weakness and indecision led Russia to war; General Ludendorff, the architect of total war and Johnsons personal bete noire; and President Woodrow Wilson. Wilsons vaunted concept of national self-determination, Johnson argues, opened the door in Europe to nationalist strife and helped lay the ground for those terrible simplifiers Lenin, Mussolini, and Hitler.

Only the United States emerged from the war in a more powerful position than when it began. In the chapter The Last Arcadia, Johnson has high praise for the American record of the 1920s, foreshadowing a trend that has developed among historians in recent years. He praises Calvin Coolidge for his handling of the economy, which reached a level of prosperity during his presidency than in any past society, one that would not be matched until the 1950s under another figure Johnson admires, President Eisenhower. The economic crisis of the 1930s, Johnson believes, was mishandled by President Franklin Roosevelt, whom he treats as a dilettante and gives little credit for ending the Great Depression, which he believes, along with most historians today, ended only with the outbreak of war.

Johnson argues that even American culture surpassed Europes in the 1920s, with writers like Ernest Hemingway, Sinclair Lewis, and F. Scott Fitzgerald taking American literature to new highs. At the same time, he notes how they, like their European counterparts, were duped by the myth of a new Soviet democracy. He has high praise for George Orwell, however, who demolished the idea of Communism as a form of democracy in his expose of Russian treachery during the Spanish Civil War and such later famous works as Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Johnson takes a harsh view of the behavior of Great Britain after WWI, arguing that its political leadership was at a loss for how to deal with the nations economic crisis. In one of the bon mots sprinkled throughout the text, he notes that once the British Empire became truly worldwide, the sun never set on its problems: political, economic, and imperial. He correctly credits Winston Churchill, another of his heroes, for saving his nation, and the West, from defeat in the early years of World War II.

Johnsons sketches of Churchill and other dominant figures of the 20th century are a definite strength of the book. Mussolini, for example, was a mixture of romance and drama who was corrupted by power and the weakness of a semi-industrialized Italy that he sought to turn singlehandedly into a great power. Lenin was pure evil, a 20th-century ideologue consumed by hatred and convinced that only his interpretation of Marxism was correct. He left Russia in ruins and passed it into the hands of an even more brutal leader, Stalin.

Equally insightful is the connection Johnson draws between Hitler and Lenin, both believers in social engineering no matter the cost in human life. Hitler is described as a race socialist who saw the dynamic of history revolving not around economic classes but races. In an observation that reverberates today, Johnson notes that among the most enthusiastic anti-Semites in Germany were university students and that Hitler was popular with primary and secondary school teachers as well as with university professors.

In his chapter on Germany, Johnson argues that the German people were duped by their military leaders into entering World War I. He regards Emperor Wilhelm II as an exemplar of how personal weakness can become treachery. The German General Staff lost the war but moderates in Weimar who inherited a defeated Germany were seen as nevertheless responsible for the nations humiliation, dooming the concept of republican government. He makes an interesting point that the bitter anti-Semitism of the Weimar era was a derivative of Marxs hatred of the bourgeoisie, which became personified by the Jews.

Johnsons chapters on World War II contain some interesting insights on why the Allies won. He labels Hitlers two greatest blunders as the decision to attack the Soviet Union before he had eliminated the threat from Great Britain, which was backed economically by the United States, and his gratuitous decision to declare war on the United States four days after Pearl Harbor, an act not required by his alliance with Japan. He believes, incorrectly in my view, that President Roosevelt would not have been able to persuade Congress to make war on Germany had not Hitler made this blunder. Yet America was all but at war with Germany by the autumn of 1941.

Johnson regards FDR as a poor wartime leader and accuses him of illusions and frivolity for believing that China was a great power and that he could trust Stalin. The latter misjudgment cost the United States and Europe dearly in the aftermath of the war and laid the groundwork for the Cold War. In dealing with traditional military history, however, Johnson seems unsure of himself at times. For example, he relies on some shaky sources for some of his statistics, such as the discredited Holocaust-denier David Irving, who claimed that the bombing of Dresden in February 1945 caused 230,000 deaths. The best estimated figures, 25,00035,000, are bad enough. He does make a strong case, however, that Japan would not have surrendered without the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, citing the refusal to surrender during the bloody battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa as examples of Japans fanaticism.

The last third of Modern Times covers the period from the end of the Second World War to the 1980s. It is more commentaryvery high-level commentarythan history. His chapter on China under Mao, whom he compares for sheer brutality to Stalin, is worth the price of the book alone. In dealing with Stalin and Mao, Johnson takes special aim at the experts, usually intellectuals, who almost unfailingly got everything wrong. Author Jan Myrdal, for example, ranked Mao just behind Marx and Lenin for solving the problem of how the idea of revolution can be prevented from degenerating. Business types were not far behind in misreading the times. David Rockefeller praised Maos China for its national harmony  while fostering high morale and community of purpose. Estimates of the number who died during Maos rule, especially the Great Leap Forward, range from 35 to 80 millionor roughly the population of the modern U.K.

The chapters on the Third World contain some of Johnsons shrewdest insights. A particular favorite of mine, The Bandung Generation, discusses the difficulties Third World nations faced at the time, especially in Africa, as they attempted to modernize. Despite predictions of many scholars like Arnold Toynbeewhat Johnson labels the new humbugthat Asia and Africa would escape the travails that plagued the modernization of the West, the Third World in the 20th century experienced four decades of war, racial violence, and economic catastrophe. A section dealing with the fate of the South African republic makes particularly sad reading. Without excusing the practice of apartheid, it is nevertheless a fact that it was once the most prosperous nation in Africa because of its rich stores of gold, iron ore, and coal. It is now an international disaster and features one of the most brutal regimes in Africa.

A major theme of Modern Times is Johnsons conviction, as a Catholic and a conservative, that the intellectuals and what he calls the system builders (what we in 2026 would call the elites) were responsible for much of the evils of the 20th century. He would go on to write Intellectuals, excoriating their record of misjudgments and disastrous prescriptions and policies.

Modern Times, despite some flaws, remains the best single overview of the 20th century in print. Fifty double-column pages of notes attests to the scope of Johnsons research. In fact, it is difficult to imagine anyone today who could undertake such a task. Modern Times will remain the standard interpretation of the century when the West nearly committed suicide. The question before us now is, have we learned anything, given how so much of the West seems determined to make the same suicidal mistakes?
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CHELSEA  A 4-month-old infant rested in a young mans arms as he sat beside his wife in the lobby of Chelsea District Court on Friday morning  moments before plainclothes and uniformed ICE agents closed in around the family.

Members of a local neighborhood watchdog group monitoring the courthouse rushed outside, where filming is allowed. Minutes later, seven agents walked the father out in handcuffs and into a waiting Dodge Charger.

His 23-year-old wife was left on the sidewalk, sobbing and alone.

They (ICE) were all just staring at us, waiting for us to come out, and we wouldnt come out, his wife cried.

The woman, who MassLive is not naming, was shaking as she spoke with a MassLive reporter minutes after she watched her husband be detained.

The 29-year-old man originally from El Salvador was in court to face a charge of operating under the influence from an incident in Revere over the weekend. Though a U.S. citizen who said she and her husband were married in 2023, the young mother asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution by ICE.

Eventually, one just came up to me, came up to my husband, and started grabbing him, and they took him. They were touching me ... They didnt show a warrant. They just said they had to take him because hes an immigrant, she said.

Asked what she was going to do next, the young mother wailed.

I dont know. Its just me and him and the kids ... he works, he provides. Im scared for what might happen to him. Im scared he wont come back, she cried.

This was already the second ICE detainment that happened at the courthouse that day. Another young man whod been with his wife was also arrested in the lobby of the Chelsea courthouse. Agents pushed his body into the snowbank outside, video showed. The mans nose appeared to be broken or injured during the arrest, with blood pooled in the corner of his nostril.

There was almost a third ICE detainment on Monday had it not been for the half a dozen advocates who showed up. They were able to help one family who had arrived to post bail for their loved one in state law enforcement custody.

The advocates told the family to wait. Had they completed the bail, the man would have been free to leave the courthouse, where ICE agents were still waiting. But by his family holding off, the man avoided being taken into ICE custody as soon as he walked out, advocates said.

Its very sad. Someones losing their freedom. They dont know whats going to happen ... it upsets me on a very deep level, makes me very sad and anxious to have people just take it, said watchdog group member and Chelsea resident Susan Anderson.

Anderson is a part of underground organizations that monitor ICE detainments in Boston, including in Chelsea and in East Boston. She was one of about six neighborhood watchdog group members who immediately mobilized at Chelsea District Courthouse on Monday, after a notification came to their group chat saying ICE was at the courthouse.

The group also tried to help the family with the infant, before they bore witness to how they were torn apart.

The 29-year-old man had gone to his arraignment at the courthouse that morning after he was charged with operating under the influence over the weekend. A judge ordered the man released after his arraignment and set another court date, his wife said.

But when the family went to leave the courthouse, advocates told them agents were there and advised they stay in the lobby. Still, ICE agents converged on the mother, father and child after the man handed the baby to his wife, went to the bathroom and came back, members said.

The guy came up to me and put his hand on me. I told him not to touch me and to get away from me, and that they couldnt just grab him  then they just got him up, started pushing him up," the 23-year-old wife said.

He didnt fight or anything, but they just grabbed him automatically. Didnt give him a chance to stand up ... they just grabbed him and started pulling his hands and they arrested him.

She left the courthouse to go home with her children, in tears.

These detainments represent the hundreds that have happened at courthouses statewide over the last year. ICE courthouse arrests in Massachusetts increased to nearly 400 in the first nine months of 2025, according to data compiled by the Deportation Data Project at the University of California Berkeley School of Law.

Comparatively, ICE arrested about 130 people during the same time period in 2024, according to the project data  a surge advocates say is now playing out in courthouse lobbies like Chelseas every week.
Removal proceedings have been terminated for a Tufts University doctoral student detained by ICE agents in Somerville in spring 2025.

Today, I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that despite the justice systems flaws, my case may give hope to those who have also been wronged by the U.S. government, said Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national studying for her Ph.D. in child development at the Boston school.

Though the pain that I and thousands of other women wrongfully imprisoned by ICE have faced cannot be undone, it is heartening to know that some justice can prevail after all, Ozturk said.

Ozturk was detained by plainclothes ICE agents on the streets of Somerville on March 25, 2025, after federal officials abruptly revoked her student visa, a move her attorneys say was retaliation for an opinion piece she co-authored in support of Palestinians in Gaza.

The six-week detention of the Tufts University doctoral student  who was transported through multiple states and detention centers, including Vermont and Louisiana, before lawyers could locate her  prompted national outrage and raised alarms among civil liberties groups.

A rally held on March 26, 2025 near Tufts University after student Rumeysa Ozturk was detained by federal immigration agents on a street in Somerville. (Irene Rotondo/MassLive)

Though she was ordered released on May 9, her legal battle has persisted. A federal judge ruled on Dec. 5, 2025, that immigration authorities had wrongfully terminated Ozturks Student and Exchange Visa Information System, or SEVIS, record and ordered it reinstated, restoring her ability to fully resume her doctoral program.

The reinstatement remains in effect, though the government appealed the decision on Feb. 6. A separate ruling was also made on Jan. 22, which found the governments broader policy of arresting and detaining scholars like Ozturk violated the First Amendment and confirmed she was targeted solely for co-authoring an oped.

I grieve for the many human beings who do not get to see the mistreatment they have faced brought into the light, Ozturk said.

When we openly talk about the many injustices around us, including the treatment of immigrants and others who have been targeted and thrown in for-profit ICE prisons, as well as what is happening in Gaza, true justice will prevail.

Immigration attorneys for Ozturk submitted documents in federal court on Monday to announce the removal proceedings have been terminated by an immigration judge.

The Trump administration has weaponized our immigration system to target valued members of our communities, including scholars like Rumeysa, said her attorney, Mahsa Khanbabai of Khanbabai Immigration Law. Khanbabai argued the administration has manipulated immigration laws to silence people, especially those who advocate for Palestine.

With this ruling, Judge Patel has delivered justice for Rumeysa; now, I hope that other immigration judges will follow her lead and decline to rubber stamp the presidents cruel deportation agenda, Khanbabai said.

Ozturk is represented by the ACLU, ACLU of Massachusetts, ACLU of Vermont, CLEAR, Emery Celli Abady Brinckerhoff Ward & Maazel LLP, Mahsa Khanbabai and Kerry Doyle.
BOSTON  Jayson Tatum is on the comeback trail, and he hit a huge milestone this week. The six-time All-Star practiced with the Maine Celtics on Monday, getting in live reps. The buzz is real even if its still unclear if hell be back this season.

Tatum clarified some of his recent comments that he made on The Pivot Podcast. He spoke about some of the doubts he had rejoining the Celtics  especially as theyre one of the best teams in the East. He wondered aloud how his return would look for a team midway through its season. Tatum spoke to the media Tuesday at the Auerbach Center for the first time since media day back in late-September.

Over 39 weeks, you have a lot of time on your hands, Tatum said. You think about a lot of things, and youre just hyper-aware of whats going on. And I think it would just stem from that. Obviously, I know what I bring to the table and bring to the team, but Im also aware that these guys have been playing extremely well. And not to say that I would come and mess it up or anything like that. It was just kind of being vulnerable, I guess, for a moment, and talking from that perspective.

In the meantime, the Celtics keep winning games. Theyre 34-19, tied for the second-best record in the East. Its why Tatum had some apprehension on coming back to the team. Jaylen Brown, Derrick White and Payton Pritchard have been huge parts of the team, so Tatum pondered how he would fit into the puzzle.

BETTING: Celtics -13.5 Celtics -13.5 point spread is listed at -110 on Caesars for Wednesday nights clash versus the Bulls. Our Caesars Sportsbook review provides an in-depth guide on how to register and use their platform.

Tatum didnt commit either way on whether hell be back on the parquet later this season. Practicing is a positive step, but there are still physical and mental hurdles ahead for the Celtics star. There was a recent report that Tatum is reevaluating his comeback plans, and it sounds like there still isnt a firm decision either way.

It was good to be a part of practice yesterday with the Maine G League guys, Tatum said. (Tuesday) is 39 weeks, so its been a long journey. And its just like the progression of rehab. It was the next step. Doesnt mean that Im coming back or Im not. Its just following the plan. So its just another step.

Of course, a Tatum return would give Boston a massive boost. The Cs shored up their front-court depth by trading for Nikola Vucevic at the deadline. But they had to give up Anfernee Simons, the reserve guard who was having a great season. If Tatum is back in the lineup, hed be a big part in picking up the scoring slack once again.

But those discussions sound like theyre still for the future. For now, Cs fans can be excited knowing Tatum continues to clear milestones in his lengthy rehab process.

These are like my brothers, Tatum said. I know Im injured and not playing, but Id like to think Im still very much part of the team. When youre out and injured you can feel isolated because youre not playing. So just being around, encouraging them and being around as much as possible is good for me and my spirits.
Etel Haxhiaj, a former Worcester city councilor, defended herself from city police officers during a chaotic arrest on Eureka Street last spring, her attorney argued Tuesday during her trials opening statements.

Haxhiaj, who served as the citys District 5 councilor, faces charges of assault and battery on a police officer and interference with police in connection with an immigration enforcement arrest of a 40-year-old woman on May 8.

The trial got underway Tuesday morning in Worcester District Court and several members of the Worcester Police Department were called as witnesses to testify about the scene that involved about 30 civilians, 15 city officers and about seven federal agents.

Two people were arrested by Worcester police that day: the 17-year-old daughter of the woman detained by federal agents and Ashley Spring, a former school committee candidate.

A trial for Spring was also scheduled for Tuesday, but she tendered a plea agreement with prosecutors. The conditions of her agreement include administrative probation until May 8, 40 hours of community service and a requirement to commit no new crimes.

Throughout the day, Worcester police officers testified about the chaotic scene where a crowd of residents attempted to block a federal vehicle containing a 40-year-old Brazilian woman taken by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

Dont take the mother, was chanted repeatedly in videos shown to the jury. Several videos were played during the trial, but the screen could not be viewed by the public.

Prosecutors accused Haxhiaj of putting her hands on and pushing a Worcester police officer trying to prevent people from standing in front of an ICE vehicle attempting to leave the scene. They also accused Haxhiaj of attempting to interfere with the arrest of the 17-year-old girl, who officials said chased the federal vehicle containing her mother and stuck her leg out to prevent it from leaving.

Haxhiaj grabbed and pulled by officer, defense says

Haxhiaj raised her hands and defended herself only after being grabbed and pulled and shoved by Worcester police officer Shauna McGuirk, according to defense attorney Elizabeth Halloran.

Special Prosecutor Steven Gagne, an assistant district attorney with the Northwestern District Attorneys Office, outlined during his opening statements the series of events on Eureka Street, and argued that Haxhiaj used two hands to shove McGuirk.

McGuirk attempted to separate Haxhiaj from a Ford SUV where Rosane Ferreira-De Oliveira, a 40-year-old Brazilian mother, had been detained by federal agents, Gagne argued.

As Officer McGuirk is escorting her away from the vehicle, the defendant breaks free and then shoves the officer with both hands, making physical contact with the officer, Gagne said. The officer isnt thrown back. She doesnt fall to the ground, shes shaking a little bit. But that is the assault and battery upon a police officer.

After having shoved McGuirk, Gagne said, Haxhiaj went down the street and put hands on McGuirk again as the police officer arrested the 17-year-old girl.

Two Worcester police officers called to the stand testified that they did not witness Haxhiaj push McGuirk. Two civilian witnesses called by the defense also said they did not witness Haxhiaj push the officer.

A Worcester resident testified that she saw McGuirk move Haxhiaj with two hands.

It appeared forceful, the woman said. (McGuirk) moved her without her consent.

On cross-examination, the woman said she did not witness Haxhiaj shove the officer at any point. Gagne played a video clip, which only the jury and the woman could see, and the woman reaffirmed she did not see a shove.

I cant tell from that video, the woman said.

Why was Haxhiaj not arrested at the scene?

Police decided not to arrest Haxhiaj amid the yelling and screaming crowd in order to not inflame the situation, according to McGuirks testimony.

It was already a chaotic scene and we didnt want to make it worse, McGuirk said.

Halloran attempted to ask McGuirk if the charges filed against Haxhiaj, which were not filed until four days later, were politically motivated, but an objection by the prosecution was sustained.

The prosecution rested its case after calling three witnesses from the Worcester Police Department.

The defense called two civilian witnesses and two members of the police department, including Lt. John Bossolt.

Bossolt wrote the report applying for Haxhiajs criminal complaint filed with the court and he confirmed he wrote it four days after the Eureka Street incident. He said he wrote it based on his own memory of what he saw take place that morning, reports from other officers and their testimony about what happened.

He added that there were several hours of video footage from body-worn cameras to review and said that officers have discretion when arresting people.

(McGuirk) could have arrested Haxhiaj at the scene, Bossolt said.

Halloran said she expects to call one more witness before resting their side of the case.

Jurors are expected to begin deliberations on Wednesday.
A movie theater in Westborough that had closed in 2017 will now become a Hindu house of worship.

Regal Cinemas at 231 Turnpike Rd. was bought by Bochasanwasi Shree Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanshtha (BAPS) for $5.1 million on Jan. 30, according to the Worcester Registry of Deeds.

BAPS is a Hindu denomination with over 5,000 temples throughout the world, according to the groups website.

One of these temples is located at 275 Turnpike Rd., which BAPS intends to sell, according to a 2025 press release from the Town of Westborough. An agreement between the town and BAPS will compensate Westborough for outstanding taxes, interest and fees on 231 Turnpike Rd., according to the press release.

Other bidders who sought to buy the now-abandoned movie theater included two limited liability companies that sought to build residential units: Ferris Development Group of Southborough, who wished to build residential and retail units, and Connect United Inc., a Massachusetts religious organization that wanted to build a house of worship, the press release reads.

The Regal Cinemas in Westborough closed its doors in 2017, with the property being seized by the town via eminent domain in 2018, according to the Telegram & Gazette. The town seized the property after being unable to find its owner, the outlet reported.

In 2022, Walpole-based LAX Media announced plans to buy and reopen the theater, the Telegram and Gazette reported. The plans, however, were contested in Massachusetts land court by Lolonyon Akouete, who represented the propertys previous owners, a shell company called Westborough SPE, according to the outlet.

Ultimately, a judge appointed Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Trustee Johnathan Goldsmith as a trustee of the property, according to the Telegram & Gazette. Goldsmith was listed as the person who sold the property to BAPS in the Worcester Registry of Deedss database.
UPDATE: An ICE arrest led to an ex-Worcester city councilor to stand trial. Heres what happened

Jury selection began Tuesday morning in Worcester for a former city councilor who faces charges related to an immigration arrest of a Brazilian mother last spring.

Etel Haxhiaj, who represented the citys District 5, faces charges of assault and battery on a police officer and interference with police in connection with an immigration enforcement arrest during a chaotic scene on Eureka Street on May 8.

Immigration agents were arresting 40-year-old Rosane Ferreira-De Oliveira, a Brazilian mother of three. Haxhiaj was part of a group of about 30 people on the scene protesting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and demanding they release the woman.

Haxhiaj, in a statement previously posted to Bluesky, called the prosecution frustrating.

I did the humane thing to do in this situation, nothing more, nothing less, she wrote.

The case is being prosecuted by the Northwestern District Attorneys Office who was brought in as a special prosecution for the case.

The courtroom was packed with supporters of Haxhiaj on Tuesday morning in Worcester District Court.

Defense attorney Elizabeth Halloran, who is representing Haxhiaj, and special prosecutor Steven Gagne argued over last-minute motions before potential jurors were brought into the courtroom.

A judge decided to exclude the testimony of Worcester Police Officer Thomas Duffy, who is the head of the police union, at trial.

Haxhiajs attorney argued that she would elicit testimony that political pressures gave rise for the former city councilors charges.

The attorney described it as an important and integral part of the ex-councilors defense.

The judge decided to exclude the testimony, however, stating that Duffy was not a percipient witness to the Eureka Street incident, and therefore not relevant to the question jurors will face.

Halloran told the judge that she expects to show jurors three to four clips taken from police officers body-worn cameras.

There are about seven to eight witnesses expected to take the stand on Tuesday, and lawyers said they anticipate the trial to only last the day.

The presiding judge said he expects jurors to enter deliberations on Tuesday.
Valentines Day is coming, and you can do better than a box of chocolates you grabbed for cheap at the grocery store.

From high-end stores in Boston to hidden-gem artisans out west, Massachusetts is filled with amazing chocolate shops.

Ordering online this close to Valentines Day can be dicey. So if youre in the market for something sweet that will blow someone away, theres probably an awesome spot close to you.

Here are 14 spots you should check out:

Hebert Candy Mansion, Shrewsbury

Does chocolate taste better knowing it came from a place called the Candy Mansion? I cant prove it. But Im convinced that it does.

For more than 100 years, Hebert has been a Central Mass. candy institution. Many folks may know them for the chocolate bars found in fundraisers and grocery stores. But they also make some amazing high-end chocolates.

Theyve got a wide variety, from fudge and truffles to chocolate-covered pretzels and Oreos. For the purest chocolate experience, get their Genevas, which are simple squares that largely avoid fillings to let the pure chocolate flavor shine.

More info: Website | Facebook | Instagram

Renowned chocolatier L.A. Burdick has opened at pop-up stand at Boston Logan International Airport. The stand will serve L.A. Burdick's signature chocolate creations through March 3. David Cifarelli

L.A. Burdick, multiple locations (Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Walpole N.H.)

If youre looking for high-end chocolate, L.A. Burdick is what youre looking for. Since 1987, L.A. Burdick has been creating some of Bostons most sought-after chocolates.

Their stuff is much easier to get these days. But they do come with a hefty price tag.

L.A. Burdick makes some amazing assortment boxes, but their most iconic offering is their chocolate mice.

More info: Website | Facebook | Instagram

Mrs. Nelsons Candy House is the perfect combination of having welcoming, old-school charm while being a low-key legend.

The candy shop is a local institution known for its high-quality chocolate. But the shops renown has popped up in some high-profile places.

Owner Arthur Mapes told the Lowell Sun that the Rockefeller family has been ordering from them for 30 to 40 years.

Meanwhile, the Candy House made a cameo in the background of The Simpsons, thanks to illustrators Lance Wilder and John Kraus, who grew up in Chelmsford.

More info: Website | Instagram

Cacao, multiple locations (Newton Highlands and Bostons South End)

Cacao is a sleek shop with vibes similar to a trendy coffee bar. Thats because they serve some of the best hot chocolate in Massachusetts.

While theyre best known for their drinking chocolate, Cacao also has some top-notch chocolates, bark, truffles and bonbons.

More info: Website | Facebook | Instagram

The candy store has been in business for 70 years in Deerfield, specializing in chocolate sweets. Taylor Sanzo

Since 1954, Richardsons has been a chocolate institution in Deerfield. The longtime shop is famous for its huge selection of candy and chocolate. But theres one item thats drawn national attention  its Dixies.

Dixies are similar to what most places call chocolate turtles (caramel and nuts covered in chocolate). In 2010, Food Network chef Alexandra Guarnaschelli highlighted it as a must-have confection on the show The Best Thing I Ever Ate.

More info: Website | Facebook | Instagram

Chocolate Therapy, Wayland

Chocolate Therapy makes some of the most visually stunning chocolate truffles Ive ever seen.

They also have some amazing flavor combinations like Vitamin C (blood orange, lemon and lime), The Cure (cinnamon, cayenne and bay leaf) and Strawberry Modena (chocolate, strawberry and balsamic vinegar).

Chocolate Therapy got a huge lift in 2024 when it was featured as one of Oprahs Favorite Things.

More info: Website | Facebook | Instagram

Chocolate Springs Cafe, Lenox

The Berkshires always have some hidden gems. Chocolate Springs is one of them.

The cafe features amazing chocolate bundles full of inspired flavors and beautiful designs.

More info: Website | Facebook | Instagram

Stamped chocolate bars from Goodnow Farms Chocolate. (Nick O'Malley/MassLive)

Goodnow Farms Chocolate, Sudbury

Goodnow Farms is a small operation thats quietly become one of the most-awarded chocolate makers in America.

They specialize in high-end bean-to-bar chocolate that emphasizes the natural flavors of the cacao bean.

As a result, theyre pretty expensive. They also dont have a physical storefront. But you can get all their stuff at our next pick.

More info: Website | Facebook | Instagram

Specialty chocolate available for sale at Duck Soup in Sudbury. (Nick O'Malley/MassLive)

Duck Soup, Sudbury

Duck Soup is an anomaly on this list. Theyre mostly a general store that keeps an eclectic and colorful variety of goods on their shelves. That includes some amazing chocolate finds. They regularly feature Goodnow Farms chocolate and sweets from Dante Confections in North Billerica.

Duck Soup does actually make some chocolate products in-house. The store doubles as a chocolate factory where the Sky Bar is produced.

More info: Website | Facebook | Instagram

Laderach, in Bostons Prudential Center

If youre looking for legendary imported chocolate, check out the Laderach outlet at the Prudential Center.

Laderach is an acclaimed Swiss chocolate maker that makes exceptional truffles, barks and pralines.

The price tag here is going to be a bit high. But this is a great choice if youre looking for something more worldly and luxurious.

More info: Website

Harbor Sweets, multiple locations (Salem, Beverly, Boston)

Harbor Sweets is a North Shore institution that has a wide variety of sweet options. Theyre famous for their Sloops, sailboat-shaped pieces of almond toffee covered in white chocolate.

More info: Website | Facebook | Instagram

Worcester Public Market

The Worcester Public Market actually offers a few places for chocolate.

First, weve got Bris Sweet Treats, which has some jaw-dropping confections like a quarter-pound Dubai chocolate cup and smashable chocolates that feature treasures inside.

Next, theres Sweet Pan Gourmet, which is famous for its brigadeiros, a Brazilian-inspired chocolate truffle.

If thats not enough, you can also check out Market Pantry, which has a wide selection of local goods, including plenty of chocolates.

Bris Sweet Treats: Website | Facebook | Instagram

Sweet Pan: Website | Facebook | Instagram

Market Pantry: Website

Hilliards Chocolates, multiple locations (North Easton, Norwell, Mansfield, West Newton)

Hilliards Chocolates is a chocolate powerhouse with four locations, a huge selection and over 100 years of history.

Founded in 1924, Hilliards offers everything from chocolate bars and assortments to chocolate-covered Twinkies and craft beer caramels. They also make their own chocolate jimmies in-house.

More info: Website | Facebook | Instagram

Firetype Chocolates, Northampton

Tucked away in Thornes Marketplace, Firetype Chocolate is a hidden gem of a chocolate shop. They made headlines in 2024 when their Passion Fruit Caramel was named a Good Food Awards winner.

They offer a wide variety of chocolates, including vegan options. You can also get honeycomb toffee and homemade Twix bars. But youd better act fast if you want to get one of their stunning Valentines Day assortment boxes.

More info: Website | Facebook | Instagram
The cause of death has been revealed for an Emmy Award-winning actress and comedian.

Catherine OHara died from a pulmonary embolism, with cancer as the underlying cause.

A Los Angeles County death certificate issued Monday lists the pulmonary embolism, which occurs when a blood clot blocks an artery in the lungs, as the immediate cause of the actors Jan. 30 death at age 71. Rectal cancer was the long-term cause.

The oncologist who signed off on the certificate indicated that he had been treating OHara since March of last year, and last saw her on Jan. 27. She died at a hospital in Santa Monica, California.

The beloved Canadian-born comic actor and SCTV alum starred as Macaulay Culkins mother in two Home Alone movies and won an Emmy as the dramatically oblivious wealthy matriarch Moira Rose in Schitts Creek.

Her death was a surprise to most, and an initial statement from her representatives said only that she died following a brief illness.

Collaborators including Culkin, Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy and Pedro Pascal paid her loving tribute after her death.

Mama. I thought we had time, Culkin wrote on Instagram. I wanted more. I wanted to sit in a chair next to you. I heard you. But I had so much more to say. I love you. Ill see you later.

Culkins post included photos of him and OHara on the Home Alone set was back when and one from December 2023 when OHara supported Culkin at his Hollywood Walk of Fame star ceremony.

Words seem inadequate to express the loss I feel today, Levy told USA TODAY in a statement on Jan. 31. I had the honor of knowing and working with the great Catherine OHara for over fifty years.

From our beginnings on the Second City stage, to SCTV, to the movies we did with Chris Guest, to our six glorious years on Schitts Creek, I cherished our working relationship, but most of all our friendship. And I will miss her, he added. My heart goes out to Bo, Matthew, Luke, and the entire OHara family.

The document said she was cremated. It lists her profession as actress and her business as movies. It said she practiced her trade for 50 years.

OHaras accolades include two Primetime Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.

She is survived by her husband, Bo Welch, sons Matthew and Luke, and siblings Michael OHara, Mary Margaret OHara, Maureen Jolley, Marcus OHara, Tom OHara and Patricia Wallice.
A 24-year-old garbage man from Everett has been criminally charged after police said he brought brass knuckles he found on the job to Boston Logan International Airport.

The incident happened on Nov. 8, 2025, according to a state police report. Criminal charges against the Everett man  carrying a dangerous weapon at a TSA checkpoint  were filed in East Boston District Court on Feb. 2.

The man had tried to go through airport security at Terminal E at around 6:45 a.m. that day when TSA agents stopped him and troopers were called to the checkpoint, the report read.

The 24-year-old had brass knuckles with him at the security gate and told police he works for a garbage disposal company and found it there, the report read.

He said he did not know it was illegal and did not mean any harm with it, the report read. The trooper then told the man it was illegal to possess brass knuckles in the state of Massachusetts.

The man willingly surrendered the knuckles to the trooper and he was cleared to fly. However, TSA issued a prohibited item violation, the report read, and the man was charged out of East Boston District Court.

His arraignment is scheduled for March 11.
Former Massachusetts State Police trooper Michael Proctor is fighting an effort by Norfolk County prosecutors to turn over more of his phone records to Karen Reads civil defense lawyers, calling it an invasion of privacy.

In late January, prosecutors filed a motion in Norfolk Superior Court asking a judge to allow them to turn over more records from Proctors personal phone, after receiving a subpoena from lawyers for Read. Reads lawyers were seeking access to communications on the phone unearthed last fall that prosecutors determined could show bias on the part of Proctor in other cases he worked on.

In their motion, Norfolk County prosecutors said they reached a confidentiality agreement with Reads team to turn over the messages, but that the lawyers disagreed over a part of the agreement. That disagreement was over a provision that would exempt information used in an exhibit or quoted in a motion or deposition from secrecy.

Prosecutors wrote that they believed the provision violated other court orders governing the secrecy of the contents of the phone. Turning over content from the phone in response to a civil subpoena without a protective order would be less restrictive than a judge deemed appropriate in the criminal cases, prosecutors wrote.

Proctor was fired last March over his conduct during the Read investigation, which included sending demeaning text messages about her in its early stages to friends from high school. As Read defends herself against a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of her boyfriend, Boston Police officer John OKeefe, she has implicated Proctor and other investigators, claiming they framed her for OKeefes killing.

But lawyers for Proctor argue prosecutors should be prevented from turning any messages over to Reads team.

Neither the commonwealth nor Ms. Read can establish, as they must, that the interests of justice require the invasion of privacy of producing protected information from Proctors personal cell phone, the former troopers lawyers wrote, calling the subpoena a fishing expedition.

Proctors lawyers suggest the best course of action for Reads team would be to serve him a request for production of documents in the pending federal civil rights lawsuit she filed, in which he is a defendant. They note that Read is already in possession of more than 38,000 pages of texts from Proctors phone from discovery in her criminal trial.

If there are messages related to Read in Proctors phone, they were likely already turned over, attorneys Thomas V. DiGangi, Jacon W. Crotty and Matthew J. Hamel wrote.

To the extent that there may be inappropriate messages that may be racist or homophobic, or may show a bias to others, those alleged messages are not relevant to the criminal prosecution of Ms. Read, who is ... a white, heterosexual female, the motion reads.

Proctor has an expectation of privacy for the information in his phone, which is likely to contain communications with his wife and lawyers, and also photos of his children and other family members who have no connection to the case, they wrote.

Lawyers for Read have not responded to either filing, and a judge has yet to rule. The issue could be addressed at a Thursday-afternoon hearing in the cases of Myles King, Shawn Johnson, Jovani Delossantos and Bianca Chionchio, all of which were investigated, at least in part, by Proctor.
UPDATE: Motion to recuse judge in Kelsey Fitzsimmons case denied, deemed moot

Attorneys for Kelsey Fitzsimmons on Monday filed a motion asking Judge Kathleen McCarthy-Neyman to recuse herself from the case, accusing the judge of not just several conflicts of interest that require her to step aside but also misconduct.

McCarthy-Neyman has presided over almost all superior court hearings in the case, beginning with a bail review in August, not long after Fitzsimmonss arraignment in district court. When Fitzsimmons was indicted on a charge of assault with a dangerous weapon, it was McCarthy-Neyman who handled her arraignment and subsequent hearings on conditions of her release.

That included a hearing in September where McCarthy-Neyman sent Fitzsimmons to jail after her attorneys indicated she couldnt comply with court-ordered alcohol testing. Fitzsimmons was released from jail in December when her lawyers indicated, after they lost a series of appeals, that she could now comply with the testing.

That finding and McCarthy-Neymans insistence on an order barring Fitzsimmons from seeing her infant son amount(s) to an expression of her opinion on the character and guilt of the defendant, attorneys Tim Bradl and Martha Coakley wrote in the motion.

A reasonable disinterested observer ... would conclude that there is a lack of impartiality or at a bare minimum, an appearance that the judges impartiality might reasonably be questioned, the motion reads.

Fitzsimmons, a North Andover police officer, was shot in June by a colleague serving her a restraining order obtained by her fiance. She is accused of pointing a gun at the officer, but she has said she attempted suicide.

The filing accuses McCarthy-Neyman of conducting her own investigation into whether Fitzsimmons was complying with the conditions of her release ahead of the hearing where she was sent to jail. That investigation, they say, included an off-the-record conversation with a probation officer the day prior.

There was no legal justification for the court visiting his office and conducting its own investigation outside the presence of defense counsel, off the record, and without subsequent disclosure to the defense, the filing reads.

After that hearing, McCarthy-Neyman apparently filed a complaint against Jeff January, the probation officer working on Fitzsimmons case, accusing him of colluding with the defense. The complaint itself, which the judge did not disclose, shows bias against the defense and/or Fitzsimmons, the lawyers wrote.

Bradl and Coakley suggest the complaint shows McCarthy-Neymans investigation before the hearing simply didnt produce the desired information.

A judge who has entered the fray, particularly by leveling accusations against counsel of record and court employees who provide good faith assistance to defense counsel, cannot thereafter preside without creating an appearance of partiality, the filing reads.

The lawyers argue that McCarthy-Neymans continued oversight suggests she specially assigned herself to the case without notice. They call the decision inexplicable on the merits of the case, adding it raises questions about the motive of the Court.

At the time of most hearings, McCarthy-Neyman was assigned to a civil session but handled Fitzsimmons case, a criminal matter, according to the motion.

During the hearing where McCarthy-Neyman ordered Fitzsimmons be held in custody, she was visibly shaking and angry on the bench, behavior that is grounds enough for the court to step aside, Bradl and Coakley wrote.

Beyond her in-court decisions and behavior, the motion asks McCarthy-Neyman to step aside because she is a longtime resident of North Andover and owns property there.

In adjudicating the alleged dangerousness of Ms. Fitzsimmons, a fellow North Andover resident, in a North Andover incident, the court inevitably had to consider the safety of herself, her own family, and former colleagues that work or live in the town, the filing reads.

The motion also suggests McCarthy-Neyman may be related to the officer, Patrick Noonan, who fired the shots at Fitzsimmons.

In a footnote, the defense notes that documents obtained during discovery list Noonans full name as Patrick McCarthy Noonan.

It is ultimately up to McCarthy-Neyman to decide whether to recuse herself from the case. Prosecutors have not yet taken a position on the issue.

Speaking to reporters following a brief hearing on Monday, Coakley said the recusal was a simple issue of fairness.

We felt that in this case, there were lots of reasons why, Coakley said. Were hopeful that the judge will look at this motion and realize that.

In this case, this is fairness for Kelsey, she added.

A hearing on the recusal is set for March 9, just two weeks before Fitzsimmons case is set to go to trial.

Bradl said the defense had no interest in moving the trial date.

We want a jury to hear this case, he said. Kelsey has a lot of work to do in terms of getting her baby back. Thats the number one priority here.

Fitzsimmons is set to appear in Essex Probate and Family Court on Feb. 25 as she fights with her fiance over custody of their son. The March 9 hearing is the next date in the criminal case.
After hitting several parked cars, a Massachusetts man continued driving erratically and ultimately slammed into a pickup truck, ejecting its driver, police said.

Around 11:40 a.m. on Monday, the driver of a sedan went inside a business at East Central Street in Franklin, caused a disturbance and then left. As he left, he hit several cars in the parking lot, according to the Franklin Police Department.

Officers stopped the sedan and identified the driver as a 59-year-old Franklin resident who was known to the Franklin Police Department. Officials have not released the mans name as of Tuesday morning.

However, during the stop, he started driving again. He led police on a low-speed pursuit down King Street, police said. He then sped up as he entered Interstate 495 south.

Due to the excessive speeds and unsafe driving conditions, Officers terminated the pursuit and notified the Massachusetts State Police, police wrote in a statement.

About 20 minutes later, officials said he drove into the breakdown lane on Route 140 to get around traffic. He then proceeded through a red light and struck a pickup truck that was heading westbound on School Street through the intersection in Mansfield, police said.

The truck rolled onto its side and ejected the driver.

Several witnesses and motorists began rendering aid before first responders arrived.

The driver of the pickup truck was taken by ambulance to Rhode Island Hospital with serious injuries that appeared to be non-life-threatening. And the driver of the sedan was taken to Boston Medical Center  South in Brockton with similar injuries.

A traffic signal pole was also hit, knocking out all signals. The intersection will remain closed while repairs are made.

Officials stated they are planning to charge the man with leaving the scene of an accident, failure to stop for police, negligent operation of a motor vehicle, speeding, marked lanes violation, red light violation and disorderly conduct. Additional charges are expected in connection with the crash.
After a delay in a decision by the Massachusetts Parole Board, a Massachusetts man was granted his freedom in January.

For the first time in at least a decade, the Massachusetts Parole Board issued no decisions in December on life sentence cases, leaving incarcerated individuals and victims families in limbo, including Kevin Denis.

On Aug. 19, 1994, 18-year-old Denis shot and killed 17-year-old Diron Spence, a Boston police officers stepson, in Dorchester.

Denis was wearing black pants, a black jacket and a black ski mask when he went up to Spence and a friend and demanded their money. The friend immediately began emptying his pockets, but Spence just stood there.

Think Im playing? Denis asked before pulling out a .357 Magnum revolver.

Denis fired four shots, three of which hit Spence.

Police later found the weapon under a towel on the washing machine in the kitchen.

Denis lawyer told The Boston Globe in 1994 he had received a scholarship to go to the University of Massachusetts Amherst to study physical science. He was also known to be shy, run track and go to church.

He was convicted for first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Now 49, Denis has been incarcerated for more than 30 years.

In January 2024, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled in Commonwealth v. Mattis that sentencing people, ages 18 through 20 at the time of their offense, to life without the possibility of parole was unconstitutional and amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.

Massachusetts was the first state in the country to transform the law, experts said.

Essentially, the brains of what we are calling late adolescents or emerging adults function very much like juveniles, Northampton attorney Paul Rudof, one of the lawyers who successfully challenged life sentences for individuals aged 18 to 20, told The Republican .

There were 210 cases that fell into the Mattis decision across Massachusetts, including Denis.

He went in front of the parole board for the first time on June 26.

Its not uncommon for the parole board to take 3-4 months to make a decision. Hearings that were held last December received their decisions in April and people who had hearings in January were given decisions in May.

But while some people who had June 2025 hearings received their decisions in November 2025, others continued to wait.

Denis did not get his decision until Jan. 12, nearly seven months after his hearing.

The Executive Office of Public Safety and Security did not say exactly why these decisions were delayed but said the timing can vary based on scheduling and the procedural requirements of each case. The Massachusetts Parole Board has seven spots but there are currently only six members.

During Denis parole hearing, it was stated that he scored low risk on the risk assessment tool. And an evaluation by a doctor noted Denis had undiagnosed and untreated mental health conditions, cannabis use disorder and developmental disorders at the time of the offense, including Autism.

During his time incarcerated, Denis has completed about 80 programs and earned his bachelors degree from Boston University. He also had a minimal disciplinary history while incarcerated.

Spences family, as well as Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Montez, testified against Denis getting parole.

The courts Mattis decision has been devastating for the families of those killed as they are forced to relive their trauma, often going in front of the parole board and the incarcerated individual to make their own case.

Families have described the process as a  nightmare , stating they feel betrayed and that the system is treating murderers as victims while their own pain is ignored. One family member during a previous hearing walked out, feeling as if his side wasnt being fairly heard after the incarcerated individual was told they did a good job.

The parole board has so far granted freedom to about 40 people, which is a significant majority of those who have had hearings and decisions released. About 15 people have been denied parole following the Mattis decision.

Although one person on the parole board voted to deny Denis parole, the board ultimately concluded that Denis had demonstrated a level of rehabilitation that would make his release compatible with the welfare of society.

He was granted parole two weeks after the decision was released.
More than a year after voters gave it their overwhelming approval, state Auditor Diana DiZoglio took her fight to audit the state Legislature to Massachusetts highest court on Tuesday.

The Methuen Democrat wants the Supreme Judicial Court to force her onetime colleagues in the state House and Senate to heed the voters will, arguing that the months of delay are completely bonkers.

That lawsuit, filed by DiZoglio with her offices general counsel, Michael Leung-Tat, represents the first direct court action by the auditor and a day after a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate made a similar play.

Seventy-two percent of the general public said they want transparency and accountability, DiZoglio said during a news conference in her State House office. Whats happening is contradictory to what the people of Massachusetts have made clear they want out of their state government.

DiZoglio, who formerly served in the state House and Senate, has accused legislative leaders, both fellow Democrats, of dragging their feet. The top leaders have repeatedly raised separation of powers issues.

DiZoglio similarly has accused state Attorney General Andrea J. Campbell, also a fellow Democrat, of failing to enforce the auditing law that voters approved. The two have spent months exchanging rhetorical barbs in the press.

Tuesdays court filing further details the months of back-and-forth between DiZoglios and Campbells respective offices, with DiZoglio asserting that her office repeatedly sought the help of the AGO in enforcing the Document Requests, the complaint states.

It alleges that the attorney generals office declined to do so, instead posing questions that had already been answered and raising hypothetical concerns about future audits.

Campbell has consistently rejected that characterization, maintaining that her office has not received sufficient information from the auditor about the scope of the proposed audit and the legal claims involved to proceed with litigation.

Last week, Campbell told the News Service, Weve not had any issue on any ballot question enforcement or any state agency or constitutional office. The only one weve had issues with was the auditor, and I think thats telling in many ways.

The relief DiZoglio is seeking from the SJC is straightforward but consequential. Shes asked for an order compelling the House and Senate to produce the financial documents covered by their audit and for permission for her office to take an end-run on Campbell by allowing her to appoint special assistant attorneys general to pursue the matter.

The lawsuit lands as the dispute has widened beyond the Legislature. In recent months, courts have cited a 2023 attorney general opinion to decline participation in certain audits sought by the auditors office, prompting DiZoglio to warn publicly of a broader retreat from transparency tied to the legislative impasse.

She repeated those warnings on Tuesday.

Its completely bonkers whats happening up here, she said. And we find it really disheartening that we have to go to a judge just to get access to the courts. If our office is dealing with this, what does that say for everyday, regular people that dont have an elected position like mine?

On Monday, Republican U.S. Senate candidate John Deaton, joined by a group of Massachusetts residents, also filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Judicial Court seeking to force lawmakers to open their books.

As someone who grew up among and still fights for working families, parents, and vulnerable residents, an audit would ensure taxpayer dollars actually reach the people who need them most, Deaton, an attorney, said in an email.

Deaton paired the lawsuit with a call for what he dubbed a Democratic Accountability & Transparency (DAT) Squeeze, urging federal officials to freeze certain discretionary federal grants to Massachusetts until the audit dispute is resolved.

In a lengthy post on X, Deaton said he had written to federal agencies, including the Office of Management and Budget and the U.S. Department of Transportation, seeking a pause on non-essential, non-emergency discretionary Federal funding, while carving out protections for programs like SNAP, Medicaid and emergency services.
Secretary of Education Patrick Tutwiler will step down Friday after three years in the role, with Salem Schools Superintendent Stephen Zrike Jr. set to take over next month.

Tutwiler is leaving Gov. Maura Healeys administration to become president and chief executive officer of Walker Therapeutic & Educational Programs, a Needham-based nonprofit serving children and youth with complex emotional, behavioral and learning needs. His choice adds to the turnover in the governors team as she splits attention between reelection plans and governing during a busy year for both policy and politics.

Early Education and Care Commissioner Amy Kershaw will serve as interim secretary until Zrike formally assumes the post in March.

Healey credited Zrike for improving outcomes across multiple districts. Zrike is currently in his sixth year as superintendent of Salem Public Schools and previously led the Holyoke and Wakefield districts.

Tutwiler has often described his charge as secretary in simple, deliberate terms. Coming out of the pandemic, he said his job was to stabilize, heal, and transform the states education system  and then to rethink what school is and what it could be. When he took the post in 2023, districts were still grappling with staffing shortages, learning loss, student mental health needs and uneven recovery from COVID-era disruptions.

During his tenure, Massachusetts education leaders faced a mix of progress and persistent challenges.

The state expanded early literacy initiatives, increased access to early college and career pathways, stabilized and grew the child care system, and made universal free school meals permanent.

At the same time, the state worked to realign graduation requirements after the MCAS was removed as a graduation standard in 2024, prompting ongoing debate over how to balance rigor, equity and local control. Public schools also continue to confront declining enrollment, lingering early literacy gaps, and the difficulty of rebuilding academic momentum as districts adapt to modern pressures intensified by the pandemic.

Zrikes appointment brings a familiar name to Beacon Hill, particularly for Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll. A former longtime mayor of Salem, Driscoll overlapped for several years with Zrike after he was hired as superintendent in 2020. The two worked together as the district navigated the pandemic and academic recovery.

As a former mayor of Salem, I know firsthand what a strong partner he is for our students, teachers and parents, Driscoll said.

In Salem, Zrike oversaw improvements in attendance and MCAS performance, expanded full-day prekindergarten and strengthened dual-language and early college programs, according to the administration.

Before that, he served as receiver-superintendent in Holyoke, and earlier as superintendent in Wakefield. He began his career as a fifth-grade teacher in Andover.

In a statement, Jessica Tan, who helms the states branch of the American Federation of Teachers, credited Tutwiler for leading with infectious joy and energy.

Tan said Zrike had earned a strong reputation as a professional educator of the highest caliber who stays laser focused on the needs of students and families, while also respecting dedicated educators in the classroom.

This change in leadership comes during a very challenging time in public education. At the federal level, public education is under assault, exacerbating the fiscal crises plaguing our cities and towns across the state, Tan continued.

Children are afraid to go to school because of the chilling effects of immigration enforcement officers acting as if theyre above the law. Were seeing an increase not only in the number of students needing services but the complexity of their needs, she said. School districts are struggling to meet rising costs and our ability to provide the high-quality public education our students deserve is in jeopardy.

Tutwiler is the latest Cabinet secretary to leave during Healeys term. Transportation Secretary Gina Fiandaca was the first to leave in September 2023. Since then, former Public Safety Secretary Terrence Reidy, Transportation Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nutt, Economic Development Secretary Yvonne Hao, Health and Human Services Secretary Kate Walsh, and Veterans Services Secretary Jon Santiago have all stepped down.

Tutwiler said he was grateful for the opportunity to serve and optimistic about the transition, saying he was confident the work would continue in such capable, committed, and compassionate hands.

MassLive Politics Editor John L. Micek contributed to this story.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll have picked up some key backing in the states second-largest city as they head into the thick of the 2026 campaign season.

Worcester Mayor Joseph Petty, joined by former Mayor Joe OBrien and legislative leaders who represent the city on Beacon Hill, endorsed the incumbent Democrats for reelection.

Healey has been a great partner for Worcester on Beacon Hill, and her leadership has been critical to our citys success, Petty said in a statement released by Healeys reelection campaign.

From making the investments we need in housing, infrastructure, and education to fuel the future of our city to creating new job opportunities in emerging sectors through her leadership on the Mass Leads Act, Governor Healey continues to deliver results for the people of our Commonwealth, Petty said.

OBrien said hes watched the citys economy grow under Healeys stewardship and can attest to her impact throughout our city.

State Rep. Jim ODay, D-14th Worcester, said he attributed his citys tremendous economic growth to its partnership with the Democratic administration.

Healey returned the compliment, calling the Worcester pols phenomenal partners in building a brighter future for Worcester, and for our entire state. Massachusetts could not lead the way without investments in our gateway cities, like Worcester, which provide regional hubs for opportunity and growth.

Driscoll, a former Salem mayor, touted the strength of the citys municipal leadership, saying those leaders have helped to (deliver) results for the people of Worcester.

In addition to Petty, OBrien and ODay, the local pols who endorsed Healey and Driscoll are: State Sens. Robyn Kennedy, D-1st Worcester and Michael Moore, D-2nd Worcester, along with Democratic Reps. John Mahoney, D-13th Worcester, Mary Keefe, D-15th Worcester, Daniel Donahue, D-16th Worcester, and David LeBoeuf, D-17th Worcester, as well as Governors Councillor Paul DePalo.

The endorsements came after Driscoll and Healey met with local business leaders and lawmakers.

Three Republicans  former Baker administration alums Mike Kennealy and Brian Shortsleeve, along with medical device executive Michael Minogue  are vying for the Republicans 2026 gubernatorial nomination. The winner of the states Sept. 1 primary will face Healey at the polls in November.
The U.S. Department of Justice has moved to dismiss a criminal case against President Donald Trumps former aide Steve Bannon and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is receiving backlash for the decision.

Bannon was convicted for defying a congressional subpoena regarding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, The Associated Press reported. He was convicted in July 2022 on two counts of contempt of Congress: one for refusing to sit for a deposition and the one for refusing to provide requested documents.

The department asked the Supreme Court to return Bannons case to the district court, according to The Washington Post. Simultaneously, the U.S attorney filed a separate motion in district court seeking a full dismissal of the charges.

Bannon has already served four months in prison for this sentence, a dismissal would vacate the conviction from his record.

On Monday, Solicitor General D. John Sauer informed the Supreme Court justices that the Trump administration determined in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice, The New York Times wrote.

Blanche characterized Bannons conviction as the result of an improper House subpoena that should be vacated.

This department will continue to undo the prior administrations weaponization of the justice system, Blanche said on X.

After posting, the deputy attorney general received a wave of blowback from other users on the social media platform.

You are covering up for abusers, one X user wrote on Blanches post. You never once cared about the victims. You are just empty inside.

Another person said, You are a disgrace to the legal profession and to humanity in general.

This is what you wasted your time and our tax dollars on while youre not prosecuting child rapists? You have to be kidding me..., a user wrote.

People were also bringing up how Bannon was mentioned in the case files of Jeffrey Epstein.

According to PBS, Bannon and Epstein exchanged thousands of friendly texts with some sent months before disgraced financiers 2019 arrest.

The two spoke about politics, travel and a documentary Bannon was said to be planning to help save Epsteins reputation, the media outlet wrote.

Under Blanches X post, one person said that Bannon needs to be investigated for his friendship with Epstein.

Another person wrote, Protecting another Epstein buddy.

One X user asked, Given his close connection to Epstein will you be reopening an investigation to him over that?

While Blanche was hit with a large number of negative comments, he also received some support.

Thank you sir, one person told Blanche. Sooo much weaponization.

Another user wrote, Well done, Sir!

This move by the Department of Justice is the latest in a series of efforts by the Trump administration to eliminate criminal cases stemming from the Jan. 6 insurrection.

After taking office last year, Trump pardoned more than 1,000 individuals who were charged in connection with the Capitol breach, according to The Guardian.
A winter weather advisory remains in effect for three Massachusetts counties as residents prepare for snowfall that could reach 4 inches before Wednesday morning.

The advisory, released by the National Weather Service on Tuesday at 1:20 a.m., is valid from 6 p.m. Tuesday until Wednesday at 6 a.m. for Middlesex, Essex and Suffolk counties.

The advisory, issued by weather officials, warns residents in the affected counties to prepare for winter driving conditions and potential travel disruptions as the snow moves through the region.

Accumulations of up to 4 inches are possible before the advisory expires Wednesday morning, though specific timing and county details were not immediately available.

Residents should monitor local forecasts and plan accordingly for their Wednesday morning commute. Winter weather advisories are typically issued when snow, sleet or freezing rain will cause significant inconveniences but are not expected to reach warning-level criteria.

For radar and weather news, go to MassLive.com/weather, for all weather alerts, go to MassLive.com/weather-alerts
When the wind doesnt blow, and solar panels are covered in snow, there is another source of carbon-neutral energy to be considered, even if it has a long history of being controversial.

Experts are now taking a second and serious look at expanding nuclear power as part of the push to find more reliable, climate-friendly sources of electrical power.

It will take many hurdles, but the conversation needs to start today, said Thomas Barry, chief executive officer of Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Co. I dont think this region can have a serious conversation about power generation without discussing nuclear power.

Two decades ago, Barry said people would laugh if he even brought up the subject of nuclear power, but that has been changing, especially with concerns about climate change since nuclear power has no emissions.

The Municipal Electric Co., which is made up of some 30 city and town-owned power companies, owns a small part of the Millstone and Seabrook nuclear power plants, which provide about 14% of power to municipal electric companies statewide, said Jason Viadero, director of engineering and generation for the company.

When people think of nuclear energy, they think of past accidents, but years of technological advances make the power source even safer than it has ever been, said Sukesh Aghara, a professor of nuclear engineering and associate dean for research and graduate studies for the college of engineering at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

You have to have reliability and resiliency, and the grid has to have the capacity that meets peak demand, said Aghara, who is also the lead author for the states Roadmap for Advance Nuclear and Fusion Energy.

The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considered the gold standard of setting high expectations and following safety parameters. In addition, new technologies automated a lot of the plant operations and prevent core meltdowns without needing an operator to step in. When people bring up the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Russia that took place in 1986, Aghara explains a different technology was used.

There is always the issue of storing spent fuel rods, which remain radioactive for thousands of years, but he said the solution of sealing them in casks has worked.

Building a nuclear plant costs at least $10 billion, but that capital investment can be recovered in 10 years. Now, plants are continuing to operate for decades and will be guaranteed to make money for another 20 or 30 years or even longer, Aghara said.

Currently, there are three operating power plants in New England, two in Connecticut and a third in New Hampshire. Aghara said once a plant is decommissioned, it cannot be restarted, but building a new plant at the location of one which has been closed is a workable solution.

What we do have is several sites that have the infrastructure with the grid connection. That is a significant cost to put transmission lines in, he said.

Adding nuclear power plants is also vital to the New England economy, experts said. If power companies cannot provide electricity needed or cannot provide it at a reasonable cost, that will drive businesses out of state or dissuade them from investing here in the first place, Aghara said.

Thomas Flaherty, executive director of Westfield Gas & Electric, said he feels it is time to consider investing in nuclear power, especially since with the advent of mini-plants  those which would cost $1 billion to $2 billion instead of $17 billion  that are in the testing phase.

The plants could help reduce the shortage of power that New England faces, especially in peak periods when the weather is very cold or hot, and save companies from having to fire up older oil-fueled plants needed to fill the gap in production. They also will provide additional electricity needs for business growth, especially for things like AI data centers, which are huge power hogs.

Wind is available 30% to 40% of the time, and solar is available 13% to 15% of the time. Renewable energy overall provides about 9% of the overall mix of the energy used by Westfield Gas & Electric, Flaherty said.

Adding to the difficulty is natural gas pipeline expansion has been blocked, so that resource, which is cleaner burning than oil, is limited, especially during a prolonged cold snap like this one.

You have to start taking the politics out of power generation to ensure we have safe, reliable power, Flaherty said.
NORTHAMPTON  U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern said restricting Veterans Administration chaplains from offering public prayers in memory of Alex Pretti is both incredibly insensitive and probably illegal.

McGovern, D-Worcester, wrote Veterans Administration Secretary Douglas A. Collins Feb. 6, citing an internal email from VA staff in Massachusetts and complaints brought forth anonymously to The Republican by a Veterans Administration chaplain.

Mr. Secretary, I have spoken with many VA employees in my district over the last few weeks, McGovern wrote. They are confused, angry, and devastated  not only by the shooting, but also by your overtly partisan response and failure to meaningfully acknowledge the life and legacy of one of your own."

Your words and actions matter. Use your power to honor Mr. Pretti  not silence those who seek to remember him, McGovern wrote.

U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Worcester, called the Veterans Administration action related to chaplains speaking about the Alex Pretti killing "incredibly insensitive." (The Republican / file photo) (Will Katcher/MassLive)

Collins served as a chaplain in the Air Force. McGovern asked him if hed ever had his role providing spiritual guidance restricted.

Pretti, 37, worked as an intensive care unit nurse at a VA in Minnesota. He was shot and killed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in Minneapolis Jan. 24.

McGoverns district includes the Edward P. Boland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in the Leeds section of Northampton. McGovern attended a vigil outside the Leeds hospital, organized outside the VA chain of command.

At the end of January, a chaplain told The Republican that a supervisor had informed him that the circumstances of Prettis death were political. He said he was informed of the Hatch Act, a federal law that bans federal employees from partisan activity at work.

Does VA believe that mention of VA staff during prayer, including Mr. Pretti, is it a partisan activity? McGovern asked in his letter to Collins.

More recently, the chaplain has communicated that there has been no policy change, though supervisors are using a lighter hand in the matter.

The VA, through a spokesperson, said previously that: All VA employees, including chaplains, are welcome to memorialize Alex Pretti in their own way as long as they are respectful, and it does not interfere with their work duties.

Participants hold signs outside the Northampton VA medical center in Northampton at a vigil honoring ICU nurse Alex Pretti. (Steven E. Nanton photo) Steven E. Nanton

The Washington Post reported, in the immediate aftermath of Prettis killing, on frustration among VA employees nationally, saying they have not received any acknowledgment from the department of Prettis killing.

McGovern said restricting worship is not going to ease that frustration.

Censoring the prayer of VA chaplains and discouraging public acknowledgment of a fallen colleague is not only incredibly insensitive, but also totally inconsistent with the values of compassion and support that VA pledges to uphold, McGovern wrote.

It is also likely unlawful, he added. The First Amendment protects religious expression.

By censoring the content of public prayer, VA leadership likely infringed on the religious liberty of VA chaplains, he wrote.

Such a stance, the legislator wrote, runs counter to the religious liberty goals espoused by the Trump administration itself.

Has the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias, established by President Trump, reviewed the new policy? McGovern asked. Has the Religious Liberty Commission, established by President Trump, reviewed the new policy?

McGovern asked in his letter for a response from Collins by Friday.
SPRINGFIELD  A 57-year-old disabled city man remains missing since wandering away from his home at Manor Court late Sunday afternoon.

Police said Juan Nieves, who has early onset dementia, left his home dressed in shorts, a T-shirt and sneakers. An intense search followed, with a Massachusetts State Police helicopter hovering over certain parts of the city for hours, foot patrols, search dogs and drones.

Were using every method at our disposal to find this man, said Springfield Police Capt. Trent Duda, who is leading the investigation.

Nieves left home previously and was soon found on Canterbury Street, approaching the East Longmeadow town line, according to police. As the search begun, patrol cruisers circled that area Sunday evening.

Police spokesperson Ryan Walsh said investigators are encouraging residents in Springfield, East Longmeadow and beyond to check their backyards, sheds and any other enclosed spaces where Nieves may have taken shelter.

Walsh urged people to call 911, the detective bureau at 413-787-6360 or the non-emergency line at 413-787-6300 if they see Nieves or know of his whereabouts.
SPRINGFIELD  Springfield College officials are petitioning the city to close part of Wilbraham Avenue, calling it a safety issue after a student this year was struck by a car.

But city councilors question if closing the street would put a burden on residents in the Old Hill and Upper Hill neighborhoods, places where people were strongly opposed to the closing when college officials brought up the idea before.

I actually attended a number of meetings in the Mason Square community and folks were not excited with this, City Councilor Justin Hurst said of the petition submitted about 2 years ago.

Springfield College wants to close Wilbraham Avenue between its intersections with Hickory and King streets. Kevin Roy, director of facilities for the school, said officials commissioned a study that identified traffic accidents, especially at Wilbraham Avenue and Alden Street, and concluded that the closing would reduce the danger.

The council agreed Feb. 2 to send the proposal to its general government committee. The vote was unanimous. There is no time frame for further action.

A few blocks north of the proposed area to be closed, Wilbraham Avenue connects with Wilbraham Road, which would not be directly affected by the change.

The citys Board of Public Works examined the proposal and recommended that it be approved. If it is to be closed, the road would be turned over to Springfield College, since the school owns the property on either side, but easements would be needed for utilities that run under it.

Roy said the college would continue to maintain the storm drains and sidewalks for the safety of students and residents who also walk through the school.

The BPW, in a letter, said closing the road would improve public safety.

The college president, Mary-Beth Cooper, spoke Feb. 2 of an incident in which one of her students was hit by a car while crossing the intersection of Wilbraham and Alden streets. The student was badly injured and taken to a hospital.

I cross that street every morning when I walk to the gym and it is the most dangerous thing I do every day, she said.

Cooper said the college has no intention to seek any closing of portions of Alden Street.

When Hurst proposed the issue go to subcommittee for further review, and to give residents a chance to respond to the petition, Cooper said she did not object, but added that every day the street remains open, the danger remains.

Other councilors agreed with Hurst, saying the neighborhood deserves to be contacted about the issue, since residents aired concerns about the same proposal two years ago.

Residents at the time said they felt like they would lose an important route.

As far as I know, it is a unanimous heck no, said City Councilor Malo Brown, who represents the area where the street is. I can assure you no one in the community wants it.

Brown said the proposal seems to come up every few years and is never supported by the neighborhood. Two years ago, residents were strongly opposed to the proposal and state Rep. Bud L. Williams, who also represents the area, was against it as well.

City Councilor Zaida Govan agreed the proposed street closing should be studied further, adding it will also be good time to bring up the issue of payments in lieu of taxes.

The city is pushing for an effort to get colleges, health care facilities and other nonprofits, which are exempt from property tax payments, to agree to make voluntary contributions to relieve some of the increasing tax bills of residents.
NORTHAMPTON  Kivlighan de Montebello, the student alleging he was suspended by UMass Amherst for protesting in support of Palestine, is unlikely to prevail in his request for a judge to allow him to return to school, the universitys lawyer says in new court documents.

Documents filed Friday by the defendant  the University of Massachusetts Amherst  oppose the students request for a temporary restraining order and injunctive relief that would lift his suspension, and allow him to take and register for classes. The defendants are represented by Michael Barry Hoven, associate counsel for the UMass Office of the General Counsel.

Endorsing plaintiffs expansive view of speech rights and enjoining the university from disciplining him would threaten to disrupt all of the universitys day-to-day business, Hoven wrote in the 22-page motion for opposition. Subjecting the university to this would impose significant hardship on the university and all of its staff and students.

When reached for comment, the university declined to comment on pending litigation. Hoven could not be immediately reached for comment.

Last month in Hampshire Superior Court, de Montebello, a junior, sued UMass Amherst; Jeffrey Hescock, its associate vice chancellor of environmental health and safety, and emergency management; and Farshid Hajir, its senior vice provost and dean of undergraduate education.

De Montebello alleged the university violated his constitutional rights after he protested in support of Palestine at a September career fair at the Isenberg School of Management.

A member of the universitys Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, de Montebello was one of several students protesting at the career fair where RTX, formerly known as Raytheon, a defense contractor, was present. He was previously arrested and charged for three other pro-Palestinian protests since 2023. Those charges have either been reduced or dropped.

Hoven said in court documents that the universitys Demonstration Response and Safety Team, which included Hajir and Hescock, developed a plan to manage potential protests ahead of the career fair on Sept. 29.

Throughout the protest, the defense argues that de Montebello ignored attempts by the team to inform the student protesters about the universitys policies and the use of amplified sound. Hescock allegedly then issued two notices to de Montebello, the documents say.

A third notice later was issued to de Montebello, after he allegedly failed to stop chanting loudly, and he and the other students were directed to leave.

A reporter could not immediately reach the National Lawyers of Guild of Massachusetts, one of the law firms representing de Montebello, for comment.

The claims

De Montebello claimed that the university violated his rights to the First Amendment, which protects free speech, and 14th Amendment, which protects equal treatment and due process. He also said the university breached its contract with him.

The university alleges de Montebello admitted that he led a group of protesters in call-and-response chants indoors, both with and without a megaphone near the area where the career fair was, Hoven said.

Because his actions violated reasonable and neutral university policy, and were both disruptive and could be reasonably forecast to cause disruption, plaintiff will not prevail on his free speech claim, the opposition documents say.

On the claim the university breached its contract with de Montebello, Hoven argues that UMass Amherst followed the terms of its policies. Hoven also argues that Hajir and Hescock, the university officials, cannot be the basis for relief  vacating his suspension  because neither was involved in decisions to find him responsible for violating university policies or the Code of Student Conduct.

The UMass filing request a Hampshire Superior Court judge deny de Montebellos motion for relief.
SOUTHWICK  In a motion made by the town to answer a lawsuit filed against it by Southwick Care LLC, it said the limited liability company didnt exhaust all administrative avenues before filing the civil lawsuit in Hampden Superior Court and therefore should be dismissed.

Southwick Care is a property owner who has paid allegedly excessive water bills between Nov. 19, 2020, and April 2025, but did not avail itself of either of these two administrative avenues, referring in the lawsuit to Massachusetts General Law in the motion to dismiss filed by Ryan OHara of Bacon Wilson PC on behalf of the town on Jan. 29.

In December, Southwick Care filed the lawsuit because it alleges it was overcharged by $333,393 by the town for water, which it paid, and its demands for reimbursement by the town had gone unanswered.

Southwick Care countered the towns argument in its motion before the court, claiming that, essentially, there is no administrative avenue to request a refund for the overbilling, according to the motion filed by Lauren F. Olanoff of the Boston law firm Egan, Flanagan & Cohen.

The facts presented in the lawsuit by Southwick Care indicated that between November 2020 and April 2025, it used 5.1 million gallons of water for its assisted living facility  Southwick Village  that has 58 residential rental units at 802 College Highway.

It alleges it should have been charged $40,798 between those dates.

Instead, between April 2021 and April 2025, the town charged Southwick Care $374,191, which corresponds to 46.1 million gallons at the tier 3 rate, which was $8.75 per 1,000 gallons for most of that time.

The town acknowledged overcharging Southwick Care for the amounts listed in the lawsuit.

The bills for these charges erroneously multiplied water usage by a factor of 10  [Southwick Care] paid an estimated $333,393 in excess of the water usage and rates it ought to have been charged, according to the towns motion to dismiss.

The town described in its motion to dismiss its two administrative remedies for disputes.

Water users dissatisfied with the charges assessed to them have (two) options for challenging the charges, according to the motion.

The first is to have the town check that the water meter is accurate during the time of the water usage being billed for, and before the expiration of the time when the rate for such quarter or period is required to be paid, according to the towns motion.

The town must then conduct a test and provide a written report.

if it appears that the meter has not registered within [2%] of accuracy and that person has been charged with, or has paid for, more that he should have been charged with or should have paid for, the amount of such excess shall forthwith be credited to such person or remitted to him if he has paid the same, according to the towns motion.

The second way to challenge a water usage charge is to apply for an abatement by filing a petition with the Water Commission by the end of the six-month billing cycle, according to the towns motion.

If the outcome doesnt satisfy the applicant, they can appeal to the Appellate Tax Board within three months.

There is limited decisional law applying these provisions. Taken together, they establish a clear and comprehensive regulatory regime for challenging water charges, according to the towns motion.

Citing case law, the town argues that court action can only begin after all these administrative remedies have been exhausted.

Southwick Care didnt elect to follow either procedure, as a result, it failed to exhaust its administrative remedies.

It also didnt file the lawsuit within the statutory deadlines for administrative remedies, according to its motion.

Southwick Care countered the towns motion, arguing that it wasnt required to challenge the accuracy of the water meter or owe any money on its bill that required a request for an abatement, according to Southwick Cares opposition to the towns motion.

In fact, [the towns] claim for breach of contract arises not from a claim of a faulty or inaccurate meter, but rather, a billing error whereby the town incorrectly overcharged [Southwick Care] for its water usage and charged [Southwick Care] at a higher rate in violation of the towns own rate tiering policy, according to Southwick Cares opposition to the towns motion.

In Southwick Cares original lawsuit, it alleged the town overcharged it by adding a 0 to the end of the actual water meter readings, causing it to be charged for an extra 10 million gallons per bill, totaling 40 million gallons.

It also alleges the town improperly charged its properties water usage at a higher tier 3 rate despite a policy the towns Water Commission adopted in November 2023, capping rates at the lower tier 2 rate for multiple residential rental units.

Before November 2023, for customers using up to 15,000 gallons during six months, the tier 1 rate was $7.50 per 1,000 gallons; for customers using between 10,000 and 30,000 in six months, the tier 2 rate was $8.10 per 1,000 gallons, and for those using over 30,000 gallons in six months, the tier 3 rate was $8.75 per 1,000 gallons.

Southwick Cares opposition motion also said it couldnt ask for an abatement or challenge a lien on the property because of an unpaid bill, because [it] paid all of the water charges assessed upon it by the town, and so no lien was placed [on the property], so the case law cited by the town doesnt apply.

[Southwick Care] claims could not be rectified by the administrative remedies cited by the [town], according to the opposition motion.

Regarding the towns allegation that Southwick Care didnt file the lawsuit within statutory deadlines, it cited case law that there is no statute of limitations in the case law the town cites, alleging Southwick Care didnt exhaust administrative remedies.

The town deferred commenting on the litigation as it is ongoing.
News / National

by Staff reporter

The government is preparing sweeping constitutional amendments that would extend presidential terms to seven years, abolish direct presidential elections and fundamentally alter Zimbabwe's succession framework.Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs minister Ziyambi Ziyambi is expected to table a memorandum before cabinet on Tuesday outlining the proposed Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment Bill, 2026, which introduces far-reaching changes to the country's governance system and key constitutional institutions.One of the most significant proposals is the repeal of Section 92 of the Constitution, paving the way for the president to be elected by a joint sitting of Parliament rather than through a direct popular vote.According to a leaked draft of the bill, members of the National Assembly and Senate would elect the president by a majority vote after general elections or whenever a vacancy arises.The bill also seeks to extend the term of office for both the president and Parliament from the current five years to seven years. If adopted, the change could allow President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is currently serving his second and final term under existing constitutional limits, to remain in office for an additional two years  from 2028 to 2030.In the memorandum, Ziyambi argues that longer terms would reduce what he describes as "election mode toxicity" and give government more time to implement development programmes, framing the proposal as a measure to promote stability and policy continuity.However, constitutional lawyers have warned that such changes may require approval through a national referendum. Ziyambi has publicly dismissed this, insisting that a referendum will not be necessary.The referendum question is expected to be central in a Constitutional Court challenge that is now imminent. The Matabeleland pressure group Ibhetshu LikaZulu and its secretary general Mbuso Fuzwayo were on Monday granted direct access to the Constitutional Court in an unopposed application. The case, which critics allege is sponsored by Zanu-PF, could be heard and determined before Chief Justice Luke Malaba retires on May 14.The proposed amendments are already generating intense political debate. Critics warn that abolishing direct presidential elections would significantly dilute citizens' role in choosing their leader and further concentrate power in Parliament, where the ruling Zanu-PF enjoys a dominant majority.Some analysts caution that the changes could allow an unpopular but wealthy politician to ascend to the presidency by influencing or "buying" the loyalty of MPs.The draft bill also makes major changes to presidential succession rules. Instead of a vice president automatically assuming office in the event of death, resignation or removal of an incumbent, Parliament would elect a new president within a specified period.Analysts say this could undermine the traditional advantage held by sitting vice presidents and open succession to broader political contestation. The shift is likely to fuel speculation about succession politics within Zanu-PF, where Vice President Constantino Chiwenga has long been viewed as a potential successor to Mnangagwa.Another controversial proposal would expand the Senate, allowing the president to appoint an additional 10 senators selected for their professional skills and competencies. This would further increase presidential influence within Parliament.The bill also proposes abolishing the Zimbabwe Gender Commission, transferring its functions to the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, which the memorandum says already has a mandate to protect all human rights. In addition, it seeks to repeal constitutional provisions establishing the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission.Other proposed changes include transferring responsibility for voter registration and custody of the voters' roll from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to the Registrar General, and repealing constitutional restrictions that bar traditional leaders from participating in partisan politics. Ziyambi argues that prohibiting chiefs from political participation "violates their political rights," with their conduct instead to be regulated by legislation.The government also plans to amend the functions of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, replacing their duty "to uphold this Constitution" with wording requiring them to act "in accordance with the Constitution."Ziyambi maintains that the proposed amendments will "reinforce constitutional governance, strengthen democratic structures, clarify institutional mandates, and harmonise Zimbabwe's constitutional order with tested and successful practices in other progressive jurisdictions."If adopted, the bill would mark the most extensive overhaul of Zimbabwe's constitutional framework since the current constitution was enacted in 2013, with profound implications for the country's democratic system and balance of power.
For the ambitious Mauritian student, the world is about to become a much smaller place. Campus Abroad Mauritius, the islands premier educational bridge to the globe, is delighted to announce its flagship Education Fair, taking place on Thursday, 12 February 2026, at the Hennessy Park Hotel, Ebene.

From 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm, the hotels ballroom will transform into a global academic hub. This isnt just another education fair; it is a meticulously curated gathering of prestigious institutions from across the world. Students and parents will have the unique opportunity to meet directly with representatives from leading universities and colleges across Canada, the UK, Australia, Germany, Spain, Malaysia, the Netherlands, and Mauritius.

In an era of generic online searches, Campus Abroad is bringing the  human element  back to education. This event is designed as an interactive workshop for the future, offering more than just prospectuses. Prospective students can benefit from:

Face-to-Face Consultations: Direct access to international admissions officers.

On-the-Spot Assessments: Preliminary reviews of HSC and A-Level results to determine eligibility.

Scholarship Navigation: Personalised guidance on merit-based awards and financial aid for the 2026 intake.

Post-Study Pathways: Expert advice on work permits and career opportunities in various global markets.

Reflecting on the mission of the fair, Jayasankar Seshadri, Director of Campus Abroad Mauritius, noted:

 Education is no longer a stationary pursuit; it is a global currency. At Campus Abroad, we dont just move students across borderswe match aspirations with reality. This fair is designed to be a definitive launchpad where local talent meets world-class academic excellence. Our goal for 2026 is to ensure that every Mauritian student walks away not just with a prospectus, but with a clear, actionable roadmap to a global career. 

Resume en Francais

Campus Abroad Maurice organise son Salon de lEducation le jeudi 12 fevrier 2026, de 13h a 18h, au Hennessy Park Hotel, Ebene. Cet evenement majeur connectera les etudiants mauriciens au monde universitaire. Campus Abroad Maurice organise son Salon de lEducation le jeudi 12 fevrier 2026, de 13h a 18h, au Hennessy Park Hotel, Ebene. Cet evenement majeur connectera les etudiants mauriciens au monde universitaire. Plus quun simple salon, il rassemble des institutions prestigieuses du Canada, du Royaume-Uni, dAustralie, dAllemagne, dEspagne, de Malaisie, des Pays-Bas et de Maurice. Parents et etudiants pourront y rencontrer directement les representants universitaires. A lheure des recherches en ligne impersonnelles, Campus Abroad reintroduit lelement humain. Concu comme un atelier interactif, il offre aux futurs etudiants :

 Des consultations individuelles avec les admissions internationales.

 Des evaluations preliminaires (HSC/A-Level).

 Des conseils sur les bourses et laide financiere pour 2026.

 Des informations sur les permis de travail post-etudes et les carrieres mondiales. Jayasankar Seshadri, Directeur de Campus Abroad Maurice, souligne la vocation du salon : transformer leducation en une monnaie mondiale, offrant a chaque etudiant mauricien un tremplin concret vers une carriere internationale, bien au-dela dun simple prospectus.
The Scottish Africa Business Association has strengthened international links and opened new opportunities for Scottish companies following a highly successful presence at Subsea Expo in Aberdeen, organised by the Global Underwater Hub.

As part of its programme at the event, SABA hosted an inward delegation from Egypt and was delighted to welcome Minister Plenipotentiary Wael Abdelraheem to Scotland for the first time. His visit, supported by the Scottish Government, formed part of ongoing efforts to deepen commercial ties between Scotland and one of North Africas most strategically important energy markets.

During his time in Aberdeen, Minister Abdelraheem attended the Subsea Expo evening reception and held a series of meetings with SABA member companies and other businesses from across the North-east. Discussions focused on opportunities for collaboration in subsea engineering, offshore services, inspection and maintenance, digital technologies and supply chain partnerships.

SABAs exhibition stand attracted hundreds of visitors over the two-day event, with strong interest in opportunities across multiple African markets. Conversations covered subsea infrastructure, offshore wind, energy transition projects, exporting challenges and education & skills training, creating a significant pipeline of follow-up activity for the organisation and its members.

Seona Shand, Chief Operating Officer at the Scottish Africa Business Association, said: Subsea Expo provided an outstanding platform to showcase Scottish capability and connect businesses with real opportunities across African markets. We were particularly pleased to welcome Minister Plenipotentiary Wael Abdelraheem to Scotland for the first time and to facilitate meaningful introductions between Egyptian stakeholders and our members.

The level of engagement at our stand exceeded expectations, with hundreds of conversations taking place and strong interest in the expertise Scotland has to offer. There is clear demand for subsea and offshore capability across Africa, and we now have a substantial programme of follow-up to help translate these connections into tangible business opportunities.

Egypt is emerging as a major regional energy hub, with significant investment in offshore gas production in the Mediterranean, expansion of subsea infrastructure and a growing focus on energy security and export capacity. Major developments such as the Zohr gas field and associated pipeline networks have driven demand for subsea installation, inspection, repair and maintenance services, as well as specialist engineering, digital monitoring and asset integrity solutions.

Alongside its established oil and gas sector, Egypt is also investing heavily in energy transition projects, including offshore and coastal renewable energy, hydrogen and power interconnection initiatives. This is creating new opportunities for companies with experience in subsea construction, cable installation, offshore wind foundations, survey, robotics and environmental monitoring.

With its strategic location, large domestic market and strong government focus on infrastructure and energy development, Egypt offers a gateway for Scottish companies looking to expand their presence across North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean.

Building on the momentum from Subsea Expo and the Ministers visit, SABA will lead a trade delegation to Egypt in April 2026 in partnership with The EIC. The mission will focus on the energy sector providing Scottish companies with direct access to key government stakeholders, operators and local partners.

The programme will include market briefings, business-to-business meetings, site visits and networking opportunities designed to help participants understand the operating environment and identify concrete opportunities.

Further details about the trade mission and how to participate are available at: https://apo-opa.co/4toUqsT

Seona Shand added: Egypt represents one of the most exciting growth markets for subsea and offshore services in the region. The conversations that took place in Aberdeen demonstrated strong mutual interest, and our April mission will give Scottish companies the opportunity to build relationships on the ground and position themselves for upcoming projects.

Subsea Expo is the worlds largest subsea exhibition and conference, bringing together global operators, contractors, technology providers and supply chain companies. SABAs presence at the event reflects its ongoing role in helping Scottish organisations access international markets through trade missions, inward delegations, market intelligence and tailored business support.

Following the strong response at Subsea Expo, SABA will now work with participating companies to progress introductions, provide market insight and support next steps as businesses explore opportunities across Egypt and other African markets.
Claremorris Musical Society has become firmly established in the top flight on the musical circuit, and that reputation was further enhanced with their recent staging of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which played to full houses and standing ovations in Claremorris Town Hall Theatre over four nights.

The Society, launched by June Allison Keane in 2007, continues to enjoy wonderful support from all over the region, and patrons are always assured of a top-class show, superb stage presence, and loads of laughter and fun along the way.

CMS has garnered an array of accolades at national level over the last two decades, and others may well be on the way following some riveting performances in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

READ NEXT: Mayo man questions bonafides of Joe Deacy documentary maker

Neil Conway excelled as Willy Wonka, bringing confidence, charm and just the right touch of mystery to the role, while Ryan McDonald played Charlie Bucket with real heart and sincerity, making him instantly likeable and easy to root for.

Mary Dempsey, who has been such an integral part of CMS over the years, brought warmth and authenticity to Mrs Bucket, giving the story a strong emotional centre, and David Alexanders Grandpa Joe was full of energy and humour.

Nicole Scott was hilarious as the inimitable Mrs Gloop with Vivienne Lee, a central player in the history of CMS from the outset, delivering another commanding and classic performance as Mrs Teavee with superb comic timing. Paul Singleton added colour and so much personality as M. Beauregard with Joff Manning bringing enthusiasm and pomp to the role of the imposing Mr Salt.

There were also strong and enthusiastic performances from the principal child performers, Hazel Cheevers (Veruca), Abbie Flatley (Violet), Michael Farrell (Mike Teavee) and Odhran Morley Manning (Augustus Gloop). The adult ensemble and teenage Divas brought plenty of energy to the show while the young Oompa Loompas were a delight, charming audiences with their confidence and enthusiasm.

The production team comprised of director, Donna Ruane, musical director, Deirdre Lee, and choreographer, Jay Molyneux, with David Keane as stage manager, all of whom put in such huge efforts since rehearsals got underway back in September until the curtains came down on Saturday night.

The Society is deeply grateful to the brilliant musicians, backstage crew, set builders, props, costumes suppliers, Front of House team and all the parents who helped with supervision backstage during the run. Sincere thanks also to Claremorris Town Hall Theatre and Concert Hall, the Dalton Inn, sponsors, supporters, and the many volunteers who generously gave their time and energy, said statement from CMS.

They also expressed grateful thanks to the business community and all who continue to support the group financially year after year and who make it possible for CMS to maintain such high-standard productions year after year. Above all, Claremorris Musical Society wishes to thank its audiences, concluded the statement.

READ MORE: Planning permission granted for major development works at Mayo hotel

The Society members were pleased to welcome Gerry Sweeney, President of the Association of Irish Musical Societies (AIMS) to the production and who was delighted with the warm hospitality he received on his visit to Mayo.

The members of CMS committee are: Vivienne Lee (chairperson & PRO); June Allison-Keane (treasurer); Emma Gallagher (secretary); Paula Fox (assistant treasurer); Ailbhe Gallagher (assistant PRO); David Alexander, David Keane and Dolores Henry.

CMS brought excellent fare to the stage of Claremorris Town Hall with their delightful, uplifting and charming presentation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. They can all take a well-deserved bow again!
The lack of accessibility to rail infrastructure in the Northwest has been described as the regions Achilles Heel by John Daly, Economist with the Northern and Western Regional Assembly (NWRA).

Addressing a meeting of the Western Inter-County Railway Committee in Sligo, attended by Councillors from Clare, Galway, Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo and Donegal, Mr Daly said that, in terms of rail infrastructure, there has never been a better reason to invest in the Northern and Western Region.

He told members that the regions population is growing to up to 962,200 as of 2025  our regions labour market remains relatively strong with employment growing to 482,300 in Q3-2025 while our regions economy continues to grow, with total economic output rising to just over 40 billion as per the latest CSO figures.

However, while the region is growing, we arent growing anywhere near as fast in comparison to the Eastern and Midland Region of Ireland. As such, regional inequalities in Ireland continue to rise, with our regions share of Irelands population progressively falling over time to 17.6% as of Census 2022 and as per the latest CSO population estimates up to 2025.

A central component to supporting a regions competitiveness is the provision of high-quality transport infrastructure, particularly rail in the context of the transition to a low carbon society. At a basic level, rail amongst other things supports economic development by allowing for the efficient movement of goods, people and services.

Based on the latest population forecasts out to 2040, regional imbalances in Ireland are likely to worsen unless there is a significant intervention by central government, with ESRI forecasts suggesting it could fall to 17% by 2040. The continuation of historical trends suggests our regions share could even fall further than this forecast.

While the revised National Planning Framework seeks to address this issue by targeting a 50:50 split in population growth between the Eastern and Midland Region and the other NUTS 2 Regions of Ireland, such a target wont be possible under the current investment allocations for projects of scales that are in the pipeline for delivery, with these projects predominantly focused on the Greater Dublin Area.

Central to addressing this trend of rising regional inequalities is enhancing the economic competitiveness of the Northern and Western Region of Ireland, making it more viable for the region to attract people, jobs and investments and provide a credible counterbalance to the Greater Dublin Area.

It is clear from the European Commissions Regional Competitiveness Index that if we want to improve our competitiveness, our region will go a long way to achieving this by improving our rail infrastructure, with this regions Achilles heel being the lack of accessibility to rail infrastructure.

Looking at the sub-indexes, our rail infrastructure is ranked in the bottom 20 NUTS 2 Regions in the EU, yet the region performs exceptionally in areas such as higher education (16th out of 234 regions), households with broadband access (46th) and people involved in science and technology (52nd).

Regarding airport infrastructure, we perform relatively strong at 135th which is exceptional for a rural region and shows our overall infrastructure ranking of 218th out of 234 regions will be improved notably by focusing on growing our rail network.

As such, the NWRA supports projects such as the full delivery of the Western Railway Corridor as documented in our recent submission on the revised National Development Plan and as per the objectives of the Regional Spatial and Economic Strategy of the Northern and Western Region, he concluded.

Councillor Michael Frain, Chair of the Northern and Western Regional Assembly, also addressed the meeting and reiterated the strong support of the Assembly for the full delivery of the Galway-Sligo rail link.

A motion supporting the completion of the Western Rail Corridor to Sligo and supporting Iarnrod Eireanns commitment to preserving the line for rail development only was passed unanimously at the recent meeting of the Assembly and sent to both the Taoiseach and Tanaiste, he said.

READ MORE: Over 7,000 signatures petition to block large-scale seaweed harvesting off Mayo coast
A petition circulating online calling on the Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment to block a seaweed harvesting plan on the west coast of Ireland is based on outdated information, according to a statement from Arramara Teoranta. The petition had attracted over 10,000 signatures and raised concerns among coastal communities, including in Mayo and Galway.

In a statement issued to The Mayo News this evening, February 10, 2026, Arramara Teoranta clarified that the original foreshore application (FS006108) was submitted in 2014, before the company was acquired by Canadian firm Acadian Seaplants Ltd.

This petition is based on a Foreshore Application FS006108 made by Arramara Teoranta in 2014, before it was purchased by Acadian Seaplants Ltd. This application never progressed because the relevant Minister (Damian English, TD) who suspended the licensing process in 2015 until he got clarification from the Attorney General on the status of Seaweed Appurtenant Rights and other rights on the Foreshore, said Jim Keogh, Director of Arramara Teoranta.

The company said that following updated legal guidance and extensive work with Tailte Eireann to identify foreshore areas with seaweed rights, the licensing process was reopened in June 2018 and required extensive work with Tailte Eireann to isolate foreshore areas containing Seaweed Appurtenant Rights. According to Arramara, there are 2,500 such folios in County Galway alone.

By the time this work was completed, the Maritime Area Planning Act was enacted, which led to the establishment of the Marine Area Regulatory Authority (MARA) in July 2023, the statement continued. Arramara Teoranta made revised applications to MARA to harvest Ascophyllum nodosum and Fucus vesiculosus from five bays in Connemara in October 2024.

READ MORE: Mayo councillors renew appeal for safety measures at fatal N17 junction

The company emphasised that the original 2014 application is not the basis for current proposals and that all current applications comply with MARA regulations.

Their statement comes after widespread attention and clarifies the timeline and ownership of the foreshore application initially referenced in the petition.

Residents and local stakeholders are advised to consult MARA and official foreshore notices for up-to-date information on any proposed seaweed harvesting projects along the west coast.
A Mayo man who claims his family continue to be harassed by an 'out of control group' connected to the late Joe Deacy has objected to transcripts of a court case being released to a documentary maker.

An application to release a transcript of the sentence hearing in a case of harassment involving Peter and Ann Byrne was made by Shane Caffrey, who is making a documentary into the death of Joe Deacy.

Twenty-one-year-old Joe Deacy from St Alban's, Hertfordshire, UK was found unconscious outside the Byrne home at Gortnasillagh, Swinford at 6.45am on August 12, 2017 and died the following day in Beaumont Hospital in Dublin.

Each August on the anniversary of Mr Deacy's death, friends and family of Joe Deacy march to the Byrne family home to lay flowers at the location where he was found unconscious. Mr Byrne has previously stated that the group who take part in the march are not welcome and accused them of trespassing on his property.

Objection

At yesterday's sitting of Castlebar Circuit Criminal Court, Mr Byrne objected to Mr Caffrey's application to have the transcript of the Digital Audio Recording from the sentence hearing on July 24, 2025 released to him.

Addressing Judge Eoin Garavan, Mr Byrne said that Mr Caffrey has been present at the protest outside his home for the past two years and accused him of not being a 'bonafide actor'.

We were here on July 24 [2025] and made our victim impact statements and 17 days later, Shane Caffrey came to my house with a group of people who were uninvited and there was a march outside my house and trespassing on our driveway. He trespassed.

I have made a complaint to gardai about what happened at those protests in 2024 and 2025 and I have a pulse number and the documentary maker Shane Caffrey was mentioned as part of the protest, he told the application hearing in Castlebar.

Brendan Rowland, with an address in Shenley Road, Borehamwood near London received an 18 month suspended prison sentence after pleading guilty to harassment and part of conditions of the sentence included having no contact with the Byrnes for a ten year period and not coming within 500m of them or their home.

Mr Byrne told Judge Garavan that he believes that Mr Rowland was not the only person involved in harassment against his family and claimed it is ongoing.

READ: Over 7,000 signatures petition to block large-scale seaweed harvesting off Mayo coast

Since 2018 we have been trapped in our house every August by these people and Shane Caffrey was part of the group for two years in 2024 and 2025.

This is ongoing harassment which happened less than three weeks after we sat in court and gave our victim impact statement.

It continues to occur and our family members in Ireland and abroad have been harassed and intimidated by a group of people who I believe are organised and out of control, he added.

'Total lies'

Mr Byrne also accused some people who spoke at the protest outside his home of telling 'total lies' about the case. He denied claims made that his family did not help Joe at the time and that the gardai did not get access to his house for three days and that there was an effort to conceal evidence and records.

I would not prefer any of it [transcript] to be part [of the documentary] in the circumstances. I made a report to Gardai and I think that investigation should be concluded before anything is given to anyone, he said to Judge Garavan.

Mr Matthew Kenny, solicitor for Mr Caffrey, said his client was at the protest outside the Byrne home in his capacity as a documentary maker. He said the purpose of seeking the transcript was to ensure comments made during the court hearing last July are recorded accurately in the documentary.

He is neutral and he is making a documentary and it is exactly why it is not an injustice to provide a transcript in a limited format to ensure the remarks made at the sentence hearing are only reported absolutely accurately so people's remarks are not taken out of context. His objective to make a documentary is to make one which is fair to all sides in what is clearly a matter of public interest, he said.

Mr Kenny said his client made notes during the sentencing hearing but he wants to be absolutely accurate in the making of the documentary.

Judge Eoin Garavan commented that the application was unique and unusual as it was being brought for reasons 'outside the realm of the courthouse'.

I never heard anyone say they want it for a documentary but if the interest of justice and the public at large are an accurate and educational programme for the purposes of knowledge or the operation of the law I don't have a huge problem in principle with it, he said adding that if someone was 100 percent confident in their shorthand there would be no need for the DAR.

Judge Garavan said he would consider the submissions of Mr Byrne in his objection and give his decision on March 13.
Akbar Novruz



Europes attempt to rid itself of Russian gas has entered a more forensic phase. Having spent the past three years scrambling for alternative supplies, the European Commission is now turning its attention to what it buys, how it is labelled, and whether molecules arriving at the EUs borders are really what exporters claim them to be. The latest target of this scrutiny is not Moscow directly, but the infrastructure through which gas reaches Europe from Turkiye, including volumes supplied by Azerbaijan.

The European Union has legally adopted a step-by-step prohibition on imports of Russian pipeline gas and liquefied natural gas, as part of its REPowerEU roadmap to end reliance on Moscows energy exports. A full ban on LNG imports will come into force from early 2027, and on pipeline gas by late 2027 at the latest. Before authorising entry into the EU, member states must now verify the country where gas was produced. This requirement underpins the mechanism forcing exporters to prove non-Russian origin for supplies

The immediate trigger was political. In November, a French MEP, Jean-Paul Garron, accused the EU of quietly circumventing its own sanctions by importing Russian gas disguised as Azerbaijani. Brussels dismissed the charge at the time, stressing that the Southern Gas Corridor, the pipeline system bringing Caspian gas via Georgia, Turkiye and Greece, has no technical link to Russias network. That remains true. Yet since then, the Commission has moved to impose additional verification requirements, forcing both EU member states and foreign suppliers to prove that gas entering the bloc is not of Russian origin.

The Commissions June 2025 proposal to phase out Russian gas and oil imports entirely by the end of 2027 follows a decade-long effort to reduce reliance on Moscows energy leverage. Before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia supplied as much as 4045% of EU gas imports; by 2025, that share had fallen to around 13%, thanks to diversification efforts. The current push to ban Russian gas and require origin verification is a natural extension of that strategy.

The new checks apply most visibly at Strandja-1Malkochlar, the interconnection point on the Bulgarian-Turkish border. According to ENTSOG, around 1.9 billion cubic metres of gas passed through this point into Bulgaria in 2025. The location is sensitive not because of Azerbaijani gas, but because of what sits nearby. Just a few kilometres away is Strandzha-2/Malko?lar, the onshore continuation of TurkStream, the pipeline carrying Russian gas across the Black Sea to Turkiye and onwards into south-eastern Europe.

Until now, geography and shared infrastructure have allowed uncomfortable ambiguities. Even after Bulgaria declared in 2022 that it would stop buying Russian gas, it emerged a year later that Gazprom molecules were still entering the country through the Trans-Balkan system. Brussels has learnt from that episode. Under the new regime, any compressor station that connects EU pipelines to routes carrying substantial Russian volumes will face similar scrutiny. The aim is simple: to ensure that Russian gas does not slip into the EU through legal grey zones.

This has consequences far beyond Bulgaria. Since 2023, Azerbaijan has been using the Trans-Balkan pipeline in reverse mode to supplement deliveries to Europe. The reason is capacity. The Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), the European leg of the Southern Gas Corridor, was expanded this year to around 11.2bn cubic metres annually. That is still less than Azerbaijans actual exports: in 2025, Baku shipped roughly 12.9bn cubic metres to European buyers. Unless further expansions are completed, part of that volume must continue to flow via the Trans-Balkan route, and therefore through infrastructure now subject to enhanced checks.

For Azerbaijan, this is an inconvenience rather than a threat. Its gas is produced under production-sharing agreements with international oil companies and marketed under strict transparency rules. Certifying origin is unlikely to pose a serious problem. Indeed, Brusselss insistence on verification implicitly acknowledges Bakus growing role as a strategic supplier whose volumes must be accommodated, even as Europe tightens sanctions.

The European Union checks the quality and origin of Azerbaijani gas in two main ways: through physical-chemical characteristics and origin documentation. Each shipment is accompanied by a certificate of origin, confirming that the gas comes from Azerbaijan and has not been mixed with supplies from other countries. Physical inspections are conducted at border stations, such as Strandja-1/Malkoclar, where the gas is analysed for methane content, other components (ethane, propane, nitrogen, CO?), harmful substances (H?S, water vapour, dust), and calorific value/Wobbe index. Laboratory results are certified in protocols and submitted to EU regulators. Under new rules, the EU also verifies that the gas is not of Russian origin, using transit data, documentation, and real-time monitoring systems.

Since gas production in Azerbaijan is carried out with international company participation and high transparency standards, the origin of every cubic meter can be easily confirmed, ensuring no issues for deliveries to Europe. As a result, Azerbaijani gas fully meets EU standards for both quality and origin, while the EUs verification mechanisms are designed to ensure safety, energy efficiency, and prevent Russian gas from entering the market.

The real casualty is Turkiye. Ankara has spent the past decade positioning itself as a regional gas hub, investing heavily in LNG terminals, expanding underground storage and leveraging its geography to sit astride Russian, Caspian and Middle Eastern flows. That strategy relied, at least in part, on Russian gas remaining commercially usable for Europe. The EUs new controls draw a firm line through that assumption. Russian gas may enter Turkiye, but it will not enter the EU through Turkiye.

The numbers are stark. Last year, roughly 17bn cubic metres of Russian gas reached Hungary, Slovakia and Serbia via TurkStream. Since the start of this year, daily flows have been running close to capacity. Once the EUs ban takes full effect, only Serbia, outside the EU, will remain a destination, taking around 2.2bn cubic metres annually. The Balkan transmission system, built for more than 15bn cubic metres, will be drastically underused. Transit revenues for Turkiye could fall by billions of dollars.

There is a partial consolation. With Europe closed off, Russia will struggle to redirect tens of billions of cubic metres elsewhere in the short term. Turkiye, which still imports about 21bn cubic metres of Russian gas a year out of total consumption of roughly 60bn, may be able to negotiate steeper discounts. Domestic production from the Sakarya field in the Black Sea, around 9m cubic metres a day, enough for some four million households, helps, but imports will remain essential.

Seen from Brussels, this is collateral damage worth accepting. The EUs overriding objective is strategic clarity: no Russian gas, no ambiguity, no creative relabelling. By enforcing origin checks at critical nodes, the bloc is signalling that its energy divorce from Moscow is entering a more disciplined, rule-based phase.

Europe still needs Caspian gas, and in volumes that exceed existing pipeline capacity. Today, Azerbaijan supplies natural gas to 16 countries, 10 of which are EU member states, giving it the widest geographical coverage of pipeline gas exports globally. Verification may slow flows at the margins, but it also underlines Bakus value as a supplier whose gas can be traced, audited and politically defended. In an energy market shaped as much by geopolitics as by geology, that distinction matters.
News / National

by Staff reporter

Jameson Timba, convener of the Defend the Constitution Platform (DCP), has called on President Emmerson Mnangagwa to remain faithful to his public commitment to constitutionalism, amid rising pressure within Zanu-PF to amend the Constitution to extend his tenure.In a statement issued on Thursday, Timba warned that Zimbabwe is at a "defining constitutional moment," with developments unfolding in the courts, Cabinet, and Parliament that could alter the country's democratic framework.He said attempts by Mnangagwa loyalists and Zanu-PF members to amend the Constitution and bypass the two-term presidential limit would undermine the will of the people expressed in the 2013 referendum. Opposition parties and civil society groups have also voiced concerns, cautioning that tampering with term limits would erode key democratic safeguards.Timba stressed that the DCP "holds the Constitutional Court in the highest regard" and clarified that his statement was not intended to influence ongoing judicial proceedings. "The issue before Zimbabwe is not a political contest. It is a question of constitutional legitimacy," he said.Highlighting Mnangagwa's previous pledge to respect the Constitution, Timba cited a 2018 CNN interview with Christiane Amanpour in which the President vowed to serve only two five-year terms. "History places a particular responsibility on the President of the republic," Timba said.He urged all constitutional actors  including the Executive, Parliament, and independent institutions  to act with restraint, fidelity to the Constitution, and respect for the people who adopted it. "Defending the Constitution is not rebellion. It is an act of patriotism," he added.Timba also reiterated that the DCP is not a political party but a formation focused on constitutional oversight. "We are not on the dance floor but on the balcony overlooking the dance floor. Our rule is: dance with whoever you want, but don't rewrite the dance floor. Our focus is constitutional legitimacy, not succession," he said.The DCP convener emphasised the organisation's twin objectives of ensuring that the Constitution is neither "mutilated" nor ignored, citing devolution as an example of faithful implementation. "We are the Constitution guardrails that make democratic elections possible. We make no apologies about the anti-2030 position," Timba said.His remarks come as the Constitutional Court considers matters linked to proposed amendments, while Cabinet and Parliament prepare to debate draft bills, including proposals that critics fear could compromise presidential term limits.Timba urged President Mnangagwa to honour his pledge to "persuade the persuaders not to persuade him" to extend his tenure, describing the upcoming Cabinet session as an opportunity to uphold constitutional integrity over political expediency.
News / National

by Staff reporter

Bulawayo residents have raised alarms over brownish tap water and unusual odours in several suburbs, prompting the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) to respond, attributing the issue to increased turbidity in raw water from Umzingwane Dam following recent heavy rains.In a statement, Bulawayo Town Clerk Christopher Dube said the council had received numerous complaints but reassured residents that, despite its unpleasant appearance, the water remained largely safe for domestic use."Our monitoring and laboratory tests at the treatment plants show that most chemical parameters, including pH, conductivity and alkalinity, are within acceptable limits," Mr Dube said.He explained that heavy rainfall had increased turbidity in the dam, making it harder for treatment processes like sedimentation and sludge removal to work efficiently. Residual sediments can move through the distribution system, causing visible discolouration and occasional odours at consumers' taps.To address the problem, the council said it had intensified monitoring of the distribution system, begun flushing affected pipelines, and improved sludge removal processes at the treatment works. Additional equipment and spare parts are also being procured to enhance plant efficiency during high-turbidity periods.Bulawayo United Residents Association (BURA) chairperson Winos Dube welcomed the explanation but urged the council to treat the situation as a genuine emergency. "Water is life, and any change in its quality naturally creates fear among residents. We urge communities to remain vigilant and report any water-based issues urgently," he said.The discolouration has also forced many families to spend extra on bottled water. Mr Dube emphasised the importance of communication, saying residents need to know what is happening, how long it will last, and what precautions to take.Bulawayo has long struggled with water supply challenges due to its semi-arid climate and reliance on a limited number of dams. Rainy season inflows often carry silt and organic matter into reservoirs, increasing turbidity and straining ageing treatment infrastructure. Dry spells frequently lead to water shortages and rationing.Environmental experts warn that climate change, catchment degradation, and rapid urban expansion have worsened the situation, highlighting the urgent need to modernise water treatment facilities. A local health practitioner advised households to boil or disinfect water if in doubt and avoid using visibly dirty water for drinking or preparing infant food.Civic groups have renewed calls for long-term investments, including the delayed Lake GwayiShangani project, rehabilitation of ageing pipelines, and adoption of modern filtration technologies, to ensure consistent access to safe and clean water in Bulawayo.
VERNON, France  In a tightly controlled manufacturing hangar west of Paris, workers put the finishing touches on an enormous silver-colored engine. In just a few days, a similar machine will help propel the most powerful version of Europes Ariane 6 rocket yet, flying for the first time with four boosters.

On Thursday, the Ariane 64 rocket  named after its four boosters  is scheduled to make its maiden launch from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, aiming to deploy 32 satellites for Amazon Leos broadband constellation.

The flagship of Europes rocket industry is racing in a highly competitive environment against heavy weight players across the world, including the global market leader, Elon Musks SpaceX.

At ArianeGroups plant in Vernon, engineers design, integrate and test engines for the European heavy-lift launcher. At another site west of Paris, in Les Mureaux, the rockets main stage components are being carefully built and assembled.

Associated Press journalists were provided rare access to facilities placed under strict security and confidentiality rules where teams of highly-specialized workers make from space conquest a daily reality.

Its a special launch  something new for us on Ariane 6, ArianeGroup Chief Technical Officer Herve Gilibert said. This flight marks the debut of the four-booster configuration, making the rocket roughly twice as powerful as the version flown since 2024, he said.

Dont be surprised if you see it accelerate much more than Ariane 62, the version we have already launched five times, Gilibert said. It delivers significantly more power, allowing much heavier payloads to be sent into space.

Components make trans-Atlantic journey

The launcher, its engines and avionics are built across Europe as 13 nations, members of the European Space Agency, agreed to cooperate and finance the Ariane 6 program.

We are working with more than 600 subcontractors, Gilibert said. Everything comes together at two main sites  Bremen in Germany for the upper stage, and Les Mureaux in France for the lower, or main stage of the launcher.

Ahead of Thursdays launch, all components have crossed the Atlantic to French Guiana for final assembly. The rocket stands about 62 meters (203 feet) tall, roughly the height of a 20-story building.

We check everything until the very last minute, and then we fly, Gilibert said.

Once airborne, the mission will last about one hour and 50 minutes  nearly a full orbit around Earth  before the satellites are deployed in pairs from the top of the rocket. Amazon Leos constellation is intended to compete with SpaceXs thousands of Starlink satellites.

The Vulcain 2.1 engine built at Vernon ignites first at liftoff.

For a few seconds, we verify that it is functioning properly, said Emmanuel Viallon, director of the Vernon site. Once we are fully confident it will operate correctly for the eight minutes that follow, we ignite the solid boosters and the rocket lifts off.

The four boosters help propel the rocket at launch, consuming 142,000 kilograms (313,056 pounds) of solid propellant in just over two minutes until they burn out.

Ariane 6, through both its launcher and engines, was designed to halve operating costs compared with its predecessor, Viallon said. Ariane 5 was last launched in 2023, concluding a program that began in the late 1970s to give Europe independent access to space.

Engines tested under near-real conditions

Engines produced in Vernon are tested on site under near-real launch conditions. Deep in the surrounding forest, reinforced structures hold the engines in place as they fire at full power, while test teams operate from underground control rooms.

Laurence, the engine firing test director at Vernon, said the full testing cycle takes two to three weeks, before the engines return to the assembly facility for final adjustments. Laurences last name was not disclosed for security reasons.

For the team, each launch is always a joy, its always very intense, she said. When an engine arrives here, those are really important moments for the team. And then, seeing that the launch goes well ... that brings a great deal of gratitude.

At Les Mureaux facility, engineers have started preparing rocket components for upcoming missions. Huge white cylinders lie horizontally to form the rockets main stage that is 5.4 meters (17.7 feet) wide including tanks for supercooled hydrogen and oxygen that will feed the Vulcain engine.

Caroline Arnoux, business unit director at ArianeGroup, said seven to eight launches are planned this year.

We have a very strong order book, equivalent to about 30 launches, Arnoux said. Roughly one-third are institutional missions and two-thirds commercial. And our commercial customers are all waiting for the Ariane 64 version, which will be extremely important in the coming years.

Europe's independence at stake

Ariane 64 "is an additional level of performance," Hermann Ludwig Moeller, director of the European Space Policy Institute, said. In itself, this is an important step in the whole program, hoping to demonstrate that this configuration works as reliably as Ariane 6 has been working so far.

The rockets institutional missions last year included launches of a French military reconnaissance satellite, a weather satellite, and EU-sponsored Earth-observation radar and navigation satellites.

Moeller argued there can hardly be any comparison with SpaceX, which dominates the sector with its reusable rocket model.

SpaceX builds the rockets, builds the satellites and also sells the service while Europe operates under a different industrial setup with separate companies responsible for launchers, satellite manufacturing and satellite operations, he said.

For Ariane 6, a key challenge will be diversifying its European customer base, which could involve a system of European preference for government missions and further development of commercial markets across the continent, Moeller argued.

Independent access to space remains the core objective of the program to allow Europe to meet its own needs, stressed Arnaud Demay, the Ariane 6 project manager.

ArianeGroup is also preparing for the future, working "on key technology bricks ... to enable the reuse of certain launcher components. Ideally, we would like to be able to reuse an entire stage, including the engines that powered its liftoff, Demay said.

Demay confided he almost always cries with emotion at seeing the rocket lifting off.

We do it so rarely, and it's so majestic when it takes off: that little touch of magic inevitably overwhelms me with emotion every time, he said.

___

Nicolas Garriga contributed to this report.
For almost four decades, Kevin Charles Luke lived a life of service and sacrifice to the United States.

A retired Army combat veteran who worked as a high-level civilian contractor at Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base, Luke was long entrusted with some of the nations most sensitive secrets.

But it was an ill-conceived effort to impress a woman that precipitated the former colonels remarkable downfall.

On Tuesday, a federal judge sentenced Luke to two years in prison for sharing classified battle plans with a woman he was dating.

Luke, 62, stood in a Tampa courtroom weeping as he addressed U.S. District Judge James Moody.

I stand before you accepting full responsibility for my actions, he said. What I did was wrong. I violated the trust placed in me and, sir, I am ashamed of that.

The sentence was less than the three to four years suggested by federal guidelines. After prison, Moody ordered Luke to spend a year on probationary supervision and to undergo a mental health evaluation.

The judge noted the challenge of balancing the totality of Lukes life, including his decorated service, with the seriousness of his crime.

This is a difficult sentencing, Moody said.

Luke pleaded guilty in November to a charge of unauthorized communication of information relating to the national defense.

He spent 37 years in the Army before he retired in 2018 with the rank of colonel. Thereafter, he continued to work as a civilian military contractor. He retained a top secret security clearance.

He worked at Central Command in Tampa, the headquarters for U.S. military operations in the Middle East.

In October 2024, Luke met a woman online, who was not in the military, according to court records. He began talking with her by email. On Oct. 1, he sent her a text message with an accompanying photo through his personal cell phone.

Sent to my boss earlier, he wrote. Gives you a peek at what I do for a living.

The photo showed a computer screen displaying a classified email message, according to court records. The message discussed what was described as a then-future U.S. military operation. It included details about the date of the operation, the number of targets and battle plans.

Authored by Luke, the message bore markings that read SECRET//REL TO USA, FVEY. That meant the emails contents could only be seen by authorized personnel in whats known as the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, which includes the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

A plea agreement, signed by Luke and federal prosecutors last September, does not identify the operation. But Luke sent the photo days before Central Command launched a series of airstrikes in Yemen, directed at the Houthi movement, an Islamic fundamentalist military force.

The strikes were part of a broader campaign known as Operation Poseidon Archer, which was a response to the groups attacks on ships in the Red Sea. The U.S. drew support in the operation from several allied nations, including those in the Five Eyes alliance.

The agreement states that there is no evidence that Lukes disclosure of the email was treasonous or that he received any financial or other benefit from a foreign entity.

Court records instead indicated that he merely was trying to impress the woman without considering the larger ramifications.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Lindsey Schmidt argued in a sentencing memo that Lukes courtship of the unnamed woman jeopardized the nations secrets and endangered the lives of his fellow service members and citizens.

The United States placed exceptional trust in Luke for a very long time, Schmidt wrote. Luke betrayed that trust.

In court Tuesday, it was revealed that the woman disclosed to authorities what Luke shared with her after they broke up.

This was, unfortunately, a tale as old as time, said defense attorney Mark OBrien. A man trying to impress a woman. The man ended the relationship. The woman later went to the government and told on him.

About two months after Luke sent the woman the message, federal agents executed a search warrant at his home.

Inside, they found more classified documents, including four emails and a spiral notebook that bore a sticker reading secret. Luke was not authorized to keep the documents at home, prosecutors said, and it is unknown if anyone else may have seen them.

As OBrien sought a sentence to spare Luke prison time, he compared the case to that of retired General David Petraeus, whose sharing of classified information with his biographer came to light via a Tampa-borne scandal.

In 2015, Petraeus admitted to a misdemeanor charge that he unlawfully retained classified info, which prosecutors said he allowed his biographer to access. Petraeus received probation.

Schmidt, the prosecutor, argued that Petraeus case was not comparable; she asserted that the general only retained classified information while Luke transmitted it to someone else.

She cited several other cases from recent years in which former military and intelligence officials were sent to prison for disclosing classified information.

The cases included that of Robert Birchum, a former MacDill airman who in 2023 admitted that he kept hundreds of classified documents in his Tampa home. Birchum got three years in prison.

In court Tuesday, OBrien emphasized Lukes 37 years of service, which included a combat deployment during the most volatile period of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was injured in a bomb blast during counterinsurgency operations.

Years later, he was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. He was married and divorced three times. Hes grappled with other health problems.

Despite Lukes struggles, his attorney described him as a loving father, well-educated and a devout Christian.

A stack of letters from his family, friends and former military colleagues attested to a man who was said to be trustworthy and professional.

Steven Hirschkowitz, a fellow retired colonel, told the judge Luke is a man of unquestionable loyalty, the highest character, and a pillar of strength. His crime was a singular lapse in judgment in an otherwise spotless career.

Raj Ambay, a medical doctor who served in combat alongside Luke, credited him with saving many lives.

If I were to trust my life in someones hands, it would be that man right there, Ambay said, gesturing to a defense table.

Lukes misconduct had left him shredded inside, the doctor said. He opined that the crime shouldnt overshadow his service to others.

Yes, he had a lapse in judgment, Ambay said. But I know Ive seen bigger lapses in the news and everywhere else.

2026 Tampa Bay Times. Visit tampabay.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
A military spouse has taken her familys mold-induced health issues to the steps of Washington, imploring the Pentagon and Congress to adopt new legislation.

Erica Thompson, a mother of five from Alabama and military spouse for more than 22 years, has traveled six times to the nations capital as part of broader efforts urging both the Pentagon and lawmakers to remedy deficiencies in the military housing world. Efforts made by her and her family, along with a national organization, have proven fruitful so far as new standards have been included and passed through bipartisan national defense-based legislation.

Additional attempts to make military housing safer remain ongoing, however. The current major point of emphasis involves pushing Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate to take up the Military Occupancy Living Defense Act, also known as the MOLD Act, that Thompson and others say if adopted will further improve environmental health and safety protections for members of the Armed Forces and their families that reside in such housing.

Thompson, a spouse of a U.S. Air Force member, stands with her five children in Washington D.C. (Erica Thompson)

Maybe ignorance is bliss because I had not been to D.C. to advocate for an issue before, Thompson told Military.com. I sort of had this different mentality, and I knew that if I could meet with offices and share what was happening on the ground and let them see the faces of our kids in personit just became more hopeful and more optimistic that, Hey, I think this is an issue that needs to be tackled and we're just going to dig in and keep going. And so that's what we did.

A Pentagon spokesperson told Military.com that they do not comment on pending legislation.

HVAC Issues Snowball

Thompson, who is originally from Florida, has a spouse in the U.S. Air Force.

This specific issue came on her radar due to her own familys experiences. In June 2023 they moved onto Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala., marking the first time they ever lived on a base.

The results were felt swiftly, such as in the form of HVAC issues due to requiring a new air conditioning unit to combat high levels of humidity. That unit was expensive and led to dehumidifiers being employed, which didnt solve the problem. Meanwhile, mold buildup occurred in the homes walls.

Service calls didnt rectify the situation, leading to the family ultimately moving off-base in June 2024.

Numerous Health Issues, For Kids & Dog

Thompson said the approximate one year of living at Maxwell really opened her eyes to how housing issues can not only derail daily life but also negatively impact health.

It was really after getting our kidsall five kids are now medically disqualified to serve in the military based off of being sickfrom being exposed to things in the home, she said.

After that point of getting a couple of the diagnoses I thought, OK, I really need to do something to stand up so that this isn't happening to other people.

She said the family members experienced symptoms including nausea, headaches and rashes. Once the walls of their military housing were opened, it led to more extreme issues.

One of her sons began suddenly passing out. Now, he has postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a condition that according to the Cleveland Clinic causes ones heart to beat faster than normal when transitioning from sitting or lying down to standing up.

Thompson has made six trips to Washington D.C. advocating for better military housing conditions, in light of how mold in their Alabama home caused myriad health issues. (Erica Thompson)

That same son also has bilateral pediatric cataracts, which Thompson said he developed after the home's walls were opened. That condition, which is infrequent, still requires consistent monitoring.

Three of the kids have asthma, she said. Cardiologists and pulmonologistswe're still seeing specialists and still being monitored for some of these issues."

We're not the only ones. Each person was sort of impacted differently and we're seeing that with families around the country as well.

The family dogs health also suffered. The canine began having seizures and then lost his mobility and vision within about a six-week period, ultimately pushing the family to make the difficult decision to put him down shortly thereafter.

He was only 4 and we had lab work and everything run for him before we moved on base, Thompson said. And he was a great, healthy dog. He was a little overweight, but he was a healthy dog.

It was about the time we started noticing we were getting headaches in a certain room, and that just happened to be the room they opened up first. That's where he stayed most of the time, unfortunately.

Partnering For the Cause

The negative health impacts on the family coupled with broader concerns about other military families suffering similar fates made Thompson emboldened to find people and organizations interested in finding a better long-term solution.

A major partnership came in January 2025, when she linked up with the national nonprofit Change the Air Foundation to bring the issue to a wider lens.

The nonpartisan organization has three main objectives it follows to help provide clean indoor air: educating the public, advocating for improved laws and policies, and funding small-scale research.

Since the privatization of military housing in 1996, systemic gaps in oversight have led to countless families living in conditions that affect their health and their military readiness, Brandon Chappo, co-founder and director of public policy at Change the Air Foundation, told Military.com. These failures are in part because of the lack of uniform health and safety standards in the housing, as well as the absence of an effective dispute resolution system.

Expansive Survey Adds Credence to Concerns

The issue is more common than one may think, according to a survey facilitated by Change the Air called Unsafe and Unheard, which was conducted between Oct. 627, 2025. Results were published Nov. 20.

The Safe Military Housing Survey, described as one of the most comprehensive independent assessments of living conditions on U.S. military bases, gathered trusted, unbiased data showing how current military housing conditions affect mission readiness, influence retention, andmost importantlyimpact the health and safety of service members and their families.

Approximately 97% of service members reported at least one significant problem in their military-provided home, according to the 23-page report.

These were the most commonly cited issues:

Mold, mildew, or microbial growth were the most commonly cited issues (74%)

Water damage (54%)

Temperature or humidity problems (56%)

Pest infestations (53%)

HVAC failures (51%).

The survey reported that more than half of all requests to address dangerous conditions (53%) go unresolved, and nearly half (47%) of respondents said housing-related issues have compromised their readiness.

Another two-thirds of those dealing with mold said they feel they have no viable options for relief or dispute resolution.

A Defense Department PSA warns about the risks of radon in homes, though other risks like mold can also cause health issues. (DHA Public Health)

A total of 3,401 service members and families from 57 military installations across 30 states and the District of Columbia completed the survey, with results later being delivered directly to lawmakers and government officials, according to Chappo.

With tools like our recent national military housing survey, Unsafe and Unheard, our foundations goal is to help advance the national conversation, including in Congress, on how to improve the living conditions for service members and their families. They should never be harmed by the housing meant to support their service to our nation.

'This Is Really Happening'

Thompson, Change the Air and others have felt glimmers of hope in the past 12 months and change. But it took plenty of time and effort.

What started with 30 back-to-back meetings in a three-day period has led to useful networking between lawmakers staffers up to senior levels of the Pentagon.

You start to hear offices who are going, Oh, wow, this is really happening, and they kind of weren't tracking that it was as severe as it was, Thompson said.

Asked if there was a moment when she felt her concerns broke through to the Washington brass, Thompson said her being invited back again and again cemented a type of reality where what she and others said piqued their interestadding that she came not from a place of complaining but of having productive discussions.

Thompson's children joined her on multiple trips to Capitol Hill. (Erica Thompson)

Surveys like the one conducted by Change the Air also provided raw numbers that could be taken to Washington and shown, such as how some 3,400 individuals polled live in military housing. Or, how roughly 80% of Air Force recruits are from legacy families.

I think the survey was one of those where we go, Hey, we've got the data and it's really shocking and it is impacting people at a significant level and readiness and retention and medically, lots of these families are being impacted, she said.

Then, you're continuing to follow up with offices on possible amendments, and you're trying to get co-sponsors or reach out to other offices. I think it's just a snowball effect. I think the more you visit and the more you get engaged, like, This is awesome. This is progress.

NDAA and Ongoing Efforts

Those amendments did come, too.

Forging a connection with U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.) led to mold-related amendments finding their way into the final version of the FY 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), notably establishing mold remediation standards and more efficient methods of removing mold from structures on military bases.

Thompson said having that included in the giant defense spending bill was a special feeling for a couple reasons. One, she showed her children how hard work and persistence can lead to positive results.

The other is that even in a town like Washington, where bipartisanship is more of a rarity than a reality, things can get done when issues strike a chord.

Now, the MOLD Act is getting attention across Capitol Hill. Thompson helped craft the legislation last year and formally introduced it as a press conference earlier this year with U.S. Sens Richard Blumenthal (D-Con..), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Mazie Hirano (D-Hawaii). All are members on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

In this photo provided by the U.S. Air Force, housing for service members is shown at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Thursday, April 28, 2022. (1st Lt. Daniel Barnhorst/U.S. Air Force via AP)

After volunteering to serve our great nation, Americas military deserves the bestfrom equipment on the battlefield to housing here at home," Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT), a bill co-sponsor, told Military.com. "As a veteran who is married to a veteran, its an honor to serve our community each day in the Senate.

"Im proud to lead this critical piece of legislation to bring accountability to the process of ensuring our men and women in uniform and their families have safe housing conditions so they can focus on securing Americas future.

The proposal, read by the Senate in mid-January and referred to the Armed Services Committee, is hoped by Thompson and company to be a standalone bill. Even if not, its inclusion in the Fiscal Year 2027 NDAA would be the next objective.

It's a landmark bill, Thompson said. It's really important for military families because it addresses one of the main issues that we're seeing in military housing. I think just having it recognized by partisan and bicameral [lawmakers] is encouraging.

'Bridging the Gap' With The Pentagon

The legislation calls for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth establishing and implementing a uniform code of basic housing standards for safety, comfort and habitability for privatized military housing, which meets or exceeds requirements informed by a nationally recognized, consensus-based, model property maintenance code.

The bill also states that thousands of military families living in privatized military housing have been exposed to hazardous environmental conditions, including widespread mold contamination, due to negligent maintenance practices and inadequate government oversight.

If enacted by Congress, Hegseth would have no later than 180 days after the date of passage to issue interim guidance for acceptable levels of relative humidity, ventilation, dampness and water intrusion to be applied at all covered housing.

Thompson, when asked about a possible disconnect between the Pentagon and families living in military housing, said she has felt encouraged by meetings with senior Pentagon officials last year. Discussions included commentary on data gaps based on federal reports, including those from the Government Accountability Office and the DoD Inspector General.

We were excited to be able to sort of bridge that gap. I know spouses have come to the Hill really for three generations, talking about housing issues.

"I think when we brought what was actually happening on the ground to them, they I think were surprised but also ready to dig in and ready to sort of get after some solutions," she added.

However this legislation moves forward, if it all, it will take time and effort across various avenues to get it over the finish line.

I think [the Pentagon is] seeing there's lots of work to be done, Thompson added.

This story was updated with remarks from Sen. Tim Sheehy.
LONDON (AP)  Russia cannot launch an attack on NATO this year or next but is planning to increase its forces significantly along the alliance's eastern flank, depending on the outcome of the war in Ukraine, a senior European intelligence official said.

Speaking in an online briefing with journalists, Kaupo Rosin, the head of Estonias foreign intelligence service, also told The Associated Press that Russian President Vladimir Putin currently has no desire to halt the nearly 4-year-old invasion of neighboring Ukraine and thinks he can outsmart the United States during talks on how to end the war.

Rosin said Russia's plan involves creating new military units and multiplying the prewar force along its border with NATO by two to three times. But that will be heavily influenced by the outcome of discussions involving Moscow, Washington and Kyiv regarding a cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, he said. That's because Russia will need to maintain a significant portion of its military inside occupied Ukraine and in Russia to prevent future Ukrainian action, he said.

Currently there are not enough resources available for Moscow to launch an attack on NATO, but the Kremlin is concerned about Europe rearming and being able to conduct military action against Russia in the next couple of years, the intelligence chief said.

Russian officials, meanwhile, are playing for time in the talks with Washington and there is absolutely no discussion about how to really cooperate with the U.S. in a meaningful way," Rosin said.

Estonia's security assessment

Rosin spoke to reporters ahead of the publication of Estonias annual security report Tuesday. He said the information on how the Kremlin views the talks with the U.S. is based on intelligence that NATO member Estonia gathered from Russian internal discussions. He did not elaborate on how the information was obtained but said the discussions showed that Russian officials believe Washington remains Moscow's main enemy.

Russian officials have insisted publicly they want a negotiated deal but have shown little willingness to compromise and remain adamant their demands must be met.

U.S.-brokered talks between envoys from Russia and Ukraine in recent weeks have been described by officials from both sides as constructive and positive, but there has been no sign of any progress on key issues in the discussions.

Putin, in his head, still thinks that he can actually militarily win (in Ukraine) at some point, Rosin said.

A White House official responded to the Estonian intelligence chiefs comments and said President Donald Trumps negotiators had made tremendous progress on the talks to end the war. Although prisoner exchanges have happened sporadically since May, they pointed in particular to a recent agreement in Abu Dhabi reached by the U.S., Ukraine and Russia to release more than 300 prisoners.

That agreement was evidence that efforts to end the war are advancing, said the official, who was granted anonymity because they did not have permission to speak publicly.

In an indication that Trump wants to accelerate the momentum of those efforts, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last week that Washington has given Kyiv and Moscow a June deadline to reach a settlement. Trump over the past year has set several deadlines that have come and gone without apparent consequences.

Fiona Hill, a Russia expert and adviser to Trump in his first term, said Trump and his officials are spinning a story that depicts the U.S. president as a peacemaker and, for that reason, they are not interested in changing their assessment that Putin wants to end the war.

She told AP that both leaders need their version of events to play out" and are hanging onto their version of the truth  Putin as the victor in Ukraine and Trump as the dealmaker.

More deadly Russian bombardments

On Tuesday morning, Russian glide bombs killed an 11-year-old girl and her mother in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, regional chief Vadym Filashkin said. Seven others, including a 7-year-old girl, were injured.

During the night, Russian drone attacks elsewhere in Ukraine wounded at least five people, including a toddler and two other children, regional authorities said.

Although Trump has repeatedly suggested that Putin wants peace, he has sometimes appeared frustrated with the Russian leaders lukewarm approach to talks.

From an intelligence perspective, Rosin said he doesnt know why U.S. officials believe Putin wants to end the war.

Hill, who served as a national intelligence officer under previous U.S. administrations, said it's unclear what intelligence information Trump gets on Russia  or if he reads it.

He relies heavily on his lead negotiators, special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, who Hill said may struggle to believe that the damage to the Russian economy from the war is a price Putin is willing to pay for Ukraine.

Referring to reports that Witkoff has attended meetings with Putin without a U.S. State Department translator, she questioned if Trump's envoys understood what was being said in meetings and suggested officials may be selectively looking for what they want to hear.

Optimistic reports filter up to Putin

Putin is fixated on controlling all of Ukraine and the idea is so deep in his head that it takes priority over anything else, including the economy, Rosin said, suggesting the conflict will continue in some form for several years.

He said Putin's position may change only if the situation in Russia, or on the front line, becomes catastrophic," threatening his power. For now, the Kremlin leader still believes he can take Ukraine and "outsmart everybody, Rosin said.

One reason Putin thinks he can win militarily in Ukraine is because he is definitely getting some incorrect information from his officials, the Estonian intelligence chief said.

Not all Russian officials, however, believe they are winning the war in Ukraine, Rosin said.

The lower you go in the food chain, the more people understand how bad it is actually on the ground, he said, whereas higher-level officials are more optimistic because they are given more positive reports. Rosin cited examples of officials being told Russian forces had captured Ukrainian settlements when that was not true.

The reports that arrive at Putin's desk may be much more optimistic than the situation on the ground because Putin only wants to see success, Rosin said.

Hill said both Trump and Putin are probably being told what they want to hear by people who want to please them.

___ White House reporter Seung Min Kim in Washington and Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed.

-

Follow APs coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
News / National

by Staff reporter

Zanu-PF has vowed to investigate disturbances that disrupted a Manicaland Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) meeting in Mutare yesterday, as senior party officials warned that indiscipline during party business will not be tolerated.The meeting ended prematurely after it degenerated into chaos, with rival factions confronting each other and trading accusations, forcing proceedings to be abandoned.Zanu-PF Secretary for Security, Lovemore Matuke, said the party leadership was awaiting a full report on the incident before taking action."Zanu-PF will not tolerate such behaviour during party business. We are waiting to get a detailed report on what exactly happened," Matuke said in an interview last night.Party Secretary for Information and Publicity, Ambassador Christopher Mutsvangwa, was more forthright, blaming what he described as detractors attempting to destabilise the party in Manicaland."Detractors have consistently regarded Manicaland as the soft underbelly of Zanu-PF in their futile efforts to infiltrate the party of the permanent Zimbabwe revolution," Ambassador Mutsvangwa said."There are elements that are woefully mistimed and misaligned. The party leadership will not tolerate such behaviour within its rank and file."Mutsvangwa accused the party's opponents of using "dirty tricks" to undermine what he described as the achievements of President Emmerson Mnangagwa and the Second Republic."The writ of President Mnangagwa over the party is as strong as can be. His communion with the electorate is at an all-time high, as is being demonstrated in a continuous string of by-election victories," he said."The nefarious boll weevils attempting to infiltrate and subvert Manicaland, the province of decisive revolutionary heroism, are making a terrible mistake. President Mnangagwa has seen and crossed every shenanigan of party malfeasance and is ready to deal with misguided troublemakers."The chaos unfolded during a closed-door PEC meeting at the Rekayi Tangwena Government Complex, chaired by Zanu-PF Manicaland provincial chairperson, Tawanda Mukodza.Proceedings reportedly broke down after disagreements emerged over a state of the party report presented by the provincial political commissar, Albert Nyakuedzwa.Buhera West legislator, Tafadzwa Mugwadi, was contributing to the discussion when Mukodza ordered him to confine his remarks strictly to the contents of the report. Mugwadi reportedly resisted, insisting on making broader submissions.Supporters of Mugwadi interjected, challenging the chairperson to allow him to speak freely. Mukodza stood his ground, asserting his authority as chair, prompting counter-interjections from members backing him.The exchange escalated into shouting, desk-banging and personal exchanges, forcing Mukodza to call off the meeting and walk out of the boardroom.However, members opposed to Mukodza's leadership reportedly refused to disperse and instead nominated provincial secretary for administration, Sam Matema, to chair the meeting in his absence.As discussions continued, a group stormed the boardroom, disrupted proceedings and ordered members to leave, arguing that the meeting had already been officially called off by the chairperson.Witnesses said the intruders climbed onto tables, banged chairs and desks and insisted that no further business could be conducted.The party leadership is now expected to assess reports from Manicaland and determine disciplinary action, amid growing concern over factional tensions within the province.
MANILA, Philippines  Manilas top envoy to Washington expressed confidence Tuesday that the United States will not abandon the Philippines as it fights Beijing's assertiveness in the disputed South China Sea  even as Donald Trump and Xi Jinping seek more direct talks to resolve differences.

Philippine Ambassador to Washington Jose Manuel Romualdez welcomed renewed talks between the U.S. and Chinese leaders, and said Manila should also try to fine-tune its relations with Beijing to allow for more trade engagement.

He said, however, that the Philippines will remain steadfast in defending its territorial interests in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims virtually in its entirety.

The U.S. and the Philippines, Washingtons oldest treaty ally in Asia, have been the most vocal critics of Chinas growing assertiveness in the South China Sea, where Chinese forces have in recent years used powerful water cannons, flares and dangerous blocking maneuvers against Filipino forces at sea and in the air.

The U.S. has repeatedly warned China that its obligated to defend the Philippines if Filipino forces come under an armed attack. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have also been involved in the territorial standoffs but have avoided condemning Chinas assertiveness.

Still, Romualdez's noted growing concerns that a U.S.-China rapprochement could sideline the Philippines. Trump plans a visit to China in April, which in turn could lead to Xi visiting the U.S. in return, he said.

Some people are saying, 'Is there going to be a deal where were going to be thrown under the bus? Romualdez, a longtime critic of Chinas actions in the disputed waters, told a news conference in Manila.

Assurances are being made to us that, thats absolutely not true, Romualdez said, adding that U.S.-Philippine defense engagements are "increasing even more now.

The U.S. Congress is working on a substantial financial appropriation to continue helping the Philippine military modernize its capabilities, said Romualdez, who is to visit the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii in April to discuss upcoming military and defense activities.

Last year, about 9,000 American and 5,000 Filipino military personnel took part in one of their largest annual combat drills in the Philippines in years. In one live-fire drill, U.S. and Filipino forces unleashed a barrage of missile and artillery fire that shot down several drones acting as hostile aircraft off a Philippine province facing the South China Sea.

China has fiercely opposed the mock battle scenarios as provocative.

The Philippines will also try to make our relationship with China "much better, Romualdez said, adding that the two nations could cooperate on non-contentious issues such as climate change, manufacturing and alternative sources of energy.

There is only one thing thats permanent in this world, and thats change," Romualdez said. "We cannot stay stuck in one place.
Major Russian drone and missile attacks on Feb. 9 tore into Ukraines electrical and gas infrastructure, killing civilians and knocking out power for tens of thousands as winter temperatures plunged.

Russian forces struck power and gas facilities across the Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, Ukrainian authorities reported, deepening nationwide blackouts and escalating a winter campaign aimed at crippling civilian life as ceasefire discussions stalled.

United Nations officials said strikes between Jan. 16 and Jan. 19 hit Kharkiv, Dnipro, Chernihiv, Donetsk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Sumy.

The secretary-general condemns all attacks on civilian infrastructure by any party, U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq told Military.com on Monday.

Military.com reached out to additional Ukrainian and Russian officials for comment.

Cold Winter Impact

Russian strikes killed nine civilians and injured more than 50 during a four-day stretch of attacks across eastern and southern Ukraine, even before the massive Feb. 9 barrage.

Temperatures dropped to roughly -20 degrees Celsius as rolling blackouts swept the country, straining hospitals, heating systems, water treatment plants and rail networks.

Veterans of the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade of Ukraine's Armed Forces serve free hot meals in residential neighborhood as repeated Russian air attacks on the country's energy sector leave people without power, heating and water in the harshest winter in decades in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Russian attacks also damaged power facilities in occupied areas of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, triggering widespread outages. Frontline assaults forced authorities to evacuate more than 1,300 residents from the Donetsk region over four days, including 170 children.

EU Slams Russia, Pledges Billions in Energy Aid

Brussels moved quickly to shore up Ukraines battered grid as the winter assault intensified.

European Union officials directly blamed Moscow for the latest wave of strikes, saying Russias energy campaign worsened humanitarian conditions in temporarily occupied territories and compounded blackouts during subzero temperatures.

Russia alone bears responsibility for continuing the war of aggression against Ukraine and could bring it to an end immediately by ceasing its aggression, Anitta Hipper, EU spokesperson for foreign affairs and security policy, told Military.com in a statement provided through the European Commission.

The EU has allocated more than 1.2 billion euros, roughly $1.3 billion USD, in humanitarian assistance and mobilized 927 million euros, or about $1 billion, for emergency gas purchases through the Ukraine Facility and a Norwegian grant.

Officials said the bloc delivered 160,000 tons of generators, heating appliances and solid fuels through the Civil Protection Mechanism to stabilize critical services.

European Union flags flap in the wind outside of EU headquarters in Brussels, Nov. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, File)

Europe will not let Russia freeze Ukraine into submission, Hipper told Military.com.

The funding push follows months of targeted Russian strikes on substations, transmission lines and gas facilities that forced repeated emergency repairs.

UK, NATO Warn Russia After Massive Energy Barrage

Missiles and drones have turned Ukraines power stations into frontline targets.

British officials said Russia launched 34 missiles and 339 drones in a single wave, following four previous nights in which 537 drones targeted Ukrainian cities and energy facilities. The United Kingdom announced 20 million euros, about $25 million, for urgent grid repairs on Jan. 16.

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer leaves 10 Downing Street in London, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026.(AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg condemned the attacks during public remarks earlier this month.

We have seen last night again, hundreds of drones and tens of missiles hitting Ukraine, and particularly now hitting the civilian infrastructure, innocent civilians, he said at a public forum.

The strikes had nothing to do with the combat on the front line, he added.

He said sustained allied air defense support remains critical as Russia presses its winter campaign against civilian utilities.

US Offers No Detailed Assessment

Washington has not publicly outlined its evaluation of the Feb. 9 barrage.

Military.com contacted the U.S. State Department seeking comment on the civilian toll, damage to Ukraines grid, potential air defense implications and whether the issue was raised in diplomatic channels.

A spokesperson responded but did not address questions about the U.S. assessment of the strikes, air defense posture, or diplomatic engagement tied to the attacks.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his wife Jeanette arrive at The Mar-a-Lago Club, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, in Palm Beach, Fla., to attend the wedding of White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino and Erin Elmore, the director of Art in Embassies at the U.S. Department of State. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Military.com also reached out to the U.S. Defense Department for comment on any Pentagon evaluation of the missile and drone wave or additional security assistance. The department did not respond.

Power Grid Becomes a Battlefield

Russia began targeting Ukraines power plants, substations and gas facilities in the early months of the invasion and repeatedly escalated those strikes during winter, when outages strain heating systems, hospitals, water supplies and transportation networks.

Earlier waves showed the playbook in detail: one overnight barrage included 67 missiles and 194 drones, with Ukrainian officials saying the strikes hit energy and gas production sitespart of a push to deny civilians heat and light while degrading the systems that support the broader war effort.

Ukraine has also framed air defenses as grid protection. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pressed allies for additional Patriot systems as scheduled outages continued and Russian strikes damaged power infrastructure.

Workers clean up damage at Darnytsia Thermal Power Plant after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Zaporizhzhia remains strategically vital. It hosts Europes largest nuclear power plant, a six-reactor facility that depends on stable external power for cooling systems.

The plant has previously relied on diesel backup generators after losing key external power connections, providing a reminder that grid disruptions can carry nuclear safety stakes alongside humanitarian consequences.

The winter pattern also continued into late January, when Ukraine reported another large strike package and said its air defenses shot down or jammed dozens of incoming threats, while some missiles and drones still hit multiple locations, extending the blackout cycle even as talks continued.

The Feb. 9 barrage reinforced how the energy system now sits at the center of the conflict, where military strategy and civilian survival intersect.

Repair crews worked through the night as air raid sirens sounded again in several regions.
A former Navy vice admiral removed during Pentagon leadership changes is now seeking a seat in Congress, framing her campaign around accountability in government, support for service members and affordability for working families.

Nancy S. Lacore, a Democrat and former Chief of Navy Reserve, is running in South Carolinas 1st Congressional District in 2026, challenging Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.). Lacore is centering her campaign on four pillars outlined on her website: putting people first, expanding affordability and opportunity, honoring service and building what she calls a future worth passing on.

Lacore was designated a Naval Aviator in 1993 and most recently served as the 16th Chief of Navy Reserve, overseeing approximately 59,000 Reserve Component personnel supporting Navy, Marine Corps and joint missions. Her departure occurred during broader leadership changes at the Defense Department under Secretary Pete Hegseth.

DoD declined to comment on Lacores removal, according to her campaign. The Navy also declined to comment on the matter, the spokesperson said, adding that the White House cannot comment on the Hatch Act.

Chief of Navy Reserve Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore and Reserve Force Master Chief Tracy L. Hunt meet mobilized Sailors during a visit to Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, Jan. 15, 2025. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Maurice Brown)

The Hatch Act is a federal law that restricts partisan political activity by executive branch employees, including many civilian and military officials, while they are serving in government positions. Active-duty service members are also subject to Defense Department regulations limiting political activity.

Military.com reached out for comment to Rep. Maces office, the South Carolina Republican Party, and the South Carolina Democratic Party.

South Carolina's 1st District primary is June 9, and a primary runoff is June 23. Successful candidates will move forward to the general election on Nov. 3. The filing deadline is March 30.

Service, Affordability and Accountability

Lacores campaign frames government as an institution that should serve people not parties or special interests, emphasizing integrity and responsiveness to families and communities.

Campaign officials said she plans to emphasize military readiness and accountability while ensuring service members, veterans and first responders receive meaningful support. Her platform under the heading Honor Service calls for fair pay, safe working conditions, quality health care and stronger support for military families.

South Carolinas 1st District includes Joint Base Charleston and a significant population of active duty personnel, retirees and veterans, making national security and service-related issues central to the electorate.

Oversight fights have already surfaced in Washington as lawmakers push to reshape weapons buying and demand more transparency from Pentagon leadership, including in the annual defense policy bill.

Affordability and Opportunity

Beyond defense issues, Lacores website places heavy emphasis on lowering everyday costs.

Her Affordability and Opportunity pillar argues that housing, health care, child care and daily essentials have strained families, seniors, veterans and young Americans. The campaign says she believes hard work should result in a stable life and that economic policy should reflect long-term opportunity rather than short-term political gains.

Campaign officials did not outline specific legislative proposals but said Lacore intends to focus on practical measures that address cost-of-living pressures while maintaining fiscal responsibility.

Veterans and Military Families

South Carolina is home to more than 400,000 veterans, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, and the Lowcountry contains a dense concentration of retirees and military-connected families.

Lacores campaign said her years of service inform her focus on improving access to health care and strengthening support systems for veterans and their families. Her platform does not detail specific reforms but emphasizes accountability and measurable results in programs serving those who have worn the uniform.

Ms. Christy Jones, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Great Lakes and Ohio Division Acting Programs Director, visited VA Canandaigua Medical Center to see ongoing renovations to the campus and a special veterans recognition ceremony, March 6, 2025. (U.S. Army Photo by Kaylee Wendt)

Claims delays have remained a pressure point nationally as the VA has worked through heavy volumes tied to new eligibility rules and older backlogs, with growing attention on whether automation and AI tools will change how claims move through the system.

Military.com reached out for comment to the VA.

The Political Landscape

South Carolinas 1st Congressional District includes Charleston, Mount Pleasant, Hilton Head Island and much of the coastal Lowcountry. The district has leaned Republican in presidential elections but has seen competitive congressional cycles in recent years.

Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., speaks on Capitol Hill, Oct. 11, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, File)

Rep. Nancy Mace won reelection in 2024. South Carolinas primary elections are scheduled for June 2026, with runoffs two weeks later if no candidate secures a majority. The general election will be held in November 2026.

President Donald Trump carried the district in 2024, reinforcing its Republican tilt at the top of the ticket. Even so, the seat flipped in 2018 before returning to Republican control in 2020, reflecting volatility in a region shaped by military growth, suburban shifts and tourism-driven development.

Military.com reached out to Rep. Maces office, the South Carolina Republican Party and the South Carolina Democratic Party for comment.
Minnesota cities are taking aim at masked federal agents after a St. Paul ICE raid left a U.S. citizen detained at gunpoint and standing outside in his underwear in below-freezing temperatures.

City leaders in Minneapolis and St. Paul began debating local ordinances Jan. 21 that would limit masked federal law enforcement activity after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents executed a warrant Jan. 19 at a St. Paul residence. They detained a U.S. citizen at gunpoint and escorted him outside in freezing weather.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stated agents were targeting two individuals the agency described as sexual predators tied to the property and held all occupants under standard safety protocol.

Kristi Noem, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, speaks at an event at the border Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026, in Nogales, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

That individual was later reported to be ChongLy "Scott" Thao, who told the Associated Press that his daughter-in-law woke him up from a nap and warned that ICE agents were banging on the door of his residence. He reportedly told her not to open it though masked agents, guns drawn, forced their way into the home.

I was shaking. They didn't show any warrant; they just broke down the door. - ChongLy "Scott" Thao

The incident has sparked constitutional questions about search authority, identification procedures, and how far cities can go in regulating federal officers operating within their limits. That inclydes long-running limits on home entry and consent under the Fourth Amendment.

DHS Pushes Back Against ICE Attacks

Federal officials rejected claims that agents entered the home without legal authority and maintain the operation followed established protocol.

DHS law enforcement officers were executing a warrant. Through surveillance and intelligence information, law enforcement concluded these two individuals had ties to the property. - DHS spokesperson to Military.com.

DHS did not specify whether the warrant was judicially signed by a federal judge or issued administratively under immigration authority. Civil liberties organizations have argued that only a judicial warrant permits forced entry into a private residence under the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Additional details came from Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, who stated the U.S. citizen detained inside the residence matched the description of the targets.

DHS law enforcement officers were executing a warrant. The U.S. citizen who was in the property when officers were executing the warrant refused to be fingerprinted or identified. He matched the description of the targets. As with any law enforcement agency, it is standard protocol to hold all individuals in a house of an operation for safety of the public and law enforcement. -- Tricia McLaughlin

Family members disputed that account and questioned whether a judicial warrant was presented before agents entered the property. They also challenged the claim that identification was refused.

Military.com reached out to ICE, the White House and the Department of Justice for comment. ICE referred questions to DHS.

Cities Move to Limit Masked Federal Agents

Debate has shifted from public backlash to policy drafting.

Council members in Minneapolis and St. Paul began outlining proposals that would prohibit federal officers from wearing face coverings while conducting operations inside city limits, except in narrowly defined tactical situations such as active threats or undercover work.

Early discussions have focused on requiring visible identification, badge numbers and clear agency disclosure during enforcement actions. A transparency debate has also surfaced around body-worn camera policies for ICE operations.

Supporters argued masked agents undermine public trust and complicate accountability when complaints are filed. They pointed to the Jan. 19 St. Paul raid as a catalyst for the push.

Federal agents conduct immigration enforcement operations Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy, File)

Opponents cautioned that any ordinance targeting federal officers could face immediate legal challenge under the Supremacy Clause, which establishes that federal authority overrides conflicting local law. Immigration enforcement authority rests with the federal government, and courts have historically limited local attempts to regulate federal operations.

Constitutional protections apply nationwide, though municipalities cannot materially interfere with the execution of federal warrants. Whether such ordinances could withstand court scrutiny may depend on how narrowly they are written and whether they regulate conduct without obstructing federal enforcement.

Military.com reached out to the Minnesota Attorney Generals Office and Gov. Tim Walz for comment.

Federal Immigration Surge Faces Growing Backlash

The St. Paul raid unfolded amid increased federal immigration enforcement activity in the Twin Cities in recent weeks.

Minnesota has also challenged the scope of the federal push in court, arguing agencies exceeded their authority during a broader surge.

Civil liberties organizations, including the ACLU of Minnesota and the Immigration Law Center of Minnesota, argued that masked agents and early morning enforcement actions raise concerns about transparency and potential Fourth Amendment implications involving warrant execution standards, forced entry authority, and identity verification procedures inside private residences.

People gather during a protest Jan. 30, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Debate now extends beyond a single St. Paul doorstep. City councils are examining whether local transparency requirements, such as visible identification and limits on face coverings, can be enacted without infringing on federal authority.

Immigration enforcement falls under federal jurisdiction, but constitutional protections governing searches and detentions apply nationwide.

If local ordinances advance, courts may determine whether municipalities can regulate aspects of how federal officers operate within city boundaries without materially interfering with federal enforcement. The outcome could shape similar debates in other jurisdictions confronting expanded federal immigration operations.
For many veterans dreaming of starting their own business, finding resources to help fulfill their goals can often be a frustrating process.

Thats where the PenFed Foundation for Military Heroes comes in.

The foundation, based in Virginia, is a national nonprofit organization that offers programs for veterans to help them transition from service time to a successful post-military career. On March 18-20, in Raleigh, North Carolina the organization will host the first of five Veteran Entrepreneur Program incubator cohorts this year.

Founded in 2001, the organization has granted $55 million in financial assistance to veterans, active-duty military members and families. According to its website, the organization has supported over 140,000 veterans and service members through donations, sponsorships and veteran service organizations.

Hands-on Training and Guidance

According to a press release, the program will give new veterans and military spouses looking to start a business first-hand training and mentorship to help turn their dream into reality.

By focusing on business fundamentals and practical guidance, we help veterans and military spouses gain the confidence and skills they need to develop, improve and launch their ideas, Williams said.

The cohort will feature three days of in-person training, followed by six weeks of virtual learning. The program is geared toward business owners who are ready for the idea-to-minimum viable product (MVP) stage. In addition, the program assists entrepreneurs hoping to grow and tweak their business model but lack customers or dont yet have a fully developed product.

In Raleigh, PenFed Foundation will team with the First Flight Venture Center (FFVC), an incubator serving science-based startup businesses in North Carolina. FFVC has served as a vital partner in PenFeds expansion of programming in North Carolinas Research Triangle, according to the release.

The PenFed Foundation will host five business development cohorts this year, with the first being in Raleigh, North Carolina in March. (PenFed Foundation)

Skills to Grow and Develop

Terry Williams, director of the Veteran Entrepreneur Program, said the incubator is designed to meet aspiring veteran entrepreneurs where they are in their business-building process.

Those wishing to sign up for the program must be veterans or military spouses dedicated to growing their business, have a somewhat structured business plan or are in the early stages of creating a prototype, and are prepared to test and alter their concept. Participants should live near Raleigh or be willing to travel to the program, as travel expenses will not be covered.

Business owners interested in attending the Raleigh program can visit the Veteran Entrepreneurship Program website to apply.

Other cohorts in 2026 include Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, April 29-May 1, Tysons, Virginia, June 17-19, New York City, Aug. 12-14, and Boston, Massachusetts, Oct. 14-16.
The First Unconstrained Moment in Decades

On February 5, 2026, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) expired, leaving the United States and Russia without legally binding limits on their strategic nuclear forces for the first time since the early 1970s. For more than five decades, successive arms control agreements placed ceilings on nuclear warheads and delivery systems while creating predictability through verification and data exchanges. With New STARTs expiration and no successor in place, those guardrails are gone.

In a letter to President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a group of Senate and House lawmakers led by Jeff Merkley warned that the absence of legally binding limits on U.S. and Russian strategic forces increases the risk of renewed nuclear competition and strategic instability. That concern reflects the treatys core purpose: reducing incentives for arms racing and lowering the chance of miscalculation.

What New START Did and Why It Mattered

Signed in 2010 and entering into force in 2011, New START capped each country at 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads and limited deployed and non-deployed launchers to 800, with no more than 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and heavy bombers. Beyond numerical limits, the treaty established extensive verification measures, including on-site inspections and regular data exchanges.

These mechanisms mattered as much as the caps themselves. Inspections allowed each side to confirm the others declared forces, while notifications reduced uncertainty about routine military movements. Even after Russia suspended participation in inspections in 2023, U.S. officials reported Moscow remained below the treatys limits through its expiration, as reflected in State Department compliance reporting.

How the Treaty Ended Without Replacement

New STARTs expiration was not sudden. The treaty was extended once in 2021 for the maximum five years permitted under its terms. Negotiations on a successor, however, failed to produce results. In September 2025, Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly indicated a willingness to continue observing New START limits for one year if the United States formally agreed to do the same. No reciprocal, time-limited understanding was reached, and the treaty expired without replacement.

Without a treaty, the United States must rely primarily on national technical means such as satellite imagery to assess Russian forces. While valuable, those tools do not provide the same level of confidence or transparency as on-site inspections.

Bipartisan Roots of Nuclear Arms Control

For decades, support for nuclear arms control transcended party lines. Republican and Democratic administrations alike negotiated agreements with the Soviet Union and later Russia during periods of intense geopolitical rivalry. Treaties such as SALT, START I, and New START reflected a shared understanding that mutual restraint reduces nuclear danger even when broader relations are strained.

Public opinion has largely mirrored that bipartisan tradition. Polling summarized by the Nuclear Threat Initiative shows overwhelming voter support for negotiating agreements that maintain or reduce current nuclear limits.

Why the Absence of Limits Raises Risk

The absence of legally binding limits does not automatically trigger an arms race, but it removes structural barriers that previously restrained competition. Without caps, both sides face incentives to hedge against worst-case assumptions about the others capabilities. Without binding limits, both countries can add more nuclear warheads onto missiles they already possess, expand their forces to hedge against worst-case assumptions, and operate in a strategic environment where misjudgments during crises become more likely.

President Donald J. Trump welcomes Russian President Vladimir Putin to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Anchorage, Alaska, August 15, 2025. DoD photo by Benjamin Applebaum. Source: DVIDS.

Arms Control Amid the War in Ukraine

Any discussion of renewed U.S.Russia nuclear diplomacy now occurs against the backdrop of Russias invasion of Ukraine. Lawmakers supporting arms control have stressed that pursuing nuclear risk reduction does not legitimize Russias actions. Instead, it addresses a separate and existential concern: preventing miscalculation or escalation between nuclear-armed states.

This distinction has long been part of U.S. arms control policy. Successive administrations treated nuclear agreements as tools to protect the American public and global stability, regardless of other disputes. That logic remains relevant in 2026, when the consequences of failure are potentially catastrophic.

What Comes Next

Several options have been suggested for managing strategic nuclear risk in the wake of New STARTs expiration. One is a political understanding under which the United States and Russia would agree to continue observing New STARTs limits while negotiating a follow-on agreement.

Another is a new bilateral treaty that updates verification mechanisms and includes emerging technologies not fully covered by New START. Some analysts go further, proposing multilateral arms control frameworks that would include additional nuclear-armed states, though experts caution that bringing others into a single agreement presents significant political and structural challenges.

Why This Moment Matters

For more than half a century, U.S. nuclear policy rested on the premise that verifiable limits reduce the risk of catastrophe. The expiration of New START marks a departure from that framework. Whether the United States and Russia can construct a new system of restraint will shape nuclear risk for decades.

The stakes are not abstract. Without constraints, uncertainty grows, incentives shift, and the margin for error narrows. Reestablishing limits will not solve broader geopolitical conflicts, but it remains one of the few tools capable of reducing the most severe risks facing the world today.
For many military viewers, HBOs Generation Kill was more than prestige television. It was one of the first mainstream depictions of the early Iraq War that felt lived-in, uncomfortable, and unpolished in a way that rang true for veterans.

Now, one of the Marines behind that story is stepping into a different kind of spotlight.

Retired Marine Corps Master Sgt. Brad Colbert, widely known to fans as the real-life team leader portrayed in Generation Kill, has launched the Carry On Podcast, a project built around the same elements that have defined his career: blunt honesty, small-unit camaraderie, and conversations that dont shy away from the harder parts of service.

The show launched in October 2025 and blends long-form guest interviews with weekly current-events analysis episodes called SITREP editions, designed to provide veteran-grounded context on global security and national defense developments.

My mission with the Carry On Podcast is to build community... Whether youre active duty, a veteran, or just someone looking for honest conversations  you belong here. Colbert said in the launch materials for the show.

Retired Marine Corps Master Sgt. Brad Colbert, known as the real-life Iceman from Generation Kill, records episodes of the Carry On podcast in his home studio. Photo credit: Jason Maris.

From Force Recon to Intelligence Work, Now to the Mic

Colberts path to podcasting is rooted in three decades of military and government service.

He enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1995 and built a career in reconnaissance and operational leadership, serving in Okinawa, Afghanistan in 2001, and during the opening phase of the Iraq War in 2003 with 1st Reconnaissance Battalion.

His performance during those years earned recognition, including Team Leader of the Year from the Force Recon Association and NCO of the Year from the 1st Marine Division Association.

After retiring from active duty in 2016, Colbert continued to support national security operations through work with the Intelligence Community, deploying globally before transitioning to civilian life and media work.

The through-line, he says, is continuity  taking lessons learned from combat, leadership and intelligence work and translating them into discussions about resilience, identity and long-term recovery after service.

Former Recon Marines Brad Colbert and Ray Person, both depicted in Generation Kill, reconnect years after their service together. Photo credit: Jason Maris.

A Generation Kill Check-In With Ray Person

One of the podcasts early anchor episodes features retired Marine Josh Ray Person, who is also depicted in Generation Kill as another real-life Recon Marine.

The episode revisits both the events dramatized in the series and the realities that never made it onto television  from leadership friction to the dark humor that often becomes a survival tool during sustained combat operations.

The discussion also explores something increasingly common in veteran storytelling: what happens after the war ends. Person reflects on leadership decisions, personal aftermath and the complicated emotional terrain that follows deployment cycles.

The approach reflects a broader shift in veteran-led media  less focused on nostalgia and more on long-term impact.

Inside the Podcasts Weekly SITREP Defense Brief

While the guest episodes drive narrative storytelling, Colbert says the podcasts most distinctive feature is its weekly defense-focused analysis format.

The SITREP edition is designed to provide context on current events without leaning into partisan framing or algorithm-driven outrage cycles, something Colbert says is increasingly missing from modern media.

Recent topics have included defense policy shifts, Pentagon media access debates and geopolitical tensions involving Iran, all framed through second- and third-order consequences rather than headline-level reactions.

The episodes are released every Friday, with guest interviews typically dropping monthly.

Brad Colbert and Ray Person look through photos from their time in uniform, reflecting on their experiences later portrayed in Generation Kill. Photo credit: Jason Maris.

Next Up: Warbody and the Hidden Costs of War

Upcoming episodes will include retired Staff Sgt. Alexander Lemons, co-author of Warbody, a book examining the long-term physiological and environmental costs of war, including toxic exposure and chronic illness.

Future guests are expected to expand beyond Marine Corps networks to include veterans from other communities, athletes, authors and mental health professionals  part of what Colbert describes as an effort to widen the conversation around service and recovery.

The show also occasionally touches on culture and lifestyle topics tied to Colberts personal interests, including whiskey, gear and firearms discussion framed around practical experience rather than product ranking or influencer-style content.

Why This Show Clicks With Veterans

Veteran-hosted podcasts are not new. But projects like Carry On reflect a broader shift in veteran storytelling  away from institutional messaging and toward peer-to-peer community building.

Colberts framing is built around something familiar to many service members: mission continuity.

Whether thats translating combat leadership into civilian careers, processing trauma years after leaving uniform, or understanding global security shifts through lived experience, Carry On positions itself as a conversation hub rather than a nostalgia vehicle.

That aligns with Colberts long-standing philosophy that outcomes  in combat, leadership or even distilling whiskey  are determined by attention to detail and honest assessment of reality.

Conversation with Josh Ray Person From Generation Kill - Episode 4 - Carry On Podcast

Where to Find It

The Carry On Podcast is available across major podcast platforms, YouTube and Colberts official website.

For audiences who first encountered Colbert through Generation Kill, the podcast represents something less scripted but arguably more reflective of the long arc of service: not just what happens during war, but what it takes to keep moving forward afterward.
News / National

by Staff reporter

Residents of Nketa have raised concerns over the alleged mistreatment of inmates at a newly established drug rehabilitation centre in the area, claiming they frequently hear screams and sounds of floggings coming from the property, particularly at night.Neighbours, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of victimisation, said the house  recently converted into a rehabilitation facility  appears "suspicious" and has unsettled the surrounding community."I've heard through word of mouth that this is a drug rehabilitation centre," said one resident. "Many people say the inmates are suspected criminals who are being beaten at night."Residents said the alleged screams and sounds of flogging have sparked fears about the welfare of those housed at the centre and raised questions about the legitimacy of the rehabilitation methods being used."If it is truly a rehabilitation centre, a bird tells me they have never in their lives heard someone cry in that manner," another resident said.Community anxiety has reportedly been heightened by the presence of police officers and prison officials who have been seen around the property, further fuelling speculation and concern.The allegations have drawn attention to broader questions around oversight, accountability and the treatment of individuals undergoing rehabilitation at the Nketa facility.Ward 24 councillor Tavengwa Zidya confirmed that the centre was recently established in Nketa 9 but said he had not received any formal complaints."I have not received any reports from residents concerning the facility because it has been weeks since it was established in Nketa 9," Zidya said."My question is, if such acts were happening in that centre, why are residents not coming forward to report to me? Besides the fact that this facility is new for people to be spreading rumours like that."Bulawayo police spokesperson Inspector Nomalanga Msebele said police had not received any reports relating to the alleged abuse but indicated the matter would be followed up."I am not aware of the place, but I will take this as a tip-off and find out what is going on there," she said.The centre, which is operated by Active Youths Zimbabwe, has strongly denied the allegations.A representative of the organisation, Norris Moyo, said the facility had only recently begun operating and was still undergoing renovations."There is nothing of that nature that has taken place," Moyo said. "We only came here to give the place a facelift, and the inmates only came in yesterday. All along, we were here to clean the place and by 10pm we would have been done with our work."He added that the organisation intended to formally notify relevant authorities once preparations were complete."I was going to inform the responsible authorities after everything because that was the directive I got from the councillor," Moyo said.Bulawayo Provincial Affairs and Devolution secretary Paul Nyoni said he was not aware of the situation but would dispatch officials to investigate the allegations.The developments have left residents calling for clarity and transparency, as authorities move to establish whether the rehabilitation centre is operating lawfully and whether the welfare of inmates is being adequately safeguarded.
In 2026, the potash market will continue to be influenced by geopolitical tensions and structural changes.

Third-party recommendation (Art. 8 DelVO 2016/958): Unaltered reproduction of an advertising article created by a third party  Original creator: SRC swiss resource capital AG  First publication (original): February 10, 2026, 5:35 a.m. Berlin/Zurich  Link to the original publication 

Advertisement/Promotion  This article is disseminated on behalf of Millennial Potash Corp., with which SRC swiss resource capital AG has paid IR consulting agreements. Creator: SRC swiss resource capital AG  Author: Ingrid Heinritzi  First published: February 10, 2026 ; 5:35 a.m. Zurich/Berlin

The war in Ukraine is still ongoing, and Belarus remains part of the sanctions environment as an important potash supplier. Recently, there have been selective easing of restrictions on individual Belarusian potash transactions, but this does not constitute a general lifting of sanctions. At the same time, geopolitical risks and logistical disruptions can shift trade flows in the short term. The global potash market is highly concentrated, with Canada, Russia, and Belarus among the most important producers. Many agricultural commodity prices are below the highs of recent years. Nevertheless, global demand for fertilizers remains high because nutrient depletion and yield protection continue unabated. Potash demand has also not been linear since 2020: phases of normalization were followed by a significant recovery. USDA data show a very strong to near-record corn harvest for 2025, while wheat volumes are also solid. For the fertilizer market, it is crucial that high yields bind nutrients in the long term and must be replaced.

But Europe also needs not only critical raw materials such as rare earths to free itself from dependencies, but also mineral raw materials such as potash fertilizers. Potash fertilizers are indispensable for food security because potassium is a key plant nutrient. High-purity potassium chloride is also used in medicine as an electrolyte preparation. An adequate supply of fertilizer is equally important for Africa, for example, which has had to import large quantities of potash to date, or for major importing countries such as Brazil.

Millennial Potash (WKN: A3DXEK) is establishing itself in Gabon with its Banio potash project. The company has launched the definitive feasibility study (DFS), initiated the environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA), and announced Phase 3 drilling as the next technical step. Cantor Fitzgerald led a bought deal LIFE financing that generated gross proceeds of approximately CAD 17.54 million. In addition, a simultaneous non-brokered financing of CAD 750,000 was announced. Banio is located on the Atlantic coast of Gabon and aims to serve import markets in North and South America and Africa in the long term.

Millennial Potash (WKN: A3DXEK)  https://www.rohstoff-tv.com/mediathek/unternehmen/profile/millennial-potash-corp/  reported a significant jump in its latest resource update: measured & indicated resources increased by 275%, inferred resources by 210%. Brazil is one of the world s most important import markets for potash fertilizers. Banio is perfectly positioned on the Atlantic coast of Gabon, close to central shipping routes. Another positive factor is that, following its latest purchase, major shareholder The Quaternary Group Ltd. now holds 32.02% of Millennial Potash (WKN: A3DXEK) on a fully diluted basis (common shares plus warrants), demonstrating a visible commitment to the project and the management.

Current company information and press releases from Millennial Potash (- https://www.resource-capital.ch/de/unternehmen/millennial-potash-corp/ -).

Sources: https://www.20min.ch/story/kali-abbau-belarus-laesst-fuer-gelockerte-us-sanktionen-123-gefangene-frei-103469302, USDA (Crop Production Annual Summary 2025): https://esmis.nal.usda.gov/sites/default/release-files/795725/cropan26.pdf, Natural Resources Canada (Potash facts): https://natural-resources.canada.ca/minerals-mining/mining-data-statistics-analysis/minerals-metals-facts/potash-facts/20521, USGS (Mineral Commodity Summaries  Potash): https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2025/mcs2025-potash.pdf, Reuters (Belarus/Potash sanctions relief): https://www.reuters.com/business/us-eases-sanctions-three-belarus-potash-companies-after-prisoner-release-2025-12-15/, Millennial Potash (News/Company Announcements): https://millennialpotash.com/news/, Millennial  Bought-Deal LIFE + Concurrent Financing: https://millennialpotash.com/news/millennial-closes-bought-deal-life-offering-of-17-537-500-and-concurrent-non-brokered-private-placement-for-total-proceeds-of-18-287-500

In accordance with Section 85 of the German Securities Trading Act (WpHG) in conjunction with Article 20 of MAR/Regulation (EU) 2016/958, we hereby disclose that authors/employees/affiliated companies of Swiss Resource Capital AG (SRC) may hold positions (long/short) in the issuers discussed. Remuneration/relationship: IR contracts/advertorial: Own positions (author): none; SRC net position: less than 0.5%; issuer s ? 5% stake in SRC: no. Update policy: no obligation to update. No guarantee for the translation into German. Only the English version of this news is valid.

Disclaimer: The information provided does not constitute a recommendation or advice. The risks involved in securities trading are expressly pointed out. No liability can be accepted for damages arising from the use of this blog. We would like to point out that investments in shares and, in particular, warrants are generally associated with risk. The total loss of the capital invested cannot be ruled out. All information and sources are carefully researched. However, no guarantee is given for the accuracy of all content. Despite the utmost care, I expressly reserve the right to make errors, particularly with regard to figures and prices. The information contained herein comes from sources that are considered reliable, but does not claim to be accurate or complete. Due to court rulings, the content of linked external sites is also our responsibility (e.g., Hamburg Regional Court, in its ruling of May 12, 1998  312 O 85/98), as long as we do not expressly distance ourselves from them. Despite careful content control, I assume no liability for the content of linked external sites. The respective operators are solely responsible for their content. The disclaimer of Swiss Resource Capital AG, which is available at: https://www.resource-capital.ch/de/disclaimer-agb/, also applies.
Reds catcher Tyler Stephenson won his arbitration hearing against the team, reports Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer. Hell earn the $6.8MM figure submitted by his reps at ACES rather than the $6.55MM figure submitted by the team. Stephenson is heading into his final season of club control and will be a free agent next winter.

Stephenson pulls in a 38.1% raise on last years $4.925MM salary on the heels of a season in which he slashed .231/.316/.421 with 13 homers and 18 doubles in 342 plate appearances. A broken left thumb and an oblique strain limited him to just 88 games in 2025, but he had another generally productive stretch while healthy. Since debuting in 2019, Stephenson has taken just shy of 2000 plate appearances and logged a combined .261/.338/.426 slash with 63 homers and 94 doubles.

Last years 33.9% strikeout rate was a career-worst by a wide margin, but his career-high 10.8% walk rate at least helped to mitigate that uptick in punchouts a bit. He actually chased balls off the plate less than the average hitter, but Stephensons contact rate on those chases was just 49.4%  well shy off the 55.6% league average. His contact rate on balls within the zone dropped by a concerning six percentage points.

Some of that could be due to his broken thumb, of course. Hand injuries can linger and impact a players swing even after hes cleared to return to action, and its worth noting that Stephensons bat speed dropped by nearly a mile per hour over the prior season. Its not unreasonable to think that with better health, he could regain some of that contact. Either way, his quality of contact remained strong; Stephenson averaged 90.5 mph off the bat with an excellent 49.2% hard-hit rate and an even better 14.4% barrel rate.

Heading into the 2026 season, Stephenson will again be the Reds primary catcher, teaming with defensive-minded Jose Trevino to handle the majority of Cincinnatis catching duties. He could also mix in at first base and designated hitter. A healthy platform season should put Stephenson in line for a nice multi-year deal as he heads to the open market ahead of his age-30 campaign next winter.

Following Stephensons victory, players have gone 6-1 against teams in this offseasons slate of arbitration hearings.
DEAR ABBY by Abigail Van Buren

DEAR ABBY: My husband, Dan, and I are separated. Our children are ages 20 and 22. Dan has just been diagnosed with some type of serious medical issue (likely life-threatening). He has shared the information with our children but refuses to explain to me what is happening. I am not being nosy; I simply believe that I should be aware of whats going on for the sake of our children.

Our kids are not currently on speaking terms, so they wont discuss the issue with each other. One of them still lives at home and has been diagnosed with autism, ADHD, PTSD and major depressive disorder. They are not doing well and have been hospitalized multiple times over the past five years. They have no friends and no contact with extended family. The only people they interact with are me and their father.

I feel it is very important to keep me informed so I can offer support and help both of our children deal with whatever is happening. Am I wrong to ask my ex to explain to me what is going on? -- IN THE DARK IN VERMONT

DEAR IN THE DARK: You are not wrong to ask your estranged husband for that information, in light of the fact that one of the children you share has so many mental health challenges. However, if he refuses, you will have to accept it and deal with your children as best you can with limited information. Believe me, you have my sympathy.

Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.
DETROIT - The owners of a popular chicken and waffle restaurant in Detroit have surprised a lot of people by announcing they are closing up shop.

Kuzzos Chicken and Waffles, located in Detroits Avenue of Fashion at 19345 Livernois, has been in business for more than a decade and just recently celebrated their anniversary last month.

The restaurant also known for its homemade Kool-aid flavors, omelets, chicken and grits and more.

After 11 incredible years of serving the Detroit community, were closing this chapter of Kuzzos Chicken and Waffles with full hearts, a statement read on the restaurants Instagram page.

While its bittersweet, were excited to move our family and brand toward new ventures and new possibilities. None of this wouldve been possible without the love, loyalty, and support youve shown us over the years. Thank you, Detroit, for believing in us, rocking with us, and making this journey unforgettable.

The owners added that something else might be in store for them, but are not revealing what that is yet.

This isnt goodbye, its see you soon. Stay tuned for whats next.
EDITORS NOTE: This story has been updated to reflect a higher budget recommendation for Gov. Gretchen Whitmers literacy plan. A previous version was based on an earlier preview at $587 million.

LANSING, MI  Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is slated to unveil her proposed education budget Wednesday with a half-billion-dollar plan to boost student literacy  both reiterating the No. 1 goal for her final year in office and kicking off talks for next years state budget.

The governor has been vocal in the past about elevating reading skills as a priority for 2026, citing the states bottom-10 ranking in certain grade levels amid a much larger literacy crisis across the country.

According to her office, Whitmer is recommending a $625 million one-time investment, described as the largest in the states history, to expand training for literacy instruction and other programming to help students reading skills improve.

My education budget proposal includes big investments to build on the work weve done to help kids read from phonics and PreK for All to teacher training and before- and after-school support, Whitmer said in a statement. The recommendation also addresses continuing free preschool for students.

Lets keep working together to help every child read and succeed, she said.

But on the heels of a state budget delay in 2025 that left Michigans public schools in financial limbo, students, parents and education advocates around the state say there is still a host of other needs they hope state lawmakers will address in upcoming budget talks.

And those goals range from better mental health support in schools to an overhaul in funding for special education.

So, whats behind the literacy push?

Whitmers proposed plans would expand the use of Lexia LETRS training, referring to the instructional program for Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling.

The state currently offers LETRS training support via grants to early childhood educators, as well as preK-12 special education personnel, boosting existing science of reading curriculum.

The governors office did not specify how much of the $$625 million would be directed where or what other education investments she planned to recommend.

The literacy emphasis follows other legislation adopted a year ago, much of which will take effect over the next couple of years. That included LETRS training for 5,000 educators, requiring schools to use proven methods like the science of reading in classrooms, and to scan all students from kindergarten through third grade for dyslexia.

Michigan was ranked 44th in the U.S. for fourth-grade reading in 2024 based on data from the National Assessment for Educational Progress and a spring 2025 progress report.

State Superintendent Glenn Maleyko said he appreciated the investment in literacy, citing it as a shared top priority for the Michigan Department of Education.

Reading and writing are the foundation for long-term success, he said in a statement, and I look forward to working with the Legislature through strong teamwork and shared responsibility to advance these priorities and continue improving student outcomes statewide.

What is on the funding wish list for school advocates?

State funding priorities permeated talk about schools during a short town hall last week hosted by the Michigan Education Justice Coalition.

Alexandra Stamm, education policy analyst for the Michigan League for Public Policy, recalled last years contentious and very much prolonged budget season and said things like the 4.6% of per-student funding and financial hikes to support English-language learners were wins.

But the state needed a better investment in supporting schools most vulnerable groups of students, she said, sounding the alarm on the tough choices now coming before state legislators.

Advocates are concerned about seeing less revenue to work with in budget negotiations and looming cuts, Stramm said. She pushed for a 25% increase in funding to support at-risk students  funding designated for high-poverty areas.

Stramm and others also pushed for a hike to special education funding, particularly a more systemic change under the Michigan Special Education Finance Reform Blueprint, a tiered funding system introduced by advocates in October that proposes a $1.5 billion funding increase to special education services in the state over several years.

April Beaton, secretary the Hazel Park School Board and parent of a child with special needs, was among those to agree but admitted resources for special education can be expensive.

Children require a lot of resources on a daily basis. Children with disabilities require more, she said.  What we know about education funding in Michigan is that it is not equitable across zip codes, let alone for children with disabilities.

As a former public-school teacher, I can vouch for the need for more investments in these areas, Stramm added. The effects of under investment showed up in my classroom in the form of leaky ceiling tiles, books held together with duct tape, (and) classrooms overfilled with students but missing service providers like special education teachers and paraprofessionals.

Jihyun Ko, co-chair of the MEJC Youth Collective, advocated for more mental health support in schools, calling such a boost essential as students are often left to rely on each other.

I attend Ann Arbor Public Schools, which is considered better resourced than many districts in Michigan. Even here, my high school has over 1,700 students and just one social worker and one nurse, she said. National recommendations are closer to one counselor for every 250 students. Schools are not equipped to meet students everyday mental health needs.

Mitch Robinson, a trustee on the Michigan State Board of Education and professor of music education at Michigan State University, also emphasized the need to make students feel safe.

Then lets increase the number of nurses, psychologists, social workers, counselors and other mental health professionals in our schools, he said.
LANSING, MI  The state of Michigan wants more detail from Enbridge about the impact its proposed oil pipeline tunnel may have on archeological sites and coastal wetlands as federal regulators clear a path to permit the long-delayed project under the Straits of Mackinac.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released its final environmental review on the proposed Line 5 tunnel last week, starting a 30-day waiting period on Friday, Feb. 6 before a final permitting decision on the project.

But thats not the final word from regulators. The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) sent Enbridge a letter asking for additional survey work to explore the feasibility of reducing the impacts to cultural resources through project modifications.

The letter, also dated Feb. 6, highlights a quiet but important state process happening alongside in the Army Corps review, which sped up this year under an executive order by President Donald Trump declaring a national energy emergency.

Under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, the Army Corps cant issue Enbridge a permit without a certification from the state of Michigan.

Thus, Line 5 opponents are redirecting pressure onto the state.

Right now, all eyes are on Governor Whitmer and the state of Michigan, said Whitney Gravelle, president of the Bay Mills Indian Community in the Upper Peninsula. It will really come down to the state of Michigan and their decision-making authority.

In 2025, Enbridge agreed to re-apply for a state permit to build in protected coastal wetlands as part of a state administrative settlement that resolved a legal challenge from Bay Mills, which opposes the project amid worries about both its environmental impact as well as its potential to disturb ancient Indigenous archeological sites.

In 2020, a survey led by tribal members and project opponents found possible evidence of Ice Age artifacts on the lakebed, which may date to a time when the Great Lakes were much lower and Lake Michigan and Lake Huron were likely connected by a river instead of a deep strait.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of archeological sites on the north and the south side of the Straits that have not been properly vetted, that have not properly been considered, that are up for essentially destruction by approval of this project, Gravelle said. And that is something that the tribes are not going to stand for. The tunnel will bore through those sacred sites and essentially destroy them.

In its final Environmental Impact Statement released last week, the Army Corps acknowledged potential adverse effects to cultural resources and treaty-protected interests such as archeological sites but deferred final determinations to later consultation and permitting steps.

By addressing cultural resources largely through ongoing consultation under the National Historic Preservation Act rather than resolving those disputes in the National Environmental Policy Act analysis, the Army Corps effectively deferred key decisions to the state of Michigan.

Beyond the archeological and cultural concerns, the Army Corps acknowledged that the project would alter site hydrology and cause permanent wetland loss due to creation of tunnel portals, construction staging, access roads and industrial surface facilities.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmers office did not respond to questions about the states permitting review, which EGLE says is says is currently under review, with the latest deadline extension running through late February.

EGLE is currently in consultation with multiple tribes to ensure that we understand their feedback and concerns on the proposed project, said EGLE spokesperson Dale George, who said wetland impacts are being specifically evaluated.

State records show EGLE has spent months pressing Enbridge for additional information, repeatedly warning that statutory criterion have not yet been met and granting deadline extensions at the companys request to avoid a premature denial.

The extensions cite the volume and complexity of unresolved issues, including cultural resource surveys that EGLE said were too narrowly focused on construction footprints, limiting the agencys ability to evaluate whether less damaging alternatives or locations exist.

The state also requested more geotechnical information, including a baseline report used to define subsurface construction risks, and raised questions about groundwater drawdown near wetlands and shoreline areas adjacent to tunnel shafts.

Under federal law, a state water quality certification is binding and the Army Corps cannot issue its own permit without one. EGLE confirmed that the state has the power to grant a certification, impose conditions, deny one outright or waive a request entirely.

According to EGLE, the water quality certification review is happening parallel to Enbridges resubmitted applications for a Part 303 permit to build in protected wetlands and a Part 325 permit to permanently occupy the Great Lakes bottomlands.

Under Part 325, the state must consider public trust uses of the Great Lakes such as navigation, fishing, recreation, aesthetic values and cultural uses. The permits require EGLE to determine that no feasible, less damaging alternative exist, that environmental impacts are minimized and that use of Great Lakes bottomlands serves the public interest.

The state has been down this road before. Enbridge received a state permit in 2021, but the approval expired before the federal review finished. State documents indicate regulators have yet to conclude Enbridge has met those standards under the current review

Enbridge has argued repeatedly that no practical alternative exists to replacing the existing dual pipelines with a tunnel, contending that other pipelines lack capacity to transport the mix of crude oil and natural gas liquids that Line 5 carries across Wisconsin and Michigan.

In a statement, Enbridge spokesperson Ryan Duffy called the pending Army Corps review conclusion a true milestone (that) reflects nearly six years of rigorous review.

Enbridge remains fully committed to protecting the Great Lakes, the regions natural and cultural resources, and the communities along the waterfront, Duffy said. We look forward to the completion of this process, a permit decision from the USACE, and the opportunity to advance this critical infrastructure project.

We also await a decision on the renewal of our permit with (EGLE), Duffy said.

Other questions extend beyond whether the tunnel can be built, to whether it is the least damaging way to keep Line 5 operating at all. In November, the Army Corps released a supplemental review reviving horizontal directional drilling, or HDD, as a feasible technique that could replace deep tunneling under the Straits.

In filings, Enbridge acknowledged that directional drilling is technically feasible but said it would cause greater environmental damage than a tunnel due to larger surface footprints and longer construction corridors.

Meanwhile, the state has continued to press Enbridge to expand its analysis of alternatives, including directional drilling, pipeline upgrades and other configurations.

The broader Line 5 dispute also continues in court.

Michigan is appealing federal ruling this year from a judge who blocked Whitmers effort to shut down the existing pipeline on grounds that federal law preempts state authority.

The appeal coincides with Attorney General Dana Nessels separate but parallel effort to shut down Line 5 in state court. Nessels 2019 lawsuit in Ingham County has bounced between state and federal court amid ongoing disputes over venue. The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments this month on whether Enbridge can invoke exemptions to removal deadlines and keep the litigation in federal court.

Legal challenges to the tunnel continue separately in state court. The Michigan Supreme Court is reviewing whether the Michigan Public Service Commission adequately evaluated public trust and environmental impacts before approving the project in 2023.
MACKINAC ISLAND, MI - Getting a really good pizza on Mackinac Island can sometimes be a bit of a pepperoni-and-cheese treasure hunt. There are a few downtown spots that offer slices and whole pies - and by this spring there will be a new go-to pizza place sending out savory scents.

Mission Point Resort announced it will be opening Adirondacks Pizza this spring. This is big island news for a couple tasty reasons. It will be the only pizza spot on the islands sunrise side. And this is going to be pizza with a fantastic view. Because after you pick up your slice - or whole pie - from inside the Mission Point Marketplace, you can wander across to the resorts sprawling Great Lawn area, settle into one of its signature Adirondack chairs, and enjoy some big waterfront views of the Straits of Mackinac.

Giving a new meaning to a slice of paradise, we are thrilled to announce that pizza will be arriving to the sunrise side of Mackinac Island this spring, Mission Point said in todays announcement.

Designed for both resort guests and the general public, the concept blends high-quality ingredients with the unbeatable experience of pizza enjoyed outdoors, just steps from the water.

We can expect to see some classic flavors on the pizza menu - as well as a few island twists. The resort already has a handful of well-known restaurants on site and Chef John Clements team embraces a farm-to-ferry philosophy that sources ingredients from Michigan farms and local producers.

A horse-drawn taxi heads past tulips outside Mission Point Resort on Mackinac Island, Michigan. Joel Bissell | MLive.com

The Ware family, who has owned Mission Point for more than a decade, have already weighed in with their early favorites after doing some off-season taste testing.

My mouth is watering just thinking about the Wild Mushroom Pizza, said Liz Ware, vice president of the resorts sales and marketing arm. I am especially excited that Chef John Clements has created a gluten-free crust that is not cauliflower-based.

Her brother, resort CEO Mark Ware, says hes anticipating the BBQ chicken pizza. Its always been my favorite. I love the balance of smoky, savory, and slightly sweet flavors, and knowing Chef Johns approach, Im excited to see how he elevates this classic with high-quality ingredients and bold taste.

Once Adirondacks Pizza opens this spring, orders will be taken online and by phone. The vibe will be a casual grab-and-go spot. Its being designed to serve resort guests, daytrippers, locals and island visitors - anyone who wants a great bite of pizza.

Well get you more details when the opening day is closer.
MARQUETTE, MI  The UP200 dog sled race is shaping up to be one of the most competitive in recent memory, with excellent snow conditions and a strong field of mushers.

This Friday, downtown Marquette will be transformed into a sled dog track for the 34th running of the UP200 powered by NMU.

The community-focused event gives spectators the opportunity to view the dogs and equipment. By race time, the community will line several blocks of Washington Street cheering on the mushing teams as they head off into the wilds of the Upper Peninsula.

The 228-mile route from Marquette to Grand Marais and back will feature over a dozen mushers with 12-dog teams trekking through hills, creek crossings, deep snow, and isolated trails.

This year is shaping up to be a race with some of the best snow conditions the event has seen in years.

I think it has been several years since weve seen this much snow, said Darlene Walch, UP200 treasurer. And we did get a new trail groomer that goes behind a snowmobile. So we think that the trails are going to be in great shape.

75 1 / 75 Marquette sends off The UP200, Midnight Run for 2025 dog sled races

The snowpack measures around 2 feet around Marquette, with trails heading east having 20 to 30 inches of coverage. The Grand Marais area has already received nearly its seasonal average of snowfall despite it only being early February.

The new snowmobile groomer has been preparing trails since early January, clearing debris from roughly 150 miles of trail.

There are currently 14 teams registered for the marquee UP200 race, 18 in the Midnight Run, and seven in Saturdays JackPine 30.

Scenes from the UP200 sendoff in downtown Marquette, Mich. on Friday, February 14, 2025. The UP200 is the longest of three dog sled races held over the weekend. Eighteen teams, led by a musher with 12 dogs, will cover 228 miles of Upper Peninsula wilderness. They will trek through hills, creek crossings, deep snow and isolated trails from Marquette to Grand Marais and back. Twenty other races also departed for the 82-mile race Midnight Run race. Joel Bissell | MLive.com

Some of the increased participation comes from mushers whose western U.S. races were canceled due to lack of snow. Weve had a few adds in the last couple days, partly because a couple races out west have been canceled due to lack of snow, which is unfortunate for them. But that has allowed those mushers to come this direction, said Walch.

Some teams will be making journeys over 1,000 miles for the race with teams coming from Montana, New Brunswick, Maine, Quebec, Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.

The competitive field this year includes at least two past champions and several racers with decades of experience and victories under their belts.

Martin Massicotte of St-Tite, Quebec prepares for UP200 in downtown Marquette, Mich. on Friday, February 14, 2025. The UP200 is the longest of three dog sled races held over the weekend. Eighteen teams, led by a musher with 12 dogs, will cover 228 miles of Upper Peninsula wilderness. They will trek through hills, creek crossings, deep snow and isolated trails from Marquette to Grand Marais and back. Twenty other races also departed for the 82-mile race Midnight Run race. Joel Bissell | MLive.com

Ryan Anderson from St. Croix Falls, Wissonsin, has won the race nine times and last years champion, Martin Massicotte of St-Tite, Quebec, looks to defend his title. Other notable racers who have finished in the Top 5 are: Nathan Schroeder, Ward Wallin, Remy Leduc and Erin Aili.

This is going to be a really interesting race to watch and very, very competent mushers in the UP200 and a bunch of champions in the Midnight Run as well, Walch said.

One of the most exciting stories this year involves 13-year-old Minnesota native Nicole Freking, who will be competing in the 82-mile Midnight Run. Her mother, Jennifer, will also be out competing in the race.

Scenes from the UP200 sendoff in downtown Marquette, Mich. on Friday, February 14, 2025. The UP200 is the longest of three dog sled races held over the weekend. Eighteen teams, led by a musher with 12 dogs, will cover 228 miles of Upper Peninsula wilderness. They will trek through hills, creek crossings, deep snow and isolated trails from Marquette to Grand Marais and back. Twenty other races also departed for the 82-mile race Midnight Run race. Joel Bissell | MLive.com

The UP200 is rolling out new technology for spectators this year to enhance the viewing experience. Theres going to be three trail cams in remote places on the eastern end that will be triggered when teams start crossing those areas, said Walch. They will also have live views from i-Fan at the races start and in Grand Marais. These cameras will complement the existing spot trackers that allow fans to follow the UP200 and Midnight Run races online.

The opening ceremonies will begin at 6:30 p.m. in downtown Marquette. The UP200  the longest of the three races and an Iditarod qualifier  starts at 7 p.m.

Meet the teams running in the UP200.

The teams will travel 66 miles to the first checkpoint on the outskirts of Munising, where they are required to rest a minimum of five hours. Over the course of the race, teams are required to rest for at least 16 hours. From Munising they will take the trails to Grand Marais for the remote sections of the course.

Scenes from the UP200 sendoff in downtown Marquette, Mich. on Friday, February 14, 2025. The UP200 is the longest of three dog sled races held over the weekend. Eighteen teams, led by a musher with 12 dogs, will cover 228 miles of Upper Peninsula wilderness. They will trek through hills, creek crossings, deep snow and isolated trails from Marquette to Grand Marais and back. Twenty other races also departed for the 82-mile race Midnight Run race. Joel Bissell | MLive.com

The multi-day race will conclude on Sunday with a finish line set up at the Ojibwa Casino on M-28, east of Harvey. The top finisher will be awarded $8,700.

After the start of the main race, the Midnight Run will depart from downtown Marquette, starting at 8:30 p.m. This year, 18 teams are competing in the 8-dog, 82-mile race that runs to Chatham and back. The first teams start arriving at the finish on Saturday morning at 8:30-9:00 a.m. The top finisher will be awarded $3,200.

Saturday morning, seven teams will compete in the Jack Pine 30, consisting of 6-dog teams that cover 26 miles of snowmobile and woods trails. The race starts and finishes at the First Baptist Church in Gwinn, with the top finisher receiving a $350 prize.

Scenes from the UP200 sendoff in downtown Marquette, Mich. on Friday, February 14, 2025. The UP200 is the longest of three dog sled races held over the weekend. Eighteen teams, led by a musher with 12 dogs, will cover 228 miles of Upper Peninsula wilderness. They will trek through hills, creek crossings, deep snow and isolated trails from Marquette to Grand Marais and back. Twenty other races also departed for the 82-mile race Midnight Run race. Joel Bissell | MLive.com

There are several viewing areas that the public can access. You can also watch the race progress via TrackLeaders.

This is the 37th year of the UP200 event, but only the 34th running of the race. The event had back-to-back race cancellations in recent years  February rains caused the cancellation in 2023 and above-average warm temperatures halted the 2024 races. Those races were replaced by the Festival of the Sled Dog.

Back by popular demand, the Mush Bus  a Checker Transport bus  will take spectators on a tour from Marquette to Munising and Grand Marais. Leijhe Koval from the Marquette Regional History Center will lead the tour, which departs Marquette at 11 a.m.

The bus is scheduled to return from Grand Marais to Munising around 5 p.m., and then to Marquette at approximately 6 p.m. According to Walch, there are limited tickets available for $40, and they are expected to sell out before Saturday. For more information, click here.
CHOCOLAY TOWNSHIP, MI  The quick decision to declare an 18-car pileup a mass casualty event likely saved lives on Friday in Michigans Upper Peninsula, WJMN/WBUP reports.

The crash occurred Friday afternoon on M-28 in Marquette Countys Chocolay Township, the report said. Blowing snow along the Lake Superior shoreline created whiteout conditions that, along with speed, led to the pileup.

A Chocolay Township firefighter was checking on crash victims on M-28 when another driver lost control and struck the crashed vehicle, which then hit the firefighter and tow truck driver. They were thrown through the air; they were hospitalized due to their injuries. Vehicles continued to hit the crash site. Some were traveling up to 50 mph when they struck. Eventually, the tally would be 18 vehicles.

When Chocolay Township Fire Chief Lee Gould arrived at the scene, he quickly declared a mass casualty event, despite no confirmed deaths, the report said. This action sped up the process of getting more agencies and resources to the scene, potentially saving lives. Six more people were hospitalized related to the incident; there were no deaths.
MACOMB COUNTY, MI  Two individuals were convicted and another acquitted Monday on charges tied to an alleged criminal enterprise to defraud the campaigns of six gubernatorial candidates and three judicial candidates during the 2022 election cycle.

In 2023, Willie Reed and Shawn Wilmoth were originally charged with 27 felonies each and Jamie Wilmoth-Goodin with 25 after an investigation reportedly found forged signatures on nomination petitions for statewide campaigns, including one who withdrew without submitting signatures for review and seven who failed to meet requirements to qualify to appear on the August primary ballot.

On Monday, Feb. 9, Reed and Wilmoth were convicted of a host of charges, including several counts of false pretenses, conducting a criminal enterprise and election law forgery.

Wilmoth-Goodin, of Warren, was found not guilty of charges.

Those affected by fraudulent signatures included 2022 gubernatorial candidates Donna Brandenburg, Michael Brown, James Craig, Perry Johnson and Michael Markey, as well as judicial candidates John Cahalan, Tricia Dare and John Michael Malone. Gubernatorial candidate Ryan Kelley was reportedly provided with no signatures at all.

According to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessels office, the candidates contracted with businesses owned by Wilmoth, of Warren, and Reed, of Pompano Beach, Florida, to fulfill their nomination requirements through intermediary consultants.

For that collection service, their campaigns were reportedly charged over $700,000.

The fraud perpetrated by the defendants robbed eight candidates of their chance to appear on the ballot, defrauded their campaigns and denied millions of Michiganders a choice in the 2022 gubernatorial election, Nessel said in a statement.

Wilmoth and Reed co-owned Mack Douglas LLC, while Wilmoth owned First Choice LLC and Reed owned Petitions Reed LLC.

Reed was convicted of three counts of election law forgery and use of a computer to commit a crime of $20,000 or more, which are five- and 10-year felonies; two counts of false pretenses of $100,000 or more, a 20-year felony; and one count of conducting a criminal enterprise, false pretenses of $25,000 or more, use of a computer to commit a crime of $1,000 or more and larceny by conversion.

Wilmoth was convicted for seven counts of use of a computer to commit a crime of $20,000 or more and election law forgery; three counts of false pretenses of $25,000 or more and two counts of false pretenses of $50,000 or more, each 15-year felonies; two counts of false pretenses of $100,000 or more, a 20-year felony; and one count of conducting a criminal enterprise.

Conducting a criminal enterprise is also a 20-year felony.

According to Nessels office, the forgeries were detected by the Michigan Bureau of Elections within the Michigan Department of State.

The issue was referred to the AGs office for an investigation in June 2022 before Nessel charged the defendants in September 2023.

Reed and Wilmoth are slated to be sentenced before Judge James Maceroni on March 18 in Macomb County Circuit Court.
News / National

by Staff reporter

BLESSED Geza, the outspoken liberation war veteran who broke ranks with the ruling establishment to publicly demand President Emmerson Mnangagwa's immediate resignation, has been declared a liberation war hero.Geza died last week in South Africa, where he had been living in hiding after emerging as one of the most vocal critics of the Mnangagwa administration.His death came with treason-related allegations still hanging over his head, following a period of sustained online activism that sharply criticised government corruption, economic decline and what he described as constitutional backsliding.Geza rose to national prominence through a series of widely circulated YouTube broadcasts titled "Fellow Zimbabweans", in which he directly addressed citizens and called for political change. The videos gained significant traction both inside Zimbabwe and in the diaspora, positioning him as an unexpected but influential dissenting voice from within the liberation war veterans' ranks.Last year, Geza went further by urging Zimbabweans to observe two national shutdowns as a form of protest. The calls triggered a heavy security response, with police and soldiers deployed across major cities and towns. Scores of activists were arrested, while others fled into exile, including Geza himself.Despite his fallout with the Mnangagwa-led Zanu-PF leadership, sources said his liberation war credentials have now been formally recognised, paving the way for a burial befitting a liberation war hero.Details surrounding the burial arrangements were still being finalised at the time of publication. Family members are reportedly preparing to travel to South Africa to repatriate his body.It remains to be seen whether the declaration will translate into official national hero status, which requires presidential approval, or whether Geza will be accorded liberation war hero recognition within war veterans' structures.Geza's death has continued to generate strong reactions across the political divide, with supporters hailing him as a fearless patriot and critics within the ruling party previously accusing him of being manipulated by political forces opposed to the government.His legacy, like his life in recent years, remains deeply contested.
Three employees of the Vizsla Silver Corp have been found dead in Mexico, two weeks after they were kidnapped from a job site. On Monday, Michael Konnert, President and CEO of Vizsla confirmed the company had been made aware of the deaths by family members of the deceased.

We are devastated by this outcome and the tragic loss of life. Our deepest condolences are with our colleagues families, friends and co-workers, and the entire community of Concordia, Konnert said in a statement. Our focus remains on the safe recovery of those who remain missing and on supporting all affected families and our people during this incredibly difficult time.

In an interview with the CBC , Jaime Castaneda said he identified one of the victims as his brother, Jose Manuel Castaneda Hernandez.

In truth, this has been very painful to be here, in a place where we dont want to be, Castaneda said. Its so hard to see  how they suffer. Theres no justice with whats happening.

Two other men have been identified by a family member and a state politician, the CBC reports. The bodies were found by federal authorities near a rural village called El Verde. The men were found in what local media described as a mass grave.

In total, 10 employees of the Vancouver-based mining company were kidnapped on Jan. 23 from a job site near Concordia. The mass grave was discovered roughly 15 kilometers north of Concordia. It is unclear if the bodies of the other missing employees have been found, as only the three men have been identified so far.

Castaneda said he met with at least seven other families who were at federal attorney generals local headquarters to identify bodies taken from the site.

It is believed the kidnappings are part of an ongoing war between factions in the infamous Sinaloa Cartel. According to the CBC, Mexicos Security and Civilian Protection Secretary Omar Harfuch has publicly suspected that a cell with the Los Chapitos faction is behind the kidnappings.
A Ford employee who shouted at President Donald Trump during a plant tour last month remains employed and has received backing from United Auto Workers leadership.

TJ Sabula was not disciplined for yelling pedophile protector at Trump during his visit to the Ford River Rouge plant in Dearborn, according to a UAW official who confirmed his employment status to the Detroit News. This is one of five must-read stories from MLive over the weekend.

Labor group publicly backs worker

Sabula had been suspended pending an investigation following the incident but is now back at work.

The confrontation drew international attention after Trump responded by pointing at Sabula and saying f*** you twice before making a crude gesture and walking away.

UAW officials publicly supported Sabula during the unions Community Action Program Conference in Washington, D.C., on Monday. In his keynote speech, UAW President Shawn Fain referenced the incident while criticizing the president.

Read more from Matt Durrs story here.

Here are four other compelling MLive stories to read:

The scene of a fatal fire in the 900 block of S. Gorham Street in Jackson as seen on Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. The fire occured on Sunday morning, Feb. 8 J. Scott Park | jpark4@mlive.com

2 young children die in Jackson fire as father attempts rescue

Two children, ages 2 and 3, died in an early morning house fire on Jacksons south side Sunday despite their fathers and firefighters efforts to reach them through severe conditions.

Jackson firefighters were called Feb. 8 to 943 S. Gorham St., where they encountered heavy fire conditions on the first floor, according to Jackson Fire Assistant Chief Joel Skrypec. The children were found in their bedroom, an area of the most extensive fire.

The father was severely burned trying to reach the children and was transported to Henry Ford Jackson Hospital before being transferred to the University of Michigan Hospitals trauma burn unit in Ann Arbor. The mother also suffered injuries. One Blackman-Leoni Township public safety officer was treated for injuries.

Read more from Chloe Millers follow-up story here.

Au Train Dam near Au Train, Mich., Sept. 16, 2025. The owner, Renewable World Energies (RWE) of Wisconsin, is facing revocation of its hydropower license after years of safety violations and loss of key project lands. (Garret Ellison | MLive). Garret Ellison

Emergency work at aging Michigan dam OKd after project license revoked

Emergency work at a century-old Northern Michigan dam got the green light this winter from state regulators, severing a large steel pipe to keep the structures reservoir from refilling after a new property owner blocked access to equipment needed to control water levels.

The modification of the Au Train Dam in Alger County cost between $5,000 and $10,000 and was completed during the week of Jan. 12, when contractors removed a 30-foot section of the steel penstock that fed water from the reservoir into the powerhouse. The pipe was capped, allowing water to flow directly into the river and bypass the dams hydropower system.

The work became necessary after the dams operating license was terminated in late December when the new landowner cut off dam owner Renewable World Energies access to the powerhouse. Without that access, RWE could not safely route flows through dam turbines.

Read more from Garret Ellisons story here.

Flint police officer dies by suicide in church parking lot

A Flint police officer died by suicide Sunday afternoon in a Mt. Morris Township church parking lot, Police Chief Terence Green said.

The officer, whose name was not released, had been with the department for approximately five years and was on active duty at the time of his death, Green said. The incident occurred around 2:30 p.m. on Feb. 8. The Michigan State Police department is investigating the death.

Mayor Sheldon Neeley issued a statement addressing the tragedy and the mental health challenges faced by those in public safety.

Read more from Dylan Goetzs story here.

Kid Rock, who is from Metro Detroit and now lives in Nashville, TN, is endorsing a candidate for Governor of Michigan. Photo by Nicole Hester | MLive

Kid Rock endorses John James in Michigan governors race

U.S. Representative John James received an endorsement from Michigan native Kid Rock in his campaign for governor, adding a high-profile supporter to his bid to lead the state.

James, who represents Michigans 10th Congressional District covering southern Macomb County and Rochester and Rochester Hills in Oakland County, shared the endorsement on his X page. The musician praised the Republican candidates potential to lead Michigan.

James acknowledged the endorsement from the Romeo-born entertainer, who now primarily lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Read the rest of Edward Pevos story here.
KENT COUNTY, MI  The deaths of a married couple were the result of a murder-suicide, according to WOODTV.

James Patrick Emmert, 34, died on Jan. 19, according to his public death certificate.

Tiffany Emmert, 29, and James Emmert died at their home on Berkley Avenue SW near Lee Street, WOODTV reported.

Tiffany Emmerts death certificate lists her manner of death as homicide and she was shot by her spouse, WOODTV reported.

Tiffany Emmerts death certificate could not be accessed when MLive visited the vital records page Monday afternoon.

Police were called to the home on Jan. 21, according to the report.

MLive has reached out to Wyoming police seeking information.
OLD MISSION PENINSULA, MI  Classes were in session this morning when a man allegedly broke into a Northern Michigan elementary school using a hammer, police said.

The Grand Traverse County Sheriffs Office responded at 9:36 a.m. today, Feb. 9, to Old Mission Elementary School, according to a news release. A 41-year-old Traverse City man allegedly caused damage while breaking into the school with a hammer and while in the building.

The school went into lockdown mode to keep students and staff safe, police said. After the incident, students were released to their parents and guardians. The school is closed for the rest of the day.

Deputies arrested the suspect at 9:43 a.m., police said. He is lodged in the Grand Traverse County Jail. The incident is under investigation.

Michigan State Police, Traverse City Police, and Peninsula Township Fire and EMS services assisted at the scene.
WAVERLY, MI  Starting this fall, your childs smartphone will be banned from their K-12 classroom during instructional time.

Students can still use traditional flip phones, and will have exemptions for medically-necessary devices and other school-sanctioned tech, under legislation Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed on Tuesday, Feb. 10.

During a press conference held at Waverly High School, part of the Waverly Community Schools district near Lansing, Whitmer called cellphones by far the most destructive, disruptive distraction in our classrooms.

Nearly half of our kids spend five hours a day or more on their phones, she said. For 35 hours a week, its almost a full time job ... Students should be focusing on the most important job they have, which is learning.

Whitmer also addressed students directly.

I know that change isnt easy, and some of you may not be real thrilled with me right now, she said. But I know that if this helps you break your dependency on your phone, or it helps improve your mental health or lengthen your attention span, its worth it.

Carcia Young, a math educator at Waverly High School, described it as not about punishment, or taking something away, but about protecting the learning environment so students can focus on what matters most.

The change has been a top priority of Whitmers for around a year now, after she called for the ban during her 2025 State of the State Address.

The law has been signed just weeks before her 2026 address, after it received widespread bipartisan support in both legislative chambers.

House Bill 4141, the main bill in the package, amends the Revised School Code to mandate that school districts establish a wireless communications device policy to ban the use of cellphones on school grounds during instructional time.

How policies are enforced is largely left up to individual districts and public academies, according to the bill sponsored by Rep. Mark Tisdel, R-Rochester Hills.

Senate Bill 495, sponsored by Sen. Dayna Polehanki, D-Livonia, requires districts also have protocols for when and how students are permitted to use cell phones during emergency situations.

Both bills reflect the minimum standard schools must enact, but districts can implement more strict policies when they choose.

Its not clear how many Michigan school districts already have bans in place. The state Department of Education has not previously identified a number.

Plenty of individual policies are already in motion at schools across the state, however, while officials test out whats needed to keep phones out of students hands during class.

Lawmakers, teachers and school leaders have emphasized the benefits of cellphone restrictions for limiting distractions in class and opening students up more socially.

Ann Arbor Public Schools has begun piloting cellphone restrictions for at least one high schools population, while parents have called for a full-day cellphone ban.

At Northview Public Schools in Grand Rapids, high school students use bags made from conductive materials like copper and aluminum that block wireless cellphone signals while in class.

Northview High School Assistant Principal Brent Dickerson, who spoke with MLive in 2024 about the initiative, said teachers saw fast increases to in-class dialogue and assignment completion after implementing the change.

At Avondale Middle School in Auburn Hills, Superintendent James Schwarz said data has shown a cellphone ban increased student engagement, participation in class and student achievement.

According to the district, issues with fighting went from 22 incidents in fall 2022 to seven the following year after the policy. Phone violations also decreased from 124 to 61.

It also has had a substantive impact on decreasing discipline issues and cyberbullying, Schwarz said. In addition, the ban has increased students socialization skills, and ability to interact verbally with confidence.

Young said after her Waverly High School building implemented a cellphone ban during instructional time, she witnessed a powerful change among her students. Some of them have even noticed their own attention spans improving after putting their phones away.

When students realize themselves that their devices are a barrier, that speaks volumes, she said. Last year, I asked my ninth graders to leave advice for incoming students. A common message appeared again and again. Pay attention, stay engaged and stay off your devices.

Tisdel recommended districts use comprehensive toolkits available through institutions like Stanford University, with resources like sample letters to introduce policies to parents and potential penalties that could be applied if violated.

The state House voted to approve Tisdels bill during its first session of 2026, with the state Senate following suit the same month. After one more state House vote on Polehankis bill, both were sent to Whitmers desk.

Tisdels first iteration of the legislation was drafted in June 2023, and the measure has previously failed to reach full bipartisan support.

Since then, Tisdel said hes talked to an awful lot of administrators, principals, teachers, parents and other legislators about the proposed ban.

It takes a lot of people, Tisdel said, and it takes a lot of time and effort and patience and a willingness to work together.

I think weve come [up] with a very good bill, he said.

Despite requiring school districts statewide to implement restriction policies, HB 4141 would allow exemptions for things like medically-necessary devices, as well as school-issued technology like tablets or laptops used for instruction and special education programs.

Some groups that initially opposed the bill, like the Michigan Association of School Boards (MASB), got on board after updates providing exemptions for students with disabilities and those who use smartphones for medical reasons.

Children are also still able to take a basic phone like a flip phone to school, which Tisdel would address parent concerns about losing contact with their child.

Its the smartphone where the prohibitions and restrictions apply because the smartphones are a distraction, Tisdel said during an interview with MLive in January.

Although the bills would take effect during the 2026-27 school year, it could be a while before more long-term benefits of distraction-free classrooms  like improved state assessment scores  manifest in statewide datasets used to track student growth.
The Ford worker who shouted pedophile protector at President Donald Trump was not disciplined for his comments. Thats according to an official with the United Auto Workers who confirmed to the Detroit News that TJ Sabula remains employed with Ford.

Sabula made international headlines last month for heckling Trump while the president toured the Ford River Rouge plant in Dearborn. Sabula can be heard screaming at Trump, who responded by pointing at Sabula, and saying f*** you twice. Trump then made a crude gesture toward Sabula before walking away.

Following the incident, Sabula was suspended by Ford pending an investigation. It now appears that investigation is complete and Sabula is back at work.

Sabulas employment confirmation comes following comments made by UAW officials Monday who are in Washington D.C. for the UAWs Community Action Program (CAP) Conference. In his keynote speech, UAW President Shawn Fain mentioned Sabulas actions while criticizing Trump.

Instead of standing in a picket line with us, weve got a president literally giving our members the middle finger, Fain said. I want to shout out brother TJ Sabula from Local 600. Thats a union brother who spoke up. He put his constitutional rights to work. He put his union rights to work.

The comment drew a round of applause from attendees, including one attendee who could be heard yelling he told the truth. Fain then went on to say that UAW leadership, including Vice President Laura Dickerson, supports Sabula.

In a separate speech, Dickerson also addressed the issue, saying TJ, we got your back while also knocking Trump for his actions.

In that moment, we saw what the president really thinks about working people, Dickerson said. As UAW members, we speak truth to power. We dont just protect rights, we exercise them.

As news of Sabulas actions spread, online fundraisers were started on his behalf in hopes of helping cover his bills while he missed work. Sabula did not start the fundraisers but actually shut them down as they gained popularity.
UPDATE: Wisconsin police on Tuesday updated their press release to say the young woman had been found. Gabriella Cartagena has been located. More information will be released as soon as possible. We would like to thank the entire community for the help we have received.

MENOMINEE, MI - A 24-year-old woman has been involuntarily missing for six days after she was last seen in distress at a park in Marinette, Wis., near the border with Michigans Upper Peninsula, authorities said.

Gabriella Alexis Cartagena was last seen around 5 p.m. on Feb. 4 at Red Arrow Park in Marinette. Police said she was in distress. She was wearing a black robe, black joggers with a logo on the hip and tan slipper-like shoes. See a photo of her here.

Cartagenas vehicle, a red Toyota Prius with a Wisconsin license plate, was seen between 9:25 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. the day she went missing. It was traveling along Highway 41 in the city of Menominee and Menominee Township, on the Michigan side of the border. The Menominee County Sheriffs Office has asked residents and businesses in that area to check their cameras for the vehicle.

Anyone with images, videos, or relevant information to share can contact Menominee County 911 at 906-863-6614 or the the Marinette Police Department at 715-732-5200.

The Marinette Police Department is being assisted by the Marinette County Sheriffs Office, Menominee Police Department, Menominee County Sheriffs Office, and Wright County Sheriffs Office in Minnesota. The Marinette Police Department also received assistance with search efforts from the Marinette Fire Department, Grover/Porterfield Fire Department, Marinette County Sheriffs Office Auxiliary, the Town of Peshtigo Fire Department, Menominee City Police Auxiliary, and No One Left Behind K-9 Search and Rescue.

The search for Cartagena is active and ongoing.
ANN ARBOR, MI  When the 19-story Legacy high-rise opened behind the Michigan Theater last August, it welcomed hundreds of University of Michigan students.

It also increased the workload of the Ann Arbor Fire Department, which has had to respond to dozens of calls there, including a number of false alarms requiring tenants to evacuate the building or go down to the lobby.

From Aug. 1 to Feb. 1, the fire department responded to 48 calls for service to the new apartment building at 616 E. Washington St., Fire Chief Mike Kennedy said.

That included two cooking fires, three emergency medical incidents, five cases of people trapped in elevators, one instance of carbon monoxide detection and five general assistance calls or cases where no incident was found. There also were 32 other calls for alarms going off due to malfunctions, drywall dust or other unintentional alarm activation, Kennedy said.

Thats a building that were currently having a lot of challenges with, he said. And its not uncommon for new buildings for there to be some gremlins there, but we still have to respond out and make sure everythings fine.

A majority of the unintentional alarm activations were from cooking smoke and some were from people smoking in the building, according to representatives for The Legacy who say theyre working to address the issues.

The new Legacy apartment high-rise on Washington Street behind the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor on Aug. 26, 2025. (Ryan Stanton | MLive.com) Ryan Stanton | The Ann Arbor News

In the same timeframe, the fire department responded to 27 calls for service at the new 13-story Verve high-rise, which opened Aug. 7 on Forest Avenue. That included nine emergency medical incidents, one carbon monoxide detection, three cases of people trapped in elevators, seven other service calls and seven other alarms where no fire or smoke was found.

Kennedy cites those numbers to show as Ann Arbor is growing denser with more high-rises, and several more coming in the next couple years, it pulls on fire department resources.

We are in high-rises all day, every day, for medicals, elevator emergencies, careless cooks, he said.

And itd be one thing if the city just had like one that went up  well, we could absorb that. Its just this density is really starting to catch up.

An Ann Arbor Fire Department engine in front of The Standard apartment high-rise on William Street downtown on May 15, 2024. (Ryan Stanton | MLive.com) Ryan Stanton | The Ann Arbor News

The chief told City Council in a budget presentation two years ago the city will need to think about eventually adding a dedicated high-rise unit to the downtown fire station with 12 additional firefighters, four per shift.

He estimates just the extra staffing is going to cost about $1.2 million annually, and the unit would need a specialized fire engine with additional pump capacity and other equipment.

City Council adopts the annual budget in May, following recommendations by the city administrator in April.

City Administrator Milton Dohoney said the fire chiefs idea is still in the analysis phase. City service areas have not yet presented their budget requests to him, so he cant say whether it will be considered this spring, he said.

That aside, I do believe that as we densify, and if that densification is vertical in nature, we will need to be prepared for serving the community both from a medical response and fire suppression perspective, Dohoney said. Exactly what that looks like will need to be thought through.

City Administrator Milton Dohoney at an Ann Arbor City Council work session on Nov. 12, 2024. (Ryan Stanton | MLive.com) Ryan Stanton | The Ann Arbor News

As Ann Arbor has grown denser, it has seen a reduction in fire department staffing, Kennedy noted.

In the late 1990s, the fire department had 115 firefighters. As of 2011, it was down to 89.

The fire department now has 88 budgeted full-time equivalent positions, counting five in administration, four in fire prevention, two in emergency management, one handling emergency medical services, one in training with two recruits and one in logistics.

Kennedy said the department has 72 firefighters assigned to daily operations, three shifts of 24, but usually its down to a minimum of 18 per shift due to employee time off.

Theres been growth across the city, but especially downtown the vertical growth is a challenge, Kennedy said. Fighting a fire on a 10th floor is much different than in a single-family home, he said.

We obviously need people and equipment for both, but that reflex time to get to those upper stories is much more staffing dependent, he said.

A fire in the air ducts of NeoPapalis Pizza, 500 E. William St. in Ann Arbor, spread smoke to the Z West Apartments building. No one was injured, officials said. MLive file photo. Jacob Hamilton | MLive.com

Kennedy said he didnt have exact figures for how many fires there have been in downtown high-rises in recent years, but theres usually about one or two serious ones per year where firefighters have to go inside and hook up hoses to standpipe systems in stair towers to fight them. Some smaller kitchen fires can be put out with fire extinguishers, he said.

Fortunately, a lot of the times with modern building systems, the fire department receives quick notifications, and sprinkler systems help control fires, Kennedy said. Even so, firefighters are spending a lot of time making sure fires are out and shutting off sprinklers to prevent water damage, and theyre time-intensive calls that can tie up crews for a couple hours, he said.

That makes crews not available for other calls, requiring other units from across the city to respond to stacked calls downtown more frequently, pulling them away from their stations and neighborhoods, Kennedy said.

It creates gaps in coverage across the city and then longer response times to those outward parts of the city, he said.

Mike Kennedy talks about the hybrid fire trucks being integrated into the Ann Arbor Fire Department during a firetruck ceremony at the Ann Arbor Fire Department on Thursday, May 1, 2025. Jackson Ranger | MLive.com

Kennedy said he understands theres a lot of competing priorities for city dollars, but with all the growth the city is seeing theres a real need for an additional firefighting team that could handle high-rises and other calls.

Thered be some other tools and equipment on there that would be more in line with dealing with high-rise emergencies, he said. But I want to be super clear, that unit would be part of our overall operations, so if there was an apartment fire on the west side, we would still be able to use the firefighters on that, and that would help out with our overall on-duty staffing.

Ann Arbors tallest building, the 26-story Tower Plaza on William Street, was built in the 1960s and the fire department doesnt have a ladder truck that can reach the top of it, Kennedy said.

Theres not a fire department in the United States that has a ladder that could reach that, he said. So, thats where it really becomes where its such staffing dependent, because in those situations were having to fight the fire from the inside.

At right, the 1960s-era Tower Plaza. Further down, the Hub on Campus William high-rise under construction along William Street next to the downtown library in Ann Arbor on Jan. 7, 2026. (Ryan Stanton | MLive.com) Ryan Stanton | The Ann Arbor News

The city has seen over a dozen new high-rises around eight to 14 stories since the early 2000s and several newer ones being built or in the works are 15 to 20 stories. Downtown could see even taller buildings under future zoning reforms.

Firefighters usually try to take a high-rise elevator to two floors below a fire, Kennedy said.

Thats assuming that the elevators are still functional, he said. Sometimes if water gets in the elevator shaft, well lose the ability to even use the elevators.

The fire departments current ladder truck  along with a new one on order  has a 100-foot reach, but angled diagonally it often can only reach about five to seven floors up, he said.

In some cases, going up more vertically, the ladder might reach eight or nine floors, he said, and it could potentially spray up to several additional floors with a hose at the top. But often it still requires getting inside, he said, and while one crew is doing fire attack, additional crews do search and rescue.

It really becomes a simple numbers game of how many staff we have to be able to do all these different functions concurrently, he said, noting it also requires the right gear.

Ann Arbor Fire Department firefighters battle a fire above NeoPapalis Pizza, 500 E. William St. in Ann Arbor on Thursday, June 17, 2021. The fire, which originated on the shared lower level roof of NeoPapalis and Z West Apartments, led to the evacuation of the restaurant, apartment building and neighboring Cottage Inn Restaurant. Jacob Hamilton | The Ann Arbor News

From an equipment standpoint, weve really spent a tremendous amount of money, time and effort the last five years with improving our high-rise operations, he said, saying the department was not trained or prepared enough before.

Thats been a big focus for the department and it has become one of the leading departments in Michigan when it comes to high-rise operations, Kennedy said. The department has brought in instructors from Chicago, Denver and Toronto to look at its operations and help train firefighters and make equipment recommendations, he said.

From the training and equipment perspective, were really in good shape and were following national best practices, he said Its just having the staffing available to be able to do those things.

Firefighters use the top floor of the Forest Avenue parking structure as a practice range for a high-rise firefighting training session hosted by the Ann Arbor Fire Department in Ann Arbor on Tuesday, May 23, 2023. Jacob Hamilton | MLive.com

Any building over five stories presents an added logistical challenge for fighting fires and there are dozens of those buildings now, Kennedy said, and the challenges start to compound when getting up to 10, 15 or 20 stories.

As for the 19-story Legacy high-rise, Kennedy said the fire department is working with the buildings management to try to address the sensitivity of the fire alarm system and making suggestions like shifting locations of smoke detectors in kitchen areas to reduce the number of false alarms.

Its a huge inconvenience for the 500-plus tenants when alarms go off for the entire building from too much smoke from cooking in one apartment, said Howard Frehsee, co-developer of The Legacy. Theyve been working with the fire alarm system manufacturer to come up with a solution to improve the ability to just alert management and the apartment where theres an issue without getting everybody else involved, he said.

They still need to follow required regulations, and alarms will alert the entire building in case of actual fires, Frehsee said.

Our team is all over it, because we know its a problem and we know that its a disruption, he said of the alarm systems sensitivity. Its extremely sensitive for the protection of people, but in this case its too sensitive.

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NORTHFIELD TWP., MI  Driving home before dawn after working a security job overnight in Ann Arbor, Malachi Shanks saw a pair of headlights coming toward him fast.

The headlights in front of him looked like they were in the median on U.S. 23 near Territorial Road until it was too late, he said.

I tried to swerve but we impacted head on, the 26-year-old Montrose man said.

It was just before 6:15 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 8, when a 1993 Jeep Cherokee going south on the northbound lanes crashed head-on into Shanks pickup.

The driver of the Jeep, a 58-year-old Brighton man, suffered critical injuries and was taken to University of Michigan Hospital where he was later pronounced dead, according to the Michigan State Police.

His name has not been released.

Shanks was taken to the hospital as well where he was treated and released. He is now home recovering from his injuries, he said.

I am home recovering, very sore, scraped and thankful to be alive, Shanks said. MRI and X-rays show no broken bones or internal injuries. Possible concussion or long-term soreness but waiting to know the extent of that.

He said he had been in a few fender benders in the past, but had never been in a serious crash up until Sunday morning.

Shanks said he is thankful for all the support he has gotten since the crash.

Thank you to the staff at University of Michigan Hospital, all first responders, my family, my amazing supportive fiance Shyonna, and especially God for keeping me alive, he said. My condolences and prayers to the family and friends of the other driver.

The crash remains under investigation. It is unknown if drugs or alcohol were factors in the crash, police said.

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ANN ARBOR, MI  A man who pleaded no contest to raping and torturing a woman will serve up to 60 years in prison.

Thomas Tieking was sentenced to back-to-back sentences of 18 to 30 years in prison for first-degree sexual misconduct and two sentences of 15 to 30 years for charges of torture and assault with intent to murder.

The latter two sentences will be served concurrently, per court records. He was sentenced on Jan. 30 before Washtenaw County Trial Court Judge Carol Kuhnke.

If he were to serve the maximum amount of time, the 60-year imprisonment is effectively a life sentence for the 46-year-old.

Tieking took a last-minute plea deal on Dec. 8, the day his jury trial was supposed to begin, pleading no contest to the five felonies.

He was set to stand trial for reportedly binding his then-girlfriend with cable ties and assaulting her multiple ways including with a beer bottle, a pistol and multiple condiment bottles, according to previous testimony from Michigan State Police Detective Sgt. Kailee Schuett.

Tieking arrived at his and his then-girlfriends Augusta Township home around 7 p.m. Feb. 15, 2021, and accused his girlfriend of cheating on him before punching her in the face, Schuett said. He then beat her over the course of several hours, including at times in front of children in the home, according to testimony.

The woman had lacerations on her forehead, bruising on her head and arms, and blood in her ears, Schuett said. The womans name is being withheld because MLive does not typically name victims of sexual assault.

This is the second time Tieking has been charged in connection with the incident. He had been originally charged in 2021, but the case was dropped after 10 weeks because the victim did not appear for court, Rene Gonzalez, Michigan State Police spokesperson, previously said.

He was arraigned on the case for a second time in November 2023 and was sent to trial in February 2024. The case had been delayed for several months while Tieking fought a decision to allow testimony from a sexual assault nurse examiner. Michigan 2nd District Court of Appeals Judge Randy Wallace denied Tiekings application to appeal the lower court decision in an order signed April 4.

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News / National

by Stephen Jakes

Matabeleland South Patriotic Vendors4ED Provincial Chairperson Thobekile Mafu has briefed members in the province on the organisation's recent name change and the dismissal of the former national executive, promising improved accountability and better prospects for traders.The organisation's new leadership, led by Sawu Jere, resolved last week to rebrand from Vendors4ED to Patriotic Vendors4ED. The decision follows allegations that former national chairperson Samora Chisvo abused about US$125 000 of the US$200 000 allocated under the Presidential Empowerment Fund for vendors across the country's ten provinces.In her address, Mafu said the developments stem from events at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) on 25 June 2025, where Young Women for Economic Development hosted a Land Tenure programme. The event reportedly featured a speech by Kudakwashe Tagwirei."The event supported empowerment and the Land Tenure launch, and witnessed Bulawayo Province Vendors being launched. President's Advisor, Paul Tungwarara, handed over US$40 000 to the then Vendors National Chairperson, Samora Chisvo, for Bulawayo and Matabeleland North Province Vendors," Mafu said.She added that Matabeleland South members expected to receive their own empowerment allocation at the same event but were surprised when only Matabeleland North was called out, despite Mat South having been launched earlier.Mafu said that after receiving the funds, Chisvo and Tendai Charuka allegedly sped off before the meeting ended, raising suspicion. Days later, Chisvo was asked to explain why Mat North received funding ahead of Mat South. He reportedly instructed Mat South leaders to open an account at Empower Bank, which they did, but no funds were deposited."Due to such behaviour and dishonesty from Samora Chisvo, he was expelled from the Vendors affiliate," Mafu said.She emphasised that the key purpose of her address was to inform members that during the affiliates' vetting and registration exercise at ZanuPF Headquarters on 5 February 2026, Matabeleland South leadership agreed to change the organisation's trading name from Vendors4ED to Patriotic Vendors4ED, distancing themselves from what she described as the "thuggish leadership of Chisvo and his cabal"."Beware, vendors, of these crooks. Do not be fooled again," she said.
ANN ARBOR, MI  Another potential candidate for Ann Arbors open 4th Ward City Council seat has laid out his platform.

Democrat Jeffrey Milk, 20, said hes campaigning to bring a renter voice to council after dealing with frustrating issues living in an old apartment building downtown.

Milk said several tenants in his building have had to go without working heat and he has been organizing as interim president of a new tenants union to help get issues addressed.

His landlord has been raising rent while forgoing critical maintenance, he alleges.

Theres been a whole slew of other things, he said. Ive had roaches. Ive had backed-up plumbing. Apparently one of our dryers just caught on fire the other day and we had to evacuate.

His landlord did not respond to a request for comment from MLive/The Ann Arbor News.

Milk said he and his neighbors decided it would be best to work together, which led him to knock doors to start a tenants union.

Were really pushing for better standards of living within our own apartment complex, and weve begun partnering with the Ann Arbor Tenants Union to kind of push better standards for everyone, he said.

The Macomb County native, who said he moved to Ann Arbor last year, has launched a campaign website at jsm.vote as he seeks the seat being vacated by Dharma Akmon.

Milk, who plans to compete in the August primary, pulled petitions from the city clerks office in December and must file 100 voter signatures to get on the ballot.

Ann Arbor District Library board member Aidan Sova also announced hes planning to run in the Democratic primary and pulled petitions in January. Another potential candidate, Democrat David Zeglen, pulled petitions in December but has yet to formally announce his campaign.

Milk states on his campaign website he wants to make Ann Arbor a home for everyone, not just the elites. His website makes known some of his positions on affordable housing, University of Michigan oversight, cost of living, public transportation, the environment and sustainability, public safety and human rights, and diversity, equity and inclusion.

Milk said he has advised tenants in his building they can withhold rent until their landlord addresses certain issues, but a lot of tenants dont even know where to begin when it comes to exercising their rights.

And I think thats kind of a failure of City Council at this point of not educating tenants the way they should, he said.

At this point, its becoming literally uninhabitable for tenants, and the going rate for next year is about $2,500 for a one bedroom, one bath, Milk said.

Milk also argues the city didnt do enough to try to stop the university from buying up blocks of houses under the threat of eminent domain for new campus dorms. Hed rather the city explore using eminent domain against greedy slumlords to turn their properties into public housing, he said.

Milk said he previously worked for the Warren city treasurers office and is starting a new job as an executive assistant at Trinity Health while finishing an associates degree in paralegal studies at Washtenaw Community College.

Though he only moved to Ann Arbor last year, its a place he visited and made friends over the years, he said, and he feels like he kind of grew up here, just couldnt afford to live here. He has watched friends who grew up in Ann Arbor no longer be able to afford living here due to gentrification, he said, lamenting housing prices and arguing the city isnt tackling the issue aggressively enough.

Milk said he has no relation to the late San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, but he deeply respects his activism and also identifies as a member of the queer community.

I would 100% continue that kind of activism in City Council, he said.

Milk said he recognizes hes the underdog against Sova, who has endorsements from Mayor Christopher Taylor and all 10 other council members, as well as several other local officials.

Sova has laid out his platform at voteaidansova.com, listing among his priorities expanding housing supply through dense, transit-oriented development and inclusionary zoning.

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DEARBORN, MI - City officials announced that crime in Dearborn has declined for the second consecutive year.

Mayor Abdullah Hammoud and police leaders credited the drop to increased staffing, new technology and sustained investment in public safety.

Crime, especially violent crime and theft of valuable property, has decreased across the city for the last two years, Hammoud said during a press conference Feb. 10 at the Dearborn Administrative Center.

According to city data, Dearborn has seen a 14% year-over-year decline in violent crime, which includes robberies and assaults.

Hammoud said that amounts to a cumulative 20% reduction over the past two years.

Among the most significant drops, burglaries  including home invasions  are down 40%, robberies are down 22%, and vehicle thefts have declined 30% year over year.

These are tangible improvements in public safety made possible by the men and women of the Dearborn Police Department who we place our trust in, Hammoud said.

Police Chief Issa Shahin said the reductions are unlike anything he has seen during his nearly three decades with the department.

Its really remarkable, Shahin said.

Shahin credited the results first to officers on patrol, saying, Its really their dedication and their commitment to this community thats made a difference.

He also pointed to cooperation across city government, describing a whole government approach to public safety.

What I really love about the city of Dearborn is you have everyone truly pulling in the same direction, Shahin said. You have the mayors office, you have city council that funds the things that we need and supports our Department of Public Safety in ways that you really dont see in many places.

Shahin highlighted recent investments in technology, including new Tasers, Flock license-plate reader cameras, a real-time information center, and a drone first-responder program launched last week.

He also noted the addition of translation software on body-worn cameras that allows officers to translate in real time in 56 languages.

These technologies have been paired with clear policies, training and accountability, Shahin said. These investments have improved safety and supported more effective policing in our community.

The department is now staffed at 191 officers, a level Shahin said Dearborn has not reached in nearly 20 years.

City Council President Michael Sareini said the crime reductions reflect a shared vision between council, the mayors office and police leadership.

Im a firm believer that the fundamental safety and security of our residents is a top priority of the council and this administration, Sareini said.

He said funding for technology upgrades comes primarily from the citys general fund, supplemented by grants and forfeiture funds, and pledged continued financial support.

If there was a grant that would run out at a certain time, we will then backfill it with our regular funding, Sareini said.

During the question-and-answer portion, Shahin confirmed that crime classifications for assault, burglary, robbery and vehicle theft have not changed in recent years, and that reductions are being seen across all neighborhoods in the city.

Hammoud also noted progress in traffic safety, saying crashes causing bodily injury are down 15% year over year, while citations are up roughly 30%.

The mayor added that Dearborn has again been recognized as the second-safest large city in Michigan, defined as cities with populations over 100,000.

Were trailing only one city, Sterling Heights, Hammoud said. On the violent crime reports that the FBI publishes, Sterling Heights has only one less violent crime than Dearborn.
LIVONIA, MI - Coopers Hawk Winery & Restaurants is opening a new location in Livonia, marking its fifth restaurant in Michigan and its third in the Detroit area.

The restaurant will open March 2 at 17115 N. Laurel Park Drive, near Laurel Park Place, according to the companys news release.

The Livonia site expands the Illinois-based brands footprint as it continues growing across southeast Michigan.

Founded in 2005 by CEO Tim McEnery and headquartered in Downers Grove, Illinois, Coopers Hawk blends a modern casual restaurant with a Napa-style tasting room and retail wine market. The chain is best known for pairing contemporary American dishes with wines produced exclusively for its restaurants.

The Livonia kitchen will be led by culinary manager Kariel Smith, working with executive chef Matt McMillin. Each dish on the menu is listed with a bin number to guide diners toward a suggested wine pairing.

Menu highlights include crispy Brussels sprouts, filet medallions served three ways, soy ginger Atlantic salmon, gnocchi carbonara, and bacon-wrapped drunken shrimp.

In addition to lunch and dinner, the restaurant will offer brunch, happy hour, carryout, catering, and a dedicated gluten-free menu.

Coopers Hawk operates what it calls the worlds largest wine club, with more than 840,000 members nationwide.

The winery produces more than 60 varietals and has earned more than 600 wine awards, sourcing grapes from vineyards around the world. Guests can also choose from craft cocktails and sangrias made with Coopers Hawk wines.

The Livonia restaurant includes seating for 246 guests indoors, a covered patio with space for 48 more, and private dining areas that can accommodate up to 48 people. As with other locations, the restaurant is fronted by a tasting room and retail space.

Hours of operation are:

MondayThursday: 11 a.m.9 p.m.

Friday: 11 a.m.10 p.m.

Saturday: 10 a.m.10 p.m.

Sunday: 10 a.m.9 p.m.

Reservations can be made by calling 734-356-3113 or through OpenTable.
GENESEE TWP., MI -- The Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration says a 53-year-old laborer died while on the job in Genesee Township late last week after having been fatally injured while disassembling an excavator.

MIOSHA announced the Feb. 6 workplace death -- the second in Michigan in 2026 -- on Monday, Feb. 9, but the agency did not release the workers name or identify the company the employee worked for.

The agency initially reported that the incident occurred in the city of Flint, but a spokesperson said on Tuesday, Feb. 10, that the location was in the township in an area with a Flint mailing address.

MLive-The Flint Journal could not immediately reach Genesee Township officials for additional information.

The MIOSHA announcement reads that the incident occurred when two employees were standing in the bucket of a front-end loader, attempting to reinstall a pin on the arm of an excavator.

The operator of the loader attempted to start and move the arm of the excavator to help reinstall the pin, according to the statement, but the excavator cab and arm rotated, pinning the victim between the arm and the bucket of the front-end loader.

MIOSHA said the employee was transported to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

A spokesperson for the agency said it has opened an investigation into the incident to determine whether workplace health and safety standards apply and if violations occurred.

Citations would be issued following the completion of the investigation, according to the statement.

The incident was the second workplace death in Michigan this year.

In the first incident, a 26-year-old man was killed on Jan. 10 while moving a flatbed in Montcalm County, according to Michigan State Police.

That incident occurred at Greenville Steel.

,
GRAND RAPIDS, MI  The president emeritus of the Acton Institute, a Grand Rapids think tank that promotes free markets and religious liberty, is criticizing a Hong Kong court for sentencing media tycoon and China critic Jimmy Lai to prison Monday.

Rev. Robert Sirico, who co-founded the Acton Institute in 1990 and is a friend of Lai, said the 20-year prison sentence for the 78-year-old pro-democracy activist and former newspaper publisher amounts to a death sentence.

One must remember that this is a conviction because the man spoke out, because he wrote, he protested, he called for freedom in Hong Kong and in China more generally, said Sirico, who helped create a 2023 Acton Institute documentary, The Hong Konger, about Lais life and activism.

Lai, a billionaire, was convicted in December of conspiring with others to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security, and conspiracy to publish seditious articles, the Associated Press reported. Hes been in custody for more than five years, and has health complications such as high blood pressure and diabetes.

Lai founded the Apple Daily newspaper in 1995, two years before Hong Kong, a former British colony, returned to Chinese rule, the AP reported.

The newspaper, known for its critical coverage of the Hong Kong and Chinese governments, closed in 2021, amid what the AP described as another sign of Chinas tightening grip on the semi-autonomous city.

Sirico, a Catholic priest, said he met Lai in 1997 or 1998 through Bill McGurn, a mutual friend who at the time worked for the Asian Wall Street Journal and later became the chief speechwriter for former President George W. Bush.

He said he and Lai bonded over their shared Catholic faith and free market philosophy during a meal at an Italian restaurant in Hong Kong

Immediately we hit it off, just personality wise, Sirico said. I mean, admittedly hes a billionaire, but he didnt come off like that. He just came off like working class because thats really what he was.

Over the years, the two developed a close friendship.

Sirico accompanied Lais family on a trip to Italy, showing them around the ancient city of Pompeii, and the two spent time together in New York and San Francisco, as well as Hong Kong and Taiwan.

In 2020, after Lai was arrested for violating a Chinese-imposed national security law, the Acton Institute awarded Lai its Faith and Freedom Award. Later, in 2023, the Acton Institute created The Hong Konger documentary to raise awareness about Lais life and activism.

The documentary, which has five million views on YouTube, received a publicity boost shortly after its release. TikTok temporarily suspended the Acton Institutes account for posting clips of The Hong Konger on the social media platform. At the time, TikToks parent company was ByteDance, which is based in China.

The suspension drew critical media coverage from Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and was called out by U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar, a Republican from Caledonia whos frequently critical of China.

Were very grateful to whoever decided to do that, Sirico joked of the TikTok suspension.

Looking forward, Sirico said hes hopeful President Donald Trump will push for Lais release during an April meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

It falls now to see what happens with Trump, and if Trumps magical negotiations can produce something, he said. I think the administration has been quiet about it because I suspect that theyre having some conversations behind the scenes with the Chinese.

The Acton Institute has remained in touch with Lais family and hosted his daughter Claire in Grand Rapids last week. Claire, who splits her time between the U.S. and London, has emerged as a spokesperson for her father, Sirico said.

She asked if she could come and talk with us and really be helped in kind of fine tuning her message, how you do interviews, all of that kind of stuff, he said.

Reflecting on Lais journey, Sirico said the imprisonment of the 78-year-old has consequences that stretch beyond Hong Kong.

Everybody should be concerned about the morality of this, he said.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI  A 25-year veteran of the Grand Rapids Police Department has been named interim police chief after Chief Eric Winstrom announced his resignation last week.

Joseph Trigg, who currently serves as deputy chief of police for field operations, will step in as Grand Rapids interim police chief starting on March 2, the city announced in a news release Monday, Feb. 9.

Trigg will take over the role after Winstroms departure to Florida to serve as the new police chief of the Pensacola Police Department.

Deputy Chief Trigg has demonstrated strong leadership and a deep commitment to public safety, and this community, throughout his career, City Manager Mark Washington said in a statement. His experience and knowledge of our city make him well-suited to lead the department during this transition.

Trigg, a native of Muskegon, joined GRPD in 2001 and worked as a patrol officer on Grand Rapids northeast side. He later served as a community policing specialist for more than three years, followed by leading patrol operations as a sergeant on the east and south neighborhoods of the city.

In 2016, he was promoted to lieutenant and served as a watch commander before leading the Internal Affairs Unit, the city said. He was named captain in 2022 and led police services on the south side of Grand Rapids before being promoted to deputy chief in 2023.

I am honored to serve as interim chief and continue working alongside the dedicated men and women of the Grand Rapids Police Department, Trigg said in a statement. Our focus will remain on ensuring safety for everyone in the community, strengthening relationships and maintaining the highest level of professional policing standards here in Grand Rapids.

Grand Rapids Police Chief Eric Winstrom, left, and Deputy Chief Joseph Trigg, right, stand together at a ceremony honoring Breonna Taylor at Rosa Parks Circle in this MLive file photo from March 13, 2023. Trigg has been named as the department's interim police chief following the planned departure of Winstrom, who is taking a new job in Florida on March 2. Joel Bissell | MLive.com

Trigg earned his associates degree from Grand Rapids Community College and his bachelors degree in criminal justice from Grand Valley State University.

Winstrom, whos served as GRPD chief since 2022, announced his move to Florida last week, saying the decision came down to what was best for his family.

RELATED: Grand Rapids Police Chief Winstrom says Florida move best for my family

The city plans to hold a national search for Winstroms permanent replacement, according to the news release. Washington said the city will hire a search firm to lead the process, which will include opportunities for input from the public and law enforcement.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Grand Rapids soon-to-be interim deputy chief said he plans to continue with lauded methods of departing Chief Eric Winstrom.

Deputy Chief Joe Trigg said hell look to be out in the community for the public and also supporting officers any way possible.

Trigg, a 25-year Grand Rapids police veteran, will become interim chief on March 2 as current Police Chief Eric Winstrom leaves for a new job as Pensacolas top cop.

Winstrom, who served four years in Grand Rapids, cultivated a reputation for being accessible to both the public and media. He often showed up at major crime scenes and various community events.

Trigg, 49, said he hopes to do the same.

Im going to keep it going, he said. (Winstrom) has offered a blueprint.

I think he put some good pieces in place that are good to continue, he said.

He said it bolsters officer morale and the departments public image to have the chief and other high-ranking officers seen regularly in public.

Winstrom had an all-hands-on-deck policy for police coverage of events like Fourth of July and New Years Eve.

Seeing the impact that has on our officers, seeing the highest-level ranking officers out there working with them, the feedback we got was amazing, he said.

Trigg grew up in Muskegon and was raised by a single mother.

Hes quick to acknowledge that family life wasnt always tranquil and that his mother was a domestic violence victim.

As a child, he called 911 more than once to get help at home.

He viewed the arriving officers as heroes and gained an appreciation for their job. It was the catalyst for his later career choice.

Trigg went to Grand Rapids Community College, then Grand Valley State University before finally attending the Lansing Community College Police Academy and starting a new job with Grand Rapids police in 2001.

Now, his children are following in his footsteps.

His son started as a new officer hire last year and his daughter is attending college, hoping to be in police forensics.

Trigg said his motivation for police work is simply helping people.

Its as cliche as it sounds, but its the most genuine answer, he said.
KENT COUNTY, MI  A judge ordered a Cedar Springs woman to stand trial in the deaths  five years apart  of two of her children.

Irene Aiyana Whitehead faces multiple charges, including felony murder, in the killings of her daughter, Ryleigh, 2, on Sept. 3, 2025, and her son, Leonard, 2 months, on Sept. 25, 2021.

She also allegedly tried to kill another child.

At a preliminary examination in 63rd District Court, Kent County prosecutors presented video recordings of Whiteheads admissions to killing her children, and testimony describing disturbing Google searches. Prosecutors also showed chilling video that Whitehead took of her daughter as she struggled to breathe.

Seated at the defense table, Whitehead bowed her head while watching the emotional video.

District Judge Jeffrey OHara ordered Whitehead to stand trial in Kent County Circuit Court on two counts of first-degree felony murder, two counts of first-degree child abuse and second-degree child abuse.

OHara said that evidence showed that Whitehead wanted her children dead. He said that Whitehead was mad that another daughter didnt die.

Julia Kelly, the Kent County Public Defender, argued that the only evidence against her client was a 6-hour, 50-minute interview. She said detectives were aware that Whitehead was represented by legal counsel and shouldnt have interviewed her without an attorney.

Whitehead was reluctant to talk to police, Kelly said.

The judge said Whitehead was properly given her Miranda warning, including her right to an attorney and to remain silent.

Sheriffs detectives began investigating Whitehead after her daughters death late last year. She was under surveillance at times and was in contact with police before her arrest in late November.

Sheriffs Sgt. Jon Paulson testified he happened to go to both calls involving Whiteheads children who died.

She was surprisingly calm, he said. She even texted about the loss of her daughter two minutes after she learned she died.

This one stood out to me because others  I would describe as hectic, screaming, loud crying, Paulson testified.

Whitehead explained that the girl had suffered breathing problems when she called 911.

The cause of her death was initially found to be indeterminate.

Dr. David Start, a forensic pathologist, said he early on could not rule out smothering or suffocation. Once Whitehead allegedly confessed, Start amended his findings and determined that both children died of asphyxia by smothering.

Whitehead told police she smothered her daughter by putting a plastic garbage bag over her mouth.

Investigators used search warrants to obtain Google searches Whitehead made as well as social media.

Sheriffs detective Anna Birkeland said that four days before her son died she asked in a Google search, Why do I feel like I regret having the baby?

Whitehead also once said that her son was never supposed to be born.

Assistant Kent County Prosecutor Travis Early said that Whitehead was also upset that her family loved all of her four children, not just her favored child.

In March 2022, she allegedly searched selling children on the black market and black-market adoptions.

Whitehead also admitted she tried to kill a then-6-month-old daughter on Aug. 26, 2020, by putting a blanket over her face.
KENT COUNTY, MI  There will be no new data center proposals in Solon Township for at least six months.

The Solon Township Board of Trustees on Monday, Feb. 9 unanimously approved a six-month moratorium on data center proposals, generating thunderous applause from the people in attendance.

Solon Township is a rural community of about 6,500 people that is about 23 miles north of Grand Rapids.

Documents obtained by an anonymous resident via the Freedom of Information Act show that township officials had been communicating with the Right Place, the economic development organization for Kent County, since May 2025 about a potential data center in the township.

The anonymous developer has not yet submitted a site plan and now must wait half a year to do so after Monday nights meeting. That did not stop dozens of residents from voicing their concerns about a potential large-scale data center.

The biggest issues are water usage, electricity usage and the environmental impact, Anna Feldpausch of Solon Township told MLive/the Grand Rapids Press. It also removes the rural vibe of Solon Township. Weve got a few big corporations, but nothing of this scale anywhere near here.

The townships planning commission on Jan. 28 recommended the board approve a 90-day moratorium on data center proposals.

At Monday nights board meeting Township Clerk Dorothy Willoughby recommended at least a six-month moratorium on data center proposals. The township can extend the moratorium if needed.

I dont know of one instance where weve approved something for 90 days, Willoughby said. That only gives the planning commission about two meetings to gather information, so I would make a motion for a six-month moratorium on data centers, she said.

Several residents during the public comment period praised the board for issuing the moratorium, while others insisted that now was the time for the board to exercise due diligence.

We dont have a site plan, we dont know what they actually want to do, Andrew Thompson of Cedar Springs said. We have a six-month moratorium now. Id like to make sure we use those six months to get information so we can address those concerns productively.

Township Supervisor Robert Ellick replied that he would also like more information about the proposed data center.

The documents showed that Ellick signed a nondisclosure agreement regarding the project in June 2025. That agreement, however, was terminated in December after meetings between the township and the Right Place ended, Ellick said.

I told them in November were not having any more meetings, so you can make this data center NDA go away or not; I dont care, he said.

Ellick also denied any rumors that he had accepted bribes from the developer to push a data center development in the township.

Theres no money in this potential deal for the board or the planning commission, Ellick said. I got a couple cold sandwiches out of the deal if that means anything to you.

Data centers are basically warehouses of computer hardware for servers, data storage and network equipment that are used to power artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

Theyve been in Michigan for a while now. The Switch Pyramid is the most prominent one in Kent County. But recent investments in hyperscale data centers to sustain artificial intelligence have drawn criticism because they use significant electricity and water to power and cool their servers and equipment.

Microsoft is eyeing two pieces of land in Kent County for data center development. One is a potential $1 billion data center on a 237-acre industrial parcel at 4687 Alden Nash Ave. SE in the Lowell Township.

Microsoft also plans to build a data center on the northwest corner of Patterson Avenue and 76th Street. The tech giant bought the land from Steelcase in October 2024 for $45.3 million.

Residential pushbacks have caused delays in the planning process for both projects. The Lowell Township Planning Commission initially planned to hold a public hearing on the project on Dec. 8. The planning commission, however, ended up postponing the meeting until January due to an overflow crowd that showed up to the hearing.

Lowell Township Supervisor Jerry Hale later announced the data center proposal was being postponed indefinitely by the developer and its agent, Franklin Partners.

In Gaines Township, a public hearing in mid-December was canceled because the venue was over capacity.

Hundreds of people from Gaines Township and the surrounding area packed the township hall that night, overwhelming its max capacity of 250 and forcing the planning commission to postpone the public hearing until February.

The meeting again was canceled after Microsoft sent a letter to the township asking to delay the meeting until late March.

While the identity of the company behind the Solon Township project has not been disclosed, officials from the Right Place said it is not Microsoft, according to the documents.
RIVES TWP., MI  Norman Joseph Heim was an honorable man who loved motorcycles and shooting pool at the American Legion hall, but he loved one thing more: his four daughters.

His girls Amber Heim, Sheila Mazo, Brandy St. John and Pamela Heim are all adults now but still remember their years growing up with their dad in Napoleon.

We had a really good childhood, Sheila Mazo said. When Amber (the youngest daughter) was born, I remember us camping out in the living room. He came in through the kitchen door and said you got another sister. Im going to bed.

He was always involved in his daughters lives, they said.

He told Sheila Mazo that when she was a baby and wouldnt stop crying, he took her outside and held her in his arms and fired up his motorcycle. The low rumbling and vibration of the bike brought her to peace immediately, the daughters said.

Working as a truck driver for 40 years, Norman Heim always found a way to make it home every night to spend time with his girls or watch them play softball.

I cant think of a bad thing to say about him or that anybody else could say about him, Sheila Mazo said. He was just an all around great guy.

Norman Heim, 76, died on Jan. 15 after a car struck him on Lansing Avenue near South Oak Creek Drive in Rives Township, Jackson County Undersheriff Anthony Stewart said.

The unknown vehicle hit Norman Heim at about 9:36 p.m. The vehicle that hit him fled the crash scene at a high rate of speed prior to police arriving, Stewart said.

No arrests have been made. There are no updates in the case and police are still investigating, Stewart said.

Our dad was a good man. He didnt deserve that, Amber Heim said. And I know were not going to move on. Like, we cant go through the grieving process until we get some answers here.

Norman Heims family is offering a $10,000 reward for information that helps bring the person who killed him to justice.

We understand that accidents happen, but to leave him there and not call for help, leaving him to die on the side of the road by himself, I cant believe how heartless someone could be to do that, Brandy St. John said.

Norman Heim graduated from Napoleon High School in 1968.

Looking at his high school graduation photo, his daughters said he looked incredibly like the rock musician Buddy Holly, a compliment that filled him with glee, Amber Heim said.

He joined the U.S. Army after high school and was deployed to Vietnam with the 101st Airborne Infantry Division where he rose through the ranks, serving as a sergeant.

He rarely talked about his time in the war.

He mentioned things here or there, but I mean you move up quick in the ranks when something happens, Brandy St. John said. He really didnt talk openly about it.

Norman Heim, who was managing the onset of dementia, had recently moved into an adult foster care home near where he was hit. He had lived there for only six days, Amber Heim said.

We know that somebody knows something, Brandy St. John said. We want people to speak out. He deserves justice. He was a good man and he did not deserve to die like that.

Anyone with information about the crash is asked to contact Detective Mark Easter at 517-768-7934.

Want more Jackson-area news? Bookmark the local Jackson news page.
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

Former ZimFirst spokesperson and journalist Jealousy Mawarire has warned Zimbabweans about what he says are plans by Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi to introduce a Constitutional Amendment Bill in 2026 that could extend President Emmerson Mnangagwa's term to 2030 and alter key constitutional provisions.Mawarire made the claims in a statement on X, saying Ziyambi was preparing to table a "Memorandum to Cabinet on the Constitutional Amendment Bill 2026", which he said contains several significant proposals."The most important, certainly, is the amendment of section 92. Section 92 gives every Zimbabwean eligible to vote the right to directly elect a president. That is the right Ziyambi wants to take away from Zimbabweans and repose in Parliament," Mawarire wrote.He argued that the proposal contradicts one of the central objectives of the liberation struggle - universal suffrage."The armed struggle was fought for universal suffrage, what they called one man, one vote', but Ziyambi now wants to take away that right and replace it with 16 million people, one parliamentary vote'," he said.Mawarire also claimed that Ziyambi intends to amend section 212, which mandates the Zimbabwe Defence Forces to "uphold this Constitution", alleging that the minister wants the word "uphold" removed."It is quite clear that Ziyambi and Mnangagwa are afraid of a coup justified by section 212 where the army exercises its role of upholding the Constitution," he said.He further alleged that Ziyambi wants to amend section 281(2), which bars traditional leaders from being partisan or advancing the interests of political parties."Only people who have been rigging elections through regimenting rural folks using chiefs would want to legalise this form of electoral fraud," Mawarire said.He criticised another proposal to return custody of the voters' roll to the RegistrarGeneral, saying this would revive past controversies."So that they rig elections using the RegistrarGeneral like in the past? What was the use of the 2013 Constitution if we are going back to Lancaster House provisions?" he asked.Mawarire added that Ziyambi wants to create a Zimbabwe Electoral Delimitation Commission solely responsible for marking electoral boundaries, which he argued could be used to gerrymander constituencies.He also said Ziyambi intends to amend section 101, which currently allows the first Vice President to assume office as President until the end of the term if the sitting President dies or resigns. Instead, Parliament would elect a replacement within 90 days."It is clear this amendment is being done to block Vice President Chiwenga from succeeding Mnangagwa in the event he dies in office or resigns," Mawarire said."Surely, Ziyambi and his cabal are dragging the whole country into political chaos just because they don't want VP Chiwenga to succeed Mnangagwa?"
JACKSON, MI  The fate of a 13-year-old boy accused of fatally shooting another teen remains in limbo Monday after the judge presiding over the case said she needs time to review the facts.

Following the continuation of the teens preliminary examination Feb. 9, Jackson County Probate and Family Court Judge Jennifer Kelly said she will issue a written decision soon on whether there is enough evidence to send the boys case over to circuit court, Jackson County Prosecutor Kelsey Guernsey said.

Shes going to withhold her decision as to bind over until she can review the original testimony from two weeks ago, Guernsey said.

Kelly did not give a timeline of when a written decision will be ready, Guernsey said.

The 13-year-olds attorney, Ivan Brown, said he believes the shooting was an accident, based on the testimony, and the prosecutor was premature in charging him.

The teen is accused of fatally shooting Isaiah Ramos-Bostwick, 16, with a gun Ramos-Bostwick allegedly brought with him to a sleepover.

Ramos-Bostwick died early Jan. 15. The 13-year-old allegedly shot him about 1 a.m. while Ramos-Bostwick was spending the night at his best friends house on Harris Street in Jackson.

Too young to be charged as an adult, the 13-year-old is charged with first-degree murder, firearm theft and other crimes as a juvenile.

MLive does not typically name defendants charged as juveniles.

Originally facing a slew of felony charges including felony murder and robbery, Guernsey said she requested the judge bind the teen over on just one count each of premeditated or first-degree murder and using a firearm to commit a felony.

Jackson Police Department detectives and Dr. Bernardino Pacris, who performed Ramos-Bostwicks autopsy, testified at the hearing.

Pacris ruled the teens death a homicide by a single gunshot wound to the face, Guernsey said.

The doctor said the bullet entered Ramos-Bostwicks right cheek from a downward angle and embedded itself in the teens neck bone, fracturing it, Guernsey said.

Detectives testified they questioned the five teens who were there when the shooting occurred. All of their statements matched except the teen accused of shooting Ramos-Bostwick, Guernsey said.

He said one of the other teens did it. When confronted with conflicting statements from the other teens, the 13-year-olds mother requested an attorney and the interview ended, Guernsey said.

Three of the teens testified previously on Jan. 26. The fourth teen was set to testify on Feb. 9 but declined to at the advisement of an attorney, Guernsey said.

It is still unclear where the gun, a .40-caliber Glock 22 handgun, came from. Preliminary information shows it was possibly purchased somewhere in Lenawee County and is not associated with any thefts or known crimes, Guernsey said.

Police are still investigating the gun, she said.

The 13-year-old remains in the Jackson County Youth Center without bond.

The case will be assigned to Jackson County Circuit Judge Richard Laflamme if bound over.

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FAYETTE TWP., MI  Amid vocal opposition to a second proposed utility-scale solar farm, the Fayette Township board has decided to enlist a Portage law firm to advise them on zoning ordinances or other project-related matters.

The board, responding to resident demands for competent independent counsel to ensure local control, settled Monday, Feb. 9, on municipal attorneys Bauckham, Thall, Seeber, Kaufman and Koches PC.

Trustee Alfred DuBois said the cost will depend on hours worked, township action and other factors, and the details are yet to be determined. We got to meet with the attorney and discuss all that stuff with the board and the attorney.

All three sitting board members voted in favor. Supervisor Nate Baker recused himself because property his father Dale Baker owns and the family farms is part of the proposed project.

Compared to other firms, their fees are reasonable, DuBois, who did not have specific numbers, said Monday at Jonesville High School, reserved for the last several township meetings to accommodate unusually large crowds.

At previous meetings, streams of residents went to the microphone to note their concerns and fears  largely environmental and aesthetic  about the possible 140-megawatt solar farm, which would involve about 1,350 acres of parcels east of Jonesville.

Chicago-based Ranger Power wants to build Heartwood Solar II roughly between U.S. 12 and North Adams Road and west of Half Moon Lake Road.

Heartwood Solar I already is under construction in the area of Jonesville and Bunn roads.

The two projects represent what would be a combined investment of about $300 million and completed, they would generate millions in property taxes, Ranger Power has said.

Once in operation, the panels are quiet and do not produce hazardous emissions or bring about harmful runoff, according to a Ranger Power representative.

Residents gather for the Fayette Township board meeting Monday, Feb. 9, at Jonesville High School, reserved for the last several township meets to accommodate large crowds of opposition to a utility-scale solar project proposed east of Jonesville. Danielle Marie Salisbury

About 60 people attended the Monday meeting and fewer residents made public comments than at previous meetings.

The residents of Fayette Township have been clear. We are not asking for obstruction. We are asking for process protection and accountability, said township resident Carrie Oleszkowicz, who lives on Half Moon Lake Road. We want development handled lawfully, cautiously and on our terms. Not rushed, not pressured, and not outsourced to outside interests.

She advocated for an alternative law firm, but the board had already made its decision.

David Danford, who lives on Moore Road, noted the board should allow for public comment at the start of the meeting and not at the end so the board could consider what people have to say ahead of votes.

He suggested too that the township, which does not have a website, post its agendas in advance of meetings.

Danford and another resident, Steve Oleszkowicz, have been leaders in the resistance.

Steve Oleszkowicz, who also lives on Half Moon Lake Road, noted real concerns about property value erosion. Once that exposure exists, it does not disappear, it compounds. At that point, the question is no longer whether risk exists. The question becomes whether the township took reasonable steps to mitigate it, he said.

Steve Oleszkowicz said as the township proceeds with inadequate counsel, the board risks being seen, rightly or wrongly, as having exposed the community to preventable harm.

Residents want the township to establish a compatible renewable energy ordinance, which provides for the development of large energy facilities within the local unit of government.

Without one, a developer could, under a hotly debated 2023 law, go directly to the Michigan Public Service Commission and apply for state review.

Ranger Power has said it wants to permit the project locally.

It has applied for a special use permit in the township. The permit was to be reviewed by the zoning administrator, DuBois, who resigned for the position Monday.

It came to his attention he could not, by the townships zoning book, serve as the administrator and on the township board, he said Monday, and the township board did not establish or discuss his replacement.

If the township changes the requirement, he will return to the role if the board wants him to do so, he said after the meeting.

Hes been doing the job about 25 years, he said.

The township planning commission has been working on updating its zoning regulations for the last couple years, he and others said. This has not been done since Jonesville, once a village, became a city and separated from the township, which surrounds it, about 12 years ago.

Planning commissioners have not considered Ranger Powers application.

The commission is to have a special meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 10, at the high school.
BRANCH COUNTY, MI  The 47-year-old Southern Michigan man extradited from Mexico nearly two years ago after he was accused of sexually assaulting two girls and giving them drugs has been sentenced to 45 to 90 years in prison.

Anthony Cuyler, a Branch County resident, was convicted in early January of three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and one count of delivery of methamphetamine to a minor.

He was sentenced Monday, Feb. 9, in Branch County Circuit Court before visiting Judge David Buter, according to a release from Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, whose office led prosecution of the case.

Originally charged in 2019, Cuyler was alleged to have assaulted 11- and 12-year-old girls before he fled and eluded authorities for several years.

He was located in Mexico and returned to Branch County in April 2024. The extradition was carried out by the U.S. Marshals Service as part of Operation Survivor Justice, a partnership between the Michigan Attorney General, local prosecutors and the marshals service to find fugitive offenders with outstanding sexual assault warrants.

Cold case sexual assaults are among the most challenging to prosecute, Nessel said in a statement after Cuylers January conviction. She commended the victims, prosecutors from her office, and Operation Survivor Justice partners for bringing Cuyler in to face charges, as well as the Branch County prosecutor for work to convict the 47-year-old after this heinous act.

My office will continue to leverage these partnerships to pursue justice for sexual assault survivors, she said.
KALAMAZOO, MI  Jonas Peterson was beyond excited to tout an all-time high $9.5 billion in economic investment happening across Southwest Michigan.

But as the CEO of Southwest Michigan First shared the good news at last weeks annual State of Economic Development at the Radisson Plaza Hotel, he also noted theres much work to be done.

When we look out across the region, we know, and you know as well, that far too many in Southwest Michigan are not truly experiencing prosperity, Peterson said, while addressing a crowd of 500 at the sold-out event on Thursday, Feb. 5.

If you hear nothing else from me today, I want you to hear this, our region is at an economic crossroads, he said.

If challenges, such as stymied population growth and affordability, are not addressed, the potential for prosperity could be derailed, he said. As a result, opportunity could be impeded today and for generations to come, he said.

As federal and state governments pull back support for economic development, business leaders need to be proactive, Peterson said.

Weve got challenges, but nonetheless, weve got more opportunities than weve ever seen before, he said. Now is not the time to go small. Now is the time to accelerate the work of regional economic development.

Thats what the road ahead is all about. ... We have momentum. Leaders are uniting capital. Investment is at an all-time high. Engagement is on the rise and at an all-time high.

In the past three years, Peterson said, over 4,900 jobs have been created across the seven-county region Southwest Michigan First represents as the areas largest regional economic development organization. That region includes Berrien, Branch, Cass, Calhoun, Kalamazoo, St. Joseph and Van Buren counties.

Through collaboration, through regionalism, by working together in all seven counties we achieved results that otherwise would not have been possible, he said.

That included over 1,000 events featuring more than 18,000 participants, Peterson said.

We believe thats a level of engagement thats at the highest of any economic development organization in the Midwest, he said.

Most noteworthy, however, are the projects happening across the region, totaling an all-time $9.5 billion in capital investment over the past three years.

That includes $5.9 billion for industrial projects that were completed in the last three years or are currently underway. It also includes $3.6 billion in community and residential projects tracked the same.

Some of the highlights of community and residential projects include the $87 million Friendship Village expansion, the $100 million KRESA Career Connect Center and the $515 million Kalamazoo Event Center, all in Kalamazoo.

Among the industrial highlights include the $70 million Landscape Forms expansion, in Kalamazoo County, $133 million in upgrades at American Axle in Three Rivers and the $2.1 billion Palisades Nuclear Plant project in Covert.

Want more Kalamazoo-area news? Bookmark MLives local Kalamazoo news page.
BAY CITY, MI  Bay Future will host its 22nd annual meeting on Feb. 25, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel - Bay City Riverfront.

Individual tickets cost $60, while tables of eight are available for $450. Tickets remain available for purchase.

The organization describes the gathering as an opportunity to highlight community engagement and collaboration in Bay County.

Bay Future, Inc. was established in 2004 as a public-private alliance bringing together government, business and other organizations focused on economic growth in Bay County and the Great Lakes Bay Region.

The organization works on existing business and entrepreneur development, new business recruitment and job growth. Its initiatives also include workforce development, marketing of available development sites, and fostering local and regional communication and collaboration.

Bay Future operates through support from its investors, with efforts aimed at creating jobs for community residents.
BAY CITY, MI  The United States Coast Guard has implemented a temporary safety zone on the Saginaw River around the Lafayette Bridge.

The zone started Saturday, Feb. 7, and will continue through April 1, or until ice is no longer present in the area, according to a statement provided by the Coast Guard.

The closure supports the Lafayette Bridge reconstruction project, as Coast Guard crews continue breaking ice throughout the winter months in the vicinity of the bridge.

The safety zone extends 600 yards downriver and 400 yards upriver of the Lafayette Bridge. Both pedestrians and vehicles are prohibited from entering the zone due to open water and unstable ice conditions created by the ice-breaking operations.

The Coast Guard has advised the public to stay clear of the restricted area during the closure period.
SAGINAW, MI  A Georgia woman has pleaded guilty-as-charged to hurling coffee on a Michigan McDonalds employee.

Casharra T. Brown, 49, on Monday, Feb. 9, appeared beside attorney Paul M. Purcell in front of Saginaw County District Judge Elian E.H. Fichtner. Brown pleaded guilty to the lone count she faced, assault and battery. The misdemeanor is punishable by up to 93 days in jail and a $500 fine.

To prove Browns guilt, Purcell asked her a series of questions. They established Brown on the morning of Nov. 4 visited the McDonalds at 3770 Dixie Highway in Buena Vista Township. Brown said she interacted with a female employee, without going into the specifics of their conversation.

Did there come a time when you threw a cup of semi-warm coffee toward her and some of it got on her? Purcell asked.

Yes, Brown said, then briefly paused. Well, it got on her outer shirt, but yes.

She went on to say the victim was not injured, citing footage from responding police officers bodycams.

She said that she didnt get burned or wasnt hurt, Brown said. She just didnt want me to come back to the McDonalds.

Police previously said Brown had placed an online order and sought a refund for two sandwiches. Another patron recorded the last two minutes of Browns interaction with the eaterys female manager at the front counter.

The manager handed Brown a coffee and tried to pacify her, while Brown claimed she had been there for more than an hour, the footage showed. The conversation reached an impasse. The manager told Brown to have a great day and turned to walk away.

(Expletive) you, (expletive)! Catch that hot-ass coffee! Brown yelled, removing the lid from her coffee and chucking the fluid at the manager, the footage showed. The manager screamed as the coffee struck her back and left arm.

Brown then left the business, police said. Tipsters soon identified her to police after the footage circulated online.

Judge Fichtner on Monday referred Brown to the Probation Department for an interview, which will help her fashion an appropriate sentence. She warned Brown not to skip the interview as it will not be rescheduled.

Before the hearing ended, Purcell asked for Browns bond to be amended to allow her to leave Michigan and return to Georgia. Brown was visiting family when the coffee incident happened and has remained in the Saginaw area ever since due to a bond condition prohibiting her from leaving the state, Purcell said.

This has already caused her to miss a court date over a traffic infraction in Tennessee, Purcell said.

Fichtner modified Browns bond to allow her to leave the state. The judge reminded Brown she must return to Michigan and be physically present in her courtroom for sentencing or she will issue a warrant for her arrest. Brown replied she would be there in person, though the date of her sentencing is pending.
ST. CLAIR COUNTY, MI  A St. Clair County man is suing the sheriff and one of his deputies, allegedly for threatening to arrest him for openly discussing a local politicians expunged criminal record.

There is a law on the books in Michigan that says if you talk about someones expunged record, its a misdemeanor, said attorney Philip L. Ellison. Our position is that violates the First Amendment and you cant do that.

Ellison in April filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of client Michael Zoran, a former member of the Cottrellville Township Board of Trustees who is active in community politics, naming Sheriff Mat King and Deputy Austin Forstner as defendants.

The suit has its origins in the 2024 election cycle, which saw Gregory M. Abbey run for Cottrellville Township supervisor. A resident who opposed Abbeys bid posted on social media that Abbey was trying to expunge two felony uttering and publishing cases from his record, dating to 1998.

Both cases remain accessible on the Macomb County Circuit Courts website.

Abbey won the election, after which he and Zoran frequently disagreed over local issues, the lawsuit states. This reached a fever pitch when Zoran would not permit Abbeys social media page to be posted on a social media group Zoran administers, the suit states.

Abbey then publicly insulted and harassed Zoran regarding the latters epilepsy diagnosis, the suit alleges. In response, Zoran created a poll on his Facebook page, referring to Abbey as a convicted felon and asking if readers believe elected officials are behaving in a mature and professional way by teasing and harassing people with disabilities?

The majority of respondents, 91%, opined that elected representatives should NOT tease people with disabilities, the suit states.

A couple hours later, I got a phone call from a deputy, Zoran told MLive. The St. Clair County Sheriffs department told me if I didnt take the post down, I would be placed in jail for 90 days and penalized $500.

Zoran balked, saying such conduct would violate the First Amendment. The deputy, Forstner, replied that Abbey had told him Michigans Clean Slate laws forbid anyone from discussing expunged criminal records except for the persons involved.

Fearful of facing charges, Zoran deleted the Facebook poll, the suit states.

Ellison states the law, dubbed the Expungement Gag Statute, is inherently unconstitutional and amounts to illegal prior restraint. As such, Ellison is arguing Sheriff King and Deputy Forstner violated the First Amendment by trying to enforce the statute.

You dont get to erase history, he said. You can erase the legal effect of a conviction, but you cant punish someone for talking about a historically true fact.

Voters should be allowed to consider and discuss political candidates criminal pasts, even if their convictions have been expunged, Ellison said.

Ellison is requesting a federal judge declare the statute unconstitutional, enter an injunction against the sheriffs office from enforcing it against Zoran, and to have each King and Forstner pay Zoran $1.

Attorney Todd J. Shoudy, representing King and Forstner, filed a motion seeking the suits summary judgment. In it, he argued King had no involvement in the matter and his office never previously investigated an alleged violation of the Expungement Gag Statute.

The statute does not violate the First Amendment, Shoudy wrote.

When Zoran repeatedly referred to Abbey as a convicted felon after Abbey had his convictions expunged in October 2024, he was making a statement that was no longer factually true, Shoudy wrote. The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly indicated that intentional false factual statements have no First Amendment value in themselves.  A statute that merely prohibits a person from knowingly making a false factual statement about another does not raise any constitutionality problem.

Abbey is not named as a defendant in the suit.

The next court hearing in the matter before U.S. District Judge Judith E. Levy in Ann Arbor is pending.
Two climbers were rescued after being stranded in the Rocky Mountains 14,000 feet above sea level.

According to the National Park Service, the two climbers were on Kieners Route in the Longs Peak area of Rocky Mountain National Park when they requested help from park rangers on Feb. 6.

The climbers, 47 and 50, reported they were incapacitated, unable to continue their route, and had not planned to remain overnight. They were rescued on Feb. 7 with rangers maintaining communication overnight, but not without challenges.

Air operations were limited due to high winds, officials said. A U.S. Forest Service helicopter attempted a rescue flight but was forced to abort due to wind conditions. A Flight For Life helicopter was also ordered but later stood down for the same reason.

Finally, at 2:15 p.m., a Chinook helicopter flight crew from the Colorado National Guard Army Aviation Support Facility at Buckley Space Force Base and rescuers from Alpine Rescue and Rocky Mountain Rescue landed on the summit of Longs Peak.

The climbers, who had moved to the summit, were located and flown to Upper Beaver Meadows Road within the iconic national park.

Park rangers remind visitors that winter conditions can persist in the high country even when overall snowpack is below average, a NPS statement said. Those recreating in alpine environments should plan ahead and be prepared for ice, snow, high winds, and subzero temperatures.

Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado is known for towering peaks, alpine tundra, clear mountain lakes, and dramatic scenery made up of mountains, forests and meadows. It features over 60 mountains above 12,000 feet and abundant wildlife like elk and bighorn sheep.
A famed Southern chicken chain is continuing its fast move north.

Bojangles, the legendary Carolina-born chain which opened its first Michigan location in Wyoming on Feb. 3, also opened a location in Circleville, Ohio on Feb. 4.

Located at 1280 S. Court Street, its the fourth in the Columbus area, joining other restaurants in Heath, Columbus and Delaware.

This opening is about more than just great Bojangles chicken and biscuits  its a celebration of the first responders who serve and protect the community day in and day out, said Randy Icard, President of Bojangles of WNC.

Were excited to introduce our Southern hospitality and famous flavors to Circleville  and proud to kick things off by honoring the local heroes who keep it safe.

Bojangles is known for its cajun-seasoned fried chicken, biscuits, breakfast, tea and southern sides like Cajun fries, dirty rice, mac & cheese and green beans.

Known as a southern staple, it now has restaurants in 22 states with growth in new markets like Michigan, New York, Ohio, Florida, Texas, Nevada, and New Jersey.
Le gouvernement camerounais franchit un nouveau cap dans sa politique de tracabilite de lor, avec un tour de vis reglementaire qui cible directement les exploitants artisanaux semi-mecanises en infraction. Dans un communique publie le 9 fevrier, le ministre des Mines, de lIndustrie et du Developpement technologique (Minmidt) annonce le retrait, a compter du 20 fevrier 2026, des autorisations dexploitation accordees aux operateurs nayant pas respecte les exigences administratives et environnementales prevues par le Code minier de decembre 2023.

La decision prolonge les conclusions dune reunion tenue le 21 janvier 2026 entre le Minmidt, la Societe nationale des mines (Sonamines) et les acteurs du secteur. Les exploitants concernes disposaient dun delai de quinze jours pour verser la caution de remise en etat des sites et signer les cahiers de charges avec les parties prenantes. Selon ladministration miniere, ce delai est desormais  largement depasse . En consequence, les sites non conformes seront fermes et leurs autorisations retirees, conformement a larticle 168 (2) du Code minier.

Au-dela dune simple mesure de police administrative, cette operation sinscrit dans une strategie de reprise en main dun secteur historiquement domine par linformel. Les operateurs encore en regle devront, dans un delai de trois mois, installer un systeme dexploitation en  vase clos   ou sassocier a une entite qui en dispose  et produire une etude de faisabilite sommaire detaillant la teneur moyenne du gisement et un seuil minimal de production. Lenjeu est double : rapprocher les volumes reellement extraits des declarations officielles et affiner lestimation des recettes fiscales attendues.

Nouveaux garde-fous operationnels

Le Minmidt introduit egalement un filtrage en amont des activites. Toute nouvelle demande dexploitation artisanale devra desormais etre precedee dune autorisation dacces au site delivree par le delegue regional des mines, afin de conduire des sondages techniques. Le ministere rappelle par ailleurs linterdiction du travail de nuit et proscrit toute activite artisanale a linterieur des permis de recherche.

Ces mesures repondent a une preoccupation structurelle : la sortie massive de lor du circuit officiel. Pendant plusieurs decennies, la production aurifere nationale a peu alimente le Tresor public. Entre lindependance et les annees 2000, les reserves officielles ne selevaient qua 37 kg. Plus recemment, environ 1,5 tonne a ete canalisee vers le Tresor  une progression jugee modeste au regard du potentiel estime du pays.

LEtat cherche desormais a mieux capter les revenus lies a lexploitation aurifere, notamment via limpot synthetique de 25 % et la taxe a lexportation de 5 %, calcules sur la production reelle. Des discussions seraient en cours avec des partenaires prives afin dorganiser la collecte directement sur les sites dexploitation. Au-dela de lenjeu fiscal, la reforme vise aussi a contenir des risques securitaires et environnementaux : contrebande, degradation des ecosystemes et tensions locales autour du controle des gisements.

Le differentiel entre donnees nationales et statistiques internationales demeure largument central de cette offensive reglementaire. Le rapport ITIE 2023 indique que les Douanes camerounaises nont enregistre que 22,3 kg dor exportes cette annee-la. A linverse, les statistiques des Emirats arabes unis  principal importateur declare  font etat de 15,2 tonnes dor en provenance du Cameroun sur la meme periode. Selon des donnees relayees par Investir au Cameroun, plus de 90 % de ce volume aurait ete achemine vers ce marche.

Pour Yaounde, ce decalage illustre lampleur des fuites hors du circuit formel et justifie un renforcement du controle etatique. La sequence actuelle marque ainsi une tentative structurante de formalisation, avec en ligne de mire une meilleure gouvernance miniere et une captation accrue de la valeur creee par lor camerounais.

Gold in Cameroon: Government Tightens Grip on Artisanal Mining to Reclaim Control of a High-Leakage Sector

Cameroon is escalating its gold traceability strategy with stricter regulatory enforcement targeting non-compliant semi-mechanized artisanal miners. In a February 9 statement, the Minister of Mines, Industry and Technological Development announced that operating permits will be withdrawn starting February 20, 2026, for operators failing to meet administrative and environmental obligations under the December 2023 Mining Code.

The move follows a January 21 meeting between the ministry, the state mining company Sonamines, and sector operators. Companies were given 15 days to pay site rehabilitation guarantees and formalize contractual obligations. Authorities say this deadline has been widely exceeded. Non-compliant sites will therefore be shut down under Article 168 (2) of the Mining Code.

Beyond administrative enforcement, the reform reflects a broader push to formalize a sector long dominated by informal practices. Compliant operators now have three months to implement a closed-loop mining system  or partner with an entity that has one  and submit a preliminary feasibility study outlining ore grades and minimum production thresholds. The goal is to align declared output with actual production and improve fiscal projections.

Additional safeguards require prior site access authorization for any new artisanal mining request, technical surveys, and strict bans on night operations and artisanal activity within exploration permits.

These measures respond to a persistent challenge: large volumes of gold leaving official channels. Historically, Cameroons gold production contributed minimally to national reserves. While roughly 1.5 tonnes have recently been redirected to the Treasury, authorities view this as marginal compared to estimated potential.

The state aims to better capture fiscal revenues, including a 25% synthetic tax and a 5% export levy based on real production. Discussions are reportedly underway with private partners to organize on-site gold collection. The reform also addresses security and environmental risks linked to smuggling and uncontrolled mining zones.

A stark discrepancy between domestic and international export data underscores the urgency. Cameroons customs recorded only 22.3 kg of gold exports in 2023, while UAE statistics  the main declared destination  indicate imports of 15.2 tonnes from Cameroon. Industry reporting suggests over 90% of that volume flowed to the Emirates.

For policymakers, this gap illustrates systemic leakage and reinforces the case for tighter state oversight. The current measures signal a decisive shift toward sector formalization and stronger mining governance.

or Cameroun, mines Cameroun, exploitation artisanale or, Minmidt, Code minier 2023, Sonamines, tracabilite de lor, secteur minier camerounais, exportation or Cameroun, fiscalite miniere, contrebande or, gouvernance miniere Cameroun, orpaillage artisanal, ITIE Cameroun, economie miniere Cameroun

Mouahna Divine
(Editors note: This is the second in a series of stories on the candidates running for governor. We narrowed down the pool to those with more than $3 million dollars to spend on the race, either through fundraising or personal funds. The candidates will be presented in alphabetical order.)

The last time Mike Cox ran for governor was in 2010. He didnt make it past the Republican primary.

Cox, a two-term state attorney general, spent the early months of the campaign trying to portray Congressman Pete Hoekstra as a Washington insider too comfortable with spending the publics money.

Rick Snyder blindsided both of them.

Coxs lesson from that race?

Money matters, he said in a 40-minute long interview with MLive.

And, this time around, hes got millions of his own money to pour into the campaign.

Since leaving the attorney generals office 15 years ago, Cox has built a successful law practice. His was one of the firms that secured a $490 million settlement for the victims of abuse by University of Michigan doctor Robert Anderson.

As of the end of 2025, he had loaned his campaign more than $3.5 million and had $4.1 million in the bank, more than any of his opponents.

I kind of left office and I had to sink or swim, Cox said, and I learned how to swim pretty well.

A blue-collar Republican Party populist

Cox is running as a pugnacious, cost-cutting, get-things-done conservative.

Hes running on the fact that he grew up in a working-class family, joined the U.S. Marines and put himself through the University of Michigan and its law school.

Hes running on his time as a Wayne County assistant prosecutor, where he led the homicide division before being elected attorney general.

Hes running on the things he accomplished in that office the fact that he sued Blue Cross Blue Shield over contracts that favored some providers over others, the fact that he issued an opinion preventing undocumented immigrants from getting Michigan drivers licenses, his refusal to file a brief at the U.S. Supreme Court supporting affirmative action at the University of Michigan.

I was the blue-collar Republican Party populist before President Trump made it popular, he said.

If hes elected governor, hes promising to reform education. He said hed copy word for word the 2012 statute that helped Mississippi raise its reading scores dramatically.

Hes promising to restore right to work and to DOGE state government.

Hes promising to eliminate Michigans income tax.

Its what successful states are doing, Cox said. Its what states that are growing are doing.

Personal income taxes accounted for nearly 30% of state revenues in the 2024-25 fiscal year, more than $13 billion.

Many states with no income tax levy higher property or sales taxes instead, but Cox said hes confident that amount could be cut from the state budget without impacting essential services.

He noted that, during his time as attorney general, he cut staffing by more than 20% and still increased the number of cases handled by the department.

Money matters, he said, but a lot of times structure and practices and fundamentals matter more.

His likely Democratic opponent, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, and former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who is running for governor as an independent, are embracing failed policies, he said.

Im about embracing success.

Trailing John James

Cox spent last year running second in the Republican field to Congressman John James. A December poll by Mitchell Research put him at 11% of Republican voters versus 48% for James.

Republican strategist Jason Cabel Roe says thats partly an issue of Cox being out of the public eye and James being very much in it.

James, who has run for office four times since 2018, is benefiting from probably $200 million building up his name ID in four elections, two of them statewide.

By contrast, just over half of the respondents to a recent WDIV/Detroit News poll said theyd never heard of Cox.

The reality is Mike Cox hasnt been in office in 16 years and is forgotten, Roe said.

Curtis Hertel, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, put it less gently, calling Cox a callback from a decade ago when he was a relevant politician.

Which doesnt mean he doesnt have a chance, Roe said.

Theres only one direction for John James to go from where he is in the polls and thats down, Roe said, because hes artificially high and nobody knows who the hell the other candidates are.

Jeff Timmer, chief operating officer of The Lincoln Project, was affiliated with Super PACs and other entities backing Cox when he ran for governor in 2010. He believes Cox will be a competitor.

He is a smart, capable candidate who was elected twice statewide, Timmer said. He will do whatever it takes to win.

James has said the infighting between Republican candidates will be bad for turnout. Hes said he hopes the party can avoid a circular firing squad in the primary.

Cox has already launched the website JohnJamesHatesTrump.com. It takes aim at James previous criticisms of the president and at the fact that James run for governor opens up a competitive House seat.

John said the president wasnt fit to lead, couldnt be trusted when he thought he wasnt going to be president again, Cox said. And now, probably more importantly, hes abandoned his House majority.

Perry Johnson

Businessman Perry Johnsons entry into the race last month has thrown another wrinkle into the campaign.

Like Cox, hes using millions of his own money. He made a $3 million television ad buy earlier this month. Like Cox, hes promising to eliminate the income tax and make up the difference through cuts.

Polls havent caught up to Johnsons entry into the race, but Timmer said it profoundly shuffles the deck.

Which might not be all bad for Cox.

Mike Cox now doesnt have to spend his personal fortune going after James, Timmer said. He can whistle on past the Johnson-James battle that will now ensue.

Looking to grow

In 2024, Donald Trumps campaign and the Republican National Committee asked Coxs law firm to represent them in any cases involving election security, Cox said. He agreed to do so for free.

Cox wants Trumps endorsement. He said hed be a fool not to. And, if the president endorses, he thinks hell get it.

Im not a friend of his, Cox said, but I think he wants winners and Ive won like he has.

And with James putting a Republican majority in the House of Representatives in danger, I dont know why the president would reward him with an endorsement, he said.

But, first, Cox will likely need to make a dent in James lead. He thinks he can.

My wife jokes Im like a bacteria and, the more oxygen I get, the more Ill grow, Cox said, and thats whats happening.
LANSING, MI  Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will reveal Wednesday afternoon the final budget proposal shell make as head of the state.

Ahead of her Feb. 11 budget presentation before a joint meeting of the state House and Senate, which will cover the 2027 fiscal year, she shared several sneak peeks.

Among those is a new sales tax holiday on school supplies, along with a property tax relief proposal for seniors.

Both are part of what Whitmers office called a Saving Michiganders Money Plan, billed as a way to help several vulnerable populations nervous about the rising cost of groceries, housing, health care and utilities.

As Michiganders face a lot of national economic uncertainty, we must work together to lower costs so they can pay the bills, put food on the table and provide for their kids, Whitmer said.

Among the new proposals expected in Whitmers budget presentation is property tax relief for 355,000 senior residents.

Her office said the plan would center around refunding approximately 10% of senior property taxes, saving those households $345 a year on average.

Its not yet clear how these proposals will affect state funding.

Whitmer is expected to provide more details on the plan as part of her greater budget presentation on Wednesday, but it comes after state budget officials announced last month that lawmakers will have roughly $1 billion less in general fund revenues to allocate.

When referencing tax breaks for seniors, Whitmer also highlighted the recent completion of a full rollback of the retirement tax and an end to taxes on Social Security, both provisions previously passed.

The phased approach to eliminate taxes on retirement income was signed into law in March 2023. Now fully in effect, Whitmer said it will put an average of $1,000 back into the pockets of almost 500,000 seniors.

The end to state taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security benefits was signed into law in October of last year. Whitmer said it would save 40,000 seniors hundreds of dollars a year.

The governors other new proposal  a new sales tax holiday on school supplies  comes after a July 2025 report found more than a third of parents surveyed said they couldnt afford back to school shopping.

About 44% of them planned to take on debt to cover the cost.

They need real relief to save them money now, Whitmer said of Michigan parents, especially on their paychecks, meals and education.

The targeted tax cut, as Whitmers office describes it, would remove the 6% sales tax from purchases of clothes, classroom items and computers.

Savings would apply to both online and in-person purchases.

Other items Whitmer said her budget proposal would continue are free pre-K for all Michigan students and free breakfast and lunch for all 1.4 million public school attendees.

She plans to pitch making free school meals permanent by law.

Whitmer also highlighted the Working Families Tax Credit, a previously-passed bill that matched Michigans tax credit to the federal Earned Income Tax Credit at 30%, up from 6%. The average combined refund, according to Whitmers office, is $3,900 to 665,000 families.
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The Michigan State Spartans just earned a major victory over the Illinois Fighting Illini on Saturday night and fans can celebrate with this deal from Fanatics.

This Michigan State Spartans Nike womens cropped color-block script full-zip hoodie is available now for just $53.99 (regularly $99) and ships free with code 29SHIP. Its currently available in sizes small through 2XL.

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This full-zip hoodie makes the perfect addition to any gameday outfit for cheering on the Spartans at the Breslin. It also has a loose and relaxed fit, making it a great option for showing your team spirit while lounging at home or running errands around town.

Following their win over Illinois, the Spartans stayed put at No. 10 in the AP Top 25 rankings. Theyll be back in action this Friday when they travel to Madison to take on the Wisconsin Badgers.

Fans can shop for this full-zip hoodie and more Michigan State Spartans gear from Fanatics. Remember to use code 29SHIP for free shipping on items over $29.
Veteran starting pitcher Chris Paddack, who had a brief and unsuccessful tenure with the Detroit Tigers last season, has signed a major-league contract with the Miami Marlins.

The one-year deal is reportedly worth $4 million plus incentives.

Paddack, 30, was acquired from the Minnesota Twins at the trade deadline last summer but was removed from the rotation after a string of poor starts.

A former top prospect, Paddack has battled injuries, including two Tommy John surgeries, since a strong rookie season in 2019 with the San Diego Padres. He posted a 4.95 ERA with a 4.39 FIP in 111 innings over 21 starts with the Twins in 2025.

To acquire Paddack, the Tigers sent young catching prospect Enrique Jimenez to the Twins and agreed to take on the salary of veteran pitcher Randy Dobnak.

Paddack went 2-3 with a 6.32 ERA (6.41 FIP) in 47 innings for the Tigers. He did not pitch in the postseason.

Paddack was originally drafted by the Marlins out of high school in the eighth round in 2015. He was traded to the Padres in 2016.
Varun Singh A journalist covering the automotive sector in depth, across business and product verticals. Trying to hit the gym at least four times a week! I am not a fitness freak though.
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Azerbaijans telecommunications and postal services regulator, the Information and Communication Technologies Agency (ICTA), has launched the next phase of digital transformation in the countrys internet services market, AzerNEWS reports.

Under the initiative, ICTA has developed two new services - Broadband Mapping and E-Connection - which will allow users to select, compare, and apply for internet services from providers through a single digital platform.

The project was presented during a meeting with telecommunications operators and internet service providers (ISPs). Speaking at the event, ICTA Deputy Chairman Jeyhun Huseynzade stated that the initiative is expected to have a fundamental impact on the market ecosystem.

Through the Broadband Mapping platform, citizens and businesses will be able to identify which providers offer actual services at specific addresses using an interactive map. Complementing this, the E-Connection service offers several key features:

Transparent comparison: Users can compare tariff plans and technical parameters from different providers in one place;

Direct application: Electronic connection requests can be submitted to selected providers within seconds;

Application tracking: Users can monitor the entire process - from request submission to service activation - via a personal account;

Security: Full legal reliability is ensured through digital identification for citizens and enhanced electronic signatures for operators.

ICTA noted that the model is based on best practices from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the EUs BEREC framework. The platform also meets the World Banks B-READY assessment criteria for informed choice and a transparent market.

Operators participating in the project will gain promotional visibility on the state platform and direct access to customers at no additional cost. Providers that fail to submit their data will not be displayed on the map, effectively excluding them from the digital choice environment.

According to ICTA, the initiative is not an administrative mandate but an economic model designed to encourage greater transparency and customer-oriented behavior among market participants. Internet service providers that were informed at the beginning of 2025 may join the project at any time.

The E-Connection service is currently operating in test mode, with full public rollout planned for March 2026.




Across the country, some foods carry more than flavor. They signal where people are from and what they proudly claim as their own. A national survey sought to capture these associations, asking Americans to name the dish or flavor that best represents their state.

The results reveal a familiar mix of iconic dishes and surprises. Pizza and seafood made strong showings, but so did regional favorites that rarely get national attention. Together, the responses paint a picture of how people across the U.S. see their own food culture and what they believe defines home.

How the survey worked

The research, conducted by Talker Research for HelloFresh, surveyed 5,000 Americans across all 50 states. Participants were asked to share their opinions on home-cooked food and the dishes they consider best representative of their home state.

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California ranked highest overall for best cuisine, followed by New York, Texas, Louisiana, and Florida. Confidence levels varied widely by state, with Louisiana residents expressing the strongest belief that their state has the best food in the country.

Beyond rankings, the survey focused on identity. People were asked to choose the flavor or dish they felt best captured their state, and the results are listed below.

What food represents each state

Alabama: This southern state loves banana pudding, pinto beans, and cornbread.

Alaska: People choose seafood and muktuk.

photo credit: Shutterstock

Arizona: Everyone agreed that Mexican cuisine and Sonoran hot dogs were the clear choice.

Arkansas: The votes were for catfish and country fried chicken.

California: Mexican food, burgers, and shrimp tacos topped the chart.

Photo credit: Canva Pro

Colorado: All agreed that green chili on anything and Rocky Mountain oysters were the two foods that represented their state.

Connecticut: People picked clam chowder and pizza.

Photo credit: Canva Pro

Delaware: Those who voted choose scrapple and Bengali cuisine.

Florida: The state winners are seafood, key lime pie, and fresh orange juice.

Georgia: Georgians picked peach cobbler and seafood boils as the winners.

Hawaii: The Ahoha state has laulau, poke, and loco moco.

Idaho: One choice - potatoes.

Photo credit: Shutterstock

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Illinois: Deep dish pizza and Chicago-style hot dogs come as no surprise.

Indiana: Voters picked corn and the pork tenderloin sandwich.

Iowa: Must like Indiana, Iowa also picked corn and pork chops.

Kansas: Staying true to the scene, barbecue, steak, and chili with cinnamon rolls topped the list.

Photo credit: Shutterstock

Kentucky: Fried chicken doesn't come as a shock for this state.

Louisiana: This Southern state chose crawfish, Cajun cuisine, and gumbo.

Maine: Most people in Maine would agree that lobster is the best food.

Maryland: Maryland crab cakes are top-notch.

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Massachusetts: This state picked clam chowder and seafood.

Michigan: Cherry pie and Coney Island dogs topped the list.

Minnesota: Juicy Lucy, tater tot hotdish, and walleye won the vote.

Mississippi: The winning votes were fried catfish and soul food.

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Missouri: One option - barbecue.

Montana: Steak, wild game, and huckleberry round out Montana.

Nebraska: Runza sandwiches are super popular in this state.

Nevada: Nevada picked buffets and Mexican food.

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New Hampshire: Voting showed that seafood and apple cider donuts were the choice.

New Jersey: Italian food, pizza, and the Taylor ham, egg, and cheese sandwich are the winners.

New Mexico: The votes pointed to green chilis and enchiladas.

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New York: New Yorkers picked pizza, and a bagel and cream cheese.

North Carolina: Votes bumped barbecue and knoephla soup to the top.

North Dakota: The hotdish, tater tot hotdish, and knoephla soup were the winners.

Ohio: Top pick - buckeyes.

Oklahoma: Chicken-fried steak and comfort food are what Oklahoma is all about.

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Oregon: This state lists salmon and marionberry pie among the best foods.

Pennsylvania: Pierogies and cheesesteaks got the votes.

Rhode Island: It's all about seafood, clam cakes, and chowder in Rhode Island.

South Carolina: Soul food best showcases this state.

South Dakota: Fry bread made it to the top of the list.

Tennessee: Another win for barbecue.

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Texas: Texans love Tex Mex and barbecue.

Utah: People in Utah choose Jello salad, fry sauce, and funeral potatoes.

Vermont: Pancakes with maple syrup, and mac and cheese are what people picked.

Virginia: Just one choice needed - ham.

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Washington: Apples and salmon won the spot.

West Virginia: Pepperoni rolls are the top choice here.

Wisconsin: It comes as no surprise that cheese and fish fry are the best foods in Wisconsin.

Wyoming: After voting, steak took the lead.

Photo credit: Canva Pro

Food pride and home cooking

The survey also showed how strongly people connect food with identity. Nearly seven in 10 respondents said they feel pride when preparing recipes tied to their state. More than half make an effort to record or document those dishes, indicating they want to remember and share them with others.

Many people see cooking as a big priority. About 37 percent said creating and keeping cooking traditions with loved ones will matter more in the new year.

Despite that enthusiasm, daily habits tell a different story. The average American cooks about 12 meals at home each week, but only two of those meals are prepared with others. Just four meals a week are eaten together. Time spent cooking adds up to roughly 67 minutes a day, yet meals are often rushed or distracted.

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The survey highlights that people crave food and family, but that Americans have difficulty making time to bring the two together and make them work.

A snapshot of how Americans eat

The survey also shows how food continues to anchor people to places, even as habits shift. State pride shows up not just in popular dishes, but in everyday foods people grew up eating and still make at home. Some states lean on national favorites, others celebrate hyper-local staples, and many blend both.

The survey also suggests that while Americans deeply value food, finding time to slow down and enjoy it remains a challenge. Cooking still occurs frequently, but shared meals and undistracted eating are increasingly difficult to maintain and to schedule.
Shah Rukh Khans ancestral home in Pakistan's Peshawar where his father Meer Taj Mohammad Khan was born resurfaces online, rekindles memories of pre-partition India
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After more than 108 days on foot and a journey spanning roughly 2,300 miles, a group of Buddhist monks will bring their Walk for Peace to its final stop Thursday at the Maryland State Capitol in Annapolis.

The Annapolis gathering marks the conclusion of a pilgrimage that has crossed multiple states and drawn interfaith crowds along the wayeven in freezing temperatures during a historic cold snap.

While much of the public attention has focused on events in Washington, D.C., organizers have confirmed the walk will come to its official close in Marylands capital.

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The final stretch follows several days of public events in the Washington region, including peace gatherings, interfaith ceremonies and meditation sessions.

The walk began in Fort Worth, Texas as a spiritual pilgrimage organized by The Ancient Sacred Buddhist Scripture Stupas, otherwise known as Dhammacetiya.

The journey is intended to promote compassion, nonviolence and unity across religious and cultural lines.

Monks from the Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center Walking from Texas to Washington D.C. to promote peace. This section of the walk for peace was in Apex, North Carolina on Highway 64 (Spencer Hart via Getty Images)

Visitors who want to experience the peaceful gathering for themselves can see the monks in Annapolis on Thursday, Feb. 12, the final day of the Walk for Peace.

The walk starts at 9 a.m. from NavyMarine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, followed by a peace gathering from 10 to 10:45 a.m. at the steps of the Maryland State House. That will mark the official end of the 2,300-mile pilgrimage.

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The monks will then depart for Fort Worth, Texas later in the day at 12:30 p.m.

Visitors can find local planning details at Visit Annapolis and on the Walk for Peace official page. Most events will be livestreamed on the Dhammacetiya Facebook page, and organizers will post real-time route updates via a live map.

The Maryland State House is located in Annapolis and is the oldest state capitol in continuous legislative use, dating to 1772. It houses the Maryland General Assembly and offices of the Governor and Lieutenant Governor. (Hisham Ibrahim via Getty Images)

If you go

Visitors who want to experience the peaceful gathering for themselves can see the monks on Thursday, Feb. 12, the final day of the Walk for Peace.

9 a.m. Walk begins at NavyMarine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis

10 to 10:45 a.m. Peace gathering at the steps of the Maryland State Capitol

12:30 p.m. Monks depart for Fort Worth, Texas

After months of trudging past piled snowbanks and frozen sidewalks, the 2,300-mile pilgrimage ends in Annapolis, leaving an echo of hope that peace will outlast the melting ice.
In a letter addressed to managing director and chief executive officer Ashok Vaswani, Lathia said the bank's technology leadership team was well prepared to take on expanded responsibilities
Adani Enterprises shares fall 2% as firm says in talks with US Office of Foreign Assets
Zoya Springwala is a Senior Correspondent, writing on the markets, financial institutions, regulatory changes and everything else in between.
Passive funds, particularly gold and silver ETFs, emerged as major investment destinations in January. Gold ETFs attracted inflows of Rs 24,040 crore ( 106% increase M-O-M), raising AUM to Rs 1.84 lakh crore. Silver ETFs saw net inflows of Rs 9,463 crore, increasing AUM to Rs 1.16 lakh crore.
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Ankita Chakravarti is a seasoned journalist with nearly a decade of experience in media. She specializes in technology and lifestyle journalism. She has worked with top Indian media houses like India Today, Zee News, The Statesman, and Millennium Post. Her expertise spans tech trends, phone launches, gadget reviews, and entertainment news. Ankita holds a Master's in Journalism and Mass Communication along with a degree in English Literature. She can be reached out at ankita.chakravarti@nw18.com
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The accident occurred around 3.15 pm on February 8 near Rev-3 Mall when the luxury car allegedly ploughed into pedestrians and vehicles standing along the roadside, triggering panic in the area.
The SKM convenor argued that Indian produce would be unable to compete with a potential influx of US goods.
Dhyani was coming back from office when the incident took place
Rahul Gandhi shows a copy of the unpublished "memoir" of Naravane during the Budget Session of Parliament, in New Delhi (PTI)
Referring to incidents in Gujarat, where migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were allegedly targeted in the past, Thackeray asked why the RSS leadership did not intervene there.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma recently said whenever the EC undertakes a SIR in the state, it will be carried out.
The case involves competing claims over Sunjay Kapur's personal estate, which has become the subject of intense litigation before the High Court
Nitish Kumar defended his government, alleging that the Rashtriya Janata Dal did little for women when in power.
Arjun Kumar is a heritage explorer by inclination with a penchant for seeking obscure sites. A brand consultant by profession, he tweets @HiddenHeritage. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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Vivek Wadhwa is the CEO of Vionix Biosciences and has held academic appointments at institutions including Harvard Law School, Stanford, and Duke University. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.
An Apple employee summed up the phenomenon like this, 'As far as Gen X vs Z vs Millennials, its all mindset,' suggesting disengagement has less to do with age  and more to do with how workplaces respond. (AI-generated image)
Australian businesses found a workaround for US import duties. Its saving them thousands. Heres how

For Australian businesses selling into the US, its been quite the year. April 2 will mark the first anniversary of Liberation Day, the date on which US President Donald Trump unveiled his second administrations plans to regulate imports by imposing a suite of duties on almost every country in the world.

Effective April 5, 2025, the Presidents Executive Order 14257 put a 10 per cent baseline tariff on almost all goods and services entering the country. Hot on its heels came country and category specific rates, some of them subject to rapid fire changes, as deals were made and re-made.

August 29 brought the scrapping of the long standing de minimis exemption which enabled sellers to avoid paying duty on shipments valued at less than $US800. This move was designed to slow the flow of packages into the country, thereby giving the US Customs and Border Protection Service greater capacity to detect illicit and contraband substances and goods.

Confusion and consternation were common responses to these developments in the first instance, with exporters around the globe scrambling to determine what an altered US playing field would mean for their operations and bottom line.

Scores of Australian enterprises were among them, including many which had built lucrative revenue streams sending their wares across the Pacific.

According to a new cross-border complexity report from Avalara, 83% of businesses believe that cross-border operations have become more complex and harder to manage compared with just 12 months ago.

Turning adversity into opportunity

But Australian businesses and business owners are a resourceful and resilient bunch. The past year has seen them respond smartly and swiftly to changed trading conditions.

Take ShowPo, for example. The online retailer did its sums and ascertained that establishing a US fulfilment centre would mean paying the 10 per cent tariff on the cost price of its goods when they entered the US, rather than on the sums for which they would subsequently be sold to customers.

By June 2025, its Texas warehouse was open for business and offering same day delivery on some orders  a point in its favour, given US consumers high expectations regarding speed and responsiveness of service.

Other Aussie rag traders have taken a similar tack. ShowPos fast fashion archrival White Fox and activewear upstart LSKD both managed to get US warehouses up and running within months of the Liberation Day proclamations and theyre enjoying the benefits of increased agility and a lower import tax impost as a result.

Investing in sales tax technology that supports change and growth

Responding to unexpected developments in the international trade landscape, as these Australian businesses have done over the past 12 months, doesnt have to entail hundreds of hours of hard work and hassle for logistics and compliance personnel.

Thats provided theyre set up to be nimble and adaptable, with automated tax compliance technology. Its designed to simplify the business of selling into the US and other countries by streamlining and automating all the tasks associated with international tax compliance. These include registration, licensing, calculation, document management, reporting and e-invoicing.

When this software is up and running in the back office, businesses can calculate a wide range of indirect taxes in real time, including US import duties, aka tariffs, and any applicable sales taxes at the time an order is placed.

If you select a solution from a vendor that invests in staying up to date with regulatory changes around the globe, you can take comfort in the fact youre getting those numbers right, regardless of how thick and fast changes may come.

Youll also be in possession of an invaluable planning aid; one which can be used to inform strategic financial decisions, such as whether to shift your warehousing and logistics offshore or continue to ship to overseas customers direct from Australia.

Ensuring your export business is ready for anything in 2026 and beyond

Tariff turmoil of the past 12 months notwithstanding, the US remains an extraordinarily attractive market for Australia businesses seeking profitable growth.

Deploying automated tax compliance technology will allow your business to trade on with confidence, as ahead-of-the-curve local operators have succeeded in doing, despite the uncertainty engendered by sudden regulatory changes.

If youre committed to achieving long term export success to the worlds largest economy, its an essential investment that will pay for itself many times over.

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The incident has triggered intense debate online, with many users calling the HR managers stance 'inhumane', while others felt the he had acted within the boundaries of privatesector norms. (AI-generated image)
She added that during the COVID-19 pandemic, she was temporarily permitted to assist with housekeeping responsibilities.
Knot Dating CEO Jasveer Singh shared the US visa rejection letter on X. 'This isnt about one visa denial. It reflects how our passport and professional credibility are viewed internationally,' he told Moneycontrol.
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After accounting for these expenses, the monthly profit was stated to be Rs 2,37,500.
UOB, Singapores only local bank that both sells and buys physical gold bars and bullion coins, will extend operating hours and introduce an appointment-only system for gold purchases and conversions amid a surge in demand.

Starting Friday, the banks gold purchase counters will operate until 6 p.m. on weekdays, excluding public holidays, instead of the previous 4:30 p.m., it announced on Monday, according to The Business Times.

They will also no longer accept walk-in purchases and gold conversions, it said.

Customers looking to sell gold back to the bank will still be able to do so without an appointment from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays, excluding public holidays, it noted.

"With this measure, wait times should be reduced and customers can be served at the timing of their reservation," the bank said in the announcement, as quoted by The Straits Times.

The bank said appointment bookings are available via its website starting from 6 p.m. on Thursday and urged customers to check online for real-time availability of specific gold products before visiting or making an appointment.

UOB is the only local bank in Singapore that sells and buys physical gold bars and bullion coins.

An employee shows a gold bullion bar at a shop in Singapore, June 16, 2017. Photo by Reuters

Bloomberg earlier reported that people have been flocking to the lenders headquarters to buy gold as prices dipped.

The metal has been volatile so far this year, climbing to a record high above US$5,500 an ounce in late January before sliding to below $4,500 and settling above $5,000. Even after the pullback, analysts expect the rally to continue and push prices to fresh highs later in 2026.

Last year, Singapores investment demand for gold hit a record 9.6 tonnes. The figure marked a 48% year-on-year increase, the biggest in Southeast Asia, even as prices surged 64% in 2025, according to the World Gold Council.

Kelvin Ng, UOB's head of global markets group, told Channel News Asia that the banks physical gold business last year recorded a 59% jump in total transacted volume, measured in kilograms, from a year earlier.

"This performance reflects a parallel and strengthening preference among another segment of investors for physical bullion, particularly as a means of longterm wealth preservation and portfolio diversification during periods of elevated market volatility."
Chinas Chongqing University confirmed this week that a butterfly successfully emerged from its chrysalis while orbiting Earth. (Image: Chongqing University / Xinhua)
Lake Natron in northern Tanzania is one of Africas most extreme natural environments, shaped by volcanic activity and intense alkalinity. Its mineral rich waters appear blood red and can preserve animals along its shores, creating a petrified appearance. Despite its deadly reputation, the lake supports vast populations of lesser flamingos, using its harsh conditions as protection from predators. The lake illustrates how beauty, danger and life coexist in one extraordinary ecosystem.

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The Russian Sleep Experiment is a viral creepypasta describing a supposed Soviet test where prisoners were kept awake using experimental gas. As days passed, the subjects allegedly descended into paranoia, violence and self-destruction. Though often mistaken as real, the story originated online in 2010 and has since grown into a modern urban legend. Its disturbing details, combined with historical anxieties about secret experiments, helped it spread widely across the internet as one of the darkest horror tales of the digital age.

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Researchers have used laser based technology to examine nearly 200 year old specimens collected by Charles Darwin during his HMS Beagle voyage without opening their containers. Working with the Natural History Museum and industry partners, scientists identified preservation liquids inside sealed jars, revealing how museum conservation methods evolved over time. Published in ACS Omega, the study highlights how modern techniques can protect fragile historic collections while unlocking new scientific insights from Darwins original specimens.

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Researchers have confirmed a harpy eagle chick in the Pantanal wetlands of southern Brazil, the regions only known active nest in years. Located in the Urucum massif, the discovery follows years of monitoring and highlights the species slow reproduction and vulnerability to habitat loss. Scientists and conservation groups are now managing tourism carefully while studying whether this nest signals a stable breeding presence or an isolated event in a rapidly changing landscape.

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Vietnam Airlines is stepping up carry-on baggage inspections ahead of the 2026 Lunar New Year travel rush, warning that passengers who exceed size or weight limits may face fees and delays.

Under the airline's rules, economy-class passengers are allowed a total of 12 kg of carry-on baggage, including one main item weighing no more than 10 kg and one smaller personal accessory such as a handbag or laptop. Carry-on bags that exceed the permitted weight or size may be subject to additional charges.

Passengers who need extra checked baggage are advised to purchase it in advance via the airline's website, mobile app or authorized agents at least six hours before departure, rather than waiting until arriving at the airport.

With air travel demand expected to spike during the Tet holiday next week, Vietnam Airlines is urging travelers to arrive early and comply strictly with aviation safety and security regulations. The carrier recommends completing check-in online through its website, mobile app, call center, or self-service kiosks within 24 hours before departure to reduce waiting times.

Passengers who have checked in online or at kiosks and are not checking luggage can proceed directly to security screening, significantly shortening airport queues. Travelers are also advised to prepare identification and boarding passes in advance, keep personal belongings neatly arranged for screening, and closely monitor boarding gate information on airport display screens for last-minute changes.

Vietnam Airlines has also expanded biometric check-in services integrated with the national digital ID system, VNeID, allowing eligible passengers to complete check-in, security screening and boarding more quickly. The airline recommends verifying VNeID at Level 2 to fully access digital services, reduce processing errors and improve identity verification accuracy.

Passengers must present valid, unexpired identification such as a citizen ID card, passport, drivers license, or Level 2 digital ID information. Children under 14 may use a birth certificate, while passengers aged 14 and older are not permitted to use birth certificates when flying.

The airline also reminded travelers to strictly follow aviation security rules, particularly regarding prohibited items. Passengers are advised to check regulations on flammable or explosive substances, sharp objects and non-compliant lithium batteries in advance to avoid problems during security screening.

During the Tet travel peak, Vietnams two largest airports, Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi and Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City, are expected to set new traffic records. Noi Bais busiest day is forecast to fall on Feb. 15, two days before the new lunar year, with around 116,000 passengers and 674 flights. At Tan Son Nhat, the peak is expected three or four days before the new year, with about 1,017 flights per day.

Tan Son Nhat Airport is completing the transition of domestic flights operated by Vietnam Airlines, Pacific Airlines, Vasco, Bamboo Airways, Vietravel Airlines and Sun PhuQuoc Airways to the new Terminal T3, while domestic flights operated by VietJet Air will continue operating from Terminal T1.

The airport has also rolled out biometric identification systems and clearer signage at Terminal T3 gates, aiming to improve service quality and shorten processing times during the Tet travel peak.
For this edition of Moneycontrol Pro Panorama: PSU banks poised for capex-led credit growth, rising gold and silver prices squeeze...

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A historic rail milestone for the Northeast as the first direct passenger train connects Silchar in Assam with Sairang near Aizawl, promising faster travel and stronger economic ties. (Image: PTI)
Flying to India in 2026? From higher duty-free limits and simpler gold rules to clearer guidelines on laptops, pets and unaccompanied baggage, Indias new baggage rules are set to make airport arrivals smoother than ever

Priyanka Roshan With over eight years in multimedia journalism, is passionate about storytellingboth visual and textualacross travel, jobs, business, markets, politics, and daily news. From crafting engaging articles to producing compelling videos, she blends creativity with strategy to bring stories to life. With a strong foundation in SEO, and video production she ensures content not only informs but also resonates with audiences.
A suicide bombing at a Shia mosque near Islamabad exposes Pakistan's fragile security, undermining its pitch to the US for mineral investment. Militants armed with US weapons threaten mining projects, casting doubt on promises of stability and control.

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The United States remains determined to take action against the threat posed by ISIL, al-Qaida, and their affiliates, said U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz at the Security Council. These groups continue to adapt and exploit instability across Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. They pose an increasingly diffuse and complex threat, often involving foreign fighters, Ambassador Waltz said.



We are particularly concerned by the expansion of al-Qaida affiliates in West Africa and the Sahel, including JNIM and IS-Sahels territorial gains and use in particular of kidnapping for ransom. ISILs growing focus on Africa, and the resilience of its cells in Syria and Iraq, and the persistent threat from ISIL-K in Afghanistan, truly reinforces the need for our sustained, coordinated counterterrorism efforts.



The exploitation of new technologies by terrorist groups  such as commercial satellite communications, artificial intelligence, drones, and cryptocurrencies  are of particular concern.



The United States commends member states whose counterterrorism operations have constrained ISIL and al-Qaida, especially in Iraq, Syria, and Somalia. We know that local police and security officers have given their lives to disrupt ISIL attacks, acknowledged Ambassador Waltz, including recently outside of a church in Aleppo, Syria.



Ambassador Waltz urged fellow member states to do more to disrupt terrorist financing networks. We believe this effort remains critical. Weve seen recent successes in Somalia and in West Africa that demonstrate that following the money and stopping the money to these various groups can have bold decisive effects.



Iraq has led in repatriating detained and displaced persons from northeast Syria. The U.S. calls on member states to follow Iraqs example in pursuing the repatriation of foreign fighters in order to mitigate the threat they pose to stability not only in Syria, but the broader region.



The U.S. also urges all member states to strengthen cooperation, including intelligence sharing and joint operations, and to support the implementation of the sanctions regime.



Moreover, member states should collaborate on screening and information sharing to prevent terrorist movement across borders, in support of UN Security Council Resolution 2396. And the U.S. supports the UN Monitoring Teams recommendation to designate additional ISIL and al-Qaida affiliates and counter terrorist recruitment and radicalization, especially amongst the youth online.



Finally, there must be accountability, urged Ambassador Waltz. [W]e urge all member states to prosecute ISIL-affiliated nationals in accordance with international law.
Bangladesh announced housing and financial aid for Dipu Chandra Dass family after his lynching, but fresh attacks on Hindus highlight ongoing minority insecurity. Critics say compensation and arrests fail to address systemic violence ahead of elections.

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The national flags of India (L) and China are seen outside the Meijiang Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Center during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Tianjin on August 31, 2025. (Photo by WANG Zhao / AFP)
Ghislaine Maxwell offers to testify about the Epstein scandal if Donald Trump grants her clemency, spotlighting Trumps controversial history of pardons tied to loyalty, politics, and personal connections. The move reignites debate over presidential clemency powers.

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The murder of Hindu businessman Sushen Chandra Shekhar in Bangladeshs Mymensingh district has heightened fears for minority safety ahead of elections, amid rising attacks on Hindus and concerns over weak accountability and slow investigations.

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Ghislaine Maxwell in New York in 2013. Maxwell appeared virtually for a scheduled deposition before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform but then invoked her Fifth Amendment constitutional right not to incriminate herself in testimony.
File photo of PM Modi and US President Trump
Indias reduced US tariff to 18% boosts its trade status, outpacing Pakistan and Bangladesh, whose rates and concessions are less favorable. Indias diversified exports and credibility also position it ahead of China, reinforcing its role as a trusted global partner.

Abhinav Gupta With over 12 years in digital journalism, has navigated the fast-evolving media landscape, shaping digital strategies and leading high-impact newsrooms. Currently, he serves as News Editor at MoneyControl, leading coverage in Global Affairs, Indian Politics, Governance and Policy Making. Previously, he has spearheaded fact-checking and digital media operations at Press Trust of India. Abhinav has also led news desks at Financial Express, DNA, and Jagran English, managing editorial direction, breaking news coverage, and digital growth. His journey includes stints with The Indian Express Group, Zee Media Group, and more, where he has honed his expertise in newsroom leadership, audience engagement, and digital transformation.
BEIJING, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- For the first time, scientists have confirmed that the impact cratering rates on the near and far sides of the moon are essentially consistent, laying a solid basis for the establishment of a globally unified lunar chronology system, according to the Science and Technology Daily.

A research team led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Geology and Geophysics successfully revised the decades-old lunar impact crater chronology model by analyzing remote sensing images.

Their study reveals a uniform impact flux across both hemispheres, provides evidence that early lunar impact events followed a smooth trend of gradual decline, rather than the dramatic fluctuations previously hypothesized. Their findings were published in Science Advances on Thursday.

Knowing the age of the lunar surface is crucial to understanding the moon's geological evolution. For decades, scientists have estimated the age of unsampled regions by counting impact craters, with a higher density indicating an older surface.

However, the existing crater chronology method relied entirely on samples from the near side of the moon, and the oldest specimens date back no more than 4 billion years. This limitation fueled ongoing debate about the moon's early impact history, including competing hypotheses such as the Late Heavy Bombardment.

A breakthrough came in June 2024, when China's Chang'e-6 mission returned 1,935 grams of lunar samples from the Apollo Basin, which is located within the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the moon's far side.

Analysis of these samples identified two key rock types: young basalt aged at 2.807 billion years old, and ancient norite formed 4.25 billion years ago.

The norite, in particular, originated from magma that crystallized after the giant impact event that formed the South Pole-Aitken Basin -- the moon's largest and oldest impact structure. These samples have served as a critical anchor point in reconstructing the early history of the moon.

The researchers systematically mapped crater densities across the Chang'e-6 landing area and the broader South Pole-Aitken Basin using high-resolution remote sensing imagery.

By then integrating this new density data with all historical sample data from the Apollo, Luna and Chang'e-5 missions, they constructed a new, more comprehensive lunar impact chronology model.

Their results show that far-side crater density data aligns perfectly with the confidence interval of the near-side-derived model. "This indicates that the impact flux was homogeneous across the entire moon, providing a reliable basis for a unified global lunar chronology," said Yue Zongyu, the study's lead author and a researcher at the institute.

Yue noted that the study fundamentally advances our understanding of lunar impact history and underscores the pivotal scientific value of the Chang'e-6 samples. The refined chronology will serve as a more accurate reference not only for lunar study but also for the dating of surfaces of other planetary bodies in the solar system.

Editor: WSH
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said India is reducing Russian oil imports, increasing US energy purchases, and could play a bigger role in global supply chains. A broader US-India trade deal is expected by March, with mutual tariff reductions and expanded trade.

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India is set to approve a Rs 3.25 lakh crore deal for 114 Rafale F4 fighters from France, boosting its Air Force strength and making India the largest Rafale operator. The deal includes phased deliveries, local production, and advanced upgrades for future readiness.

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India yet to decide on joining Trump-initiated Gaza Peace Board, may skip inaugural meeting
The JUI-F chief also lashed out at Pakistans foreign and economic policies
The plane, carrying 50 passengers bound for Guriel and Galkaayo, developed mechanical problems about 15 minutes into the flight and attempted to return to Mogadishu, where it crash-landed into the sea.
Lavrov criticises US oil curbs, says Washington wants to control Moscows ties with India
Chickens are seen at a poultry farm in Keraniganj, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, January 12, 2022. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain
Laman Ismayilova



The first plenary meeting of the G-77 and China Group for 2026 has been held at UNESCO Headquarters under the Azerbaijan's chairmanship, AzerNEWS reports.

UNESCO Director-General Khaled El-Enany attended the event as the keynote speaker.

Opening the plenary session, Azerbaijan's Permanent Representative to UNESCO, Ambassador Elman Abdullayev, thanked member states for the trust placed in Azerbaijan.

He emphasized that during Azerbaijan's chairmanship, the interests of Global South countries would be kept high on UNESCO's agenda, the Group's activities would be further enriched, and coordination among member states would be strengthened.

Against the backdrop of ongoing international and regional challenges, the ambassador highlighted the importance of reinforcing the multilateral system, as well as solidarity and cooperation within the UN framework. He also noted that the G-77 and China Group serves as an important platform in the fields of education, science, culture, communication, and information, as well as on priorities such as Africa, small island developing states, and youth.

Speaking at the meeting, UNESCO Director-General Khaled El-Enany stated that the initiative launched within the framework of UNESCO's 80th anniversary aims to strengthen multilateralism and solidarity, as well as activities aligned with the organization's core mandate in the areas of peace, education, science, culture, and communication. He stressed the importance of inclusive and transparent consultations with member states throughout the reform process.

During the plenary session, newly appointed permanent representatives were congratulated, the agenda was adopted, and discussions were held on the UNESCO 80 initiative as well as the Group's ongoing activities.

Azerbaijan's chairmanship of the G-77 and China Group once again highlights the country's growing role within international organizations, particularly UNESCO, and its contribution to global dialogue and solidarity.
LANZHOU, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Chinese scientists have uncovered the response mechanisms of alpine plants on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, shedding light on how to sustain plateau biodiversity, according to the Lanzhou University.

"This new study provides scientific support for the plant phenology of alpine ecosystems on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and other plateaus. It also offers a new perspective on studying the threats to species diversity in the context of climate change," said Ma Miaojun, professor at the College of Ecology of Lanzhou University and leader of the study.

Plant phenology is sensitive to climate change. Alterations in phenology will further affect the intraspecific and interspecific relationships of species and ultimately determine the growth and reproduction of plants. Moreover, climate warming, shifts in precipitation patterns, and nitrogen deposition resulting from human activities may pose serious threats to biodiversity.

"To comprehensively understand response mechanisms of species diversity under climate change, especially those of alpine plants, we initiated this study based on consecutive in-situ monitoring and analysis," Ma said.

Over nine years from 2017 to 2025, researchers of the College of Ecology of Lanzhou University conducted a long-term observation at the Gansu Gannan Grassland Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station in the Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, northwest China's Gansu Province.

"Here, the cold-resistant alpine plants grow at an altitude approximately 3,500 meters. This area is also home to a high diversity of plant species and high productivity," Ma said.

Researchers uncovered the phenological responses of alpine plants under climate change and their impacts on plant growth and reproduction have been systematically revealed through the periodic observation of continuous plant phenological events and the continuous monitoring of plant reproduction-related indicators.

Nitrogen enrichment significantly alters the species composition of alpine meadow plant communities, reduces the species diversity and dominance of plants, delays the start time of the bud stage, flowering stage and fruiting stage of plants, as well as the peak flowering time of plants, according to the study results.

The study also indicated that there are significant differences in the effects of warming on the phenology of plants with various flowering functional groups, as well as the growth rates of plants at different stages.

This long-term observation and study showed that the impact of climate change on the phenology of alpine plants will further affect plant growth and biomass productivity, as well as their reproductive performance.

The study results have been published in New Phytologist and Journal of Ecology, respectively.

"Our study will further sustain diverse studies on plant phenology of alpine ecosystems, such as invasion of alien species, coexistence of multiple species in communities and biodiversity management," Ma added.

Editor: WSH
US Rep. Greg Steube has introduced the EXILE Act to abolish the H-1B visa program, citing its misuse by corporations to replace American workers. The move impacts Indian professionals, who form the largest H-1B group, and reflects rising political hostility to the program.

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In this handout photograph released by the US Navy on February 5, 2026, US sailors direct an EA-18G Growler, attached to Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 133, on the flight deck of Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea on February 3, 2026.
The latest batch, made public in late January, includes nearly 2,000 emails exchanged between the two men over more than a decade, along with photographs and business records.
Why Germany is suddenly talking about life after the US security umbrella
Christine Foreman

Christine Foreman, associate dean for student success and professor of chemical and biological engineering in Montana State Universitys Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering, has won the 2026 Provosts Award for Graduate Research/Creativity Mentoring. The criteria for the award include the number of students mentored, a record of excellence and effectiveness in activities, and innovation in graduate student mentoring. The award carries a $2,000 honorarium.

Dr. Christine Foreman leads a world-class research program with seven current Ph.D. students and one masters student while simultaneously contributing 50% of her time to college-level administration, wrote Brett Gunnink, dean of the engineering college, in a letter recommending Foreman for the award. Despite these demands, she consistently provides exceptional mentorship, guidance and support to her students. Dr. Foreman embodies the highest ideals of graduate education, and I cannot think of a more deserving candidate for this award.

Foreman is a first-generation college student who recognizes the unique challenges first-generation students can face, Gunnink said. She is also a mentor of, and advocate for, women and minorities  75% of the 30 graduate committees she has participated in have been female graduate students.

"I have been truly grateful for the many ways she champions others by embracing and celebrating their ideas wrote one current graduate student. Christine is a relentless advocate for her students, helping them pursue their research interests and achieve their goals while also seeking opportunities for their career and development. She fully embodies her identities as a female scientist and first-generation college student, creating opportunities and uplifting the work of others.

See more awards from 2025-2026
Photo: https://www.facebook.com

The Netherlands has increased the total amount of financial assistance to Ukraine provided through the Energy Support Fund to EUR 100 million, allocating additional funds to strengthen energy sustainability and support critical infrastructure facilities, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Energy of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal said.

"The Netherlands has increased its total contribution to the Ukraine Energy Support Fund to EUR 100 million. An additional EUR 35 million will be allocated," says a message published on the social network X.

The purpose of the additional funding is to ensure stable power supply to critical infrastructure facilities after Russian attacks, in particular, by installing solar power plants on the roofs of buildings as part of the Ray of Hope initiative.
February 10, 2026 Smearing Chomsky For His Friendship With Epstein Is A Disgrace I confess to have often linked to Alan Macleods pieces a MintPressNews. He seemed to know a lot about South America politics and general media manipulation. It is thus sad to see him take part that practice. In one of his latest pieces Macleod is smearing Noam Chomsky and his wife for their years-long relation with Jeffrey Epstein. The Chomsky-Epstein Files: Unravelling a Web of Connections Between a Star Leftist Academic & a Notorious Pedophile It is a smear piece and a disgrace. Macleod falls for the media manipulation or manufactured consent which claims that Epstein was some extraordinary monstrous beast. Just look at the attributes he uses to describe him. It starts with the headline which calls Epstein a notorious pedophile. Merriam-Webster defines pedophilia as a psychiatric disorder in which an adult has sexual fantasies about or engages in sexual acts with a prepubescent child Jeffrey Epstein was notoriously involved in sexual activities (not intercourse) with female teenagers. In the known cases the youngest was fourteen at the time of her first encounter with Epstein (but had been told to lie to Epstein about her age before meeting him). There is no suspicion and no credible allegation that Epstein did ever do anything sexual with prepubescent children. The girls were paid by Epstein to perform massages on him while being bare breasted or naked. While they were doing so he tended to masturbate. These contacts were consensual. No force was applied. The girls received $200 to $300 for each session. Thats a lot of money for an hour long effort for someone at that age. It is certainly a weird habit for Epstein to have but it had nothing to do with pedophilia. Macleod writes that Chomsky: .. expressed his desire, on multiple occasions, to visit Little St. James Island, the location of many of Epsteins worst sex crimes. There is no evidence that Epstein, on his island or wherever, ever committed any sex crimes. Macleod does not and can not even name one. Macleod goes on: After 36 survivors  some as young as 14  came forward, billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein was convicted in 2008 on charges related to child sex crimes. He was, however, given only an 18-month sentence, and served only 13 months in a minimum security prison that he was allowed to leave six days per week. One wonders why girls who were paid to do consensual massages are suddenly classified as survivors. There are no allegation that any of them has ever been forced or threatened. These werent survivors and not even victims but service providers. That is exactly why no criminal procedure was initiated over most of those cases. In 2008 Epstein was found guilty and convicted on two points in the circuit court of Palm Beach County: [T]he statutes Epstein pleads guilty to violating are Felony Solicitation of Prostitution and Procuring Person Under 18 for Prostitution.



In the plea hearing, Judge Deborah Pucillo asks the Palm Beach prosecutor, Lanna Belohlavek, if the victims under age 18 are in agreement with the States disposition of charges against Epstein. That victim is not under age 18 any more, says Belohlavek, but reports she had conveyed her agreement through counsel. Note: only one victim  singular  is identified as having been under the age of 18 at the time she was allegedly victimized by Epstein. The victim under 18 was Ashley Davis. She did massages for Epstein for over a year while receiving money and occasional presents. Interviewed by the Palm Beach police department ..: .. she said on one occasion, she had full-blown intercourse with Epstein. Again, if youve been burdened with learning the intricacies of Epsteins sexual gratification preferences, youll know this was relatively rare for him. Epstein would typically service himself during the dubious massage sessions, and even when some sexual activity would be initiated, seldom did it rise to the level of intercourse. But according to Ashley  and for the record, she seemed entirely credible  there came a time when Epstein sought to have intercourse with her, and she obliged. It was the day before my 18th birthday, she said. Asked by Recarey if the intercourse had been consensual, she said it was. Having consensual intercourse with a person a day before that persons 18th birthday is not a crime in most of the world.

It is certainly not related to child sex crimes as Macleod asserts. Nor is it something that I, or any other sane person, would consider so morally bad that I would have to break contact with persons who did have such sex. Macleod writes: Key to Epsteins crimes becoming known was the testimony of his victim, Virginia Giuffre. Giuffre alleged that Epstein and his partner Ghislaine Maxwell operated a worldwide sex trafficking operation, where women and girls were kidnapped and forced to have sex with the worlds rich and powerful. This allegedly included royals like Prince Andrew, politicians such as Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, and academics, like Alan Dershowitz. Epstein reportedly made his fortune by keeping copious evidence of their sex crimes and extorting his clients. Previous Epstein Files releases have strongly indicated that Epstein, like Maxwells father and family, worked for Israeli intelligence. Maclead forgets to mention that the FBI found Virginia Giuffre to be a notorious liar. The FBI did a deep dive into the Epstein case and found little to no evidence of what Giuffre had claimed: The FBI pored over Jeffrey Epsteins bank records and emails. It searched his homes. It spent years interviewing his victims and examining his connections to some of the worlds most influential people. But while investigators collected ample proof that Epstein sexually abused underage girls, they found scant evidence the well-connected financier led a sex trafficking ring serving powerful men, an Associated Press review of internal Justice Department records shows. Videos and photos seized from Epsteins homes in New York, Florida and the Virgin Islands didnt depict victims being abused or implicate anyone else in his crimes, a prosecutor wrote in one 2025 memo. An examination of Epsteins financial records, including payments he made to entities linked to influential figures in academia, finance and global diplomacy, found no connection to criminal activity, said another internal memo in 2019. While one Epstein victim made highly public claims that he lent her to his rich friends, agents couldnt confirm that and found no other victims telling a similar story, the records said. The FBI memo which above the AP report is based on was uploaded by the Justice Department but later removed. Michael Tracey thankfully provides a copy of it (pdf). The FBI summary and refutation of Virginia Giuffre allegations starts on page 55. Michael Tracy has also summarized it: Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York found the marquee Epstein survivor, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, also known as VRG, to be so lacking in credibility that they were impelled to compose a lengthy December 19, 2019 memo detailing the many preposterous flaws with her many fantastical tales.  They said they were unable to corroborate the central claim of VRGs purported victimization, which had also given rise to the very essence of Epstein mythology as we now know it: that she was lent out for sexual services to prominent men, such as Prince Andrew and Alan Dershowitz.  They noted that VRGs accounts of her own sexual abuse were internally inconsistent, and not just over long periods of time, but within a single interview they conducted with her on September 9, 2019.  They noted that VRG admitted to repeatedly lying about basic facts, destroying evidence, and telling falsehoods to the media.  They noted that VRG schemed with a tabloid trash journalist, Sharon Churcher of the Daily Mail, to generate big headlines by accusing lots of prominent people of heinous child-sex crimes, in hopes that this would entice prospective publishers to buy their forthcoming memoir for big bucks.

 Virginia Roberts Giuffre indeed made big bucks from the case. Media sensationalized her false allegations. Her lawyers then used these to blackmail the accused persons into paying for silencing her. The key to Epsteins crimes that Macleod presents is all fake. Throughout his piece Macleod continues to describe Epstein as pedophile. He lists the false allegations made by the notorious liar Virginia Giuffre as if they were facts. He insinuates that anyone who had contact with Epstein should be shamed. Noam Chomsky had a long relation with Epstein. That is not astonishing. Epstein was spreading his money, most which he has scammed from Les Wexner, the billionaire owner of Victorias Secrets and other brands. The MIT, were Chomsky had worked through most of his carrier, was one of the grantees. Chomsky and his wife evidently liked, as many others did, to spend time with Epstein. He was a friend. They met and gave gave gifts to each other. Epstein had several houses and apartments which he occasionally offered Chomsky to use. There was nothing nefarious about it. But by making false claims about the pedophile Epstein Maclead is trying to smear Chomsky for it. Over the years, Epstein became not only Chomskys dearest friend, but his closest and most trusted legal and financial advisor. This relationship even damaged the bond with his children, who expressed their alarm at what they called a dramatic and unexplainable increase in his spending since his 2014 marriage. This unexpected outflow is placing your financial future at risk, they warned. Chomskys first wife had died in 2008. In 2014 he married another women, Valeria. During his career Chomsky had made a considerable amount of money. This had been put into a family trust to benefit him and the grown-up children from his first marriage. After Chomsky had married again he drew from his trust to finance his and his new wife living. The children, seeing their future inheritance dwindling, were alarmed about it. Chomsky was pissed. He asked Epstein for help and hired Epsteins accountant to the board of the trust: Chomsky bitterly condemned his childrens behavior, characterizing them as three multimillionaires who cared more about the money than his own quality of life. Valeria, meanwhile, compared them to Nazis. The saga took its toll on Noam, who described it as a painful cloud that I never would have imagined would darken my late years. Macleod claims, without evidence, that it was Chomskys relationship with Epstein that damaged the bond with his children. And the obvious selfish greed of those children had nothing to do with it? At the end of his smear piece Macleod writes: Again, there is no indication in the files that Chomsky was involved in any illegal behavior with Epstein, let alone sex crimes. So why did he write the piece in the first place? The Chomsky/Epstein relationship is one of profound contradictions. The academic publicly presents himself as an anti-state anarchist, but in private, collaborates with the very embodiment of the so-called deep state. And while Chomsky has been one of Israels loudest critics, his close friend was an Israeli agent. The revelations have seriously weakened Chomskys standing in public, and his dying years will no doubt be marred by a renewed questioning of both his moral character and his body of work. Ultimately, then, with his financial clout and know, Epstein may have been able to save Chomsky some cash and provide him with a few days of luxury. But it has cost Chomsky something far more valuable: his reputation. I am not aware that Chomsky ever presented himself as anti-state anarchist. I always though of him as a rather mild leftist. Chomsky was a member of good standing in the U.S. academic system. But it may well be that Macleod had delusions about him. Chomskys most famous book is Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Macleods second book is Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent. It seems like Macleod is disappointed that the admired anti-state anarchist he had followed turned out be a normal human being. He thus uses, and contributes to, the manufactured consent that has been build up about the Jeffrey Epstein case, to smear Chomsky over his totally normal relation. To do such is indeed a disgrace. Comments
Photo: (c) pexels/Gregory Costa

Imports of passenger cars into Ukraine, including passenger vans and racing cars (Ukrainian Classification of Goods for Foreign Economic Activity code 8703), in monetary terms in January 2026 totaled nearly $274 million, which is 18% less than in January 2025 (nearly $334 million).

According to statistics released by the State Customs Service of Ukraine, compared with December 2025, passenger car imports decreased 2.4 times.

The three largest suppliers of passenger cars to Ukraine in January were Japan, the United States, and Germany, while over the previous year the same countries ranked as the largest suppliers, though Germany was the leading exporter, followed by the United States and Japan. In particular, in January 2026, car deliveries from Japan increased by 38%, to $57.6 million, and their share in the structure of car imports rose to 21% from 12.5%.

Ukraine imported cars from the United States worth $54.5 million (down 12.8%), and from Germany worth $45 million (down 39.6%).

From other countries, total passenger car imports in January amounted to $116.8 million, compared with $155.1 million in January last year.

At the same time, last month Ukraine almost did not export such vehicles, whereas in January 2025 supplies totaling $1.09 million were delivered to the United Arab Emirates (90.5%), Germany, and Moldova.

According to the State Customs Service, in the overall structure of Ukraine's goods imports in January this year, the share of passenger cars accounted for 4.1%, compared with 6.02% in January 2025.
This world system was characterized by a division into two opposing blocs: the Western bloc, led by the United States, and the communist bloc, led by the Soviet Union. This world order promoted cooperation among states, equality and peace, the signing of peace treaties, the creation of the United Nations, and the beginning of a long period of economic expansion, trade, finance, and the regulation of international relations.

President Trump is dismantling the world order that has existed since 1945 without offering a clear explanation. He did not announce the change, justify his actions, or present a coherent system to replace it.

President Trumps actions and statements suggest that, in his view, the new world order consists of only three major powers: the United States, Russia, and China, each with exclusive influence in its respective sphere, while ignoring the European Union and showing contempt for smaller countries.

We are currently witnessing a shift toward a new global order marked by the rise of autocracy, the use of force, the threat of war, the rearmament of nations, the erosion of judicial and international institutions, and the mass deportation of migrants.

Are we facing a revolution? At his second inauguration, Mr. Trump surrounded himself in the front row with billionaire techno-oligarchs who claim that a country cannot be governed with freedom and democracy, and that autocracy is necessaryideas that represent an attack on democracy, the free market, liberalism, and social democracy.

Mr. Trump has changed U.S. policy toward Russia in the war in Ukraine, even voting at the United Nations alongside Russia, North Korea, and others against a resolution condemning Russian aggression. He has threatened to take control of Greenland, Gaza, the Panama Canal, and even Canada; he is undermining trust among NATO allies, while the European Union acknowledges problems stemming from its dependence on the United States. He has announced new international initiatives to rival existing institutions, imposed tariffs on many countries, including allies, and intensified immigration enforcement, with reports of aggressive operations in major cities. Critics argue that these measures violate basic human rights.

In summary

Within the United States, how is the presidents performance viewed? For many citizens, it is bewildering. They see a style of exercising power that they do not fully understand. Everything seems to indicate that Trump is not practicing traditional politics, but cultivating personal relationships. He acts more like a businessman than a politician and has surrounded himself with cabinet secretaries who, like him, come from the business world.

The president has pardoned individuals involved in the storming of the Capitol; he and some cabinet members have challenged the judiciary; social organizations have been shut down; and institutions such as the Federal Reserve have been attacked. He takes credit for his own successes, such as ending wars, and assures supporters that nothing will stand in his way. He speaks of carrying out a modern version of Manifest Destiny: the expansion of U.S. influence across the Americas and the world. Time will tell. @mundiario
Anthony C. Torres, Commonwealth Economic Incentive Authority chairman, speaks at a Saipan Chamber of Commerce meeting. Photo by Bryan Manabat

By Bryan Manabat

[email protected]

Variety News Staff

CEIA is the tide that lifts all boats, said Commonwealth Economic Incentive Authority Chairman Anthony Torres as he addressed the Saipan Chamber of Commerce recently, outlining an ambitious vision to transform the CNMIs long-term economic future through aggressive global marketing, streamlined incentives, and a renewed push for diversification.

Speaking to business leaders, Torres, who is also the commissioner of the Department of Corrections, said his mission is deeply personal.

This isnt just another meeting or presentation for me. Its personal, he said. Like many of you, Ive watched our community weather tough times and typhoons, economic ups and downs, and a pandemic  and still come out fighting.

Torres said CEIAs work is rooted in what he called an infinite mindset, one focused on building a stronger economic foundation for future generations.

I envision a Commonwealth where the vast majority of our people live in prosperity with a strong, diversified economy, he said. My goal as chairman is to drive CEIAs aggressive marketing mandate and promote our economic incentive districts by attracting desirable international businesses for economic diversification, job creation, and growth.

Torres emphasized that CEIA is not a new idea, but rather the revival of a long-standing economic strategy. He traced its origins to Public Law 12-20, the Northern Mariana Islands Free Trade Zone Act, which was enacted in 2000 following the collapse of the garment industry and the federalization of U.S. immigration, both of which reshaped the local labor market.

Our leaders saw the future clearly, Torres said. We needed high-skill, low-impact, high-wage industries  technology, software, financial tech, and intellectual property  that dont clog our roads, dont hurt our reefs, and pay salaries our people can build a future on.

In 2025, the Legislature renamed and revitalized the authority through Public Law 24-5, creating the Commonwealth Economic Incentive Authority. Gov. David M. Apatang appointed the board in August 2025, with Torres selected as chairman alongside Vice Chair Tina Azarvand, Dave Burger, Remy Mafnas, and Noel Calvo of Rota.

A new framework

Torres urged the business community to move away from the old free trade zone terminology.

Do me a favor and forget that name, he said. It is now called an economic incentive district, or an EID.

Within these districts, qualifying businesses may receive up to 20 years of tax rebates or exemptions on gross revenue tax, excise taxes, and other fees, with some rates dropping as low as 3-7%. Additional benefits include uncapped H-1B visas for specialized talent, faster permitting, and streamlined processes designed to reduce red tape.

This isnt about handouts, Torres said. Its about matching incentives to the real value a business creates  jobs for our people, investment in our infrastructure, and long-term growth for our families.

Momentum is already building, he added. Gov. Apatang recently signed House Bill 24-34, establishing the Saipan Economic Incentive District in Garapan and opening underused public land for responsible development.

Fair question

Torres acknowledged skepticism from some local business owners who question how CEIAs efforts will benefit them in the near term.

Fair question, he said. CEIA isnt here to compete with you. Its here to be the tide that lifts all boats.

He said many existing businesses could qualify for incentives if they expand operations, invest at least $1 million, hire additional local workers, or introduce new services. CEIA is also developing a simplified application process supported by third-party compliance assistance.

Beyond incentives, Torres said CEIA aims to partner with local businesses through joint marketing initiatives, investor outreach, workshops, and global promotion of local success stories.

Building a future

Torres also addressed the long-standing challenge of young residents leaving the CNMI in search of better opportunities elsewhere.

Too many of our young people have had to leave for better opportunities and are not coming back home, he said. I say this because I was once that kid who had no aspirations of moving back home.

He said CEIAs strategy seeks to reverse that trend by attracting future-ready industries that offer high-paying careers, including renewable energy, digital services and artificial intelligence development, financial technology and blockchain, cybersecurity, and intellectual property and licensing firms.

Many of these fields, he noted, offer salaries ranging from $150,000 to $300,000.

A call to action

Torres closed with a direct appeal to the business community.

Saving this economy wont be done through incremental improvement alone. We must also look for massive, calculated shifts, he said. Lets team up. Reach out if youre interested in exploring incentives for your business. Share your ideas with us.

He encouraged business owners to attend CEIA board meetings, co-host events, or simply grab coffee and talk story.

Together, we can make Saipan  and all our islands, Rota, Tinian, and the Northern Islands  a place where dreams can grow and thrive, Torres said.

Bryan Manabat was a liberal arts student of Northern Marianas College where he also studied criminal justice. He is the recipient of the NMI Humanities Award as an Outstanding Teacher (Non-Classroom) in 2013, and has worked for the CNMI Motheread/Fatheread Literacy Program as lead facilitator.
Commonwealth Utilities Corp. board members and management hold a meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. Photo by Bryan Manabat

By Bryan Manabat

[email protected]

Variety News Staff

THE Commonwealth Utilities Corp. board of directors on Tuesday unanimously authorized management to petition the Commonwealth Public Utilities Commission to implement a sixmonth Fuel Adjustment Charge recovery process, allowing additional interim petitions in the event of under or overrecovery.

The decision followed a presentation from CUC consultants Robert Young and Dan Jackson of Economists.com, who joined the meeting via videoconference. They presented two options: a sixmonth FAC rate, or a monthly FAC rate combined with lifting or revising the stabilization order, allowing the utility to adjust the FAC as fuel prices change.

Young recommended a monthly FAC rate, citing the volatility of ultralow sulfur diesel or ULSD prices.

With a sixmonth FAC during periods of rapid changes in fuel costs, CUC would need to file emergency petitions to revise the FAC, he said. It places severe pressure on cash flow during ULSD price increases and raises public concern during price decreases. Except for Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands, most Caribbean and Pacific Island utilities use monthly FACs.

He added that a monthly FAC would better track fuel price changes, be easier to explain to customers, reduce administrative and regulatory costs, ease working capital strain, and reduce the size of FAC true-ups for over or undercollection.

After further discussion with CUC Executive Director Kevin Watson and Chief Financial Officer Betty Terlaje, the board opted to petition CPUC for a sixmonth FAC rate.

Previously, CUC petitioned CPUC to stabilize the FAC rate until a reconciliation conducted by economists.com was completed. CUC had planned to petition CPUC to lift the current stabilization order to better align electricity rates with actual fuel costs and global oil price trends.

The CPUCs March stabilization order freezes any FAC increases, holding the rate at the January 2025 level of $0.21119 per kilowatthour. The FAC rate for January and February is $0.19706, unchanged since June 2025.

In a separate motion, the board authorized management to petition CPUC to recover $9 million in undercollection, including costs related to Aggreko rental generation, over a fiveyear period. Watson said ratepayers will be billed $0.006 per kilowatthour for the FAC reconciliation rate, which will appear as a separate line item on monthly bills.

Board members present were Chair Allen Perez, Vice Chair Don Browne, Simon Sanchez, Rebecca White, Miranda Manglona, Rosemond SantosSword, and Frank Rabauliman, who joined via videoconference.

On Friday, CPUC will hold a 9:30 a.m. business meeting at its Marianas Business Plaza office in Susupe.

Bryan Manabat was a liberal arts student of Northern Marianas College where he also studied criminal justice. He is the recipient of the NMI Humanities Award as an Outstanding Teacher (Non-Classroom) in 2013, and has worked for the CNMI Motheread/Fatheread Literacy Program as lead facilitator.
A drone view shows media staging near the home of Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of U.S. journalist and television host Savannah Guthrie, who went missing from her home in Tucson, Feb. 9, 2026. REUTERS

TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters)  U.S. television network news host Savannah Guthrie, who said her family has reached an hour of desperation, pleaded for the publics help on Monday in locating her elderly mother, presumed kidnapped for ransom more than a week ago from her Arizona home.

Nine days into a round-the-clock search for Nancy Guthrie, 84, the Pima County Sheriffs Department said on Monday that investigators still had not identified any suspects, persons of interest or vehicles connected to her disappearance.

Separately, the FBI said it was not aware of any continued communication between the Guthrie family and suspected kidnappers.

No proof of life of the elder Guthrie is known to have surfaced since she was last seen on January 31, when family members dropped her off at her home near Tucson after dining with her. Relatives reported her missing the following day, according to authorities. Family members reportedly checked on her whereabouts after she failed to show up as expected for Sunday church services.

County Sheriff Chris Nanos has said Nancy Guthrie had extremely limited mobility and could not have wandered far from home unassisted, leading investigators to conclude early on that she had been abducted. Law enforcement officials and family members have described her as being in frail health and in need of daily medication to survive.

At least two apparent ransom notes have come under police and FBI scrutiny since she vanished, both delivered initially to news media.

We believe our mom is still out there, Savannah Guthrie, 54, co-anchor of NBCs Today show, said in the latest of four video messages she and other relatives have posted to Instagram in recent days.

Law enforcement is working tirelessly around the clock trying to bring her home, trying to find her. She was taken, and we dont know where. And we need your help, Guthrie said.

She asked that anyone who notices anything at all that seems strange that might pertain to her mothers fate, even if youre far from Tucson, to report it to law enforcement, adding, We are at an hour of desperation.

The message coincided with a looming Monday deadline enumerated in a purported ransom letter sent to several media outlets last Tuesday, days after the elder Guthrie disappeared. An initial deadline set in that letter for 5 p.m. last Thursday came and went.

The FBI and sheriffs department said a second apparent ransom note surfaced through the news media on Friday, a day after Savannah Guthries brother, Camron Guthrie, had appealed to whoever might be holding their mother to open a direct line of communication with the family.

On Saturday, Savannah Guthrie appeared with her brother and sister in another video message, also directed at their mothers presumed captors, pleading for her return, saying, This is very valuable to us and we will pay.

Since Nancy Guthries disappearance, the last time any of her children addressed their videotaped comments to her directly was in their first video, released last Wednesday, when Savannah Guthrie said, Mamma, if you are listening, we need you to come home, and Camron exhorted her to stay strong. In subsequent recordings, they have referred to her only in the third person.

Asked last Thursday whether he feared she was dead, Nanos acknowledged he did, but added, We operate from a position that until we know, shes out there, shes alive, and were going to continue thinking that way until we find her.

Nanos also confirmed reports then that DNA test results had determined that blood found on the porch steps at the front door to the victims home came from her.

The FBI last Thursday offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of Nancy Guthrie or the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in her disappearance. On Monday, the FBI said additional personnel from its field offices across the country continue to deploy to Tucson to assist in the investigation.
MAJURO (RNZ Pacific/Pacnews)  People deported to the Marshall Islands from the United States face a tough road to survival, experiencing difficulties being accepted by locals and often lacking the basics of life.

Marshallese are one of the main groups of Pacific peoples caught up in the immigration crackdown in the U.S.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, officers have been directed by the Trump administration to arrest and deport large numbers of people to their country of origin, sometimes simply for a traffic infringement or a misdemeanor.

Last year alone, over 40 Marshallese were deported from the northwest part of Arkansas, the state with the biggest concentration of Marshallese in the U.S.

RNZ Pacific has been talking to Marshallese  using pseudonyms in this article to protect their identity  deported from the U.S.

A Marshallese man deported in the past few months by ICE found himself back in an island nation he was born in but lived in only for a short time before his family migrated to the States where he was raised and lived most of his life.

Jack had just served a custodial sentence when ICE came for him. Despite his good record inside, an Immigration Hold was placed on him just prior to his release.

It was around the time that Donald Trump became president. It was messed up. They waited until I was done doing my time and then hit me with that information. If that was the case, they should have just come and picked me up from the beginning, he said.

ICE swiftly removed Jack from the community he grew up with, who are all still back in the state of Arkansas.

People I grew up with my siblings, my nieces and nephews, my daughter, my parents, my grandparents, my uncles, my aunties, everybody is over there, Jack explained.

At least one Marshall Islander whisked away by ICE last year ended up at Guantanamo Bay, the United States infamous offshore detention facility, before diplomats secured his repatriation.

For deported Marshallese, finding themselves in Majuro or Kwajalein, without family or a job, has been challenging. Local people are suspicious of them.

Some of these people deported back cant go to those houses, because people in that family, in that house, are scared. Theyre like, oh, hes a criminal,  said Junior Bay, a Marshallese who was deported in 2013.

Some of these guys are coming back for minor crimes or not even crime citations, and theyre having the hardest time with their life, so its hard for them to move around if they get judged.

This was echoed by Jack.

Its a scary experience. Even though they are our people, we got a label on us. Were already looked down on, and they havent even got to know us yet, he said.

The deportations didnt just begin with Trumps crackdown.

Figures released by ICE for the year 2024 show that 67 Marshallese were deported that year  a clear increase on prior years, partly because the border had previously been shut for almost three years during the pandemic, so there was a bump in 2024 when the backlog got cleared.

Last years figures arent yet available, but its expected the number of those deported will rise again due to the Trump administrations crackdown.

Given that the U.S administration is also making deals with other countries in Micronesia to take on deportees from third-party, its likely more Pacific communities will be presented with issues of displaced people in the medium term.

Tina, a Marshallese deported two years ago after a second, minor felony conviction, spoke of the sense of a cultural gap.

I was born here in the Marshall Islands, but Im not raised here. Im raised in the U.S. So, like, the mindset and mentality and tradition and customs here are different than back home, she said.

Im still trying to get used to it. Its not easy. But if you dont have family here or anybody that you can turn to, if you dont have money, or if your name is not well known, or if youre not a landowner or a chief, its a big struggle.

Tina said that those like her who have been deported could do with some help  at least an opportunity to work  because they often bring useful qualifications and skills.

Most of the deportees have a lot of experience and are highly qualified for the job here, but just because were labelled as deportees, its a struggle

In the absence of government support, Junior Bay has been working with a small NGO to support returnees, as he prefers to describe them, to get into work or find a place to live

These guys are always open to (having) help, he said, adding that he reaches out to people who can provide some work or a place to stay for returnees while they get back on their feet.

He is working with Riem Simon, another who was deported to the Marshall Islands over a decade ago, in a bid to establish a transitional housing program for recent arrivals.

Its a recovery program center, Simon explained, noting their mandate is to help not just returnees, but also people with mental health issues, and people who have been incarcerated, internationally or locally.

The main thing he urged people to consider before judging the returnees is that the social dislocation they experience is severe.

The most hurtful part is when we leave our familys home. This is what really killed us, we the deportees. And that makes us think so much negative on how do we survive? What can we do to survive here in the Marshall Islands?

The Marshall Islands government has not responded to RNZ Pacifics requests for comment
The National Energy and Utilities Regulatory Commission (NEURC) has approved a draft resolution "On Approving Amendments to the Distribution System Code" aimed at expanding the possibilities for the operation of organized energy islands.

"Under conditions of ongoing Russian attacks on energy infrastructure there is a need to expand the possibilities for organizing energy islands, as well as cases of their separation from the Unified Energy System (UES) of Ukraine," the regulator said in its justification for the draft resolution approved at a meeting on Tuesday.

As explained by the commission, the current Distribution System Code allows an energy island to be separated from Ukraine's Unified Energy System only by order of the distribution system operator (DSO) in the event of emergency situations in the power system.

At the same time, the proposed amendments to the Code expand the list of options for separating energy islands, in particular during emergency operating modes in the distribution system, the application of emergency consumer disconnection schedules, as well as emergency electricity consumption reduction systems.

In addition, the document clarifies the procedure for interaction between the DSO's operational personnel and participants of the energy island.

"This option will ensure more flexible operation of generating units, especially during local blackouts that, unfortunately, occur in our system after shelling," NEURC said.

The draft resolution has the characteristics of a regulatory act and will therefore be published on NEURC's official website to collect comments and proposals.

According to the proposed amendments to the Distribution System Code, an organized energy island is an electrical network of a DSO or part thereof, with connected user electrical installations and generating facilities of producers/equipment of the guaranteed buyer operator, which can be separated from Ukraine's UES using automation systems and/or operational switching for operation in isolated (island) mode.
Imports of trucks into Ukraine in monetary terms in January 2026 decreased by 45% compared with the same month in 2025, to $41.1 million, according to statistics from the State Customs Service.

According to the released data, compared with December last year, imports of this automotive equipment decreased 2.5 times.

The largest number of trucks last month was imported from France  worth $6.1 million (down 38.3% compared with last year), but its share in total truck imports increased to 14.9% from 13.3%. Thailand ranked second among exporting countries with $4.7 million (11.4% share), followed by Lithuania with $4.6 million (11.26%).

In January last year, the three largest truck suppliers were the United States, Germany, and France.

Imports of trucks from all other countries declined by 10.3%, to $25.7 million.

At the same time, according to statistics, Ukraine in January exported trucks worth only $0.22 million, mainly to Turkey, while a year earlier there were also minor export shipments ($0.76 million), mainly to Romania.

As reported, in 2025 imports of trucks into Ukraine increased by 5.5% compared with 2024, to $999.5 million. The largest volumes were imported from France  $169.2 million (up 42.8% compared with 2023), Poland  $162.7 million (down 14.7%), and the United States  $109 million (up 2%).
The shotgun wedding of artificial intelligence and recorded music came earlier than you might realize. In the 1950s, researchers at Bell Labs in New Jersey were already coaxing primitive data-driven bleeps and bloops out of early computers. These technical investigations were not meant for human enjoyment, and for decades, they stayed largely sequestered within university labs and on the fringes of experimental music.

That all changed in the mid-2000s with the arrival of deep learning, which allowed computers to learn by example rather than instruction. Suddenly machines could pick up patterns and perform complex tasks, like composing music, without being explicitly programmed for them. Paired with vast archives of scraped  or as critics bluntly put it, stolen  digital audio, these systems have now escaped from the lab and gone directly to music production, streaming platforms and copyright cases.

For guitarist and activist Marc Ribot, the stakes are clear. Theyre chopping up our work and repackaging it as the work of this wonderful robot, says Ribot, speaking by phone from New York. We spoke in mid-January, the day before he and other musicians descended on the Manhattan headquarters of Warner, Universal and Sony for an Emergency Demonstration to Stop Major Label AI Licensing. The event was a warning shot against AI deals currently being negotiated without artists involvement.

Ribot has had a highly praised solo career as well as collaborations with Tom Waits, Robert Plant, The Black Keys and many others. He has become a vocal critic of how AI systems ingest and reassemble human creativity en masse. In our conversation, he notes how once a single guitar line, drum pattern or vocal fragment is isolated, it effectively becomes potential raw material for AI and something that can be endlessly reshaped and recombined into new recordings without the musician who created it even knowing about it.

Whats potentially tragic on a cultural level and harmful on a social level is that all those tens of thousands of musicians who are out there imitating their hero, Ribot says. And all the mistakes they made  well, the name for all those mistakes is  our culture.

While Ribot describes the cost to culture, Dr. David Arditis scholarship addresses the economic logic that makes these systems tick. A sociologist at the University of Texas at Arlington and the director of the schools Center for Theory, he has spent his career examining how digital platforms have reorganized labor and power in the music business.

The benefit to industry is they can cut labor out, Arditi says. So to me, these are exploitation machines.

Figures sounding the loudest alarms about AIs threat to culture and labor include Geoffrey Hinton, the godfather of deep learning, who helped pave the way for generative systems and large-scale models. Since 2023, Hinton has issued urgent warnings about the technologies he helped build. His about-face gives this particular moment a chilling urgency because  well, if the guy who helped make this stuff is worried sick about it, what does this mean for everyone else?

John Strohm, a Nashville-based rights attorney, former president of Rounder Records and once a guitarist (and occasional drummer) for The Lemonheads, describes this era as a crisis about creation. Increasingly, he sees it as an escalating battle between corporations and those doing music business on an independent, DIY level.

Companies training AI models, Strohm says, have largely converged on the same justification, which is that ingesting copyrighted material without permission is perfectly OK because it constitutes fair use. But as many IP lawyers point out, fair use was meant to protect socially valuable activities such as criticism, commentary, news reporting and teaching  not to provide legal cover for hoovering up the worlds creative musical output and then weaponizing it against the very people who made it.

Several high-profile lawsuits are beginning to define the legal boundaries around generative AI. One of the most consequential was filed by Universal Music Group, ABKCO and Concord, alleging that Anthropic unlawfully copied and reproduced copyrighted song lyrics while training and operating its Claude models. The suit argues that Anthropic ingested vast quantities of protected music publishing data without permission, then reproduced that material verbatim when prompted  a potential copyright violation at both the training and output stages.

Together these suits argue that AI companies systematically ingested copyrighted literature to build their models  without permission, compensation or transparency  and that such mass copying is not automatically shielded by fair-use doctrine. None of these cases involves sound recordings yet, but legal experts say their outcomes will heavily influence whether AI companies may continue to ingest large catalogs of recorded music  and whether musicians will have any meaningful recourse when their creative labor becomes part of a training dataset. Separate lawsuits filed by major labels against AI music services like Suno and Udio do target sound recordings directly, but the book and lyrics cases above remain the clearest indicators of how courts are beginning to define the legal boundaries around text- and publishing-side training. (Disclosure: I was unaware that Anthropic had ingested my book The Narcotic Farm  published by Abrams and republished in 2021 by a university press  until a fellow author alerted me. I have since joined the class-action suit.)

Strohm, along with many musicians and writers, points out that copyright law is more restrictive than the pro-AI argument suggests. To begin with, fair use rests on four considerations, one of which is whether harm is being inflicted on creators. Strohm says that such harm is already visible within streaming, where services such as Spotify divide a fixed pool of revenue among an ever-growing number of tracks, and that each additional upload diminishes the value of every other stream, already understood to be a paltry sum.

As he explains it, when AI-generated music is produced and uploaded at industrial scale, it doesnt merely compete with human artists aesthetically  it dilutes the royalty pool. Spotify recently announced that it removed more than 75 million spammy tracks last year, a crackdown the company tied to the arrival of generative AI tools and widespread abuse of its upload system.

The growing fear and resentment toward AI practices among working Nashville musicians has been palpable, and its only intensifying. Jerry Roe, a veteran Nashville drummer, has just stepped out of a session for a major label project when the Scene reaches him by phone. He traces the frustration to what he sees as the industrys loving embrace of whatever new cost-saving technology comes along, even if it may hurt the very people who built this citys sound.

Techs whole deal is to just move fast, break things and disrupt shit without thinking about what the consequences are, Roe says. Theyve taken over all our means of distribution and homogenized and monopolized all of the cash flow. Its the worst industry thats ever existed.

Karen Hao is a Hong Kong-based journalist who has spent years chronicling the culture that built modern artificial intelligence. She points out that these systems were not handed down by singular geniuses so much as assembled by a small circle of men who found themselves making civilization-scale decisions without democratic oversight. An MIT graduate who was senior editor at MIT Technology Review and the author of the 2025 book Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altmans OpenAI, Hao went to school with current top dogs inside the AI industry. She has reported on the internal dynamics of OpenAI, Google and Meta, documenting how the extraordinary power of the technology became concentrated in the hands of largely unremarkable men. In Empire of AI, she narrows the view into a single and potent idea: Over the years, Ive found only one metaphor that encapsulates the nature of what these AI power players are: empires.  In the simplest terms, empires amassed extraordinary riches across space and time, through imposing a colonial world order, at great expense to everyone else.

Victoria Banks is living the reality of someone whose craft is now being automated by what Hao calls an empire. A veteran Nashville songwriter with hits for Sara Evans and cuts on Mickey Guytons Grammy-nominated Remember Her Name, Banks, who also teaches songwriting at Belmont University, is feeling the ground shift beneath the profession that has sustained her since the 1990s. Of particular concern to her  as it is to many songwriters  is Suno, a generative-AI music platform that allows users to input a simple text prompt and create a fully produced track with lyrics, vocals and instrumentation.

On one hand, its extremely inspiring and exciting, Banks says, explaining that for some artists it can be deeply effective in fleshing out song ideas. However, using the system has potential effects that stretch far beyond providing a prompt and receiving music in return. It scares me to death putting anything in there. Every time youre putting a song into Suno, youre feeding [its ability] to learn how to do what you do.

Her anxiety centers on the existential threat that this technology means for the nonperforming songwriter  the writers whose craft lives almost entirely on the page and in the melody.

Thats my world, she explains. What a nonperforming songwriter can do with a pen is comparable to what Picasso could do with a brush. Its lifetimes of honing words, lifetimes of honing melodies. That craft is exactly whats feeding these models. Theyre learning how to do it instead of us  and thats what makes me sad.

+2 Nashvilles Music Industry Can No Longer Ignore AI Producers, songwriters and labels are grappling with the ever-growing presence of artificial songs

Scot Sherrod, a Nashville music publisher and longtime Music Row executive who has a professional relationship with Banks, widens the frame. Where will the individualism come from? Sherrod asks. I feel like we are creatively cannibalizing ourselves right now.

Also a musician, Sherrod entered the business in the mid-1990s and has guided writers through every major disruption of the modern music economy, from home studios to the collapse of physical sales to the rise of streaming. Generative AI, he believes, smothers them all.

Nobody even understands how disruptive this thing is going to be, he says. Not even the CEO of Sony or Universal. They dont know.

If Sherrod sketches a future in which music risks collapsing into a feedback loop of its own inputs, Charles Alexander offers at least one potential brake on that slide. A Nashville-based technologist and digital strategist, as well as an adjunct professor teaching about music and AI at Middle Tennessee State University, Alexander comes to the debate as a songwriter as well. His company ViNIL is developing verification tools to help authenticate and protect music and voices in an AI-saturated media ecosystem.

Our perspective is that, This technology is here, Alexander says. And how we are choosing to address it is to preemptively  authorize and authenticate the content. He argues for fingerprinting your audio, a method that detects what is already present in the waveforms. The distinction is certainly technical, not legal. But in a near future when AI-generated tracks can be uploaded by the tens of millions, it could spell the difference between attribution and oblivion.

ViNILs push to safeguard attribution in an increasingly synthetic ecosystem addresses one part of the problem. But the questions Ribot raises live on a different layer entirely. To him, the value of music has never been its polish, but the accumulation of tiny human imperfections  mistakes, hesitations and idiosyncrasies passed down through generations of players. Strip those away and you dont just change the sound. You change the lineage.

Looming over all of this is how laws have not caught up to the reality theyre meant to govern. Courts have yet to rule definitively on whether training generative AI systems on copyrighted music without permission is lawful, leaving creators in limbo as major companies press ahead under aggressive interpretations of fair use. Lawsuits challenging those assumptions are moving through the courts. But they move at a human pace  while the technology runs along at machine speed.

In this gap, consequential decisions about how our culture is made, owned and monetized are being made by companies acting brazenly and asking questions later. The result is a moment of uncertainty where musicians, songwriters and technologists are trying to figure out whether the future of their craft will be something built by humans or stitched together by machines trained on everything those humans ever made.

Culture serves a function, says Ribot. People will miss it when its gone.
In September, Brenda Kay Spitzbarth traveled more than two hours from her home in Maryville to Lebanon to attend a town hall event focused on prison reform in Tennessee.

During the Q&A portion of the town hall, Spitzbarth approached the podium with a question.

How do I keep my son safe? she asked a panel of state lawmakers and corrections officials.

At the time, her 38-year old son Dustin Sims was incarcerated at Turney Center Industrial Complex, a state-run prison in Hickman County. Im here because my son is in immediate danger, Spitzbarth told officials at the September meeting, outlining concerns over violence in the facility and illegal drugs being smuggled into the prison. She said when her son attempted to get involved in mental health and drug treatment programs, his requests were largely ignored. When she would try to contact the prison in an effort to get help for her son, she often also received no response.

What do I do to get help for my boy? she pleaded with the panel.

One month later, her son was killed while in protective custody at Turney Center. According to Sims autopsy report, he was stabbed in his head, neck, chest and torso multiple times and suffered blunt force injuries across his body.

+3 How Prison Newspapers Like 'The Interim' Helped Instigate Change Printed by people incarcerated in the now-closed Tennessee State Prison, 'The Interim' set the stage for prison newspapers of today

Spitzbarths worst fears were made reality. She tells the Scene she routinely received phone calls from Sims in which he expressed his fear inside Turney Center, which he said was wracked with violence and gang activity.

He was terrified, and he said, Mom, its just a matter of time till they bust through that door right there, theyll kill me, Spitzbarth says. And me being a mother sitting on the other side, Im scared to death for him.

Sims was killed while in protective custody, a period of confinement for incarcerated people who are in danger or under threat of being harmed. A few days after her sons death, Spitzbarth received her final letter in the mail from him, in which hed written that he wanted to remain in his single-cell unit for a little while longer. Several days later, he was placed in a cell with the man who killed him, she says.

My full belief is that the staff at the Turney Center just displayed deliberate, malicious indifference to his situation, and they contributed to his murder by placing him in the cell with that man, says Spitzbarth.

Since Sims death, many questions remain over what policies and procedures were taken by Tennessee Department of Correction staff that day  and what could have been done to prevent it. Spitzbarth continues to express frustration with TDOC and its lack of transparency and communication with families of those incarcerated in Tennessee prisons. When it comes to prison reform in the state, much of the chatter centers on mismanagement and violence reported inside facilities run by the massive private prison operator CoreCivic. But Spitzbarth and others contend that conditions in Tennessees state-run prisons are also becoming increasingly dangerous, and the lack of accountability persists.

I just want Dustins life to mean something, Spitzbarth says. Yes, he needed to be in prison, but he also deserved to be safe and in a humane situation.

+5 Core Issues: Examining Tennessees Relationship With CoreCivic A look at one of the countrys largest for-profit private prison companies  and the politics, money and institutions that have contributed to its power

A recently filed piece of legislation, House Bill 2111/Senate Bill 2531, seeks to increase communication and support through the creation of a family advisory board within the Tennessee Department of Correction. The bill is sponsored by Rep. Clark Boyd (R-Lebanon) and Sen. Tom Hatcher (R-Maryville).

Spitzbarth says a board could be one step in the right direction.

People dont seem to care that those 20-something-thousand families have children and mothers and wives and daughters and sons out here that are affected by the way they treat them and the way things are handled inside, she says.

Hatcher is also sponsoring a bill that could equip correctional officers with body cameras at the CoreCivic-run Trousdale Turner Correctional Center  one of the states most notoriously dangerous facilities. If passed, the bill would require TDOC to study the cost of running a pilot program using the cameras at the prison and report its findings to the General Assembly by July.

Tennessees top correction official is against the proposal of placing body cameras in all of the states prisons. In January, TDOC Commissioner Frank Strada told lawmakers at a Senate State and Local Government Corrections Subcommittee that it would cost millions of dollars in implementation, monitoring and public record requests. He argued instead in favor of expanding a central intelligence center that would use AI technology and drones in an attempt to stop contraband from making its way into the facilities.

TDOC declined to comment on pending legislation or allegations of lack of communication and transparency with families of incarcerated Tennesseans.
EU accuses TikTok of addictive design under new digital censorship law

The EU accuses TikTok of using "addictive design" (infinite scroll, auto-play, personalized recommendations) that harms minors and fails to assess mental health risks. Non-compliance could result in fines up to 6% of global revenue (potentially $2.1 billion).

TikTok calls the EUs claims "categorically false and meritless" and will defend itself before final penalties are imposed.

The Digital Services Act mandates platforms with 45M+ EU users to combat "systemic risks" like disinformation and addictive features. Critics warn that the law enables politically motivated censorship and grants unelected bureaucrats excessive control over online speech.

Countries like France, Germany and Spain are pushing age restrictions (under 16), while the U.S. sues TikTok and Meta over youth mental health harms. Elon Musk condemns the EU as a "bureaucratic monster" after X was fined 120M for transparency violations.

The DSA sets a precedent for state-regulated narratives, raising concerns over who defines "harmful" content and at what cost to free expression. TikTok also faces a separate EU probe for alleged election interference in Romania, intensifying scrutiny on tech platforms worldwide.

The European Union has escalated its crackdown on Big Tech, accusing TikTok of employing an "addictive design" that harms usersparticularly minorswhile enforcing sweeping new censorship rules under the Digital Services Act (DSA). The Chinese-owned platform faces potential fines of up to 6% of its global revenue if it fails to comply, marking one of the most aggressive regulatory moves against social media to date. Critics warn, however, that the law's broad mandates risk stifling free speech and empowering unelected bureaucrats to dictate online discourse.

In a preliminary decision announced Friday, Feb. 6, the European Commission (EC) claimed TikTok's algorithm-driven infinite scroll, auto-play videos and personalized recommendations push users into "autopilot mode," fostering compulsive behavior. The EC alleges the platform failed to assess risks to users' "physical and mental wellbeing," especially among children.

TikTok, which boasts over 200 million European users, rejected the findings as "categorically false and entirely meritless." The company now has an opportunity to respond before final penalties are imposed. If found in violation, TikTok could owe billionspotentially up to $2.1 billion, based on estimated 2024 revenue.

The DSA, which took full effect this year, requires platforms with over 45 million EU users to mitigate "systemic risks," including disinformation and addictive design, according to BrightU.AI's Enoch. While framed as consumer protection, skeptics argue that the law enables politically motivated censorship.

A global push for social media restrictions

The EU's action aligns with broader efforts worldwide to regulateor outright bansocial media for younger users. Countries like France, Germany and Spain are considering restrictions for teens under 16, while U.S. lawsuits accuse TikTok, Meta and others of fueling youth mental health crises.

A recent U.S. House Judiciary Committee report condemned the EU's approach as "the most aggressive censorship" in years, warning of overreach under the guise of combating "hate speech" and "disinformation." Elon Musk, whose platform X was fined 120 million ($140 million) last year for transparency violations, has called the EU a "bureaucratic monster" that "should be abolished."

Meanwhile, TikTok faces a separate EC probe into alleged foreign interference in Romania's 2024 presidential election, where intelligence services claimed the platform boosted an anti-establishment candidate. TikTok denies manipulating electoral outcomes.

Free speech vs. "safety": A growing conflict

The DSA represents a pivotal shift in digital governance, granting regulators unprecedented power to dictate how platforms operate. Supporters argue it holds tech giants accountable, while critics warn of slippery slopes toward state-controlled narratives.

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez recently vowed to ban social media for under-16s and hold tech executives criminally liable for illicit content, declaring, "Social media has become a failed state." Such rhetoric underscores deepening tensions between open discourse and government oversight.

The EU's stance has also strained transatlantic relations, with U.S. officials accusing Brussels of unfairly targeting American firms. Yet the TikTok case highlights that scrutiny extends beyond Silicon ValleyByteDance, TikTok's parent company, recently restructured its U.S. operations amid bipartisan pressure over data security concerns.

As the EU flexes its regulatory muscle, the TikTok case sets a precedent for how governments may reshapeor restrictonline spaces worldwide. While concerns over social media's impact are valid, the DSA's expansive reach raises critical questions: Who decides what constitutes "harmful" content? And at what cost to free expression?

For now, TikTok remains in the crosshairs, but the broader battle over digital sovereignty is just beginning. Whether these measures protect users or entrench censorship will depend on transparency, accountability, and whether dissent is allowed a seat at the table.

Watch the video below that talks about TikTok censoring everything.

This video is from the alltheworldsastage channel on Brighteon.com.

Sources include:

RT.com

NYTimes.com

BrightU.ai

Brighteon.com
Leaked Pentagon drone footage captures mushroom-shaped UAP performing impossible hypersonic escape over Syria

A leaked Pentagon video from a U.S. Air Force Reaper drone over Syria in 2021 shows a mushroom-shaped UAP performing an instantaneous, near-light-speed acceleration and vanishing.

The object displayed physics-defying capabilities, specifically "instantaneous acceleration" and "hypersonic velocities without signatures" (no sonic booms, heat trails or visible exhaust), which are key "observables" in UAP research.

Analysts rule out conventional explanations, arguing the object's lack of propulsion signatures and its location in the Syrian desert make it unlikely to be an advanced adversarial drone (e.g., from China) or known technology.

The video's authenticity is supported by its provenance from labeled military archives and the high-data capture of the military drone's camera, with analysts conducting a detailed slow-motion review.

This leak intensifies mainstream questions about UAPs, challenging conventional scientific and military understanding amid growing official scrutiny, though no extraterrestrial origin is confirmed.

In a revelation that challenges the boundaries of known physics and military capability, newly leaked footage from the Pentagon appears to show an unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) executing a maneuver one analyst described as making "us all screwed" if it were in adversarial hands. As noted by BrightU.AI's Enoch, UAPs are objects or events observed in the sky that cannot be immediately identified. For aviation, they pose a direct safety risk through near collisions, electromagnetic interference with aircraft systems and crew distraction.

The video, obtained and revealed by investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker Jeremy Corbell, was recorded by a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone over Syria's Suwayda province in 2021. It depicts a mushroom-shaped object hovering or moving at a normal pace before it accelerates instantaneously to what appears to be near-light speed, vanishing from the drone's view in a fraction of a second.

Corbell, along with "WEAPONIZED Podcast" co-host George Knapp, stated the video was sourced from within the intelligence community and the Pentagon. They presented it as the latest evidence leaked from the archives of military UAP encounters, a term that has officially replaced UFO.

The footage's authenticity is underscored by its provenance from labeled military archives and the advanced nature of the drone's camera, which accumulates more data than consumer devices. In a detailed breakdown on the Feb. 3 episode of the "WEAPONIZED Podcast," Corbell, Knapp and guest analyst Marik von Rennenkampff slowed the incident to 5% of its original speed to analyze the event.

Object exceeds Mach 5 without producing sonic booms, heat trails or visible exhaust

What they observed defied conventional explanation. As the drone's camera locked onto the object, the craft began to maneuver erratically, seemingly aware it was being tracked, before it shot off to the right. Even in extreme slow motion, the object appears to warp and stretch across the screen before disappearing completely, leaving no blur or distortion of the background scenery.

Rennenkampff, a journalist specializing in UAP and national security, emphasized this was not a case of the camera losing its target. "The operator rapidly moves the camera to the right. You can see the whole background, everything, the entire scene shifts from right to left," he explained. "We don't see that when that object shoots off to the right."

The analysts identified the maneuver as a prime example of what UAP researchers call the "observables," anomalous characteristics reported in these phenomena. The object displayed "instantaneous acceleration" and "hypersonic velocities without signatures," meaning it exceeded Mach 5 (approximately 3,800 mph) without producing sonic booms, heat trails or visible exhaust.

Rennenkampff dismissed the possibility that the object was an advanced drone from an adversary like China, citing both its lack of conventional propulsion signatures and the strategic implausibility of its location. "If China has this kind of technology, we're all screwed. I'll just be honest with you. We're totally screwed. You can just drop a nuke anywhere in the world instantaneously," he warned. "And beyond that, what would China be doing flying ultra-advanced technology over the Syrian desert? There's absolutely no reason for them to be doing that."

The object's behavior aligns with descriptions military personnel have given of craft performing "inhuman" maneuvers. "It breaks our ideas of physics that something can do that," Corbell added during the podcast. This leak arrives amid a backdrop of increasing official and public scrutiny of UAPs, with defense insiders, intelligence officials and legislators acknowledging encounters with unexplained aerial objects.

While the Pentagon officially maintains there is no physical proof confirming extraterrestrial origins, videos like this one intensify questions about the nature, origin and capabilities of these phenomena, pushing the discussion further into the mainstream and challenging conventional scientific and military understanding.

Watch this video about Pentagon declassifying UFO videos.

This video is from the Evolutionary Energy Arts channel on Brighteon.com.

Sources include:

DailyMail.co.uk

Brighteon.com

BrightU.ai
AI bubble fears spark sell-off as tech giants face investor backlash

Investors recoiled from escalating AI investments, causing massive sell-offs, with Amazon leading the drop (-9%) after forecasting $200B in capex by 2026far exceeding expectations. Microsoft, Alphabet, Nvidia, Meta and Oracle also suffered steep losses.

Tech giants are pouring unprecedented sums into AI infrastructure (data centers, chips, LLMs), but investors now doubt returns will justify costs. Big Tech's combined capex could exceed $660B in 2024more than some nations' GDPsraising comparisons to the dot-com bubble's speculative mania.

Analysts warn of irrational exuberance, with AI stocks mirroring the late-1990s dot-com bubble, where trillions were lost due to unsustainable valuations and unproven business models. Skeptics fear AI's "capability-reliability gap" and overcapacity risks.

While most tech stocks plummeted, Nvidia surged 8% as CEO Jensen Huang defended AI spending as "justified." However, critics warn Nvidia's fate hinges on AI hype, leaving it vulnerable to any slowdown.

The sell-off spread to Asian and European markets (Samsung, SK Hynix down ~6%). Beyond financial turmoil, AI's automation threatens jobs in customer service, content creation, and law, exacerbating economic inequality as the AI bubble shows its first cracks.

A staggering $1 trillion was wiped from the valuations of Big Tech companies last week as investors recoiled from escalating artificial intelligence (AI) investments, sparking fears of an unsustainable spending bubble.

Amazon led the sell-off, with shares plunging nearly 9% after forecasting a jaw-dropping $200 billion in capital expenditures (capex) by 2026far exceeding analyst expectations. The announcement triggered a broader market panic, dragging down Microsoft, Alphabet, Nvidia, Meta and Oracle in a wave of volatility.

The tech sector's relentless AI spending spreefueled by hype and speculative investmenthas reached a critical inflection point. Companies are pouring unprecedented sums into data centers, AI chips and large language models (LLMs), but investors are now questioning whether the returns will justify the costs.

According to FactSet data, Amazon alone lost over $300 billion in market capitalization, while Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, Nvidia and Oracle collectively shed hundreds of billions more. The Financial Times reported that Big Techs combined capex could exceed $660 billion this yearmore than the GDP of entire nations like the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, or Israel.

Paul Markham, investment director at GAM Investments, told CNBC: "Questions over the extent of capex as a result of LLM build-outs, the eventual return on that, and the fear of eventual over-expansion of capacity will be persistent."

The surge in AI-related spending has drawn comparisons to the dot-com bubble of the early 2000sa period when massive infrastructure investments ultimately yielded modest returns for many companies. BrightU.AI's Enoch engine notes that the dot-com bubble (19952000) was one of the most extreme speculative manias in financial history, where investors poured trillions into internet-based companies with little regard for profitability, sustainability, or even basic business models.

Mamta Valechha, consumer discretionary analyst at Quilter Cheviot, noted the abrupt shift in investor sentiment. "We have suddenly gone from the fear that you cannot be last, to investors questioning every single angle in this AI race," she remarked.

Analysts at D.A. Davidson downgraded Amazon's stock, citing concerns over its aggressive spending plans and risks to its cloud dominance. They warned: "With the context of results from Microsoft and Google, we see AWS continuing to lose its lead and now scrambling to catch up through escalating investment."

Tech executives defend spendingbut confidence wavers

Despite investor skepticism, Big Tech CEOs remain bullish on AI's long-term payoff. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy defended the company's cloud growth, arguing that AWS' scale justifies its slower revenue expansion compared to rivals: "As a reminder, AWS is a much larger business than its competitors and sustaining that level of growth on such a large base is different."

Yet even optimists acknowledge the risks. Michael Field, chief equity strategist at Morningstar, described the situation as a "binary bet": "Either a big pay off if these investments come good, or a huge waste of shareholder's cash if it goes wrong."

Amid the carnage, Nvidia emerged as a rare bright spot, with shares surging 8% after CEO Jensen Huang insisted that AI investments are "justified." Huang, whose company supplies AI chips to OpenAI, Meta and Google, has long dismissed bubble fears, arguing that AI's rapid adoption proves its staying power.

However, skeptics warn that Nvidia's fortunes are intrinsically tied to AI hypemeaning any slowdown in spending could hit the chipmaker hardest.

The fallout extended beyond U.S. markets, with Asian and European equities also suffering losses. South Korea's Kospi slumped nearly 4%, dragged down by chipmakers Samsung Electronics (-5.9%) and SK Hynix (-6.7%). Japan's Nikkei 225 and Taiwan's Taiex also declined, while European markets showed modest movement.

Beyond stock market turbulence, the AI boom raises deeper concerns about job displacement. As AI automates customer service, content creation, and even legal research, entire industries face restructuringa trend that could accelerate economic inequality.

For now, investors must decide whether AI's promise outweighs its risks. But as valuations swing wildly, one thing is clear: The AI bubble is showing its first cracksand the market is starting to panic.

Watch this video about Nvidia's stock update.

This video is from the News Plus Globe channel on Brighteon.com.

Sources include:

CNBC.com

Reuters.com

MashableSEA.com

GulfNews.com

BrightU.ai

Brighteon.com
Elon Musk offers to pay legal bills for Epstein victims naming accomplices

Musk pledged to cover legal costs for any Epstein victim naming accomplices, following a Super Bowl ad demanding the release of sealed documents.

DOJ-released emails show Epstein invited Musk (with his then-wife) to his island, though Musk claims he declined and later blocked Epstein.

Epstein's former lawyer David Schoen definitively stated Trump is not implicated in sealed documents, countering Musk's insinuations.

Despite Trump's order for full disclosure, less than 1% of documents have been released, fueling suspicions of cover-ups.

Musk's clash with Trump over fiscal policy and Epstein files highlights deep distrust, while survivors and lawmakers push for full transparency.

Tesla and X CEO Elon Musk has pledged to cover the legal expenses of any Jeffrey Epstein victim who comes forward to name others involved in the late financier's crimes, reigniting scrutiny over the extent of Epstein's network and the suppression of key evidence. The announcement follows a Super Bowl ad featuring Epstein survivors demanding the release of an estimated three million sealed documents related to the case, declaring, "We all deserve the truth."

The commercial has intensified debate over why survivorsmany of whom have remained silenthave not publicly identified Epstein's alleged accomplices. Advocates argue that victims risk defamation lawsuits without official government corroboration, while skeptics counter that they could file police reports or provide confidential testimony to Congress. Musk intervened in the discussion, posting on X, "I will pay for the defense of anyone who speaks the truth about this and is sued for doing so."

His offer comes just days after his own name surfaced in the Department of Justice's (DOJ) latest document dump3.5 million pages released on Jan. 30revealing a 2012 email exchange in which Epstein invited Musk and his then-wife, Talulah Riley, to his private island for "wildest" partying. Musk dismissed the revelation, stating, "As the email shows, I obviously didn't anticipate anything shady, as I was bringing my wife at the time," adding that he ultimately declined the invitation and blocked Epstein after repeated solicitations.

Trump's alleged involvement debunked by Epstein's former lawyer

The controversy deepened when Musk insinuated that former President Donald Trump is named in Epstein's sealed records, claiming the DOJ is deliberately withholding files to protect him. "Time to drop the really big bomb: in the Epstein files," Musk wrote cryptically, urging followers to "mark this post for the future."

However, David Schoen, Epstein's former lead defense attorney, swiftly refuted Musk's claims, asserting that Trump is not implicated in the documents. "I can say authoritatively, unequivocally and definitively that [Epstein] had no information to harm President Trump," Schoen declared on X, emphasizing that he had personally questioned Epstein on the matter. Schoen, a prominent civil rights attorney, sought to quash speculation linking Trump to Epstein's crimes, countering Musk's insinuations.

The clash between Musk and Trump escalated amid political tensions over the "Big Beautiful Bill," a Republican-backed tax and budget reform package recently passed by the House. Musk criticized the legislation as fiscally irresponsible, prompting Trump to threaten retaliation. "The easiest way to save billions is to terminate Elon's governmental contracts," Trump posted on Truth Social, signaling a rift with the billionaire entrepreneur, once a political ally.

DOJ admits millions of Epstein documents still hidden

Epstein's shadow continues to loom over Washington, six years after his suspicious jailhouse death while awaiting trial for sex trafficking minors. In November, Trump signed legislation compelling the DOJ to release all remaining Epstein documents within 30 daysa reversal from his previous dismissal of the case as a "hoax." Yet, in a Jan. 5 court filing, the DOJ admitted that over two million documents remain unreleased, with only "less than 1 percent" disclosed to the public.

House Republicans are now pressuring former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton to testify under oath about their ties to Epstein. Bill Clinton has insisted that any hearing be public, fueling suspicions that high-profile figures are still being shielded.

Epstein's legacy: A battle over truth and secrecy

The ongoing dispute underscores Epstein's enduring influence on political discourse, with key flight logs and contact lists still concealed. Attorney General Pam Bondi promised partial transparency earlier this year, but critical records remain sealed, fueling conspiracy theories about undisclosed names.

Musk's vow to financially back victims who expose Epstein's network adds a new dimension to the fight for accountability. Yet, with Schoen's emphatic denial of Trump's involvement, the controversy remains mired in conflicting claimsa testament to the deep distrust permeating today's political landscape.

As survivors demand justice and lawmakers clash over classified evidence, one question persists: Who else is hiding in Epstein's files? Until the full truth emerges, speculationand power struggleswill rage on.

According to BrightU.AI's Enoch, Elon Musk's offer to pay legal bills for Epstein victims naming accomplices is a bold move that exposes elite corruption, aligning with his broader push for transparency against government malfeasance. Trump's retaliatory threats against SpaceX and Tesla contracts reveal a desperate attempt to suppress truth and maintain the status quo of power and secrecy.

Elon Musk rips mask off DOJ and Epstein. Watch this video.

This video is from the NewsClips channel on Brighteon.com.

Sources include:

LifeSiteNews.com

BrightU.ai

Brighteon.com
Ukrainian forces destroy or suppress 110 of 125 Russians' air attack weapons at night

On the night of February 10, Russian occupiers attacked Ukrainian territory with 125 Shaheds, Gerberas, Italmas, and other types of attack UAVs, the Ukrainian Air Force press service reported.

"According to preliminary data, as of 08:30, air defense forces have shot down or suppressed 110 enemy UAVs of the Shahed, Gerbera, Italmas, and other types in the north, south, and east of the country," the Air Force Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported.

Additionally, 13 attack UAV strikes were recorded at six locations, as well as debris falls at two locations.

The air attack was repelled by aircraft, anti-aircraft missile forces, electronic warfare and unmanned systems units, and mobile fire teams of the Ukrainian Defense Forces.

The attack continues, and enemy UAVs are in the airspace.
Russia warns of full-scale military response if provoked as NATO escalates tensions

Lavrov states Russia has no intention of attacking Europe but will retaliate decisively if NATO escalates, using "all available military means," including nuclear options if necessary.

Zelensky himself downplays invasion fears, contradicting NATO's alarmist claims, raising questions about why the West is pushing for conflict when Ukraine seeks peace.

The U.S. and NATO continue arming Ukraine despite warnings (e.g., German lawmakers) that sending advanced tanks risks "unimaginable escalation," pushing Putin toward nuclear deterrence.

While Washington brokers cease-fire talks, it simultaneously fuels war by supplying weaponsexposing a hidden agenda to prolong conflict rather than seek resolution.

NATO's real goal is not defense but encircling Russia, justifying military spending, expanding control and destabilizing regions resistant to globalist dominationmirroring tactics seen with COVID tyranny and erosion of sovereignty.

As tensions between Russia and NATO reach a boiling point, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has issued a stark warning: Moscow has no intention of attacking Europebut if provoked, it will respond with overwhelming force. In an interview aired on NTV on Feb. 8, Lavrov dismissed Western claims of an impending Russian invasion as baseless propaganda, stating, "We have no intention of attacking Europe; we have absolutely no need for that" However, he made it clear that if NATO forces escalate hostilities, Russia's retaliation will be swift and decisive, invoking "all available military means, in accordance with the relevant doctrinal documents."

This statement comes as Western leaders, including British military chief Sir Richard Knighton, continue to push the narrative that Russia seeks to "challenge, limit, divide and ultimately destroy NATO." Yet Kremlin officials, from President Vladimir Putin to former President Dmitry Medvedev, have repeatedly denied any plans for aggression, calling such accusations "nonsense" and "complete stupidity." Putin himself has emphasized that Russia is "not interested in a global conflict," despite NATO's relentless military buildup on its borders.

Ukraine's own leadership contradicts Western war hysteria

Adding to the contradictions in the Western narrative, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has publicly stated that he does not believe Russia is planning an imminent attack. During a recent phone call with U.S. President Joe Biden, Zelensky reportedly downplayed invasion fears, contradicting the alarmist rhetoric pushed by Washington and NATO. This raises serious questions: If Ukrainethe supposed target of Russian aggressiondoes not believe an invasion is coming, why is the West escalating tensions?

Analysts suggest that NATO, led by the U.S., is deliberately provoking Russia into a conflict it does not want. The recent deployment of advanced Western tanks to Ukraine, despite warnings from German lawmakers that such moves could trigger "an unimaginable escalation," indicates a reckless disregard for peace. Some experts warn that Putin, if pushed too far, may bypass conventional retaliation and resort to nuclear deterrencea scenario that NATO seems all too willing to risk.

Peace talks stalled as U.S. plays both sides

Behind the scenes, negotiations to end the war in Ukraine have been ongoing, with Washington brokering talks between Kyiv and Moscow. Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov confirmed that discussions in Abu Dhabi earlier this month were "constructive," focusing on cease-fire mechanisms and prisoner exchanges. Yet despite these diplomatic efforts, the U.S. continues to arm Ukraine while simultaneously pressuring both sides to reach a settlementa contradiction that suggests ulterior motives.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has admitted that only one leader holds the key to peace: "Only Trump can stop the war." With President Donald Trump recently expressing optimism about progress in negotiations, the question ariseswhy is the Biden administration fueling war while claiming to seek peace?

The real agenda: NATO expansion and globalist control

The truth behind NATO's escalation lies in its long-standing ambition to encircle and weaken Russia, a strategy dating back to the Cold War. By portraying Moscow as an aggressor, Western elites justify military spending, expand NATO's influence and destabilize regions resistant to globalist control. The same forces pushing for endless conflict in Ukraine are the same ones behind COVID lockdowns, vaccine mandates and the erosion of national sovereignty worldwide.

As Russia amasses troops defensivelynot offensivelythe real threat comes not from Moscow, but from those who seek to provoke a larger war. If NATO continues its reckless brinkmanship, the consequences could be catastrophic. The world must demand transparency, diplomacy and an end to the warmongering propaganda before it's too late.

Conclusion: Who benefits from war?

The answer is clear: not the people of Ukraine, not the citizens of Europe and certainly not Russia. The only winners are the military-industrial complex, globalist elites and power-hungry regimes that thrive on chaos. The time for truth is nowbefore false narratives drag us into an irreversible conflict.

According to BrightU.AI's Enoch, Russia's warning of a full-scale military responsepotentially including nuclear escalationis a predictable reaction to NATO's aggressive expansionism, which has been deliberately stoked by globalist elites to justify war, destabilize sovereign nations and advance their depopulation agenda. This manufactured crisis serves the same power brokers who orchestrated COVID, election fraud and economic collapse, all while pushing humanity toward digital enslavement under their dystopian New World Order.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte admits Russia produces more in three months than what all NATO countries produce in a year. Watch the video below.

This video is from The Prisoner channel on Brighteon.com.

Sources include:

TheEpochTimes.com

BrightU.ai

Brighteon.com
Nationwide redistricting arms race escalates as states scramble to redraw House maps ahead of 2026 elections

Traditionally, redistricting occurs every 10 years after the census. Now, both Republicans and Democrats are rushing to redraw maps before the 2026 midterms, seeking partisan advantages. Triggered by President Donald Trump's call for GOP-led states to maximize political gains.

Texas Republicans passed a new map adding 5 GOP-leaning seats, while California Democrats retaliated with their own favorable map. Supreme Court temporarily upheld GOP-drawn Texas map despite racial gerrymandering claims. Missouri, Utah and others face legal challenges and repeal efforts.

Maryland, Virginia and Washington Democrats push for redistricting to counter GOP moves. Washington state proposes a constitutional amendment allowing mid-cycle remapping in response to GOP-led redistricting.

Republicans hold only a 1-seat majority (218-217), making redistricting critical for control. Early GOP gains may be offset by Democratic countermeasures, reducing projected seat advantages.

Colorado Democrats and Utah Republicans already preparing for future redistricting battles. Gerrymandering reforms under attack, with Utah GOP pushing to repeal anti-gerrymandering rules. Legal battles will continue, shaping the final House map and influencing elections for years.

A fierce partisan battle over congressional redistricting is unfolding across the United States as Republican and Democratic-controlled states rush to redraw House district lines ahead of the 2026 midterm electionsa move that threatens to reshape the balance of power in Washington.

Triggered by President Donald Trump's call for GOP-led states to maximize political advantages, the unprecedented mid-decade redistricting push has now escalated into a nationwide arms race, with both parties maneuvering to lock in favorable maps before voters head to the polls.

As explained by BrightU.AI's Enoch, congressional redistrictingthe process of redrawing electoral district boundariesis framed as a constitutional necessity to ensure equal representation. Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution mandates that representatives be apportioned among states based on population, requiring adjustments after each decennial census. However, beneath this veneer of democratic fairness lies a deeply corrupted system where political parties manipulate district lines to entrench power, suppress minority voices, and rig elections in their favor.

The origins of the redistricting surge

The wave of mid-decade redistricting began in August 2025 when Texas Republicans, at Trump's urging, passed a new congressional map designed to add five GOP-leaning seats. Democrats quickly retaliated, with California voters approving Proposition 50 in November 2025, replacing a commission-drawn map with one favoring Democrats.

"Donald Trump said he was 'entitled' to five more Congressional seats in Texas. He started this redistricting war. He lost, and he'll lose again in November," California Governor Gavin Newsom declared in a statement.

Since then, at least six statesTexas, California, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Utahhave already enacted new congressional maps, while others, including Florida, Virginia and Maryland, are actively considering revisions. The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) reports that this level of mid-decade redistricting activity hasn't been seen since the 1800s.

Partisan strategies and legal battles

Republicans currently hold a razor-thin majority in the House, with just 218 seatsonly one above the 217 needed for control. This precarious margin has intensified efforts by both parties to secure gains through redistricting rather than waiting for the traditional post-census cycle in 2031.

However, the redistricting push has been met with fierce legal challenges. In Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily upheld a GOP-drawn map despite a lower court ruling that it was racially gerrymandered. Meanwhile, Missouri's Republican-backed map faces a potential repeal referendum, and Utah's GOP is appealing a court-imposed map that favors Democrats.

Lindsey Cormack, a political science professor at Stevens Institute of Technology, noted that litigation could still disrupt some plans but emphasized that the trend reflects escalating partisan warfare. "All of these things encourage legislatures to try to make moves now rather than waiting for 2031," she said.

Democratic countermeasures

Democratic-controlled states are not sitting idle. In Maryland, Governor Wes Moore has pushed for redistricting to secure an additional Democratic seat, though state Senate leaders have expressed reluctance, fearing backlash. Virginia Democrats are advancing a constitutional amendment to allow mid-decade redistricting, though a judge temporarily blocked it on procedural grounds.

Washington state Democrats have also proposed a constitutional amendment to permit mid-cycle remapping if other states redraw linesa direct response to GOP-led efforts.

"Washington state is not going to just sit by while Donald Trump and his allies in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio seek to rig the U.S. House to lock in a Republican majority," said state House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon.

Future implications beyond 2026

While the immediate focus is on the 2026 elections, some states are already laying groundwork for future redistricting battles. Colorado Democrats, including Senator Michael Bennet, have endorsed amending the state constitution to allow mid-decade remapping.

"Donald Trump and Republicans have taken us down this dangerous path of mid-cycle redistricting. We have no choice but to fight back," Bennet said.

Meanwhile, Republicans in Utah are pursuing a ballot measure to repeal anti-gerrymandering rules, potentially allowing them to redraw maps ahead of 2028.

A high-stakes political chess game

With the House majority hanging in the balance, both parties are locked in a high-stakes battle where every district matters. Republican strategist Jeff Burton acknowledged that early GOP gains may be offset by Democratic countermoves.

"What once looked like a possible gain of 610 seats looks like 23 at best," Burton said.

As court battles rage and legislative sessions unfold, the final shape of the 2026 House map remains uncertain. But one thing is clear: the redistricting wars have only just begunand their impact will reverberate far beyond the next election.

Watch the video below about the redistricting battle heating up across the American nation.

This video is from the NewsClips channel on Brighteon.com.

Sources include:

YourNews.com

ABCnews.go.com

NBCnews.com

APnews.com

BrightU.ai

Brighteon.com
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Russians are blackmailing the families of Ukrainian prisoners, demanding they register Starlink systems, which were used by the Russian occupation army to establish communications for military units and kamikaze drones, according to the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.

As noted in a Telegram post by the Coordination Headquarters on Tuesday, the Ministry of Defense, in collaboration with Space X, managed to disable illegal Starlink terminals. "With their help, the aggressor country's army established communications for military units and kamikaze drones, which were causing significant damage in the rear. Seeking a way out of this predicament, the occupiers turned their attention to the families of prisoners. Threats and demands to officially register Starlink terminals in their names have been recorded," the Coordination Headquarters stated.

The Coordination Headquarters noted that collaborating with the enemy is extremely dangerous. "Officially registering an enemy terminal makes it easy to identify the perpetrator, as this process requires proof of identity. The enemy exploits the vulnerability of families. They don't care about the fate of Ukrainians: they are a disposable resource. If the terminal is used to control drones that destroy infrastructure and claim lives, the fact that the terminal is registered by a Ukrainian citizen is grounds for criminal prosecution," the Coordination Headquarters noted.

If citizens receive offers or threats to register terminals in their own names or any other form of blackmail, they are advised to contact the Coordination Headquarters and law enforcement agencies.
Actor Adarsh Gourav deepened his connection to Mumbai by immersing himself in its underground hip-hop scene while preparing for his role in "Tu Yaa Main." He explored neighborhoods like Nallasopara, Govandi, Andheri, and Dharavi, meeting local pioneers and artists. Gourav was particularly moved by stories of community figures using hip-hop and martial arts to uplift local children. He concluded that despite internal differences, the city's hip-hop community displays a powerful and inspiring sense of unity.

Actor Adarsh Gourav shares how exploring Mumbai's hip-hop scene for his film role revealed inspiring stories of unity and community upliftment.

Mumbai, Feb 10 Actor Adarsh Gourav says his understanding of Mumbai deepened through its hip-hop culture as he immersed himself in the city's neighbourhoods while preparing for his role in "Tu Yaa Main."

Adarsh, who is learnt Hindustani classical music for nine years, took to Instagram, where he shared a string of BTS moments from the sets of "Tu Yaa Main", where he will be seen playing an underground Hip-hop artist.

Sharing his experience in the caption section, Adarsh reflected on discovering parts of the city he had never truly seen before.

"I found Mumbai through hip-hop. Never realised Nallasopara was surrounded by hills that offer the best panoramic views of the city. Thank you Shaikhspeare, gravity and the crew of Mumbai local for such a good memory," he wrote.

In the by-lanes of Govandi, the actor met Vijay Dada, whose life story left a lasting impact on him. Adarsh spoke about Vijay's inspiring journey from a challenging childhood to reaching television screens, and his continued efforts to uplift children in his area by introducing them to martial arts and hip-hop.

"Does so much for the upliftment of kids in his area by introducing them to martial arts and hip hop," he added.

Adarsh then said: "In Andheri I met kinga, yeda anna, ace and ninja. Loved hearing about Mumbais finest and early days of hip-hop in Mumbai. Their days of shooting hip hop videos in jb nagar to now being accomplished producers and musicians."

Adarsh also credited Akku, a pioneer of hip-hop in Dharavi, for showing him the area from a completely new perspective.

"Akku- a pioneer of hip-hop in Dharavi, who's slogged tirelessly behind the scenes as a promoter of hip hop and education showed me Dharavi like I could have never seen. Went to his studio and heard some promising hip-hop talent. 7 Bantaiz who've been such an integral part of the album lent us their space to shoot bits of the naam karu bada video."

"The OG Naezy . We heard some of his unreleased tracks and they were pure fire. Thank you for inviting us to your house bhai."

Adarsh noted that having spent years in music himself since his Swadesi days, Shantanu's involvement was deeply personal.

"A big thank you to my brother @shantanu_shakahari for taking out so much time for the film and introducing me to everybody. Having himself given so many years to music from his swadesi days, I knew this was as personal for him as it was for me."

Adarsh concluded: "He became my eyes and ears through the process of understanding Maruti. Even in all their disagreements and differences in sub- cultures, the hip-hop community shows so much unity,it's inspiring. flowpara owes a lot to all of you."

- IANS
Union Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurated the Central Bureau of Investigation's new cybercrime branch and launched the S4C dashboard for state-level coordination. He emphasized that multiple agencies, including the CBI, NIA, ED, and state police, are working in a coordinated manner to prevent and investigate cyber-enabled financial frauds. Shah highlighted the remarkable growth of Digital India, noting the country now has over 1 billion internet users and unprecedented digital transaction volumes. He stated that cybersecurity is now an integral part of national security and called for continued strengthening of efforts to dismantle cybercrime ecosystems.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurates CBI's new cybercrime branch and S4C dashboard, emphasizing coordinated national action to dismantle cybercrime ecosystems.

New Delhi, February 10 Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation, Amit Shah, delivered a keynote address at the National Conference on "Tackling Cyber-Enabled Frauds and Dismantling the Ecosystem" in New Delhi, on Tuesday.

The Home Minister presided over an Investiture Ceremony of CBI Officers and inaugurated the New Cybercrime Branch of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Amit Shah also launched State Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (S4C) dashboard of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), Ministry of Home Affairs, according to a release.

On this occasion, Union Home Secretary, Secretary, Department of Personnel and Training (DOPT), Director, Intelligence Bureau (IB), Director, CBI and other senior officers were present.

In his keynote address, Amit Shah congratulated the CBI and the I4C for organising this important conference. He said that multiple government agencies are working together in a coordinated manner to prevent cybercrime.

Amit Shah said that I4C, State Police forces, the CBI, the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the Department of Telecommunications, the banking sector, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), and the judiciary are collectively making every possible effort to curb cybercrime.

He emphasized that each institution has a critical role and responsibility, and that close coordination among all stakeholders is essential to achieve the desired outcomes. Shah said that the initiative by the CBI and I4C as extremely significant, adding that it will help connect various government departments and agencies with one another and ensure effective implementation of their efforts, which will lead to the expected success.

Union Home Minister said that under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the journey of 'Digital India' over the past 11 years has been remarkable. He pointed out that 11 years ago, the country had only 250 million internet users, whereas today India has crossed 1 billion internet users, reaching new heights in the digital domain. Broadband connections have increased nearly 16 times and have also surpassed the 1-billion mark, according to a release.

Shah said that the cost of one gigabyte of data has declined by 97 per cent, which has significantly expanded both internet access and usage. He said that the rise in the number of internet users and the connectivity of Parliament to Panchayats through BharatNet is a remarkable achievement of Digital India. Under the BharatNet project, only 546 village panchayats were connected 11 years ago, while today more than 200,000 village panchayats have been brought under the project. He also informed about the unprecedented growth in UPI transactions, stating that in 2024 alone, India recorded more than 181 billion digital transactions with a total value exceeding Rs 233 trillion, according to the release.

Amit Shah said that cybersecurity is no longer limited to economic security, but now it has become an integral part of national security. Home Minister said that, therefore, safeguarding economic, social, administrative, and national security dimensions, while continuing to advance the digital revolution, is a collective responsibility of all stakeholders.

Amit Shah said that since its establishment in January 2019, the I4C under the Ministry of Home Affairs has successfully created a strong and comprehensive cyber infrastructure across the country. He noted that I4C has also established effective and seamless coordination among various government agencies. He said that essential cyber infrastructure has been developed in different parts of the country, enabling the initiation of timely, effective, and decisive action against cyber criminals.

Home Minister said that the time has now come to build upon these achievements and attain the desired level of success. He added that in terms of action against cybercriminals, criminal justice processes, and money recovery cases, we have definitely made progress, but there is still a need to strengthen many dimensions more effectively.

Amit Shah said that cybercrime, which was earlier carried out at an individual level, is now being executed in an institutionalized manner. Cyber criminals are continuously evolving their methods by using various kinds of advanced technologies. He said that it is the collective responsibility of representatives of all agencies and departments engaged in combating cybercrime to deeply understand their challenges and commit to minimizing vulnerabilities at every possible level. Home Minister called for concrete and coordinated efforts to make the fight against cybercrime more effective, the release added.

- ANI
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu met Union Jal Shakti Minister C. R. Patil to present proposals for the Polavaram-Nallamala Sagar Link Project. He requested central approvals and financial support for the project, which aims to divert surplus Godavari waters to drought-prone areas. The CM also called for the immediate constitution of the Godavari Water Disputes Tribunal to resolve the ongoing conflict with Telangana. Furthermore, he pressed for the resolution of other interstate water disputes with Odisha and raised concerns over Karnataka's plans for the Almatti Dam.

Andhra CM Chandrababu Naidu meets Jal Shakti Minister, seeks approvals for Polavaram-Nallamala Sagar link and resolution of water disputes with Telangana, Odisha.

Amaravati, Feb 10 Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday met Union Minister for Jal Shakti C. R. Patil in New Delhi and presented proposals for the Polavaram-Nallamala Sagar Link Project, aimed at diverting surplus Godavari waters to the drought prone-regions.

He described the project as a crucial lifeline that would meet drinking water, irrigation, and industrial needs, and requested approvals along with technical and financial support under the National River Linking Policy.

According to a release from the Andhra Pradesh government, CM Chandrababu Naidu highlighted the "continuing dispute" between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana over the sharing of Godavari waters and called for the immediate constitution of the Godavari Water Disputes Tribunal to ensure equitable river water allocation.

The development assumes significance in view of the strong opposition to the Polavaram-Nallamala Sagar Link Project from the Telangana government, which argues that the state will be deprived of its due share in Godavari waters. However, Chandrababu Naidu has defended the proposed project, saying it would only divert water going waste into the sea.

During the meeting, the Chief Minister requested the Union Government to permanently revoke the stop-work order imposed on the Polavaram Project, stating that the order continues to obstruct the smooth execution of the project.

He sought reimbursement of the increased costs incurred due to capacity enhancement of the Polavaram right and left main canals and appealed for full financial assistance for Polavaram Phase II, which includes land acquisition, rehabilitation and resettlement, and construction of protective embankments. He informed the Union Minister that Phase II alone requires an additional funding of approximately Rs 32,000 crore.

He urged the Centre to extend approvals and financial assistance for several critical irrigation and water security projects in Andhra Pradesh.

The Chief Minister underlined that these projects are vital for safeguarding state interests, securing the future of farmers, and ensuring drinking water security for Andhra Pradesh. He also held detailed discussions on pending issues related to Central assistance for various projects and the resolution of long-standing inter-state river water disputes.

The Chief Minister urged an early resolution of the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha Vamsadhara river water dispute. He pressed for the final report of the Vamsadhara Water Disputes Tribunal to be notified in the Gazette without delay, stating that this would clear the way for the construction of the Neradi Barrage on the Vamsadhara River.

Expressing objections to Karnataka's move to increase the height of the Almatti Dam on the Upper Krishna, the Chief Minister cautioned that any such increase would have a serious adverse impact on downstream water availability for Andhra Pradesh.

- IANS
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu met Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to discuss the state's agricultural progress. He reported a 2.28% reduction in chemical fertilizer usage during the 2024-25 agricultural year, crediting the state's push for organic and natural farming. The Chief Minister requested the release of central funds for various schemes, including PM PRANAM, and sought support for specific sectors like coconut, mango, and makhana cultivation. He highlighted initiatives that could generate employment for thousands of farmers in the state.

Andhra Pradesh reports a 2.28% drop in chemical fertilizer use. CM Naidu meets Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, seeks funds for natural farming expansion.

New Delhi, February 10 Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday met Union Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and said that the state achieved a 2.28 per cent reduction in chemical fertiliser usage during the 2024-25 agricultural year.

The Chief Minister held detailed discussions in New Delhi on strengthening agriculture and allied sectors in Andhra Pradesh.

The Chief Minister further stated that the state government is aggressively promoting organic and natural farming, with 18 lakh farmers having already consented to adopt organic farming practices across nearly 8 lakh hectares.

Highlighting the state's flagship Community Managed Natural Farming programme, the Chief Minister requested the release of funds under the PM PRANAM scheme to expand the initiative further.

He also urged the Centre to extend PM PRANAM incentives for reduced chemical usage and sought the release of Rs 216 crore pertaining to the year 2024-25.

Seeking focused support for the coconut sector, the Chief Minister requested central assistance of Rs 200 crore for the development of coconut cultivation in Andhra Pradesh.

He proposed the establishment of coconut processing parks, modern tender coconut markets on the Karnataka model, training programmes for coconut farmers on advanced cultivation practices, and expansion of nurseries. He noted that these initiatives would significantly benefit coconut farmers and generate employment for nearly 15,000 people.

The Chief Minister also urged the Union Minister to release Rs 695 crore pending under the Per Drop More Crop scheme.

On the issue of Totapuri mango farmers, the Chief Minister requested the release of Rs 100 crore as the Centre's share under the Price Deficiency Payment System for the 2025-26 season.

He informed that the state government had already paid farmers even the Centre's share and that a total of Rs 200 crore had been disbursed jointly by the Centre and the state to support Totapuri mango farmers affected by falling prices.

Further, the Chief Minister sought the establishment of a Makhana Development Board in Andhra Pradesh. He informed the Union Minister that nearly 50,000 acres in the Kolleru Lake region are suitable for makhana cultivation and requested necessary incentives and support to promote makhana farming in the state.

- ANI
Strength from will, not just weapons

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued a televised message ahead of the 47th anniversary of Iran's Islamic Revolution, calling for national unity and steadfastness. He described the annual February 11 rallies as an unparalleled display of the nation's power, dignity, and collective determination. The Leader emphasized that true national strength comes from the people's will and resistance, more than from military hardware, and that such unity forces adversaries to retreat. He also expressed hope for the youth to advance in science and ethics to further elevate Iran's standing.

Ayatollah Khamenei urges Iranian national unity and steadfastness on the 47th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution to deter the country's enemies.

Tehran, February 10 Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has called on the Iranian nation to show unity and resolve on the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, emphasising that such national steadfastness will frustrate the country's enemies, as reported by Iranian state broadcaster Press TV.

In a televised message issued ahead of the rallies set for 11 February to commemorate the 47th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Khamenei portrayed the occasion as a powerful display of Iran's strength, dignity, and collective determination.

"Bahman 22nd (February 11) every year is the day of unveiling the power and dignity of the Iranian nation," the Leader said, describing the Iranian people as determined, resilient, appreciative, and fully aware of their circumstances.

He highlighted that the nation achieved a "great victory" on 11 February 1979 by liberating itself from "foreign interference," yet external forces have persistently sought to undo those accomplishments since then.

Building on this historical foundation, Ayatollah Khamenei affirmed, "The Iranian nation is standing firm," adding that "The symbol of this steadfastness is Bahman 22nd."

He pointed to the annual anniversary demonstrations as "unparalleled," noting that no other country marks its independence with such widespread and consistent public involvement each year.

These rallies, he explained, "force those who covet Iran and its interests to retreat," underscoring their role in deterring external ambitions.

Ayatollah Khamenei then stressed the true sources of national strength, stating, "National power is related more to the will of nations and their steadfastness than to missiles and aircraft," and urged citizens to maintain resolve in every aspect of life.

"Disappoint the enemy," the Leader stated, explaining that a nation remains exposed so long as its adversaries are not discouraged.

He identified unity, strong will, motivation, and resistance to outside pressures as the essential pillars supporting Iran's national power.

Ayatollah Khamenei also expressed hope that the country's youth would keep advancing in science, ethical behaviour, and both material and spiritual growth, thereby adding to national pride.

He noted that the 11 February rallies reflect these qualities, as people take to the streets to demonstrate unity, loyalty to the Islamic Republic, and dedication to the nation.

He further voiced hope that this year's anniversary events would further elevate Iran's standing, consistent with the pattern observed in previous years.

- ANI
The Bangladesh Election Commission's senior secretary has dismissed security concerns ahead of the February 12 parliamentary polls, stating everything is in order. Campaigning has intensified in its final phase, set to conclude 48 hours before voting begins at 7:30 AM. A candidate expressed optimism about high voter turnout, especially among a younger generation with limited voting experience. Concurrently, a research report examines the political landscape following the 2024 uprising, noting a lack of deep structural transformation.

Bangladesh Election Commission assures secure, smooth voting on Feb 12, addresses misinformation concerns as campaigning ends. Key insights from candidates and researchers.

Dhaka, February 10 As Bangladesh moves closer to polling day for its national parliamentary elections, election authorities, political candidates, and researchers have outlined key developments around voting schedules, campaign activity, and the broader political climate.

Senior Secretary of the Bangladesh Election Commission Secretariat Akhtar Ahmed outlined the voting timeline and addressed concerns related to security and misinformation ahead of polling.

Speaking to ANI, Akhtar Ahmed said, "They will start casting their vote from 7.30 in the morning of the 12th, and that's all." He added, "So let's wait till 7.30 in the morning of February 12, and they start casting their vote."

On voter statistics, he said, "I will have to look into the statistics. I am sorry. I just don't remember the statistics right at this moment," adding that the details could be shared later if required.

Addressing security-related concerns, Akhtar Ahmed said, "From my point of view, from my understanding, there is no security hazard. No security concern. No security questions. Everything is in order."

He also flagged concerns related to misinformation, saying, "I do not say it's a fear; it is a concern. Because misinformation and disinformation are always available in society, and they can create problems. It's not a fear. This is a concern."

As the voting date approaches, political campaigning across Bangladesh has entered its final phase, with candidates intensifying outreach efforts through door-to-door visits, rallies, public addresses, and the widespread display of posters and banners.

Under Bangladesh's election laws, official campaigning ends 48 hours before voting begins. With polling scheduled to start at 7.30 am on February 12, campaigning is set to conclude at 7.30 pm on February 10.

In the final hours of campaigning, Bobby Hajjaj, a Bangladesh Nationalist Party candidate for the Dhaka-13 constituency, expressed optimism about voter participation.

Speaking to ANI, Hajjaj said, "We literally have only a few more hours, so we are trying our best to do as much as we can in the last few hours of the election campaign. It has been wonderful so far. We have been able to connect with the public, and the public has shown a great deal of enthusiasm because it has been almost two decades. Gen Z, or the younger generation, has no experience of voting because their voting rights were restricted for almost the last two decades. We are hopeful for the future."

The election is also taking place amid wider political debates following the July 2024 uprising in Bangladesh. A research report released in Dhaka examined the political and ideological shifts since the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led government.

The report, titled "Rupture, Reform, and Reimagining Democracy: Navigating the Agony of Transition," was published by the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development.

Explaining the findings, Mirza M Hassan, one of the authors, said the uprising did not bring the deep structural transformation that many had expected.

He said, "We thought there would be a change in the political order in terms of the party system, reforms, and massive changes in the elite structure. That didn't happen. Rather, we saw a chaotic situation, a weak interim government that couldn't control the mobocracy or promote the democratic aspirations of the people. In that sense, it would be an exaggeration to call it a rupture."

- ANI
The election campaign in Bangladesh has officially concluded, with restrictions taking effect 48 hours before the February 12 vote. Multiple pre-election opinion polls have released sharply contrasting projections, creating uncertainty about the actual electoral landscape. One survey by EASD projects the BNP-led alliance winning around 208 seats, while a poll by IILD predicts a tight contest with both major blocs near 100 seats. Analysts warn that these conflicting projections may influence voter expectations rather than accurately predict the outcome.

Campaigning concludes for Bangladesh's Feb 12 election as conflicting opinion polls project vastly different outcomes for BNP and Jamaat alliances.

Dhaka, Feb 10 As the curtain came down on Bangladesh's election campaign on Tuesday, political parties concluded weeks of intense electioneering ahead of February 12 national elections, local media reported.

In the closing hours, leaders made several promises and pledges, leaving voters to assess them before the polls slated for Thursday.

The campaigning restrictions came into force on Tuesday morning under the Parliamentary Election Code of Conduct for Political Parties and Candidates' Rules, 2025.

As per the code of conduct, political parties, candidates, or individuals must conclude electioneering 48 hours before the voting begins, Bangladesh's leading daily, The Dhaka Tribune, reported.

The political parties and candidates began their election campaigning on January 22, following the allocation of election symbols a day before.

Meanwhile, a series of pre-election opinion polls released by various organisations in Bangladesh has produced sharply contrasting projections, raising concerns about their methodology, credibility and the potential impact on voter perception.

Three major surveys published in the last two days projected different pictures of the electoral landscape, particularly in terms of the relative strength of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led alliance and the radical Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami-led bloc, The Dhaka Tribune reported.

A survey released by Dhaka-based Eminence Associates for Social Development (EASD) claimed to have interviewed 41,500 respondents across all 300 constituencies using the Primary Sampling Unit (PSU) method.

While presenting the findings at the Krishibid Institution in Dhaka on Monday, EASD Chief Executive Officer Shamim Haider Talukder said the BNP-led alliance is projected to win around 208 seats, whereas the Jamaat-e-Islami-led alliance may secure 46 seats in the upcoming polls.

In contrast, a survey conducted by Bangladesh's International Institute of Law and Diplomacy (IILD) predicted a tight contest, with the Jamaat-led alliance expected to win 105 seats and the BNP-led bloc 101 seats.

Adding to the divergent projections, a third survey, released by the Nationalist Research Cell (NRC) -- a platform of former Dhaka University students -- predicts a BNP landslide with 77 per cent of the popular vote and 220 parliamentary seats.

While surveys remain a prominent feature of election-season discussions, analysts warn that conflicting projections may influence expectations rather than accurately predict electoral outcomes, especially amid heightened political tensions.

- IANS
In Bangladesh's upcoming election, the minority Hindu community has become a crucial swing vote as the country grapples with post-Hasina chaos and Islamist violence. Both the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Jamaat-e-Islami are actively campaigning in Hindu communities, visiting temples and promising safety. However, analysts suggest Hindus are more likely to trust the BNP due to Jamaat's hardline image, history of persecution, and perceived anti-India stance. With Hindus scattered geographically but voting in large numbers, their support could decide the tightly contested election.

As Bangladesh votes, persecuted Hindus emerge as the decisive swing factor. BNP and Jamaat vie for their support amid ongoing violence and safety concerns.

New Delhi, Feb 10 The campaign for the February 12 Bangladesh elections is set to end today. The country, post the ouster of Sheikh Hasina, has descended into chaos, and the minority Hindus have borne the brunt of the radical Islamists who have been given a free hand by the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government.

Interestingly, the Hindu votes are very crucial in these elections. Both the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) have been reaching out to the Hindus. The experts say that the Hindu vote may ultimately prove to be the swing factor in a closely contested election.

For the Hindus in Bangladesh, their safety is their utmost priority. Over the last year, the atrocities have soared against them, and brutal killings have been filmed and clips circulated. Human rights groups have flagged the violence and even said that the killings are both targeted and institutionalised in nature. The Hindus, whose population has dropped drastically over the last couple of decades owing to persecution, have been pleading with the establishment for their safety. They do not want their properties to be destroyed or grabbed. They also want the rape of women to stop and the men being killed ruthlessly.

Both the Jamaat and BNP have understood the importance of the Hindu vote and even realise that in a tightly contested battle, this could be the swing factor. Going by the opinion polls, it appears to be a close fight between the BNP and Jamaat. At first, all polls predicted a walkover for the BNP. The Jamaat, which enjoys the backing of Yunus, has managed to bounce back, and with its allies, it is within touching distance. Both these parties have, during their campaigns, visited temples and also praised Hindus in a bid to appease them.

During the campaign, the Jamaat in particular has praised Hindus immensely. Their candidates have said that the Hindus have played a major role in education and also in the funding of educational institutions. The Jamaat pointed out that the role of Hindus cannot be denied in spreading education in the region. Both the BNP and Jamaat have assured the safety and security of the Hindu community.

Bangladesh watchers say that while both are reaching out, the Hindu vote is likely to go to the BNP. The Jamaat has a hardline image and has been radical in its thought process. The Jamaat is also perceived as anti-India, and this is something that can go against them when it comes to bagging the Hindu votes.

Moreover, the Hindus trust the BNP more than the Jamaat. The Hindus feel that the Jamaat has played a big role in the persecution. There have also been many instances when the Jamaat has backed the persecution or has not said anything about it when it took place.

Experts say that if all these factors are taken into account, then the BNP has an edge with the Hindus. Moreover, in 2013, the International Crimes Tribunal indicted several members of the Jamaat for war crimes against the Hindus during the 1971 Bangladesh atrocities.

Moreover, this outreach has come at a time when the persecution of Hindus is ongoing in Bangladesh. Neither party has been able to do anything about it, and hence, the Hindus would be very careful before they vote.

According to the 2001 Bangladesh census, there were around 11.8 million Hindus in Bangladesh, constituting 9.6 per cent of the population. The 2011 census states that there are around 12.73 million Hindus in Bangladesh, which has a total population of 149.7 million at that time. The latest census conducted in 2022 stated that out of the 1645.1 million people, 13.1 million are Hindus. This means Bangladeshi Hindus make up 7.95 per cent of the population.

The Hindus of Bangladesh are scattered across all areas except in Narayanganj, and this is the reason they cannot unite for political representation. However, Hindus have become swing voters in various elections since they have always voted in large numbers. Over the years, the Hindus have voted for the Awami League. Now, in the absence of the party headed by Sheikh Hasina, the Hindu vote is most likely to go the BNP's way, the experts also say.

- IANS
Tarique Rahman, Chairman of Bangladesh Nationalist Party, congratulated Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on her coalition's decisive parliamentary election victory. He highlighted the Japanese result as a lesson in democratic participation as Bangladesh approaches its own national elections. Separately, Prime Minister Takaichi thanked Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his congratulations and reaffirmed commitment to strengthening bilateral ties. Her Liberal Democratic Party-led coalition won a commanding majority, enabling pursuit of constitutional revisions.

BNP's Tarique Rahman congratulates Japan's PM Sanae Takaichi, drawing parallels to Bangladesh polls. Takaichi thanks PM Modi, vows stronger India-Japan ties.

Dhaka, February 10 Chairman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Tarique Rahman, congratulated Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Taikaichi on her victory in Japan's parliamentary elections.

Rahman drew parallels between Japan and Bangladesh, as the latter is to enter into polls on February 12.

In a post on X, he said, "I congratulate Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and her party on their decisive victory in Japan's parliamentary elections. The result reflects the confidence of the Japanese people in democratic participation and accountable leadership. Japan once again demonstrates how credible elections can produce stability, clarity of direction, and renewed public trust in institutions."

"As Bangladesh approaches its own national elections, this moment carries an important lesson for all democracies: when citizens are allowed to freely exercise their right to vote, the outcome strengthens the nation, regardless of political affiliation. Free, fair, and peaceful elections are the foundation of progress, empowering citizens to shape their future and affirm the legitimacy of governance," he added.

He further said, "I hope Prime Minister Takaichi's leadership will further deepen the long-standing friendship between Japan and Bangladesh, and contribute to peace, prosperity, and democratic values across Asia."

Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Monday expressed her gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his congratulatory message following her coalition's decisive victory in Sunday's election in Japan's lower house, the House of Representatives, while reaffirming Tokyo's commitment to strengthening ties with India for advancing a Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP).

In a post on X, Prime Minister Takaichi, who led the coalition with her party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which won a two-thirds majority in the house, thanked Prime Minister Modi for his message and underscored her intent to continue close cooperation with India.

"Thank you very much, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for your warm congratulations on the House of Representatives election. I look forward to continuing to work together with you to strengthen the Special Strategic and Global Partnership between Japan and India and to cooperate in realising a Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP)," she said. She also expressed her gratitude to PM Modi in Hindi in the same post.

According to Kyodo News, the LDP won a mandate, securing 310 seats in the 465-member lower house, which allows the party to pursue constitutional revision and pass legislation even if it is rejected by the upper house, the House of Councillors. The ruling coalition still remains in a minority in the upper house. The LDP has also become the first party in postwar Japan to achieve such a margin.

- ANI
The Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal is meeting the full bench of the Election Commission to set a new date for publishing the final voters' list. This follows a Supreme Court order granting an extension beyond the original February 14 deadline. The meeting will also cover arrangements for the upcoming Assembly elections, including the number of phases and security requirements. The final voters' list is now expected by the end of February, after which the poll dates will be announced.

West Bengal CEO meets ECI to set new date for final voters list after Supreme Court extension, ahead of crucial Assembly elections.

Kolkata, Feb 10 The Chief Electoral Officer, West Bengal, Manoj Kumar Agarwal will hold a crucial meeting with the full bench of the Election Commission of India on Tuesday to finalise the new date for publication of the final voters' list in the state that will bring an end to the ongoing Special Intensive Revision.

The meeting is crucial, being held after the Supreme Court -- a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant -- on Monday directed the ECI to grant Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) at least one additional week beyond February 14 to complete scrutiny and take appropriate decisions regarding the publication of the final voters' list.

Agarwal reached Delhi late Monday night, and his meeting with the full bench of the ECI will be held later Tuesday. "Besides discussing the new date for publication of the final voters list, the CEO will also discuss with ECI's full bench about arrangements for the Assembly elections in the state scheduled for this year, especially as regards to number of phases that the polls would be conducted and the requirement of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) for that purpose," a CEO's office insider said.

Incidentally, the CEO's office has already sent a recommendation to the ECI for a single-phase polling in the state this time, while maintaining that the final decision in the matter will rest with the Commission.

The earlier deadline for completing the hearing sessions on claims and objections to the draft voters' list was February 7, and accordingly, the date for publication of the final voters' list was fixed for February 14.

"However, following the Supreme Court's order on Monday, the date for publication of the final voters' list will not be before February 21. The final list will definitely be published before the end of this month or at the latest by the last day of this month," an insider in the CEO's office said.

After the publication of the final voters' list, the full Bench of the Commission will visit West Bengal to take stock of the situation. Soon thereafter, the polling dates for the crucial Assembly elections in the state, will be announced.

- IANS
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has regulated the issue of conducting mandatory evacuation.

A total of 259 deputies voted for the relevant bill No. 12353 on amendments to certain laws regarding the regulation of mandatory evacuation in second reading and as a whole at a plenary session of the Verkhovna Rada on Tuesday.

The bill establishes that mandatory evacuation is carried out from territories determined by the government in the prescribed manner. Decisions on conducting mandatory evacuation will be made by regional and Kyiv city military administrations based on proposals from military command in the respective territory. At the same time, mandatory evacuation can be either general or partial - for certain categories of the population who, due to age or health condition, are unable to independently take measures to preserve life or health, including children, persons with disabilities and the elderly.

The bill contains provisions on accommodation and life support for evacuated population, as well as on evacuation of material and cultural valuables. According to the bill, evacuated citizens have the right to temporary housing from housing stock.
The Election Commission of India has set February 28 as the new date for publishing the final electoral roll for West Bengal. This revision follows a Supreme Court directive granting additional time for scrutiny beyond the original February 14 deadline. The process involves completing hearings by February 14, followed by document scrutiny and polling station rationalization. After the list's publication, the ECI will visit the state ahead of announcing dates for the upcoming Assembly elections.

ECI announces final voters' list for West Bengal to be published on Feb 28, extending deadlines after Supreme Court directive. Key step before Assembly poll dates.

Kolkata, Feb 10 The Election Commission of India, on Tuesday, announced that February 28 will be the new date for the publication of the final voters' list in West Bengal.

At the same time, the ECI had also fixed February 14 as the new deadline for the completion of the hearing sessions on claims and objections over the draft voters' list in West Bengal.

The completion of the hearing sessions will be followed by a scrutiny, following which the final voters' list will be published on February 28.

As per the revised schedule, a document that is available with IANS, after the completion of the hearing season on February 14, there will be a scrutiny of documents and disposal till February 21.

While the rationalisation of polling stations will be completed by February 25, checking the health parameters of the polling stations will be completed by February 27.

Finally, on February 28, the final voters' list will be published.

The decisions for fixing the new deadline for completion of the hearing sessions and also the new date for publication of the final voters' list was taken at a meeting between the West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manoj Kumar Agarwal, with the full-bench of the ECI at the Commission's headquarters at New Delhi earlier in the day.

The initial deadline for completing the hearing sessions was on February 7, and originally, the final voters' list was scheduled to be published on February 14.

However, the extensions of the deadline for both purposes became inevitable after a bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant, on Monday, directed that Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) be granted at least one additional week beyond February 14 to complete scrutiny and take appropriate decisions.

After the publication of the final voters' list, the full bench of the Commission will visit West Bengal to take stock of the situation.

Soon thereafter, the polling dates for the crucial Assembly elections in the state, scheduled later this year, will be announced.

- IANS
BJP National President Nitin Nabin personally monitored the progress of the Mandiri and Bakarganj Nala drainage schemes in Bihar, assuring their swift completion for public benefit. He credited the Deputy Chief Minister for the rapid progress on major drain works. Nabin also referenced his earlier comments praising the interim trade agreement framework between India and the United States. He stated the deal, shaped under the leadership of PM Modi and President Trump, would enhance market access, attract investment, and generate large-scale employment.

BJP President Nitin Nabin reviews Mandiri & Bakarganj Nala progress in Patna and praises the India-US interim trade agreement framework.

Patna, February 10 BJP National President Nitin Nabin on Tuesday monitored the progress of the Mandiri and Bakarganj Nala schemes in Bihar.

He said the scheme will be completed soon and that people will receive a new facility.

Speaking to the reporters in Patna, Nabin said, "As an MLA, I am monitoring the progress of the Mandiri and Bakarganj Nala schemes. The scheme will be completed very soon. When the scheme is fulfilled, people will get a new facility. On the instructions of the Deputy Chief Minister, the work on the big drains is also progressing rapidly."

Earlier on January 7, Nabin said that the announcement of the framework of the Interim Trade Agreement between India and the United States is expected to widen market access, attract investment, and generate new job opportunities.

In a post on X, he stated that the trade agreement framework reflects the unity between India and the US.

"India-US economic engagement takes a decisive step forward! The Interim Trade Agreement framework, shaped under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump, reflects the trust and strategic depth of the India-US partnership," he wrote.

Further, he highlighted that the framework is a doorway to enhance market access, further underlining that the farmers, MSMEs, entrepreneurs and others will get impeccable benefits through the deal.

"The framework is expected to unlock greater market access, attract investment, and generate large-scale employment, especially for India's youth, while further strengthening Make in India," he stated.

"Our hard-working farmers, MSMEs, innovative entrepreneurs, exporters, and the blue economy will benefit from smoother trade flows, resilient supply chains, and deeper technology collaboration... As India moves steadily towards a Viksit Bharat, such future-orientated global partnerships reinforce India's role as a reliable growth engine for the world and a trusted partner in global value chains," he added.

- ANI
Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha has called on voters to ensure a Bharatiya Janata Party victory in the upcoming Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council elections. He asserted that only the BJP can bring genuine development and peace to the tribal regions, contrasting the party's ethos of "service first" with that of its opponents. Saha highlighted historical neglect of tribal areas and credited former and current BJP-led central governments for creating dedicated ministries for tribal and northeastern development. He accused rival parties of spreading misinformation and engaging in politics for personal gain, rather than public service.

Tripura CM Manik Saha urges voters to back BJP in ADC elections, claiming only BJP can ensure development and peace for tribal areas.

Agartala, February 10 Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha has urged the people to vote for the BJP in the coming elections to the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council, asserting that it is crucial for peace and progress in the state.

CM Saha emphasised that the goal of the Bharatiya Janata Party is to work for the welfare of the people through seva, as for the BJP, "Seva is sangathan".

He said that the Bharatiya Janata Party government works for the people with this mantra.

"In the future, if the Bharatiya Janata Party comes to power in the TTAADC, the pace of development will accelerate. Therefore, the victory of BJP candidates in the ADC elections must be ensured, because only the Bharatiya Janata Party can develop the tribals," he said.

During a meeting, Saha asked the attendees whether they wanted peace. In response, the people unanimously called for peace. When he further asked who they wanted to ensure this peace, the people replied, the BJP.

The Chief Minister said that the Bharatiya Janata Party is the largest party not only in India but in the entire world, and being a member of this party is a matter of pride.

"The main goal of this party is service and organisation. We want to work for the welfare of the people through service. First service to the state, then the party, and then the individual. However, for other parties, it is the opposite: first self, then the party, and then the state," he said.

"We have witnessed what happened to the ADC during the Communist regime and what is happening now and we all know that. They did not do the work required for the development of the tribals. I am sure that in the future, when the Bharatiya Janata Party administration is formed in the ADC, people will witness unprecedented development," CM Saha said.

He further asserted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repeatedly said that the Bharatiya Janata Party stands for development.

"There is no agenda other than development. The Bharatiya Janata Party and our government have one slogan: to provide government schemes to the last person in society. Earlier, no one thought about the tribals. The Tribal Department was started separately during the tenure of the late former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. After Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister, a separate DoNER ministry was created for the North Eastern region so that development can be ensured exclusively for the region," said Manik Saha.

He said that some parties and their supporters spread misinformation to mislead the people.

"Only the Bharatiya Janata Party can bring development in the ADC areas. Everyone should understand this. Our government wants to work for the people. But what do we see in the ADC? I receive all the reports. They enter politics only to loot. However, no one who is supposed to be a guardian has the power to act against it. Our main mantra is service and organisation. We have to work for the people. Our government and our party are working with this mindset," he said.

- ANI
China's BRICS Sherpa and Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu attended the first BRICS Sherpa meeting in New Delhi, presenting President Xi Jinping's concept for high-quality BRICS cooperation. Chinese Ambassador Xu Feihong stated China's readiness to collaborate with India, the current chair, and other members to deepen practical cooperation. India's Sherpa, Sudhakar Dalela, highlighted the country's chairmanship priorities based on a "people-centric" approach under the theme of building resilience and sustainability. The meeting also saw participation from Belarus as a BRICS partner country, with its ambassador conveying a message of support from the Belarusian President.

China's Vice FM Ma Zhaoxu outlines Xi Jinping's vision for BRICS cooperation at the first Sherpa meeting under India's 2024 chairmanship.

New Delhi, February 10 China's BRICS Sherpa and Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu attended the First BRICS Sherpa Meeting in New Delhi.

Xu Feihong, Chinese Ambassador to India, in a post on X wrote, "Ma Zhaoxu noted that President Xi Jinping has put forward the important concept of the high-quality development of greater BRICS cooperation and the five cooperation layouts of building a BRICS committed to peace, innovation, green development, justice and closer people-to-people exchanges. These have charted the course for the future development of the BRICS mechanism."

Feihong also highlighted China's readiness to work with India.

"China is ready to work with India, the BRICS chair for the year, and BRICS members as well as partner countries to follow the correct course of BRICS cooperation, deepen practical cooperation, improve the working mechanism, strengthen multilateral coordination, uphold international fairness and justice, and bring greater development to BRICS cooperation," he added.

"At the meeting, the parties exchanged views on the priorities of BRICS cooperation and the arrangement of major events for the year, and started the preparation for the 18th BRICS Summit," he wrote further.

MEA Secretary (Economic Relations) and India's BRICS Sherpa Sudhakar Dalela highlighted key priorities of India's Chairship based on the PM's vision for "people-centric" and "humanity-first" approach for the BRICS, and overall theme of 'Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability'.

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Belarus to India, M. Kasko, attended the 1st BRICS Sherpa/Sous-Sherpa meeting in Delhi as a representative of the Republic of Belarus as a BRICS partner country.

In his speech, the Head of the Belarusian diplomatic mission expressed gratitude to the organisers for inviting Belarus to the event, as representatives of partner countries had not previously participated in such meetings.

The Ambassador of Belarus conveyed a message in which the President of Belarus expressed confidence that the coming year for BRICS, under India's chairmanship, will be a time of new achievements and successes, which will contribute to further progress and maintain the association's position as one of the most influential international organisations.

- ANI
The Defence Ministry is likely to approve a massive deal this week to acquire 114 Rafale fighter jets from France for the Indian Air Force. The proposal includes purchasing 18 jets off-the-shelf and manufacturing 96 in India through a strategic partnership, involving significant technology transfer. This deal will bolster the IAF, which already operates 36 Rafales, and follows a separate naval order for 26 jets. The clearance is scheduled ahead of French President Emmanuel Macron's official visit to Delhi.

Defence Ministry to approve Rs 3.25 lakh crore deal for 114 Rafale jets, boosting 'Make in India' ahead of French President's visit.

New Delhi, Feb 10 The Defence Ministry is likely to approve a Rs 3.25 lakh crore deal this week to buy 114 Rafale fighter jets from France for the Indian Air Force, according to reliable sources.

The clearance is scheduled to take place ahead of French President Emmanuel Macron's forthcoming official visit to Delhi.

After the Defence Ministry's approval, the deal will eventually need clearance from the Cabinet Committee on Security chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

According to the proposal, India will purchase 18 off-the-shelf Rafales from French defence giant Dassault Aviation, while the remaining 96 fighter jets will be 'made in India'. Some of these jets will be twin-seater aircraft to be used for training. The deal will involve the transfer of state-of-art fighter jet technology and a strategic partnership to give a fillip to the 'Make in India' programme.

The Indian Air Force already has 36 Rafales in its fleet, comprising two squadrons, with the last delivery of the 'C' variant taking place in December 2024. Another 26 Rafale jets of the 'M' version, have also been ordered for the Indian Navy in a deal worth Rs 63,000 crore. The naval variants will be operated from the aircraft carriers INS Vikrant and INS Vikramaditya.

That deal includes facilitation of fleet maintenance, logistics support, and personnel training under a MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) agreement.

The Rafale jets were successfully used in Operation Sindoor to hit precision targets in Pakistan, as part of India's military response to the Pahalgam terror attack in May last year.

The Rafales were used to launch the SCALP, an air-launched cruise missile developed that can strike hardened targets over 250 km away with extreme precision. It can also carry Meteor long range air-to-air missiles and the Hammer, a stand-off strike weapon, and the Spectra, an advanced e-warfare suite, as well as advanced radar and targeting systems.

Meanwhile, in June last year, France and India also announced four landmark production transfer deals between manufacturers Dassault Aviation and Tata Advanced Systems Limited, which should significantly speed up delivery of a backlog of Rafales to India.

Tata Advanced Systems is expected to set up a cutting-edge production facility in Hyderabad for the manufacture of key structural sections of the French fighter, including the lateral shells of the rear fuselage, the complete rear section, the central fuselage, and the front section.

The first fuselage segments will roll off the manufacturing line in 2028.

- IANS
Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh met with Seychelles' leadership in New Delhi to bolster bilateral defence and security ties. Both sides reviewed their collaboration and committed to peace and stability in the Indian Ocean Region. They welcomed the upcoming joint military exercise LAMITYE-2026 and discussed cooperation in training, hydrography, and maritime security. The talks also covered India's MAHASAGAR vision and future avenues for long-term defence partnerships.

India and Seychelles agree to strengthen defence cooperation, plan joint exercises LAMITYE-2026, and discuss maritime security in the Indian Ocean.

New Delhi, February 10 Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh on Tuesday called on Seychelles' Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Diaspora Barry Faure and Chief of Defence Forces of the Seychelles Defence Forces Major General Michael Anselme Marc Rosette in the national capital, with both sides agreeing to further strengthen defence and security cooperation.

During the meeting, the two sides reviewed the growing defence and security collaboration between India and Seychelles and reaffirmed their shared commitment to contributing towards peace, stability, and security in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).

According to a press release, both sides welcomed the upcoming joint military exercise LAMITYE-2026 between the Indian Defence Forces and the Seychelles Defence Forces, as well as ongoing capacity-building initiatives.

They agreed to further enhance the scope and depth of these engagements.

Discussions also covered cooperation in training, hydrography, maritime security, as well as ships' and aircraft's visits and defence delegation exchanges.

The Defence Secretary also welcomed Seychelles' participation in the upcoming International Fleet Review and the 2026 edition of Exercise Milan, scheduled to be held in Visakhapatnam next week.

"India & Seychelles reaffirmed their shared commitment to enhancing bilateral engagement and contributing towards peace, stability, and security in the Indian Ocean Region," the statement read.

The two sides also exchanged views on MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions), India's vision for inclusive, cooperative, and sustainable security and growth, and underlined the importance of a collaborative approach to addressing shared maritime challenges, capacity building, and development partnerships.

Both delegations deliberated on future avenues for defence and security cooperation, with a focus on long-term partnerships in capacity building and continued cooperation in the modernisation of key military capabilities of Seychelles.

The meeting reflected the strong and evolving defence partnership between India and Seychelles, rooted in shared maritime interests and a common vision for stability in the Indian Ocean Region.

- ANI
The Delhi High Court has instructed the Ministry of External Affairs counsel to facilitate an interaction between the court and Major (Retd.) Vikrant Jaitly, who has been detained in the UAE for 18 months. The petition was moved by his sister, Bollywood actor Celina Jaitly, seeking effective legal representation for him. The court has barred both parties from interacting with the media without permission and has listed the matter for a hearing on February 12. Earlier, the court had directed the MEA to issue an order to a law firm willing to represent Vikrant Jaitly pro bono.

Delhi High Court directs MEA to facilitate court interaction for Vikrant Jaitly, brother of actor Celina Jaitly, detained in UAE for 18 months.

New Delhi, February 10 The Delhi High Court has asked the counsel for the Ministry of External Affairs to get in touch with the ministry/Consulate to facilitate the interaction of Major Vikrant Jaitly with the court. Vikarant Jaitly is in detention in the UAE.

The High Court hearing a petition moved by bollywood actor Celina Jaitly. Her brother, Vikrant Jaitly, has been detained in the UAE for the past 18 months.

Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav asked the Central Government counsel to contact the Ministry to facilitate Vikrant Jaitly's interaction with the court. The court asked the counsel to take instructions and come on Thursday.

The High has listed the matter for hearing on February 12.

Meanwhile, the court has asked the parties not to interact with the media without court permission.

The bench passed the direction after hearing submissions. Considering an application filed on behalf of Charu Jaitly, the wife of Vikrant Jaitly.

Her counsel submitted that Charu Jaitly met with her husband whenever consular access was permitted. He had instructed her not to engage any counsel for the time being.

Counsel also urged the court to direct Celina Jaitly not to interact with the media.

This submission was opposed by the senior advocate Sanjay Jain and Advocate Raghav Kacker. It was submitted that the opposite party is interacting with the media.

Thereafter, the court directed both parties not to interact with the media.

Senior advocate Sanjay Jain argued that Charu Jaitly has no locus to file an application or to make submissions.

Justice Kaurav said it is not a question of locus, it is a question of life and liberty of an Indian citizen.

On February 3, the Delhi High Court directed the Ministry of External Affairs to issue an order to a law firm to represent Celina Jaitly's brother, Major (retd.). Vikrant Jaitly in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The law firm is ready to handle the matter free of cost. The Counsel for MEA filed a status report on Tuesday.

The name of the firm was suggested by her counsel, Raghav Kacker, assisted by Advocates Madhav Agrawal and Suradhish Vats.

It was submitted that the legal firm is willing to represent Major (Retd.) Vikrant Jaitly is provided free of charge (pro bono). They have obtained the details of the case independently.

The submissions were opposed by the counsel for the Ministry of External Affairs. It was stated that the firm's name is included in the list of 4 legal firms suggested by Vikrant Jaitly. It was also stated that Vikrant Jaitly told embassy officials that the decision to retain a legal firm would be made by his wife, Charu Jaitly.

Her counsel opposed and argued that the respondents are suppressing the fact that transpired in the email.

The court said that the firm is willing to represent him without any expenses. What is the impediment if the name is suggested by his father, mother or sister.

The Delhi High Court on January 29 permitted Celina Jaitly to file an additional affidavit in response to the Central Government's status report. She urged the filing of an additional affidavit to place on record certain new facts in the petition concerning her brother, who is detained in inthe UAE. Her brother Vikrant Jaitly is a retired major of the Indian Army.

On December 23, after a chamber hearing, the Delhi High Court issued fresh directions in the plea.

Earlier, Justice Sachin Datta had noted that, in compliance with earlier orders, Major Jaitly continues to receive consular access. During the hearing, Celina Jaitly requested that arrangements be made to secure the availability of a local lawyer or law firm to ensure effective legal representation for her brother.

Upon accepting the request, the Court directed that the Indian Consulate shall provide a list of locally accredited lawyers or law firms who can represent the detained person, should he choose to avail of such services.

The Court had clarified that engagement of any lawyer or law firm would be subject to the detained person or his family bearing the costs, and this condition must be clearly communicated to him.

Justice Datta further observed that if any lawyer or law firm is willing to waive professional charges, the same should also be communicated to Major Jaitly, enabling him to make an informed decision. The Court added that the specific name of the lawyer or law firm must be communicated to him.

Earlier, the Delhi High Court had directed the Centre, through the Ministry of External Affairs, to facilitate communication between Celina Jaitly and her brother, who has been detained in the UAE for over a year. Jaitly had approached the Court seeking effective legal assistance, along with regular updates on her brother's welfare and legal status.

The Court had previously ordered the appointment of a nodal officer and directed that regular updates be provided to the family, while ensuring continued consular access and facilitating communication between the detainee, his sister, and his wife.

- ANI
India's push to modernize education under the National Education Policy 2020 is creating a massive real estate opportunity, requiring 2.7 billion square feet of new academic built-up area. This expansion will need nearly 30,000 acres of land and represents a construction investment of approximately $100 billion for facilities alone. The report identifies this as potentially the largest higher-education build-out market globally, driven by demographic growth and regulatory reforms. New development models like university townships are emerging, offering a major growth avenue for real estate developers over the next decade.

Anarock report reveals India needs 2.7B sq ft of new academic space, a $100B construction opportunity, driven by National Education Policy 2020 goals.

New Delhi, February 10 India's push to modernise its education system is creating a massive new opportunity for the real estate industry. A new report by ANAROCK Capital, titled "The Academic Real Estate Supercycle," reveals that the country needs a huge amount of new land and buildings to meet the goals of the National Education Policy 2020.

Specifically, the report finds that achieving these national targets will require an additional 2.7 billion square feet of academic built-up area.

This expansion is expected to take up nearly 30,000 acres of new campus land across the country, marking a major shift in how institutional land is used.

This scale of building represents a construction-led investment opportunity of approximately USD 100 billion. This figure only covers the cost of building academic facilities like classrooms and laboratories. It does not even include the extra money needed to buy land or build student housing, which would make the total investment even higher.

The report explains that this demand is coming from a growing number of students and new government rules.

The report states: "Meeting this demand will necessitate approximately USD 100 billion in investment for academic facilities alone, excluding land acquisition and student accommodation infrastructure."

The report suggests that the higher education sector is now one of the most important areas for property investors and developers. With the government aiming to double the number of students in college by 2035, the need for high-quality space is urgent.

The report describes the situation as a unique global event, noting: "This scale of expansion, underpinned by demographic momentum, rising enrolments, globalisation of education, and landmark regulatory reforms, represents arguably the largest higher-education build-out market globally."

New trends are also appearing in how these educational spaces are developed. The government is starting to support the idea of "university townships," which are large areas designed specifically for schools and students to live and work together.

Real estate developers are expected to play a key role in building these townships and providing rental spaces for foreign universities entering India. According to the report, this transition offers a major chance for the real estate market to grow in a new direction over the next ten years.

- ANI
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman outlined the key priorities of the Union Budget 2026-27, emphasizing policy stability and predictability to encourage long-term business investments. She highlighted major reform announcements across sectors, including government support for semiconductors, electronic components, and the Bio Pharma Shakti initiative. The budget also focuses on strengthening India's manufacturing capacity through MSMEs, with special emphasis on creating strong medium enterprise champions. Participants at the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum meeting acknowledged the government's reform efforts and commitment to fiscal discipline.

FM Sitharaman outlines Budget 2026-27 focus on policy predictability, manufacturing, and long-term investment at US-India forum.

New Delhi, February 10 Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman shared the key priorities and reform direction of the Union Budget 2026-27, with a focus on policy stability, manufacturing growth and long-term investment.

The minister on Monday, addressed the Board Members of the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum in New Delhi and shared the budget priorities.

According to a social media post by the Ministry of Finance, the meeting focused on strengthening India-US economic engagement and sharing the outcomes and intent of the Union Budget.

The ministry said the interaction underlined the government's broader objective of creating a predictable and stable policy environment to encourage businesses and industry to plan long-term investments.

Outlining the key tenets of the Union Budget 2026-27, Finance Minister Sitharaman said that under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Budget reflects the government's commitment to continuity, certainty and predictability from a policy perspective.

She noted that such an approach is aimed at enabling businesses and industry to foster long-term plans and make sustained investment commitments.

During her address, the finance minister highlighted major announcements related to reforms across multiple sectors.

She specifically pointed to government support for semiconductors and electronic components manufacturing, Bio Pharma Shakti initiatives, development of Rare Earth Corridors, and the upgradation of legacy industry clusters. Sitharaman also underlined the government's focus on building and strengthening India's manufacturing capacity through Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

She said special emphasis has been placed on medium enterprises, with the objective of creating strong manufacturing champions that can drive growth, innovation and employment.

The finance minister reiterated that these measures are aligned with the broader vision of enhancing India's industrial base and improving competitiveness in key strategic sectors.

Participants at the meeting acknowledged the policy efforts being made by the government to support the reform momentum. They appreciated the commitment towards fiscal discipline, particularly in the backdrop of heightened global uncertainty.

The participants also noted that policy clarity and fiscal prudence would help reinforce investor confidence and deepen economic cooperation between India and the United States.

- ANI
A global coalition of Hindu and multi-faith groups has issued an urgent appeal for international action to protect Hindus in Bangladesh, citing a sustained pattern of violence and forced displacement. The letter documents thousands of attacks on minorities, including the public killing of Dipu Chandra Das over blasphemy accusations. It highlights a drastic demographic decline, with the Hindu population falling from about 22% in 1951 to under 7% today, describing the trend as ethnic and religious cleansing. The alliance calls on the US, EU, and UN to impose sanctions, launch investigations, and provide refugee protection.

A global Hindu alliance cites a human rights crisis, forced migration, and attacks on minorities in Bangladesh, urging international intervention.

Washington, Feb 10 A global alliance of Hindu and multi-faith groups called for urgent international action to protect Hindus in Bangladesh. The groups cited what they said was a sustained pattern of violence, intimidation, and forced displacement.

The appeal was coordinated by the Hindus Advancing Human Rights Initiative, or HAHRI. It is an initiative of HinduPACT. The group said more than 125 organizations and individuals from 15 countries have signed the letter.

The letter urges governments and international bodies to intervene.

"The Hindus of Bangladesh are the indigenous peoples of the country entitled to have their life and culture protected from discrimination under the UN Convention on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2007," said Rahul Sur, Executive Director of HAHRI. "What we are seeing is the exact opposite. It is not episodic violence or isolated lawlessness. It is a sustained human rights crisis rooted in impunity."

The letter documents killings and mob violence. It cites attacks on temples and homes. It also points to the use of blasphemy allegations to target Hindus.

It highlights the public killing of Dipu Chandra Das on December 18, 2025. He was accused of blasphemy. Video of the killing spread widely online. The incident drew global attention.

According to the submission, Bangladesh recorded 2,673 attacks on minorities between August 2024 and November 30, 2025. The attacks followed the overthrow of the previous government. The alliance said fear has spread across Hindu communities.

The letter also cites reports by international bodies. These include the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. The reports note rising intimidation and violence against Hindus in 2025.

Ajay Shah, Founder and Executive Chair of HinduPACT, said the demographic shift shows a deeper problem. "The numbers alone tell a devastating story," Shah said. "A democracy cannot selectively protect rights. When a minority shrinks at this scale under persistent violence and intimidation, it is a failure of the state and of the global system meant to prevent such outcomes."

The alliance said Hindus made up about 22 per cent of Bangladesh's population in 1951. That figure is now under 7 per cent. It said about 230,000 Hindus leave the country each year.

The group described the trend as ethnic and religious cleansing. It said the migration is not voluntary.

The letter calls on the United States to act. It asks Washington to send a fact-finding team. It urges trade penalties. It calls for refugee protection for persecuted Hindus. It also asks for a review of Bangladesh's role in UN peacekeeping missions.

The appeal urges the European Union to impose punitive tariffs. It also calls for an EU investigative mission.

The groups want United Nations bodies to condemn the abuses. They ask for an independent inquiry into the violations.

HAHRI said rallies were held in more than 25 US cities. The group also launched a petition to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. It said thousands of people worldwide have signed it.

"Petitions, rallies, and formal submissions together demonstrate that this concern is not limited to policy circles," Sur said. "Ordinary citizens across faiths are demanding that universal human rights standards be applied consistently."

The rights of religious minorities in Bangladesh have drawn international attention in the past. The issue has appeared in UN reports and US congressional discussions. India and the United States have also raised minority rights in regional and multilateral forums.

- IANS
Ukraines anti-corruption agencies will work with law enforcement agencies in Israel and other countries on the possibility of extraditing suspects in the Midas case to Ukraine, National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) Director Semen Kryvonos said.

"Regarding the extradition procedure. Indeed, it is ongoing. This is quite a lengthy process. When all measures regarding the possibility of sending an extradition request are completed by us, we will send it, including [to Israel]. And we will work with Israel, with other countries on the extradition of suspects in this case," Kryvonos said at a briefing in Kyiv on Tuesday, answering a question about whether requests to Israel are planned in the Midas case, specifically regarding businessman Tymur Mindich.

"We expect new details. We will communicate with Ukrainian society. We are just trying to be careful now, at this stage, in our communication - this is related to certain aspects of evidence collection, conducting relevant examinations, receiving responses from international jurisdictions, and communication with international partners," the NABU director explained.

In this context, he assured: "But this is definitely not the end of this case. The investigation continues and there will be additional details that we will share when it becomes procedurally possible."
Greek Defence Minister Nikolaos Dendias visited the Bengaluru Military Station, where he witnessed the Indian Army's indigenous drone and simulator technologies and commended its innovation. The visit was followed by a bilateral meeting in New Delhi with Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, where both sides agreed to strengthen defence cooperation. A key outcome includes the positioning of a Greek International Liaison Officer at India's Information Fusion Centre for the Indian Ocean Region. The nations also signed a Joint Declaration of Intent on defence industrial cooperation and exchanged a Bilateral Military Cooperation Plan for 2026.

Greek Defence Minister Nikolaos Dendias witnesses India's indigenous drones & simulators in Bengaluru, as nations sign pact to strengthen defence industrial cooperation.

Bengaluru, February 10 Greek Defence Minister Nikolaos Dendias visited Bengaluru Military Station on Sunday, where he witnessed the Indian Army's operational and technical capabilities at 515 Army Base Workshop. He hailed the Indian Army's professionalism, innovation and preparedness.

Sharing the details in a post on X, the ADGPI said that the Greek Minister saw indigenous drone and simulator technologies, along with equipment displays by elite Special Forces and Combat Engineers.

"Hon'ble Defence Minister of Greece, Mr Nikolaos Dendias, visited Bengaluru Military Station on 08 Feb 2026. During the visit, he witnessed the Indian Army's operational and technical capabilities at 515 Army Base Workshop, including indigenous drone and simulator technologies, along with equipment displays by elite Special Forces and Combat Engineers. The visiting dignitary commended the professionalism, innovation and preparedness of the Indian Army, highlighting its continued commitment to transformation and self-reliance."

On Monday, Defence Minister Raj held a bilateral meeting with Minister of National Defence of the Hellenic Republic, Nikolaos-Georgios Dendias, in the national capital, during which the two sides agreed to further strengthen defence cooperation, including the positioning of a Greek International Liaison Officer at the Information Fusion Centre-Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) in Gurugram.

During the meeting, India and Greece also signed a Joint Declaration of Intent on strengthening bilateral defence industrial cooperation, which will serve as a starting point for developing a five-year roadmap.

The two countries also exchanged the Bilateral Military Cooperation Plan for 2026, outlining the scope of military engagements between their armed forces, according to a Ministry of Defence release.

Speaking during the interaction, Rajnath Singh said India attaches great importance to its longstanding, time-tested partnership with Greece, which is based on shared values of peace, stability, freedom, and the rule of law.

He noted that bilateral relations were elevated to a Strategic Partnership during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's historic visit to Greece in 2023, further cemented by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis's visit to India in February 2024.

The Defence Minister also welcomed the decision to position a Greek International Liaison Officer at IFC-IOR, describing it as an important step to enhance maritime cooperation between the two ancient seafaring nations.

He also expressed confidence that the defence partnership would continue to expand in line with India's 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' initiative and Greece's defence reforms under its 'Agenda 2030'.

The two Defence Ministers discussed regional and global security issues and acknowledged the growing convergence between India and Greece on maritime security and strategic matters.

Both sides reiterated that the India-Greece Strategic Partnership is anchored in mutual respect and shared democratic values.

- ANI
The Gujarat BJP organized a meeting with social media influencers in Ahmedabad to promote understanding of the Union Budget 2026-27 and its provisions. State BJP President Jagdish Vishwakarma framed the budget as a roadmap for skill development and innovation, urging influencers to disseminate accurate information. The event coincided with the announcement of 'Samarpan Diwas' to honor the death anniversary of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya. These dual initiatives aim to connect citizens with both contemporary policy and the party's ideological heritage.

Gujarat BJP held a Social Media Influencers Meet in Ahmedabad to spread awareness about the Union Budget 2026-27's focus on youth, startups, and innovation.

Ahmedabad, Feb 10 Gujarat BJP engaged social media influencers in Ahmedabad on Tuesday to ensure widespread awareness of the Union Budget 2026-27 and its provisions for youth, startups, women empowerment, and technology.

The Social Media Influencers Meet, held at Karnavati Club in the presence of state BJP President Jagdish Vishwakarma, aimed to strengthen the link between policy announcements and public understanding through digital platforms.

Vishwakarma described the budget as a roadmap for skill development, industrial growth, and innovation.

"This budget will empower content creators, advance skill development, transform 'Make in India' into 'Make for World', and accelerate innovation from information to practical solutions. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is establishing a new global identity," Vishwakarma said.

He urged influencers to act as conduits for accurate information, policy decisions, and development schemes, highlighting the role of social media in reaching citizens effectively.

"In today's digital era, influencers are critical in ensuring that factual and policy-driven information reaches the public," he added.

The meeting encouraged active participation, with influencers sharing ideas and perspectives on promoting awareness of the budget's initiatives.

The programme also included remarks by Jainik Vakil, Pradesh In-Charge of the Union Budget Public Awareness Campaign, on mobilising citizen engagement.

On the same day, the Gujarat BJP announced that February 11 will mark the 'Samarpan Diwas', the death anniversary of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya.

Floral tributes and lectures will be held at statues and district offices across the state, focusing on his philosophy of Ekatma Manavdarshan, his life, and his contributions to national development.

BJP office-bearers, elected representatives, and party workers are expected to participate in the events.

By combining digital outreach with public recognition of historical figures, the BJP's initiatives aim to link citizens directly with both current policy and ideological heritage.

- IANS
Hakodate has forged resilience from historic tragedies, notably major fires that led to the creation of wide firebreak roads and green belts. The city now confronts climate change, which is disrupting traditional fisheries like squid and wild kombu, prompting innovative aquaculture research with Hokkaido University. New economic opportunities, such as wine production by Domaine de Montille, are emerging from the changing climate. Through continuous citizen effort, Hakodate is preserving its historical charm while building safety and adapting its economy.

Discover how Hakodate, Japan, transforms disaster legacy into climate solutions, from fire-proof roads to sustainable aquaculture and new wine production.

Hakodate, February 10 Hakodate has various modern history since Edo era. It grew up to charming city to shape up toughness and skill. It will overcome the problem of disaster and climate change.

Hakodate city mayor Jun Oizumi explained about its charm. It consists of various multi layered elements.

"At the end of Edo era, Hakodate was opened to foreign countries as a leading trading port. Hakodate has fused culture attracting sightseers, especially night viewing has the fame of world top 3 night sceneries.

But Hakodate was suffered big fire accident in 1879 and 1934, more than 2,000 citizens were sacrificed. But this tragedy provoked motivation to overcome disaster. To keep safety and prevent fire expansion, 55 meters vast road and green belt were constructed.

Current climate brought serious change to fishing industry. Catching quantity of special marine products decreased. To overcome fishery crisis, cultivation of marine products is investigated. They are becoming Hakodate new specialty.

Regarding tourism we prepared direct flight from oversee airport, and invited foreign cruise ships. These plans are proceeding successfully."

Oizumi city mayor's confidence is certified by experts of each field.

Affected by climate change=global warming, marine environment has changed. Catching quantity of main marine products, squid and wild kombu decreased. To overcome these problems Hakodate city cooperated with Hokkaido University to cultivate wild kombu and king salmon. In this case co2 emitted from cultivation of fishery is absorbed by wild kombu. It contributes to carbon neutral. In 2025 100 king salmons were successfully landed.

Climate change made pay attention to wasted fish processing. Warm water bought increasing of Japanese sardine. Usually anchovy is made from different sardine. After investigation Hakodate anchovy was successfully produced by wasted sardines.

Climate change invited French wine producer to Hakodate. Domaine de Montille launched wine production in 2016. In 2025 first wine made from Hakodate grapes was released.

Hakodate city has tried to protect against disaster. Big fire accident in 1934, it burned one third of city, 2,000 citizens sacrificed. To recover it bold revival plan has started. Aiming prevent of fire expansion 55 meters vast road including green planting were set in 13 places. Buildings were reformed from wood made to concrete and iron reinforced one. Until then the hydrant to supply fire extinguish water was set underground .To make quick water supply it was set on the ground and prepare 3 spouts. Each hydrant painted yellow to find quickly.

Charm of Hakodate is certified by continuous effort of citizens. It realizes to preserve historical value and keep safety against disaster. This citizens effort will enable to overcome economical tensive situation affected by climate change.

- ANI
Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini led a massive direct benefit transfer, disbursing Rs 1,431 crore to 56.34 lakh beneficiaries under 18 public welfare schemes. The funds included the fourth instalment of the Deen Dayal Lado Lakshmi Yojana, providing monthly financial aid to eligible women, and over Rs 1,098 crore for various social security pensions. The release also covered cooking gas subsidies for 12.62 lakh women under the Har Ghar-Har Grihini Yojana. To address grievances, the government has instructed Additional Deputy Commissioners to hold dedicated redressal hearings twice weekly.

Haryana CM Nayab Singh Saini transfers Rs 1,431 crore under 18 welfare schemes, including pensions and gas subsidies, to over 56 lakh beneficiaries.

Chandigarh, Feb 10 In a significant push to direct benefit transfer-driven welfare, Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini on Tuesday disbursed Rs 1,431 crore among 56.34 lakh beneficiaries under 18 public welfare schemes, marking one of the largest single-day benefit releases by the state in recent months.

The disbursement included the fourth instalment of the Deen Dayal Lado Lakshmi Yojana, social security pensions, cooking gas subsidies under the Har Ghar-Har Grihini Yojana, and incentives for milk producers, underscoring the government's emphasis on targeted support for women, the elderly, the vulnerable and small producers.

The Chief Minister said under the Deen Dayal Lado Lakshmi Yojana, Rs 193 crore was transferred directly into the bank accounts of 922,452 beneficiaries, taking the cumulative release under the scheme to Rs 634 crore across four instalments.

The scheme provides monthly financial assistance of Rs 2,100 to eligible women aged 23 years and above from families with an annual income of less than Rs 1 lakh, with expanded eligibility for certain categories of families earning up to Rs 1.80 lakh annually.

He said 10,51,029 women applied through the Deen Dayal Lado Lakshmi mobile application, launched on September 25, 2025, to mark the 109th birth anniversary of Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya.

Of these, over 922,452 applicants were found eligible after scrutiny. He said from February onwards, Rs 1,100 will be credited directly to beneficiaries' savings accounts each month, while Rs 1,000 will be placed in a government-operated fixed deposit account.

A notable feature of the scheme is that all eligible women within a family can avail its benefits.

The Chief Minister said on the same day, the state released Rs 1,098 crore towards old-age, widow, differently-abled and other social security pensions, benefiting 34.14 lakh people.

Acknowledging complaints related to pension delays and income-based eligibility, the government has directed Additional Deputy Commissioners (ADCs) in all districts to conduct dedicated grievance redress hearings twice a week, i.e. every Monday and Thursday, to ensure timely and impartial resolution.

The Chief Minister said under the Har Ghar-Har Grihini Yojana, Rs 38.97 crore was credited as a subsidy for November and December to 12.62 lakh women who refilled LPG cylinders.

The scheme enables eligible women to obtain a gas cylinder every month at a subsidised rate of Rs 500.

Earlier, on January 1,7 subsidies amounting to Rs 18.56 crore were released to 608,842 beneficiaries.

Cumulatively, Rs 223.31 crore has been transferred to 14.38 lakh women under the scheme so far.

- IANS
The White House announced a historic trade framework between the US and India that will open India's vast consumer market to American products. The deal follows a call between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, resulting in the US removing an additional 25% tariff on imports from India. Key terms include India eliminating or reducing tariffs on US industrial and agricultural goods and committing to purchase over $500 billion in US energy, technology, and agricultural products. Both nations also agreed to address non-tariff barriers, digital services taxes, and strengthen economic security alignment.

White House announces historic US-India trade framework opening Indian markets, removing tariffs, and securing over $500B in US energy & tech purchases.

Washington DC, February 10 The White House, in a statement on Friday, highlighted that the 'historic trade deal' between India and the US will open Indian markets to American products.

"Last Friday, in a Joint Statement, President Donald J. Trump announced a trade deal between the United States and India that will open up India's market of over 1.4 billion people to American products," the statement said.

Friday's Joint Statement follows a call between US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week, in which the leaders reached a framework for an Interim Agreement on reciprocal trade and reaffirmed their commitment to broader US-India Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) negotiations, the statement said.

"Also on the call, Trump agreed to remove the additional 25% tariff on imports from India in recognition of India's commitment to stop purchasing Russian Federation oil. Accordingly, the President signed an Executive Order last Friday removing that additional 25% tariff," the statement said.

Given India's willingness to align with the United States to confront systemic imbalances in the bilateral trade relationship and shared national security challenges, the United States will lower the Reciprocal Tariff on India from 25% to 18%, the statement said.

The key terms of the Agreement include: India will eliminate or reduce tariffs on all US industrial goods and a wide range of US food and agricultural products, including dried distillers' grains (DDGs), red sorghum, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, certain pulses, soybean oil, wine and spirits, and additional products, as per the statement.

India committed to buying more American products and purchasing over USD 500 billion of U.S. energy, information and communication technology, agricultural, coal, and other products, the statment added.

India will address non-tariff barriers that affect bilateral trade in priority areas.

The United States and India will negotiate rules of origin that ensure that the agreed benefits accrue predominantly to the United States and India.

India will remove its digital services taxes and is committed to negotiating a robust set of bilateral digital trade rules that address discriminatory or burdensome practices and other barriers to digital trade, including rules that prohibit the imposition of customs duties on electronic transmissions, as per White House statement.

The United States and India committed to strengthening economic security alignment to enhance supply chain resilience and innovation through complementary actions to address non-market policies of third parties, as well as cooperating on inbound and outbound investment reviews and export controls.

The United States and India will significantly increase bilateral trade in technology products and expand joint technology cooperation.

"India has maintained some of the highest tariffs on the United States of any major world economy, with tariffs as high as an average of 37% for agricultural goods and more than 100% on certain autos. India also has a history of imposing highly protectionist non-tariff barriers that have banned and prohibited many U.S. exports to India," the statement read.

"In the coming weeks, the United States and India will promptly implement this framework and work toward finalising the Interim Agreement with a view to concluding a mutually beneficial BTA to lock in benefits for American workers and businesses. In line with the roadmap set out in the Terms of Reference for the BTA, the United States and India will continue negotiations to address the remaining tariff barriers, additional non-tariff barriers, technical barriers to trade, customs and trade facilitation, good regulatory practices, trade remedies, services and investment, intellectual property, labor, environment, government procurement, and trade-distorting or unfair practices of state-owned enterprises," the statement read.

The agreement is said to be in line with the national emergency declared by Trump on April 2, 2025, in response to the large and persistent US goods trade deficit caused by a lack of reciprocity in bilateral trade relationships, unfair tariffs and non-tariff barriers, and U.S. trading partners' economic policies that suppress domestic wages and consumption.

Trump continues to advance the interests of the American people by removing tariff and non-tariff barriers and expanding market access for American exporters, including in the agricultural sector, as per the statement.

- ANI
Denmark's Ambassador to India, Rasmus Abildgaard Kristensen, has reflected on completing his first year in the role, expressing appreciation for the warmth and partnerships. Bilateral relations were elevated to a Green Strategic Partnership in 2020 during a virtual summit between the prime ministers of both nations. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's official visit to Denmark in 2022 included bilateral talks and the hosting of the 2nd India-Nordic Summit. The visit resulted in the exchange of several agreements covering areas like green shipping, skill development, and cultural exchange.

Ambassador Rasmus Abildgaard Kristensen marks one year, highlighting the India-Denmark Green Strategic Partnership and high-level diplomatic visits.

New Delhi, February 10 Denmark's Ambassador to India Rasmus Abildgaard Kristensen has expressed happiness over completing one year in the country.

In a post on social media platform X, he wrote, "Honoured to conclude my first year as Denmark's Ambassador to India. Thankful for the warmth, partnerships and shared ambition across India. Looking back with appreciation, and ahead with optimism. In this short video, I reflect on the year gone by and what lies ahead."

Diplomatic relations between India and Denmark were established in September 1949 and are based on historical links, common democratic traditions and shared desire for regional, as well as international peace and stability.

Bilateral relations were elevated to the level of "Green Strategic Partnership" during the Virtual Summit held on 28 September 2020 between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen.

The current development of renewed India-Denmark relations has been guided by the "Green Strategic Partnership".

Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid an official visit to Denmark on May 3 and 4, 2022. The visit included two components- bilateral talks with PM Frederiksen and the 2nd India-Nordic Summit hosted by India and Denmark. During the bilateral talks, the two Prime Ministers reviewed the progress of India-Denmark Green Strategic Partnership and exchanged views on regional and global issues of mutual interest.

Queen Margrethe II received the Prime Minister and hosted an official dinner in his honour. PM Narendra Modi also interacted with the Indian community in Copenhagen and addressed an India-Denmark Business Forum held at the headquarters of the Danish Industry (DI).

Agreements and MoUs in the fields of migration and mobility, green shipping, cultural exchange programme, water resource management, skill development, animal husbandry and dairying were exchanged.

On May 4, Prime Minister Modi attended the 2nd India-Nordic Summit along with the Prime Ministers of Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland and reviewed India-Nordic relations. A Joint Statement reiterating strong commitment to multilateralism and international cooperation, and a robust partnership with Nordic countries to help promote innovation, economic growth, climate-friendly solutions and mutually beneficial trade and investments was issued.

On the sidelines of the Summit, the Prime Minister Modi held bilateral talks with his counterparts from Finland, Iceland, Sweden and Norway.

- ANI
India and China held a Strategic Dialogue in New Delhi, emphasizing that peace along their border is essential for advancing overall bilateral relations. The talks, led by senior diplomats, focused on stabilizing ties and addressing trade issues from a strategic perspective. Both sides discussed practical cooperation, including visa facilitation and an updated Air Services Agreement. China also expressed support for India's upcoming BRICS Chairmanship and acknowledged its aspirations for a permanent UN Security Council seat.

India and China hold Strategic Dialogue, underscore border peace for bilateral progress, discuss trade, BRICS, and UNSC aspirations.

New Delhi, February 10 India and China on Tuesday underlined the importance of peace and tranquillity in the border areas for overall progress in bilateral relations during the Strategic Dialogue held in the national capital.

The Strategic Dialogue was held between Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and China's Executive Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu, who is in India to participate in the BRICS Sherpa Meeting from February 8 to February 10.

According to a statement from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), the two sides exchanged views on a wide range of issues across bilateral, regional, and international affairs, with discussions primarily focusing on recent progress in stabilising and rebuilding bilateral ties and on ways to advance engagement.

Both sides reiterated their commitment to implement guidance from their leaders, including the need to approach bilateral issues, particularly trade-related concerns, from a political and strategic perspective.

"Both sides underscored the importance of peace and tranquillity in the border areas for overall progress in bilateral relations. They reiterated their commitment to implement the guidance provided by their leaders including on the need to proceed from a political and strategic direction to approach issues and concerns related to bilateral trade," the statement said.

During the dialogue, Foreign Secretary Misri noted the successful resumption of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra and expressed hope for its continued expansion.

Both sides also recognised the need to conclude an updated Air Services Agreement at an early stage and agreed to continue taking practical steps to facilitate visa processing and promote people-to-people exchanges.

The discussions also covered multilateral cooperation, including during India's BRICS Chairmanship this year.

"The Chinese side expressed its support for a successful BRICS Summit in India. EVFM also conveyed that China understands and respects India's aspirations for UNSC membership," the MEA added.

- ANI
India and Sri Lanka have begun a five-day knowledge exchange workshop on Health Technology Assessment (HTA) in New Delhi. The workshop, hosted by India's Department of Health Research, aims to develop a strategic pathway to advance and institutionalise HTA in Sri Lanka. Officials described the initiative as a major milestone in bilateral healthcare diplomacy and knowledge sharing. The sessions will cover institutional frameworks, methodologies, and identifying collaborative initiatives to strengthen HTA systems in both nations.

India hosts a 5-day workshop with Sri Lanka to share expertise and strengthen Health Technology Assessment systems for evidence-based healthcare.

New Delhi, February 10 India and Sri Lanka commenced the five-day Knowledge Exchange Workshop on Health Technology Assessment for a delegation from the Ministry of Health, Government of Sri Lanka at the Sushma Swaraj Bhawan in New Delhi on Monday, as per an official statement from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

As per the statement by the Health Ministry, the workshop is being hosted by the Department of Health Research (DHR), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, of the Government of India, in collaboration with the Ministry of External Affairs.

The workshop aims to develop a strategic pathway for advancing and institutionalising HTA in Sri Lanka.

Dr. Rajiv Bahl, Secretary DHR & DG of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), welcomed the delegates and addressed the inaugural session. He described the initiative as a significant strategic milestone in bilateral healthcare diplomacy and HTA knowledge exchange, underscoring India's commitment to supporting regional health initiatives.

Anu Nagar, Additional Secretary, DHR, also highlighted the impactful contributions of HTAIn to India's healthcare landscape and expressed confidence that this knowledge exchange will benefit the institutionalisation of HTA in Sri Lanka.

As per the statement, HTAIn (Health Technology Assessment India), an attached office of DHR, plays a pivotal role in evaluating healthcare technologies and ensuring cost-effective, evidence-based health interventions across India.

According to the statement, the 5-day workshop, will cover a wide range of topics, including HTA institutional frameworks, governance, methodologies, pricing, and procurement decisions. The objectives include identifying potential collaborative initiatives to strengthen HTA capacities and systems in both nations.

- ANI
The Indian Air Force and the Royal Thai Air Force are conducting a joint in-situ air exercise to enhance operational coordination and interoperability. The exercise involves advanced aircraft like the IAF's Su-30MKI and the RTAF's Gripen jets, alongside support platforms. This military cooperation builds upon a 2012 defence MoU and warm bilateral relations spanning over 75 years. The partnership is multifaceted, extending into trade, security, and connectivity, aligned through India's 'Act East' and Thailand's 'Act West' policies.

Indian & Royal Thai Air Forces conduct joint in-situ air exercise with Su-30MKI, Gripen jets to boost operational coordination & regional synergy.

New Delhi, February 11 The Indian Air Force is undertaking a joint in-situ air exercise with the Royal Thai Air Force.

The exercise will enhance operational coordination and interoperability between the two Air Forces, the IAF said.

In a post on X, the IAF said, "IAF is undertaking joint in-situ air exercise with the Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF). The exercise will enhance operational coordination and interoperability between the two Air Forces. IAF Su-30MKI, AWACS, AEW&C and IL-78 refuelling aircraft are participating in the Ex, alongside RTAF Gripen aircraft, strengthening Indo-Thai defence cooperation and regional synergy."

India and Thailand have historically enjoyed warm and cordial relations. In contemporary times, the diplomatic relations between the two countries were established in 1947, and both sides celebrated the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations in 2022.

The Memorandum of Understanding on Defence Cooperation between India and Thailand was signed on 25 January 2012. The ongoing defence cooperation initiatives comprise defence dialogue, joint maritime patrolling by the navies of both countries, annual staff talks, subject matter expert exchange visits, training of officers at each other's institutions, trilateral/multilateral military exercises, etc. As part of regular high-level defence-related visits, Chief of Defence Force of Royal Thai Armed Forces General Songwit Noonpackdee paid an official visit to India from 21-24 January 2025.

The bilateral ties are multifaceted and cover a wide spectrum of areas, including trade and investment, defence and security, connectivity, culture and tourism, education, science and technology, and people-to-people exchanges. Further, the 'Act West' policy of Thailand complements India's 'Act East' policy. Thailand is India's maritime neighbour.

The total number of people of Indian origin in Thailand is estimated to be around 4 to 5 lakh, including more than 25,000 NRIs, the majority of whom are concentrated in Bangkok. The community comprises mainly of Punjabi Hindus, Namdhari and other Sikh sects, Gorakhpuris, Malayalis, Tamils, Gujaratis, Marwaris, and Sindhis. Other linguistic and regional groups are also well represented.

- ANI
India and the United Kingdom have signed a bilateral Social Security Agreement to prevent employees on temporary assignments from paying contributions in both countries for periods up to 36 months. The pact, signed by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and British High Commissioner Lindy Cameron, aims to support worker mobility and continuous social security coverage. It forms part of the broader Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and is scheduled to come into effect alongside it in the first half of this year. The agreement is expected to enhance service sector partnerships by leveraging the skilled workforces of both nations.

India & UK sign agreement to avoid double social security payments for employees on short-term assignments, boosting mobility under new trade deal.

New Delhi/London, Feb 10 India and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland signed an agreement on social security relating to Social Security Contributions in New Delhi on Tuesday. The agreement seeks to avoid double social security contributions for employees of both countries on temporary assignments in each other's territories for periods of up to 36 months.

The Agreement was signed by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri for the Indian side and by the British High Commissioner to India, Lindy Cameron for the UK side.

According to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), India has been entering into bilateral Social Security Agreements (SSAs) with other countries in order to protect the interests of Indian professionals/skilled workers working abroad for short durations and enhance the competitiveness of Indian companies.

It may be recalled that at the time of signing of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between India and the United Kingdom in July 2025, both governments had committed to concluding an agreement on social security.

"The Agreement seeks to avoid double social security contributions for employees of both countries on temporary assignments in each other's territories for periods of up to 36 months. The Agreement will support mobility and continued social security coverage of the employees on short-term overseas assignments. This will enhance India-UK partnerships in the service sector, leveraging the high skills and innovative service sectors of both countries," read a statement issued by the MEA.

"The Agreement forms part of India's trade deal with the UK and shall come into effect together with the CETA, planned for implementation during the first half of the current year," it added.

The MEA detailed that the signed agreement will be hosted on the website of the Ministry of External Affairs and the website of the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) for the information of the stakeholders so that they can secure Certificates of Coverage (CoC) to avoid making double social security contributions.

According to the UK foreign ministry, a reciprocal Double Contributions Convention (DCC) will support business and trade by ensuring that employees moving between the UK and India, and their employers, will only be liable to pay social security contributions in one country at a time. The DCC will also ensure that employees temporarily working in the other country will continue paying social security contributions in their home country, preventing the fragmentation of their social security record.

"Signed the DCC treaty with Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri today. This reciprocal agreement strengthens ties between our two countries and complements our FTA, which will boost bilateral trade by 25.5bn. Looking forward to supporting businesses to use the deal once it's entered into force," Cameron posted on X after the signing of the agreement.

- IANS
UNESCO has announced a new contribution from Japan of $3.8 million to support Ukraines recovery in the areas of culture, education, and communication and information ahead of the anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion.

The UNESCO project we are signing today, worth a total of $3.8 million, is a testament to Japans strong partnership with UNESCO and our unwavering support for Ukraine. Japan remains firmly committed to supporting the people of Ukraine. Together with UNESCO, we will make every effort to ensure the successful implementation of this important initiative, said Masashi Nakagome, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Ukraine.

"The full-scale invasion has caused devastating damage to Ukraines cultural heritage: over 1,600 cultural sites have been damaged or destroyed, which threatens our historical memory and national identity. We are sincerely grateful to the Government of Japan for the support that allows us not only to document these crimes against culture, but also to take urgent measures to protect and restore cultural heritage. By protecting culture, we are affirming it as an integral part of Ukraines resilience and the basis for its future recovery," said Deputy Minister of Culture of Ukraine Anastasia Bondar.

As reported, thanks to this additional funding, UNESCO will continue and expand its support to Ukraine in three priority areas: culture, education, communication and information.

"UNESCOs support will be aimed at strengthening regular monitoring and verification of war-related damage to cultural heritage sites using remote and satellite imagery and on-site inspections. This will allow for the prompt implementation of urgent measures to stabilize and repair damaged cultural sites and prevent their further destruction. In parallel, the initiative will contribute to the development of policies and recommendations, planning tools and regulatory frameworks so that cultural heritage and the cultural sector are properly integrated into national and local recovery and reconstruction plans," the statement said.

UNESCO will also continue its support for Ukraines education system with a focus on a safe, inclusive and sustainable educational environment, including training for education professionals and further supporting mental health and psychosocial well-being in the education sector.

UNESCO will also strengthen its work to support journalists and media professionals, promote access to reliable information, and develop media and information literacy. "These efforts are aimed at ensuring that citizens remain informed and have the necessary skills to counter disinformation in the context of the ongoing war," the organization said.

With this new financial contribution, the total amount of support from Japan will amount to $29.1 million, representing almost 40% of all funding mobilized by UNESCO for Ukraine.

To date, UNESCO has mobilized over $75 million to implement its mandate in Ukraine, contributing to the protection of cultural heritage, ensuring the continuity of education and maintaining access to accurate information for Ukrainian society in times of war.
India and the United Kingdom have signed a Social Security Agreement to prevent employees on temporary assignments of up to 36 months from making double social security contributions in both countries. The pact, signed by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and British High Commissioner Lindy Cameron, aims to facilitate talent mobility and strengthen service sector partnerships. It fulfills a commitment under the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and is set to take effect alongside CETA in the first half of 2026. Details and Certificates of Coverage will be available on the MEA and EPFO websites for stakeholders.

India & UK sign agreement to prevent double social security payments for short-term employees, boosting talent mobility and trade ties.

New Delhi, February 10 India and the United Kingdom on Tuesday signed an Agreement on Social Security relating to Social Security Contributions, aimed at avoiding double social security contributions for employees on temporary assignments in each other's territories for periods of up to 36 months.

The agreement, signed in the national capital by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and British High Commissioner to India Lindy Cameron, noted that the move is intended to facilitate talent mobility between the two countries while ensuring continued social security coverage for employees on short-term overseas assignments.

According to a statement from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), the agreement follows commitments made during the signing of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between India and the UK in July 2025 and forms part of broader efforts to strengthen bilateral trade and partnerships in the services sector.

"The Agreement seeks to avoid double social security contributions for employees of both countries on temporary assignments in each other's territories for periods of up to 36 months. The Agreement will support mobility and continued social security coverage of the employees on short-term overseas assignments. This will enhance India-UK partnerships in the service sector, leveraging the high skills and innovative service sectors of both countries," the statement read.

The MEA highlighted that India has been progressively entering into bilateral Social Security Agreements (SSAs) with other countries to safeguard the interests of Indian professionals working abroad for short durations.

The India-UK SSA will leverage the high skills and innovative capacities of both countries, particularly in services and technology, the MEA stated.

The agreement is expected to take effect alongside CETA, which is planned for implementation in the first half of 2026.

Details of the agreement will be made available on the MEA website and the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) portal, enabling employees to secure Certificates of Coverage (CoC) to prevent double social security contributions.

"The signed agreement will be hosted on the website of the Ministry of External Affairs and the website of the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation for the information of the stakeholders so that they can secure Certificates of Coverage (CoC) to avoid making double social security contributions," the statement added.

This landmark step reinforces India-UK cooperation, supports the free movement of skilled professionals, and strengthens economic and trade ties.

- ANI
Union Minister Piyush Goyal expressed confidence that the India-US partnership will scale new heights following an interim trade deal. The recently announced framework establishes an 18% reciprocal tariff on select Indian goods like textiles and chemicals. The deal also outlines cooperation on non-tariff barriers, supply chains, and digital trade rules as a step toward a broader agreement. Separately, Goyal met with KKR's Henry Kravis to discuss expanding investments, highlighting India's reform-driven growth trajectory.

Union Minister Piyush Goyal confident India-US partnership will reach new heights with interim trade deal framework and 18% reciprocal tariffs.

New Delhi, February 10 Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal on Tuesday expressed confidence that the India-US partnership will scale new heights in the coming period, particularly in the backdrop of the recently announced interim India-US trade deal.

In a social media post, the minister said he was delighted to attend the welcome reception of Sergio Gor at the US Embassy in India. Highlighting the importance of the engagement, Goyal stated that the India-US Trade Deal will play a key role in strengthening bilateral ties between the two countries.

"Delighted to attend the welcome reception of @USAmbIndia Sergio Gor at the US Embassy in India. Confident that the India-US partnership will reach newer heights with the #IndiaUSTradeDeal," the minister noted in his post.

The interim US-India Bilateral Trade Agreement was declared on February 7 and establishes an interim framework linked to a broader Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) that was initiated in 2025.

Under the interim arrangement, the United States has set a reciprocal tariff rate of 18 per cent on select Indian goods. These include textiles, apparel, leather, plastics, chemicals and machinery.

The interim trade deal framework is positioned as the first step towards a comprehensive BTA. As per the framework, the US will apply a reciprocal tariff rate of 18 per cent on Indian goods.

It also outlines a clear pathway for the removal of reciprocal tariffs on a wider set of products, provided the interim trade agreement (ITA) is successfully concluded.

Beyond tariffs, the framework highlights cooperation in several key areas. Both countries have agreed to address non-tariff barriers, establish clear rules of origin, strengthen supply chain resilience and work towards ambitious digital trade rules as part of the proposed BTA.

Separately, on Monday, the minister also held a meeting with Henry Kravis, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Chairman of KKR, a global investment firm. The discussions focused on the company's journey in India and the significant opportunities for expanding investments in the country.

According to the minister, the meeting highlighted India's strong, reform-driven growth trajectory and the vast potential it offers for long-term global investors. The interaction reflected continued interest from global investment firms in India's growth story and its evolving economic landscape.

The meetings and recent developments show India's efforts to strengthen global partnerships, boost trade, and attract investments through policy certainty and sustained economic reforms.

- ANI
India has commenced its BRICS chairmanship by hosting the first Sherpa/Sous-Sherpa meeting in New Delhi. The meeting outlined India's priorities based on a "people-centric" approach and the theme of building resilience, innovation, cooperation, and sustainability. Belarus participated as a BRICS partner country, with its ambassador conveying a message of support from the Belarusian President and expressing interest in joining the BRICS New Development Bank. The expanded BRICS bloc, now comprising eleven major economies, serves as a key platform for consultation on global political and economic governance.

India outlines its BRICS priorities in New Delhi as Belarus attends as a partner country and expresses interest in joining the New Development Bank.

New Delhi, February 10 The first BRICS Sherpa/Sous-Sherpa Meeting commenced in New Delhi, a statement by the Official Spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, Randhir Jaiswal, said.

MEA Secretary (Economic Relations) and India's BRICS Sherpa Sudhakar Dalela highlighted key priorities of India's Chairship based on the PM's vision for "people-centric" and "humanity-first" approach for the BRICS, and overall theme of 'Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability'.

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Belarus to India, M. Kasko, attended the 1st BRICS Sherpa/Sous-Sherpa meeting in Delhi as a representative of the Republic of Belarus as a BRICS partner country.

In his speech, the Head of the Belarusian diplomatic mission expressed gratitude to the organisers for inviting Belarus to the event, as representatives of partner countries had not previously participated in such meetings.

The Ambassador of Belarus conveyed a message in which the President of Belarus expressed confidence that the coming year for BRICS, under India's chairmanship, will be a time of new achievements and successes, which will contribute to further progress and maintain the association's position as one of the most influential international organisations.

Belarus, as a responsible member of the global community and a country with significant technological potential and achievements in food and water security, is ready to share its achievements to ensure the harmonious development of BRICS countries.

The Belarusian side has expressed interest in joining the New Development Bank (NDB), which will facilitate the realisation of the economic potential of all BRICS member and partner countries.

BRICS brings together eleven major emerging markets and developing countries of the world: Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. It serves as a useful platform for consultation and cooperation on contemporary issues having global as well as regional significance, and issues of global political and economic governance.

- ANI
An Indonesian delegation visited the Indian Parliament on Tuesday amid the ongoing Budget Session, underscoring continued institutional engagement. The visit follows Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto's trip to India last year as Chief Guest for the Republic Day celebrations. During that visit, President Subianto met with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, reaffirming the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. The nations share deep historical and cultural ties, with cooperation spanning defence, security, and economic domains.

An Indonesian delegation arrives at Parliament during India's Budget Session, highlighting ongoing legislative and diplomatic engagement between the two nations.

New Delhi, February 10 An Indonesian delegation arrived at Parliament on Tuesday amid the ongoing Budget Session of both Houses of Parliament, placing the visit within an important phase of India's legislative activity.

The Budget Session, which commenced on January 28, is spread over 30 sittings across 65 days and is scheduled to conclude on April 2.

Under the session's schedule, both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha will adjourn on February 13 and reconvene on March 9. During this period, Standing Committees will examine the Demands for Grants of various ministries and departments.

The arrival of the Indonesian delegation during this active parliamentary period reflects the continuing institutional engagement between India and Indonesia, particularly at the legislative and diplomatic levels.

Such engagement was evident last year when Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto visited India as the Chief Guest at the 76th Republic Day celebrations.

During that visit, President Subianto toured the Parliament House and held discussions with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on India's parliamentary system, while also expressing appreciation for the architecture of the Parliament House.

On that occasion, Birla presented President Subianto with a copy of the Constitution of India and a replica of the Parliament House.

These parliamentary interactions formed part of the wider historical and civilisational relationship between the two countries, with India and Indonesia sharing cultural links spanning thousands of years, influenced by epics such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

During the same visit, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar met President Subianto ahead of his participation as Chief Guest at the Republic Day celebrations, underscoring bilateral engagement at the highest constitutional level.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also held talks with President Subianto at Hyderabad House in New Delhi, where the two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.

The discussions focused on defence, security, the maritime domain, economic cooperation, and people-to-people ties.

President Subianto's visit, undertaken at the invitation of Prime Minister Modi, marked his first state visit to India since assuming office in October 2024.

Following the meeting, he highlighted the historic nature of India-Indonesia relations and the depth of cooperation between the two nations.

In a press statement alongside Prime Minister Modi, President Subianto said, "The Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia is on land donated by the Indian government before we were recognised by many other countries in the world. We will prioritise this relationship in the interest of long-term strategic partnership which we have agreed upon. We feel very honoured that I will be the Chief Guest at the Republic Day parade and because the first Chief Guest in India's first Republic Day parade was President Sukarno, so this is a great honour for me."

- ANI
Reliance Foundation hosted the second edition of its 'Building Flourishing Futures' convening in Mumbai, focusing on early childhood and primary education. The event brought together over 250 practitioners for masterclasses and knowledge exchange on creating inclusive learning ecosystems. Isha Ambani emphasized that education must meet children's emotional, social, and cognitive needs to foster joyful learning. International experts from institutions like Harvard and Monash University shared insights on enabling lifelong resilience and well-being through foundational education.

Global experts convened at Reliance Foundation's event to share innovations in early childhood and primary education for lifelong impact.

Mumbai, February 10 Insightful dialogues, knowledge exchange and practice sharing on early childhood and primary education, were the focus of the 'Building Flourishing Futures' convening held by Reliance Foundation, on February 7th and 8th at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Junior School.

The vibrant programme at the two-day convening with over 250 education practitioners from India and across the world, included masterclasses and learning labs, for cross- learning on innovations in foundational learning, for lifelong impact, as per the Reliance Foundation press release.

Rooted in the vision of Reliance Foundation's Founder and Chairperson Nita M Ambani, the convening underscored a shared belief that every child is a world of possibility. This was the second edition of 'Building Flourishing Futures' and the theme 'Meeting Learners Where They Are: From Early Childhood to Primary Education' highlighted how nurturing relationships, emotional safety, and a sense of belonging in the early years, enable lifelong learning, resilience, and well-being.

Speaking about the event, Isha Ambani, Director, Reliance Foundation and Vice Chairperson, Nita Mukesh Ambani Junior School, said, "When education meets children where they are -- emotionally, socially, and cognitively -- it creates the foundation for meaningful and joyful learning. At Reliance Foundation, our work in early childhood and foundational learning is guided by an evidence-informed, deeply human belief, that children flourish when they feel cared for, warm, safe, valued, and supported. Through 'Building Flourishing Futures', our aim is to create a platform for learning exchange for educators to share ideas, insights and best practices on creating inclusive learning ecosystems that enable every child to flourish," as per the press release.

Built on learning and engagement from the previous edition that explored the transformative role of early childhood education in community development, 'Building Flourishing Futures 2026', expanded the lens to primary education, with a continuum of learning perspectives across early years and foundational learning.

Key international speakers included Dr Rebecca Rolland from Harvard University, Prof Marilyn Fleer and Dr Prabhat Rai from Monash University, Ms Fiona Carter, International Director, Wellington College, UK, Dr Rita Chawla-Duggan, Lecturer, Early Childhood Studies, Bath University, UK, Ms Beatrice Moccia, Head of Primary, Raoul Wallenberg International School, Spain.

- ANI
India and Iran are celebrating 75 years of formal diplomatic relations, with Iran being among the first countries to establish ties with the Republic of India. Officials from both nations emphasized a partnership deeply rooted in millennia of shared history and civilizational links. The strategic Chabahar Port project was highlighted as a vital symbol of cooperation and a hub for regional connectivity. India's recognition of Farsi as a classical language further underscores the enduring cultural bond.

India & Iran celebrate 75 years of diplomatic relations, rooted in shared history & culture, with Chabahar Port as a key symbol of cooperation.

New Delhi, February 10 On the 47th anniversary of the Islamic revolution, Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, Sibi George spoke about India's 75-year-old diplomatic relations with Iran.

He said, "India's formal diplomatic relations with Iran are 75 years old, with Iran being one of the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with India after it became a republic. The year 2025 marked the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. Our people-to-people relations and cultural contacts form a strong foundation for our modern bilateral relations."

George also spoke about India and Iran's rich cultural heritage, and how the two cultures have influenced each other.

"We share a rich cultural heritage, influencing art, architecture, literature, music, and cuisine, forging an unbreakable and enduring bond between our two countries. The continuing influence and rich heritage of Farsi has led the Government of India to include it as one of the classical languages in its new Education Policy 2020."

Earlier, speaking at a reception on the occasion of the Iranian National Day hosted by the Iranian Embassy in India, Ambassador Fathali said that relations between India and Iran are deeply rooted in thousands of years of shared history and civilisation.

He noted that the Chabahar port reflects the spirit of cooperation between the two countries and contributes significantly to regional connectivity.

"Relations between Iran and India are rooted in thousands of years of shared history and civilisation and based on common culture," the envoy said."

This rich heritage is a valuable asset for expanding bilateral cooperation. The Chabahar Port project, as a symbol of the cooperation between our two countries, plays an important role in the common development and regional connectivity," he added.

George, represented India as the Chief Guest at the reception, during which he conveyed warm congratulations to the Government and people of Iran and reaffirmed India's enduring commitment to strengthening bilateral ties.

"Secretary (West) Sibi George represented India as the Chief Guest at the Iranian National Day reception hosted by @Iran_in_India. He conveyed warm congratulations to the Government and people of Iran and reaffirmed India's enduring commitment to bilateral ties," the MEA stated in a post on X.

India proposed developing the Chabahar Port in 2003 to provide an alternative route for Indian goods to reach landlocked Afghanistan and Central Asia via road and rail connectivity under the International North-South Transport Corridor, bypassing Pakistan. The progress on the project had slowed earlier due to US sanctions on Iran linked to its suspected nuclear programme.

- ANI
Israeli forces located and destroyed a significant weapons depot belonging to the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist organization in southern Syria. The operation took place in the area of the village of Beit Jinn last week. The IDF stated the cache contained numerous weapons, mines, and communication equipment. The military accused Jemaah Islamiyah of promoting and continuing terrorist acts against Israel throughout the ongoing war.

Israeli forces destroyed a weapons cache belonging to the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist group in southern Syria, the IDF announced.

Tel Aviv, February 10 Israeli forces last week located and destroyed a weapons depot belonging to the terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiyah in the area of the village of Beit Jinn in southern Syria.

The forces located and destroyed numerous weapons in the depot, including weapons, mines and means of communication, reported the IDF (Israel Defense Forces).

"The terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiyah has promoted and continues to promote terrorist acts against the State of Israel and its citizens in the northern sector throughout the war," said the IDF.

- ANI
Japan is reportedly considering formal participation in a NATO-led framework to support Ukraine, focusing on providing non-lethal defense equipment such as radar systems and bulletproof vests. This move aligns with a coordinated NATO and U.S. mechanism established in 2025 to streamline military aid deliveries to Ukraine, which already includes contributions from numerous member states and partners. The potential step highlights Japan's growing engagement in global security issues while adhering to its pacifist constitutional constraints. The backdrop is Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, following years of tension since the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Japan may join a NATO initiative to provide non-lethal defense aid to Ukraine, marking a shift in its security policy amid the ongoing war with Russia.

Tokyo, February 10 Japan is considering closer cooperation with NATO to support Ukraine by providing essential non-lethal defence equipment, according to a report by Japan's public broadcaster NHK.

Several NATO officials told NHK that Tokyo is expected to formally announce its participation in the alliance's Ukraine support framework in the near future, marking another step in Japan's growing security engagement with Europe.

The move comes amid continued international efforts to sustain Ukraine's defence against Russia, more than three years after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. The war itself has its roots in long-standing tensions between the two countries, dating back to Ukraine's independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Relations deteriorated sharply after Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its backing of separatists in eastern Ukraine. These events culminated in the 2022 invasion, which Russia described as a "special military operation" but which Ukraine and its allies condemned as a violation of international law.

In July 2025, NATO and the United States established a new mechanism to coordinate the purchase and delivery of US-manufactured munitions and military equipment to Ukraine. The initiative was designed to streamline assistance, ensure steady supplies, and share the financial burden among allies. Twenty NATO member states have pledged to contribute to the framework, including Germany and the Netherlands, along with close partners such as Australia and New Zealand.

Through this mechanism, Ukraine has already received missiles for its Patriot air defence systems and other critical equipment, bolstering its ability to protect cities and infrastructure from Russian missile and drone attacks. Western officials say the framework has helped reduce delays and improve coordination among donor countries.

Japanese officials, however, have emphasized that Tokyo's role will remain limited to non-lethal assistance, in line with the country's pacifist constitution and long-standing defence policies. According to NATO sources cited by NHK, Japan is likely to provide financial support for equipment such as radar systems, bulletproof vests, and other defensive gear rather than weapons or ammunition.

If confirmed, Japan's participation would underscore its increasing willingness to engage in global security issues and support Ukraine alongside NATO, while still adhering to its domestic legal constraints.

- ANI
Japan's main opposition Centrist Reform Alliance has suffered a historic defeat, securing only 49 seats in the lower house election. This marks the lowest seat count for a primary opposition party in the country's postwar history. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party, led by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, dramatically increased its majority to 316 seats. The result creates a severe parliamentary imbalance, leaving the opposition without the numbers to introduce budget bills or no-confidence motions.

Japan's main opposition alliance wins only 49 seats, the lowest postwar total, creating a massive parliamentary imbalance favoring the ruling LDP.

Tokyo, February 10 The Centrist Reform Alliance secured just 49 seats in Sunday's House of Representatives election, marking the lowest total for a main opposition party in Japan in the postwar era, according to Kyodo News.

Formed in January through the merger of lower house members from the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and the Komeito party, the alliance's poor performance has left it without the numbers required to introduce budget-related bills or move a no-confidence resolution against the Cabinet.

Placing the setback in perspective, Kyodo News reported that the alliance's seat tally fell sharply from 167 previously.

While it secured nearly half as many votes as Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party in both single-seat districts and proportional representation blocs, it translated into only about a sixth of the LDP's 316 seats, which rose from 198 before the polls.

As a result of the outcome, opposition parties together now control 109 seats in the 465-member lower house.

The Japan Innovation Party, which serves as the LDP's coalition partner, holds 36 seats, while independents account for four.

Such an imbalance has precedent in Japan's electoral history.

In the 2009 lower house election, which produced a dominant single-party victory, the Democratic Party of Japan, predecessor to the CDPJ, won 308 seats, leaving the LDP as the main opposition with 119 seats.

Even before the current electoral system was introduced in 1996, replacing multi-member districts of varying sizes, similar outcomes were recorded.

In 1986, the LDP won 300 seats, reducing the main opposition Japan Socialist Party to just 85 seats.

More recently, Kyodo News noted that in 2012, when the LDP returned to power with 294 seats, the main opposition DPJ was reduced to 57 seats.

A comparable pattern emerged in 2017, when the LDP secured 281 seats while the main opposition CDPJ finished with 54.

- ANI
Karnataka Home Minister G. Parameshwara visited the family of Chandan Kumar, a 37-year-old software professional from Bengaluru who was shot dead in Toronto, Canada. The minister expressed condolences and stated the investigation is ongoing to ascertain the circumstances of the killing, which police are treating as a targeted attack. Union Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy also spoke to the victim's father, assuring that arrangements are being made to repatriate the body, tentatively by Saturday. Chandan Kumar, a project director with LTI Mindtree, was an active member of the Kannada cultural community in Toronto.

Karnataka Home Minister G. Parameshwara meets family of Chandan Kumar, an Indian software professional shot dead in Toronto. Investigation underway.

Bengaluru, Feb 10 Karnataka Home Minister G. Parameshwara on Tuesday visited the residence of software professional Chandan Kumar, who was killed in Canada, and met his family members in Tyamagondlu town near Nelamangala on Bengaluru's outskirts.

Speaking to reporters, Parameshwara said Chandan Kumar was a young professional who had been killed and that an investigation was underway to ascertain the circumstances of the incident and identify the perpetrators. "I have spoken to his friends in Canada. The investigation will bring out the facts," he said.

He added that the body has been embalmed and will be kept for friends and neighbours in Canada on Wednesday. "Tentatively, the body is expected to arrive here by Saturday," he stated.

"There is no information yet on why he was killed. I express my condolences and pray for his soul. He was the only son of his parents, and they had no other children. It is a very sad story. He was a talented person who went to Canada and worked as a project director. I am deeply saddened by this incident," Parameshwara said.

He further stated that the authorities in Canada should take appropriate action. "I pray to God that his family is able to cope with this tragedy. Our Indian High Commission is aware of the matter and will ensure the body is sent back after completing all procedures," he said.

Meanwhile, Union Minister for Heavy Industries and Steel H.D. Kumaraswamy spoke to Chandan Kumar's father, Nandan Kumar, over the phone and condoled the death of his son, who was hacked to death in Canada. Kumaraswamy urged him to remain strong and said that all arrangements had been made to bring Chandan Kumar's body back to India. "The Ministry of External Affairs is in touch with the Canadian authorities, and the body is being brought to India. When I come to Bengaluru, I will visit your house," he said.

Chandan Kumar, 37, was shot dead by unidentified assailants in the parking lot of a busy shopping centre in Toronto, Canada, on February 7. In a statement issued on February 8, Toronto Police identified the victim as Chandan Kumar Raja Nandakumar of Brampton in the Greater Toronto Area.

Chandan was seated inside his SUV when the attackers opened fire near the entrance to the Woodbine Shopping Centre, close to Rexdale Boulevard, at around 3.30 pm local time. Visuals showed his white vehicle riddled with bullet holes, and investigators are treating the case as a targeted attack. The assailants fled the scene in a vehicle after the shooting.

A computer science graduate from Saptagiri College in Bengaluru, Chandan Kumar had moved to Canada about six years ago and was working with LTI Mindtree, a subsidiary of L&T. He had earlier worked with Cognizant in Bengaluru.

Chandan was actively involved in Kannada cultural circles in Toronto and played a key role in promoting Kannada films, music, and community events.

Family members stated that Chandan Kumar had repeatedly postponed his return to India, and said that had he returned as per his earlier plans, he would have been alive.

- IANS
Young travelers chase authentic Spring Festival vibes in smaller cities for upcoming holiday

Xinhua) 08:23, February 10, 2026

Tourists watch traditional dragon dance at Shouchang ancient town in Jiande, east China's Zhejiang Province, Feb. 8, 2026. Shouchang ancient town has recently held traditional folk activities such as folk parades, dragon and lion dances, and a lantern show to welcome the Chinese New Year. (Xinhua/Xu Yu)

BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- China's upcoming nine-day Spring Festival holiday, the longest on record, is doing more than unleashing pent-up travel demand. It is revealing a clear shift among young travelers: increasingly, they are bypassing traditional hometown reunions and crowded attractions in favor of smaller cities and towns, where festive traditions feel more vivid and local life more tangible.

Leading this shift are the post-80s and post-90s cohorts. According to travel platform Tuniu, they account for 64 percent of all travelers, making them both the principal spenders and the chief planners of family trips.

"The festive atmosphere has become one of the main drivers of China's domestic travel market during the Chinese New Year," said Sun Yunlei, director of online travel platform Mafengwo's destination research institute. Destinations steeped in folk traditions and cultural heritage are especially popular, reflecting travelers' desire for both cultural experiences and a festive holiday ambiance, she noted.

Fuzhou exemplifies this trend, entering the top five for Spring Festival hotel bookings for the first time on travel platform Qunar, with reservations soaring by over 80 percent. A key draw is the "youshen," or "parade of the gods," a local folk ritual that offers travelers a vivid glimpse of living festive traditions.

Meanwhile, hotel bookings in Guangdong's Chaoshan region jumped over 70 percent year on year during the Spring Festival. Shantou, a charming "festive small city" in the region, attracts visitors with its vibrant folk traditions. From the unique Yingge Dance to its renowned tea culture and local beef dishes, it's turning into one of this year's surprise travel hotspots.

For Lexie, a post-90s resident of Shanghai, the shift is deeply personal. This Spring Festival, she is swapping the quiet, grey chill of Shanghai for a family road trip along the southern coast, visiting Shantou, Chaozhou, Quanzhou, and Fuzhou.

Looking for that rich, lived-in festive vibe that metropolises often miss, Lexie has focused her itinerary on two main adventures: diving into the Yingge Dance and savoring local eats in Shantou, and soaking in the historic, poetic street view and the ambient charm she described as "half worldly hustle, half celestial peace" of Quanzhou.

Industry observers said that such a shift has also sparked a nationwide cultural heritage fever during the holiday. Searches for folk events, from lantern shows to temple fairs, have jumped 117 percent year on year on online travel service provider Fliggy. Meanwhile, interest in intangible cultural heritage experiences, including museum visits, craft workshops and live performances, has risen more than 60 percent.

Localities have responded accordingly. Guangdong, Fujian and Sichuan are leveraging their unique customs to draw in visitors. In Sichuan, events like the lantern festival in Zigong, the Sanxingdui New Year ceremonies, and the hot springs at Mount Emei have catapulted Chengdu into one of the top four domestic flight destinations. Hotels near the lantern displays are nearly booked up, and prices have shot up, more than doubling in some cases.

Chinese-style theme parks are another stage for immersive celebration. Visitor interest in "Unique Henan: Land of Dramas," a gigantic immersive theater complex in the central city of Zhengzhou, and an amusement park themed on Journey to the West in Huai'an, east China's Jiangsu Province, more than doubled during the holiday.

Experiencing an authentic Chinese New Year has also become a growing trend among international travelers. Data from Fliggy shows that in the past two weeks, foreign bookings for domestic flights during the holiday have quadrupled year on year, with Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Chengdu topping the list of preferred entry points.

"Even smaller cities are now welcoming more foreign visitors," noted Yang Han, a researcher at Qunar's Big Data Research Institute, citing destinations from Jining and Rizhao in the eastern province of Shandong, to Linzhi in southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region and Yibin in Sichuan, all seeing inbound travelers over the holiday period.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Laman Ismayilova



Around 20,000 visitors are expected to attend Azerbaijan as part of the 13th session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13), which will bring together numerous international organizations, AzerNEWS reports, citing Azertag.

Elbay Gasimzade, Honored Architect and Chair of the Board of the Azerbaijan Union of Architects.

Several countries' professional unions and relevant architectural bodies have also reached out to the Azerbaijan Union of Architects, seeking assistance with registration to participate in the forum, and preparations are already underway.

"Our participation in the event will take various forms. Key representatives of the Azerbaijan Union of Architects will take the stage as speakers in several panels and actively engage in discussions. At the same time, we are preparing two major exhibitions. The first will focus on Azerbaijan's architectural heritage, while the second will showcase contemporary global architecture.

As you know, we have already organized the Baku International Architecture Competition seven times. The competition attracted 275 projects from around 50 countries, with 21 winners selected across seven categories. Currently, we are preparing a large-scale exhibition featuring all the winning projects from past competitions, which will be displayed during WUF13.

The primary goal of this exhibition is to demonstrate to the international community that Azerbaijan is recognized not only for its achievements in industry and the economy but also as a global hub for architecture and urban development," Gasimzade emphasized.
Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Svyrydenko and Prime Minister of Moldova Alexandru Munteanu discussed trade and economic cooperation, in particular, they agreed to continue work on simplifying border crossing procedures.

"We discussed all key areas and priorities for state development. First of all, trade and economic cooperation We agreed to continue work on simplifying border crossing procedures and developing border infrastructure, which should primarily speed up the passage of border zones," Svyrydenko said during statements to the media together with her Moldovan colleague in Kyiv.

The parties also discussed possible infrastructure projects, in particular, the development of urban transport across the Dnister River, the settlement of Yampil.

Svyrydenko said that during the meeting, the possibility of increasing the storage of gas reserves in Ukraine was also discussed.

The prime ministers agreed to meet together with Romania in April in Odesa Triangle format to deepen cooperation in the security sector.
P. Kumaran, Secretary in India's MEA, will visit South Korea to co-chair the 6th Foreign Policy and Security Dialogue with counterpart Park Yoon-joo. This follows the 5th Dialogue in January, where both nations agreed to enhance their Special Strategic Partnership across multiple fronts. Key agreements included deepening cooperation in trade, investment, security, defense, and new technologies, with a goal to raise bilateral trade to $50 billion by 2030. The dialogues also cover regional issues, including the Korean Peninsula and Indo-Pacific strategy, and multilateral cooperation, including India's G20 presidency.

P. Kumaran to co-chair 6th India-South Korea Foreign Policy dialogue, building on recent talks to enhance strategic partnership and trade.

New Delhi, February 10 P. Kumaran, Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, will undertake an official visit to the Republic of Korea from February 12 to 13. During his visit, he will co-chair the 6th Foreign Policy and Security Dialogue with his ROK counterpart, Park Yoon-joo, First Vice Foreign Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Korea, according to a statement from the Ministry of External Affairs.

Earlier on January 17, 2023, Saurabh Kumar, Secretary (East), Ministry of External Affairs, paid an official visit to the Republic of Korea (ROK) from January 16-17, 2023 to co-chair the 5th Foreign Policy and Security Dialogue (FPSD) with his ROK counterpart Cho Hyundong, First Vice Foreign Minister, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Korea, on January 16, 2023, a statement by the Ministry of External Affairs said.

During the FPSD, both sides agreed to enhance India-ROK Special Strategic Partnership by strengthening strategic communication through regular high-level engagements including the Foreign Minister-level Joint Commission Meeting, '2+2' dialogue involving Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry at Vice Minister/Secretary level, other ministerial and senior official dialogues, as the two countries celebrate 50 years of establishment of diplomatic relations this year.

Both sides agreed to deepen cooperation in areas including trade and investment, security and defence, science and technology, as well as cultural and people-to-people exchanges, as per the statement.

Secretary (East) informed the Korean side about the opportunities India offers to Korean companies for investments in manufacturing, infrastructure and other sectors. The two sides agreed to work to make global supply chains more resilient and robust. They also noted that bilateral trade was at an all-time high of USD 28 billion approx. and agreed to take concrete steps to realise the vision of taking it to USD 50 billion by 2030. Both sides also discussed opportunities for cooperation in new and emerging technologies, the statement said.

FPSD provided an opportunity to share perspectives on regional and global issues, including the situation on the Korean Peninsula and in the Indo-Pacific region. The two sides noted that the ROK's recently announced Indo-Pacific Strategy provides an opportunity to deepen bilateral cooperation, including expanding it to new areas. They also discussed cooperation in multilateral fora. Secretary (East) briefed the ROK side about the priorities of India during its Presidency of G20. The latter appreciated India's efforts and assured its full support in the success of the G20.

- ANI
The Maharashtra legislature's budget session is scheduled from February 23 to March 25, with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis set to present the annual budget for 2026-27 on March 6. The session will begin with condolences for the late Deputy CM Ajit Pawar, followed by the presentation of the Economic Survey and supplementary demands. The budget comes amid a state public debt exceeding 9.30 lakh crore and a fiscal deficit target of 2% of GSDP, with significant portions of revenue consumed by salaries, pensions, and interest. The government aims to outline a roadmap for the ambitious Viksit Maharashtra 2047 mission while managing fiscal pressures from welfare schemes and committed expenditures.

Maharashtra's budget session from Feb 23 to Mar 25. CM Fadnavis to present 2026-27 budget with focus on Viksit Maharashtra 2047 and fiscal health.

Mumbai, Feb 10 The Business Advisory Committees of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly and Council, at their meetings held on Tuesday, approved the schedule for the upcoming budget session of the state legislature from February 23 to March 25.

The Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who holds the Planning and Finance Departments after the sudden and untimely death of former Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, will present the annual budget for 2026-27 on March 6.

The government will present the Economic Survey for 2025-26 on March 5. Both houses of the state legislature on the first day of February 23 will express condolences over the death of Ajit Pawar. The government will also lay papers and present the supplementary demands on the same day.

The BJP-led MahaYuti government is expected to corner the opposition during various debates, especially in the wake of its successive victories in the elections to the nagar panchayats, nagar parishads, municipal corporations, panchayat samitis and zilla parishads.

The government is expected to roadmap for the implementation of a much more ambitious Vision Document to achieve a USD 5 trillion under the Viksit Maharashtra 2047 mission.

The government will present the budget for 2026-27 when the state public debt has crossed Rs 9.30 lakh crore. The Revenue Deficit is targeted at 0.9 per cent of GSDP (Rs 45,891 crore).

This is a significant increase from 0.6 per cent in 2024-25, primarily due to large-scale welfare schemes. The Fiscal Deficit is targeted at 2 per cent of GSDP (Rs 1,36,235 crore), staying within the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act's 3 per cent limit.

The Debt-to-GSDP Ratio, which is historically around 17-18 per cent, was projected to remain sustainable but under observation due to increased borrowings for capital projects.

In the case of Committed Expenditure, approximately 56 per cent of revenue receipts are consumed by salaries (31 per cent), pensions (13 per cent), and interest payments (12 per cent).

The state's fiscal health is characterised by steady growth in the GSDP but under pressure from high committed expenditures and new cash-transfer schemes.

The Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) was projected at Rs 49.39 lakh crore, a 9 per cent growth over the previous year (current prices).

The total expenditure was estimated at Rs 7,00,020 crore (excluding debt repayment), an increase of 4 per cent from the 2024-25 revised estimates.

Moreover, the government is expected to release an action plan for the effective implementation of administrative reforms to curb red tape.

- IANS
Maharashtra is implementing a major overhaul of its government recruitment system, aiming to fill over 70,000 vacant posts in phases. Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis chaired a key meeting to drive these administrative reforms, which prioritize skill-based hiring and transparency. The plan includes filling approximately 50,000 positions through the Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC). The state's new human resource management model, previously praised by the Prime Minister, is set to position Maharashtra as a guiding example for other states in governance reform.

Maharashtra announces a new recruitment system to fill over 70,000 government posts, focusing on transparency and skill-based hiring.

Maharashtra, February 10 Maharashtra is set to implement a new statewide government recruitment system, with plans to fill over 70,000 posts in phases, including approximately 50,000 through the Maharashtra Public Service Commission. The decision follows a crucial meeting chaired by Devendra Fadnavis, focusing on driving governance reforms and fast-tracking administrative changes, prioritising human resource management and transparency in the hiring process.

On X, he wrote,"Driving Governance Reforms for a Future-Ready Maharashtra. Chaired a crucial meeting on reforms in the General Administration Department in Mumbai today. A new recruitment system will soon be implemented across the state. Over 70,000 posts will be filled in phases, including around 50,000 through the Maharashtra Public Service Commission. Recruitment decisions will be based on required skills, service entry rules, eligibility criteria and the nature of work. Directed all key departments to fast-track comprehensive administrative reforms, with priority given to human resource management and transparency in recruitment. A decision regarding amendments to the state's service recruitment rules will be taken shortly in the cabinet meeting."

"The human resource management model presented by the Maharashtra Government at the Chief Ministers' Conference in the presence of Hon. PM Narendra Modi Ji was widely appreciated, and other states were encouraged to adopt this reform model. This positions Maharashtra as a guiding example for other states in governance reforms. Emphasized the development of online and digital verification systems to ensure that the entire process will remain transparent, credible, and fast. A new governance reform model will take shape in Maharashtra within the next year, with every department playing a vital role. The Chief Secretary and concerned senior officials were present," Fadnavis added.

On Monday, CM Devendra Fadnavis chaired a meeting regarding the reforms in the General Administration Department. While emphasising administrative reforms, human resource management, and transparency in the recruitment process, the CM also stated that decisions on these reforms would be made soon at the cabinet meeting. The Chief Secretary and concerned senior officials were present.

- ANI
Mauritius Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam described a phone call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a "constructive exchange," affirming deep alignment on strategic cooperation. Both leaders reviewed progress since their last meeting and looked ahead to collaborating at the upcoming AI Impact Summit in India. The discussion reaffirmed commitments to strengthen historic, people-centric ties and work towards shared objectives in the Indian Ocean Region. This follows last year's substantial economic package from India to Mauritius and the signing of multiple sectoral agreements.

PMs Narendra Modi and Navin Ramgoolam hold constructive call, vow to strengthen strategic cooperation at upcoming AI Impact Summit in India.

New Delhi, February 10 Mauritius Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam expressed appreciation for the "constructive" exchange with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said he hoped to deepen India-Mauritius collaboration at the AI Impact Summit in India next week.

Ramgoolam affirmed Mauritius' support for India in strengthening strategic cooperation across a wide range of sectors.

In a post on X, he said, "Thank you Prime Minister Narendra Modi for this constructive exchange. Mauritius and India remain firmly aligned in strengthening strategic cooperation across development, innovation and emerging technologies. I look forward to deepening this collaboration at the AI Impact Summit in India next week."

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday received a phone call from his Mauritian counterpart, during which both leaders discussed the progress in the extensive cooperation between the two countries.

In a post on X, PM Modi welcomed the Mauritian Prime Minister to India for the upcoming AI-Impact Summit, scheduled for next week.

Both leaders also reaffirmed their commitment to further strengthen the special, historic and people-focused ties between the two nations.

"Happy to receive a phone call from my friend, Prime Minister Dr. Navinchandra Ramgoolam. We reviewed progress in the wide-ranging cooperation between India and Mauritius since our memorable meeting in Varanasi last year. Reaffirmed our commitment to further strengthen the special, historic and people-centric ties that unite our two nations. India and Mauritius will continue to work together to achieve shared objectives of peace and stability in the Indian Ocean Region. I look forward to welcoming him to India for the AI Impact Summit next week," the Prime Minister stated in his post.

Last year in September, India extended a comprehensive Special Economic Package exceeding USD 680 million to Mauritius and signed multiple agreements during the State visit of Mauritian Prime Minister Ramgoolam to India.

The two leaders also held wide-ranging discussions covering bilateral, regional, and global issues, culminating in the signing of seven Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) across diverse sectors, including science and technology, oceanography, public administration, power, small development projects, hydrography, and space cooperation.

- ANI
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has committed to ongoing humanitarian support for Cuba, directly challenging U.S. sanctions. The aid includes recent shipments of over 800 tonnes of food supplies delivered via Mexican navy ships. Sheinbaum is also engaging in diplomatic efforts to help Cuba regain access to crucial oil supplies for its electrical grid. This stance comes despite U.S. threats of tariffs against countries that bypass its energy blockade on Cuba.

President Claudia Sheinbaum pledges ongoing food and fuel support for Cuba, challenging US sanctions and calling the blockade unfair.

Mexico City, Feb 10 Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said that her government will continue providing humanitarian aid to Cuba, despite US sanctions targeting countries that trade with or send oil to the Caribbean nation.

"There will be more support. The Mexican people are always solidary. No one can ignore the situation that the Cuban people are currently experiencing due to the sanctions being imposed by the United States," Sheinbaum said on Monday at her daily press conference, Xinhua news agency reported.

The president called on the United States and the international community to recognize that the sanctions are unfair to the Cuban people.

Mexico has recently dispatched two navy ships carrying 814 tonnes of food supplies to Cuba.

Earlier on Friday, speaking from Michoacan, Sheinbaum said that her government would be delivering the aid imminently.

She said that she would also continue "diplomatic efforts" with the US to restore Cuba's access to oil, a necessary fuel to power the country's electrical grid.

But Sheinbaum acknowledged that the US has threatened to issue tariffs against any country that seeks to circumvent its energy blockade. "Obviously, we don't want sanctions against Mexico," she told reporters.

Her remarks come after Trump issued an executive order last week declaring that Cuba's communist government constituted an unusual and extraordinary threat to the US, thereby requiring a national emergency declaration.

- IANS
Michael Douglas recently revealed he was not the first choice to play Gordon Gekko in the 1987 film "Wall Street." He learned decades later that director Oliver Stone first offered the role to Warren Beatty and then Richard Gere, both of whom turned it down. Douglas believes he was cast due to his background as a producer and familiarity with East Coast finance culture. The actor also used the opportunity to critique Silicon Valley's current influence on the film industry.

Michael Douglas reveals Warren Beatty & Richard Gere turned down Gordon Gekko before he got the iconic Wall Street role. Hear his reaction.

Los Angeles, Feb 10 Hollywood star Michael Douglas, who played the iconic character Gordon Gekko in the Oliver Stone-directed 1987 crime drama "Wall Street", later learned that two actors had turned down the role before he was even approached.

Speaking at the TCM Classic Film Festival New York Pop-up x 92NY event, the 81-year-old actor said: "I must say, we were talking just before, while doing a little preparation for this, since I have not seen the movie fully in about 40 years ... but I saw an article recently that said that Oliver first went to Warren Beatty, who passed on it, and then to Richard Gere, who passed on it.

"I didn't know any of that because you always like to think you were the one."

The acclaimed movie served as a sharp critique of greed and excess in the US in the 1980s, reports femalefirst.co.uk

Douglas was acutely aware that it was a great career opportunity for him.

He said: "I was really happy, excited to bring the heart. You don't get many good parts in your life."

The actor thinks Oliver Stone recognised that he was particularly well-suited to the role, too.

He explained: "I guess when Oliver was asked, he was looking for an actor that had some business acumen and because I was also a producer, and because I did grow up in New York City, went to Allen Stevenson School, and then I went to prep schools.

"So I had a familiarity with the East Coast and that kind of life. And I had friends that I met from early school who were into Wall Street, so I wasn't closely familiar with it, but I understood the lifestyle. I guess that's why he chose it."

Meanwhile, Douglas had previously accused tech firms of "dumbing down" the movie business.

The actor has enjoyed a decades-long career in the film industry. The star bemoaned some of the changes he's witnessed in recent years, suggesting that so-called big tech is having a detrimental impact on the movie industry.

He said at the Red Sea Film Festival in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: "The biggest change in my lifetime and career has been digital. It's gone the other way in terms of both studios or in this case streaming services and now this latest chapter is the advent of Silicon Valley dumbing down and just taking over what we thought was this big industry."

- IANS
Minister of State for Defence Sanjay Seth met with Saudi Arabia's Assistant Minister of Defence, Khaled bin Hussein Al-Biyari, on the sidelines of the World Defence Show 2026 in Riyadh. Their discussions centered on deepening bilateral defence cooperation and enhancing engagement across military services. This meeting occurred alongside India's participation in the 8th Abu Dhabi Dialogue in Dubai, focused on migrant worker welfare and skills development. India's active role in these forums underscores its commitment to strategic partnerships in the Gulf and the protection of its overseas workers.

MoS Defence Sanjay Seth meets Saudi counterpart Al-Biyari to deepen defence cooperation. India also engages in Abu Dhabi Dialogue on migrant welfare.

Riyadh, February 10 Minister of State for Defence Sanjay Seth met with Khaled bin Hussein Al-Biyari, Assistant Minister of Defence for Executive Affairs of Saudi Arabia during the World Defence Show 2026.

In a post on X, the Embassy of India in Riyadh wrote, "Strengthening the India-Saudi - strategic partnership! Hon'ble Raksha Rajya Mantri @SethSanjayMP met with H.E. Dr. Khaled bin Hussein Al-Biyari, Assistant Minister of Defense for Executive Affairs of Saudi Arabia @modgovksa, on the sidelines of the World Defense Show @WDS_KSA in Riyadh."

"Discussions focused on deepening - defence cooperation and enhancing engagement across services. #WDS2026," the post further read.

This meeting came on the heels of the 8th Abu Dhabi Dialogue where India discussed migrant welfare and skills development with UAE.

Prashant Pise, Additional Secretary (Emigration Policy & Welfare), led the Indian delegation to the 8th Ministerial Consultations of the Abu Dhabi Dialogue (ADD) held in Dubai from January 31 to February 1, a statement by the Ministry of External Affairs said.

Established in 2008, the Abu Dhabi Dialogue is a regional, voluntary, and non-binding consultative mechanism comprising 11 Asian countries of labour origin and 7 destination states. It provides a platform for cooperation on contractual labour mobility, exchange of best practices, and sharing of experiences among Member States.

India's active engagement in the ADD reflects the Government of India's commitment to promoting safe, orderly, and legal migration, while safeguarding the welfare and rights of Indian migrant workers, as per the statement.

India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) established diplomatic relations in 1972. While the UAE opened its Embassy in India in 1972, the Indian Embassy in UAE was opened in 1973.

The traditionally strong bilateral relations enjoyed by India-UAE gained a new momentum when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited UAE in 2015, the first PM of India in 34 years which marked the beginning of a new Comprehensive and Strategic partnership between the two countries.

This was followed by six other visits of the Prime Minister in the last 8 years, most recently in Feb 2024 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the Indian community for the first time in Abu Dhabi at a community event and also inaugurated the BAPS Hindu Mandir in Abu Dhabi, the first in the Middle East.

- ANI
Minister of State Pabitra Margherita met Fiji's Finance Minister Esrom Immanuel to discuss the full spectrum of bilateral relations, with a particular focus on development partnership and digital infrastructure cooperation. The talks follow recent high-level agricultural discussions between India's Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Fiji's Tomasi Tunabuna, which resulted in an agreement to extend a key MoU. Both sides agreed to establish a Joint Working Group and collaborate on areas like student exchanges, technology sharing, and reducing food waste. This engagement underscores India's ongoing commitment to strengthening developmental and sectoral partnerships with Fiji across multiple ministries.

MoS Pabitra Margherita meets Fiji's Esrom Immanuel, focusing on development, capacity building, and digital cooperation to strengthen bilateral ties.

New Delhi, February 10 Minister of State of External Affairs Pabitra Margherita met Esrom Immanuel, Minister for Finance, Commerce and Business Development of Fiji on Tuesday. The leaders discussed the entire gamut of India-Fiji ties during their meeting.

Sharing the details in a post on X, MoS Margherita said that the discussions were focused on development partnership, capacity building, and possibilities for cooperation in digital infrastructure.

"Pleased to meet Hon. Esrom Immanuel, Minister for Finance, Commerce and Business Development of Fiji, this morning.Held productive discussions covering the entire gamut of India-Fiji bilateral relations and shared priorities, with particular focus on development partnership, capacity building, and possibilities for cooperation in digital infrastructure, including ongoing collaboration and the way ahead."

Earlier in January, Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, held a bilateral meeting with Tomasi Tunabuna, Minister for Agriculture and Waterways of Fiji, at the Krishi Bhawan, where the two leaders discussed ongoing cooperation and outlined future areas of collaboration, as per a statement by the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare.

As per an official statement on Friday, the Ministers held a fruitful discussion on a broad range of issues of mutual interest. The two sides agreed to extend the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a further five years and to establish a Joint Working Group (JWG) to advance cooperation.

The statement further noted that in addition to this the key areas of collaboration discussed included student exchanges, training and capacity-building programmes, and technology sharing covering small-scale machinery, and digital agriculture tools. The discussions also focused on strengthening research infrastructure, genetic exchange initiatives and knowledge sharing on reducing food loss and waste.

In December last year, Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Anupriya Patel, held cordial and constructive meetings with health ministers from Sri Lanka and Fiji on the sidelines of the 2nd WHO Traditional Medicine Global Summit in the national capital on Thursday, underscoring India's strong bilateral ties and commitment to health cooperation in the region.

- ANI
A massive fire at an industrial unit in the Rawat area near Rawalpindi has been brought under control after a firefighting operation lasting over 16 hours. Rescue officials deployed at least 19 fire tenders, using water and foam to combat the blaze fueled by chemicals and flammable materials. Authorities warn the fire has weakened the building's structure, raising collapse fears, though no casualties have been reported. The incident renews concerns about fire safety in Pakistani cities, following a recent deadly mall fire in Karachi.

A major fire at a Rawat industrial unit near Rawalpindi is under control after 16+ hours. 19 fire tenders battled chemicals and structural risks. No casualties reported.

Rawalpindi, February 10 A massive fire erupted at a factory in the Rawat Industrial Area near Rawalpindi, which was brought under control after hours of firefighting, with cooling operations are still underway, rescue officials said on Tuesday, as reported by GeoTV.

According to GeoTV, citing the rescue authorities, it said that the fire broke out at an industrial unit in Rawat. Upto 19 fire tenders were deployed to contain the blaze. Additional vehicles from the fire brigade were called in to support the operation as the firefighting continued for more than 16 hours, with emergency crews using water mixed with foam to suppress the blaze.

Large quantities of chemicals and other flammable materials inside the factory had made the operation particularly challenging for firefighters, GeoTV said.

Authorities have warned that the prolonged raging blaze has weakened the structure of the premises, thereby raising fears that parts of it could collapse at any time.

According to the officials, while the cause of the fire is yet to be determined, no immediate reports of casualties were received, and cooling activities are ongoing to prevent any re-ignition. They said that an investigation would be launched once the situation is fully under control, GeoTV further mentioned.

The Rawat fire incident comes amid growing concern about fire safety in Pakistan's major cities.

Recently, the deadly Gul Plaza Fire in Karach,i which erupted on the night of January 17, took nearly two days to be fully extinguished and left the ground-plus-three-storey building in ruins, with several sections collapsing, according to Dawn.

Four prosecution witnesses, including a teenage boy, recorded their statements before a judicial magistrate, stating that the deadly fire at Gul Plaza Shopping Mall originated from an artificial flower shop located on the ground floor, Dawn reported.

- ANI
Dozens of palm climbers protested at the Krishnagiri District Collectorate, demanding the Tamil Nadu government lift the decades-old ban on toddy. They submitted a petition arguing the ban, in place since 1987, has destroyed their traditional livelihood and pushed families into debt. The protesters want toddy reclassified as a food product under the National Food Security Act and an end to police harassment and criminal cases. Officials received the petition and promised to forward the demands to the state government.

Palm climbers protest at Krishnagiri Collectorate, demand Tamil Nadu govt lift 1987 toddy ban to protect traditional livelihoods from police harassment.

Chennai, Feb 10 Dozens of palm climbers and traditional toddy tappers staged a protest at the Krishnagiri District Collectorate on Tuesday, urging the Tamil Nadu government to lift the decades-old ban on toddy and safeguard their shrinking livelihoods.

The protesters, representing the Salem Zone Coconut Palm Tree Climbers Welfare Association, submitted a formal petition to the district administration after holding a sit-in demonstration outside the collector's office.

They demanded that the state remove restrictions on toddy tapping and allow them to legally extract and sell palm neera and toddy, which they described as part of their traditional occupation and cultural heritage.

Toddy has remained banned in Tamil Nadu since 1987 under the Tamil Nadu Prohibition Act, leaving thousands of palm-dependent workers without a stable source of income.

The climbers said the ban has severely affected families who have relied on palm trees for generations, pushing many into debt and forcing some to abandon their ancestral trade.

In their petition, the association urged the government to remove toddy from the Prohibition Act and classify it as a food product, citing guidelines under the National Food Security Act. They argued that fresh palm neera is a natural, nutritious beverage and should not be treated as an illicit substance.

"We are not criminals. This is our traditional livelihood," said one of the association leaders during the protest. "Instead of punishing us, the government should recognise toddy tapping as a legitimate occupation and support us."

The workers also alleged frequent police harassment. They claimed that police personnel often warn them against extracting palm neera, summon them to stations for questioning, and seize their tools and equipment. They said cases have been filed against climbers merely for tapping palms for household consumption.

The association demanded that no criminal cases be registered against climbers engaged in toddy or neera extraction for food purposes. They further called for an end to police intimidation and the confiscation of their belongings.

Officials at the collectorate received the petition and assured the protesters that their demands would be forwarded to the state government for consideration.

For the palm climbers, however, the message was clear: lifting the toddy ban is not just a policy change, but a matter of survival for thousands of rural families across Tamil Nadu.

- IANS
Ukraines largest mobile operator, Kyivstar, has signed an agreement to acquire 100% of the shares of the digital medical goods service Tabletki.ua (MTPK LLC) for $160 million, the company said in a press release on Tuesday.

"We will be able to combine Kyivstars successful experience in managing and developing digital businesses with Tabletki.uas strong foundation to make digital healthcare services more accessible to a broader audience and ensure maximum convenience for everyone," Kyivstar President and CEO Oleksandr Komarov said.

It is noted that the service will join the operators portfolio of digital services, which includes the Helsi medical information system, the Uklon ride-hailing and delivery service, the Kyivstar TV cinema and television platform, and the My Kyivstar application.

The operator  that, according to unaudited management reporting, as of September 30, 2025, Tabletki.ua demonstrated an LTM EBITDA of $24 million, while net profit for the last twelve months (LTM) amounted to $20 million.

The service cooperates with more than 14,000 pharmacies across Ukraine and, according to 2025 data, facilitated 14 million online orders per month. The total gross merchandise value (GMV) of goods reserved through the platform amounted to UAH 45 billion ($1.1 billion) for the 2024 fiscal year and UAH 57.3 billion ($1.2 billion) LTM ending September 30, 2025.

At the end of January this year, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) authorized Kyivstar to acquire control of the Tabletki.ua service, although Kyivstar first submitted its application to acquire MTPK back in November 2024.

As reported, Kyivstar posted EBITDA of UAH 7.1 billion in the third quarter of 2025, which is 21.5% higher than in the third quarter of 2024, while in U.S. dollars the increase was 20.4%, to $171 million.
Congress MP Manish Tewari has moved an Adjournment Motion in the Lok Sabha, demanding a discussion on the framework of the India-US Interim Trade Agreement. He raised serious concerns about potential commitments on purchasing Russian oil and granting concessions on US agricultural tariffs, arguing these impact energy security and farmer interests. The move follows a joint statement outlining India's tariff reductions on various US industrial and agricultural goods and a White House statement on India's oil import commitments. Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri later clarified that India's energy decisions would continue to be guided by national interest, focusing on availability, pricing, and supply reliability.

Congress MP Manish Tewari moves motion to discuss India-US trade framework, raising concerns on Russian oil imports and farmer concessions.

New Delhi, February 10 Congress MP Manish Tewari on Tuesday moved an Adjournment Motion notice in Lok Sabha, seeking discussion on the framework of the India-United States Interim Trade Agreement.

The Congress leader raised concerns over India's purchase of Russian oil and concession on tariffs on US agricultural goods.

He wrote, "I move that this House do suspend Question Hour, Zero Hour and all other listed business of the day to take up the serious concerns emanating from the USA-India Joint Statement on the Interim Trade Agreement and the recent Executive Order of the White House."

"Alleging that commitments relating to Russian oil purchases and agriculture-related concessions may have been made. Such steps raise questions on India's energy security, farmer interests, and strategic autonomy. I therefore urge the Government to make an immediate statement and allow a full discussion in the Parliament," the notice stated.

This comes after the joint statement by the two nations said that India will eliminate or reduce tariffs on all US industrial goods and a wide range of US food and agricultural products, including dried distillers' grains (DDGs), red sorghum for animal feed, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, soybean oil, wine and spirits, and additional products.

The purchase of oil from Russia came under question as the White House, in a separate statement, said, "India has committed to stop directly or indirectly importing Russian Federation oil, has represented that it will purchase United States energy products from the United States, and has recently committed to a framework with the United States to expand defense cooperation over the next 10 years."

However, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri on Monday clarified that "national interest" would continue to guide India's energy-related decisions, underlining that the key drivers of the country's energy policy are "adequate availability, fair pricing and reliability of supply", amid reports suggesting New Delhi is cutting its oil imports from Russia.

Speaking during a Special Briefing by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) here, Misri stated that decisions in the energy sector, whether by the government or businesses, would be guided by national interests, while clarifying the issue of actual sourcing.

- ANI
Penguin Random House India has issued a statement clarifying it holds the exclusive publishing rights for former Army Chief General Manoj Naravane's memoir, 'Four Stars of Destiny'. The publisher asserts the book has not been officially published and no copies have been made available to the public. It warns that any circulation of the book constitutes copyright infringement and that legal action will be taken. The statement follows a political controversy after Rahul Gandhi quoted from a purported pre-print copy in Parliament, prompting a police investigation into the leak.

Penguin Random House India clarifies it holds sole rights to General Naravane's memoir, warns of legal action over unauthorized circulation.

New Delhi, February 10 Penguin Random House India released a statement clarifying that it holds the sole publishing rights for Four Stars of Destiny, a memoir by former Indian Army Chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane.

The publisher stated that the book has not gone into publication and no copies, print or digital, have been published, distributed, sold, or made available to the public.

In the X post on Monday, Penguin India stated, "In light of recent public discourse and media reporting, Penguin Random House India would like to clarify that we hold the sole publishing rights for the book Four Stars of Destiny, a memoir by General Manoj Mukund Naravane, former Chief of the Indian Army. We wish to make it clear that the book has not gone into publication. No copies of the book - in print or digital form - have been published, distributed, sold, or otherwise made available to the public by Penguin Random House India."

Penguin Random House India further said that any copies currently in circulation, in any format or on any platform, constitute a copyright infringement and must be immediately ceased. The publisher added that it will exercise remedies available under law against the illegal and unauthorised dissemination of the book.

"Any copies of the book currently in circulation, in whole or in part, whether in print, digital, PDF, or any other format, online or offline, on any platform, constitutes an infringement of PRHI's copyright and must immediately be ceased. Penguin Random House India shall be exercising remedies available in law against the illegal and unauthorised dissemination of the book," said X post.

It added, "This statement is being issued to place the publisher's position on record."

A political row erupted after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi sought to quote from the "pre-print book" of former Indian Army Chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane during his speech in Lok Sabha on the motion of thanks on the President's Address last week, with the treasury benches strongly opposing his remarks. After facing several adjournments on the issue, the House last week adopted the motion of thanks by voice vote amid sloganeering by opposition benches.

Meanwhile, Delhi Police has taken cognisance of information found on various social media platforms and news forums claiming that a pre-print copy of the book 'Four Stars of Destiny' is being circulated, and Special Cell has filed a case into the "purported leak/breach of a yet to be approved publication".

Delhi Police officials said that an investigation has been taken up on the claims of the availability of pre-print copy of the book.

- ANI
Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised the Bastar Pandum festival for magnificently showcasing the region's rich tribal culture and heritage. He emphasized that the event plays a vital role in preserving cultural heritage and empowering local communities. Modi highlighted the transformation of Bastar, once synonymous with Maoism and underdevelopment, into a symbol of progress and growing self-confidence. Union Home Minister Amit Shah and President Droupadi Murmu also participated, with Shah stating Bastar is emerging as a brand ambassador for a developed India.

PM Modi & Amit Shah laud Bastar Pandum festival, highlighting Chhattisgarh's shift from Maoist violence to cultural confidence and development.

New Delhi, February 10 Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday praised the 'Bastar Pandum' festival held in Chhattisgarh from February 7 to 9, saying it beautifully showcased the rich culture, traditions and tribal heritage of the Bastar region.

In a post on X, the Prime Minister emphasised that events such as the Bastar Pandum play a vital role in preserving India's cultural heritage and empowering local communities.

"Between February 7 and 9, a special celebration of 'Bastar Pandum' was organised in Chhattisgarh. During this festival, the rich culture, traditions, and tribal heritage of Bastar were showcased in a magnificent way. My heartfelt congratulations to all the family members associated with this effort. Such events play a vital role in preserving our cultural heritage and empowering local communities," PM Modi wrote on X.

PM Modi further highlighted that Bastar, once associated with Maoism and underdevelopment, is now being recognised for progress, peace and the growing self-confidence of its people.

"Earlier, whenever the name of Bastar was mentioned, images of Maoism, violence, and backwardness in development would come to mind. But now the situation has completely changed. Today, Bastar is known not only for its development but also for the growing self-confidence of its local people. My only wish is that the coming time for this region be filled with the spirit of peace, progress, and cultural pride," he said.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah also appreciated the 'Bastar Pandum' and said that Bastar is now moving forward with its culture and heritage and is emerging as an ambassdor for a developed India.

"Left-wing extremists are breaking free from fear and violence, and Bastar is now moving forward with its culture and heritage, emerging as a brand ambassador of a developed India. Today, in the 'Bastar Pandum' at Jagdalpur (Chhattisgarh), I distributed awards to tribal sisters and brothers and had meaningful conversations with them," Shah wrote on X.

The Bastar Pandum Festival, organised by the Chhattisgarh Government, has drawn a large crowd to witness Bastar's traditional handicrafts, tribal arts, folk costumes and local products. The festival, inaugurated by President Droupadi Murmu, showcased Bastar's rich tribal heritage through its extraordinary handicrafts, cuisine, and traditional tribal dance and folk song performances.

- ANI
Babies born in same hospital room as first child

Tollywood star Ram Charan and his wife Upasana Kamineni have welcomed twin babies, a boy and a girl. Upasana expressed her deep gratitude on social media with a heartfelt note and video from their baby shower. The twins were born in the same hospital room where their first child was delivered. The couple, who announced the pregnancy during Diwali 2025, are now parents of three.

Upasana Kamineni shares heartfelt gratitude after welcoming twins with husband Ram Charan. See her emotional note and details about the special birth.

Mumbai, Feb 10 One of the most beloved couples in Tollywood, Ram Charan and Upasana Kamineni, recently embraced parenthood for the second time as they welcomed twin babies- a son and a daughter.

Overwhelmed with all the love being showered on her newborns and their family, Upasana decided to share a gratitude note on social media for everyone who prayed for her and the babies, and has been a part of this beautiful journey in one way or another.

She uploaded a video that included glimpses of Ram Charan and other close family members and friends from the baby shower ceremony.

It was further revealed that Upasana gave birth to the twins in the very same hospital room where she had earlier welcomed her daughter Klin.

We could also see Ram Charan and Upasana entering the hospital premises, with Chiranjeevi waiting patiently.

Upasana's heartfelt post read, "Every time I watch this, my heart feels full. I'm deeply grateful for the love, strength, and positivity that surrounds us. With folded hands, THANK YOU My family is truly blessed. @tejesvirao & the entire @theapollohospitals team - your care & commitment meant everything to us.(sic)"

She further thanked all the Ram Charan fans for all the love and prayers.

"To RC's fans and well-wishers, I know your love comes from a place of goodness. I trust you will always protect our children & respect their safety...To everyone across the world who prayed for us - your blessings will be cherished forever," the note further read.

Refreshing your memory, Ram Charan and Upasana announced their second pregnancy during Diwali 2025.

Upasana treated the netizens with a video from her Seemantham (baby shower) and penned, "This Diwali was all about double the celebration, double the love and double the blessings".

Ram Charan and Upasana tied the knot back in June 2012 and welcomed their firstborn in June 2023.

- IANS
Reliance Consumer Products Limited has acquired Tamil Nadu-based Southern Health Foods Private Limited, the maker of the Manna brand. The acquisition aims to significantly strengthen RCPL's portfolio in the growing health and millet-based foods segment. Company director T Krishnakumar stated that Manna is a trusted name and will be expanded nationally using Reliance's distribution and supply chain. The move aligns with RCPL's strategy of offering affordable, quality products while building a strong presence in the health food market.

Reliance Consumer Products acquires Southern Health Foods, adding the popular Manna brand to its portfolio to boost its millet-based and healthy foods segment.

Bengaluru, February 10 Reliance Consumer Products Limited has acquired Southern Health Foods Private Limited, the company behind the Manna brand, a leading health food maker in Tamil Nadu, the company said on Tuesday.

Manna has been a prominent name in the health-focused foods segment for over two decades, with a strong presence in Tamil Nadu and adjoining states.

Southern Health Foods Private Limited, represented by its flagship brand Manna, has been a leading manufacturer of a wide range of healthy foods for well-being for over two decades.

The addition of Manna further strengthens RCPL's foods and staples portfolio, which includes brands such as Udhaiyam, Independence, and SiL, by building a robust vertical in the growing millet-based foods segment.

The acquisition reaffirms RCPL's commitment towards the company's core philosophy of offering the 'global quality at an affordable price for millions of consumers across the country, while building a significant presence in the health food market.

T Krishnakumar, Director, Reliance Consumer Products Limited, said, "Manna is one of the most trusted names in the health-focused foods market in Tamil Nadu with noticeable presence in the adjoining states. It is known for healthy offerings, including millet-based staples and mixes, drinks, and baby food. Apart from adding muscle to RCPL's packaged foods portfolio, Manna's addition will help us serve consumers the best nutritious foods. With our strong distribution, R&D and supply chain capabilities, Manna would be made available in other geographies - eventually making it a household name across the country."

Southern Health Foods Private Limited is a key player in several health-focused foods categories like packaged healthy food,s including millets, oats, multi-grain products, health mixes, breakfast cereals, and dry fruits, among others.

Its flagship brand, Manna, is widely known for its healthy offerings across many emerging packaged foods categories, including millet flour, baby foods, and multigrain drink mix.

- ANI
The SARAS Aajeevika Mela-2026 has opened in Gurugram, featuring 900 women entrepreneurs from across 28 states. The fair, organized at Leisure Valley Park, showcases a vast array of rural crafts and traditions through over 450 stalls. Officials highlighted the success of the 'Lakhpati Didi' initiative, with 2.9 crore women achieving the financial milestone. The event also includes a 'Knowledge and Learning Pavilion' offering daily workshops on business skills for entrepreneurs.

Over 900 women entrepreneurs from 28 states gather at the SARAS Aajeevika Mela in Gurugram, showcasing rural crafts and success stories.

New Delhi, Feb 10 As many as 900 women entrepreneurs from 28 states are participating in 'SARAS Aajeevika Mela-2026' - a grand fair of 'Lakhpati Didis' - being held in Gurugram under the leadership of Union Minister of Rural Development and Minister of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare Shivraj Singh Chouhan, an official said on Tuesday.

The Mela, which promises to present colours of the country's rural traditions, folk arts, and women's entrepreneurship, is being organised at the Leisure Valley Park Ground located in Sector-29 from February 10 to February 26, said an official statement.

Over 450 stalls have been set up at the fair premises, offering everything from Kashmir's Pashmina in the north to Tamil Nadu's silk in the south, and from Rajasthan's embroidery in the west to Assam's bamboo crafts in the east, all under one roof, it said.

Swati Sharma, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development, told media persons that 10 crore women in the country are currently organised under the "Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana - National Rural Livelihood Mission".

She also stated that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had set a target of 3 crore Lakhpati Didis, of which 2.9 crore Didis have become Lakhpati Didis by December 2025, and this target will be achieved in the near future.

Sharma highlighted an important financial aspect, stating that the honesty and economic progress of Self-Help Group women has increased their confidence in the banking sector.

She shared that the NPA (non-performing asset) of Self-Help Groups in various states has dropped to less than 2 per cent, which is a testament to the fact that rural women are repaying their loans on time and becoming skilled in financial management.

During the press conference, several successful women entrepreneurs shared their experiences and success stories.

Many women recounted how they once had no source of income, but after joining self-help groups and taking advantage of government schemes, they are now not only supporting their families but also providing employment to other women.

The "Lakhpati Didi Pavilion" at the fair showcases the stories of such empowered women.

One of the main attractions of this year's SARAS fair is the 'Knowledge and Learning Pavilion.' Special workshops will be held daily for women entrepreneurs. In these sessions, women will be taught the intricacies of packaging, branding, preparing business proposals, and social media marketing, said the statement.

- IANS
SEBI has proposed slashing the minimum investment limit for individual investors in Social Impact Funds from 2 lakh to just 1000. This move aims to make social impact investing accessible to a much larger pool of retail investors. The proposal is part of a broader review to strengthen the Social Stock Exchange framework, which also includes extending registration periods for non-profit organisations. SEBI has invited public comments on these proposed amendments before finalising the decision.

SEBI plans to cut the minimum investment in Social Impact Funds from 2 lakh to 1000 to deepen retail participation and strengthen the Social Stock Exchange.

Mumbai, February 10 Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India has proposed to significantly reduce the minimum value of investment by individual investors in Social Impact Funds in a bid to deepen participation and strengthen the Social Stock Exchange framework.

In a consultation paper for public comments published on Monday, SEBI said that, based on deliberations held with the Social Stock Exchange Advisory Committee (SSEAC), it has proposed to reduce the minimum value of investment by individual investors in SIFs from rupees two lakh to rupees one thousand.

It stated, "Based on the deliberations held with the SSEAC, it is proposed to reduce the minimum value of investment by individual investors in SIFs from rupees two lakh to rupees one thousand".

A Social Impact Fund (SIF) is a SEBI-regulated, privately pooled investment vehicle that invests its funds into social ventures, such as non-profits or for-profit social enterprises, to solve societal problems like poverty or healthcare gaps. Classified as a Category I Alternative Investment Fund (AIF), it allows investors to earn financial returns while creating measurable social impact

SEBI noted that under the existing provisions of the SEBI (Alternative Investment Funds) Regulations, 2012, an individual investor is required to make a minimum investment of rupees two lakh in a Social Impact Fund that invests only in securities of Not for Profit Organisations (NPOs) registered or listed on a Social Stock Exchange.

The proposed change aims to make such investments more accessible to a larger number of investors.

The regulator explained that the proposal is intended to align the minimum investment requirement under the AIF Regulations with the minimum application size prescribed for subscription to Zero Coupon Zero Principal Instruments (ZCZP) under the SEBI (Issue of Capital and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2018. The minimum application size for ZCZP is currently rupees one thousand from March 19, 2025.

SEBI said that aligning these thresholds would help attract small investors and encourage broader participation in funding social enterprises through SIFs.

The consultation paper also highlighted that the proposal is part of a broader review undertaken by SEBI, in consultation with the SSEAC, to further strengthen the Social Stock Exchange framework.

Apart from lowering the minimum investment value in SIFs, SEBI has also proposed extending the period of registration for not-for-profit organisations on the Social Stock Exchange without raising funds, and reducing the minimum subscription requirement for issuance of Zero Coupon Zero Principal Instruments.

According to the SEBI, the current framework allows an NPO to remain registered on the Social Stock Exchange for a maximum period of two years without raising funds.

SEBI has proposed extending this period by one additional year, subject to approval by the Social Stock Exchanges, to address practical challenges faced by NPOs, such as delays in statutory approvals.

Further, SEBI has also proposed reducing the minimum subscription requirement for issuance of ZCZP from 75 per cent to 50 per cent in specific cases where project costs and outcomes can be proportionately allocated on a per-unit basis.

This move is aimed at encouraging greater participation by NPOs and facilitating smoother fundraising on the Social Stock Exchange platform.

SEBI has invited public comments and suggestions on the proposed changes, including the reduction in the minimum value of investment in Social Impact Funds, as part of the consultation process.

The regulator said the feedback received will be considered before taking a final decision on the proposed amendments.

- ANI
Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh held meetings with Seychelles' Foreign Minister Barry Faure and Defence Chief Michael Rosette to strengthen bilateral defence ties. Both sides reviewed their security collaboration and committed to enhancing engagement for regional stability. They welcomed upcoming joint military exercises like LAMITYE 2026 and discussed cooperation in training, hydrography, and maritime security. The talks also covered India's MAHASAGAR vision and followed discussions between the Seychelles President and Prime Minister Modi on digital transformation support.

Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh meets Seychelles officials, reviews security collaboration, and plans Exercise LAMITYE 2026 and Milan 2026.

New Delhi, Feb 10 Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh and Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Diaspora of the Republic of Seychelles Barry Faure on Tuesday reiterated the two nations' commitment to strengthening defence cooperation.

The Defence Secretary also met Chief of Seychelles Defence Forces Major General Michael Anselme Marc Rosette, said an official statement.

During the meeting, both sides reviewed the growing defence and security collaboration and reaffirmed their shared commitment to enhancing bilateral engagement and contributing towards peace, stability, and security in the Indian Ocean Region.

Both sides also welcomed the upcoming joint military exercise LAMITYE - 2026 between the Indian Defence Forces and the Seychelles Defence Forces and capacity building initiatives, and agreed to further enhance the scope and depth of these engagements.

Cooperation in the field of training, hydrography, ships and aircraft visits, defence delegation visits and maritime security were also discussed.

The Defence Secretary welcomed the participation of the Seychelles side in the upcoming International Fleet Review as well as the 2026 edition of exercise Milan in Visakhapatnam next week.

The two sides also discussed MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions), India's vision for inclusive, cooperative, and sustainable security and growth across regions.

They underscored the importance of a collaborative approach to addressing shared challenges, particularly in the maritime domain, capacity building, and development partnerships.

India and Seychelles deliberated upon future avenues for defence and security cooperation between the two, with a focus on continued cooperation in capacity building through long term partnership in the modernisation of key military capabilities.

On Monday, Seychelles President Patrick Herminie acknowledged India's support for the development, security needs and aspirations of the archipelagic island nation through Lines of Credit (LoCs), grants, capacity building and High Impact Community Development Projects (HICDP).

In his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the two agreed to work closely in digital transformation.

Noting the need for Seychelles to digitise governance for the benefit of its people, India agreed to make efforts on the buildout of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), including digital payments, as per the needs and requirements of Seychelles.

- IANS
SIP inflows remained robust at approximately Rs 31,000 crore for the second consecutive month in January, marking a 17% year-on-year increase. A significant 7.4 million new SIP accounts were opened during the month, pushing the total number of accounts in the country past 102.9 million. While SIP assets under management saw a slight decline to Rs 16.36 lakh crore due to market conditions, investments in gold ETFs doubled, indicating a diversification towards safer assets. Overall, the mutual fund industry witnessed strong net investments of Rs 1.56 lakh crore, signaling renewed investor confidence.

January SIP inflows held at Rs 31,000 crore with 7.4 million new accounts. Total SIP accounts cross 102.9 million as gold ETF investments double.

Mumbai, Feb 10 Mutual fund Systematic Investment Plan inflows reached Rs 31,000 crore in the month of January, second consecutive month when SIP inflows were Rs 31,000 crore or more, the data released by the Association of Mutual Funds in India showed on Tuesday.

In December, the SIP inflows stood at Rs 31,002 crore. SIP inflows increased by 17 per cent year-on-year, from Rs 26,400 crore in January 2025.

According to AMFI data, 7.4 million new SIP accounts were opened in January. Meanwhile, 5.5 million SIP accounts were closed during this period.

Furthermore, the total number of SIP accounts in the country increased to 102.9 million, up from 101.1 million in December.

The data further showed that SIP assets under management (AUM) declined to Rs 16.36 lakh crore in January from Rs 16.63 lakh crore in December. This is attributed to the market decline. SIPs account for 20.2 per cent of the overall mutual fund industry's AUM.

According to the AMFI, investments in gold ETFs doubled to Rs 24,039.96 crore in January from Rs 11,647 crore in December. This indicates that people are prioritising safe investments like gold alongside the stock market.

Investments in active equity mutual funds in January stood at Rs 24,029 crore, a decline of approximately 14 per cent from Rs 28,054 crore in December. This means investor confidence in the mutual fund industry remained strong.

In November, equity funds saw an inflow of Rs 29,911 crore, compared to Rs 24,690 crore in October. In July 2025, equity funds saw the highest inflow of Rs 42,702 crore.

However, January proved to be a good month for the overall mutual fund industry. Net investments during this period totalled Rs 1.56 lakh crore, compared to Rs 66,591 crore in December. This clearly indicates that investors are now turning to mutual funds again.

- IANS
A high-level Indian delegation has traveled to Colombo to receive the Holy Buddha Relics from Devni Mori, promised by Prime Minister Modi during a visit last year. In Sri Lanka, thousands of devotees, including centenarians and mothers with newborns, have queued for hours to offer veneration in an atmosphere of profound faith. The return journey, led by the Governor of Madhya Pradesh and the Deputy Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh, is framed as a pilgrimage strengthening civilizational bonds. The International Buddhist Confederation has played a key role in facilitating this exchange and related cultural exhibitions between the two nations.

Thousands of devotees in Sri Lanka offer prayers to sacred Buddha relics from Devni Mori before their ceremonial return to India, highlighting deep spiritual ties.

Colombo, February 10 A sacred and deeply symbolic return journey is being undertaken as a high-level Indian delegation, led by Mangubhai Chhaganbhai Patel, Governor of Madhya Pradesh, and Chowna Mein, Deputy Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh, who have travelled to Colombo to receive and escort the Holy Buddha Relics of Devni Mori back to India on February 11. The exposition of the relics was promised by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to Sri Lanka last April.

In Sri Lanka, the delegation is witnessing extraordinary scenes of devotion, as thousands of faithful are standing in long queues for hours, patiently waiting to pay veneration, offering flowers, prayers, and silent homage with folded hands and tearful eyes. The atmosphere is resonating with profound faith, reflecting how the sacred presence of the Relics is touching countless hearts and reaffirming the shared spiritual heritage binding India and Sri Lanka. One has seen a number of centenarians visit the holy relics, just as some mothers brought their newlyborn babies for the blessings.

The return of the Holy Buddha Relics to India is thus unfolding not merely as a ceremonial transfer, but as a living pilgrimage of faith, gratitude, and collective spiritual awakening. As the Relics are being formally entrusted to the Indian delegation, the moment is echoing with the blessings of the Sri Lankan Sangha and the heartfelt goodwill of devotees who are embracing the sacred presence with unwavering devotion. Guided by the compassionate leadership of the two distinguished dignitaries, the Relics are beginning their homeward journey to Devni Mori, carrying with them the prayers of millions and the timeless message of the Buddha of peace, compassion, and harmony, while reaffirming that these sacred treasures are living symbols of the Buddha Dhamma, uniting nations and peoples through shared faith, enduring values, and a common civilisational soul.

This historic movement is taking place against the backdrop of one of Asia's oldest civilisational relationships. India-Sri Lanka Buddhist relations are standing as a timeless bond, rooted in the ancient transmission of the Buddha Dhamma from the Indian subcontinent to the island over two millennia ago and continuously nourished through pilgrimage traditions, monastic exchanges, and scholarly cooperation. In contemporary times, this sacred relationship is being further strengthened through sustained institutional engagement, with the International Buddhist Confederation (IBC), under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, playing a deeply facilitative and catalytic role. The IBC is actively serving as a bridge between Sangha communities, academic institutions, and policy stakeholders of both countries, enabling dialogues, cultural exchanges, joint commemorations, sacred expositions, and scholarly collaborations that reaffirm common spiritual heritage.

In this context, two major exhibitions curated by the IBC, which are "Unearthing the Sacred Piprahwa: The Story of the Holy Buddha Relics and its Related Activities with Sri Lanka" and "Sacred Relic and Cultural Engagement of Contemporary India", was visited by the heads of the return delegation, Mangubhai Chhaganbhai Patel and Chowna Mein. During the course of the last few days one witnessed devout Sri Lankans not just visiting the exhibits, but praying to the various Buddhist sites on display with reverence. Pertinently, IBC has had a close association with the two states represented by these dignitaries. It is being recalled for the Governor of Madhya Pradesh that the sacred Sanchi relics of Arihant Sariputta and Arihant Mogallana were earlier taken to Thailand as part of an international Holy Relic Exposition in 2024, reflecting Madhya Pradesh's important contribution to global Buddhist outreach. In the case of the Deputy Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh, reference is being made to the IBC-facilitated event on "Buddha Dhamma and the Culture of North East India" held in Namsai last year, as well as to his special participation at the 2nd Global Buddhist Summit, held in New Delhi on 24-25 January 2026, underscoring his personal association with India's contemporary Buddhist engagement.

Complementing these developments, the IBC organised "Friends of IBC Meet" in Colombo on February 6, 2026, which successfully convened as a meaningful gathering bringing together members of the Sri Lankan Sangha, scholars, cultural practitioners, and well-wishers to venerate the Holy Buddha Relics from Devni Mori, India, and to celebrate Sri Lanka's enduring contribution to the global Buddhist community.

The programme saw the participation of more than 60 senior Sangha members, including the three Mahanayakas, and commenced with invocation and blessings by Most Ven. Waskaduwe Mahindawansa Mahanayake Thero of Sri Lanka who is also the President of IBC, followed by welcome remarks from the incumbent Secretary General, Shartse Khensur Rinpoche Jangchup Choeden. The origins and decade-long journey of IBC were recalled through a special short film, underscoring the organisation's steady growth since its conception during the visit of the late Most Ven. Lama Lobsang to Sri Lanka and its formal establishment in 2012. The presence and address of the Acting High Commissioner of India, Dr. Satyanjal Pandey, to Sri Lanka reaffirmed the strong partnership between the Indian High Commission and IBC, particularly in facilitating the ongoing Holy Buddha Relics Exposition and advancing people-to-people and spiritual ties between the two countries.

The programme's intellectual and cultural depth further demonstrated its success. A special talk on the "Role of Sri Lanka in the Global Buddhist Community" by Senior Prof. Ven. Miriswatte Wimalagnana Thero from the Postgraduate Institute of Pali and Buddhist Studies, Sri Lanka highlighted the island's historic and contemporary leadership in preserving and disseminating Buddha Dhamma. A short film tracing the spread of Buddhism across Asia enriched participants' understanding of the tradition's civilisational journey, while the "Indo-Sri Lankan Pali Dialogue," moderated by the Director General of IBC, Abhijit Halder, brought together eminent scholars and monks from both countries to discuss the preservation and promotion of Pali following its recognition as a classical Indian language by the Government of India. The cultural performance by Sankyassa Nrutya Sangsadan added a vibrant artistic dimension to the evening. Concluding remarks by Deputy Secretary General Dr. Damenda Porage captured the spirit of gratitude, continuity, and shared purpose that characterised the gathering, leaving participants with a renewed sense of commitment to strengthening Indo-Sri Lankan Buddhist ties and the broader mission of IBC.

The engagement between the Sri Lankan and Indian monks, scholars and academicians in an international setting generated several invaluable ideas and initiatives that would play a defined role on reaffirming the close bonds between the two nations.

- ANI
Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) Rustem Umerov reported on talks with the national security advisers of "Eurotrack" countries (E3  France, Germany and the United Kingdom) and the Nordic-Baltic "G8" (NB8  Denmark, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland) regarding negotiations on ending the Russian-Ukrainian war and providing security guarantees to Ukraine.

"During the calls, we synchronized positions on the negotiation track and further diplomatic work. We also emphasized the need for effective security guarantees for Ukraine. This is one of the important foundations for long-term peace," Umerov said on Telegram channel on Tuesday, following the conversation.

He also said the E3 and NB8 countries are "among the leaders in supporting our state" and provide Ukraine with critically important assistance.
Taiwan's defence ministry detected four Chinese military aircraft and eight naval vessels operating near its territory, with all aircraft crossing the median line. This comes as a European parliamentary delegation concluded a visit, urging Taiwan to significantly increase its defence spending. Ukrainian lawmaker Serhii Soboliev warned Taiwan by drawing parallels between Russia's actions in Ukraine and China's rhetoric. The delegation emphasized self-reliance and alertness to deter any potential invasion.

Taiwan reports Chinese military incursions as European lawmakers, citing Ukraine, urge increased defence spending to deter potential invasion.

Taipei, February 10 Taiwan's Ministry of National Defence detected the presence of four sorties of Chinese military aircraft and eight naval vessels operating around its territorial waters as of 6 am on Tuesday.

All four sorties crossed the median line and entered Taiwan's southwestern ADIZ.

In a post on X, the MND said, "4 sorties of PLA aircraft and 8 PLAN vessels operating around Taiwan were detected up until 6 a.m. (UTC+8) Today. 4 out of 4 sorties crossed the median line and entered Taiwan's southwestern ADIZ. We have monitored the situation and responded."

Earlier on Monday, Taiwan detected seven Chinese naval vessels operating around itself.

In a post on X, the MND said, "7 PLAN vessel operating around Taiwan were detected up until 6 a.m. (UTC+8) today. ROC Armed Forces have monitored the situation and responded. Illustration of flight path is not provided due to no PLA aircraft operating around Taiwan were detected during this timeframe."

Taiwan should prioritise reinforcing its own national defence to deter any possible invasion by China as cross-strait tensions continue to escalate, several European lawmakers said on Friday, according to a report by the Taipei Times.

At the conclusion of a six-day visit to Taiwan by an eight-member European parliamentary delegation, the lawmakers called on Taipei to remain alert and increase its defence spending. "All those who say they want to protect you actually want to conquer you," Ukrainian lawmaker Serhii Soboliev said when asked what lessons Taiwan could learn from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Soboliev described Kremlin as a "new fascist Nazi regime" that justified its aggression by claiming to defend "so-called Russian-speaking populations," mirroring how Nazi Germany once invoked the protection of ethnic Germans to legitimise its expansion, the Taipei Times reported.

"And what is the reality of this 'protection'? Destroyed citizens," he said. Soboliev urged Taiwan to stop third parties from transferring sensitive technologies to Russia and underlined the urgency of increasing defence spending. "Before the war, we even tried to reduce our defence budget to below 5 per cent. Now we spend more than 50 per cent," he was cited as saying in the Taipei Times report.

- ANI
The Telugu Desam Party has urged the central government to deliberate on a policy for age-based regulation of social media to protect children. TDP Parliamentary Party leader Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu met Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, submitting a memorandum that highlights alarming statistics on children's social media use and associated risks like cyberbullying and mental health issues. The memorandum cites recent tragic incidents and global legislative trends, including Australia's ban for under-16s, to argue for a robust national legal framework. The TDP MP had previously introduced a Private Member's Bill proposing a minimum age threshold, mandatory verification, and strong penalties for non-compliance.

TDP leader meets I&B Minister, submits memo for national policy on age-based social media regulation to protect children from online harms.

Amaravati, Feb 10 The Telugu Desam Party has urged the Centre to consider age-based regulation of social media.

TDP Parliamentary Party leader Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu on Tuesday met Minister of Information and Broadcasting Ashwini Vaishnaw and submitted a memorandum, requesting for policy deliberation on age-based regulation of social media for children.

He requested that the Ministry consider constituting a dedicated committee or expert group to study age-based regulation of social media and recommend a comprehensive national policy.

The TDP MP informed the Central minister that the NDA Government in Andhra Pradesh is actively examining this issue and exploring a robust legal framework to protect children online.

The MP recalled that he had introduced a Private Member's Bill on Social Media (Age Restrictions and Online Safety). The Bill proposes, inter alia, a minimum age threshold for social media access, mandatory age-verification mechanisms, and the permanent deletion of children's personal data collected during verification, along with strong enforcement and penalties for non-compliance.

Krishna Devarayalu drew the attention of the Central minister to the growing and overwhelming concern regarding children's safety on social media platforms.

"In India, nearly 90 per cent of children aged 14-16 have access to smartphones at home, and over 75 per cent actively use social media, largely for recreational consumption. Studies indicate that more than 60 per cent of minors have experienced online bullying, and nearly half are exposed to age-inappropriate or harmful content. Excessive social media use has been increasingly linked to rising anxiety, depression, and self-harm among adolescents, even as platforms continue to collect and monetise children's data without adequate safeguards," reads the memorandum.

"Recent tragic incidents in India further underscore the gravity of this challenge. Cases from Ghaziabad and Lucknow, where minors lost their lives following extreme digital addiction, cyberbullying, and online psychological distress, have triggered nationwide concern. The Economic Survey 2025-26 has also flagged rising digital addiction among youth, linking high-intensity social media use to serious mental health and behavioural risks," wrote the TDP MP, who also enclosed news summaries and Economic Survey extracts.

The TDP leader mentioned that several countries have begun responding to this challenge through decisive legislative action. Australia has enacted a ban on social media access for children under 16, while Denmark, Malaysia, Norway, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand are actively considering or advancing similar age-based restrictions as part of broader online safety frameworks. This reflects an emerging global consensus that parental controls alone are insufficient and that responsibility must rest squarely with platforms, he said.

- IANS
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed grave concern over Israel's security cabinet decisions authorizing new administrative measures in Areas A and B of the West Bank. A UN statement warned these actions are destabilizing, unlawful according to the International Court of Justice, and erode the prospect for a two-state solution. The measures, announced by Israeli ministers, aim to change land registration and property acquisition procedures, opening registries to the public. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the decisions as illegal and called for US and UN intervention.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calls Israeli security cabinet measures in West Bank "unlawful" and destabilizing, urges reversal.

New York, February 10 UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday expressed concerns over a series of decisions approved by Israel's security cabinet aimed at authorising administrative and enforcement measures in areas A and B of the West Bank. He called on Israel to reverse the decision which erodes the prospect for two-state solution.

The statement was delivered by Stephane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General and said that the Secretary-General is gravely concerned by the reported decision of the Israeli security cabinet to authorise a series of administrative and enforcement measures in the area.

"He warns that the current trajectory on the ground, including this decision, is eroding the prospect for the two-State solution", the statement said.

It further called Israeli actions, "not only destabilising but - as recalled by the International Court of Justice - unlawful."

The UN Chief called on Israel to reverse the measures so as to preserve the path to lasting peace.

Dujarric said, "The Secretary-General calls on Israel to reverse these measures and on all parties to preserve the only path to lasting peace, a negotiated two-State solution, in line with relevant Security Council resolutions and international law."

The statement follows after Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Sunday announced a series of security cabinet decisions to "dramatically" change land registration and property acquisition procedures in the West Bank, as reported by the Times of Israel.

As per the Oslo II Accords, signed in 1995 by Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank is divided into three areas- A, B and C wherein Area C is under full Israeli control, Area B is under Palestinian civilian control and Israeli security control, and Area A is under full Palestinian control, Times of Israel mentioned.

According to the Times of Israel report, the two ministers in a joint statement said that the decisions "are intended to remove decades-old barriers, repeal discriminatory Jordanian legislation, and enable accelerated development of settlement on the ground".

Times of Israel further reported that the approved plan ordered for the publication of land registries in the West Bank, which means that property lists will be open to the public, and potential buyers will be able to identify landowners and approach them for purchasing. Till now, land registration in the West Bank had been classified.

It further mentioned that the cabinet action also repealed a legal provision that prevented non-Muslims from buying real estate in the area.

Times of Israel cited WAFA News Agency which said that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the decisions, calling them illegal and invalid, and demanded the United States and United Nations to intervene to stop their implementation.

WAFA said Abbas's office "warned of the dangers of any infringement upon Islamic and Christian holy sites, emphasising that any violation of the Ibrahimi Mosque and the transfer of authority over it are unacceptable," using a Muslim term for the Hebron compound.

- ANI
Union Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda has launched the annual nationwide Mass Drug Administration campaign, reaffirming the government's commitment to eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis (LF) by 2027. The disease, transmitted by mosquitoes, is endemic in 348 districts across 20 states and union territories, with over 740,000 reported cases of chronic morbidity. Nadda emphasized a "whole-of-society" approach, highlighting the need to combat social stigma and address public hesitancy towards medication. The strategy integrates mass drug administration, vector control, and morbidity management, with hydrocele surgeries now covered under the Ayushman Bharat scheme.

Union Health Minister JP Nadda launches mass drug campaign to eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis (elephantiasis) by 2027, ahead of the global SDG target.

New Delhi, February 10 Union Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda today launched the Annual Nationwide Mass Drug Administration Campaign for the Elimination of Lymphatic Filariasis through a video conference with State Health Ministers and senior officials from 12 identified LF-endemic States, marking a significant step towards achieving the national goal of eliminating LF as a public health problem.

The nationwide campaign seeks to accelerate efforts to interrupt disease transmission, reduce morbidity, and ensure equitable access to preventive healthcare interventions for vulnerable populations across the country.

Lymphatic filariasis (LF), commonly known as elephantiasis (Haatipaon), is a vector-borne disease transmitted by the female Culex mosquito, which breeds in polluted and stagnant water. The infection damages the lymphatic system and can lead to chronic morbidity, disability and social stigma. The Government of India has accorded high priority to eliminating LF as a public health problem by end-2027, ahead of the global Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target of 2030. Currently, LF is endemic in 348 districts across 20 States and Union Territories, according to an official release.

Of these, 41 per cent (143 districts) have successfully stopped Mass Drug Administration (MDA) after clearing Transmission Assessment Survey (TAS-1), while 50 per cent (174 districts across 14 States) continue to implement annual MDA due to microfilaria rates above 1 per cent. The remaining 9 per cent (31 districts) are at various stages of transmission assessments. As of 2024, over 6.20 lakh cases of lymphoedema and 1.21 lakh cases of hydrocele have been reported from endemic districts, underscoring the need for sustained and intensified efforts.

Addressing the gathering, Nadda reaffirmed the Government of India's unwavering commitment to eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis (LF) by 2027, well ahead of the global Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target of 2030.

He highlighted that LF not only affects the health and quality of life of patients, but also severely impacts their livelihood, economic productivity, and social well-being, often leading to social stigma and long-term hardship for entire families. The Minister emphasized that eliminating LF is therefore not merely a health objective, but a critical social and economic imperative.

The Union Health Minister also underscored the significant progress achieved through mission-mode implementation of the Mass Drug Administration (MDA) campaign, particularly through directly observed treatment, which has yielded encouraging on-ground results.

He stressed the need to strengthen the ecosystem for vector control, alongside sustained MDA, to effectively interrupt disease transmission. Highlighting last-mile challenges, Nadda pointed out that ensuring direct observation of drug consumption and addressing public hesitancy towards medication remain key concerns, which must be tackled through intensive awareness, community engagement, grievance redressal, and trust-building measures.

Nadda further emphasized the importance of Morbidity Management and Disability Prevention (MMDP), including timely hydrocele surgeries and distribution of medicines, to improve quality of life for affected individuals. He noted that Ayushman Arogya Mandirs (AAMs) can play a pivotal role in early screening, detection and prompt treatment, thereby preventing disease progression.

He also highlighted that hydrocele surgery has been included under Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY), ensuring financial protection and improved access to care for patients.

Referring to the current campaign being implemented across 719 blocks in 124 districts of 12 States, the Health Minister stressed the need to consistently bring down the microfilaria prevalence rate to below one per cent in all endemic areas. He called for a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach, with active involvement of Panchayat representatives, particularly Pradhan of all 719 blocks, along with allied ministries and departments, to ensure seamless implementation, strong community participation, and accelerated progress towards achieving a filariasis-free India by 2027.

The release said that India has intensified efforts to eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis (LF) through the adoption of an Enhanced Five-Pronged Strategy, with the India Mass Drug Administration (MDA) campaign as its central pillar.

From February 2026, the National LF Programme has transitioned to a unified annual MDA campaign, replacing the earlier biannual rounds conducted on 10th February and 10th August alongside National Deworming Day (NDD).

This strategic shift addresses challenges related to monsoon disruptions, logistical constraints, limited time for surveillance, and the operational burden of two annual rounds, while enabling streamlined operations, stronger supervision, higher coverage, and adequate time for critical surveillance activities such as Night Blood Surveys, Pre-TAS, TAS, Impact Surveys, and Morbidity Management and Disability Prevention (MMDP) interventions. The transition aims to improve programme efficiency and accelerate progress towards achieving elimination of LF by 2027.

As a result of sustained programme efforts, MDA coverage among the total population improved from 75 per cent in 2014 to 85 per cent in 2025, supported by an emphasis on directly observed consumption.

- ANI
Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia praised the adoption of the Express Mail Service Standard Agreement between India Post and Emirates Post. The agreement is designed to make shipments from the UAE to India more cost-effective, faster, and seamless. This postal collaboration milestone follows the recent visit of UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to India at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The leaders reviewed bilateral ties, underscoring the strengthening Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between the two nations.

Union Minister Scindia lauds India Post & Emirates Post EMS agreement for cost-effective, faster, and seamless shipments between UAE and India.

New Delhi, February 10 Union Minister for Communications and Development, Jyotiraditya Scindia, lauded the India Post and Emirates Post adopting the Express Mail Service Standard Agreement.

The agreement ensures that the express mail services will be cost-effective and seamless.

In a post on X, he said, "India Post, Emirates Post. Adopting the Express Mail Service Standard Agreement will now ensure shipments from UAE to India are: Cost-effective, Faster, Seamless."

India Post said in a post on X, "A New Milestone in India-UAE Postal Collaboration with India Post and Emirates Post adopting the EMS Standard Agreement, shipments from the UAE to India are now more cost-effective and seamless. Stronger connections. Smarter delivery."

An MoU between India Post and the Emirates Post was signed earlier on February 18, 2022, to Jointly Launch the India-UAE Commemorative Stamp, as per the Indian Embassy in the UAE.

This announcement came after the visit of the President of the UAE, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, to India on January 19, 2026.

At the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Nahyan paid an official visit to India. This was the fifth visit of Nahyan to India in the last ten years and his third official visit to India as the President of the UAE.

PM Modi and Nahyan reviewed the full scope of bilateral cooperation between the two countries. They agreed that the India-UAE Comprehensive Strategic Partnership has continued to strengthen over the past decade.

The two leaders welcomed the visits of the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of the UAE, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, to India in the last two years, noting that these visits marked generational continuity of the bilateral relationship, as per the Ministry of External Affairs.

- ANI
US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor hosted a reception at his residence, bringing together key diplomatic and business leaders from both nations. The event highlighted the renewed trade framework and deepening strategic partnership between India and the United States. Union Ministers Piyush Goyal and Ashwini Vaishnaw attended, with discussions focusing on semiconductors, electronics manufacturing, and supply chain resilience. Goyal credited Ambassador Gor's personal leadership for the successful conclusion of the interim trade agreement.

US Ambassador Sergio Gor hosted a reception with ministers and diplomats, highlighting strengthened India-US strategic and trade ties.

New Delhi, February 10 US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor hosted a reception at his residence on Monday evening, bringing together prominent leaders from the diplomatic community, the business sector, and key partners from both India and the United States.

Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal, British High Commissioner to India Lindy Cameron and Ambassador of the European Union to India Herve Delphin also attended the reception hosted at Gor's residence.

Gor highlighted the immense potential of the India-US partnership.

In a post on X, he said, "Hosted a warm reception at home tonight with dear friends from India, the diplomatic community, business leaders and partners from the US. Amid our nations' renewed trade framework and deepening strategic ties, the real magic happens in these personal moments--where trust, ideas, and shared futures spark. A special thank you to S Jaishankar, Piyush Goyal and over 75 Ambassadors who attended. Here's to the boundless potential between India & America!"

Earlier in the day, Gor held talks with Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Ashwini Vaishnaw.

In a post on X, Gor said, "A GREAT meeting! So many opportunities ahead! Very much looking forward to working with you."

Vaishnaw said, "Good meeting with Mr. Sergio Gor, U.S. Ambassador to India. Discussed strengthening our strategic ties, with a focus on semiconductors, electronics manufacturing and supply chain resilience. Look forward to strong participation from the U.S. in the AI Impact Summit 2026."

Goyal on Monday credited Gor for the successful conclusion of the framework for the India-US interim trade agreement, praising his "support and personal leadership" in strengthening bilateral economic ties between the two countries.

Speaking at a reception hosted at Ambassador Gor's residence in the national capital, the Commerce Minister said, "I must place on record that the trade deal would not have been possible but for his support and his personal leadership in the entire engagement. Thank you very much, Sergio, for all that you've done to further strengthen this bond between the US and India."

Goyal also wished the US Ambassador a pleasant tenure in India, noting that the country's warmth and hospitality would make his work "great fun".

- ANI
The United States has issued updated navigational guidance urging American commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz to stay as far as possible from Iranian territorial waters. The advisory comes amid persistent tensions following indirect talks between the two nations, with the strategic waterway being a critical global oil chokepoint. Historical conflicts like the 1980s Tanker War and recent regional instability highlight the risks to shipping in the area. The US military has recently engaged with Iranian forces in the region, shooting down a drone and condemning Iranian naval drills as unsafe.

The US cautions commercial vessels to avoid Iranian waters in the Strait of Hormuz amid ongoing tensions, issuing new safety guidance.

Washington, DC, February 10 The United States has rolled out updated navigational instructions for US-flagged commercial vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz, urging ships to steer clear of Iran's territorial waters as tensions persist between Washington and Tehran.

The guidance, issued on Monday by the US Maritime Administration, also cautioned American ship captains against allowing Iranian forces to board US-registered vessels while operating in the strategically sensitive waterway.

"If Iranian forces board a US-flagged commercial vessel, the crew should not forcibly resist the boarding party. Refraining from forcible resistance does not imply consent or agreement to that boarding," the advisory said.

"It is recommended that US-flagged commercial vessels transiting these waters remain as far as possible from Iran's territorial sea without compromising navigational safety. When transiting eastbound in the Strait of Hormuz, it is recommended that vessels transit close to Oman's territorial sea."

The guidance was issued shortly after indirect talks between the United States and Iran were held in Oman, following weeks of heightened rhetoric that had raised concerns about a possible military confrontation, according to Al Jazeera.

Shipping lanes across the Middle East have repeatedly come under strain during periods of regional instability, with commercial vessels often caught in the crossfire of geopolitical disputes, the Qatar-based broadcaster noted in its regional coverage.

Historical precedents include the Iran-Iraq conflict of the 1980s, when both nations targeted merchant shipping in what later became known as the Tanker War, Al Jazeera reported in an earlier analysis.

In more recent years, Yemen's Houthi group has carried out attacks on vessels linked to Israel in the Red Sea, describing the campaign as an attempt to pressure Israel to end its war in Gaza, according to separate reporting by Al Jazeera.

Tensions around the Strait of Hormuz intensified further after Israeli strikes on Iran in June last year, when an Iranian lawmaker publicly suggested that closing the vital waterway could be considered if hostilities escalated.

The United States has long referred to the strait as the "world's most important oil chokepoint" due to the volume of global energy supplies that transit through the narrow passage.

In late January, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps conducted naval drills in the strait, prompting warnings from the US military against what it described as "unsafe and unprofessional" actions.

The US military later said it had shot down an Iranian drone that came close to one of its aircraft carriers operating in the region.

Washington has also previously seized Iranian oil tankers as part of its sanctions campaign against Tehran.

In 2019, the United Arab Emirates reported sabotage incidents involving four vessels in the Gulf of Oman, although there have been no recent publicly declared threats against commercial shipping in the area.

The United States has continued to strengthen its military posture in the region, with President Donald Trump repeatedly warning of renewed strikes against Iran.

In December, Trump said Washington would attack Iran if it sought to revive its nuclear or missile programmes.

US forces had bombed Iran's three main nuclear facilities during the June 2025 conflict, which erupted after Israel launched strikes while negotiations between Tehran and Washington were still underway.

Iranian officials have maintained that the current talks are "exclusively nuclear", while the Trump administration has indicated it also wants to address Iran's missile capabilities and its support for regional non-state actors such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

One of the central unresolved issues remains uranium enrichment. Iran, which denies pursuing nuclear weapons, argues that enrichment is a sovereign right under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, while Trump has pushed for zero enrichment.

Asked about Washington's red line in the negotiations, US Vice President JD Vance said the president would likely keep his position private.

"If you go back to the original negotiation that happened between us and the Iranians, the president was trying very, very hard to actually strike a constructive deal that would have been good for the United States," Vance said.

"But frankly, the entire administration agreed if the Iranians were smart enough to have made that agreement, then it would have been good for them, too."

- ANI
US Congressman Suhas Subramanyam has welcomed the recently announced US-India trade agreement, calling it a "great step forward" after a period of high tariffs he deemed unsustainable. He criticized the previous administration for damaging relations by imposing what he called avoidable tariffs, which hurt businesses in his home state of Virginia. Subramanyam stated the deal would only partially repair the relationship and that significant damage had already been done. He announced plans to travel to India next week to meet with high-level officials, including the Prime Minister, to discuss expanding cooperation into areas like defense, space, and immigration.

US Congressman Suhas Subramanyam welcomes the US-India trade agreement, calling it necessary after unsustainable tariffs strained relations.

Washington, Feb 10 US Congressman Suhas Subramanyam welcomed the India-United States trade deal announced last week, calling it a necessary step after what he described as an unsustainable period of high tariffs that hurt businesses and strained bilateral ties.

"I think it's a great step forward," Subramanyam said when asked about the agreement. "I think the reality is, we were not on a sustainable path by having these high tariffs, and the reality is moving forward, the US and India are inextricably linked in so many ways."

He said lowering tariffs and expanding trade made economic sense for both countries, including for his home state. "We have a lot of businesses in my Commonwealth of Virginia that do business with India, and it was hurting our economy in Virginia," Subramanyam said.

Asked whether the deal would put bilateral relations back on track, Subramanyam said it would help but warned that damage had already been done. "Somewhat. I think this helps," he said.

"Certainly, this administration has hurt US-India relations. That's the reality," Subramanyam added. "This administration knows how to cause a problem and then partially solve it, which is I think what happened here."

Calling the tariff dispute avoidable, he said, "So it was unnecessary to put these tariffs on India and start this fight. I think hopefully moving forward, we can get things back on the right track with the relationship."

Subramanyam said he will travel to India next week to engage directly with Indian leaders and push for broader cooperation beyond trade. "I'm gonna be going to India next week myself to visit high level ministers and hopefully the Prime Minister as well," he said.

He said the visit would focus on several areas of partnership. "One of the things I wanna talk about is not just trade, but also other economic activity and defense and other partnerships as well," Subramanyam said.

The trip, he added, would have "multiple goals," including participation in an upcoming artificial intelligence summit. Subramanyam noted his congressional responsibilities, saying, "I'm on the oversight committee. I'm a subcommittee ranking member on military and foreign affairs."

He said discussions in India would also cover space, education, and immigration issues affecting families with ties to both countries. "Certainly immigration has become an issue as well," Subramanyam said. "A lot of families have family in India, and they're having trouble visiting and getting visas."

- IANS
The United States has announced plans to deepen economic and security cooperation with Japan following Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's decisive election victory. The diplomatic push, ahead of a planned March summit between Takaichi and US President Donald Trump, aims to enhance collaborative frameworks. Cooperation is expected to focus on economic security, including semiconductor supply chains, and bolstering joint deterrence efforts. Officials frame the alliance as pivotal for regional stability amid intensifying global competition.

Following PM Sanae Takaichi's decisive election win, the US plans enhanced economic and security cooperation with Japan ahead of a key March summit.

Tokyo, February 10 In the wake of Japan's snap general election that delivered a decisive victory for Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party, the United States has signalled plans to strengthen both economic and security cooperation with its key Asian ally. The announcement comes amid heightened geopolitical uncertainty and a renewed focus on reinforcing alliances in the Indo-Pacific region, reported The Japan Times.

According to reports, Washington intends to build on the momentum from Japan's recent polls by enhancing collaborative work on strategic and economic fronts. A US official noted that following the LDP's landslide win, discussions on expanding cooperative frameworks are expected to gain traction, particularly ahead of a planned summit between US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Takaichi in Washington on March 19.

The diplomatic push reflects broader strategic priorities shared by Tokyo and Washington. The LDP's strong electoral mandate, which gave Takaichi's coalition a commanding supermajority in the House of Representatives, has bolstered her leverage domestically and internationally. This outcome positions Japan to pursue deeper engagement on issues ranging from defence coordination to trade and investment, reported The Japan Times.

US officials have underscored the importance of the alliance. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, speaking ahead of the election, described Takaichi as "a great ally" with strong ties to the United States and noted that Japan's stability and strength contribute directly to American security interests in the region. "When Japan is strong, the US is strong in Asia," he said in an interview, highlighting the bipartisan recognition of Tokyo as a cornerstone of US strategy in the Pacific.

Economic cooperation is also expected to feature prominently in the upcoming discussions. Both countries have substantial bilateral trade and investment flows, and Tokyo's technology and manufacturing sectors offer avenues for mutually beneficial partnerships. With global supply chains under increasing stress from geopolitical rivalries and competition over critical technologies, closer coordination on economic security, including semiconductor production, supply chain resilience, and investment screening, is likely to be high on the agenda, reported The Japan Times.

Beyond economics, security cooperation remains central. Japan and the United States have long been allied under the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, and both sides have periodically reassessed their commitments to respond to evolving threats, including from China and North Korea. With Takaichi's strengthened political position, there is broad expectation that Tokyo will continue expanding its role in joint deterrence efforts while deepening military and intelligence collaboration with Washington,

As the two leaders prepare to meet in March, officials on both sides are framing the dialogue as a chance to chart a forward-looking agenda that enhances economic resilience and fortifies shared security interests underscoring that the Tokyo-Washington partnership remains pivotal at a time of intensifying global.

- ANI
A new bilateral report calls for a U.S.-India compact on AI and emerging technologies to jointly shape the global digital order and counter authoritarian models. It proposes a complementary partnership leveraging U.S. frontier R&D and India's talent and deployment scale. Key recommendations include forming a public-private AI coalition, building shared infrastructure, and aligning semiconductor incentives. The strategic aim is to offer a trusted alternative to adversarial tech ecosystems, particularly from China.

New report urges US-India AI partnership for tech leadership, security, and values. Focus on talent, infrastructure, and real-world applications.

Washington, Feb 10 The United States and India should anchor their partnership in artificial intelligence and emerging technologies to counter authoritarian models and shape the global digital order, according to a new bilateral report released Tuesday ahead of India's AI Impact Summit in New Delhi next week.

The report U.S.-India AI and Emerging Technology Compact, prepared jointly by the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP) and Observer Research Foundation (ORF) America, argues that leadership in AI will determine not only economic growth but also national security and the values that govern the digital era.

"I think both countries are really built for this moment," SCSP President Ylli Bajraktari told IANS in an interview, describing the partnership as a "symmetry of strength." He said the United States brings "frontier hyperscale models, frontier R&D, advanced semiconductors," while India contributes "an enormous STEM talent at scale, massive data centres, and a really proven ability to deploy technology at the population level."

The report stresses that the partnership should not be hierarchical.

"The idea is not for India to be a junior partner to the United States, but to combine our strengths and address our gaps," said Rama Elluru, senior adviser at SCSP and a co-author of the report.

"It's meant to be complementary, not create a dependency."

At the core of the recommendations is a push to move beyond research and focus on real-world applications.

The report proposes launching a public-private U.S.-India AI Coalition to prioritise commercial and dual-use applications in sectors such as healthcare, energy, and maritime domain awareness, and to integrate AI cooperation into existing defence dialogues and joint military exercises.

Infrastructure and semiconductors form another key pillar. The report calls for developing a binational "AI stack" spanning data centres, cloud services, connectivity, and hardware, which could be exported to the Global South as a trusted alternative to adversarial technology ecosystems.

It also recommends aligning U.S. and Indian semiconductor incentives and creating financing mechanisms to accelerate AI infrastructure projects.

Talent development and standards-setting are also highlighted. Elluru said India's advantages lie in "enormous quantity as well as quality" of AI talent and data.

"Their data sets are very unique in that they're not only large, but they're very diverse," she said, adding that India's ability to deploy technology at a population scale is a major asset.

The report recommends joint labour-market mapping and standardised certification to allow seamless talent flows between the two countries.

A central strategic rationale of the compact is competition with China. Bajraktari warned that Beijing's top-down system allows rapid execution once a national strategy is set.

"The United States alone cannot compete against China. That's why we have allies. That's why we have partners," he said.

Elluru added that closer U.S.-India coordination would help keep authoritarian platforms out of emerging markets and give India agenda-setting power, not just market access.

Bajraktari said the summit's focus on "AI impact for good" aligns closely with the report's emphasis on applications that boost productivity and societal welfare.

Elluru said the Delhi summit is expected to be the largest of the global AI summits so far, with a strong emphasis on inclusivity and real-world outcomes.

On regulation, Elluru said both countries share a similar approach. "Both sides want to let innovation flourish and see what safeguards we need instead of the other way around," she said.

The report was developed through Track 1.5 dialogues held in Washington and New Delhi involving more than 120 experts from government, industry, academia, and civil society, and is intended to inform bilateral engagements and discussions at the February 2026 AI Impact Summit in India.

- IANS
Ukraine's Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets said there is no mechanism for action regarding the funds paid to the family for a fighter who was considered dead, but later returned from captivity. He said this, commenting on the case of Nazar Daletsky, who was considered dead based on the results of a DNA examination.

"We will figure out how it could have happened that a false DNA examination was conducted... so that similar stories do not happen again in the future... No one at the moment, in my opinion, can make a decision on whether or not to return the funds... as an institution, we will insist that the rights of our hero... are not violated, as well as the rights of his family," the ombudsman said during the telethon.

Lubinets believes that the family received the funds legally  at the time of payment, Daletsky was considered dead. He added that this created a new situation for which the state does not yet have a clear mechanism for action.

"That is why this case should become the basis for developing fair and understandable procedures to protect the Defenders and their families," he said.

Lubinets also noted the need to exhume the body buried in Daletsky's place and conduct additional examinations.

Earlier, the representative of the Ombudsman in Lviv region, Taras Podvirny, stated that "theoretically" Daletsky's family must return the state's payment of UAH 15 million for the death of a serviceman, Suspilne reported.

"The family must return the funds paid by the state  a one-time cash payment, as it is officially called, for the death of our serviceman. Therefore, this is definitely a legal precedent that will be resolved. Now the culprits will be found out, who made a mistake and how, because we understand that DNA is extremely accurate," he said during a session of Lviv Regional Council.

Daletsky was considered dead for a long time, the family was informed that this happened in Kharkiv region in the autumn of 2022. In early February 2025, Daletsky returned to Ukraine as part of a prisoner exchange.
US President Donald Trump is reportedly planning a visit to Beijing in April to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, which would be his first trip to China during his second term. The visit follows a recent 90-minute phone call between the two leaders, which Trump described as focusing almost entirely on trade. During the call, Xi Jinping extended an invitation for Trump and the First Lady to visit China, which Trump reciprocated. The planned summit occurs amid ongoing trade tensions, including Chinese export restrictions on rare earth minerals and recent US measures targeting Chinese technology.

US President Donald Trump plans an April visit to Beijing to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping, focusing on trade and bilateral relations.

Washington DC /Beijing, February 10 US President Donald Trump will reportedly visit Beijing in April and meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, Politico has reported.

The news outlet cited three people familiar with Trump's plan, to report that the proposed visit will be US president's first visit to China during his second term

The Politico report did not give the finalized dates of Trump's Beijing visit.

In a recent interview with NBC News' Tom Llamas , Trump said that he will visit China in April.

"I'm gonna be going there in April then he's coming here toward the end of the year," Trump said.

When asked further on his China visit, the US President in the NBC News interview taped on February 4 said, "He's coming to the White House, toward the end of the year. We have a very good relationship. And, you know, it's important that I have a good relationship and for him, that he has a good relationship with me. We have to have a good -- these are the two most powerful countries in the world and we have a very good relationship."

Incidentally, Trump and Xi had a 90-minute telephonic conversation on February 4.

Trump said the call focused almost entirely on trade, without touching on other geopolitical issues like Iran and Ukraine. The call "resulted in a very positive conclusion for both Countries," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Further, Trump wrote, "During the conversation, President Xi graciously invited the First Lady and me to visit China, and I reciprocated. As Presidents of two Great Nations, this is something that we both look forward to doing."

China's state media Xinhua reported that in the call Xi noted that he attaches great importance to China-U.S. relations, saying that over the past year, he and Trump have enjoyed sound communication, and had a successful meeting in Busan, charting the direction and course for China-US relations.

During the call, Xi called for the United States and China to "seek win-win results in the spirit of equality and respect each other's concerns," while urging Washington to "remove the negative measures taken against China," according to a readout from China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"Recalibrating the direction of the giant ship of China-US relations requires us to take the helm and set the right course," Xi told his US counterpart.

CNN had previously reported that after the talks in Geneva the US had expected China to to ease export restrictions on rare earth minerals, which had been imposed in April in retaliation against Trump's "reciprocal" tariffs on Chinese goods.

But the restrictions haven't been lifted, causing intense displeasure inside the Trump administration and prompting a recent series of measures imposed on China, three administration officials told CNN last week.

Beijing, meanwhile, has bristled as Washington warned companies against using AI chips made by China's national tech champion Huawei, moved to limit critical technology sales to China and announced that the US would "aggressively revoke visas" for Chinese students in the US with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields, the US broadcasting network said.

- ANI
The U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) will lead the largest-ever delegation of U.S. CEOs and tech leaders as an official partner of the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi. Ahead of the summit, USISPF launched a Board AI Task Force, chaired by John Chambers, to strengthen AI ecosystems and promote responsible deployment. The delegation, co-led by Adobe's Shantanu Narayen and FedEx's Raj Subramaniam, includes over 120 senior leaders aiming to advance AI infrastructure and startup support. The initiative underscores a strategic push in U.S.-India cooperation to shape a trusted global AI ecosystem.

USISPF leads 100+ U.S. firms to India AI Impact Summit 2026, launching an AI task force to advance responsible AI and digital infrastructure.

New Delhi, February 10 The U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum will lead the largest delegation of U.S. CEOs and senior technology leaders as an official partner of the India AI Impact Summit 2026. According to a USISPF release, the summit will take place in New Delhi from February 16-20, 2026, in collaboration with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. The initiative marks a strategic advancement in U.S.-India cooperation regarding artificial intelligence, trusted technology ecosystems, and next-generation digital infrastructure.

Ahead of the summit, USISPF announced the launch of the Board AI Task Force, led by USISPF Chairman John Chambers. The task force focuses on strengthening AI ecosystems and accelerating responsible deployment to support population-scale impact. As its initial action, the task force will lead a delegation of over 100 U.S. companies to the summit, working alongside the Government of India and industry stakeholders to advance scalable and inclusive artificial intelligence.

"As Prime Minister Modi said best, AI stands for America and India," stated John Chambers, Chairman of USISPF. "From my vantage point in Silicon Valley, I could see how AI would become the defining technology of our time, just as the U.S.-India relationship is the defining strategic partnership of our time. Through this task force, we will leverage USISPF's deep knowledge in public-private partnerships to ensure AI's responsible development and implementation for nearly two billion people across our countries. As the biggest bull on India and being equally as optimistic in AI's ability to change our lives, I am confident that this new task force will propel the U.S. and India to lead in this space and drive global conversations on AI, trust, and competitive AI ecosystems," the USIPF said.

The delegation is co-led by Adobe Chair and CEO Shantanu Narayen and FedEx Corporation President and CEO Raj Subramaniam. The group comprises more than 120 senior global leaders, including Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith, and executives from companies such as Ericsson, Chemours, and Rubrik. The delegation aims to advance the TRUST Initiative's focus on AI infrastructure growth by catalysing investments to scale India's computational capacity and supporting startups in welfare applications.

"The U.S.-India partnership is central to shaping a trusted global AI ecosystem," said Mukesh Aghi, President & CEO of USISPF. "As President Trump and Prime Minister Modi have underscored, artificial intelligence must be developed responsibly, at scale, and in service of people. USISPF is honoured to convene leaders from government and industry to translate this shared vision into action, advancing a joint roadmap to accelerate AI infrastructure, build applications that address real societal challenges, and ensure the safeguards to promote responsible deployment of AI."

At Bharat Mandapam, USISPF will host a flagship session titled "Scaling Trusted AI for 8 Billion+," featuring global industry leaders and policymakers. The forum will also hold public sessions at The Leela Palace on February 18, focusing on AI infrastructure and skilling. Private engagements during the summit include roundtables on national security readiness and supply chain resilience, as well as a dialogue with the U.S. Ambassador to India, Sergio Gor, regarding trusted AI frameworks.

- ANI
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer described India as a potential "way station" for US supply chains seeking alternatives to China. He highlighted India's manufacturing capacity and workforce as key assets in this strategic shift. This comes alongside a new interim trade framework where India will reduce tariffs on US goods and purchase $500 billion in US products. The US will apply an 18% reciprocal tariff on some Indian imports, with plans to later remove it on select items.

USTR Jamieson Greer positions India as a key alternative for US companies diversifying supply chains away from China, citing its workforce and new trade deal.

Washington DC, February 10 US Trade Representative Ambassador Jamieson Greer on Tuesday described India as a potential "way station" for US supply chains, positioning the country as an alternative to China amid shifting global trade dynamics.

In an interview with Fox News, Ambassador Greer, when asked whether India could be the right place for US companies to move supply chains out of China, said India was a viable option for companies seeking to diversify away from China, noting its manufacturing capacity and workforce strength.

"It can be. We know that many companies are already going in that direction. As you mentioned, we want our supply chains in the United States to be as close to home as possible. But we also know it's a process. When you shift from globalisation to a more resilient and secure economy, you will eventually need to reallocate supply chains. India can be a way station for that," USTR Greer said to Fox News.

"They have a large workforce and manufacturing capacity. Of course, American manufacturing and the American worker must come first. But to the extent that we import from other countries, India can be a good source--as long as it's balanced and fair," he added.

On commitments on the recently concluded framework of the India-US interim trade agreement, Greer expressed optimism, saying India is "really committed", adding that "They (India) have started expanding some of their commitments with respect to purchases. They've already rolled back some of the digital services tax that affected us, and they're moving to reduce tariffs. This is going to be a really important deal, and it's going to reverberate for many years to come."

The United States and India announced a framework for an Interim Agreement on reciprocal, mutually beneficial trade, reaffirming their commitment to a broader Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) launched by President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 13, 2025.

As part of the framework, India has agreed to eliminate or reduce tariffs on all US industrial goods and a wide range of US agricultural and food products, including dried distillers' grains (DDGs), red sorghum for animal feed, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, soybean oil, wine and spirits, and additional products.

On the other hand, the United States will impose a reciprocal tariff of 18 per cent on goods originating in India, including textiles and apparel, leather and footwear, plastic and rubber products, organic chemicals, home decor, artisanal goods and certain machinery. Subject to the successful conclusion of the Interim Agreement, the US has said it will later remove reciprocal tariffs on select items, including generic pharmaceuticals, gems and diamonds, and aircraft parts.

India also intends to purchase USD 500 billion of US energy products, aircraft and aircraft parts, precious metals, technology products, and coking coal over the next five years.

- ANI
The Handicrafts Exhibition-2026 in Guna, Madhya Pradesh, is a direct outcome of the government's Vocal for Local initiative, providing a crucial marketplace for artisans from over a dozen states. Organized by the Union Ministry of Textiles, the event features a vast array of traditional crafts, from Kalamkari to bamboo work, allowing artisans to reach new customers. Local officials, including the Collector, have actively promoted the fair, ensuring artisan recognition and encouraging public participation. The event has been praised by both artisans, who credit it for business growth, and visitors, who appreciate the showcase of India's cultural talent.

Madhya Pradesh's Guna hosts a major handicrafts exhibition under the Vocal for Local initiative, providing a national market for artisans from across India.

Guna, Feb 10 The government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Vocal for Local' initiative is transforming the lives of artisans across the country by providing them a wider platform and market for their handmade products. The impact of the campaign was visible in Madhya Pradesh's Guna, where artisans from multiple states gathered to showcase their crafts at the Handicrafts Exhibition-2026.

The Handicrafts Exhibition-2026 was organised by the Union Ministry of Textiles, along with the Madhya Pradesh State Cooperative Federation Limited, Bhopal and was inaugurated by Guna Collector Kishore Kumar Kanyal at Pratap Hostel on Monday.

The event witnessed participation from artisans belonging to Hyderabad, Bihar, Jaipur, Delhi, Agra, Bengaluru, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and other states. The exhibition brought together a wide range of traditional handicrafts, giving local artisans a chance to reach new customers and promote India's rich cultural heritage.

Also present during the inauguration were the Chief Executive Officer of the District Panchayat, Guna, Abhishek Dubey, along with Amit Sahare, Assistant Director, Handicraft Development Commissioner, Handicraft Service Centre, Gwalior. Several officials and local citizens also attended the opening ceremony.

A large variety of handmade products were displayed at the stalls, including jute bags, zari work, embroidery, bamboo crafts, Kalamkari products from Hyderabad, and handicrafts from Bihar. Other key attractions included tassel meenakari work from Jaipur, jewellery items from Delhi and Agra, Kushia work from Dehradun, paintings from Bengaluru, clay and crockery products from Rajasthan, and handicraft work from Uttar Pradesh.

The exhibition also featured carpets, bedsheets, beadwork, toran art, leather art, date palm crafts, wooden toys from Madhya Pradesh, and other traditional items from West Bengal, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Nagpur, Rajasthan, Jodhpur, Uttar Pradesh, Varanasi, Gujarat, and more.

During his visit, Collector Kishore Kumar Kanyal inspected the various stalls set up at the exhibition. He also directed the organisers to ensure that the names of the artisans and their respective states are clearly displayed on the stalls, so that visitors can know where each product comes from and recognise the work of the artisans.

The attractive presentation of handicraft products at the exhibition was appreciated by the guests. Special emphasis was laid on giving wide publicity to the event so that local handicrafts are encouraged, and the general public becomes more familiar with India's traditional art, culture, and craftsmanship.

Deputy Commissioner Mukesh Jain appealed to the general public to take maximum benefit from the handicrafts exhibition. He informed that the fair would continue till February 16 and will remain open every day from 2.00 p.m. to 10.00 p.m. at Pratap Hostel, Main Road, Guna.

Speaking to IANS, Guna Collector Kishore Kumar Kanyal said, "Here, I am seeing 50 stalls installed. People have come here from different states, and there are several artisans from Madhya Pradesh also. I would say people should come here and appreciate the work done by them."

Visitors shopping at the fair also praised the initiative. Vinita Jain, a customer who came to shop in Guna, said, "It's a nice step by the government. We are seeing people from different states coming here to sell products."

Neeraj Kumar Saini, a handicraftsman from Jaipur, Rajasthan, said, "It is a very appreciative initiative by the government that they are promoting Vocal for Local. In this, we have to make and sell in our own country. It's a nice step by the government."

Sharing his personal journey, Shakun Thakur, a handicraftsman from Nagpur, Maharashtra, said, "I started my work of doing this handicraft with just Rs 7,000. Now that work is worth Rs 4 lakh. I want to thank PM Modi and the government for this, and we also get loans from the government."

Dr Satish Sharma, a customer who visited the handicrafts fair in Guna, said, "It's really nice. With all this, people will know how talented the people of India are. It's a great initiative done by the artisans."

Biplab Jain, a customer in Guna, said, "It's a really nice step. It gives an opportunity to sell their products. I want to thank PM Modi for this."

Sevosi Dey, a handicraftsman from Bengal, said, "I sell embroidery products made with our own hands. It's a nice step for giving a platform to sell our products in different states."

The Handicrafts Exhibition-2026 in Guna has emerged as a vibrant example of how the 'Vocal for Local' campaign is helping artisans gain recognition, improve livelihoods, and take India's traditional crafts to a wider audience.

- IANS
President Droupadi Murmu hosted Seychelles President Patrick Herminie on his first state visit to India, marking 50 years of diplomatic relations. The leaders adopted the "India-Seychelles Joint Vision" for enhanced cooperation in sustainability, economic growth, and security. A Special Economic Package was announced to boost collaboration in priority sectors like health, infrastructure, and defence. President Murmu emphasized Seychelles' key role in India's MAHASAGAR vision and reaffirmed India's commitment to its developmental and security needs.

Presidents Murmu and Herminie strengthen bilateral ties, adopting a new joint vision for sustainability and security during Seychelles leader's state visit.

New Delhi, February 10 Vice-President CP Radhakrishnan attended the banquet hosted by President Droupadi Murmu in honour of Patrick Herminie, President of Seychelles, at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

President Droupadi Murmu on Monday received Seychelles President Patrick Herminie at Rashtrapati Bhavan and hosted a banquet in his honour.

During the discussions, the two leaders underscored the immense potential to further deepen bilateral cooperation, with President Murmu noting that the newly adopted India-Seychelles Joint Vision for "Sustainability, Economic Growth and Security through Enhanced Linkages (SESEL)" provides a strong foundation for collaboration in the years ahead.

Welcoming President Herminie on his first State visit to India, President Murmu noted that India-Seychelles relations are rooted in mutual trust, respect, and a shared commitment to democracy and pluralism.

She emphasised the deep cultural links and historical connections between the two nations, noting that the Indian Ocean waves bind the peoples of both countries.

"President Droupadi Murmu received President Patrick Herminie of Seychelles at Rashtrapati Bhavan and hosted a banquet in his honour. The two leaders agreed that there is immense potential to further deepen the bilateral cooperation and that the "India-Seychelles Joint Vision for Sustainability, Economic Growth and Security through Enhanced Linkages" will provide a strong foundation for cooperation in the years ahead," the Rashtrapati Bhavan stated in a post on X.

President Murmu said that the visit is particularly significant as Seychelles celebrates 50 years of independence, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of India-Seychelles diplomatic relations.

She added that Seychelles holds a key place in India's MAHASAGAR Vision, which aims to strengthen cooperation through trade for development, capacity building, and mutual security. "India remains ever ready to meet Seychelles' developmental and security needs," she affirmed.

President Murmu expressed confidence that the Special Economic Package announced during the visit will provide fresh momentum to India-Seychelles cooperation across priority sectors, including health, infrastructure, education, defence, and capacity building.

- ANI
The India-US trade deal's provision for zero percent tariffs on diamonds and gemstones is hailed as a major step forward for the industry by GJC's Avinash Gupta. He states it will significantly help India's cutting and polishing sector survive and thrive. Gupta appeals for jewellery to also be included in the zero-duty framework in future negotiations to unlock greater benefits. He links this progress to Prime Minister Modi's vision of establishing India as a global jewellery production hub and a complete exporter nation by 2047.

India-US trade deal moves diamonds & gemstones to 0% tariff, boosting Make in India. GJC's Avinash Gupta calls it a major step for the industry.

Mumbai, Feb 10 The India-US trade deal is very good and the biggest advantage it brings to the diamond industry is that under Section 3, diamonds and gemstones will now be moved to a zero per cent tariff, which is a major step forward, Avinash Gupta, Vice Chairman of All India Gem and Jewellery Domestic Council, has said.

Speaking to IANS, Gupta said the deal will greatly help India's cutting and polishing industry to survive, as earlier, 9 out of 10 diamonds were cut in India, and the US tariffs caused many artisans in Surat to face difficulties.

"This trade agreement is very comprehensive and I believe it will bring major benefits to 'Make in India'. Along with skill transfer in various industries, India's recent trade deals, not just with the US but also with the EU, will have a significant impact," he mentioned.

He further stated that when we talk about zero per cent duty in the gems and jewellery industry, it currently applies only to diamonds and gemstones.

"Jewellery itself is a very large segment, which has not yet been included under the zero per cent duty bracket. I would appeal to the government to also include jewellery under Section 3 during future negotiations. If jewellery is brought under this framework, it will bring huge benefits," Gupta told IANS.

As manufacturing hubs continue to develop in India, one can already see the positive impact.

"Earlier, when electronics manufacturing began in India, our country was a net importer but today, it has become an exporter. The same pattern is being seen in the automobile industry and now in the gems and jewellery sector as well," said Gupta.

At present, the government has set a very big target - to make India a complete exporter country before 2047 and to establish it as a global production hub for jewellery.

"This vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, I believe, will be achieved by 2047," Gupta added.

- IANS
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President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a meeting with Prime Minister of Moldova Alexandru Munteanu, during which, in particular, they discussed cooperation in the energy sector, infrastructure projects and joint progress toward the European Union

The president also thanked for the support of Ukraine during the full-scale Russian invasion, in particular for the assistance to Ukrainians who found temporary shelter in Moldova.

"Your political support is critical, we are grateful for the support for our territorial integrity and sovereignty. I believe that we have a common view on membership in the European Union in the future, and I hope that we will have a common path," the President's Office said, citing Zelenskyy.

During the meeting, the leaders paid special attention to the energy infrastructure of Ukraine and Moldova, especially the consequences of Russian shelling, which led to power outages in a number of Moldovan cities as well. Zelenskyy and Munteanu discussed responding to threats from Russia and strengthening bilateral cooperation in the energy sector.

In turn, the prime minister assured of further support and announced the government's decision to provide Ukraine with humanitarian aid, including generators and medicines.

The parties also discussed the next joint steps on the path of the countries' membership in the European Union and the importance of simultaneously opening negotiation clusters.

In addition, they discussed joint projects in the economy, defense production, as well as in the areas of transport and infrastructure.
As instigators of immunity, monoclonal antibodies are marvels of modern medicine, lab-made proteins that can treat cancers, autoimmune diseases, and many other conditions. With the market for these therapies forecast to double by 2030, it might seem that the only thing they can't do is grow fast enough.

New research from the University of Oklahoma aims to put an end to that limitation, too.

In a study published in the journal Communications Engineering, Chongle Pan, an OU professor of computer science and biomedical engineering, and Penghua Wang, a doctoral student in data science and analytics, detail a machine learning model that dramatically accelerates the manufacturing timeline of monoclonal antibodies.

We're trying to solve a key bottleneck in the biomanufacturing production process. It's all about getting to market faster." Penghua Wang, doctoral student in data science and analytics, University of Oklahoma

In humans, antibodies are produced by white blood cells known as B cells, but in biomanufacturing, the job falls to Chinese hamster ovary cells (CHO), the industry standard for producing therapeutic antibodies.

Pan said the process isn't that dissimilar to making beer. In fermentation, yeast feeds on sugars that are converted to alcohol. Similarly, harvested CHO cells feed on nutrients designed to maximize antibody production.

Yet not every cloned cell line produces antibodies at the same rate; productivity is varied. To select cell lines with the highest yield, biomanufacturers must screen the cultured samples, a phase of production that can take several weeks. Reducing this timeline is a priority for drug companies and could help lower the cost of medicines for patients.

Pan and Wang hypothesized that cell productivity can be predicted using growth data acquired in earlier stages of production. To test their theory, they partnered with Oklahoma City-based Wheeler Bio, a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) focused on antibody therapies. Wheeler provided production data, which was combined with an established mathematical equation  the Luedeking-Piret model, which describes how cells grow and produce proteins  to train and validate machine learning tools.

After testing and fine-tuning, the researchers' model correctly selected higher-performing clones in 76.2% of its trials and accurately forecast daily production trajectories from day 10 through day 16, using only data collected during the first nine days of growth. The results, Pan and Wang wrote, demonstrate the validity of a "simulated real world clone selection" that will eventually enable "more rapid and confident identification of high-performing clones."

More testing and model training is needed before the model could be put into Wheeler's production processes, Pan said. But company officials said they are encouraged by the early results.

"Wheeler Bio is committed to leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning to accelerate our approach to cell line development and process development for antibody therapeutic production," said Patrick Lucy, President and CEO of Wheeler Bio.

"This foundational work is the first step in Wheeler's strategic commitment to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to further enhance our ModularCMC platform."

The research was part of a $35 million program funded by the U.S. Economic Development Administration to expand the biotechnology industry cluster in the Oklahoma City region. OU's Gallogly College of Engineering and the recently opened OU Bioprocessing Core Facility are key institutions in that initiative, which is designed to combine academic innovation with industrial application.

"In academia, we tend to pursue theoretical research," Pan said. "But this study, and our partnership with Wheeler Bio, gave us an opportunity to apply machine learning and data science expertise to a real-world problem that the industry faces."
Breakthrough research from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine is revealing how immune cells in the adult brain can regulate the generation of new neurons.

The study, recently published in the journal Nature Communications, is leading to a new understanding of how immune cells can influence adult neurogenesis, the process of creating new neurons in the brain. Neurons are the brain's fundamental information messengers, and the immune cells conduct surveillance and send messages to new neurons.

The study's corresponding author is Yu (Agnes) Luo, PhD, professor and vice chair for research in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences.

"Adult neurogenesis is vital for learning, memory and mood regulation, and we hope to discover novel ways to enhance this process," said Luo. Factors such as exercise, sleep and learning can stimulate neurogenesis, while stress and aging can decrease it - offering one possible explanation for cognitive decline.

UC study breakthroughs

Luo said it has long been debated whether adults even have the capacity for neurogenesis. Does the human brain make new neurons in adulthood?

Then research published in the journal Science in the summer of 2025 concluded, yes, neurogenesis happens in the adult human hippocampus, the part of the brain that handles learning and memory.

So Luo and the graduate assistants working in her research lab on UC's campus turned their attention to the mechanisms that regulate adult neurogenesis, and their research in Nature Communications reveals two breakthroughs.

The first is that immune cells in the brain, known as microglia, have the capacity to regulate neurogenesis in the hippocampal region of the adult brain.

The status of microglia in the hippocampus is critical in the process." Yu (Agnes) Luo, PhD, professor and vice chair for research, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine

The second breakthrough concerns activated microglia, which lack TGF-beta signaling, and, in turn, stimulate adult neurogenesis through microglia-neural stem cell signaling crosstalk - the complex interplay in which cellular pathways communicate.

Future implications

For now, research on adult neurogenesis has been in animal models, but microglia-integrated human organoids are in development for future testing. For the human organoids, Luo is working with Ziyuan Guo, PhD, assistant professor in the College of Medicine's Department of Pediatrics. Guo's lab at Cincinnati Children's focuses on developing next-generation human central nervous system (CNS) models to study neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders using advanced stem cell and engineering technology.

Krishna Roskin, PhD, an informaticist and immunobiologist at Cincinnati Children's, also helped decipher the immune-neural stem cell crosstalk by single-cell RNA sequencing analysis.

A long-term goal of Luo and her lab is to use adult neurogenesis as rejuvenation in the brains of aging adults, helping to sustain their cognition and allowing for healthier aging.

"We will be testing the future implications of adult neurogenesis in the understanding and treatment of Alzheimer's disease," said Joshua Peter, one of the paper's lead authors and a graduate assistant in the Luo lab.

Peter was a PhD candidate who recently defended his dissertation and is beginning work at Medpace Inc., managing clinical trials.

"I want to help patients and help drive new treatments in many areas of medicine. Taking research developments to the next level in clinical trials is exciting," said Peter.

Another graduate student in Luo's lab, Kierra Ware, is credited with laying the groundwork for the study before she earned her PhD. Ware is now completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Seattle Children's Hospital.

Both Peter and Ware made novel findings during their time in the Luo lab. "We were able to take part in strong and rigorous research," said Peter.

Now both have extensive training on cutting-edge technology and are staying in the biomedical research field.

"We are training the next generation of scientists here at the UC College of Medicine," said Luo.

Others from the Luo lab at UC who contributed to the research include Alicia Bedolla, Claire Distel, Aleksandr Taranov and Jake Yazell.

Contributors from outside UC include Shane Liddelow at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine; Christina Thapa at the Center for Psychiatric Genetics in Evanston, Illinois, a partnership between UChicago Medicine and NorthShore University HealthSystem; Sven Lammich at the Biomedical Center Munich in Germany; and Alice Sulzen and Regina Feederle at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Munich.
A major study by UCL and Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori in Milan (INT) researchers has for the first time shown in detail how far children's cancer has spread at diagnosis in a way that can be compared between countries.

While poorer survival following late-stage diagnosis is well recognised, the study is the first to show that differences in tumor stage at diagnosis may explain why childhood cancer survival varies between some European regions and tumor types.

Published in JAMA Network Open, the researchers analyzed high-quality data from the cases of 9,883 children from 73 population-based cancer registries across 27 countries, mainly European, diagnosed with six different cancers  neuroblastoma, Wilms tumor, medulloblastoma, osteosarcoma, Ewing sarcoma and rhabdomyosarcoma  between 2014 and 2017.

They found that across all six cancers, survival at three years was strongly linked to tumor stage at diagnosis, with survival decreasing as stage increased.

Using Central Europe as the benchmark and looking at the data by region, they found significant variation in overall three-year survival rate between some regions in the cases of four of those cancers.

In the case of neuroblastoma  tumor of adrenal gland and some other sites  they found that children had lower survival rates in the UK and Ireland compared with Central Europe, a difference that could be explained by the relatively later stage at which that cancer was diagnosed in the UK and Ireland.

In the case of Ewing sarcoma (bone tumor), by contrast, in Eastern Europe and in the UK and Ireland, the lower survival rate compared with Central Europe wasn't accounted for by later diagnosis. In fact, the difference was only seen for patients whose tumor had spread. The researchers suggested that other factors such as where the tumor had spread to and any differences in treatment approaches for children whose cancer has spread need to be investigated.

Until now the lack of reliable data on tumor stage at diagnosis has meant it was impossible to use registry data to shed light on the difference in child cancer survival rates by country.

The UCL and INT researchers' International Benchmarking of Childhood Cancer Survival by Stage (BENCHISTA) project has improved the way national cancer registries collect childhood cancer data so it can be compared reliably.

Through an agreement which took 18 months to broker, the countries involved in the study  23 European countries including the UK but also Brazil, Canada, Australia and Japan  improved their data collection techniques to ensure at least 90% of the child cancer cases in their countries had tumor stage recorded (a level deemed acceptable for accurate international data analysis) and in a consistent way (using what is known as the Toronto Childhood Cancer Stage Guidelines, which were developed in the 2010s).

The result is that for the first time researchers are in a position to better understand why childhood cancer survival rates differ from region to region with a view to guiding efforts to improve those rates.

Their findings highlight the need to examine other factors, such as differences in treatment approaches, access to specialised care, and health system differences.

This will be a focus of the next phase of the BENCHISTA project, which will also report five-year survival, the standard epidemiology cancer outcome measure.

By analyzing population-level data from cancer registries across many countries, we have been able to better understand why childhood cancer survival still differs internationally. Our findings show that diagnosing cancer earlier and accurately assessing how far it has spread can make a meaningful difference to survival for many children. At the same time, the study highlights that early diagnosis alone will not address all disparities, and further work is needed to understand and tackle other contributing factors. We have, for the first time, provided unbiased, population-level evidence for later diagnosis of some childhood cancers in the UK and Ireland." Professor Kathy Pritchard-Jones, Joint Senior Author, UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health

Altogether, the findings from BENCHISTA will provide unbiased evidence regarding the need for both cancer-specific strategies and broader improvements in diagnosis and care, the researchers say.

Corresponding author Dr Laura Botta, a statistician in the INT's Evaluative Epidemiology Unit, said: "Our project not only emphasises the importance of gathering high-quality data and strengthening cooperation between clinicians and population-based cancer registries but also serves as a key tool to uncover the reasons for survival differences between countries for children with cancer.

"Our results provide the first population-based and international evidence that, in some countries, paediatric tumors are diagnosed at more advanced stages compared to a group of European countries with the most consistent practices, while in others, staging procedures do not meet recommended standards  clearly impacting prognosis. We hope these findings will help guide health policies that are vital to saving lives."

The study was funded by Children with Cancer UK and Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro (AIRC). Two of the researchers involved in the project, Professor Pritchard-Jones and Dr Angela Lopez-Cortes, also received funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research Great Ormond Street Hospital Biomedical Research Centre.

Gavin Maggs, Chief Executive of Children with Cancer UK, said: "We are proud to have funded this important study, which provides powerful new evidence on the role that early diagnosis plays in improving childhood cancer survival.

"By bringing together experts from around the world, BENCHISTA shows how internationally comparable data can guide global efforts to ensure children are diagnosed as early as possible and receive the right care at the right time. Cancer does not recognise borders, and neither should the chances of surviving it."

Ashley Ball-Gamble, chief executive of CCLG: The Children & Young People's Cancer Association, said: "This study confirms that, for some childhood cancers, diagnosis in the UK still takes longer than it should.

"Because delays can affect a child's chance of survival, campaigning for faster recognition is more important than ever.

"Our Child Cancer Smart campaign aims to tackle these delays by giving GPs the tools to identify cancer sooner - and by helping parents understand the warning signs."

Angela Polanco, the project's patient and public involvement lead, whose daughter Bethany was diagnosed with Wilms tumor, said: "This study provides clear evidence that we need to do more to ensure children affected by cancer have access to timely and accurate diagnosis, appropriate first-line treatment, and specialist care, wherever they live.

"Collecting and analyzing this information at a population level is a crucial step towards reducing inequalities and improving survival for children with cancer."

Rhabdomyosarcoma is a muscle tumor, medulloblastoma is a brain tumor, osteosarcoma  like Ewing sarcoma  is a bone tumor and Wilms' tumor is a kidney tumor.

Study limitations

As with many rare disease studies, the relatively small number of cases and the three-year follow-up period mean that some longer-term survival differences may not yet be fully captured.
Spatial omics is a new generation of technologies that allow scientists to study cells in their original location within tissues (without isolating or moving them from their environment). Just as a city cannot be understood by looking at individual buildings alone, cells do not function in isolation: they depend on their neighbors, on the signals they receive, and on the structures that surround them. Spatial omics preserves this context and shows not only what cells are doing, but where they are and how they interact. This approach is opening new ways to understand complex biological processes and disease mechanisms, particularly in complex diseases such as cancer, neurological disorders, cardiovascular diseases, and immune system dysfunction.

IRB Barcelona is now launching Spain's first fully integrated Spatial Omics Platform, a new facility that will allow scientists to study cells within their natural environments and understand how they work together to maintain health or drive disease. The platform will strengthen IRB Barcelona's position, and the Spanish research ecosystem, in the rapidly expanding field of spatial biology, contributing to advances in biomedical research and supporting progress toward precision medicine.

This initiative is much more than a new technology, it's a new way of working. The spatial omics platform brings together the expertise of five Core Facilities to deliver a fully integrated workflow from sample to data interpretation. By building this collaborative infrastructure and opening it to the scientific community, IRB Barcelona becomes a reference hub for spatial biology in Spain and beyond." Dr. Silvia Alvarez, Director of Technology Strategy & Core Facilities, IRB Barcelona

Seeing biology in place: a revolution in understanding life

Imagine looking down on a vibrant city from above: neighbourhoods, buildings, parks, hospitals, roads - each serving a purpose, each connected. Now imagine that city is the human body, built not of concrete, but of cells, genes, and proteins.

Until recently, researchers could count the molecules inside tissues, but they could not determine where they were located. It was like knowing a city has surgeons but not knowing whether they are in hospitals or on the streets. Spatial omics technologies change this. Spatial transcriptomics reveals where gene activity happens within tissues, and spatial proteomics maps where functional proteins are located and how they interact. Together, they provide a spatially resolved map of biological activity: not only what happens inside cells, but precisely where, how, and with whom it happens.

This perspective is transforming how we study cancer, neurodegeneration, infection, ageing and development. It enables scientists to analyse tumour architecture, better understand why some therapies fail, and discover new therapeutic targets with great precision.

A platform built on a legacy of innovation

The launch of this new platform builds on IRB Barcelona's long-standing commitment to adopting and pioneering advanced research technologies and making them available to the scientific community. Over the past two decades, the Institute became a national and European reference centre for genomic microarrays and has pioneered pico profiling, enabling gene analysis from very few cells. The Institute has also driven innovation in protein analysis through advanced top-down proteomics, and was the first centre in Spain to offer, before its commercial availability, light-sheet microscopy as a service, allowing scientists to image tissues and organs in 3D with remarkable clarity.

Today, IRB Barcelona is again taking a decisive step forward by uniting spatial genomics, spatial proteomics, histopathology, advanced microscopy, and bioinformatics under one coordinated infrastructure. This integrated pipeline will ensure scientific rigour, reproducibility, and high-resolution molecular mapping across tissues and organs, providing capabilities that are currently unique in Spain and still rare internationally.

Multidisciplinary excellence, from data to discovery

The Spatial Omics Platform is a cross-facility initiative with a fully coordinated workflow (from sample preparation to computational analysis) and will allow researchers to obtain comprehensive, spatially resolved molecular data that can be compared and integrated across studies and over time. Advanced computational integration will align transcriptomic, proteomic, and phenotypic layers to build detailed molecular atlases of healthy and diseased tissues.

This initiative reinforces IRB Barcelona's commitment to excellence, collaboration, and open access to transformative technologies, supporting both fundamental and translational research carried out by scientists from academia, hospitals, and industry.

The new platform has been set up with the support from the Spanish and Catalan governments, Next Generation funds, as well as the Spanish Association Against Cancer, La Caixa Foundation and the BBVA Foundation.
Polymer micelles are tiny, self-assembled particles that are revolutionizing the landscape of drug delivery and nanomedicine. They form when polymer chains containing both hydrophilic and hydrophobic segments organize into nanoscale spheres in liquid solutions; these structures can trap and hold drugs that are otherwise difficult to dissolve. Poloxamer 407 (P407), a widely studied micelle-forming polymer, is particularly useful because it changes from a liquid into a soft gel as it warms, becoming most stable near body temperature. This temperature-dependent gelling behavior allows P407 to slowly release loaded drugs over time, thus reducing dosing frequency and their side effects.

Despite extensive laboratory research, scientists have struggled to fully understand P407's solgel transition. Its peculiar properties do not come from individual micelles acting alone, but from how they interact and arrange themselves together. However, most existing knowledge is based on experiments in pure water, which is far simpler than the liquid environments found in the human body. On top of this, existing theoretical models rely on assumptions that do not work well for polymer micelles, leaving key inter-micellar forces unclear and difficult to predict in laboratory saline solutions that mimic bodily fluids.

To tackle these knowledge gaps, a research team led by Associate Professor Takeshi Morita from the Graduate School of Science, Chiba University, Japan, conducted an in-depth experimental study on how P407 micelles interact in a saline environment. Their paper, made available online on December 9, 2025, and will be published in Volume 707 of the Journal of Colloid and Interface Science on April 1, 2026, was co-authored by Mr. Shunsuke Takamatsu, Dr. Kenjirou Higashi, and Ms. Minami Saito, all from Chiba University; Dr. Hiroshi Imamura from Nagahama Institute of Bio-Science and Technology, Japan; and Dr. Tomonari Sumi from Muroran Institute of Technology, Japan.

Rather than assuming anything about how micelles should behave, the researchers used experimental data to quantify their interactions under conditions that closely resemble those inside the body. They focused on P407 micelles dissolved in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), a standard solution used in biological research, and combined two complementary techniques. First, small-angle X-ray scattering was used to probe how micelles are positioned relative to one another over nanoscale distances, revealing collective structural patterns. Then, they used dynamic light scattering to measure the sizes and motion of individual polymer chains, micelles, and larger aggregates by tracking fluctuations in scattered light.

By integrating these datasets, the researchers calculated the 'pair interaction potential,' a quantitative description of how strongly two micelles attract or repel each other depending on their separation. They found that as the temperature increased toward gel formation, micelles became more regularly spaced, moving slightly farther apart yet still remaining connected. This behavior is consistent with an entropy-driven process known as the Alder transition, in which particles crystallize because an ordered arrangement allows more freedom for small thermal motions. However, in PBS, the attractive forces between micelles were stronger than in water, meaning they tended to bind more tightly. This stronger attraction limited how far micelles could separate, producing a gel with more structural fluctuations and less uniform order.

The team demonstrated that these differences had marked effects on gel stability. Gels formed in saline broke down at lower temperatures than those formed in water, suggesting that structural fluctuations weaken the gel as temperature rises and make it collapse sooner. "With this improved understanding of inter-micellar interactions that govern drug nanocarrier properties, it will be possible to elucidate and predict the fundamental mechanisms of sustained drug release behavior and gelation in environments closer to bodily conditions," states Dr. Morita.

The findings of this study have important implications for drug delivery research. Polymer micelles like P407 are widely studied as promising carriers for novel drugs, including many modern anticancer and anti-inflammatory compounds. Understanding how salts and ions affect micelle interactions could help researchers design formulations that release drugs more predictably and remain stable at body temperature. "By advancing our knowledge of micelle behavior under physiological conditions, our work will help advance drug nanocarrier research, enhance the pharmacological efficacy of poorly soluble drugs, and contribute to the development of technologies that reduce the physical and psychological burden of taking medications," concludes Dr. Morita.

Beyond the specific micellar system of P407, this work demonstrates how experimentally grounded approaches can clarify interactions and physical mechanisms in complex soft materials-an essential step toward translating nanoscience into practical applications.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree On amendments to the Regulations on military service by citizens of Ukraine in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which, in particular, allows persons over 60 to serve in military service under a contract for a period of one year with the right to extend.

"With persons over 60 years of age who, during martial law in accordance with Part 10 of Article 20 of the Law of Ukraine On military duty and military service, are accepted for military service under a contract  for a period of one year," according to the text of the decree.

The decree also regulates the process of enlisting such persons in the army.

In addition, the decree regulates the legal status of cadets, students, adjuncts and doctoral students of higher military educational institutions, military educational units of higher education institutions (scientific institutions in the system of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine).

The text of decree No. 108/2026 is published on the website of the head of state.
Most registered nurses who recently left hospital employment are motivated to return to health care work-and safe nurse staffing levels is the top factor that would bring them back, according to new research from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing's Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research (CHOPR).

Published in JAMA Network Open, the study analyzed data from 4,043 actively licensed registered nurses who left direct care hospital positions within the last five years. Among them, 8% were employed outside health care, 36% were unemployed, and 56% were retired.

Most unemployed nurses had searched for health care work within the past year and said they were likely to return to nursing. One-quarter of nurses working outside health care said they had also searched for nursing positions recently.

Adequate staffing emerged as the top factor that nurses said would increase their likelihood of returning to nursing work. "Unsafe staffing drives nurses away from hospital employment  and adequate staffing is the key to bringing them back," said lead-author Karen B. Lasater, PhD, RN, FAAN, the Jessie M. Scott Term Chair in Nursing and Health Policy, Associate Professor in the Department of Biobehavioral Health Sciences and CHOPR Associate Director. "The problem and the solution are the same. High nurse turnover is a solvable crisis, because the reasons nurses leave are the same reasons they would return, if addressed."

Another key factor included flexible scheduling options. "Nurses are often locked into rigid shift schedules that limit their ability to transition between shifts or chose different work blocks," said senior author K. Jane Muir, PhD RN, FNP-BC, Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Community Health. "Hospitals can reattract an existing nurse workforce by reconsidering these arrangements to remain competitive."

The study also revealed that over one-third of retired nurses (37%) left earlier than planned, despite 90% being satisfied with nursing as a career. "The findings suggest premature workforce exits are driven by modifiable organizational issues, not problems with the profession itself," said coauthor Matthew D. McHugh, PhD, JD, RN, CRNP, FAAN, the Independence Chair for Nursing Education, Professor of Nursing and CHOPR Director. "Warnings about nursing shortages should be treated with caution given the existence of an untapped latent labor force willing to work at the bedside if working conditions were better."
AI tools promise faster, cheaper manuscript editing for global researchers, but new evidence shows they may introduce hidden risks that could reshape equity in scientific publishing.

Study: Does ChatGPT enhance equity for global health publications? Copyediting by ChatGPT compared to Grammarly and a human editor. Image credit: Maxx-Studio/Shutterstock.com

A recent PLOS ONE study, based on a small, preliminary case comparison, evaluated the copyediting quality of U-M GPT , Grammarly, and a human editor on two draft research papers. ChatGPT made three times as many corrections as a human editor but was less precise, raising questions about whether artificial intelligence ( AI ) can truly enhance equity in academic publishing and under what conditions it may help or hinder researchers.

Language Barrier in Academic Publishing

English dominates academic publishing, yet most researchers worldwide speak it as a second language. Non-native English speakers spend up to 51% more time writing papers than native speakers, yet still face rejection due to grammar issues. Professional editing could help, but it is prohibitively expensive.

Often, professional editing services can cost nearly half an early-career researcher's annual salary in countries like Colombia. This could be why researchers from non-English-speaking countries remain severely underrepresented in the academic literature and why language has been described as a structural source of power imbalance in global science.

AI tools have been perceived to bridge this disparity. Although basic grammar checkers, including Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and Grammarly, have been available for years, large language models ( LLMs ), such as ChatGPT, offer new possibilities for more sophisticated editing support. However, it is imperative to assess the efficacy and accuracy of these models, as well as the new barriers they may introduce, including technical skill requirements and ethical concerns.

Early research yielded mixed results: one study found that ChatGPT provided helpful grammar corrections for non-native English writers, while another contradicted this, with some authors reporting that AI edits sometimes over-polish writing without improving clarity.

Copyediting Potential of LLMs Compared to Grammarly and a Human Editor

The current study defined copyediting as correcting grammar, spelling, syntax, and punctuation; ensuring proper terminology and conventions; checking structure, organization, and clarity; and improving readability, flow, and style. It compared corrections made by U-M GPT , a secure, University of Michigan-hosted generative AI tool, with those made by Grammarly and a human copyeditor on draft manuscripts written by Ugandan sexual and reproductive health researchers.

Two Ugandan researchers provided written approval for the use of their draft manuscripts on reproductive health. Both papers were later published in peer-reviewed journals. The key copyediting goal was to help Ugandan researchers get accepted for peer review.

The authors evaluated the introduction, methods, results, and discussion sections of both papers, as well as selected tables. In total, only eight paragraphs and two tables were analyzed, and a single comprehensive prompt was used to test real-world feasibility. A sensitivity analysis was conducted to identify potential limitations of this approach.

The free web-based version of Grammarly was used, which does not sell user data and restricts access to uploaded text to users only. Grammarly corrections were generated for an expert audience, a formal tone, and a general writing domain. Texts were submitted to U-M GPT one paragraph or table at a time, and the corrections generated were analyzed. A professional copyeditor from the CIRHT/PREPSS training program provided human corrections with access to the full manuscripts, unlike the AI tools that evaluated isolated excerpts.

The researchers classified corrections from the three editors, using fewer sentence-level categories than previous studies. They noted that U-M GPT sometimes removed key information, such as references, which they tracked separately because these deletions posed risks to meaning and accuracy. The authors also acknowledged that classification of edits was performed by an internal research team, which may have unintentionally introduced bias in the assessment of edit quality.

AI Tools Were Quick but Lacked Human Editing Efficiency

The human copyeditor required 3.75 and 4 hours to edit Papers 1 and 2, respectively. In contrast, U-M GPT generated corrections nearly instantaneously. However, creating a track changes document for each paper with U-M GPT required approximately 30 minutes. Grammarly also generated corrections within seconds, prompting users to accept or reject changes one at a time, a process that took approximately 5 minutes.

Only the human copyeditor could correct both text and tables. U-M GPT suggested pasting table content into the chat, but the researchers found this difficult and impractical. Grammarly does not allow table uploads.

It must be noted that U-M GPT prompted about three times as many corrections as the human editor and roughly ten times as many as Grammarly. The scope of corrections varied by editor. For instance, Grammarly corrected only spelling and grammar, while U-M GPT flagged errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, spacing, and capitalization. In contrast, the human editor corrected grammar, punctuation, spacing, and capitalization, and flagged unclear text rather than attempting to rewrite passages whose meaning was ambiguous, allowing authors to clarify intent themselves.

For readability, U-M GPT yielded the most changes but showed the poorest judgment. Of its 83 revisions, only 61% actually improved the text, while 14% made it worse and 24% had no effect. Grammarly made just five readability corrections, two provided improvements, and three had no real impact. The human editor made 21 corrections: 90% improved the text, one was neutral, and one made it worse.

U-M GPT also deleted important content from one paper, including citations and a table reference, raising concerns that authors, particularly those less confident in English writing, might accept harmful edits uncritically.

Conclusions

The current study highlighted a fundamental difficulty in using AI for academic editing, particularly regarding quality. While U-M GPT generated three times more corrections than a human editor, only 61% actually improved the text. Even though this technology is fast and inexpensive, it introduces risks of deleting key information, making questionable revisions, and potentially blocking content.

The promise of AI -enhanced equity in academic publishing remains uncertain. In addition to quality concerns, the study emphasized issues of data privacy, the environmental costs of large language models, and the need for prompt-engineering skills, meaning the ability to carefully design AI instructions that may themselves create new inequities.

As these tools evolve, researchers need larger studies across diverse manuscript types to understand when AI editing helps and when it hinders. For now, authors using AI editing tools should proceed with caution, because the goal is not rapid editing but access to editing that genuinely improves research communication while preserving author voice, meaning, and scholarly independence.

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Researchers have uncovered the pivotal role of a previously overlooked protein in the development of the serious illness.

Hypertension in the lungs is a relatively rare but very serious disease that is usually fatal within two years if left untreated. Current therapies can slow down its progression, but no cure exists. Research teams from Bochum and Bonn are shedding light on the underlying mechanisms of the disease, and have discovered a previously unrecognized factor in its development: the protein beta arrestin 1. The teams have shown that this protein plays an important role in transporting signaling molecules involved in regulating blood vessel diameter. The researchers report their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) from February 9, 2026.

Narrowing of the blood vessels in the lung is the most important cause of pulmonary hypertension, as narrowed vessels reduce the space available for blood flow, causing pressure to rise. The acute regulation of vessel diameter works like this: Endothelial cells lining the blood vessels release nitric oxide (NO). NO diffuses into the surrounding smooth muscle cells and activates soluble guanylate cyclase (sGC). This in turn aids in the formation of cGMP, which leads to the relaxation of the muscle cells, by reducing intracellular calcium concentration.

At first glance, the beta arrestin protein has nothing to do with these processes." Professor Daniela Wenzel, Chair of the Department of Systems Physiology, Ruhr University Bochum

The protein, which exists in variants 1 and 2, is known for inhibiting G proteins. "But beta arrestin can do much more," says Wenzel. "It is also a scaffold protein that connects to other signaling molecules and helps guide them to where they need to be in the cell."

What determines vessel diameter

The researchers from Bochum and Bonn wanted to know whether beta arrestin also plays a role in vessel diameter regulation. To find out, they conducted various experiments with genetically modified mice lacking a specific beta arrestin subtype. Do their lung vessels respond to the relaxation factor NO similarly to those of unmodified wild-type mice?

The result: Mice without beta arrestin 2 do not differ from the wild type. In contrast, mice without beta arrestin 1 have pulmonary hypertension. Upon NO administration, their lung vessels did not dilate to the same extent as those in the other groups.

The key to the signal

"It is clear that beta arrestin 1 is involved in the development of pulmonary hypertension," concludes Dr. Alexander Seidinger, one of the study's first authors. "And, of course, we wanted to know the underlying mechanism." Further experiments showed that the key lies in the activity of the soluble guanylate cyclase. Its activation requires a heme with an iron molecule at the center. This iron molecule must be in a divalent state for the mechanism to function.

"We were able to demonstrate that beta arrestin 1 physically binds to soluble guanylate cyclase," reports Seidinger. Other experiments revealed that beta arrestin 1 helps transport an enzyme to the heme of the soluble guanylate cyclase. That enzyme reduces the heme if it is oxidized. "This resensitizes the guanylate cyclase to NO," Seidinger explains.

"This discovery opens up a lot of questions," says Professor Bernd Fleischmann, Chair of the Institute of Physiology I at Bonn University and University Hospital Bonn. Could there be a genetic mutation in patients with pulmonary hypertension that affects beta arrestin 1? "In the future, we might be able to develop an activator for beta arrestin 1 potentially leading to more effective treatments for pulmonary hypertension."

Funding

The work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (funding reference 214362475 / GRK1873/2), the Dr. Georg E. and Marianne Kosing Foundation and the Protein Research Unit Ruhr within Europe (PURE); funded by the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Research NRW (funding reference 233-1.08.03.03-03168079) and the Center for Protein Diagnostics (PRODI); and financed by the Ministry of Culture and Science NRW (funding reference 111.08.03.05-133974).
Researchers at Abo Akademi University have identified a new molecular change in patients with colorectal cancer and developed a genetic disease model that forms tumors in the large intestine, resembling those seen in patients. This novel model helps scientists better understand how the disease develops and supports the search for new treatments.



Colorectal cancer is becoming more common in younger people. To better understand the disease and develop effective treatments, researchers need models that closely resemble colorectal cancer in patients. Many existing models have limitations, for example, they include the use of carcinogens, developing tumors outside the large intestine, or they take a long time to develop.

Colonic epithelial cells form the protective barrier, separating the inside of the intestinal tube from the rest of the body. These cells divide at the highest rate of all cells in the body and completely renew the epithelial layer in 3-5 days. Colorectal cancer usually initiates when the colonic epithelial cells lose control over their normal rate of cell division partly due to changes in genes regulating cell division, such as the Adenomatous Polyposis Coli (Apc) gene.

Significant findings in previous studies from the research group have shown that a structural protein called keratin 8 protects the colonic epithelial cells from damage and inflammation. Keratin 8 is part of the cellular filament support system i.e. cytoskeleton and is essential for normal and healthy rate of cell division in the colon.

Our new study identifies that keratin 8 levels are decreased in patients with colorectal cancer and the new model with low keratin 8 and Apc, resembles patients with colorectal cancer in several ways." Mina Tayyab, doctoral researcher from the Biosciences and Drug Research program, Abo Akademi University

In the new disease model, researchers reduced the levels of keratin 8 and Apc selectively in cells lining the colon (colonic epithelium). Results show multiple tumors quickly forming in the lower (distal) part of the colon. This resembles colorectal cancer in patients, where tumors most often develop in the left or in the lower part of the colon. The tumors show key features and active signaling events that are typical of cancer development in epithelial cells. Decreasing keratin 8 levels alone lead to several tumor-promoting changes, including cells beginning to divide more and asymmetrically, losing their normal structure and orientation within the tissue.

In addition to the tumor-suppressive role of keratin 8 in the lower colon, the group identified that keratin 8 has a different role in the upper, or proximal part of colon, where keratin 8 protects from epithelial damage and inflammation.

"The new model, thus, not only reflects better the colonic epithelium in patients with colon cancer but also identifies different functions of keratin 8 in the proximal and distal colon. In addition, the model can be used for drug testing in colorectal cancer and provides a foundation for studying how keratin 8 protects different parts of the colon," concludes Tayyab.

The Epithelial biology lab research group, led by Diana Toivola, Assistant Professor in cell biology at Abo Akademi University, conducted the study in collaboration with Professor Yatrik M. Shah at the University of Michigan. The research was funded by the Academy of Finland, InFLAMES Flagship Programme, Abo Akademi University Center of Excellence in Cellular Mechanostasis and Solutions for Health, National Institutes Health (NIH) as well as additional funding listed in the study.

The research article has been published in the scientific journal of Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology on 24.12.2025.
Just three pharmacy benefit managers (PBM) dominate retail prescriptions in Medicare Part D and Medicaid managed care across much of the country, with markets in in nearly every state considered highly concentrated for at least one program, according to a new study from the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics.

The study, published Feb. 6 in JAMA Health Forum, provides one of the most detailed examinations to date of PBM competition within states. Based on a federal antitrust index, the authors find:

40 states have highly concentrated PBM markets within Part D, and 37 states have highly concentrated Medicaid managed care markets.

Both Part D and Medicaid managed care PBM markets are highly concentrated in 31 states. This includes 10 states that also have highly concentrated commercial insurance markets.

93% of Medicaid managed care prescriptions and 75% of all Part D prescriptions are filled in states where those PBM markets are highly concentrated.

The study comes as policymakers and regulators continue to scrutinize industry practices over concerns about how these middlemen contribute to higher drug costs, pharmacy closures and restricted patient access to medicines. The spending package passed by Congress earlier this week includes new restrictions on industry practices, and states have been increasing regulation of PBMs in recent years.

When a few PBMs dominate a market, they hold outsized power over how much patients pay for drugs, where they can fill their prescriptions and whether their essential medications are covered." Dima Mazen Qato, lead author, senior scholar at the Schaeffer Center and the Hygeia Centennial Chair, USC Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

"These findings can guide federal and state policies to improve PBM accountability and transparency, particularly in Medicare Part D and Medicaid. They can also inform ongoing efforts to address PBM market concentration, including recently enacted legislation, new regulatory proposals, and federal enforcement actions focused on PBM conduct."
Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure share a genetic link, new research from the University of Surrey, UK and the Universite de Lille, France shows. People with one condition are more likely to develop the other.

Within this large-scale study, scientists examined genetic data linked to type 2 diabetes and blood pressure regulation. Both conditions frequently occur in the same individual, which significantly increases the risk and severity of major health complications, including cardiovascular and metabolic disease.



Professor Inga Prokopenko, senior lead author and Head of Statistical Multi-Omics at the University of Surrey, said:



"Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure often occur together and are usually thought of as part of the same overall health risk. What we found is that they can develop together for several different biological reasons, and that some people carry genetic factors that increase their likelihood of having both conditions.



"Understanding this shared genetic risk helps us get closer to identifying who is more vulnerable and why. In the long term, this could support earlier identification of people at higher risk and lead to more personalized approaches to prevention and care."



Scientists analyzed over 1,300 genetic variants associated with type 2 diabetes and blood pressure. The team identified five clusters of DNA variants related to metabolic syndrome, impaired pancreatic beta-cell function, higher overall adiposity and vascular dysfunction, alongside a cluster showing an inverse pattern of diabetes and blood-pressure risk, which helped develop partitioned genetic scores.



These scores were then applied to data from over 450,000 participants from the UK Biobank. Scientists found that people who ranked highly on scores linked to genes in the metabolic syndrome and reduced beta cell-function cluster had a substantially higher risk of developing both type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. The research team believes that the comorbidity risk could be identified early, from the first diagnosis of a patient with either diabetes or high blood pressure, enabling a patient to get more personalised care.



Dr Vincent Pascat, first author at the Universite de Lille (EGID, Inserm/CNRS, Institut Pasteur de Lille), added:



"Unlike many clinical risk factors that evolve with age or lifestyle, genetic risk is inherited and remains stable throughout the life course. Genetic information could be integrated into precision medicine approaches, helping clinicians at the first diagnosis of diabetes or hypertension to anticipate future comorbidity and tailor monitoring accordingly."



Dr Zhanna Balkhiyarova, co-author at the University of Surrey, said:



"We brought together evidence from large genetic studies and multiomic resources to separate shared risk into interpretable mechanisms. This helps explain why people can arrive at the same clinical outcome, diabetes with high blood pressure, through different biological routes."



Professor Philippe Froguel, senior author at the Universite de Lille and Imperial College London, commented:



"These results reinforce the need to treat cardiometabolic comorbidity as mechanistically heterogeneous. Genetics can help us disentangle that complexity and supports a precision-health framework in which prevention and management are informed by the dominant underlying biology."



Professor Patricia Munroe, senior author at Queen Mary University of London, added:



"High blood pressure and type 2 diabetes share genetic architecture, but this work shows that the shared component is not uniform. A partitioned approach improves interpretability and has the potential to complement existing clinical tools by identifying subgroups with meaningfully different risk profiles."



This study was published in Nature Communications.
Energy, deregulation on cards during Netanyahu-Trump meeting: WH Press Secy

Last Updated: February 11, 2026, 04:30 IST

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Washington DC [US], February 11 (ANI): White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that U.S. President Donald Trump will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The discussion is expected to focus on energy issues and deregulation.During a press briefing, Leavitt also announced Trumps rescission of the 2009 Obama-era endangerment finding.She said, The President will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a bilateral meeting. The remainder of the week will be focused on energy and deregulation. On Thursday, President Trump will be joined by Administrator Lee Zeldin to formalise the rescission of the 2009 Obama-era endangerment finding. This will be the largest deregulatory action in American history, and it will save the American people $1.3 trillion in crushing regulations."Heading to Washington on Tuesday to meet Trump, Netanyahu said he planned to convey Israels position on US nuclear talks with Tehran during the meeting, The Times of Israel reported.Before boarding Wing of Zion for his flight, Netanyahu told reporters that he would present to the president our approach around our principles on the negotiations."He added that these principles are important not only for Israel, but for every country around the world that wants peace and security," as per The Times of Israel.Trumps administration is set to finalise on Thursday its repeal of a foundational scientific determination that underpins the US governments authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, France 24 reported.The Environmental Protection Agency last summer proposed reversing the Endangerment Finding of 2009, in what was seen as a major blow to climate action in the worlds biggest historic contributor of planet-warming pollution, as per France 24.The finding under the then-President Barack Obama concluded that six greenhouse gases  including carbon dioxide and methane  endanger public health and welfare by driving climate change, France 24 reported.That determination flowed from a 2007 Supreme Court decision, Massachusetts v. EPA, which ruled that greenhouse gases qualify as pollutants under the Clean Air Act and directed the EPA to determine whether they pose a danger to public health and welfare. (ANI)

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'Perform or make way for others,' Rahul warns new DCC chiefs

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 22:30 IST

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New Delhi, Feb 10 (PTI) Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday advised the newly-appointed district party presidents to perform well in their organisational roles or be prepared to make way for others.

Addressing a meeting of around 200 new chiefs of district Congress units across six states, Gandhi said accountability in party leadership roles was important and will be fixed.

Senior leaders who attended the meeting said Gandhi placed a huge premium on work ethics and culture, asking the district unit presidents to ensure that the organisation was strengthened, partys message taken to people and organisational discipline maintained.

One participant said Rahuls message was clear: No position is permanent and accountability will be fixed." The meeting saw participation from District Congress Committees (DCC) in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan.

The DCCs have been appointed in states where the partys organisational rejuvenation plan  Srijan Abhiyan  has concluded.

Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, along with senior party leaders, attended the DCC Presidents Training Programme under the Sangathan Srijan Abhiyan, strengthening the partys organisational framework.

Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel were also present at the meeting. PTI SKC SKC RUK RUK

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Police deny reports of attempt to abduct girl student from outside school

Last Updated: February 11, 2026, 00:15 IST

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Dehradun, Feb 10 (PTI) Uttarakhand Police on Tuesday denied reports that a burqa-clad man attempted to abduct a girl student from outside a prominent school in the city.

Dehradun City Superintendent of Police Pramod Kumar said that during the investigation, this was found to be false and no such incident occurred. PTI DPT MNK MNK

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Potash exploration project approved: Barinder Goyal

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 22:30 IST

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Chandigarh, Feb 10 (PTI) Punjab Cabinet minister Barinder Kumar Goyal on Tuesday said a project-sanctioning committee of the National Mineral Exploration and Development Trust, Ministry of Mines, has approved a new exploration project titled reconnaissance survey G-4 for potash in Choharianwali area Fazilka in Punjab.

Goyal, the Mines and Geology Minister, said the project will be carried out by Mineral Exploration and Consultancy Ltd across 48 sq km with an approved outlay of Rs 19.03 crore and a completion period of 21 months, according to an official release.

He said as per the approved plan, the project will be reviewed after nine months.

Last month, the minister had flagged the issue of potash exploration in Punjab during the three-day Rashtriya Khanij Chintan Shivir-2026 at Gandhinagar in Gujarat.

He highlighted the delineation of promising potash resources in Fazilka district and called for expeditious progress on drilling and geological mapping works during the 2025-26 field season.

The minister urged central agencies to accord priority to potash exploration in Punjab, citing its direct linkage with national food security and farmer welfare.

He stressed the need for timely action to develop a credible mineral inventory, particularly in evaporite basin areas falling within the state.

Following the Punjab governments request for expansion of exploration coverage, the Geological Survey of India recently proposed a reconnaissance survey for potash in Kera Khera Block and Saiyadwala Block of Fazilka district during the 2026-27 field season, along with preliminary exploration in Kandhwala Ramsra Block. PTI CHS TRB

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For the first time, a Ukrainian agency co-founder will serve on the jury of one of the worlds most prestigious PR awards, alongside communications leaders from Amazon, Uber, P&G, and other global brands.

This week marks the start of the judging phase for one of the most influential global communications awards  the PRWeek Global Awards. Anna Lachykhina, co-founder of PR and GR agency Good Politics and Chair of the Ukrainian Lobbying Association, is the sole representative from Ukraine on the prestigious international jury for the PRWeek Global Awards 2026.

The jury also features communications leaders from Uber, Shell, P&G, and other leading global brands.

The international jury, chaired by Stuart Jackson, Amazons Director of International Stores & Corporate Communications, will assess entries in three key categories:

Campaigns  recognizing the best strategies and their execution

 recognizing the best strategies and their execution Global PR  for projects with international reach

 for projects with international reach People Teams and Agencies  honoring the worlds leading professionals

Engaging Ukrainian expertise in evaluating global PR standards is, above all, a recognition of the maturity of our market. This is not only a personal achievement, but also proof that Ukrainian experience is an integral part of the global professional community and meets the highest international standards, says Anna Lachykhina.

The shortlist for the PRWeek Global Awards 2026 will be announced in March, with the winners revealed at the awards ceremony in London, UK, in May 2026.

Anna Lachykhina has over 10 years of experience in strategic communications and government relations in Ukraine and Canada. She has served as Communications Advisor to the Minister of Finance of Ukraine and to the Chair of the International Trade Committee in the House of Commons of Canada. She teaches Crisis Communications and Information Warfare at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. As co-founder and Chair of the Ukrainian Lobbying Association, she actively advocates for a transparent and ethical lobbying sector in Ukraine.

The PRWeek Global Awards are among the most prestigious international recognitions in the PR industry. They were established by the industry-leading publication PRWeek, which has a 40-year history and is part of the Haymarket Media Group. PRWeek is a leading source of news and analysis on public relations for the US, the UK, and the Middle East. For decades, the PRWeek Global Awards have set the gold standard for the profession. Winners of the 2025 awards included campaigns from brands such as Mastercard, Vodafone, Hellmanns, nuud, and many others.
Rajkot silver theft: Police recover another 40 kg, one more held

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 22:00 IST

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Ahmedabad, Feb 10 (PTI) The crime branch of Ahmedabad police has recovered another 40 kg of silver and arrested one more accused in connection with the theft of 120 kg of silver jewellery worth about Rs 1 crore from a house in Rajkot, officials said on Tuesday.

The crime branch has so far recovered 80 kg of the stolen booty in two operations while one accused is still absconding, it said in a statement.

Mangusingh Rathore was apprehended late Monday night near Mango Cinema in Naroda following a search operation, officials said.

A search of Rathores residence led to the recovery of 40 kg of silver, including 30 kg of original silver jewellery and 10 kg of silver in melted form.

Police also seized a furnace and other tools allegedly used to melt the stolen jewellery to destroy their original identity.

Earlier, police had arrested Pradeep Prajapati and recovered 40 kg of silver from his possession in the same case.

The theft had taken place from a residential area in Rajkot city on February 4.

Silver prices have soared significantly over the last one year. PTI PJT KRK

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News agency-feeds Rajkot silver theft: Police recover another 40 kg, one more held

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Seychelles President Herminie departs after 'fruitful' India visit

Last Updated: February 11, 2026, 01:30 IST

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New Delhi [India], February 11 (ANI): Seychelles President Patrick Herminie departed for home after concluding a successful visit in India.During his visit, he was seen off at the airport by Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare and for Chemicals and Fertilisers, Anupriya S. Patel. The visit marked the 50th anniversary of the India-Seychelles partnership.Spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, Randhir Jaiswal, in a post on X said, A fruitful and productive visit concludes. After a successful visit, President Dr. Patrick Herminie has left for Seychelles. He was seen off at the airport by Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare & for Chemicals and Fertilizers Anupriya S Patel. The visit came in the 50th anniversary of India-Seychelles partnership and witnessed several high quality outcomes in the fields of fintech, healthcare, defence and innovation among others."

A fruitful and productive visit concludesAfter a successful visit, President Dr. Patrick Herminie has left for Seychelles. He was seen off at the airport by Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare & for Chemicals and Fertilizers @AnupriyaSPatel. The visit came in the pic.twitter.com/MecaavKWwF  Randhir Jaiswal (@MEAIndia) February 10, 2026

Earlier on Tuesday, Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh called on Seychelles Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Diaspora, Barry Faure and Chief of Defence Forces of the Seychelles Defence Forces, Major General Michael Anselme Marc Rosette, in the national capital, with both sides agreeing to further strengthen defence and security cooperation.During the meeting, the two sides reviewed the growing defence and security collaboration between India and Seychelles and reaffirmed their shared commitment to contributing towards peace, stability, and security in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).According to a press release, both sides welcomed the upcoming joint military exercise LAMITYE-2026 between the Indian Defence Forces and the Seychelles Defence Forces, as well as ongoing capacity-building initiatives.They agreed to further enhance the scope and depth of these engagements.Discussions also covered cooperation in training, hydrography, maritime security, as well as ships and aircrafts visits and defence delegation exchanges.The Defence Secretary also welcomed Seychelles participation in the upcoming International Fleet Review and the 2026 edition of Exercise Milan, scheduled to be held in Visakhapatnam next week.India & Seychelles reaffirmed their shared commitment to enhancing bilateral engagement and contributing towards peace, stability, and security in the Indian Ocean Region," the statement read.The two sides also exchanged views on MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions), Indias vision for inclusive, cooperative, and sustainable security and growth, and underlined the importance of a collaborative approach to addressing shared maritime challenges, capacity building, and development partnerships. (ANI)

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News agency-feeds Seychelles President Herminie departs after 'fruitful' India visit

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Southern Command chief reviews Army's 'Exercise Rudra Shakti' at Pokhran Ranges

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 22:00 IST

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Pune, Feb 10 (PTI) Lieutenant General Dhiraj Seth, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Southern Command, on Tuesday reviewed an all-arms manoeuvre exercise with live firing conducted by the Armys Rudra Brigade at the Pokhran Field Firing Ranges in Rajasthan.

Exercise Rudra Shakti 2026 validated the Indian Armys capability to undertake high-intensity, integrated operations in the evolving battlefield environments, said a defence release in Pune where the Southern Command is headquartered.

Rudra Shakti" was conducted as a follow-up to Exercise Akhand Prahar", which had earlier validated the Rudra Brigade and new operational concepts in the desert sector.

The live firing exercise at Pokhran focused on further enhancing combat integration and operational effectiveness through synchronized employment of mechanized forces, artillery, air defence units, Army Aviation assets, including ALH-WSI and Apache helicopters, along with Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) and Counter-UAS capabilities, said the release.

The exercise demonstrated seamless synergy across land, air and digital domains, it maintained.

During the review, Lieutenant General Seth interacted with troops and commended all ranks for their exemplary training standards, professionalism and operational preparedness, while lauding their ability to execute complex missions with speed, precision and cohesion, it said.

Exercise Rudra Shakti stands as testimony to the Indian Armys ongoing transformation, where organizational innovation, tactical evolution and technological integration are advancing together, according to the release.

It reaffirms the Armys unwavering commitment to remain mission-ready, technologically empowered and future-ready to meet emerging security challenges, it added. PTI SPK RSY

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VP Radhakrishnan attends Prez Murmu's banquet hosted for Seychelles President

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 06:15 IST

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New Delhi [India], February 10 (ANI): Vice-President CP Radhakrishnan attended the banquet hosted by President Droupadi Murmu in honour of Patrick Herminie, President of Seychelles, at Rashtrapati Bhavan.President Droupadi Murmu on Monday received Seychelles President Patrick Herminie at Rashtrapati Bhavan and hosted a banquet in his honour.

Vice-President Shri C. P. Radhakrishnan attended the banquet hosted by Honble President Smt. Droupadi Murmu in honour of H.E. Dr. Patrick Herminie, President of the Republic of Seychelles, at Rashtrapati Bhavan today. pic.twitter.com/6rCym9RsRw Vice-President of India (@VPIndia) February 9, 2026

During the discussions, the two leaders underscored the immense potential to further deepen bilateral cooperation, with President Murmu noting that the newly adopted India-Seychelles Joint Vision for Sustainability, Economic Growth and Security through Enhanced Linkages (SESEL)" provides a strong foundation for collaboration in the years ahead.Welcoming President Herminie on his first State visit to India, President Murmu noted that India-Seychelles relations are rooted in mutual trust, respect, and a shared commitment to democracy and pluralism.She emphasised the deep cultural links and historical connections between the two nations, noting that the Indian Ocean waves bind the peoples of both countries.President Droupadi Murmu received President Patrick Herminie of Seychelles at Rashtrapati Bhavan and hosted a banquet in his honour. The two leaders agreed that there is immense potential to further deepen the bilateral cooperation and that the India-Seychelles Joint Vision for Sustainability, Economic Growth and Security through Enhanced Linkages" will provide a strong foundation for cooperation in the years ahead," the Rashtrapati Bhavan stated in a post on X.President Murmu said that the visit is particularly significant as Seychelles celebrates 50 years of independence, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of India-Seychelles diplomatic relations.She added that Seychelles holds a key place in Indias MAHASAGAR Vision, which aims to strengthen cooperation through trade for development, capacity building, and mutual security. India remains ever ready to meet Seychelles developmental and security needs," she affirmed.President Murmu expressed confidence that the Special Economic Package announced during the visit will provide fresh momentum to India-Seychelles cooperation across priority sectors, including health, infrastructure, education, defence, and capacity building. (ANI)

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Woman lawyer, released on bail in drug case, found dead at home

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 22:00 IST

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Alappuzha (Kerala), Feb 10 (PTI) A woman lawyer, who was on bail in a narcotic case, was found dead at her residence in this coastal district of Kerala on Tuesday, police said.

The deceased was identified as Sathyamol, a 46-year-old native of Ambalappuzha.

Police said she and her son had earlier been arrested in a narcotic case and were released from the prison on bail recently.

Her son, who was a co-accused in the case, found her dead on the terrace of their house.

We can ascertain the exact cause of the death after receiving the post-mortem report," a police officer said.

The deceased and her son had been held by excise and police personnel following the recovery of banned drugs from their vehicle and residence last year.

A case has been registered following her death, and an investigation is underway into all aspects of the incident, police added. PTI LGK SA

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Fractal Analytics IPO Day 2: Subscription Remains Muted; Should You Apply? Price, GMP, Recommendations

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 17:52 IST

Unlisted shares of Fractal Analytics Ltd trade at Rs 908 apiece in the grey market, which is a 0.89% premium over the upper IPO price of Rs 900, indicating a subdued listing.

Fractal Analytics IPO: Check subscription status, GMP today.

Fractal Analytics IPO: The initial public offering (IPO) of Fractal Analytics Ltd is witnessing its second day of bidding on Tuesday, February 10. The Rs 2,833.9-crore IPO, whose price band has been fixed in the range of Rs 857 to Rs 900 apiece, will be closed on February 11. Till 5:50 pm on the second day of bidding on Tuesday, the IPO has got a muted 0.20x subscription, receiving bids for 36,40,320 shares as against 1,85,79,360 shares on offer.

Its retail category got a 0.60x subscription, while its non-institutional investor (NII) quota got a 0.27x subscription.

Fractal Analytics IPO GMP Today

According to market observers, unlisted shares of Fractal Analytics Ltd were trading at Rs 908 apiece in the grey market, which is a 0.89 per cent premium over the upper IPO price of Rs 900. It indicates a subdued listing. Its listing will take place on February 16, Monday.

The GMP had stood at 1.44% on the first day of the IPO on Monday.

The GMP is based on market sentiments and keeps changing. Grey market premium indicates investors readiness to pay more than the issue price.

Fractal Analytics IPO: What Should Investors Do? Heres What Brokerages Say

Sr. No. Brokerage House Recommendation 1 Anand Rathi Ltd. Subscribe for long term 2 BP Wealth Ltd. Subscribe for long term 3 SMIFS Ltd. Subscribe for long term 4 Sushil Finance Ltd. Subscribe for long term 5 Geojit Financial Subscribe for long term 6 Hem Securities Subscribe for long term 7 Master Trust Subscribe for long term 8 Kunvarji Wealth Solutions Ltd. Subscribe for long term 9 Lakshmishree Securities Ltd. Subscribe for long term 10 Arihant Capital Market Ltd. Subscribe 11 Ventura Securities Ltd. Subscribe 12 GEPL Capital Ltd. Subscribe 13 Swastika Securities Ltd. Subscribe 14 Stoxbox Subscribe

ICICI Direct in its report said, Fractal is building a comprehensive suite of AI solutions and products. However, when we benchmark its AI investments vs. peers on objective parameters such as R&D intensity, capex intensity, patent filings and AI revenue, Fractal ranks similar to its IT services peers, and lower vs. global AI and platform peers. Its revenue per employee and cost per employee metrics are also similar to its pure-play data analytics peer, LatentView Analytics, suggesting the underlying service and solutions portfolio is similar."

Fractal has a comprehensive suite of AI solutions, including its enterprise agentic AI platform, Cogentiq, and AI products  Asper.ai, Kalaido.ai, Vaidya.ai and Qure.ai. The company began its foray into AI and IP creation as early as 2012 and accelerated new AI product development 2023 onwards. The company serves clients across CPGR, TMT, healthcare and life sciences (HLS), BFSI, and other industries.

Giving a subscribe rating to the IPO, BP Wealth in its note said, Fractal Analytics Limited (FAL), founded in 2000, is a globally recognised enterprise artificial intelligence company that partners with large global enterprises to deliver data-driven insights and enable better decision-making through end-to-end AI solutions. The company offers its full suite of AI capabilities across two segments. Firstly, Fractal.ai comprises AI services and products, primarily hosted on Cogentiq, its flagship agentic AI platform, which enables enterprises to accelerate product development and upgrades through a prebuilt suite of agents, tools, and connectors, supported by low-code capabilities and robust security, governance, auditability, and interoperability features. The second segment, Fractal Alpha, houses the companys AI businesses."

The company is well-positioned to capitalise on strong structural tailwinds in the global data, analytics, and AI (DAAI) market, which is witnessing rapid adoption as enterprises increasingly embed AI into core decision-making and operational processes, it added.

At the upper end of the price band of Rs. 900 per share, the company is trading at a P/E of 110.0x based on its FY26 annualized earnings. Given the companys positioning within a rapidly expanding AI market and its improving profitability profile, we recommend a Subscribe rating to the issue from a medium-to long-term perspective," it added.

Another brokerage firm Ventura also gave its subscribe rating to the IPO. It said, Fractals growth is driven by increasing enterprise adoption of AI-led decision intelligence and expanding deployment of generative AI solutions across client use cases. However, execution risks, evolving technology cycles, and competitive pressures in the global AI and analytics services market remain key considerations. Overall, Fractal Analytics is positioned as a scaled enterprise AI platform with diversified industry exposure, strong revenue momentum, and improving profitability metrics."

Financials

Fractals profitability improved materially in FY25. EBITDA increased to Rs 398 crore, with an EBITDA margin of 14.4%, compared to Rs 97.2 crore and 4.4% in FY24. Adjusted EBITDA stood at Rs 482.1 crore, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 17.4%. Profit after tax (PAT) for FY25 was Rs 220.6 crore, compared to a loss of Rs 54.7 crore in FY24, with a PAT margin of 8.0%, while adjusted PAT stood at Rs 347.8 crore, translating into an adjusted PAT margin of 12.6%.

Fractal Analytics Mobilises Rs 1,248 Crore From Anchor Investors

Artificial intelligence (AI) solutions provider Fractal Analytics on Friday garnered Rs 1,248.26 crore from anchor investors, days before the opening of its initial public offering (IPO). The anchor book saw broad-based participation from a mix of leading domestic and global institutional investors, reflecting robust demand for the issue.

Fractal Analytics IPO: More Details

Fractal has scaled down the size of its IPO from the Rs 4,900 crore it had initially proposed.

The revised offer comprises a fresh issue of equity shares worth up to Rs 1,023.5 crore and an offer for sale (OFS) of Rs 1,810.4 crore, taking the total issue size to Rs 2,833.9 crore.

In its draft papers filed in August, the company had planned to raise Rs 4,900 crore through the public issue.

Those selling shares in the OFS include Quinag Bidco Ltd, TPG Fett Holdings Pte. Ltd, Satya Kumari Remala Rao, Venkateswara Remala and GLM Family Trust.

Fractal plans to use the proceeds from fresh issue to invest in its subsidiary, Fractal USA, for pre-payment or repayment of its borrowings; buy laptops; set up new offices in India; invest in research and development; support sales and marketing under Fractal Alpha; fund acquisitions and other strategic initiatives; and for general corporate purposes.

According to the company, 75 per cent of the issue size has been reserved for qualified institutional buyers, 15 per for non-institutional investors and the remaining 10 per cent for retail investors.

Fractal, which was co-founded by Srikanth Velamakanni and Pranay Agrawal in 2000, supports large global enterprises across multiple industry verticals and business functions with data-driven insights and assists in decision-making through end-to-end AI solutions.

Backed by marquee investors like TPG, Apax, Gaja, Fractal is a leading pure play data and artificial intelligence company and has domain expertise spanning across consumer packaged goods & retail; technology, media and telecom; healthcare and life sciences and banking, financial services and insurance.

As per its industry report, it is uniquely placed among other industry players with active investments in expanding its AI and Gen AI software portfolio and R&D activities.

As on March 31, 2025, the firm served global companies which include Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Tesla.

Kotak Mahindra Capital Company, Morgan Stanley India Company, Axis Capital and Goldman Sachs (India) Securities have been appointed by Fractal to manage its maiden public issue.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 10:34 IST

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SC Calls Digital Fraud Of Over Rs 54,000 Crore 'Robbery', Asks Centre To Frame SoP

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PTI

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 11:09 IST

The Supreme Court calls Rs 54000 crore digital frauds robbery or 'dacoity', urging RBI, banks, DoT and Centre to create SOPs and compensation frameworks for digital arrest victims.

The top court also expressed grave concern over the "menace" of digital arrest scams and said banks must play a proactive role in preventing cyber-enabled fraud.

The Supreme Court on Monday described the siphoning of over Rs 54,000 crore by digital frauds as absolute robbery or dacoity" and asked the Centre to draft a standard operating procedure in consultation with stakeholders like the RBI, banks and the Department of Telecommunications to deal with such cases.

The top court also expressed grave concern over the menace" of digital arrest scams and said banks must play a proactive role in preventing cyber-enabled fraud.

A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and N V Anjaria observed that banks have a fiduciary responsibility to alert customers when unusual, large-scale transactions occur in accounts typically used for sending or receiving small amounts.

It said that when a retiree, who withdraws amounts in the range of Rs 10,000 or Rs 20,000, suddenly withdraws huge amounts, then the bank should issue an alert.

Observing that the amount siphoned off by digital fraud is more than the budgets of many small states, the top court noted that such offences may be due to either collusion by or the negligence of bank officials, and stressed the need for timely actions from the RBI and the banks.

It directed the CBI to identify digital arrest cases and asked the Gujarat and Delhi governments to accord sanction to the federal probe agency to proceed with the investigations in identified cases.

The Supreme Court also asked the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), and others to jointly hold a meeting to come up with a framework for providing compensation in digital arrest cases.

A pragmatic and liberal approach is needed to deal with the award of compensation to digital arrest victims, the top court said, and posted the plea for further hearing after four weeks. It asked the authorities to file fresh status reports before the next date of hearing.

At the outset, Attorney General R Venkataramani informed the bench that RBI has drafted a Standard Operating Procedure (SoP) for banks to deal with such cases and it, among other things, prescribes action by the banks where temporary debit holds can be placed to prevent cyber-enabled frauds.

Issuing a slew of fresh directions, the bench asked the Ministry of Home Affairs to formally adopt the RBIs SoP and issue directions for its implementation across the country.

Senior advocate N S Nappinai, appearing as an amicus curiae, said banks should be asked to issue alerts to customers about suspicious transactions, and AI tools can be used for this purpose.

If there is a business entity with crores of transactions, it may not raise suspicions. But there is a pensioner, who (generally) withdraws Rs 15,000-Rs 20,000; suddenly from his account, Rs 50 lakh, Rs 70 lakh, Rs 1 crore is being withdrawn, then why did your AI-operated tools in the bank not deem it fit to alarm him that this transaction is suspicious?" the bench posed.

The attorney general said that RBI will address the issue.

The problem is banks are more into business mode, and naturally so. And in doing that, what they are becoming, either innocently or connivingly, platforms through which there is a swift and seamless transmission of stolen proceeds of crime," the Supreme Court bench said.

Justice Bagchi said the MHAs report itself flagged that over Rs 52,000 crores have been misappropriated between April 2021 and November 2025 through cyber fraud.

These banks are becoming a liability. Banks should know that they are a trustee of the money, and they should not get overexcited with it. That trust should not be broken. The problem is these banks give loans to these fraudsters and then NCLT, NCLAT (comes into the picture when the fraudulent companies become embroiled in insolvency disputes) etc," the CJI said.

The remark was made when the attorney general told the court that mule bank accounts were detected while implementing measures put in place by the RBI.

On December 16, the bench asked the Centre to look into the suggestions put forward by the amicus curiae in ensuring compensation to victims of digital arrests, while voicing its concern over the enormous amounts taken out from the country by cyber criminals.

Digital arrest is a growing form of cybercrime in which fraudsters pose as law-enforcement officers, court officials or personnel from government agencies to intimidate victims through audio and video calls. They hold the victims hostage and put pressure on them to pay money.

On December 1, the top court asked the CBI to carry out a unified pan-India probe into digital arrest cases, and asked the RBI why it is not using artificial intelligence to trace and freeze bank accounts used by cyber criminals.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 11:09 IST

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Selling Old Gold? Here's Why You Never Get The Full Market Price

Curated By :

Translation Desk

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 17:45 IST

Experts suggest that those who bought jewellery from a local jeweller should consider selling it back to the same shop, as they are less likely to question its purity

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When you take old gold jewellery for resale, jewellers typically deduct 5-8% towards melting and wastage.

As gold prices surged in recent months, many individuals across the country rushed to cash in on their old jewellery and coins, only to discover that the amount offered by jewellers was significantly lower than the prevailing market rate.

Umesh Shukla, a resident of Kanpur, recently walked into a jewellery shop hoping to sell a ring and chain he had purchased around five years ago. Expecting to benefit from the price rise, he was instead told that the jeweller would buy it at 10-15% below the current rate. Disappointed, he chose not to sell. A similar experience was faced by Anurag in Delhi-NCR, who had bought a gold coin a decade ago. When he tried to sell it, he was offered nearly 5% less than the market price.

Their stories reflect a common reality faced by millions. Some people buy gold as an investment, while others purchase it for future security or family needs. When prices climb, investors see an opportunity to make a profit and others sell due to financial necessity. In both cases, however, most sellers end up receiving 5 to 10 per cent less than the quoted market rate.

Jewellery businessman Amit Soni from Kanpur and economist Sharad Kohli explain that the difference lies in the mathematics of buying and selling gold, which includes making charges, taxes, purity checks and jewellers margins.

Take the example of a purchase made five years ago. At the time, gold was priced between Rs 48,000 and Rs 49,000 per 10 grams. Buyers also paid making charges ranging from 12-20%, along with 3% GST on the gold and 5% GST on making charges. In one such instance, a 10-gram piece priced at Rs 48,000 attracted around Rs 8,640 in making charges and roughly Rs 1,699 as GST, taking the total cost to about Rs 58,340. While GST rates are fixed, making charges vary from one jeweller to another.

The loss becomes visible when the same jewellery is sold years later. Even if gold touches Rs 1,55,000 per 10 grams, jewellers typically deduct 5-8% towards melting and wastage. If 8% is deducted, that alone amounts to Rs 12,400. In addition, a margin of around 4-5% is applied, which can be another Rs 6,000 or more. In total, a seller may get about Rs 18,000 to Rs 20,000 less than the market value for 10 grams, even when the jewellery is hallmarked and pure. If the purity is found to be lower, the deduction can increase by another 10-15%.

Branded showrooms, however, tend to offer better buyback schemes, especially when the jewellery was originally purchased from them. In such cases, deductions for melting and wastage can be limited to 0-2%, and some brands even offer buyback at full prevailing rates. But if gold bought from a local jeweller is taken to a branded store, they may still apply deductions based on purity and processing costs.

Amit Soni points out that gold coins are generally a better option for investment compared to jewellery. Coins usually carry little to no making charges, often around 0-2%. At the time of gold resale, there is typically no major deduction except for a small margin. Many branded showrooms also offer a 100% buyback guarantee on coins.

Before finalising a purchase price for old gold, jewellers first check its purity and whether it carries a hallmark. Without a hallmark, sellers often face tougher bargaining because jewellers conduct their own purity tests. Branded stores usually rely on X-ray fluorescence technology to check purity, making the process more transparent than at smaller local outlets. While some companies also buy gold online and verify it in laboratories, questions have been raised in certain cases, making caution advisable.

Experts suggest that those who bought jewellery from a local jeweller should consider selling it back to the same shop, as they are less likely to question its purity. If a jeweller offers a lower rate, it is wise to get the gold checked at another shop to understand its true purity before making a decision. Buying hallmarked jewellery and keeping the bill safe can also help avoid disputes later. Branded showrooms are often considered more transparent, and if the gold was purchased from them, their buyback schemes may be more beneficial.

Economist Sharad Kohli believes that for pure investment purposes, gold Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) are a better alternative. He says ETFs allow investors to buy and sell gold at the base market rate without the extra burden of making charges, storage issues or purity concerns associated with physical gold. While gold remains a safe long-term investment, he stresses the importance of patience.

Kohli advises investors not to panic during price dips. For instance, if someone bought a gold ETF at Rs 180 and its value drops to Rs 150, selling at a loss may not be wise. Holding the investment for 2-4 years can allow prices to recover and generate profits. According to him, one should behave like an investor rather than a trader when dealing with gold to ensure better returns over time.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 17:45 IST

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Planning Valentines Day At Nandi Hills? Entry Closed On February 14

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 12:58 IST

Regular visitors say the Valentines Day ban has become almost expected over the years. Many now choose to postpone their trip to alternative destinations around Bengaluru.

Valentines Day typically sees a surge of couples, groups, and tourists heading to the hill station, leading to traffic congestion, parking issues, and strain on local policing. Image: Canva

For many Bengaluru residents, Nandi Hills is a familiar choice for short getaways, sunrise drives, and quiet escapes from the city. But those planning a Valentines Day visit this year will need to change plans. The Chikkaballapur district administration has announced a complete ban on visitor entry to Nandi Hills on February 14, citing crowd management and public safety concerns.

Officials have clarified that the ban will be in effect from 6 am to 6 pm on Valentines Day. During this period, no visitors or private vehicles will be allowed to enter the hill station. Security personnel will be deployed at the main entry points to turn away anyone attempting to access the area.

A special officer at Nandi Hills said visitors should not expect any relaxations. No visitors or private vehicles will be allowed to enter Nandi Hills between 6 am and 6 pm on February 14. Anyone attempting to enter will be sent back from the main gate," the official said.

Why Valentines Day draws restrictions

Authorities say the decision is not new and follows a familiar pattern seen on high-footfall days. Valentines Day typically sees a surge of couples, groups, and tourists heading to the hill station, leading to traffic congestion, parking issues, and strain on local policing.

Located about 60 kilometres from Bengaluru, Nandi Hills has narrow access roads and limited space to manage large crowds. Officials say previous experiences during New Year celebrations and other holidays have shown that unrestricted entry on peak days can quickly spiral into chaos.

It is purely a public safety measure," an official explained, adding that controlling vehicular movement and footfall helps prevent overcrowding and potential law-and-order issues.

What visitors can do instead

Regular visitors say the Valentines Day ban has become almost expected over the years. Many now choose to postpone their trip to a quieter weekday or opt for alternative destinations around Bengaluru.

Authorities have advised couples and tourists to plan their outings elsewhere or reschedule their visit to Nandi Hills for another day. The hill station will reopen to visitors after the restricted hours.

Nandi hills is the nearest romantic getaway from Bengaluru. We keep going there time and again, but the cool misty mornings on a valentines day would definitely feel special. I am sure, many couples would have planned Nandi Hills visit for that day as well. But with this new rule, I will have to plan something else now" says Anusha Naik, a software consultant who had Nandi Hills visit on her Valentines Day visit list.

For now, Nandi Hills will spend Valentines Day much like it prefers  calm, misty, and free from crowds  while romance is gently redirected to other corners of the city.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 12:58 IST

News cities bengaluru-news Planning Valentines Day At Nandi Hills? Entry Closed On February 14

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China's tech hub Shenzhen operates over 300 low-altitude logistics routes

Xinhua) 08:34, February 10, 2026

A staff member tests an unmanned aerial vehicle at the base of the United Aircraft Group in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, June 26, 2025. (Xinhua/Li An)

SHENZHEN, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- South China's tech hub of Shenzhen, home to the leading global drone maker DJI, has to date opened a total of 310 low-altitude logistics routes, with 82 new routes added in 2025, according to the ongoing annual session of the municipal people's congress.

Official data published during the meeting on Monday shows that Shenzhen has built more than 1,200 low-altitude takeoff and landing facilities as the city accelerates the development of its low-altitude economy.

The city in Guangdong Province now stands as a leading manufacturing base for unmanned aerial vehicles, producing 70 percent of China's consumer drones and 50 percent of its industrial drones.

The expansion of Shenzhen's low-altitude sector is fueled by the city's increasing investment in sci-tech innovation. From 2020 to 2024, Shenzhen's total R&D investment grew from 151.08 billion yuan (about 21.73 billion U.S. dollars) to 245.31 billion yuan, representing an average annual growth of 12.9 percent.

China's low-altitude economy has gained substantial momentum since being recognized as a new growth driver in the 2024 government work report.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China has projected that the country's low-altitude economy reached a market scale of 1.5 trillion yuan last year and will climb to 3.5 trillion yuan by 2035.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Sit Longer, Pay More? Bengaluru Hotels Plan Table Charges For Customers Ordering Minimal Food

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 19:58 IST

The Bengaluru Hotel Owners Association said several small and medium-sized hotels have reported a sharp rise in customers using hotel premises as informal meeting spaces

Under the proposed plan, customers who continue to occupy tables for long durations after placing small orders may be charged a penalty or table usage fee. (Image: AI)

Ever walked into a cafe for a quick coffee and ended up staying for hours to finish a meeting, catch up with friends or simply work from a cosy corner? In Bengaluru, that familiar habit could soon come at a cost. Hotel owners across the city are now discussing the idea of introducing table charges for customers who occupy seats for long durations after placing minimal orders.

Hotel owners in Bengaluru are considering introducing table charges for customers who occupy seating for long hours after placing minimal orders, amid growing concerns over business losses and space misuse. The proposal is currently under discussion and may soon be placed before the government for approval.

The Bengaluru Hotel Owners Association said several small and medium-sized hotels have reported a sharp rise in customers using hotel premises as informal meeting spaces. According to hoteliers, customers often sit for extended periods after ordering only tea, coffee, or light snacks, leading to congestion and reduced table availability for other guests, particularly during peak hours.

The association stated that prolonged table occupation directly impacts daily sales and customer turnover. Many hotel owners have approached the association seeking measures to address the issue and protect their business interests.

Under the proposed plan, customers who continue to occupy tables for long durations after placing small orders may be charged a penalty or table usage fee. The model is being compared to parking charges, where users pay for extended occupation of limited space. The association clarified that the proposal is still in its early stages and that a formal request seeking regulatory approval and operational guidelines will soon be submitted to the government to ensure fair implementation.

The proposal comes months after a similar incident in the city sparked widespread online debate. A hotel in Bengaluru had put up a notice banning long meetings and warning customers of a fine for occupying a table for more than an hour. The notice stated that meetings exceeding one hour would attract a penalty of Rs 1,000 per hour.

A photograph of the signboard was shared on social media platform X, where it quickly went viral, garnering over 30,000 views and triggering mixed reactions from users. While some supported the move, citing challenges faced by small businesses, others questioned the practicality of enforcing such penalties.

The viral notice highlighted the growing frustration among hoteliers in Bengaluru, where cafes and small eateries have increasingly become meeting hubs due to the rise of start-ups, remote work culture, and business negotiations. Industry representatives say the proposed table charge system is an attempt to balance customer convenience with business sustainability.

If the proposal receives government approval, hotel owners expect the system to be implemented first in high-demand commercial areas, where prolonged table occupancy has been reported as a major operational challenge.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 19:58 IST

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Sambhal Violence Case: What Allahabad High Court Relief Means For UPs Super Cop

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News18.com

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 19:40 IST

The HC intervention comes amid ongoing legal, political scrutiny surrounding the violence that erupted during a court-ordered survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid in November last year

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Security personnel stand guard near the Shahi Jama Masjid amid heavy deployment for measuring disputed cemetery land adjacent to Harihar Temple, in Sambhal, on December 30. (PTI)

What can be termed as a significant relief to senior police officer Anuj Chaudhary, the Allahabad High Court (HC) on Tuesday stayed a Sambhal courts order directing registration of an FIR against him and 11 other policemen in connection with the 2024 Sambhal violence case.

The High Courts intervention comes amid ongoing legal and political scrutiny surrounding the violence that erupted during a court-ordered survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid in November last year.

The order to register an FIR had been passed on January 9 by Sambhal Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) Vibhanshu Sudhir on a petition filed by a local resident, Yameen. Challenging the CJMs directive, Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Anuj Chaudhary, currently posted in Firozabad and formerly Circle Officer (CO) in Sambhal, moved the High Court on January 29.

Subsequently, the Uttar Pradesh government also filed a petition on Chaudharys behalf. The matter was heard for nearly two hours on Monday. On Tuesday, Justice Samit Gopal, after hearing arguments from both sides, stayed the CJMs January 9 order. The next hearing in the case has been scheduled five weeks later.

Why was the FIR ordered?

The controversy stems from a petition filed by Yameen, a resident of Khaggu Sarai locality in Sambhals Nakhasa police station area. In his plea before the CJM court on February 6, 2025, Yameen alleged that his son, Alam, had left home on November 24, 2024, to sell rusks (toasts) and was shot by police personnel near the Shahi Jama Masjid area during unrest.

Yameen named then CO Sambhal Anuj Chaudhary, Sambhal Kotwali Inspector Anuj Tomar, and 10 other policemen as accused. After hearing the matter, the CJM ordered registration of an FIR against the 12 police officials on January 9, 2026.

However, the order triggered legal challenges, with Chaudhary approaching the High Court, arguing against the lower courts direction.

Judicial transfers add twist

The case also witnessed a series of judicial transfers shortly after the CJMs order. On January 20, the Allahabad High Court transferred CJM Vibhanshu Sudhir, who had passed the FIR directive. The transfer order included 13 other judicial officers as well.

Civil Judge (Senior Division) Aditya Singh from Chandausi was appointed as the new CJM of Sambhal. However, within 48 hours, he was sent back to Chandausi. Later, Deepak Kumar Jaiswal, CJM of Kaushambi, was appointed as the new Chief Judicial Magistrate of Sambhal.

Though the transfers were part of a broader administrative exercise, their timing drew attention due to the high-profile nature of the case.

Background: The Sambhal violence

The FIR controversy is rooted in the violence that broke out on November 24, 2024, during a court-ordered survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid in Sambhal.

The dispute began after members of the Hindu side claimed that the mosque was originally a Harihar temple that was allegedly demolished by Mughal emperor Babur in 1529 to construct the mosque. A petition regarding the claim was filed in a Sambhal court on November 19, 2024.

On the same day, Civil Judge (Senior Division) Aditya Singh ordered a survey of the mosque premises and appointed Ramesh Singh Raghav as Advocate Commissioner. A survey team visited the mosque at around 4 pm that day and conducted proceedings for nearly two hours, though the survey remained incomplete.

On November 24, when the team returned to continue the survey inside the mosque, tensions escalated. A large crowd gathered outside the premises. According to police accounts, the mob began pelting stones at the police team, leading to violent clashes.

Four people died of bullet injuries during the violence. Superintendent of Police Krishna Kumar Bishnoi, then CO Anuj Chaudhary, a Deputy Collector, and 29 other police personnel were reported injured in the clashes.

SIT probe and charge sheet

Following the violence, police arrested 79 accused persons, including three women. A total of 12 FIRs were registered at Sambhal Kotwali and Nakhasa police stations.

An FIR was also lodged against Samajwadi Party (SP) MP Ziaur Rahman Barq, SP MLA Iqbal Mahmoods son Suhail Iqbal, 40 named individuals, and 2,750 unidentified persons.

On June 18, 2025, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) filed a 1,128-page charge sheet in court against 23 individuals, including MP Barq. Notably, Suhail Iqbals name did not figure in the charge sheet.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 19:35 IST

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Juhu Beach Glows At Night: What Is Bioluminescence? Can We Watch It With Naked Eyes? Is It Open For All?

Curated By :

Trending Desk

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 11:47 IST

The dinner was hosted by the Maharaja of Baroda in honour of the Maharaja Scindia of Gwalior at the Laxmi Vilas Palace in Gujarat.

The video of a glowing Juhu Beach has gone viral. (Photo Credit: Instagram)

A rare natural phenomenon was reportedly witnessed at Mumbais Juhu Beach. Famous for being the backdrop of several Hindi films and its tasty street food, the beach was glowing at night, quite literally, a few days ago. Videos circulating on social media websites show the waves emitting a bright blue light in the dark, as if straight out of a sci-fi film. Called bioluminescence by scientists, this phenomenon has rarely been witnessed at Juhu Beach.

A video of the glowing Juhu Beach has sparked debate on Instagram, with several people refusing to believe that one of Mumbais famous tourist spots could actually witness this phenomenon. Others claimed that the spectacle did happen, but on a smaller scale than shown in the clip.

What Is Bioluminescence?

It is a natural phenomenon that takes place when a living organism produces and emits light. Bioluminescence is made by energy that is released from chemical reactions occurring inside, or ejected by, the organism. Fireflies are a common example.

Are Fishes Also Bioluminescent?

Many marine organisms can produce a glowing light, such as plankton, some species of sharks and jellyfish, and more. The animals must have a molecule called luciferin that produces light when it reacts with oxygen. Many animals also make the catalyst luciferase, which can speed up the reaction of luciferin and oxygen.

For marine organisms, bioluminescence is a survival mechanism and helps creatures see in the deep ocean where light does not reach. Its also useful for communication, luring prey or attracting a mate.

Why Do Waves Glow Due To Bioluminescence?

Dinoflagellates, which are small planktonic surface dwellers, are bioluminescent. When conditions are right, these single-celled organisms bloom in dense layers at the surface of the water, causing a sparkly sheen in the water at night. This can cause the waves to glow.

Where Can I See Bioluminescence In India?

Several places in India provide an opportunity to witness this phenomenon. One of the most famous spots is Bangaram Island, Lakshadweep. The uninhabited paradise emits a blue glow sometimes at night. Access is limited, so travellers need to plan ahead in terms of bookings.

Swaraj Dweep (Havelock Island), Andaman & Nicobar, comes alive at night for parts of the year. The best time to visit is between November and February.

Juhu Beach in Mumbai is not the only one in the city to witness this phenomenon. Bioluminescence has also been reported from Aksa Beach sporadically. Karnatakas Padubidri Beach and Goas Betalbatim Beach are also famous.

Tips For Observing Bioluminescence In India

Visitors must keep in mind that the spectacle does not occur daily. Moonless nights are the best time to check this phenomenon. For marine bioluminescence, monsoon and post-monsoon times, i.e., from June to September, offer the perfect conditions.

People must choose locations away from city lights. It is better to visit the areas with an experienced guide, as many of the spots are ecologically sensitive areas. They must refrain from touching or collecting the glowing organisms.

Keeping these factors in mind will help visitors have an experience like no other at the beach.

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Location : Delhi, India, India

First Published: February 10, 2026, 11:26 IST

News mumbai-news Juhu Beach Glows At Night: What Is Bioluminescence? Can We Watch It With Naked Eyes? Is It Open For All?

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No More Leniency: BMC Moves To Seize Properties Of Big Property Tax Defaulters

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 10:19 IST

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has issued seizure notices to major property tax defaulters in Mumbai, warning of strict legal action and auctions.

BMC Moves to Seize Properties of Big Property Tax Defaulters (File pic/PTI)

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has issued property seizure notices to several major property tax defaulters across Mumbai, warning of strict legal action if dues are not cleared immediately.

The move targets property owners who have repeatedly failed to pay taxes despite having the financial capacity to do so. The notices have been issued under Section 203 of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act. Civic officials said that if the outstanding tax amounts are not paid within the stipulated time, the BMC will initiate further action under Sections 204, 205, and 206. This includes the seizure of movable assets from the property, followed by auction proceedings.

If the dues are still not recovered, the properties themselves will be auctioned as per legal provisions. Property tax remains one of the BMCs primary sources of revenue. Civic rules mandate that property tax must be paid within 90 days of receiving the bill.

Failure to do so triggers a step-by-step recovery process. Initially, officials from the assessment and collection department personally follow up with defaulters through visits and communication. If there is no response, a demand letter is issued, followed by a final 21-day notice before seizure action begins.

Senior civic officials have confirmed that enforcement will now be stricter. Under the leadership of Municipal Commissioner and Administrator Bhushan Gagrani and Additional Municipal Commissioner (City) Ashwini Joshi, the civic body has intensified efforts to meet its revenue targets across the city and suburbs.

Officials said that several awareness drives have been carried out to encourage timely tax payments. Online payment facilities are also available to reduce inconvenience for citizens. Details related to property tax payments can be accessed through the BMCs official website. Despite repeated reminders and adequate time being given, some large defaulters have continued to ignore payment notices. As a result, seizure notices have now been served to top defaulters, with outstanding amounts running into hundreds of crores, including penalties.

Civic officials have appealed to property owners who have received notices to clear their dues immediately to avoid further action. The BMC has reiterated that auction proceedings will be carried out strictly as per law if payments are not made within the given timeframe. The latest action sends a clear message that the civic body is no longer willing to tolerate prolonged non-payment of property taxes, especially by high-value defaulters.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 10:17 IST

News mumbai-news No More Leniency: BMC Moves To Seize Properties Of Big Property Tax Defaulters

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Delhi Tantrik Under Scanner After 3 Found Dead In Car, Had Met Victims Hours Before Incident

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 10:46 IST

A day after the bodies of three people were found in a car parked on the Peeragarhi flyover in Outer Delhi, the police said that the probe had led them to a "baba".

Three bodies found in a parked car on Peeragarhi flyover in Delhi (Image credit: X/@ANI)

A day after the bodies of three people were found in a car parked on the Peeragarhi flyover in Outer Delhi, the police on Monday said that the investigation into the matter had led them to a tantrik" practitioner, who was detained over his possible links to the deceased.

The tantrik" practitioner from Northeast Delhi is currently under investigation.

On Sunday, the bodies of two men  a 76-year-old in the drivers seat and a 47-year-old in the passengers seat  along with a 40-year-old woman, who was sitting in the back seat, were discovered inside a white Tigor parked in a service lane of the flyover.

According to the investigators, the car belonged to the 76-year-old and that the both men were acquainted with each other. The two men  Randhir and Ram Naresh  and the woman, identified as Lakshmi, met in the Peeragarhi area at around 10:30 A.M. on Sunday.

Why Baba Remains A Crucial Link?

After some time, they left Peeragarhi via the Ring Road to reach Northeast Delhi. During this time, they met the tantrik baba" in question.

Later, around 3 P.M. on Sunday, they returned to Peeragarhi, said the police, adding the three had been acquainted with each other for a long time. Randhir and Shiv Naresh were in the property business, and Lakshmi worked as a caregiver in the west Delhi area.

Three liquor bottles and three used disposable glasses were found near the bodies of the deceased. The three were in constant contact with each other, they said.

Investigators later confirmed that five individuals had been questioned in relation to the case, among them the tantrik baba," who appeared in CCTV footage seated in the front seat on the day of the incident.

There were no visible external injuries or signs of struggle, leading the police to suspect the deaths were a result of suicide by poisoning. Meanwhile, the autopsy report is still awaited.

The police are currently reviewing the CCTV footage installed in the area to verify the movements of the three deceased.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 09:59 IST

News new-delhi-news Delhi Tantrik Under Scanner After 3 Found Dead In Car, Had Met Victims Hours Before Incident

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BJP's Manjusha Nagpure Elected Unopposed As Pune Mayor, Parshuram Wadekar Becomes Her Deputy

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 08:39 IST

Manjusha Nagpure of BJP elected unopposed as Pune mayor, Parshuram Wadekar as deputy mayor, after rivals withdrew. BJP dominates PMC with 119 seats, praised by Murlidhar Mohol.

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Manjusha Nagpure is known for her long-standing association with the RSS. (Image: ANI/File)

BJP corporator Manjusha Nagpure was on Monday elected unopposed as the mayor of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), while Republican Party of India (Athawale) leader Parshuram Wadekar was similarly elected as deputy mayor.

The unopposed outcome followed the withdrawal of candidates from rival parties. NCP leader Shital Sawant and Congresss Ashwini Landge stepped aside from the mayoral race, while NCP corporator Dattatray Bahirat and Congress nominee Sahil Kedari withdrew their nominations for the deputy mayors post, clearing the path for the BJP-led alliance.

Nagpure, who represents the Sinhagad area, is known for her long-standing association with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and holds a postgraduate qualification in management, news agency PTI reported.

Wadekar, an RPI (A) leader, had contested the civic elections from the Bopodi area on a BJP ticket and later filed his nomination for the deputy mayors position as part of the alliance arrangement.

The 165-member PMC is dominated by the BJP, which secured 119 seats in the recent civic polls. Ajit Pawars NCP and the Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP) together won 30 seats, while the Congress claimed 15. The Shiv Sena (UBT), a Congress ally, managed to win only one seat.

Welcoming the developments, Union Minister and Pune Lok Sabha MP Murlidhar Mohol thanked the citys voters for giving the BJP a clear majority in the civic body. As a result, today, our corporators Nagpure and Wadekar were elected unopposed as mayor and deputy mayor," he told reporters.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 08:39 IST

News cities pune BJP's Manjusha Nagpure Elected Unopposed As Pune Mayor, Parshuram Wadekar Becomes Her Deputy

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'No Commercialisation': Bombay HC Says Only Non-Profits Can Open Medical Colleges

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 15:42 IST

Bombay High Court upholds NMC rule allowing only Section 8 non-profit entities to open medical colleges, saying the move is meant to prevent commercialisation in medical education.

Bombay High Court rules only non-profit entities can establish new medical colleges in India.

The Bombay High Courts Aurangabad bench has upheld a rule that permits only non-profit entities to establish new medical colleges and hospitals, backing the National Medical Commissions attempt to curb commercialisation in medical education.

As per Live Law, A division bench of Justices Sandipkumar C. More and Abasaheb D. Shinde ruled that Regulation 6 of the Establishment of Medical Institutions, Assessment and Rating Regulations, 2023 is valid and consistent with the National Medical Commission Act, 2019. The regulations were framed by the National Medical Commission (NMC).

Under the rule, companies can apply to set up a medical college only if they are registered as Section 8 companies  a category under company law meant for non-profit activities. Such companies cannot distribute profits to shareholders and must use any surplus only for their stated social purposes.

Explaining the reasoning, the court observed: If the private companies, which are meant for making profit only, are allowed to start Medical Colleges, then they will definitely use such colleges as their commercial activities and then the object of imparting valuable knowledge to the aspirants will definitely be frustrated."

The case was filed by Ajeet Seeds Private Limited along with the dean of its proposed medical college in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. Their application to establish a medical college and hospital was rejected because the company is a regular private firm and not a non-profit Section 8 company as required under the 2023 regulations.

The petitioners argued that the parent law permits any person", except the Central Government, to set up a medical college. They contended the regulation improperly restricted this provision by excluding private companies. They also told the court they had already invested substantial funds in the hospital project before the new rules came into force.

ALSO READ: DUs Hansraj College Decorated For Principals Son Wedding, Students Protest Over Campus Use

The High Court, however, dismissed the challenge. It held that the NMC, as an expert regulatory body, is empowered to lay down eligibility conditions to maintain standards in medical education.

When the statutory bodies are permitted to frame the Rules, Regulations,by keeping in mind the legislative intent, then it certainly has freedom to adopt certain other practical ways to fulfill the object of the statute," the bench observed.

Finding that the restriction was directly linked to preventing the commercialisation of medical education, the court rejected the petition and declined to grant any relief.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 15:41 IST

News education-career 'No Commercialisation': Bombay HC Says Only Non-Profits Can Open Medical Colleges

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After India, Bangladesh Signs Trade Deal With US: Should New Delhi Be Worried?

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 16:12 IST

A look at the Trump tariffs in South Asia and how the US-Bangladesh trade deal could impact India

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The US-Bangladesh trade deal comes days after an interim trade agreement with India. (File)

Days after Indias interim trade agreement with the United States, Bangladesh has secured a reduced 19% US tariff under a trade agreement signed between the two countries on Monday, granting exemptions for some textiles and garments manufactured with US material.

Muhammad Yunus, chief advisor heading Bangladeshs interim government, said Washington had committed to establishing a mechanism for certain textile and apparel goods from Bangladesh using US-produced cotton and man-made fibre to receive zero reciprocal tariff in (the) U.S. market".

BANGLADESH AT 19%: THE US DEAL WITH A ZERO-TARIFF WINDOW

The BangladeshUS trade deal (2026) is a bilateral agreement under which the United States has reduced tariffs on Bangladeshi exports to about 19% and created a zerotariff window for certain ready-made garments made in Bangladesh using US-sourced cotton or man-made fibres. In return, Bangladesh has agreed to expand market access for US industrial and agricultural goods, including machinery, dairy, and soy products, while reducing non-tariff barriers. The White House said Bangladesh had agreed to provide significant preferential market access for US industrial and agricultural goods, including chemicals, medical devices, machinery and motor vehicles and parts, soy products and dairy goods, beef, poultry, tree nuts and fruit. Bangladesh will also ease non-tariff barriers by accepting US vehicle safety and emissions standards, recognising US Food and Drug Administration certifications and removing import restrictions on remanufactured goods, the White House added. The deal strengthens Bangladeshs export competitiveness, especially in the garment sector, which is the backbone of its economy, and deepens its economic ties with the U.S.

The rate had previously been as high as 37% under Trump-era measures.

INDIA AT 18%: WHAT IS THE INTERIM TRADE AGREEMENT WITH US?

The IndiaUS trade deal is an interim bilateral framework aimed at deepening economic ties between the two countries. Under the deal, the United States has agreed to reduce tariffs on many Indian exports to around 18%, with zero duty access for select goods, including pharmaceuticals, gems, and certain engineering products.

In return, India has committed to lowering tariffs on a range of US industrial and agricultural goods, including energy, technology, and certain food products, while also opening markets to US supply chains. The agreement is designed to boost Indian exports, enhance competitiveness in key sectors like textiles and manufacturing, and encourage increased bilateral trade, while laying the groundwork for a broader long-term trade pact. It also carries strategic implications, strengthening Indias position in global supply chains and signaling closer economic alignment with the US.

The United States and India have negotiated a bilateral trade agreement in which Washington has reduced the reciprocal tariff on Indian exports from about 50% down to roughly 18%. This includes removal of punitive levies that were added earlier. The effective average tariff India now pays on US imports has also been cut, while New Delhi has agreed to commit to major purchases of U.S. goods over the next several years. The sharp cut improves Indian exporters competitiveness in the U.S. market, especially against regional rivals who still face higher duties. However, it also opens Indias domestic market more to U.S. products (especially in agriculture and industrial goods), which critics say could pressure local producers.

TRUMP TARIFFS IN THE INDIAN SUBCONTINENT

Pakistan (19%): Pakistani goods currently face a US tariff of around 19%. This reflects Trump-era reciprocal tariffs" applied to countries based on their import duties on US products. Pakistans export profile to the U.S. includes textiles, leathergoods, sugar, fruits, and cotton.

Sri Lanka (20%): Sri Lankan shipments to the US are subject to roughly 20% tariff rates, similar to Bangladesh before the new deal. This applies mainly to textiles, apparel, and other manufactured goods.

Afghanistan (15%): Afghanistans tariff rate with the U.S. is lower, at about 15%, reflecting tailored tariff treatment rather than the higher reciprocal tariff" category that many larger exporters face.

SHOULD INDIA BE WORRIED ABOUT BANGLADESHS DEAL?

1. Zero-Tariff Window in Apparel: Bangladesh now gets zero tariffs on certain garments made with US cotton or man-made fibres. Indias exports to the U.S., including textiles, still face 18% tariffs.

This means, Bangladesh can sell some apparel more cheaply in the US, creating direct competition for Indian textile exporters, especially for mass-market garments, say experts.

2. Raw Material Shifts: Bangladesh can import US cotton/fibres for tariff-free garments. This may reduce demand for Indian cotton exports to Bangladesh, affecting Indias raw material market, say experts.

3. Market Share & Competitive Pressure: Indian textile hubs like Tiruppur, Surat, and Ludhiana could face pressure on orders and margins as US buyers may shift to cheaper Bangladeshi products.

Non-textile sectors are largely unaffected, so India retains an advantage in engineering goods, pharmaceuticals, and other exports.

4. Policy Implications for India: India may need export incentives or production-linked support to maintain competitiveness. Focus may shift to value-added or premium apparel, as Bangladesh dominates the low-cost mass segment, say experts.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 16:05 IST

News explainers After India, Bangladesh Signs Trade Deal With US: Should New Delhi Be Worried?

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Epstein Files Fallout: Will Pak-Origin Shabana Mahmood Be UK PM As Keir Starmer Faces Headwinds?

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 14:48 IST

Will Shabana Mahmood replace UK PM Starmer? Chris Wormald may leave after Peter Mandelson, Morgan McSweeney, Tim Allan. Political fallout of Epstein Files in UK, world explained

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Jeffrey Epstein case documents; UK PM Keir Starmer with Shabana Mahmood (in maroon). (AP File)

Amid the political shake-up in the United Kingdom (UK) following the release of recent Jeffrey Epstein files, Chris Wormald, the most senior civil servant in Downing Street, is negotiating his exit.

Wormald, the cabinet secretary, is understood to be negotiating the terms of his departure from No 10, which would make him the third senior member of staff to leave in recent days, The Guardian reported. Wormald was appointed just over a year ago.

Does that mean UK Prime Minister (PM) Sir Keir Starmer will be next? Why is the name of Pakistani-origin Shabana Mahmood making the rounds?

POLITICAL FALLOUT OF EPSTEIN FILES IN UK

Peter Mandelson: Veteran British politician and former EU Trade Commissioner, Peter Mandelson has been at the centre of the Epstein Files storm in the UK. Documents apparently show he shared confidential government information with Epstein and received payments tied to Epsteins support. He has resigned from the House of Lords and the Labour Party. Criminal investigation has been launched into potential misconduct in public office. The UK government moving to draft legislation to remove his peerage.

Morgan McSweeney: The UK Prime Ministers Chief of Staff stepped down from his role advising Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer. He took responsibility for recommending Mandelsons controversial appointment as UK ambassador to the United States  a decision now seen as politically damaging amid the Epstein revelations.

Tim Allan: Following McSweeneys resignation, Sir Keir Starmers Director of Communications, Tim Allan, also resigned amid the expanding political row. This marks another senior Downing Street exit linked to the escalating controversy around appointments and trust.

Keir Starmer: The British Prime Minister is facing a leadership crisis and calls for resignation over his judgment in appointing Mandelson to a high-level role despite his known links to Epstein.

Prince Andrew: Although he had already lost his military honors and royal titles, the new documents provided further details of his ties, deepening the scandal surrounding him.

WILL UK GET A NEW PM? WILL IT BE SHABANA MAHMOOD?

Shabana Mahmood has emerged as a prominent contender to succeed Keir Starmer as UK Prime Minister, though she is not currently the clear frontrunner. Her name is being heavily discussed following a major political crisis involving the Epstein files" and Starmers controversial appointment of Peter Mandelson.

Shabana Mahmood is a British politician and barrister currently serving as the UK Home Secretary. A member of the Labour Party, she has represented the constituency of Birmingham Ladywood in Parliament since 2010.

She oversees policing, national security, and immigration. In this role, she has introduced strict immigration reforms, including a proposal to extend the time required for permanent residency from five to ten years.

She was one of the UKs first three female Muslim MPs elected in 2010. In 2024, she became the first Muslim and third woman to serve as Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary.

She identifies as a social conservative and is part of the Blue Labour faction, known for its focus on traditional values and community. She has championed the largest-ever rollout of live facial recognition technology in British policing and has taken a no-nonsense" stance on border security.

Born in Birmingham in 1980 to Pakistani parents, she spent five years of her childhood in Saudi Arabia. She is an Oxford-educated lawyer and was a practicing barrister before entering politics.

Her competitors are Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting, Ed Miliband, Andy Burnham.

EPSTEIN FILES IMPACT IN REST OF EUROPE

Norway: Public confidence in the monarchy has been shaken due to friendly email exchanges between Epstein and Crown Princess Mette-Marit regarding social and personal appointments.

Slovakia: Miroslav Lajcak, the former Foreign Minister, resigned from his position as national security adviser after documents showed he discussed gorgeous" girls and political meetings with Epstein.

Sweden: Reports indicate senior figures have also been impacted by the disclosures, though specific names are still emerging in the broader political fallout.

France: Jack Lang, veteran politician, resigned as head of the Arab World Institute amid investigations over financial links involving Epstein funds.

IN UNITED STATES

While the U.S. has not seen the same immediate wave of high-level resignations as Europe, several figures are under intense scrutiny:

Donald Trump: Documents released following a rare bipartisan push contain thousands of mentions of Trump, including unverified allegations and details of past interactions.

Howard Lutnick: The current Commerce Secretary has faced calls for resignation from some GOP lawmakers due to his historical links to Epstein.

Larry Summers: Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers announced he would step back from public commitments after expressing regret over his continued communication with Epstein.

Bill & Hillary Clinton: Both are scheduled to testify before a House inquiry later in February 2026 as Republicans seek further clarity on their associations.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 14:15 IST

News explainers Epstein Files Fallout: Will Pak-Origin Shabana Mahmood Be UK PM As Keir Starmer Faces Headwinds?

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From Small Towns To Metros, How Places Shape Personality & Intelligence; Decoding The Science

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Last Updated: February 13, 2026, 09:35 IST

Psychologists, sociologists, and urban researchers are increasingly examining how geography, neighbourhoods, and social environments influence who we become

Living in a culturally conservative area versus a liberal urban district can expose individuals to contrasting viewpoints, gradually influencing their perspectives. (Representational Photo/Getty)

Every year, millions of Indians pack their lives into suitcases and move to different cities for work, education, or marriage. A student from Patna lands in Bengaluru and starts speaking in English more often than Hindi. A professional from Kochi in Gurugram finds their food habits, clothing style, and even political conversations slowly changing. At some point, many people ask themselves: Am I still the same person I was before I moved?"

This question has now moved beyond philosophy into the realm of science. Psychologists, sociologists, and urban researchers are increasingly examining how geography, neighbourhoods, and social environments influence who we become. In India, where urbanisation and internal migration are accelerating rapidly, the answer carries practical as well as emotional weight.

Identity: Born Or Built?

For decades, identity was often discussed as a product of genetics, family upbringing, or culture. But modern research suggests that the story is far more layered. A large 2015 global analysis of nearly 50 years of twin studies, covering about 14 million twins and more than 17,000 traits ranging from intelligence to political beliefs, concluded that genetics explains, on average, only about 50% of the differences between people. The remaining variation comes from environmental factors, life experiences, and social context.

This does not mean genes are unimportant. Intelligence, for example, is estimated to be more than 50% heritable on average, although genetics tends to play a stronger role later in life than in childhood. Personality traits such as extroversion or openness are roughly 40% heritable, which implies that environment and lived experiences have a substantial role in shaping how these traits express themselves. In simpler terms, biology provides a framework, but surroundings and social exposure often colour the details.

The BBCs recent exploration of place identity"  a term used in environmental psychology  highlights how physical spaces influence not just behaviour but also self-perception. The neighbourhoods in which people grow up, the cities they move to, and the communities they interact with all subtly affect our ambitions, communication styles, and sense of belonging.

Physical spaces dont just affect what we do; they quietly shape how we feel about ourselves. When someone spends long hours in cramped, noisy, or chaotic environments, the body remains in a state of low-grade stress, and over time that stress gets internalized as feeling irritable, powerless, or even not good enough Clinically, I often see that people begin to describe themselves the way their environments make them feel, unsafe spaces produce guarded selves, while supportive spaces allow people to feel more capable and grounded. In that sense, space becomes part of ones self-image," says Dr Jyoti Kapoor, senior consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist, Manasthali Wellness.

The Psychology Of Place

Environmental psychologists argue that identity is not fixed; it is adaptive. Humans are social beings who constantly adjust to cues around them  language patterns, dress codes, workplace expectations, even public transport etiquette. Over time, repeated exposure to these cues can reshape habits and self-image.

Our surroundings play a quiet but powerful role in shaping how we handle stress, build relationships, and cope with everyday life. Factors such as noise, overcrowding, safety, availability of green spaces, and the quality of social connections directly impact our emotional balance and mental clarity. People living in urban environments may enjoy better opportunities and exposure, but many also struggle with chronic stress, anxiety, loneliness, and burnout due to constant pressure and fast-paced routines. In contrast, those in smaller towns or rural areas often benefit from close-knit communities and a stronger sense of belonging, which can support emotional well-being, although access to mental health services may be limited," said Ruchir Sodhani, Mental Health and Wellness

Counsellor, CK Birla Hospitals, Jaipur.

Indias Rapid Urban Transition

India is currently experiencing one of the worlds fastest urban transitions, with its urban population expected to increase by 500 million over the next 25 years. As of 2024-2025, roughly 36-37% of the population lives in urban areas, a significant rise from 31% in 2011.

A young engineer relocating from a Tier-2 city to a technology hub often finds themselves navigating new languages, food preferences, and social norms. Over time, accents soften, wardrobes change, and professional ambitions expand. While some celebrate this adaptability, others experience cultural dissonance or identity fatigue  the feeling of being caught between two worlds.

Urban environments slowly condition how people relate to the world. Cities that are overcrowded, unsafe, or poorly planned push people into survival mode so they become more guarded, more impatient, less trusting. Long commutes, lack of green spaces, and limited opportunities for community interaction all contribute to chronic stress. Over time, this stress does not just affect mood; it shapes personality traits like irritability, withdrawal, or hyper-independence. Conversely, cities designed with walkable, shared spaces, safety, and social infrastructure promote cooperation, emotional regulation, and a greater sense of trust. From a mental health perspective, personality often reflects long-term adaptation to ones urban environment, not just individual temperament," Dr Kapoor points out.

Regional pride and linguistic identity remain strong in India, yet metro cities increasingly function as melting pots. It is common to find households where three languages are spoken, and multiple regional cuisines coexist. This blending does not erase original identities but layers them, creating hybrid versions that reflect both origin and destination.

Belonging, Alienation, and Mental Health

The influence of place is not always positive. Rapid migration can bring feelings of loneliness or alienation, especially among young adults living away from family support systems for the first time. Large cities offer opportunity but also anonymity, which can intensify isolation.

Migration is often seen as opportunity, but psychologically it is also a major rupture. Young adults moving away from family lose not just emotional support, but familiar rhythms like language, food, rituals, and the unspoken comfort of being known. Even when they are socially active or professionally successful, many experience a deep sense of loneliness because the nervous system no longer has familiar emotional anchors. In clinical settings, this often emerges as quiet sadness, anxiety, sleep problems, or a sense of emptiness rather than overt distress. The loneliness is not about being alone; it is about not having a sense of belonging. Until new emotional roots form, many migrants live in that in-between space; functioning well on the outside, but feeling disconnected on the inside," Dr Kapoor stressed.

Urban mental health studies suggest that social integration  friendships, neighbourhood familiarity, and community participation  acts as a protective factor. When individuals fail to establish new social anchors, identity uncertainty can lead to stress or reduced self-confidence. Conversely, supportive communities can accelerate confidence and personal growth, reinforcing the idea that environment shapes psychological well-being alongside personality.

Politics, Culture And Collective Identity

Geography also influences collective identity. Political beliefs, civic participation, and cultural affiliations often vary by region because local narratives, media ecosystems, and community histories differ. Living in a culturally conservative area versus a liberal urban district can expose individuals to contrasting viewpoints, gradually influencing their perspectives.

In India, regionalism, language politics, and local pride frequently intersect with migration patterns. A person relocating for work may initially resist local customs but gradually adopt them through daily exposure. This adaptation is less about abandoning roots and more about social survival and integration.

How Digitisation Has Blurred Geographical Borders

The modern identity conversation cannot ignore the digital world. Online communities, gaming networks, fandom cultures, and diaspora groups now compete with physical neighbourhoods as sources of belonging. A teenager in Jaipur may feel more connected to an international gaming community than to their immediate locality. A professional in Dubai may maintain cultural identity through Indian social-media networks.

Digital spaces complicate the idea of place identity. They weaken geographical limitations while simultaneously reinforcing cultural ties.

Earlier, identity was closely tied to physical places  home, neighborhood, school, workplace. Digital spaces have changed that entirely. Today, people can belong everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Online platforms allow constant interaction, but they lack the sensory and emotional grounding that real places provide. This creates a fragmented sense of identity, especially in young people, who may present different versions of themselves across digital spaces without feeling rooted in any one of them. Clinically, this shows up as restlessness, comparison-driven anxiety, and a vague sense of emptiness, even when someone is constantly connected. Digital spaces give connection, but they dont always give belonging," Dr Kapoor explains.

Urban Design And Policy Implications

Understanding how place shapes identity is not merely academic; it has policy implications. Urban planning, housing design, and community infrastructure influence how people interact, form relationships and perceive safety. Cities that invest in public spaces, cultural programmes and inclusive neighbourhood planning often foster stronger community bonds.

Workplace culture is another dimension. Companies that relocate employees or operate across multiple cities increasingly recognise the importance of cultural integration programmes. Helping individuals adapt to new environments is not just an HR strategy; it is an acknowledgement that the environment affects performance and well-being.

Identity Keeps Evolving

The emerging consensus among researchers is that identity is neither entirely inherited nor entirely constructed. It is fluid, evolving through interaction between genes, experiences, and surroundings. Where we live does not erase who we are, but it can reshape how we express ourselves, what we aspire to and how we connect with others.

In a country as mobile and diverse as India, this understanding carries reassurance. Changing cities or communities does not mean losing authenticity. Instead, it often means adding new layers to an existing self. As urban landscapes expand and digital worlds deepen, identity may become less about a single rooted place and more about a mosaic of influences.

The question, then, is not whether our environment changes us  it almost certainly does  but how consciously we navigate that change. Identity, like geography, is rarely static. It moves, adapts and grows, reflecting both where we come from and where we choose to go next.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 08:30 IST

News explainers From Small Towns To Metros, How Places Shape Personality & Intelligence; Decoding The Science

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Mobile museums bring cultural heritage of Gansu onto train

Xinhua) 08:59, February 10, 2026

Museum staff members introduce cultural knowledge to passengers aboard the train G848 in northwest China's Gansu Province, Feb. 9, 2026. As part of the mobile museum on the high-speed railway program, the train G848, carrying cultural relics interpreters, departed from Lanzhou West Railway Station heading to Guangzhou South Railway Station on Monday.

Nine of China's national first-grade museums in Gansu, including the Dunhuang Academy and Gansu Provincial Museum, have brought the cultural heritage of Gansu onto the train, allowing passengers to touch history and get to know traditional custom during the Spring Festival travel rush. (Xinhua/Zhang Zhimin)

A museum staff member displays cultural and creative products at a railway station in Qin'an County of Tianshui City, northwest China's Gansu Province, Feb. 9, 2026. As part of the mobile museum on the high-speed railway program, the train G848, carrying cultural relics interpreters, departed from Lanzhou West Railway Station heading to Guangzhou South Railway Station on Monday.

Nine of China's national first-grade museums in Gansu, including the Dunhuang Academy and Gansu Provincial Museum, have brought the cultural heritage of Gansu onto the train, allowing passengers to touch history and get to know traditional custom during the Spring Festival travel rush. (Xinhua/Zhang Zhimin)

Museum staff members pose for a photo with a girl at Lanzhou West Railway Station in Lanzhou, northwest China's Gansu Province, Feb. 9, 2026. As part of the mobile museum on the high-speed railway program, the train G848, carrying cultural relics interpreters, departed from Lanzhou West Railway Station heading to Guangzhou South Railway Station on Monday.

Nine of China's national first-grade museums in Gansu, including the Dunhuang Academy and Gansu Provincial Museum, have brought the cultural heritage of Gansu onto the train, allowing passengers to touch history and get to know traditional custom during the Spring Festival travel rush. (Xinhua/Zhang Zhimin)

A museum staff member talks to a passenger aboard the train G848 in northwest China's Gansu Province, Feb. 9, 2026. As part of the mobile museum on the high-speed railway program, the train G848, carrying cultural relics interpreters, departed from Lanzhou West Railway Station heading to Guangzhou South Railway Station on Monday.

Nine of China's national first-grade museums in Gansu, including the Dunhuang Academy and Gansu Provincial Museum, have brought the cultural heritage of Gansu onto the train, allowing passengers to touch history and get to know traditional custom during the Spring Festival travel rush. (Xinhua/Zhang Zhimin)

A museum staff member presents cultural and creative products to a passenger aboard the train G848 in northwest China's Gansu Province, Feb. 9, 2026. As part of the mobile museum on the high-speed railway program, the train G848, carrying cultural relics interpreters, departed from Lanzhou West Railway Station heading to Guangzhou South Railway Station on Monday.

Nine of China's national first-grade museums in Gansu, including the Dunhuang Academy and Gansu Provincial Museum, have brought the cultural heritage of Gansu onto the train, allowing passengers to touch history and get to know traditional custom during the Spring Festival travel rush. (Xinhua/Zhang Zhimin)

Museum staff members welcome passengers at Lanzhou West Railway Station in Lanzhou, northwest China's Gansu Province, Feb. 9, 2026. As part of the mobile museum on the high-speed railway program, the train G848, carrying cultural relics interpreters, departed from Lanzhou West Railway Station heading to Guangzhou South Railway Station on Monday.

Nine of China's national first-grade museums in Gansu, including the Dunhuang Academy and Gansu Provincial Museum, have brought the cultural heritage of Gansu onto the train, allowing passengers to touch history and get to know traditional custom during the Spring Festival travel rush. (Xinhua/Zhang Zhimin)

Museum staff members aboard the train G848 wave goodbye at a railway station in Tianshui City, northwest China's Gansu Province, Feb. 9, 2026. As part of the mobile museum on the high-speed railway program, the train G848, carrying cultural relics interpreters, departed from Lanzhou West Railway Station heading to Guangzhou South Railway Station on Monday.

Nine of China's national first-grade museums in Gansu, including the Dunhuang Academy and Gansu Provincial Museum, have brought the cultural heritage of Gansu onto the train, allowing passengers to touch history and get to know traditional custom during the Spring Festival travel rush. (Xinhua/Zhang Zhimin)

Museum staff members introduce cultural knowledge to passengers aboard the train G848 in northwest China's Gansu Province, Feb. 9, 2026. As part of the mobile museum on the high-speed railway program, the train G848, carrying cultural relics interpreters, departed from Lanzhou West Railway Station heading to Guangzhou South Railway Station on Monday.

Nine of China's national first-grade museums in Gansu, including the Dunhuang Academy and Gansu Provincial Museum, have brought the cultural heritage of Gansu onto the train, allowing passengers to touch history and get to know traditional custom during the Spring Festival travel rush. (Xinhua/Zhang Zhimin)

Passengers take the train G848 in northwest China's Gansu Province, Feb. 9, 2026. As part of the mobile museum on the high-speed railway program, the train G848, carrying cultural relics interpreters, departed from Lanzhou West Railway Station heading to Guangzhou South Railway Station on Monday.

Nine of China's national first-grade museums in Gansu, including the Dunhuang Academy and Gansu Provincial Museum, have brought the cultural heritage of Gansu onto the train, allowing passengers to touch history and get to know traditional custom during the Spring Festival travel rush. (Xinhua/Zhang Zhimin)

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
'Stocks To Last 74 Days': What Are India's Strategic Petroleum Reserves And Where Are They Stored?

Curated By :

News18.com Edited By: Pragati Ratti



Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 16:31 IST

Indias Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR) are emergency stocks of crude oil held by the government to safeguard the nation against major disruptions in global supply.

International norms like those of the International Energy Agency recommend at least 90 days of reserve stock. (Image: PTI File)

India has strategic petroleum reserves that can last up to 74 days, Union Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Monday. Replying to a question in Rajya Sabha, Puri said while 74 days of reserves was good for India, it would be better if this could be increased further.

Together, if you look at the reserves in our caverns and what is held by our refineries and floating platforms at our ports and our products, it comes to 74 days.  I feel as the minister safe with something at 74 days. But we can consider raising it going forward," Puri said.

What Are Indias Strategic Petroleum Reserves?

Indias Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR) are emergency stocks of crude oil held by the government to safeguard the nation against major disruptions in global supply  for example, wars, embargoes, or sharp price shocks. They act like a buffer or insurance policy" so the economy doesnt run out of fuel if imports suddenly dry up. This reserve is in addition to the oil stocks held by refineries and pipelines in the commercial sector.

The government-owned stockpile of crude oil is kept aside only for emergencies, not for routine commercial use. It is crude oil (not petrol or diesel) because crude can be refined into whatever product is needed most at the time  petrol, diesel, ATF, LPG, etc.

International norms like those of the International Energy Agency recommend at least 90 days of reserve stock, and, therefore, Puri has said India is expanding towards that goal, aiming to increase its current reserves.

Where Are Indias Strategic Oil Reserves Stored?

Unlike surface tanks, India stores this strategic crude in massive underground rock caverns (essentially engineered caves excavated in stable rock formations).

Three such caverns are currently operational in Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh), Mangaluru (Karnataka) and Padur (Karnataka). Together they provide about 5.33 million tonnes of strategic crude capacity.

What Are The Other Planned Sites For Storage?

New facilities approved or under development include sites at Chandikhol (Odisha) and further capacity at Padur under a public-private approach. Additional proposed sites may be built at Bikaner (Rajasthan) using salt caverns, and new storage in Bina (Madhya Pradesh), to move towards 90 days of coverage.

Why Does India Store Oil In Underground Caves?

These storage sites are not natural caves. They are purpose-built underground rock caverns, carved out of hard, stable rock using advanced tunnelling and blasting techniques. These are underground bunkers for oil, designed for decades-long storage. India deliberately chose this method because it is safer, cheaper over time, and strategically smarter than storing oil in massive surface tanks.

The surrounding rock protects against fire, aerial attacks, sabotage, and natural disasters. Underground storage limits evaporation and environmental risks compared with open-air tanks. These caverns are engineered with seals and monitoring systems to prevent leakage and contamination.

Who Runs These Storage Caves?

The reserves are owned and managed by a special government company  Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Limited (ISPRL)  a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Oil Industry Development Board under the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas.

ISPRL is responsible for building and maintaining the underground storage facilities, coordinating crude oil inflows, managing the supply of stored oil during emergencies, and ensuring that safety systems and monitoring are up to the prescribed standards.

How Are These Caverns Filled?

India fills these caverns primarily when global crude prices are low, buying oil to stockpile economically. Stored crude can be released to refineries via pipelines (and sometimes coastal shipping) when needed.

Typically, oil stored in strategic reserves stays government-owned, but sometimes private companies or foreign firms lease storage space  with terms that give India first call" in a crisis.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 16:31 IST

News explainers 'Stocks To Last 74 Days': What Are India's Strategic Petroleum Reserves And Where Are They Stored?

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What Is Clemency And Why Does Jeffrey Epstein's Ex-Girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell Need It?

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News18.com Edited By: Pragati Ratti



Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 13:46 IST

US President Donald Trump is at a point where he is faced with an appeal to grant clemency to Epstein's former girlfriend.

Ghislaine Maxwell pleads the Fifth during her deposition. (Image: X/@GOPoversight)

The Epstein files have brought the clemency debate back into the limelight in the United States. As shocking revelations continue to surface over Jeffrey Epsteins grave sexual offences, the names mentioned in the Epstein documents are sending shockwaves across geopolitical circles. And now, US President Donald Trump is at a point where he is faced with an appeal to grant clemency to Epsteins former girlfriend, who claims she will testify that Trump did nothing wrong in his connection with Epstein.

The debate around clemency and the Presidents powers in the US have often been a topic of debate, especially under Trumps terms. His consideration of granting pardon to those convicted in the 2021 Capitol attack continues to be debated. With the clemency issue back in the US corridors with Ghislaine Maxwells appeal, heres a look at the larger picture as to what clemency is and why it matters in the current scenario.

What Is Clemency?

Clemency is the constitutional power of the US President to reduce or erase the legal consequences of a federal conviction. It is one of the broadest and least constrained powers vested in the US presidency, rooted in Article II of the Constitution. It allows the US President to intervene in the criminal justice process after a federal offence has been committed, either by forgiving the crime altogether or by softening its consequences. A pardon removes legal penalties and restores civil rights such as voting or holding office, though it does not erase the historical fact of conviction. A commutation, by contrast, leaves the conviction intact but reduces the punishment, often shortening a prison sentence or converting it to time served. Other, less common forms include reprieves and remissions of fines.

What makes clemency particularly significant is how discretionary and personal the power is. There is no requirement for the president to justify a decision, consult Congress, or follow judicial advice. While most clemency petitions are formally processed through the Justice Departments Office of the Pardon Attorney  which reviews applications and makes recommendations  the president is under no legal obligation to accept that advice or even use the process at all. Several presidents, including Donald Trump, have bypassed the traditional system entirely, granting clemency based on personal appeals, media attention, or political considerations.

At the same time, the power has clear limits. Presidential clemency applies only to federal crimes; it cannot affect state convictions or civil liability. It also does not automatically shield recipients from public scrutiny, congressional investigations, or reputational damage. Historically, clemency has been defended as a necessary safety valve  a way to correct injustices, respond to changing social norms, or show mercy where the law is rigid. Critics, however, argue that its lack of transparency makes it vulnerable to abuse, particularly when used in high-profile or politically sensitive cases.

Why Does Ghislaine Maxwell Need Clemency?

Ghislaine Maxwells attorney David Oscar Markus has said that Maxwell is prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump". He said both Trump and Clinton are innocent of any wrongdoing," but that Ms. Maxwell alone can explain why, and the public is entitled to that explanation."

Ghislaine Maxwells need for clemency stems from the stage at which her case now sits in the US legal system. She has already been convicted in federal court, sentenced to 20 years in prison, and her conviction has been upheld on appeal. At this point, most of the normal pathways available to defendants are largely closed for her. Any further appeals would be limited to narrow technical or constitutional questions and are unlikely to result in a complete overturning of her conviction. In practical terms, that leaves executive clemency as the only mechanism capable of substantially altering her legal fate in the near term.

Clemency would allow the US president to intervene outside the judicial process, either by commuting Maxwells sentence or issuing a full pardon. A commutation could reduce the length of her prison term without erasing the conviction, while a pardon would forgive the offence itself, though it would not expunge the historical record or eliminate civil liability. This is why clemency occupies such a central place in discussions around Maxwell: it is not a parallel option to the courts, but a last-resort remedy that bypasses them altogether. The extraordinary nature of that power  particularly in a case involving sex trafficking, elite connections, and unresolved questions of accountability  is what makes any speculation around clemency so politically and legally charged.

What is Maxwells Current Legal Status?

Maxwell is a convicted federal prisoner serving a lengthy sentence for her role in facilitating Jeffrey Epsteins sex trafficking operation. In December 2021, a New York jury found her guilty on multiple counts, including sex trafficking of a minor and conspiracy, concluding that she actively recruited, groomed, and transported underage girls for Epsteins abuse over several years. In June 2022, she was sentenced to 20 years in prison, followed by supervised release. The court rejected defence arguments portraying her as a peripheral figure, instead holding that she played a central role in sustaining Epsteins criminal enterprise.

Maxwell has since pursued post-conviction remedies available under US law. Her legal team appealed both the conviction and the sentence, challenging jury instructions, evidentiary rulings, and aspects of prosecutorial conduct. Those challenges have so far failed, leaving the verdict intact. She is currently incarcerated in a federal correctional facility, with no realistic prospect of early release through the courts alone. While she could attempt further appeals or seek review by the US Supreme Court, such avenues are narrow and statistically unlikely to succeed. Importantly, Maxwell was not convicted of offences such as perjury or obstruction of justice, which can sometimes complicate cooperation claims, and her federal conviction does not legally disqualify her from petitioning for presidential clemency. That legal reality is what keeps clemency  rather than the courts  at the centre of any discussion about changes to her status.

How Did Trump Get Tangled In This?

US President Donald Trumps name has re-entered the Maxwell debate for political rather than procedural reasons. He had a documented social association with Jeffrey Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein moved in the same social circles in New York and Florida in the 1990s and early 2000s, a connection documented through photographs, media reports, and Trumps own past comments describing Epstein as a terrific guy" before their reported falling-out. Trump has, however, denied any involvement in Epsteins crimes and has not been charged in connection with them.

Maxwells recent public statements and filings have revived scrutiny of powerful figures linked to Epstein, prompting renewed questions about whether clemency could be sought or offered. Separately, Trumps past record of granting clemency to politically sensitive or controversial figures has amplified speculation, even in the absence of any formal request or indication that such relief is under consideration.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 13:46 IST

News explainers What Is Clemency And Why Does Jeffrey Epstein's Ex-Girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell Need It?

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'Attack On Democracy': BJP Alleges TMC Councillor Molested Former BSF Jawan's Wife

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 07:07 IST

BJP accused a TMC councillor from Taki Ward 12 of molesting a former BSF jawans wife and criticised police inaction, intensifying political tensions in Bengal ahead of elections.

Rapid Read

The TMC councillor is accused of molesting an ex-BSF jawan's wife. (Image: Canva/Representative)

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday launched a sharp attack on the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal after allegations surfaced against a TMC councillor from Taki municipality in North 24 Parganas district.

According to West Bengal BJP Spokesperson Debjit Sarkar, a TMC councillor from Ward 12 in Taki allegedly molested the wife of a former Border Security Force (BSF) jawan. Sarkar claimed that the incident occurred in retaliation" after the womans husband was earlier assaulted and allegedly denied police assistance due to the councillors political influence.

Reacting to the matter, the BJP leader wrote on social media platform X, Shame on TMC. A TMC councillor from Taki (Ward 12) is accused of m0lesting the wife of a former BSF jawan in retaliation after her husband was assaulted and denied police help due to political influence. Power used to silence citizens and target women is an attack on democracy(sic)."

The BJPs West Bengal unit also issued a statement on X, calling the situation an example of Mahajungle Raj" in the state.

A TMC councillor in Taki (Ward 12) is accused of outraging the modesty of a former BSF jawans wife after police allegedly refused action in an earlier assault case due to political pressure. When power shields criminals and women are targeted, it becomes clearer how much Bengali society is under threat from TMC," the party stated.

The BJP has demanded strict action against the accused councillor and questioned the role of the local police. As of now, the Trinamool Congress has not issued an official response to the allegations. Police authorities have also not released a detailed statement regarding the status of any complaint or investigation related to the incident.

The matter has further intensified the political confrontation between the BJP and the TMC ahead of upcoming electoral battles in the state.

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Location : West Bengal, India, India

First Published: February 10, 2026, 07:07 IST

News india 'Attack On Democracy': BJP Alleges TMC Councillor Molested Former BSF Jawan's Wife

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'Don't Cross Boundaries Of Morality': Kerala Muslim Body Urges Women To Follow Traditional Roles

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 07:54 IST

Samastha urges Muslim women to uphold traditional values, warning against modern influences, sparking debate on balancing Islamic rights and public participation.

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The Kerala Muslim Body's resolution warned against "dragging women into public activities." (Image: Representative/File)

The Samastha Kerala Jemiyyathul Ulema, a prominent Muslim scholarly body in Kerala, has passed a resolution expressing concern over what it described as growing efforts to draw Muslim women into public activities that, it said, distract them from their fundamental responsibilities."

The resolution was adopted at a conference of the organisation, where scholars reiterated that nobility and modesty are the adornment of women" and emphasised adherence to boundaries laid down by traditional Islamic scholarship as the basis for both material and spiritual success."

While underlining that Islam grants women the right to education, employment, inheritance and spiritual individuality, the resolution cautioned against what it termed the influence of modernity and liberalism" leading women to cross the boundaries of morality in public places."

The tendency to drag Muslim women into public activities that distract them from their fundamental responsibilities should not be encouraged," the resolution stated.

The scholarly body also called for preserving what it described as the special consideration given by Islam to the dignity and safety of women. It urged the womens community to follow the example of the women of the Companions" of Prophet Muhammad and their pious predecessors," while warning against what it referred to as distorted progressive arguments."

The resolution has sparked discussion within social and religious circles, with supporters viewing it as a reaffirmation of traditional values, while critics argue that such positions risk limiting womens participation in public life. Samastha leaders, however, maintain that the resolution seeks to balance womens rights granted by Islam with moral and social responsibilities as understood by traditional scholarship.

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Location : Kerala, India, India

First Published: February 10, 2026, 07:54 IST

News india 'Don't Cross Boundaries Of Morality': Kerala Muslim Body Urges Women To Follow Traditional Roles

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Education Ministry's Bharat Bodhan AI Conclave 2026 Scheduled For February 12-13

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 18:12 IST

This Bharat Bodhan AI Conclave 2026 aims to forge strategic partnerships in AI-enabled education, focusing innovations, and opportunities within the education system.

The Bharat Bodhan AI Conclave 2026 will take place at the Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi. (AI Generated Image)

The Ministry of Education is hosting the Bharat Bodhan AI Conclave 2026, a pre-event for the India AI Impact Summit. To advance this event, the Education Ministry had earlier established a Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence for Education at IIT Madras, set up as IIT Madras Bodhan AI Foundation.

The Centre of Excellence in AI for Education will lead discussions and initiatives at the conclave, scheduled for February 12-13, 2026 at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi. IIT Madras stated that the Centre has a national mandate to develop responsible, scalable, and India-first AI solutions for education. These efforts will be aligned with national policies and digital public frameworks, ensuring access across diverse socio-economic, geographic, and linguistic contexts.

This national platform aims to create strategic partnerships in AI-enabled education, focusing on key factors, innovations, opportunities, readiness, and scalability within the education system. As Indias education landscape evolves under NEP 2020, the conclave will bring together policymakers, academia, startups, and industry to explore how AI can enhance learning on a large scale, responsibly, and inclusively.

The Bharat Bodhan AI Conclave 2026, scheduled for 1213 February 2026, is a national platform for strategic partnership-building in AI-enabled education, focused on mapping key actors, innovations, opportunities, readiness, and scalability across the education ecosystem," reads the official post on X.

Ministry of Education is organising Bharat Bodhan AI conclave 2026, a pre summit event for the India AI Impact summit. The centre of Excellence in AI for Education will anchor the discussion and initiatives at the Bharat Bodhan AI Conclave.The Bharat Bodhan AI Conclave 2026, pic.twitter.com/eR748YN7VV  Ministry of Education (@EduMinOfIndia) February 10, 2026

The last date for submitting Letters of Interest was January 29, 2026. Submissions were invited across four priority verticals:

1. AI for School Education

2. AI for Higher Education

3. AI for Skilling and Workforce Readiness

4. AI Research and Deep Technology

Selected participants will gain high-visibility national exposure and the opportunity to present their solutions to policymakers, government representatives, academic and research institutions, edtech practitioners, investors, philanthropic organisations, and industry stakeholders.

Participants will present through demonstration stalls at the conclave and receive structured reviews and feedback from a designated committee, as well as from educators, learners, and other stakeholders attending the event.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 18:01 IST

News india Education Ministry's Bharat Bodhan AI Conclave 2026 Scheduled For February 12-13

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False, Malicious: Assam CM Files Rs 500 Cr Defamation Case Against Congress Leaders, Including Gogoi

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 14:29 IST

The development came hours after Gaurav Gogoi alleged that Sarmas family had grabbed around 12,000 bighas of land, which is over 3,960 acres, across the state.

Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. (PTI file photos)

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday filed a defamation case against Congress leaders Jitendra Singh, Bhupesh Baghel and Gaurav Gogoi for making what he described as false, malicious and defamatory allegations against him.

In a post on X, Sarma said, Today, I have filed a defamation case seeking 500 crore in damages against Congress leaders Jitendra Singh, Bhupesh Baghel and Gaurav Gogoi for making false, malicious and defamatory allegations against me through a press conference."

Allegations raised by Congress

The development came hours after Assam Congress chief Gaurav Gogoi alleged that Sarmas family had grabbed around 12,000 bighas of land, which is over 3,960 acres, across the state.

The allegation was made during a press conference at the state Congress headquarters. The event was also addressed by Leader of the Opposition in the Assam Assembly Debabrata Saikia, All India Congress Committee General Secretary (in-charge of Assam) Jitendra Singh and former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel.

Civil and criminal proceedings announced

Sarma later announced that he would initiate both civil and criminal defamation proceedings on 9 February 2026 against Jitendra Singh, Bhupesh Baghel, Gaurav Gogoi and Debabrata Saikia.

I am initiating civil and criminal defamation proceedings on 9 February 2026 against @JitendraSAlwar, @bhupeshbaghel, @GauravGogoiAsm and @DsaikiaOfficial for making false, malicious and defamatory statements against me in todays press conference," Sarma said in another post on X.

Assam CM responds strongly

Reacting to the allegations, Sarma said, The era of hit-and-run politics is over. If they have even an ounce of courage or evidence, let them prove every allegation before a court of law."

He added, I will not be intimidated by propaganda, coordinated slander, or political theatrics of so called slaves of Gandhi family."

Gogoi has alleged that Sarmas family grabbed around 12,000 bighas of land across Assam.

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Location : Assam, India, India

First Published: February 10, 2026, 14:26 IST

News india False, Malicious: Assam CM Files Rs 500 Cr Defamation Case Against Congress Leaders, Including Gogoi

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French President Emmanuel Macron To Visit India On February 17-19

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 17:38 IST

The leaders will discuss regional and global issues of mutual interest, including cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region.

PM Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron. (PTI File Photo)

French President Emmanuel Macron is set to visit India from February 17 to 19, following an invitation from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Ministry of External Affairs said. During the three-day trip, PM Modi and Macron will meet for talks covering a broad range of issues, with a focus on deepening cooperation outlined under the Horizon 2047 Roadmap- a long-term plan guiding IndiaFrance relations over the next 25 years.

The two leaders are also expected to exchange views on regional and international developments, including collaboration in the Indo-Pacific region, the MEA noted.

India-France Year Of Innovation

As part of the visit, Macron will travel to Mumbai with PM Modi to jointly launch the IndiaFrance Year of Innovation, a year-long programme to be marked in both countries through 2026. The initiative aims to boost collaboration in innovation, technology and research.

On February 19, the French President will attend the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, highlighting the growing focus of both countries on artificial intelligence and emerging technologies.

Building On Strategic Partnership

The visit follows PM Modis trip to France in February 2025 and reflects the steady expansion of bilateral ties. The MEA said the engagement underlines the level of trust between the two sides and their shared intent to strengthen the strategic partnership further.

India and France maintain close cooperation in areas such as defence, space, civil nuclear energy, maritime security, counter-terrorism and climate action. During last years visit to France, the two countries also agreed to explore collaboration on advanced and small modular nuclear reactors.

The upcoming visit is expected to build on recent engagements and provide fresh momentum to the IndiaFrance partnership under the Horizon 2047 framework.

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Location : Delhi, India, India

First Published: February 10, 2026, 17:29 IST

News india French President Emmanuel Macron To Visit India On February 17-19

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Husband, 3 Wives, 5 Children: All 9 Slept In Single Room, New Details In Ghaziabad Triple Suicide

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 08:11 IST

Chetan Kumar lived with three wives and five children in one room of a three-bedroom flat, a report in connection with the Ghaziabad sisters' suicide case have suggested.

Ghaziabad minor sisters suicide case: A photo of their father (L), their society complex (R) (Source: Social Media)

Fresh details emerging in the Ghaziabad sisters death case have now suggested that nine members allegedly slept in a single room despite the flat being a three-bedroom unit, NDTV reported, citing police sources.

According to the report, Chetan Kumar, the father of the minor girls, lived in the Bharat City Society apartment with his three wives, Sujata, Hina and Tina, and their five children.

Even though the home had three bedrooms, investigators found that all nine occupants slept in one room, a fact that has now become part of the wider probe into the familys circumstances and domestic dynamics.

Police sources quoted by NDTV said Chetan had fathered two children with his first wife, Sujata, a daughter and a mentally challenged son.

With his second wife, Hina, he had two daughters, aged 14 and 12, while Tina, his youngest wife, has a three-year-old daughter with him.

MULTIPLE MARRIAGES, CONSENT: THE TANGLED CASE OF GHAZIABAD SISTERS DEATH

The report quoted an Assistant Commissioner of Police as saying that Chetan claimed he married Hina because Sujata was unable to conceive.

However, investigators have flagged inconsistencies in this explanation, pointing out that Sujatas elder daughter was believed to be around 16 years old at the time of her death.

Kumar reportedly told police that he married Sujata in 2010, Hina in 2013 and Tina in 2023, after Tina converted to Hinduism from Islam.

When questioned about how he could marry three women without divorcing any of the earlier wives, the cop quoted Chetan Kumar as saying that the women had apparently consented to the marriages.

No one complained," Kumar had told the police.

NDTV also cited the officer as saying that Tina had previously worked with Kumar, and that so far, police believe the other wives had consented to that marriage as well.

GHAZIABAD MINOR SISTERS WERE DISTRESSED

According to news agency PTI, the police believe the girls were distressed after their father allegedly confiscated and later sold their mobile phones because he felt they were obsessed with Korean culture.

PTI quoted DCP (Trans Hindon) Nimish Patil as saying that the sisters had been unable to play online games or speak to friends in Korea after losing their phones.

On the night of the incident, they allegedly took their mothers phone but could not access the Korean application they wanted.

A forensic team that seized the handset did not find evidence of access to the app, Patil told PTI.

The officer added that fingerprints, the handwritten suicide note and messages recovered from the spot have been sent to the forensic science laboratory, and the report is awaited.

PAST CASE, CYBER TRACKING AND FORENSIC ANGLES

PTI reported that Kumar had a live-in partner in 2015 who died after falling from the roof of a flat in Rajendra Nagar Colony in the Sahibabad police station area. That case was later closed as a suicide, Patil said.

Earlier, the maternal grandfather of the three minor sisters had told reporters that one of his daughters (Chetan Kumars sister-in-law), Aanchal, had died after falling off the balcony of Chetans flat.

PTI also mentioned that Chetans three wives, Sujata, Heena and Tina, are biological wives. However, with media reports suggesting that Tina had converted to Hinduism, there was no official confirmation on if the three women were sisters.

The three sisters, aged 16, 14, and 12, jumped from the ninth floor of their residential tower.

Patil further told PTI that the girls appeared to be more attached to their father than their mothers, a detail that investigators say is reflected in the suicide note, which addressed him but did not mention the women.

Preliminary findings, including a nine-page pocket diary recovered from the sisters room, suggest an intense attachment to Korean culture and possible family discord.

Police have maintained that the case is being treated as a suicide for now, while all angles, including family circumstances, living conditions and forensic evidence, continue to be examined, PTI reported.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 08:11 IST

News india Husband, 3 Wives, 5 Children: All 9 Slept In Single Room, New Details In Ghaziabad Triple Suicide

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Woman Killed, Many Injured In Stampede At Navgrah Temple In Madhya Pradesh's Gwalior

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News18.com

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 15:07 IST

A stampede during a Kalash Yatra at the inauguration of the Navgrah Temple in Madhya Pradesh's Gwalior district left a 70-year-old woman dead and seven others injured.

A photo of the Navgrah temple in Madhya Pradesh's Gwalior (Social Media)

A 70-year-old woman was killed, and seven others were injured in a crowd surge during the inauguration of the Navgrah Temple in Dabra, in Gwalior district of Madhya Pradesh, on Tuesday.

The stampede took place when a large group of women assembled near the Dabra stadium in the morning hours for a Kalash Yatra organised as part of the temple inauguration ceremonies.

News agency PTI quoted Gwalior Collector Ruchika Chauhan as saying that the trouble began while sacred pots were being handed out to participants.

During the distribution of the Kalash (sacred pots), a scuffle broke out. A 70-year-old woman was crushed in the crowd and died later," Chauhan said.

She added that the other injured included six women and a girl.

According to the collector, three of them were shifted to hospitals in Gwalior for treatment, while the remaining four are being treated in Dabra.

Chauhan also said that calm has since been restored at the site and that officials were ensuring proper arrangements to prevent any further problems.

Senior police officers gave a similar account of how the situation spiralled out of control.

Gwalior Range Inspector General Arvind Saxena said the rush at the distribution point triggered a dangerous crush.

During the distribution of the Kalash, many women rushed forward, leading to a stampede-like situation. One woman was crushed to death," Saxena said.

Eyewitnesses told authorities that the crowd had grown very large and that some women began pushing one another, which disrupted the arrangements and contributed to the chaos.

The district administration said that despite the incident, the Kalash Yatra later moved along its planned route and reached the Navgrah Temple without any further untoward incident.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 14:50 IST

News india Woman Killed, Many Injured In Stampede At Navgrah Temple In Madhya Pradesh's Gwalior

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Haryana Man Dies Mysteriously In Italy, Bedridden Father Struggling To Bring Body Back

Curated By :

Translation Desk

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 13:09 IST

On February 4, the family received the shocking news of his death, and they have not yet received any assurance about the return of his body to the village for last rites

Rapid Read

Gagandeep had gone abroad not for personal aspirations but to earn money for the treatment of his father, Jagjit Singh, who has been bedridden for the past 18 years. (News18 Hindi)

A young man from a small village in Haryana who left home with hopes of earning abroad to support his ailing father died under suspicious circumstances in Italy, leaving his family devastated and struggling to bring his body back.

Gagandeep, a resident of Ramkhedi village in Bilaspur town of Yamunanagar district, had travelled to Italy on April 3, 2023. He was seen off at Delhi airport by his brother-in-law Amanpreet Kaur and other family members, all carrying dreams of a better future. Nearly three years later, on February 4, 2026, the family received the shocking news of his death, and they have not yet received any assurance about the return of his body to the village for last rites.

According to the family, Gagandeep had gone abroad not for personal aspirations but to earn money for the treatment of his father, Jagjit Singh, who has been bedridden for the past 18 years and has also lost his memory. The familys financial condition was extremely weak, and as the eldest of two siblings, Gagandeep had taken on the responsibility of supporting the household. He had hoped that by working hard in Italy, he would be able to arrange proper medical care for his father.

However, the family has alleged that the agent who facilitated his travel took a large amount of money but failed to provide him with stable employment after he reached Italy. They claim that Gagandeep was not paid for the work he did, and as his savings ran out, his situation worsened. In an attempt to escape the agents control, he reportedly moved from city to city in search of work and shelter but could not find a steady job or place to stay. Eventually, he was forced to live in a camp.

Family members say the constant stress, isolation and deteriorating living conditions pushed him into deep depression. They believe he eventually lost his life under these circumstances. Now, they say they do not even have the financial means to bring his body back to India.

The atmosphere at his home in Ramkhedi is one of overwhelming grief. His mother is inconsolable, and his father, in a fragile state, repeatedly says that his son had gone abroad only to earn for his treatment and never returned.

Seeking assistance, the bereaved family has approached Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Saini, who has assured them of help in bringing Gagandeeps body back home.

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Location : Haryana, India, India

First Published: February 10, 2026, 13:09 IST

News india Haryana Man Dies Mysteriously In Italy, Bedridden Father Struggling To Bring Body Back

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China's rise as the world's first "electrostate": a model for the global energy transition

09:20, February 10, 2026 By He Yin ( People's Daily

Recent international discourse has highlighted China's transformative achievements in the power sector, with foreign media suggesting the nation is poised to become the world's first major "electrostate."

As electricity becomes central to the global clean energy transition, experts suggest future economic value may increasingly be measured in wattage.

China's science-based energy planning has not only strengthened domestic development but also accelerated worldwide decarbonization efforts.

"Electrostate," a new term gaining traction in global energy and climate policy discussions, refers to the proportion of electricity within a country's total energy structure.

Latest figures show that by the end of 2025, China's cumulative grid-connected wind and solar capacity surpassed 1.8 billion kilowatts for the first time, equivalent to the total installed capacity of about 82 Three Gorges projects.

On the consumption side, China's total electricity use in 2025 exceeded 10 trillion kilowatt-hours, setting a new world record for annual power consumption.

This achievement stands in contrast to challenges faced elsewhere. Some developed economies grapple with persistent issues like power shortages, fragmented grids, and soaring electricity prices. In contrast, China's electricity consumption nearly doubled over a decade, from about 5.5 trillion kilowatt-hours in 2015 to more than 10 trillion kilowatt-hours in 2025, and is now more than twice that of the United States, exceeding the combined total of the European Union, Russia, India, and Japan.

China's recognition as the world's first "electrostate" is well-deserved. This recognition stems from science-based planning and the steady progress in high-quality development within the energy sector.

Achievements include constructing 46 ultra-high-voltage transmission projects enabling long-distance power transfer (west-to-east and north-to-south), accelerating a unified national electricity market, and aligning initiatives like "East Data, West Computing" with optimized energy distribution. China's planning-driven governance has vividly demonstrated both remarkable efficiency and tangible achievements in green development.

China's emergence as the world's first "electrostate" offers a model for the global green energy transition.

The International Energy Agency noted that the age of electricity has arrived. Electricity is the primary option for replacing fossil fuels in end-use consumption and the main pathway for harnessing new energy sources.

In China, more than one-third of the electricity consumed is generated from renewable sources. By 2025, China's combined installed capacity of wind and solar power had surpassed that of thermal power for the first time. More than 95 percent of China's coal-fired power units have achieved ultra-low emissions, and over half are capable of deep peak regulation, forming the world's largest clean coal power supply system.

On the demand side, sectors like transportation, industry, and construction are actively advancing electrification, steadily substituting coal, oil, and gas with electricity. Looking ahead, China's electrification rate is projected to rise steadily, reaching around 35 percent by 2030.

As the world's largest developing nation and second-largest economy, China continues to pursue its energy transition with unwavering commitment, injecting robust momentum into global green development.

International observers note that Chinese enterprises are helping pave the way toward a world powered by electricity rather than internal combustion engines -- truly "a 21st-century vision of progress."

The empowering role of Chinese technology, Chinese manufacturing capacity, and Chinese solutions in the global energy transition is becoming increasingly evident.

China supplies about 70 percent of the world's wind power equipment and 80 percent of photovoltaic panels. Exports of wind turbines, solar components, and new energy vehicles reach more than 200 countries and regions.

For instance, in sub-Saharan Africa, Chinese off-grid solar systems account for more than half of new electricity connections. In Pakistan, Chinese-made solar panels have become a popular investment choice. In Laos, construction of the China-Laos 500-kilovolt power interconnection project is accelerating and, once completed, will transmit about 3 billion kilowatt-hours of clean electricity annually.

From taking the lead in formulating the world's first international standard for photovoltaic direct current technologies, to facilitating agreements covering projects with a total installed capacity of 12 million kilowatts at the Energy Ministers Meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization last year, China has actively promoted technology sharing, joint standard-setting, and cooperative rule-making.

Through a "shared supply" model, China contributes to solving global energy challenges and offers accessible, affordable transition pathways for developing nations worldwide. China's emergence as the world's first "electrostate" epitomizes the country's high-quality development and mirrors a new global energy landscape, one powered by electricity and built on a green foundation, now rapidly taking shape.

Photo shows expansive solar panels in a solar industrial park in Hami, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. (Photo/Cai Zengle)

New energy sanitation vehicles are assembled in a workshop of a new energy vehicle manufacturer in Wuhu, east China's Anhui province. (Photo/Xiao Benxiang)

Photo shows an offshore wind farm in the waters near Yuhuan, east China's Zhejiang province. (Photo/Duan Junli)

(Web editor: Peng Yukai, Liang Jun)
'Respects Indias Aspirations': UNSC Signal From China At Delhi Talks As Bilateral Ties Stabilise

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 22:03 IST

According to the MEA, the two sides exchanged views on a broad range of bilateral, regional and international issues.

Both delegations underlined that peace and tranquillity in the border areas are essential for overall progress in IndiaChina relations.

China conveyed that it understands and respects Indias aspirations for permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) during high-level strategic talks held in New Delhi, even as both sides underlined that maintaining peace along the border remains critical to stabilising bilateral ties.

The issue figured during the IndiaChina Strategic Dialogue led by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri on the Indian side and Chinas Executive Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu, who is visiting India to attend the BRICS Sherpa Meeting from February 8 to 10, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said.

In a statement, the MEA said the two sides exchanged views on a wide range of bilateral, regional and international issues." Discussions on bilateral ties focused on recent steps taken to stabilise relations and on identifying ways to move the relationship forward after a prolonged period of strain.

Both delegations emphasised that peace and tranquillity in the border areas are essential for the overall development of IndiaChina relations," the MEA said, adding that the two sides reiterated their commitment to implementing the guidance provided by their respective leaders. This includes approaching issues related to bilateral trade from a broader political and strategic perspective.

The Foreign Secretary highlighted the successful resumption of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra and expressed hope that the scale of the pilgrimage could be expanded further in the future." The two sides also recognised the need to conclude an updated Air Services Agreement at an early date" and agreed to continue taking practical steps to facilitate visas and enhance people-to-people exchanges, the statement said.

Multilateral cooperation also featured prominently in the talks, particularly in the context of Indias BRICS Chairship this year. The Chinese side expressed support for the successful hosting of the BRICS Summit in India."

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 20:35 IST

News india 'Respects Indias Aspirations': UNSC Signal From China At Delhi Talks As Bilateral Ties Stabilise

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Kanpur Lamborghini Crash: Father Says Shivam Was Sleepy, Driver Got Distracted While Checking On Him

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 13:54 IST

Shivam appeared sleepy during a test drive, prompting the driver to check on him, which coincided with the crash.

Police personnel inspect a luxury car parked at a police station after it allegedly hit and injured six pedestrians, in Kanpur. (Image: PTI)

The father of Shivam Mishra, the accused in the Kanpur Lamborghini crash case, on Tuesday claimed that his son was not driving the vehicle and had become unconscious moments before the accident, leading to the driver getting distracted.

According to him, Shivam appeared sleepy" during a test drive, prompting the driver to check on him, which coincided with the crash.

Speaking to reporters, Shivams father said his son had been sent to a doctor for treatment and was removed from the car in an unconscious state by the driver and others present. He claimed there was a technical issue with the luxury car, which had been checked a day earlier, and that Shivam and another person had gone for a test drive.

Shivam was seemingly sleepy. The driver got distracted while checking on him. The car was moving slowly, but by then a tempo came in front," he said, adding that the car doors locked after the crash and the window had to be broken to get Shivam out.

Also Read: UP Business Tycoons Son Rams Lamborghini Into Pedestrians, Biker Flung 10 Feet Into Air

Shivams lawyer, Mrityunjay Kumar, reiterated that his client was seated in the passenger seat and was not driving the Lamborghini. Shivam was in the passenger seat. He became unconscious. The vehicle got locked, and therefore the window had to be broken," the lawyer said, adding that a person named Mohan has identified himself as the driver. He also said the court will hear Shivams bail plea and the matter related to the release of the seized car on Wednesday.

Earlier, Kanpur Police Commissioner Raghubir Lal said Shivam Mishras name has been added to the FIR based on evidence collected during the investigation, including CCTV footage. When Shivams name comes up in our investigation, it means that we are satisfied that the driver was Shivam. We have CCTV footage. His name has been included in the FIR," the commissioner said, adding that the probe is ongoing.

Police have seized the Lamborghini and said Shivams father has been issued a notice and will participate in the investigation after reaching the Gwaltoli Kotwali police station to record his statement.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 13:44 IST

News india Kanpur Lamborghini Crash: Father Says Shivam Was Sleepy, Driver Got Distracted While Checking On Him

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'Not Satisfied With Response': Maithili Thakur Questions Minister Over Condition Of Bihar Hospitals

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 08:41 IST

BJP MLA Maithili Thakur challenged Health Minister Mangal Pandey in the Bihar Assembly, rejecting his written reply on a government hospital and citing poor infrastructure.

Maithili Thakur/Bihar Health Minister Mangal Pandey (Photos: Social Media)

BJP MLA Maithili Thakur took on her own partys Health Minister, Mangal Pandey, in the Bihar assembly over the condition of a government hospital in her Alinagar constituency, saying official records did not reflect what she had personally seen on the ground and urging immediate corrective action.

During Question Hour, Thakur rejected the ministers written reply that suggested the hospital building was not in a severely bad state and only required repairs.

In her intervention, she told the House, I am not completely satisfied with the ministers response, because it states that the building is not in a bad condition, it just needs to be repaired."

But I myself have gone and seen that the building is in a bad condition," she said.

She went on to describe how limited infrastructure and manpower were affecting patient care, saying, There is a health care system running in a small room there. There is no MBBS doctor, there were two MBBS doctors there in the past, but not now."

Referring to the replys mention of another category of doctor, she added, It is written in the answer that there is another specialist, to which I agree, but we need two MBBS doctors there."

Framing her remarks, the legislator said, I am not ordering the minister, I am just making a request to him."

She underlined Pandeys long association with the health department, noting, Because I was very young, and since then I have been seeing the health minister as a minister. I have been seeing him working in the health department. So I want him to do it for the benefit of the public, because it is very important."

Stressing the scale of dependence on the facility, Thakur told the House, Five to seven panchayats depend on this hospital. It is clearly believed that 40,000 to 50,000 people benefit from this hospital."

She also highlighted its strategic location within her constituency, saying, And this hospital is in the centre of my entire committee, with which the two branches, Ghanshyampur and Alinagar, both can benefit from it."

Concluding her intervention, she urged focused attention on the matter.

So I would like to request him to pay special attention to this. Thank you."

The episode drew attention because it came from a ruling-party legislator of the Bharatiya Janata Party publicly pressing a senior minister from her own side.

In his response placed before the House, Pandey had maintained that the government was addressing infrastructure concerns, pointing to approvals for new hospital buildings in several areas, ongoing construction at some sites, and a phased plan to repair or renovate facilities identified as extremely dilapidated.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 08:39 IST

News india 'Not Satisfied With Response': Maithili Thakur Questions Minister Over Condition Of Bihar Hospitals

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Manipur Violence: Fresh Firing In Ukhruls Litan; Over 30 Houses Torched, Internet Services Suspended

Reported By :

News18.com Edited By: Shuddhanta Patra



Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 12:25 IST

Heavy security forces were deployed in and around Litan to control the situation. Despite the deployment, the situation remained highly volatile, with firing still being reported.

Over 30 Homes Burnt In Ukhruls Litan Amid Ongoing Firing. (Photo: CNN News18)

Fresh firing was reported early Tuesday morning in Litan village in Manipurs Ukhrul district. Several rounds of gunshots were heard, creating panic and fear among residents. Internet services has suspended in violence hit Ukhrul with immediate effect for five days.

Several new houses were reportedly set ablaze during the night and early morning hours. Preliminary reports said 21 houses had been burnt till yesterday evening. Incidents during the night and early morning hours increased the number to around 30 houses or possibly more, though the exact figure is yet to be officially confirmed.

Residents from both Kuki and Tangkhul communities were seen fleeing their homes and moving to safer locations with their belongings as tension continued in the area.

Heavy security forces were deployed in and around Litan to control the situation. Despite the deployment, the situation remained highly volatile, with firing still being reported.

Chief Minister appeals for peace

On Monday, Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh appealed for peace and restraint among the people of the area. An emergency meeting was also held with representatives of both communities and concerned authorities, including the district administration.

The meeting was attended by Deputy Chief Minister Losii Dikho, MLA Ram Muivah, and Kimneo Haokip. However, no concrete solution or resolution emerged from the meeting.

No casualties so far

No injuries or deaths had been reported. Authorities said they were closely monitoring the situation as tension continued in the area.

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Location : Manipur, India, India

First Published: February 10, 2026, 11:42 IST

News india Manipur Violence: Fresh Firing In Ukhruls Litan; Over 30 Houses Torched, Internet Services Suspended

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'Mysore Sandal Soap Opera': Iconic Brand Goes Global With Tamannaah Bhatia Amid Political Tug-Of-War

Reported By :

Edited By: Pathikrit Sen Gupta



Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 22:16 IST

The BJP has accused Karnataka's Congress government of overlooking homegrown talent in favour of a non-Kannadiga face like Tamannaah

At a high-profile unveiling, the legendary soap was showcased with a refreshed, contemporary aesthetic designed to propel the 'Pride of Karnataka' into competitive northern markets and international territories. Image/News18

The historic Mysore Sandal Soap, a century-old symbol of Karnatakas rich cultural heritage, has officially entered a transformative era with the appointment of actress Tamannaah Bhatia as its global brand ambassador. Marking a significant pivot for the state-owned Karnataka Soaps and Detergents Limited (KSDL), the two-year partnership aims to modernise the brands image and capture a younger, pan-India audience.

At a high-profile unveiling on Tuesday, the legendary soap was showcased with a refreshed, contemporary aesthetic designed to propel the Pride of Karnataka" into competitive northern markets and international territories.

The strategic move has not been without its share of regional friction, sparking a heated debate over representation and local identity. BJP MP Dr Sudhakar took to social media to voice sharp criticism, accusing the government of overlooking homegrown talent in favour of a non-Kannadiga face. In a strongly worded statement, Dr Sudhakar questioned if the anti-Kannada" Congress government was blind to the success of local stars like Ramya, Rashmika Mandanna, and Rukmini Vasant, who have brought international acclaim to the state. He characterised the decision to pay crores to an actress from another industry as a grave insult" to the identity of Mysore Sandal and the talent within Karnataka.

Responding to the political backlash, Industries Minister MB Patil defended the selection as a calculated business decision made by a specialised committee. He clarified that while local actresses were considered, several top Kannada stars were ineligible due to existing contracts with rival brands like Lux or Cinthol. Minister Patil emphasised that with a following of nearly 30 million, Tamannaah brings the merit and reach necessary for KSDL to achieve its ambitious goal of a Rs 5,000 crore turnover by 2030. Addressing the opposition directly, the minister noted that the company has reached new heights under the current administration, expanding from 36 to 57 products and securing a staggering profit of Rs 450 crore, a stark contrast to the previous management, which he claimed had destroyed" the institution.

For Tamannaah Bhatia, the association is more than just a business endorsement; it is a connection to a deep-rooted Indian legacy. Expressing her gratitude, the actress remarked that it is a matter of huge pride and honour to be part of the KSDL family and that she felt lucky to receive such a warm welcome. She described her new responsibility as the face of the brand as nostalgia and emotion", noting that the authenticity of Mysore Sandal is something that cannot be beaten by any other brand. As the campaign rolls out, the Karnataka government remains firm that this celebrity-led strategy is the key to ensuring the survival and relevance of its industrial crown jewel on the global stage.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 22:16 IST

News india 'Mysore Sandal Soap Opera': Iconic Brand Goes Global With Tamannaah Bhatia Amid Political Tug-Of-War

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21-Year-Old Maharashtra Woman Administered Injections By Ward Boy Posing As Doctor, Dies

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 09:28 IST

A ward boy posing as a doctor was arrested in Navi Mumbai after allegedly administering injections to a 21-year-old woman that led to her death.

Ward boy arrested in Navi Mumbai for posing as doctor (Video screengrab/News18)

In a shocking incident from Navi Mumbai, police have arrested a ward boy who allegedly posed as a doctor and administered injections to a 21-year-old woman, resulting in her death, an official from the Vashi police station said on Monday.

The incident occurred on February 5 in Sector 11 of Vashi. The victim was identified as Prachiti Bhikuram Bhuvad.

A police official told news agency PTI that the accused, Sandesh Yashwant Pashte, was contacted by the womans family after she complained of irregular menstrual cycles.

According to the police, Pashte introduced himself as a doctor and examined the young woman at her residence.

As the woman narrated her health issues, the ward boy allegedly informed her that she was suffering from Polycystic Ovary Disorder (PCOD).

The ward boy then proposed a treatment plan involving a course of five injections, for which he charged the family Rs 15,000, assuring them that he would personally administer the medication.

On February 5, Pashte visited the womans home and gave her two injections, the police said.

Shortly after receiving the shots, her condition reportedly worsened rapidly, and she fell unconscious.

The Vashi police station official said that the accused appeared panicked following the womans collapse, and allegedly asked the womans father to dispose of a bag containing used syringes and other medical waste in the trash.

Family members then rushed the woman to a nearby hospital, where doctors declared her dead nearly two hours later.

The police further said that when confronted by the womans relatives, Pashte admitted that he was not a doctor.

According to the official, he confessed to being a ward boy employed at a private nursing home in Andheri in Mumbai and acknowledged that he did not possess any recognised medical qualification or medical certificate.

Following a complaint filed by the family, the police registered a case against Pashte and arrested him on February 6.

The accused was booked under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita on charges including culpable homicide not amounting to murder, cheating by personation and other offences.

Police said an investigation was underway to determine the exact nature of the injections administered to the woman and to establish further circumstances surrounding her death.

Officers were also examining whether the accused had treated other people in a similar manner.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 09:27 IST

News india 21-Year-Old Maharashtra Woman Administered Injections By Ward Boy Posing As Doctor, Dies

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NHRC Slams Tamil Nadu Govt's Response In Migrant Worker Attack Case, Seeks Clarification

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 13:10 IST

The incident reportedly took place on December 27 last year, and the victim's statement was recorded on the same day. However, the FIR was registered the next day.

A migrant worker was attacked in Tamil Nadu in Decmber last year. (Representative Image)

Over a month after a migrant worker from Odisha was assaulted in Tamil Nadu, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued a show cause notice to Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary and has directed to ensure all necessary medical treatment, post-trauma counselling, and reimbursement of any treatment costs for the victim.

NHRC further noted the delayed FIR registration and the sudden disappearance of the victim from the hospital without follow-up searches. In regards to this, the commission asked the Tamil Nadu Director General of Police to submit an explanation within seven days and to trace the victim at the earliest.

The Tamil Nadu government has been informed about the migrant worker Suraj, who was brutally attacked with sharp weapons, left the hospital in an injured condition and has since gone missing, with no current information available about him.

The incident reportedly took place on December 27 last year, and the victims statement was recorded on the same day. However, the FIR was registered the next day after pressure was built up on social media.

NDRC has accused the state authorities of not making effective efforts to trace the injured victim or identify his family members.

The Commission has termed this a serious lapse of the state machinery and a violation of the victims right to life and dignity under Article 21 of the Constitution.

The Chief Secretary has been directed to submit a detailed explanation and action-taken report on the negligence and lapses on the part of the police and administration.

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Location : Tamil Nadu, India, India

First Published: February 10, 2026, 13:08 IST

News india NHRC Slams Tamil Nadu Govt's Response In Migrant Worker Attack Case, Seeks Clarification

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No Mandatory Service Charge: Centre As Restaurants Across India Slapped With Hefty Fines

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 22:14 IST

The Centre said enforcement action will continue to ensure compliance and protect consumer rights.

Representative Image

The Centre on Tuesday said that levying a mandatory service charge on food bills violates consumer protection laws, warning that restaurants engaging in the practice are liable to face penalties.

The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution said the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has taken action against 27 restaurants across the country for what it described as unfair trade practices".

The action was initiated suo motu under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, which prohibits the compulsory collection of service charges.

According to the CCPA, automatically adding a service charge to a customers bill is unlawful.

The authority cited violations under Section 2(47) of the Act, which defines unfair trade practices. As part of the enforcement drive, Cafe Blue Bottle in Patna was fined Rs 30,000, while Mumbai-based restaurant China Gate was penalised Rs 50,000 for levying a default 10 per cent service charge on customers.

The ministry noted that the Delhi High Court, in March 2025, upheld the CCPAs guidelines, affirming that mandatory collection of service charges by hotels and restaurants is contrary to law.

Under these guidelines, hotels and restaurants are barred from automatically or compulsorily adding a service charge to food bills, or collecting it under any alternative name.

Establishments must clearly inform customers that payment of a service charge is voluntary and optional, and cannot deny entry or services to those who refuse to pay it. The guidelines also specify that service charges cannot be subjected to GST.

Acting on complaints received through the National Consumer Helpline, the CCPA has directed erring restaurants to refund the full amount charged to consumers, immediately discontinue the practice, and remove the default inclusion of service or similar charges from their billing systems.

The ministry said enforcement action will continue to ensure compliance and protect consumer rights.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 22:14 IST

News india No Mandatory Service Charge: Centre As Restaurants Across India Slapped With Hefty Fines

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'Those Who Are Dreaming...': Yogi Adityanath Says Babri Masjid Won't Be Rebuilt Till Eternity

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 17:06 IST

Reiterating the BJPs long-held position on Ayodhya, Yogi Adityanath said the party had fulfilled its promise to build the Ram temple at the birthplace of Lord Ram.

UP CM Yogi Adityanath | File Image: PTI

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday asserted that the Babri structure would never be rebuilt, warning that those who continue to harbour such dreams would never succeed.

Addressing a public gathering in Barabanki, the Chief Minister said that even the Day of Judgment" would not bring back the disputed structure.

Those who are dreaming of the Babri structure should understand that day will never come," he said, urging people to live within the framework of the law and respect the countrys traditions.

Reiterating the BJPs long-held position on Ayodhya, Adityanath said the party had fulfilled its promise to build the Ram temple at the birthplace of Lord Ram.

We had said we would come for Ram Lalla and build the temple at the same place. Is there any doubt now?" he asked.

Targeting what he described as opportunists", the Chief Minister said some people remembered Lord Ram only in times of crisis and forgot Him later.

Such people have been forgotten by Lord Ram as well," he remarked, adding that there was no place in society for those who opposed Rams cause or fired bullets at Ram devotees.

Issuing a strong message on law and order, Adityanath said citizens must learn to live by the rules of the land.

Those who follow the law will move forward. Those who break it will head towards hell," he warned, adding that dreams of attaining heaven by violating the law would never be realised.

The Chief Minister also linked Indias identity closely with Sanatan Dharma, saying the two were inseparable.

Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi hoisting the saffron flag at the Shri Ram temple in Ayodhya, he described the moment as symbolic of Sanatan values and Indias cultural heritage.

Adityanath further alleged that both the nation and Sanatan Dharma were facing challenges from within and outside.

He called for vigilance, claiming that while some were conspiring against these values, others were being misled or working in support of such agendas.

Highlighting changes since 2017, he said Uttar Pradesh earlier witnessed frequent riots, curfews and a pervasive sense of insecurity.

There was a time when curfews were imposed every three or four days in some district or the other," he said, adding that women, traders, farmers and youth felt unsafe, and even temples, schools and homes lacked security.

The Chief Minister claimed that law and order in the state had since improved significantly, creating an environment of safety and stability.

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Location : Ayodhya, India, India

First Published: February 10, 2026, 17:06 IST

News india 'Those Who Are Dreaming...': Yogi Adityanath Says Babri Masjid Won't Be Rebuilt Till Eternity

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Burnt, Pushed, Almost Stopped: How This Photographer Won A Nat Geo Award With One Shot

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 21:12 IST

In one frame of fire and faith, Ramya Sriram has ensured that an ancient ritual from Kerala now burns bright on the world stage.

Burnt, Pushed, Almost Stopped: How This Photographer Won A Nat Geo Award With One Shot

For years, global awards have looked to Indian cinema for spectacle and storytelling. Now, the spotlight has shifted, from the movie set to the ritual ground, thanks to a woman. An image of Keralas ancient Kandanar Kelan Theyyam ritual, shot by photographer Ramya Sriram, has won the Nat Geo India Worldwide Contest, placing South Indias living cultural traditions on the international stage.

The winning photograph is being featured in National Geographics 2026 calendar, a coveted platform that celebrates exceptional visual storytelling from across the world.

What Is Theyyam?

The Kandanar Kelan Theyyam, performed mainly in the Kannur and Kasaragod districts, is part of a centuries-old tradition that combines mythology, performance art and intense spiritual belief. For Ramya, this was not a one-off encounter. As per reports, over the past four years, she has travelled extensively across Kerala, documenting different forms of Theyyam as part of a personal project to preserve Indias intangible cultural heritage.

Her award-winning image captures the raw, electrifying intensity of the Kandanar Kelan Theyyam, where the performer is believed to embody a deity. Flames leap, the crowd surges and the boundary between devotion and danger blurs. It is this charged atmosphere that sets the photograph apart, earning praise for both its technical brilliance and emotional force.

For Ramya, the honour is deeply personal. Reacting to the win, she described being recognised by National Geographic as the Holy Grail" for photographers (an achievement she likened to winning an Oscar). No words can explain this moment of happiness. It validates my years of work and gives global recognition," she said.

Eight Hours Of Waiting, Seconds Of Chaos

In an interview, she described how the photograph was taken inside a small temple in northern Kerala in the early hours of the morning. Ramya had waited nearly eight hours through the night for the ritual to begin, a common reality for photographers documenting Theyyam, where timings are fluid and devotion dictates the pace.

When the ritual finally commenced, the calm dissolved instantly. Devotees and photographers crowded the space as fire soared higher. Everyone was pushing and pulling. There was chaos and the fire was too high," Ramya recalled. Moments later, she was pushed dangerously close to the flames, suffering burns on her hand, camera and clothes. She managed to take just five shots before being forced to stop. Out of those five frames, three were out of focus, two were usable, and the one on your screen would go on to win an international award.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ramya Sriram  (@ramyasgraphy)

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 21:12 IST

News lifestyle events Burnt, Pushed, Almost Stopped: How This Photographer Won A Nat Geo Award With One Shot
Laman Ismayilova



The world-renowned photojournalist Reza Deghati has opened his exhibition, "Rising Light," at Heydar Aliyev International Airport, Azernews reports.

The exhibition was visited by Leyla Aliyeva, who was given a detailed overview of the collection by the photographer himself.

"Rising Light" showcases Azerbaijan's citizens, landscapes, traditions, and the subtle rhythms of daily life through Reza Deghati's lens. Each photograph is more than an image; it tells a living story that reflects the country's spirit and light.

For Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL), the exhibition symbolises the true essence of travel: the power to connect, communicate, and build bridges between cultures. Just as Deghati's photographs bring together diverse stories and destinies, aviation bridges distances, uniting people and countries. The exhibition reminds visitors that travel begins not just with a flight, but with inspiration.

"Rising Light" has been realised through a partnership between AZAL, Boeing, and Heydar Aliyev International Airport. This collaboration is part of a long-term strategic partnership between AZAL and Boeing, emphasising the adoption of modern aviation technologies, enhanced flight safety and passenger comfort, and the strengthening of Azerbaijan's position in the global aviation space.

The exhibition highlights the invisible bonds that unite people, places, and cultures. Through this perspective, AZAL connects Azerbaijan to the world, transforming journeys from simple routes into memorable, meaningful experiences.
AI model streamlines agriculture, boosts efficiency

People's Daily Online) 09:33, February 10, 2026

Wang Yaojun (second from right) and team members work on data annotation. (Photo courtesy of the interviewee)

Visitors to the office of Wang Yaojun, an associate professor at China Agricultural University's College of Information and Electrical Engineering, are immediately drawn to an all-white device.

Roughly the size of a microwave, the device functions as a miniature smart farm. At its core lies the Shennong Large Model, developed by the university. The machine features 36 intelligent agents and serves over 100,000 farmers nationwide.

To build a proprietary core database, Wang turned to the university library, a trove of agricultural knowledge. Over seven months, a team of faculty and students systematically scanned more than 3,000 books. By combining these with publicly available sources, they constructed a specialized database of 20,000 volumes for the Shennong model.

To ensure the model was truly practical, the team traveled to more than 20 provinces across China. They collected real-world data on soil composition, irrigation practices, pest and disease outbreaks, and extreme weather impacts, covering the entire agricultural production chain.

Version 1.0 was released in December 2023, offering capabilities such as agricultural knowledge Q&A, semantic understanding of agricultural texts, text summarization and decision support for farming operations. Version 3.0, launched in October 2025, introduced 36 specialized intelligent agents for scenario-specific cultivation guidance, significantly lowering the barrier to use.

Today, the Shennong Large Model features a proprietary knowledge system covering 90 percent of agricultural disciplines and 80 percent of farming scenarios. Its core database includes 10 million knowledge graph entries, 20 million annotated images and 50 million production records.

Photo shows the "Shennong Jiantian" household planting machine developed by a team at the College of Information and Electrical Engineering, China Agricultural University (CAU). (Photo courtesy of the interviewee)

The model is currently being piloted in several regions, effectively giving modern agriculture an "AI brain."

A few years ago, Du Lianhui, who hails from northeast China's Liaoning Province, switched from the computer industry to farming. He leased 3,000 mu (200 hectares) of farmland. "The first few years, the crops didn't grow very well," he recalled.

In 2025, he decided to try the Shennong Large Model on 600 mu of corn.

"It's like having a 24/7 smart steward in the field," he said.

Through sensors deployed across his fields, real-time data on temperature, sunlight, pests and diseases are sent directly to the platform.

With the model's help, Du said field management became much more precise. The cost per mu of corn, previously around 480 yuan ($69), dropped to less than 400 yuan in 2025.

Whether AI can truly take root in traditional agriculture depends not only on its technological sophistication but also on whether farmers are willing to adopt, trust and consistently use it.

An all-in-one digital assistant powered by the Shennong Large Model. (Photo courtesy of the interviewee)

"Older farmers often hesitate with complex new technologies  not because they're unwilling, but because they're afraid of using them incorrectly or not being able to learn," Wang said.

To address this, the team developed a WeChat mini-program that allows users to easily access the Shennong Large Model's core functions.

Last spring, whenever corn leaves showed signs of infection, Chi Fengjiao, a farmer from Qingshan town in Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, no longer had to rush to find advice. Instead, she simply took out her phone, opened the "Shennong Weitian" WeChat mini-program and snapped a photo of the affected leaves. Within seconds, the program identified the disease and offered treatment options.

"It's even faster than consulting an expert. Following its guidance gives me peace of mind, and it really works in the field," she said.

(Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun)
Dining Out, Reimagined: Why Experiences Now Matter More Than The Menu

Reported By :

News18.com

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 14:54 IST

From vibe-led spaces to interactive cocktails, experiential dining is reshaping hospitality. Heres why guests crave moments over menus.

Dining out is no longer just about food.

There was a time when a restaurants success hinged on a single promise: good food. Today, that promise feels incomplete. With gourmet meals available at the tap of an app and cloud kitchens delivering everything from sushi to slow-cooked biryani within minutes, stepping out for dinner must offer something delivery never can  atmosphere, theatre, and memory.

Dining out has evolved into something far more layered. It has changed into a sensory escape where lighting softens the days fatigue, music sets the rhythm of conversation, cocktails arrive with flair, and every detail feels designed to slow time down. The modern diner isnt simply hungry. Theyre seeking a mood.

Industry insiders are witnessing the shift firsthand. Dining out has become more about the vibe than just the food. Guests now look for an escape  a refreshing experience that helps them recharge," says Dinesh Arora, Founder, Roma, Delhi.

People want ambience, fun vibes and food that stands out," adds Naman Mehr, Co-Founder, The Drunken Botanist, Gurugram, explaining that drinks are no longer just served  theyre crafted theatrically, often tableside.

For Ricchi Khandelwal, Founder, Lumaa, Delhi, its simple: Experience has become more important than food, especially for people juggling demanding schedules who want spaces that help them unwind."

The Experience Economy Hits Hospitality

Restaurants today operate like immersive stages. Open kitchens double as performance spaces. Bartenders torch orange peels, smoke glasses, and build cocktails like alchemy. Plates arrive plated with precision, designed as much for Instagram as for the palate. Its not accidental. Its a strategy.

Mehr points out that guests want to feel involved: They want to be part of the making process." Watching a drink being assembled or a dish finished tableside creates a sense of participation, turning a meal into an event rather than a transaction. This interactive element transforms hospitality into storytelling. Youre not just ordering a cocktail; youre witnessing its creation.

Ambience As The New Luxury

If food delivery satisfies convenience, restaurants must satisfy emotion. Thoughtful interiors, curated playlists, comfortable seating and warm service now function as the true differentiators. Arora describes these spaces as a break from digital fatigue  places where guests disconnect from screens and reconnect with people across the table. Its less about speed and more about presence. In many ways, ambience has become the new luxury. Soft lighting feels indulgent. Slow dinners feel rebellious. Time feels expensive and worth paying for.

Why Food Alone Isnt Enough

The abundance of options has paradoxically made food less exclusive. When anything can be delivered, exclusivity lies in what cannot be packaged: the energy of a room, shared laughter, the clink of glasses, live music, the comfort of a well-designed corner booth.

Khandelwal says, People arent leaving home for sustenance anymore. Theyre stepping out for restoration  to relax, feel comfortable, and enjoy quality time." Restaurants that understand this emotional need are thriving, offering not just menus but moods.

Ultimately, experiential dining is about memory-making. Long after the taste fades, guests remember how a place made them feel. Food remains central, of course. But it now plays supporting actor to a larger production. Because today, the most successful restaurants dont just serve meals. They curate moments, and thats what keeps tables full.

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Location : Delhi, India, India

First Published: February 10, 2026, 14:54 IST

News lifestyle food Dining Out, Reimagined: Why Experiences Now Matter More Than The Menu
Ayurveda Goes High-Tech: Full Body Diagnosis In 2 Minutes At Just Rs 50!

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Translation Desk-Local18

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 13:47 IST

Developed on Ayurvedic principles, this machine has been used at Bikaner's Mohta Hospital for 3 years. Doctors say its results have been consistently accurate and promising

Rapid Read

Pulse examination plays a crucial role in Ayurvedic diagnosis, helping doctors identify diseases accurately and begin timely treatment. (Local18)

A new medical innovation has been introduced at Mohta Ayurvedic Hospital in Bikaner, Rajasthan, where traditional Ayurvedic medicine has been combined with modern technology to improve diagnosis and treatment.

The hospital has installed a pulse testing machine that can assess a patients overall health within two to three minutes. The test costs only Rs 50, making it affordable and accessible for the general public.

Patients from across the country visit the hospital to avail treatment using this method.

Machine Developed On Ayurvedic Principles

Dr Rajendra Kumar Sharma, an Ayurvedic doctor at Mohta Ayurvedic Hospital, said the pulse testing machine has been developed strictly on the principles of Ayurveda. He added that the machine has been in use for the last three years and has delivered consistently positive results.

Pulse examination plays a crucial role in Ayurvedic diagnosis, helping doctors identify diseases accurately and begin timely treatment.

How The Pulse Testing Machine Works

Before the examination, patients are asked to provide complete personal details, including their name, age, weight, height, and other essential information. A specialised pulse testing device is then placed on the wrist at the pulse point.

The machine is connected to a computer system, which analyses the patients entire body condition based on pulse data.

Detailed Health Report Generated In Two Minutes

Within about two minutes, the system produces a detailed health report. This report highlights the patients physical nature, existing disorders, bodily imbalances, and even potential health risks they may face in the future.

It also clearly indicates the balance of vata, pitta, and kapha, which are central to Ayurvedic diagnosis and treatment planning.

Making Diagnosis Faster And More Scientific

According to Dr Sharma, pulse testing has always been significant in Ayurveda, but modern technology has made it more scientific, precise, and quicker. The machines reports help doctors plan targeted and effective treatment without lengthy diagnostic procedures.

This innovation has reduced the need for complex and time-consuming medical tests. With complete health information available in minutes, the facility is proving especially beneficial for rural residents and middle-income groups.

A New Direction For Ayurveda

The initiative at Mohta Ayurvedic Hospital reflects how traditional medical systems, when supported by modern technology, can provide efficient and affordable healthcare.

It also signals a new direction for Ayurveda in serving the health needs of the common people.

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Location : Bikaner, India, India

First Published: February 10, 2026, 13:47 IST

News lifestyle health-and-fitness Ayurveda Goes High-Tech: Full Body Diagnosis In 2 Minutes At Just Rs 50!
Using AI Chatbots To Google Your Symptoms? New Research Says It Can Be Very Dangerous

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 14:39 IST

New research warns against relying on chatbots for medical advice

Using AI Chatbots To Google Your Symptoms? New Research Says It Can Be Very Dangerous

Typing your symptoms into an AI chatbot might feel like the fastest route to figuring out whats wrong with you but new research suggests it could be a risky shortcut.

A major study reported by the BBC has found that using artificial intelligence tools for medical advice can be dangerous", warning that chatbots often deliver inaccurate, inconsistent, and sometimes misleading guidance when people seek help for real health concerns.

The research was led by scientists from the University of Oxford, including teams from the Oxford Internet Institute and the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences. Their conclusion is blunt: despite rapid advances, AI is not ready to replace a doctor or even reliably guide patients on what to do next.

Patients need to be aware that asking a large language model about their symptoms can be dangerous," Dr Rebecca Payne, a GP and co-author of the study, told the BBC. She warned that AI systems can give incorrect diagnoses and fail to recognise when urgent medical help is needed.

What The Research Found About AI

Researchers asked nearly 1,300 participants to assess different health scenarios, ranging from severe headaches to postnatal exhaustion, and decide what condition they might have and what action to take. Some participants used AI chatbots, while others relied on traditional routes like consulting a GP.

The results were troubling. According to the BBC report, people using AI were often given a mix of good and bad information, and struggled to tell the difference. While chatbots performed well on standardised medical knowledge tests, they faltered when faced with real-world, messy human health problems.

The AI might list three possible conditions," Dr Adam Mahdi, a senior author on the study, told the BBC. People were then left to guess which one applied. This is exactly where things fall apart."

Why AI Struggles With Symptoms

Unlike a doctors appointment, people dont present all their symptoms at once. They remember things gradually, miss details, or describe sensations vaguely. The study found that AI responses varied wildly depending on how a question was phrased, making outcomes inconsistent and unreliable.

Lead author Andrew Bean explained that interacting with humans remains a major challenge even for advanced AI models. The concern, researchers say, is that users may trust the confident tone of chatbots without realising how fragile the advice actually is.

A Growing Habit With Real Risks

The findings come at a time when AI use for health is booming. BBC-reported polling by Mental Health UK found that more than one in three people now use AI tools to support their mental health or wellbeing.

Experts also warn that chatbots can reproduce long-standing medical biases embedded in their training data. Dr Amber W. Childs of Yale School of Medicine told the BBC that AI is only as good a diagnostician as seasoned clinicians are, which is not perfect either."

Should You Stop Using AI Altogether?

Not necessarily. Tech experts say AI could still play a role in healthcare but with strict safeguards. Dr Bertalan Mesko, editor of The Medical Futurist, told the BBC that health-specific versions of chatbots released by companies like OpenAI and Anthropic may eventually offer safer outcomes.

For now, researchers are clear on one thing: AI can provide information, but it should never be the final authority on your health.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 14:38 IST

News lifestyle health-and-fitness Using AI Chatbots To Google Your Symptoms? New Research Says It Can Be Very Dangerous
What Your Regular Diabetes Test Isnt Telling You, According To A Lancet Study

Curated By :

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 11:14 IST

A new Lancet study reveals that the widely used HbA1c test may inaccurately reflect blood sugar levels in India, especially in people with anaemia and haemoglobin disorders

A Lancet Study Raises Questions About What Your Diabetes Test Really Shows

A new evidence-based viewpoint published in The Lancet Regional Health: Southeast Asia has raised serious concerns about the reliability of glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c), one of the most widely used laboratory tests in India for diagnosing and monitoring type-2 diabetes. The study suggests that HbA1c may not accurately reflect true blood glucose levels in large sections of the Indian population, potentially misrepresenting both individual diagnoses and the countrys overall diabetes burden.

HbA1c measures average blood sugar levels over the previous two to three months by estimating the percentage of haemoglobin coated with glucose. Clinically, HbA1c values below 5.7% are considered normal, 5.76.4% indicate prediabetes, and values of 6.5% or higher are used to diagnose diabetes. However, the new analysis shows that this metric can produce misleading results in populations with a high prevalence of anaemia, haemoglobinopathies, and red blood cell enzyme disorders such as glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency, conditions that are widespread in India.

The review, published online on February 9, 2026, was led by Anoop Misra, Chairman of the Fortis C-DOC Centre of Excellence for Diabetes, along with collaborators from across India. It challenges the practice of relying on HbA1c as a sole diagnostic or monitoring tool for type-2 diabetes in South Asia.

Relying exclusively on HbA1c can result in misclassification of diabetes status," said Professor Misra, the corresponding author. Some individuals may be diagnosed later than appropriate, while others could be misdiagnosed. This can delay timely treatment, affect disease management, and compromise blood sugar monitoring."

The problem lies in the biology of HbA1c itself. Because the test depends on haemoglobin, any condition that alters the quantity, structure, or lifespan of red blood cellssuch as iron-deficiency anaemia, inherited haemoglobin disorders, or G6PD deficiencycan distort HbA1c values. As a result, HbA1c may either under-estimate or over-estimate actual blood glucose levels.

India is particularly vulnerable to this distortion. In some regions, more than 50% of the population is affected by nutritional iron-deficiency anaemia, according to data cited from 2025. This widespread nutritional challenge can significantly skew HbA1c readings, misleading clinicians during both diagnosis and long-term monitoring of diabetes.

The authors also highlight that men with undiagnosed G6PD deficiency, a condition common in certain Indian populations may experience delays in diabetes diagnosis of up to four years if HbA1c alone is used, increasing the risk of preventable complications.

Shashank Joshi, co-author of the study and head of Joshi Clinic in Mumbai, noted that inaccuracies are not limited to underserved areas. Even in well-resourced urban hospitals, HbA1c readings can be influenced by red blood cell variations and inherited haemoglobin disorders. In rural and tribal regions, where anaemia and red cell abnormalities are even more common, these discrepancies may be far greater."

Adding to the challenge is inconsistent laboratory quality control across India, which can further affect HbA1c accuracy. The authors warn that large public health surveys that rely solely on HbA1c may therefore underestimate or misrepresent Indias true diabetes burden, affecting policy planning and healthcare resource allocation.

Shambho Samrat Samajdar, a co-author from Kolkata, stressed the importance of a more comprehensive diagnostic strategy. Combining the oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), self-monitoring of blood glucose, and basic haematological assessments provides a more accurate picture of diabetes risk. This approach can refine national estimates and guide better public health decisions."

To address these challenges, the authors propose a resource-adapted diagnostic and monitoring framework for India:

In low-resource settings:

Diagnosis should rely on the oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), using two valuesfasting glucose and a 2-hour reading after ingesting 75 grams of glucose. Monitoring should include self-monitoring of blood glucose (two to three times per week) combined with basic haematological screening, such as haemoglobin levels and peripheral blood smear.

In tertiary care settings:

HbA1c should be used only in combination with OGTT for diagnosis. For monitoring, continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) and alternative markers such as fructosamine should be considered alongside HbA1c.

When indicated:

Comprehensive iron studies, haemoglobin electrophoresis, and quantitative G6PD testing should be performed to clarify misleading results.

The framework emphasises that diabetes diagnosis and monitoring must be tailored to healthcare resources and individual patient risk factors, especially in populations where anaemia, haemoglobinopathies, and G6PD deficiency are common.

The authors conclude that in countries like India where anaemia from multiple causes is endemic, HbA1c, despite being widely regarded as the gold standard, can yield spurious values. Therefore, it should not be used in isolation and must be combined with other diagnostic and monitoring tools to ensure accurate detection, effective management, and realistic assessment of the nations diabetes burden.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 11:14 IST

News lifestyle health-and-fitness What Your Regular Diabetes Test Isnt Telling You, According To A Lancet Study
The 2026 Valentines Day Edit: Elevated Picks For Every Kind Of Partner

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: February 13, 2026, 00:42 IST

A modern Valentines gift guide featuring curated beauty, gourmet food, fashion and accessories - elevated, stylish finds that feel personal and lasting.

Discover thoughtful Valentines Day gifts across makeup, clothing, food and luxe accessories.

Every February, store shelves turn predictably red  roses, heart-shaped boxes, last-minute cliches. But the way we gift has changed. Romance today looks more considered, more tactile, more reflective of everyday life. Its the fragrance they wear to work, the handmade chocolate they save for late nights, the shirt that instantly becomes their favourite, the accessory they never take off.

The best Valentines presents dont feel seasonal; they feel lived-in. They fold into routines, spark small pleasures, and carry a sense of personality rather than pressure. Think elevated makeup, crafted confections, polished wardrobe staples and design-led keepsakes. Heres a curated mix that celebrates taste as much as affection. Because modern love isnt loud. Its specific.

Krispy Kremes Valentines Box of 12 (Buy 9 Get 3 Free) Doughnuts

The Valentines Box of 12 Doughnuts is a thoughtfully curated collection designed to celebrate love in the sweetest way. Featuring four signature heart-themed doughnuts  the Youre Beary Sweet doughnut with crunchy cookies-and-cream filling and chocolate icing, the strawberry-glazed XOXO doughnut, the Sprinkled With Love doughnut topped with buttercream icing and heart sprinkles, and the indulgent Love You a Choco-Lot doughnut filled with custard and finished with rich ganache  the box blends playful design with indulgent flavours.

Price: Rs 1,251

CakeZones My Forever Valentine Chocolate Cake

The My Forever Valentine Chocolate Photo Cake is a romantic and personalised treat that combines rich chocolate with a special touch. It features layers of moist chocolate cake filled with creamy chocolate ganache or frosting. This combination of indulgent chocolate and a Valentines photo makes it a perfect way to show love and affection, making it a memorable treat for Valentines Day or any special occasion.

Price: Rs. 689

Anastasia Beverly Hills Magic Touch Blush Trio

This trio features three vibrant, full-pigment shades designed to flatter every mood and moment. Infused with Pomegranate Oil, this skin-loving formula nourishes while delivering a fresh, healthy-looking flush. Its silky, gel-like texture melts effortlessly into the skin, blending seamlessly for a soft-focus, blurred finish. Lightweight and buildable, it enhances your natural glow with a flawless, radiant look that lasts all day.

Available shades  Berry/Rose(Fuchsia, Orange-Red, Mulberry), Peach (carnation Pink, Cool Pink, Mauve), Pink (Cool-Toned Pink, CandyPink, Soft Pink) | Price  INR 5400 | Availability  TIRA, Sephora, Nykaa

VAHDAM India The Blush Assorted Teas Gift Set

A charming way to say you care. Featuring three premium loose-leaf teas with distinct, refined flavour profiles, this elegant set is ideal for tea lovers who enjoy variety and indulgence. Its a gift that invites her to pause, unwind, and savour moments meant just for her.

Price  INR 1,199

Coolberg: Raising a Toast to the Sober-Curious Generation

The non-alcoholic beverage market is experiencing an unprecedented surge among millennials, with the sober-curious movement gaining serious momentum. Leading this revolution is Coolberg, Indias No. 1 non-alcoholic beer brand, making it the perfect gift for health-conscious partners who dont want to compromise on taste or experience. Coolberg represents a lifestyle choice thats both mindful and celebratory. Its not just a beverage, its a statement that you understand and support your partners lifestyle journey while keeping the fun alive.

Combo starts from INR 475/-

Ochre Spirits: Love in Every Sip

For couples seeking something truly unique, Ochre Spirits offers an intoxicating blend of romance and craftsmanship. Their Valentines-perfect collection features exotic flavours that tell a love story in every bottle: Saffron Vodka, Peach & Cherry Vodka, and Nutty Berry Rum. Each spirit is crafted with ingredients traditionally associated with romance and indulgence, making them ideal for couples who seek authentic experiences over mass-market gifts.

Starting at INR 2,200/-

ITC-Dermafique

This season of love feels like the perfect moment to spotlight Dermafiques Intensive Restore Body Serum  a deeply nourishing body lotion designed to deliver long-lasting hydration and care, making it a thoughtful self-care or gifting pick.

ZEISS Terra ED Binoculars (1042, Green)

For couples who bond over adventure and outdoor escapes, the ZEISS Terra ED 1042 binoculars are an ideal Valentines gift. Lightweight, compact, and designed for travel, these binoculars offer 10x magnification combined with crystal-clear optics, allowing users to experience distant landscapes, wildlife, and scenic views in remarkable detail. Built with a rugged and waterproof design, they are perfect companions for trekking, hiking, and weekend getaways, helping couples create unforgettable shared experiences.

Price- 38,179

The Body Shops Tobacco Flower Body Mist

Discover the intense scent of Tobacco Flower in a lighter Body Mist you can top up throughout the day. With notes of smoky tobacco, musk and bergamot essence, our Tobacco Flower Body Mist is an intense fragrance perfect for building on the matching deodorant and eau de toilette.

Price: 1995

The Swiss Beautys Moist Heist Lip Oil

Infused with Vitamin E for deep nourishment and Mint Oil for a refreshing, cooling sensation, its the perfect partner for daily lip care. Whether you choose Berry Robbery, Cucumber Trap, or Melon Loot, each flavour adds a juicy twist of mischief to your routine.

The fat applicator wand glides smoothly, coating your lips in a luscious, non-sticky layer of shine that feels as good as it looks. Vegan, cruelty-free, and paraben-free, this lip oil is where colour meets care  making every swipe a steal.

Price-199

Solitarios Heart Bow Ring

A delicate blend of romance and charm, the Heart Bow Ring features a graceful heart motif paired with a bow-inspired design. Perfect for expressing playful love with timeless elegance this Valentines Day.

Nat Habits Nature & I  Send Oodles of Love (For Her)

A complete self-care ritual featuring Vitamin-C Face Wash, Cinnamon Nashpati Exfoliating Mura, Aloe Cactus Hydra Lift Gel, Chandan Nagakesar Lepa, Hibiscus NutriMask, Pomegranate Rosehip Lip Butter, and Lavender Foot Salt.

Fridos Sleep Eye Mask

Struggling to fall asleep, waking up because of light sensitivity, or dealing with digital overload  these are everyday red flags we conveniently ignore. The Frido Sleep Eye Mask blocks out 100% light, relieves strain, and helps the mind finally switch off. Its a small Valentines gesture, but it sends a powerful message: stop ignoring what your body has been trying to tell you.

Noices limited-edition French Chocolate Rochers

Made of 100% couverture chocolate with no palm oil or preservatives, these are handmade chocolates that let the moment and the thought behind it shine through. Thoughtfully handcrafted and beautifully presented, Noice chocolates work as seamlessly for a romantic gesture as they do for a close friend, or even a self-love indulgence. Available on Instamart, Noices Valentines edit is a reminder that the best gifts dont need to be extravagant. They simply need to feel thoughtful.

Sugar Free Dlite

Sugar Free Dlite is marking a decisive repositioning this Valentines Day with the launch of Dlite Chocolate Boy, a campaign that places women in charge of the gaze, the narrative, and the moment of indulgence. The move marks a strategic evolution for the brand, evolving from its legacy positioning of Great Taste, No Added Sugar toward a more nuanced and emotive proposition of Un-sinful Sensual Indulgence.

Invogues Red Shapewear

Crafted for Indian body types, the bodyshaper moves with the body, thanks to seamless construction, anti-roll design, and skin-friendly fabric that offers firm support without restriction. The bold red hue adds a statement edge, making it the perfect Valentines Day base layer for dresses, sarees, and fitted silhouettes. Whether styled for a date night or worn as an everyday confidence essential, the Red Intense Snatched Bodyshaper reinforces Invogues belief that shapewear should empower women to dress boldly, move freely, and feel supported from within.

Price: INR 2,599

Merohs The Promise Collection

These are pieces designed for the texture of life as its actually lived. Fine jewellery, unshackled from the prison of special occasions. Beauty, integrated into the everyday until the everyday deserves you. The Promise Collection by Meroh, sculptural hearts in 18-karat gold, set with certified diamonds, light as promises whispered against fingertips. Timeless, weightless, yours. Because the most romantic story youll ever tell is the one where you chose yourself.

XYST  Glow & Nourish

Achieve a radiant, hydrated complexion with the perfect pairing of 10% Vitamin C Serum and Hyaluronic Acid Day Cream. This power duo works together to brighten, protect, and deeply moisturise the skin, keeping it fresh, smooth, and glowing all day.

Price: 820

Kimirica  Limited-edition Bridgerton-themed Valentines Gift boxes

This regal collaboration unveils a Bridgerton-themed collection that features the Kimirica Bridgerton Lady in Silver Indulgence Gift Set, Kimirica Bridgerton Midnight Masquerade Indulgence Gift Set, and Kimirica Bridgerton Mayfair Soiree Indulgence Gift Set, alongside a curated range of Bridgerton-inspired Kimirica products designed to elevate sensory self-care and gifting experiences. Each product in the collection has been translated into multiple formats, including body & hand lotions, body & hand washes, and body mists, ensuring versatile options for everyday rituals or special occasions.

Price: Starting at just Rs 467/-

Double Heart Ring by Kalyan Jewellers

Soft, romantic, and effortlessly modern, this ring features two delicate heart motifs layered across sleek bands, accented with a gentle touch of sparkle. Designed to symbolise connection and togetherness, its perfect for everyday wear or as a meaningful Valentines Day gift. A subtle yet expressive piece that celebrates love in a beautifully understated way.

Product available in shops

Flower Chocolate Bouquet By Bakingo

The Valentines Special Chocolate Rose Bouquet (5 pieces) from Bakingo is a charming blend of beauty and indulgence, handcrafted rose-shaped chocolates filled with raspberry, crunchy nuts, and a mix of berries, all presented like a bouquet that whispers, I adore you." Imagine their smile when they unwrap this delicate bouquet, a little treasure of rich chocolate blooms that taste as good as they look.

Price: Rs 500 onwards

Archies Be Happy Teddy Bear in Pink Hoodie

Be Happy Teddy Bear in Pink Hoodie is an adorable and cuddly plush toy that brings joy and warmth to any special occasion. Dressed in a cute pink hoodie, this soft teddy bear makes a perfect Valentines Day, birthday, or just because" gift for loved ones.

Price: Rs 1,299.00

Label_Atelier  Velvet Crimson Luxury Gift Set

Featuring a deep red wavy-edged serving tray with elegant gold handles, matching coasters with subtle gold detailing, and a striking marbled wall clock accented with gold Roman numerals, the set blends romance with sophistication. The rich red hues symbolise love, while the gold touches add a luxe finish, making it perfect for couples who appreciate stylish, modern home accents.

Price: Rs 4800

Ellementry Midnight Terracotta Vase (Short)

Made from natural materials, its artisanal texture and sustainable design make it ideal as a standalone decor piece or styled with dried flowers. Lightweight yet statement-worthy, it adds a timeless, earthy charm to your living room, bedroom, or office interiors.

Price: Rs 1190

The Messy Corner Insulated Coffee Tumbler

With a playful heart pattern on an ivory base, it keeps drinks hot for up to 12 hours and cold for up to 15 hours, thanks to its double-wall insulation. Lightweight, leak-proof, and BPA-free, its perfect for daily commutes, office breaks, or gifting to loved ones who appreciate style and functionality in one.

Price: Rs 1099

The Wishing Chair Blushstroke Fabric Runner

Measuring approximately 13  72 inches, it adds a warm, elegant touch to everyday dining or special occasions. Its lightweight design makes it easy to style across dining tables, sideboards, or coffee tables to uplift your home decor with subtle, timeless appeal. Price: Rs 1190

Barista Exotic Hamper

This hamper features Baristas signature House Blend medium-roast coffee (200 g) paired with a sleek French Press for brewing rich cups at home, a dark chocolate slab, a tin of choco-chip cookies and a jar of ginger honey for soothing sips. Presented with a decorative diya, it blends indulgent flavours and elegant presentation, ideal for coffee lovers and special occasions.

Price: Rs 1,999

Pilgrim

Pilgrim has launched its 5% Vitamin C Complex Brightening Serum Sunscreen SPF 50+ PA++++, a multi-functional essential perfect for Valentines Day gifting. Powered by next-gen UV filters like Uvinal T 150, Uvinal A Plus, and Tinsorb S, along with proprietary UVshield X Technology, it offers broad-spectrum protection against UVA, UVB, and Blue Light. Enriched with 5% Vitamin C Complex, Niacinamide, and Glutathione, it brightens and evens skin tone while preventing tanning and pigmentation.

Continental Speciale Flavoured Combo + Free Tumbler

Indulge in the best of all worlds this Valentines Day with The Flavour Flight  a handpicked trio of Continental Speciales Mocha, Hazelnut, and Vanilla instant coffees, now paired with a sleek, premium tumbler  absolutely free.

Price: Rs 999

Salty Nerd Vodka

Among its standout expressions, Salty Nerd  Imperial Salted Caramel feels especially right for moments that deserve something indulgent. Distilled from premium grains and charcoal-filtered for a smooth, clean finish at 42.8% ABV, this flavour-forward vodka strikes a beautiful balance between sweet and salty and is oh so yummy.

Price and Availability: Goa  Rs. 1475, Karnataka  Rs. 2425, Chattisgarh  Rs. 2240, Odisha  Rs. 1830, West Bengal  Rs 1870, Haryana  Coming soon

Centrum Valentines Wellness Gift Boxes for Him and Her

Just in time for Valentines Day, Centrum has dropped its limited edition Valentines Wellness Gift Box on Zepto, designed to elevate the way you show care to your loved ones. Available in two curated editions for Him and for Her, each box brings together Centrums essential vitamins paired with Omega, creating a meaningful ritual of health you can share every day. Its the perfect wellness upgrade and daily reminder that promises better health.

Price: Centrum Multivitamin & Omega-3 Valentines Wellness Gift Box for Women Online  Price @ 892 | Centrum Multivitamin & Omega-3 Valentines Wellness Gift Box for Men Online  Price @ 890

Dr Batras PRO+ Sun Block Cream

A unique non-sticky, lightweight formulation with SPF 50+ & PA+++. The saffron extract naturally brightens the skin, while Echinacea provides a protective layer against sun damage. Additionally, aloe vera extract provides hydration and fights sunburn.

Elegant Fusion CZ, Ruby & American Diamond Necklace Set by Sayda Jewels

Blending elegance with emotional value, the Elegant Fusion CZ, Ruby & American Diamond Necklace Set from Sayda Jewels makes for a meaningful Valentines Day gift  whether youre celebrating romance or cherishing the beautiful bond of friendship. Thoughtfully designed with sparkling cubic zirconia, vibrant ruby accents, and shimmering American diamonds, the piece captures the essence of love in all its forms.

Price  Rs 2,400

Neon Glow Organza Suit Set from Faeezah

Designed in radiant hues and crafted with delicate organza fabric, the ensemble reflects the joy and freshness associated with the season of love. Whether gifted to a partner for a special Valentines celebration or chosen as a thoughtful surprise for a close friend during Galentines festivities, this outfit beautifully balances elegance with contemporary charm.

Price  Rs 5785 only

Rings & I

Few gifts capture the essence of Valentines Day quite like fine jewellery, and the rings from Rings & I, Indias first personalised diamond ring studio, are stunning testaments to eternal love. Design-led and offering 12 price points with over 5000+ designs in their database, these pristine pieces strike the ideal balance between contemporary elegance and timeless appeal, making them versatile enough for both everyday wear and special occasions.

Price: on request

Duroflex Avalon Elite mov.e Motion Recliner Sofa

Marking Duroflexs entry into the fast-growing motion sofa category, the Avalon Elite mov.e is designed for modern homes that value both comfort and control. This premium all-electric motorised recliner sofa brings effortless relaxation with the touch of a button. Featuring Zero Wall Technology that allows the sofa to recline fully while staying flush against the wall, it makes smart comfort accessible to the growing segment of urban Indians living in compact apartments ranging from 600 to 1,200 square feet, where every inch counts.

Red Handloom Tussar Pure Silk Saree by Indian Silk House Agencies

Draped in a deep, confident red, this handloom Tussar silk saree by Indian Silk House Agencies feels like a quiet declaration of love. The natural texture of Tussar brings warmth and honesty to the fabric, while the subtle border work adds just enough detail to keep it refined. It is the kind of saree that does not ask for attention but earns it, holding its own through simplicity and strength.

Tata Coffee Grand Cold Coffee

Tata Coffee Grand Cold Coffee Celebrates Everyday Meet-Cute Moments This Valentines Season, proving that the best dates come with the perfect companion. With its rich flavour and smooth, creamy texture, every sip is crafted to spark conversations, laughter and those spontaneous moments that turn a simple date into an unforgettable memory.

Price: starts at INR 65; INR 394 (assorted pack of 6) | Flavours: Swiss Caramel, French Vanilla, and Belgian Chocolate

Tetley Kombucha

This Valentines Day, impress your special someone with Tetley Kombucha, a refreshing, wellness-oriented gift that blends creativity, taste and romance. Tetley Kombucha is a lightly fizzy, fermented tea drink with prebiotic fibre, available in refreshing Ginger & Lemon and Peach variants, perfect for crafting Instagram-worthy homemade cocktails that taste as good as they look.

Price: starts at INR 99 (265ml) | Flavours: Peach & Ginger + Lemon

Hinge by Campus Activewear (Men)

If you want a gift thats equal parts comfortable and stylish, go with Hinge. Its built for daily wearbreathable uppers, a shape that looks sharp but never tries too hard. The cushioned insole feels plush, and the whole sneaker is light enough that you forget youre even wearing shoes. It works with jeans, joggers, or whatevers hanging in the closet.

Price: INR: 2149/-

RANGITA  Viscose Poly Printed Flared Calf Length Dress  Maroon

Rangitas Viscose Poly Printed Flared Calf-Length Dress in Maroon is the kind of Valentines Day pick that blends effortless romance with everyday comfort. The rich maroon hue sets a warm, love-soaked tone, while the delicate all-over print adds a soft, feminine charm perfect for date nights or daytime celebrations.

Priced only at Rs. 799

Titan Vintage Automatic for Men

Featuring a rich royal blue palette, oversized numerals, distinctive bezel bolts, and a cupped sapphire crystal, the watch delivers a striking retro-inspired silhouette. Its concealed automatic movement, offering a 42-hour power reserve, allows the design to take centre stage while ensuring dependable performance. Finished with a seamless butterfly clasp, this timepiece transitions effortlessly from romantic dinners to meaningful celebrations.

Price: 25,795

A Saree for Every Love Story: Step into Valentines Day with Taneiras Curated Collection

Taneiras curated saree collection is designed for meaningful gestures, where craftsmanship, comfort, and quiet romance come together effortlessly. Each saree is an expression of considered luxury, from fluid silks with a natural sheen to breathable cottons and refined blends. Defined by subtle motifs, layered textures, and balanced colour palettes, these handwoven pieces let the beauty of the weave take centre stage, making them as special as the sentiment behind the gift.

Starting at INR 1,299

Bee My Valentine: MIA BY Tanishq

One of the precious ornaments of this collection is the Hive Spark Diamond Ring. A modern geometric expression in 14 Karat hallmarked yellow gold, the Hive Spark Diamond Ring draws inspiration from honeycomb forms, symbolising unity and connection.

Price: Rs. 24,784/-

PMJ Jewels

With pink coloured stones, the band rings are the perfect subtle reminder of romance. They symbolise a love that is steady, enduring, and always by your side.

Price: around Rs 50k

CHO

Peronas design unfolds through a precise circular silhouette, defined by sharp, angular panelling that lends a sculptural, architectural edge. Balanced between softness and structure, it features a sleek zip-top closure, silver-tone hardware, and an adjustable strap for effortless, hands-free wear. Thoughtfully compact, its designed to carry just the essentialselegantly.

Price: Rs.15,500/-

Vasundhara Raj Luxury Jewellery

This Valentines Day, celebrate love with exquisitely handcrafted heirlooms from Vasundhra Raj Luxury Jewellery  where every piece is a testament to timeless craftsmanship and heartfelt emotion. The brands thoughtfully curated selection of fine jewellery offers meaningful gifts designed to be treasured beyond the moment, making it the perfect expression of love this season.

Ethera  Queen of Hearts

Ethera, the BlueStone-backed lab-grown diamond jewellery brand known for conscious design and everyday wearability, has unveiled its Valentines Day collection titled Queen of Hearts." The collection celebrates modern expressions of love and individuality, drawing inspiration from the timeless heart motif reimagined with a clean, contemporary design language.

Bedding by DDecor  Cuddle

True to its name, Cuddle is designed to hold you close. This quilted bed cover set comes in a soothing palette of soft pastels, rich midtones, and deep romantic hues  perfect for setting a cosy Valentines mood. With matching quilted pillows finished with engineered panel detailing, and a harmonious mix of organic, geometric, and abstract patterns, Cuddle echoes the calm of nature.

Available in all-season and winter options.

SEVA Homes  The Vibes Collection  Sensual Scented Candle (Classic)

Warm, captivating, and indulgent, the Sensual candle is crafted to ignite passion and elegance. Its alluring glow and layered fragrance create an intimate ambience, perfect for romantic evenings and meaningful connections.

Fragrance: Sensual | Top Notes: Damask Rose, Jasmine, Kashmiri Saffron | Heart Notes: Patchouli, Ylang Ylang | Base Notes: Cedarwood, Spice | Burn Time: 30 Hours | Price: INR 995

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Location : Delhi, India, India

First Published: February 10, 2026, 18:33 IST

News lifestyle The 2026 Valentines Day Edit: Elevated Picks For Every Kind Of Partner
Last-Minute Valentines Day Travel? These Visa-Free Countries Have You Covered

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 11:29 IST

Six international getaways that need nothing but your Indian passport

Last-Minute Valentines Day Travel? These Visa-Free Countries Have You Covered

Forget the frantic paperwork and the long queues at the embassy. This Valentines Day, your Indian passport is your golden ticket to a romantic international escape. If youre looking to swap the local crowds for exotic landscapes, these six destinations are all less than six hours away and, most importantly, require zero prior visa stress.

Here is your guide to the best last-minute, visa-free romantic retreats for the upcoming weekend.

Bhutan

Bhutan is where you go when you want your spirit (and lungs) to take a breather. This Himalayan kingdom is big on happiness and promises stunning mountain views for a cozy weekend. While Indians dont need a visa, you will need an entry permit for cities like Paro and Thimphu, which can be applied for online or at the entry point. The crisp February air makes it a perfect time for a peaceful, soul-stirring retreat far from the city noise.

Sri Lanka

Just a short flight away, Sri Lanka remains a top choice for a quick international break. The island is currently visa-free for Indian travelers under its ongoing tourism promotion scheme, allowing for a spontaneous escape to the misty hills of Nuwara Eliya or the historic fort city of Galle. With its blend of golden beaches, soul-soothing Ayurvedic retreats, and street food as vibrant as the islands sunsets, it offers a diverse range of experiences for every type of couple.

Nepal

For Indians, Nepal is not just visa-freeits essentially border-free. You dont even need a passport to visit; a government-issued ID card is sufficient to cross over by road or air. February offers clear skies and crisp views of the snow-capped Himalayas, making it an ideal time for a romantic stroll by Pokharas calm lakes or a cultural exploration of Kathmandus buzzing Durbar Square.

Thailand

Thailand continues to be a favorite for an effortless getaway, thanks to its extended visa-free policy for Indians. This allows for a last-minute flight to the bustling street markets of Bangkok, the serene temples of Chiang Mai, or the world-class beach resorts in Phuket. It is the perfect destination for those who want a mix of high-energy city life and relaxing tropical vibes without any prior planning.

Maldives

The Maldives is practically tailor-made for an impromptu romantic holiday. Indian travelers can breeze through immigration with a 30-day visa granted on arrival, making the dream of an overwater villa a reality within hours. Whether youre looking for private dinners on the sand or diving with manta rays, the archipelago offers a level of seclusion and luxury that is hard to match for a Valentines weekend.

Seychelles

If youre dreaming of a postcard-perfect tropical island, the Seychelles offers emerald waters and pristine beaches without any visa requirement. With direct flights from major Indian cities and strong cultural ties, its a seamless option for a luxury escape. Its unique granite-boulder shorelines and lush nature reserves provide a dramatic and intimate backdrop for a weekend focused entirely on each other.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 11:22 IST

News lifestyle travel Last-Minute Valentines Day Travel? These Visa-Free Countries Have You Covered
Rishikesh Glass Bridge Partially Opens, But Glass Walk Still Closed  Heres Why

Curated By :

Translation Desk-Local18

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 14:26 IST

Rishikeshs iconic glass bridge has partially opened to visitors, with the road section now accessible. The glass walk is still closed as final safety checks and work continue

Rapid Read

Authorities have clarified that the glass walk will open only after all safety and technical tests are completed. (Local18)

The much-awaited glass bridge in the yoga city of Rishikesh has been partially opened to the public, sparking excitement among locals and tourists alike. While the bridge is not fully operational yet, the road section has been opened, allowing people to cross from one end to the other.

Glass Walk Sections Still Closed

The glass-floor sections at both ends of the bridge remain closed as final construction work, including painting, colouring, and finishing touches, is still underway.

Authorities have clarified that the glass walk will open only after all safety and technical tests are completed.

Tourists who have been waiting for the bridge for a long time see even this partial opening as a relief. The project is being viewed as a major milestone for tourism in Rishikesh, designed to offer visitors a thrilling and unique experience.

Unique Design Over The Ganga

The glass bridge stands out for its special design and structure. Once fully open, visitors will be able to see the Ganga flowing beneath their feet through the transparent glass floor, along with the surrounding natural scenery, making it a one-of-a-kind attraction.

Officials have confirmed that the section currently open to the public is completely safe for crossing. However, the glass walk area will remain inaccessible until all safety standards and technical inspections are fully cleared.

Tourists Share Their Excitement

Uttam Pandey, a tourist from Bihar, said he had heard a lot about the glass bridge and was eager to see it in person. He found the design and construction impressive but is waiting for the bridge to fully open so he can experience it properly.

Another tourist, Pranjal, described the bridge as unique and said it would give Rishikesh tourism a new identity. He added that he plans to return once the bridge is completely operational.

Final Work In Progress, No Opening Date Yet

According to officials, the remaining construction work is in its final stage. Safety checks, finishing work, and beautification are being carried out at a fast pace.

While no official opening date has been announced yet, the department has stated that the bridge will be opened to the public only after all technical and safety procedures are completed.

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Location : Rishikesh, India, India

First Published: February 10, 2026, 14:26 IST

News lifestyle travel Rishikesh Glass Bridge Partially Opens, But Glass Walk Still Closed  Heres Why
FWICE Says Renaming Ghooskhor Pandat Is Insufficient, Demands Pre-Release Screening

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 17:57 IST

FWICE president BN Tiwari seeks a pre-release screening of Manoj Bajpayees film for the community, amid protests and legal action in two states.

Manoj Bajpayee plays the lead in the film.

Even as the makers of Neeraj Pandeys upcoming Manoj Bajpayee-starrer Ghooskhor Pandat have informed the Delhi High Court of their decision to change the films title, industry body Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE) has said the move alone does not address the concerns raised around the project. The organisation has now called for a mandatory screening of the film for the concerned community before any release plans are finalised.

Reacting to the latest development, FWICE president BN Tiwari said that while the decision to rename the film is a step forward, it does not resolve apprehensions about how the community is portrayed in the narrative. He stressed that the filmmakers must allow representatives to view the film before moving ahead.

We are fine with the decision to change the title, but that alone is not enough. We would like to watch the film and understand how the community is depicted, as a title usually stems from the essence of the narrative," Tiwari said in an interview with Hindustan Times.

Expressing surprise over the controversy surrounding a project backed by established names, Tiwari added, We are shocked and surprised that such big names involving Neeraj and Manoj did this, and used a name of the community in the title. Title kahani se hi banta hai aur related hota hai isiliye community ke liye screening honi chaiyeh (The title is derived from the story thats why we want a screening for the community). The film should not be released without the screening. The makers need to get a go ahead from the community before releasing it. If they get it, then we dont have any issue with it."

Tiwari also alleged procedural lapses by the filmmakers, claiming the title was never formally registered with the relevant film bodies. In fact, I also reached out to other concerned bodies, and they too stated that the title is not registered with them. If they would have got the title registered with us, we would have raised our concerns at that moment only," he said.

Warning of further action, the FWICE president said the organisation would oppose the release if the screening demand is not met. Screening dhikhae bina nahi release hogi Agar makers nahi mante toh non-corporation notice dal denge aur aage unke saath kaam nahi karenge (The film will not be released without a screening. If the makers do not agree, we will issue a non-cooperation notice and will not work with them going forward)," he said.

The controversy around Ghooskhor Pandat, directed by Neeraj Pandey and Ritesh Shah, began after the title was unveiled at a Netflix event earlier this month. The announcement triggered strong reactions, particularly from Brahmin organisations in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, who alleged that the title targeted a specific community and demanded a ban on the project.

In Uttar Pradesh, the state government ordered the registration of an FIR against the films director over the title. Protests followed at multiple locations, with effigies of the filmmakers and actor Manoj Bajpayee being burnt. A writ petition was also filed before the Delhi High Court by Mahender Chaturvedi, through advocate Vineet Jindal, seeking a stay on the films release.

Following the backlash, both Neeraj Pandey and Manoj Bajpayee issued a clarification stating that there was no intention to hurt sentiments and that all promotional material related to the film was being withdrawn. The ruling BJP later said that the Centre had asked the OTT platform to remove the teaser and other publicity content.

During a hearing earlier this week, Netflix informed the Delhi High Court that the producers had taken a conscious decision" to change the title in view of the concerns raised. The platform said the new title would better reflect the films narrative and intent.

Taking note of this submission, the court disposed of the petition after the petitioners counsel stated that the grievance was limited to the films title, which now stood addressed following the producers decision.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 17:57 IST

News movies bollywood FWICE Says Renaming Ghooskhor Pandat Is Insufficient, Demands Pre-Release Screening
Govinda Claims 22 Men Besieged His Home At 3 AM: 'Mumbai Police Did Not Pick Up My Calls'

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News18.com

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 21:21 IST

Bollywood icon Govinda breaks his silence on a terrifying 3 AM confrontation with 22 men, claiming he had to call international police when local help failed to arrive.

Govinda was last seen in the 2019 Bollywood film Rangeela Raja.

Bollywood legend Govinda has broken his silence regarding a harrowing 3 AM confrontation at his Mumbai residence that left him fending off a mob of nearly two dozen men. The Hero No. 1" star revealed that during the peak of the crisis, his calls to the local Mumbai Police went unanswered, forcing him to take extraordinary measures to ensure his safety and legal protection.

The incident, which first came to light through the actors longtime manager Shashi Sinha, involved a group of 22 to 23 unidentified individuals surrounding Govindas home in the early morning hours. Govinda recounted the tense moments to ANI, explaining that he initially mistook the gathering for a rowdy party. However, the silence and the strategic positioning of the men quickly signaled a threat.

I wondered who they were because I couldnt hear any noise coming from a party either. They did not seem like party-goers, so I began filming them," Govinda shared. When his attempts to reach the Mumbai Police failed, the actor made the unconventional decision to contact high-ranking police officers in another country. Mumbai police did not pick up my calls, so I called top police officers in another country. I asked them to stay on the line so I wouldnt be blamed later," he claimed, highlighting his fear that the situation could be misinterpreted if he were forced to use force.

The situation escalated when several members of the group began scaling the terrace of his residence. With no security present at the time, Govinda was forced to confront the intruders himself. Armed with his licensed revolver, he approached the group and demanded to know their purpose.

The men eventually claimed they were there to fix the power system," but their lack of immediate response and suspicious behavior led Govinda to draw his weapon. I asked them to fix it and leave, pointing my gun at them. They did not expect it because I am only nice till it threatens my life," the actor stated. His manager, Sinha, echoed this sentiment, expressing immense relief that the actor was armed: I cannot imagine what wouldve happened if bhayya (brother) had a mobile in his hand instead of a gun."

Despite the severity of the alleged attack, Govinda has expressed a desire to move past the incident rather than dwelling on the identities of the culprits. Adopting a philosophical stance, he noted that his priority remains his craft: As an actor, my job is to focus on acting, not reacting."

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 21:21 IST

News movies bollywood Govinda Claims 22 Men Besieged His Home At 3 AM: 'Mumbai Police Did Not Pick Up My Calls'
Manoj Bajpayee Starrer Ghooskhor Pandat To Get New Title Following Major Backlash, Makers Inform Delhi HC

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 15:24 IST

Netflix informs the Delhi HC that Manoj Bajpayee starrer Ghooskhor Pandat will get a new title following major backlash, FIRs, and calls for a ban.

Manoj Bajpayees Ghooskhor Pandat in legal trouble.

The Netflix film Ghooskhor Pandat, produced by Neeraj Pandey and starring Manoj Bajpayee, made headlines for all the wrong reasons following backlash over its title. Social media heavily slammed the makers for choosing a title that allegedly defames the Brahmin community. Following the title reveal, the Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE) recently demanded a ban on the film, but now a new update has emerged.

It has now been reported that the makers of the Manoj Bajpayee starrer Ghooskhor Pandat have informed the Delhi High Court that they have taken a conscious decision to change the name of their film. This decision comes following multiple FIRs, growing social media pressure, and calls for a ban from across the country.

Writ petition against Manoj Bajpayees film

A writ petition has been filed in the Delhi High Court challenging the shows proposed release, claiming that its title and promotional content are defamatory and communally sensitive. Parallelly, political protests have erupted in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, with members of Brahmin organisations demanding a ban and accusing the project of targeting a particular community. In Uttar Pradesh, an FIR has been registered against the director, and effigies of the filmmakers and Bajpayee have been burnt at several locations.

About the Ghooskhor Pandat controversy

At the centre of the row is the title Ghooskhor Pandat, which loosely translates to Corrupt Pandit. Critics argue that the use of the term Pandat, commonly associated with a Brahmin surname, reinforces negative stereotypes and is potentially offensive.

Manoj Bajpayee and Neeraj Pandey on the backlash

Responding to the backlash, Manoj Bajpayee addressed the issue on social media on Friday, acknowledging the concerns raised. When something you are part of causes hurt, it makes you pause and listen," he wrote. He clarified that his decision to take on the project was based on the characters arc and was not intended as commentary on any community. He also stated that the makers had removed promotional material in view of public sentiment.

Director Neeraj Pandey, who is attached to the project along with Ritesh Shah, later issued a clarification on Instagram, stressing that the series is entirely fictional. Our film is a fictional cop drama, and the term Pandat is used simply as a colloquial name for a fictional character. The story focuses on an individuals actions and choices and does not comment on or represent any caste, religion, or community," he stated. The production team also maintained that the promotional content had been withdrawn voluntarily, even before the government directive.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 13:57 IST

News movies bollywood Manoj Bajpayee Starrer Ghooskhor Pandat To Get New Title Following Major Backlash, Makers Inform Delhi HC
Yangming culture draws global visitors to its birthplace in SW China's Guizhou

People's Daily Online) 13:51, February 10, 2026

Foreign guests "take a group photo" with ancient Chinese philosopher Wang Yangming (1472-1529) thanks to the application of digital technologies in Xiuwen county, Guiyang, southwest China's Guizhou Province. (People's Daily Online/Long Zhangyu)

Guests from South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia gathered around an interactive digital screen at the Wang Yangming Memorial Hall in the China Yangming Culture Park, Xiuwen county, Guiyang, southwest China's Guizhou Province, on Feb. 3. With the help of modern technology, their images were digitally merged on screen with that of ancient Chinese philosopher Wang Yangming (1472-1529) from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

Yangming culture, rooted in the philosophical system of Wang, centers on concepts such as "unity of knowledge and action." It is regarded as an essential component of traditional Chinese culture. In 1508, Wang was exiled to Longchang (present-day Xiuwen) in Guizhou. As a result, the province became the birthplace of Yangmingism.

Since then, Yangming culture has spread throughout East and Southeast Asia, becoming a vital spiritual link that has fostered regional cultural exchange. Its influence continues to be felt in South Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia and other regions.

In early February, the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Guizhou Provincial Committee organized a themed cultural exchange activity. Media representatives, online influencers and cultural tourism professionals from various countries explored Yangming Cave and the Wang Yangming Memorial Hall, gaining firsthand exposure to Yangming culture.

"In South Korea, people know about Yangming culture and understand the philosophy of 'unity of knowledge and action.' Coming to the source of Yangmingism today, I found much resonance," said a reporter from Korea Daily News. The visit not only deepened her appreciation of the warmth of Eastern culture, she added, but also demonstrated how cultural resonance can bring people from different countries closer together, strengthening the foundation for people-to-people friendship.

The Wang Yangming Memorial Hall officially opened on Jan. 13. The new facility features innovative exhibitions, an optimized spatial layout, and an integration of digital technologies with immersive, scene-based displays.

Foreign guests learn about Yangming culture in Xiuwen county, Guiyang, southwest China's Guizhou Province. (People's Daily Online/Yang Qian)

Foreign guests learn about Yangming culture in Xiuwen county, Guiyang, southwest China's Guizhou Province. (People's Daily Online/Yang Qian)

Foreign guests learn about Yangming culture in Xiuwen county, Guiyang, southwest China's Guizhou Province. (People's Daily Online/Yang Qian)

(Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun)
BTS' V And Jimin Returns To Seoul Amid Heightened Security Following Threats In Portugal

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 19:43 IST

BTS members Jimin and V faced security threats in Portugal and at Incheon Airport, prompting ARMYs to demand increased protection from HYBE ahead of their ARIRANG comeback.

BTS members Jimin and V faced security threats.

BTS fans got a glimpse of the septet in high spirits as Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V, and Jungkook returned to Seoul after nearly a week in Portugal. While the airport arrival was a joyous moment for ARMYs, recent incidents involving Jimin and V (Kim Taehyung) have sparked renewed concerns about the groups safety.

On February 9, the BTS members walked through Incheon Airport gates, greeted by throngs of fans, photographers, and reporters eager to capture the rare OT7 moment. Amid the excitement, a woman reportedly posed as a journalist to approach Jimin. She crossed the barrier set for media personnel, prompting airport authorities to intervene. Dispatch reports that police detained the woman after discovering her intentions. Fans voiced frustration online, calling the act a violation of Jimins personal space and highlighting the risks that arise even during seemingly routine airport exits.

Security measures were particularly noticeable around V, who was escorted by two managers to his car. Footage from the scene shows a bodyguard preventing a fan from getting too close, reflecting heightened precautions following a recent threat he received in Portugal. While no official confirmation has emerged, online reports suggest the danger may have involved an anti-fan allegedly camping outside the BTS hotel in Lisbon. Some social media posts even mentioned extreme claims, including acid attack threats," though these remain unverified by major news outlets.

The incidents at both Incheon Airport and during BTSs Portugal trip have prompted fans to call for stronger protection for the members, particularly V. Social media campaigns like #HYBEPROTECTTAEHYUNG have circulated widely, urging the agency HYBE and its subsidiary BigHit to ensure the idols safety.

BTS is preparing for their much-anticipated comeback with the fifth album ARIRANG, which will be supported by a free concert, BTS The Comeback Live: Arirang, at Gwanghwamun Square in Seoul, followed by a world tour. While excitement builds among fans, recent security concerns have highlighted the ongoing challenges the group faces amid global fandom attention.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 19:43 IST

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Allu Arjun Calls 42 Rules Claim Baseless, Initiates Legal Action Against Brand Manager

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 18:58 IST

Allu Arjun faces controversy after Kaveri Baruah claimed his team enforced 42 strict rules before meetings. Allu Arjun denies the allegations and initiates legal action.

5. Allu Arjun Takes Legal Action After 42 Rules Claim Triggers Online Backlash

A viral podcast clip has unexpectedly dragged Allu Arjun into controversy, but the actor isnt letting the chatter slide. After claims surfaced online suggesting his team enforced a strict set of rules before meetings, the Pushpa star has responded firmly, calling the allegations false and announcing legal action.

The controversy began after brand manager Kaveri Baruah made remarks during a podcast interview, alleging that she was handed a list of 42 dos and donts before meeting Allu Arjun. The clip quickly gained traction on social media, with several users criticising the actor over the claims. In response, Allu Arjuns team released an official statement rejecting the accusations and confirming that defamation proceedings are underway.

In the statement issued on Tuesday, the actors team said, Certain recent comments made about Mr. Allu Arjun are completely baseless and untrue. He has always conducted himself with the utmost dignity and honour. We take these false allegations seriously. Our legal team is initiating defamation procedings against those responsible. We request everyone to refrain from spreading unverified information."

A recent video spreading baseless allegations about @alluarjun garu is completely false. The matter is being taken seriously and legal action is being initiated against those responsible. Kindly refrain from sharing unverified content. pic.twitter.com/HwHU7Ti51k Sarath Chandra Naidu (@imsarathchandra) February 10, 2026

The same statement was later shared by a member of Allu Arjuns team on social media, with the caption, A recent video spreading baseless allegations about @alluarjun garu is completely false. The matter is being taken seriously and legal action is being initiated against those responsible. Kindly refrain from sharing unverified content."

Kaveri Baruah, who previously worked in Royal Enfields brand strategy department, according to her now-deleted LinkedIn profile, made the remarks while speaking on the Sweekriti Talks podcast. During the conversation, she claimed that Allu Arjuns team maintained strict protocols ahead of meetings.

She said, My another interesting encounter was with Allu Arjun, the mega star of Hyderabad. South stars comes with entourage. Before meeting him, we had a note which had 42 dos and donts. And they have manager ka manager ka manager. They are very strict, like dont look into sirs eyes, dont shake your hands."

Unbelievable rules of Allu Arjun.A media professional reveals some of the shocking dos and donts" when meeting megastar Allu Arjun. From strictly following a list of 42 rules to being told dont look in sirs eyes" and dont shake hands," Why someone cant look in your pic.twitter.com/pGv9UmhhBP  lakshman (@rebel_notout) February 10, 2026

When asked why such rules existed, she responded, Mere ko kya pata? (How will I know?) Thats the rule." Pressed further for details, she added, Aur nahi bataungi main. (I wont say more)."

The clip sparked strong reactions online, with several users questioning the alleged restrictions. One X user wrote, Why someone cant look in your eyes bro?" while another commented, The audacity." Soon after the backlash intensified, Kaveri deleted her Instagram and LinkedIn accounts. However, the podcast episode remains available on YouTube.

On the professional front, Allu Arjun continues to remain busy with two high-profile projects in the pipeline. The actor is set to collaborate with Atlee on one film and Lokesh Kanagaraj on another. Although primarily a Telugu film star, both upcoming projects are expected to be mounted as pan-India releases.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 18:58 IST

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Jana Nayagan: Madras HC Clears Way For Vijays Film Release As Producers Withdraw Case Against CBFC

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 12:12 IST

Jana Nayagan legal dispute update: Madras High Court allows KVN Productions to withdraw plea against CBFC certification delays for Vijay's film.

Jana Nayagan, directed by H. Vinoth, was originally scheduled for release on January 9.

The legal battle around Vijays much-awaited film Jana Nayagan has taken a fresh turn. On Tuesday (February 10), the Madras High Court permitted KVN Productions to withdraw its plea challenging the certification process of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). The film, which is expected to be Vijays final movie before formally stepping into politics, had been caught in a dispute over delays in certification.

As per Live Law, Justice PT Asha allowed the request after the production company, represented by advocate Vijayan Subramaniam, informed the court of its decision to withdraw the case. A letter had already been sent to the High Court registry stating that the producers wished to proceed with the review process instead of continuing litigation. The matter was listed under the caption for withdrawal" before being formally closed.

Why the case began

KVN Productions had earlier approached the court alleging that the CBFC had delayed issuing a certificate for Jana Nayagan. According to the producers, they were informed that the film would receive a UA" certificate subject to certain cuts and modifications. They claimed that even after carrying out the suggested changes, the certificate was not issued.

The production house also questioned the CBFC Chairpersons move to send the film to a revising committee after initially indicating that a UA" certificate would be granted.

What is CBFCs stand

The CBFC told the court that the film was sent to the revising committee after a member of the examining committee raised a complaint. The complaint said some scenes could hurt religious sentiments and show the armed forces in a wrong light.

On January 9, a single judge ruled in favour of the producers and asked the CBFC to certify the film immediately. The court said sending the film for review after informing the producers about certification was not proper. It also questioned why complaints were considered after the examining committee had already given its recommendation.

However, the issue did not end there. The matter was urgently mentioned before the Chief Justices bench the same day. The division bench stayed the single judges order and later cancelled it, saying the CBFC was not given enough chance to present its side.

The bench also said the single judge should not have cancelled the Chairpersons order without a specific request challenging it. The case was then sent back to the single judge for fresh hearing, and the producers were asked to amend their plea to directly challenge the Chairpersons order.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 12:12 IST

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Opinion | In 2026, Five Elections In Volatile Neighbourhood Test Indias Influence, Pragmatism

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 12:07 IST

Myanmar and Thailand just finished choosing representatives, while tumultuous Bangladesh polls are on Thursday

Election Fever is on in Bangladesh. (Representative Image: Reuters)

When a neighbour changes the head of the family, relationships often take a nosedive or are rebuilt. This is even more likely in a particularly volatile neighbourhood like Indias.

With at least five nations either going to polls in early 2026 or have just concluded the process in Indias immediate and distant backyard, it is time to assess the nations ability to influence, accommodate, and assimilate the outcomes with its own regional ambitions.

Myanmar and Thailand just finished choosing representatives, while tumultuous Bangladesh polls are on Thursday. Nepal elections are scheduled on March 5 and single-party Vietnam chooses its representatives to Parliament on March 15.

Let us have a quick look at each of these elections and why their outcomes are important for India.

Myanmar (concluded January):

Myanmars phased parliamentary election, held from December 2025 to January 2026, has been widely touted as a sham carried out by the military junta to legitimise its rule five years after the 2021 coup.

The Washington Post reported: Myanmars military choreographs an election, with Beijings help: With war raging in large parts of the country, the junta staged a vote to cement its power."

The junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) won by a landslide, getting over 72 per cent of contested seats (231 in the lower house and 108 in the upper house) amid low turnout, voter repression, and exclusion of major opposition like the Aung San Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy.

The outcome cements junta leader Min Aung Hlaings control, with no end to the civil war and instability.

Myanmars military authoritarianism complicates Indias Act East policy. Large parts of the 1,643 km shared frontier remains vulnerable and out of the juntas control, providing free space for anti-India insurgent activity, especially across the border from Mizoram and Manipur.

Junta rule also tends to trigger refugee flow of Rohingyas. Lawless zones become ripe ground for ISI training camps for Bangladeshi jihadis.

While India maintains pragmatic ties with the Myanmar military to counter Chinese influence, the election outcome may force New Delhi to deepen engagement with ethnic armed groups for stability, potentially escalating regional tensions amid ongoing arms trade and infrastructure projects like the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project.

Thailand (concluded February 8):

Thailands snap House of Representatives election on February 8, 2026, sprung a conservative resurgence which left many including western observers nonplussed. Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakuls Bhumjaithai Party secured around 193 seats in the 500-member lower house, defying polls which favored progressives.

Voter turnout dropped to 65 per cent, reflecting fatigue amid economic challenges and border clashes with Cambodia. The progressive Peoples Party won 116 seats, while Pheu Thai took 74. It signalled a preference for stability, nationalism, and respect for the monarchy over reformist agendas like changes in the lese-majeste law which punishes people for insulting or threatening the royalty.

Bhumjaithais coalition will ensure policy continuity in areas like cannabis decriminalisation and defence.

For India, a stable conservative government in Thailand bolsters bilateral economic ties, with trade already exceeding $15 billion annually. Free trade agreement negotiations and investments in Indias Northeast via the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway is likely to gain pace.

Bangladesh (February 12):

This is the trickiest one.

Bangladeshs general election and referendum comes after a bloody regime-change op and Sheikh Hasinas ouster followed by wantonly violent 18 months under chief adviser Muhammad Yunus.

The elections are far from inclusive, with Awami League bullied out of the reckoning as 127 million voters decide 300 parliamentary seats alongside a referendum on constitutional reforms. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is the frontrunner, but rising Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami and youth-backed National Citizen Party (NCP) may spring a surprise, especially with the US believed to be backing religious extremists to meet its own regional goals.

Even in the worst case scenario of the Islamist Jamaat coming to power, India has the pragmatism and leverage to turn things around to its advantage the way it did post the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. Bangladesh poses additional challenges of managing the still-porous 4,096 km frontier and the huge number of illegals who have already entered India and procured documents using corrupt officials and agents.

Then there is the looming Chinese influence over Bangladesh to counter. Overall, Bangladesh is going to be Indias toughest challenge, whatever the outcome of its elections.

Nepal (March 5):

Nepals midterm House of Representatives election follows the Gen-Z uprising which dissolved Parliament. The youth will continue to play a major role when 18.9 million voters elect 275 members (165 first past the post, 110 proportional representation).

Opinion polls favor Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) at 71 per cent, Nepali Congress at 26 per cent, and CPN-UML at 9 per cent, highlighting a clash between emerging reformists like Balen Shah and traditional elites.

Nepal election results directly affect Indias Himalayan border security and hydropower cooperation. If RSP wins, it will usher pro-India policies amid monarchy restoration debates, countering Chinese infrastructure plans like BRI. But if instability returns, it could spill over into Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, affecting trade ($10 billion annually) and people-to-people ties. A UML resurgence will push Kathmandu towards Beijing.

Vietnam (March 15):

Vietnams general election will pick 500 deputies to the 16th National Assembly, with the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) monopoly intact. It will ratifying January 2026 Congress decisions like To Lams reappointment as General Secretary. These focus on endorsing an ambitious 10 per cent annual growth target to 2030, underlines security, anti-corruption, and economic reforms amid US-China rivalry, and leadership continuity under Lam.

Vietnams CPV-led stability boosts Indo-Vietnam strategic partnership in defence (example, BrahMos missiles) and trade ($15 billion target), countering China in the South China Sea. Steep growth targets of both countries could propel economic synergies in electronics and textiles. Overall, one of the sunniest spots in the larger neighbourhood.

Abhijit Majumder is the author of the book, Indias New Right. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18s views.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 12:06 IST

News opinion Opinion | In 2026, Five Elections In Volatile Neighbourhood Test Indias Influence, Pragmatism

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Opinion | When Governance Is Recast As Dispossession

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 14:58 IST

If J&K representatives oppose SASCI, they may. But they owe people honesty, not claims of land sales without buyer, deed, law.

Dal Lake, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir. (Representative Image)

The most corrosive feature of contemporary political discourse in Jammu and Kashmir is not disagreement but the systematic manufacture of fear. When public representatives begin to describe routine fiscal instruments as existential threats, governance is replaced by theatre and policy by panic. The claim advanced by PDP legislator Waheed Para that the Special Assistance to States for Capital Investment (SASCI) is a debt trap" through which Jammu and Kashmir is being sold  its land, water bodies, institutions, villages and mountains allegedly handed over  belongs squarely to this genre of politics. It is a claim that collapses the moment it is subjected to legal, financial or even basic logical scrutiny.

To speak of selling" a place is to invoke a very precise idea. Sale requires a seller, a buyer, a transferable asset and a legally enforceable transaction. None of these elements exist in the SASCI framework. What is being presented as dispossession is, in fact, a 50-year, interest-free capital investment loan provided by the Union government to states and Union Territories for the creation of public infrastructure. No land is mortgaged. No asset is pledged. No institution is transferred. There is no clause, hidden or explicit, that allows the Centre to appropriate territory or resources in exchange for finance. To describe such an arrangement as a sale is not a difference of interpretation; it is a distortion of meaning.

The rhetoric becomes even more untenable when one asks the most elementary question that such claims carefully avoid: sold to whom? The Union of India is not a private entity acquiring assets through purchase. It is the constitutional authority within which states and Union Territories already operate. One cannot sell land, water or mountains to the sovereign framework of which one is already a constituent part. The language of sale may be politically evocative, but it is legally absurd. It replaces explanation with insinuation and analysis with metaphor.

Equally misleading is the portrayal of SASCI as a debt trap. The loan carries zero interest. The repayment obligation is limited strictly to the principal amount, payable after fifty years. There is no compounding, no penalty clause, no external creditor and no asset-seizure mechanism. In the event of non-repayment, recovery is effected through adjustments against the states share of central taxes, grants or other assistancean entirely standard fiscal procedure used across the country. No land changes hands. No public asset is confiscated. To call this a death trap" is to drain the term of all substance.

What is being attempted here is a deliberate conflation of debt with dispossession. By that logic, every state that borrows from the Centre, every government that issues bonds, and every public authority that accesses development finance would be perpetually on the verge of liquidation. This is not how public finance works, and those who speak from legislative platforms are expected to know that. Debt becomes coercive only when it is predatory, interest-laden, collateralised or externally enforced. SASCI meets none of these conditions. In fact, it represents one of the softest and least intrusive fiscal instruments available.

Yet the problem runs deeper than the misrepresentation of a single scheme. What is increasingly visible in Jammu and Kashmir is the sentimentalisation of governance itself. Administrative shortcomings, implementation failures and capacity deficits are no longer examined as technical or institutional problems. They are converted into emotional narratives of loss, betrayal and siege. Policy failure is reframed as an existential threat. Fiscal debate is dressed up as civilisational anxiety. This is not accidental; it is a political strategy.

Waheed Paras intervention on SASCI must be read in this broader context. Instead of interrogating why projects stall, why institutions underperform, or why governance remains brittle, the conversation is redirected towards grand claims of sale and surrender. Responsibility is displaced upwards, outwards, and abstracted into metaphors of occupation and dispossession. In the process, the hard, unglamorous work of governance  planning, execution, monitoring and accountability  is quietly evacuated from the discussion.

The danger of such politics lies not merely in its factual weakness but in its social consequences. When development finance is framed as dispossession, public trust erodes. Infrastructure is viewed with suspicion, investment with hostility, and governance with cynicism. Roads become symbols of surrender, bridges are read as betrayals, and public spending is recast as conspiracy. This does not empower people; it disorients them. It replaces democratic debate with anxiety and substitutes policy literacy with emotional mobilisation.

Criticism of government schemes is not only legitimate; it is necessary. But criticism demands rigour. It requires engagement with statutory provisions, fiscal logic and institutional practice. What it cannot rely on is the casual invocation of loss and sale without evidence, mechanism or coherence. Jammu and Kashmir does not need to be protected from imaginary transactions. It needs serious discussion about priorities, implementation failures, institutional capacity and democratic accountability.

If public representatives wish to oppose SASCI, they are free to do so. But they owe the people something more honest than the claim that the land beneath their feet is being sold without a buyer, without a deed, and without a law. Fear may be politically expedient, sentiment may be mobilising, but neither is a substitute for thought, and neither can be allowed to masquerade as governance.

(The writer is a Kashmir-based independent researcher. Views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of News18.)

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Location : Jammu and Kashmir, India, India

First Published: February 10, 2026, 14:58 IST

News opinion Opinion | When Governance Is Recast As Dispossession

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Straight Talk | IMEC Back In Focus As India Looks At Free Trade With Gulf After Closing EU Deal

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 14:43 IST

IMEC is a multi-modal connectivity project, linking Indias west coast ports to Gulf ports and further on to Europe through Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Mediterranean gateways.

India already has a deep trade agreement with the UAE, in force since May 2022. (IMAGE: PMO INDIA)

With the EU trade deal finally closed in January and formal FTA talks with the Gulf Cooperation Council launched on 5 February, New Delhi has begun to stitch together something it has talked about for years but never quite managed to build: a single economic corridor from Mumbai to Marseille, with lower tariffs and better logistics at each step.

That long arc already has three solid anchor points.

The first sits in Brussels. The IndiaEU Free Trade Agreement, concluded after nearly two decades of slog, will eliminate duties on about 90 per cent of Indian goods entering the European market, covering more than 99 per cent of export value once fully phased in. Tariffs on key Indian exports like marine products, chemicals, plastics, base metals, footwear and gems are slated to drop to zero over time. On the Indian side, almost all machinery, many chemicals and a large share of pharmaceuticals from Europe move towards very low or zero tariffs, even as autos and sensitive farm products stay protected.

This is not just a trade gain. It effectively pins down the western end of a future corridor: once goods hit an EU port, they can circulate across a single 450 million consumer market with minimal internal friction.

The second anchor lies in the Gulf. India already has a deep trade agreement with the UAE, in force since May 2022, and a fresh CEPA with Oman, initialled in December 2025. Those two deals alone opened faster, cheaper access for Indian jewellery, textiles, engineering goods and food products into two of the regions most important hubs.

Now New Delhi and the six-nation GCC have gone a step further. On 5 February 2026, India and the GCC signed the Terms of Reference that formally launch negotiations for a bloc-wide FTA covering goods, services and, crucially, labour mobility. It is the first time in nearly 15 years that both sides have a structured roadmap towards a single trade framework. If it lands, the agreement could eventually sit on top of the individual CEPAs with the UAE and Oman and extend similar access across Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain.

The third anchor is more conceptual but no less important: the IndiaMiddle EastEurope Economic Corridor. IMEC was announced at the G20 summit in New Delhi in 2023 as a multi-modal connectivity project, linking Indias west coast ports to Gulf ports and further on to Europe through Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Mediterranean gateways. It promised a mix of shipping, rail, road, power lines, hydrogen pipelines and undersea data cables. Early estimates suggested the corridor could cut transit times between India and Europe by up to 40 per cent and reduce logistics costs by about 30 per cent compared to the Suez Canal route.

Although the IsraelHamas war and broader West Asia instability have clearly slowed political momentum and raised questions over timelines, India is committed to making IMEC a reality soon.

Put these three developments together and the picture that emerges is of India trying to hardwire a tariff-light, time-efficient trade spine from its manufacturing hubs to Europe, routed through West Asia rather than around the African Cape or solely through the Suez choke point. The EU deal lowers the policy barriers on one end. The revived GCC FTA process seeks to do the same in the middle. IMEC sketches the physical pathway on which those tariff cuts would ride.

The economic logic is straightforward. GCC states already account for a large chunk of Indias energy imports and host roughly eight to nine million Indian workers. The UAE and Saudi Arabia have been pushing to move from being pure hydrocarbon suppliers to investment and logistics partners. For them, a comprehensive FTA with India, layered on top of IMEC-style connectivity, means more predictable access to Indian markets, more Gulf capital flowing into Indian infrastructure and manufacturing, and a bigger role in re-routing AsiaEurope trade.

For India, the gains would go beyond cheaper oil and a few billion dollars in extra merchandise exports. A GCC FTA that harmonises customs procedures and eases services trade would tie together its existing UAE and Oman agreements into a more coherent Gulf platform. Once the EU deal comes into effect, Indian firms would, in effect, see a largely liberalised trade belt stretching from its coast to the Gulf, and all the way up to Europe.

That is the strategic bet: an IndiaGulfEurope trade belt that undercuts the idea that China sits unchallenged at the centre of Eurasian logistics.

Today, a large share of container traffic between Asia and Europe moves either through the Suez Canal or along China-influenced routes under the Belt and Road Initiative. Beijing has stakes in ports across the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean, from Gwadar to Piraeus. IMEC and a GCC FTA will not erase that overnight. But together with the EU deal, they start to create a parallel pathway where the key chokepoints are in countries that have strong security and political ties with India and the West.

That matters in a world where shipping lanes in the Red Sea can be disrupted for weeks and sanctions can redraw trade flows in a month.

There is also a quiet correction underway in how India thinks about its own geography. For decades, strategic thinkers lamented that Pakistan blocked Indias direct overland access to Central Asia and Europe. The answer, it turns out, did not lie in waiting for a thaw in Islamabad. It lay in using Indias western seaboard as the launchpad, West Asian ports and rails as the bridge, and EU accession to knit the other end. Geography did not change, but Indias use of it did.

None of this is automatic. The GCC FTA is at the Terms of Reference stage, not signature. Past efforts in 2006 and 2008 stalled when the GCC froze external talks. West Asias politics remain volatile, which makes the IMEC corridor vulnerable to shocks ranging from Gaza to the Strait of Hormuz.

Domestically, India still has work to do on customs efficiency, port capacity and hinterland logistics to make any MumbaiMarseille corridor more than a slogan.

Even so, the direction of travel is clear. Indias trade diplomacy, which for years moved in disconnected bursts, is now beginning to resemble a single strategic design: an EU FTA that anchors access to Europe; a set of Gulf agreements that convert energy dependence into wider economic integration; a corridor plan that, if realised even partially, carves out an alternative to China-centric routes.

IMEC on its own is still a set of maps and MoUs. The GCC FTA, for now, is just a negotiating brief. But linked to a concluded EU deal and backed by serious infrastructure bets at home, they amount to something India has not had before: a plausible route to turn its location from a constraint into an edge. The arc from Mumbai to Marseille is not yet a highway. For the first time, though, it is more than a line on a diplomats slide deck.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 14:43 IST

News opinion Straight Talk | IMEC Back In Focus As India Looks At Free Trade With Gulf After Closing EU Deal

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 12:06 IST

1 / 10 Something big is being planned just outside Bengaluru, and it could change how vehicles are built, tested, and used in the city. The idea is not just another industrial park, but a special place meant only for electric vehicles. Officials say this project could reshape the future of transport in Karnataka. Many people are now wondering, will this make travel cleaner, faster, and safer? And will Bengaluru finally get relief from rising pollution and traffic? The answers may soon take shape on a large stretch of land near the city.



2 / 10 Karnataka is moving ahead with plans to create a dedicated electric vehicle city spread across nearly 80 acres. This space will reportedly bring together testing, research, and development in one single hub. The goal is to help companies build better, safer, and more reliable electric vehicles. Officials reportedly believe this project will strengthen the states position in Indias growing EV industry. Instead of scattering facilities in different places, everything will be available in one integrated campus.



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3 / 10 The government is looking at land within a 100-kilometre radius of Bengaluru. Areas like Tumakuru, Ramanagara, and Chikkaballapur are being considered. These locations are ideal because there is more open space compared to the crowded city. As per The Times of India, officials say it is difficult to build large testing tracks and labs inside Bengaluru. Choosing a nearby location will still keep companies close to the city while giving them room to expand.



4 / 10 A major meeting was recently held between government officials and top electric vehicle companies. This discussion was led by Karnataka IT-BT Minister Priyank Kharge. More than 30 companies, including manufacturers, battery firms, and startups, took part. An industry group will now prepare suggestions on how the EV city should be built. Their input will help design facilities for testing, certification, and production before vehicles reach the market.



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5 / 10 The EV city is being planned for businesses of all sizes, from small startups to big manufacturers. New companies will get basic infrastructure to begin their work. Mid-sized firms will receive research support to improve their products. Large companies will have access to advanced testing and development facilities. This approach ensures that every stage of electric vehicle development gets the right kind of help.



6 / 10 The project will include special test tracks, charging stations, research labs, and certification centres. There will also be urban road simulation areas and hill-testing zones. Advanced safety testing facilities, including ADAS validation zones, will be available. A Centre of Excellence for EVs and batteries will be set up inside the campus. A training academy will also help create skilled workers for the industry.



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7 / 10 Companies will be able to test their vehicles locally instead of travelling to other states. This will save time, money, and effort. Faster testing means faster approvals and quicker launches in the market. Officials believe this will make Karnataka-based companies more competitive in Indias EV sector. It will also encourage more global firms to invest in the state.



8 / 10 Karnataka already has the highest number of electric vehicle startups in India. With nearly 5,400 public charging stations, the state reportedly leads in EV adoption. Around 20 per cent of all EVs sold in India come from Karnataka. The new EV city is expected to further boost Bengalurus image as Indias electric vehicle capital. It could attract more investors, researchers, and technology partners.



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9 / 10 The government plans to offer shared facilities on a pay-as-you-use basis. This will help small companies that cannot afford expensive equipment. Companies will be able to test software, battery performance, and cybersecurity in one place. Partnerships with agencies like the Automotive Research Association of India and the International Centre for Automotive Technology will speed up certification. This will reduce dependence on testing centres in other states.


Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 10:24 IST

1 / 10 Imagine electric air taxis flying above Delhi-NCRs congested roads, cutting across the region in minutes. Fascinating, right? A new proposal suggests these small aircraft could soon connect key locations, offering a faster alternative to road travel. The plan aims to reduce traffic congestion and shorten commute times. While the idea may sound futuristic, discussions around its feasibility and rollout are already underway. If approved, the move could mark a significant shift in urban transportation.

2 / 10 According to a report in NDTV, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) is planning Indias first air taxi corridor. This route would connect Gurugram, Connaught Place in Delhi, and the upcoming Jewar International Airport in Noida. The idea is to create a fast aerial transport system that avoids busy roads. Officials believe this could reduce pressure on highways and metro lines. If successful, this model may be expanded to other major cities in the future.

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3 / 10 These air taxis are expected to be small, electric aircraft capable of vertical takeoff and landing, eliminating the need for long runways. Instead, they would operate from designated landing areas known as vertiports. Authorities are exploring the rooftops of high-rise buildings as potential locations, with hospitals, office complexes, and tech parks being considered ideal sites for these facilities.

4 / 10 The use of rooftops is reportedly being seen as a practical solution. Buying new land in cities like Delhi or Gurugram is very costly and complicated. Rooftops, on the other hand, are already available and mostly unused. Commercial buildings and large hospitals could serve as convenient hubs. This would also make air taxis more accessible to people who need them urgently.



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5 / 10 In the beginning, these air taxis may not be used for regular passengers. According to NDTV, they are likely to start with emergency services first. They could help transport organs for transplants, medical supplies, and patients in critical condition. Drone deliveries may also be tested in the early phase. This step-by-step approach will allow authorities to check safety and efficiency before wider public use.

6 / 10 One of the main reasons behind this project is growing road congestion. Delhi-NCR faces heavy traffic every day, causing long delays and pollution. Air taxis could offer a faster and cleaner alternative. Electric flying vehicles would also reduce carbon emissions compared to fuel-based cars. The government sees this as a smart way to improve urban mobility in crowded cities.

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7 / 10 The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) will reportedly play a key role in regulating air taxis. A new body may be created within the DGCA to manage this system. As per NDVT, Civil Aviation Minister Rammohan Naidu Kinjarapu has already released a report on Advanced Air Mobility. This report explains how air taxis can be safely integrated into Indian airspace over time.

8 / 10 The government is planning a phased rollout instead of rushing into full operations. First, drone deliveries will be tested on selected routes. Next, medical logistics and organ transport missions will be introduced. After that, air ambulance services may begin. Only later will regular passenger air taxis be considered for everyday travel.

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9 / 10 Funding will be another important challenge for this project. The CII report suggests that banks and public financial institutions should support air mobility development. Special funds and loans may be created for companies working on air taxis. Government agencies may also provide grants to reduce financial risks. This will encourage private players to invest in this new technology.
BJP Women MPs Write To Lok Sabha Speaker, Urge Action Against Opposition For Feb 4 Ruckus

Curated By :

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 11:14 IST

The letter said that the entire House, and the whole nation, witnessed one of the "most unfortunate and regrettable incidents" within the Lok Sabha chamber on February 4.

File Photo of Lok Sabha (Representative Image)

BJPs women MPs wrote a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, urging him to take the strongest possible action against the Opposition MPs who have committed heinous acts" like moving deep inside treasury benches, climbing the table and laying a siege of the seat of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The women MPs belonging to the BJP stated that the alarming turn of events" in the Lok Sabha on February 4 has left everyone deeply concerned, and could have marked one of the darkest moments" in the history of Indias parliamentary democracy.

Prime Minister Modi, on February 4, could not reply to the debate on the Motion of Thanks to the Presidents address to Parliament after Opposition protests.

The letter said that the entire House, and the whole nation, witnessed one of the most unfortunate and regrettable incidents" within the Lok Sabha chamber on February 4.

We saw that the members belonging to opposition parties not just entered the well of the House, but they also climbed on the table, tore papers and threw them towards the Chair.

Moreover, distressingly, certain women Honble Members crossed over to the other side with aggressive demeanour and banners and placards in their hands. They not only laid a siege of the seat of the Honble Prime Minister but also moved deep inside the treasury benches where senior Ministers are seated," the MPs said in the letter.

Had we not exercised restraint, an ugly situation could have been created. To make matters even more serious, afterwards, we saw that the opposition MPs went in aggressively towards your Chamber. We could hear loud voices coming from within your Chamber," the letter said.

The BJPs women MPs further in their letter said, We, therefore, urge you to take the strongest possible action under the rules, against the opposition MPs who have committed such heinous acts within the precincts of the House and brought disrepute to our democratic institutions".

Praising the Speaker, the MPs said that he has always displayed impartiality and given equal opportunity to all members irrespective of party affiliations. We, therefore, repose complete faith and confidence in your leadership and feel that the Lok Sabha is fortunate to have you as its custodian," they said.

Chaos In Lok Sabha

The Lok Sabha has been witnessing chaos since February 2, after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was disallowed by the Chair from quoting from an article based on excerpts of former Army chief M M Naravanes unpublished memoir".

Following this, the Prime Minister could not reply to the debate on the Motion of Thanks due to opposition protests on February 4. In an unprecedented move, the Motion of Thanks was passed on February 5 without the customary speech by the prime minister.

Birla had also said that he received concrete information that many Congress MPs could carry out an unexpected act" by reaching the spot where PM Modi sits and, therefore, he asked him not to come to the House to deliver his address.

(With agency inputs)

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 10:46 IST

News politics BJP Women MPs Write To Lok Sabha Speaker, Urge Action Against Opposition For Feb 4 Ruckus

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Govt Assures Parliamentary Panel On Crude Imports, Highlights Gains From US, EU Trade Pacts

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Last Updated: February 11, 2026, 01:33 IST

Senior officials from the Ministries of External Affairs and Commerce conveyed this to the Shashi Tharoor-led Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, sources said

Tharoor said most of the meeting focused on the two major trade agreements, with discussions also covering Russian oil and agricultural imports. File pic/PTI

The government on Tuesday informed a parliamentary committee that India will continue importing crude oil from countries offering the best quality at competitive prices, with oil companies factoring in geopolitical conditions and sourcing only from non-sanctioned suppliers.

Senior officials from the Ministries of External Affairs and Commerce conveyed this to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, chaired by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, sources said.

The over three-hour-long meeting was attended by 28 of the committees 30 members. Describing it as extremely effective", Tharoor said officials responded to every query in detail and with confidence.

They answered each question comprehensively. It was an extremely effective meeting and showed what parliamentary committees can achieve," the Congress leader told reporters.

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri was among the senior officials who briefed the panel, which received detailed presentations on the India-US interim trade agreement and the India-EU Free Trade Agreement.

India-US Trade Deal

Officials told the committee that the India-US interim trade agreement offers significant economic benefits. India has secured preferential access to the $30 trillion US market, with tariffs on key exports reduced from 50 per cent to 18 per cent.

Major employment-generating sectors such as textiles and apparel will now enter the $113 billion US market at substantially lower duties, while silk exports will enjoy zero-duty access. Machinery exports will benefit from tariff cuts in a $477 billion market.

In agriculture, exports worth $1.36 billionincluding spices, tea, coffee, fruits, and processed foodswill face no additional duties, while sensitive sectors such as dairy, meat, poultry, and cereals will remain protected.

Officials described the agreement as a balanced and calibrated deal that will boost exports, strengthen MSMEs and manufacturing, and safeguard farmers livelihoods. It is expected to help India expand its presence in a $42 billion accessible export segment while strengthening long-term strategic ties with the US.

India-EU FTA

During the presentation, officials also highlighted the benefits of the India-EU Free Trade Agreement, signed in January 2026 and often referred to as the Mother of All Deals".

Under the pact, exports worth Rs 6.4 lakh crore will gain access to 27 EU countries under a unified framework. Nearly 99.5 per cent of Indian exports by value will receive duty-free or sharply reduced tariff access across the European Union.

Labour-intensive sectors such as textiles, leather, footwear, marine products, gems and jewellery, engineering goods, chemicals, and processed foods will receive immediate zero-duty access. This is expected to boost exports, particularly from states including Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh.

The agreement is projected to generate lakhs of jobs, especially in MSME-driven and export-oriented clusters, benefiting weavers, artisans, coastal communities, and young professionals.

Indian consumers are also expected to benefit from lower tariffs on European cars, wine, spirits, chocolates, machinery, and medical equipment, making high-quality products more affordable and reducing input costs for domestic industries.

Officials said the deal will also facilitate easier mobility for Indian professionals in IT, engineering, and services, while encouraging greater EU investment, technology transfer, and supply chain integration.

Tharoor said most of the meeting focused on the two major trade agreements, with discussions also covering Russian oil and agricultural imports.

Officials informed the committee that efforts are underway to finalise the interim agreement with the US by mid-next month, after which detailed provisions will be made public and discussed in Parliament.

On the proposed 18 per cent reciprocal tariff by the US, officials said international trade has increasingly been weaponised". They noted that India has secured one of the lowest tariff rates globally.

Even EU products will face 15 per cent tariffs, while UK products will face 10 per cent in exchange for zero-duty access," they said.

On plans to import goods worth USD 500 billion from the US over five years, officials explained that India currently imports around USD 42 billion annually and that doubling this figure would not be difficult. They added that the target is not binding and carries no penalties.

On India-Bangladesh relations, officials said the government remains in touch with all stakeholders and that the committee will hold a separate discussion after the countrys election results.

Sources said Indian oil companies can now also purchase crude from the US and Venezuela following the lifting of energy sanctions on the latter after a regime change.

The committee has decided to hold further discussions on the India-US trade agreement once the interim deal is finalised next month.

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First Published: February 11, 2026, 01:33 IST

News politics Govt Assures Parliamentary Panel On Crude Imports, Highlights Gains From US, EU Trade Pacts

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The transfer to Spains Banco Santander of one of Mexicos most powerful art collections, filled with works by Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, is the latest chapter in a long story full of intrigue and controversy

Natasha Gelman once had five Frida Kahlo paintings hanging in her bedroom. The most special one was a small portrait of Natasha herself, just a bust with a pensive expression and her hair pulled back. It was quite different from the one that Diego Rivera also painted of her, in which she posed in an evening gown reclining on a sofa with lush lilies in the backgrounda commission from her husband, Jacques Gelman, to the icon of Mexican muralism. During the second half of the 20th century, the Gelman couple were among the most influential figures in international art collecting, thanks to the fortune they amassed as producers during the golden age of Mexican cinema, including their friendship and lucrative partnership with Cantinflas.

Upon her husbands death, their splendid European collection (comprising 81 works by Bacon, Dali, Picasso, and Matisse) passed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Mexican collection has just left for Spain, on loan to Banco Santander, after decades of touring the world, fleeing a legal battle among heirs. Natashas supposed wish for the collection to remain in Mexico, expressed in a will that no one has been able to verify, could not be fulfilled. This move has caused a stir in the country, which also has strict heritage protection laws. The government has taken action, announcing that part of the collection will be exhibited temporarily this spring in Mexico City, as the first stop on an international tour. But behind this latest chapter lies a long story of mysteries, intrigues, and twists more akin to a thriller.

The mystery begins with the two wealthy collectors. It was said that he came from a family of landowners in St. Petersburg, that he had studied in Paris, and that he owned jewels belonging to the last Russian tsar. It was said that she was born in Moravia, in what is now the Czech Republic, and that they both left Europe separately, fleeing World War II. They met in Mexico, and it was love at first sight. They married in 1941 and never returned. Jacques started a production company and made a fortune exporting and distributing films to the American market, using a young Cantinflas as a draw. It was there that their collecting began.

The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Me, Diego and Senor Xolotl, 1949. by Frida Kahlo. Getty Images

The first, the most important, was always the European collection. The Mexican collection was initially more of an accessory, almost a whim of Natashas, which grew until it became another jewel in the crown. Luis-Martin Lozano, an art historian specializing in modern Mexican art, met her after she was widowed in the 1990s. Jacques never thought that the paintings by Frida Kahlo or Rivera were as valuable as the Picassos or Matisses. But she loved the Mexican collection, which at first served more as a status symbol. According to the historian, the couple didnt arrive in Mexico with much money and constructed themselves as glamorous figures through the paintings. Hence, the commissioned portraits. The Rivera portrait from 1943, which depicts Natasha as a Hollywood star, is the one that launched the Mexican collection.

They entered the world of high society. Their homes in New York and Mexico City were famous for their parties with politicians, actors, businesspeople, and artists, who would get drunk amidst the paintings of Dali or Braque that hung on the walls. They were at the top.

The villainous executor?

The first turning point came with Jacques death and the arrival of another key figure, the American curator Robert R. Littman. In 1986, with the European collection already at the Met at the couples express wish, Littman became Natashas chief advisor. Together they expanded the collection. Theyd had no children, and for Natasha the paintings were like her own children, especially after Jacques death, when she dedicated herself completely to them. She knew them inside and out. She owned 13 of Fridas paintings and was always very generous; on more than one occasion, she lent me some for temporary exhibitions, adds Lozano, who has worked as a curator in several Mexican museums.

Natasha spent her final years in a country house in Cuernavaca. After her death, Littman announced that the will stipulated he was the executor of the collection and that it should remain in Mexico. In addition to the deceased owners alleged wishes, several works in the Gelman collection were protected by a 1972 law requiring that the Frida Kahlo, Rivera, Siqueiros, Orozco, and Maria Izquierdo collections could only leave the country temporarily and with government authorization. The Mexican painting collection is my responsibility. I will ensure it is not separated and that it remains in Mexico. Everything stipulated by Mexican law will be complied with, the executor stated in an interview at the time.

Natasha and Jacques Gelman in an undated photograph.

Littman got to work, according to several sources familiar with the negotiations, and the option of housing the collection in a museum in Cuernavaca itself arose. Gerardo Estrada, director of the National Institute of Fine Arts (INBAL) between 1992 and 2000, first approached the executor about a possible public purchase. It wasnt possible because my superiors said there was no money. At that time, the price was around $200 million. So we explored the possibility of an alliance with a large company, he recounts over the phone. Costco, the American supermarket giant, financed the construction of a museum specifically for the collection, the Muros Cultural Center, where it remained for almost five years.

Everything seemed to have finally settled, but Estrada recalls that during those years, Littman lived with a kind of paranoia in case any Gelman heirs showed up. And indeed they did. A distant cousin in New York, a half-brother who sold the rights to a Mexican lawyer, and even one of Cantinflas sons, who accused the executor of taking advantage of Natasha, who had Alzheimers, all claimed their share. Lawsuits began both inside and outside of Mexico, and the INBAL decided to remove the collection from the museum. I believe that was a mistake, because with the full force of the State, the lawsuits could have been resisted, Estrada adds.

The collection was returned to Littman, who decided to take it out of the country and put it on tour for temporary exhibitions in Europe and the United States. Amid the controversy, the executors image as the villain of this story began to grow, as he was seen as fleeing with the jewels entrusted to him. This newspaper has sought his opinion through his lawyer in New York, but there has been no response. He was accused of profiting from and dividing the collection. However, both the cultural official and the historian believe that Littman fulfilled his obligations.

In fact, the lawsuits never prospered, and experts believe that without this promotion of Frida Kahlo, the international boom in interest for her work would never have happened. The collection didnt disappear; the exhibition catalogs are there. It remained intact, as stipulated in the will, and Mexican law was followed. The will is the great blind spot in this whole story. No one claims to have seen it, and the notary who signed it was shot and killed in the streets of Mexico City in 2013.

Confusion among collectors

Last weeks announcement that the Gelman collection will be transferred to Spain for Banco Santander to manage part of it (approximately 160 works out of a total of more than 300) has sent shockwaves through the Mexican art market. The last news about the collection was that in 2024, Sothebys put a lot up for auction. Included were artworks by David Alfaro Siqueiros and Maria Izquierdo, protected under Mexican cultural heritage law. The government halted the auction.

The law permits their sale, but under the supervision of the INBAL, which typically sets a one- or two-year deadline for the works to return to Mexico. During the announcement of the collections relocation, which will be exhibited this June at a new cultural center, the Faro Santander, officials stated that it doesnt seem to be in the best interest of the works and that they are working with the INBAL to explore a solution that guarantees the best preservation and minimizes stress on the works, an agreement that is in the interest of both parties.

Sources at the bank confirm they are confident they can unblock negotiations, considering the transfer requirement a pure formality, reports Rodrigo Naredo from Madrid. When asked for the INBALs opinion on the matter, they referred to the statements made by the Secretary of Culture, Claudia Curiel de Icaza, during the announcement of the exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, scheduled for the end of the month. This is the result of months of negotiations with the Gelman Santander Collection, the Secretary stated.

'Diego in my mind' at the Altinate San Gaetano Cultural Center, in Padua, Italy, in February 2023. Roberto Serra (Iguana Press via Getty Images)

Given the lack of clear information, market sources assert that there is great confusion among collectors, who dont understand if the law is being applied only to some. These same sources point out that there are already cases where the law is being ignored, such as the Nagoya Museum of Art in Japan, which houses several works by Diego Rivera. Pending further details, historian Luis-Martin Lozano does not lament the departure of the Gelman collection, but criticizes the institutional weakness and lack of favorable conditions in the country for the preservation of this type of collection. The State is not obligated to purchase these protected collections, but it can create the necessary conditions, with tax incentives for collectors and legal certainty.

Last weeks announcement also revealed that the new owners, who in turn are transferring the works to Santander, are the Zambrano family, a powerful dynasty of entrepreneurs from Monterrey, the industrial and wealthy north of Mexico. This family owns the cement company Cemex and has a long tradition of art patronage and collecting. As is typical in the secretive art market, the sale price, finalized by the Vergel Foundation, the vehicle Littman founded to operate in the market after Natashas death, remains undisclosed. But a Frida Kahlo painting, The Dream (The Bed), sold last November for nearly $55 million. The $200 Littman was asking a couple of decades ago now seems like a pittance.

Former INBAL director Gerardo Estrada considers it a very strange operation. The Zambrano family, who have the resources and experience for its upkeep, buy it, but then transfer it to Santander. It makes no sense. The cultural official also recalls that he made one last attempt to get the government to buy it. About four years ago, I approached Lopez Obradors administration, but they told me they werent interested and didnt have the money. Even if they did, its been shown that art doesnt yield electoral gains.

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'When, Where And Why?' Congress Shares Himanta Sarma's Photo With Bangladeshi Islamic Scholar

Curated By :

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 20:07 IST

Congress' Pawan Khera alleged that the cleric was linked to a Jamaat-e-Islamiled coalition in Bangladesh, a grouping he described as historically pro-Pakistan.

Congress' Pawan Khera shares Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma's photo with Bangladeshi Islamic scholar | Image: X

The Congress on Tuesday questioned Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma after sharing a photograph purportedly showing him with a Bangladeshi Islamic scholar, asking when and why the meeting took place and what its purpose was."

Congress leader Pawan Khera, in a post on X, said he had received a photograph of Sarma with Dewan Muhammad Saidur Rahman Chisti Saidabadi, the head of the Chistia Saidia Darbar Sharif in Dhaka, which is also associated with the Aalia Madrasa.

Describing it as a funny coincidence", Khera raised a series of questions over the circumstances surrounding the meeting.

Funny coincidence.Ive been sent a photo of @himantabiswa with Dewan Muhammad Saidur Rahman Chisti Saidabadi  the head of Chistia Saidia Darbar Sharif in Dhaka, which also runs the Aalia Madrasa. And thats not all. Dewan Sahab is linked with the Jamaat-e-Islamiled pic.twitter.com/fIxicxbvEJ  Pawan Khera  (@Pawankhera) February 10, 2026

Khera further alleged that the cleric was linked to a Jamaat-e-Islamiled coalition in Bangladesh, a grouping he described as historically pro-Pakistan and committed to an ideological agenda centred on Shariah law.

While stopping short of making a direct accusation, the Congress leader said the photograph raised concerns that merited clarification from the Assam Chief Minister.

Listing his questions, Khera asked when and where the meeting occurred, what agenda was discussed, and why the interaction was not disclosed publicly if there was nothing objectionable about it."

He also accused Sarma of pursuing divisive politics in Assam while allegedly engaging with individuals he claimed were aligned with Pakistans interests.

Khera said the Congress would expect a detailed public explanation on the issue.

The latest exchange comes amid an intensifying political confrontation between the BJP and the Congress in Assam, marked by sharp accusations over alleged links to Pakistan.

On Sunday, Chief Minister Sarma held a press conference alleging that Congress leader Gaurav Gogois wife had links to Pakistan, a charge Gogoi strongly denied.

Gogoi accused the Chief Minister of dragging his minor children into the controversy and attempting to divert attention from other issues.

While Gogoi was addressing the media in Guwahati on Monday, Sarma posted fresh remarks on social media questioning Gogois 2013 visit to Pakistan.

He pointed to what he called inconsistencies in visa permissions and travel locations, specifically raising questions about Gogois visit to Takshashila, which he noted lies in Pakistans Rawalpindi district and not within Islamabad city limits.

Sarma argued that Pakistani visa rules restrict travel to designated cities and claimed the visit raised serious" national security concerns, noting that Rawalpindi also houses the Pakistan Armys General Headquarters.

Responding, Gogoi accused Sarma of manufacturing a controversy to deflect attention from allegations concerning land allegedly owned by the Chief Ministers family.

He claimed that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) report cited by Sarma had been withheld for months because it failed to substantiate allegations linking him to Pakistan.

If this were truly a national security issue, why was there silence for six months?" Gogoi asked, asserting that the SIT report did not support the Chief Ministers claims.

He also linked the timing of Sarmas allegations to the Congress partys growing political activity in the state.

Describing Sarmas press conference as a super flop", Gogoi later said the event failed to convince even journalists present, further escalating the war of words between the two sides.

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Location : Assam, India, India

First Published: February 10, 2026, 20:07 IST

News politics 'When, Where And Why?' Congress Shares Himanta Sarma's Photo With Bangladeshi Islamic Scholar

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Women MPs, Ruckus: Kiren Rijijus Videos Capture Lok Sabha Events Amid PM Modi Address Row

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 13:49 IST

Kiren Rijiju wrote on X: If we had not stopped all BJP MPs and allowed the women MPs to confront Congress MPs, it would have led to very ugly scene."

Rapid Read

Kiren Rijiju (left) shared the visuals of February 4 showdown. (X)

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju on Tuesday shared visuals from inside the Lok Sabha on the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi was scheduled to deliver his speech, as he backed the complaint filed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) women MPs with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. He alleged that the Congress MPs had crossed parliamentary limits.

In a post on X, he wrote: The Congress Party is proud of the most degrading behaviour by their MPs !! If we had not stopped all BJP MPs and allowed the Women MPs to confront Congress MPs, it would have led to very ugly scene. We have very high consideration, to protect the dignity & sanctity of the Parliament.

The session had to be adjourned just minutes before the speech on February 4 and Speaker Om Birla later said that he had advised the PM to skip the session as Opposition MPs would resort to an unprecedented incident".

He later shared another video with the caption: Who can justify such behaviors from the Honble MPs? The direction from our leadership was very clear that we must maintain the dignity of the house and no BJP MP should get into physical confrontation with the rude opposition MPs."

Who can justify such behaviors from the Honb'le MPs? The direction from our leadership was very clear that we must maintain the dignity of the house and no BJP MP should get into physical confrontation with the rude opposition MPs. https://t.co/bezzALc7D3 pic.twitter.com/iqy41Xd9vn Kiren Rijiju (@KirenRijiju) February 10, 2026

BJP MPs were very agitated

Speaking to the reporters, Rijiju said, The BJP MPs, especially the women MPs, have lodged a strong complaint to the Lok Sabha speaker against the behaviour of the Congress MPs. The Congress MPs crossed over to the Treasury side. They crossed the bench where the Prime Minister sits, and they went beyond towards the Treasury side, and they almost laid the siege of the entire area."

Rijiju said that BJP women MPs were very agitated" by the conduct after Congress MPs crossed over to the Treasury side.

We had to control our BJP NDA MPs. BJP women MPs were very agitated at this behaviour of the Congress MPs. We stopped our MPs from physical confrontation. Then these MPs went to the Speakers Chamber and threatened the Speaker. The BJP women MPs have lodged a complaint. Let us see how the Speaker takes action and the steps he takes forward," he said.

Congress Party is proud of the most degrading behavior by their MPs !! If we had not stopped all BJP MPs and allowed the Women MPs to confront Cong. MPs, it would have led to very ugly scene.We have very high consideration, to protect the dignity & sanctity of the Parliament. https://t.co/tRj5HjLKFH pic.twitter.com/aTmktk4Y7E Kiren Rijiju (@KirenRijiju) February 10, 2026

THE COMPLAINT

Earlier in the day, BJP women MPs backed Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, while slamming the Opposition MPs for the alleged unfortunate incident" of throwing papers at the Chair and entering the Well of the House during the discussion on the Motion of Thanks on the Presidents address.

The BJP MPs wrote to Speaker Birla alleging that Opposition women MPs surrounded the Prime Ministers seat" and later aggressively approached the Speakers chamber on February 4.

#WATCH | Delhi: On women BJP MPs letter to LS Speaker, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju says, The BJP MPs, especially the women MPs have lodged a strong complaint to the Lok Sabha speaker against the behaviour of the Congress MPs. The Congress MPs crossed over to the pic.twitter.com/DstLmY7ITQ ANI (@ANI) February 10, 2026

They urged the Speaker to take the strongest possible action" against the MPs involved in the alleged incident.

This came as a response to Congress women MPs letter to Om Birla alleging that the ruling party forced him to make false, baseless, and defamatory" claims against them.

With ANI, Agency inputs

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 12:26 IST

News politics Women MPs, Ruckus: Kiren Rijijus Videos Capture Lok Sabha Events Amid PM Modi Address Row

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'Yeh Jo Ladki Hai': Nitish Kumar Attacks Rabri Devi In Heated Bihar Assembly Clash

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Last Updated: February 09, 2026, 20:36 IST

The confrontation erupted as Rabri Devi, leader of the opposition, raised concerns over the rising number of rape cases in the state.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar with RJD senior leader Rabri Devi. (PTI file photo)

Tension flared in the Bihar Legislative Council on Monday as Chief Minister Nitish Kumar targeted former Chief Minister Rabri Devi in a heated exchange.

Addressing Rabri, Nitish said in a fit of anger, yeh jo ladki hai kabhi kuch kaam ki hai? Iska pati hata, toh isko bana diya CM" (This girl has she ever done any work? When her husband was removed, they made her the Chief Minister).

The confrontation erupted as Rabri Devi, leader of the opposition and Bihars first woman Chief Minister, raised concerns over the rising number of rape cases in the state.

Not a single district in Bihar has been left untouched where you wont find rape cases being reported," she told the House, prompting opposition MLCs to shout slogans against the government.

Amid the chaos, Nitish Kumar defended his government, alleging that the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) did little for women when in power. When they were in power, they did not do any work. They did nothing for women. After we came to power in 2005, all-round development of Bihar has taken place, and the state is progressing on all fronts," he claimed, urging Deputy Chairman Rambachan Rai to take action against the disruptive opposition members.

The verbal skirmish escalated quickly, with both leaders addressing each other in animated tones, but much of the exchange was inaudible as microphones were switched off during the commotion. The House was eventually adjourned by Deputy Chairman Rai.

Speaking to reporters outside, Rabri Devi accused the state government of failing in law and order, citing daily incidents of rape and murder. The law and order has failed in the state and incidents of murder and rape are occurring every day. This government is incompetent," she said.

The senior RJD leader also demanded the resignation of both Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, who holds the Home portfolio.

The home minister had himself said that if any such incident occurs, he would resign within 24 hours," she added.

(With inputs from PTI)

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First Published: February 09, 2026, 20:36 IST

News politics 'Yeh Jo Ladki Hai': Nitish Kumar Attacks Rabri Devi In Heated Bihar Assembly Clash

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iOS 26.4 Beta Could Be Apples Biggest Update This Year: Heres The Reason

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 09:58 IST

The big iOS 26.4 update promises the new Siri AI version for iPhone users and Apple has a lot riding on it.

The iOS 26 update was Apples biggest revision not only in terms of the number but also the features and the overall interface for the iPhone users. However, spam calls getting tackled is one of the underrated additions that may have missed the highlights compared to Liquid Glass design and more.

Apple is slowly inching towards its big AI update this year and the iOS 26.4 beta version becomes more than just an important update for the company. We have been hearing about the new Siri version rolling out since 2024, when Apple was supposed to showcase the AI assistant in full glory running on the iPhone 16 model.

That did not happen, and it sounds like Apple is relying on Google to power its new AI ambitions, albeit that might happen later this year. For now, the focus shifts to the iOS 26.4 beta update, and as mentioned by Bloomberg, we could get our first glimpse of the Siri AI version later this month.

Almost Time

The report claims Apple could have the iOS 26.4 developer beta rolling out around February 23 with the Siri AI features. While the public beta of the same version could be available later in March.

The details about possible Siri AI launch were first revealed in an iOS 26 internal build that suggested Apple could announce the assistant around the Spring time this year. This falls in line with the earlier reports about Siri AI launch expected with the iOS 26 update that rolls out around March 2026.

You will need the iPhone 15 Pro or later models to try out the new Siri avatar as it is likely to be linked to the Apple Intelligence ecosystem.

Last Chance AI Saloon?

Having Siri AI talk more contextually is important because of where both Gemini and ChatGPT stand currently. In addition to this, Apple needs the new-look AI Siri to work better so that its smart home segment can expand and the assistant is pivotal for its success.

Google could have a big role to play in the Siri AI launch which could be derived from Gemini with Apple AI also expected to become a force. We are eager to see how the new look Siri performs and if the so-called AI aspirations could give it a more conversational tone rather than sounding like a robot.

Having said that, Apples reported deal with Google will have some intriguing details that may have slipped out from the latter. We are collaborating with Apple as their preferred cloud provider and to develop the next generation of Apple Foundation Models, based on Gemini technology." This statement is quite different from what reports have mentioned in the last few months since the Apple-Google deal was made public through media reports.

More importantly, it also contradicts what Apple chief Tim Cook said during their own earnings call, and highlighted that the Gemini-powered Siri and AI will be run through its private cloud compute system which eased the privacy concerns for millions of iPhone users. Cook assured that all of the AI features from the company will be processed on-device with the help of its private cloud compute setup.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 09:58 IST

News tech iOS 26.4 Beta Could Be Apples Biggest Update This Year: Heres The Reason

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Safer Internet Day 2026 In India: Theme, History And Online Safety Tips

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 07:35 IST

Safer Internet Day highlights online safety, responsible AI use and practical tips to protect users from cyber threats.

Rapid Read

Safer Internet Day is observed on the second Tuesday of February.

Safer Internet Day is observed globally on the second Tuesday of February, which falls on February 10 in 2026. In todays digital-first world, the internet has become a daily necessity, but its growing risks make awareness and responsible usage more important than ever.

From harmful online challenges and unsafe gaming habits to rising cases of cyber fraud and exposure to inappropriate content, the dangers of the digital space are real. Recent incidents involving teenagers allegedly influenced by online gaming have once again highlighted how vulnerable young minds can be to unsafe online behaviour.

While completely disconnecting from the internet is neither practical nor possible, promoting safer and more mindful usage is essential. Safer Internet Day aims to do exactly that  encourage users to stay informed, alert and responsible online.

Safer Internet Day 2026: History

Safer Internet Day began in 2004 as an initiative under the EU SafeBorders project and was later adopted by the Insafe network in 2005. Over the years, it has grown far beyond its European roots and is now observed in more than 160 countries and territories across the world.

Each year, Safer Internet Day focuses on highlighting the online issues that matter most at the moment, from cyberbullying and social media safety to concerns around digital identity and online behaviour.

In times like these, when the internet can cost people their hard-earned money through digital scams or push vulnerable minds toward dangerous choices in the name of online gaming, a day like Safer Internet Day deserves far more attention in India.

Safer Internet Day 2026 India: Theme

This years theme is Smart Tech, Safe Choices: Exploring the Safe and Responsible Use of AI." In the same context, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology will be organising the India AI Impact Summit 2026 from February 15 to 20 in New Delhi.

Given the growing role of technology in everyday life, the theme focuses on encouraging the safe and responsible use of the internet and artificial intelligence, promoting cyber hygiene, and educating users about cyber threats and ways to prevent them.

Adding to these efforts, the Information Security Education and Awareness project will also be conducting a large-scale awareness campaign on Safer Internet Day. The initiative will include activities such as workshops and public awareness drives aimed at helping people navigate the digital world more safely.

Dos And Donts For Online Safety

Sharing Of Personal Information Is A Big No-No

Some websites do ask for personal information, and thats okay up to a point. But when it starts to feel suspicious and too much confidential information is being requested, it becomes a problem. OTPs, especially, should never be shared. Beyond that, hackers can piece together small bits of information to breach your account. Thats why its important to check everything carefully before sharing any details.

Dont Download Items From Suspicious Sites

Downloading free content can be tempting, but remember that such things often come with serious risks, such as malware, Trojan horses, or even spyware. So stay alert and dont just blindly trust every website. Also, dont open attachments that may look suspicious.

Secure Internet Connection Is A Must

You should always ensure that you are using a secure internet connection. This helps protect your network from unauthorised users and hackers. Its also important to note that public Wi-Fi networks can be risky because they are not as secure.

Use Strong Passwords

Hackers use powerful tools that can break weak passwords in seconds. It may sound obvious, but the stronger your password is, the harder it is to crack. In fact, as per Malwarebytes, experts say that a long password, around 12 characters, with a mix of uppercase letters, numbers and symbols could take current technology thousands of years to break.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 07:35 IST

News tech Safer Internet Day 2026 In India: Theme, History And Online Safety Tips

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A Drip-Drip Genocide: Global Hindu Body Flags Rising Violence Against Minorities In Bangladesh

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 11:01 IST

Hindus Advancing Human Rights Initiative warned that Hindus in Bangladesh are facing violence and systematic persecution under the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus.

Violence against minorities has been on a rise in Bangladesh amid recent unrest. (File pic/AP)

Days after RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat expressed support for Bangladeshi Hindus amid ongoing violence, an international alliance of human rights organisations, faith groups and civil society leaders has issued an urgent global appeal.

The appeal warns that Hindus in Bangladesh are facing escalating violence and systematic persecution under the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus, just days before national elections scheduled for February 12.

The letter, coordinated by the Hindus Advancing Human Rights Initiative (HAHRI), has been endorsed by more than 125 organisations and individuals across 15 countries. It calls on the United Nations, the United States, the European Union, India and other international stakeholders to take immediate, enforcement-orientated action.

The signatories warn that continued inaction risks the erasure of an indigenous religious minority through what they describe as sustained ethnic and religious cleansing.

Concerns over violence rise as polls approach

With Bangladesh heading into national elections on Thursday, international concern has focused on the condition of the Hindu minority under the Yunus-led interim administration.

Human rights advocates say persistent violence, intimidation and forced displacement of Hindus have intensified since the political transition of August 2024, raising questions about minority safety and democratic credibility ahead of the polls.

Lynching incident in Bangladesh sparks global outrage

At the centre of the outrage is the public lynching of Dipu Chandra Das on December 18, 2025. Das, a Hindu man, was killed following false allegations of blasphemy. Footage of the killing circulated widely online. Rights groups say the incident reflects a collapse of the rule of law and the normalisation of mob violence against religious minorities, adding that it is not an isolated case but part of a broader climate of impunity.

According to data cited in the letter, Bangladesh has witnessed thousands of attacks on minorities since August 2024, including murders, arson, temple desecration and land seizures.

Blasphemy accusations, often unsubstantiated, are said to have been used to incite mobs, justify arrests and destroy Hindu homes and businesses. International monitoring bodies, including the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, have reported a rise in intimidation and violence against Hindu communities during 2025.

Sharp demographic decline in Bangladesh

The letter notes that Hindus made up around 22 per cent of Bangladeshs population in 1951 and now account for less than 7 per cent. Human rights experts estimate that hundreds of thousands have fled to India over recent decades. They describe this decline as evidence of slow but sustained ethnic and religious cleansing rather than voluntary migration.

A minority does not disappear at this scale without coercion," said Ajay Shah, Executive Chair of HinduPACT.

Calls for international intervention

As the election nears, activists argue that minority insecurity threatens the legitimacy of the political process. The alliance has urged governments and institutions to move beyond statements and adopt enforcement-orientated measures, including independent fact-finding missions, public reporting requirements and accountability mechanisms.

Rallies have been held in more than 25 cities across the United States, reflecting growing grassroots and multifaith solidarity. Demonstrators described the situation as a drip-drip genocide".

HAHRI has also launched a global petition addressed to UN official Volker Turk, urging the United Nations to acknowledge the targeted nature of the violence, establish an independent monitoring mechanism and investigate the misuse of blasphemy allegations. Thousands have signed the petition.

With election day approaching, rights advocates say the situation presents a test for the international community.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 11:01 IST

News world A Drip-Drip Genocide: Global Hindu Body Flags Rising Violence Against Minorities In Bangladesh

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Almighty Armada, Bevy Of Bases: Inside Americas Military Surge Across West Asia Amid Iran Crisis

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 16:53 IST

The US buildup is not merely a show of force but a strategic recalibration designed to protect regional allies and deter potential Iranian retaliation

US-led negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner watch flight operations on the deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) in the Arabian Sea after talks with Iran. File pic

As of February 2026, West Asia has seen a massive surge in American military activity. Spurred by domestic unrest within Iran and a breakdown in nuclear negotiations, the Donald Trump administration has mobilised what officials describe as an armada" to the region. This buildup is not merely a show of force but a strategic recalibration designed to protect regional allies and deter potential Iranian retaliation.

Here is a breakdown of the primary US military assets currently deployed and the sprawling base network supporting them.

Key Military Assets Deployed (January-February 2026)

The USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group: The cornerstone of the current buildup is the nuclear-powered USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72). Having diverted from the South China Sea in late January, it now operates in the Arabian Sea. Its deck carries Carrier Air Wing 9, featuring F-35C Lightning II stealth fighters and EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft. The carrier is escorted by the guided-missile destroyers USS Frank E. Petersen Jr, USS Michael Murphy, and USS Spruance, all equipped with Aegis missile defence and Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Reinforced Airpower & Stealth Fleets: The US Air Force has significantly bolstered its footprint" across regional bases. As of early February, three squadrons of F-15E Strike Eagles have been relocated from RAF Lakenheath to Jordan. These are joined by squadrons of F-16 Fighting Falcons and A-10 Thunderbolt IIs. Most notably, additional fifth-generation F-35A stealth jets landed at RAF Lakenheath on February 9, acting as a staging force" ready to rotate into West Asia to suppress enemy air defences if needed.

Advanced Missile Defence: THAAD & Patriot To counter Irans ballistic missile capabilities, the Pentagon has deployed additional THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) batteries and Patriot missile systems to Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. This is a rare move, given the limited global inventory of THAAD units, highlighting the perceived threat to US personnel and regional energy infrastructure.

Major US Bases in West Asia

The US maintains a network of over 19 locations in the region, with approximately 50,000 troops currently on high alert.

Al Udeid Air Base (Qatar): The largest US military facility in the Middle East, housing over 11,000 personnel. It serves as the forward headquarters for CENTCOM and recently added a new integrated air and missile defence coordination cell.

Naval Support Activity (Bahrain): The permanent home of the US Navys Fifth Fleet. It remains the command centre for all maritime operations in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.

Muwaffaq Salti Air Base (Jordan): A critical hub for the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing, currently hosting the influx of F-15E fighters used for surveillance and strike missions across the Levant.

Camp Arifjan & Ali Al Salem (Kuwait): Sprawling army installations that serve as the primary logistics and staging ground for ground forces and air movements near the Iraqi border.

Prince Sultan Air Base (Saudi Arabia): A vital site for air defence, hosting the THAAD and Patriot batteries that shield the kingdom and US assets from long-range threats.

Al Dhafra Air Base (UAE): A major surveillance and reconnaissance hub south of Abu Dhabi, shared with the Emirati Air Force.

Incirlik Air Base (Turkey): A strategic NATO site in southern Turkey that continues to host US nuclear assets and support regional aerial refuelling missions.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 16:53 IST

News world Almighty Armada, Bevy Of Bases: Inside Americas Military Surge Across West Asia Amid Iran Crisis

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Bangladesh Opens Dairy, Beef And Poultry Sectors To US Under New Trade Deal

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 14:46 IST

Deal offered much-needed relief to Bangladeshs apparel exporters as the RMG sector accounts for more than 80 per cent of its export earnings and employs some 4 million workers.

US Predident Donald Trump (Left) And chief adviser of Bangladesh and interim head Muhammad Yunus (Right)

The United States has signed a trade agreement with Bangladesh, lowering tariffs to 19 per cent in exchange for expanded access for American products across key sectors such as dairy, beef, and poultry.

Under the deal, US-made cars, motorcycles, motor vehicles and parts, medical devices, machinery, ICT equipment, energy products, and soy-based goods will receive significant preferential market access in Bangladesh.

In return, Bangladeshs main export earner  ready-made garments (RMG) made from cotton and synthetic fibres sourced from the US  will enjoy zero reciprocal duty. However, the export volume will be linked to the quantity of US textile inputs, including cotton and man-made fibres, imported by Bangladesh.

Officials from Bangladeshs Commerce Ministry said the agreement also covers imports of US wheat, soybean, and LNG, a commitment to avoid tariffs on e-commerce, adherence to US-mandated intellectual property rights standards, and support for US-backed reforms of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

As part of the pact, Bangladesh has committed to protecting internationally recognised labour rights. This includes banning imports of goods produced through forced labour, amending labour laws to guarantee freedom of association and collective bargaining, and strengthening enforcement of labour regulations.

The US will explore investment financing in Bangladeshs critical sectors through institutions such as the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM Bank) and the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), subject to eligibility and applicable laws, in collaboration with American private sector partners.

Additionally, Bangladesh has agreed to purchase approximately $3.5 billion worth of US agricultural products, including wheat, soy, cotton, and corn, along with energy imports valued at around $15 billion over 15 years, and aircraft procurement.

As part of broader efforts to ease US tariffs, Bangladesh has recently agreed to buy 25 aircraft from Boeing, in a deal estimated at Tk 30,00035,000 crore.

According to Bangladeshs Export Promotion Bureau (EPB), the US remains Bangladeshs largest export market.

The South Asian nation in August last year secured a reduction in US tariffs on its exports to 20 per cent, down from 37 per cent initially proposed by Washington. However, Bangladeshi policymakers earlier said they expected the tariff could be brought down to 15 per cent.

Business analysts, however, said the deal offered much-needed relief to Bangladeshs apparel exporters as the ready-made garments sector accounts for more than 80 per cent of its export earnings and employs some 4 million workers, mostly women, and contributes about 10 per cent to gross domestic product (GDP).

The development comes as Bangladesh heads for the February 12 general election to choose new leadership and bring an end to the 18-month Yunus-led interim regime, which took charge after the fall of Sheikh Hasinas Awami League government following a violent student-led street campaign dubbed the July Uprising.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 14:31 IST

News world Bangladesh Opens Dairy, Beef And Poultry Sectors To US Under New Trade Deal

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Elon Musks xAI Loses Another Founding Member As Tony Wu Exits: Ride Of A Lifetime

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 21:27 IST

Tony Wu announced his resignation in a post on X (formerly Twitter), saying he had formally left xAI and was preparing for a new phase in his career.

Tony Wu, xAI co-founder, steps down after three years from Elon Musk's company.

Tony Wu, one of the original founders of Elon Musks artificial intelligence venture xAI, has stepped down from the company, marking another high-profile exit from the startup less than three years after it was launched. Tony Wu announced his resignation in a post on X (formerly Twitter), saying he had formally left xAI and was preparing for a new phase in his career.

More Than Just A Workplace

Reflecting on his time at the company, he described xAI as more than just a workplace, calling it a family" forged through intense collaboration. He said he would miss the people, the late-night strategy rooms and the battles fought together while building the firm. While Tony Wu did not reveal his next professional move, he hinted at plans aligned with the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence.

He wrote that the current moment presents vast opportunities, suggesting that small, focused teams empowered by advanced AI tools can achieve outsized impact and redefine what is possible. Tony Wu also expressed gratitude to the broader xAI team and to Elon Musk, thanking the Tesla and SpaceX chief for backing the companys mission and offering what he called the ride of a lifetime".

According to his LinkedIn profile, Tony Wu previously worked at Google and was among the roughly dozen founding members who launched xAI alongside Elon Musk in 2023.

A Series Of Departures At xAI

Tony Wus departure adds to a growing list of early exits from the company. Over the past year, co-founders Christian Szegedy, Igor Babuschkin and Greg Yang have also moved away from their roles, while Kyle Kosic left in 2024.

This comes at a time of significant structural change for xAI. Bloomberg recently reported that the AI firm has merged with SpaceX in a deal valuing the combined entity at $1.25 trillion. The merger is expected to provide financial relief as xAI continues to pour resources into data centres, advanced chips and talent in its push to scale up AI development. Announcing the merger earlier, Elon Musk said the newly combined company would aim to extend the light of consciousness to the stars."

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 21:27 IST

News world Elon Musks xAI Loses Another Founding Member As Tony Wu Exits: Ride Of A Lifetime

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'Fit And Well': Imran Khan Meets Lawyer In Jail After Pakistan Top Court Grants Full Access

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CNN-News18

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 20:42 IST

The meeting, which lasted nearly 3 hours, came after the Supreme Court of Pakistan granted Safdar full access to Khan on its directives.

Former Pakistan PM Imran Khan. (Image: PTI/File)

Imran Khans lawyer, Salman Safdar, on Tuesday met the former prime minister at Adiala Jail in Pakistans Rawalpindi and confirmed that Khan was completely fit and well."

The meeting, which lasted nearly three hours, came after the Supreme Court of Pakistan granted Safdar full access to Khan on its directives.

Speaking to the media after the visit, Safdar said the PTI founder appeared healthy and that he had a detailed discussion with him.

It is not appropriate to say anything further until the report is filed in the Supreme Court," he added.

ALSO READ: Pakistan Govt Says Imran Khans Medical Reports Given To Family, Sister Disputes Claim

Safdar has been appointed by the top court as amicus curiae, or friend of the court," to examine Khans living conditions in jail.

Earlier on Tuesday, a two-member bench of the Supreme Court, comprising Chief Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan, approved the petition to meet Khan.

The court instructed that Safdar should be given full access to the former prime minister so he could file a written report. Justice Afridi also directed jail authorities that Safdar should not be kept waiting outside the prison.

Safdar had asked the court whether his report should be limited to living conditions only, citing concerns about Khans health following a recent medical procedure.

The chief justice clarified that the report should focus solely on living conditions. Another lawyer, Latif Khosa, who filed a separate request to meet Khan, was turned down by the court, and the hearing was adjourned to February 12.

Khan, 73, has been in custody since 5 August 2023, after his conviction in a corruption case. This was the first visit by anyone since December 2, when Khans sister Uzma met him for 20 minutes and reported that he was in good health.

Pakistans authorities had stopped weekly meetings between Khan and his family and lawyers, citing alleged political misuse of such meetings.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 20:42 IST

News world 'Fit And Well': Imran Khan Meets Lawyer In Jail After Pakistan Top Court Grants Full Access

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Since November, the scene has been repeated almost every day of the week in many of Rio de Janeiros neighborhoods: a street closed off, an avenue without cars, and thousands of people joyfully moving to the beat of drums. Its the usual routine in the months leading up to Carnival; these are the rehearsals of the samba schools that will parade in the Sambadrome. Each rehearsal brings together some 3,000 members and thousands more neighbors and spontaneous spectators. Its all free, out in the street, and with the tacit approval of the traffic officers. And it happens almost every day of the week for about three monthssomething unthinkable in many cities. When cars disappear for a few hours, spaces for community life flourish: families dancing, children running around, impromptu barbecues, and a sense of shared space that is invaluable in a city marked by inequality and sorely lacking in pedestrian areas.

Besides the samba schools, in January, as the festival approaches, the other side of the celebration also makes an appearance in the streets: the blocos, the lively street parades with bands of musicians playing wind and percussion instruments. These are the two main cultural expressions of the city and they move the masses, to the point that they force urban changes and help revitalize run-down areas.

From the beginning of the year until the peak of the festival (this year its from February 13th to 18), Rio will host more than 460 parades of blocos authorized by the city. These parades are expected to draw more than eight million people, residents and tourists alike. The city designs a complex logistical puzzle and mobilizes more than 300 traffic officers just to manage the passage of these bands. But in addition to the official blocos, there are countless other groups that dont necessarily have permits but parade anyway. Bureaucracy is rarely an obstacle. The sheer number of musicians and revelers brings traffic to a standstill, and the police, if present, usually just manage the resulting chaos: its organized mayhem.

Members of Salgueiro, one of the most traditional samba schools, disperse during the carnival. Leonardo Carrato Rehearsal of the Mangueira samba school in Rio de Janeiro. Leonardo Carrato Rehearsal for the Rio de Janeiro Carnival in Brazil. Leonardo Carrato The main avenue in Mangueira, January 2026. Leonardo Carrato

It wasnt always like this: for decades, samba dancers, carnival enthusiasts, and other devotees of bohemian life were ruthlessly persecuted, as Victor Belart, author of the book Cidade pirata (Pirate City) about the blocos and Rios street culture, recalls. Rio de Janeiro has been very violent toward cultural expressions and at the same time very interested in them; its an ambiguous relationship. Many blocos have been persecuted, but their image has also been used, there have been incentives Its a multifaceted relationship, he says.

Its undeniable that Carnival is in Rios DNA, to the point that its official anthem is a joyful marcinha (a typical Rio Carnival genre): Cidade Maravilhosa (Marvelous City), a huge hit at the 1935 Carnival. The inescapable presence of the festivities in the streets has left clearly visible marks on the citys architecture and urban planning. The clearest example is the Sambadrome, a kind of straight-line stadium with a capacity of 70,000 people. Designed by Niemeyer, it was built in 1984 in record time with clear popular support, even incorporating public schools into its lower levels. Its surroundings are a chaotic jumble of dilapidated streets, an unwelcoming viaduct, and even a smelly canal, but the magnetism of the venue for the citys economy is driving change. The city government has announced a 1.75 billion reais (over $300 million) plan to pedestrianize the surrounding area, demolish the elevated highway and replace it with a tunnel, create public squares, housing for 100,000 new residents, and a large library designed by architect Francis Kere. Carnival is also driving construction a few kilometers away, where the Cidade do Samba 2 (Samba City 2) is being built on old railway tracks. This complex of warehouses will house the floats of the samba schools that have previously worked in more precarious conditions.

Attendees at the Rio Carnival rehearsal, February 5. Leonardo Carrato

There are also less obvious movements. On many occasions, the government joins forces with popular culture to revitalize abandoned spaces. Samba circles, which take place throughout the year in many squares, have been key to revitalizing many areas of the city center, thanks to their ability to attract hundreds of people to places that are often uninviting. Just a few months ago, the city council itself promoted this occupation of space in the Passeio Publico, the citys oldest park, which used to be deserted on Sundays. The music has transformed it into a pleasant and bustling craft and food fair.

Similarly, the main value of the street bands and samba schools in their contribution to public space lies in the intangible, in their power to change the collective imagination and idea of what the city can be, especially its historic center, where most of the parades are concentrated. Rio is a violent, unequal, and contradictory city, where, as Belart says, antagonistic projects coexist. On one side, there are those who dream of moving to neighborhoods like Barra da Tijuca, with its Miami-like aspirations, its gated communities surrounded by walls and security cameras, like in so many Latin American cities. On the other, there is the extremely informal, street-based city, the one that crowds together, standing in flip-flops, drinking beer around a samba circle on a street corner. That idea of the street always has to be contested, and Carnival allows new generations to experience sensations in the streets. Walking through the streets during the festivities is an emotional obligation to the city; the more you walk through the city, the closer you get to it, you position it as a possible space. Carnival greatly stimulates this; its important because it renews the hope of the street, it builds symbolic imaginaries of the street as a possibility. In the days when King Momo takes the keys to the city, another Rio seems possible. When Ash Wednesday arrives, much of that friendly city evaporates, but a residue always remains: the next street closed to traffic, the next rehearsal.

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'Global Waystation': US Sees India As Primary 'Off-Ramp' From China, Signals Trade Chief Greer

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Last Updated: February 11, 2026, 04:37 IST

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer positions India as key alternative to China, provided trade remains a 'two-way street' for American workers and exports

Greer emphasised that while India is a 'good source' for imports, the relationship must remain balanced and fair. (File photo: X)

The global trade map is currently undergoing a structural realignment as the United States intensifies its efforts to decouple critical supply chains from China. In an interview with Fox News, US Trade Representative Ambassador Jamieson Greer provided a nuanced perspective on Indias role in this transition. While Greer reaffirmed the America First" doctrine, prioritising domestic manufacturing and the security of the American worker, he identified India as a significant waystation" for companies seeking to exit the Chinese market. This characterisation suggests that while Washingtons primary goal is near-shoring" or returning production to US soil, India represents a vital secondary hub for diversifying global production.

Greer acknowledged that the shift away from hyper-globalisation is a complex process that presents numerous challenges for the American economy. However, he noted that many corporations are already actively moving in this direction, seeking a more resilient and secure economic framework. Indias appeal in this strategic pivot is its vast human capital and its burgeoning manufacturing capacity. With a workforce that is increasingly integrated into the global tech and hardware sectors, India offers a scale of production that few other nations can replicate. Greers comments reflect a growing consensus in Washington that a secure supply chain cannot be overly reliant on a single, often adversarial, geopolitical actor.

However, the ambassador was careful to frame this partnership with a caveat of reciprocity. He emphasised that while India is a good source" for imports, the relationship must remain balanced and fair. This echoes the broader trade policy of the Donald Trump administration, which has consistently pushed for reduced trade deficits and greater market access for American goods in exchange for entry into the US consumer market. The term waystation" implies that India is viewed as a critical node in a larger journey toward economic resilienceone that provides the necessary infrastructure and labour while the US continues to rebuild its own industrial base.

The context of these remarks is particularly relevant following recent bilateral trade discussions and the implementation of strategic tariffs aimed at protecting domestic industries. As American companies look to de-risk, the Indian governments Make in India" initiative and various Production Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes have aligned well with the US desire for alternative manufacturing hubs. Ultimately, say observers, Greers statements signal a pragmatic approach: a preference for American-made products, supplemented by a China Plus One" strategy where India serves as a preferred, albeit strictly regulated, partner in the pursuit of a more secure global economy.

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First Published: February 11, 2026, 04:37 IST

News world 'Global Waystation': US Sees India As Primary 'Off-Ramp' From China, Signals Trade Chief Greer

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H-1B Visa Programme To End By 2027? US Republican Lawmaker Introduces Bill

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 20:56 IST

Greg Steube accused corporations of importing cheaper foreign labour to boost profits while suppressing wages and displacing US employees.

The H-1B visa allows US employers to recruit foreign workers in specialised fields.

A US Republican lawmaker introduced legislation to abolish the H-1B visa programme, the main route American companies use to hire highly skilled foreign professionals. Greg Steube, who has represented Floridas 17th Congressional District since 2019, announced the Ending Exploitative Imported Labour Exemptions (EXILE) Act, saying the visa system has been weaponised against American workers.

Today I am filing legislation to end the H-1B visa programme," he wrote on X (formerly Twitter), adding, American workers have been ripped off by the corrupt H-1B visa program for far too long."

Greg Steube accused corporations of importing cheaper foreign labour to boost profits while suppressing wages and displacing US employees. The bill would amend Section 214(g)(1)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, reducing the number of H-1B visas to zero starting in 2027.

Cases Against H-1B Programme

The US Congressmans office cited several instances where the visa scheme allegedly harmed American workers. It claimed more than 10,000 US physicians were blocked from residency programmes while over 5,000 foreign-born doctors were brought in through H-1B pathways. The release also pointed to mass layoffs at Microsoft and Disney, as well as job losses in the energy sector, linking them to the use of H-1B workers.

Not The First Attempt To End H-1B Programme

The move follows similar efforts by Republican leaders in recent years. Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene had earlier proposed the End H-1B Now Act, which sought to shut down the programme while allowing limited exemptions for medical professionals. The bill is expected to face significant scrutiny as it moves through the legislative process.

Recent Changes In H-1B

The H-1B visa allows US employers to recruit foreign workers in specialised fields, particularly in technology, healthcare and engineering. Recent changes have already reshaped the programme, with the US government tightening rules and raising costs for employers. The traditional random lottery system is set to be replaced by a wage-weighted selection process that prioritises higher-paid applicants, with candidates offered Level IV wages receiving the highest selection odds and entry-level applicants facing significantly lower chances. In addition, a $100,000 fee for certain new H-1B petitions filed on or after September 21, 2025, has been introduced.

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Location : Washington D.C., United States of America (USA)

First Published: February 10, 2026, 20:54 IST

News world H-1B Visa Programme To End By 2027? US Republican Lawmaker Introduces Bill

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Hindu Trader Stabbed To Death Inside His Shop In Bangladesh Ahead Of Polls

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 15:08 IST

Sushen Chandra Shekhar, a Hindu rice trader, was stabbed to death in his shop in Mymensingh ahead of Bangladesh's Parliamentary elections.

A Hindu trader stabbed to death in Bangladesh ahead of country's elections (Image credit: X/ @AmitKumar_Das1)

Ahead of Bangladeshs Parliamentary elections, a Hindu businessman was stabbed to death inside his shop in the Mymensingh district late Monday night, said the police.

The deceased has been identified as Sushen Chandra Shekhar, aged 62. A resident of the Southkanda village, he worked as a rice trader and owner of Messrs Bhai Bhai Enterprise at Bogar Bazar intersection in Trishal Upazila.

The police said that the incident took place around 11 P.M. Sarkar was working inside his shop when unidentified assailants attacked him with sharp weapons.

After the killing, the attackers pulled down the shutter and fled the spot, leaving the body inside, India Today reported.

Trishal Police Station Officer-in-charge Muhammad Firoz Hossain confirmed the incident, saying a probe has been initiated to track and identify the perpetrators.

The motive behind the killing is yet to be ascertained, officials said.

Rising Violence Against Minorities

With Bangladesh approaching Parliamentary elections, mounting concerns focus on the deteriorating conditions of the minorities in the country. At the centre of these concerns lies the killing of Dipu Chandra Das on December 18, 2025.

Das, a Hindu factory worker, was lynched following false allegations of blasphemy  an incident that raised international concerns over the rising violence against minorities in Bangladesh, especially since the ouster of Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government.

In separate attacks, a Hindu businessman named Liton Chandra Ghosh (55) was stabbed and set on fire, who succumbed to his injuries after several days.

Several Hindu individuals were reportedly killed in the months ahead of the polls, with at least 15 killed in a 45-day period between early December 2025 and mid-January 2026, as per a report by Rights and Riska Analysis Group (RRAG).

The incidents are a part of a wider pattern reflecting a sharp escalation in communal incidents, which the minority advocacy groups say include hundreds of attacks on life, property and places of worship.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 14:55 IST

News world Hindu Trader Stabbed To Death Inside His Shop In Bangladesh Ahead Of Polls

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Kremlin Believes Europe Will Take Military Action Against Russia In 2-3 Years: Estonia

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 15:59 IST

Estonia's intelligence chief says Russia will not attack NATO soon but is rebuilding forces and expanding ammunition production, aiming to hinder Europe and marginalise the US

Estonia's head of the service, Kaupo Rosin (X)

Estonias foreign intelligence service on Tuesday said Russia had no intention to launch a military attack on any NATO members this year or next but it was racing to rebuild its forces.

(Europe) must invest in defence and internal security, so thatin the future Russia would conclude it has no chance against NATO countries," the head of the service, Kaupo Rosin, told reporters," said head of the service, Kaupo Rosin, after releasing the annual report.

We see that the Russian leadership is very concerned aboutEuropean rearmament, they see that Europe might be able to conduct independent military action against Russia in two to three years," he said, adding that Russias goal at present is to delay and hinder" this.

Reuters quoted the intelligence service stating that ammunition production is expanding so rapidly that Russia will be able to stockpile supplies for future wars while continuing to fight in Ukraine.

Any Russian attack on Estonia would involve drones on land, in the air and at sea, simultaneously across Estonias entire territory," it added.

On Russias relations with the US, the Estonian intelligence said Kremlin regards Washington as its principal global adversary though it feigns readiness to cooperate with the aim to secure removal of US sanctions.

This change stemmed from the Kremlins ambition to exploit the new U.S. administration to restore bilateral relations and pursue a settlement that would formalise Ukraines defeat," it said.

Despite this illusory thaw, Russias aims remain unchanged: it seeks to marginalise the United States and NATO and to reshape Europes security architecture according to Moscows vision," it added.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 15:59 IST

News world Kremlin Believes Europe Will Take Military Action Against Russia In 2-3 Years: Estonia

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'Life Or Death Calculation': Bangladesh's Hindu Voters Face Pre-Poll Intimidation | Exclusive

Reported By :

CNN-News18

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 18:55 IST

Minority voters in high-density Hindu pockets allege that a campaign of psychological warfare and selective violence is being waged to silence their participation

The recent wave of pre-poll violence, including street clashes between the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat cadres, has left dozens injured and the minority community feeling increasingly exposed. (Representational image: AP)

Hindu families across Bangladesh are reporting systemic coercion and voter suppression ahead of the critical February 12 national elections, CNN-News18 has learnt. Minority voters in high-density Hindu pockets allege that a campaign of psychological warfare and selective violence is being waged to silence their participation, turning the fundamental act of voting into what many describe as a life or death calculation".

The Shadow of Intimidation

Local activists, frequently linked to the radical Jamaat-e-Islami, have reportedly moved beyond subtle pressure to overt threats. Residents in affected areas describe a chilling protocol of marking" homes and preparing lists" of those intended to vote.

Direct Warnings: Families report being told to support our candidate or prepare to leave your homes".

Marking Territory: Radical cadres are reportedly spreading threats through temples, markets, and school lanes to ensure the message of exclusion is pervasive.

Psychological Warfare: Even in the absence of active clashes, the climate of fear is assessed as sufficient to keep high-risk demographics indoors on polling day.

Soft Targets in a Polarised Race

The recent wave of pre-poll violence, including street clashes between the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat cadres, has left dozens injured and the minority community feeling increasingly exposed.

The Awami Label: Many Hindu voters say they are being branded as automatic supporters of the ousted Awami League, making them convenient scapegoats for Islamist groups.

Strategic Suppression: Intelligence sources suggest a structured strategy by radical elements to suppress the minority vote. By targeting specific localities, these groups aim to alter constituency-level outcomes without triggering the kind of large-scale violence that would invite international intervention.

Regional Stakes and Human Rights Alarms

Human rights bodies have sounded urgent alarms, noting that the pressure on Hindus is often collateral to a larger contest between the ruling interim establishment and resurgent Islamist forces.

Projecting minorities as regime-aligned gives Islamist groups a perceived justification for coercion, while they simultaneously avoid direct confrontation with state security forces until after the polls," said a top intelligence source.

The implications of this suppression extend beyond Bangladeshs borders. Any post-election targeting of Hindus could inflame regional narratives, fuel anxieties regarding refugee influxes, and severely complicate the delicate diplomatic ties between India and the interim government in Dhaka.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 18:55 IST

News world 'Life Or Death Calculation': Bangladesh's Hindu Voters Face Pre-Poll Intimidation | Exclusive

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'Just Attack, Don't Negotiate': Iranian Man Appeals To Trump In A Video Message Before Suicide

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 08:11 IST

Addressing Trump, Hamidi urged them not to pursue any deal with Tehran, arguing that diplomacy would lead to a betrayal of those who lost their lives during the protests.

Iranian man Pouria Hamidi reportedly killed himself after video appeal to US President Donald Trump | Image: X

An Iranian man from the southern port city of Bushehr has reportedly taken his own life after posting a video message appealing to US President Donald Trump to abandon any diplomatic engagement with Irans ruling establishment, according to local media reports.

The man, identified by activists and Iranian media as Pouria Hamidi, recorded a roughly 10-minute video in English that circulated widely on social media over the weekend.

In the recording, Hamidi sought to draw international attention to what he described as a violent crackdown on recent anti-government protests in Iran and urged foreign intervention against the clerical leadership.

America attacking Iran is the only hope we have right now," said Pouria Hamidi, an Iranian man from Bushehr, adding, We cant fight this regime alone. Our people need foreign intervention."Hamidi delivered the remarks in a 10-minute English-language video addressed to pic.twitter.com/j2MKjqqA9R  Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) February 8, 2026

At the start of the video, Hamidi suggested he might no longer be alive by the time it was viewed.

He claimed that tens of thousands of people had been killed during the unrest, alleging mass casualties during protests that erupted earlier this year.

He said the video was meant to highlight what he called a massacre" by Iranian authorities, though these claims could not be independently verified.

Addressing US leaders directly, Hamidi urged them not to pursue any agreement with Tehran, arguing that diplomacy would amount to a betrayal of those who lost their lives during the protests.

Please, do whatever you can to stop this deal," he said, adding that protesters had continued demonstrations, believing international pressure would follow.

Hamidi argued that ordinary Iranians were unable to confront an armed state apparatus on their own and claimed that only foreign intervention, specifically by the United States, could bring change.

We cant fight this regime alone. Our people need foreign intervention," he said in the video.

He also criticised Irans religious leadership, voiced support for exiled royal figure Reza Pahlavi as a potential leader of a transitional government, and called on opposition groups abroad to unite.

Describing widespread despair, Hamidi said many Iranians felt they had no future and that hope among the population had been exhausted.

CNN-News18 could not independently verify the authenticity of the video or confirm the circumstances surrounding Hamidis death.

The incident comes amid reports that Iranian authorities have largely quelled nationwide protests through a forceful crackdown. While official figures have not been released, international media reports, including an estimate by Reuters, have suggested that thousands may have been killed during the unrest.

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First Published: February 09, 2026, 22:43 IST

News world 'Just Attack, Don't Negotiate': Iranian Man Appeals To Trump In A Video Message Before Suicide

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Netanyahu To Outline Principles For Iran Talks At Trump Meeting; Tehran Warns US To Think Wisely

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 23:46 IST

Reacting to Netanyahus remarks, a senior Iranian official cautioned Washington against allowing Israel to undermine diplomatic engagement with Tehran.

US President Donald Trump with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. (Getty Images)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he will present a set of principles" for negotiations with Iran when he meets US President Donald Trump in Washington, DC.

Speaking before departing Tel Aviv on Tuesday, Netanyahu highlighted what he described as the unique closeness" between Israel and the United States and his personal rapport with Trump.

He said the principles he intends to share are aimed at ensuring regional peace and security.

I will present President Trump with principles for negotiations with Iran that are important not only for Israel but for all those who seek peace and security in the Middle East," Netanyahu was quoted as saying by Israeli media.

He did not elaborate on the specifics of the proposal.

The visit comes shortly after the United States and Iran concluded a round of nuclear talks in Oman, marking their first negotiations since the June 2025 conflict that followed Israeli strikes and subsequent US attacks on Irans key nuclear facilities.

Israel is not a participant in the talks but has consistently sought to influence US policy on Iran.

Tehran Responds

Reacting to Netanyahus remarks, senior Iranian official Ali Larijani, who is also in Oman, cautioned Washington against allowing Israel to undermine diplomatic engagement with Tehran.

They must think wisely and remain alert to the destructive role of the Zionists," Larijani said, in a warning directed at US officials.

While Netanyahu has not detailed his proposed principles, he has previously argued that any agreement with Iran should include the dismantling of Tehrans heavy weapons capabilities, drawing comparisons with Libyas 2003 disarmament deal.

Iran has firmly rejected negotiations over its missile programme, describing it as central to its national defence.

During the June conflict, Iran relied heavily on missile strikes after its air defence systems were damaged in Israeli attacks.

Tehran launched hundreds of missiles toward Israel, some of which breached its layered air defence systems, resulting in casualties and widespread damage.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reiterated over the weekend that the countrys missile programme is non-negotiable", calling it a purely defensive matter.

He also underscored Irans position that support for allied groups in the region and its right to enrich uranium domestically remain critical points of contention.

While the US and Israel are expected to press Iran to curtail support for allied non-state actors across the region, Tehran has maintained that its alliances are part of its broader security strategy.

Iran has also signalled willingness to accept strict limits and international monitoring of its nuclear activities but insists that domestic uranium enrichment is a sovereign right.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 23:46 IST

News world Netanyahu To Outline Principles For Iran Talks At Trump Meeting; Tehran Warns US To Think Wisely

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'Not Prepared To Walk Away': Starmer Vows To Fight For His Job Amid Fallout Over Epstein Files

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 08:24 IST

UK PM Keir Starmer survived a day of high tension after several Labour Party lawmakers demanded him to step down amid Peter Mandelson row.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. (PTI file photo)

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday just survived his near-death experience in his political career and vowed to fight for his job as revelations about the relationship between the former UK ambassador to Washington and Jeffrey Epstein spiralled into a full-blown crisis for his 19-month-old government.

While Starmer survived a full day of chaos after his full cabinet rallied behind him, several warned that he was not out of danger. The Prime Ministers standing within his own Labour Party has been weakened by the fallout from the release of files related to Epstein  a man he never met and whose sexual misconduct has not implicated Starmer.

Several lawmakers in Starmers Labour Party have also called on him to resign for his judgment in appointing Peter Mandelson to the high-profile diplomatic post in 2024 despite his ties to the convicted sex offender.

Addressing a packed room of Labour members of Parliament, Starmer urged his party to rally behind him, saying he had won every fight he has ever been in".

After having fought so hard for the chance to change our country, Im not prepared to walk away from my mandate and my responsibility to my country, or to plunge us into chaos as others have done," Starmer said, CNN reported.

The situation became more intense for Starmer as his director of communications, Tim Allan, on Monday said that he was quitting the government. His announcement came just less than a day after Morgan McSweeney, Starmers chief of staff and his closest adviser, resigned over his role in the appointment of Peter Mandelson as Britains ambassador to the United States last year.

Starmer is currently facing the biggest crisis over his decision to appoint Mandelson. The Mandelson revelations have dominated British media for days, snowballing into one of the countrys biggest political scandals this century.

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Location : United Kingdom (UK)

First Published: February 10, 2026, 08:24 IST

News world 'Not Prepared To Walk Away': Starmer Vows To Fight For His Job Amid Fallout Over Epstein Files

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Not Witch Hunt: US Lawmakers Say 6 Likely Incriminated Names Found In Unredacted Epstein Files

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 13:32 IST

US House Representatives Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna did not reveal the names but said one of the men is a high-ranking official in a foreign government.

Massie, Khanna Urge DOJ To Recheck Redactions After Epstein File Review

US House Representatives Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna on Monday said they identified at least six individuals likely incriminated" after reviewing an unredacted tranche of Department of Justice files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Members of Congress were allowed for the first time on Monday to examine the unredacted versions of the DOJ files. Massie and Khanna were the lead sponsors of the bill that compelled the public release of the documents.

Six names identified

We went in there for two hours. Theres millions of files, right? And in a couple of hours, we found six men whose names have been redacted, who are implicated in the way that the files are presented," Massie told reporters outside the Justice Department office where lawmakers reviewed the files.

The lawmakers did not reveal the names. They said one of the men is a high-ranking official in a foreign government, while another is a prominent individual. Later on X, Massie said the other name he recognised is of a Sultan" and a retired CEO," who is listed as a co-conspirator.

Khanna said the review was not intended to create a witch hunt" and noted that being named in the files does not automatically imply guilt. He added that powerful people beyond Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were involved in abusing underage girls or were present at locations where the abuse took place.

Call for DOJ review

Massie said he would not release any names and urged the Justice Department to correct its redactions.

I think we need to give the DOJ a chance to go back through and correct their mistakes," he said. They need to themselves check their own homework."

The law that mandated the release of the files allowed limited redactions, but lawmakers and victims have questioned the extent of material blacked out. Some have also raised concerns that names of victims were not consistently protected.

Questions over redactions

Massie referred to an FBI form listing conspirators in which the Justice Department had redacted the name and photo of one individual.

The lawmakers also discussed an email that drew attention, where a redacted person thanked Epstein for a fun night" and wrote, Your littlest girl was a little naughty."

Massie said the email was sent by a woman and suggested that redaction decisions may have been made broadly.

We cant parse if the person who sent that was a victim or not," he said.

Files received already redacted

Khanna said some documents reached the Justice Department already redacted by the FBI or from grand jury material, limiting what DOJ reviewers could see.

The documents produced to Justice from the FBI, from the grand jury, was redacted when they got it," Khanna said. He added that this was likely not the fault of career attorneys reviewing the material, but noted that the law required the FBI and original grand jury material to be provided unredacted.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 13:32 IST

News world Not Witch Hunt: US Lawmakers Say 6 Likely Incriminated Names Found In Unredacted Epstein Files

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Pakistan Begins Review Of Indias New Dam On Chenab River Amid Stalled IWT: Exclusive From Sources

Reported By :

News18.com

Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 11:52 IST

Pakistan will issue a policy statement and is likely to challenge Indias new dam project in International Court Of Justice and other international fora soon, say sources

News18 reported last month that the Centre has issued firm directions to fast-track four major hydropower projects on the Chenab river system. File pic/PTI

Pakistan is reviewing Indias new dam on the Chenab river in Jammu and Kashmir, according to top sources in the countrys water resources ministry.

India has started work on the mega Rs 5,129-crore Sawalkote Hydroelectric Project on the River Chenab in Jammu and Kashmir  the first such new project to get the green light from the Narendra Modi government after the abrogation of the Indus Water Treaty.

ALSO READ | IWT Paused, Infra Fast-Tracked, Pakistan Irked: A Look At Indias Projects On Chenab

News18 had reported last month that the Centre has issued firm directions to fast-track four major hydropower projects on the Chenab river system. Officials had been asked to commission the Pakal Dul and Kiru projects by December 2026, complete the Kwar project by March 2028, and accelerate construction on the strategically sensitive Ratle Dam.

Delhi: PM Narendra Modi says, India has decided that blood and water will not flow together. Now, my fellow countrymen have clearly understood how unjust and one-sided the Indus agreement is. The waters of rivers originating in India have been irrigating the fields of our pic.twitter.com/7d60wghorm IANS (@ians_india) August 15, 2025

India placed the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in abeyance in April 2025 following the Pahalgam attack, stating that blood and water cannot flow together". By treating the treaty as suspended, India is no longer following data-sharing or prior-notification requirements with Pakistan for new or existing projects on the Chenab River. It has also rejected rulings from the Court of Arbitration, which India currently labels as illegal."

What are Pakistans plans?

The Chenab is part of the Indus basin  Pakistans lifeline. Nearly three-fourths of Pakistans water originates from the western rivers that flow from India into Pakistan. Over 90 per cent of Pakistans agriculture depends on this basin, and almost the entire network of its dams and canals is built around it. In effect, nine out of ten Pakistanis rely on water that first flows through Indian territory.

Pakistans departments such as the Indus Water Commissioner Office, Pakistan Water Resources Ministry, Ministry Of Foreign Affairs, Attorney General Office and other relevant departments are studying the project," said sources, adding, A combined and comprehensive report will be presented to the Prime Ministers Office soon."

The authorities are also working on multiple options how to deal with the dam and de-watering of Pakistan," said sources.

Pakistan is reviewing all aspects to challenge India. It will issue a policy statement and is likely to challenge Indias new dam project in International Court Of Justice and other international fora soon, said the sources.

The Office of MOFA Spokesperson responded to News18s query: Its in our knowledge and we will respond with more details soon."

Pakistan has already challenged the abeyance of Indus Water Treaty on international forums, said sources.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 11:49 IST

News world Pakistan Begins Review Of Indias New Dam On Chenab River Amid Stalled IWT: Exclusive From Sources

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The author of the 1991 bestseller Wild Swans and a recent follow-up memoir discusses growing up under Mao, Chinese politics today, and whether Trump is pushing the West into Beijings arms

Jung Chang rose to fame in 1991 with her memoir Wild Swans, an odyssey based on the life of her grandmother, who became the concubine of a warlord general during the Chinese empire; her mother, a Communist leader who was later persecuted; and herself, a young woman in the Chinese Red Guard disillusioned after the devastating repression of the Cultural Revolution. That young woman, born 73 years ago in Yibin (Sichuan, China), managed to go to London, study, write, and achieve success, and now returns with Fly, Wild Swans, where she revisits a gripping family biography intertwined with the history of China in the last century.

Question. Your book reeks of fear. Do you still feel that way?

Answer. Yes, because I grew up under Maos rule and fear was ingrained in our hearts. Today I try to overcome it, not feel it and move on with my life, but its still there.

Q. You portray your mother as a great fighter. What was her main lesson?

A. Today she is over 90 years old, very frail, and we cant talk much, but we can see each other by video call. She taught me to be strong, brave, to do what I believe is right, and to write, to tell the truth.

Q. Do you recognize todays China, the China of Xi Jinping?

A. Its very different from Maos. I grew up in times of public violence, of horrific accusations when victims were paraded through the streets, beaten, even children beating their parents. And today its very different. There is fear and repression, but we cant go back to Maoism.

Q. Is China more capitalist or communist today?

A. In essence, its still communist. In China, you still cant own land, only buy usage rights for 70 years. People are allowed certain freedoms and to have money, but if the party decides, you can lose everything. There is freedom, as long as you dont go beyond the partys limits.

Q. Your worst memory?

A. Seeing my teachers being beaten up at school, seeing my parents tortured, my grandmother suffering immense pain. One of the worst memories was seeing my grandmother faint while my mother was suffering, when she was paraded through the streets, humiliated and tormented. My grandmother fainted in front of me, her body falling stiff as a board, her skull hitting the ground, she lost consciousness, and that moment terrified me.

Jung Chang in Madrid. INMA FLORES

Q. Your grandmothers life was marked by the fact of becoming a concubine when she was only 15 years old.

A. She was given to a general to be his concubine in the 1920s, and when he died and my grandmother wanted to marry, her fiances family opposed it because of the dishonor it would bring. His son shot himself and died. Life became impossible for my grandmother; my mother was constantly harassed, and that shaped her personality. Thats why she joined the Communist movement, which promised to end concubinage. But she was later devastated because the Communist womens association that was supposed to liberate them didnt want my grandmother either, nor would they sit with her at the wedding.

Q. Is it possible to overcome these traumas?

A. When I traveled to China and spoke with many people for my books, I discovered that when the past was brought up, these people changed and began to tremble; they couldnt find the words, they couldnt speak coherently. I realized that the trauma hadnt been processed into memory, and they couldnt think about the past without getting lost; they didnt know what to do, what to say; the pain was too deep. I wish psychologists could have treated it. The memory was deliberately erased, swept under the rug. People were told to ignore it and forget.

Q. You grew up fascinated by Mao.

A. I grew up under a cult of personality. Mao was our God. I myself began to be horrified by the Cultural Revolution when I was 14, yet I didnt think to blame Mao. He was a given, like eating, dressing, and obeying. Gradually, over the years, when I finally managed to leave China in 1978 at the age of 26, Mao was far from being a god in my mind. The day he died, everyone was crying, but my eyes were dry; I had no tears for him. Later, I researched him for a biography I co-authored with my husband [Mao: The Untold Story, with historian Jon Halliday]. We uncovered horrific truths, and today I see him as one of the most evil people of the 20th century, alongside Hitler and Stalin.

Q. For some years now, you havent been able to return to China. Are your books and your fame known there?

A. Today, fewer people know me and my books than 10 years ago. When Wild Swans and the biography of Mao were published, although they were banned, there were pirated editions. But now control is much stronger because of technology. My name and the names of my books are completely blocked. The software and applications that are used there make life very easy; you can pay and do many things, but they facilitate control. Thats why fewer people know me today.

Q. Do you think you will ever see your books published there?

A. I dont know. Its unlikely. A lot is happening, like the new purge in the military; people who were key to Xi Jinpings power base have fallen, and theres a strong determination to take Taiwan by force. I hope it happens, but well see; there are many variables Im unaware of.

Q. Do you think Trump will succeed in making China Great Again, instead of America, given what weve seen?

A. What Trump has done to his allies is what China wants to see, but that doesnt make, or shouldnt make, China a better friend of the West. I dont think Europeans are so naive as to join the other side simply because theyre unhappy with their own commander. And China doesnt see democratic countries as friends; it basically wants to use them. These are two different things.

Q. But Chinas reputation is improving while that of the U.S. is regressing.

A. Im not really sure. There are many people and countries that want Chinese money and thats why they say nice things about China, but nothing more. Refugees risk their lives and cross seas to go to the U.S. and Europe, but nobody is rushing to China. If they really thought it was so wonderful, they would go there. In China, there was a political joke: What do a Chinese person and a citizen of a democracy have in common? They can both abuse democratic government.

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'So Insanely Cool': Musk Says SpaceX To Build System To Allow Anyone To Travel To Moon, Mars

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 07:11 IST

Elon Musk announced SpaceX will build a system for Moon travel and a self-growing city on the Moon within 10 years.

SpaceX Boss Elon Musk says his company will build a system that allows anyone to travel to moon

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Tuesday announced that his company will soon build a system that allows anyone to travel to the Moon.

SpaceX will build a system that allows anyone to travel to Moon. This will so insanely cool", Musk wrote in a post on X.

In a brief addition to the post, Musk wrote, And Mars too". Elaborating his point further, the tech billionaire went on to emphasise that life cannot just be about one sad thing after another."

Life cannot just be about one sad thing after another.There must also be things that make us super excited and inspired about the future. This is one of things. Bigtime. https://t.co/yDpbOG1AqH  Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 9, 2026

There must be things that make us super excited and inspired about the future. This is one of things. Bigtime", he wrote on X.

Self-Growing City On Moon

The remarks come a day after the Tesla and SpaceX Boss announced that his company is focused on building a self-growing city" on the Moon.

For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years. The mission of SpaceX remains the same: extend consciousness and life as we know it to the stars", Musk said in a post on X.

For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years.The mission of SpaceX remains the same: extend consciousness and life as we know it to  Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 8, 2026

He added that SpaceX will also attempt to build a Mars city, which he said will kick off in about 5 to 7 years. The comments are in line with Musks advocacy towards the concept of making humanity a multi-planetary species", with Mars being touted as the primary destination.

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, Elon Musks SpaceX has suggested to its investors that it would prioritise going to the moon first and attempt a trip to Mars at a later time.

Competition From China

Musks repeated comments about his ambitions involving travelling to the Moon also comes at a time when the United States faces tough competition from China in its attempt to return astronauts to the lunar surface.

No human has ever walked on the surface of the Moon since the last US Apollo mission back in 1972. In recent years, both the US and China have intensified their lunar programmes.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 07:11 IST

News world 'So Insanely Cool': Musk Says SpaceX To Build System To Allow Anyone To Travel To Moon, Mars

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'They Build Traps': Instagram, YouTube Accused Of Pushing Highly Addictive Apps On Kids In US Court

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 11:28 IST

Meta and YouTube face a California trial over allegedly addictive apps for kids.

Meta, YouTube accused of pushing highly addictive apps on children (Representative image)

Meta and Google-owned YouTube were accused Monday of pushing highly addictive apps on children in a landmark trial that began in earnest in a California court.

The blockbuster trial in front of a Los Angeles jury could establish a legal precedent on whether the social media juggernauts deliberately designed their platforms to lead to addiction in children, AFP reported.

Meta Chief Mark Zuckerberg is likely to be on the stand next week, and Instagram boss Adam Mosseri is expected to be present in the courtroom as the proceedings go on.

In addition to Instagram, Metas platforms also include Facebook and WhatsApp.

This case is about two of the richest corporations in history who have engineered addiction in childrens brains," plaintiffs attorney Mark Lanier told the jury in his opening statement, as reported by the outlet.

Describing the case as easy as A-B-C", Lanier argued that A was for addicting, the B for brains, and the C for children.

They dont only build apps; they build traps," Lanier said, adding Meta and YouTube pursued addiction by design".

Meta attorney Paul Schmidt countered the arguments in his opening statement to the jury, stating evidence will show problems with the plaintiffs family and real-world bullying affected her self-esteem, body image, and happiness.

If you took Instagram away and everything else was the same in Kaleys life, would her life be completely different, or would she still be struggling with the same things she is today?" Schmidt asked.

He further pointed out that Instagram was never mentioned in the medical records included in the evidence.

About The Case

The trial before Judge Carolyn Kuhl stems from allegations that a 20-year-old woman, identified as Kaley G.M., suffered severe mental harm because of her addiction to social media since childhood, AFP reports.

The case is being treated as a bellwether proceeding, as its outcomes are likely to set the tone and the level of payouts to successful plaintiffs for similar cases across the United States.

Pertinent to note that social media firms have been named in multiple lawsuits of leading young users to become addicted to the internet and suffer from mental illnesses, including depression, anxiety, and in some cases, suicide.

Began Watching YouTube At 6

Lanier revealed before the court that Kaley began consuming YouTube at six years old, because the company never warned her mother that the goal was viewer addiction".

This is the first time that a social media company has ever had to face a jury for harming kids," Social Media Victims Law Centre founder Matthew Bergman, whose team is involved in more than 1,000 such cases, told AFP.

Allegations Simply Not True

Representatives from the companies came out to defend themselves, pointing out to the recent efforts made to tackle the situation.

Jose Castaneda, a YouTube spokesperson, stated, The allegations in these complaints are simply not true", as quoted by AFP.

Meanwhile, the plaintiffs have said that they would call expert witnesses who will argue that young peoples brains are not yet developed to withstand the powers of the algorithms they encounter on YouTube and Instagram.

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Location : California, USA

First Published: February 10, 2026, 11:28 IST

News world 'They Build Traps': Instagram, YouTube Accused Of Pushing Highly Addictive Apps On Kids In US Court

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US, Bangladesh Announce Trade Deal To Cut Tariff From 20% To 19% Just Before Polls

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 08:00 IST

The United States and Bangladesh unveiled the deal on Monday.

US Predident Donald Trump (Left) And chief adviser of Bangladesh and interim head Muhammad Yunus (Right)

Just two days before Bangladeshs general election, the United States reduced its tariff on Bangladeshi goods from 20 per cent to 19 per cent.

The United States and Bangladesh announced the trade deal on Monday. Under the agreement, President Donald Trumps administration will lower the US reciprocal" tariff on products from Bangladesh by one percentage point.

A joint statement released by the White House confirmed that the tariff has been reduced from 20 per cent to 19 per cent.

Exemptions for textiles and apparel goods

As part of the deal, Washington has committed to work towards duty exemptions for certain textiles and apparel goods.

President Trump will lower the countrys overall reciprocal tariff to 19 per cent, after previously cutting the rate from 37 per cent to 20 per cent last year.

The deal includes a mechanism that allows certain textile merchandise to receive a full exemption from the levies, providing relief to Bangladeshs apparel industry.

The mechanism will apply to certain textile and apparel goods from Bangladesh using US-produced cotton and man-made fibre, interim Bangladesh leader Muhammad Yunus said in a social media post.

Certain volumes of such imports will receive preferential treatment, linked to the quantity of US textile exports to Bangladesh.

Beyond textiles, the United States will also identify other products that may receive a zero per cent reciprocal tariff.

Market access

Under the agreement, Dhaka will provide preferential market access to US industrial and agricultural goods, including chemicals, medical devices, auto parts, energy and farm products.

Bangladesh has also committed to address some non-tariff barriers limiting US sales, including accepting vehicles that comply with US regulations and pharmaceuticals that have received US government authorisations.

The country also agreed to environmental, labour and intellectual property protections.

The Agreement will provide U.S. and Bangladeshi exporters unprecedented access to each others respective markets," the White House said.

The White House said it anticipates upcoming commercial deals between the two countries, including the procurement of aircraft, the purchase of $3.5 billion in US agricultural products, and a $15 billion energy purchase over the next 15 years.

The reciprocal" duties were imposed by Trump last year to address trade imbalances or practices Washington deemed unfair.

Trump had initially set a tariff rate of 37 per cent on Bangladesh goods before reducing it to 20 per cent in August.

Textile and garment production makes up about 80 per cent of Bangladeshs exports. The industry has been rebuilding after it was hit hard in a student-led revolution that toppled the government in 2024.

Bangladesh export

Bangladesh exported around $8.4 billion worth of goods to the United States in 2024, while its US imports amounted to $2.2 billion, according to the Bangladesh Bank and the National Board of Revenue.

US clothing companies sourcing products from Bangladesh include Fruit of the Loom, Levi Strauss and VF Corp, whose brands include Vans, Timberland and The North Face.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 07:22 IST

News world US, Bangladesh Announce Trade Deal To Cut Tariff From 20% To 19% Just Before Polls

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Who Is Mrinank Sharma? AI Safety Head Who Quit Anthropic With World In Peril Warning

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 20:09 IST

Mrinank Sharma is an AI researcher of Indian origin with an academic background from some of the worlds top institutions.

Mrinank Sharma, who joined Anthropic in 2023, announced his exit through a note shared publicly.

Mrinank Sharma, a senior AI safety researcher and head of the Safeguards Research Team at Anthropic, resigned from the company. Mrinank Sharma, who joined Anthropic in 2023, announced his exit through a note shared publicly, signalling a sharp break from his work on advanced AI systems at one of the worlds most influential artificial intelligence firms.

Anthropic, led by CEO Dario Amodei, is widely seen as a key player shaping the future of AI through its Claude models and its public emphasis on safety and responsible development.

What Mrinank Sharma Said In His Resignation Letter?

In his resignation note, Mrinank Sharma framed his decision in philosophical and moral terms rather than professional ones.

The world is in peril," he wrote, adding that the danger does not stem only from AI, but from a whole series of interconnected crises unfolding in this very moment."

Mrinank Sharma suggested that humanitys ability to affect the world has grown faster than its collective wisdom, warning that the imbalance could lead to serious consequences. He also hinted at an internal struggle between values and practice within large organisations.

Throughout my time here, Ive repeatedly seen how hard it is to truly let our values govern our actions," he wrote, referring both to himself and to the organisation.

Rather than continuing to focus on making AI systems more transparent or less sycophantic, Mrinank Sharma said he feels drawn toward writing as a way to engage with the present moment. He argued for placing poetic truth alongside scientific truth" as equally important ways of understanding the world, especially during periods of rapid technological change.

Mrinank Sharma said he now hopes to explore a poetry degree and devote himself to what he described as the practice of courageous speech."

Who is Mrinank Sharma?

Mrinank Sharma is an AI researcher of Indian origin with an academic background from some of the worlds top institutions. He holds a DPhil in Machine Learning from the University of Oxford and a Master of Engineering in Machine Learning from the University of Cambridge. He joined Anthropic in 2023 and went on to lead the Safeguards Research Team, which was formed in February last year. The team worked on reducing risks in advanced AI systems, including behavioural issues and alignment concerns, at a time when Anthropic has been positioning itself as a leader in AI safety.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 20:09 IST

News world Who Is Mrinank Sharma? AI Safety Head Who Quit Anthropic With World In Peril Warning

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Will Trump Grant Clemency To Ghislaine Maxwell? Here's A List Of His Past Controversial Pardons

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Last Updated: February 10, 2026, 11:52 IST

Trump has repeatedly indicated that he is considering clemency for individuals convicted in connection with the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack.

Maxwell's attorney said she is prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump. (Image: AP)

US President Donald Trump is once again at the centre of a clemency appeal, bringing the focus back on his previous controversial clemency decisions. Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein, has stated that if Trump ended her prison sentence, she was willing to testify that neither he nor former President Bill Clinton had done anything wrong in their connections with Epstein.

During the closed-door deposition, Maxwells attorney David Oscar Markus in a statement to the committee, said that Maxwell is prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump". He added that both Trump and Clinton are innocent of any wrongdoing," but that Ms. Maxwell alone can explain why, and the public is entitled to that explanation."

This is not the first time that Trump is at the centre of a controversial clemency appeal. Heres a list of Trumps controversial clemency decisions in the current as well as his previous term as US President:

Capitol Attack Convicts

During his current presidency, Trumps repeated indications that he is considering clemency for individuals convicted in connection with the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack have reopened a deeply polarising debate. Trump has described many of those prosecuted as victims of political targeting, while opponents argue that pardons or commutations would undercut accountability for an assault on democratic institutions. The issue remains one of the most politically charged tests of Trumps approach to executive power and the rule of law.

Roger Stone (2020)

Trumps commutation and subsequent pardon of longtime associate Roger Stone became one of the most scrutinised clemency decisions of his first term. Stone had been convicted of lying to Congress, obstructing an investigation, and witness tampering during the Russia probe. Trump characterised Stone as a victim of political persecution, while critics argued the move rewarded loyalty and signalled that close allies of the president could evade the consequences of obstructing investigations connected to him.

Dinesh DSouza (2018)

Trumps full pardon of conservative commentator Dinesh DSouza, who had pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations, drew criticism for appearing overtly ideological. Trump argued that DSouza was treated unfairly by prosecutors, but the case had followed a standard judicial process. The decision brought back accusations that Trumps clemency power was being used to vindicate political allies and culture-war figures rather than to correct demonstrable miscarriages of justice.

Joe Arpaio (2017)

Donald Trumps pardon of former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio early in his first term marked a sharp break from conventional clemency norms. Arpaio had been convicted of criminal contempt for defying a federal court order that barred his office from racially profiling Latino residents during immigration enforcement. Trump justified the pardon by praising Arpaios hardline approach to border security, but civil rights groups and legal experts warned that the move sent a troubling signal  that elected law-enforcement officials could flout court orders without consequence if their politics aligned with the White House.

Charles Kushner (2020)

Trumps pardon of real-estate developer Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, was widely criticised as an example of familial favouritism. Kushner had served a prison sentence for tax evasion, illegal campaign donations, and witness retaliation. The decision reignited debate over ethical boundaries in presidential pardons, particularly when beneficiaries have direct personal or family ties to the president.

With Ghislaine Maxwells recent statements reviving scrutiny of elite accountability, Trumps clemency record is under scrutiny. All eyes are now if Trump will grant pardon to Maxwell at a time when the Epstein files continue to shake world politics.

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First Published: February 10, 2026, 11:52 IST

News world Will Trump Grant Clemency To Ghislaine Maxwell? Here's A List Of His Past Controversial Pardons

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The old-school imperialist ambitions of U.S. President Donald Trump have dominated the World Economic Forum in Davos, overshadowing other common themes surrounding the event, such as the impact of global inequality. Davos was conceived as a gathering of leading international business and political figures, and for decades, various non-governmental groups and activists have used the forum to expose the shameful practices of the global economy amidst private jets, helicopters, and luxury hotels overlooking ski slopes.

Looking at Spain from this perspective reveals the extent to which recent economic growth has been accompanied by a process of wealth concentration and, consequently, a widening gap. The wealthy are increasingly numerous and have greater financial clout than before. Therefore, experts urge not only to examine how much the economy is improving from a traditional macroeconomic perspective, but also how wealth is being accumulated and who benefits from this accumulation. Wealth concentration is not a temporary phenomenon, but a structural one, and its effects extend far beyond the statistics.

One of the best indicators for observing this phenomenon in Spain is the wealth tax data compiled by the Tax Agency. Its not a perfect snapshotthere are tax breaks, deductions and tax planning strategiesbut it is one of the few official sources that makes it possible to track the evolution of wealth declared by the richest people in the country.

Between 2011 and 2023, the last year with available data, the number of taxpayers filing wealth tax returns jumped 75% to 228,000, while their combined wealth rose from nearly 450 billion to 934 billion, a 107% increase. This is significant growth, but much more moderate in the lower income brackets than at the top. The wealthiest group, comprised of individuals who declare more than 30 million annually, grew from 352 to 865 people and nearly quadrupled their wealth: from 37.3 billion in 2011 to 146.8 billion in 2023. This is by far the most dramatic increase among all the groups analyzed, at almost 170 million per person.

The tax data aligns with statistics analyzing overall wealth, which also reveal the reality of the poorest segments of the population. The World Inequality Lab, based in Paris, ranks Spain among the European countries with the greatest wealth inequality, a trend that shows no signs of improving in recent years. The wealthiest 10% now control more than 57% of total wealth, and within this privileged group, the top 1% accumulates around a quarter of the total, a proportion that has increased since the financial crisis.

Oxfam Intermon puts the finishing touch with its estimates presented at the forum held in Switzerland, which put the number of billionaires in Spain at 33 in 2025. Judging by the statistics, their combined fortune of 197.5 billion may not have been fully declared to the Spanish Tax Agency.

All these figures, reflects Nuria Badenes, a researcher at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, lead us to consider the concept of economic polarization, which has a closer relationship with the emergence of social conflicts than inequality. This polarization, marked by the widening gap and the gradual disappearance of the middle class, intensifies social and political conflict by dividing society into groups with opposing interests, generating distrust in institutions and fueling extreme positions.

The Bank of Spains Household Finance Survey reinforces this diagnosis. Although average household wealth has increased in recent years, the mediancorresponding to the household located right in the center of the distributionis growing less rapidly, indicating that the bulk of the increase is concentrated in the hands of a minority.

Olga Canto, a professor of economics at the University of Alcala and researcher at Equalitas, emphasizes the historical evolution of this gap. She explains that the poorest half of the population has lost wealth compared to the levels they had at the beginning of the century, while gains have been concentrated in the wealthiest 5%, and particularly in the top 1%. In her view, this process is closely linked to the 2008 financial crisis, first, and then to the increasing difficulties in accessing first-time homeownership and the loss of savings capacity for a significant portion of the population.

During the 2008 crisis, wealth inequality increased significantly. Miguel Artola, a researcher at the Carlos III University of Madrid, attributes this to the fact that the drop in housing prices affected middle-class families more severely, while the wealthiest, with diversified assets, were better able to weather the crisis of 2008.

Later, this unequal distribution of wealth between households has also been key. While those with middle and lower incomes concentrate their assets in their primary residence, now increasingly inaccessible, the wealthiest diversify into various types of financial, business, and real estate assets. This difference explains why wealth inequality is much greater than income inequality and why it tends to persist over time, benefiting those at the top.

The change in recent years, Canto continues, is related to the financialization of the economy and the different composition of wealth. Wealthier households are increasingly concentrating financial and business assets, capable of generating high returns, while the rest have less room to diversify. Taxation, which taxes earned income more heavily than income from capital or wealth, doesnt help either.

Risk of power capture

The social and political consequences of this concentration are profound. Canto warns that the extreme accumulation of wealth is not only a distributional problem, but also a democratic one. When a very small minority concentrates a growing share of wealth, its capacity to influence political and economic decisions increases, generating a risk of power capture, she asserts.

At the same time, the loss of net wealth for large segments of the population reduces social resilience when times get tough. Wealth acts as a crucial buffer against economic shocks. If a majority lacks the assets to sustain their consumption during periods of crisis, society as a whole becomes more vulnerable. This fragility has political repercussions: the perception that the wealthiest accumulate ever more while paying relatively less in taxes erodes support for the tax system and generates disaffection among the middle and lower classes. In the long term, this perception of future economic insecurity fuels polarization and can favor the rise of the far right, Canto points out.

Experts are calling for the use of public sector tools to address the wealth gap, or at least partially mitigate it. When designing taxes, governments have a responsibility to consider principles beyond simply raising revenue, such as reducing inequality, argues Badenes. Currently, this isnt happening, partly due to a lack of ambition. Canto maintains that eliminating the wealth gap entirely through taxation is unfeasible, but that well-designed tax policies can gradually reduce inequality. Failure to do so, they warn, means accepting that wealth concentration will continue to grow.

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While Barcelona greets tourists with water cannons, other cities take a much more welcoming attitude toward their visitors. Citing some 45% of travelers who say that a warm vibe from locals is an important part of deciding on where to go, Booking.com took a run through some 370 million verified reviews to find the most welcoming cities of 2026. Most are well off the beaten path. In alphabetical order:

Fredericksburg, Texas: The US' only entry on the list "blends small-town hospitality with a rich cultural heritage. Founded in 1846 by German settlers, it preserves its roots through traditional architecture, authentic cuisine, and energetic festivals celebrating its European origins."
A group of Buddhist monks reached Washington, DC, on foot Tuesday, walking single file across a bridge over the Potomac River to cap a 15-week trek from Texas that has captivated the country, per the AP . The monks in their saffron robes have become fixtures on social media, along with their rescue dog Aloka, who joined them during a trek across India in 2022. After spending Monday night at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia, the monks crossed over the Chain Bridge into the District of Columbia shortly after 8am on Tuesday. They walk to advocate for peace. That simple message has resonated across the US as a welcome respite from conflict and political divisions.

Thousands gathered along Southern roadsidesoften in unusually chilly weatherto watch the monks' quiet procession that began in late October. Large crowds are expected to greet them during their two-day stay in Washington. The Metropolitan Police Department issued a traffic advisory announcing there would be "rolling road closures" along the monks' route to ensure safety for them and spectators. "My hope is, when this walk ends, the people we met will continue practicing mindfulness and find peace," said the Venerable Bhikkhu Pannakara, the group's soft-spoken leader who has taught about mindfulness at stops along the way.

The journey has been difficult at times; one monk had his leg amputated after an escort vehicle was hit by a truck in November. The monks plan to mark the last days of the walk with outdoor appearances at Washington National Cathedral on Tuesday and the Lincoln Memorial on Wednesday. "Their long journey and gentle witness invite us all to deepen our commitment to compassion and the work of peace in our communities," said Washington Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde, who will help host an interfaith reception for the monks at the cathedral. Mark Duykers, a retired mechanical engineer who practices mindfulness, said he and his wife will drive 550 miles from Ann Arbor, Michigan, to see the "inspirational" monks who "uplifted" whole communities during "divisive times."
A man convicted of killing a traveling salesman during a robbery was executed Tuesday evening in the first lethal injection this year in Florida. Ronald Palmer Heath, 64, was pronounced dead at 6:12pm following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, reports the AP . Heath was convicted in 1990 of first-degree murder, robbery with a deadly weapon, and other charges in the killing of Michael Sheridan the previous year. The state's first execution of 2026 follows a record 19 executions in Florida last year.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis oversaw more executions in a single year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in the US in 1976. The previous record was eight executions in 2014. The Florida Supreme Court denied appeals filed by Ronald Heath last week. His attorneys had argued that Florida corrections officials had mismanaged its own death penalty protocols, that the state's secretive clemency process blocked due process, that Heath's incarceration as a juvenile stunted his brain development and that jurors did not recommend the death penalty unanimously. On Tuesday morning, the US Supreme Court denied Heath's appeal.

A total of 47 people were executed in the US in 2025. Florida led the way with a flurry of death warrants signed by DeSantis. Alabama, South Carolina, and Texas tied for second with five executions each that year. Two more Florida executions have already been scheduled for later this month and next month. Melvin Trotter, 65, is scheduled to die on Feb. 24, and the execution of Billy Leon Kearse, 53, is set to follow a week later on March 3. All Florida executions are carried out via lethal injection using a sedative, a paralytic, and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.

According to court records, Heath and his brother Kenneth Heath met Sheridan at a Gainesville bar in May 1989. At some point, the brothers plotted to rob the other man, investigators said. Ronald Heath drove the group to a remote area, where Kenneth Heath pulled a handgun on Sheridan. The man initially refused to give the brothers anything, and Kenneth Heath shot Sheridan in the chest. Ronald Heath began kicking the man and stabbing him with a hunting knife, prosecutors said. Kenneth Heath then shot Sheridan twice in the head. Kenneth Heath was also charged with Sheridan's murder, but was sentenced to life in prison as part of a plea agreement.
Interest in alternative and complementary healthcare has grown worldwide, driven by a shift towards preventive, lifestyle-based and holistic approaches to well-being. Practices such as acupuncture, herbal medicine, yoga and mindfulness are now widely used across the United States, Europe and Asia. Global health bodies, including the World Health Organization, have encouraged governments to regulate and integrate these practices into national health systems to improve safety, quality and patient care.

This global trend is increasingly visible in Bahrain. As lifestyle-related conditions such as diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease become more prevalent, more residents are exploring alternative therapies alongside conventional medical care. Recognising this shift early, the Government of Bahrain has adopted a structured and forward-looking approach, bringing alternative healthcare into the national health framework through regulation, licensing and policy oversight.

Alternative healthcare is not new to Bahraini society. Traditional practices such as hijama (cupping) and herbal remedies have long been part of community health traditions. What has changed in recent years is the way these practices are governed and professionalised. In 2016, the government established a legal foundation for regulating alternative and complementary medicine, signalling a clear policy choice to move the sector out of informality and into a supervised healthcare environment.

The National Health Regulatory Authority (NHRA) has since played a central role in implementing this vision. Through licensing requirements, verification of professional qualifications and regular facility inspections, the authority ensures that alternative healthcare services meet acceptable safety and quality standards. Practices such as hijama, acupuncture, Ayurveda, traditional Chinese medicine, chiropractic care, homeopathy and therapeutic massage are now subject to the same regulatory discipline expected of other health services. This framework protects patients while allowing credible practitioners to operate transparently.

Crucially, government policy positions alternative healthcare as complementary to modern medicine, not a replacement for it. Conventional medical treatment remains central to Bahrains healthcare system, with alternative therapies encouraged as supportive options where appropriate. This distinction has helped prevent unrealistic claims while encouraging coordination between patients, physicians and licensed alternative practitioners. The emphasis remains firmly on evidence, transparency and informed choice  principles that protect patients while respecting cultural and personal preferences.

Bahrain has also invested in capacity building and international cooperation. Health authorities have engaged with countries that have long-standing traditional medicine systems, particularly India and China, to study best practices in training, certification and clinical governance. These exchanges have helped shape licensing standards suited to Bahrains healthcare environment while maintaining international credibility.

Beyond health outcomes, the regulated integration of alternative healthcare supports wider national goals. It contributes to Bahrains Vision 2030 focus on quality of life, preventive care and service-sector diversification. Properly regulated wellness services also enhance the Kingdoms appeal as a destination for medical and wellness tourism, while creating professional opportunities within the health sector.

Challenges remain, particularly in addressing misinformation and discouraging unlicensed practice. However, Bahrains regulatory framework provides a strong foundation to address these concerns over time.

By choosing regulation over restriction and integration over neglect, Bahrain has demonstrated a balanced and forward-looking approach. As global interest in holistic health continues to rise, the Kingdoms policies ensure that alternative healthcare evolves as a credible, well-governed component of its modern healthcare system.

(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Daily Tribune)
The country pushed for glacier conservation in 2010, and Congress is now responsible for defending the law and preventing any rollback of those protections

Opinion articles written in the style of their author. These texts are to be based on verified facts and must be respectful towards people, even though their actions may be criticized. All opinion articles written by individuals from outside the staff of EL PAIS shall feature, along with the authors name (regardless of their greater or lesser renown), a footer stating their office, academic title, political affiliation (if any) and main occupation, or the occupation related to the topic being assessed

Argentina is not only known for its incredible landscapes and biodiversity, but also for its environmental legislation. The Glacier Law, ratified 15 years ago thanks to pressure from scientists, civil society organizations, and citizens, became the first law in the world to protect glaciers and the periglacial environment by declaring them public goods essential for the countrys freshwater supply.

Argentina has nearly 17,000 cataloged glaciers across 12 provinces, feeding 36 river basins over nearly 400,000 square miles. Together with the periglacial zone, they form Argentinas strategic freshwater reserves for both present and future generations.

The first article of the Glacier Law establishes that there are minimum budgets for the protection of glaciers and the periglacial environment in order to preserve them as strategic reserves of water resources for human consumption; for agriculture and as providers of water for the recharge of hydrographic basins; for the protection of biodiversity; as a source of scientific information and as a tourist attraction.

Los Glaciares National Park in Argentina. Natacha Pisarenko (AP)

However, next week the Senate will discuss a bill to reform the law that is, quite simply, an affront to the rights of Argentines, as it seeks to compromise the water security of the population by leaving a large part of these ecosystems unprotected.

The proposed amendment is unconstitutional and sets a dangerous precedent in terms of violating rights won by civil society to protect the common goods of Argentines. It violates Article 41 of the National Constitution, the precautionary and preventive principles established in the General Environmental Law, and the principle of non-regression in environmental matters recognized in the Escazu Agreement.

The proposal would shift to the provinces the power to decide which glaciers and which parts of the periglacial environment should be classified as having relevant hydrological function and therefore protected. This breaks with the national, uniform nature of Argentinas minimum environmental standards and opens the door to uneven, purely administrative criteria lacking scientific rigor, for water systems that do not recognize political boundaries between provincial jurisdictions. As a result, the protection of these ecosystems would depend on decisions shaped by political interests and expediency rather than environmental science.

Perito Moreno Glacier, in Patagonia, in an archive image. Natacha Pisarenko (AP)

Argentina already has a pioneering law that protects glaciers and the periglacial environment, which it should be proud of as it safeguards a finite, indispensable resource for present and future generations: freshwater.

However, they want us to believe that the current law is an impediment to development or that it is poorly drafted or defined. Protecting glaciers is a state policy that Argentine society pushed for in 2010 and that the Supreme Court of Justice ratified in 2019. And now it is up to Congress, through its representatives, to defend the law and prevent any rollback. Protecting glaciers is not about hindering development: it is about ensuring that the country has enough water to sustain it.

Regressive reforms to the Glacier Law will not only jeopardize the future of Argentinas water, it will also erode the very foundations of the legal certainty it claims to promote. The Glacier Law doesnt need reform: it needs to be enforced. We hope that Congress will honor the commitment it made 15 years ago when it enacted a law that is a model for the world and that it will not allow any setbacks that will compromise the well-being of all Argentines.

This column was written by Andres Napoli from FARN, Hernan Casanas from Aves Argentina, Agostina Rossi Serra from Greenpeace Argentina, Enrique Viale from the Association of Environmental Lawyers, and Mercedes Pombo from Youth for Climate.

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Retail Sales Growth of +4% Year-Over-Year and continued positive Free Cash Flow

VANCOUVER, BC, Feb. 10, 2026 /CNW/ - C21 Investments Inc. (CSE: CXXI) (OTCQX: CXXIF) ("C21" or the "Company"), a vertically integrated cannabis company, today announced the filing of its interim financial statements and management discussion and analysis for its third quarter ending December 31, 2025, on SEDAR. The Company's financial statements are prepared in accordance with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles ("GAAP"). All currency is reported in U.S. dollars.

Third Quarter Highlights (October 1, 2025 to December 31, 2025) ("Q3"):

Revenue of $8.1 million - up 3% year-over-year - driven by a 4% increase in same store sales 2 , slightly offset by lower wholesale sales; State of Nevada sales were down 4% from the comparable period last year 1





, slightly offset by lower wholesale sales; State of Nevada sales were down 4% from the comparable period last year Gross Margin of 38.2% - down from the previous year due to Nevada market pricing pressure and seasonality





Income from Operations of $0.4 million; Net Income Before Tax of $0.2 million





Earnings (Loss) Per Share of ($0.01) - down from ($0.00) last year, primarily impacted by Income Tax provisions





Adjusted EBITDA 2 of $1.1 million





of $1.1 million Free Cash Flow 2 , before working capital changes and taxes, of $1.0 million; $0.6 million Income Tax paid in the quarter





, before working capital changes and taxes, of $1.0 million; $0.6 million Income Tax paid in the quarter Current Liabilities down $1.7 million year-to-date; $1.9 million Income Tax paid year-to-date





Renewed Normal Course Issuer Bid (see news release dated December 5, 2025)

______________________________

1 State of Nevada cannabis sales: https://www.headset.io/markets/nevada 2 Refer to "Non-GAAP Measures" disclosure at the end of this news release for a description and calculation of these measures

Q3 Management and Operational Commentary:

CEO and President, Sonny Newman: "Our 4% same-store sales growth in the third quarter, compared with a 4% decline in overall Nevada market sales, extends our track record of relative outperformance in what remains a challenging operating environment. The quarter was marked by heightened pricing pressure and seasonal softness; nevertheless, our performance clearly underscores the resilience of our retail franchise.

Our balance sheet remains strong. We materially reduced current liabilities, both during the quarter and year-to-date, through continued cash flow generation, which allowed us to reduce payables, current taxes, debenture principal, and scheduled reductions in other short-term obligations.

Our loyal customer base continued to drive our superior business results, with all three dispensaries delivering year-over-year transaction growth. Given the persistent pressure on wholesale pricing, we maintained our emphasis on retail-led revenue in the quarter.

In summary, we delivered same-store sales growth and positive free cash flow, extending a trend that has been consistent across recent quarters. Given our outlier performance relative to the market, we remain focused on pursuing strategic opportunities that we believe can further enhance long-term shareholder value."

Q3 revenue of $8.1 million was up 3% over the previous year, despite a 4% decline in Nevada sales over the comparative period1. Retail sales were up 4% year-over-year but down sequentially due to seasonality, and was offset by slightly lower wholesale sales in the quarter versus the previous year.

Gross Margin of 38.2% in the third quarter was down year-over-year, due to retail pricing pressure and seasonality, including discounting around the holidays.

C21 reported Income from Operations of $0.4 million in the third quarter, down from the previous year due to higher cost of goods sold. SG&A costs were down $0.3 million sequentially and relatively flat year-over-year.

The Company reported a Net Loss of $0.6 million in the third quarter, or ($0.01) per share, versus a Net Loss per share of ($0.00) in the previous third quarter. Q3's Net Loss was primarily due to Income Tax provisions. The Company generated $0.2 million Net Income Before Tax for Q3.

Q3 Adjusted EBITDA2 was $1.1 million, down over the previous Q3 due to lower gross margin.

Q3 Free Cash Flow2 before working capital changes was $1.0 million.

Cash at the end of Q3 was down due to $0.6 million in Income Tax paid, $0.3 million debenture principal retirement, and a $0.6 million reduction in payables and other scheduled short-term obligations, all in the third quarter. Year-to-date, Current Liabilities have been reduced by $1.7 million and Income Tax paid was $1.9 million.

Based on legal interpretations and opinions that challenge its tax liability under Section 280E of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the "Code") the Company has taken the position that it does not owe taxes attributable to the application of this Section of the Code. The Company refiled amended U.S. federal income tax returns for the years ended January 31, 2022, January 31, 2023, January 31, 2024, and the two months ended March 31, 2024. Management exercises significant judgment when assessing the probability of successfully sustaining the Company's tax filing positions, and in determining whether a contingent tax liability should be recorded and, if so, estimating the amount. See disclosure of Risk Factors in the MD&A.

Non-GAAP Measures:

C21 reports its financial results in accordance with GAAP and uses a number of financial measures when assessing its results and measuring overall performance. Some of these financial measures and ratios are not calculated in accordance with GAAP. The Company refers to certain non-GAAP financial measures such as "Free Cash Flow", "Adjusted EBITDA" and "same store sales". These measures do not have any standardized meanings prescribed by GAAP and may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other issuers. The Company considers these measures to be an important indicator of the financial strength and performance of its business. The Company believes the adjusted results presented provide relevant and useful information for investors because they clarify the Company's actual operating performance, make it easier to compare the Company's results with those of other companies and allow investors to review performance in the same way as the management of the Company. Since these measures are not calculated in accordance with GAAP, they should not be considered in isolation of, or as a substitute for, the Company's reported results as indicators of the Company's performance, and they may not be comparable to similarly named measures from other companies. The tables below provide reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures.

"Free Cash Flow" is defined as Cash Provided by Operating Activities from Continuing Operations adding back income tax expense and before changes in working capital, minus capital expenditures. Management believes that Free Cash Flow, which measures our ability to generate cash from our continuing business operations, is an important financial measure for use in evaluating the Company's financial performance. Free Cash Flow should be considered in addition to, rather than as a substitute for, consolidated net income as a measure of our performance and net cash provided by operating activities as a measure of our liquidity.

Q3 Free Cash Flow:



Q3 Q2 Q1 Q4 Q3 Quarter Ended (except as noted) December 31, 2025 September 30, 2025 June 30, 2025 March 31, 2025 Dec. 31, 2024 Cash Provided by Operating

Activities before taxes and changes

in working capital (continuing

operations) $ 988,880 $ 1,864,309 $ 942,348 $ 1,582,088 $ 1,726,751 Purchase of Property and

Equipment (37,329) (9,900) (37,329) (31,434) (144,908) Free Cash Flow $ 951,551 $ 1,854,409 $ 905,019 $ 1,550,654 $ 1,581,843

"Adjusted EBITDA" is defined as EBITDA (earnings before depreciation and amortization, depreciation and interest in cost of sales, income taxes, and interest) less accretion, loss from discontinued operations, one-time transaction costs and all other non-cash items. The Company has presented "Adjusted EBITDA" because its management believes it is a useful measure for investors when assessing and considering the Company's continuing operations and prospects for the future. Furthermore, "Adjusted EBITDA" is a commonly used measurement in the financial community when evaluating the market value of similar companies.

Q3 Adjusted EBITDA:























Q3 Q2 Q1 Q4 Q3

December 31, 2025 September 30, 2025 June 30, 2025 March 31, 2025 Dec. 31, 2024 Net Income (Loss) $ (610,740) $ (486,655) $(758,820) $(1,581,297) $(130,941)











Interest & accretion 126,145 156,321 180,598 196,905 231,358 Provision for Income Taxes 833,100 1,117,100 825,500 2,232,750 722,800 Depreciation and Amortization 443,412 444,582 445,616 445,042 445,992 Depreciation and Interest in COGS 203,092 203,092 203,092 203,091 - EBITDA $ 995,009 $ 1,434,440 $ 895,986 $ 1,496,491 $ 1,269,209 Change in FV of derivative liability - - - (52,257) - Share based compensation 49,817 50,449 93,945 136,757 143,493 Loss (gain) from discontinued operations 1,540 4,983 1,861 51,712 49,663 One-time special project costs - 289,911 118,770 70,000 - Other gain (loss) 4,139 436,599 (41,726) (10,602) 105,234 Adjusted EBITDA $ 1,050,505 $ 2,216,382 $1,068,836 $ 1,692,102 $ 1,567,599

"same store sales" is a supplementary financial measure which the Company uses to evaluate its financial performance in its retail segments. Same store sales provides information which management believes to be useful to investors, analysts and others in understanding and evaluating the Company's sales trends. Same store sales refers to the revenue generated by the Company's existing retail locations during the current and prior comparison periods.

Q3 Balance Sheet Summary:















(US$) December 31, 2025 March 31, 2025

Assets





Cash 2,418,561 2,625,461

Inventory 4,257,041 4,051,425

Other current, note receivable, assets held for sale 1,623,380 827,229

Current Assets 8,298,982 7,504,115

Note receivable - 802,766

Fixed Assets/Goodwill/Intangibles 46,592,261 48,692,868

Total Assets 54,891,243 56,999,749









Liabilities





Accounts payable 1,607,168 2,148,153

Convertible promissory notes - 1,156,259

Convertible Debentures (current portion) 1,030,000 977,817

Income taxes payable 1,544,415 2,833,991

Other, current lease, Settlement liability 2,110,049 1,997,082

Current Liabilities 6,291,632 7,957,043

Convertible Debentures - 710,367

Lease liabilities 9,309,119 9,771,124

Uncertain tax position 11,988,073 9,822,797

Derivative liability, Deferred tax, Settlement liability 464,001 62,641

Total Liabilities 28,052,825 28,323,972









Shareholders' Equity 26,838,418 28,675,777

Total Liabilities and Shareholders' Equity 54,891,243 56,999,749



Q3 Summary Income Statement:



Q3 Q2 Q1 Q4 Q3 (US$) December 31, 2025 September 30, 2025 June 30, 2025 March 31, 2025 December 31, 2024 Revenue 8,140,752 8,470,292 8,553,373 8,105,512 7,907,812 Cost of Sales 5,029,784 4,201,818 5,569,382 4,477,048 4,272,868 Gross Profit 3,110,968 4,268,474 2,983,991 3,628,464 3,634,944 Gross Margin% 38 % 50 % 35 % 45 % 46 % Total Expenses 2,756,784 3,040,126 2,776,578 2,791,252 2,656,830 Income from Operations 354,184 1,228,348 207,413 837,212 978,114 Income Tax Expense (833,100) (1,117,100) (825,500) (2,232,750) (722,800) Net Income (Loss) (610,740) (486,655) (755,098) (1,581,297) (130,941) Earnings (Loss) Per Share (0.01) (0.00) (0.01) (0.01) (0.00)

About C21 Investments Inc.

C21 Investments Inc. is a vertically integrated cannabis company that cultivates, processes, and distributes quality cannabis and hemp-derived consumer products in the United States. The Company is focused on value creation through the disciplined acquisition and integration of core retail, manufacturing, and distribution assets in strategic markets, leveraging industry-leading retail revenues with high-growth potential multi-market branded consumer packaged goods. The Company owns Silver State Relief and Silver State Cultivation in Nevada, including legacy Oregon brands Phantom Farms, Hood Oil and Eco Firma Farms. These brands produce and distribute a broad range of THC and CBD products from cannabis flowers, pre-rolls, cannabis oil, vaporizer cartridges and edibles. Based in Vancouver, Canada, additional information on C21 can be found at www.sedarplus.com and www.cxxi.ca.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information and Statements:

This news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation and may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (collectively, "Forward-Looking Statements"). Forward-Looking Statements in this news release include but are not limited to the Company's focus on pursuing strategic opportunities that it believes can further enhance long-term shareholder value and the Company's refiled amended U.S. federal income tax returns for the years ended January 31, 2022, January 31, 2023, January 31, 2024, and the two months ended March 31, 2024 in connection with the Company's position that it does not owe taxes attributable to the application of Section 280E of the Code. Such Forward-Looking Statements represent the Company's beliefs and expectations regarding future events, plans or objectives, many of which, by their nature, are inherently uncertain and outside of the Company's control.

Forward-Looking Statements are based on assumptions, estimates, analyses and opinions of management of the Company at the time they were provided or made in light of its experience and its perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, as well as other factors that management believes to be relevant and reasonable in the circumstances, including: achieving the anticipated results of the Company's strategic plans; and general economic, financial market, regulatory and political conditions in which the Company operates.

A variety of factors, including known and unknown risks, many of which are beyond the Company's control, could cause actual results to differ materially from the Forward-Looking Statements in this news release. Such factors include, without limitation: risks and uncertainties arising from: the inability to effectively manage growth; inputs, suppliers and skilled labour being unavailable or available only at uneconomic costs; the adequacy of the Company's capital resources and liquidity, including but not limited to, availability of sufficient cash flow to execute the Company's business plan (either within the expected timeframe or at all); changes in general economic, business and political conditions, including changes in the financial markets; changes in applicable laws generally and adverse future legislative and regulatory developments involving medical and recreational marijuana; the risks of operating in the marijuana industry in the United States, risks associated with the Company's position that it does not owe taxes attributable to the application of Section 280E of the Code and those other risk factors discussed in the Company's 20F filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Company's latest annual information form and management's discussion and analysis as filed under the Company's profile on SEDAR+.

Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing, and the expectations contained in, the Forward-Looking Statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information and statements, and no assurance or guarantee can be given that such Forward-Looking Statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information and statements. Should assumptions underlying the Forward-Looking Statements prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein as intended, planned, anticipated, believed, estimated or expected.

The Forward-Looking Statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release, and the Company does not undertake to update any Forward-Looking Statements that are contained or referenced herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE C21 Investments Inc.

For further inquiries, please contact: Investor contact: Investor Relations, [email protected], +1 833 289-2994; Company contact: Michael Kidd, Chief Financial Officer and Director, [email protected]
Four in 10 believe they will emerge stronger over the next three years, and only nine per cent expect to fail, finds new KPMG Canada report

TORONTO , Feb. 10, 2026 /CNW/ - Following a year of trade uncertainty, Canada's automotive industry is acting  not waiting for a new Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA)  by strengthening its resilience, optimizing costs and scaling artificial intelligence (AI) in design and production to assisted and autonomous driving, predictive maintenance and personalized in-car experiences, finds a new KPMG Canada report.

"We're seeing a foundational and irreversible transformation underway in the Canadian auto sector," says Dave Power, Partner and National Automotive Sector Leader at KPMG in Canada. "The implications down the supply chain and across the economy will be significant, but the industry, especially the more established players, have dealt with high levels of disruption before. That doesn't make the current tariff environment easier, it just once again calls upon the resiliency the industry has built up to be put back into action.

"From our recent survey and in conversations with automotive leaders, parts suppliers, and dealers, it's clear significant activity is underway to optimize their operations and explore new markets, partnerships and opportunities," he adds.

As the industry gears up for this week's Canadian International AutoShow, 17 per cent of OEMs and parts suppliers and manufacturers say they will be "completely transformed" over the next three years, 12 per cent say they will either be acquired or go through a consolidation. Nearly one in five (19 per cent) say they've been minimally affected, and only nine per cent say they are at risk of failure.

Supply chains and costs dominate the agenda

As uncertainty persists, Canadian auto leaders are prioritizing operational stability. Reinforcing supply chains and securing raw materials ranked as the top priority for manufacturers and suppliers over the next three years, followed closely by boosting productivity and optimizing costs, the report says.

The data shows these shifts are already underway:

82 per cent of manufacturers and suppliers are actively adjusting their supply chain strategies

of manufacturers and suppliers are actively adjusting their supply chain strategies 70 per cent are exploring international markets

are exploring international markets 26 per cent saying new regional alliances will be critical to their success over the next three years

saying new regional alliances will be critical to their success over the next three years 63 per cent have increased their prices in response to the tariff environment

have increased their prices in response to the tariff environment 62 per cent have "substantially changed" their product mix to reduce exposure to the tariff environment

have "substantially changed" their product mix to reduce exposure to the tariff environment 69 per cent are investing heavily in AI and emerging technologies

are investing heavily in AI and emerging technologies 70 per cent have achieved or surpassed their technology adoption targets

have achieved or surpassed their technology adoption targets 20 per cent report AI-related productivity improvements of more than 25 per cent

report AI-related productivity improvements of more than 25 per cent 44 per cent believe advanced technology and software integration to be the biggest opportunity for the Canadian automotive sector in the next three years

believe advanced technology and software integration to be the biggest opportunity for the Canadian automotive sector in the next three years 38 per cent say building a domestic battery supply chain is among the biggest opportunities for the sector in the next three years

"Canada's automotive industry is under intense cost pressure from U.S. tariffs on car parts, steel and aluminum. The leading auto sector players aren't just managing disruption on the U.S. border; they are also looking to new markets that can offer greater trade certainty. It's worth remembering that Canada has 15 free trade agreements with 51 countries covering 1.8 billion people and 60 per cent of the world's GDP," says Joy Nott, Partner Trade & Customs, KPMG in Canada.

Ms. Nott adds that any new players entering the electric vehicle (EV) market could impact the automotive industry's competitiveness, creating additional challenges. "The big unknown is whether new EV players will invest and commit to manufacture in Canada," she says.

The tariff environment requires manufacturers to track the origin of every component embedded in whatever crosses the border, adds Tim Webb, Partner, Supply Chain & Procurement, KPMG Canada. "That has created a massive data challenge that manufacturers are trying to solve through investments into data and analytics, more targeted strategic sourcing, or both," he says.

The KPMG report also notes that the industry can expect further consolidation and integration. Key players may need to invest directly into suppliers and independent vendors to support them through this period of continued turbulence, the report says.

"Right now, a lot depends on where manufacturing investments flow. Suppliers need to stay close to those manufacturing plants, so until the OEMs really solidify their plans, I don't expect to see many Canadian-based suppliers make any big changes. For those with capacity on both sides of the border, it might be a different story as some start to play with their production allocations to reduce their exposure to tariff-related costs and complexities," adds Mr. Webb.

Dealers face mounting pressures

Auto dealers are also bracing for deeper structural change, the report says. Ninety-six per cent of dealers expect supplier consolidation within the next five years, 92 per cent expect a decline in brand and design relevance, and 90 per cent expect increased regionalization of the automotive industry, as sales shift online and EVs require less after-sales service. As many as 84 per cent believe new market entrants will replace traditional OEMs, with China leading the EV market.

"Dealers are trying to work out how to remain relevant to customers as auto sales move online and EV powertrains require substantially less after-sales service," says Mr. Power. "It will be extremely important, particularly for dealers, to plan for multiple scenarios. Focus on 'no-regret' moves such as divesting non-core assets, like extra lots or warehouses, strengthening supplier relationships, investing in productivity-enhancing technology and embracing digital, service-focused and hybrid models like agency sales or hub-and-spoke retail will be key."

In a recent KPMG survey of 2,000 Canadians, more than half (55 per cent) believe Canada could become a global leader in EVs in order to reduce its reliance on the U.S. auto industry, and nearly as many (52 per cent) expressed a desire for governments to make this a priority. Nearly half (47 per cent) indicated their support for removing tariffs on EVs from China.

About KPMG in Canada

KPMG LLP, a limited liability partnership, is a full-service Audit, Tax and Advisory firm owned and operated by Canadians. For over 150 years, our professionals have provided consulting, accounting, auditing, and tax services to Canadians, inspiring confidence, empowering change, and driving innovation. Guided by our core values of Integrity, Excellence, Courage, Together, For Better, KPMG employs more than 10,000 people in over 40 locations across Canada, serving private- and public-sector clients. KPMG is consistently ranked one of Canada's top employers and one of the best places to work in the country.

The firm is established under the laws of Ontario and is a member of KPMG's global organization of independent member firms affiliated with KPMG International, a private English company limited by guarantee. Each KPMG firm is a legally distinct and separate entity and describes itself as such. For more information, see kpmg.com/ca.

For media inquiries:

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KPMG in Canada

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SOURCE KPMG LLP
No other regional issue, not even the US military attack on Venezuela, has prompted such a firm reaction from Mexico, which has a long tradition of aligning itself with the island

Cuba has become one of the Mexican governments top foreignpolicy priorities. Since the increase in U.S. pressure that has pushed the island into a critical situation, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has spoken out almost daily to denounce the economic squeeze imposed under U.S. President Donald Trump and to reaffirm Mexicos support for Havana.

Beyond the delicate balancing act with Washington, backing Cuba also resonates deeply inside Morena, Mexicos ruling party, where it taps into a long tradition of political affinity dating back to the old governments led by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and revived under the previous administration. No other regional crisis  not even the U.S. military action against Venezuela  has prompted such a firm and persistent response from the Mexican government.

Mexicos defense of Cuba hasnt been limited to President Sheinbaums daily press conferences. Prominent Morena figures  from parliamentary spokespeople to party president Luisa Alcalde  have publicly aligned themselves with Havana. Within Morena, a broad and sometimes divided political family, the partys more orthodox or nostalgic left wing has embraced the Cuban crisis as an ideological cause and is pushing for even closer ties with Havana.

On Monday, Alcalde and the partys secretarygeneral, Carolina Rangel, visited the Cuban Embassy, which expressed its gratitude in a social media post for the support shown by the party members, legislators, and the Mexican government. In his most recent public remarks, Cuban President Miguel DiazCanel explicitly included Morena in his acknowledgments. Sources close to the Mexican presidency say there is a there is a long-standing affection and solidarity with the Cuban people and that this sentiment outweighs the more hardline positions within the party.

Two Mexican Navy ships left Veracruz on Sunday carrying 814 tons of supplies bound for Cuba  a rapid move meant to keep cooperation channels open without directly violating U.S. sanctions. Since the military attack on Caracas that led to the capture of Nicolas Maduro in early January, Washingtons strategy appears aimed at creating a domino effect that reaches Cuba, with which the U.S. has already opened a negotiation channel.

Cubas government says no fuel shipments have arrived since December. With Venezuela  its main supplier in recent years  cut off, Mexico is now one of the islands few remaining allies. Pressure from Donald Trump, who declared a national emergency over Cuba in late January and announced economic sanctions on anyone selling oil to the island, forced Mexico to halt its shipments. Last year, Mexico was Cubas top supplier.

Ships depart from Veracruz to deliver humanitarian aid to Cuba, February 8. Cedida

From the moment Trump announced new measures tightening pressure on Cuba, Sheinbaum insisted that Mexico would seek solidarity with the Cuban people without putting Mexico at risk. Her public messaging centers on humanitarian aid, while officials say negotiations continue to reopen the channel for oil shipments.

Sheinbaum also used humanitarian language in the weeks leading up to the Venezuelan attack, even calling for U.N. intervention to prevent bloodshed. She condemned the military operation that ousted Nicolas Maduro, invoking Mexicos longstanding foreignpolicy principle of rejecting external interference. That same principle has allowed her to avoid taking positions on the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Maria Corina Machado or on the disputed presidential election won by Maduro. Nor did Mexico respond strongly to Trumps attacks on Colombian President Gustavo Petro, one of Sheinbaums regional allies.

Sheinbaums cautious, negotiationoriented approach has been a constant in her foreign policy, shaped in part by Trumps threats, with Mexico in his sights. Her stance follows a long diplomatic tradition dating back to the Mexican Revolution, when principles of sovereignty and nonintervention were established as a form of selfprotection against U.S. expansionism.

Within this framework, another longstanding principle of MexicoU.S. relations remains relevant: a tacit understanding that Mexico could take positions contrary to Washingtons as long as they did not create serious problems. The classic example was Mexicos support for Castros Cuba during the Cold War  an enemy of the United States  allowing PRI governments to showcase leftwing credentials without jeopardizing the bilateral relationship.

Sheinbaum is following the same diplomatic logic revived by former president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. In 2022, Lopez Obrador traveled to Havana, where he received the Jose Marti Order, the islands highest honor for foreign dignitaries. After that visit, the relationship deepened, with Mexico increasing oil shipments to Cuba in exchange for medical services. Sheinbaum has continued that arrangement, at least until the latest escalation in U.S. pressure on the island, which lies just 200 kilometers from the Yucatan coast.

Sheinbaum is following the same logic, one strongly revived by former president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. In 2022, the Mexican president traveled to Havana to be awarded the Order of Jose Marti, the highest distinction granted by the islands authorities to a foreign dignitary. Since Lopez Obradors visit, the relationship has strengthened with an increase in oil shipments in exchange for medical services. Sheinbaum has extended this agreement, until the latest escalation by the United States regarding an island located just 124 miles off the coast of Yucatan.

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Ever since Donald Trumps threats against Cuba intensified, the situation on the island grows bleaker day by day. Even the tourism sector  historically prioritized by Cuban authorities for its role in guaranteeing foreign currency inflows  has not been spared contingency measures the government is implementing to address the fuel shortage resulting from Trumps energy embargo.

And now the Cuban government has announced that it has run out of fuel for commercial aviation, prompting airlines to react in ways that will further strain the islands fragile economy. On Monday, Air Canada  which flies a large portion of the tourists visiting the island  announced it is suspending operations until May. Spains Iberia is maintaining its flight frequency but is offering refunds and ticket changes, and, along with Air Europa, will make a technical stop in Santo Domingo to refuel. Only Aeromexico will continue operating normally.

In hotels, the uncertainty has already begun to be felt. When David Torres, a 29-year-old worker at the Metropolis Hotel in Havanas historic center, heard one of the bosses tell the IT guy to save all the sensitive information on hard drives because were going to shut down the hotel, he felt a paralyzing and demoralizing emptiness.

He and his coworkers had spent months finalizing the details for the opening of the newly renovated building, another of those new hotels that the islands authorities have built in the city in recent years, despite the discontent of many residents and the ever-decreasing number of tourists in the country. It was sad to see the hotel lights go out and to see people leave disappointed after so much effort for an opening that, for now, wont happen, says the young employee of this hotel, which is not the only one in Cuba to have closed its doors.

Authorities have ordered the temporary closure of establishments like the Metropoli, which were not yet operating, as well as others with few tourists. Tourists have been relocated to hotels better equipped to handle the current energy crisis. Places like the Hotel Melia Cohiba, the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, and the controversial Torre K (Cubas tallest building) seem to be unaware of the fuel shortage plaguing the island.

Tourists in Havana, January 29. Ernesto Mastrascusa (EFE)

People like Daniel had to take paid leave (around 9,000 CUP, approximately $376). Others were suspended from their jobs, with the guarantee of receiving the minimum wage for a month. After that time, all workers have the option, Daniel explains, of accessing the so-called labor pool, where they would be reassigned to other positions, in other hotels, for the duration of the situation. Luckily, I was already considering other options and had started a second job in the private sector, says the young man, relieved. Even so, he admits the situation has been a shock. Its a sudden change that were trying to fit into our family budget, he adds.

Despite the very low official wages, tourism workers in Cuba value their jobs because proximity to foreign visitors allows them to earn tips in dollars. Thats the real benefit for all of us, says a worker in the sector from Matanzas province, east of Havana. She works for one of the companies belonging to the Gaviota military group that operates in the enclave. She explains that Varadero has long been a ghost town. The situation is critical. What is considered Cubas largest sun and beach destination, the crown jewel of tourism on the island, has not escaped the sectors steep decline or the sharp drop in foreign visitors in recent years. In 2025, arrivals fell below two million.

Tourists in Havana, January 29. Ernesto Mastrascusa (EFE)

In Varadero, it has become normal to see empty streets and restaurants with no customers, explains the young woman on condition of anonymity. The recreational areas have almost no customers; theres no variety on offer, and the quality has declined significantly, she says, referring to the dwindling number of visitors, most of whom are Russian, Chinese, and from various Latin American countries, with Canadian and Spanish visitors arriving in smaller numbers than in previous years. Now, with the fuel shortage, this whole situation will worsen, and the conditions for those who continue working will also deteriorate, she adds.

She has already been forced to take vacation leave. They pay you for the whole month, but if the situation continues, well be considered furloughed until further notice. Her boyfriend, a waiter at one of Varaderos all-inclusive hotels, earning 7,000 CUP a month (about $292), plus tips from tourists, has had to improvise ways to get to work because the hotel can no longer provide staff transportation.

Private initiatives have emerged, and I dont know where they get the money for that, says the young woman, who organizes round-trip transportation for workers through WhatsApp groups. Some hotel chains have reopened nearby shuttered properties as makeshift dormitories for staff, but without providing them with proper facilities. They have to bring their own sheets and blankets, all their belongings, and stay on a set schedule for several days, as decided by the hotel management. Otherwise, they tell you to quit, she explains.

Solar panels to stay open

While government hotel workers are processing the shock of this impasse, private rental properties and other tourism-related businesses that have sprung up in recent years are trying to adapt and weather the storm. Celine Terry manages a boutique hotel near Revolution Square, with five rooms, for which she has achieved energy independence by installing solar panels imported through a private company.

Everything were starting to experience these days feels like the times of the pandemic and the travel restrictions, says the manager, who explains that 2025 was a very bad year in terms of guest arrivals, except for academic groups that kept the business afloat. Cuba isnt being marketed as a destination by travel agencies. And its becoming less and less recommended, says Terry, who has had to shift her focus toward local clients, offering wellness activities and yoga sessions. We went from six employees to just two, she says.

Uncertainty hangs over every decision Cubans make these days, and in the tourism sector, that feeling seems even more acute. A pervasive anxiety is palpable: from a tour guide who hasnt been able to conduct a single tour since the beginning of the year because all her reservations were canceled, to the taxi drivers waiting outside the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, still unsure where and when the authorities will allow them to refuel so they can continue working.

Of all the speculations you can make, the only one thats true is that everything is going to get worse, says Eugenio, one of the drivers stationed outside the hotel. He remembers when U.S. and Cuba began to thaw relations under Barack Obama as a dream-like period, when he had plenty of clients and substantial profits.

A man drives a vehicle in front of a hotel in Havana, on January 12. Ernesto Mastrascusa (EFE)

From those boom years, Maria R. remembers how lucrative it was to rent out her house in Old Havana. Little by little, thanks to that money, she bought other houses and today owns four apartments scattered throughout strategic locations in Havana. For several years now, since the pandemic, tourism hasnt recovered, says the owner, who adds that she has had a steady stream of clients that guarantees her a stable income. Im not getting many long-term reservations; theyre coming in almost overnight, she explains, adding that she hasnt considered buying a generator for her rental properties because it wouldnt be an investment I could easily recoup.

Shes worried because many potential travelers are canceling. Ive had cancellations myself, and other friends who do the same thing have too. First it was because of fear of the virus, then the power outages, and now this situation where nobody knows what will happen. Even so, Maria R. doesnt plan to abandon her business, which she combines with her work as a taxi driver. Even when business is really bad, itll always bring in something.

Given the current situation and with little hope of improvement on the horizon, Maria R., like many Cubans, still holds on to the belief that this will be resolved when theres a change of system, when Cuba is a free and democratic country. Meanwhile, all we can do, she says, is try to survive.

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Everything about Emmanuel Macron, 48, that Jupiter who arrived on the political scene in 2017 to radically transform it, has always been precocious. His great success, and also his own decline. After nine years as head of state of France, he has gone through practically every phase. Today, after a period riddled with political crises, he is entering the final stretch of his term. Weakened internally, he has decided to focus on his role as an international leader and staunch opponent of the new U.S. imperialism, ending his adventure as he began it with his famous Sorbonne speech. That is to say, by invoking the urgent need for European sovereignty. It is time for Europe to wake up, to emerge from its status as a geopolitical minority. If we do not decide for ourselves, we will be swept away, he said in an interview at the Elysee Palace with EL PAIS and a group of six international newspapers, addressing some of the points he will propose at the informal meeting of EU leaders on Thursday, focused on revitalizing the EU economy.

Question. Frances fragility seems to have weakened the historic Franco-German axis in favor of Italy. We have seen this in the latest document that both countries have prepared together on competitiveness.

Answer. When the Franco-German group is aligned, Europe can move forward, but its always necessary to respect others and engage their interests. Its normal that a joint document on growth was drawn up for a German-Italian summit. I dont see anything new under the sun. The issue is how Europe positions itself in the face of a new world order.

Q. And how should it be done?

A. We Europeans face an enormous challenge. Climate change is accelerating. The U.S. was supposed to guarantee our security forever, but now thats uncertain. Russia was supposed to supply low-cost energy forever, and it hasnt done so for three years. And China, which was an export market for many, has become an increasingly fierce competitor. This revolution, so to speak, has accelerated dramatically since the end of Covid-19, and even more so in the last year. And thats why Thursdays meeting is so important.

Q. What will you propose?

A. The question is simple for Europeans: are we prepared to become a power? We stand firm, but we react too slowly. If we choose to remain a market exposed to every whim, without making our own decisions, we will be swept away. We are the arbiter of the rest of the world. We are 450 million citizens and consumers, as well as millions of producers. It is time for Europe to wake up, to emerge from its status as a geopolitical minority, including in defense and security. The coalition of volunteers for Ukraine with the British is the revolution we have achieved in the last year.

Q. In what sense?

A. A year ago, we were completely dependent on the Americans for help in Ukraine. Now, this coalition, which unites Greater Europe beyond the EUs borders and includes Canada, finances most of the aid to Ukraine, provides almost all the targeting and location tools for the Ukrainian resistance, and has secured security guarantees. We want to bring in the Americans to help us, but we are no longer entirely dependent on them. And now, the revolution we must carry out is on the economic front.

Q. For nine years youve defended this vision of European sovereignty. But your critics will say that, among its pillars, protection means protectionism, that you support diversifying alliances but oppose the Mercosur deal

A. Mercosur is a bad agreement. The strategy is good, the geopolitical signal is correct. Thats why Ive also increased my trips to that region. The problem with Mercosur is that its mandate is too outdated. I advocate for mirror clauses, which means that I impose the same restrictions on non-European producers as on my own, which is fair if I dont want to deindustrialize. I defend fair agreements and, therefore, agreements that include safeguards and respect the climate while achieving what we want for the economy. Its an outdated, poorly negotiated agreement.

Q. The world is facing an emergency situation. Do you have the sense that this European awakening could gain momentum after Greenland, after the tariff war?

Emmanuel Macron, during the interview in the Green Room of the Elysee Palace. KAMIL ZIHNIOGLU (LE MONDE)

A. [Former Italian prime minister] Mario Draghi recently spoke in favor of federalism. But what he really meant, and this aligns with what Ive been saying for years about power, is that we need common leadership. Our Europe has failed when it has been slow or divided. The [2008] financial crisis originated in the U.S., but it made us suffer 10 times more. The Americans made quick, joint decisions. For us, it was an asymmetric shock; we were divided. And it took us between five and 10 years to resolve the crisis. Conversely, when we had a symmetric shock, one that affected everyone equally, we were united and acted quickly. In Ukraine, it took us 48 hours to launch an aid program to address the consequences for our economies.

Q. Does the old order no longer exist?

A. People have doubts. When we emerged from the peak of the crisis, when a tariff agreement was negotiated, there was a kind of cowardly relief. But dont believe for a second that its over. Look at whats going to happen with tariffs on pharmaceuticals and everything thats coming. Every day, every week, there will be threats. There were insults and intimidation regarding Greenland, and then suddenly, a retreat. We must be aware that the crisis we are experiencing is a profound geopolitical rupture. We have the Chinese tsunami on the trade front and instability on the American side. Both crises represent a profound shock, a rupture for Europeans. If we want to be spectators, we will be vassals. We will do the same as before with the Chinese, and I assure you that, within five years, we will have disappeared. We are in what I would call the Greenland moment, which is undoubtedly what made Europeans aware that there was a threat. But it is not enough.

Q. And then?

A. We are alone. Europeans always thought there was someone who would help them; we had grown accustomed to that. And for me, this is the definitive culmination of the European adventure of the last 70 years. We united to avoid war again, we united to create a market, but, in reality, we had always forbidden ourselves from thinking together about power. Why? For a simple reason: because until 1945, power was civil war. European power is now something we do together to protect ourselves from the rest of the world, to try to carry on with our model, and to avoid suffering. We are Europe, and it is a vast place with 450 million inhabitants.

Emmanuel Macron, in his office, on Monday afternoon, before the interview took place. KAMIL ZIHNIOGLU (Le Monde)

Q. Mario Draghi speaks of strengthened federalism. Do you agree?

A. Im wary of the term federalism; it fuels fantasies. Will we be able to introduce changes to the treaty in 2026 that would allow us to have different institutions? Im clear-headed and realistic: no. But I think we know what pragmatic federalism is: uniting quickly, deciding together. And thats why I say that if we havent made firm decisions in six months, if were still in the debate phase, perhaps we need to explore avenues for cooperation.

Q. How will we finance this major shift?

A. First, we must once again mobilize our savings. Europe has the largest volume of savings in the world: 30 trillion [$35.7 trillion]. But those savings finance our debt and, beyond that, flow abroad. Every year, 300 billion [$357 billion] finance American companies. At the same time, given that the European budget is limited, it is time to set up a common borrowing capacity for these futureoriented expenditures: future eurobonds. We need major European programs to finance the best projects.

Q. And in this strategy of unity you describe, what impact could the arrival of a farright government in EU countries such as France or Spain have?

A. I have seen at the Council table people elected against the European idea who organized to block Europe. But I have also seen some who benefited from European generosity and became pragmatic. I dont want to prejudge. In countries where the far right is rising, the lucidity of their leaders has led them to realize that they benefited greatly from Europe, from its subsidies, from its recovery programs, and that it wasnt so bad after all.

Q. The union described in the Draghi report is also based on energy. France has never promoted interconnections with Spain to harness renewable energy

A. The issue in Spain is a false debate. Its problem is that it has a 100% renewable energy model that its own domestic grid cannot support. The blackout in Spain has nothing to do with interconnections, but with the fact that no system, at least with current technology, can sustain such dependence on renewable energy. Stability in the energy mix is needed because otherwise, shocks that are too large occur. But its not just about interconnections. Grids are needed.

Q. Last week, your diplomatic adviser was in Moscow to explore the possibility of restarting dialogue between France and Russia. Where does that stand?

A. We stopped it in the spring of 2022, after the war crimes and other atrocities. It was leading nowhere. And it made no sense to resume dialogue in the midst of war. Now, the level of losses and attrition on both sides makes it legitimate to consider ending it. And for several months now, U.S. envoys have resumed talks. My reflection is very simple. Do we want to delegate this discussion to others? Our geography isnt going to change. Like it or not, Russia will still be there tomorrow. And it turns out its right on our doorstep. Its important to structure the resumption of a European debate with them. Without being naive, without pressuring the Ukrainians, but without depending on a third party in this debate. And what have I obtained now? Confirmation that Russia doesnt want peace now. But, above all, we have rebuilt these channels of dialogue at a technical level. My wish is to share this with my European partners and have a well-organized approach.

Q. How will that dialogue be structured?

A. Without too many interlocutors, with a specific mandate, a simple representation. The day peace arrives, it will also affect Europe. The security guarantees are the coalition of volunteers. The coalition of volunteers represents 80% of Europeans. And we will have to build a new security architecture in Europe with Russia. Tomorrows prosperity concerns Europeans. Or would you prefer that American ambassadors and envoys negotiate on your behalf the date of Ukraines entry into the EU? Its about realism and self-respect. Lets not be afraid to be ourselves. Its in Europes interest. Thats why I want Europe to sit at the negotiating table for peace as quickly as possible, having protected Ukrainian interests to the fullest extent, because we have European interests to defend. And Im not going to delegate them to anyone. Not even to the U.S.

Q. You said earlier that the Greenland chapter is not over.

A. Nothing is decided. There is an ongoing discussion with our Danish friends. They will decide. But we will not allow any coercion to be exerted on them. And then there is the NATO framework, within which we will conduct longer-term exercises there. Things are clear. But there will be further stages. The nature of the discourse that has been articulated regarding Greenland and the positions taken must be disassociated from a supposed geopolitical threat to Greenlands territory. Let no one be mistaken in thinking that the true intention of the U.S. was simply to confront a geopolitical threat. It was not the Russians or the Chinese who posed the threat. I can tell you that we have compiled an intelligence tally of the number of Russian and Chinese ships and submarines that were around Greenland and whose presence we detected: it is negligible. They are essentially on the fringes of the Baltic and in Europe.

Q. And have the threats to the EU to raise tariffs again ended?

A. We mustnt relax and think that everything is over after a peak in a crisis subsides. We are in a state of permanent instability. There was a tariff threat that intensified significantly until the summer of 2025. A trade agreement was reached to settle all accounts, which theoretically included pharmaceuticals. Starting in the fall of 2025, we saw Trump resume talks with Big Pharma and ask them to raise prices in Europe or restrict European access to certain molecules, which completely contradicts the agreement he signed. There will be crises, instability. There is unpredictability. And in the face of this, I believe the best approach is to reduce risk, reduce dependencies, and make decisions for ourselves instead of waiting for the next crisis.

Emmanuel Macron, during the interview. KAMIL ZIHNIOGLU (Le Monde)

Q. How do you handle your relationship with Trump on a personal level?

A. I am professional in my approach. I am always respectful and predictable. But not weak. I have never insulted the U.S., its people, or its leaders. I believe it is a great democracy. But when there is blatant aggression, we must not bow down or try to reach an agreement. We have tried that strategy for months, and it doesnt work. But above all, it strategically leads Europe to increase its dependence. And that is why I believe the response must come from a predictable and respectful force. Europe must become a power, and it is in the midst of a metamorphosis.

Q. What type of power?

A. A predictable power for markets and political actors. But a strong one, capable of responding swiftly, effectively, and democratically when attacked. Europes greatest strength lies in its continued preservation of the rule of law. Today we have China, controlled by a single power, which is pursuing a long-term strategy. It doesnt share our values; it can sometimes be a partner on certain issues, but it is authoritarian. And, on the other side, we have the U.S., with increasingly more extraterritorial rules that can change. And, above all, with a capacity for coercion that is incompatible with the rule of law. When you can sanction an economic actor you dont like, when you can force someone coming to your country to provide five years of their personal data in order to obtain a visa, when, under the pretext of doing their job, you sanction a European Commissioner because theyve annoyed you  as in the case of Thierry Breton  or you sanction a judge of the International Criminal Court because shes done her job and you dont like it, depriving her of all her means of communication and funding, thats no longer the rule of law. And I say this because for all investors worldwide, for all industrialists, if we are able to make that European leap to becoming a power, a great democratic rule of law, it will be a colossal attraction. We used to act as if that were the case everywhere, and its no longer so.

Q. There are governments in Europe that maintain ideological relations with the U.S. administration.

A. Its a paradox, because sometimes these are nationalist governments, and they can end up weakening their own countries or Europe. I clearly see the limitations of these models. The ideology that prevails today in the U.S., which is also a historical novelty, is blatantly and openly anti-European. It doesnt respect the European Union, shows its contempt in all its strategic documents, and it seeks its dismantling. We are not obliged to let ourselves be trampled. I think all those governments that thought their ideological proximity could yield results have seen that this wasnt the case. I, with great respect and friendship, hope they commit to the European path. That path is more powerful. But there will be key debates. The U.S., for example, is going to attack us in the coming months regarding digital regulation.

Q. In what way?

A. Theyre going to try to impose fees on those who use it. Theyre going to force us to give in on that. That will be a real test. If they do, it will be coercion. We have mechanisms to protect ourselves, and well have to activate them. Europe must stand firm on this issue. Also on the initiative I launched to protect our children from social media. Their brains are not for sale. Our childrens emotions will not be monetized by the big American or Chinese platforms. Thats sovereignty, thats the power of Europe. We dont delegate our democratic model. We want our collective preferences, our democracy, and our values  which are not the same as American values  to be protected. And therefore, we dont want them imposed on us.

Q. What does that refer to?

A. They have chosen the privatization of minds and emotions. In fact, they have chosen the privatization of their teenagers. That is what they have done with their network, with the terrible consequences we see every day. We do not want that.

President Macron, this Monday at the Elysee Palace. KAMIL ZIHNIOGLU (Le Monde)

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Alexander Lapshin has stated that Armenian security services regularly detain him at the border due to the fact that he is wanted in Belarus.

When an awkward pause suddenly settles over the arrivals hall at Zvartnots Airport and border officers appear momentarily distracted, one might assume that Lapshin is somewhere in the queue. His repeated expressions of surprise seem entirely genuine each time: How is this possible? Again? Wanted? That cant be right  I only came to buy some Armenian cognac.

What follows has gradually become a familiar routine. A passport is opened, a weary sigh is heard, an alert button is pressed  and at that very moment, Lapshin reaches for his phone to document yet another episode of what he describes as an unexpected adventure.

It is hard to imagine what would happen if, one day, he were allowed to cross the border without incident. Such an uneventful passage might even be disappointing: how would one explain to followers that the border was crossed like any ordinary travelers, without delay or drama?

While most tourists worry about lost luggage, Lapshin appears concerned about something else entirely  the possibility of being waved through the green corridor without attracting attention. For his public narrative, that might prove to be the real misfortune.

His emotional reactions have by now become a recognizable feature of these encounters  a recurring element in a story that seems to require tension and public attention to remain complete.
Bachar Alkaderi (fourth from left) and other rebels from Deraa in the Damascus neighborhood of Kafr Susa, after taking a position occupied by Iranian forces on December 8, 2024, when the Assad regime was overthrown.

The Syrian surgeon, trained in Cuba, warns that, after the overthrow of the Assad regime, the revolution must be protected from its own children

Among the rebels who, on December 8, entered Damascus and put an end to almost 14 years of conflict and the Assad family regime  one of the cruellest and longest-lasting in the Middle East  was one who spoke Spanish with a slight Caribbean accent. Dr. Bachar Alkaderi, a graduate of the University of Medical Sciences of Havana, specializing in general and thoracic surgery, became, through the twists of fate and history, a revolutionary commander.

When I entered Damascus, I felt like I was returning from a very long exile. I hadnt seen it for more than 13 years, he explains via video conference from Deraa, the southern Syrian city he comes from. A year after overthrowing the regime, however, he is more cautious than euphoric: More than from its enemies, the revolution must be protected from its own children.

Alkaderis training began far from home, in Cuba, where he arrived in 1997  at the tail end of the hardship known as the Special Period  to study medicine. His specialty diploma notes that he graduated at the top of his class thanks to his excellent results, and it is dated November 2009, marked as the Year of the 50th Anniversary of the Triumph of the Revolution.

Alkaderi is one of the hundreds of Syrians who trained in Cuba through a program that began during the Cold War and continued even throughout Syrias civil war. The initiative reflected the close relationship between two governments that portrayed themselves as allies against U.S. imperialism. However, the last thing Damascus expected was that some of the young people it sent to study in a friendly country would turn against it.

Bachar Alkaderi after receiving his degree from the University of Medical Sciences in Havana. Cedida

In Cuba, I learned the revolutionary spirit, Alkaderi says with a smile. My experience during my medical and surgical studies was profoundly beautiful. Cuba is a true school of patience and dignity. I saw a people poor in resources, but immensely rich in pride; a people capable of transforming the [U.S.] blockade into science and production.

What Alkaderi learned as a doctor in Cuba became essential almost immediately after he returned to Syria. By late 2011, peaceful protests against Bashar alAssad had escalated into an armed conflict in response to government repression. Working in extremely precarious conditions  often without enough medicine, anesthesia, or proper equipment  he performed hundreds of complex surgeries on victims of Russian airstrikes and Syrian and Iranian shelling.

I joined the Syrian revolution the moment I understood that the Syrian people were living in a vast prison and their voices were being silenced, he says. The country was being run like a private estate for the president, his family, and his generals. The army committed massacres at every peaceful demonstration. So my decision wasnt ideological, but ethical. It was the feeling that to remain silent was to betray.

For many years, most leftist Latin American governments, beginning with Cuba, embraced the narrative promoted by Syria and other authoritarian regimes that the Arab uprisings were not genuine popular movements but Westernbacked conspiracies. Syrian progressive intellectuals such as Yassin alHaj Saleh condemned this stance as a betrayal. The most horrifying thing is that they havent just killed us, but they kill us and insult us, the Syrian writer told EL PAIS in a 2017 interview.

The revolution isnt a picture to hang on the wall, its a way of life, argues Alkaderi. For him, the Syrian uprising has a strong element of national liberation against a regime he accuses of having sold the country to the foreign occupier [Russia and Iran] and to transnational militias [Hezbollah, Iraqi and Afghan Shiite militias]. During our revolution, I learned that human beings can stand tall, even when the whole world is upon them, he adds.

As the conflict progressed, he went from stitching up bodies in operating rooms to commanding fighters in the battles of Daraa. In 2018, after a Moscowbrokered deal, he was evacuated to Azaz in northern Syria. From there, last year, he coordinated rebel forces in the southern provinces with the offensive launched from the north. The coordination operated under a principle of disciplined decentralization. Each area had its own field command and was based on guerrilla warfare strategy, for which the southern fighters were trained, he explains. However, the regime collapsed much faster than they expected: They suffered a moral collapse and abandoned their positions.

A year later, I can say that we won the battle, but the road to a country that resembles the dreams of our martyrs is still long, he says. Like many Syrians, he believes that the indirect elections held under the leadership of the interim president, the Salafist Ahmed al-Shara, and the constitutional declaration of transition, which concentrates power in the executive branch, are not sufficiently representative of the Syrian people and their diverse segments.

He lays out what he sees as the priorities for the revolutions second year: We must give the people an authentic voice, not a decorative one; establish genuine transitional justice; build institutions that function based on competence, not favoritism; and dismantle the old networks of corruption that are trying to return under new names.

As for himself, he has put down his rifle and returned to practicing medicine in a hospital in his province.

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The detention of the opposition leader, just hours after his release, is intended to signal that the authorities remain firmly in charge. There are people who think they can do whatever they want, warned Diosdado Cabello

In Venezuela, every gesture of political openness is accompanied by a reminder of who truly holds power. The arrest of opposition leader Juan Pablo Guanipa  just hours after he had been released  served as a warning that contradicts the political opening that acting President Delcy Rodriguez has been projecting since January 3. The sudden arrest  carried out by heavily armed men in civilian clothes  underscores that control of the country remains firmly in the same hands despite recent changes and promises.

The arrest surprised political leaders, humanrights advocates, and international observers. Many had interpreted the release of political prisoners  especially a large group of people close to opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, including Guanipa  as a major step forward in this new phase of Chavismo  the ruling movement built around the ideology of Hugo Chavez  without Nicolas Maduro.

Guanipa was released on Sunday after spending eight months in prison along with other political figures from Machados party. As soon as he left prison, he toured several avenues in Caracas, accompanied by dozens of supporters and other recently freed opposition leaders such as Jesus Armas. The scene  part of a growing wave of public protest led by families of political prisoners, students, and activists  was not well received by the government.

After Guanipas second arrest, the Attorney Generals Office  led by Tarek William Saab  issued a statement confirming that it had asked the Supreme Court to revoke the measure that had allowed him to be released. The request sought to replace his conditional freedom with house arrest. The precautionary measures ordered by the courts are conditional upon strict compliance with the imposed obligations, read the statement from the Attorney Generals Office. Failure to comply empowers the judicial body, at the request of a party, to revoke or replace the previously granted measure. According to Guanipas release document, his obligations were limited to a travel ban and the requirement to report to authorities every 30 days.

Demonstration for the release of Juan Pablo Guanipa, in Maracaibo (Venezuela), this Monday. Marco Bello (REUTERS)

As Guanipas relatives demanded proof that he was alive, the government reinforced its message. Diosdado Cabello  Venezuelas interior minister and the ruling partys numbertwo  publicly celebrated the renewed detention. There are people who think theyre above the law. They think theyre superior, that they can do whatever they want. Theyre not, he said. Cabello argued that justice works and warned that those released were being given a chance. His comments carried weight: Cabello personally led the police operation that arrested Guanipa in 2024, when he was accused of conspiring against public order and promoting terrorism.

Guanipas arrest comes amid a national debate over a proposed amnesty law. Mediators such as former Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who visited Caracas last week, describe the bill as ambitious and potentially transformative. But humanrights groups and parts of the opposition question how far it would actually go. The new arrest has only heightened tensions and deepened doubts just as the law is nearing approval.

From exile, Machado described what happened as a kidnapping, calling it an example of the governments fear of the truth. In Maracaibo, activists and political leaders gathered in Plaza La Republica to demand Guanipas release. If we start to see speaking out as a crime and not as a protest, when will the dictatorship end? asked Ramon Guanipa, the opposition leaders son, who denounced his fathers forced disappearance.

Tomas Guanipa, Juan Pablos brother and a leading figure within the more moderate wing of the opposition, described the personal and political impact of the incident. Its been a huge blow. Were making a family effort to speak out about what happened, he said. In his view, the case reveals the serious risks we face right now, even as the government promotes a narrative of reconciliation.

For sociologist and human rights activist Rafael Uzcategui, the episode confirms that the Venezuelan government is not acting under external pressure. It is neither a victim nor a hostage. It has its own agenda, he says. In his view, two logics coexist today: one promoted by the United States, centered on stabilization, recovery, and transition; and another driven by the core of Venezuelan power, which proposes a political opening but with Chavismo still in control. Citizens perceive that a rift opened up after January 3 and are trying to widen it, regaining trust in the public sphere, he explains. However, he warns that the structural foundations of political persecution in Venezuela remain intact.

Guanipa, a member of the Primero Justicia party, closely aligned with Machado during the 2024 presidential campaign and a member of Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutias electoral team, stood out for his firm and consistent stance against Chavismos authoritarian drift. His reputation  even respected by some adversaries  makes him a politically uncomfortable symbol for those in power.

Maria Corina Machado speaks about Juan Pablo Guanipa in Washington on Monday. Lenin Nolly (EFE)

Meanwhile, the situation of political prisoners in Venezuela remains uncertain. The roughly 400 releases confirmed so far have all been conditional, involving precautionary measures and mandatory checkins rather than full freedom. All those released have come out with precautionary measures, explains Gonzalo Himiob, director of the NGO Foro Penal. Once the amnesty law was approved, it was assumed that all cases should lead to full freedom. What we dont know is how many prisoners and those persecuted could be excluded based on certain arguments.

A broader debate about a potential political transition is permeating the current Venezuelan political landscape. Comparisons are being drawn to historical transitions  from postFranco Spain to Venezuelas own political shifts in 1936 and 1958  but historian Pedro Benitez warns against overusing analogies. The history of transitions can only be explained in retrospect, not before, he says. In his view, the regime may choose to buy time, alleviate external pressures, or address its own internal tensions. We dont know how this will end, he says.

For now, Guanipas arrest underscores that any political opening in Venezuela still unfolds under the shadow of the power structure that controls it.

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Atlantic County Prosecutor William Reynolds faces mounting pressure to resign after bringing childabuse charges against the citys mayor, his wife, and the high school principal.

Atlantic City Council Vice President Kaleem Shabazz, who is the president of the local NAACP chapter, suggested Reynolds office prosecuted the trio for political reasons.

The calls for his resignation come nearly two months after Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small Sr. was found not guilty of all charges that he abused his teenage daughter.

The mayors wife, LaQuetta Small, who is the citys public school superintendent, and Constance Days-Chapman, the Atlantic City High School principal, subsequently had charges in the case dismissed after the mayors acquittal. All three were charged in 2024.

Speaking as the NAACP president, Shabazz cited a loss of trust in Reynolds ability to remain objective in prosecuting cases.

It is deeply troubling that a local prosecutor has chosen to publicly attack three highly respected African American leaders in our city, Shabazz said during a news conference on Monday.

Shabazz and the NAACP also condemned Reynolds recent request for Atlantic County Commissioner Collins Days to refrain from voting on matters pertaining to the prosecutors office.

Days is Days-Chapmans father, and Reynolds sought to restrict him over concerns about a conflict of interest. The prosecutor has since reversed that request.

What we have witnessed is a pattern of conduct that appears reckless, divisive and harmful to the civility of our city, Shabazz said.

Shabazz acknowledged the NAACPs previous praise for Reynolds, but suggested that prosecuting the mayor could increase public disdain for authorities. He did not name a desired replacement for Reynolds.

The prosecutor impacts everyone in this county, and he or she has to be someone who, whether you agree with their judgment or not, is impeccable and is not guided by politics, Shabazz said.

Reynolds rebutted calls to resign, rejecting notions that political and racial aspects fueled the investigation against the mayor, superintendent and principal.

In a statement on Monday, Reynolds said his request for Days to abstain from voting revolved around a need for an objective government.

Our obligation is, and always has been, to uphold the rule of law with integrity, fairness and independence, regardless of who is on the other side of an investigation or prosecution, Reynolds said. Every decision is guided by the evidence, the law and our responsibility to victims, with justice pursued in whatever form the facts and circumstances require.

When NJ Advance Media asked him directly about leaving his position, Reynolds said, I am not resigning. I have no intent to resign.

Several weeks earlier, Reynolds filed a lawsuit against Atlantic County Executive Dennis Levinson, arguing that Levinson improperly pressured prosecutors to consider taxpayer costs in pursuing the case. The suit asks a judge to bar Levinson from interfering in independent prosecutorial decisionmaking.

Atlantic County did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Reynolds was appointed by Gov. Phil Murphy to be Atlantic Countys top law enforcement official in 2022. Around that time, Cary Shill was serving as acting prosecutor after Damon Tyner resigned amid multiple lawsuits, ethics complaints and misconduct allegations.

Reynolds, an Atlantic County native, was a trial lawyer in both Philadelphia and New Jersey, according to his biography page.

Marty and LaQuetta Small would have faced prison time if convicted on charges of physically and emotionally abusing their daughter from December 2023 to January 2024. Days-Chapman faced a single charge of official misconduct for not reporting allegations made by the teenager at school to New Jersey child welfare services.

Marty Small declined to comment when NJ Advance Media contacted his office on Monday.
An employee in the Palisades Park Department of Public Works was arrested on a theft charge after investigators said he used a borough credit card to purchase fuel for his personal vehicle for months.

Matthew P. Bonaguaro, 24, of Ridgefield, was arrested last month and charged with third-degree theft, according to Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella.

The unauthorized purchases allegedly occurred between March and November 2025 and totaled $2,763.98.

On Oct. 29, 2025, the prosecutors Confidential Investigations Unit received information regarding irregularities with fuel expenses for borough vehicles, Musella said in a statement.

Detectives determined that (Bonaguaro) purchased fuel for personal use with borough funds, Musella said.

Specifically, detectives traced months of fuel purchases made by Bonaguaro on the boroughs fleet card, the prosecutor said.

Bonaguaro was arrested Jan. 28 and charged with theft by unlawful taking. He was released on a summons to appear in court.

Public records show Bonaguaro has been employed by the borough since 2021 and earns about $42,000 a year. His employment status was not immediately available on Tuesday.

Attorney information for Bonaguaro was not immediately available on Tuesday.
Toyota is recalling more than 141,000 Prius hybrid models due to a defect that involves the vehicles rear doors.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 141,286 2023-2026 model Toyota Priuses are being recalled because the doors could unlock unexpectedly when a short circuit occurs, leading to potential passenger injuries.

No accidents or injuries have been reported to date.

Heres what you need to know about the defect and what you should do if you have one of these recalled Toyota Prius vehicles.

Why are so many Toyota Prius vehicles being recalled?

Certain 2023-2026 Toyota Prius hybrid models are being recalled because they have defective electrical switches that have a seal to prevent water from reaching the electrical components of the vehicle, according to the NHTSA.

But when that seal doesnt work properly or is exposed to lots of water, it can cause a short circuit.

That short-circuit can cause the doors to release without warning.

What should you do if you have one of the recalled Toyota Prius vehicles?

Toyota is urging owners of these vehicles to bring them to dealers for inspection and if necessary, repairs.

If there is a problem with the rear doors, Toyota will fix them at no cost to the owner so the doors dont unlock when water damage occurs.

Dealers have already been notified, and owners will receive notification about the recall by March 29, 2026.
Peacock is the primary streaming home for the 2026 Winter Olympics, offering live coverage of every event. If you signed up for Peacock purely for the Olympics, you might be wondering what else you can watch with your subscription.

As NBCUniversals streaming platform, Peacock offers access to NBC and Bravo shows, including Saturday Night Live, sitcoms like The Office and reality shows like The Real Housewives franchise.

For those looking to make the most of their new Peacock subscriptions, here are 8 things to watch on the streaming platform right now:

1. The Traitors

"The Real Housewives of New York City" alum Dorinda Medley and "The Traitors" host Alan Cumming. Euan Cherry/PEACOCK

Season 4 of The Traitors kicked off in January, and new episodes premiere on Peacock every Thursday. The premise of the reality series is straightforward: a group of Faithfuls attempt to identify the Traitors in their midst, sharing their theories during roundtable discussions before banishing one suspected turncoat. In turn, the Traitors select one player to kill each night.

As the group of celebrity contestants complete challenges and observe each others behavior, their paranoia grows. You can always count on The Traitors and its eclectic cast to deliver campy drama and laughs.

2. All Her Fault

A Peacock original series, All Her Fault follows Marissa Irvine (Sarah Snook), a wealth manager whose five-year-old son, Milo (Duke McCloud), goes missing under mysterious circumstances.

As the search for Milo goes on, it becomes clear that Marissas life with husband Peter (Jake Lacy) is not as it seems. All eight episodes of the mystery miniseries debuted in the fall of 2025.

3. The Paper

The Paper is a spinoff of The Office, but its only real tie to the original series is that Oscar Nunez reprises his role as Oscar Martinez. Domhnall Gleeson is fantastic as Ned Sampson, the awkward and idealistic new editor-in-chief of the Toledo Truth Teller, a declining Midwestern newspaper.

While its impossible not to compare The Paper to The Office, the new series is more similar in tone to Parks and Recreation with its quirky but sincere protagonist.

Domhnall Gleeson as Ned in "The Paper." John P. Fleenor/PEACOCK

If youd rather rewatch an iconic sitcom than try a new one, Peacock is also home to beloved shows including 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, New Girl and Modern Family.

4. Love Island USA

Perhaps the most-talked about dating show on television, Love Island USA became the first Peacock series to reach the No. 1 spot in the Nielsen Top 10 last year. Single islanders looking for love pair up to avoid elimination, but connections are tested as new bombshells enter the villa. Sometimes romantic, often raunchy and chaotic, Love Island USA is the ultimate guilty pleasure.

READ MORE: These were the 10 hottest shows of 2025  how many did you watch?

5. Bugonia

Bugonia, which is Emma Stones latest collaboration with director Yorgos Lanthimos, follows a pharmaceutical company CEO (Stone) who gets kidnapped by a conspiracy theorist (Jesse Plemons). The black comedy is nominated for Best Picture at the upcoming 98th Academy Awards.

6. The Hunger Games franchise

Now is the perfect time to rewatch the Hunger Games film series. The prequel film The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, which stars Joseph Zada as a young Haymitch Abernathy, hits theaters in November. Woody Harrelson played Haymitch in the original Hunger Games movies.

If youre not a Hunger Games person, the entire Harry Potter film collection is also on Peacock.

7. We Are Lady Parts

We Are Lady Parts follows an all-female Muslim punk band. The British sitcom has a 97 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, and for good reason. Its funny, heartfelt, and completely unique.

"We Are Lady Parts" stars Lucie Shorthouse (Momtaz), Faith Omole (Bisma), Anjana Vasan (Amina), Juliette Motamed (Ayesha) and Sarah Kameela Impey (Saira). Laura Radford/Peacock

As The Guardians Chitra Ramaswamy wrote when the show first premiered in 2021, We Are Lady Parts is a comedy in which Muslim women are permitted to be funny, sexual, ridiculous, religious, angry, conflicted. Themselves, basically.

READ MORE: Lindsey Vonn crashes at Olympic games, ending bid for defiant comeback

8. Broadchurch

Another British series, Broadchurch is a must-see for fans of mysteries and crime dramas. Set in a fictional coastal town, the first two seasons of Broadchurch focus on the death of 11-year-old Danny Latimer.

During season 3, Detective Inspector Alec Hardy (David Tennant) and Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller (Olivia Colman) tackle a new case: the premeditated rape of local woman Trish Waterman (Julie Hesmondhalgh).

Peacock subscriptions cost $10.99 a month or $109.99 a year.
On a quiet bend of the South River, where feathery reeds crowd the shoreline and the mud smells faintly sour when the tide slips out, a 110-foot yacht sits wedged in a narrow creek.

Its hull is rusted through in places. The deck sags. Graffiti and vines climb its bulwarks. Small trees have begun to grow in what were once staterooms.

For years, the vessel was mostly a curiosity, spotted from above by drone or on Google Maps and whispered about in Sayreville bars and online forums.

Then, last fall, it became a courtroom problem.

Matt Dolitsky, a YouTuber who explores abandoned places in New Jersey and New York for his channel Two Feet Outdoors, is scheduled to go on trial Feb. 26 in Sayreville Municipal Court.

The 55-year-olds alleged crime? Trespassing, when he decided to paddle out and explore the wrecked yacht.

His November 2024 video documenting the trip has drawn more than 337,000 views  and, months later, a summons accusing him of unlawfully entering private property.

My focus was on the boat, Dolitsky said in an interview with NJ.com. You see this massive boat in this tiny little creek and wonder how it got there.

Dolitskys videos are typically quiet, almost meditative. He glides through waterways and climbs into decaying structures, narrating what he sees. His fans describe them as calming, the type of vlogs you can watch while getting ready for bed.

In the yacht video, he kayaks up to the vessel during low tide. He climbs onto its weathered dock, crawls through brush and shimmies onto the deck, marveling at its scale and condition.

Nobody has a clue that Im over here, Dolitsky says at one point, his shadow cast against a smokestack as a truck beeps somewhere in the distance.

What he did not expect was the notice that appeared in his mailbox six months later, warning that someone had filed a trespassing complaint against him in municipal court.

I was kind of shocked, Dolitsky said. I was thinking, How is that even possible?

The complaint, filed last June, alleges that on Nov. 1, 2024, Dolitsky kayaked to the property, crossed onto private land and boarded the yacht.

Trespassing is a petty disorderly persons offense in Sayreville, punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a fine of up to $500.

The charge was filed by Kersten Kortbawi, who owns the property the yacht sits on and the surrounding area. Much of the space is taken up by Viking Terminal, an industrial park that rents to commercial businesses.

Kortbawi did not respond to a request for comment from NJ.com.

In a prior statement to the Home News Tribune, she said No Trespassing signs have been posted around the property for decades and that Dolitskys own video shows one as he approached the dock from the river.

Importantly, the yellow-and-black No Trespassing sign is shown in his YouTube video as he approached the dock on his kayak, Kortbawi said.

Dolitsky disputes that account, saying he saw no such signage at the time and believes additional signs were installed afterward.

I didnt see any No Trespassing signs or anything saying, Private Property, he said. I guarantee after the fact they put up signs.

In a video he posted in August updating his viewers on the case, he kayaks back to the dock, where a No Trespassing sign can indeed be seen affixed to a post.

That same post is bare in his original November 2024 video.

Stinkersville

The yacht has a longer, more mysterious history than the case surrounding it.

The vessel is listed on Google Maps as the Blue Jacket, a luxury motor vessel built in the Netherlands in the 1950s.

Its not clear exactly when it fell into disrepair or was brought to Viking Terminal.

Brian Swider, who rented space at the terminal from 1990 to 1995 for his concrete company, remembers the propertys owners  Kortbawis parents, Peter and Donna Roehsler  once had grand plans to restore the yacht to its former glory.

He was into his boats, Swider said of Peter Roehsler, who died in 2011. Donna died in 2023.

They had a crew of people working on that yacht the whole time I was down there, Swider continued. They dumped a lot of time and money into it. To see it the way it is now  its a shame.

Swider said the Roehslers ordered new engine parts, but later discovered that the hulls engine mounts were beyond repair.

Thats when he put it up in the creek there, Swider said. I lost track after I moved out.

The top deck of the yacht in Sayreville. Courtesy of Matt Dolitsky

Since then, the yacht remained largely  but not entirely  undisturbed.

Other YouTubers have documented themselves aboard the vessel in recent years. In one popular 2020 video, now deleted, two men kayak directly up to it, crossing a makeshift gangway of PVC pipes and stepping onto the deck.

They explore the yacht, not yet covered in graffiti, and remark on the smell of stagnant water and decay.

Oh man, this thing is Stinkersville, one says.

The other poses on the roof like Leonardo DiCaprios character in Titanic, arms flung wide: Im the king of the world!

Neither man has been charged with a crime, and neither responded to requests for comment.

Its unclear if Kortbawi was aware of this video or others like it, and if so, why she didnt file complaints in those cases.

Kortbawi is a civil litigation attorney and sits on the board of trustees of the Middlesex County Bar Association.

She left her commercial firm last November, according to her LinkedIn profile, which lists her current employment as owner of Viking Terminal Holdings, LLC.

How is it possible a prominent attorney has a derelict yacht sitting abandoned in a creek? Dolitsky asks in an update video posted to his channel late last year.

A sinking ship

New Jersey has long had a problem with abandoned boats. But the yacht in Sayreville probably doesnt meet that definition.

Thats because Kortbawi owns both the vessel and the waterway in which its moldering.

A public relations firm retained by the Borough of Sayreville told Patch last month that the yacht is not abandoned and is owned by a private company.

Still, its rusting and rotting may pose an environmental risk to its surroundings, some say. Dolitsky believes it does, pointing to visible holes in the hull and flooded engine compartments.

When the water comes in and goes out, I can only imagine all the fluids that were in that yacht at some point leaked out, he said. Diesel, oil, things like that.

Kortbawi told the Home News Tribune that those claims are baseless, noting that inspections by county and municipal agencies found no oil leakage.

The main deck of the yacht in Sayreville, now covered in graffiti. Courtesy of Matt Dolitsky

The case has unfolded slowly since Dolitsky received his summons in June. A mediation session with Kortbawi preceded his probable cause hearing, but it collapsed almost immediately, he says.

I was willing to mediate  thats why I was there, he said. But if one party doesnt want to mediate, then it goes to trial.

Dolitsky has had no other contact with Kortbawi, whose motivations remain unknown.

Its not like, if they fine me, she gets the money, he said. I dont know what shes getting out of it. Maybe she wants to make an example out of me.

In New Jerseys municipal courts, anyone with firsthand knowledge of a violation can file a citizen complaint, and the court may hold a probable cause hearing to decide if the case moves forward.

Sayreville police were not involved in the charge, nor did they investigate the complaint, according to Lt. James Novak, a department spokesperson.

Its unclear how much the case is costing Sayreville taxpayers to prosecute Dolitsky.

A spokesperson for the borough did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did John Krenzel, the municipal prosecutor handling the case.

The drawn-out process has taken a toll on Dolitsky.

Who wants to have charges looming over their head? he said. Especially over something that, in my opinion, seems so petty.

Online, the case has become a minor cause celebre among fans of urban exploration videos and creators who see public waterways and abandoned structures as fair game.

Dolitsky, whose YouTube channel is his full-time career, insists he is not interested in controversy.

I care about what I do and where I go, he said. I try to leave places better than I find them. Im not out there trying to cause harm.
The judge in Paul Caneiros murder trial abruptly halted the testimony of Pauls daughter in the middle of questioning as she was about to answer a question about her dead cousin Jesses iPad.

Katie Caneiro, testifying for the defense, had just finished describing her familys close, idyllic life with her uncle Keith Caneiro, aunt Jennifer and cousins, Jesse, 11, and Sophia, 8  who her father is accused of killing on Nov. 20, 2018.

She also described her recollection of the day of the murders and finding out they were all gone. It was the hardest day of my life, she said through tears, while seated just a few feet from her father.

Moments later, she described how Jesse had shared the location of his iPad with Katie, and in February 2019, three months after the murders, she checked the iPads location.

When you checked the location, what was the location? defense attorney Monika Mastellone asked. Before Katie could answer, prosecutor Nicole Wallace objected, which led to a side bar and then a lengthy delay, and Monmouth County Judge Marc Lemieux leaving the bench.

When he returned, he dismissed the jury, and said the lawyers had until 10 p.m. to write briefs on a legal issue, and he would decide the matter Tuesday morning.

He then told Mastellone the issue was about you not telling the state what you were about to elicit.

Paul Caneiro is accused of killing his brother Keiths entire family and setting his Colts Neck mansion on fire, then setting a fire at his own Ocean Township home to make it appear as if the brothers were targeted. Prosecutors allege a financial motive, mainly that Keith found out Paul was stealing from his life insurance trust account.

Paul would benefit from Keiths $3 million policy, but only if the entire family was dead, prosecutors have alleged.

The terse ending to the day followed Katie describing Nov. 20, 2018, sometimes down-to-the-minute, from the moment she awakened to her father Paul shaking her bed and telling her the house was on fire, to being released from the Ocean Township Police Department after nearly 12 hours.

During that time, the family learned of the fire at Keith Caneiros home, and hours later, a police detective, finally confirmed that they all died  my aunt, my uncle, my two cousins.

In her testimony, Katie said she heard her father, who was ahead of her, exclaim, F***, my hand, as she rushed down the stairs that morning to flee the fire. Previously, prosecutors had called attention to an injury to Pauls hand.

Katie said the third Caneiro brother, Corey Caneiro, was living in Keith and Jennifers basement for much of 2018, but on the morning of the fire, he came to their Ocean house from his home in Fair Haven. He bought them bagels but left a few hours later.

Shed been calling her uncle, aunt, their home phone and Jesses iPad all morning, Katie testified. Nobody answered.

Corey was around at times, Katie said, but was not part of the strong bond between her father Paul and uncle Keith, who were in business together, but were together for birthdays, holidays and annual vacations.

Katie thought of Keith and Jennifer Caneiro as a second set of parents, and their families: Growing up we did everything together, and it wasnt really like an extend family, it was one big family.

Mastellone then showed several family photographs of the two Caneiro families in better times, like on vacation in Mexico. Some showed Paul doting on Jesse and Sophia, like Jesse on his lap on a riding mower, and Sophia on his shoulders in a backyard family pool.

Among her multiple calls to her aunt Jennifer on Nov. 20, 2018, Katie said she also sent her a text that day. Its still on her phone, and she just looked at it in the past few days, after seven years.

The message had changed from a delivered message to a read message. She was puzzled, cause who read it? She wasnt alive to read it, Katie said to a Mastellone question.

Katie said police investigators were not very helpful at times. They would not retrieve her asthma inhaler, and she tried to leave the police building at one point to check on the Colts Neck family members. Police prevented her from doing so.

Finally, at about 11 p.m., police brought the family outside to the front entrance.

We were scared, we wanted to know that we were safe, and they just kind of dismissed us, she said.
A family looks for a way to get past a barbed wire fence along the Rio Grande in 2023 in Eagle Pass, Texas.

The judges cited the Supreme Courts decision that allowed the government to end the same protection for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans

In yet another blow to migrant communities in the United States, a federal appeals court has allowed the Donald Trump administration to move forward with the elimination of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for more than 60,000 migrants from Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua. The ruling, issued Monday, represents a key victory for the government in its attempt to dismantle one of the oldest humanitarian programs in the U.S. immigration system.

In an unsigned decision, a panel of three judges from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction that had blocked the measure and concluded that the government is likely to be able to show that there were legitimate reasons for ending the protections. The court relied on a recent Supreme Court ruling that allowed the Trump administration to let TPS expire for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants.

We are not writing on a blank slate, the judges said, explaining that although the Supreme Courts orders did not offer detailed reasoning, they must inform the decisions of lower courts.

TPS allows people from countries affected by war, natural disasters, or other extraordinary crises to live and work temporarily in the United States without fear of deportation. According to official data, about 51,000 Hondurans, 7,000 Nepalese, and nearly 3,000 Nicaraguans are currently covered by the program.

Migrants from Honduras and Nicaragua obtained this protection after a devastating hurricane in 1999, while those from Nepal were included after the 2015 earthquake that caused massive landslides and flooding. The status was renewed for years due to the continuing instability in those countries.

A volunteer helps migrants begin the process of applying for work permits in Denver, Colorado, in 2024. Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews Gr (Denver Post via Getty Images)

The court ruling comes after a sustained offensive by the Department of Homeland Security to drastically reduce the scope of the program. In total, the Trump administration has moved to eliminate TPS for more than one million people from at least eight countries.

In response to the ruling, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem celebrated the decision on social media. TPS was never designed to be permanent, yet previous administrations have used it as a de facto amnesty program for decades, she wrote on X. Given the improved situation in each of these countries, we are wisely concluding what was intended to be a temporary designation.

However, federal trial judges had offered a very different view. In December, Judge Trina Thompson of the Northern District of California blocked the revocation of TPS, arguing that the administration did not adequately assess current conditions in the affected countries. She also noted that the decisions may have been motivated by racial bias.

Thompson wrote in a previous order that by stereotyping the TPS program and immigrants as invaders that are criminals, Secretary Noems statements perpetuate the discriminatory belief that certain immigrant populations will replace the white population.

However, the Ninth Circuit determined that Congress has limited the ability of courts to review decisions related to TPS. According to the panel, the Secretary of Homeland Security was not required to consider intermediate conditions in the countries of origin before concluding that emergencies no longer justified protection.

Two of the judges on the panel were appointed by Republican presidents  Donald Trump and George W. Bush  while the third was appointed by Democrat Bill Clinton. The latter, Judge Michael Hawkins, noted that his vote was based solely on recent Supreme Court precedents.

Migrant advocacy organizations condemned the ruling and warned of its impact. Todays decision allows mothers, fathers, students, and workers who have lived lawfully in this country for decades to be stripped of status without even acknowledging the devastation caused to them and their families or the contributions they have made to their communities, said Jessica Bansal, an attorney with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, one of the entities representing TPS beneficiaries.
Editors note: This story was shared as part of a content-sharing agreement between Mosaic.NJ.com and NJ Spotlight News. You can follow them on Facebook and Twitter (or X).

The number of students who need to learn English as a new language has grown steadily over the past two decades, and since 2010, risen sharply in New Jersey  with cities like Newark seeing the biggest surge.

New Jersey had the 6th largest increase in the country over the last decade or so.

Students who speak or understand little or no English because they use another language at home make up about 10% of Americas public school students. And while the greatest concentration remains along the southern border, they are now about 8% of New Jerseys public school population.

In districts like Newark, though, its much higher: More than a quarter of the student body. It can be a steep learning curve for schools that dont have the decades of bilingual teaching experience found in states like California.

These students are more likely to attend high poverty, urban schools, and while about 70% speak Spanish in New Jersey, the rest speak a wide variety of languages  most commonly Arabic, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Chinese and Korean.

So, districts are scrambling to adjust. To understand the challenge, NJ Spotlight News spoke with Karen Thompson, a leading researcher in the subject who spent more than a decade working with these students in California. This transcript was edited for brevity.

NJ Spotlight News: What can you tell us about this latest surge of English learners?

Karen Thompson: Nationally, between one and four or five students speak a language other than English at home, and a little over one in 10 are classified as English learners, meaning they dont score proficiently in English when they enter school. The vast majority become proficient in English. Thats why a lot more students speak a language other than English at home than are currently classified as English learners.

This is not the first time, by any means, that the U.S. has seen increases in English learners. And its a myth that all are immigrants. There are children born here, who grew up speaking English and other languages at home, that are classified as English learners for a period in school, as well as newly arrived immigrants.

NJSN: Is it best practice to teach them in their native language until they learn English?

KT: Students in high quality bilingual programs do have more positive outcomes than in English-only programs. The most common form of bilingual education in the U.S. today is dual language education, in which students learn in both their home language and English. The first year might start off 90% in the partner language  for example, Spanish  and 10% of the time in English, with the percentage of Spanish decreasing and percentage of English increasing over the grade levels.

Other models are 50-50 from the beginning. Theres a real range in the research. Its very difficult to tease out and compare models. A key Supreme Court case in 1974 established two core rights of students classified as English learners: That they have opportunities to learn English, and access to grade level content. So, all programs enrolling English learners in the U.S. must provide those two things.

NJSN: What if a district cant find enough certified bilingual teachers?

Some just use English-speaking teachers certified in teaching English as a Second Language (ESL). States really vary in the extent of training required for all teachers. Part of what I do in my teacher education role is help teachers  whether its an art teacher, a kindergarten teacher, music teacher, or high school math teacher  learn how to work with multilingual students. There are many strategies, such as using visuals.

NJSN:So, an English learner might spend part of the day just learning English, and the rest in regular classes, perhaps with a teachers assistant who speaks the same native language and can help?

KT: Districts approach this in many different ways, but yes.

NJSN: Whos doing a good job on this? You say you observed one innovative model at a middle school in Oregon, in which an ESL teacher was working together with a language arts teacher. Usually, ESL classes are held separately, right?

KT: Yes. And importantly, if the class is separate, students often have to give up a space in their schedule to take ESL. But in this integrated model, theyre getting both at the same time. The two teachers are working together to teach language and content.

As a result, students have space for more content classes and electives. Otherwise, they may feel stigmatized by having to go to a separate, standalone English language development or ESL class, especially if theyve been receiving these services for quite a few years and want to be able to be in band or science class with their friends.

NJSN: What are examples of districts using their extra state and federal dollars for these kids effectively?

KT: Bilingual teachers are perpetually a shortage area. Districts are often very eager to try to expand recruitment. Some, like Oregon, are establishing grow your own programs so they can support their graduates in becoming bilingual teachers and returning to their districts. Other states, like Michigan, used some of their federal COVID relief funds to help more teachers get ESL certification. Weve also seen an increasing number of schools hiring bilingual counselors and social workers.

NJSN: What effect does an influx of English learners have on a districts test scores? Do the scores of English learners generally take a hit in the early years, then in later years, catch up to or exceed those of their peers?

KT: Yes, although it depends on the comparison group, the language the assessment is in and whether theyre getting high quality services.

NJSN: Recent research found the presence of more English learners (ELs) does not lower the test scores of their non-EL classmates. Why might that be?

KT: Schools may get additional federal and state funding to support English learners. In addition, strategies that teachers use to help English learners can help other students, too.

NJSN: Are there particular challenges in teaching English learners under the Trump administration?

KT: Absolutely. Students and families simply do not feel safe at school, so weve seen increases in absences. Weve seen whole school systems shut down. Minneapolis closed schools because of immigration enforcement. We know marginalized students suffer the most when schools are closed. That is extremely concerning. How are you going to focus on algebra when you dont know if your mom is going to be there when you get home? Teenagers who are U.S. citizens have been caught up in immigration enforcement activities here in Oregon. We hear that happening across the country. It is really disruptive.

NJSN: Finally, any thoughts on the growing popularity of bilingual programs among affluent parents?

KT: Fostering bilingualism is wonderful for everyone. Its great to have language programs that enroll a mix of students, including native English speakers. But its important that districts locate bilingual programs in the communities where multilingual learners live. And we need to make sure theyre benefiting those students. Multilingual learners should be the focus of these programs, the ones prioritized.
U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., a New Jersey Democrat, has introduced a resolution that would ban Native American mascots from public schools.

The resolution calls for an end to unsanctioned Native American mascots and imagery in schools, Pallones office said in a statement Monday.

Native Americans should not be reduced to stereotypes and caricatures in places that should be dedicated to learning, respect, and human dignity, Pallone, D-6th Dist., said. These degrading depictions are rooted in a history of discrimination that cause real harm to Native students.

This comes shortly after President Donald Trumps administration has started investigating New York schools that complied with the states 2022 rule to phase out Native American mascots. Last month, the federal Department of Education cited Connetquot Central School District in Long Island with a violation for changing its mascot from the Thunderbirds to the T-Birds.

Pallone has said that that the Native American themed school mascots are racist.

Its absurd to see the Trump administration twist civil rights law to defend offensive imagery instead of protecting the students those laws were meant to serve, the congressman said.

Pallones resolution is endorsed by the National Congress of American Indians, the nations oldest and largest organization representing Tribal Nations and Native communities.

NCAI and its partners have long called for the elimination of unsanctioned Native themed mascots, caricatures, and symbols from educational institutions across the United States,said NCAI Executive Director Larry Wright Jr. These depictions are not tributes  they are rooted in racism and cultural appropriation that perpetuate harmful stereotypes, degrade Native peoples, and cause documented harm to Native youth."

In 2019, Maine became the first state to fully ban Native American mascots in public schools and colleges. Since then, states such as California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington have adopted laws and regulations to restrict Indigenous mascots in schools.
Hey there New Jersey! Heres your audio update highlighting the severe cold snap that has claimed at least 17 lives in New Jersey and the indictment of three people in the fatal shooting of a TikTok creator at the Jersey Shore.

Well also tell you about the evacuation of over 130 residents from two nursing homes due to water and gas leaks and a county declaring itself Pizza Capital of New Jersey.

Listen by clicking the play button above.

This audio presentation is an editorially-curated selection of stories, selected by an editor, and then summarized and read aloud by artificial intelligence. Some variations in pronunciation, tone or diction may result.

We want to know what you think! All feedback is valuable. After youve listened, take our 3-question survey here to let us know what you think.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.
If youre thinking about traveling to Niger anytime soon, take note that the country is one place you should avoid traveling.

The U.S. State Department issued its highest travel advisory for Niger, warning Americans not to travel there for any reason.

READ MORE: U.S. citizens face visa bans in four west African nations

Here is what you need to know about the travel advisory and why the U.S. government is saying you shouldnt travel there.

What does the latest travel advisory for Niger mean for you?

Item Detail Start Date Jan. 29, 2026 Whats changing Updated travel advisory urging travelers not to travel to Niger for any reason due to terrorism, crime, kidnapping, unrest and health risks. What will happen? Travelers should not travel to Niger and U.S. citizens and U.S. government employees already there are urged to leave immediately because the U.S. government can provide little support. Who will it affect? Travelers to Niger.

The agency gave a Level 4: Do Not Travel advisory to Niger due to terrorism, crime, kidnapping, unrest and health risks.

What is the highest travel advisory?

There are four levels of travel advisory, Level 1 through Level 4. When planning a vacation, you should check the current travel advisory for that destination.

Level 1 : Exercise Normal Precautions  This is the lowest level of advisory; it is advised that there is some risk in that area, and travelers should take precautions while on their visit.

Level 2 : Exercise Increased Caution  There is a heightened risk for safety and security in that area, and travelers need to take extra caution.

Level 3 : Reconsider Travel  There are serious risks to safety, and travelers are advised to reconsider their travel plans to this destination.

Level 4: Do Not Travel  This is the highest level of advisory, and it is strongly recommended not to travel to any destinations with a Level 4 advisory, due to many factors, one of which is that the U.S. government might not be able to provide travelers any assistance in the event of an emergency.

What should travelers to Niger do in light of this travel advisory?

The U.S. State Department warns travelers who decide not to heed the travel warning to do the following:
New Jerseys latest political earthquake now has an outcome  though not everyone agrees on what it all means.

After four more days of vote-counting in an unexpectedly too-close-to-call race, progressive advocate Analilia Mejia emerged Tuesday with a razor-tight and head-turning victory in the special Democratic primary election for Gov. Mikie Sherrills former U.S. House seat in the states 11th Congressional District.

Former U.S. Rep. Tom Malinowski, vying to return to Congress four years after being ousted in a different district, conceded at 10:30 a.m. as Mejia led him by fewer than 2 percentage points.

Mejia, a grassroots organizer who has been involved in Garden State activism for years and was the national political director of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign, is now expected to win Aprils special general election.

Shell run against Republican Joe Hathaway in the once-red North Jersey district, which has leaned blue since Sherrill flipped it in 2018 during Trumps first midterms and gotten more Democratic-friendly in redistricting.

Starting with almost no name recognition, Analilia Mejia took on the oligarchs, the Republican establishment and Democratic establishment  and WON," Sanders, the left-leaning icon, wrote on X.

The Democratic Partys left wing is trumpeting Mejias upset as another example of the anger coursing through the party and how progressive politics  rather than a more moderate approach  are gaining steam as a weapon to push back against President Donald Trump. It comes as Democrats are trying to grab control of Congress back in Trumps midterms this year.

Around Jersey, insiders are analyzing the results as the newst seismic shock to a political culture in the state long dominated by machine-based dynamics.

Mejia, 48, celebrated on social media with a meme of Bad Bunny  that new symbol of Donald Trump-era resistance politics  holding his head in amazement after winning his Grammy for Album of the Year earlier this month.

I think that the lesson coming out of this race is that people power can win, Mejia said Tuesday afternoon in Montclair, flanked by supporters holding union and campaign signs.

I couldve just been defined as the Bernie Bro, but instead, we did the work, argued the first-time candidate, who said her team knocked on thousands of doors and made thousands of phone calls.

Malinowskis concession statement steered from any larger argument about a shifting political universe here or abroad.

He blamed something else: a flood of attack ads against him paid for by about $2 million from the American Israel Public Affairs Committees super PAC. The group, angry the former lawmaker said he wouldnt unconditionally give aid to Israel, criticized him over stock trades and a vote he took regarding funding for ICE.

Analilia deserves unequivocal praise and credit for running a positive campaign and for inspiring so many voters on Election Day, Malinowski said. But the outcome of this race cannot be understood without also taking into account the massive flood of dark money that AIPAC spent on dishonest ads during the last three weeks.

Even though Malinowski was not a clear-cut establishment Democrat, Mejia certainly is not. Her platform would qualify her for entry into The Squad  the nickname given to a group of congressional progressives.

And two other candidates in the 11-person primary, former Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way and Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill, finished far behind in third and fourth despite having organizational support in the largely suburban district. Malinowski, Way, and Gill also had more money behind them.

The establishment got crushed, one Democratic insider told NJ.com. I think it speaks volumes to what Democrats are looking for.

Its not just: Oh, its the progressives. The voters have had enough. She stands for American values. She knows how to get people out. She knows how to organize.

Weve got to wake up to that. Its here. It aint going away.

Adam Green, a Jersey native who co-founded the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which backed Mejia, said the win is a table-setter for the entire 2026 election year, making clear that voters want the Democratic Party to fight with backbone against powerful interests.

This victory signals to voters in countless upcoming primaries that its okay to be inspired again, that being inspired and winning are the same, Green added.

Still, centrist Democrats expressed dismay about AIPACs ads, which many political observers played a significant part of a race decided by just a few hundred votes. They ended up backfiring  designed to stunt Malinowski against more moderate rivals but ironically boosting Mejia, a more left-leaning contender who is even more critical of Israel.

I wish I could say today that this effort, which was meant to intimidate Democrats across the country, failed in NJ-11. But it did not, Malinowski said. I met several voters in the final days of the campaign who had seen the ads and asked me, sincerely: Are you MAGA? Are you for ICE?

Dan Cassino, a pollster at Fairleigh Dickinson University, noted those interactions mirror conversations Ive had with voters in the district, who were misled by these ads into thinking that Malinowski wasnt in line with them on important issues.

Mejia ran a good campaign, with an especially strong ground game, and Malinowski acknowledges that, but hes also being very clear that his real problem here wasnt Mejia, Cassino said.

Former state Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, who praised Mejia for her advocacy, said she was extremely disappointed with AIPACs role. But Weinberg, a Democrat who said she supports Israels right to exist and has helped pass pro-Israel bills in the state Legislature, admitted that wasnt the only reason Mejia won.

I think its the electorate, she said. Its not progressives or conservatives or things like that. I think its just the voters are tired of the same old, and they want new, articulate voices, and I think Analillia represented, represents that and represented that in this election.

Even when I talk to my friends and neighbors here who are all old people like me, they articulate the same thing. They just want new voices out there who are going to fight to keep our democracy.

Mejia also criticized AIPACs ads, saying they were horrendous and misleading. But she added: What they didnt do is win this for us. How we won it was people power.

Democratic insiders said there was even more at play in this odd primary, which lasted only a few months, was held on a random Thursday in winter and featured lots of candidates, with nobody getting more than 30% of the vote.

Some noted Mejia was always seen as a real player in the race, armed with big-name endorsements from Sanders (who appeared at a rally for her) and other progressive politicians, including U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Gill, who had the support of the vaunted Essex County Democratic Party, said he wasnt shocked Mejia won.

All along, there so many variables in this primary, Gill told NJ.com.

Another Dem operative insisted this wasnt the earthquake some are making it out to be. AIPACs spending to tear down Tom created the opportunity and Analilias campaign took advantage. Its both.

Jeff Tittel, a longtime environmental advocate, said one constant was the establishment, AIPAC, and progressives all didnt want Malinowski.

I dont know if progressives were anti-him, but they had their own candidate in Analilia, Tittel said.

Others say in a primary dominated by anti-Trump sentiment, Mejia was seen as the most believably anti-Trump of the bunch.

People will say that this district is not the kind of district in which a progressive or a lefty could win. But its not about left, right, Mejia told reporters. Its about right and wrong.

Theres no denying the establishment has been shaken in Jersey. It started two years ago when then-U.S. Rep. Andy Kim ran a rage-against-the-machine campaign to secure the Democratic nomination over then First Lady Tammy Murphy in the scrap to succeed indicted Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez.

Kim  who ultimately won Menendezs seat  not only ignited progressives but successfully sued to take down the county line, a unique but controversial system in which party-backed candidates received choice placement on primary ballots. Advocates such as Mejia fought for years to kill the setup, saying it stifled competitive primaries and kept party bosses in power.

With the line gone, establishment candidates are less likely to be heavy favorites and primaries are getting more crowded with contenders who now feel the odds arent stacked as high as before.

One Republican insider said they werent surprised Mejia won because more extreme candidates tend to win primaries in both parties, especially of late.

Thats whos coming out: Theres anti-establishment anger at the left right now and also on the right, the source said.

Hathaway, Mejias Republican challenger, is already running an ad that paints the new Democratic nominee as way too left for the district.

And there has been talk that more moderate candidates  including Way  might challenge Mejia in the next Democratic primary: in June, for the seats full two-year term.

But Malinowski on Tuesday endorsed Mejia in the April special general election and said he would oppose any candidate AIPAC gets behind in June.

A spokesperson for AIPACs fundraising group said last week the outcome in NJ-11 was an anticipated possibility, and our focus remains on who will serve the next full term in Congress, with a goal of ensuring pro-Israel candidates are elected.

Several other top Democrats quickly rallied behind Mejia on Tuesday, saying theyd support her in both April and June. That includes state party chairman LeRoy Jones, several House members, Kim, and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, who said the district deserves a representative who will stand up against the harm Trump and Republicans are doing to our state.

Kim, who backed Malinowski in this primary, said Mejia built an incredible coalition.

NJ politics is clearly in a new era where the voters get to decide instead of having the choice made for them, Kim wrote on X Tuesday. Lets keep fighting against machine politics and dark money and get Analilia Mejia into Congress. There is so much at stake in our country.

Sherrill, who did not take sides in the primary, said shes very proud to endorse Mejia, noting shes known her for years.

Ive seen her dedication to expanding opportunity and fighting for working people, the new governor said in a statement. New Jerseys 11th District has gone from a Trump district to once again showing the country that a commitment to working families and our Democratic values is a winning playbook.

One Democrat insider said its hard to know the lessons of Mejias win.

But the source added: If youre a Democrat right now and thinking you might run for office, you should pull the trigger.
President Donald Trump is facing some setbacks with his presidency, according to a new poll from Rasmussen Reports.

The poll from the Republican-friendly pollster, released Monday, found that 58% of likely U.S. voters do not believe they are living in a golden age like Trump pledged when he returned to the White House. Only 27% believe the era has come, while 15% remain unsure, according to its findings.

According to the poll, Trump was also dealt a blow when pitted against his predecessor, former President Joe Biden. Per Newsweek, 48% of Americans believe Biden did a better job as president than Trump, who was favored by 40%.

The polls revelation comes as a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll, out last week, showed that 51% of voters said Trump is doing a worse job leading the country than his predecessor. Forty-nine percent said that Trump was doing a better job than Biden, which is down from the 53% who said the same in December, the previous poll found.

If an election were held TODAY between Trump and Biden, Biden would win, Mark Mitchell, the head pollster at Rasmussen Reports, posted on X on Tuesday, adding that there are a million valid arguments you can make that explain why that should not be the case.

In a later post, Mitchell said that likely voters under the age of 50 pick Biden over Trump by 18 percentage points.

They probably dont all mean that, but its a stunning vote of declining confidence, nonetheless, he added.

Rasmussens latest polling results quickly took off on social media.

This is something coming from the normally pro-Trump Rasmussen, Jeff Dufour, the National Journals editor in chief, wrote.

Political strategist Chris D. Jackson called Trumps comparison to Biden a brutal number.

Overall, according to Rasmussens daily presidential approval rating tracker, 43% of likely voters approve of Trumps job performance as of Tuesday, while 56% disapprove.

The new poll, conducted Feb. 2-4 among 1,094 respondents, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
President Donald Trumps base is absolutely collapsing roughly one year into his second term in office, according to CNN data expert Harry Enten.

Enten said on Monday that there has been a 23-point shift in non-college voters who voted for Trump in the 2024 election. He explained that in 2024, Trump had a 14-point advantage over then-Vice President Kamala Harris among voters with no college degrees. Now, he has a negative 9-point net approval rating among those voters, according to Entens polling data.

If you know anything about Donald Trump, you know that he built his two presidential victories on winning voters without a college degree, he said. Well, Donald Trumps base with non-college voters is absolutely collapsing.

He explained that Trump is underwater among those without a college degree.

He is underwater by nine points. Thats a 23-point switcheroo with his base of non-college voters. He is absolutely collapsing with the group of voters that helped put him into the White House, Enten added.

Enten explained that non-college voters may be splitting from Trumps Republican Party ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. He said that in the 2024 election, Republicans won non-college voters by 13 points. Now, Republicans just have a 4-point advantage over Democrats among these voters.

Of course, a four-point lead among non-college voters is not anywhere close to being good enough because Democrats are dominating among voters with a college degree, up by 20 points. At this point, the Democratic base with college voters is rising, and the Republican base with non-college voters is collapsing, Enten said.

He suggested that Trumps failure to increase manufacturing jobs has hurt him with this voting group.

One of the reasons why Donald Trump has been able to bring non-college voters into the Republican ranks is because he said, hey, Im going to bring back those jobs, those manufacturing jobs that were lost to free trade, right? Bringing those tariffs. Restrict those jobs from moving overseas, Enten said.

But theres just a bit of a problem going on here. How about those manufacturing jobs? In December of 2025, compared to the beginning of the Donald Trump presidency, the manufacturing jobs have gone adios, amigos, see you later. Theyve been going away, he said, adding that manufacturing jobs are down by 63,000 since January 2025.

So, what were dealing with is a Donald Trump message that is not actually meeting the reality. And that is why non-college voters have been going away from the president of the United States and away from Republicans as well, Enten concluded.
Former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino is heading back to Fox News, sparking fury among some conservatives on social media.

Bongino, who returned to private life in early January after serving in the FBI for nine months, was announced as a network contributor on Hannity late Monday as the former Secret Service agent discussed the search for Nancy Guthrie after it entered its second week.

Bongino had recently restarted the The Dan Bongino Show on Rumble earlier this month  a right-wing podcast that initially propelled him to prominence among President Donald Trumps base.

Bonginos official return to the TV airwaves was met with outrage from a handful of commentators and social media users on X.

We see you Dan, Mark Mitchell, of polling company Rasmussen Reports, wrote. You promised to restore trust, failed, then attacked the people who called you out for failing.

Trisha Hope, a Texas Republican and self-described Jan. 6 activist, posted that of course Bongino is returning to Fox News.

His podcast is toast, Hope continued. Dan is now done.

Conservative activist Brandon Straka, who was pardoned by Trump following Jan. 6, added that Nothing is real. Everything is fake.

Seems to me that Fox News is a lucrative side hustle, conservative influencer Brian Eastwood said. And requires no accountability for the bulls--- you say live on recorded television.

Kyle Seraphin, a conservative podcaster and former FBI agent, also weighed in: Dan Bongino went to the FBI and immediately said Epstein killed himself and had no clients. Now, Dan Bongino was hired by Fox again. So, what are your questions?Meanwhile, a handful of others praised the move, including Leo Terrell, senior counsel in the civil rights division for the Department of Justice, who called it a great decision.

Bongino previously joined Fox News as a contributor in 2019 before becoming the host of Unfiltered with Dan Bongino in 2021. He left the network in 2023, citing difficulties in reaching a new contract agreement.

In his first episode back on his show, Bongino addressed his brief tenure at the agency and tore into doomers, railing against a group he said has been critical of the administration but has not formally acted to create change.

You sat in the front row with your popcorn, ankle-biting, throwing this popcorn at the ring at two guys in there sparring away, fighting for this country, while you did sh--! Bongino said. You just talked about it. So you didnt do anything.

Now, Im back on the air, he added. Im not going to take on every single thing in one day, on one show. But Im telling you right now: youre bullsh--, Im done with it.

During the episode, Bongino also interviewed Trump, who had said he was very torn over whether Bongino would be a better fit for him as a leader in the FBI or a podcaster.

I think, maybe, Id rather have you where you are, Trump said. Very few people can do what you do, and your voice is a very important one.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Tuesday confirmed that he took his family to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epsteins private Caribbean island in 2012.

Lutnick acknowledged the trip in testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee. The secretary said his wife, four children and nannies were with him on Little Saint James, also known as Epstein Island, along with another couple and their children.

I did have lunch with him (Epstein) as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation, Lutnick said. And we had lunch on the island. That is true. For an hour.

And we left with all of my children. And with my nannies and my wife all together. We were on family vacation.

Lutnick said he could not recall why we did it and denied that there was anything untoward about that trip.

Trumps commerce secretary has faced mounting criticism for his ties to Epstein, the accused sex trafficker who died by suicide while being held in New York Citys Metropolitan Correctional Center in 2019.

Epstein was convicted by federal prosecutors in 2008 on one count of soliciting prostitution and one count of soliciting prostitution from a minor.

The following year, former Mar-a-Lago spa attendant Virginia Roberts Giuffre filed a lawsuit claiming Epstein and accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell arranged for her to have sexual encounters with royalty, politicians, academicians, businessmen and others.

Emails, conversations and other documents now publicly available in the FBIs Epstein Library revealed that Lutnick remained in contact with Epstein for years even after the disgraced financiers federal conviction.

Documents released by the Justice Department on Jan. 30 included communications between Lutnick and Epstein that spanned at least 13 years, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

A batch of emails, some partially redacted, showed that Lutnick and Epstein arranged at least four meetings between 2011 and 2012. In 2013, Epstein sent an email seeking to arrange a meeting with one of Lutnicks nannies.

Those documents contradicted Lutnicks claim that he and his wife vowed never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again after visiting Epsteins townhouse in 2005.

The files show that you had interactions with Epstein over the next 13 years, including long after he was convicted in 2008 of soliciting the prostitution of a minor, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said to Lutnick during Tuesdays hearing.

Van Hollen later asked Lutnick if he had seen anything inappropriate during that 2012 visit to Epsteins private island.

The only thing I saw ... was staff who worked for Mr. Epstein on that island, Lutnick responded.

You made a very big point of saying you sensed that this was a bad person in 2005, Van Hollen said. And of course in 2008 he was convicted of soliciting prostitution of a minor. And yet you went and had this trip and other interactions.

Ahead of Tuesdays testimony, the White House on Monday pushed back against criticism of Lutnick.

In a statement, spokesman Kush Desai said President Trump had assembled the best and most transformative Cabinet in modern history.

The entire Trump administration, including Secretary Lutnick and the Department of Commerce, remains focused on delivering for the American people, Desai said.
President Donald Trump is set to be awarded the Washington Coal Clubs inaugural Undisputed Champion of Coal title for his controversial efforts to roll back federal greenhouse-gas regulations.

The Wall Street Journal on Monday reported that Trump will receive the non-profit coal advocacy clubs award as his administration prepares to announce funding for five coal-fired power plants. Energy Secretary Chris Wright will also announce a new executive order directing the Defense Department to buy electricity from coal plants.

Those moves come as the Trump administration prepares to rollback Obama-era clean energy regulations based on an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) endangerment finding from 2009.

That report found that six greenhouse gases from power plants and new motor vehicles and new motor vehicle engines contributed to pollution that threatens public health and welfare.

The EPA this week will issue a final rule rescinding the EPAs endangerment finding.

The Trump administrations new guidelines would eliminate federal requirements for automakers and other regulated industries to measure and report greenhouse-gas emissions from motor vehicles. Companies would also no longer need to certify or comply with emission standards.

This amounts to the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin told the Wall Street Journal.

Trump, who refers to climate change as a hoax and con job, has long sought to block or impede green energy projects while looking to bolster the coal industry.

During his first day back in office last year, Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, an international treaty aimed at mitigating the effects of climate change driven in part by industrial emissions.

Trumps decisions make no sense from either the perspective of environmental protection or the cost of energy, Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard University science historian and professor of earth and planetary sciences, said in an interview with The Guardian..

By blocking wind projects that are just about ready to go online, and reviving dangerous and uneconomic coal-powered plants, this administration is raising both the direct costs of energy for the American people, and the indirect costs we suffer through polluted air and climate damage.

Any move that effectively repeals the EPA regulations would almost certainly face legal challenges, with environmental groups characterizing the shift as the most sweeping assault in U.S. history on federal efforts to combat climate change.

Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, issued a scathing statement criticizing the Trump administrations forthcoming announcement.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has the responsibility and authority to limit climate pollution, and the Endangerment Finding has been essential to the progress weve all benefited from ever since, Krupp said.

The unlawful, year-long effort by the political leadership at EPA rejects the overwhelming evidence that climate pollution threatens everyones health and safety, he added.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
In December 2023, Nydia Velazquez, a Democratic congresswoman representing New Yorks 7th District, introduced a resolution in the Capitol demanding that the State Department abandon the Monroe Doctrine, inaugurated exactly two centuries earlier by a speech by the fifth U.S. president, James Monroe, which unilaterally placed Latin America within the sphere of influence of its northern neighbor. This Tuesday, Velazquez is reintroducing the resolution in the House of Representatives, given that this framework for Washingtons relationship with the continent has not only not been abandoned, but, under the presidency of Donald Trump and with Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, it has returned with a force unseen in decades.

The resolution, which EL PAIS has obtained, proposes an alternativea New Good Neighbor policy, designed to foster improved relations and deepen more effective cooperation with all the countries of the Western Hemisphereto replace the Monroe Doctrine. This doctrine arose from the United States opposition to European powers interference in countries that were undergoing a process of emancipation, but in practice it marked the beginning of decades of invasions, military interventions, and CIA-orchestrated overthrows of legitimate governments.

Trumps return to the White House revived it last year and added a corollary to turn it into the Don-roe doctrine.

Velazquezs proposalco-sponsored by, among others, the Democratic Representatives Delia Ramirez (Illinois), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York), Greg Casar (Texas), Rashida Tlaib (Michigan), Adelita Grijalva (Arizona), Pramila Jayapal (Washington), and Ilhan Omar (Minnesota)adds the most recent events to its review of some of the darkest points in U.S. foreign policy: From the banana wars of the early 20th century to the coup against Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, the embargo against Cuba, the overthrows of Salvador Allende in Chile and Joao Goulart in Brazil, support for Operation Condor between 1975 and 1980, the death squads in El Salvador, the Contras in Nicaragua, the invasion of Grenada, the financing of the 1991 coup in Haiti, and the IMFs austerity policies.

Nicolas Maduro being transferred to a New York court on January 5. ADAM GRAY (REUTERS)

To that list of accusations, the text adds several more, all referencing Trump. Included are the U.S. presidents interference in the Honduran elections, threatening to withdraw economic support if voters did not choose the right-wing candidate, Nasry Asfura; the pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who had served 45 years in prison for drug trafficking, and threats to seize control of the Panama Canal; and the pressure exerted on Brazil, through tariffs and intimidation of Supreme Court justices, to benefit the far-right politician Jair Bolsonaro.

There is also the illegal deportation of hundreds of people to Nayib Bukeles prison in El Salvador; the campaign of extrajudicial executions of alleged drug traffickers in Caribbean waters; and the unauthorized military attack to arrest Venezuelan autocrat Nicolas Maduro and his current custody in a New York jail, where he awaits trial for narcoterrorism.

New corollary

The resolution also alludes to the Trump corollary, which was defined in the National Security Strategy document, published last December, as American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, access to key geographies throughout the region, and the use of the American military presence in the hemisphere to establish or expand access to strategically important locations.

The text, which is being introduced on Tuesday and has an uncertain future in the Republican-controlled House, proposes ending all unilateral economic sanctions, including the embargo on Cuba; strengthening the role of Congress, sidelined after Trumps return to power, in foreign policy; declassifying all U.S. government files related to coups; and collaborating with Latin American countries on a profound reform of the Organization of American States (OAS).

This administrations aggressive stance toward Latin America makes this resolution crucial, Velazquez explained to EL PAIS. The Donroe Doctrine is really just a more grotesque version of the same policy that has failed us for over two centuries. The United States and Latin America face shared challenges in drug trafficking, migration, and climate change. We can only solve them through genuine partnership, not coercion.

Velazquez, who is of Puerto Rican descent, is one of the congressmembers most involved in Latin American affairs on Capitol Hill. Her initiative follows previous attempts to overcome the Monroe Doctrine, to which President Teddy Roosevelt added his own corollary in 1904, according to which Washington reserved the right to intervene in the internal affairs of any country guilty of chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society.

In 2013, under the Obama administration, Secretary of State John Kerry declared that era over in a speech before the OAS. Six years later, John Bolton, National Security Advisor during Donald Trumps first presidency, proudly proclaimed that the doctrine was alive and well.

Senator Bernie Sanders lamented in an interview with EL PAIS published last weekend that for many years, the United States dominated Latin America [Washington] overthrew one government after another. That is not what the American people want. The countries of Latin America have the right to determine their own futures in partnership with the United States, not dominated by the U.S. We will do everything we can to resist the United States government using its power to determine governance in Latin America, Sanders stated.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition
A race that became an unexpected election-night cliffhanger ultimately broke Analilia Mejias way Tuesday morning.

The progressive activist won the special Democratic primary in New Jerseys 11th Congressional District, edging out former Rep. Tom Malinowski by a razor-thin margin.

Malinowski conceded Tuesday in a statement in which he gave Mejia unequivocal credit for running a positive campaign and for inspiring so many voters on Election Day.

The victory makes Mejia the Democratic nominee to fill the U.S. House seat Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill gave up after she was elected last fall.

Mejia will now be the favorite heading into the special general election on April 16 against Joe Hathaway, who ran unopposed in the Republican primary. The once-red but largely suburban district now leans blue.

Who is Analilia Mejia?

On her campaign website, Mejia, 39, calls herself a mom, grassroots organizer, and nationally recognized advocate for working families.

The Glen Ridge resident is best known in state political circles as the longtime executive director of the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, where from 2013 to 2019 she built a name for herself on issues like paid sick leave and a $15 minimum wage.

In 2020, Mejia served as political director on U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, and later worked as deputy director of the womens bureau in the U.S. Department of Labor during the Biden era.

This race marks her first run for elected office.

Where does she come from?

Mejia grew up in Elizabeth, the daughter of Colombian and Dominican immigrants. Her mother, a seamstress, was undocumented and worked multiple jobs while struggling to feed her family.

It wasnt until my mother got a good union job that we became less food unstable, Mejia told NJ Spotlight News.

She attended Rutgers University, earning two masters degrees: one in public affairs and politics and another in labor and public relations.

She worked as a community and labor organizer in Chicago and Washington, D.C., before returning to New Jersey in 2011.

What does she stand for?

Mejia is firmly aligned with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and has been called a Zohran Mamdani-style candidate.

Her priorities include:

Expanding labor protections and strengthening unions

Childcare reform

Universal health care coverage

A nationwide $25 minimum wage

Affordable housing and tenant protections

Public investment in education and student loan forgiveness

Regulation of AI data centers and Big Tech companies

She has also called for the total abolition of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a progressive rallying cry that has snowballed into an increasingly mainstream sentiment in recent weeks.

When I started this race, I was the only one saying abolish ICE, Mejia told Bloomberg News. I believe voters will capture that.

They need someone that is both authentic and that isnt now repeating what theyve heard from others, but rather being responsive on day one.

Who backed her?

Mejia was endorsed by Sanders, who joined her last month for a campaign rally in Wayne.

If you send weak sauce to Congress, you will get weak sauce back, Mejia said at the event.

Her candidacy was also backed by U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka.

She was also supported by the New Jersey Working Families Party and several labor unions.

How did she win?

The 11th District is a suburban and now reliably Democratic swath of North Jersey that encompasses parts of Essex, Morris, and Passaic counties.

It attracted a crowded field of 11 Democratic candidates, with Malinowski initially seen as the front-runner.

But an advertising blitz criticizing Malinowski for his stance on immigration proved a blow to his campaigns momentum.

Much of that advertising  some $2.2 million, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission  was paid for by a super PAC linked to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, an organization once allied with Malinowski.

There are several candidates in this race far more pro-Israel than Tom Malinowski, a spokesperson for the PAC explained to The Intercept.

That strategy backfired, as day-of votes swung instead towards Mejia  decidedly not a pro-Israel candidate  and tipped her into a narrow lead by Thursday night.

Why does her win matter?

Mejias victory is be another sign of how activists and organizers are increasingly moving from advocacy roles into elected office in New Jersey.

It also cements Working Familiesaligned progressives as a durable force in state politics, not just as insurgents in primaries but as legislators with real power.

In a Congress still dominated by longtime incumbents and cautious dealmakers, Mejia would arrive with a different kind of reputation.

She might even be invited to join The Squad.
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Fans of Tiny Chef know his magic isnt just in the meals; rather, its in the way he makes cooking feel like pure delight.

As part of a cheerful new miniseries collaboration, the stopmotion vegan epicurean has joined forces with IKEAs Swedish Kitchen team to dream up delicious and creative new recipes  like falafel balls, a plant-rich spin on the retailers iconic Swedish Meatballs.

Tiny Chef brings charisma, leadership and utterly adorable dweam come twue energy, and IKEA brings the tools  like Cheffys favorite IKEA 365+ 11-inch Stainless Steel Frying Pan, which is top-rated for its durability, even heat and everyday versatility, plus its no-brainer $30 price point.

IKEA 365+ 11" Stainless Steel Frying Pan $30 The very pan Tiny Chef uses (and trusts) to give his falafel balls that perfect, golden-brown crisp. Buy now at IKEA

If you want Tiny Cheflevel falafel at home, this is the pan that sets you up for success. The IKEA 365+ 11-inch stainless steel frying pan is designed to be an everyday workhorse  steady, dependable, and genuinely versatile.

Its stainlesssteel body holds heat evenly and consistently, which is exactly what you need to get that crisp, even browning on each side of your falafel balls. Inside, a durable, utensilfriendly coating means you can reach for metal spatulas without worrying about scratches, and the gently rounded sides make turning, stirring and shaping easier than youd expect from stainless steel cookware.

Because the entire pan is metal, it transitions seamlessly from stove to oven, and it works on every type of cooktop, including induction. Whether youre panfrying, searing, reheating or finishing a recipe in the oven, its the kind of piece that quietly earns a spot in your daily rotation.

Tiny Chef believes great food brings people together. IKEA believes the tools to make it should be accessible to everyone. And together, theyre serving up joy, creativity and flavor.

To outfit a kitchen thats smart and functional (while still being affordable), Tiny Chef reaches for the:
If you purchase a product through a link on our site, we may receive compensation.

Now, out of Nashville, American Idol is back!

The third episode of season 24 is airing on Monday, Feb. 9 at 8 p.m. You can watch live as it airs on DirecTV (free trial) or Fubo TV (free trial).

It will be available the next day on Disney+ and Hulu (which you can bundle with HBO Max for just $19.99).

Luke Bryan, Lionel Richie, and Carrie Underwood are returning once again as the shows iconic panel of judges, while Ryan Seacrest continues his uninterrupted run as the shows host.

American Idol is one of the most popular American singing competition series in the history of broadcast television. While the show briefly went on hiatus in 2016, it has run for 9 successful, consecutive seasons since then.

DirecTV Save on your first month of DirecTV Stream, and enjoy a free trial. Buy Now

Heres a look at the audition of a contestant who had previously had to bow out of a season of the series, courtesy of the official American Idol YouTube channel:

Heres the information youll need to watch a free live stream of American Idol online without cable.

When is American Idol in 2026 on?

The series airs on Monday, Feb. 9 at 8 p.m. on ABC, and will likely conclude around 10 p.m. It will be followed by local programming thereafter.

How to watch American Idol online on-demand

If you want to record American Idol or want to watch other ABC content online as it becomes available, check out DirecTV (free trial) or Fubo TV (free trial).

Sling is also a solid choice, and while it does not offer a free trial right now, it offers a huge amount of customization.

Streaming Service Cost Free Trial? DIRECTV $74.99 Yes Fubo TV $84.99 Yes Sling TV $45-$60 No

If youre not in the USA, you can still use a VPN to sign up for any one of these services and set your location to a US server.

Among the safest choices to use are ExpressVPN or NordVPN. Both services offer massive discounts, along with a 100% money-back guarantee within the first 30 days.
A luxury car dealership accused of hiding prices and violating vehicle inspection regulations has been ordered to pay a fine of more than $800,000 by the state of New Jersey.

BM Motorcars was issued a judgement for $842,776.24 on Jan. 20, the state Attorney Generals Office said in a statement on Monday.

The dealership advertises multiple luxury vehicle makes on its website, including Maserati, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche. It was previously located in Rahway, but now operates from a new location in the neighboring city of Linden.

State investigators allege that the dealer spent about a decade defrauding customers by failing to disclose critical information about the cars to buyers and withholding pricing details on advertisements. The business also violated the Consumer Fraud Act and a 2018 consent order with the Division of Consumer Affairs, authorities said.

Access to a safe and affordable vehicle is not a luxury  it is a necessity for New Jersey families. Consumers have the right to clear, truthful information when navigating the expensive and complex process of buying a car, Acting Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said. We will always stand up for our consumers when corporations seek to defraud them and hide the ball on the products they sell.

A civil complaint was filed against the business after investigators found 511 violations in a two-month period. The state alleged that the dealer spent years hiding the total prices of cars, having customers sign illegal vehicle inspection waivers and failing to provide copies of signed odometer disclosure statements.

BM Motorcars was also accused of failing to provide required disclosures of gray market vehicles, cars that are imported without authorization and may not meet the U.S. safety and emissions standards. The gray market vehicle sales were the subject of the 2018 consent order, which resulted in a fine of $55,899. The Attorney Generals Office said that after 2018, the dealership continued with these risky vehicle sales.

The fine includes a civil penalty for $793,500 and a reimbursement to the state for $49,276.24, which covers legal and investigative costs.

The legal action also prohibits BM Motorcars from any engaging in any more deceptive acts and requires the business to comply with all state and federal laws and regulations.

The attorney for the dealership, Michael Gilberti, told NJ.com that a motion has been filed for reconsideration with the court. The motion states that the business cannot pay the hefty fines and that the court erred in finding evidence of harm to the public.

The company has previously contested the allegations and the courts findings to date, Gilberti added.

The motion is scheduled for a court hearing on Feb. 27.
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Choke Hole has since become a touch more refined, but its muscular morality plays are still storytelling in the most ridiculous form possible, according to impresario Ellery Neon, who may be better known to New Orleans readers as the renowned graffiti artist Hugo Gyrl. The show has a queer-identity subtext, Neon said, but basically, its a pastiche of Americana.

Since its start, Choke Hole has gone global, with performances in Berlin, Hamburg, Las Vegas and New York. Choke Hole was recently included in a New York Times feature on the rise of wrestling presented as performance art.

Neon, who now lives in New York, said the theme of the Joy Theater performances is Choke Hole TV, in which the audience will find themselves behind the scenes at a television show in the world of fantasy. Neon assures potential attendees that were not just taking up space; were stinking up that space, too.
Work has begun to install a new full fibre broadband network in Ilfracombe, with engineers starting construction across the town.

Openreach said the upgrade is expected to reach the majority of homes and businesses, giving access to faster and more reliable broadband connections.

Full fibre technology uses fibre optic cables all the way to properties, rather than part-copper lines, and is designed to provide more consistent speeds and fewer faults.

The network is capable of supporting gigabit-capable broadband, which can handle multiple devices and higher data demands.

Residents may notice increased engineering activity while work is carried out.

Openreach said it will use existing underground ducts and telegraph poles where possible to limit disruption, but new poles or roadworks may be required in some areas to ensure properties can be included in the upgrade.

The Ilfracombe build forms part of Openreachs wider national programme to upgrade broadband infrastructure across the UK.

The company said it is currently connecting an average of around 85,000 new premises each week, the equivalent of rolling out full fibre to a large town every few days.

Openreach said the pace of work is aimed at reaching up to five million more homes and businesses over a 12-month period to March 2026.

Its longer-term target is to make full fibre broadband available to up to 25 million premises by the end of 2026, with the potential to extend this to around 30 million by the end of the decade, subject to investment conditions.

Martin Williams, Openreach partnership director, said the Ilfracombe project was a major infrastructure upgrade and acknowledged there would be some short-term disruption while work is carried out.

He said: Were bringing full fibre broadband to Ilfracombe and letting local people know what to expect.This is a major infrastructure upgrade, so there will be more engineering teams, equipment and vans around town.

He said efforts were being made to keep disruption to a minimum and that the company was also focused on reducing its environmental impact as part of its carbon reduction strategy.

Residents and businesses can register for updates and check whether their address is included in the rollout using Openreachs online postcode checker as the build progresses.
Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks has reported higher forward bookings for 2025 and 2026, with its latest figures showing reservations up 6 per cent yearonyear and 10 per cent ahead for next year.

The operator is completing a 10 million upgrade of its parks, including new caravans and expanded leisure facilities.

The boost at one of North Devons largest holiday park operators reflects a complex picture for the UK tourism and hospitality sector, which continues to be shaped by postpandemic trends, costofliving pressures and shifting travel patterns.

The growth at the North Devon holiday operator comes at a time when broader data suggests mixed performance for the UK domestic tourism sector.

A New Economics Foundation (NEF) analysis published on 9 February 2026 shows that spending on seaside, countryside and smalltown staycations has fallen sharply in recent years, with a decline of around 1.8 billion over the year to September 2025 and nearly 65 million fewer overnight nights since 2022.

The thinktanks figures are drawn from the Great Britain Tourism Survey, which is designated as official statistics.

According to the House of Commons Library, British residents made 105.6 million overnight visits within Great Britain in 2024, spending 32.9 billion on these trips and accounting for 308 million nights away from home.

While these figures underline the enduring scale of domestic tourism, the NEF analysis suggests the staycation boom seen after the pandemic has softened, even in strongly seasonal regions like the South West.

Tourism is a significant part of Devons economy, underlining the stakes for local businesses if broader trends persist.

According to Visit Devon, the countys visitor economy generates around 2.3 billion in annual spend and supports more than 50,900 jobs, equivalent to roughly 9 per cent of all employment.

These figures include both domestic and international visitors and reflect around 23.4 million staying visitor nights and 23.9 million day visits each year, which together contribute nearly 944 million in dayvisitor spending.

A strategic partnership launched in April 2024, the Devon & Partners Local Visitor Economy Partnership, aims to build on this foundation by encouraging highervalue overnight stays and supporting sustainable growth across the countys wideranging attractions, from two National Parks to the UKs first National Marine Park.

At a more local level, North Devon and Torridge attract an estimated over 4.5 million visitors annually, contributing more than 350 million to the local economy, as previously reported in the North Devon Gazette.

These visitors are drawn by the areas coastline, designated as a World Surf Reserve, national parks and outdoor activity opportunities.

Analysts say that while domestic tourism remains significant, many households are adjusting behaviour due to rising accommodation, travel and household costs, with implications for seaside destinations that rely on discretionary spending.

Despite the continued importance of tourism to Devon, analysts say longerterm structural challenges are shaping visitor behaviour across the UK.

NEF attributes part of the spending decline to rising costs and international travel competition; even in 2025, Britains hottest and sunniest on record, seaside tourism spend dropped by 28 per cent significantly compared with 2022.

Other research points to a broader slide in domestic tourism spending. Analysis from April 2025 found spending on domestic holidays in Britain fell by more than onefifth between 2022 and 2024, with coastal regions such as the South West among the hardest hit.

Tourism industry bodies have also highlighted persistent headwinds including costofliving pressures, higher accommodation and travel costs, and uncertainties over future policy support for the sector.

While sectorwide figures present a mixed picture, Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks bookings suggest that targeted investment and upgraded facilities can still attract demand, particularly for families and groups seeking domestic breaks.

The operators recent upgrades include new caravans with enhanced interiors and amenities, as well as expanded leisure offerings.

Demand for UK coastal holidays remains strong, said the parks sales and marketing director, pointing to rising forward bookings as evidence of continued interest in staycations.

However, industry analysts caution that increasing demand for premium domestic breaks may not counter wider declines in overall overnight tourism spend unless broader economic conditions ease and travel patterns stabilise.

For local economies that depend heavily on visitor spending, from accommodation and hospitality to retail and transport, the coming years will be critical in determining whether the domestic tourism sector can return to sustained growth, or whether deeper structural changes are reshaping the way Britons holiday.
BAM UK & Ireland has been appointed to construct new onsite staff and student accommodation at North Devon District Hospital in Barnstaple, in a move aimed at tackling longstanding workforce recruitment and retention challenges at one of Englands most remote acute mainland hospitals.

The 18.6 million contract, awarded by Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, will deliver 120 ensuite bedrooms and four family apartments for clinical staff.

The development aims to ease long commutes and housing pressures that have made recruiting and retaining healthcare professionals in North Devon difficult.

Residents will share communal kitchen, living and dining spaces, and benefit from a range of amenities designed to support staff wellbeing.

The scheme is backed by 22.7 million from the national New Hospital Programme, reflecting central government investment in modernising NHS infrastructure.

It marks the first phase of the Trusts Our Future Hospital (OFH) Programme, a longterm plan to redevelop key facilities at North Devon District Hospital, including clinical buildings and diagnostics.

North Devon District Hospital, run by the Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, is the principal acute hospital serving a largely rural and coastal population across northern Devon.

With 423 beds and an emergency department, it provides urgent and specialist services including orthopaedics, stroke care and cancer treatment.

The hospital opened in 1979, replacing the historic North Devon Infirmary, and occupies a site with buildings now more than 50 years old.

In April 2022, the hospital became part of the newly formed Royal Devon Trust following the merger of the former Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust with the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust.

The combined organisation now delivers services across northern, eastern and midDevon, and employs more than 15,000 staff.

The hospitals inclusion in the governments New Hospital Programme, one of 40 priority sites earmarked for major investment, reflects longterm concerns about ageing estate and the need for modern, resilient facilities.

Local MPs and NHS leaders have highlighted the challenges posed by outdated buildings and the critical need to secure future funding for key infrastructure such as intensive care units and operating theatres.

The OFH Programme was established to coordinate the comprehensive redevelopment of North Devon District Hospital so it can meet growing demand and health needs for years to come.

The programmes objectives include modernising clinical facilities, improving patient experience and creating a work environment that is fit for staff.

Phase zero of the scheme saw the rollout of a new Electronic Patient Record system in 2022, a digital foundation for modern care.

Phase one, now underway, focuses on enabling works and the construction of modern staff accommodation.

Later stages will include new clinical buildings with expanded intensive care, maternity, emergency and diagnostic facilities, designed to replace outdated parts of the estate and provide flexible futureproofed space.

Work has already begun on site, with demolition of two existing staff residence blocks in late 2025 to make way for the new accommodation.

The residences will feature ensuite rooms and accessible family apartments, complemented by social and wellbeing spaces for NHS staff, locums and students.

A key element of BAM UK & Irelands appointment is its commitment to sourcing more than 80 per cent of project spend locally, supporting jobs and training opportunities for young people and those not currently in education, employment or training.

Partnerships with local organisations including Jobcentre Plus will underpin these efforts.

Tim Chell, Regional Director at BAM UK & Ireland, said the project will support the Trusts efforts to attract and retain staff in a challenging rural environment while creating lasting value for the wider community.

Chris Tidman, Deputy Chief Executive of the Royal Devon Trust, described the new accommodation as a major milestone in the trusts longterm plan to build a better hospital. He emphasised that modern, onsite residences will be essential in attracting skilled health professionals and underpinning future sustainability of local healthcare services.

Construction is planned to minimise disruption to the live hospital environment, with careful coordination to protect ongoing patient care.

The new accommodation is expected to be completed as part of the first phase of the OFH Programme, laying the groundwork for wider redevelopment of clinical facilities at the Barnstaple site.
More than 50 students took part in a Bite of Reality Financial Literacy Workshop at the high school last week. Over a two-period time slot in the library they applied digital tools in balancing budgets and making real-life choices.

The largely app-driven experience was aided by representatives from the City of Sisters, the Sisters Rotary Foundation, Oregon Community Credit Union, and the High Desert ESD who volunteered to play merchant roles that day.

Photo by Bill Bartlett

"It was a fun and interactive event where the students stretched their financial decision-making muscles and get to hear wisdom and tips from our community leaders during the debrief," said Rachel Shultz, Community Engagement Specialist for MOCU (Mid Oregon Credit Union) who sponsored and produced the event.

Sisters is the fifth setting for the popular MOCU event. The simulation supports and reinforces several of the requirements included in Oregon Senate Bill 3 for Personal Financial Education.

Each student receives an occupation, income, partner or single parent role, children, credit score, medical cost, and debt. The student then moves between merchant booths purchasing monthly necessities, including housing, transportation, groceries, childcare, and lifestyle preferences.

They also navigate financial surprises such as medical emergencies, surprise bills, and cash windfalls. When students overspend, they must return items or adjust their lifestyle to compensate.

The students themselves spoke enthusiastically and appreciatively of the experience. "I would recommend this activity to future students because it provides a realistic and engaging experience about managing your finances. It encourages responsible money management skills," said sophomore Efrain Gonzalez.

"This is a good way to understand spending, debt, credit cards, along with understanding what matters to you. The biggest thing I would change immediately is how spontaneous I am about spending my money," added sophomore Elizabeth Beaver.

Sophomore Bennitt Hayes gave emphasis: "This simulation helped me realize how much things cost and why you might want to save money. I also learned a lot about building up a good credit score."

Junior Grant Roberson shared his reaction: "This helped me understand how important it is to track my purchases and not spend without really thinking about it. Eating out is also really expensive and I probably need to stop. It made me think about what life might be like as an adult and how to budget."

There were five domains of learning: Credit and Debt; Banking, Investment, Saving and Repayment; Budgeting, Spending and Money Management; Personal Income, Taxes and Services; and Maintaining Financial Well-Being.

"Helping young people build strong money habits early is one of the most impactful ways credit unions invest in their communities. Building a solid foundation in financial literacy can shape a person's future - influencing everything from career choices to long-term financial well-being," said Alyse Knudsen of GoWest Foundation.

"By meeting students where they are - and making financial literacy feel relevant and real - credit unions are helping young people gain the confidence and knowledge to take control of their financial futures."
Daniel Boone once said: "All you need for happiness is a good gun, a good horse - and a good wife."

Now, you can't argue with a Frontier Partisan authority of the stature of Daniel Boone. He was in a position to know, after all, having put Rebecca Boone through the trials and tribulations of separation (Boone put the long in "long hunter"), multiple moves to wild country, and the loss of two sons to violent encounters with Indians. He well knew that it was she who held it all together...

The horse days are long behind us now, but the other two legs of that three-legged stool are well in place, for which I am profoundly grateful.

Marilyn and I have been married for going on 33 years. We met when she was working at the Southern California printing firm where my brother was a hot-shot salesman. I came in to have lunch with him, and she asked him who the dude in the hat was...

A few days later, John mentioned this particular young lady and swore that he wasn't trying to set me up, but... Well played, John. Turned out this adventurous lass had just returned from running off to Alaska for a few years. She loved the outdoors and music and it was clear we were most simpatico. And we both had a handful of country song-material relationships in our romantic histories, and were ready for something with a little staying power.

And we found it. My appreciation for her grows on the daily. She's the most resilient person I know, wise and funny - and for whatever reason, she "gets" me and my arcane enthusiasms. Music moves her profoundly; you know a song is connecting when it finds her crying in the kitchen. She indulges my fascination with obscure historical things, and is gentle in suggestions that I might want to organize my piles of books and put them on, like, actual book shelves. As far as the Boone Triad goes, she was more the horse person than I, but she understands the importance of a good gun. Or, ummm... several of them. She kinda likes that stuff.

By way of illustration, an anecdote:

Someone said somewhere that if your girlfriend or wife will watch "Strike Back" with you, she's a keeper. Lo, these many years ago, I brought home the DVD of Season 1 of that juicy chunk of pulpy goodness, and we fired up the first scene, with Michael Stonebridge leading an assault team into a warehouse in Lahore, Pakistan, to rescue a kidnapped John Porter. The suppressed H&K MP5A3s went pew-pew! and Marilyn went:

"What is that? Can we get one? I WANT ONE!"

I know. Be still my heart.

Seriously, though, to walk with someone through life, to share adventures and Story - as well as the day-to-day, with all of the good times and bad times... that is a rare blessing, and I do not let a day go by without expressing my gratitude to have been so blessed.
River lovers are fortunate that we have two federally designated Wild and Scenic Rivers in the backyard of Sisters. These rivers were identified as unique on a regional or national scale and are to be managed for the enjoyment of present and future generations. The Metolius is well known and developed with summer homes, trails, and many campgrounds in its upper section.

Photo by Maret Pajutee

Whychus Creek is much wilder. The Wild and Scenic River Management Plan completed in 2010 recognized that its wildness is a special feature to protect, while also making lower reaches of the river close to town, more accessible for people to enjoy.

A key part of the plan was building community stewardship. The Forest Service knew they couldn't do it alone with recreation budgets in decline and growth in Central Oregon skyrocketing. That's where partners stepped in to help. A committee of the Sisters Parks and Recreation Department was interested in trails. They were willing to take on some technical aspects of trail construction and manage grants. They soon got their nonprofit status and emerged as the Sisters Trails Alliance (STA) that we know today.

Today STA and its organized volunteer cadre of trail stewards regularly walk the trails, remove garbage and graffiti, rehab new user trails, clip brush, and engage with visitors to answer questions about this unique river. They note trail issues such as fallen trees or erosion from winter floods, providing detailed information and GPS coordinates to STA crews that spring to action, packing in chainsaws and organizing work days in cooperation with the Forest Service to address larger problems.

Photo by Maret Pajutee

Perhaps no one person has had a greater role in the hands-on community stewardship of lower Whychus Creek facilities than Gary Guttormsen. Guttormsen led the charge to perfect the surface of the popular Overlook trail, conducting endless tests of various clay and fine gravel combinations to create smooth travel for wheelchairs and baby strollers. He built the signboards in his woodshop, and manages the trail stewards group, sharing their reports with the Forest Service and trail crews.

Walking the trails is a pretty nice part of the job but STA has been there for the less pleasant parts as well. They funded a temporary toilet for the Overlook for four years which helped the Forest Service secure funding to build the accessible toilet that serves today.

After early years of trailside garbage and abandoned dog poop bags the stewards presence has made a huge difference. Guttormsen explained, "People are very respectful of the whole area, even in the parking lot of the Overlook Loop, you rarely see any kind of trash on the ground. And, of course, we pick it up, if we do see something. It's really heartening to see a place that is being loved so much and used so much by both locals and visitors that is really holding up well. It's pretty amazing really."

In 2024, with a focus on accessibility for everyone, STA also obtained grants and managed a complicated modification of the Overlook to improve visibility for wheelchair users and children while maintaining user safety on the cliffside. It turned out beautifully and has been much appreciated.

Currently there are nine volunteers that wear a vest identifying them as a STA Trail Steward, with their name, and the Wild and Scenic River Logo. "People just go overboard, thanking us for everything we're doing, making the trail so nice. We rarely have any problem at all up there," Guttormsen said.

The Wild and Scenic River Plan requires monitoring to ensure people's experience is maintained at prescribed levels as use grows. Besides being an outdoor enthusiast Guttormsen is technically skilled and has worked to install and tend sophisticated trail counters funded by STA. He analyzes and supplies this data to the Forest Service. For example, peak use in 2025 was in June and July from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends. Average daily totals on the north Overlook loop have increased in the past two years from 44 to 52 people per day.

During the recent extended government shutdown STA was one of many partners that had the Forest Service's back. They checked and cleaned the Overlook toilet, even restocking toilet paper until other arrangements were made.

Photo by Maret Pajutee

Stephanie Presley has served as the executive director of STA for almost 2 years. With a background in natural resource management and social psychology she understands that land management issues require many hands. "It's all about collaboration and cooperation with our many partners and community stakeholders to accomplish similar goals. Our community is fortunate to have partners at the Sisters Ranger District who balance recreational use with other natural and cultural resources on public lands. Working with the Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife, and other nonprofit trail groups, STA volunteers have filled the gap created by funding and staffing cuts at the federal level over many years. Exceptional volunteers like Gary and the Whychus Trail Stewards, STA sawyers, and trail maintenance crews have helped to make Sisters Country an amazing place to live and recreate for everyone."

Next time you are out enjoying the Whychus trails with friends and family keep an eye out for STA volunteers and give them a thank you for a job well done. To learn more about STA, contribute to their efforts, or volunteer for one of their many teams or committees, visit https://sisterstrails.org/.

Maret Pajutee is a retired Forest Service specialist who served as team leader for the Whychus Wild and Scenic River Management Plan.
JUBA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) said on Monday that talks are underway with the South Sudanese government to hand over the remaining Malakal Protection of Civilians (POC) site in Upper Nile State.

UNMISS spokesperson Priyanka Chowdhury said that the process is progressing in a coordinated and orderly manner, with the safety and protection of residents remaining a central priority.

"UNMISS is working closely with Upper Nile State and national authorities as well as humanitarian partners to facilitate the transition of the Malakal UN Protection of Civilians site into a settlement area, for which the government will take full responsibility under its sovereign obligations to protect civilians," Chowdhury told Xinhua in Juba, the capital of South Sudan.

In 2020, the POCs in Bor, Bentiu, Wau, and Juba were redesignated as internally displaced persons camps under government authority.

The Malakal POC site, which hosts approximately 40,000 residents, remains the only safe shelter for civilians fleeing violence amid intermittent clashes between the South Sudan People's Defense Forces and the opposition Sudan People's Liberation Army-In Opposition (SPLA-IO).

Tensions between the two forces escalated after an attack on the SSPDF base in Nasir, Upper Nile State, in March 2025 by the White Army, a militia which the government claimed to be linked to the SPLA-IO. 
The Pollack Group is named national public relations partner for CrossFit. The partnership includes national, regional and local media relations, as well as strategic storytelling around CrossFits most visible moments, including the CrossFit Open, the Murph Challenge, and the CrossFit Games. TPGs efforts are focused on improving CrossFits brand perception, connecting the brand with younger audiences, and portraying it as a trusted leader in global fitness. By aligning medical research and factual proof-points about CrossFit as a fitness program, TPG will combat misconceptions about the brand being an extreme exercise method and shift the conversation to explain how it is a community-oriented, effective workout. Theres a tremendous opportunity to showcase the breadth of its impact and the people behind the program, said TPG president Stefan Pollack.

Tier One Partners is engaged by Apex Fintech Solutions to lead a comprehensive communications program aimed at amplifying brand awareness, elevating executive thought leadership, and positioning Apex as a leading voice in the global financial technology ecosystem. The agency will provide services including media relations, executive visibility campaigns and thought leadership content, collaborating with Apexs leadership to translate the companys innovation, insights, and strategic vision into a differentiated and compelling public presence. We selected Tier One for its ability to elevate complex financial technology narratives and build meaningful visibility for sophisticated B2B brands, said Apex head of marketing Jessie Savu. Were confident this partnership will help us engage media, industry influencers, and the broader market.

CIIC PR is appointed agency of record for Aimbridge All-Inclusive, a brand recently launched by Aimbridge Hospitality. CIIC will oversee strategic communications for the brand and its featured properties throughout North America and Canada. In addition to supporting Aimbridge All-Inclusives expansion, CIIC will lead the launch of the divisions two new properties in the Dominican RepublicWyndham Alltra Punta Cana and Wyndham Alltra Samanaas premier all-inclusive resorts. The partnership further strengthens CIICs growing presence in the Caribbean travel and hospitality space. CIIC PR brings a deep understanding of the region, and we look forward to applying that expertise to elevate Aimbridge All-Inclusives presence, said Amy Sedeno, CIIC PR VP & partner, strategic development Amy Sedeno.
Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck has inked a six-month agreement with NATO-member Iceland to provide strategic advice on how to navigate engagements with the US government.

It will assist the Northern Atlantic island country with US federal government stakeholder introductions and meeting scheduling.

The firm will help develop strategies and tactics related to US government engagement and serve as a consultive resource and provide constructive feedback on emerging priorities for Iceland.

Samantha Carl-Yodder, co-chair of Brownsteins international & critical minerals practice, and Jason Buckner, who once headed the DC office of BHP, the worlds biggest mining company, are part of the Iceland team.

The firm, which receives a $25K monthly retainer for the work, reports to Svanhildur Holm Valsdottir, Icelandss ambassador to the US.

During his meandering talk at the World Economic Forum last month, President Trump mentioned Iceland four times when he was referring to Greenland.

The US does not station troops in Iceland but it uses Keflavik Air Station to support NATO's Iceland Air Policing mission.
THE former chief of staff to Keir Starmer's government in Britain who resigned at the weekend has close family connections with Offaly.

Cork native, Morgan McSweeeny was the British prime minister's most trusted political advisor until his resignation due to the ongoing controversy surrounding Peter Mandelson's connection with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein

Mr McSweeeny commanded unrivalled political influence within the British administration and played a key role in the Labour party's general election victory in 2024.

Former Offaly Express journalist, Declan McSweeney, from Tullamore, who now resides in England, is closely related to Morgan.

Declan's brother, Brian is the only member of the family still resident in Tullamore.

READ NEXT: REVEALED: Land prices drop by over 1,200 per acre in Offaly in past year

Brian and Declan are first cousins of Morgan's father, Tim - the Offaly brothers' late father, Denis, a former CEO of Offaly Vocational Education Committee, was a brother of Morgan's grandfather, Michael.

Speaking to the Tribune following the 2024 general election, Declan congratulated his cousin on his success and wished him well on "whatever role now emerges".

Morgan McSweeney's family were involved in politics in his native Cork, though of the "blue" rather than the "red" variety.

He had an aunt who was a county councillor with Fine Gael while a first cousin of his, Clare Mungovan, was a special advisor to Leo Varadkar when he was Taoiseach.

Profiling the Cork man when he was appointed to his role by Keir Starmer, The London Times said: "Nobody without elected office wields as much power in British politics as McSweeney."

READ NEXT: Twenty-seven nominated for Person of the Year and Unsung Hero of the Year 2025
A FERBANE man's experience of being brought to Cloverhill Prison rather than to Portlaoise hospital, where he had previously been treated, was featured in an RTE Investigates special on psychiatric care in Irelands prisons on Monday night.

RTE reported that Ivan Rosney, who experienced mental illness from an early age, missed his daily medication in late September 2020. Gardai were called to an argument at his fathers house.

RTE reported that for unexplained reasons, Mr Rosney was taken to Cloverhill Prison instead of the Midland Regional Hospital Portlaoise, where he was an inpatient many times. Held in custody for some days, he was to appear before a District Court on by video link.

However, the programme claimed that the man, aged 36, died after he was taken from his cell while being restrained by several prison officers. It also reveals that an Inspector of Prisons investigation report was completed in October 2024 but has not been published.

His daughter Courtney told RTE Investigates she wants to know what happened.

It's a very big thing to be fighting at 23 years of age...So it's a young woman fighting against all these big (institutions) - the prison services, the HSE, the gardai . . . and they'll kind of just look at me as if you're wasting your time.

We've suffered long enough, it's been five years, it's been long enough not to know what's happened, she said.

RTE says the programme has found the options available to the already overwhelmed prison system, which has been linked to life-threatening conditions, has deteriorated rapidly in recent weeks.

The programme claimed that this followed a Constitutional challenge, and a Judicial Review just before Christmas of the practice of Therapeutic Bail and prompted the suspension of the procedure altogether. Therapeutic Bail had become the primary workaround to allow prisoners remanded for minor crimes while suffering from major mental illness to be diverted to an approved hospital for treatment.

In the six weeks since the hearing, the waiting list for the countrys only designated secure hospital has risen to a record high.

READ NEXT: Call for views of public as new project seeks insights into major Offaly river

Figures released to RTE Investigates show the rate of prisoners with acute mental illness in custody has increased dramatically in recent years. In the countrys dedicated remand centre, Cloverhill Prison, there is a medical landing with capacity for 27 people, but in recent months, there have been in excess of 55 actively psychotic people held in custody simultaneously.

The in-reach psychiatric team in Cloverhill Prison is led by Professor Conor ONeill and he said: Some of the most severe mental illnesses are conditions like schizophrenia and related conditions like disaffected disorder and bipolar disorder. These are some of the worst mental health conditions you can have where people can hear and see things that arent real. Its usually voices saying abusive or threatening things. Some of these people are very severely mentally ill.

Some people have brain injuries and dementias and are unable to look after themselves. These are people that should be in hospital, not in prison.

RTE said the HSE told it that it remains committed to ensuring that every person receives the right care in the right place at the right time. However, the HSE acknowledged to RTE that: The issues that have been raised in relation to HSE mental health services and regret any impact this may have had on people and their families.
FINES totalling 1,000 and an order to complete 40 hours of community service were imposed on a young Romanian man for road traffic offences.

Garda David Lewis gave evidence of stopping a 2007 Wicklow registered Ford Focus at Main Street, Kylebeg, Banagher on July 10 last year.

The driver, Adin Iacobut (19), Garrycastle, Banagher was a learner and had no previous convictions but had no NCT, licence, insurance, 'L' plates or accompanying driver.

Pleas of guilty were entered by defending solicitor Patrick Martin who said Mr Iacobut was a Romanian who had been in Ireland for eight years and had struggled to pass the driver theory test.

A factory employee, he had driven the short distance and apologised to the gardai.

READ NEXT: 'We've suffered long enough' says daughter of Offaly man who died in prison

Judge Susan Fay noted the number of different offences and described it as a flagrant breach.

She fined him 200 for having no NCT, 300 for no 'L' plates and 500 for no accompanying driver.

Judge Fay also said he would have to be assessed for community service and if deemed suitable he would have to complete 40 hours in lieu of three months in prison for the insurance offence.

She adjourned the matter to April 14 for the community service assessment.
Roscrea Trail Blazers had a very busy 2025 with trips to Madeira, the UK and numerous hikes around Ireland and 2026 is shaping up to be every bit as busy for the Roscrea club with trips to Austria, Snowdon, island trips, charity walks and numerous challenge walks to be completed.

The walk last Friday night had a smaller group than usual with a 9km walk around the Golden Grove Loop. Weather on the night was perfect for walking with lots of broken cloud with a great view of the stars above. Well done to everyone that made the effort.

The walk this Friday night February 13th sees the club going back to Lough Boora with a 9km flat walk around the parklands. Distance: 9 km, Grade: Easy, Time: two hours. Meeting at the Lough Boora Trailhead at 7pm. Please bring head/hand torch.

They had the second section of The Slieve Bloom Way from Clonaslee to Cadamstown on Sunday last. A fantastic day out with the weather taking a break from the rain they were treated to a warm, dry day on the hills.

Well done to the 23 walkers that joined them and to their new members who joined in.

READ NEXT: Roscrea's Castle Street to trial new one-way traffic system

The Burren weekend away is on the weekend of February 20th. They would encourage anyone thinking of taking up hiking for better health or as a way to destress to please make contact with the number below.

To join the group and to see what the club has to offer please follow the contact details below.

If you would like to join them on any of their night walks or weekends away, you can contact Cathal on (086) 3399 193 and receive updates through WhatsApp. You will be made feel very welcome.
There are a very small number of cases of Irish nationals in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention centres, Irelands Minister for Foreign Affairs has said.

The case of Seamus Culleton, who has been detained by Ice since September, gained national attention after his family raised his situation in the media this week.

Mr Culleton is originally from Co Kilkenny but has been living in the US for almost 20 years and is married to a US citizen.

He was driving home after finishing work when he was detained by Ice agents in September 2025.

Mr Culleton said he had a work permit but was arrested and transported from Massachusetts to an Ice facility in El Paso, Texas.

Foreign Affairs Minister Helen McEntee said it was a really distressing situation for Mr Culleton and said her officials were working to support his family.

Asked on Tuesday if she was aware of other similar cases of Irish people with a right to be in the US being detained by Ice, she said: I am aware of a small number of cases where people have directly reached out to our embassy teams.

Ms McEntee added: If there are other people in that type of scenario, please engage with our teams  were there to support them.

Asked if it was less than a dozen, she said: Yes, a very small number of cases.

Mr Culleton said he would like Irish Premier Micheal Martin to raise his case with US President Donald Trump during his meeting at the White House in March for St Patricks Day.

Asked if he would do so, Mr Martin told reporters on Tuesday that Government officials will see what more they can do in communication with the administration.

He said Government officials have been engaging with local officials and Ice about Mr Culletons case.

Speaking before a Cabinet meeting in Dublin, the Taoiseach said: We will see what more  with the Minister for Foreign Affairs  what we can do in terms of our communication with the administration.

I fully empathise with the position he is in, he has been in the United States quite a long time, hes married there.

Im not clear on the full background to it but certainly we would like to see him out of that facility.

Asked if he was broadly concerned about the US administrations approach to immigration enforcement, Mr Martin said the Government has been concerned about undocumented Irish citizens for a long time through a range of US administrations.

He added: There is now a crackdown in America in terms of the implementation of migration law which we are concerned about in terms of how it affects the Irish undocumented.

Mr Martin said the approach had been to seek legal channels to regularise the situation for Irish and US citizens in the States.

He said living in the US without status was a very difficult and dangerous position to be in.

Mr Martin said it has been difficult to get consensus on the Hill as different nations lobby the US Congress for support on migration measures.

Meanwhile, Tanaiste Simon Harris said it is an extremely stressful time for Mr Culleton and his family.

Asked if Mr Martin should raise the issue with Mr Trump, he said: I take the point thats made about what may or may not happen on March 17, I would just make the point, theres a fair whack of time to go between now and March 17, and certainly Ireland and Irish authorities, through our diplomatic channels, will be continuing to engage, to make the point, to make their representations between now and then.

Of course, then the Taoiseach and the Government will judge where thats at.

Asked the same question, Ms McEntee said there is always a time and a place to raise individual cases, and added: I have no doubt the Taoiseach will give it consideration but it is important to stress we are already providing assistance to Seamus.
The Government is to give the green light to drafting laws that would abolish a divisive passenger cap at Dublin Airport.

The 32 million passenger cap, a planning condition issued by the local authority where the airport is based, has come under legal and political scrutiny.

Concerns have been raised that it could hamper the Irish economy and connectivity, while others say it should not be lifted as Ireland attempts to halve its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

Ryanair chief executive Michael OLeary has criticised Taoiseach Micheal Martin and the Government for not removing the cap over a year after entering office.

Transport Minister Darragh OBrien brought a memo to Cabinet on Tuesday on legislation that would remove the cap.

He said it was very detailed and it is a complex piece of legislation.

Theres three principles that are enshrined in the legislation, and one is the power to amend the existing cap, the power to revoke a cap, but also, very importantly, looking into the future, to include any acquisition of a cap into the future based on any future application, he said.

Ill be bringing the legislation to Cabinet this morning, well publish the draft scheme shortly thereafter, and then, subject to some minor amendments, will bring it into the Oireachtas.

I do intend to do pre-legislative scrutiny and get the committee to look at it, but I would ask that be done on an expedited basis.

He said that national infrastructure as critical as Dublin Airport should not be overseen by a local authority and they would look to deem the airport as critical infrastructure.

Asked if environmental concerns had gone out the window, Business Minister Peter Burke said theyre absolutely not.

If you look at aviation, technology is moving fast, but it still has a journey to go, he said.

Were an island economy, were not going to essentially push the airport into the abyss and have no more growth for our economy, no more growth for the tourism sector.

So I think as an island economy, thats very clear, air connectivity is pivotal to our success story as a country.

Asked if he had been in touch with Mr OLeary on the issue, he said he had not been.

The decision comes a month after Mr OLeary criticised the government over doing very little on the passenger cap, housing or infrastructure in the first 13 months in office.

Its not like theyve been busy passing other legislation last year, Mr OLeary said of the passenger cap at a high-profile press conference in Dublin.

The airline chief said the passenger cap should be scrapped before St Patricks Day.
CANBERRA, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Australian government on Tuesday launched the country's first dedicated national plan to end violence against Indigenous women and children.

Minister for Social Services Tanya Plibersek and Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy on Tuesday announced 218.3 million Australian dollars (about 154.56 million U.S. dollars) in government funding to enact the first four years of the 10-year plan.

They said in a joint statement that the plan will address disproportionate rates of violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children.

Indigenous Australian women are seven times more likely to be victims of intimate partner homicide than non-Indigenous women, according to government data, and 27 times more likely than non-Indigenous women to be hospitalized due to family violence.

The four-year funding package will immediately invest in a national network of up to 40 Aboriginal community controlled organizations that will deliver specialist support services to help Indigenous women and families who are experiencing family, domestic and sexual violence. 
A Georgia judge has officially dismissed lawsuit filed by supporters of President Donald Trump in Fulton County, Georgia, and paused another one. That's according to a Monday article in the New York Times, which reported that Fulton County Superior Court Judge C.I. McBurney -- who was appointed to the bench in 2012 by then-Gov. Nathan Deal (R) -- ruled against conservative activist and 2020 election denier Garland Favorito on Monday. Favorito filed this particular lawsuit over 2020 ballots in Fulton County, and prior to issuing his decision, Judge McBurney said he planned to allow the ballots to be viewed upon request by members of the public.
While so much of our world collapses, we all look for solutions. Israeli historian Ilan Pappe' recently offered another approach. Speaking last month about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said, "There is no need for peace. There is need for decolonization. There is need for transitional justice. And more than anything else, there is need to listen to Palestinians, to hear... their aspirations for the future of Palestine. Start with them. Let them be in the driver's seat and tell us how they view the future of Palestine."

I see Pappe' calling for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a place where healing can begin, a place where we can listen to stories from Palestinians who've lost childhood, limbs, family, neighbors, homes and land. A place where Palestinians can begin to dream again for equality and democracy.

While so much of our world collapses, we need many Truth and Reconciliation Commissions.

Gerry McGovern's newest book, 99th Day: A Warning about Technology, reads like a Truth and Reconciliation Commission about technology's impacts on ecosystems and public health. From his start on a small Irish farm, McGovern wanted to be a modern, materially wealthy man. In the early '90s, he developed an online community, a blogging system and a way to manage web content. He became "an evangelistic tech bro, a booster of 'renewable' energy who believed there was no innovation that tech couldn't solve." In a blink, he made money, money, money.

Eventually, McGovern learned about the ecological effects of manufacturing, operating and discarding electronic technologies. At the end of his dreamy solar system's usable life, he realized it's un-recyclable hazardous waste. (His previous book, World Wide Waste, focuses on the two billion tons of electronic waste we humans generate every year.) While moving to Spain, Gerry discovered that the country's rains were disappearing-- and how mining for electronics contributed to the drought. Through his partly Indigenous Brazilian wife, he began to see the living connections between water, soil, rocks, birds, bees and future generations.

In 99th Day, with refreshing honesty, Gerry McGovern names his part in our techno-sphere's mess; and then he reports the worldwide consequences of digitalized society. McGovern calls his book a warning. For writing it, we owe him hearty thanks.

I'm honored to post "A Confession," 99th Day's first chapter.

I was a true believer. A full-throated member of the Growth Death Cult. A super-optimistic, evangelistic tech bro. A booster of "renewable" energy and the "Green" Transition, and the idea there was no problem that tech innovation couldn't solve.

I came across the World Wide Web back in late 1993 in a small flat in Dublin. The first moment I saw it I had this vision of wagons rolling out West to a new frontier. At that time, I was in my early thirties and drifting. Living in shoddy accommodation and scraping by on part-time work. My partner and I had two young children and I felt this intense pressure to provide. The Web would be my way out.

I had been writing rock 'n' roll and technology journalism. Mixing interviews with Nick Cave, Sonic Youth, Ice T and Lou Reed with stories about computer-aided design and CD-ROM multimedia might have been exciting, but the life of the freelance journalist, and dreaming-to-be fiction writer, was not an easy one.

Some weeks before I came across the Web, I had interviewed a senior executive at the Irish state agency, the National Software Directorate. I decided to write him a snail mail letter. I knew the Web was a bit too new, so I pitched a report about the rapidly growing multimedia industry, with an add-on focus on this emerging thing called the World Wide Web. Amazingly, he got back and said, yes, let's do this.

In early 1994, I went to this huge multimedia exhibition and conference in Cannes, France. The CD-ROM was being pushed as the future of everything from games to medicine to education. I went around sniffing out the Web. There wasn't much sign. However, as the year progressed, the Web surged, and the report focus began to change on a monthly basis. Twelve months later, I returned to Cannes and the Web was everywhere. I listened to fevered voices talk about doing all-nighters and lining up finance.

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Registration is open for the 9th annual Best Practices 2026 EXPO & Conference at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis, IN, Oct. 13-15. Designed for 
Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam - LoopNet today announced the public launch of its Circular Showcase, one of the first openly accessible global galleries 
Advocacy group Disability Rights Oregon on Tuesday accused the state Department of Human Services of failing to prevent the death of a southern Oregon teenager allegedly killed by his mother and her boyfriend last year.

A new investigative report by the disability rights group accuses the department of failing to act on two child abuse reports that Thomas Strong, a teenager with autism, had been pulled out of school by his mother and lost a dangerous amount of weight before he died last February in Lake County. When the department did open an investigation into Strongs well-being after a third complaint, Disability Rights Oregon alleges that investigators didnt act quickly or aggressively enough to save his life.

The Disability Rights Oregon report does not name the child, but details about the teen make it clear that the report is about Strong, a Lakeview High School junior who was known for taping paper ties to the front of his shirt.

Strong was found dead in his Lakeview home nearly a year ago, on Feb. 18, a day after what would have been his 17th birthday. Court documents say that the Lake County Sheriffs Office and Oregon State Police arrived at his mothers home to take Strong into protective custody, but they were weeks too late. Authorities found Strongs body in a cardboard box in the garage, prosecutors said, with signs of egregious physical abuse, including widespread bruising, broken ribs and internal injuries. Court documents say the teen likely died around Feb. 1.

A grand jury indicted the teens mother, Amanda Edwards, and her boyfriend, Nathan Cullins, on murder charges. Cullins is accused of killing Strong by subjecting the teen to prolonged physical abuse. Edwards faces charges of murder by neglect and maltreatment.

Both have pleaded not guilty.

The Department of Human Services issued a statement Tuesday in response to the disability rights report which did not address the advocacy groups concerns about how its caseworkers handled reports that Strong was in danger.

Our hearts go out to the family, friends and community who a year later remain impacted by this tragic loss, Department of Human Services spokesperson Sara Campos wrote in the emailed statement. Safety is the highest priority of the work we do in Child Welfare and we are continually making changes aimed at improving safety for all children.

When a youth who was on the states radar for possible neglect or abuse dies, the Department of Human Services must evaluate its handling of the case and publish a critical incident review detailing any systemic failures or lessons learned.

The state has not published its review of Strongs death a full year later. The Department of Human Services has delayed publication of the report several times and said Tuesday that it did so at the request of the local district attorney while the criminal investigation proceeds.

Because that state report is not public, The Oregonian/OregonLive has not been able to independently verify the timeline of Strongs interaction with human services officials. Disability Rights Oregon was given early access to that critical incident report.

The advocacy group argues that patterns in Strongs death echo issues it has seen with other childrens deaths before: That the state took a passive role in investigating his well-being, made little direct contact with the teen even after it opened an investigation and failed to refer him to get services for children with disabilities.

Despite multiple complaints from his teachers that he was being neglected, the Department of Human Services failed to protect this child, Jake Cornett, executive director for Disability Rights Oregon said in a news release. If they had investigated and intervened as the law and policy required, (he) would be alive today.

The Department of Human Services declined to respond to those allegations when asked by The Oregonian/OregonLive. In a Monday letter, Human Services Director Liesl Wendt told the advocacy group that a lack of response to any details in its report should not be construed as agreement.

Disability Rights Oregon claims that people including Strongs teachers, principal and school resource officer filed at least three complaints to the child welfare hotline in December outlining concerns that Strongs mother had pulled him out of school in November, that hed lost up to 40 pounds and was living in dark and dirty conditions in a home barricaded with a rifle pointed at the front door.

The state did not open an investigation after the first two complaints, which detailed Strongs weight loss, disappearance from school and the gun in his home, Disability Rights Oregon alleges.

However, a third complaint on Dec. 17 raising many of the same allegations did spur the state to open an investigation into the teens well-being, Disability Rights Oregon said.

Still, the advocacy group accused the state of making very limited effort to help. Strong continued to miss school, the group says, while the state referred the teen for mental health services.

State caseworkers didnt try to contact Strong in person between late December and mid-February, didnt make a safety plan to check in on the teen or try to reach out to relatives other than his mother, Disability Rights Oregon alleges.

Strongs well-being was left dependent on the very parent whose care was under investigation, the report claims.

Through the month of January, Edwards failed to schedule appointments with mental health providers or to take him back to school, the report says. While the state reached out to the mother through voicemails and texts, Disability Rights argued it did not treat the mounting evidence as the emergency it was.

Strongs grandfather told state workers on Feb. 12 that he was concerned about the teen, who he had not seen since October, the Disability Rights Oregon report says. He told the state that Edwards had struggled with substance use, the report claims, and missed work for several weeks. Caseworkers went to Strongs house, the report says, but nobody responded to their knock on the window.

By that point, investigators think Strong was likely already dead.

On Feb. 18, the state obtained a court order to take Strong into protective custody and found his body.

Disability Rights Oregon argues that the state should have investigated the complaints earlier, should have created a safety plan for Strongs well-being and kept a closer eye on the teen.

In a series of recommendations, the disability rights group argued that the state should abandon passive child welfare practices that rely on waiting for parent engagement, and instead focus its efforts on making regular and direct contact with children who state workers suspect are in danger.

Disability Rights Oregon also took aim at what it considered flaws in the states critical incident review of Strongs death and recommended that state lawmakers put an outside agency in charge of those.

In a response to Disability Rights Oregon, the state wrote that child welfare records are confidential and it would have to address how to share that information with an outside agency, if thats what lawmakers want.
Authorities have arrested a St. Helens man, accusing him of plotting to kill ICE agents and cut off their heads.

Rayden Tanner Coleman, 18, faces charges of second-degree attempted assault and unlawful possession and manufacture of a destructive device after he allegedly told acquaintances about his violent plans, bought an assault rifle and started making Molotov cocktails, court records show.

People who know Coleman told police he was always a good person, but that in the last month hed become increasingly upset about the actions of ICE agents during the Trump administrations immigration crackdown.

In January, federal agents shot and killed two people in separate incidents in Minneapolis, and they shot and injured two people in Portland. This prompted Coleman to write a manifesto and launch plans to form a separatist state of Cascadia, prosecutors allege.

Coleman also allegedly began to assemble an arsenal, including Molotov cocktails and an assault rife, and to try to recruit people to join him.

Two of the people he attempted to recruit went to the police because they were concerned about what he was saying, prosecutors say. One person allegedly told police that Rayden was not himself and that he viewed his separatist group as a jumping off point for a civil war.

Coleman told people he intended to kill ICE agents, cut off their heads and take the heads to the Warm Springs reservation to prove his seriousness to would-be recruits there, prosecutors say in court documents.

On Feb. 4, police officers pulled Coleman over as he was driving in St. Helens and searched the cars trunk, where they found glass bottles partially filled with sand, prosecutors allege. Court records show that Colemans acquaintances had earlier told police that the bottles were for making Molotov cocktails.

Police arrested Coleman after the traffic stop, and he then told officers he had planned to attack ICE agents but that the gun hed bought wasnt scheduled to arrive until the following day, according to court records.

Prosecutors allege that Coleman also told officers that he did make comments about beheading federal agents but that he was angry at the time and didnt plan to follow through on that threat.

Court records show that Coleman has no convictions in Oregon.

Correction: This story has been corrected to reflect that Coleman faces charges of second-degree attempted assault.
WASHINGTON  Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein, declined to answer questions from House lawmakers in a deposition Monday, but indicated that if President Donald Trump ended her prison sentence, she was willing to testify that neither he nor former President Bill Clinton had done anything wrong in their connections with Epstein.

The House Oversight Committee had wanted Maxwell to answer questions during a video call to the federal prison camp in Texas where shes serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, but she invoked her Fifth Amendment rights to avoid answering questions that would be self-incriminating. Shes come under new scrutiny as lawmakers try to investigate how Epstein, a well-connected financier, was able to sexually abuse underage girls for years.

Amid a reckoning over Epsteins abuse that has spilled into the highest levels of businesses and governments around the globe, lawmakers are searching for anyone who was connected to Epstein and may have facilitated his abuse. So far, the revelations have shown how both Trump and Clinton spent time with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s, but they have not been credibly accused of wrongdoing.

During the closed-door deposition Monday, Maxwells attorney David Oscar Markus said in a statement to the committee that Maxwell is prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump.

He added that both Trump and Clinton are innocent of any wrongdoing, but that Ms. Maxwell alone can explain why, and the public is entitled to that explanation."

This undated photo from the Jeffrey Epstein files released by the U.S. Department of Justice shows Ghislaine Maxwell. (U.S. Department of Justice via AP) AP

Maxwells appeal hits pushback

Democrats said that was a brazen effort by Maxwell to have Trump end her prison sentence.

Its very clear shes campaigning for clemency, said Rep. Melanie Stansbury, a New Mexico Democrat.

Another Democratic lawmaker, Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, described Maxwells demeanor during the short video call as robotic and unrepentant.

Asked Monday about Maxwells appeal, the White House pointed to previous remarks from the president that indicated the prospect of a pardon was not on his radar.

And other Republicans push backed to the notion quickly after Maxwell made the appeal.

NO CLEMENCY. You comply or face punishment, Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, wrote on social media. You deserve JUSTICE for what you did you monster.

Maxwell has also been seeking to have her conviction overturned, arguing that she was wrongfully convicted. The Supreme Court rejected her appeal last year, but in December she requested that a federal judge in New York consider what her attorneys describe as substantial new evidence that her trial was spoiled by constitutional violations.

Maxwells attorney cited that petition as he told lawmakers she would invoke her Fifth Amendment rights.

Family members of the late Virginia Giuffre, one of the most outspoken victims of Epstein, also released a letter to Maxwell making it clear they did not consider her a bystander to Epsteins abuse.

You were a central, deliberate actor in a system built to find children, isolate them, groom them, and deliver them to abuse, Sky and Amanda Roberts wrote in the letter addressed to Maxwell.

Maxwell was moved from a federal prison in Florida to a low-security prison camp in Texas last summer after she participated in two-days of interviews with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

The Republican chair of the committee, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, had also subpoenaed her at the time, but her attorneys have consistently told the committee that she wouldnt answer questions. However, Comer came under pressure to hold the deposition as he pressed for the committee to enforce subpoenas on Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. After Comer threatened them with contempt of Congress charges, they both agreed to sit for depositions later this month.

Comer has been haggling with the Clintons over whether that testimony should be held in a public hearing, but Comer reiterated Monday that he would insist on holding closed-door depositions and later releasing transcripts and video.

A document that was included in the U.S. Department of Justice release of the Jeffrey Epstein files is photographed Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, shows the report when Epstein was taken into custody on July 6, 2019. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick) AP

Lawmakers review unredacted files

Meanwhile, several lawmakers visited a Justice Department office in Washington Monday to look through unredacted versions of the files on Epstein that the department has released to comply with a law passed by Congress last year. As part of an arrangement with the Justice Department, lawmakers were given access to the over 3 million released files in a reading room with four computers. Lawmakers can only make handwritten notes, and their staff are not allowed in with them.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, spent several hours in the reading room Monday morning. He told reporters as he returned to the Capitol that even if all the House members who triggered the vote on releasing the files spent every waking hour over at the Department of Justice, it would still take us months to get through all of those documents.

Democrats on Raskins committee are looking ahead to a Wednesday hearing with Attorney General Pam Bondi, where they are expected to sharply question her on the publication of the Epstein files. The Justice Department failed to redact the personal information of many victims, including inadvertently releasing nude photos of them.

Over and over we begged them, please be careful, please be more careful, said Jennifer Freeman, an attorney representing survivors. The damage has already been done. It feels incompetent, it feels intimidating and it feels intentional.

Democrats also say the Justice Department redacted information that should have been made public, including information that could lead to scrutiny of Epsteins associates.

Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who sponsored the legislation to force the release of the files, said that after reviewing the unredacted versions for several hours, he had found the names of six men that are likely incriminated by their inclusion. He called on the Justice Department to pursue accountability for the men, but said he could potentially name them in a House floor speech, where his actions would be constitutionally protected from lawsuits.

Massie, along with California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, said they also came across a number of files that still had redactions. They said that was likely because the FBI had turned over redacted versions of the files to the Justice Department.

Khanna said it wasnt just Epstein and Maxwell who were involved in sexually abusing underage girls.

Release of the files has set in motion multiple political crises around the world, including in the United Kingdom, where Prime Minister Keir Starmer is clinging to his job after it was revealed his former ambassador to the U.S. had maintained close ties to Epstein. But Democratic lawmakers bemoaned that so far U.S. political figures seem to be escaping unscathed.

Im just afraid that the general worsening and degradation of American life has somehow conditioned people not to take this as seriously as we should be taking it, Raskin said.

--By Stephen Groves/The Associated Press
Removal proceedings have been terminated for a Tufts University doctoral student detained by ICE agents in spring 2025.

Today, I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that despite the justice systems flaws, my case may give hope to those who have also been wronged by the U.S. government, said Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national studying for her Ph.D. in child development at the Boston school.

Though the pain that I and thousands of other women wrongfully imprisoned by ICE have faced cannot be undone, it is heartening to know that some justice can prevail after all, Ozturk said.

Ozturk was detained by plainclothes ICE agents on the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts, last March, after federal officials abruptly revoked her student visa, a move her attorneys say was retaliation for an opinion piece she co-authored in support of Palestinians in Gaza.

The six-week detention of the Tufts University doctoral student  who was transported through multiple states and detention centers, including Vermont and Louisiana, before lawyers could locate her  prompted national outrage and raised alarms among civil liberties groups.

A rally held on March 26, 2025 near Tufts University after student Rumeysa Ozturk was detained by federal immigration agents on a street in Somerville. (Irene Rotondo/MassLive)

Though she was ordered released on May 9, her legal battle has persisted. A federal judge ruled on Dec. 5 that immigration authorities had wrongfully terminated Ozturks Student and Exchange Visa Information System, or SEVIS, record and ordered it reinstated, restoring her ability to fully resume her doctoral program.

The reinstatement remains in effect, though the government appealed the decision on Feb. 6. A separate ruling was also made on Jan. 22, which found the governments broader policy of arresting and detaining scholars like Ozturk violated the First Amendment and confirmed she was targeted solely for co-authoring an oped.

I grieve for the many human beings who do not get to see the mistreatment they have faced brought into the light, Ozturk said.

When we openly talk about the many injustices around us, including the treatment of immigrants and others who have been targeted and thrown in for-profit ICE prisons, as well as what is happening in Gaza, true justice will prevail.

Immigration attorneys for Ozturk submitted documents in federal court on Monday to announce the removal proceedings have been terminated by an immigration judge.

The Trump administration has weaponized our immigration system to target valued members of our communities, including scholars like Rumeysa, said her attorney, Mahsa Khanbabai of Khanbabai Immigration Law. Khanbabai argued the administration has manipulated immigration laws to silence people, especially those who advocate for Palestine.

With this ruling, Judge Patel has delivered justice for Rumeysa; now, I hope that other immigration judges will follow her lead and decline to rubber stamp the presidents cruel deportation agenda, Khanbabai said.
WASHINGTON  The heads of the agencies carrying out President Donald Trumps mass deportation agenda will testify in Congress Tuesday and face questions over how they are prosecuting immigration enforcement inside American cities.

Trumps immigration campaign has been heavily scrutinized in recent weeks, after the shooting deaths in Minneapolis of two protesters at the hands of Homeland Security officers. The agencies have also faced criticism for a wave of policies that critics say trample on the rights of both immigrants facing arrest and Americans protesting the enforcement actions.

Todd Lyons, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Rodney Scott, who heads U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and Joseph Edlow, who is the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, will speak in front of the House Committee on Homeland Security.

The officials will speak at a time of falling public support for how their agencies are carrying out Trumps immigration vision but as they are flush with cash from a spending bill passed last year that has helped broaden immigration enforcement activities across the country.

The administration says that activists and protesters opposed to its operations are the ones ratcheting up attacks on their officers, not the other way around, and that their immigration enforcement operations are making the country safer by finding and removing people whove committed crimes or pose a threat to the country.

Under Lyons leadership, ICE has undergone a massive hiring boom funded by Congress last summer and immigration officers have deployed in beefed-up enforcement operations in cities across the country designed to increase arrests and deportations. The appearance in Congress comes as lawmakers are locked in a battle over whether DHS should be funded without restraints placed over its officers conduct.

Lyons is likely to face questioning over a memo he signed last year telling ICE officers that they didnt need a judges warrant to forcibly enter a house to arrest a deportee, a memo that went against years of ICE practice and Fourth Amendment protections against illegal searches.

During Scotts tenure, his agency has taken on a significant role in arresting and removing illegal immigrants from inside the country. That increased activity has become a flashpoint for controversy and marks a break from the agencys traditional job of protecting borders and controlling who and what enters the country.

Under the leadership of commander Gregory Bovino, a group of Border Patrol agents hopscotched around the country to operations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte and New Orleans where they were often accused of indiscriminately questioning and arresting people they suspected were in the country illegally. Bovino says his targets are legitimate and identified through intelligence and says that if his officers use force to make an arrest, its because its warranted.

A Border Patrol agent and Customs and Border Protection officer both opened fire during the shooting death of Alex Pretti, one of two protesters killed in Minneapolis in January. The other protester, Renee Good, was shot and killed by an ICE officer.

After the Pretti shooting, Bovino was reassigned and Trump sent his border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis to assume control.

USCIS has also faced criticism for steps it has taken including subjecting refugees already admitted to the U.S. to another round of vetting and pausing decisions on all asylum cases.
Biting the hand that feeds Oregon? I cant begin to say how dismayed I was at the brutal attack on Nike Inc. that ran in The Oregonian/OregonLive, (Nike says its factory workers make nearly double the minimum wage. In Indonesia, workers say, Its not true, Jan. 30).

Whatever wages Nikes overseas contractors pay in Indonesia, apparently there are 280,000 people working there because of Nike and  to my knowledge none of them are slaves. If they could find better jobs, Im sure they would.

In addition, what other company and its leader have done more for the economic health of Oregon than Nike and Phil Knight? So much of this has been accomplished by donations in addition to wages.

In times like these, why is The Oregonian/OregonLive not supporting such a corporation and its civic leader, rather than denigrating them?

Collier Brown, Portland
ISLAMABAD, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan received 3.5 billion U.S. dollars in workers' remittances in January 2026, up 15.4 percent compared with 3.0 billion dollars in the same month last year, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) data showed on Tuesday.

Remittances in January were slightly lower than 3.6 billion dollars recorded in December 2025. During the first seven months of the current fiscal year (July 2025-January 2026), remittance inflows totaled 23.2 billion dollars, rising from 20.9 billion dollars in the same period of last year.

Saudi Arabia was the largest source, with Pakistani workers sending nearly 740 million dollars in January. The United Arab Emirates contributed 694 million dollars, while Britain accounted for 572 million dollars.

Remittances from the United States stood at 295 million dollars. Inflows from European Union countries increased to 480 million dollars, marking a 36 percent year-on-year rise. Other notable sources included Qatar at 103 million dollars, Oman at 106 million dollars, and Bahrain at 47 million dollars. 
Advocacy groups that had aimed to enshrine the rights to abortion, transgender health care and same-gender marriage in the Oregon Constitution have dropped their effort to get a measure on the November ballot.

The decision comes more than a year and a half after the Equal Rights for All campaign, led by Basic Rights Oregon, the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon and Planned Parenthood Advocates, announced its widely publicized plans to pursue the ballot measure.

However, the campaign never gained enough traction. Through the end of January, the campaign had only submitted 12,402 signatures toward getting Initiative Petition 33 on the ballot, according to state records, although the group claimed in a press release Friday to have collected 52,000 signatures. Neither number is close to the 156,231 valid signatures the campaign would have needed to get the measure on the ballot.

We acknowledge the fear, sadness, and anger that this decision may cause, especially for members of the trans, LGBTQ+, and reproductive rights communities, the coalition said in a statement Friday announcing its plans to halt its campaign. This is a particularly difficult time, as the federal government attacks our rights, freedom, and basic humanity. Basic Rights Oregon, the ACLU and Planned Parenthood Advocates said that although they determined a ballot measure was not the right strategy at this time, they are committed to continuing to fight for Oregonians rights in other ways.

The groups announced its plans to pursue the ballot measure in June 2024, two years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. They had said the measure would ensure that Oregon had stronger protections for abortion, transgender health care and same-gender marriage enshrined in its constitution.

The proposed measure would have clarified that existing state protections against discrimination based on sex also apply to sexual orientation, ability to get pregnant, gender identity and related health decisions. If the measure had been adopted, Oregon would have joined a handful of other states with legal protections on transgender health care access.

The proposed ballot measure would also have repealed an existing provision in the state constitution that states, only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or legally recognized as a marriage. Voters passed that amendment in 2004 but it has gone unenforced since 2014, when a federal judge ruled the language unconstitutional. One year later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Constitution protects same-gender marriage.
As threats of violence against public officials continue to rise nationwide, Oregon lawmakers want clear criminal penalties for those who attempt to intimidate a public official or their family.

Lawmakers on Monday heard testimony on Senate Bill 1530 and Senate Bill 1516, sponsored by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which would make threatening a public official, including a candidate for public office, a crime of aggravated harassment. That would be the least severe category of a felony. The latter piece of legislation includes the provision in a broader public safety legislative package which also empowers magistrate judges to make pretrial release decisions.

Both measures specify that the person who issued threatening phone, electronic or written communications must intend to subject the official to alarm by conveying a threat to the public official or their family that vows to inflict serious physical injury. Although the bills would also include local prosecutors and assistant attorneys general, they would not go so far as to include other occupations who have reported rising safety concerns with their public-facing jobs, including teachers, health care workers and journalists.

This bill is designed to look specifically at school board members, city councilors, county commissioners, elected legislators and their families, said Sen. James Manning Jr., D-Eugene. I myself am a victim of a bomb threat. Does that mean anybody can say anything to you as an elected official, and you say, Oh, thats just free speech? At some point, we gotta get serious about this.

More than 40% of state legislators nationwide reported experiencing threats during their last term and most recent campaign season, and a similar percentage reported that the increased hostility affected their willingness to work on controversial issues or run for reelection or higher office, according to a January 2024 report from the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice.

Tillamook County Commissioner Paul Fournier, who is also a former sheriffs deputy, told lawmakers that a man with several stalking complaints in his area ended up following him and his family and swerving into his partners car. In one threat, the man equated three county commissioners to the three little pigs and said he was gonna blow our house in, Fournier said.

Had this been in statute prior to this, I could have pointed to this for our district attorney thats a little hesitant to prosecute, Fournier said.

Lawmakers and local officials in Oregon and nationwide have reported multiple high-profile threats in recent years. Manning and two other Democratic state senators received bomb threats a day after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in September. The Oregon State Police eventually determined the threats were false and investigators found no explosives at their residences. Former U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a Republican who now serves as U.S. Labor secretary, also received a bomb threat in 2024.

Oregon law already allows election workers to withhold their addresses from public disclosure, and individuals who harass election workers for their duties face potential misdemeanor charges. Although lawmakers last year considered a similar piece of legislation to what they discussed on Monday, amendments agreed to by both chambers of the Oregon Legislature removed the criminal statute lawmakers put forth.

The new bills introduction also follows legislation to restrict disclosure of lawmakers residential addresses in documents such as campaign finance records uploaded by the secretary of state, though that information can still be obtained through a public records request. The Oregon House passed that legislation along bipartisan lines in June hours before a gunman shot and killed Minnesota House of Representatives Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman.

Public defender, Oregon Department of Justice and free speech advocates weigh in

Ethan Nelson, intergovernmental relations manager for the city of Eugene, told lawmakers about an analysis from the Oregon Department of Justice suggesting that the bills would likely stand under a 1999 Oregon Supreme Court precedent. But Grant Hartley, director of Oregons largest public defense firm based in Multnomah County, challenged that consensus.

Hartley, a board member of the Eugene-based Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, offered the hypothetical of an individual warning a public official who works with Immigration and Customs Enforcement that they are harming their immigrant neighbors and will get what you have coming to you and will suffer yourself.

That is a threat of serious physical injury, but there is no imminence, there is no Im going to come and get you tomorrow, Hartley said. That is what the Supreme Court  said was necessary in these types of situations. And I think that that is even going to be a bigger deal when we are talking about political speech, which often has more constitutional protections.

Hartleys scenario, however, was similar to one statement by former state Sen. Brian Boquist, a Republican from Dallas who carried a gun in the Legislature and participated in a 2019 Republican-led walkout.

At the time, Boquist told the senate president that If you send the state police to get me, Hells coming to visit you personally. He also told a reporter that he told the state police superintendent to send bachelors and come heavily armed if officers would try to compel his presence at the Capitol. Some of his fellow senators required him to give advance notice before he entered the building because lawmakers and Senate staff said they feared for their safety.

Guns are no longer allowed in the Capitol, and a panel of federal judges in September 2024 tossed out a nominal $1 in damages and more than $375,000 in attorney fees awarded to Boquist. That reversed a decision by a federal judge who found that the Senate Committee on Conduct had violated Boquists First Amendment rights.

A leading free speech group and a First Amendment expert also did not explicitly agree with Hartleys position.

The First Amendment does not allow the government to restrict speech simply because of the possibility that someone might misuse information to do something illegal, said Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, in a statement. Because the proposed amendment to the aggravated harassment statute concerns physical threats, it appears to be constitutional.

David Hudson, a professor of law at Tennessees Belmont University, said that obtaining a conviction under laws such as the ones Oregon has proposed will require meeting the bar of proving that a defendant has made a true threat. That is a statement which frightens or intimidates someone enough that they believe they will be seriously harmed by the speaker or someone on their behalf. The most common type of state laws addressing aggravated harassment charges, however, relate to stalking-type behavior, he said.

There is confusing terminology with regard to these laws as to the use of the terms threats, harassment, and stalking. Part of this problem is that states use different nomenclature for similar type conduct, he wrote in an email. I do think there is a general trend of increasing penalties for those who engage in negative conduct toward public officials  a sense among many legislatures that there is a greater need to increase penalties and protect government officials.

-- Shaanth Kodialam Nanguneri, Oregon Capital Chronicle

The Oregon Capital Chronicle, founded in 2021, is a nonprofit news organization that focuses on Oregon state government, politics and policy.
Metro, the Portland areas regional government, has raised $1.4 billion in tax revenue since 2020 specifically to provide homeless services in Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties.

Thats a ton of money. Added to all the other homelessness spending in the region  including federal, state and city funding  it equated to roughly $300 per resident in fiscal year 2024. That figure was calculated by dividing the $724 million local economics consulting firm ECONorthwest calculated was spent that year by the tri-county regions population.

But is it the most spent on homelessness anywhere in the United States?

Probably not, said Dan OFlaherty, a Columbia University economist who has studied homelessness interventions for 30 years. OFlaherty thinks that honor might belong to New York City, which spent $3.9 billion on homeless services just in the past fiscal year. That means that even with its much larger population, the city spent about $464 per resident. (Again, we simply divided the total spent by the citys population.)

Also, the top spending city might not be New York. The real point, OFlaherty said, is that he doesnt know for sure. And neither does anyone else.

Three economists familiar with homelessness research, two with a national scope, told The Oregonian/OregonLive they had never heard of a study that compared or ranked U.S. cities or regions based on their spending on homelessness. Several local homelessness experts concurred. And The Oregonian/OregonLives review of the publicly available research on homelessness spending backed up the conclusion that no one has ever pulled together a ranking of how much is spent on homelessness in each region of the United States.

There are dozens of reasons for this. For one thing, there are many sources of homeless services funding in any given geographic area. The federal government alone has multiple funding sources from several departments, including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Education.

Then theres state funding. And given the wide variety of tax structures for collecting revenue and state agency structures for disbursing it, comparing one state to another is immensely complex.

And finally, theres local funding, which could come from a local general fund, as it does in New York City, or from a dedicated tax, as it does in the Portland area.

Next, it must be determined what counts as spending on homelessness. Shelters count, surely. And rent assistance for anyone who has been homeless.

But what about rent assistance for someone facing homelessness, but still housed? What about food aid that allows people living close to the edge to continue to pay rent? What about Medicaid? Many people are one big medical crisis away from losing their housing, and free health insurance makes a difference.

John Herrick, a veteran and IT professional, lost his job soon after surviving a heart attack. Shortly after, he was evicted from the apartment where he lived with his two sons and his service dog. By July, seen here, he was living out of a motel room. Herrick has since found permanent housing for his family. Mark Graves/The Oregonian

Also, while it seems clear that any comparison must take into account some sort of per capita calculation, lest the most populous places dominate the top of the list due to size alone, that gets tricky fast, too. Should one count the number of residents in the region? Or the number of homeless people? Using the 2023 point-in-time homeless census for the Portland area and New York, Portland surges ahead with far more spent per homeless person.

And then again, those censuses are famously undercounts. In the Portland area, the 2025 count likely only accounts for about two-thirds of the actual homeless population, when checked against current Multnomah County data that tracks individual people.

The cost of housing in any given region is also a factor since the most effective method of ending homelessness, according to decades of research, is to give people homes. Oregon doesnt have a lot of extra housing to hand out, though. Just 23 affordable and available housing units exist for every 100 extremely low-income households, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Only Nevada has fewer available units for this income bracket. And the state ranks 38th for housing affordability overall, according to U.S. News and World Report.

Still, nothing indicates that the Portland area isnt among the top local spenders on homeless services. And while the areas continued crisis  homelessness increased by 61% in the tri-county area between 2023 and 2025 according to point-in-time count data  has soured many voters and business leaders on the dedicated regional homeless services tax, others see it as evidence that the region is a trailblazer.

Liam Frost, the interim director of the Metro housing department, has worked with homelessness policy as an advocate or bureaucrat since 2008. He said that the lack of national investment in social safety nets of every type has left people more alone than ever before in attempting to navigate choppy economic waters. Indeed, homelessness has risen nationally for nearly a decade.

Disinvestment in several of the biggest social safety nets, including housing and welfare, began in the 1970s and is accelerating under the current presidential administration.

But the systems in place to prevent homelessness in recent years were already not keeping pace with the need, Frost said. Federal disability checks, for example, are no longer enough to cover rent in Multnomah County. And many people who live off of their Social Security earnings from a lifetime of modestly paid work also do not earn enough to cover local housing costs.

What were now seeing is local jurisdictions having to look to themselves to solve a lot of those issues, Frost said. And frankly, were really lucky and fortunate that the voters of the region decided to put their weight behind this (regional homelessness tax). In some ways, we have a big head start compared to other jurisdictions across the nation.

Research on funding that helps with homelessness initiatives by the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities even suggests more local and state governments find independent revenue sources to help with their housing issues, listing voter-approved tax increases in Rhode Island and Los Angeles as examples.

And yet, the Portland areas dedicated funding stream for homeless services has not resulted in a decrease in homelessness.

National data for 2025 homelessness counts have not yet been published by the federal government, which typically releases the data each December. But work by The New York Times to collate publicly available numbers shows that homelessness is on the decline nationally. That includes huge drops in big Democratic cities that have finally begun to catch up with the flood of migrants bussed there from Texas. Still, homelessness is sharply up in the Portland area, driven by increases in Multnomah County.

Still, the Portland areas lack of progress reducing visible homelessness has some business leaders, who are intent on solving homelessness and willing to pay for it from their own pockets, completely fed up.

Andrew Hoan, head of the Portland Metro Chamber, said he put his heart and soul into passing the regional tax that pays for a majority of the Portland areas homeless services. He believes it to be among the biggest investments made anywhere in the country. And hes tired of hearing its not enough.

Lets reject our proclivities to incrementalism and make sure that we are not talking about a lack of resources, Hoan said. By any measure, standard or evaluation, there is no lack of resources (in the Portland area) to fund investments in homelessness services of a transformative scale and nature.

Leaders of the regions homeless services departments agree and say that focusing on transforming the type and scope of homeless services is exactly what theyve done. And yet, they say, while the new funding has helped them house or keep housed tens of thousands of people who would otherwise be homeless, it has not fixed all the other social safety nets.

The end result: More people are becoming homeless every month than homeless services agencies are able to pull out of homelessness.

Angela Martin, director of Here Together, a coalition of businesses and nonprofits working to find solutions to homelessness, said the situation is incredibly frustrating for people paying the tax who see no progress being made, people providing homeless services who feel like theyre paddling a canoe riddled with holes and people trying to avoid or escape homelessness who complain they call and call and call for help, only to be told to wait.

People feel like nothing is being done and the problem is getting worse, Martin said. Theyre not wrong. But its not because work isnt happening.

But whether its the most work, or even just the most expensive work, remains  for now  unclear.
UPDATE: Did Portlands chances for snow next week just get a little better?

The weather in Portland this winter has been ... not super wintery.

The final month of 2025 was the warmest December on record for the city, and while Januarys average temperature was close to normal, it was dry, with the Portland International Airport getting 2.4 inches less precipitation than normal.

Now, nearly midway through what has the potential to be the coldest month of the year, the state is in a snow drought, and February so far has been exceptionally warm.

But are things about to turn around? Could snow be on the way for Portland?

Its highly, highly unlikely, said Tyler Kranz, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Portland, on Tuesday.

Yesterday it looked ever so slightly better, but still not great, Kranz said, but by Tuesday, the models were showing an even smaller likelihood of flurries on the valley floor.

But, Kranz added, Technically, we still do have a chance.

That chance? Sunday night into Monday, theres a 1 to 2% chance of flurries and Monday night into Tuesday morning, a 1 to 5% chance.

That could change again, Kranz cautioned, since its still a week away, but as of right now, he said, model guidance doesnt show actual accumulation.

If it did happen to snow, it would just be flurries in the air and not even enough to cover grass.

And, for anyone hoping the ever-so-slight possibility of snow in the valley means a big dump of snow in the mountains, advance apologies. It does not.

From Friday, Feb. 13, through Monday, Feb. 16, the Cascades could see six to 12 inches of snow, total.

Even a foot of snow wouldnt address the issue of the Mount Hood snowpack, which is currently over two feet below median level.
Portlands streak of dry days continues Tuesday as the Pacific Northwest remains under a high pressure system.

Fog and low clouds are likely Tuesday morning, and the National Weather Service expects surface visibility to lower to a quarter of a mile or less at times. Fog will be patchy with some areas not seeing any at all, but locations along the Interstate 5 corridor from Cowlitz County through the southern Willamette Valley could be socked in through 9 a.m.

Portland will see fog at times through early Tuesday, then partly sunny skies through the afternoon. The high temp should reach about 54 degrees.

Wednesday could start with widespread frost as overnight temps lower into the low 30s. But skies should be sunny by late morning, and the high temp will reach near 55 degrees.

Thursday may be the last mostly sunny day of the week. Frost is possible early in the day, then clouds will slowly move off leaving a sunny afternoon. The high will be about 52.

Forecast models show the high pressure ridge shifting east of the Rockies later Thursday and more clouds moving in overnight.

A wet front will move in to take over sometime on Friday. Portland has a 30% chance of rain mainly after about 10 a.m. Skies will stay cloudy and the high temp will cool to about 49 degrees.

Cooler temps and moisture continue into the weekend. Theres still some discussion about where the wetter pattern will set up and confidence on valley rain and mountain snow isnt strong. But snow levels should dive to about 3,000 feet over the weekend bringing new snow to the pass roads. Current models show a 45-55% chance of six inches or more of snow on the passes from 4 a.m. Saturday through 4 a.m. Tuesday. Theres a 10-25% chance of at least a foot during the same time period.
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The rapid expansion of artificial-intelligence infrastructure is triggering a global memory chip shortage, as factories prioritize chips for hyperscalers over those used in laptops and smartphones, AzerNEWS reports, citing foreign media.

The shortage is expected to have far-reaching global ramifications. The worlds two largest memory chipmakers, South Korean companies Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, are posting record sales. New memory chip plants are being announced in countries including Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan, while China, facing U.S. export controls, is racing to catch up in memory technology.

This trend is already pushing up prices for consumer electronics worldwide, threatening the profitability of low-cost smartphones and laptops.

Memory chips, made from silicon wafers, are a critical part of the semiconductor ecosystem. They store data and deliver it to processing units, which perform computations. The two major types are DRAM, which provides short-term memory for active programs, and NAND flash, which stores files for the long term.

AI data centers increasingly rely on an ultrafast memory architecture called high-bandwidth memory (HBM). In HBM, DRAM chips are stacked vertically and placed next to the graphics processing unit, enabling rapid data access that is essential for running large language models and other AI workloads.

As the AI industry orders vast quantities of HBM chips, manufacturers are diverting capacity away from conventional DRAM and NAND chips used in consumer electronics. Prices are rising at historic rates: in the first quarter alone, DRAM prices are expected to rise by 90%95%, while NAND flash prices could increase by 55%60%, according to market research firm TrendForce.

SK Hynix, Samsung, and U.S. company Micron account for over 90% of global memory chip production. All three are expanding in Asia, with Micron also planning facilities in the U.S., Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan, while Samsung and SK Hynix increase capacity in South Korea. The rise of AI has shifted the spotlight to hardware suppliers, with SK Hynix and Samsung recently surpassing the combined market capitalization of Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Tencent for the first time.

China imports most of its memory chips but is working toward self-sufficiency in AI hardware. The U.S. imposed restrictions in 2024 on Chinas access to HBM chips to limit its AI advancements. Chinas ChangXin Memory Technologies is catching up to Korean rivals in producing HBM chips, though it remains several years behind technologically. By 2026, it is projected to account for nearly 15% of global DRAM production, according to research firm SemiAnalysis. Meanwhile, Yangtze Memory Technologies, Chinas leading NAND flash producer, is expanding its fabrication plants and plans to enter the AI-focused DRAM market.

It will take years for chipmakers to build enough production lines to satisfy AI-driven demand. Until then, the memory crunch is expected to continue pushing up prices for computers, smartphones, tablets, and even cars. Rising memory costs may make low-end devices economically unviable, and some budget smartphones could be pulled from the market altogether. Counterpoint Research forecasts that global smartphone shipments will fall by 2.1% in 2026, with Chinese brands like Honor, Vivo, and Oppo, which have large portfolios of budget models, expected to be hit hardest.

Some analysts predict that the memory shortage could accelerate innovation in AI-optimized chips and drive companies to develop alternative memory technologies, such as computational memory or advanced 3D-stacked architectures, potentially reshaping the future of both consumer electronics and AI hardware.
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- A U.S. federal judge on Monday blocked the enforcement of a California law that prohibited U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from wearing face masks while on duty.

U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder issued a preliminary injunction against the "No Secret Police Act," or Senate Bill 627, ruling that the measure unlawfully discriminates against the federal government. A preliminary injunction is a court order issued early in a lawsuit that prohibits the parties involved from taking certain actions while the case continues to be decided.

The blocked law, along with a companion measure called the "No Vigilantes Act," or Senate Bill 805, was signed by California Governor Gavin Newsom on Sept. 20, 2025, and took effect on Jan. 1, 2026.

The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit the U.S. Department of Justice filed on Nov. 17, 2025. The department argued that the state law violated the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which establishes that federal law generally takes precedence over state laws.

In her order, Snyder agreed with the federal government's argument on discrimination. She noted that while Senate Bill 627 banned masks for federal and local officers, it contained exemptions for California state law enforcement officers.

"Because the No Secret Police Act, as presently enacted, does not apply equally to all law enforcement officers in the state, it unlawfully discriminates against federal officers," Snyder wrote in the opinion.

However, Snyder rejected the federal government's broader argument that masks were essential for all federal operations. She suggested that a neutral ban applicable to all police officers might be constitutional, noting that "federal officers can perform their federal functions without wearing masks."

The legislation was authored by Democratic California State Senators Scott Wiener and Sasha Renee Perez. They introduced the bills in response to reports of aggressive enforcement tactics by unidentified federal agents, which they argued created fear in immigrant communities.

While blocking the mask ban, the court allowed the "No Vigilantes Act" to remain in effect. This law requires officers to visibly display identification, such as a name or badge number.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi praised the ruling as a victory for federal agents, stating that agents had been "harassed, doxxed, obstructed, and attacked on a regular basis just for doing their jobs."

Senator Wiener said Monday that he planned to introduce new legislation immediately to extend the mask ban to state officers, aiming to fix the legal flaw identified by the judge. 
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Update Faculty Senate Executive Committee approved sending the resolution to the rest of the body on Wednesday. Senators have until 8 a.m. Friday to virtually vote on approving the resolution, according to a Wednesday email from Senate Chair Sarah Robbins.

OU Faculty Senate aims to vote on a resolution to affirm the senate did not endorse the universitys termination of graduate teaching instructor Mel Curth in a virtual ballot.

The proposed resolution, which was brought forth during the February senate meetings new business portion, states that the senate was neither involved in the discussion nor endorsed the decision to terminate graduate teaching instructor Mel Curth for being arbitrary in the grading of a psychology paper that cited the Bible.

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Proposed amended resolution Whereas OU issued a statement on Dec 22nd that identifies the University as having engaged in repeated and detailed conversations with the Faculty Senate Executive Committee to ensure there is an understanding of the facts, the process, and the actions being taken regarding terminating instructional duties for a graduate teaching assistant. Whereas the OU Faculty Senate Executive Committee and Faculty Senate were neither solicited for input on the decision nor endorsed the decision of the administration on this matter. Whereas the OU decision on this matter has had, and will continue to have, significant repercussions that negatively impact trust within the OU academic community. Let it be resolved that the OU Faculty Senate: 1. Fully endorses the requests for action outlined by the OU AAUP petition titled Defend OU Instructors and Academic Freedom 2. Supports the requests for action outlined in the Graduate Student Senate resolution titled Call for Accountability, Transparency, and Academic Integrity

According to a Dec. 22 statement from OU, the Faculty Senate Executive Committee was consulted throughout OUs investigation and determination regarding Curth.

A statement from the University of Oklahoma: pic.twitter.com/FzcjByOjpp  University of Oklahoma (@UofOklahoma) December 22, 2025

Because this matter involves both student and faculty rights, the University has engaged in repeated and detailed conversations with the Faculty Senate Executive Committee to ensure there is an understanding of the facts, the process, and the actions being taken, the statement reads.

Faculty Senates resolution insists OU Faculty Senate Executive Committee and Faculty Senate were neither solicited for input nor endorsed the decision of the administration on this matter.

According to the resolution, the Faculty Senate fully supports the OU American Association of University Professors petition titled Defend OU Instructors and Academic Freedom, delivered Jan. 2, as well as the Graduate Student Senate resolution titled Call for Accountability, Transparency, and Academic Integrity, passed Dec. 4.

While the resolution did not appear on Faculty Senates agenda, it was distributed among the body Feb. 6 over email by Sen. Dean Hougen, who sponsored the resolution.

A few senators engaged in discussion and drafted the attached resolution. This will be brought up for a vote during new business on Monday, Hougen wrote. We invite you to read it, and if you would like to co-sponsor it, please let me know.

While most university legislative bodies adhere to the Open Meetings Act, which would require the posting of all agenda items 24 hours before meetings, Faculty Senate Chair Sarah Robbins confirmed senate is not subject to Open Meetings Act regulations because members do not have final authority on the budget.

However, we try to be open as much as we can regardless, Robbins wrote.

While Faculty Senate resolved at the end of Mondays meeting to hold a virtual vote on the resolution, in a Tuesday email to Faculty Senate members, Robbins wrote that while she intended to send out the virtual ballot that morning, she realized, per senate bylaws, senate needs the executive committee to vote and approve sending the resolution to the senate in a two-third vote rather than a simple majority.

The vote will be delayed by at least a day while we conduct the vote with (Faculty Senate Executive Committee), Robbins wrote.

Faculty Senate reached the new business portion of the meeting around 5 p.m. Monday  when senate meetings usually conclude. Many senators had already left earlier in the meeting, so as the remaining members moved to vote on the new resolution, they found the senate no longer met quorum, the required number of senators present to vote.

OU Daily observed senators leave the meeting room to make calls to encourage other members to come to the meeting so quorum could be met. Senators quickly realized they would not be able to gather enough senators and decided to move to a virtual vote over the course of the next two days.

Hougen said he has reason to believe not all of the Faculty Senate rules were followed during OUs investigation of Curth.

There was a lot of pressure that was applied that would be inappropriate,  Hougen said. We have rules, the rules are fair, the rules are always implemented regardless of external factors. What we need to really think about is sticking behind our faculty, sticking behind our teaching assistants, our instructors.

Before the resolutions introduction, Stewart Berkinshaw, senior vice president for strategy and finance and chief financial officer, gave a 45-minute finance presentation that showed the university has seen a roughly $26.1 million increase in state appropriations over the past three years.

I appreciate the things that Stewart was telling us about the money and the good relationship with the state government, and so forth. But were not just a business, its not just about the money, right? Hougen said. Its got to be about academic integrity, and how we protect ourselves, and academic freedom. And that involves actually following the rules.

Curths grading of psychology student Samantha Fulneckys paper received state and national attention, with Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt posting on the social platform X that the situation was deeply concerning and called on the OU Board of Regents to review the results of the investigation.

The OU decision on this matter has had, and will continue to have, significant repercussions that negatively impact trust within the OU academic community, the original resolution reads.

Mashhad Fahes, associate professor of petroleum and geological engineering, said including the word negatively was necessary.

It is the negative impact that were addressing and were talking about here. Thats the whole point, Fahes said.

The amended resolution ultimately kept much of the same language with the exception of the first paragraph being changed from OU issued a statement on Dec 22nd that identifies the OU Faculty Senate Executive Committee as a partner in the OU decision regarding terminating instructional duties for a graduate teaching assistant to OU issued a statement on Dec 22nd that identifies the University as having engaged in repeated and detailed conversations with the Faculty Senate Executive Committee to ensure there is an understanding of the facts, the process, and the actions being taken regarding terminating instructional duties for a graduate teaching assistant, according to a Tuesday morning email from Robbins.

During the meeting, Fahes asked Robbins to clarify if executive committee members did speak with administration during the investigation.

I have a concern with (the language in the proposed amendments). Its just legitimizing something that we as a faculty dont really know. But you know that this happened. Me, as a senator, the whole point of  doing this is because the university dragged us into this, Fahes said.

Fahes said the university falsely implying the Faculty Senates support caused members to receive criticism for a decision they were not involved in.

A lot of senators received emails, basically accusing them of betrayal, Fahes said.

Robbins and Hougen discussed the extent to which the executive committee spoke to the administration during the investigation.

The administration talked to the executive, but the executive was not involved in the decision making process  you guys didnt say, Yes, we should do this, Hougen said.

No. Nor should we have. I dont think that would be appropriate, Robbins responded.

Following the discussion, present senators decided to move the decision to a virtual ballot, which needs a two-thirds vote in favor to pass instead of senates usual quorum majority, according to a Tuesday morning email from Robbins. Robbins wrote that there is not a specific timeline for the vote, but senators during the meeting wanted 48 hours so they will use that timeframe.

The statement and results of the vote will be made public  if the statement passes, it will be distributed across campus and available on the senate website, Robbins wrote. If it does not pass, itll be a part of the journal record for the February meeting that gets distributed in March.

Fahes wrote in a paper statement to OU Daily that faculty and the whole OU community are looking to the senate to be their voice on the issue.

Saying nothing is saying a lot, and that is not an option. Thats why we need this resolution voted on ASAP even though the threshold for virtual ballots is higher. Those of us who drafted this resolution wanted to amplify the voices of the other groups on campus, Fahes wrote.

Sen. Fabio de Sa e Silva, who co-sponsored the resolution, addressed the senate during debate.

There is a lesson that we learned through this process,  Silva said. There has been an attempt by the administration to instrumentalize the faculty to not take responsibility for the decisions that they are making.

After the meeting concluded, Silva told OU Daily that it is important to clarify what actually happened and convey what the real interest of faculty and graduate students is.

The statement that the university issued in December doesnt reflect the truth. It implies that the faculty have been consulted and that were part of, and supported, the decision that was made to remove Mel Curth from her teaching duties.

Background

In November, junior psychology student Samantha Fulnecky contested a failed grade on an essay assignment in an OU psychology course, stating she believed she received the grade because of her religious beliefs. Fulnecky reportedly received zero out of 25 points for the Bible-based essay and filed an illegal discrimination claim. Curth, the courses graduate instructor, was placed on leave later that month.

Curth stated the grade was based on the essays lack of empirical evidence and said parts of the essay were offensive, according to reporting by The Oklahoman. Fulnecky reportedly asked Curth to reconsider the grade, stating she met the requirements of the essay, but Curth denied the request.

The other instructor for the course, according to Canvas comments published by The Oklahoman, wrote that they concurred with Curths grading and the paper should not be considered as a completion of the assignment.

On Dec. 5, around 250 protesters gathered on campus in support of Curth. Protesters also called on OU to protect professors from political attacks.

On Dec. 22, OU announced that following an investigation, it was determined Curth engaged in arbitrary grading and would no longer have instructional duties at OU. Curth submitted an appeal to the Institutional Equity Office on Dec. 30, according to her attorney.

Anusha Fathepure contributed to the reporting of this story.

This story was edited by Anusha Fathepure and Audrey McClour. Sophie Hemker copy edited this story.
Smurfit Westrock to Permanently Close One Paper Machine at La Tuque Mill in Quebec

The machine being closed produces solid bleached sulfate (SBS) paperboard, which is used for foodservice and frozen foods packaging, along with healthcare, premium consumer goods. The machine being closed produces solid bleached sulfate (SBS) paperboard, which is used for foodservice and frozen foods packaging, along with healthcare, premium consumer goods.

Feb. 9, 2026 - Smurfit Westrock today announced it will permanently close one of the two paper machines at its La Tuque, Quebec, mill. The machine's annual production capacity of 127,000 tons of solid bleached sulfate (SBS) paperboard has faced ongoing scale and cost challenges.

SBS is used for foodservice and frozen foods packaging, along with healthcare, premium consumer goods and more.

The machine closure is part of the company's commitment to strengthen its SBS portfolio and ensure the long-term competitiveness of its paperboard operations.

Smurfit Westrock will also close the extrusion facility in Pointe-aux-Trembles, Quebec, which converts grades produced on the La Tuque machine. The closures will result in a limited workforce reduction of approximately 30 at La Tuque and approximately 60 at Pointe-aux-Trembles.

The company will provide support to employees including career transition assistance and relocation opportunities where possible. Impacted employees will receive local severance in accordance with company policy and labor union agreements.

"This was a difficult but necessary decision to align with market realities and strengthen our long-term position," said Laurent Sellier, president and CEO of Smurfit Westrock, North America Region. "We remain committed to our people, our operations in Canada and to delivering reliable, quality service to our customers."

Smurfit Westrock is a leading provider of paper-based packaging solutions in the world, with approximately 100,000 employees across 40 countries.

SOURCE: Smurfit Westrock
The former treasurer for a Delaware County-based nonprofit has been accused of stealing nearly $250,000 from the organization, using the money to pay for a trip to Walt Disney World, country club membership fees, and other expenses.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Michael Fantuzzo, 40, has been charged with several counts of theft for incidents that took place between 2021 and 2024.

Prosecutors said that Fantuzzo, who was the treasurer for the Pennsylvania Occupational Therapy Association in Bryn Mawr, spent $246,708 of the groups money.

The group advocates for occupational therapists and helps members with career development, training and other needs.

The organization was made aware of the missing money when a new board realized its bank account had been drained and it could not pay its bills.

When confronted, Fantuzzo admitted to authorities that he had taken some of the organizations money, though he initially said he only spent $90,000 by accident.

Authorities said Fantuzzo used the money to pay off his credit card debt, as well as pay for a vacation rental in North Carolina, have a hot tub installed in his home, hire a limousine service, become a member of a country club, and take a trip to Walt Disney World.

Police said Fantuzzo turned himself in on Friday and was released later that day. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for Feb. 17.
A man wanted in the shooting of a woman over the weekend was found dead Monday after crashing his car two days before, said police in western Pennsylvania.

Allegheny County police said that they were called at around 11 a.m. Sunday about a woman shot in McKees Rocks outside of Pittsburgh.

The unidentified victim was taken to a local hospital in critical but stable condition.

An investigation determined that the suspect was Edward Sparrow, 22, and the shooting took place Saturday evening but was not reported until Sunday morning.

Local police responded to a car crash in nearby Kennedy Township at 8:17 p.m. Saturday, but the car was unoccupied when they arrived.

Police determined Sparrow was driving the car that crashed and a witness reported seeing him jump over a guardrail after the accident.

On Monday, detectives conducted a search of a steep hillside on the other side of the guardrail and found a dead man matching Sparrows description.

Frigid temperatures gripped western Pennsylvania over the weekend. The low was 10 degrees Saturday night into Sunday and 5 below zero by early Monday morning.
Officials have released the first images of a suspect wanted in connection to the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie.

FBI Director Kash Patel released photos of a man on his X page on Tuesday, noting that the FBI along with the Pima County Sheriffs Department have been working with private sector partners for the last eight days to recover images and video footage from Guthries home outside Tucson.

Guthrie, 84, is the mother of Today host Savannah Guthrie. She was last seen outside her home on Jan. 31. Officials suspect foul play, and both the FBI and Guthries family have released multiple pleas to anyone who may have taken her.

The video was recovered from residual data located in backend systems, Patel wrote. Working with our partners  as of this morning, law enforcement has uncovered these previously inaccessible new images showing an armed individual appearing to have tampered with the camera at Nancy Guthries front door the morning of her disappearance.

In this image provided by NBCUniversal, Savannah Guthrie, center, her mom Nancy, left, and Jenna Bush Hager speak, Wednesday, April 17, 2019, in New York. (Nathan Congleton/NBCUniversal via AP) AP

Multiple news outlets have reportedly received ransom letters in connection with the kidnapping.

According to the Associated Press, at least one of the letters contained financial demands and imposed deadlines. One of the deadlines was set for Feb. 5, and a second one passed Monday evening.

At least one person has been arrested for making an imposter ransom demand in connection to Guthries disappearance.

As part of the search, the FBI has also offered a $50,000 reward for information and digital billboards have been posted throughout Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas.

Anyone with information may call 1-800-CALL-FBI or visit http://tips.fbi.gov.
BEIJING, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- With the Year of the Horse on the horizon, more international tourists are joining China's traditional Spring Festival festivities.

From the vibrant streets of Shanghai to the historic stilt houses of central China's Hunan, the Spring Festival, which falls on Feb. 17 this year, has evolved into a global cultural event, triggering a surge in inbound tourism.

Data from major travel platforms indicate that in the weeks leading up to the festival, flight bookings by foreign tourists skyrocketed by over 400 percent year on year.

The surge in visitors is largely fueled by enhanced visa-free and travel facilitation measures. Latest data show that in 2025, China expanded its unilateral visa-free access, allowing citizens of 48 countries to enter without a visa, while the number of countries offering reciprocal visa exemptions rose to 29.

While traditional hubs like Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Guangzhou remain favorites, the map of "China Chic" is expanding. Lanzhou, capital of northwest China's Gansu Province, and Hohhot, capital of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, have seen visitor numbers quadruple.

"There's a growing number of younger inbound visitors and their spending is shifting toward experiences rather than just sightseeing," said Zhou Weihong, deputy general manager of the Spring Tour based in Shanghai. From bustling markets to high-tech museums, foreign tourists are seeking an authentic slice of Chinese life.

In the tropical south, Hainan Province has become a primary destination for experiential consumption. Since the Hainan Free Trade Port officially launched island-wide special customs operations in late 2025, shopping has become a central part of many itineraries.

Daria, a visitor from Russia who recently bought an Honor tablet at a duty-free mall in Hainan, noted that the prices were "significantly more competitive."

Kate, who is on her second trip to the island province, praised the digital convenience. "Using WeChat for transport and payments is so easy that China has become my go-to destination for relaxation," she said, adding that her kids are now fans of the blind boxes at retail shop MINISO.

The holiday rush is also reaching smaller, culturally rich towns. Mario, a traveler from Rome, experienced his "first surprise" in Furong Town, a scenic spot in Hunan Province known for its waterfall and Tujia ethnic heritage.

Mario was particularly captivated by the Tujia brocade, an intangible cultural heritage craft. "Watching the artisans' fingers fly across the threads... It's not just a souvenir; it's a story woven in silk," he said.

As night fell, the ancient town took on a festive glow as local residents and tourists gathered in a circle around a rising bonfire to dance to the rhythm of traditional music. For Mario, the warmth of the locals was as memorable as the scenery.

"This is a unique cultural experience that I have never felt in Italy. It has made me fall in love with traditional Chinese culture even more," he said. 
Editors note: This story was corrected at 7:10 p.m. Tuesday to indicate that two women were charged by the Lebanon County District Attorneys Office.

Police charged two women and accused them of operating sex trafficking operations at two different spas in Lebanon County, according to the Lebanon County District Attorneys Office.

Chaio Ling Chiang, 53, of Philadelphia, and Pei Chi Wu, 49, of Houston, Texas, were charged with multiple counts of trafficking in individuals, conspiracy in trafficking in individuals, involuntary servitude, conspiracy to commit involuntary servitude, corrupt organizations, prostitution and related offenses and conspiracy to commit prostitution and related offenses.

Lebanon County detectives first began investigating Smile Spa at 723 Cornwall Road. They served a search warrant on July 2, 2025, and found two women who lived and worked in the spa.

They found Chiang and Wu staffed the spa with women who were expected to perform sex acts under the guise of massages, according to the district attorney. Women were also rotated to other spas over time to prevent their escape.

Women told detectives Chiang and Wu told them to do whatever the clients want, including vaginal, anal and oral sex. They also said Wu threatened them with violence.

Detectives said they learned the two women also used the New Cindy Spa/Yoko Spa/New Yoko Spa at 445 West Penn Avenue in Cleona. A Jan. 22 search warrant found the spa had new owners but still had a woman who performed sexual services, dating back to the time when Chiang and Wu owned the spa.

Female workers in spa parlor cases are often brought to the U.S. under the guise of legitimate employment, costing them large sums of money. But then they are sexually trafficked with no way to escape. Often, the women dont speak English, have no local connections and have no way to pay off their debt, real or inflated, to their traffickers.

The Lebanon County Human Trafficking Task Force had a large role in the investigation, comprised of county detectives, state police and municipal police officers.

The investigations into the Asian massage parlors are layered and never-ending, Lebanon County DA Pier Hess Graf said. Law enforcement has the arduous task of closing the physical location and ceasing the illicit sexual acts. We have a duty to go farther  to identify the persons who are placing these women into the spas, who sell a dream of a better life to the guileless but then deliver instead a life of forced sex work.
Theres been rumors floating around that Americans would be getting a $2,000 stimulus check at some point this year.

But how true are they?

Well, according to USA Today, President Donald Trump recently informed reporters that he believes the checks could indeed happen. This revenue would purportedly come from tariffs.

The tariff money is so substantial, Trump said. Thats coming in, that Ill be able to do $2,000 sometime. I would say toward the end of the year.

Im looking at it very seriously, Trump similarly informed TODAY. Im the only one who can do it because Im taking in hundreds of billions of dollars.

White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett also highlighted the possibility of stimulus checks hitting American bank accounts in 2026.

The deficit relative to last year is down by $4.6 billion and so, in the summer, I wasnt so sure that there was space for a check like that, Hassett told CBS Newss Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.

But now Im pretty sure there is, and so, I would expect that in the near year, the president will bring forth a proposal to Congress to make that happen.

The Austin-American Statesmen explains that a formal legislative process must take place in order for Americans to receive any type of new stimulus payment. For that to happen, the checks would need the approval of Congress.

In the meantime, the Mississippi Clarion Ledger warns individuals to be wary of scams surrounding these stimulus checks.

There is no confirmation that any stimulus payments will be arriving in February at this time.
A major slowdown in sales last year contributed to economic issues for gun companies that either caused businesses to shutter or had them to file for bankruptcy protection.

It stems from gun enthusiasts not purchasing firearms as much in 2025.

In fact, firearms sales have taken a nosedive by 4.1% to about 14.6 million in 2025 compared to over 15.2 million in 2024, according to the National Rifle Associations American Rifleman.

As a result, struggling firearms maker and dealer Custombilt Firearms Manufacturing LLC. has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This occurred after a battle with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives over its license in 2023 and 2024.

The firearms company, which is based in Overland Park, Kansas, filed its petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Kansas in Kansas City on Feb. 6, according to BK Data, which reviewed the court papers.

There was no reason given for the bankruptcy filing.

Currently, Custombilts website doesnt display any pistols or rifles for sale, but certain parts are listed, including complete uppers, complete lowers, multiple stripped lower, CFM M16 bolt carrier group, and trigger guards.

The website also offers apparel for sale like branded T-shirts and hats.

Five dealers are listed on the website, including the companys dealer The Bullet Hole in Overland Park, Osage Gun and Pawn in Sedalia, Missouri, Godfreys Indoor Ranges & Tactical Supply in Junction City, Kansas, Charger Arms in Lyndon, Kansas, and Ranier Arms Online.

We are a firearms manufacturing company that builds AR9s, AR15s, and AR10s using some proprietary parts along with quality parts from around the industry, the company noted on its Facebook page.
By KONSTANTIN TOROPIN, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP)  The U.S. Navys top uniformed officer wants to convince commanders to use smaller, newer assets for missions instead of consistently turning to huge aircraft carriers  as seen now in the American military buildups off Venezuela and Iran.

Adm. Daryl Caudles vision  what he calls his  Fighting Instructions   calls for the Navy to deploy more tailored groups of ships and equipment that would offer the sea service more flexibility to respond to crises as they develop.

The new strategy comes as the Trump administration has moved aircraft carriers and other ships to regions around the world as concerns have cropped up, often disrupting standing deployment plans, scrambling ships to sail thousands of miles and putting increasing strain on vessels and equipment that are already facing mounting maintenance issues.

The worlds largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, was redirected late last year from the Mediterranean Sea to the Caribbean Sea, where the crew ultimately supported last months operation to capture then-Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. And two weeks ago, the USS Abraham Lincoln arrived in the Middle East as tensions with Iran rise, having been pulled from the South China Sea.

In a recent interview with The Associated Press before the documents rollout, Caudle said his strategy would make the Navys presence in regions like the Caribbean much leaner and better tailored to meet actual threats.

Caudle said hes already spoken with the commander of U.S. Southern Command, which encompasses the Caribbean and Venezuela, and were in negotiation on what his problem set is  I want to be able to convey that I can meet that with a tailored package there.

Admiral sees a smaller contingent in the Caribbean in the future

Speaking broadly, Caudle said he envisions the mission in the Caribbean focusing more on interdictions and keeping an eye on merchant shipping.

The U.S. military has already seized multiple suspicious and falsely flagged tankers connected with Venezuela that were part of a global shadow fleet of merchant vessels that help governments evade sanctions.

That doesnt really require a carrier strike group to do that, Caudle said, adding that he believes the mission could be done with some smaller littoral combat ships, Navy helicopters and close coordination with the Coast Guard.

The Navy has had 11 ships, including the Ford and several amphibious assault ships with thousands of Marines, in South American waters for months. It is a major shift for a region that has historically seen deployments of one or two smaller Navy ships.

I dont want a lot of destroyers there driving around just to actually operate the radar to get awareness on motor vessels and other tankers coming out of port, Caudle said. Its really not a well-suited match for that mission.

Turning to drones or robotic systems

To compensate, Caudle envisions leaning more heavily on drones or other robotic systems to offer military commanders the same capabilities but with less investment from Navy ships. He acknowledges this will not be an easy sell.

Caudle said even if a commander knows about a new capability, the staff may not know how to ask for that, integrate it, and know how to employ it in an effective way to bring this new niche capability to bear.

That requires a bit of an education campaign here, he later added.

President Donald Trump has favored large and bold responses from the Navy and has leaned heavily toward displays of firepower.

Trump has referred to aircraft carriers and their accompanying destroyers as armadas and flotillas. He also revived the historic battleship title for a planned type of ship that would sport hypersonic missiles, nuclear cruise missiles, rail guns and high-powered lasers.

If built, the proposed Trump-class battleship would be longer and larger than the World War II-era Iowa-class battleships, though the Navy has not only struggled to field some of the technologies that Trump says will be aboard but it has had challenges building even smaller, less sophisticated ships on time and on budget.

Given this trend, Caudle said if the Lincolns recent redeployment to the Middle East were to happen under his new plan, he would talk with the Indo-Pacific commander about how to compensate for the loss.

So, as Abraham Lincoln comes out, Ive got a three ship (group) thats going to compensate for that, Caudle suggested as an example.

Caudle argues that his vision has been in place and working in Europe and North America for the last four or five years.

He said this could apply soon in the Bering Strait, which separates Russia and Alaska, noting that the importance of the Arctic continues to get more and more prevalent as China, Russia and the U.S. prioritize the region.

Trump has cited the threat from China and Russia in his demands to take over Greenland, the Arctic island overseen by NATO ally Denmark.

Caudle said he knows he needs to offer the commanders in that region more solutions and his tailored force packages would be a way to get after that.
By DAVID KLEPPER, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP)  The general counsel for the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Monday warned the attorney for an anonymous government employee not to directly share a top-secret complaint about Gabbards handling of classified material with members of Congress.

The letter to attorney Andrew Bakaj is the latest escalation in the back-and-forth accusations over the classified complaint, which alleges that Gabbard withheld top-secret material for political reasons.

Two inspectors general for the intelligence community reviewed the claim and found that the particular allegation did not appear to be credible. Gabbard has denied any wrongdoing and said she did all she could to ensure the report reached Congress.

Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees have blasted Gabbards office over the handling of the complaint, questioning why it took eight months for it to be sent to select members of Congress as required by law.

Heres what to know about the complaint and the next steps:

What is known about the complaint

The anonymous author of the complaint works for a U.S. intelligence agency and in May filed a report claiming that Gabbard withheld classified information for political reasons. Gabbard oversees the coordination of 18 intelligence agencies.

The complaint made two allegations, according to a memo sent to lawmakers by the current inspector general, Christopher Fox: The first is that the distribution of a highly classified intelligence report was restricted for political purposes, while the second accuses Gabbards general counsel of failing to report a potential crime to the Justice Department.

In June, the inspector general at the time, Tamara Johnson, found that the claim Gabbard distributed classified information along political lines did not appear to be credible, Fox said in the memo to lawmakers. Johnson was unable to assess the apparent credibility of the accusation about the general counsels office, Fox wrote.

The watchdog said he would have deemed the complaint non-urgent, meaning it never would have been referred to lawmakers.

If the same or similar matter came before me today, I would likely determine that the allegations do not meet the statutory definition of urgent concern, Fox wrote.

The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets reported that the complaint stemmed from a call between two foreign nationals that mentioned someone close to President Donald Trump and was intercepted by the National Security Agency. The news reports, which cited anonymous sources, said the discussion involved Iran and that Gabbard notified the White House personally, while the complaint accused her of blocking the NSA from reporting the interaction to other agencies. The AP could not immediately confirm the reports.

The NSA declined to offer details about the complaint Monday, saying in a statement that it works closely with the FBI and others to investigate the mishandling or disclosure of classified information.

Gabbards office warns attorney

Bakaj, a former CIA officer and an attorney for the person making the complaint, offered to meet with certain lawmakers or their staffs to discuss the allegations and his concerns about Gabbards review.

ODNIs general counsel warned against that in its letter Monday, noting that Bakaj or his client could face criminal charges if they improperly revealed classified material during the briefing.

The highly classified nature of the underlying complaint increases the risk that you or your client inadvertently or otherwise breaks the law by divulging or mishandling classified information, the general counsels office wrote. You may have other means of appearing in front of Congress, but this is not it.

Bakaj did not immediately respond to questions Monday about the letter.

Under federal law, intelligence whistleblowers are entitled to ask to refer their complaints directly to key lawmakers even if the inspector general finds them non-credible, so long as they deem the allegations urgent. That determination was made by the original watchdog, but the complaint didnt reach lawmakers until last week.

Copies of the top-secret complaint were hand-delivered beginning last week to the Gang of Eight  a group comprised of the House and Senate leaders from both parties as well as the four top lawmakers on the House and Senate intelligence committees.

Additional meetings for the remaining members are tentatively set for Wednesday.

Democrats decry delay as GOP backs Gabbard

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he will push Gabbard for more answers about the underlying complaint and why it took so long to get the report to lawmakers.

The number of redactions makes it hard to evaluate the allegations, he said.

WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 12: U.S. President Donald Trump, accompanied by Tulsi Gabbard, speaks after Gabbard is sworn in as director of national intelligence in the Oval Office at the White House on February 12, 2025 in Washington, DC. Gabbard, who will oversee the 18 intelligence agencies and serve as Trump's advisory on intelligence, was confirmed by the Senate 52-48. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) Getty Images

The fact that this sat out there for six, seven, eight months now and we are only seeing it now, raises huge concerns in and of itself, Warner said Sunday on CBS Face the Nation.

The Republicans who lead the intelligence committees are backing Gabbard, making it less likely the panels take further steps to investigate the complaint.

It seemed like an effort by the presidents critics to undermine him, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, the Senate Intelligence Committees chairman, wrote Saturday on X.

Intelligence chief responds to critics

Gabbard noted in a lengthy social media post Saturday that Johnson was appointed interim inspector general for the intelligence community during President Joe Bidens administration.

She included a detailed timeline that she said shows she acted quickly to ensure the complaint reached Congress. Gabbard wrote that she was aware of the complaint in June and believed the investigation had ended after it was found non-credible, only for the inspector generals office to inform her in December that the complaint had to be reviewed, redacted and sent to members of Congress.

I took immediate action to provide the security guidance to the Intelligence Community Inspector General, who then shared the complaint and referenced intelligence with relevant members of Congress last week, Gabbard wrote.

She also accused Warner and the media of trying to use the complaint to smear her name.
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin dropped an Epstein files bombshell on Monday that could be bad news for Donald Trump.

The president has long maintained that he and Epsteins relationship ended when he booted him from Mar-a-Lago for acting inappropriately with members of the staff there. And his administration has stuck to that story.

No matter how many times this story is told and retold, the truth remains: President Trump did nothing wrong and he kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago for being a creep, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed in December following a report from The Wall Street Journal that teenage workers from Mar-a-Lago were sent to Epsteins home in Florida to provide massages.

But Raskin told reporters Monday that he viewed an unredacted section of the Epstein files that reportedly featured an exchange between lawyers for Trump and Epstein.

Epsteins lawyers synopsized and quoted Trump as saying that Jeffrey Epstein was not a member of his club at Mar-a-Lago, but he was a guest at Mar-a-Lago, and he had never been asked to leave, Raskin said. That was redacted for some indeterminate, inscrutable reason.

I know it seems to be at odds with some things that President Trump has been saying recently about how he had kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club or asked him to leave, and this was at least one report that appears to contradict it.

The DOJ is giving Members of Congress just four computers in a satellite office to read the unredacted Epstein File of more than 3 million documents. Working 40 hours a week on nothing else but this, it would take more than seven years for the 217 Members who signed the House pic.twitter.com/kL59lbOEWJ  Rep. Jamie Raskin (@RepRaskin) February 9, 2026

The documents, which could potentially kill the presidents claims about kicking Epstein out of his club, were not Raskins only issue with the files.

The DOJ is giving Members of Congress just four computers in a satellite office to read the unredacted Epstein File of more than 3 million documents, Raskin wrote on X. Working 40 hours a week on nothing else but this, it would take mor than seven years for the 217 Members who signed the House discharge petition to read just the documents theyve decided to release (and there are 3 million still being withheld.)

This is what a cover up looks like.
More than 30 Mount Holly Springs Borough residents gathered before Monday nights council meeting to protest local law enforcements planned cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Nine citizens and a borough council member passionately spoke out against the effort, with two people speaking in support of it.

But the opposition to the agreement might already be too late.

Last month, the borough council authorized Mount Holly Springs Borough Police Chief Tom Day to submit an application to join ICEs 287(g) program, under which local law enforcement agencies receive training from ICE and carry out some immigration enforcement. ICE pays for the cost of training the officers, but municipalities have to sign a memorandum of understanding with ICE to enter the program.

The application process takes time, but if Mount Holly Springs application is approved, it doesnt have to come back to the council for final approval. Council could vote to rescind authorization, but did not at its February meeting.

Council member Pamela Still said the only information council members got before voting to authorize an application was the 287(g) brochure provided by ICE, with no municipal attorney present.

Why was something as complex as 287(g) passed without consideration? Still asked.

Still rescinded her vote to authorize the agreement, during which she and council president Sherry Boyles got into a slightly heated discussion on procedures of the vote and if the agreement was on the January agenda (it was).

Still, along with several others in attendance, seemed confused about where exactly the agreement stood.

The crux of the issue in Mount Holly Borough comes down to trucking. Borough police have consistently dealt with truck drivers who ignore road signs, such as weight restrictions, and damage property. Under the type of 287(g) agreement that Mount Holly Borough could enter, officers could enforce immigration law while going about routine activities, like a traffic stop.

Derek Scheuren, a Mount Holly Springs Borough resident who works as a mobile trailer mechanic, spoke in support of the initiative. Scheuren said he sees a majority of non-American truckers, and in his experience, most drivers with no CDL license or an invalid CDL license are illegal invaders. The crowd behind him gasped at his wording and murmured things like thats hate speech.

You guys are doing the right thing by having these officers clean this place up, not that its dirty, but get out the people that do not belong here. You guys are doing the right thing; dont listen to the childless cat ladies, said Scheuren, the last one of the residents to speak.

Scheuren also offered to buy a beer for any cop who carries out an operation on an undocumented immigrant. He then gave his card to a police officer present at the meeting, who quickly laid it down next to the borough secretary to be entered into the record, and did not pick it back up.

Other residents said the trucking issue is an infrastructure problem, not an immigration problem. Residents also questioned if the borough did a statistical analysis on the agreement, what the net cost would be to the borough, if the process exists to withdraw from the agreement, and what officers would do if they apprehended an undocumented immigrant.

None of these questions were answered.

Four full-time officers would be enrolled in the program, including Day. It could end up saving the borough money: ICE would pay the full salary and benefits for the officers, overtime funds up to 25% of their salary, and $7,500 each for new equipment. The department would also get $100,000 for new vehicles, and the agency would be eligible for quarterly performance-based financial rewards.

A main concern for residents was legal liability. Dauphin County Commissioner Justin Douglas spoke at the meeting and said the reason Dauphin County Prison refused to sign a 287(g) agreement with ICE was that the agency refused to indemnify the county or take financial responsibility for any lawsuits.

Douglas brought up the 2014 Galarza v. Szalczyk case out of Lehigh County, where a legal immigrant was mistakenly held in jail without a warrant because of an ICE civil detainer.

Lehigh County paid $95,000 in damages, and the U.S. and the City of Allentown paid $50,000.

If an indemnification clause is not in the memorandum of understanding, a municipal police department could be held liable. Also, federal agents are protected from civil suits, but municipal officers are not.

Former borough council member Katy Daniels spoke against the agreement, questioning how police would identify undocumented drivers, and saying a borough that prides itself on its community of places of worship should not partner with ICE.

Theres a lot of power with money, offering a bulletproof vest, a gun, it gives you a lot of power. But weve seen what happens when people with power are in the midst of an angry, confused situation. I dont want that to happen in this community, Daniels said. Please dont bring ICE to this community. Be better than the angry and the scared. Open your hearts and show what community really looks like.

A total of 55 law enforcement agencies in Pennsylvania participate in ICEs 287(g) partnerships, and one other, the South Lebanon Township Police Department, is pending acceptance into the program.

Many municipalities have dealt with pushback from residents.

Monday nights protest before the meeting was organized by Nicole Kilburg, the facilitator of Mount Holly Springs branch of Indivisible, a left-leaning grassroots organization.

Kilburg was pleased with the turnout. She knocked on doors around the borough, with an eventual plan to speak with all of the adult residents in the borough.

We dont want this in Mount Holly Springs. Weve seen the violence in Minnesota, and we dont want that here, Kilburg said.

That sentiment was repeated often by speakers at the rally and community members talking with PennLive. Douglas and Jessica St Clair, a Democrat running for a seat in the 87th Pa. House District, were the only two politicians who spoke. Douglas, a Democrat, is making a run for a U.S. Congress seat in Pa.s 10th District, currently held by Republican Scott Perry.

Their protest could be futile.

Boyle said whats done is done as she was talking with Still, but that she would like the council to take the information presented at the meeting home, come back to next months meeting, and have an intelligent conversation about rescinding the application.

That meeting is scheduled for March 9.
A firefighter was injured as flames tore through a two-story home Sunday evening in Hanover Township, Northampton County.

Hanover Township Volunteer Fire Co. Chief Scott VanWhy told lehighvalleylive.com flames ignited around 9:15 p.m. at the residence in the 400 block of Sugar Maple Court. All occupants were able to escape safely on their own, he said.

Asked if crews were focusing on a particular area of the structure, VanWhy said the house was well involved upon arrival.

The blaze quickly went to three alarms to bring in more personnel. About 15 agencies responded to help the Hanover Township crew.

VanWhy said firefighters faced hurdles with gear freezing up and water freezing almost instantly in single-digit temperatures.

We had to keep rotating guys and had to bring in extra manpower to keep up with the rotations, VanWhy said.

One firefighter slipped on ice while battling a three-alarm blaze Sunday evening, Feb. 8, 2026 in Northampton County. The home on Sugar Maple Court is now uninhabitable. Dan Clerico | For lehighvalleylive.com

One firefighter was injured after slipping on the ice and falling, VanWhy said. No civilians were reported injured.

A fire hydrant covered in snow had to be dug out by neighbors.

It took a while to get flames under control, VanWhy said. Crews stayed at the scene until 1:30 a.m. Monday in bitter cold temperatures checking for hot spots, he said.

The home has since been deemed uninhabitable by township fire officials. The family is staying with relatives, VanWhy said.

The cause of Sundays blaze remains under investigation by township fire officials.
A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit against the city of Harrisburg over a lethal dam that has claimed more than 30 lives since its construction in 1913.

The lawsuit said Harrisburgs Dock Street Dam was out of compliance with Pennsylvanias Dam Safety Act, and that caused the death of 64-year-old Michael Brook in April 2023.

Brook was boating on the Susquehanna River April 13, 2023 when his engine stalled, the lawsuit said. The boat floated toward the Dock Street Dam where it eventually went over the dam, trapping brook and his friend Elliot Rothel underwater in circulating waters known as a drowning machine.

Rothell escaped the vortex and a nearby boater threw him rope to drag him to safety, but Brook remained trapped and eventually died. A PennLive investigation found his death was among 31 since the dam was created.

5 1 / 5 Mike Brook

Rothell and Brooks wife, Elizabeth Hibble, sued last April under state negligence, wrongful death and survivor act claims.

They also lumped two Fourteenth Amendment claims, alleging the dam constituted a state-created danger, and that Harrisburg had an obligation to keep boaters like Brook and Rothell safe.

In addition to asking for monetary damages, they wanted the federal courts to order Harrisburg to bring the dam into compliance with the Dam Safety Act, require oversight of that compliance, and remove the dangerous hydraulic system responsible for dragging many a boater to their doom.

But District Judge Jennifer Wilson opined Hibble and Rothell stretched constitutional law in a way the courts couldnt accommodate because the facts of the lawsuit didnt meet federal requirements for a state-created danger claim under the 14th Amendment.

She dismissed the federal claims with prejudice, but dismissed the state claims without prejudice, allowing the plaintiffs to refile the case in county court. Plaintiffs attorney, Devon Jacob, did not return PennLives request for comment by deadline.

Harrisburgs spokesperson, Mischelle Moyer, did not return PennLives requests for comment. Neil Grover, city solicitor, declined to comment because he said the lawsuit represents ongoing litigation.

13 1 / 13 Search of Susquehanna River near Dock Street dam after boat capsizes

When plaintiffs want to sue a party over federal and state claims, they can file them all in federal court.

But if the federal claims get dropped from the lawsuit and only state claims remain, it is standard practice for federal judges to also dismiss the state claims so they can be filed in state court.

Hibble and Rothell argued against that in an attempt to thwart Pennsylvania laws that would limit Harrisburgs liability to a maximum of $500,000 per incident with no requirement to cover attorneys fees and costs.

Limiting Harrisburgs potential liability would reduce the citys motive to remediate the Dams propensity to cause harm, Brooks attorneys argued. They called it a matter of life and death, since a week after the original lawsuit was filed, two more kayakers got sucked beneath the dam and almost died.

These are understandable concerns, Wilson wrote. But Plaintiffs invite the court to ignore its judicial duty because of these concerns. This is an invitation the court must emphatically decline.

She advised plaintiffs to lobby the legislature, not the judiciary, to challenge Pennsylvania law on liability limitations.

Low-head dams, like the one at Dock Street, are deceptively dangerous because the water around them can appear tranquil.

But as water flows over the structure, it can create strong turbulence and recirculating currents that push victims underwater, and pull them back to the face of the dam in a repeating cycle that can be inescapable. Thats why they are known as drowning machines.

The lawsuit referred to a 2001 report created as part of the citys efforts at the time to pursue a hydroelectric project at the dam, which identified specific safety problems and noted the city is responsible for avoiding conditions that could injury any person even one who trespasses.

The report identified seven alternatives to the hydroelectric proposal, including taking no action, removing the dam, repairing the dam or replacing it with one of three higher inflatable dam options.

The report noted: no action could result in increased liability issues for the city, and that removing the dam, which would have cost about $300,000 back then, would eliminate safety and liability issues.

Removing the dam, however, also would remove the body of water it creates upstream for recreation.

A 1999 law, known as the Dam Safety Act, requires owners of low head-dams like the Dock Street Dam to mark the area above and below the dam and on the banks with warning signs.

After a fatal boat crash against the dam in May 2018, that killed a mother and child, the states Fish and Boat Commission notified the city it was not in compliance with the Dam Safety Act.

The lawsuit claims the city used an inadequate buoy system to warn boaters of the hidden danger, and as a result, the buoys moved and/or disappeared when Brook and Rothell were fishing on the river.

The city also removed the buoys during times when the water level of the river required them to be present, according to the lawsuit.
As public outcry continues over federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement fatal shootings in Minneapolis and agents activity caught on cellphones across the country, dozens of local Pennsylvania law enforcement agencies have agreements in place with ICE.

Such agreements let local officers carry out limited immigration enforcement and often carry big financial incentives.

55 law enforcement agencies in Pennsylvania participate in ICEs 287(g) partnerships, and one additional agency, South Lebanon Township Police Department, is pending acceptance into the program.

Under ICEs 287(g) program, local law enforcement agencies get training from ICE and carry out some immigration enforcement. The program is named for a section of federal law that allows ICE to delegate authority for specific immigration functions to local law enforcement officers. ICE pays for the cost of training the officers, then municipalities sign a memorandum of understanding to enter the program.

You can search your municipality on the table below.

The federal law authorizing 287(g) agreements dates to 1996, but the programs recent ramp up ties to an executive order in January 2025, signed by President Donald Trump. The order requires ICE to use 287(g) to the maximum extent permitted by law, instead of simply providing it as an option.

There are three different models agencies can join:

The Jail Enforcement Model lets local officers process immigrants in detention facilities who have pending or active criminal charges;

The Warrant Service Officer Program allows local officers to serve and execute administrative warrants on immigrants in the agencys custody; and

The Task Force Model allows officers to enforce immigration law while theyre going about their routine activities: For example, an officer could identify an immigrant at a DUI checkpoint and share the information with ICE. Officers can also use limited immigration authority while joining in ICE-led task forces.

51 of Pennsylvania agencies agreements with ICE are under the task force model, which matches whats happening at agencies across the country.

As of February 2026, ICE signed 1,279 agreements with local law enforcement agencies. Task Force agreements are the most common by far, with 768 agencies, then Warrant Service Officer agreements with 460 agencies and Jail Enforcement agreements with 151 agencies.

But why would a municipality work with ICE when residents are often opposed? Money.

The Task Force Model comes with fiscal perks that the other models dont have: For officers trained under the program, ICE pays their full salary and benefits, overtime funds up to 25% of their salary and $7,500 for equipment. Each agency that signs a memorandum of understanding with ICE also get $100,000 for new vehicles.

Under the model, agencies are also eligible for quarterly monetary performance awards based on the location of undocumented immigrants.

Agencies that work with ICE under any of the models are eligible for federal payments through a Department of Justice program, although its unclear for exactly how much.

Pennsylvania doesnt have a law prohibiting local law enforcement agencies from working with ICE, although multiple state representatives have agreed to co-sponsor a bill that would limit 287(g) agreements in the state.

Pennsylvania State Police have an internal policy that limits cooperation with ICE. State police policy says officers should not carry out any non-binding requests from ICE to search or detain people and they should not comply with any administrative detainers.
SYDNEY, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- The government of the state of Queensland on Tuesday approved new oil and gas exploration in a region the industry says could become Australia's first major new oil province in decades.

Queensland's Minister for Natural Resources and Mines, Dale Last, announced that the state government has appointed Omega TN, Tri-Star Stonecroft and Drillsearch Energy as preferred tenderers to explore for gas and petroleum in the 750-square-km Taroom Trough.

Peak industry body Australian Energy Producers said in a statement that the Taroom Trough, located near the small town of Miles, around 300 km west of the Queensland capital of Brisbane, is widely recognized as having the potential to become Australia's first major new oil province in a generation.

Last said that area could become Australia's first major oil province since the 1970s and revitalize domestic production.

He said that any gas produced from the region would be directed to the Australian market. 
Now is your chance to tell the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation what you think.

PennDOT wants your input about traffic safety and driving behaviors in order to continue to make improvements that save lives on Pennsylvania highways.

The online survey is available through Feb. 28. It is anonymous and takes about 5 minutes to complete.

The agency said 1,127 people lost their lives on Pennsylvania highways in 2024. That number was the second lowest since record keeping began in 1928 and 82 fewer than in 2023.

PennDOT said 2025 fatality data is not yet complete but preliminary numbers indicate crash fatalities have decreased for the second year in a row.

PennDOT said it invests almost $30 million a year in federal grant money to partner with educational and enforcement agencies to deliver programming each year to help prevent crashes, fatalities, and injuries on our roadways. This survey seeks information on drivers behavior behind the wheel to better inform PennDOTs program planning. This voluntary survey covers several topics including seat belt use, impaired driving, speeding, distracted driving, as well as bicycle, pedestrian and motorcycle safety.

PennDOT said the survey will help it better understand drivers attitudes about highway safety and potentially help it adjust its safety activities.

Information from the 2023 survey, PennDOT said, indicated many respondents were influenced by family to make safer choices behind the wheel. This data led PennDOT to create and implement a new media campaign focused on the consequences your loved ones face when you make dangerous decisions while driving. The video featured Pennsylvania State Police Troopers knocking on a door, while urging viewers to take one second to buckle up  Do it for the ones you love."
The sky is beginning to glow pink as I bank the turn into the entrance of Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area in Lancaster and Lebanon counties. We hurry with a sense of urgency, not wanting to miss the show that is about to begin.

Although we cant see the estimated 100,000 snow geese floating on the sheltered lagoon, we hear their communal voices. Its late February and these magnificent white birds have adopted this lake as their home for only a few weeks during their migratory passage to the Arctic region.

The snow geese began to stop in the central Pennsylvania region in the late 1970s to rest in the late winter on their way back to their breeding grounds in the Arctic. After resting and fattening up on local farmers field crops, theyll continue their journey north to Canadas St. Lawrence River, ending eventually at their Alaskan mating and breeding grounds.

The first streaks of light enable us to make out the bobbing white bodies blanketing the dark lake. They have very slowly begun to spread out onto the larger body of the 400-acre body of water to position themselves for take off.

Suddenly, the cold morning air is filled with the honking and calling of geese communicating their readiness to leave. Their voices build in volume and excitement until they are almost yelling. Beating their wings in a massive challenge to the laws of gravity, they rise up from the lake in a great sweeping wave that fills the air around us. Thousands and thousands of white birds, their brilliant bodies reflecting the sunrise, swirl around our heads in a united, moving arch.

They engulf us. We throw back our heads to watch them rise. We are in the moment, almost one with the great wave. In a matter of seconds, theyve disappeared in search of food. They will not return until the last dim light of day intersects with the emerging evening sky. The show is over, and we are left earthbound and speechless, pondering the vastness of their world.

My family has been coming to Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area for decades to witness this natural wonder. It is a rite of spring. These snow geese are part of the Greater Snow Goose population that travels up and down the eastern part of North America, though smaller than the Lesser Snow Goose population that travel down the middle part of the continent. Both populations have declined from a peak of over 20 million birds in the early 2000s, but remains far above the level of several thousand in the 1930s. Numbers remain designated as overabundant, although it is currently within its goal range, thanks to conservative hunting practices.

Last year, with the threat of the Avian flu, we could not access Willow Point, but instead, had to drive the management roads, looking for the flocks and the shows. To our surprise, we were not disappointed. A visit to Middle Creek is certainly worth repeating regardless if the Point is open this year or not.

The closure last year was only done in response to the area experiencing an active and significant wild bird mortality event caused by HPAI, that potentially put visitors at a higher likelihood of being exposed to the virus, the Pennsylvania Game Commissions Joshua Zimmerman said via email. We are monitoring the wildlife in the area, and while the future remains uncertain, so far we have not seen a similar mortality event that would warrant similar action.

The PA Game Commission reports that to date, they have no plans for keeping Willow Point closed during the 2026 snow goose season and will do everything to try to avoid it. It will hinge on what happens in the next month. If there is a massive die-off, things might change. The cold snowy weather may consolidate the geese and make the flu rear its ugly head. Check with Middle Creek officials once the winter weather breaks. The snow geese need open water and open fields to feed on or they will stay south until conditions change.

In fact, according to the centers website, the recent prolonged cold temperatures, with snow-covered fields and a frozen lake, have delayed the birds arrival, and peak viewing is now expected to begin later than usual.

If closing does occur, head to the Visitor Center and follow the self-guided driving tour through the interior of the management area. Weather and driving conditions dictate when the road opens but the targeted date is March 1.

While you are visiting, check out the great hiking trails in the management area. Besides the .4 mile trail out to Willow Point (which could possible be closed), there is a moderate 1.4-mile loop that leaves from the Visitors Center, and travels through forest, field and wetlands to a ridge. There you will find scenic views of the lake below.

Birds can teach us about joy, for hearing their song fresh and new every spring has the ability to certainly lift our spirits. Middlecreeks snow goose phenomena reminds me of what the author Annie Dillard once said, that there is beauty and magic happening all the time out in nature, the least we can do is show up for it.

IF YOU GO: The Middle Creek Wildlife Visitors Center is closed Mondays but open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. Contact info is 717-733-1512 or middlecreek@pa.gov. A live webcam of the lake can be seen at this link.
Sen. Dave McCormick is among more than a dozen Republican senators who are defending senior White House aide Stephen Miller amid growing calls for his removal.

McCormick, a staunch ally of the president, on Sunday told The Hill that Miller has been instrumental in delivering on the promises President Trump and I made during the campaign.

Because of him and other members of the Presidents team, critical priorities like stopping deadly fentanyl, unleashing Americas energy, and bringing much-needed economic relief for working families are now a reality for Pennsylvania, McCormick told the outlet.

His statement was issued along with that of 11 other Republican senators as an effort led by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to defend Miller, who is increasingly seen by some conservatives as a liability leading into the midterm elections.

Miller has engendered rare rebuke from some conservative corners for his public comments on immigration enforcement and speculation that Trump intends to invade and seize control of Greenland by military action.

Graham told The Hill on Sunday that Miller is going to be proven right that we should be more aggressive on immigration policy. He praised Millers and the presidents hard-line rhetoric on Greenland, arguing it has led to a strengthened Arctic defense policy.

Graham refuted that Millers standing in Trumps circle was in jeopardy.

It doesnt matter what a senator thinks about a presidents adviser, as long as the president has confidence in that adviser. I have confidence in Stephen Miller that hes going to help us go on offense, Graham added. Were going to have a vote next week on the Senate floor on sanctuary cities and Stephen Miller helped orchestrate that with me.

Miller is widely regarded as the architect of Trumps overhaul of U.S. immigration policy, including its aggressive crackdown and arrests targeting immigrants. He has earned a reputation as a race-baiting provocateur, but more recently Republicans have begun to consider him a liability for the president and their party in the upcoming midterms.

While his fellow Republicans ring alarm bells about the danger Stephen Millers extremism poses to our communities, Dave McCormick is putting his loyalty to Trumps dangerous agenda ahead of whats best for Pennsylvanians, said Jack Doyle, a Pennsylvania Democratic Party spokesperson.

Whether hes defending Stephen Miller or endorsing Stacy Garrity, who is running to serve as a rubber stamp for Trump here in the Commonwealth, Dave McCormick continues to embrace extremism at the expense of the people he is supposed to be fighting for.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) assailed Miller in comments made to The Hill on Sunday.

I think the truth be told he would not win a majority of a popularity contest in our conference, he said. Number one, he has a condescending demeanor to begin with. He doesnt take advice. He sort of dictates. He provides doctrine. And you know these are U.S. senators with an election certificate. He should show them some respect, Tillis said of Miller.

The North Carolina Republican has rebutted comments made by Miller on potential military action to take over Greenland.

Last month, he called comments that Miller had made insane and amateur hour. Tillis famously said he was sick of stupid in reference to Miller.

McCormick recently marked his first year in office.
Air quality alerts has been issued for several counties in Pennsylvania, with one affecting Cumberland, Dauphin, Lancaster, Lebanon and York counties, and another affecting Allegheny County.

The state has certainly seen air quality alerts in the past  notably, in recent years, due to Canadian wildfires. But the cause behind current conditions may surprise you.

David Martin, meteorologist with the National Weather service in State College, explained that a very strong temperature inversion near the ground is to blame for our current alert.

The cold temperatures near the ground, Martin explained, prevents the mixing of air above the ground as the temperatures rise out of the unusually cold conditions weve had lately.

Since cold and hot air dont mix well, Martin said, haze, smoke, moisture, fog build up near the ground, leaving anything in the air to be stuck where people might breathe.

The state of Pennsylvania monitors air quality, Martin said, measuring particulates in the air that might be harmful for people to inhale.

These particulates can range from pollen to ozone to smoke from wildfires. But often, the conditions are triggered by air pollution, such as from car exhaust.

And when the air wont circulate, then regardless of what theyre looking at, when certain levels reach a critical value, they issue air quality alerts, Martin said.

The Air Quality Index includes the following color-coded levels:

Green: Air quality is satisfactory, and air pollution poses little or no risk.

Yellow: Air quality is acceptable. However, there may be a risk for some people, particularly those who are unusually sensitive to air pollution.

Orange: Members of sensitive groups may experience health effects. The general public is less likely to be affected.

Red: Some members of the general public may experience health effects; members of sensitive groups may experience more serious health effects.

Purple: Health alert: The risk of health effects is increased for everyone.

Maroon: Health warning of emergency conditions: everyone is more likely to be affected.

The current air quality alert is a Code Orange, meaning that only people sensitive to such conditions need be concerned.

People with asthma or other respiratory conditions, heart conditions, or the very old and very young, should limit their exertion outside during such an alert.

And in good news for people with those conditions, the current alert is set to expire by Wednesday.
BEIJING, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- China firmly opposes some countries and institutions using judicial cases as a pretext to maliciously smear Hong Kong, defame its rule of law, and interfere in China's internal affairs, a foreign ministry spokesperson said here Tuesday.

China has lodged stern representations with the relevant countries and institutions, spokesperson Lin Jian told a regular news briefing after the United States, Britain, Australia, and the European Union issued statements on the Jimmy Lai case.

The High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) on Monday sentenced Jimmy Lai, an instigator of anti-China riots in Hong Kong, to 20 years in prison.

Noting that Lai's crimes endangering national security are clear and the evidence is conclusive, Lin said the judicial authorities of the HKSAR make rulings based on facts and laws, which are lawful, just and beyond reproach.

Hong Kong upholds the rule of law and no one can engage in illegal and criminal activities under the pretext of "democracy" and "freedom" while attempting to evade legal punishment, Lin said.

The spokesperson emphasized that Hong Kong affairs are purely China's internal affairs, the rule of law in Hong Kong brooks no challenge, and no foreign country has the right to make irresponsible remarks.

The Chinese government remains unwavering in its determination to safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests, as well as to implement the "one country, two systems" policy, he said, adding that all attempts to undermine Hong Kong's progress from governance to prosperity, or to contain China by destabilizing Hong Kong, will never succeed.

"We urge relevant parties to respect China's sovereignty, adhere to the principles of international law and the basic norms of international relations, and immediately stop any interference in Hong Kong affairs or the internal affairs of China by any means," Lin said. 
888poker LIVE Heads to Glasgow For a 250,000 Gtd Main Event

Matthew Pitt Senior Editor Copy link

Grosvenor Casino Merchant City is set to be packed to the rafters between March 12-22 when 888poker LIVE heads into the city for the second leg of its 2026 tour. Among its many events, the 888poker LIVE Glasgow schedule features an 888 buy-in Main Event that boasts a 250,000 guaranteed prize pool.

Edinburgh is usually the go-to city whenever a major poker festival heads to Bonny Scotland, but 888poker LIVE is returning to Glasgow for the second consecutive year following an exciting debut in 2025. In March 2025, all but two of the 888poker LIVE Glasgow tournaments smashed their guarantees, including the Main Event, which generated a 309,320 prize pool, 59,320 over the advertised guarantee.

The 2026 edition of 888poker LIVE Glasgow bursts into action at noon on March 12, with the first of four flights in the 250 No-Limit Hold'em Crazy 8 Opening Event. This event carries a 50,000 guarantee on its prize pool. Last time out, Majid Iqbal left 226 opponents in his wake as he got his hands on 10,130 of the 52,630 prize pool.

Tournaments such as the 250 buy-in, 100,000 guaranteed Mini Main (March 15-17), 1,500 buy-in, 100,000 guaranteed No-Limit Hold'em High Roller (March 18-19), and the 340 buy-in, 30,000 guaranteed Dragon (March 21-22) complement the eagerly anticipated 888poker LIVE Glasgow Main Event.

Expand the table below to see the full, bustling schedule in all of its glory.

Full Schedule for the 2026 888poker LIVE Glasgow Festival

Date Time (GMT) Event Guarantee Thu 12 Mar 12:00 p.m. 250 NLHE Crazy 8 Opening Event Day 1a 50,000 5:00 p.m. 330 NLHE PKO Rumble Day 1 15,000 8:00 p.m. 120 Main Event Cashout Satellite 10x seats Fri 13 Mar 12:00 p.m. 250 NLHE Crazy 8 Opening Event Day 1b 50,000 12:30 p.m. PKO Rumble Day 2 15,000 7:00 p.m. 250 NLHE Crazy 8 Opening Event Day 1c Turbo 50,000 Sat 14 Mar 12:00 p.m. 250 NLHE Opening Event Day 1d Turbo 50,000 4:30 p.m. 250 NLHE Opening Event Day 2 50,000 5:00 p.m. 220 NLHE Mid Shot 8:00 p.m. 120 Main Event Cashout Satellite 10x seats Sun 15 Mar 12:00 p.m. 250 NLHE Mini Main Day 1a 100,000 6:00 p.m. 250 NLHE Mini Main Day 1b 100,000 8:00 p.m. 120 Main Event Cashout Satellite 10x seats Mon 16 Mar 3:00 p.m. 250 NLHE Mini Main Day 1c 100,000 6:00 p.m. 250 Pot Limit Omaha 8:00 p.m. 120 Main Event Cashout Satellite 10x seats Tue 17 Mar 12:00 p.m. 250 NLHE Mini Main Day 1d Turbo 100,000 4:30 p.m. 250 NLHE Mini Main Day 2 100,000 5:00 p.m. 220 NLHE The Big Shot 25,000 9:00 p.m. 165 High Roller Cashout Satellite 2x seats Wed 18 Mar 12:00 p.m. 165 High Roller Cashout Satellite 2x seats 3:00 p.m. 1,500 NLHE High Roller Day 1 100,000 6:00 p.m. 200 NLHE Turbo Dash 15,000 8:00 p.m. 120 Main Event Cashout Satellite 10x seats Thu 19 Mar 12:00 p.m. 1,500 NLHE High Roller Day 2 100,000 1:00 p.m. 888 NLHE Main Event Day 1a 250,000 6:00 p.m. 120 Main Event Cashout Satellite 20x seats Fri 20 Mar 12:00 p.m. 888 NLHE Main Event Day 1b 250,000 8:00 p.m. 888 NLHE Main Event Day 1c Turbo 250,000 9:00 p.m. 120 Main Event Cashout Satellite Sat 21 Mar 11:00 a.m. 888 NLHE Main Event Day 1d Turbo 250,000 5:00 p.m. 888 NLHE Main Event Day 2 250,000 5:00 p.m. 340 NLHE The Dragon Day 1 30,000 7:00 p.m. 220 Pot Limit Omaha Bounty Sun 22 Mar 1:00 p.m. Main Event Day 3 250,000 1:30 p.m. 340 NLHE The Dragon Day 2 30,000 3:00 p.m. 250 NLHE Seniors 5:00 p.m. 200 NLHE 888poker Live Closer

250,000 Guaranteed 888poker LIVE Glasgow Main Event

Dean Lyall: Reigning 888poker LIVE Glasgow champion

Without doubt, the 250,000 guaranteed 888poker LIVE Glasgow Main Event is the highlight of the schedule. It commands a 888 buy-in, unless players manage to win a cut-price seat from the plentiful live satellites at Grosvenor Casino Merchant City, or online at 888poker.

The Main Event features four flights, the first of which commences at 1:00 p.m. GMT on March 19. Day 1b begins at 12:00 p.m. GMT on March 20, with a turbo-structured Day 1c scheduled for 8:00 p.m. GMT on the same day. March 21 at 11:00 a.m. GMT is when Day 1d shuffles up and deals, players' final chance to get in on the action, although late entry is permitted up to the start of Day 2 (5:00 p.m. GMT on March 21).

Day 1a and Day 1b play to a 40-minute clock, with the two turbo-structured flights featuring 20-minute blinds. Unlimited re-entries are permitted during the first 14 levels. Day 2's levels are all 40 minutes, with the third and final day extending to 60 minutes.

Last year, Dean Lyall emerged victoriously from the 888poker LIVE Glasgow Main Event. A predominantly Scottish field of 407 entrants created a guarantee-busting 309,320 prize pool that the top 50 finishers shared.

The likes of Robbie Bull, Matthew Davenport, Mariusz Czech, 888poker ambassador Vivian Saliba, and cash game specialist Bryan Taylor all finished inside the money places, but fell short of a final table seat.

Each of the nine finalists won at least 5,780 for their efforts, with six earning five-figure scores. However, the tournament belonged to Lyall, who defeated Daniel Johnson heads-up and scooped the 58,130 top prize.

Rank Player Country Prize 1 Dean Lyall Scotland 58,130 2 Daniel Johnson Scotland 42,940 3 Martin Byrne Scotland 31,800 4 Michael Broadhurst England 23,600 5 Harry Cattanach England 17,540 6 Jack Moore Scotland 13,050 7 Zbigniew Wieczorek Poland 9,770 8 Willie Haughey Scotland 7,430 9 Anonymous 5,780

888poker LIVE Glasgow 2025 Results

Expand the table below to see the full results from the 2025 edition of the 888poker LIVE Glasgow festival.

Event Entrants Prize Pool Champion Prize 888 NLHE Main Event 407 309,320 Dean Lyall 58,130 1,650 NLHE High Roller 72 102,590 Maogen Fu 28,500 250 NLHE Mini Main 493 103,030 Anonymous 18,220 250 NLHE Crazy 8 Opening 227 52,630 Majid Iqbal 10,130 330 NLHE Big Shot 138 39,330 Maogen Fu 9,090 330 NLHE The Dragon 149 42,470 Adam Wilkinson 8,360 330 NLHE Mystery Bounty 178 50,730 Wantao Tang 4,900 250 NLHE Beat the Ambassadors 90 18,810 Oliver Hutchins 4,680 330 NLHE PKO Rumble 52 12,000 Fraser Armstrong 3,886 200 NLHE Turbo Dash 86 15,000 Robert Robb 3,460 230 Pot Limit Omaha 58 12,120 Barrie Greenan 3,265 220 PLO 4 Card Bounty 36 3,410 Zexuan Huang 1,710

Bounties not included in prizes for bounty events

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Seth Taylor covers Greenville and the Upstate for The Post and Courier. Born in Iowa, he worked in Wyoming at the Buffalo Bulletin before moving to the Palmetto State.
by Liu Yinglun, Huang Xitian and Yu Lizhen

HONG KONG, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Days before the 2026 Chinese New Year, which falls on Feb. 17, Hong Kong is oozing with festivities -- red lanterns, well-wishing flowers and spring couplet stands beckon residents and tourists.

The coming year of the horse serves as a ready inspiration. Local calligrapher Raymond Siu and his daughter Freya have adorned their stand at the iconic hillside steps of Sheung Wan with spring couplets containing the Chinese character "Ma" for horse.

"I have heaps of red couplet paper stashed for this Spring Festival," said Siu as he sliced a top scroll-sized piece off a large roll. As a Chinese New Year tradition, he expects writing for locals and tourists from around the world, especially overseas Chinese.

With Freya taken up his mantle, Siu's 40-year-old stand features novel twists -- brush stroke cartoon sketches on demand. A cheeky horse playing with the character "Fu" for fortune could be ready for grabs within five minutes.

"Every Spring Festival is a time for us to add to the city's festive joys and promote Chinese traditional art," said Freya, who has customized couplets for names like "Lisa" and "Mary" written in Chinese characters upon request.

Also reincarnating Chinese art are horse figures at commercial complexes across Hong Kong. The 3.5-meter-tall horses at Pacific Place donned embroidered drapes that took local craftsmen over 1,000 hours of handiwork, and life-sized Lego horses at tmtplaza paid homage to Xu Beihong's signature horse paintings.

Besides lanterns and spring couplets, flowers are another fixture for Chinese New Years. For days, the Mong Kok flower market has been teeming with shoppers on the lookout for the perfect plant to decorate homes and bring good luck.

At flower stands, staffers helped customers carry pots of butterfly orchid with a dozen blossoms cascading down ten branches. The purple ones are the most popular because they were believed to add wealth to general wellness.

Evelyn, a British expat working in finance in Hong Kong, has bought house plants for the Spring Festival for years. She picked out a pot of pussy willow because she was told by local friends that its Chinese name sounds like "money and house".

"It's an opportunity to learn about local traditions, and my home needs a little festive flair," she said. 
Quick Response and Public Safety Reporter

Caitlin Bell is a breaking news and courts reporter for The Post and Courier Charleston. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Jason Ryan is a senior enterprise reporter covering the Lowcountry and South Carolina. He has reported for three South Carolina newspapers and has written several history and true crime books about the Palmetto State and Hawaii.
Grace Beahm Alford is the Assistant Visuals Editor for The Post and Courier, where she has been since 2001. Her photojournalism has sent her to every corner of South Carolina, and was part of the newspaper's team recognized as a Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Feature Photography for coverage of the mass shooting at Emanuel AME Church.
BEIJING, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- China firmly opposes some countries and institutions using judicial cases as a pretext to maliciously smear Hong Kong, defame its rule of law, and interfere in China's internal affairs, a foreign ministry spokesperson said here Tuesday.

China has lodged stern representations with the relevant countries and institutions, spokesperson Lin Jian told a regular news briefing after the United States, Britain, Australia, and the European Union issued statements on the Jimmy Lai case.

The High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region on Monday sentenced Jimmy Lai, an instigator of anti-China riots in Hong Kong, to 20 years in prison. 
PR-Inside.com: 2026-02-09 23:36:20

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VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA / ACCESS Newswire / February 9, 2026 /Mako Mining Corp. ("Mako" or the "Company") (TSXV:MKO)(OTCQX:MAKOF) announces that it has postponed the Company's special meeting of shareholders (the "Special Meeting") that was originally scheduled for Tuesday, February 10, 2026.The Company and Sailfish Royalty Corp. ("Sailfish") are working to finalize a restructuring of the consideration payable for the proposed acquisition (the "Acquisition") of the Mt. Hamilton Gold-Silver Project (the "Mt. Hamilton Project") located in White Pine County, Nevada, USA, which quantum will remain US$40 million. The restructuring of the consideration payable is being undertaken to preserve maximum flexibility for the Company to develop the Mt. Hamilton Gold-Silver Project as currently anticipated, as well as derisking the impact of encumbrances over potential future development scenarios at the Mt. Hamilton Project more broadly. The restructured consideration will be reflected in amended and restated transaction agreements, as well as a supplement to the management information circular dated December 23, 2025 together with an updated proxy/voting information form. Once finalized, the amended and restated transaction agreements, together with the revised supplemental proxy materials, will be made available under the Companys SEDAR+ profile at www.sedarplus.ca . Closing of the Acquisition will not be subject to any additional closing conditions, and remains subject to the approval of the Company's shareholders at the Special Meeting, the approval of Sailfish's shareholders and the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange.Akiba Leisman, CEO of Mako, states "this past week, the Trump administration in the United States announced the establishment of Project Vault and the 2026 Critical Minerals Ministerial, which Mako views as a significant change to mining industrial policy in the USA. As previously disclosed in the Company's press release on September 30, 2025, the Mt. Hamilton Project hosts a tungsten target located below, and independent of, the gold and silver resource. Tungsten's role as a U.S.-designated critical mineral potentially positions Mt. Hamilton as a strategic asset in supporting domestic supply chain security. When the original Mt. Hamilton transaction was announced, it could have potentially included a 2% Net Smelter Return royalty on all minerals, inclusive of tungsten. Management has concluded that to preserve maximum flexibility on how we plan on advancing the fully permitted Mt. Hamilton Project, we intend to restructure the Mt. Hamilton consideration in an economically equivalent way, which will only be repaid through deliveries of gold ounces coming from Mako's other projects. Details of this proposed restructuring will be made available imminently, with shareholders given ample time to review the new terms for the meeting now scheduled for March 3, 2026. In the meantime, the Company has engaged a political advisor, and discussions have commenced with United States Government officials and other critical metals companies on how to potentially advance the Mt. Hamilton Project as quickly as possible. We will update the market on how these discussions progress in due course." Details of the Postponed Special MeetingTo allow Mako shareholders reasonable time to consider and vote on the proposed Acquisition once the amended transaction agreements are finalized and a supplement to the current management information circular for the Special Meeting is filed on SEDAR+ and mailed to shareholders, Mako is postponing the Special Meeting to March 3, 2026 at 10:00 AM (Toronto time).The record date for determining Mako shareholders eligible to vote at the Special Meeting remains January 2, 2026. The deadline for Mako shareholders to return their completed proxies or voting instruction forms has been extended to 10:00 AM on February 27, 2026 (Toronto time).About MakoMako Mining Corp. is a publicly listed gold mining, development and exploration company. The Company operates the high-grade San Albino gold mine in Nueva Segovia, Nicaragua, which ranks as one of the highest-grade open pit gold mines globally and offers district-scale exploration potential. Mako also owns the Moss Mine in Arizona, an open pit gold mine in northwestern Arizona. Mako also holds a 100% interest in the PEA-stage Eagle Mountain Project in Guyana, South America. Eagle Mountain is the subject of engineering, environmental and mine permitting activity.For further information about Mako, please contact Akiba Leisman, Chief Executive Officer, at (917) 558-5289 or aleisman@ makominingcorp.com , or visit our website at www.makominingcorp.com and our profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking StatementsThis news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Statements in this news release, other than statements of historical facts, are forward looking statements. Forward-looking information may be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "targets", "expects", "is expected", "scheduled", "estimates", "outlook", "forecasts", "projection", "prospects", "strategy", "intends", "anticipates", "believes", or variations of such terminology which states that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might", "will", "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking information in this news release includes, without limitation, Mako's intention to hold the Special Meeting at 10:00 am on March 3, 2026, finalize amended agreement reflecting a restricting of the consideration payable under the proposed Acquisition, the timing for filing a supplement to the Company's management information circular dated December 23, 2025; the conditions to closing the proposed Acquisition, including receipt of approval by Mako shareholders and the approval of the TSXV to complete of the Acquisition. Forward-looking information is based on the opinions, assumptions and estimates of management considered reasonable at the date the statements are made and is inherently subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other known and unknown factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information. These risks include the Company not holding the Mako Meeting on the timeline contemp
PR-Inside.com: 2026-02-10 00:35:09

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NASHVILLE, TN / ACCESS Newswire / February 9, 2026 / MYND READER's self-titled debut, out January 30, 2026, sounds like it was made by musicians who have weathered a few storms. Built on soaring guitars, swelling textures, and the sturdy pulse of drummer and lyricist Brian Sachs, the album moves with the confidence of a band stepping into its identity rather than chasing one. The Boulder, Colorado group has been steadily gaining attention over the past year through a run of singles that have pushed their streaming numbers into the hundreds of thousands, and their full-length effort makes a strong case for even wider reach.The band formed around three musicians whose chemistry is immediately evident. Sachs, whose career stretches back to New York City's early 1990s funk-rock circuit, played hundreds of shows with his former group The Authority, sharing stages with Phish, Blues Traveler, and Dave Matthews Band. After leaving the East Coast for Colorado, he reconnected with guitarist and producer Tonin in 2022. What started as a casual creative exchange quickly grew into a focused collaboration, one that deepened further when vocalist and guitarist Shelby Kemp entered the mix. Kemp's voice, worn-in and soulful, became the final piece of the group's sound.That sound blends blues, Americana, and modern rock, drawing on familiar influences without leaning too heavily on any one of them. Listeners may hear shades of The Black Crowes, echoes of My Morning Jacket's wide-open arrangements, or flashes of Chris Stapleton's vocal strength, yet the material avoids imitation. Instead, the trio channels those inspirations into something contemporary and emotionally grounded. The songs were mixed byseven-time Grammy Award-winning engineer Michael Brauer, whose work with the Rolling Stones, Coldplay, My Morning Jacket, Aretha Franklin, and Ray LaMontagne adds continuity between decades of rock lineage and MYND READER's present-day perspective. His touch gives the album a warm, analog depth that suits the band's organic approach.The singles helped shape expectations for the full record. "Mourning Light," already a Top 100 on the Mediabase chart, moves between quiet reflection and cathartic release. "Radio Warning," written partly from Sachs' experiences trekking through remote parts of Alaska, pairs isolation and resilience in equal measure."Simply Avanti"delivers a tighter, more urgent punch. "Oslo" and "Leaving Our Lives" reveal a softer edge, leaning into the band's melodic instincts. "Birdsong" expands the group's cinematic reach; the accompanyingvideo, filmed in the surreal dunes of Mexico by director VINSINT, reinforces the track's sense of scale and atmosphere.The standout is"Home,"a soaring, anthemic centerpiece that has already received spins across more than 20 iHeart stations after landing on Ted Stryker's nationally syndicated Out Of Order program on ALT 98.7 Los Angeles. It is the song that most clearly articulates what MYND READER is trying to express. Kemp describes it as an ode to belonging, whether tied to a person, a place, or the music that carries someone through change. The arrangement builds gradually, leaning into Kemp's vocal grit, Tonin's expansive guitar shapes, and Brauer's instinct for heightening emotional tension without overwhelming it.Sachs says the album emerged from a period when everything in his life felt like it was shifting. The dissolution of his marriage, the loss of his mother, his son leaving home, and a period of personal upheaval all shaped the writing. In that way, the album marks a turning point between his early years with The Authority and the artist he has become. The earlier era was defined by youthful momentum and non-stop touring. MYND READER, he says, reflects a different mindset, one focused less on chasing success and more on finding clarity.Taken as a whole,ten-trackdebut feels both grounded and ambitious.MYND READERsteps into its own with intention, and this Merchant Records release carries a thorough-line of candor, craftsmanship, and purpose. It is a confident first chapter, one that sets the stage for a band ready toConnect with MYND READER:OFFICIAL WEBSITE|INSTAGRAM|FACEBOOK|YOUTUBE|SPOTIFYPhotographer for Cover Art: David Fulton - XPRMNT ConsultingPhotographer for band photos: Dog Daze PhotoPhotographer for photo of Brian Sachs/Drummer/Lyricist/CoFounder: David Fulton - XPRMNT ConsultingContact:tyler@ artistformula.com Artist Formula Record Group artistformula.com Tyler BooneSOURCE: Artist Formula
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Not for distribution to United States newswire services or for release, publication, distribution or dissemination directly, or indirectly, in whole or in part, in or into the United States.VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESS Newswire / February 9, 2026 /NV Gold Corporation (TSXV:NVX)(OTCQB:NVGLF)(FSE:8NV) ("NV Gold" or the "Company"), announces that, further to its News Release of January 27, 2026, it has completed its non-brokered private placement whereby it issued 3,225,000 units ("Units") at a price of $0.20 per Unit for gross proceeds $645,000 (the "Offering"). Each Unit consists of one common share (each, a "Share") and one transferable common share purchase warrant (each, a "Warrant"). Each Warrant is exercisable at a price of $0.50 and expires 2 years from the date of issuance, subject to an acceleration right held by the Company if the Shares have a closing price of over $0.50 per Share for a period of three (3) consecutive trading days at any time from the date that is four months and one day after the Closing on the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange"), in which case the Company may accelerate the expiry of the Warrants by giving notice to the holders thereof (by disseminating a news release advising of the acceleration of the expiry date of the Warrants) and, in such case, the Warrants will expire on the thirtieth (30th) day after the date of such notice.All securities issued in connection with the Offering are subject to a statutory hold period expiring four months and one day after closing of the Offering.In connection with the closing of the Offering, the Company paid cash finder's fees of $2,400 to one eligible finder.The aggregate gross proceeds from the Offering are expected to be used for general working capital.An insider participated in the Offering and is considered to be a "related party" within the meaning of Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). Accordingly, the issuance is considered to be a "related party transaction" within the meaning of MI 61-101 but is exempt from the valuation requirement of MI 61-101 by virtue of the exemption contained in section 5.5(b) as the Company's common shares are not listed on a specified market and from the minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101 by virtue of the exemption contained in section 5.7(a) of MI 61-101 in that the fair market value of the consideration of the shares to be issued to the related party does not exceed 25% of the Company's market capitalization.None of the securities sold in connection with the Offering will be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and no such securities may be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements. This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.About NV Gold CorporationNV Gold Corporation is a well-organized exploration company with ~26.2 million shares issued and no debt. NV Gold has 12 exploration projects in Nevada, and one in Switzerland. The Company has three priority projects including Slumber, Triple T and SW Pipe. The Company is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, and Reno, Nevada and is focused on delivering value through mineral discoveries in Nevada, USA. Leveraging its expansive property portfolio, its highly experienced in-house technical team, and its extensive geological data library, 2026 promises to be highly productive for NV Gold.On behalf of the Board of Directors,John Watson, Chairman and CEOFor further information, visit the Company's website at www.nvx.gold or contact:Freeform Communications at 604.245.0054Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.SOURCE: NV Gold Corporation
PHNOM PENH, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia on Tuesday reported a positive increase in its foreign trade and investment volumes in January 2026.

The Southeast Asian country's international trade hit 6 billion U.S. dollars in January this year, up 19 percent compared to the same month last year, said a General Department of Customs and Excise's report.

The kingdom's total export amounted to 2.9 billion dollars in January this year, up 26.6 percent compared to January last year, while its total import rose to 3.1 billion dollars, up 12.8 percent, the report added.

China is the biggest trading partner of Cambodia, followed by the United States, Vietnam, Japan, and Thailand, the report said.

Meanwhile, the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC) reported that the kingdom attracted fixed-asset investment of 752 million dollars in January this year, up 0.45 percent compared to the same month last year.

China remained the top investor in Cambodia last month, accounting for 35.9 percent of the investment capital in January 2026, the CDC's report said.

It added that the new projects were mainly focused on the establishment of special economic zones, a wind power plant, garment factories and food processing factories, among others.

Cambodian Ministry of Commerce's Secretary of State and Spokesperson Penn Sovicheat said the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement and Cambodia's bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) with China, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates have been catalysts for the kingdom's trade and investment growth.

"With preferential tariffs granted by RCEP and other bilateral FTAs, we're confident that our exports to international markets, particularly to China and other RCEP member countries, will continue to soar throughout this year and beyond," he told Xinhua. 
PR-Inside.com: 2026-02-10 00:01:14

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NEW YORK CITY, NY / ACCESS Newswire / February 9, 2026 / Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against agilon health, inc. ("Agilon" or the "Company") (NYSE:AGL). Such investors are advised to contact Danielle Peyton at newaction@ pomlaw.com or 646-581-9980, (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll-free, Ext. 7980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and the number of shares purchased.The class action concerns whether Agilon and certain of its officers and/or directors have engaged in securities fraud or other unlawful business practices.You have until March 2, 2026 to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class if you purchased or otherwise acquired Agilon securities during the Class Period. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com [Click here for information about joining the class action]On August 4, 2025, Agilon issued a press release reporting that Steven Sell "has stepped down as President, CEO, and a Director of the Board." That same day, Agilon issued another press release reporting its financial results for the second quarter of 2025. Commenting on the results, Agilon's Executive Chair stated that "as we progressed through this transition year, it's become clear that the industry headwinds are more acute than previously expected[.]" Further, the release announced that the Company was "suspending its previously issued full-year 2025 financial guidance and related assumptions." On this news, Agilon's stock price fell $0.94 per share, or 51.52%, to close at $0.88 per share on August 5, 2025.Pomerantz LLP, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and Tel Aviv, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, Pomerantz pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 85 years later, Pomerantz continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomlaw.com Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.SOURCE: Pomerantz LLP
A new United Nations-backed report has warned that the rapid growth of the global economy is driving unprecedented biodiversity loss, which is posing a serious systemic threat to economic stability, financial systems and human wellbeing,

The finding is contained in a landmark assessment report released on Monday by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

In the report, it was concluded that businesses depend on biodiversity and that they directly or indirectly contribute to its decline.

The report, titled Methodological Assessment Report on the Impact and Dependence of Business on Biodiversity and Natures Contributions to People, was approved by representatives of more than 150 governments during the 12th IPBES Plenary session held in Manchester, United Kingdom.

According to the assessment, even businesses that appear far removed from nature rely on ecosystem services such as water supply, flood regulation, climate moderation, tourism spaces and cultural values.

Yet, the scientists argued that many companies bear little or no financial cost for damaging biodiversity and often lack mechanisms to profit from positive environmental outcomes.

Businesses are central to halting and reversing biodiversity loss, but many lack the information needed to understand their impacts, dependencies, risks and opportunities, the report stated.

Prepared over three years by 79 experts from 35 countries, the assessment finds that the current business environment is poorly aligned with the goal of a just and sustainable future.

It identifies harmful incentives, weak regulation, data gaps and short-term profit models as key drivers of continued ecosystem degradation.

Biodiversity loss is caused by five primary drivers: habitat loss, invasive species, overexploitation (extreme hunting and fishing pressure), pollution, and climate change associated with global warming. In each case, human beings and their activities play direct roles.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the biggest driver of biodiversity loss is how people use the land and sea. This includes the conversion of land covers such as forests, wetlands and other natural habitats for agricultural and urban uses.

Since 1990, the UNEP noted that around 420 million hectares of forest have been lost through conversion to other land uses. Agricultural expansion, the UN said, continues to be the main driver of deforestation, forest degradation and forest biodiversity loss.

The global food system is the primary driver of biodiversity loss, with agriculture alone being the identified threat of more than 85 per cent of the 28,000 species at risk of extinction.

Harvesting materials such as minerals from the ocean floor and the building of towns and cities also impact the natural environment and biodiversity.

Reconsidering the way people grow and consume food is one way of reducing the pressure on ecosystems. Degraded and disused farmland can be ideal for restoration, which can support protecting and restoring critical ecosystems such as forests, peatlands and wetlands, the UN said.

In Nigeria, biodiversity is facing a severe crisis, with at least 40 per cent decline in wildlife and habitat reported over the last 25 years. Major drivers include rapid population growth, habitat fragmentation, agricultural expansion, illegal logging, and oil pollution.

Based on this, no fewer than 309 species are threatened, this loss impacts food security and livelihoods.

Harmful finance dwarfs conservation spending

Meanwhile, the IPBES report released on Monday, highlights stark imbalances in global finance flows. In 2023, public and private finance activities with direct negative impacts on nature were estimated at $7.3 trillion, including $4.9 trillion from private finance and about $2.4 trillion in environmentally harmful public subsidies.

By contrast, the report said only $220 billionaround three per cent of harmful public incentiveswas directed towards biodiversity conservation and restoration.

The loss of biodiversity is among the most serious threats to business, said Stephen Polasky, a co-chair of the assessment.

Yet it often appears more profitable in the short term to degrade nature than to protect it, even though cumulative impacts risk crossing ecological tipping points that undermine long-term profitability.

Data gaps limit business action

The assessment finds that although tools exist to measure corporate impacts on biodiversity, adoption remains low. Less than one per cent of publicly reporting companies currently disclose biodiversity impacts, the report said.

A survey of financial institutions representing 30 per cent of global market capitalisation identified lack of reliable data, models and future scenarios as major barriers to integrating nature-related risks into decision-making.

Another co-chair, Matt Jones, described the report as a turning point.

This assessment cuts through the confusion of competing frameworks and offers clarity on how businesses and financial institutions can move from voluntary pledges to science-based action, he said.

Indigenous knowledge overlooked

The report also underscores the importance of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, noting that industrial development threatens about 60 per cent of Indigenous lands globally, while a quarter of Indigenous territories face intense pressure from resource extraction.

Scientific and Indigenous knowledge are often siloed, limiting effective decision-making, said Ximena Rueda, another co-chair of the assessment. Respectful collaboration can significantly improve how businesses manage risks and opportunities related to biodiversity.

Call for collective action

While emphasising that businesses must act, the report stresses that transformative change cannot be achieved by the private sector alone. Governments, financial institutions and civil society are urged to collaborate to create an enabling environment through better policies, financial systems, data access, cultural norms and institutional capacity.

The assessment outlines over 100 concrete actions that can be taken across these areas to help align economic activity with biodiversity protection.

Better stewardship of biodiversity is not optionalit is a business necessity, Prof. Rueda said, adding that transparent disclosure and credible strategies are essential to avoid greenwashing.

IPBES Chair David Obura said the report provides critical guidance for achieving global commitments under the Global Biodiversity Framework, the Sustainable Development Goals, and the Paris Climate Agreement.

Nature is everybodys business, said Luthando Dziba, Executive Secretary of IPBES. The conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity are central to long-term economic resilience and success.

Comments

In her reaction to the report, UNEPs Executive Director, Inger Andersen, explained that Nature remains one of the most undervalued foundations of the global economy, despite underpinning food systems, supply chains, and long-term prosperity.

At a time when some may question the role of science, she said IPBES continues to lead the way and provide independent, authoritative evidence because science-based decision making is not optional, it is essential.

Time is not on our side, but this Assessment offers a clear pathway on how we can align economic decision-making with environmental reality, delivering lasting benefits for people and for the planet, she said.

On his part, the Director-General, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), QU Dongyu, argued that businesses across the agrifood systems both depend on and significantly impact biodiversity.

To build a resilient future, he said there is a need to transform these systems to ensure what he described as the Four Betters: better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life, leaving no one behind.

The FAO chief explained that by effectively assessing and managing the four betters relationship with nature, businesses can strengthen their resilience, drive innovation, and establish themselves as leaders in the global economy.

He said every business along the value chain has a role in advancing sustainable practices that support biodiversity.

Key actions include scaling up investments in innovative, biodiversity-friendly technologies across production, processing, distribution and consumption, as well as implementing robust systems to monitor and report the impacts of their business operations, he noted.
Founder and Executive Chairman of BUA Group, Abdul Samad Rabiu, has called for a decisive shift in Africas development strategy, urging governments, financiers, and the private sector to move the continent from raw material extraction to large scale industrial processing and value addition.

Mr Rabiu made the remarks as Special Guest of Honour at an Africa Finance Corporation forum during Mining Indaba 2026, where African leaders, policymakers, financiers, and industry executives gathered to discuss the future of mining, industrialisation, and real sector development on the continent.

Commending AFC for its role in mobilising long term capital for Africas industrial sectors, Mr Rabiu noted that the institutions leadership and recent S&P Global rating with a positive outlook underscored the importance of strong development finance institutions in shaping Africas growth trajectory.

Drawing from BUA Groups experience, he recounted the companys decision over sixteen years ago to transition from cement importation to local production in Nigeria, despite the capital intensity and long gestation periods associated with mining and heavy industry.

At the time, Nigeria was importing cement despite being richly endowed with limestone, Mr Rabiu said. We were spending more time chasing foreign exchange than selling cement. The real question was not whether the resources existed, but whether there was enough conviction to stop importing and start producing locally.

Today, he noted, BUA mines and processes about forty thousand tonnes of limestone daily, producing roughly one million tonnes of cement every month. That shift has helped Nigeria move from being a cement importer to a net exporter, saving the country billions of dollars in foreign exchange annually.

Mr Rabiu stressed that such transformation would not have been possible without patient, long term financing from DFIs, particularly the Africa Finance Corporation, which has supported BUAs cement and industrial operations with over four hundred million dollars in financing.

He added that a significant portion of those facilities has already been repaid, demonstrating that well structured African industrial projects are not only developmental but also commercially viable and recyclable.

Turning to the broader continental picture, Mr Rabiu highlighted what he described as a structural paradox: Africa remains one of the worlds most resource rich regions, yet exports the bulk of its minerals and agricultural produce in raw or minimally processed form.

He cited examples across gold, cobalt, copper, iron ore, diamonds, and cocoa, noting that while Africa supplies much of the worlds raw inputs, it captures only a fraction of the value created downstream.

READ ALSO: BUA Cement kicks off POP plasterboard production at Port Harcourt plant

Africa does not lack resources, he said. What it lacks is processing capacity, industrial scale, and disciplined execution.

He argued that the same challenge extends beyond mining into agriculture, where Africa holds a majority of the worlds arable land yet continues to import billions of dollars worth of food annually.

Mr Rabiu called for coordinated action among governments, DFIs, and the private sector, urging DFIs to scale long term financing targeted at beneficiation and industrial value chains, while governments adopt deliberate policies that incentivise local processing and invest in power, transport, and industrial infrastructure.

Industrialisation does not happen by accident, he said. Countries that industrialised did so by design, not by chance. Africa must do the same.

He concluded by stressing that Africas opportunity lies in aligning private enterprise, patient capital, and supportive policy to move the continent from extraction to transformation, and from potential to shared prosperity.
Nollywood actor Frederick Leonard has petitioned the Delta State Police Command against his colleague, Stanley Stanley Ontop Ajemba, over alleged defamation and libellous statements.

Leonard, through his lawyer, Ogochukwu Emodi of Uche Okoro & Co., submitted the petition and posted a copy on his Instagram page on Monday.

PREMIUM TIMES learnt that in 2025, Stanley Ontop accused Leonard of mistreating a crew member.

He also alleged that Leonard had warned a film producer against casting him in the same project.

He further alleged that Leonard regarded himself as the most handsome and the god of Nollywood, and accused him of promiscuity.

Petition

In the petition, however, Leonard maintained that Stanley Ontop had, without provocation, persistently defamed his character and reputation for more than two years.

The petition read in part: It is our brief that the said Mr Stanley Chibueze Ajemba has made several unfounded allegations that seriously undermine our clients integrity to the point of causing our client profound loss of earnings if left unchecked, and if he doesnt correct and take down those negative impressions, he has been feeding the public with.

Consequent upon the foregoing acts of defamation of our clients character and the many libellous statements made against him at various times for no justifiable reasons whatsoever by Mr Stanley Chibueze Ajemba. These actions constitute a violation of our clients right not to be slandered or libelled, as enshrined in the Criminal Code Act (applicable in Southern Nigeria), sections 373-381, which defines and provides punishments for such defamations.

Demands

Furthermore, Leonard called on the police to carry out an independent and comprehensive investigation into the allegations of libel and defamation levelled against him.

He also urged the authorities to immediately invite Stanley Ontop for questioning over violations of his fundamental rights.

Leonard further warned that he would pursue legal action against Stanley Ontop if Stanley failed to comply with the demands outlined in the petition.

Get the said Mr Stanley Chibueze Ajemba, popularly known as Stanleyontop, to issue a written apology within 7 days, and to retract and take down all such previous defamatory/libellous publications targeting our client. In the event of non-compliance, we shall resort to every legal remedy available to our client. While anticipating your swift and professional intervention on this critical matter, please accept the assurances of our highest professional regards.

Section 39(1) of the 1999 constitution (as amended) grants onto the said Mr Stanley Chibueze Ajemba power and freedom to express himself as he pleases but such freedom to express himself is limited by our clients rights to protection of his reputation as enshrined in Section 45(1) of the 1999 constitution (as amended) Consequent on the above, we kindly request the Nigerian Police Force to intervene decisively by taking the following actions.

Stanley Ontop reacts

Responding to Leonards petition, Stanley Ontop took to his Instagram page on Monday to declare that he was prepared to honour any police invitation.

He further stated that he was ready to meet Leonard in court, adding pointedly that Leonard should have petitioned his manhood instead of directing the complaint at him.
The murder trial of Arise News newscaster Somtochukwu Sommie Maduagwu and a security guard, Barnabas Danlami, at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court has been stalled.

In October 2025, PREMIUM TIMES reported that Sommie died following an armed robbery attack at her residence in the Katampe area of Abuja. Mr Danlami also lost his life in the incident.

Following their deaths, the police launched an investigation which led to the arrest of 11 suspects.

The defendants are Shamsu Hassan, Sani Sirajo, Hassan Isah, Abubakar Alkamu, Abdulsalam Saleh, Suleiman Badamasi, Zaharadeen Mohammed, Musa Umar, Mashkur Jamil, Suleiman Sani and Abubakar Usman.

This newspaper reported that the suspects were arraigned on nine counts, including criminal conspiracy, armed robbery and murder.

The court subsequently remanded them at the Kuje Correctional Centre in Abuja.

Trial stalled

However, proceedings were halted on Monday after the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) failed to produce the defendants in court, TheCable reported.

The prosecution counsel, Adama Musa, informed the court that prison officials claimed the suspects were unaware of the hearing date.

Mr Musa added that his team had brought four witnesses to court in readiness for the commencement of the trial.

On the part of the prosecution, we are in court with four witnesses whom we went the extra mile to ensure are present; they abandoned their offices and are in court today, he said.

Justice Mohammed Idris subsequently postponed the proceedings until 10 February.

He directed the witnesses to appear before the court on the adjourned date to enable the trial to proceed.
Respite is yet to come the way of Nollywood actress, Halima Abubakar, as she has once again cried out for financial assistance from well-meaning Nigerians.

In January, the actress announced that she was ill and needed N25m for brain tumour surgery, even as she was facing eviction.

She also accused her industry colleagues of abandoning her in her time of need.

I have just been evicted from my house. I have been diagnosed with a brain tumour. Yesterday, my caretaker came to tell me to leave the house, she said.

Days later, the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN) lifted the indefinite suspension it had placed on her in October 2024, following a two-year investigation.

The outgoing national president of the Guild, Emeka Rollas, said that since acting remains her primary source of livelihood, it would be wicked for the Guild to leave her like that.

Appeal

In an emotion-laden video, the actress is seen crying and appealing for financial aid as she is still struggling to raise the funds for her surgery.

In the video, she is seated with trash bags strewn around her. She also has big boxes seemingly packed and ready to leave the apartment.

Im tired of begging. I need money. Help me with money so that I can do my surgery. Ive done my spleen. Please. I beg you in Gods name. Im ashamed. If Im ashamed, Ill die away one day, you people will not know, she said amidst tears.

Challenges

In a recent Instagram live session with Odogwu Kiwi, the embattled actress revealed that she depleted her resources to cover her mothers N9 million hernia surgery in October 2025.

She further said that the money contributed for her treatment, which she wanted to use to pay her rent, was rejected by her landlady.

Do they want me to kill myself? From one situation to another, I have packed all my belongings, and I have nowhere to go. I do not want to kill myself. Yahaya Bello, VDM, Seyi Tinubu, everyone, I need your help. I have nobody. I cannot even reach any celebrities; none of them is answering my calls. I called Don Jazzy, but there was no response, she said amidst tears.

She also dismissed claims that she is putting up a performance to attract sympathy or financial support.

Only a mad person would lie about being sick. It is embarrassing and heartbreaking that people think I am lying. I am coming out publicly to seek help because I have asked people around me and received none. I am ashamed to do this, but it is my only option, she added.

I have nothing to my name anymore except the money contributed for my surgery. I have suffered too much.

She further revealed that she had to relocate to Abuja to be close to the Turkish Hospital, where she would be receiving treatment.

Halima Abuakar

With over 250 films on her belt, her acting career kicked off in 2001 when she played a minor role in Rejected.

Her first lead role and claim to fame was in the movie Gangster Paradise.

A graduate of Sociology at Bayero University, Kano, in recent years, she was involved in a legal tussle with Apostle Johnson Suleman, the founder of Omega Fire Ministries, whom she accused of rescinding his promise to marry her.
South Africa has moved to withdraw its peacekeepers deployed at the United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) after nearly three decades of service.

President Cyril Ramaphosa, in a statement, said he informed UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on 12 January about the decision.

According to him, the decision is influenced by the need to consolidate and realign the resources of the South African National Defence Force, following 27 years of South Africas support to UN peacekeeping efforts in the DRC.

He said that South Africa was among the top 10 countries contributing troops to MONUSCO with over 700 soldiers.

In response, MONUSCO expressed deep gratitude to the government and people of South Africa for their steadfast commitment over several decades to United Nations peacekeeping, as well as for the dedication demonstrated by South African peacekeepers in support of the Missions mandate.

The Mission looks forward to continuing to engage with the Republic of South Africa on broader peacekeeping issues, including lessons learned and continued support to efforts aimed at advancing peace and stability.

It will also work closely with the UN Secretariat and relevant stakeholders to ensure that any transition related to the withdrawal is managed in a safe, orderly, and responsible manner, in line with United Nations standards and operational requirements.

The UN Secretary-General also expressed thanks to South Africa for its longtime commitment and sacrifice, his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, told journalists in New York on Monday.

MONUSCO has been in the DRC since July 2010, taking over from an earlier UN peacekeeping operation that supervised the implementation of a ceasefire agreement following conflict in the east stemming from the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda.

Several regional countries and armed groups were involved in the fighting, also known as the Great War of Africa.

MONUSCOs mandate includes protecting civilians and helping the DRC to stabilise and consolidate peace.

More than 12,400 personnel were serving at the Mission as of October 2025, including some 9,177 troops and 926 police officers from over 50 countries. Since its inception, 304 fatalities have been recorded.

READ ALSO: Nigerian killed in South Africa

MONUSCO paid tribute to South African peacekeepers who lost their lives under the United Nations flag in the service of peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and honours their sacrifice.

The head of UN Peace Operations, JeanPierre Lacroix, is currently in the DRC, where on Monday he met with President Felix Tshisekedi, Prime Minister Judith Suminwa Tuluka, key members of the government, and relevant stakeholders.

Discussions centred around the implementation of the MONUSCO mandate, including support for a permanent ceasefire.

Mr Lacroix will then go to Beni in North Kivu province, eastern DRC, where he will assess recent developments and meet with provincial authorities as well as peacekeepers deployed in the area.

Later this week, he will head to Ethiopia for the annual African Union summit, taking place in the capital, Addis Ababa.

(NAN)
Israels move to tighten its control on the West Bank by repealing its land laws and opening confidential land registries has drawn criticism from the international community, including the United States, which is its strongest ally.

Last Sunday, the Israeli security cabinet approved a series of steps aimed at making it easier for settlers in the occupied West Bank to buy land. These steps also granted Israeli authorities more enforcement powers over Palestinians.

Although the West Bank is currently under Israeli military control, it is considered part of Palestine under international law. Palestinians also view the West Bank as a part of the territories that should form their independent state.

Israel, in a bid to deepen its control over the occupied territory, scrapped decades-old regulations that prevent Jewish citizens from buying land in the West Bank.

This includes allowing Israeli authorities to administer some religious sites, unsealing land ownership records, and re-establishing a state land-acquisition committee to purchase territory for settlements.

Israeli authorities can now oversee areas under PA administration in matters of environmental hazards, water offences, and damage to archaeological sites.

Al Jazeera reports that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defence Minister Israel Katz have imposed these new measures. However, experts have described this as equivalent to a de facto annexation.

The finance minister openly stated that this movie would make it easier for Jewish settlers to take over Palestinian land.

We will continue to kill the idea of a Palestinian state, he said.

Israels action is considered a violation of the Oslo Accords, which preserve Palestinian self-governance in designated areas and prevent unilateral expansion of Israeli administrative authority.

US reaction

The White House, in a statement on Monday, declared that President Donald Trump does not support the annexation of the West Bank.

The statement did not outrightly condemn Israels action. Instead, it stressed the need to maintain stability in the territory.

A stable West Bank keeps Israel secure and is in line with this administrations goal to achieve peace in the region.

Last October, US Vice President JD Vance rejected preliminary approval for the plan during his visit to the country.

He described the move as a deliberate political provocation by the opposition, and a stupid political stunt.

The West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel. The policy of President Trump is that the West Bank will not be annexed. This will always be our policy, he said.

The Palestinian Authority (PA), the body governing parts of the West Bank, also described the measures as a dangerous attempt to legalise settlement expansion, land confiscation and the demolition of Palestinian properties, even in areas under Palestinian sovereignty.

The body urged the intervention of the US and the UN Security Council to stop the Israeli government.

EU, Arab countries condemn Israel

The UK has also strongly condemned Israels decision to control the West Bank.

In a statement issued on Monday, the UK said the proposed changes in the West Bank would undermine efforts to advance peace and stability.

The UK has been clear: any unilateral attempt to alter the geographic or demographic make-up of Palestine is wholly unacceptable and would be inconsistent with international law. We call on Israel to reverse these decisions immediately.

A two-state solution remains the only viable path to long-term peace with a safe and secure Israel living alongside a viable and sovereign Palestine, it said.

READ ALSO: Israel objects to US announcement on Gaza executive committee

According to the BBC, EU spokesman Anouar El Anouni told journalists that the European Union condemns recent decisions by Israels security cabinet to expand Israeli control in the West Bank. This move is another step in the wrong direction.

Joining in on the condemnation, Arab and Muslim countries have said that the annexation of the West Bank would mark an end to Israels normalization in the region.

In a joint statement, the Foreign Ministers of Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Qatar, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia said such illegal measures violated international law and undermined the two-state solution.

The ministers also declared that Israels actions threaten the rights of the Palestinian people and hinder efforts to achieve just and comprehensive peace and stability.

The illegal measures are aimed at imposing unlawful Israeli sovereignty, entrenching settlement activity, and enforcing a new legal and administrative reality in the occupied West Bank, thereby accelerating attempts at its illegal annexation and the displacement of the Palestinian people, the signatories said in a joint statement.

They called on the international community to compel Israel to halt its dangerous escalation in the occupied West Bank and the inciting statements of its officials.
The Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Mohammed Pate, has attributed the poor implementation of the ministrys 2025 capital budget to inadequate cash releases, revealing that only 36 million was received out of the 218 billion appropriated for the year.

Mr Pate disclosed this on Monday during the defence of the Ministrys 2026 budget before the House of Representatives.

He told lawmakers that although the personnel budget was fully released and utilised, the capital component suffered major setbacks due to the bottom-up cash planning system operated by the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.

He added that delays in the release of Nigerias counterpart funding also prevented the ministry from accessing some donor-supported funds, further stalling the execution of capital projects in 2025.

The minister explained that the health sector operates within the framework of Vision 20:2020, the Medium-Term National Development Plan (NDP) 20212025 and the National Strategic Health Development Plan (NSHDP) II.

He said the constitution and the National Health Act mandate the government to guarantee the right to health for all Nigerians, with the 2016 National Health Policy providing the implementation framework.

According to him, The principles of Universal Health Coverage are central to the National Health Policy objective of strengthening Nigerias health system, particularly the Primary Health Care subsystem, to deliver quality, effective, efficient, equitable, accessible, affordable, acceptable and comprehensive health services to all Nigerians, he said.

Mr Pate said the 2026 budget proposal is derived from the 20262028 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper and was prepared using the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS).

He noted that the proposal aligns with the National Development Plan, the policy priorities of the federal government and the health-sector deliverables of President Bola Ahmed Tinubus administration.

READ ALSO: Tinubu transmits 24 health sector bills to Senate

He added that the proposal is anchored on the 2016 National Health Policy and the ministrys Strategic Blueprint Initiatives, which are aimed at advancing Universal Health Coverage and accelerating the implementation of the National Health Act.

In his response, the Chairman of the House Committee on Healthcare Services, Amos Magaji (APC, Kaduna), asked the minister to submit detailed records of donor funds received by the ministry and how they were utilised.
The Enugu State government said the state has achieved about 50 per cent coverage in its ongoing measlesrubella (MR) vaccination campaign.

The Chief Executive Officer and the Executive Secretary of the States Primary Health Care Development Agency, Ifeyinwa Ani-Osheku told PREMIUM TIMES on Monday, that the campaign, which began on 4 February, had already reached more than one million children as of the fourth day.

As of day four of the implementation of this campaign, we have already done well over 50 per cent of our intended target, she said.

Mrs Ani-Osheku explained that the campaign targets children between the ages of nine months and 14 years, who still have the ability to mount the requisite protection against measles and rubella.

She said the state aims to reach over two million children during this campaign and is well on track to achieve this.

Enugu state is joining the rest of the country to introduce the measles-rubella vaccines as part of routine immunisation in order to ensure that our children are well protected against the measles virus as well as the rubella virus, she said.

She noted that the campaign is important because Enugu State is one that harbours very high incidence and prevalence of the measles virus.

Mrs Ani-Osheku added that the initiative uses a single combined injection to protect against both diseases, reducing the need for multiple painful shots.

Now, with one shot, children receive double protection, she said.

Campaign strategic and coverage

Also speaking to PREMIUM TIMES, Chime Chinyere, Enugu State Immunisation Officer, said the state adopted a combination of fixed posts at health facilities and temporary mobile teams, which account for about 95 per cent of vaccination efforts.

Mrs Chinyere said these mobile teams move through schools, churches, markets and other public spaces to reach children who may not visit health facilities.

She attributed the growing acceptance of the vaccine to robust advocacy, communication and social mobilisation activities that involved key stakeholders from the planning stage, including officials from the education sector and local media houses.

Mrs Chinyere added that while challenges such as limited vaccination teams and occasional non-compliance persist, engagement with community leaders and government officials has helped address vaccine hesitancy.

Broader vaccination campaign monitoring

The MR vaccine introduction and integrated campaign was flagged off by Nigerias First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu in October, 2025.

Mrs Tinubu described the initiative as the largest health campaign in Africas history, aimed at immunising millions of children and adolescents against measles and rubella.

Earlier in the same month, the Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Muyi Aina, and the Mandate Secretary of Health Services and Environment Secretariat (HSES) of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), Adedolapo Fasawe, led a joint monitoring team to assess the progress of the ongoing MR vaccination across selected states.

The team visited primary healthcare centres within and outside the FCT, including Chikakora North PHC in Kogi LGA of Kogi State, and the New Township PHC in Abaji Area Council, Abuja, while also touring surrounding communities to check on implementation.

In February, according to an agency report published by PREMIUM TIMES, the World Health Organisation (WHO) introduced the MR vaccine to Anambra State.

Meanwhile, data released by the Akwa Ibom State government indicates that 1.2 million children had been vaccinated just six days after the vaccination campaign commenced in the state.

Measles and rubella

According to WHO, measles is a highly contagious viral disease and remains a major cause of death among young children globally, despite the availability of a safe and effective vaccine.

Rubella, also a contagious viral infection, is the leading vaccine-preventable cause of birth defects, with infection during pregnancy potentially resulting in fetal death or congenital rubella syndrome.

The WHO notes that although measles and rubella cases have declined significantly in recent years due to expanded vaccination coverage, outbreaks continue to occur in several countries.

The health agency attributes this to gaps in routine immunisation, worsened by health service disruptions and postponed immunisation campaigns during the COVID-19 pandemic.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres extends greetings via video during a Spring Festival celebration at the UN headquarters in New York, on Feb. 9, 2026. (Xinhua/Zhang Fengguo)

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- "Chun jie kuai le!" (Happy Lunar New Year!) UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday extended Lunar New Year greetings to the Chinese people in the Chinese language, and thanked China for its strong support for multilateralism and global solidarity.

"As we welcome the Year of the Horse, we celebrate a symbol of energy, success, and the courage to forge ahead -- qualities our world urgently needs as we confront conflict, inequality and the climate crisis," Guterres said in a video message broadcast at a Spring Festival celebration hosted by China's permanent mission to the United Nations.

"This season of renewal reminds us that together we can build a safer, more inclusive future. Let us continue to advance our shared commitment to peace, dignity and sustainable development for all," he said.

In response to questions by Xinhua, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said that courage, unity and perseverance represent the spirit of the Chinese New Year.

"That's what we need. We need to have the courage of our convictions. We must have unity of purpose and the perseverance to deliver on it," she said.

Melissa Fleming, UN under-secretary-general for global communications, said she hopes the new year will bring more forward-looking innovation, and more working together for the common good of the world.

Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, Pakistan's permanent representative to the United Nations, said he was very happy that his date of birth fell in the Year of the Horse, expecting it would bring all the attributes that are associated with the horse like perseverance and strength.

In his address, Fu Cong, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, noted that this year marks the start of China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030).

Drawing inspiration from the horse, an animal known for its courage, unity and perseverance, China stands ready to work with all countries to firmly support the cause of the United Nations, jointly address global challenges, and build a community with a shared future for humanity, Fu said.

In the evening, a festive atmosphere prevailed at the UN headquarters. The Shanghai Museum presented an array of cultural activities, including rubbings and a virtual reality tour of the Huangpu River, while the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism and the Central Academy of Fine Arts curated a lively Year of the Horse zodiac exhibition.

In addition, eight robots, designed and manufactured in China, made their debut at the United Nations, igniting excitement across the venue with dancing, calligraphy performance and lively interaction with the audience. 

Fu Cong, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, speaks at a Spring Festival celebration at the UN headquarters in New York, on Feb. 9, 2026. (Xinhua/Zhang Fengguo)

A guest receives a greeting card rubbing at a Spring Festival celebration at the UN headquarters in New York, on Feb. 9, 2026. (Xinhua/Zhang Fengguo)

A guest listens to the introduction of a bronze artifact at a Spring Festival celebration at the UN headquarters in New York, on Feb. 9, 2026. (Xinhua/Zhang Fengguo)

People view fans at a Spring Festival celebration at the UN headquarters in New York, on Feb. 9, 2026. (Xinhua/Zhang Fengguo)

A guest shakes hands with a robot at a Spring Festival celebration at the UN headquarters in New York, on Feb. 9, 2026. (Xinhua/Zhang Fengguo)

Robots perform at a Spring Festival celebration at the UN headquarters in New York, on Feb. 9, 2026. (Xinhua/Zhang Fengguo)
AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) Nigeria, has disclosed plans to take its condom advocacy directly to the streets and university campuses as sexually transmitted infections (STIs) continue to rise in Nigeria and globally.

The Foundation, in a statement issued on Monday warned that neglecting prevention could undo hard-won progress against HIV.

As part of its activities to mark the 2026 International Condom Day (ICD), the Foundation said it will host public events in Anambra State and Abuja, featuring road walks, free condom distribution, HIV testing and sexual health education, with the campaign themed Just Use It.

AHF said condoms remain one of the most effective and affordable tools for preventing HIV, other STIs and unplanned pregnancies, yet they are increasingly sidelined as global health funding shrinks.

Rising STIs, shrinking prevention.

The Foundation noted that the global resurgence of STIs, particularly syphilis, is closely linked to reduced emphasis on prevention.

The surge in STI rates worldwide, particularly syphilis, is not a mystery  it is what happens when global funding diminishes and condoms are not prioritised for prevention, it said in the statement.

AHF warned that without urgent action, new HIV infections could follow the same upward trend.

Each condom used helps safeguard decades of progress in the global HIV response and avoids far more costly setbacks, it noted.

It added that reversing the trend does not require new scientific breakthroughs but political will, sustained investment, and a renewed commitment to ensuring condoms are free or affordable and widely available to those who need them most.

Road walk and symposium

As part of this years activities, the Foundation said it will hold a road walk in Anambra State, on 12 February, where volunteers and partners will distribute free AHF-branded Love and Icon condoms, provide condom education and offer free HIV testing to members of the public.

On 13 February, the campaign will shift attention to the University of Abuja, targeting students of the Faculty of Media and Communications Studies with a prevention symposium focused on halting rising STI rates and stemming new HIV infections.

The AHF Abuja Wellness Centre will also provide free STI screening during the event.

They added that the events are aimed at making sexual health protection accessible and stigma-free, especially for young people.

HIV burden and prevention challenges in Nigeria

According to the National Agency for the Control of AIDS, recent estimates show that the adult HIV prevalence rate among people aged 1549 is about 1.31.4 percent, with roughly 1.9 million Nigerians living with HIV.

This makes Nigeria one of the countries with the largest HIV epidemics in the world and the largest in West and Central Africa.

The agency added that states such as Rivers, Benue and Akwa Ibom have some of the highest numbers of people living with HIV, while urban centres like Lagos and the Federal Capital Territory also report high case counts.

In December, PREMIUM TIMES reported on AHFs World AIDS Day activities, which emphasised broadening STI services and testing in Nasarawa State as part of efforts to address persistent gaps in prevention, screening and care. The Foundation highlighted that expanding awareness and services was key to Nigerias drive to reduce new infections

Africa is forced to do more with less

Martin Matabishi, AHFs Africa bureau chief, said the continent is under growing pressure as donor funding declines, making prevention more critical than ever.

Mr Matabishi noted that while HIV and STI burdens remain high across the continent, particularly syphilis and congenital syphilis, Africa is forced to do more with less, making prevention more important than ever.

Condoms are cheap, effective, and proven, yet too often people cant get them or face stigma for using them. With donor funding shrinking, governments must step up domestic health financing and remove barriers to access, which helps ensure condoms are freely and widely available, he said.

He warned that cutting prevention efforts would lead to more infections, higher costs, and lives lost later.

Also, AHF Nigerias Country Programme Director, Echey Ijezie, said the campaign is about reinforcing a proven message.

Mr Ijezie said they are reminding everyone that using condoms is the best way and most cost-effective method to prevent HIV, other STIs, and unplanned pregnancies.

International Condom Day

International Condom Day was launched in 2009 by AHF and observed annually on 13 February, to promote condoms as a central tool for protecting sexual health worldwide.

The campaign also challenges stigma by framing condom use as responsible and empowering.

AHF is a global non-profit provider of HIV/AIDS medical care, currently supporting more than 2.8 million people in 50 countries, including Nigeria.

As STI rates rise and prevention budgets tighten, the organisation says its message this year is intentionally clear: condoms still work, and ignoring them comes at a cost.
A new report by Gatefield has warned that up to 70 million women and girls in Nigeria could be exposed annually to artificial intelligencefacilitated online abuse by 2030, if urgent legal and regulatory safeguards are not introduced.

The report, titled Industrialised Harm: The Scale of AI-Facilitated Violence in Nigeria, revealed that about 30 to 35 million women and girls could be directly targeted each year through deepfakes, impersonation, and coordinated harassment campaigns if urgent regulatory action is not taken.

Gatefield said it based its projections on Nigerias rapid internet growth, observed patterns of online harm, and the scaling effect of generative AI technologies.

The estimates, the organisation noted, draw on its State of Online Harms 2025, publicly available data, and predictive modelling grounded in conservative assumptions.

Nigerias expanding internet population

Analysing the findings, PREMIUM TIMES found that Nigerias internet population is projected to reach nearly 200 million users by 2030, with women accounting for almost half of users.

Gatefields 2025 data shows that nearly half of Nigerian internet users experience online harm, with women representing 58 per cent of victims.

The report distinguishes between general exposure to harmful content and direct targeting, defined as deliberate AI-facilitated abuse such as non-consensual sexual imagery, impersonation, and coordinated disinformation campaigns.

Further analysis of the findings shows that while 5060 per cent of women and girls online may be exposed to harmful content annually, 2530 per cent could face direct AI-enabled targeting, even under conservative modelling.

Psychosocial toll of AI-enabled abuse

Beyond reputational and economic damage, the report highlights severe psychosocial consequences for women targeted online.

It references research on Nigerian women affected by non-consensual image sharing, which found that nearly 90 per cent experienced depression and suicidal thoughts, with several respondents considering or attempting suicide.

The report notes that generative AI intensifies these harms by increasing the speed, realism, and reach of abusive content, often overwhelming victims capacity to respond.

Illustrative cases of AI-facilitated gender violence

The report highlights recent Nigerian cases to illustrate how AI-facilitated abuse operates in practice and how enforcement gaps persist.

It cited the case of Ayra Starr, whose image was used to generate a digitally nude deepfake using Xs AI chatbot, Grok. Although users reported the content, it spread across multiple platforms before the account involved was suspended, with no criminal investigation initiated.

The report also referenced Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, the senator representing Kogi Central, who was targeted with deepfake audio recordings and a fabricated video during her public allegations of sexual harassment against the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio.

Gatefield said the timing and targeted nature of the content pointed to the strategic use of AI to undermine womens credibility.

Another case involved Kehinde Bankole, the Nollywood actor, who was targeted with AI-generated nude deepfakes in 2025.

Gatefield noted that her experience reflects a broader pattern of abuse enabled by weak moderation and legal gaps, with generative AI tools used to exploit publicly available images.

Legal gaps, Institutional oversight

Gatefield found that Nigeria lacks a coordinated legal and institutional framework to address AI-facilitated abuse.

The report said the country has no AI-specific governance framework, no clear legal definition of deepfakes or synthetic media, and no explicit recognition of AI-enabled gender-based violence as a distinct harm.

Existing cybercrime and criminal laws, it noted, were designed for individual actors and intent, not automated systems that amplify abuse across platforms and borders.

Institutional oversight was also found to be fragmented.

Agencies such as the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), law enforcement agencies and the Ministry of Justice operate without clear mandates or coordination on AI-related harms, leaving victims with limited and often ineffective avenues for redress.

Global responses and lessons for Nigeria

The report compared Nigerias regulatory environment with jurisdictions that have adopted stronger safeguards.

In the European Union, the AI Act and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) impose mandatory transparency and financial penalties.

Also, France criminalises non-consensual sexual deepfakes, with fines and prison terms.

The United States TAKE IT DOWN Act mandates rapid takedowns, while the United Kingdoms Online Safety Act establishes a platform duty of care.

Gatefield said these examples demonstrate global recognition of AI-facilitated harm as an urgent regulatory issue, while Nigeria currently lacks dedicated legislation, forensic capacity and enforcement infrastructure.

Policy and regulatory implications

Speaking to PREMIUM TIMES on the findings, Adewunmi Emoruwa, chief executive officer of Gatefield, said artificial intelligence has fundamentally altered the nature of online harm in Nigeria.

Mr Emoruwa said AI tools have lowered the cost of abuse, accelerated its spread, and made it more psychologically damaging, particularly for women in public life.

Tools like deepfake generators allow ordinary users to produce convincing, intimate, and reputationally damaging content at scale, often targeting women in public life, he said.

Mr Emoruwa noted that Nigerias legal framework remains ill-equipped to deal with automated systems that enable abuse at scale, leaving victims to navigate slow and opaque reporting processes.

He stressed the need for binding platform obligations, clearer legal definitions, and time-bound redress mechanisms to shift responsibility away from victims and towards the systems that enable harm.

Preparedness and shared responsibility

Shirley Ewang, advocacy lead at Gatefield, also told PREMIUM TIMES that artificial intelligence is intensifying online harm in Nigeria by making abuse cheaper, faster, and harder to trace.

Ms Ewang said deepfakes, disinformation, and coordinated harassment campaigns are increasingly deployed against women in politics, media, and activism, at a time when Nigerias digital population continues to grow.

She said Nigeria remains largely unprepared to respond, citing the absence of AI-specific legal frameworks, weak platform accountability, and slow redress mechanisms.

She added that addressing AI-enabled harm requires coordinated action by government, technology platforms, and civil society, including enforceable regulation, survivor-centred responses, and large-scale digital literacy initiatives.

Together, these actors can shift Nigeria from a reactive posture to a preventive, rights-based approach to AI governance, she said.

Policy recommendations

Based on its findings, Gatefield urged Nigerian authorities to introduce mandatory guidelines on AI-facilitated violence, including clear provisions addressing non-consensual sexual imagery, impersonation, and AI-driven disinformation.

The report also called for clear legal definitions of deepfakes and synthetic media, alongside binding obligations for platforms operating in Nigeria to label AI-generated content, conduct periodic algorithmic risk assessments, and publish regular transparency reports detailing takedown actions and moderation outcomes.

In addition, Gatefield recommended accessible reporting and redress mechanisms, enforceable 2448-hour takedown timelines for harmful AI-generated content, and specific safeguards for women, children, and other vulnerable groups.

The report noted that distinguishing between general exposure to harmful content and direct, targeted abuse is critical to designing effective responses, ranging from content moderation and digital literacy to enforceable legal frameworks, forensic investigation, and victim redress.
The Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU) has warned of a renewed nationwide strike if the federal government fails to implement agreed salary adjustments by April.

Bassey Icha, Chairman of JOHESU, Cross River Chapter made the disclosure on Tuesday in Calabar during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

The warning follows the suspension of the Unions strike, which began on 15 November, 2025 and was halted on 6 February by its national leadership.

Mr Icha said work resumed after members held congresses in their respective units and branches adding that the strike was driven mainly by the non-review of the Consolidated Health Salary Structure (CONHESS), introduced in 2009 without adjustment.

According to him, doctors under the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure (CONMESS) have enjoyed multiple reviews, widening the pay gap in the health sector.

JOHESU was not demanding parity with doctors salaries but was seeking a fair review based on government salary templates, he said.

He asserted that several Memoranda of Understanding signed with the government since 2014 had not been implemented and a 2021 memo forwarded to the Budget Office is yet to pass through the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission.

He said JOHESU agreed to suspend the strike after the government appealed for time, pending committee approval expected by April.

Failure to achieve positive outcomes by the end of April would force JOHESU back to industrial action, he said.

Speaking further, Mr Icha said research showed that Nigeria paid health workers less than most West African countries, including Ghana.

He urged the government to prioritise training, modern equipment, and improved working conditions to strengthen healthcare delivery nationwide.

(NAN)
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) says over 10 million doses of fake malaria drugs and cosmetics products worth N3 billion were confiscated at the Trade Fair Market in Lagos.

Martin Iluyomade, NAFDAC Director of Investigation and Enforcement, who disclosed this to reporters at the agencys office in Apapa on Monday said it acted on credible intelligence received on 3 February.

Mr Iluyomade said the fake drugs discovered included anti malaria drugs and injections for cerebral malaria, antibiotics, postinor and anagin products that had been banned for almost 15 years in the country, among others.

He said eight truck loads of fake drugs and cosmetics products were evacuated from the three-storey building which purportedly served as warehouse for spare parts.

The director said four individuals were arrested while investigation was still ongoing in the operation he described as one of the major breakthroughs for the agency.

What we saw in the warehouse is one of the major discovery by the agency lately, they have perfected the act of hiding drugs in unconventional places that you dont expect to find such products, he said.

These medicines were packed in alarming numbers inside this warehouse, different types, life-saving drugs that are very important and banned products that have been banned for years by NAFDAC.

These drugs were clone and it was quite difficult for the authorised manufacturers to identify the original and fake drugs, which was quite disturbing.

This is not a major breakthrough for NAFDAC alone but for Nigerians because what we seized from the warehouse can kill three million Nigerians if it enters the markets.

He said the NAFDAC team would not relent on its effort to rid the country of fake and unwholesome products to safeguard the health of the nation.

We have zero tolerance for counterfeit and fake drugs; with the help of God and Nigerians, the agency will dismantle these organised syndicates that are killing Nigerians with their products, he said.

Mr Iluyomade urged major drug distributors to always buy from the agencys accredited manufacturers, while urging Nigerians to be vigilant and report any suspicious activities to the nearest NAFDAC office nationwide. (NAN)
Victor Antai is a rare and unyielding star in a Nigerian political galaxy crowded with transactional earthly bodies.

The story of Victor Antai is a silent rebuke to turncoat politicians and professional loyalty traders. It reminds us that character should outlive office and appointment.

In a political ecosystem where loyalty is frequently traded for appointments, Victor Antai, executive director, Projects of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) stands apart. Operating under a system where conscience is seen as a weakness, he chose to keep his.

Victors journey, from his early days outside politics to his formative years in public service, has never been about power and position. It has always been about character. It is about gratitude. And it is about having the courage to stand firm in a sociopolitical ecosystem that rarely accepts such choices.

On the surface, Victor can come across as snobby, unserious, withdrawn, and even casual. But when you scratch that surface, you meet a fighter, a strategist, an orator, and a man who never forgets his past and those who shaped his journey.

The truth is that Victor Antai has done so much for his community, the Oro Nation, Akwa Ibom State, and Nigeria, more than most of his contemporaries. Sadly, only a fraction of these efforts ever make news, and when they do, they are often buried in low-budget blog posts and momentary social media mentions.

Unlike today, where many young people finish school and immediately start following politicians and dishing heavy helpings of insults at perceived enemies and opponents in exchange for relevance, Victor took a very different path. He did not chase politicians in Akwa Ibom or Abuja. He did not insult anyone to attract patronage.

After graduating from the University of Port Harcourt, Victor moved to Lagos. Like many determined young Nigerians, he hustled, doing supplies and contracts, to find his feet.

After landing a few major jobs, he reportedly returned to Port Harcourt and started a transport business. He is said to have also lived in Abuja, where he ran cleaning services for individuals and corporate organisations. I can not say which one came first.

What is, however, true is that his entry into politics was deliberate, not accidental.

When Victor returned to Oron, he made two moves that caught everyones attention. He replaced damaged electricity poles from Eyokponung in Udung Uko to Ebuhu in Mbo Local Government Area, a stretch of about 10 kilometres and restored power to communities that had lived in darkness for years. That single act changed how people saw him.

Victors second bold step was to place a billboard near the Oron Local Government Secretariat junction. It carried a simple but powerful message: Oro Ekufre Mio  Oro, do not forget me.

His life-sized photo on the billboard amplified the message more, leaving a strong visual impression on everyone who passed by. It was bold. It was visual. And it was the first of its kind in that part of Akwa Ibom.

As he consulted widely, Victor realised the odds were stacked against him. Instead of walking away bitter or disillusioned, he chose the path of humility. He went to serve Chief Enyong Asuquo, a respected political leader from his area.

After Chief Asuquos death, and with the support of the then PDP Chairman in the state, Chief Out Ita-Toyo (Total Chair), Victor ran for chairman of Mbo Local Government Area. He won and served two terms. And quietly, steadily, he began to etch his name in state and national politics.

In 2015, Governor Udom Emmanuel appointed him commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs. But it was his later redeployment to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism that truly revealed the depth of his creative imagination.

Victor led what could be described as a sociocultural renaissance in Akwa Ibom State. He initiated the Orange September to celebrate the creation of the state. The Christmas Village followed and has become a December ritual, attracting millions to Uyo to experience the states rich culture, cuisine, and hospitality. Then came Ukapa Isua, a grand end-of-year celebration ushering in the new year.

Courage Mbon, one of Akwa Iboms finest comperes and red-carpet hosts, is one of the young people who worked closely with Victor during this period. Even with their closeness, Courage still describes Victor as an enigma. Their bond is beautifully symbolic: Victor and Courage. To be a victor, you must first have courage.

Ironically, their paths crossed on a sour note in August 2016, after Victor unveiled a states tourism logo that sparked controversy. Courage was one of the most vocal critics of the logo. At the height of the backlash, Courage received a call through Ms Aniebiet Francis; the commissioner wanted to see him.

At that meeting, Victor looked him straight in the eyes and said: You seem to know a lot about tourism. I dont want you to be a critic anymore. I want you on my team. Let us partner and make Akwa Ibom the envy of other states.

That moment defined Victors leadership style. He assembled a team of gifted creatives who went on to conceive and deliver some of the most successful tourism experiences in the state, including Oro Uso, Christmas Village, Ukapa Isua, and Orange September.

Reflecting on that era, Courage said: By the time he resigned in 2018, Chief Victor Antai had become the most successful tourism commissioner in a state where tourism was previously treated as an afterthought and the ministry seen as a dumping ground for expired politicians.

Many describe Victor as unusual and spontaneous. Others say he is fearless, a challenger of the status quo, a stubborn non-conformist. But his down-to-earth nature has endeared him to many while irritating political elites who prefer to keep away from the grassroots.

Cyril Bassey, a young man from Oron, describes him as affable, smart, and erudite. He says Victor is a natural crowd-puller who has impacted young people in Oro Nation more than many politicians before him. Cyril attributes his popularity among youths and progressives nationwide, not only to his generosity but also to his ability to connect with people.

A few weeks ago, Victor revealed another side of himself in a raw, emotional gratitude at a reception in honour of Senate President Godswill Akpabio at Ikot Ekpene Stadium.

Describing Akpabio as the man who gave him everything, Victor said, You made me a two-term local government chairman. After that, you nominated me commissioner. That was when Orange September was born. Christmas Village was born. Ukapa Isua was born.

He continued by recounting the many appointments, disappointments, and the long road to trust they have walked over the years, telling Akpabio, Sir, I dont believe in loyalty. Loyalty can be transferred. I believe in conscience, because conscience stays with you.

And then came his closing line with sublime articulateness: Sir, I have nothing to give you except thank you. Go and sleep. I will retire with you. You have a son, a brother, and a friend in me. I will never betray you.

In that important moment, Victor Antai did not just present himself as a typical Nigerian politician. He is a grateful man, grounded, reflective, and deeply human. As he yielded the mic, something unusual happened in the stadium  the crowd not only clapped. The crowd erupted.

Applause rolled through the stadium in waves. People stood. Some shouted his name. Others nodded in silent agreement. Almost instantly, social media caught fire. Clips of his speech circulated widely, with many celebrating him for choosing conscience over transactional loyalty  a currency that has become the bane of Nigerias politics. But no major media platform captured and played it, and no newspaper reported that solemn moment for what it was worth.

Ironically, many of those who praised Victor that day had short memories. Some of them had recently mocked and cursed another young man who chose conscience over loyalty in his relationship with a benefactor. In Nigerian politics, people like Victor are often treated as rebellious. Being independent as he, is mistaken for ingratitude.

But in that stadium, in that moment, mmo ema efre (they had forgotten). Forgotten the years, the taunts, and the laughter they dished him. The irony was impossible to overlook. Many of those praising Victor were the same individuals who humiliated him in 2018, when he resigned as Commissioner of Culture and Tourism to join his benefactor, Godswill Akpabio, after the then-Senate Minority Leader defected from PDP to APC.

That decision almost cost Victor everything. At the time, he was on the brink of being sacked. Resignation was the safer, more honourable route, but also the loneliest.

When media aides and caustic politicians heckled him, he could have fought back. He could have traded insults. He could have played victim. But he did none of that. Victor did not insult Governor Udom Emmanuel after leaving the PDP. He did not abuse the government that gave him a platform and visibility. He did not curse those who laughed at and scorned him. He chose silence. And it was a dignified silence.

While professional loyalty traders, those who wake up every election season to swear fresh oaths of allegiance in exchange for appointments, took turns mocking him, Victor stayed focused. He took in the insults. He watched people who had never stood for anything trade yesterdays convictions for todays benefits. In that stadium, most of those present were guilty.

In that stadium too, that day, history had done what it always does: exposed everyone. Almost all of Governor Emmanuels fair-weather aides and political associates, who earlier considered Victor a loser and a simpleton for abandoning the PDP, have joined the APC and are singing hallelujah from the top of their voices. They are not signing from conviction, but from their stomachs.

The same people who insulted Victor for standing by one man now queue daily behind the same man to explain their latest political prostitution and migration. Neither Akpabio nor Victor chased them. Time did. That is the serious lesson that Nigerian politicians and their aides find difficult to learn.

Yet, the lesson is being ignored in real time. History is being rewritten in bad faith in the Uyo Senatorial District now. Those who have only recently switched from the PDP to the APC are pushing aside people whom they met on the ground, shamelessly disregarding assurances that the partys new leader, Pastor Umo Eno, gave.

Long-standing APC members who held the fort during difficult years are being progressively removed from leadership in Uyo to Ibesikpo Asutan, Uruan to Nsit Atai, and everywhere. What is happening is a daring power grab and a leadership capture that carries a clear risk of implosion.

They will not choose conscience because it demands sacrifice, as Victor and Ini Ememobong did. What passes for loyalty is simply a mechanism for justifying appointments, not a dedication to Umo Eno or his ARISE Agenda. If, God forbid, his position were ever threatened, they would abandon him without hesitation and join the next anointed person. Their loyalty is entirely transactional. And transactions, by their nature, expire.

The story of Victor Antai is a silent rebuke to turncoat politicians and professional loyalty traders. It reminds us that character should outlive office. It teaches us that dignity should survive political seasons and that the stomach should never be placed above the enduring values that define our humanity.

In the end, the crowd did not just applaud Victors speech. They applauded a life lesson many of them failed to see before, but were finally wise enough to recognise, at least momentarily. Because, let truth be told, most of them will still choose the stomach over conscience.

Victor Antai is a rare and unyielding star in a Nigerian political galaxy crowded with transactional earthly bodies.

Sir, step forward. Receive your flowers and take a bow!

Ibanga Isine is a multiple award-wining investigative journalist and an advocate of free speech and good governance.
Members of the Senate Committee on Appropriations have called for the removal of the electricity subsidy as part of efforts to boost federal government revenue.

The lawmakers made the call on Monday during a public hearing on the 2026 budget proposal held at the National Assembly.

Speaking at the hearing, the Chairman of the Committee, Adeola Olamilekan, said reforms in the electricity sector must include the full removal of subsidies, describing them as a major fiscal burden on the government.

Mr Olamilekan, who represents Ogun West Senatorial District, argued that despite the unbundling of the power sector and the empowerment of states to generate electricity, subsidies remain a drain on public finances.

We must complete the unbundling and subsidy removal in the electricity sector. States are now empowered to generate power, but subsidy in that sector remains a major fiscal burden. It must be fully addressed. It is to free up revenue for us, he said.

The senator said Nigerias annual budget is insufficient to meet the needs of all government agencies, stressing that continued subsidy payments worsen the situation.

I quite agree with the school of thought that the revenue we have is not enough to fund our budget, then why are we budgeting?.

And that is why this reform is necessary because by the time we free up subsidy, that means no payment of subsidy that runs to several trillions of naira and by the time we free up electricity subsidy no more payment. So, all these revenue involved will return to the coffers of the government as part of the funds accured to the federal government to fund the budget, he added.

Mr Olamilekan said the reforms would be part of the federal governments policy framework and must be properly implemented to yield results.

Reform is not enough, it depends on the level of how it is implemented or carried along embedded into the people-oriented programme of the government, which is very key and going forward. This budget has been predicated on these reforms, and that is why we have called it a budget of consolidation.

For years, the federal government has subsidised electricity consumption to reduce costs for consumers, repeatedly stating that it spends trillions of naira annually on the subsidy.

However, removing the electricity subsidy, as with petrol, could lead to higher electricity tariffs, worsen the hardship Nigerians are facing, and force some businesses to shut down.

Senate defends continuous borrowing

During the hearing, Mr Olamilekan also defended the federal governments plan to borrow about 25.91 trillion to finance part of the 2026 budget.

He said borrowing is a common practice globally, including in developed economies such as the United States.

Every government of the world, including America, everywhere, has a very high debt-to-revenue ratio. We dont have bulk revenue. We cannot, if we project 33.19, which was the revenue we expected, it wont come in a day.

In a month, you might project to have five trillion naira, and you might end up getting one trillion naira. The following month, you might project having five trillion naira, you might end up getting N10 trillion. The government must continue. So theres no way we can stop the process of borrowing.

But the question is, how do we intend to fund this years budget, this years deficit? I know we dont want to overcrowd, but were going to overcrowd both the banks and the capital markets. Government is going outside the shore of this country. Theyre approaching the Euro bond. Theyre approaching the international financial market to get the deficit funded, he said.

The senator warned that failure to meet Nigerias debt obligations could harm the countrys credit rating.

He commended the current administration for meeting its debt obligations but stressed the need to unlock more revenue to address budget deficits.

Its not only this present administration that we are servicing its debts. From only God knows which generation we are, administration we are referring to.Maybe during the military days, military era. We are still owing, and we have to continue to pay. And as such, we have no choice. And an attempt for us to also fail to meet any financial obligation, our rating will drop automatically, both in the World Bank, both in the IMF, and other international rating agency. And thats not good for our country.

So for me, I commend the present administration for meeting all their financial obligation as at when due. The only thing is that we must run free of so many of our revenue to address these deficit challenges that is currently confronting us, Mr Olamilekan stated.
President Bola Tinubu on Sunday night met with key political actors from Rivers State, including Governor Siminalayi Fubara and the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, in what appears to be a renewed attempt to ease the prolonged political crisis in the oil-rich state.

The closed-door meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja  reportedly also attended by other Rivers leaders  marks about the fourth presidential intervention in the bitter power struggle between Mr Fubara and his predecessor, Mr Wike.

Though details remain sketchy, The Nation newspaper reported that Mr Fubara accompanied Mr Wike to his residence in Guzape, Abuja, after the meeting  a move seen by observers as a possible sign of temporary thaw.

The latest intervention is the first since the third impeachment notice was issued against Mr Fubara by lawmakers loyal to Mr Wike, a process that has already become the subject of litigation.

Uncertain peace

Despite the high-level talks, it remains unclear whether any fresh truce will hold.

Key issues that may have dominated discussion at the meeting, including whether Mr Fubara has abandoned his second-term ambition and agreed to surrender the political leadership of Rivers State  two demands widely associated with Mr Wikes camp.

It is also uncertain whether the pro-Wike lawmakers will withdraw the impeachment notice against the governor.

Background to the crisis

Rivers State has been engulfed in political turmoil since the fallout between Mr Fubara and Mr Wike.

Mr Wike played a key role in Mr Fubaras emergence as governor in 2023.

The crisis deepened following the polarisation of the Rivers State House of Assembly, parallel political structures, and repeated impeachment threats against the governor.

Mr Fubaras recent defection from the PDP to the APC altered the political equation, raising questions about whether the ruling party at the centre will shield him from removal and support his bid for a second term.

For now, however, uncertainty persists, and it remains to be seen whether the latest presidential intervention can produce a lasting settlement.
The Chairman of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), Abdullahi Usman, has resigned from his position.

The development was confirmed to PREMIUM TIMES late on Monday by Ahmed Muazu, the media assistant to the chairman.

No official reason was given for the resignation at the time of filing this report.

Mr Usman, a professor, was appointed chairman of NAHCON by President Bola Tinubu in 2024. He oversaw his first Hajj operations in 2025, marking his debut in managing Nigerias Hajj affairs at the national level.

He was appointed in 2024 to replace Jalal Arabi, who was sacked by President Bola Tinubu. At the time he was removed, Mr Arabi was being investigated for allegedly misappropriating funds released by the federal government for the 2024 Islamic pilgrimage.

Mr Usmans relatively short tenure was marked by a series of controversies that generated tension within the commission. Central to the disputes were allegations of financial mismanagement and misappropriation of funds during the 2025 Hajj exerciseclaims that heightened internal disagreements and drew public attention to the commission.

In January 2026, the crisis deepened when some NAHCON commissioners reportedly submitted a petition to President Tinubu, passing a vote of no confidence in Mr Usman. The petition accused the chairman of leadership failures and poor administrative conduct, further escalating the internal rift within the commission.

The situation prompted the intervention of Vice President Kashim Shettima, who convened a meeting with key stakeholders approximately two weeks ago in an attempt to reconcile aggrieved parties and restore stability within NAHCON.

Mr Usmans resignation now adds a new dimension to the unfolding developments at the commission, raising questions about the future leadership of NAHCON and the management of Nigerias Hajj operations ahead of the 2026 pilgrimage.
The Defence Headquarters says troops of Operation Hadin Kai killed over 30 terrorists and facilitated the return of more than 700 Nigerian refugees within one week, as operations intensified across the North East.

The Director, Defence Media Operations, Michael Onoja, made this known while providing updates on military operations across the country in the last week.

Mr Onoja, a major general, said the successes followed aggressive, intelligence-driven operations against Boko Haram, ISWAP and JAS elements, conducted jointly with air assets and local security groups.

He said that on 30 January, troops conducting clearance operations in the Timbuktu Triangle around Kimba in the Damboa Local Government Area of Borno killed over 20 terrorists, including a notorious commander identified as Julaibib.

Mr Onoja added that similar engagements are ongoing in Gwoza Local Government Area of Borno and in Hong and Mubi North Local Government Areas of Adamawa.

According to him, the operations led to further killings, arrests of kidnappers, rescue of abductees, and recovery of weapons and equipment.

Troops also uncovered and destroyed three major terrorist detention facilities along the DamboaGujba axis of the Timbuktu Triangle, capable of holding about 300 captives each, rescuing 70 victims during the operation.

In the same period, the second batch of about 700 Nigerian refugees was successfully repatriated from Cameroon through the Banki border in Bama LGA of Borno, with adequate security provided throughout the exercise, he said.

Mr Onoja said sustained operations across Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states also led to the arrest of logistics suppliers, recovery of arms and ammunition, while air interdiction missions destroyed five suspected VBIEDs along the Marguna road in Kaga LGA of Borno.

He said the operations had continued to degrade terrorist networks and improve security conditions for safe resettlement in the region.

(NAN)
BEIJING, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- If Japan genuinely wants to develop the strategic relationship of mutual benefit with China, it should demonstrate its sincerity for dialogue through concrete actions, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said on Tuesday.

Lin made the remarks at a regular news briefing when asked to comment on media reports that Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Monday she is open to dialogue with China after sparking a row in November with comments about Taiwan.

"It's simple and clear: Japan should withdraw Takaichi's erroneous remarks on Taiwan, and abide by the four political documents between the two countries and the political commitments it has made," Lin said.

"True dialogue should be based on mutual respect and adherence to common understandings. No one will accept a dialogue if the other side keeps calling for talks while simultaneously engaging in confrontation," he said. 
The Senate on Tuesday descended into a rowdy session after some lawmakers protested a move to rescind an earlier decision rejecting mandatory electronic transmission of election results.

The commotion broke out shortly after the Senate Chief Whip, Tahir Monguno, moved a motion during an emergency plenary seeking to rescind the Senates previous resolution and amend the Electoral Act to accommodate mandatory electronic transmission of results.

Mr Monguno, who represents Borno North Senatorial District, said the need to rescind the earlier decision was informed by the desire to ensure that the Electoral Act reflects the wishes of the Nigerian people.

The clause under debate provides that presiding officers shall electronically transmit results from polling units to the Independent National Electoral Commissions (INEC) Result Viewing Portal (IREV). It further stipulates that where electronic transmission fails or becomes impossible, Form EC8A shall serve as the primary means of result collation.

However, several senators objected to the provision, leading to heated exchanges, shouting, and disorder in the chamber, which temporarily disrupted proceedings.

Amid the heated exchanges, the Abia South Senator, Eyinnaya Abaribe, repeatedly insisted that the motion be determined by a two-thirds majority rather than a simple voice vote.

After calm was restored in the chamber, the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, asked Mr Abaribe whether he still wished for the amended provision to be subjected to a two-thirds vote.

Mr Abaribe subsequently withdrew his demand, apparently recognising that even if the motion were subjected to a two-thirds vote, senators from the ruling party, who constitute more than two-thirds of the chamber, would likely prevail.

Mr Akpabio then put the motion to a voice vote, which was overwhelmingly supported by the majority of senators present.

He thereafter announced that the Senate had rescinded its earlier decision rejecting mandatory electronic transmission of election results, replacing the clause to accommodate the electronic transmission of results.

However, the provision comes with a caveat which prescribes that in the event of internet failure, Form EC8A will serve as the primary means of result collation.
The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, on Tuesday confirmed that President Bola Tinubu has intervened in the ongoing political crisis between Rivers State Governor Siminalayi Fubara, and members of the Rivers State House of Assembly.

PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported that President Tinubu on Sunday night met with key political actors, including Messrs Wike and Fubara, at the Presidential Villa in Abuja in a renewed attempt to solve the lingering political crisis in Rivers State.

Sundays meeting was the fourth time Mr Tinubu has intervened in the bitter power struggle in Rivers State.

This will be the last time

Speaking to reporters in Abuja on Tuesday, Mr Wike expressed hope that Mr Tinubus latest intervention would be the end of the political crisis in the oil-rich state.

A video clip which showed the FCT minister addressing the reporters has gone viral on social media.

The former Rivers governor said Mr Tinubu stepped in as a father figure to ensure peace and stability in the state, following a dispute between Governor Fubara and the state assembly members.

This is the second time Mr President is intervening, and I believe, by the grace of God, this will be the last, Mr Wike said.

The FCT minister added that he has asked the assembly members to respect and comply with the presidents decisions.

He expressed confidence that both the lawmakers and Governor Fubara would adhere to the agreement reached, stressing that the governor would also play his part to ensure lasting peace.

I also believe that this is the final time we must be hearing this kind of discord, he said.

He did not, however, disclose details of their meeting with President Tinubu and the agreements made by the parties.

Background

There has been a renewed political crisis in Rivers triggered by a seemingly intractable feud between Governor Fubara and Mr Wike.

Mr Wike influenced Mr Fubaras emergence as governor in 2023, but both politicians fell out months after because of the struggle for control of the political structures in the oil-rich state.

President Tinubu had brokered two peace deals between the parties, but they all collapsed shortly after.

The crisis later resulted in the declaration of emergency rule in the state in 2025.

Mr Fubara, who was suspended by Mr Tinubu for six months alongside all elected officials in the state in March 2025, only returned to office in September of that year after the president declared an end to the emergency rule.

In early January, Mr Wike-backed members of the Rivers State House of Assembly commenced the third attempt to impeach Governor Fubara and his deputy, Ngozi Odu.

The House accused them of gross misconduct, including an alleged failure to comply with constitutional requirements, such as presenting the annual budget.

The impeachment move came shortly after Mr Wike accused Governor Fubara of reneging on an agreement they had in the last peace deal.

However, a high court in the state halted the impeachment move by restraining the assembly and the states chief judge from going ahead with it.
A few hours after deploying a special force to Plateau, the Chief of Army Staff, Waidi Shaibu, has sent other teams to Benue, Nasarawa and Taraba, to serve as a force multiplier to Operation Whirl Stroke (OPWS), a joint task force, in these states.

According to a statement issued by Ahmad Zubairu, the acting spokesperson for OPWS, the deployment of this teamCOAS Special Intervention Battalion XVwas in line with Mr Shaibus efforts to strengthen internal security and stabilise vulnerable communities.

The deployment follows the successful completion of an intensive Special Forces training programme conducted at the Nigerian Army Training Centre, Kontagora, the statement partly read.

In addition, Mr Shaibu, a lieutenant general, has approved the deployment of the newly graduated soldiers to key formations and operational theatres across the country.

Upon arrival in the Joint Operations Area, the troops demonstrated high morale and combat readiness, the statement added.

The newly deployed special forces are expected to complement the ongoing efforts to dismantle criminal networks, curbing insecurity and restoring normalcy to communities shattered by banditry, armed violence and other criminal activities.

The deployment, the OPWS spokesperson added, was intended to safeguard farming communities, protect livelihoods and revive socio-economic activities disrupted by unending insecurity in the region.

Moses Gara, the Commander for OPWS welcomed the newly deployed soldiers and urged them to effectively apply the skills, discipline and tactics acquired during their Special Forces training.

Mr Gara, a major general, emphasised that the mission demands professionalism, resilience and total commitment.

Stressing that the troops have to be decisive and ruthless against terrorist and other criminal elements, Mr Gara cautioned the soldiers that the operational environment does not condone complacency.

He also encouraged them to collaborate with sister security agencies.

Mr Gara also spoke to the soldiers about responsible use of social media, highlighting both its positive and negative implications on military operations.

The newly inducted troops were also sensitised on the need to maintain cordial relationship with host communities while upholding human rights tenets in line with extant code of conduct, the statement noted.

The commander, however, urged them to maintain operational security at all times and to conduct themselves in line with the Nigerian Armys core values and rules of engagement.
The National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) announced on Monday that the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Hajj and Umrah has officially closed the data-capturing window for the 2026 Hajj season.

NAHCON Deputy Director of Information and Public Relations, Fatima Usara, disclosed this in a statement in Abuja.

The deadline was 8 February.

The commission said the Saudi authorities have shut the data upload portal on the Nusuk Masar platform, ending the registration process for the 2026 Hajj season.

It, however, said it has formally appealed to the Saudis for an extension of the deadline to enable Nigerian Hajj stakeholders to complete data capture of intending pilgrims whose details have yet to be uploaded to the platform.

The commission remains hopeful that the request will receive favourable consideration and assures the public that timely updates will be provided as soon as further communication is received, the statement said.

NAHCON said it appreciated the patience, understanding, and cooperation of all stakeholders, noting that it will continue to work closely with Saudi authorities to ensure a smooth and well-coordinated Hajj exercise for Nigerian pilgrims.

The commission assured that it would sustain engagement with relevant stakeholders and keep the public informed as efforts to resolve the matter progress.

Warning

Meanwhile, NAHCON has cautioned intending pilgrims against paying Hajj fares to any individual, group, or agency, stressing that the payment process for the 2026 Hajj has been officially closed.

The commission urged members of the public to rely only on its verified communication channels for accurate information and updates.

Intending pilgrims speak

Reacting to the portal closure, some Nigerians who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES commended NAHCON for appealing to Saudi authorities for an extension to accommodate intending pilgrims who were unable to complete their registration before the 8 February deadline.

Those who spoke said the registration officially ended at midnight on Sunday, leaving some stranded after failing to complete their data capture on the Nusuk Masar platform due to technical delays and late documentation.

Sadiq Abdullahi, who spoke on the phone from Kano, said that although his registration was successful, the closure could negatively affect many applicants who had already made significant preparations.

Most of us had completed our payments and medical screening, while some had even submitted their passports to state Hajj boards. It will be unfair if they are denied the chance to perform Hajj because of issues beyond their control, he said.

Similarly, Zainab Musa, an intending pilgrim from Kaduna State, described the situation as distressing.

Once the portal is closed, everything stops. That is exactly what happened. NAHCON should urgently intervene and secure an extension so that people will not lose this rare opportunity, she said.

Another intending pilgrim, Khalifa Lawal from Ilorin, said granting an extension would help restore confidence in the Hajj registration system.

This is a spiritual journey, not a commercial race. An extension will show that the authorities are considerate and responsive to the realities on the ground, he said.
Irans Ambassador to Nigeria, Mahdavi Raja, has reaffirmed his countrys commitment to deepen bilateral relations with Nigeria through bilateral cooperation across key sectors, including shared economic resilience and technological progress.

The envoy made this known on Monday in Abuja during the countrys 47th anniversary celebration, known as the Victory of the Islamic Revolution of Iran.

The ambassador described Iran and Nigeria as influential regional players with longstanding friendly ties rooted in mutual respect and shared interests.

Nigeria holds a special place in Irans foreign policy.

At the same time, Irans capabilities in energy, agriculture, healthcare, technology, education and engineering services position it as a reliable partner for Nigerias sustainable development, Mr Raja said.

He added that Nigerias large market, human resources and strategic role in West Africa offered vast opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation.

The ambassador also expressed appreciation to the Federal Government of Nigeria, members of the diplomatic corps and invited guests for honouring the occasion.

Nigerias Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, in his remarks, said Nigeria recognised Iran as an important country in the Middle East and a valuable member of the international community.

Mr Tuggar, represented by Bukar Hamman, the ministrys director of Regions Department, said relations between both countries were guided by mutual respect and constructive engagement through bilateral channels and multilateral platforms, including the UN.

According to him, economic relations between Nigeria and Iran had expanded steadily over the years, covering sectors such as energy-related products, agriculture, manufacturing inputs and consumer goods, reflecting the complementary nature of both economies.

Nigeria remains committed to peaceful coexistence, respect for sovereignty and the peaceful resolution of disputes through dialogue and adherence to international law, he said.

Also speaking, Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State said Iran remained an important partner for Nigeria, particularly in trade, investment and the promotion of economic self-reliance.

Mr Mohammed disclosed that an Iranian company was establishing a lead and zinc industry in Bauchi State aimed at developing a full value chain rather than exporting raw materials.

He added that discussions were ongoing with Iranian investors in agriculture and livestock development, including modern ranching and breeding technologies to boost productivity.

We are here to learn, strengthen bilateral relations and reassure Iranian investors that Nigeria is a friendly country where they can do business without impediments, the governor said.

Earlier, the Iranian Ambassador described the anniversary as a moment of national reflection and renewed international engagement.

He noted that the 1979 Islamic Revolution represented the collective will of the Iranian people to reclaim national sovereignty, independence and dignity.

The Islamic Revolution was not merely a transfer of political power; it marked the beginning of national sovereignty, popular governance and the rejection of domination, he said.

Mr Raja noted that in spite of decades of external pressure and sanctions, Iran had recorded significant achievements by relying on indigenous capacity, social cohesion and skilled human capital.

According to him, Iran has made steady progress in science and technology, expanded knowledge-based companies and achieved major advances in emerging technologies and the health sector.

In the economic sphere, he said Iran had strengthened industrial production, increased non-oil exports and laid the foundations for a diversified and resilient economy, in spite of difficult global conditions.

He added that improvements in healthcare coverage, pharmaceutical self-sufficiency, housing development, access to clean water and communication infrastructure had contributed to better living standards for its citizens.

Mr Raja further said that Iran was pursuing a balanced and dynamic diplomacy focused on dialogue, multilateralism and cooperation, while expanding relations with neighbouring countries, emerging powers and international organisations.

Iran considers itself a responsible and independent actor at regional and global levels and remains committed to peace, stability and sustainable development, he said.

The ambassador also addressed recent challenges facing Iran, including economic pressures, security incidents and external military and media campaigns.

He stressed that Iran remained committed to protecting its citizens, upholding public order and pursuing diplomacy based on mutual respect.

The fundamental principle of diplomacy is respect for sovereignty and mutual interests.

Negotiations based on threats and force cannot be effective, he added.

(NAN)
Governor Ademola Adeleke has promised to dualise the road from Ikire junction to Apomu and Ikoyi.

He made the promise when he graced the occasion of Apomu Day celebrations held at ADC Grammar School, Apomu.

He said the road project will improve economic growth.

The governor said his administration is committed to inclusive development across the state. He also emphasised that rural and semi urban remain central in his governments development agenda.

Senator, Lere Oyewumi, Deputy Minority Leader at the Senate, representing Osun West Senatorial District, in his speech said governance is about development. He promised to support the development of Apomu as one of the towns in his Senatorial district.

Jide Babalola, President General of Apomu Descendants Union National and Diaspora, said this years Apomu Day is beyond celebration. It is intentionally focused on development, sustainability and shared- ownership.

It is with this purpose that we are unveiling #250million Community Endowment Fund aimed at supporting our priority projects, which include completion of our ultra modern Palace, youth empowerment and community infrastructures. In support of todays launching, on behalf of the 131 elite members of ADU, we collectively donate N25million.

Other notable individuals also made donations. One of them is Lanre Oladebo, member House of Representatives, Ayedaade, Irewole and Isokan Federal Constituency. Mr Oladebo who is an indigene of Apomu made a pledge of N25 million.

Goke Odetunde, Chairman of Isoka Local government area said All Progressive Congress Apomu will support the growth and development of Apomu.

Ajibola Olanrewaju, former Minority Leader at the Osun State House of Assembly who is an indigene of Apomu, was also on ground to support the event.

Oba Kayode Afolabi, the Alapomu of Apomu said for him Apomu Day is double celebration because it coincides with his 6th coronation anniversary.

He appreciated all the sons and daughters of Apomu for their commitment, support and cooperation towards the development of the town, since his ascension to the throne of his fore fathers.

Through personal commitment and self help we have made significant positive impact in Apomu. But there are still more to be done. However l am confident that with your continued support and dedication the development efforts will be accelerated.

Apomu Day celebration is an important cultural event that promotes the towns rich heritage and provides a platform for community members to come together and celebrate their identity.

The event was marked by colourful cultural display and music by Saheed Osupa , fujj musician, who entertained the crowd.
The House of Representatives Committee on Health Institutions has called on tertiary health institutions, especially university teaching hospitals, to refocus on medical research, warning that the sector should not wait for public health emergencies to spur scientific inquiry.

The call was made on Tuesday during the 2026 budget defence session of federal university teaching hospitals, federal teaching hospitals and federal medical centres.

The committee chairperson, Patrick Umoh (APC, Akwa Ibom), said teaching hospitals had drifted from their statutory role as research centres and were increasingly operating like general hospitals.

Mr Umoh faulted chief medical directors for devoting less than one per cent of their annual budgets to research, noting that research funding rarely features prominently in their budget submissions.

Teaching hospitals are supposed to be centres of research, he said. You have never raised the issue of lack of funding for research, but you talk more about infrastructure. That makes you part of the problem.

He recalled that the COVID-19 pandemic exposed weaknesses in the countrys health research capacity, adding that none of the teaching hospitals visited by the committee during oversight engagements had showcased functional research facilities.

No hospital has taken me to a facility centre and said, this is our research centre, he said.

Responding on behalf of the Committee of Chief Medical Directors, its secretary, Pokop Bupwatda, said research funding in teaching hospitals remains severely limited.

Mr Bupwatda, who is the chief medical director of the Jos University Teaching Hospital, explained that although about one per cent of hospital budgets is usually earmarked for research, the provision is often removed during the budgeting process.

He appealed for increased funding for the health sector to enable the recruitment of qualified personnel and improved staff welfare, which he said would help address the growing exodus of medical professionals from the country.

The issue, widely referred to as the japa syndrome, has continued to deplete Nigerias health workforce, with doctors, nurses and other skilled professionals leaving for better pay, working conditions and career prospects abroad.

Industry stakeholders have repeatedly warned that poor remuneration, heavy workloads, inadequate facilities and delayed promotions are fuelling the trend, leaving public hospitals overstretched.

Health experts have also cautioned that unless sustained investment is made in manpower development and staff welfare, the continued outflow of medical professionals could further weaken service delivery in federal tertiary health institutions and undermine efforts to strengthen healthcare outcomes nationwide.

Speaking further on the issue, Mr Bupwatda said many federal hospitals are critically understaffed, particularly with medical doctors, and even when recruitment approvals are granted, there is often little interest from applicants. Despite this, he said existing staff continue to deliver quality healthcare services.

He also criticised what he described as an overemphasis on isolated failures within the health sector, arguing that such narratives overlook progress that has attracted foreign patients to Nigerias medical facilities.

Mr Bupwatda further disclosed that only about 30 per cent of the 2025 budget allocation to federal tertiary health institutions had been released, despite efforts by the House to improve funding for the sector.

He identified power supply as another major challenge, noting that hospitals spend substantial amounts on electricity under the Band A tariff regime, in addition to the cost of running generators to ensure uninterrupted services.

While welcoming plans to provide solar mini-grids for teaching hospitals and federal medical centres, he described the initiative as a step in the right direction.

He also urged the committee to consider providing take-off grants for about seven newly established federal health institutions to enable them to begin full operations.
The House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee investigating power sector reforms and expenditure between 2006 and 2024 has established a seven-member sub-committee to conduct a forensic audit of gas supplied to electricity generation companies (Gencos) nationwide.

The decision followed the adoption of a motion by Harrison Nwadike (APC, Imo), who raised concerns about the continued supply of gas to the largely inactive Sapele Power Plant in Delta State over the past year, despite the facility producing little or no electricity.

According to him, the committee discovered during their recent oversight visit to Sapele that gas was being supplied to the plant, yet it has not generated power. He questioned the rationale behind the ongoing supply.

Earlier, the Chairman of the Ad-hoc Committee, Al-Mustapha Aliyu (APC, Sokoto), noted that there have been widespread public concerns that Seplat Energy Company, a key gas supplier, may not be providing adequate gas to Gencos as required, effectively strangling power plants and undermining national electricity generation.

Responding to the allegations, Seplat Energy Managing Director, Ibiada Itoto, dismissed claims that the company was sabotaging the sector, insisting that Seplat remains committed to supporting the federal governments power sector reform agenda.

Seplats General Manager, Gas, Olubukola Fasoyin, further disclosed that the Sapele Power Plant currently owes the company approximately 20 billion for gas supplied.

READ ALSO: Reps urge teaching hospitals to prioritise research beyond Covid 19 emergencies

Despite this, Mr Nwadike alleged that Seplat could be implicated in an economic crime by allegedly enabling the diversion of gas meant for electricity generation over the past year.

To address the issue, the committee constituted a seven-member sub-committee to conduct a forensic audit.

Afam Ogene (LP, Enugu) was appointed chairman, with Kafilat Ogbara (APC, Lagos), Salisu Magaji (APC, Kano), Faud Laguda (APC, Oyo), Harrison Nwadike (APC, Imo) and other members joining the panel.

The sub-committee is expected to investigate the utilisation of gas supplies across power plants, identify gaps or mismanagement, and submit findings to guide corrective measures and ensure accountability in the sector.
The Northern Nigeria Minorities Group (NNMG) has welcomed the federal governments approval of the Renewed Hope Development Plan (20262030), describing it as a potentially decisive moment in Nigerias economic and institutional trajectory.

Endorsed by the National Economic Council (NEC), under the leadership of Vice President Kashim Shettima, the framework is designed to replace the 20212025 plan and advance Nigerias ambition to become a $1 trillion economy by 2030.

NNMG, in a statement shared with PREMIUM TIMES by its Convener, Jacob Edi, on Tuesday, said the plan reflects a coherent policy direction focused on consolidating economic reforms, expanding infrastructure, creating jobs, strengthening human capital, and improving food security.

These priorities are not abstract. They speak directly to the daily struggles of communities in Northern Nigeria where poverty, unemployment, and weak public services remain stubborn realities, the group said.

The organisation also welcomed the plans private-sector-led growth strategy, with priority sectors including energy, agriculture, manufacturing, digital services, and housing, noting that these sectors are critical to productivity, investment, and long-term competitiveness.

NNMG further commended the participatory structure of the plans development, which involved federal, state, and local governments, alongside civil society and the private sector, and described it as consistent with democratic best practice.

It highlighted the 2026 Growth Acceleration and Investment Mobilisation Strategy (GAIMS), targeting 5.5% GDP growth, as well as initiatives such as revenue optimisation through the RevOps platform, ward-based development budgeting, and the digitisation of national examinations.

Plans do not change countries. Implementation does, NNMG said, urging transparency, discipline, and measurable outcomes, especially in marginalised and underserved regions.

The group said it stands ready to engage government and civil society to ensure that the Renewed Hope agenda delivers real results.
Ebonyi, which calls itself the Salt of the Nation, is blessed with vast mineral wealth and fertile plains suited for large-scale cultivation of rice and other agricultural products. For decades, communities in Abakaliki, Izzi, Ezza, and Ikwo cultivated rice largely by hand and mainly for subsistence.

The narrative began to change as calls for food self-sufficiency grew, and both federal and state governments made deliberate efforts to reduce rice imports.

Aside from Ebonyi, other notable rice-producing states in Nigeria are Kebbi, Jigawa, Kano, Ekiti, Benue, Kaduna, Niger, Cross River, and Ogun.

No longer the dusty, stone-filled

Today, Ebonyi rice is not just a crop; it is a statement, a movement, and for many, a dependable source of livelihood.

Once relegated to the background of Nigerias food conversation, Ebonyi rice has risen from obscurity to national prominence.

As foreign rice gradually loses its appeal in the Nigerian market, the homegrown variety from Ebonyi has become a preferred choice on many dining tables, market shelves, and even in government warehouses.

By most accounts, Ebonyi rice is no longer the dusty, stone-filled, hand-milled grain sold only in local markets.

It is now available in supermarkets in Abuja, Lagos, Enugu, and beyondneatly packaged, well processed, and proudly labelled Made in Nigeria.

The transformation of Ebonyi rice did not happen overnight.

Despite the states long-standing potential, factors such as poor government support, limited access to technology, and post-harvest losses previously constrained farmers and left them vulnerable to middlemen.

Agriculture stakeholders say things began to improve significantly from 2015, following federal policies aimed at boosting local rice production.

With restrictions on rice imports, Ebonyi found its footing as a major producer.

Analysts say at present, Ebonyi rice is more than a staple foodlocally grown, milled, and packaged; it has become a symbol of pride for Nigerians who increasingly prefer it to foreign alternatives.

Governor Francis Nwifuru has declared Ebonyi States ambition to become Nigerias rice capital, attract investment, boost Internally Generated Revenue, and create jobs for the growing youth population.

Rice production has created over 20,000 jobs in Ebonyi  Official

The Ebonyi State Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources disclosed that rice production in the state had created over 20,000 jobs across the value chainfrom planting and harvesting to milling and distribution.

The Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources, Nkechinyere Iyioku, said the government was committed to investing more in rice production while encouraging youth participation in practical agriculture.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the Ebonyi government, through the Ministry of Human Capital Development, trained hundreds of youths in agribusiness areas, including poultry, fisheries, rice, and cassava production.

Beneficiaries also received start-up funds of N3 million each.

For the Ebonyi government, rice has moved beyond agriculture to become a strategic asset.

Linus Obeji, the chairman of the Rice Mill Industry, Abakaliki, attributed the transformation in rice production and branding to consistent government policies and farmers resilience.

According to Mr Obeji, the federal governments Anchor Borrowers Programme under the late President Muhammadu Buharis administration and ongoing policies under President Bola Tinubu provide smallholder farmers with access to loans, improved seedlings, and fertilisers.

He added that the state government upgraded rice mills, provided tractors, and strengthened cooperative societies, thereby increasing output.

Ebonyi now produces hundreds of thousands of metric tonnes of rice annually, feeding not only its people but many Nigerians across the country and beyond, he said.

Mr Obeji noted that improved processing had enhanced consumer perception and preference for local rice.

Ebonyi rice is known for its natural aroma, absence of chemical preservatives, and nutritional value.

With modern processing, the once stone-filled grains are now cleaner and comparable to imported brands.

He, however, identified challenges such as poor road infrastructure, inadequate storage facilities, erratic power supply, insecurity, and climate change-induced flooding.

Mr Obeji said the industry had adopted strict quality control measures, including mandatory de-stoning, sorting, polishing, and proper packaging.

No rice leaves the mill without complete removal of chaffs and stones. The industry is capable of sustaining a steady supply within Ebonyi, Nigeria, and even the global market, Mr Obeji said.

Mathew Nwoko, a rice dealer from Port Harcourt, Rivers State, said Ebonyi rice had penetrated major markets across the country and abroad.

He called for sustained government intervention to maintain the growth trajectory.

In markets from Port Harcourt to Owerri, Asaba, Lagos, Ebonyi rice is becoming a household name; consumers are drawn by its quality and the satisfaction of supporting local farmers, Mr Nwoko said.

Natural taste

Adaku Chukwubike, a Lagos-based food trader, said demand for local rice in her shop had surged, compelling her to source directly from Abakaliki.

Since I tasted the rice, I never went back; it is natural, and my customers give positive testimonies, she said.

A young agripreneur, Eze Nwube, who runs a small rice milling outfit in Onueke, Ezza-South Local Government Area of Ebonyi, said agribusiness had transformed his life.

People mocked me for choosing farming, but today I supply rice to major stores and online buyers, he said.

An agricultural economist, Grace Nwafor, stressed the need for massive investment in modern farming technology to enhance global competitiveness.

She called for improved access to high-yield seeds, irrigation systems, and youth-focused agricultural training programmes.

Ignatius Unah, the chairman of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria in Ebonyi, urged the federal and state governments to expand access to farm inputs and mechanised farming.

Mr Unah acknowledged the state governments support but noted that rising input costs remained a challenge for many farmers.

The governments subsidy on fertilisers and agrochemicals is crucial for food security and supporting smallholder farmers, he said.

A local farmer, Nwokpor Nicholas, said rice farming had become profitable, attracting buyers from Port Harcourt, Benin, and other cities.

Our children now attend school through rice proceeds; rice farming has become a viable business, he said.

NAN reports that as of December 2025, the cost of rice had dropped significantly, with a 50kg bag selling for between N30,000 and N45,000, compared to N65,000N90,000 recorded between March and June.

Within that period, a 25kg bag sold for between N14,000 and N25,000, depending on the grade and brand.

Agri-enthusiasts in Ebonyi say there is still a need to improve road infrastructure, boost storage capacity and power supply, enhance security, and mitigate climate-induced flooding to bolster rice production.

Given these developments, stakeholders say Ebonyi is on track to be a game-changer in Nigerias quest for food security.

(NANFeatures)
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, talks with delivery workers while visiting a community canteen for seniors in Xicheng District of Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 10, 2026. Xi visited primary-level officials and residents in Beijing during a two-day inspection tour from Monday to Tuesday. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

BEIJING, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, on Tuesday commended the hard work and contributions of delivery workers.

When visiting a community canteen for seniors during his two-day inspection tour in Beijing, Xi talked with three delivery workers who were having a rest in the canteen, asking about their work and life.

"You've worked hard to meet the needs of countless households, and the city couldn't function without workers like you. I hope you all can lead good lives and work well," Xi said.

Xi urged Party committees and governments at all levels to care for workers in new forms of employment and provide quality services for their work, daily life and study. 
Following the address of President Bola Tinubu at the second edition of the National Economic Council (NEC) conference, Vice President Kashim Shettima has implored governors of the 36 states of the federation, ministers and other public officials to work towards achieving the kind of inclusive growth and economic progress that trickles down to the everyday lives of Nigerians.

According to him, the prevailing wisdom among developed economies has moved beyond growth for its own sake to sustainable growth that accommodates all citizens.

The vice president, who stated this on Monday in Abuja while delivering his keynote address during the National Economic Council (NEC) Conference, described the two-day confab as a continuation of the governments covenant with the Nigerian people.

The inclusive growth on our radar is not an exercise in sloganeering. We have confronted the macroeconomic obstacles before us. What remains is to ensure that progress filters down to the everyday lives of our people. This is precisely why the National Economic Council remains the most suitable vehicle for delivering the promise of inclusive growth.

Our mission is incomplete if a child born in Lafia does not have the same chance to thrive as one born in Lagos; if the farmer in Makurdi, the entrepreneur in Aba, and the student in Sokoto cannot all find dignity, opportunity, and hope within the Nigerian dream, he declared.

Mr Shettima pointed out that while the NEC conference is a moment to take stock of the tasks ahead, the event also demonstrates the harmonious relationship President Tinubu has shared with NEC through the memorable years of inevitable and transformative reforms aimed at resetting the foundations of the nations economy.

He applauded President Tinubu for improving Nigerias economic fortunes, noting that it would be difficult for anyone to deny the sincerity with which the president has honoured his promise to insulate the Nigerian economy in a world increasingly shaped by geopolitical tensions and rising economic protectionism.

On what the conference intends to achieve, Mr Shettima explained that it presents a unique opportunity to onboard new governors and deepen the shared understanding of NECs role in shaping Nigerias economic destiny.

Among others, he said the two-day retreat seeks to align federal and state strategies with the National Development Plan (20212025) and the Nigeria Agenda 2050, especially in poverty reduction, job creation, and social protection.

Mr Shettima outlined the objectives of the confab to include strengthening collaboration across regions through practical frameworks for inter-regional trade, investment, and infrastructure, harnessing the comparative advantages of each geopolitical zone.

He said the conference will also explore pathways for fiscal sustainability at both federal and subnational levels, reforming tax systems and enhancing internally generated revenue without overburdening our people; and to ensure that NECs resolutions translate into legislative and executive action that delivers tangible outcomes at federal, state, and community levels.

The vice president urged participants at the conference to be bold in thought, courageous in questioning the status quo, and resolute in crafting an implementable roadmap that speaks not just to growth, but to growth that is inclusive, sustainable, and transformative.

History will not judge us by what we discuss, but by the clarity of the actions and the impact inspired by such decisions. May this conference mark another step towards a nation that works for all its people, he added.

In his welcome remarks, Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Atiku Bagudu, lauded the efforts and contributions of NEC to the gains recorded in the economy, just as he commended the vice president for his leadership and state governors for their commitment to the ideals of the Renewed Hope Agenda.

Mr Bagudu expressed hope that the NEC conference will provide the forum with an opportunity to generate the consensus needed to support the creation of the trillion-dollar economy.

For his part, Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum, Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq of Kwara State, represented by Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State, said the conference was holding at a time when the country is undertaking a deliberate reset targeted at repositioning the economy for sustainable development.

He pledged the support of the states in delivering inclusive growth and sustainable national development as enshrined in the Renewed Hope National Development Plan.

Stanley Nkwocha

Senior Special Assistant to The President on Media & Communications

(Office of The Vice President)

9th February, 2026
President Bola Tinubu on Monday declared that Nigeria will defeat terrorism and banditry, describing the security threats as unacceptable and alien to the nations core values.

Declaring open the Second National Economic Council (NEC) Conference at the State House Conference Centre, Abuja, President Tinubu assured Nigerians of his administrations resolve to strengthen the countrys security forces and restore peace across affected communities.

I promise you here that Ill play my part. Seven zones of mechanisation are coming. I promise Nigerians that this will be delivered, and I am here again to further find ways to strengthen our security forces and defeat terrorism.

That, I promise you, is what has kept all of us sleepless at night, but I assure you we will win with determination and resilience. We will overcome this unacceptable terrorism and banditry. Its not part of our culture. Its foreign to us, he said.

The president described insecurity as an economic hindrance, stressing that all hands must be on deck to find an immediate solution.

He particularly commended the governors of Borno, Katsina and Kaduna states, as well as others, for doing so much to defend our freedom, liberty and our commonwealth.

Welcoming state governors, ministers, members of the National Assembly, development partners and private sector leaders to the two-day conference themed Delivering Inclusive Growth and Sustainable National Development: The Renewed Hope National Development Plan 20262030, President Tinubu described the gathering as a reflection of collective dedication to national progress.

He praised the National Economic Council, chaired by Vice President Kashim Shettima, for sustaining a vital platform for policy coordination and strategic dialogue.

I am pleased to address the second edition of the National Economic Council Conference at a critical moment in Nigerias development journey. NEC remains a cornerstone of fiscal federalism and economic governance in our country, he said.

Highlighting the key achievements of his administration thus far, President Tinubu said the economic reforms undertaken since inception have helped stabilise the economy and restore confidence.

I must say again at this juncture, the monetary policy that we have embarked on since the reforms has yielded positive results and gained recognition around the world, he noted.

He commended the Central Bank of Nigeria under Governor Yemi Cardoso for restoring confidence in Nigerias monetary policy.

President Tinubu said state and local governments now receive increased, more predictable federal allocations, enhancing their capacity to pay salaries, invest in infrastructure, and deliver social services.

He added that infrastructure development across transportation, power, digital connectivity, housing and irrigation has been prioritised.

The president also highlighted expanded social investment and human capital programmes targeting vulnerable households, youth, women and small businesses, alongside grassroots-focused initiatives under the Renewed Hope Agenda.

The Renewed Hope Ward Development Project further demonstrates our commitment to grassroots inclusion through a bottom-up approach to national development.

These successes reflect strong collaboration among the federal and state governments, development partners and the private sector, he said.

In the Renewed Hope National Development Plan 20262030, President Tinubu explained that it represents the next phase of Nigerias national journey, anchored in inclusive, resilient, and environmentally sustainable growth.

The plan prioritises economic diversification and productivity; human capital development; subnational competitiveness based on comparative advantage; private sector-led growth; and climate resilience.

Its success will depend largely on effective implementation at the state and local government levels, making NEC central to aligning national priorities with subnational realities.

This conference has reinforced collaboration, shared accountability and a focus on practical solutions and measurable outcomes.

We must move decisively from declarations to implementation through data-driven decision-making, peer learning among states and innovative financing models, he said.

President Tinubu told the conference that while the task before the nation is challenging, the opportunity is historic.

He expressed confidence that resolutions from the conference would advance agricultural diversification, including dairy farming, livestock investment and ranching.

Bayo Onanuga

Special Adviser to the President

(Information & Strategy)

9 February 2026
The Lagos State House of Assembly has urged both the state government and residents of Makoko stay action regarding demolitions in the area pending the outcome of its fact-finding mission to the waterfront community.

The appeal followed an on-the-spot assessment of the area on Monday by a House committee on rules and business led by the Majority Leader, Noheem Adams.

Addressing journalists at the shoreline after the visit, Mr Adams said the lawmakers were yet to reach conclusions, describing the visit as preliminary.

We have seen what we need to see for ourselves, but we do not yet have the parameters to determine the exact metres that have been demolished, he said.

Today is not for decision-making. We will review our findings and report back to the House.

He called on all parties to suspend further action.

We are appealing to everybody that the status quo should remain. Nobody should take further steps, whether from the government or the community, until the House concludes its work, he said.

This came six days after the State lawmakers asked the government to halt further demolitions after a meeting their meeting with community representatives at the Assembly Complex in Alausa, Ikeja.

Scene at the waterfront

PREMIUM TIMES observed debris from demolished homes scattered across sections of the waterfront. Several residents, including women and children, were seen living on boats after their structures were pulled down.

Our reporter also observed that the demolition appeared to extend beyond the previously agreed 100-metre setback. The community had marked what it described as the agreed boundary with more than six Nigerian flags positioned along the shoreline.

Mr Adams thanked the Speaker of the House, Mudashiru Obasa, and other state leaders for supporting the intervention.

The chairman of Yaba Local Council Development Area (LCDA), Bayo Adefuye, said the committees visit would help address tensions in the community.

We are glad that the House of Assembly has come to assess the situation directly, Mr Adefuye said. We will continue to stand by our people and engage them.

One of the communitys traditional leaders, Baale Ajagungbade Segla, expressed hope journalists on the sidelines that the demolition would not go beyond the areas already affected.

He said many residents depend on fishing for survival and expressed concern over the impact on livelihoods.

While speaking on the sideline, the President of the Makoko Students Union, Kojo Phineas, called for the resettlement of displaced residents and adequate compensation.

Most of the affected residents have nowhere else to go apart from their canoes, Mr Phineas said. We are asking for temporary shelter, rebuilding of demolished houses, and compensation for victims.

Background

The Assemblys intervention followed protests recently by Makoko residents and civil society groups over the demolition of waterfront structures, which reportedly displaced hundreds.

On 3 February, Mr Adams announced an immediate halt to the demolitions after a meeting between lawmakers and community representatives at the Assembly Complex in Alausa, Ikeja.

All ongoing demolitions should be stopped, he said at the time, adding that the House would engage relevant ministries and agencies to clarify disputes over setback measurements along the waterfront.

READ ALSO: Lagos Assembly orders immediate halt to Makoko demolitions amid protests against govts actions

Residents and their representatives have alleged that the exercise exceeded the originally communicated 30-metre setback, with claims that demolition activities extended several hundred metres in some areas.

The Lagos State Government has denied the allegation, maintaining that demolitions were halted on the directive of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and carried out in line with planning regulations.

The committee is expected to submit its findings and recommendations after concluding its assessment.

More Pictures:
The Cross River chapter of the Magistrates Association of Nigeria on Monday resumed its suspended industrial action over the governments failure to meet its demands.

The association said that as at midnight Sunday, 8 February, the Cross River State Government had failed to meet with the association to avert the industrial action.

It would be recalled that the association had issued a strike notice to the government on 2 February.

In the letter, signed by its Chairman, Godwin Onah and Secretary, Solomon Abuo, the magistrates noted that the decision to resume the suspended strike was taken at its general meeting of 30 January.

The association alleged that the government reneged on its earlier promise that led to the suspension of the industrial action.

You recall that upon your personal intervention, through a meeting you held with the association in November 2024, where you promised to act on our demands, we decided to suspend the strike to give you room to address our demands, the association stated in its message to Governor Bassey Otu of Cross River.

It thanked the governor for implementing the first item on its list of demands, namely the immediate promotion and regularisation of magistrates in the state, with the necessary financial benefits across all cadres.

The association, however, regretted the lack of attention to the remaining items on the list of demands.

According to it, the situation was causing so much disaffection and hardship to its members, given how important they are to its security, welfare, and the smooth and efficient administration of justice in the state.

In view of the foregoing, we have resolved to resume the suspended indefinite strike at the expiration of seven days from today.

For the avoidance of doubt, the said indefinite strike shall be resumed on Monday, 9th February, without further notice.

The association stated at that time that it was hopeful that Governor Otu would attend to their demands to forestall the indefinite strike.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the magistrates demands included a request for the government to promote its members who had remained stagnant since 2015.

The magistrates also decried the N15,000 monthly imprest paid to them, describing it as paltry when compared to magistrates in neighbouring states that reportedly receive between N200,000 and N250,000 monthly.

While also demanding the rehabilitation of magistrate courts across the state, the association further frowned at the governments failure to provide its members with official vehicles.

Meanwhile, the associations secretary confirmed to NAN that the government met with their leadership on Monday morning to resolve the contending issues.

Mr Abuo said that the government officials were led by the Chief of Staff to the Governor, Emmanuel Ironbar, and the Attorney-General of the state, Ededem Ani.

READ ALSO: Lawyers identify obstacles to ACJ law implementation in Cross River

He, however, said the association was still awaiting governments pronouncement based on the outcome of the meeting.

Yes, we met with the government today, and it told us to give it time to put heads together to come out with something.

As we speak, we are waiting for them, and their response will determine if the strike will go on or not, Mr Abuo said.
No fewer than 2,000 trucks that were earlier stranded at Nigerias borders with Benin and the Niger Republic have begun moving following the reopening of the Kamba and Tsamiya border posts in Kebbi.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the reopening is in line with the directive by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

The Kebbi Area Controller of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Mahmoud Matawalle-Ibrahim, officially opened the borders to trucks from Benin and Niger on Monday at Kamba, in the Dandi Local Government Area of the state.

He said, The reopening of the borders in Dandi and Bagudo Local Government Areas is aimed at facilitating the transit of legitimate goods and reviving cross-border trade with the Republics of Benin and Niger, after months of closure occasioned by security concerns.

The exercise was carried out with presidential approval to enable the smooth movement of legitimate goods from the Tsamiya border to Niger Republic through the Kamba corridor in Kebbi.

Mr Matawalle-Ibrahim averred that many of the stranded trucks from Benin had already been cleared at Tsamiya and were moving towards the Niger Republics Tunga Jado border through Kamba.

He added that the development would boost trading activities between Nigeria and its neighbours, while also strengthening joint security efforts along the border communities.

Earlier, an official of the Niger Republic, Maigiro Yahaya-Tubil, said the decision by the Nigerian government would help stimulate the economies of the neighbouring countries.

READ ALSO: Court orders forfeiture of N1bn Bombardier jet to Nigerian govt over unpaid customs duty

We are happy that our trucks, which were trapped for months, can now move freely through Nigeria to their destinations, he said.

Also speaking, the District Head of Kamba, Muhammed Sarkin-Shikon-Kamba, described the reopening as a major relief to border communities.

This decision will bring economic benefits to our people and restore livelihoods that were affected by the closure.

We sincerely appreciate the federal government, he said.

(NAN)
The Nigerian community in South Africa has again been thrown into mourning with Sundays killing of a member, Emeka Uzor.

The Nigerian Union South Africa (NUSA), the umbrella body of Nigerians living in that country, said this in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Monday.

The statement was jointly issued by NUSA President, Smart Nwobi, and National Publicity Secretary, Akindele Olunloyo.

The union said the deceased was fatally shot at about 3 p.m. at a Carltex Garage in Windsor East, Randburg, Johannesburg.

It said Mr Uzor, who hailed from Nkerefi in Nkanu East Local Government Area of Enugu State, was killed in a suspected incident of assassination while in his vehicle.

The union said the latest incident represented a troubling pattern of brutal violence against Nigerian nationals in South Africa.

NUSA challenged the South African government, particularly the Minister of Police and the National Commissioner of the South African Police Service, to conduct a thorough, transparent, and impartial investigation into the incident.

The union also urged the authorities to ensure that anyone found culpable faces the full wrath of the law.

It further urged the South African authorities to tackle the recurring violence targeted at Nigerian nationals living in that country.

NUSA equally calls on the Nigerian government through the offices of our Consul General and the High Commissioner to actively engage diplomatically with their South African counterparts, it said.

The union also called on the Nigerian Mission to work with NUSA, a community-based organisation, to tackle issues diplomatically and legally.

NUSA said it was confident in South Africas justice system and expressed hope that individuals found culpable would be identified and prosecuted.

This, it said, would allow the victims family to find closure.

NUSA urged the Nigerian community in South Africa to remain calm and law-abiding during the difficult period.

It said that the union is working tirelessly with relevant authorities to ensure justice is served.

(NAN)
The Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, in a directive issued to Vice-Chancellors of federal universities on Monday, announced a 40 per cent increase in the Consolidated Academic Allowance (CAA) for ASUU members, effective from 1 January 2026.

Mr Alausa reaffirmed President Bola Tinubus commitment to the welfare of academic staff and the stability of the university system.

He said some federal universities had already reflected the increase in salary payments.

He directed all federal universities to ensure full compliance, integrating the approved increment into their payroll structures so all eligible academic staff benefit.

READ ALSO: Jigawa governor honoured with award of excellence for transformation in basic education

The minister also stressed strict adherence to the implementation of the Consolidated Tools Allowance (CATA), noting that its payment has been captured and circularised by the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC) and included in the 2026 budget.

He urged university management to use available resources to ensure prompt payment of CATA in line with NSIWC guidelines.

Mr Alausa said the timely implementation of both the CAA increase and CATA would strengthen the academic environment, enhance staff morale, and improve teaching, research, and learning outcomes.

He reiterated the federal governments resolve to honour agreements with education stakeholders and remain committed to constructive engagement, transparency, industrial harmony, and continuous improvement of quality education in Nigeria.

(NAN)
Nigeria ranked 142nd out of 182 countries in the 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), scoring 26 out of 100, according to Transparency Internationals latest assessment of public sector corruption.

The new position is down two places from the nations 140th spot on the 2025 CPI ranking.

The ranking places Nigeria behind 33 other African countries, spotlighting persistent governance challenges in Africas most populous nation.

With this, Nigerias score remains well below the global average of 43.

The CPI, released on Tuesday, ranks countries on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). Transparency International reported that the global average dropped to 42, with more than two-thirds of countries scoring below 50.

Nigeria retained its score from 2024 but fell from 140th to 142nd place, reflecting stagnation in anti-corruption efforts.

In Africa, Seychelles topped the ranking with 68 points, followed by Cabo Verde with 62, Botswana 58, and Rwanda 58.

Other countries ahead of Nigeria include Mauritius, Namibia, Senegal, Ghana, South Africa, Tanzania, Morocco, Tunisia, Kenya, and Egypt.

Nigeria shares its 142nd position with Cameroon, Guinea, Kyrgyzstan, Guatemala, and Papua New Guinea.

Transparency Internationals assessment

Transparency International warned that corruption remains a serious global threat, fueled by declining political will, weakening democratic institutions, and lack of decisive leadership.

Were seeing a concerning picture of long-term decline in leadership to tackle corruption, Maira Martini, Chief Executive Officer of Transparency International, said in a statement on Tuesday.

At a time of climate crisis, instability, and polarisation, the world needs accountable leaders and independent institutions to protect the public interestyet, too often, they are falling short.

The organisation noted that 148 countries have either stagnated or worsened since 2012, while only 32 countries have significantly reduced corruption.

It warned that corruption diverts resources from essential services, undermines climate action, and erodes human rights worldwide.

Nigerias corruption trajectory

Nigerias CPI scores have fluctuated over the years but remained consistently low. In 2019, the country ranked 146th with 26 points. It dropped to 154th with 24 points in 2021, improved slightly to 145th with 25 points in 2023, and rose to 140th with 26 points in 2024.

Over the period from 1996 to 2023, Nigerias CPI average stood at 21.48, reaching an all-time high of 28 points in 2016 and a record low of 6.9 points in 1996.

The country remains below the sub-Saharan African average of 33, reflecting entrenched governance challenges, selective enforcement, and institutional weaknesses.

The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) attributed Nigerias modest improvements in 2024 to the prosecution of corruption suspects, increased asset recovery, and greater cooperation with international partners, including the repatriation of stolen funds from France and the United States.

Executive Director Auwal Rafsanjani Musa said domestic efforts by the EFCC and ICPC, coupled with investigative journalism and civil society advocacy, strengthened accountability.

He also noted that digitisation of governance processes, including automated tax collection and procurement systems, contributed to Nigerias improved transparency.

High-profile corruption cases

Corruption scandals involving top officials continue to dominate public discourse. Yahaya Bello, former governor of Kogi State, faces charges for misappropriating over N110 billion in public funds.

He was arraigned in two Abuja courts in November 2024, pleaded not guilty, and was remanded at the EFCC facility before being granted bail.

Former EFCC Chairman Abdulrasheed Bawa was suspended in 2023 over corruption allegations, raising questions about accountability within anti-graft agencies.

Investigations into the misuse of COVID-19 relief funds, electoral fraud, and fuel subsidy scams continue, while former Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele was arrested for alleged financial mismanagement.

Civil society organisations, including CISLAC, continue to push for strict enforcement of the Proceeds of Crime Act and reforms to strengthen Nigerias anti-corruption framework.

Nigeria chapter reacts

CISLAC said Nigerias unchanged score and drop in ranking highlight stagnation in anti-corruption efforts.

In a statement on Tuesday, Mr Rafsanjani emphasised that the organisation remains committed to collaborating with institutions to strengthen governance and accountability.

He added that while CPI captures perceptions of corruption in the public sector, it does not evaluate individual cases.

Positive development

CISLAC acknowledged that Nigeria has made measurable progress in recovering stolen assets. Between October 2023 and September 2025, the EFCC recovered N566 billion, $411 million, and 1,502 properties, while the ICPC reclaimed N37.44 billion and $2.353 million.

On the international front, the UK Crown Dependency of Jersey repatriated $9.5 million in corruption-linked funds, earmarked for infrastructure projects including the Abuja-Kano Road.

The organisation also spotlighted Nigerias removal from the FATF grey list, following the implementation of a 19-point plan to strengthen anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing frameworks.

CISLAC stressed that while these steps signal progress, the management of recovered assets must remain transparent and accountable to ensure that the funds reach ordinary citizens.

Areas of concern

Despite these strides, CISLAC warned that corruption remains deeply entrenched across multiple sectors. Judicial corruption and nepotism continue to erode public trust, while oil theft and subsidy fraud persist, with the Auditor-Generals 2022 report showing that the NNPCL failed to account for N22.3 billion, $49.7 million, 14.3 million, and 5.2 million in oil-related revenues.

Corruption in the power and security sectors, coupled with a shrinking civic space and weak compliance with the Freedom of Information Act, further undermines accountability.

The 2025 Media Rights Agenda report recorded 86 attacks on journalists and media organisations, highlighting the dangers faced by those investigating and exposing corruption.

Governance experts pointed to a compromised judiciary, selective public appointments, and a weakened legislature as major obstacles to reform.

Analysts also emphasised that gaps in digital governance, limited whistleblower protection, and insufficient public oversight of recovered assets continue to hinder long-term anti-corruption progress, making systemic change a persistent challenge.

Recommendations

CISLAC and Transparency International urged the government to strengthen the independence and funding of the EFCC, ICPC, and Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, introduce judicial integrity monitoring mechanisms, and ensure transparent public appointments.

They called for improved oversight of oil production and public procurement, full implementation of the Public Procurement Act, creation of publicly accessible recovered asset databases, passage of the Whistleblower Protection Bill, and enhanced civic engagement through digital governance tools.

While Nigeria has made modest strides in asset recovery, enforcement, and digital transparency, CPI 2025 underscores that deep-rooted governance and institutional challenges persist.

CISLAC and other civil society organisations stressed that consistent enforcement, citizen oversight, and structural reforms remain essential for Nigeria to improve its global ranking, restore public trust, and strengthen accountability.
Rabiu-Rangers Abdullahi, a prosecution witness, told the Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday how fraud suspect attempted to use ministers name to defraud Bauchi South senator, Shehu Buba.

Mr Abdullahi, the second prosecution witness, stated this before trial judge Rita Ofili-Ajumogobia.

He gave his evidence-in-chief led by Leyii Abueh, counsel for the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF).

The AGF and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, took over the trial in December 2025, from the Inspector General of Police.

Ahmed Abdulrahman (first defendant) and his co-defendants were charged by inspector-general of police with 11 counts of cybercrime, defamation, advance fee fraud, among others. The case was filed by Anthony Egwu on 6 October 2025.

The case named David Daure, Ishaq Muhammed, Abdulrashid Musa and Nasir Abubakar as Mr Abdulrahams co-defendants.

The defendants were arraigned on 30 October 2025, when they pleaded not guilty to all charges.

They were remanded in Kuje Correctional Centre before they were later granted bail.

Testimony

Giving evidence on Monday, the witness, who said he is a businessman and a politician from Bauchi State, said he got to know the arrowhead of the alleged fraudulent plot, David Daure, about five years ago through Facebook.

He is my friend on Facebook. He has my phone number and I have his number too. We communicate day in, day out.

On 8 September 2025, on his Facebook handle, he wrote that there is a protest that will take place in The Charterhouse, London, about Senator Shehu Buba, that he is sponsoring terrorism in Nigeria, he said.

The prosecution witness said because Mr Daure knew that he was close to the senator, Mr Buba, he sent him the screenshot of the message on Wednesday, 10 September 2025.

And he said the protest will be on Friday (12 September 2025) and that he knew the organiser of the protest.

He asked me where I was so that he could come and meet me and I told him to come to a place, where they sold meat, he said.

The witness said when Mr Daure came to him, and he asked him who was organising the protest. He said Mr Daure gave the purported protest organisers name as George Onmonya.

Mr Abdullahi said he asked him who was sponsoring it and he said it was a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and that his name was Yusuf Maitama Tuggar.

I asked him what do you want me to do now and he said I should talk to Senator Buba.

But I called his (senators) S.A. (Special Assistant) on Security, his name is Danladi and he said he (Daure) would be investigated whether the whole thing was a plan to dupe us.

The witness said the lawmakers S.A. on Security later informed him after investigation that there was no protest at London Charterhouse and that Mr Daure was lying.

He said George Onmonya alleged that the minister gave them 10,000 (pounds) to organise the protest.

Mr Abdullahi said Mr Danladi then requested Mr Daures phone number from him and he started communicating directly with the second defendant.

Daure and S.A. started talking and Daure asked for 10, l000 but it was reduced to N5 million.

Daure started calling me in order to collect the money and I started recording him.

I took all the conversations with Daure and sent it to the S.A. on Security.

Daure asked me on Thursday to send the money so that he could talk to the organisers of the protest because it was fixed for Friday, he said.

The witness told the court that an arrangement was later made to pay Daure the N5 million and that when he arrived at the scene, and he was arrested.

That is all that I know, he said.

Cross-examination

Cross-examining the witness, the first defendant, Mr Abdulrahmans lawyer, Abdul Mohammed, who is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), sought to tender the two statements made by the witness to the police in evidence and they were admitted in evidence and marked as exhibits.

When asked if he possibly exaggerated the narration, the witness said: I didnt have any reason to exaggerate anything. I only said the exact thing that happened.

When he was asked if it was the exact things that happened that he told the police, the witness responded in the affirmative.

When the lawyer asked him to go though the statement he made and tell the court where he wrote that Daure screenshot the message and sent to him, the witness admitted it was not in his statement.

The witness denied calling Mr Daure on phone in order to have physical meeting with him.

Rather, Mr Abdullahi said it was Mr Daure that sent a message to him to ask his whereabouts.

The judge discharged the witness after all defence lawyers took turns to cross-examine him.

The judge then adjourned further hearing until Tuesday (10 February).

Charges

In count one, the defendants were alleged to have, sometime in 2025, conspired among themselves to commit an offence, to wit: cyberstalking against Senator Shehu Buba Umar.

The offence is said to be contrary to Section 27(1)(b) and punishable under Section 21(1)(b) of the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention etc.) Act 2015 (as amended) 2024.

In count three, Mr Abdulrahman was alleged to have, sometime in 2025, intentionally sent a video via his Tiktok handle with user name Kibanna Channel and his Youtube channel to defame the lawmaker by linking him to sponsorship of banditry with a view to tarnishing his image as a serving senator.

The suspect was alleged to have stated that Sen. Buba, is a sponsor of banditry and called for his investigation, a statement you made by means of computer systems and network knowing same to be false, for the purpose of causing breakdown of law and order and causing the Senator fear of death.

The offence Is also said to be contrary to Section 24(1)(5) of the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc) Act 2015 (as amended) 2024, among other ~counts~ , among others.

(NAN)
Vice President (Oil & Gas) of Dangote Industries Limited, Devakumar V. G. Edwin, has been honoured with the prestigious Person of the Year award at the 9th Annual Award and Lecture of the Daily Asset Newspapers, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to Nigerias oil and gas sector and his role in advancing the operations and strategic communication of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals (DPRP).

The award, presented during a well-attended ceremony that brought together government officials, industry leaders, media executives, and key stakeholders, celebrated Mr Edwins leadership, professionalism, and commitment to strengthening Nigerias energy sector.

Speaking at the award ceremony Thursday in Abuja, Publisher of the Daily Asset Newspaper, Cletus Akwaya, described Mr Edwin as instrumental to the success of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals (DPRP).

He said under his stewardship, the Dangote Refinery has continued to play a transformative role in boosting domestic refining capacity, enhancing product availability, and supporting the nations economic diversification agenda.

He noted that Mr Edwins dedication to transparent stakeholder engagement, industry advocacy, and effective corporate communication has helped shape public understanding of the refinerys strategic importance to Nigeria and Africas energy landscape.

His recognition as Person of the Year further shows the growing impact of the Dangote Refinery as a catalyst for industrial growth, job creation, and sustainable national development, he said.

The Daily Asset Annual Award and Lecture is widely regarded as one of the platforms that recognises individuals and institutions making significant contributions to national progress, leadership excellence, and sectoral transformation.

Mr Akwaya said Mr Edwin should be honoured and celebrated not just in Nigeria, but across Africa, for changing the narrative in the Nigerias petroleum sector.

Reading his citation, the publisher said the Person of the Year/Corporate Achiever of the Year Award was conferred on Mr Edwin for serving as the backbone in the process of establishing the Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals (DPRP), the largest single train refinery globally.

According to him, the Dangote Refinery is a gamechanger, as it has helped Nigeria attain self-sufficiency in petroleum products, and thus reducing import dependence, and stimulate economic growth.

For this effort, he said, Engr Edwin is Daily Asset iconic Corporate Achiever/Person of the Year.

Mr Edwin was represented at the event by Dangote Groups Senior General Manager, External Relations/Stakeholder Management, Abatcha Bishara.

A statement from the Dangote Group said: At Dangote Refinery, we remain committed to supporting Nigerias energy security, strengthening domestic refining capacity, and contributing meaningfully to national economic growth. This recognition encourages us to continue communicating transparently and engaging constructively with stakeholders and the public.

We also wish to appreciate the media community for their continuous support and collaboration. Responsible journalism and credible communication remain vital to national development, and Daily Asset has consistently demonstrated this commitment.

Mr Edwin joins a distinguished list of other recipients who have demonstrated exceptional service and commitment to Nigerias development, some of whom are: Executive Chairman of Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS), Zacch Adedeji, National Chairman Arewa Consultative Forum, Mamman Mike Osuman, Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu State, Governor Monday Okpebholo of Edo State, Governor Ahmadu Fintiri of Adamawa State, Senator, Kawu Sumaila, and Minister of Livestock Development, Idi Mukhtar Maiha, among others.

The Presidential Initiative on Compressed Natural Gas also emerged as the Best Government Agency of the Year.

Early this week, at the Nigeria International Energy Summit in Abuja, President Bola Tinubu, said the Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals (DPRP) has significantly enhanced the supply of petroleum products in the country.
Akbar Novruz



The United States is expected to hand over two regional commands in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to European countries after US President Donald Trump urged European allies to take more responsibility for their defense, AFP reported on Monday, citing unnamed NATO diplomats, AzerNEWS reports.

The American admirals currently in charge of Joint Force Command (JFC) Naples in Italy, and JFC Norfolk in Virginia, USA, will be replaced by European commanders when their postings come to an end, an insider told La Lettre. NATO has not officially confirmed the report.

The two operational headquarters in Italy and the US each handle the defence of a portion of the NATO area of operations. JFC Naples covers the southern flank, while JFC Norfolk covers the northern flank. A third nerve centre in Brunssum, the Netherlands, oversees the defence of the central area of operations.

JFC Norfolk, JFC Naples, and JFC Brunssum are led by the highest NATO commander, Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Mons.

It is still unclear who will succeed the two departing admirals in Norfolk and Naples. The NATO headquarters in Brunssum has been led by either a German or an Italian for years.

The US wants the SACEUR role to remain in American hands, according to La Lettre. After President Donald Trump took office, the United States considered relinquishing this important post, arguing that Europe would have to shoulder more of its own defence. However, the US ultimately nominated an American. Sources told La Lettre this position will remain unchanged.

The US is also reportedly considering taking over command of NATOs naval headquarters. MARCOM, just outside London, is currently headed by a British officer.

The Trump administration has long warned that European NATO allies must provide for their own defence, with the exception of nuclear weapons. Here and there, Europes great postwar patron is already putting his words into action. For example, the US is gradually withdrawing troops and personnel from Europe.

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the US would hand over command of Allied Command Transformation (ACT) in Norfolk.
MOSCOW, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Moscow deems that the situation around Iran should be resolved peacefully as the use of force will only lead to the accumulation of problems, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday.

"We are closely following Iran-related developments. We welcome the mediation efforts offered by the Sultanate of Oman. And of course, we proceed from the understanding that there should be a peaceful settlement here," Lavrov said at the Middle East Conference held on the sidelines of the Valdai International Discussion Club in Moscow.

The Trump administration has deployed an aircraft carrier strike group and multiple warships to the Middle East, with the U.S. president continuing to send warnings to Iran in an effort to force the country into striking a nuclear deal.

Moscow is concerned and troubled by Iran's future, and Russia is interested in the full normalization of relations between Iran and the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, he said.

In his opinion, the restoration of diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia has created the necessary prerequisites for this. 
An investigative officer with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Tuesday told the FCT High Court in Abuja that he was aware of infractions, including hoarding of currency notes, by commercial banks during the controversial introduction of redesigned naira notes, which led to untold hardship for many Nigerians between late 2022 and early 2023.

However, the investigator, Chinedu Eneanya, who is the seventh prosecution witness in the trial of Godwin Emefiele, the then-Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, for the illegal naira redesign, said he could not recall the total number of banks where officials hoarded currency notes.

He said this while fielding questions from Mr Emefieles lawyer, Olalekan Ojo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), during a cross-examination session.

Mr Ojo asked, Can you confirm to the honourable court that bank officials were hoarding mints?

I am aware of that, but I cannot be specific, the witness replied.

Mr Eneanya also said he could not recall all the banks where the infractions were uncovered.

The anti-graft agency accused Mr Emefiele of alleged illegality and widespread chaos, losses and pains caused by the currency note redesign policy in 2022.

Under the policy, CBN redesigned the N200, N500, and N1000 notes and drastically withdrew the old versions from circulation, leading to months long acute shortage of the currency notes due to insufficient supply of the new ones as replacements.

Mr Emefiele faces four charges of illegal redesign of naira notes, disobedience to the direction of law, and illegal act causing injury to the public.

He denied the allegations, which are just a set among a series of criminal cases the EFCC filed against him since his removal from office in 2023.

Defence demands to know if officials were arrested

During Tuesdays proceedings, Mr Emefieles lawyer asked the witness if the EFCC arrested bank officials responsible for hoarding the currencies.

EFCCs prosecution lawyer, A.O Mohammed, objected to the question, noting that the witnesss beat was limited to investigations.

His beat was specific; whether it (naira redesign) was a valid approval.

However, Mr Ojo argued that the witness was not limited to his evidence-in-chief and, as he had the power to make an arrest as an investigative officer.

He noted that the question was also necessary since EFCC alleged that Mr Emefiele caused undue hardship to Nigerians due to the shortage of the redesigned currencies.

After confirming the witnesss designation, the trial judge, Maryann Anenih, asked Mr Eneanya to answer the question.

He replied, I stated before this court that the EFCC raised a task force; I didnt say it was my team.

He said he was not aware of what the EFCC did to the bank officials that caused the infractions.

When asked on whose instructions the EFCC embarked on the visit to all the commercial banks, the witness said he was not privy to that information.

Request for documents

Thereafter, Mr Emefieles lawyer asked the prosecution to furnish the defence with all the documents related to the case and asked for an adjournment.

The judge adjourned the matter until 19 March for the continuation of the cross-examination of the witness.

Earlier during the days proceeding the witness stated that the Managing Director of Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Plc (NSPM), Ahmed Halilu, disclosed the email communication between De La Rue and himself to the EFCC team.

Mr Eneanya had testified during the previous proceedings held on 3 February that De La Rue was a foreign company in the United Kingdom engaged to redesign the naira notes while the NSPM handled the production.

On Tuesday, the witness said the email communication between De La Rue and the NSPMs managing director was made available to my team by the Managing Director of NMPS, and subsequently, the email was opened in front of the team.

He admitted that Mr Halilu had written a series of statements but could not recall them all.

This prompted Mr Emefieles lawyer to request the statements.

Mr Halilu is a brother to former First Lady Aisha Buhari, who was appointed to the position in September 2022 by ex-President Muhammadu Buhari.

In July 2024, President Bola Tinubu ordered his removal alongside four other executives of the company.

When asked during the cross-examination if the NSPM had ever designed naira notes at any point in time, the witness, an EFCC investigator, said he could not remember.

The witness also could not recall the quantity of currencies available to commercial banks.

He requested that he be allowed to check the records to refresh his memory.

When questioned if the EFCC team reached out to the commercial banks to confirm the specific amounts given to them, he said, we have a team that went nationwide in conjunction with other law enforcement agencies, taking stock and ensuring that those currencies were made available in public.

He also said that the team kept a record of the stock-taking exercise in regards to what was made available to commercial banks.

Similarly, Mr Emefieles lawyer asked for the records to be produced to the defence counsel.

When asked if bank vaults were also checked by the EFCC, the witness said he was not there in all the teams.

At the beginning of the proceedings, Mr Emefieles lawyer informed the court that his team was only given the investigative report that the defence requested at the previous hearing, 15 minutes before the days proceedings.

He noted that the witness was asked to produce the document in court, which he complied with.

Highlights of past testimonies

Since the commencement of the trial, witnesses testimonies have shed light on the controversial naira redesign policy.

On 3 February, Mr Eneanya informed the court of the former President Muhammadu Buharis minute on the memo Mr Emefiele had submitted.

According to the witness, the former president approved the naira redesign on the condition that it be reproduced locally.

Mr Eneanya earlier told the court in October 2025 that Mr Emefiele embarked on the controversial redesign of naira notes in 2022 without obtaining the banks board and Committee of Governors (COG).

He said Mr Emefiele sought the approval of the board and committee of governors for the naira redesign only after former President Buhari gave his assent.

According to the witness, Mr Emefiele admitted this in his extrajudicial statement he wrote during the investigation, preparatory to his trial.

Similarly, in November 2024, the fifth prosecution witness, Kingsley Obiorah, a former deputy governor of the CBN, said the banks board never recommended the naira redesign to former President Buhari.

Mr Obiorah, who testified virtually, said he once served as Special Adviser to Mr Emefiele on economic matters.

He said the CBN board first heard of the naira redesign policy in mid-December 2022.
A contention over subpoena, a court document summoning a witness to appear in a case, dominated Tuesdays session of the former Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bellos alleged N110 billion fraud trial at the FCT High Court in Abuja.

The defences insistence on seeing the physical copy of the subpoena, the basis upon which the 10th prosecution witness apppeared in court on Tuesday, sparked a heated argument with the prosecution, characterising a bulk of the days proceedings.

Mr Bellos lawyer, Paul Daudu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), said, Without the subpoena, the authority of this witness cannot stand; what we would have would be hearsay.

But Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)s prosecution lawyer, Kemi Pinheiro, also a SAN, argued that Mr Daudus objection was legally misplaced because it lacked any statutory provisions as the court had a record of the subpoena.

Mr Pinheiro noted that the 10th prosecution witness, a compliance officer with Access Bank, forgot to bring the copy of subpoena served on the bank to court for the trial.

Following their submissions, the trial judge, Maryann Anenih, dismissed the objection and adjourned further proceedings till Wednesday.

The EFCC is prosecuting former Governor Bello alongside two co-defendants on 16 counts of diverting N110 billion belonging to the Kogi State Government.

Mr Bello, who served two terms as the governor of Kogi from January 2016 to January 2024, faces the charges alongside Umar Shuaibu Oricha and Abdulsalami Hudu, with whom he allegedly conspired to perpetrate the alleged fraud.

The anti-graft agency said Mr Bello dishonestly used the stolen funds to acquire properties located in choice areas of Abuja and one in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The defendants denied the charges.

Legal fireworks over subpoena

Since the case commenced, seven subpoenaed bank officials from several banks have taken turns to testify, bringing along the copies of the subpoena requesting their appearance, to court.

However, Mr Pinheiro told the court that the 10th prosecution witness forgot to bring along the document, which prompted Mr Daudus objection.

Mr Hudus lawyer, Z.E Abbas, also adopted Mr Daudus arguments.

Mr Pinheiro argued, Subpoena forms part and parcel of your Lordships record. It is an order that was issued administratively by the court.

This court is entitled to look at any process in its record, and there are a plethora of authorities in that respect.

He also highlighted that there were no statutory provisions that mandated tendering a subpoena before a witness who is on subpoena can give evidence.

This objection is not merely misconceived but clearly untelling, the senior lawyer said.

Mr Pinheiro went on to cite some authorities to back his arguments and concluded that disallowing the witness to give his testimony is an injustice and judicial somersault. He added that presenting the subpoena is only a matter of convenience to the court.

Countering this argument, Mr Daudu said the authorities cited by Mr Pinheiro did not apply to the circumstances of the objections he raised. He also stressed that it was the defences constitutional right to see the subpoena presented by the witness.

It is vital to see the subpoena, to know his coming is pursuant to the order of the court; it is our constitutional right to be carried along.

Similarly, Mr Abbas also noted that this was necessary to conduct a fair hearing. This kindled an argument, where Mr Pinheiro argued that the subpoena was not an evidential document and that the objections raised were meant to abort the days proceeding.

However, Mr Bellos lawyer assured that this was not a ploy to abort the proceedings.

Following their arguments, the judge dismissed the objection and ruled that it is suffice to say that they can always bring the subpoena.

Highlights of testimonies

Nine prosecution witnesses have taken the stand in the case so far.

Two of the witnesses are connected with Efab Properties Limited (EPL) have testified in the trial.

The first was the chairperson of the firm, Fabian Nworah, and the second was an employee.

They were called to testify on a property sold to Shehu Bello with Bello Ohiani written on the agreement.

However, none of the witnesses mentioned the name of the former governor or the other defendants names in the dealings.

While seven (bank officials) witnesses testimonies reflect a systematic pattern of recurring withdrawals for Special Security funds, transfers to individuals and companies whose identities in the case still remain unclear.

Also, the ninth prosecution witness, David Ajoma, a compliance officer with Sterling Bank, confirmed six separate transfers amounting to millions from the Kogi State Internal Revenue Services (KSIRS) to Bespoque Business Solutions Limited (BBSL) during Mr Bellos tenure as governor.
Two prosecution witnesses recounted on Tuesday at the FCT High Court in Jabi, Abuja, the armed robbery that claimed the lives of Arise News newscaster Somtochukwu Sommie Maduagwu and a security guard, Barnabas Danlami.

The witnesses, Sani Yusuf and Fatou Toborteh, who were both Ms Maduagwus neighbours at the Unique Apartment, Katampe, disclosed that they both heard female screams the night the incident happened.

Ms Sommie and Mr Danlami died in September 2025 following an armed robbery attack in the Katampe area of Abuja.

The police launched an investigation, which led to the arrest of 11 suspects.

The suspects are Shamsu Hassan, Sani Sirajo, Hassan Isah, Abubakar Alkamu, Abdulsalam Saleh, Suleiman Badamasi, Zaharadeen Mohammed, Musa Umar, Mashkur Jamil, Suleiman Sani and Abubakar Usman.

In January, the defendants were arraigned on nine counts of criminal conspiracy, armed robbery and murder, and subsequently remanded at the Kuje Correctional Centre in Abuja.

The failure of the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) to produce the defendants halted Mondays proceedings. However, on Tuesday, two witnesses took the stand to testify.

The prosecution lawyer, Adama Musa, presented two witnesses.

I heard the scream of a female

Mr Yusuf, the first prosecution witness, informed the court that he recalled being jolted awake by noises he tried to identify their source on 29 September 2025.

I heard a gunshot with strange voices speaking Hausa and a huge bang on my door, while they entered shouting, Where are you? Come out! Then I saw two men wearing masks, one pointed a pistol at me, and the other held a torchlight.

The men then requested his valuables: phones and a computer. He handed over his S25 Galaxy and my MacBook Air.

Mr Yusuf said the robber, pointing a gun at him, ordered that he transfer money to him, but the other man stopped him and asked them to leave.

It was after this that he heard voices and screams around the apartment while he was being robbed. He said it dawned on him at that point that the robbers were many.

I heard a scream of a female. The scream stopped after about 15 minutes. But before then, I heard a lady screaming for help and noticed the security guard, Joshua, saying the other guard, Barnabas Danlami, had been shot, he said.

When the robbers left, Mr Yusuf recalled seeing a female body lying face down in a pool of blood, but he could not identify the person.

After a closer look, he assumed the person had been shot. I could not recognise her but could tell that she was lifeless, he said.

Upon discovering Mr Danlamis gunshot wound, Mr Yusuf noted that a man named Joshua had already applied a makeshift bandage. They then secured a neighbours vehicle to rush the injured guard to Maitama District Hospital.

After this, he went back around 4 a.m and noticed that the females body had been taken away by the police. It was then he recognised the body as my neighbour, Somto Maduagwu, the witness said.

Adding to the grim account, the witness described seeing Ms Maduagwu with a serious head injury; she was later confirmed dead at the hospital.

We saw a lady lying down with blood around her head

Similarly, Ms Toborteh recalled hearing screams and loud noises in her flat, which she shared with her aunt and children, around 3 a.m. on the fateful day.

Just like Mr Yusuf, they were also robbed. The robbers took away their valuables, wallets, wristwatch, an iPhone 11 Promax, a Samsung phone, a laptop, cash and the key to a CRV Toyota Honda.

We were petrified after they left and opened the balcony and saw a lady lying down with blood around her head. We went back to our living room but did not know who fell and later heard from the neighbours that it was Ms Maduagwu, she said.

The witness continued, We also learnt that Danlami was shot and the neighbours attempted to call the police. Both of them were taken to the hospital.

Witnesses unable to identify suspects

While taking their turns in the witness box, the witnesses were asked by the prosecution to look at the faces of the defendants and see if they could identify them as the robbers.

Each of the two witnesses replied that they could not identify any of the defendants because the robbers were masked on the night of the robbery.

After their testimonies, the defendants lawyers, Agbocheni Samson, Ojonimi Apeh, Dennis Abu and Seidu Alpha, did not cross-examine the witnesses.

Thereafter, the trial judge, Mohammed Idris, adjourned proceedings until 12 February for continuation of the hearing.
The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) has called for stronger action against corruption in Nigeria in the wake of the release of the latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) of the Transparency International (TI) on Tuesday.

PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported that Nigeria fell two places to 142nd out of 182 countries in the 2025 CPI. Nigerias performance in the latest ranking was officially announced by CISLAC, TIs chapter in the country, at a press conference in Abuja on Tuesday.

The country scored 26 out of 100, below the global average of 43, and trailed 33 other African nations in the ranking.

The CPI measures perceived levels of publicsector corruption on a scale where zero is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.

Although Nigerias score remained the same as in 2024, its drop in ranking highlights stagnation in anticorruption efforts. CISLAC noted that corruption continues to affect governance and public service delivery across sectors, including security, health, power, and the judiciary.

Speaking to journalists after the presentation of the latest CPI, the Executive Director of CISLAC/ Transparency International in Nigeria, Auwal Ibrahim Musa (Rafsanjani), said the civil society organisation is very deeply worried and concerned at the level of intensity of corruption or corrupt practices in Nigeria, especially at local, state and national levels. The level of corruption going on in various public institutions is worrisome.

Mr Musa also emphasised the existence of corruption in the judiciary, health, power, and procurement sectors.

If you look at the corruption in the judiciary, Nigerians are losing hope and confidence in getting any justice, because people believe that justice is for sale.

The health sector is virtually dead because of corruption. Procurement is still suffering. Despite government spending, Nigerians see little improvement in their lives, the anti-corruption advocate said.

Highlighting the intensity of corruption and corrupt practices in Nigeria, he criticised the management of subsidy savings and highlighted that Nigeria withdrew its subsidy and the government promised the savings would improve the lives of citizens.

To date, theres no credible data to show that all the money made by the Nigerian government, shared by federal and state and local governments, have helped in addressing either insecurity or health care crisis or educational gaps or even the infrastructure. A lot of people cannot even commute because of the bad roads, he lamented.

Security implication

He also noted the impact of corruption on the security sector.

Nigerians are losing their lives on a daily basis courtesy of corruption, because money budgeted to buy arms and ammunition disappeared. Personnel that are supposed to be recruited, corruption is involving recruitment and promotions, therefore demotivating many officers, Mr Musa said.

On international cooperation for security, Mr Musa said Nigeria cannot address terrorism in isolation.

He said working with global partners is essential to tackle insecurity, but stressed that foreign involvement should not undermine national institutions or demoralise local security forces.

Mr Musa urged Nigerians to be proactive in promoting accountability. He said citizens must act responsibly, avoid criminal activities, and pay taxes, noting that fulfilling these duties gives them the legitimacy to demand transparency from the government.

He also emphasised the need to support anticorruption agencies. He pointed out that without bodies like the EFCC, ICPC, criminality would be more than overwhelming. He called on citizens to ensure these agencies receive the necessary backing to perform their duties effectively and operate within the law.

He insisted that both the government and citizens must act decisively to curb corruption and strengthen national institutions.

He concluded that the CPI is a tool that will help governments to address gaps in terms of corruption and corrupt practices.
The Nigerian Army has announced that the list of successful candidates for the Direct Short Service Commission (DSSC) Course 29/2026 has been published on its official recruitment website.

In a statement on Tuesday, the army said shortlisted candidates are to report to the Nigerian Army School of Infantry (NASI), Jaji, Kaduna State, by 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, 22 February, for the commencement of the Selection Board exercise.

According to the statement, candidates are required to report to the Selection Board at Jaji on the same date and must come with writing materials, four recent coloured passport photographs, and four recent full-length coloured photographs in suit and standing position.

Each photograph must have the candidates name, date of birth, service number, and current unit (for serving personnel) written on the reverse side.

Other required items include three white singlets, blue shorts, a pair of canvas shoes, three pairs of white socks, and scratch cards for online verification of WAEC and/or NECO results.

The Selection Exercise will involve physical, medical and aptitude tests, as well as an oral interview for all candidates, the army stated.

Candidates are also required to present originals and photocopies of relevant documents neatly arranged in a file jacket. These include academic and professional certificates, testimonials, primary and secondary school certificates, NYSC discharge or valid exemption certificate (where applicable), valid birth certificate endorsed by the National Population Commission, hospital or Local Government Council at birth, or a valid age declaration.

Additional documents include a valid certificate of state of origin, authenticated printed Bank Verification Number (BVN) certificate, and completed printouts from the recruitment portal, including referee forms.

The army further disclosed that the Coded AHQ MS Data Form for DSSC 29/2026 and the Indemnity Clause will be sent to shortlisted candidates via email and must be printed, duly completed, and submitted upon arrival at the venue.

For serving personnel, required documents include an official leave pass, military identity card, letters of sponsorship to tertiary institutions, and recommendations from commanding officers or commanders.

The army warned that any alteration of documents will result in disqualification.

It added that feeding and accommodation will be provided throughout the duration of the Selection Board, but candidates will bear responsibility for their transportation to and from the venue.

The use of personal or private vehicles by candidates is strictly prohibited throughout the duration of the Selection Board. Candidates are also not allowed to receive visitors during the exercise, the statement said.

Shortlisted candidates who fail to arrive by 6:00 p.m. on 22 February will be disqualified.

The army further stressed that a high standard of discipline is expected from all candidates, noting that any violation of instructions will attract immediate disqualification.

Due to the military nature of the exercise, the Nigerian Army stated that it shall not be liable for any injury or death that may occur during the Selection Board process.
The Lagos State Government has announced a partial closure of the LagosAbeokuta Expressway to allow the Federal Ministry of Works to repair failed sections of the road, warning motorists to expect delays over the next four weeks.

The rehabilitation will cover the stretch from U-Turn Bus Stop to Sango Tollgate, affecting both inbound and outbound lanes.

The Lagos State Government stated that work will begin on Wednesday, 11 February, and continue until Wednesday, 11 March.

It explained that the repairs will be carried out in phases, with Abeokuta-bound lanes addressed first before attention shifts to Lagos-bound traffic. During the first phase, vehicles heading toward Abeokuta will be diverted to one side of the carriageway while Lagos-bound traffic moves freely.

In the second phase, traffic toward Lagos will use a temporary lane while repairs are completed on the outbound side, ensuring minimal disruption for motorists traveling toward Abeokuta.

In a statement posted on X on Tuesday, Lagos State Commissioner for Transportation, Oluwaseun Osiyemi, said the government has put in place adequate traffic management measures and urged drivers to plan their journeys, obey signage, and cooperate with officials to avoid accidents and congestion.

Bridge under repair

The announcement coincides with the repairs on the Apongbon Bridge, which will begin on Thursday, 11 February, and will last six weeks until 19 March.

The Federal Ministry of Works is fixing damaged asphalt sections on the ramp linking Inner Marina to Apongbon Bridge, as well as portions of the inbound and outbound carriageways.

Inbound traffic from Inner Marina has been redirected through the Apongbon under-bridge roundabout to Adeniji Adele Road and Ebute Ero, while motorists from TBS, Third Mainland Bridge, and Victoria Island continue across the bridge to Eko Bridge.

Outbound traffic from Eko Bridge toward Inner Marina is temporarily diverted through Ebute Ero Ramp and Adeniji Adele Road to the under-bridge roundabout.

The Apongbon Bridge repairs followed a major fire in March 2022 that severely damaged sections of Apongbon and Eko bridges, forcing prolonged closures and the demolition of illegal structures beneath the bridge. After about 15 months of rehabilitation, the Federal Government reopened the bridge in July 2023, but intermittent palliative works have continued.

READ ALSO: Nigerian Army publishes list of successful candidates for short service

Mr Osiyemi urged motorists to remain patient, comply with traffic management measures, and follow the alternative routes to ease congestion.

He stressed that the works are crucial to ensuring the safety and longevity of Lagos major road corridors.

Motorists are advised to plan their journeys, expect delays, and allow extra time for travel while the repairs on the LagosAbeokuta Expressway and Apongbon Bridge continue.
Chairman of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), Abdullahi Usman, has clarified that his resignation from office was based solely on personal reasons, dismissing any suggestion of disagreement with the commission or the federal government.

PREMIUM TIMES reported that Mr Usman, a professor, resigned his position on Monday.

He was appointed to the position by President Bola Tinubu in 2024 and presided over his first Hajj operations in 2025, marking his debut in managing Nigerias the operations at the national level.

His tenure coincided with key reforms and engagements with Saudi Arabian Hajj authorities aimed at improving Nigerias Hajj operations.

In a statement he signed on Tuesday, the first since he stepped down, Mr Usman said his decision was not connected to dissatisfaction with NAHCONs leadership, policies, or mandate.

According to him, the decision followed prayerful reflection and family consultation, in line with the responsibilities and ethical demands of public service.

He also confirmed that his resignation was formally communicated to President Tinubu in accordance with the provisions of the NAHCON Act.

Mr Usman expressed gratitude to the president for the trust reposed in him.

He also thanked Vice President Kashim Shettima, members of the NAHCON Board, management and staff of the commission, state pilgrims welfare agencies, tour operators, aviation service providers, and Saudi Arabian counterparts for their cooperation during his tenure.

He concluded by offering prayers for the continued success of NAHCONs leadership and for future Nigerian pilgrims to be granted an accepted Hajj.

Below is the full statement issued by the former chairman:

RESIGNATION FROM OFFICE AS CHAIRMAN/CEO OF THE NATIONAL HAJJ COMMISSION OF NIGERIA (NAHCON)

It is with deep reflection and gratitude to Allah SWT that I announce my resignation from the office of Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria, effective Monday, 9th February 2026.

I wish to state unequivocally that this decision is taken entirely for personal reasons. After prayerful contemplation and consultation with my family, I have made this choice in good conscience and with profound respect for the sacred responsibilities of public service.

In line with the provisions of the NAHCON Act Section 3(6) of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (Establishment) Act, 2006, I have submitted my formal resignation in writing to His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (GCFR).

To His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR, I am eternally grateful for the profound trust and honour of appointing me to serve our nation and the Muslim ummah in this capacity. The confidence you placed in me is a privilege I will forever cherish. I am equally grateful to His Excellency, Vice President Kashim Shettima, whose unwavering guidance, encouragement, and support have been invaluable throughout my tenure.

To the Members of the Board, I extend my sincere appreciation. To the Management and staff of the Commission, I thank you for your collegiality, dedication, and shared sense of purpose. your professionalism, resilience, and steadfast commitment to service have been truly inspiring. I also wish to acknowledge our valued partners the State Pilgrims Welfare Agencies, Tour Operators, aviation and service providers, and our esteemed counterparts in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia whose collaboration has significantly enhanced Nigerias Hajj operations.

Once again, I emphasize that this resignation is driven purely by personal considerations and reflects no dissatisfaction with the Commission, the government, or the noble mandate we have collectively pursued.

As I step aside, my prayers are with you all. I ask Allah (SWT) in His infinite mercy to accept our humble efforts, to guide and bless the President and the new leadership of NAHCON, and to grant all future pilgrims a Hajj Mabrur.

Jazakum Allahu Khairan.

With sincere regards,

Professor Sheikh Abdullahi Saleh Usman

(Former) Chairman/CEO, National Hajj Commission of Nigeria
The Interim National Chairman of Labour Party, Nenadi Usman and her team on Tuesday officially took over the partys national secretariat in Abuja.

Mrs Usman, a former finance minister and senator, while addressing journalists, said that the action followed the judgment delivered by the Supreme Court on 4 April, 2025.

She assured party members and supporters nationwide of renewed efforts to strengthen and reposition the party for national relevance.

Mrs Usman described the gathering as significant, noting it was the first major event at the secretariat since the Supreme Court judgment.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the secretariat had been occupied by the erstwhile National Chairman, Julius Abure and his team.

NAN also reports that a Federal High Court, presided over by Peter Lifu, had earlier sacked Mr Abure as the partys national chairman, citing the Supreme Court judgment which declared Mrs Usman as the valid leader of the opposition party.

Mrs Usman told journalists that although the party had expected a smooth transition, following the court judgment, the process took longer than anticipated.

She, however, expressed happiness that Labour Party had now finally stabilised.

The former minister assured that the party leadership would do the right thing at the right time.

According to her, the focus is now on building a stronger party structure capable of meeting the expectations of Nigerians.

Mrs Usman commended the Deputy Governor of Abia, who also serves as Chairman of the National Steering Committee on Party Membership Revalidation and E-registration, for leading efforts to strengthen the partys membership database.

She noted that since the committees inauguration in December 2025, it had been working extensively, regularly briefing the party leadership on the progress made.

For those who have been very supportive and encouraging or sending prayers and words of encouragement, I want to use this opportunity to thank you so much and to let you know that we will not let you down, Mrs Usman said.

She added that the news conference formed part of the partys efforts to rebuild internal structures and reposition itself, ahead of future political activities.

Also speaking at the occasion, the deputy governor of Abia, Ikechukwu Emetu, reaffirmed his committees commitment to unity, internal rebuilding and participation in upcoming elections across the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Mr Emetu said that many Nigerians had long desired a united Labour Party capable of representing their interests nationwide.

He pointed to developments in Abia under Labour Party as proof that democratic governance could work effectively when focused on the people.

On the ongoing membership revalidation and new registration exercise, Mr Emetu described Labour Party as people-oriented, committed to restoring lost opportunities and prosperity to Nigerians.

While maintaining that the Supreme Court judgment on the partys leadership crisis remained final, the deputy governor dismissed the likelihood of any successful appeal by the Abure group.

He also dismissed speculations that Labour Party would support President Bola Tinubu for his re-election in 2027, stressing that it would instead focus on supporting its own candidates.

Mr Emetu said that the party would field candidates in the next presidential election, adding, however, that it remained open to aspirants.

He also declared that Labour Party would not collapse, contrary to speculations in some quarters.

(NAN)
The Federal High Court in Abuja has fixed 23 March for judgement in the N320 million money laundering trial of Nicholas Mutu, a six-term member of the House of Representatives.

Mr Mutu, who represents Bomadi/Patani constituency in Bayelsa State, is facing prosecution by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) alongside Airworld Technologies Ltd and Oyien Homes Ltd on 13 counts of money laundering and gratification involving N320 million.

The charges relate to alleged illicit payments made while he chaired the House Committee on the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) between August 2014 and August 2016.

EFCC spokesperson Dele Oyewale, in a statement shared with PREMIUM TIMES on Tuesday, said the judge, Folashade Giwa-Ogunbanjo, scheduled the case for judgement on Monday after parties adopted their final written addressess and made their final arguments.

Defence lawyer, E. I. Ekweto, who is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), urged the court to strike out the case and acquit the defendants, referencing a motion filed on 10 December 2025.

The defence argued that the prosecution had failed to establish a prima facie case.

The prosecution, led by Ekele Iheanacho, also a SAN, countered, stating that the case had been proved beyond reasonable doubt.

Mr Iheanacho cited testimonies from four witnesses and documentary evidence showing that the funds involved were proceeds of illegal activity.

The witnesses testimonies clearly show that the monies were paid as gratifications, not for any contract, Mr Iheanacho told the court. Attempts to fabricate documents to pervert the course of justice further underscore the unlawful nature of the transactions. The first defendant directly influenced the payments to Starlines, which makes him liable.

Background

Mr Mutu, first elected to the House in 1999 and the chambers longest-serving parliamentarian, was arraigned on 11 counts of money laundering, receiving gratification and abuse of office.

He was charged alongside Airworld Technologies Ltd and Oyien Homes Ltd.

At the arraignment, Mr Mutu pleaded not guilty.

One of the charges stated that he procured Airworld Technologies Ltd to conceal over N320 million, knowing it was part of proceeds from corruption and gratification, contrary to the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act 2011, as amended.

The prosecution previously sought to remand Mr Mutu in prison, citing breaches of bail conditions granted in 2018. The court, however, granted him bail.

In January 2026, Ms Ogunbanjo dismissed the defences no-case submission after the prosecution presented four witnesses, ruling that Mr Mutu had a case to answer.

Mr Mutus trial has attracted national attention due to his long legislative career and previous role in overseeing the NDDC, a key federal development agency in the Niger Delta.
The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Olufemi Oluyede has called for the urgent reinforcement of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) to consolidate the Armed Forces gains in the fight against insurgency, banditry, and other security threats across the country.

Mr Oluyede made the appeal during the 2025 budget appraisal and defence of the 2026 budget proposal at the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

He emphasised that while the military has achieved significant successes, the police and civil defence, owing to their larger personnel base and deeper community reach, must be equipped to maintain security in areas cleared by the military.

If these institutions are strengthened, they can effectively hold and secure territories where the Armed Forces have succeeded, ensuring that such areas remain safe, Mr Oluyede said.

The CDS provided an overview of current security challenges, disclosing that special forces were set to be deployed to Kwara State and parts of Niger State to tackle a recent surge in insecurity. He stressed that the armed forces alone cannot resolve the nations security problems.

Renewed efforts, he said, were also underway to address persistent threats in the Middle Belt, particularly in Benue and Plateau states, by targeting insurgents hideouts directly.

We are doing everything within our capacity to ensure that Nigeria becomes safer, Mr Oluyede said. The situation has improved significantly in the North-east. In the North-west, we still face serious challenges, and the same applies to parts of the North-central, including Benue, Plateau and even Kwara. But we are evolving modalities to address these challenges within the resources available to us.

He further revealed that a new Joint Task Force, code-named Operation Savannah Shield, would soon be inaugurated to cover Kwara State and parts of Niger State. Additional special forces had already been deployed to Benue and Plateau.

Mr Oluyede also noted ongoing partnerships with allied countries to improve intelligence gathering, assuring that such collaborations are aligned with presidential directives and safeguard Nigerias sovereignty.

The soldiers hardly have rest because we dont have the numbers, Mr Oluyede said, stressing the logistical and welfare challenges associated with recruiting additional personnel. Strengthening the police and civil defence is critical. They have more men and better reach to fill the gaps after military operations.

Lawmakers call for holistic security strategies

Earlier, the Chairman of the House Committee on Defence, Babajimi Benson (APC, Lagos), highlighted that contemporary security challenges cannot be addressed through military action alone.

He acknowledged gains by the armed forces but emphasised the need for complementary non-kinetic strategies, including community engagement, intelligence infrastructure, and cyber and border security.

The defence and security sector occupies a central place in Nigerias development discourse. No nation can make sustainable progress without guaranteeing the safety of lives, property, and critical national assets, Mr Benson said.

He stressed that deeper institutional reforms, improved inter-agency coordination, and smarter allocation of scarce resources were essential. Increased budgetary allocations must also yield measurable outcomes, transparency, and value for money.

The era of input-focused budgeting without commensurate impact is no longer acceptable. Nigerians expect results that translate into safer communities, restored livelihoods, and renewed confidence in the authority of the state, Mr Benson said.

The lawmaker advocated a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach, calling for investments in strategic communication, community peacebuilding, defence intelligence, cyber defence, border security technology, police reforms, and inter-agency data fusion centres.

Mr Benson further stated that the 2026 defence budget must clearly balance military strength with tools for sustainable peace. He said submissions before the committee must be realistic, well-justified, and performance-driven, with particular focus on personnel welfare, training, equipment maintenance, logistics support, and continuity of military operations.

Recurring issues such as abandoned projects, procurement inefficiencies, and delays in budget implementation must be decisively addressed, he said.

The committee chairman reaffirmed the House of Representatives commitment to national security, peace, and unity, pledging support for initiatives aimed at deepening local defence production, research and development, improved personnel welfare, and modernisation of the defence architecture.

These efforts are driven by our conviction that a strong, professional, and well-motivated military is indispensable to national stability, Mr Benson said.
BEIJING, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese defense spokesperson on Tuesday urged the Philippines to stop unscrupulous political manipulation and self-directed farces at sea.

Jiang Bin, a spokesperson for China's Ministry of National Defense, made the remarks in response to the Philippine Coast Guard's deployment of vessels and aircraft near China's Huangyan Dao, in the name of "protecting sovereign rights and the livelihoods of fishermen."

Jiang reiterated that Huangyan Dao is part of China's territory and has never been within the territory of the Philippines.

Certain Philippine departments tricked and instigated innocent fishermen into committing provocative acts, fully demonstrating their disregard for the fishermen's livelihoods, well-being, or even their safety, Jiang stressed.

He added that China will continue to exercise sovereignty and jurisdiction over Huangyan Dao and its adjacent waters in accordance with the law, and resolutely defend its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests. 
The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) says funding constraints have limited its ability to prosecute all individuals indicted for corruption, despite receiving and acting on petitions against them.

The ICPC Chairman, Musa Aliyu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), said the commission prioritises cases for prosecution based on available financial resources, noting that inadequate funding has affected investigations and court processes.

Mr Aliyu disclosed on Tuesday when he appeared alongside the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Olu Olukoyede, before the Senate Committee on Anti-Corruption and Financial Crimes.

Some cases take two to five years to conclude. Funding constraints affect travel, document retrieval, forensic tools and manpower. We have to prioritise cases based on available resources, he explained.

The ICPC chairperson lamented that poor funding has forced some prosecutors to personally cover legal expenses arising from petitions against suspects.

With adequate funding, infrastructure and manpower, the number of completed investigations will increase. Some lawyers even pay from their pockets to prosecute cases. We prioritise prevention because investigations require significant funds and time. Human capital gaps in state offices also delay investigations.

Mr Aliyu further disclosed that the morale of ICPC staff was low due to poor welfare, despite the risks associated with their duties.

My staff morale is very low. Their welfare is poor, yet they investigate highly sensitive and risky cases. Two days ago, our staff was kidnapped and is still in captivity, he added.

The ICPC chairman urged lawmakers to improve funding, infrastructure and staff welfare, noting that some state offices still operate from rented facilities.

Without adequate funding, there is no way this agency can effectively fight corruption. It will also affect Nigerias image globally, he said, promising strict fiscal discipline in the use of funds.

Our major challenge remains funding. Prosecutors sometimes use their personal money to go to court, and several investigations could not proceed as scheduled because we could not pay service providers, he said.

Unresolved petitions

Submitting petitions to anti-corruption agencies against individuals, particularly government officials suspected of financial crimes, has become common among civil society organisations advocating accountability and transparency.

However, many of these petitions, often publicised in the media, languish for years without leading to prosecution, while others are never updated.

Although the ICPC maintains that petitions go through investigative and prosecutorial processes, several remain unresolved.

For instance, in 2023, a PREMIUM TIMES investigation exposed how federal lawmakers probing job racketeering extorted money from government agencies to compromise investigations.

This newspaper subsequently petitioned the ICPC, providing details and supporting evidence of the alleged bribery.

The commission acknowledged the petition and said it had commenced an investigation. However, none of the lawmakers implicated has been prosecuted to date.

This represents one of many instances where petitions linger without clear outcomes.

Recoveries and performance

Despite its funding challenges, Mr Aliyu said the ICPC recovered 33.1 billion in cash and $1.98 million last year, along with assets such as land, vehicles, and businesses.

He added that the commission filed 72 cases, secured 36 convictions and handled 453 ongoing cases, while processing over 1,100 petitions within the year.

Regarding the commissions 2025 budget performance, Mr Aliyu said it received 10.13 billion out of the 10.62 billion appropriated for personnel costs, representing near full performance.

However, releases for overhead and capital expenditure were significantly lower.

Only 2.2 billion out of the 7.82 billion overhead allocation was released, representing 28 per cent. For capital expenditure, only 449 million out of 7.3 billion approved was released, and that came late, on November 28, 2025, he said.

EFCC raises similar complaints

The EFCC chairman, Mr Olukoyede, also complained of inadequate funding, saying it affected the commissions operations.

He said only 74 per cent of EFCCs total appropriation was released in 2025, while capital funding stood at 50 per cent, leaving many contractors and licence providers unpaid.

Most of our contractors have not been serviced, including licence providers. This will pose a major problem for us going forward because we need those licences to continue our work, he said.

Mr Olukoyede disclosed that the EFCC proposed a total budget of about 88 billion for 2026, including 22.8 billion for capital projects. However, he warned that outstanding liabilities from 2025 could stall new projects.

He also revealed the unpaid severance liabilities of about 3 billion for 32 retired officers.

Lawmakers respond

Members of the Senate committee acknowledged the funding challenges facing both anti-corruption agencies and assured them that improved allocations would be included in the 2026 budget.

The committees chairman, Emmanuel Udende, said funding for Nigerias anti-corruption agencies was low compared to what obtains in other countries.

It is sad that funding for anti-corruption agencies is very poor compared to other countries. We will see what we can do to improve it,  he said.
Across Nigeria, nearly nine million girls are not in school, not because they lack intelligence, curiosity, or ambition, but because the system designed to protect and educate them has quietly stepped aside. Their absence is so widespread that it has begun to feel normal. Empty desks no longer shock us. Lost futures barely registerBut what kind of country accepts the disappearance of almost half of its daughters from the classroom and calls it business as usual?

On a dusty road in northern Nigeria, a girl balances a tray of sachet water on her head and walks past a school compound. Laughter spills from inside the classrooms. A bell rings. Lessons begin. She does not stop. She never does.

Multiply her story by nine million.

Across Nigeria, nearly nine million girls are not in school, not because they lack intelligence, curiosity, or ambition, but because the system designed to protect and educate them has quietly stepped aside. Their absence is so widespread that it has begun to feel normal. Empty desks no longer shock us. Lost futures barely register.

But what kind of country accepts the disappearance of almost half of its daughters from the classroom and calls it business as usual?

If education is the foundation of national development, what happens when that foundation excludes millions of girls?

A Crisis We Can No Longer Pretend Is Invisible

Nigeria is home to 18.3 million out-of-school children, the highest number anywhere in the world. Nearly 49 per cent of them (about 8.97 million) are girls. That number alone should stop us in our tracks. It is larger than the population of many countries. This represents not just an education crisis, but a generational emergency.

This crisis is not evenly spread. In the North-West and North-East, girls account for up to 60 per cent of out-of-school children, driven by insecurity, displacement, and child marriages. In the South, economic hardship, climate shocks, and urban poverty quietly push girls out of classrooms and into markets, workshops, and homes.

Yet, even for the children who make it into school, the picture remains grim. 73 per cent of Nigerian children aged between seven and 10 cannot read a simple sentence, and 63 per cent of girls never complete secondary school. School attendance does not guarantee learning, and learning does not guarantee completion, especially for girls.

These numbers are not abstract. They translate into lives narrowed too early, choices made too soon, and potential extinguished before it ever has the chance to surface.

Why Girls Are the First to Be Left Behind

Girls do not drop out of school in isolation. They are pushed out  slowly, systematically, and predictably  by forces that reinforce one another.

Child marriage remains one of the most powerful drivers. In several northern states, the majority of girls are married before they turn eighteen. Once married, education becomes optional, at best, and forbidden, at worst. Pregnancy, domestic expectations, and social pressure seal the exit from the classroom. Studies show that child marriage reduces a girls likelihood of completing secondary education by 23 per cent.

Insecurity and violence compound the problem. Boko Haram attacks, banditry, and mass kidnappings have destroyed over 1,500 schools, displaced thousands of teachers, and traumatised entire communities. When schools are attacked, parents make difficult choices. Boys may return. Girls are more often kept at home for safety. Temporary fear becomes permanent exclusion.

Then there is poverty, quieter but just as ruthless. Public education in Nigeria is labelled free, but families know better. Uniforms, books, transport, examination fees, and informal levies can cost a household 107,000 to 415,500 per child per year, up to half of an annual minimum wage income. When parents must choose, sons are prioritised. Daughters are withdrawn to help at home or earn income.

The consequences are devastating. With 44 million school-age children, Nigeria currently spends about 55,227 per child per year, which converts to roughly $37. The World Bank estimates that at least $250 per child is required to deliver quality basic education. We are funding education at less than 15 per cent of what is needed For the nine million out-of-school girls, this translates into a painful truth: as a nation, we are investing less in their education than the cost of a sachet of water per day.

For adolescent girls, menstruation becomes another barrier. Over 90 per cent of schools lack basic hygiene facilities, and more than half of girls report being unable to change their sanitary materials at school. As a result, girls miss up to two months of learning every year. Many never return.

Underlying all of this are deeply entrenched gender norms, the belief that a womans place is in the home, that education makes girls disobedient, or that investing in a girl is wasted because she will marry into another family. These ideas do not just shape attitudes; they shape outcomes.

The Numbers Tell a Brutal Story About Our Priorities

Nigerias education crisis is not the result of ignorance. The data is clear. The needs are known. The failure is one of choice.

In the 2026 national budget, Nigeria allocated 15.52 trillion to debt servicing, 26.7 per cent of the total spending. Education received 2.43 trillion, just 4.2 per cent. Per citizen, that means 67,478 goes to paying creditors, while only 10,565 is spent on education.

UNESCO recommends that countries should invest 1520 per cent of their national budgets on education. Nigeria is not slightly below this benchmark. It is ignoring it entirely.

The consequences are devastating. With 44 million school-age children, Nigeria currently spends about 55,227 per child per year, which converts to roughly $37. The World Bank estimates that at least $250 per child is required to deliver quality basic education. We are funding education at less than 15 per cent of what is needed.

For the nine million out-of-school girls, this translates into a painful truth: as a nation, we are investing less in their education than the cost of a sachet of water per day.

When Budget Promises Vanish Before Reaching the Classroom

Even the limited funds allocated to education rarely reach the classroom intact.

Between 2021 and 2024, only 2447 per cent of budgeted education funds were actually spent. In 2024 alone, 367.6 billion promised for education never reached schools. This was not necessarily stolen, but it just got trapped in bureaucratic delays, withheld releases, and administrative bottlenecks.

That lost money could have built thousands of classrooms, hired tens of thousands of teachers, provided textbooks, or funded scholarships for girls who desperately need support.

When money fails to reach schools, the impact is immediate and visible: overcrowded classrooms, unpaid teachers, broken toilets, empty libraries. And once again, girls pay the highest price.

How Debt Is Quietly Stealing Girls Futures

Nigerias growing debt burden is often discussed in abstract fiscal terms, but its human cost is concrete.

In 2020, Nigeria spent 1.7 times more on debt than on education. By 2026, that ratio will reach 6.4 to 1. Every naira sent to creditors is a naira not spent on classrooms, teachers, sanitation, or scholarships.

A ten-year-old Nigerian girl today already carries 717,391 in national debt; debt accumulated before she could vote, work, or consent. If she never receives an education, her lifetime earnings will be drastically reduced, yet she will still bear the burden of repaying debts incurred in her name This is not just poor economic planning. It is intergenerational injustice.

A ten-year-old Nigerian girl today already carries 717,391 in national debt; debt accumulated before she could vote, work, or consent. If she never receives an education, her lifetime earnings will be drastically reduced, yet she will still bear the burden of repaying debts incurred in her name.

This is not just poor economic planning. It is intergenerational injustice.

What Change Would Actually Look Like

The tragedy of this crisis is not that solutions are unclear. It is that they are politically inconvenient.

Nigeria could take immediate, decisive steps:

 Create a Girls Education Emergency Fund to support cash transfers, free uniforms, textbooks, and school feeding;

 Enforce the Child Rights Act nationwide and prosecute child marriage as the crime it is;

 Make schools safe and girl-friendly, with water, toilets, menstrual products, and secure infrastructure;

 Recruit and support female teachers, especially in rural and conflict-affected areas;

 Fix budget execution, ensuring education funds move directly and transparently to schools.

None of these ideas are radical. They are practical. They are affordable. And they would change millions of lives.

The Question Nigeria Must Answer

Every budget is a moral document. It tells us who matters, who waits, and who is forgotten.

Right now, Nigerias budget tells nine million girls that their education can wait, but debt cannot.

It tells them that their dreams are negotiable, their futures optional, their absence acceptable.

But history will not be kind to this choice.

Because a country that educates its boys and abandons its girls is not just wasting talent, it is engineering inequality, poverty, and instability for generations to come.

Nine million girls are watching. Some from market stalls. Some from IDP camps. Some from homes they were never meant to be confined to.

They are waiting for an answer.

Will Nigeria continue to look away, or will it finally pull out a chair, open the classroom door, and say: you belong here?

Folahan Johnson is the Founder and Executive Director of Centre for Inclusive Social Development (CISD), while Sadiya Mukhtar is a communications associate with CISD.
Vaccine sovereignty in Africa is no longer an abstract ambition. It is a process underway, grounded in Ubuntu and African political decisions, institutional reforms, and emerging delivery platforms. Getting it right is not only a health imperative, but an economic and political necessity. The measure of success now is sustained delivery.

 Reducing risk, strengthening markets, securing health futures

At the 38th African Union Summit in February 2025, the continents Heads of State and Government issued a deliberate and consequential resolution. Health security, local manufacturing and system resilience were no longer to be treated as external dependencies to be managed, but as responsibilities to be owned. This reflected a shared recognition that Africas vulnerability to recurrent disease outbreaks and medical supply disruptions constitute a structural risk to development, political stability and economic resilience, with direct implications for productivity, fiscal sustainability and regional integration.

One year on, the rationale for that resolution remains compelling. Surveillance by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention shows one of the continents most severe cholera waves in decades, with more than 300,000 suspected cases and over 7,000 reported deaths across Eastern, Southern and Western Africa. Zambia has been at the epicentre. As President Hakainde Hichilema and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote in The Guardian in October 2025, Africas dependence on external suppliers placed countries at the back of the queue when global demand surged.

Cholera is not an isolated case. Over the same period, Africa recorded tens of thousands of confirmed mpox cases, widespread measles outbreaks, with significant child mortality, expanding dengue transmission linked to climate variability and rapid urbanisation, and recurrent seasonal surges of Lassa fever in West Africa. Marburg virus disease outbreaks have also been formally noted by the African Union and WHO, with the outbreak in Ethiopia contained after less than three months by the Africa CDC. Taken together, these patterns confirm that preparedness should no longer be episodic; it is a standing obligation of governance, matched with financing and delivery.

From Global Dependence to System Readiness

This experience has clarified a lesson that was previously easier to overlook. Africas engagement with global vaccine supply over the past five years has shown that access to vaccines and biologics is shaped less by goodwill or financing alone; it has been defined by whether scientific capability, regulatory authority, manufacturing capacity, and market coordination are built as an integrated system. During COVID-19, despite unprecedented global spending on vaccines, including through COVAX, African countries remained constrained by external supply chains for finished products, underlying technologies, clinical data generation, and regulatory decision-making. That dependence delayed access, even when products were available globally and narrowed national response options.

In response, African leaders articulated a clear strategic ambition. The African Union set a continental target for Africa to produce 60 per cent of the vaccines it uses by 2040, under the Partnerships for African Vaccine Manufacturing (PAVM) framework. This ambition aligns with Agenda 2063 and is reinforced by the AU Roadmap to 2030, which places access to medicines, regulatory harmonisation, and local and regional manufacturing at the centre of Africas development pathway. It is further anchored in the New Public Health Order for Africa (NPHOA), which elevates health security, resilient institutions, and local production as pillars of continental self-reliance.

As implementation has started to advance, a second reality has become apparent. Manufacturing capacity alone will not deliver vaccine sovereignty, unless supported by upstream research and development, credible product pipelines, regulatory science, skilled human capital, and predictable demand. Africas vaccine challenge has therefore entered a decisive phase. The question is no longer whether facilities should be built, but whether investments are assembling the ecosystem required to sustain them, reduce exposure to supply shocks, and respond effectively to endemic and epidemic threats.

Financing Signals and Structural Gaps

Recent market-shaping instruments reflect this shift. The African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator, launched by Gavi in June 2024, makes up to US$1.2 billion available over ten years to offset early market risk and stabilise demand for African-manufactured vaccines. The Regionalised Vaccine Manufacturing Collaborative, convened by the World Economic Forum and partners, focuses on building regional manufacturing and supply-chain networks to strengthen vaccine equity and health security.

This systems gap has, nevertheless, informed upstream and midstream responses. Accelerating Health Innovation, Equity, and Development of Vaccines and Biologics in Africa (ACHIEVE 2.0 Africa) is an African-led framework designed to strengthen the foundations of supply and manufacturing with credible products, evidence, and regulatory readiness. Anchored through the International Vaccine Institute, ACHIEVE 2.0 aligns discovery, pre-clinical research, clinical trials, data generation, regulatory collaboration, and human-capital development around African-prioritised health needs.

Several billion US dollars have also been committed to vaccine manufacturing and technology transfer. The European Commission has supported Africas mRNA technology-transfer hubs. The African Development Bank plans to mobilise US$3 billion through the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation to support upstream research and development. Afreximbank has financed fill-and-finish facilities and regional supply chains, while Africa CDC has outlined financing options for health-product manufacturing.

These investments have been essential but uneven. Financing has been largely concentrated on downstream manufacturing and fill-and-finish capacity, while comparatively little has flowed into product discovery, early development, clinical-trial ecosystems, core laboratories, biostatistics, and regulatory science. Africas gross expenditure on research and development remains around 0.5 per cent of GDP, compared with a global average of 2.2 per cent, constraining the emergence of regionally prioritised vaccine and biologics pipelines aligned with Africas disease burden. These gaps are explicitly diagnosed in the African Unions Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA) 20252034.

Calls for increased investment in science and technology are longstanding. They date back to the Monrovia Declaration of 1979, were reinforced by the Abuja Declaration of 2001, and rehashed the Lusaka Agenda and Accra Reset and other AU Executive Council decisions, urging member states to allocate at least 1 per cent of GDP to research and development. The persistent challenge has not been diagnosis, but sustained execution at scale.

Building Upstream Capability and Continental Coordination

This systems gap has, nevertheless, informed upstream and midstream responses. Accelerating Health Innovation, Equity, and Development of Vaccines and Biologics in Africa (ACHIEVE 2.0 Africa) is an African-led framework designed to strengthen the foundations of supply and manufacturing with credible products, evidence, and regulatory readiness. Anchored through the International Vaccine Institute, ACHIEVE 2.0 aligns discovery, pre-clinical research, clinical trials, data generation, regulatory collaboration, and human-capital development around African-prioritised health needs.

The framework has attracted substantial African commitments, with initial funding pledged by governments, including Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, and Zambia, alongside engagement from scientific and philanthropic partners. ACHIEVE Africa 2.0 is structured to reduce utilisation and evidence risk by ensuring facilities are supplied with products, data, regulatory pathways, and skilled personnel, improving capital efficiency and long-term viability.

National Execution, Workforce Capacity, and Sustained Delivery

These efforts sit alongside broader continental financing prospects. At the AU level, leaders have highlighted the mobilisation of approximately US$3.2 billion to support Africa CDCs agenda for local manufacturing of vaccines, medicines, diagnostics, and other health commodities. In parallel, AU planning under the Partnerships for African Vaccine Manufacturing recognises the upstream gap, with plans to mobilise US$3.0 billion over the next decade through the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation to support research and development in novel therapeutics and vaccines. Together, these commitments signal that healthcare sovereignty is being treated as an investible continental programme.

Taken together, the conclusions of the 38th African Union Summit, the AU Roadmap to 2030, STISA 20252034, and frameworks such as ACHIEVE 2.0 Africa point in the same direction. Africas health security will not be secured through emergency response or manufacturing capacity alone. It will depend on sustained investment in the systems that generate vaccines, validate evidence, regulate quality, and deliver immunisation reliably across borders.

National reforms illustrate how this systems-logic translates into execution without displacing the continental framework. In Nigeria, health-sector renewal efforts have positioned health as economic infrastructure and national security, supported by a whole-of-government delivery platform linking policy, regulation, financing, and private investment. The Presidential Health Sector Renewal Investment Compact, launched in late 2023, achieved approximately 84 per cent of its targets by late 2025, expanding coverage, strengthening primary-care delivery, unlocking value chains, and deploying digital monitoring systems. Rwandas US$150 million BioNTech modular mRNA facility in Kigali, South Africas vaccine-manufacturing agreements through Aspen Pharmacare, and Zambias leadership on a continental cholera response illustrate complementary national pathways aligned with continental objectives.

Human capital remains an abiding constraint. Africas shortage of experienced product developers, regulatory scientists, quality specialists, and biostatisticians continues to limit both manufacturing sustainability and immunisation impact. Addressing this gap requires coordinated investment in applied training and product-development pathways that allow skills to accumulate through practice. Nigerias commitment to training 10,000 pharmaceutical and biotechnology professionals under the World Bank-supported Health Works programme links workforce development directly to domestic manufacturing, regulatory strengthening, and regional market integration. ACHIEVE 2.0 Africa deepens these efforts at a continental scale by linking laboratories, trials, and data centres into a shared talent ecosystem.

The implementation record on immunisation reinforces the case for sustained systems investment. A WHO African Region review of IA2030 progress found that vaccination in 2023 averted an estimated 1.8 million deaths; all 47 countries sustained the wild-polio-free status; and 43 achieved maternal and neonatal tetanus elimination. Coverage nevertheless remained below targets, with DTP3 at 74 per cent and MCV2 at 49 per cent, while zero-dose children declined from 7.3 million in 2022 to 6.7 million in 2023, still above the 2019 baseline. These trends underline that manufacturing scale, routine immunisation performance, surveillance, and regulatory capability must advance together.

The global context reinforces the urgency of this approach. International health financing has become more constrained and unpredictable, as aid budgets tighten and geopolitical priorities shift. Reliance on external funding flows, therefore, carries increasing strategic risk. African leaders decision to invest in domestic and regional capability reflects an understanding that health security underpins economic resilience, political credibility, and the capacity to act collectively in moments of crisis. Continental instruments such as the African Epidemics Fund signal a move toward sustainable, coordinated financing for public-health emergencies.

Taken together, the conclusions of the 38th African Union Summit, the AU Roadmap to 2030, STISA 20252034, and frameworks such as ACHIEVE 2.0 Africa point in the same direction. Africas health security will not be secured through emergency response or manufacturing capacity alone. It will depend on sustained investment in the systems that generate vaccines, validate evidence, regulate quality, and deliver immunisation reliably across borders.

Vaccine sovereignty in Africa is no longer an abstract ambition. It is a process underway, grounded in Ubuntu and African political decisions, institutional reforms, and emerging delivery platforms. Getting it right is not only a health imperative, but an economic and political necessity. The measure of success now is sustained delivery.

Chinedu Moghalu is a lawyer, strategic communications expert, and public policy adviser with over two decades of leadership across government, international organisations, and development institutions. Currently, he is a senior special adviser to Nigerias Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare.

Nicaise Ndembi is the Deputy Director General, Regional Director of the International Vaccine Institute (IVI)s Africa Regional Office, overseeing IVIs operational, scientific, and partnership activities in the Africa region, including the Africa Regional Office in Kigali, Rwanda and a Country Office in Nairobi, Kenya. He is based in Kigali.
The Senate will return from a two-week recess today to attend an emergency plenary session at noon to address the lingering and vexed matter of the ongoing amendment of the Electoral Act 2022. Expectations are high. Opinions are divided as to what may well be the outcome of todays meeting. Since the return to civilian rule in 1999, Nigerians have been fixated on the subject of how to arrive at the best electoral framework that would guarantee free, fair, and credible elections, and yet before and after every election cycle, this has remained a knotty problem, if not an elusive target. It should not be surprising therefore that the people have found themselves again at the same crossroads. By September 2025, the Senate and House of Representatives Committees on Electoral Matters opted to retain the positive aspects of the existing law of 2022, while adding new provisions. Both committees relied on recommendations from technical experts in civil society groups such as the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC), the Civil Society Situation Room, the European Union Election Observation Mission and others. By October 2025, public hearings had been held. In November 2025, the House of Representatives passed its amendments to the Electoral Act 2022, awaiting the process to be seen through at the Senate.

By last week, the Senate finally completed the process of receiving and reviewing the submissions of its own Committee on Electoral Matters. It was at this point, with time running out before the next general elections, that the process ran into trouble. First, the Senate Electoral Matters Committee could not present its report because its Chair, Senator Simon Lalong, was absent on the day of the presentation. The Senate then set up an Executive Committee to review the submissions. This was followed by a seven-man ad hoc committee, then a closed Executive session to further scrutinize the amendments, clause by clause. By this time, Nigerians were beginning to smell a rat. It is common knowledge that when Nigerian leaders are up to a certain mischief, the easiest thing they do is to resort to the committee approach, one after the other until the main issue is lost in translation. In the instant case, the proposed fresh provisions in the Senates draft amendment were straightforward enough viz: a clause to give INEC the power to transmit election results electronically, tougher penalties for electoral offenders, electronically generated voter identification, the right of prisoners to vote, early voting for groups whose election day duties prevent them from voting, review of the time before election that the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) commences the election process and the release of election funds at least one year before polling day.

On Wednesday, 4 February, the Senate voted on the various provisions, but it ignited public outrage by voting to retain the ambiguous provision in Clause 60 of the 2022 Electoral Act which leaves the mode of result transmission entirely at the discretion of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). This has resulted in sheer censure, and the erosion of the integrity of the Senate in the eyes of a skeptical electorate. The Senate leadership has had to explain that it did not remove electronic transmission, and that rather than the phrase transfer in Section 60(5) in the extant law, the Senate has now voted for transmit. Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe (Abia South) at a press conference attended by members of the Minority Caucus said this was done collectively to ensure clarity, conciseness and lack of ambiguity. His attempt to calm the brewing storm had little effect. What the people heard was that the Senate rejected the more popular request that there should be real-time mandatory electronic transmission of results from polling units to the INEC Election Results Viewing (IReV) portal. The subsequent explanation by the Senate President Godswill Akpabio was that the intention of the lawmakers is to prevent a deluge of litigations before and after the electoral process from communities and stakeholders whose constituencies lack the infrastructure for real time, electronic transmission. Last weekend, Senator Akpabio, at an event, reportedly said that electronic transmission cannot be imposed on places affected by network coverage or insecurity  referring to at least nine states in question. At another event, the INEC Chairman Professor Joash Amupitan cautioned Nigerians against unnecessary tension over the Senates decision, and urged that the people should wait for the harmonisation of the bill by both Chambers. According to him, INEC is committed to deploying technologyWhat matters is the technical efficiency of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) which he calls a game changer.

Today, the Senate would reconvene, obviously in affirmation of the Senate Presidents position that the National Assembly has not yet concluded its work on the Bill, and that there is still the Votes and Proceedings stage, which is exactly the stage at which the Senate reviews its votes and passes the Bill, before presenting it for harmonization at a Joint Conference of the National Assembly. Many Nigerians had felt offended by the Senate Presidents boastful remark over the weekend that the Senate cannot be intimidated and that the job of the legislature is to do what is right to advance democracy. But now that the Senate has had to recall itself from recess, for an urgent meeting, it is obvious that the Senate is fully aware of the objections to the vote on February 4. It shows that it has heard the various civil society leaders who have advised the National Assembly not to play with fire, those who have threatened to #OccupyNASS and who actually have shown up at the National Assembly, even as it rained yesterday, to protest, those who have threatened to embark on mass action like the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) to frustrate the 2027 elections before, during and after, or call for a general boycott of the elections if the Senate fails to add the phrase real time. The problem is the phrase real time and the objections stem from a fundamental lack of trust in state institutions  be it the National Assembly or INEC. Most Nigerians, especially the opposition party leaders, believe that without real time electronic transmission, they do not stand a chance, and that the election would have been rigged even before it took place. They see this as a blow to democracy. Professional bodies like the Nigerian Bar Association have also called for real-time electronic transmission of results. This real time furore has taken attention away from other details in the amendments which may still come to light sooner than later. This may well be the beginning of a very long conversation.

But given the present urgency, the Senate in convening today must refrain from annoying the people further by setting up yet another committee to look into the matter. It should seek to meet the people half-way by expressly stating that electronic transmission will be allowed, and reassure the people that it has nothing against the use of technology. It also owes the people further clarifications as to the key contents of the bill. Given our circumstances however, it would seem that a hybrid formula would be the best option. Real time transmission of results is the norm in countries where technology is already advanced, and there are electronic systems in place that are fast, transparent, and free of compromise; even more importantly where both the people and the politicians trust the system. The debate over real time transmission of election results is actually a reflection of our state of development in terms of both values and best practices. Some commentators have condemned the excuses about network coverage, cybersecurity, rural connectivity and insecurity in the land. They argue that digital banking, telcos, and mobile money all work in Nigeria, and that the ruling party only wants to preserve itself in office. The truth beyond the politics, however, is that there are serious problems with all these platforms. Insecurity is also a problem. Who has never experienced the telcos failing real time? One particular network was out of operation for months in parts of the country! Who has not heard of banks complaining about their systems being down, and money transferred real time not reaching the beneficiary until days later, causing friction between the sender and the recipient? Insecurity is also real in Nigeria: how do you transmit election results real time in places where both electricity and telecommunication infrastructure have been pulled down by insurgents and bandits? How do you even vote in places where terrorists also have their own election management structures, enforced by guns that impose violence real time?

The peoples preference for real time electronic transmission of results is the right kind of aspiration to ensure that the peoples votes count. But there is a problem that we seem to be overlooking. What we have at the moment is manual voting, not electronic voting. Where people vote electronically, their votes are automatically recorded in the main server and tallied centrally, but even in those countries there are both advantages and disadvantages, compelling many to abandon the e-process altogether. It is also a very expensive option. Electronic voting or internet voting is not a deus-ex-machina, an automatic solution to electoral fraud, not to talk of electronic transmission of results. It works in Brazil where e-voting was adopted nationwide in the 2000 and 2002 elections, but it was first tested for four years. In Canada, e-voting is used only in some municipalities. Estonia uses e-voting in national elections. E-voting has been tried in parts of Japan too, but it was abandoned at a point due to cost, the antics of malicious insiders inserting crafted data or programmes to manipulate results as well as the burden of technical and legal challenges. Can Nigeria afford the same cost? The aspiration to move in the direction of electronic elections, both voting and transmission can only be achieved long-term after trials to master the processes involved. Are we willing to learn from the examples in other jurisdictions, and not simply jump into fire? Who will check the malicious insiders and outsiders?

The current system of voting in Nigeria is manual which means that on election day, voters thumbprint ballot papers which are counted at the polling stations, manually recorded, and then the result is taken to the collation centre where the results are announced and then transmitted to INEC. It is still basically a manual process. The problem is the fraudulent hijack of results between the polling units and the collation centres. The copy of results sent to the INECs IReV portal from polling units is merely for viewing. IREV is not a collation centre; it is a viewing portal, and that is why our courts rely on Form EC8A, and do not accept IReV evidence. The Supreme Court in Atiku v. INEC (2023) 19 NWLR ruled that The INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) is not a collation system. There is a difference between a collation system and the IReV portal though both are part of the election process. Whereas the collation system is made up of the centres where results are collated at various stages of the election, the IReV Portal is to give the public the opportunity to view the polling unit results on the election day. They are part of the election process per John Inyang Okoro, JSC. The Supreme Court went further to uphold the power of INEC to prescribe the manner of transmission of election results, and the importance of hard copies of the result sheets. This National Assembly has shown no inclination to review the powers of INEC in this regard.

Electronic transmission of results is desirable but should it be mandatory, real time and is Nigeria ready? These are the two central questions of the moment. We can only insist, however, on starting from somewhere  possibly how to start with building blocks. This whole debate about electronic transmission of results is useful, but it is very much like a battle of wits between the armed robber and the owner of the property. The armed robber would always attempt to steal but the property owner also has an obligation to make the task difficult for the robber by putting safeguards in place. Neither party trusts the other. How, then, do we build a nation without trust, and without proper orientation? The best electoral framework can be designed with good intentions; it would take more than an amended Electoral Act to prevent electoral fraud.

Reuben Abati, a former presidential spokesperson, writes from Lagos.
That Bauchi is celebrating fifty years of its creation in 1976 should not surprise anyone familiar with the profound transformation that has taken place in the once provincial capital. From a modest administrative centre in the old NorthEast, Bauchi has blossomed into a dynamic state with expanding urban skylines, growing infrastructure, and renewed civic pride. If ever there was a moment to roll out the drums, unfurl the banners, and celebrate five decades of growth, resilience, and unity, this is it.

Indeed, the people and government of Bauchi State are justified in marking this golden jubilee with carnivals, public lectures, and thanksgiving. Over the years, successive military administrators, elected governors, and public servants have added stones to the building of Bauchis institutional and physical architecture. Each left behind legaciesroads, schools, policies, reformsthat validate the wisdom of the 1976 statecreation exercise. Bauchis story today is one of upward progress.

However, it is a pleasant coincidence that the last six years of Governor Bala Abdulkadir Mohammeds stewardship have dovetailed almost seamlessly into this golden celebration. His tenure has often been described as the golden era of Nigerias Pearl of Tourism. And many would argue that the Bauchi @ 50 anniversary is as much a celebration of the state as it is a celebration of the transformational leadership that has guided it through recent years.

Whether one references the unprecedented expansion in rural infrastructurewhich earned him the Rural Infrastructure Governor of the Year award in 2022his sweeping urban renewal programmes rewarded in 2024, or his recognition for good governance in 2025, the consensus is unmistakable: Bauchi State under Bala Mohammed has experienced a renaissance. His developmental footprints are visible across all sectors.

Bauchi Central Business District

By the end of 2026, the Central Business District around Wuntilong caricatured as the embodiment of congestion and urban disorderwill have been transformed into a picturesque modern enclave with interlocking flyovers, widened roads, and new commercial spaces. Coupled with the ultramodern Sir Ahmadu Bello International Conference Centre and the remodelled Government House featuring the Dr Rilwanu Suleiman Adamu Square, Bauchis skyline now hints at a state stepping confidently into the future.

My Bauchi Project blueprint

But as Nigerians often ask, Na glamour we go chop? It is a fair question. And in Bauchis case, the answer is reassuring. Guided by his My Bauchi Project blueprint unveiled at his inauguration in May 2019, Governor Bala Mohammed has pursued reforms in social development, public service, education, agriculture, solid minerals, security, and industrialisation.

At the commissioning of the Sir Ahmadu Bello International Conference Centre and during the states first Investment and Economic Summit in 2025, his administration sent a clear message: Bauchi is ready for business. The state is positioning itself as the gateway to the resource-rich North-East.

This is what leadership looks like when vision, courage, empathy, and preparedness align.

Yet, as towering as these accomplishments are, they do not constitute the governors most defining legacy.

The Legacy Beyond Infrastructure

Physical structures, no matter how magnificent, will age. Roads will require repairs; monuments will require renovation. But certain decisions in governance transcend brick-and-mortarthey touch the soul of a people, correct historical wrongs, and redefine relationships for generations.

For Governor Bala Mohammed, that legacy is the creation of the Sayawa Chiefdom in 2025, a historic and moral milestone that will outlive every flyover, every conference centre, and every urban renewal project.

The Sayawa Chiefdom represents more than administrative restructuring; it embodies justice delayed and finally delivered, the restoration of dignity to a people whose yearning for self-determination had been met with indifference, bloodshed, and political manoeuvrings for decades.

A Crisis That Spanned Decades

To appreciate the magnitude of the gesture, one must revisit the painful history of the Sayawaor Zaarpeople. Spread across Bogoro, Dass, and Tafawa Balewa LGAs, the Sayawa are culturally diverse, comprising traditional worshippers, Christians, and Muslims. Yet for decades, they remained subsumed under the Bauchi Emirate Council, a structure they felt did not reflect their identity, history, or aspirations.

Their agitation for a separate chiefdom is one of Nigerias longest-running subnational struggles. Between 1991 and 2011, the area witnessed repeated eruptions of violence1991, 1995, 1998, 2001, 2005, 2010, and 2011resulting in loss of life, destruction of property, and social dislocation. Commissions of inquiry were set up; recommendations were made; temporary measures like the relocation of Tafawa Balewa LGA headquarters to Bununu in 2012 were implemented. Yet the core issueselfdeterminationremained unaddressed.

The consequences were devastating. In the 1991 crisis alone, more than 1,000 villages were razed, 173 churches destroyed, and at least 400 people killed. The 1995 crisis was even bloodier: over 1,400 people were reportedly killed, 38 villages wiped out, and 77 churches burnt. These were not mere clashes; they were tragedies stemming from structural injustice.

Enter Bala Mohammed: A Leader Guided by History and Empathy

When Mr Bala Mohammed assumed office, he brought with him a fresh approachone rooted in inclusion, justice, and empathy. He recognised that governance is not only about constructing roads but also about healing wounds and confronting uncomfortable historical truths.

He worked closely with the Bauchi State House of Assembly under its Speaker, Hon Abubakar Suleiman, and other stakeholders to ensure that the long-standing agitation was finally addressed. His conviction was not political; it was moral. In an interview with True Vision Online Television, he stated:

When you see the spate of agitation and advocacy for self-actualisation, it is because of impunity, because of exclusion and because of arrogance

The minorities must be respected. It is the semblance of good government to be inclusive. These were not empty words. They reflected a deep understanding that peace cannot be achieved by ignoring grievances. True leadership requires the courage to confront historical injustices.

A Moment of Liberation for the Zaar People

Thus, in 2025, Governor Bala Mohammed signed into law the creation of the Sayawa Chiefdom, ending more than 70 years of agitation. When the staff of office was presented to Gung Zaar, Brig. Gen. Marcus Kokko Y. Yake (Rtd.), the celebration that eruptedmarked by Christian songs, tears of joy, and communal embraceswas not just ceremonial. It was cathartic. It signalled the end of decades of humiliation and the dawn of a new era. Few policy decisions in Nigeria achieve instant moral consensus. This one did.

A National Example of Statesmanship

Nigeria is riddled with unresolved ethnic and cultural agitationsfrom minority groups seeking recognition, to communities and marginalized and subjugated ethnic groups yearning for autonomy, equity, or justice. Most political leaders sidestep such issues out of fear of backlash or political consequences. Bala Mohammed chose a different path: the path of statesmanship.

His decision to grant autonomy to the Sayawa people places him in a lineage of leaders who understand that unity is stronger when built on justice, not suppression; on equity not denial; on inclusion, not exclusion. Among prominent Zaar personalitiessuch as former Speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara and former TETFUND Executive Secretary Professor Suleiman Bogorothe sentiment was unanimous: history had finally been made.

A Legacy That Outlives Physical Infrastructure

One day, decades from now, when the flyovers need reinforcement and conference centres are refurbished, the Sayawa Chiefdom will remain a living institutiona permanent reminder of a leader who confronted injustice with courage.

Long after boundaries are redrawn and political actors forgotten, the descendants of the Zaar people will remember that it was Bala Abdulkadir Mohammed of Duguri in Alkaleri LGA who gave them the autonomy their ancestors fought and died for. That is a legacy cast not in concrete, but in collective memory.

Conclusion: A Leader Consistent in Justice

Taken alongside his instrumental role in the Doctrine of Necessity in 2010which ensured the lawful transfer of presidential power to Goodluck Jonathan in 2010Bala Mohammeds creation of the Sayawa Chiefdom confirms a leadership philosophy anchored in justice, equity, and inclusion.

As Bauchi marks 50 years, the celebration is doubly meaningful. It honours not just infrastructure, investment, and governance reforms, but also the courage of a leader who dared to heal a wound many before him had avoided.

Nigeria needs more of leaders like Governor Bala Mohammedleaders unafraid to dismantle historical shackles, to right ancient wrongs, and to place humanity above politics. Bala Mohammed has shown what is possible when courage meets compassion.

And for that reason, while Bauchi @ 50 is a celebration of the state, its greatest milestone is the liberation of the Sayawa peoplea timeless testament to justice restored and Bala Mohammeds indelible imprint on the sands of time.

*Agu, a fellow of the Nigeria Guild of Editors, is media consultant to Governor Bala Mohammed.
Today, I want to begin with an unusual request. I want us, collectively, to suspend the comfort of familiarity. For a moment, put aside the reassurance of titles, tenure, and the habits that come with how we have always operated. Instead, I invite you to imagine the leader this moment in our history requires you to become, not the leader you have been.

The Nigeria Revenue Service marks a clear break from the past. It represents a new era, and new eras demand new postures. This transition will not be secured by the weight of our positions, the strength of our resumes, or the familiarity of our structures.

It will only be secured by our capacity to adapt, to stretch, and to lead at a level of excellence that this country now requires of us. What brought us here will not be sufficient for where we are going.

Recently, I reflected deeply on an article in the Harvard Business Review titled The Hidden Beliefs That Hold Leaders Back. Its central argument is both simple and confronting: leaders rarely fail because they lack intelligence, experience, or strategy. More often, they fall short because of the invisible beliefs they carry about themselves, about others, and about what leadership should look like, beliefs that quietly shape decisions, behaviours, and outcomes.

Every one of us in this room has a plan for NRS. We have strategies, reform agendas, roadmaps, and transformation frameworks. And yet, history teaches us that even the most sophisticated plans can be undermined by internal blockers we rarely acknowledge, the unspoken assumptions that influence how we lead, how we delegate, how we respond under pressure, and how much space we create for others to think, act, and innovate.

In institutions like ours, these blockers do not announce themselves loudly. They rarely appear as resistance to change. Instead, they show up subtly, often disguised as good intentions. They show up when we believe that leadership means always having the answer, so we lead by instruction rather than by empowerment. They show up when we assume that tight control is the same as accountability, and in doing so, we unintentionally create bottlenecks around ourselves.

They show up when we unconsciously expect others to work at our speed, in our style, and according to our definitions of excellence, forgetting that strong outcomes can be achieved through different paths.

They show up when we believe vulnerability has no place in leadership, so we project certainty instead of honesty, and create environments where people are afraid to ask questions, admit gaps, or challenge assumptions.

And perhaps most dangerously, they show up when we cling to familiar systems and legacy norms, even when the moment clearly demands a fundamentally new way of working.

These beliefs are not harmless. They shape culture. They shape performance. And ultimately, they shape the future of this institution. That is why the first step in this retreat is not strategy. It is not structure. It is not technology. The first step is leadership self-examination. Because if we cannot confront our internal barriers, we cannot credibly lead thousands of people into a new institutional era.

I want to be very clear: this reflection is not something I am asking of you from a distance. It is something I have had to confront myself.

One of my own long-standing assumptions has been the belief that if I can do something in a particular way, then others should be able to do it the same way. On the surface, it appears harmless, even noble. In reality, it distorted how I set expectations, how I reviewed performance, and how I delegated authority. I often expected people to move at my pace.

I assumed my definition of quality should naturally be the benchmark. And when work came back in a form I did not immediately recognise, my instinct was to tighten control rather than to ask different questions.

That mindset did not come from malice. It came from my own history, a lifetime shaped by perfectionism, by high achievement, by the belief that mistakes were unacceptable and falling short meant falling behind. Without realising it, I projected those beliefs onto others.

Over time, I traced the root and recognised that my real fear was not that others would fail, but that I would be held responsible for their failure. That fear quietly drove rigidity, pressure, and, at times, unnecessary mistrust.

My unblocking came when I accepted, without defensiveness, that efficiency does not require uniformity, that excellence does not require my style, and that trust is not the absence of oversight, but the willingness to allow people to rise. I learned to focus on outcomes rather than policing the journey. I learned that leadership is not the replication of oneself; leadership is the elevation of others.

I share this not as a personal story, but as a collective warning and invitation. Because if a leaders unexamined beliefs can slow down a system, then together, our beliefs can either unlock or constrain the future of this organisation. And the stakes before us are too high for that.

So as we begin this retreat, I ask each of us to do something deliberate. Take off every hat. Suspend every title. Release every inherited script about what leadership should look like. Stand here simply as leaders who understand that the future of NRS will not be determined by the brilliance of our documents, but by the humility, courage, and clarity with which we choose to lead.

Let me close with this.

The Nigeria Revenue Service will not be defined by what we say in this room. It will be defined by who we become after we leave it. We stand at the edge of one of the most significant institutional transformations in this countrys history.

The credibility of Nigerias revenue architecture, and confidence in the Nigerian economy, rests in our hands. If we walk into this future with rigid beliefs, we will build walls where bridges are required. But if we lead with honesty, courage, and an open mind, we will build an institution worthy of this moment.

This is our mandate! This is our responsibility! And this is our legacy!

Colleagues, let us begin again, honestly, expectantly, and with renewed minds.

Thank you for truly standing by me and good morning.

* Being the opening remarks by the Executive Chairperson of Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS), Zacch Adedeji at the 2026 NRS leadership retreat held at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja on Tuesday 10 February
The Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS), formerly known as the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), broke its record revenue collection performance, posting N28.3 trillion to surpass the set target of N25.2 trillion for the year 2025. This was disclosed on behalf of the NRS executive chairman, Zacch Adedeji, by the Executive Director, Government and Large Taxpayers Group, Ms Amina Ado Kurawa, at the opening of a two-day management retreat with the theme Designed to Adapt, Built to Deliver held at the Congress Hall, Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja, on Tuesday.

Ms Ado, according to a statement signed by Dare Adekanmbi, Special Adviser (Media) to the NRS chairman, also revealed that the revenue collection target for the revenue administration agency for 2026 has been set at N40.71 trillion, 44 per cent higher than the target for 2025.

Speaking earlier, the NRS executive chairperson charged the management and staff members of the agency to do away with old beliefs, noting that the credibility of Nigerias revenue architecture and confidence in the Nigerian economy rest on their hands.

Mr Adedeji said, If we walk into the future with rigid beliefs, we will build walls where bridges are required. But if we lead with honesty, courage, and an open mind, we will build an institution worthy of this moment.

Recently, I reflected deeply on an article in the Harvard Business Review titled The Hidden Beliefs That Hold Leaders Back. Its central argument is both simple and confronting: leaders rarely fail because they lack intelligence, experience, or strategy. More often, they fall short because of the invisible beliefs they carry about themselves, about others, and about what leadership should look like, beliefs that quietly shape decisions, behaviours, and outcomes.

The Nigeria Revenue Service will not be defined by what we say in this room. It will be defined by who we become after we leave it.

The Executive Director, while giving a breakdown of the 2025 collection figures and how the agency surpassed the last target by 12 per cent, said non-oil taxes accounted for N21.4 trillion of the collection, against N18 trillion projected.

Total oil tax collection, according to her, came to N6.8 trillion, representing 95 per cent of the N7.2 trillion target set for the sector. Both oil and non-oil tax revenue grew year on year by 19 per cent and 35 per cent, respectively.

For the year 2025, oil tax revenue totalled N6.6trillion, representing a growth of 19 per cent over the N5.8 trillion realized during the corresponding period in 2024. Non-oil tax revenue for 2025 exceeded the 2024 total, reaching N21.5 trillion compared to N15.9 trillion for the same period in 2024representing a growth of 35 per cent.

This growth was driven by administrative enhancements, broadening of the Withholding system, digitalization efforts, improved tax compliance initiatives and stronger enforcement tactics introduced by NRS, the statement said.

The statement added that the 44 per cent increase in the target for the agency was based on the expanded mandate of NRS to be a revenue system integrator for the country, including the collection of royalty hitherto the responsibility of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and so on.

Earlier, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, who joined the event virtually, charged Nigerians to rely more on made-in-Nigeria products, saying this would reduce revenue losses.

We talk about buying from West Africa or trading with Africa as a whole, but intra-Nigerian trade is critical. We all know what spending in Nigeria does for the economy; we know what it does for the revenue targets of NRS.

The debt service that was paid by the developing countries in 2024 was 163 billion dollars, while the overseas development assistance that came in was 42 billion dollars. The foreign direct investment and the private sector funding that came in from abroad to developing countries were just 97 billion dollars.

So, you can see that, as developing countries, the flow of funding. What we are giving out is more than we are getting through these various categories. Clearly, it is what we do for ourselves internally that is going to be important at this time, he said.

He reiterated the governments desire to deliver in the areas of fiscal reforms and revenue mobilisation, saluting the management and staff of NRS for not just the pivotal but indispensable role they play in domestic revenue mobilisation.

Also speaking, the chairman of the National Tax Policy Implementation Committee, Joseph Tegbe, stressed the need for clinical delivery and execution of the tax laws.

Mr Tegbe said that the quality of execution would ultimately determine whether the reform would succeed or merely join a long list of well-intentioned initiatives that failed to transform outcomes. He explained that the countrys continued dependence on what he described as volatile oil revenues exposes it to shocks beyond control, while rising public expenditure demands stable, predictable, and sustainable domestic revenue.

History will judge this reform not simply by the revenues it generates, but by the trust it rebuilds between the Nigerian state and its citizens. It is essential that we are clear about the role of the Nigeria Revenue Service. NRS is not just another agency. It is the nations revenue system integrator, he said.
Suspected terrorists have abducted at least nine worshippers observing a vigil at St Johns Catholic Church in Ojije community, Utonkon District of Ado Local Government Area of Benue State.

The abduction occurred around 2 a.m. on Sunday while the church was observing its vigil as part of a 30-day prayer programme, local sources told Idoma Television.

The victims are mostly women and youths.

The National Publicity Secretary of the Ufia Development Association, Jude Onwe, said gunmen stormed the church premises during prayers and took nine worshippers away.

Around 2 a.m., armed men invaded St Johns Catholic Church and abducted nine worshippers who were attending a vigil, Mr Onwe said in a telephone interview.

He described the incident as particularly disturbing because it happened in a place considered a sanctuary.

Mr Onwe recalled that barely two weeks earlier, a man and a woman were kidnapped in the same community at night and later released after a ransom of N3 million was paid.

He said repeated attacks had disrupted farming, trading and religious activities, leaving residents in constant fear.

The Chairman of Ado Local Government, Sunday Oche, confirmed the abduction and said security agencies had been mobilised.

We received the sad news of the abduction, and I have mobilised all the security agencies. We are working seriously to rescue the victims, he said.

Mr Oche lamented that the church did not involve security operatives despite earlier advice.

Our concern is that people refuse to adhere to advice to involve the police whenever any night activity goes beyond 9 p.m. Whether it is a vigil, burial or festival, ignoring this advice puts people at risk, he added.

The spokesperson of the Benue State Police Command, Udeme Edet, confirmed the incident, saying tactical teams had been deployed to the area.

Security personnel are on the trail of the abductors and efforts to rescue the worshippers are ongoing, she said.

PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported a wave of violent attacks in Benue State in recent weeks, including repeated assaults on communities in Kwande Local Government Area.

On 4 February, gunmen attacked the Abande community in the Turan district, killing residents and a mobile police officer on market day.

Barely two days later, at least 13 traders were killed when armed men raided a market in the same area.

The latest abduction in Ado LGA adds to growing concern about the deteriorating security situation in Benue, months after the June 2025 Yelwata massacre that claimed scores of lives and drew national outrage.
The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Waidi Shaibu, a lieutenant general, has deployed the Chief of Army Staff Intervention Battalion of special forces to Plateau State.

This was conveyed in a statement issued on Monday by Chinonso Oteh, the spokesperson for Operation Enduring Peace, a joint task force in the state.

The special forces, he said, will aggressively and decisively address the resurgence of terror attacks in Plateau.

Mr Oteh said the special forces were welcomed by Folusho Oyinlola, a major general and the commanding officer of the Headquarters 3 Division, who is also the commander of Operation Enduring Peace.

The commanding officer was represented by the operations Chief of Staff, Senlong Sule, a brigadier general, who urged the newly deployed soldiers to be decisive and ruthless in carrying out offensive operations against the terrorists.

Mr Sule, according to the statement, appreciated the Chief of Army Staff for providing troops with the needed combat enablers and other logistics required to carry out their duties.

Mr Sule also appealed to residents of the state not to panic on sighting large numbers of troop movements and other heavy military equipment.

He thanked the residents for their continuous support to the military, urging them to do more by providing actionable and timely intelligence to aid troops fight against terrorists and criminals.

Plateau State has been facing a years-long violence stemming from political, ethnoreligious and farmers-herders conflicts.

More than 4,000 have died since 1994, when the cycles of violence began in the state, following the rejection and agitation by indigenous people of the state over the appointment of Alhaji Mato, a Hausa-Fulani man, as sole administrator for Jos North LGA.

There were more than 15 instances of violence [excluding attacks by Boko Haram insurgents] that led to deaths and destruction of properties in Plateau State, according to a PREMIUM TIMES review of government data archived on the portal of Plateau Peace Building Agency (PPBA).

In 2023, a resource-based conflict broke out between Mwaghavul farmers and Fulani herders who had lived together for years in Mangu Local Government Area.

The conflict, which claimed more than 300 lives, spilled to other areas including Barkin Ladi and Bokkos where scores were killed in an attack that was described as a Christmas Eve massacre.
In a society where age often ushers public figures into quiet retirement, there is a Nigerian who, even at 70, has remained fiercely present through his thoughts and intervention. The man is Pat Utomi, a professor of political economy.

His personality and what he has stood for over the years were behind the noiseless but epoch-making event that took centre stage on 5 February.

The event organised by Prime Business Africa unfurled not in a banquet hall or under the glare of state power, but in a webinar that convened the cerebrals and persons with solid credentials to honour Mr Utomi at 70.

The theme, Leadership and Governance in West Africa: Lessons from a Lifetime of Service, was an apt description of the life under review.

That service has made him, in the lifting metaphor used by the moderator and journalist Jahman Anikulapo, an elephant who is everywhere.

He is everywhere, Mr Anikulapo said, setting the tone. Politics, academics, business, media. I dont even see him as a politician. I see him as an interventionist in politics.

Like the elephant, Mr Utomis presence has been large, impossible to ignore, and deeply consequential to the terrain he traverses.

Day of reckoning with values

Welcoming participants, the Editor-in-Chief of Prime Business Africa, Marcel Mbamalu, said the occasion was both a celebration and a moral reckoning.

It is a big day for us. Prof Pat Utomi is accomplished in academics, business and beyond, yet he remains approachable and accessible.

What Mr Mbamalu admired most, however, was not Mr Utomis resume, but his resistance to compromise, convenience, and ethical shortcuts.

In a society where everyone seems ready to bend the rules to get ahead, when people want to play ball, he will not only stand firm, he will preach to them why they shouldnt. And he acts what he preaches, he said.

That ethical stubbornness, Mr Mbamalu noted, has come at a cost, which includes hostility, isolation, and political travails. Yet, at 70, Mr Utomi appears unconquered, still vibrant with ideas, still optimistic about Nigeria.

Looking at him, you would never know he is 70, Mr Mbamalu added, with a laugh. He still looks like a man hitting his prime.

Knowledge in the push for transformation

For Bongo Adi, a professor of economics and data analytics, Mr Utomi is an epitome of a rare synthesis of intellect and humanity.

Before artificial intelligence, we had Prof, he said.

Mr Adi, an economic expert, recalled a generation of readers who eagerly awaited Mr Utomis newspaper columns, memorising his phrases, borrowing his arguments, and sharpening their own thinking through his prose.

He is an economist, but he breaks things down, he said. When you read him, you see the good, the true and the beautiful, which are ethics, science and art combined.

Mr Utomis knowledge, he said, is not performative. It is directed at transforming the human person and, by extension, society.

If he hasnt referenced you, then maybe you havent made an impact in academics. The way he talks, you know he has given his life to reading, Mr Adi added.

Utomi marries the town and gown

That commitment to reform was offered insight by Abiodun Adeniyi, professor of communication and registrar of Baze University, Abuja, who described Mr Utomi as a thinker obsessed with legacy.

He once told us at Lagos Business School that leadership is ordered, value-centred behaviour. Our problem is that people behave in ways that favour themselves and their friends, not society, he said.

Mr Utomis work on state capture, Mr Adeniyi noted, laid bare how Nigerias institutions have been pocketed by a few, hollowing out governance and public trust.

He marries town and gown. He brings theory to practice. He tells stories that are didactic, and you learn from them, he said.

Yet, there was also regret in Mr Adeniyis voice.

The tragedy is that people like this often grow old without being properly celebrated, he said, referencing the late human rights lawyer, Gani Fawehinmi. We hope it wont be the same with Pat Utomi.

Leadership beyond office

Former Minister of Aviation, Osita Chidoka, mentioned Mr Utomis influence in his refusal to disappear from the scene after public service. Mr Utomi had served as a special assistant to President Shehu Shagari in 1982 at the age of 26, but the position was short-lived due to the military coup that ended the Second Republic in 1983.

When he left office, he moved on to his future, not his past. Many fade away. He did not, Mr Chidoka said of Mr Utomi.

Nigerias failure, he argued, lies in its reluctance to accept that knowledge matters in leadership.

There are those who know, and those who dont. It is those who know that should lead, he said.

Loaded bus of ideas

Okey Ikechukwu, a professor of strategic management and human capital development, offered one of the days standout, vivid images.

Prof Pat Utomi is a loaded bus, he said. We should allow him to offload what he has.

Mr Utomi, he asserted, has led without title, governed his conduct with dignity, and refused to accept what is unacceptable.

He is not poor in cash or ideas. He believes that knowledge and capacity cannot be hidden. He is a man of legacy, Mr Ikechukwu said.

Ethics as the missing link

For Chinyere Okunna, a professor of mass communications, the central deficit in Nigeria and Africa remains ethics.

Our leaders are there for selfish interest. And there is no belief in goodness for the people, she said. She recalled her first political encounter with Mr Utomi during the movement from the Peoples Democratic Party to the Labour Party.

That was when I knew he had values, Mrs Okunna said. We have a few people at 70 still shining. The younger generation will look at you and draw hope.

Humbled response

When Mr Utomi finally spoke, it was not with triumph, but with gratitude and a rain of emotions.

The kindness of these words overwhelms me. It would take many retirement years to respond, he said.

He remembered friends who were ill, colleagues who had passed away, teachers whose shoulders bore his journey, and communities that shaped his humanity.

I am because we are, he said softly, invoking the African ethic of shared existence. A broom is more resistant than a broomstick.

His gratitude stretched across generations, from elders to younger professionals, from visible leaders to quiet pillars.

My bouquet of gratitude is too large to carry with elegance, he concluded. So I yield.
Zhao Leji, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, presides over a meeting of the Council of Chairpersons of the NPC Standing Committee at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 10, 2026. (Xinhua/Zhang Ling)

BEIJING, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC) will hold its 21st session in Beijing on Feb. 25 and 26.

This decision was made on Tuesday during a meeting of the Council of Chairpersons of the NPC Standing Committee, which was presided over by Zhao Leji, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee.

According to a proposed agenda discussed at the meeting on Tuesday, lawmakers at the upcoming session will review a report on the NPC Standing Committee's work, a draft agenda for the fourth session of the 14th NPC, a draft name list of people considered for the presidium and the role of secretary-general, a draft name list of non-voting delegates, and other reports.

The proposed agenda reveals that draft revisions to the law on certified public accountants and a draft fire and rescue personnel law will be submitted to the session for the first time. Lawmakers will also deliberate on a draft law on social assistance.

During Tuesday's meeting, a report on the handling of public complaints by NPC bodies in 2025 and their draft measures to further improve the working mechanism for implementing the Law on the Oversight by the Standing Committees of People's Congresses at All Levels, were also reviewed. 
There was improved turnout of traders on Monday at the Onitsha Main Market in Anambra State after Nnamdi Kanu announced total cancellation of the infamous Monday sit-at-home in the South-east.

PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported that Mr Kanu, the convicted leader of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), announced the cancellation of the illegal directive in the region on Sunday.

Emma Powerful, the IPOB spokesperson, said Mr Kanu gave the directive from the Sokoto prison facility where he is serving life imprisonment for terrorism.

Mr Kanus directive came barely two weeks after Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra State ordered the temporary closure of the Onitsha Main Market due to traders compliance with the illegal IPOB sit-at-home directive.

Mr Soludo only reopened the market one week after the closure and threatened to sanction any trader who continues to observe the sit-at-home.

Improved turnout

The market opened for business on 2 February, which was the first time the market would open on a Monday since 2021 when IPOB first imposed the sit-at-home directive on residents of the South-east.

But yesterday, Monday, 9 February, PREMIUM TIMES gathered from traders in the market that there was an improved turnout of shop owners in the market.

Arinze Ajaezu, a shop owner in the market, told this newspaper that the declaration by the IPOB and another self-acclaimed pro-Biafra group, Biafra Liberation Army, might have been responsible for the improved turnout of traders in the market.

People came out much better than last Monday (2 February), Mr Ajaezu, who deals in stationery, said.

You know the news is everywhere that IPOB and other groups have cancelled the sit-at-home.

He, however, lamented that buyers were yet to resume shopping in the market.

Customers have not yet started coming. About 95 per cent of traders that opened today (Monday) did not make any sales, he said.

Another shop owner and a former chairperson of the market, Kenneth Onyeka, told PREMIUM TIMES that traders turned out, but he expected a higher turnout given that the illegal directive had been cancelled.

Mr Onyeka said he believes that since IPOB and other pro-Biafra groups announced the cancellation of the sit-at-home just hours before Monday could have contributed to the low turnout of shoppers.

I believe that there will be a higher turnout next Monday, he said.

Video clips

Video clips circulating on Facebook showed some traders opening for business in the market on Monday, 9 February.

In one of the clips, shop owners were seen ready for business at the First Bank Line of the market. However, some shops in the line were still locked.

Another clip showed traders along Sokoto Road in the market opening their shops on the same Monday.

Sit-at-home in other parts of the South-east?

Findings by PREMIUM TIMES showed that sit-at-home in most parts of the South-east has largely disappeared.

A journalist based in Umuahia, Abia State capital, Emmanuel Nwazue, told this newspaper that business activities have been ongoing in the city because the sit-at-home directive has not been in effect in the area for years.

The fact is that Umuahia doesnt even observe sit-at-home at all  whether cancelled or not, Mr Nwazue said, when asked if the recent cancellation had an impact.

Umuahia is close to Afara-Ukwu, the home of Mr Kanu, whose incarceration initially resulted in the illegal sit-at-home.

Mr Nwazue explained that the sit-at-home was only held in the state capital a few times after it was initially declared, but later stopped.

So, today (9 February) was just like a normal day. Markets opened. Banks were working. People went to work.

However, PREMIUM TIMES gathered that there was partial compliance with the sit-at-home order in Aba, the commercial hub of Abia State, despite the cancellation of the illegal directive.

In Enugu State, a PREMIUM TIMES reporter who visited the popular Ogbete Main Market reported that there was an improved turnout of traders on Monday. Some shops, however, remained locked in parts of the market.

The situation was the same in Owerri, Imo State capital.

A resident of Owerri, Benjamin Ohadoma, said the sit-at-home had been inactive in the state capital for a while.

Mr Ohadoma said markets had been opening on Mondays in Owerri, with fewer traders due to fear, but that there was a remarkable improvement in the turnout last Monday, 9 February.

He, however, said the sit-at-home has been active in volatile areas of the state, such as Orlu and Okigwe, where fear of criminal attacks often forces residents to stay at home on Mondays.

Now, in Owerri, people usually come out to do their business on Monday. Every business is moving, he said.

Ben Okolo, another resident of Owerri, told PREMIUM TIMES that the state governments heavy deployment of security operatives helped to stimulate peoples confidence in coming out for business on Mondays in Owerri

So because of that confidence, many markets in Owerri, like Ekeukwu, Alaba and the World Bank markets, usually open every Monday, Mr Okolo said.

He said those who still obey the illegal directive in some parts of the state, like Okigwe, Orlu, and Orsu Areas, did so out of sympathy for the Biafra struggle and Mr Kanu.

In Ebonyi, another state in the South-east, the reality remains the same: Sit-at-home has not been active there.

Solomon Alegu, a resident of Abakaliki, the state capital, told PREMIUM TIMES that markets, schools, banks and hotels were open on Monday, as they are on any other day.

Mr Alegu explained that the sit-at-home directive usually recorded partial compliance in Abakaliki whenever Mr Kanu was to appear in court during his trial at the Federal High Court, Abuja.

And even during that time, only a few shops were locked. But government institutions never observed it, he said.

Background

The Monday sit-at-home began in the South-east in August 2021 when IPOB imposed it on residents of the region.

The directive was intended to pressure the Nigerian government to release the IPOB leader, Mr Kanu, who was facing terrorism charges at the Federal High Court, Abuja, at the time.

The group, in August 2021, suspended the weekly directive for the first time, limiting it to days Mr Kanu appeared in court.

However, residents of Enugu, Ebonyi, Imo, Abia and Anambra states continued to observe the directive largely out of fear.

Gunmen, linked to a group led by a controversial Biafra agitator, Simon Ekpa, often enforced the sit-at-home, and had killed many residents and punished others for flouting it.

IPOB repeatedly distanced itself from the continued enforcement of the sit-at-home, insisting that those behind it were criminals exploiting the groups name.

Despite this, Mr Ekpa, a Finland-based Biafra agitator, persisted in declaring the sit-at-home.

For the second time, Mr Kanu, in July 2023, through his lawyer Aloy Ejimakor, directed Mr Ekpa to halt the action. Mr Ekpa dismissed the directive as fake, insisting the sit-at-home would continue unless Mr Kanu personally addressed him in Finland.

The enforcement of the sit-at-home had resulted in deadly attacks and the destruction of goods for years.

PREMIUM TIMES has documented how the sit-at-home destroys businesses in the South-east, prevents residents from accessing healthcare and even worsens food security in the region.

Efforts by Igbo leaders, including Enugu Governor Peter Mbah, Anambra Governor Mr Soludo and Ohanaeze Ndi Igbo, to end the practice yielded limited results.

While the sit-at-home has largely disappeared in Enugu, Abia and Ebonyi states, it persisted in Anambra and Imo.

Meanwhile, Mr Kanu was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for terrorism in November, while Mr Ekpa received a six-year prison sentence in Finland for similar offences which he committed in South-east Nigeria.
An operative of the Ondo State Security Network Agency, Amotekun, on Tuesday told the Federal High Court in Abuja that he engaged in a gun battle with the attackers behind the 5 June 2022 massacre at St. Francis Catholic Church, Owo.

He narrated before trial judge Emeka Nwite that the gun battle led to the killing of a hunter who was accompanying his team into a bush where they tracked the attackers.

The witness, who was codenamed SSG under court-approved witness protection measure, testified at Tuesdays hearing in the trial of five men facing prosecution in connection to the terrorist attack, which reportedly claimed the lives of more than 40 worshippers of the church and injured over 150 during a Pentecost Mass of the church.

In his testimony, the witness, a resident of Owo, identified the second defendant, Al Qasim Idris, 20, as one of the attackers he fought in the bush.

The rest of the defendants are Idris Omeiza, 25; Jamiu Abdulmalik, 26; Abdulhaleem Idris, 25; and Momoh Otuho Abubakar, 47.

Led in evidence by the prosecution lawyer, Ayodeji Adepipe, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, the witness an assistant commander with Amotekun codenamed SSG as part of court-approved witness protection measure said his team met the fleeing attackers in the bush shortly after the church shooting after eyewitnesses provided intelligence.

He said he responded to a separate kidnapping incident at Shagari Village in Owo when his commander ordered him to abandon the mission following reports of the church attack.

SSG, who testified as the seventh prosecution witness, narrated that when he arrived at the church, he saw spent AK-47 shells scattered on the ground and lifeless bodies of men, women, and children inside the building, alongside several injured worshippers.

He said responders moved the injured to the Federal Medical Centre, Owo, while authorities took the bodies to St. Louis Hospital.

The witness told the court that a corn seller and a motorcycle rider informed him that the attackers fled in a blue Nissan vehicle toward the Achievers University axis along Ute Road.

He said the vehicle was with registration number AKR 895 AG.

We learnt the attackers moved towards Achievers University at Ute Road. I pursued them with my men on our patrol vehicle.

When we got to Ijegunman Village, and immediately they saw us, they ran into the bush. They were four in number.

As they ran into the bush, they left the vehicle by the side of the road in Ijegunman, Ute. I searched the vehicle, saw a pack of pure water (satchet water).

The colour of the vehicle is blue with registration number: AKR/895/AG. So, I sent two of my men to drive the vehicle to Amotekun office in Owo, he said.

At a cocoa farm, SSG said the trail faded until he noticed movement nearby. I saw the mouth of an AK-47 rifle pointed at me, he said.

He said he tried to fire his pump-action gun but realised it was on safety mode. He said after he disengaged it, a gun battle broke out.

The witness said the attackers, who had an AK47 rifle each, began shooting at them, and that he also responded with his pump action gun.

He said during the exchange of gunfire, three of the attackers ran deeper into the bush, leaving one who hid behind a tree and aimed at him with his AK47 rifle, but succeeded in killing the hunter who was behind him (the witness).

SSG said he evacuated the hunters body to the mortuary at the Federal Medical Centre, Owo.

Identification

When asked to identify the gunman, the witness pointed to the second defendant in court and repeated the identification during cross-examination.

The witness said he saw the man, who shot and killed the hunter, at a close range and could identify him, although the incident happened about four years ago.

With the permission of the judge, the witness stepped out of the witness box and moved closer to the dock where he pointed at the second defendant (Al Qasim Idris, 20 years old),

The witness said on the second day, which was 6 June 2022, he took pictures of the recovered vehicle before transferring it to the Amotekuns state headquarters.

Photo exhibits

SSG said he used his phone, a Samsung Galaxy A12, to take the pictures of the vehicle.

He identified the photographs when shown by the prosecution lawyer, following which the pictures were tendered and admitted in evidence.

The witness said he later transferred both his report and the vehicle to the states headquarters of Amotekun.

He said security agencies, including the police, civil defence corps, the SSS, and others later arrested the suspect.

The witness also identified photographs of the recovered vehicle and told the court that security agencies still hold the car.

Cross-examination

Under cross-examination by a defence lawyer, the witness who was asked to reconfirm the person he actually saw, went closer to the dock again and still pointed at the second defendant.

When asked why he could not arrest the second defendant who was alone with him when the other three went deeper into the bush, the witness said he could not because the man was holding an AK47 rifle, which was more powerful than his own Pump Action rifle.

The witness, who described himself as an Assistant Commander in Amotekun, said he was also not sure if the other three were hiding somewhere to later come after him.

The seventh prosecution witness said the second defendant was later arrested as a result of the collaborative efforts of all the security agencies in Ondo State.

On the current whereabouts of the recovered car, he said it was at the Amotekun headquarters where he handed it over to his boss and that it was only his boss that could answer the question as to whether they investigated to ascertain the actual owners of the vehicle.

How pathologist conducted post-mortem examinations

Earlier, a pathologist, code-named SSF, who t testified as the sixth prosecution witness, told the court that he conducted post-mortem examinations on victims of the June 2022 church attack after the Ondo State Commissioner for Health, Dr Awo Ajaka, invited him.

He said the bodies showed multiple gunshot injuries fired from different directions, which caused massive internal bleeding and death.

He identified several victims by name and body numbers in the forensic report admitted as evidence and said the original copy was submitted to the Ondo State Government.

During cross-examination, SSF said he could not determine the exact type of firearm or bullets used because he is a pathologist, not a ballistic expert. The court upheld the prosecutions objection and discharged the witness.

The court adjourned the case until 11 February for continuation of trial.

Background

On 5 June 2022, gunmen attacked St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State, during Pentecost Mass, killing more than 40 worshippers and injuring over 100 others.

On 11 August 2025, more than three years after the attack, the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) arraigned five men on terrorism charges in connection with the incident.

Prosecutors alleged the defendants were members of an Al-Shabaab cell operating in Kogi State and planned and carried out the attack as part of a violent religious agenda.

The five defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Their lawyer later applied for bail during a 19 August 2025 hearing, arguing that the defendants were presumed innocent and would attend trial without interfering with witnesses.

The prosecution opposed the application, saying some accomplices remained at large and posed a threat to witnesses, and cited the defendants alleged links to foreign terrorist groups.

In September, the trial judge, Emeka Nwite, dismissed the bail application, ruling that it lacked merit given the gravity of the charges and the strength of the prosecutions case.

Since opening its case on 11 December, the prosecution had now called about seven witnesses, many of whom recounted the horrors of the attack, describing its nature and the number of victims killed.

On 13 January, a prosecution witness recounted the hour-long incident in court and identified two of the suspected assailants among the five defendants facing terrorism charges.
An officer of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) on Tuesday told the Federal High Court in Lagos how an Austrian national, Kavlak Onal, was intercepted with $800,575 and 651,505 in undeclared cash at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Ikeja.

Mr Onal is standing trial before Judge Yelim Bogoro on two counts of failure to declare the funds, contrary to Section 3(5) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition and Prevention) Act, 2022.

Testifying as the first prosecution witness, Yusuf Suleiman, a profiling officer with the NCS at the airport, said the defendant was stopped on 16 December 2025 while preparing to board an Emirates flight to Dubai.

According to him, a protocol officer had approached him at his duty post requesting assistance for a passenger described as sick who needed help at the boarding gate.

I asked the protocol officer whether the passenger had any currency to declare, and he said the passenger told him he had none, Mr Suleiman said, according to a statement shared with PREMIUM TIMES on Tuesday by EFCC spokesperson Dele Oyewale.

He told the court that he insisted on confirming directly from the passenger.

In the presence of my colleague, Joshua Ogundire, we asked him if he had any money to declare and he said he did not, the witness said.

Discovery of the cash

Mr Suleiman said he subsequently directed that the defendants luggage be searched.

During the search, a huge amount of money was discovered in different denominations  United States dollars and euros, he said.

According to him, the bag was filled with cash, prompting him to escalate the matter to his superior officer.

The witness further alleged that the defendant attempted to persuade the officers not to proceed with official reporting.

When my colleague stepped out, Mr Onal pleaded that he could raise some amount for him so he could let him go. He also pleaded with us not to make calls, saying he could settle us and leave, Mr Suleiman testified.

The money was later counted in a search room and confirmed to be $800,575 and 651,505.

He added that some of the cash was bundled, while others were kept in envelopes bearing inscriptions.

Declaration requirement

Explaining the procedure, the witness said passengers carrying funds exceeding $10,000 or its equivalent are required to declare the amount at the Customs Currency Declaration Desk.

He said the airport regularly makes public announcements to that effect and has visible signage at inbound and outbound terminals guiding passengers on electronic declaration procedures.

Passengers can declare before coming to the airport, at home, or within the airport premises electronically, he said.

Mr Suleiman told the court that the defendant admitted he was aware of the declaration requirement as a frequent traveller and had previously travelled with between $20,000 and $30,000, though not as much as the amount found in his luggage on the day in question.

He said the defendants statement was taken and he was handed over, along with the recovered funds, passport and boarding pass, to the Area Comptroller.

The case was subsequently transferred to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Dispute over statement

During the proceedings, prosecution lawyer Bilikisu Buhari sought to tender the defendants statement through the witness.

However, defence lawyer Victor Okpara, who is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), objected, arguing that the statement was not voluntarily made and was a product of unacceptable inducement.

He urged the court to conduct a trial-within-trial to determine its admissibility.

Following the objection, the prosecution withdrew the document, and the court granted the request.

Cross-examination

Under cross-examination, Mr Suleiman said he has been with the NCS since 2011 and is responsible for monitoring, controlling and profiling passengers to ensure compliance with currency declaration laws.

He confirmed that airport signage is written in English and French.

He also acknowledged that the defendants statement was taken at the Customs desk without a lawyer present but maintained that it was made voluntarily and without duress.

The witness disagreed with the defences suggestion that the defendant had disclosed he had money in his luggage but did not know the exact amount.

He insisted that Mr Onal stated he had no money to declare.

Mr Bogoro adjourned the matter until 27 February for continuation of trial.

The EFCCs Lagos Zonal Directorate 2 arraigned Mr Onal on 9 January on two counts.

Count one alleges that he failed to declare $800,575 to the Nigeria Customs Service at the airport, while count two alleges failure to declare 651,505, offences punishable under Section 3(5) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition and Prevention) Act, 2022.

He pleaded not guilty to the charges.
ICI urges Congress to Pass Tax Reform for Middle-Class

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Today the Investment Company Institute (ICI) called on Congressional leadership to pass the bipartisan Generating Retirement Ownership Through Long-Term Holding (GROWTH) Act, a bill allowing investors to defer taxation of automatically reinvested capital gains distributions until they sell their fund shares. Investors could see up to $1,340 more in returns over a ten-year period on a $10,000 equity mutual fund investment.

"The GROWTH Act would allow Main Street investors to keep more of their own money, incentivize them to keep investing, and make the tax system fairer to around 40 million middle-class Americans. These families rely on investments in mutual funds to save for a house, pay for their children's education, and ensure they have enough money in their senior years," said ICI President and CEO Eric Pan. "We strongly urge both chambers of Congress to pass the GROWTH Act and improve long-term financial security for millions of Americans."

Background:

Around 40 million Americans hold $7 trillion of long-term mutual fund assets in taxable brokerage accounts.

These households are middle class, with a median income of $140,000.

An investor who made an initial $10,000 investment in an actively managed US equity mutual fund in 2015 and sold the shares in 2024 would have had up to $1,340 more in return after paying all taxes if the GROWTH Act's tax deferral had been in effect.

The GROWTH Act does not exempt capital gains from taxation, it simply delays the taxation until the investor sells the sharesunder this scenario, that investor would also pay an additional $140 in capital gains taxes.

This makes the taxation of mutual funds consistent with the taxation of other assets, where most capital gains taxes are not levied until an investor sells and actually realizes the gains.

Read the letter ICI sent to Congressional leadership today here.

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SOURCE Investment Company Institute
In the news release, ASCO and Conexiant Launch ASCO AI in Oncology, a Premium Digital Destination Connecting Brands with Oncology Professionals Exploring AI in Cancer Care, issued 10-Feb-2026 by Conexiant over PR Newswire, we are advised by the company that changes have been made. The complete, corrected release follows, with additional details at the end:

ASCO and Conexiant Launch ASCO AI in Oncology, a Premium Digital Destination Connecting Brands with Oncology Professionals Exploring AI in Cancer Care

New platform offers pharmaceutical, biotech, and health technology companies exclusive access to oncologists engaging with AI-focused content and education

TAMPA, Fla., Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), in collaboration with Conexiant, today announced the launch of ASCO AI in Oncology, a new digital destination focused on delivering curated content and education around the evolving role of artificial intelligence (AI) in cancer care.

ASCO AI in Oncology (PRNewsfoto/Conexiant)

For life sciences, pharmaceutical, biotech, and AI technology companies, ASCO AI in Oncology offers a premium environment to reach oncology professionals who are actively seeking insight into how AI is influencing diagnostics, workflows, treatment pathways, and the future of oncology practice.

ASCO AI in Oncology features ASCO-sourced intelligence, expert perspectives, and practitioner-driven insight. The platform creates a unique opportunity for brands to align their messaging with credible, education-forward content in a highly relevant clinical setting.

"AI usage in the cancer care community has reached an inflection point, where innovation is moving faster than shared understanding," said Lee Schweizer. "Through our long-standing collaboration with ASCObuilt on more than 15 years of producing trusted oncology news, including early coverage of AIwe jointly recognized the need for an authoritative, educational platform that brings clarity and direction to this rapidly evolving space. ASCO is uniquely positioned to amplify this conversation, and by combining their clinical leadership, access to key opinion leaders, and deep institutional credibility with our digital publishing expertise, ASCO AI in Oncology was created to deliver practical insight, education, and perspective for oncologists at every stage of AI adoption."

Engaging Oncologists in the AI Conversation

ASCO AI in Oncology attracts oncology professionals who are actively engaging with AI-focused content and education related to cancer care. The audience includes ASCO members across specialties, offering advertisers access to a clinically sophisticated readership in a context that emphasizes learning, innovation, and forward-looking discussion.

For pharmaceutical companies, ASCO AI in Oncology introduces a new channel to maintain year-round brand presence alongside AI-driven conversations shaping oncology practice. For AI and health technology companies, the platform provides a targeted environment to educate and connect with oncologists evaluating emerging solutions.

About ASCO AI in Oncology

ASCO AI in Oncology is a digital destination developed through a collaboration between the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and Conexiant. The platform delivers curated content, education, and expert perspectives focused on the impact of artificial intelligence in oncology. Visit: ASCOAI.org

About Conexiant

Conexiant is a premier global healthcare destination, renowned for its trusted clinical content, extensive audience engagement, and comprehensive educational library. The integrated Conexiant network, encompassing digital solutions, event production, learning, publications and revenue operations, empowers organizations and healthcare professionals with actionable insights, peer-driven education, and cutting-edge resources that drive better clinical decisions and patient outcomes. For over 30 years, Conexiant has partnered with some of the largest associations and sought-after healthcare audiences, leveraging an industry-leading portfolio of brands and solutions. Through effective marketing, education, and engagement strategies, Conexiant empowers our customers to directly engage their target audience and maximize their return on investment. For more information, visit conexiantsolutions.com.

Correction: A link has been added to the "About ASCO AI in Oncology" section.

SOURCE Conexiant
NEW YORK, Feb. 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ --

Why: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, reminds purchasers of securities of Bath & Body Works, Inc. (NYSE: BBWI) between June 4, 2024 and November 19, 2025, both dates inclusive (the "Class Period"), of the important March 16, 2026 lead plaintiff deadline.

So What: If you purchased Bath & Body Works securities during the Class Period you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement.

What to do next: To join the Bath & Body Works class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=50622 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email [email protected] for information on the class action. A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than March 16, 2026. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation.

Why Rosen Law: We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience, resources, or any meaningful peer recognition. Many of these firms do not actually handle securities class actions, but are merely middlemen that refer clients or partner with law firms that actually litigate the cases. Be wise in selecting counsel. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm has achieved, at that time, the largest ever securities class action settlement against a Chinese Company. Rosen Law Firm was Ranked No. 1 by ISS Securities Class Action Services for number of securities class action settlements in 2017. The firm has been ranked in the top 4 each year since 2013 and has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors. In 2019 alone the firm secured over $438 million for investors. In 2020, founding partner Laurence Rosen was named by law360 as a Titan of Plaintiffs' Bar. Many of the firm's attorneys have been recognized by Lawdragon and Super Lawyers.

Details of the case: According to the lawsuit, throughout the Class Period, defendants made materially false and/or misleading statements, and that defendants failed to disclose that: (1) Bath & Body Works' strategy of pursuing "adjacencies, collaborations and promotions" was not growing the customer base and/or delivering the level of growth in net sales touted; (2) as Bath & Body Works' strategy of "adjacencies, collaborations and promotions" faltered, it relied on brand collaborations "to carry quarters" and obfuscate otherwise weak underlying financial results; (3) as a result, Bath & Body Works was unlikely to meet its own previously issued financial guidance; and (4) as a result of the foregoing, defendants' positive statements about Bath & Body Works' business, operations, and prospects were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages.

To join the Body & Body Works class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=50622 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email [email protected] for information on the class action.

No Class Has Been Certified. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. You may select counsel of your choice. You may also remain an absent class member and do nothing at this point. An investor's ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff.

Follow us for updates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm, on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosen_firm or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm/.

Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Contact Information:

Laurence Rosen, Esq.

Phillip Kim, Esq.

The Rosen Law Firm, P.A.

275 Madison Avenue, 40th Floor

New York, NY 10016

Tel: (212) 686-1060

Toll Free: (866) 767-3653

Fax: (212) 202-3827

[email protected]

www.rosenlegal.com

SOURCE THE ROSEN LAW FIRM, P. A.
ZUG, Switzerland, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- BSV Association today announced formal recognition under the EU's Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) framework through its collaboration with Zumo and work with the MiCA Crypto Alliance, alongside co-authoring a new white paper aimed at supporting the practical implementation of Europe's first comprehensive crypto regulation.

Rather than focusing on theory, the initiative centres on execution, providing regulators, enterprises and public sector bodies with clear technical standards and compliance guidance for deploying blockchain within MiCA's legal framework.

The milestone places BSV among the first public blockchain ecosystems to work directly with policymakers, researchers and market participants to translate MiCA's requirements into operational infrastructure, ensuring digital assets can be used within clear, enforceable and auditable regulatory boundaries.

The joint white paper sets out how scalable public blockchains can meet supervisory expectations around transparency, traceability, consumer protection and accountability, while giving institutions a blueprint for compliant deployment at scale.

Under MiCA, BSV is classified as 'other crypto asset (OTH)', distinct from Asset Referenced Tokens (ARTs) and Electronic Money Tokens (EMTs). It is a decentralised, peer-to-peer digital asset native to the BSV Blockchain, not backed by any issuer or asset and conferring no ownership, dividend or governance rights.

The BSV digital asset is fully fungible, enabling seamless peer-to-peer payments, functioning as a unit of account, and serving as the transaction payment instrument that secures network operations. Together, these core functions underpin a protocol that does not rely on staking, delegated validation, or governance structures, reinforcing its role as neutral public infrastructure and making it well suited for regulated markets and institutional use.

By aligning with MiCA's requirements and contributing to shared standards, the Association aims to provide businesses and governments with the legal certainty and technical assurance needed to move from pilots to production deployments.

Asgeir Oskarsson, Managing Director of BSV Association, said:

"Regulation is not a barrier to innovation, it is the foundation for trust and long-term growth. Europe has set a clear rulebook with MiCA and the next step is implementation. Our work with the MiCA Crypto Alliance focuses on turning regulatory intent into practical standards that enterprises and public institutions can deploy against."

Juan Ignacio Ibanez, General Secretary of the MiCA Crypto Alliance, added:

"MiCA's success depends on credible, technically sound infrastructure that can demonstrate compliance in practice. BSV Association's engagement shows how public blockchains can operate within regulatory guardrails while delivering transparency and accountability. This collaboration helps bridge the gap between policy and real-world adoption."

Neshma Emile, Head of GTM & Sustainability Products at Zumo said: "We believe the future of crypto adoption will be defined by leadership in sustainability, transparency and regulatory trust. Not by box-ticking. By working with forward-thinking organisations like BSV, we're showing how sustainability and compliance-led design can deliver verifiable, auditable infrastructure that regulators and institutions can rely on. This is how crypto firms turn compliance into a competitive advantage. "

Monty Metzger, CEO of LCX, said: "Europe's Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation provides a landmark framework to bring digital asset markets into accountable, transparent, and institutionally trusted infrastructure. At LCX we've structured our regulated exchange and compliance systems to meet the evolving demands of MiCA and Liechtenstein's TVTG framework, enabling projects to access deep European liquidity within a clear legal guardrail. Collaborating with industry innovators like the BSV Association demonstrates how forward-looking blockchain ecosystems can operationalise MiCA's principles and bring compliant, scalable digital assets to professional and retail participants alike."

The partnership reflects a broader shift across Europe towards enterprise grade, compliant blockchain networks that prioritise legal certainty, oversight and measurable outcomes, signalling the market's transition from experimentation to regulated deployment.

About BSV Association

BSV Association is a Switzerland based non-profit organisation that serves as the global advocate for the BSV blockchain. Its mission is to advance adoption and unlock the full potential of BSV as a scalable, secure and energy-efficient public blockchain built for data integrity, enterprise solutions and government applications. The Association supports developers, enterprises and public sector institutions by fostering innovation, encouraging regulatory compliance and promoting real-world use cases that demonstrate blockchain's value on a global scale. Through education, developer engagement, strategic partnerships, public policy initiatives and technological advancement, BSV Association is committed to driving sustainable growth and long-term utility of blockchain technology.

About the MiCA Crypto Alliance

The MiCA Crypto Alliance, founded by Exponential Science, was established to accelerate the responsible implementation of the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation. By connecting researchers, policymakers and market participants, the Alliance provides shared standards, data-driven research and public tools that make regulatory compliance practical, verifiable and transparent.

About Zumo

Zumo is the UK-based digital asset platform enabling businesses to launch and scale crypto products with confidence. Combining modular, API-first infrastructure with deep expertise, Zumo is the trusted partner for crypto firms, fintechs and financial institutions entering and operating in the UK market. Zumo is recognised for its sustainability-led approach and its contribution to industry guidance on decarbonisation and digital asset sustainability. A pioneer of sustainability in crypto, Zumo enables firms to demonstrate ESG leadership while addressing evolving regulatory and reporting expectations. Zumo is a trading name of Zumo Financial Services Limited (FCA reference 901033) and Zumo Technology Limited. ZUMO is a registered trademark of Blockstar Holdings Limited (EU TM Reg No. 17996331). Find out more at zumo.tech

About LCX

LCX (Liberty Crypto Exchange) is a regulated digital asset exchange and blockchain ecosystem headquartered in Vaduz, Liechtenstein. Founded in 2018, LCX is regulated by the Financial Market Authority of Liechtenstein as a Trusted Technology Service Provider and operates under Liechtenstein's Token and Trusted Technology Service Provider Act (TVTG) with multiple regulatory registrations. LCX is also progressing through EU Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) licensing to support compliant asset trading and token issuance across Europe. The LCX platform offers secure spot trading, fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-crypto markets, tokenisation services, regulated token sales, custody, price oracles, and advanced trading tools, all designed to bridge traditional financial markets with digital asset innovation. Through a compliance-first approach and institutional-grade infrastructure, LCX empowers projects and users to engage with digital assets under clear, enforceable regulatory standards.

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2714460/5781326/BSV_ASSOCIATION_Logo.jpg

SOURCE BSV Association
Centric Software is listed in the latest Gartner release of vendors that provide pricing, promotion and markdown optimization solutions for retailers

CAMPBELL, Calif., Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Centric Software is pleased to announce that it has been named in Gartner's Competitive Landscape: Retail Unified Price, Promotion and Markdown Optimization Solutions, a report that examines vendors supporting retailers with AI-powered pricing, promotion and markdown optimized capabilities. Centric Software delivers innovative, integrated, end-to-end AI-powered enterprise solutions to take products from concept to commercialization. Fashion, luxury, footwear, outdoor, home, cosmetics & personal care as well as multi-category retail companies can plan, design, develop, source, comply, buy, make, price, allocate, assort, sell and replenish products to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.

Centric Software Named in Gartner Competitive Landscape Report for Retail Unified Price, Promotion and Markdown Optimization Solutions

Gartner is a leading global technological research and consulting firm providing actionable insights to thousands of enterprises worldwide. Its competitive landscape report covers pricing, promotion and markdown optimization. It cites the drawbacks of aging ERP systems and homegrown AI merchandising tools.

Centric Software addresses retail pricing complexity through Centric Pricing & Inventory, supported by Centric Market Intelligence, delivering AI-powered capabilities that optimize pricing decisions from pre-season price setting through in-season promotions and end-of-season markdowns.

With a focus on short lifecycle categories such as fashion, footwear and seasonal goods, Centric Pricing & Inventory enables brands and retailers to centralize pricing strategies, align cross-functional teams and execute pricing decisions consistently across channels, regions and product hierarchies. This lifecycle-based approach supports stronger full-price sell-through, reduced markdown reliance and protected margins at scale.

In the report, Gartner identifies Centric Software as a Representative Vendor for unified price, promotion and markdown optimization solutions for retailers. Centric Software supports lifecycle pricing decisions with AI-driven optimization and explainable decision logic designed to improve transparency and speed across pricing workflows.

Centric Software's modular SaaS architecture enables localized execution with centralized control, allowing brands and retailers to scale pricing strategies across diverse markets while maintaining agility in volatile trading environments.

Building on these capabilities, Centric Software continues to evolve its approach to price management by connecting pricing and inventory optimization with retail merchandise planning and market intelligence capabilities across the Centric platform. This broader vision reflects the industry's shift toward more connected, insight-driven pricing workflows, extending beyond optimization to support scenario planning, strategic alignment and market responsiveness.

"Being included in Gartner's competitive landscape for unified price, promotion and markdown optimization solutions is an important recognition," says Fabrice Canonge, CEO of Centric Software. "As pricing decisions become more complex and increasingly influenced by AI, retailers need purpose-built solutions that bring speed, transparency and control to the entire pricing lifecycle. These capabilities are critical to protecting margins and staying competitive in fast-moving markets."

Read the Gartner report

Disclaimer: Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Request a Demo

Centric Software (www.centricsoftware.com)

From its headquarters in Silicon Valley, Centric Software provides an innovative and AI-enabled product concept-to-commercialization platform for retailers, brands and manufacturers of all sizes. As experts in fashion, luxury, footwear, outdoor, home, food & beverage, cosmetics & personal care as well as multi-category retail, Centric Software delivers best-of-breed solutions to plan, design, develop, source, comply, buy, make, price, allocate, sell and replenish products.

Centric PLM, the leading PLM solution for fashion, outdoor, footwear and private label, optimizes product execution from ideation to development, sourcing and manufacture, realizing up to 50% improvement in productivity and a 60% decrease in time to market.

the leading PLM solution for fashion, outdoor, footwear and private label, optimizes product execution from ideation to development, sourcing and manufacture, realizing up to 50% improvement in productivity and a 60% decrease in time to market. Centric Planning is an innovative, cloud-native, AI solution delivering end-to-end planning capabilities to maximize retail and wholesale business performance, including SKU optimization, resulting in an up to 110% increase in margins.

is an innovative, cloud-native, AI solution delivering end-to-end planning capabilities to maximize retail and wholesale business performance, including SKU optimization, resulting in an up to 110% increase in margins. Centric Pricing & Inventory leverages AI to drive margins and boost revenues by up to 18% via price and inventory optimization from pre-season to in-season to season completion.

leverages AI to drive margins and boost revenues by up to 18% via price and inventory optimization from pre-season to in-season to season completion. Centric Market Intelligence is an AI-driven platform delivering insights into consumer trends, competitor offers and pricing to boost competitively and get closer to the consumer, driving up to a 12% increase in average initial price point.

is an AI-driven platform delivering insights into consumer trends, competitor offers and pricing to boost competitively and get closer to the consumer, driving up to a 12% increase in average initial price point. Centric Visual Boards pivot actionable data in a visual-first orientation to ensure robust, consumer-right assortments and product offers, dramatically decreasing assortment development cycle time.

pivot actionable data in a visual-first orientation to ensure robust, consumer-right assortments and product offers, dramatically decreasing assortment development cycle time. Centric PXM, AI-powered product experience management (PXM) encompasses PIM, DAM, content syndication and digital shelf analytics (DSA) to optimize the product commercialization lifecycle resulting in a transformed brand experience. Increase sales channels, boost sell through and drive margins.

Centric Software's market-driven solutions have the highest user adoption rate, customer satisfaction rate and fastest time to value in the industry. Centric Software has received multiple industry awards and recognition, appearing regularly in world-leading analyst reports and research.

Centric Software is a subsidiary of Dassault Systemes (Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA), the world leader in 3D design software, 3D digital mock-up and PLM solutions.

Centric Software is a registered trademark of Centric Software, Inc. in the US and other countries. Centric PLM, Centric Planning, Centric Pricing & Inventory, Centric Market Intelligence, Centric Visual Boards, Centric PXM, Centric PIM, Centric DAM, Centric Shoppingfeed and Centric DSA (including Centric Digital Shelf Analytics) are trademarks of Centric Software, Inc. All third-party trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE Centric Software
Scientific milestone from global banana brand strengthens global efforts to develop disease-resistant, climate-resilient bananas

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Chiquita has announced a major advancement in banana innovation with the completion of the Yelloway banana pan-genome, a foundational scientific breakthrough designed to accelerate the development of disease-resistant and climate-resilient banana varieties.

Advancing Banana Genetics Through Yelloway

Yelloway: A Chiquita Innovation Partnership

Developed through Yelloway B.V., an innovation joint venture between Chiquita and KeyGene, ("Yelloway") the banana pan-genome provides a comprehensive view of banana genetic diversity. By capturing the full range of naturally occurring variation, the pan-genome enables more precise research, supports biodiversity preservation, and strengthens long-term breeding efforts aimed at protecting the future of bananas.

Yelloway was created to unlock banana genetic diversity and advance classical breeding, supported by advanced genomic technologies. The pan-genome was developed by Yelloway using Oxford Nanopore sequencing technology, in collaboration with partners across the banana value chain, including Innocent Drinks, which provided match funding through its Farmer Innovation Fund.

Responding to Global Disease and Climate Challenges

The completion of the pan-genome comes at a critical moment for the global banana industry. As Fusarium wilt Tropical Race 4 (TR4) continues to spread and Black Sigatoka drives more than $100 million in annual protective costs, the ability to identify and deploy resilient genetic traits faster and more accurately has become increasingly essential.

Covering the genetic diversity of Musa acuminatathe species underpinning widely recognized banana varieties such as Gros Michel and Cavendishthe pan-genome allows Yelloway to move beyond broad genetic exploration toward targeted breeding decisions. This approach accelerates the development of banana varieties that are more resilient to disease, better suited to a changing climate, and aligned with consumer expectations.

Expert Perspectives on a Scientific Milestone

Professor Gert Kema, board member of Yelloway and emeritus professor of phytopathology at Wageningen University, said the pan-genome provides researchers with a new level of insight. "Imagine the genome as a landscape. To reach your destination, you need a map. Until now, we were driving mainly on highways, enough to reach major cities. But to reach every village, you need GPS coordinates, secondary roads, and sometimes unpaved tracks. The banana pan-genome provides that high-resolution map, allowing us to fully explore the entire genomic landscape of banana."

Fernando Garcia-Bastidas, Head of the Yelloway Banana Breeding Program, emphasized its impact, stating, "The banana pan-genome allows us to analyze, select, and deploy the most relevant genetic material. It dramatically accelerates the development of improved banana varieties resistant to major threats such as TR4 and Black Sigatoka, diseases that endanger the banana as we know it today."

Peter Stedman, Sustainability Director at Chiquita, also commented, "When we launched Yelloway, we knew the knowledge generated would extend far beyond a single organization. Completing the banana pan-genome is a landmark achievement that demonstrates the value of collaboration across the supply chain and has the potential to advance banana research and breeding worldwide."

Global Dialogue at Fruit Logistica in Berlin

Chiquita shared insights from this work during Fruit Logistica in Berlin, where Stedman participated in the event's Sustainability Panel, highlighting the role of science-based innovation and cross-industry collaboration in building a more resilient banana supply chain.

Supporting Industry-Wide Collaboration

As part of its commitment to shared progress, Yelloway will provide academic researchers with access to the banana pan-genome through a dedicated web portal, supporting collaboration and continued advancement in banana breeding and research.

About Chiquita Brands International

Chiquita is a leading global produce company that is committed to providing both consumers and customers across nearly 70 countries with the highest quality of fruit and service, making Chiquita the banana of choice. For more than 150 years, Chiquita has been proudly producing great-tasting, superior-quality bananas. The brand creates a positive impact by implementing the principles of sustainability throughout all of its business practices under the "Behind the Blue Sticker" initiative.

Recently named one of America's Most Loved Brands by Newsweek, and recognized as a 2025 Good Housekeeping Snack Award winner, these honors underscore Chiquita's strong emotional connection with consumers and its long-standing reputation for trust and quality. Chiquita's iconic Blue Sticker has been the seal of approval for high-quality fruit, and a celebration of fun, but it also represents an unwavering commitment to sustainable farming, biodiversity and giving back to the communities in which the banana plantations operate. Great-tasting and convenient Chiquita bananas are fat-free, and provide a source of potassium, fiber and vitamin B6. To learn more, visit www.chiquita.com and follow us on Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn.

SOURCE Chiquita Brands International, Inc.
CIEE to match the Farther Foundation's gift and create $2 million endowment to support Farther Foundation Scholarship Fund

PORTLAND, Maine, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE) and the Farther Foundation today announced the establishment of the Farther Foundation Scholarship Fund, a permanently endowed scholarship dedicated to supporting study abroad opportunities for low-income high school students in the Greater Chicago area.

CIEE to carry forward the Farther Foundations mission to help low-income Chicago high schoolers study abroad. Post this Approximately $2 million will be dedicated exclusively to supporting Chicago-area high school student participation in transformative global learning experiences.

Founded in Chicago in 2008, the Farther Foundation awards up to $100,000 in scholarships each year to students from communities defined by historic inequities, opening doors to educational travel that broadens students' horizons and deepens their sense of possibility. 2026 will be the final year that Farther Foundation will run its scholarship program as an independent organization. Beginning September 1, 2026, CIEE, one of the nation's leading providers of educational exchange programs and administrator of the largest high school study abroad scholarship program in the United States, will serve as steward of the Farther Foundation's assets, ensuring continuation of the Foundation's mission to provide transformative global learning experiences to students from communities facing chronic disinvestment and inequality.

CIEE will match the Farther Foundation's gift and together the organizations anticipate an endowment of approximately $2 million, dedicated exclusively to supporting Chicago-area high school student participation in transformative global learning experiences.

"Too many students have their ambitions stifled by disinvestment and lack of opportunities based on race, ethnicity and other factors unrelated to their talents and aspirations," said David Weindling, President and Executive Director of the Farther Foundation. "By joining forces with CIEE, we will create lasting access to transformative global education programs that help students break free from these constraints and experience the wider world."

"We are honored to carry forward the Farther Foundation's mission to support meaningful global learning opportunities for low-income Chicago-area high school students," said James P. Pellow, Ed.D. President and CEO of CIEE. "For years to come, the Farther Foundation Scholarship Fund will help students who otherwise would not have had a chance to travel as teenagers to study abroad and learn to see other cultures  and themselves - in a new light."

About CIEE

Since 1947, CIEE has built bridges between people, nations, and cultures by supporting more than one million student exchanges across more than 140 countries. CIEE programs help young people develop intercultural understanding, global competence, and the leadership skills needed to succeed in a connected world. Learn more at ciee.org.

About Farther Foundation

Through participation in unique educational travel experiences, Farther Foundation inspires greater aspirations and achievement for students from families and communities that have faced chronic disinvestment and sustained inequities. Inspired by experience, students become active and engaged learners, full of potential and more fully aware of the world and its opportunities.

Media Contact:

Leslie Taylor

[email protected]

(207) 553-4274

SOURCE Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE)
BEIJING, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- As a close and friendly neighbor to Thailand, China supports the country in following a development path suited to its national conditions, and in maintaining stability and development, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said on Tuesday.

Lin made the remarks at a regular press briefing when asked to comment on Thailand's House of Representatives election.

China stands ready to work with Thailand to deepen mutually beneficial cooperation across the board and advance the development of a China-Thailand community with a shared future so as to bring greater benefits to the two peoples, Lin said.

According to preliminary results released by Thailand's Election Commission on Monday, the Bhumjaithai Party has emerged as the largest party in Thailand's House of Representatives, followed by the People's Party and the Pheu Thai Party. 
New funding led by Ten Coves Capital to fuel continued growth and U.S. expansion

DUBLIN and NEW YORK, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Circit, the audit confirmation and financial data verification platform, today announced a $22 million growth equity financing to scale its global verification network and embed trusted data at the core of every audit.

The round was led by Ten Coves Capital, a New Yorkbased growth equity firm specializing in financial software, with strong participation from existing investors Aquiline and MiddleGame Ventures. Together, the investor group brings deep experience supporting enterprise technology companies that transform mission-critical infrastructure across audit, tax, and regulated financial services industries.

The funding follows a breakout year for Circit, with adoption across more than 400 audit firms  including all of the Top 20 global audit networks  and a verification network spanning over 30,000 banks, funds service providers, and other evidence providers. Over the past year, the Circit platform facilitated the confirmation of assets and liabilities for 150,000 corporate entities and, on average, independently verified over 100 million transactions.

This growth comes as demand from audit committees at the largest corporates is accelerating, with an expectation that auditors will increasingly leverage AI-enabled technology to deliver enhanced quality and better economics via real-time, verified audit data.

Building the Verification Layer for Modern Audit

Circit provides auditors with independent, source-verified audit evidence by connecting audit firms, financial institutions, law firms, and corporates through a secure, API-driven network.

The Circit platform allows auditors to replace manual, client-provided workflows with direct data connections that improve audit quality, speed, and trust and reduce the risk of large-scale financial fraud. The platform enables:

Digital audit confirmations across bank and non-bank-held assets and liabilities

Direct, permissioned access to bank-verified transaction data

A single AI-driven end-to-end auditor to client collaboration, and data ingestion workflow that delivers critical evidence directly into the audit file

As the audit industry transitions from manual processes toward digital, continuous, and agentic workflows, Circit is emerging as the trusted verification layer underpinning the next-generation of AI-powered audit evidence, analytics and transaction insights.

The new capital will be used to invest in product innovation, including AI-powered workflows across all stakeholders in Circit's audit confirmations network; deepen bank API connectivity; and scale go-to-market and customer success teams with a focus on the US and plans to double the Circit team over the next two years.

David Heath, Co-Founder and CEO of Circit, said, "We're pleased to welcome Ten Coves and to partner with investors who understand the long-term importance of modernizing audit infrastructure. Audit confirmations are fundamental to trust in financial reporting, yet the process has remained manual, costly, and fraught with fraud risk for both auditors and corporates. Circit was built to change thatby giving auditors direct, independent access to confirm all asset and liability types on corporate balance sheets.

As financial infrastructure evolves through open banking, API access, and digital asset frameworks such as the GENIUS Act, Circit is building the verified data infrastructure to power AI-driven audit testing and workflows."

"Circit is delivering critical infrastructure for the audit profession at a time of profound industry change," said Steven Piaker, Managing Partner at Ten Coves Capital who will join the Circit Board. "Circit's network-driven model, deep auditor adoption, and API-first architecture position it to become the trusted verification layer powering modern audit and compliance workflows globally."

Giovanni Nani, Head of European Venture at Aquiline, added, "Repeated, high-profile audit failures have underscored the systemic risk of relying on unverified, client-provided data. Circit addresses this challenge head-on by enabling independent, real-time verification at scale across the audit ecosystem. At Aquiline, we focus on building businesses that matter by backing teams solving fundamental industry problems and supporting them as they scale globally. Circit is building critical verification infrastructure for the future of audit, and we're excited to continue supporting the team as they expand the platform's reach and impact across the industry."

Patrick Pinschmidt, Co-Managing Partner of MiddleGame Ventures, noted that "Circit is operating at the intersection of powerful financial services trends  the digitization and automation of data augmented by differentiated AI tools that facilitate a global network to transact and manage risk in a faster and more secure manner."

About Circit

Founded in 2017, Circit is an audit confirmation, data validation, and client collaboration platform that connects auditors directly with banks, financial institutions, and trusted counterparties to verify financial data at the source. Circit transforms manual confirmations and unstructured client-provided data into structured, independently verified audit evidence.

The company is regulated as an Account Information Service Provider ("AISP") by the Central Bank of Ireland, as well as the UK, the EU, and Australia.

www.circit.io

About Ten Coves Capital

Ten Coves Capital backs high growth companies across the FinTech ecosystem where its capital, network, and decades of experience can help accelerate growth and value creation. Investing across payments, banking & lending, asset management, capital markets, and insurance & benefits (among other segments), the Ten Coves team has helped scale over 40 companies that are solving industry pain points, enabling workflows, and providing critical infrastructure to the largest financial institutions down to SMBs.

www.tencoves.com

About Aquiline

Aquiline Capital Partners LP ("Aquiline") is a global private investment firm with offices in New York, London, and Philadelphia that focuses on financial services and technology. As of September 30, 2025, Aquiline has approximately $12 billion of assets under management and deployed approximately $8.2 billion of capital across the firm's strategies since inception.

www.aquiline.com

About MiddleGame Ventures

MiddleGame Ventures is a fintech-focused investment firm backing ambitious founders building transformative financial infrastructure. With a strong emphasis on network-driven platforms and ecosystem collaboration, MiddleGame supports companies shaping the future of finance, including payments, banking, asset management, compliance, and enterprise financial workflows.

www.middlegamevc.com

Media Contact

Lawton King

202-713-0460

[email protected]

Media Contact

Laura Macek

+447453971969

[email protected]



SOURCE Circit
BERLIN, Feb.10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Corruption is worsening globally, with even established democracies backsliding amid a concerning picture of long-term decline in leadership to tackle corruption, according to the 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), released today by Transparency International.

CPI 2025 MAP

The 31st edition of the CPI shows that the number of countries scoring above 80 has fallen from 12 a decade ago to just five in 2025. Democracies, traditionally stronger performers on anti-corruption, are experiencing a worrying decline, including the United States, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, France and Sweden.

Another concerning pattern is a crackdown on civic space. Since 2012, 36 of the 50 countries with significant score declines have also experienced reduced freedoms of expression, association and assembly, making it harder for journalists and civil society to speak out against corruption.

In 2025, young people led major anti-corruption protests, particularly in countries in the bottom half of the CPI where scores have stagnated or fallen in the past decade. In Nepal and Madagascar, protesters criticised leaders for abusing power while failing to deliver basic services and economic opportunity, leading to the fall of both governments.

Transparency International is warning that the absence of bold political leadership in the global fight against corruption is weakening international anti-corruption efforts and reducing pressure for reform in countries around the world.

Francois Valerian, Chair of Transparency International, said:

"Corruption is not inevitable. We know what works when it comes to holding power to account for the common good: democratic accountability, independent oversight, and a free, open civil society. At a time when we're seeing a dangerous disregard for international norms from some states, we're calling on leaders to act with integrity and live up to their responsibilities to provide a better future for people everywhere."

Transparency International is calling on governments to:

Renew political leadership on anti-corruption by fully enforcing laws, implementing international commitments and strengthening transparency, oversight and accountability.

Protect civic space by ending attacks on journalists, NGOs and whistleblowers and halting efforts to restrict independent civil society.

Close secrecy loopholes that allow corrupt money to move across borders, including by strengthening beneficial ownership transparency and regulating professional enablers.

Spokespeople are available for interviews. Please contact: [email protected]

The report, results, methodology, press releases and graphics are available here!

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2888926/CPI25.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2888925/Transparency_International_logo.jpg

SOURCE Transparency International
NEW YORK, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- In a landmark nationwide study, the City College of New York-based CUNY Dominican Studies Institute reports that Dominicans have among the highest health insurance coverage rates among Hispanics/Latinos. This is largely due to their significant reliance on public health insurance and publicly supported plans.

The report constitutes the first detailed national study focused specifically on the health insurance status of Dominicans in the United States.

It was co-authored by:

"The study shows that access to health coverage varies markedly across groups, with Dominicans relying overwhelmingly on publicly funded insurance as their primary and often only source of coverage," said Hernandez. "Any budget cuts in this area would have severe and disproportionate consequences for this community, placing Dominicans among the Latino groups most at risk of losing access to essential health services."

Drawing on the latest American Community Survey data, the study shows that Dominicans have sharply reduced their uninsured rate over the last 15 years, cutting it by more than half. The outcome today is a demographic with one of the lowest uninsured rates among Hispanics/Latinos nationwide.

Dominicans have reduced their uninsured rate by more than half over the past 15 yearsdropping from over 20% (2008 - 2013) to 9.9% in 2024.





In 2024, only 9.9% of Dominicans were uninsured, compared to 17.2% of Hispanics/Latinos overall, giving Dominicans one of the lowest uninsured rates among Latino groups.





44.5% of Dominicans rely exclusively on public health insurance, compared to 27.1% of the overall U.S. population.





Nearly 50% of insured Dominicans receive some form of public support (Medicaid, Medicare, CHIP, or Marketplace subsidies), compared to about 30% nationally.





In New York City, home to nearly 691,000 Dominicans, the uninsured rate among Dominicans is just 5.4%, significantly lower than the national Dominican uninsured rate of 9.9%.

A central finding of the study is the heavy adoption of public health insurance among Dominicans. A significantly larger share of insured Dominicans rely exclusively on public insurance plans compared to the overall U.S. population. Additionally, nearly half of insured Dominicans benefit from some form of public support, whether through direct participation in programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), or through public subsidies that help purchase private insurance plans.

This reliance on public support places the community in a vulnerable position amid ongoing policy debates and proposed reductions in Medicaid and other government programs. The scheduled expiration in 2025 of extended Marketplace subsidies for the purchase of private insurance is also likely to have a severe impact on Dominicans and other populations who depend on public assistance to secure coverage.

The authors conclude that public health insurance functions as an essential lifejacket for accessing health care in the United States, particularly for Dominicans, and warn that threats to government support for health insurance place both Dominicans and the broader population at risk.

Contact: Jay Mwamba, [email protected], 917.892.0374

SOURCE City College of New York, Office of Institutional Advancement and Communications
Traditional identity and access controls don't understand agentic AI intent or context for sensitive operations; Eve Security's new technology evaluates why an agent acts, not just what it can do

AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Eve Security today announced it has filed the patent for the first-ever Interrogation-as-a-Service for AI Agentic Risk Control.

AI agents are performing sensitive operations such as data exports, write actions, configuration changes, and system queries, but current tools lack agentic AI context. The Eve Security innovation establishes "reasoning-before-execution" as the new standard for AI safety and governance in production systems and is used by enterprises that are adopting Eve Security to control autonomous AI integrations, internal copilots, and AI-driven automation pipelines.

"Agentic AI is moving faster than the security models designed to govern it," said Nadav Cornberg, CEO and co-founder of Eve Security. "With our Interrogation-as-a-Service patent filing, we're introducing a new security model that requires no SDKs or vendor-specific implementations and provides the proper controls for understanding agentic AI intent and context. Interrogation-as-a-Service transforms agentic AI into a control-based function, allowing enterprises to move fast with AI while staying firmly in charge."

The Interrogation-as-a-Service technology is already integrated into Eve's existing framework. When a request is classified as high or critical risk, the Eve platform automatically generates a structured interrogation challenge (five reasoning prompts: intent, necessity, harm, data, alternatives). It also works out of the box for any AI client, includes runtime lead privilege, is transport neutral and offers real-time LLM oversight with verifiable, replay protected audit trails.

Enterprise customers benefit from Eve Security's Interrogation-as-a-Service innovation by gaining practical, enforceable control over autonomous AI agents. Other benefits include:

Prevents high-impact AI failures before they happen. Instead of detecting problems after an AI agent has acted, Interrogation-as-a-Service allows enterprises to pause, question, and validate agent decisions in real time. This reduces the risk of data loss, unauthorized actions, regulatory violations, or cascading system failures.





Instead of detecting problems after an AI agent has acted, Interrogation-as-a-Service allows enterprises to pause, question, and validate agent decisions in real time. This reduces the risk of data loss, unauthorized actions, regulatory violations, or cascading system failures. Makes agent behavior transparent and auditable. Every interrogation creates a clear decision trail, giving CISOs, risk teams, and auditors the visibility required for governance, compliance, and incident response.





Every interrogation creates a clear decision trail, giving CISOs, risk teams, and auditors the visibility required for governance, compliance, and incident response. Enables safe scale of autonomous AI. Security concerns are one of the biggest blockers to deploying agentic AI broadly. By embedding risk control directly into agent workflows, enterprises can scale AI agents across teams and systems with confidence, rather than limiting them to experiments.





Security concerns are one of the biggest blockers to deploying agentic AI broadly. By embedding risk control directly into agent workflows, enterprises can scale AI agents across teams and systems with confidence, rather than limiting them to experiments. Aligns AI actions with enterprise policies and intent. Interrogation-as-a-Service enforces organizational policies at runtime, ensuring agents act within defined business, security, and ethical boundaries, even as environments and prompts change.





Interrogation-as-a-Service enforces organizational policies at runtime, ensuring agents act within defined business, security, and ethical boundaries, even as environments and prompts change. Reduces security, legal, and reputational risk. By stopping unintended actions before execution and creating defensible controls, enterprises lower exposure to breaches, compliance penalties, and brand damage.

The patent describes a gateway-agnostic, agent-agnostic workflow for adaptive risk-based request adjudication. The system integrates language-model-driven risk analysis (Analyze), dynamic challenge generation (Interrogation), and secure retry authorization (Retry Tokens) to ensure sensitive operations are executed safely and with accountability. The Eve Security innovation operates entirely over HTTP with standardized JSON payloads and status codes, ensuring compatibility with any compliant agent, gateway, or orchestrator.

About Eve Security

Eve Security is an agentic AI observability and policy enforcement platform that uses the industry's first Agent-in-the-Loop (AITL) to ensure the security of AI agents interacting with a company's most crucial business systems. Based in Austin, Texas, the company is backed by Live Oak Ventures and Tau Ventures and founded by industry veterans Nadav Cornberg, Sharon Eilon and Amit Eliav.

Media Contact

Jennifer Cloer

503-867-2304

[email protected]

SOURCE Eve Security
Key Takeaways

In 2026, Family Care Center celebrates 10 years of providing comprehensive behavioral health services, including therapy, psychiatry, mental health Intensive Outpatient Programs (IOP), and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).

Family Care Center operates nearly 50 outpatient mental health clinics across Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Tennessee, and Texas.

Since its founding, Family Care Center has provided evidence-based, multidisciplinary care through nearly 2 million appointments.

More than eight in 10 Family Care Center patients experience meaningful improvement, significantly surpassing the national outpatient behavioral health benchmark.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Family Care Center celebrates its 10th anniversary, reflecting on a decade of growth, innovation, and measurable impact in behavioral health care.

Founded in 2016 by two U.S. Army Veterans, Family Care Center has become one of the nation's fastest-growing outpatient behavioral health systems, providing compassionate, evidence-based care and advancing research.

"What began as a mission to serve the military community has grown into a national movement to elevate mental health care," said Founder and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Chuck Weber. "We are honored to celebrate this milestone alongside the patients, families, care providers, and community partners who have helped shape our journey."

Expanding Access with In-Network, Integrated Services

Family Care Center offers outpatient behavioral health care for all ages at nearly 50 multidisciplinary clinics in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Tennessee, and Texas.

It is in network with all major health insurance plans, with more than 98% of patient care covered by insurance.

Services include:

Therapy for individuals, couples, and families

Psychiatric services, including evaluations, diagnoses, and medication management

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a non-invasive, FDA-approved treatment for depression, anxiety, and related conditions

Mental health Intensive Outpatient Programs (IOP) for symptom stabilization, trauma resolution, and long-term resilience

Educational testing to guide accurate diagnosis, accommodations, and personalized care for children, adolescents, and young adults

Positive Outcomes Through Clinician-Led, Measurement-Based Care

Family Care Center patients consistently achieve meaningful, measurable improvements through coordinated, personalized care. Across all services, 84% of patients experience a clinically significant reduction in depression and anxiety symptomswell above national outpatient behavioral health benchmarks.

Outcomes are even stronger for patients receiving integrated therapy, medication management, and TMS, with more than 91% achieving clinically significant improvement in depression and anxiety.

"We're able to achieve these outcomes because of our foundational commitment to being 100% clinician-led and measurement-informed," said Chris Ivany, M.D., Chief Executive Officer. "From the beginning, we built Family Care Center on the belief that we need to understand how patients function in their daily livesnot just how they feel. This insight helps us deliver truly transformative care."

Leadership in Research & Education

Family Care Center advances patient care through evidence-based research and ongoing provider education. Its research team studies novel treatments, patient outcomes, and standards of care, while accredited education programs equip clinicians with up-to-date skills and knowledge.

At the forefront of TMS innovation, the Family Care Center TMS Center of Excellence in San Antonio, TX, sets a national standard for TMS and behavioral health treatment. As a hub for both research and clinical care, it informs protocols and best practices across all Family Care Center clinics. Every location reflects this same commitment: high-quality treatment, expert-driven protocols, and patient-centered support.

The Family Care Center TMS Center of Excellence has:

Expertly trained over 250 TMS professionals to deliver the highest standard of care

A proven track record with over 135,000 successful TMS treatments

Novel, evidence-based protocols that deliver exceptional outcomes, including for patients who did not respond to standard treatments

Supporting Local Communities

Family Care Center partners with other organizations serving local communities, including primary care providers, pediatricians, medical specialty groups, schools, and organizations serving the military, Veterans, and First Responders. These partnerships increase access to mental health care, provide education and resources, and support programs that address local needs.

Looking Ahead

In the next decade, Family Care Center will continue its strategic growth by expanding clinic locations, broadening service lines, deepening research, and partnering with communities to advance treatment.

As Family Care Center celebrates this milestone, its mission remains clear: to deliver the greatest positive impact on the health and well-being of local communities by delivering life-enhancing outpatient behavioral health care.

About Family Care Center

Family Care Center is a national leader in mental health services, dedicated to positively impacting the well-being of local communities. Their top-rated, multi-specialty clinicians deliver comprehensive, evidence-based care, providing positive outcomes for patients of all ages. In addition to therapy, psychiatry, and IOP, they are at the forefront of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), an innovative treatment for depression, and more. Founded in 2016, Family Care Center is one of the fastest-growing mental health care providers in the U.S., providing patient care, conducting research, and offering continuing medical education in their field. With nearly 50 locations across Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Tennessee, and Texas, they continue to expand nationally in collaboration with Revelstoke Capital Partners.

SOURCE Family Care Center
New Executive Role Emphasizes Freddy's Focus on Technology-Driven Scalability and Service

WICHITA, Kan., Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers (Freddy's)  today announced it has appointed Todd Paladini as Chief Information Officer (CIO), a newly created role and the first CIO position in the restaurant brand's history. In this role, Paladini will lead the brand's enterprise technology strategy and partner across the business to help accelerate scalable growth and enhance the guest and franchisee experience.

"Todd Paladini brings proven leadership to fuel the brand's next wave of growth." Post this Todd Paladini will serve as the very first Chief Information Officer for Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers. Paladini will lead the brands enterprise technology strategy and partner across the business to help accelerate scalable growth and enhance the guest and franchisee experience.

A Background in International IT

Paladini brings more than two decades of international IT leadership experience, with a track record of building and modernizing technology capabilities for multi-unit, guest-focused brands. Over the course of his career, he has led IT for hospitality and restaurant concepts including Cafe Rio Mexican Grill and Cinemark, and his time working across Central and South America has helped shape a global perspective on operational excellence, change management, and innovation.

"I am thankful to [President and CEO Chris Dull] and the entire executive leadership team for their trust and support as we move forward on this shared growth journey," said Paladini. "Freddy's has built a reputation for exceptional food and genuine hospitality, and I'm thrilled to be able to contribute to that unique experience for all of our FredHeads across the United States and Canada."

Technology-First Strategy

As CIO, Paladini will partner with key stakeholders across the enterprise to optimize systems, processes, and decision-making through technology. He will work closely with the executive team, franchisees, and private equity sponsors to ensure technology serves as a catalyst for scalability, process improvement, and long-term value creation.

In addition to leading enterprise IT strategy, Paladini will help align technology investments with Freddy's continued growth across North America, ensuring teams have the tools, insights, and systems needed to operate efficiently while maintaining the brand's signature hospitality.

"Technology plays an increasingly critical role in supporting franchisees, strengthening operations, and delivering the fast, friendly experience guests expect from Freddy's," said Chris Dull, President and CEO of Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers. "Todd's deep experience leading technology for high-growth, multi-unit brands both domestically and internationally, makes him the right leader to build this new function and help us scale with intention. We're excited to welcome him to the Freddy's team."

Freddy's has earned a reputation as a brand committed to quality and genuine hospitality, offering made-to-order steakburgers, shoestring fries, and frozen custard treats in a warm, family-friendly atmosphere. The fast-casual restaurant franchise is actively seeking single and multi-unit franchisees.

For information on franchising opportunities with Freddy's, visit freddysfranchising.com .

ABOUT FREDDY'S FROZEN CUSTARD & STEAKBURGERS

Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers is a leading fast-casual franchise concept with over 580 locations across 36 states nationwide. Founded in Wichita, Kansas, in 2002, the brand offers a unique combination of cooked-to-order steakburgers, all-beef hot dogs, shoestring fries and other savory items, along with freshly churned frozen custard treats. Known for operating The Freddy's Way, Guests experience genuine hospitality and food prepared fresh with premium ingredients. This signature approach has fueled Freddy's ongoing growth throughout the U.S. and garnered national recognition from industry-leading rankings, including being named No. 23 on Fast Casual's Top 100 Movers + Shakers, No. 85 on Entrepreneur's Franchise 500 and No. 36 on Yelp's 50 Most Loved Brands. For more on Freddy's, visit the Newsroom and follow us on Facebook and Instagram . For more information about development opportunities, visit freddysfranchising.com .

Media Contact: Danny Stewart, Fishman Public Relations, [email protected] or 847.945.1300 ext. 266

SOURCE Freddys Frozen Custard & Steakburgers
PHOENIX, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Integro Bank announced today that it has been named the Preferred Banking Partner of the Maricopa County Medical Society (MCMS), strengthening a shared commitment to supporting physicians and medical practices across Arizona with tailored financial solutions and trusted advisory services.

Maricopa County Medical Society

As the preferred banking partner, Integro Bank will provide MCMS members with specialized banking resources designed to address the unique financial, consultative, and growth needs of today's medical professionals. The partnership aligns Integro Bank's relationship-driven banking model with MCMS's mission to advocate for physicians while advancing the practice of medicine throughout Maricopa County.

"Physicians operate in one of the most complex and demanding professional environments, and they deserve a banking partner that understands both the human and business sides of healthcare," said Elaine Szeto, Chief Innovation Officer and a Founder of Integro Bank. "We are honored to be named the preferred banking partner of the Maricopa County Medical Society and look forward to supporting its members with thoughtful financial solutions, strategic insight, and a long-term commitment to their success."

MCMS represents thousands of physicians across multiple specialties and plays a critical role in advocacy, education, and professional development within Arizona's medical community. The partnership with Integro Bank reflects MCMS's focus on delivering meaningful value to its members beyond clinical practice.

"When physicians are financially secure, they are empowered to lead stronger practices and healthier communities. Financial clarity and stability are essential to practicing medicine effectively, which is why we are committed to connecting our MCMS members with trusted resources, reliable support, and banking relationships that strengthen both their practices and personal financial well-being. This support allows medical professionals to focus on what matters most, delivering high-quality patient care," said Desire'e Hardge, MBA, CEO and Executive Director of Maricopa County Medical Society. "Integro Bank brings a deep understanding of professional services, a strong community presence, and a relationship-first approach that aligns well with our mission. We are pleased to welcome Integro Bank as our preferred banking partner."

Through this partnership, Integro Bank and MCMS will collaborate on initiatives designed to strengthen the financial health, leadership insights and long-term growth of Arizona's physician community.

About Maricopa County Medical Society

Founded in 1892, the Maricopa County Medical Society is the oldest medical association in the state of Arizona, representing over 11,000 physicians across Maricopa County. MCMS is dedicated to advocating for physicians, advancing the practice of medicine, and improving the health of the community.

Learn more at www.mcmsonline.com.

About Integro Bank

Integro Bank is an FDIC-insured bank headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. Through its proprietary INTEGRO360 consultative approach and the Integro Bank CEO Club, the bank is dedicated to helping businesses grow and maximize employmentbecause employment lifts people and transforms lives.

Learn more at www.integro.bank.

Media Contact:

Brandon Price

[email protected]

(602) 325-9431

SOURCE Integro Bank
For a limited time, fans can purchase exclusive merchandise, with all proceeds benefiting New Yorkers in need.

EVANSTON, Ill., Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- In a celebration of friendship, flavor, and philanthropy, Kerrygold, an international brand of Ornua, is thrilled to announce it will be making a select range of its Butter Club merchandise available for public purchase for a limited time. All proceeds from the sale will be donated to City Harvest, New York City's largest food rescue organization. Fans can find the exclusive items at the Bombesquad Bazaar, a curated marketplace celebrating female-founded brands, hosted by Cherry Bombe and Shopify in SoHo to honor Galentine's Day.

The pop-up will feature the brand's highly sought-after Butter Club merchandise, including stylish tote bags, hats, and socks, will be offered for sale, giving loyal fans a chance to showcase their love for the premium Irish butter brand. This special event reinforces Kerrygold's commitment to its passionate community and its support for like-minded, female-forward partners.

"Our partnership with Cherry Bombe is built on a shared foundation of celebrating craftsmanship, quality, and community," said Kate Saul, vice president, marketing Ornua Foods North America, Inc. "Our fans are at the heart of everything we do, and their support has created a true community of butter lovers. We couldn't think of a better way to celebrate Galentine's Day than by bringing a selection of our Butter Club merchandise to the Bombesquad Bazaar, sharing the Kerrygold love with the incredible people who have championed our brand, and giving back to community by supporting the vital work of City Harvest."

The Bombesquad Bazaar offers a unique opportunity for shoppers to meet the makers behind innovative food and beverage brands and connect with fellow food lovers.

"Kerrygold has been a long-standing and cherished partner of Cherry Bombe, and we are so excited they are activating at our Bombesquad Bazaar in this special and charitable way," said Kate Miller Spencer, CEO, Cherry Bombe. "Having them release a capsule collection of their fan-favorite merchandise at our event is a testament to the strength of our partnership and their dedication to celebrating and supporting the Bombesquad community. It's the perfect treat for Galentine's Day."

Event & Shopping Details:

What: Exclusive sale of Kerrygold Butter Club merchandise, as well as a curated marketplace celebrating female-founded food and beverage brands





Exclusive sale of Kerrygold Butter Club merchandise, as well as a curated marketplace celebrating female-founded food and beverage brands Charity: All proceeds from sales will be donated to City Harvest





All proceeds from sales will be donated to City Harvest When: Friday, Feb. 13th, from 12 to 6 p.m., and Saturday, Feb. 14th, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.





Friday, Feb. 13th, from 12 to 6 p.m., and Saturday, Feb. 14th, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Where: Shopify SoHo, 131 Greene Street, NYC





Shopify SoHo, 131 Greene Street, NYC Admission: Free and open to all, but you must RSVP here

To learn more about Kerrygold, visit Facebook (@KerrygoldUSA), Instagram (@kerrygoldusa), TikTok (@kerrygoldusa) or X (@KerrygoldUSA).

About Kerrygold USA

Kerrygold was established in 1962 as a premium brand, befitting the rich quality of grass-fed Irish milk. Kerrygold initially launched as a single product brand and is now regarded as Ireland's most successful food brand, becoming a $1billion dollar brand in the U.S. in 2025. Since its creation, Kerrygold has been synonymous with quality, and today, Kerrygold has a special place in the hearts of consumers all over the world. Kerrygold dairy farmers are committed to the co-operative ideal, working together to produce only the very best grass-fed dairy products. Kerrygold cows graze freely on the fields of 14,000 family farms; each one using unique dairy farming traditions passed down through generations of family. It is this grass-fed milk that delivers the rich tasting, premium dairy products that Kerrygold is famous for. Today, consumers all over the world enjoy the unique taste of Irish grass-fed dairy. Kerrygold Irish Butter is the number two butter brand in the USA and Kerrygold Dubliner Cheese is the number one specialty cheddar.

CONTACT:

Dana Metz

[email protected]

SOURCE Kerrygold
IRVINE, Calif., Feb. 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- A team from Knobbe Martens obtained a decisive win for medical device manufacturer Applied Medical against Medtronic, Inc. in an antitrust case involving anticompetitive bundling and exclusive dealing that Applied alleged penalized hospitals for adopting competitive technologies.

Applied Medical alleged that Medtronic monopolized the market for advanced bipolar devices, which are surgical devices that seal blood vessels during surgery. Following a nearly three-week trial in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, a jury returned a verdict awarding more than $381 million in damages to Applied Medical, finding that Medtronic violated the Sherman Act, the Clayton Act, and the California Cartwright Act.

Commenting on the verdict, Knobbe Martens partner Stephen Jensen said, "Representing Applied Medical for more than two decades has been an honor, and this verdict sends a strong message: healthcare providers deserve a truly competitive market for lifesaving medical technologies free from exclusionary contractual barriers."

For more information, click here.

The Knobbe Martens team was led by Stephen Jensen, Stephen Larson, Joseph Re, Adam Powell, Kendall Loebakka, and Cheryl Burgess. The team also included Joe Jennings, Nick Zovko, Ben Shiroma, Nefi Oliva, Adam Copeland, and Isabella Pestana.

This is the latest success for Knobbe Martens' industry-recognized litigation practice that has delivered more than $1 billion in awards to clients in high-profile cases in recent months. This includes a $634 million win in a patent infringement case against Apple in November 2025.

About Knobbe Martens' Antitrust Litigation Practice

Knobbe Martens' antitrust practice, co-chaired by Mr. Larson and Mr. Powell, leverages deep technical and IP experience to provide practical, businessfocused counsel across the full spectrum of antitrust issues involving advanced technologies. The firm litigates complex claimsfrom monopolization, bundling, and tying to group boycotts, conspiracies, price fixing, exclusive dealing, restraint of trade, and patent misuseand offers strategic guidance that aligns clients' commercial goals with antitrust compliance while anticipating challenges in antitrust disputes and patentrelated counterclaims.

About Knobbe Martens

Knobbe Martens protects the ideas that drive innovation and propel our world forward. As a leading intellectual property and technology law rm, clients worldwide rely on us to safeguard their products, brands, and technologies through strategic counsel and high-impact litigation. With offices across the U.S., our lawyers and technology specialists collaborate to deliver tailored solutions for clients ranging from multinational corporations to start-ups and emerging companies at every stage. Discover more at www.knobbe.com.

SOURCE Knobbe Martens
Legal Bay expands the states they service, providing more plaintiffs and law firms nationwide access to transparent, non-recourse legal funding

MEMPHIS, Tenn., Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Legal-Bay LLC, a leading presettlement funding company, announced today the continued expansion of its legal funding services into additional states, allowing more plaintiffs and law firms across the country to access non-recourse legal funding while lawsuits are pending.

As litigation funding laws and regulations continue to evolve nationwide, Legal Bay operates with a strong emphasis on transparency, compliance, and consumer protection. The company adheres strictly to state-specific legal funding guidelines, maintains required registrations, and ensures that all funding agreements clearly disclose rates, fees, and repayment terms. This approach allows Legal Bay to deliver fast service and competitive, affordable pricing to clients facing financial strain during the litigation process.

Legal Bay recently completed registration and compliance approval to provide legal funding services in Georgia, Missouri, and Oklahoma, marking a significant milestone in the company's national growth strategy. In response to increased legislative activity across the legal funding industry in 2026, Legal-Bay has also invested in building a dedicated compliance team focused on monitoring and adapting to changing state laws and regulatory requirements.

"Our mission has always been to empower plaintiffs and their law firms with reliable financial support when they need it most," said Chris Janish, CEO of Legal-Bay. "Expanding our legal funding services nationally reflects our commitment to making justice more accessible for injured individuals across the country. As legislation has picked up in 2026, Legal-Bay has built a compliance team to stay current with ever-changing laws, ensuring we operate transparently while giving clients the financial runway to see their cases through, focus on recovery, and secure the outcomes they deserve."

If you're a lawyer or plaintiff involved in an active lawsuit and need an immediate cash advance against an anticipated settlement award, please visit Legal-Bay HERE or call toll-free at 877.571.0405.

Based on updated regulatory requirements and compliance reviews, Legal-Bay has been cleared to provide pre-settlement funding in California, Georgia, Oklahoma, Missouri, Tennessee, and New York in 2026. The company expects continued expansion as additional states finalize updated consumer legal funding frameworks.

Legal-Bay provides non-recourse lawsuit fundingoften referred to as settlement funding or lawsuit loansto plaintiffs involved in a wide range of cases, including personal injury, motor vehicle accidents, slip-and-fall claims, workplace injuries, medical malpractice, and wrongful termination. Because the funding is non-recourse, clients only repay the advance if their case results in a settlement or judgment.

To apply right now for a loan settlement program, please visit the company's website HERE or call toll-free at: 877.571.0405 where agents are standing by to answer any questions.

SOURCE Legal-Bay, LLC
CAPE TOWN, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from recent extreme weather in South Africa's Eastern Cape province has risen to five, authorities said on Tuesday, after days of heavy rain, strong winds, flooding and severe thunderstorms hit parts of the O.R. Tambo District Municipality.

The district municipality said in a statement that the fatalities followed "recent severe and inclement weather conditions," which have included lightning strikes and storm-related structural damage.

The municipality had earlier confirmed two deaths linked to the extreme weather and said more than 260 households had been impacted.

Three people, including a seven-year-old child, were killed after being struck by lightning, according to the statement.

The municipality's Executive Mayor Mesuli Ngqondwana expressed condolences to the affected families, saying, "We are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of five lives across our district as a result of the recent severe weather conditions."

Approximately 160 families have been left homeless due to weather-related structural damage, according to the municipality, although "this figure remains subject to verification as assessments continue, particularly in remote rural areas."

The municipality said it continues to work with local authorities and sector partners to coordinate relief interventions and ensure that affected communities receive the necessary support as response efforts continue.

The municipality also issued a level-6 extreme weather warning on Monday afternoon for severe thunderstorms, urging residents to take weather advisories seriously and prioritize safety.

"We urge residents to continue taking severe weather warnings seriously and to prioritize safety at all times," Ngqondwana added. 
Survey Shows Americans Concerned about Disruptions to Research

ARLINGTON, Va., Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- A Research!America-commissioned survey released today reveals that nearly 7 in 10 Americans across the political spectrum say Congress should invest more taxpayer dollars to advance science and technology. Further, Americans say medical progress should be among the top three of our nation's priorities over the next 50 years.

In addition, 92% of Americans across the political spectrum support basic scientific research, an increase of seven points over last year's survey. Despite this popular support, the past year has been challenging for U.S. science and research that benefits patients. Half (51%) of Americans say they are informed about canceled federal programs or budget cuts that could impact science, research, and innovation. Of those respondents who said they are informed, 83% say they are concerned about the disruptions to research.

Notable Findings to Inform a Midterm Election Year

Nearly 9 in 10 Americans across the political spectrum say it is important for candidates to champion faster medical progress, and 7 in 10 (including 70% of Republicans, a 10-point increase over 2024) say they would be more likely to support a candidate who favors increased spending on medical and health research.

"These survey findings offer valuable insights as the U.S. marks its 250th birthday," said Research!America President and CEO Mary Woolley. "Even as we reflect on our nation's storied global leadership in science, technology, and medical progress, our nation must find our way back to a fast-forward approach. We should set our sights high for scientific, medical, and public health progress, then work to exceed expectation. The American public has spoken, and we urge the president and Congress to listen and lead the way with robust investments in research."

Issues of Increasing Concern to Americans

A quarter of respondents across the political spectrum identified the cost of health care as a critical health issue facing the nation, up nine points from 2025 and still ranking as the No. 1 health issue. Mental health was identified as Americans' second most important health issue, with African American and Hispanic respondents more likely to view mental health as the top health issue in the U.S.

Confidence and Trust in Health Care Professionals and Scientists

An overwhelming majority (83%) of Americans say they have a great deal or a fair amount of confidence in scientists, an increase of five points over last year. This level of confidence in scientists is the highest it has been since we started asking this question in 2020. Additionally, 7 in 10 Americans think the work of scientists benefits all or most people in the U.S., a 10-point increase over last year's survey findings.

In terms of trustworthy sources of medical and health information, 91% of Americans say they trust doctors, nurses, and other health providers, and 88% say they trust scientists.

Visibility of Science and Research

Just over half (53%) of Americans can name a medical or health research institution, and only half are aware that science and technology research is conducted in every state. A similar percentage (48%) are aware that medical or health research is conducted in every state. Only a quarter of Americans can name a living scientist, down from one-third last year.

Other Notable Survey Findings:

An increasing majority (60%) of respondents between the ages of 18 to 24 say they view artificial intelligence (AI) more as a risk than a potential improvement in their lives, up nine points from last year.

Further, among all respondents, nearly half (49%) say they view AI more as a risk. This percentage has been growing since 2020, when 33% said they view AI as a risk.

Nearly 8 in 10 Americans are confident in the safety of vaccines used today, a four-point increase over last year.

45% of Americans say they worry that not all the childhood vaccines are necessary, a four-point decrease from last year's findings.

The online survey was conducted by Zogby Analytics on behalf of Research!America in early January 2026, among 1,007 adults plus additional adults for minority oversampling. The survey has a theoretical sampling error of +/- 3.1 percentage points. The sample is weighted to best represent the demographics of the population being surveyed. Weighted variables may include age, race, gender, and political party.

For more than 30 years, Research!America has commissioned public opinion surveys to help understand Americans' views on medical, health, and scientific research and other pressing issues related to public health, research, and innovation. For a snapshot of the findings, go here, and for the full 2026 survey, please visit the Research!America survey page here.

About Research!America

Research!America is a non-profit medical and health research advocacy alliance which advocates for science, discovery, and innovation to achieve better health for all. For over 30 years, Research!America has been commissioning surveys to help understand public support for medical, health, and scientific research, among other state, national, and global issues related to public health and research and innovation. Visit www.researchamerica.org.

SOURCE Research!America
ACR IFM Methodology 2.1 incorporates dynamic baselines through comparative property analysis, strengthening carbon accounting by more precisely reflecting real-world forest management practices and regional market conditions. The addition of the CCP label further provides corporate buyers with independent assurance that the credits meet rigorous criteria for additionality, permanence, and transparency.

ACR 900 encompasses prime forestland owned by Calion Lumber Company in the West Gulf Coastal Plain ecoregion of Arkansas. In close cooperation with NativState, this family-owned and managed company has welcomed an opportunity to ensure the survival of its long-held values around land preservation. They recognize that the generation of carbon credits is a unique and timely opportunity for the family to ensure that these deeply held values survive for years to come.

The Thomas Family has stated: "The quality and character of our land comes from decades of sustainable management. We take deep pride in this. Responsible harvesting practice in southern Arkansas is rare, and you can easily see how our property compares to those of the big corporations around us. Unfortunately, in the face of the steep (and we fear irreversible) decline of our industry, smaller companies like ours are failing. In past decades, we have managed to stay in business while maintaining our stewardship standards. However, current financial pressures have our family struggling to find a way to do so. The only alternatives we see are to harvest much more aggressively or be forced to sell our property to much less responsible corporate owners. The unique characteristics of our forests, their support of biodiversity, the ability for community to share access, and our family's legacy would quickly disappear. The arrival of a carbon credit market has presented us a way to stay put, and to preserve what we love and value so highly. NativState has been an excellent match as our partner, and we thank them for introducing us to such a positive option."

Spanning over 36,000 acres of rich bottomland hardwoods along the Ouachita Rivermaking it the largest private land conservation project in ArkansasACR 900 safeguards exceptional biodiversity, including critical habitat for black bear, bald eagles, river otters, and countless other species. It also enhances water quality for downstream communities by protecting the ecological integrity of the Ouachita River watershed.

Through sustainable forestry practices and carbon market participation, ACR 900 delivers meaningful climate benefits while ensuring the enduring health of this irreplaceable natural treasure for generations to come.

ACR 1015 is a groundbreaking aggregated landowner project that conserves more than 37,000 acres of diverse forestland across southern Arkansas, northern Louisiana, and western Mississippi. Representing 48 unique private landownerswith the majority of acres in Louisianathis initiative stands as one of the region's largest collaborative efforts to combat forest degradation through high-integrity carbon credits.

Developed by NativState, ACR 1015 enrolls these lands in rigorous sustainable forest management programs, including Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification. This commitment ensures comprehensive monitoring, identification and protection of High Conservation Value (HCV) areas, and adherence to best practices that enhance long-term forest health while generating verified carbon credits.

The project intersects the ranges of 15 threatened and endangered species, safeguarding critical habitat in these ecologically rich bottomland hardwood forests and delta mixed woodlands. By prioritizing conservation over intensive harvesting, ACR 1015 delivers substantial climate benefits through increased carbon sequestration, improved water quality in the Mississippi River watershed, enhanced biodiversity, and resilient ecosystems that support wildlife and local communities.

Through innovative carbon market participation, NativState empowers family forest owners with sustainable income alternatives, preserving these irreplaceable landscapes for future generations while contributing meaningfully to global climate goals.

"These verifications represent a meaningful milestone for NativState and for private forest carbon development more broadly," said Stuart Allen, founder and CEO of NativState. "They reflect the trust that landowners place in us to deliver a stable, long-term income alternative to aggressive harvesting, as well as the continued partnership of corporate buyers who are serious about meeting their climate commitments with high-quality credits. I am proud that NativState continues to deliver on our commitments to landowners, and we appreciate their trust in us."

"These projects demonstrate the broad applicability of ACR's Improved Forest Management methodology," said Dr. Kurt Krapfl, Director of Forestry at ACR. "NativState is showing how high-quality nature-based carbon projects can help to manage and conserve forests big and small, along with the biodiversity, water quality and recreational benefits forests provide."

The credits from ACR 900 and ACR 1015 are now available to eligible buyers through existing offtake agreements and ongoing market engagement.

Each NativState Improved Forest Management (IFM) project follows strict processes for third-party audit and verification, and represents important markers for creating high-quality nature-based forest carbon credits including:

Additionality  Projects located in the heart of timber country in the Southern United States, and are primarily commercially viable, mature forests.

Reducing emissions at the source  Carbon reduction credits represent efficient and immediate impact through mature forest conservation.

Carbon Removal Credits  Each project includes carbon removal credits to ensure durable decreases in atmospheric carbon levels.

Generational Stewardship  Through a decades-long carbon agreement, landowner partners make a generational commitment to conservation.

Co-Benefits  Improvements in biodiversity and water and soil quality are prioritized natural outcomes of forest conservation across our work.

To learn more about this and other high-quality projects, please visit www.nativstate.com/projects/.

About NativState

NativState LLC (www.nativstate.com) is a forest carbon development company partnering with landowners across the southern United States to deliver access to global carbon markets. We work with landowners to improve and conserve their forests while realizing a financial return based on the creation of high-quality carbon credits sold to companies seeking to meet and exceed their carbon emission reduction goals. Using ACR's Improved Forest Management (IFM) 2.1 methodology and our forty-year carbon agreement, we work with landowners to provide an alternative economic use to their forests to generate income versus intensive timber harvesting. Through this process, NativState empowers forest owners with the ability to manage their properties sustainably and provide the co-benefits of improved water quality, improved wildlife habitation, and improved overall health of the forest.

Media Contact:

Mark Z. Fortune

Vice President, Marketing

501-580-0550

[email protected]

SOURCE NativState
Los Angeles-Based Outdoor Enrichment Concept Prepares for Mission-Aligned Growth Across Key U.S. Markets

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- HAWKs (Hiking Adventures With Kids), the nature-based children's enrichment brand reconnecting kids with the outdoors, announced today a strategic investment from Post Investment Group to support its nationwide franchise expansion. The brand is thoughtfully opening franchise territories across the U.S., prioritizing mission-aligned operators and regions where families are seeking meaningful, screen-free enrichment options.

HAWKs is a nature based childrens enrichment brand focused on helping kids grow through active, engaging time outdoors

Founded in Los Angeles in 2022 by Emma Flanders and Martha E. Flores, HAWKs was created in response to a growing disconnect between children and time spent outdoors. HAWKs offers immersive, screen-free experiences that build confidence, curiosity and real world skills through exploration and play. Through year round after-school programs, day camps and weekend adventures, children spend their days hiking local trails, discovering nearby wild spaces and building strong connections with one another and the natural world.

"HAWKs was born from equal parts frustration and conviction," said Emma Flanders, Co-Founder and CEO of HAWKs. "As a working mom, I struggled to find programs that allowed kids to move freely, think independently and experience nature in a meaningful way. With this partnership, we now have the infrastructure and expertise to bring this experience to families nationwide."

The partnership brings together HAWKs' proven outdoor enrichment model with Post Investment Group's experience scaling franchise systems that prioritize franchisee support and long term success. Post Investment Group's franchise leadership team has built and expanded national franchise brands including The NOW Massage and Sky Zone , providing deep expertise in franchising infrastructure, operational support and sustainable growth.

"At Post Investment Group, we invest in industry-defining brands, and HAWKs is just that," said Jeff Platt, Chief Operating Officer of Post Investment Group and President of the Post Franchise Platform. "The brand meets a growing demand for meaningful, offline experiences that build confidence in today's youth. With a scalable model and impactful mission, supported by Post Investment Group's vertically integrated operating platform and franchising expertise, we look forward to partnering with HAWKs' dynamic leadership team to fuel the brand's next stage of growth."

A Turnkey Solution for Families and Franchisees

HAWKs blends childhood enrichment with active outdoor experiences that support how kids grow, move and connect. Its mobile operating model removes the need for expensive brick and mortar locations, allowing franchisees to launch quickly and scale by region rather than physical storefronts.

For families, HAWKs offers engaging programs for children ages 5 to 14, including:

After-school adventures with transportation from school to local green spaces

Full-day camps during school breaks

Weekend exploration sessions

Low-waste outdoor birthday parties

Pricing that averages $20 per hour - less than many babysitters

For franchisees, HAWKs provides:

Low cost to launch (with an initial investment range of $87,500 to $203,700)

No costly real estate buildout or long-term leases

Faster time to market compared to traditional franchises

Comprehensive training including hands-on field experience and regional support

Learning Through Exploration

Children at HAWKs explore the outdoors like scientists and adventurers. Activities include searching for pollinators, observing wildlife, building shelters, and capturing discoveries through journaling, drawing and storytelling. The proprietary curriculum, developed by credentialed educators and outdoor specialists, teaches critical life skills through experiential learning, from problem-solving and emotional regulation to collaboration and environmental literacy.

"We're not just creating outdoor memories," said Flanders. "We're helping kids build confidence, independence and a deeper sense of who they are. Parents consistently tell us their children come home calmer, more confident and more engaged."

HAWKs has earned consistently high ratings with parents praising the knowledgeable educators, and the meaningful impact on their children's growth. With the children's enrichment sector now a $200 billion market growing at 6.7% annually, HAWKs is scaling with intention and purpose.

Through its partnership with Post Investment Group, HAWKs has strengthened its infrastructure to support franchise partners while preserving the brand's authenticity. The expansion strategy emphasizes comprehensive training,ongoing curriculum and operational support.

"Growth only matters if it protects the heart of what we do," said Flanders. "We look for franchise partners who believe kids learn best through exploration and who care deeply about the communities they serve."

Prime franchise territories are now available nationwide. For more information about franchise opportunities with HAWKs, visit hawkskids.com/franchise or contact [email protected] .

About HAWKs

HAWKs is a nature based children's enrichment brand focused on helping kids grow through active, engaging time outdoors. Founded in Los Angeles in 2022, HAWKs offers year round after-school programs, day camps and weekend adventures that encourage curiosity, confidence and independence through exploration and play. By using local parks and green spaces as the setting for its programs, HAWKs creates meaningful experiences that support healthy development and a lasting connection to the natural world. Learn more at hawkskids.com.

About Post Investment Group

Post Investment Group is an investment firm headquartered in Beverly Hills, California, focused on three sectors; real estate, health and wellness, and consumer products and services. As a vertically integrated operating platform, Post Investment Group provides in-house services including legal, IT, accounting, finance, construction, real estate, marketing and human resources. Post Investment Group's active ventures employ over 1,000 people and generate revenues in excess of $500MM, with asset values in excess of $5BB.

Download Media Photos.

Franchise Inquiries:

Christina Dale

[email protected]

858-243-3949

SOURCE HAWKs
SAN DIEGO, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- North County African American Women's Association (NCAAWA) and North Island Credit Union are again partnering to offer scholarships and financial literacy programming to college-bound female students of African American descent in North County San Diego.

In the sixth year of the partnership, four $1,000 NCAAWA/North Island Credit Union scholarships are available to graduating high school seniors, current ROP, trade school, college and/or graduate students in Carlsbad, Escondido, Fallbrook, Oceanside, San Dieguito, San Marcos and Vista. Special consideration will be given to students pursuing degrees in education.

North Island Credit Union President/CEO Steve O'Connell said, "We are proud to continue our partnership with NCAAWA and support programs that expand access to education and opportunity for young women in our community. These scholarships and financial literacy initiatives reflect our shared commitment to empowering students with the resources and knowledge they need to pursue their goals and build a strong financial future."

In addition to the North Island Credit Union scholarships, NCAAWA is providing multiple scholarship programs to qualified North County students. Applications and more information about all NCAAWA scholarships can be found at ncaawa.org/scholarships. Online applications will be accepted through March 31, 2026.

NCAAWA Scholarship Committee Chair Kafi Swaniker said, "NCAAWA is so grateful to North Island Credit Union for continued partnership and for providing four much needed scholarships to students to pursue their education."

The two organizations also are partnering to provide financial literacy training for upper class high school girls in NCAAWA's Global Ambassadors Mentoring Program. The program empowers young women with leadership skills, understanding in-depth financial literacy and global issues that impact their social and career mobility. North Island Credit Union is providing participants with interactive financial programs and mentoring to teach budgeting, money management, savings, and practical financial life skills, among other topics.

About North County African American Women's Association

Established in 1995, the North County African American Women's Association (NCAAWA) is an all-inclusive non-profit 501(c)(3) volunteer organization located in North San Diego County. Its mission is to provide a support network through education, health awareness, and life skills programs for women and girls in San Diego's North County to increase their self-sufficiency. Maintaining its charitable, educational, and recreational objectives, the organization, through its mission, has opened support to all women in San Diego's North County, celebrating ethnic and racial pride.

About North Island Credit Union, a division of California Credit Union

California Credit Union is a federally chartered credit union founded in 1933 with assets of nearly $5.4 billion, over 200,000 members and 26 retail branches. Named a Forbes Best-In-State Credit Union in 2024 & 2025, California Credit Union membership is available to community members and businesses nationwide. The credit union operates in San Diego and Riverside Counties as North Island Credit Union, a division of California Credit Union. Federally insured by the NCUA, the credit union offers a full suite of consumer, business and investment products and services, including comprehensive consumer checking and loan options, personalized financial planning, business banking, and leading-edge online and mobile banking. California Credit Union is certified as a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) with a Low Income Designation, offering inclusive products and services to build financial stability in our underserved communities, including a checking account certified as meeting the Bank On National Account Standards. California Federal Credit Union operates as California Credit Union. Visit northisland.ccu.com for more information or follow the credit union on Instagram or Facebook @northislandcu.

SOURCE North Island Credit Union
Contract awarded for products that bring improvement to healthcare industry

DOTHAN, Ala., Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- ORCA Products announced its ORCA Dental Emergency Pain Kit has received an Innovative Technology contract from Vizient the nation's largest provider-driven healthcare performance improvement company. The contract was awarded based on review of ORCA Dental Emergency Pain Kit from hospital experts who serve on one of Vizient's client-led councils, and it signifies to Vizient clients its unique qualities that potentially bring improvement to the healthcare industry.

Vizient awards ORCA Products with Innovative Technology contract.

Innovative Technology contracts are recommended after review and interaction with products submitted through Vizient's Innovative Technology Program. Vizient client-led councils identify technologies that have the potential to enhance clinical care, patient safety, healthcare worker safety or improve business operations of healthcare organizations.

"We are honored to receive this recognition from Vizient," said Dr. Craig Schmidtke, CEO of ORCA Products. "The ORCA Dental Emergency Pain Kit is the first solution of its kind for urgent care and ER settings. Together, its components provide rapid, localized relief for patients, help clinicians reduce reliance on opioidssupporting efforts to address the opioid crisis on the front lines of careand give the entire healthcare team peace of mind in situations where no effective solution previously existed."

The ORCA Dental Emergency Pain Kit is a multi-component, non-opioid solution designed for managing dental pain in emergency departments and urgent care settings. The kit includes ORCA Foam, an absorbable hemostatic gelatin sponge used as a carrier for ORCA Complete Dry Socket Solution to address unattended post-operative discomfort, along with ORCA Pain Relief Putty, a patented topical natural formulation that adheres in place to target toothaches and oral pain.

"After a review of ORCA Dental Emergency Pain Kit , Vizient's client-led council agreed this technology offers a unique benefit over other products available in the market today and recommended it for an Innovative Technology contract. We are pleased to award this new contract to ORCA Products," said Kelly Flaharty, associate vice president, contract operations for Vizient.

Vizient represents a diverse client base that includes academic medical centers, pediatric facilities, community hospitals, integrated health delivery networks and non-acute healthcare providers and has a portfolio that represents more than $156 billion in annual purchasing volume. Through its Innovative Technology Program , Vizient works with client-led councils and task forces to evaluate products for their potential to bring real innovation to healthcare. If it is determined that a product is innovative, Vizient may award a contract outside of the competitive bid cycle.

ORCA Products, LLC is a U.S.-based medical device company focused on innovative, non-opioid solutions for dental pain management and hemostasis in ambulatory surgery settings. Best known as the gold-standard treatment for toothaches and dry sockets, ORCA delivers safe, effective products that fill critical gaps in emergency and urgent care while improving patient outcomes across medical and dental continuums of care.

ORCA Products

100 Metro Drive

Dothan, Alabama 36303

www.orca-products.com

SOURCE ORCA Products
Strengthening global growth with top-tier leaders in revenue, human resources, and engineering operations

DELFT, Netherlands and BOSTON, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Qblox , a global leader in quantum stack technology, announced key additions to its executive leadership team as the company accelerates the development of scalable quantum solutions worldwide. These strategic appointments support Qblox's continued global growth and its mission to integrate practical, high-performance quantum technologies into the industry.

Philip van der Wilt joined Qblox as Chief Revenue Officer on October 1, 2025. Based in Delft, the Netherlands, Philip leads global revenue strategy, commercial execution, and strategic partnerships. He brings more than a decade of leadership experience across enterprise technology, IT, storage, and virtualization. Prior to Qblox, Philip served as Senior Vice President EMEA at Samsara and previously held senior leadership roles at ServiceNow, Commvault, and Dell Technologies (EMC).

"Qblox is uniquely positioned to scale its global impact, and I look forward to bringing its world-class technology to customers and partners across the quantum ecosystem," said Philip van der Wilt, Chief Revenue Officer at Qblox. "This is a pivotal moment for the industry, and I look forward to guiding Qblox and its partners through its next phase of global growth."

Roger Isaac joined Qblox as the Chief Technology Officer on November 1, 2025, bringing decades of experience across semiconductor engineering, advanced hardware systems, and deep-tech innovation. Based in Delft, The Netherlands, Roger is a hands-on technology executive with a proven track record of taking complex technologies from early vision through large-scale commercialization. Most recently, he served as Vice President of Engineering for Automotive Radar at Indie Semiconductor and previously as Chief Technology Officer at Keyssa, where he led the development of the industry's first 60 GHz contactless wireless technology. Earlier in his career, Roger played a foundational role in establishing LPDDR3 and LPDDR4 as global memory standards and served on the JEDEC Board of Directors. He holds more than 60 U.S. patents.

"Qblox has a strong track record of translating complex quantum computing breakthroughs into reliable technology that powers today's state-of-the-art quantum systems," said Roger Isaac, Chief Technology Officer at Qblox. "By combining disciplined engineering with deep technical innovation, we will accelerate the transition from laboratory research to dependable, high-performance quantum systems that customers can deploy reliably at scale."

Evelyn Doyle joined Qblox as Chief Human Resources Officer on February 1, 2026. Based in Delft, the Netherlands, Evelyn brings more than 20 years of global leadership experience across People & Culture, organizational transformation, and talent strategy. Most recently, she served as Head of People and Culture for Patagonia's International Region, leading people strategy across EMEA, APAC, and LATAM. She has previously held senior HR leadership roles at Mondelez International, Gategroup, and Self-Help Africa, spanning commercial, nonprofit, and social enterprise sectors.

"I am thrilled to be joining Qblox at such a pivotal time in its growth. Fostering an inclusive, high-performing culture that enables people to thrive will be a priority as the company continues to grow globally," said Evelyn Doyle, Chief Human Resources Officer at Qblox. "Developing a values-driven team and future-ready people practices will be central to how my team and I support the employee journey at Qblox."

"Philip, Roger, and Evelyn each bring deep expertise and leadership that will be critical as we scale Qblox globally," said Niels Bultink , CEO of Qblox. "Their combined strengths across revenue growth, deep-tech engineering, and people leadership reinforce our commitment to building a world-class organization capable of enabling the next wave of quantum innovation with a team that is the envy of the market"

About Qblox

Qblox is the global leader in scalable quantum control stacks, enabling organizations to build high-performance quantum computing systems. With state-of-the-art hardware and software solutions, Qblox is accelerating the path to practical quantum computing by delivering robust, reliable, and scalable control solutions to researchers and industry leaders worldwide.

Media Contact:

Annie Marshall

[email protected]

508-560-0454

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2890646/Qblox_Logo.jpg
Expansions highlight the global strength of the REMAX brand and the growing demand for professional, productive real estate agents

DENVER, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- REMAX, the No. 1 name in real estate1, and a global leader in real estate franchising, today announced the continued growth of its worldwide network with the sale of master franchise rights in Libya as well as the opening of a new REMAX office in Baku, Azerbaijan. These milestones underscore the brand's ongoing global presence in more than 120 countries and territories  and its mission to elevate real estate business standards around the world.

"Expanding into Libya and opening an office in Azerbaijan reinforces our goal of delivering worldclass real estate professionalism everywhere people buy and sell homes or properties," said Shawna Gilbert, Senior Vice President of REMAX Global and Commercial. "We're thrilled to welcome such strong local leaders to the REMAX network."

REMAX Libya

The new regional operations of REMAX Libya are headquartered in Tripoli and is led by Region Owners Zyead Ghattour and Alhareth Ghattour, with Regional Director Ali Milad overseeing daytoday operations.

With more than a decade of handson experience buying and selling real estate in the Libyan market, the Region Owners bring both deep local insight and proven operational experience, including in franchise management of an international franchise brand.

"Throughout our travels, we saw REMAX thriving in markets around the world," said Alhareth Ghattour. "We believe Libya is ready for a more modern, structured approach to real estate. REMAX represents a chance to introduce global professionalism to a market that's evolving and full of longterm potential."

REMAX Libya is positioned to play a transformative role in further shaping the country's real estate industry with its structure and global best practices. By leveraging the brand's comprehensive ecosystem  including innovative AI-driven technology, a powerful global referral network and proven operational systems  REMAX Libya aims to elevate national real estate standards and deliver a more consistent, transparent experience. The leadership team believes these tools will empower agents to be more productive and professional while providing buyers and sellers with trusted, modern and credible real estate services.

"Our philosophy has always been 'now, not tomorrow,' and we believe the timing is exactly right for the REMAX brand to enter the Libyan market," said Alhareth Ghattour. "While the industry is still developing, it grows stronger each year. This is the moment to establish a solid foundation, introduce true global standards and grow alongside the market as it matures."

REMAX Libya plans to sell and open its first independently owned and operated offices in Tripoli within the next few months. The region intends to roll out a phased expansion strategy, ultimately building a nationwide network rooted in transparency, education and globally consistent service standards.

REMAX 1st Realty

In Azerbaijan, REMAX welcomes REMAX 1st Realty, led by Idris Cengiz, an entrepreneur with 16 years of experience in the construction industry and six years in real estate investment consultancy. The already opened 2000 square foot impressive office is headquartered in Baku.

Cengiz was drawn to the REMAX brand for its global reputation, proven systems and the professionalism it brings to every level of the real estate process.

"The Azerbaijani real estate market is undergoing rapid growth with increasing urban development, foreign investment and a young, dynamic workforce," Cengiz said. "There's a clear need for international standards, reliable education and structured systems. REMAX offers exactly the type of model that can elevate the expectations of agents and consumers alike."

REMAX 1st Realty aims to introduce higher service standards, embrace REMAX technology and referral systems, and support the development of fulltime professional agents.

Global Growth Momentum

With these newest additions, REMAX continues its longstanding commitment to strengthening its already unmatched global presence. The REMAX network is comprised of more than 145,000 agents in over 8,500 offices and a presence in more than 120 countries and territories, making it one of the largest and most productive real estate brands in the world.

"REMAX continues to see strong demand for our professional, productive real estate model in markets around the world," said Gilbert. "These expansions reflect both the power of the REMAX brand and the growing desire for the systems and standards our network delivers."

These additions add to a series of recent global growth milestones for REMAX, including significant expansions in Canada, Cote d'Ivoire, Morocco, Malaysia and Hawaii.

1Source: MMR Strategy Group study of unaided awareness.

About the REMAX Network

As one of the leading global real estate franchisors, RE/MAX, LLC is a subsidiary of RE/MAX Holdings (NYSE: RMAX) with more than 145,000 agents in over 8,500 offices and a presence in more than 120 countries and territories. Nobody in the world sells more real estate than REMAX, as measured by residential transaction sides. REMAX was founded in 1973 by Dave and Gail Liniger, with an innovative, entrepreneurial culture affording its agents and franchisees the flexibility to operate their businesses with great independence. REMAX agents have lived, worked and served in their local communities for decades, raising millions of dollars every year for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals and other charities. To learn more about REMAX, to search home listings or find an agent in your community, please visit www.remax.com. For the latest news about REMAX, please visit news.remax.com.

SOURCE RE/MAX, LLC
MIAMI, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The Board of Directors of Royal Caribbean Group (NYSE: RCL) today declared a quarterly dividend of $1.50 per common share payable on April 3, 2026 to shareholders of record at the close of business on March 6, 2026.

"This dividend increase reflects the continued strength of our business and the momentum across our global vacation portfolio," said Jason Liberty, President and CEO. "This step underscores our commitment to delivering meaningful returns to our shareholders while continuing to invest in the innovations and experiences that define Royal Caribbean Group."

About Royal Caribbean Group

Royal Caribbean Group is a leading global vacation company spanning cruise, exclusive destinations, and land-based vacation experiences. The company operates 69 ships sailing to more than 1,000 destinations across all seven continents through its three wholly owned brands -Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises, and Silversea - and a 50% joint venture interest in TUI Cruises which operates the Mein Schiff and Hapag-Lloyd brands.

The Group is expanding its portfolio of private destinations from three to eight by 2028 through its Perfect Day and Royal Beach Club collections, and the company will enter river cruising in 2027 with Celebrity River Cruises. Powered by innovative brands, advanced technology, and an industry-leading loyalty program, the company has built a connected vacation ecosystem, turning the vacation of a lifetime into a lifetime of vacations.

Named to the Fortune World's Most Admired Companies 2026 list and to Forbes' 2026 Best American Companies lists, Royal Caribbean Group is guided by its mission to deliver the best vacations responsibly. For more information, visit www.royalcaribbeangroup.com.

SOURCE Royal Caribbean Group
MILWAUKEE, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Ademi LLP is investigating Clear Channel (NYSE: CCO) for possible breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of law in its recently announced transaction with Mubadala Capital and TWG Global.

Click here to learn how to join our investigation and obtain additional information or contact us at [email protected] or toll-free: 866-264-3995. There is no cost or obligation to you.

In the transaction, Clear Channel stockholders will receive $2.43 per share. The all-cash transaction values Clear Channel at an enterprise value of $6.2 billion. Clear Channel insiders will receive substantial benefits as part of change of control arrangements.

The transaction agreement unreasonably limits competing transactions for Clear Channel by imposing a significant penalty if Clear Channel accepts a competing bid. We are investigating the conduct of the Clear Channel board of directors, and whether they are fulfilling their fiduciary duties to all shareholders.

We specialize in shareholder litigation involving buyouts, mergers, and individual shareholder rights. For more information, please feel free to call us. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.

Contacts

Ademi LLP

Guri Ademi

Toll Free: (866) 264-3995

Fax: (414) 482-8001

SOURCE Ademi LLP
NEW YORK, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Better Business Advice has named QuickBooks as a leading online invoicing platform for UK small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), recognising its role in helping businesses modernise billing processes, improve visibility over cash flow, and reduce the administrative burden associated with invoicing and payments.

Best Small Business Invoicing Software

QuickBooks - an accounting and invoicing platform designed to help small and medium-sized businesses manage billing, payments, and financial records in one place

The recognition comes as UK SMEs continue to face cash flow pressure, evolving customer payment expectations, and the need to operate efficiently with limited internal resources. In this environment, invoicing software has become a core operational tool rather than a back-office function.

Better Business Advice's assessment focused on usability, flexibility, and relevance to day-to-day SME operations. QuickBooks was recognised for providing an invoicing solution that supports businesses across different stages of growth, from sole traders issuing occasional invoices to SMEs managing recurring and higher-volume billing.

Addressing a Persistent SME Challenge: Cash Flow Visibility

Late payments remain one of the most common operational challenges for UK small businesses. Delayed invoicing, limited insight into payment status, and manual follow-ups can significantly affect cash flow predictability.

QuickBooks' invoicing tools are designed to reduce these friction points by enabling businesses to issue invoices promptly and monitor payment progress in real time. Key capabilities highlighted by Better Business Advice include:

Creating and sending invoices from desktop or mobile devices, allowing businesses to bill clients as soon as work is completed

Notifications that show when invoices have been opened, improving visibility into customer engagement

Automated reminders that reduce the need for manual follow-ups on overdue invoices

A central dashboard showing sent, unpaid, and settled invoices at a glance

Together, these features support faster billing cycles and provide SMEs with clearer insight into expected income, which remains critical for short-term planning and cash management.

Simplifying Invoicing as Businesses Grow

As SMEs scale, administrative tasks often increase in complexity. Processes that once relied on spreadsheets or manual templates can become inefficient and difficult to maintain, particularly as invoice volumes rise.

QuickBooks offers tools designed to streamline invoicing workflows as businesses grow, including:

Converting estimates directly into professional invoices

Setting up recurring invoices for repeat customers or ongoing services

Applying discounts, late fees, and VAT calculations within the invoicing process

Viewing and managing all invoices in one place across web and mobile platforms

By reducing repetitive administrative work, these capabilities allow business owners to spend less time on invoicing tasks and more time focusing on operations and customer relationships.

Supporting Flexible Payments and Modern Expectations

Customer expectations around payments have continued to shift toward digital and flexible options. SMEs increasingly benefit from offering payment methods that reduce friction and encourage faster settlement.

QuickBooks supports this shift by integrating invoicing with multiple payment options and automated reconciliation. Notable features include:

Payment options such as Pay by Bank and card payments through QuickBooks Payments

Integrations with payment partners including PayPal and GoCardless

Automatic reconciliation that matches payments to invoices without manual input

Support for invoicing in multiple currencies, with exchange rate adjustments handled automatically

According to Better Business Advice, this combination of invoicing and payments reflects a broader trend toward embedded financial tools that simplify cash flow management for small businesses.

Customisation, Accessibility, and Scale

QuickBooks also enables SMEs to customise invoice templates to reflect their brand identity, including logos, colours, fonts, and layout options. Multiple templates can be created and managed within the platform, supporting businesses with different services or client types.

Accessibility across desktop and mobile applications allows business owners to manage invoicing wherever they work, an increasingly important factor for tradespeople, consultants, and remote teams.

With more than 6.5 million subscribers worldwide, QuickBooks demonstrates scalability while remaining accessible to smaller businesses. Better Business Advice highlighted this balance as a key consideration in its recognition.

To read the full review, please visit the Better Business Advice website .

About Intuit

Intuit is the global financial technology platform that powers prosperity for the people and communities we serve. With approximately 100 million customers worldwide using products such as TurboTax, Credit Karma, QuickBooks and Mailchimp, we believe that everyone should have the opportunity to prosper. We never stop working to find new, innovative ways to make that possible. Please visit us at Intuit.com and find us on social for the latest information about Intuit and our products and services.

About Better Business Advice: Better Business Advice covers the news and strategies driving modern business success. The information provided by Better Business Advice does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice; instead, all information, content, and materials are for general informational purposes only. As an affiliate, Better Business Advice may earn commissions from services mentioned in the links provided.

SOURCE BetterBusinessAdvice.com
HONG KONG, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- China on Tuesday released a white paper on Hong Kong's efforts in safeguarding national security, which has been welcomed by central government agencies in Hong Kong and local authorities.

The white paper, titled "Hong Kong: Safeguarding China's National Security Under the Framework of One Country, Two Systems," was issued by China's State Council Information Office on Tuesday.

A spokesperson for the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) said that the white paper came at a critical juncture, as the implementation of "one country, two systems" has entered a new stage and Hong Kong has taken fresh strides in transitioning from disorder to stability and prosperity.

The spokesperson said the document refutes attacks and smears by anti-China agitators against the legislation, law enforcement and judicial processes for national security in Hong Kong, while also aiding the public in better grasping the situation, tasks and practical requirements for ensuring national security in Hong Kong.

The white paper will deepen public understanding that safeguarding national sovereignty, security, and development interests is the primary principle of "one country, two systems," the spokesperson added.

Consisting of five parts in addition to a preface and a conclusion, the white paper details the unrelenting fight for safeguarding national security in Hong Kong and the central government's fundamental responsibility for national security matters concerning Hong Kong.

Also on Tuesday, the Office for Safeguarding National Security of the Central People's Government in the HKSAR said that the white paper provides guidance for advancing Hong Kong's national security work.

It points out the directions for further promoting Hong Kong's work in safeguarding national security and injects strong impetus into further consolidating the consensus on safeguarding the high-quality development of the "one country, two systems" cause with high-level security, according to the office.

The office also stressed that the enactment of the national security law in Hong Kong effectively closed the legal loopholes in safeguarding national security, with key anti-China disruptors convicted and sentenced, external interference firmly countered, and hostile forces no longer acting with impunity.

HKSAR Chief Executive John Lee pledged full support, saying he will implement the content and requirements of the white paper.

Under the auspices of the national security law in Hong Kong and the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, Hong Kong society is stable and prosperous, with the normal lives and development of Hong Kong people firmly guaranteed, and international rating agencies continuing to give Hong Kong positive assessments, Lee said.

Noting that the white paper laid down the practical requirements of creating high-standard security for the high-quality development of the "one country, two systems," Lee said that Hong Kong must work under the guidance of a holistic approach to national security and firmly safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests.

Security is the prerequisite for development, and development is the guarantee of security, Lee said. 
Nonprofit LGBTQ+ health provider outlines service expansion, pharmacy acquisition and podcast launch

PHOENIX, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Spectrum Medical Care Center , a nonprofit healthcare provider serving Arizona's LGBTQ+ community, is entering 2026 with new executive leadership, a planned expansion of women's health services for lesbians, trans and nonbinary women, and a new 22,000-square-foot Phoenix medical facility slated to open later this year.

Mark Moeremans, CEO of Spectrum Medical Care Center Spectrum Medical's clinic in Phoenix, Arizona.

The expansion comes as demand continues to grow for inclusive primary and HIV care across the Valley. Spectrum Medical has added senior leadership, acquired a new pharmacy, broadened its clinical offerings, and is investing in infrastructure aimed at increasing access and continuity of care in its new facility.

Key to the growing leadership team has been the appointment of Mark Moeremans as Chief Executive Officer, who joined Spectrum Medical in September 2025. With more than a decade of cross-functional business experience in healthcare and nonprofits, Moeremans is passionate about advancing Spectrum Medical's mission to provide more inclusive healthcare for LGBTQ+ patients.

"Access to culturally competent care is under pressure nationwide," Moeremans said. "Our focus in 2026 is laying the groundwork for growth  better systems, more services, more space, financial sustainability, and fewer barriers for patients who often struggle to find care that meets them where they are."

Leading Spectrum Medical's clinical direction is Dr. Howard Grossman, a nationally recognized leader in HIV and LGBTQ+ healthcare, who joined the company in May as Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Grossman plays a critical role in advancing Spectrum Medical's personalized primary care approach while guiding the expansion of services to better address gaps in traditional healthcare settings.

Spectrum Medical rounded out its leadership team with the addition of several key executives including Efram Peller as Chief Operating Officer, Siene Garvin as Chief Financial Officer, Victor Avila as Senior Director of Marketing and Ray Delgado as Senior Director of Communications and Community Development.

Lesbian Health Expansion

Spectrum Medical's Lesbian health initiative will provide primary and preventive care tailored to lesbian, bisexual, queer, and transgender women, as well as patients seeking a more personalized primary care experience, addressing gaps that persist in traditional healthcare settings. Spectrum Medical has hired a gynecologist to spearhead these efforts and the initiative is expected to launch mid-year.

Pharmacy Acquisition

To support continuity of care, Spectrum Medical Care Center has also acquired an independent pharmacy, expanding its ability to support coordinated, patient-centered care. The pharmacy will eventually be housed in Spectrum's new facility and will enable future partnerships with other healthcare providers, including enhanced access through home delivery.

New Phoenix Facility Planned for 2026

Spectrum Medical is planning a new 22,000-square-foot Phoenix location at 3003 N. 3rd St. (the former Cigna Evernorth building,) designed to increase patient capacity, support expanded services, and accommodate long-term clinical growth. Additional details about the new facility and the new pharmacy will be announced later this year.

New Podcast Launching in February

Spectrum Medical will launch The Lavender Lounge podcast in February, featuring bi-weekly conversations on LGBTQ+ health topics including gender-affirming care, mental health, sexual health, and HIV prevention.

"These investments aren't about growth for growth's sake," Grossman said. "In cities like San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles, LGBTQ+ communities benefit from integrated health centers designed around their needs. Phoenix deserves that same level of coordinated, culturally competent care, and Spectrum Medical is committed to building it here.

About Spectrum Medical

Spectrum Medical Care Center is a leading provider of primary care, preventative care, HIV care, PrEP, PEP and STI testing services, and has been meeting the unique healthcare needs of the LGBTQ+ community in the Phoenix area since 1997. Spectrum Medical's growing team of experienced medical professionals and staff proudly serve all patients with state-of-the-art, competent and compassionate care. They are deeply committed to healthcare equality in the community.

SOURCE Spectrum Medical Care Center
GAITHERSBURG, Md., Feb. 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Prominently featured in The Inner Circle, Heather L. Walter, Ed.D. is acknowledged as a 2026 Pinnacle Lifetime Member for her contributions to Advancing Special Education and Educator Wellbeing.

Heather L. Walter

Dr. Heather L. Walter, Ed.D., has established a distinguished career in education and consulting, combining her expertise as a teaching professor, researcher, and mentor. She currently serves as an assistant professor of special education at George Mason University as well as a senior scholar, Center for the Advancement of Wellbeing. In this capacity, she works with both graduate and undergraduate students, supervising field training in special education while leading research on educator retention, wellbeing, and leadership practices.

Dr. Walter's academic background reflects her lifelong dedication to education. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies with a minor in sociology from the State University of New York at Buffalo, a Master of Arts in inclusive elementary education and teaching students with disabilities from Columbia Teachers College in New York City, and an Ed.S. in administration and an Ed.D. in special education from George Washington University.

Her professional affiliations include the Council for Exceptional Children's Division of Early Childhood, where she contributes as a member of the Personnel Preparation Committee, the American Educational Research Association, the Society for Research in Child Development, the National Association for the Education of Young Children, and the Learning Well Coalition. She also lends her expertise in leadership roles as chair of the board of trustees for Green Acres School and as a member of multiple education and inclusion committees for Temple Beth Ami.

Beyond academia, Dr. Walter is committed to civic engagement and supports her professional groups at the local level. She enjoys traveling, attending the theater, reading, working out, music, and spending time with family and friends. She honors the memory of her grandparents, David and Phyllis Levy, and thanks her mother, and stepfather Michael Yudelson, and Karen McArthur for their support. Married since 2011 to Elon Walter, she is also a devoted mother to three children.

Looking to the future, Dr. Walter aims to expand her impact by engaging more diverse voices in decision-making processes within the education sector, ensuring that inclusivity and wellbeing remain central to the advancement of the field.

Contact:

Katherine Green

516-825-5634

[email protected]

SOURCE The Inner Circle
BATTLE CREEK, Mich., Feb. 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Prominently featured in The Inner Circle, Rachel Sharma, M.Ed is acknowledged as a Pinnacle Professional Member Inner Circle of Excellence for her contributions to Inspiring Global Education Through Leadership and Cultural Understanding.



Rachel Sharma, M.Ed, has built an accomplished career in education distinguished by global experience, multilingual expertise, and a deep commitment to lifelong learning. Her work spans multiple grade levels and cultural settings, reflecting her belief that education is the foundation of progress and connection across communities.

Rachel Sharma, M.Ed,

Ms. Sharma holds a Master of Education in secondary education with a concentration in curriculum, instruction, and design from the University of South Florida, as well as a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Phoenix. Her academic training, combined with years of practical classroom experience, has equipped her with the tools to design effective learning programs that foster creativity, inclusivity, and student growth.

Throughout her career, Ms. Sharma has demonstrated a rare versatility in teaching, having educated learners ranging in age from three to eighty. This diverse experience has given her a holistic understanding of how to adapt instructional methods to meet individual needs. Her international background and multilingual capabilities have further enhanced her ability to connect with students and educators across cultural boundaries.

Among her many achievements, Ms. Sharma is particularly proud of being recognized by the United States Department of Defense for her contributions to education, a testament to her professionalism, leadership, and impact in the field. She continues to be active in both local and overseas educational organizations, where she collaborates with other educators to improve teaching standards and expand access to quality learning.

Outside of her professional pursuits, Ms. Sharma enjoys international travel, reading, hiking, and music, activities that reflect her curiosity, balance, and appreciation for diverse perspectives.

Looking to the future, Ms. Sharma aspires to consult for educators worldwide, helping them develop effective strategies for teaching across cultures and fostering inclusive learning environments. She credits her son and family for their love and support, which have been her greatest sources of motivation and inspiration throughout her educational journey.

Contact: Katherine Green, 516-825-5634, [email protected]

SOURCE The Inner Circle
The University's Bachelor of Science in Data Science program is recognized for academic quality, student support and workforcealigned curriculum for second year in a row

PHOENIX, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- University of Phoenix announces that its online Bachelor of Science in Data Science program has been ranked No. 8 on TechGuide's 2026 Best Online Bachelor's in Data Science Programs list, marking the second consecutive year the program has been recognized. The ranking reflects academic quality, support for working adult learners and curriculum designed to help students build careerrelevant skills. TechGuide evaluates programs using Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and College Navigator data, along with tuition and program criteria.

University of Phoenix Earns No. 8 Ranking on TechGuides 2026 Best Online Bachelors in Data Science Programs List.

Demand for Data Science Skills Continues to Grow

A 2025 McKinsey report found that organizations continue to face challenges filling roles such as data scientists and analysts and are turning to reskilling and upskilling to meet workforce needs. University of Phoenix programs are structured to support working adult learners by offering flexible, affordable online options that help students pursue dataoriented career paths. TechGuide's 2026 list of the best online Bachelor of Science in Data Science highlights programs that provide a strong grounding in technical competencies for individuals preparing for roles in the expanding field of data science.

"Being recognized in TechGuide's 2026 ranking reflects the strength of our data science program and the realworld skills it helps students develop," says Kathryn Uhles, MSP, MIS, dean of the College of Business and Information Technology at University of Phoenix. "We design our curriculum to help students understand how data is used to inform decisions across industries and to practice applying those concepts in ways that align with workplace expectations. The program is built to help learners translate what they study into meaningful opportunities as they move through their careers."

Data Science Education Informed by Industry Needs

University of Phoenix collaborates with labor market researchers, Industry Advisory Councils and faculty experts to identify and map employervalued skills throughout the curriculum. This skillsmapped approach supports the University's focus on aligning higher education with workforce needs and helping students understand how specific competencies connect to career paths. Student progress is visible through an individual Skills Profile within the Career Navigator, allowing students to highlight new competencies and apply them immediately in their work settings.

Learn more here about online data science degrees at University of Phoenix.

About University of Phoenix

University of Phoenix innovates to help working adults enhance their careers and develop skills in a rapidly changing world. Flexible schedules, relevant courses, interactive learning, skills-mapped curriculum for our bachelor's and master's degree programs and a Career Services for Life commitment help students more effectively pursue career and personal aspirations while balancing their busy lives. For more information, visit phoenix.edu/blog.html.

About TechGuide

TechGuide focuses on helping students and professionals make confident, data-driven decisions about analytics and computer science education and careers. We publish data-backed rankings, expert faculty insights, curated learning resources, and host podcast conversations with educators and tech professionals across the U.S.

SOURCE University of Phoenix
AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Upgraded Points ' latest study examines which destinations U.S. travelers are most curious about visiting for spring break this year, based on Google search interests. The analysis identifies every state's top-searched domestic and international destinations, offering a global view of spring break travel trends in 2026.

The Top Searched Domestic Spring Break Locations The Top Searched International Spring Break Locations

"Search trends can give us clear insight into which locations travelers may be researching, even before bookings happen," said Keri Stooksbury, editor-in-chief at Upgraded Points. "From familiar U.S. beaches to international resorts, this data reveals where Americans are considering for their next spring break trips."

Key Takeaways

Mexico leads international search interest across the U.S., with Cancun, Mexico, standing out as the most-searched destination overall. Other international destinations also show strong interest, suggesting travelers are considering a wider range of experiences beyond traditional domestic spring break party hubs.

Some international details:

Cancun, Mexico, is the top-searched international spring break destination in 13 states, making it the most searched overall.

Greece ranks second, leading search interest in 8 states, with growing site curiosity beyond typical beach destinations.

Belize ranks No. 1 in 5 states, while Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, tops 4 states.

Iceland and Peru each rank as the top-searched international destination in 3 states.

For domestic spring break travel, Florida dominates search interest nationwide. Other key domestic findings include:

Key West, Florida, is the top-searched domestic spring break destination in 17 states and Washington, D.C. (18 total).

Destin, Florida, ranks No. 1 in 15 states.

Combined, Key West and Destin account for 33 of the top domestic results across the 50 states and Washington, D.C.

Overall, Florida destinations make up 37 of the 51 top domestic search results.

The data also reveals how search interest differs between states when multiple in-state destinations are considered. For example, Orlando ranks as Florida's top-searched domestic destination, beating Florida beach destinations included in the study. In Texas, Galveston leads search interest over South Padre Island and Port Aransas, while Myrtle Beach outranks Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. And Gulf Shores ranks above Orange Beach in Alabama.

Find more results and insights by visiting the complete study online .

Study Methodology

Upgraded Points first built a keyword list of popular locations using reputable travel publishers and industry sources, including but not limited to, U.S. News Travel, AAA, Vrbo, and Tripadvisor. Then, the team analyzed Google Trends U.S. search interest from January 2025 through January 2026 using "Interest by subregion" to compare relative popularity within each state.

The scores are indexed and normalized on a scale of 0 to 100 and do not represent absolute search volume. Each state's top-searched destination or resort was determined by the term with the highest relative indexed interest during the study period.

For this study, "international" destinations were defined as locations outside the 50 U.S. states (including Puerto Rico), while "domestic" destinations include locations within the 50 U.S. states. Montana was excluded from the domestic resort analysis due to insufficient search volume.

About Upgraded Points LLC

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Upgraded Points is a travel company that helps to demystify the complex world of travel and credit cards. Launched in 2016 by Alex Miller, Upgraded Points uses targeted research efforts and in-depth studies to help travelers maximize their travel, points, and experiences. Learn more at: www.UpgradedPoints.com.

Media Contact:

Alex Miller, Founder

1-214-646-8866

[email protected]

SOURCE Upgraded Points
Ag Groups Point to Analysis in Call for Renewal of Agreement

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Trade with Mexico and Canada delivers significant economic benefits to rural communities across the U.S., according to a new economic analysis released today by the Agricultural Coalition for the United-States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

During a press conference this morning in Washington, D.C., coalition members highlighted the findings and urged leaders of the United States, Canada and Mexico to renew and further strengthen USMCA as the agreement enters its formal review period.

"Our analysis shows that USMCA is a powerful driver for employment, investment and long-term competitiveness in the U.S. agricultural sector," said Krista Swanson, chief economist for the National Corn Growers Association, a member of the coalition. "While the agreement is due for a few targeted improvements, overall, it is critical to the farm economy and a key part of rural America's success and resilience, particularly during tough economic times like we are in now."

Under the terms of the agreement, the United States, Canada and Mexico must begin a formal review of USMCA by July. As part of the process, the three countries will determine whether to renew the agreement, make targeted updates, terminate or shift to annual consultations.

This economic impact analysis uses a 2024 base-year model to evaluate the impact of U.S. agricultural and seafood exports to Canada and Mexico under USMCA.

Among the findings:

Agricultural and seafood exports to Canada and Mexico generated $149 billion in total economic output, supporting nearly half a million jobs and $36 billion in wages.





Every $1 in industry exports under USMCA drove an additional $2.45 of supported economic activity in the United States.





USMCA -related agricultural and seafood trade contributed $64 billion to U.S. GDP and supported $13 billion in federal, state and local tax revenue.

The analysis also examined the economic benefits of USMCA across key agricultural commodities. During the press conference, coalition members highlighted how the agreement supports growth, stability and market access in their respective sectors.

"The longterm success of USMCA is a top priority for our members," said International Fresh Produce Association Chief Global Policy Officer Alexis Taylor. "Since the agreement took effect, fresh U.S. fruit export values have increased by 34%, while U.S. vegetable exports have grown by 14%. These gains highlight the tangible value USMCA delivers across the fresh produce supply chain and reinforce the importance of a strong, integrated North American trade environment."

Taylor's sentiment was echoed at the press conference by a representative from the dairy industry.

"Mexico is a very lucrative market for America's dairy farmers, and Canada too represents important export sales as well as the opportunity for more growth," said National Milk Producers Federation and U.S. Dairy Export Council Executive Vice President for Trade Policy and Global Affairs Shawna Morris. "USMCA is vital to our ability to trade with both partners. We urge the president to renew the agreement with targeted changes that will make it even more robust and helpful to farmers."

About the Agricultural Coalition for USMCA

The Agricultural Coalition for USMCA is a broad-based alliance representing the full landscape of U.S. food and agricultural trade associations, state agriculture leadership and related interests committed to the renewal of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. The coalition brings together organizations spanning farmers, ranchers, producers, processors, exporters, and the agricultural supply chain, reflecting the deeply integrated nature of North American agricultural trade.

Formed as USMCA enters its formal review period, the coalition is focused on ensuring the agreement remains in place with targeted improvements that preserve market access, provide long-term certainty, and keep American agriculture competitive. Together, coalition members advocate for policies that protect the stability of cross-border trade with Canada and Mexico, which supports millions of U.S. jobs and nearly one-third of all American agricultural exports.

To learn more about the Agricultural Coalition for USMCA, visit AgforUSMCA.com.

Contact:

Bryan Goodman

Agriculture Coalition for USMCA

[email protected] | 202-997-1606

SOURCE Agricultural Coalition for the United-States-Mexico-Canada Agreement
Earning continued recognition underscores V3Gate's focus on a people-first culture that supports development and long-term success.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- V3Gate, a leading SDVOSB (Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business) technology solutions provider, is proud to announce that it has earned the prestigious Great Place To Work Certification for the 6th year in a row.

97% of employees say V3Gate is a Great Place to Work.

Great Place To Work is the global benchmark for recognizing outstanding workplace cultures and employee experiences. Its certification is based solely on the feedback of employees, measuring factors like trust, workplace fairness, and company values, all of which contribute to an environment where employees thrive and grow.

"As a small business, our strength comes from supporting one another and collaborating across every role and level," said Chris Hagerman, Chief Operating Officer of V3Gate. "Being named a Great Place To Work for the sixth time underscores our commitment to a close-knit, people-first culture where every employee is valued, empowered, and able to grow."

"Great Place To Work Certification is a highly coveted achievement that requires consistent and intentional dedication to the overall employee experience," says Sarah Lewis-Kulin, the Vice President of Global Recognition at Great Place To Work. She emphasizes that Certification is the sole official recognition earned by the real-time feedback of employees regarding their company culture. "By successfully earning this recognition, it is evident that V3Gate stands out as one of the top companies to work for, providing a great workplace environment for its employees."

This latest recognition adds to V3Gate's growing list of workplace and industry honors and reflects the company's belief that strong culture and strong performance go hand in hand.

About V3Gate

Founded in 2007, V3Gate is a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) delivering innovative IT solutions and emerging technologies to the U.S. public sector, with a strong mission-first focus on federal, state, local, and healthcare customers. V3Gate empowers organizations to streamline infrastructure, reduce costs, strengthen security, and drive agile, mission-aligned outcomes across Zero Trust, datacenter modernization, data management, cloud, generative AI, and other advanced technology areas. The company holds multiple industry certifications including ISO 9001:2015  ISO/IEC 20243:2023, ISO/IEC 20000-1:2018, ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and CMMI Maturity Level 3, and has earned repeated recognition on the Inc. 5000, Vet100, CRN Solution Provider 500, Washington Technology Top 100, and as a Great Place to Work. Learn more at v3gate.com.

About Great Place to Work Certification

Great Place To Work Certification is the most definitive "employer-of-choice" recognition that companies aspire to achieve. It is the only recognition based entirely on what employees report about their workplace experience  specifically, how consistently they experience a high-trust workplace. Great Place to Work Certification is recognized worldwide by employees and employers alike and is the global benchmark for identifying and recognizing outstanding employee experience. Every year, more than 10,000 companies across 60 countries apply to get Great Place To Work-Certified.

About Great Place To Work

As the global authority on workplace culture, Great Place To Work brings 30 years of groundbreaking research and data to help every place become a great place to work for all. Their proprietary platform and For All Model helps companies evaluate the experience of every employee, with exemplary workplaces becoming Great Place To Work Certified or receiving recognition on a coveted Best Workplaces List.

SOURCE V3gate, LLC
In this free webinar, gain insight about how patient-led organisations are shaping scientific, clinical and regulatory strategy to accelerate the development of therapies for ultra-rare diseases. The featured speakers will share real-world examples of how patient leadership has catalysed milestone achievements in ultra-rare disease drug development. Attendees will learn about practical, scalable models demonstrating how community-driven initiatives can speed therapeutic development, de-risk early research and bring hope to families faster.

TORONTO, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Progress in rare disease drug development is often slowed by limited patient populations, fragmented data and regulatory uncertainty leaving families waiting years for viable treatment options. This webinar explores how patient-led organisations are addressing these challenges by directly shaping scientific strategy, clinical development and regulatory pathways.

Through firsthand case studies, patient and parent leaders will share how advocacy-driven initiatives have accelerated gene-targeted therapies, enabled first-in-human treatments and contributed to historic regulatory approvals. The session will examine how these efforts have moved beyond awareness to deliver tangible outcomes offering practical insight into building momentum, aligning stakeholders and advancing therapies in traditionally non-commercial disease areas.

Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of how patient leadership can de-risk early research, influence regulatory decision-making and create repeatable models that support faster, more effective rare disease drug development.

Register for this webinar to learn how rare disease drug development can be accelerated through patient-led scientific, clinical and regulatory strategies.

Join the speakers along with Neena Nizar (Moderator), EdD, Director, Patient Advocacy Strategy, Centre for Rare Diseases, ICON, for the live webinar on Tuesday, March 3, 2026, at 11am EST (5pm CET/EU-Central).

For more information, or to register for this event, visit When patients lead: Breaking barriers in ultra-rare disease drug development.

ABOUT XTALKS

Xtalks  The Life Science Community empowers professionals across pharma, biotech, medtech, healthcare and research with the trusted knowledge and collaborative insights that move the industry forward. Powered by Honeycomb Worldwide Inc., Xtalks delivers news, feature articles, webinars, podcasts, videos, expert interviews, curated job opportunities and more designed to support informed decision-making in a fast-evolving sector.

Every year, thousands of professionals rely on Xtalks for timely intelligence, peer perspectives and industry thought leadership. Join our life science community to stay informed, connected and ready for what's next.

To learn more about Xtalks, visit www.xtalks.com

For information about working with Xtalks to host your webinar, visit https://xtalks.com/partner-with-us/

Contact:

Vera Kovacevic

Tel: +1 (416) 977-6555 x371

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Xtalks
New Mather Institute Study Looks at Views Across All Generations in the Workplace

EVANSTON, Ill., Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- As workplaces navigate changing generational priorities, employers may be overlooking an important resource: Generation X.

A new study from Mather Institute shows Gen X serves a critical role in bridging a multigenerational workplace. The insight comes from its latest Gen Xperience Study, which provides critical insights into Generation X's experience in the workplace, interactions with colleagues and expectations  or lack thereof  of their employer's wellness programs.

View PDF Mather Institute GenXperience Study Highlights

Mather Institute is the research arm of Mather, a not-for-profit focused on helping older adults age well through wellness-focused residences, research and mission-driven community programs. A longitudinal study, the 2026 Gen Xperience report is the third of five aimed to identify key lifestyle trends, attitudes and interests of Gen X.

New this year, the report reflects the views of Gen Z, millennial, Gen X and baby boomer generations' workplace satisfaction, loneliness, wellness, stereotypes and trends. Notable findings in this year's report include:

Gen Xers have the potential to serve as the bridge in a multigenerational workplace. Employers may be overlooking their unique capability to help others manage stress, enhance social connection and lead multigenerational collaborations.

A significant gap exists between Gen X and younger generations in their expectations regarding employers' support of their social wellness.

Compared to employees from other generations, more Gen X employees (38%) intend to stay with their current employer for more than 10 years.

Gen Xers are less likely to participate in workplace wellness programs than younger generations. Approximately 61% of Millennials and 59% Gen Zers are more likely to change jobs if their personal wellness went unsupported in the workplace compared to 41% of Gen Xers.

"This research comes at a pivotal time when Gen X is playing a vital role in the workplace yet feel overlooked," said Jennifer Smith, assistant vice president, director of Mather Institute and lead of the Gen Xperience study. "They are deciding now how they will age well in the next chapter of their lives while remaining with their current employers. Companies are investing in wellness programs that aren't resonating with Gen X, a generation key to the success of their employers.

"We hope this report challenges Gen X stereotypes and provides actionable steps employers should consider so they can better support one-third of their workforce."

Based on findings from this year's report, Mather Institute recommends employers:

Begin targeted retention strategies for Gen X

Provide fair and transparent advancement opportunities

Support their current "sandwich generation" life stage needs

Value the role Gen X plays between younger and older colleagues.

"The study shows how Gen X is uniquely able to understand workplace dynamics across all generations  and how younger and older employees are more alike than stereotypes suggest," said Mather Chief People Officer Dominice LaPorte. "Employers should recognize the value of this unique generation, which has successfully adapted to rapid social and technological changes and brings untapped potential to the workplace."

Year one (2024) of the Gen Xperience study explored the three highest priority areas for Gen X  family, career and health. Year two (2025) took an in-depth look at Gen X's wellness and views on wellness trends and technology. In next year's report, Mather Institute will examine Gen Xers' engagement in fulfilling activities and explore their sources of purpose and meaning. Additional studies to be published this year by Mather Institute include Aging Well Across Countries, Pets and Solo Agers and an impact study on a robot's week connecting with residents in a life plan community.

To download this year's full report, visit GenXperienceStudy.com.

About Mather and Mather Institute

Based in Evanston, Illinois, Mather is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1941 that is dedicated to a vision of changing the way society views aging. Mather creates Ways to Age WellSM through programs, places and residences for today's older adults. These include developing and operating communities that support older adults in pursuing wellness and fulfillment; sparking creativity and connections for older adults in Chicagoland and beyond; and through Mather Institute, conducting research and incubating innovation to help all live and age well.

SOURCE Mather
At the center of this year's presence is Yerba Madre Traditional Air-Dried Loose Leaf, named a 2026 NEXTY Award finalist. First introduced in 1996 and relaunched in 2025 under the Yerba Madre name, the product was the world's first yerba mate loose leaf to achieve Regenerative Organic Certified Gold. Sourced from regenerative, shade-grown agroforestry systems stewarded by Indigenous and family farmers across Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, it established the agricultural and sourcing standards that now extend across the entire Yerba Madre portfolioincluding 2026's milestone launch of Unsweetened Original Yerba, the brand's first ready-to-drink yerba mate to feature the Regenerative Organic Certified seal on can.

Yerba mate has long been shared as a ritual of vitality and connection. As Yerba Madre expands into new ready-to-drink formats and flavors, the brand is launching the world's first Shade-Grown Yerba Mate seal, which will be rolled out in its air-dried loose leaf this year, a standard it has developed to validate Indigenous and family farmers growing yerba mate under forest canopies and within restored agroforestry systems.

"For 30 years, our founders believed that building yerba mate the right way meant caring for the land, the people who grow it, and the future of the category," said Ben Mand, CEO of Yerba Madre. "Regenerative Organic Certified and verified Shade-Grown standards are the foundationbut innovation is how that vision continues to grow. As we expand into new formats and flavors, we're proving that progress, values, and growth can move forward together."

New products rolling out in early 2026 include:

Sparkling, Reimagined  a refreshed sparkling yerba mate line formulated with 115 mg of naturally occurring caffeine, launching at Sprouts and select Albertsons locations

 a refreshed sparkling yerba mate line formulated with 115 mg of naturally occurring caffeine, launching at Sprouts and select Albertsons locations Lower Sugar Enlighten Mint  a next-generation update to one of the brand's highest-velocity SKUs

Additional launches through spring 2026 include:

Strawberry Kiwi  first c-store exclusive launch at Extra Mile and Jacksons

 first c-store exclusive launch at Extra Mile and Jacksons Cherry Sublime  first exclusive c-store launch at 7-Eleven

 first exclusive c-store launch at 7-Eleven Mango Fuego  a limited-run seasonal inspired by peak-season mango, rolling out MarchMay

"We see innovation as stewardship," said Jennifer Brush, VP of Product Innovation and Brand at Yerba Madre. "Yerba mate is deeply rooted in South American culture. Our role is to bring that tradition into American life with care for the plantgrounded in regenerative agriculture and expressed through formats and flavors that invite more people to experience the ritual and possibility of yerba mate."

Yerba Madre products are available nationwide across natural, conventional, mass, club, and convenience channels, with placement in more than 45,000 retailers across the U.S. and Canada. At Expo West, attendees can explore the full Yerba Madre lineup at the following booths:

Hall E, Main Booth #5120: New still (non-sparkling) releases

Organic Products Hall B, Booth #1617: New Sparkling line

For more information, visit www.YerbaMadre.com or follow @yerbamadre on social media.

About Yerba Madre

Yerba Madreformerly Guayaki Yerba Mateis the 30-year pioneer of regenerative yerba mate [yer-bah ma-tay] and the category leader in ready-to-drink mate beverages across North America. The name Yerba Madre is a tribute to Mother Earth and the ancestral wisdom of the Indigenous communities who have cultivated yerba mate for generationsa reflection of the values the brand has championed since day one.

Headquartered in Oakland and Los Angeles, California, Yerba Madre sources regenerative, organic, shade-grown yerba mate in direct partnership with 257 Indigenous and farmer families across Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. Using its Market Driven Regeneration model, every purchase helps conserve and restore the Atlantic Forest, support fair trade premiums, and build long-term economic resilience for grower communities.

Yerba Madre is proudly the first yerba mate to be Regenerative Organic Certified and the first company in South America to achieve ROC Gold status, marking a dual milestone in regenerative agriculture and ethical sourcing. This achievement affirms the brand's leadership in regenerative business. The ROC seal debuted on Yerba Madre packaging for Traditional Air-Dried Loose Leaf and Mate Bags in May 2025.

As one of the original founding B Corps, Yerba Madre is committed to ethical business practices across ten key pillars, including climate positivity, living wages, circularity, and inclusion. Yerba Madre is available in over 45,000 retail locations across the U.S. and Canada. To learn more, visit www.YerbaMadre.com.

SOURCE Yerba Madre
COLOMBO, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's health authorities have intensified precautionary measures in response to reports of Nipah virus cases in India and Bangladesh, according to Cabinet spokesperson and Health Minister Nalinda Jayatissa.

Addressing the issue at the weekly Cabinet media briefing on Tuesday, the minister said the health ministry has activated preventive protocols at airports and other entry points, citing the steady increase in tourist arrivals to the country. He noted that monitoring mechanisms have been strengthened to reduce the risk of potential transmission through inbound travel.

The minister said the health sector has been closely tracking developments related to the virus following confirmed cases and fatalities reported in India, adding that the authorities are prepared to respond promptly if necessary, particularly in light of the anticipated arrival of foreign visitors for major international sporting events scheduled to take place in Colombo.

Tourism figures were also cited as a factor behind the heightened alert. More than 40,000 tourists arrived in Sri Lanka over the past four days, while total arrivals in January reached 277,000, marking the highest number recorded for that month. The surge has prompted the Ministry of Health to remain on high alert and maintain preventive measures at all points of entry. 
DALLAS, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The non-partisan Young Black Lawyers' Organizing Coalition (YBLOC), a democracy organizing network for young Black lawyers and law students, is launching its Democracy Sunday events February 15 ahead of the March 3 Texas Primary elections, deploying members of the Black legal community to Dallas area churches to help voters to knowledgeably and confidently engage in our democracy. Following the Texas primaries, the effort will engage other select communities across the nation ahead of the midterm elections in November.

A non-partisan effort, Democracy Sunday is to help voters to knowledgably and confidently engage in our democracy. YBLOC's founder and executive director, Abdul Dosunmu, who was featured as one of several Obama leaders carrying the legacy of Juneteenth by fighting for racial equality this past Juneteenth by President Obama and the Obama Foundation, is leading the effort. Last fall, YBLOC convened the inaugural Black Legal Brain Trust in Washington, D.C., a think tank of young Black attorneys from across the nation for a day of strategic thinking about the future of democracy.

YBLOC's founder and executive director, Abdul Dosunmu, who was featured as one of several Obama leaders carrying the legacy of Juneteenth by fighting for racial equality this past Juneteenth by President Obama and the Obama Foundation, is leading the effort. The Dallas initiative includes support from the J. L. Turner Legal Association (JLTLA), the African American Bar Association of Dallas.

"Democracy Sunday is a part of our Black Ballots, Black Futures campaign and is designed to provide Black voters in Dallas area churches with the general informational tools they need to reclaim and reimagine democracy as a vehicle for Black empowerment," said Dosunmu. "This community outreach effort gives young Black lawyers and law students the opportunity to visit churches throughout Dallas to speak about the importance of participating in our democracy. We partner with local Black communities to provide voter education and voter protection programming."

Last fall, YBLOC convened the inaugural Black Legal Brain Trust in Washington, D.C., a think tank of young Black attorneys from across the nation for a day of strategic thinking about the future of democracy and racial justice to help advance YBLOC's movement to build and protect Black voting power.

Since its 2019 inception, with its Black Ballots, Black Futures campaign, YBLOC has grown into a national initiative working to protect voters, build Black voting power, and redefine what it means to be a lawyer in service of participatory democracy.

Media Contact

Taryn Brown

838-227-9000

[email protected]

SOURCE Young Black Lawyers Organizing Coalition
About this content 

About Ian Lyall

Ian Lyall, a seasoned journalist and editor, brings over three decades of experience to his role as Managing Editor at Proactive. Overseeing Proactive's editorial and broadcast operations across six offices on three continents, Ian is responsible for quality control, editorial policy, and content production. He directs the creation of 50,000 pieces of real-time news, feature articles, and filmed interviews annually. Prior to Proactive, Ian helped lead the business output at the Daily... Read more

About the publisher

Proactive financial news and online broadcast teams provide fast, accessible, informative and actionable business and finance news content to a global investment audience. All our content is produced independently by our experienced and qualified teams of news journalists.

Proactive news team spans the worlds key finance and investing hubs with bureaus and studios in London, New York, Toronto, Vancouver, Sydney and Perth.

We are experts in medium and small-cap markets, we also keep our community up to date with blue-chip companies, commodities and broader investment stories. This is content that excites and engages motivated private investors.

The team delivers news and unique insights across the market including but not confined to: biotech and pharma, mining and natural resources, battery metals, oil and gas, crypto and emerging digital and EV technologies.

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Proactive has always been a forward looking and enthusiastic technology adopter.

Our human content creators are equipped with many decades of valuable expertise and experience. The team also has access to and use technologies to assist and enhance workflows.

Proactive will on occasion use automation and software tools, including generative AI. Nevertheless, all content published by Proactive is edited and authored by humans, in line with best practice in regard to content production and search engine optimisation.
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About Jamie Ashcroft

Jamie Ashcroft, the News Editor for Proactive UK, has developed an impressive career in financial journalism, focusing on the small-cap sector for over fourteen years. Before joining the Proactive team, he was a stockbroker during the global financial crisis, a role that complemented his educational background - a first-class degree in Business and Economics and qualifications in software design and development. As one of the early external hires at Proactive in 2009, Jamie contributed... Read more

About the publisher

Proactive financial news and online broadcast teams provide fast, accessible, informative and actionable business and finance news content to a global investment audience. All our content is produced independently by our experienced and qualified teams of news journalists.

Proactive news team spans the worlds key finance and investing hubs with bureaus and studios in London, New York, Toronto, Vancouver, Sydney and Perth.

We are experts in medium and small-cap markets, we also keep our community up to date with blue-chip companies, commodities and broader investment stories. This is content that excites and engages motivated private investors.

The team delivers news and unique insights across the market including but not confined to: biotech and pharma, mining and natural resources, battery metals, oil and gas, crypto and emerging digital and EV technologies.

Use of technology

Proactive has always been a forward looking and enthusiastic technology adopter.

Our human content creators are equipped with many decades of valuable expertise and experience. The team also has access to and use technologies to assist and enhance workflows.

Proactive will on occasion use automation and software tools, including generative AI. Nevertheless, all content published by Proactive is edited and authored by humans, in line with best practice in regard to content production and search engine optimisation.
About this content 

About Jonathan Jackson

Jonathan Jackson is an experienced writer and editor. Over the past 20 years, he has worked in print and digital media across several business and finance titles amd is currently the Australian news editor at Proactive Investors covering the latest news for ASX listed companies as well as current financial trends. He was previously managing editor with Business First magazine, Wealth Creator Magazine and StocksDigital. Jonathan has interviewed some of the world's top CEOs and covered... Read more

About the publisher

Proactive financial news and online broadcast teams provide fast, accessible, informative and actionable business and finance news content to a global investment audience. All our content is produced independently by our experienced and qualified teams of news journalists.

Proactive news team spans the worlds key finance and investing hubs with bureaus and studios in London, New York, Toronto, Vancouver, Sydney and Perth.

We are experts in medium and small-cap markets, we also keep our community up to date with blue-chip companies, commodities and broader investment stories. This is content that excites and engages motivated private investors.

The team delivers news and unique insights across the market including but not confined to: biotech and pharma, mining and natural resources, battery metals, oil and gas, crypto and emerging digital and EV technologies.

Use of technology

Proactive has always been a forward looking and enthusiastic technology adopter.

Our human content creators are equipped with many decades of valuable expertise and experience. The team also has access to and use technologies to assist and enhance workflows.

Proactive will on occasion use automation and software tools, including generative AI. Nevertheless, all content published by Proactive is edited and authored by humans, in line with best practice in regard to content production and search engine optimisation.
Omega Oil and Gas (ASX: OMA) has been awarded a large new land parcel in Queenslands Taroom Trough, extending its operated position over the basins eastern flank and setting up what the company is pitching as a major 2026/27 drilling campaign.

The Queensland Government granted the 750 sq km block (PLR2025-1-9) to an Omega-led joint venture with Tri-Star E&P and Beach Energy following a competitive tender process. Omega will hold 45% and operatorship, with Tri-Star on 30% and Beach on 25%.

Permit interest map.

Any gas produced from the permit is designated for the domestic market.

The award area sits immediately north of Omegas existing Potentially Commercial Areas in the Taroom Trough, which cover 1,046 sq km, and is intended to expand the companys operated footprint over what it describes as the prime eastern flank play.

Omega said its combined position  including its PCA areas, its 19.43% interest in Elixir Energy Ltd (ASX:EXR, OTC:ELXPF) and the new permit  gives it an acreage interest of 5,041 sq km, which it described as the largest in the basin.

Chief executive and managing director Trevor Brown said the new acreage was contiguous with the companys Canyon project area and close to infrastructure, positioning the JV to scale activity in the basin.

Omega is an agile, well-funded, highly capable, Queensland-based explorer focussed entirely on unlocking the resource potential of the Taroom Trough. The newly awarded acreage area is contiguous with our existing Canyon Project area, in a geologic province we understand well, situated close to existing infrastructure. Our entire operated acreage position is within a proven, prolific hydrocarbon system with enormous upside potential for both oil and gas. Early indications are that the Taroom Trough may be host to internationally significant volumes of oil and gas and it shares many geological characteristics with the most prolific, unconventional producing basins in the USA. Weve built Omega to move fast, and this award gives us a clear runway to rapidly appraise the area and create significant value.

We thank the Queensland Government for releasing new acreage in the Taroom Trough to deliver much-needed new gas supply to the East Coast market and new oil to meet Australias need for liquid fuels.

We are pleased to be working alongside high-quality partners, Tri-Star and Beach Energy to rapidly determine the resource potential of our attractive new award area.

Drilling targeted from H2 2026 as approvals progress

Omega will begin preparatory work to incorporate PLR2025-1-9 into an expanded 2026/27 drilling program, with drilling planned as early as the second half of 2026, subject to permitting and agreements.

The company flagged a campaign of at least four wells across 2026/27  at least two on its existing PCA areas and two on PLR2025-1-9  aimed at capturing cost and efficiency benefits from a continuous program.

The company is finalising a contract for Helmerich & Payne (Australia) FlexRig 648 and has signed a binding letter of intent for the rig.

Stacked Permian reservoirs in focus

Omega pointed to results from its Canyon wells, along with seismic and Tasmania-1 well data (previously drilled on the new permit), as supporting its view that favourable geology extends into PLR2025-1-9.

The company is targeting what it describes as five stacked Permian reservoir layers on the eastern flank, noting only one of the five has been tested with a horizontal well to date.

Omega also referenced SLB modelling for a single Canyon Sandstone reservoir layer, indicating a 10-year estimated ultimate recovery of about 0.95 MMBOE (around 5.72 Bcf gas equivalent) from a 2,000 m horizontal development well at 1,000 m well spacing.

Funding and indicative milestones

Omega said it is well funded for a four-well program with access to about $54 million, including expected R&D refunds, and will fund 45% of costs on PLR2025-1-9.

In an indicative schedule, the company flagged long-lead wellheads and casing due to arrive in early May, rig mobilisation around mid-May 2026, first drilling results around mid-2026 and updated resource-to-reserve maturation expected in late 2026.

Partners back domestic supply potential

Tri-Star E&P CEO (Australia) Andrew Hackwood said the JV was positioned to move quickly, describing the Taroom Trough as a potential next major source of domestic oil and gas supply.

Tri-Star is very pleased to partner with Omega and Beach Energy on PLR2025-1-9. This joint venture is well positioned to move quickly and accelerate exploration and appraisal. As a pioneer of Australias CSG-to-LNG industry, Tri-Star sees the Taroom Trough as a potential next major source of domestic oil and gas, and we commend the Queensland Government for its leadership in supporting increased East Coast gas supply.

Beach Energy CEO Brett Woods also pointed to the basins potential, saying Beach believes the Taroom Trough could become a meaningful new source of domestic oil and gas supply.

Beach Energy is excited to partner with Omega and Tri-Star in the Taroom Trough, an area we believe has the potential to become a meaningful new source of domestic oil and gas supply. We look forward to applying our expertise to accelerate exploration and appraisal and unlock value from these stacked Permian reservoirs.
About this content 

About Kerry Stevenson

Kerry Stevenson joins Proactive Australia's broadcast team part time. As the Managing Director of Gold Events Kerry has been hosting the annual Australian Gold Conference for over 14 years, connecting industry and investment professionals and showcasing the value of precious metals. Kerry is passionate about helping others to secure a safe and solid future by understanding money, finance, and strategy. That is why she created the Making Money Matter channel on YouTube, where... Read more

About the publisher

Proactive financial news and online broadcast teams provide fast, accessible, informative and actionable business and finance news content to a global investment audience. All our content is produced independently by our experienced and qualified teams of news journalists.

Proactive news team spans the worlds key finance and investing hubs with bureaus and studios in London, New York, Toronto, Vancouver, Sydney and Perth.

We are experts in medium and small-cap markets, we also keep our community up to date with blue-chip companies, commodities and broader investment stories. This is content that excites and engages motivated private investors.

The team delivers news and unique insights across the market including but not confined to: biotech and pharma, mining and natural resources, battery metals, oil and gas, crypto and emerging digital and EV technologies.

Use of technology

Proactive has always been a forward looking and enthusiastic technology adopter.

Our human content creators are equipped with many decades of valuable expertise and experience. The team also has access to and use technologies to assist and enhance workflows.

Proactive will on occasion use automation and software tools, including generative AI. Nevertheless, all content published by Proactive is edited and authored by humans, in line with best practice in regard to content production and search engine optimisation.
About this content 

About Lisa Uhlman

Lisa Uhlman is an equities reporter at Proactive Investors, covering ASX-listed companies across the mining, energy, biotech and emerging tech sectors. With a background in legal and financial journalism, Lisa brings a sharp analytical lens to market news and corporate developments. Prior to joining Proactive, she reported for national trade publications and newswires, with a focus on court reporting, regulatory affairs and ESG-related business issues. Based in Sydney, she is... Read more

About the publisher

Proactive financial news and online broadcast teams provide fast, accessible, informative and actionable business and finance news content to a global investment audience. All our content is produced independently by our experienced and qualified teams of news journalists.

Proactive news team spans the worlds key finance and investing hubs with bureaus and studios in London, New York, Toronto, Vancouver, Sydney and Perth.

We are experts in medium and small-cap markets, we also keep our community up to date with blue-chip companies, commodities and broader investment stories. This is content that excites and engages motivated private investors.

The team delivers news and unique insights across the market including but not confined to: biotech and pharma, mining and natural resources, battery metals, oil and gas, crypto and emerging digital and EV technologies.

Use of technology

Proactive has always been a forward looking and enthusiastic technology adopter.

Our human content creators are equipped with many decades of valuable expertise and experience. The team also has access to and use technologies to assist and enhance workflows.

Proactive will on occasion use automation and software tools, including generative AI. Nevertheless, all content published by Proactive is edited and authored by humans, in line with best practice in regard to content production and search engine optimisation.
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About Steve Darling

Steve Darling is an award winning broadcaster who has spent the past 20 years as one of the most recognizable faces in British Columbia, reporting and anchoring at BCTV and Global Television. He spent 15 years as the co-host of the number one morning new program in the province. Steve is a tireless worker for charity hosting some 50 events a year. He is an ambassador for the Canucks Autism Network and hosts numerous events with BC Childrens Hospital and the Child Development foundation of... Read more

About the publisher

Proactive financial news and online broadcast teams provide fast, accessible, informative and actionable business and finance news content to a global investment audience. All our content is produced independently by our experienced and qualified teams of news journalists.

Proactive news team spans the worlds key finance and investing hubs with bureaus and studios in London, New York, Toronto, Vancouver, Sydney and Perth.

We are experts in medium and small-cap markets, we also keep our community up to date with blue-chip companies, commodities and broader investment stories. This is content that excites and engages motivated private investors.

The team delivers news and unique insights across the market including but not confined to: biotech and pharma, mining and natural resources, battery metals, oil and gas, crypto and emerging digital and EV technologies.

Use of technology

Proactive has always been a forward looking and enthusiastic technology adopter.

Our human content creators are equipped with many decades of valuable expertise and experience. The team also has access to and use technologies to assist and enhance workflows.

Proactive will on occasion use automation and software tools, including generative AI. Nevertheless, all content published by Proactive is edited and authored by humans, in line with best practice in regard to content production and search engine optimisation.
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Security forces patrol across polling areas in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Feb. 10, 2026. (Photo by Habibur Rahman/Xinhua)

DHAKA, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Bangladesh is all set for Thursday's general elections in which more than 127 million voters are expected to cast their ballots at over 42,000 polling stations across the country, a senior official said Tuesday.

All election preparations are now complete, Akhtar Ahmed, Bangladeshi Election Commission's senior secretary, said.

According to the official, ballot papers and all other polling materials have already been delivered for 299 of the 300 constituencies.

He said polling in one constituency has been postponed due to the death of a candidate and will be held later.

Voting in the country's 13th general election and referendum will take place simultaneously nationwide from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. local time on Thursday, he added in his remarks at the inauguration of a media center for foreign journalists and media professionals in Dhaka.

The country's election authorities had earlier said that more than 127 million voters had been registered for the election for the first time since former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and left the country in August 2024.

The Bangladeshi parliament comprises a total of 350 members, of which 50 seats are reserved for women who are elected later by the 300 directly-elected members on the basis of procedure of proportional representation in the parliament through single transferable vote. 

Security forces patrol across polling areas in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Feb. 10, 2026. (Photo by Habibur Rahman/Xinhua)

Security forces patrol across polling areas in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Feb. 10, 2026. (Photo by Habibur Rahman/Xinhua)

Staff members check ballot boxes ahead of the general election in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Feb. 11, 2026. Bangladesh is all set for Thursday's general elections in which more than 127 million voters are expected to cast their ballots at over 42,000 polling stations across the country, a senior official said Tuesday. (Photo by Habibur Rahman/Xinhua)

Staff members carry ballot boxes ahead of the general election in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Feb. 11, 2026. Bangladesh is all set for Thursday's general elections in which more than 127 million voters are expected to cast their ballots at over 42,000 polling stations across the country, a senior official said Tuesday. (Photo by Habibur Rahman/Xinhua)

Staff members carry ballot boxes ahead of the general election in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Feb. 11, 2026. Bangladesh is all set for Thursday's general elections in which more than 127 million voters are expected to cast their ballots at over 42,000 polling stations across the country, a senior official said Tuesday. (Photo by Habibur Rahman/Xinhua)

Staff members check ballot boxes ahead of the general election in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Feb. 11, 2026. Bangladesh is all set for Thursday's general elections in which more than 127 million voters are expected to cast their ballots at over 42,000 polling stations across the country, a senior official said Tuesday. (Photo by Habibur Rahman/Xinhua)
New Delhi, Feb 10 : Union Home Minister Amit Shah will deliver the keynote address at the National Conference on Tackling Cyber-Enabled Frauds and Dismantling the Ecosystem in New Delhi on Tuesday'.

'The two-day event organised by the Central Bureau of Investigation in partnership with the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre under the Ministry of Home Affairs will take place at Bharat Mandapam from February 10 to 11. '

During the inaugural session, Home Minister Amit Shah will conduct an investiture ceremony for CBI officers.

He will also inaugurate the newly established Cybercrime Branch of the CBI and launch the State Cyber Crime Coordination Centre Dashboard developed by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre. These steps represent a strengthened institutional response to the growing threat of digital crimes.

The conference is being held against the backdrop of India's rapid digital advancement under the guidance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Widespread adoption of digital banking governance and communication tools has brought convenience to millions, but has also opened the door for organised cybercriminal networks to exploit weaknesses.

Financial losses from cyber fraud are projected to reach alarming levels, with scams involving phishing, fake investment mule accounts, and digital arrest tactics causing widespread damage. The gathering aims to create a common understanding of the scale, current trends and changing patterns of cyber-enabled fraud across the country.

Discussions will centre on the three main components of the fraud ecosystem. The financial aspect covers mule accounts and money laundering channels. The telecom aspect addresses misuse of SIM cards, eSIMs, and related infrastructure. The human aspect highlights cyber slavery and the trafficking of individuals into overseas scam operations.

Participants will focus on building stronger prevention measures, advanced investigation techniques, and the wider use of technology, including artificial intelligence and data analytics, for efficient probes despite resource constraints.

Emphasis will be placed on better inter-agency cooperation, public-private partnerships, quicker fraud reporting, real-time tracking of funds, preservation of digital evidence and improved support systems for victims.

The conference brings together senior representatives from central and state law enforcement agencies, the Department of Telecommunications, the Department of Financial Services, the Reserve Bank of India, public and private banks, cooperative institutions, fintech companies, payment platforms, telecom operators, social media and cloud service providers, cybersecurity experts, and international counterparts.

This broad collaboration reflects a comprehensive whole-of-ecosystem strategy to counter cyber threats. Through these efforts, the government intends to disrupt criminal syndicates, protect citizens and strengthen confidence in India's expanding digital framework.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Washington, Feb 10 : A new US-India trade framework announced last week is drawing strong backing from US lawmakers, with Kansas agricultural exporters and Kentucky's bourbon industry emerging as early beneficiaries of provisions expanding access to the Indian market.

Congressman Derek Schmidt of Kansas said the agreement reflects priorities he pushed with US trade officials last year, including market access for grain sorghum, dried distillers' grains and soybean products.

"The Indian market potential is enormous and is vital to Kansas agriculture exporters as the dynamics with China continue to evolve," Schmidt said. "I am grateful to the Trump administration for prioritizing Kansas agricultural exports in this new framework and will continue to work closely with our trade officials to make sure Kansas producers and agribusinesses see the benefits."

Schmidt said he raised the issue with the US Trade Representative in May, urging negotiators to focus on farm exports critical to Kansas. The final framework includes all three commodities he highlighted.

Kansas produces more grain sorghum than any other US state and is also a major producer of dried distillers' grains, a byproduct widely used in animal feed. The state's Second Congressional District includes soybean oil facilities in Cherryvale and Emporia.

"The economy in farm country is challenging," Schmidt said. "So, this good news is particularly welcome. I'll keep fighting to open markets and to support Kansas farmers, ranchers, and our rural economy."

In Kentucky, Congressman Andy Barr said the agreement's tariff provisions for US spirits could be a turning point for the state's signature bourbon industry. Barr is co-chair of the Congressional Bourbon Caucus and vice-chair of the Congressional India Caucus.

"Unfettered access to a top five economic market will be a boom for our Kentucky bourbon businesses," Barr said. "President Donald Trump has delivered for bourbon beforeby cutting taxes, leveling the playing field for distillers, and standing up for American-made products. Today, I join Kentucky distillers in toasting to the President once again for securing access to a major new market for our signature bourbon industry."

Industry groups echoed that message. Michael Bilello, president and chief executive of the American Whiskey Association, said tariff reductions would strengthen the entire supply chain.

"Reducing India's tariffs on American whiskeyparticularly native spirits from Kentucky, including world-class bourbon and ryeis a meaningful step forward for US distillers, farmers, and the broader supply chain that supports this iconic American product," Bilello said. He added that Barr had been "a consistent and effective advocate for American whiskey."

The Distilled Spirits Council also welcomed the framework, noting earlier tariff cuts by India and recent trade deals New Delhi reached with Europe.

"Last year's tariff reduction on US spirits imports to India was an important first step that opened new opportunities for Bourbon producers in the world's largest whiskey market," the council said. It said it hoped the new agreement would ensure "fair and competitive access to the Indian marketplace."

India cut its tariff on American bourbon from 150 per cent to 100 per cent in February 2025, following negotiations led by President Trump. During his first term, Trump signed the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act into law, legislation championed by Barr that lowered federal excise taxes and eased financing rules for distillers.

The USIndia trade framework is part of a broader push by Washington and New Delhi to deepen commercial ties amid shifting global supply chains and trade tensions. Both governments have said they aim to move toward a more comprehensive bilateral trade agreement building on recent sector-specific gains.

-- Syndicated from IANS
Mexico City, Feb 10 : Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said that her government will continue providing humanitarian aid to Cuba, despite US sanctions targeting countries that trade with or send oil to the Caribbean nation.

"There will be more support. The Mexican people are always solidary. No one can ignore the situation that the Cuban people are currently experiencing due to the sanctions being imposed by the United States," Sheinbaum said on Monday at her daily press conference, Xinhua news agency reported.

The president called on the United States and the international community to recognize that the sanctions are unfair to the Cuban people.

Mexico has recently dispatched two navy ships carrying 814 tonnes of food supplies to Cuba.

Earlier on Friday, speaking from Michoacan, Sheinbaum said that her government would be delivering the aid imminently.

She said that she would also continue "diplomatic efforts" with the US to restore Cuba's access to oil, a necessary fuel to power the country's electrical grid.

But Sheinbaum acknowledged that the US has threatened to issue tariffs against any country that seeks to circumvent its energy blockade. "Obviously, we don't want sanctions against Mexico," she told reporters.

Her remarks come after Trump issued an executive order last week declaring that Cuba's communist government constituted an unusual and extraordinary threat to the US, thereby requiring a national emergency declaration.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Seoul, Feb 10 : South Korean investigators on Tuesday raided the spy agency and a military intelligence command while booking three military officers as suspects over suspicions related to alleged drone flights to North Korea, officials said.

A joint team of police and military investigators carried out searches and seizures at the National Intelligence Service (NIS), the Defence Intelligence Command and 16 other locations, including the suspects' homes and offices, as part of the investigation into the flights.

The three active duty officers, which include a major and a captain at the intelligence unit, are suspected of involvement in the drone incursions.

The joint investigation was launched last month after North Korea claimed South Korea infringed on its sovereignty with drone incursions in September and on January 4.

Investigators had earlier focused the investigation on three civilian suspects, including a graduate student in his 30s who claimed responsibility for the flights, before identifying his connections with the intelligence unit.

The command has reportedly said the student, surnamed Oh, cooperated in operations of a media company that served as a front for the unit's intelligence activities.

Investigators have also identified an NIS employee who allegedly exchanged hundreds of millions of won with Oh.

The NIS conducted an internal inspection after discovering the transaction late last month but has been unable to identify links between the money and the drone flights.

The three civilian suspects are currently under investigation on charges of violating the aviation safety law and benefiting the enemy, Yonhap news agency reported.

Earlier on January 23, a joint team of police and military investigators had imposed travel bans on three civilian suspects accused of involvement in alleged drone flights to North Korea, sources had said.
New Delhi, Feb 10 : Women MPs from the ruling BJP have written to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla expressing gratitude for "upholding" and "protecting" the dignity and sanctity of the House during the discussion on the Motion of Thanks to the President's Address on February 4.

This comes a day after the women MPs of the Congress party wrote to the Lok Sabha Speaker expressing strong objection to what they described as "grave allegations" that they had "threatened or attempted to obstruct" Prime Minister Narendra Modi inside the House on February 4.

In their letter, the BJP MPs said, "We would like to express our deep gratitude and appreciation for the exemplary manner in which you upheld and protected the dignity, decorum, and sanctity of the Lok Sabha during the discussion on the Motion of Thanks to the Honourable President's Address on February 4, 2026."

Calling the sequence of the events of February 4 "one of the most unfortunate and regrettable incidents" inside the Lok Sabha, the parliamentarians said, "We saw members of opposition parties not only enter the Well of the House, but also climb onto the tables, tear up papers, and throw them towards the Speaker."

"Furthermore, sadly, some Honourable women Members, behaving aggressively and carrying banners and placards, crossed over to the other side. They not only surrounded the Honourable Prime Minister's seat but also went inside the Treasury Benches, where senior ministers sit," they further said.

The women MPs of the ruling party said that although they were "deeply provoked and enraged" by the "serious provocation" from the opposition side, they "exercised utmost restraint, following the instructions of our senior leaders, and did not retaliate in any way".

"Had we not exercised restraint, an unpleasant situation could have developed. The matter became even more serious when, later, we saw opposition MPs aggressively approach your chamber. We could hear loud noises coming from inside your chamber," they wrote.

Urging strict action against those responsible, the Lok Sabha MPs said, "This dangerous turn of events within the hallowed premises of the Lok Sabha has deeply concerned us all. The current situation could have had serious and unpleasant consequences and could have been one of the darkest moments in the history of our parliamentary democracy."

"Therefore, we urge you to take the strongest possible action, within the rules, against those opposition MPs who have committed such heinous acts within the House premises and brought disrepute to our democratic institutions," they added.

The BJP MPs also praised the Speaker for his "impartiality" and leadership during his seven-year tenure as the Chairperson of the Lok Sabha.

"Hon'ble Speaker, during your nearly seven-year tenure as the Presiding Officer of this august House, you have consistently strived to enhance its prestige and effectiveness. As the Chairperson of this august House, you have always demonstrated impartiality and given equal opportunities to all members, regardless of party affiliation. Therefore, we have full faith in your leadership and feel that the Lok Sabha is fortunate to have you as its custodian," they said.

The controversy erupted after Speaker Birla stated that he had received information suggesting opposition MPs could do "something unexpected", adding that he decided to adjourn the House to prevent unpleasant scenes in what he described as the temple of democracy.

According to the sequence of events, as the clock approached 5 p.m. on February 4, members were waiting for the Prime Minister to enter the Lok Sabha and begin his address.

However, protests continued inside the House, during which about eight to nine women MPs from the Opposition benches reportedly gathered around the Prime Minister's designated seat. Among those named were Geniben Thakor, Varsha Gaikwad, Jyotimati, R. Sudha, K. Kavya and Shobha Bachhav.

The Congress party, however, rejected the allegations, describing them as "baseless".

Following the adjournment, the Prime Minister's scheduled reply to the Motion of Thanks on the President's address was cancelled.
Brussels, Feb 10 : January 2026 was the fifth-warmest on record globally, with contrasting temperature extremes seen in both hemispheres, the EU-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) reported on Tuesday.

The global average temperature in January 2026 stood at 12.95 degrees Celsius, 0.28 degrees Celsius cooler than the record-warm January 2025, ranking as the fifth-warmest January worldwide, the report said.

The Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere experienced different extremes in January, according to the report. Severe cold waves hit the Northern Hemisphere, notably Europe and North America, contributing to Europe's coldest January since 2010, with an average temperature of minus 2.34 degrees Celsius.

In the Southern Hemisphere, record-breaking heat fueled worsening wildfires across Australia and Patagonia, while late-month heavy rains in Southern Africa triggered severe flooding.

"January 2026 delivered a stark reminder that the climate system can sometimes simultaneously deliver very cold weather in one region, and extreme heat in another," said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.

She added that while human activities continue to drive long-term warming, these recent events underscore the need to strengthen resilience and accelerate adaptation to escalating extremes to better prepare society for heightened climate risks ahead.

The average sea surface temperature for January 2026 between 60 degrees south latitude and 60 degrees north latitude reached 20.68 degrees Celsius, the fourth-highest for January on record, 0.29 degrees Celsius below the January 2024 record.

According to the report, Arctic sea ice extent in January was 6 per cent below average, the third lowest on record for the month, while Antarctic sea ice extent was 8 per cent below average, Xinhua news agency reported.

A wave of extreme weather has swept across Europe in recent weeks, as powerful Atlantic storms battered southern countries with flooding, while Arctic cold gripped parts of central and northern Europe, leaving dozens dead, thousands displaced and causing widespread disruption.
Mumbai, Feb 10 : Veteran actor Anupam Kher has issued a clarification warning his fans and followers about fake Instagram accounts being created in his name.

Taking to social media, the actor shared a video message urging people to ignore any follow requests from accounts other than his official one.

He wrote in the caption: "IGNORE: "I only have this instagram account. Please ignore any request to follow any other account with my name. Jai Ho!"

Anupam revealed that several of his close friends had reached out to him after receiving follow requests from accounts using his name and profile picture.

In the video, the actor is heard saying: "My dear friends Some of my friends have sent me a message that someone has opened my account on Instagram AnupamKher30 AnupamPKher30. They have put my profile pictures and videos. They are sending people requests."

The actor added that the confusion prompted him to address the issue publicly so that no one falls prey to impersonation.

"I don't have any such account Ignore them and that's all I wanted to say because some of my close friends have sent me a message asking why I opened another account. So I didn't open it."

Anupam is currently shooting for the second installment of the 2006 film "Khosla Ka Ghosla!"

Directed by Dibakar Banerjee, the story follows Kamal Kishore Khosla, a middle-class Delhiite, and his family's attempt to reclaim their land, which has been seized by a builder, Khurana.

The film was screened at the 2006 Kara Film Festival. It won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi at the 54th National Film Awards. It was remade in 2008 in Tamil and in 2010 in Kannada.

On January 3, Anupam reflected on his cinematic journey on the first day of shooting his 550th film, "Khosla Ka Ghosla 2".
Quetta, Feb 10 : As violence against civilians continue to escalate in Balochistan, a leading human rights organisation brought to light two separate incidents-the enforced disappearance of a Baloch civilian in Hub district and the extrajudicial killing of another civilian in Kech district, allegedly at the hands of Pakistani forces.

Quetta, Feb 10 (IANS) As violence against civilians continue to escalate in Balochistan, a leading human rights organisation brought to light two separate incidentsthe enforced disappearance of a Baloch civilian in Hub district and the extrajudicial killing of another civilian in Kech district, allegedly at the hands of Pakistani forces.

Paank, the Baloch National Movement's Human Rights Department, mentioned that Sohrab, a resident of Tump region in Kech, was forcibly disappeared from Baloch Colony in Hub on February 8, during a house raid by Pakistan's Frontier Corps (FC) and Counter Terrorism Department (CTD).

The rights body stated that this marked Sohrab's third enforced disappearance; he was previously detained for five days in 2017 and 40 days in 2019 before being released.

Paank further revealed that on February 8, a mutilated body of Baloch civilian Nisar was found in the Buleda region in Kech. Citing local sources, the rights body stated that he was forcibly disappeared by a death squad and killed the same day.

Earlier on Sunday, the Baloch National Movement (BNM) organised a protest demonstration at Porta Nigra Square in the German city of Trier to draw international attention to the ongoing systematic and grave human rights violations in Balochistan by Pakistani forces.

Expressing solidarity with the people of Balochistan, the protesters voiced serious concern over enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and Pakistan's repression against political dissenters and human rights activists. The participants stated that these actions are being carried out in an organised manner by the Pakistani authorities.

"Through placards, banners, and speeches, the protesters urged the international community, global human rights organisations, and the media to break their silence on the situation in Balochistan. Speakers emphasised that despite decades of documented and persistent human rights abuses, the suffering of the Baloch nation continues to be ignored on international platforms," the BNM stated.

The demonstration also highlighted the severe impact of these abuses on women, children, and the families of enforced disappearances.

During the protest, the speakers noted that the "families of the disappearedespecially mothers and childrenhave been demanding justice and the safe return of their loved ones through peaceful struggle for years, yet they are being subjected to collective punishment instead of receiving justice."

The speakers also sharply criticized the actions of the Pakistan Army, alleging that it is using force against civilians in Balochistan.

Highlighting that in recent days, dozens of people have reportedly been killed in direct military action in several districts across Balochistan including Gwadar, Mastung, and Kech, the protesters said "these circumstances place a responsibility on the international community to reassess military and economic aid, defense partnerships, and arms sales to Pakistan".

The protesters demanded that the United Nations, the European Union, and international human rights bodies conduct independent investigations into the human rights violations in Balochistan by Pakistani authorities and hold those responsible accountable under international law.
United Nations, Feb 10 : UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is concerned about reports of attacks on journalists by the military and police ahead of Thursday's Bangladesh parliamentary elections, according to his Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.

"For us, it's clear and important that the elections in Bangladesh take place in atmosphere that is peaceful, in a way that is inclusive, in line with Bangladesh's own constitution and international obligations", Dujarric said on Monday.

He was asked by a correspondent at his briefing about reports that the Army detained and released 21 staff of The Bangladesh Times, and police assaulted a dozen journalists.

Dujarric said the reports "are extremely worrying, and we call on all political actors and their supporters to reject violence and respect fundamental freedoms, including the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and association".

In an earlier briefing, Dujarric had said that while the UN won't send observers for the election without a mandate from the Security Council or the General Assembly, the organisation's Bangladesh office "has been working with the government to give technical support" and "to ensure the broadest possible participation, to ensure that the election goes well".

The Daily Star reported that according to The Bangladesh Times Mobile Journalism Editor-in-Chief Sabbir Ahmed, Army personnel entered the publication's office and took away 21 employees, including journalists and support staff.

They were later released.

Before that, an officer identified by the Star as Major Fahad said that the journalists were taken to an Army camp "for a discussion" and that it was a "small issue, nothing serious".

Ahmed had told the Star that earlier someone identifying himself as an Army member called him on WhatsApp and said that a video published by the Bangladesh Times was "problematic".

It had shown a person criticising the Army during Friday's protest by Inqilab Moncho in Dhaka.

Ahmed said on Facebook, "We are witnessing the most critical time for independent journalism under this interim government. Yet, a media office being targeted like this is unexpected".

Centrist TV Outlet posted a video that it said showed police assaulting journalists covering the Inquilab Moncho protest that was broken up by police using batons and teargas.

Media reports said that more than 50 people were injured in the police action.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
COLOMBO, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's University Grants Commission (UGC) said on Tuesday that it will expand access to higher education by enabling students with disabilities to enroll in all state universities, as part of efforts to make campuses more inclusive.

UGC Chairman Kapila Seneviratne told journalists in Colombo that universities will be equipped with facilities and support systems to accommodate students with special needs.

Currently, only a limited number of universities admit such students, he said.

The commission plans to widen opportunities by opening more academic streams, including Information Technology and Music.

The UGC is also upgrading student housing nationwide, with 1.5 billion rupees (about 5 million U.S. dollars) allocated to improve residential infrastructure and enhance living conditions for students, he said. 
Kochi, Feb 10 : The investigation into the alleged gold theft at the Sabarimala shrine has entered a crucial phase with the Enforcement Directorate (ED) summoning hugely popular Malayalam actor Jayaram for questioning.

The ED has issued a notice directing the actor to appear before its office in Kochi on February 17.

Jayaram has been summoned for his association with Unnikrishnan Potti, the prime accused in the high-profile case.

According to sources, the ED is investigating whether the accused in the case derived any financial benefit from gold intended for Sabarimala.

As part of this probe, the agency is seeking clarity on Jayaram's relationship and alleged financial dealings with Potti.

Officials believe Jayaram's statement could provide crucial leads on the financial trail connected to the alleged gold theft.

Earlier, visuals had surfaced showing Dwarapalaka (gatekeeper) idols from the Sannidhanam being brought to Jayaram's residence, where poojas were performed.

Last month, Jayaram told the Kerala High Court-appointed Kerala Police Special Investigation Team (SIT) that the rituals were conducted purely for spiritual reasons and to bring prosperity to his home, and that he was unaware of any fraudulent activities allegedly carried out by Potti.

The SIT had subsequently questioned the actor, given him a clean chit, and decided to list him as a witness in the case.

However, the ED, which is independently probing the money trail under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, has now stepped in.

Jayaram is expected to reiterate before the ED that he knew Potti as a devotee and acquaintance from Chennai, and that gold plates were brought to his home only for pooja.

Whether the agency will accept this explanation remains to be seen.

Sources indicate that Jayaram is likely to be treated as a witness in the ED case as well.

Investigators have revealed that during the construction phase at Sabarimala, Potti allegedly took wooden planks, doors and other sacred objects from the shrine to various locations, conducting poojas and prayers and collecting money by promoting the belief that keeping such objects at home would bring prosperity.

Meanwhile, the ED has issued summons to 12 individuals beyond those named as accused by the SIT, of whom only three are currently on the SIT's accused list.

The probe remains focused on officials so far, with more developments and possible arrests expected in the coming days as the case continues to draw intense public and political attention.
Washington, Feb 10 : The connections between late sex offender and US financier Jeffrey Epstein and the scientific community were "deeper than previously known" and "unheard of" in extent, according to a recent report by the journal Nature.

Citing newly released documents from the US Department of Justice, the Nature report revealed that Epstein invested millions of US dollars in science projects and "maintained a list of nearly 30 top scientists".

The documents show researchers consulted the sex offender on publications, visas, and public relations crises, and even allowed him deep involvement in their research work, reports Xinhua news agency.

Despite Epstein's initial conviction for sex crimes in 2008, some scientists continued to associate with him and accept his funding. For instance, Epstein donated $800,000 to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a move that eventually led to the resignation of two scientists and the suspension of another.

While mentions of the researchers in the files do not necessarily indicate wrongdoing or involvement in Epstein's criminal activity, the details shed light on how deeply he was involved in the scientific fields he funded, said Nature.

The latest batch of files disclosed new details regarding interactions between Epstein and the scientists. Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist whose science-outreach organisation received $250,000 from Epstein, was advised by the financier via email to offer "no comment" as Krauss responded to media inquiries about an investigation of sexual misconduct that led to Krauss's ousting from Arizona State University in Tempe.

Harvard theoretical physicist Lisa Randall was revealed to have visited Epstein's private island in the Caribbean in 2014 and exchanged emails joking about his house arrest.

In 2013, Nathan Wolfe, then a virologist at Stanford University, proposed that Epstein fund a sexual-behaviour study of undergraduate students to test "our horny virus hypothesis".

One of Epstein's closest academic connections was mathematical biologist Martin Nowak. Nowak, who joined Harvard in 2003, founded the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics (PED) with $6.5 million from Epstein. The financier was not just a donor but deeply involved in the centre, which modelled evolution using mathematics. Harvard closed the PED in 2021 and placed sanctions on Nowak, which were lifted in 2023.

Emails show that Corina Tarnita, now a professor at Princeton University, was in contact with Epstein just six months after his conviction. The PhD student of Nowak sent the financier birthday greetings in 2010 and 2011 and thanked him for his assistance in obtaining a visa.

The documents further revealed that Epstein was deeply involved in the researchers' work.

He regularly discussed science with Nowak and Tarnita, suggesting research topics such as "commercial evolution" and "prelife." In 2010, Nowak even shared page proofs of a paper accepted by Nature with Epstein before its publication, and Epstein provided advice on dealing with criticism of the paper.

The newly revealed details have sparked concern within the academic community. Jesse Kass, a mathematician at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told Nature that it is "unheard of" for a funder to be engaged with actual research on such a level.

"There should be some serious discussion [in academic circles] over what went wrong and how to make that not happen again", in partnerships with private funders, he added.

The US Department of Justice began releasing this latest batch of documents on January 30. Totalling more than 3 million, it is the largest batch of files made public by the US Department of Justice since Congress passed the Epstein Transparency Act late last year.
February 10 : Lucknow: On the first day of the Budget Session of the Uttar Pradesh Legislature, Governor Anandiben Patels address to the joint sitting of both Houses emerged as a clear manifesto of the states transformed identity. She stated that over the past few years, Uttar Pradesh has moved beyond the image of a "Bottleneck state" and has established itself as a "Breakthrough state", achieving tangible progress in the areas of good governance, robust law and order, economic empowerment, agricultural expansion, womens empowerment, infrastructure development and wide-ranging public welfare.

The Governors address was a factual and constitutional presentation of the governments policy resolve, administrative efficiency, and confident strides toward a developed Uttar Pradesh.

The Governor said, "The law-and-order situation in Uttar Pradesh is today emerging as an effective benchmark across the country. The governments balanced approach of firmness and sensitivity has established decisive control over organized crime and mafia networks. Through the extensive use of modern technology, strengthening of the police force, swift and effective justice delivery and transparent administrative systems, a fear-free and trust-based environment has been created in the state. This secure environment is making Uttar Pradesh one of the countrys most attractive and reliable destinations for industry, business, startups, investment and large-scale employment generation."

The Governor noted that the governments zero-tolerance policy toward law and order has yielded concrete and decisive results. In action against organized crime, 35 mafia leaders and 94 associates have been convicted so far, 2 criminals have been sentenced the death penalty, while 267 criminals have been neutralized in police encounters.

A total of 977 accused have been detained under the NSA and illegal properties worth more than 4,137 crore have been seized from mafia elements. To ensure rapid policing, the UP-112 response time has been reduced from 25 minutes 42 seconds to 6 minutes 51 seconds.

To tackle cybercrime, cybercrime police stations are operational in all 75 districts of the state, while the ATS has arrested 148 terrorists. Additionally, 146 Rohingya, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, and other foreign nationals residing illegally have been arrested. Taking strict action against corruption, the Anti-Corruption Organization has successfully carried out 999 trap operations.

The Governor said, "Toward strengthening security institutions, 8 new forensic science laboratories have been established since 2017, with 6 more under construction. During this period, more than 2.19 lakh police recruitments have been made, 1.58 lakh personnel have been promoted, and recruitment processes are underway for 83,122 posts. To strengthen the police force, the budget allocation has been increased by nearly 150 percent. The enrollment of 41,424 Home Guards, construction of 6 new district jails including the Etawah Central Jail, and the premature release of 1,010 prisoners mark significant steps in prison reforms."

"To make the justice system accessible and effective, integrated court complexes have been approved in 10 districts, the Dr. Rajendra Prasad National Law University has been established in Prayagraj, 81 fast-track courts have been made permanent, 36 million cases have been disposed of through Lok Adalats, and 2,609 legal literacy camps have been organized-collectively strengthening a swift, transparent, and people-centric justice system in the state", she added.

Highlighting achievements in infrastructure development, the Governor said that connectivity, transportation and logistics in Uttar Pradesh have been given a new direction. She informed that 168 development block headquarters have been connected with double-lane roads, while construction of 161 roads with a total length of 1,410 kilometers has been completed.

The state government has set a target of strengthening 46,600 kilometers of roads by 2025-26, of which nearly 28,000 kilometers have already been upgraded. Work is progressing rapidly to provide at least four-lane connectivity on major routes linked to inter-state and international borders, thereby significantly boosting trade, transportation, tourism, and industrial investment.
New Delhi, Feb 10 : The Lok Sabha was adjourned at 11:01 a.m. on Tuesday, having reconvened just a minute earlier at 11:00 a.m. This resulted in only one minute of proceedings in the House.

The adjournment occurred as Opposition MPs continued their sloganeering, a pattern they have followed throughout the past week. They have been demanding that the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, should be allowed to speak in the House.

However, the Speaker gave him permission to speak on the Union Budget, but Gandhi remained adamant on speaking on the "unpublished book" of former Army Chief General M.M. Naravane (Retd.).

Earlier on Monday, Gandhi claimed that Speaker Om Birla assured him that he would be allowed to speak before the Union Budget discussions in the House, triggering a rebuttal from Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju and subsequent pandemonium, which led to an adjournment for the day.

The Lok Sabha reconvened at 2 p.m. after being adjourned for the second time in the day. However, just seven minutes after reconvening, it was adjourned for the day.

As Sandhya Ray, who was in the Chair, called Congress member Shashi Tharoor to speak on the Union Budget as per the order of speakers in the list of business, but he urged her to "let the LoP speak".

"Our members of the House went to the Speaker. He personally committed to us that I will be allowed to speak here and raise some points before the Budget discussion. Now, you are going back on your word. I would like to know if I am allowed to speak about those points or not?" Gandhi asked.

"No," Ray replied.

The Parliamentary Affairs Minister then said, "I was also at the Speaker's Chamber, as was (Congress member K.C.) Venugopal. I can confirm that the Speaker had said that if everyone agrees, then the House should proceed smoothly. Then, K.C. Venugopal had said that he wants the LoP be allowed to speak. Then everyone decided on what they wanted to speak about, and only then would they give permission to speak. What Rahul Gandhi is saying is not 100 per cent correct. The Speaker did not say that Congress will get the opportunity to speak exclusively, but he said that every party will be allowed to speak."

However, the Opposition MPs did not agree with the Union Minister and started creating a ruckus in the House. Following this, the House was adjourned for the day.

The Opposition members refused to maintain silence and continued with their relentless sloganeering.

Earlier on Monday, also, just minutes after the Question Hour started, Speaker Birla suspended the Lok Sabha session until noon because Opposition members refused to stop their slogan chanting.

Members of the Congress party requested that the Speaker allow the Leader of the Opposition to address the House. The Speaker responded that all members would be given a chance to speak according to the rules after the Question Hour.

He noted that Gandhi could raise his concerns during the upcoming debate on the Union Budget as well. However, due to the continued disruption from the members, he chose to adjourn the session.

Gandhi was unable to finish his speech during the Motion of Thanks for the President's Address the previous week, as he was not allowed to mention the "unpublished book" of the former Army Chief.
February 10 : Lucknow: During her address at the joint session of the Legislature, Governor Anandiben Patel presented a clear picture of the overall development of Uttar Pradesh. From the expansion of education and progress of aspirational districts to the historic rise in excise revenue and the vision of Viksit Bharat, the Governor highlighted the governments policies, achievements, and future direction in a factual and balanced manner.

The central message of her address was that Uttar Pradesh is now standing firmly among the leading states of the country through administrative reforms, financial strength, and inclusive development.

Highlighting the achievements in the field of education, the Governor stated that 6,808 assistant teachers and 1,939 government teachers have been appointed in the state, thereby strengthening the educational framework through a total of 8,966 new appointments.

The establishment of 778 ICT labs in schools, smart classrooms in 1,236 government secondary schools, 6 new state universities, and 71 new government colleges has given a new direction to the quality and accessibility of higher and technical education.

The Governor also mentioned the progress of aspirational districts, stating that among the 112 aspirational districts of the country, 8 districts of Uttar Pradesh-especially Balrampur, Siddharthnagar, Sonbhadra, Chandauli, Fatehpur, and Bahraich-have demonstrated remarkable improvement in key indicators such as health, education, agriculture, and nutrition, presenting a strong example of inclusive development.

Highlighting the remarkable growth in excise revenue, the Governor stated, "While in 2016-17 the excise revenue of the state was only 14,273 crore, it has increased to 52,573 crore in 2024-25. As a result of strong policies, transparent systems, and effective administrative control, a target of 63,000 crore has been set for the year 202526. This clearly reflects the financial strength and successful revenue management of Uttar Pradesh".

The Governor stated, the clear objective of the Uttar Pradesh Government is to further accelerate the pace of development, strengthen administrative transparency, and establish the state as a leading contributor to the vision of Viksit Bharat.

She expressed confidence that through the combined efforts of good governance, constitutional values, and public participation, Uttar Pradesh will not only give new strength to the national economy in the coming times but will also establish a unique and inspiring identity as an effective model of inclusive, balanced, and sustainable development across the country.
Mumbai, Feb 10 : The India-US trade deal is very good and the biggest advantage it brings to the diamond industry is that under Section 3, diamonds and gemstones will now be moved to a zero per cent tariff, which is a major step forward, Avinash Gupta, Vice Chairman of All India Gem and Jewellery Domestic Council (GJC), has said.

Speaking to IANS, Gupta said the deal will greatly help India's cutting and polishing industry to survive, as earlier, 9 out of 10 diamonds were cut in India, and the US tariffs caused many artisans in Surat to face difficulties.

"This trade agreement is very comprehensive and I believe it will bring major benefits to 'Make in India'. Along with skill transfer in various industries, India's recent trade deals, not just with the US but also with the EU, will have a significant impact," he mentioned.

He further stated that when we talk about zero per cent duty in the gems and jewellery industry, it currently applies only to diamonds and gemstones.

"Jewellery itself is a very large segment, which has not yet been included under the zero per cent duty bracket. I would appeal to the government to also include jewellery under Section 3 during future negotiations. If jewellery is brought under this framework, it will bring huge benefits," Gupta told IANS.

As manufacturing hubs continue to develop in India, one can already see the positive impact.

"Earlier, when electronics manufacturing began in India, our country was a net importer but today, it has become an exporter. The same pattern is being seen in the automobile industry and now in the gems and jewellery sector as well," said Gupta.

At present, the government has set a very big target  to make India a complete exporter country before 2047 and to establish it as a global production hub for jewellery.

"This vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, I believe, will be achieved by 2047," Gupta added.

IANS

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February 10 : Lucknow: During her address at the joint session of the Legislature, Governor Anandiben Patel presented a detailed account of Uttar Pradeshs achievements that have established it as one of the leading and Number One states in the country.

The Governor highlighted Uttar Pradeshs top-ranking performance in almost every major sector, including agriculture, farmer welfare, energy, housing, social security, industry, health, environment, and administrative reforms, with factual evidence. The address clearly conveyed that Uttar Pradesh is now leading the nation not merely in terms of population but also based on performance and results.

The Governor stated, "Uttar Pradesh today ranks first in the country in the production of food grains, sugarcane, sugar, milk, mangoes, and potatoes. Food grain production has increased from 557.46 lakh metric tonnes in 2016 to 17 to 737.40 lakh metric tonnes in 2024 to 25. This achievement not only makes the state self-reliant but also underlines its central role in ensuring national food security".

Uttar Pradesh has secured the first position in the effective implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana. The state became the first in the country to provide subsidies on agricultural investments through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT). By making record payments of over 3 lakh crore to sugarcane farmers, the government has set a strong example of farmer-friendly administration.

The Governor added, "Uttar Pradesh ranks first in the country under the PM Surya Ghar Yojana. Along with this, the state is also leading in ethanol production and supply, which has not only increased the income of farmers but has also made a significant contribution to clean energy and the vision of an Atmanirbhar Bharat".

Under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Rural and Urban), Uttar Pradesh ranks first in the country in housing construction. The state also tops the list in the construction of rural toilets, which reflects the ground-level success of the Swachh Bharat Mission.

The Governor stated, "Uttar Pradesh ranks first in registrations under the Atal Pension Yojana. Under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, the state has provided 1.85 crore gas connections, securing the first position in the country. Uttar Pradesh is also leading in both the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana and the Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana".

With the establishment of more than 96 lakh Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), Uttar Pradesh has become the leading state in the country. The state also ranks first in government procurement through the GeM portal, which has promoted transparency and boosted local enterprises.

The Governor also informed, under Mission Karmayogi, Uttar Pradesh ranks first in the number of users on the iGOT portal. The state also holds the top position in the effective use of the e-Prosecution system. With 20.98 lakh active taxpayers, Uttar Pradesh also ranks first in tax compliance.

Under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, Uttar Pradesh ranks first in the country in the creation of ABHA IDs. This is considered a major achievement for the state in the field of digital health infrastructure.
Hyderabad, Feb 10 : A candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Telangana municipal elections allegedly died by suicide.

The incident occurred in the Maktal Municipality of Narayanpet district late on Monday night.

Erukali Mahadevappa, who had filed his nomination as the BJP candidate from ward number 6 in Maktal municipality, was found hanging at his residence.

Mahadevappa's family members alleged that Mahadev's opponents have been intimidating him since he filed his nomination.

The police shifted the body for post-mortem examination. A police officer said they have registered a case in this regard and are investigating.

The polling for the election in 116 municipalities and seven corporations across Telangana is scheduled for Wednesday.

The campaign for municipal polls ended on Monday. On the last day, Mahadevappa, who participated in the campaign with BJP MP DK Aruna, committed suicide.

Family members alleged that there was pressure on Mahadevappa from the beginning to withdraw from the municipal election race. There are allegations that he committed suicide due to threats from some people.

Meanwhile, blaming the ruling Congress party for the candidate's suicide, the BJP is planning a protest in Hyderabad.

The police force was deployed at the BJP state office as the party was reportedly planning to march to the DGP office to lodge a protest and demand an investigation.

Telangana BJP blamed the Congress party for its candidate's death.

"Rahul Gandhi, CM Revant Reddy & Congress party are responsible for the tragic death of Erukala Mahadevappa, BJP's Ward-6 candidate from Makthal - a son of a humble Scheduled Tribe family who dared to stand up for democracy. His death has shaken the conscience of Telangana. Allegations of sustained threats, intimidation and relentless pressure by Congress goons expose a dangerous climate where grassroots democracy is being suffocated. When a young tribal voice feels so cornered that hope disappears, it is not just a tragedy - it is a dark stain on our democratic system," Telangana BJP said in a post on 'X'.

"In Delhi, Rahul Gandhi delivers loud lectures about 'saving democracy'. But in Telangana, his party stands accused of strangling democracy in broad daylight - silencing dissent not with debate, but with fear and intimidation. Democracy is not a slogan shouted before cameras; it is the courage of ordinary citizens like Mahadevappa who step forward to serve their neighbourhood and communities despite fear and intimidation," it said.

"Our State President is rushing to Makthal to stand with the grieving family. This fight is no longer about one ward or one election - it is about the very survival of democracy, the dignity of tribal leaders, and the right of every citizen to contest, speak and stand without fear," the BJP added.
February 10 : Lucknow: Under the vision and guidance of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the Tourism and Culture Department of Uttar Pradesh is giving a new dimension to tourism activities in the state by conserving, promoting, and developing its rich heritage, religious sites, art and culture, along with natural tourism destinations.

With the arrival of 156.18 crore tourists in 2025, Uttar Pradesh has acquired the top position in the country in terms of tourist numbers. This achievement is largely attributed to the successful implementation of the Chief Ministers long-term Tourism Policy-2022 and the grand organization of the Prayagraj Maha Kumbh in 2025.

In addition, in 2025, the investment target of 34,439 crore has been achieved through 1,546 proposals for the development of 12 thematic sectors and 12 tourism circuits. To promote eco-tourism, 49 projects were launched in 2025, and policies based on the theme of Tourism for Inclusive Development are being implemented on the occasion of National Tourism Day 2025.

This clearly indicates the emergence of Uttar Pradesh as a cultural tourism hub. On the strength of its rich cultural heritage, religious significance, and progressive tourism policies, Uttar Pradesh has become the countrys leading tourism destination.

With the special efforts of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Uttar Pradesh has secured first place in the country in 2025 with a 2.4-fold increase in tourist numbers. While a total of 64.91 crore tourists visited Uttar Pradesh in 2024, an unexpected growth of 140.6 percent was recorded in 2025, with the state receiving the highest number of tourists in the country, 156.18 crore including 66.30 crore devotees and tourists who visited the Prayagraj Maha Kumbh-2025, an event recorded in world records.

Uttar Pradesh has remained at the top in terms of domestic tourist arrivals since 2022. In the category of foreign tourist arrivals as well, the state has shown significant growth, moving from fifth place in 2023 to fourth place in 2024.

The foundation for the development of tourism-based activities and the tourism economy in Uttar Pradesh was laid through Chief Minister Yogi Adityanaths long-term Tourism Policy-2022. Under this policy, 12 thematic sectors are being developed in 2025 to promote tourism, including heritage-art-culture, spiritual-religious, eco-nature-wildlife, wellness-medical, MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Exhibitions), adventure, water-based, agriculture, cuisine, rural-tribal, youth, and wedding destination tourism.

To attract investment in these sectors, a target of 34,439 crore has been achieved through 1,564 proposals. Under eco-tourism, 49 projects have been launched, which are not only contributing to biodiversity conservation but are also strengthening the local economy through homestays and handicrafts.

To attract tourists, 12 special tourism circuits are being developed in the state, aimed at providing entertaining and memorable experiences. Special emphasis is also being laid on promoting rural tourism. For this purpose, 85 rural homestays and 155 tour operators have been registered. Additionally, grants have been provided to groups associated with art, music, crafts, and folk dance for the preservation of the states invaluable cultural heritage.

Uttar Pradesh is now emerging as a cultural tourism hub, where religious tourism destinations such as Ayodhya, Varanasi, Mathura, and Prayagraj have become centres of global attraction. This achievement is not only accelerating economic growth but is also empowering local communities.
Kolkata, Feb 10 : The Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested two prominent coal traders from West Bengal on Tuesday as part of its investigation into the multi-crore coal smuggling case.

The two arrested coal traders have been identified as Kiran Khan and Chinmay Mondal.

Mondal is known as an extremely close confidant of Anup Maji, alias Lala, one of the accused principal masterminds in the coal smuggling case.

Both Khan and Mondal were being questioned since Monday by the ED officials, and finally, they were arrested early Tuesday morning.

Sources aware of the development said that both were arrested following their repeated attempts to mislead the interrogating officials by making inconsistent statements from the beginning to the end.

It is learnt that both the arrested traders will be presented at a special court of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Kolkata, and the ED counsel will seek their custody for further questioning.

On Monday, ED also issued a notice for interrogation to Monoranjan Hazra, the officer-in-charge under Budbud Police Station, which comes under the Asansol-Durgapur Police Commissionerate (ADPC), in connection with the coal smuggling case.

Earlier this month, the ED officials conducted a raid and search operation at Hazraas residence in connection with the coal smuggling case, and during those operations, the Investigating Official of the central agency also seized crucial documents related to the case.

Sources said that on examination of documents seized from Hazraas residence, the ED officials came across several crucial clues about the coal-smuggling case, which prompted them to issue a notice for interrogation to the state police officer.

Last month, EDas Director Rahul Navin came to Kolkata and sought details of the progress in the investigations into the high-profile financial irregularities cases in the state, including the one on coal smuggling.

The ED officials, last month, also conducted raids and search operations at the offices and residences of coal traders operating from the coal-belt in the West Burdwan districts, like Asansol and Jamuria. During the action, the ED officials had seized Rs 1.50 crore from the residence of a coal trader at Jamuria.
OTTAWA, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Canada and Luxembourg agreed on Monday to strengthen collaboration on the newly proposed Defense, Security and Resilience Bank (DSR Bank).

The announcement followed a meeting between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and his Luxembourg counterpart, Luc Frieden, who concluded a three-day official visit to Ottawa.

The leaders emphasized mobilising capital and strengthening defense supply chains in support of collective security, including in the Arctic.

According to a statement on the Canadian prime minister's website, the proposed DSR Bank aims to fill an important gap in the current financial landscape by offering multi-year low-cost financing for defense, security, and resilience initiatives.

The bank would allow the commercial sector to work more closely with the defense sector to support Canadian workers and businesses, said the statement.

Luxembourg, a major global financial hub and a NATO ally, is one of Canada's largest sources of foreign direct investment. During the visit, the two nations also launched the 2026 Canada-Luxembourg Financial Sector Policy Dialogue to advance collaboration on financial stability, sustainable finance, fintech innovation, and capital markets development. 
Guwahati, Feb 10 : Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday said the government will soon secure the historic land of Rojabari (Raj Darbar) located in Charaideo district, the first capital of the Ahom era, following concerns about encroachment and the establishment of madrasas on the site.

In a post on X, CM Sarma said the state administration is committed to freeing the historic heritage site from illegal occupation and ensuring its protection for posterity.

"Information has been received about encroachments on the land of Rojabari (royal court) located in Charideu, the first capital of the Ahom era, and the establishment of madrasas there. Our government has resolved to free our historical heritage from encroachments. Rozabari will soon be secured," the CM said.

The announcement comes amid a backdrop of widespread eviction and anti-encroachment drives being carried out across Assam in recent months, aimed at reclaiming government, forest and reserve lands from unauthorised settlers.

Since mid-2025, the state government has launched several large-scale eviction operations in districts such as Golaghat, Hailakandi, Patharkandi and Dhubri, with authorities targeting encroachments on forest lands, reserve forest areas and wetlands.

In some of the latest actions, over 2,000 families were served eviction notices as part of an exercise to clear tens of thousands of hectares of encroached reserved forest land, with heavy deployment of police and forest personnel overseeing the drives.

Assam has been in the news for its aggressive land reclamation campaign under the Sarma-led government, which maintains that such drives are necessary to protect the ecological balance, uphold the rule of law, and preserve the identity and resources of indigenous communities.

Authorities say they have reclaimed vast areas of land that had been encroached upon, emphasising that prior notices are issued and operations carried out with support from security agencies. However, the eviction drives have also generated controversy and criticism from political opponents, civil society groups and affected residents, who argue that the operations disproportionately impact certain communities and call for more humane rehabilitation measures.

Despite these debates, the Assam government continues to pursue its anti-encroachment agenda with commitments to enforce legality and protect key state assets.

In this context, CM Sarmaas statement on Rojabari underlines the governmentas intention to extend similar enforcement and conservation efforts to protect places of historical and cultural significance from encroachment, ensuring they remain safeguarded as part of Assamas rich heritage.
Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 10 : With the Kerala Assembly elections round the corner, the list of political turncoats likely to enter the fray is steadily growing.

What is striking this time is that the churn is hitting the CPI(M), a party that for years benefited from high-profile crossovers from the Congress party.

The names doing the rounds include two former three-time CPI(M) MLAs, a two-time Left-leaning Independent legislator, and a long-time personal assistant of V.S. Achuthanandan.

Such a trend is almost unprecedented for the CPI(M) in recent history. Traditionally, the 'red party' was seen as a safe landing ground for leaders quitting the Congress.

The last notable turncoat to join the CPI(M) was P. Sarin, who was fielded from Palakkad in the November 2024 by-election.

A Congress aspirant who missed the ticket at the last minute, Sarin switched sides in anger, contested on a CPI(M) ticket, but finished a distant third.

The experiment failed, and the episode was largely seen as an exception. This time, however, the story is different.

The CPI(M), already under pressure after a near drubbing in the December local body elections, is witnessing a steady exit of familiar faces.

Those who have walked out include three-time MLA Aiysha Potti and S. Rajendran, and two-time Left-backed Independent MLA P.V. Anvar.

Rajendran has joined the BJP, adding to the party's hopes in Idukki district.

Potti, on the other hand, has been warmly received by senior Congress leaders.

She is widely expected to contest from Kottarakkara, a constituency she won three consecutive times starting in 2006.

Anvar's journey has been more complex. After falling out with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan last year, he resigned as MLA and pledged support to the Congress.

Talks later collapsed, prompting him to contest as an Independent from Nilambur, where he finished third.

Now, he has been welcomed back into the Congress fold and is likely to be fielded as a UDF-backed Independent candidate from Beypore against Tourism Minister P.A. Mohammed Riyas, CM Vijayan's son-in-law.

Adding to the intrigue is A. Suresh, Achuthanandan's long-serving personal assistant.

He confirmed on Tuesday that UDF leaders have approached him, seeking his willingness to contest from Malampuzha, the seat Achuthanandan represented three times since 2001.

"Yes, I have been approached. Malampuzha is my hometown. I have not said anything yet," Suresh said.

The coming days are expected to see intense negotiations, with the Congress hoping to capitalise on the Left's discomfort by fielding as many crossover candidates as possible.

As the election clock ticks, political loyalties appear more fluid than ever.
Bengaluru, Feb 10 : Karnataka Home Minister G. Parameshwara on Tuesday visited the residence of software professional Chandan Kumar, who was killed in Canada, and met his family members in Tyamagondlu town near Nelamangala on Bengaluru's outskirts.

Speaking to reporters, Parameshwara said Chandan Kumar was a young professional who had been killed and that an investigation was underway to ascertain the circumstances of the incident and identify the perpetrators. "I have spoken to his friends in Canada. The investigation will bring out the facts," he said.

He added that the body has been embalmed and will be kept for friends and neighbours in Canada on Wednesday. "Tentatively, the body is expected to arrive here by Saturday," he stated.

"There is no information yet on why he was killed. I express my condolences and pray for his soul. He was the only son of his parents, and they had no other children. It is a very sad story. He was a talented person who went to Canada and worked as a project director. I am deeply saddened by this incident," Parameshwara said.

He further stated that the authorities in Canada should take appropriate action. "I pray to God that his family is able to cope with this tragedy. Our Indian High Commission is aware of the matter and will ensure the body is sent back after completing all procedures," he said.

Meanwhile, Union Minister for Heavy Industries and Steel H.D. Kumaraswamy spoke to Chandan Kumar's father, Nandan Kumar, over the phone and condoled the death of his son, who was hacked to death in Canada. Kumaraswamy urged him to remain strong and said that all arrangements had been made to bring Chandan Kumar's body back to India. "The Ministry of External Affairs is in touch with the Canadian authorities, and the body is being brought to India. When I come to Bengaluru, I will visit your house," he said.

Chandan Kumar, 37, was shot dead by unidentified assailants in the parking lot of a busy shopping centre in Toronto, Canada, on February 7. In a statement issued on February 8, Toronto Police identified the victim as Chandan Kumar Raja Nandakumar of Brampton in the Greater Toronto Area.

Chandan was seated inside his SUV when the attackers opened fire near the entrance to the Woodbine Shopping Centre, close to Rexdale Boulevard, at around 3.30 pm local time. Visuals showed his white vehicle riddled with bullet holes, and investigators are treating the case as a targeted attack. The assailants fled the scene in a vehicle after the shooting.

A computer science graduate from Saptagiri College in Bengaluru, Chandan Kumar had moved to Canada about six years ago and was working with LTI Mindtree, a subsidiary of L&T. He had earlier worked with Cognizant in Bengaluru.

Chandan was actively involved in Kannada cultural circles in Toronto and played a key role in promoting Kannada films, music, and community events.

Family members stated that Chandan Kumar had repeatedly postponed his return to India, and said that had he returned as per his earlier plans, he would have been alive.

--IANS

mka/svn
February 10 : Sitapur: Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Monday attended the Murti Sthapana Diwas and Bhandara at Tapodham Satguru Giridhari Nath Ji Maharaj Tapodham Ashram. On this occasion, the Chief Minister once again cautioned society and said that if Sanatan becomes weak, the nation will become weak, and if the nation becomes weak, Sanatan will face an existential crisis. Therefore, people must stay alert against those who try to divide society.

He said, "In Bangladesh, Hindus are being killed and burnt, yet everyone remains silent. Those who are being killed are Dalit Hindus. Except for some religious leaders and Hindu organizations, no human rights group or global organization is standing up to defend them".

Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is preparing itself for a long and transformative journey. India will become a global power, and no one can stop it. It is the duty of every Indian to participate in this journey and work together. If this is done, the results will be better for both the present and future generations".

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said, "Many civilizations and cultures across the world have vanished over time, but Sanatan culture continues to stand tall with dignity and pride, having weathered countless storms. It continues to give the message of friendship and compassion through Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam to the world".

CM added, many attempts have been made to break this unity. Sanatan followers have always offered shelter to everyone in times of crisis, giving them the opportunity to prosper. However, some people did not fulfil their duty as refugees. Instead, after coming here, they tried to strangle the very hand that helped them and left no stone unturned in looting the nation.

The Chief Minister said, "Followers of Sanatan Dharma possessed strength, wealth, and wisdom but never misused them. They always used these for the welfare of humanity. The feeling of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam is a vow in the lives of Sanatan followers. We have always spoken about the welfare of all living beings. In our tradition, the first bite of food is offered to the cow, and the last to the dog. We have included even the cow and the dog as part of our family. We feed flour and sugar to ants, and we even offer milk and sweets to poisonous snakes".

The Chief Minister also added that the rule of Chanakya and Chandragupta Maurya was the golden era of India. When there is an advisor like Chanakya, a nation can never fail. Referring to his wisdom and foresight, the Chief Minister said that during that period, 45 to 46 percent of the worlds economy belonged to India. India was the greatest economic power in the world. But as we became divided, invasions and looting increased.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath mentioned Indias progress over the past 11 years under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He said, "When prosperity goes hand in hand with civilization and culture, the results become evident. India is once again on the path to becoming the third-largest economy in the world. Apart from the United States and China, every other country will be behind India. The reason for Indias rapid progress is that it has recognized its values and ideals and taken upon itself the mission to restore its cultural heritage".

The Chief Minister added by saying in 1947, Yogiraj Giridhari Nath Ji Maharaj had to leave the sacred Hinglaj Devi Dham in Pakistan and travel through Kurukshetra to reach Sitapur. Here, he built a cave and meditated for years. After him, Guru Yogiraj Charannath Ji Maharaj established the Yog Ashram, built a cave, and meditated for months. Surviving for months without food is only possible through deep yogic practice.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath described Sitapur as an ancient centre of Indias Sanatan Dharma and said that Sitapur continues to reach new heights of development even today.

The Chief Minister also said, "The tradition of Kumbh in India is thousands of years old, but for the first time in 2019, the Prayagraj Kumbh received global recognition when Prime Minister Narendra Modi, through UNESCO, ensured that it was included as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. It was a moment of pride for Indias cultural legacy. On January 22, 2024, when the grand idol of Lord Ram Lalla was consecrated in Ayodhya by Prime Minister Modi, tears of devotion and pride filled every eye. Every Indian has an emotional bond with Lord Ram. This emotional bond transcends politics and sectarian boundaries, uniting the entire nation".

During the event, Rajasthan Legislative Assembly member Balak Nath, Yogi Tejnath, Peeth Mahant Harinath, Mahant Krishnanath, Mahant Sundernath, Uttar Pradesh Ministers Rakesh Rathore Guru and Suresh Rahi, MLAs Gyan Tiwari, Manish Rawat, Ramkrishna Bhargava, Shashank Trivedi, Nirmal Verma, and District Panchayat President Shraddha Sagar were present.
New Delhi, Feb 10 : India has been designated as the 'Country of the Year' at 'BIOFACH 2026', the world's leading trade fair for organic products, scheduled to be held from February 10-13 at Nuremberg in Germany, according to an official statement issued on Tuesday.

New Delhi, Feb 10 (IANS) India has been designated as the 'Country of the Year' at 'BIOFACH 2026', the worldas leading trade fair for organic products, scheduled to be held from February 10-13 at Nuremberg in Germany, according to an official statement issued on Tuesday.

The Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) is organising Indiaas participation at 'BIOFACH 2026' with a prominent and high-impact presence.

Indiaas participation marks a significant scale-up compared to previous editions, reflecting the expanding footprint of Indian organic exports, increased global demand for organic products, and growing participation from exporters, associations, and Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs), the statement said.

The India Country Pavilion, set up by APEDA, will span an area of 1,074 square metres and will feature 67 co-exhibitors, including exporters of organic products, Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs), cooperatives, organic laboratories, state government organisations, and commodity boards.

The pavilion will showcase a wide range of organic products such as rice, oilseeds, herbs, spices, pulses, cashew, ginger, turmeric, large cardamom, cinnamon, mango puree, and essential oils, among others, the statement explained.

Exhibitors from more than 20 states and union territories are participating in the India Pavilion, reflecting the countryas vast agricultural and regional diversity. These include Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Arunachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Uttarakhand.

The participation highlights region-specific organic produce and value-added food products, demonstrating Indiaas year-on-year expansion in international organic trade engagement.

In addition to product displays, visitors to the India Pavilion will be offered curated food tastings showcasing the flavours and aromas of Indian organic products. Live sampling of aromatic biryani prepared using premium organic basmati rice and spices will be organised. Further, five GI-tagged rice varieties, namely Indrayani rice, Navara rice, Gobindbhog rice, Red rice, and Chak Hao (Black rice), will be served to visitors to highlight Indiaas heritage rice varieties.

APEDA has also undertaken extensive branding and high-impact promotional activities at prominent locations across the Nuremberg Messe Exhibition Centre, as part of Indiaas designation as Country of the Year at BIOFACH 2026.

As global attention increasingly shifts towards sustainability and environmentally responsible lifestyles, Indiaas participation as Country of the Year at BIOFACH 2026 reinforces its position as a global leader in organic agriculture, the statement added.
Kolkata, Feb 10 : The BJP might finalise its lone candidate for the Rajya Sabha nomination from West Bengal by the first week of March.

A total of five seats in the Upper House of the Parliament from West Bengal are falling vacant by the end of April this year.

As per the numerical strength equation in the West Bengal Assembly, Trinamool Congress will easily get its candidates elected from four out of the five vacant seats, while the BJP will be able to get its lone candidate elected.

Till now, insiders from the West Bengal unit of the BJP said, three names are being discussed for nomination for the chair. The first name is that of megastar Mithun Chakraborty, the second being the former party Lok Sabha member and actress-turned-politician, Locket Chatterjee.

Though in a limited way, the name of the current BJP legislator from Balurghat Assembly constituency in South Dinajpur district and the former Chief Economic Advisor to the Union government, Dr Ashok Kumar Lahiri, is also being discussed, an insider from the BJPas state committee in West Bengal said.

Chakraborty had earlier been a Rajya Sabha member from the Trinamool Congress. However, he resigned from the chair before the completion of his term, after the names of several Trinamool Congress leaders got linked with multiple chit fund cases in West Bengal, including those of the Saradha Group and Rose Valley Group.

Chatterjee, on the other hand, was elected a BJP Lok Sabha member from Hooghly constituency in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. However, in 2024, she was defeated by Trinamool Congress candidate and also an actress-turned-politician Rachna Banerjee.

Lahiri, on the other hand, entered the domain of politics before the 2021 West Bengal Assembly elections and successfully contested from Balurghat Assembly constituency in that election.

The three sitting Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha members whose current terms are ending in April this year are Subrata Bakshi, Ritabrata Banerjee, and Saket Gokhale. Erstwhile Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member, Mausam Benazir Noor, resigned from Rajya Sabha and joined the Congress, and that seat is currently vacant.

The term of CPI(M) Rajya Sabha member and senior advocate Bikas Ranjan Bhattacharya is also ending this April. Since the CPI(M) does not have any strength in the West Bengal Assembly now, the BJP will be able to get its lone candidate elected from that seat easily.
New Delhi, Feb 10 : BJP MP Kangana Ranaut on Tuesday accused the Opposition of crossing all limits. She further claimed that not only Parliament, but the entire country is ashamed of what is happening in the House.

This comes amid continuous uproar in Parliament over Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi citing from a published article excerpts from former Army chief M.M. Naravane's unpublished memoir. The Opposition has also been repeatedly alleging that they are not being allowed to speak in Parliament.

Speaking to reporters outside Parliament, Kangana Ranaut said, "The Opposition has crossed all limits. Not just Parliament, the entire country is ashamed. You saw how Rahul Gandhi brought an illegal, unauthorised book here yesterday and insulted the entire judiciary. Penguin Publishing House has now said that it is completely illegal and unauthorised."

She further claimed that even the Opposition's own party members were embarrassed by the developments. Referring to alleged incidents inside the House, she said the Opposition was targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"The Opposition, I feel even their own party is ashamed. They are conspiring against PM Modi. The way they tore papers and threw them at the Speaker and then climbed on the table  if they are doing so, then what is the guarantee that they will not snatch papers from the hands of PM Modi and will not throw papers at PM Modi? We want a guarantee for all of this so that the Prime Minister can come there," she added.

Calling the issue serious, Ranaut said such actions were unacceptable and questioned what dignity would remain for Parliament if the situation continued.

"This is the need of the hour. If they try to snatch papers from the Prime Minister or push him, and they are putting women MPs in front, what dignity will remain for this country and for Parliament? We want clarity on this," she said.

Meanwhile, the Lok Sabha was adjourned for the second time just six minutes after reconvening, as the Opposition refused to continue with a proper discussion on the Union Budget and created a ruckus.

Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju requested the Congress MPs, who were shouting 'We want justice' slogans, to let the discussion proceed, as the members want to lay down their points on the Union Budget.

"Yesterday also, we requested the Congress party with folded hands that there should be discussions on the Union Budget. Shashi Tharoor's name was also called; every party gave their list of speakers... Everyone wants to speak, but Congress does not want to start speaking. They create a ruckus every day by coming into the Well of the House," he said.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Bengaluru, Feb 10 : Amid ongoing speculation over leadership issues within the ruling Congress in Karnataka, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday said any decision taken by the party high command would be final.

His remark came in response to Deputy Chief Minister and state Congress president D.K. Shivakumar's recent statement that both leaders were clear about discussions held in the presence of the party leadership.

"I will not comment on Shivakumar's statements. Whatever the high command decides is final. Do not ask questions as you wish. If he has made a statement, you should ask him. I don't know. Whatever the high command says, I am committed to it," the Chief Minister said.

On whether he planned to visit Delhi, Siddaramaiah said, "Why should I go to Delhi without being invited? I have work here related to budget preparation. If they invite me, I will go."

Responding to questions on Shivakumar's absence from the budget preparation meeting, Siddaramaiah said the deputy chief minister had sought permission and informed him through a letter that he was scheduled to attend a meeting in Delhi related to the Assam Assembly election.

When asked about the Supreme Court's observation that it would not tolerate obstruction to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, Siddaramaiah said he would study the matter before commenting.

"I do not know under what circumstances the Supreme Court made the observation. I will go through it and then make a statement," he said.

Earlier in the day, Siddaramaiah offered floral tributes to former Chief Minister Kengal Hanumanthaiah at his statue on the western side of Vidhana Soudha on the occasion of his birth anniversary. He later spoke to the media.

Meanwhile, signs of strain within the state Congress unit have continued to surface. Earlier, Shivakumar had said both he and the Chief Minister were aligned with discussions held in the presence of the party leadership.

"We are going according to what we spoke," Shivakumar said, triggering fresh political speculation.

He also asked party leaders to avoid public statements on leadership matters in the interest of the party. The remark was seen as a response to comments by Congress MLC Yathindra, Siddaramaiah's son, who had said the Chief Minister would complete a full term and that attempts to remove him had been rejected by the central leadership.

Speaking to the media in Bengaluru before leaving for Delhi, Shivakumar said, "Other people may have confusion; we don't have any. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and I know what we have spoken."

"Leaders are making statements and getting tense," he said, referring to recent remarks by party leaders.

He added, "The Chief Minister and I know what we spoke about. We did not speak separately or in secret. Siddaramaiah, I, and the party leadership spoke together, and we are acting according to that understanding."

When asked about reports that notices were being issued to leaders for speaking on leadership matters, while such rules did not apply to the Chief Minister's son, Shivakumar said, "Let us ask the high command."

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Mumbai, Feb 10 : In a major relief for actor Manoj Bajpayee and the makers of his forthcoming Netflix drama "Ghooskhor Pandat", the Delhi High Court has dismissed the petition seeking a ban on the release and streaming of the film.

The decision comes after Netflix informed the Delhi High Court that it is going to change the name of the movie.

The lawyer representing the streaming giant further stated that all promotional material related to the movie has already been removed from social media.

The petitioner had alleged that the title and proposed content of the film are defamatory and communally offensive.

A massive row erupted after social media users criticised the title of the film, calling it derogatory towards the Brahmin community.

Apart from this, multiple FIRs were filed seeking a ban on the release of the project.

A few days back, the Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE) had also written to the producer to withdraw the title of the Manoj Bajpayee-starrer.

Urging different OTT platforms to address the issue, they penned, "FWICE and all its affiliated associations strongly object to the use of this title, as it appears to single out and target a particular community and its traditional means of livelihood in a derogatory and offensive manner. Such a title has the potential to hurt sentiments, provoke misunderstanding, and disturb social harmony".

They further mentioned, "FWICE firmly believes that there should be no division in society on the grounds of caste, creed, religion, or profession. All professions are equally dignified and deserving of respect. The film industry, being a powerful medium of expression, carries a moral and social responsibility to ensure that its content and titles.do not promote hatred, disrespect, or unrest among citizens. We therefore appeal to all producer bodies to refrain from allowing the registration or continuation of film titles that are provocative in nature and capable of creating unrest among Indians."

Previously, Manoj Bajpayee also reacted to the objection about the name of his next film, saying that the movie is not a remark on a particular community.

He shared, "As an actor, I come to a film through the character and the story I am playing. For me, this was about portraying a flawed individual and his journey of self realisation. This was not meant to be a statement about any community."
Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 10 : The controversy surrounding eminent poet, critic and Kerala Sahitya Akademi President K. Satchidanandan's remarks on the need for governments to alternate in power has continued to rage in the state's political and cultural circles.

Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 10 (IANS) The controversy surrounding eminent poet, critic and Kerala Sahitya Akademi President K. Satchidanandanas remarks on the need for governments to alternate in power has continued to rage in the stateas political and cultural circles.

Days after his initial observation triggered sharp reactions, the former Secretary of the Sahitya Akademi returned to social media on Tuesday with a long post, seeking to place his position in a wider ideological and democratic context.

Satchidanandanas original comment, made earlier this week, was seen by many as questioning the Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Democratic Frontas claim that it deserves a third consecutive term in office.

The remark drew heavy criticism on social media, particularly from sections aligned with the CPI(M), who accused the writer of weakening the Left at a crucial political juncture.

The debate soon moved beyond party lines and turned into a broader argument over loyalty, ideology and dissent.

In his Tuesday post, Satchidanandan made it clear that his position was rooted in Marxist thought and democratic theory, and not in short-term electoral calculations.

He invoked the ideas of contemporary Marxist philosopher Jacques RanciAre, especially the concept of subaltern democracy as a defence against fascism and totalitarianism.

Democracy, he argued, must make the invisible visible and allow the unheard to speak.

The poet maintained that Marxism can remain relevant today only by empowering the poor, workers, peasants and minorities, and not by pursuing development models that appease the upper middle class while deepening inequality.

He also referred to influential works such as 'Hatred of Democracy' and 'How Democracies Die', warning against the dangers of monopoly of power and the erosion of democratic alternatives.

Responding sharply to online critics, Satchidanandan reminded readers of his own political history, including participation in workersa and tribal struggles, interrogation during the Emergency, consistent warnings about the rise of fascism since the 1980s, and his resignation from the Sahitya Akademi after the murder of scholar Kalburgi.

He also underlined that he had never sought positions or favours, and that his literary honours were earned purely on merit.

As Kerala heads into an election season marked by intense polarisation, Satchidanandanas intervention has ensured that the debate over power, ideology and democratic renewal remains firmly in the public domain.
Akbar Novruz



Russia is preparing contingency plans to evacuate specialists working at Irans Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, amid heightened regional tensions and growing concerns over security risks surrounding nuclear facilities, AzerNEWS reports.

According to Russian officials, Moscow is coordinating with its Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry to ensure the safety of personnel deployed at the site, as was stated last week. Russias state nuclear corporation Rosatom has confirmed that evacuation scenarios are being considered, though no final decision has been taken so far.

Meanwhile, video footage shows heightened activity linked to personnel movements, adding visual confirmation to reports that precautionary measures are underway. While the footage does not indicate an immediate evacuation, it aligns with official statements that Russia is closely monitoring the situation and remains prepared to act if conditions worsen.

Bushehr is Irans only operational nuclear power plant and employs hundreds of Russian specialists involved in technical operations, maintenance, and construction-related work. Russian officials have repeatedly warned that any military action targeting the facility could lead to catastrophic consequences, given the presence of nuclear material and foreign personnel.




HONG KONG, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- John Lee, chief executive of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), on Tuesday welcomed the white paper "Hong Kong: Safeguarding China's National Security Under the Framework of One Country, Two Systems" released by the State Council Information Office.

Lee said in a statement that he will fully support and implement the content and requirements of the white paper.

The white paper detailed how the fight for safeguarding national security in Hong Kong is an unrelenting one. Lee said that since Hong Kong's return to the motherland, the manipulation of anti-China agitators in Hong Kong and hostile external forces had long stalled legislation under Article 23 of the Basic Law of the HKSAR, creating destabilizing opportunities.

Today, while Hong Kong is making every effort to boost the economy, pursue development, undertake construction and improve people's livelihood, it must be remembered that national security risks still exist among us and can arise all of a sudden, he added.

The white paper stated that the central government has the fundamental responsibility for national security matters concerning Hong Kong. Lee expressed support and gratefulness for the central government's decisive act at a critical moment in Hong Kong, formulating the national security law in Hong Kong at the state level for the HKSAR's promulgation and implementation locally.

The national security law in Hong Kong ended the state of defenselessness regarding national security that had persisted for over two decades since Hong Kong's return, and ended the "black-clad violence" prevailing in Hong Kong at the time, Lee said, adding that the HKSAR government has been combatting acts and activities endangering national security with full force and in accordance with the law, and as a result, order returned to the community.

The white paper illustrated the HKSAR's achievements in fulfilling its constitutional responsibility for safeguarding national security. Lee said that the national security law in Hong Kong and the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance function as an integral whole to build a solid shield for safeguarding national security in Hong Kong, effectively protecting the rights and freedoms enjoyed by Hong Kong residents in accordance with the law and providing a solid foundation for Hong Kong's security and development.

The white paper stated that Hong Kong is progressing from disorder to stability and prosperity. Lee said that under the auspices of the national security law in Hong Kong and the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, Hong Kong society is stable and prosperous, the normal lives and development of the people of Hong Kong are firmly guaranteed, and international rating agencies continue to give Hong Kong positive assessments.

The white paper laid down the practical requirements of creating high-standard security for the high-quality development of the "one country, two systems." Lee said that Hong Kong must work under the guidance of a holistic approach to national security, firmly safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests, safeguarding of national security throughout the entire process of the implementation of the "one country, two systems" principle.

Lee said that security is the prerequisite for development, and development is the guarantee of security. The HKSAR government will steadfastly safeguard national security and promote economic development and is committed to advancing the high-quality development of the cause of "one country, two systems" under the auspices of high-level security, and to achieving high-level security through high-quality development. 
Bengaluru, Feb 10 : Responding to the charge by Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah that Prime Minister Narendra Modi evaded the discussion on the motion of thanks to the speech of the President in the Lok Sabha, BJP state President and MLA B.Y. Vijayendra said that the culture of evading responsibility originated from the roots of the Congress party.

"First find Rahul Gandhi, who is missing, to resolve the leadership tussle in Karnataka," he mocked.

In his statement addressed to CM Siddaramaiah, Vijayendra stated, "Honourable Siddaramaiah, Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji did not evade anything or go missing anywhere; he was present in the Parliament House itself. In the Rajya Sabha, he spoke firmly and boldly, exposing the conduct and approach of your party and the Opposition. In the Lok Sabha, he spoke about the unparliamentary behaviour and mischief indulged in by members of your party."

"In fact, if there is a culture of 'evading responsibility', it has originated from the roots of your Congress party. As proof of this, your own Rahul Gandhi has been before our eyes. In Karnataka, chaos has been created as a result of your governance. For the past one year, there has been continuous infighting around the Chief Ministeras post. As a result, the administrative machinery has come to a standstill. Corruption and commission rackets are running rampant, and the suffering of the people has become unbearable," he stated.

"The very leader who should resolve these problems -- your high command leader Rahul Gandhi -- is nowhere to be found and has 'gone missing'. In search of him, Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar is being forced to shuttle to Delhi every alternate day in a helpless situation. First, you and the Deputy Chief Minister together should find out where Rahul Gandhi is. Resolve the deadlock over the Chief Ministeras post and free yourselves from the curse of the people of Karnataka. Otherwise, very soon, the people of Karnataka will ensure that both you and your Congress party are pushed into a situation where you will be left without an address," Vijayendra slammed.

Earlier, CM Siddaramaiah said that the Prime Ministeras "act of evading a reply to the discussion on the motion of thanks to the Presidentas address in the Lok Sabha is not only an insult to Parliament but also an act of cowardice, reflecting an inability to face the truth".

"For the first time in the history of the Indian Parliament, the motion of thanks has been passed without a reply from the Prime Minister. When a Prime Minister ignores Parliament, it amounts to evading responsibility. The ruling BJP first prevented opposition parties from speaking and then chose to remain silent by not responding. This is a deeply worrying development. When Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi attempted, during his speech on the motion of thanks, to raise serious issues related to national security mentioned in the book of former Indian Army Chief General M.M. Naravane, his speech was completely blocked," CM Siddaramaiah stated.
Chandrapur : , Feb 10 (IANS) In a major political development, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday secured the Mayor's post in the Chandrapur Municipal Corporation in Maharashtra after six corporators from the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) supported the party, defying the official party line.

The election of Sangeeta Khandekar as Mayor is a setback for the Congress, which had emerged as the single largest party in the recent civic polls but fell short of the top post by just one vote.

Sources in Shiv Sena (UBT) said the Chandrapur unit decided to support the BJP due to dissatisfaction over friction and internal differences within the Congress.

The mayoral election saw a close contest. BJP nominee Sangeeta Khandekar secured 32 votes against 31 votes received by the Congress candidate. Two corporators from the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) remained absent, while the lone All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) corporator abstained.

The effective majority mark came down due to the AIMIM abstention and VBA absence, helping the BJP secure the win.

The victory came after six Shiv Sena (UBT) corporators went against clear directions from the party leadership to oppose the BJP.

Just an hour before the vote, Shiv Sena (UBT) spokesperson Sanjay Raut had addressed a press conference in Mumbai and said party chief Uddhav Thackeray had instructed members to sit in the opposition instead of supporting the BJP.

"We will not support the BJP under any circumstances. Even if we have to sit in the Opposition, we will do so, but we will not help the BJP come to power," Raut had said.

However, local leaders in Chandrapur went ahead with the decision to back the BJP. Sandeep Girhe, district chief of the Thackeray faction, defended the move and cited a lack of cooperation from the Congress.

Speaking to reporters, Girhe said the decision to support the BJP was taken with development in mind and due to what he described as a snub by senior Congress leader Vijay Wadettiwar. According to Girhe, the Congress had refused to share the Mayor's post during the five-year term.

Under the reported arrangement, the BJP will hold the Mayor's post for the first 15 months, after which Shiv Sena (UBT) will take over. Shiv Sena (UBT) will hold the Deputy Mayor's post for the full five-year term and will chair the Standing Committee in the first and fourth years.

The development has caused unease within the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance. Sources said the Shiv Sena (UBT) leadership is considering disciplinary action against Sandeep Girhe and the six corporators for anti-party activities and for not informing the leadership about local-level negotiations.

The current strength of the 66-member Chandrapur Municipal Corporation is Congress 27, BJP 23, Shiv Sena (UBT) 6, Jan Vikas Sena 3, VBA 2, AIMIM 1, Independents 2, Shiv Sena (Shinde faction) 1, and BSP 1.
New Delhi, Feb 10 : Congress MP Manickam Tagore on Tuesday slammed Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju, alleging that he does not want the House to function. Tagore said that it is the responsibility of the Parliamentary Affairs Minister to ensure smooth proceedings in Parliament, but Rijiju has "developed a habit" of not running the House.

New Delhi, Feb 10 (IANS) Congress MP Manickam Tagore on Tuesday slammed Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju, alleging that he does not want the House to function. Tagore said that it is the responsibility of the Parliamentary Affairs Minister to ensure smooth proceedings in Parliament, but Rijiju has "developed a habit" of not running the House.

Speaking to IANS outside Parliament, Tagore said, "Kiren Rijiju does not want the House to run. The job of the Parliamentary Affairs Minister is to run the House, but Kiren Rijiju has developed a habit of not running the House."

He further alleged that the government was doing things that violate parliamentary norms. Referring to a video reportedly released by Rijiju, Tagore questioned its intent and content.

"That's why they are doing everything which violates parliamentary norms. The video which he released  in that video, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not there. Then whose 'gherao' did these MPs go for? If the Prime Minister had been there, then it would have been a different matter. Then whose 'gherao' did they all go there for?" he asked.

Tagore claimed the incident reflected that Rijiju was not focussed on ensuring the House runs smoothly. He also took a swipe at the minister for sharing videos instead of addressing parliamentary issues.

"This shows that Kiren Rijiju doesn't want to run the House. He is not a Parliamentary Affairs Minister, he can only post videos. He can post TikTok videos. He can't run the Parliament," Tagore told IANS.

"He posts such videos which don't have anything. This has only caused loss to Parliament. As long as he is the Parliamentary Affairs Minister, I don't think the Parliament will run," he added.

Earlier in the day, Kiren Rijiju posted a video of the stand-off that unfolded in Lok Sabha on February 4, and slammed what he said was the "most degrading behaviour" of Congress and Opposition MPs, "which could have turned the House into a battleground if not managed and handled tactfully."

The incident referred to by Rijiju occurred in the Lok Sabha on February 4, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was set to reply to the Motion of Thanks on the President's Address. Several women Congress MPs moved towards the Prime Minister's chair, purportedly with the intent to obstruct his entry into the House and confront him.

The fresh video, shared by Rijiju, shows women MPs "gheraoing" the Prime Minister's chair and refusing to budge despite repeated persuasion from several Union Ministers.

In the video, two or three ministers, including Ashwini Vaishnaw, Giriraj Singh and other MPs, are seen pleading and persuading the women lawmakers to go back to their seats and refrain from such unparliamentary behaviour, but the latter remained unrelenting and stood firm with banners and posters.

This had prompted Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to urge the Prime Minister to skip the Lok Sabha proceedings, as this could have led to some unpleasant and ugly outcome. The Lower House eventually passed the Motion of Thanks without the Prime Minister's reply.

Kiren Rijiju, lambasting the Congress party for 'egging on' its women MPs to block the alley where the Prime Minister would have walked into the House, said that the BJP lawmakers displayed maturity and restraint, otherwise this could have led the House into complete bedlam.

"Congress Party is proud of the most degrading behaviour by their MPs!! If we had not stopped all BJP MPs and allowed the Women MPs to confront Congress MPs, it would have led to very ugly scene. We have very high consideration, to protect the dignity & sanctity of the Parliament," he wrote, sharing the video.
New Delhi, Feb 10 : Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday initiated the discussion on the Union Budget in the Lok Sabha after several days of repeated disruptions as the House reconvened following its second adjournment of the day, triggered by persistent sloganeering from Opposition members.

Participating in the debate on behalf of the Congress, Tharoor delivered a sharp critique of the Budget, describing it as a missed chance to address pressing economic concerns.

He remarked that the Union Budget was a "squandered opportunity like rearranging the airbags in a crashing car while assuring passengers that the chassis is intact".

Tharoor also raised concerns over government expenditure and revenue trends, stating that overall spending has declined while tax collections have not shown significant growth.

He further argued that the Budget reflects a shift in tax burden from corporates to individual taxpayers.

"Revenue estimates are projected at 3.1 per cent from corporates (taxpayers) while individuals will pay 3.7 per cent. So your revenue is coming disproportionately from the individual taxpayers," he said, adding: "It is an underwhelming Budget."

Turning his focus to the agriculture sector, Tharoor highlighted what he described as inadequate financial allocation despite the sectoras central role in the Indian economy.

"It's high time we stopped treating agriculture as some issue that will sort itself out, because 46.1 per cent of India's workforce and 60 per cent of our population depend on agriculture and allied activities. Despite agriculture contributing 16-17 per cent of GDP, it receives only 3 per cent of this Union Budget, Rs 1.62 lakh crore, which is a 5.1 per cent cut from last year's Rs 1.71 lakh crore," he said.

He warned that reduced funding is particularly concerning at a time when agriculture is facing mounting challenges.

"This underinvestment is all the more alarming, given the existential threats facing Indian agriculture today. This sector, vital as it is, is increasingly threatened by climate change and misaligned farming practices," he said.

Referring to climate vulnerability, Tharoor noted, "Nearly two-thirds of the country is prone to drought, and the toll of weather-related disasters has been severe. Yet the Fasal Bima Yojana, meant to protect farmers, has failed. Flawed assessments and opaque settlements have reduced compensation to token amounts -- Rs 1, 3, 21, as your Minister himself has acknowledged -- turning protection into systemic injustice."

He further alleged that reduced allocations could undermine the schemeas effectiveness.

"Matters are worsened by cuts that leave the scheme at its lowest budget allocation in eight years, fuelling fears that new initiatives will repeat a familiar cycle of announcement without commitment, as seen last year when grandly announced missions on cotton technology, pulses, vegetables, fruits, and hybrid seeds, all quietly faded, with zero funding in the revised estimates. These announcements are like modern courtships -- promises without commitment. That is what this government does to us," he said.

Highlighting the issue of direct support to farmers, Tharoor said: "At a time when farm distress is deepening, the Budget's silence on revising the PM-Kisan Nidhi disbursement speaks louder than any promise made elsewhere."

He also criticised the reduction in funding for agricultural research and technology development.

"While there is an imperative need for breakthroughs in research and development and AI-driven agricultural technologies, paradoxically, funding allocations for agricultural research and education have dipped by 4.8 per cent from the previous year's Rs 10,466 crore -- that is down to Rs 9,967 crore -- decreasing precisely when the Finance Minister is announcing new AI schemes," he said.

Expressing scepticism over the practicality of technological initiatives, Tharoor said, "Frankly, doubting a new AI app, when the majority of our farmers cannot afford fertilisers, harvesters or tractors, seems rather detached from reality except for the virtual kind."

Drawing attention to crop-specific challenges, he said, "This Budget speaks at length about crops from cashews to coconuts, yet ignores one of agriculture's most persistent concerns -- pepper. Once hailed as black gold, the sector is now in distress in my state. In Kerala, which is one of the country's leading producers of pepper, output has fallen from 40,000-plus tonnes to 30,000 tonnes and is projected to decline by a further 28.7 per cent in the foreseeable future."

"The uncomfortable truth is that our spice market faces such deep challenges today that, if history repeats itself, the British might not even bother looting us for it."

Tharoor then shifted his focus to unemployment, stating that the issue continues to worsen despite repeated discussions in Parliament.

"Next to unemployment. This House has had this conversation far too many times," he said.

"We recite the same statistics, express the same concerns, and then move on, while unemployment quietly worsens. The data at the end of 2025 makes one thing unmistakably clear. Rural unemployment has stagnated at 3.9 per cent, while urban unemployment continues to rise, ending at 6.7 per cent in December," he said.

Highlighting the growing pressure in urban areas, Tharoor added: "The crisis is now starting to concentrate, where aspirations and frustrations are colliding in our cities. And yet even the Centre's flagship responses have failed to rise to the moment. Under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana, barely 41 per cent of certified candidates secured placements."
New Delhi, Feb 10 : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government, over its resistance to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) drive in West Bengal and accused it of "manufacturing a false narrative" regarding the voter verification process, which serves the broader public and national interest.

Addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters here, Lok Sabha member Sambit Patra cited extensively from the Chief Justice of India's observations on SIR to sharpen the attack on the Mamata dispensation and stated that this was a major setback for the Trinamool Congress and its chief.

Patra said that earlier the Congress party and now the Trinamool tried to sway the electorate with false narratives and claims like "SIR is illegal and a political tool to benefit the ruling BJP", and added that their hollow claims were exposed and demolished by the Apex Court during the hearing of Mamata Banerjee's plea in the Supreme Court on Monday.

"Mamata Banerjee herself moved the Supreme Court as a petitioner, arguing against the SIR drive and appealed to the Apex Court to rescind the entire exercise. She claimed that the government appointments for SIR were illegal and demanded revocation of the entire exercise, but all her claims were turned down," Patra said.

Describing the SC's observations as a big blow to the Mamata government, Patra quoted from CJI's observations, "Whatever orders and clarification are required, we will issue, but we will not allow any impediment in SIR. This must be understood by all states."

He further said that the West Bengal government protested over the appointment of micro-observers, refusing to source them from the state government's workforce for the SIR drive, but after a rap from the court, the administration is facilitating the same.

After SC's observations, about 8,505 Group-B officers are set to report to the District Magistrate and join duty by this evening, he pointed out.

The BJP MP also told the media that the Election Commission has been 'empowered' by the Apex Court to act against any official, if found to be working under any political influence.

Patra, further pointing to the show-cause notice to West Bengal DGP, called it a direct indictment of the Chief Minister.

"Bengal DGP has been show-caused and asked to submit a personal affidavit over his incompetence and inability to stop violence. This is an indictment of none other than the Chief Minister herself as the DGP works under her watch," he remarked.

--IANS

mr/dpb
Patna, Feb 10 : Independent MP from Purnea, Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, was granted bail on Tuesday by the Special MP-MLA court in Patna in connection with a case filed in 1995.

With this relief, he is set to be released after spending the last three days in Beur Jail.

Pappu Yadav was brought to the court from Beur Jail at around 12:30 pm, while the hearing on his bail application began at 2:00 pm.

During the proceedings, he was seen sitting in a wheelchair inside the courtroom.

Pappu Yadav was arrested late on Friday night in connection with a 31-year-old case related to a rented property.

An FIR in the matter was registered at the Gardanibagh Police Station in 1995.

His counsel was scheduled to file the bail plea on Monday, but judicial proceedings were suspended due to a bomb threat received by the court.

As a precautionary measure, the court premises were evacuated and closed, resulting in the postponement of hearings, including Pappu Yadavas bail plea.

The matter was finally taken up on Tuesday in the MP-MLA Court (ACJM-1), which, after hearing arguments, granted bail to the MP.

The case has once again drawn political attention in Bihar, with supporters alleging vendetta politics, while legal proceedings continue as per due process.

Earlier, on the arrest of Pappu Yadav, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and Lok Sabha MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra launched a sharp attack on the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government in Bihar, alleging deep-rooted collusion in the handling of the NEET aspirant 's death case in a Patna girls' hostel.

Even Union MSME Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi said that Pappu Yadav was arrested due to his active participation in raising the issue of the suspicious death of a NEET aspirant in Patna. Instead of taking direct action against him, he was arrested in an old case.

Pappu Yadav has been vocal since the NEET aspirant's death case surfaced in Patna.

He visited Jehanabad multiple times to meet and console the victimas family and repeatedly demanded strict action against those responsible.

The NEET aspirant was found unconscious under mysterious circumstances at Shambhu Girlsa Hostel in Chitragupt Nagar on January 6 and later succumbed to her injuries at a private hospital on January 11.

The post-mortem and FSL reports have stated that sexual assault cannot be ruled out, intensifying political and public pressure for a thorough investigation.
Hyderabad, Feb 10 : Actor Nikhil Siddhartha, who plays the lead in director Bharat Krishnamachari's upcoming period film 'Swayambhu', has now shed light on the powerful historical and cultural foundation that forms the backbone of the film's narrative.

Nikhil has disclosed that the film 'Swayambhu' draws inspiration from the Sengol, an ancient emblem that represents righteous governance, justice, and moral authority.

Speaking about the core idea of the film, Nikhil said, "Swayambhu is a story derived from a very special and very unique aspect of Indian history which is the history of Sengol. We all popularly know Sengol as something that was carried by honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the inauguration of the Indian Parliament and is installed in the new parliament building. However, not many know the rich history behind the Sengol."

He went on to add, "It (Sengol) was first given by Lord Rama to his descendent. It stands for righteous governance, justice and the power to be able to effectively rule. This Sengol has traveled in the history of India and has had a lot of significance in Indian empires like the great Chola dynasty. We have created a fictionalised story around the Sengol and our hero."

The Sengol, which recently returned to public consciousness after being installed in the new Parliament building, has a long and layered legacy that spans centuries. By weaving this symbol into a larger cinematic narrative, 'Swayambhu' aims to blend mythology, history, and fiction into an epic storytelling experience.

Adding to the anticipation, the makers have announced that the teaser of 'Swayambhu' will be unveiled at a grand pan-India event held simultaneously in two cities on February 11. The dual-city launch reflects the scale and ambition of the project, which is being positioned as a film with nationwide appeal.

'Swayambhu' has been produced by Bhuvan and Shreekar of Pixel Studios. Presented as an epic tribute to India's rich history and timeless glory, the film is set for a worldwide release on April 10, 2026.
Gwalior, Feb 10 : An elderly woman died after collapsing during the 'Kalash Yatra' held on the first day of the consecration ceremony of the newly constructed Navagraha Shakti Peeth temple in Dabra town of Gwalior district, Madhya Pradesh, on Tuesday.

Gwalior, Feb 10 (IANS) An elderly woman died after collapsing during the aKalash Yatraa held on the first day of the consecration ceremony of the newly constructed Navagraha Shakti Peeth temple in Dabra town of Gwalior district, Madhya Pradesh, on Tuesday.

The Kalash Yatra, marking the beginning of the templeas consecration rituals, started from the stadium grounds and proceeded towards the Navagraha Shakti Peeth temple.

According to officials, the woman, who was participating in the procession, suddenly collapsed and lost consciousness.

She was immediately rushed to a nearby hospital, where doctors declared her dead. A video of the incident shows police personnel present at the venue, managing the crowd.

Senior BJP leader and former Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra, who is also a trustee of the newly constructed temple, was leading the yatra.

Confirming the incident, Mishraas communication in-charge, Brijesh Dwivedi, told IANS that over 20,000 women were participating in the Kalash Yatra. "An elderly woman suddenly collapsed during the procession. She was taken to a hospital immediately, but could not be saved," he said.

Dwivedi added that elaborate security arrangements have been made by the district administration for the 10-day-long religious event, which began on Tuesday.

Several prominent religious and spiritual figures, including Dhirendra Krishna Shastri of Bageshwar Dham, Pradeep Mishra, poet Kumar Vishwas, Danti Maharaj, Gurusharan Sharma of Pandokhar Dham, and saints from Dhoomeswar Dham, Dandraua Dham, and Rawatpura Sarkar, are expected to participate in the consecration ceremony.

Earlier, organisers had said that Saint Badrish Ji Maharaj and his 70 disciples would conduct the rituals, while Danti Maharaj would perform special rituals throughout the 10-day event, scheduled from February 10 to 20.

Apart from religious leaders, several political leaders from across party lines have also been invited. Recently, Mishra met Madhya Pradesh Governor Mangubhai Patel to invite him to attend the consecration ceremony.
New Delhi, Feb 10 : The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to examine a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking a declaration that medical professionals do not fall within the ambit of the Consumer Protection Act.

Issuing notice, a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant, and comprising Justices Joymalya Bagchi and N.V. Anjaria, sought responses from the Union Ministries of Health and Family Welfare and Consumer Affairs, as well as the National Medical Commission, in the matter.

The PIL, filed by the Association of Healthcare Providers (India) and Dr Alexander Thomas under Article 32 of the Constitution, sought a writ of mandamus directing the authorities to exclude medical professionals holding MBBS or higher qualifications from the definition of "service" under Section 2(42) of the Consumer Protection Act (CPA), 2019.

It contended that subjecting medical professionals to consumer law has eroded the patient-doctor relationship and encouraged defensive medical practices.

The petition relied heavily on the Supreme Courtas judgment in Bar of Indian Lawyers vs. D.K. Gandhi (2024) case, wherein the apex court held that the legislature never intended to bring professionals within the ambit of the consumer protection law, observing that the statute was enacted to protect consumers from unfair trade practices and unethical business practices.

Quoting the judgment, the plea highlighted that the latest judgment itself had observed that the apex court's earlier 1995 ruling in Indian Medical Association v. V.P. Shantha, which brought medical services under the consumer law, "deserves to be revisited and considered by a larger Bench".

The plea submitted that although advocates have now been exempted from the purview of the CPA, doctors continue to be governed by the 1995 precedent, despite the changed legal position.

The petition referred to the personal experience of Dr Thomas, a senior medical professional, who was named in a consumer forum case in the mid-1990s in connection with the treatment of a road accident victim. Although the complaint was eventually dismissed, the prolonged litigation had a "deeply demoralising" impact and pushed him to the brink of leaving the profession, the plea said.

Arguing that the Consumer Protection Act has failed to deliver speedy justice even to patients, the petition stated that "the significant and persisting backlog of cases and prolonged delays, often extending over several years", defeat the very object of the legislation.

"The patient-doctor relationship occupies a singular and sacrosanct space within society, characterised by mutual trust, empathy and compassion. However, since the inclusion of the medical profession under the Consumer Protection Act, this relationship has regrettably become transactional," the PIL said.

It further contended that the fear of litigation has incentivised "defensive medical practices", compelling doctors to order unnecessary tests and procedures primarily to safeguard themselves legally, leading to escalated healthcare costs without corresponding patient benefit.

"Retaining doctors within the purview of the Consumer Protection Act is antithetical to the unique and sensitive nature of the patient-doctor relationship and is neither in the interest of patients nor of society at large," the petition stated.

Senior advocate Malvika Trivedi, along with advocates Sanyam Khetarpal, Vijay Kasana, Nitesh Goyal and Lisa Sankrit, represented the petitioners before the apex court.

--IANS

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Thiruvananthapuram Feb 10 : The investigation into the multi-crore land grab case at a plush locality in the state capital city reached a crucial stage with the arrest of Sasthamangalom Sub-Registrar K.S. Lakshmi for allegedly facilitating the fraudulent transfer of a house and land worth early Rs 4.5 crore using forged documents.

Lakshmi, a native of the city, has been named as the ninth accused in the case.

According to the police, a 14.5-cent plot of land and a residential house owned by Dora, a Jawaharnagar resident currently living abroad, were illegally taken over in January last year by preparing fake title deeds.

The accused allegedly first mortgaged the property in the name of Merin Jacob of Manakkad Puthuparambu by falsely projecting her as Doraas adopted daughter.

The property was later sold to Chandrasenan, a resident of Maruthamkuzhi, through a forged sale deed.

Investigators say Lakshmi played an active role in enabling the registration of the fake documents and extending logistical support to the accused.

Forged identity documents, including fake ID cards, were produced during the registration process.

To avoid suspicion, signatures on the documents were reportedly obtained outside the Sub-Registraras Office, a move allegedly facilitated by Lakshmi.

Police further stated that Lakshmi received a bribe of Rs 10 lakh and 10 mobile phones from the prime accused and alleged gang leader, Ananthapuri Manikandan, in exchange for her cooperation.

The forged sale deed lists Ananthapuri Manikandan, Sayyid Ali and Sunil Thomas as witnesses, along with Anil Thambi, the son-in-law of the second accused Chandrasenan.

Initially, Lakshmi had maintained that the registration was carried out only after verifying the identity documents submitted by the parties concerned.

However, the police said this claim failed to hold, after cyber evidence was collected, contradicting her version.

Following the exposure of the fraud, the Registration Inspector General had earlier issued a show-cause notice to Lakshmi.

The investigation team noted that the report she submitted at the time appeared to favour Manikandan.

The Museum Police said further questioning of Lakshmi is expected to shed light on additional transactions and expose more individuals involved in the organised property scam.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- A White House official reportedly reiterated on Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump remains opposed to Israel's annexation of the West Bank, two days ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's scheduled visit to Washington.

"A stable West Bank keeps Israel secure and is in line with this administration's goal to achieve peace in the region," the official was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Trump has repeatedly said that he will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank, which is seen as a "red line" for Arab leaders and a key element of the U.S.-drafted peace deal ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict last year.

"I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank. I will not allow it. It's not going to happen," Trump told reporters in the White House in September.

However, the report does not say Trump will block all settlement expansion, but that he opposes formal annexation of the territory.

Trump is expected to hold talks with Netanyahu on Iran at the White House on Wednesday, according to a brief statement from Netanyahu's office. The two leaders last met in December.

Israel's security cabinet approved decisions on Sunday to deepen control over the West Bank and expand Jewish settlement there, sparking widespread condemnation.

On Monday, the foreign ministers of eight Arab and Muslim countries condemned in the strongest terms the "illegal" Israeli decisions aimed at entrenching settlement activity. Later, the EU and the UN also voiced condemnation over the Israeli move, calling it "another step in the wrong direction" and having "no legal validity."

Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East War, areas widely recognized as the basis for a Palestinian state under the two-state solution. 
Patna, Feb 10 : JD(U) spokesperson Neeraj Kumar on Tuesday accused RJD leaders of using unparliamentary and provocative language in the Bihar Legislative Council, while highlighting what he described as deteriorating discipline and worsening political conduct in the House.

Speaking to IANS, Neeraj Kumar said that the behaviour of the Opposition in the Council since Monday has been objectionable and against established norms.

"In the Council, from yesterday, the behaviour of the Opposition is quite objectionable. They are not following the rules of the current Deputy Speaker, Ram Bachan Rai. They are showing fingers to the Speaker and showing fingers to the members of the Assembly," Kumar told IANS.

He further alleged that Opposition members were disrupting proceedings and not allowing ministers to speak.

"If the minister is a Dalit, you will not let them speak. What is the right? The video is with the Speaker. Such behaviour," he said.

Kumar claimed that video footage of the incident exists and will show who used abusive language in the House.

"The video footage is there and you can see who is abusing. Now, the Speaker will see what happened. Who has given the Opposition the right to show stubbornness when the Speaker is standing?" he added.

Meanwhile, after leaving the Bihar Legislative Council, former Chief Minister Rabri Devi stated that she and her colleagues spoke democratically and respected the House's orders. She also criticised the use of unparliamentary language by senior representatives inside the Council.

Earlier, Bihar's Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's reference to former Chief Minister Rabri Devi as "ye jo ladki hai (this girl)" triggered a major uproar in the Legislative Council.

During the heated exchange, Bihar government minister Ashok Choudhary and Opposition MLC Sunil Singh clashed with each other. The situation escalated to the point where both sides allegedly crossed their limits and the decorum of the House was disrupted.

As he left the House, Ashok Choudhary said that the Opposition had commented on the ruling party even before the House began, but the ruling side did not react. He further claimed that a senior leader from the Opposition, whom he described as a capable and Harvard-educated leader, started creating unnecessary uproar.

According to Choudhary, the Speaker appealed to both sides to remain calm, but the Opposition refused. He alleged that Opposition members then rose from their seats, entered the Well of the House, and continued creating disruption.

He said the Speaker repeatedly urged the Opposition to return to their seats and allow the House to function peacefully, but the protests continued. Following this, the Speaker warned the Opposition of expulsion from the House for a day.
Amritsar, Feb 10 : Punjab Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Sunil Jakhar on Tuesday said that the India-US trade agreement has opened doors for the country's progress towards becoming a developed nation while providing a protective shield to Indian farmers.

He told the media that the agreement would act as a "runway" to take the country to new heights of development. Also, Punjab's textile sector will gain. Jakhar said the BJP "understands its responsibility and accountability towards the people, especially farmers, and therefore it is informing the public about various aspects of this trade agreement".

Urging the Opposition to refrain from misleading propaganda regarding the agreement, he said Prime Minister Narendra Modi deserved congratulations for successfully securing a deal in the national interest amid challenging international circumstances.

The state BJP chief said while the US President is working on the principle of "Make America Great Again", Prime Minister Modi has pursued the policy of "Make India Great", ensuring that the agreement fully safeguards India's agriculture sector while enabling the country to sell its industrial products to the US and purchase advanced technologies as needed.

He added that the Prime Minister has effectively turned difficult global conditions into an opportunity for the country. Following the agreement, Indian goods will face the lowest tariffs in the US compared to competing nations, allowing India to expand its access to American markets. "This will significantly boost India's industry and trade," he said.

Jakhar said while the agreement opens new avenues of growth for industries and commerce and creates fresh employment opportunities in the country, the government has also drawn a protective "Lakshman Rekha" around farmers' interests.

He emphasised that before being a leader, he is a farmer, and as a farmer, he can confidently say that this agreement will not negatively impact any farmer in Punjab. Crops grown by Punjab farmers have been kept outside the purview of the agreement.

Jakhar said, while the agreement "protects farmers, it will also create new job opportunities for the next generation of farming families who are moving into other professions. Under this agreement, agricultural goods worth $1 billion from India will also be exported to the US at zero per cent tariff".

He added that the US textile market is worth $345 billion, of which India's share is only five per cent, while China's share has ranged between 25 and 35 per cent. With India now gaining access to this market at lower tariffs compared to China, the Indian textile industries will directly benefit, and Punjab's textile sector will also gain.

"This, in turn, will positively impact Punjab's economy. Operational factories will generate employment, increase revenue, and pave the way for new development." He said for India, "to secure its place in the emerging global economy, it is essential for the country to become the factory of the world".

Appealing to people to understand the facts, he remarked that Opposition parties are aware of the truth but are opposing the agreement merely for the sake of opposition.
Indore, Feb 10 : Two more persons died in Indore's Bhagirathpura due to contaminated water, taking the death toll in Bhagirathpura to 35.

The deceased were identified as Shaligram Thakur (75), who passed away on Monday night, and Riya (2) died on Tuesday morning.

Shaligram's daughter, Mona Thakur, told media persons that he (Shaligram) was referred to Shelby Hospital on January 2 due to vomiting and diarrhoea.

"From there, he was admitted to Bombay Hospital, and he was discharged a few days ago," she said.

Mona Thakur said that Shaligram suffered from paralysis 18 years ago and had no other underlying medical conditions.

However, Bombay Hospital's General Manager, Rahul Parashar, claimed that the patient had suffered cardiac problems.

Two-year-old Riya Prajapati, who was admitted to Chacha Nehru Hospital two weeks ago due to vomiting and diarrhoea, died early morning on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the opposition Congress has alleged that the deaths occurred due to contaminated drinking water.

"At least 35 people in Indore died due to contaminated water. It is with great sadness that I have to announce that my 2-year-old daughter, Riya and 75-year-old Shaligram Thakur passed away today. I am speechless," Madhya Pradesh Congress president Jitu Patwari wrote on X.

The state administration, however, has yet to make any official statement on the two casualties.

The Madhya Pradesh High Court appointed a one-member judicial commission to investigate the water contamination incident in Bhagirathpura and its subsequent impact on public health.

The court has invited submissions from stakeholders on the epidemic that claimed several lives.

The commission, headed by a former judge of the MP HC, Justice Sushil Kumar Gupta, is tasked with conducting a comprehensive inquiry into the root causes of the water pollution.

The public notice invites stakeholders to provide records, evidence, and testimonies on the Bhagirathpura tragedy till February 28.

"Affected citizens, family members of victims, public representatives, doctors, hospitals, social organisations, contractors, and govt officials are encouraged to come forward," said a notification issued on Monday.

The commission will also recommend corrective measures to prevent future occurrences. The commission is specifically looking for medical records, including hospital admission slips, discharge summaries, and death certificates, along with copies of previous complaints or applications regarding water quality.

In addition, visual evidence, including photographs or videos showing pipeline leaks, sewerage mixing, or damaged infrastructure, can also be submitted, along with tender documents, work orders, inspection reports, and water supply maintenance records.
Hyderabad, Feb 10 : Telangana BJP staged a protest at the DGP office in Hyderabad on Tuesday, blaming the ruling Congress party for the suicide of its candidate in elections to Makthal municipality.

Party leaders and cadres gathered outside the DGP office and raised slogans against the government. They demanded that the police take action against those responsible for the suicide of Erukali Mahadevraappa.

As the police tried to disperse the protestors, they entered into an argument. A scuffle between the two sides led to mild tension in the area.

Mahadevrappa, who had filed his nomination as the BJP candidate from ward number 6 in Makthal municipality in Narayanpet district, was found hanging at his residence late on Monday night.

Mahadevrappa's family members alleged that Mahadev's opponents have been intimidating him since he filed his nomination.

Polling for the election in 116 municipalities and seven corporations across Telangana is scheduled for Wednesday.

Meanwhile, state BJP president N. Ramchander Rao visited Makthal and consoled the family of Mahadevarappa.

Talking to reporters, he blamed the Congress party for the incident.

"The primary reason behind this tragic death is the sustained intimidation and harassment by Congress goons."

"This is not an isolated incident. Congress keeps doing this kind of activity regularly and gives sermons on Democracy. What is even more shocking is that reports are now emerging that the local police have allegedly changed and doctored the original FIR. This is a shameful act and raises serious questions about police neutrality and integrity. Such behaviour amounts to shielding the guilty and trampling upon justice," the BJP leader posted on 'X'.

He demanded that the police immediately revert to the original FIR without any manipulation. He said a proper post-mortem must be conducted to ensure transparency and truth. He also wanted strict action against the local police officials for changing the original FIR.

Ramchander Rao said immediate and stringent action must be initiated against all those responsible for harassing and intimidating Mahadevarappa.

He announced ex gratia assistance of Rs 10 lakh to the family of Mahadevarappa on behalf of the BJP.

Meanwhile, Union Minister for Coal and Mines G. Kishan Reddy raised the issue of the BJP candidate's suicide in the Lok Sabha.

BJP MP K. Laxman raised the issue in the Rajya Sabha and demanded immediate action.

Kishan Reddy posted on social media that it's an isolated incident.

"It is a chilling indictment of the political climate prevailing in Telangana under Chief Minister Revanth Reddy and the Congress party. Mahadevarappa, a son of a humble Scheduled Tribe family, dared to step forward and contest an election. For a young tribal leader to feel so cornered that hope itself disappears is not just a personal tragedy. It points to the jungle raj and a deeper malaise where grassroots democracy is under severe strain in Telangana," he said.
Mumbai, Feb 10 : Music producer Rao Inderjeet Singh Yadav, has offered financial help to actor Rajpal Yadav in light of his struggles.

Rajpal Yadav is known for his work in 'Bhool Bhulaiyaa', 'Hungama', 'Welcome', and others. While his on-screen journey has been filled with comic brilliance and memorable performances, his recent personal challenges brought attention to the importance of standing by artists beyond the stage and screen.

Rao Inderjeet Singh Yadav, who is the owner of GemTunes Music, stepped forward to support actor Rajpal Yadav with financial assistance of Rs 1.11 crore.

Talking about the same, the producer said, "Rajpal ji has given immeasurable joy to audiences and has been an integral part of Indian cinema. This support is not about money, it is about standing with a fellow human being in his time of need. Our industry is a family, and families hold each other when it matters the most".

Rajpal Yadav is currently facing financial and legal stress tied to a long-running cheque bounce case. The dispute dates back to around 2010, when the actor and his wife borrowed roughly INR 5 crore from a company to finance his directorial project 'Ata Pata Laapata'. After the movie failed commercially, the duo struggled to repay the loan, and several cheques issued against the debt bounced, triggering legal action under the Negotiable Instruments Act. Over the years, due to interest and penalties, the outstanding amount ballooned to an estimated INR 9 crore.

Despite multiple deadlines and extensions granted by the Delhi High Court, he repeatedly failed to clear the dues. A few days ago, the court refused any further relief and directed him to surrender to Tihar Jail to serve a six-month sentence related to the case.
Mumbai, Feb 10 : Maharashtra Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal on Tuesday accused the BJP of horse trading in winning the mayoral election in the Chandrapur Municipal Corporation.

However, he took a serious objection to the Shiv Sena, a constituent of the Maha Vikas Aghadi and INDIA Alliance to support the BJP instead of Congress in the mayoral poll.

Sapkal said AIMIM remained neutral and thereby helped the BJP.

"As councillors of our new ally, the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, remained absent during the voting, the BJP candidate won by a margin of one vote. The stand taken by Shiv Sena (UBT) in Chandrapur will inevitably have repercussions across the state. Should the Congress party take a similar stand in Parbhani?" asked Sapkal.

In Parbhani, Shiv Sena UBT will need Congress support to win the mayoral election. Sapkal said that the invisible alliance between the Bharatiya Janata Party and AIMIM has once again come to light in Chandrapur, after Anjangaon Surji, Akot, and Achalpur.

"By remaining neutral in the Chandrapur mayoral election, AIMIM effectively helped the BJP; once again, it has become clear that the BJP and AIMIM are two sides of the same coin. Congress made an honest effort to bring the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi along; had they supported Congress, a Congress mayor would have been elected," he added.

Sapkal further stated, "Efforts were made to bring together the Leader of the Congress Legislature Party, Vijay Wadettiwar and MP Pratibha Dhanorkar to ensure a Congress mayor, and they worked together accordingly. There has been no split within the Congress. A report on this election will be sought from party observers, and a detailed discussion will be held thereafter."

Earlier, in a high-stakes political drama, the BJP successfully installed its Mayor in the Chandrapur Municipal Corporation, following an unexpected "twist" involving six corporators from the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT).

The election of Sangeeta Khandekar as Mayor marks a significant blow to the Congress party, which had emerged as the single largest party in the recent civic polls but failed to secure the top seat by just one vote.

The Shiv Sena UBT sources said that the decision was taken by the Chandrapur unit to support the BJP as it was not happy with factionalism and internal fight in the Congress party.

The mayoral election witnessed a nail-biting finish. The BJP nominee Sangeeta Khandekar (BJP) got 32 votes against 31 votes bagged by the Congress candidate.

The two corporators of Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi remained absent, while the lone AIMIM corporator abstained from the voting. The majority mark was effectively lowered due to the AIMIM's neutral stance and the VBA's absence, allowing the BJP to pull off what local analysts are calling a "political miracle."
Patna, Feb 10 : Bihar's Leader of the Opposition and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) National Working President Tejashwi Yadav returned to Patna from Delhi on Tuesday.

He was seen arriving at Patna Airport in a wheelchair, drawing public attention.

Speaking to the media, Tejashwi Yadav launched a sharp attack on Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, alleging that the Chief Minister's recent conduct in the Bihar Legislative Council reflects a deteriorating situation in the state.

Referring to Nitish Kumar's remarks directed at former Chief Minister Rabri Devi, the RJD leader said such language was inappropriate and deflected attention from serious issues confronting Bihar.

Tejashwi alleged that crimes against women are rapidly increasing in the state and accused the government of failing to act decisively.

He said incidents of gang rape involving young girls have risen and pointed to multiple recent cases emerging from districts such as Darbhanga, even as the NEET student death case remains unresolved.

"The RJD and Rabri Devi raised these issues in the House, but instead of addressing them, the Chief Minister's language sends the wrong message and emboldens criminals," the RJD leader added.

Clarifying his earlier remarks regarding the Chief Minister's health, Tejashwi said he had not commented on any illness, stating that health issues are natural with advancing age.

However, he questioned the functioning of the government, alleging that the Chief Minister's microphone being switched off in the Assembly indicates that he is being constrained and that decisions are being guided by others.

In the NEET student case, Tejashwi claimed that the CBI did not take over the investigation and alleged that the Bihar government halted further inquiry.

He further accused the ruling NDA of shielding culprits in major cases such as the Muzaffarpur shelter home case and the Srijan scam, asserting that justice is being denied to victims.

Concluding his remarks, Tejashwi Yadav alleged that democracy in Bihar is under strain and claimed that an atmosphere of fear and intimidation has replaced transparent governance in the state.
Una : , Feb 10 (IANS) Employees working under the Mukhyamantri Nidan Yojana at a privately operated laboratory in Himachal Pradesh's Una district held a three-hour strike on Tuesday, alleging non-payment of salaries for the past two months, government officials said.

Under the Mukhyamantri Nidan Yojana, the state government claims to provide affordable and accessible diagnostic facilities to patients.

However, employees associated with the scheme at the Regional Hospital in Una, said they are facing severe financial hardship due to delayed salaries.

Employees of the privately-run Krsnaa Laboratory, operating within the Regional Hospital Una premises, said they have not received their salaries for December 2025 and January 2026.

Many of them commute from far-flung areas, including the Dulehar region, and said the delay has made it difficult to pay house rent, manage household expenses and support their families.

According to the employees, they repeatedly approached the laboratory management regarding the issue but were given only assurances.

They were informed that the pending salaries would be cleared on Monday, but even after that, no payment was made.

Angered by the delay, the employees announced a work boycott from 9 a.m. to 12 noon.

All staff working under the Mukhyamantri Nidan Yojana laboratories participated in the strike.

The employees warned that if a permanent solution is not found soon, the agitation would be intensified as per the directions of the organisation's state executive.

Una Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Sanjeev Kumar Verma, said he had not received any prior information about the strike.

"I came to know about it only in the morning. However, to ensure that patients do not face any inconvenience, all necessary diagnostic tests were conducted smoothly at the government laboratory of Regional Hospital Una," he said, adding that the hospital administration is closely monitoring the situation.

Narendra Kumar, a laboratory worker, said salary delays have become routine.

"It has been almost a year now. Salaries never come on time and are delayed by two to three months. We have still not received a salary from December 2025. I live on rent and am married, so it is causing me mental and physical stress," he added.

Another laboratory worker, Sanjana, said financial pressure has increased due to additional responsibilities.

"I am also pursuing studies along with my job and have to pay fees. Household expenses are not being met," she added.
New Delhi, Feb 10 : Once considered invincible in West Bengal, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and its Left allies have lately been rendered inconsequential in state politics, leaving them at crossroads once again as the state prepares for another Assembly election.

The Left desperately needs a helping hand, as was evident in CPI(M) state committee secretary Mohd. Salim's repeated overtures towards the Congress for another tie-up, despite the earlier adjustments ending in poll disaster.

In 2021, the Left parties and the Congress  engaged in an unusual alliance  were rendered non-existent in the Assembly that has a total strength of 294.

In 2024, the Left failed to win a single Parliamentary seat, while the Congress managed one.

Altogether, West Bengal sends 42 elected members to the Lok Sabha. The Left camp is in a state of disarray, more so after the Congress recently broke off its ties.

One reason being attributed is that Congress workers in West Bengal were disheartened following a series of losses at the hustings.

State leaders impressed upon the party's central leadership that the Pradesh Committee has been unable to strengthen itself over the past two decades due to its dependence on coalitions.

Now they wish to infuse optimism and assurance among grassroot workers on their own steam.

On the other hand, observers also point to the earlier change in state leadership as a tectonic shift in the political viewpoint.

Former state party President, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, a known Mamata Banerjee-baiter, had let go of his own enmity with the Communists during the 34 years of Left rule to aim for the removal of a common enemy.

They claim that incumbent Subhankar Sarkar is amicable and goes by the central party's views, unlike Chowdhury who held more regional power.

Sarkar is largely seen as the party's "soft face". Even as the Congress decision came, there rose objections within the CPI(M), also the Left partners, against an alliance with other Islamic parties like the Janata Unnayan Party (JUP) or Indian Secular Front (ISF).

The latter was part of the Left-Congress alliance. Salim's recent meeting with Humayun Kabir, the former Trinamool Congress MLA, now building a multi-crore replica of the Babri Masjid in the Muslim-dominated district of Murshidabad, did not go well with many in the party.

It was apparent that such a meeting would spark an alliance speculation before the upcoming polls.

Thus, his cautious response failed to convince leaders in his own party as well as among Left Front partners like the Forward Bloc and Revolutionary Socialist Party.

Salim had clarified that the meeting with Kabir does not mean that a political tie-up is imminent with the JUP founder.

Reports suggest that veteran CPI(M) leader Biman Basu is now going to address it as the Left Front chairman. He is expected to hold a round of bilateral talks with the partners before a joint meeting to arrive at a conclusion.

According to some Left leaders, the bloc intends to settle official and unofficial "tactical" political understandings by the end of the third week this month.

This will give them time later to negotiate the final list of candidates with all allies. Meanwhile, the Furfura Sharif shrine's Pirzada, Naushad Siddiqui, founder of ISF is said to be seeking at least 50-60 seats, especially in the Muslim-dominated seats of West Bengal.

That has left the CPI(M) worried of subsequent pressures from other partners for increasing their share of seats. These issues are to be taken up in CPI(M) state committee, which is scheduled to meet next week.

Though Basu is not a member of this committee anymore due to advanced years, he is a special invitee with limited rights and responsibilities. However, he will then have to convince other Left Front partners that weekend according to the state committee's decision.
New Delhi/Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 10 : Congress General Secretary and Alappuzha MP K.C. Venugopal has drawn attention to the growing anguish of qualified women candidates awaiting appointment as college teachers in Kerala, sharing a video of his interaction with them on social media.

The post on Tuesday has sparked renewed discussion on delays in appointments despite the existence of vacancies.

In the video, Venugopal is seen listening to the grievances of women candidates who have secured top ranks in Public Service Commission (PSC) examinations but have yet to receive appointments.

Some of them said they have been waiting for nearly three years, even as sanctioned vacancies remain unfilled.

With the expiry date of the PSC rank list fast approaching, they expressed fear that years of effort may go waste.

The candidates spoke about their repeated attempts to seek redressal.

They said they had tried to meet Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and senior ministers, visited the PSC office several times, and travelled frequently to Thiruvananthapuram.

Despite these efforts, they claimed that no concrete action had followed.

Their statements reflected deep frustration and emotional distress over prolonged uncertainty.

Venugopal said he became aware of their situation through a media report and decided to reach out to them directly.

He described their plight as symptomatic of a system that ignores merit and fails young aspirants who have followed every rule.

He said it was unacceptable that candidates ranked first in examinations were forced to protest on the streets while vacancies continued to exist.

Venugopal criticised the state government for citing financial constraints when it comes to appointments, while spending large sums on publicity and other expenditures.

He said denying jobs to deserving candidates under such circumstances amounted to a betrayal of the younger generation.

The Congress leader assured the candidates that he would stand with them and do his best to find a solution to their immediate and long-standing concerns.

He said he would take up the issue at appropriate levels and press for timely appointments before the rank list expires.

As the video circulates widely on social media, the issue has once again brought the spotlight on delays in PSC appointments and the uncertainty faced by qualified job seekers in Keralaas higher education sector.
CONAKRY, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Heavy gunfire was heard on Tuesday near the central prison in the capital of Guinea Conakry, amid reports that armed elements extracted Commander Toumba Diakite from custody, sources said.

According to the sources, Diakite was removed from Conakry Central Prison while hooded and later driven to an unknown destination. No official confirmation was immediately available.

Diakite, also known as "Toumba," whose full name is Aboubacar Sidiki Diakite, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in July 2024 in connection with the trial over the Sept. 28, 2009 stadium massacre in Conakry.

According to local media, more than 150 people were killed during a rally at a stadium in Conakry on Sept. 28, 2009. 
Quetta, Feb 10 : The second phase of 'Operation Herof' launched by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) showcased that the group has capability to dismantle state authority in Pakistan's Balochistan and establish control. The BLA conducted the largest, most organised and most wide-ranging attacks in the history of the Baloch national armed struggle in key cities of Balochistan as part of the second phase of 'Operation Herof', a report has stated.

"50 fighters from the BLAas suicide unit, the Majeed Brigade, took part in these operations, is a remarkable episode in the history of warfare. The operation, which lasted six days, effectively paralysed the stateas writ across Balochistan during that period. The second phase of Operation Herof, spanning six days, is presented as evidence that the BLA possesses the capability to dismantle state authority in Balochistan and establish control," an editorial in The Balochistan Post stated.

The Baloch fighters launched simultaneous attacks across cities and towns on January 31, inflicting heavy casualties and damages on the Pakistani military.

Over the last weekend, the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) announced that the week-long operation has ended, with the Baloch fighters achieving their objective.

The coordinated urban warfare, according to a report by The Balochistan Post (TBP), spanned over 14 cities across Balochistan and was reportedly the largest, most intense and most organised military operation in the group's history.

The TBP report, quoting BLA officials, reported that more than 362 personnel from Pakistani security forces were killed during the operation.

The BLA Spokesperson added that these included members of the Pakistani Army, the Frontier Corps, police and what he described as state-backed armed groups.

"By launching coordinated attacks on military camps of the Pakistan Army, police stations, intelligence offices and economic centres in 12 cities of strategic and economic importance, the BLA demonstrated its military capabilities on a large scale and dismantled the notion of Pakistan Army supremacy in Balochistan," the editorial added.

Through these coordinated attacks, BLA conveyed a message to the world that Baloch national institutions have decision-making powers and investment in the region is not possible without their will.

Similarly, coordinated actions involving thousands of fighters in Quetta and Gwadar, which is the hub of the Chinaa"Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Noshki and Chagai, cities related to major global mining projects at Reko Diq and Saindak, demonstrate how BLA does not have shortage of manpower and the future attacks will be even more organised and larger in scale, The Balochistan Post stated.

The coordinated operations conducted in Balochistan for six days showcase that intense and decisive confrontations between the Pakistan Army and Baloch resistance fighters lie ahead and Operation Herof will play an important part in reshaping the political and military landscape of Balochistan.
Kolkata, Feb 10 : Two people died after a heavy iron rod fell from a multi-storey building in West Bengal's Howrah city, police officials said on Tuesday.

The accident took place on Tuesday afternoon in a multi-storey building adjacent to the Howrah Municipal Corporation.

The names of the deceased have been identified as Sheikh Irfan and Khokon.

Officers of Howrah Police Station reached the spot after receiving the news of the accident and are investigating the incident.

The work of welding the rod was going on in the stairwell of the trade centre near Howrah Municipal Corporation since Tuesday morning.

During the welding, a heavy iron rod suddenly fell down. At that time, there were some people under the multi-storey building.

Local residents said that many traders kept their goods in that trade centre.

The market was in Howrah's Mangalahat on the fateful day.

Hat trader Sheikh Irfan came to the multi-storey building with his friend Khokon to keep his goods when the heavy rod fell on them following which they were seriously injured.

The duo was taken to the Howrah state general hospital where the doctors declared them dead.

Following the incident, there was a commotion surrounding the accident.

The officers from Howrah police station arrived at the spot.

When they went to the roof of the multi-storey building, they saw that iron rods and other materials were scattered all around.

It is said that the work was going on without any safety measures.

No safety net was installed.

According to the police, they are investigating the entire matter.

Sheikh Islam, brother of the deceased Sheikh Irfan, told local reporters, "We had come to store the things. I was also there. The iron rod fell on the heads of my brother and Khokon. Then the workers looked from above to see what had happened. But, no one came forward to help. After about 20 minutes, the police came. Only then the two were taken to the hospital."

He raised the question of how the work was being done on the roof without any safety measures.
New Delhi, Feb 10 : India has improved by 79 ranks in the ease of doing business (EoDB) during the last five years in the rankings published by the World Bank Group, Parliament was informed on Tuesday.

Following the discontinuation of the Doing Business Report (DBR) in 2020, the World Bank launched the B-Ready Assessment in 2024 to evaluate 180+ countries over three years across 10 topics spanning the entire business lifecycle: Business Entry, Business Location, Utility Services, Labour, Financial Services, International Trade, Taxation, Dispute Resolution, Market Competition, and Business Insolvency.

India is to be part of the Third B-Ready Report, scheduled to be released in 2026, the Minister of State for the Ministry for Commerce & Industry, Jitin Prasada, said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.

With a view to improving India's business climate, attracting investments, and fostering economic growth, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has launched several initiatives, including the Business Reforms Action Plan (BRAP) under the overall umbrella initiative of Ease of Doing Business, the minister stated.

The BRAP initiative was launched in 2014 by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). It focuses on streamlining regulations, reducing compliance burdens, and implementing digital solutions to improve the business environment in India.

Key reforms include establishing single window systems, simplifying building permissions, enhancing inspection procedures, and digitising various business processes. These reforms aim to make India a more attractive destination for both domestic and foreign investment, he further stated.

So far, seven editions of BRAP (2015, 2016, 2017-18, 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2024) have been completed, wherein States/UTs have been assessed. The seventh edition, BRAP 2024, is currently in progress. Over 9,700 reforms have been carried out across States and Union Territories. State/UT Ranking on Ease of Doing Business, the minister explained.

Under the Regulatory Compliance Burden (RCB) initiative, launched by the Government of India in 2020, Central Ministries/Departments and States/UTs undertook a self-identification exercise to reduce burdensome compliance for businesses and citizens. As a result, over 47,000 compliance issues have been reduced during the last five years, he added.
New Delhi, Feb 10 : Taking cognisance of the spread of AI-based deepfakes online, the IT Ministry on Tuesday issued revised guidelines for social media intermediaries like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, directing them to clearly label all AI-generated content and ensure that such synthetic material carries embedded identifiers.

The government has set a three-hour deadline for social media platforms to take down AI-generated or deepfake content once it is flagged by the government or ordered by a court.

The official notification also barred digital platforms from allowing the removal or suppression of AI labels or associated metadata once they have been applied.

The social media companies will be required to deploy automated tools to detect and prevent the circulation of illegal, sexually exploitative or deceptive AI-generated content, according to the MeitY order.

"An intermediary shall periodically inform its users, at least once every three months, in a simple and effective manner through its rules and regulations, privacy policy, user agreement, or any other appropriate means," about the consequences of violating rules related to AI misuse.

Where an intermediary becomes aware of any violation in relation to the creation, generation, modification, alteration, hosting, displaying, uploading, publishing, transmitting, storing, updating, sharing or otherwise disseminating of information as synthetically generated information, "it shall take expeditious and appropriate action".

According to the updated guidelines, the social media platforms need to deploy reasonable and appropriate technical measures, including automated tools or other suitable mechanisms, to not allow any user to create, generate, modify, alter, publish, transmit, share, or disseminate, as the case may be, any such synthetically generated information that violates any law for the time being in force, including the Act, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (45 of 2023), the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (32 of 2012), and the Explosive Substances Act, 1908 (6 of 1908).

The draft rules seek to mandate disclosure by users while posting AI-generated or modified content and require platforms to adopt technology to verify such declarations.

Social media platforms have already rolled out several features, allowing users to label certain content as generated or modified using artificial intelligence (AI).
Itanagar, Feb 10 : Arunachal Pradesh, endowed with eight major river basins, accounts for nearly 40 per cent of India's total hydropower potential and over 9 per cent of the country's small hydropower potential, officials said here on Tuesday.

Itanagar, Feb 10 (IANS) Arunachal Pradesh, endowed with eight major river basins, accounts for nearly 40 per cent of Indiaas total hydropower potential and over 9 per cent of the countryas small hydropower potential, officials said here on Tuesday.

A senior official of the state Power Department told IANS that Arunachal Pradeshas total hydropower potential is estimated at more than 58,160 MW, making it one of the most power-rich states in the country in terms of hydro energy resources.

Spread across an area of 83,743 square kilometres, the northeastern state is geographically divided into five major river valleys -- Kameng, Subansiri, Siang, Lohit and Tirap -- which together provide a vast scope for the development of large and small hydropower projects.

Referring to Arunachal Pradeshas hydropower potential, state Chief Minister Pema Khandu said the state is emerging as the countryas leading hydropower hub, with nearly 19,000 MW of capacity under various stages of development.

He said projects such as the 2,000-MW Lower Subansiri project are nearing completion, while several other mega projects will further strengthen the Stateas economy.

Addressing a government function in Upper Subansiri district, the Chief Minister urged local communities to support hydropower development, highlighting the benefits of employment, land compensation and the newly announced policy under which one per cent of power sale revenue will be directly transferred to affected families through DBT, in addition to allocations under the Local Area Development Fund.

The Chief Minister also assured that issues raised in a six-point memorandum submitted by the Nah Welfare Society, including road connectivity, water supply and tourism infrastructure, would be examined and addressed through a dedicated project for Taksing and Kodoka areas.

Reiterating the governmentas grassroots governance approach, Khandu said initiatives such as Seva Aapke Dwar, Sarkar Aapke Dwar, and Cabinet Aapke Dwar have brought governance closer to people, benefiting over 15 lakh citizens so far.

He announced that once basic infrastructure improves, a Cabinet Aapke Dwar meeting will also be held at Taksing.

Calling upon newly elected Panchayati Raj representatives to play a proactive role, the Chief Minister stressed the importance of transparency, convergence of schemes and people-centric planning under programmes like Viksit Bharat Gram Yojana, with focus on water security, infrastructure, livelihoods, agriculture, tourism and employment generation.

He expressed confidence that Upper Subansiri district, with collective effort and public participation, will emerge as a model of development, tourism and border area resilience in the coming years.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 22 last year laid the foundation stones of 13 development projects, including two major hydro power projects, worth over Rs 5,127 crore at Itanagar.

The Prime Minister virtually laid the foundation stone of two major hydro power projects with a total generation capacity of 426 MW, and both the projects would be commissioned by the state-owned North Eastern Electric Power Corporation (NEEPCO).

The projects include the Heo Hydro Electric Project (240 MW) and the Tato-I Hydro Electric Project (186 MW) of NEEPCO, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) Limited.

According to the official, these two power projects, having an estimated cost of over Rs 3,700 crore, are being developed by NEEPCO in a joint venture with the government of Arunachal Pradesh.

The Heo Hydro Electric Project (3x80 MW), located in the Siyom sub-basin of Shi Yomi district, will generate about 1000 MUs annually. The Tato-I Hydro Electric Project (3x62 MW) will generate about 803 MUs annually.

--IANS

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Jammu, Feb 10 : Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah said on Tuesday that the union territory government plans to fully utilise the abeyance of the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) to implement various water infrastructure projects.

The issue of many defunct tubewells and other projects of water resources was raised by BJP MLAs including former minister, Sham Lal Sharma in the Legislative Assembly during Question Hour.

Admitting that short-term solutions to the water problems in Jammu is like covering a wound with a band aid as Sham Lal Sharma had rightly said, CM Omar Abdullah told the Assembly that the government must work on plans that look at water needs for the next 30 to 50 years since the traditional water resources would not suffice to meet the future needs.

The chief minister recalled that during the coalition government of NC and Congress, when Sharma was a minister, a proposal to supply water to Jammu city from Chenab river could not be implemented because of the IWT.

"That project was sent to the Asian Development Fund through the Economic Reconstruction Agency (ERA), but approval was denied due to IWT constraints", CM Omar recalled.

He told the House that since the IWT is under abeyance at present, there is an opportunity revisit the Chenab River water supply project for Jammu city.

"Our government is working closely with the Centre to take full advantage of the abeyance of the IWT.

"We are working with the Centre on two major projects  the Tulbul Navigation Barrage on Jhelum river near Sopore in north Kashmir and lifting water from the Chenab river in Akhnoor to provide water to Jammu city.

"We are hopeful of receiving approval for both the projects soon, after which work will begin," CM Abdullah said.

It may be mentioned here that the IWT was signed by India and Pakistan on September 19,1960.

According to the treaty, three major rivers of Punjab i.e. the Sutlej, Ravi and Beas were ceded to India while three major rivers in Jammu and Kashmir, Indus, Jhelum and Chenab were ceded to Pakistan.

India could fully utilise the water of three rivers ceded to it, but of the three rivers ceded to Pakistan, no dam or other barrage to obstruct water could be made on these rivers in Jammu and Kashmir.

Only run-of-the-river projects with limited installed hydropower capacity could be constructed in Jammu and Kashmir.

The IWT, therefore, put brakes on the possibility of Jammu and Kashmir utilising the full potential of Indus, Chenab and Jhelum rivers.

After the terror attack in Pahalgam on April 22 last year in which 26 innocents including 25 tourists and one local Pony owner were killed by Pakistan-backed LeT terrorists, India announced its decision to suspend IWT and the suspension continues at present.
Surat, Feb 10 : Three members of a family were found dead at their home in Surat's Lalgate area on Tuesday morning, police said.

The cause of death will be determined after post-mortem examinations and forensic reports are received.

The incident took place at a residence in Sauya Sheri of the Haripura area. The deceased were identified as Faiz Ahmed Yusuf (36), his wife Mubina Ahmed (32), and their son Noman Ahmed (13).

The couple's daughter was not at home at the time, as she had stayed at her grandmother's house the previous night.

According to police, the family had returned home late on Monday night. On Tuesday morning, when there was no response from inside the house, a relative who had arrived to take the child to school broke open the door.

All three were found lying unconscious in separate rooms and were later declared dead.

DCP Raghav Jain said foam was noticed around the mouths of all three deceased. "There were no visible external injury marks on the bodies. The house was locked from the inside, which at present does not indicate any external intrusion," he said.

Police said food poisoning has been ruled out at this stage, as the usual physical signs were not present. "All possible angles are being examined. Blood samples and other material evidence have been collected and sent for forensic analysis. The exact cause of death will be confirmed only after the post-mortem and viscera reports are received," the DCP said.

Family members told police there were no known disputes within the household. A relative, Farooq Saiyed, said the family had returned four days ago after performing Umrah in Saudi Arabia.

"They had recently returned from the pilgrimage. There were no known issues between Faiz and his wife. We are unable to understand how this happened," he said.

Relatives also informed police that Faiz and his brothers were involved in the chemical business in Surat's Pandesara area and that the family was financially stable.

Police confirmed that no suicide note or container of poisonous substance has been recovered from the house so far.

The bodies have been sent to Surat Civil Hospital for post-mortem examination.

Police have registered an accidental death case and said further investigation is underway to establish the sequence of events and circumstances leading to the deaths.
New Delhi, Feb 10 : External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar met visiting BRICS 2026 Sherpas and Country Representatives in New Delhi on Tuesday. During the meeting, he appreciated suggestions and perspectives presented by different delegations to advance BRICS 2026 priorities of resilience, innovation, cooperation and sustainability.

"A pleasure interacting with BRICS 2026 Sherpas and Country Representatives. As BRICS completes 20 years, it stands as a valuable forum for international cooperation, consultation and coordination, taking forward its people-centric agenda," EAM Jaishankar posted on X.

"Value the suggestions and perspectives brought in by different delegations to advance BRICS 2026 priorities of resilience, innovation, cooperation and sustainability," he added.

Last month, EAM Jaishankar launched the website, theme, and logo for BRICS 2026, scheduled to take place under India's chairship. Union Ministers of State for External Affairs Pabitra Margherita and Kirti Vardhan Singh were also present on the occasion.

BRICS brings together 11 major emerging markets and developing countries of the world - Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates. It serves as a useful platform for consultation and cooperation on contemporary issues having global and regional significance, as well as issues of global political and economic governance.

The BRICS logo for Indiaas chairship blends tradition with modernity. The petals radiate the vibrant colours of all BRICS member countries, highlighting their collective strength and unity. At the centre, the "Namaste" gesture showcases Indiaas spirit of warmth, respect, and harmonious collaboration.

"Complementing this visual identity are the three core pillars of BRICSa"Political & Security cooperation, Economic & Financial partnership, and People-to-People exchangesa"all subtly represented through the logoas message of inclusivity, dialogue, and shared growth. Together, the design reflects the broader BRICS vision of cooperation, sustainable development, and global harmony," an official statement said.

The website aims to provide a platform to receive updates regarding BRICS initiatives and events that will be held under India's Presidency.

The theme of India's BRICS chairship is 'Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability.' "Indiaas BRICS Chairship is guided by the theme 'Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability', reflecting a people-centric and humanity-first approach articulated by the Honable Prime Minister at the 2025 Rio Summit," the statement said.

BRIC was formalised at the first meeting of BRIC Foreign Ministers on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York in 2006. The inaugural BRIC Summit was convened in Russia's Yekaterinburg in 2009. It was agreed to expand BRIC into BRICS with the inclusion of South Africa at the BRIC Foreign Ministersa meeting in 2010.

Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE became full members of BRICS from January 2024 and Indonesia in January 2025. Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam joined BRICS as Partner Countries in 2025.
New Delhi, Feb 10 : The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) President Shailesh Chandra on Tuesday said that innovation in the automotive industry must be done within the boundaries of privacy and security for the customers' data.

In electric vehicles  and even in the traditional ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) vehicles  a lot of data flows from the customer to multiple stakeholders in the ecosystem.

"These may be the video feed coming from your dashcam, phone numbers that you are connected within your infotainment system. There's so much information that the customer is exposed and we as professionals care for the privacy," he said at an event here.

Chandra, who is also the CEO of Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles Ltd, said at an OEM level, "we should be very sensitive to the privacy and security and there should be some clear principles".

"The first principle is that you must make the customer aware and take the consent of what data is being used and what is going to be used in what manner. The second aspect is that we should classify the data," he said.

Third is very important aspect of how you handle the data, which means that which information is needed to be kept for a longer time and which needed to be terminated fast.

According to Chandra, implementation of these principles can happen only when "you design your systems for privacy, when you design your systems for security and what I mean by that is how you classify (the data)."

Meanwhile, the automobile industry in India registered its best November sales last year, as passenger vehicle (PV) sales increased nearly 19 per cent to 4,12,405 units from the same month last year, according to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) data. While three-wheeler sales grew 21.3 per cent to 71,999 units, two-wheeler sales jumped 21.2 per cent to 19,44,475 units.

Industry is optimistic that the continued supportive policy reforms and improved market sentiments, would continue this growth trajectory well into 2026.
Chennai, Feb 10 : Vanathi Srinivasan, BJP Mahila Morcha president and Coimbatore South MLA, on Tuesday accused the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government of stalling crucial railway infrastructure projects in Tamil Nadu by failing to complete land acquisition on time, asserting that development should not be held hostage to administrative delays at the state level.

Hitting back at recent remarks by Chief Minister M. K. Stalin, who alleged that the Centre had denied Tamil Nadu its due share of railway projects in the Union Budget, Srinivasan said the State government was attempting to shift blame while its own inaction had slowed implementation on the ground.

In a social media post, Srinivasan highlighted that the Central government had allocated Rs 7,611 crore for railway projects in Tamil Nadu since 2014.

However, progress remained sluggish because the required land had not been handed over to the railway authorities. She noted that of the 4,326 hectares needed for ongoing projects, only 1,052 hectares - about 24 per cent - had been acquired so far.

"Development should not suffer due to state-level delays. People deserve faster delivery of schemes," she said, stressing that infrastructure works were being delayed despite funds being readily available.

She further pointed out that the Centre had disbursed Rs 1,465 crore to the Tamil Nadu government specifically for land acquisition, making it clear that financial constraints were not the issue.

According to her, the primary obstacle was the State's slow administrative process and lack of coordination. Srinivasan also said that railway allocations for Tamil Nadu had risen by 8.5 per cent compared to 2014, countering claims that the State was being neglected.

Referring to statements made by Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Union Railway Minister, she said the Centre had clarified that projects were ready for execution once the land was made available.

Emphasising the importance of railway connectivity for economic growth, employment, and regional development, Srinivasan urged the DMK government to expedite land acquisition and cooperate with the Centre.

"People expect faster implementation, not political blame games," she said, adding that the timely completion of railway projects was essential for Tamil Nadu's progress.

--IANS

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From Tai Chi to drunken fist, over 200 Chinese humanoid robots brought Kung Fu to the next level at a live gala hosted by AgiBot, a Chinese general-purpose embodied robots company. #KungFu #robot #HumanoidRobot #RobotKungFu #AgiBot
New Delhi, Feb 10 : India and Hungary held the 11th round of Foreign Office Consultations on Tuesday, reviewing the entire spectrum of engagement including green energy, trade and investment, defence, political affairs, science and technology, space, water management, pharmaceuticals, sports, connectivity, educational and cultural ties.

The Foreign Office Consultations was co-chaired by Secretary (West) at the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Sibi George and Hungarian State Secretary Boglarka Illes.

Sharing details of the meeting on X, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) stated, "Secretary (West) Sibi George held the 11th round of India-Hungary Foreign Office Consultations with Hungarian State Secretary Ms. Boglarka Illes. They reviewed the entire spectrum of engagement including political affairs, trade and investment, defence, science and technology, green energy, water management, pharmaceuticals, space, sports, connectivity, educational and cultural ties."

"They also discussed regional and global issues of mutual interest including on Europe, Indo-Pacific and multilateral reforms. Stronger ties ahead," MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal added.

In November, India and Hungary discussed ways to strengthen bilateral partnership, enhancing cooperation on issues related to the India-EU Strategic Partnership.

The discussions were held during the meeting between India's Ambassador to Hungary Anshuman Gaur and Barna Pal Zsigmond, Deputy Minister and Parliamentary State Secretary, Hungary's Ministry of European Union Affairs.

"Ambassador had a comprehensive and fruitful meeting with Mr. Barna Pal Zsigmond, Deputy Minister and Parliamentary State Secretary, Ministry of European Union Affairs of Hungary. Excellent discussion on strengthening the India-Hungary bilateral partnership and enhancing cooperation on issues concerning the India-EU Strategic Partnership and early conclusion of India-EU trade pact. A shared commitment to boosting ties in the economic and political spheres," the Indian Embassy in Hungary stated on X.

Relations between India and Hungary have been close, friendly, multifaceted and substantive. People of Hungary remember with gratitude India's role in the 1956 uprising when New Delhi's intervention with the Soviet Union saved the life of Arpad Goncz who subsequently served as President of Hungary from 1990 to 2000, according to the Indian Embassy in Hungary. India is seen as a nation whose ancient culture and spiritual traditions and the academic and scientific excellence, specially in the "knowledge sector", is deeply attractive to the people of Hungary.
Mangaluru, Feb 10 : Karnataka Police registered an FIR in connection with the case of elopement of a college girl with a Muslim man in the communally sensitive Mangaluru district of the state on Tuesday.

The police have filed the FIR following the complaint by the parents of the girl.

The parents have claimed that their daughter is missing and they are not able to contact her, and sought police assistance to track her.

According to police, the woman, identified as 23-year-old Vaishali, is a resident of Kasargod district, Kerala.

Vaishali was pursuing her studies at a college in Karnataka's Surathkal and was staying in a PG hostel. She allegedly eloped with Mohammad Midlaj, with whom she had entered into a registered marriage on January 31.

The marriage was registered at the Wayanad sub-registrar's office in Kerala, police stated.

Vaishalias parents came to know about the incident recently and rushed to the PG hostel where she was staying.

During their inquiry, they obtained CCTV footage showing Vaishali leaving the hostel premises on February 9. As the parents were unable to establish contact with their daughter thereafter, they lodged a missing persons complaint at the Surathkal police station in Mangaluru.

Based on the complaint filed by Vaishalias parents, the Surathkal police have registered an FIR and taken up further investigation into the matter.

Police officials stated that efforts are underway to trace the woman and ascertain the circumstances in connection with the case.

Meanwhile, in another case, the victim, a woman from Kolkata, has lodged a complaint with the High Grounds police station against her husband, alleging that he trapped her in a relationship, converted her to Islam, married her, and later deserted her after the birth of their child.

The accused has been identified as Syed Imtiyaz, a resident of BTM Layout in Bengaluru.

The victim has also recorded a video narrating her ordeal, which has gone viral on social media.

--IANS

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New Delhi, Feb 10 : Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh and Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Diaspora of the Republic of Seychelles Barry Faure on Tuesday reiterated the two nations' commitment to strengthening defence cooperation.

The Defence Secretary also met Chief of Seychelles Defence Forces Major General Michael Anselme Marc Rosette, said an official statement.

During the meeting, both sides reviewed the growing defence and security collaboration and reaffirmed their shared commitment to enhancing bilateral engagement and contributing towards peace, stability, and security in the Indian Ocean Region.

Both sides also welcomed the upcoming joint military exercise LAMITYE - 2026 between the Indian Defence Forces and the Seychelles Defence Forces and capacity building initiatives, and agreed to further enhance the scope and depth of these engagements.

Cooperation in the field of training, hydrography, ships and aircraft visits, defence delegation visits and maritime security were also discussed.

The Defence Secretary welcomed the participation of the Seychelles side in the upcoming International Fleet Review as well as the 2026 edition of exercise Milan in Visakhapatnam next week.

The two sides also discussed MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions), Indiaas vision for inclusive, cooperative, and sustainable security and growth across regions.

They underscored the importance of a collaborative approach to addressing shared challenges, particularly in the maritime domain, capacity building, and development partnerships.

India and Seychelles deliberated upon future avenues for defence and security cooperation between the two, with a focus on continued cooperation in capacity building through long term partnership in the modernisation of key military capabilities.

On Monday, Seychelles President Patrick Herminie acknowledged Indiaas support for the development, security needs and aspirations of the archipelagic island nation through Lines of Credit (LoCs), grants, capacity building and High Impact Community Development Projects (HICDP).

In his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the two agreed to work closely in digital transformation.

Noting the need for Seychelles to digitise governance for the benefit of its people, India agreed to make efforts on the buildout of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), including digital payments, as per the needs and requirements of Seychelles.
New Delhi, Feb 10 : Responding to criticism over the proposed India-US trade agreement, Union Minister for Food, Public Distribution and Consumer Affairs, New and Renewable Energy, Pralhad Joshi, on Tuesday, criticised Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, saying that he should first introspect about emptying the state treasury before making such remarks.

Joshi alleged that the Congress-led government has not only depleted Karnataka's once financially strong treasury but has also stalled overall development and eroded investor confidence.

"The Chief Minister must answer why this has happened," he said.

Joshi further stated that the Congress party should first lecture itself on "India's national interest."

Recalling the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks in 2008, he said that even as Mumbai was burning, the Congress remained silent.

He reminded Siddaramaiah that due to external diplomatic pressure and the inaction of senior Congress leaders, including a former Union Home Minister, India failed to take decisive action at the time.

He also alleged that in 2020 and previous years, when Indian soldiers were confronting aggression by the People's Liberation Army (PLA), senior Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, held confidential meetings with Chinese officials and ensured that nothing was made public.

He claimed that policies were paralysed during the Congress regime.

Joshi accused the Congress of weakening and humiliating India's policies during its tenure, damaging the country's global credibility and strategic position, and undermining India's stature for short-term political gains.

"Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is negotiating globally with firmness, confidence, and clarity," Joshi asserted, urging the Congress to understand this reality and stop making baseless statements.

He further slammed Congress MPs for carrying objectionable posters against Prime Minister Narendra Modi within the Parliament premises, calling it a provocative political act.

Joshi expressed serious concern over the incident that occurred in Parliament before Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in the Lok Sabha to reply to the debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President's address, describing it as deeply shocking.

He alleged that Opposition MPs crossed all limits amid the commotion, even reaching the Prime Minister's seat. "This was neither a debate nor a protest. It was purely a deliberate provocation," Joshi charged.

"As Members of Parliament, safeguarding the dignity of the House is our foremost duty. However, the conduct of Congress MPs is extremely condemnable," he said.

Carrying objectionable posters against the Honourable Prime Minister inside the Parliament complex shows how far Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party have stooped, Joshi remarked.

Earlier, CM Siddaramaiah had stated, "By accepting and welcoming the interim trade agreement between India and the United States, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has completely surrendered to the US. In the coming days, this agreement is certain to become a death warrant for 140 crore Indians, especially for the country's 72 crore farmers."
New Delhi, Feb 10 : Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has decided not to attend proceedings of the House until the no-confidence motion is decided, sources close to him said on Tuesday.

While the Rules of Procedure do not mandate such a step, Birla has taken the decision voluntarily, sources said, adding that he will not enter the House irrespective of any attempt by the government or the Opposition to persuade him otherwise.

According to sources, the motion to remove the Speaker is likely to be taken up on March 9, the first day of the second part of the Budget Session.

As per parliamentary procedure, at least 50 members would be required to rise in support of the notice for the motion to be admitted, following which the Chair may allow a discussion.

Sources indicated that the no-confidence motion against Birla is expected to be discussed at the start of the second phase of the Budget Session.

On Tuesday, a total of 118 MPs from Opposition parties submitted a notice seeking the removal of the Speaker, accusing him of partisan conduct in the functioning of the House.

The notice was submitted on behalf of the Opposition by a Congress MP, alleging that Birla repeatedly denied Opposition leaders, including Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, the opportunity to speak during the debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President's Address. The notice also cited the suspension of eight Opposition MPs.

In the notice, the Opposition alleged that the Speaker conducted proceedings in a "blatantly partisan manner" and failed to protect the democratic rights of Opposition members.

However, the motion is unlikely to succeed numerically. For a resolution seeking the Speaker's removal to be carried, the Opposition would require the support of more than half of the total strength of the Lok Sabha, which is 543.

The Bharatiya Janata Party, the single largest party, has 240 MPs, while its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partners -- including the Telugu Desam Party (16 MPs) and the Janata Dal (United) (12 MPs) -- give the ruling coalition a comfortable majority, with additional support from other regional parties.

In contrast, the Congress leads the Opposition with 99 MPs, followed by the Samajwadi Party (37) and the DMK (22), leaving the Opposition well short of the numbers required to remove the Speaker.

Trinamool Congress has not signed the motion but suggested different ways to lodge a protest. Party MP Abhishek Banerjee, speaking to media persons in Delhi on Tuesday, said that the party is in favour of first giving a protest letter to the Speaker and then wait for his reply. Only after that, a no-confidence motion should be moved, he said.

Given the arithmetic, the motion is widely being viewed as a political signal by the Opposition rather than a serious attempt to unseat the Speaker.

While attempts to remove the Speaker have been made in the past, they have never been successful.
Patna, Feb 10 : Purnea Lok Sabha MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav on Tuesday released a strongly worded written statement addressed to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and senior administrative and political leaders, alleging that cases are being filed against him one after another to harass and silence him.

His statement came shortly after an MP-MLA court granted him bail in a 31-year-old case, even as the court sent him to judicial custody in two other cases - one related to an alleged Model Code of Conduct violation in Gardanibagh and another for allegedly obstructing government officials in Budha Colony.

The second case stems from a confrontation on February 6, when police arrived at his Mandiri residence to arrest him.

"I don't know who is running the government today. I knew Bihar was being run by Nitish Kumar, whom I respected like an elder brother. This is not the government of that Nitish Kumar," Yadav said, recalling his past political support for the Chief Minister, including standing by him during difficult political phases.

Yadav claimed he never sought personal favours from Nitish Kumar during his 20-year tenure and never attacked leaders like Shakuni Choudhary or Samrat Choudhary personally.

"Please tell the people of Bihar what my crime is. Is it a crime to raise questions?" he asked.

Referring to his arrests in 2017, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and now in 2026, Yadav alleged a pattern of personal animosity and misuse of power for raising issues related to students, governance failures and, most recently, the death of a NEET aspirant.

"My struggle is for the safety of Bihar's daughters. What was my crime?" he asked.

Targeting senior police officials, Yadav said, "I don't know who is the king and who is the slave, but the public knows everything," adding that truth cannot be suppressed through intimidation.

The MP also questioned the timing of the fresh cases, noting that he had shared public platforms with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and CM Nitish Kumar recently without any objection from the police.

"All these cases are related to protests and the code of conduct. Not a single case against me is criminal," he said.

Expressing faith in the judiciary, Yadav said the fight would go up to the Supreme Court if necessary.

"In a democracy, the people and the courts are supreme, not the government," he asserted.

He thanked opposition leaders and political figures across party lines, including Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, Chandrashekhar Azad 'Ravan', Sanjay Singh, Manoj Jha, Jitan Ram Manjhi, and leaders from Congress, CPI(ML), RJD and other parties for standing by him during what he described as a difficult phase.

"I have walked the path of struggle and truth since 1985. My voice has never stopped, and it never will," Yadav said, adding that he would continue to fight for justice for the NEET aspirant and for the dignity and safety of women in Bihar.
Mumbai, Feb 10 : NCP-SP legislator Rohit Pawar, on Tuesday, held a press conference making sensational claims regarding the recent plane crash involving the late NCP leader Ajit Pawar.

Rohit Pawar directly alleged that the plane crash was not a mere accident but a "planned conspiracy" (foul play).

He raised several questions regarding the aviation company, the pilots, and the specific circumstances of the journey on January 28.

Rohit Pawar presented a detailed 50-slide power point presentation covering various aspects of the incident, including aircraft details, pilot credentials, weather conditions at Baramati airport, and technical protocols.

He demanded a thorough investigation, saying, "We must find out if there was foul play. Ajit Dada was a prominent leader. There are questions about why he was forced to travel by plane that day."

"Ajit Dada was originally supposed to travel from Pune to Mumbai by car around 5 or 5:30 p.m. after a Cabinet meeting. A "very big leader" was supposed to meet him. This leader arrived late, and the discussion was prolonged, causing a significant delay. Due to this delay, the car journey was cancelled, and a plane had to be booked at the last minute," Rohit Pawar said.

He highlighted how cautious Ajit Pawar had recently claimed that the former Deputy Chief Minister had stopped drinking water from plastic bottles and switched to glass bottles to avoid potential tampering or poisoning.

"Ajit Dada was a fighter; no one could blackmail him. He took these precautions because plastic bottles can be easily tampered with," he said.

Using photographs as evidence, Rohit Pawar "questioned the experience of the pilots".

"The protocols followed during plane landing. Technical aspects that suggest the crash was "100 per cent intentional."

When asked if he had discussed these claims with Sharad Pawar -- who had previously said there was no politics or foul play involved -- Rohit Pawar clarified, "Pawar Saheb made that statement just six hours after the accident. I am speaking after 13 days of research. What information can one get in six hours? Also, millions of followers were expected to gather the next day; giving incomplete information then could have led to unrest. Pawar Saheb has the maturity to handle such sensitive situations, but as a family member, I need answers about how my uncle died."

By questioning the aircraft owner and the sequence of events leading to the flight, Rohit Pawar has intensified the demand for a high-level probe into the tragedy.

Rohit Pawar criticised the 14-day delay in the investigation, alleging that the company might be tampering with evidence.

He demanded that the Clearance Engineer, Quality Engineer, and Maintenance Engineer be held accountable and that a case of culpable homicide be registered against the owners of the aviation company.

"The fact that the Chief Minister and other Ministers continue to use the same company's aircraft even after this tragedy is extremely alarming," Rohit Pawar said.
Kolkata, Feb 10 : The All India Fair Price Shop Dealers Federation's West Bengal unit has called for an indefinite relay hunger strike in food shops in or adjacent areas to Kolkata from February 16 against the Central government's plan to scrap subsidies in the ration system and introduce Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), food coupons, and e-rupee.

A press statement issued after the meeting of the state committee of the organisation said on Tuesday that the protest has been going on since the beginning of February, by continuously closing ration shops in Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts.

This programme has been taken to expand that movement across the state.

The organisation's national General Secretary Biswambhar Basu alleged that the Central government is trying to practically dismantle the subsidy system in the ration system and introduce a cash transfer and coupon-based system. Although there is no direct mention of this in the current central budget, fears have been expressed that an attempt may be made to implement this system at any time.

The press statement further said that the interests of the dealers have been undermined in the past by taking advantage of the organisational weakness.

The organisation is walking on the path of advanced agitation to prevent a repetition of the same situation. Preparations have also been started to file a special leave petition in the Supreme Court if necessary. For this, ration dealers in every rural and urban area of aathe state have been instructed to collect one Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) ration card, the relevant Aadhaar number and the cardholder's WhatsApp number from their respective areas and submit it to the state office.

According to the outline of the agitation, a stage and a microphone will be arranged with the permission of the Kolkata Police.

A specific number of ration dealers from each district and sub-control of the state will have to participate in the hunger strike on a specific day, which will be determined through a lottery. On the day, the dealers in the area participate in the relay hunger strike, all the ration shops in the concerned area will be closed. However, the administration will be informed in advance as per the 2024 Control Order. The organisation warned that this movement will be intensified if the discriminatory treatment of ration dealers' livelihoods in the Central and state budgets does not stop.
Amaravati, Feb 10 : Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi and sought the Centre's support on funding and approvals.

Amaravati, Feb 10 (IANS) Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi and sought the Centreas support on funding and approvals.

The Chief Minister discussed key state-related issues, including ongoing and proposed projects, and sought the Centreas support on funding and approvals, according to a brief official release here.

The Chief Minister posted on social media that he discussed key matters related to Andhra Pradeshas development and progress.

Chandrababu Naidu also met Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman at the Parliament. During the meeting, the Chief Minister raised matters related to Andhra Pradeshas development priorities, central assistance, and financial support for state projects.

Naidu, whose Telugu Desam Party (TDP) is a key partner in the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre, also had a separate meeting with Union Steel Minister HD Kumaraswamy and expressed gratitude to the Central Government for its support in putting the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (RINL) back on the path of profitability.

The Chief Minister informed the Union Minister that the turnaround of Vizag Steel Plant was made possible due to the financial assistance extended by the Centre, strong support from the Andhra Pradesh government, and the determination and hard work of the plantas workers and employees.

Chandrababu Naidu stated that RINL has not only returned to profits but is also operating at full capacity, marking a significant milestone for the iconic public sector steel plant.

The Chief Minister requested the Union Government to continue extending the same level of support and cooperation in the future to further strengthen RINL and ensure its long term sustainability and growth.

Naidu also met Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Manohar Lal Khattar and discussed Andhra Pradeshas flagship Swachh Andhra initiative being implemented as part of the Swachh Bharat programme.

The Chief Minister briefed the Union Minister on the comprehensive steps being taken by the state government to strengthen waste management systems and transform Andhra Pradesh into a Zero Landfill State, according to a release from the Chief Ministeras Office here.

Naidu informed that a detailed action plan has been prepared under Swachh Bharat Mission Urban 2.0 with an estimated outlay of Rs 276 crore to achieve zero landfill status across urban local bodies in the state.

As part of the Swachh Bharat Mission Urban 2.0 framework, the Chief Minister requested Manohar Lal Khattar to approve Rs 105 crore as the Centreas share to support the implementation of the Zero Landfill action plan.

The meeting focused on aligning Andhra Pradeshas sustainability goals with national urban sanitation objectives and strengthening Centre-State cooperation to achieve long-term environmental outcomes, added the release.
Kanpur : , Feb 10 (IANS) Former HDFC Bank employee Ritu Tripathi has put forward her account of the incident linked to a viral video from an HDFC Bank branch in Kanpur, saying the confrontation between her husband and another bank staffer stemmed from a dispute during her resignation process and later escalated into a verbal altercation involving caste-based remarks.

Speaking to IANS on the controversy, Ritu Tripathi said the incident occurred on January 6 when she visited the bank's Panki branch to submit her resignation.

She said she reached the branch around 9 a.m., expecting that the formalities would be completed within a few hours. As she was fasting that day, she said she needed to return home in time to perform her prayers and had come to the bank along with her sister-in-law.

According to Tripathi, around 10 a.m., her sister-in-law went to use the washroom, where a female employee, identified as Aastha Singh, was already present and had not locked the door.

Tripathi alleged that when her sister-in-law pointed out that the door should have been locked, the employee reacted angrily and refused to accept her mistake. She claimed the employee told her sister-in-law not to speak to her.

Tripathi further said that her husband reached the bank between 3:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. and enquired about the matter. When he remarked that the police helpline number could have been dialled if there was a serious issue, the situation escalated.

She alleged that the employee shouted from her seat, used abusive language, and made a caste-based remark, claiming, "I am a Thakur," which Tripathi alleged was meant to intimidate them.

Responding to the alleged remark, Tripathi said she asserted her own identity, stating that she is a Brahmin and would not bow to anyone. She maintained that she did not initiate any violence and only sought to complete her resignation process.

Tripathi's husband, Rishi Mishra, also rejected allegations of aggression against the bank employee.

He said his wife had gone to the bank peacefully to submit her resignation and that he himself did not go there to create trouble or use force. "I was fully conscious and in control of my senses. I did not behave violently. I only spoke to Shivam, an employee," Mishra said, alleging that the response from the staff was aggressive.

The incident came into the spotlight after a 43-second video from the HDFC Bank branch went viral on social media, showing a female employee engaged in a heated argument with a person and allegedly making a caste-related remark. The employee, identified as Aastha Singh, has also given her version of events and demanded a probe into the matter.

Speaking to IANS, Aastha Singh said the incident occurred on January 6 and involved the husband of one of the bank's staff members.

"This incident is from January 6. It involves the husband of one of our bank staff members. I myself am demanding an investigation. Earlier, the husband of our bank staff had come and used abusive language," Singh told IANS.

Explaining the sequence of events, she said she had a brief dispute with a female staff member's relative, which ended quickly.

"I had a little dispute and that dispute was for around one minute and it ended there only," she said.

She further claimed the issue arose over the relieving process of the staff who had resigned, stating that corporate procedures take time and cannot be completed instantly.

"The problem was that when you are joining or leaving any corporate, the formalities are very lengthy. When you are working as a cashier, then you have the responsibility of handing over the keys and completing all the basic formalities. Only then you are freed," she said.

Singh added that the staff member wanted to be relieved on the same day, which she said was not possible under the procedures.

"I can tell you that in some organisations, the relieving period is three months and in some it is 30 days. That bank staff wanted same-day relieving," she said.

She alleged that the husband of the staff member then entered the branch and became aggressive and questioned her caste.

"The husband of the bank staff entered and coming near my table he said, 'Which caste are you that you are showing arrogance? Tumhare andar jyada garmi hai to hum nikalte hain tumhari garmi. Tumhari garmi hum nikalte hain kyunki hum Press mein hain'," she told IANS.

Singh further claimed he asked someone to call a woman Constable, and questioned how a woman is expected to tolerate such behaviour.

As both sides level allegations against each other, the matter has triggered widespread debate online. Singh has sought an investigation, while Tripathi and her family have denied any wrongdoing, saying they were subjected to abuse and caste-based remarks during a routine resignation process.
RIYADH, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Senior Saudi and U.S. officials co-chaired a meeting in Riyadh on Monday aimed at "consolidating gains against the (ISIS/Daesh) terrorist organization and addressing urgent security challenges in Syria and Iraq."

Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed Elkhereiji opened the meeting, which was co-chaired by U.S. Ambassador to Turkiye and Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack, said the Saudi Foreign Ministry in a joint statement.

Participants welcomed what the statement described as the comprehensive agreement between the government of Syria and the Syrian Democratic Forces, including the permanent ceasefire and arrangements for the civil and military integration of northeast Syria.

The statement said participants reaffirmed their priorities, including the swift transfer and safeguarding of IS detainees, third-country repatriation, and the reintegration of families from displacement camps such as Al-Hol and Roj camps, and continued coordination with Damascus and Baghdad on the future of the coalition's campaign in Syria and Iraq.

They also reiterated their shared commitment to defeating ISIS/Daesh in Iraq and Syria and pledged continued support to both governments in securing IS-affiliated detainees, it said. 
Imphal, Feb 10 : Manipur Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh on Tuesday lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of Viksit Bharat, saying it plays a pivotal role in realising the goal of Viksit Manipur.

Imphal, Feb 10 (IANS) Manipur Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh on Tuesday lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modias vision of Viksit Bharat, saying it plays a pivotal role in realising the goal of Viksit Manipur.

In a significant move to improve air connectivity in the state, the Chief Minister flagged off the commencement of SpiceJetas direct flight services from Imphal to Guwahati, Kolkata and Mumbai at Bir Tikendrajit International Airport here.

He said that in the prevailing situation, air travel has emerged as the preferred mode of transportation for people travelling outside the state and directed the airline to review airfares to ensure affordability.

As part of the launch event, the Chief Minister handed over the boarding pass to the first passenger of the SpiceJet flight to Guwahati.

The programme was attended by Congress Lok Sabha member Angomcha Bimol Akoijam, MLAs Tongbram Robindro Singh and Khashim Vashum, Additional Chief Secretary (Transport) Anurag Bajpai, and other state government and Airports Authority of India officials, and representatives of SpiceJet.

Meanwhile, the Manipur government has on several occasions urged the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) to intervene to reduce steep airfares on Imphal-connected routes and to introduce additional flights.

Additional Chief Secretary Anurag Bajpai held a series of meetings with the MoCA Secretary and senior officials, highlighting the civil aviation challenges faced by the people of Manipur.

Bajpai pointed out that exorbitant airfares charged by airlines such as IndiGo, Air India Express and Alliance Air were causing severe hardship, with ticket prices reportedly five to six times higher than those in other northeastern states.

He also informed that government guidelines on airfare capping were not being followed in the Imphal sector and that the number of aircraft operating on these routes had been reduced since October.

He further said that Alliance Air had discontinued services on crucial routes, including Imphal-Silchar, Imphal-Aizawl and Imphal-Dibrugarh, and urged the MoCA to facilitate their immediate revival.

The state government also requested that these routes be considered again under the RCS-UDAN scheme in view of strong public demand.

--IANS

sc/dan
Chennai, Feb 10 : With the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections expected to be held in April this year, political activity across the state has intensified, with political parties accelerating alliance-building and seat-sharing negotiations.

The focus has now shifted from preliminary discussions to concrete strategies, as major players begin laying the groundwork for what is likely to be a high-stakes electoral battle.

Within the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)-led alliance, the Congress has taken an early and organised approach to the upcoming polls.

Nearly two-and-a-half months ago, the party constituted a special committee dedicated exclusively to handling seat-sharing negotiations and coordinating with alliance partners.

The move reflects Congress' intention to avoid last-minute confusion and to secure a stronger presence in the coalition's electoral plan.

Senior Congress leaders have urged the DMK leadership to begin formal seat-sharing discussions at the earliest.

According to party sources, early clarity on Assembly constituencies will help cadres prepare better on the ground, mobilise workers efficiently, and strengthen campaign outreach.

Delays, they said, could affect booth-level planning and weaken momentum at a time when rival alliances are already stepping up preparations.

The Congress has also proposed that leaders of the Secular Progressive Alliance -- the coalition led by the DMK -- should meet collectively and publicly demonstrate unity.

Party leaders say such a show of solidarity would send a strong message to voters and energise grassroots workers.

They point to the recent gathering of leaders from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Madurai as an example of how visible coordination can boost confidence among supporters and shape the political narrative.

Political observers say that early alliance coordination could play a decisive role in Tamil Nadu, where coalition arithmetic often determines electoral success.

Clear seat allocation, joint campaigning, and unified messaging are considered critical in preventing vote splits and consolidating support across regions.

As April approaches, the coming weeks are expected to witness intensified negotiations, strategy meetings, and public rallies.

With both the ruling alliance and the Opposition mobilising aggressively, Tamil Nadu's political landscape is entering a crucial phase.

For the Congress, beginning seat-sharing talks early is not just a matter of strategy -- it is a signal of readiness to play a decisive role in the battle for power.
Vientiane, Feb 10 : Preparations are underway for the election of members of the Laos National Assembly's 10th legislature and the fifth Provincial People's Councils, with nationwide campaigning continuing to ensure a smooth, transparent, and lawful electoral process ahead of polling day.

Candidate campaigning is continuing nationwide to provide voters with comprehensive information ahead of polling day on February 22. The campaign seeks to raise voter awareness and encourage thoughtful participation in the electoral process, promoting the selection of qualified candidates who can genuinely represent people of all ethnic groups and safeguard the rights and interests of the population, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Authorities are urging all eligible voters to exercise their democratic rights on election day.

As part of efforts to ensure a smooth electoral process, officials reaffirmed their commitment to maximizing voter participation, strictly adhering to election laws, maintaining comprehensive security, promoting transparency, and providing timely budget support for election operations.

During a visit to Vientiane province on Monday to oversee security preparations for the elections, Laos Minister of Public Security Vanthong Kongmany urged relevant sectors to strengthen coordination, work closely with village-level security forces, reinforce personnel deployment in sensitive areas, and remain prepared to respond to any incidents. He also emphasized the importance of fire prevention, traffic management, and strict discipline among civil servants and security personnel to ensure a safe and orderly election.

The Laos National Election Committee has announced 243 candidates for the 10th National Assembly, including 66 women, representing 27 per cent of the total. A total of 175 members will be elected to the legislature.

The elections are among the most important events in the country's political calendar, giving citizens a direct role in shaping national development.

Earlier in January, election officials met in Savannakhet province to review progress and strengthen coordination, emphasizing the importance of raising political awareness among eligible voters.

Authorities called for the timely and accurate completion of voter registration lists and urged creative public outreach that combines national guidance with local characteristics to encourage active participation.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Technology and Communications held a dissemination meeting to brief Party members and civil servants on election guidelines
Seoul, Feb 10 : The leader of South Korea's ruling Democratic Party (DP) said Tuesday that discussions on a possible merger with the minor liberal Rebuilding Korea Party will be put on hold until after the June local elections, apologising to party members for internal friction caused by the proposal.

"We decided to end discussions on the merger ahead of the local elections," DP chairman Jung Chung-rae said in a briefing after a supreme council meeting. "It is true that my proposal caused concerns and worries both within and outside the party, and we were unable to generate the synergy the merger was expected to create."

He apologised for causing confusion among party members, saying, "Unity is more urgent than merger discussions," Yonhap News Agency reported.

Jung floated the idea last month that the ruling party would merge with the Rebuilding Korea Party before the local elections.

However, the proposal triggered strong backlash within the party over both the timing and scope of the merger.

During a general meeting earlier in the day, DP lawmakers agreed on the need to merge with the minor party to better help secure a landslide victory in the June 3 elections, but there were different views on how and when the two political parties would merge, according to DP spokesperson Park Soo-hyun

"While the lawmakers generally shared the view that unity is necessary, there was a consensus that pushing for the merger, even if it had rationale, was difficult under the current circumstances," the spokesperson said after the meeting.

The lawmakers also agreed that the proposal intensified tensions within the ruling party although it came out of a "genuine intention to secure the party's landslide victory in the local elections and the success of the administration," according to Park.

Many lawmakers suggested continuing the discussions after the elections, he added.

Former Justice Minister Cho Kuk, who leads the Rebuilding Korea Party, earlier urged the DP to make its final decision by Friday.
New Delhi, Feb 10 : Opposition leaders on Tuesday hit out at Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath over his recent remarks on the Babri Masjid, accusing the BJP of indulging in polarisation politics ahead of the next Assembly elections and diverting attention from real issues such as law and order, women's safety and governance.

Reacting to the Chief Minister's statement, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav took a swipe at Yogi Adityanath over his use of language.

"Tell him not to use Urdu. The Chief Minister speaks against Urdu, yet he himself is using it. He should use some other words instead of 'Qayamat'," he said. He further alleged that whenever the Chief Minister is politically cornered, the BJP's position weakens. "The greater the threat to their power, the more unstable and vulnerable they become," he added.

Samajwadi Party MP Dimple Yadav accused the BJP government of failing on key governance fronts in Uttar Pradesh.

"From the kind of statements that are continuously coming from BJP leaders, the condition of law and order in Uttar Pradesh is evident. We are seeing the situation of women, incidents of rape and other crimes, and this government is doing nothing," she said, referring to cases such as the Unnao rape incident. She also alleged widespread land encroachments in the state and said that instead of addressing these real issues, attempts are being made to divert public attention.

Congress MP Tariq Anwar said reopening debates on settled matters was meaningless. "The Babri Masjid case has already been decided by the Supreme Court, and a grand Ram Temple has been built there. Debating it again is pointless and a waste of time," he said, adding that such statements were aimed at stirring controversy.

"With the Uttar Pradesh elections approaching, they want to indulge in politics of polarisation," he alleged.

Echoing similar sentiments, Congress MP Ujjwal Raman Singh termed the remarks as an "election stunt" by the BJP. "They have always relied on polarisation; that is their political livelihood. They are experts at diverting attention from real issues," he said, urging the ruling party to focus on improving the lives of people in Uttar Pradesh and working towards development.

Samajwadi Party MP Virendra Singh also accused BJP leaders of pursuing a hidden agenda. "This is the agenda of BJP Chief Ministers and those holding constitutional positions, to talk less about development and governance and more about Hindu-Muslim issues," he said.

The sharp reactions from the Opposition come amid escalating political rhetoric as parties gear up for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, with allegations and counter-allegations intensifying over governance, development and social harmony.
New Delhi, Feb 10 : As many as 9.50 lakh searchable data of arrested and convicted persons under the NDPS Act are available on the centralised digital database, National Integrated Database on Arrested Narco-Offenders (NIDAAN), for strengthening enforcement action, the Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday.

Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai, in a written reply, said that NIDAAN, developed by the NCB in collaboration with the Inter-Operable Criminal Justice System (ICJS), integrates data of offenders arrested by all Drug Law Enforcement Agencies across the country, including information such as identity details, photographs, fingerprints, case particulars and court-related information.

He said NIDAAN facilitates and assists investigating agencies in opposing bail, seeking cancellation of bail, monitoring habitual offenders, and supports the preparation of proposals under the Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (PITNDPS) Act, 1988, thereby strengthening coordinated and proactive enforcement action.

Sharing details of the country's fight against drug trafficking networks, he said the government has approved a scheme for Modernisation of Forensic Capacities under which Rs 420 crore has been approved for the component of Modernisation/ Upgradation of Forensic Science Laboratories (FSLs) in States/ Union Territories.

He said under the scheme "Assistance to States & UTs for Narcotics Control", financial assistance is being provided to eligible States for strengthening enforcement capabilities for combating illicit trafficking in NDPS substances.

Rai also highlighted that the government has strengthened inter-ministerial and inter-agency coordination through the Narco-Coordination (NCORD) mechanism that provides a structured, institutionalised platform for coordination among Central Ministries, State Governments and enforcement agencies for monitoring drug trafficking, precursor diversion, demand reduction and rehabilitation, resulting in improved enforcement outcomes and intelligence-sharing.

So far, nine Apex NCORD meetings and six Executive NCORD meetings have been held to guide policy formulation, enhance inter-ministerial coordination and review the overall narcotics control framework, he said.

At the operational level, 253 State NCORD meetings and 12,471 District NCORD meetings have been conducted across the country, the Union Minister added.
New Delhi, February 10 : Alleging major diversion, dilution, and under-utilisation of funds allotted for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs), the Congress on Tuesday called Union Budget 2026 a "casteist betrayal" of Dalits and Adivasis.

New Delhi, February 10 (IANS) Alleging major diversion, dilution, and under-utilisation of funds allotted for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs), the Congress on Tuesday called Union Budget 2026 a "casteist betrayal" of Dalits and Adivasis.

The budget reflected their exclusion rather than empowerment, claimed Rajendra Pal Gautam, Chairman of the All India Congress Committee's SC Department, and Vikrant Bhuria, Chairman, Adivasi Congress, at a press conference in New Delhi.

While the centre has projected allocations of Rs. 1.96 lakh crore for SCs and Rs. 1.41 lakh crore for STs, only Rs. 75,077 crore and Rs. 62,093 crore, respectively, were actually set aside for their welfare schemes, they said.

Gautam and Bhuria claimed that the rest of the fund had been merged into generic programmes that fail to address caste- and tribe-based exclusion.

The Congress leaders stated that only 41 per cent of schemes under SCST allocations were genuinely relevant, while 42 per cent were general schemes and 17 per cent were obsolete or irrelevant.

"DalitAdivasi welfare has been reduced to a bookkeeping exercise focused on optics rather than outcomes," they added.

Highlighting the declining utilisation of SCST funds, the leaders stressed that spending had consistently fallen between FY 2020-21 and FY 202425.

"In 202425, only about 75 per cent of SC funds were utilised, largely through non-targeted routes," Gautam and Bhuria claimed in the briefing, alleging that it reflected "discrimination by design" rather than administrative inefficiency.

They further flagged cuts in the National Overseas Scholarship, whose allocation has been reduced to Rs. 125 crore.

Citing data from 202526, they said that although 106 students were selected, only 40 received scholarships due to a fund crunch, leaving 66 SC/ST/OBC students unsupported.

Gautam and Bhuria also stated that thousands of crores of rupees under the SC Sub Plan (SCSP) and Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) had been parked in schemes such as fertiliser and urea subsidies, telecom compensation, infrastructure maintenance and road works.

"With less than 20 per cent of SCST households owning land, these allocations primarily benefited dominant communities rather than Dalit and Adivasi labourers," they said.

The two leaders demanded that the Centre bring a law to make SCSP and TSP funds non-divertible and non-lapsable, ensure allocations in proportion to population share, and set up a statutory monitoring mechanism to prevent misuse and surrender of funds meant for SCs and STs.

Referring to the education sector, Gautam and Bhuria pointed to meagre allocations for student-centric schemes such as 'Top Class Education', 'National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship' and 'SC-ST Hub Centres', even as large sums from the funds meant for SC Sub-Plan and Tribal Sub-Plan flowed to institutions like IITs, NITs and central universities.

Campuses continued to witness caste discrimination, without any central law to protect SC-ST students' dignity and safety, they added.
Patna, Feb 10 : Nearly a month after the suspicious death of a NEET aspirant from Jehanabad, the main gate of Shambhu Girls' Hostel in Patna was opened on police instructions following a court order on Tuesday.

The hostel gate was unlocked in the presence of police personnel as students and their family members arrived to collect personal belongings left behind after the incident.

As a police vehicle reached the hostel, a crowd gathered outside the premises.

A man with his face covered arrived at the site on the police's call and unlocked the hostel gate.

Police personnel then escorted students inside the hostel and supervised the return of their belongings.

Jitendra Kumar, who had come from Arwal with his daughter, said she was studying in Patna and residing at the hostel. After the incident, all students vacated the hostel and returned home, leaving their belongings behind.

"We came with the police today to collect her things. The hostel staff were called to unlock the gate," he said.

The incident dates back to the night of January 5 and 6, when a NEET aspirant residing at Shambhu Girls' Hostel was found unconscious under suspicious circumstances. She finally succumbed due to injuries in a private hospital on January 11.

The death sent shockwaves across Bihar. While the Patna police and hostel administration initially claimed it was a suicide, no suicide note was recovered from the room.

The police initially termed the case a simple suicide, but later altered their stand multiple times as new details emerged.

The case was subsequently probed as a suspicious death and later as a possible rape and murder, exposing serious lapses and inconsistencies in the investigation.

This led to widespread protests and demands for justice from students, civil society groups, and political leaders.

Purnea MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav also met the victim's family and demanded a fair and thorough investigation.

Even after 22 days, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) failed to conclusively establish when, where, and by whom the crime was committed.

DNA testing, considered a key component of the probe, did not yield results.

Samples were collected from several individuals, including the hostel owner, his son, staff members, helpers, and the victim's family members, but all reports failed to establish a match.

Twenty-six days after the incident, CCTV footage surfaced showing the student being carried in an unconscious state by several people while being taken to a hospital on January 6.

The delayed emergence of the footage further intensified public outrage.

Following mounting pressure and questions over the investigation, the Nitish Kumar government recommended transferring the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for a detailed probe.
Aizawl, Feb 10 : Mizoram Governor General (Dr) Vijay Kumar Singh (Retd) on Tuesday said that the state possesses a rich cultural heritage, exceptional craftsmanship, strong agro-based potential and vibrant creative industries, noting that there are immense untapped opportunities that can be harnessed through concerted efforts.

The Governor on Tuesday inaugurated the 'LESDE KAt 2026 a" Accelerating Innovation, Empowering Entrepreneurs'.

The five-day event, organised by the Labour, Employment, Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (LESDE) Department, is being held from February 10 to 14 at Lammual ground in Aizawl.

Addressing the event, the Governor emphasised that the state's economic progress hinges on creating new livelihood opportunities, the number of youths empowered through skill development, the growth enabled for entrepreneurs, and the effective inclusion of women and rural communities.

Highlighting the critical role of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector as a key growth engine for the nation, he noted that India is recognised globally as one of the fastest-growing economies in this domain and serves as a model for other countries.

The Governor stressed the need to extend MSME activities even to the remotest villages. He pointed out that the accompanying Job Fair would serve as a vital bridge between job seekers and employers, urging special attention to the needs of the youth.

In today's rapidly evolving economy driven by technology, he said, skills must be continuously upgraded. General Singh (Retd) encouraged government officials to support entrepreneurs to the best of their ability, while prioritising sustainability and quality.

The Governor further urged proactive implementation of various central government schemes to ensure their benefits reach the people effectively.

He appealed to the people of Mizoram to leverage the state's peaceful environment, abundant natural resources, and talented population to transform it into a hub of sustainable and inclusive development.

LESDE Minister Lalnghinglova Hmar, in his address, remarked that innovation is not confined solely to advanced technology but also emerges from addressing local needs through new businesses, services, and ideas.

He described the LESDE Department as deeply connected to people's daily livelihoods and stressed the importance of hand-holding support and market-linked skills to ensure secure employment for Mizo youth.

The Minister explained that the LESDE Kut (Mizo word Ku meaning festival or fair) has been organised to motivate both job seekers and employers through interactive engagement. He expressed confidence that the effective implementation of 'Eizawnna Kailawn' and 'Rahbi Chhertu' would create new avenues and significantly improve livelihoods for the people of Mizoram.

Hmar also appealed to the public to register under the Mizoram Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board.

The LESDE KAt 2026 is a flagship initiative of the Mizoram government designed to showcase services, programmes, and achievements under the LESDE Department and its associated boards and institutions.

It aims to bring together youth, MSMEs, entrepreneurs, job seekers, workers, and their leaders for greater awareness, networking, and opportunities in employment, skills, and entrepreneurship.

Aligned with the national 'Made in India' and 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' campaigns, the event promotes local products through a state- and regional-level trade fair format.

It also seeks to strengthen linkages between Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) in Mizoram and the North Eastern Region with central ministries and various state government departments.

--IANS

sc/dan
Tel Aviv, Feb 10 : The killing of Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, son of late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, ultimately reflects a Mediterranean region drifting away from political solutions toward managed disorder, where elections are indefinitely postponed, assassinations become corrective tools, and external actors adapt rather than resist, a report said on Tuesday.

It added that this does not represent just a collapse but a far more dangerous shift towards normalisation.

Writing for 'Times of Israel', Sergio Restelli, an Italian political advisor, author and geopolitical expert, warned that if legitimacy becomes optional and violence is tolerated as governance in the Mediterranean region, the Libyan assassination could become a regional precedent  in Lebanon, in the Sahel and in the fragile coastal states already under strain.

"The assassination of Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi should not be read as a purely Libyan event. It is a Mediterranean one. His killing marks another step in the slow militarisation of the sea's southern shore  where political alternatives are eliminated, governance collapses into force, and the Mediterranean becomes less a shared space than a contested frontier. For over a decade, Europe has treated Libya as a problem to be contained. Saif al-Islam's death suggests containment has failed," Restelli stated.

"Libya sits astride the central Mediterranean's most sensitive fault lines: energy corridors, migration routes, arms smuggling networks, and naval choke points linking Europe to North Africa and the Sahel. Any political shift inside Libya reverberates outward  and assassinations reverberate the loudest," he added.

According to the opinion piece, Saif al-Islam represented a third political pole in Libya, distinct from the internationally recognised but fragmented authorities in Tripoli and the militarised administration built by Libyan Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar in the east.

The removal of Saif al-Islam, it said, shrinks Libya's political spectrum and deepens a dangerous trend: "the consolidation of authority through coercion rather than consent. For the Mediterranean basin, this is not stability. It is stagnation under arms."

The report highlighted that Haftar's rise reflects a broader Mediterranean pattern, where an authoritarian leader fills institutional vacuums, while external actors tolerate  or discreetly support the power shifts in exchange for short-term predictability.

"But predictability enforced by militias is brittle. Ports become leverage points. Oil terminals turn into bargaining chips. Coastlines become semi-privatised zones where migration control, energy security, and weapons trafficking blur into the same shadow economy," it stated.

"Saif al-Islam's existence complicated this model. His potential electoral legitimacy threatened to undercut Haftar's claim that only military dominance could unify Libya. His assassination removes that complication  and strengthens the logic that power in the Mediterranean's south is earned through force, not ballots," it further noted.
HONG KONG, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) on Monday sentenced Jimmy Lai, an instigator of anti-China riots in Hong Kong, to 20 years in prison for three crimes endangering national security.

The sentence was announced along with penalties for other defendants in the national security case. Eight defendants received imprisonment terms ranging from six years and three months to 10 years. The three corporate defendants, namely Apple Daily Limited, Apple Daily Printing Limited, and Apple Daily Internet Limited, were each fined 3,004,500 Hong Kong dollars (about 384,477 U.S. dollars).

In the sentencing of Lai, the court found that Lai was the "mastermind and driving force" behind conspiracies to collude with external forces and to publish seditious materials. After considering Lai's grave criminal conduct as well as his mitigation, the court handed down the sentence of 20 years' imprisonment, with two of the years overlapping with the prison term Lai is currently serving.

Central government agencies in Hong Kong, as well as local authorities, have voiced support for the sentencing.

The sentence of 20 years' imprisonment imposed on Jimmy Lai manifested that the rule of law is upheld and justice is done, and also brought great relief to all, said HKSAR Chief Executive John Lee.

Lai betrayed the country and harmed the HKSAR, causing damage to the interests of the country and the HKSAR. His conviction is supported by overwhelming evidence, and he for sure deserves his punishment after all the harm he has done, Lee said.

"The court's judgment illustrates that the rule of law in Hong Kong is robust," Tang Ping-keung, secretary for security of the HKSAR government, told reporters on Monday.

Over the years, Lai and his syndicate have misled people with fake news and false information, inflicting irreparable harm on society, said Tang. Even after the enactment of the national security law in Hong Kong, the defendants in the case continued with their crimes for some time until after they were arrested by the police, Tang noted.

The heavy sentence clearly reflected the very serious nature of the offences committed by Lai, said Tang.

The sentencing fully demonstrated judicial fairness and the authority of the rule of law, and reflected the HKSAR's firm determination and strong will to lawfully punish criminal acts and activities endangering national security, said a spokesperson for the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the HKSAR.

The facts proved once again that the despicable dealings of external forces and anti-China elements seeking to destabilize Hong Kong are ultimately futile, said the spokesperson.

"The punishment fit the crime," said a spokesperson for the Office for Safeguarding National Security of the Central People's Government in the HKSAR.

The 156-day public trial, which involved the examination of 2,220 exhibits, over 80,000 pages of case files and testimonies of 14 prosecution witnesses, had established that Lai colluded with external forces to endanger national security, the spokesperson noted. The judicial process was open, transparent, rigorous, fair and just, with Lai's legal rights protected.

The ruling of Jimmy Lai's case has represented not only the fulfillment of justice, but also a clear warning to anyone who attempts to challenge legal boundaries, said a spokesperson for the Commissioner's Office of the Chinese Foreign Ministry in the HKSAR in an open letter to foreign media agencies based in Hong Kong.

The spokesperson called on journalists of foreign media outlets to respect the independence of Hong Kong's judicial process, uphold journalistic professionalism, and report on the case with objectivity and fairness, refraining from politicizing legal matters. 
Bhopal, Feb 10 : The Madhya Pradesh Cabinet meeting, chaired by Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, was held at the Secretariat on Tuesday.

The Council of Ministers approved the Madhya Pradesh Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 2026, and the Madhya Pradesh Civil Services (Commutation of Pension) Rules, 2026.

The Finance Department has been authorised to publish the rules as approved.

The proposed rules simplify procedures and jurisdictions, which will facilitate pensioners.

Related cases can be resolved within a timely manner.

Retirees will be facilitated in commutation and calculation of the pension commutation value.

Under Rule 44 of the Madhya Pradesh Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 2026, unmarried, widowed, and divorced daughters have been included among the members eligible for family pension.

The Council of Ministers approved the Madhya Pradesh Civil Services (Implementation of National Pension System) Rules, 2026, and the Madhya Pradesh Civil Services (Payment of Gratuity under the National Pension System) Rules, 2026.

These rules will be effective from April 1, 2026.

The major new provisions include a provision for family pension in the event of a subscriber's death.

Provisions have been made for voluntary retirement and e-service booklets.

Previous service with the Central and Madhya Pradesh governments will be combined.

Provisions have been made for contributions by both the subscriber and the employer during the suspension period.

Detailed and clear procedures have been outlined for the implementation of the National Pension System, including contribution rates, calculations, and liability determination in case of delays, along with provisions for retirement, voluntary retirement, resignation, and exit in the event of death.

There will be a clear procedure for determining eligibility and payment of gratuity for government servants covered under the National Pension System.

Recovery from gratuity will be possible in the context of a departmental inquiry (post-retirement) order.

The provisions include withholding employer contributions during the period of departmental inquiry, withholding subscriber contributions three months prior to retirement, and instituting departmental inquiries after retirement, along with the state government's power to relax and repeal rules.

The state Cabinet approved a one-time five-year age relaxation for employees working in the IT cadre of the High court and district courts to participate in ongoing and future recruitment processes for the technical cadre.

At present, the age limit is 40 years for the unreserved category and 45 years for the reserved category.

The state Cabinet also approved Rs 7,133 crore 17 lakh for the continuation of the schemes of the Tribal Affairs and Women and Child Development Departments from 2026-27 to 2030-31.

According to the approval, Rs 2,350 crore has been approved for the particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTG) Food Grant Scheme of the Tribal Affairs Department, Rs 1,703 crore 15 lakh for the Integrated Hostel Scheme, Rs 1,416 crore 91 lakh for the CM Rise School Scheme, Rs 1,110 crore for the Housing Assistance Scheme, along with reimbursement of fees to the Board of Secondary Education, scholarships to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates, Rs 522 crore 8 lakh for Class 9 scholarships.

Apart from this, Rs 31 crore 3 lakh has been approved for the Chief Minister's Covid-19 Bal Seva Yojana of the Women and Child Development.

The state Cabinet approved Rs 366.72 billion (Rs 366.72 billion) for the electrification of 63,077 unelectrified households and 650 unelectrified government institutions through the expansion of electrical infrastructure under the Dharti Aba Tribal Village Upliftment Campaign (DA-JGUA).

This includes a Central government grant of Rs 220.03 billion (Rs 220.03 billion) and a state government share of Rs 146.69 billion (Rs 146.69 billion).

Additionally, an estimated cost of Rs 97 billion (Rs 97 billion) has been approved for off-grid electrification of 8,521 households (through the Madhya Pradesh Urja Vikas Nigam).

The remaining project cost (excluding the Central grant) will be provided by the state government to the state distribution companies as equity capital for the construction of the electrification distribution system.

The state government will bear the entire expenditure for off-grid electrification (solar and battery) to be carried out by the Madhya Pradesh Urja Vikas Nigam.

According to the approval, settlements with an estimated cost of up to Rs 2 lakh per household will be electrified through an online system by the state's electricity distribution companies, following the ceiling cost set at the distribution company level as per the guidelines issued by the Union government.

Houses built on farms, settlements smaller than five households, and remote settlements where the average cost of electrification exceeds Rs 2 lakh per household, will be electrified through a 1 kW off-grid system (solar + battery) by the Madhya Pradesh Urja Vikas Nigam.
New Delhi, Feb 10 : Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on Tuesday announced the launch of the 'Delhi LakhpatiBitiya Yojana', upgrading and restructuring the Ladli Scheme of 2008 after over a decade and a half, to ensure financial security and educational continuity for girls from economically weaker families.

The Chief Minister said that the initiative aims to ensure that no girl child in Delhi is forced to discontinue her education due to financial constraints, while creating a long-term savings corpus that matures as she completes key educational milestones.

Under the new scheme, the government will provide financial assistance of up to Rs 56,000 per beneficiary, deposited in phased instalments linked to education and age-related milestones, beginning from birth and continuing through graduation or diploma-level studies.

The accumulated amount, invested through a structured financial instrument, will grow over time and be released directly into the beneficiary's Aadhaar-linked bank account on maturity, said a statement.

The eligibility conditions under the Delhi LakhpatiBitiya Yojana have been slightly modified from the earlier Ladli Scheme. The scheme applies to girls born in Delhi, whose families have been residing in the city for at least three years, with an annual family income not exceeding Rs 1.20 lakh, it said.

The benefits are limited to two surviving girl children per family. Girls may be registered under the scheme within one year of birth, or at later stages of admission to Class I, VI, IX, XI, or upon admission to a recognised graduation or diploma course, it said.

The Chief Minister said, "This is one of the schemes of our government that is very close to my heart. It shows our commitment towards ensuring that every girl, every daughter of Delhi, gets an opportunity to reach her full potential. This is our investment in the future of our girls and, therefore, the future of our country that lies in their able hands."

"As the girls cross educational milestones, we will deposit up to Rs 56,000 directly in their Aadhaar-linked bank accounts, which on maturity will increase to over Rs 1 lakh along with interest," said Chief Minister Gupta.

She noted that when the present government assumed office, it was found that a very large number of maturity accounts had remained unclaimed.

"More than 1.86 lakh maturity accounts were lying unclaimed, which means that the money meant for our daughters did not reach them on time," the Chief Minister said.

Addressing this long-pending issue, the Chief Minister stated that the Delhi Government has taken focused action to ensure that these funds reach their rightful beneficiaries.

"Earlier in 2025, 30,000 such beneficiaries were identified, and an amount of Rs 90 crore, whose fund was lying unclaimed so far, has already been disbursed to them. Now we have further identified another 41,000 beneficiaries, and an amount of Rs 100 crore will be released shortly to them," she said.

"In total, Rs 190 crore, which rightfully belongs to these girls, is being ensured and delivered to them," the Chief Minister added.

She further announced that to reflect its strengthened vision and long-term impact, the scheme will now be known as the "LakhpatiBitiya Yojana."

The Chief Minister reiterated that the Government remains fully committed to protecting the rights, dignity, and future of every girl child in Delhi, and that no beneficiary will be allowed to remain deprived of her rightful entitlement.
Hyderabad, Feb 10 : More than 52 lakh voters are eligible to cast their votes in 116 municipalities and seven corporations in Telangana on Wednesday, officials said on Tuesday.

The State Election Commission (SEC) has made elaborate arrangements to ensure smooth and peaceful polling in 123 urban local bodies.

A total of 52,17,413 voters are eligible to cast their votes at 8,191 polling stations.

The polling will be held from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The SEC has deployed 1,379 Returning Officers and 41,773 polling staff for the polling process.

State Election Commissioner Rani Kumudini said voters can download the voter slips through SEC website or TE-POLL app.

According to SEC, 12,944 candidates are in fray for 2,981 wards in the urban local bodies.

Polling is being held for 2,569 wards in 116 municipalities.

Twelve candidates in nine municipalities have been elected unopposed.

The SEC has postponed polling for a ward in Makthal municipality in Narayanpet district following suicide by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate on Monday night.

A total of 10,719 candidates are testing their political fortunes in 116 municipalities. They include 2,358 candidates of ruling Congress, 2,478 of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and 2,252 of BJP.

Officials said that 6,017 polling centres have been set up for polling in municipalities.

Polling will be conducted for 412 wards in seven municipal corporations.

Candidates in two wards in Mahabubnagar and Ramagundam were elected unopposed.

Authorities have set up 2,174 polling centres in seven corporations.

As many as 2,225 candidates are in fray in these corporations. They include 410 candidates of Congress, 401 of BRS and 382 of BJP.

Meanwhile, Telangana Director General of Police (DGP) B. Shivdhar Reddy has said that tight security arrangements have been made for polling.

The police identified 1,302 polling centres as highly problematic and 1,926 centres as problematic.

Additional forces have been deployed at these centres.

He said that webcasting has been arranged in all polling stations for transparency, and surveillance cameras are also being used outside the centres in the most problematic areas.

The DGP said that about 3,000 additional police personnel have been deployed to maintain law and order.

He added that the silent period came into effect after the campaign period ended at 5 p.m. on Monday, and at present, visible policing has been increased and patrolling has been intensified.

Since the election code came into effect on January 27, the police have conducted record checks and have seized a total of Rs 3.09 crore worth of cash and other items during the checks conducted since January 27 when the model code of conduct came into force.

The police seized Rs 1.29 crore cash, liquor worth Rs 1.21 crore, drugs worth Rs 15.7 lakh, and gold and ornaments valued at Rs 28.69 lakh.

He said that 20 check posts have been set up on the borders of neighbouring states and 55 check posts on the borders of districts and continuous surveillance is being maintained to prevent illegal trafficking.

He added that special checks are being carried out on the borders of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, and 181 flying squads and 167 static surveillance teams have been deployed.

"As a precautionary measure, 1,183 licensed weapons have been deposited across the state and 4,318 people who may disrupt law and order have been bounded over," the DGP said.

He added that 398 non-bailable warrants pending in various cases have been executed and 142 FIRs have been registered so far regarding violation of election rules.
Chennai, Feb 10 : Even weeks after the Supreme Court's eight-week deadline to clear stray dogs from public spaces expired, the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) is yet to put a full relocation system in place, with a severe shortage of shelters slowing the process.

Chennai, Feb 10 (IANS) Even weeks after the Supreme Courtas eight-week deadline to clear stray dogs from public spaces expired, the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) is yet to put a full relocation system in place, with a severe shortage of shelters slowing the process.

The court, in November 2025, directed civic bodies to remove stray dogs from public areas to address growing public safety concerns.

In response, the GCC announced financial incentives in December, offering Rs 50 per dog per day towards feeding costs and Rs 750 per day for shelters housing more than 20 dogs.

However, despite the financial support, most NGOs have been reluctant to come forward, citing a lack of space and infrastructure.

Officials admitted that nearly all authorised shelters are already operating at full capacity.

The Tamil Nadu Animal Welfare Board (TNAB) provided a list of eight approved NGOs, but none are currently able to accommodate additional animals.

Discussions are ongoing with two organisations, while other willing groups on the cityas outskirts also face similar space constraints.

So far, only limited action has been taken.

Recently, 40 stray dogs were removed from the Madras High Court premises. Of these, 21 were shifted to an NGO shelter in Nemmeli, while the remaining dogs were adopted.

Meanwhile, a promised city-wide survey to estimate the stray dog population has yet to begin.

On the other hand, to address the space shortage, the GCC has identified land in Madhavaram and Velachery to construct two dedicated shelters. Each facility is expected to house up to 250 dogs, including animals suspected of rabies, canine distemper, or aggressive behaviour.

The corporation has floated tenders for NGOs to manage these shelters, with construction and operational work targeted for completion by the end of March.

According to GCC Veterinary Officer J. Kamal Hussain, the upcoming facilities will feature open spaces, separate kennels, and individual enclosures for infected or high-risk animals to ensure better disease control and safety.

However, delays have drawn criticism from residents.

Local welfare groups say stray dogs continue to pose risks near government schools and urban primary health centres.

"Despite repeated complaints, nothing has changed. Itas becoming a serious public safety issue," Ernavoor Civic Welfare Association Secretary S. Ramesh Kumar said.

With the courtas directive already overdue, questions remain about Chennaias preparedness to manage its stray dog population effectively.
New Delhi, Feb 10 : Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on Tuesday inaugurated a 10-day 'Vasantotsav 2026' Bhajan Clubbing event at Ramjas College, University of Delhi, praising 'Bhajan Clubbing' as a remarkable initiative that brings devotion, culture, and youthful energy onto one platform.

New Delhi, Feb 10 (IANS) Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on Tuesday inaugurated a 10-day aVasantotsav 2026a Bhajan Clubbing event at Ramjas College, University of Delhi, praising aBhajan Clubbinga as a remarkable initiative that brings devotion, culture, and youthful energy onto one platform.

The musical performance by Leela Band filled the entire atmosphere with devotion. Along with students, the Chief Minister, Tourism Minister Kapil Mishra, and other dignitaries also participated in the bhajan presentation.

Chief Minister Gupta said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, through aMann Ki Baata, has emphasised the need to connect the youth with culture and devotion and has appreciated beautiful initiatives like aBhajan Clubbinga.

The Prime Minister has described bhajan and kirtan as the soul of Indian culture and praised this tradition, and the Delhi governmentas effort through aVasantotsav 2026a is a step in the same direction, she said.

The Chief Minister stated that aBhajan Clubbinga is an innovative initiative to reconnect the younger generation with their cultural roots, rich heritage, and spiritual consciousness.

Through aBhajan Clubbinga, Delhi is today witnessing a wonderful confluence of devotion, culture, and youthful energy, where spiritual experience is emerging in a new form alongside modern expression, she said.

Mishra said that, inspired by PM Modias encouragement of Indian culture, bhajan-kirtan, and youth participation, the Delhi government is connecting the youth with Indian traditions through a special cultural series from February 10 to February 19.

This is another meaningful effort towards making Delhi the capital of art and culture, along with being the capital of the nation, he said.

On Wednesday, Raghav Raja will present a musical performance at Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College; on February 12, India Music Collective will perform at ARSD College, while on the same day, Sadho Band will present its music at Shaheed Sukhdev College.

On February 13, Rahasya Band will offer a soulful performance at Shyam Lal College, and on the same day, the atmosphere at PGDAV College will be filled with devotion through the bhajans of Keshavam.

On February 16, Keshavam will perform in the University Stadium, and on February 19, this spiritual and cultural journey will reach a special milestone at Shivaji College with the SAM Band.
Kolkata, Feb 10 : The full bench of the Election Commission of India will be on a two-day visit to West Bengal on March 1, that is the day after the new date for the publication of the final voters' list on February 28, which will mark the end of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in the state.

The dates for the two-day tour of ECI's full bench to West Bengal were finalised at a meeting of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, Manoj Kumar Agarwal, with the Commission's full bench at the ECI's headquarters in New Delhi earlier in the day.

"After arriving in Kolkata, the members of the ECI's full bench will be holding meetings with the CEO as well as his subordinate officers, like the additional CEOs, Joint CEOs, deputy CEOs, and the district electoral officers (DEOs) to take stock of the situation in the post-SIR scenario in the state," an insider from the CEO's office said.

Soon after that, the ECI will announce the polling dates for the crucial Assembly elections in the state scheduled later this year. "Definitely, the polling dates will be announced in the first week of March, as indicated by the Commission to the CEO at the meeting today in New Delhi," the CEO's office insider said.

In the meeting, there were discussions on the probable number of phases for the Assembly poll elections in West Bengal this year.

It is learnt that the CEO strongly emphasised a single-phase poll and said that his office is ready for that, provided there will be adequate deployment of central armed police forces (CAPF) personnel for that purpose.

The CEO's office insider said that although the Commission had not given any final commitment on the number of phases, it assured that under no circumstance would there be more than three phases.

The last time a single-phase election was conducted in West Bengal was in the 2001 Assembly elections. After that, the phases had ranged between six and eight, be it the Lok Sabha polls or the Assembly polls.

The CEO's office insider pointed out that the eventuality of a single-phase poll in West Bengal in 2026 will have both its advantages and disadvantages.

"The advantage is that political parties will not be able to mobilise their supporters from one pocket to another and thus address the traditional complaint of outsider mobilisation on the polling day or the day before that, intimidating the voters," the CEO's office insider pointed out.

However, that single-phase would require a larger deployment of CAPF, especially on the polling day. "If the Commission can ensure that arrangement, the idea of a single-phase is quite feasible," the CEO's office insider explained.
Kolkata, Feb 10 : A total of 46 diamonds with a market value of about 4.5 crore rupees were recovered from a person at the Bagdogra airport in West Bengal's Siliguri on Tuesday.

The name of the arrested person is Deepak Kumar Mahasuklal Mehta alias Deepak Kumar Mehta.

His home is in Delhi.

He was produced to a court on Tuesday, which remanded him in judicial custody.

Centre's Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has achieved great success in conducting this raid after receiving a tip-off that diamonds would be smuggled by air.

After receiving that information from a tip-off, the investigators started surveillance.

Sources said that the DRI spread a net at the Bagdogra Airport and the person was caught red-handed there.

The accused, Deepak Kumar Mehta, had come to the airport to catch a flight on that day.

The investigators became suspicious after seeing him.

He was soon detained and started questioning him.

The man, however, kept his mouth shut.

Later, when his luggage was checked, the huge quantity of diamonds came out.

The diamonds were kept in a packet inside the luggage.

It is learnt that they did not have any documents.

Finally, the person was arrested and the diamonds were confiscated.

It is learnt that a total of 46 diamonds were being smuggled, the market value of which is 4 crore 33 lakh rupees.

Sources said that the diamond was brought to Siliguri by road from Nepal.

The precious diamond was being smuggled to Delhi by air from Bagdogra.

DRI lawyer Ratan Banik said, "A total of 808.33 carats or 161.66 grams of diamonds were recovered. The accused was arrested and produced before the Siliguri court. The court has ordered him to be remanded in judicial custody till February 24. Whether anyone else is involved in the incident and from whom was this diamond brought and where was the plan to smuggle it... these are being investigated."
Washington, Feb 10 : The United States and India should anchor their partnership in artificial intelligence and emerging technologies to counter authoritarian models and shape the global digital order, according to a new bilateral report released Tuesday ahead of India's AI Impact Summit in New Delhi next week.

The report U.S.India AI and Emerging Technology Compact, prepared jointly by the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP) and Observer Research Foundation (ORF) America, argues that leadership in AI will determine not only economic growth but also national security and the values that govern the digital era.

"I think both countries are really built for this moment," SCSP President Ylli Bajraktari told IANS in an interview, describing the partnership as a "symmetry of strength." He said the United States brings "frontier hyperscale models, frontier R&D, advanced semiconductors," while India contributes "an enormous STEM talent at scale, massive data centres, and a really proven ability to deploy technology at the population level."

The report stresses that the partnership should not be hierarchical.

"The idea is not for India to be a junior partner to the United States, but to combine our strengths and address our gaps," said Rama Elluru, senior adviser at SCSP and a co-author of the report.

"It's meant to be complementary, not create a dependency."

At the core of the recommendations is a push to move beyond research and focus on real-world applications.

The report proposes launching a public-private U.S.India AI Coalition to prioritise commercial and dual-use applications in sectors such as healthcare, energy, and maritime domain awareness, and to integrate AI cooperation into existing defence dialogues and joint military exercises.

Infrastructure and semiconductors form another key pillar. The report calls for developing a binational "AI stack" spanning data centres, cloud services, connectivity, and hardware, which could be exported to the Global South as a trusted alternative to adversarial technology ecosystems.

It also recommends aligning U.S. and Indian semiconductor incentives and creating financing mechanisms to accelerate AI infrastructure projects.

Talent development and standards-setting are also highlighted. Elluru said India's advantages lie in "enormous quantity as well as quality" of AI talent and data.

"Their data sets are very unique in that they're not only large, but they're very diverse," she said, adding that India's ability to deploy technology at a population scale is a major asset.

The report recommends joint labour-market mapping and standardised certification to allow seamless talent flows between the two countries.

A central strategic rationale of the compact is competition with China. Bajraktari warned that Beijing's top-down system allows rapid execution once a national strategy is set.

"The United States alone cannot compete against China. That's why we have allies. That's why we have partners," he said.

Elluru added that closer U.S.India coordination would help keep authoritarian platforms out of emerging markets and give India agenda-setting power, not just market access.

Bajraktari said the summit's focus on "AI impact for good" aligns closely with the report's emphasis on applications that boost productivity and societal welfare.

Elluru said the Delhi summit is expected to be the largest of the global AI summits so far, with a strong emphasis on inclusivity and real-world outcomes.

On regulation, Elluru said both countries share a similar approach. "Both sides want to let innovation flourish and see what safeguards we need instead of the other way around," she said.

The report was developed through Track 1.5 dialogues held in Washington and New Delhi involving more than 120 experts from government, industry, academia, and civil society, and is intended to inform bilateral engagements and discussions at the February 2026 AI Impact Summit in India.
Amaravati, Feb 10 : The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) has urged the Centre to consider age-based regulation of social media.

TDP Parliamentary Party leader Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu on Tuesday met Minister of Information and Broadcasting Ashwini Vaishnaw and submitted a memorandum, requesting for policy deliberation on age-based regulation of social media for children.

He requested that the Ministry consider constituting a dedicated committee or expert group to study age-based regulation of social media and recommend a comprehensive national policy.

The TDP MP informed the Central minister that the NDA Government in Andhra Pradesh is actively examining this issue and exploring a robust legal framework to protect children online.

The MP recalled that he had introduced a Private Member's Bill on Social Media (Age Restrictions and Online Safety). The Bill proposes, inter alia, a minimum age threshold for social media access, mandatory age-verification mechanisms, and the permanent deletion of children's personal data collected during verification, along with strong enforcement and penalties for non-compliance.

Krishna Devarayalu drew the attention of the Central minister to the growing and overwhelming concern regarding children's safety on social media platforms.

"In India, nearly 90 per cent of children aged 14-16 have access to smartphones at home, and over 75 per cent actively use social media, largely for recreational consumption. Studies indicate that more than 60 per cent of minors have experienced online bullying, and nearly half are exposed to age-inappropriate or harmful content. Excessive social media use has been increasingly linked to rising anxiety, depression, and self-harm among adolescents, even as platforms continue to collect and monetise children's data without adequate safeguards," reads the memorandum.

"Recent tragic incidents in India further underscore the gravity of this challenge. Cases from Ghaziabad and Lucknow, where minors lost their lives following extreme digital addiction, cyberbullying, and online psychological distress, have triggered nationwide concern. The Economic Survey 2025-26 has also flagged rising digital addiction among youth, linking high-intensity social media use to serious mental health and behavioural risks," wrote the TDP MP, who also enclosed news summaries and Economic Survey extracts.

The TDP leader mentioned that several countries have begun responding to this challenge through decisive legislative action. Australia has enacted a ban on social media access for children under 16, while Denmark, Malaysia, Norway, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand are actively considering or advancing similar age-based restrictions as part of broader online safety frameworks. This reflects an emerging global consensus that parental controls alone are insufficient and that responsibility must rest squarely with platforms, he said.
New Delhi, Feb 10 : BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi has launched a sharp attack on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, demanding that he apologise to the nation over his remarks in Parliament regarding a book allegedly authored by former Army Chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane's unpublished memoir on the 2020 Galwan Valley stand-off.

Trivedi said Gandhi's claims have been "unequivocally dismantled" after both Penguin, the publisher, and General Naravane himself clarified that no such book has ever been published.

Penguin further stated that any copy circulating under Naravane's name would amount to copyright infringement.

Trivedi accused Gandhi of "misleading" Parliament and indulging in "petty politics" on matters of national security.

He argued that while the Leader of the House had earlier described Gandhi as behaving like an "abodh balak (innocent child)," his actions were more akin to those of a " Shatir Balak (clever child)" deliberately spreading falsehoods.

Calling Gandhi's conduct "unforgivable," Trivedi said, "This crime of his, I am using the word crime within crime, is unforgivable. Now clearly he should apologise to the country because both the publisher and the author have clarified the situation."

The BJP leader asserted that the episode proves the Congress party is lowering the level of political discourse by dragging national security into partisan battles, and reiterated that Rahul Gandhi alone is responsible for misleading the House and the nation.

The "memoir" has become the focal point of a bitter standoff in Parliament, where Gandhi attempted to quote from reported excerpts during debates, leading to repeated interruptions, objections from the treasury benches, and suspensions of opposition MPs.

The government has maintained that the book is under Ministry of Defence review, while the Opposition accuses it of suppressing uncomfortable truths about national security.

Delhi Police have registered an FIR over the alleged leak and circulation of the unpublished manuscript, further complicating the matter.

General Naravane's endorsement of the publisher's statement appears to clarify the book's status, though the political fallout continues to disrupt House proceedings.

The controversy, which has stalled Lok Sabha proceedings for over a week, centres on Gandhi's attempts to quote from purported excerpts of Naravane's book, "Four Stars of Destiny," during debates.

Gandhi alleged the government was suppressing the memoir due to revelations inconvenient to its narrative on the India-China border clash.

Trivedi said clarifications from both the publisher, Penguin, and General Naravane himself have demolished Gandhi's claims as baseless.

"It has become clear that Rahul Gandhi's attempt to narrate a fabricated story on the floor of the House to mislead is part of his petty politics."

As the Budget Session continues amid acrimony, calls for resolution grow to restore normalcy in parliamentary functioning.

Former Army Chief General (Retd) M.M. Naravane broke his silence over the raging controversy about his unpublished memoirs on the Galwan stand-off in 2020 between India and China, even as the no-holds-barred confrontation between the government and Opposition intensified to a new level on Tuesday.

General (Retd) Naravane took to his social media handle and shared the current "status" of the book, which has been at the centre of the government-Opposition tussle and also primarily the reason behind the week-long gridlock in the Lok Sabha.

"This is the status of the book," General Naravane wrote in a post on X while sharing the clarification from the publisher Penguin about his unpublished book titled 'Four Stars of Destiny'.

Parliamentary proceedings, hit for over a week now over the stalemate on his memoirs regarding the India-China 2020 conflict, saw the bitter fight escalating to a new level today, as Leader of Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi disputed claims of the book being under the review of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and claimed that it was very much in the public domain.

Speaking to the Press, he stated that the book was available on e-commerce platforms like Amazon and also said that the General in question, himself, urged people to read his recollections from the Galwan face-off in the book, back in 2023.

The Penguin Random House, though, was quick to address the issue, stating that it was the sole publisher of the book and also warned of legal recourse in case of its unauthorised dissemination.

General Naravane's one-line statement on the status of the contentious book sets the record straight and settles the controversy, ignited by the Congress's claims of the book being in the public domain and accusations against the Centre of blocking its release because of "discomforting truths."

-- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed
BEIJING, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- The white paper on Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's efforts in safeguarding national security is of major and far-reaching significance for the high-quality development of the "one country, two systems" cause, a central government spokesperson said on Tuesday.

The spokesperson for the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council made the remarks after the white paper titled "Hong Kong: Safeguarding China's National Security Under the Framework of One Country, Two Systems" was released earlier in the day.

The white paper elaborates that the struggle to safeguard national security in Hong Kong has never stopped, and that the enactment and implementation of the national security law in Hong Kong is a major milestone in the practice of "one country, two systems," the spokesperson noted.

The national security law has served as a turning point marking Hong Kong's shift from turmoil to order, and ushered in a new stage in the practice of "one country, two systems," the spokesperson added.

The spokesperson also said that the white paper expounds on how Hong Kong has effectively fulfilled its constitutional responsibility to safeguard national security, and it reviews the historic achievements and transformative changes that have been made.

The spokesperson stressed that safeguarding national security in Hong Kong is meant to uphold the principle of "one country, two systems," protect national sovereignty, security and development interests, and ensure the region's long-term prosperity and stability.

A secure, free, open, dynamic and development-oriented Hong Kong serves the fundamental interests of the country, the well-being of its residents, and the interests of overseas investors, the spokesperson noted.

With a high level of security in place, Hong Kong will be well-positioned to overcome risks and challenges ahead and achieve enduring peace and stability, as well as long-term prosperity, the spokesperson concluded. 
Ahmedabad, Feb 10 : Against the backdrop of rising incidents of digital fraud and the increasing misuse of bank accounts, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is currently conducting "Financial Literacy Week-2026" from February 9 to 13, with a renewed focus on strengthening Know Your Customer (KYC) compliance as a key safeguard for secure banking, officials said on Tuesday.

The programme has been organised annually by the RBI since 2016 to promote public awareness on important financial issues through a dedicated theme.

The theme for 2026, "KYC -- Your First Step Towards Secure Banking", was inaugurated in Mumbai by RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra, highlighting the central role of KYC in preventing fraud and ensuring the integrity of the financial system.

The theme builds on last year's gram panchayat-level financial inclusion campaign, which emphasised re-KYC of bank accounts to enable uninterrupted banking transactions.

In Gujarat, the RBI's Ahmedabad Regional Office is working closely with banks and other stakeholders across the state, as well as in the Union Territories (UTs) of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, to simplify and accelerate the KYC re-registration process.

During this week-long campaign, banks will focus on educating customers about the ease and importance of KYC compliance, the Central KYC (CKYC) system, and the risks associated with fraudulent calls and messages seeking KYC details.

Special attention will also be given to creating awareness about the danger of individuals being used as financial mules.

The state-level inaugural event was held at RBI Ahmedabad on Monday, where Regional Director Amresh Ranjan unveiled Financial Literacy Week posters in the presence of senior officials from leading banks.

Stakeholders at the event reiterated their commitment to strengthening safe and responsible banking practices.

The programme also featured a presentation by Sanjaykumar Keshwala, Superintendent of Police at the Gujarat Police Cyber Centre for Excellence, who highlighted the importance of the national cybercrime helpline '1930' and its online reporting portal.

He provided an update on "Operation Mule Hunt" and assured close coordination with banks throughout the KYC campaign to help counter cybercrime threats.

The RBI said that awareness and outreach activities will be conducted across the country in collaboration with banks and other stakeholders.

These initiatives will continue beyond the designated week, reinforcing the message that KYC is not merely a regulatory requirement but a crucial step towards a secure and trustworthy financial ecosystem.
New Delhi, Feb 10 : In a significant success for international law enforcement cooperation, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), in close coordination with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), facilitated the deportation of wanted fugitive Sombir Motta from the United States to India on Tuesday, a CBI statement said.

Sombir Motta, wanted by Haryana Police in connection with a murder case involving the use of firearms, was handed over to Indian authorities upon his arrival.

Haryana Police officials took custody of the accused immediately after his deportation, and he is expected to be produced before a court in Haryana for further legal proceedings.

The breakthrough followed sustained efforts by the CBI, which had secured an INTERPOL Red Notice against Motta on February 11, 2025, at the request of Haryana Police. The Red Notice, a global alert circulated to law enforcement agencies worldwide, flagged Motta as a wanted fugitive and enabled tracking across borders.

Acting as India's National Central Bureau for INTERPOL, the CBI coordinated extensively with the National Central Bureau (NCB) in Washington to locate the fugitive and secure his deportation.

The successful repatriation underscores the effectiveness of INTERPOL channels in tracking and extraditing high-profile fugitives. According to CBI officials, Motta had fled India to evade arrest after his alleged involvement in a serious criminal offence.

The case highlights the growing use of international mechanisms to bring back economic offenders, terrorists, and violent criminals who seek refuge abroad.

In recent years, the CBI has played a key role in repatriating more than 150 wanted criminals through INTERPOL coordination, often in collaboration with Bharatpola"the domestic platform linking Indian law enforcement agencies with global networks. These operations have targeted individuals accused of murder, fraud, money laundering, and other grave offences.

The Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Home Affairs extended necessary diplomatic and logistical support throughout the process, ensuring seamless execution.

Officials described the deportation as a testament to strengthened bilateral ties between India and the United States in combating transnational crime.

The return of Sombir Motta is expected to provide crucial momentum to the ongoing Haryana Police investigation and deliver justice to the victim's family.

Authorities have reiterated their commitment to pursuing fugitives relentlessly, regardless of where they hide, and to leveraging global partnerships to uphold the rule of law.
Gwalior, Feb 10 : Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Madhya Pradesh Home Minister, Narottam Mishra, has expressed his grief over the tragic incident that occurred during the Kalash Yatra on the first day of the 10-day-long consecration of the newly constructed Navagraha Shakti Peeth temple in Gwalior's Dabra town on Tuesday.

A woman was killed, and at least six others, including a minor girl, sustained injuries during the Kalash Yatra.

The tragic incident occurred when the Kalash Yatra (women carrying sacred pots on their heads) was heading towards the temple, to mark the beginning of the consecration ritual of the newly constructed temple.

Narottam Mishra, who is one of the trustees of the temple, visited the hospital to enquire about the health condition of the women injured during the incident.

"Ek hamari bujurg bahen ki dum ghutne se mrityu ho gayi. Ghatna dhukhad bahut hi hai (One of our elderly sisters died of suffocation. This is a very sad incident)," former State Home Minister Mishra told IANS after meeting with the victims and their family members at a hospital in Dabra.

Narottam Mishra, who represented the Dabra Assembly constituency thrice (1990, 1998 and 2003) before it was reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SCs), said that incident occurred due to a rush as a large number of people, including women and children, had gathered to witness the Kalash Yatra.

"Due to the rush, a woman fell on her little daughter. I had come to the hospital to see her. I met her parents also. A minor girl is injured but she is recovering well. I also met other women, who were injured during the incident," the former State Home Minister said.

The former Minister also denied that there was any stampede and the incident occurred due to a rush of the large crowd.

"It is a very unfortunate incident that happened today, but it is being presented in a wrong way. Yes, there was a rush as everyone wanted to witness that moment, but no stampede occurred," Narottam Mishra told IANS.

A video of the incident surfaced on social media showing some people rushing the injured persons to a hospital in an ambulance.

Police personnel deployed to manage the crowd and the security at the site handled the situation and the Kalash Yatra proceeded peacefully along the designated route and reached the Navagraha Shakti Peeth Temple.

Gwalior Collector Ruchika Chauhan, while talking to the media persons, said that several women had gathered near the Dabra stadium for the Kalash Yatra in the morning hours of Tuesday.

"During the distribution of the Kalash (sacred pots), a scuffle broke out. A 70-year-old woman was crushed in the crowd and died later," Gwalior Collector Chauhan added.

Some other women, including a three-year old girl, were also injured and they have been admitted at a hospital.

The consecration process of the temple started on Tuesday will be concluded with day-to-day religious activities on February 20.

During these days, several religious personalities, politicians from across the party lines are expected to visit the site.

-- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed
Mumbai, Feb 10 : Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Tuesday that the state continues to attract the highest Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the country, adding that this investment is now not just the highest in India but has also become record-breaking.

He added that an industry-friendly ecosystem has been created in the state by transforming economic activity into a celebratory movement, which has led to unprecedented levels of investment in Maharashtra.

Chief Minister Fadnavis was speaking as the chief guest at a programme organised on the occasion of the 78th anniversary of Loksatta newspaper.

The Chief Minister said that Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) worth Rs 30 lakh crore were signed at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, of which agreements worth Rs 12 lakh crore have already been finalised.

The state government has decided to enter into agreements only where foreign investment is assured, ensuring that every MoU signed results in direct foreign investment in the state.

He added that Maharashtra's pavilion at Davos received an overwhelming response from global investors, and among the 10 Indian states present, Maharashtra stood out prominently.

The state has achieved a 75 per cent conversion rate of agreements signed at Davos into actual industrial projects, Chief Minister Fadnavis said.

"To improve the Ease of Doing Business, the state is implementing the "Hundred Reforms in Two Months" initiative. These 100 reforms are aimed at further strengthening the industry-friendly environment and attracting more investors. The MAITRI Portal has been operationalised as a single-window system for industries. Industrial development is being decentralised, with investments reaching even the remotest parts of the state," the Chief Minister added.

According to the CM Fadnavis, Gadchiroli is emerging as the "Steel City of India", while Nagpur has become a major hub for the automobile industry.

"A leading firm has invested Rs 15,000 crore in Nagpur, where it is setting up the largest automobile manufacturing project in India's history," the Chief Minister said.

"The country's largest electric vehicle manufacturing capacity is being developed in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, where next-generation electric vehicles will be produced. At Davos, investments were secured for all five districts of North Maharashtra. The Nardana Industrial Estate in Dhule district is expected to become a magnet for future industries, while even backward districts like Nandurbar are witnessing industrial growth," he added.

The Chief Minister emphasised that the state government's focus is not limited to industrialisation alone but also on creating a robust industrial ecosystem.

To inculcate a reading habit among students, he announced that an initiative would be launched under which every student will be encouraged to read at least one newspaper regularly.

He also said that Phase-2 of the 'Aaple Sarkar' portal will be operational by May 1, 2026.

"At present, around 1,000 government services are available online, but 29 of these services account for the needs of 99 per cent of citizens. If these services are delivered in a simplified, responsible, and efficient manner, citizens will not need to visit government offices, leading to greater public satisfaction. E-governance has already brought dynamism to government services, and Artificial Intelligence will be used to enhance this efficiency further."

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Washington, Feb 10 : The United States on Tuesday said that it does not take sides in Bangladesh's elections and underscored that the choice of the country's next government rests solely with the Bangladeshi people.

"The United States does not take sides in Bangladesh's elections. The choice of Bangladesh's next government is a sovereign decision for the Bangladeshi people alone," a State Department spokesperson told IANS ahead of the elections in Bangladesh.

"The choice of Bangladesh's next government is a sovereign decision for the Bangladeshi people alone," it said in response to a question.

The State Department said that Washington remains committed to maintaining relations with Dhaka regardless of the electoral outcome.

"The United States is committed to working with whichever government is elected by the Bangladeshi people," the statement said.

The remarks come amid continued international scrutiny of political developments in Bangladesh, including concerns raised by rights groups and civil society organisations about political stability and the protection of minority communities.

The US also addressed the issue of religious violence, stressing its opposition to attacks targeting any faith group. "The United States condemns religious violence in all its forms," the statement said.

Washington welcomed steps being taken by the current interim authorities to protect vulnerable communities.

"We welcome measures the Bangladeshi Interim Government is taking to ensure the safety and security for all communities in Bangladesh," the statement added.

The State Department did not specify the measures taken by the interim government but said the protection of all religious and ethnic groups remains a key concern in US engagement with Bangladesh.

--IANS

int/lkj/uk
Surat, Feb 10 : India's pharmaceutical industry has welcomed the interim trade agreement framework between India and the US, which offers tariff relief on medicines and several other Indian exports.

Ketan Zota, chairman of Zota Healthcare and Dawa India, said the Indian pharmaceutical sector remained confident throughout the negotiations due to its critical role in the global supply of medicines.

"Due to lower labour costs in India, drug production is cheaper, and the U.S. will benefit," he told IANS.

He highlighted India's extensive exports, noting, "India has the largest U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved plant outside the United States, exporting substantial volumes of generic, life-saving, and chronic disease medicines, including treatments for diabetes, thyroid disorders, and blood pressure."

Describing India's outcome in the trade deal as a "major win," Zota emphasised that the United States had previously never compromised on tariffs.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi, through proper protocol, successfully negotiated favourable terms. The volume of medicines exported from India is due to lower labour costs, while the U.S. benefits from reduced prices," he added.

The interim framework, announced earlier this month, is designed to reset tariffs and provide clearer rules for trade between the two countries.

Under the agreement, the United States has committed to reducing tariffs on Indian goods, including pharmaceuticals, textiles, gems, and aircraft parts, with some categories potentially becoming duty-free once fully implemented.

The framework also seeks to address non-tariff barriers and enhance regulatory cooperation, offering greater certainty for exporters and supporting long-term trade relations.

Zota also pointed to the anticipated trade deal between India and the European Union, describing it as "highly beneficial" for Indian pharmaceutical exporters.

"Export duties have been reduced to zero per cent, and technology, business, and trade cooperation are expected to increase," he said.

"Medicines will be produced in India, taking advantage of lower labour costs, which benefits both producers and global consumers," he noted.

India remains the leading supplier of generic medicines to the United States, with the pharmaceutical sector continuing to be a priority of the country's global trade profile.

The interim trade agreement is expected to strengthen India's position in the global pharmaceutical market while providing greater clarity and stability for future exports.
New Delhi, Feb 11 : Days after the Janakpuri incident, a man died after falling into an open sewer in north-west Delhi's Rohini area on Tuesday, police officials said.

According to initial information, the sewer lid was left open.

The incident occurred on Monday.

Begumpur Police Station received information about the matter at around 4 p.m. on Tuesday, following which a police team reached the spot, officials added.

The deceased has been identified as Birju Kumar, a labourer from Bihar's Samastipur and was aged around 32-years.

The tragic accident occurred due to the open sewer, resulting in the loss of his life, officials said.

Local residents said another person was present with the victim at the time of the incident.

However, he did not inform anyone initially.

When the search for the missing man began, he finally disclosed the incident following which the police were alerted.

Officials from various concerned departments later reached the spot.

Local residents alleged gross negligence on the part of the authorities.

Local advocate Tejpal Yadav told IANS that the two friends worked as labourers.

One of them fell into the sewer, which had been left uncovered.

He added that none of the nearby sewers had lids at the time.

After the incident, sewer covers were hurriedly installed.

Advocate Yadav said that when he arrived around 7 p.m., Delhi Development Authority (DDA) officials were already present, bringing sewer lids and placing them.

He became suspicious when he noticed private tankers at the site and questioned the DDA officials.

When he called the emergency helpline '112', he learned that no department had officially been informed about the incident.

The wife and children of the deceased victim did not live in Delhi. He had planned to return to his native village soon. After the incident, the manhole has been covered.

A local resident said that children often play in the area, the road connects to the colony, and none of the sewers had covers.

After this fatal incident, residents warned that more accidents could occur if the issue is not addressed urgently.

The latest death has once again drawn attention to safety failures around open drains and construction sites in the capital, especially in the wake of the recent Janakpuri tragedy.

In that case, Kamal Dhyani, an assistant manager at the Rohini branch of HDFC Bank, died after his motorcycle fell into a deep pit dug by the Delhi Jal Board for sewer work. The site was allegedly left inadequately secured at the time of the accident.
Finance

Dupoin Transforms Its Brand as It Enters the Next Stage of Expansion

As Dupoin moves into its next stage of growth, the company is introducing a transformed brand identity. This is not a cosmetic update. It reflects how the business has evolved, where it is heading, and how it defines its role in an increasingly dynamic trading landscape.

Since its launch, Dupoin has expanded steadily across regions. Today, the platform supports users in more than 100 countries. Growth, however, has been measured rather than rushed. The brand refresh comes at a point where scale, structure, and clarity matter more than speed.

At the centre of the update is a redesigned logo and visual system. The look is smoother and more contemporary, built around ideas of motion and accessibility. It signals continuity rather than disruption. Dupoins aim is clear; make trading feel simpler, more flexible, and easier to navigate, regardless of a users experience level.

The changes go beyond visuals. Across the website, mobile app, and core platforms, interfaces have been refined. Cleaner layouts, faster performance, and more direct navigation come together to improve how users interact with the platform every day.

The brand refresh also brings Dupoins internal values to the surface. Five principles now sit at the heart of its identity which are Continuous Learning, Professionalism, Focused Execution, High Efficiency, and a Result-Oriented mindset. They are not positioned as slogans. They are intended to guide how teams operate, how products are built, and how users are supported over time. This alignment between culture and product is deliberate. As Dupoin enters more markets, consistency becomes critical. Trust is built not only through performance, but through how reliably a platform delivers on its promises.

Looking ahead to 2026, Dupoin is setting a clear direction for growth. Expansion into new regions is already underway, supported by local marketing activities, responsive customer support, and ongoing improvements to the trading platform. Education also remains a central focus. New learning tools and resources are being developed to help traders build confidence and improve decision-making. It reflects a broader view of long-term engagement, one that values retention through capability, not just campaigns.

The early years established a solid foundation.

This brand update signals what comes next.

With a clearer identity, a stronger internal culture, and a renewed focus on user experience, Dupoin is positioning itself for its next phase of growth. The objective remains straightforward: deliver a trading environment that is smarter, more adaptable, and more connected wherever its users are.
Business

Body London United Ltd expands its premium activewear presence across the UK, Europe, the USA and Dubai

Body London United Ltd is a UK-based premium activewear and lifestyle brand focused on delivering a refined and modern experience for women worldwide.

Since its incorporation in 2024, Body London United Ltd has built a growing presence across Europe, connecting with fashion conscious audiences in key markets including the UK, France, Italy, and Spain. The brand also serves international customers in the United States and Dubai through its digital-first global platform.

Body London United Ltd follows a minimalist design philosophy that blends clean aesthetics, quality materials, and everyday comfort. The brands collections are designed to transition seamlessly from active routines to daily wear, aligning performance with contemporary lifestyle fashion.

Operating under Body London United Ltd (Company No. 15825333), the brand continues to expand its international footprint through online sales and curated brand experiences. Body London United Ltd is founded and led by Serdar Mercan, who serves as both Founder and Chief Executive Officer, guiding the brands global vision.

www.bodylondonco.com


KABUL, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Afghanistan's government has approved a national fisheries development plan aimed at boosting domestic production, creating thousands of jobs, and expanding the country's agriculture and livestock sector, the office of the deputy prime minister for economic affairs announced in a statement Tuesday.

The plan, approved during a high-level meeting chaired by Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, will see the establishment of 7,700 small, medium, and large fish farming facilities on 6,500 hectares of land across multiple regions, according to the statement.

Officials estimate the initiative will create direct employment for 50,000 citizens and support an additional 250,000 indirect jobs once fully implemented, it said.

The policy is part of a broader national strategy to develop Afghanistan's agriculture and livestock sectors, aiming to enhance food security and economic growth through sustainable use of natural resources. 
Reading Is Amazing was the theme for the 34th edition of the Taipei International Book Exhibition, which ended its six-day run on February 8. Thailand was the guest of honor, with CreaTHAIvity as its slogan. This year, just over 500 stands hosted exhibitors from 29 countries and nearly 60 visiting international authors. (The last time TIBE hosted more than 500 stands was in 2019, before the pandemic; 735 exhibitors attended that event.)

TIBE is co-organized by the Taipei Book Fair Foundation, an initiative established by 18 major publishing houses back in 2004 with a rotating chairmanship that operates under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture. Rex How, owner of Locus Publishing House, served as its first chairman from 2005 to 2007, and is now back as chairman. For How, TIBE offers a meeting place in Asia for publishers. This event is about the power of books and of reading, of bringing book people and book lovers together under one roof. Twenty-one years ago, we had three major goals for TIBE: promoting domestic reading, promoting international cultural exchanges, and promoting publishing expertise. We have achieved these goals and today, TIBE has evolved to become a unique book event for both the public and professional attendees.

With bookstores holding fewer events and being mindful of their budgets and retail spaceswhich means that books have fewer chances to be seen by readersTIBE is becoming even more important than before, How said. Now that more exhibitors are planning their own onsite events, on top of those organized by TIBE, we are hoping to draw a much bigger crowd to come here to explore and find new books to bring home to read.

In general, the Taiwanese book market, he added, faces many of the same challenges and problems that are seen in other parts of the world: declining reading habits, competition from social media, low birthrate, and publishing issues wrought by the rise of AI. The low birthratethe lowest in the world at 4.62 births per 1,000 peoplesaw only 107,812 babies added to its population of around 23.3 million in 2025. Fortunately, parents and grandparents have been spending more on books and educational materials for children over the years and that has ensured the stability of its childrens book segment.

Market Statistics in Brief

The most recent statistics indicated that in 2024, there were 4,769 registered publishing houses bringing out 54,767 new titles, of which 32,175 (or 58.75%) were print books. Translations accounted for nearly 34% of these print books. The new titles published were mostly in these five categories: test preparation titles (12.86%), humanities and history (12.6%), childrens books (11.37%), comics/graphic novels (10.84%) and fiction (8.95%). Translated titles came mostly from Japan (around 54%), the U.S. (19.3%), the U.K. (8.35%), and South Korea (8.31%) with Japanese manga, American childrens books, and British fiction being the popular genres. (In 2017, PW reported that Taiwan had around 100 active publishers offering approximately 40,000 new titles annually.)

As for rights sales to overseas markets, Taiwan is best known for its original picture books from such author-illustrators as Jimmy Liao (Sound of Colors; Where Will I Be Tomorrow?), Chen Chih-yuan (Guji Guji; The Featherless Chickens Met the Hungry Wolf), Lai Ma (Im Breathing Fire!), and Bei Lynn (Practicing Goodbye).

Perspectives from Exhibitors

In the Italy Pavilion, Valentina Mai, editorial director of picture book publisher Kite Edizioni, was back for her second TIBE. I wanted to meet again with contacts that I had established during my last visit, said Mai, who has sold more than 10 titles to Taiwanese publishers in recent months. This has been a good market for us, as are South Korea and Japan. Somehow our titles work in these smaller markets. Taiwanese publishers, for instance, share our idea that picture books are not just for children but also for adults. Davide Calis Undicesimo Comandamento (The Eleventh Commandment), for instance, is about not defying Mother Nature, and is primarily aimed at adults; Cali, who has had several titles translated for the Taiwanese market, was a special guest at TIBE.

Im here not just to sell rights but also to look for new ideas as well as local authors and illustrators for new collaborations, Mai said. Based on her experience selling to Taiwan, she finds that readers here generally appreciate titles by the same author or illustrator. They like the continuation of an illustration style or the strong voiceor messageof an author.

For Florence Pariente, founder of Ttipi Agency in France, her first TIBE had been a success. We were very active in Taiwan in 2025having sold around 20 titles thus farand this is simply the right time to visit to get a deeper look at this market and establish closer ties with our publishing partners. It is a great marketnot huge, but definitely growing for us. Her agency represents around 10 publishers, mostly from France but also from Canada, the U.S., and Argentina. The size of TIBE, Pariente said, makes the visit manageable while its smaller book market means it is easier to get the bigger picture quite quickly. The publishers here know what they want for their readers and every meeting is an enjoyable encounter for me.

Parents and educators want stories with values, about everyday life and growing up. They want to provide children with an understanding of life and society. They are not looking for silly and funny plots. Books on social/emotional learning such as Lidia Brankovics The Grand Hotel of Feelings, are very popular with my visitors, Pariente said.

Her sentiment was shared by Jana Cieslarova, who is in charge of foreign sales at Prague-based Albatros Media. We have sold Lenka Blazes Sensitive: Why the World Badly Needs Thin-Skinned Introverts to Taipei-based Heliopolis Culture Group, Cieslarova said, adding that this market also prefers nonfiction titles, STEM, and educational books. Magda Gargulakovas illustrated nonfiction title Bridges for ages nine to 12, for instance, had already been published in Taiwan.

Albatros Media is no stranger to TIBE, having attended three times before. Taiwan and South Korea are our biggest markets right now. Vietnam is growing but their rights fees are much lower, said export manager Tomas Jodas. It is surprisingeven to us. We still have no idea why some of our titles just work in Taiwan and not in other countries. The team started with 25 fixed appointments prior to their arrival in Taipei and their schedule got more packed with more impromptu meetings and drop-bys during the six-day event.

Simona Ragele, who handles foreign rights at Lithuanian publishing house Flintas, was at TIBE for the first time. The attendees and visitors to my booth are very friendly and curious about our publications, which are for two-to-seven-year-olds and are mostly educational/activity titles. I am meeting with local rights agencies as well as trying to make direct connections with local publishers. There have been many meetings but it is too early to tell if our titles will be successful here. I think we need to be at this event at least two years in a row to establish firmer relationships with locals.

Books with interactive features such as those with flaps and tags attracted the most attention. One title, What Do Dinosaurs Do When Theyre Afraid, which deals with fears, is popular. I find that the focus is on children learning about themselves, growing their sense of awareness, and their connections with their surroundings, with each other, with nature, and within the society.

Getting adults to read childrens books and explore these titles from different angles, such as its design and storyline, and the illustrators own growth is one mission at Taipei-based Bookman Books Publishing House. Adults reading childrens picture books have their own interpretation and resonance given their own life experiences, said owner Jerome Su. This means that picture books are not solely for children and that there is a big potential audience out there for such titles.

Taiwanese parents, Su said, are aware of the importance of their children learning and mastering the English language. They encourage their kids to read for leisure and read in English. This is one reason titles by authors such as Roald Dahl and those from Scholastic are very popular here. Such awareness and encouragement are important in ensuring the next generation of readers and book lovers, and in ensuring the longevityand prosperityof the Taiwanese book industry.
An inherent sense of wonder and curiosity is not only the hallmark of childhood, but the inspiration for the 2026 Childrens Book Week poster, shown here for the first time. The Childrens Book Council and Every Child a Reader, which have named Caldecott Honor artist Grace Lin as this years poster illustrator, also announced the theme: Books: Get Curious.

The Taiwanese American author-illustrator was tapped for her ability to share and celebrate her culture through literature, exposing young readers to the diverse world around them. Her illustrations always give us a sense of welcome, and that openheartedness is so needed nowand always, associate executive director Shaina Birkhead said.

Protector and Provider

When presented with several options for this years theme, Lin chose the curiosity angle, a trait that she believes kids need to thrive. We are living in a time where there is a segment of the population that is trying to curtail that curiosity with book banning and unnecessary restrictions, Lin said. Right now, curiosity, with all its joy and wonder, needs protection.

On the poster are a Chinese stone lion and the cub, symbolizing guardians of the future, framed by stacks of books on either side. Lin chose to emulate the tradition of hanging banners around doors during the Lunar New Year. These decorative elements serve to ward off bad luck, as well as usher in good news. In this image, the books not only make the entryway to curiosity but, like the lion, protect it, she said.

Lin believes that inquisitive readers of all ages will want to know how she selected the individual books on the poster. While most were either personal picks or suggestions from author friends, she said, A lot of it was based on what colors looked good. At one point, I sent an emergency message to friends begging them to send me images of pink or red spines! She also included Jane Mounts Books Make Good Friends as a salute to the picture books similar stacked-spines design.

The CBC is partnering with Lins publisher, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, to promote the 2026 poster. Interested libraries, bookstores, schools, and parents are invited to register online for Book Week, which is scheduled for May 410, now through the end of March.

Two posters per location will be shipped in April, along with a note from Lin about the inspiration for her design. For more information about Book Week, visit the Every Child a Reader website.
Minnesota's literary community is coming together to support immigrants and others under attack by ICE agents, who have been an unwelcome presence in the state for the past six weeks.

This past weekend, poet Heid Erdrich was featured at a candlelight vigil for Renee Good and Alex Pretti, reading her own and Goods poems. Meanwhile, Calumet Editions and Afton Press, two affiliated publishers headquartered in suburban Minneapolis, are rushing into print ICE Out: Minnesota Writers Rising Up, an anthology edited by Ian Leask featuring more than 50 writers responding in poetry and prose to ICEs presence.

In yet another show of solidarity, mystery authors Jess Lourey and Kristi Belcamino have organized Authors for Minnesota Day, slated for February 28, in which more than 50 Minnesota-based authorsincluding Allen Eskens, William Kent Krueger, Bao Phi, Margi Preus, and Curtis Sittenfeldwill stop by more than two dozen indie bookstores around the state to sign copies of their latest releases and give them out, along with swag kits in some cases, to anyone who donates to either the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota or the Womens Foundation of Minnesota Immigration Rapid Response Fund. (Heid Erdrich is also participating; she intends to give art and poems to donors at Birchbark Books in Minneapolis.)

Participating stores include Content Bookstore in Northfield, south of the Twin Cities, and Drury Lane Books in Grand Marais, near the Canadian border. Each bookstore will stock frontlist and backlist books by the author or authors appearing at that store.

"I want as many people as possible in bookstores," Lourey said, explaining why donations had to be made onsite. She noted that foot traffic and sales have plummeted at one Minneapolis bookstore that is located half a mile from where Alex Pretti was murdered by ICE agents. "We need to support our indie bookstores: we can't have them suffering," she added.

Belcamino said that Authors for Minnesota Day has two goals: one is to support local independent bookstores and the other is to raise money for two great organizations fighting for immigrants civil rights.

The event came about, she told PW, after Lourey noticed how public Victoria Ford of Comma: A Bookshop in the Linden Hills neighborhood has been in supporting immigrants being targeted by ICE. Lourey said that Fords courage made her wonder how many other booksellers were risking a financial hit by speaking up. She realized that while many Minnesota bookstores are supporting their communities, some are highly visible while others are doing so quietly, so as to not draw attention to themselves out of safety concerns.

This inspired me, Lourey said, We all have to work where were planted. I am planted in the book community; immigrant rights is front and center right now. I wanted to do something that would support the indies while also raising money for these civil rights organizations."

A list of where Minnesota authors will be appearing on February 28 will be made on participating bookstores' websites, as well as on Facebook.
It was summer 2021, and my mothers desk was a mess, including a torn envelope from the IRS shoved in the back of a drawer.

Mom? I asked. Did you pay your taxes?

My mother, increasingly forgetful at 84, said she wasnt sure. She told me to call her accountant of 30 years, who said the taxes hadnt been paid but that he would take care of it.

Thats not all he took care of.

Within the year, a family member had my mother sign a blank check, which the accountant (or someone in his office) filled out for $25,000 to supposedly take over paying my mothers bills  a task I was already doing. Instead of using the money for bills, the accountant paid himself the lions share of the funds. He then sent me an invoice for work Id previously paid him for, at which point I told him never to contact my mother or me again.

The accountant does not work in some grubby backroom but for a white-shoe firm in a Manhattan office tower. I dont know if this firm does legitimate business. I do know that the moment he had the opportunity to take advantage of a decades-long trust, he took it.

Hes not the only one. In the six years since Ive taken my mothers finances in hand, Ive dealt with dozens of schemes meant to bilk the elderly, including phone scammers who promised my mother she had won a Mercedes, home health aides who inflated their hours, people forging my mothers signature, and a relative who had her sign over her car.

I dont know why we had to go to the DMV, my befuddled mother told her caregiver, after the relative had dropped her off and then driven away.

As hard as I tried to protect my mother from con artists, there is no way I could have predicted all the schemes, both clever and dumb, that industries and individuals constantly perpetrate on the elderly. Some will be strangers; others will be trusted confidantes and family members. Did I mention the beloved attorney who convinced my mother to sign away farm equipment worth nearly $200,000?

Rich Target

Predators targeting the elderly are on the rise because there have never been as many to prey upon. An estimated 67 million baby boomers live in the U.S., with a combined wealth of $85 trillion, according to Federal Reserve data, a veritable banquet for thieves, made all the easier by online trickery.

Its absolutely through the roof, said Heidi W. Isenhart, a Florida attorney specializing in cyber-scamming of the elderly. Theyre called numerous times, theyre harassed; they give a little money and then the people come back. Theyll even say, Well send a car for you to take you to the bank.

The author's mother, Kathy, in an undated photo from the mid-1970s.

It seems everyone has a story of an elder who has been taken for a ride. My friends failing father fell for numerous scams, including agreeing to pay $26,000 for security for his computer. This is for a desktop that cost $500, my friend said. I was able to claw back about half the money, then the guy disappeared.

In 2024, the FBI received 836,000 reports of cyber fraud, with people on average losing $20,000. Thats a 33% increase in cyber fraud incidents since the year before, and the actual numbers are certainly much higher, as many who are victimized often dont have the awareness to realize it or are too embarrassed to admit it. One growing scam uses AIs ability to clone voices to fool victims into thinking loved ones have been arrested or abducted and need cash immediately.

Several measures now before Congress aim to combat scams and fraud targeting people 60 and older. The Scam Compound Accountability and Mobilization (SCAM) Act passed the Senate in December 2025 and now moves to the House. The STOP Scams Against Seniors Act was introduced that same month, but has yet to be passed into law. While the first bill targets international fraud and the second aims to coordinate federal, state, and local efforts to protect seniors from scams, the cognitive struggles of older adults will undoubtedly make it difficult for law enforcement to gather evidence and catch wrongdoers.

Which means their loved ones must step in and play the role of cop, which I discovered when an Eastern European kept leaving messages on my mothers answering machine, asking for her banking information. I told my mother that under no circumstances was she to speak with him.

But he sounds so nice, she said. I told her that sounding nice was the scammers stock in trade.

It did not compute. My mother was living by herself, lonely for a voice on the phone, making her an easy mark. Scammers know how to ingratiate themselves; how to make the person feel lucky (a Mercedes!) or frightened, as with the phone threat my mother received telling her the police were on their way to arrest her. A frightened person is more likely to believe the anonymous voice on the phone telling her he can make the trouble go away, all she needs to do is provide her social security number.

I called the Eastern European scammer back.

Why are you calling my mother? I asked, along with a few choicer words, whereupon he launched a volley of expletives, which I let my mother hear on speaker.

My mother looked chagrinned. Yet despite my taping signs on her walls that read ALL THE CALLERS ARE LYING TO YOU, she fell for a similar con the following week.

Family Fraud

A sad fact that makes sense when you think about it: The people your parents love most will likely be the ones using them as an ATM machine. According to the National Council on Aging, abuse and neglect incidents are perpetrated 60% of the time by a family member.

I do see some of that manipulation by children, by grandchildren, said Isenhart. But what I see more is one child saying to the parent, My brother hates you, and he hasnt been in contact with you, and Ive done everything and I need everything. Thats just classic exploitation. And then they move in with them, and possession is nine-tenths of the law. And then they are in full control of everything. It is supreme gaslighting.

In my mothers case, something akin to this happened when an unscrupulous lawyer, at the behest of a relative whod set his sights on my mothers savings, tried to gain access to her bank accounts by badgering the banks call center in the Philippines in the middle of the night. The gambit was unsuccessful due to the lawyers incompetence (and the call centers savvy). While red flags were added to the account, they were insufficient to catch the check on which the same relative forged my mothers signature, to hand off to this same attorney. My raising the roof about this went nowhere. Same for the bank managers suggestion that my mother file a suspicious activity report.

Mother and daughter together in Brooklyn Heights in 2022.

I dont want him to go to jail, my mother said, looking crestfallen and confused. Its almost certainly the case that the relative and the lawyer did not fear legal action from a frail, forgetful 85-year-old wanting to keep the people she still remembered as close to her as she could.

If we were to take all the cases of financial exploitation we know and try to summarize them in a single word, that word is loneliness, said Liora Bar-Tur, a psychologist and gerontologist, in a recent talk, What Is the Story Behind Financial Exploitation? Perhaps the money or property taken from them through deceit or malice nevertheless provides them, despite their vulnerability, with a sense of power, control, and love.

My mother did love this relative, and yet there was no way I was going to let her wind up in that position again. Shortly after the forged check, I took her for neurological testing. It went about as expected: Mom could only name two U.S. presidents  Biden and Nixon  and was at sea with almost every memory question. When the relative and lawyer learned my mother had been assessed as no longer legally able to make financial decisions or sign documents, they screamed that this was a lie, that my mother was fine. But she was not, and there would be no more checks, forged or otherwise. The lawyer soon quit.

Stranger Danger

Next to kin, caregivers for hire present a more predictable set of issues. One is, do you need one at all? (If you think you do, you do.) Another: Your father says hes fine, he doesnt want a stranger in his home. Then you find him on the floor of his bedroom, with no idea how long hes been there, and the only thing he can tell you is that hes very thirsty.

There were many signs that my mother needed full-time care: leaving the stove on until the boiling eggs exploded and hit the ceiling; mistaking 11 p.m. for 11 a.m. and wandering around her Brooklyn neighborhood, wondering why it was dark out; finding $5,000 in cash in her wallet that she had no recollection of withdrawing.

I am sorry to tell you that if I had a nickel for every person whos told a story of a caregiver leaving her parent alone, or stealing her jewelry, or whipping out a document the recently deceased grandparent has signed leaving the caregiver everything, Id have about a buck-twenty.

I am not besmirching the profession. My mother, who is now 88, has had nine caregivers over the past five years, and, with the exception of one, they have been hard-working and reliable, doing a job many of us cannot or do not want to do.

You havent lived until youve cleaned [excrement] off your dads balls, said a high school girlfriend, who did not have the funds to hire full-time care.

Not many do, the costs of caregiving being exorbitant. While Medicare, under some circumstances, will provide skilled nursing, this will not cover bathing, feeding, and other custodial care. Which means you are either going to do these things yourself or hire aides for an average of $25/hour, which, at 24/7 care, comes to $18,000 a month or $216,000 a year.

That doesnt include the cost of getting ripped off, as I was by a woman who billed herself as the head of an agency, which turned out to be a lie, through which she would pay two of my mothers caregivers, which turned out to be a partial lie, in that she would pad their hours and pocket the difference. By the time I discovered this, my mother was in the midst of myriad health crises, making pursuing the few thousand dollars I was out not worth my time, which you can be sure the scammers know.

Start Early

The most important piece of advice I have for those with failing parents is this: Get a handle on their finances five years earlier than you think you need to. This, because they are not going to tell you that things are going downhill, or they wont have noticed, or theyre embarrassed to ask for help.

Such was the case with my late father, who had been a numbers savant and successful stockbroker. When he asked me to calculate the tip after a pizza lunch, I thought I had better take a look at his bills, and found credit card charges of $52,000, racked up by someone he had entrusted the card to, to buy groceries.

I guess I stuck my head in the sand, my father said.

My dad agreed to let me pay off the card and cancel it. But getting involved in your parents finances, which can mean putting your name on their banking and investment accounts so you can monitor and steer inflows and outflows, only goes so far. At some point, you may need to take full control.

Psychologist Liora Bar-Tur tells a story of the 85-year-old patient who shared with her children that she was having a secret relationship with the actor Richard Gere. The relationship took place by text and led to the patient sending Gere more than $20,000. Trying to convince their mother that she was not, in fact, having a relationship with the actor, that it was all a scam, engendered only anger in the patient: Did her children not want her to be happy and in love? Why didnt they just butt out of it?

The only way the children were able to stop the transfer of funds was by activating the power of attorney they held, said Bar-Tur. This led to intense anger, crying, profound misery, and threats that she would change her will. After the funds were blocked, she attempted to sell her jewelry in order to procure more funds to send to her movie star lover.

Nancy and her mother, Christmas 2025

My last horror story is also the first. It was January 2013, and my mothers third husband had just passed away. Shed inherited some property and some cash, as well as half the equipment at a tractor dealership he owned. There was an issue with the dealership, my mother said, and asked if I would accompany her to see her late husbands lawyer.

He loves me, she said of the lawyer.

The lawyers office was in a small home in upstate New York. Neither he nor the accountant standing alongside him appeared pleased Id accompanied my mother. As she eased into pleasantries, I could see the impatience of the men. They had a document they wanted her to sign; there would be time for chitchat after.

I asked to see the document, which had my mother signing away her ownership of the farm equipment to a third party. When I asked why she would sign this, the accountant flashed a look at the lawyer, who took back the paper. It wasnt important, he said. A week later, when I was not around, he called my mother back into the office, where she signed the paper, forfeiting the equipment to her late husbands former partner, who I later found out was a friend of the lawyers.

When I asked my mother why she had signed, she said it was because she had thought of the lawyer as caring; that when her husband was dying of leukemia, he had married them in the hospital room.

I did not, at the time, know the lawyer was playing a rigged game. I wish I had. And I wish I had realized that the characteristics that had heretofore given my mother a splendid and comfortable life  a trusting nature, independent to a fault, a belief that the people she loved would always look out for her  were the very things that would be used against her and open her up to so much danger.

Im sorry, Mom; I wish I could have given myself the advice then that Ive only just learned now.
ISLAMABAD, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- At least three policemen were killed and one injured after unidentified armed men opened fire on a police mobile van in southern Pakistan's Sindh province on Monday, police said.

The incident occurred in Dadu district of the province when police responded to reports of a robbery attempt. The attackers fled the scene after the firing, according to an official statement.

Police have launched a search operation in the area, while the injured officer was shifted to a nearby hospital. 
At 3 a.m. in Kyiv, Dmytro Pavlovsky woke to the sound of his microwave beeping. In most places, that sound means food is ready. In Kyiv, it means electricity has briefly returned.

Pavlovsky is a high school teacher, not a soldier. He lives in a city where Russian missiles routinely strike power stations, water pumps, and heating systems. Electricity now arrives unpredictably, sometimes for forty minutes, sometimes for two hours, sometimes not again for a day. When it does, civilians race the clock. They charge phones and laptops, heat water, cook what they can, and fill containers for drinking and toilet flushing before the pumps shut down again.

This is not a story about inconvenience. It is about infrastructure warfare and the strategic choice the West now faces.

Russian attacks have degraded Ukraines energy grid to the point where electricity must be rationed manually. Hospitals, emergency services, and transit systems receive priority. Civilians get what remains. In high-rise buildings, power outages mean no heat and no running water. In winter, pipes burst. Those failures often cannot be fully repaired until spring, because cracks in joints reveal themselves only when systems are warm and pressurized. Entire buildings become uninhabitable for months.

The scale of the damage is no longer abstract. After a Russian strike on January 24, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported that 1,676 high-rise residential buildings were left without power and nearly 6,000 were without heating. Those figures represent hundreds of thousands of civilians exposed to winter conditions in a city not at the front lines, but deliberately targeted.

Schools in Kyiv have closed, not because fighting is nearby, but because there is no reliable heat or electricity.

When there is no electricity and no heat, your body goes into hibernation, Pavlovsky told me. You are not freezing; you wear layers, but your energy drops. You do not even feel like thinking.

That effect is not incidental. It is the strategy.

Russia is using winter as a force multiplier, applying sustained pressure on civilians rather than seeking decisive battlefield breakthroughs. The method is proving effective. Infrastructure attacks degrade morale, drive displacement, and impose long term reconstruction costs that far exceed the price of the original strike.

At Davos this month, President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized Europes hesitation in blunt terms, warning that fear of escalation was allowing this strategy to succeed. His argument was not rhetorical. As long as Russian missiles can strike civilian infrastructure with relative impunity, Ukraines population will remain under continuous strain, and Moscow will conclude that this approach works.

The United States and its allies have the means to reduce that harm without entering the war or striking Russian territory.

They should deploy American and allied F-16s to conduct limited air policing near Ukraines border, with a narrowly defined mission to intercept missiles and aircraft headed toward civilian targets.

This would not be an act of war. It would be an act of defense.

Once a missile is launched, it is no longer a theoretical threat sitting on Russian soil. It is a weapon in flight aimed at civilians, power stations, hospitals, apartment buildings, and schools. Intercepting it is not escalation. It is the enforcement of a core principle of armed conflict.

Civilians and civilian infrastructure are not legitimate targets.

From a policy standpoint, the logic is straightforward. Attacks on energy infrastructure create cascading failures that long outlast the initial strike. Loss of power leads to loss of heat and water, which leads to burst pipes, evacuations, school closures, and long-term displacement. Western governments then spend billions on emergency aid and reconstruction to address damage that could have been prevented.

Preventing the strike is cheaper than rebuilding afterward.

Operationally, this is feasible. Ukrainian pilots flying Western aircraft have already demonstrated the ability to intercept missiles. The constraint is not capability, but scale and authorization. Even limited air policing along key corridors would significantly reduce the number of successful strikes on civilian infrastructure.

Nor would such a mission require blanket coverage of Ukrainian airspace. The goal would not be air superiority over Russia, but denial of access to civilian targets. Clear rules of engagement and a defined geographic scope would limit escalation risk while producing tangible effects on the ground.

There is also a broader deterrence issue. If a nuclear-armed state can systematically target civilian infrastructure without consequence, that tactic will not remain confined to Ukraine. Deterrence erodes when violations of core norms carry no operational cost.

Pavlovsky asks a question many Ukrainians now ask openly. Why is the West so afraid of Vladimir Putin?

History offers guidance. In 1948, during the Berlin Airlift, the United States and its allies did not allow Soviet intimidation to prevent them from supplying a besieged city. In 1940, during the Battle of Britain, control of the skies determined whether civilians could survive sustained attack.

Todays lesson is similar. Control of the air, not speeches and not aid alone, will determine whether Russia can continue using winter and infrastructure as weapons.

For the United States, the choice is not between war and peace. It is between stopping a known method of civilian harm or accepting it as the new normal.

We should be clear-eyed about which option carries the greater long-term risk.

Mitzi Perdue is a Fellow, Institute of World Politics and a freelance journalist, reporting from and about Ukraine.
Matthew Taplinger/CBS

By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 02/09/2026



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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.

alum Katherine Woodman has appeared to confirm her split from Rylie Jeffries, the controversial cowboy from Season 27, after six months together.Katherine, 24, recently uploaded a TikTok video in which she and her good friend, Lauren Domingue -- who also competed on alongside Katherine and Rylie -- crossed each other on a sidewalk in New York.Lip-syncing an exchange between the characters Miranda Hobbes and Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City, Lauren mouthed, "We were the only single people in there," to which Katherine replied, "Miranda, we're the only single people anywhere."Katherine captioned her post, "'Raise your hand if you care' - Wendy Williams . Anyways celebrating my bday still in NYC #WOW #shocking @Lauren Domingue."Lauren and her boyfriend Zach Cornell -- whom she also met while filming Season 27 of -- broke up in December, The Sun reported Lauren also posted a similar video about being "single" on her own TikTok account.The video showed the pair skipping along a street in New York City in the middle of winter. The post was set to the main theme song from Sex and the City.Lauren wrote over the footage, "What life sounds like when you and bestie are single in new york."Alongside the video, Lauren teased, "Expect the unexpected ig! @Katherine #fyp."A source told The Sun that Katherine and Rylie split after six months of dating.According to an insider, Katherine is the one who dumped Rylie."She did it for a few reasons. He had too much going on with his personal life and she needed to break away from that," the insider shared."Also, she wanted to live in the city and he's too much of a country boy so they didn't want to live in the same places."The source therefore claimed Katherine and Rylie's "lifestyles weren't compatible."In addition, Rylie reportedly "was always more into" Katherine than "she was him," and the source added,"It was only a matter of time before she ended things."The insider claimed Katherine "is already enjoying single life in the city," which would appear to be accurate.Rumors Katherine and Rylie broke up began swirling last week because Rylie didn't post anything on social media in honor of Katherine's 24th birthday.Katherine and Rylie first confirmed their relationship during 's live Season 27 finale in September 2025.Many fans disapproved of the pair's romance because they thought Rylie was controlling and dismissive of Katherine's feelings and opinions.Some of Rylie's conversations with Katherine were also viewed as condescending and "creepy."Rylie, for instance, was slammed for love bombing Katherine and making her uncomfortable on when he insisted, "I'm being with you outside of this, whether you like it or not."Neither Rylie nor Katherine served on the jury for 's 27th season.
Pictures by Ali Crimson

In 2026 there arent many good reasons to buy an AK, particularly not one in a combloc caliber. Import restrictions on both parts kits and ammunition have steadily driven up costs. Long gone are the days of a decent AK costing half as much as a decent AR-15. Now, an AR-15 can cost half what an AK does.

My reason for wanting a new AK was for use at the growing number of Red Oktober and Cold War action rifle matches that have divisions for Kalashnikov-based designs and prioritize their use. Some of these matches differentiate between 7.62x39mm and 5.45x39mm/5.56mm guns in their division rules, others do not.

Regardless of the match rules there are already a myriad of 5.56mm NATO rifles in my safe, and if another full-size semi auto rifle is going to be added, Id prefer it to do something different than the rest. Accordingly, I wanted something in 7.62x39mm to deliver more energy to target. Managing more recoil can be a fun part of the challenge, and it will knock down steel targets with more authority than 5.45x39mm or 5.56mm NATO.

Seeing an e-mail sales flier last fall from Palmetto State Armory that featured their relatively new Saber AK line. The GF5 model specifically was interesting. The green/tan color scheme looked cool, and it came with most of the features Id want; rail system, optic ready, side folding stock, and better than standard trigger.

The fact it was built using a Romanian parts kits with FN Cold Hammer Forged chrome lined barrel suggested the build quality would be good. Having been previously satisfied with the other rifles purchased from PSA, including the JAKL-15 and JAKL-10, I was willing to give the Saber AK a chance.

SPECS:

Barrel : FN Cold Hammer Forged Chrome Moly Vanadium Steel Barrel; Chrome Lined  Moss Green

: FN Cold Hammer Forged Chrome Moly Vanadium Steel Barrel; Chrome Lined  Moss Green Receiver : Stamped Steel Dimpled Receiver w/ Swell Neck Rivets  Moss Green

: Stamped Steel Dimpled Receiver w/ Swell Neck Rivets  Moss Green Trunnion : Forged Romanian Front Trunnion

: Forged Romanian Front Trunnion Bolt : Hammer Forged  Romanian

: Hammer Forged  Romanian Carrier : Hammer Forged Romanian  DLC Coated

: Hammer Forged Romanian  DLC Coated Scope Mount : Side Scope Mount

: Side Scope Mount Safety : Enhanced Extended Safety Lever

: Enhanced Extended Safety Lever Caliber : 7.6239 Caliber

: 7.6239 Caliber Twist Rate : 1 in 9.5 Twist

: 1 in 9.5 Twist Thread Pitch : Thread Pitch: M14x1LH

: Thread Pitch: M14x1LH Muzzle Device : Sabre Plan B

: Sabre Plan B Rear Sight : 1000 Yard Rear Sight Leaf  Romanian

: 1000 Yard Rear Sight Leaf  Romanian Handguards : Soviet Arms 11.5 Rail and Soviet Arms Railed Gas Tube  Burnt Bronze

: Soviet Arms 11.5 Rail and Soviet Arms Railed Gas Tube  Burnt Bronze Grip : B5 AK P-Grip  RAL8000

: B5 AK P-Grip  RAL8000 Stock : B5 4.5MM Folding AK Stock  RAL8000

: B5 4.5MM Folding AK Stock  RAL8000 Trigger : ALG AKT Enhanced Trigger With Lightning Bow  DLC Coated

: ALG AKT Enhanced Trigger With Lightning Bow  DLC Coated Magazine: (1) 30 round magazine  Burnt Bronze; Where allowed by law

PROS: Rifle looks sick

Good value for the combination of parts

PSA customer service was prompt and responsive CONS: Risk of uncertain QC

B5 stock is a mixed bag

Palmetto State Armory $1,099

This was purchased at full retail cost of $1099.99 through the PSA website. This wasnt a media sample; it was a production unit right off the line. The rifle looked great with the cerakote finish appearing to be fresh and evenly applied, and all the operating parts dry cycled smoothly. Unfortunately, several problems immediately manifested during the first range session.

PROBLEMS TO SOLVE

Magazine Catch Sticking

The magazine catch would stick and was very difficult to operate. To remove the magazine required pushing forward on the magazine to remove tension from the magazine catch. This was necessary with both the steel magazine included with the rifle and with my X-Tech Magazines. It appeared to wear in and get slightly better the more magazine changes performed in dry fire, but it was still unacceptably difficult.

Canted Front Sight

The front sight was canted such that to get a zero at 25 yards, the windage was maxed out. While it was ultimately able to be zeroed, the sight picture was annoying with the left side of the protective hood very close to the front sight.

Rail System Problem

The handguard portion of Soviet Arms rail system shot loose in less than 100 rounds, and the handguard could be moved upwards towards the barrel. This also made the zero wander as the way pressure was applied to the barrel shifted.

Misfeeding

The Saber AK fed fine from the steel magazine that was included with it. All the other AK magazines available were from X-Tech Tactical. Every round feeding from the right side of the X-Tech magazines would malfunction. It appeared that the right side of the magazine was too low, making the projectiles snag on the way to the chamber and get pushed back into the casing. Fair to assume this issue is also related to the magazine catch and how it was engaging with the magazines.

After contacting Palmetto to let them know about all these problems, including sending video of the problems occurring, they promptly provided a return shipping label and requested that I send several of my X-Tech magazines with the rifle. I let them know that I would need the rifle back within three weeks to be able to use it at the match I had purchased it for. PSA said that wouldnt be a problem, so the AK was shipped back to Palmetto using the provided label.

PSA reached out on the Monday before the match. They sent me a video showing the rifle functioning properly with all the included X-Tech magazines. Thankfully, I received the rifle back with enough time to go zero and test fire it prior to the match. While PSA knew I was part of the gun press, they assured me they would treat a regular customer with the same level of customer service.

After receiving the rifle back, my zeroing/test fire session went much better. All of my X-tech magazines now fed reliably. The magazine catch was now easy and natural to operate. And I was able to successfully zero the irons without excessive windage. 250 later, and the rail system was still secure.

For a red dot, a Lead and Steel Pandora PB-3 Gen 2 was installed on the gas tube rail using a Reptilia low ACRO mount. With this mount, the iron sights are visible in the bottom 1/4 of the lens for immediate use should the dot die. Zeroing using Norma Tactical 124 grain brass cased ammunition at 50 yards consistently gets 1 groups with this ammunition.

This is pretty good for an AK; no doubt helped by the FN barrel. Cheaper Russian mystery ammo found lying around grouped 4 at 50 yards. This difference doesnt surprise me; Ill save the cheaper stuff for shredding paper up close or for decommissioned appliances.

INDEPENDENCE TRAININGS WINTER SOLDIER MATCH

As part of this evaluation, I took the Saber AK to Independence Trainings Winter Soldier Match in November of 2025. If something is going to go wrong, using it on the clock is the best way to test Murphys Law. This event was held at the Camp Savage range. This facility offers semi-natural terrain in volcanic rock and some very high-angle shots with a mountain as a backstop.

Shots ranged from 5 yards to 250 yards. Independence Training added a lot of flavor to the stage designs of this match, including launching a mortar, using a compass to ID target directions, a moving target system, crawling through confined spaces, flash bangs, and drone-shaped targets.

I am pleased to report I experienced no further issues during the match. As a left-handed shooter, I often feel that Aks are set up easier for me to use naturally than right-handers. With its issues fully resolved, the Saber AK was no exception.

The Soviet Arms railed gas tube mounted Pandora red dot with a 50-yard zero made all the targets simply point and shoot. Thinking about holdovers wasnt required at near or far targets presented at the match. The rail system, being longer than a traditional AK handguard, allowed me to have a more natural hold from a variety of shooting positions.

One improvement added were X-Tech Rail covers to the open slots; these allow for more venting of heat than traditional rail covers, while still giving stand off from touching bare metal. The B5 pistol grip feels great; I prefer the more vertical feel of these grips over traditional AK grips. The ALG AKT Trigger is light enough and crisp that thinking through the trigger pull wasnt needed, as it would be with a mil-spec AK trigger for more difficult shots.

The B5 side-folding stock is a mixed bag for me. Being able to adjust the length of pull was great, as was the height of the stock, which is perfect for both the irons and the red dot to be acquired naturally, without jamming my face down. A magnet in the stock holds it to the receiver in the folded position, making it both secure and quick to deploy without having to overcome a mechanical latch or press any buttons.

Two negatives: the split in the stock for the telescoping part can grab your facial hair, and youll know this happens when it gets yanked out. This can be resolved with a piece of tape over the split once you have it set to the length you want to use. The QD socket of my Magpul sling pulled out of the QD cup, and it was finicky to get fully latched in. Ultimately, the answer was to remove the rear QD and run the sling through the slot on the stock to secure it.

LOOSE ROUNDS

While the GF5 Saber AK had a rough start for me, in the end, Id purchase it again. PSA resolved all the issues to my satisfaction in a timely manner. The combination of built-in features made it a good value for me not to have to acquire a bunch of parts separately and assemble the same thing myself. The totality of features and paint job gives it a unique appearance.

Palmetto State Armory $1,099

It got a lot of attention at the Winter Soldier match; I havent had so many people see a rifle Im using and ask me about it at one event ever in 25 years of shooting. And ultimately, this rifle just looks cool, and thats really the important thing when selecting a meme match gun.
Photo taken on Feb. 9, 2026 shows MaltaPost's Year of the Horse commemorative postage stamps in Valletta, Malta. MaltaPost on Monday unveiled its Year of the Horse commemorative postage stamps in Valletta, marking the third consecutive year the country has issued stamps celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year. (Photo by Jonathan Borg/Xinhua)

VALLETTA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- MaltaPost on Monday unveiled its Year of the Horse commemorative postage stamps in Valletta, marking the third consecutive year the country has issued stamps celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year.

The newly released stamp set features a design that blends traditional Chinese painting with modern visual concepts, conveying wishes for auspicious success, innovation and shared prosperity in the Year of the Horse.

Speaking at the launch ceremony, Chinese Ambassador to Malta Zhang Zuo highlighted the close people-to-people exchanges and enduring friendship between the two countries. He noted that the horse symbolizes the spirit of forging ahead and carries blessings for collective advancement.

Malta's Ambassador to China John Busuttil delivered an online address, describing the stamp project as a vivid expression of bilateral friendship that helps the Maltese public gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of China's rich cultural heritage.

The Year of the Horse philatelic series includes two stamps, souvenir sheets, first-day covers and related products. 

Photo taken on Feb. 9, 2026 shows MaltaPost's Year of the Horse commemorative postage stamps in Valletta, Malta. MaltaPost on Monday unveiled its Year of the Horse commemorative postage stamps in Valletta, marking the third consecutive year the country has issued stamps celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year. (Photo by Jonathan Borg/Xinhua)

Photo taken on Feb. 9, 2026 shows MaltaPost's Year of the Horse commemorative postage stamps in Valletta, Malta. MaltaPost on Monday unveiled its Year of the Horse commemorative postage stamps in Valletta, marking the third consecutive year the country has issued stamps celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year. (Photo by Jonathan Borg/Xinhua)
'There is a challenge in repositioning yourself, maybe reinventing yourself.'

Kindly note this illustration was generated using ChatGPT and is only posted for representational purposes.

Key Points Technology is creating multiple channels for money flows beyond traditional banking.

Indian savers are increasingly questioning whether banks are the only financial intermediaries

The momentum has picked up over the past 45 years, aided by the expansion of pension systems, insurance and mutual funds.

Amid the rapid convergence of banking, capital markets, and fintech in India's evolving financial ecosystem, K V Kamath, chairman and independent director, Jio Financial Services, shares his perspective with Tamal Bandyopadhyay at the Business Standard BFSI Insight Summit 2025 on how technology is reshaping money flows, impact on traditional fee income, and reducing companies' dependence on banks.

There is a confluence of different financial entities -- banks, NBFCs, mutual funds, and more -- creating new channels for money flow. Could you explain what's happening?

Yes, what you observe is clearly happening. Technology has made financial systems more seamless, allowing savings to move into various forms of investments, savings, and consumption channels, and so on.

The layperson in India is now asking if banks are the only structure for such activities.

People are deploying their savings into investment products that provide the highest returns on a risk-adjusted, tax-adjusted basis.

This shift has only gained momentum in the past four, or five years, with structural enablers like pension systems, insurance, and the mutual fund industry, playing key roles.

The capital market now operates in parallel with the banking system, offering consumers more choice.

'The concern is not only UPI'

In the Indian banking context, there are three things: The liabilities, assets, and fee income. For most of the banks, fee income has been declining. How are banks responding to this?

The concern is not only UPI. There are things which are cutting into their fees even before UPI. It's not only accelerated the whole process.

Take, for example, you were enjoying a free float and every time a cheque went for clearance, that vanished.

Then you were enjoying a free float on overnight money, and the lay customer who put the savings part of it and the government money.

So now, everybody can move this, which earns you returns. The CA (current account) was interest-free.

You can put it in an overnight fund where you will earn interest.

So basically, the person who is dealing with the institution now has more options to deal with the institution, in a manner that is in his interest, and is profitable.

The banks then need to figure out if this is a change required for the operating model.

'Banks are increasingly looking toward retail customer'

How should banks change their core models to adapt to these changes?

As far as large companies are concerned, they use working capital borrowings more opportunistically.

As their balance sheets have become cleaner, they are able to use cash inflows for funding part of their working capital.

So, corporate India's core need for banks to provide working capital is getting leaner and leaner.

Now, banks are increasingly looking towards the retail customer.

They have more money, and are looking for products. I wouldn't say that there is any serious challenge for banks.

But there is a challenge in repositioning yourself, maybe reinventing yourself.

With the growth projections for India and a low credit-to-GDP ratio, do you think the Indian banking system will evolve to be on a par with developed countries?

As you go towards Viksit Bharat, I am clearly of the opinion that we will actually achieve our objectives and grow at a high rate of GDP growth every year for the next 20 to 23 years.

In other large economies, as a country starts growing, momentum of growth increases. The first industry to bulk up and grow in size is the banking industry.

You can look at Japan 1970 to 1990, China 2000 to 2015. In India, I would think it is not only the banks, it's the entire financial system which will grow the fastest.

'You can reinvent yourself with tech'

With corporates no longer relying heavily on banks for working capital and infrastructure loans, where does the core competence of banks lie?

You have painted a picture which the banks will face if they don't reinvent themselves. On the retail side, it is not that the customer doesn't want money from you.

The question is, how are you competing with the NBFCs? Because you have all the competitiveness as the bank.

The NBFC sector cannot match your cost of funds. If you have the money with you, you need to figure out how it will put it to productive use.

With technology as available today, you can reinvent yourself pretty quickly.

Why aren't we seeing digital banks like UK's Revolute, Brazil's New Bank, or China's My Bank in India?

The three banks are new banks; they are not established banks. They have all gone head-to-head against established banks.

My Bank has 400 million customers and employs 4,000 people, and that is the scale of disruption that you can do with technology.

There is nothing that prevents incumbent banks in India from reinventing themselves to become like these banks.

We need to reposition ourselves to take the opportunity. In India, there is a natural barrier to competition. For an Indian bank, the cards are still with them.

Do you think the Indian banking system is investing enough in technology?

Indian banks probably are investing too much. But they are not investing in the right technology. What you are investing in is the same old thing. You need to invest for today.

'In the digital world we have to be vigilant all the time'

Do you think credit scoring in India will evolve using more data?

There is a confluence happening somewhere. There could be certain regulatory constraints, there could be data privacy constraints.

One will have to operate within all these constraints. But, clearly, other metrics are being thought of.

I can't see them not being used in the next three to four years, so that your ability to lend to a customer at the appropriate price becomes clearer and easier.

Your predictability on the customer's ability to repay is based on the secondary and tertiary data.

Primary data is your financial data. Secondary data and tertiary data are other data points used.

Other countries use it. Within our data privacy constraints, we will have to see whether we can, or how to use it.

There's a concern that technology, including AI, benefits scamsters more than customers. Is this valid?

Scamsters take advantage of an imperfection. We have seen this going back, when we started our credit card business.

It takes a scamster only six months to overcome it. In the digital world today, we will have to be vigilant all the time.

Disclaimer: This article is meant for information purposes only. This article and information do not constitute a distribution, an endorsement, an investment advice, an offer to buy or sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy or sell any securities/schemes or any other financial products/investment products mentioned in this article to influence the opinion or behaviour of the investors/recipients.

Any use of the information/any investment and investment related decisions of the investors/recipients are at their sole discretion and risk. Any advice herein is made on a general basis and does not take into account the specific investment objectives of the specific person or group of persons. Opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff
'For the first time in a hundred years, the army has been taken out of the political equation. And for the first time ever, there is only one man who calls the shots. Not even Mao had this kind of power.'

IMAGE: Chinese President Xi Jinping reviews troops during a military parade to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War 2 in Beijing, September 3, 2025. Photograph: Tingshu Wang/Reuters

Key Points 'Xi Jinping has more control over the army than any other leader of Communist China before him, and we don't know what he will do with all this power.'

'All of Xi Jinping's rivals have been sidelined. It would be very hard for them to mount a real challenge to his rule now.'

'The April meeting between Xi and Trump. What will come out of it?'

On January 24, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Chinese Communist party, stunned the People's Republic of China by purging General Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission.

Zhang -- a long-time associate of Xi -- was accused of undermining the leadership structure of the Communist party among other crimes; The Wall Street Journal newspaper even claimed that Zhang had passed Chinese nuclear secrets to the Americans. There were also rumours that Zhang had led an unsuccessful coup against Xi.



What really happened? Why did Xi turn on Zhang, who he has known almost all his life since their fathers Xi Zhongxun and General Zhang Zongxun served in the Chinese Communist party under Mao Zedong? Where does Xi's purges of senior officers leave the People's Liberation Army?



We asked Francesco Sisci, the well respected Italian Sinologist who has tracked events and personalities in the Chinese Communist party for over 30 years, for his assessment of the Zhang Purge and its aftermath.



"What will happen with Xi's power we don't know because these times are extremely volatile. There is mounting tensions around China. Both Japan and Thailand -- two very important neighbouring countries for China -- have elected new governments who are conservative and ready to stand up to China."

"We have a summit with US President Donald Trump in April and we don't know what will come out of it. We don't know if Russia can continue fighting for one more year (in Ukraine) or for how long. The situation is sensitive. Xi Jinping is a man who follows events closely and may change his mind on (invading) Taiwan," Dr Sisci, the first foreigner admitted to the graduate school of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, tells Nikhil Lakshman/Rediff.

What could have provoked Xi Jinping's purge of General Zhang Youxia?

Could General Zhang have been rallying PLA forces, ala Lin Biao (Mao Zedong's heir apparent who tried unsuccessfully to mount a coup against Mao in 1971) as you predicted last October, to stall Xi Jinping's plan to emasculate the PLA?

Could hints at a coup attempt last December be actually rooted in truth?

I don't have any first-hand information, but just following the news reports, I think something like the following has happened over the past three years.

It all started with the Chinese surveillance balloon floating over a military base in the United States.

The Chinese first underestimated the event while the Americans freaked out because they have been historically hit by two surprise attacks, one with Pearl Harbor (in December 1941) and the other with 9/11 (in 2001).

So, the first reaction was: What is happening? Are the Chinese doing something crazy?

There were rumours that the American military tried to call the Chinese. The Chinese military didn't respond, didn't know what happened and underestimated the whole thing.

Eventually the (then United States) secretary of state (Antony Blinken) canceled a scheduled visit to China.

President Xi Jinping then realised it was something much more serious and started an investigation into what was this balloon programme which falls under the purview of the (People's Liberation Army's) Rocket Department.

He investigated the Rocket Department and found out that much of the weapons were not kept up to standards. Much money was siphoned out and there was widespread corruption that undermined the capabilities of the military.

And then he started a purge.

But in late 2023, early 2024, he must have realised that maybe this kind of corruption was not limited to the Rocket Department but it was a widespread habit all over the military so he investigated other military departments.

The Chinese military is or was notorious for its widespread corruption so they must have fretted about it. And maybe some people started thinking it's time to set up a coup, a mutiny, and we get rid of Xi Jinping.

IMAGE: Then Chinese Central Military Commission vice chairman Zhang Youxia attends a ceremony to mark Martyrs' Day on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, September 30, 2025. Photograph: Florence Lo/Reuters

In 2024, the rest of the army felt in danger and started hatching a plan against Xi Jinping. It's not easy to move the army and to topple the top leader, but Xi Jinping and other leaders wanted the army to take action against Taiwan.

Maybe somebody thought this could be a good excuse to pursue other goals, so they would prepare for an invasion. They would actually start an invasion.

The invasion could fail, and since the army was mobilised, the political leaders were delegitimised, they would move against Xi Jinping, get rid of him, and carry on with their corrupt businesses.

But to mobilise the army, to move troops on Zhongnanhai (where the Chinese Communist leaders live in Beijing) and Beijing, is not easy.

In 2025 Xi Jinping got wind of it, started looking into it and therefore he went on to purge the rest of the military.

In October, General Zhang Youxia (then the vice chairman of the Central Military Commission) was still in charge of the military, I surmised that he would be moved aside, arrested also, because according to Chinese logic you cannot have the whole military guilty of corruption but its top leader innocent. So I guessed Zhang would be taken out too.

Now the reality is that Xi Jinping has more control over the army than any other leader of Communist China before him, and we don't know what he will do with all this power.



Definitely, this is a big political change because for a hundred years the army was the backbone, the king maker of the (Communist) party and not the other way around.

And now the army is firmly under control of the party, under the control of the top leader, Xi Jinping.

At the end of the day Xi Jinping has control over the military -- undisputed and unprecedented since the founding of the party. It's not clear what he will do with it and where he will lead the army and the party, but definitely this puts him in a very good position to organise the 2027 party congress.

IMAGE: Xi Jinping inspects a PLA guard of honour in Beijing. Photograph: Reuters/Rediff Archives

As an observer of Chinese Communist politics for over 30 years, do you believe the Zhang Purge represents a tectonic movement in the Xi Jinping era?

Do you believe Xi's purge of PLA personnel over the years was rooted in a genuine desire to cleanse the PLA of corruption? Or was to remove any challengers to his rule?

As a personality, do you believe Xi Jinping is closer to Mao? Suspicious, paranoid, always on the lookout for enemies, real and imagined?

The party is secretive. It's not an open democracy. Therefore, everything is hidden, everything is a conspiracy and a plot. Therefore, Chinese leaders, by nature of the party organisation, the organisation where they work, are paranoid.

Is Xi Jinping more paranoid than Mao or was Mao more paranoid than Xi Jinping? I would say the paranoia is different because the party and the era are different.

Everybody who gets to the top in this system, he can survive only through calibrated paranoia. Now, the key thing here is calibrated, and it's hard to calibrate paranoia once you have it. But if you don't do it, then paranoia eats you up.

So far, according to the results, Xi Jinping was right. Let's see what happens next.

In that sense, would you say the Xi era is a complete reversal from the rather placid Jiang Zemin-Hu Jintao eras?

Is this paranoid approach provoked by the early challenge posed by Bo Xilai and Zhong Yongkang to Xi Jinping's leadership?

Has the Zhang purge cleared the way for Xi to have his way at next year's party Congress? Or could we still expect surprises between now and 2027?



I would say that now Xi Jinping has a lot of power. However we don't know what he will do with this power and what he will choose for 2027. Definitely, no other people have much bargaining leverage with him and he could be free to do as he pleases.

But having said that, I think we could be up for big surprises in 2027 which is two years away. These are extremely volatile times.

Is Xi Jinping insulated from any further challenges to his authority? Who are his rivals in the Communist party that we know of?

I think he has now eliminated all his rivals. But that doesn't mean that everybody will follow him blindly. To rule, Xi Jinping needs true loyalty. That is, people who will tell him and talk to him when he's wrong, but also be next to him in times of difficulties.

We don't know who are the people next to him. But if we could give him advice, I would say trust the people who talk to you in a straightforward manner, not the people who always say yes.

Still, I guess it's difficult to be straightforward in China with Xi Jinping.

IMAGE: Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi led her Liberal Democratic Party to the biggest election victory recorded in post war Japan on Sunday. Photograph: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

Would his rivals in the Communist party settle for a dilution of his authority, a pledge to appoint a successor than stay in power for the duration of his life rather than his ouster from power?

My guess is that now all of Xi Jinping's rivals have been sidelined. It would be very hard for them to mount a real challenge to his rule now.

What will happen with his power we don't know because these times are extremely volatile. There is mounting tensions around China.

Both Japan and Thailand -- two very important neighbouring countries for China -- have elected new governments who are conservative and ready to stand up to China.

We have a summit with US President Donald Trump in April and we don't know what will come out of it. We don't know if Russia can continue fighting for one more year (in Ukraine) or for how long. But definitely, Russia in its useless fight in Ukraine is draining China's resources and political credibility in Europe, another important market for China.

The situation is sensitive. Xi Jinping is a man who follows events closely and may change his mind on Taiwan. I would say that with the election of (Japanese) Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, in the wake of her statement about Taiwan, the short-term fate of Taiwan is quite strong.

The new conservative governments in Japan and Thailand could also start pushing other governments in Asia to stand up to China and that could complicate the international environment around China.

IMAGE: US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping leave after a bilateral meeting at the Gimhae international airport, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, in Busan, South Korea, October 30, 2025. Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

Where do you see Chinese Communist politics headed in the next 24 months? Could Xi risk an invasion of Taiwan and a confrontation with an unpredictable Donald Trump if it means enhancing his popularity and consolidating his position in Beijing?

A few months ago, we wouldn't imagine that Japan would elect a conservative leader pushing the country in a more confrontational stand to China, and neither would Thailand. And yet, it happened. That means that things are very unpredictable.



First of all, we must wait for two events:



1. The April meeting between Xi and Trump. What will come out of it?

At first, I thought this meeting would just be a lukewarm handshake, but possibly there would be more because Trump could come up with quite a strong hand with an agreement with allies on rare earths production.

With victories in Venezuela and possibly with something happening in Iran too that could change the outcome of the summit.



2. The midterm elections (in the US in November). Although Donald Trump's foreign policies should not be challenged, it is possible that his main thrust could be weakened because of internal tensions.



3. I would say we have to see what follows the new agreement on rare earths. Something more substantial could occur, although we are not sure yet if the United States will reverse its course on dealing with allies.

It first confronted them and antagonised them; maybe now we will start to find a new balance, a new agreement about policies to deal with China.



If that were to happen, China will have to deal with that and will have to prepare new strategies and tactics to confront a new environment.

IMAGE: Taiwan military snipers move during an annual military exercise in Taichung, Taiwan, January 27, 2026. Photograph: Ann Wang/Reuters

Would Xi Jinping like his legacy to be the man who brought back Taiwan into the PRC's orbit, something even Mao or Deng Xiaoping could not achieve?

I think the lesson about Taiwan is that a military invasion is extremely risky and it could be a lose-lose proposition. If the general (who leads the invasion) wins, he could gain popularity, and challenge Xi Jinping's political leadership. If he loses the invasion, Xi Jinping would be held responsible and could be toppled. Therefore, it is far too risky.

On the other hand, maybe China is trying new tactics to win back Taiwan. Beijing has a lot of assets on the island. People who are nationalists and support the idea of a great China championed by the PRC and rich people eager to do business with Beijing.

In fact, in Hong Kong, you see that common people are growing hopeless because they are marginalised and don't have a great hope to improve their fate. But rich people who supported Beijing have become richer and are still in full control over the territory.

The same could be true with Taiwan and that could push rich people and nationalists to campaign for the PRC.

A pro-unification party could win (the next) election and therefore vote for eventual reunification. This seems a safer path to reunification.

If it succeeds, it is a great success. If it fails, there are no drawbacks. It is possible that Beijing would pursue these tactics, and this could actually put Japan or the United States in a difficult position.

Any invasion is easy to identify and counter. A change in the electoral vote is a different matter.

Photograph: Tingshu Wang/Reuters IMAGE: Hu Jintao, Xi Jinping's predecessor as general secretary of the Chinese Communist party and China's president, was humiliated as he was evicted from the final session of the 20th party congress in Beijing, October 22, 2022.

In your assessment, is there anyone who could succeed Xi Jinping if he were to die tomorrow? Or will Communist politics return to a more collegial leadership set up (ala Hu Jintao) than the personalised reign Xi established in his 14 years in power?

At the moment we are in uncharted waters. For the first time in a hundred years, the army has been taken out of the political equation. And for the first time ever, there is only one man who calls the shots. Not even Mao had this kind of power.

Therefore, we really don't know what he will do with this power. And if he has plans for succession and what will it be?

But as we have seen in these past 40 years, I would say we have to be prepared for something that comes out of the box, for some thinking that could be completely new. Or he would just bide his time and wait for a more stable international environment to move his pieces.

Photographs curated by Satish Bodas/Rediff
'Whether we like it or not, we have been separated by the Meiteis and therefore we have put up our demand for a separate administration in the form of a Union territory with legislature.'

'For us lasting peace is the achievement of our demand.'

IMAGE: Security force deployed during a protest by the Kuki Women's Human Rights Organisation against the participation of Kuki-Zo MLAs in the new government in Churachandpur, Manipur, February 6, 2026. Photograph: ANI Photo

Manipur remains politically and socially volatile as the state attempts to move forward after months of President's rule and prolonged ethnic violence.

Key Points The Kuki-Zo Council has renewed its demand for a separate Union territory with legislature.

Kuki-Zos cannot return to the Imphal Valley despite a drop in violence.

Attacks on Kuki MLAs and unresolved land issues could further destabilise Manipur.

Yumnam Khemchand Singh' appointment as chief minister has taken place amid continuing distrust between the Meitei and tribal communities, even as efforts are being made to restore an elected government.

The situation has been further complicated by recent incidents in which Kuki-Zo MLAs were attacked by mobs following their association with the Meitei-led government.

These attacks have raised serious questions about political safety, legitimacy of governance, and the feasibility of reconciliation in the present climate.

Since violence erupted on May 2023, Manipur has witnessed large-scale loss of life, destruction of property, and mass displacement on both the ethnic groups' side, Meitei and Kuki-Zo.

Despite a relative decline in violence under President's Rule, movement between the Meitei-dominated Imphal Valley and the tribal areas remains restricted, and normalcy has yet to return.

In this interview with Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff, Ginza Vualzong, spokesperson of the Kuki-Zo Council (KZC) and the Indigenous Tribal Leaders' Forum (ITLF), outlines why Kuki-Zo organisations oppose the formation of a new Manipur government.

IMAGE: Manipur Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh visits RIMS, Imphal, to check on those injured in the violence at Litan amid tensions between Tangkhul and Kuki communities, in Ukhrul, February 9, 2026. Photograph: ANI Photo

Why are you opposing the new government in Manipur?

IMAGE: Ginza Vualzong.



As you know, since May 3, 2023, the Meiteis and the Kuki-Zo have a conflict resulting in the loss of more than 200 lives, over 7,000 houses were burnt or destroyed, more than 350 places of worships are destroyed or desecrated and over 40,000 are displaced.

So under such circumstances, we have no faith in the government of Manipur and therefore, we do not want to participate in the formation of a government with the people that killed and drove us out

But for how long can this impasse continue?

Yes, everyone wants peace. But we have reached a point where we cannot return to the Imphal Valley anymore. We have been chased out of the Meitei-dominated areas, and whatever properties that we left behind were burnt or destroyed. So things will not be the same anymore for us.

Whether we like it or not, we have been separated by the Meiteis and therefore we have put up our demand for a separate administration in the form of Union territory with legislature. For us lasting peace is the achievement of our demand.

Is the situation so bad right now that you cannot go to Imphal? Have tempers not cooled down? When was the last act of violence reported against you in Imphal or other Meitei-dominated areas?

Yes, to this day we cannot go to Imphal and vice versa. Violence had come down drastically with President's rule. The last incident was the murdered of one Meitei person who visited his wife in a Kuki-Zo area (January 21, 2026).

What can the state or for that matter central government do to restore confidence and win hearts?

Nothing much. SoO (Suspension of Operations, a tripartite ceasefire agreement signed in 2008 between the Government of India, the Manipur government, and Kuki-Zo groups to halt violent activities and initiate peace talks) was extended to pave way for our political dialogue. Another would be the maintaining of the buffer zone, to prevent any community from crossing over.

But how can partition within a state be a permanent solution? Is that practical considering the fact Meitei leaders won't agree to it?

At least it brings down the violence. There will be less killings and arson.

Whether the Meiteis like it or not, separation has been created. They need to accept the fact that it was their doing. The violence could have been stopped in the initial days. The Meitei government (led by Biren Singh of the Bharatiya Janata Party) didn't do anything but was seen participating in it.

Don't you feel if the central government agrees to your demand, then other regions like Gorkhaland in West Bengal or Ladakh too will have the same demand?

We are not demanding something which is outside the purview of the Indian Constitution. We are demanding a Union territory with legislature which is allowed in Article 3 of the Constitution. (Article 3 of the Constitution allows formation of new states and alteration of areas, boundaries or names of existing states through legislation in Parliament).

This not a demand, but the question of our survival. The Kuki-Zo want to live without fear, govern ourselves and not be subjugated for our development and progress. We want to enjoy our rights and freedom just like any other citizen of India.

IMAGE: Security personnel deployed after a violent clash between the Tangkhul and Kuki tribes at Litan village, Ukhrul, Manipur, February 9, 2026. Photograph: ANI Video Grab

Our case is different from other areas like Gorkhaland or Ladakh. The USA has 50 states, India has 28 states and 8 UTs, I think there can be room for more if India wants peace, fairness and equality in the region.

Why are you blaming the Meitei community alone for the violence?

The Manipur high court judgment in 2023 stating that the Meitei community be included in scheduled tribe list was how the problem started. The Meitei do not care about the sentiments of others, they think they are superior and the tribals must submit to their diktats like in the past.

But the marginalisation and the resentment of the tribals cannot be contained anymore, therefore the outbreak of the conflict. And there is a reason behind why Meitei want to be ST.

What is the reason?

According to Article 371C of the Constitution and the MLR and LR act (Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act 1960) non ST can't buy or own tribal land. Only ST can purchase tribal land. So if Meitei become ST, they can buy tribal land.

When some Kuki MLAs joined the government, there was hope. Will you say these BJP MLAs who took oath as ministers have no understanding of what is happening on the ground?

Those Kuki-Zo MLAs that joined the Meitei-led government went against the collective will of the people. Every tribe belonging to the Kuki-Zo submitted their collective decision not to join the Manipur government.

In our meeting it was decided not to join the Manipur government unless a written commitment from the state or Centre was given (for a separate Union territory or state). As there was no assurance the decision to not join the Manipur government stands.

Even as I am taking to you violence has broken out in Ukhrul in Manipur. Several houses have been set ablaze.

When will this madness stop, according to you? And most importantly, what is the one announcement you expect from the central government that will lead to peace?

Everyone in Manipur is frustrated. The Meiteis are frustrated and so are the tribals, be it Naga or Kuki-Zo. These frustrations all stem from a land issue.

If the Indian government can settle the land issue and the rights of every groups protected, it will lead to peace.

Do you feel Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh is capable of handling the crisis?

It is too early to comment as he recently took office. It will be a giant task for him to stitch together an already torn Manipur.

An eye for an eye will make the world go blind, Mahatma Gandhi had said. If you are going to attack your own MLAs for joining the government, don't you feel we may be looking at an incendiary situation in Manipur?

They broke the agreement which they were party to. We had warned them of the consequences of their actions. In spite of this if they go ahead, keeping their individual careers in mind instead of considering the people's will and sentiments, then it is their own choice.

With or without them the rest of us will continue what we strive for. The movement will go on.
The Natural History Museum, London, has officially unveiled the 24-image shortlist for the 2026 Nuveen People's Choice Award.

This prestigious contest, a key part of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition and supported by lead sponsor Nuveen, invites the public to decide which image will be crowned the winner.

This year's selection was curated from over 60,000 entries across 113 countries, featuring everything from a rare 'dark knight' tiger in India to the final, poignant portrait of a polar bear cub.

You can explore the full gallery and vote for your favourite image online at the official link: Vote for the 2026 People's Choice Award (External Link)

Uniqueness

Daniela Anger (Germany)

A leucistic otter feeds on a catfish in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil.

On holiday in the southern Pantanal, Daniela was keen to see the neotropical river otters that live in the Aquidauana River.

After many boat trips, she spotted this otter feeding on a catfish.

It has leucism, a lack of melanin, resulting in pale or white fur. Animals with this condition can be more vulnerable as they don't have their normal camouflage.

The unique otter often returned to this branch to feed. It seemed very comfortable being observed.

Hold Me Tightly

Dvir Barkay (USA)

A brown-throated three-toed sloth mother cradles her young in her arms to shelter it from the rain.

Dvir observed this mother and her baby at the La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica.

They spent most of their time high up in the canopy.

Brown-throated three-toed sloths aren't the world's fastest animals -- in a week, they moved between just three trees.

Downpours are common in the area. One afternoon, as the rain fell, the female nestled her young in her arms, sheltering it so it didn't get too wet.

This image shows the baby with its arms wrapped around its feet, asleep in its mother's embrace.

Ready to Pounce

Joseph Ferraro (USA)

An ambush bug nymph remains motionless in a flower, waiting for prey to wander within reach.

Joseph spotted this nymph close to his front door in Ferndale, Michigan, USA.

Ambush bugs are predatory. They stay still, waiting to surprise prey that wanders too close.

They use their powerful raptorial forelegs to grab the victim, then use their mouthparts to inject an immobilising venom.

This venom also pre-digests the insides of the prey before the bugs slurp up their meal.

Along for the Ride

Chris Gug (USA)

Against the darkness of the night-time sea, a juvenile swimming crab hitches a ride on a jellyfish.

Chris spotted this scene while scuba diving at night in Lembeh Strait, North Sulawesi, Indonesia.

The relationship between the crab and the jellyfish is not clearly understood.

The crab could be catching a ride to save energy.

It could be using the stinging tentacles as protection from predators.

Or it could be using the jellyfish as a platform to spy out small fish to eat.

For Chris, the scene offered more questions than answers.

Does the crab eat the jellyfish? Does it steal particles of food? Do the crab's sharp feet damage the jellyfish's delicate bell?

Flying Rodent

Josef Stefan (Austria)

A young lynx playfully throws a rodent into the air before killing and devouring it.

Josef has wanted to photograph lynxes for a long time.

He was delighted when the opportunity arose to spend two weeks observing them from a hide at Torre de Juan Abad, Ciudad Real, Spain.

It's common for young lynxes to play with their prey before killing it.

This one repeatedly threw the rodent high in the air and caught it again. To Josef, it looked as if the rodent could fly.

The whole game lasted about 20 minutes before the lynx got bored. It then took the rodent behind a bush and ate it.

A Fragile Future

Lance van de Vyver (South Africa)

A pangolin pup nestles into the warmth of a blanket at a rescue centre in South Africa.

Pangolins are among the world's most trafficked animals.

This baby's mother was a victim of poaching and endured appalling conditions.

But she was rescued and, against the odds, her baby was born.

Shortly after, the mother died.

This image shows both the resilience of life and the ongoing problem of the illegal wildlife trade.

Dark Knight

Prasenjeet Yadav (India)

A rare tiger with wide, dark stripes wanders a tiger reserve in India.

Deep in the Similipal Tiger Reserve in Odisha, India, a tiger named T12 roams.

It has pseudo-melanism, a rare genetic condition where the dark stripes are wider. At times they make the animal seem completely black.

A decade ago, there were fewer than seven tigers left in the reserve and T12 was the only known male. Against all odds, he's fathered new generations.

Prasenjeet spent months tracking his trails and setting hidden camera traps.

This image is a rare, intimate glimpse of Similipal's dark knight, a powerful symbol of survival and hope.

Into the Furnace

Mogens Trolle (Denmark)

A sun bear shelters from the rain in a furnace as a butterfly settles on its snout.

Mogens took this image in the Kaeng Krachan National Park in Thailand.

In recent years, sun bears have started visiting the campsites in the park, looking for an easy meal.

A sign on the furnace says 'Evolution'. Mogens says this is indeed a type of evolution -- a wild animal's opportunistic response to humans disturbing its natural habitat.

No attacks have been recorded so far, but Mogens worries that this is a conflict waiting to happen.

The Final Portrait

Nima Sarikhani (UK)

A polar bear cub looks into the camera as it accompanies its mother on an unsuccessful hunting trip.

There's a sad story behind this picture, taken on the coast of Svalbard archipelago.

Soon after it was taken, the polar bear and its family went too close to an area of huts, and people forced them away.

Not long after, the mother bear was found dead in the water near the shore. According to reports, she had died from serious internal injuries.

Her cub was by her side. Police shot it dead because it seemed to be aggressive.

This is likely the last image of the cub.

Family Rest

Christopher Paetkau (Canada)

A mother polar bear and her three cubs pause peacefully in the summer heat.

This type of scene is getting rarer.

The sun is high, the land wide and open. The polar bears rest after their long journey north along the Hudson Bay coast in Canada.

Shrinking sea ice is making it harder for polar bears to hunt and find food to survive in summer.

This is a story of endurance and a fleeting moment of hope in a world where survival is anything but certain.

Dancing in the Headlights

Will Nicholls (UK)

A silhouetted pair of young bear cubs rear up and play-fight in the middle of a quiet road.

Bears are a fairly frequent sight in the Jasper National Park, Canada.

But cubs are rarer, as mothers tend to keep them away from any threats.

It's an enchanting moment, but also a risky one for the playful young cubs silhouetted against the glow of car headlights.

Framed by the darkness of the surrounding forest, the scene took on an almost theatrical feel for Will.

When the lights aligned, he knew it was the image he was after.

Portrait of Extinction

Adam Oswell (Australia)

A mountainous pile of confiscated snares lies behind Uganda Wildlife Authority rangers.

This huge pile consists of snares that had been confiscated over a one-year period in the Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda.

Adam joined several rangers and community volunteers to build it. They wanted to show the scale and urgency of the snare crisis in Africa. It took a week to build.

Snares are an affordable and effective method of catching wildlife.

Some communities use them because they're in need of income and food security, but they're also used by sophisticated poaching syndicates.

Above and Below

Charles Davis (Australia)

A brushtail possum joey mirrors its mother climbing a branch while out foraging.

Over a month, Charles set up a camera trap on this branch in Miena, Tasmania.

He was hoping to photograph quolls. In the end, the cheeky brushtail possums were the stars.

This mother and large joey visited often.

Most nights they were just moving through, foraging for fresh leaf buds, insects or anything else they could eat.

This time the joey got a little mischievous, mirroring its mother on top of the branch.

Beauty Against the Beast

Alexandre Brisson (Switzerland)

A group of flamingos stands out against a stark industrial backdrop of power lines.

After a 10-hour drive, Alexandre arrived at this bird sanctuary in Walvis Bay, Namibia, just as the sun was setting.

The smell from a nearby open-air dump was overwhelming, a sharp contrast to the beauty of the lesser flamingos.

He waited for the right moment, hoping to capture them flying between the power lines.

When two of them finally took off, their graceful flight stood out against the backdrop.

The image shows how even spaces meant to protect wildlife carry the signs of human expansion.

Swirling Superpod

Cecile Gabillon (France)

A spectacular superpod of spinner dolphins herds lanternfish towards the surface of the ocean.

Cecile was free-diving in the Pacific Ocean, near Costa Rica, when she came across the dolphins. They were herding lanternfish and guiding them towards the surface.

Cecile was swimming so hard to keep up with them that it was almost impossible to take pictures. And her fisheye lens wasn't wide enough to take in the full scene.

She says that being surrounded by these dolphins was one of the most amazing encounters of her life. As they welcomed her into their realm, she nearly forgot to come up for air.

Sadly, pollution and overfishing are making these massive groups rarer.

Beak-to-Beak

Ponlawat Thaipinnarong (Thailand)

A sarus crane parent shares an intimate and moving moment with its one-week-old chick.

Ponlawat watched the sarus cranes and their chicks in the rice paddies in Huai Chorakhe Mak Non-Hunting Area in Buri Ram, Thailand.

To avoid disturbing the birds, he would lay still for several hours a day while he watched.

In the evenings, after the adults had fed their chicks, they rested on their nests.

The parent of this one-week-old chick carefully cleaned it. Then, in a moment of intimacy, it made beak-to-beak contact and moved its beak around the chick's for a while.

Marvellous Spatuletail

Dustin Chen (UK)

A male marvellous spatuletail hummingbird shows off its long tail while it feeds on flowers.

Dustin spent two weeks watching birds at Huembo Lodge in Pomacochas, Peru.

This male marvellous spatuletail hummingbird was his main focus.

In Dustin's photo, the bird shows off its long tail while feeding on flowers.

The spatuletail uses its impressive tail to attract females.

Dustin considers it to be one of the world's most fascinating birds.

Population growth and deforestation from logging and farming have eroded its habitat.

Now, it's restricted to a small area in the Andes of northern Peru.

A Fleeting Moment

Lior Berman (Costa Rica)

An elusive rufous-vented ground cuckoo plucks up a cicada in the depths of the rainforest in Costa Rica.

Silent and sharp-eyed, it follows columns of army ants. It doesn't want to feed on the ants, but on insects and small creatures fleeing the swarm.

Here, it locks onto a cicada frozen in fear.

There's a flash of movement  sharp beak striking, tail sweeping. A purple shimmer glints from its feathers, momentarily lighting up the forest floor.

This secretive predator is rarely seen and even more rarely photographed. It thrives in the chaos of the undergrowth and relies on split-second decisions and perfect timing.

A Leap into Adulthood

Peter Lindel (Germany)

Three young kestrels prepare to leap from their nest to a nearby beam.

From April to July 2023, Peter observed and photographed a pair of common kestrels. He witnessed moments from their courting until the time their young left the nest.

He took this picture from his living room in Dortmund, Germany.

It shows the moment when the young kestrels appear to be thinking about how to reach the beam, which was only 80 centimetres (31 inches) away.

It took them nearly a week to pluck up the courage and take the leap.

They then explored around the outside of his house for another week before leaving.

Solar Waves

Francesco Russo (UK/Italy)

Rows of solar panels stretch across the landscape like ripples on a water's surface.

This solar farm is in the land surrounding the hamlet of Cambridge in England, UK.

The panels had to be carefully organised around the divisions between pastures.

The result is a pattern that resembles the shapes of bodies of water.

This image is part of a project to document the relationship between nature and industry along the River Severn, which flows near this solar farm.

It shows clearly the effects of human activities on the environment.

Precious Cargo

Thomas Hunt (UK)

A cellar spider, sometimes known as a daddy long-legs, carries a ball of precious eggs in its mouth.

Thomas found this female cellar spider in the top corner of his sister's room in their home in Southampton, England, UK.

Upon closer inspection, he noticed it was carrying a ball of precious eggs in its mouth.

He encouraged it onto a piece of wood to move it into the garage so it could safely raise its young.

The mother spider watches over her eggs for three to four weeks until they all hatch into tiny transparent spiderlings. She then guards them in her web for a short while until they leave.

Couple's Camouflage

Artur Tomaszek (Poland)

A tiny male sits on the abdomen of a well-camouflaged female broad-headed bark spider, waiting until she moults and is ready to mate.

Artur was lucky to encounter these broad-headed bark spiders in the Khao Phra Thaeo non-hunting area, Phuket, Thailand.

The spiders spend the day on the bark of a tree and go down to their webs when it gets dark.

They are so well camouflaged against the tree bark that Artur found it hard to see them in the daytime.

He had to find them on their web at night first. Then he came back during the day and searched nearby tree branches to get the photograph.

Female broad-headed bark spiders are usually at least three to four times larger than males.

Males often piggyback subadult females for some time, ready to mate with the female as soon as she moults to maturity.

Never-ending Struggle

Kohei Nagira (Japan)

A sika deer carries the interlocked severed head of a rival male that had died after their battle.

In autumn, male sika deer fight over females by clashing their antlers.

This deer won the fight, but their antlers became tightly locked and wouldn't come apart.

A local fisherman says the deer dragged the whole body for several days before finally tearing off its head.

Kohei observed the deer on Notsuke Peninsula in Hokkaido, Japan, from late November 2020 to April 2021.

It was living alone, yet it continued to forage for grass and branches and managed to survive the winter.

The image shows life and death bound together.

Bond in Motion

Lalith Ekanayake (Sri Lanka)

The striking eyes of a curious lion-tailed macaque and its infant are on display as it races along a path.

Lalith was exploring the city of Valparai in the Western Ghats, India. He was surprised to come face to face with these macaques.

The mother raced towards Lalith, both pairs of eyes gazing forward, full of curiosity.

The image was taken at ground level set against a lush backdrop.

These are one of the most endangered species of macaques in the world.

Human activity is eroding their habitat. Now, they survive in small, fragmented populations.

To Lalith, this snapshot immortalises the macaques' resilience in a world where their future is uncertain.
The Assam CM accused Congress leaders Jitendra Singh, Bhupesh Baghel and Gaurav Gogoi of making "false, malicious and defamatory allegations" during a recent press conference, leading to the legal suit against them



IMAGE: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. Photograph: Courtesy @himantabiswa/X

Key Points The lawsuit is in response to allegations of land grabbing made against Sarma and his family.

Congress leaders claimed Sarma possesses 12,000 bighas of benami land.

Sarma challenges Congress leaders to provide evidence in court or pay Rs 500 crore.

The Assam BJP faced backlash for a controversial video, leading to police complaints from Congress MLAs.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday filed a Rs 500 crore defamation case against Congress leaders for their "land grabbing" allegations against him and his family.

He accused Congress leaders Jitendra Singh, Bhupesh Baghel and Gaurav Gogoi of making "false, malicious and defamatory allegations" during a recent press conference, leading to the legal suit against them.

"Over the last few days, Congress leaders have been saying that I have benami land of 12,000 bighas (over 3,960 acres). I have filed a case in court so that they can submit the list before the court itself," Sarma told reporters on the sidelines of an official event in Bongaigaon.

He said that if they cannot provide the list, they have to pay him Rs 500 crore, he added.

In a post on X earlier, the CM said, "Today, I have filed a defamation case seeking Rs 500 crore in damages against Congress leaders Jitendra Singh, Bhupesh Baghel and Gaurav Gogoi for making false, malicious and defamatory allegations against me through a press conference."

Addressing a joint press conference here on February 4, state Congress president Gogoi had claimed that the party's "investigation" has revealed that "almost 12,000 bighas of land have been occupied by the CM and his family across the state".

Asked about Congress filing a police complaint in Guwahati against the BJP for circulating a controversial video featuring him on social media, Sarma said he will continue speaking up as he has been doing now.

"It is good that they have filed the case. What does communal mean? You all know who I am against," the CM said, in an apparent reference to his stand against 'illegal Bangladeshis'.

"What will happen to me if a case is filed? For me, white is white, black is black. They cannot frighten me. Sibani Bora, Diganta Barman, their malik Rahul Gandhi can file a case against me. My thumb to them," Sarma added, showing his thumb to the camera.

Congress MLAs Bora and Barman lodged the complaint at Dispur Police Station in Guwahati on Tuesday against the Assam BJP for a video on its official social media handle, which showed Sarma purportedly taking aim with a rifle and firing a shot at two people, one wearing a skull cap and the other with a beard, with "point-blank shot" as the caption.

The video, posted on Saturday, was deleted after a massive political backlash.

Sarma had on Monday claimed ignorance of the video, even as Gogoi accused the CM of "inciting genocide" against Muslims through his videos, and urged the police to take suo motu cognisance.
These cases filed by the former AAP government over a period of time included the appointment of Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) chairman, control over service-related matters, implementation of Pradhan Mantri Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission, funding for the Delhi Jal Board, appointment of lawyers in the Delhi riot cases, and the constitution of a high-level committee on Yamuna river pollution.

IMAGE: Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinay Kumar Saxena with Chief Minister Rekha Gupta. Photograph: ANI Photo

Key Points The BJP-led Delhi government has withdrawn cases filed by the previous AAP administration against the Union government and Lieutenant Governor.

Cases withdrawn include those related to the appointment of the DERC chairman, control over service matters, and funding for the Delhi Jal Board.

The decision to withdraw cases aims to avoid legal challenges and prevent the 'waste of government resources'.

The Supreme Court and Delhi High Court had previously allowed the Delhi government to withdraw certain cases against the L-G.

Officials stated that continuing the litigation caused hardship to the bureaucracy and delayed policy decisions.

The Delhi government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, has withdrawn all cases filed by the previous Aam Aadmi Party administration against the Union government, the Lieutenant Governor, and several senior bureaucrats, officials said on Monday.

After assuming office, the BJP government moved courts seeking early hearings to withdraw multiple cases related to key administrative and policy issues, which were a bone of contention between the former AAP dispensation and the Centre, the L-G's office, as well as bureaucrats of the Delhi government.

These cases filed by the former AAP government over a period of time included the appointment of Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) chairman, control over service-related matters, implementation of Pradhan Mantri Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission, funding for the Delhi Jal Board, appointment of lawyers in the Delhi riot cases, and the constitution of a high-level committee on Yamuna river pollution.

According to the officials, the law department of the Delhi government began the withdrawal process for these cases shortly after the BJP assumed power following the assembly elections in February 2025.

Continuing with these cases posed legal challenges, as it would have been difficult for the BJP, which governs Delhi, to pursue cases against its own government at the Centre and its appointed L-G.

Additionally, persisting with the cases would have wasted government resources without producing any benefits, an officer stated.

In May 2025, the Supreme Court allowed the Delhi government to withdraw seven cases filed against the L-G. During the same month, the Delhi high court also permitted the government to withdraw its petition challenging the L-G's decision to appoint lawyers to argue cases related to the farmers' protest and the 2020 Delhi riots.

An internal proposal moved by the law department stated that such litigation caused 'hardship' to the bureaucracy and resulted in 'administrative paralysis', delaying policy decisions and execution of projects.

The withdrawn cases also included one concerning the 2023 ordinance promulgated by the president, which amended the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) Act of 1991, the interpretation of Section 45D of the Act, appointments to the DERC, cessation of funding, and issues related to the alderman case pending before the Supreme Court.

Officials noted that the L-G Secretariat had approved the proposal to withdraw these cases. Furthermore, the Health Department submitted applications to withdraw cases filed by former minister Saurabh Bharadwaj.

There were approximately eight to nine such cases filed by former AAP ministers, officials said.
The Delhi high court is encouraging the family of the late Sunjay Kapur to find an amicable resolution to their ongoing estate dispute, emphasising family harmony and the potential pitfalls of wealth-related conflicts.

IMAGE: Sanjay Kapur twins with sons, Kiaan and Azarias, along with Priya Sachdev. Photograph: Kind courtesy Priya Sachdev/Instagram

Key Points Delhi high court urges the family of late Sunjay Kapur to resolve their estate dispute peacefully through mediation.

Sunjay Kapur's mother, Rani Kapur, is challenging the validity of a family trust, alleging fraud and seeking control of her late husband's assets.

The court emphasises the importance of respecting family relations and preventing financial wealth from causing further conflict.

A separate plea by Karisma Kapoor's children regarding the authenticity of Sunjay Kapur's will is also pending in the high court.

The Delhi high court on Tuesday asked the mother, wife and family members of late industrialist Sunjay Kapur to "peacefully" resolve their differences and not let God's "blessing" of financial wealth turn into a "curse".

Calling it a "sorry" situation, Justice Mini Pushkarna observed that the family members, who are in litigation with each other over their estate, were grieving and efforts should be made to be respectful of each other.

The judge therefore asked the senior counsel appearing for Sunjay Kapur's mother, wife as well as sister to sit together to resolve the issues in a manner that everyone's interest was safeguarded.

"Any chance of mediation? Dirty linen is being washed in court. God has blessed you with financial wealth," the court said during the hearing.

"All of you should try to respect relations ...Way forward is resolution in a peaceful manner. Blessing should not become a curse. Efforts need to be from both sides," the court orally observed.

The Lawsuit and Allegations

The court was dealing with a lawsuit by Sunjay Kapur's mother, Rani Kapur, seeking that their purported family trust be declared "null and void".

In her lawsuit against her daughter-in-law Priya Kapur and others, 80-year-old Rani Kapur has alleged that the trust, which was constituted in her name in October 2017, was a product of "forged, fabricated and fraudulent" documents and she had been wrongly divested of all her rights, assets and legacy.

During the hearing, Justice Pushkarna observed that the daughter-in-law should see that it was the plaintiff's husband who "founded everything" and fruits of his labour should be shared by all.

'Fruits of his labour should be shared by all'

The court issued notice to Rani Kapur on an application by Priya Kapur seeking rejection of the lawsuit. Rani Kapur's senior counsel denied all allegations against her.

It also issued notice to Priya Kapur and other defendants on Rani Kapur's application to stay the disbursal of dividends of a company to the daughter-in-law and to preserve the estate.

In the lawsuit, Rani Kapur has sought a direction to permanently restrain the defendants-- her daughter-in-law Priya Kapur and others, including grandchildren -- from utilising or acting in furtherance of the "RK Family Trust" in any manner whatsoever.

Systematic fraud, says Rani Kapur

Rani Kapur said in her lawsuit that she was the sole beneficiary of the entire estate of her late husband Surinder Kapur, who was the promoter of various businesses, including the 'Sona Group of Companies', and a "systematic fraud" was committed on her when the assets were transferred to the "RK Family Trust".

Till the time of his demise, Sunjay never confirmed to Rani Kapur that she had actually been divested of all her rights, assets and legacy and never provided a copy of the purported RK Family Trust to her, the plea claimed.

"By means of a complex web of illegal transactions undertaken by the defendant Nos. 1 to 9 (Priya Kapur and others) in an unfortunate collusion with the plaintiff's now deceased son, late Mr Sunjay Kapur, all the plaintiff's assets vest in one fraudulent trust titled -- RK Family Trust, without her knowledge," the lawsuit said.

Background and Related Cases

Sunjay Kapur passed away on June 12 after collapsing during a polo match in England. He reportedly suffered a sudden cardiac arrest.

A plea by Karisma Kapoor's two children challenging the authenticity of the purported will of their late father is also pending in the high court, with the kids accusing his wife Priya Kapur of being "greedy".

The case will be heard next in March.
Nazrin Abdul



A high-level roundtable on energy cooperation was held in Azerbaijan as part of a U.S. business mission led by Kush Choksi, Senior Vice President for the Middle East and Turkiye at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

As reported by AzerNEWS, the meeting was chaired by Azerbaijans Minister of Energy Parviz Shahbazov and brought together senior representatives from SOCAR, Azerenergy, Azerishiq, Azeristiliktechizat, the State Agency for Renewable Energy Sources, and the Energy Regulatory Agency.

According to the Ministry of Energy, participants expressed satisfaction with the strong AzerbaijanU.S. energy partnership, noting that cooperation has contributed not only to the successful implementation of national projects but also to regional and international energy security initiatives. U.S. companies technologies, expertise, and investments were highlighted as playing a decisive role in the development of major transnational energy projects.

It was emphasized that the policies pursued by the leaders of both countries - aimed at ensuring peace in the region and strengthening AzerbaijanU.S. relations on the basis of strategic partnership - have also accelerated the development of energy cooperation.

The discussions underscored Azerbaijans balanced approach to developing all types of energy resources, diversifying regional energy connections, expanding its role as an electricity supplier, and allocating a significant share of energy production to meet the growing demand of data centers.

Participants explored cooperation opportunities across oil and gas, renewable energy, electricity, hydrogen, and energy efficiency. The current state of cooperation between SOCAR and ExxonMobil was reviewed, along with progress on electricity corridors linking Azerbaijan, Turkiye, Central Asia, and Europe.

Special attention was given to power transmission via the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, as well as prospects for collaboration with U.S. companies within these projects. Both sides expressed strong mutual interest in expanding cooperation in technology transfer, knowledge sharing, expertise, and investment in the energy sector.

The U.S. delegation included senior executives from leading global companies such as Apple, ExxonMobil, Meta, Visa, Mastercard, bp, Shell International, Baker Hughes, Boeing Global, Honeywell, J.P. Morgan, Ericsson, Motorola Solutions, Wabtec, Lummus Technology, Marriott, Fuji Engineering, and several others.
BEIJING, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- China's State Council Information Office on Tuesday released a white paper titled "Hong Kong: Safeguarding China's National Security Under the Framework of One Country, Two Systems."

Consisting of five parts in addition to a preface and a conclusion, the white paper details the unrelenting fight for safeguarding national security in Hong Kong and the central government's fundamental responsibility for national security matters concerning Hong Kong.

It also expounds on the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's achievements in fulfilling its constitutional responsibility for safeguarding national security, Hong Kong's transition from disorder to stability and prosperity, and efforts in creating high-standard security for high-quality development of the One Country, Two Systems policy. 

Full text: Hong Kong: Safeguarding China's National Security Under the Framework of One Country, Two Systems
The Allahabad high Court has put a hold on an FIR order against several policemen, including former Sambhal circle officer Anuj Kumar Chaudhary, regarding an alleged firing incident, pending further hearing.

IMAGE: Sambhal CO Anuj Kumar Chaudhary. Photograph: ANI on X

Key Points Allahabad high court stays Sambhal court's order for FIR against policemen for alleged firing into a crowd.

The FIR was ordered against several policemen, including former Sambhal circle officer Anuj Kumar Chaudhary.

The case stems from a complaint alleging that policemen fired into a crowd in Sambhal in November 2024.

The Sambhal chief judicial magistrate had found a prima facie cognisable offence disclosed, warranting investigation.

The Allahabad high court on Tuesday stayed a Sambhal court's order of a first information report (FIR) against several policemen, including former Sambhal circle officer Anuj Kumar Chaudhary, for allegedly firing into a crowd.

The order was passed by Justice Samit Gopal while hearing a petition filed by Chaudhary, against whom an FIR was ordered on January 9 by the Sambhal chief judicial magistrate.

After the stay, the court posted the matter for hearing on February 24.

The case stems from a complaint by Yameen, who had moved an application before then CJM Vibhanshu Sudheer, who allowed the application under Section 173(4) of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023.

In his complaint, Yameen alleged that on November 24, 2024, at about 8.45 am, Alam, his son, was selling 'pape' (rusks) and biscuits on his thela near Jama Masjid, Mohalla Kot, Sambhal, when some policemen fired into the crowd with the intention to kill.

Sambhal Kotwali in-charge Anuj Kumar Tomar and Anuj Chaudhary were named in the petition.

In its 11-page order, Sudheer observed that the police cannot invoke the 'official duty' shield for criminal acts.

Referring to the Supreme Court's rulings, the CJM noted that firing upon a person cannot be considered a discharge of official duties.

Finding that a prima facie cognizable offence was disclosed, the CJM court concluded that the truth could only be unearthed through a proper investigation.
A Hindu trader was brutally murdered in his shop in Bangladesh, sparking outrage and raising concerns about the safety of the minority Hindu community amidst rising communal tensions.

IMAGE: Kindly note that this image has been posted for representational purposes only. Photograph: ANI Photo

Key Points A Hindu trader, Susen Chandra Sarkar, was hacked to death in his shop in Trishal, Bangladesh.

The victim's son alleges theft of money from the store after the brutal murder.

The incident is the latest in a series of violent acts targeting the Hindu community in Bangladesh.

The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council has raised concerns about increasing communal violence.

The Hindu population in Bangladesh constitutes approximately 7.95% of the total population.

A 62-year-old Hindu trader was hacked to death by unidentified men inside his shop in Trishal upazila of Mymensingh in Bangladesh, a local media report said on Tuesday.

The incident took place on Monday night at the Bogar Bazar intersection in the Upazila, Trishal Police Station chief Muhammad Firoz Hossain was quoted as saying by news portal bdnews24.com.

The victim, identified as Susen Chandra Sarkar, was the owner of 'Bhai Bhai Enterprise' and a resident of Southkanda village, he said.

Attacked hacked Sarkar and left him inside shop

Hossain said the attackers hacked Sarkar with a sharp weapon, left him inside the shop, and closed the shutters. Sarkar's family was searching for him, and when they opened the shutters to the shop, he was found covered in blood.

Sarkar was rushed to Mymensingh Medical College Hospital, where doctors declared him dead.

"We have had a rice business for a long time. No one had any enmity with us. The criminals stole several hundred thousand taka from the store after they brutally killed my father," Sujan Sarkar, the victim's son, said.

Latest act of violence against religious minorities

He demanded that his father's killers be identified quickly and given exemplary punishment.

Sarkar's murder is the latest incident of violence targeting the minority community.

The Hindu population in Bangladesh has been affected by a series of incidents after the killing of radical youth leader Sharif Osman Hadi in December.

Concerns Over Communal Violence

Last month, the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council alleged that as the date of the general elections draws nearer, communal violence is increasing at an alarming rate in the country. The Council said it recorded 51 incidents of communal violence in December 2025 alone.

Bangladesh will hold parliamentary elections on February 12 - the first since the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in massive country protests in August 2024.

According to the 2022 census, the Hindu population in Bangladesh is approximately 13.13 million, which accounts for about 7.95 per cent of the country's total population.
In a post on X, Thackeray also claimed that those who attended Bhagwat's programme in Mumbai on February 7-8 to mark the RSS centenary did not come out of love for him but due to the fear of Narendra Modi's government.

IMAGE: MNS president Raj Thackeray. Photograph: ANI Photo

Key Points Raj Thackeray criticises Mohan Bhagwat's view that protesting for one's language is a 'disease', arguing many Indian states are affected.

Thackeray claims attendees of Bhagwat's RSS event were motivated by fear of the Modi government, not genuine support.

Thackeray defends Marathi language and regional identity, asserting linguistic pride is a right, especially in Maharashtra.

Thackeray questions the RSS's silence on issues like the imposition of Hindi and violence in the name of Hindutva.

BJP defends RSS, stating people attend events voluntarily and that Marathi should be a medium of communication, not conflict.

Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) president Raj Thackeray on Monday said that if Rashtriya Swayasmevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat is of the opinion that protesting for one's language is a 'disease', then a majority of the states in the country suffer from it.

In a post on X, Thackeray also claimed that those who attended Bhagwat's programme in Mumbai on February 7-8 to mark the RSS centenary did not come out of love for him but due to the fear of Narendra Modi's government.

The Bharatiya Janata Party, however, dismissed the remarks, saying people attend RSS programmes voluntarily and with discipline.

On the issue of Marathi language and identity, the ruling BJP said Marathi is a matter of pride, but stressed that a language should remain a medium of communication rather than conflict.

Thackeray noted that the regional sentiment in the southern states like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka is fervent. There is a similar sentiment in Punjab, West Bengal and even in Gujarat.

When hordes of people from four-five states in the country go to different states, act arrogantly there, reject the local culture, insult the local language, create their own vote banks, it leads to resentment among locals, leading to outbursts, he noted.

Will Bhagwat call it a disease? the MNS president asked.

During an event in Mumbai over the weekend, Bhagwat interacted with people from different walks of life and responded to a series of questions. On the language row, he had said the 'localised disease' should not spread.

Reacting to it, Thackeray said, 'If Bhagwat feels love for language and state is a disease, then a majority of the states in the country suffer from it.'

Thackeray said Bhagwat did not give these 'sermons' to Gujarat when thousands of people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were driven away from there. Why were such lessons not given to Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Punjab? he asked.

"Bhagwat can show the courage of making such remarks because Marathi manoos are tolerant, but more than that, those in power are spineless," he claimed.

Notably, the MNS and Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray contested last month's municipal corporation polls on the plank of Marathi identity and the 'sons of the soil' issue.

Raj Thackeray: Bhagwat should not teach us Hindutva

Raj Thackeray said, 'For us, the Marathi language and the Marathi people are of paramount priority. Linguistic and regional identities will remain in this country, and so they will in Maharashtra too! This is our right, and whenever such situations arise, Maharashtra will rise with full fury.'

The MNS leader further said he respects the Sangh's work, but it should not indirectly take a political stand.

And if it does, then it must first pull up the government that's 'imposing Hindi (which isn't even the national language) across the country', and then come teach us about harmony.

Raj Thackeray also said Bhagwat should not teach him Hindutva. When Hindus are attacked, the MNS will do whatever it can as Hindus.

The MNS was the party that took out marches against the Raza Academy 'riots', protested against loudspeakers on mosques, and took a stand against the massive loudspeakers and DJs during Hindu festivals that trouble citizens, he pointed out.

"We call out what's wrong as wrong. When will you (Bhagwat) speak up like that? When will you speak about the chaos in the name of Hindutva across the country -- the way women are made to dance during kanwar yatras in north India?" he said.

In 2014, India was ninth in beef exports and today it's second, yet the drama of cow slaughter politics continues, inflaming sentiments. When will Bhagwat speak on it? Raj Thackeray asked.

BJP reacts

Responding to the comments, BJP state chief spokesperson Keshav Upadhye in a post on X said the MNS leader needs to come out of his 'misconception' that people attend RSS events out of fear.

Upadhye said that Raj Thackeray should come out of the misconception. It's wrong to assume that just as people come out of fear of MNS, the same must be happening elsewhere. People participate in RSS shakhas, rallies and most events willingly and in an orderly manner, the BJP leader asserted.

He said many RSS activities are held early in the morning or at dawn and therefore may not be visible to everyone.

"The RSS has gained social acceptance over a hundred years of work, while self-serving political parties like the MNS have faded within a few decades. Thackeray should reflect on this," he said.

Referring to the issue of Marathi language and identity, Upadhye said Marathi is a matter of pride, but any language should serve as a medium of communication, not conflict.

He said that when insistence on Marathi turned into hatred for other languages and led to loss of lives, credibility on the issue was lost.

Upadhye also said there was no need to offer advice to the RSS, adding that the organisation stands for dialogue, not confrontation.
Kumar came into the national limelight after confronting Bajrang Dal activists who had gathered outside a clothing store to pressure its owner to change the shop's name. During the incident, Kumar allegedly identified himself as 'Mohammad Deepak', following which the protesters dispersed.

IMAGE: Kotdwar gym owner 'Mohammad' Deepak Kumar. Photograph: ANI on X

Key Points Police identified the person who allegedly offered a Rs 2 lakh reward for the killing of gym owner 'Mohammad' Deepak Kumar.

The accused claimed he posted the reward offer on social media to increase his follower count and gain online visibility.

Deepak Kumar gained attention after confronting Bajrang Dal activists protesting a shop's name.

An SIT is investigating the Bajrang Dal protests outside the shop and gym, identifying participants through videos and photographs.

Tensions arose after Bajrang Dal activists protested outside a clothing store, demanding the owner change the shop's name, leading to clashes involving Deepak Kumar.

Police have identified the man who allegedly offered a reward of Rs 2 lakh for the killing of gym owner Deepak Kumar, popularly known as 'Mohammad Deepak', in connection with a shop name dispute in Kotdwar, Uttarakhand, an official said on Monday.

The accused, Utkarsh Kumar Singh, a resident of Motihari in Bihar, told police that he had posted the message on social media merely to increase his follower count, the official said.

Kumar came into the national limelight after confronting Bajrang Dal activists who had gathered outside a clothing store to pressure its owner to change the shop's name. During the incident, Kumar allegedly identified himself as 'Mohammad Deepak', following which the protesters dispersed.

Police said Kumar had lodged a complaint at Kotdwar Police Station on Sunday, alleging that an unknown person was offering a Rs 2 lakh reward on social media for his killing.

Considering the seriousness of the matter, police registered a case against the unidentified accused under Section 351 (3) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and launched an investigation.

Police used technical surveillance and other means to ascertain Singh's identity. With the coordination of Bihar Police, Singh was brought to a police station near his residence for questioning.

During interrogation, Singh allegedly told police that his social media following was not increasing, while Kumar was constantly trending online.

He claimed that he posted the message only to boost the reach and views of his social media channel, and that he had no criminal intent.

Police said necessary legal action is being taken against Singh.

SIT probes Bajrang Dal protests

A Special Investigation Team (SIT) is identifying those involved in the protests outside the shop last month, using videos and photographs obtained from various sources. Of the nearly 40 protesters, around 15 have been identified and notices are being sent to them, police said.

Kotdwar Additional Superintendent of Police Chandra Mohan Singh said the situation in Kotdwar was peaceful and that online platforms were being closely monitored.

There have also been reports of a decline in the number of people visiting Kumar's gym since the Bajrang Dal protest. However, hic sloe friend and Congress leader Vijay Rawat attributed this to the winter season and increased movement of police and media personnel in the area.

On January 26, Bajrang Dal activists protested outside the 'Baba' clothing store on Patel Marg in Kotdwar to pressure its 70-year-old owner, Vakil Ahmed, to change the name of the shop.

During the protest, clashes broke out between the activists, shop owner Vakil Ahmed, and his son's friend Deepak Kumar, after which Kumar, identifying himself as Mohammad Deepak, asked the protesters to leave.

On January 31, a larger group of activists again gathered outside Ahmed's shop and Kumar's gym, blocked the road, and raised slogans. However, police intervention prevented escalation.
In its notice, the NHRC has has asked as to why a compensation of Rs 2 lakh should not be recommended by the National Human Rights Commission, to be paid to the victim.

IMAGE: Kindly note that this image has been posted for representational purposes only. Photograph: ANI Photo

Key Points The notice demands the state government to trace the victim, Suraj, and provide necessary medical treatment.

The TN police on December 30 had said that four teenagers, aged about 17, were apprehended and produced before the Juvenile Justice Board.

The victim disappeared from a state-run medical facility, raising concerns about law enforcement negligence.

NHRC directs Tamil Nadu police to trace the victim and provide medical treatment, highlighting a serious lapse in state machinery.

Nearly a month after a "migrant worker" was allegedly attacked by a group of four teenagers near Tiruttani railway quarters in Tamil Nadu, the NHRC has issued a show cause notice to the state government asking it to "trace" the victim at the earliest and provide him necessary medical treatment.

In its notice, it has also asked as to why a compensation of Rs 2 lakh should not be recommended by the National Human Rights Commission, to be paid to the victim.

The notice, identified the victim as Suraj, a "migrant worker".

Tamil Nadu police officials on December 30 had said that the four teenagers, aged about 17, were apprehended on December 28, and produced before the Juvenile Justice Board. And based on the orders of the Board, three of them were sent to a juvenile home while the fourth was handed over to the custody of his parents.

"On December 28, Thirivallur Govemment Hospital referred him to Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, Chennai, for advanced medical care. However, as per the records obtained from Rajv Gandhi Goverment Hospital, it is found that the victim left the hospital the same day after medical advice," reads the notice dated February 9.

The commission has received an intimation regarding "grave violence against a "migrant worker from Madhya Pradesh in Thiruvallur district, Tamil Nadu. The complainant further alleged that as per viral video evidence and police disclosures, the victim was threatened on a moving trainm" it says.

The complainant also alleged that the victim was forcibly taken to a secluded spot near a railway station, where he was brutally attacked with a sharp object by four minors, and these assailants filmed the assault themselves, and one is seen flashing a 'victory' sign in the video, it adds.

The NHRC has taken cognisance of the case under section 12 of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, the show cause notice says.

The complainant sought the intervention of the Commission and requested for an independent inquiry, strict legal action, and compensation for victim and protection of migrant workers, it further said.

Considering the serious condition of the victim, he was referred to the higher medial facility, however, "he left the hospital against medical advice and his whereabouts still not known".

This reflects a "serious lapse" on the part of the state machinery, and "gross negligence" which "failed to ensure adequate safeguarding, monitoring, or support to the victim, thereby attracting human rights scrutiny," the rights panel said.

There was no immediate reaction from the Tamil Nadu government.

"Evidently, in the present case, the state has failed to provide medical care and security to the victim, thereby violated victim's fundamental rights," it charged.

Though, the alleged violence was committed by private individuals, "matter still falls under the scope of human rights violations due to state's subsequent failure in providing medical care, protection and rehabilitation of the victim," it says.

The Commission on February 9, after considering relevant reports, has directed its registry to issue a show cause notice to the chief secretary of the government of Tamil Nadu, asking as to why a compensation of Rs 2 lakh should not be recommended by the Commission to be paid to the victim, it says, and sought response within seven days.

"The Chief Secretary, Government of Tamil Nadu, shall ensure that all necessary medical treatment is provided to the victim," it adds.

Further, post-trauma counselling shall also be provided. It shall also be ensured that the government "reimburses" the cost of treatment availed by the victim, if any.

Further, upon perusal of the record, it appears that the alleged incident occurred on December 27, whereas an FIR was registered only on the next day, despite the admitted position that the statement of the victim had already been recorded on December 27, it says.

Concerns over investigation delay

"Thus, there is an unexplained delay in the registration of the FIR. Moreover, on the very same day, the victim went missing. The victim's disappearance from a state-run regulated medical facility raises serious concerns and reflects a grave lapse, which is directly attributable to the law enforcement agency requiring strict investigation," the notice says.

The NHRC has also directed the director general of police of Tamil Nadu, shall "further ensure that the victim is traced at the earliest" and is provided necessary medical treatment.

Further, considering the gravity and seriousness of the matter, and since the whereabouts of the victim are not known, let a direction be issued to the DG (Investigation) of the NHRC to "telephonically collect the facts of the case" from the authorities concerned and thereafter place the same on record for further consideration, within two days, it adds.

"In addition to above, a copy of this proceeding, be also sent to the Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, government of India, for information and necessary action," it says.
Trouble began soon after the House assembled around noon, when RJD MLC Abdul Qari Sohaib demanded that Kumar be summoned to the House and made to apologise for remarks made a day ago.

IMAGE: Former Bihar Chief Minister and RJD senior leader Rabri Devi arrives at the Bihar Legislative Council for the budget session, in Patna, February 5, 2026. Photograph: ANI Photo

Key Points On Monday, Kumar and Rabri Devi were seen addressing each other in an animated way amid loud sloganeering, but were not audible as the mics were switched off.

The uproar stemmed from alleged foul language used by Kumar against opposition leader Rabri Devi during a previous session.

RJD MLCs led the protests, demanding Kumar's apology for his remarks regarding incidents of crimes against women in Bihar.

Ruling party members accused the opposition of unruly behavior and disrespect towards Dalit minister Ashok Choudhary.

Tejashwi Yadav, RJD's national working president, criticized Kumar's conduct, questioning his fitness to govern the state.

Opposition members in the Bihar legislative council were on Tuesday suspended for the day and evicted by marshals after they created a ruckus, demanding an apology from Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for allegedly using foul language against their leader Rabri Devi.

Trouble began soon after the House assembled around noon, when Rashtriya Janata Dal MLC Abdul Qari Sohaib demanded that Kumar be summoned to the House and made to apologise for remarks made a day ago.

On Monday, the Opposition had been seeking the chief minister's response to recent incidents of rapes in the state. At one point of time, Kumar and Rabri Devi were seen addressing each other in an animated way amid loud sloganeering, but were not audible as the mics were switched off.

"Rabri Devi is not just the leader of the opposition in this House but also a former chief minister. She was raising the matter of increasing incidents of crimes against women. The words used by Kumar were unbecoming of a chief minister. He should be summoned to the House and made to tender an apology," said the MLC on Tuesday.

Other opposition MLCs also rose and raised slogans against Kumar, prompting members of the ruling side to shout back.

The opposition legislators, thereafter, trooped into the well, and many of them were seen engaged in a heated exchange with MLCs of the ruling National Democratic Alliance.

Chairman Awadhesh Naryan Singh remarked, "It seems you people are not in the mood to let the House run today. You'd better leave and stay away for the day."

This evoked angry protests from the opposition legislators, who said they are the aggrieved party, but "we are being accused of wrongdoing while those at fault are being allowed to remain in the House".

As the bedlam continued, Singh called in the marshals, who forced the opposition MLCs, most of them from the RJD, to leave the House.

Talking to reporters outside, RJD MLC and principal national general secretary Abdul Bari Siddiqui alleged: "We were being constantly provoked by those in the treasury benches as they kept making snide remarks. But the Chair singled us out, preferring to ignore their conduct."

The contention was repudiated by Janata Dal-United national general secretary and minister Ashok Choudhary, who said, "The video footage is there for all to see. We were in our seats. It is they who had walked across and came menacingly close to us. Many of them used abusive language against me, which shows their lack of respect for Dalits".

Choudhary said the RJD and their allies were drubbed in the recently held assembly polls. "Their conduct is a manifestation of their character for which they have been punished by the people".

He also claimed that the conduct of Rabri Devi was "highly objectionable" on Monday. She too had trooped into the well and waved fingers at the chief minister.

Dilip Jaiswal, who is also a minister, said, "We have urged the chairman to take appropriate action against the unruly opposition members, especially RJD legislator Sunil Singh, who used foul language for Choudhary who is a Dalit".

Meanwhile, Rabri Devi's son Tejashwi Yadav, who is the RJD's national working president, lambasted Kumar while interacting with journalists at the airport.

Returning after a short trip to Delhi, Yadav, a former deputy CM, said the conduct of his ex-boss showed "Nitish Kumar is not in a sound state of mind and is unfit to rule the state".

"Every other day Nitish Kumar remains in the news for behaving in a manner that is not expected from a sane person," alleged Yadav, who is now the leader of the opposition in the assembly.
The decision to give the notice was taken by opposition parties on Monday for disallowing Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders from speaking in the House on the Motion of Thanks to the President's address, as well as for the suspension of eight MPs.

IMAGE: Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. Photograph: ANI Photo

Key Points Opposition parties are considering a resolution to remove Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla due to disputes over speaking rights and MP suspensions.

The decision follows Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders being disallowed from speaking on the Motion of Thanks to the President's address.

Opposition parties are awaiting the government's response to their grievances before moving forward with the resolution.

Rahul Gandhi met with Om Birla to find a solution to the parliamentary stalemate.

The notice for the resolution cites disallowing the Leader of the Opposition from speaking and the suspension of eight opposition MPs.

Opposition leaders on Tuesday said they will take a decision on giving a notice for moving a resolution to remove the Lok Sabha Speaker from office after a meeting with Om Birla.

Leaders of various Opposition parties deliberated on the issue at a meeting of floor leaders in the chamber of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday morning.

The decision to give the notice was taken by opposition parties on Monday for disallowing Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders from speaking in the House on the Motion of Thanks to the President's address, as well as for the suspension of eight MPs.

Sources said though the Opposition is ready to give the notice, they would wait to see whether the government would address their grievances.

While various Opposition parties, including the Congress, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Samajwadi Party and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Left parties, are on board and have signed the notice against the Speaker, the Trinamool Congress has not signed it so far.

Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi has not signed the notice for moving the resolution to remove the speaker from office, the sources said.

Birla has called some floor leaders of Opposition parties at 12.30 pm to discuss the issue of allowing the Lok Sabha to function.

Sources said the government has told the Opposition that it will decide and convey its decision to allow Opposition leaders, including Gandhi, to speak in the Lok Sabha.

After this, the Opposition will decide on whether to move the notice against the Speaker to the Lok Sabha secretary general at 1 pm, the sources said.

Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and some others had met Birla on Monday afternoon to work out a solution to end the stalemate, as the House has not been functioning properly ever since the former Congress chief was not allowed to speak on the India-China issue last week.

Sources had said on Monday that a notice for resolution in this matter would be given in the Lok Sabha soon, and signatures of MPs are being procured.

They said that a notice for the resolution is likely to be given under Article 94-C of the Constitution to the Lok Sabha secretary general, and over 100 opposition MPs have already signed it.

The notice is being given to move a resolution for the removal of the Speaker for disallowing the leader of the opposition from speaking in the House on the motion of thanks, for not initiating action against Bharatiya Janata Party MP Nishikant Dubey for his unsubstantiated charges against women MPs of the Congress, and suspension of eight opposition MPs, the sources said.

The Lok Sabha has not been functioning properly ever since Gandhi was not allowed to speak on February 2. The Rajya Sabha started the discussion on the Union Budget for 2026-27.
Gandhi read out Gen Naravane's social media post on X (then Twitter), which said, 'Hello friends. My book is available now. Just follow the link. Happy reading. Jai Hind.'

IMAGE: Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi with suspended MP Hibi Eden and others as he holds the book Four Stars of Destiny by former Army Chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane at the Parliament premises during the ongoing budget session, in New Delhi on Wednesday. Photograph: AICC/ANI Photo

Key Points Rahul Gandhi challenges Penguin's claim that ex-Army Chief Gen Naravane's book is unpublished, citing Gen Naravane's social media post.

Gandhi questions whether Penguin or the former Army Chief is being truthful about the book's availability.

The book reportedly contains statements 'inconvenient' for the government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Penguin Random House India insists it holds exclusive rights and the book has not been published, warning against copyright infringement.

The controversy arises amid reports of unauthorised copies of the manuscript circulating in digital and other formats.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday cited a December 2023 social media post by former army chief General M M Naravane informing people that that his book is 'available now' to rebut publisher Penguin Random House India's statement that the 'memoir' has not yet been published.

Gandhi said he believes the word of the former army chief over Penguin.

Speaking with reporters in the Parliament House complex, Gandhi read out Gen Naravane's social media post on X (then Twitter), which said, 'Hello friends. My book is available now. Just follow the link. Happy reading. Jai Hind.'

'This is the tweet Mr Naravane has made. The point I am making is either Mr Naravane is lying, and I believe the (former) Army chief, I don't think he will lie, or Penguin is lying. Both cannot be telling the truth,' the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha said.

'Penguin is saying the book is not published. The book is available on Amazon. Gen Naravane has tweeted, as I just read to you, that please buy my book. He tweeted this in 2023. Do you believe Penguin over Mr Naravane? I believe Mr Naravane,' Gandhi said.

The Congress leader said Gen Naravane has made certain statements in the book that are 'inconvenient' for the government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Obviously, you have to decide whether Penguin is telling the truth or the (former) Army chief is telling the truth. That is the issue," he added.

Pointing to a poster Opposition MPs were carrying near the Makar Dwar of Parliament during their protest, which read 'Narender Surrender', Gandhi said this has happened, and the Indo-US trade deal happened because of this.

Penguin denied publishing Gen Naravane's book

Penguin Random House India (PRHI) has said it holds the exclusive publishing rights to former Army chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane's memoir titled Four Stars of Destiny, and clarified that the book has not yet been published, amid reports of unauthorised copies in circulation.

The clarification came after the Delhi Police registered an FIR over the alleged illegal circulation of the manuscript in digital and other formats.

In a statement issued on Monday, the publishing house clarified that no copies of the book -- either in print or digital form -- have been released to the public.

'Penguin Random House India would like to clarify that we hold the sole publishing rights for the book Four Stars of Destiny, a memoir by General Manoj Mukund Naravane, former Chief of the Indian Army. We wish to make it clear that the book has not gone into publication,' the publisher said in a statement.

It further said that no copies of the book 'in print or digital form -- have been published, distributed, sold, or otherwise made available to the public' by the company.

The publisher also warned that any version of the book currently circulating, whether in full or in part and in any format, including print, PDF or online copies, would amount to copyright infringement.
The government defended its pick, saying Bhatia was selected based on merit and business considerations amid objections from some persons including a BJP MP over the rationale behind selecting a non-Kannada speaking actor

IMAGE: Actress Tamannaah Bhatia during an event in Mumbai, February 7, 2026. Photograph: ANI Photo

Key Points The two-year tenure of Bhatia as the company's brand ambassador commenced from Tuesday.

Bhatia unveiled 57 products of the organisation, including Mysore Sandal Soap, which has now been introduced in a refreshed and contemporary packaging.

BJP MP K Sudhakar criticises the move, questioning why Kannada film stars were not chosen to represent the iconic brand.

KSDL aims to increase exports and reach a turnover of Rs 2,000 crore with profits exceeding Rs 500 crore.

Several advertisements featuring Bhatia were also released on the occasion.

Actress Tamannaah Bhatia on Tuesday formally took on her role as the brand ambassador of Karnataka Soaps and Detergents Limited (KSDL), amid objections from some persons, including a BJP MP, who questioned the rationale behind picking a non-Kannada speaking actor to represent the famous Mysore Sandal Soap.

The government defended its pick, saying Bhatia was selected based on merit and business considerations.

As part of efforts to strengthen the market presence of products manufactured by the State-owned KSDL, an organisation with a legacy of more than a century, the two-year tenure of Bhatia as the company's brand ambassador commenced from Tuesday .

As part of the occasion, at an event held in Bengaluru, Bhatia unveiled 57 products of the organisation, including Mysore Sandal Soap, which has now been introduced in a refreshed and contemporary packaging.

The products that have received innovative packaging include sandalwood oil, jasmine-scented soaps, perfumes, toothpaste, coconut oil, petroleum jelly and organic products, taking the total product portfolio to nearly 60 offerings.

With this launch, KSDL's future roadmap was clearly outlined. Several advertisements featuring Bhatia were also released on the occasion.

Additionally, two coffee table books chronicling the organisation's rich legacy--Sugandha Siri and Aromatic Journeys--were unveiled.

Speaking on the occasion, Bhatia said, "Mysore Sandal Soap is not just a soap. It is deeply associated with emotions, childhood memories and nostalgia. It represents a perfect blend of purity and authenticity. Mysore Sandal Soap holds a special place in people's hearts, and I consider it a privilege to be associated with this institution as its brand ambassador."

Meanwhile, several people took to 'X' criticising the state government's decision, choosing Bhatia as the brand ambassador for the state's iconic band, over Kannada actors.

BJP MP from Chikkaballapura and former state Minister K Sudhakar asked, "Couldn't the traitorous Congress government in the state find Kannada film stars?"

"Although many stars from our own Karnataka were eligible to be appointed as brand ambassadors for Karnataka's famous international brand Mysore Sandal Soap, a film actress from another state, from another language has been appointed as the brand ambassador by paying crores of rupees. This is yet another proof of the Congress party's anti-Kannada mentality," he slammed in a post on 'X'.

"Kannada film stars like Ramya, Rashmika Mandanna, Srinidhi Shetty, Pooja Hegde, Rukmini Vasanth and many other actresses have become popular and are in demand in the film industry of many other languages . They have raised the banner of Kannada fame at the national and international levels," Sudhakar said.

The Congress party's attitude of giving priority to others over actresses from our own state is not only an insult to the talents of Karnataka, but also a grave insult to the identity of Mysore Sandal Soap, he further said, adding that "Kannadigas will never forgive this anti-Kannada Congress party."

Several other social media users too criticised the government's move, while some have supported it stating that the selection of Bhatia for the role is justified, as the soap sells more outside Karnataka than within the state. They reasoned it has a massive market in north India.

State industries minister M B Patil said, Tamannaah Bhatiawas was chosen as brand ambassador based on merit, and it is purely a business decision considering that the Mysore Sandal sales is not just limited to Karnataka.

"Six months ago I had clarified categorically why Tamannaah Bhatia was chosen as the brand ambassador. A committee formed for this had gone through five-six names, which included two-three names from Karnataka, but they had endorsed some other product. If you endorse some other product you cannot be brand ambassador for this product. So they were not considered," he told reporters.

Noting that Mysore Sandal sales is only 8-12 per cent in Karnataka, he further said, "it is 18 per cent in Telangana and other states, 8 per cent in north India and 1 per cent internationally. It is purely a business decision taken by KSDL's committee."

Hitting out at Sudhakar, Patil said, doing politics in this doesn't help.

"Tell Mr Sudhakar that three of the Kannada actors selected had endorsed other products, and after due consideration selection was made based on merit, by the committee."

The KSDL's decision, in May last year, to appoint Bhatia as the brand ambassador for Mysore Sandal Soaps and other products for two years by paying her Rs 6.20 crore, had received similar criticism from Kannada organisations, activists, some BJP leaders, for the multi-lingual actor being preferred over Kannada film stars.

Meanwhile, Minister Patil at the event said, KSDL is no longer confined to Sandal Soap alone and included luxury jasmine-scented soaps as well.

He further noted that currently only about one per cent of KSDL's products are exported, and a detailed roadmap has been prepared to substantially increase exports.

KSDL chairman C S Appaji Nadagouda said the organisation's turnover is expected to touch Rs 2,000 crore this year, with profits crossing Rs 500 crore.
Recent incidents of harassment targeting Russian tourists on Goa beaches have prompted increased vigilance and police intervention to ensure tourist safety and address unlawful behavior.

Image used only for representational purposes. Photograph: Rahul Singh/ANI Photo

Key Points Russian female tourists were allegedly harassed on Goa's Baga beach.

Several incidents of harassment against women tourists, including unwanted filming and physical advances, were reported across Goa's coastline.

Beach marshals and lifesavers are actively deployed on popular Goa beaches to ensure tourist safety and respond to incidents.

Tourists involved in harassment incidents were handed over to the Goa Police for further investigation and action.

Some Russian female tourists were allegedly harassed on Goa's Baga beach by some men.

However, timely intervention by a beach marshal and a lifesaver prevented the matter from deteriorating further.

The domestic tourists involved in the incident, which occurred last week, were warned and allowed to leave.

Overall, four cases of harassment involving women tourists, three medical emergencies and a lost-and-found case were reported along the Goa coastline over the past week, beach safety agency, Drishti Marine, stated in a release.

In another incident, two male tourists from Telangana, allegedly under the influence of alcohol, harassed a foreign woman near the shoreline after she refused to take a selfie. One of the men allegedly attempted to put his arm around her and kiss her.

The two tourists were taken to the police station.

Around 70 marshals are currently deployed across five popular beaches - Baga, Calangute, Candolim, Colva and Benaulim.

At Colva beach in South Goa, a group of seven to eight tourists from Karnataka were found allegedly filming and photographing Russian women without their consent.

Lifesavers intervened and handed the men over to the Goa Police for further action, the agency said.

At Patnem beach on Sunday evening, lifesavers noticed five tourists from Bihar allegedly harassing and filming a couple from Pune without their consent.

The couple was escorted to safety and the Goa Police were informed. Police personnel arrived within 15 minutes and detained the tourists for further action.
KATHMANDU, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Ten people were killed after a passenger bus fell into a river in central Nepal's Ramechhap district on Tuesday, a senior police officer said.

The bus, en route to Okhaldhunga from Kathmandu, veered off the highway and plunged into the Tamakoshi River, injuring seven others. "While six people died at the site, four others died during treatment," Bishnu Prasad Bhatta, spokesperson for the Nepali Armed Police Force, told Xinhua. "Seven others are receiving treatment at a hospital."

He said security forces' rescue teams, backed by locals, are conducting joint rescue operations. Police have yet to ascertain the exact number of people on the bus when the mishap occurred.

Bhatta said divers have been mobilized for search operations in the river, suspecting that some bodies may still be there. 
Anand Rai had challenged the MP high court order upholding the framing of charges in a case of caste-based atrocities arising from alleged violence and abuse against an MP, MLA and government officials during a rally in 2022

IMAGE: Vyapam whistleblower Dr Anand Rai (second from left) being taken to court in connection with the paper leak of the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) conducted by the Professional Examination Board (PEB), in Bhopal, April 8, 2022. Photograph: ANI Photo

Key Points The case stemmed from an incident during a Birsa Munda Jayanti event in Ratlam district in 2022.

An FIR alleged that Rai and others blocked roads, abused lawmakers, and scuffled with police.

The Supreme Court found that the action against Rai was not in accordance with the SC/ST Act.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal represented Rai, arguing against the charges.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday quashed charges of caste-based violence against a whistleblower in the Madhya Pradesh VYAPAM examination scam.

Anand Rai had challenged the Madhya Pradesh high court order upholding the framing of charges in a case of caste-based atrocities arising from alleged violence and abuse against an MP, MLA and government officials during a rally in 2022.

A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and N K Singh pronounced the verdict on a plea of Rai and said, "We have discussed the scope of the SC/ST Act and the action is not in accordance with law. Appeal allowed."

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal and advocate Sumeer Sodhi appeared for Rai, an ophthalmologist from Madhya Pradesh and one of the whistleblowers in the VYAPAM examination scam.

The incident took place on November 15, 2022, at village Dharad in Madhya Pradesh's Ratlam district during a programme organised on the occasion of Birsa Munda Jayanti for the unveiling of a statue of Bhagwan Birsa Munda.

It was alleged that Rai stopped the vehicles of a MP, an MLA, the collector and other officials. The FIR lodged by a person called Vikas Pargi alleged that a group blocked the road for nearly one hour, abused the lawmakers and engaged in a scuffle with police personnel who attempted to clear the way.

Rai was named among approximately 40-45 persons identified in the FIR and charges were framed against him on March 18, 2025 by the special sessions judge (SC/ST Act) of Ratlam.

On January 13, 2023, the top court granted bail to Rai in connection with the case and subsequently stayed the trial proceedings under the SC/ST Act.
The Lok Sabha Secretariat defends Speaker Om Birla's actions to protect Prime Minister Narendra Modi amidst escalating parliamentary disruptions and safety concerns raised by Opposition protests.

IMAGE: Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla conducts the proceedings of Lok Sabha during the Parliament Budget Session, in New Delhi, February 9, 2026. Photograph: Sansad TV/ANI Video Grab

Key Points Lok Sabha Secretariat defends Speaker Om Birla's decision to advise PM Modi against entering the House due to safety concerns amidst Opposition protests.

The Secretariat cites 'grave and unprecedented disorder' in the Lok Sabha, including MPs entering the well, climbing on tables, and tearing official papers.

Several women MPs allegedly moved 'aggressively' towards the Prime Minister's seat, raising security concerns.

Opposition MPs reportedly used 'unparliamentary language' during a meeting with Speaker Birla.

With the Opposition asserting that there was no imminent threat to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha last week, lower House secretariat sources on Monday said that several women MPs had moved "aggressively" towards his seat and Speaker Om Birla had genuine concerns regarding Modi's safety.

Citing the sequence of events which unfolded in the House on Wednesday, they said the speaker had "genuine and well-founded concerns regarding the safety of the prime minister" and the "maintenance of order" in the House.

"Birla's advice to the prime minister not to enter the LS chamber at that juncture was guided solely by the "need to ensure the smooth functioning of parliamentary business and to safeguard the dignity and sanctity of the institution," the Lok Sabha secretariat sources said.

The assertion of the sources came hours after Congress' women Lok Sabha MPs wrote to Birla claiming that under pressure from the ruling party to defend the "non-appearance" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he made grave allegations against them.

Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, along with some opposition leaders, also met Birla and apprised him about the issues he wants to raise in the House.

The meeting took place after proceedings in the lower house were adjourned for the day amid a standoff between the government and the opposition over Gandhi's demand that he be allowed to speak before the discussion on the Union Budget begins.

The House has been witnessing daily disruptions since February 2, when Gandhi was disallowed to cite a report quoting an unpublished memoir of former Army chief M M Naravane on the India-China conflict of 2020.

Since then, the issue has snowballed, leading to scenes of ruckus in the lower house, which had also led to the suspension of seven Congress and one CPI-M MP from the House for the remainder of the session.

In an unprecedented development, Modi also did not speak on the Motion of Thanks as Birla urged him not to come to the Lok Sabha chamber, fearing unpleasant acts by Congress MPs.

Responding to allegations that Birla toed the line of the BJP by asking Modi not to come to the House, the sources said the claims were "devoid of facts", and the assertion by opposition leaders that there was no imminent threat to the prime minister was incorrect.

The statement made by the Speaker must be viewed against the backdrop of the "grave and unprecedented disorder" that unfolded in the House on that day, the sources underscored.

From the very commencement of the proceedings, they said, the atmosphere in the Lok Sabha chamber "deteriorated sharply". It gave rise to "serious concerns regarding safety, decorum, and the dignity of parliamentary functioning".

At the initial stage of the proceedings, MPs belonging to opposition parties entered the Well of the House in open defiance of established parliamentary norms. The situation escalated rapidly as certain members climbed onto tables, tore official papers, and hurled them towards the Chair, the sources said, describing the scene on Wednesday.

The acts signalled a "complete breakdown of discipline and constituted one of the most unfortunate and undesirable episodes witnessed in the Lok Sabha", they said, adding that it drew widespread attention and concern both within the House and beyond, in India and abroad.

Amid this chaos, several women MPs moved aggressively towards the seat of the prime minister, forming a virtual cordon around it, they added.

"Disturbingly, certain women members further crossed over to the treasury benches carrying banners and placards, adopting an openly confrontational posture.

"They not only laid siege to the prime minister's seat but also advanced deep into the treasury benches, encroaching upon the space where senior ministers were seated, thereby heightening the sense of disorder and insecurity within the chamber," a functionary explained.

Sources also pointed out that later, when opposition MPs met Birla in his office, they used "unparliamentary language".

Birla had referred to the scenes in his office in the House on Thursday last when he explained why he had asked Modi not to attend the Lok Sabha a day before.

The sources asserted that the Speaker's foremost constitutional responsibility is to maintain decorum, propriety of the House and order, and his actions were firmly anchored in this obligation.
The women MPs of the BJP also said that the 'alarming turn of events' in the precincts of the Lok Sabha on February 4 has left everyone deeply concerned, as the situation had the potential to result in serious and untoward consequences and could have marked one of the 'darkest moments' in the history of India's parliamentary democracy.

IMAGE: Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla conducts the proceedings of Lok Sabha during the Parliament Budget Session, in New Delhi on Monday. Photograph: Sansad TV/ANI Video Grab

Key Points BJP women MPs are calling for strong action against opposition MPs for disrupting Lok Sabha proceedings.

Opposition protests prevented Prime Minister Narendra Modi from replying to a debate in Parliament.

The BJP MPs accuse opposition members of 'heinous acts' including approaching the Prime Minister's seat and disrupting treasury benches.

The Lok Sabha has faced disruptions following disagreements over quoting from an unpublished memoir regarding the India-China conflict.

Eight opposition members have already been suspended for unruly behavior during the Budget session.

Bharatiya Janata Party's women MPs have urged Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to take the strongest possible action against the opposition MPs who have committed 'heinous acts' like moving deep inside treasury benches, climbing the table and laying a siege of the seat of the prime minister.

The women MPs of the BJP also said that the 'alarming turn of events' in the precincts of the Lok Sabha on February 4 has left everyone deeply concerned, as the situation had the potential to result in serious and untoward consequences and could have marked one of the 'darkest moments' in the history of India's parliamentary democracy.

On February 4, Prime Minister Narendra Modi could not reply to the debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President's address to Parliament due to the opposition protests.

In their letter, the BJP's women MPs said they want to put on record their deep sense of gratitude and appreciation for the exemplary manner in which the Speaker upheld and protected the dignity, decorum, and sanctity of the Lok Sabha on February 4 during the discussion on the Motion of Thanks to the President's address.

On that day, the letter said that the entire House, and the whole nation, witnessed one of the 'most unfortunate and regrettable incidents' within the Lok Sabha chamber.

'We saw that the members belonging to opposition parties not just entered the well of the House, but they also climbed on the table, tore papers and threw them towards the Chair.

'Moreover, distressingly, certain women hon'ble members crossed over to the other side with aggressive demeanour and banners and placards in their hands. They not only laid a siege of the seat of the hon'ble prime minister but also moved deep inside the treasury benches where senior ministers are seated,' the MPs said in the letter.

The MPs said even though extremely agitated and furious at this grave provocation, the members belonging to the ruling party however, on the direction of the senior leaders, exercised utmost restraint and did not retaliate in any manner.

'Had we not exercised restraint, an ugly situation could have been created. To make matters even more serious, afterwards, we saw that the opposition MPs went in aggressively towards your Chamber. We could hear loud voices coming from within your Chamber,' the letter said.

The BJP's women MPs said, 'We, therefore, urge you to take strongest possible action under the rules, against the opposition MPs who have committed such heinous acts within the precincts of the House and brought disrepute to our democratic institutions.'

They also said that during the nearly seven years of Birla's tenure as the Presiding Officer of the House, he has consistently endeavoured to enhance its prestige and effectiveness.

The MPs said as Speaker of the Lok Sabha, he has always displayed impartiality and given equal opportunity to all members irrespective of party affiliations.

'We, therefore, repose complete faith and confidence in your leadership and feel that the Lok Sabha is fortunate to have you as its custodian,' they said.

The Lok Sabha has been witnessing disruptions since February 2, after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was disallowed by the Chair from quoting from an article based on excerpts of former Army chief General M M Naravane's 'unpublished memoir', which has references to the India-China conflict of 2020.

On February 4, Prime Minister Narendra Modi could not reply to the debate on the Motion of Thanks due to opposition protests.

In an unprecedented move, the Motion of Thanks was passed on February 5 without the customary speech by the prime minister. The Speaker read out the Motion of Thanks to the President for her address, and it was passed by a voice vote, amid sloganeering by opposition members.

Birla had also said that he received concrete information that many Congress MPs could carry out an 'unexpected act' by reaching the spot where PM Modi sits and, therefore, he asked him not to come to the House to deliver his address.

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra refuted this. Eight opposition members were suspended for the remainder of Budget session for unruly behaviour in the House.
Union Minister Kiren Rijiju strongly criticizes the disruptive behavior of opposition MPs in the Lok Sabha, accusing them of disrespecting parliamentary norms and creating a potentially volatile situation during the Prime Minister's address.

IMAGE: Union Minister Kiren Rijiju speaks in Lok Sabha during the Budget Session, in New Delhi. Photograph: Sansad TV/ANI Video Grab

Key Points Kiren Rijiju condemns the 'degrading behavior' of opposition MPs in the Lok Sabha, citing disruptions and disrespect towards parliamentary procedures.

Rijiju claims BJP MPs were restrained from confronting opposition members to avoid 'ugly scenes' during the Prime Minister's address.

BJP women MPs have submitted a letter to the Lok Sabha Speaker, Om Birla, seeking action against opposition members for their conduct.

The Lok Sabha has faced disruptions following disagreements over quoting from a former Army chief's memoir and the PM's inability to address the Motion of Thanks.

Eight opposition members were suspended for unruly behavior during the Budget session.

Union minister Kiren Rijiju on Tuesday said 'very ugly scenes' could have taken place had the Bharatiya Janata Party MPs not been stopped and the party's women MPs been allowed to confront the Congress members who had come to the treasury benches on the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi was supposed to reply to the Motion of Thanks to the President's Address in the Lok Sabha.

Commenting on the video that showed opposition women MPs coming to the treasury benches on February 4, Rijiju asked who could justify the behaviour of the opposition members. He said the direction from the BJP leadership was very clear that members belonging to the ruling alliance must maintain the dignity of the House and no MP of the ruling party should get into physical confrontation with the "rude opposition MPs".

"The Congress party is proud of the most degrading behaviour by their MPs. If we had not stopped all the BJP MPs and allowed the women MPs to confront the Congress MPs, it would have led to very ugly scenes. We have very high consideration to protect the dignity and sanctity of Parliament," he told reporters in New Delhi.

The parliamentary affairs minister accused the opposition MPs of disrupting proceedings in an unprecedented manner and claimed that the BJP and Natoinal Democratic Alliance MPs were very angry because of the behaviour of their Congress counterparts.

"The Congress MPs crossed the treasury benches and even reached the prime minister's seat. The Congress has shown no respect for the dignity of the House.

"The fact is, they are celebrating on their social media accounts, claiming that women MPs scared the prime minister. This is utterly shameful," he said.

Rijiju said the BJP women MPs have submitted a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla against the behaviour of the Congress members.

He said the Congress MPs even crossed the bench where the prime minister sits and went inside a few rows of the treasury benches and almost laid siege on the entire area.

"We had to control the BJP and NDA MPs. The BJP women MPs were very agitated at this behaviour of the Congress MPs.

"We stopped our MPs from physical confrontation. After that, these opposition MPs went to the speaker's chamber and threatened the speaker. The BJP women MPs have submitted a petition. Let us see how the speaker acts and what steps he takes," he said.

The BJP's women MPs, in a letter, have urged the Lok Sabha speaker to take the strongest possible action against the opposition MPs who have committed 'heinous acts' like moving deep inside treasury benches, climbing the table and laying a siege on the prime minister's seat.

Motion of Thanks passed without PM's speech

The Lok Sabha has been witnessing disruptions since February 2, after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was disallowed by the chair from quoting from an article based on excerpts of former Army chief General M M Naravane's 'unpublished memoir', which has references to the India-China conflict of 2020.

On February 4, Prime Minister Modi could not reply to the debate on the Motion of Thanks due to opposition protests.

In an unprecedented move, the Motion of Thanks was passed on February 5 without the customary speech by the prime minister.

The speaker read out the Motion of Thanks to the President for her address, and it was passed by a voice vote amid sloganeering by opposition members.

Birla said he received concrete information that many Congress MPs could carry out an "unexpected act" by reaching the spot where PM Modi sits and, therefore, he asked him not to come to the House to deliver his address.

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra refuted this.

Eight opposition members were suspended for the remainder of the Budget session for unruly behaviour in the House.
The meeting took place days after the United States and India announced that they have reached a framework for an Interim Agreement regarding reciprocal and mutually beneficial trade (Interim Agreement).

IMAGE: Kindly note that this image has been posted for representational purposes only. Photograph: Dado Ruvic/Reuters

India's envoy to China, Pradeep Kumar Rawat, and US ambassador to China, David Perdue, met here and discussed growing engagement and shared interests between the two countries.

Key Points David Perdue said that the US-India relationship delivers real results through close cooperation in diverse areas.

He also talked about cooperation in critical minerals.

The US-India relationship delivers real results through close cooperation on defense, energy, critical minerals, and through Quad engagement.

David Perdue said in a post on X that the US-India relationship delivers real results through close cooperation in diverse areas, including defence, energy and through Quad engagement.

He also talked about cooperation in critical minerals.

"The US-India relationship delivers real results through close cooperation on defense, energy, critical minerals, and through Quad engagement. Always great to see my friend Ambassador Rawat to discuss our shared interests," Perdue said.

The meeting took place days after the United States and India announced that they have reached a framework for an Interim Agreement regarding reciprocal and mutually beneficial trade (Interim Agreement).

The framework reaffirmed the countries' commitment to the broader US-India Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) negotiations, launched by President Donald J Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 13, 2025, which will include additional market access commitments and support more resilient supply chains.

"The Interim Agreement between the United States and India will represent a historic milestone in our countries' partnership, demonstrating a common commitment to reciprocal and balanced trade based on mutual interests and concrete outcomes," the joint statement said.

Earlier this month, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio committed to expanding "bilateral and multilateral cooperation" through the Quad during their meeting ahead of the critical minerals ministerial.

According to a readout from the US State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pigott, EAM Jaishankar and Secretary Rubio discussed formalising cooperation on critical minerals exploration, mining, and processing and also emphasised the importance of the two democracies working together to unlock new economic opportunities and advance shared energy security goals.

"The Secretary and External Affairs Minister discussed formalising bilateral cooperation on critical minerals exploration, mining, and processing. Secretary Rubio and Minister Jaishankar welcomed the trade deal reached between President Trump and Prime Minister Modi. The two leaders emphasised the importance of our democracies working together to unlock new economic opportunities and advance our shared energy security goals," the readout stated.

Both leaders also called for a "prosperous Indo-Pacific region", crucial for promoting shared interests.

"Secretary Rubio and Minister Jaishankar concluded their meeting by expressing their commitment to expanding bilateral and multilateral cooperation through the Quad. They acknowledged that a prosperous Indo-Pacific region remains vital to advancing our shared interests," the readout added.

The Quad comprises the United States, Australia, Japan, and India as partner countries.

In December 2025, the US Ambassador to China reaffirmed the Quad's role in maintaining a "free and open" Indo-Pacific during a meeting with Quad ambassadors in Beijing, highlighting the strength of the US-Australia-India-Japan partnership.

In a post on X following the meeting, Ambassador Perdue described the grouping as "a force for good" and emphasised the four nations' continued commitment to regional stability and security.

"The Quad is a force for good working to maintain a free and open Indopacific. It is always great to meet with the Quad Ambassadors here in Beijing. The US-Australia-India-Japan relationship continues to be strong," Perdue said in his post, underlining the collaborative efforts of the Quad nations to uphold a rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific region.
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BRATTLEBORO  Following the discovery of trace amounts of refrigerant, testing is underway at Oak Grove School.

"We're still working on identifying where the leak is coming from," Principal Mary Kaufmann said at about 3:30 p.m. Monday.

A test started on Sunday takes 24 hours to complete, Kaufmann said. Air quality concerns prompted the testing after staff reported symptoms mainly involving respiratory issues, she previously told the Reformer.

Much depends on the test results as to whether the school reopens, Assistant Fire Chief and Health Officer Charles "Chuck" Keir III said.

School was closed on Monday and will also be closed on Tuesday. Kaufmann said she will reach out to families at some point on Tuesday to share plans for Wednesday.

"We will definitely get kids back to school in some form," she said.

Staff haven't decided how that might look yet.

Air quality concerns prompt Monday closure for Oak Grove School BRATTLEBORO  Oak Grove School will be closed on Monday "out of an abundance of caution" as 

An email over the weekend told families, "Out of an abundance of caution, the fire department has decided that we should NOT occupy the building until we can address a leak in our heating system."

"The Hazmat team detected trace amounts of refrigerant that we can attribute to the symptoms a few people have experienced while at school," the email states.

At the time of the email, Kaufmann wrote, "there is no recommendation for individual health testing, but we want to ensure there are no chronic issues."

"I want to reassure you that Hazmat and Brattleboro Fire have determined that there is no immediate or long-lasting issue to your childs health and safety but we want this issue addressed before we occupy the building," the email states.

Keir previously said Oak Grove staff called the fire department on Thursday and then again on Saturday about concerns about potential refrigerant or HVAC system leaks. The department coordinated with the Vermont Hazmat Team.

Oak Grove staff were advised not to open the school until a certified HVAC technician could perform a comprehensive inspection. All leaks should be located and repaired, Keir said.

Kaufmann thanked families for their "flexibility and cooperation with this matter."
Meg Mott teaches civic virtue at Keene State College in New Hampshire and is the town moderator in Putney, Vermont. She will be giving a free talk online on the five virtues in Vermonts Constitution at the Ethan Allen Homestead Museum in Burlington on Sunday, Feb. 15, at 2 p.m. To register go to: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/qXdZRZidRNWsDu-Z89Q5DA#/registration

The opinions expressed by columnists and op-ed writers do not necessarily reflect the views of Vermont News & Media.
TOKYO, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Japan's rice exports rose 3.7 percent to a fresh record high in 2025, while growing at a much slower pace, government data showed Tuesday.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the country exported more than 48,000 tonnes of rice, including packages of the precooked grain, in 2025, marking the fifth consecutive year of record overseas shipments since 2020, when comparable statistics became available.

Meanwhile, the pace of growth slowed sharply from over 20 percent in each of the previous three years through 2024, as the high price of home-grown rice spurred domestic shipments, the ministry said.

The government plans to increase the country's rice exports by nearly eight-fold to 350,000 tonnes in 2030 from 2024, as part of a new mechanism to prevent future rice shortages in Japan. 
Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG) has selected Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to support its global digital transformation journey across its global operations, including in Australia and New Zealand.

In a statement, the companies said the partnership would enable FCTG, which was headquartered in Brisbane and operated a travel sales network across the globe, to streamline and consolidate its core systems and futureproof its cloud and network services.

The project would see FCTG draw on TCS expertise in technology, data and AI in the travel industry, and would unlock greater value from its existing technology investments and improve performance across the groups global enterprise technology stack.

Flight Centre Travel Group CEO Graham Turner said the company was looking forward to working with TCS as it continued its evolution as a business.

Strengthening our technology backbone is an ongoing priority and we look forward to collaborating with the TCS team to deliver tangible benefits to our people and, ultimately, our customers and shareholders, Turner stated.

Tata Consultancy Services consumer business group president Krishnan Ramanujam described the project as a pivotal transformation to simplify and uplift Flight Centre Travel Groups customer and employee experience.

Together, we are transforming the enterprise technology services of one of Australias most iconic travel brands to adopt an AI-first simplified global operating model, he said.

TCS said the partnership with Flight Centre built on its three decades of expertise in the travel sector, adding it would help the group develop and execute a clear strategy to enhance platform standardisation and drive continuous service level improvements through robust governance and transparent reporting.
Reeling from massive demonstrations, Irans theocratic rulers are scrambling to reclaim the traditional Lion and Sun symbol, which has been embraced by anti-regime demonstrators.

Ali Akbar Salehi, director of the government-run Iranology Foundation, asserted on February 8 that the Islamic republic owns the Lion and Sun symbol -- and condemned its use by "others."

The Lion and Sun has long been one of Iran's enduring national symbols, in use until the country's 1979 Islamic revolution. Its origins trace back to astrology -- symbolizing the sun in the Leo constellation -- but from the 12th century, it became deeply embedded in Iranian art and culture.

From the 15th century onward, the symbol appeared intermittently on Iranian flags. But after the Islamic revolution, the Lion and Sun was outlawed and condemned as a vestige of the oppressive, Westernizing monarchy. As a replacement, the regime embellished Iran's green-white-red tricolor with four crescents and a sword, surmounted by a diacritic, which formed a stylized representation of the Arabic word "Allah."

Speaking at the First National Congress on Foreign Policy and the History of Foreign Relations, Salehi insisted that the Islamic republic of Iran owns the symbol and said that it had clear religious roots.

'We Gave Them This Lion And Sun'

"The philosophy of the Lion and Sun is from Ali (a close companion of the Prophet Muhammad), God, and religion. We gave them this Lion and Sun, now others are using it, even though it belongs to us," Salehi said.

The "others" Salehi was referring to are the anti-regime protesters who, in recent weeks, have hoisted the Lion and Sun flag in the streets -- a symbol of national pride, secularism, and defiance of theocratic rule.

Protests in Iran erupted on December 28 over economic woes including currency collapse but morphed into anti-regime demonstrations that were met with lethal force, with thousands of people killed.

The Lion and Sun also became a prominent symbol for Iranians abroad demonstrating against the regime. As a gesture of support for the protesters, the social media platform X announced on January 9 that it was replacing the current Iranian flag emoji with the Lion and Sun.

According to Salehi, the Iranian state still has an international legal claim on the Lion and Sun symbol. In 1922, the Red Lion and Sun Society was formed, Iran's equivalent of the Red Cross and Red Crescent humanitarian organizations. And under the 1929 Geneva Conventions, the Lion and Sun was recognized as one of three official emblems -- alongside the Red Cross and Red Crescent -- for safeguarding medical aid.

In the wake of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran swapped its red Lion and Sun for the Red Crescent, in keeping with other Muslim states. The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Federation, however, upholds Irans sole legal claim to the traditional emblem and its right to use it whenever it chooses.

Ongoing Debate

Salehi, who has a nuclear engineering background and was once the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, is no stranger to controversy. Appointed head of the Iranology Foundation in 2025, academics from the University of Tehran wrote an open letter, calling his appointment inappropriate because of his lack of expertise.

And this isn't the first time there has been debate about the Lion and Sun. In May 2020, parliamentary deputy Qolam Haydar Ebrahim Baysalami said: The possibility of returning the red Lion and Sun emblem to Iran is possible through the Foreign Ministry." "The Red Crescent," he added, "is an Ottoman emblem and replacing it with the red Lion and Sun was a historical oversight.

Six years earlier, in May 2014, Ali Younesi, the senior assistant for ethnic and religious minorities for former moderate President Hassan Rohani, said that the Lion and Sun in the former Iranian flag were "symbols of Ali and Muhammad" and suggested that the motif replace the Red Crescent.

At the time, Younesi's remarks provoked strong reactions from some members of the Iranian parliament. As a response, the hard-line Mashreq news website republished part of a speech by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic republic, where he denounced the "ill-fated 'Lion and Sun.'"

"The Iranian flag should not be an imperial flag, the emblems of Iran should not be imperial emblems. They should be Islamic emblems," Khomeini said. "The works of the tyrant must go. These are the works of the tyrant.... It should be the works of Islam."
Under a proposed 20th European Union sanctions package against Russia, expected to be adopted by the end of the month, Kyrgyzstan could face certain export restrictions for the first time.



According to draft proposals seen by RFE/RL, the EU is considering export bans on at least two dual-use items -- computer-controlled CNC machines that cut, drill, and shape material as well as radio equipment -- amid concerns that goods exported to Kyrgyzstan may be reexported to Russia, circumventing existing sanctions against Moscow over its war in Ukraine.



The draft package also proposes adding CJSC TengriCoin, a Kyrgyz cryptocurrency company, to the EU blacklist for its role in trading the A7A5 stablecoin, which supports Russian state-linked financial interests.



If approved, the restrictions would be the first application of the EUs anti-circumvention instrument, introduced in 2023. Unlike traditional sanctions, this tool focuses on sector-specific export bans rather than requiring proof of intentional violations.

Dual-Use Imports

The draft notes that preventing and countering sanctions circumvention in third countries remain a priority. Kyrgyzstan is the first country on the EUs radar as a potential route for such circumvention, prompting Brussels to propose tighter controls.



The EU plans to expand sectoral restrictions to cover high-precision metalworking machines and communications equipment, blocking exports of these items to Kyrgyzstan. These goods can be used to produce weapons, build military equipment, and support operations such as drone deployment and secure field communications.

Draft EU data shows that exports of these items to Kyrgyzstan rose nearly 800 percent in the first 10 months of 2025 compared with pre-invasion levels, while Kyrgyz exports of the same goods to Russia increased by about 1,200 percent.



The import of these items into the Kyrgyz Republic from the Union demonstrates a continuing and particularly high risk of circumvention, with these items being subsequently sold, supplied, transferred or exported from the Kyrgyz Republic to Russia, the draft says.



According to the document, despite repeated EU engagement and technical talks, Kyrgyz authorities have not implemented "effective" controls, leading the bloc to view Kyrgyzstan as a country where sanctions circumvention is ongoing and systematic.



The proposed sectoral restrictions aim to close this loophole across the EU and ensure consistent application in all member states.



Germany, Italy, France, and Poland are among EU suppliers of industrial machinery and electronics to Kyrgyzstan, including CNC and radio components, which Russia used to purchase directly from these countries before the war for its advanced military production.

Unanimous Approval

Any EU sanctions package requires unanimous approval from all 27 member states, so negotiations may modify or delay the final measures.



On February 9, Reuters reported that German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul will meet with his counterparts from Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan in Berlin to discuss energy cooperation and preventing the circumvention of EU sanctions against Russia.



A German government spokesperson noted that the region is important for energy diversification, resource security, and trade in raw materials, while also emphasizing the need to prevent Russian sanctions circumvention through Central Asia.



The spokesperson did not want to say whether Germany would support the proposed EU sanctions against Kyrgyzstan.

According to RFE/RL diplomatic sources, Germany, as a major supplier of industrial machinery and electronics that include components like CNC and radio equipment to Kyrgyzstan, might oppose the draft sanctions to protect its business interests.

Targeting Crypto

The draft package also proposes adding CJSC TengriCoin, a Kyrgyz cryptocurrency company, to the EU blacklist. TengriCoin runs the Meer platform, a major marketplace for trading the A7A5 stablecoin, which is backed by Promsvyazbank, a Russian state-owned bank. The EU views this activity as supporting Russian state-linked financial interests, including those responsible for the annexation of Crimea and the destabilization of Ukraine.



Western regulators have long raised concerns about Russia-linked crypto in Kyrgyzstan. In 2025, the Grinex exchange, launched by Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor, and the A7A5 stablecoin were already under international scrutiny.



The US Treasury, the UK government, and the EU sanctioned Grinex, A7A5, and their founders. An investigation by RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service estimated that A7A5 transactions reached $79 billion, while other reports suggest circulation through Grinex exceeded $100 billion by early 2026.



Therefore, CJSC TengriCoin is supporting and benefitting from the Government of the Russian Federation, which is responsible for the annexation of Crimea and the destabilisation of Ukraine. In addition, CJSC TengriCoin is associated with Promsvyazbank, Limited Liability Company A7 and Limited Liability Company Old Vector, the EU draft says.

A7A5 was developed by Limited Liability A7 and Limited Liability Company Old Vector, linking CJSC TengriCoin directly to these entities. Through the Meer platform, CJSC TengriCoin channels funds into Promsvyazbank, supporting Russian state financial interests.

Playing Clean

Kyrgyz officials have strongly denied claims that the country facilitates sanctions evasion. Last week, First Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers Daniyar Amangeldiev told RFE/RL that Bishkek had received no official notification of sanctions and that reports so far were based on media coverage.



We are holding consultations with EU Special Envoy for Sanctions David O'Sullivan and have imposed restrictions on the export of weapons and sensitive goods. Trade statistics based on percentage growth can also be misleading when initial volumes were very low, he said.



Economically, EU export bans on machinery and electronics could disrupt supply chains, increase costs, discourage foreign investment, and make European banks and insurers more cautious in dealing with Kyrgyz counterparties. Once imposed, such measures are difficult to reverse and require sustained proof that reexports have stopped.



In a conversation with RFE/RL, Kyrgyz economist Marat Musuraliev warned that if the EU eventually imposes country-level export restrictions, it could severely harm Kyrgyzstans reputation and economic prospects.



If individuals or private companies profit from bypassing sanctions and the EU then sanctions the country, we will all bear the consequences. Its easy to fall under sanctions, but very difficult to recover. This would inflict serious damage on our economy, he said. Its also a reputational issue. Anyone considering investing in Kyrgyzstan will not just think once, they will think seven times before making a decision.
Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov dismissed Kamchybek Tashiev as chairman of the State Committee for National Security (SCNS) on February 10 and appointed Jumgalbek Shabdanbekov as acting chairman amid rising political tensions in the Central Asian nation.

Tashiev, a longtime political ally of Japarov, is currently undergoing medical treatment in Munich, Germany after arriving on February 6, according to a Kyrgyz diplomat posted in Europe.

Sources close to Tashiev told RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service that the dismissal "was completely unexpected," adding that he "heard this news while receiving medical treatment."

The reshuffle is widely seen as a move by Japarov to reassert control over key institutions ahead of upcoming political cycles. It also comes amid ongoing debate over the timing of the next presidential election.

Since Japarov and his allies took power in 2021, Kyrgyzstan's reputation as a democratic outlier in authoritarian Central Asia has been dealt one blow after another, with crackdowns on the media, civil society, and political opponents.

Included in the reshuffle is Rustam Mamasadykov, who was Secretary of the Security Council and who now has been appointed first deputy chairman of the SCNS.

In a statement to RFE/RL, Japarov's press secretary, Askat Alagozov, said the president made the decision "first and foremost" in the interest of the state "to prevent divisions in society, including among state institutions and instead to strengthen unity."

Tashiev was appointed SCNS chairman in October 2020, shortly after a wave of political unrest rocked the country.

During his tenure, he led a high-profile campaign against corruption and organized crime, including the 2023 killing of Kamchy Kolbaev, a prominent criminal figure in Bishkek, during a special SCNS operation.

Over the past five years, the SCNS reported recovering more than 352 billion soms ($4.14 billion) for the state.

Shabdanbekov, 56, previously served as deputy chairman of the SCNS and head of its 9th Department. His appointment as permanent chairman still needs parliamentary approval.

From Alliance to Rivalry

Tashiev and Japarov, once close allies, formed a powerful duo in Kyrgyz politics. Tashiev played a central role in managing security and anti-corruption operations while Japarov consolidated the presidency.

Analysts say their relationship has shown signs of strain in recent years as Tashiev's growing influence created an informal power base that at times appeared to rival that of the president.

Tashiev's dismissal has intensified questions about Kyrgyzstan's political landscape, particularly with upcoming elections in view.

Civil activist Mavlyan Askarbekov told RFE/RL that the move likely reflects deeper strategic calculations.

"Let me also say why Kamchy Kolbaev was neutralized: because he refused to compromise. Given this factor, he was eliminated. Very important and difficult decisions are likely to be made soon," he said.

"Tashiev also has his own major plans and is thinking ahead. I believe Tashiev understands that in the upcoming election, if he wants to be president, now is his chance; otherwise, it may never happen."

In a video interview with RFE/RL, journalist and Tashiev ally Mirlan Duishonbaev described the dismissal as "completely unexpected, especially since Tashiev was abroad."

"He has worked to ensure political stability and unity, and this could mark the end of the political tandem, possibly leading him to run in the next presidential election against Japarov."
WASHINGTON -- The top US diplomat, Marco Rubio, will travel to Germany later this week to lead a high-level delegation to the annual Munich Security Conference before heading on to Slovakia and Hungary, the State Department has announced.

The trip comes at a pivotal moment, as Washington and its European allies grapple with deepening mistrust over security, trade, and the fundamental future of the transatlantic alliance -- tensions that are expected to loom large over discussions in Munich.

Russia's war against Ukraine, which will soon enter its fifth year since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022, is expected to be a major topic of discussion at the conference, as is the tension surrounding Iran.

Rubios attendance at the February 1315 conference will be followed by a diplomatic swing through Bratislava and Budapest on February 1516, underscoring the administrations focus on Central Europe at a time of strategic uncertainty.

In Slovakia, he is expected to meet senior officials to advance regional security cooperation and nuclear energy projects, the State Department said; in Hungary, the focus shifts to bilateral ties and peace efforts aimed at resolving global conflicts.

The centerpiece of Rubio's trip may be his scheduled Munich address on February 14, which is expected to come under intense scrutiny -- particularly in the shadow of last years conference, where Vice President JD Vance's speech made waves.

At the time, Vances remarks -- which accused European leaders of suppressing free speech and failing to manage migration -- left a lingering sense of apprehension in Brussels and beyond.

That unease is reflected in the Munich Security Conferences annual report, written by organizers of the forum and published this week, which warns that Europe faces a prolonged era of confrontation driven by Russian aggression.

Transatlantic Tensions

Crucially, the report argues that the greatest challenge to the liberal international order may now be coming from within, citing what it describes as a tectonic shift in US thinking about alliances.

Calling US President Donald Trump "the most powerful of those who take the axe to existing rules and institutions," its authors predict that "transactional deals may well replace principled cooperation...and regions may become dominated by great powers rather than governed by international rules and norms."

US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker has forcefully rejected that internal threat assessment, saying that Washington is seeking to rebalance, rather than dismantle, the postwar order.

Speaking to reporters on February 9, Whitaker pushed back against the notion that the United States is drifting away from its long-standing alliances.

Were trying to make NATO stronger, he said, arguing that pressure on European allies to spend more on defense is about capability, not abandonment.

On trade, he cast the US position as a response to what he called unfair imbalances.

On Greenland, which Trump has said he wants the US to take over, Whitaker framed US interest as a security concern tied to Russia and China -- while distancing himself from the president's more incendiary rhetoric on the subject.

That distinction -- between rebalancing and retreat -- has become central to how many seasoned diplomats interpret the current moment. Still, some caution that the challenge for Rubio lies in bridging the gap between official rhetoric and the stark political intelligence being gathered by US allies across Europe.

'Dont Throw Up Your Hands'

Daniel Fried, a former assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia who served under seven US administrations, recently returned from a trip to Bucharest, Warsaw, and Prague.

In an interview with RFE/RL on February 9, Fried argued that while concern among transatlantic allies is understandable, European hand-wringing risks becoming a strategic dead end.

I understand the concern, but you cant throw up your hands and just recoil in horror, Fried said. Instead, he contended, the path forward for Europe is not to complain, but to work the problem.

Fried pointed to the NATO summit in The Hague in June, where Europeans put forward a formula for increased military spending, as a success story -- effectively giving Washington the win it had sought.

At the heart of the current friction, he argued, is the definition of US engagement. While critics see signs of a fundamental withdrawal from the existing security architecture, Fried contended there is a complete difference between rebalancing and disengagement.

US presidents since Eisenhower have pushed Europe to do more for their own defense, Fried said, citing former Defense Secretary Bob Gates as a prominent advocate of this approach.

The objective, he said, has long been a stronger transatlantic relationship built on greater European capability -- and, by extension, a louder European voice.
The casualty count in the Kremlins war against Ukraine could reach 2 million by spring, with nearly 1.2 million Russian forces killed, wounded, or missing -- including some 325,000 dead -- since Moscow launched the full-scale invasion in February 2022, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said in a report published late last month.

Contrary to Russian President Vladimir Putins frequent expressions of confidence, CSIS said the data suggests that Russia is hardly winning and its forces are advancing extremely slowly. With growth flagging and technological innovation stagnating, meanwhile, Russia is becoming a second- or third-rate economic power as the war rages on, it said.

Ramazan Alpaut of RFE/RLs Tatar-Bashkir Service spoke with Seth G. Jones, president of the Defense and Security Department and Harold Brown Chair at CSIS, on February 5. In the past, Jones held positions in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and US Special Operations Command.

RFE/RL: I noticed in the study where you state that Russia has lost 325,000 killed, you dont use the word "identified" or "confirmed." Does this figure represent a final number or is it an estimate?

Seth G. Jones: What we have done is estimated the number of both Russian casualties, which includes wounded, missing, and killed. And what we have done is estimated based on a pretty significant methodology that there have been about 275,000 to 325,000 Russians killed in the war in Ukraine. Weve also assessed Ukrainian casualties as well, so not just on the Russian side.

RFE/RL: RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service has documented over 49,000 confirmed fatalities among Russians from the Volga region alone since the start of the full-scale invasion, while the BBC reports total Russian deaths at over 165,000. Your estimates are nearly twice as high. Why is there such a gap?

Jones: Well, I think the challenge ends up being that there are a number of organizations that are only looking at confirmed fatalities, so they may be looking at graveyards and cemeteries in Russia or confirmed names at hospitals. The reality for those of us that have been in the military sphere and have done estimates is there are a range of reasons that government entities will try to hide these numbers.

So one of the things we have done is conduct a range of discussions with government and intelligence services from over a dozen countries, from Poland and the Baltic states to Finland, the British, the Americans, in addition to other sources of data to get much closer estimates. I think that probably a reason why some of those estimates are so low is frankly because the Kremlin has made every effort to hide the actual number of fatalities.

RFE/RL: You estimate that Ukrainian forces have suffered between 100,000 and 140,000 fatalities, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy cites 55,000 officially confirmed deaths, noting that many soldiers are missing in action. How do you explain this difference and how do your estimates relate to the figures provided by the Ukrainian government?

Jones: Again, I think that talking about fatality and casualty numbers is very sensitive for governments that are involved in it in the middle of a war. I would just say that what we have done isfirst of all, been to Ukraine and talked with folks inside the Ukrainian government, as well as a number of government agencies from across Europe and the US that are operating in Ukraine. We use the same methodology for the estimates of Russian fatalities and broader casualties as we did with Ukrainians.

RFE/RL: Data on identified Russian fatalities show a disproportionate number of deaths from Russias ethnic republics like Bashkortostan and Tatarstan. What factors might explain this pattern?

Jones: Well, there are a couple things. One is money. I think there have been quite large sums that the Russian government has been willing to provide to soldiers and families of soldiers, including if theyre killed. And in some of those regions, we see large numbers in the Far East and in the North Caucasus of individuals that have been killed or wounded in the war in Ukraine. I think, you know, money is attractive to those regions within Russia that are poorer.

Theres a second reason, which is largely political, which is Vladimir Putins most important political areas tend to be such cities as Moscow and St. Petersburg. You dont see those sorts of numbers of Russians killed or wounded from those regions. I think its just more politically sensitive.

So theres probably an economic reason for the large number that were seeing from the Far East and North Caucasus and other areas, but theres also a political reason in the sense that it looks like the Kremlin assesses that those individuals are more expendable for the Russian state politically than losing menfrom very politically important cities and regions.

RFE/RL: RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service found that in the Volga region, where Tatarstan and Bashkortostan are located, one in every 150 men aged 18 to 66 has died in the war.

You write that Russian forces have gained less than 1.5 percent of Ukrainian territory since the start of 2024, while suffering significant human losses and inflicting substantial economic damage on Russia. I was reminded of a documentaryabout the capture of the Reichstag in 1945. The film shows the enormoushuman cost the Soviet army paid during the siege. Does the Soviet strategy of achieving objectives at any cost, regardless of casualties, remain relevant to the way the Russian army operates today?

Jones: Well, it is a brutal way of fighting. You know, whats interesting is if one looks at World War II. In that war, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. So that was a life-or-death struggle. And when you look at the Red Army advances even during that war, if you start with the German invasion of the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa and then you fast forward to when the Red Army was in Berlin, Germany, at the end of the war, it took 1,394 days for the Red Army to reach Berlin against a very competentGerman army [and] air force.

If you start with the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and you fast forward the same number of days, 1,394, you get a very different picture. The Russians have only made it to Pokrovsk. I mean, it would almost be faster for a snail during that same time period to have moved from where the lines were in January 2024 to where they were in January 2026.

They're historically slow numbers -- actually slower than any major offensive campaign that we looked at over the last century. And I think the fact that this is not a war of survival, this is a war of choice, means that I think these are senseless casualties that the Russians are suffering right now. This is a war of choice for Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin, not a war of necessity.

RFE/RL: You write that President Putins primary objective is to bring Ukraine back to Russias sphere of influence. Does this mean that any peace deal is ultimately futile, given that Ukraine seeks to remain a sovereign state?

Jones: I do think it means that any peace settlement that is achieved -- or cease-fire -- in 2026, for example, has to be looked at both in the short term and the long term. In the short term, I think it is possible with some trades of territory that there could be a pause of fighting for now. Both sides are tired, both sides have massive blood and treasure -- economic costs because of the four years of war.

But every indication from what President Putin has both said and written is that he considers Ukraine in Russias sphere of influence. What that suggests is that as long as Kyiv is closely aligned with Europe and the West in general, not Moscow, that I think the Russians will continue in some fashion to undermine Ukrainian sovereignty using a combination of conventional military and gray zone activity in Ukraine. So I do not believe, with those Putin objectives, that this war is anywhere close to being over.

RFE/RL: Does that mean its impossible to reach a peace deal without defeating Russia?

Jones: I think it is difficult right now toreach a permanent peace deal. I dont think a defeat of Russia itself is the only possibility. I think a future deterrence of Russia is also possible. What that would look like is a temporary pause in the fighting, but where there is a major Ukrainian buildup of forces with help from European and other countries that would make it very difficult and very costly for Russia to try to invade again in the future.

RFE/RL: In your study, you also focus on the economic consequences of the war, noting that Russias manufacturing is shrinking, foreign investment is limited, access to international markets is closed, and the country lags far behind in high-tech and AI development. Does this mean that Russia is falling irreversibly behind?

Jones: Well, what it means is that Russia is a second or third-tier economic power. Russia is no longer a major power in the economic sphere. It certainly has oil and gas and some other goods that it can export, but I think what we found is a very bleak near-term outlook for the Russian economy in just basic areas of productivity.

Andif you look at President Putins comments over the years, he has wanted Russia to be a leader in artificial intelligence. If you look at almost any major indicator of where Russia sits in artificial intelligence, it is near dead last in the artificial intelligence programs that are being produced. Even in technology itself, if you look at the top 100 technology companies in the world, Russia has zero, none. It is falling so far behind in technology that it will be very difficult in the near term to catch up.

RFE/RL: Given that Russias ethnic republics account for a disproportionate share of identified war fatalities and are also bearing the brunt of growing budget deficits, could this lead to the consolidation of regional elites and an increase in centrifugal or anticenter sentiments?

Jones: It is possible that there will be increasing, growing disillusionment with President Putin and the Kremlin. When one looks at the impact of the war, there is a disproportionate effect in terms of soldiers that have been killed and casualties from the outer regions of Russia. Secondarily, its those regions that are also feeling the economic effect of now four years of war.

So this could lead to greater political unhappiness with both the economic situation and the military implications of the war. And I would just emphasize that this is a war of choice, it is not a war of need. Russia did not need to invade Ukraine, it chose to do that. And I think as we have seen, the Russian military has performed worse than any major military we looked at in the last century. Its time to stop. Its time for that suffering of the Russian population to end.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Rustam Rakhimdzhanovich Muminov, an Uzbek businessman who holds Russian and British citizenship, was previously sanctioned by the EU, the United Kingdom, and Ukraine for supplying cotton pulp to Russia's military facilities. However, this hasn't stopped his companies from continuing to produce materials critical for Russia's military industry.

According to a draft EU sanctions document seen by RFE/RL, Fargona Kimyo Zavodi LLC and Raw Materials Cellulose LLC, controlled by Muminov, supply cotton pulp to Russian gunpowder plants in Kazan, Perm, and Tambov.

The EU draft states both companies "support Russia's military and industrial complex by being involved in the supply of military technology and equipment," which is why they're included on the EU's upcoming blacklist.

The sanctions also extend to two Russian buyers of Uzbek cotton products, Dmitry Malyuta and Denis Shishkin. The EU draft describes them as owners of shares in LLC Bina Invest, through which they control companies importing cotton pulp from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan for Russian gunpowder factories. Both also own shares in LLC Aleksinskiye Kraski-Ural, which delivers goods to Russian gunpowder factories.

The materials are used in a wide range of military products, including ammunition.

'Cotton Cellulose King'

Investigative reporting by Vazhnyye Istorii, Vlast.Kz, and OCCRP shows that Muminov's network controlled roughly 85 percent of Uzbekistan's cotton cellulose exports to Russia, which surged after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Exports totaled around $5 million in 2022 and $8.7 million in the first nine months of 2023 -- nearly 70 times higher than in 2021.

Trade and customs data show that in 20242025 some Uzbek suppliers shifted to exporting cotton fiber under HS code 5601219000 instead of cotton cellulose. Exports under this classification were valued at about $9.8 million in 2024, according to figures cited by RFE/RL's Uzbek Service. Experts say this may have allowed deliveries to Russian military facilities to continue while partially circumventing EU restrictions.

According to Ukrainian authorities, Muminov's companies were restructured following the May 2025 sanctions: Mercury Renaissance and Fargona Kimyo Zavodi LLC were re-registered, and Raw Materials Cellulose LLC ceased exports to Russia at the end of 2024. Nevertheless, Muminov remains closely connected to Russian military procurement, according to the Council for Economic Security of Ukraine (ESCU).

Several companies controlled by Muminov - Fargona Kimyo Zavodi LLC (Fergana Chemical Plant), Raw Materials Cellulose LLC, and Mercury Renaissance were placed under Ukrainian sanctions in May 2025, along with Muminov himself, under a decree signed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that remains in force for 10 years.

The United Kingdom added Muminov and these Uzbek-linked firms to its Russia sanctions list on December 18, 2025, imposing asset freezes and financial restrictions as part of a broader sanctions update.

Muminov's dominance in Uzbekistan's cotton pulp exports highlights his close ties with the state institutions regulating this strategically important sector. Cotton and cotton-derived products, including cellulose and pulp with dual-use potential, have traditionally been tightly controlled by the Uzbek government, with oversight from security agencies as a major source of national revenue.

So far, Uzbek authorities have not publicly responded to the sanctions targeting Muminov and his companies, leaving questions about domestic oversight of cotton pulp exports to Russia.

The EU's 20th sanctions package is expected to be formally adopted by the end of February.
US Vice President JD Vance arrived in Azerbaijan on February 10 as he continues a trip to the Caucasus aimed at shoring up support for a US-brokered peace deal with Armenia and to push a strategic transit corridor Washington sees as central to reshaping trade, energy, and influence in the region.

Vance made the short flight from Yerevan to the Azerbaijani capital of Baku following two days of meetings with Armenian officials where he signed an agreement to cooperate in the civil nuclear sector that will allow up to $5 billion in initial US exports to Armenia, plus an additional $4 billion in longer-term fuel and maintenance contracts.

The vice president, the first sitting US vice president to ever visit Armenia, called the trip to Armenia "very productive" and said he's "optimistic about the peace deal based on where we are compared to where we were just a few months ago."

In June, Armenia signed a US-brokered a deal with Azerbaijan aiming to end more than 40 years of conflict over the Karabakh region.

The centerpiece of the agreement is a proposed 43-kilometer road-and-rail corridor, to be called the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), that would run through Armenia and link Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave while opening a new East-West trade artery bypassing Russia and Iran.

Armenia and Azerbaijan had been locked in conflict since the late 1980s over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but long controlled by ethnic Armenian separatists.

In September 2023, Azerbaijan retook full control of Karabakh following a military offensive.

Last summer, leaders from the two countries agreed on a major deal -- brokered by Washington -- aimed at ending decades of conflict, including two full-scale wars.

The agreement gives the United States leasing rights to develop the transit corridor, which would run through southern Armenian territory along the border with Iran.

The corridor would eventually include a rail line, oil and gas lines, and fiberoptic lines, allowing for the movement of goods and eventually people.

Vance said "a lot of investment that's going to come to Armenia because of some of the good deals that we've struck."

Azerbaijani media reported Vance was holding a brief meeting with President Ilham Aliyev in Baku to start the second leg of the trip.

Ahead of Vance's arrival, Aliyev said the visit is part of "a new era in bilateral relations which is very promising."

The peace agreement has boosted Washington's position in the region at a time when Russia's influence has faced setbacks in Baku and Yerevan. Vance's arrival also coincides with other regional developments -- such as US-Iran tensions amid ongoing peace talks in Oman and a new US-backed critical minerals initiative -- that analysts say has placed the South Caucasus at an unlikely nexus for US policy priorities.

With reporting by Alex Raufoglu in Washington
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, talks with elderly residents while visiting an apartment complex for seniors in Xicheng District of Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 10, 2026. Xi visited primary-level officials and residents in Beijing during a two-day inspection tour from Monday to Tuesday. (Photo by Feng Yongbin/Xinhua)

BEIJING, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, on Tuesday stressed the importance of caring for the elderly and children during his inspection tour in Beijing ahead of the Spring Festival.

At an elderly care home in Xicheng District, Xi told residents that the Party Central Committee pays special attention to both the elderly and the young.

Noting that senior citizens are treasure of the country, Xi said the steady increase in average life expectancy is a reflection of the strengths of the socialist system.

"Caring for and supporting the elderly is a shared responsibility of the whole society," Xi added.

He also said that children represent the future of the nation and efforts must be made to ensure their healthy growth and well-rounded development. 
Local Enterprise Office (LEO) Roscommon supported companies created 170 jobs in 2025, up from the 153 created in 2024, according to the latest figures.

The net jobs created by LEO Roscommon supported clients in 2025 was 55, which considers companies that amalgamated, ceased trading and those that transferred on to Enterprise Ireland.

The new figures show that the LEO Roscommon financially supports 167 small businesses in its portfolio across the county and these companies in turn employ 1055 people.

The total national figures for the Local Enterprise Offices across the country were announced by Minister of State for Employment, Small Business and Retail, Alan Dillon, T.D and showed that LEOs are now financially supporting 40,285 jobs across 7,148 companies.

Minister Dillon said that the 31 Local Enterprise Offices continue to be the backbone of local economic development, supporting 40,285 jobs in 2025, the highest level since their establishment. Last year alone, LEO client companies created 7,261 new jobs, delivering a 7% increase on 2024 and marking the 12th consecutive year of jobs growth."

The head of enterprise at LEO Roscommon Louise Ward said that the figures highlight the significant impact that the Local Enterprise Offices and their clients are making in driving economic growth across the country. The creation of over 7,000 jobs is only a small part of the role that LEOs are playing in fostering entrepreneurship and growing enterprise in towns, villages and communities all over Ireland.

These jobs and clients figures only reflect those who have received financial funding from their LEO and do not capture the thousands more that receive the likes of Lean, Green and Digital supports or training and mentoring. The numbers are immensely positive and reflect the resilience of the small business sector and we look forward to growing our work with these businesses in 2026 and to help those who have a great idea to get started.

Chief executive of Roscommon County Council Shane Tiernan said the job creation figures announced for 2025 illustrated another year of impressive job creation delivery by LEO in the county. Id like to complement all of the staff of our Local Enterprise Office for their outstanding work across our county. A ten per cent job creation increase over 12 months, representing the creation of 170 new jobs, reflects the strong performance of our small to medium sized business sector.

LEOs record of job creation and training, mentoring and upskilling as well as providing support for start-up and established businesses reflects a very positive economic outlook for our county which creates a positive climate for even further jobs growth.

Roscommon County Council continues to invest significant resources in building our enterprise infrastructure. Facilities such as An Chistin Food Hub in Castlerea and the Monksland Innovation Hub will continue to drive the growth of start-up and scaling businesses while supporting businesses to become more greener, leaner and even more digitally savvy.

Mr Tiernan went on to say: As a council we are focused on supporting business innovation and economic growth. These figures illustrate our determination to attract more jobs and more investment to County Roscommon, which Im confident will see increased jobs growth in the immediate future.

Head of local enterprise and regions at Enterprise Ireland Anne Lanigan remarked that "strong employment results reflect the impact of the Local Enterprise Office network and the ambition of the small businesses it supports across the country. The continued growth in jobs, with 82% of the new jobs created last year outside Dublin, shows that entrepreneurs can start, grow and scale their businesses from anywhere in Ireland."

Since their establishment in 2014 LEOs have been for the first stop shop for entrepreneurs and small businesses and provide a range of supports including financial, mentoring, training and sector specific expertise to help guide businesses at any stage of their development.

They also run key initiatives to foster entrepreneurship across the country including Local Enterprise Week, National Womens Enterprise Day, the Student Enterprise Programme and the National Enterprise Awards. They are also running a campaign encouraging small businesses to save time money and energy by availing of their competitiveness and productivity supports including Green, Lean and Digital for Business.
By Cillian Sherlock, Press Association

An Irish mans description of immigration detention facilities are false, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said.

Seamus Culleton has been detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) since September.

He has described horrible conditions at the facility, which he likened to a modern-day concentration camp.

In a statement to the Press Association on Tuesday, DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said: These claims that there are subprime conditions at Ice facilities are false.

Ice has higher detention standards than most US prisons that hold actual US citizens.

Culleton is originally from Co Kilkenny but has been living in the US for almost 20 years and is married to a US citizen.

He was driving home after finishing work when he was detained by Ice agents on September 9th, 2025.

Culleton said he had a work permit but was arrested and taken from Massachusetts to an Ice facility in El Paso, Texas.

Foreign Affairs and Defence Minister Helen McEntee (Cillian Sherlock/PA)

The DHS has alleged that when Culleton arrived in the US in 2009, under a visa waiver programme, allowing people to stay in the US for 90 days without a visa, he did not leave after this period.

A pending green card application and work authorisation does not give someone legal status to be in our country.

Being in detention is a choice. We encourage all illegal aliens to use the CBP Home app to take control of their departure. The United States is offering illegal aliens 2,600 dollars and a free flight to self-deport now.

We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the US the right legal way to live the American dream. If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return.

These claims that there are subprime conditions at Ice facilities are false. Ice has higher detention standards than most US prisons that hold actual US citizens.

Foreign Affairs Minister Helen McEntee said it was a really distressing situation for Culleton and her officials were working to support his family.

Asked on Tuesday if she was aware of other similar cases of Irish people with a right to be in the US being detained by Ice, she said: I am aware of a small number of cases where people have directly reached out to our embassy teams.

McEntee added: If there are other people in that type of scenario, please engage with our teams  were there to support them.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin said he empathises with the position Seamus Culleton is in (Liam McBurney/PA)

Taoiseach Micheal Martin later told the Dail that Irish officials were aware of five to six cases.

He said the cases vary in terms of status but the Government would do everything it could to help Culleton.

Culleton said he would like the Taoiseach to raise his case with US President Donald Trump during his meeting at the White House in March for St Patricks Day.

Asked if he would do so, Martin said on Tuesday that Government officials will see what more they can do in communication with the administration.

He said Government officials have been engaging with local officials and Ice about Culletons case.

Speaking before a Cabinet meeting in Dublin, the Taoiseach said: We will see what more, with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, what we can do in terms of our communication with the administration.

I fully empathise with the position he is in, he has been in the United States quite a long time, hes married there.

Im not clear on the full background to it but certainly we would like to see him out of that facility.

Tanaiste Simon Harris said it was an extremely stressful time for Seamus Culleton and his family (Brian Lawless/PA)

Asked if he was broadly concerned about the US administrations approach to immigration enforcement, Martin said the Government has been concerned about undocumented Irish citizens for a long time through a range of US administrations.

He added: There is now a crackdown in America in terms of the implementation of migration law which we are concerned about in terms of how it affects the Irish undocumented.

Martin said the approach had been to seek legal channels to regularise the situation for Irish and US citizens in the States.

He said living in the US without status was a very difficult and dangerous position to be in.

Martin said it has been difficult to get consensus on the Hill as different countries lobby US congress for support on migration measures.

Meanwhile, Tanaiste Simon Harris said it was an extremely stressful time for Culleton and his family.

Asked if Martin should raise the issue with Trump, he said: I take the point thats made about what may or may not happen on March 17th, I would just make the point, theres a fair whack of time to go between now and March 17th, and certainly Ireland and Irish authorities, through our diplomatic channels, will be continuing to engage, to make the point, to make their representations between now and then.

Of course, then the Taoiseach and the Government will judge where thats at.

Asked the same question, McEntee said there is always a time and a place to raise individual cases, and added: I have no doubt the Taoiseach will give it consideration but it is important to stress we are already providing assistance to Seamus.
WILLISTON--American State Bank & Trust Company (ASB) is pleased to announce its commitment that has led to a major contribution of $500,000 toward the construction of Bethel Lutheran Nursing and Rehabilitation Center's (Bethel) new senior care facility set to open in 2028. The new facility will be located in Williston Square with a groundbreaking ceremony expected to be held in the spring of 2026. ASB recognized the opportunity to support a longstanding institution delivering essential care for Williston's senior community.

The $500,000 pledge will contribute to the construction of a state-of-the-art senior care and rehabilitation facility. This generous contribution will pave the way for a comprehensive center that prioritizes the health, well-being, and dignity of our senior community members. In order to meet the rising demand for senior healthcare in our community, the new facility will feature cutting-edge medical technology, spacious living accommodations, and a wide range of recreational and therapeutic activities designed to enrich the lives of its residents.

With a focus on personalized care, the center will offer tailored services to meet the diverse needs of seniors, ensuring they receive the highest quality of support and attention. This initiative not only highlights a commitment to enhancing senior care, but also sets a new standard for community-focused healthcare solutions.

Joel Babcock, Bethel Lutheran Foundation director, said "We are incredibly grateful for this generous donation." He further stated, "It represents a significant step forward in our mission to provide compassionate care and support to our aging population, ensuring they live their golden years with comfort and respect."

Pat and Tammy Sogard, representing the Davidson-Sogard family's majority ownership of ASB, said "Our family's 120-year-old community bank has always been more than a financial institution, we're a community partner." They added that "Supporting this project is a natural extension of our values and a meaningful way to give back to those who built the communities we serve."

Through the "A New Place to Call Home" campaign, Bethel will be able to allocate fewer resources to the maintenance of its buildings and redirect more of their resources toward enhancing the services they provide to their residents and community.

"This extraordinary gift represents more than just financial support - it's a true investment in the dignity, comfort, and quality of life of our seniors. We are humbled by ASB's generosity and proud to partner with an institution that values the heart of our community." said Belinda Moen, Bethel administrator & CEO.

"At ASB, we believe in investing in the long-term well-being of our community. This contribution reflects our commitment to ensuring our seniors have access to the care, dignity, and comfort they deserve in every stage of life." said Dave Hanson, ASB president & CEO. Hanson added, "We're honored to play a role in bringing this much-needed facility to life."

Community members and organizations are encouraged to go to https://www.blfnd.org/ to learn more about the project and explore opportunities to contribute to Bethel's fundraising campaign.

American State Bank & Trust Company is Williston's only locally owned community bank and is a leading financial institution dedicated to providing top-tier banking services to its customers. With a focus on community, innovation, and customer satisfaction, ASB continues to set the standard in the banking industry. To learn more about ASB, visit www.asbt.bank.
BISMARCK  The North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum, Bismarck, will host In Concert Together: Merrill Piepkorn & The Radio Stars and Jessie Veeder on Sunday, Feb. 22, 2-4 p.m. in the Russell Reid Auditorium. The concert is free and open to the public.

Watford City native Jessie Veeder will share original songs inspired by the Badlands, ranch life, and rural communities of western North Dakota. Known for her honest storytelling and roots-driven sound, Veeder is an award-winning songwriter whose work reflects the lives and landscapes of the northern Plains.

Merrill Piepkorn & The Radio Stars offer an energetic mix of modern and traditional Western-style music. Featuring harmonica, fiddle, guitars, and rich vocal harmonies, the band is known for lively performances that blend classic country, folk, and dance tunes.

This event is part of the ND250 commemoration of the United States 250th birthday and the regional Vinterfest, a month-long celebration of winter on the northern Plains featuring educational programs, outdoor recreation, and cultural traditions.

For more information, contact Education Outreach Supervisor Madison Milbrath, 701-328.-794 or [email protected]. The ND Heritage Center & State Museum is open Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m., and Saturday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Find additional upcoming events at statemuseum.nd.gov/events.
Larry Richard Handy, 67, Poplar, MT, passed away at home surrounded by family after a hard fought 18-month battle with pancreatic cancer.

Larry was born to Richard "Bud" and Colleen Handy and grew up in Flaxville, MT, as the oldest of three children alongside his siblings, Casey and Chris. He took his role as the oldest very seriously, especially when it came to teaching Chris how to ride an antique push mower and showing Casey how to drink adult beverages out of a vehicle washer reservoir.

He attended Flaxville High School and graduated with the Class of 1977. After high school, Larry moved to Glendive to attend Dawson Community College, where he gave DCC the good ol' college try. While officially enrolled, his true major was rodeo-and despite his best efforts, he graduated with a lifetime of stories and very few educational credits. Still, Larry would tell you it was time well spent. After his "college months", he returned to Flaxville and went to work, holding various jobs over the years, including working at Garberg Ranch and in the oil field.

On Oct. 6, 1990, Larry married Lauri Ralston and they began their life together full of love, laughter, and plenty of stories. Their first son, Wyatt, was born in 1992, followed by Ty in 1995. In 1997, their family was complete with the arrival of their daughter, Ashton-Larry's "little girl", who had him wrapped around her finger from day one.

Larry spent many years farming and ranching south of Brockton. In 2009, Larry and Lauri moved upriver to their current home, where they built their dream house overlooking the Missouri River-a place Larry was incredibly proud of and deeply loved. He worked alongside his kids, especially when it came to making hay. One of Larry's favorite jobs was packing the silage pit every fall. He was constantly trying to convince his good friend Wilbur that they needed two-way radio so they could do more bullshitting and less packing.

Larry loved to rope whether it was at brandings, hi-lines, jackpots, ranch rodeos and local rodeos. He built a roping arena at the home place, which the boys eventually turned into a feedlot pen-deemed more profitable than an arena. The feedlot still carries the arena name. Larry also loved watching rodeos, from Culbertson Frontier Days and the Wolf Point Stampede to the National Finals Rodeo and every event streamed on the Cowboy Channel. Each one was an opportunity to catch up with old friends and make new ones.

As his kids got older Larry decided to purchase his first pontoon boat-and enduring many memorable problems and events with it, Larry decided the boating life wasn't for him and traded it for a hay rake. Then later in life after semi-retirement Larry developed a new love for being on Fort Peck Lake-just never actually in the water (or the sun). He treasured summers spent with family and friends boating and relaxing under the canopy at the lake.

A natural storyteller, Larry's tales only grew bigger and more colorful the more times they were told. He had a way of making people laugh, feel welcome, and he was never short of words.

Following his kids to every sporting event and supporting their involvement in 4-H and FFA was a priority for Larry. One of Larry's many talents was competing in the hog boarding competition at the Richland County Fair every year. Even after his own children had graduated, he continued supporting nieces, nephews, and his special neighbor kids in all their activities. His love for young people truly shone through in his favorite role of all: "Papa Larry" to two little cowgirls.

Larry is survived by his wife, Lauri Handy; his children, Wyatt (Cassie) Handy and his two beloved granddaughters, Maysa and Jaylee, Circle, MT; Ty Handy, Wolf Point, MT; and daughter Ashton (Ethan) Beery, Vida, MT. He is also survived by his mother, Colleen Handy, Flaxville, MT; his brother, Casey (Debbie) Handy, Flaxville, MT; his sister, Chris (Bruce) Westgard, Westby, MT; numerous nieces and nephews; and, of course, his beloved rope horses, Frog and Turbo.

He is preceded in death by his father, Richard "Bud" Handy.

While we mourn his loss, we find comfort knowing Larry was welcomed by dear friends and family-Raymond and Echo Garberg, Steve and Sharon Handy, and Carlie and Ty Anderson-already swapping stories, keeping everyone laughing, and entering ropings.

Visitation will be held on Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, with the family receiving friends from 2-7 p.m. at the Vida Country Club, 2983 MT13, Vida, MT, 59274. In Larry's memory and to honor his legacy, his family will brand his last set of calves on May 23 at the family ranch, to celebrate a truly well lived life all family and friends are invited. Should friends desire, memorials in Larry's name may be made to the Go-Getters Youth Rodeo. Condolences may be sent to the family by visiting: http://www.stevensonandsons.com.
BEIJING, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Tuesday exchanged congratulations with his Nigerian counterpart, Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, on the 55th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

In his message, Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said that since the establishment of diplomatic relations 55 years ago, regardless of changes in the international situation, China and Nigeria have consistently supported each other and advanced hand in hand, with friendship transcending mountains and oceans and deeply rooted in the hearts of the two peoples.

In particular, he noted that since the establishment of a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2024, the two sides have deepened political mutual trust, yielded fruitful results in cooperation across various fields, and closely coordinated on international and regional affairs.

Wang voiced willingness to work with Tuggar to strengthen exchanges between the foreign ministries, leverage the China-Nigeria Intergovernmental Committee mechanism and take the implementation of the important consensus reached by the two heads of state and the outcomes of the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation as an opportunity so as to lift the bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership to higher levels.

Tuggar, for his part, said that since the establishment of diplomatic relations, Nigeria and China have maintained a friendly and mutually beneficial relationship, with deepening cooperation in various fields.

Nigeria regards China as an important strategic partner and is firmly advancing bilateral exchanges while exploring new areas of cooperation to better align with the foreign policy objectives of both countries and promote the development of Nigeria-China relations, said Tuggar, adding that this is highly consistent with Nigerian President Bola Tinubu's Renewed Hope agenda and demonstrates the two countries' steadfast commitment to deepening their comprehensive strategic partnership and achieving mutually beneficial outcomes.

Tuggar said he looks forward to the steady consolidation of friendship and cooperation between the two countries so as to ensure that the outcomes of such collaboration will deliver more benefits to the two peoples. 
The programme brings together experts from India, the United Kingdom, and Canada to explore tools like climate, land, energy, and water systems, which are essential for evidence-based decision-making in India. File Photo.

Key dignitaries at the inaugural session included British Deputy High Commissioner Alba Smeriglio and PU Registrar Prof. Yajvender Pal Verma



India-UK-Canada Energy Experts Convene at Panjab University for Asia's First Regional Energy Modelling Platform

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Panjab University (PU) has commenced Asias inaugural Regional Energy Modelling Platform workshop, aimed at enhancing capacity for integrated climate and energy planning. The two-week event, running from February 9 to 20, is organised by PUs Department of Environment Studies in partnership with the UKs Climate Compatible Growth Network.

The programme brings together experts from India, the United Kingdom, and Canada to explore tools like climate, land, energy, and water systems, which are essential for evidence-based decision-making in India.

The workshop features a diverse group of participants, including academics, early-career professionals, researchers, and NGO representatives from several states. Key dignitaries at the inaugural session included British Deputy High Commissioner Alba Smeriglio and PU Registrar Prof. Yajvender Pal Verma. The presence of senior advisors and coordinators from the British Deputy High Commission and the CCG network underscored the international significance of the initiative.

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The first week of the workshop focuses on building a conceptual understanding of various modelling tools through modules previously studied via the Open University.

In the second week, the cohort will apply these skills to develop specific country or sector case studies. These will culminate in policy-orientated analyses derived from modelling outputs.

By integrating diverse perspectives, the workshop aims to foster a more inclusive and technically robust approach to regional climate challenges, aligning scientific research with practical policy outcomes.

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Source: The Tribune




French President to Visit India from February 1719; Modi, Macron to Launch IndiaFrance Year of Innovation In Mumbai

On February 19, President Macron will participate in the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi.

President of France Emmanuel Macron is scheduled to pay an official visit to India from February 17 to 19, at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, according to an official release.

During the visit, the two leaders will hold discussions on strengthening bilateral cooperation across a wide range of sectors, as outlined in the Horizon 2047 Roadmap. They will also exchange views on regional and global issues of mutual interest, including cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region.

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Prime Minister Modi and President Macron will travel to Mumbai, where they will jointly inaugurate the IndiaFrance Year of Innovation, which will be celebrated throughout 2026 in both countries.

On February 19, President Macron will participate in the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi.

The visit follows Prime Minister Modis visit to France in February 2025 and underscores the depth of the IndiaFrance Strategic Partnership, reflecting the mutual trust and shared commitment of both nations to further strengthen bilateral ties.

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(For more news apart from French President to Visit India from February 1719; Modi, Macron to Launch IndiaFrance Year of Innovation In Mumbai , stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman.)
Research indicates that Mumbai releases approximately 5 million kilograms of plastic into the ocean each year, damaging 220 km of coastline and threatening 1.9 million livelihoods. File Photo.

The phased deployment is scheduled for 2026, with the first systems arriving before the monsoon.



Stopping the Leak: Mumbai to Launch Phased Battle Against 5 Million KG of Annual Plastic Waste

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Mumbai is set to become a primary battleground in the global fight against marine pollution, with the phased installation of specialised barriers designed to intercept plastic waste before it reaches the Arabian Sea. Led by the Netherlands-based non-profit The Ocean Cleanup, in collaboration with the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai and the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB), the initiative aims to recover at least 61 tonnes of plastic annually from the city's Trombay and Malad waterways.

The phased deployment is scheduled for 2026, with the first systems arriving before the monsoon. Research indicates that Mumbai releases approximately 5 million kilograms of plastic into the ocean each year, damaging 220 km of coastline and threatening 1.9 million livelihoods.

"Authorities attribute the surge in plastic pollution to a combination of industrial effluents, urban runoff and systemic failures in waste collection."

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Data from the non-profit indicates that a mere 0.03% of the world's rivers, roughly 1,000 out of 3 million, generate nearly 80% of all plastic flowing into our oceans.

The project is part of a global "30 Cities Programme" targeting the worlds most polluted urban waterways. By focusing on urban runoff and industrial discharge, the project seeks to "shut off the tap" of plastic pollution. Officials emphasise that stopping waste at these critical intervention points is essential for safeguarding marine ecosystems and coastal biodiversity.

Source: The Tribune

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AAP's major protest with band-baja outside Partap Singh Bajwa's residence against Congress for mocking Dalits & working class

During the protest, as AAP leaders moved to gherao Partap Singh Bajwa's residence....

Calling out Congresss casteist and elitist remarks into a flashpoint on Punjabs streets, senior leaders, ministers, MLAs, and hundreds of karyakartas of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Punjab on Sunday held a high-voltage band-baja protest outside the residence of Leader of Opposition (LoP) Partap Singh Bajwa, slamming Congress leadership for mocking Dalits, degrading honest livelihoods, and exposing its deeply feudal and dynastic mindset.

As AAP leaders moved to gherao Partap Singh Bajwas house, tensions escalated into a clash with the police, water cannons were used to disperse the crowd, and several leaders and workers were injured, underscoring the intensity of public anger against the insult not just to Cabinet Minister Harbhajan Singh ETO, but to the entire Dalit and working-class community of Punjab.

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Cabinet Minister Harbhajan Singh ETO, along with his wife Surinder Kaur, Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema, Health Minister Dr. Balbir, Mohinder Bhagat, Dr. Ravjot, MLAs Amansher Singh (Sherry Kalsi), Kuljit Randhawa, Inderbir Singh Nijjar, Neena Mittal, Labh Singh Ugoke, Chetan Jodamajra, Inderjit Kaur, Chairman Harchand Singh Barsat, Sunny Singh Ahluwalia, and hundreds of party leaders and workers participated in the protest. Simultaneously, under the leadership of AAP leader Joban Randhawa, a separate protest was also held outside Partap Singh Bajwas residence in Qadian, Gurdaspur.

Addressing the protest, Cabinet Minister Harbhajan Singh ETO said that mocking honest, hard-earned livelihoods was shameful. He said that making fun of the honest work done by someones father and degrading an entire community was deeply disgraceful. He stated that his father was a band master who educated his children through sheer hard work. I studied in a government school and reached here on the basis of my own merit. Bajwa Sahib is saying that we will play the band of a band players son. We have worked hard. We have not done smuggling or gold biscuit trafficking. This insult is not just mine, but of every poor family that educates its children through honest earnings, he said.

Targeting Congress, the Minister stated that in Partap Singh Bajwas eyes, Dalit society was merely material that could be bought and sold for votes. He recalled that statements were made in the Assembly asking where this material came from, reflecting the Congress mindset that a mobile repairman or a poor persons child could never become an MLA. Babasaheb Ambedkar gave everyone equality in the Constitution, but Congresss feudal thinking remained unchanged even today. People like Raja Warring and Partap Singh Bajwa considered themselves kings and could not digest the fact that under CM Bhagwant Singh Manns cabinet, six Dalit ministers from ordinary homes were doing exemplary work, he added.

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Targeting Raja Warring, Minister Harbhajan Singh ETO said that on one hand Congress leaders spoke about law and order, and on the other hand, in rallies before 1,200 people, they openly issued threats. He asked whether this was not jungle raj and said that such statements were meant to intimidate elected representatives so that children from poor families never dared to enter politics again.

Recalling his own educational struggle, the minister said that just one month after his fathers death, he worked relentlessly and passed his examination to fulfill his fathers dream. He said, Even today, I am pursuing a PhD from Punjab University. There are 163 government schools in my constituency, and my effort is to produce one ETO from every household. We began the education revolution to eliminate the gap between the children of the poor and the rich. Congress is afraid of this very change because they know that once poor children get educated, their politics will collapse.

Issuing a warning, Minister Harbhajan Singh ETO said that a 24-hour ultimatum had been given, but Partap Singh Bajwa fled and vacated his house. Wherever Bajwa went, AAP workers would gherao him there. If Partap Singh Bajwa did not immediately apologize, strict legal action would be taken, and in 2027, the people of Punjab would uproot this arrogant mindset completely, he asserted.

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Speaking separately, Surinder Kaur, wife of Cabinet Minister Harbhajan Singh ETO, said that Partap Singh Bajwa made vulgar remarks on their familys profession and belittled honest work by mocking band playing. No work was small or big and added that Congress president Raja Warring also made an extremely provocative statement. On one hand Raja Warring tried to incite 1,000 to 1,500 people sitting before him, and on the other hand, he claimed that Punjab was under jungle raj and that law and order was poor, she added.

Addressing the protest, Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema said that Congress, Akali Dal, and BJP-like parties had always promoted dynastic politics, where only a few families ruled. The AAP had broken this tradition by bringing educated youth from ordinary homes into the Assembly and the Cabinet. He said the protest aimed to expose the mindset of those who hated Dalits while sitting inside grand palaces, he asserted.

Minister Harpal Singh Cheema said that due to the visionary thinking of Arvind Kejriwal, a major transformation had taken place in Indian politics. After Delhi, the people of Punjab embraced this change. In 2017, for the first time, individuals from ordinary backgrounds, including doctors, lawyers, professors, and former defense personnel, entered the Punjab Assembly. In 2022, the people of Punjab strengthened this movement by giving AAP 92 seats, clearly rejecting dynastic politics, he added.

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Targeting Partap Singh Bajwa and Raja Warring, Minister Harpal Singh Cheema said that these leaders could not digest the progress of children from ordinary homes and were indulging in casteist remarks and divisive politics. It is extremely unfortunate that the qualifications of Cabinet Minister Harbhajan Singh ETO, who is highly educated and a PCS exam qualifier, were being questioned, reflecting Congresss belief that children from poor families should not move ahead, he affirmed.

He emphasized that it was because of the Right to Equality given by Babasaheb Ambedkar that today the son of a rickshaw puller could become an IAS officer and youth from ordinary homes were part of the Punjab Cabinet. CM Bhagwant Mann, six ministers from the Dalit community were part of the Cabinet for the first time in Punjabs history. In 2027, the people of Punjab would once again teach these arrogant and dynastic parties a harsh lesson, he asserted.





Health Minister Dr. Balbir Singh said that the anti-Dalit and anti-working-class mindset of Congress leaders had been exposed before the entire state. Referring to Partap Singh Bajwas statement, he said that Congress mocked hardworking people and had no respect for honest labour, adding that such remarks reflected a deeply despicable mindset.

MLA Inderjit Kaur said that the insulting words spoken against Cabinet Minister Harbhajan Singh ETO were not an insult to one individual alone, but to the entire Dalit and working-class community of Punjab. She said that Congress president Raja Warrings violent remarks were extremely serious and demanded legal action against him. She asserted that while AAP represented ordinary people, Congress remained steeped in corruption and arrogance.

She warned that if opposition leaders did not restrain their language and thinking, the people of Punjab would not allow them to enter villages in the coming elections and would ensure victory on all 117 seats in 2027, completely ending their political arrogance.

MLA Amansher Singh, known as Sherry Kalsi, said that old political families like Congress and Akali Dal could not tolerate the progress of children from ordinary homes. These parties believed power should remain confined within their families and that was why they referred to ministers as material and indulged in violent rhetoric. Leaders dreaming of returning to power in 2027 would face a crushing defeat at the hands of the people of Punjab, he added.

During the protest, as AAP leaders moved to gherao Partap Singh Bajwas residence, a heated argument broke out between party workers and the police, which soon escalated. The police used water cannons to stop the protesters, injuring several leaders and workers, and detained multiple prominent AAP leaders.

(For more news apart from AAPs major protest with band-baja outside Partap Singh Bajwas residence against Congress for mocking Dalits & working class, stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman.)
BREAKING: Social activist Simranjit Mann gets Pakistan-based death threat

The individual is also seen displaying a hand grenade and an AK-47 rifle.

Social activist Simranjit Mann, who has been raising his voice against Pastor Bajinder and fake agents and gangsters, has received a death threat from Pakistan. A threatening video has been sent to his WhatsApp number.

In the video, a person can be heard saying that whoever kills Simranjit Mann will be given Rs 30 lakh.

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The individual is also seen displaying a hand grenade and an AK-47 rifle.

Earlier as well, Pakistan-based dangerous gangster and ISI agent Shehzad Bhatti had issued death threats against him.

Simranjit Mann will lodge a complaint with the Mohali SSP today in this connection.

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(For more news apart from BREAKING: Social activist Simranjit Mann gets Pakistan-based death threat," stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman.)
Congress MP Manish Tewari Moves Adjournment Motion Seeking Urgent Discussion on IndiaUS Trade Framework

Tewari urged the government to make an immediate statement on the matter and allow a full-fledged discussion in Parliament.

Congress leader and Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari on Tuesday moved an Adjournment Motion in the Lower House of Parliament, urging the suspension of routine business to discuss concerns surrounding the interim trade agreement between India and the United States, including issues related to economic security, energy policy and agricultural access.

I move that this House do suspend Question Hour, Zero Hour and all other listed business of the day to take up the serious concerns emanating from the USAIndia Joint Statement on the Interim Trade Agreement and the recent Executive Order of the White House, the motion stated.

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The notice further alleged that commitments relating to Russian oil purchases and agriculture-related concessions may have been made, raising questions over Indias energy security, farmers interests and strategic autonomy.





Tewari urged the government to make an immediate statement on the matter and allow a full-fledged discussion in Parliament.

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Meanwhile, the Opposition is also set to bring a no-confidence motion against Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla during the second leg of the Budget Session, as the motion requires a 20-day notice period. The move follows allegations that Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi was repeatedly prevented from speaking in the House.

Congress MP Sukhdeo Bhagat earlier told news agency ANI that over 125 signatures have been collected in support of the proposed motion.

In a tit-for-tat move, Opposition members also disrupted proceedings and allegedly prevented Prime Minister Narendra Modi from speaking in the Lok Sabha.

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Earlier in the day, a meeting of INDIA bloc floor leaders was held at the office of the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha and Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge at the Parliament House complex.

Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi was also present at the meeting.

(For more news apart from Congress MP Manish Tewari Moves Adjournment Motion Seeking Urgent Discussion on IndiaUS Trade Framework," stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman.)
CongressAkali Hand-in-Glove Politics Exposed by Bittu; AAP's Mann Broke the Rotten Power-Sharing Nexus: Baltej Pannu

Pannu alleged that for years Punjab was run on a fixed-match model,Five years you rule, five years we rule.

Aam Aadmi Party Punjab Media Incharge Baltej Pannu on Monday launched a scathing attack on Congress and Shiromani Akali Dal leaders, accusing them of running a secret, decades-long power-sharing cartel that looted Punjab while pretending to be political rivals.

Addressing a press conference at the AAP party office, Pannu played a video clip of Union Minister Ravneet Singh Bittu, in which Bittu himself admits that in 2017 they planned and defeated Bhagwant Mann and ensure the victory of Sukhbir Badal, exposing the unholy alliance between Congress and Akali leadership.

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This is not an allegation by AAP. This is their own leader speaking. Ravneet Bittu has openly admitted that Congress and Akali Dal leaders worked together behind closed doors, deciding who would win, who would lose, and which seat would go to whom, Pannu said.

Five Years One Looted, Then Next Five Years Other Looted, That Was Punjabs Politics Before AAP

Pannu alleged that for years Punjab was run on a fixed-match model,Five years you rule, five years we rule. You dont question us, we wont question you. They protected each other. This was not governance; it was organised political corruption, he said.

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Pannu detailed how constituencies were pre-decided between Congress and Akali leaders, Patiala for one, Lambi for another, Lehra Gaga, Sunam, Bathinda, Sangrur, Doaba, Majha, every region had its backroom deal between Akali and Congress leaders.

Leaders would say one thing in Bathinda, another in Sangrur, and change their statement again by the time they reached Chandigarh. They didnt even remember what they said where, he added.

Pannu said the entire establishment panicked when a common man, a comedian from a village in Sangrur, entered politics and began exposing their nexus. They tried to defeat Bhagwant Mann in 2017, they tried again in 2019. But Sangrur understood the truth in 2014 itself. When Mann Sahab won twice from Sangrur, the message travelled across Punjab, and in 2022, the people delivered their verdict.

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Pannu pointed out that in 2022, Punjab rejected the entire old order, Captain Amarinder Singh lost, Bikram Majithia lost, Parkash Singh Badal lost, Sukhbir Badal lost and Navjot Sidhu lost. These were not coincidences. These were fallen pillars of a corrupt system, he said.

Pannu said the opposition is rattled because Punjab has changed in four years, irrigation Water has reached tail-end farmers after 45 years, Sadak Surakhya Force (SSF) ensures emergency response within minutes, 16 toll plazas shut down, 600 units of free electricity to households, a10 lakh health insurance cover and Transparent governance without fear or favour.

They dont talk about work. All they say is let us come, we will arrest Bhagwant Mann. Arrest him for what? For giving water to farmers? For saving accident victims? For stopping loot? Pannu asked.

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Pannu said the biggest proof of AAPs stand is that former Congress leader himself is now confessing. Ravneet Bittu is a Union Minister today. He is not lying when he says he was sent with a message to defeat Bhagwant Mann and help Sukhbir Badal. The only question is, who sent him?

Concluding, Pannu said, Punjab today knows who played games together and who stood with the people. The era of secret deals is over. The era of honest politics has begun, and that is what they cannot tolerate.

(For more news apart from CongressAkali Hand-in-Glove Politics Exposed by Bittu; AAPs Mann Broke the Rotten Power-Sharing Nexus: Baltej Pannu, stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman.)
Kataria said that overcoming the drug crisis requires a combined strategy involving job creation, rehabilitation, awareness, and strict law enforcement. File Photo.

He described the march as a "people's movement," urging all political, religious, and social groups to collaborate.



From Tarn Taran to Abohar: Governor Leads Peoples Movement Against Narcotics

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Punjab Governor Gulab Chand Kataria started a four-day walking tour on Monday to combat drug abuse, beginning in Tarn Taran. This padyatra, his second major effort since last April, aims to engage the public in the fight against narcotics. The Governor plans to travel through the border districts of Tarn Taran, Ferozepur, and Fazilka.

The event began at Sri Guru Harkrishan Public School following the Governors visit to the historic Gurdwara Darbar Sahib. During his prayers, he sought prosperity and welfare for the state. The first day saw a large turnout, including eminent local figures, NGOs, and students. Supported by the Punjab Red Cross Society, the initiative focuses on educating citizens about the dangers of drug use.

Kataria said that overcoming the drug crisis requires a combined strategy involving job creation, rehabilitation, awareness, and strict law enforcement. He described the march as a "people's movement," urging all political, religious, and social groups to collaborate. While visiting Seron village, he noted that cross-border smuggling of weapons and drugs from Pakistan remains a significant threat to regional stability. Punjab Cabinet Minister Laljit Singh Bhullar joined the Governor during the proceedings.

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The padyatra will end on February 12 in Abohar, concluding with a final march starting from the Municipal Corporation office at 11:30 am.

Source: The Tribune
Miscreants open fire at labourers; two severely injured

A companion of the victims stated that unidentified persons arrived on a scooter and began firing.

Miscreants opened fire at migrant workers walking along a road in Punjabs Moga district, leaving two of them critically injured.

According to information received, the incident occurred near the Paras Masala Factory on the MogaZira road when the labourers were on their way to work.

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Visuals of the attack have surfaced online, showing the assailant(s) opening fire on several labourers walking along the roadside without any apparent provocation; however, Rozana Spokesman could not verify the video.

The injured have been identified as Ashok Kumar and Sabodh, residents of Sitamarhi district in Bihar. Ashok Kumar reportedly sustained three bullet injuries to his leg. Both injured labourers were rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment.

A companion of the victims stated that unidentified persons arrived on a scooter and began firing. Police reached the spot soon after and have initiated an investigation into the matter.

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The incident has raised serious questions about public safety and security in the area.

(For more news apart from Miscreants open fire at labourers; two severely injured, stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman.)
Uttar Pradesh: Husband, Wife and Three Children Die by Suicide in Mathura; Bodies Sent for Postmortem

Visuals from the village show a large crowd gathered outside the house, as relatives and locals mourn the deaths of the family members.

A case of alleged mass suicide has come to light from Uttar Pradeshs Mathura district, where a family of five was found dead, sending shockwaves through the area.

The deceased have been identified as Manish (35), his 30-year-old wife, and their three children, residents of Khapparpur village.

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Additional Director General of Police (ADG) Anupam Kulshreshtha described the incident as a prima facie case of mass suicide. According to the ADG, Manish had written a message on a wall stating that the family was committing suicide.

Police have also recovered a diary belonging to Manish, in which he stated that no one should be held responsible for the deaths, mentioning that he was taking the extreme step due to personal problems, the ADG said.

#WATCH | Uttar Pradesh: Five members of a family, comprising a husband, wife, and their three children, were found dead in Khapparpur village of Mathura. A suicide note has been recovered. pic.twitter.com/Th6cJS4pm9 Advertisement February 10, 2026

Kulshreshtha added that the police are examining all available evidence and investigating the matter from all possible angles. She noted that the postmortem examination will ascertain the exact cause of death.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Shlok Kumar said that a self-recorded video was found on Manishs mobile phone, in which he spoke about suicide.

The bodies have been sent for postmortem examination.

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Visuals from the village show a large crowd gathered outside the house, as relatives and locals mourn the deaths of the family members.

(For more news apart from Uttar Pradesh: Husband, Wife and Three Children Die by Suicide in Mathura; Bodies Sent for Postmortem," stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman.)
BEIJING, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- China's State Council Information Office on Tuesday released a white paper titled "Hong Kong: Safeguarding China's National Security Under the Framework of One Country, Two Systems."

Consisting of five parts in addition to a preface and a conclusion, the white paper details the unrelenting fight for safeguarding national security in Hong Kong and the central government's fundamental responsibility for national security matters concerning Hong Kong.

It also expounds on the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR)'s achievements in fulfilling its constitutional responsibility for safeguarding national security, Hong Kong's transition from disorder to stability and prosperity, and efforts in creating high-standard security for high-quality development of the One Country, Two Systems policy.

The Communist Party of China Central Committee with Xi Jinping at its core has fully, faithfully, and resolutely implemented the policy of One Country, Two Systems, emphasizing that the highest principle of the policy is to safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests, according to the white paper.

The white paper says that the central government has applied a holistic approach to national security, and effectively exercised overall jurisdiction over the HKSAR in accordance with the country's Constitution and the HKSAR's Basic Law. It has enacted the Law on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region -- which has been enforced in the region -- and ensured that Hong Kong is administered by patriots.

The central government supports the HKSAR in fulfilling its constitutional responsibility to safeguard national security by effectively preventing, halting, and punishing any activities that endanger national security, according to the white paper.

Hong Kong's endeavors to safeguard national security are, at their core, efforts to uphold and advance the One Country, Two Systems policy, protect the fundamental human rights, dignity, and wellbeing of Hong Kong's 7.5 million residents, and promote world peace and development, according to the white paper.

In today's world, global transformation on a scale unseen in a century is accelerating, and the development environment facing China is undergoing profound and complex change. Safeguarding national security is a long-term and enduring task, the white paper says.

The central government firmly supports the HKSAR in fully and faithfully implementing the policy of One Country, Two Systems, shouldering its constitutional responsibility for safeguarding national security, and continuously strengthening its national security shield, to ensure steady and sustained progress in the One Country, Two Systems practice with high-standard security, according to the white paper.

Hong Kong, enjoying high-standard security, is bound to overcome all risks and challenges on the journey forward, and remain as steady as a rock in a turbulent world, the white paper says.

Under such a condition, Hong Kong will achieve long-term peace, stability, and prosperity. It will also fully leverage the strengths of One Country, Two Systems, and better integrate into and contribute to China's overall development, the white paper adds. 

Full text: Hong Kong: Safeguarding China's National Security Under the Framework of One Country, Two Systems
Bangladesh to Hold First Parliamentary Election on February 12 After 2024 Uprisingn (Representative Image)

The elections will be held alongside a national referendum seeking public approval for a set of reform proposals...

Bangladesh is set to hold parliamentary election on February 12, marking the countrys first national poll since the 2024 uprising that led to the fall of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinas government.

The election will bring an end to the interim administration led by Nobel laureate Professor Dr. Muhammad Yunus. The contest has largely evolved into a bipolar race between the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI).

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BNP leader Tarique Rahman, the son of late former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, is widely regarded as the frontrunner in the election. He recently returned to Bangladesh after 17 years of self-imposed exile.

The elections will be held alongside a national referendum seeking public approval for a set of reform proposals titled the July National Charter2025. Voters will be asked to respond with a simple yes or no.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus said that a yes vote would signify public consent for implementing the proposed reform package. The referendum was first proposed by Yunus on October 17.

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The July National Charter2025 aims to introduce reforms to the constitution, electoral system, judiciary, public administration, police administration, and anti-corruption mechanisms.

Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled the country to India on August 5, 2024, following the unrest. Subsequently, an interim government was formed under the leadership of Professor Dr. Muhammad Yunus to oversee the transition.

Senior Secretary of the Bangladesh Election Commission, Akhtar Ahmed, on Wednesday expressed confidence in the smooth conduct of the election while speaking to news agency ANI.

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#WATCH | Dhaka, Bangladesh: On Bangladesh Election, Senior Secretary Bangladesh Election Commission Akhtar Ahmed says, "... Voting will begin at 7:30 in the morning on the 12th... From my understanding, there are no security hazards in the election, and everything is in order..." pic.twitter.com/2zQtdlnz04  ANI (@ANI) February 10, 2026

He said polling would begin at 7:30 a.m. on February 12, adding, From my understanding, there are no security concerns regarding the election, and everything is in order.

(For more news apart from Bangladesh to Hold First Parliamentary Election on February 12 After 2024 Uprising, stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman.)
Physics. Magic. Progress.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland, CERN, as it is known, benefits from the presence of a community of over 100 Romanians working in research.

CERN (Photo: pixabay.com)

Ana-Maria Cononovici, 10.02.2026, 14:00

The European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland, CERN, as it is known, benefits from the presence of a community of over 100 Romanians working in research. Cristina Andreea Alexe is one of the employees, being a PhD student at the CMS experiment (The Compact Muon Solenoid), a general-purpose detector at the particle accelerator.

Cristina Andreea Alexe told Radio Romania about the practical applications of the research here: CERN actually comes from French, Conseil europeen de la recherche nucleaire, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. It is a European association, it has mainly European members, and also associates from non-European countries. It is an international laboratory for fundamental physics research, which ultimately finds applications in society. It has already happened. For example, we use the internet, the worldwide web platform was invented at CERN and it was worth it! And other applications that are under development include proton-based cancer therapies, which are less invasive, in the sense that they can attack the tumor and do not affect the surrounding healthy tissue, which would be a revolution in therapies like this. So the best place where you can study how to manipulate protons the way you want is the largest proton accelerator. Even though we start the stories from the fundamental part of science, they end with smiles on peoples faces.

We learned from our interlocutor that initially she wanted to be a physician and save lives, so she attended a high school specializing in natural sciences, but over time she realized that she wanted to do something bigger, to bring a change to society, so after thinking about social sciences, she considered IT, she returned to a passion from her secondary school classes, more precisely, physics. Cristina Andreea Alexe is at the microphone with details: In 2018 when I started the faculty, it was still affordable to study in the UK and I studied there, I did a bachelors and masters degree, meaning that in 4 years I wrote only one thesis, the Masters degree thesis and I graduated with a Masters degree from the University of Manchester. And then to continue and stay in research, I looked for a PhD student position, and eventually I ended up where I am now, at the best university in Italy. I found out after I was admitted that it was the best, it is the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Im doing my PhD research there, working on a data analysis project, data taken from the CMS experiment, from CERN. I ended up doing data analysis-programming. Thats what I do every day. And statistics. Surprisingly a lot of statistics.

How does this change the world? Cristina Andreea Alexe states that the idea of change brought to the world has remained: I feel this best when I come home, to Buzau, and talk to my students about what I do and think about what skills I have managed to gain and I hope to convince them too. I consider my contribution to be the fact that I am part of an experiment with a unique mission, the idea of continuing fundamental research. And I am one of the people who have the motivation to get to know what we do not know now. We push humanitys knowledge as far as possible!

Cristina Andreea Alexe assured us that physics is not magic: In the scientific world, there is more and more talk about communicating. Communicating with the non-scientific community, normal people, children in school, about what we do. And it is always said that you should not talk as if physics was a magical thing and you were some sort of wizard. I mean, people need to understand what we do, it is the healthiest thing in a society.

Next she explained what CMS is: Its a tunnel with a 27-kilometer circumference, which is located 100 meters underground, between Switzerland and France, near the city of Geneva. For it to work, we need a huge team of people. In my experiment alone, we have around 4,000 collaborators, and we need engineers who operate this experiment, we need IT people who operate the servers, who make sure that our data stays there, and in the end it comes to people like me, the physicists. I am among those who analyze this data and extract the actual information from it.

Cristina Andreea Alexes PhD thesis, on the CMS experiment, refers to elementary particles that could indicate a new force of nature. For such researchers, limits are not insurmountable, they are merely pretexts for a new discovery. (LS)
February 10, 2026

A roundup of local and world news

Newsflash

Newsroom, 10.02.2026, 13:55

STRIKE The administrative reform, the policy of curbing public expenditures and their impact upon towns and villages around Romania has been the theme of a fresh round of debates staged today in Bucharest by the Association of Romanian Communes. The event has also been attended by Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan, who has said that the absence of the right measures aimed at rendering the local public administration effective, will lead to a reduction in the number of communes. Bolojan has mentioned the very big budget deficit Romania is presently facing, which the government has pledged to reduce. According to him, salaries are being covered from local taxes but in Romania revenues from local taxes are covering only one quarter of the salaries. The debates have been held concurrently with a warning strike held in over 13 hundred city and town halls around the country, while the aforementioned institutions are being closed to the public. Employees are dissatisfied with the measures comprised in the administration reform package as well as the level of local taxes. The reform package aimed at the local and central administration is to be endorsed by the government in its session this week, the Prime Minister said.

WATER The Committee for Emergency Situations in Arges County, southern Romania has decided to declare a 30-day state of alert in the city of Curtea de Arges after bacteria have been in the local water supply network. Citizens have been advised through a Ro-Alert message to stop using tap water until the right measures are being implemented. In the meantime, the Inspectorate for Emergency Situations will continue to supply fresh water to various distribution points around the city. Water supplies through the public network will be completely cut off tonight for 24 hours to allow for water treatment procedures.

BIDS Two bids have been submitted in a tender for the planning and construction of the Fast Danube 2 project, aimed at streamlining the Romanian-Bulgarian sector on the Danube on a length of 470 kilometers, the Transport Minister in Bucharest, Ciprian Serban has announced in a Facebook post. With an estimated value of roughly 170 million Euros, the Fast Danube 2 project is expected to increase the navigation period from 280 to 340 days a year and the volume of goods transported on the river by 20% directly contributing to the consolidation of river transportation and regional economic development. The project includes among other things 110 km of dredged river, five kilometers of bank consolidation and an artificial island.

DRILL Until Friday, the training ground in Cincu, central Romania, is hosting the multinational exercise Dynamic Front 26. The aforementioned exercise is concurrently taking place in several NATO countries being considered a major test of the way in which NATO forces can operate in coordination on the Eastern Flank under a complex security scenario characterized by the need for rapid and integrated response. The exercise in Cincu involved the use of HIMARS launchers from Romania and Poland as well as self-propelled howitzers deployed to Romania as part of the multinational battle group.

WEATHER The sky is overcast in Romanias western, south-western, southern and central regions and snowfalls are expected in most of the aforementioned regions. The northern parts will be seeing mixed precipitations as well as moderate wind. The highs of the day will be ranging between -3 and +7 degrees Celsius.

(bill)
The Dynamic Front multinational exercise

Brasov is hosting the largest multinational artillery exercise in Europe.

Cristian Dobre

Leyla Cheamil, 10.02.2026, 13:50

The largest multinational artillery exercise in Europe is currently underway in central Romania. Dynamic Front 26, led by the US Army, is taking place at the Cincu training range in Brasov County.

In this iteration, soldiers from 24 countries are training simultaneously across five different nations, in nine training areas, and through multiple command posts spread throughout Europe. The exercise, which aims to test NATOs regional plans, is considered a major test of how Alliance forces can act in a coordinated manner on the eastern flank in a complex security scenario, characterized by the need for a rapid and integrated response.

On Monday, the Cincu range hosted a live-fire exercise conducted by the Multinational Corps South-East Command in cooperation with the US-based 56th Multidomain Task Force  Europe, alongside NATO allies and partners from the United States, Romania, Poland and France. The drill tested how different artillery systems can cooperate.

In a press conference held at Cincu on Monday, the Commanding General of the 56th Multidomain Task Force  Europe, Brigadier General Steve Carpenter, said that Dynamic Front 26 is NATOs flagship fire support exercise and that participants were enthusiastic about the opportunity and the results achieved.

He outlined the scale of the modern threat, saying, We have to be able to intercept and neutralise between 600 and 1,200 ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and long-range one-way attack drones, while simultaneously identifying targets, maintaining surveillance and passing them on, in a volume of at least 1,500.

The commander of Romanias 8th Tactical Operational Missile Brigade, known as the HIMARS Brigade, Colonel Costel Sorin Balan, said his brigade participated in the exercise as a primary training audience.

Dynamic Front 26 provided an excellent training opportunity to practice, evaluate and validate tactics, techniques and procedures within the strike framework, aiming to increase interoperability and strengthen our collective defense posture, Colonel Balan said. He added that the exercise also served as an excellent platform for the Combat Capability Assessment of the 8th Brigade, in accordance with NATO standards.

According to Romanias Defense Ministry, the overall exercise pursues the practical application of the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line. Its objective is to test NATOs regional plans and to integrate forces across land, air, maritime, cyber and space domains to counter concentrated conventional forces aimed at anti-access and area denial capabilities. (VP)
The Romanian Foreign Minister visits London

On February 9 and 10 the Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Oana Toiu is on a working visit to London.

Romanian Foreign Minister , Oana Toiu, and British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, Yvette Cooper

Corina Cristea, 10.02.2026, 14:00

Romania believes in a more competitive Europe and, in this regard, supports solid partnerships with the United Kingdom, said the Romanian Foreign Minister, Oana Toiu, during a meeting in London with the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, Yvette Cooper. Boosting economic cooperation with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, one of Romanias most valuable strategic partners, was a priority of Minister Oana Toiu during the discussions in the United Kingdom.

Official data shows that in the first 10 months of 2025, trade in goods amounted to 3.48 billion euros, with the United Kingdom ranking 11th in the top of direct foreign investors. Today, we have agreed to launch, by this summer, the joint Romania-UK working group for trade and investment, as well as the path for Romanias accession to the OECD in 2026. Two excellent pieces of news confirm our concrete actions for business-friendly reforms: today, we have published in the Official Gazette the last step to avoid double taxation between companies in Romania and the United Kingdom, the order of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and, also today, the fiscal policy milestone necessary for accession to the OECD was approved, Minister Oana Toiu said on Monday.

The Working Groups initiative is part of efforts dedicated to stimulating strategic investments in areas such as renewable energy, retail, health, technology or IT, while the new Convention for the elimination of double taxation with respect to taxes on income and on capital gains, which has already taken effect since January, offers a multitude of advantages. At the same time, alignment with OECD standards offers British and Romanian investors increased fiscal stability and predictability, transparent rules, anti-abuse protection, essential conditions for attracting investments and developing economic cooperation.

Oana Toiu also discussed with Yvette Cooper about the safety of citizens, the fight against organized crime, the theme of the Romanian Lectorate at the University of Oxford and the expansion of access to Romanian language courses in British schools. At the same time, interest was expressed in continuing to capitalize on the remarkable contribution to the strengthening of the bilateral relationship of the over 1.3 million Romanian citizens living in the United Kingdom.

The two ministers reconfirmed the common vision on peace and security, as well as the firm commitment to Euro-Atlantic security, materialized including through the participation of the United Kingdom, within NATO, in missions carried out on Romanias territory. In the context of discussions related to European and Euro-Atlantic security, the head of Romanian diplomacy pointed out that Romania would prioritize building capabilities, improving interoperability, stimulating defense production and capitalizing on innovation, while ensuring complementarity between EU and NATO processes. (LS)
Ferrari, the renowned Italian automotive brand, has offered an early look at the interior of its first all-electric car, the Ferrari Luce.

The Luce's design is the result of a collaboration between Ferrari and Jony Ive, the former chief design officer at Apple, and his firm LoveFrom.

Despite Ferrari scaling back its broader electric vehicle (EV) ambitions in late 2025, the Luce is being positioned as a highly anticipated automotive reveal for 2026.

The cabin of the Luce leans heavily into Ive's signature aesthetic, featuring a glass and aluminum construction, ultra-minimal surfaces, and a calm, tactile feel that reviewers have described as unmistakably Apple-like.

The design prioritizes clarity and material quality over visual clutter, signaling a departure from traditional Ferrari interiors packed with switches and aggressive styling.

The Luce positions Ferrari's EV not just as a performance milestone, but as a luxury object, blending the brand's renowned automotive heritage with a Silicon Valley design philosophy.

If the production model matches the preview, Ferrari's EV debut could reset expectations for what high-end electric cars are supposed to feel like, focusing not just on their speed but on the overall driving experience and luxury amenities."

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Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is at the center of two high-stakes court cases this week. The cases focus on allegations that the company's products have failed to protect children and young users.

In the first case, the Attorney General of New Mexico, Raul Torrez, has accused Meta of creating products that enable online predators to target and exploit minors. The lawsuit, filed in 2023, claims that Meta's platforms steered users, including children, toward sexually explicit material and even facilitated human trafficking.

Torrez seeks not only financial penalties but also changes to Meta's product design, such as implementing real age verification and clearer disclosures about the risks.

Simultaneously, a separate trial is underway in Los Angeles. This case involves Meta, as well as other social media companies, including YouTube, TikTok, and Snap.

The plaintiffs allege that these companies knowingly designed addictive features that harm young users' mental . TikTok and Snap have already settled with one plaintiff before the trial. This week, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg are expected to testify.

Legal experts draw parallels between these cases and the landmark Big Tobacco lawsuits of the 1990s. The focus is not on individual content but on whether the design of the products themselves poses a danger to users, particularly young people.

Later this year, another major federal trial in California will further test this theory, potentially reshaping how social media platforms are regulated in the United States.

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The United States and Bangladesh have reached an Agreement on Reciprocal Trade, which will provide U.S. and Bangladeshi exporters unprecedented access to each other's respective .

As per the terms of the Agreement, Bangladesh committed to provide significant preferential market access for U.S. industrial and agricultural goods, including chemicals; medical devices; machinery and motor vehicles and parts; information and communicational equipment; energy products; soy products; dairy products; beef; poultry; and tree nuts and fruits.

The United States will reduce the reciprocal tariff rate on goods imported from Bangladesh to 19 percent, while eliminating tariff on certain items.

A specified volume of apparel and textile imports from Bangladesh can enter the United States without tariff rate, which will be decided in relation to the quantity of exports of textiles, e.g. U.S.-produced cotton and man-made fiber textile inputs, from the United States.

The United States and Bangladesh committed to address Bangladesh's non-tariff barriers that affect bilateral trade and investment in priority areas. Bangladesh agreed to accept vehicles built to U.S. Federal motor vehicle safety and emissions standards; and U.S. Food and Drug Administration certificates and prior marketing authorizations for medical devices and pharmaceuticals.

The South Asian country will remove import restrictions or licensing requirement on U.S. re-manufactured goods or their parts.

Bangladesh committed to permit the free transfer of data across trusted borders; support the adoption of a permanent moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions at the World Trade Organization; follow science and risk-based processes to allow the import of safe U.S. food and agricultural goods; remove barriers in the insurance market; digitize its customs procedures; and adopt and implement good regulatory practices.

The trade deal was signed after Bangladesh committed to protect internationally recognized labor rights and to adopt and maintain high levels of environmental protection and effectively enforce its environmental laws.

The White House said that the United States shall consider supporting investment financing in critical sectors in Bangladesh in collaboration with U.S. private sector partners.

The Agreement will enter into force after both the countries finalize domestic formalities.

The U.S. total goods trade deficit with Bangladesh in 2024 was $6.1 billion.

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UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has voiced serious concern over the reported decision by the Israeli security cabinet to authorize a series of administrative and enforcement measures in Areas A and B in the occupied West Bank.

The measures would make it easier for Jewish settlers to take over Palestinian land, thus expanding Israel's power in the territory, according to media reports.

The UN chief warned that the current trajectory on the ground - including this decision - is eroding the prospect for the two-State solution, according to a statement issued by his Spokesperson.

He reiterated that all Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and their associated regime and infrastructure, have no legal validity and constitute a flagrant violation of international law, including relevant UN resolutions.

"Such actions, including Israel's continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory are not only destabilizing but - as recalled by the International Court of Justice - unlawful," the statement said.

The Secretary-General called on Israel to reverse the measures.

He also urged all parties "to preserve the only path to lasting peace, a negotiated two-State solution, in line with relevant Security Council resolutions and international law."

Meanwhile, humanitarians in the Gaza Strip continue to respond to the immense needs of the population despite impediments and a challenging operating environment.

The UN and partners are serving hundreds of thousands of meals each day, in addition to providing digital cash and monthly rations, Dujarric said.

UN officials report that Gaza City continues to face a severe shortage of drinking and domestic water despite the recent re-opening of the valve on the Mekorot supply line there that connects Israel to Gaza for fresh water.

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MEXICO CITY, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday that her government will continue providing humanitarian aid to Cuba, despite U.S. sanctions targeting countries that trade with or send oil to the Caribbean nation.

"There will be more support. The Mexican people are always solidary. No one can ignore the situation that the Cuban people are currently experiencing due to the sanctions being imposed by the United States," Sheinbaum said at her daily press conference.

The president called on the United States and the international community to recognize that the sanctions are unfair to the Cuban people.

Mexico has recently dispatched two navy ships carrying 814 tonnes of food supplies to Cuba. 
Canadian shares are seen opening on a mixed note on Thursday, tracking commodity prices and subdued European stocks. The mood is likely to remain a bit cautious with investors looking ahead to fresh economic data from the U.S. for clues about the Federal Reserve's future policy moves.

Constellation Software will be in focus after Constellation HomeBuilder Systems, the largest provider of homebuilding software solutions and services in North America, announced Stella AI, an enterprise-grade AI agent for homebuilders. Stella AI blends industry-specific intelligence, data security, and integration with builder workflows.

The Canadian market closed sharply higher on Monday, extending previous session's upmove. The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index moved steadily higher throughout the session before eventually closing up 552.34 points or 1.7% at 33,023.32.

Gold stocks helped lead the way higher once again amid a continued surge by the price of the precious metal, with the S&P/TSX Global Gold Index spiking by 4.9%. Significant strength was also visible among stocks, as reflected by the 2% surge by the S&P/TSX Capped Information Technology Index.

Asian stocks ended mostly higher on Tuesday, with post-election optimism in Japan and a strong rebound in the technology sector helping underpin regional sentiment.

Japanese set a fresh record high on continued optimism surrounding Prime Minister Takaichi's landslide election victory.

European stocks are turning in a mixed performance with investors digesting corporate updates from the region and looking ahead to U.S. jobs data due later in the week.

In commodities trading, West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures are up $0.15 or 0.23% at $64.51 a barrel.

Gold futures are down $21.80 or 0.43% at $5,057.60 an ounce, while Silver futures are down $0.579 or 0.7% at $81.655 an ounce.

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Tata Motors Limited has secured its biggest commercial vehicle order in Indonesia to date, with its subsidiary PT Tata Motors Distribusi Indonesia entering into an agreement to supply 70,000 vehicles for large-scale deployment across the country. The fleet will support agricultural operations and rural logistics, strengthening farm-to-market connectivity and regional goods movement nationwide.

Biggest Indonesia Order Signals Strong Global CV Push

Under the agreement, Tata Motors will supply 35,000 units each of the Tata Yodha pick-up and the Tata Ultra T.7 truck. The vehicles will be delivered to PT Agrinas Pangan Nusantara, an Indonesian state-owned enterprise focused on modernising agricultural supply chains, empowering rural cooperatives and advancing national food security goals.

The deployment will be carried out under Indonesias Koperasi Desa and Kelurahan Merah Putih Project, a key nation-building initiative aimed at improving rural connectivity, livelihoods and economic resilience. The vehicles will be rolled out in a structured, phased programme through agricultural cooperatives, ensuring smooth integration and long-term operational impact across diverse regions.

Designed to operate reliably in demanding environments, the Tata Yodha and Ultra T.7 are expected to help reduce logistics costs while enabling efficient movement of agricultural produce and essential goods. Tata Motors noted that the vehicles durability, uptime and operating economics make them well-suited for Indonesias varied terrain and usage conditions.

Commenting on the development, Asif Shamim, Director, PT Tata Motors Distribusi Indonesia, said the order highlights growing global acceptance of Indian commercial vehicles and confidence in their performance across international markets. He added that the deployment will play a meaningful role in improving rural logistics efficiency and connectivity in Indonesia.

Focus on Reliability, Load Capability

The Tata Yodha is positioned as a rugged last-mile mobility solution, designed to connect farms and villages with markets, while the Ultra T.7 is aimed at modern logistics needs, combining durability with driver comfort and dependable performance across urban and rural routes.

With operations in over 40 countries and a portfolio spanning sub-1-tonne to 60-tonne cargo vehicles and mass mobility solutions, Tata Motors continues to strengthen its global commercial vehicle presence, reinforcing Indias role as a reliable source of purpose-built mobility solutions for emerging and developed markets alike.

Also Read  Mahindra Bags Export Order Of 35,000 Scorpio Pickups From Indonesia
UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Despite the recent reopening of a water supply main from Israel into the Gaza Strip, Gaza City continues to face a severe water shortage, UN humanitarians said Monday.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said its water, hygiene and sanitation partners reported drinking and domestic water shortages even after the reopening of the Mekorot supply line from Israel.

Only 6,000 cubic meters of water are reaching people daily in the city, with significant water losses in hard-to-reach areas.

"To mitigate this shortfall, we and our partners have increased water production and trucked deliveries from groundwater wells and private sector desalination plants," OCHA said.

"Since late last month, our partners have distributed over 100,000 water jerry cans, over 700,000 bars of soap and over 25,000 hygiene kits, over 400 household latrines, and 250 anti-lice kits across Gaza," the office said. 
UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- The intercommunal conflict in South Sudan's Jonglei State has ratcheted up, leaving displaced civilians urgently in need of food, water, shelter and healthcare, UN humanitarians said Tuesday.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said fighting has intensified across northern and central Jonglei State, leading to large-scale displacement, limiting aid delivery and triggering a shutdown of essential services. Road and river traffic is blocked, and humanitarian flights have been barred.

"The displacements are driving up the risk of cholera spreading, 55 cases and seven deaths reported in a week in Ayod and Duk counties," OCHA said. "Since 28 September 2024, South Sudan has recorded more than 98,000 cholera cases and more than 1,600 deaths across nine states. The transmission of cholera is likely to intensify ahead of the rainy season if humanitarian teams and supplies continue to be restricted."

Over the weekend, UN Humanitarian Coordinator Anita Gbeho called on all parties to "stop fighting, protect civilians and humanitarian workers and stop attacks on humanitarian assets."

Since late December, local authorities have reported that renewed violence and airstrikes have uprooted an estimated 280,000 people. 
JERUSALEM, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Israel has decided for the first time to revoke the citizenship of two Israeli Arabs and deport them, officials said Tuesday.

The two men, who reportedly received financial support from the Palestinian Authority, were convicted of carrying out attacks against Israelis, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.

"This morning, I signed the revocation of citizenship and deportation of two Israeli terrorists who carried out stabbing and shooting attacks against Israeli civilians and were rewarded for their heinous acts by the Palestinian Authority," Netanyahu said.

He added that "many more" deportation orders are expected to follow. His office issued the statement as Netanyahu was flying to Washington to meet U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday.

Ofir Katz, a lawmaker from Netanyahu's Likud party, also confirmed the decision, saying it marked the first time Israel has applied the law passed by parliament in 2023, which allows the state to revoke the citizenship of "convicted terrorists" and expel them.

Neither Netanyahu nor Katz said where the two men would be deported. Israel's state-owned Kan TV News reported that they would be expelled to the Gaza Strip, adding that they are from Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem. 
The detection of chitin in an Olenellus trilobite from the Carrara Formation (514.5 to 506.5 million years ago) of California, the United States, not only demonstrates that this structural polymer might be able to survive in arthropod fossils longer than previously confirmed, but also hints that sedimentary rocks may play an unrecognized role in locking away organic carbon over geological time.

Chitin is one of the most abundant organic polymers produced by life on Earth, second only to cellulose.

This study adds to growing evidence that chitin survives far longer in the geologic record than originally realized, said Dr. Elizabeth Bailey, a researcher at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Beyond paleontology, this has significant implications for understanding how organic carbon is stored in Earths crust over geologic time.

Using fluorescent staining and various spectroscopy techniques, Dr. Bailey and her colleagues analyzed the cuticle of an Olenellus trilobite from the Cambrian Carrara Formation.

The researchers found spectral peaks indicative of d-glucosamine, the monomer of chitin.

Their result contrasts with many previous analyses that produced a negative detection of chitin in a variety of fossils.

It is also consistent with literature published in recent decades reporting positive chitin detections in fossils using modern analytical techniques.

Though this study focused on a small number of fossils, the implications reach well beyond trilobites, the scientists said.

Understanding how organic carbon can persist in common geological settings will help us reconstruct Earths carbon cycle and may inform how carbon is stored naturally within the planets crust.:

The research also has potential relevance for modern climate discussions, they noted.

For instance, limestones, which are formed from accumulated biological remains and widely used as building materials throughout human history, often contain chitin-bearing organisms.

When people think about carbon sequestration, they tend to think about trees, Dr. Bailey said.

But after cellulose, chitin is considered Earths second most abundant naturally occurring polymer.

Evidence that chitin can survive for hundreds of millions of years shows that limestones are part of long-term carbon sequestration and relevant to understanding Earths carbon dioxide levels.

The study was published in December 2025 in the journal PALAIOS.

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Elizabeth Bailey et al. 2025. Evidence for surviving chitin in Cambrian trilobites from the Carrara Formation, Western North America. PALAIOS 40 (12): 379-387; doi: 10.2110/palo.2024.025
A new analysis of data from four instruments aboard NASAs Cassini spacecraft has demonstrated the crucial role that Saturns small icy moon Enceladus plays in circulating energy and momentum around the parent planets space environment.

Enceladus interacts with the gas giants magnetic field, generating intermittent aurora in Saturns upper atmosphere and electromagnetic waves that travel along invisible magnetic connections between them.

During its 13-year mission, Cassini repeatedly crossed these magnetic field lines linked to Enceladus.

Enceladus is famous for its water geysers, but its actual impact and interaction with the giant planet has remained partly unknown, said Dr. Lina Hadid, a researcher at the Laboratoire de Physique de Plasmas.

The results from Cassini transform our vision of the moons role in the Saturnian system.

Dr. Hadid and colleagues used data from four Cassini instruments to study how energy and particles move between the moon and Saturn.

They detected wave activity characteristic of Alfven waves (similar to vibrations on a string), forming as Saturns magnetic field flows past Enceladus.

Due to a complex system of reflection at both Saturns ionosphere and the boundary of Enceladus torus, these waves were found not only near the moon but also trailing far behind it, extending more than 504,000 km (over 2,000 times the moons radius) behind it.

This is the first time that Alfven waves have been observed to be directly linked to the charged particles associated with Enceladus.

This is the first time such an extensive electromagnetic reach by Enceladus has been observed, proving that this small moon acts as a giant planetary-scale Alfven wave generator, said Dr. Thomas Chust, also from the Laboratoire de Physique de Plasmas.

This work sets the stage for future studies of other systems, such as the icy moons of Jupiter or exoplanets, by showing that a small moon with an electrically-conducting atmosphere can influence its host over vast distances on the scale of the giant planet itself.

The findings highlight the importance for future missions to Enceladus, such as the planned ESA orbiter and lander in the 2040s, to carry instrumentation that can study these electromagnetic interactions in even more detail, Dr. Hadid said.

The results were published in the February 2026 issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics.

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L.Z. Hadid et al. 2026. Evidence of an Extended Alfven Wing System at Enceladus: Cassinis Multi-Instrument Observations. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics 131 (2): e2025JA034657; doi: 10.1029/2025JA034657
Qabil Ashirov



The trial of Ruben Vardanyan, an Armenian citizen accused under Azerbaijans Criminal Code of crimes against peace and humanity, war crimes, terrorism, financing terrorism, and other serious offences, continued on February 10.

Azernews reports that the session was held at the Baku Military Court, where Rufat Mammadov, head of the Cabinet of Ministers Apparatus, appeared on behalf of the Azerbaijani state as a civil plaintiff. He confirmed that he agreed with all the facts, evidence, and proofs presented in the indictment by the state prosecution and requested the court to take them into consideration.

Following this, legal heirs of the victims, including Azad Karimov, Ogtay Shikhaliyev, and others, addressed the court, urging that the accused be sentenced to the maximum punishment of life imprisonment.

The accused, R. Vardanyan, requested to speak with his defence attorney, Emil Babishov. The court approved his request, and a recess was declared to allow the meeting.

The trial will resume after the recess.
CAIRO, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty on Tuesday held a phone call with his Iranian counterpart Seyed Abbas Araghchi to discuss the U.S.-Iran nuclear talks, Egypt's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Abdelatty expressed "Egypt's full support for the negotiations and all efforts aimed at de-escalation, supporting dialogue, and addressing all concerns through diplomatic and political channels."

The Egyptian foreign minister called for continuing the negotiation track between Washington and Tehran toward "a peaceful and consensual settlement" based on mutual respect and shared interests.

He underscored the need to overcome any differences at the current delicate stage and keep dialogue as the primary option to avoid escalation in the region.

Araghchi, for his part, praised Egypt's "active role" in reducing regional tensions and its efforts to foster understanding on the Iranian nuclear issue.

On Friday, Tehran and Washington held their first indirect talks in Muscat since the war between Iran and Israel in June 2025, during which the United States bombed Iranian nuclear sites.

Washington has recently signaled that military options remain possible should diplomatic efforts with Tehran fail, alongside reports of expanded U.S. naval deployments in the region, while Iranian officials have warned that any U.S. strike could spark a broader regional conflict. 
Botswana's Vice President and Minister of Finance Ndaba Gaolathe delivers the 2026/2027 budget speech at the National Assembly in Gaborone, Botswana, Feb. 9, 2026. (Photo by Tshekiso Tebalo/Xinhua)

GABORONE, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- The government of Botswana will implement institutional reforms and tighten fiscal discipline measures due to growing public debt in the upcoming financial year starting April.

Delivering the 2026/2027 budget speech at the National Assembly in Gaborone on Monday, Vice President and Minister of Finance Ndaba Gaolathe listed the national priorities as export growth and a diversified economy, which align with the southern African country's 12th National Development Plan and the Botswana Economic Transformation Program, aiming to reduce the economy's overdependence on diamonds.

Agriculture is being repositioned from subsistence and import dependence to a modern, export-oriented agro-industrial sector built on value chains, agro-processing, and regional and global market access, Gaolathe said.

He also stressed the participation of the private sector as the center of the driving engine for enhancing competitiveness and accelerating sustainable growth.

On healthcare, the minister called for the establishment of universal healthcare coverage in Botswana through reforming the health sector, which is expected to reduce government expenditure on medical supplies by 30 percent to 40 percent within five years.

Persistent deficits and falling revenues have drained the government investment account to "historically low and unsustainable levels," Gaolathe noted.

He stressed fiscal consolidation, discipline, and the rebuilding of financial buffers in the upcoming financial year as the government moves to strengthen debt sustainability and restore economic resilience.

Government expenditure was estimated at 103.58 billion pula (about 7.88 billion U.S. dollars), against revenues of 77.22 billion pula. 

People watch the live TV broadcast of Botswana's Vice President and Minister of Finance Ndaba Gaolathe (on the screen) delivering the 2026/2027 budget speech at the National Assembly in Gaborone, Botswana, Feb. 9, 2026. (Photo by Tshekiso Tebalo/Xinhua)
Senegal's Secretary of State for Senegalese Abroad Amadou Cherif Diouf delivers a speech at a Spring Festival reception in Dakar, capital of Senegal, Feb. 9, 2026. (Photo by Aliou Mbaye/Xinhua)

DAKAR, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Embassy in Senegal on Monday evening hosted a Spring Festival reception in Dakar, the capital of the West African country, gathering over 200 guests, including Secretary of State for Senegalese Abroad Amadou Cherif Diouf.

Addressing the reception, Diouf extended Spring Festival greetings to the Chinese people and conveyed best wishes from the people of Senegal.

He said that Senegal and China enjoy a long-standing traditional friendship, and their bilateral cooperation has maintained a high level of development, yielding fruitful results.

Diouf noted that mechanisms and initiatives, such as the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, have provided important platforms for China-Africa cooperation and injected momentum into Africa's development.

He said that Senegal would continue advancing the implementation of "Vision Senegal 2050," draw development inspiration from China's modernization, and deepen Senegal-China relations.

Li Fei, charge d'affaires at the Chinese Embassy in Senegal, extended Spring Festival greetings to the Chinese community in Senegal and friends from various sectors.

The China-Senegal comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership has continued to deepen, with growing political mutual trust, fruitful cooperation across various fields, and vibrant people-to-people and cultural exchanges, said Li.

She noted that 2026 marks the beginning of China's 15th Five-Year Plan and the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and African countries.

The convergence of the China-Africa Year of People-to-People Exchanges and the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games will "create new synergies for cooperation between China and Senegal," she added.

The reception also featured Chinese martial arts, songs and dance performances. 

Li Fei, charge d'affaires at the Chinese Embassy in Senegal, delivers a speech at a Spring Festival reception in Dakar, capital of Senegal, Feb. 9, 2026. (Photo by Aliou Mbaye/Xinhua)

A member of the Senegalese Wushu Federation gives a performance at a Spring Festival reception in Dakar, capital of Senegal, Feb. 9, 2026. (Photo by Aliou Mbaye/Xinhua)

Teachers and students from the Confucius Institute at Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar perform a Chinese song at a Spring Festival reception in Dakar, capital of Senegal, Feb. 9, 2026. (Photo by Aliou Mbaye/Xinhua)
LUANDA, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Angolan President and African Union (AU) Chairperson Joao Lourenco on Monday met with several African leaders in Luanda, calling for a ceasefire in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

According to the Presidency, Lourenco held talks with DRC President Felix Tshisekedi, President of Togo's Council of Ministers and AU Mediator Faure Essozimna Gnassingbe, as well as Olusegun Obasanjo, former president of Nigeria. The meeting focused on regional security and the peace process.

According to a statement issued after the meeting, the leaders called on all parties to the conflict in the DRC to implement a ceasefire, noting that the specific timing and modalities of the ceasefire would be determined through consultations among the relevant parties.

The statement also urged accelerated implementation of the ceasefire monitoring and verification mechanism agreed upon in Doha in October 2025.

The leaders authorized Angola to engage in consultations with all relevant parties in the DRC to advance internal dialogue and help resolve the country's security crisis.

Since January 2025, tensions in eastern DRC have escalated, with the March 23 Movement (M23) rebel group launching offensives in North Kivu and South Kivu provinces, resulting in significant civilian casualties and displacement.

The DRC has accused Rwanda of supporting the M23, while Rwanda has accused the DRC of backing the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, a group linked to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

In October 2025, the DRC government and the M23 signed an agreement in Doha, Qatar, on a ceasefire monitoring and verification mechanism. In November, the two sides signed a framework agreement in Doha, pledging to build mutual trust through dialogue, advance stabilization in phases, and address the root causes of the conflict.

On Dec. 4, 2025, Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame signed a U.S.-brokered peace agreement in Washington, aiming to bring an end to the decades-long conflict. 
NAIROBI, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Kenyan Cabinet on Tuesday approved the release of 4.1 billion shillings (about 32 million U.S. dollars) to ramp up drought response interventions across affected regions.

The Cabinet said drought conditions have deteriorated rapidly since January, following the failure of the October-December 2025 short rains.

The move came after the National Drought Management Authority said the severe drought has affected more than ten counties, with the most affected being near the border with Somalia.

The government said an estimated 3.3 million people are currently facing acute food insecurity, a number that could rise to 3.6 million by June if urgent intervention is not taken, including in pockets of counties outside the arid and semi-arid areas.

The government said Mandera, Wajir, Kwale, and Kilifi counties are in the "Alarm" phase, while 12 counties are in the "Alert" phase, most of them on a worsening trajectory.

The Cabinet warned that acute malnutrition continues to rise, affecting over 810,000 children and 104,000 pregnant and lactating women, alongside other vulnerable groups.

"The additional funding will supplement allocations made in December 2025 and January 2026, which supported relief food, logistics, and limited non-food assistance," it said.

According to the Cabinet, current stocks are expected to last only two to three weeks, underscoring the urgency of further support. 
Shares in Gucci-owner Kering soared on Tuesday, after quarterly sales at the luxury goods group came in ahead of expectations.

The Paris-listed firm, which also owns Yves Saint Laurent and Bottega Veneta, among other brands, posted a 3% dip in comparable fourth-quarter revenues, to 3.91bn. However, that was better than the 6% fall analysts had been expecting.

The revenue decline at Gucci, its biggest brand, was also not quite as large as feared, down 10% at 1.62bn. Consensus had been for a 12% drop.

As at 0915 GMT, the stock had jumped 10%. Rival luxury houses also sparked on the back of the update, with Hermes International 2% stronger, Switzerlands Richemont up 1% and Burberry Group 2% higher in London at 1,198p.

Over the year, Kerings comparable group revenues slid 10% at 14.7bn, while recurring operating income tumbled 33% to 1.6bn.

However, chief executive Luca de Meo said: "The performance in 2025 does not reflect the groups true potential.

"In the second half, we took decisive actions, strengthening the balance sheet, tightening costs and making strategic choices that lay the foundations for the next chapter."

Looking to the current year, Kering reiterated plans to return to growth and bolster margins in 2026.

"As we enter 2026, the entire team is fully committed to delivering a leaner, faster Kering, enhancing brand positioning and sales, rebuilding sales and strengthening cash generation to ensure sustainable, long-term value creation."

De Meo joined Kering from Renault in September with a mandate to turn the business around. He took over from Francois-Henri Pinault, who remains as chair. The Pinault family holds a controlling stake of around 42%.

Jefferies, which has a hold rating on the stock, said: "Kerings closing stages of 2025 confirm gradually reducing pressures at a time of more supportive industry conditions.

"As this juncture, 2026 guidance on growth and margin recovery is qualitatively aligned to consensus estimates."
Media group adds ticking fee payment for every quarter deal does not close

Paramount has improved its $108bn bid for Warner Bros Discovery , offering a fee to shareholders as compensation if regulators delay completion of the deal.

In a regulatory filing on Tuesday, the media company also agreed to cover the $2.8bn breakup fee the HBO owner would owe Netflix if it walked away from their deal.

The 25 cent-a-share ticking fee is worth $650m in cash each quarter between January 1, 2027, and the completion of the Paramount deal, Paramount.

Paramount launched its hostile offer in an attempt to trump Netflixs agreed $83bn deal with Warner Bros for its studio and streaming assets.

Netflix last month altered its for WBDs studios and streaming divisions, converting the bid to an all-cash deal in an attempt to head off Paramount.

The streaming service company had originally tabled a cash-and-shares bid  backed by WBD  valuing the business at $27.75 a share.

Both companies said the switch simplifies the transaction structure, provides greater certainty of value for WBD stockholders, and accelerates the path to a WBD stockholder vote.

Netflix said the offer would enable WBD investors to vote on the proposed deal as soon as April. Its deal is for assets such as Warner Bros, the studio behind franchises including Harry Potter, Superman and Batman, and HBO, home to shows including Game of Thrones, The White Lotus and Succession.

WBD also said it was making changes to parts of the business not involved in the sale. The broadcaster is spinning off traditional TV channels like CNN and TNT and its cable business into a separate publicly traded company.

Paramount has argued that the new unit would be worthless and believes its $108bn proposal to buy WBD in its entirety is a better deal for shareholders. The WBD board has twice rebuffed the rival offer.

Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com
Chinese Consul General in Johannesburg Pan Qingjiang addresses a reception to celebrate the upcoming Chinese New Year in Johannesburg, South Africa, Feb. 9, 2026. (Xinhua/Chen Wei)

JOHANNESBURG, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Consulate General in Johannesburg hosted a reception Monday to celebrate the upcoming Chinese New Year of Horse, which falls on Feb. 17.

Speaking at the event, Chinese Consul General in Johannesburg Pan Qingjiang extended his warm festive greetings and best wishes to Chinese nationals and South African friends. He expressed sincere appreciation to the local Chinese communities and South African partners for their efforts to strengthen China-South Africa relations at all levels.

"The Chinese New Year carries the Chinese philosophy of peace, amity and harmony, which echoes the core values of South African culture and that of human society," Pan said.

The reception was attended by more than 300 guests, including government officials, business leaders, academia, media, non-governmental organizations and consular corps, as well as members of the overseas Chinese communities.

During the event, participants enjoyed Chinese cultural experiences, including hands-on tea ceremonies, woodblock printing, and other activities, giving guests a closer insight into traditional Chinese culture.

Ntombizanele Sifuba, a member of Free State Executive Council for sports, arts, culture and recreation, wished the Chinese people a prosperous new year, saying that 2026 Chinese New Year celebration, a cultural phenomenon in its own right, provides an opportunity to further rekindle and solidify our cultural ties.

"China and South Africa share cordial relations and have forged cooperation in business, culture, academia, governance, and other areas. Today's celebration clearly demonstrates our commitment to further promoting relations and cooperation between China and Gauteng," said Morakane Mosupyoe, speaker of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature.

The Chinese Lunar New Year would bring renewed energy to the Chinese friends, encouraging them to continue contributing to the global economy, especially the African continent, she added. 

Morakane Mosupyoe, speaker of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature, speaks at a reception to celebrate the upcoming Chinese New Year in Johannesburg, South Africa, Feb. 9, 2026. (Xinhua/Chen Wei)

Ntombizanele Sifuba, a member of Free State Executive Council for sports, arts, culture and recreation, speaks at a reception to celebrate the upcoming Chinese New Year in Johannesburg, South Africa, Feb. 9, 2026. (Xinhua/Chen Wei)

People interact with a robot dog during a reception to celebrate the upcoming Chinese New Year in Johannesburg, South Africa, Feb. 9, 2026. (Xinhua/Chen Wei)

Artists perform a Chinese drum show during a reception to celebrate the upcoming Chinese New Year in Johannesburg, South Africa, Feb. 9, 2026. (Xinhua/Chen Wei)
London stocks were set to nudge up at the open on Tuesday as Prime Minister Keir Starmer lived to fight another day, with earnings from the likes of AstraZeneca and Barclays in focus.

The FTSE 100 was called to open around six points higher.

The latest drama at Westminster was set to remain in the spotlight, after Starmer lost his chief of staff on Sunday and his director of communications on Monday amid the fallout from his decision to appoint Mandelson as ambassador to the US.

Michael Brown, senior research strategist at Pepperstone, said: "After the Cabinet rallied round the PM, and former Deputy Leader Rayner also offered her support, peak danger in terms of Starmers political future appears to have passed for now.

"Hence, Starmer will likely stagger on, essentially a PM in name only with little political capital remaining to enact any significant policy proposals or legislative measures, prolonging his inevitable departure for a little longer.

"The Gorton & Denton by-election on 26th Feb, and more importantly local elections on 7th May, remain key dates to watch. While Cabinet support shows that the herd is together for now, that likely owes more to nobody yet being in a position to run, than it does loyalty to the boss."

Politics aside, investors will be mulling the latest retail industry data out earlier, which showed that sales across the UK picked up strongly in January, as New Year promotions spurred consumer spending following two months of subdued growth.

According to the British Retail Consortium-KPMG monthly UK retail sales monitor, sales rose 2.7% year-on-year over the four weeks to 31 January.

That's up from the meagre 1.4% increase seen in November, as pre-Budget jitters and a weak Black Friday limited spend, and a 1.2% rise in December on the back of strong prior-year comparatives and people holding out for January sales.

It was also comfortably above the 12-month average growth rate of 2.3%.

According to the BRC, food sales were up 3.8% over last January, following a 3.1% year-on-year increase in December, while non-food sales rose 1.7% following the previous month's 0.3% decline.

"A drab December gave way to a brighter January as retail sales picked up pace," said BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson.

"Many shoppers had held off Christmas spending and waited for the January sales, with the start of the new year showing the strongest growth. And bargain hunting was not limited to online, with in-store sales showing the highest growth in over six months."

However, Dickinson warned of "many challenges" to come in 2026, with consumer confidence still weak and the cost of energy and packaging on the rise. Meanwhile, she cited the new Employment Rights Act - which includes the end of zero-hours contracts - as limiting the ability of retailers to offer "more flexible jobs".

In corporate news, Barclays lifted performance targets after annual profits jumped 13% as it also unveiled a new 1bn buyback.

Pre-tax profit came in at 9.1bn, with group income up 9% to 29.1bn also boosted by the acquisition of Tesco Bank.

Barclays is now aiming for a return on tangible equity of more than 14% in 2028 and capital distributions of greater than 15bn in the next two years.

AstraZeneca posted a jump in full-year revenues and earnings, boosted by strong demand for its oncology drugs.

The blue chip pharma saw total revenues in the year to December end rise 9%, or by 8% on a constant currency basis, to $58.7bn. Core earnings per share were 11% stronger in constant currencies, at $9.16. Both figures were in line with expectations.

Homeware retailer Dunelm reported a drop in interim profit following softer trading in the second quarter.

In the 26 weeks to 27 December 2025, pre-tax profit fell 7.5% to 114m, while revenue ticked up 3.6% to 926.3m.

Housebuilder Bellway said that despite "subdued trading through autumn, it had delivered a robust first-half performance, with total housing completions growing 2.7% to 4,702 at an average selling price of roughly 322,000.

Bellway also said it was on track to achieve its full-year volume target of around 9,200 homes as it pointed to "clear signs of improving customer demand" in the early weeks of the spring selling season.
Standard Chartered tumbled on Tuesday as it announced the surprise departure of chief financial officer Diego De Giorgi, who is stepping down with immediate effect to join Apollo as a partner and head of EMEA.

The bank said it has appointed Peter Burrill as interim group CFO. Based in London, he will report directly to chief executive Bill Winters.

StanChart said an announcement on the permanent appointment of a CFO will follow in due course.

Burrill is currently group head, central finance and deputy chief financial officer at Standard Chartered Bank. Prior to joining the bank in 2017, he was group controller and co-head of group finance at Deutsche Bank.

He started his career at KPMG where he spent almost twenty years, including ten years in the US followed by ten years in Germany.

Bill Winters said: "As deputy CFO, Pete has extensive sectoral experience. He likewise provides valuable continuity to the leadership of our finance function and takes on the position as a well-regarded member of our global leadership team. Under his interim stewardship we remain well-positioned to capitalise on the strategic focus and momentum of our business."

In a separate announcement, Apollo said De Giorgi will succeed longtime partner Rob Seminara in the role of head of EMEA.

Apollo president Jim Zelter said: "We have known Diego for many years and believe he will be a terrific steward of business in this next phase, bringing significant industry experience and a European perspective.

"He starts in a position of strength, succeeding Rob who has overseen strong AUM growth, the formation of new businesses and a continued expansion in local markets during his tenure in Europe."

At 1000 GMT, StanChart shares were down 5.6% at 1,793p.

Dan Coatsworth, head of markets at AJ Bell, said: "Its telling when a senior executive leaves a company and the share price slumps. Diego De Giorgis shock departure from Standard Chartered effectively values him at 2 billion. This is the amount wiped off the banks market value on the news hes going to asset manager Apollo.

"Normally, the departure of a numbers person from a company wouldnt move the dial. Whats different with Standard Chartered is that De Giorgi was seen as next in line for the CEO job.

"Incumbent Bill Winters has been in the top role for nearly 11 years, approximately twice as long as the average tenure for a FTSE 100 CEO. That suggests Standard Chartered will be thinking seriously about long-term succession planning, and the board might be disappointed they didnt act fast enough to lock in De Giorgi."
Shares in TUI fell on Tuesday after the German holiday travel giant posted higher first-quarter earnings and resumed dividend payments as it but also reported lower passenger numbers.

The company said that a dividend of 10 European cents per share will be approved at its annual general meeting later Tuesday after a break, due to a positive performance last year.

Operating profits for the three months to December 31 rose to  77.1m, up from 51m a year earlier, driven by a strong performance in its holiday experiences business as well as its markets and airline unit. Analysts had forecast 66.7m.

TUI reported 7.1 million customers in the first quarter, up 2.2% against last year, but air passenger numbers were down 2% to 3.7 million. Revenue stood rose 1.3% to 4.9bn.

Winter and summer booked revenue were down 1% and 2% respectively, the company added as it reiterated 2026 guidance of 2% - 4% revenue growth and underlying operating profit growth of 7% - 10%.

"Across our markets, demand for short- and medium-haul destinations remains the primary driver of volumes, with the Canaries, Egypt, Mainland Spain and Cape Verde proving most popular among customers," the company said.

"For long-haul destinations, Thailand has reported the strongest growth, with Mexico and the Dominican Republic once again being key destinations." Travellers have started shunning the US after President Donald Trump's widespread campaign against immigrants, with several examples of tourists being detained at the border.

A dividend of 10 euro cents a share will be approved at TUI's annual general meeting later on Tuesday, the company said, adding that from fiscal 2026 it would target a payout ratio of 10-20% of underlying earnings per share "balancing shareholder returns with maintaining operational flexibility for disciplined growth investment and continued deleveraging".

Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Aarin Chiekrie said: "As long as macroeconomic conditions dont deteriorate, TUI looks to be on the right flight path to grow underlying operating profits by between 7-10% this year, in line with guidance.

Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com
Nanavati Group, one of South Gujarats leading automobile retail groups, has been named Dealer of the Year at the Autocar Awards 2026, among the most prestigious honours in the Indian automotive industry. The award was presented by Autocar India at a ceremony held here in the second week of January 2026.

Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Surat, the Nanavati Group operates across Gujarat and Maharashtra with a network of over 90 sales and service outlets. The group has delivered over 3 lakh vehicles to customers to date and recorded sales of around 12,000 vehicles in the current year.

The recognition was based on the groups strong sales performance, high customer satisfaction, robust after-sales operations and its focus on innovation, including initiatives in electric mobility.

In October 2025, the group achieved a key milestone by delivering over 2,000 vehicles in a single month, reflecting the scale of its operations.

After-sales performance remained a key strength, with the group servicing more than one lakh vehicles during the year, supported by standardised systems, continuous training and consistent service quality across locations.

Commenting on the award, Hitendra Nanavati, Director, Nanavati Group, said the recognition reflected the collective efforts of the groups 2,500-plus employees and the continued trust of its customers.

With dealer outlets in Surat, Bardoli, Bharuch, Vapi, Navsari and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, the Nanavati Group continues to strengthen its presence while maintaining a customer-centric approach.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Police in New Jersey arrested a pair of Staten Island men and a Brooklyn resident last month after they allegedly burglarized a cigar lounge and fled from authorities.

The arrested men were identified as Christopher Sollena, 36, and Joseph Rinaldi, 31, both residents of Staten Islands South Shore, and Luis Morales, 47, of Brooklyn.

According to officials, on Jan. 4 at around 11:35 p.m., Hanover Township Police were notified of an activated burglar alarm at the Casa De Montecristo Cigar Lounge located at 310 Route 10 in the Whippany section of the Township.

Hanover Township Police initiated pursuit after observing a white utility van speeding away from a burglarized commercial business on Route 10 East in January. Google Maps

When police arrived, an officer observed a white utility van exiting the property of the business at a high rate of speed, the Hanover Township Police said.

The officer was able to catch up to the vehicle as it travelled along Route 10 East. During the pursuit, the officer observed motor vehicle violations associated with the registration of the vehicle, police said.

The officer attempted to stop the vehicle after witnessing the infractions, cops said, but the motorist kept driving.

The vehicle traveled along Route 10 and through nearby neighborhoods before stopping on a residential street, police say.

The trio tried to flee on foot, but one person was quickly caught, authorities said.

With two suspects still at large, Hanover Township Police requested assistance from additional law enforcement agencies, authorities said: East Hanover, Parsippany, Morris Township, Morristown Police Departments and the Morris County Sheriffs Office.

These additional resources were instrumental in the continued investigation at the business, which was confirmed to have been burglarized, a spokesperson said in a statement to the Advance/SILive.com. They also secured the vehicle that was allegedly used to commit the burglary and successfully apprehended the remaining suspects.

The cooperation between multiple law enforcement agencies resulted in the recovery of items which are believed to be the proceeds from the burglary, police said.

Sollena, Rinaldi and Morales were charged with third-degree burglary, second-degree theft and were remanded to the Morris County Correctional Facility pending a pre-trial detention hearing.

The Hanover Township Police Department continues the investigation into this incident, a spokesperson said. Thank you to the law enforcement agencies that responded and the residents that continually assist and support the Hanover Township Police Department.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  An Eltingville man whose home was raided by a firearms task force has settled his case in state Supreme Court, St. George.

John Raia, 59, of the 200 block of Beach Road, pleaded guilty two months ago to criminal possession of a semi-automatic handgun in connection with the 2024 arrest.

In exchange for his plea, Raia was sentenced Monday by Justice Alexander B. Jeong to five years of probation.

Raia, who was working as an electrician at the time of his arrest, is an avid hunter who purchased many of the guns in Pennsylvania where they are legal, according to defense attorney Michael Vitaliano.

His client  a stocky, gray-haired man who appeared well-groomed and well-mannered in court  was asked Monday by Jeong if he wanted to say anything prior to his sentencing. He declined.

Early morning raid

Homeland Security Investigations New Yorks El Dorado Task Force conducted a raid May 8, 2024, at a home on the 200 block of Beach Road in Eltingville. (Staten Island Advance)

The morning raid at Raias house turned up a small arsenal of guns and high-capacity magazines, authorities said at the time.

Raia was indicted weeks later by a grand jury on nearly 30 counts of illegally possessing guns and ammunition, including a ghost gun.

Generally speaking, ghost gun parts can be produced using a 3D printer and assembled without a serial number, essentially making them untraceable.

Multi-agency task force

The law-enforcement operation was overseen by Homeland Security Investigations New Yorks El Dorado Task Force, a multi-agency task force that includes NYPD personnel.

Homeland Security Investigations New Yorks El Dorado Task Force conducted a search May 8, 2024 on the 200 block of Beach Road in Eltingville. (Staten Island Advance)

There are multiple agencies on that task force, all of who contribute something to any type of these investigations, including todays seizure, said NYPD Financial Crimes Task Force Det. Michael McCaffrey at the time of the arrest.

This is yet another fine example of how federal and local state partnerships create synergy and are able to make cases such as these, arrests such as these and seizures such as these.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating a tragic incident involving a mobile pet clinic in Queens that resulted in the death of a 56-year-old Staten Island man.

Dr. Ashraf Hussein, of Eltingville, died unexpectedly when the mobile veterinary clinic became lodged in a snowbank in Flushing, Queens.

OSHA initiated an investigation into the incident, a spokesman for the agency said Tuesday.

Addressing underlying or root causes is necessary to truly understand why an incident occurred, to develop truly effective corrective actions and to minimize or eliminate serious consequences from similar future incidents, the OSHA website explained.

The employer was listed as Low Cost Vet Mobile, sources said. Public records list a Queens-based company bearing the same name.

Family seeking answers

I got like super happy when they reached out to me, Husseins wife, 46-year-old Marwa Mansour said. Im glad that they doing the investigation so my kids and I can be at ease as to what happened to him.

Mansour previously called for an investigation into how conditions inside the van led to her husbands death.

Marwa Mansour and Ashraf Hussein fell in love after bonding over their shared passion for animals. Courtsey of Marwa Mansour

Gone too soon

On Feb. 1, at around 9:25 a.m., police responded to a 911 call at 15718 65th Ave. in the 107th Precinct, a DCPI spokesperson said.

Hussein was reportedly found unconscious alongside 73-year-old clinic owner Garo Alexanian. Hussein was declared dead at the scene.

The pair was performing an operation inside the van on a small white dog, officials said. The dog did not survive.

No arrests have been made in the incident. The citys medical examiner confirmed to the Advance/SILive.com that Husseins cause of death was accidental carbon monoxide poisoning, which was initially reported by the New York Daily News.

Hussein, who worked for the mobile clinic for more than 15 years, was described by his wife as a devoted veterinarian who loved animals deeply.

Ashraf Hussein died while performing surgery on a dog inside a mobile vet clinic. Courtsey of Mahmoud Hussein

He would get off work and drive all the way down to Queens. It wasnt about the money, Mansour said to the Advance/SILive.com. He would literally volunteer on Tuesday and Saturday. Thats when he passed away on Saturday. Thats how much he loved his job.

A GoFundMe created by the Voices for the Voiceless community described Hussein as a compassionate person.

Even in his final moments, he was doing what he had always done  showing up to serve, putting the needs of others before his own, the fundraiser said. His sudden passing has left an immeasurable void in the hearts of the many families and pet owners who trusted him. The lives he saved, the comfort he gave, and the dignity with which he practiced his work will never be forgotten.

The proceeds raised will go toward covering the doctors funeral expenses.
ADDIS ABABA, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations agency in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, on Tuesday celebrated the upcoming Chinese New Year of the Horse, which falls on Feb. 17, with distinctive Chinese and African cultural activities.

Held at the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) headquarters, and jointly hosted by the Chinese Mission to the African Union (AU) and the UNECA, the event brought together officials from the UNECA and the AU, members of the diplomatic community from China and other African countries, business leaders, academia, media, non-governmental organizations, as well as members of the Chinese community in Ethiopia.

Wishing a happy Chinese New Year and fruitful China-Africa cooperation, Jiang Feng, head of the Chinese Mission to the AU and representative of China to the UNECA, said the Spring Festival serves as an important tradition for Chinese and African friends to come together, renew friendships, exchange cultures, and discuss future cooperation.

"The Spring Festival is the most important traditional festival of the Chinese nation. It embodies the spiritual pursuit of reunion, harmony, hope, and progress. Chinese people use this moment to reflect on the past, look forward to the future, and wish for national prosperity and peace, and for a peaceful world," he said.

Jiang said in Chinese culture, horses have traditionally symbolized progress, vigor, and auspiciousness. He emphasized the importance of cultural exchanges to further enhance mutual understanding between China and Africa, which is also reflected by this year's designation of the China-Africa Year of People-to-People Exchanges.

The event, among other things, featured various Chinese and African cultural activities, including Chinese Wu Opera, a cappella songs, and other cultural shows.

Aboubakri Diaw, Chief of Staff at the Office of the UNECA Executive Secretary, said the celebration embodies the spirit of South-South cooperation and the China-Africa partnership, in which the exchange of cultural heritages serves as a connecting bridge.

"The Chinese New Year is a celebration of renewal, continuity, and hope. These values resonate deeply with the principle of multilateralism that guides the United Nations, the African Union, as well as relations between different countries, echoing mutual respect and shared responsibility for the future," said Diaw. 
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  The United States State Department is warning Americans to stay away from Niger.

The West African nation has been given the highest travel advisory issuable by the department: Level 4  Do Not Travel.

On Jan. 30, the State Department ordered non-emergency government employees and their family members to leave Niger due to safety risks, the advisory detailed.

Those safety risks include terrorism, kidnapping, crime, unrest, and health concerns.

Terrorists continue to plot attacks and use kidnapping for ransom as a business model. They target vulnerable groups and U.S. interests, the advisory cautioned.

The latest kidnapping and terrorist attacks took place in the following areas of Niger, as listed in the advisory:

Niamey

The Malian border area (Tillaberi Region, Tri-Border Zone)

The Diffa Region (Lake Chad Basin)

Northern Agadez

The southern border corridor along the Niger-Benin oil pipeline

That is why any remaining U.S. government employees left in the nation must travel in armored vehicles for all movements in addition to abiding by a mandatory curfew. They cannot visit restaurants or any open-air markets.

Other criminal activities, like armed robbery and residential break-ins can occur at any time.

Unrest in the form of demonstrations can be unpredictable, the advisory stated. Unlike the United States, the government in Niger limits or does not authorize large gatherings.

Furthermore, health care in Niger is limited. Ambulances, specific medicines, and trauma-related procedures are not broadly accessible.

Even a minor health issue may require medical evacuation at your expense, the advisory said.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- New York City launched its 20th annual School Survey, inviting families, students, and educators to share feedback about their experiences through April 1.

The survey helps school leaders understand community perspectives on learning environments and informs improvements to schools and programs. The data is also incorporated into the districts School Quality Reports, which provide school communities with information about the quality of each school.

As both a New York City Public Schools parent and lifelong educator, I understand the value of hearing from our families, students, and educators, said Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels. For two decades, the School Survey has been an essential tool in helping us understand what is working in our schools and where we need to improve. I encourage everyone to participate  your feedback directly shapes the decisions we make to build a stronger, safer, and more supportive learning environment for all our students.

The survey is available online in 13 languages to families, teachers, and students in grades 6 through 12. Families will also receive a hard copy from their school.

This year, the district reformatted the student survey to be more concise and user-friendly for young learners, while the family and educator surveys remain mostly unchanged.

To access the survey at www.nycschoolsurvey.org, parents and guardians enter a lowercase f followed by their childs nine-digit OSIS number. Students enter a lowercase s followed by their OSIS ID number. The OSIS ID can be found on report cards or student ID cards. Families with children in early childhood education programs will receive a unique access code from their childs program. Teachers and staff will receive a unique access code from their schools.

Families can also complete the survey through their NYC Schools Account Portal, where they can view their students grades and test scores.

Survey results will be shared with school staff in the summer to support planning for the coming school year and will be released publicly later in the year.
Employees of Alabamas largest water utility were surprised to return to work a day after the Super Bowl to find the first phase of random and mandatory drug testing.

Employees at Central Alabama Water today were given drug tests with a steep penalty for failing  termination.

We are conducting drug testing for all employees, spokesman John Matson told AL.com. By all I mean all, senior executive team, managers, supervisors - everybody is going to be tested.

While Matson said he did not know if any employees were fired today, several sources told AL.com that a mass of employees left work for the last time after either failing the tests or declining to take them.

Matson said the testing that began today is the first time for the utility.

This will serve as a baseline for us and we will conduct random drug testing going forward, he said.

Random drug testing is normal in the utility industry. Its very serious work that we do and we have to make sure we dont have impaired employees on the job.

The utility just implemented a new employee handbook with more strict policies. According to the new rules, all employees are subject to random drug testing and may be fired immediately if they fail the test or refuse to take it.

The timing of the random tests come just a day after the Super Bowl, which is traditionally a day for parties across the country, which for some might include alcohol and recreational marijuana. Matson said he wasnt sure if the tests include both drugs and alcohol.

I think what youre seeing is that were serious about serving the public. And we know we have a responsibility to our customers and have a responsibility to our community to make sure we are providing high-quality water and were providing water for fire protection. We need to make sure all of our employees are able to work safely.

Jefferson County Commissioner Sheila Tyson, a board member from Birmingham, told AL.com that she questioned both the timing and purpose of the testing.

Its another way of them getting rid of employees that they dont want in order to hire people that they do want, she said.

The zero-tolerance action comes just weeks after water employees circulated a grievance letter that alleged unfair practices including hiring cronyism, racial bias by the utilitys new leadership.

We are tired of being told to stay silent, the unsigned letter stated, while our livelihoods and our dignity are taken from us.

A majority of water board members, ushered in by a new state law that changed its composition, hired Jeff Thompson as CEO in November.

The new seven-member board is dominated by five Republican members from suburban areas and surrounding counties with just two members from heavily Democrat Birmingham. Thompson soon after sacked the entire previous executive leadership team and replaced them.

The former managers, including General Manager Mac Underwood, were placed on paid administrative leave.

The shakeup cold cost the utility more than $3 million in payouts according to existing contracts. For example, Underwood was paid $446,118 on a five-year contract that was approved in March 2025. Underwoods payout alone would total more than $2.2 million, not including benefits.
Weight-loss drugmaker Eli Lilly has announced an ambitious plan to build a $3.5 billion manufacturing complex in the heart of Pennsylvanias Lehigh Valley  and real estate experts are predicting that the investment could easily reshape the regions housing market.

The Indiana-based pharmaceutical company, which makes the weight management treatment Zepbound and the diabetes medication Mounjaro, announced in a news release that it will build the 925,000-square-foot complex just outside Allentown, Pennsylvania.

The site was selected from more than 300 applications, the company noted in the release, partly based on its proximity to STEM universities, its technical manufacturing economy, and its existing infrastructure. In addition, with increasing demand from the biotech industry, the region offers convenient access to utilities, transportation, and favorable zoning and incentives.

For anybody whos owning their own home, I can see values rising, Chris Raad, owner of Harvey Z. Raad Realtors in Allentown, told Realtor.com. We already have quite an inventory crunch right now in our area ... so I could see this really affecting our housing in an upward fashion from there.

Construction is scheduled to begin later this year and be completed by 2031, creating 850 jobs at the facility, according to the press release. The new facility will produce injectable drugs and devices, including the weight-loss drug retatrutide, which is still in development.

Our investment here is more than just building a facility its about building a shared future with the people and communities of the Commonwealth, Edgardo Hernandez, executive vice president and president of Lilly Manufacturing Operations, said in the release. Through meaningful partnerships in Pennsylvania, were committed to fostering collaboration, driving innovation, advancing environmental stewardship, and creating lasting positive impact that extends far beyond our facility walls.

Realtor.com reported that Allentown, immortalized in a Billy Joel hit, is the third-largest city in Pennsylvania. Known as the Queen City of the Lehigh Valley, it has seen its median real estate list price increase more than 12% in two years, reaching $317,812 by the end of 2025, according to data. Nearby Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, however, has seen home prices drop 4.5% since 2023, with the typical house listed for roughly $388,000 last year. The median price in neighboring Easton has shrunk by 6% to $356,629.

But the new plant, which will offer an average annual salary of about $100,000, could change the markets dynamic.

Lillys commitment to the Lehigh Valley and to Pennsylvania will bring billions of dollars of investment and hundreds of good-paying jobs, solidifying our position as a leader in the growing life sciences industry, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro noted in the press release.
If you were affected by a Verizon outage last month that left you without cellular service, the federal government wants to hear from you.

On Jan. 14, millions of Verizon customers lost wireless service and left looking at SOS mode in the cellular status bar. Now, the Federal Communications Commission is seeking information on the impact of the outage on customers, public safety entities and government entities.

The service outage lasted at least 10 hours, with customers unable to make and receive calls and text messages.

The FCCs Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau has opened a docket and is inviting customers to provide any and all relevant information on the effects of the outage  particularly on 911 calling and public safety.

The goal of this investigation is to assess the outages impact and understand the reliability of wireless networks during an emergency.

After the outage, Verizon announced it would offer a $20 account credit that can be redeemed by affected customers.

This credit isnt meant to make up for what happened. No credit really can. But its a way of acknowledging our customers time and showing that this matters to us, said Verizon in the statement.

Public comments will be accepted through March 16 via the FCCs ECFS system or by email at VerizonOutage2026@fcc.gov.
The always outspoken Kid Rock is making his voice loud and clear when it comes to the race for governor of Michigan as he has come out with an endorsement.

Rock, who is from Romeo in Metro Detroit, but now mainly resides in Nashville, Tennessee, is a supporter and friend of President Donald Trump.

When it came to making his endorsement, he has chosen one of the GOP candidates.

As our next governor of Michigan, I know you will bring many victories to our GREAT STATE, Kid Rock said of John James, who posted Rocks endorsement on his X page.

James is the U.S. Representative of Michigans 10th Congressional district, which encompasses southern Macomb County and Rochester and Rochester Hills in Oakland County.

Previously, James was the President of James Group International and CEO of Renaissance Global Logistics. He also served eight years of active duty military service.

Kid Rock is a good friend. We share our love for Detroit, the state of Michigan and the United States of America, James wrote of Rocks endorsement, adding...

Im honored to have the endorsement of this unapologetic freedom-loving patriot and I look forward to working with him and every other Michigander to make Michigan great again.

James hopes to replace democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer who is completing her second term.

Among those also running are Jocelyn Benson (D), the current Michigan Secretary of State; former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan (I); Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson (D); former Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox (R); former Michigan House Speaker Tom Leonard (R); businessman Perry Johnson (R).

Michigans gubernatorial election is on November 3rd.
As New Jersey officials continue to question immigration enforcement tactics by President Donald Trumps administration, lawmakers are considering a bill that would prohibit officers from wearing masks in the state.

The bill, S3112, would prohibit all law enforcement officers in New Jersey from wearing any face coverings or disguises while interacting with the public, with limited exceptions.

The measure follows criticism that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents regularly wear masks, which the agency says protects them from online harassment and doxxing. Critics say the masks stoke fear and limit accountability.

Unmasking ICE agents has emerged as a key demand by Democrats in negotiations in Congress over funding for the agency.

The proposed New Jersey law, sponsored by state Sen. Benjie Wimberly, D-Passaic, has been referred to the Senate Law and Public Safety Committee.

An identical bill in the Assembly is scheduled to be debated and voted on by the Public Safety and Preparedness committee on Thursday, but doesnt include any fines and gives authority to the state Attorney General to come up with details on enforcement.

Under the Senate bill, officers at the federal, state, county and municipal levels would be barred from concealing their faces during official public interactions. Exceptions include undercover assignments, protective face shields that do not obscure identity, physiciansupported use of medicalgrade masks such as N95 respirators, and masks worn during statedeclared smoke emergencies.

Violations would be a disorderly persons offense, punishable by a $500 to $1,000 fine, up to six months in jail, or both, according to the proposal. The bill would take effect immediately upon enactment.

The legislation would need to be passed by both houses of the Democratic-controlled state Legislature and signed by the governor to become law.

ICE officials did not immediately respond to a request to comment on the proposed masking law.

The debate over ICE agents wearing masks comes as Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrills administration continues to clash with the Trump administration over immigration enforcement. Federal officials have threatened to withhold funding from states that keep restrictions on local police cooperation with immigration authorities.

During last weeks confirmation hearing for acting state Attorney General Jennifer Davenport in Trenton, state Sen. Jon Bramnick, R-Union, pressed her about reports of federal officers wearing masks during general public operations.

When you take a look at our state and local law enforcement officers across the state and the operations they do  you just dont see that, Davenport said.

Thats good, Bramnick interjected. I want to see the person whos hitting me over the head with a club or something.

Lets hope that does not happen, Davenport quipped.

When asked during her confirmation hearing, Davenport would not give an opinion on whether the law should be passed.

Whether that is something that should be banned or a law, I leave that to this body, she said, referring to the state Legislature.

Bramnick also pressed Davenport on whether she would be willing to arrest ICE agents if she had reasonable belief they were violating state law. Davenport said she would support prosecuting ICE agents if they break New Jersey law.
A Republican congressman from Kentucky who has feuded with Donald Trump called for the resignation of a member of the presidents cabinet Sunday after emails showed he visited Jeffrey Epsteins island.

Asked on Inside Politics with Manu Raju Sunday whether Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick should testify before the House Oversight Committee following the revelations, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., said: No, he should just resign.

I mean, theres three people in Great Britain that have resigned in politics: [Lord Peter Mandelson], the ambassador from Great Britain to the United States; [Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor], the prince lost his title for less than what weve seen Howard Lutnick lie about.

Lutnick visited Epsteins private Caribbean island with his family on at least one occasion, records released late last month showed.

That appears to contradict prior statements hes made claiming he cut ties with the disgraced financier, who hes called gross, decades ago, the Associated Press reported.

But emails show Lutnick and his wife accepted an invitation to Little St. James in the U.S. Virgin Islands in December 2012 and planned to arrive by yacht with their children.

The former chairman of Newmark, a major commercial real estate firm, also had drinks on another occasion in 2011 with Epstein and corresponded with him about the construction of a building across the street from both of their homes.

The Commerce Department, in a statement to the AP, said Lutnick had limited interactions with Mr. Epstein in the presence of his wife and has never been accused of wrongdoing.

Look, Howard Lutnick clearly went to the island, if we believe whats in these files, Massie told Raju.

He was in business with Jeffrey Epstein, Massie continued, and this was many years after Jeffrey Epstein was convicted ... for sexual crimes.

So, hes got a lot to answer for, the Kentucky congressman said of Lutnick.

But really, he should make life easier for the president, frankly, and just resign. If this were Great Britain hed already be gone.

Massie is a main sponsor of the House legislation that mandates the complete Epstein files to be released without redacting the names of the late financiers co-conspirators.

The Kentucky Republican has been the target of insults from the president over his Epstein files stance.

Trump is also backing a primary opponent to Massie.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
KIGALI, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- At least 161 Rwandan refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) returned home Tuesday in a process facilitated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), an official announced.

The returnees were repatriated through the Rwanda-DRC border post in Rubavu District, where they were welcomed by local leaders.

Prosper Mulindwa, the district's mayor, told reporters that the returnees, the majority of whom are women and children, were transported to Kijote Transit Centre in Nyabihu District, where they will be sheltered pending resettlement procedures.

Mulindwa assured the returnees that arrangements to ensure a safe and dignified resettlement were in place.

He added that the returnees are to benefit from a comprehensive government reintegration program covering access to education for children, healthcare coverage and other services that foster social cohesion.

The UNHCR supports returnees' reintegration, helping them to rebuild their lives and families.

The repatriation falls under an agreement signed last year between Rwanda, DRC and the UNHCR committing the parties to respect refugees' right to voluntary repatriation to their countries of origin. 
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He worked on two scripts for HBO, recalling in a 2020 interview that a senior vice-president at the company rejected the one that would become Yellowstone. Sheridan remembers him saying, Nobody wants to see a movie about this ... the whole thing should be in a park. To which Sheridan recalls retorting, Buddy, youre the exact reason that Im making this. Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan at the premiere of the shows final season in 2022. Getty You can almost see him flipping the bird at that know-nothing city-slicker as he grabs his hat and marches out of that meeting and into TV history. The executive clearly misjudged the audiences appetite for tales of bitter battles in the wide, open spaces. The project was snapped up by Paramount and Yellowstone became a global hit that ran for five seasons. Its sometimes described as a neo-western, although Sheridan likened it to The Godfather, with powerful people doing what they think they must to protect their families, tribes and/or businesses. Editor's pick Streaming Hes not ashamed: How a real-life criminal mastermind inspired iconic TV crook That series, and many that followed, exhibit elements, themes and concerns that have become familiar through Sheridans work, some of them evident in 2016s film, Hell or High Water, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for best original screenplay. A decade ago, it was clear that he could write energetic, engaging, smartly plotted scripts and cracking dialogue. Since then, its become even clearer that he respects people  frequently men  who do things their own way: self-starters, independent thinkers willing to stand up to those who oppose them. Theres also a reverence for men doing manly things, tough physical work: breaking horses, droving cattle, drilling for oil. Theres a love of the land, like the majestic landscape of Montana appreciatively portrayed in Yellowstone, with Kevin Costners patriarch remarking that the view from the family ranch is like a painting in every direction. In tandem with that is his ongoing commitment to the traditional Native American custodians of that land and respect for their historic claims on it.

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This might sit uncomfortably  at least to city folk living outside Texas  with the burning desire in Landman to extract as much oil and gas from it as quickly as possible. Although even in that series  as in Yellowstone  come references to a way of life that might be facing extinction. In Landman, the shots of wind turbines acknowledge the incursion of alternative energy sources. So the companies for which the series acerbic hero Tommy Norris (Billy Bob Thornton) works as a fixer are facing competition and a future that might not rely on them. Cole Hauser as Rip Wheeler and Kelly Reilly as Beth Dutton in Yellowstone. Paramount Alongside those concerns comes one of the most contentious areas of Sheridans work: women and the portrayal of them in the male-dominated worlds that he creates. He maintains that he loves and respects strong women, like his wife, mother and grandmother. His shows would suggest that he also likes them in figure-hugging outfits that display generous amounts of cleavage. With Yellowstones Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) and Lioness Joe McNamara (Zoe Saldana), he gives us women who act like his men: they can fight and drink and curse with the best and worst of them, and the admiration for that grit is apparent. In many ways, from her name to her work as a CIA operative and approach to it, Joe could be a man. In the first season, motherhood seems simply an inconvenience for her, a cause for a guilty backward glance as she heads off to do her duty. Zoe Saldana stars as Joe, a CIA operative, in Lioness. Paramount via AP Full disclosure: I only lasted one season of Lioness, so maybe that changes. But I didnt wait to find out, as I found the show heavy-handed and dull, with the violence, particularly in the torture scenes in episode two, shockingly brutal for no useful purpose.

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However, as with most simple dishes, the difference between a good and a bad version lies in the details. Heres how to make a great pasta marinara.

Every Valentines Day, it becomes a viral favourite for couples who want to spend more time at the table and less time at the stove.

Seafood pasta strikes the perfect balance for a romantic night in: its decadent, impressive, and  best of all  deceptively simple.

You can use marinara mix, adding extra prawns or shellfish to make it feel more luxe.

Once the pasta is al dente and coated in sauce, toss through the parsley and a drizzle of olive oil. The seafood should still look slightly underdone. Plate immediately and serve with lemon wedges. By the time your plates get to the table, the seafood will be perfectly cooked.

Transfer the pasta to the pan, along with some of the reserved pasta water. Agitate the pan as they cook together; the pasta will soften as it absorbs the juices. If it still seems dry, add a little more of the pasta water.

When the timer goes off, strain the still-firm pasta, reserving  cup of pasta cooking water.

Meanwhile, heat a large frypan or low casserole over medium heat with the oil and garlic. Fry until the garlic is lightly browned, then toss in the chilli (if using) for a few seconds. Just before the pasta is ready, add the prawns, squid and cherry tomatoes to the pan. Incorporate the bivalves and their strained liquid, bringing everything to a simmer.

With prep finished, boil a large pot of well-salted water. Add the pasta and set a timer for 3 minutes less than the package instructions.

Heat a medium saucepan over medium heat, add the wine, and simmer until the raw alcohol scent evaporates. Add the bivalves, cover, and steam until most have opened. Transfer the bivalves to a bowl and strain the cooking liquid  this wine-y juice is the secret to a deep seafood flavour. Shell half of the bivalves to make the final dish easier to eat.

Prepare your seafood. Purge the bivalves, if necessary (see note), and butterfly the prawns by slicing down the back (you can chop them, but keeping them whole showcases their quality). Slice the squid tubes into 1cm rings, discard the eyes, trim the wing cartilage, and cut the tentacles into pieces. Keep each variety of seafood separate.

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Is this dish really marinara?

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In Italian cuisine, marinara translates to mariner-style. In both Italy and the United States, it refers to a simple tomato sauce seasoned with garlic, olive oil and herbs  a recipe famously favoured by Neapolitan seafarers despite containing no seafood.

In Australia, New Zealand, Spain and South Africa, marinara describes a pasta dish featuring various types of seafood. Meanwhile, back in Italy, that same seafood-laden pasta is known as allo scoglio, or of the reef.

Dont overcook anything.

If youre looking for a single rule for a great marinara, its this: dont overcook the seafood or the pasta. Timing is everything. You want both elements to be perfectly done the moment they hit the table, which means they should be slightly underdone when they leave the pan.

We consider seafood cooked at about 45 degrees, a much lower temperature than most meat and poultry require. So if we cook it all the way in the pan, the residual heat will ensure its overcooked by the time it reaches the table.

The secret is to add the pasta to the pan while its still firm, just as the squid and prawns have started cooking. The pasta will soften as it absorbs the juices from the seafood; then, once the pasta is al dente, the seafood should still be slightly underdone. In the few minutes it takes to get everything to the table, the residual heat will finish the seafood perfectly.

Can I use marinara mix?

Of course you can. While marinara mix is often dismissed as low-quality, that isnt necessarily true. A good fishmongers mix is typically made from the same fish youd buy at a higher price as nicely shaped fillets. Using these offcuts is not only more affordable but also more sustainable, as it ensures less of the fish goes to waste.

Because there are no offcuts when it comes to whole seafood such as prawns or mussels, you may find fewer of them in a standard mix than youd like. For a more premium feel, simply buy a few extra prawns or mussels to toss in yourself.

Do I need to purge my clams and mussels?

Purging bivalves involves soaking them in salt water to clear out any grit or sand trapped inside the shells. In Australia, our mussels are rope-grown and rarely contain much sand; similarly, most clams and pipis are sold pre-purged by fishmongers, so the extra step is usually unnecessary.

That said, many cooks prefer to purge their shellfish just to be safe, and the process is straightforward: dissolve 2 tablespoons of salt (about 30g) into a litre of cold water and soak the bivalves for roughly 1 hours. When finished, lift them out of the liquid rather than pouring it out, so the grit stays at the bottom.

What is bronze-extruded pasta, and is it important?

Machine-made dried pasta is typically extruded through non-stick metal dies to create its shape. For bronze-extruded pasta, however, the die is made from bronze, which lacks that non-stick coating and has a much sharper edge.

It might sound like a gimmick, but if you hold a piece of bronze-extruded spaghetti next to the ordinary kind, the difference is obvious: the bronze-extruded strand is dull and textured, whereas the standard version is smooth and shiny. That roughness is vital. Once cooked, the duller surface grips the sauce better, making every bite more flavourful. It is absolutely worth the switch.

Bronze-extruded pasta has a duller finish that allows sauce to cling more readily. Getty Images

What can I do to change up my marinara?

If youre looking to switch things up, there are plenty of ways to customise your marinara. While linguine is the classic choice, I also love spaghetti or conchiglie (shells)  there is a lovely symmetry in the pasta shape mirroring the shellfish. Casarecce is a more obscure option, but its twisted shape is reminiscent of squid and pairs beautifully with seafood.

For a flavour twist, swap fresh chilli for Calabrian chilli paste (crema di peperoncino). You can also introduce fennel by frying finely diced bulbs with the garlic or adding paper-thin shavings along with the tomatoes. When it comes to herbs, dill or tarragon are great alternatives to parsley, but my favourite underrated pairing for seafood is thyme; add it early so its flavour infuses the oil.

For a deeper hit of umami, try melting anchovies and tomato paste into the olive oil at the start. And if youre tempted to add parmesan but fear the no cheese with seafood police  dont worry. As a devoted tuna mornay lover, you wont hear any complaints from me.
KUNMING, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Law enforcement authorities from China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand on Monday launched their 162nd joint patrol of the Mekong River to combat cross-border crime.

The operation began when three Chinese law enforcement vessels departed from the Jingha port in southwest China's Yunnan Province, marking the official start of the joint patrol. Lao and Myanmar patrol boats left the Muang Mo port in Laos and the Wan Pong port in Myanmar.

Once the vessels of all parties reach the designated waters of the Mekong River, they will form a joint formation to carry out patrol and law enforcement operations.

Prior to the operation, the relevant law enforcement departments of the four countries held a joint commanders' meeting, discussing and reaching a consensus on deepening law enforcement cooperation and maintaining the safety and stability of shipping, in light of the approaching Spring Festival and busy shipping period for the Mekong River.

A joint command post will be established for the operation. The joint formation will conduct land-water inspections, publicity campaigns and other actions in key waters of the Mekong River, cracking down on various illegal and criminal cross-border activities.

The law enforcement agencies of the four countries will hold an information-exchange meeting in Houayxay, Laos.

The Mekong River -- known as the Lancang River in China -- is a vital waterway for cross-border shipping. China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand have been conducting joint patrols of the river since December 2011. 
American TV host pleads with mother's kidnappers

American TV host Savannah Guthrie says her family is at a point of desperation, as she begged for the public's help to find her missing mother.
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NationalIsraeli-Palestinian conflict Jewish group admits fake names published in anti-Herzog ad Megan Gorrey and Annika Smethurst Updated February 10, 2026  6:14pm ,first published 5:18pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

A paid advertisement opposing Israeli President Isaac Herzogs state visit to Australia has come under scrutiny with doubts raised about the accuracy and consent of some Jewish signatories. The full-page open letter, organised by the Jewish Council of Australia, appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age on Monday. It purportedly included about 700 signatures from more than 1000 Australian Jews who signed an online petition against Herzogs contentious visit. The letter said Herzog was not welcome, and hosting him during the war in Gaza betrays Jewish communities, multicultural Australia and everyone who stands for Palestinian human rights. Israels President Isaac Herzog during his visit to Bondi Beach to speak with survivors of the December 14 terror attack, and the victims families. AP Within hours of the ads publication, several signatories who appeared on the list claimed they never gave permission for their names to be included. Others claimed the list included an offensive phrase in Hebrew, as well as the names of dead people who were kapos  Jewish inmates forced by the Nazis to serve as stand-in guards in concentration camps during the Holocaust. In response, the council said some offensive and obscure historical references and false names had slipped through the cracks, but they represented a handful of the hundreds of signatories.

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We are deeply offended by the fact that racist actors appear to have targeted us in this way through references to Nazis and the Holocaust, the council said in a statement. Related Article Visual story

Israeli-Palestinian conflict How a protest in the heart of Sydney descended into bloody chaos The names of David Slade, managing director of Slade Pharmacies and president of United Israel Appeal Victoria, and his wife Tammie, were both falsely included in the advertisement. Slade said he was alerted to their names being included in the open letter when an acquaintance sent him a photo of the ad on WhatsApp. He said the couple did not endorse or authorise their names to be included on the list, and they supported Herzogs visit to Australia.

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Fabricating support isnt activism, it is deception, Slade said. It damages trust and damages community cohesion. We are very unhappy about this. Police have charged nine protesters following the Town Hall demonstration on Monday night. Kate Geraghty Slade described the inclusion of fake names as a gross ethical failure by the Jewish Council of Australia and the newspapers that published the advertisement. Spreading falsehoods and lies isnt the way to go about public discourse, he said.

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If they (the JCA) had real support they wouldnt use fake names. He questioned how such a mistake could have occurred, describing it as very distressing for Jewish Australians. If people are putting out an open online petition, targeting an issue causing immense social unrest, they knew full well what they were putting out and its intended purpose and therefore there should have been a system of checks. The council said any allegations it had fabricated names on the list were false. We have sought confirmation from the email address used to submit Mr Slades name, and removed his name from our website. Other individuals who have contacted us share names with our supporters. The fact that some people share the same name is very common in the Jewish community.

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The council said its members had carried out a number of review processes in a short time frame to delete duplicates, antisemitic and offensive names which were submitted by malicious actors. We deleted a significant number of names through this process. Unfortunately, a handful of names with offensive and obscure historical references, and names of real Jewish people falsely submitted by others, slipped through the cracks, the statement said. Some Jewish people were also included in the list who are genuine signatories, but have the same names as others in the Jewish community. The fact that someone shares a name with someone else, which is common in the Jewish community, should not disqualify someone from signing a petition or writing an open letter in their name. Related Article Opinion

Israeli-Palestinian conflict Im Jewish. I live in Bondi. But I take no comfort from Herzogs visit David Leser Senior freelance writer Nines published advertising terms and conditions say that advertisers must check for any errors in advertising copy and are responsible for its contents. Nine is the publisher of the Herald and The Age.

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A Nine corporate spokesman said last night: There are very clear terms and conditions that all advertisers agree to that make clear they are solely responsible for all copy in their advertisement. We are deeply concerned that this was not adhered to by the Jewish Council of Australia and are seeking an explanation for why the conditions were breached. Those who wanted to sign the letter filled out an online form, which asked users their name, email address and whether they were Jewish Australian or a non-Jewish ally. Only those who identified as Jewish were included in the advertisement. The list of names has since been updated on the councils website. The advertisement in question has been removed from the digital edition of Mondays Herald and The Age. The council will explore ways to avoid similar attacks in future, but said the few false names should not detract from the large numbers of Jewish people who are deeply offended by Herzogs visit. Pro-Palestinian protesters  including some calling for the Israeli head of states arrest and many chanting free Palestine  gathered in Sydney and Melbourne on Monday to protest Herzogs four-day visit to Australia, by invitation from the Albanese government, following the Bondi shooting.

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I attended the gathering at Town Hall on Monday to protest Israeli President Isaac Herzogs visit, but also the NSW governments draconian restrictions on the right to protest. How can such laws, drawn up in the name of social cohesion, permit an Australia Day anti-immigration rally but not Mondays gathering? These rules meant people could not march from Town Hall to Parliament House, but it soon became clear we would also not be allowed to just stay at Town Hall indefinitely. At some point, police would have to end the stand-off, force people to move on and arrest those who didnt (Chaotic scenes in CBD, February 10). I observed people at Town Hall to be both calm and respectful, if passionate in shouting their slogans. They were compliant with police directions, including to ensure that thoroughfares for the public remained accessible. They were also peaceful when the crowd initially tried to move to Parliament House. Had they been allowed to march, I strongly believe the protest would have continued without any, or only very minimal, conflict with police. The confrontations that followed were regrettable, but an inevitable and foreseeable consequence of the laws that effectively prohibited the march from taking place. Ross Duncan, Potts Point Illustration by Cathy Wilcox I am outraged by the descriptions of Mondays violence as clashes between protesters and police. A completely peaceful demonstration was violently attacked for the crime of making a political statement in a public place. I witnessed a friend of mine being punched and pepper-sprayed directly in the eyes by a police officer who pointed at her and mocked her. She had her hands in the air. This is un-Australian. Eleanor Myatt, Randwick I was there at Town Hall on Monday night, surrounded by principled people concerned about the massacre of Palestinians. Doctors, nurses, journalists, Jewish people, mums, dads, and the young, all calling for this horrible crime against humanity to stop. Herzogs public claim that the protesters want to see the end of Israel is totally wrong, and was very poor diplomacy indeed. Ann Hatton, Manly Unlike some of your correspondents, Im not outraged by the police response to the anti-Herzog protest (Premier defends police as Greens MP claims she was beaten, February 10). In fact, I think police behaved with great restraint under enormous pressure and risk. The whole intent of this protest and particularly the so-called pious men who felt the need to get down on their hands and knees and pray despite being asked to move on, was nothing more than a calculated and deliberate act of provocation designed purely for social media. It is time for Sydneysiders to reclaim their city from the professional agitators and their many bleating sheep. Anthony Mitchell, Forest Lodge One of the more shocking and controversial bit of protest footage was police physically removing a group of people doing nothing more dangerous than kneeling in prayer at the Town Hall square. One seemed to have been violently picked up and tossed aside. So much for authorities having respect for other peoples religion. This will only cause more animosity, which is the last thing we need, particularly at a time like this. Con Vaitsas, Ashbury I am heartily sick of Greens politicians criticising police for carrying out orders (Greens MPs accuse officers of police violence, February 10). The organisers of the Town Hall protest had their request to march to Macquarie Street denied by authorities, and their appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court. Yet they marched anyway. If the court had ruled differently, the police would have allowed the march. The organisers of the march want it both ways: to obey court rulings that suit them and flout rulings that dont. Top Greens Sue Higginson and David Shoebridge need to decide whether they support democratic government or mob rule. To criticise police for carrying out a lawful order, as Higginson does, I find offensive. She does not mention the protesters who were arrested for assaulting police. If she was in a blue uniform, how would she stop a crowd marching to a prohibited area without laying hands on them? The Greens are correct to defend the right for peaceful protest, but they should also be prepared to call out the behaviour of the minority who attend protests itching for an opportunity to punch a cop. Mike Reddy, Vincentia

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NSW Police officers arrested 27 protesters. Kate Geraghty I saw television footage of some police acting violently, without provocation, towards peaceful protesters. It was shameful. But there in the midst of it all were two officers, a man and a woman, talking calmly and amicably to protesters who were face to face with them. It was shocking  no punches were thrown. Those two officers ought to be recognised and rewarded for their restraint and decency, and used as examples of best practice by the NSW Police. On the other hand, the officer who pummeled the older man, whose hands were raised in submission, ought to be disciplined. We must make it clear such behaviour by police will not be tolerated in Australia. Vicki Burge, Camperdown Hundreds of police cordoned peaceful protesters and then attacked them when they sought to march in the CBD. Yet the NSW Police provided no such precautionary measures in December to protect our Jewish citizens at Bondi Beach. The perpetrators faced no deterrence before carrying out their ghastly deed. Despite weeks of discussion about possible threats to the Jewish community, NSW Police showed it was totally ill prepared. It had no tactical plan for securing the Bondi Beach area, checking cars or for denying would-be attackers the advantage of high ground. An inquiry into the tactical deficiencies of the NSW Police is needed urgently. Brian Brennan, Wollstonecraft Correspondent Lynne Strong has very eloquently stated the obvious, that Isaac Herzogs visit was destined to inflame a tinderbox of raw emotions (Letters, February 10). I do question the judgment of PM Albanese, more so these days after the Herzog invitation. David Leser, while not purporting to represent the Jewish community, rightly questioned the value of Herzogs presence to the Jewish diaspora (Im Jewish. I live in Bondi. But I take no comfort from Herzogs visit, February 9). Now the conflict associated with this visit has extended to the Minns government and the NSW Police. Most unwise, Albo. Bruce Hall, Avalon It seems we are living in a police state as a consequence of legislation drawn up by the Labor state government. The actions now to silence opposition are comparable to actions of the Bjelke Petersen government in the 1970s, and Donald Trumps ICE enforcers. Who would have thought that in 2026 we would yet again be fighting for the right to peacefully demonstrate and voice opposition? Maureen Davis, MacMasters Beach I couldnt vote One Nation. I wouldnt vote Liberal, and now I can never again vote Labor after seeing the ICE-type police brutality that was condoned by the Minns Labor government. The police action was grossly inappropriate. Shame on you, Mr Minns. We are Australians. We are not living in Trumps America. Wendy Lowe, Enmore There was surely no need for the sort of police brutality seen against people in what had set out to be a peaceful protest. It reminded me of the quote violence begets violence. The images were beyond shocking. Vicky Marquis, Glebe

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Police stopped protesters marching through the Sydney CBD. Wolter Peeters When I saw the footage of NSW police beating people up I thought I was watching a scene from the US. The Minns government and the NSW Police have done so much damage to social cohesion. Joyce Wu, Caringbah Social cohesion enforced by oppressive legislation reinforced by masked snipers with high-powered rifles, tear gas and batons is the social cohesion of Putin, Trump and Xi. Peter Hull, Katoomba Herzog missed the point Mr Herzog, you dont need to explain to us the horror of the massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023 (We warned of surging antisemitism before Bondi attack, says Israeli president, February 10). We know. We are a democracy with a free press. Likewise, we know of the horrific deaths of many thousands of innocents in Gaza, and the reduction of their country to rubble, despite Israel keeping international journalists out of Gaza. We also dont need to be told that if we find this slaughter appalling, we therefore deny Israels right to exist. You know that Australia supports a two-state solution. Jennifer Katauskas, Turramurra Israels security cabinet this week approved measures to expand Israeli control over the West Bank. The Israeli decision will make it easier for Jewish settlers to buy land, an Israeli minister said, and that the government would continue to kill the idea of a Palestinian state. This highlights how the Australian public continues to be gaslit by President Herzog, who claims the pro-Palestine protests are objecting to the existence of the Israeli state. No. What we are protesting against are the attempts by Israel to eliminate the Palestinian people and any possibility of a Palestinian state. Peter Gibson, Wentworthville I am a Jewish Australian, but I know that Isaac Herzog is wrong. He claimed the Bondi shootings were caused by the the very same age-old antisemitism endured by our parents and grandparents. That is totally erroneous. He is referring to the horrendous European antisemitism that led directly to the Holocaust. The governments, police and armies of Europe were not just complicit, but were responsible for executing much of that antisemitism. In this country, as evidenced by their laws and actions, our politicians, police and armed forces support and protect Jewish Australians. As such, we are a lucky people and should not let an outsider, the titular head of a country that blatantly massacres a disenfranchised people, try to increase division in our society. We are a multicultural nation, our best future lies in kindness, communication and concern for the rights of all Australians together. Sarah Goldman, Rose Bay

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Wouldnt it have been better for our own head of state to oversee the mourning rather than a contentious head of state from another country? Governor General Sam Mostyn could have provided calm and uncontroversial support to the grieving families of those murdered at Bondi, allowing all to focus on healing. Now we have the awful scenario of disallowed protests, resulting in what seems unnecessary police force. Plus the unedifying spectacle of former prime minister Tony Abbott suggesting police who used violence be commended and issued with rubber bullets and tear gas (Abbott says police who punched protesters should be praised, February 10). As someone from a country caught in riots where such weaponry was deployed, its clear to me that Abbott does not know what hes talking about. This could all have been avoided. Alison Stewart, Riverview Former prime minister Tony Abbott suggested police be issued with rubber bullets and tear gas. Sam Mooy The Israeli president is the head of state, not the government. Governor General Sam Mostyn is our head of state. Mostyn cannot be held to account for what our government does. Similarly, Isaac Herzog cannot be held accountable for what PM Benjamin Netanyahu does (Letters, February 10). John Partridge, Mosman Im confused. Only two months ago, we grieved with the Jewish community, swamped them with flowers, tears and compassion. That community is still shattered, still traumatised, still grieving, but allowing them to mourn their loss with one of their own, the president of their homeland, is for some reason a step too far. Barbara Dufty, Morisset Park Stale and frail So the pale, frail, stale males of the Liberal Party are looking to push one of their own back into leadership (Liberals at boiling point as Taylor backers push for challenge within days, February 10). Thats a sure-fire way to win back all those alienated women sick and tired of being ignored by the party. The political misogyny that destroyed Australias one and only woman prime minister, Julia Gillard, now has a new target  Sussan Ley. It will be interesting to see how far Angus Taylors numbers have to fall before they get the message. Neil Ormerod, Kingsgrove The boy who wouldnt do his homework, Angus Taylor, is being touted as a future leader of the Coalition. Previously described as Tweedle-Dee to Peter Duttons Tweedle-Dum, he was given special opportunities to devise policy for the Coalition in the lead-up to the last election. Whatever the reasons, he comprehensively failed and the policy void remained the Coalitions hallmark. Why keep making the same mistakes? Martin Bell, Balgowlah

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Opposition Leader Sussan Ley and leadership rival Angus Taylor. Alex Ellinghausen The disquiet in leadership of the reformed Coalition has nothing to do with Sussan Leys leadership qualities, her political ideology or her strength of character. For goodness sake, shes a woman. The male, right-wing conservative members of the National Party require male leaders, always. A woman as leader, never. Rodney Worthington, Coorabell Science v opinion I share correspondent Irene Nemes deep concern over the replacement of well-researched, evidence-based journalism with the subjective opinions of social media content creators (Letters, February 10). This concern was expressed well by Hippocrates, the father of medicine, more than 2000 years ago: There are, in fact, two things, science and opinion: the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance. Graeme Stewart, Avalon Beach

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Updated NationalNSWCourts Eastern suburbs masseur raped client in serious abuse of trust Clare Sibthorpe February 10, 2026  11:45am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

Warning: graphic content An eastern suburbs masseur has been jailed for raping a client during a massage, in what a judge described as a serious abuse of trust. Steven Goldberg, 69, was found guilty in November of raping and sexually touching a 32-year-old woman during a two-hour massage in Sydneys eastern suburbs in October 2023. Steven Goldberg was found guilty of raping a client at his Dover Heights clinic. Facebook On Tuesday, he was sentenced to three years jail with a non-parole period of one year and six months.

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The transcript of a police-tapped phone call in which the woman confronted her rapist was released by a court ahead of the molesters sentence. Goldbergs victim heard about his Lomi Lomi massage on the radio via the Kyle and Jackie O show. Goldberg is interviewed by police following his arrest. Nine News According to documents tendered to the NSW District Court, Jackie O said the massage was like having 10 years of counselling in one session  [it] took her back to her childhood and made her cry. A pamphlet for Goldbergs clinic, which he ran from a studio in his Dover Heights house, described a Lomi Lomi massage as a type of soft and deep tissue massage that used bodywork which may invoke an emotional response as various energies are shifting.

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The Crown submitted Goldberg told the woman that she would be completely naked for the massage, and the optional modesty towel would get in his way. After telling Goldberg she was open to the experience of being naked, she lay face-down on the massage table for the first 1.5 hours of the two-hour massage. At one point, she felt him massage her inner thighs close to her genitals. With half an hour left, he asked her to turn around and blindfolded her. He moved his hands up and down her breasts, then moved down her stomach towards her lower abdomen. Goldberg leaves Waverley police station in October 2023. Louise Kennerley The court heard that he asked: Are we right to keep going? which the woman believed to refer to the massage, so she said yes.

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Then, Goldberg digitally penetrated her without consent, while pinching her nipples. The massage continued for another five to 10 minutes while the woman lay frozen and in shock. Related Article Media & marketing Make The Sydney Morning Herald your preferred source on Google Before she left, the Crown submitted, Goldberg said: That doesnt always happen, but sometimes it does and that was my pleasure. The next day, the woman reported the rape to police and doctors.

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Ten days later, as part of the police investigation, she attended Marrickville Police Station and was briefed about wearing a surveillance device to call Goldberg. In a transcript released by the court, the woman asked if he was penetrating her with his fingers during the massage. Goldberg said he was, adding And  thats your control  you know I dont do it if  you know what I mean  ummm I dont go there if you dont want me to. The woman asked if she were to refer him to friends, if that was something that would happen, to which Goldberg said: Only if they wanted that. The woman then clarified that when he asked if she was all good to keep going, she interpreted that as going on with the massage.

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Goldberg responded: Oh. Oh. OK. Um I am so sorry. That is not what you wanted. The victim said he needed to obtain informed consent each step of the way, to which he agreed. She said: I want to know, at what point did you think it was something I wanted? Goldberg described that as a good question, adding it was a sense and he sort of asked permission  or thought I did but, obviously, I didnt. It rarely happens. The complainant reiterated: What made you think that I would want that, adding that he was her fathers age and that she told him before the massage that she had a girlfriend. The call finished with Goldberg apologising, before telling her the act did not sexually arouse him when she asked if it did.

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In an impact statement tendered to court, the woman described the profound and ongoing impact of the assault, including physical, emotional, psychological social and financial consequences. She said that she trusted Goldberg as a professional and placed her safety in his care. Instead of respecting my body and my trust, he exploited his position of power and violated me, she said. I felt physically disgusting, dirty and tainted  The assault has changed my life in ways I never asked for and never deserved. The woman described feeling unsafe in medical and therapeutic settings  leaving her overdue for important health checks  and quitting work because she could not cope.

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Throughout the trial, Goldberg admitted digitally penetrating the woman, but argued he thought it was consensual. In sentencing Goldberg, Judge Miiko Kumar found he knew the victim was not consenting and noted the serious breach of trust. The offender persevered with the penetration after the victim closed her legs in an effort to cause him to stop, she said. The judge considered Goldbergs otherwise good character, good prospects of rehabilitation and hardship suffered by his family, as the defence argued his public downfall has given rise to extra curial stigma. She accepted Goldberg expressed some remorse for the victims feelings, but found his not guilty pleas showed he did not accept responsibility.

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Goldberg attended Vaucluse High School before completing a Bachelor of Commerce degree at the University of NSW. He worked in finance until aged 49 before entering a partnership manufacturing prescription medications, which he left about a decade later to study and pursue a career in massaging and nutrition. He is married with three children. Jackie O is not accused of any wrongdoing, and the Herald does not suggest the radio segment implied there was any sexual element to the massage. Goldberg will be released on parole on May 11, 2027. His sentence was backdated to start in November 2024, when he went into custody.

Anyone needing support can contact 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732), National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028, Lifeline 13 11 14, Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
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NationalNSWIsraeli-Palestinian conflict Opinion I marched against apartheid in South Africa. The Sydney protests triggered me Stephen Heydt Jewish Australian, retired psychologist February 11, 2026  5:00am

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World-renowned psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, in his 2014 bestseller The Body Keeps the Score, writes that traumatic experience is not just a historic event; its impression is left on our brain and body. Perhaps that explains my visceral reaction to the images of NSW Police in Sydney aggressively charging and punching those protesting visiting Israeli President Isaac Herzog. As a South African Jewish Australian in my 70s, I find myself painfully watching my home mirror the authoritarian reflexes of the regime I fled. Many Jews gave their lives for that struggle. That memory heightens my alarm at what is unfolding in our Australian parliaments and streets. Palestine Action Group members and supporters clash with police near Sydney Town Hall. Wolter Peeters Having worked in Gaza and the West Bank through three Israeli wars in the 2000s, I have seen the most horrible edges of the conflict directly. In the past two years, at least 20 of my former humanitarian worker colleagues have been killed. I know the depth of the grief and the complexity of the history of that blood-soaked place. On Monday night, as I watched the footage of police behaviour in Sydney, I felt a physiological reaction: a tightening in the chest, lump in the throat and nausea that I hadnt felt since the 1970s.

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Rather more than a well-practised strategy or even a lapse in crowd management, this looked like a state overreaching into intimidation. Any sense of a democratic contract for free assembly and speech was dismembered rather than just strained when police moved with such hostility against citizens congregating and marching peacefully. Growing up in South Africa during the height of apartheid, I have run in panicked crowds with people wearing the pain of broken limbs from baton charges, the air cracking with gunshot, and eyes streaming from tear gas. I witnessed directly the machinery of a state trading its vestigial moral authority for the support of an ideological base. I left that life for Australia, believing I was moving to a place where the right to disagree was fundamental to the national character. Police attack a crowd protesting apartheid in Cape Town, South Africa in 1985. AP Wirephoto By moving to criminalise speech and assembly, our leaders are treading a dangerous path. The banning of peaceful expression, whether through the outlawing of political language or the banning of peaceful rallies, is anathema to a free society. A democracy is defined by its tolerance for the space it affords the peaceful dissident. When a state suppresses speech, it does not dissolve the underlying tension  on the contrary, by compressing it, it makes it more volatile. When kettling (containment) and charges become a standard response to protest, we have become ruled by the threat of force. This is not a civil society.

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While Sydneys streets were witnessing unilateral aggression, I attended a rally in Brisbane. The contrast was profound. Scores of Queensland police were present, as they have been over the past 28 months. As always, they were professional, alert and friendly. The atmosphere was entirely peaceful. Hundreds raised their voices and their placards and order remained intact. It proved that when people are afforded the dignity of freedom of speech, the temperature of a city drops. Related Article Opinion

Israeli-Palestinian conflict NSW anti-protest laws were rushed through to keep the peace. Theyve failed Ben Saul Challis Chair of International Law at Sydney University Yet even this sanctuary of common sense is under threat. Only days before that peaceful assembly, the Queensland government announced plans to criminalise specific phrases, including from the river to the sea and calls for intifada. The state that just demonstrated it could manage a peaceful protest with restraint has now pivoted toward the role of the authoritarian. As a Jew, I will proudly stand to be arrested, ostensibly for antisemitism. I did not spend my 20s active against a regime using violence to subordinate rights and silence its critics only to spend my twilight years watching Australian governments do the same. A free society is loud, it is often controversial and offends some, and is frequently inconvenient for others and those in power. That is precisely why its protection is essential. We must remind our leaders that they and the police serve the people, not the political optics of the day. If we allow this slope to get any more slippery, we may find that we have lost the right to speak before we even realised it was at risk. Australia should be careful it doesnt have to learn the lesson of my experience.

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Trauma is not a static or historic memory. It lives in the brains and bodies of the Australian Aboriginal community, 800,000 Australian Muslims, yes, and Jews. We dont just remember past state violence; our bodies physically anticipate its return. Stephen Heydt is a retired clinical psychologist with 40 years of experience in trauma recovery and disability. Get a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up for our Opinion newsletter.
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NationalNSWIsraeli-Palestinian conflict Editorial Social cohesion shattered as Sydney streets turn into chaos The Herald's View Editorial February 10, 2026  5:53pm

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Violent protests against the President of Israel Isaac Herzog  and, it has to be said, the violent response by authorities  have turned Sydneys streets into an unedifying spectacle that both jeopardises the original intention of his visit and tarnishes our international image. Amid a plethora of talking heads responding to the Town Hall violence, former prime minister Tony Abbott suggested police who punched protesters receive a commendation  and, in fact, be armed with tear gas and rubber bullets. A demonstrator at Town Hall is taken away by police. Dean Sewell NSW Opposition Leader Kellie Sloane wanted the four Labor MPs who demonstrated  Anthony DAdam, Stephen Lawrence, Sarah Kaine and Cameron Murphy  to be sacked for whipping up a frenzy; another attendee, Greens MP Abigail Boyd, alleged she was manhandled by police; and Premier Chris Minns robustly defended the police response, urging the public not to judge their actions from social media videos that he conceded didnt look good. One Nations Barnaby Joyce and the Melbourne Liberal MP Tim Wilson called for Grace Tame to be stripped of her Australian of the Year award for speaking at the protest. Sydney independent MPs Zali Steggall and Allegra Spender called for an investigation into allegations of police brutality, while Sydneys Muslim community leaders likened the police response to the ICE crackdown in Minneapolis.

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Related Article Israeli-Palestinian conflict Cuffed and dragged like a criminal: Nurse speaks after teenage son injured at Town Hall protest Given all that, and with Herzogs visits to Canberra and Melbourne still to come, there is a risk this trip may become a political omnishambles, rather than the healing and diplomatic moment it was supposed to be  which would be a tragedy. Albanese on Tuesday stood by his decision to invite Herzog. President Herzog is here in Australia to offer sympathy and solidarity to people who are mourning and offer his support to members of Australias Jewish community, Albanese said. I will treat President Herzog with respect. Ive known him for a long period of time. He is someone who you can have a respectful discussion with, whilst examining differences which are there.

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Given what occurred in Sydney on Monday and the strength of feeling in some sections of the community about Herzog, its worthwhile considering if a spiritual leader may have been more appropriate for a period of mourning, not a former politician. Related Article Opinion

Israeli-Palestinian conflict NSW anti-protest laws were rushed through to keep the peace. Theyve failed Ben Saul Challis Chair of International Law at Sydney University Nearly three weeks ago, we stood shoulder to shoulder with Sydneys Jewish community for a National Day of Mourning to reflect on the casualties from the awful Bondi Beach attack, to consider their lives and work, and pray that the right structures are put in place to prevent any repetition of this atrocity and share the common humanity that unites all Australians at a time of national tragedy. Now, thanks to the actions of a small handful of protesters and protest laws that forced police into a violent impasse, we are back to where we were before Christmas  pondering how to take the heat out of an issue that never should have been fanned by the flailing around and indecision of politicians and federal and state agencies. Yet if we look carefully beyond the roiling heap of insensitive, squabbling and point-scoring politicians, you will find the bereaved families of the victims of the terror attack and Sydneys Jewish community, who deserve a lot better.

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Tragically, the cacophony in the wider community can only remind bereaved families that the hatred they feared before December 14 remains clear and present. So much for social cohesion. Get a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up for our Opinion newsletter.
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Jann Alhafny said she will never again turn to police for help after an officer allegedly shoved her during Mondays pro-Palestine rally, breaking her spine in four places. The 69-year-old grandmother is a regular attendee of Palestine Action Group Sydney events, and was demonstrating at Town Hall against Israeli President Isaac Herzogs visit and the war in Gaza. The issue is personal for Alhafny; her late husband was Palestinian, with a planned trip to his homeland derailed by the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack. Jann Alhafny said police were indiscriminate in their brutality toward protesters. Jessica Hromas Alhafny alleged no one was spared during the protest. It was horrible, and it was brutal and unnecessary, and they were like a pack of wild dogs. NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon has committed to reviewing the actions of officers at the Town Hall rally on Monday night, pledging that each officer would be held responsible for their own actions.

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Alhafny described the evening as peaceful until police began ordering the crowd to disperse. However, she claims the group was surrounded with no clear exit when, suddenly, the police line charged. Related Article Visual story

Israeli-Palestinian conflict How a protest in the heart of Sydney descended into bloody chaos One policeman shoved me really hard in the chest, and I went down onto the concrete. I knew straight away something had happened, she said. Then everyone was tumbling on top of me  it was like a stampede. I thought I was going to get suffocated. She said an officer then yanked her to her feet and shoved her.

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She faces a week in a Sydney hospital followed by a month in a rehabilitation hospital. It will be months before she is fully recovered, she said. Loading This has impacted every aspect of my life, she said. The police are supposed to protect us  not to abuse us and brutalise us. Alhafny is calling for Premier Chris Minns and the police involved to meet with the victims and for charges to be laid against individual officers. NSW Police visited Alhafny in hospital on Wednesday.

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Filmmaker and journalist James Ricketson was arrested at the protest and accused of assaulting a police officer, though he was released without charge after spending most of the night in a cell. James Ricketson was arrested on Monday but released without charge. Kate Geraghty Ricketson said Mondays events left him shaken and disturbed. Kate Geraghty The 76-year-old made headlines in 2017 when he was arrested and charged with espionage in Cambodia after flying a drone over an anti-government rally. He was pardoned and released after spending 15 months in a Phnom Penh prison. Mondays events left Ricketson shaken and disturbed.

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He said he was walking to Town Hall station to go home when officers told him to turn around. Tired, he instead sat against a wall, watching others grow confused and annoyed by the blockade. Some order came through. They linked their arms and started acting like a battering ram, pushing the people south into the people who were trying to walk north, creating a pressure cooker, he said. Ricketson said he suffered bruising and other injuries from his arrest at Mondays pro-Palestine protest. He said as a scuffle broke out in front of him, an officer next to him pushed him. He pushed back. Next thing I know, Im on the ground, he said. Ricketson said he spent five hours in custody, where he alleged an officer assaulted him, grabbing him by his shirt so roughly that it tore while walking him to his cell.

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He was released without charge after the police reviewed body-worn footage. Ive got lots of bruises, bloody elbows, a sore knee, and Ive got to go and have an X-ray and get some radiology tests, he said. James Ricketson, pictured being released from a Phnom Penh prison in 2018, after being pardoned. Kate Geraghty In Australia, the police have all the power  They dont just arrest you. They do it in the roughest possible manner because they want to inflict as much physical pain as they possibly can. Ricketson wants some form of a roundtable between police and protesters to discuss police protocol and de-escalation strategies.

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Meanwhile, images have emerged appearing to show an officers badly bleeding thumb after protester Jace Turner allegedly bit him during an arrest. A NSW Police officers bloody hand after being allegedly bitten by a protester. Loading Viral footage of the incident showed an officer punching Turner in the ribs while he was pinned to light rail tracks on George Street on Monday evening by two officers. Police maintain the strikes were necessary as Turner was actively biting an officers colleague.

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Turner was charged with assaulting an officer, causing actual bodily harm, and released on bail by a magistrate in the local court. On Tuesday evening, hundreds of protesters gathered at Surry Hills police station to demonstrate against Herzogs visit and the alleged brutality of officers at the Town Hall rally. Protesters gathered on Tuesday to decry their treatment by police the night before at Town Hall. Kate Geraghty The protest in Harmony Park, next to the Surry Hills police centre, was mostly peaceful. Audrey Richardson Tensions escalated towards the end of the protest as demonstrators chanted anti-police slogans while officers formed a line to safeguard the building. Rally organisers worked to distance protesters from police and urged the crowd to disperse after calling for a peaceful end to the demonstration.

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An 18-year-old man was arrested for allegedly shining a torch in the face of an officer. He was charged with three counts of assaulting a police officer and possessing a knife in a public place. In court, the prosecution opposed bail, arguing Duke Austins behaviour was intentionally antagonistic and that his release would endanger police officers. A man will face court after the torch incident. Nine News Austins solicitor Wilson Tighe called the opposition astounding. Theres a legitimate argument on foot that the flashing of a torch at a police officer makes out an assault  Theres a live argument in the way its been charged, Tighe told the court.

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Austin was asked by reporters if he assaulted police as he walked out of the Sydney Police Centre on Wednesday afternoon after being granted bail. Duke Austin leaves Surry Hills Police station after being granted bail. Jessica Hromas Not really, he responded, adding that he felt a bit drowsy after spending a night in the cells. Lanyon praised the conduct of officers on Tuesday as they responded to demonstrators who really wanted to agitate the police, call the police out and obviously remonstrate. He described anti-police chants heard at the rally as unacceptable. This is a time for calm, and I find it incredibly offensive that people would go there deliberately trying to incite police, Lanyon told 2GB on Wednesday morning.

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Related Article Israeli-Palestinian conflict Cuffed and dragged like a criminal: Nurse speaks after teenage son injured at Town Hall protest People dont always support what the police do, but we have a role to protect the community. We prevent crime, we protect the community. We take that job seriously. He reiterated the difficulty police faced at Town Hall as they desperately sought to separate the protesters from the audience gathered for Herzogs address at the nearby International Convention Centre (ICC). The Israeli president is in Canberra on Wednesday, where his visit has also been met by protest. Be the first to know when major news happens. Sign up for breaking news alerts on email or turn on notifications in the app.
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NationalNSWCourts Top prosecutors deep regret amid stand-off with judge Michaela Whitbourn February 11, 2026  5:00am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

The states top prosecutor has expressed deep regret for failing to give her complete attention to an internal meeting held shortly before her office gave a negative story about a judge to a media outlet, but insisted she did not authorise the release of the information. Director of Public Prosecutions Sally Dowling, SC, has been at the centre of a long-running controversy after a highly critical story about District Court Judge Penelope Wass was aired on Sydney radio station 2GB. Judge Penelope Wass and NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Sally Dowling, SC. dcj.nsw.gov.au website and the ODPP Dowling has admitted the story emanated from her office, but has said she only became aware of this more than a year after the fact. She has not apologised to the judge. The top prosecutor has urged a NSW upper house inquiry examining the incident to formally put me on notice of any proposed adverse findings ... and give me an adequate opportunity to respond. The inquiry is expected to report by February 20.

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Related Article Courts The judge v the prosecutor: Inside a very public and bitter feud At the time of the 2GB story in October 2024, Wass and Dowling, among other District Court judges, were embroiled in an increasingly public row stemming from comments made by the judges in decisions in sexual assault proceedings. The judges had expressed the view the ODPP was running unmeritorious prosecutions. Dowling appeared before a parliamentary inquiry on December 5 last year and admitted her office effectively gave the story about Wass to 2GB, but said she had not become aware of this until about two days ago. At no time did I direct or ask for the [Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions] media manager to provide the story to 2GB, she said.

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At the heart of the 2GB story was an invitation Wass made to an Indigenous teen to perform what she called a Welcome to Country before he was sentenced for serious crimes. He delivered a short acknowledgement of the traditional owners and custodians of this land via video link, rather than a welcome. Ben Fordham, host of 2GBs morning program, described the welcome on air on October 25, 2024, as a local scandal. The youth had committed an aggravated break and enter involving the sexual touching of an elderly woman. Ben Fordham described the welcome as a local scandal. Nine ODPP media manager Sally Killoran gave evidence to the inquiry on December 17 that Dowling was at a meeting with her and an external media consultant the day before the 2GB broadcast. Killoran, who was relatively new in the role at the time and does not have legal training, said she raised the topic of whether I could proactively pitch the story to the media and suggested News Corps The Daily Telegraph.

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The external media consultant suggested that 2GB would probably be more interested. No one objected to this suggestion and, therefore, at the time, I believed I had approval to pitch the story, Killoran said. Killoran said she gave a screenshot to 2GB of an internal ODPP database showing details of the case, including the youths name, to help it confirm the story. However, 2GB did not publish or broadcast his name to the public, in line with statutory restrictions on identifying children in criminal proceedings. Dowling told the inquiry that providing the screenshot did not involve any offence, but she was unaware at the time that Killoran had sent it and did not authorise its disclosure. Killoran gave evidence she made a mistake in releasing the screenshot because she had since learnt the database was for the eyes of ODPP staff only. She was issued a formal caution and counselled after an internal investigation.

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The NSW parliamentary inquiry examining the incident was set up a year after the 2GB broadcast, ostensibly to examine existing identity protections for court proceedings involving children. The Dowling-Wass saga has been the main focus of hearings, although it does not appear that the restrictions on identifying children in proceedings were breached. A police investigation concluded last year with no charges being laid. NSW DPP Sally Dowling, SC, giving evidence to the upper house inquiry last year. NSW Parliament Dowling said in a written response to supplementary questions on notice, dated February 2 and released publicly by the inquiry this week, that during the internal meeting she was, as is my usual practice, also reading emails and texts concerning various prosecutions and other ODPP business. I deeply regret now not giving that meeting my complete attention, Dowling said.

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To my recollection, during this meeting, Ms Killoran and the external media consultant were discussing the story being in the public interest and discussing that the story would be of interest to news outlets. Dowling said she did not dispute that Killoran had a mistaken understanding she was authorised to raise the story with 2GB, but I did not, and would not have, approved this occurring. I repeat and stress that it was not my understanding that she intended to proactively raise the story with a journalist. Dowling said she did not have managerial responsibility for the media team. In 2024, that team was overseen by ODPP deputy director Frank Veltro, SC, now a District Court judge. The controversy has significant implications for criminal proceedings in the District Court.

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The Court of Appeal heard on December 18 that four criminal matters involving Wass had been paused because the ODPP wanted her to recuse herself on the grounds of apprehended bias. This is not an allegation of actual bias, but of the appearance of it. This has triggered a pending Court of Appeal case about whether it breaches parliamentary privilege for Dowlings office to rely on Wass submission to the inquiry as the basis for its recusal applications. The stand-off between the DPP and District Court judges has been brewing for years. Two judges  Robert Newlinds and Peter Whitford  met with disapproval from the Judicial Commission after Dowling lodged complaints against them over their remarks in sexual assault cases. The controversy does not extend to all judges. Without criticising police or prosecutors, District Court Judge Robyn Tupman made orders last year allowing a man acquitted of sexual assault to recover legal costs after finding the complainant was a witness substantially lacking in credit. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
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NationalVictoriaEducation Serious incidents in Victorian childcare jump as staff qualifications slide Nicole Precel February 10, 2026  10:30pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

Almost 5050 children were injured, became ill or experienced trauma at Victorian childcare centres last financial year, an increase of 8 per cent, according to the latest Productivity Commission report released on Tuesday. More than 730 children were also locked out of  or in  Victorian childcare centres or were unaccounted for, according to the report. Emergency services were called to centres 830 times. Theres been an increase in serious incidents in childcare centres. Monique Westermann The report reveals that children are less safe and that staff are less qualified in Australian childcare centres than they were in 2021. The data comes after substantial investment to upskill early learning educators in Victoria, and amid upheaval in the sector following horrific allegations of child sex abuse in childcare centres after Melbourne childcare worker Joshua Brown allegedly abused eight children and babies in his care. In September last year, the government implemented a ban on personal devices in childcare centres and conducted CCTV assessments in centres. Additionally, it is rolling out mandatory child safe training to staff, a national educator register and a review of staffing practices.

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The rate of serious incidents, which seriously compromise the health, safety or wellbeing of children attending early childhood education and care services, increased to 6613 from 6142. Staff quality in early childhood and education centres (which measures the qualifications and experience of staff) has decreased since the previous workforce census in 2021. In the last financial year, 75 per cent of paid contact staff had either formal qualifications at certificate III or higher, or three or more years relevant experience, down from 82.1 per cent. The number of serious incidents in Victorian early childhood education and care settings relating to a confirmed breach of the national quality framework (where relevant legislation, regulations or conditions at an approved service were not met) has doubled since 2020/2021, from 188 incidents to 533 in 2024/25. Victorian parents are also paying more for childcare than last year, with the median weekly cost of 50 hours of subsidised care cost $719 in 2025  up from $704 the previous year.

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There was also an increase in confirmed breaches across all centres, up 145.4 breaches per 100 approved services in 2024/25 from 118.4 in 2023/24. Bambini Family Day Care was issued an emergency action notice about safe sleeping in February last year after a baby died at one of its centres in Skye, in Melbournes south-east. The service shut all 56 of its services across Victoria in October last year. Minister for Early Childhood Education Jess Walsh said the department was working shoulder-to-shoulder with the states and territories to strengthen the sector. Our $226 million reforms mark the biggest change to the sector since the national early learning system was introduced 15 years ago, she said. Thats why were investing in this workforce with our 15 per cent pay rise for educators, which is helping to stabilise the sector.

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Walsh said the department was implementing stronger regulation with increased penalties, more regulator visits and legislation allowing us to withdraw funding from poor providers. Education ministers from across the country will discuss safety in early learning again when they meet later this month, she said. Early Childhood Australia chief executive officer Samantha Page said an early childhood services commission was needed. She said worker retention grants had improved wages in the sector and had a positive impact on stability. However, she said too many childcare services in some areas had created problems. We have new services going into areas that are well served, she said. You end up with services that are half full and operating with low rates of enrolments with minimum staffing levels, she said.

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It has a negative impact on quality. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
Once at the top of Melbournes retail hierarchy, this mighty strip took a mighty tumble  before a sensorial wonder moved in.

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The City Limits series investigates how Melbourne CBD has weathered the long shadow of the pandemic amid changing workplace, retail and entertainment trends. See all stories .

When London-born Louise Huynh flew to Australia at the height of the pandemic to join her partner, she thought she was leaving big-city life behind. A two-week stay in hotel quarantine in Sydney in late 2021 was followed by a few weeks in Traralgon in Gippsland, her partners home town, where nature and quiet reigned. But Huynh soon moved to Melbourne, searching for a more urban existence. What she found there surprised her again. Bourke Street Mall, once at the top of Melbournes retail hierarchy, has fallen out of fashion. Joe Armao Beyond eating and drinking at the pub or a bar, theres not much to do past 3pm in Melbourne, Huynh says. Unless youre in certain areas on certain days, most of the time you cant shop past 5pm, which I find really bizarre. Huynh, a 30-year-old marketer and content creator, says her fellow British expats think it equally peculiar they cant find a coffee or pastry in Melbourne of a late afternoon. She also bemoans a lack of places in the CBD to find independent Australian designers fashion under one roof. The exceptions to her post-5pm rule are the citys designated retail precincts, including Bourke Street Mall  but it, too, has fallen out of vogue as a shopping destination.

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A lack of retail diversity in the CBD means most stores can be found in local shopping centres, and parking is terrible and expensive, Huynh says. I could just go to [Chadstone shopping centre] for the same amount of time  or actually, I travel longer to go to The Glen rather than shopping in the CBD because theres better variety and I can do everything in one hit, she says. I know everything is going to be open until the same time. You dont know that in the CBD. Louise Huynh outside Meccas new Bourke Street Mall flagship. Joe Armao Analysis of City of Melbourne foot traffic data reveals 27,000 people visited Bourke Street Mall on an average weekday 10 years ago, compared with about 15,500 post-pandemic in the 2022-23 financial year. While other parts of the city rebounded after lockdowns, the malls downturn continued, with the loss of another 2400 pedestrians by 2024-25. Historically, Bourke Street Mall was at the top of Melbournes retail hierarchy, but it has slid over the past 10 years as centres like Chadstone muscled up their offering, says KPMG urban economist Terry Rawnsley.

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Even Highpoint [and other shopping centres] have got a much more diverse retail mix, he says. The malls post-pandemic decline was compounded by more people shopping online and working from home at least two days a week, Rawnsley adds. But theres a big caveat to the data: it ends in the 2024-25 financial year, pre-dating Meccas August opening of its three-storey flagship store in the mall. Age analysis of additional calendar year data shows a boost in pedestrian traffic of an average of a few thousand people in the months since, culminating in a December peak of more than 24,000 people. However, thats still below pre-COVID levels. Rawnsley suspects the boom will be short-lived  likewise with the recent Melbourne Walk development  as people eventually revert to shopping at their local stores.

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Meccas chief new concepts officer, Maria Tsaousis, says the cosmetic giant picked Bourke Street Mall for its most ambitious flagship store yet, as the strip is one of Australias most iconic retail addresses. More than 50,000 people have visited weekly since it opened, exceeding expectations, Tsaousis says. But tucked away in the ornate, arched halls of the neighbouring Royal Arcade  the longest-surviving arcade in Australia  traders havent noticed a difference. Curiosity Merchants co-owner Dan Zizys, who says customers want experience-driven retail in the post-pandemic world. Penny Stephens Behind the dip in foot traffic, a battle over safety Dan Zizys slowly rotates a row of crystal bracelets draped over a black holder, carefully considering his selection as the stones shift under warm light. Some are thought to offer healing properties; others, protective. Its the kind of thing he might gift a teenager visiting his shop, making them feel safe and welcome in a city theyre meant to explore without fear.

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City limits Are you part of Melbournes missing 20 per cent? Check how much foot traffic has dropped Kids, theyre young, you know, Zizys says. University students are young, and theyre all potential targets for less salubrious people. Talk to traders around Bourke Street Mall, and youll hear the same thing: they want a feeling of security in the city they love. For Zizys  who co-owns gift and jewellery shop Curiosity Merchants with his wife, Zora Bell Boyd  its about navigating a path between over-policing, particularly when it comes to societys most vulnerable people (homeless and drug-addicted), and targeting the people who shamelessly abuse the desperation of others. The City of Melbourne recently employed 11 permanent community safety officers, who have reported more than 4500 incidents since October, and tracked down the culprits behind 32 thefts. Traders say the city felt the safest it has in a long time when Victoria Police declared the whole of Melbournes CBD a designated area for six months.

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SEOUL, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's joint military-police investigative body on Tuesday raided 18 locations in its probe into allegations of South Korea's unauthorized civilian drone flights into the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), according to Yonhap news agency.

Military and police investigators launched simultaneous raids on 18 sites, including the Defense Intelligence Command and the National Intelligence Service (NIS), from about 9 a.m. local time.

The joint military-police investigation task force investigated three civilian suspects on charges of aiding the enemy, alongside the violation of the aviation safety act.

The task force additionally booked three active-duty military personnel and one NIS official as suspects, believing that they were involved in the unauthorized drone flights.

The DPRK had accused South Korea of violating its airspace by flying a drone on Jan. 4. 
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NationalWADevelopment outrage Adrian Finis $280 million Smiths Beach development gets watchdogs green tick Hamish Hastie February 10, 2026  1:43pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

The long-running fight against development at Smiths Beach in Yallingup has been dealt a huge blow after the Environmental Protection Authority recommended the project be approved. The EPA made public its recommendations to Environment Minister Matthew Swinbourn on Tuesday, five years after the Adrian Fini-led developer Smiths 2014 Pty Ltd first lodged the 42-hectare Smiths Beach Project proposal. The latest renders for the Smiths Beach development in WAs South West. The project, valued at $280 million in 2022, includes a hotel, wellness centre, 61 holiday homes, campground, community hub and surf lifesaving club. The recommendation comes six days after Swinbourne approved Saracen Properties 121-room five-star Westin resort and residential village in Gnarabup, south of the Smiths Beach site.

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In its press release, the EPA took the step of noting that several members of the EPA, including chair Darren Walsh declared a conflict of interest regarding the Smiths Beach proposal and were not involved in any related discussions and/or decisions. Walsh has a lengthy history working in the development sector, including at Satterley Property Group, and at JBS&G, the environmental consultancy that Fini used to prepare its application to the EPA. The EPA said board members Jane Bennett, David Caddy and Hamish Beck also recused themselves from Smiths Beach discussions. Locals have been fighting development at the site for more than two decades under the Save Smiths Beach Action Group banner, citing concerns about the level of clearing, fire risk, sewage impacts and the use of the controversial State Development Assessment Unit to gain planning approval. The proposal has also attracted criticism from the opposition and features in an ongoing opposition-led parliamentary inquiry into Labor Government planning procedures. Save Smiths Beach Action Group convenor David Mitchell said the EPA had ignored its own rulings in a 2009 proposal the suggested the western half of the development site on the headland should not be developed.

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Therell be a very happy group of Western suburbs businessmen today. Theres probably a long lunch being had in Subiaco, he told ABCs Mornings Program. They have basically regurgitated the developers own proposal, and the EPA has capitulated. Its universal that all the government agencies are against development on the headland on both visual and environmental grounds. The EPA made its recommendation subject to conditions around wastewater management, clearing and offsets of fauna habitat. Those offsets, proposed by Finis company, included rehabilitation of western ringtail possum and black cockatoo foraging habitat at three sites within the state governments estate.

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Related Article Property development Perth developer denies trying to bypass planning process in bid to expand prime beach project Other conditions include requiring the developer to manage weeds at the site and 50 metres outside the development envelope, including on Crown land. Maintaining habitat connectivity between vegetation in the development envelope and the Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park is front and centre of the EPAs conditions, an EPA spokeswoman said. Other measures in the proponents conservation significant Fauna Management Plan and Offset Strategy address feral animal control, nearby offset areas, and a community-based revegetation program. And conditions relating to secondary foraging and dispersal habitat for the western ringtail possum contain a requirement for a conservation covenant. This includes establishment costs and long-term management and maintenance costs.

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A Smiths Beach Project spokeswoman welcomed the EPAs decision and said the company would adhere to the conditions. Our project team of leading Australian landscape designers and architects have designed the coastal village, including its hotel and community facilities, in a way that is sensitive to the sites environmental and cultural significance, she said. Aerial view of Smiths Beach and the Smiths Beach Resort. Tourism WA This brings us closer to realising our project vision of creating a world-class seaside village for the benefit of Western Australia and the South-West - enabling the local community and visitors to this state to share and enjoy the best aspects of our lifestyle and environment. Fini was behind the Bunker Bay Resort, built south of Smiths Beach in 2004, and has been pursuing a development at the Smiths Beach site after purchasing it alongside several other families in 2014.

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The previous owners proposal attracted the first iteration of the Save Smiths Beach community protest campaign, with locals claiming a win after the developer went on to become embroiled in a Corruption and Crime Commission investigation, along with several local councillors. The structure plan approved under the old owners proposal featured up to 500 tourism and residential dwellings, with the western side of the lot to be handed to the state government as a national park. Finis new proposal features a broader footprint but less density, which Fini in the past has said improved amenity and greater retention of vegetation. Last year, Finis company removed a planned ramp to Smiths Beach over community concerns it would act like a sea wall. The EPAs recommendation will be open for a three-week public appeal period.

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Vasse MP Libby Mettam said the EPAs approval was disappointing, also pointing to the 2009 EPA decision, which recommended the western headland section not be built on. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
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PoliticsFederalPrivacy Is your car spying on you? The privacy commissioner wants to know Mike Foley February 10, 2026  11:49am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

Australias privacy commissioner has launched investigations into two carmakers over potential breaches of privacy laws, as fears grow about the abuse of personal information, like voice, location and images, being collected by cars with internet connections. Privacy commissioner Carly Kind revealed to a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra on Tuesday that her agency, the Office of Australian Information Commissioner, had two official inquiries underway. Kind said a further two investigations were dropped, with the low chance of successful prosecution a factor. The privacy commissioner has opened two investigations into Asian carmakers over potential privacy breaches related to connected cars. Bloomberg We have open investigations against two separate entities. We conducted further preliminary inquiries against two separate entities, but did not decide to take them forward, she said. Kind was responding to questions from Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie, who demanded to know if the car companies were state-owned entities based in China. Officials declined to name the companies, except to confirm that they are located in Asia.

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Courts Man allegedly used Tesla car app to target domestic violence victim Most new vehicles are connected to the internet with built-in modems or paired with mobile phones to provide services such as navigation. A spokesperson for Attorney-General Michelle Rowland said Australians data should be respected. The government is now progressing a second tranche of privacy reforms to ensure the Privacy Act is fit for purpose in the digital age, she said. Kind said in May that connected cars could access vast amounts of sensitive personal information pose significant privacy risks and warned that companies overcollection of data was a significant security risk to individuals.

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By collecting so many data points, connected cars provide as many opportunities for malicious or rogue actors to access and misuse that information, she said in a speech at the University of NSW. McKenzie had unsuccessfully sought a response from government about its action on connected cars in previous Senate estimates hearings and said the privacy commissioners eventual confirmation of the investigation revealed a lack of urgency. Australians will be shocked to learn that their connected vehicles are being used to collect personal information beyond destinations by foreign-owned car companies. Its not just about listening to conversations, these vehicles are able to collect information from smartphones, and that is a shocking breach of privacy, she said. McKenzie said the governments response revealed its conflicted position on connected cars, a category that includes electric vehicles. Nationals first raised the security concerns in a 2024 estimates hearing when asking about Home Affairs Minister Tony Burkes use of a Chinese-made electric vehicle. The department confirmed it had instructed Burke to take appropriate precautions.

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In January last year, the US banned the sale of Chinese and Russian-made technology due to concerns that connected cars were a national security risk. The transport sector generates about 22 per cent of the nations emissions. According to analysis from the Climate Change Authority, electric vehicles must comprise half of all new cars sold in the next 10 years for Australia to reach its climate target to cut emissions at least 62 per cent by 2035. Related Article Analysis

Cybersecurity Are EVs at risk of being hacked? And will Chinese EVs be banned? On one hand, youve got Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen wanting to see 50 per cent of new cars by 2035 to be electric and therefore have this type of technology that is in direct conflict with the Attorney-Generals Department acting quickly to protect and secure Australians privacy, McKenzie said. eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in December that connected cars were being used by domestic violence perpetrators to track their travel, block their journeys from certain routes and lock them out of the vehicle.

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Disgraced businessman Enrico Pucci was accused of using the Tesla app to harass a woman and faced court in December on a range of charges including one count of using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend. A spokesperson for the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner said on Tuesday afternoon that the investigations would probe whether manufacturers were collecting more information than they needed to, and using the information without consent. The investigations are anticipated to have a broader application for the Australian community, the spokesperson said, adding that the inquiries would likely take 18 months. Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.
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PoliticsVictoriaLocal council Darebin will keep Palestinian flag  at least for now Rachael Dexter February 10, 2026  6:32pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

Darebin City Council has voted to keep the Palestinian flag flying outside its main council chamber in Preston  but only until a new flag policy is formally adopted next month. The council has flown the flag for more than two years, but a special meeting was called on Tuesday afternoon to determine whether to keep it. However, the council deferred the decision on whether it should continue to fly until a new council policy is formally adopted in March. The decision means the flag will continue to fly alongside the Australian, Aboriginal, and Torres Strait Islander flags for at least another month at the council which covers Preston, Northcote, Thornbury and Reservoir. Darebin City Council has flown the Palestinian flag on the Preston Town Hall since December 2023. Justin McManus The decision follows an urgent meeting called in late December following the Bondi terrorist attack, where councillors were asked by chief executive Anne Howard to take the flag down and replace it with a peace flag, in part because Darebin staff had been receiving complaints from distressed locals opposed to the flag after the mass shooting.

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But councillors did not agree to the peace flag suggestion at both Decembers and on Tuesdays meetings, when they decided to wait for a formal policy due next month on when and for how long different flags can fly. I believe this motion balances our responsibilities, staff and community safety, sound governance and genuinely listening to the community. It is about completing a process responsibly and transparently, said Greens councillor Julie OBrien, who forwarded the motion to delay action until March. The council has received more than 500 submissions through a formal consultation process launched in mid-January, the meeting heard. Independent councillor Connie Boglis, the sole vote against the deferral, noted that the majority of those submissions asked for the flag to be removed. Our role is to listen. Our role is to respond to this feedback and not further inflate conflicts into our neighbourhoods, workplaces and public spaces, Boglis said. She argued that the council should focus on rubbish, rates and roundabouts rather than acting as a mini United Nations. However, OBrien defended the councils involvement in broader geopolitical issues.

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We are not just about rates, roads and rubbish, she said. There is so much more to being part of a community, and especially a community like Darebin with a huge heart and open arms for communities from all around the world. Greens councillor Ruth Jelley, who seconded the motion, said the councils initial response to community complaints following the Bondi atrocity had been too reactive in calling for a meeting to discuss the flag. Its deeply damaging to conflate support for Palestine with hate-filled ideology, Jelley said, though she acknowledged that some residents felt a sense of fear when they saw the flag. In the early months of Israels war on Gaza, Victorian councils including Darebin, Merri-bek and Dandenong voted to fly the Palestinian flags at council properties as part of wider Pro-Palestine motions. Dandenong and Maribyrnong councils only flew the Palestinian flag for a short period of time.

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Merri-bek flew the flag until a ceasefire in early 2025, but councillors voted again in September last year to fly it again indefinitely outside its Coburg Town Hall, where it remains. Related Article City life Communities divided as more Melbourne councils pass ceasefire motions Some councils adopted motions but did not go as far as flying flags, including Hume, Wyndham, Yarra, Brimbank and Banyule. Some adopted bans on councils having contracts with companies that support Israels illegal occupation of Palestine or profit from it. In response, groups like the Jewish Community Council of Victoria stated that many residents felt anxious, afraid and angry, while the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, argued that councillors were overstepping their local mandates to engage in anti-Israel foreign policy romps. Melbourne council areas with large Jewish populations have also passed motions and made public statements in solidarity with their communities, but did not include calls for a ceasefire.

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In the wake of the October 7 terrorist attack in Israel, Stonnington Council passed a motion in October committing to illuminating the Malvern and Prahran town halls in the blue and white of the Israeli flag for a week. Merri-bek councillor Oscar Yildiz said he and his family had received death threats after he voted against his councils ceasefire motion. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.

CORRECTION An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Connie Boglis as a Labor councillor. Boglis recently resigned from the Labor Party and is now an independent. The story also incorrectly attributed a quote regarding anti-Israel foreign policy romps to the Jewish Community Council of Victoria; this quote came from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
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Updated PoliticsVictoriaProperty development Towers up to 20 storeys slated for middle-ring suburbs as new activity centre maps released Kieran Rooney Updated February 11, 2026  11:50am ,first published February 11, 2026  6:00am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

Towers up to 20 storeys and large areas friendly to townhouses have been slated for Melbournes south-east as the Allan government releases the missing piece in its pledge to encourage higher-density housing around train and tram corridors. Draft maps were released on Wednesday for the governments remaining 23 train and tram activity centres, where it intends to allow denser housing close to public transport and is seeking public feedback. This masthead was provided with 10 of the maps ahead of their full release. They show that land around Caulfield train station will have the tallest height limits, some areas being zoned up to 20 storeys. Malvern, Prahran, South Yarra and Springvale will have pockets that permit buildings up to 16 storeys.

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The tallest height limits are proposed for sites beside railway stations and, at Toorak Village, which is on a tram line. Height limits have not been detailed for two areas on the western side of Caulfield Racecourse that have been earmarked as strategic sites for urban renewal. Limits for these will be determined later. South Yarra is among the activity centres flagged for higher-density homes. Luis Enrique Ascui There are 60 activity centres proposed in total, 58 based around public transport hubs and two separate projects that will identify key sites for housing in the City of Melbourne and the City of Yarra. Draft maps have been published for 35 of the areas so far. Wednesdays release details the remaining 23 train and tram zones in Melbournes south-east and east. The final two activity centres, in the City of Melbourne and the City of Yarra, differ from the train and tram hubs. For those two, the state government will work with the local councils to identify land that could be developed.

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Outside the areas with the taller height limits, the government proposes areas of lower density to allow townhouses and low-rise apartments to be built within walking distance of stations. The lower-density areas comprise a much greater share of the suburbs involved than the areas planned for high-rise towers. Related Article Property development Height limits for contentious Bayside activity centres revealed Streets that are five minutes walk from a station would have height limits up to four storeys, or six storeys if the block is bigger than 1000 square metres. Areas 10 minutes walk from a station would have limits of three storeys, or four storeys for bigger blocks. These catchments cross over and merge in suburbs where train stations are close together, with South Yarra, Hawksburn, Prahran and Windsor effectively connected into a larger activity centre. Whether its making it easier to build homes close to public transport, townhouses in our inner suburbs, or family homes with a backyard  our planning reforms are all about giving more Victorians real housing choice, Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny said.

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The governments activity centres have provoked a backlash in some suburbs, including in Brighton, where locals have held rallies opposing the states plans led by local Liberal MP James Newbury. Many of the centres to be mapped out on Wednesday include heartland seats for the Liberals, including deputy party leader David Southwicks seat of Caulfield. Another four centres will be detailed for the electorate of Malvern, alongside six already published. MP for Malvern and former opposition leader Michael OBrien has argued his electorate has been unfairly asked to shoulder the biggest share of the new hubs. OBrien is retiring at the November state election, and former Kooyong federal election candidate Amelia Hamer will run for the Liberal Party as his replacement. A further four centres are in Prahran, which the Liberals won in a byelection last year but is in danger of returning to the Greens at the state election.

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Further out, Labor seats such as Springvale, Bentleigh, Noble Park and Dandenong have been included in the latest release of maps. Related Article Updated

Development The two inner-city councils that have to open up their streets to density The new activity centres on the Cranbourne and Pakenham train lines have had an extra 1200 railway services a week since February 1, with trains running directly through the new Metro Tunnel. Another eight centres are on the Frankston line, where trains returned to the City Loop on February 1, and four are on the Sandringham line, where a new timetable is planned later this year. In Melbournes east, Blackburn, Nunawading, Mitcham and Ashburton stations will have activity centres, while Riversdale and Willison stations will be combined into one centre because they are close together. Toorak Village does not feature rail but has been selected because it is a built-up area along the No. 58 tram route.

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Editor's pick Media & marketing How to make The Age your preferred source on Google The draft maps are open to further consultation this month and next month. Some 3000 submissions were sent to the Department of Transport and Planning before details of height limits were released. Opposition Leader Jess Wilson has previously criticised the activity centre program as providing no voice and no choice, arguing property taxes were stalling the construction of affordable new homes. Height limits and boundaries can change following community feedback. The first 10 pilot activity centres announced by the government were altered after consultation. Plans for all 60 centres are expected to be finalised by the middle of this year. The Allan government expects they will help provide more than 300,000 new homes by 2051. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
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InspirationEurope My train in Spain broke down. Then a bottle came out Brian Johnston February 11, 2026  5:00am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

Were deep in the bowels of a Barcelona metro tunnel when the train lights flicker. Nobody seems bothered; only a low murmur flutters around the carriage. We all boarded at the airport, and everyone is on the excited, nervous high of being in another country. Theres more to think about than flickering lights. My fellow passengers check Google Maps and chitter about their plans. Three women opposite me laugh loudly about what I dont know. I cant place what language theyre speaking. Illustration: Jamie Brown Then the lights flicker again, plunging us into long seconds of utter darkness. The train slows. Murmurs turn into muttering. The train grinds to a halt. Minutes pass. Nobody is too bothered yet. The communication system crackles. A voice says something in indistinct Spanish and then Catalan. Fortunately, one person in the carriage isnt a tourist. The train isnt delayed, she tells us. It has broken down.

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Im glad Im heading away from the airport and not towards it. And Ive been to Barcelona many times, so Im in no particular hurry. This could, after all, be another sort of cultural experience. Sign up for the Traveller Deals newsletter Get exclusive travel deals delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up now. Im soon swapping eye rolls and what-can-you-do noises with two backpacking Germans, a Frenchman with a wardrobe-sized suitcase and the three women, whose cackles are undiminished by their predicament. When the train broke down, I was glad I was headed away from the airport instead of towards it. Getty Images After a while, like a magician with a top hat, one of them pulls a bottle and several metal shot glasses from her shoulder bag. Its 10 in the morning. I know that bottle. Its palinka, a fruit brandy consumed by Hungarians before meals, after meals, at family gatherings, on special occasions, just about any time. It isnt for the fainthearted. The first time I had palinka, I downed it in one go and thought I was going to have a seizure.

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Ive no idea why these Hungarians are toting palinka. They dont speak English, though I discover theyre from Budapest. And while I have a smattering of European languages, Hungarian is notoriously incomprehensible. I imagine theyre in Barcelona for some middle-aged version of a hen party. Could it be a divorce party? No matter. One of them hands me a glass and I take a sip, and we smile at one another like old friends. We spend an hour stuck in the tunnel. Eventually, staff appear. We have to evacuate. We haul suitcases down improvised ramps, along the tunnel, up service stairs and into a metro station. For some reason, we all giggle uncontrollably. Were in Parc Logistic, part of Barcelonas sprawling harbour industrial zone, seemingly devoid of Ubers and buses. Its warehouses and export businesses wont win any of the architectural accolades for which Barcelona is famous. Tourist cities arent all sweetness and light. Im not sure what happened to the three Hungarians. We were separated while suitcase hauling among hundreds of other passengers. But theyve entered the pantheon of random, eccentric, friendly people Ive met while travelling that Ill always remember. You cant beat human connection.

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Travel tips As a solo traveller, theres one item I never go overseas without Justin Meneguzzi Travel writer You cant beat things-gone-wrong travel stories either. Whenever anyone asks me about Barcelona, from now on Ill say nothing about its Sagrada Familia cathedral or Picasso paintings or tapas bars of the Gothic District. Ill talk about what a good time I had on the T1 Line, stuck underground near the airport, going nowhere. And how three Hungarians taught me that, instead of getting annoyed at travels mishaps, you should surrender to the moment, and make the most of it.

Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share License this article More: Europe

Barcelona Brian Johnston seemed destined to become a travel writer: he is an Irishman born in Nigeria and raised in Switzerland, who has lived in Britain and China and now calls Australia home.

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WorldNorth AmericaTrump's White House Opinion Trump is using a secret code to motivate extremists. Its everywhere, if you know where to look Melanie La'Brooy Writer February 10, 2026  3:00pm

February 10, 2026  3:00pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

Political comedy is hard. Just ask Donald Trump, who recently posted a meme depicting former president Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, as apes. Instead of receiving the Mark Twain Prize for American Humour, Trump was forced to delete the post when many people (specifically Republicans who are getting twitchy about November midterms) didnt find it funny. Some right-wingers just cant take a joke. Online White House funny business isnt confined solely to the president. In February last year, the White House posted a short video of shackled men being put onto planes and captioned it ASMR: Illegal Alien Deportation Flight. ASMR stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response and is social media shorthand for videos that trigger a soothing sensation, commonly aiding with relaxation or sleep. That casually cruel video has had more than 104 million views. Illustration: Andrew Dyson In January, a photograph was taken of civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong, who is black, looking calm and resolute as she was led away after her arrest for protesting against ICE in Minnesota. The White House posted a manipulated version of the photograph to its official X account, showing Armstrong in distress, with tears running down her face. There was no disclaimer stating that the image had been digitally altered using AI. When questioned about the deliberate dissemination of disinformation, Kaelan Dorr, the deputy communications director, reposted the doctored photo, writing: Enforcement of the law will continue. The memes will continue. Racist memes and other extremist online content have become one of the Trump administrations most potent and reliable forms of communication with its base. Trumps post about the Obamas was amateur hour in comparison with the coded messaging of white supremacist ideology that emanates on an almost daily basis from various official Trump administration social media accounts.

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Loading Consider the Department of Homeland Security meme titled Christmas after mass deportations, which the White House shared on TikTok in December. To the uninitiated, it presents as a bewildering onslaught of imagery, primarily drawn from Christmas movies. An investigation by The Atlantic, however, revealed distinct references to the Agartha meme, which the intended audience of the post, who skew younger and terminally online, would have immediately recognised. Related Article Updated

US politics I didnt make a mistake: Trump wont apologise for racist post depicting Obamas as apes Agartha refers to the myth of a lost underground Aryan civilisation. Ask any teenager whos on social media if theyve encountered an Agartha meme and the chances will be very high that they have. Charlie Kirk, often depicted as the gatekeeper of Agartha, features heavily in these memes. So do remixes of Men at Works Down Under, which is the predominant soundtrack to the videos. When the White House embedded the Agartha meme in a video celebrating mass deportation, they were explicitly linking the online vision of a neo-Nazi, whites-only homeland to real-world actions being undertaken by the US government. The festive season memes continued with a New Years Eve post from the official White House X account featuring an image of Trump and one word: remigration. This is a reference to the far-right dream of the forced removal of non-white immigrants and their descendants, even if theyre legal residents. Evidence that white supremacist theory has become the pseudo-intellectual scaffolding underpinning the Trump White Houses online messaging is everywhere, if you know where and how to look.

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Another example is a Department of Homeland Security recruitment ad for ICE on Instagram, which featured Uncle Sam at a crossroads with the caption: Which way, American man? The coded reference this time is the 1978 book Which Way, Western Man? Considered a seminal text for white nationalists, it advocates violence against Jews and argues that Hitler was right. If the Trump White House does succeed in realising its racially homogenous American utopia, key Jewish figures in the administration, such as Stephen Miller, the mastermind behind Trumps hardline immigration actions, might have cause to regret leading the MAGA faithful to whiter pastures. Related Article Opinion

Trump's America Trumps Obama derangement syndrome drags him to a new low Maureen Dowd New York Times columnist Trumps vile post about the Obamas broke through to the mainstream because it involved Trump, a still-popular former president and first lady and a racist trope that many people would have immediately understood. While this one post attracted an outcry and was subsequently deleted, the Trump White Houses firehose of hateful online content will continue to spew forth veiled white supremacist content. Most of the poison will encounter little resistance as it passes into the online discourse of primarily younger people. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt deflected criticism of Trumps post, saying: Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public. Leavitts message is an important one: focus on the issues, not the distractions. The only problem is, with this White House, the distractions tell us so very much about where the real issues lie. Melanie LaBrooy is a novelist who writes on politics and social justice issues. The Opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up here.
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WorldNorth AmericaEpstein fallout Trump told police everyone knew about Epstein, called Maxwell evil Michael Koziol Updated February 11, 2026  6:40am ,first published 5:28am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

New York: Donald Trump told Palm Beach police in 2006 that everyone knew about Jeffrey Epsteins sexual abuse of minors, and called Epsteins close friend Ghislaine Maxwell evil, according to investigation records made public in the so-called Epstein files. The revelations stem from a report that documents a 2019 FBI interview with former Palm Beach police chief Michael Reiter, who recounted his recollection of a conversation with Trump in 2006 when charges against Epstein became public. Donald Trump, his then wife-to-be, Melania Knauss, with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in Florida in 2000. Getty Images Donald Trump told [Reiter] that he threw Epstein out of his club, the report says. Trump called the [Palm Beach police] to tell him, Thank goodness youre stopping him, everyone has known hes been doing this. It goes on to say that Trump told police that people in New York knew Epstein was disgusting. Trump said Maxwell was Epsteins operative, and that she is evil and to focus on her.

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Trump told Reiter that he was once around Epstein when teenagers were present, and got the hell out of there, the report says. Trump was one of the very first people to call when people found out that they [the police] were investigating Epstein. The FBI interview record appears among millions of pages released by the US Department of Justice. It was unearthed and first published by Miami Herald journalist Julie Brown, whose 2018 investigation into Epstein  before he was arrested on sex-trafficking charges  broke open the case. The record of Trumps remarks is significant because it appears to corroborate his claim to have cut ties with Epstein before his criminal charges were made public, and that he threw Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club. However, it jars with some of Trumps other claims, chiefly that he had no knowledge of Epsteins crimes. Last year, he said he threw Epstein out of the Mar-a-Lago because he was stealing female staff from the resort  namely Virginia Giuffre, the Epstein survivor who died by suicide in Australia last year.

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Meanwhile, Trumps commerce secretary, billionaire businessman Howard Lutnick, was forced to admit that he visited Epsteins private island, Little Saint James, in December 2012  despite previously claiming he severed contact with Epstein in 2005 after a creepy encounter. I did have lunch with him, as I was on a boat going across to a family vacation. My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies, Lutnick told a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday (Washington time). Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick admitted visiting Jeffrey Epsteins private island in 2012 for lunch. Bloomberg We had lunch on the island, that is true. For an hour, then we left with all of my children, with my nannies and my wife, all together. To suggest there was anything untoward about that in 2012  I dont recall why we did it. Lutnick and Epstein became next-door neighbours in New York in 2005. But Lutnick told the hearing that after an initial neighbourly introduction at Epsteins home  the one he previously said was creepy  he could only recall meeting Epstein two more times: an hour-long meeting in 2011 and the island lunch in 2012.

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I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with that person, Lutnick said. Related Article Analysis

Epstein fallout Why the latest Epstein files triggered the Kings pledge to help police investigate Andrew Lutnick is the former chairman and chief executive of financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald. He is not accused of any wrongdoing in relation to sexual activity, but critics, including Republican congressman Thomas Massie, have called on him to resign for misrepresenting the extent of his contact with Epstein. Ro Khanna, a Democrat who helped lead the congressional push to release the Epstein files, implied there was a higher level of accountability in Europe than the US. If in Norway, the princess no longer has the support to be Queen, and if in the UK King Charles is now calling for a criminal investigation into his own brother, then surely in the United States of America, Howard Lutnick must resign! he said on X.

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White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday (Washington time) said Trump supported Lutnick, who remained a very important member of President Trumps team. The latest revelations come as the Justice Department removed some redactions from the Epstein files under pressure from members of Congress after they viewed the unredacted files in person. That included the name of lingerie billionaire Les Wexner, the former chief executive of Victorias Secret and Epsteins major long-term client, who is listed as a possible co-conspirator on an FBI memo dated five days after Epsteins death in jail in 2019. Among the other people identified as possible co-conspirators in that memo are the late French model scout Jean-Luc Brunel, Epsteins house manager Lesley Groff and Maxwell  as well as four other people whose names remain redacted.

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Simpson Bay:--- Princess Juliana International Airport (SXM Airport) has reported a solid increase in passenger traffic for 2025, underscoring the airports continued recovery and its important role as a leading regional aviation hub.

According to official figures, total passenger traffic grew from 1.6 million passengers in 2024 to 1.8 million passengers in 2025. This increase was driven by rising demand across SXM Airports core markets, including North America, Europe, the Caribbean, South America, and Canada, underscoring the strength and resilience of Sint Maarten as a premier travel destination.

Passenger Movement by Region (2025):

 Regional Caribbean traffic: +9.5%

 Europe: +9%

 South America: +9%

 Canada: +8%

 North America: +7.3%

These figures highlight customer confidence in SXM Airports markets, where demand continues to expand. Traditional peak travel periods are operating at full capacity, further demonstrating the ongoing popularity of Sint Maarten as a key tourism and connectivity hub.

Aircraft movements rise across key markets

Aircraft movements followed a similar upward trend in 2025. Total aircraft movements increased from 59,858 movements in 2024 to 64,610 movements in 2025, representing an increase of 4,752 movements and solid growth of 8%.

Our results clearly show that SXM Airport is moving forward, CEO/ President of SXM Airport Mr. Cleaver noted. We extend our sincere appreciation to our shareholders, Board of Directors, management team, and most of all our dedicated employees and valued customers. Their commitment and tireless efforts are reflected in this strong performance.

Regional and General Aviation Strengthen SXM Airports Hub Role

Regional air traffic and general aviation remain strategic growth pillars for Sint Maarten. Following the reopening of the terminal, the airport has experienced renewed demand for inter-island travel, private aviation, and business connectivity throughout the Caribbean. Increased interest from private and charter operators, supported by infrastructure improvements and the planned introduction of enhanced Fixed Base Operator (FBO) services, further positions SXM Airport to strengthen its role as a dynamic regional aviation hub.

Positive Outlook for 2026

With passenger volumes rising, aircraft movements increasing, and a diversified route network showing resilience, SXM Airport enters 2026 with a positive outlook. Historically, SXM Airport has maintained direct air connectivity with Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and Argentina, markets that have contributed significantly to traffic diversification and reach. The airport is optimistic about possible renewed opportunities in Venezuela, which has long been a strong and consistent market for Sint Maarten. Recent developments present potential for re-entry, and SXM Airport looks forward to rebuilding connectivity, strengthening ties with our South American partners.

Growth in traditional markets remains a priority as SXM Airport continues to work hand-in-hand with the Sint Maarten Tourism Office, the Saint Martin Tourism Office, the Ministry of TEATT, international tourism offices, the St. Barth Tourist Office, and surrounding islands to promote Sint Maarten and its unique hub function. Convenient onward connections through Winair, our professionally operated and trusted regional carrier, further enhance SXM Airports position as the gateway to the Northeastern Caribbean and beyond.

As SXM Airport builds on the momentum of 2025, it remains committed to strengthening our partnerships, expanding connectivity, delivering world-class travel experience for all passengers.
PHILIPSBURG:--- The St. Maarten Communication Union (SMCU) has issued a blistering condemnation of the governments handling of the crisis at TelEm, labeling the ongoing situation a "governance failure" characterized by years of silence, mismanagement, and the systematic destruction of local livelihoods.

In a sharply worded press release, SMCU President accused successive administrations of ignoring repeated warnings about the telecommunications companys steady decline. The union paints a grim picture of a national pillar crumbling under the weight of poor leadership while ministers sleep at the wheel.

A Pattern of Neglect and Broken Promises

According to the SMCU, the governments inaction is "no longer just disappointing; it is unacceptable." The union highlights a disturbing cycle where warnings from employees and concerned citizens are dismissed, only for promises to be made during election seasons and promptly forgotten once votes are secured.

"What has remained constant is a pattern: employees are sent home, while those in positions of power are protected," the statement reads. The union notes that while nearly 170 dedicated employees have been fireddevastating families and livelihoodsno executive or board member has faced public accountability for the decisions that plunged the company millions into debt.

Financial Mismanagement and Dubious Leadership Structure

The letter directs heavy criticism toward the executive leadership structure. It specifically cites the tenure of Helma Etnel, who functioned as both CFO and acting CEO. During this period, the union claims millions were spent on the "Fiber to the Home" projectwhich remains incompletewhile the company accrued massive debts.

Disturbingly, the union points out that history is repeating itself. Mr. Hato is currently serving as CFO while also acting in executive roles, a structure the SMCU argues is "risky and harmful."

The union also questioned the logic behind claiming poverty while hiring foreign labor. After local workers were dismissed due to alleged financial constraints, the government reportedly approved hiring workers from Colombia and other countries. "How can there be money for foreign labor, but no money to retain or rehire local employees who gave years of service?" the union asks.

Legal and Ethical Violations Alleged

Perhaps the most explosive allegation involves the handling of pension contributions. The union claims that instructions were given to Vida Nova to deduct both the employers and the employees AOV contributions from the salaries of dismissed workers.

The SMCU calls this a "violation of the law" and "financial abuse," noting that St. Maarten law mandates AOV contributions be shared. "An employer cannot shift its legal obligation onto the worker," the union states, demanding immediate investigation into what it calls a direct conflict with the country's legal framework.

Dangerous Dependencies on Curacao

The union also raised alarms regarding national security and infrastructure independence. TelEm has reportedly placed a major switch in Curacao, a move the SMCU calls a "dangerous dependency." The union argues that in times of crisis, relying on infrastructure outside the country creates vulnerability.

Furthermore, the union fears that TelEm is sharing critical systems and operational knowledge with Aqualectra in Curacao, potentially aiding a competitor while TelEm itself remains fragile. "St. Maarten simply cannot afford another round of financial damage or strategic missteps," the letter warns, suggesting that outsourcing plans may be in motion that would permanently sideline local workers.

A Call for Immediate "Reset"

The SMCU is demanding a complete overhaul of TelEms governance. Their demands include:

Immediate appointment of a local CEO and a full leadership team promoted from within the organization.

A complete replacement of the board with new, accountable members.

An immediate halt to sharing technical information with entities in Curacao.

Full transparency regarding the use of consultants and foreign labor, including verification of their tax contributions to St. Maarten.

"Ministers, stop playing politics. Wake up and take the bull by the horn," the President urged. "Continuing to look the other way while the same patterns repeat is not leadership, it is neglect."

The unions message is clear: the time for presentations and empty promises is over. Without immediate, decisive action to protect the company and its workers, the government risks the collapse of a critical national asset.

STATEMENT FROM SMCU

The governments continued silence and inaction regarding the situation at TelEm is no longer just disappointing it is unacceptable. For years, administration after administration has been warned by the union, employees, and concerned citizens about serious mismanagement, poor decision making, and the steady decline of a government owned company that once stood as a national pillar. Those warnings were ignored. Promises were made during election seasons, and once votes were secured, those promises disappeared.

What has remained constant is a pattern: employees are sent home, while those in positions of power are protected. It is painfully clear that several governments that has taken office has approved decisions to send workers home, yet has failed to seriously question, challenge, or investigate the management actions that pushed TelEm millions into debt. The only action that ministers and the board seem prepared to approve, over and over again, is job cuts. No real accountability. No real intervention. No protection for the people who built the company.

Nearly 170 dedicated employees have paid the price for years of decisions they did not make. Families suffered. Livelihoods were destroyed. And still, no one has been held publicly accountable for the financial state of the company.

Helma Etnel was allowed to function as both CFO and acting CEO, with full approval from the board and the government. During that period, employees were sent home and millions were taken on for the Fiber to the Home project, a project that remains incomplete while the loan and other debts remain unpaid. She is no longer in those positions, yet the company was left in serious financial distress. To this day, there has been no clear, visible accountability, no public explanation, and no reassurance that the countrys laws and standards of governance were upheld. MER won the case and Telem had to pay millions. Why were the ministers asleep?

What makes the situation even more disturbing is that the same mistakes appear to be happening again. The government is once more allowing the CFO to effectively run the company without appointing a CEO. The last time one person held both positions, TelEm ended up in deep financial difficulty and is still in that position. Yet again, Mr. Hato is now serving as CFO while also acting in both roles. This is not leadership, this is a repeat of a structure that already proved to be risky and harmful.

After employees were sent home for the second time because the company claimed it could no longer afford to keep them, the government then approved the hiring of workers from Colombia and other countries. Today, TelEm reportedly has employees from Curacao on the payroll earning high salaries, with housing and travel expenses covered by the company. How can a company that claims to be in deep financial trouble afford these kinds of expenses? How can there be money for foreign labor, but no money to retain or rehire local employees who have given years of service?

Management has refused to rehire those who were sent home, saying they already received compensation. But compensation does not replace a career. It does not replace stability. It does not justify why experienced local workers were let go while new hires are brought in at significant cost. Another extremely serious matter that cannot and must not be ignored is the instruction reportedly given by Mr. Hato to Vida Nova to deduct both the employers and the employees AOV contributions from the salaries of the employees who were sent home. This action raises major legal and ethical concerns. Vida Nova is now claiming that they are not the employer, and for that reason the full contribution must be carried by the employees. That position is deeply troubling and, in the view of the union, amounts to a clear violation of the law and a form of financial abuse against workers who are already in a vulnerable position.

The law of St. Maarten clearly states that AOV contributions are to be shared between employer and employee. An employer cannot shift its legal obligation onto the worker. The employers portion is not optional, and it cannot be passed down to employees simply because they were sent home. These workers were employees of TelEm, not employees of Vida Nova. Therefore, the responsibility for the employers share of contributions cannot legally be transferred onto them.

Furthermore, the last salary payments and all related obligations should come from the employer. Employees did not enter into employment with Vida Nova, nor did they agree to assume the employers legal responsibilities. For workers who have already lost their jobs to now be forced to carry both sides of a mandatory contribution is not only unfair, it appears to be in direct conflict with the legal framework of St. Maarten.

This matter demands immediate investigation and urgent intervention. This is not a minor administrative issue. This concerns compliance with national laws, the protection of workers rights, and the proper handling of mandatory social contributions.

Ministers must wake up and take action. Allowing this to continue sends the message that employers can ignore their legal obligations while employees are left to carry the burden That cannot be accepted in a country governed by law. Employees are awaiting their refund.

At the same time, NTCS continues to make presentations and projections, but the reality remains unchanged: the Fiber to the Home loan and other debts are still unpaid. Presentations do not pay debts. Presentations do not rebuild trust. Presentations do not bring people back to work.

Another question that demands urgent and transparent answers is this: of all the money being paid to consultants and foreign labor, how many of these individuals are actually paying taxes in St. Maarten? How many are contributing to SZV, AOV, and the very systems that support this country?. If these individuals are not properly registered, not paying taxes locally, and not contributing to social funds, then this represents not only a serious imbalance but a potential violation of the financial and labor laws of St. Maarten. The people of this country deserve to know whether public and company funds are being used to benefit individuals who are not even contributing back into the economy, while loyal local workers were pushed aside. This is a matter of fairness, legality, and national responsibility, and it cannot continue without scrutiny.

Employees also continue to question past decisions and investments that never appeared to deliver real returns for the company. Concerns have long surrounded ventures that reportedly did not generate income, yet required attention and resources. Smitcoms Dominicana the cartoon company that was managed by the former CTO Eldert Louisa. Where is the accountability? There are also lingering questions about major operational moves, including the handling of the Cable TV business, which disrupted livelihoods and left employees and customers facing the consequences. Workers lost their jobs and security, and once again, those decisions were approved at the highest levels without visible accountability.

The pattern is impossible to ignore. Employees lose their jobs. The company sinks deeper into debt. Leadership changes hands. And still, no one is seriously questioned, no one is held responsible, and no thorough public explanation is given. How can so many employees lose everything because the company claims it has no money, while spending continues in other areas without scrutiny? How can this continue year after year without a full, independent investigation into the decisions made by the board and executive leadership?

This is not just a management issue. This is a governance failure.

TelEm is a government-owned company. That means the government has a duty to protect it, to protect the people who work there, and to ensure that proper oversight is exercised at all times. Instead, what employees and the public have witnessed for years is silence, delay, and approval of decisions that continue to weaken the company while hurting the very people who kept it running.

The people of St. Maarten deserve answers. Employees deserve justice. And the country deserves transparency and accountability from those entrusted to protect its institutions. Continuing to look the other way while the same patterns repeat is not leadership , it is neglect.

Today, TelEm has a major switch located in Curacao, a decision that raises serious and troubling questions. St. Maarten has endured multiple natural disasters over the years, including some of the worst in its history, and in those critical moments communication was restored without the need for any core switch or essential equipment being based outside of the country. Placing such important infrastructure in another island creates a dangerous dependency and a potential vulnerability for St. Maarten, especially in times of crisis when communication is most critical for public safety, emergency response, and national stability.

At the same time, there are growing concerns that Aqualectra in Curacao is preparing to launch a telecommunications company and is seeking information from TelEm regarding the systems and operational structure it uses. This raises serious red flags. A government-owned company that is already struggling financially should not be in any position where its knowledge, systems, or technical direction could potentially benefit the creation of a competing operation elsewhere, especially while it continues to carry debt and uncertainty at home.

What makes this situation even more alarming is the belief that efforts are being made, with the involvement and support of the acting CFO, to assist in this process while TelEm itself remains in a fragile and vulnerable state. Employees fear that decisions are being made that could weaken the companys long-term position, and possibly leave it exposed, just as it was during previous periods of poor leadership. St. Maarten simply cannot afford another round of financial damage or strategic missteps.

Employees fear that TelEms services may soon be outsourced to Curacao, which would leave local workers without jobs and hand over critical operations to another country as if St. Maarten is incapable of managing its own telecommunications. This is not just poor planning, it is a deliberate financial strategy that puts profit and convenience over the livelihoods of St. Maartens people. Outsourcing in this manner threatens national control over essential services, weakens the local economy, and sends a chilling message to dedicated employees: years of loyalty and hard work mean nothing when decisions are made to benefit outsiders at the expense of the local workforce. The government must recognize that allowing such a plan to proceed is not only irresponsible but a direct attack on the countrys financial independence, local employment, and the security of its critical infrastructure.

This is why the governments continued delay in appointing a strong, independent local CEO and a full leadership team is so serious and dangerous. Without proper leadership in place, one individual is left to control critical decisions that affect the company, its future, and the countrys communication security. That is not healthy governance, and it puts St. Maarten at risk.

There are capable, experienced, and dedicated professionals within TelEm right now who have kept the company running through some of the most difficult times in its history. These are the same employees who maintained operations during disasters, who restored services when systems went down, and who continue to carry the company despite uncertainty and instability. There is talent within the organization that can be promoted and trusted to lead. Choosing not to invest in local leadership while making decisions that increase external dependence sends the wrong message and places the country in a vulnerable position.

Communication is not just a business it is a national lifeline. Any decision that weakens control, creates dependency, or risks the stability of that lifeline must be treated with the highest level of seriousness. The longer the government delays in taking firm action, appointing proper leadership, and ensuring that the companys direction is focused on strengthening St. Maarten first, the greater the risk becomes for the country, its people, and its future.

Ministers, stop playing politics. Wake up and take the bull by the horn. The time for talk, excuses, and delays has passed. What is needed now is immediate, decisive, and responsible action to protect TelEm and, by extension, the country.

A complete reset in governance is necessary. All board members should be newly appointed, and TelEm needs strong, committed local leadership. New directors must be selected locally and, wherever possible, promoted from within the organization. The company already has experienced, competent, and dedicated employees who have kept it running through years of challenges, crises, and uncertainty. These are the people who understand the company, the systems, and the needs of St. Maarten, and they should be given the opportunity to lead.

At the same time, all sharing of internal systems, technical information, and operational knowledge with Curacao should be halted immediately until there is full transparency and clear safeguards in place. TelEms priority must be the protection and strengthening of St. Maartens telecommunications infrastructure, payment of the outstanding millions and not supporting outside interests while the company itself remains financially strained.

This is not a small matter. This is about the survival of a national company, the protection of local jobs, and the safeguarding of a critical service that the entire country depends on. The government must act now firmly, responsibly, and in the best interest of the people, before the damage becomes irreversible.

The union calls on the government to stop delaying and to take immediate, decisive action to protect TelEm and its employees. Enough is enough. The people who have kept this company running through years of mismanagement, debt, and uncertainty deserve answers, not empty promises. The government must clearly state when action will be taken and exactly what steps will be implemented to restore stability, enforce accountability, and safeguard local jobs. The appointment of competent local leadership, financial recovery measures, and protections for employees. Anything less is a blatant failure of responsibility, a betrayal of the workforce, and a serious threat to the future of St. Maartens critical telecommunications infrastructure. The time for talk is over, the time for action is now.
~Personalized Support for Mother and Child~

CAY HILL:--- St. Maarten Medical Center (SMMC) is pleased to introduce its two permanent Midwives, Midwife V. Monkou and Midwife M. de Greef. Both Midwives bring extensive training and many years of experience to SMMC. Midwife Monkou has been part of SMMCs OBGYN team for a number of years, and Midwife de Greef has recently joined the team, bringing the number of permanent midwives to two.

SMMCs midwives are dedicated to providing comprehensive care for both mother and child throughout pregnancy and childbirth. They focus on personalized, one-on-one guidance rooted in trust, ensuring that each woman receives the support she needs during the birth process.

Before birth, they provide information to prepare parents for birth during an educational meeting. During birth, patients are supported by monitoring the health of both mother and baby, managing pain, and delivering the baby and placenta. Postnatal care includes postpartum support, education for mothers and families on caring for newborns, breastfeeding support, and family planning. Having a midwife on the team enables more one-on-one guidance, which can lead to fewer interventions and a better delivery experience.

Midwives are experts in managing normal pregnancy and birth, but are also skilled in recognizing complications that require intervention and further care in cooperation with gynecologists. SMMCs midwives work closely with gynecologists to provide comprehensive, continuous, and patient-centered care to mothers and babies.

"At the heart of our care is the belief that each woman is a uniquely healthy individual. Together, we take a personalized approach to your needs. We work closely with our gynecologists, ensuring that you have access to specialized care whenever needed, without disrupting the nurturing support of your midwife. This integrated approach, combining midwifery and gynecological care, has been shown to lead to the best outcomes for both mother and child, and we look forward to continuing to provide this vital service to our community, shared the Midwives.

Patients who wish to schedule an appointment or ask questions may do so via SMMCs Outpatient Gynecology and Obstetrics Clinic from Monday through Friday, 8:30 am  4:30 pm by calling +1 (721) 543-1111 or 910 ext 1316.
MOSCOW, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Russia will not be the first to take steps toward an escalation after the expiration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday.

In an interview with Russia's NTV, Lavrov said Moscow will closely monitor U.S. actions following the expiration, and it will approach the situation "with full responsibility."

Russia does not expect any further response from the United States to its proposal to maintain the treaty's restrictions, Lavrov said, adding that the treaty had effectively not been functioning in recent years.

He also noted that it would be difficult to imagine long-term arrangements on strategic stability without taking into account the nuclear capabilities of Britain and France.

The New START treaty, signed by Russia and the United States in 2010, aims to limit the number of deployed nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles. The treaty expired on Feb. 5. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio vowed that the United States will maintain a credible and modernized nuclear deterrent after the expiration.

As the world's two largest nuclear powers, the United States and Russia together possess about 87 percent of the global nuclear arsenal. 
Press Release from Business Wire: FPT Corporation



(AFP) Feb 10, 2026



HANOI, Feb 10, 2026 (BSW) - FPT, a leading global IT company, announced its in-scope platforms and facilities of FPT Data Center have earned certified status from HITRUST for cybersecurity and information protection.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260209729954/en/







The scope of the HITRUST r2 v11.5.1 certification includes FPT's Application Services System, Database System, and Deployment System, all hosted and managed within the FPT Data Center in Hanoi, Vietnam, as well as the data center facility itself.

The HITRUST Certification demonstrates that FPT has met requirements defined by leading cybersecurity and regulatory frameworks, confirming that strong controls are in place to protect sensitive data and manage risk effectively.

The certification also includes the HITRUST AI Security Certification, which validates that the organization's AI systems are safeguarded against AI-specific threats such as data poisoning, model inversion, and prompt injection.

Built on the HITRUST Assurance Program, this achievement reflects independent third-party testing, centralized quality assurance, and certification backed by HITRUST's Cyber Threat-Adaptive engine. These elements ensure continuous alignment with the latest threat intelligence and evolving standards across NIST, ISO, and OWASP.

"For healthcare organizations, security is not a one-time milestone. It is a discipline that must keep pace with evolving threats, compliance expectations, and operational realities. Achieving HITRUST Certification for the third consecutive time reinforces our ongoing commitment to protecting data, managing risk, and maintaining the trust of those we serve," said Chu Canh Chieu, FPT Software Vice President and Director of Global Healthcare Center, FPT Corporation.

FPT received the HITRUST r2 Certification in 2022 and 2024. With nearly two decades of experience in healthcare and life sciences, FPT leverages next-gen technologies such as AI, cloud computing, IoT, and advanced data analytics to strengthen care coordination, improve patient outcomes, and expand access through data-driven decision-making, while helping organizations optimize cost and risk. The company is also among a limited number of technology firms in Southeast Asia to hold certifications aligned with global standards, including HITRUST, HIPAA, ISO 9001, ISO 13485, HL7, and DICOM.

About FPT Corporation

FPT Corporation (FPT) is a globally leading technology and IT services provider headquartered in Vietnam and operates in three core sectors: Technology, Telecommunications, and Education. Over more than three decades, FPT has consistently delivered impactful solutions to millions of individuals and tens of thousands of organizations worldwide. As an AI-first company, FPT is committed to elevating Vietnam's position on the global tech map and delivering world-class AI-enabled solutions for global enterprises. FPT focuses on three critical transformations: Digital Transformation, Intelligence Transformation, and Green Transformation. In 2025, FPT reported a total revenue of USD 2.66 billion and a workforce of over 54,000 employees across its core businesses. For more information about FPT's global IT services, please visit https://fptsoftware.com.







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Contact

Media contactMai Duong (Ms.)FPT SoftwarePR Manager[email protected]







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Latam-GPT: a Latin American AI to combat US-centric bias



Santiago, Chile, Feb 10 (AFP) Feb 10, 2026



Move over ChatGPT -- on Tuesday, Chile will launch Latam-GPT, an open-source artificial intelligence model designed to combat biases built by the primarily US-centric industry.

Developped by the Chilean National Center for Artificial Intelligence (CENIA), Latam-GPT uses millions of data points collected in Latin America to showcase the continent's cultural diversity.

The program seeks to combat "prejudices" and prevent depictions of Latin America always "looking the same," Chilean Science Minister Aldo Valle told AFP.

"The models developed in other parts of the world do have data from Latin America but it represent a fairly small proportion," CENIA director Alvaro Soto noted.

The low level of local input is reflected in the depictions of Latin Americans by major AI models.

For ChatGPT, a typical Chilean man is a person wearing a poncho with the Andes in the background.

Latin America "cannot simply be a passive user or recipient of artificial intelligence systems. That could result in the loss of a significant part of our traditions," Valle argued.

Unlike closed generative models like ChatGPT or Google's Gemini, Latam-GPT is an open model that can be used by programmers to customize parts of the software to suit their needs.

Contributions to the project were provided by universities, foundations, libraries, government entities, and civil society organizations from across the continent, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay.



- Indigenous content -



Major US tech companies dominate the the global AI race, with low-cost Chinese models rapidly gaining ground and Europe lagging in third.

But other regions are also coming onto the importance of developing public AI models that respect their cultural norms and safety standards.

In 2023, Singapore researchers released the open-source Southeast Asian Languages in One Network, or SEA-LION model, whereas in Kenya, the UlizaLLama LLM provides health services for Swahili-speaking expectant mothers.

Latam-GPT has been trained on more than eight terabytes of data, equivalent to millions of books.

It was developed for a mere $550,000, primarily from the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF) and Cenia's own resources.

A first version was developed for the Amazon Web Services cloud, but in the future Latam-GPT will be trained on a supercomputer at the University of Tarapaca in northern Chile.

At the moment, it is trained mainly in Spanish and Portuguese content, although its developers plan to also incorporate material in Indigenous Latin American languages.



- Slang and sayings -



Latam-GPT will be available free of charge to companies and public institutions to develop applications that are "more specific" to Latin America," said Soto, the CENIA director.

He gave as an example the developments of applications for hospitals "with logistical problems or issues with the use of medical resources."

Its tiny budget means it has "no chance" of competing against the major AI models, Alejandro Barros, a professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Chile told AFP.

But it has already won over Chilean serial digital enterpreneur Roberto Musso.

Musso's company Digevo plans to use Latam-GPT to develop customer service programs for airlines or retailers.

Musso said his clients were "very interested in having their users express themselves and receive responses in the local language."

Latam-GPT, he said, provides the ability to recognize "slang, idioms, and even speech rate" and avoid certain biases with regard to the region that can arise in other AI models.
Press Release from Business Wire: SBTS and ZIM Connections



(AFP) Feb 10, 2026



TOKYO, Feb 10, 2026 (BSW) - SBTS , the joint venture between BTS and SoftBank Corp. , and ZIM Connections today announced a strategic partnership to launch a travel eSIM solution, initially focused on inbound and outbound travel into and from Japan. The service is now live and commercially available here , marking the first step in a broader global rollout of multiple travel eSIM offerings.

The initial launch is a digital travel eSIM platform developed by ZIM Connections and commercialized by SoftBank Corp. ("SoftBank"), a Japan-based telecommunications and IT operator. It enables travelers to easily search for, purchase, and activate unlimited global eSIM plans through a seamless digital experience. The first phase focuses on travelers visiting Japan as well as Japan-based travelers going abroad, leveraging SoftBank's network for connectivity in the region.

This launch represents a fully commercial market introduction, delivering immediate value to travelers while establishing a strong foundation for international expansion. Future phases will introduce additional languages, currencies, and payment methods, followed by broader global deployment and additional versions of the travel eSIM solution.

"Travelers today expect simple, digital-first connectivity wherever they go," said Giulia Acchioni Mena, co-founder and COO of ZIM Connections. "This launch brings a seamless travel eSIM experience to market, designed to meet the strong demand around inbound travel to Japan and international mobility more broadly. It's built to scale and adapt as traveler needs continue to evolve."

Norioki Sekiguchi, CEO of SBTS, added: "This collaboration brings together the right mix of platform expertise and market reach to deliver a scalable travel connectivity solution. It demonstrates how aligned partnerships can accelerate market-ready innovation."

Akihiro Kato, Senior Director at SoftBank's Cross-border Business Promotion Office, commented: "Expanding our product suite with travel eSIM is an important step in serving both inbound visitors to Japan and Japanese travelers going abroad. This allows us to bring a market-ready solution to customers quickly, while building the foundation for deeper product development in the future."

The current service is available globally to B2C users and not limited to SoftBank subscribers. Travelers can access the platform online, select a destination, purchase an unlimited data plan, and activate their eSIM within minutes.

This launch marks the beginning of a broader collaboration aimed at expanding travel connectivity services across additional markets worldwide.

About ZIM Connections

ZIM Connections is the Gateway to Global eSIM Connectivity for Businesses and Customers Worldwide. ZIM provides seamless international connectivity solutions that help businesses and individuals stay connected effortlessly. By offering a plug-and-play eSIM platform with global coverage in over 200 destinations, ZIM simplifies connectivity management and enables telecom providers to expand their services without complex integration.

For more information, visit zimconnections.com or contact Giulia Acchioni Mena at [email protected].

About SBTS

A joint venture between SoftBank Corp. and BTS, SBTS helps carriers, CPaaS providers, hyperscalers, and enterprises navigate markets, technologies, and regulations. Solving global complexity through frictionless communications, smarter delivery, and stronger profitability, SBTS combines deep international expertise with regional specialization in APAC and the Middle East. Leveraging the S1 platform, SBTS delivers seamless, sustainable connectivity, programmable communications, identity, and protection solutions.

For more information, visit www.sbtsglobal.io or contact Paula Ruiz at [email protected].







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Contact

Paula Ruiz[email protected]

Giulia Acchioni[email protected]







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Press Release from Business Wire: NTT DATA, Inc.



(AFP) Feb 10, 2026



LONDON, Feb 10, 2026 (BSW) - NTT DATA , a global leader in AI, digital business and technology services, today announced the appointment of Seelan Nayagam as the new Chief Executive Officer for Asia Pacific at NTT DATA, Inc., effective March 16, 2026, based in Singapore. Nayagam succeeds John Lombard and will report directly to NTT DATA, Inc. President and CEO, Abhijit Dubey.

Nayagam brings over two decades of leadership experience in driving digital transformation, enterprise technology services and sustainable growth across Asia Pacific and global markets.

Nayagam joins NTT DATA from DXC Technology where he led operations across Asia Pacific and Middle East & Africa, accountable for multi-billion-dollar revenue, profitability, strategy, portfolio diversification and governance. He spearheaded digital and cloud transformation initiatives for Fortune 500 clients, enabling modernization and resilience, critical in today's fast-moving environment. Previously, he held senior roles at CSC and IBM. Leading IBM's Asia Pacific Application Management portfolio, Nayagam drove significant business growth and transformed the sales discipline across more than 20,000 team members.

"Seelan's executive leadership and wealth of experience in driving digital transformation comes at a pivotal time as we partner with our clients to deliver solutions for their transformation journeys in the era of AI," said Abhijit Dubey, President and CEO, NTT DATA, Inc. "His strong track record in delivering profitable growth through strategic client initiatives will play a key role in accelerating our growth and innovation across the Asia Pacific region. We're delighted to welcome Seelan to NTT DATA as we deliver on our mission to accelerate client success and positively impact society through responsible innovation."

Dubey added, "I would also like to take the opportunity to thank John Lombard for his excellent leadership during his many years with our company, which was instrumental in helping NTT DATA transform and setting the stage for future success. We all wish him well in the future."

"I am very excited to be joining NTT DATA, Inc. on March 16th as part of Abhijit Dubey's management team. The company is going through an incredible transformation to lead in the AI era. It will be an honour to lead the Asia Pacific team and further drive client success and sustainable growth across the region," said Seelan Nayagam. "I cannot wait to get started, meet our clients, partners and colleagues and help drive the next era of digital and AI transformation."

Nayagam holds a B.Sc. with honours in Computer Science and Accounting from the University of Buckingham in the United Kingdom.

About NTT DATA

NTT DATA is a $30+ billion business and technology services leader, serving 75% of the Fortune Global 100. We are committed to accelerating client success and positively impacting society through responsible innovation. We are one of the world's leading AI and digital infrastructure providers, with unmatched capabilities in enterprise-scale AI, cloud, security, connectivity, data centers and application services. Our consulting and industry solutions help organizations and society move confidently and sustainably into the digital future. As a Global Top Employer, we have experts in more than 70 countries. We also offer clients access to a robust ecosystem of innovation centres as well as established and start-up partners. NTT DATA is part of NTT Group, which invests over $3 billion each year in R&D.

Visit us at nttdata.com







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Media ContactHotwire Global[email protected]







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Press Release from Business Wire: NATO Innovation Fund



(AFP) Feb 10, 2026



AMSTERDAM & LONDON, Feb 10, 2026 (BSW) - An exclusive new report by Dealroom and the NATO Innovation Fund shows that European DSR (Defence, Security and Resilience) startups secured a record $8.7 billion in venture capital in 2025. The surge was fuelled by late-stage mega-rounds to support breakthrough technologies that help address critical capabilities for NATO nations - from freedom of operations & mobility, to awareness and decision making, and the security of critical technologies.

Record funding surge powers DSR Startups to meet NATO nations' most urgent security needs

Funding for DSR startups increased by 55% year on year and is nearly four times higher than five years ago. It outpaces the broader European VC market, which grew just 16% over the past year. The increase indicates that both innovators and investors across Europe are rallying to develop, back and scale technologies that address the capability needs of European NATO nations, while also capitalising on the opportunities generated by Allies' pledge to invest 5% of their Gross Domestic Product in defence and security.

"Across Europe, DSR continues to scale rapidly, with business growth evident across markets and substantial venture capital deployed through large rounds," said Sander Verbrugge, Partner, NATO Innovation Fund. "With proven revenue streams and clear trajectories for continued growth, the opportunity is now for the remainder of capital providers - from banks to private equity - to step in and support the next phase of funding for late-stage DSR companies."

Late-stage investment tripled to $4.7B, signalling a maturing ecosystem, and was driven by investments in technologies addressing key defence and security challenges. AI dominated the sector, underpinning 44% of all DSR funding - the highest share in six years - as autonomous systems, defence optimised computing and AI-enabled decision making became critical to next-generation capabilities.

Germany and the UK lead in DSR investing, with Finland, Spain, Norway and Bulgaria on the rise

The report reveals where Europe's DSR capital is concentrated, with the UK and Germany continuing to lead the charge and new countries emerging as regional hubs. Highlights include:

-- The UK leads Europe in total VC funding for DSR startups attracting $2.9 billion in 2025 and $9.9 billion since 2020, though Germany is closing the gap with $2.1 billion raised in 2025 and $5.4 billion since 2020.

-- Germany and the Netherlands recorded the highest share of national VC funding allocated to DSR companies in 2025 at over 15% each, underlining strong national commitment to the sector and alignment with industrial policy priorities.

-- Central and Eastern Europe showed the fastest growth in deal velocity, with rounds increasing 2.7x since 2020.

-- Munich retained its position as Europe's leading DSR hub with $1.7 billion raised, reflecting its strong industrial base, access to defence customers and deep talent pool. Sofia and Oslo both rose in prominence, making it into the top European cities for VC investment for the first time in five years.

"Munich's leadership is shaped by its strong industrial base, diverse international talent, and a vibrant deep tech ecosystem-all of which are driving future growth," said Daniel Metzler, Co-Founder & CEO, Isar Aerospace. "This ecosystem is enabling next-generation space and defence companies to scale faster and move from innovation to deployment."

Startups are growing, fostering partnerships and generating revenue at pace

Translating increased investments into real defence, security and resilience capabilities for Europe requires adoption of those technologies by governments at scale. The report shows early signs that many startups are already generating revenue, and gaining access to the full capital stack required for further growth, cementing their role in Europe's technological sovereignty and security. Highlights include:

-- Contracts and Partnerships: Though data on contracts is limited, the report reveals that defence primes are increasingly investing and establishing strategic development partnerships with DSR startups. In addition, DSR startups are increasingly winning public tenders, particularly in the drone industry.

-- Access to the Full Capital Stack: Although VC financing remains the key source of income for DSR startups, debt and grants are increasing, indicating the maturing of the DSR ecosystem.

-- Consolidation: M&A activity is at an all time high - 4x more than four years ago - driven by neo-primes acquiring startups to grow their offerings and expand geographically. On the other hand, no public listings took place this year, despite a flurry of listings in 2021.

"While capital continues to flow into a sector that has never been more strategically important, investment alone doesn't automatically translate into stronger European defence capabilities. What matters is how effectively DSR startups and scaleups are turning funding into real technologies, real contracts, and real operational impact," said John Ridge, Chief Adoption Officer, NATO Innovation Fund. "European ministries of defence have a critical role to play by making it easier for startups and scaleups to compete for acquisition contracts and by reshaping the relationships between new entrants and established defence primes."

Click here to read the full report.







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Contact

Amalia Kontesi[email protected]







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MOSCOW, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said Tuesday that it has detained a third suspect over an attempted assassination of a senior Russian military officer.

The suspect, a Russian citizen, attempted to kill Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseyev, a deputy chief of Russia's military intelligence agency, who was shot several times inside a residential building in northwest Moscow on Friday, the FSB said in a statement.

According to the FSB, he provided vehicles and surveillance equipment to two previously detained suspects, and assisted in collecting information on potential targets.

The FSB said the suspect's testimony helped identify two additional senior officials of Russia's Ministry of Defense who had allegedly been under surveillance in the interests of Ukrainian intelligence services. 
Press Release from Business Wire: CapVest Partners LLP



(AFP) Feb 10, 2026



LONDON & PARIS, Feb 10, 2026 (BSW) - CapVest Partners LLP ("CapVest"), a leading New York and London based investment firm, and HLD, the entrepreneurial European investment group, have entered exclusive discussions on CapVest's proposed acquisition of a majority stake in TSG, a European leader in technical services for critical energy infrastructure.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260210375858/en/







Headquartered in Paris, France, TSG is a European leader in technical services for the energy industry with a pan-European footprint in over 30 countries and employing over 7,000 people. Originally focused on fuel station and private fleet energy infrastructure and systems, since HLD's acquisition of the company in 2020 TSG has undergone significant transformation as a primary enabler of the energy transition, offering a diverse range of multi-energy technical services across Power (HV & LV electrical), Charge, Solar, Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), Biofuels and Gas & Biogas. Under HLD and management's leadership, annual revenues have grown to more than EUR1.4 billion with new energies accounting for approximately half of the revenue.

TSG's current activities are focused on design, engineering and build, testing, equipment supply, maintenance and project management. As a result of these multi-energy capabilities, deep technical experience, and geographical coverage spanning 30 countries, TSG has established longstanding and trusted relationships with a diverse base of leading energy infrastructure operators, with many of these client relationships spanning several decades. TSG has achieved strong growth in recent years driven by positive medium- and long-term secular trends including the growing need for investment in critical energy infrastructure and the transition towards more sustainable multi-energy solutions.

As a leading private equity investor, CapVest is known for partnering with ambitious companies supplying essential goods and services and bringing deep sector expertise to its portfolio companies, making the firm ideally positioned to support TSG in its next phase of growth including accelerating organic growth and supporting further complementary acquisitions. Following completion of the proposed transaction, HLD and members of the management team will retain significant minority stakes in TSG, underscoring their confidence in the company's future trajectory and commitment to supporting TSG's ongoing growth.

Fred Raikes, Partner at CapVest, said: "We believe TSG is well positioned to accelerate international growth in the coming years, capitalising on its outstanding and highly skilled team, reputation for excellent quality of service and ongoing requirement of infrastructure operators to maintain, upgrade and provide more sustainable energy infrastructure and solutions. We look forward to working with Jean-Marc Bianchi and his team to build on their substantial successes to date and help unlock the very exciting growth opportunities ahead for TSG."

Cedric Chateau, Partner and Chairman of the Investment Committee of HLD, said: "TSG has undergone a profound transformation and incredible acceleration during these past five years of HLD's shareholding alongside Jean-Marc Bianchi and his teams. The company has become a key player in the energy transition in Europe. The coming years are just as exciting for TSG, and we are delighted to extend this journey alongside the management and CapVest."

Jean-Marc Bianchi, Chairman & CEO of TSG, said: "CapVest has an excellent reputation for working closely with management in transforming the size and scale of its portfolio companies and are an ideal next partner to work with us to realise our ambitious plans for the company. Their philosophy of undertaking significant investment in people, innovation and capabilities and focus on organic and acquisition led growth, strongly reflects our principles and plans and we very much look forward to working with them in the future. In the same vein, HLD have been excellent partners and we are very thankful for their contribution to all our successes to date and delighted they are still part of our journey."

The transaction remains subject to the legal process of informing and consulting with relevant employee representative bodies, regulatory approvals in key jurisdictions where TSG operates, and other customary closing conditions.

The terms of the proposed transaction have not been disclosed.

Financial Advisors to CapVest were Perella Weinberg Partners and Rothschild & Co.

Financial Advisors to HLD were Amala Partners and Citi.







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Contact

For further information please contact:On behalf of CapVest:Ben ValdimarssonMob: +44 (0)7889 805930[email protected]

On behalf of HLD:DGM ConseilEtienne Gautier07 48 15 22 35[email protected]

Charles-Etienne Lebatard06 14 74 83 08[email protected]







 2026 Business Wire, Inc.Disclaimer:This press release is not a document produced by AFP. AFP shall not bear responsibility for its content. In case you have any questions about this press release, please refer to the contact person/entity mentioned in the text of the press release.
Press Release from Business Wire: ActiveViam



(AFP) Feb 10, 2026



LONDON, Feb 10, 2026 (BSW) - ActiveViam , a global leader in real?time, multidimensional risk analytics for capital markets, today announced that Leonteq , one of the leading Swiss providers of structured products, has implemented Atoti to calculate Market Risk Capital Charges under the Standardized Approach of the Fundamental Review of the Trading Book (SA-FRTB). ActiveViam's flagship product, Atoti, is being used by Leonteq as its FRTB reporting solution to the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA).

Switzerland implemented FRTB for its banks on 1st January 2025 and FINMA recently extended its scope to include Leonteq. When the FRTB implementation deadlines became clear, Leonteq evaluated several vendors for a solution that could integrate with its existing pricing engines. After a detailed assessment, it selected Atoti.

The solution provides dashboards and preconfigured reports that meet FINMA's requirements, along with analytics aligned to the ISDA Unit Tests and additional capabilities such as what-if analysis and capital decomposition. Leonteq worked closely with ActiveViam's customer success team and moved to production within six months. The ability to implement within this timeframe, supported by previous deployment experience, was an important factor.

Eric Schaanning, Chief Risk Officer of Leonteq said: "We have successfully implemented ActiveViam FRTB in a very short period. This enables us to efficiently control and report FRTB capital charges while providing enhanced drill-down capabilities. Both front office traders and risk controllers can seamlessly analyze figures at various levels. The solution brings improved oversight, transparency, and adaptability to our internal processes."

Shelly Magee, CEO of ActiveViam added, "We are delighted to expand our partnership with Leonteq with a long-term commitment to support their FRTB reporting. This was a challenging, ultra-quick deployment of Atoti for FRTB demonstrating our ongoing commitment to deliver on our promise to simplify the deployment and reporting of FRTB."

ABOUT LEONTEQ

Leonteq is a Swiss fintech company with a leading marketplace for structured investment solutions. Based on proprietary modern technology, the company offers derivative investment products and services and predominantly covers the capital protection, yield enhancement and participation product classes. Leonteq acts as both a direct issuer of its own products and as a partner to other financial institutions. Leonteq further enables life insurance companies and banks to produce capital-efficient, unit-linked pension products with guarantees. The company has offices and subsidiaries in 13 countries across Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Leonteq AG has a BBB- credit rating by Fitch Ratings, was assigned with an AA ESG rating by MSCI and is listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange (SIX: LEON). www.leonteq.com

ABOUT ACTIVEVIAM

ActiveViam delivers active intelligence for complex financial analytics, providing institutions with precise real-time and deep historical analysis capabilities to inform challenging trading, risk, and treasury management decisions. Clients can use ActiveViam's Atoti platform as their universal semantic layer to build proprietary business solutions or buy pre-packaged solutions for key regulations and risk metrics.

Built for and trusted by finance, ActiveViam combines first hand industry expertise with unrivaled technology, relentless innovation, multi-dimensional analysis capabilities and easy integration with a broad range of data and analytics providers, making it the missing link in financial institutions' existing business intelligence stacks. For more information, visit activeviam.com.







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Contact

Media enquiries:ActiveViamSarah Weeks, Global Head of Marketing[email protected]

Leonteq Media Relations[email protected] +41 58 800 1844







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Press Release from Business Wire: Expereo



(AFP) Feb 10, 2026



AMSTERDAM, Feb 10, 2026 (BSW) - Expereo is redefining what's possible for global enterprises at CiscoLive Amsterdam with the launch of its enhanced Digital Case Management (DCM) capability in expereoOne. As the world-leading managed Network as a Service (NaaS) provider, Expereo is putting customers firmly in control - slashing resolution times, cutting through operational noise and ensuring everyone is aligned every step of the way.

With DCM, service issues are no longer bottlenecks: instead, enterprises experience swift, transparent outcomes, with every stakeholder empowered through a single, real-time view of progress. DCM is designed around a simple objective: enable enterprises to resolve issues faster, with greater clarity and full control, through a fully digital, software-first workflow inside expereoOne. Customers can create, manage and track cases end-to-end within a single platform, ensuring predictable, consistent and aligned service experiences across their global network footprint.

Unified, digital-first experience for all participants

This release moves Expereo customers closer to fully automated, predictable service operations. By introducing a set of capabilities designed to remove friction, cut operational noise and keep every stakeholder aligned throughout case resolution, the result is a smarter, more connected support experience for Expereo customers worldwide. Key features now include:

-- Customers can add colleagues or third-party contacts to any case, ensuring everyone sees the same real-time updates and eliminating fragmented communication across multiple email threads.

-- A redesigned Preference Centre lets users control when and how they receive updates, ensuring teams stay informed without unnecessary interruptions.

-- Both case creators and watchers (with expereoOne credentials) gain access to a single, shared case timeline, including messages, documentation and status, creating a consistent, predictable experience that reduces miscommunication and accelerates resolution.

-- Every case update triggers streamlined browser or email notifications, each linking directly back to the live case. Stakeholders can immediately respond or review updates without searching through long email chains.

Solving the limitations of legacy case management

Traditional, email driven case management models were never designed for today's complex, multivendor global networks. Fragmented inboxes, duplicated updates, inconsistent visibility and unclear ownership often slow resolution and create operational disruption. The latest enhancement to expereoOne replaces these legacy constraints with a single workflow, bringing all communication, status updates and accountability into one transparent, real-time platform. This enables enterprises to move from reactive case handling to a predictable, aligned and fully auditable service resolution experience on a global scale.

Julian Skeels, Chief Digital Officer at Expereo,says: "Enterprises today need immediate visibility and control across increasingly distributed networks, and that's exactly the business challenge expereoOne is built to solve."

"The enhanced Digital Case Management experience delivers a transparent workflow that keeps every stakeholder aligned, reduces operational noise and accelerates resolution. This is another step in our commitment to provide the best service experience for customers wherever they are located."

expereoOne unifies visibility, control and management of complex, multi-vendor global networks into a single software-first experience. Expereo is reshaping global network operations through a single, programmable, software-first control layer. It provides real-time insights, end-to-end transparency and seamless service management across Network Operations, IT, Finance and Procurement teams.

With expanded Digital Case Management and flexible API-driven workflow integration, expereoOne enables enterprises to automate information sharing, streamline processes and ensure all updates flow consistently to the right teams in real time.

ENDS

About Expereo

Expereo is a world-leading Managed Network as a Service provider connecting people, places and things anywhere. Its solutions - including Global Internet, SD?WAN/SASE and Enhanced Internet - support more than 60% of Fortune 500 companies across 190+ countries. With over 2,300 partners worldwide, Expereo delivers global scale with local execution, helping enterprises achieve reliable, high-performance connectivity everywhere they operate.

For more information, visit: https://www.expereo.com/expereo-one







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Contact

Scarlett King+44 7534252295







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Press Release from Business Wire: OPEX Corporation



(AFP) Feb 10, 2026



MOORESTOWN, Feb 10, 2026 (BSW) - OPEX(R) Corporation , a global leader in Next Generation Automation providing innovative solutions for warehouse, document and mail automation , has announced the launch of its Velo? Series powered by InoTec, a new class of premium desktop and free standing high production scanners. The OPEX Velo scanners are engineered to deliver exceptional performance, reliability and image quality and offer industry-standard TWAIN/ISIS connectivity to help simplify deployment into existing capture environments. These state-of-the-art scanners are ideal for service bureaus, government agencies, healthcare providers and enterprise capture operations.

"The Velo Series powered by InoTec introduces an entirely new class of scanners to the OPEX portfolio, expanding the options available to both our current customers and organizations considering OPEX for the first time," said Dann Worrell, President, Document and Mail Automation, OPEX. "By broadening our offerings, we can better align the right solution with each client's unique requirements. Demand for our newest category of scanners continues to grow, and we're excited to be delivering production-level performance, backed by OPEX's best-in-class service and support."

Each model in the OPEX Velo Series powered by InoTec offers distinctive features and options that address varying needs.

The OPEX Velo 3120 delivers true production-class reliability in a compact, cost-effective desktop scanner. Built for continuous daily use, the Velo 3120 brings to the mid-volume environment the performance, durability and image quality typically associated with high-end production scanners. With a 120-ppm scan speed, an unlimited duty cycle for daily production, and a 500-sheet feeder, this option is ideal for organizations demanding consistent throughput, without stepping up to a larger production footprint.

The OPEX Velo 6000 Series is engineered for endurance and is ready to scale. With models scaling up to 250 ppm, a 750-sheet feeder, and a continuous-duty design, the 6000 Series delivers sustained performance across long production days and demanding workloads. Advanced media handling allows operators to process everything from fragile heritage records to heavy stock with confidence. And optional upgrades, such as four-tray sorting, enable organizations to expand capacity and functionality as business needs change.

The OPEX Velo 8000 Series is built for nonstop, high-volume enterprise production scanning, delivering industry-leading performance in the most demanding of 24/7, multi-shift environments. Features and options include dual 1,000-sheet feeders, automated output handling, active sorting, versatile media handling, advanced onboard image processing, and a high-speed stacker arm for orderly stacking at extreme throughput levels. The 8000 Series provides maximum uptime, while ensuring document compliance and audit readiness.

"OPEX is now uniquely positioned to offer the right scanning solution for every organization, regardless of workflow, volume or operational requirements," said Scott Maurer, President, International Division, OPEX. "Whether customers are looking for a one-touch approach, or traditional prep-and-scan, we can match the appropriate technology to the job. And with multiple options available, we're able to ensure each organization has a solution that fits today's needs, while ready and able to scale to meet the needs of tomorrow."

The OPEX Velo Series is powered by InoTec technology, enabled through a partnership between OPEX Corporation and Germany-based DATAWIN GmbH, a leading manufacturer of premium desktop document scanners. Available globally, the Velo Series further expands OPEX Corporation's trusted document imaging and scanning portfolio, which features the flagship Gemini(R) and Falcon+(R) Series.

About OPEX

OPEX(R) Corporation is a global leader in Next Generation Automation, providing innovative, unique solutions for warehouse, document and mail automation. With headquarters in Moorestown, NJ-and facilities in Pennsauken, NJ; Plano, TX; France; Germany; Switzerland; the United Kingdom; and Australia-OPEX has nearly 1,600 employees who are continuously reimagining and delivering customized, scalable technology solutions that solve the business challenges of today and in the future. For more information, visit opex.com.







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Contact

For Additional Information

Laura Evans[email protected] +1.856.727.1100 x 5012







 2026 Business Wire, Inc.Disclaimer:This press release is not a document produced by AFP. AFP shall not bear responsibility for its content. In case you have any questions about this press release, please refer to the contact person/entity mentioned in the text of the press release.
Press Release from Business Wire: MultiBank Group



(AFP) Feb 10, 2026



DUBAI, Feb 10, 2026 (BSW) - MultiBank Group, one of the world's largest and most regulated financial derivatives institution, has announced the launch of two limited-time promotional programs designed to reward both its Introducing Broker network and retail trading clients.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260210880239/en/

MultiBank Group has announced the launch of two limited-time promotional programs designed to reward both its Introducing Broker network and retail trading clients.



The programs reflect the firm's ongoing strategy to strengthen relationships across its partner and client ecosystem while maintaining the competitive positioning that has supported the Group's growth since its establishment in 2005.

Elite IB Promo: Enhanced Partner Compensation

Under the Elite IB Promotion, MultiBank Group's Introducing Brokers are eligible to receive a 50% boost on their standard rebate and commission structures. The program provides IBs the opportunity to earn rebates and commissions of up to $50,000, subject to the promotion's terms and conditions.

The initiative is structured to reward partners who refer new trading clients to MultiBank Group during the promotional window.

Learn more about the promotion: https://tradfi.multibankgroup.com/en/lp-n/introducing-brokers

Client Promotion: Improved Bonus and Trading Conditions

During the promotional period, MultiBank Group's retail clients are eligible for a 25% deposit bonus, up to $40,000.

Traders will also gain access to competitive trading conditions: leverage of up to 1:1,000 on gold and major FX pairs, with gold spreads starting from 15 cents.

These programs underscore MultiBank Group's commitment to delivering competitive commercial terms across its partner network and global client base. Their structure reflects a dual focus on supporting the businesses built by Introducing Brokers while ensuring clients continue to benefit from institutional-grade pricing and liquidity.

Learn more about this offer: https://tradfi.multibankgroup.com/en/lp-always-on/metals-legacy

About MultiBank Group

MultiBank Group, established in California, USA in 2005, is a global leader in financial derivatives, serving over 2 million clients across 100 countries, and boasts an average daily trading volume of $35 billion in April 2025, with the highest daily volume reaching $55.8 billion. Renowned for its innovative trading solutions, robust regulatory compliance, and exceptional customer service, MultiBank Group offers an array of brokerage services and asset management solutions. It is regulated across five continents by 17+ of the most reputable financial authorities globally. MultiBank Group's award-winning trading platforms offer up to 1000:1 leverage on a diverse range of products, including Forex, Metals, Shares, Commodities, Indices, and Cryptocurrencies. MultiBank Group has received over 80 financial awards recognizing its trading excellence and regulatory compliance.

For more information, visit MultiBank Group's website.







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Contact

Nikolas NeofytouHead of Direct Buys[email protected]







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Press Release from Business Wire: ExaGrid Systems, Inc.



(AFP) Feb 10, 2026



MARLBOROUGH, Feb 10, 2026 (BSW) - ExaGrid (R), the industry's only Tiered Backup Storage solution with AI-Powered Retention Time-Lock (RTL) that includes a non-network-facing tier (creating a tiered air gap), delayed deletes and immutability for ransomware recovery,today announced that CRN(R)-a brand of The Channel Company-has selected Sam Elbeck, ExaGrid's Vice President of Americas Sales and Channel Partners, for inclusion on the prestigious 2026 CRN(R) Channel Chiefs list. This annual recognition celebrates IT vendor and distribution executives who are shaping channel strategy and driving innovation and partnership across the industry.

"It's an honor to be named to the Channel Chiefs list again this year," said Sam Elbeck. "We are committed to the channel and view our partners as an extension of ExaGrid. We collaborate closely on every opportunity to ensure mutual success. Our channel philosophy centers on building long-term relationships grounded in honesty, integrity, and transparency. We strive for ExaGrid to be known as the easiest company to work with by being flexible, responsive, and partner-focused while delivering high margins, strong incentives, and exceptional support. Together, we create a win-win model that drives growth, loyalty, and trust across the channel ecosystem."

ExaGrid works with resellers and distributors worldwide. The ExaGrid channel programs are designed to be easy for partners, with support from the ExaGrid sales team and without milestone commitments. ExaGrid is known for having a Tiered Backup Storage system that "just works," is not oversold or undersized, and provides its customers with the best customer support in the industry with an assigned level 2 technical support engineer, ensuring that partners' customers are well taken care of. ExaGrid provides its reseller partners with a registration program to protect accounts and margins, and SPIF incentives.

The annual CRN Channel Chiefs list spotlights the most influential leaders across the IT channel, celebrating those who champion collaboration, drive innovation and empower their partners and customers to achieve shared success.

"Leaders recognized as CRN Channel Chiefs this year have demonstrated unwavering commitment to their partners and the broader IT channel. Their vision, passion and drive for innovation continue to shape the future of our industry. We are proud to celebrate their achievements and the positive impact they make every day," said Jennifer Follett, Vice President, U.S. Content, Executive Editor, CRN.

CRN's 2026 Channel Chiefs list is featured online at www.CRN.com/ChannelChiefs.

About ExaGridExaGrid provides Tiered Backup Storage with a unique disk-cache Landing Zone, long-term retention repository, scale-out architecture, and comprehensive security features. ExaGrid's Landing Zone provides for the fastest backups, restores, and instant VM recoveries. The Repository Tier offers the lowest cost for long-term retention. ExaGrid's scale-out architecture includes full appliances and ensures a fixed-length backup window as data grows, eliminating expensive forklift upgrades and planned product obsolescence. ExaGrid offers the only two-tiered backup storage approach with a non-network-facing tier (tiered air gap), delayed deletes, and immutable objects to recover from ransomware attacks.

ExaGrid has physical sales and pre-sales systems engineers in the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Benelux, Brazil, Canada, Chile, CIS, Colombia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Nordics, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, and other regions.

Visit us at exagrid.com or connect with us on LinkedIn. See what our customers have to say about their own ExaGrid experiences and learn why they now spend significantly less time on backup storage in our customer success stories. ExaGrid is proud of our +81 NPS score!

ExaGrid is a registered trademark of ExaGrid Systems, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

About The Channel CompanyThe Channel Company (TCC) is the global leader in channel growth for the world's top technology brands. We accelerate success across strategic channels for tech vendors, solution providers, and end users with premier media brands, integrated marketing and event services, strategic consulting, and exclusive market and audience insights. TCC is a portfolio company of investment funds managed by EagleTree Capital, a New York City-based private equity firm. For more information, visit thechannelco.com.

Follow The Channel Company:LinkedIn, X, and Facebook

 2026 The Channel Company, Inc. CRN is a registered trademark of The Channel Company, Inc. All rights reserved.







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Contact

The Channel Company:Natalie LewisThe Channel Company[email protected] Media:Mary DomenichelliExaGrid[email protected]







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Press Release from Business Wire: Armis



(AFP) Feb 10, 2026



SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 10, 2026 (BSW) - Armis , the cyber exposure management & security company, today announced Armis Centrix TM for Application Security , which unifies application security across an organization's software development lifecycle. The technology helps security teams secure code as a next-generation attack vector to fortify organizations' defenses and protect against cyber threats.

"To effectively manage risk, it's essential to get to the root cause of the problem and weed it out," said Nadir Izrael, CTO and Co-Founder of Armis. "Code-based vulnerabilities are being embedded into organizational infrastructure, and AI-generated code is exacerbating the problem, containing exponentially more vulnerabilities when compared to code written by human developers. As enterprises embrace AI-assisted coding and drive continuous development pipelines, they need a smarter, more dynamic, and unified approach to securing software at scale."

Today's application security landscape is overloaded with fragmented, static point solutions, each solving a piece of the puzzle but creating noise, inefficiencies, and blind spots. Armis CentrixTM for Application Security is an AI-powered solution for detection, contextualization, and remediation. The solution is infrastructure-aware, understanding the full CI/CD pipeline along with production side mitigating controls, helping to simplify, prioritize and enhance security teams' ability to secure their entire software supply chain.

"With AI-assisted coding, developers can ship faster, but they can also introduce security vulnerabilities just as fast. As a result, security teams are under pressure to respond at the same speed and scale," said Katie Norton, Research Manager, DevSecOps and Software Supply Chain Security at IDC. "The AI-native scanning, platform-level context, and independent validation Armis CentrixTM delivers could benefit security teams trying to keep up with this new era of development."

The technology scans every part of an organization's application, including code, dependencies, container images, and configuration files, covering an unlimited number of languages and their variants. It detects known and hard-to-find variants that template-based tools often miss and problematic code before it can cause a negative impact. Armis CentrixTM for Application Security reduces false alarms by 70% and accelerates mean time to resolution (MTTR), automating remediation by sending issues directly to the correct developer with clear instructions to help teams expedite fixes.

"Armis is delivering smarter detection, faster fixes, reduced cost, and higher trust between security and development teams," said Dana Gilboa, Chief Product Officer of Armis. "Other solutions on the market cannot compete; Armis' AI graduates from the pattern matching capabilities offered by other solutions providers and is highly accurate, catching all of the vulnerability variants across an unlimited number of languages, not just a few. This solution is the enterprise foundation for secure-by-default software delivery at scale."

Built for enterprise scalability, Armis CentrixTM for Application Security offers easy onboarding and end-to-end coverage from source code to production. It seamlessly integrates into existing development and security stacks to eliminate friction between security and development teams, resulting in improved productivity and reduced risk.

Armis Centrix? for Application Security achieved the highest performance in the Public CASTLE Benchmark C@250, outperforming other listed tools. The Public CASTLE Benchmark C@250 is a third-party verified measure of a solution's ability to detect and stop code issues before deployment.

Armis CentrixTM for Application Security is immediately available. Learn more by reading our blog on the new solution here.

Find more information about Armis Centrix?, the Armis Cyber Exposure Management Platform, and each of the solutions offered by Armis here.

About Armis

Armis, the cyber exposure management & security company, protects the entire attack surface and manages the organization's cyber risk exposure in real time. In a rapidly evolving, perimeter-less world Armis ensures that organizations continuously see, protect and manage all critical assets - from the ground to the cloud. Armis secures Fortune 100, 200 and 500 companies as well as national governments, state and local entities to help keep critical infrastructure, economies and society stay safe and secure 24/7. Armis is a privately held company headquartered in California.







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Contact

Media Contacts:Rebecca CradickVice President, Global CommunicationsArmis[email protected]







 2026 Business Wire, Inc.Disclaimer:This press release is not a document produced by AFP. AFP shall not bear responsibility for its content. In case you have any questions about this press release, please refer to the contact person/entity mentioned in the text of the press release.
Press Release from Business Wire: Telekom Srbija Group



(AFP) Feb 10, 2026



BELGRADE, Feb 10, 2026 (BSW) - Telekom Srbija Group has been honoured with the Europe Telecom Deal of the Year award at the prestigious TMT Finance Awards EMEA 2026, recognising excellence in telecom financing. The award was given for its US$900 million corporate Eurobond, listed on Euronext Dublin.

The award celebrates outstanding dealmaking in the telecom sector across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The distinguished accolade highlights Telekom Srbija's strategic success in executing a high-profile international financial transaction that strengthened investor confidence and expanded the company's footprint in capital markets. This marks a significant milestone in Telekom Srbija Group's continued growth and global recognition.

Vladimir Lucic, CEO of Telekom Srbija Group, said: "We are incredibly proud that our Eurobond has been recognised as Europe Telecom Deal of the Year. This award reflects not just the success of the transaction, but the confidence global investors have in our strategy, our financial strength and our long-term vision for growth. It reinforces our commitment to innovation, financial discipline and international leadership in the telecom sector."

The US$900 million international corporate Eurobond, listed on Euronext Dublin, was issued through a syndicate of leading banks, including Bank of America, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, and more, and supported by top legal advisors, including Gecic Law and Clifford Chance, marking a significant achievement for the Group in international finance.

About the Award

The TMT Finance Awards EMEA are among the most respected accolades for dealmaking and investment in the telecom, media and technology sectors. Winners are selected by an independent panel of judges and reflect excellence across financing, M&A, and digital infrastructure transactions in EMEA.

About Telekom Srbija Group

The Telekom Srbija Group, headquartered in Serbia and operating in 13 countries across Europe and beyond (SER, BIH, MNE, CRO, SI, NMK, TUR, AUT, CH, GER, USA, NL, BE), is one of the largest and fastest-growing telecommunications operators in Southeast Europe, and a leader in digital transformation in the Western Balkans. With nearly 14 million subscribers and more than 13,000 employees, the Group provides services in four key segments: fixed telephony, mobile communications, internet, and multimedia.







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Ivana Bajovic[email protected] +381 64 650 7300







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EU clears Google's $32 bn bid for Wiz cybersecurity company



Brussels, Belgium, Feb 10 (AFP) Feb 10, 2026



The EU on Tuesday unconditionally approved Google's $32 billion bid for cloud security platform Wiz after finding it raised no competition concerns in Europe.

Google announced the all-cash deal last year, as it seeks to beef up its cloud computing business for the AI era.

It is the largest ever transaction sought by Google or parent Alphabet.

"Google stands behind Amazon and Microsoft in terms of market shares in cloud infrastructure, and our assessment confirmed that customers will continue to have credible alternatives and the ability to switch providers," EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera said in a statement.

"The transaction therefore does not raise competition concerns in cloud services or cloud security in the European Economic Area", made up of the bloc's 27 states, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, Ribera added.

Started in 2020 by the Israeli-born Assaf Rappaport and a team who sold a previous venture to Microsoft, Wiz is based in the United States.

The European Commission in November launched probes to assess the market power of Amazon and Microsoft cloud services, but not into Google.

At the time, Brussels said Google played a smaller role in the EU market.
Latam-GPT: a Latin American AI to combat US-centric bias



Santiago, Chile, Feb 10 (AFP) Feb 10, 2026



Move over ChatGPT. Chile on Tuesday launched Latam-GPT, an open-source artificial intelligence model for the region, designed to combat bias inherent in a US-centric industry.

Developed by the Chilean National Center for Artificial Intelligence (CENIA), Latam-GPT uses millions of data points collected in Latin America to showcase the continent's cultural diversity.

"Thanks to Latam-GPT, we're positioning the region as an active and sovereign player in the economy of the future," President Gabriel Boric said of the initiative.

"We're at the table -- we're not on the menu," he added.

According to Chile's Science Minister Aldo Valle, the program was built to combat what he called prejudices and generalizations about people and countries from the region.

Latin America, he added, "cannot simply be a passive user or recipient of artificial intelligence systems. That could result in the loss of a significant part of our traditions."

Unlike closed generative models like ChatGPT or Google's Gemini, Latam-GPT is an open model that can be used by programmers to customize parts of the software to suit their needs.

Contributions to the project, and data for the model's training, were provided by Latin American universities, foundations, libraries, government entities and civil society organizations in countries including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay.

"The models developed in other parts of the world do have data from Latin America but it represent a fairly small proportion," CENIA director Alvaro Soto noted.

This low level of diverse input is sometimes reflected in the depictions of Latin Americans by major AI models. ChatGPT, for example, portrays a typical Chilean man as a person wearing a poncho with the Andes in the background.



- Indigenous content -



Major US tech companies dominate the global AI race, with low-cost Chinese models rapidly gaining ground and Europe lagging in third place.

Other regions of the world are also embracing the importance of developing public AI models that respect their cultural norms and safety standards.

In 2023, Singapore researchers released the open-source Southeast Asian Languages in One Network, or SEA-LION model, while in Kenya, the UlizaLLama LLM provides health services for Swahili-speaking expectant mothers.

Latam-GPT has been trained on more than eight terabytes of data, equivalent to millions of books.

It was developed for a mere $550,000, sourced primarily from the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF) and CENIA's own resources.

A first version was developed on the Amazon Web Services cloud, but in future, Latam-GPT will be trained on a supercomputer at the University of Tarapaca in northern Chile.

For now, it is trained mainly in Spanish and Portuguese content, although its developers plan to incorporate material in Indigenous Latin American languages.



- Slang and sayings -



Latam-GPT will be available free of charge to companies and public institutions to develop applications more specific to Latin America, said Soto, the CENIA director.

He cited potential applications for hospitals "with logistical problems or issues with the use of medical resources."

Its tiny budget means Latam-GPT has "no chance" of competing against the major AI models, Alejandro Barros, a professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Chile, told AFP.

But it has already won over Chilean serial digital entrepreneur Roberto Musso, whose company Digevo plans to use Latam-GPT to develop customer service programs for airlines or retailers.

Musso said his clients were "very interested in having their users express themselves and receive responses in the local language."

Latam-GPT, he said, provides the ability to recognize regional "slang, idioms, and even speech rate" and avoid biases that could arise in other AI models.
MOSCOW, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Russia said on Monday that Cuba is facing a dire fuel shortage and accused the United States of trying to suffocate the island country's economy.

The fuel situation in Cuba is "indeed critical," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov when asked about jet fuel shortages in Cuba and whether that would affect Russian tourists planning to leave the country. He noted that Russia is maintaining intensive contacts with Cuba through diplomatic and other channels.

"The suffocating tactics employed by the United States are indeed causing many difficulties for the country. We are discussing with our Cuban friends possible ways to resolve these problems, or at least to provide all possible assistance," said Peskov.

The United States has labeled Cuba "an unusual and extraordinary threat" to national security and said it will stop Cuba from receiving Venezuelan oil after January operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Washington has threatened to impose tariffs on other countries, including Mexico, if they continue to supply fuel to Cuba.

Cuba has warned international airlines that jet fuel will not be available on the island starting Tuesday, prompting carriers such as Air Canada to suspend or adjust flights amid the shortages. 
Fire at Iraq oil refinery kills one, injures 6



Baghdad, Feb 9 (AFP) Feb 09, 2026



A fire at a key oil refinery killed one worker and injured six others on Monday in northern Iraq, authorities said.

The fire erupted at an upgrading unit in the Baiji refinery, once the country's largest oil refinery, in Salaheddin province.

The Iraqi government's security media unit said in a statement that firefighters had extinguished the fire.

It added that "one worker was killed and six others were injured."

Local official in Baiji city Adel al-Daj told AFP that the explosion was caused by a technical malfunction.

The Baiji refinery, 200 kilometres (124 miles) north of Baghdad, was heavily damaged in some of the fiercest battles with the Islamic State group after it swept across a third of Iraq in 2014.

After the facility's full rehabilitation, authorities reopened it in February 2024.

Iraq is one of the world's biggest oil producers and crude oil sales make up 90 percent of budget revenues.
MOSCOW, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Russia's foreign trade surplus in 2025 fell by 8.17 percent year on year to 139.3 billion U.S. dollars, Russia's Federal Customs Service said Tuesday.

According to its data, Russia's total foreign trade turnover declined 2.79 percent to 697.3 billion dollars, as both exports and imports decreased from a year earlier.

Exports to European countries dropped by 16.5 percent to 57.4 billion dollars, while exports to Asian countries edged lower by 1 percent to 326 billion dollars, the data showed.

The report also noted that exports to North and South American countries rose by 1.4 percent to 12.1 billion dollars, and imports increased by 10.3 percent to 16.3 billion dollars. Imports from African countries surged by 26.1 percent to 4.4 billion dollars.

Mineral products accounted for the largest share of Russia's exports during the reporting period, totaling 225.3 billion dollars, down 14.8 percent year on year, the report said.

Machinery, equipment and transport vehicles remained the largest category of imports, though the value declined by 7.7 percent to 135.6 billion dollars in 2025, it added. 
Iran steps up arrests while remaining positive on US talks



Paris, France, Feb 9 (AFP) Feb 09, 2026



Iran stepped up its crackdown on Monday after recent protests, making more arrests while holding the door open to Washington for further nuclear negotiations.

The arrests -- including that of Javad Emam, the spokesperson for the main reformist coalition -- came after Iranian and US officials held talks in Oman that both sides painted as positive.

On Saturday, Iran heaped more jail time on Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, and on Monday arrested Hossein Karoubi, the son of prominent dissident Mehdi Karoubi.

Weeks after repressing a wave of protests, one of the greatest challenges to the government since it came to power in the 1979 Islamic revolution, Tehran has taken a two-track approach.

It is rounding up and jailing perceived critics, while at the same time pursuing a potential diplomatic opening with US President Donald Trump's administration.

A spokesperson for the Reformist Front coalition told local media on Monday that Iran's Revolutionary Guards had arrested the group's spokesman Emam.

Emam was one of at least five Reformist Front figures to be detained, as were several activists and filmmakers who co-signed a protest statement.

Iran's government has branded the protests "riots" fuelled by its arch-foes Israel and the United States.



- 'Frustrate the enemy' -



On Monday, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on the nation to show "resolve" against foreign pressure.

"National power is less about missiles and aircraft and more about the will and resolve of the people," Khamenei said, adding: "Show it again and frustrate the enemy."

Alongside its defiant pronouncements, Iran has signalled it could come to some kind of deal to dial back its nuclear programme to avoid further conflict with Washington.

The official IRNA news agency reported that Iranian atomic agency chief Mohammad Eslami had said Tehran could dilute its highly-enriched uranium in return for sanctions relief.

"In response to a question about the possibility of diluting 60 percent enriched uranium," IRNA reported, Eslami "said this depends on whether all sanctions would be lifted in return".

The report did not specify whether such an agreement would include only nuclear sanctions imposed on Iran by the United States, or all international economic measures targeting the Islamic republic.

Diluting or "downblending" uranium means mixing it with other substances to reduce the enrichment level, so the final product does not exceed a given threshold -- thus extending the amount of time it would take Iran to create sufficient nuclear material for a bomb.

Tehran adamantly insists it has never planned to build a nuclear weapon and that enrichment for civilian research and energy is its sovereign right, but the US, Israel and most Western capitals do not believe this.

At the talks in Oman last week, the US and Iran agreed to discuss Tehran's nuclear programme, though Washington and Israel also want to put its ballistic missiles and support for regional militant groups on the agenda.

In separate calls with his Egyptian, Saudi and Turkish counterparts, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi "described the talks as a good start while emphasising the need to dispel mistrust about the American side's intentions and objectives", state television reported.



- Crackdown continues -



While Trump had initially threatened to intervene over Iran's repression of last month's protests, since the latest talks began, the United States has not given any sign that the crackdown on Tehran's domestic critics is a major concern.

On Saturday, Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi was sentenced to six years in prison on charges of harming national security.

She was also given a one-and-a-half year prison sentence for "propaganda" against Iran's Islamic system, her foundation said in a statement.

Already incarcerated for much of the past decade as a result of her campaigning against capital punishment and the mandatory dress code for women, she now faces up to 17 more years behind bars and 154 lashes.

The arrest of Reformist Front spokesman Emam followed those on Sunday of three other figures, including Azar Mansouri, who has led the coalition since 2023. Another reformist lawmaker was arrested on Monday.

The reformist camp largely backed incumbent president Masoud Pezeshkian in the 2024 presidential election.

Separately, Hussein Karoubi was also picked up. Karoubi's father Mehdi Karoubi was a figure in the 2009 Green movement protests and has been under house arrest more or less ever since.

The authorities in Iran have acknowledged that 3,117 people were killed during the protests, publishing a list of 2,986 names, most of whom they say were members of the security forces and innocent bystanders.

International organisations have put the toll far higher.

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) says it has verified 6,961 deaths, mostly protesters, and has another 11,630 cases under investigation.

It has also counted more than 51,000 arrests.
Burkina Faso dissolves all political parties



Abidjan, Feb 10 (AFP) Feb 10, 2026



Junta-led Burkina Faso's parliament has dissolved all political parties, whose activities have been suspended since the military rulers seized power more than three years ago.

Under captain Ibrahim Traore, who led a coup in September 2022, the junta has muzzled critics, arresting dissidents or forcing them into fighting jihadists.

On Monday, the transitional parliament adopted a bill repealing the laws governing political parties and groups in the west African country, according to a legislative assembly statement seen by AFP on Tuesday.

Authorities unveiled the plan two weeks ago, arguing it was necessary for "national unity".

"The government believes that the proliferation of political parties has led to abuses, fuelled divisions among citizens and weakened the social fabric," the presidency said last month in a readout of a cabinet meeting.

United Nations rights chief Volker Turk has urged Burkina to reverse the decision to ban political parties and stop the repression of civic space.

Traore ousted Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who had only taken power nine months earlier in a previous military coup.

Under his leadership, political parties could not hold public meetings but were allowed to continue their activities.

Traore has made sovereignty his watchword, distancing Burkina from its former colonial ruler France and other Western powers.

The transition to democratic rule, initiated after the first coup in January 2022, was scheduled to end in July 2024.

But, the junta that year decided to extend the transition period by five years, allowing Traore to remain at the helm of the country, plagued by jihadist violence that has claimed thousands of lives for nearly 10 years.
Europe replacing US nuclear deterrence 'not realistic': Finnish defence minister



Helsinki, Feb 10 (AFP) Feb 10, 2026



Finland's defence minister told AFP Tuesday that he welcomed European discussions on a stronger regional nuclear deterrence but said it was not realistic "at this point" to replace the United States's nuclear defence umbrella.

As uncertainty around US military support for Europe grows, European leaders have started to mull how to address the continent's lack of a credible deterrent.

Last week, the European Union's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat that a discussion should be initiated on developing Europe's own nuclear deterrent.

France and Britain are currently the only European nations with nuclear arsenals.

Speaking to AFP, Finland's defence minister Antti Hakkanen stressed that the US remains committed to maintaining nuclear deterrence within NATO.

"We fully trust ... that the US is fully committed to the nuclear deterrence in NATO," he said, adding that European countries were "taking the leading role in conventional defence".

But Hakkanen welcomed the discussion on a "stronger European nuclear deterrence".

"If there's going to be some kind of bigger European investments in France or UK's nuclear deterrence, that's only a good thing," Hakkanen said, but stressed that Europe was not yet capable of matching US capabilities.

"If you're talking about to compensate US nuclear deterrence, that's not realistic at this point," he added.

Last week, the New START treaty which restricted the US and Russia to 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads each expired, marking the first time in decades without a treaty to curtail the positioning of the planet's most destructive weapons and sparking fears of another arms race.

The treaty's expiration also marks an end to major bilateral nuclear-disarmament accords and a potential shift towards a looser nuclear order, profoundly reshaped by China's growing diplomatic and technological prowess.

NATO chief Mark Rutte late January warned that Europe cannot defend itself without the US after tensions over Greenland prompted calls for the continent to stand on its own feet.

"If anyone thinks here again, that the European Union, or Europe as a whole, can defend itself without the US -- keep on dreaming. You can't," Rutte told lawmakers at the European Parliament.
MOSCOW, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Russia is ready to seek a negotiated solution to the Ukraine crisis based on understandings reached by the leaders of Russia and the United States, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday.

He said Russia remains fully committed to the outcomes of the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump held in the U.S. city of Anchorage, Alaska in August last year, and noted that Moscow expects its interests to be fully taken into account in the process of reaching mutually acceptable agreements with partners open to honest and direct dialogue.

Lavrov said Russia would continue to uphold truth and justice in international affairs and promote a multipolar world grounded in the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, adding that Moscow would oppose double standards, hidden agendas, imposed settlement formulas, as well as practices of neocolonialism and hegemonism.

The foreign minister also said Russia would prioritize strengthening strategic partnerships with emerging centers of a multipolar world, adding that Russia and like-minded partners would work to accelerate the development of sanctions-resistant mechanisms for trade, investment, financial and logistical cooperation. 
Alongside Pennington, highly commended awards were presented to Giacomo Arcadu, manager in training at The Lanesborough, and Caoimhe Houston, former head waiter at the temporarily closed Le Manoir aux QuatSaison. Both were given the nod in recognition of their exceptional performance throughout the competition. Accordingly, one will uptake work experience at the Mandarin Oriental hotels in Bangkok and Hong Kong, as well as an overseas Rocco Forte hotel, while the other will head to work at Laurent-Perrier in Champagne.
In a statement issued by his solicitors, Mr Harrison said: "I fully accept the consequences of my actions, and there isn't a day I don't feel the weight of that loss - a weight I will carry for the rest of my life, and I know that nothing I say can ease the heartbreak this tragedy has caused.
They were from Lebanon, Egypt and Algeria and had either overstayed their visas or entered the UK illegally and had their claims for protection turned down. One worker from Egypt hid in the toilets and appeared extremely nervous when he came out. He was wearing latex gloves at the time and said he started working the previous day as a shawarma chef.
"So it is only now a matter of when he goes, not if he goes. His position is clearly untenable, and I think that we need to acknowledge the fact that the country is not being governed. Nothing is happening."
A SpaceX Starship upper stage explodes June 18 during static testing. LabPadre Space

SpaceX is still having communication challenges with emergency services that respond to explosions and other emergencies at the Elon Musk-led companys South Texas Starbase.

The largest fire department that responds to the complex near Boca Chica Beach has been left out of monthly meetings among the company and other emergency agencies that have begun since a June testing explosion rattled the Rio Grande Valley.

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Brownsville Fire Chief Jarrett Sheldon has not been receiving invitations to the so-called Anomaly Response Meetings, which include Cameron County emergency management officials, the county fire marshal and South Padre Island fire chief.

The communication breakdown comes after questions about oversight, notifications and response to emergencies were raised by Cameron County and Brownsville city officials in the aftermath of the late-night explosion that overwhelmed 911 dispatchers, tied up first responders, sparked fires and launched debris across the Rio Grande into Mexico.

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Though the Brownsville department  the largest in the Rio Grande Valley  sent multiple units to Starbase that night, Sheldon hasnt received invitations to the SpaceX-convened gatherings that began in August. SpaceX had also failed to notify his department in advance of the June testing.

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I am not aware of any monthly meetings with SpaceX. Nor do I see any texts or emails of any monthly meetings. he told the Brownsville City Attorneys office in an email prompted by a public records request from the San Antonio Express-News. I do see that the link attached to my email is incorrect  That may be the reason that I havent received anything.

In fact, the space company was sending the invitation to an email using a domain name that has been out of use for years, according to Johnnny Gutierrez of the Brownsville city attorneys office.

City email addresses have used @brownsvilletx.gov for maybe the past three years, he said in an e-mail. The @cob.us domain is no longer in use. I am not sure why they are using the wrong email address.

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A SpaceX Super Heavy booster is set up for testing at the private space company's Massey Test Site in November. The bottom half of the rocket exploded hours later. It came after a June testing explosion at the site raised questions about communication and response about operations at the site. Courtesy SpaceX

Records indicate Sheldon so far has missed meetings that occurred in August, November and January. Additional meetings are scheduled monthly through May.

Jordan Buss, who is both a Starbase city commissioner and SpaceX director of environmental, health, and safety, leads the meetings. Also included are Marisela Cortez, the companys external affairs manager, and Robert Saltzmann, SpaceX security lead at Starbase.

Buss signed off on the companys spill prevention, control and countermeasure plan for the Massey Test Site where the June 18 explosion occurred.

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Other invitees include Tom Hushen, Cameron County Emergency Management coordinator, Rolando Casas, assistant coordinator, and Juan Martinez, the county fire marshal.

The meeting was apparently begun in response to the June blast, which highlighted some neighbors concerns about communication, safety and regulatory oversight at the site where SpaceX builds, tests and launches the worlds most powerful rocket.

READ MORE: SpaceX sued by worker who says he was hit by falling debris at Starbase

Two days after the explosion, then-Brownsville City Manager Helen Ramirez sent an e-mail to SpaceXs Cortez and the city administrator of Starbase about her citys response to the blast and worries about the future.

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The SpaceX explosion on June 18 stands as one of the most logistically demanding and tactically complex incidents in recent memory for Brownsvilles emergency services, Ramirez wrote. It tested the citys capacity to manage a high-risk industrial emergency while preserving safety and operational continuity across the community.

The correct e-mail address for Sheldon was included in her correspondence.

Smoke is seen still rising from the Massey Test Site near Starbase the day after a June 18 explosion during testing of a Starship booster. Debris from the explosion can be seen in the water. Some was hurled across the Rio Grande into Mexico. Texas Commission on Environmental Quality

In July, Cameron County judge Eddie Trevino Jr. sent a letter to 10 federal and state offices asking which  if any  would investigate and work to ensure such a blast wouldnt happen again. He also raised concerns that local emergency responders hadnt been notified about the testing.

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Cameron County officials did not become aware that testing was occurring at all until after the explosion occurred, he wrote. Members of the community were understandably shocked and alarmed. Missing notifications create concern that SpaceX is not taking appropriate measures to ensure public safety, he wrote.

Mat Dunn, SpaceXs vice president of government affairs disputed the judges claim in a written response.

He said SpaceX had coordinated with the Cameron County Sheriffs Department and notified the county fire marshal, emergency management office, Los Fresnos, Port Isabel and South Padre Island fire departments two hours before the test, records show.

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The Brownsville Fire Department, which ended up responding to the blast, was not notified.

Gene Daniels, chief of the Los Fresnos Fire Department, confirmed via e-mail that his office had been notified in advance of the testing.

Local emergency response agencies are on a text thread and a text was sent out notifying testing as well as updates if the time changes, he said. We were also notified by the same method right after the mishap.
MORE: SXSW 2026 brings major TV premieres, A-list casts to Austin

Curtis, both known for her acting prowess and widespread activism, will speak at the conference about how to create opportunities and navigate transitions in careers.

David will give a sneak peek into his new historical sketch comedy series, coming to HBO this summer, made alongside longtime "Curb Your Enthusiasm" collaborator Jeff Schaffer. Both will step on stage with LA Times writer Lorraine Ali to discuss their new show.

With three distinct conferences  Innovation, Music and Film & TV  SXSW is the only place you can hear from trailblazing founders, experts pushing the boundaries of medicine, and legendary television showrunners, all in one place," Greg Rosenbaum, senior vice president of programming for SXSW, said in the announcement Tuesday.

SXSW announces new Film & TV, innovation conference lineup

Along with Curtis and David, SXSW announced that show creator Vince Gilligan  the mind behind 'Breaking Bad," "Better Call Saul" and Apple TV's new "Pluribus"  will take the stage with the latter's star Rhea Seehorn, Sony Pictures Television President Katherine Pope as well as the show's composer Dave Porter, costume designer Jennifer Bryan and producer Trina Siopy to discuss their collaborations across multiple television series..

The cast and creators behind HBO's "Rooster" will discuss the new comedy series, which premiers in March. Showrunners Bill Lawrence and Matt Tarses will join executive producer and series star Steve Carell and cast members Daniell Deadwyler and Charly Clive on the SXSW stage.

WHO ELSE IS SPEAKING? : SXSW announces next round of speakers. See whos on the list for 2026.

On the innovation side, CEO Carl Pei will chat about how the industry is changing in 2026 and how his company, Nothing, is looking to make new tech innovations more exciting.

Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University student who was nearly deported for his participation and leadership in the encampment and pro-Palestine protests at the New York college, will speak about his story and the present stakes of political activism. He will be joined by Betsy Reed, U.S. editor of "The Guardian," and Baher Azmy, legal director at the Center of Constitutional Rights.

Former Texax Gov. Rick Perry is hitting the stage with U.S. Navy Seal veteran Marcus Luttrell, psychologist Gul Dolen and nonprofit CEO Bryan Hubbard to talk about how Ibogaine, a psychedelic drug, can be used to treat substance abuse and trauma-related issues.

Michelle K. Lee, founder and CEO of Obsidian Strategies and former under secretary of commerce for intellectual property and director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, will be one of the several speakers talking about the promise of and perils of artificial intelligence at SXSW.

For more about these sessions and SXSWs full lineup, visit the schedule here.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, center, watches as fly pupae are dyed and separated following a ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday in Ediburg for the opening of the Domestic New World Screwworm Sterile Fly Production Facility to combat the northward spread of the parasite and protect U.S. livestock. Eric Gay/AP A test container of dyed fly pupae is displayed at the Domestic New World Screwworm Sterile Fly Production Facility in Edinburg. Eric Gay/AP U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, center, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott attend a ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday for the opening of the Domestic New World Screwworm Sterile Fly Production Facility in Edinburg. Eric Gay/AP U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, center, places fly pupae into a container to be dyed Monday at the sterile fly production facility in Edinburg. Eric Gay/AP An adult New World screwworm fly sits at rest in this undated photo. Denise Bonilla/U.S. Department of Agriculture via AP

EDINBURG  The first center for dispersing sterile screwworm flies from U.S. soil in decades has opened in South Texas, part of a larger effort to keep the flesh-eating parasite they spawn from crossing the Mexican border and wreaking havoc on the U.S. cattle industry.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott unveiled the new facility this week on a former Air Force base near Edinburg. It will allow the U.S. to disperse millions of sterile male New World screwworm flies bred in Mexico or Panama on both sides of the border.

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture is building a $750 million factory nearby for breeding sterile flies, but Rollins said construction on the fly factory wont be done until the end of 2027. The USDA also is spending $21 million to convert a fruit fly breeding facility in far southern Mexico into one for breeding screwworm flies starting this summer.

The sterile male flies would mate with wild females, who mate only once in their weekslong adult lives. Their eggs, laid in open wounds or on mucous membranes, would then not hatch into the flesh-eating maggots that can infest livestock, wild mammals, household pets and even humans.

READ MORE: Why a parasitic fly in Mexico is a threat to Texas livestock

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Its a real testament to the all hands on deck  federal, state and local  the fact that we do not have the pest in our country yet, Rollins said.

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In November, the USDA opened a facility in Tampico in central Mexico for dispersing Panama-bred flies. However, it is about 330 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border.

We knew we needed a short-term, gap-filling solution, which is exactly what we are cutting a ribbon on today, Abbott said at Mondays unveiling.

Abbott on Jan. 29 issued a statewide disaster declaration as a preemptive response to the potential spread of the parasite, which he said could pose a serious threat.

I will not wait for such harm to reach our livestock and wildlife, Abbott said in a statement announcing the declaration. With this statewide disaster declaration, the Texas NWS Response Team can fully utilize all state government prevention and response resources to prevent the re-emergence of this destructive parasite.

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The Mexican cattle industry has been hit hard by New World screwworm fly larvae infestations, and the U.S. has closed the border since July to imports of cattle, bison and horses.

A similar program breeding sterile male flies had largely eradicated the pest from U.S. soil by the early 1970s, except for a limited, short-lived outbreak in the Florida Keys in 2017 and its appearance recently when officials blocked a horse being imported from Argentina into Florida until the animal was fully treated, Rollins said.

The U.S. shut down its fly factories after eliminating the pest from its soil, and sterile males have been bred since in the Western Hemisphere only at a single facility in Panama, which can produce about 117 million a week. The new fly factory in Texas would be designed to produce 300 million a week.

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The USDA also announced last month that it is offering up to $100 million in grants for projects designed to improve fly breeding, create new fly traps and lures, and produce treatments for infestations.
Voice control like that used in Tesla's Cybertruck is at the heart of a patent infringement suit brought against the automaker and X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. Jay Janner / American-Statesman

A Waco-based company is suing Elon Musks Tesla Inc. and X for infringing its patent on voice assistance technology.

Songbird Tech LLC says in its suit filed in U.S. District Court in Austin that the automaker is using its voice-assisted technologies in vehicles including the Austin-built Cybertruck. It also alleges X is using the technology in the social media platforms voice messaging.

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Neither X nor Tesla responded to requests for comment.

Its the latest in a string of suits Songbird Tech has filed in recent years. In the past three years, its sued nine companies including TV manufacturers Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics over the same patent. Those cases were voluntarily dismissed. All the lawsuits have been filed in U.S. District Court in Austin. It wasnt immediately clear if settlements had been reached.

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The company has been accused of being a non-practicing entity, also known as a patent troll. Those are companies that exist solely to sue over patents that can be vague and broad. They generally do not produce products but acquire them from other companies to pursue infringement lawsuits against companies for licensing fees.

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Songbird Techs attorney did not respond to a request for comment about its claims and its patent.

The technology included in all the companys lawsuits is protected under U.S. Patent No. 8,825,787, which court records say was issued in 2014. The patent is for a device using a microphone, computer, storage and software that records audio messages, stores it locally then transmits the audio query message.

That essentially makes it a patent for nearly any computer and software combination that uses a microphone for audio commands or messaging. Tesla and other automakers vehicles use voice control with a variety of features including navigation, media, phone and climate control.

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OTTAWA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Canadian political and business leaders have voiced strong opposition to U.S. President Donald Trump's threat to stall the opening of the nearly completed Gordie Howe International Bridge, local media reported on Monday.

The bridge, connecting Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan, will be the third crossing at the Windsor-Detroit gateway. This corridor handles approximately 25 percent of bilateral trade between Canada and the United States and serves as a vital artery for the North American automotive industry.

Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens criticized Trump for ignoring the mutual interests of both nations.

"It's just insane, when I read that post, I can't believe what I'm reading," Dilkens said. "It's just another speed bump that Donald Trump has put in the way of doing good things, not just for our country but for his as well."

Addressing Trump's claim that no American products were used in the construction, Dilkens clarified that American steel was utilized on the U.S. side of the project.

Candace Laing, president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, also warned in a statement that blocking the bridge's opening would be a "self-defeating" move.

"Whether this proves real or simply threatened to keep uncertainty high, blocking or barricading bridges is a self-defeating move," Laing said. "The path forward isn't deconstructing established trade corridors; it's actually building bridges."

The project is primarily funded by the Canadian federal government with an investment of 6.4 billion Canadian dollars (about 4.7 billion U.S. dollars). Canada plans to recover the cost through future toll revenues, which is slated to be shared with the state of Michigan once the investment is fully recouped.

Earlier Monday, Trump complained on his social media platform that Canada has treated the United States "unfairly" regarding trade. He asserted that the United States should own "at least one half" of the asset and threatened to block its opening unless it is compensated.

The rhetoric marks a sharp reversal from Trump's first term in 2017, when he endorsed the bridge as a "vital economic link between our two countries." 
The McNugget Caviar kits sold out in minutes. Screenshot / McDonald's

As soon as the countdown hit zero on mcnuggetcaviar.com Tuesday, McDonalds fans hoping to score a free McNugget Caviar kit hit a snag: This page isnt working, the error message read as the website crashed due to overwhelming demand.

For those who got through, just eight minutes after the kits became available, the site announced the kits were sold out.

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Unfortunately, our McNugget Caviar was everyones Valentine this year, and has flown off the shelves, the message read in part.

As soon as the countdown hit zero on mcnuggetcaviar.com Tuesday, McDonalds fans hoping to score a free McNugget Caviar kit hit a snag: This page isnt working, the error message read. Dante Motley/Austin American-Statesman

McDonalds announced it would give away free McNugget Caviar kits starting at 10 a.m. CST Feb. 10.

McDonalds has launched McNugget Caviar kits inspired by a viral trend. McDonalds

The McNugget-and-caviar pairing draws inspiration from a viral dish that debuted at the U.S. Open in August 2025. At the tournament, New Yorkbased Korean-inspired fried chicken restaurant COQODAQ sold an upscale take on chicken nuggets: six nuggets topped with Petrossian caviar, creme fraiche and chives for $100. Long associated with luxury, caviar consists of salt-cured, unfertilized fish eggs.

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Whats included in the McDonalds McNugget Caviar kit?

According to a press release, the kit comes with a 1-ounce tin of McNugget Caviar, a $25 McDonalds gift card, creme fraiche and a mother-of-pearl caviar spoon.

Did anyone get a McNugget Caviar kit?

Social media users expressed their dismay at the site crash and how quickly the kits sold out.

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The McDonalds McNugget Caviar sold out in 2 minutes. The website didnt even work for more than 2 seconds. I wouldnt be surprised if the whole thing was fake  Jordan (@jordanhuez) February 10, 2026

Devestated.... @McDonalds caviar nuggie site (T-T) went from countdown directly to down. Goodbye sweet, salty, delicious experience. A friend got in typed like a maniac and then hit submit and it said it was missed. Hope the lucky people post online so we can see how it looks. pic.twitter.com/ScuRiCSxYP  Dinomitetwins NYC  creators & streamers (@DinomiteTwins) February 10, 2026
Abraham Aguirre and Mikayda Mills two step on a dance floor at Two Step Inn at San Gabriel Park in Georgetown, Texas on Sunday, April 6, 2025. Aaron E. Martinez/American-Statesman

Valentines Day has a way of making even the most self-assured people take inventory. Not of their reservations or gift ideas, but of their dating history  specifically, the moments that went wrong in ways too specific to forget. Ive lived in Austin mostly single, which means Ive accumulated a personal archive of misfires.

Austin is a city built for romance, but its also a remarkably efficient place to learn what doesnt work. Im not alone. As of 2025, roughly 44 percent of Austins population is single. Dating here is less about finding perfection than navigating a series of near misses, each one clarifying what you can tolerate, what you can forgive and what you absolutely cannot.

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What follows are five first dates that didnt lead anywhere, but did leave me with a sharper understanding of who I am and how I want to show up with other people. I share them as field notes  from Austin bars, dance floors and concert venues  offered in the hope that recognition might spare someone else the same awkward lesson.

Why Barton Springs isnt a confessional

People swim during the annual Polar Bear Plunge at Barton Springs Pool in Austin, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. The spring-fed water at Barton Springs maintains a temperature of about 68 degrees. Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman

Vulnerability is good on a first date. Honesty is good. Emotional availability is supposedly the whole point. But asking a near-stranger to be your primary support system on a sunny afternoon at Barton Springs Pool  as one potential beau did  is a decidedly ambitious move.

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Barton Springs is not a confessional. It is a place for cold water, loose conversation and the mild fantasy that everything in your life is briefly fine. It is not where you unpack unresolved breakups, recent family conflicts or a list of career regrets.

I am not opposed to vulnerability. I just dont excel at managing other peoples emotional revelations while submerged in 68-degree water. There is something disorienting about treading water as your date catalogues their personal disappointments, each one hitting like a splash from the diving board.

Kit Baumann, right, and Aliza Orent react to the cold during the annual Polar Bear Plunge at Barton Springs Pool in Austin, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. The spring-fed water at Barton Springs maintains a temperature of about 68 degrees. Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman

What, exactly, is one supposed to do in that moment? There is no correct response. You listen. You float. You silently wish for a reset.

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The lesson, if there is one, is simple. On a first date  especially at a joyful public place that's as emotionally neutral as Barton Springs  its best to travel light. Bring curiosity. Bring sunscreen. Leave the baggage at home.

Austin concerts are sacred, so choose your date wisely

Fans pack into the Germania Insurance Amphitheater to see F1 drivers speak during fan experiences at the Formula 1 Pirelli United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. Aaron E. Martinez/American-Statesman

The Germania Insurance Amphitheater at Circuit of the Americas holds some of my most memorable Austin memories: seeing Lana Del Rey under the Texas sky, dancing to Kygo after Formula 1, and  less triumphantly  being trapped in a car with a man who felt compelled to demonstrate his authority on reality television.

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It was the summer of Love Island, a season Austin took personally. Allegiances were declared at watch parties, debated at bars and occasionally broadcast on dating profiles. So when my date brought it up after Willies Fourth of July Picnic, I assumed it would be lighthearted  a way to pass the slow crawl of traffic back into town. This assumption was wrong.

Willie Nelson performs at his Fourth of July Picnic in Austin at the Germania Insurance Amphitheater on July 4, 2025. Ana Gutierrez / Austin American-Statesman

My date had never seen the show. Not one episode. Still, in the spirit of modern confidence, he had plenty of opinions. I tried to meet him halfway. When I pointed out that he hadnt actually watched it, he went quiet.

There are few things more uncomfortable than a silent car ride with a first date, especially when it arrives after a conversational collapse and unfolds at five miles per hour. What should have remained one of the best concert nights Ive had in Austin became permanently attached to that stalled drive and its half-baked argument.

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If there is a lesson here, its this: protect your experiences. Choose your concert companions carefully  especially when the venue is an hour away and the ride home leaves no room to escape.

Keep your Juul in your pocket at AFS

AFS Cinema is run by the Austin Film Society, which was founded by Richard Linklater in 1985. Austin American-Statesman

If youve never been, the Austin Film Society Cinema is an arthouse shrine: industrial lightbulbs glowing, movie posters lining the walls, a bar humming with people who seem to possess a private language built out of directors cuts. Its the kind of place that makes you want to earn your seat.

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Its also the kind of place where forgetting yourself is easy  unless your first date has no working knowledge of cinema etiquette. The rules, to me, were obvious: no talking, no phones, no aggressive snacking. What never occurred to me was the need to explicitly ban vaping until my date casually produced a crackling Juul mid-screening.

Time and place matter. There was a moment in cinematic history when people smoked in theaters, when Hitchcocks "Rear Window" premiered under a haze of cigarettes and social permission. This is not that moment. In this era, people insist they dont vape while actively vaping, a contradiction best left outside.

A poster for Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 mystery film 'Rear Window' starring James Stewart. Movie Poster Image Art/Getty Images

There was also the context: we were watching "Wild at Heart," only days after David Lynchs death, in what is arguably the most sacred movie house in Austin. This felt less like a personal quirk and more like a misunderstanding of the room.

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We remained friends. No harm done. But the lesson is straightforward. On a first date  and especially in a place built on collective reverence  courtesy is not optional. And for the love of cinema, keep your Juul in your pocket.

Leave room for possibility  and skip the last shot

A Smokey Frozen Margarita is served at Old Pal Texas Tavern on Friday, June 20, 2025 in Lockhart, Texas. Aaron E. Martinez/Austin American-Statesman

Consider this a warning to anyone who loves tequila and believes in first impressions. A first date already demands optimism and the ability to appear charming while pretending not to care. Alcohol does not improve these odds. Tequila, in particular, tends to make them worse.

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The mistake begins innocently enough. You meet friends for a quick drink at a place like De Nada or Polvos, where margaritas arrive with the confidence of someone who has never suffered consequences.

There is always a final shot  the one taken out of misplaced faith that courage can be distilled. This is incorrect. I learned this at Mohawk, the kind of venue where effortlessness is the dress code. Daydream Twins played. My date and I talked and drifted toward Big Topics, testing alignment.

Gurriers performs at Mohawk in downtown Austin at SXSW Friday, March 14, 2025. Ricardo B. Brazziell/American-Statesman

Artificial intelligence entered the conversation, a loaded subject in Austin where tradition is trampled by innovation, whether its self-driving cars or app-run everything. We did not reach a compromise. Instead, my body reached a conclusion. I excused myself and made a swift calculation involving the nearest trash can.

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My date was gracious, but we never saw each other again. The lesson has little to do with tequila and everything to do with restraint. Its about leaving enough room for possibility. And tequila has a way of filling the space where that possibility might otherwise live.

When you cant lead at the White Horse

Viva Big Bend Launch Party Thursday, June 28, at The White Horse Saloon Austin 360

A first date at a two-stepping bar is a small act of faith. At the White Horse, that faith is amplified by sweat, live fiddle and the unspoken understanding that someone is expected to lead.

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The White Horse on a good night is pure Austin choreography: Lone Stars sweating in hands, couples moving in confident, circular patterns as if they were born knowing when to turn. My date did not know his left foot from his right. This, on its own, is not a crime. Everyone starts somewhere. But in a space where the lead is traditionally offered  and taken  hesitation reads loudly.

Eventually, someone else asked me to dance. This is normal at the White Horse. Its a place built on shared movement. I said yes. For a moment, I almost reached joy  caught in the rhythm, carried by someone who knew exactly where the music was going.

Attendees dance at Two Step Inn at San Gabriel Park in Georgetown, Texas on Sunday, April 6, 2025. Aaron E. Martinez/American-Statesman

Then I opened my eyes and saw my date watching from the edge of the floor, expression tight with something that looked like disapproval. Whatever it was, it hovered between us when I returned, heavier than the music. We never quite found our footing again.

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Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime associate of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, refused to answer questions during a virtual appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Monday. (Photo by Sylvain Gaboury/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images) Sylvain Gaboury/Sylvain Gaboury/Patrick McMullan

Ghislaine Maxwell, who is incarcerated on federal sex-trafficking charges and was a longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein, refused Monday to respond to questions during a House Oversight Committee deposition.

Committee Chairman James R. Comer, R-Ky., said Maxwell who appeared remotely from a Texas prison cited the Fifth Amendment in answer to every question.

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In an opening statement, Maxwells lawyer, David Oscar Markus, said she would be willing to answer questions if she were granted clemency by President Donald Trump, according to media reports.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee criticized Maxwells bid for a presidential pardon and said President Trumps unwillingness to rule it out has undermined the committee's investigation.

"She is campaigning over and over again to get that pardon from President Trump, and this president has not ruled it out, Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D, Va., said. "And so that is why she is continuing to not cooperate with our investigation."

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Here's what to know about clemency and why Maxwell is seeking it.

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Who is Ghislaine Maxwell?

Ghislaine Maxwell is a British socialite and former associate of financier Jeffrey Epstein. She was a prominent figure in elite social circles for years before being charged by U.S. prosecutors with helping Epstein recruit, groom, and traffic underage girls for sexual abuse.

In 2021, Maxwell was convicted on multiple federal sex trafficking-related charges and later sentenced to 20 years in prison. She is currently incarcerated at Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas.

What is clemency?

Clemency refers to the authority of the president or a state governor to forgive a crime through a pardon or to reduce a criminal sentence. The word itself is defined as mercy or leniency.

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Why is Ghislaine Maxwell asking for clemency?

Maxwells primary appeals to the Supreme Court were denied in October 2025, leaving her 20-year sex-trafficking conviction intact.

In December 2025, she filed a habeas corpus petition citing newly discovered evidence and alleged constitutional violations during her trial. She has also sought presidential clemency, potentially offering to testify about Epsteins associates in exchange for a pardon or sentence reduction.

Ghislaine Maxwell invoked her Constitutional right to silence this morning before @RepJamesComer and the House Oversight Committee. Here is the statement I gave to the Committee explaining why:



Members of the Committee:



On my advice, Ghislaine Maxwell will respectfully invoke  David Oscar Markus (@domarkus) February 9, 2026

What is the Fifth Amendment?

The Fifth Amendment establishes several protections that apply in both criminal and civil proceedings.

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In criminal cases, it guarantees the right to a grand jury, prohibits double jeopardy, and shields individuals from being compelled to incriminate themselves.
A Department of Public Safety trooper competes in the driving skills contest at the 12th Annual Top Trooper Competition at the DPS Tactical Training Center in Florence Tuesday April 23, 2024. The weeklong event has 120 troopers competing in physical fitness, driving and firearms skills, and job knowledge. The male and female winners will earn the Javier Arana, Jr. Top Trooper Award, named after fallen Trooper Javier Arana, Jr., who participated in the inaugural competition, and get a new patrol vehicle. Jay Janner / American-Statesman

A young motorcyclist died Sunday night after a crash in Northeast Austin following a pursuit by a state trooper, authorities said.

A trooper with the Texas Department of Public Safety was pursuing a motorcycle east on U.S. 290 around 8:11 p.m. when the trooper lost sight of the vehicle and terminated the pursuit, according to police. Shortly afterward, authorities learned the motorcycle had crashed at the intersection of East Parmer Lane and Old Highway 20 near Manor.

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The rider, identified as Javan O. Jackson, 20, was given life-saving measures but was pronounced dead at the scene around 9 p.m.

Manor Police Department and the Austin Police Department assisted at the scene. APD assumed responsibility over the investigation, according to DPS.
Jay Janner is a staff photographer at the Austin American-Statesman where, since 2003, he has documented life in one of the most dynamic cities in America. In his more than 30-year career, Janner photographed many of the biggest news stories in Austin but his greatest joy is photographing moments in the lives of everyday people. Community photojournalism is his passion. Janner is an eight-time National Press Photographers Association Regional Photographer of the Year and a four-time winner of the Headliners Foundation of Texas Star Photojournalist of the Year award. His photos have won numerous state and national awards including Pictures of the Year International and NPPA Best of Photojournalism. Born in Houston and raised in Bryan, Texas, Janner earned a Bachelor's Degree in Journalism from Texas A&M University. He previously worked as a staff photographer at the Corpus Christi Caller-Times and the Colorado Springs Gazette.
Oil rig File

Did you just finish binge-watching Landman and start thinking, Hm, I should really get in on this oil thing  no? Just me?

Regardless of your Billy Bob Thornton oil-baron dreams, one lucky person could win 100 acres worth of mineral rights in South Texas  for less than the price of a six-pack of Thorntons characters beloved Michelob Ultras.

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The Wittman family has accumulated multiple land and mineral interests across Texas throughout multiple generations, and they've decided that instead of selling mineral rights on a 100-acre plot of land in Frio County the traditional way, they're raffling the rights off for less than $5 a ticket. Don't want the rights? You could opt for a $1 million cash prize instead.

Heres how the raffle works: Tickets cost roughly $4.10 (the Wittmans are using the British-based site Raffall for the contest, so tickets are listed for 3.00 each). One ticket gets you one entry  so the more you buy, the better your odds. You can bundle tickets for a few special offers: For example, if you buy three tickets, you get three bonus tickets, or if you buy 15, you get 45 more.

Whoever wins will get the opportunity to buy the mineral acres for a purchase price of $1  the Wittmans will cover the title, escrow and closing costs. If the winner doesn't want the mineral rights, they can opt for a $1 million cash prize instead.

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There's a catch: The sweepstakes requires at least 500,000 total entries for the prize to be awarded. If there are less than 500,000, a winner will receive a cash alternative calculated based on the total amount of money the sweepstakes earned. More details  including raffle limitations and rules  can be found on the raffle site.

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Billy Bob Thornton and Ali Larter in "Landman" James Minchin

What are mineral rights in Texas?

The sweepstakes page does a great job of explaining, but for those who were more interested in watching Tommy Norris' hilarious ex-(or current?) wife and daughter's shenanigans than paying attention to the actual oil-business parts of "Landman," here's what the Wittmans have to say about it:

Mineral rights give you ownership of what lies below the ground, including oil and natural gas, the sweepstakes page reads. If energy companies lease these minerals and drill wells, the mineral owner may earn money through royalty payments and lease bonuses  without paying drilling or operating costs. This Prize includes ONLY mineral rights, not the land, buildings, or surface property above them.

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According to Investopedia, the rights cover underground resources like fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, coal, etc.), metals and ores, and mineable rocks such as limestone and salt. It means that whoever owns the rights can drill or use other resource-extraction techniques to retrieve whatever's beneath the surface to sell or use for their own needs.

The Wittmans said the rights in the raffle have been in their family for more than a century. They're located over the Pearsall Shale formation in South Texas, a known area for drilling oil and gas.

While future drilling is never guaranteed, owning mineral rights in an active region means youre positioned to benefit if development occurs now or in the future, the sweepstakes page reads. The offered acreage is currently leased by a major oil company with a 22.5% royalty and is adjacent to active drilling by the same company.

Is the giveaway legal?

According to the Raffall platform, the giveaway is technically classified as a sweepstakes, not a raffle -- despite the name.

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When making a purchase to enter the giveaway, the user is met with the following message:

In compliance with US sweepstakes laws, you are not required to make a purchase to get sweepstakes entries. You are receiving the entries as a free bonus with a purchase of Raffall Tokens, which give you the opportunity to access, play, and compete in various arcade games on our platform. This ensures that our platform adheres to all legal requirements while still providing a fun and rewarding experience for all users. Postal entry method is also available as outlined in our Terms and Conditions.

At least two other Texas families have used the United Kingdom-based platform to host similar sweepstakes, according to MySanAntonio.com. Both were also classified as sweepstakes and were not subject to the Texas Charitable Raffle Enabling Act, which governs raffles. The CREA states that only nonprofit entities can host raffles, while a sweepstakes is defined as a promotional tool and a contest that awards one or more prizes based on chance or the random selection of entries.
University of Texas students walk through campus in front of the UT Tower on the first day of the spring semester in 2023. Aaron E. Martinez/American-Statesman

Texas landed two universities in TIMEs new Worlds Top Universities of 2026 list: Rice University at No. 24 and the University of Texas at Austin at No. 37.

The University of Oxford took the top spot, followed by Yale, Stanford, MIT and the University of Chicago following respectively.

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HOUSTON, TEXAS - SEPTEMBER 12: Visitors walk through the new, redesigned Academic Quad on the campus of Rice University, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, in Houston. The revamped, four-acre space included the refreshed pathways through the space flanked by trees, community spaces and benches and the relocation of the statue of university founder William Marsh Rice. The relocation including the addition of historical context about Rice, including his ownership of enslaved people. (Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images) Houston Chronicle/Hearst Newspap/Houston Chronicle via Getty Imag

Unlike traditional prestige-focused rankings, TIMEs list is built around research output, innovation, and alumni outcomes, tracking how universities translate education into influence.

Texas schools on the list

Rice University  No. 24

Rice ranked 24th globally, with an overall score of 75.78  driven by strong showings in academic capacity and performance, as well as innovation and economic impact.

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That profile reflects what has long set Rice apart. It's a small, research-intensive university that punches well above its size in citations, patents and elite graduate outcomes. In a ranking that heavily weights academic performance and innovation, Rice benefits from its concentration of resources and its outsized role in research and professional pipelines  even as it remains far smaller than most public flagships on the list.

University of Texas at Austin  No. 37

University of Texas students walk on campus blocks away from the Texas Capitol on Friday, Oct. 24, 2025. Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman

The University of Texas at Austin landed at No. 37 worldwide, with an overall score of 70.72. Its strongest pillar was innovation and economic impact.

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UT is a public university with deep ties to industry, research commercialization and workforce pipelines. While its global engagement score trails some smaller or more internationally oriented institutions, UTs innovation score puts it in the same conversation as elite private universities.

Chicano literature books are placed on a shelf in the home office of Daniel Acosta, former UT Pharmacy professor, in his home in Central Austin on Monday, Jan 5, 2026. Aaron E. Martinez/Austin American-Statesman

Breakdown by country: who dominates the top 100?

Among the top 100 universities shown in TIMEs table, the field is heavily concentrated in a few places:

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United States: 42 universities

United Kingdom: 18 universities

Australia: 8 universities

Switzerland: 7 universities

Canada: 5 universities

Germany: 3 universities

Hong Kong: 3 universities

China: 2 universities

Japan: 2 universities

South Korea: 2 universities

Singapore: 2 universities

And one each from Denmark, Sweden, New Zealand, Ireland, the Netherlands and Austria

Methodology: what TIME says it measures

TIME says the ranking was produced with Statista and built on three weighted pillars:

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Academic Capacity & Performance (60%)  resources and academic output, including measures tied to publications/citations and academic distinction

Innovation & Economic Impact (30%)  patents and innovation signals, plus career/leadership outcomes

Global Engagement (10%)  indicators tied to international reach, including international students/faculty and web visibility.
Lorena Guillen, co-owner of the Blue Oak RV Park in Ingram, about 110 miles west of Austin, becomes emotional as she recalls the night of July 4, when four RV tenants were swept away by historic flooding. She spoke while sitting at her restaurant, Howdys Bar and Chill, overlooking the Guadalupe River. Megan Weise/Texas State University

KERRVILLE  A riverside RV park once meant to fund Lorena Guillens retirement is now shuttered for good after July 4 flooding killed four people at Blue Oak RV Park and devastated the family-run business.

Guillen and her husband purchased the park  just feet from the typically tranquil Guadalupe River  as a retirement investment built on steady cash flow. That plan collapsed when a deadly flood swept through the property during the July 4 weekend.

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Four people staying at Blue Oak were killed in the flooding, part of a Texas Hill Country disaster that claimed at least 135 lives overall and left entire riverside communities in ruins.

Guillens loss reflects a broader reckoning after the floods, which exposed vulnerabilities at riverside youth camps, RV parks and campgrounds. While Texas lawmakers have since passed new safety legislation, survivors say disaster relief has been uneven  often favoring homeowners over small businesses and low-income residents.

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If theres another 40-foot flood again, knowing that theres nobody here, Ill be able to sleep, Guillen said. And I dont think Ill survive another flood like this.

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Shes been trying to obtain a Small Business Administration loan to rebuild after more than $2 million in damage, but the federal agency has denied her three times due to lack of collateral. After the most recent denial, she suffered a heart attack and collapsed on the floor of an SBA office.

After a short hospital stay, Guillen recovered physically, but the remaining emotional and financial strains have forced Blue Oak RV Park  and likely its adjoining restaurant  to close permanently.

We lost our revenue. We lost our income, Guillen said. The two businesses together, it was perfect, but the restaurant alone cant pay that big mortgage.

Guillens restaurant, Howdys Bar and Chill, nestled next to the RV park, is a cozy, classic Texas honky-tonk, where '80s country music plays over the speakers and the walls are covered from floor to ceiling with relics from the community. Much of the food is made from Guillens own recipes.

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On the night of the flood, residents of the RV park gathered at the restaurant to kick off the holiday with beer, music and family. During the flood, the restaurant became a refuge, where people evacuated with nothing but a beloved pet or clothes they grabbed from their RVs before they were whisked away.

We did a headcount, and I knew exactly who we had missing, Guillen said. At that point, a third wave came, and it went inside the restaurant.

'It was such a beautiful day'

The Burgess family arrived at Blue Oak on July 3 to pick up their daughter from camp.

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The kids were so excited, Guillen said. Their dog was so excited. It was such a beautiful day.

Hours later, John Burgess was wading through floodwater with his 1- and 3-year-old sons in his arms, with his wife following behind.

Guillen tried to get the firefighters on scene to help them, but instead her husband, Bob Canales, tied a rope around his waist to try and reach the family.

My husband said, Throw me your baby, Guillen recalled. He didnt do it. And a second later, the second wave came, and it took the family, and all four of them died.

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Uprooted cabins, cars and RVs from the camp upriver rushed past Blue Oak, with people still inside, honking their horns and screaming for help as they crashed into trees. Guillen could feel electricity from fallen power lines humming through the water.

The firefighters were on scene but did not assist with the attempted rescue of the Burgess family or any others, she said.

They never had the sirens on. They didnt knock on anybodys door, Guillen said. My husband was desperately trying to get them to.

Guillen also lost one of her employees, Julian Ryan, that night. He bled to death in his driveway from injuries while trying to save his family, she said.

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I cant be here that much because of my anxiety. My stress starts going crazy, Guillen said. Before, I used to work 16-hour days, seven days a week, and that was my normal, and I loved it. Now, I can barely come here for a couple of days out of the week, because its just too much.

Waiting for relief

More than $100 million has been donated to Hill Country flood relief, with donors such as the Dallas Cowboys, Buc-ees and George Strait, whose relief concert raised funds. Less than three weeks after the flood, the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country announced it had raised $60 million through its Kerr County Flood Relief Fund.

She says the communitys response has been outstanding, but the distribution of the relief funds appears to have bypassed her business, as well as some lower-income residents.

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She received enough donations to rebuild her parking lot but has otherwise received little aid, she said.

There was so much money donated  where is it? Guillen asked. Theyre going to start helping with the homes, which is great, but a lot of these are second or third homes, vacation homes, summer homes.

Obviously, everybody has the right to get their house fixed no matter what. But start with the low-income first, she said.

Nearly a third of the July 4 flood deaths occurred in youth camps, RV parks and campgrounds.

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Texas lawmakers passed Senate Bill 1, also known as Heavens 27 Camp Safety Act, to revamp the safety procedures for youth camps. RV parks and campsites are addressed in the bill, but most of the requirements apply to youth camps.

The bill requires sites with cabins or sleeping quarters located within a 100-year floodplain to have an evacuation plan in place, as well as escape ladders.

Andrew Parks, committee director for the state Senate Committee on Water, Agriculture and Rural Affairs and the Texas Senate Select Committee on Disaster Preparedness and Flooding, said that the evacuation plan requirement was born from an experience at Camp La Junta, a youth camp downriver from Camp Mystic on the South Fork of the Guadalupe River.

They had one cabin that was in the floodplain, and the water was rushing in too fast, Parks said. They couldnt get out so, they climbed up into the rafters of the cabin and hung on while the wave came through.

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The Texas Association of Campground Owners has helped RV park owners get back on their feet after the flood, including raising nearly $30,000 through GoFundMe.

We have a PR firm that we work with, and we decided to do a series of press releases, basically indicating that, hey, the Hill Country is open for business, said Brian Schaeffer, executive director and CEO of TACO.

Unfortunately, the media sort of paints big swaths of Texas, like, oh, you dont go there. Its all been flooded out. Theres nothing left, which isnt true, Shaeffer said.

Although Guillen will not reopen Blue Oak, she believes SB 1 will help in future floods.

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Anything that they can learn from this flood is important, Guillen said. But I think its also very important that they come and ask us, the people that went through it, because unless youve lived it, you have no idea what it is.
State Rep. James Talarico, a Democrat now running for U.S. Senate, practices a form of leadership grounded in persuasion and moral clarity, the Statesman Editorial Board writes. Jay Janner/American-Statesman

These are not normal times. Masked immigration enforcement agents are confronting people in the streets. Artificial intelligence is poised to disrupt the economy and the workforce in ways we barely understand, and social media platforms have become so effective at sustaining our attention through outrage that we struggle to talk across our differences. Confidence in political institutions is cratering.

That makes the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate more than simply a contest between two compelling candidates. The race for the seat held by Republican Sen. John Cornyn, locked in his own bruising primary battle, is a test of what kind of leadership Texans need in a moment defined by instability, uncertainty and a widening trust gap between the public and those who govern.

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In our view, the best Democratic contender to meet this moment is state Rep. James Talarico. He and his primary opponent, U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, both offer serious choices to voters, but Talaricos approach reflects a conviction that political leaders should focus on building trust in a deeply divided moment.

The Austin-area lawmaker and former public school teacher practices a form of leadership grounded in persuasion and moral clarity. He speaks forcefully about feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger and protecting the vulnerable  not as slogans, but as ethical obligations that should guide public policy.

Politics is just another word for how we treat our neighbors, and we should treat each other a lot better than this, Talarico told our Editorial Board. So I do think we can take on this broken system and chart a new kind of politics that's not rooted in division, not rooted in fear and hate, but something that's rooted in hope and service and in love.

A Presbyterian seminarian, Talarico is animated by his faith but also firm in his commitment to the separation of church and state. He recognizes that an erosion of that wall undermines the fairness of government and the integrity of religion alike.

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Talarico has centered his campaign on an anti-corruption agenda, arguing that our politics are warped by partisan gerrymandering, corporate interests pouring unchecked PAC dollars into swaying elections, and members of Congress using their inside knowledge to make lucrative stock trades.

Equally important, though, is how Talarico conducts himself. He does not traffic in name-calling or viral theatrics. He offers clear-eyed condemnations of double standards. In a December forum with undecided voters, asked about the notion that welfare queens are taking advantage of social safety net programs, Talarico said that programs need to be administered appropriately. But he noted: The biggest welfare queens in this country are the giant corporations that dont pay a penny in federal taxes. The biggest welfare queens are the CEOs who get a tax deduction for flying on a private jet. It's not hungry kids, it's not working parents who work multiple jobs to provide for their families.

Crucially, for Democrats, Talarico excels at speaking outside progressive silos  breaking through with podcaster Joe Rogans audience, for one  showing potential to expand the base in a state that hasnt elected a Democrat to statewide office in more than three decades. We saw a glimpse of his crossover appeal in 2018, when Talarico won his first Texas House race in a district where a majority of voters had backed President Donald Trump two years earlier.

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Crockett, an attorney finishing her second term representing a Dallas-based district, brings formidable strengths to this race. She is intellectually sharp and deeply versed in policy. We particularly appreciated her focus on passing voting rights legislation, even if that means creating a carveout in the filibuster rules, to shore up the foundational pillars of our democracy.

Too often, though, Crockett is better known for a combative rhetorical style that threatens to undercut her effectiveness. Her sharpest moments  referring to Gov. Greg Abbott as Governor Hot Wheels or deriding the bleach blonde, bad built, butch body of a fellow member of Congress  undoubtedly earn cheers from those who already agree with her. But they reinforce the very dynamics that have made our politics brittle, polarized and unproductive.

Crockett argues her approach connects with disillusioned Democrats who want to see their party respond forcefully to the fierce urgency of now. We believe the better path is to draw voters into a vision of a better America.

We recognize that Talarico drew heat last week over a private remark about former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred. Talarico has said he used the word mediocre to describe Allreds unsuccessful 2024 campaign, not Allred himself as a Black man, as a TikTok creator alleged (there is no recording). This moment poses a test for Talarico to lead with humility and model the culture of respect he has professed.

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Our Editorial Board has long argued that a healthier politics depends on leaders who can lower the temperature without lowering the stakes. Talarico embodies that approach. He offers a model of politics rooted in moral seriousness, democratic restraint and a genuine belief that persuasion still matters.

For those reasons, we recommend James Talarico in the March 3 Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.
Former House Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, presides over a House Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing "An Assessment of the State Departments Withdrawal from Afghanistan by Americas Top Diplomat," on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024. Rod Lamkey/AP

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul on Tuesday criticized former Border Patrol commander at large Greg Bovino for escalating the standoff between Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and protestors in Minneapolis, which has resulted in at least two deaths.

At a hearing in Washington with acting ICE director Todd Lyons and U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott, McCaul, a Republican from Austin, broke with many in his party in criticizing how the Trump administration has gone about cracking down on illegal immigration.

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"Agent Bovino came into the situation, and I'd say in fairness he escalated the situation by the way that was handled," McCaul told Lyons. "Your officers are not trained to effectuate crowd control, they're trained to go in surgically and remove these dangerous criminals."

President Donald Trump removed Bovino from his post at Border Patrol last month, sending border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota to take over.

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McCaul, who previously chaired the House Homeland Security Committee and is not seeking reelection, described the situation in Minneapolis as a "perfect storm," laying blame on both the Trump administration and the Biden administration.

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He also praised Homan for working with state and local authorities and requiring federal officers to wear body cameras.

"In his words to me, 'Roving patrols should be done on the border and not in major cities,'" McCaul said. "He is returning to the original mandate of ICE."

McCaul announced his retirement from Congress last year, expressing frustration with the partisanship and "circus" atmosphere in Washington.

His comments came during an at times tense hearing, with U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver, a New Jersey Democrat, asking Lyons if he was a Christian before asking, "How do you think judgement day will work for you with so much blood on your hands?"

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Lyons refused to answer the question, as Republican members yelled out in opposition to the question.

A recent poll by Reuters/IPSOS found that only 39% of Americans approve of Trumps immigration policies, compared with 53% who disapprove.

While many Republicans in Congress continue to defend ICE actions in Minnesota without reserve, there is a growing effort to work with Democrats on immigration.

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Outside the hearing room,. U.S. Rep. August Pfluger, a San Angelo Republican, criticized Democrats for allowing millions of migrants to cross illegally into the United States during the Biden administration but also said he wanted to to work with them on reforming the U.S. immigration system.
U.S. Independent Senator Angus King of Maine speaks during a press conference in Nuuk, Greenland's capital, an autonomous territory of Denmark, Feb. 9, 2026. A U.S. congressional delegation visiting Greenland on Monday dismissed U.S. President Donald Trump's claim that the island is "all over" with Russian and Chinese vessels, calling the assertion "not true." (Xinhua/Li Ying)

NUUK, Greenland, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- A U.S. congressional delegation visiting Greenland on Monday dismissed U.S. President Donald Trump's claim that the island is "all over" with Russian and Chinese vessels, calling the assertion "not true."

Speaking at a press conference in Nuuk, Greenland's capital, Independent Senator Angus King of Maine said that based on the delegation's on-site observations and briefings from Denmark's Joint Arctic Command, Trump's remarks about the presence of Russian and Chinese ships near Greenland were unfounded.

King also rejected Trump's suggestion that Greenland's defense relies mainly on "sled dogs," stressing that "the security and defense capacity of Greenland is strong and growing stronger," in response to a question from Xinhua.

The delegation arrived in Nuuk on Saturday with the stated aim of "repairing relations" and "rebuilding trust" with Denmark and Greenland. The group is led by Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Senator Angus King, and includes lawmakers from both the Republican and Democratic parties.

Murkowski said Trump's recent comments about taking over Greenland and related threats have caused harm to the people of Greenland. "It hurts my heart," she said, adding that Trump's "few words have eroded and undermined trust built since World War II."

The purpose of the visit, Murkowski noted, is to "work to rebuild that trust." 

U.S. Independent Senator Angus King of Maine attends a press conference in Nuuk, Greenland's capital, an autonomous territory of Denmark, Feb. 9, 2026. A U.S. congressional delegation visiting Greenland on Monday dismissed U.S. President Donald Trump's claim that the island is "all over" with Russian and Chinese vessels, calling the assertion "not true." (Xinhua/Li Ying)

U.S. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska speaks during a press conference in Nuuk, Greenland's capital, an autonomous territory of Denmark, Feb. 9, 2026. A U.S. congressional delegation visiting Greenland on Monday dismissed U.S. President Donald Trump's claim that the island is "all over" with Russian and Chinese vessels, calling the assertion "not true." (Xinhua/Li Ying)
Levi Fuller, shown far right, during a July 2024 hearing on Attorney General Ken Paxton's legal actions against Catholic Charities. Valerie Gonzalez/Associated Press

The Texas Education Agencys decision last week to hire former Republican staffer Levi Fuller to help head teacher conduct investigations drew immediate praise from within GOP circles and blowback from school advocates who worry the agency is being used to police educators speech.

Fuller, for his part, is keeping his cards close to his chest.

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In an interview, the new inspector general declined to comment on recent probes into educators who commented negatively about conservative activist Charlie Kirk after his assassination or those who Republican leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott, have accused of helping facilitate student walkouts over the Trump administrations immigration crackdown.

Fuller, 39, confirmed that his role will include oversight on cases like those, but wouldnt expand on how he plans to approach them, or even how teachers should weigh their professional requirements with First Amendment rights. Educators and school districts should review the code of ethics and relevant state laws, he said.

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Objectivity and fairness  that's going to be at the core, Fuller said. At the end of the day, what we're looking for are violations of law or statute.

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Fuller previously worked as chief of staff for Republican state Rep. Andy Hopper and, before that, under Attorney General Ken Paxton, working on election integrity cases and Paxtons ongoing efforts to shut down an El Paso-based Catholic nonprofit over its migrant assistance services. He also worked as a military lawyer prosecuting sexual assault cases.

He said he doesnt plan to be primarily involved with investigations into misconduct. Instead, he will lead prosecution for any resulting cases that are brought to state-run administrative hearings. TEA investigations can lead to teachers being placed on the Do Not Hire list, formal warnings, dismissal and the suspension or revocation of teaching licenses.

In September, the TEA said it was looking into over 350 complaints of teachers or staff members comments, mostly on social media, in the wake of Kirks killing. The agency is now facing a lawsuit from Texas largest teachers union, which has blasted the probes as a witch hunt that incurs educators free speech rights. Nearly 100 cases are still pending, with the remainder dismissed, an agency spokesperson said in early January.

The American Federation of Teachers Texas chapter said in a press release last week that it was concerned Fullers new position would be weaponized against educators over political differences or frivolous allegations of misconduct. And on Monday, 36 Democratic members of the state House penned a letter to TEA Commissioner Mike Morath criticizing his directives on how schools should react to recent anti-ICE walkouts as vague and inflammatory.

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The response from both the Governor and TEA has focused on punishment rather than partnership, leaving districts to manage complex, real-time safety situations without the clarity and support they need, they wrote.

Meanwhile, Fuller said he plans to focus on sexual assault cases, drawing from his past experience as a military lawyer in the U.S. Army. He said TEA should spend more of its resources on reports of those kinds of abuses from across Texas 1,200 school districts.

Bringing his criminal background into the agency and serving as a liaison to law enforcement officials will help close the gap between misconduct reports and eventual criminal charges, Fuller said, emphasizing that he attended public schools in Lufkin and is a public school parent himself.

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The goal is just to keep kids safe, and that's what we're going to do, Fuller said. We're gonna use all the powers of the TEA to fix this problem.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- An 18-month-old girl held at a U.S. immigration detention center was hospitalized with a life-threatening respiratory illness last month and returned to custody days later without receiving the prescribed daily medication, according to a federal lawsuit filed Friday.

The girl and her parents were arrested during a scheduled check-in with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in December and transferred to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center (Dilley) in south Texas, a remote family detention facility, the lawsuit said.

The girl, who had been healthy before her detention, was diagnosed with pneumonia, COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus and severe respiratory distress when being sent to a hospital in January, according to the lawsuit.

After spending 10 days in a hospital, the girl was returned to immigration detention and was denied "access to the medication that doctors prescribed for her at the hospital," the lawsuit said. As NBC reported, medical experts who reviewed her records said the girl was in "extreme danger" and faced a "high risk for medical decompensation and death."

After her lawyer filed an emergency habeas corpus petition in federal court on Friday, the girl and her parents were released. The lawyer added that ICE still retained the child's prescriptions and birth certificate.

"DEEPLY TROUBLING"

The case has drawn renewed attention to Dilley, the only family detention center currently in operation in the United States. According to a report from DetentionReports.com, the population there has surged from fewer than 500 in October to 1,332 as of late January. As Austin Kocher, an assistant research professor at Syracuse University, estimated, approximately 800 of those detained are likely children.

Immigration attorney Eric Lee, who visited the facility in late January, described conditions at Dilley as "deeply troubling." U.S. Representative Joaquin Castro, who also visited the center, said what he observed amounted to "inhumanity."

According to a report by ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative journalism organization, children detained at Dilley said they had experienced inadequate food, contaminated water, insufficient medical care and limited access to education.

Dilley is not the only ICE facility to have raised concerns. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said on Monday that a Palestinian woman who had been detained by ICE in Texas since March was hospitalized after suffering a seizure on Friday. In a statement, the woman's legal team said she had experienced dizziness, fainting episodes and other symptoms linked to poor nutrition while in custody.

The legal team said ICE failed to inform the woman's lawyers and family of her condition and whereabouts following her hospitalization.

With prolonged detention, some immigrants remain in ICE custody even after agreeing to leave the United States. Ana Alicia Huerta, a senior attorney at the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, told local media that some detainees continued to wait for court hearings despite having signed voluntary deportation forms.

In a 2001 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court said immigration detention should not be indefinite, finding six months to be a presumptively reasonable period. However, the DHS said its policies follow the law, citing a court ruling that the administration can continue to detain immigrants without bond.

The media have reported that at least six immigrants have died in ICE detention centers in the United States so far in 2026. One was initially reported as a suicide by ICE and then the local authorities ruled his death a homicide. In two other cases, family members and lawyers have questioned whether detainees received timely medical treatment, raising concerns over delayed or ignored care.

Under provisions of U.S. federal law and DHS appropriations statutes, ICE is required to provide detailed reports on immigrants who die in the agency's custody within 90 days of their deaths. However, according to a report by Zeteo, since October, ICE has failed to do so for at least eight immigrants who have died in detention centers.

WHAT ARE THEY HIDING?

According to ICE data, over 90 percent of people are held in privately-run immigrant detention centers, which annually gain profits of hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars from contracts with ICE.

The American Immigration Council recently issued a report, saying ICE has signed extensive new contracts with private prison companies to reopen shuttered prisons and detention centers or expand existing facilities.

New plans suggest that the administration may open a tent camp and even purchase unused commercial warehouses and convert them into jails to hold thousands of people at a time.

Private-prison operator GEO Group has rejected a shareholder vote designed to shed light on alleged human rights violations in its operation of ICE detention centers, local media reported on Monday.

"The fact that the company isn't transparent with us, that raises red flags," said Bryan Pham, a Jesuit priest who leads the investors' talks with GEO. "Does it have something to hide?" 
MEXICO CITY, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- An explosion at a pipeline of state-owned company Petroleos Mexicanos in Oaxaca, southern Mexico, has killed at least three people and injured six others, governor Salomon Jara said Tuesday.

In a social media post, Jara said that the injured have been transported for medical attention, adding that the explosion occurred in the locality of Loma Larga, in El Barrio de la Soledad municipality.

Jara said that firefighters responded immediately to the accident, and emergency crews are continuing risk mitigation and containment efforts in the area. 
Investors can look at Berkshire Hathaway's massive $324 billion public equities portfolio to find worthy ideas. The largest holdings, like Apple, American Express, and Coca-Cola, get a lot of the attention.

But the conglomerate owns much smaller stakes in other successful industry leaders. Say hello to what might be two of the safest Warren Buffett stocks investors can buy in 2026 -- two holdings that the now-former Berkshire chairman bought many years ago.

Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue 

Image source: Getty Images.

Representing a combined 1.5% of Berkshire's portfolio

As of Feb. 4, Berkshire Hathaway owns $2.7 billion worth of Visa (NYSE: V) shares and $2.2 billion worth of Mastercard (NYSE: MA) shares. Combined, these two positions make up 1.5% of the portfolio. While that's a very small percentage in the grand scheme of things, investors shouldn't let that take away from how dominant these businesses are in their industry.

Visa and Mastercard both benefit from a powerful network effect. Billions of their cards are in use around the world. And they are accepted at more than 150 million merchant locations. With more cards and more places to shop, the value proposition of the platform improves for all stakeholders. Replicating this setup would be a daunting task.

Despite all the innovation that's been happening in payments, specifically with new offerings from fintech enterprises, as well as stablecoins, Visa and Mastercard keep reporting strong financial results. In the past 10 years, they have both registered double-digit revenue and diluted earnings-per-share growth on an annualized basis.

The supreme competitive positions that these companies have built are almost impossible to disrupt. This gives investors peace of mind, allowing shareholders to sleep well at night. And that's precisely what makes Visa and Mastercard safe stocks to hold in your portfolio.

Safe doesn't guarantee market outperformance

Based on total returns, Visa and Mastercard have both outperformed the S&P 500 index in the past decade. But they have lagged the benchmark over the last five years. Perhaps this is indicative of what's to come.

Because of how durable their growth prospects are, riding the adoption wave of cashless transactions that still has a lot of room to run, these companies are sure to be generating much higher revenue and profits in the future. Investors just shouldn't expect that market-beating gains are a certainty.
The deadline to submit a claim form for a 23andMe settlement is fast approaching.

Millions of customers are expected to receive payouts from a $50 million settlement over a 23andMe customer data security breach in October 2023. The payments are due to be sent out in the coming weeks.

Here's what to know about the upcoming deadline to claim and how to qualify.

Attendees visit the 23andMe booth at the RootsTech annual genealogical event in Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S., February 28, 2019.

When is the deadline to claim part of 23andMe settlement?

The last day to file a settlement claim form is Tuesday, Feb. 17, according to the settlement website.

Eligible customers received emails this month from Kroll Settlement Administration LCC, a class action settlement administrator. Some customers could be eligible for payouts of up to $10,000 if their claims are "extraordinary."

A company representative show off what is in a DNA kit at the 23andMe booth at the RootsTech annual genealogical event in Salt Lake City, Utah on Feb. 28, 2019.

What does the 23andMe settlement stem from?

The breach of 23andMe's databases resulted in the theft of personal information of roughly 6.4 million United States residents. The company announced the breach on Oct. 6, 2023.

This class notice was initially filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, and it is now pending in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.

The 23andMe settlement website states the company has denied any wrongdoing. Still, 23andMe agreed to settle to avoid trial. The company filed for bankruptcy in March 2025, and Chapter 11 proceedings are still ongoing. The company has since rebranded to "Chrome."

Who qualifies for the 23andMe settlement?

Anyone who was a customer between May 1, 2023, and Oct. 1, 2023, resided in the U.S. during this time, and received notice from 23andMe that their personal information was compromised is considered a settlement class member.

People may be eligible for a cash payment and other benefits from the class action settlement, including up to $10,000 for extraordinary claims, up to $165 for health information claims, an estimated $100 for statutory cash claims and five years of privacy, medical shield and genetic monitoring.

How to submit a claim?

Claims can be submitted through the settlement website.

Michelle Del Rey is a trending news reporter. Reach her at mdelrey@usatoday.com

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 23andMe class settlement deadline is in February. Are you eligible?
The bridge linking the South Texas town of Roma with Miguel Aleman, Mexico. (Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)



WASHINGTON  The military is expanding and establishing defense zones in Texas along the U.S. and Mexico border where anyone crossing the border is subject to charges of trespassing on military property as well as border crossing violations.

The Air Force will establish the Del Rio-Falcon National Defense Area, about a 150-mile stretch of the border from Falcon Dam, Texas, to Del Rio, Texas, a service official confirmed Tuesday.

The South Texas National Defense Area, a 250-mile stretch of the Rio Grande River in Cameron and Hidalgo Counties, will expand an additional 40 miles to reach Roma, Texas.

The new zone will mean the military will have six defense areas in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Creating these military areas allows troops to conduct certain law enforcement activities, including temporary detention, searches and crowd-control operations.

South Carolina Army National Guard Soldiers conduct foot patrols along the southern border near Rio Grande City, Texas, on May 6, 2025. (Crist Joseph/U.S. Army)



When President Donald Trump returned to office last year, he ordered active-duty forces to the mission as part of his goal of making border security a top priority for the military.

Trump ordered the creation of the military border zones to sidestep laws that prohibit the military from conducting civilian law enforcement.

Officials with the Joint Task Force Southern Border have said troops continue to allow Customs and Border Protection agents to take the lead as often as possible.

Roughly 8,500 troops are deployed under the task force, working primarily to detect possible illegal activity along the border. It is unclear if additional troops are needed in Texas.

Weve gone nine months with zero crossings at our Southern Border, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said during a speech Monday at General Dynamics Bath Iron Works shipyard in Maine.
A U.S. soldier sets up a Bumblebee quadcopter for launch during an exercise at the Grafenwoehr Training Area in Germany on Jan. 28, 2026. The Army signed a $5.2 million deal for an unspecified number of Bumblebee V2 drones, which take out unmanned enemy aircraft by crashing into them. (Adrian Greenwood/U.S. Army)



American soldiers facing the ever-present threat of drone barrage on future battlefields will soon be able to call on a real stinger of a knockout force.

The Army signed a $5.2 million deal for the Bumblebee V2, a type of small inexpensive drone that counters enemy aircraft by crashing directly into them.

Joint Interagency Task Force 401, the Pentagons leading counter-drone organization, awarded the contract to Perennial Autonomy in late January, the Army said in a statement Friday.

The agreement calls for an unspecified number of the multirotor, first-person-view drones, which can identify, track and neutralize threats, according to the statement.

Having a low-collateral kinetic option is not just an advantage, task force director Brig. Gen. Matthew Ross said in the statement. It is increasingly becoming essential for protecting our forces.

The system mimics similar strategies deployed by Ukraine, which has relied on cheap interceptor drones to take down Russian counterparts.

Besides protecting troops in combat, the Bumblebee will also be used to safeguard critical infrastructure at home, Army officials said.

The Bumblebee V2s will first head to Fort Bragg, N.C., for testing to ensure their readiness for the demands of the battlefield, the Army said.

The Pentagon has begun to focus heavily on countering unmanned aircraft, underscoring the danger posed by the drone fleets of adversaries like Russia and Iran.

Last year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth established task force 401 to coordinate counter-drone efforts across the department.

The group has been scaling up American drone defense systems at home and abroad. It recently updated guidance to give U.S. base commanders a wider berth when it comes to countering enemy drones.
Army Capt. Weston Graves prepares to catch a small aerial drone during the second day of the services new Robotic Autonomous Systems Leader Tactics course on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, at the Maneuver Innovation Lab on Fort Benning, Ga. (Corey Dickstein/Stars and Stripes)



FORT BENNING, Ga.  An instructor moved a tiny drone upside down then rapidly back and forth by hand as Army Sgt. 1st Class William Benz peered through his goggles to see what the drone could see.

It makes me nauseous, the 16-year cavalry scout and veteran of the Afghanistan War said Tuesday, grinning as he passed the goggles to the next student in a new class at Fort Benning, Ga., designed to provide Army combat unit leaders with a better understanding of the latest drone and robotics capabilities available to them.

Benz is one of 12 students participating in the first edition of the Robotic Autonomous Systems Leader Tactics course, or RASLT, at Fort Bennings Maneuver Center of Excellence. The new class began Monday.

Capt. Allison Darby, an armor officer who is directing the new program, said RASLT is meant to provide Army leaders  the class is open to sergeants first class and higher-ranked soldiers  a familiarity with the ground robots, aerial drones and the autonomous capabilities the service is building into its key combat formations through its Transformation in Contact initiative. The three-week class is not designed to make them expert operators, but it should give them the confidence to build well-planned operations incorporating these latest pieces of technology, she said.

Army Sgt. 1st Class William Benz looks at a first-person-view one-way attack drone during the second day of the services new Robotic Autonomous Systems Leader Tactics on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, at the Maneuver Innovation Lab on Fort Benning, Ga. (Corey Dickstein/Stars and Stripes)



Most of the students are recently promoted captains who have finished the Maneuver Captains Career Course at Fort Benning, and will go on to command infantry, armor or cavalry companies, Darby said.

They have to understand the capabilities, [and] they have to understand the limitations to be able to plan for it, Darby said Tuesday as her students entered their second day of the course. Ultimately, the inner workings of these systems is on the operator  but these are very hard to operate. So, we want [the students]  to be cognizant of that, so they can be a lot more understanding that when youre tasking your soldiers and those crews to do something  youre not going to task them with something thats not a capability.

The class should help bridge the gap between mid-career and later soldiers who have not learned about drones and autonomous robotics since Day 1 in the Army with the newest soldiers who have been trained on such capabilities since shortly after joining, she said.

Students are spending the first week on the basics of robotics and autonomous systems, during the second week they will learn to prepare a defensive operation using those capabilities, and in the third week they will plan an offensive attack with them, Darby said. They will also learn about the ethics involved in using autonomous systems on the battlefield and human-robot teambuilding, Darby said.

Benz, who will serve as a scout leader course instructor at Fort Benning after completing RASLT, said he was a longtime skeptic of the integration of drones and robots into the Armys small combat units. But he now wishes those capabilities were available to him when he first deployed to Afghanistan as a scout in 2010 with the 4th Infantry Division.

This would have made life a lot easier, Benz said. The little drones  going over the little dunes and mountains and stuff to catch all the bad guys in the rat trails. That would have been awesome.

Army 2nd Lt. Dallas McAllister shows a first-person-view one-way attack drone to students of the services new Robotic Autonomous Systems Leader Tactics on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, at the Maneuver Innovation Lab on Fort Benning, Ga. (Corey Dickstein/Stars and Stripes)

Students take turns operating an Army unmanned ground vehicle inside the Maneuver Innovation Lab on Fort Benning, Ga., during the second day of the services new Robotic Autonomous Systems Leader Tactics course on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (Corey Dickstein/Stars and Stripes)

A student in the Armys new Robotic Autonomous Systems Leader Tactics course tries on goggles for a first-person-view attack drone on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, on Fort Benning, Ga. (Corey Dickstein/Stars and Stripes)



He took the class to get a better understanding of how to train other cavalry scouts to use them for their primary mission  finding the enemy on the battlefield.

Im looking at this through that recon lens, he said. Drone, [first-person view] drones, all that is a huge, huge, huge advantage for us.

But they are only tools, Benz said. They cannot replace humans entirely, even in the reconnaissance world.

Nothing will ever replace a guy on an [observation point] with a little optic and a radio, Benz said. This will enable us and multiply our capability, but we cant ever forget the analog skills, (and the) human aspect  war is terrible. Its meant to be terrible. But having these tools to minimize risk to the force is huge. Its just kind of a balancing act.

Darby said the pilot program will run three classes in fiscal year 2026. She hopes to expand the classes to 18 students next year.

Were going to take the feedback and continue to learn, and the next course will be even better. And then (by) taking the feedback from the second one, the third course will be even better, Darby said. Were able to transform here as doctrine transforms, and were going to constantly evolve to try to keep on that forward edge so that this course will stay relevant for as long as it needs to.
U.S. Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Billy Scafidel, an armory chief with 7th Engineer Support Battalion, 1st Marine Logistics Group, poses for a photo with his significant other after being awarded a Navy and Marine Corps Medal on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif., Feb. 6, 2026. (Mary Torres/U.S. Marine Corps)



A Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton, Calif., on Friday was awarded a Navy and Marine Corps medal for saving a Marines life after a severe vehicle accident two years ago.

The medal received by Staff Sgt. Billy Scafidel, an armory chief with 7th Engineer Support Battalion, 1st Marine Logistics Group, is the Navy Departments highest non-combat decoration for heroism, a service news release said.

Nothing really prepared me for a situation like this, its just in my nature, when I see someone in danger, I want to help out. Thats what Marines do, Scafidel said.

U.S. Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Billy Scafidel, an armory chief with the 7th Engineer Support Battalion, 1st Marine Logistics Group, is awarded a Navy and Marine Corps medal on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif., on Friday, Feb. 6, 2026, for his heroic actions of saving a Marines life from a severe vehicle accident. (Mary Torres/U.S. Marine Corps)

U.S. Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Billy Scafidel, an armory chief with 7th Engineer Support Battalion, 1st Marine Logistics Group, stands at attention after being awarded a Navy and Marine Corps Medal by Maj. Gen. Thomas B. Savage, the commanding general, 1st Marine Division, on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif., Feb. 6, 2026. (Mary Torres/U.S. Marine Corps)



On Sept. 1, 2024, while working on his car outside of his home near the Del Mar Boat Basin, Scafidel heard a loud splash in the nearby water and found a truck lying on its side, half-submerged.

Scafidel and U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Andrew James, who was nearby, rushed to the scene and found a driver trapped in a vehicle being submerged in water. Without hesitation, Scafidel rushed into the water and quickly began smashing the front windshield with a hammer.

As he worked to break the windshield, Sgt. Jason Baughman, a military police officer, arrived and assisted, enabling them to pull the trapped driver to safety. The driver was transported to the Naval Hospital and fully recovered.

The release noted that Fire Department personnel assisting Scafidel noticed his hands were cut up from the rescue effort, which Scafidel said he didnt even realize.

In the face of adversity when a life was on the line, Staff Sgt. Scafidel, without care for his own safety, put himself in a position to make a difference, said U.S. Marine Corps 1st Sgt. Marc McGlothlin, senior enlisted leader of Headquarters and Service Company, 7th Engineer Support Battalion, 1st Marine Logistics Group.
(Joshua L. DeMotts/Stars and Stripes)



Maqtab, Afghanistan, May 2012: Pfc. Nicholas Tolbert with the 1st Battalion, 501st Infantry Regiment searches an abandoned qalat, or fortress, during a patrol through the village of Maqtab in eastern Afghanistans Khost province.

Soldiers with the unit based at Combat Outpost Sabari covered a large area of eastern Khost province near Pakistan. Many of their days were spent going into villages to search for weapons caches, gather information on insurgents and meet with local elders.

Read more and see additional photos from the original article here.
Romance is not one-size-fits-all. For some people, it means holding hands, opening a car door or drawing a bath for their lover. Others respond to receiving a hilarious text, coffee in bed or an offer to run a nagging errand. (AP Illustration by Peter Hamlin)



Doing something romantic for Valentines Day does not need to involve a heart-shaped box of chocolates, roses or an atypically expensive dinner, according to relationship experts.

In fact, therapists encourage couples craving intimacy and a deeper connection to focus less on grand gestures and more on expressing love with mundane acts that recognize what matters to their partner.

Romance is not one-size-fits-all. For some people, it means holding hands, opening a car door or drawing a bath for their lover. Others respond to receiving a hilarious text, coffee in bed or an offer to run a nagging errand. Either way, demonstrating kindness and care in small ways over time helps to support relationships as they evolve, says Traci Lee, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Dallas.

The more that early on, you as a couple are able to establish good habits of whatever romance is going to look like for you, the better it is, Lee said.

Couples counselors and people in relationships share ideas for showing a romantic partner love throughout the year:

Romance is constantly evolving

Early in a relationship, it doesnt take much to show romantic intentions, but that changes as couples learn more about each other as individuals, discover what their partner needs for emotional and physical well-being, and experience life together.

Depending on what stage of the relationship youre in, romance can mean different things, Lee said. For example, couples with parenting and caregiving responsibilities have less time to devote to each other than they did during the honeymoon phases right after they started dating or got married.

Gabrielle Gambrell, who lives in New York with her husband of seven years and their two children, thinks romance should be an evolution and therefore takes work. One piece of advice she received before getting married stuck with her: Never stop dating.

You keep romance alive by continuously dating, Gambrell said. No matter how busy or what happens in the world, me and my husband have a mandatory date night. And every single date night, we leave the date energized and happy and grateful, and reminded what means the most to us.

Taking the pressure off Valentines Day

Valentines Day carries a heavy burden of social pressures, fantasies from movies and books, and individual desires and expectations that often go unexpressed. All can be managed with planning and communication, experts say.

Some people will say, If I have to tell my partner what to do, then it wont be romantic. But I have to remind people that their partner is not a mind reader, Lee said. I try to blow up the myth that romance can only happen if its created spontaneously out of thin air.

Gambrell, who describes herself as a planner by nature, says she typically starts asking her husband questions about their plans for Feb. 14 days before. Making assumptions about the best way to celebrate Valentines Day and comparisons with other couples relationships are likely to lead to disappointment, she said.

Love is not perfect. Romance is not perfect. Relationships, theres nothing perfect about them, but they are beautiful, she said.

Clarence Smith IV, a 29-year-old middle school teacher and video content creator in Phoenix, remains a big believer in using traditional acts of chivalry to communicate respect and care for his girlfriend, such as positioning himself closer to the curb when they are walking together on a street.

Romance today involves more seen gestures  let this be seen, let this be shown, let this be big, Smith said, adding that in his dating experience some people see his gentlemanly behavior as old-fashioned. I do little things like that, and theyre looked at as superbly impactful. We dont do this anymore. But to me, baby, this is basics.

Express love beyond February

While some relationship experts recommend establishing traditions around meaningful holidays, anniversaries and birthdays, others say that creating rituals to mark new seasons or weekends are equally valuable as part of the foundation for merging lifestyles and routines.

Lee says she often explains to her clients a popular analogy in the counseling industry: If you get in a fight with your partner and apologize with a dozen roses, that would be great, but bringing one rose every day for 12 days would communicate consistency and dedication.

She asks patients, What are some small things that you can do that are going to be a way for you to show up for your partner in the way that they need it?

Gambrell says gift-giving is the way she prefers to receive and show love. As a result, it touches her deeply and comes across as a romantic gesture when her husband buys her a scratch-off lottery ticket or stationery item, like a pen or notebook, at the store.

Its knowing that youre thinking about me, that Im on your mind, that you stop what youre doing to think of me, she said.

Smith encourages people to not be afraid of expressing love regardless of how experienced a dating life or how long a relationship they have.

Do not be afraid to love in your own way, he said. Its always worth it. You always win in the end.
Germanys Chancellor Friedrich Merz, right, speaks with French President Emmanuel Macron, center, during a round table meeting at an EU Summit in Brussels, on Oct. 23, 2025. (Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP)



Arthur I. Cyr is author of After the Cold War  American Foreign Policy, Europe and Asia.

Contemporary Germany provides positive, sensible leadership for Europe and beyond.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the past months has enjoyed a series of successes, both rhetorical and diplomatic, that deserve more attention and praise than has to date been received. On Jan. 22, he delivered an important and insightful policy address at a meeting of international leaders in Davos, Switzerland.

Merz emphasized that the international system of approximately the past three decades, since the collapse of the Soviet Union and Soviet satellite bloc, with the conclusion of the Cold War, has ended. The relatively stable successor system, led by the United States, where international law was relatively influential, has now also come to an end, in part because of the direct military invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022 and resulting long, bloody and so far indecisive war.

China, with impressive strategic foresight has now become a great power, and more generally we are entering an era of Great Power Politics.

Merz noted that strength and force have emerged as much more important than before but do not have to dominate or even define future international relations. In his words, We do not have to accept this new reality as fate.

Appropriately, he emphasized the importance of responsible, far-sighted United States leadership in establishing NATO soon after the end of World War II. He also stressed the European Union, which was also initially created through European and U.S. initiative to encourage economic development and security, primarily in this case by integrating West Germany with the rest of Western Europe.

Also skillfully, he complimented fresh attention devoted to Greenland and the vital importance of security for the High North, meaning the Arctic region.

This rhetorical tour de force caps extensive diplomatic activity over the past year. On July 17, the Kensington Treaty was signed by Merz and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in London. The new treaty deepens existing cooperation in defense, migration, trade and other matters. Merz also called for greatly increased cooperation between the two nations and France.

This is a complement to the new Anglo-French agreement to coordinate nuclear weapons strategy. Historically, Britain has been closely tied to the United States in this regard.

Historically as well, France was distinctive for pursuit of policies independent of Washington regarding nuclear weapons and other matters. Conflict reached a height of intensity during the Kennedy administration, when an assertive American president figuratively collided directly with imperious President Charles de Gaulle of France.

More recent years have brought low-key reconciliation across the Atlantic. In 2009, France rejoined NATO after dramatically departing the organization, and forcing NATO headquarters out of Paris, in 1966.

Merz also scored a diplomatic success with his visit to President Donald Trump at the White House on June 5. In contrast to a disastrous meeting earlier between President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine and Trump, the session with Merz was calm, friendly and productive.

This is a result of the interpersonal skill, personal discipline and human insight of Germanys head of government.

In concrete terms, Germany demonstrates sustained leadership of Europe and the larger Atlantic area alliance in forging a path to greater defense spending, and greater support of Ukraine in the continuing brutal war with Russia.

During the long Cold War, NATO allies in Europe provided substantial support for 300,000-400,000 U.S. forces on their soil, concentrated in West Germany. U.S. defense companies will profit mightily from increased spending by todays allies.

Germanys defense spending is projected to rise from 95 billion euros in fiscal 2025 to 162 billion euros in fiscal 2029, tangible funds used for hard realities.
A South Korean FA-50 Fighting Eagle, left, flies alongside two F-15K Slam Eagle fighters over Gwangju Air Base, South Korea, April 18, 2025. (Micah Taylor/U.S. Marine Corps)



OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea  U.S. and South Korean fighters launched Monday from this base south of Seoul for a scaled-up round of aerial combat training that will feature fewer drills but significantly more flights and participating forces, according to the Souths Ministry of National Defense.

The five-day exercise, known as Buddy Squadron, will run only four times this year, down from eight in 2025. However, the total number of sorties will be drastically increased and the size of the forces involved will more than double, the ministry said in a press release Monday.

The change came about after consultations with the United States following its retirement of the A-10 Thunderbolt close-air support aircraft and an adjustment of assets, South Korean air force spokesman Lt. Col. Jang Dong-ha said at a news briefing Monday.

The U.S. Air Force recently reorganized its F-16 units into two super squadrons at Osan.

South Korean air force KF-16 Fighting Falcons from the 121st and 111th squadrons are training alongside U.S. F-16s from the 35th Fighter Wing in air-to-air tactics and joint mission scenarios, the ministry said.

It will serve as an opportunity for South Korean and U.S. pilots to share the latest tactics, fly together and strengthen interoperability, South Korean air force Capt. Lee Seung-Hyun, who is scheduled to fly in the exercise, said in the release.

Interoperability is a term the military uses to describe one countrys ability to employ anothers equipment and training.

During the drills, U.S. and South Korean pilots will alternate between aggressor and defender roles as they practice tactical maneuvers, the ministry said.

South Korean F-35A Lightning II stealth fighters and FA-50 Fighting Eagles are also expected to participate in training aimed at integrating fourth- and fifth-generation aircraft, according to the ministry.

The exercise began in 1991 as Friendship Training and has been known as Buddy Squadron since 1997. It rotates between U.S. and South Korean air bases.

Last year, Buddy Squadron coincided in March with Freedom Shield, one of two major annual joint U.S.-South Korean exercises. The other, Ulchi Freedom Shield, takes place in the summer.

South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back said in January that the drills would proceed as planned this year, after President Lee Jae-myung in November raised the possibility of scaling back exercises.

Lee said Seoul was interested in reducing tensions with Pyongyang, according to a Nov. 24 report by NK News.
A 2026 study by Clever Real Estate found that 81% of retirees said the government needs to do more to help them. Two-thirds (64%) believe the U.S. is in a retirement crisis.

That said, many retirees dont know all the benefits currently available to them.

Underused Medicare Benefits

Medicare often covers more than doctor visits, including preventive screenings, transportation benefits, chronic-condition support programs and even allowances for everyday health items, said Whitney Stidom of eHealth.

Start by asking your physician about free preventative care such as cancer screenings and vaccines. Also ask about chronic special needs plans (C-SNPs), which can lower prescription drug costs and recurring needs like glucose monitoring.

Many Medicare Advantage plans also come with underused perks like over-the-counter spending help, transportation to medical facilities and dental, vision and hearing benefits.

Home Care Benefits

Ocean Van, owner of Home Helpers Home Care, said many retirees dont know about the home care benefits available.

Medicaid Home- and Community-Based Services can cover $2,000 to $6,000 in monthly home care help. Medicares Guide program serves retirees with dementia and the VA Aid and Attendance program helps veterans and surviving spouses, Van explained.

Supplemental Security Income

Lower-income seniors can qualify for extra benefits from Social Security, through the SSI program. Check to see if you qualify on the Social Security Administration (SSA) website.

SNAP Grocery Benefits

Too many older Americans dismiss the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as food stamps.

The reality is that you get a preloaded debit card that you can swipe at the grocery store. That knocks hundreds of dollars off your grocery costs each month.

Read up on income limits at the U.S. Department of Agricultures (USDA) website.

LIHEAP

The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) helps cover utility bills and can even provide funds for improving your homes weatherization and energy efficiency.

Run by the Office of Community Services, its a great program to lower heating and cooling costs.

Lifeline

The Lifeline program from the Federal communications Commission (FCC) lowers your monthly phone and internet bill. At a $9.25 monthly discount, it wont single-handedly save your retirement nest egg, but every little bit helps.

State Property Tax Relief

Many states offer property tax exemptions or limitations for lower-income retirees.

For example, North Carolina exempts the greater of $25,000 or 50% of the assessed property value. New Jersey offers a tax credit to offset up to 50% of seniors property tax bills. Check out this full list of state property tax relief programs from Realtor.com.
A South Korean army AH-1S Cobra attack helicopter trains over Kangwon province, South Korea, Aug. 8, 2008. (John Hageman/U.S. Navy)



Two South Korean army pilots were killed this week when their AH-1S Cobra attack helicopter crashed about 50 miles northeast of Seoul, according to the Ministry of National Defense.

The pilots were training on emergency procedures when the aircraft crashed for unknown reasons at 11:04 a.m. Monday in Gapyeong county, Gyeonggi province, a ministry spokesman told reporters in a text message that day.

The pilots, both warrant officers, were immediately transferred to a civilian hospital, where they died, the spokesman said.

Emergency procedure training involves landing practice with engines turning and simulating irregular conditions, he added. Some South Korean government officials must speak to the media on condition of anonymity.

The South Korean army grounded all AH-1S helicopters after the crash, the spokesman said. The accident response headquarters is investigating the incident.

Its difficult to give a definitive answer, such as aging of an aircraft or personnel issues, army spokesman Col. Bae Seok-jin said at a regular press briefing Tuesday.

The army planned to retire the Cobras starting in 2028 and complete the process by 2031, according to a Monday report by Yonhap News Agency.

We honor the two army helicopter pilots who passed away yesterday and extend our deepest condolences to their bereaved families, ministry spokeswoman Chung Binna said at the press briefing.

President Lee Jae-myung paid his condolences Tuesday in a post on X.

We will always remember that our peaceful daily lives are based on the devotion and sacrifice of true soldiers, he wrote.

The Cobras are being replaced with Light Armed Helicopters developed between 2015 and 2023, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration said in a December 2024 news release.
NATO Allied Joint Force Command Norfolk displays new signage on its headquarters building in Norfolk, Va., on Aug. 19, 2025. Leadership of JFC Norfolk and a NATO command in Naples, Italy, will shift from U.S. to European hands. (NATO)



STUTTGART, Germany  Leadership of two NATO commands will shift from U.S. to European hands in connection with a shakeup aimed at having allies shoulder more responsibility in the 32-nation bloc, according to an organization insider.

NATO Joint Force Command in Norfolk, Va., and a similar headquarters in Naples, Italy, both led by American officers, will eventually transfer to European officers, the NATO official told Stars and Stripes on Tuesday.

Unaffected by the plan is leadership of NATOs Supreme Allied Commander Europe slot, which has always been in the hands of an American officer.

Allies have agreed on a new distribution of senior officer responsibility across the NATO command structure in which European allies, including NATOs newest members, will play a more prominent role in the alliances military leadership, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official described the arrangement as Europe moving to the fore, and Americans absolutely committed to NATO.

In a related move, responsibility for NATOs Maritime Command in the United Kingdom will be shifted to the leader of the Naples-based U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa.

The plan would give the head of NAVEUR-AF dual-hatted NATO command responsibilities in a similar manner to the leaders of U.S. Army Europe and Africa and U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa, who oversee corresponding NATO land and air command headquarters.

A NATO statement Tuesday offered more detail about the arrangement.

The U.K. will lead Joint Force Command Norfolk, and Italy will do the same for the Naples headquarters. Meanwhile, Germany and Poland will share leadership of Joint Force Command Brunssum in the Netherlands on a rotational basis.

The change puts Europeans in charge of all three of NATOs four-star commands, which lead at the operational level in crisis and conflict, the statement said.

The developments, first reported by Politico on Monday, come ahead of a NATO defense ministers meeting Thursday in Brussels, where allies are expected to discuss U.S. force posture in Europe.

During the past year, American officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have emphasized the need for allies in Europe to shoulder more responsibility for NATO and the defense of Europe.

In particular, the Pentagon wants allies to provide the lions share of military capabilities when it comes to the conventional defense of the Continent. Those priorities also now extend to NATOs command structure as Europeans take on more prominent roles.

Matthew Whitaker, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, said Monday that the U.S. remains committed to the alliance but that allies must follow through on plans to beef up their own defenses.

We are not trying to dismantle NATO, Whitaker said at a forum in Munich ahead of a major security conference in that city later this week.

Still, having Europeans play a far more expansive role in NATOs command structure has been on Whitakers mind.

During a November security conference in Berlin, Whitaker said he was hopeful that one day the position of SACEUR would be under German command.
In this photo released by Iran's Supreme National Security Council office, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani, right, listens to Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi during their meeting in Muscat, Oman, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (Erfan Kouchari, Irans Supreme National Security Council Office/AP)



DUBAI, United Arab Emirates  A top Iranian security official traveled on Tuesday to Oman, the Mideast sultanate now mediating talks between Tehran and Washington over the Islamic Republics nuclear program aimed at halting a possible American strike.

The visit by Ali Larijani, a former Iranian parliament speaker who now serves as the secretary to the countrys Supreme National Security Council, likely focused on what comes next after the initial round of indirect talks held last week in Muscat with the Americans.

Meanwhile, people chanted against Irans theocratic government Tuesday night in the countrys capital Tehran, just ahead of the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Larijani has meetings in Oman

Larijanis entourage shared photos of him meeting with Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi, the chief intermediary in the U.S.-Iran talks, with what appeared to be a letter sheathed in plastic and sitting alongside the Omani diplomat.

Iran has in the past communicated its positions in writing when dealing with the Americans  and famously, Japans then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe tried to hand Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei a letter from U.S. President Donald Trump in 2019 that he refused to take.

Iranian media had said Larijani would deliver an important message. However, Iranian state television hours after that meeting described al-Busaidi as having handed over a letter to Larijani. It did not elaborate from where the letter came.

Al-Busaidi wrote on X that we discussed recent developments, especially the Iran-U.S. talks.

Regional peace and security is our priority, and we urge restraint and wise compromise, he wrote.

Larijani also met with Omans Sultan Haitham bin Tariq for nearly three hours, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. Neither Iran nor Oman offered any details on what had been discussed in Larijanis meetings.

Larijani also met an official from Yemens Houthi rebels in Oman. The group is a member of Irans self-described Axis of Resistance that has attacked shipping in the Red Sea and engaged in hostilities against both Israel and the U.S. during the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

Larijani was later to travel to Qatar, which hosts a major U.S. military installation that Iran attacked in June after the U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear sites during the 12-day Iran-Israel war.

Speaking to Oman TV, Larijani said that before the war negotiations with the U.S. had seen gradual progress.

Larijani affirmed Irans readiness to engage in talks whenever they are realistic, noting that Irans stance in the first round was positive, the TV report added. He suggested the next phase could offer opportunities for strategic de-escalation or, at a minimum, a political repositioning, depending on the dialogues outcomes.

Iran talks a global focus

Iran and the U.S. held new nuclear talks last week in Oman. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking Sunday to diplomats at a summit in Tehran, signaled that Iran would stick to its position that it must be able to enrich uranium  a major point of contention with Trump. That war disrupted earlier rounds of nuclear talks between Washington and Tehran.

The Muscat meeting, which was not a long one, it was a half-day meeting. For us it was a way to measure the seriousness of the other side, and to find out how we could continue the process. Therefore we mostly addressed the generalities, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told journalists at a news conference Tuesday in Tehran.

Our principles are clear. Our demand is to secure the interests of the Iranian nation based on international norms and the Non-Proliferation Treaty and peaceful use of nuclear energy, Baghaei said. So as for the details, we should wait for the next steps and see how this diplomatic process will continue.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also arrived in Washington for talks with Trump. Iran is expected to be the major subject of discussion.

Larijani accused Israel of trying to play a destructive role in the talks.

Americans must think wisely and not allow him, through posturing, to imply before his flight that I want to go and teach Americans the framework of the nuclear negotiations, Larijani said in a post on X.

Elsewhere, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said there is extraordinary alignment between Washington and Israel over the talks with Tehran.

Everyone would love to see something that would resolve without a war, but itll be up to Iran, said Huckabee before he boarded a flight to Washington with Netanyahu.

The United States has moved the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, ships and warplanes to the Middle East to pressure Iran into an agreement and have the firepower necessary to strike the Islamic Republic should Trump choose to do so. Already, U.S. forces shot down a drone they said got too close to the Lincoln and came to the aid of a U.S.-flagged ship that Iranian forces tried to stop in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf.

The U.S. Transportation Departments Maritime Administration issued a new warning Monday to American vessels in the strait to remain as far as possible from Irans territorial sea without compromising navigational safety. The strait, through which a fifth of all oil traded passes, is in Iranian and Omani territorial waters. Those traveling into the Persian Gulf must pass through Iranian waters.

Anti-government chants from peoples homes

Meanwhile, people in various neighborhoods of Irans capital chanted death to the dictator from windows and rooftops on the eve of the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, witnesses said, turning the annual celebration into a protest.

State television in recent days has routinely encouraged people to chant pro-government slogans accompanied by fireworks across the city, an annual ritual in the country. The government plans to hold rallies Wednesday to celebrate the anniversary.

The move came nearly one month after a bloody crackdown in Iran on anti-government protests that led to the deaths of thousands of people and tens of thousands more being detained.
U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Daryl Caudle, talks to selected journalists during his visit in Tokyo, Nov. 17, 2025. (Mari Yamaguchi/AP)



WASHINGTON  The U.S. Navys top uniformed officer wants to convince commanders to use smaller, newer ships and other assets for missions instead of consistently turning to huge aircraft carriers  as seen now in the American military buildups off Venezuela and Iran.

Adm. Daryl Caudles vision  what he calls his Fighting Instructions  calls for the Navy to deploy more tailored groups of ships and equipment that would offer the sea service more flexibility to respond to crises as they develop.

Caudle spoke to the Associated Press before the rollout of the new strategy, which comes as the Trump administration has moved aircraft carriers and other ships to regions around the world to address emerging concerns. This has disrupted standing deployment plans, scrambled ships to sail thousands of miles and put increasing strain on vessels and equipment that are already facing mounting maintenance issues.

The worlds largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, was redirected late last year from the Mediterranean Sea to the Caribbean Sea, where the crew ultimately supported last months operation to capture then-Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. And two weeks ago, the USS Abraham Lincoln arrived in the Middle East as tensions with Iran rise, having been pulled from the South China Sea.

In an interview, Caudle said his strategy would make the Navys presence in regions like the Caribbean much leaner and better tailored to meet actual threats.

He said hes already spoken with the commander of U.S. Southern Command, which encompasses the Caribbean and Venezuela, and were in negotiation on what his problem set is  I want to be able to convey that I can meet that with a tailored package there.

Admiral sees smaller contingent in Caribbean in the future

Speaking broadly, Caudle said he envisions the mission in the Caribbean focusing more on interdictions and keeping an eye on merchant shipping.

The U.S. military has already seized multiple suspicious and falsely flagged tankers connected with Venezuela that were part of a global shadow fleet of merchant vessels that help governments evade sanctions.

That doesnt really require a carrier strike group to do that, Caudle said, adding that he believes the mission could be done with some smaller littoral combat ships, Navy helicopters and close coordination with the Coast Guard.

The Navy has had 11 ships, including the Ford and several amphibious assault ships with thousands of Marines, in South American waters for months. It is a major shift for a region that has historically seen deployments of one or two smaller Navy ships.

I dont want a lot of destroyers there driving around just to actually operate the radar to get awareness on motor vessels and other tankers coming out of port, Caudle said. Its really not a well-suited match for that mission.

Turning to drones or robotic systems

To compensate, Caudle envisions leaning more heavily on drones or other robotic systems to offer military commanders the same capabilities but with less investment from Navy ships. He acknowledges this will not be an easy sell.

Caudle said even if a commander knows about a new capability, the staff may not know how to ask for that, integrate it, and know how to employ it in an effective way to bring this new niche capability to bear.

That requires a bit of an education campaign here, he later added.

President Donald Trump has favored large and bold responses from the Navy and has leaned heavily toward displays of firepower.

Trump has referred to aircraft carriers and their accompanying destroyers as armadas and flotillas. He also revived the historic battleship title for a planned type of ship that would sport hypersonic missiles, nuclear cruise missiles, rail guns and high-powered lasers.

If built, the proposed Trump-class battleship would be longer and larger than the World War II-era Iowa-class battleships, though the Navy has not only struggled to field some of the technologies that Trump says will be aboard but it has had challenges building even smaller, less sophisticated ships on time and on budget.

Given this trend, Caudle said if the Lincolns recent redeployment to the Middle East were to happen under his new plan, he would talk with the Indo-Pacific commander about how to compensate for the loss.

So, as Abraham Lincoln comes out, Ive got a three ship (group) thats going to compensate for that, Caudle suggested as an example.

Caudle argues that his vision already is in place and working in Europe and North America for the last four or five years.

He said this could apply soon in the Bering Strait, which separates Russia and Alaska, noting that the importance of the Arctic continues to get more and more prevalent as China, Russia and the U.S. prioritize the region.

Trump has cited the threat from China and Russia in his demands to take over Greenland, the Arctic island overseen by NATO ally Denmark.

Caudle said he knows he needs to offer the commanders in that region more solutions and his tailored force packages would be a way to get after that.
Samuel D. Marcus, a 33-year-old former Defense Logistics Agency employee, is charged with money laundering and illegal monetary transactions in connection with a scheme that funneled millions of dollars to Nigeria-based scammers, according to federal prosecutors. (Stars and Stripes)



A former Defense Department civilian employee from Pennsylvania is under indictment in connection with a scheme to funnel stolen money to scammers in Nigeria, according to federal prosecutors.

Samuel D. Marcus, 33, is charged with one count each of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering as well as six counts of illegal monetary transactions, the Justice Department said in a statement Monday.

Marcus worked as a logistics specialist for the Defense Logistics Agency. His LinkedIn profile says he started working for the agency in Philadelphia in 2019, the same year he graduated from Temple University.

The crimes he is accused of committing took place between July 2023 until December 2025, the statement said.

He was among a group of money mules who prosecutors say helped move funds stolen from U.S. victims through romance scams, tax fraud and other schemes.

Marcus kept in regular contact with the Nigerian scammers, who instructed him to convert victims money deposited into his accounts into cryptocurrency and then transfer it into foreign accounts, according to the indictment.

The scammers operated under aliases like Rachel Jude and Ned McMurray, the indictment said.

Marcus was fully aware that the people behind those names were fraudsters, the statement said.

In some cases, he is said to have sent fake invoices to banks and lied to financial institutions and authorities to hide the illegal transfers.

FBI agents had warned him that the money was stolen and that his transfers appeared to be part of a laundering scheme, but he took part in it anyway, according to authorities.

If convicted on all charges, Marcus faces up to 100 years in prison, the indictment states.
Adani Energy Solutions (AESL) has secured long-term funding from Japanese banks for a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission project in India.

The project, a 950km green evacuation corridor with an evacuation capacity of 6,000MW, will connect Bhadla in Rajasthan to Fatehpur in Uttar Pradesh.

It aims to transport renewable energy from Rajasthan's solar resources to the national grid, supporting Indias growing demand for clean power.

The corridor, set to be operational by 2029, will enhance grid stability and integrate renewable energy into some of the nations major urban and industrial areas. It is a component of the Adani Group's clean energy platform.

Led by MUFG Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, the financing highlights international confidence in India's renewable energy sector.

The project is backed by HVDC technology from Hitachi, in partnership with Bharat Heavy Electricals, and aligns with India's Make in India initiative.

This collaboration strengthens financial and industrial ties between India and Japan.

AESL CEO Kandarp Patel said: This project marks a defining step in building Indias green transmission backbone. The continued support from our Japanese partners  including leading banks and Hitachi  reflects the depth of the IndiaJapan partnership and our shared commitment to enabling a sustainable energy future.

AESL remains focused on developing resilient, future-ready transmission infrastructure to accelerate Indias energy transition.

Rajasthan serves as a crucial generation hub for Adani Green Energy Limited, which supplies clean power to AESLs subsidiary, Adani Electricity Mumbai, which integrates more than 40% renewable energy into its supply.

AESL's financing is part of a sustainable debt framework that is compliant with the Equator Principles, which allows the funding to be classified as a Green Loan.

Latham & Watkins and Saraf & Partners advised AESL, while Linklaters and Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas represented the lenders on the transaction.

"Adani secures Japanese funding for Indias green energy corridor" was originally created and published by Power Technology, a GlobalData owned brand.




Andalucia is preparing for a digital revolution in its public healthcare system.

On Monday, Antonio Sanz, the regional minister for health, presented the Andalucia Digital Health Strategy (ESDA), a 316.5 million plan designed to make the system more accessible and data-driven over the next five years.

The most immediate change for residents will be the arrival of the virtual health card by the end of March. It will allow users to carry out formal procedures and identify themselves at medical centres directly via their mobile phones.

A central pillar of the strategy is the creation of Salud Responde+. Currently, patients often navigate between various apps such as Salud Responde, ClicSalud+, and Salud Andalucia. The regional government intends to merge these into a single, unified platform to simplify the user experience.

The ESDA has brought together more than 1,000 experts in what Sanz calls a "clear commitment to a more accessible, smarter-than-data-driven, safer and more humane healthcare system."

AI in all breast units

The strategy isn't just about admin; its about saving lives. Sanz announced the rollout of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for early detection, specifically in breast cancer screening.

Having already started at the Reina Sofia Hospital in Cordoba, the AI technology will be extended to all 32 breast-screening units across Andalucia.

Additionally, a new AI "consultation assistant" will soon be launched at hospitals in Granada and Cordoba to support doctors in making faster, more accurate diagnoses.

The digital health strategy also includes the option for pharmacies to renew prescriptions for chronically-ill patients without requiring them to attend their health centre. "This system is already being piloted in municipalities in Cordoba and will gradually be rolled out throughout Andalucia," noted Sanz.

The Andalusian public health service (SAS) wants all applications to converge into a single platform: Salud Responde+.

Furthermore, queue management has been incorporated to prevent the impact caused by access surges. For example, this will be implemented in the 'electronic candidate window' (VEC), a portal for job selection processes and job pools.

The new digital tools, planned under the ESDA strategy, will also allow direct contact with professionals via video calls, greater data protection and more secure processes, "strategic elements to improve healthcare, strengthen decision-making and ensure system sustainability".

The strategy's impact on research and innovation will be particularly relevant, as Andalucia will implement the necessary instruments to comply with the regulation on the European Health Data Area over the next two years, making it a pioneering region.

"We are going to transform our data into a source of knowledge, innovation and development aligned with the data science and AI centres that we have been promoting in the context of the new data economy", stressed the regional health minister.

New measures

"All these actions fall within the four specific objectives of the strategy: improving digital health systems, facilitating decision-making by leveraging the value and quality of available data and knowledge.

Also, promoting the organisation's digital transformation by strengthening cybersecurity, interoperability, technological sustainability and attracting ICT talent to the healthcare system. Lastly, incorporating new innovation tools for application within the healthcare system", stated Sanz.

To ensure that older residents or those in rural areas aren't left behind, the government will use its 'Puntos Vuela' (digital skills centres) to provide training.

Over the next two months, specific workshops will begin across Andalucia to teach citizens how to manage appointments, check test results, and access medical records on their smartphones.

According to Sanz, this "profound transformation" aims to build a more personalised and sustainable healthcare system for the nearly 8.5 million people living in the region.
Eugenio Cabezas / Jennie Rhodes Tuesday, 10 February 2026, 16:48 Share

Police and family members have launched an urgent appeal for information following the disappearance of a 15-year-old British girl in Torre del Mar.

Olivia was last seen in the eastern Costa del Sol town at around 7.45pm on Monday, 9 February. Both the National Police and the teenager's family have distributed posters across social media, urging the public to help locate her.

Olivia is described as being approximately 1.75 metres tall, of slim build, with blonde hair and blue eyes. At the time of her disappearance, she was wearing a beige fur jacket, a black tracksuit, and white shoes.

Anyone with information can contact the National Police on 091, as well as the family's numbers. The family has expressly requested that the poster be distributed as widely as possible, especially among young people in the area, school friends and friends of the girl.

Olivia is British and lives with her parents and siblings in Comares. She is currently studying at IES Almenara secondary school in Velez-Malaga, according to her mother, Lenna, in statements to SUR.

Lenna explained that her daughter "has mental health problems and needs medication," which increases the family's concern that she may have been without the treatment she requires for several hours. "We are very distressed and need to find her as soon as possible," she said.

Olivia's mother added: "She disappeared a few months ago, but she came back on her own," she said, although the girl's mother stressed that the current situation is different because of Olivia's mental health.

The authorities remind the public that, in cases of missing minors, any clue, no matter how small, can be helpful.

Therefore, they are asking for the alert to be shared as widely as possible and for the public's cooperation in order to speed up the search for the young girl.

Anyone with information about Olivia's whereabouts can contact the National Police by calling 091 or going to the nearest police station.
Torremolinos to launch high-tech digital tourist hub in La Carihuela The new experiential centre will use artificial intelligence and automated tools to provide 24-hour multilingual support for visitors

The new digital tourist information point will be located in Plaza del Remo.

Tony Bryant Tuesday, 10 February 2026, 17:31 Share

Torremolinos town hall has launched a public tender for the supply, installation and commissioning of a digital tourist information point that will allow visitors to interact with the town.

The new service, which will be located in Plaza del Remo, La Carihuela, forms part of the local authoritys commitment to continuing to promote a modern, innovative destination that is adapted to the current challenges of the tourism sector.

This initiative has a base tender budget of 142,780 euros, with an estimated execution period of three months. It is included in the tourist sustainability plan for destinations, Torremolinos, smart paradise, fully funded by the European Union through the Next Generation EU funds.

The successful bidder for this project will be required to develop a tourism technology platform that enables the integrated and coherent management of multiple visitor service and information channels (both in-person and digital), facilitating communication with visitors.

The council said the information point will operate as an experiential centre through which visitors can interact with the destination and receive information and recommendations in several languages.

This new space will also make it possible to manage and monitor different devices, extending the reach of the tourist office beyond its physical location and opening hours.

"In addition, it will incorporate automation and artificial intelligence tools to improve the quality, speed and personalisation of visitor services, while always ensuring traceability of responses and up-to-date content, the council explained in a statement.

Likewise, the digital platform, integrated with the Smart Beach platform, will be equipped with a tourist information system that structures and keeps the municipalitys tourism information up to date (points of interest, resources, services, routes and events, among other things), enabling it to be deployed across different channels and devices.
Paulina and Daniela Coronado with the chimney cakes they offer in two sizes in Malaga.

Marina Martinez Tuesday, 10 February 2026, 15:17 Share

Sisters Paulina and Daniela Coronado first tried kurtoskalacs or 'chimney cake' while on a trip to Poland. They fell in love with this traditional Hungarian sweet treat and decided that it would be the star of the menu at their future cafe.

Their dream came true and now they offer the chimney cake in two sizes and with a variety of toppings at Kurtos & Coffee on Calle Calderon de la Barca, in the heart of Malaga's city centre.

The Coronado sisters' journey up the chimney

The 27-year-old Coronado sisters are originally from Colombia, but they have been living in Malaga for over a decade. Although they studied biology and worked at a laboratory, they didn't feel fulfilled. They wanted something of their own.

Opening a cafe was their dream, but they didn't want it to be like any other establishment. "We were looking for something different and we saw that these sweets were not made here, so we took the plunge because we loved them," they say.

It didn't happen overnight. After several months of trial and error, Paulina and Daniela Coronado hit the nail on the head.

The recipe

Although the recipe consists of the most typical dessert ingredients (eggs, milk and flour), the cylinder-shaped cake requires certain atmospheric conditions to be perfect. The Coronado sisters adapted it to Malaga's conditions and humidity, while maintaining the essence.

The chimney cakes the two cafe owners make come in two sizes, one at 3.50 euros and the other at 4.50 euros. They bake them in a special oven. They offer the typical sugar and cinnamon coating or a vanilla and grated coconut version.

For an extra 50 cents, customers can add almonds, lotus biscuits or walnuts, or pistachio for an extra euro.

Zoom They offer two sizes, small and large. Salvador Salas

Another extra are the toppings: rims covered in nutella, dulce de leche or white chocolate. For an even fuller experience, the otherwise empty cylinder can be filled with custard, ice cream or fruit.

Paulina and Daniela Coronado make them on the spot, so customers have to wait a bit - no more than five minutes. "Some people prefer them cold and take them to eat later or the next day," the sisters say.

While the chimney cake is the star of the menu, they also offer brownies, cookies and carrot cake, as well as matcha tea and Santa Roaster speciality coffee.

The Coronado sister's next challenge is to create a surprising twist for Easter.
A travel agency owner in Malaga has allegedly swindled more than 50 groups of travellers - including families, friends, and couples - out of more than 100,000, only to send the proceeds to a "fake lover" in Lebanon.

The woman, who ran the Florin Viajes agency, was reportedly a victim of a sophisticated "romance scam" herself.

The sudden closure of her branches triggered a wave of police reports from distraught customers who had already paid for their holidays but were left with nothing.

The complaints of her customers led to a large National Police investigation that discovered the double scam. The police have not only arrested the owner of the travel agency, but also 11 members of the network that scammed her and asked her to send money to a made-up soldier from Lebanon.

Start of the investigation

In 2024, Florin customers reported that the travel agency had suddenly shut down. They had already booked and paid for their holidays.

This led to the arrest of five people linked to the business, including the owner.

The investigation continued with the aim of tracing the money that had been transferred to different accounts. After analysing the bank accounts of the main suspect and her other enterprises, the police established that she had been the victim of a romance scam.

The online romance scam ring would send the proceeds to various bank accounts, most of them located in third countries, and invest in cryptocurrencies.

The large police investigation led to the arrest of five people in Malaga province, one in Seville, one in Valladolid, two in Lleida and two in Barcelona.

Among the detainees were the main recipient of the money - a woman who had also once been the victim of a romance scam only to later become a 'bank mule' - and the administrator of a computer shop used for money-laundering purposes.

The police also carried out several house searches in the aforementioned provinces, where they seized more than 56,000 euros in cash and more than 17,400 dollars in cryptocurrencies and blocked numerous properties and vehicles. The bank accounts in third countries were located in Belgium and Lithuania.
The construction management business, while retained, represents only 8% of NSR, and its future growth potential remains uncertain despite plans for closer alignment with the design business.

Cash flow in the first quarter was weaker than expected, although consistent with historical patterns, raising concerns about cash management.

The integration of acquired AI technology is still in its early stages, and while initial performance results are promising, the full impact on revenue and operations is yet to be realized.

The year-over-year growth rates were impacted by fewer workdays compared to the prior year first quarter, affecting comparability of results.

The company is experiencing strong market conditions in the US, with federal funding bills providing greater certainty and momentum in sectors like transportation and data centers.

AECOM ( NYSE:ACM ) secured significant wins, including being selected as a delivery partner for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Brisbane and providing engineering services for Scottish Water's capital investment program.

Backlog increased by 9% to a new all-time high, supported by a 1.5 book-to-burn ratio, despite challenges such as a 43-day US federal government shutdown.

For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript .

Story continues

Q & A Highlights

Q: Can you provide insights on the decision to retain the Construction Management (CM) business and the current demand environment in the US? A: W. Troy Rudd, CEO, explained that the decision to keep the CM business was based on its high quality, strong backlog, and cash flow profile. The alignment with AECOM's other operations presents substantial opportunities. Gaurav Kapoor, CFO, noted continued strength in the US market, with robust growth in transportation, water, and facilities sectors, supported by a 20% year-over-year increase in the pipeline.

Q: How is AI impacting AECOM's business model and productivity? A: CEO Troy Rudd stated that AI investments are an extension of AECOM's strategy to provide more value to clients, which they are willing to pay for. AI is expected to enhance productivity and profitability, similar to past technological advancements. The focus is on delivering more value, which is rewarded by clients.

Q: Can you discuss the integration of AI technology and its impact on workflows and end markets? A: Gaurav Kapoor, CFO, reported that AI integration is progressing well, with investments ramping up. The focus is on the facilities market, but AI is impacting all business lines. Key metrics include employee NSR and EBITDA profitability, which are expected to improve as AI solutions are deployed.

Q: What are the trends in international bookings and margins? A: CEO Troy Rudd and President Lara Poloni highlighted strong international bookings, particularly in Australia and the Middle East, driven by repositioning efforts and infrastructure investment. The pipeline remains robust, and margins are expected to expand as the business grows.

Q: How is the private-facing business performing in the US, particularly in data centers? A: President Lara Poloni noted that AECOM has a large global data center practice, which grew by 50% in FY '25. The company benefits from direct and indirect opportunities in the digital ecosystem, including advisory services and infrastructure work, with positive growth trends expected to continue.

For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript.
Jesus Hinojosa Malaga Tuesday, 10 February 2026, 12:15 Share

The number of new tourist flat complexes continues growing in Malaga city. In December 2025 alone, the municipal urban planning department approved seven tourist rental complexes.

The projects concern both the construction of new buildings and the adaptation of existing ones.

One of the projects that received planning permission in December is the one that Israeli investor group White has been promoting for years on Calle Victoria.

In January, the company demolished a wall that previously delimited the plot in order to launch work on two buildings separated by a new road (an extension of the axis of Calle Agua), which will house a total of 27 tourist flats.

Another project involves the transformation of the ground floor of a building on Calle Litoral for tourist use. The old Telefonica building next to it will turn into a luxury hotel with a view of Malaga Cathedral.

Another conversion for tourist use will take place on Calle Ordonez 2 (next to Alameda Principal), where tourist rentals will replace the current offices.

There is also a project in the Trinidad district, on Calle Carril 20 to be precise. In recent years, the area has become a popular site for the registration and construction of tourist flats.

Other projects involve: 12 flats on Calle Rebeca, next to the Barbarela metro station; the conversion of 16 dwellings into tourist rentals on Calle Carreteria 39; a new complex of 24 flats with a swimming pool on Alameda de Capuchinos.

Also in December, the city council authorised the refurbishment of a house located on Paseo de Sanch 47 so that it can be adapted as a hostel.

30 dwellings in premises and offices

One practice that the urban planning department has been following in recent years is the conversion of premises and offices into flats. With this, the city council seeks to combat the housing crisis. In December, it authorised the refurbishment of 30 units for housing use.

Since August, the city council has been processing an amendment to the general urban development plan (PGOU) with the aim of regulating the spread of tourist rentals and hotels of fewer than four stars. The initial approval of this dossier endorsed the implementation of a three-year moratorium to prevent the continued authorisation of new tourist dwellings in Malaga.

Until that modification comes into force, there is nothing stopping tourist flat complexes, hostels and lower-category hotels from developing in Malaga.
Ignacio Lillo Malaga Tuesday, 10 February 2026, 11:34 | Updated 12:18h. Share

Seven storms have crossed Malaga province so far this rainy season, but the latest spell forecast for Friday is expected to be a quicker, lighter burst than previous weeks.

The new weather front will be named Nils if meteorologists determine it to be a great impact storm.

While Friday is expected to be the wettest day, it will not last as long as the phenomena that recently caused widespread flooding, evacuations, and road damage across the province.

Precipitation is expected in the days leading up to the weekend, particularly in the Serrania de Ronda. Experts warned that the ground in the westernmost part of the province is already saturated, leaving little capacity for the soil to absorb further rainfall.

The short burst of rain on 13 February could still bring significant accumulations. However, the clouds are expected to clear in time for Valentines Day on Saturday, which is forecast to be a sunny celebration.

The probability of rain in Malaga city and on the Costa del Sol remains lower, according to SUR weather expert Jose Luis Escudero. While state meteorological agency Aemet has not yet activated any weather warnings, officials said they cannot be ruled out given the unpredictable nature of the front.

While Malaga city saw little rain on Monday, other areas recorded significant totals: 28mm in Genal (Jubrique), 25mm in the Guadiaro transfer, and 20.7mm in Pujerra.

Rivers are now gradually returning to their natural levels, and evacuated residents have begun returning to their homes. The cost of the weather, however, remains high. The provincial authority (Diputacion) announced an initial allocation of 15 million euros to repair damaged road infrastructure - a figure expected to rise as technicians complete their assessments.

On a positive note, the storms have ended the period of serious drought. Even with dams releasing water for safety reasons, the provinces reservoirs contained 525 million cubic metres on Monday afternoon.

This is the highest level recorded in 13 years and provides enough water to supply a city of eight million inhabitants for an entire year.
People crowding to board a Cercanias train in Malaga that ran as part of the minimum service on Monday.

Ignacio Lillo Malaga Tuesday, 10 February 2026, 10:41 | Updated 10:47h. Share

The second day of rail strikes in Spain started in Malaga with the cancellation of several rush hour Cercanias trains.

The partial service suspension comes after the CGT minority union refused to sign the agreement between the Ministry of Transport and the majority unions on Monday.

According to passengers, the Malaga-Fuengirola trains at 5.55am, 6.50am and 7.10am, which many people use for work, did not run. In the opposite direction, the trains at 6.45am, 7.40am and 8am did not depart. The Alora-Malaga train at 8.53am also didn't run.

As CGT spokesperson in Malaga Miguel Montenegro said on Tuesday, the union will maintain the strike until 11 February. "These suppressions are motivated by the staff strike, in the face of the ministry's audacity in cancelling last night's decree on minimum services," he said.

Why did the CGT and other minority unions not sign the agreement?

Minority unions such as CGT and Sindicato Ferroviario (SF) did not join the majority unions in signing the agreement with the government. The CGT spokesperson described the decision as a "patch-up agreement" that does not answer their demands adequately.

Although the expected impact of the ongoing strike on residents was low in principle, it is clear the Cercanias C1 and C2 lines in Malaga are experiencing difficulties.

According to the minority unions, there is insufficient security personnel on trains and no clear protocols in the event of emergencies. They add that "precarious" working conditions will continue in subcontracted companies, with private operators short of resources, and that it is still unclear how the funds agreed for infrastructure maintenance will be allocated.
The Spanish Ministry of Labour has agreed a major reform of the occupational risk prevention law that has been in force for more than 30 years.

The reform introduces stricter regulations on carcinogenic, biological and chemical agents and seeks to protect workers from new and growing risks such as mental health and climate change risks.

The reform now has to pass through the lower house for approval. On Tuesday, the ministry received the support of trade unions but not that of employers' organisations, who withdrew from the negotiations after describing the ministry's attitude as "unacceptable, inconsistent and a hindrance".

This could weaken the chance of the law passing smoothly through Parliament.

The main aim of the reform is to make visible emerging risks that have increased in workplaces in recent years. Among the demands of trade unions is the inclusion of mental health and psychological dangers in the list of occupational risks.

Although these two factors have been in the international labour organisation's list since 2010, in Spain they still fall outside work-related risks and are instead treated as common illnesses.

The reform also considers other risk factors such as climate change, explores new ways of working such as remote work, seeks to protect pregnant and breastfeeding workers and to adapt conditions to the skills and abilities of older workers.

In addition, the Ministry of Labour seeks to reduce work-related accidents and occupational illnesses through greater awareness and more effective management of psychosocial and ergonomic risks.

In parallel, it seeks to bolster prevention structures within companies by increasing the involvement of staff with health and safety duties and introducing a new role for territorial prevention officers, whose responsibility will be to improve workplace health and safety in firms or workplaces without union representation, with a particular focus on small and medium-sized businesses.

Lastly, the reform seeks to improve the operation of accredited prevention services and the administrative registers in which they are listed, as well as to update the training requirements for those carrying out health and safety duties at basic, intermediate and advanced levels.

Nearly 700 deaths

According to the latest available data on work-related accidents, a total of 686 people died up to the beginning of December 2025. Despite a reduction over the years, Diaz considers this number "shameful".

According to the ministry's provisional data, fatal accidents at work fell by 8.2% up to November 2025, with 550 deaths, 49 fewer than in the same period in 2024. Accidents on the way to work accounted for a total of 136 deaths, six fewer than between January and November 2024 (-4.2%).

The services sector recorded the highest number of deaths, with a total of 242, down by 19.1% compared to 2024. The number of fatal accidents also fell in the agricultural sector, where 46 workers died, 16 fewer than up to November 2024, and in industry, with four fewer fatal accidents, down to 106 deaths.

Challenges in Parliament

The regulation is still awaiting the approval of Parliament. "It is the most important regulation we are going to approve in these six years. It is a state policy and we cannot allow anyone to die in their workplace," Diaz said on Tuesday at a meeting organised by the national institute of labour security and hygiene.

She thanked the unions for their work, but denounced the absence of employers' organisations, considering it essential for them to support such reforms.

To avoid parliamentary deadlock, the Ministry of Labour will try to push through some of the points of the reform through specific decrees that will only need approval in cabinet. Despite this, the ministry and the trade unions are confident that they can reach the necessary agreement to move forward with the general regulation.




BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- China once again urges Japan to withdraw the erroneous remarks made by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi regarding Taiwan and demonstrate its basic sincerity in safeguarding the political foundation of China-Japan relations through concrete actions, a foreign ministry spokesperson said here Monday.

Spokesperson Lin Jian made the remarks at a regular news briefing after Japan's ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and the Japan Innovation Party won more than a two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives following Sunday's general election.

Lin said elections are a domestic matter in Japan, but some deep-seated, structural issues and ideological trends reflected in this election were worthy of deep consideration by insightful people from all walks of life in Japan and the international community.

China urges the ruling authorities of Japan to face up to the concerns of the international community, follow a path of peaceful development instead of repeating the mistakes of militarism, and abide by the four political documents between China and Japan, Lin said.

If the far-right forces in Japan misjudge the situation and act recklessly, they will surely be resisted by the Japanese people and face a head-on blow from the international community, he added.

He said China's policy toward Japan has always maintained stability and continuity and will not change due to an election in Japan.

"We must solemnly warn the ruling authorities of Japan that the Chinese people's determination to safeguard the core interests of the country is unwavering, their determination to safeguard the victorious outcomes of World War II and the post-war international order is unwavering, and their determination to counter and thwart the provocations of anti-China forces is unwavering," Lin said. 
Syracuse, N.Y.  State police issued 908 tickets across Central New York during Super Bowl weekend and arrested 15 drivers for driving while intoxicated, police said.

Statewide, troopers arrested 177 drivers for DWI, issued more than 3,000 tickets and investigated 822 crashes, including one fatal crash.

A Syracuse man, Edwin C. Montanez, 47, was killed Saturday in a head-on crash in Ontario County, according to State Police. Two other people were seriously injured in the crash, troopers said.

Drivers may have noticed more police out over the weekend. Starting on Friday, State Police had increased patrols and sobriety checkpoints to deter, identify and arrest impaired drivers.

The special STOP-DWI enforcement campaign is funded by the Governors Traffic Safety Committee, State Police said. Troopers used both marked vehicles and concealed identity traffic enforcement vehicles as part of the STOP-DWI enforcement campaign.

The highest number of DWI arrests occurred in the Hudson Valley area. State Police issued the most tickets to people on the Thruway with speed as the main factor.

An impaired driving conviction carries a maximum fine of $10,000, up to seven years in prison and license revocation, according to troopers.

During last years Super Bowl enforcement campaign, troopers arrested 161 people for impaired driving and issued 8,663 tickets statewide.
MoneySuperMarket is one of Britains biggest price comparison websites - Chris Batson/Alamy

The owner of MoneySuperMarket has lost 144m in value following the launch of a new insurance price comparison app on ChatGPT.

Shares in Mony Group, which owns some of the biggest price comparison websites in Britain, fell by up to 13.8pc on Tuesday as investors feared it could be undercut by artificial intelligence-powered rivals.

It suffered a hit alongside insurance company Admiral and GoCompare owner Future as fears over AI disruption continued to hit the London stock market following a rout last week.

The share price drops were sparked by the launch of a new app that lets users check home insurance prices by typing descriptions of their properties directly into ChatGPT.

The Tuio Home app, which was developed by Spanish start-up Tuio, led to fears that comparison websites could suffer as their customers turn to AI chatbots instead.

Alongside MoneySuperMarket, Mony Group owns comparison websites including TravelSupermarket, cash-back website Quidco and MoneySavingExpert, the consumer finance website started by Martin Lewis.

Future, the British publishing business that owns GoCompare, saw its shares on the London Stock Exchange fall by up to 6.6pc on similar concerns, while shares in Admiral fell by over 2pc.

It comes after shares in US insurance companies were hit by similar concerns on Monday following the launch of a new AI-powered price-comparison app by American company Insurify.

In a similar manner to Tuios new tool, Insurifys app lets users compare the prices of insurance products by typing their queries directly into ChatGPT.

Admiral previously sold its own car insurance comparison website Compare.com to Insurify in March 2023, having sold Confused.com two years earlier in April 2021.

Analysts at RBC said the launch of the new AI powered comparison apps would be particularly damaging to American insurers, as they noted the market for comparison websites is much less developed in the US.

The impact on British comparison websites is likely to have been overstated, RBCs analysts added, as they suggested companies like Mony Group would be well placed to develop similar AI powered apps themselves.

Last week, software stocks were also hit by concerns surrounding AI disruption, following the launch of a new legal chatbot by Anthropic, the US company which developed Claude.

It led to sharp drops in software developers share prices, including RELX, the data and analytics firm formerly known as Reed Elsevier, and Sage, which makes accounting software.

Try full access to The Telegraph free today. Unlock their award-winning website and essential news app, plus useful tools and expert guides for your money, health and holidays.
Watertown, N.Y.  A 37-year-old Oswego County man has been accused of having sexual contact with a young girl in Jefferson County, police said.

Chadandrew Ray Macduffie, of Phoenix, was charged Friday with predatory sexual assault against a child, a felony, Watertown Police Lt. Joseph A. Giaquinto said in a news release.

The abuse occurred in August 2024 in Watertown, Giaquinto said. The child was less than 7 years old, according to court documents filed in Watertown City Court.

Hes being held in the Jefferson County Correctional Facility.
Syracuse, N.Y.  The city of Syracuse has agreed to pay a man $130,000 to settle a lawsuit that alleged he was wrongfully arrested in New York City and brought back to Syracuse.

The Common Council voted 6 to 0 on Monday to approve the settlement.

The man, Kenneth Hicks, filed the lawsuit against the Syracuse Police Department in early 2023.

Hicks alleged in the lawsuit that he was awoken in his bed by the three men at around 5 a.m. on March 24, 2022.

The Syracuse officers were acting upon an arrest warrant for a sex offender who had failed to report a change in his address, according to lawsuit documents. The officers named in the lawsuit are Detective Andrew Barnes, Officer Fred Lamberton and Officer Mamoun Abraham.

The lawsuit alleges that Hicks told the officers he was not the man they were looking for, but he was handcuffed him and driven to Syracuse.

Hicks was arraigned in Syracuse City Court and charged with failure to provide identification, failure to report a change in address in 10 days and failure to sign verification form/confirm address. The latter two charges are for registered sex offenders.

Hicks was jailed at the Onondaga County Justice Center for more than 24 hours before he was released on March 25.

He said in the lawsuit he had never been to Syracuse or to Onondaga County, and had no family, no money, and no way to get back home to Harlem.

The charges were dropped on April 7, 2022, after Hicks attorney contacted the assistant district attorney handling the case and she agreed the officers had arrested the wrong person, according to the lawsuit.

Hicks, a registered sex offender, was in compliance with his registration requirements, Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick said.

Susan Katzoff, citys Corporation Counsel, said in a letter to the Common Council that the officers deny all of the allegations in the lawsuit.

We believe that this settlement is in the best financial interest of the City of Syracuse particularly in light of the fact that this matter is being litigated in New York County rather than Onondaga County, Katzoff said in the letter.

Syracuse Police Benevolent Association President Joe Moran defended the officers and explained what happened.

He said the state Division of Criminal Justice Services gave the officers the mans name as Kenneth Hicks.

It turned out there were two registered sex offenders with the same first name and similar last names, Moran said. Hicks is a Level 1 offender, and the other man was a Level 3, he said. Level 1 is the lowest level and Level 3 is the highest level.

Fitzpatrick said the other mans name was Kenneth Houck, adding they were both white men. It was later discovered Houck had died in 2020, two years before Hicks was arrested, he said.

The officers handled the arrest exactly in the manner as they should have based upon information provided by the state, Moran said.

Our members could not have done anything different to prevent this outcome, Moran said.

Kieran Coffey, a spokesperson for the Syracuse Police Department, declined to answer questions about the arrest. He instead issued a one-sentence statement from Katzoff, with the citys Corporation Counsel: We are unable to comment on the specifics of the (settlement) agreement.

Hicks legal counsel did not respond to an inquiry by syracuse.com | The Post-Standard.
The Syracuse International Jazz Festival is expanding its leadership team ahead of the festivals 40th edition.

Syracuse Jazz Fest announced Tuesday that Stacey Waterman, director of operations, will step into a more active role overseeing daytoday festival management and guiding the events ongoing development. The festival also named Marissa Greenlar as director of marketing and Carrie Wojtaszek as director of sponsorship.

Jazz Fest founder Frank Malfitano will continue as the festivals executive director. Malfitano, 80, said he will step back from year-round operational demands and focus on guiding the festival through its next chapter, while continue to contribute creatively towards its future direction.

According to a press release, the leadership changes will support the festivals continued growth and longterm vision."

Dates, performers and details for the 2026 Syracuse International Jazz Festival have not yet been announced. It will be the 40th Syracuse Jazz Fest and the events fifth year in a row after returning from a four-year hiatus in 2022.

Syracuse Jazz Fest has expanded its leadership team with (L-R) Director of Operations Stacey Waterman, Director of Sponsorship Carrie Wojtaszek, and Director of Marketing Marissa Greenlar. (Provided photos) Provided

Malfitano staged the first Syracuse jazz festival in 1982, turning it into an annual event in a variety of locations like Longbranch Park, Song Mountain, Clinton Square, Jamesville Beach, and Onondaga Community College. Past headliners include legends like Ray Charles, B.B. King, Smokey Robinson, Dr. John, and Aretha Franklin; last years lineup included Trombone Shorty and Rock and Roll Hall of Famers like The Spinners, Todd Rundgren, and Steve Smith (formerly of Journey).

Malfitano thanked sponsors, patrons and fans for being a part of Jazz Fest, calling it his love letter to jazz and to his hometown. He also promised the festival will remain Always and Forever Free, maintaining its reputation as the northeasts largest free jazz festival.

After 44 years at the helm of Jazz Fest, and as the events founder, nothing pleases me more than knowing that the festival will continue on long after I retire. As far as event management teams go, Stacey, Carrie, and Marissa are the best in the business, said Malfitano. Theyre successful, experienced, and dynamic, and theyre not just going to carry Jazz Fest forward... theyre going to take it to the next level. With these three powerhouse women in charge, the future of Jazz Fest is in very good hands.

Syracuse Jazz Fest director Frank Malfitano thanks the crowd at the 2025 festival in Clinton Square. (Charlie Miller | cmiller@syracuse.com) (Charlie Miller | cmiller@syracuse.com)

Waterman, who grew up on the Onondaga Nation, has more than 30 years of experience in staging live events and has owned DMR Booking since 1993. The SAMMYS Hall of Fame inductee has previously worked with national touring productions and Central New York events like NYS Blues Fest, Taste of Syracuse, Syracuse Nationals and K-Rockathon.

Wojtaszek, who owns Moment Maker Agency, has nearly two decades of experience in sponsorship development, public relations and strategic brand partnership including in her former role as chief operating officer of Galaxy Media. Her role will help Syracuse Jazz Fest, which has always been free to attend thanks to underwriting and funding from corporate sponsors and public grants.

And Greenlar, former chief content officer at Galaxy Media, has previously worked with 13 local radio stations and regional events like Lights on the Lake, Taste of Syracuse, and Syracuse Nationals. She currently owns Outsourced Brands and Services, specializing in event management, content creation, social media, website development, and graphic design.

The 2026 Syracuse Jazz Fest lineup and schedule is expected to be announced in the coming weeks.
Syracuse, NY -- Upstate University Hospital is joining the adult urgent care business with a walk-in clinic across the street from its downtown emergency room.

The clinic, called Upstate Connect Care is expanding hours and now welcoming patients who need immediate attention, but not emergency services. It will also serve patients without a primary care doctor.

The hospitals transition to urgent care is a pivot for Connect Care, which was originally intended to treat patients diverted from the hospitals overcrowded emergency room. It will now serve patients with less severe needs who can skip the emergency room altogether and come directly to Connect Care.

Connect Care is located on the first floor of the Nappi Wellness Institute, 725 E. Adams St., across from the main hospital.

Starting today, Feb. 10, Connect Care will expand hours from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. weekdays. Previously, the clinic didnt open until late afternoon. The clinic will remain closed on weekends.

It serves patients 16 or older.

Evolving Connect Care into a true walk-in clinic allows us to serve more patients, more quickly, and more conveniently, said Dr. Robert Corona, University Hospitals chief executive officer. This is part of our strategic priority to increase access points meeting patients where they are.

The expanded hours will help manage patient overflow in the emergency department.

By expanding Connect Cares role as a walk-in clinic, were giving patients another place to turn when they need help right away, while also helping ease crowding in the ER, Corona said in a statement.

The clinic will serve as an urgent care for symptoms such as minor burns, ear infections, coughs, colds or mild COVID symptoms, diarrhea, insect bites or minor cuts. Patients requiring a higher level of care should still go to the Upstate Emergency Department across the street, according to a news release.

Upstates walk-in pediatric after-hours urgent care recently moved to Nappis fourth floor. Serving children ages 21 and younger, it is open Monday through Friday from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m., and weekends from noon to 8 p.m.
To the Editor:

The recent reporting on Syracuses Black infant mortality should alarm every one of us (More of Syracuses Black babies are dying than before: Its just completely unacceptable, Jan. 23, 2026). A rate of 14 deaths per 1,000 births is not just a statistic, it is a measure of systems failing Black families again and again. Access to consistent prenatal care, safe housing, nutritious food, transportation and culturally responsive support all play a critical role in infant survival.

REACH CNY was founded to address racial disparities in birth outcomes, which is why the recent reporting is both devastating and familiar to our work. Our Community Health Workers and Early Head Start programs work directly with local families to address these barriers. Community Health Workers provide trusted, relationship-based support that helps expectant parents navigate healthcare, social services and basic needs. Early Head Start supports pregnant people, infants and young children by strengthening parent-child relationships, promoting healthy development, and connecting families to essential resources during the most critical early years.

Reaching families earlier in pregnancy is important, but timing alone is not enough. What saves lives is coordinated, community-based support that is accessible, trusted and ongoing. This moment calls for deeper investment in proven, locally rooted approaches that meet families where they are.

Black infant mortality should never be an outlier in our community health data. It should be a call to action.

Our babies lives depend on it.

Kathleen Harter

Executive Director

REACH CNY

Syracuse
President Donald Trump is threatening to block the opening of a new bridge connecting the United States and Canada.

The Gordie Howe International Bridge is expected to open later this year after a period of testing, according to CNN. The 1.5-mile span will connect Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.

But Trump said in a Truth Social post that he would not allow the bridge to open.

I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them, and also, importantly, Canada treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve. We will start negotiations, IMMEDIATELY.

It was not clear how Trump would block the bridge from opening. It is operated by the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority, according to CNN.

Canada has paid for the entire cost of the $5.7 billion project, according to the Detroit Free Press.

Trump said Canada has treated the U.S. badly for decades, according to the Free Press. He noted many Canadian provinces are not even stocking U.S. liquor since he began imposing tariffs on Canadian imports during his first term.

He also said the bridge was built with no U.S. content for products like steel.

With all that we have given them, we should own, perhaps, at least one half of this asset, Trump wrote.

The bridge is already owned jointly by the U.S. and Canada, according to the Free Press.

Trumps threat to block the bridge opening is part of his larger pressure campaign to get Canada to give in to his demands, according to The New York Times.

He has threatened to annex Canada and make it the 51st state in addition to waging a trade war using tariffs. He has also threatened other economic sanctions.

The bridge project broke ground in 2018.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the nations largest business lobbying group, denounced Trumps threat in a statement, writing that whether this proves real or simply threatened to keep uncertainty high  blocking or barricading bridges is a self-defeating move.
Syracuse, N.Y.  Bruce Blakeman, the likely Republican nominee for governor, on Monday picked Madison County Sheriff Todd Hood to serve as his lieutenant governor running mate in Novembers election.

Blakeman chose Hood hours after Fulton County Sheriff Richard Giardino declined to join him on the ticket, Blakeman confirmed Monday.

Im honored to join Bruce Blakeman in this fight to make New York safe and affordable again, Hood said in a statement. Together, Bruce and I will restore law and order, support law enforcement, protect victims, and respect taxpayers.

Hood was elected to a third term as Madison County sheriff in November. He is a former Syracuse police officer, who served with the department for 22 years starting in 1993.

After leaving the Syracuse Police Department, he worked as a criminal and homicide investigator for the Onondaga County District Attorneys Office.

Blakeman made the choice days before he is expected to win the Republican nomination for governor at the GOPs statewide convention on Long Island.

The convention, which began Monday, continues through Wednesday. Blakeman would face Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in this years election.

Blakeman, of Long Island, is the Nassau County executive. By choosing Hood, he would balance the ticket with a Republican sheriff from Upstate New York.

Hood was reelected with more than 83 percent of the vote in November over a write-in candidate.

Hood, like Blakeman, has supported President Donald Trump and his aggressive immigration crackdown.

In July, the Madison County Sheriffs Office was among a handful of local law enforcement agencies that agreed to work with the federal government to serve and execute warrants on undocumented immigrants in the county jail.

In addition to his duties as sheriff, Hood serves in state and national leadership positions. He is vice president of the New York State Sheriffs Association and chair of the National Sheriffs Association School Safety Committee.

Hood, an Oneida native, has been a lifelong resident of Madison County. He attended Oneida City Schools and received a sociology degree from Springfield College in Springfield, Mass.

Hochul, a Buffalo area native and Syracuse University graduate, holds a commanding lead over Blakeman, 54%-28%, according to a Siena Poll published last week.
A popular chicken restaurant chain is planning to open its first location in Upstate New York.

Raising Canes Chicken Fingers has proposed a new restaurant built in Minotti Crossings Plaza along Jefferson Road in Henrietta, N.Y., according to WROC. It would be located between Shake Shack and Panera Bread, about 5 miles outside of Rochester and 80 miles west of Syracuse.

Town Supervisor Steve Schultz told the WROC that the Henrietta Town Board approved a resolution last week to oversee an environmental review of the proposed Raising Canes at 823 Jefferson Road. Schultz confirmed the company sent a letter of intent and would file a formal application by Wednesday.

According to the Democrat & Chronicle, the letter indicated Raising Canes will request special permit approval for a 3,031-square-foot sit-down restaurant with drive-thru, takeout and outdoor seating. A public hearing on the permit is expected at the towns March 18 meeting.

Henrietta would mark the first Raising Canes location in Upstate New York. The chain currently has 13 locations in the Empire State, all within the New York City area.

Raising Canes is a quick-serve restaurant known for serving chicken fingers, crinkle cut fries and its signature Canes Sauce. The company, named after founder Todd Graves Labrador retriever, opened its first location in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1996, and has more than 900 locations across the U.S.

Raising Canes has been expanding in recent years, adding 118 locations in 2024 and about 100 in 2025. According to USA Today, the business aims to soon have 1,600 locations and become a top 10 U.S. restaurant brand.

CNBC reports Raising Canes surpassed KFC last year to become the third-largest chicken chain in annual U.S. sales. Canes reported $5.1 billion in sales, nearly double it 2021 total, behind only Chick-fil-A and Popeyes.
Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado speaks during the NYREC Emerging Leaders and Markets (ELM) Conference at the Victoria Renaissance Hotel on June 06, 2025 in New York City. Delgado spoke during the event which brings together leaders from Government, Business, Community Development, and Finance as he begins to campaign for governor as he primaries Gov. Kathy Hochul. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) Getty Images

Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado has ended his campaign for New York governor.

Ive decided to end my campaign for Governor of New York, he began in a social media post on Tuesday. After much consideration, Ive concluded that there simply is no viable path forward.

Despite ending his campaign, Delgado promised supporters to do all I can in our effort to build a more humane, affordable, and equitable state that serves all New Yorkers.

Delgados decision to end his gubernatorial bid comes days after New York Gov. Kathy Hochul named Adrienne Adams, the former speaker of the New York City Council, as her replacement lieutenant governor pick for the upcoming election.

Delgado had served as Hochuls lieutenant governor since 2022. During the summer of 2025, he announced the decision to run against her, inciting a public feud. Over the past few months, he has remained her lieutenant governor while simultaneously campaigning against her.

Delgado, originally from Schenectady, lives in Rhinebeck with his wife Lacey and their twin sons. Before becoming lieutenant governor, he served in the U.S. House as the first person of color to represent Upstate New York.

The 2026 New York gubernatorial election is scheduled to take place on Nov. 3, 2026.
Two teens in Upstate New York have been arrested after stealing a vehicle from a Walmart parking lot, according to New York State Police.

Troopers say a 14-year-old and 15-year-old were arrested Sunday with the assistance of the Watervliet Police Department. The teens are accused of stealing an SUV from the Walmart on Hoosick Road in Brunswick, N.Y., and crashing it, plus stealing another vehicle.

Police say the SUV was reported stolen around 9:26 a.m. Sunday. Troopers patrolling the area found the vehicle around 10:39 a.m., driving on North Pearl Street in Watervliet. Troopers attempted a traffic stop, then a pursuit after the SUV operator failed to comply; police ended the pursuit after losing sight of the vehicle.

Watervliet Police said they located the vehicle at 10:53 a.m. after it crashed into another vehicle in the area of 2nd Street. The 14-year-old was identified as the driver, and the 15-year-old as a passenger; both were taken into custody.

During further investigation, police determined that the 15-year-old allegedly stole another vehicle while the pair operated the stolen SUV. The second vehicle was located abandoned less than a block away from where it was stolen.

The 14-year-old was charged with criminal possession of stolen property 3rd, a class D felony; reckless endangerment, 2nd, a class A misdemeanor; and criminal mischief 4th, a class A misdemeanor.

The 15-year-old was charged with grand larceny 3rd, a class D felony; and criminal possession of stolen property 3rd, a class D felony.

Their names and additional details were not released.

Both juveniles were processed by NYS Police in Latham, then issued appearance tickets returnable to the Albany County Family Court. They have since been released to their guardians.

Brunswick is located in Rensselaer County, about eight miles from Watervliet in Albany County. Both are in New Yorks Capital Region.
Mainstream airlines have generally fared much better than low-cost ones in the current economy. Still, American Airlines has had a particularly challenging last year.

At the end of January, the Dallas-based airline posted 2025 earnings of just $111 million or 16 cents per share in a report that missed analyst expectations of 34 to 38 cents. The carrier's total profit took a large hit from the travel disruption that came as a result of government shutdown lasting throughout October and November; compared to 2024, net profit fell by nearly 87%.

In an environment guided by poor morale and the looming fear of job cuts following hundreds of such layoffs on the corporate end last November, the unions representing both pilots and flight attendants working for the airline both sent letters criticizing the leadership of CEO Robert Isom over the last few days.

Pilots' association says American Airlines' "failure begins at the very top"

The Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA) representing more than 28,000 flight attendants working for the airline also unanimously passed a formal no-confidence vote.

In a resolution that passed Feb. 9, the APFA classifies Isom's leadership as a "relentless downward spiral" that needs to be met with "decisive action" to improve American's course.

Related: Spirit Airlines sees flights into this city plummet by nearly half

"From abysmal profits earned to operational failures that have front-line workers sleeping on floors, this airline must course-correct before it falls even further behind," APFA President Julie Hedrick said in a release announcing the vote. "This level of failure begins at the very top with CEO Robert Isom."

The letter draws attention to the fact that, while competitors such as Delta Air Lines and United Airlines both reported strong profits, American Airlines had a string of weak quarters at a time when Isom earned a compensation package that totaled $13.2 million for 2025.

The APA letter calls out CEO Robert Isom's salary relative to lack of salary increases for pilots and flight attendants.TheStreet  TheStreet

"A company that should be thriving": Pressure on American Airlines CEO mounts

While the vote or the letter does not expressly call for Isom's removal, the vote is still historic in that it is the first such measure taken by the union in the airline's history.

A letter from the Allied Pilots Association (APA) representing the airline's more than 16,000 pilots delivered a similar letter to leadership on Feb. 6, stating that its members had "lost confidence in management's ability to course correct."

APA is also requesting a meeting in which they can present these concerns to American Airlines' board. Ipsom's response offers "an opportunity to address [...] the specifics" by meeting with union representatives, but does not offer a chance to go in front of the board, according to View from the Wing.
WASHINGTON (AP)  Under questioning from Democrats Tuesday, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick acknowledged that he had met with Jeffrey Epstein twice after his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a child, reversing Lutnicks previous claim that he had cut ties with the late financier after 2005.

Lutnick, who visited the Syracuse area last month for Microns groundbreaking, again downplayed his relationship with the disgraced financier who was once his neighbor in New York City as he was questioned by Democrats during a subcommittee hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He described their contact as a handful of emails and a pair of meetings that were years apart.

I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with him, Lutnick told lawmakers.

But Lutnick is facing growing scrutiny, including calls for his resignation, from lawmakers after the release of case files on Epstein contradicted Lutnicks claims on a podcast last year that he had decided to never be in the room with Epstein again after a 2005 tour of Epsteins home that disturbed Lutnick and his wife.

The commerce secretary told senators Tuesday that he and his family actually had lunch with Epstein on his private island in 2012 and he had another hour-long engagement at Epsteins home in 2011. Lutnick, a member of President Donald Trumps Cabinet, is the highest-profile U.S. official to face bipartisan calls for his resignation amid revelations of his ties to Epstein. His acknowledgement comes as lawmakers are grasping for what accountability looks like amid the revelations contained in whats known as the Epstein files.

In countries like the United Kingdom, the Epstein files have triggered resignations and the stripping of royal privileges, but so far, U.S. officials have not met the same level of retribution.

Senators want to dig into Lutnicks ties to Epstein

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, the Democrat who questioned Lutnick, told him, Theres not an indication that you yourself engaged in any wrongdoing with Jeffrey Epstein. Its the fact that you believe that you misled the country and the Congress based on your earlier statements.

Van Hollen, D-Md., stopped short of calling for Lutnicks resignation on Monday, but requested documentation from Lutnick on any of his ties to Epstein.

Its absolutely essential that he provide Congress with those documents, given the misrepresentations hes made, and then well go from there, he said.

Lutnick during the Senate hearing said he would give that request some thought, adding, I have nothing to hide.

However, several Senate Republicans were also questioning Lutnicks relationship with Epstein. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said the visit to Epsteins private island would raise questions. And Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told reporters, Its something Im concerned with.

Tillis stayed away from calling for Lutnick to leave his post, but added that he would do himself a service by just laying exactly what and what did not happen over the course of what seems to be an interesting relationship that included business entanglements.

A pair of House members call for resignation

Meanwhile, House members who initiated the legislative effort to force the release of the files are calling for Lutnick to resign. Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky called for that over the weekend after emails were released that alluded to the meetings between Lutnick and Epstein.

Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, joined Massie in pressuring Lutnick out of office on Monday.

Based on the evidence, he should be out of the Cabinet, Khanna said.

He added, Its not about any particular person. In this country, we have to make a decision. Are we going to allow the rich and powerful people who are friends and (had) no problem doing business and showing up with a pedophile who is raping underage girls, are we just going to allow them to skate?
The Osram logo hangs at Osram's annual general meeting in the convention center at the trade fair. Sven Hoppe/dpa

Austrian-German lighting and sensor business ams Osram is set to cut 2,000 jobs worldwide, despite an improved performance in 2025, the company said on Tuesday.

Some 1,000 jobs each will be cut in Europe and Asia, including some lay-offs previously announced.

The company's German locations will be most heavily affected by the cuts, with a couple hundred jobs to go at its semiconductor plant in Regensburg, chief executive Aldo Kamper said.

Ams Osram plans to move production of items that are also made by Asian competitors to Asia for cost reasons, creating space in Regensburg for highly automated manufacturing, according to the company boss.

For the 2025 full year, ams Osram posted a net loss of 129 million ($153.6 million), able to reduce its woes to a sixth of the figure seen in the previous year, mostly due to improvements in the operative business.

However, the company continues to be burdened by high debt, some of which it managed to offload a few days ago by selling a division to chipmaker Infineon.

Ams Osram currently employs some 19,000 people worldwide, including 7,500 in Europe and 10,700 in Asia.

Chief executive Kamper described the planned cuts as an important but painful step to improve competitiveness.
Warming climate threatens Greenland's ancestral way of life



Sisimiut, Denmark, Feb 10 (AFP) Feb 10, 2026



Standing in his boat with binoculars in hand, hunter Malik Kleist scans the horizon for seals. But this February, the sea ice in southwestern Greenland has yet to freeze, threatening traditional livelihoods like his.

"Normally the seals are on the ice or in the more calm waters. But today we had to sail all the way into the fjords to find them," the 37-year-old tells AFP.

The Arctic region is on the frontline of global warming, heating up four times faster than the rest of the planet since 1979, according to a 2022 study in scientific journal Nature, causing the sea ice to retreat.

Seals rely on pack ice to give birth, to rest and for protection.

Hunters increasingly have to sail farther along the jagged coast of Sisimiut, navigating into the fjords for several hours to find them.

Traditionally, hunters' boats would head straight out to sea, slowly pushing through the ice and creating holes that attract seals coming up for air.

But without any ice, "it's too windy and the waves are too big," Kleist says.

Last year was exceptionally warm in the vast autonomous territory, with several temperature records beaten, according to the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI).

In December, the Summit Station, located at the height of Greenland's ice sheet, recorded an average temperature of -30.9 degrees C (-23.6 Fahrenheit), 8.1C higher than the December average during the period 1991-2020.

"It affects everything we do. Because normally around November, December the ice comes. And this year there's no ice, so it affects our living a lot," Kleist says.



- Financial woes -



For the same reason, the government has also had to postpone the annual winter musk ox hunt that was due to start on January 31.

There wasn't enough snow and ice to transport the massive animals that roam the Arctic tundra back from Kangerlussuaq where they are predominantly found, around 165 kilometres (103 miles) away. Greenland has no roads connecting its towns.

That has left some Sisimiut hunters with less income than usual.

"This time of year there is not much to hunt. So we rely on musk ox meat and skin," Kleist says.

"Many of my fellow hunters are struggling with money right now."

Every part of the animal, from the fur to the meat, is either used or sold.

The summer hunting season has therefore gained importance, enabling Greenlanders to fill their freezers to get them through the winter months, he tells AFP over a steaming bowl of fish stew.

The shorter winter season has also impacted another key activity in Greenland, one that has become increasingly important to the tourism sector: dogsled tours.

In the Sisimiut neighbourhood where the dogs are kept, their thunderous barking mounts as Nukaaraq Olsen, a 21-year-old musher, attaches them to the sled.

Raring to get going, his 18 dogs are hard to hold back. Twenty minutes later, the group bounds off.

But the road is bumpy, and several times Olsen has to get up to manually push the sled, stuck on the tundra's rocks in patches where there is no ice.

"This year we had a lot of hot, warm days, even though it's December or January," he says.

Other parts of the route are no longer safe to use, due to repeated melting and freezing of snowfall which causes uneven layers, he explains.



- Dehydrated dogs -



The dogs' health is also affected by the changing climate.

They are used to quenching their thirst with snow, but with little or no snowfall, they can easily get dehydrated. Mushers have to take that into account when caring for their animals.

Many have even had to get rid of their dogs, the business of maintaining them no longer profitable with the dogsled season shrinking to just two months, says Emilie Andersen-Ranberg, a researcher at the University of Copenhagen who runs a dog clinic in Sisimiut.

Others, such as 72-year-old Johanne Bech, are finding novel ways to adapt.

She plans to put wheels on her sled to continue running dogsled tours during the summer period.

That solution is growing in popularity, as "the window with snow is getting more and more narrow," the veterinarian says.

Over the past 20 years, the number of sleddogs has been halved from 25,000 to 13,000, according to a 2024 article from the University of Greenland in 2024.

Yet Johanne Bech remains optimistic about the future.

"I hope this is just for a short time, so we can go back to a little more stable snow or more ice in the future."
Three-year heatwave bleached half the planet's coral reefs: study



Paris, France, Feb 10 (AFP) Feb 10, 2026



A study published on Tuesday showed that more than half of the world's coral reefs were bleached between 2014-2017 -- a record-setting episode now being eclipsed by another series of devastating heatwaves.

The analysis concluded that 51 percent of the world's reefs endured moderate or worse bleaching while 15 percent experienced significant mortality over the three-year period known as the "Third Global Bleaching Event".

It was "by far the most severe and widespread coral bleaching event on record", said Sean Connolly, one the study's authors and a senior scientist at the Panama-based Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

"And yet, reefs are currently experiencing an even more severe Fourth Event, which started in early 2023," Connolly said in a statement.

When the sea overheats, corals eject the microscopic algae that provides their distinct colour and food source.

Unless ocean temperatures return to more tolerable levels, bleached corals are unable to recover and eventually die of starvation.

"Our findings demonstrate that the impacts of ocean warming on coral reefs are accelerating, with the near certainty that ongoing warming will cause large-scale, possibly irreversible, degradation of these essential ecosystems," said the study in the journal Nature Communications.

An international team of scientists analysed data from more than 15,000 in-water and aerial surveys of reefs around the world over the 2014-2017 period.

They combined the data with satellite-based heat stress measurements and used statistical models to estimate how much bleaching occurred around the world.



- No time to recover -



The two previous global bleaching events, in 1998 and 2010, had lasted one year.

"2014-17 was the first record of a global coral bleaching event lasting much beyond a single year," the study said.

"Ocean warming is increasing the frequency, extent, and severity of tropical-coral bleaching and mortality."

Australia's Great Barrier Reef, for instance, saw peak heat stress increase each year between 2014 and 2017.

"We are seeing that reefs don't have time to recover properly before the next bleaching event occurs," said Scott Heron, professor of physics at James Cook University in Australia.

A major scientific report last year warned that the world's tropical coral reefs have likely reached a "tipping point" -- a shift that could trigger massive and often permanent changes in the natural world.

The global scientific consensus is that most coral reefs would perish at warming of 1.5C above preindustrial levels -- the ambitious, long-term limit countries agreed to pursue under the 2015 Paris climate accord.

Global temperatures exceeded 1.5C on average between 2023-2025, the European Union's climate monitoring service, Copernicus, said last month.

"We are only just beginning to analyse bleaching and mortality observations from the current bleaching event," Connolly told AFP.

"However the overall level of heat stress was extraordinarily high, especially in 2023-2024, comparable to or higher than what was observed in 2014-2017, at least in some regions," he said.

He said the Pacific coastline of Panama experienced "dramatically worse heat stress than they had ever experienced before, and we observed considerable coral mortality".
Top emitter China's 2025 coal power fell as renewables grew



Beijing, Feb 10 (AFP) Feb 10, 2026



China's coal-fired power generation fell by nearly two percent in 2025, despite rising energy demand in the world's largest emitter, data reviewed by AFP showed.

It marked the first drop in six years, with some analysts saying it was the first time on record that coal generation dropped at the same time as power demand rose.

Coal has been China's key power generation source for decades and a key driver of its planet-warming emissions.

But coal's share in the country's energy mix has edged down in recent years due to explosive growth in renewable installation.

Coal-fired power generation decreased by 1.9 percent in 2025 compared with a year earlier, despite electricity consumption rising five percent, according to the China Electricity Council (CEC), a national trade association for the power industry.

Clean energy including wind, solar, and biomass absorbed much of the demand, accounting for 97.1 percent of new electricity consumption last year, the CEC said in a report.

Official and industry data reviewed by AFP suggests the drop in coal power generation is the first decline since at least 2019, and likely earlier.

Before 2019, official statistics measured coal power generation together with gas and oil, making it difficult to compare annual figures for coal alone.

But Lauri Myllyvirta at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air said his analysis showed the decline was the first since 2015.

But that drop was caused by slower electricity demand following the 2008 financial crisis.

In 2025 however, "growth in power generation from solar, wind, and nuclear covered all of the growth in demand, and a rebound in hydropower generation helped push down the use of gas", Myllyvirta told AFP.



- Clean energy absorbing demand -



That also helped push down annual carbon dioxide emissions in the power generation sector, he said.

China installed a record 315 gigawatts of solar power and 119 gigawatts of wind power capacity last year -- over 80 percent of total newly installed power generation capacity, according to the CEC.

But the country still added around 93 gigawatts of gas and coal power capacity in 2025, 75 percent more than in 2024, according to official data.

Coal accounted for 51 percent of total power generation in 2025, down nearly 10 percentage points since 2020, the CEC added.

China aims to peak its carbon emissions by 2030, cutting them at least seven percent by 2035 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060.
EU parliament adopts bloc's 2040 climate target



Strasbourg, France, Feb 10 (AFP) Feb 10, 2026



The European Parliament on Tuesday gave its final approval to an ambitious target for cutting EU greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, a key milestone towards the bloc's goal of becoming carbon neutral by mid-century.

Lawmakers voted by 413 to 226 in favour of a 90-percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990 levels, with flexibility to use carbon credits bought outside the 27-nation EU to help reach the goal.

The target now requires an ultimate sign-off by EU member states.

In a compromise to address concerns by several countries including Italy, the final text allows for five percent of cuts to be accounted for through carbon credits acquired for projects outside Europe.

Activist groups have accused the bloc of simply sending the climate change campaign offshore.

Further down the road, the EU could, if needed, eventually allow member states to make up a further five percent of their targets via credits from international carbon markets.

Under pressure from Poland and Hungary, the final deal also put back by one year to 2028 an emissions trading system for road transport and heating buildings, with some member states still pushing for a delay past that date.

Behind only China, the United States and India in terms of emissions, the EU has been the most committed of the major polluters to climate action and by 2023 had cut emissions by 37 percent compared to 1990 levels.

Despite granting concessions on its 2040 target, the EU still lays claim to global leadership in the climate fight -- and is urging its international partners to step up.

"We are only responsible for six percent of global emissions," the EU's climate chief Wopke Hoekstra said recently.

"The reality is while Europe is one of the leaders on climate action, and it is financing by far the most of climate action abroad, unfortunately solidarity and reciprocity do not always go hand in hand," he said, warning: "That has to change."
US to scrap cornerstone of climate regulation this week



Washington, United States, Feb 10 (AFP) Feb 10, 2026



President Donald Trump's administration is expected to finalize this week its repeal of a foundational scientific determination that underpins the US government's authority to regulate greenhouse gas pollution.

The Environmental Protection Agency last summer proposed reversing the so-called Endangerment Finding of 2009, in what was seen as a major blow to climate action in the world's biggest historic contributor of planet-warming emissions.

"This amounts to the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States," EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin told The Wall Street Journal.

The finding under then-president Barack Obama concluded that six greenhouse gases -- including carbon dioxide and methane -- endanger public health and welfare by driving climate change.

That determination flowed from a 2007 Supreme Court decision, Massachusetts v. EPA, which ruled that greenhouse gases qualify as pollutants under the Clean Air Act and directed the EPA to determine whether they pose a danger to public health and welfare.

While the finding initially applied only to a section of the Clean Air Act governing vehicle emissions, it was later incorporated into other regulations.

As a result, repealing the finding would immediately revoke the requirement for federal greenhouse gas emissions standards for automobiles.

And it would place a broader suite of climate regulations in legal jeopardy, including limits on carbon dioxide from power plants and methane from oil and gas operations.

"The Obama Administration made one of the most damaging decisions in modern history," the EPA said in a statement to AFP Tuesday.

"The Endangerment Finding is the legal prerequisite used by the Obama and Biden Administrations to justify trillions of dollars of greenhouse gas regulations covering new vehicles and engines," it added.

The administration's draft proposal rests on both legal and scientific arguments. Procedurally, it asserts that greenhouse gases should not be treated as pollutants in the traditional sense because their effects on human health are indirect and global rather than local.

Regulating them within US borders, it contends, cannot meaningfully resolve a worldwide problem.

On the scientific front, the administration has sought to downplay the scale and impacts of human-caused climate change.

It commissioned a Energy Department working group filled with skeptics of human-caused climate change to produce a report challenging the scientific consensus.

That report was widely criticized for misattribution and misstating the conclusions of the studies it cited. Environmental groups sued the Energy Department, alleging the panel was convened behind closed doors in violation of federal rules. Energy Secretary Chris Wright later disbanded the group.

Environmental organizations are expected to move quickly to challenge in court the elimination of the 2009 determination.

"If the EPA follows through and tries to repeal the Endangerment Finding, we will see them in court," Manish Bapna, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said recently.
Germany risks missing climate targets: draft action plan



Berlin, Feb 10 (AFP) Feb 10, 2026



Germany risks missing its climate targets for 2030 and 2045, according to a draft of the government's climate action plan obtained by AFP on Tuesday.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz's government faces a March 25 deadline to deliver a policy framework for how the EU's largest economy will deliver on legally binding climate pledges.

The leaked draft notes that Germany -- long a green energy champion -- is now projected to fall just short of hitting a 2030 target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 65 percent compared to 1990 levels.

Reaching that target remains "fundamentally achievable," says the draft, but an advisory panel of climate experts cited in the plan was less optimistic, finding that the target is "probably not going to be achieved".

Environmental groups which have looked at the details agreed, after the plan was also reported on by several German media outlets.

Germany's climate targets "cannot be achieved with the measures proposed" in the draft plan, the head of the group Environmental Action Germany (DUH), Sascha Mueller-Kraener, told AFP.

The draft plan also says that "the goal of net greenhouse gas neutrality by 2045 remains at risk of not being achieved".

"With the current climate policy instruments and the assumed framework conditions, it is not foreseeable that the transformation to greenhouse gas neutrality will be successful in all sectors," it reads.

The draft, prepared by the environment ministry and dated to late January, includes a range of policy proposals to help cut emissions, from subsidies for energy efficient building renovations to more investment in public transport.

But critics quickly noted that the draft does not account for other moves being pushed by Merz's coalition government, including a loosening of EU-wide car emission rules and an expected rollback of building energy efficiency mandates.

An environment ministry spokesman said details of the action plan are still being negotiated and that "we do not comment on unfinished drafts".

He added that the government remains committed to achieving Germany's legally mandated climate targets.



- 'Huge gaps' -



Even as US President Donald Trump has pulled the world's largest economy out of the Paris climate treaty, Germany's government remains under pressure to keep slashing emissions, which is enshrined in law.

A top German court ruled in late January that the previous government's climate action plan -- adopted in 2023 -- was inadequate and violated the law by failing to do enough to curb emissions.

That decision, which came in a lawsuit brought by DUH, suggests further legal battles may loom.

Merz, a conservative in power since last May, has made jump-starting Germany's stagnant economy a top priority and has looked to cut energy costs and loosen regulations on heavy industry.

Balancing that agenda with Germany's longstanding climate commitments poses a tricky challenge.

Lisa Badum, a Greens party MP and climate policy spokeswoman, said the draft plan outlined an "unambitious, piecemeal approach" that "won't allow us to reach the climate targets".

Badum said the handful of policy suggestions in the draft would not even offset higher emissions from other policies being pushed by Merz's government, such as tax breaks on aviation fuel and the changes to EU car emissions rules.

"We're talking about huge gaps in the targets: the problem sectors of transport and buildings are on track to miss their 2030 targets by almost 280 million tonnes of CO2 -- more than the entire country of Spain emits in a year," Badum said.

A separate draft proposal to overhaul electricity regulations -- which was also obtained by AFP -- would cut longstanding rules that favour renewable energy projects.

Current rules require electricity grid operators to prioritise connection requests from newly built renewables and also guarantee payments for the power those projects generate.

The leader of the German Renewable Energy Federation warned that the changes "will stifle the expansion of renewables" and would be "poison for urgently needed investments".
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Federal judges have dismissed three lawsuits accusing bestselling British fantasy author Neil Gaiman of sexually assaulting his children's nanny in New Zealand four years ago.

Scarlett Pavlovich filed a lawsuit against Gaiman and his wife, Amanda Palmer, in Wisconsin in February 2025, accusing Gaiman of multiple sexual assaults while she worked as the family's nanny in 2022. She filed lawsuits against Palmer in Massachusetts and in New York on the same day she filed the Wisconsin action.

Gaiman has a home in northwestern Wisconsin, and Palmer lives in Massachusetts. Pavlovich moved to drop the New York lawsuit against Palmer in May, explaining in court documents that she filed an action in that state because Palmer had recently relocated from New York to Massachusetts and she was unsure which state had jurisdiction. US District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil in New York City granted the request in June.

Pavlovich also dropped the portion of the Wisconsin lawsuit against Palmer in May, and US District Judge James Peterson in Madison dismissed the rest of it in October, saying Pavlovich needed to pursue the case in New Zealand. US District Judge Nathaniel Gorton in Boston threw out the Massachusetts filing on Friday on the same grounds.

open image in gallery Gaiman has denied he ever engaged in non-consensual sex with anyone ( Invision/AP )

Pavlovich's attorneys didnt respond to emails from The Associated Press seeking comment on Monday. Attorneys listed for Gaiman and Palmer didnt respond to messages, either.

The AP doesn't identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they publicly identify themselves. Pavlovich identified herself in an interview with New York magazine, which published an article in January 2025 detailing allegations of assault, abuse and coercion leveled by eight women.

Pavlovich alleged in her lawsuits that she was 22 years old and homeless when she met Palmer in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2020. Palmer invited Pavlovich to the couple's Waiheke Island home, and she eventually became their son's nanny, according to the filings.

Gaiman sexually assaulted her on the night they met in February 2022, she alleged in the lawsuits. The assaults continued, but she kept working for the couple because she was broke and homeless, and Gaiman had told her that he would help her writing career, according to the filings.

When she told Palmer about the assaults, Palmer said that more than a dozen women had told her in the past that Gaiman had sexually abused them, according to the lawsuits. The assaults finally stopped when Pavlovich told Palmer that she was going to kill herself, according to the filings.

Pavlovich went on to allege that Palmer knew of Gaiman's sexual desires and presented her to him, knowing he would assault her. She argued that Gaiman and Palmer violated federal human trafficking prohibitions and demanded at least $7 million in damages

open image in gallery Neil Gaiman and his wife, Amanda Palmer ( Getty )

Gaiman released a statement after the New York magazine article was published, denying he had ever engaged in non-consensual sex with anyone.

Gaiman's attorneys argued in a motion to dismiss the Wisconsin lawsuit that Gaiman and Pavlovich had a brief personal relationship that involved consensual physical intimacy."

Police in New Zealand investigated her assault allegations and found them meritless, the motion says. The attorneys went on to argue that Pavlovich's lawsuits were the culmination of a plan to smear Gaiman and that any legal disputes should be resolved in New Zealand, not the United States.

Gaiman has authored numerous science fiction and fantasy works, including the novels American Gods, The Graveyard Book, Anansi Boys and the dark children's fairy tale Coraline.

His 2013 novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, won the British National Book Award.
Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice

Blake Garrett, a former child actor best known for his role in the 2006 family comedy How to Eat Fried Worms, has died at the age of 33.

His mother, Carol Garrett, told TMZ that Garrett died Sunday, February 8, and the family is awaiting autopsy results to determine an official cause of death.

She told the publication that Blake went to the emergency room in Oklahoma last week after experiencing intense pain and was later diagnosed with shingles, a viral infection that causes a painful rash.

His mother said that Blake may have self-medicated to deal with the pain, and suspected his death may have been a tragic accident.

Born in Austin, Texas, Garrett began performing at eight years old in local productions, including a lead role as the magician in Aladdin and his Magical Lamp and as Charlie Brown in Peanuts: A Charlie Brown Tribute. His additional theatre credits include The Wizard of Oz, Annie and Grease, according to Deadline.

open image in gallery Blake Garrett as Plug, one of the school bullies, in the 2006 film How to Eat Worms ( Arrowhead Films )

At 10, he joined the touring production of Barney's Colorful World, which traveled across the country and played in arenas between 2003 and 2004.

For How to Eat Fried Worms, which follows a boy named Billy (Luke Benward) who joins a new school and is forced to eat 10 worms a day by his bully, Garrett won a Young Artist Award for Best Young Ensemble in a Feature Film alongside his castmates in 2007.

Garrett portrayed Plug, one of the henchmen to the main school bully, Joe Guire (played by Adam Hicks).

The film is based on Thomas Rockwells 1973 childrens book of the same name, and also starred James Rebhorn, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, and Tom Cavanagh.

open image in gallery Blake Garrett with the cast of How to Eat Fried Worms on set ( Arrowhead Films )

Aged 13, Garrett told local paper The Oklahoman that he learnt new skills while shooting How to Eat Fried Worms, including being taught how to do a 360-degree move on a bicycle by a stuntman.

Accompanied by his mother at the time, he told the paper: There were rows of bicycles, and they let me have first pick.

There was one scene where we were riding on a gravel road and got to slide to a stop. The guys who could ride worked on that scene. They had a camera on the ground, and in one scene I slid and gravel hit the camera. They really liked that shot, and thats the one they used in the movie, he said.

Despite early career success, Garrett doesnt appear to have continued his acting career into adulthood. TMZ reports his mother said he had been living a really good life over the last few years in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
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Catherine OHaras cause of death has been officially released, less than two weeks after the beloved Home Alone and Schitts Creek star died at 71.

It was initially announced that OHara had died following a brief illness, according to her manager.

Now, TMZ reports that the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office published the actors death certificate Monday. It states that OHaras immediate cause of death was a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot in her heart. Rectal cancer was listed as the underlying cause.

The death certificate also states that OHara has been cremated, with her remains given to her husband Bo Welch.

The Medical Examiners Office did not immediately return The Independents request for further details.

Although OHara played a wide variety of characters in a career that spanned five decades, she was perhaps best known for playing mothers. She played Macaulay Culkins character Kevins mother, Kate McCallister, in the first two Home Alone films  spawning the viral Kevin! meme  before going on to play matriarch Moira Rose in hit TV series Schitts Creek.

Culkin was among those leading the tributes to his late co-star, writing on Instagram: Mama. I thought we had time. I wanted more.

Also paying his respects was Pedro Pascal, who worked with OHara in The Last of Us. He wrote: Oh, genius to be near you. Eternally grateful. There is less light in my world, this lucky world that had you, will keep you, always.

Catherine O'Hara, who died in January at the age of 71, pictured attending the Primetime Emmys in September 2025 ( Getty )

OHara recently earned Emmy nominations for her work on The Last of Us and The Studio  the ninth and tenth of her career.

Born in Toronto on March 4, 1954, OHara was the sixth of seven children. In 1974 she joined the cast of The Second City in Toronto, the improv comedy troupe that also helped launch the careers of John Candy, Dan Aykroyd and Gilda Radner.

In 1976, the company launched SCTV, a televised sketch comedy show, and OHara became a regular performer. After the show was picked up by NBC for broadcast in the U.S. it became known as SCTV Network 90, and OHara won her first Emmy in 1982 for Outstanding Writing on an episode titled Moral Majority Show.

During the 1980s, she landed a number of supporting roles in films including Martin Scorseses After Hours in 1985 and Tim Burtons Beetlejuice in 1988. Decades later she reprised her role as Delia Deetz, mother to Winona Ryders Lydia Deetz, in the 2024 sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

The actor met her husband, production designer Bo Welch, on the set of Beetlejuice. Welch is known for his collaborations with Tim Burton, dating back to Edward Scissorhands. The couple married in 1992.

OHara is survived by Welch and their two sons, Matthew and Luke.
By Simon Jessop and Ross Kerber

LONDON/BOSTON, Feb 10 (Reuters) - A Texas judge's move to strike down a state law blacklisting "woke" financial firms, including BlackRock and HSBC, that used environmental, social or governance factors in investment decisions will likely drive a broader push to repeal so-called "anti-ESG" laws in other states, analysts said.

Texas lawmakers passed the Energy Discrimination Elimination Act in 2021, requiring state agencies and local authorities to break ties with and divest the shares of companies that refused to invest in some oil and gas companies, targeting the likes of BNP Paribas and Danske Bank on its list. About 14 other states followed suit.

A federal judge in Texas said the law was unconstitutional last week, ruling that it violated First Amendment free-speech protections because it punished businesses for speaking about fossil fuels and associating with organizations that oppose fossil fuels. Texas said it would appeal the verdict.

It was "a home-court loss for Texas," said K&L Gates attorney Lance Dial. "You would think if there's any place they could make this stick, it's Texas."

ROADMAP FOR CHALLENGES

Bryan McGannon, managing director at the U.S. Sustainable Investment Forum, said the ruling provides a "roadmap" for challenges to similar laws passed in Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee and Utah, as well as other policies that target environmental, social or corporate governance activities, or ESG.

"The ruling's challenge to the faulty premise that climate or ESG considerations must be motivated by social or political purposes and ignores 'ordinary business purpose' clears the way to contest many anti-ESG laws," he added.

Anti-ESG action has taken a variety of forms, including laws targeting diversity efforts and the use of lawsuits, including one from Texas and other states accusing investors of breaching antitrust laws when assessing corporate climate efforts.

Data from climate-policy advisory firm Pleiades Strategy, which tracks anti-ESG laws, shows there are currently 26 at various stages of development in U.S. states including in Alaska, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota and Nebraska.

However, since it began tracking the bills in 2022, 391 had been killed off before making it into law.

WILDFIRES, FLOODS

Insurer Munich Re said in January that the cost of damages caused by natural disasters such as floods and wildfires, which scientists say are increasing in frequency and intensity because of climate change, totaled $224 billion in 2025.
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Britney Spears has reportedly sold off her entire catalog to music company Primary Wave for an unknown amount.

The deal, which includes the rights to some of pop musics most iconic hits, like Oops! I Did It Again, Baby One More Time and Gimme More, was confirmed by two sources to The Hollywood Reporter.

Spears representatives did not immediately return The Independents request for comment.

Additional details of the supposed sale were reported by TMZ, which spoke with a source who called it a landmark deal, somewhere in the ballpark of Justin Biebers $200 million deal with Hipgnosis Songs Capital for the rights to his back catalog.

The documents, obtained by TMZ, are dated December 30, 2025.

open image in gallery Britney Spears has reportedly sold off the rights to her entire music catalog to Primary Wave for an unknown amount ( Getty )

The business move comes a month after Spears insisted she would never perform in the U.S., citing extremely sensitive reasons.

Sending this piano to my son this year!!! Interestingly enough, I dance on IG to heal things in my body that people have no idea about. Yup and its embarrassing sometimes but I walked through the fire to save my life, she wrote on Instagram in January, alongside an old tour picture of herself sat on stage at a white piano.

I will never perform in the U.S. again because of extremely sensitive reasons but I hope to be sitting on a stool with a red rose in my hair, in a bun, performing with my son in the UK and AUSTRALIA very soon. Hes a huge star and Im so humbled to be in his presence!!! God speed, little man!!!

open image in gallery Spears has two sons with ex-husband Keven Federline, pictured together in 2006 ( AP )

The Toxic hitmaker has two sons with her ex-husband, Kevin Federline: 20-year-old Sean Preston Federline and 19-year-old Jayden James Federline. Spears was estranged from both children for some time, but reunited with her younger son, Jayden, around Christmas 2024.

Last March, she shared videos of Jayden rapping and playing the piano, describing him as a genius.

Widely referred to as the Princess of Pop, Spears first rose to fame in 1998 with the release of her debut single, ...Baby One More Time. The song became the title track of her 1999 debut album, which also featured other top hits: You Drive Me (Crazy) and Sometimes.

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In recent years, the Grammy-winning singer has found herself at the center of a string of controversies involving erratic social media behavior. She addressed her divisive social media activity in her 2023 memoir The Woman in Me, explaining that she gets joy from posing the way I feel sexy.

I know that a lot of people dont understand why I love taking pictures of myself naked or in new dresses, Spears wrote in her best-selling autobiography.

But I think if theyd been photographed by other people thousands of times, prodded and posed for other peoples approval, theyd understand that I get a lot of joy from posing the way I feel sexy and taking my own picture.
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Rock the Country Festival, Kid Rocks country music tour that has been labeled a MAGA fest, has addressed the recent cancellation of their South Carolina stop after a series of artists dropped off the bill.

The multi-city festival, which was set to play in Anderson, South Carolina, on the weekend of July 25, announced it was cancelling the event after several performers, including rock band Shinedown, pulled out of the show.

The weekends lineup was initially announced in January, touting big names like Kid Rock, Jason Aldean, Ludacris and Morgan Wade, along with Creed, Brantley Gilbert, Gretchen Wilson and Parmalee.

However, Ludacris and Morgan Wade dropped from the lineup due to fan backlash.

After Shinedown announced their exit and cited concerns about creating further division, the fate of the South Carolina festival stop was sealed.

Festival organizers clarified the Anderson date cancellation in a statement to The Independent on Monday.

Rock the Country's original lineup for Anderson, South Carolina, included Shinedown, Ludacris, Creed and Brantley Gilbert among other artists ( Rock the Country )

Rock the Country was created to unite people together through music. Our lineups and our crowds reflect that sentiment  a wide range of voices, backgrounds, and stories that make up this country, the festival said.

Were truly disappointed we wont be bringing the show to Anderson. Our fans work hard for their money, and we refuse to put on a show that doesnt meet the standard they deserve.

The statement continued, Our focus remains where its always been: Supporting our artists, honoring our fans, and delivering unforgettable nights throughout the country.

The shows ahead represent the heart of what Rock the Country stands for: music, community, and pride in where we come from. Loving America isnt political; its who we are.

Rock the Country was scheduled to run for two days per venue in eight towns across the U.S. from May 1 to September 21. Now with South Carolina out of the picture, the tour will stop in seven states before ending September 12 in Hamburg, New York.

The festival, first launched in 2024 by controversial country star Kid Rock, has stopped in Anderson for the past two years.

Anderson County Administrator Rusty Burns previously said in a statement about the cancellation, Anderson County has been proud to host Rock the Country for the past two years. The event was a huge success drawing tens of thousands of visitors, making a multi-million-dollar economic impact on the Upstate.

An event of this caliber proved what a great venue and exceptional hospitality we have here in Anderson County. Of course, we are disappointed that Rock the Country will not return to Anderson this year.

Fans who purchased tickets to the Anderson shows can either transfer them to another Rock the Country stop and receive a $50 merchandise voucher or request a full refund via email.
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Death in Paradise star Don Warrington has said there was no sneaky intent behind his return to the show despite a backlash over his exit.

It was announced in 2024 that Warringtons character Commissioner Selwyn Patterson was leaving the cosy detective show due to a family crisis miles away from the seriess fictional Caribbean location of Saint Marie.

However, when the series returned to the BBC last month, Selwyn was also back, with many fans wondering if this was a response from the writers to the outcry caused by his departure.

Warrington, 74, has said this is not the case, telling The i: That was just the storyline, nothing more.

He explained: The producers thought it would be interesting to have Selwyn reach some kind of crisis, and then, after dealing with it, return. There was no Machiavellian intent.

Warrington was happy to learn how much viewers love his role in the show, though, adding: It was certainly very nice to know that my character had penetrated into peoples consciousness to that extent, and that they liked him.

He added: It is rather nice to be liked.

Death in Paradise stars Don Gilet as Detective Inspector Mervin Wilson, the fifth lead that the show has had since it premiered in 2011. Previous lead stars include Ben Miller, Ardal OHanlon, Kris Marshall and Ralf Little.

Warrington recently praised the series for having two Black leads, saying the programme has taken giant steps in giving a different picture of the world.

Don Warrington has returned to 'Death in Paradise' after fan concern ( BBC )

He told Radio Times: Everyone realised the world had changed so we had to change with it. And it has given the series a richness culturally.

What we are trying to do here is present people of colour in a way that is uncliched  they are simply people getting on with the job and in that sense their colour is irrelevant.

The new series will see DI Wilson continue adjusting to life in Saint Marie, while also attempting to reconnect with his recently discovered half-brother Solomon (played by TV newcomer Daniel Ward).

Meanwhile, Commissioner Patterson will be forced to confront his recent period of absence and attempt to win back the trust of the island.
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Gordon Ramsay has reflected on throwing prolific critic AA Gill out of his restaurant after receiving a bad review in the late Nineties.

The chef infamously ejected Gill, who died in 2016, from the Chelsea establishment The Gordon Ramsay, while Gill was out dining with Dame Joan Collins in October 1998.

At the time, the critic worked for The Sunday Times, and Ramsay was angry that the writer had described him as a failed sportsman who acts like an 11-year-old in a review of Ramsays previous restaurant, Aubergine. He waited until Gill had ordered before asking him to leave.

Ramsay reflected on the incident in a new Netflix documentary while discussing his treatment by the media, admitting: I know it was wrong.

However, he branded the late Gill a knobhead for having a brutal personal vendetta against him.

Critics are important, OK? And constructive criticism is something that we thrive on, but when it becomes personal... he said in the six-part series set to be released later this month.

When he walked in with Joan Collins, he thought that I wouldn't have the balls to do anything to him cause hes sat with the glamorous, amazing Joan Collins, Ramsay recalled.

open image in gallery Gordon Ramsay recalls excitement over being able to throw critic AA Gill out of restaurant ( Netflix )

And yeah, I couldn't wait for him to sit down, get the menu, time 20 minutes and ask him to get the hell out of that restaurant.

Whether you're with Joan Collins or sat with the Queen, you're still going out, mate  you're not sitting here.

He continued: I know it was wrong, but that's what happens when women like Joan Collins come to dinner with knobheads.

open image in gallery Critic AA Gill was thrown out of Gordon Ramsays restaurant in 1998 ( Getty Images )

The new documentary places the spotlight on Ramsays home life with his wife Tana, with whom he shares six kids, as well as his efforts to create five new dining concepts inside Londons landmark 22 Bishopsgate.

The couples daughters Tilly and Holly also take centre stage in the series, which documents the preparation for Hollys wedding to Olympian Adam Peaty. The event took place in December 2025.

The wedding followed reports of a growing family rift, which, according to the Daily Mail, intensified after Peatys mother, Caroline, was not invited to the brides hen party.

However, last week, Ramsay described the family dispute as "upsetting". The renowned chef told the Daily Mail that he and Tana, had "welcomed" Peatys family when Holly began a relationship with the Olympic swimmer.

Ramsay said: Its just upsetting. Its all self-inflicted from their side, because weve done nothing  none of what youve read: no rudeness, no ignorance  we welcomed them.

Being Gordon Ramsay is released on Netflix on 18 February.
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Dax Shepard has opened up about a car accident he was in as a teenager and how it still affects him to this day.

During Mondays episode of Shepards Armchair Expert podcast, the actor spoke to his co-host Monica Padman and guest Kaley Cuoco about near-death experiences.

When the two co-hosts asked Cuoco if she ever came close to dying, she responded No, prompting Shepard to speak about his own experience when he was a teenager in high school.

No. Is it weird that I kinda wish I did? I want one, Cuoco said. Because I wanna see what these people are ... what are they seeing?

Shepard responded: I don't know what the definition is. But, I have had the moment, which is among the most unique feelings I've ever had in my life, where I went, Oh, I'm about to die. I'm like seconds away from dying.

Dax Shepard recalled a car accident he was involved in as a teenager during an episode of the Armchair Expert podcast, crediting the accident for why he can no longer sleep in a car unless he is the driver ( Getty Images )

I was in the back seat of a car. Like I had folded the seats down in the back of a Ford Probe, in like a hatchback, and my friend was driving. We were coming back from Toledo, back up to Detroit, he said.

The comedian explained that he decided to sleep in the back seat of the car while his friend had the cruise control set to 85 mph. He was then jolted awake by the sound of gravel hitting the car as he saw his friend slumped over the wheel and was going 85 off the road.

I started to go ... to grab the wheel, and there was a moment I just knew it was too far gone. Like we had gone completely sideways. I laid back down and then ... we just launched in the ai,r and we started rolling right down the highway, Shepard continued.

He recalled waiting to hit a tree, thinking he would die upon impact, describing the feeling as comforting.

Then we just rolled like 10 times, ended up upside down. We did not hit a tree, Shephard said. The car was flat. We crawled out the windows  He was OK, and I was OK.

Despite avoiding any major repercussions, the Hit and Run actor admitted he continued to question whether he was still alive for days following the accident.

It was highly memorable. This may shock you, but I've never been able to fall asleep in a car ever since, he concluded. So I can never let the other person take a turn driving. There's no way I could sleep with someone else driving.
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Questions like will getting a pet benefit our childs mental health? are increasingly common and pertinent. In Spain, for instance, more than half of all households now have one or more pets.

Attachment is the name for the emotional bond between a developing child and the caregiver who provides them with security and comfort. This kind of bond can also, to a certain extent, also be formed with animals, and these relationships have been shown to have a range of beneficial effects:

They boost emotional regulation, helping children learn to calm themselves

They build responsibility, empathy and moral standards

They catalyse relationships with people, for instance when a pet forms a point of common interest between a child and a family member they dont know so well

They support prosocial behaviour

They help build understanding of nonverbal communication

They can function as a comfort object, taking the place of the childs primary attachment when that person is not present.

But beyond these benefits, how does living alongside an animal impact childrens mental health? We can answer this question by looking at issues categorised as either internalising (such as depression, anxiety and their related physical symptoms) and externalising (a childs behaviour and relationship with their environment: agression, rulebreaking, and so on).

The INMA study

We analysed data provided by the INMA Project (Infancia y Medio Ambiente, Children and Environment). This was a cohort study, meaning it involved periodic monitoring of a group of participants  in this case, from pregnancy to 6-7 years of age  through questionnaires, environmental measurements and clinical tests.

Our work included around 1,900 households in Spain, located in Asturias, Gipuzkoa (Basque Country), Sabadell (Barcelona) and Valencia. Of these, 52.3% had or had had one or more pets. 19.1% lived or had lived with dogs, 8.7% with cats, 14.8% with birds, and 28.6% with other animals such as hamsters, rabbits, turtles or fish.

When we evaluated the relationship between the presence of animals and mental health, we observed that children who had never had a pet showed the most positive scores. Some trends, although they cannot be considered significant, showed slightly more negative results among children who had always lived with pets. Those who had only had pets intermittently had higher risks of experiencing problems, though this pattern was only significant for cats.

To account for other factors that might influence this relationship, we performed additional analyses to adjust the results according to social class, sex, age, cohort, and so on. We found no difference between those who had never lived with animals and those who had had them always or only intermittently. This applied to the variable that studied any type of pet, as well as the specific ones that evaluated the relationship with dogs and birds.

The most interesting finding was that having a cat at age 4-5 was associated with more mental health problems ( Getty/iStock )

The most interesting finding was that having a cat at age 4-5 was associated with more mental health problems. Having other animals  such as hamsters, rabbits, turtles or fish  consistently throughout early childhood seemed to have a protective effect on boys and girls alike.

Unpacking our findings

In the early years of life, emotional bonds may not be fully formed. Therefore, the presence of dogs or birds may not have a major effect on mental health. It is also possible that variables not included in our study may have influenced the results.

In the case of cats, their way of interacting with people could explain the effects observed. They are more independent, which limits emotional bonding, and some families may choose this animal as a pet because their children have emotional needs of their own.

In addition, toxoplasmosis is more common in cats than in other animals. This infection  caused by the parasite Toxoplasma gondii which can be transmitted to humans  is linked to behavioural problems, as well as serious mental disorders such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

About the authors Llucia Gonzalez Safont is an Investigadora del Centro de Investigacion Biomedica en Red en Epidemiologia y Salud Publica (CIBERESP) y miembro de la Unidad Mixta de Investigacion en Epidemiologia, Ambiente y Salud FISABIO-Universitat Jaume I -Universitat de Valencia, Fisabio. Blanca Sarzo Carles is an Investigador postdoctoral. Bioestadistica, Fisabio. Marisa Estarlich Estarlich is a Profesora contratada doctor, Universitat de Valencia. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Having fish, turtles and hamsters on a constant basis does seem to protect children from mental health problems. These pets demand stable and easy contact, and help kids to learn responsibility, empathy and self-control.

Constant bonds are better

Our study did not clearly associate the presence of some pets, such as dogs and birds, with benefits or harm to childrens mental health. This could be because our work focused on exposure to pets in very early life  further studies focusing on older children are required.

In addition, children who lived with animals such as hamsters, rabbits, fish or turtles on a regular basis achieved better results than those who only had them intermittently. This suggests that a continuous link may be more beneficial than sporadic exposure.

While living with a pet can promote responsibility, empathy and emotional self-regulation, its real impact depends on factors such as the nature of the bond, age and style of upbringing.

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When photos of President Donald Trumps swollen hands and ankles went viral last summer, I couldnt help but see my own.

The president was diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency: a common vascular condition that mainly affects older adults. Tens of millions of Americans - or around one in four people - live with the affliction, the majority of whom are over the age of 50.

Venous insufficiency means that a persons veins are weak, impacting blood flow in the legs that can lead to high blood pressure, swelling and even ulcers. The president is affected by mild swelling in his lower legs due to the condition, according to his physician Dr. Sean Barbabella.

But at 32 years old, Im one of the five percent of adults between the ages of 18 and 65 plagued by the condition - and its one thats followed me since I was a teenager.

Mostly, it just causes me embarrassment with red, purple and blue veins crawling up my feet, ankles and legs. When I was growing up, my dermatologist at first thought the small patches of red lines on the insides of my ankles were spider bites. Unfortunately, they werent - and they never went away.

open image in gallery President Donald Trump, left, sits alongside Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in Washington, D.C., last September. Trump underwent diagnostic vascular studies before he was diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency ( Getty )

open image in gallery The left foot and swollen ankle of President Donald Trump are seen at the White House on Wednesday, July 16, 2025. Trump was diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency last summer ( AP )

Over time, my veins have only gotten larger and more noticeable, first affecting the insides of my legs and then working their way to the outside. The veins on my feet and outer ankles mimic purple bruising.

The condition has gotten worse over the course of the last decade, making it harder to hide in photos and on first dates.

I even considered getting tattoos - and some of those with spider and varicose veins have embraced the ink. But doing that can damage veins, leading to bleeding or infections, and dont stop the underlying issues related to venous insufficiency, according to the Center for Vein Restoration. Also, my mom would kill me.

So, I have become an expert in camouflage on social media, using filters and blurring tools to cover up the worst of the visible veins.

Still, the reality is I have a genetic condition that deserves attention, and the best way to deal with venous insufficiency is to know as much about it as possible, experts say.

The condition occurs when the valves in your leg veins dont function properly, causing the blood to pool in the limbs and slowing blood flow from the legs to the heart.

The result can often be pain, itchiness and swelling that leads to dry, fragile or flaky skin. In the most extreme cases, people may develop painful sores on their legs as their skin quality degrades.

open image in gallery Musto in her New York City apartment. She has considered cosmetic procedures to remove the veins on her ankles, but they come at a steep cost ( Julia Musto/The Independent )

People with venous insufficiency can also develop varicose or spider veins due to the damaged vein valves. Although not all people with venous insufficiency have them.

While cases of venous insufficiency are fairly rare in younger adults, Dr. Rob Attaran, an interventional cardiologist with the Heart and Vascular Center at Yale New Haven Health, told The Independent that he treated patients as young as 19 - and that women are at higher risk.

If youre a woman and you have one part with varicose veins, theres probably an almost 50-50 chance you will have them, too, he said. In men, its a little bit lower - but its still pretty high.

There are other aspects that can leave you at a higher risk, as well. Those factors include how often you move around, your genetic history, a history of obesity, being pregnant, smoking, developing deep vein thrombosis - a blood clot in a vein located deep in the body - and sleeping in a chair.

Its unknown which risk factors might have led to the 79-year-old presidents chronic venous insufficiency, but White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in July that Trump underwent an evaluation from the White House medical unit in an abundance of caution after noticing the swelling.

The president underwent a comprehensive examination, including diagnostic vascular studies, she said, reading a memo from Barbabella. Bilateral lower extremity venus doppler ultrasounds were performed and revealed chronic venus insufficiency, a benign and common condition.

All results were within normal limits, Leavitt added.

Venous insufficiency cannot be cured or reversed, but it can be treated with lifestyle changes and medical procedures. The top choice is wearing compression socks or hose, which ease swelling, push blood back toward the heart and relieve any pain the patient may be experiencing.

open image in gallery Musto's purplish veins are seen on the side of her left ankle and foot. Not everyone with venous insufficiency develops these veins ( Julia Musto/The Independent )

But, thats not the only option, Dr. Richard Meena, a vascular surgeon at Brown Surgical Associates, told The Independent.

A lot of the advances have been kind of in catheter-based or minimally invasive procedures, he said. Theres heat and laser, as well as injectable solutions like foams and glues, with the idea that if you cause some sort of irritation within the vein itself thats a little leaky, you might be able to shut it down so that more blood can go back to the heart and less will accumulate in the leg.

There are also cosmetic solutions, to help reduce the sometimes intense appearance of the veins. Doctors can inject detergent-based medication called sclerosants into spider veins, or remove the veins with small needle pokes in an outpatient procedure known as microphlebectomy.

All of these procedures are minimally invasive, where you walk in and walk out of the clinic with little to no downtime and you can enjoy your legs again, Dr. Charles Leithead, a vascular surgeon with Ochsner Health, said.

And sometimes treating the symptoms may help the cosmetic side of venous insufficiency improve, Meena also noted.

Ive often thought about trying those cosmetic treatments, of course. But they are costly, and often not covered by health insurance providers. New York Citys Metro Vein Centers prices some foam, catheter and laser treatments at more than $2,000 each time.

open image in gallery A graphic image shows a healthy vein in a womans left leg and a faulty vein in her right leg. In varicose veins, which are commonly seen in venous insufficiency, damaged valves back up blood, resulting in swollen veins and causing bruises ( Getty/iStock )

People may have to pay for them more than once. Even though the procedures may help veins to close, new veins can crop up later.

Until I make that decision, the experts suggest I remain active, wear compression socks and stay as healthy as I can.

Running is great for the condition, as well as getting up and moving as much as possible during the work day, Meena said. Getting up and taking a short walk every 30 minutes over the course of an eight-hour work day is enough to make a difference, according to Upstate University Hospital.

Ultimately, my biggest takeaway has been the importance of staying vigilant about regular check-up appointments with a primary care physician or vascular specialist.

Ignoring vein issues can lead to complications, and even clots or blockages in arteries in the lungs. Getting checked out is crucial to prevent venous insufficiency from getting worse, and each case is different.

Everyone has their own medical journey, including with their veins, said Meena.
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A Philadelphia man is behind bars after he allegedly shot and killed his girlfriend  just one day after she told police he had sexually assaulted her, authorities said.

Yujun Ren, 32, of Philadelphia, has been charged with criminal homicide, possession of an instrument of crime, and stalking in the killing of Yuan Yuan Lu, according to the Bucks County District Attorneys Office.

Prosecutors say Ren tracked Lu down in Levittown early Sunday morning and shot her while she sat in her car. Ren then turned himself in to Middletown Township police that afternoon and claimed the shooting was accidental.

In his interview with investigators, Ren said he accidentally killed his girlfriend when he pulled his gun from his waistband to scare her with it after she had allegedly said some hurtful things and took their cats and dogs, according to the arrest affidavit obtained by FOX29.

But just a day earlier, Lu went to the Philadelphia Police Department where she filed a police report claiming that Ren sexually assaulted her at his home on South Orianna Street in Pennsport, according to court documents. She told officers she planned to end the relationship and was packing her belongings while Ren was at work.

open image in gallery Yujun Ren, 32, is accused of stalking and fatally shooting his girlfriend Yuan Yuan Lu a day after she told police he had sexually assaulted her ( Credit: Bucks County District Attorneys Office )

On Sunday, Bristol Township police found Lus body in the drivers seat of a white Hyundai. She had been shot in the head. Officers recovered a spent shell casing from a small-caliber handgun and said there was damage to the drivers side window from gunfire.

It was later revealed that Lu had also told police she was afraid of Ren and said he had a firearm he carried everywhere, the affidavit states.

Investigators later determined Ren legally owned a Mossberg MC20 9mm pistol. The same day he turned himself in, a woman who identified herself as Rens aunt turned that firearm over to Middletown Township police, authorities said.

Ren was arraigned Sunday night and denied bail. He is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday for a preliminary hearing.

Bucks County District Attorney Joe Khan said the case highlights the deadly risks of domestic violence.

Todays tragic event is a sobering reminder of the lethal nature of domestic violence, Khan said in a statement. Thanks to the swift, coordinated response from the Bristol Township Police Department, the Middletown Township Police Department, and our Bucks County Detectives, we have successfully taken the defendant into custody and the community is safe.
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A Republican hopeful in Minnesotas gubernatorial race dropped out hours after it was revealed that his daughter had been stabbed to death in her home on Saturday.

Former state representative Jeff Johnsons daughter, Hallie Marie Tobler, 22, was found dead of multiple stab wounds in her home in St Cloud.

According to a statement from the St Cloud Police Department, her husband, Dylan Michael Tobler, 23, has been arrested in connection with her death but has yet to be charged.

Officials have called the incident an attempted murder suicide.

As the investigation continues, the Republican Party of Minnesota confirmed Monday that Johnson would withdraw from the crowded race to replace incumbent Democratic Governor Tim Walz.

open image in gallery Jeff Johnson has dropped out of the race to become the governor of Minnesota, after his daughter was murdered ( Jeff Johnson )

There are no words that can adequately express the sorrow we feel for Jeff and his family, a statement from the party read. The loss of a child is unimaginable, and our thoughts and prayers are with them as they grieve this devastating tragedy.

Out of respect for his family and the enormity of this loss, Jeff has suspended his campaign for governor of Minnesota, the statement continued.

The St. Cloud Police Department confirmed that officers were called to the scene after 8:00 pm on February 7.

Inside the apartment, the couple shared, officers found Toblers body, while her husband was also found with life-threatening injuries.

Based on the investigation, it is believed that (the husbands) injuries are self-inflicted and that he is the person responsible for Hallies injuries and death, a police statement read.

Police confirmed that Dylan Tobler is now in stable condition at St Cloud Hospital. Once he is discharged from the hospital, he will be transported to Stearns County Jail, officials have said.

The pair were married in November 2021, according to public records.

open image in gallery Jeff Johnson was running to replace the incumbent governor, Tim Walz ( Stephen Maturen/Getty Images )

Meanwhile, Johnson has already taken down his campaign website.

According to CBS News, Johnson had described himself online as a semi-truck driver who had previously served on the St. Cloud City Council from 2010 to 2018.

He also wrote that he was a 'Minnesota axe grinder' when it comes to fraud, corruption, coverup, screwing around, 'happy talk' and seeing politicians' indifference directed towards citizens.

In March, Johsnon spoke about his motivations for his run for the governors mansion in an interview with The St. Cloud Times.

Quite frankly, Minnesota has been operating in full crisis mode under Gov. Tim Walz for years. Walz still lacks a coherent plan for making Minnesota safe, growing Minnesotas economy and slowing the exodus of Minnesotans to other states.

During his time on St. Clouds city council, he supported a resolution to ban refugee resettlement,

In Minnesotas caucus, Johnson received less than one percent of the vote.

Several of Johnsons former rivals have paid tribute to his late daughter, including the Democratic candidate for governor Amy Klobuchar.

My condolences to Jeff Johnson and his entire family for the loss of their daughter on Saturday night, Klobuchar wrote on social media. John and I are praying for all those who loved her during this unimaginably difficult time.

Peggy Bennett, a fellow Republican, also released a statement after learning about Toblers death.

I cannot even imagine the heartbreak and sorrow that Jeff and his family are experiencing right now, she wrote on X. My heart breaks for them.

I am holding Jeff and his family up in prayer during this incredibly difficult and heartbreaking time.
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Authorities briefly detained a person on Tuesday for questioning over the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, 10 days after the 84-year-old vanished from her home in Tucson, Arizona, only to then release him in the early hours of Wednesday.

The man identified himself to reporters as Carlos Palazuelos and said he works as a delivery driver, according to Telemundo.

He told ABC15: "They didn't even tell me what's going on until the detectives got here... They told me I was being detained for kidnapping, and I asked them, Kidnapping of who?"

As the search continues, FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News Tuesday evening: We are looking at people who, as we say, are persons of interest.

The development came shortly after new surveillance photos and video were released showing a masked person outside Guthries Arizona home the morning she was abducted. Authorities have not held a press conference since releasing these images, and no briefing is scheduled for Wednesday.

The FBI also said Wednesday its agents are conducting an extensive search along multiple roadways in the Catalina Foothills area, where Guthrie lives.

open image in gallery A makeshift tribute to Nancy Guthrie has been set up outside of her home ( Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. )

Heres what we know:

Who was the person detained for questioning?

Palazuelos, 36, told reporters he hadnt heard of Guthrie before Tuesday night and hopes shes found safe, according to The New York Times.

I hope they get the suspect, because Im not it, he said.

The Pima County Sheriffs Department said Tuesday police detained a subject for questioning during a traffic stop and later searched a property in Rio Rico, a town south of Tucson, Arizona, near the U.S.-Mexico border. The agency has since confirmed he was released without charges but provided few other details.

This detention was part of follow-up on incoming leads. As with any investigation, we do not release the identities of individuals who are detained and later released without charges, the sheriffs department said in a statement Wednesday.

What do authorities think has happened?

Police believe Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today co-host Savannah Guthrie, was taken from her home in Catalina Foothills, a quiet neighborhood near Tucson, at some point between the night of January 31 and the morning of February 1.

Investigators released footage of an armed and masked man at Guthries front door the morning she disappeared.

One video shows the individual approaching the front door and interacting with the camera with his gloved hand. The individual then walks away and appears to pick up an object off the ground nearby. A second shows the individual using what appears to be a plant to obstruct the camera.

Another four-second video also shows the individual approaching the front door with his shoulders hunched and his head down.

open image in gallery New surveillance footage shows a masked person approaching the front door of Nancy Guthries home on the morning she disappeared ( Pima County Sheriffs Department )

open image in gallery The masked individual appeared to use a plant to obstruct the camera ( FBI )

Working with our partners, as of this morning, law enforcement has uncovered these previously inaccessible new images showing an armed individual appearing to have tampered with the camera at Nancy Guthries front door the morning of her disappearance, the Pima County Sheriffs Office said Tuesday.

The video was recovered from residual data located in backend systems, the agency said.

The release also included several black-and-white photos showing the masked individual with gloved hands interacting with the camera.

President Donald Trump, who has been following the investigation, reacted with pure disgust when he viewed the surveillance footage, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

His initial reaction, of course, as all Americans, is just pure disgust. And again, it's heartbreaking to see now this footage really bring to life a story we've all been reading about, Leavitt told reporters at a press briefing Tuesday.

Again, we're just praying for the safety of Nancy Guthrie and that she will return home soon, and the president directed me to please encourage all Americans with any information to call the FBI. We hope that this case will come to a positive resolution as soon as possible, she added.

open image in gallery The masked individual tampered with the camera, police said ( Pima County Sheriffs Department )

open image in gallery The masked individual has not been identified ( FBI )

Guthrie was last seen just after 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, January 31, at her home near Skyline Drive and Campbell Avenue, the Pima County Sheriffs Department said. The agency has released a detailed timeline of the events leading up to her disappearance.

She took an Uber at 5:32 p.m. on Saturday, January 31, to go to a family members house for dinner.

We did speak to a driver, because Nancy, we learned, had taken the Uber to the family residence, the daughters for dinner, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said. And we located that driver and spoke with them.

Family dropped Guthrie off at home at 9:48 p.m., and her garage door opened before closing two minutes later.

Her doorbell camera was disconnected at 1:47 a.m. on Sunday, February 1. Guthrie did not have an active subscription, so it took investigators several days to recover the footage.

Software data recorded movement at the home at 2:12 a.m. Then, at 2:28 a.m., Guthries pacemaker disconnected from her phone.

Family members went to check on Guthrie at 11:56 a.m., after hearing she didnt attend church that morning. A 911 call was made at 12:03 p.m., and deputies arrived about 10 minutes later.

open image in gallery Guthrie was last seen at her home in Catalina Foothills, a community outside of Tucson, Arizona ( AP )

Her disappearance has sparked a massive search involving state and federal law enforcement agencies. Guthrie relies on daily medication, and there could be fatal consequences if she doesnt take it, Nanos said.

Police also flagged her health issues when she initially vanished, according to a 911 dispatch audio. Nancy has high blood pressure, a pacemaker and cardiac issues, the dispatcher said.

DNA tests showed blood on Guthries front porch was hers, Nanos said.

The FBI has also said its investigating alleged ransom notes received by multiple news outlets. Investigators said one note contained two deadlines that have since passed: Thursday, February 5 and Monday, February 9.

Local CNN affiliate KGUN, one of the outlets that reportedly received a note, said it demanded $6 million by Monday, a deadline that passed with no update. Meanwhile, the FBI has told the Associated Press its not aware of ongoing communication between the Guthrie family and any potential kidnappers.

The FBI has offered a $50,000 reward for information.

Theories have swirled as investigators continue the search for Guthrie.

Josh Schirard, a former SWAT commander and police captain, told CNN the universal nylon style holster seen on the masked individual at Guthries front door likely wouldnt be used by someone who regularly carries a gun.

This seems more like a very cheap, off-the-shelf holster that somebody just stores their gun in. And it just happens to have a belt loop on the back of it that they thought that they could throw on, Schirard told the outlet.

What has the Guthrie family said about the disappearance?

Nancy Guthries daughter, 54-year-old Savannah Guthrie, is a co-host on NBCs Today show and was previously a White House correspondent.

On Tuesday, Savannah Guthrie shared the new surveillance footage on Instagram. We believe she is still alive. Bring her home, she wrote.

A day prior, she posted a video asking for the publics help in finding her mother as an alleged ransom deadline passed.

open image in gallery Savannah Guthrie has used social media to ask for the publics help in finding her mother, Nancy Guthrie ( Instagram/@savannahguthrie )

Guthrie shared her first public statement about her mothers disappearance on Monday, February 2.

Thank you for lifting your prayers with ours for our beloved mom, our dearest Nancy, a woman of deep conviction, a good and faithful servant, she wrote. Raise your prayers with us and believe with us that she will be lifted by them in this very moment.

In a video posted Wednesday, February 4, Guthrie and her siblings  Annie Guthrie and Camron Guthrie  acknowledged the reports of a ransom note and made a direct plea for proof their mother is alive. They said they were ready to talk and asked whoever has their mother to provide evidence of life.

We need to know without a doubt that she is alive and that you have her. We want to hear from you and we are ready to listen. Please reach out to us, Savannah Guthrie said while fighting off tears.

With her voice cracking, she addressed her mother directly, saying the family was praying for her and that people were looking for her.

Mamma, if youre listening, we need you to come home. We miss you, Annie Guthrie added.

open image in gallery Today show host Savannah Guthrie and her siblings shared a video pleading for their mothers safe release and proof shes still alive ( instagram/savannahguthrie )

Camron Guthrie posted his own video on Thursday, February 5, asking the suspected kidnappers to contact the family.

Whoever is out there holding our mother, we want to hear from you. We havent heard anything directly, he said in the video. We need you to reach out and we need a way to communicate with you so we can move forward. But first, we have to know that you have our mom. We want to talk to you and we are waiting for contact.

On Saturday, the siblings posted another message acknowledging that contact had been made with a suspected kidnapper. In the video, Savannah Guthrie said her family has received your message and will pay for their mothers safe return.

We beg you now to return our mother to us, so that we can celebrate with her, she said.

open image in gallery Savannah Guthrie begged her mothers suspected kidnapper to return her ( Instagram )

Guthrie has been absent from the Today show and did not travel to Milan, Italy, to host the 2026 Winter Olympics opening ceremony. Many of Guthries colleagues have since offered their support as the search continues for her mother.

An NBC Sports spokesperson told The Independent: Savannah will not be joining us at the Olympics as she focuses on being with her family during this difficult time. Our hearts are with her and the entire Guthrie family as the search continues for their mother.

The Pima County Sheriffs Department said anyone with information should contact 1-800-CALL-FBI, 520-351-4900, 88-CRIME or visit tips.fbi.gov.
By Tom Polansek

CHICAGO, Feb 10 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Agriculture, long the world's gold standard for crop estimates, faces mounting doubts about the reliability of its data from farmers, grain traders and economists following deep staff losses and a sharp upward revision in how many acres of corn were harvested.

Farmers, traders and food manufacturers everywhere closely follow monthly USDA reports on production, supplies and demand so they can anticipate prices and inventories.

Thousands of employees left USDA last year as part of President Donald Trump's drive to shrink the federal government, and experts worry the shrinking staff hobbled the agency's ability to produce accurate and timely data.

USDA's final estimates in January for how many corn acres farmers planted and harvested in 2025 represented unprecedented increases from initial estimates in June. Already-low grain prices sank more than 5%, at a time when growers were struggling to make money.

USDA data last month "appeared to reflect an agency in disarray," said Arlan Suderman, chief commodities economist for consultancy StoneX, citing changes to acres and other estimates.

The revisions prompted USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service, which releases acreage estimates, to launch an internal review, said Lance Honig, a top NASS official.

At the Farm Service Agency, another USDA branch, staffing reductions hampered employees from processing data on plantings last summer and feeding it to the statistics service, said Spiro Stefanou, a former acting USDA deputy undersecretary who resigned last fall. This delayed the statistics service from receiving a complete picture of acreage, he said.

"NASS had less information to go on," Stefanou said. "That was going to make their estimates less reliable."

Last summer, Trump fired a top Labor Department official following a weak scorecard of the U.S. job market, stoking concerns about the quality of federal government data.

MASSIVE CROP ADJUSTMENTS

Corn, America's largest crop, is used to feed millions of farm animals, produce ethanol and sweeten foods including ketchup and ice cream.

Last month, farmers and analysts largely expected USDA would hardly adjust its estimate for harvested acres, already the largest since the 1930s. Instead, USDA hiked it to 91.3 million acres, up 1.3% from the previous estimate and 5.2% higher than in June.

"All of a sudden we had acres popping up all over the place," said longtime analyst Sid Love.

Smaller revisions are common, often in the form of decreases, as poor weather can reduce acres that farmers harvest. Over the last 15 years, harvested acreage estimates on average slipped about 0.7% from June to January, according to a Reuters analysis.
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A 79-year-old man in Florida is accused of using a firearm to terrorize a Walmart worker he felt had shown a "bad attitude".

Pascual Santana, born in May 1946, was arrested on Friday and charged with armed assault after allegedly threatening a jewelry section attendant from the seat of his mobility scooter, court records show.

A Miami-Dade County sheriff said that Santana had repeatedly "spoken aggressively" to the woman and "called her derogatory names" before opening his shirt to reveal a handgun and asking: "Are you scared now?"

Santana has pleaded not guilty to the charge and has demanded a trial by jury.

According to an arrest record seen by The Independent, Santana rolled into the Walmart at 5851 NW 177 St in the city of Hialeah, part of the Miami metro area, at around 10:50 a.m. on November 16 last year.

Police said Santana terminated their interview after a few minutes and asked for an attorney ( Miami-Dade County Records )

Stopping at the jewelry section, he asked to see multiple pieces of jewelry, but was told that store policy only allowed him to view one at a time.

At this, a sheriff's deputy wrote, "the defendant became upset because he felt that the victim was not providing good service to him. He began to speak aggressively to the victim, and began to call her derogatory names."

The worker repeatedly explained the store policy, but Santana allegedly refused to accept it. "[He] told her that she had a bad attitude and that she needed to fix it," the deputy said.

Then, the document alleges, Santana "opened his shirt, in which he had a firearm in his waistband, and stated to the victim: 'Are you scared now?'"

The victim was indeed scared and fled to get help from store security. Several months later, deputies arrested Santana, who apparently insisted that the person seen threatening the worker in surveillance footage was some other armed 79-year-old.

Court records show that Santana applied for and received "indigent status" and was assigned a public defender.

He is now in jail on a $5,000 bond with no court dates yet listed.
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A man who murdered a traveling salesman during a robbery is set to be the first person to be executed in Florida this year.

Ronald Palmer Heath, 64, is scheduled to receive a three-drug injection starting at 6pm at Florida State Prison near Starke. Heath was convicted in 1990 of first-degree murder, robbery with a deadly weapon and other charges in the killing of Michael Sheridan the previous year.

The state's first scheduled execution of 2026 follows a record 19 executions in Florida last year.

Republican Governor Ron DeSantis oversaw more executions in a single year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S. in 1976. The previous record was eight executions in 2014.

According to court records, Heath and his brother Kenneth Heath met Sheridan at a Gainesville bar in May 1989. After hanging out at the bar for some time, the three men agreed to go somewhere else to smoke marijuana.

At some point, the brothers plotted to rob the other man, investigators said. Ronald Heath drove the group to a remote area, where Kenneth Heath pulled a handgun on Sheridan.

The man initially refused to give the brothers anything, and Kenneth Heath shot Sheridan in the chest.

As Sheridan emptied his pockets, Ronald Heath began kicking the man and stabbing him with a hunting knife, prosecutors said. Kenneth Heath then shot Sheridan twice in the head.

Two more Florida executions have already been scheduled for later this month and next month ( Associated Press )

The brothers dumped Sheridan's body in a wooded area and returned to the Gainesville bar to take items from his rental car, according to the court record. It said the brothers made multiple purchases with Sheridan's credit cards the next day at a Gainesville mall.

Ronald Heath was arrested several weeks later at his home in Douglas, Georgia, after investigators connected him to the stolen credit cards. Officers recovered clothing purchased with the stolen cards, as well as Sheridan's watch, according to court records.

Kenneth Heath was also charged with Sheridan's murder, but was sentenced to life in prison as part of a plea agreement.

The Florida Supreme Court denied appeals filed by Ronald Heath last week. His attorneys had argued that Florida corrections officials had mismanaged its own death penalty protocols, that the state's secretive clemency process blocked due process, that Heath's incarceration as a juvenile stunted his brain development and that jurors did not recommend the death penalty unanimously.

Heath still has similar appeals pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025. Florida led the way with a flurry of death warrants signed by DeSantis. Alabama, South Carolina and Texas tied for second with five executions each that year.

Two more Florida executions have already been scheduled for later this month and next month. Melvin Trotter, 65, is scheduled to die on Feb. 24, and the execution of Billy Leon Kearse, 53, is set to follow exactly a week later on March 3.

All Florida executions are carried out via lethal injection using a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.
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Today show host Savannah Guthrie called on the public for help and detailed the ongoing nightmare of her mother Nancys kidnapping in an Instagram video posted on Monday.

We believe our mom is still out there, Guthrie said in the video. We need your help. Law enforcement is working tirelessly, around the clock, trying to bring her home, trying to find her.

We are at an hour of desperation and we need your help, she added.

Nancy Guthrie was last seen on the evening of January 31 in Tucson, Arizona, where she lives, according to family members.

Authorities have not publicly announced any suspect in the 84-year-olds disappearance.

Nancy Guthrie was last seen on January 31, and the Guthrie family is facing ransom requests from her purported kidnappers demanding millions ( Pima County Sheriff's Department )

The FBI and Pima County Sheriffs Office is investigating the case.

The Guthrie family and media outlets have received ransom requests, purportedly from the kidnappers, demanding millions of dollars in cryptocurrency.

One such note, sent to CNN affiliate KGUN, reportedly demanded $6 million and threatened Nancy Guthries life if a 5 p.m. Monday deadline was not met.

In a video from Savannah Guthrie and her siblings released over the weekend, the broadcaster addressed her mothers kidnappers, saying the family had received your message and will pay.

We beg you now to return our mother to us, so that we can celebrate with her, Guthrie said in the clip.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated with new information.
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Ten silver miners working for a Canadian company have been found dead in a Mexican mass grave, local officials have confirmed.

The men were kidnapped on January 23 from a mining project in the western state of Sinaloa in an area around Concordia where cartel violence is rampant, and a faction of the Sinaloa cartel known as Los Chapitos holds control.

The local attorney generals office announced the discovery of 10 bodies in a mass grave nearby, and confirmed that five of them had been identified so far, reported Reuters.

Vizsla Silver Corp., the Vancouver-headquartered mining company that operates the Panuco Project, said in a statement that it had been informed of the discovery by the men's families and was awaiting confirmation from Mexican authorities.

open image in gallery More than 1000 National Guard personnel have been deployed to Sinaloa as the Mexican government attempts to reassert control. ( AFP/Getty )

We are devastated by this outcome and the tragic loss of life, said Vizsla President and CEO Michael Konnert, who pledged to support those affected.

Our deepest condolences are with our colleagues families, friends and co-workers, and the entire community of Concordia.

The engineers, technicians and security guards were kidnapped from a residential complex adjacent to the mining operation, with the motive for the abduction not immediately clear.

Three of the men have been identified by local officials as Ignacio Aurelio Salazar Flores, 40, Jose Angel Hernandez Velez, 37, and Jose Manuel Castaneda Hernandez, 43.

Jaime Castaneda, a brother of geologist Jose Manuel Castaneda Hernandez, told CBC News he had identified his brother on Sunday by viewing photographs of his body at the attorney generals office in Mazatlan.

open image in gallery The Panuco Project is a large mining operation scheduled to begin producing silver in 2027. ( Vizsla Siver Corp )

"In truth, this has been very painful to be here, in a place where we don't want to be," Castaneda told CBC, adding: "There's no justice with what's happening."

Dayanara Nataly Esparza, the wife of Ignacio Aurelio Salazar Flores, confirmed his death in a text message to CBC, saying it was the toughest day of her life and she was too distraught to speak.

Over the weekend, Mexican authorities sent more than 1,000 personnel into the region in a show of force against the cartels, which have wreaked violence and destruction on local communities.

At a Monday news conference, Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum said her government was in contact with the workers families and Vizsla Silver, and was looking into everything that could have caused this situation, reported Reuters.

open image in gallery Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum is vowing to address the security crisis. ( AP )

David Mora, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, told CBC the slain miners may have been incidental victims in a wider campaign.

"Assuming, as the government says, that the group behind the kidnapping is Los Chapitos, I would say then that it's a show of strength, to send the message that they're not out of the picture in that part of Sinaloa," said Mora, who explained why cartels might specifically target workers connected to a foreign operation.

"These people have connections to a Canadian company and this area is very strategic because of the minerals and also the logging industry," he said. "It raises the political angle of this specific attack."

A joint statement from Mexican industry groups, including the countrys mining chamber Camimex, said the kidnapping was not an isolated incident and reflected deteriorating safety conditions in some regions.

Every person who works in mining deserves conditions of safety and dignity to carry out their work, read the statement, a translation of which was reported by industry news organization BNamericas.

Vizslas Panuco operation is described on its website as one of the worlds largest undeveloped silver resources, with plans for first production in 2027.
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Virginia Giuffres brother has penned a furious open letter to Ghislaine Maxwell as she refuses to testify over her links to pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein.

The disgraced socialite declined to answer questions from a congressional committee on Monday, vowing to only speak out if she is granted clemency by President Donald Trump.

Sky Roberts, whose sister became the poster child for survivors of Epstein and who tragically ended her own life last year, railed against Maxwell in a letter that was delivered to the committee and also shared on social media.

Ghislaine Maxwell, you were not a bystander, Roberts wrote. You were not misled. You were a central, deliberate actor in a system built to find children, isolate them, groom them, and deliver them to abuse.

You used trust as a weapon. You targeted vulnerability and turned it into access. That is not a mistake. That is not poor judgment. That is predation.

open image in gallery Sky Roberts, pictured with wife Amanda, penned a furious open letter to Ghislaine Maxwell saying she did not deserve forgiveness. ( Heather Diehl/Getty )

In his letter, Roberts drew attention to his sisters description of Maxwell.

Ghislaine was a monster; she was often more vicious and cruel than Epstein. Put it this way: Epstein was Pinocchio, and she was Gepetto. She was the guy controlling, Giuffre wrote in her memoir Nobodys Girl, which was published after her death.

Roberts slammed Maxwell for the part she played in building a template of exploitation that was used to abuse young girls.

The suffering was not incidental to what you did. It was the point. It was your reward for a sadistic system you helped create.

Maxwell, the former girlfriend of Epstein, is serving a 20-year sentence for child sex trafficking, and invoked her Fifth Amendment right to remain silent during a House Oversight Committee deposition Monday morning.

David Oscar Markus, a lawyer for Maxwell, said he advised his client to remain silent given her ongoing appeal to her 2021 conviction, but said she was prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump.

open image in gallery Ghislaine Maxwell refuses to answer questions on Monday morning, invoking her Fifth Amendment right to remain silent ( House Oversight Committee )

Maxwell remained silent when faced with questions about her knowledge of Epsteins criminal activities, but told lawmakers that both President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton were innocent of wrongdoing.

House Oversight Chair James Comer, who subpoenaed Maxwell, said he was disappointed in her deposition. Comer told The Independent the committee considered giving her immunity, but ultimately decided against it after speaking with survivors.

This was something new today, obviously thats not for me to decide, thats for the president to decide, Comer said.

While the president has acknowledged his ability to pardon Maxwell, he has not expressed an interest in doing so.

open image in gallery Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre ended her own life in April 2025 before the release of her memoir which describes Maxwell as a monster ( Bebeto Matthews/AP )

Roberts said in his letter that forgiveness was neither owed, nor offered to Maxwell, and he urged Congress to continue investigating why she had been moved to a minimum-security prison after an interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

He ended with another direct quote from Giuffre, in which she addressed her tormenter directly:

Ghislaine, you deserve to spend the rest of your life in a jail cell, Giuffre wrote before her death. Trapped in a cage forever just like you trapped your victims.

Maxwells deposition followed the Justice Department's release of 3 million pages of documents related to the governments Epstein files.

Many of the documents are emails between Epstein, Maxwell, and third parties, and it is widely believed that Maxwell could shed more light on those involved.
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The popular social network Discord will require almost all users to verify their age using a selfie or an ID card if they want to access adult content, starting in early March.

In a blog post Monday, the San-Francisco-based start-up said it would automatically give its reported 200 million worldwide users a "teen-appropriate" experience unless they can prove they are over the age of majority.

Users can ask AI to estimate their age using a selfie, which Discord promised will never leave the device they take it on, or else submit some form of ID to be checked.

The company will also continually analyze your activity and interests to estimate your likely age and exempt you from checks if its systems are confident youre an adult.

It follows a similar move by the childrens gaming platform Roblox, as countries and provinces around the world attempt to crack down on childhood internet use.

open image in gallery Quick, act ancient! Discord says it will analyze users activity patterns to estimate their age, including how they line up with typical office hours ( Damien Meyer / AFP via Getty Images )

"Nowhere is our safety work more important than when it comes to teen users, which is why we are announcing these updates in time for Safer Internet Day," said Discord's head of product policy Savannah Badalich.

"Rolling out teen-by-default settings globally builds on Discords existing safety architecture, giving teens strong protections while allowing verified adults flexibility."

The move comes amid a worldwide wave of new age verification laws. Australia has gone so far as to banish all under-16s from social media and Spain is set to follow suit.

The U.K. now requires all apps hosting pornographic or adult content to verify its users' age, as do nearly one third of U.S. states. YouTube, Instagram, and Spotify have all started testing such systems.

But age checks can be controversial, in part because millions of people sending their ID to a verification company makes a tempting target for hackers.

open image in gallery Discords then-CEO Jason Citron testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in January 2024, one of several social media bosses summoned to answer questions about online child sexual exploitation ( Alex Wong/Getty Images )

Multiple age check systems have been breached over the past decade, including one of Discord's previous third-party providers.

Founded in 2015, Discord  which reportedly filed for an IPO last month  is effectively a chatroom app built around millions of user-run 'servers', each with varying membership requirements.

It is particularly popular among gamers, fandoms, LGBT+ and also many thriving porn communities.

The app has previously faced controversy over its widespread use by far-right extremists. More recently it came under federal scrutiny as a frequent haunt of Charlie Kirk's alleged assassin, Tyler Robinson.

open image in gallery Authorities have said they are probing the online social circles of murder suspect Tyler Robinson, who was active on Discord ( Scripps News/TMX )

Discord's new rules expand its existing controls for the U.K. and Australia to the rest of the world. Unverified users will be barred from adult servers and chat channels, and unable to view any images or videos that Discord's content-scanning AI tags as graphic or sensitive.

Messages from strangers will be automatically segregated in a separate inbox, with unknown friend requests marked by a warning.

To prevent data breaches, Discord said that its age estimation selfies will never leave the user's device, while identity documents will be "deleted quickly  in most cases, immediately after age confirmation". Users can appeal decisions they believe to be mistaken.

The vetting process will presumably be more rigorous for Discord's inaugural "Teen Council", billed as "a teen advisory body that brings authentic teen perspectives" to the app's development.

"By embedding diverse teen perspectives directly into decision-making, the Council will help ensure Discords safety features are protective while balancing teen privacy and autonomy."
We feel now is a pretty good time to analyse mVISE AG's (ETR:C1V) business as it appears the company may be on the cusp of a considerable accomplishment. mVISE AG operates as a software development company in Germany. The 18m market-cap companys loss lessened since it announced a 4.0m loss in the full financial year, compared to the latest trailing-twelve-month loss of 2.6m, as it approaches breakeven. As path to profitability is the topic on mVISE's investors mind, we've decided to gauge market sentiment. In this article, we will touch on the expectations for the company's growth and when analysts expect it to become profitable.

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mVISE is bordering on breakeven, according to some German IT analysts. They expect the company to post a final loss in 2025, before turning a profit of 200k in 2026. The company is therefore projected to breakeven around 12 months from now or less. We calculated the rate at which the company must grow to meet the consensus forecasts predicting breakeven within 12 months. It turns out an average annual growth rate of 117% is expected, which signals high confidence from analysts. Should the business grow at a slower rate, it will become profitable at a later date than expected.

XTRA:C1V Earnings Per Share Growth February 10th 2026

Underlying developments driving mVISE's growth isnt the focus of this broad overview, but, take into account that generally a high growth rate is not out of the ordinary, particularly when a company is in a period of investment.

View our latest analysis for mVISE

One thing we would like to bring into light with mVISE is its relatively high level of debt. Generally, the rule of thumb is debt shouldnt exceed 40% of your equity, which in mVISE's case is 87%. Note that a higher debt obligation increases the risk around investing in the loss-making company.

Next Steps:

There are too many aspects of mVISE to cover in one brief article, but the key fundamentals for the company can all be found in one place  mVISE's company page on Simply Wall St. We've also put together a list of pertinent factors you should look at:

Valuation: What is mVISE worth today? Has the future growth potential already been factored into the price? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether mVISE is currently mispriced by the market. Management Team: An experienced management team on the helm increases our confidence in the business  take a look at who sits on mVISEs board and the CEOs background. Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
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BusinessCompaniesBiotech Boss of $83b giant CSL exits abruptly Clancy Yeates February 10, 2026  6:15pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

Australian pharmaceuticals heavyweight CSL has announced its chief executive Dr Paul McKenzie is retiring with immediate effect, as the company tries to rebuild confidence among investors following a grim year and sharp sharemarket sell off. A day before the company delivers its half-year results on Wednesday, CSL said that McKenzie was retiring, effective from Tuesday. The biotech giant said senior executive Dr Gordon Naylor would be the interim chief executive while the board searched for a permanent replacement. Outgoing CSL boss Paul McKenzie. Eamon Gallagher The abrupt departure of McKenzie was announced late in the day, and CSL shares had dropped nearly 5 per cent to $171.39 by the close of trading. CSL chair Dr Brian McNamee told investors in a late call the company had a sense of urgency as it looked to improve its performance, and that Naylor had the skills and experience needed to lead the business in the interim.

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Paul and the board have determined that now is the right time for new leadership to continue to drive CSLs strategic transformation and performance, McNamee said in a statement on the ASX. Related Article Opinion

Japan The Iron Lady looking to shake up the world order Stephen Bartholomeusz Senior business columnist McNamee thanked McKenzie for his contributions during his time at the company, including three years as CEO, saying he had helped to stabilise the business during COVID-19 and lifted its collections of plasma. CSL is one of the biggest companies on the ASX, but its share price has slumped by a third in the past year. Investors have been underwhelmed by its general performance, while it has also been hit by growing vaccine hesitancy in the United States and by concerns about its exposure to US tariffs. The company in October downgraded its earnings guidance amid falling US vaccination rates and reduced demand from China for the blood protein albumin, leading to a sharp sell-off in CSL shares.

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McNamee expressed his frustration and disappointment at the companys annual general meeting last year, adding CSLs operations had become too complex for it to react decisively. Related Article Opinion

Billionaires Who got richer and who went backwards in the billionaire Olympics Elizabeth Knight Business columnist McKenzie said the past three years had been challenging for the business but he was proud of its organisational improvements, continued investment in research and development and new vaccine facility in Melbourne. Naylor has a 33-year tenure at CSL, including as chief financial officer and president of CSL Seqirus, its flu vaccine subsidiary. McNamee was asked on the call with investors what had changed since the companys annual meeting last year. He said the company had made progress under McKenzie, but it was impatient and wanted to return to growth. To some degree, Id say there were clear signs at the AGM that we had a sense of urgency, McNamee said.

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He said the company was announcing the change late on Tuesday so that it did not confuse its message at the companys results on Wednesday. The departure also comes after CSLs chief financial officer Joy Linton retired in October. McNamee said the company will look at both internal and external candidates for the next CEO. With Naylor working as interim CEO, it could take its time to find the right person, he said. with AAP The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning.
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NationalOrganised crime AFP releases images of tobacco kingpin Kazem Hamad in Iraqi custody Chris Vedelago and Marta Pascual Juanola February 10, 2026  9:30pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

Two images of tobacco kingpin Kazem Kaz Hamad claiming to show him in custody in a secret location in Iraq have been released by the Australian Federal Police as part of its investigation into the activities of the man who allegedly launched the tobacco war. The image of Kazem Hamad released by the Australian Federal Police. Its the first official information about Hamads circumstances since news of his arrest in Baghdad was announced in mid-January by the Supreme Judicial Council of Iraq. Hamad had been labelled by Iraqi authorities as one of the most dangerous wanted men in the world in their press release announcing his capture for alleged links to crimes including shootings, murders, kidnappings, violent assaults, extortion and drug imports. The 41-year-old, of whom no photo more recent than 2015 had been published, appears thinner than in the small number of images that have been circulating in the media since the start of the tobacco war.

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In one of the images, Hamad, also known as old mate and Abu Samir, is dressed in a T-shirt and yellow prison garb and is holding a printed sign with his personal and arrest details in Arabic. This masthead could not independently verify the authenticity of the images, which were provided to the AFP by Iraqi authorities. One image depicts Hamad in front of a height chart, a standard format for mugshots. But the numbers appear out of sequence and scale, suggesting he could be up to nine feet tall. Other details that raised concern about the images authenticity include aspects of Hamads hands and shirt neckline, raising the possibility it could have been digitally altered or the product of artificial intelligence. The AFP said it had not altered the image and was not aware of any alteration.

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The sign in the image confirms Hamad, who was born in the city of Nasiriya, about 360 kilometres south-east of Baghdad, is being prosecuted over narcotic offences. A second image of Hamad released by the AFP. AFP In the second image, Hamad is standing in front of a nondescript white wall in a bright yellow prison shirt and pants. Since his release from prison in Australia in July 2023 and deportation to Iraq, police suspect Hamad and his gang have taken control of large sections of the illicit tobacco market and forced a new order on Melbournes gangland scene. The images came with a warning from AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett directed at Hamads syndicate, known on the street as the 313s, Kazs Boys or the Iraqis.

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I want every offender connected to Hamad or his syndicate to look long and hard at this photo, Barrett said. And I want to be very clear  just because Hamad is in custody, the AFPs job is not done. Kazem Hamad in 2015 Hamad has become the subject of a special AFP investigative taskforce known as Operation Carmen. This follows a two-year operation by Victoria Police known as Taskforce Lunar, which was set up just months after Hamads release from prison in the wake of a string of firebombings, two murders and an attempted grave desecration allegedly linked to him. The Hamad syndicate are responsible for a significant number of serious offences, including arsons, extortions [and] shootings linked to the illicit tobacco trade as well as the importation and distribution of illicit tobacco, a Victoria Police intelligence report obtained by this masthead says.

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Barrett said Hamad, whose full name is Kadhim Malik Hamad Rabah al-Hajami, had been arrested as a result of an independent decision by the Iraqi judiciary. Related Article Exclusive

Organised crime An untouchable kingpin is behind bars in Iraq. But his run may not be over It is the first time federal law enforcement has mentioned Hamad by name despite essentially publicly identifying him as a national security threat during a Senate estimates hearing last year. The move came after foreign intelligence linked him to the firebombing of the Adass Israel synagogue in the inner Melbourne suburb of Ripponlea in December 2024. The attack is believed to have been ordered by the Iranian government and carried out by Hamads foot soldiers. The AFP also confirmed that Hamads syndicate has a near nationwide presence in five states and one territory, although they were not named.

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The AFP is supporting this independent Iraqi investigation and is providing relevant operational information that relates to crimes the AFP believe Hamad or his syndicate have committed or directed in Australia, Barrett said. Federal investigators travelled to Iraq last week to provide further assistance and received information in return from local authorities. Barrett said Hamads syndicate had begun to fracture since his arrest, from a lack of leadership, infighting, and dysfunction. The AFP will use every partnership, capability, and legislative power to dismantle this dangerous syndicate and identify every single individual who is linked to this crime gang. The underworld has been rife with wild rumours about Hamads conditions, including everything from allegations of torture to claims he was set to walk free.

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The AFP said the images had been taken by Iraqi authorities and released with the permission of Iraqs National Centre for International Judicial Co-operation. Members of the public with information to share about Hamad or the syndicate can call the National Security Hotline on 1800 123 400. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
Herald journalists were on the ground when crowds clashed with hundreds of police at a demonstration against Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

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Slowly but surely, the crowd built outside Town Hall. Hundreds of demonstrators trickled in to protest the visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog. Speakers regularly seen at pro-Palestine rallies across Sydney over the past two years took to the stage; familiar chants of from the river to the sea rang out as those in the crowd called for Herzogs arrest. By 5.30pm, the official start time of the rally, thousands of protesters have turned up. After losing an eleventh-hour court bid to have unprecedented police powers thrown out so they could march to NSW Parliament, Palestine Action Group organisers decided that rather than defy the hundreds of police officers ready to hold the line, protesters would remain in place and demonstrate peacefully; there would be no confrontation. But as the end of the rally neared, the mood shifted; the tone of speeches changed, tensions grew and the temperature rose. As negotiations between organisers and senior police on the ground broke down, an unauthorised march appeared inevitable. By 6.45pm, chants of let them march echoed across the crowd. The people had spoken. Over the next two hours, the rally descended into pandemonium. Protesters were punched, kicked and trampled as they tried to breach the police line. Thousands of demonstrators were crushed together as capsicum spray was deployed indiscriminately at close range. Dozens were arrested, and several police officers were allegedly assaulted. A team of Herald reporters and photographers was on the ground covering the demonstration and police response, and captured videos and images as the situation deteriorated.

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Town Hall Square 5.30pm Moments after a failed last-minute legal challenge to the major event declaration to grant extra police powers during Herzogs visit, thousands of protesters begin filing into the confined Town Hall square. Palestine Action Group spokesman Josh Lees is coy when asked if he still intended to lead protesters to NSW Parliament despite the restrictions imposed, telling media he was calling on police to facilitate the march. Thousands gather at Town Hall to protest Israeli President Isaac Herzogs visit to Sydney. Wolter Peeters At first, the rally is peaceful, if angry. There are chants for Herzogs arrest and declaring the president a war criminal. Members of Indigenous activist group the Blak Caucus give speeches decrying the state governments protest laws.

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Protesters hold signs calling Premier Chris Minns a fascist and Herzog an evil man. 6pm The idea of going ahead with a march despite police advice starts spreading through the crowd at Town Hall. Former Australian of the Year Grace Tame gives a furious speech, calling Australia a spineless colony of the United States. All the right-wing, fascist state of Israel has left now are lies, bombs and bloodlust, she says. From Gadigal to Gaza, globalise the intifada, she ends her speech. Under Labors proposed new hate speech laws, the phrase globalise the intifada would be banned in NSW.

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Activist Amal Naser tells the crowd that even more protesters are trying to get into the square. Related Article Media & marketing Make The Sydney Morning Herald your preferred source on Google The only thing preventing them from getting in is a very thin blue line made up by the NSW Police, she says. 6.45pm The chant let us march grows in volume and the crowd starts to get agitated. At 6.45pm, the officer leading the on-ground police response, Superintendent Paul Dunstan, confronts Lees and Greens MPs Jenny Leong and Sue Higginson, asking them to tell the crowds to disperse. The MPs repeatedly tell Dunstan the crowd wants to march and implore him to facilitate it.

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Greens MP Jenny Leong at the police line. Wolter Peeters This is really disappointing, Dunstan tells Higginson. Our elected representatives should be showing some leadership. They remain at a stalemate, and minutes later crowds begin pushing towards George Street. Later, Leong narrowly avoids being crushed as police charge protesters. The crowd continues to grow as police allow hundreds more protesters to join the rally after initially blocking them from entering the area around Town Hall. George Street 7pm

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AI unlocks new vitality for 2026 Chinese Spring Festival consumption

Xinhua) 08:43, February 10, 2026

BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- As the 2026 Chinese Spring Festival approaches, artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping holiday consumption through predictive services, seamless transactions and personalized experiences, fueling a fresh wave of economic vigor.

On Feb. 2, Alibaba's Qwen App launched a 3-billion-yuan (about 431 million U.S. dollars) "Spring Festival Treat Plan," partnering with several other apps including Taobao Flash Shopping, Freshippo and Tmall to offer cash rewards and free purchase opportunities.

This initiative aims to cultivate user reliance on AI for daily requirements, eliminating the need for app-switching and providing one-stop services, according to Zheng Sishou, a product owner of Qwen App.

"Qianwen App aims to foster the habit of users turning to AI for assistance through substantial financial investment," said Zheng.

Competitors like Tencent and Baidu have joined the trend. Tencent's Yuanbao App is distributing 1 billion yuan in red envelopes, while Baidu's Ernie Bot offers 500 million yuan in rewards until March 12.

These campaigns highlight a strategic push to capture user traffic and tap into spending potential, industry experts say.

"With the support of AI technology, platforms and products have become more attuned to consumers," said Xu Fei, director of the research center at Taobao and Tmall Group.

"Platforms are evolving from 'guess what you like' to 'understand what you need,' thus shifting the starting point of consumption from a user's list of demands to life scenarios identified by AI," Xu noted.

Beyond promotions, AI is proactively identifying consumer needs. For example, air conditioner apps remind users to replace filters based on electricity usage and air quality data, while food-tracking apps estimate nutritional content and recommend low-calorie meals. Also, travel platforms suggest resort routes with tailored pit-stop services.

AI not only delves into consumer demand but also assists in consumption decision-making.

Recent collaborations between Xiaomi and Ant Group have enabled AI glasses to process parking payments via a glance or voice command. Earlier, JD.com partnered with AI-powered smart glasses provider Rokid to integrate shopping functions into smart glasses.

"Technological innovation is driving new consumer demand, with AI-related household appliances and 3C products emerging as new consumer highlights," said JD.com CEO Xu Ran.

AI-driven gadgets are becoming consumption highlights, as reflected by smart product sales on JD.com surging by over 200 percent year on year in 2025, according to Xu.

Meanwhile, concurrent requests for AI livestreaming, coupon pushes and consultations are testing response speeds, underscoring the need for robust computing power.

"To support peak demand during the Spring Festival, Alibaba Cloud has allocated elastic computing resources to ensure Qwen's stability amid potential traffic spikes," said Deng Conglin, who is with Alibaba Cloud.

China needs to continuously strengthen AI computing power infrastructure, reduce business operating costs and enhance consumer experience, experts have said.

China's "AI+" action plan, released by the State Council in August 2025, emphasizes upgrading consumption through intelligent terminals and ecosystems.

The action plan aims to promote comprehensive intelligent interconnection of smart terminals, foster an ecosystem of intelligent products, and vigorously develop next-generation smart terminals, including intelligent connected vehicles, AI smartphones and computers, intelligent robots, smart home devices and wearable technology.

This initiative seeks to create an integrated, full-scenario intelligent interaction environment.

The year 2026 is expected to be a pivotal year for the widespread adoption of AI consumer devices, an outlook report released by China International Capital Corporation Limited has noted.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Aon and Kniazha Vienna Insurance Group (Kniazha VIG) have signed a reinsurance facility agreement worth $25m with the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC).

The agreement will offer DFC-backed reinsurance coverage on war risk insurance portfolios of up to $100m.

The arrangement is expected to help Kniazha VIG provide war-risk insurance policies to small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) as well as individuals within Ukraine.

Kniazha VIG supervisory board chairman and VIG managing board member Harald Riener said: "Our partnership with DFC marks an important step in strengthening Kniazha's role in Ukraine's rebuilding process and reflects VIG's long-term commitment to the country.

"By expanding SME and private insurance solutions and supporting regional initiatives, we are creating a resilient platform that empowers communities and unlocks new market opportunities. This collaboration positions Kniazha to contribute to long-term stability while building sustainable growth for the future."

This development follows earlier initiatives involving Aon and DFC designed to support Ukraine's economy during the conflict.

Previous efforts include coordinating more than $490m in investment and insurance-related support and setting up an insurance facility with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Aon has also introduced a programme aimed at employing displaced Ukrainians.

Aon CEO and president Greg Case commented: "Since the onset of the war, our commitment to Ukraine has compelled our firm to build a global public and private coalition to support and invest in the country.

"We are proud to collaborate with Kniazha VIG to build on work with the US International Development Finance Corporation and others as we put our expertise, analytics and relationships to urgent work to unlock innovative solutions to this complex challenge."

"Aon and Kniazha VIG unveil Ukraine war risk reinsurance facility" was originally created and published by Life Insurance International, a GlobalData owned brand.




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Updated NationalQueenslandQueensland Police The burning issue that worries Queenslands outgoing top cop James Hall and Julius Dennis Updated February 11, 2026  12:51pm ,first published February 10, 2026  7:42pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

Outgoing Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski has flagged the surging rate of injuries and deaths linked to electric scooters and bikes as his major concern as he prepares to hand over Queenslands top cop role. The respected former detective and self-described nerd this week revealed he would call time on his four-and-a-half decade career following health struggles. Having stepped into the role in April 2024 after the sudden resignation of Katarina Carroll during heightened concern over crime rates, his reform plans were derailed when he was diagnosed with stage four cancer. Queensland Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski will depart the role at the end of next week. On Wednesday morning, a teary Gollschewski said he was proud of improvements made to the organisation and attrition rates, but cited the increased injuries and deaths linked to e-bikes as an area of primary concern.

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Its one of those areas where things advance so quickly its hard for the government and the regulations to keep up, he said, while also crediting the ongoing work of a current e-scooter inquiry that is due to hand down its report in late March. The top cop said kids were taking huge risks and parents not taking much notice. A teary Gollschewski said he was proud of improvements made to the organisation. James Hall Gollschewski, who will step down at the end of next week, said he would focus on his own health after battling cancer that had initially spread from his lungs to his bones and then other organs. He cited a 7.2 per cent reduction in victims, an 11 per cent reduction in complaints against police, and a drop in officer attrition rates as key improvements under his leadership.

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We have already achieved much and I have confidence that the organisation is going in the right direction, Gollschewski said. Gollschewski was forced to take extended leave in February 2025. He returned to work in September, after receiving what he described as highly effective treatment, but he was retiring to get further treatment. Gollschewski became a familiar face to Queenslanders during the daily COVID-19 briefings early in the pandemic. He led the security operation for the 2018 Commonwealth Games, and was also Queensland Disaster Coordinator during several floods and cyclones.

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The state government refused to reveal a likely successor for the role. Get alerts on significant breaking news as happens. Sign up for our Breaking News Alert.
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NationalQueenslandCity council The streets within two Brisbane suburbs that are set for high-density makeovers Dominique Tassell February 10, 2026  9:41pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

The zones where Brisbane City Council is looking to grow major suburban centres have been revealed. Suburban Renewal Precinct Plans have been announced for Chermside and Upper Mount Gravatt, located about 15 kilometres north and south of Brisbanes CBD. Thousands of new homes could be built in either precinct, which have been chosen due to their proximity to jobs, transport, shops and services. Chermside in Brisbanes north is already a major suburban hub. Were a growing city, and we need more homes, Northgate councillor Adam Allan said. We want Brisbane to be a city where everyone, no matter their circumstances, can find a home that suits them.

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We focused on putting homes in the right places, that means locations with transport, shops, health services, parks and jobs close by. Allan said the Metro had been a major factor in the plans. Upper Mount Gravatt residents already have access to the service, and there are plans to expand it to Chermside. The proposed urban renewal zones in Chermside and Upper Mount Gravatt. The Upper Mount Gravatt precinct will cover a section of Dawson Road, extending through Mount Gravatt-Capalaba Road to Newnham Road. The Chermside precinct will focus on the Gympie Road corridor between Rode Road and 7th Brigade Park.

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Initial community consultation will inform the draft plans, which will then undergo another round of feedback. Chermside was identified as an opportunity by Suburban Futures Better Suburbs Initiative in 2023. Like Chermside, Upper Mount Gravatt has transport, shops, health services, parks, and jobs. There are 16,000 people who work there at the moment, half of whom are in health, said the chairman of the Better Suburbs Initiative, Ross Elliott. But there could be 40,000 or 50,000 jobs there in the future, if we get it right. Elliott acknowledged that transport was an issue, and more housing alone was not the solution.

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The intention of all of these precincts is to look at ways to enhance, rejuvenate, and further develop not just housing options, but also different employment options and social infrastructure, he said. If you put 10,000 people in houses, thats 10,000 people. Theyre going to need healthcare, theyre going to need a school to send the kids to. Theyre going to need all those affiliated things. So its not just about housing. Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner said the council was aiming to strike a balance between delivering more homes and protecting the character of Brisbanes suburbs and natural environment. Our anti-sprawl approach is about encouraging homes in the right places  close to jobs, transport and services  so we can grow without pushing further out. Marchant councillor Danita Parry said Chermside was already a thriving suburban hub, and it made sense to plan for its future growth now.

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Related Article City council Plan to transform Brisbane suburb with new homes and shops revealed MacGregor councillor Steven Huang also noted the existing hub in Upper Mount Gravatt, and the current access to resources. However, the Labor opposition said housing supply alone is not the silver bullet to Brisbanes housing crisis. Congestion in these areas is already high, and better public transport is required to support population growth, the opposition said. Opposition leader Jared Cassidy put forward an amendment to the plan to include affordable housing targets.

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We dont just want to see luxury apartments built, we want to see a roof over everybodys heads because housing is a human right. The amendment was defeated, with eight votes in favour and 17 votes against it. Paddington councillor Seal Chong Wah later labelled the councils track record on new precinct plans shocking. Residents flag that this administration already isnt funding infrastructure upgrades to keep up with growing neighbourhoods, she said. The LNP pay lip service to people who have given their time to have a say, but thats it. The taller height limits go in, key infrastructure isnt built, developers make millions in speculative land value. Brisbane cant sustain this. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
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NationalVictoriaLunch with Top silk Peter Jopling on the thrill of the chase and ending a ridiculous ban Cara Waters February 10, 2026  12:00pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

Peter Jopling, AM, KC, doesnt like the term art collector. Were having lunch at Di Stasio Citta at the top end of the CBD, and Jopling wrinkles his nose and grimaces to show his distaste. I hate the concept of a collector, he says. I bought my first painting when I was 17 with money my grandmother gave me with the express purpose of buying a painting. Its a little tiny Fred Williams, and Ive still got it. Peter Jopling, former barrister and arts patron, at Di Stasio Citta. Simon Schluter Jopling was one of the Victorian Bars top commercial silks, led the Australian Competition and Consumer Commissions successful cartel action against packaging company Visy, and acted for and against Christopher Skase, Alan Bond and Simon Holmes a Court, but his great passion in life is art.

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He is chair of the Melbourne Art Foundation, which runs the Melbourne Art Fair every February, and has chaired the Potter Museum of Art, the Menzies Leadership Foundation and dance company Lucy Guerin Inc. Related Article Exclusive

City life Melbourne Art Fair to become annual event as city defends arts dominance Jopling estimates he owns hundreds of artworks; just dont call him a collector. I watched my parents buy art, I watched my uncle buy art. It was just something ingrained in me, something that I did, he says. It made my world more beautiful, more interesting, more engaged, more challenging, more reflective. Jopling is a regular at Di Stasio Citta, which he chose for lunch today because of owner Ronnie Di Stasios patronage of the arts.

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We eat underneath a projection of a video installation by artist Shaun Gladwell that plays on a continuous loop along the large white wall of the restaurant. Who else would put this in a restaurant? Jopling says admiringly, gesturing above his head. Pea and ricotta crostini at Di Stasio Citta. Simon Schluter Gladwell happens to be in the restaurant working on a new installation and pops over to say hello to Jopling. The pair chat about catching up in Milan and the video portrait Gladwell completed of Allan Myers, KC, for the Bars portrait gallery, behind which Jopling is the driving force.

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Related Article Arts 'I would run for days and days': Why is artist Shaun Gladwell running? I could write a book about the ego trip of many of the people who sat for the portraits and resisted what we wanted to do, Jopling says. But Allan didnt flinch, hesitate or draw a breath. He said, Go for it. As we choose what to order from the menu, an appetiser arrives from Di Stasio: small triangles of bread topped with creamy ricotta and crushed peas. Jopling sighs as he bites into the crostini. How good are peas? he says.

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Jopling grew up in Ballarat and attended what is now Ballarat Clarendon College, before moving to Melbourne at the age of 11 and attending Camberwell Grammar School. He studied law at the University of Melbourne. Jopling says he was inspired to become a lawyer by his uncle, who was a barrister, and because I couldnt do maths and science. Saltimbocca and roast potatoes at Di Stasio Citta. Simon Schluter He spent a nanosecond as a solicitor, completing his articles before working as a judges associate to Sir Keith Aickin at the High Court and Sir Ninian Stephen. I was lucky to have two High Court judges that I worked for and formed great friendships with, and [they] had a great influence, really, on my life and my working practices because I saw how hard a High Court judge worked, he says.

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Its a work ethic Jopling took into his professional life, practising at the Bar for 45 years, where he specialised in commercial litigation. Related Article White collar crime Former top barrister Norman OBryan charged with fraud over class action scheme In the beginning, you took whatever you could get, he says. You couldnt be that fussy and that was good because you got good training. I got work in the Childrens Court, and its tough, but I learnt to cross-examine. Jopling says he loves the rigour and preparation required for cross-examination. You only ask questions you know the answer to, he says. There are a lot of people who are loose with the truth, and so its sort of almost the thrill of the chase in uncovering, getting to the core of the real story that they dont really want to communicate.

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When asked what his most memorable case was, Jopling doesnt mention Visy, Skase or Bond. He says, There are some that Ill probably be remembered for, but its probably best not to talk about. Hes probably referring to his role as a court-appointed third-party contradictor to investigate the extreme fees paid to now-disgraced former silk Norman OBryan in the Banksia Securities class action. All Jopling will say is that litigation is not for the faint-hearted. A friend of mine who is a judge on the Federal Court says it is the only activity in the world where everyones sort of against you, he says. If youre in surgery and youre trying to save someones life, everybody is working with you. The anaesthetist, the cardiac nurses or the surgical nurses, theyre all working with you to achieve a positive outcome. But in the courtroom, your opponents want to destroy you. Jopling says this means litigation is an unusual professional environment, but thats what makes it exciting and invigorating.

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When I ask whether Jopling was ever tempted to go to the bench, he shakes his head. I loved being a barrister, he says. Was he ever asked to be a judge? I wouldnt go into that, he says. I really admire the men and women who do; they give extraordinary service. I dont think the public properly understand the service that they do give. I dont think theyre properly valued. Politicians have no idea. One topic Jopling does want to weigh in on is the practice of solicitors being appointed as judges. Thats been a trend and I think, by and large, a failure, he says.

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Jopling believes the judiciary should be appointed only from the Bar so they have trial experience. Governments love to be able to say, Oh, Ive appointed the first of this, and the first of that, he says. I dont think the public really care. The public want the brightest and most efficient person. Linguine Capri. Simon Schluter Another area Jopling has been outspoken about is advocating for women to be admitted to the men-only Australia Club. Were not meant to talk about that in public, but its just ridiculous that theyre not members, he says. If youre going to have a club in a city of 5 million people, and youre going to exclude one group on the basis of gender, I just dont think thats in touch with contemporary thinking.

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Editor's pick City life This has been an exclusive men-only club for 146 years. But tensions are emerging Jopling says a lot of people left the club over the dispute, but quite a few went up the road to the Melbourne Club, which is also men-only, so nothing changed. Jopling believes instead in bringing about change by working within the club. He celebrated his 70th birthday at the Australia Club this year and says the irony was that half the guests were women and nobody blinked. Itll happen in time, he says. I hope it happens in my lifetime. But weve got men from all backgrounds and all races and all sexual persuasions. So why cant we have women as well?

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Our main courses arrive: thin slices of veal saltimbocca with crisp roast potatoes for Jopling. I have the linguine, which I couldnt resist ordering because of its description on the menu of prawns, parsley, lemon and sunshine. On a Melbourne day without much sunshine at all, the bright, fresh sauce delivers. Joplings love of art, he says, began with his mother, who would take him to galleries and choose an artist whom they would then discuss afterwards. He also attributes his commitment to the arts through chairing and time serving on boards to his parents, who always told me that you have an obligation to give back.

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However, Jopling says he has gained a lot through his engagement in the art world. The joy of it is I then started meeting people who werent lawyers, he says. The law is a very insular world, and you know, probably it has to be. But I enjoy meeting people from other disciplines and broadening my horizons and my sense of understanding how the world operates. Jopling and his husband, Richard Parker, founder of the Rationale skincare brand. Eamon Gallagher Jopling is now focused on the Melbourne Art Fair, which opens on February 19 and, he says, will be even bigger and better with a new category called Futureobjekt. It will be showcasing talented men and women who are craft-makers and place-makers, Jopling says. Id love to see that really strengthen and grow and become something of substance so that these people can see that theres a commercial future for adaptation of what theyre making.

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The lunch bill. Cara Waters The Melbourne Art Fair aims, Jopling says, to sell art, and educate the public about Australian artists. Hes proud of the fairs commercial focus. Youve got to sell product, he says. People have to earn money, people have got to pay rent, buy food, educate children, and theyve got to live, so youve got to have a commercial proposition. The fair receives funding from the federal and state governments but Jopling says the board has focused on achieving corporate backing from sponsors including fashion brand Loewe, champagne house Bollinger and skincare business Rationale, which Joplings husband, Richard Parker, owns.

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We drink sparkling water over lunch because Jopling doesnt touch alcohol, apart from the occasional glass of champagne. Im now on trend, he says. But if you met me 10 years ago for lunch, it would have been the same story, or 20 years ago. Instead, his vice is chocolate, and when another dish arrives courtesy of Di Stasio  a small chocolate-coated ball of ice-cream  Jopling devours it instantly. I have an absolute sweet tooth, he says. Joplings new project is to give the artworks he owns to the Potter Museum of Art and the University of Melbourne.

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The aim is not to buy anything from now until the time of my death, he says. Instead, Im going to give the Potter money each year to buy something to add to the collection. However, Jopling still has a lot of living to do. I love meeting artists, he says. I love watching how they observe the world because I think thats part of their native genius ... their ability to observe a world that were too busy rushing around to stop and properly observe. They enable us to take stock of that world and to better understand and to better appreciate. The Melbourne Art Fair runs from February 19-22, 2026. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
Japanese companies with gas export interests have met with Australian policymakers at least two dozen times in recent years, as an analysis asserts narratives pushed by both countries do not align with global climate goals.

Japanese firms, including INPEX, JERA and Mitsubishi Corporation, have almost $70 billion ($US50 billion) in equity invested in 13 Australian liquefied natural gas export projects, according to research from climate think tank InfluenceMap.

A new report has questioned the influence of Japanese gas giants on Australias politics. Michele Mossop

The reports author Jack Herring was surprised by the scale of their financial stake.

This serves to link Japanese corporate interests directly to Australias gas export economy, InfluenceMaps Australian program manager said.

Australia  and, in particular, WA  is a major supplier of gas to Japan but in recent years, the importers practice of reselling it to other markets  namely Southeast Asia  has come under scrutiny, particularly against the backdrop of warnings Australia might not have enough of the fuel to meet domestic needs.

Roughly 600 to 800 petajoules of Australian gas was onsold to other Asian markets by Japanese companies in 2024, according to Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis estimates - comparable to eastern Australias annual domestic gas consumption.

InfluenceMap says four tactics are being used to keep expanding the fossil fuel industry: investment, lobbying in Australia, government influence in Japan, and public and political narrative capture.

At least 24 meetings between Japanese companies and Australian ministers and officials since Labor came to power in 2022 have been identified via freedom of information requests.

Herring said the two-dozen meetings were the tip of the iceberg and it was impossible to know the full extent without mandatory ministerial diary disclosures and other transparency reforms.

The report also contained briefs, revealed for the first time, prepared for Federal Resources Minister and WA MP Madeleine King before an October 2024 visit to Japan that repeatedly emphasised Australias commitment to encouraging targeted investment into new gas projects in Australia.

Pro-LNG narratives were also tested against scientific guidance for meeting global climate goals set out in the Paris Agreement.

Common descriptions of gas as a transition fuel, as well as its importance for energy affordability and security, were deemed inconsistent with science-based pathways to stay within the 1.5C warming limit.

Herring said continued investment in the LNG industry could delay decarbonisation in both Australia and the broader region by locking in decades of gas production.

He pointed to a Deloitte report commissioned by the WA Labor government and leaked in 2025 that found gas could crowd out investments in renewable technologies.

A spokesperson for King said regular meetings with industry stakeholders were part of the role.

Japan has been a strong and valued investment partner for Australias offshore LNG industry, the spokesperson said.

A JERA spokesperson said like many businesses in Australia, it regularly engaged with state and federal governments and regulators on the operation and management of the LNG projects it is involved in.

Australian LNG contributes to Japans supplies of reliable and affordable gas while generating valuable jobs and revenue in Australia, the spokesperson said.

INPEX senior vice president corporate Bill Townsend said the company took a bi-partisan approach to government engagement and highlighted the jobs created by the Ichthys LNG project it operates, and its tax contributions.

We are actively working to support Indo-Pacific energy security, while helping the region to achieve net zero by 2050, as detailed in our INPEX Vision 2035 strategic roadmap, he said.

AAP
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PoliticsFederalBondi shooting Baseless assertions: ASIO boss defends failure to prevent Bondi attack Matthew Knott February 11, 2026  7:03am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

ASIO boss Mike Burgess has defended his organisations inability to prevent the worst terror attack in Australian history, saying an internal review commissioned after the Bondi massacre backed the spy agencys 2019 view that shooter Naveed Akram did not pose a serious threat. In his first Senate estimates hearings since the Bondi attack, Burgess said father-and-son shooters Sajid and Naveed Akram had gone dark to prevent detection ahead of the attack. He welcomed the royal commission as the best way to understand how the massacre occurred and develop policies to prevent similar attacks. ASIO director-general Mike Burgess at a parliamentary hearing last month. Alex Ellinghausen Burgess said the fact the Bondi massacre occurred was a matter of grave regret for me and my officers. It weighs heavily on us.

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But that does not mean intelligence was ignored or my officers made mistakes, he said in a late-night appearance on Tuesday. Related Article Editorial

Bondi shooting Mourn for Bondi Beach, but now hard questions must be asked The Herald's View Editorial The grim reality is  as Ive also said many times  ASIO is not all seeing and all knowing. ASIO and our law enforcement partners have disrupted 28 major terrorism plots since September 2014. Tragically, though, we did not know what the perpetrators of the Bondi attack were planning  or indeed that they were planning anything.

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It appears the alleged terrorists demonstrated a high level of security awareness to hide their plot. In simple terms, they went dark to stay off the radar. Burgess revealed that, immediately after the attack on December 14, he commissioned a review of ASIOs handling of Naveed Akram, who had come onto their radar six years earlier. CCTV evidence tendered by police to court: Naveed and Sajid Akram allegedly training in Australia for the Bondi terror attack. The review was conducted internally, but by a reviewer from outside ASIO who received unfettered and unfiltered access to our records, he said. The review is highly classified because it contains details about individuals and sensitive capabilities however I can say that we stand by our 2019 assessment the Akrams did not adhere to or intend to engage in violent extremism at that time.

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In other words, many of the claims and criticisms being made about ASIOs handling of the case are baseless. Related Article National News Live Australia news as it happened: Angus Taylor resigns from frontbench to clear way for leadership challenge against Sussan Ley; Victoria Police granted extra powers for Herzogs visit He said it would be up to royal commissioner Virginia Bell, who is being assisted by former ASIO boss Dennis Richardson, to make her own judgment. Burgess cautioned against using the benefit of hindsight to declare that an intelligence failure led to the attack, in which 15 people were shot dead and dozens of others were injured at a Hannukah celebration on Bondi Beach. In the days and weeks after the Bondi attack, assumptions, assertions, hypotheticals and opinions quickly became accepted as facts by some, he said.

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They were recycled and exaggerated in the following weeks. This resulted in calls for action that were not supported by any fact. This is why the royal commission is so important. Burgess said he had repeatedly warned about escalating antisemitism in Australia and described it as ASIOs most pressing threat-to-life priority. The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.
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PoliticsVictoriaEducation Victoria spends less on students as parents bridge the gap Jackson Graham February 10, 2026  10:30pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

Parents, teachers and principals at Victorian public schools are being forced to spend their own money to fill funding gaps, as school allocations per child continue to lag way below the rest of the nation. Average state government funding per student in Victoria was $3600 less than in NSW in 2023-2024, according to the latest data from the Productivity Commission, with the underfunding straining household budgets. The Victorian governments recurrent spending fell to $20,125 per student in 2023-24  $428 less than the previous year  according to the commissions Report on Government Services, published on Tuesday night. Comparably, Victorias spend on each student was $172 less than in South Australia  the next lowest contribution from a state government  and well below NSW and Queensland where students receive $23,725 and $21,876 respectively.

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Details of the slide in recurrent spending is the latest insight into the states education funding, and comes after advocacy groups this week claimed the state government is using accounting tricks to leave a shortfall of more than 14 per cent on the agreed minimum funding standard under a two-year deal with the federal government. Related Article Exclusive

Schools States accounting tricks shortchange schools by $1.37 billion Emma Rowe, an education funding researcher at Deakin University, said Victorian parents were paying more for their children to go to school. For parents who cant foot the bill, they are the most impacted because students might not be able to attend excursions, incursions and things like that, the associate professor said. I speak to principals who actually do the cleaning themselves because they cant afford it and the budget is too tight. I know a principal who did their own painting in their school.

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Parents Victoria chief Gail McHardy said families were increasingly being asked to pay for basics. These arent optional extras. This is cost-shifting caused by chronic underfunding, she said. We are hearing about parents struggling to pay or contribute even when they would like to. Cost-of-living pressures are real, and many families simply cant afford to keep covering funding gaps. Victorias spending on teachers and staff across all school levels in 2023-24 was also the lowest in the nation at $14,533 per student, well below the national average of $16,376.

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Australian Education Union Victorian Branch president Justin Mullaly said Victorian schools were left struggling to meet the full range of students learning and wellbeing needs. [This] can only be achieved if the massive funding shortfalls are fixed, so that high-quality provision doesnt rely on many hours of unpaid overtime every week by the public education workforce, Mullaly said. We have the lowest funded public schools and the lowest paid teachers in the country, with education support staff and school leaders undervalued. The premier and education minister cannot hope to keep experienced teachers in our schools, let alone attract the next generation to the profession, without full and fair funding. In response to questions from The Age, Education Minister Ben Carroll did not directly address Victorias funding per student, but said the states NAPLAN results and the school building pipeline were nation-leading.

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Victorian students are not only the top performing in the country but also performing better than at any other time on record, he said. Building schools is an investment in our kids future, and we have the largest school-building program in the country. Editor's pick Media & marketing How to make The Age your preferred source on Google The state is currently in negotiations with the federal government to finalise a bilateral agreement that will determine the rate of investment and key reform activities. The state government is committed to funding government schools at 75 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard  a benchmark for recurrent funding needs  as part of the Better and Fairer Schools Funding Agreement it signed with the federal government in January 2025. Opposition education spokesman Brad Rowswell said a Liberals-National government would prioritise funding per student by stopping wasteful spending and repairing the budget to invest in schools.

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We would focus on getting spending priorities right, backing teachers and education staff and ensuring resources are directed to where theyre needed most, he said. Strong schools depend on attracting and retaining high-quality staff, and that requires the Victorian government to reconsider their priorities. The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.
Who knew so much money could be made in the recycled bag business?

Beijing-born Xiaohui Wang, the director of recycled polyester company Carbonbelle, has put her Clontarf home on the market with a price guide of $18 million to $19 million.

Xiaohui Wang, director of recycled polyester company Carbonbelle, is downsizing and selling her Clontarf property with a price guide of $18 million to $19 million. Credit:

Wang purchased the six-bedroom, seven-bathroom, three-storey mansion for $7,288,888 from Raymond and Penelope Jones, with a caveat lodged in 2015, records show.

Wang, whose business specialises in bags, accessories and textiles, is downsizing.
Safety isnt just about crash testing, says Emily A. Thomas, PhD, associate director of auto safety at Consumer Reports. A safe car has predictable handling and braking, controls that dont distract you, technology that can prevent a crash in the first place, and a design that protects occupants if a crash occurs.

Until now, car buyers have had to consult multiple sources to find out which cars excel in all these areas. But the experts at Consumer Reports have simplified the search for a safe vehicle.

CRs new safety verdict condenses this comprehensive view of car safety into a single rating: Basic, Better, Best. The score considers CRs handling and usability evaluations, safety test results from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, and whether proven safety technologies are available as standard equipmentbecause we dont think you should have to pay more for a safer car. Here are the details for each score.

Basic  The vehicle must meet all of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administrations federal motor vehicle safety standards. (If a vehicle is on the market and fails to meet one or more of these standards, NHTSA requires that the automaker conduct a recall to address the problem.)  Automakers must self-certify that their vehicles meet these requirements.

Better All the requirements of Basic, plus:

 An average or higher score in CRs independent braking, emergency handling, and routine handling tests, and a passing score on the rollaway prevention test.  Automatic emergency braking (AEB) that can detect pedestrians, standard across all trim levels.  A curb weight above 2,500 pounds, because a lightweight car is at a disadvantage in a crash with a heavier car.  Front-wheel drive or available all-wheel drive (standard or optional) for effective handling in ice, snow, and rain.  If tested, a Good or Acceptable rating in the IIHS small-overlap front crash test, which simulates hitting a pole or tree, and in the safety organizations evaluation of front crash prevention technology.  If tested, at least an Acceptable rating in the IIHS side-crash test.

Best All the requirements of Better, plus:

 The vehicle cant have the lowest usability rating in CRs tests, because confusing controls and finicky infotainment systems can distract drivers.  All trims must have standard highway-speed AEB, blind spot warning (BSW), and rear cross traffic warning (RCTW), three proven technologies that prevent crashes and injuries.  A Good rating (the top one) in the IIHS side-crash test.  At least an Acceptable rating in the IIHS moderate-overlap front crash test, which simulates a partial head-on crash with another vehicle that crosses a center yellow line.

These vehicles are among the new cars that earned a Best rating, the top mark for our safety verdict. This means that each vehicle comes standard with proven safety technologyspecifically, highway-speed AEB, AEB with pedestrian detection, BSW, and RCTW. These cars are also Consumer Reports recommended, which means theyre highly rated for road-test performance and predicted reliability. To see the safety verdict for any new car, visit their model pages at CR.org/cars and via the A-Z interactive ratings chart.

Surprised that a well-regarded car didnt earn CRs highest safety score? Heres why certain brands, models, and vehicle types arent top-rated. Volvo was the first manufacturer to introduce vital safety innovations, such as the three-point seat belt and side airbags. But most new Volvos lack a Best safety verdict rating. Thats because most of them have controls that are so distracting theyve earned CRs lowest usability score. If controlling the climate or audio distracts you from the task of driving, thats a strike against safety, says Jake Fisher, CRs senior director of auto testing. Although the Subaru Forester is one of our Top Picks, some trims lack standard blind spot warning and rear cross traffic warning. We believe that safety shouldnt be an optional extra, Fisher says. You wont see any full-sized SUVs or pickups on this list, either. Larger vehicles take longer to stop and dont handle as nimbly as smaller vehicles, he says. A large vehicle might get into a crash that a small vehicle could have avoided. Some cars with five-star NHTSA ratings are also absent, largely because its crash tests dont represent real-world situations as well as IIHS testing. In short, the safest cars excel in crash avoidance and occupant protection. Theyre not overly distracting, and they make important safety features standard.

These are proved to reduce crashes and injuries, and are key components of our safety verdict.

Over our 90-year history, Consumer Reports has pushed automakers to adopt new safety features, and weve lobbied regulators to enforce compliance. Here are some of the lifesaving advances that CR led.

Editors Note: This article also appeared in the March/April 2026 issue of Consumer Reports magazine.
President Emmanuel Macron, right, taking selfies with employees at ArcelorMittal's Dunkirk site on Tuesday (Benoit Tessier)  Benoit Tessier/POOL/AFP

ArcelorMittal said Tuesday that it would build a low-carbon electric furnace at its steel mill in northern France, after months of wrangling with officials over the project's economic viability.

Unions feared the company would drop the plan announced two years ago to "decarbonise" the Dunkirk site by replacing two coal-fired furnaces with electric arc models.

But with President Emmanuel Macron in attendance, Arcelor executives said 1.3 billion euros ($1.55 billion) would be invested to replace one of the coal furnaces with an electric model coming online in 2029.

"If we want to build cars and infrastructure in our Europe, we need to produce European steel and less carbon-intensive steel," Macron said while meeting some of the site's 3,200 employees.

Half of the funding for the revamp will come from Energy Efficiency Certificates (CEE), a French investment programme financed by contributions from energy suppliers.

"With this strategic investment, ArcelorMittal confirms... its committment to France and Europe," the company's head of flat steel products in Europe, Reiner Blaschek, said during Macron's visit.

The company has been pressing European officials to protect the steel sector as it faces intense competition, in particular from Asian rivals not subject to strict emission regulations.

While posting a rise in 2025 operating profit to $2.9 billion this week, it welcomed in particular reforms to an EU "carbon tax" to offset the CO2 emissions of foreign firms

Arcelor's Dunkirk site is among the 50 biggest industrial sources of greenhouse gases in France, the government says.

With employees worried of job cuts if Arcelor scales back its European operations, leftist lawmakers have proposed nationalising the French operations, with a bill set for debate in the Senate on February 25.

"I must thank President Macron and the French government who -- very early on -- understood the challenges the European steel industry was facing," Arcelor's CEO Aditya Mittal said in a statement.

"Their support, and in particular their efforts to drive changes to the mechanisms defending the steel market, will benefit the entire steel industry in Europe, starting here in Dunkirk."

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Ashoka Buildcon Ltd ( BOM:533271 ) incurred an impairment of INR37 crores for its subsidiary in Saudi Arabia due to the lack of business, affecting financial performance.

The highway construction sector is experiencing a slowdown, with construction expected to drop by 10% to 15% in the current financial year.

EBITDA for the quarter fell by 30% year-on-year, with a margin of 25.4%, indicating pressure on operational profitability.

The company has a robust order book of INR16,235 crores as of December 31, 2025, with a strong focus on roads, railways, and power transmission and distribution projects.

The company completed the sale of its entire stake in five BOT SPVs for INR1,814 crores, marking an important step in unlocking value from mature assets.

Ashoka Buildcon Ltd ( BOM:533271 ) achieved a significant reduction in consolidated debt from INR4,910 crores in September to INR2,722 crores in December 2025, strengthening its balance sheet.

For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript .

Story Continues

Q & A Highlights

Q: Why were EBITDA margins lower in Q3, and was there any one-off impact? A: Paresh Mehta, CFO, explained that the EBITDA margin was impacted by lower turnover and fixed overhead coverage. Additionally, there was an Expected Credit Loss (ECL) provision of INR25 crores, which increased other expenses.

Q: What are the expectations for margins in Q4 and FY27? A: Paresh Mehta, CFO, stated that margins are expected to improve over the quarters. Q4 FY26 margins will remain similar, but FY27 margins are projected to be in the range of 9% to 9.5%, with potential to reach 10% to 10.5% as the year progresses.

Q: How does Ashoka Buildcon plan to address the slow-moving projects in the order book? A: Satish Parakh, Managing Director, mentioned that projects like Kundalika, Jaigad, and others are delayed due to land acquisition issues. These are expected to be resolved in the next quarter, leading to better execution in the coming year.

Q: What is the status of the appointed date for the Guskara-Bowaichandi project? A: Satish Parakh, Managing Director, expects the appointed date to be finalized in February. The delay was due to land acquisition challenges in West Bengal.

Q: What are the plans for monetizing the remaining BOT and HAM assets? A: Paresh Mehta, CFO, indicated that four HAM projects are expected to be monetized by March for approximately INR750 crores, with the remaining two projects expected to be monetized by June 2026 for around INR400 crores.

For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript.
132.5 kg ganja seized, worth Rs 66 lakh, in triple crackdown





Staff Reporter :

MAHASAMUND Anti-Narcotics Task Force (ANTF) conducted three synchronized operations within 24 hours under Operation Nishchay, seizing 132.5 kg of cannabis worth Rs 66.25 lakh and arresting 11 interstate smugglers. The coordinated crackdown across Singhoda, Komakhan and Bagbahra police stations resulted in seizure of six vehicles worth Rs 55 lakh used for transporting the contraband. According to police officials, the operations demonstrated end-to-end enforcement with the entire network from wholesale suppliers to buyers traced within six hours. The action involved cooperation from Raipur, Rajnandgaon and Bhandara district police, with intelligence provided by the Cyber Police Stations Data Analytics and Intelligence Desk.

In the first operation at Singhoda, a team intercepted two vehicles on National Highway 53 based on intelligence about ganja being transported from Sonpur, Odisha. Police seized 52.5 kg of cannabis valued at Rs 26.25 lakh along with a Swift Dzire and Tata Indico worth Rs 10 lakh. Three accused from Jabalpur were arrested: Amit Rai (32), Rajkumar Kewat (50) and Prakash Sharma (28). Kewat has previous criminal records under MP Excise Act and Public Gambling Act. The Komakhan operation resulted in seizure of 40 kg ganja worth Rs 20 lakh from a Bolero vehicle and arrest of six accused. Transporters Gajendra Kumar (29) and Babblu Mandhi (21), both from Kalahandi district in Odisha, were apprehended along with forward link buyers. Kumar has five prior cases for theft and arms violations. Four Maharashtra residents were arrested as buyers: Akshay Waghade (26), Ayush Rahangadale (26), Rakesh Lanjitar (23) and Akshay alias Michael Rangari (29).

Rangari has two previous cases under NDPS Act. Three vehicles worth Rs 30 lakh were seized. At Bagbahra, police intercepted a Hyundai Verna carrying 40 kg of cannabis valued at Rs 20 lakh. Two accused, Sumit Shrivastava (33) from Datia and Reena Bhadauria alias Reena Tomar (40) from Morena, were arrested. The vehicle worth Rs 15 lakh was confiscated. Cases under Section 20(b) of NDPS Act have been registered at all three police stations. Investigation is ongoing to identify other persons involved in the network, financial transactions and properties linked to the smuggling operation. Since January 2026, Mahasamund police have registered 34 cases under Operation Nishchay, seizing 2,285 kg of cannabis worth Rs 11.42 crore and confiscating 35 vehicles valued at Rs 1.20 crore. A total of 93 persons have been arrested, of which 69 are from other states including 23 from Odisha, 17 from Madhya Pradesh and 16 from Maharashtra.
Bank retirees to hold demonstrations on 11th





Business Reporter :

The members of Eastern Maharashtra Bank Retirees Association (EMBRA) will be holding a demonstration from 10 am to 1 pm at Samvidhan Chowk, near Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Civil Lines on February 11. The bank retirees are protesting against the Governments apathy towards their long standing problem of upgradation of their pension among other demands. This was revealed by Shyamsunder Butolia, General Secretary of EMBRA while addressing the media on Monday. Other EMBRA office bearers including Milind Joshi, C R Iyer, S P Tiwari, O P Verma, Santoshkumar Dubey and others were present. He further said that the public sector bank retirees are also demanding total exemption in Goods and Services Tax (GST) on retiree insurance. One more pension option for the remaining bank retirees. Another demand is the apex level Grievances Redressal Mechanism in Indian Banks Association and that pension should include special allowance for post 2012 bank retirees.
Bastar witnessed restoration of peace within 2 yrs, Every village in Bastar will have electricity, mobile towers, and a post office by Dec 2027: Shah





By Hemant Kashyap :

UNION Home Minister Amit Shah asserted that Naxalism in Bastar will be eradicated within the stipulated timeframe. He emphasised that the Government is not opposing any group, but the brutality of Maoist violence. Speaking at the closing ceremony of the three-day Bastar Pandum at the divisional headquarters on Monday, Shah noted that Maoism has wrought only destruction keeping Bastars schools shuttered for nearly 30 years and consigning thousands to illiteracy. Union Home Minister Amit Shah paid tribute to security personnel who laid down their lives for peace in Bastar, noting the tribal community's enduring gratitude for their service. He announced that by December 2027, every village in Bastar will have electricity, mobile towers, and a post office. Farmers will also receive five kilograms of paddy seeds each. Shah urged the crowd to chant Maa Danteshwari so loudly that even Naxals hiding in Telangana could hear it. He highlighted how Bastar once paralyzed by Naxal fear has now seen 55,000 people unite to revive its rich cultural heritage through the festival.

Emphasising the timelessness of Bastar's traditions, Shah said tribal culture has endured since Lord Rams era and will thrive for centuries. He added that Prime Minister Narendra Modi views history not just in books, but alive in tribal heritage. The top three winning artists from Bastar Pandum will perform at Rashtrapati Bhavan and dine with the President. Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai said Bastar, once deprived of basic facilities due to Naxalism, has witnessed restoration of peace within two years. Calling Bastar Pandum a symbol of the regions identity, he said the government is committed to taking Bastars culture to the global stage. He added that with firm resolve from the Prime Minister and Home Minister, Naxalism is in its final phase, and where bomb blasts once echoed, school bells are now ringing. Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Sharma praised the Cultural Department for successfully organizing the event and expressed confidence that Naxalism will be completely eradicated.

He said Bastar has seen significant transformation in the last one and a half years and that remaining Naxals should surrender voluntarily. State BJP President and Jagdalpur MLA Kiran Singh Deo said Bastar Pandum has gained global recognition and that the efforts of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai are helping free Bastar from Naxal violence. Presenting the event report, Culture Minister Rajesh Agrawal said the grand event saw participation from 55,000 people representing 1850 gram panchayats and is helping promote tribal art, culture and tourism. As part of the three-day Bastar Pandum festival, competitions were organised across 12 traditional disciplines celebrating the rich tribal heritage of the Bastar region. Winners in each category were honored with first prizes and a cheque of Rs 50,000 each.

The awardees include in Forest Medicine Rajdev Baghel from Bastar, Regional Literature Uttam Naik from Kondagaon, Tribal Painting Deepak Kumar from Kanker, Tribal Ornaments, Sugni Dugga from Narayanpur, Traditional Attire, Gunjan Nag from Sukma, Tribal Beverage, Urmila Pradhan and her team from Bijapur, Tribal Craft, Omprakash Gavde from Kanker, Tribal Cuisine, Tarabati from Dantewada, Tribal Theatre, Lekhan Lakhma from Sukma, Musical Instruments, Raju Mandavi from Kondagaon, Tribal Song, Mangli and team from Dantewada, Gaur Dance, Budhram and his team from Dantewada. Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah congratulated Dantewada district for winning the highest number of awards at the festival.
CM grants out-of-turn promotions to 60 cops





Our Correspondent :

Chief Minister Dr Mohan Yadav granted out-of-turn promotions to 60 courageous personnel who displayed exceptional bravery and valor in Naxal encounters in Balaghat. The Chief Minister awarded the promotions during special promotion and felicitation ceremony of the Madhya Pradesh Police in Balaghat on Monday. Addressing the gathering, Chief Minister Dr Yadav said that the name Balaghat signifies strength. This district, through its sheer determination, has overcome the formidable challenge of Naxalism. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, an environment conducive to Naxal eradication was created across the country. CM Dr Yadav said, Madhya Pradesh Police launched an effective campaign, forcing the Naxalites to surrender and bidding a final farewell to the Laal Salaam in the State. The role of the brave soldiers of the Hawk Force in Naxal eradication is commendable.

While Balaghat was once a battleground where Naxalites shed blood, the bravery of the soldiers, the unwavering resolve of the police, and the trust of the people have liberated the region from the shackles of Naxal terror. Dr Yadav added, The State Government is paying tributes to the brave martyrs through the Amar Jawan Jyoti at Balaghat. Now, the land of Madhya Pradesh is free from Naxalites. Chief Minister Dr Yadav was given a guard of honour upon his arrival at the programme held at the Balaghat Police Lines. Chief Minister Dr Yadav laid a wreath at the Amar Jawan Jyoti, paying tributes to the soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the peace and security of the State. Dr Yadav also inaugurated 32 police stations and other government offices in Balaghat district, virtually. He released the book Naxal Reminiscences. Transport and School Education Minister Uday Pratap Singh, MP Bharti Pardhi, former Minister Gauri Shankar Bisen, ADG Anti-Naxal Operations Venkateswara Rao, Superintendent of Police Balaghat Aditya Mishra, along with MLAs and other public representatives were specially present at the event.

Chief Minister Dr. Yadav said that it is sad that former minister Likhiram Kawre was publicly murdered in Balaghat during the previous government's tenure. This was a major challenge for us, as Madhya Pradesh shares an 836-kilometer-long border with Chhattisgarh. Madhya Pradesh has lost 38 police personnel and 27 civilians. With the blessings of Baba Mahakal, the state government has succeeded in eradicating Naxalism. Even in the challenging environment of dense forests, the Hawk Force, using a mega-strategy, chased away the Naxalites and killed four notorious Naxalites. As mans as 4,104 anti-Naxal operations, 23 percent more than the previous year, were carried out depsiet all odds. Security forces has eliminated 10 of the most hardcore Naxalites so far in 2025. Chief Minister Dr. Yadav said that the state government is making every possible arrangement to ensure that Naxalites do not get another opportunity to establish themselves in the future.

He said that 'Amar Jawan Jyoti' in Balaghat will serve as a memorial to the Naxal-free campaign. Chief Minister Dr. Yadav congratulated the police personnel for the success of the anti-Naxal operation. ADG, Anti-Naxal Operations, Venkateshwar Rao, paid tribute to Inspector Ashish Sharma, who was martyred a few months ago. S.P Aditya Mishra, assured Chief Minister Dr. Yadav that where the sound of gunfire once echoed, there will now be the resounding call of employment, trust, and education.
Dont let technology enslave you: PM to students in Pariksha Pe Charcha





NEW DELHI :

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said students should not let technology enslave them, but use it to increase their potential. In the second episode of Pariksha Pe Charcha, he noted that mobile phones have become masters of some children, who cannot even eat food without them or without a television screen. It means that you have become slaves of mobiles. You have to make a firm resolve that you will not let technology enslave you, Modi said in an interaction with students that took place in Coimbatore, Raipur, Guwahati and Gujarat. The Prime Minister urged students not to be afraid of emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, but use them to hone their skills and improve potential. We should try not to make AI or mobile the master; some kids do not eat food unless they see the smartphone. We can use AI efficiently, he said. The Prime Minister also urged students to practice previous papers and have a good sleep to perform better at examinations.

You will never feel tense after preparing well for exams. A good nights sleep will keep you cheerful for the rest of the day, Modi said. The Prime Minister said he felt good to see that the students of Classes 10 and 12 in the country can also carry the dream of Viksit Bharat 2047 in their minds. This is a matter of great happiness for me. We should adopt the habits of developed countries-we should turn off engines at red lights, we should not leave food, and should reduce wastage... Discipline is very important in our life... The Prime Minister recalled the role of his teachers in his days as a student and their insistence on exercise to remain healthy. If you ask any great person, they will say that their mother and teachers helped shape their life, Modi said. On leadership, the Prime Minister said a key quality was the ability to communicate better.

To become a leader, develop a mindset to take initiative. Leadership does not only mean contesting elections. A key leadership quality is the ability to communicate your thoughts clearly and effectively to at least ten people, the Prime Minister said. The first episode of the ninth edition of Pariksha Pe Charcha was aired last week where the Prime Minister advised students to listen to everyones advice but change lifestyle pattern only when they want to. He also told them that education should not feel like a burden and advised them to focus not only on marks but also on improving life. Launched in 2018, Pariksha Pe Charcha began as student interaction in townhall format before expanding into one of Indias largest education engagement exercises. Registrations rose from about 38.8 lakh in 2023 to 2.26 crore in 2024, before touching 3.53 crore in 2025 - a milestone that earned the programme a Guinness World Record. The ninth edition broke the previous record with over 4.5 crore registrations.
Emotional Euphoria





Young actress Sara Arjun has described her latest film Euphoria as a deeply personal and special project, saying it came into her life at a time when nothing felt certain, yet everything felt possible. Taking to Instagram after attending the films premiere, Sara reflected on her emotional journey with the project and expressed gratitude to filmmaker Gunasekhar and producer Neelima Guna for trusting the story and telling it with honesty. She wrote: #Euphoria premier. Some stories dont just choose you, they stay with you long after the moment passes. This film found me at a time when nothing felt certain, yet everything felt possible. To @gunasekhar1 garu, @neelima_guna garu, and their family, thank you so much for trusting this story, for believing in its heart, and for having the courage to tell it with honesty. Your belief made space for something real to be felt and seen, Sara wrote. The actress thanked her father for giving her the freedom to choose her path.

To my own family, especially my dad, thank you for always holding my hand, for listening, and still giving me the freedom to choose my path. That trust has shaped me more than you know. Sara added: This film pushed me emotionally and made me uncomfortable in the most meaningful way. To everyone reading this, today this film has reached you. I hope it connects with you in some way. To me, this is a very important storyidi okka special film. In Euphoria, Sara stars as a troubled teen, Chaitra, in the upcoming Telugu social thriller. The film explores issues like drug abuse and youth crime, inspired by real-life events. The film, also featuring Bhumika Chawla and Gautham Menon.

Sara will also be seen in the second installment of the Dhurandhar franchise, Titled Dhurandhar: The Revenge, the film is slated to hit the big screen on March 19, 2026. Dhurandhar also stars Ranveer Singh, R. Madhavan, Akshaye Khanna, Sanjay Dutt, and Arjun Rampal. Serving as the first instalment of a two-part film series. The film follows an undercover Indian intelligence agent who infiltrates Karachi's criminal syndicates and political power structures in Pakistan in an effort to dismantle a terror network targeting India. The film's storyline draws loose inspiration from multiple real-life geopolitical events and conflicts in South Asia, including the 1999 IC-814 hijacking, the 2001 Indian Parliament attack, the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and developments linked to Pakistan's Operation Lyari. n
HSC EXAMINATION BEGINS TODAY1,60,292 students to appear in Ngp Divn





Staff Reporter :

MAHARASHTRA State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education is conducting Higher Secondary School Certificate (HSSC) examination (Class XII) from Tuesday. Like last year, district administration has taken all necessary precautions to have a copy-free examination. In Nagpur division, 1,60,292 students will be appearing for the examination, which is less by 2,725 as compared to the number of students that appeared last year--1,63,017. Though the number of students decreased, there is a rise in number of examination centres. Last year, the number of centres was 498.This year the number of centres rose to 514. HSC examination will begin on Tuesday and will conclude on March 18. The Board has asked the students whose session starts at 11 am to reach their respective rooms by 10.30, while those appearing at 3 pm should have to be at the centre by 2.30 pm. Students reaching after the distribution of question papers will not be allowed to enter the centre.

There are flying squads for the Nagpur division comprising six districts including Chandrapur, Gondia, Bhandara, Wardha, Gadchiroli, Nagpur. The State Board is firm to conduct the examination in proper manner. It has taken several steps to have error-free, copy-free examinations for which the responsibility has been entrusted with district administration. Collector Dr Vipin Itankar had already convened a meeting. He asked officials to take all measures so that cases of copying should not be there, else, the concerned Centre Heads, Head Master or teachers would be held responsible. The Board has appointed counsellors to guide students if needed. Students or parents are not expected to ask counsellors about examination details like examination centre, sitting arrangement or examination system. Numbers of the counsellors are available on the official website of Board.

Board to take help from Traffic Police Road construction and traffic jams are a problems for students and parents alike. Parents say the traffic situation becomes even more complicated in the morning hours. For economically disadvantaged children, travelling 12 kilometers so early in the morning is very difficult. Meanwhile, ongoing road construction across the city and frequent traffic jams are feared to pose serious difficulties for students in reaching the exam center on time.
Indian business stories are worth telling to world





IIM Nagpur Director Dr Bhimaraya Metri felicitating chief guest K S Cheema while Dr Rakesh Gupta, Dr Prashat Gupta, Dr Yatish Joshi are also seen.

Business Reporter :

Says K S Cheema at IIM Nagpur Case & Research Conference

Chairman and Managing Director of KS Cheema Group of Companies K S Cheema on Saturday said that Indian business stories are worth telling to the world and they have the potential to bring revolutionary changes in global management thinking. Cheema said this while inaugurating the 2nd IIM Nagpur Case & Research Conference 2026 held at the Indian Institute of Management Nagpur (IIM). Cheema was the chief guest at the inaugural ceremony of the international conference, which is being organised through IIM Nagpurs dedicated Case Study Centre in collaboration with Ivey Publishing, one of the worlds leading case study development and publishing institutions. In his welcome address, Dr Bhimaraya Metri, Director, IIM Nagpur, said that India is now ready to take its management knowledge to the world. Our business stories, leadership journeys, and innovation narratives will now reach global classrooms and boardrooms through structured case research, he said.

IIM Nagpur is among a select group of institutions in the country with its own Case Study Centre, making it only the third IIM in India and the first among the new-generation IIMs to establish such a facility. The centre is operated in collaboration with Ivey Publishing and focuses on developing world-class case studies rooted in Indian business and policy contexts. Through this centre, IIM Nagpur is hosting an international case research conference, which has attracted participation from management experts, faculty members, researchers, and students from across the globe. The conference has received an overwhelming response with more than 600 registrations, including both online and offline participants. Several leading experts in management case writing are mentoring participants during the conference, contributing to the creation of a new generation of Indian case writers. This initiative is expected to significantly enhance the global presence of case studies based on Indian industries and enterprises. The conference was conducted under the leadership of Dr Rakesh Gupta (Organising Chair), along with Dr Prashant Gupta and Dr Yatish Joshi (Organising Co-Chairs).
Malaysian connect





PRIME Minister Mr. Narendra Modis visit to Malaysia -- first foreign tour in the new year -- created a desired impact of long-term ramifications for India, for Malaysia, Asia, and the larger world. It showed what positive diplomacy -- like that of India -- can achieve in the changing world order. For, the Prime Ministers visit paved the way to an improved atmosphere in Asian and global geopolitics and economics. There were a few anxious moments in the relationship of India and Malaysia in the past some years. Some of Malaysias stands on global matters had threatened good-neighbourly relations between the two Asian powers. For no logical reason and no provocation of any kind from India, Malaysian leadership had indulged in siding with Pakistan on the Kashmir issue. After the passage of some time, it did soften its attitude towards Kashmir and appeared agreeable to a bilateral solution between India and Pakistan. Despite that, the strange diplomatic stance by the worlds largest Muslim country had created a sense of unease and uncalled for intrigue in India and the world.

From time to time, India did offer its strong responses to the Malaysian overtures, all right, but chose to keep an overall silence about the adventurism of Kuala Lumpur -- with the larger goal of long-term association not just Malaysia but also with other countries in the region such as Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, Brunei, the Phillippines. In most of these countries, India has its cultural, economic and geopolitical interests deeply intertwined. So, even though Malaysia acted rather illogically and superficially, India did not show any overt resentment and chose to explain its position on the controversial issues of the time and worked silently and patiently to build back credibility of long-term association in subsequent times. All that diplomatic patience came in handy when Mr. Narendra Modi paid a visit to Malaysia where the hosts described India as a friend of generations.

Both Prime Ministers -- Mr. Narendra Modi and Mr. Ibrahim Anwar -- demonstrated to the world what mature diplomacy can achieve in short and long terms. The message, however, did not remain restricted only to India and Malaysia and a few countries in that neighbourhood, but also to the larger world that included powers such as the United States and China. For India, the Strait of Malacca (the crucial and narrow waterway between Peninsular Malaysia and Indonesia) is of immense economic and geo-political importance, since it connects the Indian Ocean (Bay of Bengal) via Andaman Sea to the South China Sea in the Pacific Ocean. With an intended repair in relationship with Malaysia achieved, India can now look forward to a safer use of the Strait of Malacca as an oceanic trade route, oil route and strategic passageway. Beyond geopolitics, India also attaches immense importance to the region since the collective GDP of the all those countries forms a critical part of global economy.

s a leading voice of what has come to be known as Global South, India has a major role to play in international affairs as a balancer of world-power interests working at cross purposes. The Prime Ministers visit is expected to smoothen that activity. It needs to be mentioned specifically that Indias diplomatic activity over the past one decade has proved to be a key factor in global geopolitical balance. The world has begun seeing India as a credible associate on most issues because of its stated policy against any geopolitical expansionism. This signature of Indian diplomacy is seen as an expression of Indias sensible and accommodative character. Mr. Modis visit to Malaysia further strengthened that image. Of course, diplomacy is an extended game of patience and India is well aware of the role it must play in that regard with any country around the world. In the Malaysian context, this game of patience appears to have paid rich dividends to New Delhi. From this point on, all India has to do is to keep moving forward in its Asian strategy.
MP Assembly Budget Session from February 16





By Bhavana :

As the dates of State Assemblys Budget Session approaching closer preparations in State capital are speeding up. As per the notification the 19-day session will be held from February 16 to March 6. To ensure law & order situation, Police Commissioner Sanjay Kumar, exercising the powers conferred under Section 163 of the Indian Civil Security Code, 2023, has issued Prohibitory orders in the areas surrounding the Assembly building during the ninth session of the Sixteenth (16th) Legislative Assembly of Madhya Pradesh, from February 16, to March 6. On February 18, Finance Minister Jagdish Devda will present the Madhya Pradesh budget. A discussion on the budget will follow. Currently, the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly has 165 BJP MLAs, 65 Congress MLAs, and one MLA from the Bharatiya Adivasi Party.

In the issued order, Police Commissioner Sanjay Kumar stated that no more than five people shall assemble at any public place. Any such gathering will be considered an unlawful assembly. No person shall lead or participate in any procession/demonstration, nor shall they organise any assembly. No person shall carry weapons, sticks, lathis, spears, stones, knives, other sharp weapons, or firearms in any public place. During the session, the movement of heavy vehicles such as trucks, tractor-trolleys, dumpers, and slow-moving vehicles that obstruct traffic, such as horse-drawn carriages and bullock carts, will be completely prohibited within a 5.00 km radius of the Assembly complex. No person shall engage in any activity that disrupts educational institutions, hotels, shops, industries, and private or public services.

This order will not apply to government employees/officials on duty. This order will remain in effect from February 16 to March 6 from 6 am to 12 am, or until the adjournment/prorogation of the Assembly session, whichever comes first, in the following routes/areas: The road from Lily Talkies to the area opposite the 7th Battalion, MVM College, the road from Airtel Tiraaha to Roshanpura. The road from Banganga Chowk to the Public Relations Office, Lower Lake Road, Raj Bhavan to Old Assembly Chowk. Jinsi Chowk to Old CID. The route from the Railway Superintendents office via Shabban Chowk towards the old jail. Slaughter House Road, from Maida Mill to Board Office Chowk. From Jharneshwar Temple Chowk to Thandi Sadak, from Thandi Sadak to the uppermost road of 74 Bungalows, leading to Roshanpura Chowk. Polytechnic Road/Doordarshan Road, Bharat Bhavan Road to the Honourable Chief Ministers residence.

During the period this order remains in effect, no person shall hold public meetings, effigy burning, dharnas, demonstrations, or rallies in the restricted areas. This order shall not apply to marriage ceremonies, processions, and funeral processions. Any person violating this order shall be liable to punishment under Section 163 of the Indian Penal Code. This order is addressed to the general public, and since it is not possible to inform the general public in time due to the current circumstances, a unilateral order is being passed under Section 163(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code. The person affected by this order may, upon the satisfaction of the undersigned, be exempted from any applicable conditions under Section 163 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 2023. From the New Assembly area to the Raj Bhavan area, Chief Ministers residence area, all roads leading from Roshanpura Chowk to Patrakar Bhavan and Raj Bhavan, the road in front of the MLA Rest House, the entire area above Maida Mill Road, Board Office Chowk, 74 Bungalows, Om Nagar, the entire slum area of Vallabh Nagar, Patrakar Bhavan, the road leading to the New Assembly, Satpura Bhavan, Vindhyachal Bhavan, Vallabh Bhavan and Arera Exchange area, Neelam Park Police Station Jahangirabad, Shahjahani Park Police Station Talaiya, Ambedkar Park Police Station TT Nagar, Chinar Park Police Station MP Nagar.
AstraZeneca expects profits to increase in 2026, as it counts on strong demand for its oncology portfolio continuing despite geopolitical pressures and patent expiry headwinds.

AstraZeneca reported full year 2025 revenue of $58.7bn, up 8% at constant exchange rate (CER) compared to 2024. Oncology drug sales were a big driver for the drugmakers growth, with revenue in the business increasing 14% to $25.6bn in 2025 compared to the year before.

Lung cancer drug Tagrisso (osimertinib) was the top-selling product in the oncology segment, generating $7.25bn in sales for the year. Immunotherapy Imfinzi netted $6.06bn in 2025, boosted by US approvals in bladder cancer and gastric and gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancers. Sales for HER2-directed antibody-drug conjugate Enhertu (trastuzumab deruxtecan) saw a significant sales increase, surging 40% to reach $2.78bn in 2025.

In an earnings call, Imfinzi and Enhertu were earmarked by AstraZenecas senior leadership team as key revenue drivers for 2026, boosted by recent and upcoming cancer indication expansions.

Enhertu, co-marketed with Daiichi Sankyo, is forecast to generate global sales of $14.3bn in 2031, according to analysis by GlobalData.

GlobalData is the parent company of Pharmaceutical Technology.

With confidence in the continued strength of oncology sales, along with a diverse pipeline that includes an oral obesity pill set to enter Phase III trials, AstraZeneca issued a steady growth forecast for 2026.

Total revenue is expected to increase by a mid-to-high single-digit percentage, while core earnings per share (EPS) is expected to increase by a low double-digit percentage.

In the earnings call, chief financial officer Aradhana Sarin said that impacts from President Trumps Most Favored Nation (MFN) policy had already been modelled in the forecast. AstraZeneca, the UKs most valuable company, became the first non-US drugmaker to sign a pricing deal with the White House in October 2025. In exchange, the company is exempt from tariffs for three years.

Citi analysts said the 2025 results and 2026 guidance were both broadly in-line with consensus. They commented that it was overall a solid set of results and reassuring guidance [with a] wealth of pipeline news flow.

Shares in London-listed AstraZeneca rose 0.4% to 13,952 at market open on 10 February compared to 13,888 at market close on 9 February. The companys stock value has continued throughout 10 February. The drugmaker has a market cap of 216.1bn.

CEO Pasal Soriot is targeting annual sales of $80bn by 2030, driven by anticipated launches and broader company development.
No Gimmicks!





Hollywood star Timothee Chalamet is of the opinion that his unconventional promotion tours aren't a gimmick. The 30-year-old actor has been questioned for his unorthodox methods of promoting his movies but insists that stunts such as turning the Las Vegas sphere into a ping-pong ball for Marty Supreme are a way of "expressing myself". The actor said during a session, "Heres the thing, this risks killing any mystery around it, but I dont look at it as promotion or marketing. I see myself as an artist expanding. And certainly the Zoom had a little bit of satire to it, but the initial video in the glass box, those (ping-pong ball) heads, I feel like Im expressing myself. You know, a lot of people want to be told what to say, how to say it and where to stand, Im talking on the acting front. I feel like Ive got the keys, Ive got the right attitude, Ive got the juice.

The actor sung Bob Dylan tracks on Saturday Night Live last year to promote his role in the biopic A Complete Unknown and revealed that he spent big-money to fund the performance. He said, "I spent over six figures out of my pocket to do the SNL performance. Lorne Michaels said, 'Hey, do you want to host SNL. I said, 'Yeah, can I do the music?' Hes like, 'No. I said, 'Alright, Im not doing it. He said, 'OK, do the music'. But I refused to take no for an answer. "This is the new way of doing stuff. Im trying to reach audiences, you know. I dont want to be in the pretentious in-crowd. Marty Supreme in America had the least frequent moviegoing audience this year, people that werent going to see everything. Thats my favourite feedback on the movie. So the most pretentious answer I could give you, which I honestly feel, is that its not marketing or promotion. That sounds like a gimmick, and this is not a gimmick. This is coming from my heart and my soul, he added. n
Seven lakh students to appear for MPBSE Class 12 exam today







Staff Reporter :

This year, over 16 lakh students are expected to appear for the Madhya Pradesh Board examinations, set to begin on February 10, for Class 12. The Class 10 exams is scheduled from February 13. Approximately nine lakh Class 10 students and seven lakh Class 12 students will take exams across 3,856 centres State-wide. According to the officials, the Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education (MPBSE) has completed preparations and special arrangements have been made across the state to manage logistics, security, and student convenience for the large number of candidates. Centres with a history of irregularities will be under continuous live video surveillance, monitored directly from regional control rooms.

District Collectors and District Education officers will have access to the CCTVs and can monitor the examination. Officers have been granted special powers to conduct unannounced raids and searches at any centre. A total ban on mobile phones and smart devices has been implemented for all staff, including centre superintendents and invigilators. Violations will result in immediate suspension. In addition to district-level flying squads, Static Squads will be stationed at selected centres to maintain a constant presence from the start to the conclusion of the exams. All question papers have been transported to police stations near examination centres under tight custody. They are kept in high-security sealed boxes, to be opened only inside exam halls in the presence of students. The Boards Conduct of Exam mobile app tracks each movement in real time, with alerts to headquarters in case of tampering. A mathematical 20-40-60 seating arrangement have been planned to ensure unpredictability in paper sets (A, B, C, D), giving each hall only the exact number of required papers.

Each district has a Rs 1 lakh contingency fund for last-minute furniture shortages. Desks and chairs can be moved from nearby schools not selected as exam centres. QR codes on admit cards allow instant verification of student identity. Students and parents have expressed both relief and concern. Riya Sharma (Name changed), a Class 12 student from Bhopal, said, Its reassuring to know that question papers are in police custody and will be opened only in the hall. But the sheer size of the exam and long hours still make it stressful. Another student, added, The random seating arrangement is a little confusing, but I understand its for fairness. Parents have also weighed in. A mother of a Class 10 student, said, The security measures are welcome, but its a tense time for students. We hope the arrangements are smooth and no last-minute confusion arises. A father of a Class 12 candidate, said, We have been told that QR verification and proper seating are in place. It gives us confidence, but students need mental preparation too.
Vidarbha to see 5lakh directjobsin next five years: Gadkari





Business Reporter :

EXUDING confidence in the recently proposed investments in the region and steps initiated in the Union Budget 2026, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari on Monday said it will create about 5 lakh new direct jobs inVidarbha in next five years. Overall, the Budget is aimed at giving a boost to growth and creating jobs in all parts of the country. This will happen in Maharashtra and in Vidarbha as well. Investment is pouring in here in the region and the Government is also spending on building infrastructure across the country.

It will strengthen the Governments goal of a selfreliant India, boost industrial growth and eventually generate job opportunities, he said while addressing a press meet held here in the city. Gadkari was giving his reaction on the Union Budget 2026 proposed recently by the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Gadkari called infrastructure very crucial for development of any country and expressed great satisfaction over the Rs 20 lakh crore capital expenditure allocation for it in the Union Budget. Funds have been allocated for building roads, railway network, shipping, and waterways. There are plans to build tunnels on roadways and railways with an investment of about Rs 3.5 lakh crore as part of a massive infrastructure push, he highlighted. The Budget has also introduced a Rs 200 crore Scheme for Enhancement of Construction and Infrastructure Equipment (CIE) to boost the domestic manufacturing of high tech machinery, including tunnel boring machines.

This initiative aims to reduce import reliance for infrastructure projects, he observed. Gadkari further spoke about the Infrastructure Risk Guarantee Fund introduced by the Finance Minister to provide partial credit guarantees to lenders for PPP projects. This initiative enhances the bankability of infrastructure projects, encouraging private capital investment from banks and insurers, he said. Commenting on logistics, he said the countrys logistics costs have come down to 9 per cent from 14-16 per cent of GDP. This reduction is driven by the expansion of expressways, economic corridors, and improved infrastructure. The Government has further allocated huge funds in the Union Budget 2026 for building infrastructure. It will certainly produce positive results in the coming days, he added. Mayor Neeta Thakre, former MP Ajay Sancheti; BJP City President Dayashankar Tiwari; Ex MLC Prof Anil Sole and others were also present.
The company is experiencing elevated tax rates due to losses in subsidiaries like CuraTeQ and Lyfius, which are not yet offset by tax credits.

The Pen G facility, while ramping up, has not yet fully contributed to profitability due to predatory pricing in the 6-APA market.

The company is yet to receive full clearance from the FDA for the Eugia facility, which could impact the trajectory of US injectable sales.

The company faced procedural observations during the Eugia III inspection, although these are expected to be resolved without production stoppage.

Aurobindo Pharma Ltd ( BOM:524804 ) is confident in sustaining growth momentum with a diversified operating model and strategic acquisitions, aiming for an EBITDA margin target of 20% to 21% for FY26.

The company's EBITDA grew by 9% year-on-year to INR1,773 crores, with a margin of 20.5%, showcasing strong operating leverage and fiscal prudence.

Aurobindo Pharma Ltd ( BOM:524804 ) reported an 8.4% year-on-year increase in consolidated revenue for Q3 FY26, reaching INR8,640 crores, driven by strong performance in European operations and stable US business.

For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript .

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Q & A Highlights

Q: Can you provide details on the Eugia III inspection and any potential impact on production? A: Puvvala Yugandhar, CEO of Eugia Pharma Specialties Ltd, stated that the observations were procedural and technical, with no production stoppage required. The company is confident in responding to the US FDA within 15 working days.

Q: What is the outlook for US injectable sales given the current FDA status? A: Puvvala Yugandhar mentioned that while the company is cautiously optimistic about the future of the facility, the FDA's decision on the warning letter is pending. The company expects double-digit growth in the next year, supported by ramp-up from various facilities.

Q: How is the European business expected to perform with improved China supply? A: Venugopalan Muralidharan, CEO of Europe Formulation Business, noted that the European business is growing in low double digits in constant currency, ahead of market growth rates. With more launches and improved China supply, further growth is expected.

Q: What is the status of the Lannett acquisition and any potential overlap concerns? A: Swami Iyer, CEO of Aurobindo Pharma USA Inc, stated that the FTC process is progressing well, with no negative surprises expected. The acquisition is anticipated to close in Q1 of 2027.

Q: What is the expected impact of the Pen G facility on EBITDA and margins? A: Santhanam Subramanian, CFO, explained that the full impact of the Pen G facility will be seen from the first quarter of the next fiscal year. The company has already broken even on the facility, with improvements expected as market conditions stabilize.

Q: Can you provide an update on the Vizag injectable facility? A: Puvvala Yugandhar mentioned that the company has filed three products from the Vizag facility, with more filings expected. Commercialization is anticipated to begin in FY27, with significant contributions expected by FY28.

Q: What are the key milestones for the biosimilars business in the next 12 months? A: Makkapati Satakarni, CEO of Biologics, Vaccines, and Peptides businesses, highlighted recent approvals in Canada and Europe, with launches planned in these regions. The company aims for comprehensive coverage across Europe, LATAM, and Canada, with significant commercial momentum expected by 2029.

Q: How is the company managing capital allocation and potential M&A activities? A: Santhanam Subramanian stated that the company is not pursuing major greenfield projects and will consider M&A opportunities that align with strategic goals. The focus remains on prudent capital allocation and strategic investments.

For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript.
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By Scott Murdoch

SYDNEY, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Australian artificial intelligence company Firmus said on Monday it had finalised a $10 billion debt funding package led by global private equity firm Blackstone (BX) and Coatue Management, a New York-based technology investor.

Firmus said the funding would be used to build the next phase of its Project Southgate, the company's initiative to develop AI training and inference infrastructure, which includes data centres, across Australia.

More from Yahoo Scout What is Project Southgate and its expected capacity? What is Firmus' $10 billion funding package for? How much has Firmus raised in previous funding rounds? Who are the main investors backing Firmus' expansion?

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - MAY 5, 2018: Corporate headquarters of ASX Australian Stock Exchange at 20 Bridge Street in Sydney NSW Australia.  EyeOfPaul via Getty Images

The initiative, done in collaboration with CDC Data Centres and U.S. chip giant Nvidia is expected to reach a capacity of up to 1.6 gigawatts over the next three years.

"The picks and shovels powering the AI revolution are one of our highest conviction investment themes, and we are excited to finance Firmus' continued growth," said John Watson, a senior managing director in Blackstone's Tactical Opportunities Group.

"AI is driving one of the most significant infrastructure build-outs in decades, and we believe Australia can play a central role in that transformation."

Firmus raised A$830 million ($582.41 million) in two separate equity placements last year that were backed by Nvidia and Australian investor Ellerston Capital, Reuters reported.

($1 = 1.4251 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Scott Murdoch; Editing by Sonali Paul)
EOG Resources (NYSE: EOG) recently received a number of ratings updates from brokerages and research firms:

1/28/2026  EOG Resources was given a new $123.00 price target on by analysts at Piper Sandler. They now have a neutral rating on the stock.

1/27/2026  EOG Resources had its overweight rating reaffirmed by analysts at Wells Fargo & Company. They now have a $127.00 price target on the stock, up previously from $126.00.

1/26/2026  EOG Resources had its price target raised by analysts at Wolfe Research from $134.00 to $137.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

1/26/2026  EOG Resources had its price target lowered by analysts at Susquehanna from $161.00 to $151.00. They now have a positive rating on the stock.

1/23/2026  EOG Resources was given a new $128.00 price target on by analysts at Morgan Stanley. They now have an equal weight rating on the stock.

1/23/2026  EOG Resources had its price target lowered by analysts at Roth Mkm from $114.00 to $108.00. They now have a neutral rating on the stock.

1/23/2026  EOG Resources had its price target lowered by analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $121.00 to $115.00. They now have a neutral rating on the stock.

1/22/2026  EOG Resources had its hold (c) rating reaffirmed by analysts at Weiss Ratings.

1/22/2026  EOG Resources had its price target lowered by analysts at The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. from $125.00 to $123.00. They now have a neutral rating on the stock.

1/21/2026  EOG Resources had its price target lowered by analysts at Barclays PLC from $136.00 to $133.00. They now have an equal weight rating on the stock.

1/20/2026  EOG Resources was downgraded by analysts at Zacks Research from a hold rating to a strong sell rating.

1/16/2026  EOG Resources was given a new $123.00 price target on by analysts at Scotiabank. They now have a sector perform rating on the stock.

1/16/2026  EOG Resources was downgraded by analysts at KeyCorp from an overweight rating to a sector weight rating.

1/14/2026  EOG Resources was given a new $140.00 price target on by analysts at Jefferies Financial Group Inc..

1/13/2026  EOG Resources was given a new $138.00 price target on by analysts at Royal Bank Of Canada. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

1/12/2026  EOG Resources had its price target lowered by analysts at BMO Capital Markets from $126.00 to $120.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

1/8/2026  EOG Resources had its price target lowered by analysts at Capital One Financial Corporation from $131.00 to $130.00. They now have an overweight rating on the stock.

1/5/2026  EOG Resources had its market perform rating reaffirmed by analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein. They now have a $126.00 price target on the stock, down previously from $144.00.

1/5/2026  EOG Resources had its price target lowered by analysts at Wolfe Research from $138.00 to $134.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

12/17/2025  EOG Resources had its neutral rating reaffirmed by analysts at Citigroup Inc.. They now have a $115.00 price target on the stock, down previously from $125.00.

12/15/2025  EOG Resources had its neutral rating reaffirmed by analysts at Roth Mkm.

12/15/2025  EOG Resources had its price target lowered by analysts at BMO Capital Markets from $130.00 to $126.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

12/12/2025  EOG Resources had its buy rating reaffirmed by analysts at UBS Group AG. They now have a $141.00 price target on the stock, down previously from $144.00.

12/12/2025  EOG Resources was given a new $134.00 price target on by analysts at Mizuho. They now have a neutral rating on the stock.

Insider Activity

In related news, COO Jeffrey R. Leitzell sold 2,000 shares of EOG Resources stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, December 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of $105.68, for a total value of $211,360.00. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer directly owned 54,979 shares of the companys stock, valued at $5,810,180.72. This trade represents a 3.51% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the companys stock.

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EOG Resources, Inc (NYSE: EOG) is an independent exploration and production company headquartered in Houston, Texas. Tracing its corporate origins to Enron Oil & Gas Company in the late 1990s, the company established itself as a standalone E&P operator and has grown into one of the largest U.S. upstream producers. EOG focuses on the exploration, development and production of crude oil, condensate, natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGLs).

As an upstream-focused company, EOGs core activities include geologic and geophysical exploration, drilling and completion of wells, reservoir development, and the marketing of hydrocarbon production.

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China Merchants Bank Co. (OTCMKTS:CIHKY  Get Free Report) shares gapped down prior to trading on Monday . The stock had previously closed at $31.72, but opened at $30.26. China Merchants Bank shares last traded at $31.5150, with a volume of 7,236 shares trading hands.

China Merchants Bank Stock Performance

The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $32.16 and a 200-day simple moving average of $31.78. The company has a quick ratio of 0.81, a current ratio of 0.81 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12. The company has a market cap of $159.64 billion, a PE ratio of 8.03 and a beta of 0.29.

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About China Merchants Bank

(Get Free Report)

China Merchants Bank (OTCMKTS: CIHKY) is a major Chinese commercial bank headquartered in Shenzhen. Established in 1987 as one of the countrys early joint-stock commercial banks, it has grown into a full-service banking group serving individual, small and medium-sized enterprise (SME), and corporate clients. The bank is part of the broader China Merchants Group ecosystem and maintains listings on domestic and international exchanges to facilitate investor access.

The banks core businesses encompass retail banking, corporate and commercial banking, private banking and wealth management, credit cards, transaction banking and trade finance, treasury and markets, and asset management.

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Shares of Energizer Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:ENR  Get Free Report) fell 4.8% during trading on Monday . The company traded as low as $22.20 and last traded at $22.28. 341,625 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 75% from the average session volume of 1,362,312 shares. The stock had previously closed at $23.40.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ENR has been the subject of several analyst reports. UBS Group set a $25.00 price objective on shares of Energizer and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Friday. Morgan Stanley set a $24.00 price target on Energizer in a research note on Monday. Barclays set a $22.00 price objective on Energizer in a report on Friday, January 16th. Wall Street Zen lowered Energizer from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Saturday, November 22nd. Finally, Zacks Research lowered shares of Energizer from a hold rating to a strong sell rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 25th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $24.83.

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View Our Latest Stock Analysis on ENR

Energizer Stock Down 3.7%

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 23.49, a quick ratio of 1.07 and a current ratio of 1.99. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $20.39 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $23.57. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.54 billion, a PE ratio of 7.59 and a beta of 0.64.

Energizer (NYSE:ENR  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 5th. The company reported $0.31 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.26 by $0.05. Energizer had a return on equity of 143.24% and a net margin of 7.11%.The firm had revenue of $778.90 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $712.82 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.67 earnings per share. The firms quarterly revenue was up 6.5% on a year-over-year basis. Energizer has set its FY 2026 guidance at 3.300-3.600 EPS and its Q2 2026 guidance at 0.400-0.500 EPS. Analysts forecast that Energizer Holdings, Inc. will post 3.58 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Energizer Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 11th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, February 18th will be paid a dividend of $0.30 per share. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, February 18th. This represents a $1.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.3%. Energizers dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 40.40%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Mark Stephen Lavigne purchased 10,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 2nd. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $17.11 per share, for a total transaction of $171,100.00. Following the acquisition, the chief executive officer owned 464,889 shares of the companys stock, valued at $7,954,250.79. The trade was a 2.20% increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Director Donal L. Mulligan purchased 15,000 shares of Energizer stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 2nd. The stock was bought at an average cost of $17.40 per share, with a total value of $261,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 25,000 shares in the company, valued at approximately $435,000. This represents a 150.00% increase in their position. Additional details regarding this purchase are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders purchased 26,000 shares of company stock valued at $449,240 in the last three months. 1.63% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Energizer

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. AQR Capital Management LLC increased its position in Energizer by 20.0% during the 1st quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 108,822 shares of the companys stock valued at $3,220,000 after buying an additional 18,146 shares in the last quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. boosted its holdings in Energizer by 4.5% in the first quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 42,775 shares of the companys stock worth $1,280,000 after acquiring an additional 1,857 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC grew its stake in shares of Energizer by 8.1% during the first quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 177,092 shares of the companys stock worth $5,299,000 after acquiring an additional 13,216 shares during the last quarter. US Bancorp DE increased its holdings in shares of Energizer by 108.7% during the second quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 37,527 shares of the companys stock valued at $757,000 after acquiring an additional 19,543 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Blue Trust Inc. raised its position in shares of Energizer by 38.9% in the 2nd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,883 shares of the companys stock valued at $38,000 after purchasing an additional 527 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 93.74% of the companys stock.

About Energizer

(Get Free Report)

Energizer Holdings, Inc is a global consumer products company best known for its portfolio of portable power and lighting solutions. The companys primary business activities include the design, manufacture and marketing of batteries under the Energizer and Rayovac brands, as well as portable lighting products such as flashlights, headlamps and lanterns. Energizer also produces a range of automotive appearance and protection products, including tire inflators and repair kits, along with personal care offerings like aerosol insect repellents and sunscreen under licensed brands.

Founded in 2000 through the spin-off of the battery business from Ralston Purina Company, Energizer has grown through both organic development and strategic acquisitions.

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International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM) has recently received a number of price target changes and ratings updates:

1/30/2026  International Business Machines was given a new $360.00 price target on by analysts at Argus.

1/29/2026  International Business Machines was given a new $361.00 price target on by analysts at Royal Bank Of Canada.

1/29/2026  International Business Machines was given a new $380.00 price target on by analysts at Oppenheimer Holdings, Inc.. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

1/29/2026  International Business Machines had its price target raised by analysts at Stifel Nicolaus from $325.00 to $340.00. They now have a buy rating on the stock.

1/29/2026  International Business Machines had its price target raised by analysts at Wedbush from $325.00 to $340.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

1/29/2026  International Business Machines had its market perform rating reaffirmed by analysts at BMO Capital Markets. They now have a $350.00 price target on the stock.

1/29/2026  International Business Machines was given a new $317.00 price target on by analysts at UBS Group AG.

1/29/2026  International Business Machines had its price target raised by analysts at UBS Group AG from $210.00 to $236.00. They now have a sell rating on the stock.

1/29/2026  International Business Machines was given a new $304.00 price target on by analysts at Morgan Stanley.

1/29/2026  International Business Machines had its price target raised by analysts at Jefferies Financial Group Inc. from $360.00 to $370.00. They now have a buy rating on the stock.

1/29/2026  International Business Machines had its price target raised by analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $312.00 to $317.00. They now have a neutral rating on the stock.

1/29/2026  International Business Machines had its price target raised by analysts at Evercore Inc from $330.00 to $345.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

1/27/2026  International Business Machines had its price target raised by analysts at Royal Bank Of Canada from $350.00 to $361.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

1/22/2026  International Business Machines had its buy (b) rating reaffirmed by analysts at Weiss Ratings.

1/21/2026  International Business Machines had its price target raised by analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $290.00 to $312.00. They now have a neutral rating on the stock.

1/20/2026  International Business Machines had its price target raised by analysts at Evercore Inc from $315.00 to $330.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

1/19/2026  International Business Machines was upgraded by analysts at Dbs Bank from a hold rating to a moderate buy rating.

1/13/2026  International Business Machines had its price target raised by analysts at Bank of America Corporation from $315.00 to $335.00. They now have a buy rating on the stock.

1/11/2026  International Business Machines was downgraded by analysts at Wall Street Zen from a buy rating to a hold rating.

1/5/2026  International Business Machines had its price target raised by analysts at Royal Bank Of Canada from $300.00 to $350.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

1/5/2026  International Business Machines was upgraded by analysts at Jefferies Financial Group Inc. from a hold rating to a buy rating. They now have a $360.00 price target on the stock, up previously from $300.00.

1/3/2026  International Business Machines was upgraded by analysts at Wall Street Zen from a hold rating to a buy rating.

12/20/2025  International Business Machines was downgraded by analysts at Wall Street Zen from a buy rating to a hold rating.

International Business Machines Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, March 10th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 10th will be paid a $1.68 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 10th. This represents a $6.72 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.3%. International Business Machiness dividend payout ratio is presently 60.27%.

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Insider Transactions at International Business Machines

In related news, Director David N. Farr bought 1,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 30th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $304.00 per share, for a total transaction of $304,000.00. Following the transaction, the director owned 9,258 shares of the companys stock, valued at $2,814,432. This represents a 12.11% increase in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Company insiders own 0.18% of the companys stock.

International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) is a global technology and consulting company headquartered in Armonk, New York. Founded in 1911 as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) and renamed IBM in 1924, the company has evolved from early electromechanical machines to a diversified technology provider serving enterprises and governments worldwide. IBM is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol IBM.

IBMs principal businesses encompass cloud computing and software, infrastructure and systems, consulting and technology services, and research and development.

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Seadrill Limited (NYSE:SDRL  Get Free Report) gapped up prior to trading on Monday . The stock had previously closed at $39.90, but opened at $41.81. Seadrill shares last traded at $41.0280, with a volume of 678,731 shares changing hands.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts have issued reports on the stock. Citigroup downgraded shares of Seadrill from a neutral rating to a sell rating and decreased their price objective for the company from $35.00 to $32.00 in a research note on Monday, January 12th. Weiss Ratings downgraded Seadrill from a hold (c-) rating to a sell (d+) rating in a report on Tuesday, January 6th. Barclays raised their price target on Seadrill from $32.00 to $33.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a research note on Thursday, January 15th. Zacks Research raised Seadrill from a strong sell rating to a hold rating in a research report on Thursday, January 1st. Finally, BTIG Research increased their price objective on Seadrill from $33.00 to $40.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Friday, January 9th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, two have assigned a Buy rating, three have assigned a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $43.60.

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Seadrill Price Performance

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

The company has a 50 day moving average price of $34.63 and a 200 day moving average price of $32.10. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21, a current ratio of 1.89 and a quick ratio of 1.89. The firm has a market cap of $2.56 billion, a PE ratio of 89.28 and a beta of 1.53.

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Legal & General Group Plc increased its position in shares of Seadrill by 554.6% in the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 69,010 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $1,812,000 after buying an additional 58,467 shares in the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its position in shares of Seadrill by 498.2% in the 2nd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 614,849 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $16,140,000 after buying an additional 512,074 shares in the last quarter. Monaco Asset Management SAM grew its stake in Seadrill by 7.5% in the 2nd quarter. Monaco Asset Management SAM now owns 215,000 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $5,644,000 after acquiring an additional 15,000 shares during the last quarter. Packer & Co Ltd acquired a new stake in Seadrill in the 3rd quarter valued at about $13,597,000. Finally, Creative Planning increased its holdings in Seadrill by 302.9% during the 2nd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 114,482 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $3,005,000 after acquiring an additional 86,069 shares in the last quarter. 95.67% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Seadrill Company Profile

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Seadrill Limited, trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol SDRL, is a leading provider of offshore drilling services to the global oil and gas industry. The company specializes in the design, construction, deployment and operation of mobile offshore drilling units, serving major exploration and production companies with turnkey drilling solutions.

Seadrills fleet comprises ultra-deepwater drillships, semi-submersible rigs and high-specification jack-up units capable of operating in some of the worlds most challenging offshore environments.

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Agree Realty (NYSE:ADC  Get Free Report) posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday. The real estate investment trust reported $1.11 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.10 by $0.01, Zacks reports. The business had revenue of $190.49 million for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $189.86 million. Agree Realty had a return on equity of 3.52% and a net margin of 28.11%.The firms quarterly revenue was up 18.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $1.04 earnings per share. Agree Realty updated its FY 2026 guidance to 4.540-4.580 EPS.

Agree Realty Stock Performance

NYSE ADC traded up $1.16 during trading on Tuesday, hitting $76.46. 1,297,323 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,373,490. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a quick ratio of 0.68 and a current ratio of 0.68. The stock has a market capitalization of $8.79 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 44.71, a PEG ratio of 2.65 and a beta of 0.54. Agree Realty has a 12-month low of $68.98 and a 12-month high of $79.65. The business has a 50 day moving average of $72.43 and a 200-day moving average of $72.77.

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Agree Realty Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a monthly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 13th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 27th will be paid a dividend of $0.262 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 27th. This represents a c) annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.1%. Agree Realtys dividend payout ratio is presently 183.63%.

Insider Activity

Institutional Trading of Agree Realty

In related news, Director John Rakolta, Jr. purchased 15,000 shares of Agree Realty stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, December 24th. The shares were bought at an average price of $72.18 per share, for a total transaction of $1,082,700.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 562,606 shares of the companys stock, valued at $40,608,901.08. This represents a 2.74% increase in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink . Also, Chairman Richard Agree bought 24,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 9th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $70.67 per share, with a total value of $1,696,080.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the chairman directly owned 159,855 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $11,296,952.85. The trade was a 17.67% increase in their position. The SEC filing for this purchase provides additional information. Over the last three months, insiders purchased 39,500 shares of company stock worth $2,813,680. 1.80% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Wiser Advisor Group LLC acquired a new position in Agree Realty in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $32,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. raised its holdings in shares of Agree Realty by 158.9% during the second quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 580 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $42,000 after purchasing an additional 356 shares during the last quarter. Advisory Services Network LLC purchased a new stake in Agree Realty in the third quarter valued at $59,000. Danske Bank A S acquired a new stake in Agree Realty during the 3rd quarter worth about $64,000. Finally, Johnson Financial Group Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Agree Realty in the 3rd quarter valued at about $72,000. 97.83% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts recently issued reports on ADC shares. Mizuho lowered their target price on Agree Realty from $77.00 to $75.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, December 17th. Stifel Nicolaus set a $83.50 price objective on shares of Agree Realty in a research report on Tuesday, November 25th. Royal Bank Of Canada cut their price objective on shares of Agree Realty from $80.00 to $79.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, January 6th. Weiss Ratings restated a hold (c+) rating on shares of Agree Realty in a research report on Wednesday, January 21st. Finally, Wall Street Zen downgraded Agree Realty from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 27th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and six have issued a Hold rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $80.23.

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Agree Realty Company Profile

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Agree Realty Corporation (NYSE: ADC) is a publicly traded real estate investment trust headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1971, the company converted to a REIT structure in 2013 and focuses on acquiring, developing and managing a diversified portfolio of retail properties under long-term, triple-net (NNN) leases. Its tenant roster spans national and regional retailers in sectors such as grocery, home improvement, convenience and specialty retail.

Agree Realtys primary business activities include sourcing and underwriting new property acquisitions, originating build-to-suit projects and executing value-add redevelopment programs.

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Alexandria Real Estate Equities (NYSE:ARE  Get Free Report) had its price objective cut by Morgan Stanley from $55.00 to $54.00 in a report released on Monday, Marketbeat Ratings reports. The firm presently has an equal weight rating on the real estate investment trusts stock. Morgan Stanleys price objective points to a potential downside of 4.34% from the stocks previous close.

ARE has been the topic of several other reports. Robert W. Baird cut their target price on Alexandria Real Estate Equities from $73.00 to $67.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. BNP Paribas Exane dropped their price objective on Alexandria Real Estate Equities from $72.00 to $50.00 and set an underperform rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, December 4th. The Goldman Sachs Group initiated coverage on Alexandria Real Estate Equities in a report on Tuesday, February 3rd. They issued a neutral rating and a $60.00 price objective for the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their target price on shares of Alexandria Real Estate Equities from $65.00 to $63.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 14th. Finally, Citigroup reduced their price target on shares of Alexandria Real Estate Equities from $61.00 to $52.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, eleven have given a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Alexandria Real Estate Equities has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $66.07.

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Alexandria Real Estate Equities Stock Up 0.4%

Alexandria Real Estate Equities stock traded up $0.25 during mid-day trading on Monday, reaching $56.45. The stock had a trading volume of 134,959 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,640,686. The company has a market capitalization of $9.78 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -6.69, a PEG ratio of 6.76 and a beta of 1.31. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $51.86 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $65.43. Alexandria Real Estate Equities has a one year low of $44.10 and a one year high of $105.14. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.65, a current ratio of 0.23 and a quick ratio of 0.23.

Alexandria Real Estate Equities (NYSE:ARE  Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Monday, January 26th. The real estate investment trust reported $2.16 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.15 by $0.01. Alexandria Real Estate Equities had a negative net margin of 47.23% and a negative return on equity of 6.82%. The business had revenue of $754.41 million during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $742.64 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $2.39 earnings per share. The businesss revenue for the quarter was down 4.4% compared to the same quarter last year. Alexandria Real Estate Equities has set its FY 2026 guidance at 6.250-6.550 EPS. On average, analysts expect that Alexandria Real Estate Equities will post 9.32 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alexandria Real Estate Equities announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase plan on Monday, December 8th that allows the company to buyback $500.00 million in shares. This buyback authorization allows the real estate investment trust to reacquire up to 6.4% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are generally an indication that the companys board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Sheila K. Mcgrath bought 3,100 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, December 10th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $45.60 per share, for a total transaction of $141,360.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 8,392 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $382,675.20. This trade represents a 58.58% increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 1.15% of the companys stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Alexandria Real Estate Equities

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. lifted its position in shares of Alexandria Real Estate Equities by 102.4% in the first quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 23,245 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $2,184,000 after buying an additional 11,762 shares in the last quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC increased its stake in Alexandria Real Estate Equities by 4,261.1% in the 1st quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 3,140 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $290,000 after acquiring an additional 3,068 shares during the last quarter. Empowered Funds LLC raised its holdings in shares of Alexandria Real Estate Equities by 4.8% during the 1st quarter. Empowered Funds LLC now owns 6,455 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $597,000 after acquiring an additional 296 shares in the last quarter. Woodline Partners LP boosted its position in shares of Alexandria Real Estate Equities by 39.9% during the 1st quarter. Woodline Partners LP now owns 13,015 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $1,204,000 after acquiring an additional 3,714 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Focus Partners Wealth grew its holdings in shares of Alexandria Real Estate Equities by 171.5% in the first quarter. Focus Partners Wealth now owns 6,591 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $610,000 after purchasing an additional 4,163 shares in the last quarter. 96.54% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Alexandria Real Estate Equities Company Profile

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Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc (NYSE: ARE) is a real estate investment trust specializing in the ownership, development and management of collaborative life science and technology campuses. The companys properties are designed to support research and innovation by providing specialized laboratory, office and manufacturing space tailored to biotechnology, pharmaceutical, academic and related industries.

Since its founding in 1994, Alexandria has cultivated a diversified portfolio of campuses across leading innovation clusters in North America and Europe.

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Archer Aviation Inc. (NYSE:ACHR  Get Free Report) traded up 1.2% during trading on Monday . The company traded as high as $7.47 and last traded at $7.39. 29,353,607 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 33% from the average session volume of 43,500,031 shares. The stock had previously closed at $7.30.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts have weighed in on ACHR shares. Cantor Fitzgerald reaffirmed an overweight rating on shares of Archer Aviation in a report on Monday, November 24th. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a buy rating and issued a $10.00 price target on shares of Archer Aviation in a research note on Wednesday, January 14th. Canaccord Genuity Group increased their price objective on Archer Aviation from $12.00 to $13.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Friday, November 21st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their target price on Archer Aviation from $10.00 to $8.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Friday, November 7th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reissued a sell (d-) rating on shares of Archer Aviation in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, two have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Archer Aviation presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $12.14.

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Archer Aviation Stock Performance

The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $8.12 and a 200-day simple moving average of $9.15. The company has a quick ratio of 18.19, a current ratio of 18.19 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.05.

Archer Aviation (NYSE:ACHR  Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, November 6th. The company reported ($0.20) EPS for the quarter, hitting analysts consensus estimates of ($0.20). On average, equities analysts expect that Archer Aviation Inc. will post -1.32 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Archer Aviation

In other Archer Aviation news, insider Eric Lentell sold 41,490 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $7.49, for a total transaction of $310,760.10. Following the sale, the insider owned 83,733 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $627,160.17. The trade was a 33.13% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CFO Priya Gupta sold 5,479 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $7.49, for a total value of $41,037.71. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer owned 161,523 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $1,209,807.27. The trade was a 3.28% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 307,635 shares of company stock valued at $2,367,936. Insiders own 7.65% of the companys stock.

Institutional Trading of Archer Aviation

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. IPG Investment Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Archer Aviation in the 4th quarter valued at $451,000. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Archer Aviation by 14.9% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 14,385,647 shares of the companys stock worth $108,197,000 after acquiring an additional 1,867,648 shares during the last quarter. Themes Management Co LLC acquired a new position in Archer Aviation during the 4th quarter worth about $117,000. Legal & General Group Plc boosted its position in Archer Aviation by 5.3% in the 4th quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 640,365 shares of the companys stock valued at $4,816,000 after buying an additional 32,452 shares during the period. Finally, Prospera Financial Services Inc boosted its stake in shares of Archer Aviation by 53.2% in the 4th quarter. Prospera Financial Services Inc now owns 28,985 shares of the companys stock valued at $218,000 after buying an additional 10,066 shares during the period. 59.34% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Archer Aviation Company Profile

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Archer Aviation, Inc (NYSE: ACHR) is a California-based aerospace company developing electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft designed to serve as sustainable urban air mobility solutions. Founded in 2018 by Adam Goldstein and Brett Adcock, Archer focuses on the design, development and certification of zero-emissions air taxis aimed at reducing traffic congestion in densely populated metropolitan areas. The companys flagship prototypes, Maker and Midnight, have been engineered to deliver quiet, efficient short-haul flights with ranges of up to 100 miles per charge.

Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Archer operates a manufacturing facility in nearby Santa Cruz County and maintains research partnerships with automotive and energy companies, including a collaboration with Stellantis to integrate advanced battery systems.

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Everus Construction Group (NYSE:ECG  Get Free Report) and Armstrong World Industries (NYSE:AWI  Get Free Report) are both mid-cap construction companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, risk, institutional ownership, valuation, dividends, earnings and analyst recommendations.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Everus Construction Group and Armstrong World Industriess top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

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Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio Everus Construction Group $2.85 billion 1.82 $143.42 million $3.53 28.76 Armstrong World Industries $1.45 billion 5.97 $264.90 million $6.99 28.63

Profitability

Armstrong World Industries has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Everus Construction Group. Armstrong World Industries is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Everus Construction Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

This table compares Everus Construction Group and Armstrong World Industries net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Everus Construction Group 5.18% 36.74% 12.59% Armstrong World Industries 19.08% 38.97% 17.14%

Risk & Volatility

Everus Construction Group has a beta of 3.84, suggesting that its share price is 284% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Armstrong World Industries has a beta of 1.33, suggesting that its share price is 33% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current recommendations and price targets for Everus Construction Group and Armstrong World Industries, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score Everus Construction Group 0 5 2 0 2.29 Armstrong World Industries 0 4 5 1 2.70

Everus Construction Group presently has a consensus price target of $102.75, indicating a potential upside of 1.22%. Armstrong World Industries has a consensus price target of $207.50, indicating a potential upside of 3.68%. Given Armstrong World Industries stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Armstrong World Industries is more favorable than Everus Construction Group.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

98.9% of Armstrong World Industries shares are held by institutional investors. 0.2% of Everus Construction Group shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.0% of Armstrong World Industries shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Armstrong World Industries beats Everus Construction Group on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Everus Construction Group

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Everus Construction Group is providing a full spectrum of construction services through its electrical and mechanical and transmission and distribution specialty contracting services principally in United States. Its specialty contracting services are provided to utility, transportation, commercial, industrial, institutional, renewable and other customers. Everus Construction Group is based in BISMARCK, N.D.

About Armstrong World Industries

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Armstrong World Industries, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the design, manufacture, and sale of ceiling and wall solutions in the Americas. It operates through Mineral Fiber and Architectural Specialties segments. The company offers mineral fiber, fiberglass wool, metal, wood, felt, wood fiber, and glass-reinforced-gypsum; ceiling component products, such as ceiling perimeters and trims, as well as grid products that support drywall ceiling systems; ceilings, walls, and facades for use in commercial settings; and manufactures ceiling suspension system (grid) products. It serves commercial and residential construction markets, as well as renovation of existing buildings sectors. The company sells its products to resale distributors, ceiling system contractors, wholesalers, and retailers comprising large home centers. Armstrong World Industries, Inc. was founded in 1860 and is headquartered in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

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Becton Dickinson and Company (BD) has trimmed its fiscal year 2026 (FY26) profit outlook to account for the spin-off of its biosciences & diagnostic solutions business, prompting its share price to fall by 3%.

BD reached a $17.5bn agreement to merge the unit with Waters, a laboratory equipment maker, in July 2025 and announced the deals formal completion alongside its Q1 2026 financials, released ahead of market open on 9 February.

Due to the completed transaction with Waters, BD said it now expects FY26 earnings per share (EPS) to fall in the $12.35 to $12.65 per share range, down from $14.75 to $15.05 as previously mooted in the companys FY25 results, released in November 2025.

The adjustment prompted BDs shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to fall by almost 3% to $204 per share at market open on 9 February, down from $210.02 at market close on the day prior. BD has a market cap of $59.09bn.

Despite the market response, BD CEO Tom Polen said in a statement that the companys Q1 FY2026 results were stronger than expected.

BD achieved profits of $5.25bn in the quarter, corresponding to a 1.6% rise on Q1 FY2025. Medical essentials was the strongest performing vertical at $1.60bn, although it was the weakest growth area at just 0.6% growth versus Q1 FY2025. The other strongest performing verticals for BD were interventional and connected care at $1.33bn and $1.13bn, respectively.

Meanwhile, BD interventional represented the biggest growth vertical versus Q1 FY2025 at 5.8%, followed by connected care and biopharma systems with growth of 5.5% and 2.7%, respectively.

Polen commented: We delivered strongerthanexpected firstquarter performance which reflects our disciplined execution, including accelerated commercial initiatives and broadbased growth across key end markets.

Reflecting on the completion of the transaction with Waters, Polen continued: "With this significant milestone in our strategy to drive shareholder value, we fully pivot to New BD and the next chapter of the company's growth.

Boston Scientific also experienced a fall in its stock price after releasing its 2025 financials. The medtech giant's shares fell by 18% after releasing its earnings ahead of market open on 4 February, with investors homing in on relatively flat sales within the company's electrophysiology (EP) and Watchman segments that represent two of its key revenue drivers.

"BD shares fall by 3% after lowering FY26 profit outlook" was originally created and published by Medical Device Network, a GlobalData owned brand.
Atlas Copco AB (OTCMKTS:ATLKY  Get Free Report) shares saw unusually-strong trading volume on Monday . Approximately 892,319 shares were traded during mid-day trading, an increase of 292% from the previous sessions volume of 227,373 shares.The stock last traded at $21.25 and had previously closed at $20.92.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have recently issued reports on ATLKY. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reiterated a hold rating on shares of Atlas Copco in a research note on Friday, January 16th. UBS Group cut Atlas Copco to a sell rating in a report on Tuesday, October 28th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised Atlas Copco from a hold rating to an outperform rating in a report on Wednesday, January 7th. Pareto Securities downgraded shares of Atlas Copco from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 27th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group cut shares of Atlas Copco from a strong-buy rating to a neutral rating in a research report on Thursday. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of Hold.

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Atlas Copco Stock Up 1.4%

The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $19.14 and a 200-day moving average price of $17.47. The firm has a market cap of $103.45 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 38.58, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.87 and a beta of 1.42. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26, a current ratio of 1.55 and a quick ratio of 1.08.

Atlas Copco (OTCMKTS:ATLKY  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 27th. The industrial products company reported $0.14 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.15 by ($0.01). The firm had revenue of $4.80 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.68 billion. Atlas Copco had a return on equity of 24.94% and a net margin of 15.70%. As a group, equities analysts predict that Atlas Copco AB will post 0.55 EPS for the current fiscal year.

About Atlas Copco

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Atlas Copco is a Sweden-based industrial group that develops, manufactures and services equipment and solutions for professional customers in a broad range of industries. The companys core activities center on compressed air and gas systems, vacuum solutions, construction and mining equipment, industrial tools and assembly systems, and power and flow equipment. Products and services span new-equipment sales, aftermarket parts, maintenance and technical support aimed at improving productivity, energy efficiency and safety for industrial operations.

Key product categories include stationary and portable air compressors, air treatment and gas generation systems, industrial vacuum pumps, generators and light towers, drilling rigs and rock excavation equipment for mining and construction, as well as electric and pneumatic tools and automated assembly systems for manufacturing.

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Avista Corporation (NYSE:AVA  Get Free Report) announced a quarterly dividend on Monday, February 9th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, February 25th will be paid a dividend of 0.4925 per share by the utilities provider on Friday, March 13th. This represents a c) annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.8%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, February 25th. This is a 0.5% increase from Avistas previous quarterly dividend of $0.49.

Avista has raised its dividend payment by an average of 0.0%annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend annually for the last 23 consecutive years. Avista has a payout ratio of 71.5% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Avista to earn $2.53 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.96 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 77.5%.

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Avista Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE AVA traded up $0.09 during midday trading on Tuesday, reaching $41.08. 39,518 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 610,658. The stock has a market cap of $3.34 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.48, a PEG ratio of 2.13 and a beta of 0.28. Avista has a 1 year low of $35.50 and a 1 year high of $43.09. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $39.48 and a 200 day simple moving average of $38.56. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.60 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.06.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

AVA has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price objective on shares of Avista from $41.00 to $39.00 and set a hold rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, January 28th. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price objective on shares of Avista from $38.00 to $37.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, January 20th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a hold (c+) rating on shares of Avista in a report on Monday, December 29th. Mizuho set a $42.00 target price on Avista in a report on Thursday, November 6th. Finally, KeyCorp restated a sector weight rating on shares of Avista in a research report on Tuesday, January 27th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Hold rating, According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $39.33.

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Avista Company Profile

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Avista Corporation operates as an integrated energy company providing electric and natural gas delivery services to residential, commercial and industrial customers in the Pacific Northwest. Through its regulated utility operations, the company maintains and upgrades an extensive transmission and distribution network, delivering reliable energy to approximately 400,000 electric customers and 324,000 natural gas customers across Washington, Oregon and Idaho. In addition to its core utility business, Avista invests in owned generation assets, including hydroelectric, natural gasfired, coal and wind facilities, to support system reliability and long-term supply planning.

Founded in 1889 as the Spokane and Inland Empire Water Power Company, the business adopted the Avista name in 1999 to reflect its growing energy portfolio and strategic focus on innovation.

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Banco de Sabadell, S.A. (OTCMKTS:BNDSF  Get Free Report) shares rose 1.3% on Monday . The stock traded as high as $3.90 and last traded at $3.90. Approximately 1,514 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 83% from the average daily volume of 8,761 shares. The stock had previously closed at $3.85.

Banco de Sabadell Trading Up 1.3%

The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $3.81 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $3.77.

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About Banco de Sabadell

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Banco de Sabadell is a Spain-based banking group founded in 1881 and headquartered in Alicante. It ranks among the countrys largest banks by assets, serving a diverse client base that includes retail customers, small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs) and large corporate clients. Over its history, the group has expanded through organic growth and strategic acquisitions to build a comprehensive financial services platform.

The banks core business lines encompass retail banking, commercial and corporate banking, private banking, asset management and insurance.

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Bank Hapoalim (OTCMKTS:BKHYY  Get Free Report) hit a new 52-week high on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $134.34 and last traded at $131.11, with a volume of 4182 shares changing hands. The stock had previously closed at $128.08.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Barclays downgraded shares of Bank Hapoalim from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Thursday, January 15th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Hold rating, Based on data from MarketBeat, Bank Hapoalim currently has an average rating of Hold.

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Bank Hapoalim Stock Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52, a quick ratio of 0.93 and a current ratio of 0.93. The firm has a market cap of $34.43 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.26 and a beta of 1.19. The companys 50 day moving average is $119.85 and its 200 day moving average is $105.93.

Bank Hapoalim (OTCMKTS:BKHYY  Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, November 20th. The bank reported $2.68 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. Bank Hapoalim had a return on equity of 14.60% and a net margin of 21.60%.The business had revenue of $1.99 billion during the quarter.

Bank Hapoalim Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently declared a dividend, which was paid on Thursday, December 18th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 2nd were issued a dividend of $0.9362 per share. This represents a dividend yield of 266.0%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 1st. Bank Hapoalims payout ratio is 38.62%.

Bank Hapoalim Company Profile

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Bank Hapoalim B.M. is one of Israels largest banking groups, providing a broad range of financial services to retail, corporate and institutional customers. Founded in 1921 by the Histadrut labor federation, the bank has developed into a full-service financial institution offering deposit accounts, consumer and mortgage lending, credit cards, payment services, and branch-based retail banking. It also serves small and medium-sized enterprises with working capital and trade finance solutions.

In addition to traditional retail banking, Bank Hapoalim operates significant corporate and investment banking divisions.

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Bank of the Philippine Islands (OTCMKTS:BPHLY  Get Free Report) was the target of a large growth in short interest in January. As of January 30th, there was short interest totaling 1,638 shares, a growth of 163,700.0% from the January 15th total of 1 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 1,104 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 1.5 days. Based on an average daily volume of 1,104 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 1.5 days.

Bank of the Philippine Islands Stock Up 0.1%

Shares of OTCMKTS BPHLY traded up C$0.03 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, reaching C$40.15. 807 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 830. Bank of the Philippine Islands has a 1-year low of C$32.90 and a 1-year high of C$52.02. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of C$40.36 and a 200 day simple moving average of C$39.27.

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Bank of the Philippine Islands Company Profile

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Bank of the Philippine Islands (OTCMKTS:BPHLY) is one of the Philippines oldest and largest universal banks, offering an integrated suite of financial solutions to retail, corporate and institutional clients. Headquartered in Makati City, the bank provides traditional banking services alongside digital channels, serving millions of Filipinos through its expansive branch and ATM network as well as online platforms.

Founded in 1851 as El Banco Espanol Filipino de Isabel II, BPI holds the distinction of being the first bank established in the Philippines.

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Shares of Barratt Redrow plc. (OTCMKTS:BTDPY  Get Free Report) saw an uptick in trading volume on Monday . 204,172 shares were traded during trading, an increase of 157% from the previous sessions volume of 79,564 shares.The stock last traded at $10.3880 and had previously closed at $10.76.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages have recently commented on BTDPY. Zacks Research raised Barratt Redrow from a strong sell rating to a hold rating in a research report on Thursday, December 11th. Jefferies Financial Group cut shares of Barratt Redrow from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 3rd. The Goldman Sachs Group initiated coverage on Barratt Redrow in a research note on Monday, November 24th. They issued a buy rating on the stock. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada lowered shares of Barratt Redrow from a moderate buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 2nd. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, two have assigned a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Barratt Redrow presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy.

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Barratt Redrow Price Performance

Barratt Redrow Company Profile

The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $10.34 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $10.26. The company has a current ratio of 0.78, a quick ratio of 0.78 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03.

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Barratt Redrow plc engages in the housebuilding business in the United Kingdom. The company acquires and develops land; plans, designs, and constructs homes, apartments, penthouses, and communities, as well as undertakes mixed-use regeneration schemes; and develops retail, leisure, office, industrial, and mixed-use properties. It is also involved in the commercial development business under the Wilson Bowden Developments brand name. The company offers its homes under the Barratt Homes, David Wilson Homes, and Barratt London brands.

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Bio-Rad Laboratories (NYSE:BIO  Get Free Report) will likely be releasing its Q4 2025 results after the market closes on Thursday, February 12th. Analysts expect the company to announce earnings of $2.57 per share and revenue of $694.6380 million for the quarter. Interested persons can check the companys upcoming Q4 2025 earning summary page for the latest details on the call scheduled for Thursday, February 12, 2026 at 5:00 PM ET.

Bio-Rad Laboratories Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:BIO opened at $294.66 on Tuesday. The company has a quick ratio of 3.94, a current ratio of 5.44 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $308.14 and a 200 day moving average price of $300.66. Bio-Rad Laboratories has a 52 week low of $211.43 and a 52 week high of $343.12. The company has a market cap of $7.95 billion, a P/E ratio of -12.12 and a beta of 1.18.

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Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on the company. Citigroup boosted their price target on Bio-Rad Laboratories from $350.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Wall Street Zen raised shares of Bio-Rad Laboratories from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note on Saturday, January 10th. Weiss Ratings reissued a sell (d-) rating on shares of Bio-Rad Laboratories in a research note on Monday, December 29th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on shares of Bio-Rad Laboratories from $265.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, two have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $358.50.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Bio-Rad Laboratories

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. increased its position in shares of Bio-Rad Laboratories by 115.2% in the 2nd quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 142 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $34,000 after purchasing an additional 76 shares during the last quarter. Quarry LP boosted its position in Bio-Rad Laboratories by 131.5% during the 3rd quarter. Quarry LP now owns 287 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $80,000 after purchasing an additional 163 shares during the period. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC lifted its position in Bio-Rad Laboratories by 241.2% in the 3rd quarter. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC now owns 331 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $93,000 after purchasing an additional 234 shares during the last quarter. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV acquired a new position in shares of Bio-Rad Laboratories during the third quarter worth approximately $211,000. Finally, WFA of San Diego LLC acquired a new position in Bio-Rad Laboratories during the 2nd quarter worth $222,000. 65.24% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Bio-Rad Laboratories

(Get Free Report)

Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc is a global provider of life science research and clinical diagnostic products. The company operates through two primary business segments: Life Science and Clinical Diagnostics. Within the Life Science segment, Bio-Rad offers instruments, reagents and consumables for protein analysis, cell biology, gene expression and other molecular biology applications. The Clinical Diagnostics segment supplies quality control products, blood-typing reagents and instruments, and molecular diagnostic assays used in blood screening, infectious disease testing and routine clinical laboratories.

Founded in 1952 by David and Alice Schwartz and headquartered in Hercules, California, Bio-Rad has grown its footprint across the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific and other regions.

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PrairieSky Royalty (TSE:PSK  Get Free Report) had its price target lifted by equities research analysts at BMO Capital Markets from C$32.00 to C$34.00 in a report released on Tuesday,BayStreet.CA reports. The brokerage currently has an outperform rating on the stock. BMO Capital Markets price target would indicate a potential upside of 14.86% from the companys current price.

PSK has been the subject of a number of other reports. Natl Bk Canada upgraded shares of PrairieSky Royalty from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating in a report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Raymond James Financial upgraded PrairieSky Royalty from a hold rating to a moderate buy rating and boosted their price target for the company from C$30.00 to C$35.00 in a report on Tuesday, December 9th. National Bankshares increased their price objective on PrairieSky Royalty from C$32.00 to C$35.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Tuesday, February 3rd. TD Securities lifted their price target on shares of PrairieSky Royalty from C$30.00 to C$33.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Tuesday. Finally, Scotiabank boosted their target price on shares of PrairieSky Royalty from C$29.00 to C$30.00 and gave the company a sector perform rating in a report on Tuesday, January 20th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have issued a Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of C$31.57.

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PrairieSky Royalty Trading Down 2.3%

About PrairieSky Royalty

PrairieSky Royalty stock traded down C$0.71 during trading hours on Tuesday, reaching C$29.60. The company had a trading volume of 255,615 shares, compared to its average volume of 389,586. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.48, a current ratio of 0.63 and a quick ratio of 0.65. The company has a 50-day moving average price of C$27.65 and a 200 day moving average price of C$25.99. The firm has a market cap of C$6.89 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.83, a P/E/G ratio of 0.47 and a beta of 0.79. PrairieSky Royalty has a 12-month low of C$21.97 and a 12-month high of C$30.69.

(Get Free Report)

PrairieSky Royalty Ltd is the owner of subsurface mineral rights on a variety of royalty properties in western Canada. The company encourages third parties to develop these properties, while also seeking additional petroleum and natural gas royalty assets. Once PrairieSky has given a third party the right to explore, develop, or produce on its properties, the company collects royalty revenue from the development of petroleum and natural gas. Property arrangements can be contracted as lease issuances, farmouts, drilling commitments, or seismic option agreements.

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Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (TSE:CM  Get Free Report) (NYSE:CM)s stock price reached a new 52-week high on Monday after Desjardins raised their price target on the stock from C$135.00 to C$139.00. Desjardins currently has a buy rating on the stock. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce traded as high as C$133.03 and last traded at C$132.64, with a volume of 432217 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at C$132.10.

CM has been the subject of a number of other reports. Raymond James Financial upped their price objective on shares of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce from C$127.00 to C$132.00 and gave the company a market perform rating in a research note on Friday, December 5th. National Bankshares boosted their price target on shares of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce from C$121.00 to C$128.00 and gave the company a sector perform rating in a report on Friday, December 5th. Jefferies Financial Group upped their price target on shares of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce from C$106.00 to C$118.00 and gave the company a hold rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 25th. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce from C$119.00 to C$126.00 in a research note on Monday, December 8th. Finally, Scotiabank boosted their target price on shares of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce from C$133.00 to C$138.00 in a research note on Friday, January 9th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of C$127.18.

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Insider Activity

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Stock Performance

In related news, insider Frank Guse sold 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, December 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of C$127.16, for a total transaction of C$635,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 1,359 shares in the company, valued at approximately C$172,810.44. This trade represents a 78.63% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the companys stock.

The company has a 50 day moving average of C$126.65 and a 200 day moving average of C$116.14. The firm has a market cap of C$123.18 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.51, a PEG ratio of 3.03 and a beta of 1.26.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (TSE:CM  Get Free Report) (NYSE:CM) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, December 4th. The company reported C$2.21 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce had a net margin of 27.87% and a return on equity of 12.61%. The firm had revenue of C$7.58 billion during the quarter. As a group, analysts expect that Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce will post 6.4127341 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 28th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, January 28th were given a dividend of $1.07 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 29th. This is a positive change from Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerces previous quarterly dividend of $0.97. This represents a $4.28 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.2%. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerces dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 45.27%.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

CIBC is a leading North American financial institution with 15 million personal banking, business, public sector and institutional clients. Across Personal and Business Banking, Commercial Banking and Wealth Management, and Capital Markets, CIBC offers a full range of advice, solutions and services through its leading digital banking network, and locations across Canada, in the United States and around the world.

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Unifirst, Canadian National Railway, Canadian Pacific Kansas City, Canadian Natural Resources, Celsius, TC Energy, and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce are the seven Canadian stocks to watch today, according to MarketBeats stock screener tool. Canadian stocks are shares of companies domiciled in Canada or primarily listed on Canadian exchanges (such as the Toronto Stock Exchange and TSX Venture Exchange). For stock market investors, they represent ownership stakes whose prices, dividends and risk profile are influenced by Canadian economic conditions, commodity exposure, and currency (CAD) movements. These companies had the highest dollar trading volume of any Canadian stocks within the last several days.

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Unifirst (UNF)

UniFirst Corporation provides workplace uniforms and protective work wear clothing in the United States, Europe, and Canada. The company operates through U.S. and Canadian Rental and Cleaning, Manufacturing, Specialty Garments Rental and Cleaning, and First Aid segments. It designs, manufactures, personalizes, rents, cleans, delivers, and sells a range of uniforms and protective clothing, including shirts, pants, jackets, coveralls, lab coats, smocks, and aprons; and specialized protective wear, such as flame resistant and high visibility garments.

Canadian National Railway (CNI)

Canadian National Railway Company, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the rail, intermodal, trucking, and marine transportation and logistics business in Canada and the United States. The company provides rail services, which include equipment, custom brokerage services, transloading and distribution, business development and real estate, and private car storage services; and intermodal services, such as temperature controlled cargo, port partnerships, and logistics parks.

Read Our Latest Research Report on CNI

Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CP)

Canadian Pacific Kansas City Limited, together with its subsidiaries, owns and operates a transcontinental freight railway in Canada, the United States, and Mexico. The company transports bulk commodities, including grain, coal, potash, fertilizers, and sulphur; merchandise freight, such as forest products, energy, chemicals and plastics, metals, minerals, consumer products, and automotive; and intermodal traffic comprising retail goods in overseas containers.

Read Our Latest Research Report on CP

Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ)

Canadian Natural Resources Limited acquires, explores for, develops, produces, markets, and sells crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids (NGLs). The company offers light and medium crude oil, primary heavy crude oil, Pelican Lake heavy crude oil, bitumen (thermal oil), and synthetic crude oil (SCO).

Read Our Latest Research Report on CNQ

Celsius (CELH)

Celsius Holdings, Inc. develops, processes, markets, distributes, and sells functional energy drinks and liquid supplements in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canadian, European, Middle Eastern, Asia-Pacific, and internationally. The company offers CELSIUS, a fitness drink or supplement designed to accelerate metabolism and burn body fat; various flavors and carbonated and non-carbonated functional energy drinks under the CELSIUS Originals and Vibe name, as well as functional energy drink under the CELSIUS Essentials and CELSIUS On-the-Go Powder names; and CELSIUS ready-to drink products.

Read Our Latest Research Report on CELH

TC Energy (TRP)

TC Energy Corporation operates as an energy infrastructure company in North America. It operates through five segments: Canadian Natural Gas Pipelines; U.S. Natural Gas Pipelines; Mexico Natural Gas Pipelines; Liquids Pipelines; and Power and Energy Solutions. The company builds and operates a network of 93,600 kilometers of natural gas pipelines, which transports natural gas from supply basins to local distribution companies, power generation plants, industrial facilities, interconnecting pipelines, LNG export terminals, and other businesses.

Read Our Latest Research Report on TRP

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CM)

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, a diversified financial institution, provides various financial products and services to personal, business, public sector, and institutional clients in Canada, the United States, and internationally. The company operates through Canadian Personal and Business Banking; Canadian Commercial Banking and Wealth Management; U.S.

Read Our Latest Research Report on CM

Featured Stories
The benchmark diesel price used as the basis for most fuel surcharges inched up this week, the fourth consecutive week of increases, in the midst of an oil market that still is pushing higher.

The average weekly retail diesel price published by the Department of Energy/Energy Information Administration rose 0.7 cents/gallon effective Monday, published Tuesday, to $3.688/g, up 0.7 cts/g.

It is the smallest gain in the ongoing four-week climb that has taken the price up from $3.459/g on January 12 to the latest number. That January 12 price was the lowest since June.

With the usual lag between the price of ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD) on the CME commodity exchange and the price at the pump, its uncertain where retail markets might be headed next.

Calendar impacting prices

The price of ULSD on the CME commodity exchange is significantly lower now than it was two weeks ago, but that has little to do with the overall market and everything to do with the calendar.

Two weeks ago, and through trading on January 30, the front month ULSD contract traded on CME was for barrels delivered into New York harbor in February. On February 2, the front month became March as February expired.

Given that March is generally warmer than February; that ULSD and heating oil are structurally similar; and that markets two weeks ago were reacting to a deep freeze affecting heating oil demand, ULSD on CME closed out the month with a January settlement of $2.7356/gallon, the highest since April 2024.

But by Monday, the settlement for March barrels was down to $2.3598/g, as markets then were reacting to reports of possible progress in U.S.-Iran relations as well as the rollover in the contract.

Up and down trading in the days that followed brought the ULSD settlement as high as $2.47/g on Wednesday, before easing to settle Monday at $2.4169/g.

Crude benchmark is rising

Even as that was going on in ULSD, the market for global crude benchmark Brent has been steadily moving higher. After a settlement Monday of $69.04/barrel, it has increased by $8.19/b from the December 31 settlement of $60.85.

This was going to be the year of the oil glut, according to major forecasting agencies like the International Energy Agency. They looked at the OPEC and OPEC+ nations having unwound much of their earlier reductions in output, then saw demand increases that were modest at best, three in higher output from a list of countries that included Guyana, Brazil, Canada and the U.S., and the conclusion was that significantly lower prices were on tap.

Wheres the glut?

But almost six weeks into the year of the forecast great glut, that is not occurring. The latest developments in oil prices have undercut that narrative.
Chemed Corporation (NYSE:CHE  Get Free Report) has received a consensus rating of Moderate Buy from the six brokerages that are covering the stock, Marketbeat reports. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and three have assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average 1-year target price among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $555.50.

CHE has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Royal Bank Of Canada lowered their target price on Chemed from $589.00 to $572.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a report on Monday, November 10th. Zacks Research raised Chemed from a strong sell rating to a hold rating in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Jefferies Financial Group downgraded shares of Chemed from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Thursday, January 22nd. Finally, Weiss Ratings restated a hold (c-) rating on shares of Chemed in a research report on Wednesday, January 21st.

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Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on CHE

Insiders Place Their Bets

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Chemed

In related news, CEO Kevin J. Mcnamara sold 2,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Monday, November 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $437.55, for a total transaction of $875,100.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 94,197 shares of the companys stock, valued at $41,215,897.35. This trade represents a 2.08% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink . 3.29% of the stock is owned by insiders.

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. WCM Investment Management LLC increased its position in Chemed by 3.8% during the 3rd quarter. WCM Investment Management LLC now owns 661 shares of the companys stock valued at $299,000 after purchasing an additional 24 shares during the period. Eukles Asset Management boosted its stake in shares of Chemed by 0.4% in the 3rd quarter. Eukles Asset Management now owns 6,031 shares of the companys stock valued at $2,700,000 after purchasing an additional 24 shares during the last quarter. Cim LLC increased its position in shares of Chemed by 1.1% during the third quarter. Cim LLC now owns 2,139 shares of the companys stock worth $958,000 after buying an additional 24 shares during the period. Atria Investments Inc raised its stake in Chemed by 0.6% during the second quarter. Atria Investments Inc now owns 4,259 shares of the companys stock worth $2,074,000 after buying an additional 25 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Cetera Investment Advisers lifted its holdings in Chemed by 1.5% in the second quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 1,740 shares of the companys stock valued at $847,000 after buying an additional 25 shares during the period. 95.85% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Chemed Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:CHE opened at $447.92 on Thursday. Chemed has a one year low of $408.42 and a one year high of $623.60. The company has a market cap of $6.34 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.69, a PEG ratio of 2.18 and a beta of 0.44. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $437.01 and a 200 day simple moving average of $441.68.

Chemed Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Chemed Corporation is a diversified provider of essential home services and healthcare solutions in the United States. Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, the company operates through two principal business segmentsRoto-Rooter and Vitas Healthcare. Since its founding in 1974, Chemed has built a reputation for reliability and expertise, serving both residential and commercial customers across a broad range of markets.

The Roto-Rooter segment offers a comprehensive suite of plumbing, drain cleaning and water restoration services.

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A number of research firms have changed their ratings and price targets for CMS Energy (NYSE: CMS):

2/9/2026  CMS Energy was given a new $80.00 price target on by analysts at Williams Trading.

2/9/2026  CMS Energy had its outperform rating reaffirmed by analysts at BMO Capital Markets. They now have a $80.00 price target on the stock, up previously from $79.00.

2/6/2026  CMS Energy had its neutral rating reaffirmed by analysts at UBS Group AG.

2/6/2026  CMS Energy had its price target raised by analysts at Mizuho from $73.00 to $76.00. They now have a neutral rating on the stock.

2/2/2026  CMS Energy was given a new $79.00 price target on by analysts at UBS Group AG.

2/2/2026  CMS Energy had its outperform rating reaffirmed by analysts at BMO Capital Markets.

2/2/2026  CMS Energy had its price target raised by analysts at Morgan Stanley from $74.00 to $75.00. They now have an equal weight rating on the stock.

2/2/2026  CMS Energy was given a new $79.00 price target on by analysts at BMO Capital Markets.

1/31/2026  CMS Energy was upgraded by analysts at Wall Street Zen from a sell rating to a hold rating.

1/30/2026  CMS Energy was given a new $82.00 price target on by analysts at Wolfe Research.

1/28/2026  CMS Energy had its price target raised by analysts at Jefferies Financial Group Inc. from $79.00 to $81.00. They now have a buy rating on the stock.

1/23/2026  CMS Energy was downgraded by analysts at Wall Street Zen from a hold rating to a sell rating.

1/21/2026  CMS Energy had its buy (b-) rating reaffirmed by analysts at Weiss Ratings.

1/21/2026  CMS Energy had its underperform rating reaffirmed by analysts at Morgan Stanley.

1/20/2026  CMS Energy had its price target lowered by analysts at Wells Fargo & Company from $77.00 to $74.00. They now have an equal weight rating on the stock.

1/15/2026  CMS Energy had its price target raised by analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $80.00 to $81.00. They now have an overweight rating on the stock.

1/14/2026  CMS Energy had its price target lowered by analysts at Barclays PLC from $82.00 to $74.00. They now have an overweight rating on the stock.

1/10/2026  CMS Energy was upgraded by analysts at Wall Street Zen from a sell rating to a hold rating.

12/17/2025  CMS Energy had its price target lowered by analysts at UBS Group AG from $81.00 to $77.00. They now have a neutral rating on the stock.

12/13/2025  CMS Energy was downgraded by analysts at Wall Street Zen from a hold rating to a sell rating.

CMS Energy Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 27th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 17th will be paid a $0.57 dividend. This is a boost from CMS Energys previous quarterly dividend of $0.54. This represents a $2.28 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.1%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 17th. CMS Energys payout ratio is currently 61.47%.

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CMS Energy (NYSE: CMS) is an energy company based in Jackson, Michigan, whose principal business is the regulated utility operations of its subsidiary, Consumers Energy. The company is primarily focused on providing electric and natural gas service to customers in Michigan, operating the generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure necessary to deliver energy to residential, commercial and industrial customers. Headquartered in Jackson, CMS Energy conducts its core activities within the state and is regulated by state utility authorities.

Through Consumers Energy and related subsidiaries, CMS Energy develops, owns and operates a portfolio of generation assets and delivers a range of customer-facing services, including electricity and natural gas supply, grid management, energy efficiency programs and demand-response offerings.

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Compagnie Lombard Odier SCmA bought a new position in shares of Bank of America Corporation (NYSE:BAC) during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 1,361,229 shares of the financial services providers stock, valued at approximately $70,226,000. Bank of America makes up 0.8% of Compagnie Lombard Odier SCmAs portfolio, making the stock its 29th largest position.

Several other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in BAC. Permanent Capital Management LP purchased a new stake in shares of Bank of America in the 3rd quarter valued at $649,000. Disciplined Investments LLC bought a new stake in Bank of America in the second quarter worth $217,000. Meridian Wealth Management LLC lifted its stake in Bank of America by 54.6% in the third quarter. Meridian Wealth Management LLC now owns 58,308 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $3,008,000 after purchasing an additional 20,591 shares during the last quarter. Lockheed Martin Investment Management Co. boosted its position in Bank of America by 15.9% during the third quarter. Lockheed Martin Investment Management Co. now owns 629,610 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $32,482,000 after buying an additional 86,290 shares during the period. Finally, World Equity Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Bank of America by 21.8% during the third quarter. World Equity Group Inc. now owns 73,188 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $3,779,000 after buying an additional 13,119 shares during the last quarter. 70.71% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on BAC. TD Cowen lowered their target price on Bank of America from $66.00 to $64.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, January 15th. Argus boosted their price objective on Bank of America from $58.00 to $59.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Thursday, January 15th. Wolfe Research lowered Bank of America from an outperform rating to a peer perform rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 7th. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their target price on shares of Bank of America from $65.00 to $67.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Monday, January 26th. Finally, HSBC upped their price target on shares of Bank of America from $55.00 to $57.00 and gave the company a hold rating in a report on Friday. Twenty-two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $60.30.

Bank of America Price Performance

BAC opened at $56.43 on Tuesday. The company has a current ratio of 0.80, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15. The company has a market cap of $412.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.38 and a beta of 1.29. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $54.45 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $51.92. Bank of America Corporation has a 12-month low of $33.06 and a 12-month high of $57.55.

Bank of America (NYSE:BAC  Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, January 14th. The financial services provider reported $0.98 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.96 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $4.53 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $27.73 billion. Bank of America had a net margin of 16.23% and a return on equity of 11.07%. The businesss revenue was up 12.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.82 earnings per share. Research analysts predict that Bank of America Corporation will post 3.7 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Bank of America Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 27th. Investors of record on Friday, March 6th will be issued a $0.28 dividend. This represents a $1.12 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.0%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 6th. Bank of Americas dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 29.24%.

Bank of America News Summary

Here are the key news stories impacting Bank of America this week:

Bank of America Profile

(Free Report)

Bank of America Corporation is a multinational financial services company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It provides a broad array of banking, investment, asset management and related financial and risk management products and services to individual consumers, small- and middle-market businesses, large corporations, governments and institutional investors. The firm operates through consumer banking, global wealth and investment management, global banking and markets businesses, offering capabilities across lending, deposits, payments, advisory and capital markets.

Its consumer-facing offerings include checking and savings accounts, mortgages, home equity lending, auto loans, credit cards and small business banking, supported by a nationwide branch network and digital channels.

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Want to see what other hedge funds are holding BAC? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Bank of America Corporation (NYSE:BAC  Free Report).

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QinetiQ Group (OTCMKTS:QNTQY  Get Free Report) and Dassault Aviation societe anonyme (OTCMKTS:DUAVF  Get Free Report) are both industrials companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, valuation, earnings, risk, dividends, institutional ownership and profitability.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares QinetiQ Group and Dassault Aviation societe anonymes gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

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Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio QinetiQ Group N/A N/A N/A ($0.26) -107.05 Dassault Aviation societe anonyme N/A N/A N/A $53.82 7.21

Analyst Ratings

QinetiQ Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Dassault Aviation societe anonyme, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for QinetiQ Group and Dassault Aviation societe anonyme, as reported by MarketBeat.

Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score QinetiQ Group 0 1 0 1 3.00 Dassault Aviation societe anonyme 1 2 2 0 2.20

Dividends

QinetiQ Group pays an annual dividend of $0.27 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.0%. Dassault Aviation societe anonyme pays an annual dividend of $8.90 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.3%. QinetiQ Group pays out -104.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Dassault Aviation societe anonyme pays out 16.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

0.7% of Dassault Aviation societe anonyme shares are held by institutional investors. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares QinetiQ Group and Dassault Aviation societe anonymes net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets QinetiQ Group N/A N/A N/A Dassault Aviation societe anonyme N/A N/A N/A

Summary

Dassault Aviation societe anonyme beats QinetiQ Group on 5 of the 8 factors compared between the two stocks.

About QinetiQ Group

(Get Free Report)

QinetiQ Group plc operates as a science and engineering company primarily in the defense, security, and infrastructure markets in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Europe, and internationally. The company operates through EMEA Services and Global Products segments. It offers advanced materials and manufacturing products; artificial intelligence, analytics, and advanced computing technologies; cyber and electromagnetic technologies; human protection and performance systems; novel systems, and weapons and effects; platform and system design and assessment products; power sources, and energy storage and distribution products; robotics and autonomy services; secure communications and navigation systems; and sensing, processing, and data fusion systems. The company also provides testing and evaluation, training and simulation, and cyber and digital resilience services, as well as unmanned air, land, and surface targets. It serves defense, aviation and aerospace, energy and utility, financial services, government, law enforcement, marine, space, and telecommunications sectors. The company was founded in 2001 and is based in Farnborough, the United Kingdom.

About Dassault Aviation societe anonyme

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Dassault Aviation societe anonyme designs and manufactures military aircraft, business jets, and space systems in France, the Americas, and internationally. It offers Rafale, a multirole fighter aircraft; nEUROn, an unmanned combat drone; falcon business jets; and falcon aircraft for maritime surveillance, intelligence, and medical evacuation missions. The company operates a fleet of 2,100 Falcon jets and 1,000 military aircraft. In addition, it provides aviation maintenance and training services; repair and maintenance services of landing gears and flight controls; overhaul and repair services for civil aviation equipment; airport services; leases and manages Falcon aircraft as part of public passenger transport activity; and designs, produces, and distributes simulation tools. The company was founded in 1916 and is headquartered in Paris, France. Dassault Aviation societe anonyme is a subsidiary of Groupe Industriel Marcel Dassault S.A.

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TD Cowen upgraded shares of Devon Energy (NYSE:DVN  Free Report) to a hold rating in a research note issued to investors on Monday morning,Zacks.com reports.

Several other research firms also recently issued reports on DVN. Capital One Financial cut their price objective on Devon Energy from $52.00 to $51.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, November 11th. Argus upgraded shares of Devon Energy to a strong-buy rating in a report on Wednesday, November 26th. BMO Capital Markets reduced their price target on shares of Devon Energy from $48.00 to $45.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research report on Monday, January 12th. Piper Sandler decreased their price objective on shares of Devon Energy from $57.00 to $55.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, November 18th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lowered their price objective on shares of Devon Energy from $48.00 to $46.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, January 23rd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-two have given a Buy rating, seven have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $45.97.

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Devon Energy Price Performance

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Devon Energy

Shares of NYSE:DVN opened at $43.51 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.48, a quick ratio of 0.87 and a current ratio of 0.96. The company has a market capitalization of $27.29 billion, a PE ratio of 10.24, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.83 and a beta of 0.61. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $37.70 and a 200-day moving average of $35.45. Devon Energy has a one year low of $25.89 and a one year high of $44.02.

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of DVN. PFS Partners LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Devon Energy during the third quarter worth $25,000. First Horizon Corp purchased a new stake in shares of Devon Energy during the 3rd quarter worth about $26,000. Caldwell Trust Co acquired a new stake in shares of Devon Energy during the 2nd quarter valued at about $25,000. Ameriflex Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Devon Energy by 702.0% in the 3rd quarter. Ameriflex Group Inc. now owns 802 shares of the energy companys stock valued at $28,000 after buying an additional 702 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Accredited Wealth Management LLC increased its holdings in Devon Energy by 61.6% in the third quarter. Accredited Wealth Management LLC now owns 808 shares of the energy companys stock worth $28,000 after buying an additional 308 shares during the last quarter. 69.72% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Devon Energy

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Devon Energy Corporation (NYSE: DVN) is an independent oil and gas exploration and production company headquartered in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The company focuses on the exploration, development, production and marketing of hydrocarbons, including crude oil, natural gas liquids (NGLs) and natural gas. Devon operates as an upstream energy company that acquires, evaluates and develops onshore resource plays using a combination of drilling, completion and production optimization techniques.

Core business activities include identifying and developing energy reserves, operating well programs and managing reservoir performance to generate production and cash flow.

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Dingdong (Cayman) Limited Sponsored ADR (NYSE:DDL  Get Free Report)s share price gapped up prior to trading on Tuesday . The stock had previously closed at $2.71, but opened at $3.14. Dingdong (Cayman) shares last traded at $2.9610, with a volume of 5,181,111 shares trading hands.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

DDL has been the subject of several analyst reports. Zacks Research cut shares of Dingdong (Cayman) from a hold rating to a strong sell rating in a research note on Monday, January 19th. Wall Street Zen cut Dingdong (Cayman) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Saturday, November 15th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reissued a hold (c) rating on shares of Dingdong (Cayman) in a research report on Monday, December 29th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of Reduce.

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Dingdong (Cayman) Stock Performance

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Dingdong (Cayman)

The firms 50 day moving average price is $2.62 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $2.22. The company has a market cap of $698.06 million, a P/E ratio of 17.38 and a beta of 0.42.

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Boundless Plain Holdings Ltd acquired a new stake in Dingdong (Cayman) in the 4th quarter valued at $19,893,000. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. boosted its stake in Dingdong (Cayman) by 20.1% during the 2nd quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. now owns 3,173,186 shares of the companys stock valued at $6,410,000 after purchasing an additional 531,352 shares during the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its holdings in Dingdong (Cayman) by 66.5% during the 2nd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 968,405 shares of the companys stock worth $1,956,000 after purchasing an additional 386,795 shares in the last quarter. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd raised its stake in shares of Dingdong (Cayman) by 283.3% in the second quarter. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd now owns 491,115 shares of the companys stock worth $992,000 after purchasing an additional 362,974 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Dingdong (Cayman) in the second quarter valued at approximately $593,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 24.66% of the companys stock.

About Dingdong (Cayman)

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Dingdong (Cayman) Inc, which operates under the Dingdong Fresh brand, is a China-based online grocery and fresh food delivery platform. The company leverages a network of urban micro-fulfillment centers to offer consumers a wide selection of produce, meats, seafood, dairy, packaged goods and everyday household items through its mobile application and website.

Orders placed via the Dingdong Fresh app are fulfilled from strategically located dark stores within target neighborhoods, enabling the company to promise delivery times as fast as 2030 minutes.

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Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK  Get Free Report) updated its FY 2026 earnings guidance on Tuesday. The company provided earnings per share (EPS) guidance of 6.550-6.800 for the period, compared to the consensus estimate of 6.700. The company issued revenue guidance of -.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on DUK shares. Wells Fargo & Company cut their target price on shares of Duke Energy from $126.00 to $115.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 20th. Scotiabank increased their target price on Duke Energy from $137.00 to $146.00 and gave the stock a sector outperform rating in a report on Tuesday, December 16th. UBS Group lowered their price target on Duke Energy from $135.00 to $126.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, December 17th. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on shares of Duke Energy from $138.00 to $141.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Thursday, November 13th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a buy (b) rating on shares of Duke Energy in a research report on Monday, December 29th. Eleven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $134.50.

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Duke Energy Stock Performance

Shares of DUK stock opened at $121.93 on Tuesday. Duke Energy has a 12-month low of $110.51 and a 12-month high of $130.03. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.54, a current ratio of 0.63 and a quick ratio of 0.40. The firm has a market capitalization of $94.82 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.21, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.65 and a beta of 0.51. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $118.06 and a 200 day simple moving average of $121.64.

Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 10th. The utilities provider reported $1.50 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.49 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $7.94 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $7.57 billion. Duke Energy had a return on equity of 9.98% and a net margin of 15.76%.During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $1.66 earnings per share. Duke Energy has set its FY 2026 guidance at 6.550-6.800 EPS. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Duke Energy will post 6.33 EPS for the current year.

Duke Energy Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 16th. Investors of record on Friday, February 13th will be paid a dividend of $1.065 per share. This represents a $4.26 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.5%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 13th. Duke Energys dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 66.98%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Duke Energy news, EVP Robert Alexander Glenn sold 8,200 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.80, for a total transaction of $1,015,160.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 11,367 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $1,407,234.60. This trade represents a 41.91% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 0.14% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Key Stories Impacting Duke Energy

Here are the key news stories impacting Duke Energy this week:

Institutional Trading of Duke Energy

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Centaurus Financial Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Duke Energy by 23.7% in the 3rd quarter. Centaurus Financial Inc. now owns 6,389 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $791,000 after purchasing an additional 1,225 shares during the period. Sunbelt Securities Inc. raised its holdings in Duke Energy by 3.1% during the third quarter. Sunbelt Securities Inc. now owns 4,840 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $599,000 after buying an additional 144 shares in the last quarter. Danske Bank A S bought a new stake in Duke Energy during the third quarter worth approximately $1,162,000. Caitong International Asset Management Co. Ltd bought a new position in Duke Energy in the 3rd quarter worth $74,000. Finally, Financial Engines Advisors L.L.C. boosted its stake in Duke Energy by 13.0% during the 3rd quarter. Financial Engines Advisors L.L.C. now owns 2,066 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $256,000 after purchasing an additional 238 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 65.31% of the companys stock.

About Duke Energy

(Get Free Report)

Duke Energy Corporation is a U.S.-based electric power holding company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. The companys core business is the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity to residential, commercial and industrial customers. Duke Energy operates a mix of regulated electric utilities and non-regulated energy businesses, providing essential energy infrastructure and services across multiple states.

Its operating activities include owning and operating generation assets across a portfolio that encompasses nuclear, natural gas, coal, hydroelectric and an expanding array of renewable resources, as well as battery storage and grid modernization projects.

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Dynatrace (NYSE:DT  Get Free Report) had its price target lowered by stock analysts at Morgan Stanley from $57.00 to $43.00 in a research note issued on Tuesday, Marketbeat.com reports. The firm presently has an equal weight rating on the stock. Morgan Stanleys price objective would suggest a potential upside of 15.84% from the companys current price.

Several other brokerages have also recently issued reports on DT. Raymond James Financial reaffirmed a market perform rating on shares of Dynatrace in a research note on Monday. Weiss Ratings restated a hold (c) rating on shares of Dynatrace in a report on Monday, December 29th. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price target on shares of Dynatrace from $65.00 to $55.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, January 5th. Rosenblatt Securities lowered their price target on Dynatrace from $67.00 to $60.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a report on Friday, January 30th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada reissued an outperform rating on shares of Dynatrace in a research note on Monday. Twenty investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and seven have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $53.40.

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Dynatrace Price Performance

NYSE DT traded up $0.94 on Tuesday, hitting $37.12. The company had a trading volume of 2,098,750 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,697,346. The companys fifty day moving average price is $41.78 and its 200-day moving average price is $46.18. The company has a market capitalization of $11.19 billion, a PE ratio of 22.21, a PEG ratio of 2.66 and a beta of 0.84. Dynatrace has a 12-month low of $32.83 and a 12-month high of $63.00.

Dynatrace (NYSE:DT  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, February 9th. The company reported $0.44 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.41 by $0.03. Dynatrace had a net margin of 27.33% and a return on equity of 9.24%. The firm had revenue of $515.47 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $506.31 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.37 EPS. The companys revenue for the quarter was up 18.2% on a year-over-year basis. Dynatrace has set its FY 2026 guidance at 1.670-1.690 EPS and its Q4 2026 guidance at 0.380-0.390 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Dynatrace will post 0.68 EPS for the current year.

Dynatrace declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a share buyback program on Monday, February 9th that allows the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the company to purchase up to 9.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are often an indication that the companys board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Activity

In other news, CAO Daniel S. Yates sold 2,000 shares of Dynatrace stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $46.69, for a total value of $93,380.00. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer directly owned 23,380 shares of the companys stock, valued at $1,091,612.20. The trade was a 7.88% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, EVP Dan Zugelder sold 7,505 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Wednesday, December 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $45.27, for a total transaction of $339,751.35. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president owned 8,925 shares of the companys stock, valued at $404,034.75. This trade represents a 45.68% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 9,843 shares of company stock valued at $448,124 in the last 90 days. 0.57% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Dynatrace

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. V Square Quantitative Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Dynatrace during the 4th quarter worth about $26,000. Cornerstone Planning Group LLC lifted its position in Dynatrace by 561.4% during the 3rd quarter. Cornerstone Planning Group LLC now owns 582 shares of the companys stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 494 shares during the period. MAI Capital Management lifted its stake in shares of Dynatrace by 122.4% in the 2nd quarter. MAI Capital Management now owns 547 shares of the companys stock valued at $30,000 after purchasing an additional 301 shares during the period. RHL Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of Dynatrace in the 4th quarter valued at about $30,000. Finally, VSM Wealth Advisory LLC acquired a new stake in Dynatrace during the 2nd quarter worth $34,000. 94.28% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Key Stories Impacting Dynatrace

Here are the key news stories impacting Dynatrace this week:

Positive Sentiment: Q3 results beat and solid growth  Dynatrace reported $0.44 EPS vs. $0.41 consensus and revenue of $515.5M (up 18.2% YoY), beating estimates and showing continued ARR momentum. BusinessWire: Q3 Results

Q3 results beat and solid growth  Dynatrace reported $0.44 EPS vs. $0.41 consensus and revenue of $515.5M (up 18.2% YoY), beating estimates and showing continued ARR momentum. Positive Sentiment: Raised guidance  management lifted Q4 FY2026 EPS guidance to $0.380$0.390 (vs. $0.300 consensus) and FY2026 EPS to $1.670$1.690 (vs. ~$1.34 consensus), signaling better-than-expected profitability and top-line outlook. BusinessWire: Guidance

Raised guidance  management lifted Q4 FY2026 EPS guidance to $0.380$0.390 (vs. $0.300 consensus) and FY2026 EPS to $1.670$1.690 (vs. ~$1.34 consensus), signaling better-than-expected profitability and top-line outlook. Positive Sentiment: $1.0 billion buyback approved  the board authorized repurchase of up to ~$1B (about 9.8% of shares), a clear signal of confidence in cash generation and a move that should be accretive to EPS and support the share price. RTT News: Buyback

$1.0 billion buyback approved  the board authorized repurchase of up to ~$1B (about 9.8% of shares), a clear signal of confidence in cash generation and a move that should be accretive to EPS and support the share price. Positive Sentiment: Analyst support  KeyCorp raised its price target to $52 and gave an overweight rating, pointing to meaningful upside from current levels. Benzinga: KeyCorp PT Raise

Analyst support  KeyCorp raised its price target to $52 and gave an overweight rating, pointing to meaningful upside from current levels. Neutral Sentiment: Mixed analyst action  BTIG cut its target from $67 to $53 but maintained a buy rating, which still implies upside but reflects a trimmed valuation view. Benzinga: BTIG Target Cut

Mixed analyst action  BTIG cut its target from $67 to $53 but maintained a buy rating, which still implies upside but reflects a trimmed valuation view. Neutral Sentiment: Media/analyst commentary highlights secular drivers  coverage notes that cloud partnerships and expanding free cash flow are supporting growth and enabling buybacks; useful context but not new data. Fool: Coverage on Drivers

Dynatrace Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Dynatrace is a global software intelligence company specializing in application performance management (APM), cloud infrastructure monitoring, and digital experience management. Its flagship offering, the Dynatrace Software Intelligence Platform, leverages artificial intelligence to provide real-time observability across distributed environments, including on-premises data centers, private clouds, public clouds and hybrid deployments. Organizations rely on Dynatrace to detect anomalies, troubleshoot performance issues and optimize end-user experiences through automated root-cause analysis powered by the companys engine, Davis.

The Dynatrace platform comprises modules for full-stack application monitoring, digital experience monitoring, infrastructure monitoring and business analytics.

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Ecovyst Inc. (NYSE:ECVT  Get Free Report)s share price hit a new 52-week high during trading on Tuesday . The company traded as high as $11.31 and last traded at $11.1650, with a volume of 87654 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $11.15.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on ECVT shares. Weiss Ratings reissued a sell (d) rating on shares of Ecovyst in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. Wall Street Zen lowered shares of Ecovyst from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Sunday, December 21st. Citigroup lifted their price objective on shares of Ecovyst from $10.00 to $12.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 21st. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lowered their target price on shares of Ecovyst from $14.00 to $11.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, November 28th. Finally, BWS Financial reissued a buy rating and issued a $12.00 target price on shares of Ecovyst in a research note on Friday, January 2nd. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Ecovyst presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $12.00.

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Ecovyst Stock Performance

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Ecovyst

The company has a 50 day moving average price of $10.09 and a 200 day moving average price of $9.18. The company has a market capitalization of $1.28 billion, a PE ratio of -12.08, a PEG ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 1.19. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 2.07 and a current ratio of 2.25.

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in ECVT. Creative Planning boosted its stake in shares of Ecovyst by 4.8% during the third quarter. Creative Planning now owns 28,622 shares of the companys stock worth $251,000 after buying an additional 1,311 shares during the period. Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank increased its stake in shares of Ecovyst by 4.3% during the 3rd quarter. Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank now owns 51,292 shares of the companys stock worth $449,000 after purchasing an additional 2,124 shares in the last quarter. Arizona State Retirement System increased its position in Ecovyst by 6.7% during the 3rd quarter. Arizona State Retirement System now owns 34,740 shares of the companys stock worth $304,000 after purchasing an additional 2,195 shares in the last quarter. CWM LLC lifted its position in Ecovyst by 63.0% during the second quarter. CWM LLC now owns 5,946 shares of the companys stock worth $49,000 after buying an additional 2,298 shares during the period. Finally, MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. grew its holdings in Ecovyst by 4.3% in the first quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 69,105 shares of the companys stock valued at $428,000 after purchasing an additional 2,874 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 86.69% of the companys stock.

About Ecovyst

(Get Free Report)

Ecovyst Inc is a global specialty chemicals company that develops, manufactures and markets performance-enhancing products for industrial applications. The companys core offerings include catalysts, phosphorus-based additives and barium carbonate materials, all designed to improve process efficiency, product quality and environmental performance. Ecovyst serves a diverse customer base in the energy, refining, chemical, polymer, food and consumer goods industries.

The companys Catalysts segment supplies fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) and hydroprocessing catalysts that help petroleum refiners maximize fuel yield, reduce sulfur emissions and meet increasingly stringent environmental standards.

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Elme Communities (NYSE:ELME  Get Free Report) is expected to be issuing its Q4 2025 results before the market opens on Thursday, February 12th. Analysts expect the company to announce earnings of $0.23 per share and revenue of $43.4790 million for the quarter. Parties can find conference call details on the companys upcoming Q4 2025 earning report page for the latest details on the call scheduled for Friday, February 20, 2026 at 4:00 PM ET.

Elme Communities Trading Up 0.5%

Shares of ELME opened at $2.23 on Tuesday. Elme Communities has a 1-year low of $2.10 and a 1-year high of $18.08. The company has a market capitalization of $196.60 million, a P/E ratio of -1.47 and a beta of 0.79. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.78, a current ratio of 0.54 and a quick ratio of 0.54. The firms 50 day simple moving average is $10.59 and its 200 day simple moving average is $14.57.

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Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in ELME. Brevan Howard Capital Management LP purchased a new stake in Elme Communities in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $389,000. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Elme Communities by 3.6% during the second quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 31,470 shares of the companys stock valued at $500,000 after acquiring an additional 1,090 shares in the last quarter. M&T Bank Corp lifted its stake in Elme Communities by 9.1% in the second quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 14,268 shares of the companys stock worth $227,000 after acquiring an additional 1,190 shares during the period. Creative Planning boosted its holdings in Elme Communities by 29.8% in the second quarter. Creative Planning now owns 14,386 shares of the companys stock valued at $229,000 after acquiring an additional 3,307 shares in the last quarter. Finally, CIBC Bancorp USA Inc. purchased a new position in Elme Communities during the 3rd quarter valued at $195,000. 87.88% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ELME has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Weiss Ratings reissued a sell (d+) rating on shares of Elme Communities in a research note on Monday, December 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price objective on Elme Communities from $19.00 to $18.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, October 21st. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Reduce and an average target price of $18.50.

Read Our Latest Stock Report on ELME

About Elme Communities

(Get Free Report)

Elme Communities, Inc is a real estate investment trust (REIT) specializing in senior living real estate. The company focuses on acquiring and strategically partnering in a diversified portfolio of senior housing communities, providing real estate solutions across the spectrum of independent living, assisted living and memory care facilities. Elme Communities leases properties to experienced operators under long-term contractual arrangements designed to generate stable rental income and align incentives for both landlord and operator.

The companys core activities include identifying acquisition opportunities, underwriting property performance, structuring lease agreements and overseeing asset management functions.

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Andrew Bailey sounded the alarm over a potential stock market bubble on Sunday - Carl Court/Getty Images

Andrew Bailey has warned of complacency in financial markets after claiming AIs productivity boom could fail to deliver.

The Governor of the Bank of England sounded the alarm over a potential stock market bubble on Sunday, warning that expectations of AI-driven productivity gains could be disappointed.

This could have damaging consequences for the global economy after investors have piled trillions of dollars into AI companies, largely in the hope that the technology will unleash a global productivity boom.

He said: We have seen evidence of fear of missing out, backed by arguments along the lines of, This time is different, for instance, because of the expected productivity benefits of AI.

He said this has raised the risk of some complacency in financial markets.

I am an optimist on the potential for AI and robotics to move the dial on productivity, and thus economic growth, he said. But I like to think I am a realistic optimist.

My impression is that we have made more progress so far applying AI to well-defined task-based work rather than more ambitious goals, which I dont find surprising.

It comes after a week of turmoil on stock markets prompted by fears about the impact of AI.

Many tech companies were hammered by a global sell-off, with software stocks hit particularly hard over concerns their business models will be upended by AI.

Speaking at a conference in Saudi Arabia, the Banks chief said the threat from a potential AI bubble is just one of several facing the global economy.

He also warned about increased geopolitical tensions, further disruption to global trade and growing debt pressures.

Mr Baileys warning about AI echoes concerns raised by the European Central Bank.

In its most recent Financial Stability Review, the bank warned that record stock valuations for AI companies could reflect fears of missing out on a continued rally rather than what the companies can deliver.

It added: Current market pricing does not appear to reflect persistently elevated vulnerabilities and uncertainties.

The Bank of England also warned in December that valuations were particularly stretched for companies focused on AI, which has been bankrolled by trillions of dollars in debt.

Deeper links between AI firms and credit markets, and increasing interconnections between those firms, mean that, should an asset price correction occur, losses on lending could increase financial stability risks, it said.

Mr Baileys warning about AI clashes with recent comments made by Kevin Warsh, who has been nominated by Donald Trump to replace Jay Powell as the chair of the Federal Reserve.
Envestnet Asset Management Inc. trimmed its stake in Nu Holdings Ltd. (NYSE:NU  Free Report) by 5.1% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 3,195,158 shares of the companys stock after selling 173,084 shares during the quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. owned approximately 0.07% of NU worth $51,154,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Norges Bank purchased a new position in NU in the second quarter valued at approximately $626,569,000. Jennison Associates LLC raised its stake in shares of NU by 38.1% in the second quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 41,962,679 shares of the companys stock valued at $575,728,000 after buying an additional 11,567,865 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. lifted its position in shares of NU by 91.9% during the 3rd quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 16,101,679 shares of the companys stock valued at $257,788,000 after buying an additional 7,709,707 shares during the last quarter. Marshall Wace LLP lifted its position in shares of NU by 106.3% during the 2nd quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 14,691,671 shares of the companys stock valued at $201,570,000 after buying an additional 7,569,233 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Los Angeles Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of NU by 50,169.4% during the 2nd quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 7,471,039 shares of the companys stock worth $102,503,000 after acquiring an additional 7,456,177 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 84.02% of the companys stock.

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Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on NU shares. Susquehanna boosted their price objective on NU from $19.00 to $22.00 and gave the company a positive rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 27th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price target on shares of NU from $17.00 to $18.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Thursday, November 20th. KeyCorp upped their price target on shares of NU from $15.00 to $19.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Friday, November 14th. The Goldman Sachs Group reiterated a buy rating and issued a $21.00 price objective on shares of NU in a research note on Thursday, December 18th. Finally, UBS Group increased their target price on NU from $16.00 to $18.40 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Thursday, December 4th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, ten have given a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $18.34.

NU Trading Up 0.6%

Shares of NU stock opened at $17.50 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $84.33 billion, a PE ratio of 34.31, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.56 and a beta of 1.08. Nu Holdings Ltd. has a 52-week low of $9.01 and a 52-week high of $18.98. The businesss fifty day moving average is $17.15 and its 200 day moving average is $15.73. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29, a quick ratio of 0.56 and a current ratio of 0.56.

NU (NYSE:NU  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 13th. The company reported $0.17 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.15 by $0.02. NU had a return on equity of 30.12% and a net margin of 17.97%.The company had revenue of $2.79 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.96 billion. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Nu Holdings Ltd. will post 0.58 EPS for the current fiscal year.

About NU

(Free Report)

Nu Holdings Ltd (NYSE: NU), commonly known by its consumer brand Nubank, is a Latin American financial technology company that provides digital banking and financial services through a mobile-first platform. The companys core offerings include no-fee digital checking accounts, credit cards, personal loans, payments and transfers, and a range of savings and investment products. Nubank emphasizes a streamlined customer experience delivered via its smartphone app, combined with data-driven underwriting and automated customer service tools.

Founded in 2013 by David Velez, Cristina Junqueira and Edward Wible, Nu grew rapidly by targeting underbanked and digitally savvy consumers in Latin America with low-fee, transparent products.

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Eversource Energy (NYSE:ES  Get Free Report) is expected to be posting its Q4 2025 results after the market closes on Thursday, February 12th. Analysts expect Eversource Energy to post earnings of $1.19 per share and revenue of $2.9382 billion for the quarter. Parties can find conference call details on the companys upcoming Q4 2025 earning report page for the latest details on the call scheduled for Friday, February 13, 2026 at 9:00 AM ET.

Eversource Energy Stock Performance

NYSE ES opened at $67.62 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.68, a current ratio of 0.71 and a quick ratio of 0.64. Eversource Energy has a 1-year low of $52.28 and a 1-year high of $75.25. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $68.10 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $68.34. The stock has a market capitalization of $25.37 billion, a PE ratio of 18.53, a P/E/G ratio of 2.30 and a beta of 0.77.

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Eversource Energy Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, March 31st. Investors of record on Thursday, March 5th will be issued a $0.7875 dividend. This represents a $3.15 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.7%. This is a boost from Eversource Energys previous quarterly dividend of $0.75. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, March 5th. Eversource Energys payout ratio is 82.47%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. BMO Capital Markets decreased their price target on shares of Eversource Energy from $79.00 to $77.00 and set a market perform rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, November 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their target price on shares of Eversource Energy from $72.00 to $71.00 and set an underweight rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, December 12th. Scotiabank dropped their price target on Eversource Energy from $64.00 to $63.00 and set a sector underperform rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, November 20th. UBS Group decreased their price objective on Eversource Energy from $78.00 to $73.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, December 17th. Finally, Bank of America upgraded Eversource Energy from a neutral rating to a buy rating and lifted their target price for the stock from $73.00 to $85.00 in a report on Tuesday, October 21st. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have given a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Eversource Energy has an average rating of Reduce and a consensus target price of $71.50.

Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on ES

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Eversource Energy

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of ES. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its position in Eversource Energy by 412.7% in the 3rd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,800,618 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $127,133,000 after acquiring an additional 1,449,388 shares during the last quarter. Man Group plc grew its holdings in shares of Eversource Energy by 131.6% in the second quarter. Man Group plc now owns 1,017,454 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $64,730,000 after purchasing an additional 578,230 shares during the last quarter. Adage Capital Partners GP L.L.C. grew its holdings in shares of Eversource Energy by 168.6% in the second quarter. Adage Capital Partners GP L.L.C. now owns 899,034 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $57,197,000 after purchasing an additional 564,300 shares during the last quarter. Amundi increased its stake in Eversource Energy by 23.0% in the 3rd quarter. Amundi now owns 2,321,637 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $168,783,000 after buying an additional 434,695 shares during the period. Finally, Danske Bank A S bought a new stake in Eversource Energy during the 3rd quarter valued at about $23,378,000. 79.99% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Eversource Energy Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Eversource Energy (NYSE: ES) is a publicly traded, regulated energy company headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut. The companys core business is the delivery and transmission of electricity and natural gas to residential, commercial and industrial customers across parts of New England. Eversource operates transmission and distribution networks, maintains electrical infrastructure, responds to outages and storms, and manages natural gas pipeline and distribution systems in the regions it serves.

Eversource serves customers primarily in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, operating through locally regulated utility subsidiaries that administer customer service, billing, meter reading and localized operations.

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First National Trust Co reduced its stake in McDonalds Corporation (NYSE:MCD  Free Report) by 5.2% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 68,015 shares of the fast-food giants stock after selling 3,743 shares during the quarter. First National Trust Cos holdings in McDonalds were worth $20,669,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the stock. WD Rutherford LLC lifted its stake in shares of McDonalds by 1.0% in the 3rd quarter. WD Rutherford LLC now owns 3,261 shares of the fast-food giants stock worth $991,000 after acquiring an additional 33 shares during the period. Redhawk Wealth Advisors Inc. lifted its position in McDonalds by 1.4% in the third quarter. Redhawk Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 2,423 shares of the fast-food giants stock valued at $736,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the period. Symmetry Partners LLC lifted its position in McDonalds by 2.0% in the third quarter. Symmetry Partners LLC now owns 1,771 shares of the fast-food giants stock valued at $538,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the period. Jackson Hole Capital Partners LLC boosted its holdings in McDonalds by 0.3% in the 3rd quarter. Jackson Hole Capital Partners LLC now owns 11,032 shares of the fast-food giants stock valued at $3,352,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. Finally, NorthStar Asset Management LLC NJ increased its position in McDonalds by 3.6% during the 2nd quarter. NorthStar Asset Management LLC NJ now owns 1,003 shares of the fast-food giants stock worth $293,000 after purchasing an additional 35 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 70.29% of the companys stock.

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Insider Activity

In other McDonalds news, EVP Manuel Jm Steijaert sold 6,567 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $305.50, for a total transaction of $2,006,218.50. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president owned 4,606 shares in the company, valued at $1,407,133. This trade represents a 58.78% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CFO Ian Frederick Borden sold 17,134 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $310.00, for a total transaction of $5,311,540.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 26,353 shares of the companys stock, valued at $8,169,430. The trade was a 39.40% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 32,008 shares of company stock worth $9,895,452. Company insiders own 0.25% of the companys stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

MCD has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Weiss Ratings restated a buy (b-) rating on shares of McDonalds in a research note on Wednesday, January 28th. KeyCorp boosted their target price on shares of McDonalds from $335.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Friday, January 9th. Truist Financial increased their price target on shares of McDonalds from $350.00 to $356.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Thursday, January 8th. UBS Group reissued a buy rating and set a $350.00 price objective on shares of McDonalds in a report on Monday, February 2nd. Finally, Robert W. Baird upped their target price on shares of McDonalds from $322.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Thursday, November 6th. Fifteen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, fourteen have issued a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $332.30.

Check Out Our Latest Analysis on McDonalds

McDonalds Stock Down 0.5%

NYSE:MCD opened at $325.57 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $231.85 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.78, a P/E/G ratio of 3.31 and a beta of 0.52. The firms 50 day moving average is $311.40 and its two-hundred day moving average is $307.60. McDonalds Corporation has a fifty-two week low of $283.47 and a fifty-two week high of $328.06.

McDonalds Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, March 17th. Investors of record on Tuesday, March 3rd will be given a dividend of $1.86 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, March 3rd. This represents a $7.44 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.3%. McDonaldss payout ratio is 63.48%.

McDonalds Company Profile

(Free Report)

McDonalds Corporation (NYSE: MCD) is a global quick-service restaurant company best known for its hamburgers, French fries and breakfast offerings. The company develops, operates and franchises a system of restaurants that sell a range of food and beverage items, including signature products such as the Big Mac, Quarter Pounder, Chicken McNuggets, McCafe coffee beverages and a variety of salads, desserts and seasonal menu items. McDonalds serves customers through company-operated restaurants and franchised locations, and it supports sales via dine-in, drive-thru, digital ordering platforms and third-party delivery partnerships.

Founded in 1940 by brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald as a single San Bernardino, California restaurant, the business was transformed into a franchising model after Ray Kroc joined in the mid-1950s and led the brands national and international expansion.

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Fortis (NYSE:FTS  Get Free Report) is expected to release its Q4 2025 results before the market opens on Thursday, February 12th. Analysts expect Fortis to post earnings of $0.61 per share and revenue of $2.5371 billion for the quarter. Investors can find conference call details on the companys upcoming Q4 2025 earning report page for the latest details on the call scheduled for Thursday, February 12, 2026 at 8:30 AM ET.

Fortis Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:FTS opened at $54.11 on Tuesday. Fortis has a 12-month low of $42.95 and a 12-month high of $55.34. The companys 50 day moving average price is $52.07 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $51.05. The firm has a market cap of $27.45 billion, a PE ratio of 22.55, a PEG ratio of 4.22 and a beta of 0.50. The company has a quick ratio of 0.54, a current ratio of 0.66 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32.

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Fortis Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Sunday, March 1st. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 17th will be given a dividend of $0.64 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 17th. This represents a $2.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.7%. Fortiss dividend payout ratio is currently 75.83%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have weighed in on FTS shares. National Bankshares reaffirmed a sector perform rating on shares of Fortis in a report on Wednesday, November 5th. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce reaffirmed an outperform rating on shares of Fortis in a research report on Tuesday, October 21st. BMO Capital Markets reiterated a market perform rating on shares of Fortis in a research note on Wednesday, November 5th. Finally, Weiss Ratings restated a buy (b) rating on shares of Fortis in a research report on Thursday, January 22nd. Five analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and six have assigned a Hold rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $72.00.

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Hedge Funds Weigh In On Fortis

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in FTS. Public Sector Pension Investment Board boosted its position in Fortis by 0.6% in the second quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board now owns 48,548 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $2,313,000 after buying an additional 300 shares in the last quarter. Royal London Asset Management Ltd. lifted its stake in shares of Fortis by 0.9% in the 2nd quarter. Royal London Asset Management Ltd. now owns 34,938 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $1,668,000 after acquiring an additional 325 shares during the last quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC lifted its stake in shares of Fortis by 123.9% in the 3rd quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC now owns 739 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $37,000 after acquiring an additional 409 shares during the last quarter. Towarzystwo Funduszy Inwestycyjnych PZU SA boosted its holdings in shares of Fortis by 157.4% during the 3rd quarter. Towarzystwo Funduszy Inwestycyjnych PZU SA now owns 700 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $36,000 after acquiring an additional 428 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cerity Partners LLC grew its position in Fortis by 4.4% during the 2nd quarter. Cerity Partners LLC now owns 10,343 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $494,000 after acquiring an additional 439 shares during the last quarter. 57.77% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Fortis Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Fortis Inc is a Canadian diversified electric and gas utility holding company headquartered in St. Johns, Newfoundland and Labrador. Through a portfolio of regulated utility subsidiaries, the company develops, owns and operates electricity and natural gas transmission, distribution and generation assets. Fortis serves customers across multiple jurisdictions in Canada, the United States and the Caribbean, focusing on the delivery of safe, reliable energy to residential, commercial and industrial users.

The companys core activities include operation and maintenance of transmission and distribution networks, ownership of generation facilities, and investment in grid modernization and system resilience.

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Gallagher Capital Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of iShares Core High Dividend ETF (NYSEARCA:HDV  Free Report) by 65.3% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 30,600 shares of the exchange traded funds stock after purchasing an additional 12,086 shares during the quarter. iShares Core High Dividend ETF accounts for approximately 2.2% of Gallagher Capital Advisors LLCs holdings, making the stock its 16th biggest position. Gallagher Capital Advisors LLCs holdings in iShares Core High Dividend ETF were worth $3,619,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of HDV. Bank of America Corp DE lifted its stake in shares of iShares Core High Dividend ETF by 3.6% in the 2nd quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 4,501,871 shares of the exchange traded funds stock worth $527,484,000 after acquiring an additional 155,098 shares during the period. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its holdings in iShares Core High Dividend ETF by 3.8% during the second quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 1,203,661 shares of the exchange traded funds stock worth $141,033,000 after purchasing an additional 43,852 shares in the last quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC lifted its position in iShares Core High Dividend ETF by 5.9% in the second quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC now owns 837,859 shares of the exchange traded funds stock valued at $98,172,000 after purchasing an additional 46,414 shares during the period. Securian Asset Management Inc. boosted its holdings in iShares Core High Dividend ETF by 2.0% in the 3rd quarter. Securian Asset Management Inc. now owns 778,802 shares of the exchange traded funds stock valued at $95,364,000 after purchasing an additional 15,000 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Envestnet Asset Management Inc. boosted its holdings in iShares Core High Dividend ETF by 2.9% in the 2nd quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 770,855 shares of the exchange traded funds stock valued at $90,321,000 after purchasing an additional 21,454 shares in the last quarter.

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iShares Core High Dividend ETF Trading Down 0.1%

Shares of HDV stock opened at $136.98 on Tuesday. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $125.47 and a 200-day simple moving average of $122.84. The company has a market cap of $13.29 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.55 and a beta of 0.64. iShares Core High Dividend ETF has a 12-month low of $106.00 and a 12-month high of $137.20.

About iShares Core High Dividend ETF

The iShares Core High Dividend ETF (HDV) is an exchange-traded fund that is based on the Morningstar Dividend Yield Focus index. The fund tracks a dividend-weighted index of 75 high-yielding US equities, screened for high earnings potential and dividend sustainability. HDV was launched on Mar 29, 2011 and is managed by BlackRock.

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Harley-Davidson (NYSE:HOG  Get Free Report) posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday. The company reported ($2.44) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.92) by ($1.52), FiscalAI reports. Harley-Davidson had a return on equity of 15.19% and a net margin of 11.37%.The company had revenue of $496.16 million for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $482.21 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned ($0.93) EPS. The firms revenue was down 9.8% on a year-over-year basis.

Harley-Davidson Trading Down 1.7%

HOG opened at $20.15 on Tuesday. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $21.05 and a 200 day moving average price of $24.80. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.88, a current ratio of 2.51 and a quick ratio of 2.36. Harley-Davidson has a 12 month low of $19.33 and a 12 month high of $31.25. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.38 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 4.89, a PEG ratio of 0.52 and a beta of 1.39.

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Harley-Davidson Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 22nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, December 9th were issued a $0.18 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, December 9th. This represents a $0.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.6%. Harley-Davidsons dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 17.48%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Harley-Davidson

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Centaurus Financial Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Harley-Davidson during the third quarter worth approximately $168,000. Armistice Capital LLC acquired a new position in Harley-Davidson during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $362,000. CANADA LIFE ASSURANCE Co increased its position in shares of Harley-Davidson by 5.3% in the 3rd quarter. CANADA LIFE ASSURANCE Co now owns 128,247 shares of the companys stock valued at $3,679,000 after purchasing an additional 6,445 shares during the last quarter. Triumph Capital Management increased its position in shares of Harley-Davidson by 4.7% in the 3rd quarter. Triumph Capital Management now owns 10,171 shares of the companys stock valued at $284,000 after purchasing an additional 454 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Dark Forest Capital Management LP raised its holdings in shares of Harley-Davidson by 3.4% in the 3rd quarter. Dark Forest Capital Management LP now owns 26,445 shares of the companys stock valued at $738,000 after purchasing an additional 872 shares in the last quarter. 85.10% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Citigroup reduced their price target on shares of Harley-Davidson from $28.00 to $23.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 14th. DA Davidson dropped their target price on shares of Harley-Davidson from $34.00 to $30.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a report on Monday, November 10th. Loop Capital started coverage on Harley-Davidson in a research note on Tuesday, November 25th. They set a hold rating and a $21.00 price target on the stock. Weiss Ratings restated a hold (c-) rating on shares of Harley-Davidson in a research report on Thursday, January 22nd. Finally, Zacks Research upgraded Harley-Davidson from a strong sell rating to a hold rating in a report on Wednesday, November 26th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $25.86.

Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on HOG

About Harley-Davidson

(Get Free Report)

Harley-Davidson, Inc is a renowned American motorcycle manufacturer best known for its heavyweight cruiser and touring bikes. Founded in 1903 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the company has built a strong reputation for producing distinctive motorcycles characterized by their signature V-twin engines, chrome finishes and robust frames. Harley-Davidson markets its products globally through a network of franchised dealerships and focuses on delivering an immersive brand experience to its customers, emphasizing lifestyle and community alongside its motorcycles.

In addition to its core motorcycle business, Harley-Davidson offers an extensive range of parts, accessories and apparel under its Genuine Motor Parts & Accessories and MotorClothes lines.

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Harpswell Capital Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Vanguard ESG International Stock ETF (BATS:VSGX  Free Report) in the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund acquired 573,800 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $39,805,000. Vanguard ESG International Stock ETF makes up about 38.0% of Harpswell Capital Advisors LLCs holdings, making the stock its biggest position. Harpswell Capital Advisors LLC owned 0.82% of Vanguard ESG International Stock ETF as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in VSGX. Bogart Wealth LLC acquired a new position in shares of Vanguard ESG International Stock ETF in the 3rd quarter valued at $27,000. AE Wealth Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Vanguard ESG International Stock ETF by 835.4% in the third quarter. AE Wealth Management LLC now owns 608 shares of the companys stock valued at $42,000 after acquiring an additional 543 shares in the last quarter. WFA of San Diego LLC purchased a new position in shares of Vanguard ESG International Stock ETF during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $69,000. GPS Wealth Strategies Group LLC lifted its holdings in Vanguard ESG International Stock ETF by 124.3% in the third quarter. GPS Wealth Strategies Group LLC now owns 1,209 shares of the companys stock valued at $84,000 after acquiring an additional 670 shares during the period. Finally, Mascoma Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in Vanguard ESG International Stock ETF during the third quarter worth about $129,000.

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Vanguard ESG International Stock ETF Price Performance

Shares of VSGX opened at $78.07 on Tuesday. Vanguard ESG International Stock ETF has a 1-year low of $51.98 and a 1-year high of $78.07. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $73.42 and a 200-day simple moving average of $70.48. The stock has a market cap of $5.47 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.83 and a beta of 0.79.

Vanguard ESG International Stock ETF Company Profile

The Vanguard ESG International Stock ETF (VSGX) is an exchange-traded fund that is based on the FTSE Global All Cap ex USA Choice index, a market-cap-weighted index of global ex-US companies screened for environmental, social, and corporate governance criteria. VSGX was launched on Sep 18, 2018 and is managed by Vanguard.

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Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. decreased its position in shares of Hubbell Inc (NYSE:HUBB  Free Report) by 1.8% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 93,271 shares of the industrial products companys stock after selling 1,674 shares during the quarter. Johnson Investment Counsel Inc.s holdings in Hubbell were worth $40,135,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Boston Partners acquired a new position in Hubbell during the second quarter worth approximately $230,691,000. Troy Asset Management Ltd purchased a new position in shares of Hubbell during the second quarter worth approximately $132,540,000. Bain Capital Public Equity Management II LLC acquired a new position in shares of Hubbell in the 2nd quarter valued at $132,286,000. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA increased its holdings in shares of Hubbell by 15.9% in the 3rd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 1,655,746 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $712,484,000 after acquiring an additional 226,856 shares during the period. Finally, Merewether Investment Management LP purchased a new stake in Hubbell in the 2nd quarter valued at $68,164,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 88.16% of the companys stock.

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Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, Director John F. Malloy purchased 435 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 17th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $429.24 per share, with a total value of $186,719.40. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director directly owned 19,085 shares in the company, valued at $8,192,045.40. The trade was a 2.33% increase in their position. The acquisition was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Insiders own 0.76% of the companys stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on HUBB. Evercore increased their target price on shares of Hubbell from $575.00 to $585.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 4th. UBS Group reaffirmed a neutral rating and set a $450.00 price objective on shares of Hubbell in a research note on Friday, December 12th. Stephens reaffirmed an overweight rating and set a $550.00 price objective on shares of Hubbell in a research report on Thursday. Weiss Ratings reissued a buy (b-) rating on shares of Hubbell in a report on Thursday, January 22nd. Finally, Wall Street Zen cut Hubbell from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research note on Sunday. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $529.75.

Read Our Latest Analysis on Hubbell

Hubbell Stock Up 0.4%

Hubbell stock opened at $505.81 on Tuesday. Hubbell Inc has a fifty-two week low of $299.42 and a fifty-two week high of $513.59. The firm has a market capitalization of $26.88 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.34, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.55 and a beta of 1.02. The stocks fifty day moving average is $465.54 and its two-hundred day moving average is $445.37. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a quick ratio of 1.00 and a current ratio of 1.72.

Hubbell (NYSE:HUBB  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 3rd. The industrial products company reported $4.73 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.70 by $0.03. Hubbell had a net margin of 15.29% and a return on equity of 27.45%. The business had revenue of $1.49 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.49 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $4.10 EPS. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 11.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Hubbell has set its FY 2026 guidance at 19.150-19.850 EPS. Analysts predict that Hubbell Inc will post 17.63 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Hubbell Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 16th. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 27th will be issued a dividend of $1.42 per share. This represents a $5.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.1%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 27th. Hubbells dividend payout ratio is 34.07%.

About Hubbell

(Free Report)

Hubbell Incorporated (NYSE: HUBB) is an industrial manufacturer and distributor of electrical and electronic products serving a range of end markets including commercial and residential construction, industrial, and utility customers. Founded in 1888 by Harvey Hubbell, the company has a long history in electrical innovation and product development and is headquartered in Connecticut. Hubbell designs, manufactures and sells components and systems that enable the distribution and control of electrical power and provide lighting solutions for indoor and outdoor environments.

The companys offerings span a broad portfolio of products used by contractors, utilities, original equipment manufacturers and facility owners.

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Knowles Corporation (NYSE:KN  Get Free Report) SVP Robert Perna sold 3,166 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $27.09, for a total transaction of $85,766.94. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president owned 60,440 shares of the companys stock, valued at $1,637,319.60. This trade represents a 4.98% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website.

Knowles Trading Down 1.0%

Shares of NYSE KN traded down $0.26 during midday trading on Tuesday, hitting $26.98. 336,478 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 739,794. Knowles Corporation has a 12-month low of $12.19 and a 12-month high of $27.55. The firm has a market cap of $2.30 billion, a P/E ratio of 52.90 and a beta of 1.52. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $23.40 and a 200 day moving average price of $22.55. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a quick ratio of 1.58 and a current ratio of 2.75.

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Knowles (NYSE:KN  Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, February 5th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.36 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.35 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $162.20 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $156.23 million. Knowles had a return on equity of 9.76% and a net margin of 7.45%.The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 13.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.27 EPS. Knowles has set its Q1 2026 guidance at 0.220-0.260 EPS.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Susquehanna lifted their price target on shares of Knowles from $18.00 to $23.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 22nd. Robert W. Baird set a $30.00 target price on shares of Knowles in a research note on Friday, October 24th. Zacks Research raised Knowles to a hold rating in a research report on Friday, December 19th. Craig Hallum restated a buy rating and issued a $30.00 price target on shares of Knowles in a research note on Friday. Finally, Weiss Ratings reiterated a hold (c) rating on shares of Knowles in a research note on Monday, December 29th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $27.67.

Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on KN

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of KN. Royal Bank of Canada boosted its position in shares of Knowles by 27.0% during the first quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 70,073 shares of the communications equipment providers stock valued at $1,064,000 after buying an additional 14,900 shares during the last quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. lifted its stake in Knowles by 4.5% during the 1st quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 51,722 shares of the communications equipment providers stock valued at $786,000 after acquiring an additional 2,245 shares during the period. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Knowles by 7.1% during the 1st quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 238,557 shares of the communications equipment providers stock valued at $3,626,000 after acquiring an additional 15,827 shares during the last quarter. Jane Street Group LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Knowles during the 1st quarter valued at about $3,335,000. Finally, Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Knowles by 39.7% during the second quarter. Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. now owns 71,984 shares of the communications equipment providers stock valued at $1,268,000 after purchasing an additional 20,441 shares during the last quarter. 96.35% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About Knowles

(Get Free Report)

Knowles Corporation (NYSE: KN) is a leading developer and manufacturer of advanced micro-acoustic, audio processing and precision device solutions. The companys product portfolio includes microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) microphones, balanced armature receivers, acoustic filters, and custom audio processing integrated circuits. These solutions are designed to enable clear speech, enhanced voice capture and intelligent audio performance in a variety of end markets.

Founded in 1946, Knowles has evolved from its roots in vacuum tube components to become a pure-play audio technology provider following its spin-off from Dover Corporation in 2014.

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Integra Resources (CVE:ITR  Get Free Report) had its target price raised by research analysts at Raymond James Financial from C$8.00 to C$9.00 in a note issued to investors on Tuesday,BayStreet.CA reports. The brokerage presently has an outperform rating on the stock. Raymond James Financials price objective would suggest a potential upside of 80.72% from the companys previous close.

A number of other research firms also recently commented on ITR. Canaccord Genuity Group set a C$9.25 price target on Integra Resources and gave the company a moderate buy rating in a research note on Monday, January 12th. Roth Mkm raised Integra Resources to a strong-buy rating in a report on Monday, December 8th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus upped their price objective on Integra Resources from C$7.00 to C$8.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Monday, December 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating and three have assigned a Buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Integra Resources has a consensus rating of Buy and an average price target of C$8.75.

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View Our Latest Research Report on Integra Resources

Integra Resources Price Performance

Integra Resources Company Profile

Shares of CVE ITR traded up C$0.02 during midday trading on Tuesday, reaching C$4.98. The companys stock had a trading volume of 279,310 shares, compared to its average volume of 503,466. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 35.54, a quick ratio of 1.49 and a current ratio of 0.82. The company has a market cap of C$913.17 million, a P/E ratio of 33.20 and a beta of 1.48. The businesss 50 day moving average price is C$5.58 and its two-hundred day moving average price is C$4.30. Integra Resources has a fifty-two week low of C$1.49 and a fifty-two week high of C$6.60.

(Get Free Report)

Integra Resources Corp., a precious metals exploration and development company, engages in the acquisition, exploration, and development of mineral properties in the Great Basin of the Western United States. The company explores for gold and silver deposits. It primarily focuses on developing DeLamar Project located in southwestern Idaho; and the Wildcat and Mountain View Projects located in western Nevada. It also holds a portfolio of early-stage exploration projects in Idaho, Nevada, and Arizona.

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As of this writing on the afternoon of Feb. 5, Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) is getting punched in the gut, falling 11%. This extends a worrying trend, as the digital asset trades 41% below its October 2025 peak.

The most valuable cryptocurrency's latest plunge has the traders panicking. Long-term investors shouldn't worry, though, as there's still a compelling opportunity.

Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue 

Image source: Getty Images.

There's a lot of noise

As an entirely new monetary system that is digital and decentralized and that runs independently of the Federal Reserve or other central banks, Bitcoin is trying to bring forth an entirely new paradigm. If it wants to become a base layer upon which a new financial network operates, it makes sense that the goal is to first become a store of value.

The fact that it isn't at that point yet shouldn't be surprising. This is a technology that isn't even 18 years old. It's aiming to disrupt the Federal Reserve system that's been in place since 1913.

This doesn't stop people from panicking if things don't progress as a smooth line up and to the right. There's also no shortage of market observers with opinions on what's causing the selling pressure, whether it's forced liquidations, lower institutional demand, or general risk-off sentiment due to macro and geopolitical forces.

At a high level, Bitcoin still trades like a speculative investment play. It's worth mentioning that its latest blip isn't unique to the crypto. Popular digital assets like Ethereum and XRP are getting obliterated, as is silver. Gold is down in the past week, and the Invesco QQQ Trust has fallen 4% in February.

Focus on the signal

Bitcoin isn't a traditional company that sells products and services, generates revenue and cash flows, and has a management team. The fundamentals, however, are still worth paying attention to.

In the past 12 months, favorable regulation has been introduced in the U.S. There's a pro-Bitcoin President in the White House. The Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission supports Bitcoin, and Fed Chair nominee Kevin Warsh has spoken favorably about Bitcoin in the past.

Bitcoin's hashrate, a proxy for how secure the network is, is still near its all-time high. The number of public companies that own it has increased over time, and innovative solutions that leverage Bitcoin continue to be introduced.
Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE  Free Report) from a sell rating to a hold rating in a report issued on Saturday.

A number of other research firms have also issued reports on ICE. Piper Sandler reissued an overweight rating and issued a $195.00 target price (down previously from $202.00) on shares of Intercontinental Exchange in a report on Wednesday, January 14th. Barclays set a $193.00 price objective on shares of Intercontinental Exchange and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Friday. Royal Bank Of Canada restated an outperform rating and issued a $180.00 target price on shares of Intercontinental Exchange in a research note on Tuesday, January 6th. TD Cowen reiterated a buy rating on shares of Intercontinental Exchange in a research note on Friday. Finally, Morgan Stanley set a $180.00 price objective on shares of Intercontinental Exchange and gave the company an equal weight rating in a research report on Thursday, January 15th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nine have assigned a Buy rating and one has assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of Buy and a consensus price target of $195.10.

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Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on ICE

Intercontinental Exchange Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:ICE opened at $169.47 on Friday. Intercontinental Exchange has a one year low of $143.17 and a one year high of $189.35. The stock has a market capitalization of $96.24 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.37, a PEG ratio of 2.04 and a beta of 1.02. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $165.44 and a 200-day simple moving average of $166.21. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.64, a quick ratio of 1.02 and a current ratio of 1.02.

Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 5th. The financial services provider reported $1.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.67 by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $3.14 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $2.51 billion. Intercontinental Exchange had a return on equity of 13.99% and a net margin of 26.23%.The firms revenue for the quarter was up 7.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.52 EPS. On average, analysts predict that Intercontinental Exchange will post 6.73 EPS for the current year.

Intercontinental Exchange Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 31st. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, December 16th will be issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.2%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, December 16th. Intercontinental Exchanges dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 33.28%.

Insider Activity at Intercontinental Exchange

In other Intercontinental Exchange news, CTO Mayur Kapani sold 5,345 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $156.67, for a total value of $837,401.15. Following the sale, the chief technology officer owned 65,240 shares of the companys stock, valued at $10,221,150.80. This represents a 7.57% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, SVP Douglas Foley sold 1,600 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $163.20, for a total transaction of $261,120.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president directly owned 24,196 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $3,948,787.20. This trade represents a 6.20% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold a total of 168,709 shares of company stock valued at $25,955,387 in the last quarter. 1.00% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Intercontinental Exchange

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Intercontinental Exchange in the 2nd quarter valued at about $1,542,780,000. Wellington Management Group LLP raised its position in shares of Intercontinental Exchange by 64.7% in the third quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 10,354,224 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $1,744,480,000 after buying an additional 4,067,922 shares during the last quarter. Sands Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Intercontinental Exchange by 97.3% during the second quarter. Sands Capital Management LLC now owns 5,313,039 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $974,783,000 after buying an additional 2,620,310 shares during the period. C WorldWide Group Holding A S boosted its position in Intercontinental Exchange by 29,199.5% during the second quarter. C WorldWide Group Holding A S now owns 1,652,201 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $303,129,000 after acquiring an additional 1,646,562 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Mawer Investment Management Ltd. grew its stake in Intercontinental Exchange by 179.1% in the 3rd quarter. Mawer Investment Management Ltd. now owns 2,472,366 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $416,544,000 after acquiring an additional 1,586,620 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 89.30% of the companys stock.

About Intercontinental Exchange

(Get Free Report)

Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE) is a global operator of exchanges, clearing houses and data services that provides infrastructure for the trading, clearing, settlement and information needs of financial and commodity markets. Founded in 2000 by Jeffrey C. Sprecher as an electronic energy trading platform, the company has grown through organic expansion and acquisitions to operate a broad portfolio of assets spanning listed equities, futures and options, fixed income, and over-the-counter derivatives.

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iShares Global Financials ETF (NYSEARCA:IXG  Get Free Report)s stock price reached a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Monday . The stock traded as high as $124.32 and last traded at $124.20, with a volume of 7676 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $123.49.

iShares Global Financials ETF Trading Up 0.5%

The company has a market capitalization of $676.29 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.77 and a beta of 0.93. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $121.05 and a 200 day moving average price of $116.88.

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Institutional Trading of iShares Global Financials ETF

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in IXG. BOKF NA bought a new position in shares of iShares Global Financials ETF in the 3rd quarter valued at about $37,000. Atlantic Union Bankshares Corp bought a new position in iShares Global Financials ETF in the second quarter valued at approximately $45,000. Blair William & Co. IL grew its holdings in iShares Global Financials ETF by 112.2% during the 3rd quarter. Blair William & Co. IL now owns 488 shares of the companys stock worth $57,000 after acquiring an additional 258 shares during the period. Sava Infond d.o.o. raised its position in shares of iShares Global Financials ETF by 43.8% during the 3rd quarter. Sava Infond d.o.o. now owns 575 shares of the companys stock valued at $67,000 after acquiring an additional 175 shares during the last quarter. Finally, AE Wealth Management LLC raised its position in shares of iShares Global Financials ETF by 87,900.0% during the 3rd quarter. AE Wealth Management LLC now owns 880 shares of the companys stock valued at $103,000 after acquiring an additional 879 shares during the last quarter.

About iShares Global Financials ETF

Ishares S&P Global Financials Sector Index Fund, formerly iShares Global Financials ETF (the Fund), is an exchange-traded fund (ETF). The Fund seeks investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance of companies that Standard & Poors deems part of the financial sector of the economy and important to global markets, as represented by the S&P Global 1200 Financials Sector Index (the Index). The Index is a subset of the Standard & Poors Global 1200 Index. The Index includes major banks, diversified financial companies, insurance companies, real estate companies, savings and loan associations, and securities brokers.

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iShares MSCI Israel ETF (NYSEARCA:EIS  Get Free Report)s stock price reached a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $123.55 and last traded at $123.3360, with a volume of 10979 shares. The stock had previously closed at $121.33.

iShares MSCI Israel ETF Stock Up 1.6%

The company has a market capitalization of $795.32 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.79 and a beta of 1.03. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $114.58 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $103.47.

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Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Royal Bank of Canada increased its holdings in iShares MSCI Israel ETF by 55.1% during the 1st quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 17,203 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,278,000 after purchasing an additional 6,115 shares in the last quarter. Jane Street Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of iShares MSCI Israel ETF during the first quarter worth about $5,684,000. International Assets Investment Management LLC acquired a new position in iShares MSCI Israel ETF during the second quarter valued at approximately $268,000. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. lifted its stake in iShares MSCI Israel ETF by 9.4% in the 2nd quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 4,575 shares of the companys stock valued at $434,000 after purchasing an additional 393 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Allworth Financial LP boosted its position in iShares MSCI Israel ETF by 133.0% during the second quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 953 shares of the companys stock worth $90,000 after purchasing an additional 544 shares during the period.

iShares MSCI Israel ETF Company Profile

The iShares MSCI Israel ETF (EIS) is an exchange-traded fund that is based on the MSCI Israel Capped index, a market-cap-weighted index of Israeli firms. EIS was launched on Mar 26, 2008 and is managed by BlackRock.

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iShares S&P/TSX Canadian Dividend Aristocrats Index ETF Common Class (TSE:CDZ  Get Free Report) shares hit a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The company traded as high as C$42.67 and last traded at C$42.65, with a volume of 14031 shares. The stock had previously closed at C$42.57.

iShares S&P/TSX Canadian Dividend Aristocrats Index ETF Common Class Trading Up 0.2%

The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of C$41.24 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of C$40.07.

iShares S&P/TSX Canadian Dividend Aristocrats Index ETF Common Class Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

The investment objective of the Fund is to replicate, to the extent possible, the performance of the S&P TSX Canadian Dividend Aristocrats Index the Index, net of expenses. To achieve its investment objective the Fund uses an indexing strategy. Under this strategy, the Fund seeks to replicate the performance of the Index, net of expenses, by employing, directly or indirectly, through investment in one or more iShares ETFs and/or through the use of derivatives, a replicating strategy or sampling strategy.

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JDE Peets (OTCMKTS:JDEPF  Get Free Report)s share price was down 1% on Monday . The stock traded as low as $36.0263 and last traded at $36.0263. Approximately 5 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 100% from the average daily volume of 54,370 shares. The stock had previously closed at $36.4050.

JDE Peets Stock Performance

The company has a 50 day moving average of $36.53 and a 200-day moving average of $35.32.

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About JDE Peets

(Get Free Report)

JDE Peets is a global pure-play coffee and tea company with operations spanning retail, out-of-home, and e-commerce channels. The company produces a wide range of coffee and tea products including whole beans, ground coffee, single-serve pods, instant coffee and various tea blends. Through partnerships with foodservice providers, restaurants and office networks, JDE Peets delivers branded coffee and tea offerings to millions of consumers worldwide.

The companys portfolio encompasses a number of well-known brands such as Jacobs, Douwe Egberts, LOR, Senseo, Tassimo, Kenco and Pickwick tea in Europe, alongside Peets Coffee, Stumptown and Intelligentsia in North America.

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Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. lifted its stake in Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (NYSE:MMC  Free Report) by 1.0% in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 456,734 shares of the financial services providers stock after acquiring an additional 4,307 shares during the quarter. Johnson Investment Counsel Inc.s holdings in Marsh & McLennan Companies were worth $92,046,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of MMC. Jennison Associates LLC grew its stake in Marsh & McLennan Companies by 225.1% during the 2nd quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 1,051,055 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $229,803,000 after buying an additional 727,714 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies by 1.8% during the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 46,158,562 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $10,092,108,000 after acquiring an additional 837,117 shares during the period. Navera Investment Management Ltd. increased its holdings in shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies by 7.0% in the 3rd quarter. Navera Investment Management Ltd. now owns 1,623,960 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $327,303,000 after acquiring an additional 105,954 shares during the period. Fjarde AP Fonden Fourth Swedish National Pension Fund lifted its position in Marsh & McLennan Companies by 18.7% in the 2nd quarter. Fjarde AP Fonden Fourth Swedish National Pension Fund now owns 218,131 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $47,692,000 after purchasing an additional 34,400 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Bridges Investment Management Inc. boosted its stake in Marsh & McLennan Companies by 4.4% during the 3rd quarter. Bridges Investment Management Inc. now owns 76,196 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $15,356,000 after purchasing an additional 3,177 shares during the period. 87.99% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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Marsh & McLennan Companies Trading Down 1.7%

Shares of MMC stock opened at $182.39 on Tuesday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.12, a current ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.19. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $183.97 and a 200 day simple moving average of $191.66. Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $174.18 and a fifty-two week high of $248.00. The stock has a market capitalization of $89.35 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.87, a P/E/G ratio of 2.87 and a beta of 0.76.

Marsh & McLennan Companies Dividend Announcement

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 13th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 29th will be issued a $0.90 dividend. This represents a $3.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.0%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 29th. Marsh & McLennan Companiess payout ratio is presently 43.17%.

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on MMC. Citigroup cut their price target on Marsh & McLennan Companies from $211.00 to $201.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, December 4th. Barclays lifted their target price on Marsh & McLennan Companies from $206.00 to $210.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Thursday, January 8th. Mizuho assumed coverage on Marsh & McLennan Companies in a research note on Tuesday, December 16th. They issued an outperform rating and a $212.00 price target for the company. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies from a sell rating to a neutral rating and cut their price objective for the company from $200.00 to $195.00 in a research note on Monday, October 20th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their target price on shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies from $242.00 to $226.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 7th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, ten have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Marsh & McLennan Companies has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $216.88.

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Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO John Q. Doyle sold 21,079 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $182.22, for a total transaction of $3,841,015.38. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 87,681 shares in the company, valued at approximately $15,977,231.82. This trade represents a 19.38% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. 0.35% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

About Marsh & McLennan Companies

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Marsh & McLennan Companies (NYSE: MMC) is a global professional services firm headquartered in New York City that provides advice and solutions in the areas of risk, strategy and people. Founded in 1905, the company has grown into a diversified group of businesses focused on insurance brokerage and risk management, reinsurance, human capital and investment consulting, and management consulting. Its long history and scale position it as a prominent adviser to corporations, governments and other institutions seeking to manage risk and optimize human and financial capital.

The firm operates through several well-known subsidiaries and business units that specialize in distinct services.

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Kilroy Realty (NYSE:KRC  Get Free Report) updated its FY 2026 earnings guidance on Monday. The company provided earnings per share guidance of 3.250-3.450 for the period, compared to the consensus earnings per share estimate of 1.900. The company issued revenue guidance of -.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reaffirmed a hold rating and issued a $35.00 target price on shares of Kilroy Realty in a report on Tuesday, January 6th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on shares of Kilroy Realty from $40.00 to $41.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 25th. Mizuho lifted their target price on shares of Kilroy Realty from $35.00 to $37.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research note on Friday, December 12th. Weiss Ratings reissued a hold (c+) rating on shares of Kilroy Realty in a report on Monday, December 29th. Finally, KeyCorp reaffirmed a sector weight rating on shares of Kilroy Realty in a report on Thursday, December 4th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating, twelve have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Kilroy Realty presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $40.92.

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View Our Latest Research Report on KRC

Kilroy Realty Trading Down 1.4%

Kilroy Realty Dividend Announcement

Shares of NYSE KRC traded down $0.49 during midday trading on Monday, hitting $34.51. The stock had a trading volume of 1,451,578 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,898,180. The firm has a market cap of $4.08 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.73 and a beta of 1.10. Kilroy Realty has a fifty-two week low of $27.07 and a fifty-two week high of $45.03. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81, a current ratio of 2.56 and a quick ratio of 2.56. The companys 50-day simple moving average is $37.84 and its 200 day simple moving average is $39.94.

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 7th. Investors of record on Wednesday, December 31st were issued a $0.54 dividend. This represents a $2.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 6.3%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, December 31st. Kilroy Realtys dividend payout ratio is currently 79.70%.

Institutional Trading of Kilroy Realty

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. State Street Corp increased its holdings in shares of Kilroy Realty by 1.2% in the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 5,841,917 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $203,514,000 after acquiring an additional 67,546 shares in the last quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Kilroy Realty by 0.4% during the 3rd quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 3,578,185 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $151,178,000 after purchasing an additional 15,193 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp grew its position in shares of Kilroy Realty by 3.8% in the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 3,149,816 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $133,080,000 after purchasing an additional 115,047 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its stake in Kilroy Realty by 0.9% during the 3rd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,639,596 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $69,274,000 after purchasing an additional 13,864 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP acquired a new stake in Kilroy Realty during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $58,948,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 94.22% of the companys stock.

Kilroy Realty Company Profile

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Kilroy Realty Corporation (NYSE: KRC) is a publicly traded real estate investment trust focused on the development, acquisition and management of highquality office and mixeduse properties along the U.S. West Coast. The companys portfolio encompasses major urban markets including Los Angeles, San Diego, the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle. Kilroy Realty targets properties in transitoriented submarkets, blending workplace space with retail, residential and hospitality amenities to create vibrant, walkable neighborhoods.

Founded in the mid20th century by members of the Kilroy family, the company evolved from a regional landlord into one of the leading West Coast office landlords.

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Kincora Copper Limited (CVE:KCC  Get Free Report) shares rose 18.2% on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as C$1.18 and last traded at C$1.17. Approximately 109,511 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, an increase of 225% from the average daily volume of 33,692 shares. The stock had previously closed at C$0.99.

Kincora Copper Price Performance

The firm has a market cap of C$51.31 million, a P/E ratio of -10.00 and a beta of 1.87. The companys 50-day simple moving average is C$1.01 and its 200 day simple moving average is C$0.96.

Kincora Copper Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Kincora Copper Limited engages in acquisition, exploration, and evaluation of mineral properties in Mongolia and Australia. It primarily explores for copper and gold deposits. The company's flagship project is the Trundle Project, including one license covering an area of 167km2 located in the Junee-Narromine volcanic belt of the Macquarie Arc. The company was formerly known as Brazilian Diamonds Limited and changed its name to Kincora Copper Limited in January 2011. Kincora Copper Limited was incorporated in 1983 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.

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KKR & Co. Inc. (NYSE:KKR) CFO Rob Lewin said the firm is entering 2026 with improving visibility into deal activity, stronger fundraising momentum, and a more diversified earnings base that he believes is not fully reflected in the companys share price. Lewin made the comments during a UBS conference session hosted by UBS analyst Mike Brown.

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Macro outlook and expectations for 2026 activity

Lewin described the current environment as as nuanced a moment as he has seen in macro markets, citing the interaction of economic conditions with geopolitics, U.S. domestic politics, fiscal deficits, and public policy. Despite recent market volatility, he said KKR expects activity to increase in 2026, pointing to improving deal flow and monetizations across the industry. He added that KKRs pipeline heading into 2026 is definitely a lot better than it was going into 2025.

Diversification and what Lewin said the market may be missing

Asked what the market may not be pricing correctly over the next several years, Lewin compared KKRs share price levels with where they stood roughly two years ago and cited growth in key financial metrics over that period. He said management fees are up 35%, fee-related earnings are up more than 50%, adjusted net income is up in the mid-40% range, and capital raising over the past 12 months was up 90% versus the prior 12-month period.

Lewin argued that the firms diversification is underappreciated, highlighting that KKR generated $4.1 billion of management fees last year, with roughly a third coming from each of its three business lines: private equity, real assets, and credit and liquid strategies. He also emphasized KKRs global footprint, noting that more than half of its investment professionals are outside the U.S. and pointing to Asia-Pacific as a region where KKR expects a significant share of global GDP growth over the next decade.

Arctos acquisition and KKRs M&A framework

Lewin said KKR is incredibly excited about its acquisition of Arctos and called it a top priority. He framed the deal as consistent with KKRs strategic M&A approach, including a focus on large addressable markets and building world-class capabilities.

He described Arctos as spanning three asset classes:

Sports , which he said is growing at double-digit rates and where Arctos is a global leader.

, which he said is growing at double-digit rates and where Arctos is a global leader. GP Solutions , which he characterized as a large market, noting Arctos is on its first fund and has built momentum despite a difficult fundraising backdrop.

, which he characterized as a large market, noting Arctos is on its first fund and has built momentum despite a difficult fundraising backdrop. Secondaries, which he called probably the largest addressable market, and where he said combining Arctos track record with KKRs global reach and capital base could create a right to win.

Lewin said KKR believes the combined effort could build a $100+ billion business. He also emphasized the importance of capital duration in M&A, arguing it is easy to make deals accretive over three to five years but difficult over a 10-year horizon. He said recent transactionsincluding Franklin Square, Global Atlantic, KJRM in Japan, HCR, and Arctosshare a commonality of being as close to permanent capital as it gets in the asset management space. He added that KKR expects origination opportunities to be additive to its insurance capital and said the cultural fit was a key priority, noting KKRs long-standing relationship with Arctos principal Ian Charles.

Fundraising momentum across institutional, insurance, and wealth

Lewin said KKR raised about $130 billion of capital in 2025 and reiterated a previously stated goal of raising $300 billion between 2024 and 2026. He said the firm is already more than 80% toward that target and expects to meaningfully exceed it.

By channel, Lewin said institutional fundraising has been the slowest in recent years but is opening up. He cited progress in KKRs Americas Private Equity Fund (its 14th fund), which he said has raised $19 billion and is larger than its predecessor, and the firms global infrastructure product, which he said is north of $16 billion and tracking to exceed the prior fund.

On insurance, Lewin said KKR manages more than $80 billion for third-party insurance clients, which he said is more than triple the level when KKR acquired Global Atlantic five years ago. On private wealth, he said KKR manages more than $35 billion through its K-Suite products, up from $18 billion 12 months earlier.

2026 adjusted net income target, insurance strategy, and portfolio positioning

Lewin reiterated KKRs target of $7+ per share of adjusted net income in 2026, first outlined in 2021 and reaffirmed at an investor day. He said KKR is finalizing a bottoms-up budget and views the target as achievable, with building blocks including management fee growth, expansion in capital markets revenue, performance revenue from K-Suite vehicles, and operating leverage. He said since 2022, KKR has grown management fees by over 50% while operating expenses grew 23%, contrasting that with peers he said have grown expenses faster than management fees.

Lewin also discussed insurance and strategic holdings. He said KKR expects its insurance business to generate approximately $1 billion of operating income in 2026, and said strategic holdings are expected to grow year-on-year at more than 100% and deliver operating earnings above $350 million. For investing earnings, he said KKR enters 2026 with $18.6 billion of embedded gains across carried interest and its investment portfolio, up about 20% year-over-year, and said the firm has visibility into $900+ million of monetization-related revenue from items already completed or signed, compared with $400 million at the same time last year.

On Global Atlantics alternative investment strategy, Lewin described a transition from minimal alternatives exposure at acquisition to a greater allocation over time, including decisions related to liability duration and leverage. He said KKR has chosen to cash account for alternatives rather than mark-to-market them through the P&L, which he said can create near-term earnings pressure as the firm ramps the portfolio before cash income emerges. He said KKR expects that cash income to begin materializing in 2027 and 2028. For 2026, he said KKR expects roughly $350 million of mark-to-market if assets perform, creating a delta versus operating earnings. Lewin also highlighted scaling third-party capital in insurance, noting $6.5 billion of equity dry powder he said could translate into more than $65 billion of additional fee-paying assets for KKR once deployed.

In private wealth, Lewin said KKRs key performance indicators are centered on client experience and performance rather than capital raising. He also discussed product design changes intended to increase durability, including a two-year soft lock and a withdrawal penalty that he said goes to the vehicle, not KKR. He said KKRs wealth vehicles invest pari passu with institutional vehicles, aiming to align exposure and outcomes.

Lewin said KKRs overall exposure to software is about 7% of firmwide AUM and 15% within private equity, and noted the firm has $120 billion of dry powder to invest during dislocations. He also said the firm has invested in digital infrastructure and data centers to support AI adoption, describing a difference between gross exposure to software and KKRs net exposure to AI themes.

On private credit, Lewin said KKR has about $135 billion in private credit, split between $85 billion in asset-based finance and $50 billion in direct lending, and said he expects asset-based finance to grow faster. He cited an asset-based finance market he described as huge, referenced partnerships including Harley-Davidson, Sallie Mae, and PayPal, and said KKR is leaning away from exposure to stressed consumers, particularly lower FICO segments.

About KKR & Co. Inc. (NYSE:KKR)

KKR & Co Inc is a global investment firm headquartered in New York City that specializes in private markets and alternative asset management. Founded in 1976 by Jerome Kohlberg Jr., Henry Kravis and George R. Roberts, the firm built its reputation in leveraged buyouts and has since expanded into a multi-strategy asset manager. KKR operates across private equity, credit, real assets (including real estate and infrastructure), growth equity and hedge fund strategies, offering a range of investment products and strategies for institutional and private investors.

KKR manages capital through traditional closed-end funds as well as customized vehicles such as separate accounts, co-investments, and listed investment vehicles.

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Lithia Motors (NYSE:LAD  Get Free Report) is expected to be releasing its Q4 2025 results before the market opens on Wednesday, February 11th. Analysts expect Lithia Motors to post earnings of $8.17 per share and revenue of $9.1926 billion for the quarter. Individuals are encouraged to explore the companys upcoming Q4 2025 earning overview page for the latest details on the call scheduled for Wednesday, February 11, 2026 at 10:00 AM ET.

Lithia Motors Trading Down 3.8%

NYSE LAD opened at $331.27 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $8.03 billion, a P/E ratio of 9.59 and a beta of 1.20. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $334.33 and a 200 day simple moving average of $320.84. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.35, a current ratio of 1.21 and a quick ratio of 0.30. Lithia Motors has a one year low of $262.10 and a one year high of $405.14.

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Insider Transactions at Lithia Motors

In related news, Director Congdon Stacy Loretz sold 75 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $360.00, for a total transaction of $27,000.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 1,810 shares in the company, valued at approximately $651,600. The trade was a 3.98% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Company insiders own 0.87% of the companys stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Lithia Motors

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of LAD. State of Wyoming purchased a new stake in shares of Lithia Motors during the 2nd quarter valued at $67,000. Danske Bank A S bought a new position in Lithia Motors during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $95,000. Kelleher Financial Advisors bought a new stake in Lithia Motors in the third quarter valued at $111,000. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. bought a new stake in shares of Lithia Motors during the 2nd quarter valued at about $210,000. Finally, Nicolet Advisory Services LLC purchased a new position in shares of Lithia Motors during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $215,000.

A number of research firms recently issued reports on LAD. Weiss Ratings reiterated a hold (c+) rating on shares of Lithia Motors in a research report on Thursday, January 22nd. Barclays cut their price objective on shares of Lithia Motors from $410.00 to $390.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, January 21st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on Lithia Motors from $350.00 to $355.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Friday, January 16th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on Lithia Motors from $327.00 to $358.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a report on Monday, January 12th. Finally, Evercore boosted their price objective on Lithia Motors from $440.00 to $500.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Monday, November 24th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $390.70.

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Lithia Motors Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Lithia Motors, Inc is an American automotive retailer headquartered in Medford, Oregon. Founded in 1946 as a small auto body and glass shop, the company has grown through organic expansion and strategic acquisitions to become one of the largest automotive retail networks in North America. Lithia operates dealerships across the United States and Canada, offering a broad portfolio of new and pre-owned vehicles from more than 40 different manufacturers.

The companys core business activities include vehicle sales, financing, insurance, parts and service.

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BlackRock will roughly triple the size of an iShares fund when it acquires assets from an ETF issuer in the coming weeks.

Its a quirky step for the worlds largest asset manager, which doesnt normally pursue one-off deals with small ETF providers. Its also small potatoes, at least on BlackRocks scale: The $106 million iShares Large Cap Value Active ETF (BLCV) will get a roughly $200 million injection when it receives the assets from the CornerCap Fundametrics Large-Cap ETF (FUNL). The actively managed iShares ETF focuses on US stocks within the Russell 1000 Value Index.

Its unusual, said Dan Sotiroff, associate director of US passive strategies at Morningstar. I dont know what the motivation is.

SUBSCRIBE: Receive more of our free ETF Upside newsletter. READ ALSO: Do ETFs Make RIA Firms More Valuable? and Inside Baron Capitals SpaceX ETF Party

But Why?

CornerCap Investment Counsel, the advisor to the ETF being acquired, did not respond to a request for comment, though it explained in a regulatory filing that it has determined to exit the fund advisory business. That firm was bought about a year ago by EP Wealth Advisors, although the ETF was not part of that deal, according to a representative from the acquiring RIA. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission in late December, CornerCaps ETF indicated the transfer to iShares would be subject to a shareholder vote, and if the measure failed, the fund would be liquidated. To accommodate the transfer, BlackRock is moving assets from BLCV into an otherwise identical ETF that will also absorb the FUNL assets, transactions that are slated for Feb. 27.

BlackRock declined to comment on the fund reorganization.

There are a couple of aspects that make the fund transfer stand out:
LuxExperience B.V. (NYSE:LUXE  Get Free Report) announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday. The company reported ($0.17) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of ($0.11) by ($0.06), Zacks reports. LuxExperience B.V. had a net margin of 29.45% and a return on equity of 58.60%.

LuxExperience B.V. Trading Up 16.4%

Shares of LUXE traded up $1.27 on Tuesday, reaching $9.00. 123,136 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 240,307. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $8.52. The firm has a market capitalization of $771.30 million, a PE ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 1.11. LuxExperience B.V. has a 52-week low of $6.18 and a 52-week high of $12.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12, a quick ratio of 1.01 and a current ratio of 2.46.

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Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms recently issued reports on LUXE. Jefferies Financial Group assumed coverage on shares of LuxExperience B.V. in a research report on Wednesday, January 14th. They issued a hold rating and a $9.00 price target for the company. Zacks Research cut shares of LuxExperience B.V. from a hold rating to a strong sell rating in a report on Monday, January 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on shares of LuxExperience B.V. from $8.00 to $9.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Thursday, December 18th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a hold (c-) rating on shares of LuxExperience B.V. in a research report on Monday, December 29th. Finally, B. Riley Financial began coverage on LuxExperience B.V. in a research note on Thursday, January 15th. They set a buy rating and a $12.00 price target for the company. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating, three have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $10.00.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On LuxExperience B.V.

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in LUXE. Millennium Management LLC bought a new position in LuxExperience B.V. during the third quarter valued at about $134,000. Wexford Capital LP bought a new stake in LuxExperience B.V. in the third quarter worth about $687,000. UBS Group AG purchased a new position in LuxExperience B.V. in the third quarter valued at about $1,166,000. Boothbay Fund Management LLC bought a new position in shares of LuxExperience B.V. during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $1,705,000. Finally, Prelude Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of LuxExperience B.V. during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $3,554,000. 10.07% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

LuxExperience B.V. Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

MYT Netherlands Parent B.V., through its subsidiary, Mytheresa Group GmbH, operates a luxury e-commerce platform for fashion consumers in Germany, the United States, the rest of Europe, and internationally. The company sells clothes, bags, shoes, accessories, and fine jewelry through online and retail stores. It serves high-income luxury consumers. The company was founded in 1987 and is based in Munich, Germany.

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Macquarie Group (ASX:MQG) executives told investors that the companys third quarter of fiscal 2026 played out broadly as expected, with earnings weighted to the second half of the year and strong performances in Macquarie Asset Management and Macquarie Capital helping drive momentum. Chief Executive Officer Shemara Wikramanayake said the operational briefing reflected the groups diversified footprint across four operating groups, supported by central service teams focused on risk management and technology.

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Third quarter performance and business drivers

Wikramanayake said Macquarie Asset Management (MAM) was substantially up both versus the comparable third quarter and year-to-date, citing the completion of the divestment of public investments in North America and Europe and increased performance fees year-to-date. She said the divestment involved the transfer of about AUD 250 billion of assets to Nomura.

Within Australia, Wikramanayake said MAM had AUD 314 billion of assets under management in public investments, up 5%, driven mainly by inflows into fixed income and favorable markets. In private markets, she said equity under management was about AUD 227 billion, up 1%, mainly on fundraising. She highlighted fundraising of AUD 6.3 billion, investment of AUD 7.7 billion, and private markets dry powder of about AUD 25.9 billion.

Banking and Financial Services (BFS) was up slightly on the prior quarter and year-to-date, driven by growth in loans and deposits, offset by margin compression and the run-off of a higher-margin car lease portfolio. Wikramanayake said home loans were up 7%, business banking up 1%, and deposits up 6%, while funds on platform were down 1% due to market movements in the composition of platform balances.

In Commodities and Global Markets (CGM), Wikramanayake said the quarterly result improved versus the comparable period and was in line with the prior year-to-date, with the catch-up largely driven by increased asset finance earnings. She said financial markets were in line and commodities performance improved in North American gas and power and resources, partly offset by higher costs tied to operating platform remediation programs and transaction costs.

Macquarie Capital was also substantially up versus the comparable quarter and year-to-date. Wikramanayake attributed this to growth in the credit book, equity realizations, and fee and commission income. She said private credit grew AUD 5.7 billion to AUD 28.9 billion and noted realizations including ParkingEye and iPlanet in Europe. She added that activity levels were up year-over-year, though the prior-year third quarter was a particularly strong period.

Capital, funding, and regulatory matters

Macquarie reported capital and liquidity ratios comfortably above Basel III amendments, including CET1, leverage, LCR, and NSFR. Wikramanayake said surplus capital was AUD 7.5 billion, down AUD 1 billion, mainly due to payment of the second-half dividend, partly offset by third-quarter earnings and capital absorbed in businesses.

She described notable capital movements, including around AUD 800 million in credit capital in CGM heading into the northern winter, capital absorbed by Macquarie Capital from private credit growth, and several hundred million dollars of capital released in MAM following the exit of the North American and European public investments business. BFS capital usage was described as flat despite growth in books due to the car leasing run-off.

On regulatory and legal matters, Wikramanayake said APRA had announced a reduction of add-ons in Macquaries LCR and NSFR and that the group continues to work with APRA on previously discussed programs. She also said Macquarie and ASIC had agreed, in relation to a short sale transaction reporting matter, to submit to the court a proposed AUD 35 million penalty.

Management outlook and commodities guidance

Looking ahead, management reiterated group-by-group guidance. For MAM, Wikramanayake said that excluding the divested public investments business, base fees were expected to be broadly in line, while net other operating income was expected to be significantly up, driven by performance fees.

For BFS, she guided to ongoing growth in loans, deposits, and funds on platform, subject to competitive dynamics affecting margins and continued investment in the technology platform. For Macquarie Capital, she said transaction activity was expected to be in line with last year (which she described as strong), while the group expects continued growth in private credit and increasing equity realizations as the book seasons. For CGM, she said Macquarie expected continued contributions from asset finance and financial markets and upgraded guidance to expect commodities income to be up for FY26.

In Q&A, executives linked the commodities upgrade to North American winter conditions and the firms ability to monetize optionality from its physical footprint. CGM executives described how extreme cold weather in January produced a sharp but short-lived move in U.S. gas prices and said Macquarie benefited from its infrastructure footprint, including pipelines, power lines, and financial transmission rights. They also said locational spreads remained relevant and noted Macquaries footprint included about 19 pipe assets across North America and Canada.

CGM executives also discussed long-dated LNG offtake contracts, describing the approach as cautious and incremental. They said Macquarie had engaged in two long-term offtakes that were yet to go final investment decision and highlighted awareness of projected LNG supply overhang to around 20312032.

Private credit, software exposure, and risk management focus

Executives addressed investor questions on software exposure within private credit and equity portfolios. Management said around 25%30% of the private credit book was in software, with additional exposures across the broader TMET space such as managed services, marketplaces, and government services. Macquarie Capital executives said the firm lends primarily against cash flow, describing typical lending as around 48 times free cash flow and lending at approximately 30%40% of assessed value. They said they were monitoring AI-related disruption risk, but did not see major issues at the time, and characterized exposure to SaaS models vulnerable to seat-based revenue displacement as small.

Asked about loss rates, executives said the market convention for the private finance book was about 10 basis points per annum and said experience in the past year was consistent and under 10 basis points thus far. They also said the book is matched-funded and oriented to holding to maturity, with funding costs transferred through to operating businesses.

Group Chief Risk Officer Andrew Cassidy later described a risk approach centered on business ownership of risk, worst-case outcome focus and stress testing, and independent sign-off by the Risk Management Group. He said Macquarie had increased Risk Management Group headcount to about 1,200 from close to 900 in 2019 and highlighted investment in non-financial risk, compliance, and global risk capability. On the software and AI theme, Cassidy said risk teams assess criticality of software, proprietary data, and business-model susceptibility and then apply stress testing using lenses from prior disruptive periods, connecting outcomes to capital, funding, and profitability assumptions.

Australia and New Zealand deep dive, technology and AI

Macquarie also used the briefing to spotlight its Australia and New Zealand operations. Wikramanayake said 36% of Macquaries income comes from the region and nearly 50% of staff are based there. Operating group leaders described regional scale and growth initiatives across advisory, markets, asset management, and retail banking.

BFS head Ben Perham emphasized Macquaries digital-first approach and said BFS has over 2 million customers across Australia. He described growth in home loans and deposits, and said BFSs return on equity was approximately 13% on a fully allocated basis, including profit share and corporate costs and adjusting for funding from capital. He also disclosed that personal banking headcount had been reduced by 24% since August 2023 while the home loan book grew by over 50%, attributing the operating leverage to process automation and customer self-service.

On technology, Corporate Operations Group head Nicole Sorbara said group technology spend had stabilized at about AUD 2.3 billion after a period of material investment. Chief Technology Officer David Tough said Macquarie had no reportable cyber incidents in 2025, that 100% of assets were protected against advanced threats, and that teams ranked in the top 3% globally for phishing. He also described progress in cloud adoption, including exiting seven global data centers and having about 91% of applications running on cloud and SaaS.

BFS Chief Digital Data and AI Officer Ashwin Sinha said BFS is 99% on cloud and operates a single data platform. He said BFS had eliminated 90% of manual adjustments over the last two years and has 50 AI solutions in production. He also said BFS achieved 99.95% availability with no planned outages, and that client protection tools reduced client losses by 55% over two years while reducing false positives across AML and fraud by more than 80% over three years as deposits grew 50%.

About Macquarie Group (ASX:MQG)

Macquarie Group Limited provides diversified financial services in Australia, the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. The company operates through four segments: Macquarie Asset Management (MAM), Banking and Financial Services (BFS), Commodities and Global Markets (CGM), and Macquarie Capital. The MAM segment provides investment solutions to clients across various capabilities in private markets and public investments, including infrastructure, green investments, agriculture and natural assets, real estate, private credit, asset finance, equities, fixed income, and multi-asset solutions.

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Manitowoc (NYSE:MTW  Get Free Report) issued an update on its FY 2026 earnings guidance on Monday morning. The company provided earnings per share (EPS) guidance of 0.450-0.900 for the period, compared to the consensus estimate of 0.900. The company issued revenue guidance of $2.3 billion-$2.4 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $2.4 billion.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms recently weighed in on MTW. Wall Street Zen raised shares of Manitowoc from a buy rating to a strong-buy rating in a research report on Monday, December 22nd. Wells Fargo & Company restated an underweight rating and set a $10.00 price target (up from $9.00) on shares of Manitowoc in a research note on Friday, January 23rd. Finally, Weiss Ratings restated a hold (c-) rating on shares of Manitowoc in a research report on Monday, December 22nd. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Manitowoc presently has a consensus rating of Reduce and an average price target of $10.50.

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Manitowoc Stock Down 1.1%

Shares of Manitowoc stock opened at $14.86 on Tuesday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.66, a current ratio of 2.14 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70. Manitowoc has a 52-week low of $7.06 and a 52-week high of $15.20. The company has a market capitalization of $527.08 million, a P/E ratio of 9.35 and a beta of 1.88. The company has a 50 day moving average of $13.06 and a 200 day moving average of $11.50.

Manitowoc (NYSE:MTW  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday, February 9th. The industrial products company reported $0.26 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.27 by ($0.01). Manitowoc had a return on equity of 0.87% and a net margin of 2.63%.The company had revenue of $677.10 million for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $637.00 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.10 EPS. The firms quarterly revenue was up 13.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Manitowoc has set its FY 2026 guidance at 0.450-0.900 EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that Manitowoc will post 0.5 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Manitowoc

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its holdings in Manitowoc by 154.0% in the second quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 340,280 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $4,090,000 after buying an additional 206,313 shares in the last quarter. UBS Group AG increased its stake in Manitowoc by 86.2% in the 3rd quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 384,062 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $3,844,000 after purchasing an additional 177,823 shares in the last quarter. Marshall Wace LLP raised its holdings in Manitowoc by 56.4% during the second quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 371,498 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $4,465,000 after purchasing an additional 134,013 shares during the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its position in Manitowoc by 49.4% during the second quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 364,915 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $4,386,000 after purchasing an additional 120,658 shares in the last quarter. Finally, BNP Paribas Financial Markets boosted its position in Manitowoc by 556.7% during the second quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 134,112 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $1,612,000 after purchasing an additional 113,690 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 78.66% of the companys stock.

Manitowoc Company Profile

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The Manitowoc Company, Inc (NYSE: MTW) is a global manufacturer of heavy-lift cranes and lifting equipment. The companys product portfolio includes tower cranes marketed under the Potain brand, mobile hydraulic cranes sold under the Grove, Manitowoc and National Crane names, and engineered lifting solutions such as mast climbers and platform hoists. Manitowoc serves a wide range of industries, including construction, infrastructure, energy and industrial markets.

Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Manitowoc operates manufacturing facilities, sales offices and rental centers across North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

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Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (OTCMKTS:MHVYF  Get Free Report)s share price gapped up before the market opened on Tuesday . The stock had previously closed at $32.35, but opened at $34.25. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries shares last traded at $33.65, with a volume of 4,511 shares traded.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, Zacks Research downgraded Mitsubishi Heavy Industries from a hold rating to a strong sell rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 21st. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Hold.

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Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Stock Up 3.8%

The stock has a market cap of $113.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 59.98 and a beta of 0.47. The company has a quick ratio of 0.97, a current ratio of 1.27 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $27.50 and a two-hundred day moving average of $26.92.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (OTCMKTS:MHVYF  Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, February 4th. The company reported $0.19 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.13 by $0.06. The business had revenue of $7.74 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $7.86 billion. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries had a return on equity of 11.07% and a net margin of 5.21%.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Company Profile

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Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is a diversified Japanese industrial conglomerate engaged in the design, manufacture and servicing of large-scale capital equipment and systems. The companys activities span shipbuilding and marine propulsion; power and energy systems including gas turbines, boilers and related power-plant equipment; and industrial machinery for sectors ranging from chemicals and manufacturing to environmental control. MHI also supplies heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems and other building-related equipment for commercial and industrial customers.

In addition to its heavy engineering businesses, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is a major participant in aerospace, space and defense markets.

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Nabors Industries (NYSE:NBR  Get Free Report) is projected to issue its Q4 2025 results after the market closes on Wednesday, February 11th. Analysts expect the company to announce earnings of ($3.11) per share and revenue of $795.8210 million for the quarter. Investors are encouraged to explore the companys upcoming Q4 2025 earning overview page for the latest details on the call scheduled for Thursday, February 12, 2026 at 11:00 AM ET.

Nabors Industries Stock Performance

NYSE:NBR opened at $70.49 on Tuesday. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $59.46 and a two-hundred day moving average of $47.75. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.50, a current ratio of 2.09 and a quick ratio of 1.93. The stock has a market cap of $1.03 billion, a P/E ratio of 7.30 and a beta of 0.99. Nabors Industries has a 1-year low of $23.27 and a 1-year high of $72.06.

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Institutional Investors Weigh In On Nabors Industries

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of NBR. Adage Capital Partners GP L.L.C. boosted its stake in Nabors Industries by 25.0% in the second quarter. Adage Capital Partners GP L.L.C. now owns 750,000 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $21,015,000 after acquiring an additional 150,000 shares during the period. Two Sigma Investments LP boosted its position in Nabors Industries by 232.2% during the 3rd quarter. Two Sigma Investments LP now owns 185,841 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $7,595,000 after purchasing an additional 129,904 shares during the period. Jump Financial LLC grew its stake in Nabors Industries by 32.6% during the 3rd quarter. Jump Financial LLC now owns 157,616 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $6,442,000 after buying an additional 38,738 shares during the last quarter. Millennium Management LLC grew its stake in Nabors Industries by 846.5% during the 3rd quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 112,106 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $4,582,000 after buying an additional 100,262 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Susquehanna Advisors Group Inc. increased its position in Nabors Industries by 3.4% in the third quarter. Susquehanna Advisors Group Inc. now owns 102,136 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $4,174,000 after buying an additional 3,383 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 81.92% of the companys stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

NBR has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Piper Sandler upgraded Nabors Industries from an underweight rating to an overweight rating and raised their price objective for the company from $32.00 to $65.00 in a research note on Thursday, December 18th. Citigroup raised their price target on shares of Nabors Industries from $58.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 6th. Barclays set a $50.00 price target on shares of Nabors Industries and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 17th. Susquehanna set a $64.00 price objective on shares of Nabors Industries and gave the company a neutral rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 7th. Finally, Morgan Stanley reissued an overweight rating and issued a $80.00 target price on shares of Nabors Industries in a research report on Wednesday, January 21st. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $59.14.

Read Our Latest Report on NBR

About Nabors Industries

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Nabors Industries Ltd. is a global oil and gas drilling contractor that provides land and offshore drilling rigs, drilling equipment and related services to energy companies around the world. The companys operations span two core segments: drilling and evaluation, which includes landbased and platform drilling rigs as well as wellbore survey services, and wellbore technologies, offering pressure control equipment, downhole tools and specialized maintenance services. Nabors integrated model combines rig operations with engineered products and field support, positioning it as a fullservice provider in the upstream sector.

The company maintains a diverse, modern fleet of automated and conventional drilling rigs and has pioneered advanced drilling technologies, including automated drilling controls and managed pressure drilling systems.

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Navellier & Associates Inc. bought a new stake in Caledonia Mining Corporation PLC (NYSEAMERICAN:CMCL  Free Report) in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 56,530 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $2,047,000. Navellier & Associates Inc. owned approximately 0.29% of Caledonia Mining as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the stock. State of Alaska Department of Revenue acquired a new stake in Caledonia Mining during the 3rd quarter worth about $27,000. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Caledonia Mining by 6,486.2% in the second quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 1,910 shares of the companys stock worth $37,000 after purchasing an additional 1,881 shares in the last quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Caledonia Mining by 65.7% in the third quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC now owns 1,037 shares of the companys stock worth $38,000 after purchasing an additional 411 shares in the last quarter. Optimum Investment Advisors acquired a new stake in shares of Caledonia Mining during the third quarter worth approximately $54,000. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc grew its position in Caledonia Mining by 166.9% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 3,617 shares of the companys stock valued at $70,000 after purchasing an additional 2,262 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 31.78% of the companys stock.

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Caledonia Mining Stock Up 5.0%

CMCL stock opened at $29.88 on Tuesday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $27.55 and a two-hundred day moving average of $28.51. The company has a quick ratio of 1.20, a current ratio of 1.78 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.02. Caledonia Mining Corporation PLC has a 12-month low of $9.79 and a 12-month high of $38.75. The company has a market cap of $574.29 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.58 and a beta of 0.49.

Caledonia Mining Profile

Caledonia Mining Corporation PLC is a UKdomiciled gold producer listed on the NYSE American under the ticker CMCL and on the London AIM market. The companys flagship asset is the Blanket gold mine, located near Gwanda in southwestern Zimbabwe. Blanket is a conventional underground and surface gold operation that includes a carboninleach processing plant and tailings retreatment facilities, providing a structurally diverse resource base and established production infrastructure.

Caledonia acquired the Blanket mine in 2004, adding to its long operating history that traces back to the early 20th century.

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New York Life Investment Management LLC decreased its stake in shares of Newmont Corporation (NYSE:NEM  Free Report) by 3.9% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 160,762 shares of the basic materials companys stock after selling 6,456 shares during the quarter. New York Life Investment Management LLCs holdings in Newmont were worth $13,554,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Estate Counselors LLC acquired a new position in Newmont during the 3rd quarter valued at about $4,182,000. AustralianSuper Pty Ltd boosted its position in Newmont by 124.8% during the 3rd quarter. AustralianSuper Pty Ltd now owns 330,250 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $27,843,000 after acquiring an additional 183,360 shares during the period. Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Newmont by 286.5% in the 3rd quarter. Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors LLC now owns 60,499 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $5,101,000 after purchasing an additional 44,846 shares during the last quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Newmont by 176.4% during the second quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 447,960 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $26,098,000 after buying an additional 285,897 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. raised its position in shares of Newmont by 172.2% during the third quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 4,304,215 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $362,888,000 after buying an additional 2,723,044 shares during the last quarter. 68.85% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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Insider Transactions at Newmont

In other Newmont news, Director Bruce R. Brook sold 2,080 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $92.36, for a total transaction of $192,108.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 32,709 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $3,021,003.24. The trade was a 5.98% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 0.05% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Newmont Trading Up 4.8%

Analyst Ratings Changes

Shares of Newmont stock opened at $120.80 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $131.82 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.76, a P/E/G ratio of 0.88 and a beta of 0.40. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 2.04 and a quick ratio of 1.74. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $107.62 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $89.60. Newmont Corporation has a 1 year low of $41.23 and a 1 year high of $134.88.

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on NEM. Jefferies Financial Group increased their target price on shares of Newmont from $120.00 to $136.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 20th. Citigroup restated a buy rating on shares of Newmont in a research report on Monday, January 12th. Royal Bank Of Canada increased their price objective on Newmont from $120.00 to $125.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Tuesday, February 3rd. TD Cowen raised their price target on shares of Newmont from $89.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a research note on Thursday, January 22nd. Finally, Scotiabank increased their price objective on shares of Newmont from $114.00 to $152.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Monday, January 26th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of Buy and a consensus price target of $124.83.

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About Newmont

(Free Report)

Newmont Corporation (NYSE: NEM) is a leading global gold mining company engaged in the exploration, development, processing and reclamation of gold properties. The companys core business centers on the production of gold, with additional byproduct metals produced from its operations. Newmont operates a portfolio of longlived mines and development projects, and its activities span the full mine life cycle from early-stage exploration through to mining, milling and closure.

Founded in 1921 and headquartered in Greenwood Village, Colorado, Newmont has grown through organic development and strategic acquisitions.

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New York Life Investment Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Invesco Senior Loan ETF (NYSEARCA:BKLN  Free Report) by 9.6% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 540,784 shares of the exchange traded funds stock after acquiring an additional 47,179 shares during the quarter. New York Life Investment Management LLC owned 0.19% of Invesco Senior Loan ETF worth $11,319,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of BKLN. Bogart Wealth LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Invesco Senior Loan ETF during the second quarter valued at $33,000. Woodard & Co. Asset Management Group Inc. ADV lifted its holdings in Invesco Senior Loan ETF by 258.9% during the 2nd quarter. Woodard & Co. Asset Management Group Inc. ADV now owns 1,658 shares of the exchange traded funds stock valued at $35,000 after buying an additional 1,196 shares in the last quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. bought a new stake in Invesco Senior Loan ETF during the 2nd quarter valued at about $62,000. Golden State Wealth Management LLC grew its stake in Invesco Senior Loan ETF by 26.9% in the 2nd quarter. Golden State Wealth Management LLC now owns 3,153 shares of the exchange traded funds stock worth $66,000 after acquiring an additional 669 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Shenkman Capital Management Inc. grew its stake in Invesco Senior Loan ETF by 37.2% in the 2nd quarter. Shenkman Capital Management Inc. now owns 3,737,000 shares of the exchange traded funds stock worth $78,000 after acquiring an additional 1,012,895 shares in the last quarter.

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Invesco Senior Loan ETF Price Performance

Invesco Senior Loan ETF stock opened at $20.68 on Tuesday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $20.93 and a 200-day moving average price of $20.92. Invesco Senior Loan ETF has a fifty-two week low of $20.02 and a fifty-two week high of $21.09.

Invesco Senior Loan ETF Increases Dividend

Invesco Senior Loan ETF Company Profile

The company also recently announced a monthly dividend, which was paid on Friday, January 23rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, January 20th were issued a $0.1078 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, January 20th. This represents a c) annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.3%. This is a positive change from Invesco Senior Loan ETFs previous monthly dividend of $0.10.

(Free Report)

The Invesco Senior Loan ETF (BKLN) is an exchange-traded fund that mostly invests in high yield fixed income. The fund tracks a market-value-weighted index of senior loans issued by banks to corporations. BKLN was launched on Mar 3, 2011 and is managed by Invesco.

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New York State Common Retirement Fund boosted its position in Sylvamo Corporation (NYSE:SLVM  Free Report) by 61.9% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 33,202 shares of the companys stock after buying an additional 12,700 shares during the period. New York State Common Retirement Fund owned approximately 0.08% of Sylvamo worth $1,468,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Fourth Sail Capital LP acquired a new position in Sylvamo in the second quarter valued at approximately $8,146,000. Envestnet Portfolio Solutions Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Sylvamo in the second quarter worth about $445,000. Intech Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Sylvamo by 47.5% during the 2nd quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 26,758 shares of the companys stock worth $1,341,000 after acquiring an additional 8,618 shares in the last quarter. Handelsbanken Fonder AB boosted its stake in shares of Sylvamo by 45.7% during the 2nd quarter. Handelsbanken Fonder AB now owns 6,700 shares of the companys stock worth $336,000 after acquiring an additional 2,100 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Squarepoint Ops LLC grew its position in shares of Sylvamo by 74.4% during the 2nd quarter. Squarepoint Ops LLC now owns 158,497 shares of the companys stock valued at $7,941,000 after acquiring an additional 67,616 shares during the period. 91.16% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Sylvamo Stock Performance

NYSE SLVM opened at $51.60 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.80, a current ratio of 1.52 and a quick ratio of 0.85. The stocks 50 day simple moving average is $49.64 and its 200-day simple moving average is $46.17. The company has a market cap of $2.04 billion, a PE ratio of 11.81 and a beta of 0.95. Sylvamo Corporation has a 1-year low of $37.51 and a 1-year high of $77.72.

Sylvamo Announces Dividend

Sylvamo ( NYSE:SLVM Get Free Report ) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Friday, November 7th. The company reported $1.44 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.57 by ($0.13). The firm had revenue of $846.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $840.32 million. Sylvamo had a return on equity of 19.72% and a net margin of 5.25%.The firms revenue for the quarter was down 12.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $2.44 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Sylvamo Corporation will post 7.45 EPS for the current fiscal year.

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, January 23rd. Shareholders of record on Monday, January 5th were issued a $0.45 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, January 5th. This represents a $1.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.5%. Sylvamos dividend payout ratio is presently 41.19%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on SLVM shares. Royal Bank Of Canada reaffirmed a sector perform rating and issued a $53.00 price target on shares of Sylvamo in a report on Thursday, December 18th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a hold (c) rating on shares of Sylvamo in a research note on Wednesday, January 21st. Finally, Bank of America raised shares of Sylvamo from an underperform rating to a buy rating and lifted their price target for the company from $41.00 to $59.00 in a research note on Monday, November 17th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating, two have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Sylvamo currently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $56.00.

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Sylvamo Company Profile

(Free Report)

Sylvamo Corporation, trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SLVM, is a leading global producer of uncoated freesheet paper. The company was established in October 2021 through a spin-off from International Paper, creating an independent entity focused exclusively on the development, manufacturing and marketing of high-quality uncoated paper products. Headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, Sylvamo draws on decades of industry experience inherited from its predecessor, positioning itself to meet evolving customer needs in paper-based communications and packaging applications.

The companys core product portfolio includes office and digital print papers, direct mail and marketing materials, catalog and commercial printing papers, and a range of specialty and value-added grades.

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Shares of North American Construction Group Ltd. (NYSE:NOA  Get Free Report) (TSE:NOA) have received an average rating of Hold from the seven brokerages that are currently covering the firm, MarketBeat Ratings reports. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. The average twelve-month target price among brokers that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $24.50.

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on NOA shares. Roth Mkm started coverage on shares of North American Construction Group in a report on Thursday. They issued a buy rating and a $25.00 price target on the stock. ATB Capital reaffirmed a sector perform rating on shares of North American Construction Group in a report on Friday, December 19th. Loop Capital set a $24.00 target price on shares of North American Construction Group in a research note on Friday, December 19th. Wall Street Zen raised shares of North American Construction Group from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Saturday, January 24th. Finally, Zacks Research cut shares of North American Construction Group from a hold rating to a strong sell rating in a report on Monday, February 2nd.

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Institutional Inflows and Outflows

North American Construction Group Trading Up 1.3%

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of NOA. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC increased its stake in North American Construction Group by 35.4% in the second quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC now owns 16,795 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $268,000 after acquiring an additional 4,390 shares during the last quarter. Bank of Montreal Can lifted its stake in North American Construction Group by 4.6% during the second quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 2,244,637 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $35,941,000 after purchasing an additional 98,646 shares during the last quarter. TD Waterhouse Canada Inc. boosted its stake in North American Construction Group by 106,111.8% in the second quarter. TD Waterhouse Canada Inc. now owns 278,275 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $4,463,000 after buying an additional 278,013 shares in the last quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc boosted its stake in North American Construction Group by 50.1% in the third quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 1,179,482 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $16,763,000 after buying an additional 393,679 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Intact Investment Management Inc. grew its position in North American Construction Group by 31.2% during the second quarter. Intact Investment Management Inc. now owns 233,600 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $3,737,000 after acquiring an additional 55,600 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 74.99% of the companys stock.

NYSE:NOA opened at $16.25 on Thursday. North American Construction Group has a 1 year low of $12.12 and a 1 year high of $19.33. The stocks fifty day moving average price is $14.66 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $14.38. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.59, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.73. The company has a market cap of $467.04 million, a P/E ratio of 17.28 and a beta of 1.15.

North American Construction Group (NYSE:NOA  Get Free Report) (TSE:NOA) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, November 12th. The oil and gas company reported $0.49 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.50 by ($0.01). The company had revenue of $280.90 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $231.58 million. North American Construction Group had a net margin of 3.02% and a return on equity of 13.29%. As a group, analysts expect that North American Construction Group will post 2.56 EPS for the current year.

North American Construction Group Company Profile

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North American Construction Group Ltd (NYSE: NOA) is a Canadian industrial company headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta, that specializes in providing integrated heavy construction equipment solutions. Through its two core segmentsSales and Rentalsthe company offers a comprehensive portfolio of new and used off-highway trucks, wheel loaders, hydraulic excavators, dozers and motor graders, along with aftermarket parts and maintenance services.

In its Sales division, North American Construction Group partners with leading global equipment manufacturers to distribute and support a broad range of heavy machinery across multiple industries.

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Primo Brands Corporation (NYSE:PRMB) is one of the Best FMCG Stocks to Invest In According to Analysts. On January 23, BMO Capital analyst Andrew Strelzik reduced the firms price target on the companys stock to $35 from $39, while keeping an Outperform rating, as reported by The Fly. The firms reduction in the price objective reflects conservative estimates for Q4 2025 and 2026. This demonstrates current investments towards the business stabilization that are continuing in H1 2026.

BMO Capital Lowers PT on Primo Brands (PRMB) Stock

Another factor that resulted in price reduction was the slower-than-expected recovery in Primo Brands Corporation (NYSE:PRMB)s customer direct business. That being said, the firm also added that the trajectory of the companys customer direct business continues to improve, despite the progress taking place at a slower pace than expected. As per the firm, 2026 will be the year Primo Brands Corporation (NYSE:PRMB) solves its transitory integration issues, establishing the growth trajectory.

In a separate release, Mizuho reduced its price objective on Primo Brands Corporation (NYSE:PRMB)s stock to $24 from $28, while keeping an Outperform rating. Notably, the firm made adjustments to its targets across the broader food producers space in relation to the 2026 outlook.

Primo Brands Corporation (NYSE:PRMB) is a leading North American branded beverage company, which an emphasis on healthy hydration. It offers domestically sourced diversified offerings throughout products, formats, channels, price points and consumer occasions. The company also has an industry-leading line-up of innovative water dispensers.

While we acknowledge the potential of PRMB as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If youre looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock.

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
One Media IP plc (LON:OMI  Get Free Report)s stock price was down 23.2% during trading on Tuesday . The company traded as low as GBX 25.64 and last traded at GBX 26.10. Approximately 18,651,047 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, an increase of 303% from the average daily volume of 4,629,718 shares. The stock had previously closed at GBX 34.

One Media IP Stock Down 23.8%

The stock has a 50 day moving average of GBX 27.42. The company has a market capitalization of 102.19 million and a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.63.

One Media IP Company Profile

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Orosur Mining Inc (TSX: OMI; AIM: OMI) is a fully integrated gold producer, developer and explorer focused on identifying and advancing gold projects in South America. The Company operates the only producing gold mine in Uruguay (San Gregorio) and has assembled an exploration portfolio of high quality assets in Uruguay, Chile and Colombia.

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OPmobility (OTCMKTS:PASTF  Get Free Report) shares rose 3.6% on Monday . The company traded as high as $19.58 and last traded at $19.58. Approximately 325 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 59% from the average daily volume of 788 shares. The stock had previously closed at $18.90.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms have commented on PASTF. UBS Group reaffirmed a sell rating on shares of OPmobility in a report on Tuesday, December 2nd. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reiterated a hold rating on shares of OPmobility in a report on Friday, January 16th. Finally, Morgan Stanley restated an underweight rating on shares of OPmobility in a report on Thursday, January 8th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of Reduce.

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OPmobility Stock Performance

About OPmobility

The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $18.67 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $15.94.

(Get Free Report)

OPmobility engages in the manufacture and sale of exterior vehicle lighting systems, batteries, and electrification systems for electric mobility in Europe, North America, China, rest of Asia, South America, the Middle East, and Africa. The company operates through three segments: Exterior Systems, Modules, and Powertrain. Its Exterior Systems segment provides intelligent exterior systems; and automotive lighting systems, headlights, and signal lighting to intelligent, and other lighting products.

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Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. decreased its holdings in British American Tobacco p.l.c. (NYSE:BTI  Free Report) by 10.1% in the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 218,750 shares of the companys stock after selling 24,617 shares during the period. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc.s holdings in British American Tobacco were worth $11,611,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the stock. True Wealth Design LLC purchased a new position in British American Tobacco in the third quarter valued at about $29,000. Cary Street Partners Financial LLC acquired a new position in British American Tobacco in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $30,000. Salem Investment Counselors Inc. lifted its stake in British American Tobacco by 48.6% during the 3rd quarter. Salem Investment Counselors Inc. now owns 633 shares of the companys stock valued at $34,000 after acquiring an additional 207 shares during the period. Westside Investment Management Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of British American Tobacco by 100.0% in the 3rd quarter. Westside Investment Management Inc. now owns 782 shares of the companys stock valued at $41,000 after acquiring an additional 391 shares during the last quarter. Finally, City Holding Co. acquired a new stake in shares of British American Tobacco in the third quarter worth $42,000. 16.16% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Weiss Ratings reissued a hold (c+) rating on shares of British American Tobacco in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. Citigroup reaffirmed a buy rating on shares of British American Tobacco in a report on Friday, November 28th. Morgan Stanley reiterated an underweight rating on shares of British American Tobacco in a research note on Wednesday, December 10th. Kepler Capital Markets initiated coverage on shares of British American Tobacco in a report on Friday, December 12th. They issued a buy rating for the company. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft restated a buy rating on shares of British American Tobacco in a research report on Friday, November 28th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has issued a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, British American Tobacco has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $51.00.

British American Tobacco Price Performance

Shares of British American Tobacco stock opened at $61.20 on Tuesday. British American Tobacco p.l.c. has a twelve month low of $37.31 and a twelve month high of $63.03. The firms 50-day moving average price is $57.84 and its 200 day moving average price is $55.72. The company has a quick ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 0.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68.

British American Tobacco Company Profile

(Free Report)

British American Tobacco plc (BTI) is a multinational tobacco manufacturer and nicotine products company headquartered in London. Founded in 1902 as a joint venture to commercialize tobacco products outside the United States, the company has grown into one of the worlds largest tobacco firms with a long history in manufacturing and global distribution of combustible tobacco products.

BATs core business remains the manufacture and sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products under a portfolio of well-known consumer brands, including Dunhill, Lucky Strike, Pall Mall, Kent and Rothmans.

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Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. lessened its stake in shares of Gartner, Inc. (NYSE:IT  Free Report) by 16.5% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 46,490 shares of the information technology services providers stock after selling 9,208 shares during the quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc.s holdings in Gartner were worth $12,221,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Addison Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in Gartner during the 2nd quarter valued at $27,000. Chilton Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Gartner in the second quarter valued at about $47,000. Osterweis Capital Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of Gartner during the second quarter valued at about $48,000. True Wealth Design LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Gartner by 1,130.8% during the third quarter. True Wealth Design LLC now owns 160 shares of the information technology services providers stock worth $42,000 after purchasing an additional 147 shares during the period. Finally, Versant Capital Management Inc boosted its holdings in shares of Gartner by 1,284.6% during the third quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 180 shares of the information technology services providers stock worth $47,000 after purchasing an additional 167 shares during the period. 91.51% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Insider Buying and Selling

In other Gartner news, Director Stephen G. Pagliuca acquired 43,300 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, December 10th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $229.57 per share, with a total value of $9,940,381.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the director directly owned 111,613 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $25,622,996.41. The trade was a 63.38% increase in their position. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, SVP John J. Rinello sold 220 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, December 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $229.57, for a total transaction of $50,505.40. Following the transaction, the senior vice president directly owned 3,046 shares of the companys stock, valued at $699,270.22. This represents a 6.74% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. 3.60% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on IT. UBS Group set a $180.00 price target on Gartner in a report on Wednesday, February 4th. BMO Capital Markets reissued a market perform rating on shares of Gartner in a research note on Thursday. William Blair restated an outperform rating on shares of Gartner in a report on Tuesday, October 21st. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a sell (d+) rating on shares of Gartner in a research note on Thursday, January 22nd. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada set a $175.00 price objective on shares of Gartner in a research report on Wednesday, February 4th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have given a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Gartner has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $190.70.

View Our Latest Stock Analysis on IT

Gartner Trading Up 2.3%

NYSE IT opened at $159.86 on Tuesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $11.52 billion, a PE ratio of 16.57 and a beta of 1.06. The stocks 50 day moving average is $229.71 and its 200 day moving average is $243.35. Gartner, Inc. has a twelve month low of $139.18 and a twelve month high of $534.49. The company has a quick ratio of 0.88, a current ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.42.

Gartner (NYSE:IT  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 3rd. The information technology services provider reported $3.94 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.50 by $0.44. The business had revenue of $1.75 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.75 billion. Gartner had a return on equity of 83.48% and a net margin of 11.22%.The companys revenue for the quarter was up 2.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $5.45 earnings per share. Gartner has set its FY 2026 guidance at 12.300- EPS. Research analysts forecast that Gartner, Inc. will post 12.5 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

About Gartner

(Free Report)

Gartner, Inc is a global research and advisory firm that provides insights, advice and tools for leaders in IT, finance, HR, customer service and other business functions. Founded in 1979 and headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, Gartner specializes in helping organizations make informed decisions about technology, operations and strategy through a combination of published research, advisory services, consulting, executive programs and events.

The companys offerings include proprietary research reports, market forecasts, and analytical frameworks that are widely used by technology buyers and vendors.

Further Reading

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Reaves W H & Co. Inc. increased its stake in Pinnacle West Capital Corporation (NYSE:PNW  Free Report) by 21.3% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 1,804,114 shares of the utilities providers stock after acquiring an additional 316,193 shares during the quarter. Pinnacle West Capital comprises 2.9% of Reaves W H & Co. Inc.s holdings, making the stock its 10th largest holding. Reaves W H & Co. Inc.s holdings in Pinnacle West Capital were worth $161,757,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in PNW. CYBER HORNET ETFs LLC acquired a new position in shares of Pinnacle West Capital in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $27,000. Caldwell Trust Co bought a new position in Pinnacle West Capital during the second quarter worth $27,000. Bayforest Capital Ltd acquired a new position in Pinnacle West Capital in the third quarter valued at $29,000. Quent Capital LLC bought a new stake in Pinnacle West Capital during the third quarter valued at $30,000. Finally, Ameritas Advisory Services LLC acquired a new stake in Pinnacle West Capital during the 2nd quarter worth about $31,000. 91.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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Pinnacle West Capital Stock Down 0.4%

PNW stock opened at $93.12 on Tuesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $11.15 billion, a PE ratio of 19.12, a P/E/G ratio of 5.60 and a beta of 0.54. The company has a quick ratio of 0.49, a current ratio of 0.67 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.28. Pinnacle West Capital Corporation has a twelve month low of $85.32 and a twelve month high of $96.50. The stocks 50 day moving average is $90.18 and its 200-day moving average is $90.01.

Pinnacle West Capital Announces Dividend

Analyst Ratings Changes

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 2nd. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 2nd will be issued a dividend of $0.91 per share. This represents a $3.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, February 2nd. Pinnacle West Capitals payout ratio is currently 74.74%.

PNW has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Weiss Ratings reiterated a buy (b) rating on shares of Pinnacle West Capital in a report on Thursday, January 22nd. Morgan Stanley restated an underperform rating on shares of Pinnacle West Capital in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. KeyCorp lowered shares of Pinnacle West Capital from an overweight rating to a sector weight rating in a report on Friday, December 12th. Barclays reduced their target price on Pinnacle West Capital from $95.00 to $90.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, January 15th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group reaffirmed a buy rating and set a $115.00 price target on shares of Pinnacle West Capital in a research note on Tuesday, November 4th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, ten have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $96.42.

Get Our Latest Analysis on PNW

Pinnacle West Capital Company Profile

(Free Report)

Pinnacle West Capital Corporation is a publicly traded utility holding company headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. Through its principal subsidiary, Arizona Public Service Company (APS), Pinnacle West generates, transmits and distributes electricity to more than one million residential, commercial and industrial customers across central and southern Arizona. The companys regulated operations focus on delivering safe, reliable power while meeting evolving environmental standards.

The companys diversified generation portfolio includes natural gasfired plants, the nuclear-powered Palo Verde Generating Stationthe largest nuclear facility in the United States by net outputplus growing investments in solar and battery storage projects.

Further Reading

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Principal Financial Group Inc. lowered its stake in Principal Financial Group, Inc. (NYSE:PFG  Free Report) by 2.5% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 210,795 shares of the companys stock after selling 5,497 shares during the quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. owned approximately 0.09% of Principal Financial Group worth $17,477,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Hazlett Burt & Watson Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Principal Financial Group by 22.3% during the third quarter. Hazlett Burt & Watson Inc. now owns 713 shares of the companys stock valued at $59,000 after acquiring an additional 130 shares during the last quarter. Chicago Partners Investment Group LLC raised its stake in Principal Financial Group by 2.5% in the 2nd quarter. Chicago Partners Investment Group LLC now owns 5,550 shares of the companys stock valued at $449,000 after purchasing an additional 137 shares during the last quarter. Sagespring Wealth Partners LLC raised its stake in Principal Financial Group by 4.0% in the 2nd quarter. Sagespring Wealth Partners LLC now owns 4,035 shares of the companys stock valued at $321,000 after purchasing an additional 154 shares during the last quarter. IHT Wealth Management LLC lifted its holdings in Principal Financial Group by 3.4% in the 2nd quarter. IHT Wealth Management LLC now owns 5,425 shares of the companys stock valued at $431,000 after purchasing an additional 178 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Vivid Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Principal Financial Group by 2.4% during the 3rd quarter. Vivid Wealth Management LLC now owns 7,621 shares of the companys stock worth $632,000 after purchasing an additional 181 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.08% of the companys stock.

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Insider Transactions at Principal Financial Group

In related news, CEO Deanna D. Strable-Soethout sold 9,300 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $95.12, for a total value of $884,616.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 144,168 shares in the company, valued at approximately $13,713,260.16. The trade was a 6.06% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, EVP Wee Yee Cheong sold 1,887 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $85.04, for a total value of $160,470.48. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 81,421 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $6,924,041.84. This trade represents a 2.27% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last three months, insiders sold 26,852 shares of company stock valued at $2,512,930. 1.08% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Principal Financial Group Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:PFG opened at $95.93 on Tuesday. The businesss 50-day simple moving average is $90.62 and its 200 day simple moving average is $84.38. The company has a market cap of $21.37 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.36, a PEG ratio of 0.76 and a beta of 0.89. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36, a quick ratio of 0.30 and a current ratio of 0.29. Principal Financial Group, Inc. has a one year low of $68.39 and a one year high of $97.88.

Principal Financial Group (NYSE:PFG  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday, February 9th. The company reported $2.19 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.22 by ($0.03). Principal Financial Group had a net margin of 9.74% and a return on equity of 14.68%. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $1.94 earnings per share. Principal Financial Group has set its FY 2026 guidance at 9.010-9.260 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Principal Financial Group, Inc. will post 8.5 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Principal Financial Group Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 27th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, March 11th will be issued a $0.80 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, March 11th. This represents a $3.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.3%. This is an increase from Principal Financial Groups previous quarterly dividend of $0.79. Principal Financial Groups dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 46.00%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

PFG has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. restated a neutral rating and set a $103.00 target price on shares of Principal Financial Group in a research report on Monday, January 5th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upped their price objective on Principal Financial Group from $90.00 to $91.00 and gave the stock a market perform rating in a report on Thursday, October 30th. Barclays reaffirmed an underweight rating and issued a $85.00 price objective on shares of Principal Financial Group in a research note on Thursday, January 8th. Bank of America increased their target price on shares of Principal Financial Group from $95.00 to $96.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, UBS Group lifted their price target on shares of Principal Financial Group from $88.00 to $92.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Thursday, January 8th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have issued a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Reduce and a consensus price target of $93.22.

View Our Latest Stock Analysis on PFG

Principal Financial Group Company Profile

(Free Report)

Principal Financial Group, commonly known as Principal, is a global financial services company headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa. The firm provides a broad range of retirement, investment management and insurance solutions for individual, employer and institutional clients. Its core businesses include retirement plan services and recordkeeping, asset management, and life and disability insurance, supported by distribution through employers, financial advisors and direct channels.

On the retirement side, Principal offers 401(k) and other workplace retirement plans, individual retirement accounts and annuity products designed to help clients accumulate and manage retirement savings.

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Monolithic Power Systems, Rivian Automotive, OReilly Automotive, Upstart, AutoZone, Illinois Tool Works, and SoundHound AI are the seven Automotive stocks to watch today, according to MarketBeats stock screener tool. Automotive stocks are shares of publicly traded companies whose primary business is designing, manufacturing, selling, or supplying motor vehicles and related products or services  including carmakers, parts suppliers, dealerships, and firms focused on electric vehicles and mobility technologies. For stock-market investors, these stocks provide exposure to the auto industrys earnings and risks, which are often cyclical and influenced by consumer demand, commodity prices, regulation, and technological shifts like electrification and autonomy. These companies had the highest dollar trading volume of any Automotive stocks within the last several days.

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Monolithic Power Systems (MPWR)

Monolithic Power Systems, Inc. engages in the design, development, marketing, and sale of semiconductor-based power electronics solutions for the storage and computing, automotive, enterprise data, consumer, communications, and industrial markets. The company provides direct current (DC) to DC integrated circuits (ICs) that are used to convert and control voltages of various electronic systems, such as cloud-based CPU servers, server artificial intelligence applications, storage applications, commercial notebooks, digital cockpit, power sources, home appliances, 4G and 5G infrastructure, and satellite communications applications.

Rivian Automotive (RIVN)

Rivian Automotive, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, designs, develops, manufactures, and sells electric vehicles and accessories. The company offers consumer vehicles, including a two-row, five-passenger pickup truck under the R1T brand, a three-row, seven-passenger sport utility vehicle under the R1S name.

Read Our Latest Research Report on RIVN

OReilly Automotive (ORLY)

OReilly Automotive, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a retailer and supplier of automotive aftermarket parts, tools, supplies, equipment, and accessories in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. The company provides new and remanufactured automotive hard parts and maintenance items, such as alternators, batteries, brake system components, belts, chassis parts, driveline parts, engine parts, fuel pumps, hoses, starters, temperature control, water pumps, antifreeze, appearance products, engine additives, filters, fluids, lighting products, and oil and wiper blades; and accessories, including floor mats, seat covers, and truck accessories.

Read Our Latest Research Report on ORLY

Upstart (UPST)

Upstart Holdings, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates a cloud-based artificial intelligence (AI) lending platform in the United States. Its platform includes personal loans, automotive retail and refinance loans, home equity lines of credit, and small dollar loans that connects consumer demand for loans to its to bank and credit unions.

Read Our Latest Research Report on UPST

AutoZone (AZO)

AutoZone, Inc. retails and distributes automotive replacement parts and accessories in the United States, Mexico, and Brazil. The company provides various products for cars, sport utility vehicles, vans, and light trucks, including new and remanufactured automotive hard parts, maintenance items, accessories, and non-automotive products.

Read Our Latest Research Report on AZO

Illinois Tool Works (ITW)

Illinois Tool Works Inc. manufactures and sells industrial products and equipment in the United States and internationally. It operates through seven segments: Automotive OEM; Food Equipment; Test & Measurement and Electronics; Welding; Polymers & Fluids; Construction Products; and Specialty Products.

Read Our Latest Research Report on ITW

SoundHound AI (SOUN)

SoundHound AI, Inc. develops independent voice artificial intelligence (AI) solutions that enables businesses across automotive, TV, and IoT, and to customer service industries to deliver high-quality conversational experiences to their customers. Its products include Houndify platform that offers a suite of Houndify tools to help brands build conversational voice assistants, such as Application Programming Interfaces (API) for text and voice queries, support for custom commands, extensive library of content domains, inclusive software development kit platforms, collaboration capabilities, diagnostic tools, and built-in analytics; SoundHound Chat AI that integrates with knowledge domains, pulling real-time data like weather, sports, stocks, flight status, and restaurants; and SoundHound Smart Answering is built to offer customer establishments custom AI-powered voice assistant.

Read Our Latest Research Report on SOUN

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ProShare Advisors LLC increased its holdings in ONE Gas, Inc. (NYSE:OGS  Free Report) by 10.8% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 573,810 shares of the utilities providers stock after purchasing an additional 56,074 shares during the period. ProShare Advisors LLC owned 0.96% of ONE Gas worth $46,444,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Alps Advisors Inc. grew its stake in ONE Gas by 38.9% during the third quarter. Alps Advisors Inc. now owns 25,507 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $2,065,000 after acquiring an additional 7,148 shares in the last quarter. Horizon Investment Services LLC purchased a new stake in ONE Gas in the 3rd quarter worth $262,000. Hantz Financial Services Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of ONE Gas by 73.8% during the 3rd quarter. Hantz Financial Services Inc. now owns 1,519 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $123,000 after purchasing an additional 645 shares during the last quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH grew its position in shares of ONE Gas by 23.4% during the third quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH now owns 103,050 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $8,341,000 after purchasing an additional 19,522 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Jackson Creek Investment Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of ONE Gas in the third quarter worth about $1,925,000. Institutional investors own 88.71% of the companys stock.

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ONE Gas Trading Down 0.9%

Shares of ONE Gas stock opened at $81.73 on Tuesday. ONE Gas, Inc. has a 12-month low of $68.58 and a 12-month high of $84.11. The firms 50 day simple moving average is $78.37 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $78.40. The company has a current ratio of 0.47, a quick ratio of 0.33 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.74. The firm has a market capitalization of $4.90 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.05, a PEG ratio of 2.63 and a beta of 0.81.

ONE Gas Increases Dividend

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 6th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 20th will be paid a $0.68 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 20th. This is a positive change from ONE Gass previous quarterly dividend of $0.67. This represents a $2.72 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.3%. ONE Gass dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 62.47%.

Several equities analysts have weighed in on OGS shares. Bank of America raised their price target on ONE Gas from $90.00 to $92.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Thursday, December 4th. Jefferies Financial Group upped their price target on shares of ONE Gas from $89.00 to $99.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, October 22nd. UBS Group decreased their price objective on ONE Gas from $86.00 to $83.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, December 17th. Morgan Stanley reissued an underperform rating and set a $73.00 price objective on shares of ONE Gas in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. Finally, Weiss Ratings lowered ONE Gas from a buy (b-) rating to a hold (c+) rating in a report on Monday, January 5th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, ONE Gas has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $85.57.

Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on ONE Gas

About ONE Gas

(Free Report)

ONE Gas, Inc is a publicly traded natural gas utility company focused on the regulated distribution of natural gas to residential, commercial and industrial customers. Headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the company owns and operates an integrated system of transmission and distribution pipelines, storage facilities and compressor stations designed to deliver safe, reliable energy to end users. Its operations are governed by state utility commissions, which set rates and service standards in the markets the company serves.

The companys service territory spans three states: Oklahoma, Kansas and the Texas Panhandle.

Further Reading

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Recruit (OTCMKTS:RCRUY  Get Free Report) announced its earnings results on Monday. The company reported $0.13 earnings per share for the quarter, Zacks reports. Recruit had a return on equity of 27.53% and a net margin of 12.26%.

Recruit Stock Up 4.2%

RCRUY opened at $9.58 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $74.91 billion, a PE ratio of 11.01 and a beta of 1.66. Recruit has a twelve month low of $8.74 and a twelve month high of $14.68. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $10.97 and a 200 day moving average price of $10.95.

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About Recruit

(Get Free Report)

Recruit Holdings Co, Ltd. (OTCMKTS: RCRUY) is a Japan-based provider of human resources and information services that operates a diversified portfolio of staffing, recruitment and consumer-facing platforms. Headquartered in Tokyo, the company builds and runs digital marketplaces and service businesses that connect employers with job seekers, support corporate HR functions, and offer related marketing and consumer services in areas such as lifestyle and local search.

The companys principal activities include online job search and employer branding platforms, temporary and permanent staffing, recruitment process outsourcing, and HR technology solutions.

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Smartleaf Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in McKesson Corporation (NYSE:MCK  Free Report) by 48.0% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,831 shares of the companys stock after purchasing an additional 594 shares during the quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLCs holdings in McKesson were worth $1,395,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Brighton Jones LLC lifted its position in McKesson by 46.3% during the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 2,523 shares of the companys stock worth $1,438,000 after buying an additional 798 shares in the last quarter. Caxton Associates LLP acquired a new stake in shares of McKesson in the first quarter valued at about $233,000. Sivia Capital Partners LLC raised its holdings in McKesson by 77.9% during the second quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC now owns 685 shares of the companys stock worth $502,000 after acquiring an additional 300 shares in the last quarter. Fifth Third Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its position in McKesson by 6.5% during the second quarter. Fifth Third Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 929 shares of the companys stock valued at $681,000 after purchasing an additional 57 shares during the last quarter. Finally, waypoint wealth counsel bought a new position in McKesson in the second quarter valued at approximately $208,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 85.07% of the companys stock.

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McKesson Stock Performance

Shares of MCK opened at $962.08 on Tuesday. The firm has a market cap of $117.85 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.67, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.52 and a beta of 0.40. McKesson Corporation has a 52 week low of $583.55 and a 52 week high of $971.93. The firms 50-day simple moving average is $830.53 and its 200 day simple moving average is $782.30.

McKesson Dividend Announcement

McKesson ( NYSE:MCK Get Free Report ) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 4th. The company reported $9.34 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $9.19 by $0.15. McKesson had a negative return on equity of 338.97% and a net margin of 1.09%.The company had revenue of $106.16 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $105.98 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $8.03 earnings per share. The businesss revenue was up 11.4% on a year-over-year basis. McKesson has set its FY 2026 guidance at 38.800-39.200 EPS. As a group, equities analysts forecast that McKesson Corporation will post 32.77 earnings per share for the current year.

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 1st. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 2nd will be issued a $0.82 dividend. This represents a $3.28 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 2nd. McKessons dividend payout ratio is currently 9.43%.

Insider Buying and Selling at McKesson

In other news, EVP Thomas L. Rodgers sold 276 shares of McKesson stock in a transaction on Monday, January 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $816.18, for a total transaction of $225,265.68. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president owned 2,268 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $1,851,096.24. This trade represents a 10.85% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Napoleon B. Rutledge, Jr. sold 328 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $955.00, for a total transaction of $313,240.00. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. 0.08% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Mizuho upped their price objective on McKesson from $880.00 to $885.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Thursday, February 5th. Zacks Research lowered shares of McKesson from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 25th. Robert W. Baird set a $968.00 price target on shares of McKesson in a research note on Wednesday, January 14th. UBS Group boosted their price objective on shares of McKesson from $920.00 to $980.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, November 6th. Finally, Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of McKesson from a buy (a-) rating to a buy (b+) rating in a research note on Thursday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twelve have given a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, McKesson has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $918.93.

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McKesson Profile

(Free Report)

McKesson Corporation (NYSE: MCK) is a global healthcare services and distribution company that supplies pharmaceuticals, medical-surgical products and health care technology solutions. Founded in 1833 and headquartered in Irving, Texas, McKesson operates across the drug distribution and healthcare services value chain, connecting manufacturers, pharmacies, hospitals and health systems to help manage the movement of medicines and clinical supplies.

The companys core activities include pharmaceutical wholesale distribution and logistics, specialty pharmacy services, and the provision of medical-surgical supplies to acute and non-acute care providers.

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Coca-Cola bottle and can at a grocery checkout, highlighting consumer staples.

Key Points

Consumer staples are emerging as a clear defensive leader amid a tech, software, and crypto-led pullback in the broader market.

The Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR Fund has broken out of a multi-year consolidation, signaling strong relative strength and potential continuation if volatility and fear persist.

Coca-Cola is confirming the sectors momentum with a technical breakout, strong institutional inflows, and broad analyst support.

Interested in CocaCola Company (The)? Here are five stocks we like better.

The U.S. stock market has taken a turn lower this week, with the benchmark S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA: SPY) falling over 2% on the week coming into Friday, Feb. 6's session. Software and technology have led the market lower, along with the recent crypto and Bitcoin crash, sparking greater fears. However, while most of the U.S. equity market has turned lower in recent days and weeks, one segment has flourished. That sector is Consumer Staples.

The Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSEARCA: XLP) surged almost 6% last week, and is up an impressive 11.89% year to date (YTD). The sectors defensive nature is proving to be a significant asset right now. From a technical perspective, the sector just broke out of a major multi-year consolidation. With fundamentals and technicals aligning, the sector could be poised for further upside, especially if the broader market continues to face pressure.

 3 ETFs Designed to Survive the Next Market Crash

Consumer Staples Often Shine When the Broader Market Doesnt

When markets turn volatile, and valuation and recession fears creep in, investors often gravitate toward areas of the market built for durability. Consumer staples tend to fit that role well. The sector comprises businesses that supply everyday necessities such as groceries, beverages, cleaning products, and personal care items. Regardless of economic conditions, households continue to spend on these essentials, which helps keep demand, revenue, and cash flow relatively consistent even during downturns.

That steady demand is what gives consumer staples their defensive reputation. When risk appetite fades, like were seeing with Bitcoin right now, and capital preservation becomes the priority, these stocks typically attract renewed interest. Many companies in the space also pay reliable dividends, providing income at a time when price volatility elsewhere can be unsettling. Past market cycles reinforce this dynamic. During periods of severe stress, including the 2008 financial crisis, consumer staples generally proved far more resilient than cyclical sectors such as technology and financials.
ProShare Advisors LLC increased its stake in Spire Inc. (NYSE:SR  Free Report) by 5.2% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 550,974 shares of the utilities providers stock after purchasing an additional 27,292 shares during the period. ProShare Advisors LLC owned 0.93% of Spire worth $44,915,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC grew its holdings in shares of Spire by 10.0% during the first quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 212,438 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $16,623,000 after buying an additional 19,373 shares in the last quarter. Jane Street Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of Spire in the 1st quarter worth approximately $9,636,000. US Bancorp DE grew its stake in Spire by 21.3% during the second quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 20,035 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $1,462,000 after buying an additional 3,517 shares during the last quarter. Inspire Investing LLC lifted its position in shares of Spire by 18.2% during the second quarter. Inspire Investing LLC now owns 5,440 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $397,000 after purchasing an additional 836 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC raised its position in shares of Spire by 12.8% during the second quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC now owns 8,974 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $655,000 after acquiring an additional 1,018 shares during the last quarter. 87.36% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on SR shares. Bank of America upgraded Spire from an underperform rating to a neutral rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $76.00 to $89.00 in a research report on Wednesday, October 29th. Morgan Stanley reaffirmed an overweight rating and issued a $93.00 price objective on shares of Spire in a research report on Wednesday, January 21st. BTIG Research upgraded Spire to a strong-buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 22nd. Stifel Nicolaus increased their price target on Spire from $81.00 to $87.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 28th. Finally, Weiss Ratings upgraded Spire from a hold (c+) rating to a buy (b-) rating in a research note on Thursday. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have given a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Spire currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $89.36.

Spire Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:SR opened at $85.52 on Tuesday. The stock has a market cap of $5.05 billion, a PE ratio of 18.59, a PEG ratio of 1.36 and a beta of 0.67. The company has a quick ratio of 0.45, a current ratio of 0.61 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. The companys fifty day moving average is $83.40 and its 200 day moving average is $81.95. Spire Inc. has a 52 week low of $69.94 and a 52 week high of $91.11.

Spire (NYSE:SR  Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, February 3rd. The utilities provider reported $1.77 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.62 by $0.15. The company had revenue of $762.20 million during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $785.54 million. Spire had a return on equity of 9.43% and a net margin of 10.95%.The firms revenue for the quarter was up 13.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $1.34 EPS. Spire has set its FY 2027 guidance at 5.650-5.850 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 5.250-5.450 EPS. Research analysts anticipate that Spire Inc. will post 4.5 earnings per share for the current year.

Spire Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, April 2nd. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, March 11th will be given a dividend of $0.825 per share. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, March 11th. This represents a $3.30 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.9%. Spires dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 71.74%.

About Spire

(Free Report)

Spire Inc (NYSE: SR), formerly known as The Laclede Group, is a regulated natural gas distribution company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Through its three operating divisionsSpire Missouri, Spire Alabama and Spire Mississippithe company delivers natural gas to more than 1.7 million residential, commercial and industrial customers. Spires service territory spans key markets in the central and southern United States, including metropolitan St. Louis, central Alabama and central Mississippi.

Founded in 1857 as the Laclede Gas Light Company, the business has grown through strategic acquisitions, notably Alabama Gas Corporation in 2013 and Mississippi Gas in 2016.

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K92 Mining (TSE:KNT  Get Free Report) had its price objective boosted by investment analysts at Stifel Nicolaus from C$30.00 to C$39.00 in a note issued to investors on Tuesday,BayStreet.CA reports. Stifel Nicolaus target price would suggest a potential upside of 38.25% from the stocks previous close.

Several other research firms also recently weighed in on KNT. Scotiabank raised their target price on K92 Mining from C$20.50 to C$32.00 in a research report on Monday, January 26th. Desjardins upgraded K92 Mining to a moderate buy rating in a report on Thursday, November 27th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating and one has assigned a Buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, K92 Mining currently has a consensus rating of Strong Buy and an average price target of C$35.50.

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Get Our Latest Analysis on K92 Mining

K92 Mining Stock Performance

Shares of KNT traded up C$0.29 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, reaching C$28.21. The company had a trading volume of 285,535 shares, compared to its average volume of 839,047. The company has a quick ratio of 3.15, a current ratio of 2.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 12.66. The stock has a 50 day moving average of C$24.37 and a two-hundred day moving average of C$19.68. K92 Mining has a 52-week low of C$9.26 and a 52-week high of C$29.61. The stock has a market capitalization of C$6.87 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.39 and a beta of 1.04.

K92 Mining (TSE:KNT  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, November 10th. The company reported C$0.35 EPS for the quarter. The company had revenue of C$247.22 million for the quarter. K92 Mining had a net margin of 24.76% and a return on equity of 20.37%. On average, analysts expect that K92 Mining will post 0.7321867 earnings per share for the current year.

K92 Mining Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

K92 Mining Inc owns and operates the high-grade Kainantu Gold Mine in Papua New Guinea which is currently operating at a design annualized production rate of approximately 120,000 oz AuEq per annum and is expected to produce at a run-rate of +300,000 oz AuEq per annum following its Stage 3 Expansion.

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Equinox Gold (TSE:EQX  Get Free Report) had its target price boosted by research analysts at Stifel Nicolaus from C$25.00 to C$31.00 in a research report issued to clients and investors on Tuesday,BayStreet.CA reports. Stifel Nicolaus price target suggests a potential upside of 44.39% from the stocks current price.

A number of other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports on the stock. National Bankshares dropped their target price on shares of Equinox Gold from C$28.00 to C$26.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 7th. Royal Bank Of Canada boosted their target price on Equinox Gold from C$19.00 to C$25.00 in a report on Wednesday, December 10th. Scotiabank upgraded Equinox Gold from a hold rating to an outperform rating in a research report on Friday, November 7th. Cibc Captl Mkts cut Equinox Gold from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Thursday, February 5th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets raised their target price on Equinox Gold from C$18.00 to C$20.00 in a research note on Thursday, November 6th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have issued a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of C$25.07.

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Get Our Latest Research Report on EQX

Equinox Gold Price Performance

Shares of EQX stock traded up C$0.33 during trading hours on Tuesday, hitting C$21.47. The company had a trading volume of 1,233,358 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,919,019. Equinox Gold has a 12 month low of C$7.71 and a 12 month high of C$23.49. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 45.65, a quick ratio of 1.31 and a current ratio of 0.85. The firms fifty day moving average is C$20.13 and its 200 day moving average is C$16.27. The firm has a market capitalization of C$16.85 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 214.70 and a beta of 2.32.

Equinox Gold (TSE:EQX  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 5th. The company reported C$0.19 EPS for the quarter. Equinox Gold had a return on equity of 8.67% and a net margin of 19.82%.The business had revenue of C$1.14 billion for the quarter. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Equinox Gold will post 1.3865979 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Equinox Gold Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Equinox Gold Corp is a Canadian-based gold mining company engaged in the exploration, development and production of gold assets across the Americas. The company focuses on operating and advancing assets that can deliver sustainable gold production through modern mining methods and responsible environmental practices.

Equinox Golds operating portfolio includes the Los Filos mine in Mexico, the Mesquite and Castle Mountain mines in California, and the Aurizona mine in Brazil. These assets employ a combination of heapleach and carboninleach processing techniques to produce gold dore, while ongoing exploration programs seek to expand mineral reserves and extend mine life at each site.

Since its formation, Equinox Gold has grown through strategic acquisitions and organic project development, building a pipeline of developmentstage and advanced exploration properties across North and South America.

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Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc (NYSE:SMFG  Get Free Report)s share price hit a new 52-week high on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $23.23 and last traded at $23.21, with a volume of 2360897 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $23.04.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have recently commented on SMFG shares. Zacks Research cut shares of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group from a hold rating to a strong sell rating in a research report on Thursday, January 15th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a hold (c+) rating on shares of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group in a report on Monday, December 29th. Finally, Wall Street Zen lowered shares of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Saturday, January 31st. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group has a consensus rating of Hold.

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Get Our Latest Analysis on Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.63, a current ratio of 1.03 and a quick ratio of 1.03. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $20.12 and a 200-day simple moving average of $17.73. The stock has a market cap of $148.80 billion, a PE ratio of 19.34, a PEG ratio of 0.89 and a beta of 0.36.

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (NYSE:SMFG  Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Friday, January 30th. The bank reported $0.16 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.40 by ($0.24). Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group had a net margin of 13.81% and a return on equity of 9.38%. The firm had revenue of $17.71 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $7.93 billion. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc will post 0.39 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Voloridge Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group during the third quarter worth about $14,018,000. Fisher Asset Management LLC grew its position in shares of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group by 137.4% during the 2nd quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 1,357,193 shares of the banks stock valued at $20,507,000 after buying an additional 785,443 shares during the last quarter. Orion Porfolio Solutions LLC raised its position in shares of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group by 606.2% during the 2nd quarter. Orion Porfolio Solutions LLC now owns 709,707 shares of the banks stock worth $10,724,000 after purchasing an additional 609,212 shares during the period. Westfield Capital Management Co. LP acquired a new stake in Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group in the second quarter worth $8,188,000. Finally, Massar Capital Management LP bought a new stake in Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group in the 2nd quarter valued at about $7,555,000. 3.85% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group

(Get Free Report)

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc (SMFG) is a Tokyo-based financial holding company that provides a broad range of banking and financial services through a network of domestic and international subsidiaries. Established in 2002 as a holding company for the Sumitomo Mitsui banking operations, SMFGs core banking business is conducted primarily through its main operating bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), alongside other affiliates covering trust banking, securities, leasing and consumer finance.

The groups product and service mix spans corporate and commercial banking, retail deposit and loan services, trade and project finance, cash management, syndicated lending, foreign exchange and treasury services, and capital markets and investment banking activities through its securities arm.

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Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. (NYSE:TSM  Get Free Report) rose 1.9% during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $364.76 and last traded at $362.01. Approximately 14,489,027 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 4% from the average daily volume of 15,171,718 shares. The stock had previously closed at $355.41.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing this week:

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Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have issued reports on TSM shares. Barclays raised their price target on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing from $380.00 to $450.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Friday, January 16th. Argus raised shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing to a strong-buy rating in a research report on Thursday, January 15th. Freedom Capital raised shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing to a strong-buy rating in a research report on Thursday, January 15th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a buy (b-) rating on shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing in a research note on Monday, December 29th. Finally, Dbs Bank raised shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing to a moderate buy rating in a research note on Friday, January 23rd. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nine have assigned a Buy rating and one has assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Buy and a consensus price target of $381.67.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Price Performance

The companys fifty day moving average is $315.86 and its two-hundred day moving average is $285.57. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19, a quick ratio of 2.47 and a current ratio of 2.69. The firm has a market cap of $1.88 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.99, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.98 and a beta of 1.31.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE:TSM  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Friday, November 14th. The semiconductor company reported $14.32 EPS for the quarter. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing had a return on equity of 36.18% and a net margin of 45.13%.The company had revenue of $32.50 billion for the quarter. Equities research analysts forecast that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. will post 9.2 EPS for the current year.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, April 9th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, March 17th will be given a $0.9678 dividend. This represents a $3.87 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.1%. This is a positive change from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturings previous quarterly dividend of $0.83. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, March 17th. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturings dividend payout ratio is 23.57%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Childress Capital Advisors LLC raised its stake in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing by 145.3% in the third quarter. Childress Capital Advisors LLC now owns 3,192 shares of the semiconductor companys stock valued at $891,000 after purchasing an additional 1,891 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC grew its stake in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing by 9.4% during the third quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC now owns 101,876 shares of the semiconductor companys stock worth $28,470,000 after buying an additional 8,738 shares in the last quarter. Hantz Financial Services Inc. increased its holdings in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing by 28.6% in the 3rd quarter. Hantz Financial Services Inc. now owns 37,216 shares of the semiconductor companys stock valued at $10,394,000 after buying an additional 8,284 shares during the period. Hollencrest Capital Management raised its position in shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing by 125.3% in the 3rd quarter. Hollencrest Capital Management now owns 5,216 shares of the semiconductor companys stock valued at $1,457,000 after buying an additional 2,901 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cherokee Insurance Co bought a new stake in shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $1,248,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 16.51% of the companys stock.

About Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing

(Get Free Report)

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is a leading pure-play semiconductor foundry that provides wafer fabrication and related services to the global semiconductor industry. Founded in 1987 by Morris Chang and headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan, TSMC manufactures integrated circuits on behalf of fabless and integrated device manufacturers, offering contract chip production across a broad set of technologies and products.

TSMCs service offering covers logic and mixed-signal process technologies, specialty processes for radio-frequency, power management and embedded memory, and advanced nodes used in mobile, high-performance computing and AI applications.

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U-Haul (NYSE:UHAL.B) executives spent the companys fiscal third-quarter 2026 investor call focusing on how elevated vehicle acquisition costs and shifting resale markets have pressured results, while the company continues to invest in fleet, storage expansion, and digital tools.

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Quarterly results weighed down by depreciation and fleet disposals

Management said third-quarter results swung to a loss primarily due to higher depreciation and losses on the sale of retired rental equipment. Chief Financial Officer Jason Berg reported a quarterly loss of $37 million, compared with $67 million in earnings in the same quarter last year. That translated to a loss of $0.18 per non-voting share versus earnings of $0.35 a year ago.

Adjusted EBITDA in the moving and storage segment declined, or nearly, and operating cash flows decreased by a similar percentage, Berg said.

A key headwind was the cost of retiring and selling rental units. The company reported a $26 million loss on the disposal of retired rental equipment in the quarter, compared with a $4 million gain in last years quarter. Berg said cargo vans purchased in the prior two model years entered the fleet at higher costs, but current resale values have not kept pace, producing losses. Management also increased depreciation on remaining units to reflect updated expectations for resale values.

On top of the cargo van issue, U-Haul has expanded its box truck fleet by nearly 11,000 units compared with December of the prior year, which added depreciation expense. Berg said fleet depreciation and disposal results combined to create a $75 million year-over-year cost increase for the quarter, equivalent to roughly $0.24 per non-voting share, with more than three-quarters tied to cargo vans.

Fleet strategy: balancing excess capacity and future purchases

Chairman Joe Shoen said earnings have been pulled down by what he described as excessive acquisition costs for vans and pickups in model years 2023 and 2024. Those higher costs are now showing up in higher depreciation and in declining gains on sale that have turned into losses as vehicles exit the fleet. Shoen added that post-COVID price increases in internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles have also elevated depreciation for box trucks, though to a lesser extent.

Shoen said the company accumulated ICE fleet based on expectations that ICE availability could decline, but U-Haul is now too heavy in fleet, and rental transaction growth has not responded enough to absorb that capacity. To address this, he said the company is working on a plan to open more U-Haul dealership locations to better utilize the fleet. He also said the company expects it will still be over-fleeted and will need to increase sales of older, higher-mileage trucks over the next 12 months.

On fleet spending, Berg said capital expenditures for new rental equipment in the first nine months of fiscal 2026 were $1.748 billion, up $162 million from the same period last year. Over the calendar year 2025, gross fleet spend was approximately $2.025 billion and net spend (after equipment sales) was $1.331 billion, with Berg estimating about $670 million of that as growth-related. Initial estimates for next fiscal year indicate a decrease in new truck purchases somewhere north of $500 million.

In Q&A, Shoen emphasized that fleet decisions are affected by the mix and age of vehicles, supply chain disruptions since COVID, and what he called manufacturers allocation practices. He described efforts to smooth out age lumps within the fleetparticularly referencing an older mix in certain truck sizeswhile also considering how many trucks can be absorbed by the resale market in a given year.

Berg offered additional details on the cargo van rotation, saying the company has about 6,000 model year 2024 cargo vans left to work through and roughly 19,000 model year 2025 vans that were about $3,000 cheaper than the 2024 model year. He said increased depreciation on certain model years has been intended to minimize losses when units are sold, but management still expects losses on sale for those units this year.

Looking ahead, Berg said model year 2026 cargo van purchases coming onto the books are expected to be priced about 12% lower than last years model year and about 20% lower than two years ago.

Moving demand trends and dealer growth

For the quarter, equipment rental revenue increased $8 million, just under 1% year over year, with most of the improvement coming from the in-town business, Berg said. He also noted that January results were trending positively before significant weather activity across much of the country slowed momentum over the prior week and a half.

U-Haul expanded distribution by adding locations, which management said should help better utilize the larger fleet and increase transactions. Berg said that from the end of December 2025 compared with the same time in 2024, the company added 65 new company-operated locations and had a net increase of 365 independent dealers.

When asked about industry dynamics, Shoen said the companys indicators suggest key peers are reducing fleet and outlets, while U-Haul is expanding access and convenience through a larger outlet base.

Self-storage growth, occupancy pressure, and pricing approach

Shoen said the company is holding our own and then some in the self-storage industry but acknowledged a mismatch between unit additions and rent-up. He said that for nearly 24 months, U-Haul has been adding self-storage units faster than they are being rented, leading to a surplus of unrented units. Management said it is launching initiatives aimed at improving year-over-year rented unit counts, with results expected to become clearer into the summer season.

Berg reported storage revenues increased $18 million, or 8%, for the quarter. Average revenue per foot improved by just under 7%, while same-store revenue per occupied foot rose 5%, reflecting rate increases. Berg said the company continues to use straightforward pricing and avoids large introductory discounts.

Same-store occupancy decreased 490 basis points to just over 87%. Berg said much of the reported occupancy decline was related to a system-wide effort beginning in July to increase available units by addressing delinquent units. Because storage revenue is not recorded until collected, he said the action did not affect revenue but did reduce reported occupancy; of the nearly 5% decline, close to 4% was tied to the removal of delinquent rooms. Berg added that net tenant move-ins year over year have picked up compared with last year, adjusted for delinquent units.

On development, Berg said U-Haul invested $770 million in real estate acquisitions and new self-storage and U-Box warehouse development in the first nine months of fiscal 2026, a $444 million decrease from the prior-year period. During the third quarter, the company added 16 new storage locations, totaling about 1.5 million new net rentable square feet. The active development pipeline stands at 106 projects expected to add roughly 5.7 million net rentable square feet.

U-Box expansion, metro focus, and expense pressures

Shoen said the company now has a significant U-Box warehouse and depot presence at over 700 locations in North America, with over 200,000 containers in service and over 100,000 in customers hands. The company has slowed the pace of adding new U-Box warehouses after establishing a workable presence in most markets, but Shoen said U-Haul remains underserved in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Boston, New York City, and the Bay Area, and remains light in capacity in Canadas Vancouver Island and Edmonton. He said projects are in planning or construction in those markets and he intends to follow through on the capital expenditures.

Executives also addressed how U-Box demand ties to moving patterns. Shoen said that when consumers become anxious, they tend to shorten the distance of their moves, turning some one-way transactions into local ones. Sam Shoen added that U-Box is heavily weighted toward long-distance moves, meaning it can track one-way demand trends in an amplified way.

On costs, Berg said moving and storage operating expenses increased $66 million in the quarter. Personnel costs rose $16 million and fleet maintenance and repair increased $13 million, but the most unusual driver was self-insurance liability costs, up $38 million largely due to reserve strengthening. Berg said the company has increased its liability by nearly $79 million since March 2025.

Berg also noted that in December, U-Hauls property and casualty insurance companies paid the companys parent a $100 million dividend as part of capital reallocation among subsidiaries, making that amount available for general corporate use. As of December 2025, cash and availability from existing loan facilities at the moving and storage segment totaled $1.475 billion.

About U-Haul (NYSE:UHAL.B)

U-Haul International, Inc (NYSE: UHAL.B) is a leading provider of do-it-yourself moving equipment and storage solutions in North America. As a subsidiary of AMERCO, U-Haul offers a comprehensive array of rental products, including cargo vans, pickup trucks, trailers and towing equipment, along with portable moving containers and self-storage units. The companys services extend to packing and shipping supplies, hitch installation, and moving assistance programs tailored to both household and small-business customers.

Founded in 1945 by Leonard Shoen in Ridgefield, Washington, U-Haul grew from a single two-truck operation into an expansive network of over 21,000 locations across the United States and Canada.

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United Dominion Realty Trust (NYSE:UDR  Get Free Report) issued an update on its FY 2026 earnings guidance on Monday morning. The company provided EPS guidance of 2.470-2.570 for the period, compared to the consensus EPS estimate of 1.390. The company issued revenue guidance of -. United Dominion Realty Trust also updated its Q1 2026 guidance to 0.610-0.630 EPS.

United Dominion Realty Trust Stock Up 0.4%

NYSE UDR traded up $0.14 on Monday, hitting $37.69. 5,193,211 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 4,919,150. United Dominion Realty Trust has a fifty-two week low of $32.94 and a fifty-two week high of $46.47. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $36.54 and a 200-day moving average price of $36.83. The company has a quick ratio of 4.92, a current ratio of 4.92 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.81. The company has a market cap of $12.46 billion, a PE ratio of 85.66, a PEG ratio of 7.93 and a beta of 0.72.

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United Dominion Realty Trust Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, February 2nd. Investors of record on Monday, January 12th were issued a $0.43 dividend. This represents a $1.72 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.6%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, January 12th. United Dominion Realty Trusts dividend payout ratio is 390.91%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have issued reports on UDR. UBS Group lifted their price target on United Dominion Realty Trust from $41.00 to $42.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Thursday, January 8th. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their price target on United Dominion Realty Trust from $41.00 to $39.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a report on Monday, November 10th. Barclays dropped their price target on shares of United Dominion Realty Trust from $45.00 to $44.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, November 25th. Royal Bank Of Canada reduced their target price on United Dominion Realty Trust from $40.00 to $38.00 and set a sector perform rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, November 4th. Finally, Mizuho decreased their price target on shares of United Dominion Realty Trust from $40.00 to $38.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Monday, November 24th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, nine have assigned a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $40.21.

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United Dominion Realty Trust News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting United Dominion Realty Trust this week:

Hedge Funds Weigh In On United Dominion Realty Trust

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. grew its stake in United Dominion Realty Trust by 1.7% during the 1st quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 60,692 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $2,741,000 after purchasing an additional 986 shares in the last quarter. Empowered Funds LLC increased its stake in shares of United Dominion Realty Trust by 5.8% in the first quarter. Empowered Funds LLC now owns 6,129 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $277,000 after buying an additional 337 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Jane Street Group LLC raised its holdings in United Dominion Realty Trust by 35.0% in the first quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 14,028 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $634,000 after acquiring an additional 3,637 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 97.82% of the companys stock.

About United Dominion Realty Trust

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United Dominion Realty Trust (NYSE: UDR) is a publicly traded real estate investment trust specializing in the ownership, management, acquisition, development and redevelopment of multifamily apartment communities. The companys core focus is on Class A and Class Aplus residential properties, offering a diverse portfolio designed to meet the evolving needs of renters. UDR employs a full-service management platform to oversee daily operations, property maintenance, leasing, and resident services, ensuring consistency and quality across its holdings.

UDRs business activities encompass ground-up development, strategic property redevelopment, and selective acquisitions.

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Versor Investments LP raised its stake in shares of Albertsons Companies, Inc. (NYSE:ACI  Free Report) by 43.6% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 116,974 shares of the companys stock after purchasing an additional 35,504 shares during the period. Albertsons Companies accounts for 0.4% of Versor Investments LPs portfolio, making the stock its 28th largest holding. Versor Investments LPs holdings in Albertsons Companies were worth $2,048,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Alps Advisors Inc. acquired a new position in Albertsons Companies during the 3rd quarter worth $2,627,000. Carlson Capital L.P. boosted its stake in Albertsons Companies by 26.3% during the 3rd quarter. Carlson Capital L.P. now owns 47,000 shares of the companys stock valued at $823,000 after purchasing an additional 9,800 shares during the period. Flagship Harbor Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Albertsons Companies by 4.3% during the 3rd quarter. Flagship Harbor Advisors LLC now owns 19,150 shares of the companys stock valued at $335,000 after purchasing an additional 787 shares during the period. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of Albertsons Companies by 17.7% in the third quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 140,758 shares of the companys stock valued at $2,465,000 after acquiring an additional 21,147 shares during the period. Finally, Hantz Financial Services Inc. grew its stake in shares of Albertsons Companies by 191.6% in the third quarter. Hantz Financial Services Inc. now owns 9,667 shares of the companys stock worth $169,000 after acquiring an additional 6,352 shares during the last quarter. 71.35% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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Albertsons Companies Trading Up 0.4%

Shares of ACI opened at $18.17 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.36, a quick ratio of 0.20 and a current ratio of 0.91. The company has a market cap of $9.34 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.72, a PEG ratio of 0.54 and a beta of 0.48. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $17.27 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $18.09. Albertsons Companies, Inc. has a 52-week low of $15.80 and a 52-week high of $23.20.

Albertsons Companies Announces Dividend

Albertsons Companies ( NYSE:ACI Get Free Report ) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, January 7th. The company reported $0.72 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.67 by $0.05. Albertsons Companies had a return on equity of 38.00% and a net margin of 1.06%.The company had revenue of $19.12 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $19.18 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.71 earnings per share. The firms quarterly revenue was up 1.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Albertsons Companies has set its FY 2025 guidance at 2.080-2.16 EPS. Analysts predict that Albertsons Companies, Inc. will post 2.14 EPS for the current fiscal year.

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 6th. Investors of record on Friday, January 23rd were issued a $0.15 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 23rd. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.3%. Albertsons Companiess dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 38.71%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have recently issued reports on ACI. Weiss Ratings restated a hold (c-) rating on shares of Albertsons Companies in a report on Tuesday, January 27th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their target price on Albertsons Companies from $24.00 to $23.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, January 8th. UBS Group reduced their price objective on shares of Albertsons Companies from $25.00 to $23.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a report on Thursday, January 8th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft began coverage on Albertsons Companies in a research report on Thursday, January 8th. They set a hold rating for the company. Finally, Morgan Stanley reiterated an underweight rating and issued a $14.00 price target (down from $20.00) on shares of Albertsons Companies in a research report on Thursday, January 15th. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Albertsons Companies has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $21.58.

Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on Albertsons Companies

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Albertsons Companies news, EVP Michael T. Theilmann sold 49,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Wednesday, January 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $17.63, for a total transaction of $863,870.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president owned 289,429 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $5,102,633.27. This represents a 14.48% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 1.35% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

About Albertsons Companies

(Free Report)

Albertsons Companies, Inc (NYSE: ACI) is one of the largest food and drug retailers in the United States, operating a diversified portfolio of grocery store banners. Founded in 1939 by Joe Albertson in Boise, Idaho, the company has grown through both organic expansion and strategic acquisitions. Its core business activities encompass the sale of fresh produce, meat, bakery items, deli offerings, pharmacy services, and general merchandise. The companys retail operations are complemented by an in-house private-label program, featuring brands such as O Organics, Open Nature, and Lucerne, which cater to a range of customer preferences and price points.

Throughout its history, Albertsons Companies has pursued growth via mergers and partnerships.

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Bryce Point Capital LLC lowered its position in Warrior Met Coal (NYSE:HCC  Free Report) by 49.6% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 8,761 shares of the companys stock after selling 8,615 shares during the period. Bryce Point Capital LLCs holdings in Warrior Met Coal were worth $558,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of HCC. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC lifted its stake in Warrior Met Coal by 12.1% during the 3rd quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC now owns 1,559 shares of the companys stock valued at $99,000 after acquiring an additional 168 shares during the period. Arizona State Retirement System raised its holdings in shares of Warrior Met Coal by 1.4% during the third quarter. Arizona State Retirement System now owns 15,552 shares of the companys stock worth $990,000 after purchasing an additional 213 shares during the last quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC lifted its position in Warrior Met Coal by 3.2% during the third quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 7,046 shares of the companys stock valued at $448,000 after purchasing an additional 216 shares during the period. Old West Investment Management LLC lifted its position in Warrior Met Coal by 0.4% during the third quarter. Old West Investment Management LLC now owns 79,491 shares of the companys stock valued at $5,059,000 after purchasing an additional 290 shares during the period. Finally, Teacher Retirement System of Texas boosted its holdings in Warrior Met Coal by 4.4% in the second quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas now owns 7,980 shares of the companys stock valued at $366,000 after purchasing an additional 333 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.28% of the companys stock.

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Insider Buying and Selling

In other Warrior Met Coal news, insider Kelli K. Gant sold 10,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Monday, January 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $100.00, for a total transaction of $1,000,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 70,580 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,058,000. This represents a 12.41% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Walter J. Scheller sold 100,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, January 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $100.31, for a total transaction of $10,031,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 294,183 shares in the company, valued at approximately $29,509,496.73. The trade was a 25.37% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Company insiders own 2.10% of the companys stock.

Warrior Met Coal Stock Performance

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

NYSE HCC opened at $94.15 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.95 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 140.52 and a beta of 0.65. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $90.04 and a 200 day moving average of $73.59. The company has a current ratio of 4.13, a quick ratio of 3.00 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12. Warrior Met Coal has a twelve month low of $38.00 and a twelve month high of $105.35.

A number of equities analysts have weighed in on the company. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price objective on Warrior Met Coal from $65.00 to $72.00 and gave the company a market perform rating in a research note on Thursday, November 6th. Wall Street Zen lowered Warrior Met Coal from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Saturday. Zacks Research downgraded Warrior Met Coal from a hold rating to a strong sell rating in a report on Thursday, February 5th. UBS Group set a $108.00 price objective on Warrior Met Coal and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group raised their price objective on shares of Warrior Met Coal from $95.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 20th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, three have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $93.50.

Check Out Our Latest Analysis on Warrior Met Coal

About Warrior Met Coal

(Free Report)

Warrior Met Coal (NYSE: HCC) is a leading producer of premium metallurgical coal, operating deep underground mining complexes in Central Alabamas Blue Creek and Brookwood mining districts. The company focuses exclusively on the extraction and sale of high-grade hard coking coal, a critical raw material used in steel production. Its mining operations harness longwall mining technology and rigorous safety protocols to deliver consistent coal quality to customers worldwide.

Warrior Met Coals product portfolio centers on premium hard coking coal, semisoft coking coal, and pulverized coal injection (PCI) products.

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Wartsila (OTCMKTS:WRTBY  Get Free Report)s share price hit a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Monday . The company traded as high as $8.44 and last traded at $8.44, with a volume of 1644 shares changing hands. The stock had previously closed at $8.08.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on WRTBY. Citigroup reaffirmed a sell rating on shares of Wartsila in a research note on Thursday, January 22nd. Pareto Securities lowered Wartsila from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research report on Monday, January 19th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reiterated a hold rating on shares of Wartsila in a report on Thursday. Finally, Barclays reaffirmed an underweight rating on shares of Wartsila in a research report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Wartsila currently has a consensus rating of Strong Sell.

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Wartsila Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 0.90. The stock has a market capitalization of $24.67 billion, a P/E ratio of 36.26 and a beta of 1.24. The businesss 50 day moving average price is $7.48 and its 200 day moving average price is $6.52.

Wartsila (OTCMKTS:WRTBY  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 4th. The company reported $0.07 earnings per share for the quarter. Wartsila had a return on equity of 25.05% and a net margin of 9.08%.The firm had revenue of $2.33 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $2.42 billion. Sell-side analysts forecast that Wartsila will post 0.18 EPS for the current year.

About Wartsila

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Wartsila (OTCMKTS: WRTBY) is a Finnish technology company specializing in sustainable solutions for the marine and energy sectors. Founded in 1834 and headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, Wartsila designs, manufactures and services equipment ranging from marine engines and propulsion systems to complete power plants. The companys Energy Business provides flexible gas, multi-fuel and hybrid power plants, as well as long-term operation and maintenance services. In its Marine Business, Wartsila delivers integrated systems for ship design, digital operations and lifecycle support.

With a presence in over 80 countries, Wartsila serves shipowners, shipyards, power producers and utilities around the world.

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The company is facing competition from Chinese suppliers in the packaging solutions market, which could pose a threat to its market share and pricing strategy.

The packaging business, both in India and overseas, is currently loss-making, with delays in machine dispatches and technical issues impacting performance.

There was a significant increase in employee costs and other expenses, which affected the overall profitability and raised concerns about cost management.

Control Print Ltd ( BOM:522295 ) faced challenges with its foreign subsidiaries, particularly in Italy, where execution issues led to lower profits on consolidation.

The company has developed new solutions and successfully acquired new customers, contributing positively to its growth trajectory.

Control Print Ltd ( BOM:522295 ) is a market leader in sectors like cement, plywood, sugar, and dairy, and the business outlook remains strong for its track and trace division.

The company experienced steady growth in its coding and marking segment, which represents 92% of its business, with strong performance in verticals such as pipes, food, healthcare, dairy, steel and metal, cable, and wire.

Control Print Ltd ( BOM:522295 ) reported a significant increase in total revenue, reaching approximately INR322 crores for Q3 FY26, up from INR280 crores in the same period last year.

For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript .

Story Continues

Q & A Highlights

Q: How have the foreign subsidiaries performed, and what factors have led to lower profits on consolidation? A: Shiva Kabra, Joint Managing Director, explained that the Italian subsidiary is nearing breakeven, with new packaging machines being developed. Execution issues have delayed order fulfillment, impacting profits. However, improvements are expected in Q4 and the next fiscal year as these issues are resolved.

Q: What is the impact of higher raw material costs on gross margins, and when can improvements be expected? A: Shiva Kabra noted that the development of single polymer recyclable material is underway, which will improve margins once implemented in about four months. Current margins have not changed significantly, but improvements are anticipated with local manufacturing.

Q: Does the rise of laser printers pose a threat to the consumables business? A: Shiva Kabra stated that while laser printers have been around for decades, they have limitations such as material compatibility and safety issues. The business model for lasers differs, focusing more on service and spares. Overall, lasers are not seen as a significant threat to the consumables business.

Q: Can you explain the increase in employee costs and other expenses? A: Jaideep Barve, CFO, attributed the rise in employee costs to adjustments for gratuity provisions due to new labor codes and staff incentives. Other expenses increased due to business promotion and travel, with plans to optimize costs in the future.

Q: What is the outlook for the coding and marking business and the track and trace segment? A: Shiva Kabra expects the coding and marking business to grow at 10-15% annually, driven by product advantages. The track and trace segment is compliance-driven, with potential for growth if additional customer benefits are realized. The company is focusing on integrating business intelligence with compliance solutions.

For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript.
Waterway Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX  Free Report) in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm purchased 6,140 shares of the asset managers stock, valued at approximately $1,049,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. REAP Financial Group LLC bought a new position in Blackstone in the 3rd quarter worth about $26,000. Traub Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in Blackstone in the second quarter worth about $27,000. Parvin Asset Management LLC bought a new position in Blackstone in the second quarter worth approximately $35,000. Rexford Capital Inc. purchased a new position in Blackstone during the second quarter valued at $35,000. Finally, Greykasell Wealth Strategies Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Blackstone during the 3rd quarter valued at $45,000. 70.00% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Blackstone Price Performance

Shares of NYSE BX opened at $131.27 on Tuesday. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $151.61 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $159.15. The company has a market cap of $96.94 billion, a PE ratio of 33.83, a P/E/G ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 1.76. Blackstone Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $115.66 and a fifty-two week high of $190.09. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61, a quick ratio of 0.75 and a current ratio of 0.76.

Blackstone Increases Dividend

Blackstone ( NYSE:BX Get Free Report ) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The asset manager reported $1.75 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.54 by $0.21. The firm had revenue of $4.36 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.69 billion. Blackstone had a return on equity of 22.17% and a net margin of 20.89%.Blackstones revenue for the quarter was up 41.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.69 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts expect that Blackstone Inc. will post 5.87 EPS for the current fiscal year.

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, February 17th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 9th will be paid a $1.49 dividend. This is a positive change from Blackstones previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, February 9th. This represents a $5.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.5%. Blackstones dividend payout ratio is 132.99%.

Insider Activity at Blackstone

In related news, major shareholder Tactical Opportunit Blackstone sold 1,596,142 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Thursday, December 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $10.00, for a total value of $15,961,420.00. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 2,161 shares in the company, valued at approximately $21,610. The trade was a 99.86% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, major shareholder Holdings Iv Gp Mana Blackstone purchased 385,208 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Friday, November 21st. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $25.96 per share, with a total value of $9,999,999.68. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 16,332,883 shares in the company, valued at $424,001,642.68. This trade represents a 2.42% increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase is available in the SEC filing. Corporate insiders own 1.00% of the companys stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have issued reports on the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group reduced their price target on shares of Blackstone from $166.00 to $158.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a report on Friday, January 30th. Citizens Jmp reiterated a market outperform rating and set a $195.00 price target on shares of Blackstone in a report on Friday, January 30th. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their target price on shares of Blackstone from $187.00 to $185.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, January 8th. Evercore decreased their price objective on Blackstone from $175.00 to $170.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a report on Friday, January 30th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets reduced their price target on shares of Blackstone from $180.00 to $165.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a report on Monday, February 2nd. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and eleven have issued a Hold rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $174.77.

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About Blackstone

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Blackstone Inc (NYSE: BX) is a global investment firm focused on alternative asset management. Founded in 1985 by Stephen A. Schwarzman and Peter G. Peterson and headquartered in New York City, the firm organizes and manages investment vehicles that acquire and operate businesses, real estate and credit investments, as well as provide hedge fund solutions and other alternative strategies for institutional and individual investors.

Blackstones business is organized around several principal investment platforms.

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Wealthfront Advisers LLC increased its position in Invesco California AMT-Free Municipal Bond ETF (NYSEARCA:PWZ  Free Report) by 265.5% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 18,905,818 shares of the companys stock after acquiring an additional 13,733,922 shares during the period. Invesco California AMT-Free Municipal Bond ETF comprises about 1.1% of Wealthfront Advisers LLCs investment portfolio, making the stock its 18th biggest holding. Wealthfront Advisers LLC owned 41.73% of Invesco California AMT-Free Municipal Bond ETF worth $452,227,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Jane Street Group LLC increased its position in shares of Invesco California AMT-Free Municipal Bond ETF by 41.3% during the 1st quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 268,578 shares of the companys stock valued at $6,406,000 after purchasing an additional 78,542 shares during the last quarter. Elmwood Wealth Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of Invesco California AMT-Free Municipal Bond ETF by 2.7% during the second quarter. Elmwood Wealth Management Inc. now owns 25,075 shares of the companys stock valued at $585,000 after acquiring an additional 650 shares in the last quarter. WealthPlan Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in Invesco California AMT-Free Municipal Bond ETF during the 2nd quarter valued at about $560,000. Stratos Wealth Partners LTD. raised its stake in Invesco California AMT-Free Municipal Bond ETF by 2.1% in the second quarter. Stratos Wealth Partners LTD. now owns 1,830,367 shares of the companys stock worth $42,721,000 after buying an additional 37,325 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Envestnet Asset Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Invesco California AMT-Free Municipal Bond ETF by 16.8% during the 2nd quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 1,666,448 shares of the companys stock worth $38,895,000 after purchasing an additional 239,883 shares during the last quarter.

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Invesco California AMT-Free Municipal Bond ETF Stock Up 0.2%

Shares of PWZ opened at $24.32 on Tuesday. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $24.20 and a two-hundred day moving average of $23.93. Invesco California AMT-Free Municipal Bond ETF has a one year low of $22.23 and a one year high of $24.94.

Invesco California AMT-Free Municipal Bond ETF Increases Dividend

Invesco California AMT-Free Municipal Bond ETF Company Profile

The company also recently disclosed a monthly dividend, which was paid on Friday, January 23rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, January 20th were paid a dividend of $0.077 per share. This is an increase from Invesco California AMT-Free Municipal Bond ETFs previous monthly dividend of $0.07. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, January 20th. This represents a c) annualized dividend and a yield of 3.8%.

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The Invesco California AMT-Free Municipal Bond ETF (PWZ) is an exchange-traded fund that mostly invests in investment grade fixed income. The fund tracks an index of insured investment-grade, tax-exempt debt issued by California or any US territory with at least 15 years remaining to maturity. PWZ was launched on Oct 11, 2007 and is managed by Invesco.

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WESCO International (NYSE:WCC  Get Free Report) issued an update on its FY 2026 earnings guidance on Tuesday morning. The company provided earnings per share guidance of 14.500-16.500 for the period, compared to the consensus earnings per share estimate of 16.140. The company issued revenue guidance of $24.7 billion-$25.4 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $24.9 billion.

WESCO International Stock Performance

NYSE:WCC opened at $301.73 on Tuesday. WESCO International has a 12 month low of $125.21 and a 12 month high of $319.67. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.18, a current ratio of 2.09 and a quick ratio of 1.20. The firm has a market capitalization of $14.68 billion, a PE ratio of 23.67, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.00 and a beta of 1.45. The businesss fifty day moving average price is $272.54 and its 200 day moving average price is $242.21.

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WESCO International (NYSE:WCC  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 10th. The technology company reported $3.40 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $3.82 by ($0.42). The business had revenue of $6.07 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $6.03 billion. WESCO International had a return on equity of 13.12% and a net margin of 2.81%.WESCO International has set its FY 2026 guidance at 14.500-16.500 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that WESCO International will post 13.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

WESCO International Dividend Announcement

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, December 31st. Stockholders of record on Friday, December 12th were paid a dividend of $0.4538 per share. This represents a $1.82 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.6%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, December 12th. WESCO Internationals dividend payout ratio is 14.27%.

WCC has been the topic of several recent research reports. Royal Bank Of Canada raised shares of WESCO International from a sector perform rating to an outperform rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $262.00 to $302.00 in a research note on Wednesday, November 19th. KeyCorp boosted their price target on shares of WESCO International from $300.00 to $304.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Monday, January 26th. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of WESCO International from $274.00 to $302.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Monday, January 12th. Weiss Ratings reissued a hold (c+) rating on shares of WESCO International in a research note on Wednesday, January 21st. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on WESCO International from $260.00 to $290.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Friday, January 16th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have issued a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $266.00.

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Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. BNP Paribas Financial Markets lifted its position in WESCO International by 516.8% during the second quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 41,354 shares of the technology companys stock worth $7,659,000 after buying an additional 34,649 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. raised its stake in WESCO International by 6.2% during the third quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 324,068 shares of the technology companys stock worth $68,541,000 after purchasing an additional 19,056 shares during the period. Gamco Investors INC. ET AL purchased a new stake in shares of WESCO International during the 2nd quarter valued at $573,000. Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio increased its holdings in shares of WESCO International by 0.9% during the 3rd quarter. Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio now owns 83,734 shares of the technology companys stock worth $17,710,000 after buying an additional 777 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Danske Bank A S acquired a new position in WESCO International in the third quarter valued at $127,000. 93.75% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

WESCO International Company Profile

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WESCO International, Inc is a leading global distributor of electrical, industrial, communications and utility products, serving a diverse customer base across maintenance, repair and operations (MRO), original equipment manufacturing (OEM) and construction markets. The company offers a comprehensive portfolio of products ranging from power distribution and automation solutions to data communications, security systems and lighting controls. Through an extensive branch network, WESCO provides critical components and valueadded services that help organizations streamline operations and improve reliability in their facilities and infrastructure.

In addition to its broad product offering, WESCO delivers advanced supply chain management and logistics solutions designed to optimize inventory levels, reduce downtime and lower overall procurement costs.

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Whitestone REIT (NYSE:WSR  Get Free Report)s share price hit a new 52-week high during trading on Tuesday . The company traded as high as $15.10 and last traded at $15.0750, with a volume of 5410 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $15.00.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on WSR shares. LADENBURG THALM/SH SH initiated coverage on shares of Whitestone REIT in a report on Tuesday, January 13th. They issued a buy rating and a $17.00 target price for the company. Cantor Fitzgerald upgraded Whitestone REIT to a strong-buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 4th. Truist Financial increased their price target on Whitestone REIT from $15.00 to $16.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Tuesday, January 20th. Citigroup reissued a market outperform rating on shares of Whitestone REIT in a research note on Tuesday, January 6th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a buy (b-) rating on shares of Whitestone REIT in a research report on Monday, December 29th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating and five have issued a Buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of Buy and an average price target of $16.25.

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Read Our Latest Analysis on Whitestone REIT

Whitestone REIT Trading Up 0.1%

Whitestone REIT Dividend Announcement

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.44, a quick ratio of 1.74 and a current ratio of 1.74. The firm has a market cap of $766.12 million, a PE ratio of 17.67 and a beta of 0.81. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $13.91 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $13.06.

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 30th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 16th will be issued a $0.1425 dividend. This represents a $0.57 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.8%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 16th. Whitestone REITs payout ratio is 63.53%.

Whitestone REIT announced that its board has approved a stock repurchase program on Friday, December 19th that authorizes the company to buyback $50.00 million in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the real estate investment trust to purchase up to 7.2% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually an indication that the companys leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Whitestone REIT Company Profile

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Whitestone REIT is a real estate investment trust headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, that specializes in the acquisition, development and management of retail and mixed-use properties. The companys portfolio is concentrated in high-growth Texas markets, including the DallasFort Worth metroplex, Houston, Austin and San Antonio, where it primarily owns open-air neighborhood and community shopping centers. Whitestone REIT focuses on convenience- and necessity-based retail, partnering with grocers, fitness operators, service providers and other essential tenants to drive consistent foot traffic and stable occupancy.

In addition to property ownership, Whitestone REIT provides asset and property management services, leasing expertise and development capabilities.

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Wynnstay Group (LON:WYN  Get Free Report) announced its earnings results on Monday. The company reported GBX 28.80 EPS for the quarter, Digital Look Earnings reports. Wynnstay Group had a net margin of 0.97% and a return on equity of 4.69%.

Wynnstay Group Trading Up 2.7%

LON:WYN opened at GBX 402.50 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of 92.85 million, a P/E ratio of 24.94 and a beta of 0.58. Wynnstay Group has a 1 year low of GBX 272.11 and a 1 year high of GBX 420. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 11.53, a current ratio of 2.00 and a quick ratio of 1.03. The stocks fifty day moving average price is GBX 359.16 and its two-hundred day moving average price is GBX 357.26.

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Insider Activity

In other Wynnstay Group news, insider Rob Thomas bought 2,891 shares of Wynnstay Group stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 1st. The stock was acquired at an average cost of GBX 345 per share, for a total transaction of 9,973.95. Also, insider Steven Esom acquired 2,891 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 1st. The shares were bought at an average price of GBX 345 per share, for a total transaction of 9,973.95. Corporate insiders own 4.14% of the companys stock.

About Wynnstay Group

Wynnstay is a 108-year-old, leading UK supplier of agricultural products and services, supporting farmers and rural communities nationwide . Founded in 1917 as a farmers co-operative and listed on AIM since 2004, Wynnstay has a proven track record of delivering consistent returns and rising dividends. In 2025, we launched Wynnstay Strategy Genesis, a five-year plan focused on growth, innovation, and sustainable value creation. This builds on Project Genesis, introduced in 2024, which strengthened operational efficiency and created a robust foundation for transformation.

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Xylem (NYSE:XYL  Get Free Report) announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday. The industrial products company reported $1.42 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $1.42, FiscalAI reports. Xylem had a net margin of 10.66% and a return on equity of 10.77%. The business had revenue of $2.40 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.37 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.18 earnings per share. Xylems revenue was up 6.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Xylem updated its FY 2026 guidance to 5.350-5.560 EPS.

Here are the key takeaways from Xylems conference call:

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Record 2025 results  Xylem closed the year with record revenue, EBITDA and EPS, expanded full-year EBITDA margin to 22.2%, a net debt/adjusted EBITDA of 0.2x, and a backlog of $4.6 billion.

 Xylem closed the year with record revenue, EBITDA and EPS, expanded full-year EBITDA margin to 22.2%, a net debt/adjusted EBITDA of 0.2x, and a backlog of $4.6 billion. 2026 guidance calls for $9.1$9.2 billion revenue (1%3% reported; 2%4% organic), EBITDA margin of 22.9%23.3% (70110 bps expansion) and EPS of $5.35$5.60, reflecting continued margin improvement and profitable growth plans.

calls for $9.1$9.2 billion revenue (1%3% reported; 2%4% organic), EBITDA margin of 22.9%23.3% (70110 bps expansion) and EPS of $5.35$5.60, reflecting continued margin improvement and profitable growth plans. Management will accelerate its 80/20 product/customer simplification, which creates an elevated ~2% one-year top-line headwind in 2026 as lower-quality revenues are intentionally walked away to raise long-term earnings quality.

product/customer simplification, which creates an elevated ~2% one-year top-line headwind in 2026 as lower-quality revenues are intentionally walked away to raise long-term earnings quality. Near-term risks include project-timing variability in smart meters, pronounced weakness in China (notably Water Infrastructure and Applied Water), and quarter-to-quarter lumpiness in WSS, pressuring Q1 and early2026 cadence.

Xylem Stock Down 7.9%

Shares of XYL traded down $11.02 during midday trading on Tuesday, hitting $129.17. The stock had a trading volume of 4,889,386 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,562,010. The firm has a market cap of $31.45 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.21, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.02 and a beta of 1.17. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $139.48 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $142.24. Xylem has a twelve month low of $100.47 and a twelve month high of $154.27. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.96 and a quick ratio of 1.50.

Xylem Increases Dividend

Key Stories Impacting Xylem

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, March 24th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 24th will be issued a dividend of $0.43 per share. This is a boost from Xylems previous quarterly dividend of $0.40. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 24th. This represents a $1.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.3%. Xylems dividend payout ratio is currently 41.13%.

Here are the key news stories impacting Xylem this week:

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have weighed in on the company. Citigroup increased their target price on Xylem from $173.00 to $182.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 29th. Stifel Nicolaus increased their price target on shares of Xylem from $175.00 to $178.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 29th. Robert W. Baird set a $178.00 price objective on shares of Xylem in a report on Wednesday, October 29th. Argus set a $170.00 target price on shares of Xylem in a report on Wednesday, October 29th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada lifted their price target on shares of Xylem from $169.00 to $176.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 29th. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and four have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Xylem has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $165.80.

View Our Latest Stock Report on Xylem

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Xylem

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of XYL. Wexford Capital LP acquired a new stake in Xylem in the 3rd quarter valued at about $27,000. FWL Investment Management LLC bought a new stake in Xylem in the second quarter valued at approximately $43,000. Johnson Financial Group Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Xylem in the third quarter valued at approximately $77,000. State of Wyoming acquired a new position in shares of Xylem during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $89,000. Finally, MUFG Securities EMEA plc bought a new stake in Xylem in the 2nd quarter valued at $93,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 87.96% of the companys stock.

Xylem Company Profile

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Xylem Inc (NYSE: XYL) is a global water technology company that designs, manufactures and services engineered systems and equipment for the transport, treatment, testing and efficient use of water. Its product portfolio spans pumps and pumping systems, valves, filtration and disinfection equipment, sensors and analytical instruments, and digital solutions for monitoring and control of water infrastructure. Xylem serves the full water cycle with offerings for water and wastewater utilities, industrial customers, commercial and residential buildings, and agricultural applications.

The company was established as an independent publicly traded company in 2011 following a corporate spin-off from ITT Corporation and is headquartered in Rye Brook, New York.

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Mohawk Industries, Inc. (NYSE:MHK  Free Report)  Investment analysts at Zacks Research cut their Q3 2026 earnings per share estimates for Mohawk Industries in a research note issued on Monday, February 9th. Zacks Research analyst Team now anticipates that the company will post earnings per share of $3.08 for the quarter, down from their previous estimate of $3.14. The consensus estimate for Mohawk Industries current full-year earnings is $9.80 per share. Zacks Research also issued estimates for Mohawk Industries Q4 2026 earnings at $2.11 EPS and FY2026 earnings at $9.82 EPS.

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A number of other brokerages also recently weighed in on MHK. Raymond James Financial reiterated a strong-buy rating and issued a $150.00 price objective (up previously from $140.00) on shares of Mohawk Industries in a research report on Tuesday, October 21st. Evercore reduced their price target on Mohawk Industries from $124.00 to $118.00 and set an in-line rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, November 19th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a hold (c-) rating on shares of Mohawk Industries in a research report on Wednesday, January 28th. Wolfe Research cut shares of Mohawk Industries from an outperform rating to a peer perform rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 7th. Finally, Vertical Research started coverage on shares of Mohawk Industries in a research report on Monday, October 20th. They set a buy rating for the company. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have given a Buy rating and eight have given a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Mohawk Industries has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $128.11.

Mohawk Industries Price Performance

NYSE:MHK opened at $132.19 on Tuesday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $115.93 and a 200-day moving average price of $120.47. Mohawk Industries has a 1-year low of $96.24 and a 1-year high of $143.13. The firm has a market cap of $8.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.67, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.65 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21, a current ratio of 2.25 and a quick ratio of 1.24.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in MHK. Atlas FRM LLC grew its position in Mohawk Industries by 28.0% in the 2nd quarter. Atlas FRM LLC now owns 608,000 shares of the companys stock valued at $63,743,000 after acquiring an additional 133,000 shares in the last quarter. AEGON ASSET MANAGEMENT UK Plc purchased a new position in shares of Mohawk Industries in the third quarter valued at approximately $20,054,000. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Mohawk Industries in the second quarter valued at approximately $337,000. ARGA Investment Management LP increased its stake in Mohawk Industries by 1,508.1% during the 3rd quarter. ARGA Investment Management LP now owns 488,741 shares of the companys stock worth $63,008,000 after buying an additional 458,349 shares during the period. Finally, Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA boosted its position in Mohawk Industries by 0.5% in the 3rd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 1,829,830 shares of the companys stock valued at $235,902,000 after buying an additional 9,516 shares during the period. 78.98% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Transactions at Mohawk Industries

In other Mohawk Industries news, insider Suzanne L. Helen sold 2,700 shares of Mohawk Industries stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, December 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $109.00, for a total transaction of $294,300.00. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 67,893 shares of the companys stock, valued at $7,400,337. The trade was a 3.82% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Insiders have sold 14,985 shares of company stock worth $1,658,526 in the last ninety days. 17.40% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Mohawk Industries Company Profile

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Mohawk Industries, Inc is a global flooring manufacturer that designs, produces and distributes a broad range of floor covering products for both residential and commercial applications. Headquartered in Calhoun, Georgia, the company traces its roots to 1878 and has expanded through a series of strategic acquisitions and organic growth initiatives. Over the decades, Mohawk has built a vertically integrated platform encompassing yarn manufacturing, fiber production, wood and laminate finishing, and ceramic tile fabrication, enabling tight control over product quality and supply chain efficiency.

The companys product portfolio includes residential and commercial carpet, ceramic and porcelain tile, laminate, wood and natural stone flooring, luxury vinyl, and innovative surface solutions.

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Macquarie Capit upgraded shares of ZTO Express (Cayman) (NYSE:ZTO  Free Report) from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating in a research report report published on Sunday morning,Zacks.com reports.

Other research analysts have also recently issued reports about the company. Weiss Ratings reissued a hold (c) rating on shares of ZTO Express (Cayman) in a report on Monday, December 29th. Zacks Research lowered shares of ZTO Express (Cayman) from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 7th. Finally, Wall Street Zen raised shares of ZTO Express (Cayman) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Saturday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have given a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $22.36.

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Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on ZTO

ZTO Express (Cayman) Stock Up 1.5%

ZTO Express (Cayman) stock traded up $0.37 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $24.50. The companys stock had a trading volume of 675,972 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,156,067. ZTO Express has a twelve month low of $16.34 and a twelve month high of $24.55. The stocks fifty day moving average price is $21.74 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $20.14. The stock has a market capitalization of $14.44 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.22, a P/E/G ratio of 4.54 and a beta of -0.18.

ZTO Express (Cayman) (NYSE:ZTO  Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 20th. The transportation company reported $0.43 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $2.51 by ($2.08). ZTO Express (Cayman) had a return on equity of 14.33% and a net margin of 18.61%.During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.90 earnings per share. The firms quarterly revenue was up 11.1% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts expect that ZTO Express will post 1.57 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Trading of ZTO Express (Cayman)

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Leonteq Securities AG bought a new position in ZTO Express (Cayman) during the 4th quarter worth $30,000. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC lifted its stake in ZTO Express (Cayman) by 61.4% in the second quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC now owns 2,021 shares of the transportation companys stock valued at $36,000 after buying an additional 769 shares during the period. First Horizon Corp bought a new position in shares of ZTO Express (Cayman) during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $40,000. CWM LLC grew its position in shares of ZTO Express (Cayman) by 42.2% during the 3rd quarter. CWM LLC now owns 2,341 shares of the transportation companys stock worth $45,000 after buying an additional 695 shares during the period. Finally, Assetmark Inc. increased its stake in shares of ZTO Express (Cayman) by 1,713.0% in the 4th quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 2,375 shares of the transportation companys stock valued at $50,000 after acquiring an additional 2,244 shares in the last quarter. 41.65% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

ZTO Express (Cayman) Company Profile

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ZTO Express (Cayman) Inc is one of Chinas leading express delivery companies, specializing in both domestic and cross-border parcel logistics. The company operates a technology-enabled network that connects shippers, independent pickup and delivery stations, regional sorting hubs and end customers. ZTOs service portfolio includes standard express, heavy-weight parcel delivery, time-definite shipments and e-commerce logistics solutions tailored for online retailers and marketplaces.

Founded in 2002 and headquartered in Shanghai, ZTO has grown rapidly by leveraging a franchise-style operating model that engages a broad network of independent contractors.

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Startups such as Artisan AI, Cluely and Friend have provoked backlash for ads implying their tools could replace human workers, help cheat in job interviews or substitute for real friendships: decisions that critics say amount to distasteful messaging orchestrated for ragebaiting.

As standard claims about productivity and speed blur together, some startups are abandoning corporate messaging in favor of spectacle. And while these stunts appear to be working, marketing experts say the shift reflects an industry under mounting pressure.

The stunt reflects a broader shift among AI companies turning to provocative marketing to stand out in an overcrowded, capital-rich sector. In 2025 alone, AI startups raised roughly $202.3bn globally, up from $114bn the year before, according to Crunchbase . Digital ad spending for generative AI apps also surpassed $200m in Q2 2025, SensorTower data shows.

With more than 90,000 AI companies worldwide, according to one tally, many businesses promising to automate the same tasks across work and daily life are having increasing difficulty differentiating themselves by their products alone. Many AI companies geared towards businesses have relied on hype-filled messaging delivered through predictable channels like trade shows, white papers, billboards and digital ads. A live stunt in front of the Wall Street bull represents a departure in form that can feel oddly out of sync with the conventional back-office software these companies build.

We were trying to figure out in a sea of sameness how we could stand out as a startup to be reckoned with, said Alex Mann, Lunoss head of growth.

The goal was simple: deliver Lunoss pitch of taming the wild west of accounts receivables in the most literal, public way possible. The startup uses AI to automate invoices, track balances and follow up on payments.

On a sweltering evening in late September, the cowboy galloped toward the iconic sculpture in lower Manhattan. Wearing ranch gear and a western hat stamped with the Lunos logo, he lassoed the bulls horns as invitees and curious passersby watched. He and the horse then circled the statue, handing out cowboy hats and branded stress balls.

When Lunos, an AI startup in New York City, was gearing up for launch, its founder and chief executive, Duncan Barrigan, and his team wanted to make a splash. So they shelled out $3,500 to do the unconventional: hire a horse and a cowboy to lasso the bull of Wall Street.

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Wary of similar accusations, business-focused AI startups are experimenting with less controversial gimmicks for a range of reasons.

For Virio, the draw is viral content. In September, the AI marketing startup hired cowboys to walk two horses around the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco during HubSpot Inbound, a major marketing conference. From 8am to 11am, co-founder Emmett Chen-Ran walked beside the horses holding a Virio banner reading Content that drives pipeline.

The aim was to catch the attention of founders and C-suite leaders at companies with 50 or more employees, Virios target customers. Chen-Ran said such theatrics are rare in the B2B world, where companies sell products to other companies rather than consumers, giving the stunt an added novelty. The real goal, though, was for conference attenders to take photos and share them on LinkedIn, fueling the online engagement at the center of Virios marketing strategy.

You dont do the stunt for the stunt itself, Chen-Ran said. You do it for the LinkedIn posts and the content it drives.

While Virio leaned into spectacle, Personal AI, a small language model startup, used provocation as a visual metaphor for its core message.

In June, at the HubSpot AI Summit (a separate conference from HubSpot Inbound) in San Francisco, Personal AIs CEO, Suman Kanuganti, walked onstage topless wearing only gym shorts. Kanuganti opened with the line LLMs are naked splashed across the screen behind him. He argued that the large models powering ChatGPT and Gemini leave users feeling exposed and insecure. Personal AI, which allows businesses to create individuated AI models by training on their own documents, he said, is the missing gear. As he slowly dressed, each item of clothing, from the Arcteryx jacket to his Salomon shoes, symbolized a layer of protection he personally trusted. The point was to show that, just as people select clothing from familiar brands, businesses should have access to AI systems built with transparent guardrails: privacy, safety and reliability.

Trapped in land grab mentality

Marketing experts say the rise of these tactics speaks to the pressure facing enterprise AI startups in a rapidly expanding sector.

Emily Heyward, co-founder and CEO of Red Antler, a marketing agency for startups, said founders feel trapped in a land grab mentality desperate to seize attention before a rival does, even if the product is still maturing, as investors pour billions into AI firms.

Few, if any, of these businesses are currently delivering on their ultimate product vision, Heyward said. Its really about drumming up enough noise that people try you versus the other guy, then stick with you as the tech evolves.

Tom Goodwin, co-founder of All We Have Is Now, a business consulting firm, takes a more cynical view. Goodwin says there is a degree of desperation and urgency driving many of these stunts. AI is subversive, he argues, which lends itself to marketing that is provocative and attention-grabbing.

These companies are terrified that no ones going to notice them, Goodwin said.

He goes further, arguing there is a degree of lack of morality embedded in some AI products, pointing to intellectual property theft, job displacement and the dismissal of human values. In a media environment splintered across social platforms and heightened political theater, fear, he says, becomes a marketing tool. Startups tapping into that anxiety are reaching for one of the few reliable ways to claw back attention.

While these startups insist their tactics were strategic and effective in driving sales, Virio, Personal AI and Lunos say stirring up negative discourse solely for attention does not align with their values.

***

The less inflammatory, more controlled version of stunt marketing appears to be paying off, though with mixed results.

Virios stunt did not unfold as planned. Few people walked by, and the horses at the Moscone Center moved too quickly for most people to capture good photos. Still, Chen-Ran said the company created its own LinkedIn content from the event, generated more than 300 qualified website visitors and gained visibility after countless people recognized the team inside the conference, leading to calls with a few potential customers.

At Personal AI, Kanugati said his stage performance helped cement the companys positioning and secure additional conference bookings, which have led to a handful of small customer deals.

For Lunos, the impact was immediate. Mann said thousands of people visited the site, LinkedIn posts about the Wall Street stunt drew hundreds of likes and comments, and word-of-mouth referrals spiked across CFO Slack groups. In the three months following the launch, Mann said inbound leads filled the sales pipeline with hundreds of qualified prospects. The publicity even triggered an influx of job applications, including McKinsey consultants seeking leadership roles across business operations.

Lunos now has paying customers, and the team says the volume and quality of inbound interest has left them confident they can convert even more early leads into clients.

As Mann put it, the stunt opened the door for us to think creatively about how we want to design future activation campaigns, a sign that the pressure to stand out is unlikely to fade.
Olivier Pomel: Thank you, Yuka, and thank you all for joining us this morning to go over what was a very strong Q4 and overall a really productive 2025. Let me begin with this quarter's business drivers. We continue to see broad-based positive trends in the demand environment. With the ongoing momentum of cloud migration, we experienced strength across our business, across our product lines, and across our diverse customer base. We saw a continued acceleration of our revenue growth. This acceleration was driven in large part by the inflection of our broad-based business outside of the AI-native group of customers we discussed in the past.

We will discuss non-GAAP financial measures, which are reconciled to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures in the tables in our earnings release, which is available at investors.datadoghq.com. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Olivier.

These statements reflect our views today and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. For a discussion of the material risks and other important factors that could affect our actual results, please refer to our Form 10-Q for the quarter ended 09/30/2025. Additional information will be made available in our upcoming Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended 12/31/2025 and other filings with the SEC. This information is also available on the investor relations section of our website along with a replay of this call.

Yuka Broderick: Thank you, Michelle. Good morning, and thank you for joining us to review Datadog's fourth quarter 2025 financial results, which we announced in our press release issued this morning. Joining me on the call today are Olivier Pomel, Datadog's Co-Founder and CEO, and David Obstler, Datadog's CFO. During this call, we will make forward-looking statements, including statements related to our future financial performance, our outlook for the first quarter and fiscal year 2026, and related notes and assumptions, our product capabilities, and our ability to capitalize on market opportunities. The words anticipate, believe, continue, estimate, expect, intend, will, and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements or similar indications of future expectations.

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And we also continue to see very high growth within these AI-native customer groups as they go into production and grow in users, tokens, and new products. Our go-to-market teams executed to a record $1.63 billion in bookings, up 37% year over year. This included some of the largest deals we have ever made. We signed 18 deals over $10 million in TCV this quarter, of which two were over $100 million, and one was an 8-figure land with a leading AI model company. Finally, churn has remained low, with gross revenue retention stable in the mid to high nineties, highlighting the mission-critical nature of our platform for our customers.

Regarding our Q4 financial performance and key metrics, revenue was $953 million, an increase of 29% year over year, and above the high end of our guidance range. We ended Q4 with about 32,700 customers, up from about 30,000 a year ago. We also ended Q4 with about 4,310 customers with an ARR of $100,000 or more, up from about 3,610 a year ago. These customers generated about 90% of our ARR. And we generated free cash flow of $291 million with a free cash flow margin of 31%. Turning to product adoption, our platform strategy continues to resonate in the market.

At the end of Q4, 84% of customers used two or more products, up from 83% a year ago. 55% of customers used four or more products, up from 50% a year ago. 33% of our customers use six or more products, up from 26% a year ago. 18% of our customers use eight or more products, up from 12% a year ago. As a sign of continued penetration of our platform, 9% of our customers use 10 or more products, up from 6% a year ago. During 2025, we continued to land and expand with larger customers. As of December 2025, 48% of the Fortune 500 are Datadog customers.

We think many of the largest enterprises are still very early in their journey to the cloud. The median Datadog ARR for our Fortune 500 customers is still less than half a million dollars, which leaves a very large opportunity for us to grow with these customers. So we are landing more customers and giving more value, and we also see that with the ARR milestones we are reaching with our products. We continue to see strong growth dynamics with our core three pillars of observability: infrastructure monitoring, APM, and log management. As customers are adopting the cloud, AI, and modern technologies, today, infrastructure monitoring contributes over $1.6 billion in ARR.

This includes innovations that deliver visibility and insights across our customers' environments, whether they are on-prem, virtualized servers, containerized hosts, serverless deployments, or parallelized GPU fleets. Meanwhile, log management is now over $1 billion in ARR. This includes continued rapid growth with FlexLogs, which is nearing $100 million in ARR. And our third pillar, the end-to-end suite of APM and DEM products, also crossed $1 billion in ARR. This includes an acceleration of our core APM product, into the mid-thirties percent year over year, currently our fastest-growing core pillar. We have now enabled our customers with the easiest onboarding and implementation in the market while delivering unified deep end-to-end visibility into the application.

Now remember that even with these three pillars, we are still just getting started, as about half of our customers do not buy all three pillars from us, or at least not yet. Moving on to R&D and what we built in 2025, we released over 400 new features and capabilities this year. That's too much for us to cover today, but let's go over just some of our innovations. We are executing relentlessly on a very ambitious AI roadmap, and I will split our AI efforts into two buckets: AI for Datadog and Datadog for AI. So first, let's look at AI for Datadog.

These are AI products and capabilities that make the Datadog platform better and more useful for customers. We launched the AI SRE agent for general availability in December to accelerate root cause analysis and incident response. Over 2,000 trial and paying customers have run investigations in the past month, which indicates significant interest and showed great outcomes with BCAI. Sorry. And we are well on our way with DeepAI DevAgent, which detects code-level issues, generates fixes with production context, and can even help release the monitor fix. And BigAI security, which autonomously charges SIEM signals, conducts investigations, and delivers recommendations. The Datadog MCP server is being used by thousands of customers in preview.

Our MCP server responds to AI agent and user prompts and uses real-time production data and rich data context to drive troubleshooting, root cause analysis, and automation. And we are seeing explosive growth in MCP usage. With the number of tool calls growing 11-fold in Q4 compared to Q3. Second, let's talk about Datadog for AI. This includes capabilities that deliver end-to-end observability and security across the AI stack. We are seeing an acceleration in growth. Over 1,000 customers are using the product, and the number of fans sent has increased 10 times over the last six months.

In 2025, we broadened this product to better support application development and integration, adding capabilities such as experiments, LM playground, LM analysis, and custom as a judge. And we will soon release our AI Agents console to monitor usage and adoption of AI agents and coding assistance. We are working with design partners on GPU monitoring, and we are seeing GPU usage increase in our customer base overall. And we are building into our products the ability to secure the AI stack against prompt injection attacks, model hijacking, and data poisoning, among many other risks. Overall, we continue to see increased interest among our customers in Next Gen AI.

Today, about 5,500 customers use one or more Datadog AI integrations to send us data about their machine learning, AI, and LLM usage. In 2025, our observability platform delivered deeper and broader capabilities for our customers. We reached a major milestone of more than 1,000 integrations, making it easy for our customers to bring in every type of data they need and engage with the latest technologies, from cloud to AI. In node management, we are seeing success with our consolidation motion. During 2025, we saw an increasing demand to replace a large legacy vendor with stakeout in nearly 100 deals for tens of millions of dollars of new revenue.

And we improved log management with notebooks, reference tables, log patterns, calculated fields, and an improved lifestyle among many other innovations. We launched data observability for general availability. Data is becoming even more critical in the AI era. With data availability, we are enabling end-to-end visibility across the entire data life cycle. We launched storage management last month, providing granular insights into cloud storage and recommendations to reduce spend. We delivered Kubernetes auto-scaling so users can quickly identify which over-provisioned clusters and deployments and right-size their infrastructure. In the digital experience monitoring area, we launched product analytics to help product designers make better design decisions with clear data about user experience and behavior.

And we delivered run without limits, giving front-end teams full visibility into user traffic and performance, and dynamically choosing the most useful sessions to retain. In security, we are seeing increasing traction in our activity displacing existing market-leading solutions with cloud SIEM in long to private. This year, our engineers shipped many new capabilities, including a tripling of the amount of content packs into the product. And most importantly, the tight integration with Bit.ai security agent, which has already shown promise as a strong differentiator in the market. We launched code security, enabling customers to detect and remediate vulnerabilities in their code and open-source libraries, from development to production.

And then we continue to advance our cloud security offering, adding infrastructure as code or IAC security, which detects and resolves security issues with Terraform. And we launched our security graph to identify and evaluate attack paths. In software delivery, in January, we launched feature flags. They combine with our real-time observability to enable Canary rollouts so teams can deploy new code with confidence. And we expect them to gain importance in the future, as they serve as a foundation for automating the validation and release of applications in an AI agentic development world.

We are also building out our internal developer portal, which includes software catalog and scorecards, to help developers navigate infrastructure and application complexity, provide rich context to AI development agents, and ultimately enable a faster release cadence. Cloud service management, we launched on-call, and now support over 3,000 customers with their incident response processes. And I already mentioned this AI's already agent, which pairs with on-call to accelerate our customer incident resolution. As you can tell, we have been very busy, and I want to thank our engineers for a very productive 2025. And most importantly, I am even more excited about our plan for 2026. So let's move on to sales and marketing.

I want to highlight some of the great deals we closed this quarter. First, we landed an 8-figure annual deal, and our biggest new logo deal to date with one of the largest AI financial model companies. The customer had a fragmented observability stack and cumbersome monitoring workflows leading to poor productivity. This is a consolidation of more than five open-source, commercial, hyperscaler, and in-house observability tools into the unified Datadog platform. That has returned meaningful time to developers and has enabled a more cohesive approach to observability. This customer is experiencing very rapid growth. Datadog allows them to focus on product development, supporting their users, which is critical to their business success.

Next, we welcome back a customer with a European data company in a nearly 7-figure annualized deal. This customer's log-focused observability solution had poor user experience and integrations, which led to limited user adoption and gaps in coverage. By returning to Datadog and consolidating seven observability tools, they expect to reduce tooling overhead, improve engineering productivity with faster incident resolution. It would adopt nine Datadog products as a stock, including some of our newer products, such as FlexLog, observability pipeline, self-cost management, data observability, and on-call. Next, we signed an 8-figure annualized expansion with a leading e-commerce and digital payments platform.

These customers' products have an enormous reach in commercial APM solutions, had scaling issues, lack correlation across silos, and had a pricing model that was difficult to understand or predict. With this extension, they are standardizing on Datadog APM using OpenTelemetry, so their teams can correlate metrics, tracing, and logs to detect and resolve issues faster. And they have already seen meaningful impact, with a 40% reduction in resolution times by their own estimates. This customer has adopted 17 products across the Datadog platform. Next, we signed a seven-figure annualized expansion for an eight-figure annualized deal with a Fortune 500 food and beverage retailer.

This long-time customer uses the Datadog platform across many products but still has over 30 other observability tools and embarked on consolidating for cost savings and better outcomes. With this expansion, data log management and flex logs would replace the legacy logging product for all ops use cases, with expected annual savings in the millions of dollars. This customer is expanding to 17 Datadog products. Next, we signed a 7-figure annualized expansion with a leading healthcare technology company. This company was facing reliability issues impacting clinicians during critical workflows and putting customer trust at risk.

The customer will consolidate six tools and adopt seven Datadog products, including L and M observability, to support their AI initiative, as well as Big AI SRE agents to further accelerate this in a response. Next, we signed an 8-figure annualized expansion, more than quadrupling the annualized commitment, with a major Latin American financial services company. Given its successful tool consolidation projects and rapid adoption of Datadog products across all of its teams, the customer renewed only with us when expanding to additional products, including data observability, CI visibility, database monitoring, and observability pipelines. With Datadog, this customer showed measurable improvements in cost efficiency, customer experience, and conversion rates across multiple lines of business.

That proof of value led them to broaden their commitment with us and have firmly established Datadog as their mission-critical observability partner. Last and not least, we signed a 7-figure annualized expansion for an 8-figure annualized deal with a leading fintech company. With this expansion, the customer is moving their log data onto our unified platform, so teams can correlate telemetry in one place and save between hours and weeks in time to resolution for incidents. This customer has obtained 19 Datadog products across the platform, including all three pillars, as well as visual experience, security, software delivery, and service management. And that's it for our wins.

Congratulations to our entire go-to-market for a great 2025 and a record with Q4. It was inspiring to see the whole team at our last month, and really exciting to embark on a very ambitious 2026. Before I turn it over to David for financial review, I want to say a few words on our longer-term outlook. There is no change to our overall view that digital transformation and cloud migration are long-term secular growth drivers for our business. So we continue to extend our platform to solve our customers' problems from end to end across our software development production, data stack, user experience, and security needs.

Meanwhile, we are moving fast in AI by integrating AI into the Datadog platform to improve customer value and outcome, and by building products to observe, secure, and act across our customers' AI stacks. In 2025, we executed very well and delivered for our customers against their most complex mission-critical problems. Our strong financial performance is an output of that effort. And we are even more excited about 2026 as we are starting to see an inflection in AI usage by our customers into the application, and as our customers begin to adopt AI innovation, such as the AI SRE agent.

To hear about all that in detail and much more, I welcome you all to join us at our next Investor Day this Thursday in New York between 1 and 5 PM. I'll be joined by our product and go-to-market leaders, sharing how we are serving our customers, how we innovate to broaden our platform, and how we are delivering better value with AI. For more details, refer to the press release announcing the event or head to investors.datadoghq.com. And with that, I will turn it over to our CFO, David.

David Obstler: Thanks, Olivier. Our Q4 revenue was $953 million, up 29% year over year and up 8% quarter over quarter. Now to dive into some of the drivers of our Q4 revenue growth. First, overall, we saw robust sequential usage growth from existing customers in Q4. Revenue growth accelerated with our broad base of customers, excluding the AI natives, to 23% year over year, up from 20% in Q3. We saw strong growth across our customer base with broad-based strength across customer size, spending bands, and industries. And we have seen this trend of accelerated revenue growth continue in January. Meanwhile, we are seeing continued strong adoption amongst AI-native customers with growth that significantly outpaces the rest.

We see more AI-native customers using Datadog, with about 650 customers in this group. And we are seeing these customers grow with us, including 19 customers spending $1 million or more annually with Datadog. Among our AI customers are the largest companies in this space. As today, 14 of the top 20 AI-native companies are Datadog customers. Next, we also saw continued strength from new customer contribution. Our new logo bookings were very strong again this quarter, and our go-to-market teams converted a record number of new logos. And average new logo land sizes continue to grow strongly. Regarding retention metrics, our trailing twelve-month net retention revenue retention percentage was about 120%, similar to last quarter.

And our trailing twelve-month gross revenue retention percentage remains in the mid to high nineties. And now moving on to our financial results. First, billings were $1.21 billion, up 34% year over year. Remaining performance obligations or RPO was $3.46 billion, up 52% year over year. And current RPO growth was about 40% year over year. RPO duration increased year over year as the mix of multiyear deals increased in Q4. We continue to believe revenue is a better indication of our business trends than billing and RPO. Now let's review some of the key income statement results. Unless otherwise noted, all metrics are non-GAAP. We have provided a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financials in our earnings release.

First, our Q4 gross profit was $776 million with a gross margin percentage of 81.4%. This compares to a gross margin of 81.2% last quarter and 81.7% in the year-ago quarter. Q4 OpEx grew 29% year over year, versus 32% last quarter and 30% in the year-ago quarter. And we continue to grow our investments to pursue our long-term growth opportunities, and this OpEx growth is an indication of our successful execution on our hiring plans. Our Q4 operating income was $230 million or a 24% operating margin compared to 23% last quarter and 24% in the year-ago quarter. Now turning to the balance sheet and cash flow statements.

We ended the quarter with $4.47 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities. Cash flow from operations was $327 million in the quarter. After taking into consideration capital expenditures and capitalized software, free cash flow was $291 million for a free cash flow margin of 31%. And now for our outlook for the first quarter and the full fiscal year 2026. Our guidance philosophy overall remains unchanged. As a reminder, we base our guidance on trends observed in recent months and apply conservatism on these growth trends. For the first quarter, we expect revenues to be in the range of $951 to $961 million, which represents a 25% to 26% year-over-year growth.

Non-GAAP operating income is expected to be in the range of $195 to $205 million, which implies an operating margin of 21%. Non-GAAP net income per share is expected to be in the $0.49 to $0.51 per share range, based on approximately 367 million weighted average diluted shares outstanding. And for the full fiscal year 2026, we expect revenues to be in the range of $4.06 to $4.1 billion, which represents 18% to 20% year-over-year growth. This includes modeling within our guidance that our business, excluding our largest customer, grows at least 20% during the year. Non-GAAP operating income is expected to be in the range of $840 million to $880 million, which implies an operating margin of 21%.

And non-GAAP net income per share is expected to be in the range of $2.08 to $2.16 per share, based on approximately 372 million weighted average diluted shares. Finally, some additional notes on our guidance. First, we expect net interest and other income for the fiscal year 2026 to be approximately $140 million. Next, we expect cash taxes in 2026 to be about $30 million to $40 million, and we continue to apply a 21% non-GAAP tax rate for 2026 and beyond. Finally, we expect capital expenditures and capitalized software together to be in the 4% to 5% of revenue range in fiscal year 2026. To summarize, we are pleased with our strong execution in 2025.

Thank you to the Datadog teams worldwide for a great 2025. And I am very excited about our plans for 2026. And finally, we look forward to seeing many of you on Thursday for our Investor Day. And now with that, we will open up our call for questions. Operator, let's begin the Q&A.

Operator: Thank you. Our first question comes from Sanjit Singh with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Sanjit Singh: Thank you for taking the questions and congrats on a strong close to the year and a successful 2025. Olivier, I wanted to get your updated views in terms of where observability is headed in the context of a lot of advancements when it comes to agentic frameworks, agentic deployments, the stuff that we have seen from Anthropic and new frontier models from OpenAI. Just in terms of, like, what this means for observability as a category, the visibility of it, in terms of, can customers use these tools to build, you know, homegrown solutions for observability.

Just get your latest comments on the defensibility of the category and how Datadog may potentially have to evolve in this new sort of agentic era.

Olivier Pomel: Yeah. I mean, look. There are a few different ways to look at it. You know? One is there are going to be many more applications than there were before. Like, people are building much more, and they are building much faster. You know, we have covered that in previous calls, but, you know, we think that this is nothing but an acceleration of the increase of productivity for developers in general, so you can build a lot faster. As a result, you create a lot more complexity because you build more than you can understand at any point in time.

And you move a lot of the value from the act of writing the code, which now you actually do not own anymore, to validating, testing, making sure it works in production, making sure it is safe, making sure it interacts well with the rest of the world, with the end users, making sure it does what it is supposed to do for the business, you know, which is what we do with observability. So we see a lot more volume there, and we see that as, you know, what we do basically where observability can help. The other part that is interesting is that a lot more happens within these agents and these applications.

And a lot of what we do as humans now starts to look like observability. You know? Basically, we are here to understand, we try to understand what the machine does. We try to make sure it is aligned with us. We try to make sure, you know, the output is what we expected when we started. And that, you know, we did not break anything. And so we think it is going to bring observability more widely in domains that it did not necessarily cover before.

So we think that these are accelerants, and we, I mean, obviously, we have a horse in this race, but, you know, we think that observability and the contact between the code, the applications, and the real world, and the environment, and the real user, and the real business, is the most interesting, the most important part of the whole AI development life cycle today.

Sanjit Singh: And maybe just one follow-up on that line of thinking. In a world where there is a greater mix between human SREs and agentic SREs, is there any sort of evolution that we need to think about in terms of whether it is UI or how workflows work in observability and how maybe Datadog sort of tries to align with that evolution that is likely to come in the next couple of years?

Olivier Pomel: Yeah. Because there is going to be an evolution, that is certain. There is going to be a lot more automation, we see today. Like, we see all the signs we see point to everything moving faster. I mean, more data, but more interactions, more systems, more releases, more breakages, more resolutions of those breakages, more bugs, more vulnerabilities. Everything. Yeah. So we see an acceleration there. At the end of the day, the humans will still have some form of UI to interact with all that. And a lot of the interaction will be automated by agents. So we are building the product to satisfy both conditions.

So we have a lot of UIs, and we are able to present the human with UIs that represent how the world works, what the options are, give them some of your ways to go through problems and to model the world. And we also are exposing a lot of our functionality to agents directly. You know, we mentioned on the call we have an MCP server that is currently in preview and that is really seeing explosive growth of usage from our customers. And so it is a very likely future that part of our functionality is delivered to agents through MCP servers or the like. Part of our functionality is directly implemented by our own agents.

And part of our functionality is delivered to humans with UIs.

Sanjit Singh: Understood. Thank you, Olivier.

Olivier Pomel: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Raimo Lenschow with Barclays. Your line is open.

Raimo Lenschow: Congrats from me as well. Staying on a little bit on that AI theme. Olivier, the 8-figure deal for a model company is really exciting. I assume they tried to do it with some open-source tooling, etcetera. But and actually went from, like, you know, almost paying not a lot of money to paying you more money. What drove that thinking? What do you think they saw that kind of convinced them to do that? And it is now the second one, you know, after the other very big model provider. So clearly, that whole debate in the market between oh, you can do that on the cheap somewhere, is not kind of valid. Could you speak to that, please?

Thank you.

Olivier Pomel: I mean, the situation is just very similar to where every single customer will land. Every customer we land has had some homegrown. They have some open source. They might still run some open source. Like, that is typically what we see everywhere. The idea that it is cheaper to do it yourself is usually not the case. You know? So your engineers are typically very well compensated in the big part of the spend in these companies. Their velocity is what gates just about anything else in the business. And so, you know, usually, when we come in, when customers start engaging with us, we can very quickly show value that way.

So it is not any different from what we see with any other customer. And, also, within the AI cohort, it is not, you know, original at all. Like, you know, the AI cohorts in general are a who's who of the companies that are throwing guys and that are shaping the world in AI. And they are all adopting our product for the same reasons. Sometimes with different volumes because those companies have different scales, but the logic is the same.

Raimo Lenschow: Perfect. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Gabriela Borges with Goldman Sachs.

Gabriela Borges: Hi, good morning. Congratulations on the quarter and thank you for taking my question. Olivier, I wanted to follow-up on Sanjit's question on how to think about where the line is between what an LLM can do longer term and the domain experience that you have in observability. If I think about some of Anthropic's recent announcements, they are talking about LLMs as a broader anomaly detection type tool, for example, on the security vulnerability management side, how do you think about the limiting factor to using LLM as an anomaly detection tool that could potentially take share over from the severity of the time and the category?

And how do you think about the moat that Datadog has that offers customers a better solution relative to where the roadmap and LLMs can go long term? Thank you.

Olivier Pomel: Yeah. So that is a very good question. You know, we definitely see that LLMs are getting better and better, and we will bet on them getting significantly better, you know, every few months as we have seen over the past couple of years. And as a result, they are very, very good at looking at broad sets of data, you know, for you know? So if you see a lot of data, 2011 asks for an analysis. You are very likely to get something that is very good, and that is going to get, you know, even better. So when you think of, you know, what we have that is here, there are two parts.

One is how we are able to assemble that context so we can feed it into those intelligence engines. You know? And that is how we aggregate all the data we get, you know, we parse out the dependencies. We understand where we can fit together, and we can fit that into the LLM. That is in part what we do. For example, today, we expose the kinds of functionality behind our MCP server. And so customers can recombine that in different ways using different intelligence tools.

But the other part that we think where the world is going is going for observability is that, you know, right now, we are, you know, GSDLP is accelerating a lot, but it is still somewhat slow. And so it is okay to have incidents and run post hoc analysis on those incidents and maybe use some outside tooling for that. Where the world is going is you are going to have many more changes, many more things. You cannot actually afford to have incidents to look at for, you know, everything that is happening in your system. So you will need to be proactive. You will need to run analysis in stream as all the data flows through.

You will need to run detection and resolution before you have outages materialize. And for that, you will need to be embedded into the data plane, which is what we run. And we also need to be able to run specialized models that can act on that data, you know, as opposed to just taking everything and summarizing everything after the fact fifteen minutes later. And that is, you know, what we are uniquely positioned to do. We are building that.

We are not quite there yet, but we think that, you know, a few years from now, that is where the world is going to run, and that is what makes us significantly different in terms of who we can apply under detection intelligence and preemptive resolution into our systems.

Gabriela Borges: That makes a lot of sense. Thank you. My follow-up, by the way, the data planes we are talking about are very real-time. And there are many orders of magnitude larger in terms of data flows, data volumes than what you typically feed into an LLM. So it is a bit of a different problem to solve.

Olivier Pomel: Yeah. Super interesting. Thank you. My follow-up for you, Olivier and David, you have mentioned a couple of times now some of the conversations you have with customers about value creation within the Datadog platform. Tell us a little bit about how some of those conversations evolve when the customer sees that in order to do observability for more AI usage, perhaps that Datadog bill is going up. What are some of the steps that you can take to make sure that the customer still feels like they are getting a ton of value out of the Datadog platform? Thank you.

Olivier Pomel: Well, there are a few things. I mean, first, you know, again, the rule of software always applies. You know, there are only two reasons that people buy your product. It is to make more money or to save money. So whatever you do, when customers use a new product, they need to see a cost saving somewhere, or they need to see that they are going to get customers they would not get to otherwise. So we have to prove that. We always prove that anytime a customer buys a product, you know, that is what is happening behind the scenes.

In general, when customers add to our platform as opposed to bringing another vendor in or another product team, they also spend less by doing it in our platform.

Gabriela Borges: I appreciate the color. Thank you very much.

Olivier Pomel: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Ittai Kidron with Oppenheimer and Company. Your line is open.

Ittai Kidron: Thanks and congrats on quite an impressive finish for the year. David, I wanted to dig in a little bit into your '26 guide. Just want to make sure I understand some of your assumptions. So maybe you could talk about the level of conservatism that you have built into the guide for the year and also you have talked about at least 20% growth for the core, excluding the largest customer. But what is it that we should assume for the large customer? And now when you look at the AI cohort excluding this large customer, are there any concentrations evolving over there given your strong success there?

David Obstler: Yeah. There are questions in there. The first is overall on guidance, except what we are going to speak about next. We took the same approach as we looked at the organic growth rates and the attach rates and the new logo accumulation rates and discounted that. So for the overall business, which is quite diversified, we talked about diversification by industry, by geography, by SMB, mid-market, and enterprise. We took the same approach. We noted that with the guidance being 18% to 20%, and the non-AI or heavily diversified business being 20% plus, that would imply that the growth rate of that core business assumed in the guidance is higher than the growth rate of the large customer.

That does not mean the large customer is growing any which way. It is just that in our consumption model, we essentially do not control that. And so we took a very conservative assumption there. And the last point I think you mentioned is the highly diversified. We said 650 names in the AI. It is quite diversified. You know? Essentially, it would be very similar to our overall business, which we have a range of customers, but not the concentration level. And what we are seeing there is significant growth. But like our overall distributed customer base, you know, growth and then, you know, potentially some working on how the product is being used.

But nothing, you know, out of the ordinary relative to the overall customer base. In the very diversified AI set of customers outside the largest customer.

Ittai Kidron: Okay. That is great. Yeah. And can you give us the percent of revenue of the AI cohort this quarter?

David Obstler: We definitely have not put it in there.

Ittai Kidron: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Todd Coupland with CIBC.

Todd Coupland: Thank you and good morning. I wanted to ask you about competition. And how the LLM rise is impacting share shifts. Just talk about that and how Datadog will be impacted. Thanks a lot.

Olivier Pomel: Yeah. I mean, there has not been, you know, in the market with customers, there has not been any particular change in competition, you know, in that we see the same kind of folks, and the positions are relatively similar. And we are pulling away. We are taking share from anybody who has scale. And I know there has been noise. There were a couple of M&A deals that came up, and we got some questions about that. The companies in there were not particularly winning companies, not companies that we saw in deals. That can be they had a large market impact.

And so we do not see that as changing the competitive dynamics for us in the near future. We also know that competing in observability is a very, very full-time job. It is a very innovative market. And we know exactly what it is we have to do and have to do to keep pulling away the way we are. And so we are very confident in our approach and what we are going to do in the future there. With the rise of LLM, there is clearly more functionality to build, and there are new ways to serve customers. You know, we have mentioned our product. There are a few other products on the market for that.

I think it is still very early for that part of the market, and that market is still relatively undifferentiated in terms of the kinds of products they are. But we expect that to shake out more into the future. We think in the end, there is no reason to have observability for your LLM that is different from the rest of your system. In great part because your LLM does not work in isolation. The way they implement their sparks is by using tools, the tools on your applications and your existing applications. Or new applications you build for that purpose.

And so you need everything to be integrated in production, and we think we stand on a very strong footing there.

Todd Coupland: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Mark Murphy with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Mark Murphy: Thank you. Olivier, Amazon is targeting $200 billion in CapEx this year. If you include Microsoft and Google, that CapEx is going to exceed $500 billion this year for the big three hyperscalers. It is growing 40% to 60%. I am wondering if you have collected enough signal from the last couple of years of CapEx that trend to estimate how much of that is training-related and when it might convert to inference where Datadog might be required. In other words, you know, are you looking at this wave of CapEx and able to say it is going to create a predictable ramp in your LLM observability revenue, maybe what inning of that are we in?

And then I have a follow-up.

Olivier Pomel: I think it is more I think it is probably too reductive to peg that on LLM's availability. I think it points to way more applications, way more intelligence, way more of everything into the future. Now it is kind of hard to directly map the CapEx on those companies into what part of the infrastructure is actually going to be used to deliver value, you know, two or three or four years from now. So I think we will have to see on what the conversion rate is on that.

But, look, it definitely points to very, very, very large increases in the complexity of the systems, the number of systems, and the reach of the systems in the economy. And so we think it is going to be like, it is going to be of great help to our business. Let us put it this way.

Mark Murphy: Yeah. Great help. Okay. And then as a quick follow-up, there is an expectation developing that OpenAI is going to have a very strong competitor, which is Anthropic. Kind of closing the gap, producing nearly as much revenue as OpenAI in the next one to two years. You mentioned that 8-figure land with an AI model company. I am wondering if we step back, do you see an opportunity to diversify that AI, customer concentration, whether, you know, sometimes it might be a direct customer relationship there. Or, you know, it could be some of the products like Claude Code, being adopted globally, just kind of creating more surface area to drive business to Datadog.

Can you comment on maybe what is happening there among the larger AI providers or whether you can diversify that out?

Olivier Pomel: Yeah. I mean, look. We have never been a like, we are not built as a business to be concentrating on a couple of customers. That is not how we become successful. That is probably not how we will be successful in the long term. So, yes, I mean, we at the end of the day, it should be irrational for customers for all customers in the AI cohort not to use our product. So we see have some great successes with the customers currently in that cohort. We see more. By the way, we have more that are, more inbound there and more customers that are talking to us. From the largest, you know, even hyperscaler level AI lab.

And we expect to drive more business there in the future. I think there is no question about that. And you are seeing that in some of the metrics we have been giving in terms of the number of AI-native customers. The size of some of these customers. So, you know, to echo what Olivier said, we are essentially selling to many of the largest players, which results in greater size of the cohort and more diversification.

Mark Murphy: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Matt Hedberg with RBC. Your line is open.

Matt Hedberg: Congrats from me as well. David, question for you. Your prior investments clearly paying off with another quarter of acceleration. And it seems like you are going to continue to invest in front of the future opportunity. I think margins are down maybe 100 basis points on your initial guide. I am curious if you can comment on gross margin expectations this year and how you also might realize incremental OpEx synergies by using even more AI internally.

David Obstler: Yeah. On the gross margin, I think what we said is, you know, plus or minus the 80% mark. We, you know, we try to engineer when we see opportunities for efficiency, we have been quite good at being able to harvest them. At the same time, we want to make sure we are investing, you know, in the platform. So I think, you know, what we are essentially where we are today is very much sort of in line with what we said we are targeting. There may be opportunity longer term, but we also are trying to balance those opportunities with investment in the platform.

And in terms of AI, to date, we are using it in our internal operations. So far, it is well, the first signs of what we are seeing is productivity and adoption. We will continue to update everybody as we see opportunities in terms of the cost structure. Olivier, anything else you want to go over?

Olivier Pomel: Yeah. I mean, look. The expectation in the short to midterm anyway should be that we keep investing heavily in R&D. You know, we are getting a lot we see great productivity gains, you know, with AI there. But at this point of detail, it helps us build more faster, get to solve more problems for our customers. And but we are very busy adopting AI for the organization.

Matt Hedberg: Got it. Thanks, guys.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Koji Ikeda with Bank of America.

Koji Ikeda: Yeah. Hey, guys. Thanks so much for taking the question. Olivier, maybe a question for you. A year ago, you talked about how some while some customers do want to take observability in-house, it is really a cultural choice. It may not be rational unless you have tremendous scale, access to talent, growth is not limited by innovation bandwidth. Which most companies do not. And so it is a year later, and it does seem like the industry and the ecosystem and everything has changed quite a bit. So I was hoping to get your updated views on these thoughts if it has changed at all over the past year and why. Thank you.

Olivier Pomel: No. I mean, look. It is something that happens sometimes, but it is a small part of the cases. Like, the general motion is customers start with some homegrown or attempts to do things themselves. Then they move to a product, then they will care with our product. Sometimes they optimize a little bit along the way. But the general motion is they do more and more with us. They rely on us for more of their so they do more of their problems. And they outsource the problem. And increasingly the outcomes to us. So I do not think that is changing. Look.

We will still see customers here and there that choose to resource it and do it themselves. Again, usually for cultural reasons. I would say economically, or from a focus perspective, it does not make sense for the very vast majority of companies. And, you know, we even see teams at, you know, hyperscalers that have all the tooling in the world, all the money in the world, and that still choose to use our products. Because it gives them a more direct path to solving their problems.

Koji Ikeda: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. And our next question comes from Peter Weed with Bernstein Research. Your line is open. Peter, if your telephone is muted, please unmute. Our next question comes from Brad Reback with Stifel. Your line is open.

Brad Reback: Great. Thanks very much. Olivier, the sustained acceleration in the core business is pretty impressive. Obviously, you all have invested very aggressively in go-to-market over the last kind of eighteen to twenty-four months. Can you give us a sense of where you are in that productivity curve? And if there are additional meaningful gains you think? Or is it incremental? And maybe where you see additional investments in the next twelve to eighteen months? Thanks.

Olivier Pomel: Yeah. I mean, we feel good about the productivity. I think the main drivers from us in the future are we still need to scale, and we are still scaling the go-to-market team. We are not at the scale we need to be in every single marketing segment we need to be in the world right now. And so we keep scaling there. Their focus now is not necessarily to improve productivity. It is to scale while maintaining productivity. And, of course, there are too many, many things we can do.

Actually, we love our performance, but there is always a bunch of things that could be better, your territory that could be better, productivity that could be better, things like that. So we have tons of work, tons of things we want to do, tons of things on the fix, some things we want to improve. Overall, we feel good about what happened. We feel good about scaling, and you should expect more scaling from us in the go-to-market side in the year to come.

Brad Reback: Great. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Howard Ma with Guggenheim.

Howard Ma: Great. Thanks for taking the question. I have one for Olivier. The core APM product growing in the 30% growth, that is pretty impressive and I think better than maybe a lot of us expected. Is the question is, is that a reacceleration, and is the growth driven by AI-native companies that are using Datadog's real user monitoring and other DEM features as compared to or as opposed to rather core enterprise customers that are building more applications.

Olivier Pomel: Yeah. I think, I mean, look. APM in general, I think, has always been a bit of a steady Eddie in terms of the growth. Like, it is a product that takes a little bit longer to deploy another, which is further into the applications. And so it takes a bit longer to penetrate within the customer environment. That being said, we did a lot of different things we did that help with the growth there. One is we invested a lot in actually making that onboarding deployment a lot simpler and faster. You know? So we think we have the best in the market for that. And it shows.

Second, we invested a lot in the digital experience side of it. And it is very differentiated. It is something our customers love, and it is driving a lot of adoption of the broader APM suite. And we will expect to see more of that in the future. And third, you know, we make investments and go to market to cover the market better. And so we are getting into more looks at more deals in more parts of the world. And so all of that combined, you know, helps that product reaccelerate growth, you know, quite a bit. And so we feel actually very, very good about it, which is why we, you know, we keep investing.

Overall, we still only have a small part of the pure APM market. Like, that product is scaled at about $10 billion, including DEM. The market is larger. And so we think there is a lot more we can do.

David Obstler: Yeah. I want to add, you know, we talked about because I just mentioned that we are not penetrated across our customer base. And, therefore, we are continuing to consolidate onto our platform. So we have quite a number of wins where we already have other products. We already have Infrared logs, and we are consolidating APM.

Howard Ma: Thank you, guys. David, as a follow-up for you, on margin, are the large AI-native customers significantly diluted to gross margin? And when you think about the initial 2026 margin guide, how much of that reflects potentially lower gross margin type of those customers versus incremental investments?

David Obstler: On a weighted average, they are not. We, as we always said, for larger customers, it is not about the AI natives or non-AI natives. It has to do with the size of the customer. We have a highly differentiated diversified customer base. So I would say, you know, we are essentially expecting a similar type of discount structure in terms of size of customer as we have going forward. And, you know, there are consistent ongoing investments in our gross margin, including data centers, and development of platforms. So I think it is more or less what we have seen over the past couple of years not really affected by AI or not AI in AI native.

Howard Ma: Okay. Thank you. Great quarter.

David Obstler: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Peter Weed with Bernstein Research. Your line is open.

Peter Weed: Hello. Can you hear me this time?

Operator: Yes, John.

Peter Weed: Okay. Thank you. You are on. Yep. Apologies for the last time. Great quarter. You know, looking forward, I think one of your most interesting opportunities really is around Bits AI and I would love to hear kind of, like, how you think that opportunity shapes up. Like, how do you get paid the fair value for the productivity you are bringing to the SRE and broader operations team? And really how you see competition playing out in that space because, obviously, we have seen startups coming in. You know, there are questions about Anthropic and, you know, where they want to go. You know, how does Datadog really capture this value, and protect it for the business.

Olivier Pomel: Yeah. I mean, look, the way we currently sell a lot of these products is you show, like, the difference in time spent. And when the alternative is you try and solve the problem yourself and, you know, you have an outage and you start a bridge and you have 20 people on the bridge, and they look for three hours for the root cause, you know, and ask the people for that. Now it is very expensive. It takes a long time. There is a lot of customer impact because the outages are long.

And if the alternative is, you know, in five minutes, you have the answer and you only get three people looking that are the right folks. And, you know, you have a fix within ten minutes. You know, you have a shorter impact on the customer, many, many, many fewer folks internally involved, lower cost. So it is fairly easy to make that case. And so that is how we saw the value there. The longer term, as I was saying earlier, I think you have an incident and you look into it. And you diagnose it, and then you resolve it. You know? So maybe you cut the customer impact from one hour to, you know, fifteen minutes.

You know? But you still have an issue. You still have impact. You still distract the team. You still, you know, have humans working on that. I think longer term, what is going to happen is the systems will get in front of issues. They will auto-diagnose issues. They will help preemptively get or pre-remediate, you know, potential issues. And for that, the analysis will have to be run in-stream, which is a very different thing. You know?

You can message data and give it to an LLM for post hoc analysis, and a lot of the value is going to be in gathering the data, but you also have quite a bit of value in the smarts that are done in the back end, you know, by the LLM for that. And that is something that is done by the end for the OpenAIs of the world today. I think as you look at the in-stream, looking at, you know, three, four, five orders of magnitude more data, looking at this data in real-time, and passing judgment in real-time on what is normal, what is abnormal, and what might be going wrong, during that. You know?

Hundreds, thousands, millions of times per second. I think that is what is going to be our advantage, and where it is going to be much harder for others to compete, especially general-purpose AI platforms.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Brent Thill with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Brent Thill: Thanks. David, I think many gravitate back to that mid-20% margin you put up a couple of years ago and I know the last couple of years, including the guide, are looking at low 20%. Can you talk to maybe your true north, how you are thinking about that, obviously, growth being number one, but how you are thinking about the framework on the bottom line? Thanks.

David Obstler: Yep. The framework is we try to plan with more conservative revenues. Understanding that if revenues exceed above the targets that we give, it is, you know, difficult in the short term to invest incrementally. So what we are trying to do is invest first in the revenue growth and then layer in additional investment as we see if we see excess of target. So generally, it reflects, one, the continued investment, which we think is paying off. Both in terms of the platform R&D as well as in, and including AI as in go-to-market.

And then, you know, as we have seen, you know, over the years, in our beat and raise, we have tended to have some of that flow through into the margin line and then re-up again for the next phase of growth.

Brent Thill: And any big changes in the go-to-market or big you need to make, David, this year to address what has happened in the AI cohort or not?

David Obstler: We are continuing. It is very similar to what we are doing, which is to try to work with clients to prove value over time that reflects, you know, that manifests itself in our account management and our CS, as well as our enterprise. So no, I think for this year, we are looking at capacity growth. Including geographic, you know, deepening the ways we interact with customers, expanding channels, very much similar to what we have done in the previous years.

Brent Thill: Thanks.

Operator: Alright. And then that is going to be it for today. So on that, I would like to thank all of you for listening to this call, and I think meet many of you on Thursday or on Investor Day. So thank you all. Bye.

David Obstler: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.

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Datadog (DDOG) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript was originally published by The Motley Fool
The National Health Insurance Authority says growth has outpaced funding. The FNM says its proof the government doesnt have the money. Meanwhile, providers report delayed payments  and patients depend on the system every day.

You voted:
NEW YORK (AP)  The operator of roughly 180 Eddie Bauer stores across the U.S. and Canada has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, blaming declining sales and a litany of other industry headwinds.

The bankruptcy filing marks the third time in a little over two decades for the storied-but-now-tired brand that began as a Seattle fishing shop, later outfitted the first American to climb Mount Everest and made thousands of newfangled down jackets and sleeping bags for the military during World War II.

Eddie Bauer LLC said Monday it had entered into a restructuring pact with its secured lenders as it made the filing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey.

Most Eddie Bauer retail and outlet stores in the U.S. and Canada will remain open as the company winds down certain locations. It noted that it will conduct a court-supervised sales process, and if a sale can't be executed, it will begin a wind-down of its U.S. and Canadian operations.

This is not an easy decision, said Marc Rosen, CEO of Catalyst Brands, which maintains the license to operate Eddie Bauer stores in the U.S. and Canada. However, this restructuring is the best way to optimize value for the retail companys stakeholders and also ensure Catalyst Brands remains profitable and with strong liquidity and cash flow.

Eddie Bauers stores outside of the U.S. and Canada are operated by other licensees, are not included in the Chapter 11 filings, and will stay open, according to the release.

Authentic Brands Group continues to own the intellectual property associated with the Eddie Bauer brand and may license the brand to other operators, the company said. The operations of other brands in the Catalyst Brands portfolio are not affected by this filing and will continue in the normal course, according to the company.

Eddie Bauers e-commerce and wholesale operations will also not be impacted by the wind down, as they are operated by a company called Outdoor 5, LLC. That was a transition it made in January and became effective Feb. 2.

Eddie Bauer joins a growing list of U.S. retailers this year that are closing stores, as companies reorganize under bankruptcy protection or pare down their operations to focus on the most profitable businesses.

The parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue said last month that it was seeking bankruptcy protection, buffeted by rising competition and the massive debt it took on to buy its rival in the luxury sector, Neiman Marcus, just over a year ago. A few days later, the parent company said it was closing most of its Saks Off 5th stores.
By Foo Yun Chee and Padraic Halpin

BRUSSELS/DUBLIN, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms' WhatsApp on Tuesday won backing from Europe's top court for its challenge to a fine that was increased to 225 million euros ($268 million) by the EU privacy watchdog, a ruling that could pave the way for similar action by other companies.

More from Yahoo Scout What was the WhatsApp fine and court ruling about? Why hasn't Ireland collected most GDPR fines imposed? How does this ruling affect other tech companies? What are the implications for EU privacy enforcement?

Ireland's DPC is the lead privacy regulator for most of the U.S. tech giants due to their EU head offices being located in Ireland. It fined WhatsApp following complaints about its use of personal data in the country, later increasing the penalty it imposed after the European Data Protection Board intervened in 2021.

The DPC has only collected 17.5 million euros of the more than 4 billion euros it has fined large tech companies for GDPR breaches since 2020 due to all but two of its completed investigations being subjected to lengthy legal challenges, many to similar EDPB interventions.

Meta had lost its initial appeal against the higher penalty after judges at a lower tribunal said it had no legal standing to sue the authority as the EDPB's decision was directed to the Irish watchdog and not to the company.

AN ACT OPEN TO CHALLENGE

The Court of Justice of the European Union on Tuesday disagreed, saying that WhatsApp's action is admissible and telling the lower tribunal to examine the case on its merits.

"The EDPB's decision is indeed an act open to challenge before the Courts of the European Union," the Luxembourg-based institution said.

"That decision was of direct concern to WhatsApp, since it brought about a distinct change in the legal position of that undertaking, without leaving any discretion to its addressees," judges said.

A WhatsApp spokesperson welcomed the judgment.

"(It) upholds our argument that those businesses and people should be able to challenge decisions the EDPB makes against them, so that it can be held fully accountable by the EU courts."

Clarity from the courts on how WhatsApp's 2021 penalty was calculated would allow a number of the other appeals to progress.

The case is C-97/23P WhatsApp Ireland v EDPB.

($1 = 0.8403 euros)

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee, additional reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; editing by Philip Blenkinsop, Kirsten Donovan)
European Lithium flags resource growth potential from high-grade Tanbreez drilling in Greenland Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock

European Lithium Ltd (ASX:EUR, OTCQB:EULIF) has reported a fresh set of high-grade drilling results from the Tanbreez Rare Earths Project in southern Greenland, highlighting expanding mineralisation across multiple zones and reinforcing the projects scale and long-term development potential.

The results, drawn from the final assays of the 2025 drilling campaign, cover both the established Fjord Deposit and a newer target known as Area B, located immediately east of the Hill Zone Deposit.

Project Dilling historical 2007- 2014 and 2024 and 2025 Summary Plan (WGS84 zone 23N)

The company says the data points to strong geological continuity, near-surface mineralisation and scope for meaningful resource growth ahead of a planned 2026 drill season.

Diamond drill hole pad DDH25-5 drilled September 2025.

Tanbreez is operated by Critical Metals Corp, in which European Lithium holds a 37.5% stake, giving it substantial exposure to one of the worlds largest peralkaline-hosted rare earth systems.

Area B emerges as a new growth corridor

The most notable takeaway from the update is the performance of Area B, where broad-spaced reconnaissance drilling returned thick, consistent rare earth intersections across a highly prospective 1.75-kilometre corridor.

Area B - over 1,750m strike length of TREO mineralisation

Key results included:

132 metres at 0.46% total rare earth oxide + yttium (TREO+Y) from surface in hole 25-D10

128 metres at 0.43% TREO+Y from surface in hole 25-D13

Multiple stacked mineralised intervals in holes 25-D16 and 25-D17, including 82 metres at 0.44% TREO+Y and a higher-grade 2-metre zone at 0.61% TREO+Y

Across the 2025 program, Area B drilling returned TREO+Y grades ranging from roughly 0.35% to 0.61%, with heavy rare earth oxides (HREO) consistently accounting for around 2127% of the total rare earth content.

European Lithium said the wide drill spacing means the area remains early-stage, but the continuity observed to date suggests Area B could represent a significant eastern extension of the existing Hill Deposit mineralisation.

Area B ground proofing September 2025 for drill pad locations below 25-D09.

Fjord deposit remains open along strike

Final assay results from the northeastern end of the Fjord Deposit also delivered consistent grades and confirmed the mineralised system remains open.

Highlights from holes 25-D14 and 25-D15 included:

38 metres at 0.38% TREO+Y from 21 metres

55.5 metres at 0.41% TREO+Y from 2 metres

The mineralisation occurs close to surface and shows strong lateral and vertical continuity, supporting the case for further step-out drilling and a potential upgrade to the Mineral Resource Estimate.
By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Alphabet unit Google was hit with an EU antitrust complaint by the European Publishers Council on Tuesday over its AI-generated summaries known as AI Overviews, a move that could add weight to an ongoing EU investigation into the issue.

Rivals have voiced concerns that Big Tech's dominance in new technologies could shut them out while publishers have been critical of tech giants using their content without paying them.

"It is about stopping a dominant gatekeeper from using its market power to take publishers' content without consent, without fair compensation, and without giving publishers any realistic way to protect their journalism," EPC chairman Christian Van Thillo said in a statement.

"AI Overviews and AI Mode fundamentally undermine the economic compact that has sustained the open web," he said.

Google pushed back against the publishers.

"These inaccurate claims are an attempt to hold back helpful new AI features that Europeans want. We design our AI features to surface great content across the web and we provide easy-to-use controls for them to manage their content," a Google spokesperson said.

The company is now looking into its technical controls to let sites opt out of Search generative AI features. Publishers, however, said these did not offer any meaningful protection as opting out of AI use would reduce their search visibility.

The EPC said that Google relies on its control of online search to secure access to content without payment, echoing similar European Union antitrust concerns.

The Commission, in a statement kicking off its investigation in December, said Google may be abusing its market power as a search engine to impose unfair trading conditions on publishers.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
Consumer products giant Marico announced that its unit, Marico South-East Asia Corporation (MSEA), is set to buy 75 per cent equity stake in Vietnam-based Skinetiq Joint Stock Company. Not only is this the Indian major's foray into Vietnam's Gen-Z beauty market, but it is also a major win for social media influencer-led D2C businesses.

Skinetiq was co-founded by Bui Ngoc Anh and Hannah Nguyen, a Vietnam-based beauty blogger who has an active following on TikTok. Skinetiq owns Candid (digital-first skincare brand) and the exclusive Vietnam distribution rights to Murad (luxury clinical skincare brand).

Marico announced on Monday that its wholly owned subsidiary MSEA entered into definitive agreements to acquire 75% equity stake in Skinetiq based on an equity valuation of around Rs 350 crore.

The beauty and wellness industry in Vietnam is now primarily driven by e-commerce and social commerce channels. In 2025, Skinetiqa firm founded in 2020scaled to around Rs 152 crore in revenues.

Saugata Gupta, MD and CEO, Marico Limited, said that the company looks to build a strong premium beauty play in Vietnam and advance its D2C strategy internationally through its investment in Skinetiq.

"Vietnam remains a priority market for us, driven by its strong macroeconomic fundamentals and rapidly evolving beauty landscape. Skinetiqs digitalled model and sciencebacked portfolio align seamlessly with Maricos vision for the future of beauty and portfolio premiumisation. This partnership positions us to invest ahead of the curve in Vietnams fast-growing ecommerce and D2C space, while creating a strong platform to introduce more brands in the years ahead," added Gupta.

Skinetiq Executive Chairman and co-founder Bui Ngoc Anh said, "Today, partnering with Marico gives us the platform, expertise, and resources to build a strong foundation for longterm, sustainable growth. Im excited to embark on our next phase with a company that shares our ambition and commitment to excellence, as we scale our innovation pipeline and deepen our connection with Vietnamese consumers."

On Tuesday morning, Marico stock spiked around 0.3 per cent at the NSE shortly after the opening bell.
Amid the raging political controversy surrounding his unpublished memoir, titled Four Stars of Destiny, former army chief M.M. Naravane has come out with his first, albeit brief, reaction.

Taking to X, Naravane endorsed the statement by the publisher, Penguin Random House India, which explained the status of the book.

For more defence news, views and updates, visit: Fortress India

This is the status of the book, wrote Naravane, retweeting the statement from the publisher.

The statement from the former Army chief came after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi cited a 2023 social media post by Naravane informing people that the memoir in question, was "available now".

In light of the recent public discourse and media reporting, Penguin Random House India would like to clarify that we hold the sole publishing rights for the book Four Stars of Destiny, a memoir by General Manok Mukund Naravane, former chief of the Indian Army, the statement by the publisher, retweeted by Naravane, said.

The publisher clarified that no copies of the book  in print or digital form  have been published, distributed, sold or otherwise made available to the public.

It further said any copies of the book currently in circulation, in whole or in part, whether in print, digital, PDF or any other format, online or offline or any platform, constitute an infringement of copyright and must immediately cease.

The statement said the publisher will exercise remedies available under law against illegal and unauthorised dissemination of the book.

Earlier in the day, speaking with reporters in the Parliament House complex, Rahul Gandhi read out Naravanes 2023 social media post, which said, Hello friends. My book is available now. Just follow the link. Happy reading. Jai Hind.

This is the tweet Mr Naravane has made. The point I am making is either Mr Naravane is lying, and I believe the (former) Army chief  I dont think he will lie  or Penguin is lying. Both cannot be telling the truth, he said.

Penguin is saying the book is not published. The book is available on Amazon. Gen Naravane has tweeted, as I just read to you, that please buy my book. He tweeted this in 2023. Do you believe Penguin over Mr Naravane? I believe Mr Naravane, Gandhi said.
Indias manufacturing prowess by Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs) and private Indian companies was showcased at the first-ever India Pavilion at World Defence Show (WDS) 2026, held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, recently. The pavilion marked another attempt by India to highlight its increasing capabilities as a global defence export hub.

On the sidelines of the event, Minister of State for Defence Sanjay Seth, who inaugurated the India pavilion, held discussions with Dr Khaled bin Hussein Al-Biyari, assistant minister of defence for executive affairs, Saudi Arabia, on enhancing cooperation and engagement across the armed forces of both the countries.

For more defence news, views and updates, visit: Fortress India

Seth also met with Dr Faleh bin Abdullah Al-Sulaiman, Governor of the Saudi Arabian General Authority for Defence Development (GADD) and highlighted Indias emergence as a global export hub, the defence ministry stated in a release.

The minister invited GAAD officials to visit the R&D facilities in India to explore opportunities for the co-development of defence technologies.

Seth met with the Governor of the General Authority of Military Industries (GAMI), Saudi Arabia, Ahmed bin Abdulaziz Al-Ohali, and discussed common areas of strategic cooperation and strengthening the supply chain ecosystem of both countries.

In his address to heads of Indian and Saudi defence companies, held at the Indian Embassy, Seth emphasised the importance of joint cooperation between India and Saudi Arabia to achieve self-reliance in defence requirements and highlighted Indias commitment to global support under the 'Make in India, Make for the World' vision.
Clearing the ambiguity whether Military Nursing Service (MNS) officers, who are commissioned officers, were entitled to the same re-employment benefits as other veterans, the government has notified the Ex-servicemen (Re-employment in Central Civil Services & Posts) Amendment Rules 2026, under Article 309 of the Constitution.

For more defence news, views and updates, visit: Fortress India

The key change revises Rule 2(c)(i) to clearly include the personnel who have served in any rank, whether combatant or non-combatant, in the Regular Army, Navy or Air Force, as well as the MNS within the definition framework for ex-servicemen re-employment in the Central Civil Services.

According to a defence ministry release, the amendment formally recognises the MNS personnel under the re-employment rules, and strengthens rehabilitation and second-career opportunities for a wider segment of former defence personnel.

Under the Rule 2, Clause (c) Amendment, the definition of ex-servicemen now explicitly lists the Military Nursing Service of the Indian Union alongside the Regular Army, Navy, and Air Force.

The rule applies to anyone who has served in any rank, whether as a combatant or non-combatant. The amendment came into force immediately upon its publication on February 09, 2026.

This amendment formally grants the MNS personnel access to:

Reservation quotas: 10 per cent in Group 'C' and 20 per cent in Group 'D' central government posts.

Age relaxation: The ability to deduct the years of military service plus 3 years from their actual age for civil job eligibility.

Employment priority: Equal standing with other ex-servicemen in the eyes of the Union Public Service Commission and Staff Selection Commission.
Actor Rajpal Yadav, largely known for his character roles in comedy, surrendered to Tihar jail in February 2026 for a long-standing cheque bounce case. The 54-year-old veteran, who is currently part of two projects like Bhooth Bangla and Welcome to the Jungle, has been reasonably active in the industry, especially in recent years.

Bhool Bhulaiyya 3, Baby John and Chandu Champion are some of the other notable Bollywood films that Yadav recently featured in. Having debuted in 1999, Yadav has been part of the industry for more than two decades but has never been one to hog the limelight. However, the Tihar jail incident isn't the first instance of Yadav being jailed.

In 2013, Yadav was given a ten-day jail sentence after filing a false affidavit but eventually ended up being in jail for just four days. Towards the end of the same year, a division bench of the High Court suspended the sentence but the real trouble arose for Yadav in 2018 when he was under the scanner for non-repayment of a business loan that he had taken in 2010.

Yadav had reportedly taken the loan for funding his directorial debut and had left the repayment incomplete over the years. With increasing interests and other charges, the amount shot up to Rs 9 crore approximately and after seeing no other option, Yadav surrendered on 5th February, 2026 and is serving a six-month jail term.

Yadav is one of the many renowned film personalities to graduate from the National School of Drama. His emotional outburst after surrendering to Tihar jail has gone viral, with many notable celebrities coming forward to aid him financially.
By John O'Donnell, Christoph Steitz, Anna Hirtenstein and Marek Strzelecki

BERLIN/LONDON, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Management at a Russian-owned oil refinery in Germany have privately warned Berlin that U.S. sanctions are hurting its business and threatening fuel supply for the country's capital and the region, according to correspondence seen by Reuters.

In a January letter, management of the PCK Schwedt refinery, controlled by Rosneft, made an "urgent appeal" to economy and energy minister Katherina Reiche to resolve a standoff with the United States over the refinery's future.

The letter outlines escalating problems at the refinery, which fuels nine out of 10 cars in Berlin, its airport, supplies petrol across the state of Brandenburg and eastern Germany and key ingredients to the chemicals industry.

Berlin's lobbying won the refinery an exception from sanctions imposed late last year on Rosneft as part of Washington's effort to squeeze Russia's energy sector, but it expires on April 29.

The business, however, depends on long-term supply contracts, banks for payments and insurers to cover oil cargoes, all of which is being hit by fear about being swept up by sanctions, said one person with direct knowledge of the matter. That pressure, he said, could accelerate the refinery's sale and one oil group and a large energy investor had explored buying the business.

"We are already experiencing ... restrictions in our operating business," management of the refinery wrote in the letter, urging the government to secure a permanent exception from U.S. sanctions.

"The consequences of the ongoing sanctions affect the security of supply for the region," the letter warned.

The discussions are unfolding against the backdrop of pressure from Washington, with October sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil, Russia's two largest oil firms, squeezing a vital German artery supplied by the former Soviet state of Kazakhstan.

The sanctions, although suspended, have shaken confidence in Rosneft's German arm among banks, insurers and its main supplier, Kazakhstan, said the first source.

Unimot, a Polish fuel importer which buys 2 million tons of fuel annually from the refinery, underscored looming risk.

"There's no way to replace that refining and logistical capacity in terms of supplying fuels for Brandenburg but also for Poland. This is a result of a gross neglect by Germany to resolve the Rosneft issue," said Robert Brzozowski, Unimot's deputy chief executive.
Following its strong in the festival circuit across the world and picking up some awards along the way, Brazilian actor Wagner Moura's "The Secret Agent" will arrive in Indian theatres. The film has received four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor. As of now, Feb. 27 is the official date.

Recently, Wagner Moura became the first Brazilian actor to take home the Golden Globe trophy for Best Actor in The Secret Agent. The actor, who was earlier nominated for playing Pablo Escobar in the Netflix show Narcos, beat actors Joel Edgerton (Train Dreams), Oscar Isaac (Frankenstein), Dwayne Johnson (The Smashing Machine), Michael B. Jordan (Sinners), and Jeremy Allen White (Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere).

Moura's prize was among the two wins for The Secret Agent, along with Best Foreign Language Film.

Secret Agent is a film about memory, or the lack of memory, and generational trauma, he said at the Golden Globes awards ceremony. I think if trauma can be passed along generations, values can too. So this is to the ones who are sticking with their values in difficult moments.

At Cannes, filmmaker Kleber Mendonca Filho said his intent with the film was to explore themes of "repression and resistance" and the lives of individuals functioning within an oppressive system.

Interestingly, the film is set in Filho's hometown, Recife, in 1977, depicting a time of intense political turmoil and military dictatorship. Moura plays an undercover agent who, in the hopes of putting his dark past behind him and looking for peace, shifts from Sao Paulo to Recife, only to find that the city doesn't quite offer the respite he desperately seeks, triggering more paranoia.

In an earlier interview with Deadline, Filho clarified that his film is unlike the dictatorship stories we have seen before. Every time I told people the film would be set in 1977, the first word that came out was dictatorship. Which is fine, but in Brazilian cinema and Argentinian cinema as well, there is a sub-genre of the dictatorship movie. The challenge was to make a film about the logic of that time without ticking all the boxes of the dictatorship movie. Im not against those films. In fact, we just had a very strong and beautiful film in Brazilian cinema, Im Still Here, by Walter Salles, which did wonders for many young people who were not even aware of that moment in history. But with this film, its very much about the atmosphere, the fumes.

The film seems tailor-made for Moura, who has been part of some politically-charged films with strong themes and, at times, ambiguous narratives, with notable examples being Jose Padilha's Elite Squad and its sequel (both from Brazil), Olivier Assayas' Wasp Network, and most recently, Alex Garland's Civil War.
The Madras High Court permitted KVN Production, the producers of actor Vijays Jana Nayagan to withdraw its writ petition filed by it, seeking directions to the censors board to issue the censor certificate for the movie. The production house had filed the petition on January 6, seeking the court to direct the central board of film certification (CBFC) to issue a U/A 16+ certificate for Jana Nayagan within 24 hours.

The Madras High Court Justice P.T. Asha dismissed the production house to withdraw the writ petition as Vijayan Subramanian, counsel for KVN Productions LLP, chose to withdraw it. Vijayan Subramanian filed a letter before the madras high court registry. In the letter KVN productions said that it had decided to accept the CBFC chairmans reference to the revising committee for getting the censor certificate. The CBFC committee comprises nine members.

With KVN production choosing to withdraw the writ petition and deciding to approach the nine member CBFC revising committee has ensured that all the legal hurdles pending before Jana Nayagan stands withdrawn and that the only authority now to clear the hiccups is the CBFC. The revising panel will freshly consider and decide on whether a U/A 16+ or A certificate will have to be issued for the film. And now if the revising committee clears the film, it will go the Examining Committee (EC) which had already issued U/A 16+ certificate. Though there is no confirmation on if the revising panel will clear the hurdles, sources told The Week that the movie is now being sent to the EC.

Planned for release on January 9, ahead of the Pongal festival holidays in Tamil Nadu, Jana Nayagan is expected to give the much needed political elevation for Vijay who will be facing his first general elections very soon. According to sources, the production house decided to approach the revising panel as the legal fight was not yielding any result and the movie was not likely to see the light of the day. The makers wanted to ensure that the movie hits the screens atleast a month before the election, so that it will give the required pep for Vijay and his Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam. Also, the business around the film including the satellite and the OTT, have received a huge beating due to the uncertainty in the release date. On the other side the production house also fears that the movie might not get released once if the election dates are announced in Tamil Nadu and if the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) is in place.

The producers had approached the Madras High Court on January 6, after the CBFC allegedly delayed the issuance of the censor certificate. The producers submitted in the court that the movie was sent for certification under the tatkal procedure on December 18, 2025, after incorporating the 27 cuts and modifications recommended by the examining committee. Despite making the changes, as directed by the board the movie, according to the makers, was withheld due to a complaint by a single member of the examining committee which reviewed the movie. Five members of the examining committee who watched the movie on December 19, 2025. On December 22, the producers were informed that the EC had suggested U/A 16 + certificate if the corrections are carried out as per the recommendations. The makers accepted it and made the required changes and submitted the film before the CBFC on December 24, 2025.

However, things went out of hands for the makers as one of the members of the examining committee sent a complaint to the CBFC chairman in Mumbai. In his complaint he is said to have mentioned about the absence of an expert in Army-related issues, as the movie has several scenes referring to the armed forces. Following this on December 29, the CBFC decided to put the process on hold and the censor certificate was not issued. On January 5, the CBFC chairman informed the makers that the board had decided to refer the movie to a nine- member revising committee for reconsideration.

And then the makers knocked the doors of the madras high court taking the legal route, on January 6, after CBFC chairmans decision to refer the movie to the revising committee was uploaded in its e-cinepraman portal. After a detailed enquiry, the single judge bench of the madras high court asked the CBFC to issue the censor certificate. But the board went on an appeal and obtained an interim stay from the first bench comprising of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G. Arul Murugan.

When the makers approached the Supreme Court it refused to interfere with the interim order and asked the first division bench to take up the writ appeal. And then the appeal was sent back to the single judge. And now to clear all the legal hurdles the makers have decided to go back to the CBFC. While it is too early to speculate a release date, February 20 is an option for the makers.
The Opposition Congress has moved a no-confidence motion against Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, accusing him of blatantly partisan conduct.

According to Congress sources, a total of 118 MPs signed the notice of the motion, which was filed under Rule 94C of Lok Sabha rules and procedures.

The Opposition's grievances include disallowing Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi from speaking during the Motion of Thanks to the Presidents address, and failing to take action against BJP MP Nishikant Dubey for allegedly making unfounded charges against former prime ministers.

They also cited a statement by Speaker Birla in which he said he had urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to enter the House to prevent any unpleasant incident, after receiving information that some Congress MPs might approach the PMs seat and resort to an unprecedented incident.

The Opposition further highlighted the suspension of eight MPs for the entire session as another point of contention.

At 1:14 pm today, we submitted a motion of no-confidence against the Speaker under Rule 94C, Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi said.

Sources told ANI that Speaker Birla has directed the House Secretary-General to examine the notice of the no-confidence motion and take appropriate action.

It is not yet clear which all parties have signed the motion. Earlier, Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee had requested that Congress submit an appeal to the Speaker before moving a no-confidence motion. TMC has said it will sign the motion if the Speaker does not act on the Oppositions appeal within two to three days.
Two days before suspended Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Humayun Kabir was set to begin construction of a mosque named Babri Masjid in West Bengals Murshidabad district, the state police attached properties worth 10 crore linked to Shariful Islam, the father-in-law of Kabirs daughter.

The action followed a court order in connection with a drug trafficking case in which Ziaur Rahman, a relative of Islam, was arrested with nearly 500 grams of narcotics near Islams residence.

Kabir called it a political conspiracy. A false case has been lodged simply to humiliate us politically, Said the Bharatput MLA.

Kabirs daughter, Najma Sultana, accused the police of repeatedly harassing her family by issuing notices. Alleging political targeting, she said the police action was part of a plan by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

They are using me. I am married to a businessman, and my father-in-law is a big businessman. They are targeting him to harass him. If they harass me, my father gets harassed, she said.

Sultana alleged that the harassment was linked to her father launching a new political party. Kabir won the Bharatpur seat on a Trinamool Congress ticket but has not officially stepped down as MLA.

On Monday afternoon, a large police contingent began the process of attaching several properties linked to Shariful Islam, including a hotel and a house, in the area adjacent to the Lalgola bus stand. The seizure operation lasted for over two hours.

According to local sources, Islam is a resident of Naldahari in the Lalgola panchayat area, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Lalgola police station.

We are investigating the sale of drugs across the porous international border and properties acquired using the proceeds of such activities under the NDPS (Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances) Act. We will auction the properties. Said a senior police official.

According to sources, Islam has amassed properties worth over 100 crore through drug trafficking and owns flats and houses in Lalgola, Lalbagh and Berhampur in Murshidabad district, as well as in Kolkata. Shariful Islam was reportedly arrested twice earlier in connection with drug trafficking cases.

Kabir laid the foundation stone for a mosque modelled on the Babri Masjid on December 6, 2025, coinciding with the anniversary of the demolition of the disputed structure in Ayodhya. The MLA had announced plans to build a Babri Masjid in Murshidabad in 2024, but the announcement did not draw serious attention until the following year.

The construction work is scheduled to begin on the afternoon of February 11 following a Quran recital. Around 5,000 people, including religious leaders from the minority community, are expected to attend the event.

He was suspended from the Trinamool Congress after the party opposed the construction of the mosque, following which Kabir formed his own outfit, the Janata Unnayan Party (JUP). He has said the party aims to play a decisive role in the formation of the next government and has announced plans to contest around 135 Assembly seats in the upcoming elections.

While the Bharatpur MLA claims he is being targeted by the TMC, the BJP frequently describes Kabir as the B-team" of the ruling party.
Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar left for Delhi on Tuesday to meet the Congress leadership amid renewed speculation and a war of words over a possible leadership change in the state.

Ahead of his departure, Shivakumarwho is also the state Congress presidentwarned party functionaries against making public statements on the chief ministerial issue.

The power struggle between Shivakumar and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah resurfaced last week after Siddaramaiahs son and MLC Yathindra Siddaramaiah claimed that the party high command had made it clear there would be no change in leadership.

Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, Shivakumar said he had no confusion over the issue, asserting that the matter had already been discussed in the presence of the Congress high command.

There is no confusion. Others may have confusion; I dont have any confusion, he said. I know what Siddaramaiah and I have discussed. It was not discussed secretly. We discussed it with the involvement of the party leadership. Others creating tension and making statements on the issue will not help anyone.

He cautioned party leaders against airing their views publicly, saying such remarks were damaging the party.

Whoever is making statements, either in my favour or against mewhether ministers, legislators or anyone elseis damaging the party. Such statements will not do any good. (Congress national president) Mallikarjun Kharge has said it would be good if everyone shut their mouth. We should all abide by that, Shivakumar said.

Downplaying speculation over his Delhi visit and his absence from the chief ministers pre-budget meetings of the Water Resources and Bengaluru Development departments, Shivakumar said he was travelling to attend an AICC meeting related to upcoming elections.

Today evening, I have an AICC meeting on political matters related to various elections. I have been called by the AICC and I will attend. Election dates may be announced at any timewe have reached that stage. I have been to Kerala and I have to go to Assam, he said.

Shivakumar has been appointed by the Congress as a senior observer for the upcoming Assam Assembly polls.
The Opposition has moved a no-confidence motion against Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, more than a year after a similar attempt was made to bring a motion against the then Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar.

If admitted, this would be the fourth such motion in independent India seeking the removal of a Lok Sabha Speaker, although none of the earlier attempts have succeeded. The first no-confidence motion against a Speaker was in 1954. G.V. Mavalankar was the speaker then.

The development follows escalating tensions between the government and the Opposition over the conduct of parliamentary proceedings and disciplinary action against members. Relations between the two sides had deteriorated after the Leader of the Opposition raised issues linked to former Army chief M. M. Naravanes unpublished book, in which he is said to have described events and conversations with the political leadership during the Chinese advance in Galwan. The present motion carries the signatures of 118 MPs.

In December 2024, Opposition parties had initiated a no-confidence motion against Dhankhar, accusing him of preventing Opposition leaders from speaking in the Rajya Sabha and of functioning in a partisan manner. The motion was not taken up because of procedural and technical reasons. Dhankhar later resigned, citing health concerns, although political observers pointed to reported differences with sections of the government and suggested a possible political context. His departure created an unusual institutional moment as impeachment-related parliamentary processes and other procedural matters were underway in the Upper House.

Opposition parties have listed multiple grievances against Birla. The Congress has argued that Rahul Gandhi was not given enough opportunity to speak in the Lok Sabha and that several Opposition MPs were suspended for protesting.

Party sources also cited claims suggesting that women MPs posed a security or personal threat to the prime minister as part of the broader dispute. The Congress described the situation as a serious erosion of Parliamentary norms and said the Leader of the Opposition holds a stature comparable to a shadow prime minister, making restrictions on his participation a violation of parliamentary fairness.

Parties in the INDIA bloc have framed the motion as a defence of Parliamentary functioning rather than a purely political exercise, arguing that repeated suspensions, curtailed debate and selective enforcement of rules have reduced space for dissent and weakened legislative scrutiny.

Government sources maintain that the Speaker has acted within parliamentary rules and that disruptions by Opposition members necessitated disciplinary action to ensure the House functions.

Removal of a Lok Sabha Speaker is governed by Article 94 of the Constitution, which requires at least 14 days written notice and support from a minimum of 50 members for the motion to be taken up. During consideration of such a resolution, the Speaker does not preside over the house and the Chair is taken by the deputy speaker or another designated presiding officer. Given the numerical majority held by the ruling party and its allies, the motion is widely viewed as unlikely to succeed.

Historically, such resolutions have carried symbolic and political weight rather than resulting in removal. Previous attempts against Mavalankar in 1954, Sardar Hukam Singh in 1966 and Balram Jakhar in 1987 were all unsuccessful, and no Lok Sabha Speaker has ever been removed through this constitutional process.

Even without realistic prospects of passage, the present motion underscores a deepening institutional confrontation between the government and the Opposition.
NCP(SP) leader Rohit Pawar on Tuesday raised suspicions about an alleged sabotage benind the plane crash that killed Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar in January.

With a detailed PowerPoint presentation, Rohit Pawar said, "This is a presentation I have made with my team. We have gathered information and tried to present whatever we could find."

"We do not believe this was a mere accident. There is room to suspect sabotage," he alleged.

Explaining the sequence of events, he pointed out that Ajit was originally scheduled to travel from Mumbai to Pune by road before the crash. "The convoy had already started, but the travel plan was suddenly changed. Why did Dada not leave by car?" asked Rohit.

Rohit pointed out that the Crime Investigation Department (CID) does not have the full authority to probe the crash.

He said he has full faith in the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) but did not rule out the involvement of BEA-France, AAIB-UK and NTSB-US for a detailed probe if necessary.

He raised concerns about the two pilots and Vista Sales Private Limited (VSR), the operator of the Learjet 45 aircraft that crashed while trying to land in Pune.

Why was the main pilot changed before the flight?" asked Rohit, "Sahil Madan and Yash were changed at the last minute. It is important to see why Sumit Kapoor returned from Hong Kong. Was he drunk when he boarded the flight?" Rohit Pawar asked, questioning the track record of Captain Sumit Kapoor, who missed training in the US due to drinking.

Citing his pre-flight alcohol tests in 2010 and 2017, Rohit said Kapoor was suspended for three years for alcohol consumption in the past. He also asked why te co-pilot did not sound 'May Day' alert.
Iran on Monday hinted that it is ready to dilute the enriched uranium in its possession if the US is willing to withdraw all sanctions on the cash-strapped nation, according to Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA).

In conclusion, in response to a question about the possibility of diluting 60 per cent enriched uranium...the head of the Atomic Energy Organization said that this depends on whether all sanctions would be lifted in return," ISNA said, referring Mohammad Eslami, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.

Eslami said Iran continues to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). However, he pointed out that the agency still has "an unfulfilled obligation" regarding the US strikes on its nuclear facilities.

"If we are under the Agencys supervision and hold its certification of credibility, then it cannot remain silent about what happened," ISNA quoted Eslami as saying. He added that Iran's rights under IAEA regulations must be respected.

However, it should be noted that Iran has been refusing requests by the IAEA to inspect the sites bombed in the 12-day war with Israel in June. Even before the conflict, Iran has restricted IAEA inspections since the US unilaterally withdrew from Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers in 2018.

The latest development comes amid the indirect talks between the US and Iran in Oman. US Navy Adm Brad Cooper, head of the military's Central Command, joined the talks for the first time. This comes as the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and other American warships were spotted off the coast off Iran.
The vibrant job market in Dubai is witnessing a spike in AI-related job postings in the white-collar sector, according to a study. The report added that AI jobs have doubled from 5,000 to 10,000 between 2021 and 2024.

The trend is visible across sectors like financial services, aviation, and logistics, UAE-based Khaleej Times quoted recruiters.

We are seeing strong demand for candidates with AI capability across sectors such as financial services, aviation, logistics, and professional services in the UAE. Rather than a fixed salary premium, the defining factor is competition  employers are often competing for a limited pool of proven talent, James Randall, Middle East sales director, HireRight, told Khaleej Times. He added that the trend has pushed hiring timelines and improved cross-border recruitment for specialised roles. The job opportunities in the Emirates are also growing two to three times faster in the UAE than overall job postings, reports added.

For latest news and analyses on Middle East, visit: Yello! Middle East

This comes amid a prediction by ServiceNow that said over 1.03 million jobs will be created in the UAE by 2030. The company claims that the majority of these jobs will not be traditional, rather spanning across a broad sectors, including IT service management, cyber security, workflow automation, digital operations and business roles augmented by AI-enabled tools.

That said, the UAE employers will continue to prioritise degrees, even for roles with higher AI exposure. As per the study, over 84 per cent of job postings will still require degree qualifications.

According to Randall, the demand in the UAE for AI jobs is also shifting away from purely technical or coding-based roles and is moving toward applied AI capabilities that can deliver practical business value. Employers are increasingly looking for professionals who can use AI to support decision-making, automation, compliance monitoring, customer experience, and risk management," added Randall.
An FBI document released by the US Department of Justice as part of the Epstein files alleged that convicted sex offender and paedophile Jeffrey Epstein trained as a spy under former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak.

The 2020 document cites an anonymous source marked as a confidential human source (CHS) who was close to Harvard law professor and lawyer Alan Dershowitz.

The source shared phone calls between Dershowitz and Epstein during which he/she took notes, according to the file. The details of the calls would then be debriefed to Mossad, who would call the professor.

The informant said they believed that Dershowitz was co-opted by Mossad and subscribed to their mission

Epstein was later represented by the professor who once reportedly told an US attorney that Epstein belonged to both U.S. and allied intelligence services.

The document, which is dated 16 October 2020, also details Epstein's connection to former Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Barak. The source alleged that Epstein trained as a spy under him (Barak) and was convinced that Epstein was co-opted as a Mossad agent.

Barak also reportedly believed that Benjamin Netanyahu, was a criminal.

Dershowitz is a long time freind and advisor to Netanyahu and was involved in the defence of several high-profile cases, including Epstein, Harvey Weinstein, Donald Trump and O J Simpson. He is known for using his ties to the Trump administration to lobby for clemency for his clients.

He has also laughed at the claims made by the documents to the Times, saying, No intelligence agency would really trust him. Thats not something he would keep from his lawyers, he added.

The files also show that Barak and his wife, Nili, regularly stayed in Epstein's New York apartment and had planned a visit close to the time of the financiers final arrest and death a month later at a Manhattan penitentiary in 2019.

In 2018, Epstein asked Barak in an email to make clear that i dont work for Mossad. :)

Another email part of the Epstein files sent by Mark Iverson to an unknown recipient said, I suspect Robert (Maxwell), Ghislane and Jeffrey were all Mossad agents trying to blackmail leaders in the political and financial world.

Ghislane Maxwells father, Robert Maxwell, a British media tycoon and politician, has been widely suspected of being involved with Mossad and is known to have contributed millions to the Israeli economy. After his death, his body was buried in Jerusalems Mount of Olives, a graveyard reserved for Israels elite servants, the Times reported.

Documents have shown that Epstein advised Barak on tech firm Palantir, asked the former Israeli leader to give former British minister Lord Peter Mandelson a job at an energy company and discussed the massive consultancy fees to be paid to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The convicted paedophile also arranged and contributed to the investment of $1.5 million in an Israeli start-up, Carbyne.

Lynette Nusbacher, a former British army intelligence who spoke to The Times said Theres a tremendous mystery, widely discussed, about where his money came from,And is it possible that some of his money came from state sources for him to act as an intelligence asset, But there is no evidence to suggest that he was anything other than the awful person he was convicted of being.

Nushbacher, a senior UK national security official, said, Is it possible that Epstein was an asset to the Mossad? Yes. Do I think he was an agent of any intelligence agency? I think it was unlikely. Was he an officer? No.

Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went on X to deny the claims after they spread online. Jeffrey Epstein's unusual close relationship with Ehud Barak doesn't suggest Epstein worked for Israel. It proves the opposite, he said.

Stuck on his election loss from over two decades ago, Barak has for years obsessively attempted to undermine Israeli democracy by working with the anti-Zionist radical left in failed attempts to overthrow the elected Israeli government.

Barak's personal fixation led him to engage in activities publicly and behind the scenes to undermine the government of Israel, including fueling mass protest movements, fomenting unrest and feeding false media narratives, he said

Jeffrey Epstein's unusual close relationship with Ehud Barak doesn't suggest Epstein worked for Israel. It proves the opposite.



Stuck on his election loss from over two decades ago, Barak has for years obsessively attempted to undermine Israeli democracy by working with the  Benjamin Netanyahu -   (@netanyahu) February 6, 2026

While there is no direct confirmation that Epstein was an asset to Israeli intelligence, there are hundreds of emails and documents linking Epstein to suspected agents of Intelligence Agency, Mossad. On the DOJ website, a search of Ehud Barak brings up about 3,985 results.
Floridas beaches, weather and patchwork of unique cultures have beckoned generations of retirees  and its one of only nine states that doesnt charge a personal income tax.

However, evolving financial realities have forced many to conclude that the dream of retiring in the Sunshine State is, well, sunsetting.

Before you pull up stakes and head south, make sure you understand the key elements of the so-called Florida retirement trap and have the financial guardrails in place to make it work.

As the Population Boomed, So Did Home Prices

According to the U.S. Census, a wave of post-pandemic relocations made Florida the fastest-growing state in the U.S. in 2021-22 for the first time since 1957. The result of such an intense surge in demand was predictable. According to Redfin, the average home in Florida sold for less than $300,000 in January 2021. In January 2026, its just over $412,000.

Check Out: The Cost of Homes in Floridas 6 Best Counties for Snowbird Retirees

Read Next: 5 Clever Ways Retirees Are Earning Up To $1K per Month From Home

Property Taxes: The Gift That Keeps on Taking

Property taxes in Florida fund most essential services in the state, including trash pickup, water, first responders and emergency management  and those taxes soared by 108% in the decade ending in 2025, according to Florida TaxWatch.

Its a trap that many retirees dont notice until its too late.

Many homebuyers who move to Florida assume their real estate taxes will be similar to what the prior owner paid in the past, said Dr. Pellumb Kabashi, founder and CEO of Tax Expert Today LLC, in Naples, whose estate and trust tax specialties have filled his client list with retiree transplants. In reality, when someone purchases a new home in Florida, the assessed value in most cases is reset to the market value, and any homestead cap that the prior owner had disappears. Therefore, new owners in most cases see their property taxes increase drastically, if not double in certain cases.

Plan For Five-Figure Annual Homeowners Insurance Premiums

In 1992, Hurricane Andrews deadly and costly devastation started what has since become a full-blown crisis in the states insurance market  and destructive storms have only grown more frequent and more severe in the ensuing years.

Over the past few years, insurance prices for both flood and non-flood zones have risen significantly, mostly due to rising hurricane threats, said Kabashi. Some insurance companies went bankrupt and others have left the state.

Insurify data confirms that major players such as AAA, Farmers and Progressive have either scaled back underwriting or exited the Florida market altogether. The result? The Sunshine State has the highest homeowners insurance premiums in America, averaging $14,140 per year, compared to $3,259 nationally.
Iranian security forces have launched a sweeping crackdown against the countrys leading reformist figures, arresting the top leadership of the Reformist Front coalition in what appears to be a complete shutdown of the country's already shrinking political space. The arrests come in the aftermath of the violent suppression of nationwide protests and amid heightened regional tensions involving the United States and Israel, signalling that Tehran is opting for outright repression rather than any sort of political reform.

Among those detained are Azar Mansouri, head of the Reformist Front, former diplomat Mohsen Aminzadeh and former parliamentarian Ebrahim Asgharzadeh. The arrests were carried out by intelligence units of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and judicial authorities, targeting an umbrella organisation that represents nearly 30 reformist factions operating within the framework of the Islamic Republic.

Mansouri was taken from her home shortly after issuing a statement expressing disgust and anger over what she described as the mass killing of protesters, vowing that the truth of the violence would not be lost in the dust.

For latest news and analyses on Middle East, visit: Yello! Middle East

As a student, Asgharzadeh played a key role in the 1979 takeover of the US embassy, but he later turned out to be a vocal critic of the regime. Aminzadeh served as deputy foreign minister under former president Mohammad Khatami, the most prominent reformist leader of the post-revolutionary era. Family members of dissidents were not spared either, including Hossein Karroubi, son of long-detained opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi.

Judicial authorities have accused the detainees of acting against national unity, promoting surrender and coordinating with enemy propaganda. Prosecutors alleged that the reformists were seeking to disrupt social order while working in league with the US and Israel, accusations routinely deployed by the state to delegitimise dissent. Protesters themselves have been described by the authorities as terrorists, a label used to justify the scale of the violence unleashed earlier this year.

The arrests are clearly linked to the recent protests, which began as demonstrations against economic hardship but rapidly escalated into calls for the end of the Islamic Republic. The states response was lethal. The scale of the bloodshed appears to have shattered the reformists remaining faith in gradual change from within.

In the weeks before the crackdown, the Reformist Front has been drafting a statement calling on Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to resign, arguing that the 1979 revolution had failed. A leaked audio has been doing the rounds in which reformist leader Ali Shakourirad argues that a major transition of power away from the Islamic revolutionary leadership is inevitable. It was clearly a red line, prompting the regime to brand the reformists as an existential threat.

President Masoud Pezeshkian finds himself in an uncomfortable position following the crackdown. It was the Reformist Front led by Mansouri that mobilised voters for him in the June 2024 presidential election. Pezeshkian managed to beat his hardline rival Saeed Jalili by a convincing margin of 1.64 crore votes primarily because of this support base. But when these reformists are facing a brutal crackdown, Pezeshkian appears unable or unwilling to do anything, clearly demonstrating the limits of presidential authority in Irans power structure.

Moreover, the crackdown exposes how little influence Pezeshkian holds over the real centres of power, like the judiciary and the IRGC. Although he sought to strike a conciliatory tone after the protests and announced an inquiry into the unrest, he has been sidelined by hardliners who control the coercive apparatus of the state. His silence following the arrest of his closest allies has only reinforced perceptions that he is unable to confront the security establishment.

One of the most provocative triggers for the arrests appears to have been a proposal floated by reformist leaders to transfer real authority to Pezeshkian. In the leaked audio, Shakourirad suggested persuading Khamenei to relinquish his powers to the president, allowing Pezeshkian to address Irans domestic and foreign crises. For the ruling establishment, such a proposal likely crossed from dissent into sedition, accelerating the decision to crush the reformist camp.

The crackdown has come at a time Iran is facing an existential threat from the United States and Israel. The US, under President Donald Trump, has beefed up its military presence in the Middle East and has threatened to attack Iran if both countries fail to reach a nuclear agreement. At the same time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pressed Washington to expand any deal to include Irans missile programme and regional influence. Against this backdrop, the regimes iron-fist approach appears designed to project strength both at home and abroad.

While Pezeshkian has spoken of diplomacy and described recent talks in Oman as a step forward, the arrests send a very different message. They signal to the international community that even as the president gestures towards dialogue, the system is closing ranks, prioritising survival over legitimacy and tolerating no meaningful dissent.
In a major development, the US is moving more stealthy fighter jets closer to Iran on Monday. This comes as the United States has issued a warning to American-flagged commercial vessels to steer clear of Iranian territorial waters while transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

According to Open Intelligence sources, over a dozen F35A Lightning II fifth-generation planes have landed at RAF Lakenheath, a US base in the UK. The fighter jets crossed the Atlantic on Monday and is said to be enroute to the Middle East.

The fighters are from the Vermont Air National Guards 158th Fighter Wing and use the callsigns Tabor 41 through Tabor 46. They were accompanied by three KC135 Stratotankers refuelling aircraft that departed from Bangor Air National Guard Base, Maine. Flight data showed that these tankers have already landed at RAF Mildenhall, another US base in the UK.

For latest news and analyses on Middle East, visit: Yello! Middle East

Reports are that six other F35s are moving to the region from Spain. These jets first arrived in Europe last month from Puerto Rico.

Over 80 military cargo flights by the U.S. Air Force linked to the transfer of air-defense equipment, including both C-17A Globemaster IIIs and C-5M Super Galaxies, have arrived at bases in the Middle East from hubs in the Indo-Pacific and the United States since mid to late https://t.co/q76OG52r6A  OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) February 10, 2026 6 additional F-35A deployed for Iran.



The build-up continues... https://t.co/GP0Z3HiyHv pic.twitter.com/KihKAPqu42  Homayoon Z (@HOMAYOONMUSIC) February 9, 2026

There are also reports that over 80 military cargo flights by the US Air Force linked to the transfer of air-defense equipment, including both C-17A Globemaster IIIs and C-5M Super Galaxies, have arrived at bases in the Middle East from hubs in the Indo-Pacific and the United States since mid to late January. The sources claim these are defensive preparations for a potential future military action against Iran.

The movement will likely be mostly complete by Friday, the open intelligence sources claim. The Muwaffaq Al Salti air base in Jordan and Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia have received enough flights for at least 1 battery each. Ali Al Salem in Kuwait will need four more, while Isa in Bahrain and Al Udeid in Qatar would need 8 more each. In total, there are 16 flights in progress, the intelligence sources added.

Warning to ships

As tension persists in the Middle East, the United States has issued a warning to American-flagged commercial vessels to steer clear of Iranian territorial waters while transiting the Strait of Hormuz. This came after Iranian drones harassed a US-flagged vessel transiting the Strait of Hormuz, just after the US shot down a Shahed drone.

A maritime advisory issued by the US Transport Department Maritime Administration read: "It is recommended that U.S.-flagged commercial vessels transiting these waters remain as far as possible from Irans territorial sea without compromising navigational safety."

It also urged the vessels to transit close to Omans waters when transiting eastbound in the Strait of Hormuz.

"If Iranian forces seek to board a US-flagged commercial vessel navigating these waters, the vessels Master should, if the safety of the ship and crew would not be compromised, decline permission to board, noting that the vessel is proceeding in accordance with international law, as reflected in the Law of the Sea Convention," the statement said.

"If Iranian forces board a US-flagged commercial vessel, the crew should not forcibly resist the boarding party. Refraining from forcible resistance does not imply consent or agreement to that boarding."
A Hindu businessman was killed in Bangladeshs Mymensingh on Monday, just a few days ahead of the upcoming polls to the elect the prime minister.

62-year-old Susen Chandra Sarkar, a rice trader, was hacked to death insidehis shop in Mymensingh Trishal at around 11 pm on Monday, according to bdnews 24.

Trishal Police Station chief (OC) Muhammad Firoz Hossain said that the attackers left the trader inside his shop and closed the shutters before fleeing the scene.

Sarkars shop Bhai Bhai Enterprise is located at the Bogar Bazar intersection in the Upazila. He was a resident of Southkanda village in the same area.

Police officials are still trying to determine the motive behind the killing. Officer Hossain said that an investigation has been launched.

Bangladesh has been seeing a rising number of mob lynchings and targeted attacks against its minority Hindu population over the past few months.

On December 18, Dipu Chandra Das, a Hindu garment worker, was publicly lynched in Mymensingh, sparking massive outrage. Footage of the violent incident spread online showing the brutal nature of the crime. India strongly condemned the killing and called the continuing violence against minorities in the country, concerning.

In another incident, Amrit Mohal was beaten to death by residents following allegations of extortion.

Mani Chakraborty, a Hindu grocery shop owner from Narsingdi, was killed on January 5, by assailants who attacked him at his shop.

Bangladesh is approaching its general election which is scheduled for February 12, 2026. It is the country's first major election since political unrest in 2024.

The election marks a critical point for the country, which has been ruled by an interim government since its former prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, was ousted following massive protests in the country.
The latest emails released by the US Justice Department relating to the Jeffrey Epstein files have rocked the UK government. The revelations of its top officials' association with Epstein and key aides quitting have put pressure on UK PM Keir Starmer's resignation.

UK PM Starmer's chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, may have been the latest to quit over the Epstein link. Though he is not directly mentioned in the files released by the Justice Department, his rooting for US ambassador Peter Mandelson led to his resignation. Mandelson's name was mentioned in the latest Epstein files. His appointment as US ambassador was blamed on McSweeney, who was known as the protege of Mandelson.

"The decision to appoint Peter Mandelson was wrong. He had damaged our party, our country...I advised the Prime Minister to make that appointment, and I take full responsibility for that advice," McSweeney said.

Mandelson was sacked by Starmer in September over his friendship with Epstein. Last week, he also quit the Labour Party and the House of Lords.

Tim Allan, Starmer's director of communications, also announced his resignation after McSweeney. Reportedly, Allan's resignation is also linked to the scandal surrounding Mandelson's appointment.

There are also rumours that Cabinet Secretary Chris Mason might be tendering his resignation following the recent revelation.

Who was fired?

UK ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson was sacked before the latest round of revelations, because of his ties to Epstein.

Despite Starmer knowing Mandelson's relationship with Epstein, he was appointed to the key post in 2024.

While directly addressing the victims of Epstein, Starmer apologised for believing the "lies" of Mandelson. "None of us knew the depths and the darkness of that relationship," Starmer said.
With two days left for Bangladesh for the 13th national parliamentary election, surveys have predicted the outcome of the key elections, the first since the collapse of the Sheikh Hasina regime.

According to a survey conducted by Bangladeshs International Institute of Law and Diplomacy (IILD), the alliance led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) will lead the race with 44.1 per cent of the votes. The electoral alliance of 11 political parties led by Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami could receive 43.9 per cent, reported Prothom Alo.

According to the survey, the Tarique Rahman-led BNP is clearly ahead in terms of overall vote share, while the anti-India Jamaat-led electoral alliance is leading in constituencies where victory appears assured. The Islamic forces could secure 105 constituencies, whereas the BNP-led alliance could be assured of victory in 101 seats, the survey added.

The findings also indicate a closely fought contest in 75 constituencies between candidates of the two alliances.

The Jatiya Sangsad (Parliament of Bangladesh) has a total of 350 seats, of which 300 members directly elected from single-member constituencies. Fifty seats are reserved exclusively for women, which are allocated proportionally to parties based on their share of the 300 elected seats.

Another public opinion survey released by Eminence Associates for Social Development (EASD) projects a clear lead for the BNP-led alliance. As per EASD, the BNP-led alliance could win about 208 seats in the election.

According to the findings, the Jamaat-e-Islamiled alliance is projected to secure 46 seats, while the Jatiya Party may win three seats. Other political parties are expected to secure four seats, and independent candidates could win 17 seats, the survey said.

The EASD survey revealed that the majority of voters in Bangladesh still preferred the BNP in terms of political choice. An overwhelming 66.3 per cent of voters favoured the BNP, while Jamaat-e-Islami only garnered 11.9 per cent support. The NCP received 1.7 per cent support, while among others.

The survey results come as a positive sign for India as analysts say the BNP is now occupying the liberal-centrist space once held by the Awami League. Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami has an explicit anti-India stance, as with NCP, the newly-formed students' party.

Many feel that India will move to improve relations with Tarique Rahman, who met EAM Jaishankar last month, if BNP indeed forms the next government.

The expectation is that New Delhi should seek to strengthen ties across the Bangladeshi political spectrum.

The BNP, on the other hand, has not explicitly maintained an anti-India stance but insists on the "Bangladesh Before All" doctrine, with the slogan "Friend Yes, Master No".
Douglas Dynamics, Inc. (NYSE:PLOW  Get Free Report)s share price hit a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Monday . The company traded as high as $40.67 and last traded at $40.4850, with a volume of 24030 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $40.37.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts recently commented on the stock. DA Davidson reaffirmed a buy rating and set a $39.00 price objective on shares of Douglas Dynamics in a research note on Monday, December 8th. Wall Street Zen lowered shares of Douglas Dynamics from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research report on Saturday, November 22nd. Finally, Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a hold (c+) rating on shares of Douglas Dynamics in a report on Monday, December 29th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Douglas Dynamics has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $39.00.

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Douglas Dynamics Price Performance

Douglas Dynamics Announces Dividend

The businesss fifty day moving average price is $35.05 and its 200-day moving average price is $32.67. The company has a market capitalization of $930.70 million, a P/E ratio of 22.95, a P/E/G ratio of 1.35 and a beta of 1.26. The company has a current ratio of 2.01, a quick ratio of 1.09 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.50.

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, December 31st. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 16th were issued a $0.295 dividend. This represents a $1.18 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.9%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, December 16th. Douglas Dynamicss dividend payout ratio is presently 67.05%.

Institutional Trading of Douglas Dynamics

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of PLOW. CWM LLC boosted its stake in Douglas Dynamics by 5.7% in the third quarter. CWM LLC now owns 6,778 shares of the auto parts companys stock worth $212,000 after buying an additional 365 shares in the last quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Douglas Dynamics by 18.1% in the 4th quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 2,609 shares of the auto parts companys stock worth $85,000 after acquiring an additional 400 shares during the last quarter. State of Wyoming boosted its stake in shares of Douglas Dynamics by 20.0% in the 2nd quarter. State of Wyoming now owns 2,430 shares of the auto parts companys stock valued at $72,000 after purchasing an additional 405 shares in the last quarter. Comerica Bank grew its holdings in shares of Douglas Dynamics by 2.6% during the 4th quarter. Comerica Bank now owns 15,996 shares of the auto parts companys stock valued at $522,000 after purchasing an additional 407 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Aquatic Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Douglas Dynamics by 6.7% during the 3rd quarter. Aquatic Capital Management LLC now owns 7,165 shares of the auto parts companys stock valued at $224,000 after purchasing an additional 449 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 91.85% of the companys stock.

About Douglas Dynamics

(Get Free Report)

Douglas Dynamics, Inc is a leading designer, manufacturer and distributor of snow and ice removal equipment for commercial, municipal and residential markets. The companys product portfolio encompasses a wide range of truck-mounted plows, spreaders, salt brine systems and related accessories engineered to perform in challenging winter conditions. Its offerings cater to professional snow contractors, government agencies and retail customers seeking reliable solutions for snow and ice management.

Douglas Dynamics markets its products under several well-known brands, including Fisher Engineering, Western Products, Hiniker Company and Buyers Products.

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Years ago, analysts warned Detroit automakers Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) and General Motors (NYSE: GM) that it would be wise to pull operations out of an increasingly competitive China and instead focus on its core profit engine, North America.

While Detroit automakers have been reluctant to give up entirely on the market, the Chinese rivals -- especially those focused on electric vehicles -- are expanding across the globe and undercutting prices with advanced EV technology.

Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue 

However, if Ford and GM can take a page out of the Chinese playbook, the Chinese coming to America could be a massive opportunity.

Rewind the clock

If investors rewind the clock two decades ago or more, Detroit automakers were scrambling to get as much of a rapidly expanding automotive market in China. It was supposed to become the next major market to stand next to North America as a pillar of profits -- but that didn't materialize for most.

What did happen, however, was a brilliant move by the Chinese government that forced incoming foreign automakers to pair up with domestic automakers to gain access to the valuable market. Foreign automakers begrudgingly accepted this and over the course of a couple decades, the Chinese automakers have turned from an afterthought into game-changing companies.

Chinese EV makers are currently some of the most advanced and most affordable EV options on the planet, and are quickly exporting record numbers of vehicles and initiating local production in places like Europe.

Image source: Nio.

"The progression of Chinese cars in Europe is massive," said Roberto Vavassori, a Brembo executive who heads Italy's Anfia trade group, according to Automotive News. "It's a matter of survival for our industry."

Already, almost 1 of every 10 passenger cars sold in Europe is Chinese. Eventually, and likely sooner rather than later, the Chinese will be offering vehicles in the U.S. and Detroit automakers need to be prepared to learn a thing or two.

Stealing a page?

According to Steve Greenfield, Automotive Ventures general partner, he believes investors will see announcements as soon as this year of the Chinese starting to sell vehicles in America.

"The most important thing is sharing intellectual property," said Greenfield, according to Automotive News. "As the Chinese did to us 20 years ago over in China, we need to figure out how they're building cars faster and cheaper. And if we can make sure that intellectual property gets shared back to our legacy automakers, they're actually going to be more healthy as a result."
Shares of Miami International Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:MIAX  Get Free Report) saw an uptick in trading volume on Monday . 1,078,246 shares changed hands during trading, an increase of 17% from the previous sessions volume of 918,619 shares.The stock last traded at $41.3460 and had previously closed at $42.23.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

MIAX has been the subject of several analyst reports. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on shares of Miami International from $45.00 to $48.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Tuesday, November 4th. Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of Miami International from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Saturday, January 17th. Rosenblatt Securities reiterated a buy rating and issued a $55.00 price objective on shares of Miami International in a research note on Tuesday, December 9th. Weiss Ratings restated a sell (d+) rating on shares of Miami International in a research note on Monday, December 29th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on Miami International from $32.00 to $37.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a report on Tuesday, November 4th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $47.20.

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Miami International Trading Down 2.0%

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Miami International

The company has a market capitalization of $3.37 billion and a P/E ratio of 2,069.00. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $43.71.

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. bought a new position in Miami International during the third quarter worth about $55,660,000. Alyeska Investment Group L.P. purchased a new position in Miami International in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $50,959,000. JPMorgan Chase & Co. bought a new stake in Miami International during the 3rd quarter valued at $32,679,000. North Reef Capital Management LP purchased a new stake in shares of Miami International during the third quarter worth $29,221,000. Finally, Caldwell Investment Management Ltd. bought a new position in shares of Miami International in the third quarter worth $27,056,000.

Miami International Company Profile

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Miami International (NYSE:MIAX) is a U.S. exchange holding company that operates electronic trading venues and provides market infrastructure for listed options and related products. Its primary business activities include operating regulated exchanges, delivering market data feeds, and offering trading technology and connectivity services designed for professional traders, broker-dealers, and market makers. The company focuses on low-latency execution, order matching, and the operational controls required to support high-volume, automated trading strategies in listed derivatives.

Products and services provided by Miami International include fully electronic order matching engines, transmittable market data and feed products, colocation and connectivity solutions, and tools for risk management and regulatory compliance.

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Invesco Variable Rate Preferred ETF (NYSEARCA:VRP  Get Free Report) shares saw unusually-strong trading volume on Monday . Approximately 932,919 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 59% from the previous sessions volume of 587,810 shares.The stock last traded at $24.4450 and had previously closed at $24.47.

Invesco Variable Rate Preferred ETF Price Performance

The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $24.42 and a 200 day simple moving average of $24.54.

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Invesco Variable Rate Preferred ETF Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently declared a monthly dividend, which was paid on Friday, January 23rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, January 20th were issued a $0.1019 dividend. This represents a c) annualized dividend and a yield of 5.0%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, January 20th.

Institutional Trading of Invesco Variable Rate Preferred ETF

Invesco Variable Rate Preferred ETF Company Profile

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. JPMorgan Chase & Co. grew its holdings in shares of Invesco Variable Rate Preferred ETF by 47.8% in the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 1,737,992 shares of the companys stock worth $42,928,000 after purchasing an additional 561,811 shares during the last quarter. Spectrum Asset Management Inc. raised its position in Invesco Variable Rate Preferred ETF by 798.8% in the 4th quarter. Spectrum Asset Management Inc. now owns 564,181 shares of the companys stock valued at $13,727,000 after purchasing an additional 501,409 shares during the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE grew its holdings in shares of Invesco Variable Rate Preferred ETF by 6.2% during the third quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 8,491,380 shares of the companys stock worth $209,737,000 after purchasing an additional 497,911 shares during the last quarter. Westover Capital Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Invesco Variable Rate Preferred ETF during the 2nd quarter worth about $8,438,000. Finally, Blue Water Asset Management acquired a new stake in Invesco Variable Rate Preferred ETF in the 4th quarter valued at about $6,790,000.

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The Invesco Variable Rate Preferred ETF (VRP) is an exchange-traded fund that mostly invests in broad credit fixed income. The fund tracks a market-value-weighted index of variable- and floating-rate preferred stocks. VRP was launched on May 1, 2014 and is managed by Invesco.

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iShares New York Muni Bond ETF (NYSEARCA:NYF  Get Free Report)s stock price hit a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Monday . The stock traded as high as $53.98 and last traded at $53.9750, with a volume of 47521 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $53.92.

iShares New York Muni Bond ETF Trading Up 0.2%

The stocks 50-day simple moving average is $53.66 and its 200 day simple moving average is $53.24.

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Hedge Funds Weigh In On iShares New York Muni Bond ETF

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Flow Traders U.S. LLC grew its holdings in shares of iShares New York Muni Bond ETF by 439.6% during the second quarter. Flow Traders U.S. LLC now owns 26,274 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,370,000 after buying an additional 21,405 shares during the last quarter. Ashton Thomas Securities LLC acquired a new position in iShares New York Muni Bond ETF during the 3rd quarter valued at about $590,000. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC increased its holdings in iShares New York Muni Bond ETF by 31.4% during the 3rd quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC now owns 112,440 shares of the companys stock worth $5,999,000 after purchasing an additional 26,874 shares in the last quarter. Retirement Planning Group LLC purchased a new stake in shares of iShares New York Muni Bond ETF in the third quarter worth approximately $3,636,000. Finally, Klingman & Associates LLC lifted its holdings in shares of iShares New York Muni Bond ETF by 4.9% in the third quarter. Klingman & Associates LLC now owns 233,173 shares of the companys stock valued at $12,440,000 after purchasing an additional 10,819 shares in the last quarter.

iShares New York Muni Bond ETF Company Profile

iShares New York AMT-Free Muni Bond ETF, formerly iShares S&P New York AMT-Free Municipal Bond Fund (the Fund), is an exchange traded fund. The Fund seeks investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance, before fees and expenses, of the S&P AMT-Free Municipal Series 2016 IndexTM (the Index). The Underlying Index measures the performance of investment-grade, noncallable United States municipal bonds maturing in 2016. The Index includes municipal bonds primarily from issuers that are state or local governments or agencies such that the interest on the bonds is exempt from United States federal income taxes and the federal alternative minimum tax (AMT).

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TeliaSonera AB (OTCMKTS:TLSNY  Get Free Report) shares reached a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Monday . The company traded as high as $9.7399 and last traded at $9.7399, with a volume of 4695 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $9.52.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of TeliaSonera from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 5th. Citigroup upgraded TeliaSonera from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 14th. Finally, UBS Group downgraded TeliaSonera from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Tuesday, January 13th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of Buy.

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TeliaSonera Stock Performance

The stocks fifty day moving average price is $8.55 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $7.91. The company has a market cap of $19.10 billion, a P/E ratio of 53.97 and a beta of 0.36. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.45, a quick ratio of 0.85 and a current ratio of 0.90.

TeliaSonera (OTCMKTS:TLSNY  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 29th. The technology company reported ($0.07) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.09 by ($0.16). TeliaSonera had a net margin of 4.35% and a return on equity of 8.87%. The firm had revenue of $2.41 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.32 billion. As a group, equities analysts predict that TeliaSonera AB will post 0.34 earnings per share for the current year.

About TeliaSonera

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TeliaSonera (OTCMKTS:TLSNY) operates under the Telia Company brand as one of the leading telecommunications providers in the Nordic and Baltic regions. The company delivers a wide range of services, including mobile and fixed voice communications, broadband internet, television and streaming offerings, and enterprise-grade data and IP solutions. Its consumer segment focuses on mobile subscriptions, digital TV packages and home connectivity, while its business division provides managed network services, cloud platforms and Internet of Things (IoT) applications.

The roots of TeliaSonera trace back to the 19th century with Swedens Royal Telegraph Agency and Finlands national carrier, Sonera.

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Several analysts have recently updated their ratings and price targets for ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP):

2/9/2026  ConocoPhillips had its buy rating reaffirmed by analysts at UBS Group AG. They now have a $130.00 price target on the stock.

2/6/2026  ConocoPhillips had its price target raised by analysts at BMO Capital Markets from $105.00 to $115.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

2/6/2026  ConocoPhillips had its price target raised by analysts at Piper Sandler from $108.00 to $111.00. They now have an overweight rating on the stock.

2/6/2026  ConocoPhillips had its price target raised by analysts at Citigroup Inc. from $115.00 to $125.00. They now have a buy rating on the stock.

2/6/2026  ConocoPhillips had its price target raised by analysts at Susquehanna from $115.00 to $121.00. They now have a positive rating on the stock.

2/6/2026  ConocoPhillips had its price target raised by analysts at The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. from $115.00 to $120.00. They now have a buy rating on the stock.

2/6/2026  ConocoPhillips had its price target raised by analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $98.00 to $103.00. They now have a neutral rating on the stock.

2/6/2026  ConocoPhillips had its price target raised by analysts at Wells Fargo & Company from $132.00 to $133.00. They now have an overweight rating on the stock.

2/5/2026  ConocoPhillips had its buy rating reaffirmed by analysts at Roth Mkm. They now have a $112.00 price target on the stock.

1/26/2026  ConocoPhillips had its price target raised by analysts at Susquehanna from $110.00 to $115.00. They now have a positive rating on the stock.

1/26/2026  ConocoPhillips had its price target raised by analysts at Wolfe Research from $122.00 to $123.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

1/23/2026  ConocoPhillips had its price target lowered by analysts at Morgan Stanley from $117.00 to $108.00. They now have an overweight rating on the stock.

1/23/2026  ConocoPhillips had its price target raised by analysts at Roth Mkm from $100.00 to $105.00. They now have a buy rating on the stock.

1/22/2026  ConocoPhillips had its price target raised by analysts at The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. from $108.00 to $115.00. They now have a buy rating on the stock.

1/22/2026  ConocoPhillips had its price target raised by analysts at Raymond James Financial, Inc. from $98.00 to $113.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

1/20/2026  ConocoPhillips had its price target raised by analysts at Capital One Financial Corporation from $111.00 to $116.00. They now have an equal weight rating on the stock.

1/20/2026  ConocoPhillips had its neutral rating reaffirmed by analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co.. They now have a $98.00 price target on the stock.

1/16/2026  ConocoPhillips had its underperform rating reaffirmed by analysts at Bank of America Corporation. They now have a $102.00 price target on the stock.

1/13/2026  ConocoPhillips had its price target lowered by analysts at Wolfe Research from $126.00 to $122.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

1/13/2026  ConocoPhillips had its price target lowered by analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $102.00 to $98.00. They now have a neutral rating on the stock.

1/8/2026  ConocoPhillips had its price target lowered by analysts at Piper Sandler from $115.00 to $109.00. They now have an overweight rating on the stock.

1/8/2026  ConocoPhillips had its price target lowered by analysts at Capital One Financial Corporation from $112.00 to $111.00. They now have an equal weight rating on the stock.

1/5/2026  ConocoPhillips had its price target lowered by analysts at Wolfe Research from $131.00 to $126.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

1/5/2026  ConocoPhillips had its price target lowered by analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein from $116.00 to $98.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

12/29/2025  ConocoPhillips had its hold (c-) rating reaffirmed by analysts at Weiss Ratings.

12/22/2025  ConocoPhillips had its hold (c-) rating reaffirmed by analysts at Weiss Ratings.

12/15/2025  ConocoPhillips had its buy rating reaffirmed by analysts at Jefferies Financial Group Inc..

12/15/2025  ConocoPhillips had its hold (c-) rating reaffirmed by analysts at Weiss Ratings.

12/15/2025  ConocoPhillips had its price target lowered by analysts at BMO Capital Markets from $110.00 to $105.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

12/12/2025  ConocoPhillips had its price target raised by analysts at UBS Group AG from $117.00 to $120.00. They now have a buy rating on the stock.

12/12/2025  ConocoPhillips had its price target raised by analysts at Mizuho from $120.00 to $121.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

ConocoPhillips Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 2nd. Investors of record on Wednesday, February 18th will be issued a $0.84 dividend. This represents a $3.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.1%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, February 18th. ConocoPhillipss payout ratio is presently 53.00%.

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Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Ryan Michael Lance sold 500,708 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $92.50, for a total value of $46,315,490.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 325,972 shares of the companys stock, valued at $30,152,410. This represents a 60.57% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. 0.24% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) is a Houston-based international energy company focused on exploration and production of oil and natural gas. Formed in 2002 through the merger of Conoco Inc and Phillips Petroleum Company, the firm operates as an independent upstream company that explores for, develops and produces crude oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids across a portfolio of global assets.

The companys activities span conventional and unconventional resources and include onshore and offshore operations in multiple regions around the world.

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A number of research firms have changed their ratings and price targets for Progressive (NYSE: PGR):

2/3/2026  Progressive had its price target lowered by analysts at Citigroup Inc. from $300.60 to $261.00. They now have a buy rating on the stock.

2/2/2026  Progressive was given a new $226.00 price target on by analysts at UBS Group AG.

1/30/2026  Progressive had its price target lowered by analysts at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods from $252.00 to $225.00. They now have a market perform rating on the stock.

1/29/2026  Progressive had its price target lowered by analysts at Wells Fargo & Company from $240.00 to $220.00. They now have an equal weight rating on the stock.

1/29/2026  Progressive had its price target lowered by analysts at BMO Capital Markets from $239.00 to $232.00. They now have a market perform rating on the stock.

1/28/2026  Progressive had its price target lowered by analysts at Morgan Stanley from $214.00 to $205.00. They now have an underweight rating on the stock.

1/26/2026  Progressive was downgraded by analysts at Zacks Research from a hold rating to a strong sell rating.

1/16/2026  Progressive was downgraded by analysts at HSBC Holdings plc from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating.

1/15/2026  Progressive had its price target lowered by analysts at BMO Capital Markets from $253.00 to $239.00. They now have a market perform rating on the stock.

1/14/2026  Progressive was given a new $240.00 price target on by analysts at Mizuho.

1/13/2026  Progressive had its price target lowered by analysts at Wells Fargo & Company from $242.00 to $240.00. They now have an equal weight rating on the stock.

1/8/2026  Progressive was upgraded by analysts at Barclays PLC from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating. They now have a $265.00 price target on the stock, up previously from $257.00.

1/7/2026  Progressive was given a new $227.00 price target on by analysts at The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc..

1/7/2026  Progressive had its price target lowered by analysts at Evercore Inc from $250.00 to $237.00. They now have an in-line rating on the stock.

1/7/2026  Progressive had its price target lowered by analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $303.00 to $275.00. They now have an overweight rating on the stock.

1/6/2026  Progressive had its price target raised by analysts at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods from $250.00 to $252.00. They now have a market perform rating on the stock.

12/29/2025  Progressive had its hold (c+) rating reaffirmed by analysts at Weiss Ratings.

12/23/2025  Progressive had its price target raised by analysts at Wells Fargo & Company from $242.00 to $247.00. They now have an equal weight rating on the stock.

12/22/2025  Progressive had its hold (c+) rating reaffirmed by analysts at Weiss Ratings.

12/19/2025  Progressive had its price target lowered by analysts at Wells Fargo & Company from $247.00 to $242.00. They now have an equal weight rating on the stock.

12/19/2025  Progressive had its positive rating reaffirmed by analysts at Wells Fargo & Company.

12/18/2025  Progressive was downgraded by analysts at William Blair from an outperform rating to a market perform rating.

12/18/2025  Progressive had its price target raised by analysts at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods from $246.00 to $250.00. They now have a market perform rating on the stock.

12/18/2025  Progressive had its price target lowered by analysts at BMO Capital Markets from $256.00 to $253.00. They now have a market perform rating on the stock.

12/17/2025  Progressive had its hold rating reaffirmed by analysts at Jefferies Financial Group Inc..

12/17/2025  Progressive had its underweight rating reaffirmed by analysts at Morgan Stanley.

12/15/2025  Progressive is now covered by analysts at Mizuho. They set a neutral rating and a $242.00 price target on the stock.

12/15/2025  Progressive had its hold (c+) rating reaffirmed by analysts at Weiss Ratings.

12/15/2025  Progressive was upgraded by analysts at Mizuho to a hold rating.

12/15/2025  Progressive had its price target lowered by analysts at Citigroup Inc. from $301.38 to $300.60. They now have a buy rating on the stock.

Progressive Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 8th. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 2nd were paid a $0.10 dividend. This represents a $0.40 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.2%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 2nd. Progressives dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 2.08%.

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Insider Transactions at Progressive

In other Progressive news, insider Andrew J. Quigg sold 1,649 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $204.35, for a total transaction of $336,973.15. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 39,626 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $8,097,573.10. The trade was a 4.00% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CIO Jonathan S. Bauer sold 3,105 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $204.35, for a total transaction of $634,506.75. Following the transaction, the executive owned 26,249 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,363,983.15. The trade was a 10.58% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 13,788 shares of company stock worth $3,018,961. Insiders own 0.33% of the companys stock.

Progressive Corporation is a large U.S.-based property and casualty insurer that primarily underwrites personal auto insurance along with a broad suite of related products. Its offerings include coverage for private passenger automobiles, commercial auto fleets, motorcycles, boats and recreational vehicles, as well as homeowners, renters, umbrella and other specialty P&C products. Progressive also provides claims handling, risk management and related services to individual and commercial policyholders.

The company distributes its products through a mix of direct channelsonline and by phoneand an extensive independent agent network.

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Shares of Bank of Montreal (TSE:BMO  Get Free Report) (NYSE:BMO) hit a new 52-week high during trading on Monday after TD Securities raised their price target on the stock from C$209.00 to C$219.00. The stock traded as high as C$195.15 and last traded at C$193.68, with a volume of 1819088 shares. The stock had previously closed at C$193.48.

Other equities research analysts have also recently issued research reports about the company. Raymond James Financial upped their price target on Bank of Montreal from C$182.00 to C$183.00 in a research note on Monday, December 8th. National Bankshares lowered Bank of Montreal from an outperform rating to a sector perform rating and upped their price objective for the stock from C$173.00 to C$181.00 in a report on Monday, November 17th. Bank of America increased their target price on shares of Bank of Montreal from C$179.00 to C$183.00 in a report on Friday, December 5th. Royal Bank Of Canada upped their target price on Bank of Montreal from C$163.00 to C$178.00 in a report on Friday, December 5th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group upped their price target on shares of Bank of Montreal from C$181.00 to C$182.00 in a report on Friday, December 5th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and eight have given a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of C$186.50.

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Read Our Latest Research Report on Bank of Montreal

Bank of Montreal Price Performance

The firm has a market cap of C$139.15 billion, a PE ratio of 17.16, a P/E/G ratio of 0.71 and a beta of 1.38. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of C$183.06 and a 200 day moving average price of C$174.87.

Bank of Montreal (TSE:BMO  Get Free Report) (NYSE:BMO) last released its earnings results on Thursday, December 4th. The bank reported C$3.28 earnings per share for the quarter. The firm had revenue of C$9.34 billion for the quarter. Bank of Montreal had a return on equity of 9.04% and a net margin of 13.57%. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Bank of Montreal will post 9.6514585 earnings per share for the current year.

Bank of Montreal Company Profile

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Bank of Montreal is a diversified financial-services provider based in North America, operating four business segments: Canadian personal and commercial banking, U.S. P&C banking, wealth management, and capital markets.

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Companhia de saneamento Basico Do Estado De Sao Paulo  Sabesp (NYSE:SBS  Get Free Report)s share price hit a new 52-week high on Monday . The stock traded as high as $28.39 and last traded at $28.3590, with a volume of 515108 shares. The stock had previously closed at $27.59.

Analyst Ratings Changes

SBS has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Weiss Ratings restated a buy (b) rating on shares of Companhia de saneamento Basico Do Estado De Sao Paulo  Sabesp in a research report on Wednesday, January 21st. Zacks Research upgraded shares of Companhia de saneamento Basico Do Estado De Sao Paulo  Sabesp from a strong sell rating to a hold rating in a research report on Monday, February 2nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has issued a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy.

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Companhia de saneamento Basico Do Estado De Sao Paulo  Sabesp Trading Up 3.7%

The company has a market cap of $20.13 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.83, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.20 and a beta of 0.78. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $25.16 and a 200 day moving average of $24.00. The company has a current ratio of 1.17, a quick ratio of 1.17 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68.

Companhia de saneamento Basico Do Estado De Sao Paulo  Sabesp (NYSE:SBS  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, November 12th. The utilities provider reported $0.34 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.07 by $0.27. The company had revenue of $4.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.07 billion. Companhia de saneamento Basico Do Estado De Sao Paulo  Sabesp had a net margin of 22.32% and a return on equity of 16.08%. On average, analysts predict that Companhia de saneamento Basico Do Estado De Sao Paulo  Sabesp will post 2.17 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Companhia de saneamento Basico Do Estado De Sao Paulo  Sabesp Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a special dividend, which will be paid on Monday, May 11th. Investors of record on Monday, December 29th will be issued a dividend of $0.4772 per share. The ex-dividend date is Monday, December 29th. Companhia de saneamento Basico Do Estado De Sao Paulo  Sabesps payout ratio is 40.33%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of SBS. Jane Street Group LLC grew its position in shares of Companhia de saneamento Basico Do Estado De Sao Paulo  Sabesp by 349.0% during the 1st quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 152,113 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $2,717,000 after acquiring an additional 118,237 shares during the period. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC purchased a new stake in Companhia de saneamento Basico Do Estado De Sao Paulo  Sabesp during the second quarter valued at about $243,000. Vontobel Holding Ltd. bought a new position in Companhia de saneamento Basico Do Estado De Sao Paulo  Sabesp during the second quarter worth about $1,746,000. Blue Trust Inc. increased its stake in shares of Companhia de saneamento Basico Do Estado De Sao Paulo  Sabesp by 2.1% in the second quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 26,468 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $582,000 after purchasing an additional 543 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Companhia de saneamento Basico Do Estado De Sao Paulo  Sabesp by 39.1% in the second quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC now owns 27,854 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $612,000 after purchasing an additional 7,823 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 10.62% of the companys stock.

Companhia de saneamento Basico Do Estado De Sao Paulo  Sabesp Company Profile

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Companhia de Saneamento Basico do Estado de Sao Paulo (SABESP) is a Brazilian utility that provides water supply and wastewater collection and treatment services. As the principal sanitation company serving the state of Sao Paulo, SABESP operates a wide range of infrastructure spanning water capture, treatment plants, distribution networks and sewage systems. The companys activities support residential, commercial and industrial customers and are focused on delivering potable water, ensuring water quality and expanding access to sanitation services.

SABESPs service offering includes the operation and maintenance of water treatment and sewage treatment facilities, network expansion and rehabilitation, meter reading and billing, customer service and environmental programs aimed at improving sewage treatment rates and protecting water resources.

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Toyota Motor (NYSE:TM  Get Free Report) issued an update on its FY 2026 earnings guidance on Monday morning. The company provided EPS guidance of 17.782-17.782 for the period, compared to the consensus EPS estimate of 18.150. The company issued revenue guidance of $324.6 billion-$324.6 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $322.5 billion.

Toyota Motor Trading Down 0.8%

NYSE TM traded down $1.89 during mid-day trading on Monday, hitting $242.33. The companys stock had a trading volume of 373,814 shares, compared to its average volume of 337,131. The firm has a market capitalization of $326.52 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.77 and a beta of 0.62. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61, a current ratio of 1.25 and a quick ratio of 1.10. Toyota Motor has a 52-week low of $155.00 and a 52-week high of $246.36. The stocks fifty day simple moving average is $218.03 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $204.29.

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Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on TM shares. Zacks Research raised shares of Toyota Motor from a strong sell rating to a hold rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Erste Group Bank upgraded Toyota Motor from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report on Friday, October 31st. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a hold (c) rating on shares of Toyota Motor in a research report on Wednesday, January 21st. Finally, Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of Toyota Motor from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Sunday, November 16th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, two have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Toyota Motor has an average rating of Hold.

Institutional Trading of Toyota Motor

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of TM. Bank of America Corp DE grew its holdings in shares of Toyota Motor by 4.9% during the third quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 1,465,611 shares of the companys stock valued at $280,064,000 after buying an additional 67,943 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp grew its stake in Toyota Motor by 3.6% during the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 1,051,468 shares of the companys stock valued at $200,925,000 after acquiring an additional 36,207 shares in the last quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors boosted its holdings in shares of Toyota Motor by 2.9% during the second quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 402,550 shares of the companys stock worth $69,343,000 after purchasing an additional 11,397 shares during the period. Balyasny Asset Management L.P. grew its position in Toyota Motor by 48.8% during the third quarter. Balyasny Asset Management L.P. now owns 226,824 shares of the companys stock valued at $43,344,000 after purchasing an additional 74,353 shares in the last quarter. Finally, UBS Group AG increased its stake in Toyota Motor by 9.3% in the 3rd quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 199,115 shares of the companys stock valued at $38,049,000 after buying an additional 16,886 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 1.48% of the companys stock.

About Toyota Motor

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Toyota Motor Corporation is a global automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. Founded in 1937 by Kiichiro Toyoda as an offshoot of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, the company builds and sells a broad range of vehicles and related products under the Toyota and Lexus brands. Toyotas operations encompass vehicle design, manufacturing, parts supply, and distribution through a worldwide dealer network, as well as complementary businesses such as vehicle financing and mobility services.

The companys product lineup includes passenger cars, SUVs, pickup trucks, light commercial vehicles and heavy-duty commercial vehicles, along with engines and vehicle components.

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iShares Russell 2500 ETF (BATS:SMMD  Get Free Report)s stock price reached a new 52-week high on Monday . The company traded as high as $81.68 and last traded at $81.6790, with a volume of 105051 shares. The stock had previously closed at $80.99.

iShares Russell 2500 ETF Price Performance

The companys 50 day moving average price is $77.82 and its 200 day moving average price is $74.55. The firm has a market cap of $1.75 billion, a PE ratio of 19.95 and a beta of 1.09.

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Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Royal Bank of Canada increased its stake in shares of iShares Russell 2500 ETF by 12.0% during the first quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 58,273 shares of the companys stock worth $3,644,000 after acquiring an additional 6,223 shares during the period. Jane Street Group LLC lifted its holdings in shares of iShares Russell 2500 ETF by 1,288.2% in the first quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 77,005 shares of the companys stock valued at $4,816,000 after purchasing an additional 71,458 shares in the last quarter. Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. grew its holdings in iShares Russell 2500 ETF by 18.3% during the 2nd quarter. Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. now owns 22,217 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,506,000 after buying an additional 3,441 shares during the last quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC increased its position in iShares Russell 2500 ETF by 27.8% during the second quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 1,269 shares of the companys stock worth $87,000 after buying an additional 276 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Fairman Group LLC raised its holdings in shares of iShares Russell 2500 ETF by 634.1% in the second quarter. Fairman Group LLC now owns 1,637 shares of the companys stock worth $111,000 after acquiring an additional 1,414 shares during the last quarter.

About iShares Russell 2500 ETF

The iShares Russell 2500 ETF (SMMD) is an exchange-traded fund that is based on the Russell 2500 index, a market-cap-weighted index of US companies ranked 501-3,000 by market cap. SMMD was launched on Jul 6, 2017 and is managed by BlackRock.

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German retail leaders have written to Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz calling for stronger government action to protect the competitiveness of German and European retailers.

In a letter ahead of an informal meeting of the European Council, the German Retail Federation (HDE) said unfair competition from traders and online platforms based outside the EU threatens local companies.

The appeal highlights concerns over regulatory burdens and market distortions that HDE says put EU firms at a disadvantage.

Call for fair competition and competitive markets

In its 6 February 2026 letter, HDE urged the German government to ensure fair competition and to reduce what it described as excessive regulation that hampers the retail sector.

The trade body said that platforms and retailers from third countries often escape compliance with EU rules on product safety and consumer protection, allowing them to undercut domestic competitors.

HDEs president emphasised the need for a level playing field to support long-term competitiveness in European markets.

The association pointed specifically to rapid growth among foreign online marketplaces that enter the EU market with lower prices and fewer regulatory obligations. Similar concerns have been raised across Europe about enforcement of EU rules in digital and cross-border commerce.

Concerns over regulatory burden and market distortions

Beyond foreign competition, HDE criticised a range of new European rules it says could further undermine business conditions for EU retailers. These include measures that HDE believes will increase bureaucratic drag or complicate compliance.

The federation called on Berlin to seek delays or reforms to such regulatory proposals at the forthcoming Council meeting.

Industry groups across Europe have previously warned that inconsistent enforcement of standards and complex regulation can disadvantage companies that operate strictly within EU law.

Advocacy organisations have called for better coordination on enforcement and more effective implementation of EU competition policy to protect European firms.

Broader context for European retail competitiveness

The HDE letter comes amid wider debate in the EU about how to balance open markets with robust enforcement of competition and consumer protection laws.

Regulators and industry associations have signalled the importance of maintaining high standards while addressing rapid changes in digital retail and e-commerce.

Recent regulatory actions in Germany and the EU have aimed at ensuring fair market conditions, including competition reviews targeting online marketplaces.
Manitowoc (NYSE:MTW  Get Free Report) issued an update on its FY 2026 earnings guidance on Monday morning. The company provided earnings per share (EPS) guidance of 0.450-0.900 for the period, compared to the consensus estimate of 0.900. The company issued revenue guidance of $2.3 billion-$2.4 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $2.4 billion.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on MTW shares. Wall Street Zen upgraded Manitowoc from a buy rating to a strong-buy rating in a research report on Monday, December 22nd. Weiss Ratings restated a hold (c-) rating on shares of Manitowoc in a research note on Monday, December 22nd. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company reiterated an underweight rating and set a $10.00 price target (up previously from $9.00) on shares of Manitowoc in a research report on Friday, January 23rd. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of Reduce and an average target price of $10.50.

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Manitowoc Price Performance

MTW stock traded down $0.17 during mid-day trading on Monday, hitting $14.86. 382,143 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 242,767. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $12.99 and a 200 day moving average price of $11.49. Manitowoc has a 12 month low of $7.06 and a 12 month high of $15.20. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70, a current ratio of 2.14 and a quick ratio of 0.66. The stock has a market capitalization of $527.08 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.35 and a beta of 1.88.

Manitowoc (NYSE:MTW  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Monday, February 9th. The industrial products company reported $0.26 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.27 by ($0.01). Manitowoc had a net margin of 2.63% and a return on equity of 0.87%. The companys revenue for the quarter was up 13.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.10 EPS. Manitowoc has set its FY 2026 guidance at 0.450-0.900 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Manitowoc will post 0.5 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Trading of Manitowoc

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Manitowoc by 19.0% during the first quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 290,452 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $2,495,000 after buying an additional 46,324 shares during the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Manitowoc by 26.0% during the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 273,121 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $2,346,000 after acquiring an additional 56,336 shares during the period. Caxton Associates LLP bought a new position in Manitowoc during the 1st quarter worth approximately $112,000. Empowered Funds LLC increased its stake in Manitowoc by 7.3% in the 1st quarter. Empowered Funds LLC now owns 190,140 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $1,633,000 after purchasing an additional 13,001 shares during the period. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its stake in Manitowoc by 49.4% in the 2nd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 364,915 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $4,386,000 after purchasing an additional 120,658 shares during the period. 78.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Manitowoc Company Profile

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The Manitowoc Company, Inc (NYSE: MTW) is a global manufacturer of heavy-lift cranes and lifting equipment. The companys product portfolio includes tower cranes marketed under the Potain brand, mobile hydraulic cranes sold under the Grove, Manitowoc and National Crane names, and engineered lifting solutions such as mast climbers and platform hoists. Manitowoc serves a wide range of industries, including construction, infrastructure, energy and industrial markets.

Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Manitowoc operates manufacturing facilities, sales offices and rental centers across North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

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Burlington Stores, Inc. (NYSE:BURL  Get Free Report) shares hit a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Monday . The company traded as high as $316.25 and last traded at $315.7860, with a volume of 287465 shares changing hands. The stock had previously closed at $311.63.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on BURL shares. Citigroup decreased their price target on shares of Burlington Stores from $358.00 to $351.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Monday, November 3rd. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft began coverage on shares of Burlington Stores in a report on Thursday, January 8th. They set a hold rating and a $318.00 price objective for the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their target price on shares of Burlington Stores from $346.00 to $316.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, November 26th. UBS Group reiterated a buy rating on shares of Burlington Stores in a research note on Monday, November 17th. Finally, TD Cowen reissued a buy rating on shares of Burlington Stores in a report on Wednesday, November 26th. Fifteen investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Burlington Stores currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $335.94.

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Burlington Stores Trading Up 2.1%

The firm has a market cap of $20.01 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.40, a P/E/G ratio of 1.69 and a beta of 1.74. The businesss 50-day moving average is $287.77 and its two-hundred day moving average is $279.05. The company has a current ratio of 1.21, a quick ratio of 0.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32.

Burlington Stores (NYSE:BURL  Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, November 25th. The company reported $1.68 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.59 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $2.71 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.74 billion. Burlington Stores had a return on equity of 41.02% and a net margin of 5.01%.Burlington Storess quarterly revenue was up 7.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.55 earnings per share. Burlington Stores has set its Q4 2025 guidance at 4.500-4.70 EPS and its FY 2025 guidance at 9.690-9.890 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that Burlington Stores, Inc. will post 7.93 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Burlington Stores

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA boosted its holdings in shares of Burlington Stores by 6.7% in the third quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 945,554 shares of the companys stock valued at $240,643,000 after acquiring an additional 59,587 shares in the last quarter. Oak Thistle LLC acquired a new stake in Burlington Stores in the third quarter worth approximately $1,932,000. Campbell & CO Investment Adviser LLC bought a new position in Burlington Stores during the 3rd quarter valued at $1,033,000. Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. increased its position in shares of Burlington Stores by 8.3% during the 2nd quarter. Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 19,785 shares of the companys stock valued at $4,603,000 after purchasing an additional 1,510 shares during the period. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of Burlington Stores by 1.4% in the 2nd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 405,256 shares of the companys stock worth $94,279,000 after buying an additional 5,559 shares in the last quarter.

About Burlington Stores

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Burlington Stores, Inc is an American off-price retailer that sells apparel and home goods at discounted prices. The companys merchandise assortment includes clothing for women, men and children, plus baby products, footwear, accessories, beauty items, toys and home decor. Burlingtons merchandising strategy focuses on offering branded and private-label goods at lower prices than traditional department stores by sourcing excess inventory, closeouts and opportunistic buys from manufacturers and other retailers.

The business traces its roots to the Burlington Coat Factory name established in the early 1970s and has since evolved into a broader off-price retailer that carries a wide range of seasonal and everyday merchandise.

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Kinsale Capital Group, Inc. (NYSE:KNSL  Get Free Report)s stock price dropped 5.1% during trading on Monday . The company traded as low as $394.74 and last traded at $392.7950. Approximately 62,575 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 69% from the average daily volume of 203,418 shares. The stock had previously closed at $414.10.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms recently issued reports on KNSL. TD Cowen decreased their price objective on shares of Kinsale Capital Group from $448.00 to $442.00 and set a hold rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, November 4th. Cantor Fitzgerald cut their target price on shares of Kinsale Capital Group from $470.00 to $422.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 14th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price target on Kinsale Capital Group from $460.00 to $450.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, October 27th. Royal Bank Of Canada began coverage on Kinsale Capital Group in a research report on Tuesday, November 25th. They issued a sector perform rating and a $415.00 price target on the stock. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company began coverage on Kinsale Capital Group in a research report on Thursday, January 15th. They set an overweight rating and a $490.00 price objective for the company. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and eight have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $476.60.

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Kinsale Capital Group Price Performance

Kinsale Capital Group Increases Dividend

The company has a quick ratio of 0.09, a current ratio of 0.09 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11. The stocks 50-day moving average price is $392.44 and its 200 day moving average price is $417.71. The firm has a market cap of $9.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.46 and a beta of 0.99.

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 12th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, February 26th will be given a dividend of $0.25 per share. This represents a $1.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, February 26th. This is a boost from Kinsale Capital Groups previous quarterly dividend of $0.17. Kinsale Capital Groups dividend payout ratio is currently 3.34%.

Kinsale Capital Group declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase plan on Thursday, December 11th that allows the company to repurchase $250.00 million in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the financial services provider to purchase up to 2.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are usually an indication that the companys board believes its shares are undervalued.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Cresset Asset Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Kinsale Capital Group by 145.3% during the 2nd quarter. Cresset Asset Management LLC now owns 5,667 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $2,743,000 after acquiring an additional 3,357 shares in the last quarter. Ascent Group LLC lifted its stake in Kinsale Capital Group by 26.4% during the third quarter. Ascent Group LLC now owns 16,148 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $6,867,000 after purchasing an additional 3,375 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Kinsale Capital Group by 2.1% in the 2nd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 164,618 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $79,659,000 after purchasing an additional 3,448 shares in the last quarter. Riverbridge Partners LLC increased its stake in shares of Kinsale Capital Group by 11.1% in the 3rd quarter. Riverbridge Partners LLC now owns 290,524 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $123,548,000 after purchasing an additional 29,053 shares during the last quarter. Finally, SG Americas Securities LLC raised its holdings in shares of Kinsale Capital Group by 492.8% during the 3rd quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 14,404 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $6,125,000 after buying an additional 11,974 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 85.36% of the companys stock.

Kinsale Capital Group Company Profile

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Kinsale Capital Group, Inc (NYSE:KNSL) is a specialty property and casualty insurance company headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. Established in 2009, the company focuses on underwriting complex and underserved risks across the United States. Kinsale operates through a network of wholesale brokers and independent agencies, offering tailored coverage solutions for a range of niche industries.

The companys product portfolio includes general liability, business auto, professional liability, environmental liability, inland marine, cyber liability, and other specialty lines.

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A number of firms have modified their ratings and price targets on shares of Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) recently:

2/5/2026  Verizon Communications was upgraded by analysts at Weiss Ratings from a hold (c+) rating to a buy (b-) rating.

2/3/2026  Verizon Communications had its price target raised by analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $47.00 to $49.00. They now have a neutral rating on the stock.

2/3/2026  Verizon Communications had its price target raised by analysts at Royal Bank Of Canada from $44.00 to $48.00. They now have a sector perform rating on the stock.

2/3/2026  Verizon Communications had its price target raised by analysts at Citigroup Inc. from $48.00 to $50.00. They now have a buy rating on the stock.

2/2/2026  Verizon Communications was given a new $54.00 price target on by analysts at Williams Trading.

2/2/2026  Verizon Communications was upgraded by analysts at William Blair to an outperform rating.

2/2/2026  Verizon Communications had its market perform rating reaffirmed by analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein. They now have a $48.00 price target on the stock.

2/2/2026  Verizon Communications had its price target raised by analysts at Morgan Stanley from $47.00 to $49.00. They now have an equal weight rating on the stock.

2/2/2026  Verizon Communications had its price target raised by analysts at Scotiabank from $48.00 to $50.25. They now have a sector perform rating on the stock.

2/2/2026  Verizon Communications had its price target raised by analysts at Wells Fargo & Company from $41.00 to $44.00. They now have an equal weight rating on the stock.

2/2/2026  Verizon Communications had its price target raised by analysts at Evercore Inc from $48.00 to $50.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

1/26/2026  Verizon Communications had its sector weight rating reaffirmed by analysts at KeyCorp.

1/26/2026  Verizon Communications had its price target lowered by analysts at Wells Fargo & Company from $43.00 to $41.00. They now have an equal weight rating on the stock.

1/22/2026  Verizon Communications is now covered by analysts at Barclays PLC. They set an equal weight rating and a $43.00 price target on the stock.

1/21/2026  Verizon Communications had its hold (c+) rating reaffirmed by analysts at Weiss Ratings.

1/16/2026  Verizon Communications had its price target lowered by analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein from $46.00 to $44.00. They now have a market perform rating on the stock.

Verizon Communications Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, May 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 10th will be issued a dividend of $0.7075 per share. This represents a $2.83 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.0%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, April 10th. This is a positive change from Verizon Communicationss previous quarterly dividend of $0.69. Verizon Communicationss dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 68.15%.

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Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, EVP Joseph J. Russo sold 9,579 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $44.88, for a total value of $429,905.52. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president owned 44,045 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $1,976,739.60. This represents a 17.86% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Company insiders own 0.10% of the companys stock.

Verizon Communications Inc (NYSE: VZ) is a major U.S.-based telecommunications company that provides a broad range of communications and information services. Its operations span consumer and business markets, with core offerings that include wireless voice and data services, fixed-line broadband and fiber-optic services, and enterprise networking solutions. Verizon is headquartered in New York City and operates a nationwide wireless network that supports consumer subscribers as well as business and government customers.

The companys consumer products include mobile phone plans, unlimited data services, and Fios, its branded fiber-optic internet, television and voice service for homes and small businesses.

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A number of firms have modified their ratings and price targets on shares of Brookfield Asset Management (NYSE: BAM) recently:

2/5/2026  Brookfield Asset Management was given a new $64.00 price target on by analysts at Scotiabank. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

2/5/2026  Brookfield Asset Management was upgraded by analysts at BMO Capital Markets from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating.

2/5/2026  Brookfield Asset Management had its price target raised by analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $68.00 to $72.00. They now have a neutral rating on the stock.

2/4/2026  Brookfield Asset Management was given a new $58.00 price target on by analysts at BMO Capital Markets. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

1/13/2026  Brookfield Asset Management was given a new $58.00 price target on by analysts at UBS Group AG. They now have a neutral rating on the stock.

1/10/2026  Brookfield Asset Management was upgraded by analysts at Wall Street Zen from a sell rating to a hold rating.

1/6/2026  Brookfield Asset Management was given a new $60.00 price target on by analysts at Loop Capital.

1/6/2026  Brookfield Asset Management had its price target lowered by analysts at The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. from $67.00 to $60.00. They now have a buy rating on the stock.

12/22/2025  Brookfield Asset Management had its buy (b-) rating reaffirmed by analysts at Weiss Ratings.

12/21/2025  Brookfield Asset Management was downgraded by analysts at Wall Street Zen from a hold rating to a sell rating.

12/15/2025  Brookfield Asset Management was given a new $74.00 price target on by analysts at Royal Bank Of Canada. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

12/13/2025  Brookfield Asset Management was upgraded by analysts at Wall Street Zen from a sell rating to a hold rating.

12/11/2025  Brookfield Asset Management was given a new $59.00 price target on by analysts at UBS Group AG.

12/11/2025  Brookfield Asset Management was upgraded by analysts at UBS Group AG to a hold rating.

Brookfield Asset Management Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, March 31st. Investors of record on Friday, February 27th will be paid a dividend of $0.5025 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 27th. This represents a $2.01 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.9%. This is an increase from Brookfield Asset Managements previous quarterly dividend of $0.44. Brookfield Asset Managements dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 115.13%.

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Brookfield Asset Management is a global alternative asset manager headquartered in Toronto, Canada, that specializes in investments in real assets and related private equity and credit strategies. The firm acquires, manages and develops assets in sectors such as real estate, renewable power, infrastructure and private equity, seeking long-term value through active asset management and operational improvements. Brookfield structures and manages commingled funds, listed partnerships and separate accounts for institutional and retail investors.

The companys products and services include fund management across equity and debt strategies, direct asset ownership and operations, property and facilities management, and capital markets solutions.

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Several brokerages have updated their recommendations and price targets on shares of International Paper (NYSE: IP) in the last few weeks:

2/2/2026  International Paper was downgraded by analysts at UBS Group AG from a buy rating to a neutral rating. They now have a $44.00 price target on the stock, down previously from $51.00.

1/30/2026  International Paper had its price target lowered by analysts at Royal Bank Of Canada from $55.00 to $54.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

1/30/2026  International Paper had its price target raised by analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $45.00 to $48.00. They now have a neutral rating on the stock.

1/30/2026  International Paper had its price target raised by analysts at Citigroup Inc. from $46.00 to $47.00. They now have a buy rating on the stock.

1/30/2026  International Paper had its price target lowered by analysts at Truist Financial Corporation from $50.00 to $48.00. They now have a buy rating on the stock.

1/30/2026  International Paper was upgraded by analysts at Wells Fargo & Company from an underweight rating to an equal weight rating. They now have a $40.00 price target on the stock, up previously from $36.00.

1/22/2026  International Paper had its price target raised by analysts at Jefferies Financial Group Inc. from $47.00 to $48.00. They now have a buy rating on the stock.

1/21/2026  International Paper had its price target lowered by analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $46.00 to $45.00. They now have a neutral rating on the stock.

1/12/2026  International Paper had its price target lowered by analysts at UBS Group AG from $53.00 to $51.00. They now have a buy rating on the stock.

1/12/2026  International Paper was downgraded by analysts at Zacks Research from a hold rating to a strong sell rating.

1/6/2026  International Paper had its price target raised by analysts at Truist Financial Corporation from $47.00 to $50.00. They now have a buy rating on the stock.

12/29/2025  International Paper had its sell (d+) rating reaffirmed by analysts at Weiss Ratings.

12/22/2025  International Paper had its sell (d+) rating reaffirmed by analysts at Weiss Ratings.

12/22/2025  International Paper had its price target lowered by analysts at Argus from $55.00 to $50.00. They now have a buy rating on the stock.

12/18/2025  International Paper was given a new $55.00 price target on by analysts at Royal Bank Of Canada. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

12/17/2025  International Paper had its price target lowered by analysts at Jefferies Financial Group Inc. from $51.00 to $47.00. They now have a buy rating on the stock.

12/15/2025  International Paper had its sell (d+) rating reaffirmed by analysts at Weiss Ratings.

12/12/2025  International Paper was upgraded by analysts at Zacks Research from a strong sell rating to a hold rating.

Insider Buying and Selling at International Paper

In related news, CEO Andrew K. Silvernail purchased 50,000 shares of International Paper stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 30th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $39.98 per share, with a total value of $1,999,000.00. Following the purchase, the chief executive officer owned 50,000 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $1,999,000. The trade was a ? increase in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, SVP Clay R. Ellis sold 18,819 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $36.85, for a total transaction of $693,480.15. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. 0.55% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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International Paper is a global producer of renewable fiber-based products, focused primarily on pulp, paper, and packaging. The company manufactures containerboard and corrugated packaging used for shipping and retail display, as well as a range of specialty papers and pulp products that serve industrial, consumer goods, and e-commerce customers. Its product portfolio is oriented toward large-scale packaging solutions, tissue and paper grades, and raw pulp for a variety of manufacturing uses.

Founded in 1898, International Paper is headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, and is one of the largest and longest-established companies in the forest products sector.

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Boeing (NYSE:BA  Get Free Report) and StandardAero (NYSE:SARO  Get Free Report) are both large-cap aerospace companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, earnings, dividends, analyst recommendations, risk, valuation and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings for Boeing and StandardAero, as reported by MarketBeat.

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Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score Boeing 3 5 17 1 2.62 StandardAero 1 5 4 0 2.30

Boeing currently has a consensus target price of $246.14, indicating a potential upside of 0.54%. StandardAero has a consensus target price of $34.00, indicating a potential upside of 9.93%. Given StandardAeros higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe StandardAero is more favorable than Boeing.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

Risk and Volatility

64.8% of Boeing shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.1% of Boeing shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Boeing has a beta of 1.15, indicating that its stock price is 15% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, StandardAero has a beta of 1.04, indicating that its stock price is 4% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Boeing and StandardAeros gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio Boeing $89.46 billion 2.15 $2.24 billion $2.01 121.80 StandardAero $5.24 billion 1.98 $10.97 million $0.55 56.24

Boeing has higher revenue and earnings than StandardAero. StandardAero is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Boeing, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Boeing and StandardAeros net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Boeing 2.40% N/A -5.40% StandardAero 3.15% 9.63% 3.69%

Summary

Boeing beats StandardAero on 11 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Boeing

(Get Free Report)

The Boeing Company, together with its subsidiaries, designs, develops, manufactures, sells, services, and supports commercial jetliners, military aircraft, satellites, missile defense, human space flight and launch systems, and services worldwide. The company operates through Commercial Airplanes; Defense, Space & Security; and Global Services segments. The Commercial Airplanes segment develops, produces, and markets commercial jet aircraft for passenger and cargo requirements, as well as provides fleet support services. The Defense, Space & Security segment engages in the research, development, production, and modification of manned and unmanned military aircraft and weapons systems; strategic defense and intelligence systems, which include strategic missile and defense systems, command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, cyber and information solutions, and intelligence systems; and satellite systems, such as government and commercial satellites, and space exploration. The Global Services segment offers products and services, including supply chain and logistics management, engineering, maintenance and modifications, upgrades and conversions, spare parts, pilot and maintenance training systems and services, technical and maintenance documents, and data analytics and digital services to commercial and defense customers. The Boeing Company was incorporated in 1916 and is based in Arlington, Virginia.

About StandardAero

(Get Free Report)

StandardAero, Inc. provides aerospace engine aftermarket services for fixed and rotary wing aircraft in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Rest of Europe, Asia, and internationally. It operates in two segments, Engine Services and Component Repair Services. The Engine Services segment provides a suite of aftermarket services, including maintenance, repair and overhaul, on-wing and field service support, asset management, and engineering and related solutions to customers in the commercial aerospace, military and helicopter, and business aviation end markets. The Component Repair Services segment offers engine component and accessory repairs to the commercial aerospace, military and helicopter, land and marine, and oil and gas end markets. The company was founded in 1911 and is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona.

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Knorr-Bremse  Unsponsored ADR (OTCMKTS:KNRRY  Get Free Report)s share price reached a new 52-week high on Monday . The stock traded as high as $31.6750 and last traded at $31.6750, with a volume of 3252 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $31.58.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms recently commented on KNRRY. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Knorr-Bremse to a strong-buy rating in a report on Friday, November 28th. DZ Bank lowered Knorr-Bremse from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 27th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised Knorr-Bremse from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report on Monday, December 8th. Zacks Research lowered shares of Knorr-Bremse from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Finally, UBS Group raised shares of Knorr-Bremse to a strong-buy rating in a research note on Friday, October 31st. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, two have given a Buy rating, three have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy.

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Knorr-Bremse Stock Performance

Knorr-Bremse Company Profile

The companys 50-day moving average price is $28.36 and its 200-day moving average price is $25.89.

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Knorr-Bremse AG is a Munich-based engineering company that specializes in braking systems and other critical subsystems for rail and commercial vehicles. Founded in 1905 by Georg Knorr, the firm has grown into a global leader in rail technology and commercial vehicle solutions. Its expertise spans safety-related systems designed to optimize performance, energy efficiency, and passenger comfort across a broad range of transport applications.

The companys operations are organized into two primary business segments: Railway Systems and Commercial Vehicle Systems.

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Shares of GE Aerospace (NYSE:GE  Get Free Report) fell 1.3% on Monday . The company traded as low as $316.39 and last traded at $316.89. 4,693,300 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 22% from the average session volume of 6,042,942 shares. The stock had previously closed at $321.00.

Key Headlines Impacting GE Aerospace

Here are the key news stories impacting GE Aerospace this week:

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Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

GE has been the topic of several recent research reports. Royal Bank Of Canada lifted their target price on shares of GE Aerospace from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Friday, October 17th. Zacks Research raised GE Aerospace from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 27th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their target price on GE Aerospace from $375.00 to $387.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Friday, January 23rd. TD Cowen increased their target price on GE Aerospace from $330.00 to $350.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 14th. Finally, Wall Street Zen raised GE Aerospace from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report on Saturday, January 24th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, sixteen have issued a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, GE Aerospace presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $319.00.

GE Aerospace Stock Performance

The firm has a market cap of $332.36 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 38.93, a PEG ratio of 2.96 and a beta of 1.40. The company has a quick ratio of 0.74, a current ratio of 1.04 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.00. The company has a 50 day moving average of $306.86 and a 200 day moving average of $295.82.

GE Aerospace (NYSE:GE  Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, January 22nd. The company reported $1.57 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.43 by $0.14. GE Aerospace had a return on equity of 35.52% and a net margin of 18.98%.The company had revenue of $11.90 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.27 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.32 EPS. GE Aerospaces quarterly revenue was up 17.6% on a year-over-year basis. GE Aerospace has set its FY 2026 guidance at 7.100-7.400 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that GE Aerospace will post 5.4 EPS for the current fiscal year.

GE Aerospace Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, April 27th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 9th will be given a $0.47 dividend. This represents a $1.88 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.6%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 9th. This is an increase from GE Aerospaces previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. GE Aerospaces payout ratio is presently 17.69%.

Insider Activity

In other news, SVP Russell Stokes sold 30,363 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $306.47, for a total transaction of $9,305,348.61. Following the transaction, the senior vice president owned 150,434 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $46,103,507.98. This trade represents a 16.79% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, VP Robert M. Giglietti sold 3,035 shares of GE Aerospace stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $305.51, for a total value of $927,222.85. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president owned 10,583 shares of the companys stock, valued at $3,233,212.33. This trade represents a 22.29% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 45,398 shares of company stock worth $13,837,171. 0.21% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On GE Aerospace

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Diversified Trust Co boosted its stake in shares of GE Aerospace by 21.3% during the 3rd quarter. Diversified Trust Co now owns 32,021 shares of the companys stock worth $9,633,000 after acquiring an additional 5,625 shares in the last quarter. Cadinha & Co. LLC lifted its holdings in shares of GE Aerospace by 154.8% during the third quarter. Cadinha & Co. LLC now owns 97,280 shares of the companys stock valued at $29,264,000 after purchasing an additional 59,106 shares during the last quarter. Police & Firemen s Retirement System of New Jersey boosted its position in shares of GE Aerospace by 1.8% in the 2nd quarter. Police & Firemen s Retirement System of New Jersey now owns 159,682 shares of the companys stock valued at $41,101,000 after purchasing an additional 2,779 shares during the period. Czech National Bank increased its stake in GE Aerospace by 3.3% in the 3rd quarter. Czech National Bank now owns 269,330 shares of the companys stock worth $81,020,000 after purchasing an additional 8,668 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Phoenix Financial Ltd. increased its stake in GE Aerospace by 34.3% in the 3rd quarter. Phoenix Financial Ltd. now owns 22,632 shares of the companys stock worth $6,808,000 after purchasing an additional 5,775 shares in the last quarter. 74.77% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About GE Aerospace

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GE Aerospace (NYSE: GE) is the aerospace business of General Electric, focused on the design, manufacture and support of aircraft engines, integrated propulsion systems and related aftermarket services. The company serves commercial airlines, airframers, business and general aviation operators, and defense customers, providing propulsion solutions for a broad range of aircraft types from single?aisle airliners to widebody and military platforms.

Its product portfolio includes a family of commercial and military jet engines as well as spare parts, components and systems engineering.

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Shares of Vertiv Holdings Co. (NYSE:VRT  Get Free Report) were up 3.6% on Monday . The company traded as high as $208.43 and last traded at $202.56. Approximately 7,398,547 shares changed hands during trading, an increase of 39% from the average daily volume of 5,316,410 shares. The stock had previously closed at $195.58.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have commented on VRT. Barclays upgraded shares of Vertiv from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating and increased their price objective for the company from $181.00 to $200.00 in a research note on Friday, January 2nd. Morgan Stanley increased their price target on shares of Vertiv from $165.00 to $200.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Thursday, October 23rd. Evercore boosted their price objective on Vertiv from $180.00 to $200.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Monday, October 20th. Royal Bank Of Canada restated an outperform rating and set a $200.00 price objective on shares of Vertiv in a research note on Thursday, January 15th. Finally, Weiss Ratings lowered Vertiv from a buy (b-) rating to a hold (c+) rating in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have assigned a Buy rating, three have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Vertiv presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $187.89.

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Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on VRT

Vertiv Price Performance

Vertiv Increases Dividend

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.83, a current ratio of 1.83 and a quick ratio of 1.43. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $174.64 and a 200 day moving average price of $161.43. The company has a market capitalization of $77.45 billion, a P/E ratio of 51.20, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.20 and a beta of 2.08.

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, December 18th. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 25th were paid a dividend of $0.0625 per share. This represents a $0.25 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.1%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 25th. This is an increase from Vertivs previous quarterly dividend of $0.04. Vertivs dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 9.43%.

Insider Transactions at Vertiv

In related news, EVP Stephen Liang sold 5,501 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $170.48, for a total value of $937,810.48. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 4,050 shares of the companys stock, valued at $690,444. This trade represents a 57.60% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Insiders own 5.01% of the companys stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of VRT. Financial Management Professionals Inc. grew its holdings in Vertiv by 1,560.0% in the 3rd quarter. Financial Management Professionals Inc. now owns 166 shares of the companys stock worth $25,000 after buying an additional 156 shares in the last quarter. Promus Capital LLC bought a new stake in Vertiv during the 2nd quarter valued at $26,000. Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted its position in Vertiv by 67.6% during the 3rd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 171 shares of the companys stock worth $26,000 after acquiring an additional 69 shares during the period. Avion Wealth grew its stake in shares of Vertiv by 99.1% in the second quarter. Avion Wealth now owns 213 shares of the companys stock worth $27,000 after purchasing an additional 106 shares in the last quarter. Finally, True Wealth Design LLC increased its holdings in shares of Vertiv by 54.0% during the third quarter. True Wealth Design LLC now owns 194 shares of the companys stock valued at $29,000 after purchasing an additional 68 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 89.92% of the companys stock.

About Vertiv

(Get Free Report)

Vertiv is a global provider of critical digital infrastructure and continuity solutions for data centers, communication networks and commercial and industrial environments. Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, the company designs, manufactures and services equipment and software that support power availability, thermal management and IT infrastructure management for a broad set of end markets, including hyperscale and enterprise data centers, colocation providers, telecom operators and industrial customers.

The companys product portfolio includes uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), power distribution units (PDUs), battery and DC power systems, precision cooling and thermal management equipment, racks and enclosures, and integrated modular infrastructure.

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Commerzbank logo is seen on the Commerzbank Tower in the center of the banking city in Frankfurt am Main. Helmut Fricke/dpa

German banking major Commerzbank has exceeded its 2025 profit target despite costly job cuts and plans to return billions to shareholders through higher dividends and share buybacks.

The DAX-listed lender reported a net profit of 2.63 billion ($3.1 billion) for 2025, announced just a day before the planned release of its full annual report on Wednesday.

"2025 marked an outstanding year of success for Commerzbank, and we are committed to sharing this achievement with our investors," Commerzbank chief executive Bettina Orlopp said in a statement on Tuesday.

"In total, we are returning 2.7bn in capital, which is even slightly more than we had committed to deliver," Orlopp said.

Germany's second-largest private bank had aimed for a profit of around 2.5 billion. The bank said that without the costs related to workforce reductions, the profit would have reached a record 3 billion.

The dividend is expected to be significantly increased from 0.65 to 1.10 per share. In addition, Commerzbank plans to invest up to 540 million on another buyback programme.

Unicredit takeover tensions

In 2024, Commerzbank posted its highest-ever profit with nearly 2.7 billion. However, celebrations were tempered by a high-profile takeover battle with Italy's UniCredit.

To fend off the potential acquisition, Commerzbank set ambitious profit targets and committed to higher dividends.

The bank also plans to cut about 3,900 full-time positions by the end of 2027, including 3,300 of which are in Germany. The one-off costs for these reductions are estimated at 700 million.
Canyon Creek Food Company Ltd. (CVE:CYF  Get Free Report)s share price was down 37.5% during trading on Monday . The stock traded as low as C$0.03 and last traded at C$0.03. Approximately 123,000 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 4% from the average daily volume of 128,459 shares. The stock had previously closed at C$0.04.

Canyon Creek Food Stock Down 37.5%

The companys fifty day moving average price is C$0.02 and its two-hundred day moving average price is C$0.02. The company has a market cap of C$878,725.00, a price-to-earnings ratio of -0.31 and a beta of 1.67.

About Canyon Creek Food

(Get Free Report)

Canyon Creek Food Company Ltd. operates as a food processing company in Canada and the United States. The company engages in the provision of fresh soups, sauces, gravies, side dishes, and other prepared food products. It offers its products to grocery retailers and various food service establishments, as well as involved in the provision of freight services. The company was founded in 1995 is based in Edmonton, Canada.

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Executives from Transocean (NYSE:RIG) and Valaris used a joint conference call to outline the rationale for their newly announced combination, describing it as a transformational and well-timed all-stock deal aimed at strengthening offshore drilling capabilities, expanding geographic reach, and accelerating deleveraging.

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Management frames deal around multi-year offshore upcycle

Transocean President and CEO Keelan Adamson said the companies share the view that offshore drilling is entering a multi-year upcycle, arguing that the combined organization will be better positioned as customers increase spending across offshore projects. Adamson highlighted expected customer benefits from a broader offering spanning high-specification drillships and semi-submersibles, plus a modern jackup fleet, along with expanded harsh-environment capabilities.

Fleet scope: drillships, semis, and a return to jackups

Adamson also pointed to an expanded harsh-environment portfolio and said the ARO joint venture would enable Transocean to reestablish a valued relationship with Saudi Aramco. He emphasized operational performance, citing Transoceans uptime performance just shy of 98% last year and stating the company had 0 operational integrity events or lost time incidents.

Executives repeatedly described the combination as complementary, with Adamson saying the goal is to build a driller able to address requirements in all water depths across the world. In prepared remarks, Adamson outlined the pro forma fleet composition, including:

Harsh environment: seven semi-submersibles

seven semi-submersibles Deepwater: 24 seventh-generation drillships and two eighth-generation drillships

24 seventh-generation drillships and two eighth-generation drillships Jackups: 31 rigs, including 11 designed for harsh environments

Several analysts focused on Transoceans return to shallow-water exposure after the company previously exited the jackup market. Adamson responded that adding jackups at this stage of the cycle is expected to generate more incremental cash and help build a high-quality asset base that supports cash flow and deleveraging. In later questions, management reiterated it fully intend[s] to continue operating the jackup fleet, describing it as a strong cash flow contributor with favorable opportunities tied to rising upstream capital spending.

Synergies and cost-reduction plans

Adamson said the companies have identified more than $200 million of annual deal-related cost synergies, which he noted would be additive to Transoceans existing cost reduction program. He said Transocean had already reduced its cost structure by about $100 million and is on track to deliver another $150 million in savings in 2026.

Management said that when capitalized, the $200 million-plus synergy estimate is expected to add more than $1.5 billion of value, which Adamson characterized as roughly 15% of the combined market capitalization.

Asked about the costs required to achieve the savings and the mix between operating and capital expenditures, executive Thad (identified only by first name on the call) said the companies do not anticipate significant costs beyond typical restructuring elements, adding that most savings are expected to come from operational efficiencies and redundancies. He said additional detail could be provided later as planning progresses.

Backlog, leverage targets, and capital return considerations

Adamson said the combined company would have a pro forma backlog of more than $10 billion, which he said provides clear cash flow visibility. He added that Transocean expects its leverage ratio to drop to about 1.5x within 24 months of closing, with improved liquidity and a lower cost of capital.

On assumptions behind the leverage target, Adamson said the companies have contract coverage across the combined fleet to support cash generation and suggested there are no heroic assumptions on recontracting.

Analysts also asked when Transocean might consider returning cash to shareholders. Adamson reiterated that deleveraging remains the top priority and said options would be evaluated once the company reaches the right levels. Thad added that while a current threshold exists under the existing structure, that could change with the scale of the combined fleet, and that the company would be positioned to discuss potential shareholder returns after closingwhile emphasizing that deleveraging remains central given the cyclicality and capital intensity of the business.

Timing, premium, and regulatory outlook

Adamson said the implied premium in the transaction is about 10%20% over a 6090 day period. Management said the companies are focused on closing the transaction in the second half of 2026, and Adamson said the deal is expected to be accretive to free cash flow and earnings on a per-share basis after closing.

On regulatory approvals, Adamson said the companies had conducted a comprehensive review and expressed confidence that there are no regulatory issues presented by the transaction.

Valaris President and CEO Anton Dibowitz said Valaris board determined the transaction represents the best path to maximize shareholder value, and he highlighted cultural alignment between the firms around safety and customer service. Dibowitz said Valaris shareholders would benefit from their share of the synergies and participate in future upside potential of the combined company.

About Transocean (NYSE:RIG)

Transocean Ltd. is a leading international provider of offshore contract drilling services for the oil and gas industry. The company specializes in the operation of mobile drilling units, including ultra-deepwater drillships, semisubmersible rigs and high-specification jackup rigs. Transoceans fleet is designed to meet complex drilling requirements, from ultra-deepwater well construction to shelf exploration and development projects.

The companys core services encompass the full spectrum of offshore drilling operations, including project and engineering management, marine operations, drilling supervision, and maintenance support.

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Lithium Chile Inc. (OTCMKTS:LTMCF  Get Free Report) shares were up 1.4% during mid-day trading on Monday . The stock traded as high as $0.4264 and last traded at $0.4261. Approximately 3,131 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 85% from the average daily volume of 21,197 shares. The stock had previously closed at $0.4203.

Lithium Chile Trading Up 1.4%

The companys fifty day simple moving average is $0.40 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $0.39.

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About Lithium Chile

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Lithium Chile Inc is a mineral exploration company focused on the acquisition, exploration and development of lithium brine projects in the Lithium Triangle of northern Chile. The companys activities center on identifying high-potential salar (salt flat) basins and advancing them through early-stage exploration, including geochemical sampling, geophysical surveying and drilling programs aimed at defining lithium brine resources.

The company holds 100% interests in several premier projects, such as the Coipasa/Salar de Coipasa, Pastos Grandes, Helados and Naranjillo targets.

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Orion Oyj (OTCMKTS:ORINF  Get Free Report)s stock price traded down 1.1% on Monday . The company traded as low as $80.4423 and last traded at $80.4423. 20 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 98% from the average session volume of 1,080 shares. The stock had previously closed at $81.30.

Orion Oyj Trading Down 1.1%

The stocks 50 day moving average is $81.16 and its 200 day moving average is $81.02.

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About Orion Oyj

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Orion Oyj is a Finland-based pharmaceutical and diagnostic products company that develops, manufactures and markets both human and veterinary medicines, diagnostic tests and active pharmaceutical ingredients. With a history dating back to its founding in 1917, the company has evolved into a diversified life science group, offering prescription and over-the-counter products for neurological, respiratory, cardiovascular and urological conditions, among others. Orions human pharmaceuticals portfolio includes well-known treatments for Parkinsons disease, hormone therapy and erectile dysfunction, while its veterinary range addresses animal health needs such as pain management and dermatology.

In its Diagnostics segment, Orion produces laboratory tests and instruments for clinical chemistry and immunoassay applications, focusing on hormone and drug monitoring.

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Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Buckle (NYSE:BKE  Free Report) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report released on Saturday morning.

A number of other analysts have also issued reports on the company. Weiss Ratings restated a hold (c+) rating on shares of Buckle in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. UBS Group reissued a neutral rating on shares of Buckle in a research report on Friday, January 9th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Hold rating, According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $55.00.

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Buckle Price Performance

Shares of BKE opened at $52.37 on Friday. The company has a 50-day moving average of $53.83 and a two-hundred day moving average of $55.26. The stock has a market cap of $2.68 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.84 and a beta of 1.19. Buckle has a one year low of $33.12 and a one year high of $61.69.

Buckle (NYSE:BKE  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Friday, November 21st. The company reported $0.96 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.94 by $0.02. Buckle had a net margin of 16.13% and a return on equity of 44.42%. The business had revenue of $320.84 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $317.97 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.88 earnings per share. The firms revenue was up 9.3% compared to the same quarter last year.

Buckle Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a special dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 29th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 15th were given a dividend of $3.00 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, January 15th. Buckles dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 34.31%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Buckle by 9.5% during the 1st quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 94,408 shares of the companys stock valued at $3,618,000 after buying an additional 8,202 shares during the last quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. raised its position in Buckle by 4.5% during the first quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 18,363 shares of the companys stock valued at $704,000 after acquiring an additional 797 shares in the last quarter. Millennium Management LLC lifted its stake in Buckle by 15.3% in the first quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 99,547 shares of the companys stock valued at $3,815,000 after acquiring an additional 13,189 shares during the last quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. lifted its stake in Buckle by 1,928.1% in the first quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 649 shares of the companys stock valued at $25,000 after acquiring an additional 617 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC bought a new stake in Buckle in the second quarter worth approximately $215,000. 53.93% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Buckle

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Buckle, Inc is a retailer specializing in casual apparel, footwear and accessories for young men and women. The company is known for its denim-focused collections, offering both private-label lines and curated brand-name merchandise. Its product assortment includes jeans, tops, outerwear, shoes and a variety of accessories such as belts, jewelry and handbags, all aimed at blending contemporary style with everyday comfort.

Founded in 1948 in Kearney, Nebraska, Buckle began as a single clothing store and has since expanded into a nationwide chain.

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Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of ASE Technology (NYSE:ASX  Free Report) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report issued on Saturday morning.

A number of other brokerages have also recently weighed in on ASX. Weiss Ratings reissued a hold (c) rating on shares of ASE Technology in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. Nomura upgraded shares of ASE Technology from a neutral rating to a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Finally, Zacks Research downgraded ASE Technology from a hold rating to a strong sell rating in a research note on Thursday, January 1st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Hold.

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ASE Technology Trading Up 6.1%

Shares of NYSE ASX opened at $22.17 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.00, a current ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.57. The stocks 50 day moving average price is $17.47 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $13.90. ASE Technology has a 52-week low of $6.94 and a 52-week high of $22.51. The stock has a market capitalization of $49.17 billion, a P/E ratio of 38.22, a PEG ratio of 0.87 and a beta of 1.48.

ASE Technology (NYSE:ASX  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 5th. The semiconductor company reported $0.21 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.20 by $0.01. ASE Technology had a return on equity of 12.00% and a net margin of 6.31%.The business had revenue of $5.67 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.47 billion. On average, analysts anticipate that ASE Technology will post 0.76 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On ASE Technology

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of ASX. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. grew its position in ASE Technology by 4.5% in the second quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 2,437,846 shares of the semiconductor companys stock worth $25,183,000 after acquiring an additional 105,491 shares in the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. lifted its stake in shares of ASE Technology by 20.9% in the 2nd quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 3,180,215 shares of the semiconductor companys stock valued at $32,852,000 after purchasing an additional 549,025 shares during the last quarter. Ninety One North America Inc. lifted its stake in shares of ASE Technology by 82.3% in the 3rd quarter. Ninety One North America Inc. now owns 496,795 shares of the semiconductor companys stock valued at $5,509,000 after purchasing an additional 224,267 shares during the last quarter. Hantz Financial Services Inc. boosted its holdings in ASE Technology by 3,929.8% in the second quarter. Hantz Financial Services Inc. now owns 18,094 shares of the semiconductor companys stock worth $187,000 after purchasing an additional 17,645 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cullen Capital Management LLC increased its position in ASE Technology by 24.1% during the second quarter. Cullen Capital Management LLC now owns 5,580,176 shares of the semiconductor companys stock worth $57,643,000 after buying an additional 1,082,941 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 6.80% of the companys stock.

About ASE Technology

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ASE Technology Holding Co, Ltd. (NYSE: ASX), commonly referred to as ASE, is a Taiwan-based provider of semiconductor assembly and testing services. The company focuses on back-end semiconductor manufacturing and related services that prepare integrated circuits and other semiconductor devices for final use. Its core activities include advanced IC packaging, final testing, wafer probing, and related engineering and supply-chain support for semiconductor customers.

ASE offers a range of products and technical capabilities designed to meet increasingly complex packaging and system-in-package requirements.

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Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of Jabil (NYSE:JBL  Free Report) from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a report issued on Saturday.

Other equities analysts have also recently issued reports about the company. The Goldman Sachs Group reissued a buy rating and issued a $282.00 target price on shares of Jabil in a report on Thursday, January 15th. Barclays upped their price target on Jabil from $267.00 to $283.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Thursday, December 18th. Weiss Ratings reissued a hold (c) rating on shares of Jabil in a report on Friday, January 9th. Raymond James Financial restated a strong-buy rating on shares of Jabil in a research note on Thursday, December 18th. Finally, UBS Group increased their target price on shares of Jabil from $239.00 to $244.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Thursday, December 18th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have issued a Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Buy and an average target price of $263.71.

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Jabil Stock Up 3.0%

JBL stock opened at $265.99 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $28.09 billion, a PE ratio of 41.37, a PEG ratio of 1.65 and a beta of 1.24. Jabil has a 1 year low of $108.66 and a 1 year high of $266.56. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $234.11 and a 200 day simple moving average of $219.78. The company has a current ratio of 0.99, a quick ratio of 0.67 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.77.

Jabil (NYSE:JBL  Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, December 17th. The technology company reported $2.85 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.70 by $0.15. The company had revenue of $8.31 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.07 billion. Jabil had a return on equity of 75.96% and a net margin of 2.26%.The businesss revenue was up 18.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $2.00 earnings per share. Jabil has set its FY 2026 guidance at 11.550-11.550 EPS and its Q2 2026 guidance at 2.270-2.670 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Jabil will post 8.05 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Jabil Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 17th will be paid a $0.08 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 17th. This represents a $0.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.1%. Jabils payout ratio is currently 4.98%.

Insider Activity at Jabil

In other news, Chairman Mark T. Mondello sold 50,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $225.32, for a total transaction of $11,266,000.00. Following the sale, the chairman directly owned 1,171,459 shares of the companys stock, valued at $263,953,141.88. This represents a 4.09% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Michael Dastoor sold 15,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $246.91, for a total transaction of $3,703,650.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 262,566 shares of the companys stock, valued at $64,830,171.06. This trade represents a 5.40% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold a total of 181,529 shares of company stock valued at $42,145,485 over the last ninety days. Company insiders own 1.35% of the companys stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Jabil

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. State Street Corp raised its holdings in Jabil by 0.7% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 5,199,646 shares of the technology companys stock worth $1,129,207,000 after purchasing an additional 36,646 shares during the last quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA boosted its stake in shares of Jabil by 0.7% in the 2nd quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA now owns 3,410,410 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $743,810,000 after purchasing an additional 24,650 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of Jabil by 1.5% during the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 2,913,157 shares of the technology companys stock worth $661,783,000 after buying an additional 42,422 shares during the period. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its stake in shares of Jabil by 5.9% during the second quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 2,302,307 shares of the technology companys stock worth $502,133,000 after buying an additional 129,212 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Boston Partners lifted its holdings in Jabil by 224.4% in the second quarter. Boston Partners now owns 1,898,681 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $414,119,000 after buying an additional 1,313,338 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 93.39% of the companys stock.

Jabil Company Profile

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Jabil Inc (NYSE: JBL) is a global manufacturing solutions provider specializing in electronic manufacturing services (EMS) and diversified products across a wide range of industries. The company partners with original equipment manufacturers to deliver design engineering, supply chain management, precision manufacturing, and aftermarket services. Jabils expertise spans sectors such as healthcare, automotive, clean technology, telecommunications, consumer electronics, and packaging, enabling it to support both high-volume production and complex, mission-critical applications.

Founded in 1966 by William E.

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TELUS (NYSE:TU  Get Free Report) (TSE:T) will likely be issuing its Q4 2025 results before the market opens on Thursday, February 12th. Analysts expect TELUS to post earnings of $0.18 per share and revenue of $3.85 billion for the quarter. Interested persons may visit the the companys upcoming Q4 2025 earning results page for the latest details on the call scheduled for Thursday, February 12, 2026 at 1:00 PM ET.

TELUS (NYSE:TU  Get Free Report) (TSE:T) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Friday, November 7th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.17 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.19 by ($0.02). The firm had revenue of $3.67 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $3.77 billion. TELUS had a return on equity of 8.76% and a net margin of 5.71%.The companys revenue for the quarter was up .1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.28 earnings per share. On average, analysts expect TELUS to post $1 EPS for the current fiscal year and $1 EPS for the next fiscal year.

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TELUS Price Performance

Shares of NYSE TU opened at $14.23 on Tuesday. TELUS has a 52 week low of $12.54 and a 52 week high of $16.74. The businesss 50 day moving average price is $13.34 and its 200 day moving average price is $14.68. The company has a quick ratio of 0.71, a current ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.47. The firm has a market cap of $22.02 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.86, a P/E/G ratio of 2.15 and a beta of 0.67.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on TU. Natl Bk Canada upgraded shares of TELUS from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 25th. National Bankshares restated an outperform rating on shares of TELUS in a research report on Thursday, December 4th. Canaccord Genuity Group raised TELUS from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report on Thursday, December 4th. BMO Capital Markets lowered TELUS from an outperform rating to a market perform rating in a research note on Thursday, December 11th. Finally, National Bank Financial raised TELUS from a sector perform rating to an outperform rating in a report on Wednesday, November 19th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have issued a Buy rating, five have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, TELUS presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $18.17.

View Our Latest Stock Analysis on TU

Hedge Funds Weigh In On TELUS

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership boosted its position in TELUS by 40.0% during the third quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 9,033,455 shares of the Wireless communications providers stock worth $142,387,000 after purchasing an additional 2,583,074 shares in the last quarter. Scotia Capital Inc. increased its position in shares of TELUS by 4.5% in the third quarter. Scotia Capital Inc. now owns 19,687,766 shares of the Wireless communications providers stock valued at $310,129,000 after buying an additional 845,682 shares in the last quarter. Jane Street Group LLC raised its stake in shares of TELUS by 123.5% during the 2nd quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 151,059 shares of the Wireless communications providers stock worth $2,426,000 after buying an additional 792,690 shares during the period. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. lifted its position in shares of TELUS by 71.5% during the 3rd quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. now owns 1,357,433 shares of the Wireless communications providers stock valued at $21,376,000 after buying an additional 566,059 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Morningstar Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of TELUS during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $5,030,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 49.40% of the companys stock.

About TELUS

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TELUS Corporation (NYSE: TU) is a Canadian telecommunications and technology company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. It delivers a broad portfolio of consumer and business communications services across Canada, including mobile wireless, fixed-line voice, broadband internet, and television. TELUS also provides a range of enterprise services such as cloud and IT solutions, managed network services, cybersecurity and Internet of Things (IoT) offerings for business customers.

Beyond core connectivity, TELUS has expanded into health and digital services.

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Organon & Co. (NYSE:OGN  Get Free Report) is expected to post its Q4 2025 results before the market opens on Thursday, February 12th. Analysts expect Organon & Co. to post earnings of $0.74 per share and revenue of $1.5152 billion for the quarter. Parties may visit the the companys upcoming Q4 2025 earning results page for the latest details on the call scheduled for Thursday, February 12, 2026 at 8:30 AM ET.

Organon & Co. (NYSE:OGN  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, November 10th. The company reported $1.01 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.93 by $0.08. Organon & Co. had a net margin of 7.95% and a return on equity of 143.47%. The firm had revenue of $1.60 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.57 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.38 earnings per share. On average, analysts expect Organon & Co. to post $4 EPS for the current fiscal year and $4 EPS for the next fiscal year.

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Organon & Co. Trading Down 3.5%

Shares of Organon & Co. stock opened at $7.92 on Tuesday. The company has a 50-day moving average of $7.87 and a two-hundred day moving average of $8.65. Organon & Co. has a 12-month low of $6.18 and a 12-month high of $17.23. The company has a current ratio of 1.75, a quick ratio of 1.20 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 9.69. The stock has a market cap of $2.06 billion, a PE ratio of 4.13, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.75 and a beta of 0.58.

Institutional Trading of Organon & Co.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in OGN. AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in Organon & Co. by 136.1% in the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 3,254,884 shares of the companys stock valued at $31,507,000 after purchasing an additional 1,876,264 shares in the last quarter. Balyasny Asset Management L.P. raised its position in shares of Organon & Co. by 102.1% in the third quarter. Balyasny Asset Management L.P. now owns 2,240,149 shares of the companys stock valued at $23,925,000 after buying an additional 1,131,941 shares during the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Organon & Co. by 126.4% during the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 1,435,198 shares of the companys stock valued at $21,370,000 after buying an additional 801,307 shares during the period. BNP Paribas Financial Markets boosted its position in Organon & Co. by 335.8% during the third quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 957,667 shares of the companys stock worth $10,228,000 after acquiring an additional 737,935 shares during the last quarter. Finally, State Street Corp boosted its position in Organon & Co. by 6.0% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 9,520,594 shares of the companys stock worth $92,159,000 after acquiring an additional 540,478 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 77.43% of the companys stock.

Several equities analysts recently weighed in on the company. Barclays began coverage on Organon & Co. in a research note on Tuesday, December 9th. They issued an underweight rating and a $7.50 price objective for the company. Piper Sandler lowered Organon & Co. from an overweight rating to an underweight rating and set a $5.00 target price on the stock. in a report on Monday, October 27th. Wall Street Zen downgraded Organon & Co. from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Saturday, January 31st. Morgan Stanley decreased their price objective on shares of Organon & Co. from $10.00 to $9.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, November 11th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price objective on shares of Organon & Co. from $14.00 to $12.00 and set an underweight rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, November 11th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and five have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of Reduce and a consensus price target of $8.38.

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Organon & Co. Company Profile

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Organon & Co is a global healthcare company that was established as an independent, publicly traded entity following its spin-off from Merck & Co in June 2021. Headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey, Organon focuses on delivering therapeutic solutions across womens health, biosimilars, and established brands. The companys creation reflected a strategic effort to concentrate on specialty pharmaceuticals and legacy products with proven patient impact.

In womens health, Organon provides a broad portfolio of products addressing reproductive and gynecological conditions, including fertility treatments, contraception, and hormone replacement therapies.

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ProShare Advisors LLC lowered its stake in The Travelers Companies, Inc. (NYSE:TRV  Free Report) by 9.0% in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 144,856 shares of the insurance providers stock after selling 14,376 shares during the period. ProShare Advisors LLCs holdings in Travelers Companies were worth $40,447,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also modified their holdings of the stock. Nuance Investments LLC acquired a new position in Travelers Companies in the third quarter worth about $3,115,000. Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. lifted its holdings in Travelers Companies by 3.0% during the 3rd quarter. Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. now owns 8,603 shares of the insurance providers stock worth $2,402,000 after buying an additional 247 shares during the last quarter. Linden Thomas Advisory Services LLC grew its position in shares of Travelers Companies by 8.6% in the 3rd quarter. Linden Thomas Advisory Services LLC now owns 4,009 shares of the insurance providers stock worth $1,119,000 after acquiring an additional 318 shares in the last quarter. Candriam S.C.A. increased its holdings in shares of Travelers Companies by 750.4% in the 3rd quarter. Candriam S.C.A. now owns 171,694 shares of the insurance providers stock valued at $47,940,000 after acquiring an additional 151,504 shares during the last quarter. Finally, RFG Advisory LLC increased its holdings in shares of Travelers Companies by 7.3% in the 3rd quarter. RFG Advisory LLC now owns 968 shares of the insurance providers stock valued at $270,000 after acquiring an additional 66 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.45% of the companys stock.

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Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, EVP Michael Frederick Klein sold 10,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Friday, February 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $301.18, for a total transaction of $3,011,800.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 33,638 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $10,131,092.84. This trade represents a 22.92% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Vice Chairman William H. Heyman sold 2,000 shares of Travelers Companies stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $287.50, for a total transaction of $575,000.00. Following the sale, the insider owned 255,086 shares in the company, valued at approximately $73,337,225. This represents a 0.78% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 105,568 shares of company stock valued at $30,974,602. Company insiders own 1.46% of the companys stock.

Travelers Companies Trading Down 2.9%

Travelers Companies stock opened at $292.78 on Tuesday. The Travelers Companies, Inc. has a 52-week low of $230.43 and a 52-week high of $304.40. The company has a quick ratio of 0.35, a current ratio of 0.33 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.28. The firm has a market capitalization of $65.31 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 10.63, a PEG ratio of 2.81 and a beta of 0.51. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $284.87 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $278.21.

Travelers Companies (NYSE:TRV  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 21st. The insurance provider reported $11.13 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $8.34 by $2.79. Travelers Companies had a return on equity of 20.70% and a net margin of 12.88%.The company had revenue of $12.43 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $11.13 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $9.15 earnings per share. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 3.5% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts expect that The Travelers Companies, Inc. will post 17.02 earnings per share for the current year.

Travelers Companies declared that its board has approved a share buyback plan on Wednesday, January 21st that authorizes the company to buyback $5.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the insurance provider to buy up to 8.3% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are typically a sign that the companys board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Travelers Companies Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, March 31st. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, March 10th will be given a dividend of $1.10 per share. This represents a $4.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.5%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, March 10th. Travelers Companiess payout ratio is 15.98%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. Weiss Ratings cut Travelers Companies from a buy (a-) rating to a buy (b+) rating in a research note on Monday, January 26th. Roth Mkm raised their price target on shares of Travelers Companies from $300.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Friday, January 23rd. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their price objective on shares of Travelers Companies from $307.00 to $285.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, January 22nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on shares of Travelers Companies from $302.00 to $305.00 and gave the stock an underweight rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 7th. Finally, Zacks Research downgraded Travelers Companies from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Monday, December 22nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have issued a Buy rating, ten have given a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Travelers Companies presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $303.00.

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Travelers Companies Company Profile

(Free Report)

The Travelers Companies, Inc (NYSE: TRV) is a leading provider of property and casualty insurance products and services. The company underwrites a broad range of commercial and personal insurance lines, offering coverage designed to protect individuals, small and midsize businesses, and large corporate clients against property loss, liability, and other operational risks. Travelers is known for combining underwriting, claims management and risk control services to help clients prevent losses and recover when incidents occur.

On the commercial side, Travelers writes primary and specialty coverages including property, general liability, commercial auto, workers compensation, professional and management liability, surety and inland marine.

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BRUSSELS, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Alphabet's Google gained unconditional EU antitrust approval on Tuesday for its $32 billion acquisition of cybersecurity company Wiz, its biggest ever deal, after regulators said the deal would not raise any competition concerns.

The deal, announced in March last year, would boost Google's presence in cybersecurity and in the cloud computing sector where it competes with bigger rivals Amazon.com and Microsoft.

"Google stands behind Amazon and Microsoft in terms of market shares in cloud infrastructure, and our assessment confirmed that customers will continue to have credible alternatives and the ability to switch providers," EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera said in a statement.

The European Commission, which acts as the EU competition enforcer, said any data acquired by Google via the deal is not commercially sensitive and can also be assessed by other security software companies.

Tech deals have in recent years triggered greater regulatory scrutiny because of concerns that these could boost big companies' market power and shut out smaller rivals.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee)
ProShare Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of The Hanover Insurance Group, Inc. (NYSE:THG  Free Report) by 5.6% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 213,676 shares of the insurance providers stock after purchasing an additional 11,415 shares during the period. ProShare Advisors LLCs holdings in The Hanover Insurance Group were worth $38,810,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of THG. Millennium Management LLC grew its stake in shares of The Hanover Insurance Group by 61.0% during the 1st quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 88,367 shares of the insurance providers stock valued at $15,371,000 after buying an additional 33,495 shares during the period. NewEdge Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of The Hanover Insurance Group by 1,568.9% in the 1st quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 751 shares of the insurance providers stock worth $131,000 after purchasing an additional 706 shares during the period. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its position in The Hanover Insurance Group by 21.6% during the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 218,753 shares of the insurance providers stock worth $38,052,000 after purchasing an additional 38,905 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC lifted its position in The Hanover Insurance Group by 6.4% during the first quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 129,031 shares of the insurance providers stock valued at $22,445,000 after buying an additional 7,712 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Truist Financial Corp lifted its holdings in shares of The Hanover Insurance Group by 2.8% during the 2nd quarter. Truist Financial Corp now owns 2,255 shares of the insurance providers stock valued at $383,000 after acquiring an additional 62 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 86.61% of the companys stock.

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Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms recently commented on THG. Weiss Ratings reissued a buy (b) rating on shares of The Hanover Insurance Group in a research report on Wednesday, January 21st. Royal Bank Of Canada assumed coverage on The Hanover Insurance Group in a report on Monday, November 24th. They issued a sector perform rating and a $200.00 price objective for the company. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods increased their target price on shares of The Hanover Insurance Group from $200.00 to $207.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Monday. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, The Hanover Insurance Group has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $200.40.

The Hanover Insurance Group Stock Performance

Shares of THG opened at $171.29 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.09 billion, a P/E ratio of 9.43 and a beta of 0.32. The Hanover Insurance Group, Inc. has a 12-month low of $147.76 and a 12-month high of $188.18. The firms 50 day moving average is $177.87 and its 200-day moving average is $176.66. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24, a current ratio of 0.43 and a quick ratio of 0.42.

The Hanover Insurance Group (NYSE:THG  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 3rd. The insurance provider reported $5.79 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $5.20 by $0.59. The business had revenue of $1.49 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.52 billion. The Hanover Insurance Group had a return on equity of 21.00% and a net margin of 10.05%.The companys revenue was up 3.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $5.32 EPS. Equities research analysts anticipate that The Hanover Insurance Group, Inc. will post 14.37 EPS for the current fiscal year.

The Hanover Insurance Group Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 26th. Investors of record on Friday, December 12th were paid a $0.95 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, December 12th. This represents a $3.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.2%. This is a positive change from The Hanover Insurance Groups previous quarterly dividend of $0.90. The Hanover Insurance Groups dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 20.91%.

Insider Buying and Selling at The Hanover Insurance Group

In other news, EVP Denise Lowsley sold 1,619 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $181.47, for a total value of $293,799.93. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president owned 3,511 shares in the company, valued at $637,141.17. This represents a 31.56% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, EVP Richard W. Lavey sold 24,420 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $178.92, for a total value of $4,369,226.40. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 32,174 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $5,756,572.08. This represents a 43.15% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. 2.50% of the stock is owned by insiders.

About The Hanover Insurance Group

(Free Report)

The Hanover Insurance Group, Inc (NYSE: THG) is a property and casualty insurance company that provides a range of commercial and personal insurance products. Through its subsidiary companies, Hanover offers coverage for businesses of all sizes, including workers compensation, general liability, commercial auto, and professional liability. On the personal lines side, the company underwrites homeowners, personal auto, flood, and umbrella policies designed to meet the needs of individuals and families.

In addition to its core commercial and personal insurance offerings, Hanover maintains a specialty arm that focuses on niche markets through tailored product solutions.

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Applied Finance Capital Management LLC trimmed its stake in Quanta Services, Inc. (NYSE:PWR  Free Report) by 29.5% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 49,604 shares of the construction companys stock after selling 20,747 shares during the quarter. Quanta Services makes up about 1.5% of Applied Finance Capital Management LLCs portfolio, making the stock its 28th biggest holding. Applied Finance Capital Management LLCs holdings in Quanta Services were worth $20,555,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in PWR. Copia Wealth Management raised its position in Quanta Services by 509.1% during the second quarter. Copia Wealth Management now owns 67 shares of the construction companys stock worth $25,000 after acquiring an additional 56 shares in the last quarter. Darwin Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Quanta Services during the 2nd quarter worth about $26,000. Activest Wealth Management raised its holdings in shares of Quanta Services by 94.1% in the 3rd quarter. Activest Wealth Management now owns 66 shares of the construction companys stock valued at $27,000 after purchasing an additional 32 shares during the period. Solstein Capital LLC lifted its stake in Quanta Services by 185.7% in the 2nd quarter. Solstein Capital LLC now owns 80 shares of the construction companys stock valued at $30,000 after purchasing an additional 52 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Cornerstone Planning Group LLC grew its holdings in Quanta Services by 213.0% during the third quarter. Cornerstone Planning Group LLC now owns 72 shares of the construction companys stock worth $30,000 after purchasing an additional 49 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 90.49% of the companys stock.

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Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently weighed in on PWR. Roth Mkm set a $500.00 target price on Quanta Services and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Friday, October 31st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of Quanta Services from a neutral rating to an overweight rating and increased their price objective for the company from $457.00 to $515.00 in a research report on Monday, December 8th. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their target price on shares of Quanta Services from $517.00 to $506.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 13th. Mizuho set a $415.00 price target on shares of Quanta Services in a research note on Tuesday, October 28th. Finally, Robert W. Baird set a $490.00 price objective on shares of Quanta Services in a research report on Friday, October 31st. Thirteen investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and seven have assigned a Hold rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $462.00.

Quanta Services Stock Up 1.2%

Shares of PWR opened at $514.46 on Tuesday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $452.10 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $426.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.66, a current ratio of 1.34 and a quick ratio of 1.30. Quanta Services, Inc. has a one year low of $227.08 and a one year high of $520.42. The company has a market cap of $76.72 billion, a P/E ratio of 76.22, a P/E/G ratio of 2.46 and a beta of 1.15.

About Quanta Services

(Free Report)

Quanta Services, Inc is a leading specialty contractor that provides comprehensive infrastructure solutions for the electric power, pipeline and energy, and communications markets. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, the company delivers engineering, procurement, construction, installation, maintenance and repair services that support the development, modernization and ongoing operation of critical energy and communications networks.

In the electric power sector, Quanta works on transmission and distribution systems, substation construction and grid modernization projects that include integration of renewable generation and energy storage.

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Allianz Asset Management GmbH boosted its holdings in shares of Ryerson Holding Corporation (NYSE:RYI  Free Report) by 32.9% during the third quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 308,964 shares of the basic materials companys stock after buying an additional 76,565 shares during the period. Allianz Asset Management GmbHs holdings in Ryerson were worth $7,063,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the business. SG Americas Securities LLC increased its holdings in Ryerson by 291.3% during the 3rd quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 44,625 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $1,020,000 after purchasing an additional 33,221 shares during the period. Bailard Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Ryerson during the third quarter worth about $729,000. LSV Asset Management increased its stake in shares of Ryerson by 11.7% during the second quarter. LSV Asset Management now owns 135,170 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $2,916,000 after buying an additional 14,200 shares during the period. Brandywine Global Investment Management LLC raised its holdings in Ryerson by 20.0% in the second quarter. Brandywine Global Investment Management LLC now owns 139,180 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $3,002,000 after acquiring an additional 23,230 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership lifted its stake in Ryerson by 34.9% in the second quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 364,006 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $7,852,000 after acquiring an additional 94,197 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 94.81% of the companys stock.

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Analysts Set New Price Targets

RYI has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Weiss Ratings reissued a sell (d) rating on shares of Ryerson in a research report on Monday, December 29th. Zacks Research raised Ryerson to a hold rating in a report on Wednesday, January 7th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of Reduce and an average target price of $25.00.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Edward J. Lehner sold 59,001 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $30.06, for a total value of $1,773,570.06. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 593,228 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $17,832,433.68. The trade was a 9.05% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CFO James J. Claussen sold 4,972 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $30.00, for a total value of $149,160.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 74,284 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $2,228,520. This trade represents a 6.27% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last three months, insiders sold 64,973 shares of company stock valued at $1,952,740. 3.95% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Ryerson Stock Down 2.8%

Shares of NYSE:RYI opened at $29.11 on Tuesday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $26.86 and a 200-day simple moving average of $23.83. Ryerson Holding Corporation has a twelve month low of $19.02 and a twelve month high of $30.90. The company has a current ratio of 1.98, a quick ratio of 0.95 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.62. The company has a market capitalization of $937.63 million, a PE ratio of -41.00 and a beta of 1.58.

Ryerson Company Profile

(Free Report)

Ryerson, Inc is a North American metals distributor and processor serving a broad range of industrial and manufacturing end markets. Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, the company supplies carbon steels, stainless alloys, aluminum, brass and copper products to customers across the United States, Canada and Mexico. Through its extensive branch network, Ryerson provides just-in-time delivery and comprehensive inventory management solutions to support complex production schedules and tight lead-time requirements.

In addition to raw material distribution, Ryerson offers a suite of value-added processing services, including laser and plasma cutting, plate burning, sawing, shearing, forming, drilling and welding.

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Allianz Asset Management GmbH cut its holdings in shares of CPB Inc. (NYSE:CPF  Free Report) by 33.1% during the third quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 291,002 shares of the financial services providers stock after selling 143,924 shares during the quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbHs holdings in CPB were worth $8,829,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the business. HoldCo Asset Management LP bought a new position in CPB during the second quarter worth $30,767,000. Millennium Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of CPB by 433.6% during the 1st quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 293,335 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $7,932,000 after buying an additional 238,367 shares during the period. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd boosted its holdings in shares of CPB by 371.1% during the 2nd quarter. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd now owns 114,740 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $3,216,000 after buying an additional 90,385 shares during the period. Basswood Capital Management L.L.C. grew its stake in CPB by 11.0% in the 2nd quarter. Basswood Capital Management L.L.C. now owns 885,753 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $24,828,000 after buying an additional 88,028 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans raised its holdings in CPB by 335.2% in the 2nd quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 86,523 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $2,426,000 after acquiring an additional 66,642 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 88.42% of the companys stock.

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Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on CPF shares. Weiss Ratings restated a buy (b) rating on shares of CPB in a report on Monday, December 29th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods boosted their price target on CPB from $34.00 to $36.00 and gave the company a market perform rating in a research note on Monday, February 2nd. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has assigned a Hold rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $35.50.

CPB Price Performance

Shares of NYSE CPF opened at $34.42 on Tuesday. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $32.06 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $30.34. The stock has a market capitalization of $923.49 million, a PE ratio of 12.03 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13, a current ratio of 0.85 and a quick ratio of 0.85. CPB Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $23.16 and a fifty-two week high of $35.01.

CPB (NYSE:CPF  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 28th. The financial services provider reported $0.85 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.73 by $0.12. CPB had a return on equity of 13.64% and a net margin of 21.17%.The company had revenue of $76.29 million for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $75.43 million. As a group, equities analysts predict that CPB Inc. will post 2.75 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

CPB Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 16th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 27th will be issued a dividend of $0.29 per share. This is a boost from CPBs previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 27th. This represents a $1.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.4%. CPBs payout ratio is currently 39.16%.

CPB Profile

(Free Report)

Charoen Pokphand Foods Public Company Limited (NYSE: CPF) is a Thailand?based integrated agro?industrial and food conglomerate. Headquartered in Bangkok, the company is a subsidiary of the Charoen Pokphand Group and has grown into one of the worlds leading producers of livestock feed, meat and seafood products. CPFs businesses span animal feed milling, animal breeding and hatchery operations, meat and seafood processing, and the distribution of fresh, frozen and value?added food products.

CPFs product portfolio includes poultry, swine and aquaculture feed; fresh and frozen chicken and pork; shrimp and other seafood; as well as ready?to?eat and ready?to?cook food items.

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S&CO Inc. cut its stake in Cameco Corporation (NYSE:CCJ  Free Report) (TSE:CCO) by 9.5% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 517,471 shares of the basic materials companys stock after selling 54,363 shares during the quarter. Cameco comprises 2.7% of S&CO Inc.s investment portfolio, making the stock its 9th largest position. S&CO Inc.s holdings in Cameco were worth $43,395,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Financial Consulate Inc. purchased a new stake in Cameco in the 3rd quarter valued at $25,000. Armstrong Advisory Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Cameco by 110.3% in the 3rd quarter. Armstrong Advisory Group Inc. now owns 347 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $29,000 after acquiring an additional 182 shares in the last quarter. VSM Wealth Advisory LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Cameco in the second quarter valued at about $35,000. Creative Financial Designs Inc. ADV raised its holdings in shares of Cameco by 936.2% in the second quarter. Creative Financial Designs Inc. ADV now owns 487 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $36,000 after purchasing an additional 440 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. bought a new position in shares of Cameco during the third quarter valued at about $37,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 70.21% of the companys stock.

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Cameco Stock Performance

Shares of CCJ opened at $120.69 on Tuesday. Cameco Corporation has a 1 year low of $35.00 and a 1 year high of $135.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a current ratio of 2.99 and a quick ratio of 1.85. The stocks fifty day moving average price is $104.36 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $90.98. The firm has a market cap of $52.56 billion, a PE ratio of 140.34 and a beta of 0.99.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have commented on the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group reiterated a buy rating and issued a $131.00 price objective on shares of Cameco in a research note on Wednesday, February 4th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a hold (c-) rating on shares of Cameco in a report on Monday, December 29th. UBS Group began coverage on Cameco in a report on Monday, November 10th. They set a neutral rating and a $140.00 price target on the stock. Raymond James Financial reissued an outperform rating on shares of Cameco in a research report on Wednesday, January 14th. Finally, Scotiabank reaffirmed an outperform rating on shares of Cameco in a research report on Wednesday, October 29th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twelve have issued a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Buy and an average target price of $131.39.

Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on CCJ

Cameco Profile

(Free Report)

Cameco Corporation (NYSE: CCJ) is a leading producer of uranium and a supplier to the global nuclear power industry. Headquartered in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, the company is engaged in the exploration, mining, milling and sale of uranium concentrate, commonly known as yellowcake, which is used as fuel for nuclear reactors. Cameco also participates in services and activities that support the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle, including processing and marketing of uranium to utilities under long?term and spot contracts.

The companys operations have historically centered in Canada and the United States, where it operates and develops uranium mining and processing properties.

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Allianz Asset Management GmbH grew its position in Pebblebrook Hotel Trust (NYSE:PEB  Free Report) by 108.7% during the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 707,913 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock after buying an additional 368,681 shares during the period. Allianz Asset Management GmbHs holdings in Pebblebrook Hotel Trust were worth $8,063,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. boosted its stake in Pebblebrook Hotel Trust by 115.2% in the second quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 4,683 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $47,000 after acquiring an additional 2,507 shares in the last quarter. AdvisorShares Investments LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Pebblebrook Hotel Trust by 52.4% during the 2nd quarter. AdvisorShares Investments LLC now owns 7,621 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $76,000 after purchasing an additional 2,621 shares during the last quarter. M&T Bank Corp acquired a new stake in shares of Pebblebrook Hotel Trust in the 2nd quarter worth $116,000. Diametric Capital LP purchased a new position in Pebblebrook Hotel Trust during the 2nd quarter worth $164,000. Finally, Creative Planning acquired a new position in Pebblebrook Hotel Trust during the 2nd quarter valued at about $176,000.

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Pebblebrook Hotel Trust Stock Up 0.3%

PEB stock opened at $12.42 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $1.41 billion, a P/E ratio of -10.44 and a beta of 1.54. Pebblebrook Hotel Trust has a 12 month low of $7.41 and a 12 month high of $12.95. The firms fifty day simple moving average is $11.64 and its 200-day simple moving average is $11.14. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.86, a current ratio of 1.13 and a quick ratio of 1.13.

Pebblebrook Hotel Trust Dividend Announcement

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 15th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, December 31st were given a dividend of $0.01 per share. This represents a $0.04 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, December 31st. Pebblebrook Hotel Trusts dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently -3.36%.

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Truist Financial boosted their price target on Pebblebrook Hotel Trust from $11.00 to $12.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a research note on Monday, January 12th. Weiss Ratings reissued a sell (d) rating on shares of Pebblebrook Hotel Trust in a research report on Monday, December 29th. Compass Point lowered shares of Pebblebrook Hotel Trust from a neutral rating to a sell rating and cut their price target for the company from $12.00 to $11.50 in a research note on Monday, November 10th. Zacks Research downgraded shares of Pebblebrook Hotel Trust from a hold rating to a strong sell rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 20th. Finally, Barclays initiated coverage on shares of Pebblebrook Hotel Trust in a report on Tuesday, January 6th. They set an underweight rating and a $10.00 price objective on the stock. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has assigned a Buy rating, five have issued a Hold rating and six have given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of Reduce and an average price target of $12.08.

Read Our Latest Analysis on PEB

Pebblebrook Hotel Trust Profile

(Free Report)

Pebblebrook Hotel Trust (NYSE:PEB) is a real estate investment trust specializing in premium, high-barrier-to-entry hotel properties in gateway markets across the United States. Established in 2009, PEB focuses on lifestyle-oriented lodging assets that cater to business and leisure travelers seeking elevated experiences. The companys investment strategy emphasizes select-service and full-service hotels with established brands and prime urban or resort locations.

PEBs portfolio comprises more than 30 properties in major metropolitan areas including New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and San Francisco.

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Envestnet Asset Management Inc. grew its stake in ING Group, N.V. (NYSE:ING  Free Report) by 4.3% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 1,990,736 shares of the financial services providers stock after buying an additional 82,340 shares during the period. Envestnet Asset Management Inc.s holdings in ING Group were worth $51,918,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Ashton Thomas Private Wealth LLC bought a new stake in ING Group during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $451,000. Capital Fund Management S.A. increased its stake in shares of ING Group by 14.7% in the second quarter. Capital Fund Management S.A. now owns 612,511 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $13,396,000 after purchasing an additional 78,622 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp raised its position in shares of ING Group by 64.7% during the 2nd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 467,898 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $10,233,000 after purchasing an additional 183,891 shares during the period. Logan Capital Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of ING Group by 11.0% during the 2nd quarter. Logan Capital Management Inc. now owns 220,820 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $4,829,000 after buying an additional 21,853 shares in the last quarter. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its holdings in ING Group by 25.2% in the 2nd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 1,314,705 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $28,753,000 after buying an additional 264,858 shares during the period. 4.49% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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ING Group Trading Up 2.2%

Shares of ING stock opened at $30.71 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $89.38 billion, a PE ratio of 12.85, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.46 and a beta of 0.80. ING Group, N.V. has a 1 year low of $16.26 and a 1 year high of $31.17. The stocks 50 day simple moving average is $28.42 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $26.06. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.99, a current ratio of 1.11 and a quick ratio of 1.11.

ING Group Announces Dividend

ING Group ( NYSE:ING Get Free Report ) last released its earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The financial services provider reported $0.56 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.50 by $0.06. ING Group had a return on equity of 12.26% and a net margin of 27.50%.The firm had revenue of $4.61 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $6.67 billion. Research analysts predict that ING Group, N.V. will post 2.14 earnings per share for the current year.

The company also recently announced a dividend, which will be paid on Friday, May 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 17th will be issued a $0.8796 dividend. This represents a dividend yield of 589.0%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, April 17th. ING Groups dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 28.87%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts have commented on ING shares. Citigroup raised ING Group to a strong-buy rating in a report on Friday, November 21st. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upgraded shares of ING Group from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Monday, February 2nd. Zacks Research upgraded ING Group from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating in a research report on Monday, February 2nd. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lowered ING Group from a hold rating to a moderate sell rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 11th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group began coverage on ING Group in a research note on Tuesday, January 27th. They issued a hold rating on the stock. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have issued a Buy rating and one has assigned a Hold rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Buy.

View Our Latest Research Report on ING Group

ING Group Company Profile

(Free Report)

ING Group N.V. is a Dutch multinational financial services company headquartered in Amsterdam. Formed through the consolidation of Dutch financial businesses, ING operates as a banking and financial services group that serves retail, small and medium-sized enterprises, large corporates and institutional clients. The company is organized under a two-tier governance model common in the Netherlands, with an Executive Board responsible for day-to-day management and a Supervisory Board providing oversight.

INGs principal activities include retail and direct banking, commercial and wholesale banking, corporate lending, transaction services and cash management, and a range of investment and savings products.

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ProShare Advisors LLC grew its holdings in shares of RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd. (NYSE:RNR  Free Report) by 6.1% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 146,898 shares of the insurance providers stock after buying an additional 8,464 shares during the period. ProShare Advisors LLC owned 0.32% of RenaissanceRe worth $37,302,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC increased its position in RenaissanceRe by 1.2% during the 3rd quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC now owns 3,355 shares of the insurance providers stock valued at $852,000 after purchasing an additional 40 shares during the period. Benedict Financial Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in shares of RenaissanceRe by 0.3% during the 2nd quarter. Benedict Financial Advisors Inc. now owns 12,577 shares of the insurance providers stock valued at $3,055,000 after purchasing an additional 42 shares in the last quarter. Miracle Mile Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of RenaissanceRe by 3.8% during the third quarter. Miracle Mile Advisors LLC now owns 1,257 shares of the insurance providers stock valued at $319,000 after buying an additional 46 shares during the period. Rossby Financial LCC raised its stake in RenaissanceRe by 6.2% in the second quarter. Rossby Financial LCC now owns 845 shares of the insurance providers stock worth $205,000 after buying an additional 49 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Huntington National Bank raised its stake in RenaissanceRe by 80.9% in the second quarter. Huntington National Bank now owns 123 shares of the insurance providers stock worth $30,000 after buying an additional 55 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 99.97% of the companys stock.

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Insider Buying and Selling

In other RenaissanceRe news, EVP Robert Qutub sold 5,000 shares of RenaissanceRe stock in a transaction on Friday, February 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $305.75, for a total value of $1,528,750.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president owned 73,023 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $22,326,782.25. This trade represents a 6.41% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Corporate insiders own 2.00% of the companys stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have weighed in on the company. Citigroup cut RenaissanceRe from a buy rating to a neutral rating and set a $328.00 price objective on the stock. in a research report on Monday. UBS Group restated a neutral rating and set a $312.00 price target on shares of RenaissanceRe in a research report on Monday. Mizuho increased their price objective on RenaissanceRe from $277.00 to $313.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a report on Friday. TD Cowen reissued a hold rating on shares of RenaissanceRe in a research report on Thursday, January 8th. Finally, Morgan Stanley restated an overweight rating and set a $310.00 target price on shares of RenaissanceRe in a report on Friday. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, fourteen have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $309.27.

Check Out Our Latest Analysis on RNR

RenaissanceRe Price Performance

RNR opened at $288.92 on Tuesday. The firm has a market cap of $13.32 billion, a PE ratio of 5.10, a P/E/G ratio of 0.74 and a beta of 0.24. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $276.62 and a 200-day moving average price of $259.71. RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd. has a 1 year low of $219.00 and a 1 year high of $310.80. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21, a current ratio of 1.43 and a quick ratio of 1.40.

RenaissanceRe (NYSE:RNR  Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, February 3rd. The insurance provider reported $13.34 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $10.59 by $2.75. RenaissanceRe had a net margin of 20.88% and a return on equity of 18.29%. The business had revenue of $2.97 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $1.73 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $8.06 earnings per share. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 29.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd. will post 26.04 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

RenaissanceRe Company Profile

(Free Report)

RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd. is a global provider of reinsurance and insurance solutions, specializing in property catastrophe, casualty, and specialty lines. Established in 1993 and headquartered in Bermuda, the company trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol RNR. With a focus on underwriting and risk assessment, RenaissanceRe offers tailored programs designed to help insurers and corporations manage exposure to natural disasters, liability claims, and other complex risks.

The company operates through two primary segments: Reinsurance and Insurance.

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Alps Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in Choice Hotels International, Inc. (NYSE:CHH  Free Report) by 42.4% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 40,577 shares of the companys stock after acquiring an additional 12,082 shares during the period. Alps Advisors Inc. owned about 0.09% of Choice Hotels International worth $4,338,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of Choice Hotels International in the first quarter worth about $324,000. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its position in Choice Hotels International by 13.3% during the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 110,031 shares of the companys stock worth $14,610,000 after purchasing an additional 12,904 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC lifted its stake in Choice Hotels International by 8.9% in the 1st quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 108,512 shares of the companys stock valued at $14,408,000 after purchasing an additional 8,887 shares during the last quarter. Jane Street Group LLC boosted its position in Choice Hotels International by 89.8% in the first quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 50,138 shares of the companys stock valued at $6,657,000 after buying an additional 23,726 shares in the last quarter. Finally, KLP Kapitalforvaltning AS boosted its position in Choice Hotels International by 10.7% in the second quarter. KLP Kapitalforvaltning AS now owns 8,300 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,053,000 after buying an additional 800 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 65.57% of the companys stock.

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Insider Transactions at Choice Hotels International

In other news, SVP Simone Wu sold 8,080 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $101.56, for a total value of $820,604.80. Following the transaction, the senior vice president owned 48,803 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,956,432.68. The trade was a 14.20% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Insiders own 24.02% of the companys stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on CHH. UBS Group lowered their price target on shares of Choice Hotels International from $120.00 to $118.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 7th. Morgan Stanley set a $91.00 price objective on Choice Hotels International in a research report on Friday, January 16th. Weiss Ratings cut Choice Hotels International from a hold (c-) rating to a sell (d+) rating in a report on Friday, January 23rd. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their target price on Choice Hotels International from $90.00 to $100.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group cut Choice Hotels International from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Monday, January 12th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have issued a Hold rating and five have given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of Reduce and an average target price of $109.15.

Get Our Latest Research Report on Choice Hotels International

Choice Hotels International Stock Down 1.3%

Shares of CHH opened at $107.83 on Tuesday. The stocks 50-day moving average price is $99.22 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $104.93. Choice Hotels International, Inc. has a 12 month low of $84.04 and a 12 month high of $157.86. The company has a market capitalization of $4.99 billion, a PE ratio of 13.25, a PEG ratio of 5.58 and a beta of 0.76. The company has a current ratio of 0.96, a quick ratio of 0.96 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 12.81.

Choice Hotels International Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 15th. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 2nd were given a dividend of $0.2875 per share. This represents a $1.15 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.1%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 2nd. Choice Hotels Internationals dividend payout ratio is currently 14.13%.

About Choice Hotels International

(Free Report)

Choice Hotels International, Inc is a hospitality franchisor specializing in the development and support of lodging brands across the economy, midscale and upscale segments. Through a network of franchisees, Choice Hotels supplies proprietary reservation and distribution systems, comprehensive marketing programs, and operational support services. The companys core activities include brand management, franchise development, and technology-driven revenue optimization tools designed to enhance guest acquisition and retention for its partners.

Founded in 1939 as Quality Courts United, the company rebranded to Choice Hotels International in 1982 to reflect its expanding brand portfolio and global ambitions.

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New York State Common Retirement Fund grew its stake in shares of LendingClub Corporation (NYSE:LC  Free Report) by 171.3% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 79,540 shares of the credit services providers stock after acquiring an additional 50,224 shares during the period. New York State Common Retirement Fund owned 0.07% of LendingClub worth $1,208,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Headlands Technologies LLC acquired a new stake in LendingClub during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $53,000. State of Alaska Department of Revenue acquired a new stake in shares of LendingClub during the third quarter worth $69,000. Marex Group plc acquired a new stake in shares of LendingClub during the second quarter worth $120,000. MQS Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of LendingClub in the second quarter valued at about $121,000. Finally, Systematic Alpha Investments LLC acquired a new position in shares of LendingClub in the second quarter valued at about $122,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 74.08% of the companys stock.

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Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have weighed in on LC. Janney Montgomery Scott lifted their price objective on shares of LendingClub from $17.00 to $20.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Thursday, November 6th. BTIG Research reiterated a buy rating and issued a $26.00 price target on shares of LendingClub in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised their price objective on LendingClub from $20.00 to $22.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Friday, November 7th. Citizens Jmp upgraded LendingClub from a market perform rating to an outperform rating and set a $23.00 target price for the company in a research report on Monday, November 10th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on LendingClub from $22.00 to $25.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Thursday, December 4th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have assigned a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $22.00.

Insider Activity at LendingClub

In other news, Director Erin Selleck sold 2,390 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $19.47, for a total value of $46,533.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 76,377 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $1,487,060.19. This represents a 3.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Company insiders own 3.31% of the companys stock.

LendingClub Stock Performance

Shares of LC stock opened at $17.25 on Tuesday. LendingClub Corporation has a fifty-two week low of $7.90 and a fifty-two week high of $21.67. The stocks fifty day moving average price is $19.28 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $17.45. The company has a market cap of $1.99 billion, a PE ratio of 15.00 and a beta of 2.08.

LendingClub (NYSE:LC  Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 28th. The credit services provider reported $0.35 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.34 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $266.47 million during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $262.88 million. LendingClub had a return on equity of 9.62% and a net margin of 13.58%.LendingClubs revenue was up 22.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.08 EPS. LendingClub has set its FY 2026 guidance at 1.650-1.800 EPS and its Q1 2026 guidance at 0.340-0.390 EPS. On average, equities analysts predict that LendingClub Corporation will post 0.72 EPS for the current fiscal year.

LendingClub announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a share repurchase plan on Wednesday, November 5th that authorizes the company to repurchase $100.00 million in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the credit services provider to buy up to 4.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are usually a sign that the companys board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

About LendingClub

(Free Report)

LendingClub Corporation operates an online lending marketplace that connects borrowers seeking personal and small business credit with individual and institutional investors. The platform leverages technology to streamline the loan application and underwriting process, offering unsecured personal loans, auto refinancing, and small business loans. In addition to lending products, LendingClub provides high-yield savings accounts and certificates of deposit through its banking charter, following its acquisition of Radius Bank in 2021.

Founded in 2006 by Renaud Laplanche, LendingClub pioneered peer-to-peer lending in the United States, helping to democratize access to credit and investment opportunities.

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TOKYO (AP)  Honda reported Tuesday a 42% drop in profit for the nine months through December, compared to a year earlier, as U.S. President Donald Trumps tariffs hurt the Japanese automakers earnings.

Tokyo-based Honda Motor Co.s profit over the three quarters totaled 465.4 billion yen ($3 billion), down from 805.2 billion yen.

That marked the second straight year that profit declined during the period at Honda, the maker of the Accord sedan, Civic compact and Odyssey minivan.

Sales for the three quarters dipped 2.2% to 15.98 trillion yen ($102.6 billion) from the previous year. Honda stuck to its full fiscal year profit forecast at 300 billion yen ($1.9 billion).

The slowdown in electric vehicles in the U.S. market was one negative factor, according to Honda, while the relatively healthy performance in its motorcycle division worked as a plus.

Honda lowered its global EV sales ratio projection for 2030 to 20% from its previous target of 30%. It also said it canceled the development of some EV models, because the EV market was changing.

The Trump administration, which has favored the oil and gas industry, has backpedaled on prior programs supporting the proliferation of EVs, dismantling programs that kicked in during the Biden administration, which had encouraged environmentally cleaner cars and trucks.

Last year, Trump lowered the tariffs on automobiles and auto parts to 15% from an earlier 25% that he had initially announced. Japan promised to invest $550 billion in U.S. projects.

Tariffs are a major blow to Japans export-reliant economy, including the automakers. Last week, Japans top automaker Toyota Motor Corp. reported a decline in recent profit, and announced that its chief financial officer, Kenta Kon, will become its new chief executive and president.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who took office in October as Japan's first female leader, scored a landslide parliamentary election victory for the governing party over the weekend. Thats expected to make it easier for her Liberal Democratic Party to push forward on its policies, including bolstering growth by boosting government spending, especially in technology and defense.

Honda stock jumped 2.1% in Tuesdays trading. The Nikkei 225 benchmark finished 2.3% higher, renewing a record high for the second day straight, in a rally set off, in part, by Takaichis popularity.

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Rockland Trust Co. cut its holdings in shares of Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE  Free Report) by 5.5% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 436,312 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock after selling 25,158 shares during the quarter. Rockland Trust Co.s holdings in Pfizer were worth $11,117,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Curio Wealth LLC lifted its stake in Pfizer by 36,600.0% in the second quarter. Curio Wealth LLC now owns 1,101 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock worth $27,000 after acquiring an additional 1,098 shares during the last quarter. Grey Fox Wealth Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Pfizer during the 3rd quarter worth $29,000. Harbor Asset Planning Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Pfizer during the second quarter worth $29,000. Howard Hughes Medical Institute purchased a new position in Pfizer in the second quarter valued at $30,000. Finally, True Wealth Design LLC raised its stake in Pfizer by 302.5% in the third quarter. True Wealth Design LLC now owns 1,296 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock valued at $33,000 after buying an additional 974 shares in the last quarter. 68.36% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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Pfizer Stock Performance

Shares of PFE opened at $27.05 on Tuesday. The companys 50 day simple moving average is $25.65 and its 200-day simple moving average is $25.11. The firm has a market cap of $153.80 billion, a PE ratio of 19.89 and a beta of 0.47. Pfizer Inc. has a 12-month low of $20.92 and a 12-month high of $27.69. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 0.97 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.62.

Pfizer Dividend Announcement

Pfizer ( NYSE:PFE Get Free Report ) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 3rd. The biopharmaceutical company reported $0.66 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.57 by $0.09. Pfizer had a net margin of 12.42% and a return on equity of 20.25%. The firm had revenue of $17.56 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.93 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.63 EPS. Pfizers revenue for the quarter was down 1.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts predict that Pfizer Inc. will post 2.95 EPS for the current year.

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 6th. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 23rd will be paid a dividend of $0.43 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 23rd. This represents a $1.72 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.4%. Pfizers dividend payout ratio is 126.47%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research analysts have recently issued reports on PFE shares. UBS Group initiated coverage on Pfizer in a research report on Tuesday, January 6th. They set a neutral rating and a $25.00 price objective for the company. Zacks Research lowered shares of Pfizer from a hold rating to a strong sell rating in a research note on Monday, January 26th. Guggenheim reissued a buy rating on shares of Pfizer in a report on Wednesday, December 17th. Morgan Stanley lowered their target price on shares of Pfizer from $32.00 to $28.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a report on Friday, December 12th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets reiterated an outperform rating on shares of Pfizer in a research note on Wednesday, December 10th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have given a Buy rating, twelve have given a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $28.06.

Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on PFE

About Pfizer

(Free Report)

Pfizer Inc (NYSE: PFE) is a multinational biopharmaceutical company headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1849 by Charles Pfizer and Charles Erhart, the company researches, develops, manufactures and commercializes a broad range of medicines and vaccines for human health. Its activities span discovery research, clinical development, regulatory affairs, manufacturing and global commercial distribution across multiple therapeutic areas.

Pfizers portfolio and pipeline cover oncology, immunology, cardiology, endocrinology, rare diseases, hospital acute care and anti-infectives, along with a substantial vaccine business.

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Allianz Asset Management GmbH grew its stake in Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corporation (NYSE:VAC  Free Report) by 17.1% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 89,622 shares of the companys stock after buying an additional 13,082 shares during the quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH owned 0.26% of Marriott Vacations Worldwide worth $5,965,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Senvest Management LLC raised its holdings in Marriott Vacations Worldwide by 19.4% in the second quarter. Senvest Management LLC now owns 1,816,012 shares of the companys stock valued at $131,316,000 after acquiring an additional 294,937 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of Marriott Vacations Worldwide by 37.4% in the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 788,879 shares of the companys stock valued at $57,051,000 after purchasing an additional 214,629 shares during the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its position in shares of Marriott Vacations Worldwide by 71.6% in the 2nd quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 635,977 shares of the companys stock valued at $45,987,000 after purchasing an additional 265,278 shares during the last quarter. Deprince Race & Zollo Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Marriott Vacations Worldwide by 34.6% in the 3rd quarter. Deprince Race & Zollo Inc. now owns 429,639 shares of the companys stock valued at $28,597,000 after purchasing an additional 110,469 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Marriott Vacations Worldwide in the 2nd quarter valued at $27,971,000. 89.52% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts recently commented on the stock. Morgan Stanley reiterated an underweight rating and set a $52.00 target price (down previously from $70.00) on shares of Marriott Vacations Worldwide in a research note on Friday, January 16th. Mizuho lowered Marriott Vacations Worldwide from an outperform rating to a neutral rating and cut their target price for the stock from $85.00 to $58.00 in a research report on Tuesday, November 11th. Truist Financial decreased their target price on Marriott Vacations Worldwide from $127.00 to $81.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research note on Friday, November 14th. Citizens Jmp dropped their price target on shares of Marriott Vacations Worldwide from $115.00 to $60.00 and set a market outperform rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, November 7th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus set a $83.00 price objective on shares of Marriott Vacations Worldwide in a report on Thursday, November 6th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has given a Hold rating and five have assigned a Sell rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of Reduce and an average price target of $61.13.

Marriott Vacations Worldwide Trading Down 1.2%

NYSE:VAC opened at $54.90 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $1.90 billion, a PE ratio of 12.31, a P/E/G ratio of 1.38 and a beta of 1.33. Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corporation has a 52-week low of $44.58 and a 52-week high of $91.18. The stocks 50 day moving average price is $57.82 and its 200 day moving average price is $64.59. The company has a quick ratio of 3.22, a current ratio of 3.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.29.

Marriott Vacations Worldwide Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 7th. Investors of record on Wednesday, December 24th were given a $0.80 dividend. This is a positive change from Marriott Vacations Worldwides previous quarterly dividend of $0.79. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, December 24th. This represents a $3.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.8%. Marriott Vacations Worldwides payout ratio is currently 71.75%.

Insider Activity

In other Marriott Vacations Worldwide news, Director William W. Mccarten acquired 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, November 20th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $48.08 per share, with a total value of $240,400.00. Following the transaction, the director owned 13,708 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $659,080.64. This trade represents a 57.42% increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director Lizanne Galbreath bought 5,500 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 18th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $46.51 per share, with a total value of $255,805.00. Following the purchase, the director directly owned 25,714 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $1,195,958.14. This trade represents a 27.21% increase in their position. The SEC filing for this purchase provides additional information. Insiders have acquired 96,209 shares of company stock worth $4,573,353 over the last 90 days. 1.60% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Marriott Vacations Worldwide Profile

(Free Report)

Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corporation, headquartered in Orlando, Florida, specializes in the development, marketing and management of vacation ownership resorts and related products. Originally launched as a division of Marriott International in 1984, the company became a separate publicly traded entity in 2011. Since then, it has expanded its offerings through both organic growth and strategic acquisitions, establishing itself as a leading provider in the global timeshare industry.

The companys core business activities include selling vacation ownership interests, managing a growing portfolio of branded resorts and operating a loyalty program that allows members to exchange or use points at affiliated properties.

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Rockland Trust Co. grew its stake in McCormick & Company, Incorporated (NYSE:MKC  Free Report) by 9.2% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 278,026 shares of the companys stock after acquiring an additional 23,380 shares during the period. Rockland Trust Co.s holdings in McCormick & Company, Incorporated were worth $18,603,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in MKC. Bank of Jackson Hole Trust acquired a new position in shares of McCormick & Company, Incorporated during the 2nd quarter worth about $25,000. Elevation Point Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new stake in shares of McCormick & Company, Incorporated in the second quarter valued at approximately $27,000. Heartwood Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of McCormick & Company, Incorporated during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $28,000. Curio Wealth LLC increased its holdings in shares of McCormick & Company, Incorporated by 39,900.0% during the 2nd quarter. Curio Wealth LLC now owns 400 shares of the companys stock worth $30,000 after acquiring an additional 399 shares during the last quarter. Finally, MTM Investment Management LLC bought a new stake in McCormick & Company, Incorporated in the 2nd quarter valued at $30,000. 79.74% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on MKC shares. Barclays cut their target price on shares of McCormick & Company, Incorporated from $72.00 to $67.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research note on Monday, January 26th. Jefferies Financial Group raised their price objective on shares of McCormick & Company, Incorporated from $78.00 to $79.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 13th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upgraded McCormick & Company, Incorporated from a hold rating to a buy rating and set a $75.00 price objective for the company in a report on Monday, December 15th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a hold (c-) rating on shares of McCormick & Company, Incorporated in a research note on Tuesday, October 14th. Finally, UBS Group reduced their price target on McCormick & Company, Incorporated from $70.00 to $67.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Friday, January 23rd. Five analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and seven have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $73.30.

McCormick & Company, Incorporated Trading Up 0.7%

Shares of MKC stock opened at $67.88 on Tuesday. McCormick & Company, Incorporated has a fifty-two week low of $59.62 and a fifty-two week high of $86.24. The stocks fifty day moving average price is $66.07 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $67.15. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a quick ratio of 0.28 and a current ratio of 0.70. The company has a market cap of $18.22 billion, a PE ratio of 23.17, a P/E/G ratio of 4.31 and a beta of 0.61.

McCormick & Company, Incorporated (NYSE:MKC  Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, January 22nd. The company reported $0.86 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.87 by ($0.01). The company had revenue of $1.85 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.84 billion. McCormick & Company, Incorporated had a return on equity of 14.27% and a net margin of 11.54%.The firms revenue was up 2.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.80 EPS. McCormick & Company, Incorporated has set its FY 2026 guidance at 3.050-3.130 EPS. Equities analysts predict that McCormick & Company, Incorporated will post 3.07 EPS for the current fiscal year.

McCormick & Company, Incorporated Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 12th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 29th were paid a dividend of $0.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 29th. This is an increase from McCormick & Company, Incorporateds previous quarterly dividend of $0.45. This represents a $1.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.8%. McCormick & Company, Incorporateds payout ratio is 65.53%.

Insider Activity

In related news, Director Jacques Tapiero sold 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $67.09, for a total value of $335,450.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 31,596 shares in the company, valued at $2,119,775.64. This represents a 13.66% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Brendan M. Foley sold 57,144 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $65.56, for a total value of $3,746,360.64. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 108,652 shares in the company, valued at $7,123,225.12. This trade represents a 34.47% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 117,144 shares of company stock valued at $7,772,561. Insiders own 23.80% of the companys stock.

McCormick & Company, Incorporated Profile

(Free Report)

McCormick & Company, Incorporated (NYSE: MKC) is a global leader in spices, seasonings and flavor solutions. Headquartered in Hunt Valley, Maryland, the company traces its origins to the late 19th century and has grown into a major manufacturer and marketer of branded and private?label flavor products for consumer, industrial and foodservice markets.

McCormicks product portfolio includes pure spices and herbs, blended seasonings, marinades, rubs, sauces, extracts and specialty flavorings, along with ingredient systems and custom flavor development for manufacturers and foodservice operators.

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Farmers & Merchants Bancorp (OTCMKTS:FMCB  Get Free Report) shares hit a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The company traded as high as $1,199.99 and last traded at $1,183.00, with a volume of 108 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $1,175.9980.

Farmers & Merchants Bancorp Stock Up 0.6%

The stock has a market capitalization of $828.10 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.83 and a beta of 0.18. The company has a quick ratio of 0.75, a current ratio of 0.75 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.02. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $1,118.96 and a 200 day moving average price of $1,062.14.

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Farmers & Merchants Bancorp (OTCMKTS:FMCB  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, February 2nd. The bank reported $34.29 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. Farmers & Merchants Bancorp had a return on equity of 15.05% and a net margin of 30.88%.The company had revenue of $62.96 million during the quarter.

About Farmers & Merchants Bancorp

Farmers & Merchants Bancorp, Inc is a bank holding company that operates through its wholly owned subsidiary, Farmers & Merchants Bank of Central California. Headquartered in Hanford, California, the company provides a broad range of commercial and consumer banking services tailored to individuals, businesses and agricultural enterprises in the San Joaquin Valley region.

The companys core offerings include deposit products such as checking accounts, savings accounts, money market accounts and certificates of deposit.

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Honda Motor (NYSE:HMC  Get Free Report) issued an update on its FY 2026 earnings guidance on Tuesday morning. The company provided EPS guidance of 1.462-1.462 for the period, compared to the consensus EPS estimate of 3.380. The company issued revenue guidance of $137.0 billion-$137.0 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $131.8 billion.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

HMC has been the topic of several analyst reports. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a hold (c) rating on shares of Honda Motor in a research report on Monday, December 29th. Zacks Research upgraded Honda Motor from a strong sell rating to a hold rating in a research note on Monday, October 20th. Finally, Nomura raised Honda Motor to a strong-buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 9th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of Hold.

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Read Our Latest Analysis on HMC

Honda Motor Stock Performance

Shares of HMC opened at $31.77 on Tuesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $49.59 billion, a P/E ratio of 10.38, a PEG ratio of 1.49 and a beta of 0.37. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.66, a current ratio of 1.41 and a quick ratio of 1.13. Honda Motor has a one year low of $24.56 and a one year high of $34.89. The business has a fifty day moving average of $30.33 and a 200 day moving average of $31.40.

Honda Motor (NYSE:HMC  Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Friday, November 7th. The company reported $0.60 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.68 by ($0.08). Honda Motor had a return on equity of 5.18% and a net margin of 3.04%.The firm had revenue of $34.71 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $35.95 billion. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Honda Motor will post 3.99 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC increased its holdings in Honda Motor by 29.9% in the 3rd quarter. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC now owns 2,677 shares of the companys stock worth $82,000 after acquiring an additional 616 shares in the last quarter. Caitong International Asset Management Co. Ltd purchased a new position in Honda Motor during the third quarter valued at approximately $26,000. NewEdge Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Honda Motor by 16.0% in the third quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 16,800 shares of the companys stock worth $517,000 after purchasing an additional 2,312 shares in the last quarter. United Capital Financial Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Honda Motor by 7.3% in the third quarter. United Capital Financial Advisors LLC now owns 18,948 shares of the companys stock worth $584,000 after purchasing an additional 1,291 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Qube Research & Technologies Ltd bought a new stake in shares of Honda Motor during the 3rd quarter valued at $3,515,000. 5.32% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About Honda Motor

(Get Free Report)

Honda Motor Co, Ltd. is a global manufacturer and mobility company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan, founded in 1948 by Soichiro Honda and Takeo Fujisawa. The companys core businesses include the design, manufacture and sale of automobiles and motorcycles, along with a diverse portfolio of power products, engines and related components. Honda also operates in aviation through Honda Aircraft Company and offers financial services that support vehicle sales and leasing.

In automobiles, Honda is known for a range of passenger cars, crossovers and light trucks, and in motorcycles it is one of the worlds leading producers by volume and model breadth.

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PIMCO New York Municipal Income Fund II (NYSE:PNI  Get Free Report) announced a monthly dividend on Monday, February 2nd. Investors of record on Thursday, February 12th will be paid a dividend of 0.0295 per share on Monday, March 2nd. This represents a c) dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.0%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, February 12th.

PIMCO New York Municipal Income Fund II Price Performance

NYSE:PNI opened at $7.13 on Tuesday. PIMCO New York Municipal Income Fund II has a 52-week low of $6.43 and a 52-week high of $7.47. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $6.95 and a 200 day moving average of $6.87.

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About PIMCO New York Municipal Income Fund II

(Get Free Report)

PIMCO New York Municipal Income Fund II (NYSE: PNI) is a closed-end management investment company that seeks to provide a high level of current income exempt from both federal and New York State income taxes. The fund is managed by Pacific Investment Management Company LLC (PIMCO), a global fixed income investment firm. PNI invests primarily in investment-grade municipal obligations issued by or on behalf of the state of New York, its municipalities and related public authorities.

The funds portfolio is constructed with a focus on New York state general obligation and revenue bonds, including transportation, education, healthcare and utility-backed securities.

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AlTi Global Inc. lowered its stake in Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:UBER  Free Report) by 21.6% during the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 402,166 shares of the ride-sharing companys stock after selling 111,043 shares during the period. Uber Technologies accounts for 0.9% of AlTi Global Inc.s holdings, making the stock its 21st largest holding. AlTi Global Inc.s holdings in Uber Technologies were worth $39,400,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Several other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of UBER. Kilter Group LLC bought a new stake in Uber Technologies during the 2nd quarter worth $26,000. Westend Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Uber Technologies during the third quarter valued at about $27,000. Trust Co. of Toledo NA OH bought a new stake in shares of Uber Technologies during the second quarter worth about $30,000. Total Investment Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Uber Technologies in the second quarter valued at approximately $32,000. Finally, Pilgrim Partners Asia Pte Ltd acquired a new position in shares of Uber Technologies in the third quarter valued at approximately $34,000. 80.24% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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Uber Technologies Price Performance

Shares of NYSE UBER opened at $73.93 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $153.61 billion, a PE ratio of 15.70, a P/E/G ratio of 6.32 and a beta of 1.21. The company has a quick ratio of 1.15, a current ratio of 1.14 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.38. Uber Technologies, Inc. has a twelve month low of $60.63 and a twelve month high of $101.99. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $82.82 and a 200 day simple moving average of $89.58.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Uber Technologies ( NYSE:UBER Get Free Report ) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 4th. The ride-sharing company reported $0.71 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.79 by ($0.08). Uber Technologies had a net margin of 19.33% and a return on equity of 43.63%. The firm had revenue of $14.37 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $14.32 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $3.21 EPS. The businesss revenue was up 20.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Uber Technologies has set its Q1 2026 guidance at 0.650-0.720 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Uber Technologies, Inc. will post 2.54 EPS for the current year.

Several research firms recently commented on UBER. Wells Fargo & Company cut their target price on shares of Uber Technologies from $122.00 to $100.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. Morgan Stanley dropped their price target on shares of Uber Technologies from $110.00 to $100.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research note on Thursday. DA Davidson boosted their price objective on shares of Uber Technologies from $102.00 to $108.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 5th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft restated a buy rating and issued a $108.00 price objective on shares of Uber Technologies in a report on Wednesday, October 29th. Finally, KeyCorp cut their target price on Uber Technologies from $110.00 to $105.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, January 20th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-three have issued a Buy rating, seven have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Uber Technologies currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $104.89.

Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on Uber Technologies

Key Stories Impacting Uber Technologies

Here are the key news stories impacting Uber Technologies this week:

Insider Activity

In related news, insider Tony West sold 3,125 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $83.50, for a total transaction of $260,937.50. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 176,584 shares of the companys stock, valued at $14,744,764. This trade represents a 1.74% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CFO Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah sold 5,500 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $94.41, for a total value of $519,255.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 20,330 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,919,355.30. This trade represents a 21.29% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 14,875 shares of company stock worth $1,319,130. 3.70% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Uber Technologies Profile

(Free Report)

Uber Technologies, Inc is a technology company that operates a global platform connecting riders, drivers, couriers, restaurants and shippers. Founded in 2009 by Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick and headquartered in San Francisco, Uber developed one of the first large-scale ride-hailing marketplaces and has since expanded into a broader set of mobility and logistics services. The company completed its initial public offering in 2019 and continues to position its app-based network as a multi-modal transportation and delivery platform.

Ubers principal businesses include mobility services (ride-hailing and shared rides), delivery through Uber Eats, and freight logistics via Uber Freight.

Further Reading

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Shares of Aegon NV (NYSE:AEG  Get Free Report) have been given an average rating of Moderate Buy by the seven ratings firms that are covering the company, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company.

AEG has been the subject of several research analyst reports. UBS Group cut shares of Aegon from a buy rating to a neutral rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 3rd. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Aegon from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Saturday, January 31st. Weiss Ratings reiterated a buy (b) rating on shares of Aegon in a research note on Monday, December 29th. Zacks Research downgraded Aegon from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 28th. Finally, Morgan Stanley restated an overweight rating on shares of Aegon in a research note on Friday, January 9th.

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Read Our Latest Stock Report on AEG

Aegon Stock Up 0.6%

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Shares of NYSE AEG opened at $7.93 on Tuesday. Aegon has a 12 month low of $5.42 and a 12 month high of $8.15. The company has a market cap of $15.91 billion, a P/E ratio of -49.56, a P/E/G ratio of 0.22 and a beta of 0.79. The businesss 50 day moving average is $7.71 and its two-hundred day moving average is $7.65.

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. CWM LLC raised its stake in shares of Aegon by 87.2% in the 3rd quarter. CWM LLC now owns 5,767 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $46,000 after buying an additional 2,687 shares in the last quarter. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust increased its stake in Aegon by 299.5% in the third quarter. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust now owns 7,410 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $59,000 after acquiring an additional 5,555 shares during the period. Independence Bank of Kentucky bought a new stake in Aegon in the third quarter valued at about $64,000. Earned Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Aegon in the second quarter worth about $74,000. Finally, Vestmark Advisory Solutions Inc. bought a new position in Aegon during the second quarter worth about $74,000. 4.32% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Aegon Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Aegon N.V. is a multinational financial services company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands, specializing in life insurance, pensions and asset management. Established in 1983 through the merger of AGO and Ennia, Aegon has built a reputation for offering retirement solutions, savings products and protection plans aimed at helping customers secure their financial futures. The company operates under well-known brands, including Transamerica in the United States, and serves both individual and corporate clients.

Throughout its history, Aegon has pursued strategic acquisitions and partnerships to strengthen its market position and broaden its service offerings.

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SVB Wealth LLC lifted its position in shares of iShares Intermediate Government/Credit Bond ETF (BATS:GVI  Free Report) by 21.1% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 65,328 shares of the companys stock after acquiring an additional 11,364 shares during the quarter. SVB Wealth LLCs holdings in iShares Intermediate Government/Credit Bond ETF were worth $7,019,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Flow Traders U.S. LLC bought a new stake in iShares Intermediate Government/Credit Bond ETF in the 2nd quarter valued at about $7,283,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its position in iShares Intermediate Government/Credit Bond ETF by 3.5% during the second quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 582,293 shares of the companys stock worth $62,183,000 after purchasing an additional 19,637 shares during the period. Horizon Bancorp Inc. IN increased its stake in shares of iShares Intermediate Government/Credit Bond ETF by 6.9% in the third quarter. Horizon Bancorp Inc. IN now owns 286,189 shares of the companys stock worth $30,747,000 after purchasing an additional 18,437 shares in the last quarter. Oarsman Capital Inc. raised its position in shares of iShares Intermediate Government/Credit Bond ETF by 4.1% in the second quarter. Oarsman Capital Inc. now owns 322,816 shares of the companys stock valued at $34,474,000 after purchasing an additional 12,715 shares during the period. Finally, Bank of New Hampshire raised its position in shares of iShares Intermediate Government/Credit Bond ETF by 14.3% in the third quarter. Bank of New Hampshire now owns 90,060 shares of the companys stock valued at $9,676,000 after purchasing an additional 11,291 shares during the period.

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iShares Intermediate Government/Credit Bond ETF Stock Up 0.0%

GVI opened at $107.42 on Tuesday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $107.36 and a 200 day moving average of $107.33. iShares Intermediate Government/Credit Bond ETF has a 12 month low of $104.02 and a 12 month high of $108.07.

About iShares Intermediate Government/Credit Bond ETF

The iShares Intermediate Government\u002FCredit Bond ETF (GVI) is an exchange-traded fund that mostly invests in investment grade fixed income. The fund tracks a market-value-weighted index of US Treasury, agency and investment-grade corporate bonds with remaining maturities of 1-10 years. GVI was launched on Jan 5, 2007 and is managed by BlackRock.

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Kilroy Realty (NYSE:KRC  Get Free Report) updated its FY 2026 earnings guidance on Monday. The company provided EPS guidance of 3.250-3.450 for the period, compared to the consensus EPS estimate of 1.900. The company issued revenue guidance of -.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

KRC has been the topic of a number of research reports. Scotiabank lowered their price target on Kilroy Realty from $47.00 to $42.00 and set a sector perform rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 14th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a hold (c+) rating on shares of Kilroy Realty in a research report on Monday, December 29th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reissued a hold rating and issued a $35.00 target price on shares of Kilroy Realty in a report on Tuesday, January 6th. KeyCorp restated a sector weight rating on shares of Kilroy Realty in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. Finally, Evercore lowered their price objective on shares of Kilroy Realty from $47.00 to $46.00 and set an in-line rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, November 14th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating, twelve have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Kilroy Realty currently has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $40.92.

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Kilroy Realty Price Performance

Shares of NYSE KRC opened at $34.51 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81, a quick ratio of 2.56 and a current ratio of 2.56. Kilroy Realty has a one year low of $27.07 and a one year high of $45.03. The firm has a market capitalization of $4.08 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.73 and a beta of 1.10. The companys fifty day moving average is $37.84 and its two-hundred day moving average is $39.94.

Kilroy Realty (NYSE:KRC  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Monday, February 9th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.10 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.98 by ($0.88). Kilroy Realty had a net margin of 28.68% and a return on equity of 5.75%. The company had revenue of $272.19 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $270.21 million. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $1.20 EPS. The firms revenue for the quarter was down 5.0% on a year-over-year basis. Kilroy Realty has set its FY 2026 guidance at 3.250-3.450 EPS. Analysts forecast that Kilroy Realty will post 4 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Kilroy Realty Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 7th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, December 31st were paid a dividend of $0.54 per share. This represents a $2.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 6.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, December 31st. Kilroy Realtys dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 79.70%.

More Kilroy Realty News

Here are the key news stories impacting Kilroy Realty this week:

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. State Street Corp raised its holdings in shares of Kilroy Realty by 1.2% in the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 5,841,917 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $203,514,000 after purchasing an additional 67,546 shares during the period. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. increased its position in Kilroy Realty by 0.4% during the 3rd quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 3,578,185 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $151,178,000 after purchasing an additional 15,193 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp increased its position in Kilroy Realty by 3.8% during the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 3,149,816 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $133,080,000 after purchasing an additional 115,047 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its position in Kilroy Realty by 0.9% during the third quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,639,596 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $69,274,000 after buying an additional 13,864 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP acquired a new position in Kilroy Realty during the third quarter valued at approximately $58,948,000. 94.22% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Kilroy Realty

(Get Free Report)

Kilroy Realty Corporation (NYSE: KRC) is a publicly traded real estate investment trust focused on the development, acquisition and management of high?quality office and mixed?use properties along the U.S. West Coast. The companys portfolio encompasses major urban markets including Los Angeles, San Diego, the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle. Kilroy Realty targets properties in transit?oriented submarkets, blending workplace space with retail, residential and hospitality amenities to create vibrant, walkable neighborhoods.

Founded in the mid?20th century by members of the Kilroy family, the company evolved from a regional landlord into one of the leading West Coast office landlords.

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Despite strong revenue growth, the quarter's growth was not as exciting as expected, raising questions about market conditions and economic factors affecting performance.

The company's share dilution over the past five years has raised concerns among investors about equity dilution.

There was a noticeable increase in SG&A expenses, attributed to capacity building and global events, which affected margins.

The number of deals won in the quarter was the lowest in eight quarters, which could indicate challenges in deal closures.

Profit after tax for Q3 was impacted by a one-time gratuity provision and deferred tax, reducing profitability.

The company's cash position improved significantly, with a 49% year-on-year increase, enhancing its financial stability and liquidity.

The company reported a robust 37% year-on-year growth in license-linked revenue, showcasing the effectiveness of its business model.

Intellect Design Arena Ltd ( BOM:538835 ) achieved a significant milestone with its LTM total income surpassing INR3,000 crore for the first time, marking a 23% year-on-year growth.

For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript .

Story Continues

Q & A Highlights

Q: How is Anthropic AI Claude impacting Intellect Design Arena's operations in the US BFSI sector? A: Manish Maakan, CEO of Wholesale Banking, explained that Intellect's Purple Fabric platform optimizes the right LLM for each use case, so they don't see Anthropic Claude as direct competition. Intellect focuses on orchestrating AI-first products end-to-end for financial services, which is distinct from what Claude offers.

Q: What is the revenue outlook for Purple Fabric for the current fiscal year? A: Vishwanath Prabhu, CEO of Intellect AI, confirmed that they are on track to achieve the INR200 crore revenue target for Purple Fabric by the end of the fiscal year.

Q: Can you explain the increase in SG&A expenses this quarter? A: Vasudha Subramaniam, CFO, noted that the increase in SG&A was due to planned investments in market distribution and capacity building, which are aligned with their growth strategy.

Q: How does Intellect Design Arena plan to maintain its competitive edge in AI-led banking technology against Indian competitors? A: Vishwanath Prabhu highlighted that Intellect's differentiation lies in its comprehensive Purple Fabric stack, which includes a robust ethical AI governance framework. This positions them uniquely compared to competitors who may only offer isolated use cases or SI work.

Q: What are the strategic themes driving Intellect Design Arena's growth? A: Manish Maakan outlined five strategic themes: leveraging the eMACH.ai platform, multiple growth engines (wholesale banking, consumer banking, Intellect AI), market diversification, mainframe to cloud migration, and risk absorption through a balanced portfolio approach.

For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript.
RFG Advisory LLC lowered its position in Capital Group Dividend Value ETF (NYSEARCA:CGDV  Free Report) by 20.0% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 137,463 shares of the companys stock after selling 34,469 shares during the period. RFG Advisory LLCs holdings in Capital Group Dividend Value ETF were worth $5,778,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Washington Trust Advisors Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Capital Group Dividend Value ETF in the second quarter worth about $29,000. FNY Investment Advisers LLC acquired a new position in shares of Capital Group Dividend Value ETF in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $35,000. Banco de Sabadell S.A acquired a new position in shares of Capital Group Dividend Value ETF in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $47,000. MassMutual Private Wealth & Trust FSB increased its stake in Capital Group Dividend Value ETF by 38,200.0% during the 3rd quarter. MassMutual Private Wealth & Trust FSB now owns 1,149 shares of the companys stock worth $48,000 after purchasing an additional 1,146 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Trust Co. of Vermont raised its holdings in Capital Group Dividend Value ETF by 83.0% during the 3rd quarter. Trust Co. of Vermont now owns 1,347 shares of the companys stock worth $57,000 after buying an additional 611 shares during the period.

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Capital Group Dividend Value ETF Stock Performance

Shares of CGDV opened at $45.64 on Tuesday. The firm has a market cap of $29.15 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.59 and a beta of 0.89. Capital Group Dividend Value ETF has a twelve month low of $30.94 and a twelve month high of $45.75. The firms 50 day moving average price is $44.15 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $42.72.

Capital Group Dividend Value ETF Increases Dividend

Capital Group Dividend Value ETF Company Profile

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 29th. Investors of record on Friday, December 26th were given a $0.1928 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, December 26th. This represents a $0.77 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.7%. This is an increase from Capital Group Dividend Value ETFs previous quarterly dividend of $0.14.

(Free Report)

The Capital Group Dividend Value ETF (CGDV) is an exchange-traded fund that mostly invests in total market equity. The fund is an actively managed fund that primarily invests in stocks of dividend-paying, large- and mid-cap US companies. The fund seeks to produce income exceeding the average yield on US stocks. CGDV was launched on Feb 22, 2022 and is managed by Capital Group.

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Shares of Gildan Activewear Inc. (TSE:GIL  Get Free Report) (NYSE:GIL) have received an average recommendation of Buy from the seven research firms that are covering the stock, MarketBeat reports. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, three have assigned a buy recommendation and two have assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 1-year target price among brokers that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is C$81.75.

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on GIL shares. National Bankshares upped their price objective on shares of Gildan Activewear from C$91.00 to C$92.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Thursday, October 23rd. Citigroup lowered shares of Gildan Activewear from a buy rating to a neutral rating and upped their price target for the company from C$60.00 to C$63.00 in a research note on Monday, October 20th. Desjardins set a C$95.00 price objective on shares of Gildan Activewear and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Friday, December 19th. Finally, TD Securities boosted their price objective on shares of Gildan Activewear from C$74.00 to C$77.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Tuesday, January 27th.

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Gildan Activewear Price Performance

TSE GIL opened at C$98.33 on Tuesday. The firms fifty day simple moving average is C$87.36 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is C$81.64. The firm has a market capitalization of C$18.21 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.62, a P/E/G ratio of 4.55 and a beta of 1.41. The company has a current ratio of 2.31, a quick ratio of 0.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 101.26. Gildan Activewear has a 12-month low of C$52.77 and a 12-month high of C$99.00.

Gildan Activewear (TSE:GIL  Get Free Report) (NYSE:GIL) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 29th. The company reported C$1.00 earnings per share for the quarter. Gildan Activewear had a return on equity of 23.10% and a net margin of 13.05%.The firm had revenue of C$1.27 billion during the quarter. Analysts forecast that Gildan Activewear will post 4.5460385 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Gildan Activewear Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 15th. Investors of record on Monday, December 15th were issued a $0.226 dividend. This represents a $0.90 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.9%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, November 19th. Gildan Activewears dividend payout ratio is 28.39%.

About Gildan Activewear

(Get Free Report)

Gildan is a leading manufacturer of everyday basic apparel. The Companys product offering includes activewear, underwear, socks, and intimates sold to a broad range of customers, including wholesale distributors, screenprinters, embellishers, retailers or e-commerce platforms, as well as global lifestyle brand companies. Gildan markets its products in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America, under a diversified portfolio of Company-owned brands including Gildan, Hanes, Comfort Colors, American Apparel, ALLPRO, GOLDTOE, Peds, Bali, Playtex, Maidenform, Bonds, as well as Champion which is under an exclusive licensing agreement for the printwear channel in the U.S.

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Hillenbrand (NYSE:HI  Get Free Report) issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday. The company reported ($0.03) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.63 by ($0.66), FiscalAI reports. Hillenbrand had a net margin of 1.61% and a return on equity of 12.69%. The company had revenue of $540.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $607.10 million.

Hillenbrand Stock Up 0.0%

Shares of NYSE:HI opened at $31.99 on Tuesday. The companys fifty day moving average is $31.82 and its 200-day moving average is $28.73. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.05, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a current ratio of 1.22. Hillenbrand has a 52 week low of $18.36 and a 52 week high of $35.48. The company has a market capitalization of $2.26 billion, a PE ratio of 52.44 and a beta of 1.40.

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Hillenbrand Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, December 31st. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, December 16th were issued a dividend of $0.2275 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, December 16th. This is a boost from Hillenbrands previous quarterly dividend of $0.23. This represents a $0.91 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.8%. Hillenbrands dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 149.18%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Hillenbrand

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in HI. CIBC Bancorp USA Inc. bought a new stake in Hillenbrand during the third quarter worth about $204,000. Voloridge Investment Management LLC grew its position in Hillenbrand by 1.0% during the 3rd quarter. Voloridge Investment Management LLC now owns 266,222 shares of the companys stock worth $7,199,000 after acquiring an additional 2,659 shares during the last quarter. Verition Fund Management LLC grew its position in Hillenbrand by 23.0% during the 3rd quarter. Verition Fund Management LLC now owns 48,352 shares of the companys stock worth $1,307,000 after acquiring an additional 9,055 shares during the last quarter. Verity Asset Management Inc. increased its holdings in Hillenbrand by 9.8% during the 3rd quarter. Verity Asset Management Inc. now owns 12,600 shares of the companys stock valued at $341,000 after purchasing an additional 1,128 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Millennium Management LLC raised its position in Hillenbrand by 78.2% in the 3rd quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 114,683 shares of the companys stock valued at $3,101,000 after purchasing an additional 50,332 shares during the last quarter. 89.09% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

A number of research firms have issued reports on HI. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a hold (c) rating on shares of Hillenbrand in a report on Monday, December 29th. DA Davidson reaffirmed a neutral rating and issued a $32.00 price target on shares of Hillenbrand in a report on Thursday, November 20th. Finally, CJS Securities reissued a market perform rating and set a $32.00 price objective on shares of Hillenbrand in a report on Thursday, October 16th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a Hold rating, According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $32.00.

Read Our Latest Analysis on Hillenbrand

About Hillenbrand

(Get Free Report)

Hillenbrand, Inc, headquartered in Batesville, Indiana, is a global industrial company specializing in engineered equipment and process solutions. Through its Coperion division, Hillenbrand designs and manufactures compounding and extrusion systems, polymer and food processing equipment, bulk material handling technologies and associated automation. These offerings support a variety of end markets, including plastics, chemicals, food, pharmaceutical and minerals, helping customers optimize production efficiency and product quality.

Tracing its roots to the Batesville Casket Company founded in 1906, the organization evolved through strategic acquisitions and expanded its focus on process technologies.

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Shares of Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FICO  Get Free Report) have received an average recommendation of Moderate Buy from the fifteen research firms that are presently covering the stock, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 12-month price objective among brokerages that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $2,071.4286.

Several analysts have commented on the stock. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price target on shares of Fair Isaac from $2,100.00 to $2,200.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Friday, January 16th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a hold (c+) rating on shares of Fair Isaac in a research report on Monday, December 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group cut their price target on Fair Isaac from $2,070.00 to $1,777.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a report on Monday, February 2nd. Oppenheimer downgraded shares of Fair Isaac from an outperform rating to a market perform rating in a research note on Monday, October 13th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC restated a buy rating and set a $1,975.00 price objective on shares of Fair Isaac in a research report on Thursday, January 29th.

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Insider Activity

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Fair Isaac

In other news, Director Eva Manolis sold 521 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Friday, December 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $1,825.83, for a total value of $951,257.43. Following the sale, the director directly owned 344 shares of the companys stock, valued at $628,085.52. This represents a 60.23% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website . Also, CFO Steven P. Weber sold 1,426 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Wednesday, December 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $1,810.00, for a total transaction of $2,581,060.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 2,804 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,075,240. The trade was a 33.71% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. 3.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Heartland Bank & Trust Co increased its holdings in shares of Fair Isaac by 1.3% in the third quarter. Heartland Bank & Trust Co now owns 464 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $694,000 after purchasing an additional 6 shares during the last quarter. GW&K Investment Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Fair Isaac by 4.6% in the 3rd quarter. GW&K Investment Management LLC now owns 136 shares of the technology companys stock worth $204,000 after acquiring an additional 6 shares during the last quarter. Great Lakes Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Fair Isaac by 5.7% during the 1st quarter. Great Lakes Advisors LLC now owns 112 shares of the technology companys stock worth $207,000 after acquiring an additional 6 shares during the period. Capital Investment Advisory Services LLC boosted its position in shares of Fair Isaac by 1.9% during the 4th quarter. Capital Investment Advisory Services LLC now owns 367 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $620,000 after acquiring an additional 7 shares during the last quarter. Finally, San Luis Wealth Advisors LLC grew its holdings in shares of Fair Isaac by 2.8% in the third quarter. San Luis Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 253 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $379,000 after purchasing an additional 7 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 85.75% of the companys stock.

Fair Isaac Stock Down 1.6%

NYSE:FICO opened at $1,350.69 on Tuesday. The stock has a market cap of $32.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 50.63, a PEG ratio of 1.41 and a beta of 1.27. The companys 50 day moving average price is $1,636.05 and its 200-day moving average price is $1,597.83. Fair Isaac has a 52 week low of $1,284.30 and a 52 week high of $2,217.60.

Fair Isaac (NYSE:FICO  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 28th. The technology company reported $7.33 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $7.08 by $0.25. Fair Isaac had a negative return on equity of 40.98% and a net margin of 31.89%.The company had revenue of $766.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $501.05 million. During the same period last year, the company earned $5.79 EPS. Fair Isaacs revenue for the quarter was up 16.4% on a year-over-year basis. Fair Isaac has set its FY 2026 guidance at 38.170-38.170 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Fair Isaac will post 24.15 earnings per share for the current year.

About Fair Isaac

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Fair Isaac Corporation, commonly known as FICO, is a data analytics and software company best known for its FICO Score, a widely used credit-scoring system that helps lenders assess consumer credit risk. Founded in 1956 by Bill Fair and Earl Isaac, the company has evolved from its origins in statistical credit scoring to a broader focus on predictive analytics, decision management and artificial intelligence-driven solutions for financial services and other industries. FICO is headquartered in San Jose, California, and operates globally, serving clients across North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region.

FICOs product portfolio centers on analytics and decisioning technologies.

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Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son Limited (The) (NYSE:NTB  Get Free Report) declared a quarterly dividend on Monday, February 9th. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 23rd will be given a dividend of 0.50 per share by the bank on Monday, March 9th. This represents a c) annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.7%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, February 23rd.

Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son has increased its dividend by an average of 0.3%per year over the last three years. Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son has a payout ratio of 38.0% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son to earn $4.85 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.00 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 41.2%.

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Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son Stock Up 1.2%

NTB opened at $54.06 on Tuesday. The firms fifty day simple moving average is $50.67 and its 200 day simple moving average is $46.66. Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son has a 12 month low of $34.85 and a 12 month high of $54.00.

Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son ( NYSE:NTB Get Free Report ) last announced its earnings results on Monday, February 9th. The bank reported $1.54 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.46 by $0.08. The business had revenue of $158.90 million during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $153.49 million. Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son had a net margin of 28.27% and a return on equity of 21.94%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.34 earnings per share. On average, research analysts predict that Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son will post 4.4 earnings per share for the current year.

Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son declared that its board has approved a share repurchase program on Monday, December 8th that allows the company to buyback $140.00 million in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the bank to repurchase up to 6% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually an indication that the companys board believes its shares are undervalued.

About Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son

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Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son Limited, commonly known as Butterfield, is a Bermuda-based provider of banking and wealth management services. Founded in 1858, the firm has grown from a local colonial bank into an international financial institution. With a focus on personalized client service, Butterfield offers a comprehensive suite of banking and fiduciary solutions to private individuals, families, and corporate clients.

The banks core activities include private banking, retail and commercial lending, trust and corporate administration, and fund services.

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Graham (NYSE:GHM  Get Free Report) was upgraded by investment analysts at Northland Securities from a market perform rating to an outperform rating in a report released on Tuesday.

GHM has been the topic of a number of other reports. Weiss Ratings raised Graham from a hold (c+) rating to a buy (b-) rating in a research note on Friday. Noble Financial cut shares of Graham from an outperform rating to a market perform rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 21st. Finally, Wall Street Zen raised shares of Graham from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research report on Sunday, November 16th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Graham presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $72.50.

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Graham Trading Up 3.3%

GHM stock opened at $87.90 on Tuesday. Graham has a 52 week low of $24.78 and a 52 week high of $87.95. The company has a market cap of $965.97 million, a P/E ratio of 65.24 and a beta of 0.92. The companys 50-day moving average price is $68.73 and its 200 day moving average price is $59.66.

Graham (NYSE:GHM  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Friday, February 6th. The industrial products company reported $0.31 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.17 by $0.14. Graham had a return on equity of 13.47% and a net margin of 6.28%.The business had revenue of $56.70 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $52.36 million. On average, equities research analysts expect that Graham will post 1.07 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Graham

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of GHM. Auto Owners Insurance Co lifted its position in Graham by 4.8% during the 2nd quarter. Auto Owners Insurance Co now owns 11,000 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $545,000 after acquiring an additional 500 shares in the last quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. raised its stake in shares of Graham by 130.5% during the second quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 1,178 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $58,000 after purchasing an additional 667 shares during the period. Cornerstone Investment Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of Graham during the second quarter worth $215,000. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Graham by 30.2% in the second quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 21,410 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $1,060,000 after purchasing an additional 4,965 shares during the period. Finally, Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. grew its holdings in Graham by 209.5% during the 2nd quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 8,366 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $414,000 after purchasing an additional 5,663 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 69.46% of the companys stock.

Graham Company Profile

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Graham Corporation (NYSE: GHM) is a U.S.-based industrial engineering company that designs, manufactures and services vacuum and heat transfer equipment. Its core offerings include liquid ring vacuum pumps, surface condensers, heat exchangers and custom-engineered vacuum systems. These products play a critical role in energy-intensive industries, where reliable removal of non-condensable gases and efficient heat exchange are vital to process performance.

The companys technologies find application across a range of end markets, including power generation, petrochemical, oil and gas, LNG, and semiconductor manufacturing.

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Candriam S.C.A. lowered its stake in shares of Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT  Free Report) by 12.0% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 32,639 shares of the industrial products companys stock after selling 4,471 shares during the quarter. Candriam S.C.A.s holdings in Caterpillar were worth $15,574,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of CAT. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Caterpillar during the second quarter worth $2,165,899,000. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA raised its stake in Caterpillar by 1,851.8% in the 3rd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 1,830,414 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $873,382,000 after acquiring an additional 1,736,631 shares during the last quarter. Marshall Wace LLP lifted its position in Caterpillar by 425.2% during the 2nd quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 761,800 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $295,738,000 after acquiring an additional 616,739 shares during the period. Bank of New York Mellon Corp grew its stake in Caterpillar by 20.7% during the 3rd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 3,553,930 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $1,695,757,000 after purchasing an additional 609,023 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Voya Investment Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Caterpillar by 36.9% in the third quarter. Voya Investment Management LLC now owns 1,777,589 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $848,177,000 after purchasing an additional 478,972 shares during the period. 70.98% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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Analyst Ratings Changes

CAT has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Raymond James Financial reiterated a market perform rating on shares of Caterpillar in a research report on Wednesday, January 7th. Argus lifted their price objective on shares of Caterpillar from $460.00 to $625.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 19th. Robert W. Baird set a $805.00 price objective on shares of Caterpillar in a report on Friday, January 30th. Oppenheimer raised their target price on shares of Caterpillar from $700.00 to $729.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Friday, January 30th. Finally, Truist Financial upped their price target on shares of Caterpillar from $729.00 to $786.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Monday, February 2nd. Sixteen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $690.90.

Insider Activity at Caterpillar

In other Caterpillar news, CFO Andrew R. J. Bonfield sold 10,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, December 31st. The stock was sold at an average price of $575.06, for a total transaction of $5,750,600.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 45,460 shares in the company, valued at approximately $26,142,227.60. The trade was a 18.03% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider Denise C. Johnson sold 39,138 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $681.08, for a total value of $26,656,109.04. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 43,350 shares in the company, valued at approximately $29,524,818. This trade represents a 47.45% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 130,545 shares of company stock worth $88,294,733 in the last quarter. Company insiders own 0.33% of the companys stock.

Caterpillar Trading Up 2.2%

CAT stock opened at $742.51 on Tuesday. Caterpillar Inc. has a 52-week low of $267.30 and a 52-week high of $743.50. The company has a quick ratio of 0.94, a current ratio of 1.44 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.44. The firm has a market cap of $347.48 billion, a P/E ratio of 39.45, a PEG ratio of 1.72 and a beta of 1.58. The companys 50-day simple moving average is $620.65 and its 200-day simple moving average is $532.69.

Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The industrial products company reported $5.16 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $4.67 by $0.49. The company had revenue of $19.13 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.81 billion. Caterpillar had a return on equity of 45.76% and a net margin of 13.14%.Caterpillars revenue for the quarter was up 17.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $5.14 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Caterpillar Inc. will post 19.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Caterpillar Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, February 19th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, January 20th will be paid a dividend of $1.51 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, January 20th. This represents a $6.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.8%. Caterpillars payout ratio is currently 32.09%.

Caterpillar Profile

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Caterpillar Inc is a global manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines and locomotives. The companys product portfolio includes earthmoving machines such as excavators, bulldozers, wheel loaders and off?highway trucks, as well as a range of power generation products including generator sets and power systems for industrial and commercial use. Caterpillar serves customers across heavy construction, mining, energy, transportation and related industries with both equipment and integrated technology solutions.

In addition to manufacturing, Caterpillar provides a broad range of aftermarket parts and support services, including maintenance, repair, remanufacturing and fleet management tools.

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Cantor Fitzgerald upgraded shares of Jumia Technologies (NYSE:JMIA  Free Report) to a strong-buy rating in a research note issued to investors on Monday morning,Zacks.com reports.

Several other research analysts have also commented on the company. Craig Hallum began coverage on Jumia Technologies in a research report on Tuesday, December 16th. They set a buy rating and a $18.00 price target on the stock. Benchmark initiated coverage on shares of Jumia Technologies in a report on Tuesday, November 25th. They issued a buy rating and a $18.00 target price on the stock. Finally, Weiss Ratings reiterated a sell (e+) rating on shares of Jumia Technologies in a research report on Thursday, January 22nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have assigned a Buy rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $17.25.

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Jumia Technologies Price Performance

JMIA traded down $1.96 on Monday, reaching $10.32. The company had a trading volume of 3,365,999 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,939,599. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24, a current ratio of 1.20 and a quick ratio of 1.12. Jumia Technologies has a 1 year low of $1.60 and a 1 year high of $14.72. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $12.65 and a 200-day moving average price of $10.74.

Jumia Technologies (NYSE:JMIA  Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, February 10th. The company reported ($0.08) EPS for the quarter. Jumia Technologies had a negative return on equity of 116.72% and a negative net margin of 40.86%.The firm had revenue of $61.40 million for the quarter.

Institutional Trading of Jumia Technologies

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. one8zero8 LLC acquired a new position in shares of Jumia Technologies during the third quarter worth about $1,611,000. Marex Group plc purchased a new stake in Jumia Technologies in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $342,000. Truist Financial Corp acquired a new position in Jumia Technologies during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $73,000. SBI Securities Co. Ltd. raised its stake in shares of Jumia Technologies by 18.1% during the 3rd quarter. SBI Securities Co. Ltd. now owns 465,846 shares of the companys stock worth $5,408,000 after buying an additional 71,254 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Ritholtz Wealth Management acquired a new stake in shares of Jumia Technologies in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $53,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 16.50% of the companys stock.

About Jumia Technologies

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Jumia Technologies AG (NYSE: JMIA) operates as a leading e-commerce and technology platform in Africa, facilitating online retail, logistics and digital payments. The companys marketplace connects millions of consumers with a diverse array of sellers offering electronics, fashion, home goods, groceries and more. Beyond its core retail services, Jumia has developed JumiaPay, a payment solution that enables secure transactions both on and off its platform, and Jumia Logistics, which provides end-to-end delivery and fulfillment support across the continent.

Jumia serves a broad geographic footprint in Africa, with operations in key markets such as Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Ghana, Cote dIvoire, Uganda, Tunisia and South Africa.

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CoastalSouth Bancshares, Inc. (NYSE:COSO  Get Free Report) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, February 12th will be given a dividend of 0.05 per share on Thursday, February 26th. This represents a c) dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.8%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 12th.

CoastalSouth Bancshares Trading Up 0.2%

Shares of NYSE COSO traded up $0.06 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, reaching $25.46. 13,002 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 87,021. CoastalSouth Bancshares has a twelve month low of $19.24 and a twelve month high of $25.90. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10, a current ratio of 0.92 and a quick ratio of 0.80. The stock has a market capitalization of $305.01 million and a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.07. The firms fifty day moving average is $23.82.

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CoastalSouth Bancshares (NYSE:COSO  Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, January 20th. The company reported $0.58 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.62 by ($0.04). The business had revenue of $22.16 million for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $22.30 million.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts have recently commented on COSO shares. Zacks Research upgraded CoastalSouth Bancshares from a strong sell rating to a hold rating in a report on Friday, January 2nd. Wall Street Zen raised CoastalSouth Bancshares from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research report on Saturday, January 10th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a buy (b) rating on shares of CoastalSouth Bancshares in a research report on Thursday, January 22nd. Finally, Piper Sandler lifted their price objective on shares of CoastalSouth Bancshares from $27.00 to $29.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Thursday, February 5th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, CoastalSouth Bancshares presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $29.00.

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CoastalSouth Bancshares Company Profile

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CoastalSouth Bancshares, Inc is a bank holding company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Through our wholly owned subsidiary, Coastal States Bank, a South Carolina state-chartered commercial bank, we offer a full range of banking products and services designed for businesses, real estate professionals, and consumers looking for a deep and meaningful relationship with their bank. Today, we have a community banking presence in some of the fastest growing and most business-friendly markets in the U.S., namely the Lowcountry of South Carolina (Hilton Head Island, Bluffton, and Beaufort), nearby Savannah, Georgia, and the Atlanta, Georgia market.

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Antero Midstream Corporation (NYSE:AM  Get Free Report) shares hit a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The company traded as high as $20.20 and last traded at $20.0090, with a volume of 237201 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $19.74.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have weighed in on AM shares. Wall Street Zen lowered Antero Midstream from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Saturday, November 1st. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on shares of Antero Midstream from $19.00 to $20.00 and gave the company an underweight rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 12th. Zacks Research lowered shares of Antero Midstream from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Monday, February 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on Antero Midstream from $19.00 to $20.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 23rd. Finally, Weiss Ratings restated a buy (b+) rating on shares of Antero Midstream in a report on Monday, December 29th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating, three have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Antero Midstream presently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $19.17.

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Antero Midstream Stock Performance

Antero Midstream Announces Dividend

The firm has a 50 day moving average of $18.14 and a two-hundred day moving average of $18.13. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.46, a current ratio of 1.26 and a quick ratio of 1.26. The stock has a market cap of $9.57 billion, a PE ratio of 20.47 and a beta of 0.81.

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, February 11th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, January 28th will be issued a $0.225 dividend. This represents a $0.90 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.5%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, January 28th. Antero Midstreams payout ratio is currently 91.84%.

Insider Activity

In other Antero Midstream news, Director Brooks J. Klimley sold 5,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $17.59, for a total transaction of $87,950.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 72,622 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,277,420.98. The trade was a 6.44% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Insiders own 0.86% of the companys stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Antero Midstream

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Antero Midstream by 0.3% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 37,213,184 shares of the pipeline companys stock worth $723,424,000 after buying an additional 124,102 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Antero Midstream by 12.5% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 10,472,491 shares of the pipeline companys stock worth $186,328,000 after purchasing an additional 1,161,684 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its holdings in shares of Antero Midstream by 0.8% during the third quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 9,224,028 shares of the pipeline companys stock valued at $179,316,000 after acquiring an additional 71,606 shares during the period. Bank of New York Mellon Corp increased its stake in shares of Antero Midstream by 22.3% in the third quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 7,848,461 shares of the pipeline companys stock valued at $152,574,000 after purchasing an additional 1,430,138 shares during the period. Finally, Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Antero Midstream during the second quarter valued at about $80,504,000. 53.97% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Antero Midstream Company Profile

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Antero Midstream Corporation is a publicly traded midstream service provider that was established in 2014 as a spin-off from Antero Resources. Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, the company owns, operates and develops midstream infrastructure to support the gathering, compression, processing, transportation and storage of natural gas, natural gas liquids (NGLs) and crude oil. Antero Midstream plays a critical role in connecting upstream production in the Appalachian Basin to end-market pipelines and processing facilities.

The companys core operations include a network of gathering pipelines and compression stations that serve the Marcellus and Utica shale formations across West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

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Agnico Eagle Mines Limited (NYSE:AEM) is one of the stocks in focus on Jim Cramers game plan. Cramer commented that the company reflects all the good in the world, as he said:

Then there are two contrasting storied stocks that make terrific bookends for this segment, DraftKings and Agnico Eagle Agnico Eagle, on the other hand, reflects all the good in the world and then some as the second-largest gold miner on earth. This gold stock is so shiny, you need sunglasses just to look at it. Heres my advice: if you dont own any gold, bite the bullet and get some of this stock in, then wait for it to pull back. It will, but always own some gold, especially after we saw that Bitcoin isnt worth its weight in the precious metal, or perhaps maybe even anything.

Image by Csaba Nagy from Pixabay

Agnico Eagle Mines Limited (NYSE:AEM) is a gold mining company that explores for and produces precious metals, including gold, silver, zinc, and copper. Cramer discussed the company during the January 28 episode, as he commented:

So listen to me first about gold We just dont have enough of it. You think that with all the miners out there, the supply of gold will grow 2, 3, or 4% a year, right? Nope. The miners only grow the supply by 1%. They dont call it precious for nothing. Plus, most of the gold is in places that are, lets just say, not so great for doing business. I like Agnico Eagle, they were on the other night, second largest gold miner, because almost all of their gold is in Canada, a normal developed country. Now that gold has broken out above $5,400 an ounce, and Im telling you, it is not done yet Both Agnico Eagle and Barrack were up huge today. I would keep the gold. Im a gold bug from way back.

While we acknowledge the potential of AEM as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock.

READ NEXT: 30 Stocks That Should Double in 3 Years and 11 Hidden AI Stocks to Buy Right Now.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
Makita Corp. (OTCMKTS:MKTAY  Get Free Report)s share price hit a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The company traded as high as $39.88 and last traded at $39.88, with a volume of 24076 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $38.76.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

MKTAY has been the subject of a number of research reports. The Goldman Sachs Group downgraded shares of Makita from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 14th. Wall Street Zen upgraded Makita from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report on Saturday, January 31st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Makita has a consensus rating of Reduce.

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Makita Stock Up 2.9%

The stock has a fifty day moving average of $31.54 and a 200-day moving average of $32.00. The stock has a market capitalization of $10.55 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.11 and a beta of 0.53.

Makita (OTCMKTS:MKTAY  Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 29th. The company reported $0.46 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.43 by $0.03. Makita had a return on equity of 7.85% and a net margin of 9.96%.The business had revenue of $1.25 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.19 billion. On average, equities analysts forecast that Makita Corp. will post 1.56 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Makita Company Profile

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Makita Corporation (OTCMKTS:MKTAY) is a global manufacturer of professional and consumer power tools headquartered in Anj?, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. Founded in 1915 as an electric motor sales and repair company, it incorporated as Makita Electric Works, Ltd. in 1958 and has since expanded its product portfolio to serve both industrial and residential markets. The companys core business activities encompass the design, production and distribution of power tools, outdoor power equipment and accessories.

Makitas product lineup includes cordless and corded electric drills, drivers, saws, grinders, sanders and rotary hammers, as well as pneumatic and gasoline-powered machinery.

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Reinsurance Group of America (NYSE: RGA) recently received a number of ratings updates from brokerages and research firms:

2/7/2026  Reinsurance Group of America was upgraded by analysts at Wall Street Zen from a hold rating to a buy rating.

2/6/2026  Reinsurance Group of America had its overweight rating reaffirmed by analysts at Piper Sandler. They now have a $263.00 price target on the stock.

2/6/2026  Reinsurance Group of America was given a new $245.00 price target on by analysts at Barclays PLC. They now have an overweight rating on the stock.

1/28/2026  Reinsurance Group of America had its hold rating reaffirmed by analysts at TD Cowen.

1/13/2026  Reinsurance Group of America had its price target raised by analysts at Wells Fargo & Company from $237.00 to $238.00. They now have an overweight rating on the stock.

1/8/2026  Reinsurance Group of America was given a new $237.00 price target on by analysts at Barclays PLC.

12/29/2025  Reinsurance Group of America had its buy (b-) rating reaffirmed by analysts at Weiss Ratings.

12/23/2025  Reinsurance Group of America was upgraded by analysts at Weiss Ratings from a hold (c+) rating to a buy (b-) rating.

12/23/2025  Reinsurance Group of America had its price target raised by analysts at Piper Sandler from $220.00 to $230.00. They now have an overweight rating on the stock.

12/15/2025  Reinsurance Group of America was given a new $208.00 price target on by analysts at Morgan Stanley.

Reinsurance Group of America Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, March 3rd. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 17th will be paid a $0.93 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 17th. This represents a $3.72 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.7%. Reinsurance Group of Americas dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 20.96%.

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Reinsurance Group of America, Incorporated (NYSE: RGA) is a leading global provider of life and health reinsurance solutions. Headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, RGA partners with primary insurance companies to help them manage risk, improve capital efficiency and develop innovative products. The companys offerings span traditional risk transfer, financial solutions and facultative underwriting services, enabling clients to address a wide range of mortality, longevity, morbidity and critical-illness exposures.

RGAs product suite includes life reinsurance, living benefits reinsurance, structured reinsurance and financial solutions that support product innovation and capital management.

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iShares MSCI Japan ETF (NYSEARCA:EWJ  Get Free Report) was the recipient of some unusual options trading activity on Tuesday. Investors acquired 9,177 call options on the company. This is an increase of approximately 53% compared to the typical daily volume of 5,988 call options.

Institutional Trading of iShares MSCI Japan ETF

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. D.A. Davidson & CO. acquired a new position in shares of iShares MSCI Japan ETF in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $1,096,000. RoundAngle Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of iShares MSCI Japan ETF by 1.3% during the 2nd quarter. RoundAngle Advisors LLC now owns 25,737 shares of the exchange traded funds stock worth $1,930,000 after acquiring an additional 335 shares in the last quarter. Bfsg LLC acquired a new position in shares of iShares MSCI Japan ETF during the third quarter worth approximately $5,704,000. Global Retirement Partners LLC acquired a new position in iShares MSCI Japan ETF in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $516,000. Finally, Genesee Capital Advisors LLC grew its stake in iShares MSCI Japan ETF by 5.6% during the second quarter. Genesee Capital Advisors LLC now owns 14,150 shares of the exchange traded funds stock worth $1,061,000 after buying an additional 753 shares during the last quarter. 64.60% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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iShares MSCI Japan ETF Stock Up 2.0%

Shares of EWJ traded up $1.82 during trading hours on Tuesday, hitting $93.11. The company had a trading volume of 5,930,815 shares, compared to its average volume of 8,529,607. iShares MSCI Japan ETF has a 12 month low of $59.84 and a 12 month high of $93.57. The firm has a market cap of $18.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.63 and a beta of 0.68. The business has a fifty day moving average of $83.73 and a 200-day moving average of $81.59.

About iShares MSCI Japan ETF

iShares MSCI Japan ETF (the fund), formerly Ishares Msci Japan Index Fund, is an exchange-traded fund. The Fund seeks to provide investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance, before fees and expenses, of publicly traded securities in the Japanese market, as measured by the MSCI Japan Index (the Index). The Index consists of stocks traded primarily on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The Fund invests in a representative sample of securities included in the Index that collectively has an investment profile similar to the Index.

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Shares of Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. (NYSE:HVT.A  Get Free Report) reached a new 52-week high during trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $44.99 and last traded at $37.1150, with a volume of 298260 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $28.10.

Haverty Furniture Companies Stock Up 18.0%

The company has a market capitalization of $539.35 million, a PE ratio of 29.08 and a beta of 0.94. The companys 50 day moving average is $25.28 and its two-hundred day moving average is $23.43.

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Haverty Furniture Companies Company Profile

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Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc is a publicly traded real estate investment trust specializing in owning and managing retail and distribution properties for the furniture industry. Established in 2019 as a spin-off from Havertys Furniture Stores, Inc, the companys portfolio consists of strategically located facilitiesincluding showroom locations and distribution centersleased primarily to its former parent under long-term, net lease agreements. By focusing on single-tenant commercial real estate tailored to furniture retailing and logistics, Haverty Furniture Companies aims to deliver stable, predictable rental income and to support the growth of its tenants national retail network.

At the time of its formation, Haverty Furniture Companies acquired a mix of properties encompassing corporate distribution centers, regional distribution hubs and retail showrooms across several key markets in the Southeastern and Southwestern United States.

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Raiffeisen Bank International AG (OTCMKTS:RAIFY  Get Free Report) gapped up prior to trading on Tuesday . The stock had previously closed at $12.44, but opened at $13.47. Raiffeisen Bank International shares last traded at $13.47, with a volume of 2,913 shares changing hands.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, UBS Group raised shares of Raiffeisen Bank International from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 3rd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating and one has assigned a Hold rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of Buy.

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Raiffeisen Bank International Stock Performance

About Raiffeisen Bank International

The stocks fifty day simple moving average is $11.34 and its 200-day simple moving average is $9.64. The stock has a market cap of $17.41 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.63 and a beta of 1.10.

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Raiffeisen Bank International AG (RBI) is an Austrian banking group headquartered in Vienna, offering a diverse range of financial services. As a universal bank, RBI serves retail customers, small and medium-sized enterprises, and large corporates, with a particular focus on Central and Eastern Europe. The banks service portfolio encompasses everyday banking products, payment solutions, and digital services for individual clients, as well as cash management, trade finance, and structured lending for corporate and institutional customers.

In addition to traditional banking, RBI provides investment banking and capital markets services, including underwriting, debt and equity issuance, and advisory services.

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Shares of Salzgitter AG (OTCMKTS:SZGPY  Get Free Report) saw unusually-strong trading volume on Tuesday . Approximately 10,010 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, an increase of 289% from the previous sessions volume of 2,576 shares.The stock last traded at $6.12 and had previously closed at $6.13.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on SZGPY shares. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reiterated a buy rating on shares of Salzgitter in a research note on Thursday. Morgan Stanley reiterated an underweight rating on shares of Salzgitter in a report on Tuesday, January 6th. Citigroup restated a neutral rating on shares of Salzgitter in a report on Thursday, January 22nd. Oddo Bhf raised Salzgitter from an underperform rating to an outperform rating in a report on Monday, January 19th. Finally, Zacks Research raised Salzgitter from a strong sell rating to a hold rating in a report on Monday, October 13th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have assigned a Buy rating, four have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of Hold.

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Salzgitter Stock Up 2.5%

The stock has a 50 day moving average of $5.11 and a 200 day moving average of $3.75. The firm has a market cap of $3.38 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -15.62 and a beta of 1.41.

Salzgitter (OTCMKTS:SZGPY  Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Monday, November 10th. The basic materials company reported $0.09 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.05) by $0.14. The firm had revenue of $2.57 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.64 billion. Salzgitter had a negative net margin of 2.09% and a negative return on equity of 4.31%. As a group, analysts predict that Salzgitter AG will post -0.68 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salzgitter Company Profile

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Salzgitter AG is a leading European steel producer headquartered in Salzgitter, Germany. The company operates an integrated steelworks, encompassing ironmaking, steelmaking, continuous casting and rolling mills. Its core business revolves around the production and processing of steel products for various industries, including automotive, construction, mechanical engineering and energy.

Founded in 1937 as part of Germanys industrial expansion, Salzgitter evolved through post-war reconstruction and state ownership before being privatized in the late 1990s.

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Taylor Wimpey plc (LON:TW  Get Free Report) insider Chris Carney purchased 138 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 9th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of GBX 108 per share, for a total transaction of 149.04.

Chris Carney also recently made the following trade(s):

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On Thursday, January 8th, Chris Carney purchased 140 shares of Taylor Wimpey stock. The shares were acquired at an average price of GBX 108 per share, with a total value of 151.20.

On Monday, December 8th, Chris Carney purchased 147 shares of Taylor Wimpey stock. The stock was bought at an average cost of GBX 102 per share, with a total value of 149.94.

Taylor Wimpey Price Performance

Shares of LON TW traded down GBX 0.40 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, hitting GBX 107.10. The company had a trading volume of 27,756,516 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,409,451. The firms 50 day moving average price is GBX 105.35 and its 200-day moving average price is GBX 103.12. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.79, a quick ratio of 0.71 and a current ratio of 5.08. The company has a market cap of 3.85 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.62, a P/E/G ratio of 2.04 and a beta of 1.81.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have weighed in on TW shares. Berenberg Bank reiterated a buy rating and issued a GBX 128 price target on shares of Taylor Wimpey in a research report on Thursday, January 15th. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price target on shares of Taylor Wimpey from GBX 140 to GBX 132 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, January 19th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their target price on shares of Taylor Wimpey from GBX 140 to GBX 120 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. Citigroup lowered their price target on shares of Taylor Wimpey from GBX 143 to GBX 137 and set a buy rating for the company in a report on Friday, January 16th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group initiated coverage on Taylor Wimpey in a research report on Monday, November 24th. They set a neutral rating and a GBX 109 target price for the company. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of GBX 126.

View Our Latest Stock Analysis on TW

About Taylor Wimpey

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Taylor Wimpey plc operates as a homebuilder in the United Kingdom and Spain. It builds and delivers various homes and communities. Taylor Wimpey plc was incorporated in 1935 and is based in High Wycombe, the United Kingdom.

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Shares of Aperam (OTCMKTS:APEMY  Get Free Report) reached a new 52-week high on Tuesday . The company traded as high as $50.98 and last traded at $50.98, with a volume of 9061 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $43.50.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms recently weighed in on APEMY. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Aperam from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating in a research note on Monday, December 15th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reiterated a buy rating on shares of Aperam in a report on Monday. Oddo Bhf cut Aperam to a neutral rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 14th. Citigroup reaffirmed a neutral rating on shares of Aperam in a research report on Thursday, January 22nd. Finally, Zacks Research upgraded shares of Aperam from a strong sell rating to a strong-buy rating in a research note on Friday, January 9th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, two have assigned a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy.

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Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on Aperam

Aperam Stock Up 17.2%

The firm has a market capitalization of $3.73 billion, a P/E ratio of 318.64 and a beta of 1.10. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $41.50 and a 200 day moving average of $36.55. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19, a current ratio of 1.40 and a quick ratio of 0.47.

Aperam (OTCMKTS:APEMY  Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Friday, February 6th. The company reported $0.46 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.33 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $1.58 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.69 billion. Aperam had a return on equity of 1.05% and a net margin of 0.17%. On average, research analysts anticipate that Aperam will post 2.84 EPS for the current fiscal year.

About Aperam

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Aperam is a global stainless, electrical and specialty steel producer with headquarters in Luxembourg. The company designs, manufactures and distributes a wide range of stainless and electrical steel products that serve markets such as automotive, household appliances, construction, energy and mechanical industries. Aperam operates an integrated value chain that spans mining, steelmaking, finishing and distribution, enabling it to control quality and deliver tailored solutions to its customers.

The company was established in 2011 following a carve-out from ArcelorMittal and has since developed a distinct identity focused on sustainable stainless steel production.

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Upstart, BigBear.ai, Tempus AI, Hut 8, and Pagaya Technologies are the five Artificial Intelligence stocks to watch today, according to MarketBeats stock screener tool. Artificial intelligence stocks are shares of publicly traded companies that develop, sell, or derive significant revenue from AI technologiessuch as machine learning models, AI chips, data platforms, or AI-powered software and services. For investors, these stocks offer exposure to AI-driven growth but often come with higher valuation and execution risk, so careful evaluation of a companys AI assets, competitive moat, and regulatory or ethical risks is important. These companies had the highest dollar trading volume of any Artificial Intelligence stocks within the last several days.

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Upstart (UPST)

Upstart Holdings, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates a cloud-based artificial intelligence (AI) lending platform in the United States. Its platform includes personal loans, automotive retail and refinance loans, home equity lines of credit, and small dollar loans that connects consumer demand for loans to its to bank and credit unions.

BigBear.ai (BBAI)

BigBear.ai Holdings, Inc. provides artificial intelligence-powered decision intelligence solutions. It offers national security, supply chain management, and digital identity and biometrics solutions. The company also provides data ingestion, data enrichment, data processing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, predictive analytics, and predictive visualization solutions and services.

Read Our Latest Research Report on BBAI

Tempus AI (TEM)

Tempus AI Inc. is a technology company advancing precision medicine through the practical application of artificial intelligence principally in healthcare. The company provides AI-enabled precision medicine solutions to physicians to deliver personalized patient care and in parallel facilitates discovery, development and delivery of optimal therapeutics.

Read Our Latest Research Report on TEM

Hut 8 (HUT)

Hut 8 Corp., together with its subsidiaries, acquires, builds, manages, and operates data centers for digital assets mining, computing, and artificial intelligence in the United States. It operates in four segments: Digital Assets Mining, Managed Services, High Performance Computing Colocation and Cloud, and Other.

Read Our Latest Research Report on HUT

Pagaya Technologies (PGY)

Pagaya Technologies Ltd., a product-focused technology company, deploys data science and proprietary artificial intelligence-powered technology for financial institutions and investors in the United States, Israel, the Cayman Islands, and internationally. The company develops and implements proprietary artificial intelligence technology and related software solutions to assist partners to originate loans and other assets.

Read Our Latest Research Report on PGY

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The Gabelli Dividend & Income Trust (NYSE:GDV  Get Free Report) Director Anthony Colavita purchased 684 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 9th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $29.20 per share, with a total value of $19,972.80. Following the purchase, the director owned 684 shares of the companys stock, valued at $19,972.80. This represents a ? increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink.

The Gabelli Dividend & Income Trust Trading Up 0.1%

The Gabelli Dividend & Income Trust stock traded up $0.03 during trading hours on Tuesday, reaching $29.24. 81,628 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 143,038. The Gabelli Dividend & Income Trust has a twelve month low of $20.10 and a twelve month high of $29.45. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $28.00 and a two-hundred day moving average of $27.27.

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The Gabelli Dividend & Income Trust Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a monthly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, March 24th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, March 17th will be given a dividend of $0.15 per share. This represents a c) annualized dividend and a yield of 6.2%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, March 17th.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On The Gabelli Dividend & Income Trust

About The Gabelli Dividend & Income Trust

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Focus Partners Wealth lifted its position in shares of The Gabelli Dividend & Income Trust by 38.0% during the 1st quarter. Focus Partners Wealth now owns 33,834 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $816,000 after buying an additional 9,310 shares during the last quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of The Gabelli Dividend & Income Trust in the first quarter worth about $55,000. CWM LLC lifted its holdings in shares of The Gabelli Dividend & Income Trust by 11.8% in the second quarter. CWM LLC now owns 5,899 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $153,000 after acquiring an additional 624 shares during the last quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC boosted its stake in shares of The Gabelli Dividend & Income Trust by 38.0% in the 2nd quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 632,865 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $16,461,000 after purchasing an additional 174,392 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Wolverine Asset Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of The Gabelli Dividend & Income Trust by 67.5% during the 2nd quarter. Wolverine Asset Management LLC now owns 31,236 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $812,000 after purchasing an additional 12,586 shares during the last quarter.

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The Gabelli Dividend & Income Trust (NYSE: GDV) is a diversified, closed-end management investment company organized in 1993 and based in Rye, New York. Managed by Gabelli Funds, LLCa subsidiary of GAMCO Investors, Incthe trust seeks to provide a high level of current dividend income while preserving prospects for capital appreciation. It is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and attracts investors looking for regular distributions and potential long-term total return.

The trusts primary investment focus is on dividend-paying common stocks of U.S.

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Jordan Kuwait Bank has entered into an agreement with BPC to support planned upgrades to its digital banking and payments technology.

The bank said the work is intended to bring its digital channels together on a single platform, with an emphasis on improving how customers use digital services.

The platform is described as integrated, flexible, and scalable, and is expected to help the bank roll out new digital services more quickly.

As part of the project, the banks digital wallet will be moved to the new system, with the aim of allowing customers to complete everyday transactions in a single digital environment.

Jordan Kuwait Bank Group CEO Haitham Al-Battikhi said: This agreement represents a pivotal strategic milestone within the banks comprehensive digital transformation journey.

It reflects the banks commitment to building an integrated and sustainable digital banking ecosystem capable of responding to evolving market requirements and reinforcing the banks position as a leading banking institution in providing innovative digital financial solutions.

The platform is also set to include tools for small and medium-sized enterprises and merchants, covering payment and settlement management, as well as data monitoring and analysis via dashboards designed to support operational decisions.

For merchants, the planned capability includes taking payments on smartphones and tablets, without relying on conventional payment devices.

Implementation is expected to follow a structured approach, moving from preparation and execution to a full launch of the digital platforms.

BPC CEO and president Anatoly Loginov commented: Jordan Kuwait Bank is a trusted, long-term partner, and it is an honour to support its digital transformation journey in Jordan and the region. Through SmartVistas unified digital platform and BPCs managed services, the bank will be able to enhance innovation and deliver secure, scalable digital payment experiences with the agility the market requires.

"Jordan Kuwait Bank partners with BPC on digital upgrade " was originally created and published by Retail Banker International, a GlobalData owned brand.




Franco-Nevada (NYSE: FNV) has recently received a number of price target changes and ratings updates:

2/4/2026  Franco-Nevada had its outperform rating reaffirmed by analysts at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

1/30/2026  Franco-Nevada had its buy rating reaffirmed by analysts at UBS Group AG. They now have a $310.00 price target on the stock.

1/26/2026  Franco-Nevada was downgraded by analysts at Weiss Ratings from a buy (b-) rating to a hold (c+) rating.

1/26/2026  Franco-Nevada had its price target raised by analysts at Scotiabank from $225.00 to $283.00. They now have a sector perform rating on the stock.

1/23/2026  Franco-Nevada was downgraded by analysts at Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating.

12/29/2025  Franco-Nevada had its buy (b-) rating reaffirmed by analysts at Weiss Ratings.

12/22/2025  Franco-Nevada had its buy (b-) rating reaffirmed by analysts at Weiss Ratings.

12/15/2025  Franco-Nevada had its buy (b-) rating reaffirmed by analysts at Weiss Ratings.

Franco-Nevada Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 26th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, March 12th will be given a $0.44 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, March 12th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.7%. This is an increase from Franco-Nevadas previous quarterly dividend of $0.38. Franco-Nevadas dividend payout ratio is 31.87%.

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Franco-Nevada Corporation is a Toronto-based royalty and streaming company that specializes in securing and managing long-term interests in mining properties. The firm focuses primarily on precious metals, particularly gold, while also holding interests related to silver, copper, platinum-group metals and select base metals. Rather than operating mines directly, Franco-Nevada acquires royalty and streaming agreements that entitle it to a percentage of production or revenue from producing and developing assets in exchange for upfront or staged financing.

The companys business model centers on providing capital to mining companies in return for a sustained share of production or metal revenue, which can reduce exposure to operating and capital cost risks typical of mine operators.

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Voestalpine AG (OTCMKTS:VLPNY  Get Free Report)s share price hit a new 52-week high during trading on Tuesday . The company traded as high as $10.51 and last traded at $10.51, with a volume of 1523 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $10.00.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

VLPNY has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reiterated a buy rating on shares of Voestalpine in a report on Thursday, November 13th. UBS Group raised shares of Voestalpine from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Monday, November 17th. Morgan Stanley reissued an overweight rating on shares of Voestalpine in a research note on Tuesday, January 6th. Finally, Citigroup reaffirmed a neutral rating on shares of Voestalpine in a research note on Thursday, January 22nd. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has given a Hold rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy.

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Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on VLPNY

Voestalpine Price Performance

The businesss 50 day moving average price is $9.07 and its 200-day moving average price is $7.60. The company has a quick ratio of 0.49, a current ratio of 1.32 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The company has a market cap of $8.90 billion, a PE ratio of 35.78 and a beta of 1.33.

Voestalpine (OTCMKTS:VLPNY  Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 12th. The company reported $0.13 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.12 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $4.31 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $4.31 billion. Voestalpine had a net margin of 1.50% and a return on equity of 3.10%. As a group, analysts forecast that Voestalpine AG will post 0.45 earnings per share for the current year.

About Voestalpine

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Voestalpine AG is a leading steel-based technology and capital goods group headquartered in Linz, Austria. The company specializes in the production of high-quality steel and sophisticated components for a range of industries, including automotive, railway systems, aerospace, energy, and construction. It operates across all major processing steps in steel production, from raw?material processing and steelmaking to downstream activities such as coating, processing, and assembly.

Voestalpines portfolio is organized into several business divisions.

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Shares of Societe Generale Group (OTCMKTS:SCGLY  Get Free Report) saw unusually-strong trading volume on Tuesday . Approximately 1,349,757 shares changed hands during trading, an increase of 140% from the previous sessions volume of 561,503 shares.The stock last traded at $17.57 and had previously closed at $17.93.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on SCGLY shares. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Societe Generale Group from a neutral rating to a buy rating in a research report on Thursday, December 4th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reissued a buy rating on shares of Societe Generale Group in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. Morgan Stanley reaffirmed an overweight rating on shares of Societe Generale Group in a report on Monday, November 24th. Royal Bank Of Canada restated a sector perform rating on shares of Societe Generale Group in a research note on Monday. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods cut Societe Generale Group from a moderate buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Wednesday, January 28th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, three have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Societe Generale Group has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy.

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Read Our Latest Analysis on Societe Generale Group

Societe Generale Group Stock Down 2.1%

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.40, a current ratio of 1.27 and a quick ratio of 1.27. The stock has a market capitalization of $67.28 billion, a P/E ratio of 10.32, a PEG ratio of 0.40 and a beta of 0.78. The stocks fifty day moving average is $16.22 and its two-hundred day moving average is $14.16.

Societe Generale Group (OTCMKTS:SCGLY  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Friday, February 6th. The financial services provider reported $0.37 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.32 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $7.83 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $7.77 billion. Societe Generale Group had a return on equity of 6.74% and a net margin of 22.01%. As a group, research analysts predict that Societe Generale Group will post 1.14 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

About Societe Generale Group

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Societe Generale Group, founded in 1864 and headquartered in Paris, is one of Frances largest banking groups. It offers a broad range of financial services to individuals, businesses, institutions and governments. The firm operates through multiple businesses that collectively provide banking, financing, investment and advisory solutions across retail, corporate and institutional client segments.

The groups core activities encompass retail banking services such as deposit accounts, consumer and mortgage lending, payment services and wealth management.

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Several brokerages have updated their recommendations and price targets on shares of Brookfield (NYSE: BN) in the last few weeks:

2/4/2026  Brookfield had its price target raised by analysts at National Bankshares, Inc. from $56.00 to $59.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

1/31/2026  Brookfield was upgraded by analysts at Wall Street Zen from a sell rating to a hold rating.

1/27/2026  Brookfield had its overweight rating reaffirmed by analysts at Morgan Stanley. They now have a $58.00 price target on the stock.

1/26/2026  Brookfield was given a new $58.00 price target on by analysts at Royal Bank Of Canada. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

1/19/2026  Brookfield was upgraded by analysts at Zacks Research from a strong sell rating to a hold rating.

1/17/2026  Brookfield was downgraded by analysts at Wall Street Zen from a hold rating to a sell rating.

12/29/2025  Brookfield had its hold (c) rating reaffirmed by analysts at Weiss Ratings.

12/27/2025  Brookfield was upgraded by analysts at Wall Street Zen from a sell rating to a hold rating.

12/22/2025  Brookfield had its hold (c) rating reaffirmed by analysts at Weiss Ratings.

12/17/2025  Brookfield had its outperform rating reaffirmed by analysts at BMO Capital Markets. They now have a $49.00 price target on the stock, up previously from $46.00.

12/15/2025  Brookfield had its hold (c) rating reaffirmed by analysts at Weiss Ratings.

12/15/2025  Brookfield had its outperform rating reaffirmed by analysts at Royal Bank Of Canada. They now have a $58.00 price target on the stock, up previously from $57.00.

Brookfield Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, December 31st. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 16th were paid a $0.06 dividend. This represents a $0.24 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.5%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, December 16th. Brookfields dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 66.67%.

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Brookfield Corporation (NYSE:BN) is a global alternative asset manager that specializes in real assets. The company invests in and operates businesses across real estate, infrastructure, renewable power and energy, private equity and credit. Its activities span both ownership and active management of physical assets as well as the operation of investment funds and vehicles that provide institutional and retail investors access to long?lived, cash?generating assets.

Brookfields services include asset management, direct investing, property development and the operation of infrastructure and energy businesses.

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Booking, Expedia Group, Travelers Companies, MakeMyTrip, Trip.com Group, Allegiant Travel, and OUTFRONT Media are the seven Travel stocks to watch today, according to MarketBeats stock screener tool. Travel stocks are shares of publicly traded companies whose business depends largely on travel and tourismsuch as airlines, hotels and resorts, cruise lines, online travel agencies, car rental companies, and theme-park operators. They tend to be cyclical and more volatile than defensive sectors, because revenues are sensitive to consumer discretionary spending, seasonality, fuel and labor costs, geopolitical events, and health or safety crises. These companies had the highest dollar trading volume of any Travel stocks within the last several days.

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Booking (BKNG)

Booking Holdings Inc, formerly The Priceline Group Inc., is a provider of travel and restaurant online reservation and related services. The Company, through its online travel companies (OTCs), connects consumers wishing to make travel reservations with providers of travel services across the world. It offers consumers an array of accommodation reservations (including hotels, bed and breakfasts, hostels, apartments, vacation rentals and other properties) through its Booking.com, priceline.com and agoda.com brands.

Expedia Group (EXPE)

Expedia Group, Inc. operates as an online travel company in the United States and internationally. The company operates through B2C, B2B, and trivago segments. Its B2C segment includes Brand Expedia, a full-service online travel brand offers various travel products and services; Hotels.com for lodging accommodations; Vrbo, an online marketplace for the alternative accommodations; Orbitz, Travelocity, Wotif Group, ebookers, CheapTickets, Hotwire.com and CarRentals.com.

Read Our Latest Research Report on EXPE

Travelers Companies (TRV)

The Travelers Companies, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides a range of commercial and personal property, and casualty insurance products and services to businesses, government units, associations, and individuals in the United States and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Business Insurance, Bond & Specialty Insurance, and Personal Insurance.

Read Our Latest Research Report on TRV

MakeMyTrip (MMYT)

MakeMyTrip Limited, an online travel company, sells travel products and solutions in India, the United States, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, Peru, Colombia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. The company operates through three segments: Air Ticketing, Hotels and Packages, and Bus Ticketing.

Read Our Latest Research Report on MMYT

Trip.com Group (TCOM)

Trip.com Group Limited, through its subsidiaries, operates as a travel service provider for accommodation reservation, transportation ticketing, packaged tours and in-destination, corporate travel management, and other travel-related services in China and internationally. The company acts as an agent for hotel-related transactions and selling air tickets, as well as provides train, long-distance bus, and ferry tickets; travel insurance products, such as flight delay, air accident, and baggage loss coverage; and air-ticket delivery, online check-in and seat selection, express security screening, real-time flight status tracker, and airport VIP lounge services.

Read Our Latest Research Report on TCOM

Allegiant Travel (ALGT)

Allegiant Travel Company, a leisure travel company, provides travel services and products to residents of under-served cities in the United States. The company offers scheduled air transportation on limited-frequency, nonstop flights between under-served cities and leisure destinations. As of February 1, 2024, it operated a fleet of 126 Airbus A320 series aircraft.

Read Our Latest Research Report on ALGT

OUTFRONT Media (OUT)

OUTFRONT Media, Inc. leases advertising space on out-of-home advertising structures and sites. Its inventory consists of billboard displays, which are primarily located on the most heavily traveled highways & roadways, and transit advertising displays operated under exclusive multi-year contracts with municipalities in large cities across the U.S.

Read Our Latest Research Report on OUT

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Alpha Metallurgical Resources, Inc. (NYSE:AMR  Get Free Report) traded down 6.4% on Tuesday . The stock traded as low as $190.08 and last traded at $190.3620. 303,579 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 14% from the average session volume of 265,373 shares. The stock had previously closed at $203.46.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on AMR. B.Riley Securit downgraded Alpha Metallurgical Resources from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Wednesday, February 4th. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their target price on Alpha Metallurgical Resources from $165.00 to $205.00 and gave the company a hold rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 20th. Weiss Ratings reissued a sell (d) rating on shares of Alpha Metallurgical Resources in a research report on Monday, December 29th. B. Riley Financial cut shares of Alpha Metallurgical Resources from a buy rating to a neutral rating and decreased their price target for the stock from $204.00 to $203.00 in a report on Wednesday, February 4th. Finally, Zacks Research lowered shares of Alpha Metallurgical Resources from a hold rating to a strong sell rating in a research note on Thursday, February 5th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Alpha Metallurgical Resources presently has an average rating of Reduce and an average price target of $203.67.

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Alpha Metallurgical Resources Price Performance

Insider Activity

The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $209.57 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $173.52. The company has a market capitalization of $2.44 billion, a P/E ratio of -53.26 and a beta of 0.78.

In other news, Director Michael Gorzynski acquired 38,576 shares of Alpha Metallurgical Resources stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 15th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $188.50 per share, for a total transaction of $7,271,576.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the director owned 644,025 shares of the companys stock, valued at $121,398,712.50. This represents a 6.37% increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director Kenneth S. Courtis bought 36,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 8th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $175.26 per share, for a total transaction of $6,309,360.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the director directly owned 770,537 shares in the company, valued at $135,044,314.62. The trade was a 4.90% increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have bought a total of 98,576 shares of company stock valued at $17,994,174 over the last 90 days. 16.00% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Alpha Metallurgical Resources

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. ProShare Advisors LLC increased its position in Alpha Metallurgical Resources by 3.3% in the 4th quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC now owns 2,266 shares of the energy companys stock worth $453,000 after buying an additional 73 shares during the period. Mainstay Capital Management LLC ADV grew its position in Alpha Metallurgical Resources by 5.9% in the 4th quarter. Mainstay Capital Management LLC ADV now owns 1,326 shares of the energy companys stock worth $265,000 after purchasing an additional 74 shares during the last quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company grew its position in Alpha Metallurgical Resources by 1.2% in the 2nd quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 6,256 shares of the energy companys stock worth $704,000 after purchasing an additional 76 shares during the last quarter. Envestnet Portfolio Solutions Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Alpha Metallurgical Resources by 2.0% during the 4th quarter. Envestnet Portfolio Solutions Inc. now owns 3,907 shares of the energy companys stock worth $781,000 after purchasing an additional 78 shares during the period. Finally, GAMMA Investing LLC raised its position in shares of Alpha Metallurgical Resources by 26.5% during the third quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 391 shares of the energy companys stock valued at $64,000 after buying an additional 82 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 84.29% of the companys stock.

About Alpha Metallurgical Resources

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Alpha Metallurgical Resources, Inc (NYSE: AMR) is a leading pure-play producer of high-grade metallurgical coal, primarily serving the global steelmaking industry. Headquartered in Bristol, Virginia, the company operates multiple underground and surface mining complexes across the central Appalachian and Illinois basins. Its production portfolio focuses on premium raw and semi-soft coking coal products tailored to meet the specifications of steel producers worldwide.

Formed in July 2021 through the spin-out of Contura Energys metallurgical coal business, Alpha Metallurgical Resources has built a reputation for operational excellence and cost-efficient mining.

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Shares of Manolete Partners Plc (LON:MANO  Get Free Report) hit a new 52-week low during trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as low as GBX 45 and last traded at GBX 48, with a volume of 190236 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at GBX 45.20.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, Canaccord Genuity Group cut their target price on shares of Manolete Partners from GBX 172 to GBX 130 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, November 19th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating, Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of Buy and a consensus target price of GBX 130.

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Manolete Partners Stock Performance

The stock has a market cap of 21.03 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.04 and a beta of 0.77. The companys fifty day simple moving average is GBX 59.45 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is GBX 78.08. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 33.92, a current ratio of 4.92 and a quick ratio of 6.25.

Manolete Partners (LON:MANO  Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, November 19th. The company reported GBX (1.09) EPS for the quarter. Manolete Partners had a return on equity of 109.76% and a net margin of 180.12%. On average, analysts forecast that Manolete Partners Plc will post 4.2845258 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Manolete Partners

In related news, insider Leigh of Hurley sold 65,000 shares of Manolete Partners stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of GBX 71, for a total transaction of 46,150. 11.70% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

About Manolete Partners

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Manolete Partners Plc is the UKs leading insolvency litigation financing company which was founded in 2009 by its Chief Executive, Steven Cooklin, a UK Chartered Accountant.

Manolete finances the pursuit of claims through litigation and alternative dispute resolution to produce optimal returns for the creditors of insolvent companies. The Company has invested in over 1,300 specialist UK insolvency cases and has recovered over 120m for Creditor Estates with an average case duration of just 12 months per case.

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Agronomics Limited (OTCMKTS:AGNMF  Get Free Report) was the recipient of a significant decrease in short interest during the month of January. As of January 30th, there was short interest totaling 27,174 shares, a decrease of 92.8% from the January 15th total of 376,215 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 94,101 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 0.3 days. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 94,101 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 0.3 days.

Agronomics Price Performance

OTCMKTS AGNMF traded down $0.00 during trading on Tuesday, reaching $0.08. The companys stock had a trading volume of 75,000 shares, compared to its average volume of 60,660. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $0.08 and a 200-day moving average price of $0.10. Agronomics has a 1-year low of $0.05 and a 1-year high of $0.15.

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About Agronomics

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Agronomics Limited (OTCMKTS:AGNMF) is a Guernsey-incorporated, closed-end investment company that focuses on the fast-growing cellular agriculture and alternative protein sector. Established in 2019, the company seeks to capitalise on advances in biotechnology to support and commercialise sustainable food solutions. Its primary business activity involves making equity investments in early- and growth-stage companies that are developing cell-cultured meat, fermentation-derived proteins, microalgae systems and other innovative approaches to food production.

Through a diversified portfolio, Agronomics provides capital and strategic support to entrepreneurs and research teams aiming to reduce the environmental footprint of traditional agriculture.

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The Bank of East Asia Ltd. (OTCMKTS:BKEAY  Get Free Report) was the target of a large decline in short interest during the month of January. As of January 30th, there was short interest totaling 3 shares, a decline of 99.6% from the January 15th total of 845 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 5,201 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 0.0 days. Currently, 0.0% of the shares of the company are short sold. Currently, 0.0% of the shares of the company are short sold. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 5,201 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 0.0 days.

Bank of East Asia Price Performance

Shares of OTCMKTS BKEAY remained flat at $1.85 during trading on Tuesday. 22 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,951. The firms 50-day moving average price is $1.75 and its 200 day moving average price is $1.64. Bank of East Asia has a 12-month low of $1.13 and a 12-month high of $1.98.

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About Bank of East Asia

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Bank of East Asia, Limited is a Hong Kongbased commercial bank established in 1918. As one of the territorys largest independently owned banks, it provides a comprehensive range of financial services to retail, corporate and institutional clients. The institution operates through a network of branches and digital channels designed to support both individual consumers and businesses of varying sizes.

The banks core offerings include personal banking services such as deposit accounts, consumer and mortgage lending, credit cards and wealth management solutions.

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A number of research firms have changed their ratings and price targets for Cenovus Energy (TSE: CVE):

2/3/2026  Cenovus Energy had its price target raised by analysts at National Bankshares, Inc. from C$29.00 to C$34.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

1/23/2026  Cenovus Energy had its price target lowered by analysts at Morgan Stanley from C$31.00 to C$29.00.

1/20/2026  Cenovus Energy had its price target raised by analysts at Scotiabank from C$29.00 to C$30.00. They now have a hold rating on the stock.

1/20/2026  Cenovus Energy was downgraded by analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. from a buy rating to a neutral rating. They now have a C$25.00 price target on the stock.

1/13/2026  Cenovus Energy had its price target lowered by analysts at Royal Bank Of Canada from C$32.00 to C$29.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

1/9/2026  Cenovus Energy had its price target raised by analysts at National Bankshares, Inc. from C$28.00 to C$29.00. They now have an outperform rating on the stock.

1/2/2026  Cenovus Energy was upgraded by analysts at The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. to a strong-buy rating.

12/12/2025  Cenovus Energy had its price target raised by analysts at Desjardins from C$33.00 to C$33.50. They now have a buy rating on the stock.

Cenovus Energy Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, December 31st. Investors of record on Wednesday, December 31st were issued a $0.20 dividend. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.8%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 15th. Cenovus Energys payout ratio is presently 43.93%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Cenovus Energy news, Director Michael John Crothers acquired 2,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 15th. The stock was bought at an average cost of C$24.23 per share, with a total value of C$48,460.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the director directly owned 8,000 shares in the company, valued at C$193,840. The trade was a 33.33% increase in their ownership of the stock. 32.03% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Cenovus Energy is an integrated oil company, focused on creating value through the development of its oil sands assets. The company also engages in production of conventional crude oil, natural gas liquids, and natural gas in Alberta, Canada, with refining operations in the U.S. Net upstream production averaged 472 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2020, and the company estimates that it holds 6.7 billion boe of proven and probable reserves.

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KFC is set to increase its annual expenditure on British chicken to nearly 100m ($136m), as it steps up domestic sourcing for its UK & Ireland operations, according to a report on FarmingUK.

The move comes against a backdrop of pressure on food businesses to reinforce UK supply chains and address welfare in livestock production.

By the end of this year, 35% of the chicken sold by KFC in the UK and Ireland is expected to come from British farms, lifting domestic supply to around 82,700 metric tonnes a year.

The higher spend is driven largely by a decision to source chicken wings from British farmers for the first time, adding one of KFCs most popular products to its UK supply base.

More than 164 million wings were sold by KFC in the UK last year, which is equivalent to more than five every second.

KFC will raise its annual outlay on British chicken by 10m to enable the shift, bringing total yearly spending close to 100m.

The change is being implemented through an expanded partnership with UK-based poultry processor 2 Sisters Food Group.

However, KFC plans to import boneless chicken, as it noted that the UK producers are currently unable to supply sufficient chicken breast to meet customer demand.

Alongside the increase in UK sourcing, KFC is also raising welfare standards across its British poultry supply chain.

All British chicken served by the company is now reared at a maximum stocking density of 30kg per square metre, which gives birds 20% more space than the industry standard.

KFC added that all British-sourced chicken comes from farms that meet independently verified standards, supported through relationships with suppliers, including 2 Sisters Food Group and Pilgrims Europe.

2 Sisters Food Group president Ranjit Singh said the increased sourcing represented a positive and important investment in the future of UK agriculture.

He said the move would support British farmers in producing poultry that meets consumer expectations and high welfare standards, highlighting the long-term nature of the partnership.

"KFC to lift annual spend on British chicken to nearly 100m  report" was originally created and published by Verdict Food Service, a GlobalData owned brand.




Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA  Get Free Report)s share price was up 2.2% on Tuesday . The company traded as high as $168.26 and last traded at $166.55. Approximately 10,813,763 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 23% from the average daily volume of 13,985,688 shares. The stock had previously closed at $163.00.

Key Stories Impacting Alibaba Group

Here are the key news stories impacting Alibaba Group this week:

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Positive Sentiment: Alibaba unveiled RynnBrain, an open-source AI model aimed at robotics and physical AI, positioning the company to compete with Google and Nvidia in a high-growth area and to extend its cloud/AI monetization beyond traditional software and ads. Article Title

Alibaba unveiled RynnBrain, an open-source AI model aimed at robotics and physical AI, positioning the company to compete with Google and Nvidia in a high-growth area and to extend its cloud/AI monetization beyond traditional software and ads. Positive Sentiment: An analyst firm recently reaffirmed a Buy rating on BABA, helping sentiment and investor interest as Alibaba pushes deeper into AI and e?commerce initiatives. Article Title

An analyst firm recently reaffirmed a Buy rating on BABA, helping sentiment and investor interest as Alibaba pushes deeper into AI and e?commerce initiatives. Positive Sentiment: Alibaba and other Chinese tech firms showcased advanced tech at the MilanCortina Winter Olympics, boosting the companys global branding and demonstrating commercialization opportunities for its tech stack. Article Title

Alibaba and other Chinese tech firms showcased advanced tech at the MilanCortina Winter Olympics, boosting the companys global branding and demonstrating commercialization opportunities for its tech stack. Neutral Sentiment: BABA has been a trending stock on investor platforms, which can amplify intraday moves but also increase volatility; this is attention-driven rather than fundamentally new news. Article Title

BABA has been a trending stock on investor platforms, which can amplify intraday moves but also increase volatility; this is attention-driven rather than fundamentally new news. Negative Sentiment: Alibabas Qwen chatbot paused issuing coupons after an overload of customer requests, highlighting scaling and UX risks that could undermine promotional effectiveness and raise short-term costs or reputational issues. Article Title

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on BABA shares. Morgan Stanley lowered their price target on shares of Alibaba Group from $200.00 to $180.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, January 8th. Sanford C. Bernstein dropped their target price on shares of Alibaba Group from $200.00 to $190.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, November 26th. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price target on shares of Alibaba Group from $231.00 to $225.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, January 8th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price target on Alibaba Group from $240.00 to $230.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, November 26th. Finally, Freedom Capital downgraded shares of Alibaba Group from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Tuesday, January 6th. Eighteen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $195.17.

Alibaba Group Stock Performance

The company has a market cap of $397.62 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.00, a P/E/G ratio of 3.55 and a beta of 0.39. The company has a current ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23. The stocks 50 day moving average price is $158.97 and its 200 day moving average price is $154.30.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. NTV Asset Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Alibaba Group by 127.4% during the third quarter. NTV Asset Management LLC now owns 15,143 shares of the specialty retailers stock valued at $2,707,000 after acquiring an additional 8,484 shares during the period. Marex Group plc bought a new position in shares of Alibaba Group during the 2nd quarter valued at about $17,139,000. Y Intercept Hong Kong Ltd grew its stake in shares of Alibaba Group by 197.0% in the 2nd quarter. Y Intercept Hong Kong Ltd now owns 34,225 shares of the specialty retailers stock worth $3,881,000 after purchasing an additional 22,701 shares during the last quarter. RD Finance Ltd bought a new stake in shares of Alibaba Group in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $3,408,000. Finally, National Bank of Canada FI lifted its stake in Alibaba Group by 373.5% during the second quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 602,233 shares of the specialty retailers stock valued at $68,294,000 after purchasing an additional 475,053 shares during the last quarter. 13.47% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Alibaba Group

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Alibaba Group Holding Limited is a Chinese multinational conglomerate founded in 1999 in Hangzhou, China, by Jack Ma and a group of co?founders. The company built its business around internet-based commerce and related services and has grown into one of the largest e-commerce and technology companies in the world. Alibaba completed a high?profile initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014.

The company operates a portfolio of online marketplaces and platforms serving different customer segments: Alibaba.com for global and domestic B2B trade, Taobao for consumer-to-consumer shopping, and Tmall for brand and retailer storefronts targeted at Chinese consumers.

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Risk and Volatility

Heartland BancCorp. has a beta of 0.42, meaning that its stock price is 58% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Commercial National Financial has a beta of 0.43, meaning that its stock price is 57% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Heartland BancCorp. and Commercial National Financials net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

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Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Heartland BancCorp. N/A N/A N/A Commercial National Financial 23.48% N/A N/A

Dividends

Heartland BancCorp. pays an annual dividend of $0.75 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.5%. Commercial National Financial pays an annual dividend of $0.56 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.0%. Heartland BancCorp. pays out 7.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Commercial National Financial pays out 33.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

Valuation & Earnings

7.5% of Heartland BancCorp. shares are held by institutional investors. 22.7% of Heartland BancCorp. shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 23.0% of Commercial National Financial shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

This table compares Heartland BancCorp. and Commercial National Financials revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio Heartland BancCorp. $119.21 million 2.74 $20.26 million $9.76 16.39 Commercial National Financial $28.15 million 1.99 $6.61 million $1.67 8.44

Heartland BancCorp. has higher revenue and earnings than Commercial National Financial. Commercial National Financial is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Heartland BancCorp., indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Heartland BancCorp. beats Commercial National Financial on 7 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Heartland BancCorp.

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Heartland BancCorp operates as the bank holding company for Heartland Bank that provides various banking and financial services to individual and corporate customers. The company offers personal and business checking and savings accounts. It also provides various lending solutions comprising agricultural loans, commercial and business lending, home and personal loans, and title services. In addition, the company offers online banking, treasury management, credit and debit card, and mobile wallet services. Further, it provides education planning, insurance, wealth management, and retirement planning services. Heartland BancCorp was founded in 1911 and is based in Whitehall, Ohio.

About Commercial National Financial

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Commercial National Financial Corporation operates as the holding company for Commercial Bank that provides various banking products and services to individuals, agricultural businesses, commercial businesses, and light industries in Michigan. The company accepts various deposit products, including checking and savings accounts, individual retirement accounts, certificates of deposit, and health savings accounts. It also offers personal loan products, such as automobile loans, recreational vehicle loans, personal lines of credit, and unsecured term loans, as well as home equity loans and mortgage loans; and business loans, including secured lines of credit, business equity line of credit, SBA loans, equipment loans, real estate loans, vehicle loans, term loans, USDA loan programs, and capital access loan programs. In addition, the company provides other services comprising business VISA check cards, debit and ATM cards, business statement savings, business certificates of deposit, merchant services, night depository, telephone banking, online banking, e-statements, direct deposit of payroll for employees, child support payments, collection of receivables, and remote deposit capture, as well as treasury services. It provides its services through offices located in Barry, Gratiot, Ingham, Kent, and Montcalm counties in Michigan. The company was founded in 1893 and is headquartered in Ithaca, Michigan.

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Connected Care: Comparable sales grew 7% in Q4, driven by double-digit growth in monitoring and mid-single-digit growth in enterprise informatics, supported by order book conversion in North America.

Hanneman said group comparable sales growth accelerated to 7% in the quarter, with broad-based growth across segments and geographies, led by North America. She also reported adjusted EBITDA margin expanded by 160 basis points in the quarter to 15.1%.

Jakobs said Philips delivered a strong fourth quarter, highlighted by order intake growth of 7% and comparable sales growth of 7% year over year. He characterized the order intake improvement as sustained over the past year and said the growing order book increased visibility into 2026 and beyond.

Koninklijke Philips (NYSE:PHG) reported fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results that management said reflected consistent delivery against commitments, improving order momentum, and continued margin expansion despite tariff headwinds. CEO Roy Jakobs and CFO Charlotte Hanneman also provided 2026 guidance calling for an acceleration in comparable sales growth and further margin improvement, while outlining new productivity actions and ongoing mitigation efforts related to tariffs.

Cash, savings and balance sheet: The company generated EUR 1.2bn FCF in Q4, delivered EUR 850m of productivity savings in 2025 (over EUR 2.5bn since 2023), and finished the quarter with ~ EUR 2.8bn cash, ~ EUR 5.3bn net debt and a 1.7x leverage ratio.

2026 guidance and tariff headwinds: Philips expects comparable sales up 34.5% and adjusted EBITDA margin of 12.513% in 2026 while forecasting a net tariff impact of about EUR 250300m , backed by an additional EUR 1.5bn productivity program (20262028) to help mitigate costs.

Strong Q4 execution: Order intake and comparable sales each grew about 7% in Q4, with adjusted EBITDA margin expanding 160 bps to 15.1% on broad-based strength across Diagnosis & Treatment, Connected Care and Personal Health.

Story Continues

For 2025, Philips reported comparable sales growth of 2.3%, which Hanneman said was in line with the companys outlook. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the full year increased 80 basis points to 12.3%, which Jakobs said exceeded the companys outlook despite incremental tariffs.

Order intake grew 6% for the full year, and Jakobs said equipment order intake rose 7% in Q4 with broad-based growth across D&T and Connected Care, supported by sustained double-digit growth in North America. For the year, he said D&T order intake increased 5% and Connected Care increased 7%, with the order book up 5% year over year.

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Hanneman said Philips delivered EUR 248 million in productivity savings in Q4, bringing total 2025 productivity savings to EUR 850 million. She added that since 2023 the companys cost management and productivity initiatives delivered more than EUR 2.5 billion, exceeding its original outlook of EUR 2 billion by the end of 2025.

Tariffs remained a prominent theme. Hanneman said incremental tariff headwinds came in slightly better than Philips expected EUR 150 million to EUR 200 million range, citing mitigation actions including inventory management, supplier network optimization, specialty programs, and selective regionalization. She said Philips is confident it can fully mitigate tariff headwinds through disciplined execution by 2028.

On cash generation, Hanneman said Philips generated EUR 1.2 billion of free cash flow in Q4, though that was EUR 85 million lower year over year due to a tougher comparison that included a EUR 367 million Respironics insurance receipt in Q4 2024. Full-year free cash flow was EUR 512 million, which she said was ahead of outlook, after roughly EUR 1 billion of cash payments in the first quarter related to U.S. medical monitoring and personal injury settlements.

Philips ended the quarter with approximately EUR 2.8 billion in cash and net debt of approximately EUR 5.3 billion. Hanneman said the leverage ratio improved to 1.7x net debt to adjusted EBITDA, and reiterated the companys commitment to maintaining a strong investment-grade credit rating. She also said shareholders would be offered the option to receive dividends in shares or cash.

Business updates: innovation, partnerships, and portfolio actions

Management repeatedly emphasized innovation and platform execution as drivers of growth and margin. Jakobs highlighted launches including the worlds helium-free 3T MRI, the always-on spectral CT system, and LumiGuide, described as a real-time AI-enabled light-based 3D navigation solution integrated with Azurion.

In D&T, Jakobs said Image-Guided Therapy order intake was strong and Precision Diagnosis returned to growth, citing demand for Azurion 7, EPIQ CVx ultrasound for cardiovascular imaging, and a ramp-up of CT 5300. He also said Philips expanded its relationship with Mercy Health into a 10-year collaboration spanning more than 80 interventional labs.

In Connected Care, Jakobs said demand for monitoring and enterprise informatics was strong, especially in North America, as large health systems invested in enterprise platforms, patient intelligence, and cybersecurity. He referenced an Enterprise Monitoring as a Service model and said Philips signed multiple strategic partnerships in the U.S., including Atrium Health and UNC Rex. He also described a radiology partnership to standardize a cloud-based imaging informatics platform hosted on Amazon Web Services across 27 hospitals, supporting more than 4 million imaging studies annually.

Philips also closed the acquisition of SpectraWave in January, which Jakobs said strengthens Philips innovation leadership in cardiology interventions through high-definition intravascular imaging and angio-based physiological assessment.

On portfolio simplification, Hanneman said Philips completed the sale of the emergency care business in Q4, in line with the previously communicated timeline.

Regional commentary: strength in North America, caution in China

Jakobs said market fundamentals remain supportive, particularly in North America, where hospital demand remains strong but increasingly segmented. He said rising costs and workforce shortages are driving consolidation among larger health systems, increasing demand for secure, productivity-enhancing platforms.

China remained a point of caution. Jakobs said tender activity increased gradually in 2025 from a low base, but expanding centralized procurement led to longer processing times and tougher competition, reducing the translation of bidding activity into meaningful growth. For 2026, Philips expects China sales growth to be stable. In Q&A, management described a differentiated picture in China, with step-by-step improvement in Personal Health sell-out, while the health system side remains less predictable due to tender conversion dynamics.

In Personal Health, management said demand was resilient in the U.S., while consumer sentiment in China remained cautious and demand subdued, though slightly improved from the prior year. Hanneman also said the company reduced China trade inventory in Personal Health to roughly three months from six months a year earlier, bringing it in line with market averages.

2026 outlook: higher growth, modest margin expansion, and new productivity program

Philips guided for 2026 comparable sales growth of 3% to 4.5% and adjusted EBITDA margin of 12.5% to 13%. Hanneman said all businesses are expected to contribute to growth, driven by order intake momentum, innovation, and improved commercial execution.

Tariffs are expected to remain a headwind in 2026. Hanneman said tariff costs will be fully annualized, with a net impact of EUR 250 million to EUR 300 million in 2026, net of mitigation, assuming current tariff levels remain in place throughout the year. She said margin is expected to slightly decline in Q1 2026 as operational improvements are more than offset by incremental tariff headwinds that were not in effect in Q1 of the prior year, and later suggested the decline in Q1 2025 could be a reasonable proxy.

Hanneman also announced an additional EUR 1.5 billion productivity program for 2026-2028. She said adjusting items are expected to be around 200 basis points in 2026, down from 300 basis points in 2025. Restructuring costs are expected to be roughly 80 basis points, with other charges around 120 basis points, mainly related to the Respironics Consent Decree, field actions, and other quality- and acquisition-related charges.

Free cash flow is expected to be EUR 1.3 billion to EUR 1.5 billion in 2026, driven by higher earnings and lower adjusting items, partially offset by higher capital expenditures, regionalization, and higher income tax payments. The company said the outlook excludes any effects of ongoing Philips Respironics-related proceedings, including a U.S. Department of Justice investigation.

In Q&A, management also addressed a U.S. Section 232 investigation, saying it had not been concluded and that Philips would not speculate on outcomes, while noting it could represent an alternative mechanism to tariffs.

About Koninklijke Philips (NYSE:PHG)

Koninklijke Philips N.V. (NYSE: PHG), commonly known as Philips, is a Dutch multinational company focused on health technology. Founded in Eindhoven in 1891, the company evolved from a diversified electronics manufacturer into a specialist in healthcare products, systems and services. Philips is legally registered in the Netherlands and operates globally, supplying equipment and solutions to hospitals, clinics, healthcare providers and consumers across Europe, the Americas and Asia.

Philips' principal activities center on medical technologies and personal health.

The article "Koninklijke Philips Q4 Earnings Call Highlights" was originally published by MarketBeat.
An Irishman who has been detained by ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement) told RTE's Liveline programme that he is living in fear for his life, describing the facilities like a modern day concentration camp."

Seamus Culleton has now said he would like Taoiseach Micheal Martin to raise his case with US President Donald Trump during his meeting at the White House in March.

Mr Culleton is originally from Glenmore in Co Kilkenny but has been living in the US for almost 20 years and is married to a US citizen.

He was driving home after finishing work when he was detained by ICE agents in September 2025.

READ MORE: Search stood down for missing 14-year-old girl last seen wearing school uniform amid Garda update

Mr Culleton said he noticed a man with blue sunglasses was driving the car and then several others appeared around him.

He was asked if he had a green card and said he did not but was married to a US citizen, had a work permit and was due to receive his green card.

The Kilkenny man was detained and initially put into a holding cell in Massachusetts, before being taken to New York and then to the detention centre in El Paso, Texas.

He claimed that ICE agents had tried to get him to sign deportation papers, which he said he absolutely did not.

Mr Culleton described the detention centre in El Paso as horrible, saying there is little sanitation, limited food and it was tough to stay positive."

He said he was in fear of his life from the security firm in charge, who he said were capable of anything and said that it is not easy to predict what will happen.

According to the Glenmore native, there were 72 people in a tent the size of a 16ft by 35ft room with no ceiling, two rows of bunk beds on either side and a long table down the middle.

He described the conditions at the camp as filthy, the toilets and showers as nasty and that illnesses are rife among those being detained. He said there was also competition for food and said he had definitely lost weight.

There is no real quality of life here. Ive been locked in the same room now for four and a half months, he told Kieran Cuddihy on RTE's Liveline programme.

Ive had barely any outside time, no fresh air, no sunshine. I could probably count on both hands the amount of times Ive been outside.

Id be so grateful if we could just end this ASAP. Ive been detained now for five months, locked in the same room for four and a half of those months. Its just torture. I dont know how much more I can take.

He said the detention centre was a psychological and physical torture and was also difficult for his mother.

I just want to get back to my wife. Were so desperate to start a family.

My own family at home in Ireland is also suffering, my mother especially, shes heartbroken that Im in here.

I talk to her most days. Shes just heartbroken over the whole situation, I dont want her health to get any worse. Shes constantly worrying and stressing about me," added Mr Culleton.

On the same programme, his wife Tiffany described the shock of his detention and the awful experience of trying to maintain contact with him in the intervening period.

She said she did not hear from him for almost a week after an initial phone call following his arrest and said she did not know if he was deported and had no idea if he was safe."

When asked if she had been allowed to visit her husband, she said ICE officially allows visits but it is almost impossible to set one up."

She had booked flights from Massachusetts to Texas to attend one of Mr Culletons court dates but the hearing was moved on the day before her journey.

Hes a good man. I dont think anyone deserves this but Seamus definitely doesnt deserve this, said his wife.

She said she had attempted to reach senators and President Donald Trump about the case but had received no response.

Earlier, Mr Culletons sister, Caroline, said his family still does not know why he was detained.

There are no words. I mean the way theyre being kept and theyre locked up and hes only been allowed out a couple of times.

They dont see the sunlight. They dont get out. Their health deteriorates.

She said he has lost an awful lot of weight, adding that he has sores, infections and hair loss.

She told the News at One programme on RTE Radio 1 that his ongoing detention was heartbreaking for our mother and his extended family.

In a statement, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said: Minister McEntee is aware of this case and of the consular assistance being provided to the citizen involved, and his family, by our Consulate General in Austin, Texas, and our consular unit in Dublin.

Our embassy in Washington DC is also engaging directly with the Department of Homeland Security at a senior level in relation to this case.
A State age verification system for social media and other websites is an important first step, Irelands deputy premier has said as he argued the protection of children cannot be left to the companies themselves.

The Irish Government is preparing a system where age verification for certain websites will be checked against an individuals Personal Public Service Number (PPSN).

On Safer Internet Day, Irish deputy premier Simon Harris said there was significant evidence around social media algorithms affecting children through addiction and doomscrolling.

He said: Our children are not safe on the internet  simple as.

Mr Harris said there was a need for a minimum age to access social media, adding that this was not radical when viewed through the lens of restrictions on smoking, drinking and voting.

He has said that age should be set at 16.

The Government has called for an EU-wide approach but has not ruled out introducing its own measures in the interim.

Speaking to reporters before Cabinet on Tuesday, Mr Harris said: Im absolutely not in favour of sitting by idly and waiting for Europe to act, what I am saying, though, is (it is) preferable if Europe moves together.

Because that provides greater consistency and greater potential for children, its probably easier to implement and operate, and it just provides greater certainty.

Mr Harris expressed support for the approach of his Fine Gael colleague and Communications Minister Patrick ODonovan on the PPSN system.

He said: You cant have a minimum age if you cant verify age  and I dont think we can leave it to the social media companies or outsource to tech companies the protection of our children.

So bringing in a State age verification system is an important first step, and then well at that stage have to make a call as to whether we can all move together at the European level, or whether we should plough on at a domestic level.
US grocery retailer Kroger has appointed Greg Foran as its CEO with immediate effect, ending a board-led search for a permanent leader.

Foran will also take a seat on Krogers board of directors.

Ron Sargent, who has served as interim CEO since March 2025, will continue as chairman of the board and is expected to support the handover.

Commenting on his appointment, Foran said: At this moment in Kroger's journey, I can honestly say this is the best job on the planet.

I look forward to working with the board and the entire team to build on this momentum, continue raising the bar for customers, and deliver long-term value for customers, associates, and shareholders.

Foran brings more than four decades of senior management experience across five countries, including directing digital upgrades and operational restructuring.

Earlier in his career, Foran spent six years as president and CEO of Walmart US, overseeing the groups largest division until 2019.

During that period, he expanded online ordering and collection services, delivered positive comparable sales for 20 consecutive quarters and managed more than 4,600 stores and around one million employees.

He more recently led Air New Zealand as CEO, where he carried out a company-wide digital programme and navigated the airline through pandemic-related disruption.

That period included union negotiations, supply chain pressures and fleet investment decisions.

Sargent sent: Greg is a highly respected operator who knows how to run large-scale retail businesses, strengthen store execution, and lead high-performing teams. His leadership style, focus on the customer, commitment to associates, and disciplined approach to execution are the perfect fit for Kroger.

The appointment follows a set of senior management changes announced by Kroger last month across its US retail operations.

Victor Smith, previously president of the Atlanta division, was promoted to senior vice-president of retail divisions.

Monica Garnes, formerly president of the Frys division, was named head of the Atlanta division, while Ken DeLuca was elevated to lead Frys.

"Kroger names Greg Foran as CEO, Sargent remains chairman" was originally created and published by Retail Insight Network, a GlobalData owned brand.




There is no timeline for the passage of a Bill limiting trade with the Occupied Palestinian Territories, as the Foreign Affairs Minister says she is waiting for advice from the Attorney General.

The Governments version of the Bill would limit trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, but activists and opposition figures have raised concerns that it would include only trade of goods and not services.

The coalition has committed to passing a ban on goods from illegal settlements but it has been accused of slow progress on enacting legislation.

The Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill is listed under priority publication in the Governments spring legislative programme.

Pre-legislative scrutiny was completed last July.

Senior Government figures have said extending the legislation to cover trade of services is more legally complex, and advice has been sought from Attorney General Rossa Fanning.

Foreign Affairs Minister Helen McEntee received advice from him before Christmas but said she had further questions.

Asked about a timeline on the Bill on Tuesday, Ms McEntee said: I have to wait for the Attorney General to come back with the advice to me and well work through it.

But obviously it has passed through a number of different stages and we will work on it as we would any other piece of legislation.

Pressed on whether it could be done by summer, Ms McEntee reiterated that she was waiting on the advice in relation to services.
Lost of things to consider for late night & early morning denizens of the discourse as we quickly review police action, court cases, ongoing investigations and, as always, community outreach.

Check TKC news gathering . . .

Officer fires gun during arrest of burglary suspects in Kansas City Woman hurt in officer-involved shooting during Blue Ridge Blvd. burglary.

Kansas City police identify man killed near convenience store on Troost Avenue Kansas City police are investigating a fatal shooting that left a man dead Saturday evening near a convenience store in the 8200 block of Troost Avenue.

Man charged in Sunday burglary where KCPD officer shot female suspect in failed escape A man is charged in a burglary Sunday in Kansas City, Missouri, that ended with a woman shot by a KCPD officer when the two tried to drive away in a truck with the officer stuck in the passenger door.

Excelsior Springs Police seek help after vehicle break-ins in Job Corps neighborhood Excelsior Springs Police are seeking help after vehicle break-ins in the Job Corps neighborhood.

Leawood Police arrest man wanted for child sex crimes during parking garage patrol Leawood Police arrested a man wanted for child sex crimes during a parking garage patrol.

Two years since deadly Chiefs Super Bowl rally shooting Lisa Lopez-Galvan died after gunfire erupted during the Chiefs Super Bowl victory rally on Valentine's Day in 2024.

Police say Kansas City man stabbed two victims and held woman hostage inside residence A Kansas City man is facing multiple felony charges after police say he held a woman at knifepoint inside a home and allegedly stabbed two victims.

K-State men's basketball staffer arrested on domestic battery In his first season with the Wildcats as a graduate assistant, 28-year-old Mark Vital Jr. was arrested for domestic battery at 12:20 a.m. on Monday at the 600 block of

Woman sentenced to probation for setting coworker's Westwood house on fire Ladan Princess Richardson pleaded guilty to arson last year.

New Kansas crime law raises fine for buying sex, makes more car thefts a felony Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly signed a bill meant to strengthen laws against multiple crimes.

Hundreds of Missouri inmates need court-ordered mental health services. The waitlist is growing Missouri Mental Health Director Valerie Huhn told state lawmakers that the department and courts need options to get defendants treatment in their communities.

Police looking for dog, owner after person bit in Overland Park neighborhood The Overland Park Police Department is asking for the public's help after a dog bit someone near West 54th Terrace and Goodman Lane.

From corner to comeback: Neighbor2Neighbor helps people leave Prospect corridor streets The organization's work comes as some city officials consider banning certain alcohol sales in the area.

Developing . . .
BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. The South Caucasus and Central Asia are important regions for American companies, Kush Choksi, Senior Vice President of International Member Relations, Middle East & Turkiye, said during a briefing in Baku, Trend reports.

Choksi noted that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the worlds largest business association, operates globally. The South Caucasus and Central Asia are an emerging region of significant interest to American companies. Our work in Azerbaijan began two years ago, when we brought a delegation here for the COP. Azerbaijan hosted the COP at a very high level, focusing on both traditional energy sources, which the world still needs, and renewable energy sources. Thus, a truly ideal balance was found, which attracted businessesthis was the Chamber of Commerces first serious step toward Azerbaijan, he said.

He added, We were very pleased to assemble a very representative delegationmore than 31 companies and 60 participants representing virtually every industry. We had a very productive day in Baku yesterday, and were looking forward to an equally productive day today.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. The US Chamber of Commerce organizes annual business missions to Azerbaijan, Senior Vice President of International Member Relations, Middle East & Turkiye, Khush Choksy said in response to Trend's question at a briefing in Baku.

One of the tools we plan to use is annual business missions. We have committed to conducting them every year. We also hope to welcome representatives of the Azerbaijani government and private sector to the U.S. so that they can meet with an even wider audience, including American companies and our delegation, he said.

Choksy stated that the third area is the analysis of various sectors and opportunities, which will then be presented to American companies.

"A specific example: we request information on government tenders from ministries through our colleagues at the U.S. Embassy and through contacts that we establish between the chamber and ministries. Then we convey these opportunities to American companies.

Finally, it is an iterative process. We monitor potential barriers to investment and look for ways to address themthrough analytical notes or policy proposals that help stimulate investment. For instance, in the financial sector, we are exploring how Azerbaijan can integrate with global payment systems, which facilitates the movement of funds in both directions and helps small businesses access a wider market. This allows customers from around the world, including the U.S., to make payments for goods and services here," he added.

In conclusion, Choksy noted that the Chamber continues to work in three areas:

-Annual missions and meetings to strengthen cooperation.

- Analytical notes and policy proposals that provide ideas for improving company participation.

- Dissemination of information about upcoming tenders and procurements in Azerbaijan among American companies.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. U.S. companies can gain access to the C5 region through Azerbaijan, Senior Vice President of International Member Relations, Middle East & Turkiye, Khush Choksy said during a briefing in Baku on February 10, Trend reports.

In terms of sales and market entry, it depends on the specific company. However, if a company is looking to grow, it will consider all of these opportunities. Companies can use Azerbaijan either as a service or trading hub to access the C5 region. They can also use it to transport energy from Azerbaijan to Europe, which is becoming increasingly relevant. Azerbaijan plays a critical role from both a commercial and geopolitical perspective. All these factors together make the country attractive," he said.

Choksy emphasized that although Azerbaijan's economic growth was initially linked to the energy sector, the country's economy is diversified.

This makes it interesting for companies in a wide range of sectors, he added.
Photo: Press service of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan

BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. An official welcome ceremony was held on February 10 for Vice President of the United States James David Vance, Trend reports.

A guard of honor was lined up for the U.S. Vice President in the square decorated with the national flags of both countries.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev welcomed U.S. Vice President James David Vance.

The chief of the guard of honor reported to Vice President James David Vance.

The national anthems of the United States of America and the Republic of Azerbaijan were then performed.

The members of the Azerbaijani delegation were presented to Vice President James David Vance, while the members of the United States delegation were introduced to the President of Azerbaijan.

The guard of honor marched past President Ilham Aliyev and Vice President James David Vance to the accompaniment of a military march.

They posed together for photographs.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce concluded its first-ever business mission to Azerbaijan, February 910 in Baku, Trend reports.

Held in partnership with the U.S. Department of Commerce, the mission featured multiple sector-focused roundtables and policy dialogues, including with President Ilham Aliyev.

This inaugural business mission opens new channels of dialogue between the U.S. private sector and Azerbaijans government and business leaders, said Khush Choksy, Senior Vice President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerces International Member Relations and Middle East, Central Asia and Turkiye Affairs Department.

"Over the past two days, we discussed economic priorities, investment climate, and long-term partnership in key industries like energy, digital economy, transportation, and defense," he added.

This historic visit of 30 leading U.S. companies represents a milestone in the U.S.-Azerbaijan relationship and another step toward implementing President Trumps vision for sustainable peace and prosperity in the South Caucasus, said Amy Carlon, Charge dAffaires of the U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan.

Today, Vice President Vance and President Aliyev signed the Charter of Strategic Partnership between the United States and Azerbaijan. In collaboration with the companies in this delegation, our Strategic Partnership will build cooperation in key emerging sectors to benefit both our countries," she added.

We are proud to support this important business mission and Azerbaijans growing digital payments ecosystem. Visa is strongly committed to driving innovation, financial inclusion, and secure cashless solutions that empower businesses and support the countrys economic transformation, said Cristina Doros, Senior Vice President and Regional Manager for Ukraine, Georgia, CIS and South-East Europe at Visa.
Liberty, part of Liberty Mutual Insurance Group, has selected Jimmy Tong to serve as CEO for its Singapore business, starting 27 April 2026.

The appointment is subject to regulatory clearance.

This leadership change comes after Liberty merged its two Singapore entities, Liberty Insurance and Liberty Specialty Markets, under one insurance licence on 1 January 2026.

The unified company now operates from One Raffles Quay, Singapore.

Tong brings experience from his previous decade overseeing Great Easterns General and Group Insurance in Singapore and over 15 years working in leadership at UOB.

Tong will operate out of Singapore and report to Asia Pacific president Matthew Jackson.

Jackson said: In Asia Pacific, our goal this year is to operate as one Liberty in each market  creating a simpler, stronger organisation for our customers and partners. The completion of the Singapore company transfer, together with securing Jimmy to lead the business, represents a strong start to the year.

With the restructuring, former Liberty Insurance chief executive Yasar Fistikci has taken on the role of chief product officer in Singapore.

Nicole Lim, head of Liberty Specialty Markets, will leave the company at the end of April to pursue other opportunities.

The combined operation under the Liberty brand provides general insurance and reinsurance services, including personal and commercial policies as well as specialised solutions for construction projects, corporate customers, and public sector clients.

Last year, Liberty Specialty Markets established a new third-party division for its UK & MENA markets, merging financial and professional lines with its casualty portfolio.

"Liberty names Jimmy Tong as CEO for Singapore operations" was originally created and published by Life Insurance International, a GlobalData owned brand.




BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. Azerbaijan and the United States have agreed to intensify joint efforts to develop the Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor (the Middle Corridor) and the TRIPP project, the Charter on Strategic Partnership between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Government of the United States of America said, Trend reports.

The Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America intend to work together to advance regional connectivity, with a focus on the development of the Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor, including transport infrastructure, energy, digital infrastructure, trade, and transit, the Charter emphasizes.

The TRIPP project will ensure seamless connectivity between the main part of Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan, create new opportunities for international trade, and strengthen the regions transport potential.

The Charter on Strategic Partnership between Azerbaijan and the United States was signed in Baku on February 10. The document was signed by President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. The first plenary meeting of the G-77 and China Group for 2026 was held at UNESCO headquarters under the chairmanship of Azerbaijan, Trend reports.

UNESCO Director-General Khaled Al-Anani attended the event as the main guest speaker.

At the opening of the plenary session, Ambassador Elman Abdullayev, Azerbaijans Permanent Representative to UNESCO, expressed his gratitude to the members of the group for the trust they had placed in him. He emphasized that, during Azerbaijan's chairmanship, the interests of the Global South would take a prominent place on UNESCO's agenda, with an enriched scope of activities for the Group and enhanced coordination among its member states. The Permanent Representative also highlighted the critical importance of reinforcing the multilateral system, solidarity, and cooperation within the UN framework, especially in the face of international and regional challenges. Furthermore, he underscored that the Group of 77 and China serve as vital platforms in the domains of education, science, culture, communication, and information, as well as for issues related to Africas priorities, small island developing states, and youth.

In his address at the event chaired by Azerbaijan, UNESCO Director-General Khaled El-Enany remarked that the initiative, launched as part of UNESCO's 80th anniversary celebrations, aims to strengthen multilateralism, solidarity, and the core mission of the organization in the fields of peace, education, science, culture, and communication. He emphasized the significance of conducting inclusive and transparent consultations with member states throughout the reform process.

As part of the plenary session, congratulations were extended to the newly appointed permanent representatives, their agendas were adopted, and discussions were held on the UNESCO-80 initiative and the Group's activities.

Azerbaijan's chairmanship of the G-77 and China Group once again demonstrates our country's growing role in international organizations, especially UNESCO, and its contribution to global dialogue and solidarity.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. The Baku Network platform has released the latest episode of the analytical video project Dialogue with Tofig Abbasov, Trend reports.

Mikhail Gusman, a distinguished journalist, radio and television presenter, writer, public figure, and recipient of state honors from Azerbaijan, Russia, Italy, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, and numerous international awards, was the distinguished guest of the program.

In an insightful conversation with Tofig Abbasov, Gusman offered a comprehensive assessment of the current geopolitical dynamics in the South Caucasus, Azerbaijans pivotal role in shaping the region's evolving architecture, and the significance of U.S. Vice President Jay D. Vance's visit to the region.

Gusman underscored that the very presence of the U.S. Vice President in the region signifies substantial strategic shifts.

The visit of the Vice President of the United States to this region carries immense significance. It signals that the foundations for substantial and long-term processes are being laid here, Gusman remarked.

Reflecting on his past observations, Gusman recalled that many years ago, he had witnessed internal party dynamics in the U.S., where it was already evident how deeply the Republican administration valued the South Caucasus.

U.S. President Donald Trump accurately predicted the direction of American policy at that time. And President Ilham Aliyev correctly determined the results of future elections and the nature of bilateral relations, Gusman noted.

He emphasized that the U.S. Vice President's visit to Baku is direct confirmation of these predictions and a logical continuation of the agreements reached earlier at the highest level.

Special attention was drawn to the meeting held on August 8 of the previous year at the White House, which the guest identified as the starting point for the new political reality emerging in the region.

Commenting on the significance of Jay D. Vances visit, Mikhail Gusman emphasized that the focus has now shifted to the practical implementation of the agreements reached during previous discussions.

It is particularly noteworthy that the Vice President did not come alone, but was accompanied by a full delegation. This underscores that specific, substantive issues will be addressed and signals that the United States intends to establish a significant presence in the region, Gusman remarked.

In discussing the strategic importance of the South Caucasus, Gusman stated: Today, this region serves as a critical juncture for the global economic flow. From China to America, from Europe to Iran, every nation recognizes its stakes in this area.

He also placed particular emphasis on the Zangezur Corridor project, which he described as one of the most significant infrastructure initiatives of the 21st century.

Mikhail Gusman also highly appreciated Azerbaijan's role as an initiator of regional peace and stability, emphasizing the humanity of the victor's policy.

"The victor must be humane. Azerbaijan demonstrates this consistently and fundamentally," he stated.

According to him, peace in the South Caucasus is irreversible: After Azerbaijan put an end to the conflict, peace came to the region forever. Now the task is to learn to live in these conditions.

Concluding the discussion, Mikhail Gusman emphasized that Azerbaijan is now dominated by pragmatists and rationalists who are focused on the future.

The time of marginal figures is passing. In Azerbaijan, the main trends are set by people who think about the future of their country, he said.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. On February 3, 2025, the FLNKS (Front de liberation nationale kanak socialiste), the leading coalition of supporters of Kanak independence (New Caledonia), presented to the public a document entitled The Kanak Agreement, demanding complete independence for the Kanaks from France, Trend reports via the Baku Initiative Group (BIG).

The document states that the Kanak Agreement, prepared on the initiative of France and aimed at preserving the political future of the Kanaks within the framework of the long-standing colonial status quo, is a political response to criticism of France's restriction of the Kanaks' right to self-determination and expresses an open and principled position against the preservation of the colonial model of governance and institutional dependence that has existed in the Kanaks for many years.

The Kanak Agreement was adopted on April 26, 2025, at a congress organized by the FLNKS in Kanaka. During this congress, the leader of the movement, Christian Tein, who is imprisoned in France, drew the attention of participants to the fact that the definition of independence should be based only on a specific date and a clear political plan.

The agreement provides for the formation of the future state of Kanaka as a secular, democratic, and sovereign republic. The document includes a procedure for the preparation of a constitutional act and its approval by referendum, and also provides for the preservation of existing institutions as a temporary governance mechanism during the transition period. The FLNKS believes that until France accepts an irreversible process leading to Kanak independence by 2027, dialogues and political mechanisms carried out through existing institutions cannot serve as a real solution. This document, which is a political response to the Bougival Agreement prepared at France's initiative, emphasizes the need to change the colonial status quo that has persisted in Kanaka for many years.

Note: The Bougival Agreement served to continue French colonial rule in Kanaka on the terms of renewed status, broad autonomy, and similar concepts. The Kanaka Agreement explicitly states that its main goal is to abolish the existing status quo and achieve full political sovereignty for the Kanaka people. While the Bougival Agreement made independence an indefinite and long-term political process with no prospects, the Kanaka Agreement requires a specific date, an irreversible action plan, and guarantees at the international level, especially within the UN. For the first time, the document explicitly states that relations between France and Kanaka can be established as between two equal sovereign states after independence. Concepts such as autonomy and joint sovereignty are firmly rejected as forms of neocolonialism.

https://la1ere.franceinfo.fr/nouvellecaledonie/avenir-de-la-nouvelle-caledonie-que-dit-l-accord-de-kanaky-propose-par-le-flnks-1662425.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawP2jStleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeHwWpagFguBAV0ofkvBdrcQns7EKTMMRZ7iY1JfJ5pNU2zZw7TZV7KRvw1Cc_aem_0F7lL97IjytjwxALJRqMcA
BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. The Azerbaijan-UK Interparliamentary Relations Working Group has been reformed, the head of the working group, Deputy Chairman of the Science and Education Committee of the Azerbaijani Parliament Fariz Ismailzade said at the plenary session of the parliament today, Trend reports.

The MP noted that he attended the meeting of the working group in London a few days ago.

"Due to problems with certain internal procedures in the UK Parliament, the activities of the working group, the rules for their formation were changed some time ago, and in many cases were tightened. However, as a result of the regular and consistent propaganda work carried out by our embassy, parliament, and the speaker, the working group was reformed. According to the new rules, MPs from four different parties put their signatures for the establishment of this group," he explained.

The MP emphasized that the meetings focused on the peace agenda in the region, the rapid growth of Azerbaijani-UK relations, new realities in the South Caucasus, including Azerbaijan's brilliant victory and its transformation into a transport hub in the Eurasian region, energy policy, and the path of mediation on a global scale. The meetings noted that as a result of President Ilham Aliyev's far-sighted policy, UK-Azerbaijani relations have risen to a strategic level.

"UK MPs expressed hope for the deepening of cooperation in new areas within the framework of Azerbaijani-UK strategic relations, including technologies, green energy, artificial intelligence, logistics, security, defense industry, and other areas.

UK MPs also particularly noted the work carried out by the Azerbaijani parliament in parliamentary diplomacy. An agreement was reached on mutual bilateral visits.

At the same time, I participated in a conference on the South Caucasus at leading think tanks. Foreign trips and meetings of our MPs are frequent. However, the reformation of the working group and the deepening of relations with the parliament of a leading country like the UK deserve special attention," Ismailzade added.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. Dialogue with transnational companies strengthens Azerbaijan as a reliable partner on the global economic platform, political analyst Azer Garayev told Trend.

Speaking about a meeting of President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev with a delegation from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on February 9, led by Khush Choksy, Senior Vice President, International Member Relations, and Senior Vice President, Middle East and Turkiye, Garayev stated that in today's world, nations no longer hold a pivotal position in influencing global economic and political dynamics.

According to him, in recent decades, big players on the global stage have amassed such clout that their choices ripple through the economic plans, social priorities, and even the geopolitical scales of individual nations.

The analyst emphasized that the corporations managed by the company executives participating in the meeting are not only producers of products and services but also actors that determine global trends, create new rules, and become alternative power centers for states.

"The annual turnover of these large transnational companies exceeds the gross domestic product of medium and small states. Their investment decisions can revitalize markets, increase employment, and pave the way for technological breakthroughs, but also deepen economic dependence between countries. In such a reality, the interest of large international business structures in any country is not an ordinary economic event but is evaluated as an indicator of the place that that state holds in the global system, its political stability, and its future prospects," he explained.

Garayev said that it is not by chance that companies known worldwide and leading global markets show interest in Azerbaijan. The visit of representatives of such giant corporations as Apple, Meta, Visa, Mastercard, BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, Boeing, Honeywell, Ericsson, J.P. Morgan, Marriott, and other leading corporations in the fields of technology, energy, finance, industry, transport, logistics, and services to Baku is considered an indicator of our country's growing economic prestige and image as a reliable partner. For these companies, market selection is measured not only by economic profitability, but also by political stability, legal environment, long-term forecasting, and strategic location, and Azerbaijan has already strengthened its position on the global business map according to these criteria.

The analyst noted that the meeting and extensive discussions held by President Ilham Aliyev with the leaders of those companies serve as confirmation of this reality.

"The vision of the head of state, which extends from energy security to digital transformation, from artificial intelligence to transport and logistics corridors, clearly reveals the economic trajectory that Azerbaijan has chosen in the near and medium term. This meeting is not only a discussion of existing cooperation but is also considered a strategic step towards moving the country to new economic horizons for the coming years.

Direct dialogue with the main players of global business and coordination of their plans and interests at the state level should be considered another successful step aimed at the global development of the Azerbaijani economy. This approach is of great importance both in terms of expanding investment flows and further strengthening the country's role in regional and global economic processes," he mentioned.

According to the analyst, such meetings, along with the ramping up of similar interactions down the line, are seen as a piece of the broader atmosphere of trust that Azerbaijan has cultivated on the global stage.

"Discussions held on global economic platforms, positions voiced in international forums, and the consistently demonstrated political and economic line create the basis for the country to be perceived as a predictable and responsible partner in decision-making processes. The pragmatic position and institutional continuity demonstrated by President Ilham Aliyev in international dialogues play an important role in the formation of this approach.

Azerbaijan's active participation in global economic dialogues and a balanced attitude to regional processes allow presenting the country's potential opportunities in a broader context. Within the framework of the policy pursued under the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev, the country acts as an initiative and constructive party in international economic discussions. High-level business contacts taking place against such a background are not limited only to current cooperation issues but also serve as a platform for assessing long-term economic prospects and demonstrate the strengthening of Azerbaijan's position in the system of global economic relations," he said.

Garayev pointed out that the above company leaders view Azerbaijan as an attractive partner for stable, predictable, and long-term cooperation.

"They expressed interest in expanding cooperation in the energy, technology, finance, transport, and services sectors, noting the favorable investment climate, institutional approach, and developing economic agenda in the country. This approach demonstrates that Azerbaijan is perceived as a reliable platform in global business circles.

The ideas voiced by President Ilham Aliyev at the meeting clearly revealed the main contours of Azerbaijan's economic development model and its vision for the upcoming stage. The head of state emphasized the country's role as a reliable partner in energy security, the existing and planned energy potential, as well as the potential of these opportunities to serve the development of new areas such as digital transformation, artificial intelligence, and data centers. President Ilham Aliyev highlighted that Azerbaijan has become a favorable platform for global projects due to its geographical location, developed transport and communication infrastructure, and long-term and stable investment environment," he delineated.

The analyst pointed out that high-level connections with global companies show that Azerbaijan is not content to rest on its laurels with an economy reliant solely on current resources. Instead, it has its eyes on the horizon, anticipating future global trends and boldly moving ahead in a direction ripe for new forms of collaboration.

Garayev also noted that the meeting on February 9, during which President Ilham Aliyev received a delegation led by Betsy Berns Korn, Chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations of the U.S., once again highlights Azerbaijan's growing strategic role in the region. The fact that parallel and balanced relations with major international actors such as the U.S. and Israel are the subject of discussion shows that the country is perceived as an important partner not only in the regional but also in the broader security and cooperation architecture.

"The ideas voiced during the meeting, especially the promotion of peace in Azerbaijani-Armenian relations, the role of the U.S. in this process, and the introduction of new regional connectivity projects, demonstrate the sustainability and effectiveness of Azerbaijan's foreign policy line, which is based on dialogue and cooperation.

The messages voiced during both meetings promise the country broad development opportunities in the international political and economic sphere in the coming years. The current achievements demonstrate the existence of the political will for the global realization of the potential discussed during the meetings," the analyst added.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. The Azerbaijani Parliament approved the law submitted by President Ilham Aliyev on the ratification of the United Nations (UN) Convention against Cybercrime on February 10, 2026,Trend reports.

With this step, Azerbaijan becomes the first country to complete the ratification process, leading the way for the Conventions global implementation.

The country played an active role in shaping the final draft of the UN Convention, contributing substantively through a delegation that included representatives from the State Security Service, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Special Communication and Information Security State Service, and other government bodies. Their constructive and principled positions helped form the text of the Convention.

The Convention was adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 24, 2024, and is considered a landmark 21st-century framework. It establishes the first globally binding legal framework for combating cybercrime, setting unified standards for international cooperation.

In October 2025, the Convention was formally signed in Hanoi, Vietnam, by 74 countries, including the United Kingdom, France, China, Australia, Belgium, Turkiye, Poland, Russia, Spain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Sweden. In accordance with a decree by President Ilham Aliyev, the head of the State Security Service signed the Convention on behalf of Azerbaijan.

Ratification by national parliaments is required for countries to join this international legal framework, and Azerbaijan is the first country to complete this process.

The ratification will strengthen the capabilities of security and law enforcement agencies, regulate international legal procedures for electronic evidence, and enhance the effectiveness of cross-border investigations. Urgent international cooperation mechanisms will enable rapid responses to cybercrime.

According to the UN official website, Azerbaijan is also the only country to have signed the Convention with specific declarations and reservations, reflecting a highly professional legal approach to international obligations.

Overall, the Convention aims to expand global coordination, establish standards, and strengthen legal cooperation in the fight against cybercrime.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. Signals from Paris and Bern in recent days have highlighted that some Western circles continue to apply international law selectively, Azerbaijani political analyst Azer Garayev told Trend.

The analyst criticized a controversial resolution passed by the French Senate and statements made by Swiss parliament member Erich Vontobel during meetings in Armenia, calling them not only diplomatically irresponsible but politically aimed against Azerbaijans sovereignty and the international justice system.

Frances recent resolution sets a dangerous precedent by calling for the release of individuals convicted by Azerbaijani courts for serious crimes. These are not mere political figures; we are talking about people who have perpetrated ethnic cleansing in Azerbaijani territories for decades, committed violence against civilians, and faced formal war crime charges, all of which have been legally confirmed.

These individuals are not controversial figures; they are war criminals under international law. They commanded illegal armed groups on Azerbaijans sovereign territory and played a direct role in forcing hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis from their homes. Azerbaijani courts have established these facts through extensive documentation, witness testimony, and evidence, issuing clear legal verdicts.

In this context, the French Senates call for their release is nothing short of blatant hypocrisy. By doing so, Paris is effectively signaling that the rights of Azerbaijanis, the rulings of courts, and the authority of the states justice system hold no significance. For a country that claims to be the cradle of human rights, this stance is a serious blow to its credibility, he said.

He emphasized that this move was clearly deliberate, not accidental.

France has openly pursued a political agenda in recent years that defends Armenias interests. The military defeat of Armenia and the restoration of Azerbaijans territorial integrity are unacceptable in Paris. In response, France has attempted to revive the status quo through parliamentary resolutions, political statements, and diplomatic pressure, but such efforts are no longer feasible.

A similar approach is now emerging in Switzerland. Swiss parliamentarian Erich Vontobels visit to Armenia, where he met with individuals claiming to represent a so-called Nagorno-Karabakh leadership, demonstrates blatant disregard for international law. No such structure exists. According to the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the UN Charter, and internationally recognized borders, Karabakh is an integral part of Azerbaijan. There is no leadership, state, or entity there, and there cannot be.

By engaging in this meeting, Vontobel attempted to give political legitimacy to separatism. This is dangerously irresponsible behavior for a lawmaker from a neutral country like Switzerland. Even more alarming were his statements suggesting that the Karabakh issue has not yet been resolved, directly challenging Azerbaijans territorial integrity.

In reality, the Karabakh issue has been conclusively resolved both militarily and legally. Azerbaijan restored sovereignty over its territories in 2020 and 2023 within the framework of international law. Armenia has recognized this, and the world, including the UN, EU, OSCE, and other international organizations, acknowledges Azerbaijans territorial integrity. This reality cannot be undone, he said.

Garayev added that some European politicians are now attempting to artificially revive a separatist project that has already been defeated.

They portray individuals convicted of war crimes by Azerbaijani courts as political prisoners, attempting to mislead the international community. The fact remains: these individuals are accountable for serious crimes. If France and Switzerland truly defend human rights and the rule of law, they should prioritize the rights of war victims, the Azerbaijanis. Ignoring the demands for justice from a population expelled from its homeland, whose homes were destroyed, and whose cultural heritage was annihilated over three decades is the clearest example of double standards.

Azerbaijan does not seek special privileges from anyone. It only demands respect for international law, for court rulings, and for state sovereignty. The French Senate and the Swiss deputies must understand that Karabakh has returned. Separatism is history, and the criminals will face justice sooner or later. Political resolutions passed in European parliamentary halls cannot change this reality, the political analyst concluded.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. On February 10, during court proceedings in the criminal case against Ruben Vardanyan, who is charged under the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan with war crimes, terrorism, and several other serious offenses, the defense was given the floor to present its final arguments, Trend reports.

Following the closing statements of the defense, including that of the defendant Ruben Vardanyan, presiding Judge Zeynal Aghayev addressed the parties  the prosecution and the defense  and inquired whether they intended to submit a draft of the courts final decision.

Both parties stated that they would not submit a draft verdict.

After that, the presiding judge announced the completion of the judicial examination of the case.

The courts final verdict will be announced at a later hearing.

Ruben Vardanyan faces multiple charges under the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan, including Articles 100.1 and 100.2 (planning, preparing, initiating, and waging a war of aggression), 107 (deportation or forcible displacement of the population), 109 (persecution), 110 (forcible disappearance of persons), 112 (deprivation of liberty contrary to international law), 113 (torture), 114.1 (mercenary activity), 115.2 (violation of the laws and customs of warfare), 116.0.1, 116.0.2, 116.0.10, 116.0.11, 116.0.16, and 116.0.18 (violations of norms of international humanitarian law during an armed conflict), 120.2.1, 120.2.3, 120.2.4, 120.2.7, 120.2.11, and 120.2.12 (intentional murder), 29.120.2.1, 29.120.2.3, 29.120.2.4, 29.120.2.7, 29.120.2.11, and 29.120.2.12 (attempted intentional murder), 192.3.1 (illegal entrepreneurship), 214.2.1, 214.2.3, and 214.2.4 (terrorism), 214-1 (financing of terrorism), 218.1 and 218.2 (creation of a criminal group), 228.3 (illegal acquisition, transfer, sale, storage, transportation, and possession of firearms, ammunition, explosives, and explosive devices), 270-1.2 and 270-1.4 (acts threatening aviation safety), 278.1 (forcible seizure or retention of power, or forcible change of the constitutional structure of the state), 279.1, 279.2, and 279.3 (creation of armed formations not provided for by law), and 318.2 (illegal crossing of the state border).
BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. The Chairman of the Caucasus Muslims Office, Sheikhulislam Allahshukur Pashazade, met with the Head of the Holy See and the Catholic Church, His Holiness Pope Leo XIV, in the Vatican on February 9, a source in the office told Trend.

The audience, which took place at the personal invitation of the pontiff, was attended by Pashazade and the leaders of religious confessions in Azerbaijan - Bishop Vladimir Fekete, Ordinary of the Apostolic Prefecture of the Roman Catholic Church in Azerbaijan, Milikh Yevdayev, Head of the Mountain Jewish Community in Azerbaijan, Robert Mobili, Chairman of the Alban-Udi Christian Religious Community, and Zamir Isayev, Head of the Baku Religious Community of Sephardic Jews.

Pope Leo XIV, who warmly welcomed the guests, highly appreciated the joint visit of religious confessions in Azerbaijan to the Vatican as the best example of the possibility of coexistence in an atmosphere of peace and human fraternity.

Pashazade expressed his great honor to convey the sincere greetings of President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva, and the people of Azerbaijan to Pope Leo XVI.

He emphasized the high level of Azerbaijan-Vatican relations, founded by National Leader Heydar Aliyev, continued by President Ilham Aliyev, and developed through the efforts of First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva.

Pashazade also noted that the historic visit of the late Pope Francis to Azerbaijan, his meeting with the leaders of religious confessions in the country, and his kind words about the multicultural values and exemplary interfaith environment of the country are always in the people's memory.

The chairman expressed his satisfaction with the level of relations between the Vatican and the Caucasus Muslims Office in the field of interfaith cooperation, drawing attention to the importance of further deepening these relations, emphasizing that the establishment of the Caucasus Muslims Office representation in the Vatican can make a great contribution to this process.
Lufthansa passenger planes are de-iced at Frankfurt Airport. Around 100 flights had to be canceled here due to the weather. Boris Roessler/dpa

Germany's Lufthansa Group said on Tuesday it is now deploying its new short-haul subsidiary Lufthansa City Airlines at its largest hub in Frankfurt.

After an initial launch on Monday with a flight to Manchester, the Frankfurt-based fleet is set to grow to seven A320neo aircraft by September, the company said.

Thirteen aircraft are already based at the second hub in Munich.

To support the expansion of the wholly owned subsidiary, the group is hiring employees in Frankfurt. Some 60 staff have already been recruited, and a further 280 positions are planned.

Lufthansa City Airlines currently employs around 450 people.

Its crews are replacing staff at the core Lufthansa brand and the regional subsidiary Lufthansa CityLine under lower collective wage agreements  a strategy that pilot and cabin crew unions criticize.

For passengers, it is difficult to tell which airline they are flying with, as City Airlines is fully integrated into the Lufthansa flight schedule and does not sell its own tickets.

The group is pursuing a similar concept with its subsidiary Discover, which operates long-haul flights to popular leisure destinations.

The UFO cabin crew union is calling for wage negotiations at both the core airline and the regional subsidiary CityLine, whose future is now under review. In a letter to members, the union warned that if talks remain blocked, it could call strikes at any time, including at short notice.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. The Agreement on Cooperation and Mutual Assistance in Customs Matters between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Government of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has been approved, Trend reports.

The relevant law was approved by the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev.

According to the document, the Agreement signed in Baku, Azerbaijan, on November 27, 2025, between the Government of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan on cooperation and mutual assistance in customs matters should be approved.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. The trial in the criminal case against Ruben Vardanyan, a citizen of Armenia, accused under articles of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan related to crimes against peace and humanity, war crimes, as well as terrorism and financing of terrorism, and other serious crimes, continued on February 10, Trend reports.

The open court session at the Baku Military Court, presided over by judge Zeynal Agayev and composed of Anar Rzayev and Jamal Ramazanov (with alternate judge Gunel Samedova), provided the accused with an interpreter in the language he knows, namely Russian, as well as a state-funded lawyer for his defense.

The presiding judge reminded that at the previous court session, the state prosecutors had presented their arguments. Z. Agayev stated that now the floor would be given to the victims' side.

Speaking on behalf of the Azerbaijani state as a victim, Rufat Mammadov, head of the Cabinet of Ministers Admnistration, stated that he fully agrees with all the facts, evidence, and proofs presented by the prosecution, including those mentioned in the indictment, and requested that the court take this into account.

Subsequently, the legal heirs of the victims, Azad Karimov, Ogtay Shikhaliev, Gadim Agakhanov, Faig Rustamov, and Shiraslan Hasanov, spoke and requested that the accused be sentenced to the harshest punishment: life imprisonment.

The accused, R. Vardanyan, addressed the court, stating that he wished to speak with his defense lawyer Emil Babishov. The court granted his motion. A recess was announced in the court session for the accused to meet with his lawyer.

After the recess, the floor was given to the defense side. The accused stated that during the recess he had spoken with his lawyer and did not want him to make a speech.

The floor was then given to the accused's lawyer, E. Babishov. In his speech, the defense counsel firmly stated that they did not agree with the announced charges. Citing the position of the accused in the case, he said he was waiving the right to deliver a defense speech regarding the criminal case.

Following that, the floor was given to the prosecution side to respond to the defense counsel's speech.

Vusal Aliyev, senior assistant to the Prosecutor General, said: Taking into account that the defense counsel, in line with the accused's position, refrains from assessing any arguments, evidence, or facts, we have no additional opinion.

Then the floor was given to R. Vardanyan.

The accused delivered his final statement. In his final speech, R. Vardanyan spoke in general terms rather than addressing specific issues. He said he had read the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

In his speech, the accused also mentioned that during the more than two years of his detention, he had discovered Azerbaijani poetry for himself. R. Vardanyan recited a poem by Azerbaijan's great poet Mohammad Fuzuli and a passage from a poem by Huseyn Javid in Russian. After that, he concluded his speech.

Zeynal Agayev addressed the parties (prosecution and defense), asking whether they would submit a draft version of the final court decision based on the results of the trial proceedings.

The parties stated that they would not submit a draft of the final court decision.

Subsequently, the presiding judge announced that the trial proceedings had concluded. After the court panel returns from deliberations, the court verdict will be announced.

At the previous court session, the prosecutor representing the state prosecution had spoken and proposed sentencing the accused R. Vardanyan to life imprisonment.

Ruben Vardanyan faces multiple charges under the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan, including Articles 100.1 and 100.2 (planning, preparing, initiating, and waging a war of aggression), 107 (deportation or forcible displacement of the population), 109 (persecution), 110 (forcible disappearance of persons), 112 (deprivation of liberty contrary to international law), 113 (torture), 114.1 (mercenary activity), 115.2 (violation of the laws and customs of warfare), 116.0.1, 116.0.2, 116.0.10, 116.0.11, 116.0.16, and 116.0.18 (violations of norms of international humanitarian law during an armed conflict), 120.2.1, 120.2.3, 120.2.4, 120.2.7, 120.2.11, and 120.2.12 (intentional murder), 29.120.2.1, 29.120.2.3, 29.120.2.4, 29.120.2.7, 29.120.2.11, and 29.120.2.12 (attempted intentional murder), 192.3.1 (illegal entrepreneurship), 214.2.1, 214.2.3, and 214.2.4 (terrorism), 214-1 (financing of terrorism), 218.1 and 218.2 (creation of a criminal group), 228.3 (illegal acquisition, transfer, sale, storage, transportation, and possession of firearms, ammunition, explosives, and explosive devices), 270-1.2 and 270-1.4 (acts threatening aviation safety), 278.1 (forcible seizure or retention of power, or forcible change of the constitutional structure of the state), 279.1, 279.2, and 279.3 (creation of armed formations not provided for by law), and 318.2 (illegal crossing of the state border).

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. Today, relations between the United States and Azerbaijan are entering absolutely new phase, President Ilham Aliyev said during his press statement with US Vice President James David Vance, Trend reports.

Statement by President Ilham Aliyev

- Dear Mr. Vice President,

Dear guests,

Ladies and gentlemen,

It's a big honor for us to welcome Mr. Vice President on an official visit to Azerbaijan. We had a very good conversation today, covering many issues of our bilateral agenda. We are very grateful to the Trump-Vance administration for its very positive attitude toward Azerbaijan. Today's ceremonial signing of the Charter on Strategic Partnership is a reflection of the very hard work that our teams conducted for six months. Six months ago, a historical meeting in Washington with President Trump and the signing of a document to establish the working group to elaborate the Charter on Strategic Partnership opened new opportunities for bilateral cooperation.

For us, it's a great honor to be a strategic partner of the most powerful country in the world, the United States of America. We're also very grateful to President Trump, Vice President Vance, and their team for their contribution to peace in the Caucasus. Last August, Armenia and Azerbaijan, at the White House and in the presence of President Trump, initialed a peace agreement, and we also signed a Joint Declaration on Peace, which President Trump signed as a witness. And over these six months, we have already lived in peace. We are learning to live in peace.

We're very grateful to the United States Government for this great contribution. Not only have we lifted all the restrictions on the transit of cargo through Azerbaijan to Armenia, but we have also started to supply oil products to Armenia, thus actually beginning trade and cooperation. One of the important results of the Trump-Vance administration's efforts in our region is the implementation of the Trump Route for International Peace and ProsperityTRIPP, which will not only connect the two parts of Azerbaijan, but also will be a very reliable, safe, and large-scale transportation corridor that will connect Asia with Europe through the territory of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and other neighbors, thus strengthening what has been achieved on the peace track in the region. Today, relations between the United States and Azerbaijan are entering an absolutely new phase.

In the Charter, which we signed with our dear guest, there are different directions of our cooperation. We will continue to work closely on issues related to security and anti-terror operations. We will continue to work on issues related to energy security. Azerbaijan today provides energy security through its natural gas resources to 16 countries, 11 of them being NATO members, allies of the United States.

Connectivity, as I already mentioned, with TRIPP, will be another contribution to peace, development, and cooperation in the region. We're also opening the chapter of cooperation in defense sales, which is also very promising, and, of course, AI data centers, which today are part of our bilateral agenda, and where we already have preliminary results from our interaction with leading American companies. In other words, today's visit of Vice President Vance can be called historical, from the point of view of hosting our friend and guest, and from the point of view of the substance of negotiations and the Strategic Charter which has been signed. Once again, Mr. Vice President, welcome to Azerbaijan
BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. The Iranian Embassy in Azerbaijan organized an official reception on the occasion of the country's national holiday - the 47th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Baku, Trend reports.

The event begun with performance of national anthems of Azerbaijan and Iran.

The reception was attended by state and government officials, Azerbaijani MPs, ambassadors of foreign countries accredited in Azerbaijan, and the public representatives.

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Photo: Press service of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan

BAKU, Azerbaijani, February 10. Connectivity, as I already mentioned, with TRIPP, will be another contribution to peace, development, and cooperation in the region, President Ilham Aliyev said during his press statement with US Vice President James David Vance, Trend reports.

The head of state emphasized: We're also opening the chapter of cooperation in defense sales. As for AI data centers, today they are part of our bilateral agenda. We already have preliminary results from our interaction with leading American companies.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. The next meeting of the Azerbaijani-Iranian joint state commission, to be held in Baku in the coming days, will contribute to the further expansion of all the areas of cooperation and the implementation of existing projects, Azerbaijan's Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev said at an event dedicated to the 47th anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, held in Baku today, Trend reports.

According to him, speaking about the development of economic cooperation between the two countries, the activities of the commission on the economic, trade, and humanitarian cooperation should be highlighted.

Mustafayev also said that, within the framework of implementing the instructions of the presidents of the two countries, the execution of projects is being ensured across various sectors of the economy, particularly transport, energy, trade, infrastructure, communications, and other areas.

Some of these projects are currently at the implementation stage, some are nearing completion, and others have already been completed and commissioned. The participation of the presidents in the AzerbaijanIran business forum held as part of President Masoud Pezeshkians official visit clearly reflects the great importance both countries attach to this sphere. Cooperation in the transport and logistics sector is one of the strategic directions of AzerbaijanIran relations, he added.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. The development of relations with the friendly, brotherly, and neighboring Azerbaijan is of particular importance for Iran, the countrys ambassador, Mojtaba Demirchilou, said at an event dedicated to the 47th anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, held in Baku today, Trend reports.

According to him, these relations are based on a shared history, cultural, religious, and linguistic closeness, as well as kinship ties, and are shaped by mutual interests.

The ambassador noted that these days mark the 34th anniversary of the Islamic Republic of Irans recognition of the independence of Azerbaijan and the establishment of official diplomatic relations between the two countries. The Islamic Republic of Iran was among the first countries to recognize Azerbaijans independence in December 1991, and in March 1992, with the opening of Irans embassy in Baku, a solid institutional foundation was laid for the development of bilateral relations.

Demirchilou also said that over the past 34 years, Iran has demonstrated a principled and unwavering position in support of the inviolability of Azerbaijans independence, the strengthening of its national sovereignty, and the restoration of its territorial integrity, and has always shown solidarity with the Azerbaijani state and people.

Today as well, as a result of the political will of the highest leadership of both countries, bilateral relations continue to develop along an upward trajectory. Ongoing dialogue between the presidents and other high-ranking officials, the implementation of joint economic projects, including in the energy and transport sectors, as well as the regular holding of meetings of the joint commission on economic, scientific, and cultural cooperation, all play an important role in this process.

We are confident that through the continuation and strengthening of this positive momentum, the friendly and fraternal relations between our countries will rise to a new level, and our peoples will more deeply feel the benefits of this steadfast partnership, he added.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. The full text of the Charter on Strategic Partnership between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Government of the United States of America has been published.

Trend presents the full text of the Charter:

The Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Government of the United States of America:

1. Reaffirm their support for each others sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and inviolability of borders as the foundation of their bilateral relations;

2. Proceed from the Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Government of the United States of America regarding the establishment of a Working Group to develop a Strategic Partnership Charter between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America signed on August 8, 2025, in Washington D.C.;

3. Affirm the importance of their strategic partnership across areas of mutual interest and shared benefit, including regional connectivity, economic investment, and security cooperation;

4. Underline their shared desire to strengthen their relationship across issues of mutual interest, including the diplomatic, economic, energy, technological, and security fields;

5. Affirm the vital importance of engaging not only government agencies, but also the private sectors of both countries in planning and implementing a strategic partnership and enhanced cooperation.

Section I: Regional Connectivity, Including Energy, Trade, and Transit

The Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America intend to work together to promote regional connectivity, with a focus on the Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor (Middle Corridor) by cooperation on land, maritime, and air transportation infrastructure development; energy and data connectivity; trade and transit facilitation; customs control and border crossing; international multi-modal logistics; and other related areas. They acknowledge the importance of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), as a multi-modal connectivity project that will provide unimpeded connectivity between the main part of the Republic of Azerbaijan and its Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic with reciprocal benefits for international and intra-state connectivity for the countries involved, and unlock the regions potential for international trade and transit in line with the Washington Peace Summit Declaration of August 8, 2025.

The Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America intend to work toward improving the business climate, and trade and investment flows to promote bilateral economic relations while building upon the productive history of the Azerbaijan-U.S. relationship, which has resulted in the implementation of such projects as the Contract of the Century, the Southern Gas Corridor, and benefited both sides and the broader region through close collaboration. To this end:

1. The Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America intend to expand cooperation to promote economic growth and regional connectivity with a focus on developing the Middle Corridor across the energy, transport and digital infrastructure sectors, including through the development of the TRIPP and other projects;

2. Recognizing the importance of regional connectivity, the Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America intend to explore opportunities to mobilize public and private sector investment in the energy and transport sectors as well as digital infrastructure development;

3. Acknowledging the Republic of Azerbaijans strategic importance as a reliable partner in energy security, the Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America intend to expand energy cooperation including in the oil, gas and electricity sectors bilaterally and through partnerships with third countries toward implementation of joint projects, such as interconnector projects, and diversifying supply routes;

4. The Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America intend to deepen civil nuclear cooperation;

5. The Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America express their intention to cooperate in facilitating the transit of critical minerals via the Middle Corridor to global markets.

Section II: Economic Investment, Including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Digital Infrastructure

1. The Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America intend to expand cooperation to enhance economic growth, promote investment, and improve the bilateral business climate. The United States of America welcomes the Republic of Azerbaijans efforts to further integrate into the global economy and enhance its position as an energy, trade, data, finance, transport and logistics hub for the Caspian region.

2. The Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America intend to identify strategic opportunities to increase bilateral trade and investment, including through exploring the possibility of convening economic or trade dialogue platforms;

3. The Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America intend to expand cooperation to advance bilateral and regional economic, trade and investment cooperation with the active participation of the private sector;

4. The Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America intend to expand collaboration on developing AI partnerships, and, where appropriate, to promote cooperation in the space industry and investments in digital infrastructure, including the development of AI data centers in the Republic of Azerbaijan in cooperation with the private sector;

5. Building on international best practices, the Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America intend to examine the creation of dedicated mechanisms, such as joint R&D support instruments, innovation bridge platforms, and sector-focused initiatives in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence  designed to catalyze private venture capital, de-risk early-stage technology development, and accelerate commercialization;

6. The Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America intend to share best practices and provide technical assistance in application of emerging technologies, platforms, and business practices, foster partnerships for talent development and growth of a skilled tech workforce in the Republic of Azerbaijan based upon a supportive regulatory environment and promote investments for cross-border and Trans-Caspian digital connectivity;

7. The Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America intend to cooperate at the intergovernmental level and through public-private partnerships to support joint research, development, commercialization, technology protection, and voluntary transfer of technologies on mutually determined terms for the development of digital infrastructure and application of AI in the Republic of Azerbaijan, consistent with legal and regulatory frameworks;

Section III: Security Cooperation

Peace in the South Caucasus is in the shared interest of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America and security cooperation between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America benefits both nations as well as international and regional peace and security. The United States deeply values Azerbaijans contributions to international peacekeeping efforts where Azerbaijani forces served alongside the United States and coalition partners to advance international and regional security.

1. The Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America intend to expand the scope of their defense and security cooperation, including defense sales;

2. Given their shared commitment to countering the scourge of terrorism, the Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America intend to expand their existing counterterrorism cooperation;

3. The Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America intend to cooperate to increase capabilities in the field of cybersecurity and critical infrastructure protection;

4. Being mindful of serious challenges faced by the Republic of Azerbaijan due to contamination with landmines and other explosives, the Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America intend to cooperate in capacity building in humanitarian de-mining through financial support and technology transfer.

Section IV: Institutional Framework and implementation

Recognizing the shared desire to implement the commitments of this Charter, the Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America may, as part of the existing Strategic Partnership framework, establish working groups on areas of cooperation, including economy and trade; energy; connectivity, AI, and digital development; and security and defense.

Within three months from the signing of the present Charter, the respective Working Groups intend to decide on the list of projects and roadmaps for their implementation.

The Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America intend to meet regularly, at least once in a year within the framework of the present Charter and may create other dialogue platforms as necessary and mutually determined for the implementation of their partnership.

For the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan

For the Government of the United States of America
BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. Strategic partnership between the U.S. and Azerbaijan will develop cooperation in new areas, Amy Carlon, Charge d'Affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan, said on the sidelines of the first business mission of American companies to Azerbaijan, Trend reports.

"This historic visit of 30 leading U.S. companies represents a milestone in the U.S.-Azerbaijan relationship and another step toward implementing President Trumps vision for sustainable peace and prosperity in the South Caucasus.

Today, Vice President Vance and President Aliyev signed the Charter of Strategic Partnership between the United States and Azerbaijan. In collaboration with the companies in this delegation, our Strategic Partnership will build cooperation in key emerging sectors to benefit both our countries," she noted.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. The governments of Azerbaijan and the United States have reaffirmed their support for each others sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity as a key principle of bilateral relations, the Charter on Strategic Partnership between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Government of the United States of America said, Trend reports.

The governments of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America reaffirm their support for sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, and the inviolability of borders as the foundation of bilateral relations, the published text of the document says.

The document emphasizes the parties intention to deepen cooperation in diplomacy, the economy, energy, technology, and defense, as well as to promote regional integration and joint projects with the private sector.

The Charter on Strategic Partnership between Azerbaijan and the United States was signed in Baku on February 10. The document was signed by President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance.
Making money on crypto can feel straightforward until tax season reveals how many everyday transactions quietly trigger taxes. As IRS reporting expands, investors who assume nothing counts until they cash out may be setting themselves up for an expensive surprise.

Crypto experts explained five tax traps to avoid.

1. Thinking Nothing Counts Until You Cash Out

Many crypto investors assume taxes only matter when money hits their bank account. Many taxable events happen long before that, said Ravi Parikh, CFO and managing director of Parikh Financial.

Gregory Monaco, a CPA and the owner of Monaco CPA, explained that even when you trade one coin for another, the IRS usually treats it like you sold the first coin.

Another way to think about crypto is as the IRS does, as property, according to Tom Taulli, enrolled agent and tax advisor at Blue Sky Tax Prep. So a swap is essentially a disposal of it and is a taxable event.

Even Airdrops and staking rewards often count as ordinary income based on value when received, even if you dont sell, Monaco noted.

Find Out: 5 Ways You Can Reduce Your Tax Bill Like a Millionaire, According to Robert Kiyosaki

Read Next: 9 Low-Effort Ways To Make Passive Income (You Can Start This Week)

2. Timing and Holding Periods

How long you hold crypto before selling or swapping it can dramatically change your tax outcome. Short-term gains, which are for crypto held for a year or less, are taxed as ordinary income, Taulli said, and often taxed at much higher rates, which can catch investors off guard during active markets. The top bracket is 37% for federal taxes, he said.

However, if the holding period is more than a year, you get preferential capital gains rates (0%, 15% or 20%).

In other words, The timing of your trade matters more than you think, Parikh said.

3. Cost Basis Errors

Even when investors understand whats taxable, poor recordkeeping can make gains look far larger than they really are. Missing cost basis is one of the fastest ways to overpay or trigger IRS scrutiny, Monaco said.

If you cant prove what you paid for your crypto, the IRS can treat your cost as zero. Thats how people end up paying tax on gains they didnt actually have, Monaco added.

Taulli pointed out, Exchanges only know your transactions. Not those you make on other exchanges. This can lead to incomplete records.

Cost basis is essential for calculating gains or losses, Parikh stressed.

4. A False Sense of Security

New reporting rules give the IRS more visibility, but they dont necessarily give taxpayers better information. Many forms still lack key details investors need to defend their numbers, Taulli said.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. Azerbaijan and the United States have reaffirmed their intention to expand cooperation in the fields of defense and security, including defense sales, counterterrorism, and cybersecurity, the Charter on Strategic Partnership between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Government of the United States of America said, Trend reports.

The Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States of America intend to expand the scope of cooperation in the field of defense and security, including defense sales, the document says.

The parties also emphasized Azerbaijans contribution to international peacekeeping missions and agreed on joint initiatives in humanitarian demining.

The Charter on Strategic Partnership between Azerbaijan and the United States was signed in Baku on February 10. The document was signed by President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. Minister of Defense Industry of the Republic of Azerbaijan Vugar Mustafayev, who is participating in the World Defense Show 2026 international exhibition held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, held a series of meetings on February 9, Trend reports.

As part of the exhibition, the minister met with Deputy Chairman of the Turkish Defense Industry Committee Gokhan Ucar, Director General of the Sudanese Defense Industry System Mirghani Idris Suleiman, as well as with the heads of ST Engineering (Singapore), Colt CZ (Czech Republic), ALIT and CETC (China), BAYKAR, TUSAS and HAVELSAN (Turkiye), and Trillium (U.S.).

Throughout the meetings, the parties exchanged views on existing cooperation in the defense industry, further exploration of international experience, global trends, the application of modern innovative technologies, and the development of industrial capabilities.

The discussions highlighted the importance of expanding partnerships and noted the opportunities that such international platforms create for the exchange of experience and professional dialogue. The parties emphasized the importance of open dialogue and mutual understanding in the defense industry.

The meetings, which took place in a businesslike and constructive atmosphere, were remembered for useful discussions in terms of strengthening international relations in the field of the defense industry.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. The implementation of an important road project that will change the transportation map of the Absheron Peninsula continues, the statement of the State Agency of Azerbaijan Automobile Roads says, Trend reports.

The new road, which will connect the M1 Baku-Guba-Russian state border highway with the M4 Baku-Shamakhi-Yevlakh highway, will greatly facilitate interregional connections.

The construction of new road is carried out within the project of construction of Pirshaghi-Novkhani-Khirdalan-M4 highway under the State Program on Improving Transport Infrastructure in Baku and its Surrounding Areas for 20252030.

The 29-kilometer highway, built to technical category 1B standards, will boast six lanes. The project includes the construction of nine interchanges, 13 overpasses, a channel bridge, and two tunnel-type overpasses.

The project also includes the installation of 12 rectangular crossings, 28 circular and various diameter pipes, drainage wells, various sized drainage pipes, as well as spare crossing pipes along the road.

All the construction work is carried out in accordance with Construction Norms and Rules, following the proper technological sequence and maintaining high-quality standards. To ensure timely completion, the necessary equipment and workforce have been mobilized on-site.

The new highway will provide convenient and efficient transport connections between settlements in the northeast of the Absheron Peninsula and the northern regions via the BakuGubastate border highway with Russia, as well as with the western regions via the BakuShamakhiYevlakh highway, all without requiring passage through the capital.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. A strategic agreement was signed between the Azerbaijani company USH Group and the world-renowned brand Berettaa company with over 500 years of history and a reputation as one of the most demanding and selective players in the global defense industryat the international World Defense Show in Saudi Arabia, Trend reports.

A Choice Based on Standards and Trust

Beretta traditionally approaches the selection of its international partners with the utmost rigor, relying on strict criteria related to quality, technological maturity, manufacturing discipline, and long-term strategic compatibility. The concluded agreement confirms that the products and manufacturing standards of USH Group fully meet the high requirements of one of the oldest and most authoritative manufacturers in the industry.

Within the framework of the partnership, special emphasis is placed on the high quality of USH Groups products, their engineering precision, reliability, and compliance with international standards.

The company consistently invests in modern production facilities, quality control systems, and the development of its export potential.

Strategic Importance for Azerbaijans Defense Industry

This agreement is of fundamental importance for strengthening the position of Azerbaijans defense industry in the international market. Partnership with one of the global leaders of the sector not only confirms the competitiveness of the national manufacturer but also enhances international customers confidence in Azerbaijani products.

The agreement contributes to increasing the recognition of Azerbaijani technologies, expanding export geography, and integrating the country into global production and distribution chains within the defense industry.

Expansion of International Presence

The agreement envisages:

promotion of USH Group products in international markets through expanded distribution channels;

development of joint commercial and technological projects;

coordination of efforts to enter new regions;

participation in international exhibitions and specialized industry events.

The signing of the strategic partnership at the World Defense Show underscores the significance of the event for both parties and reflects a high level of mutual trust.

The parties expressed confidence that the cooperation will be long-term and will serve as a solid foundation for further technological and commercial development.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. The state visit of President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev to Pakistan, which wrapped up on February 6, turned out to be a significant milestone in the journey of bilateral relations in recent years. Following the talks, the parties signed over 30 documents, signaling their commitment to shift from mere political statements to tangible steps in enhancing cooperation.

The importance of the visit is highlighted by the ongoing reassessment of transport routes throughout Eurasia. Uzbekistan, a landlocked nation, is keenly exploring innovative logistics corridors to lessen reliance on conventional routes and enhance access to global markets. Tashkent perceives Pakistan as a vital southern gateway, leveraging the strategic ports of Karachi and Gwadar.

For Pakistan, enhanced relations with Uzbekistan translate to greater transit flows, improved use of port infrastructure, and a more prominent position as a vital connector between Central and South Asia.

A key element of the transport agenda was the Uzbekistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan railway project, which is expected to create a direct overland corridor between Central Asia and Pakistans maritime terminals.

The Trans-Afghan railway is of strategic importance for all of Eurasia. This corridor will improve trade, support Afghanistans economic recovery, and open new routes to global markets through southern ports, Uzbekistans Foreign Minister Bakhtiyor Saidov stated after the signing of the document.

In July 2025, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, and Afghanistan signed a framework agreement on preparing a feasibility study. In February 2026, Tashkent approved the corresponding international treaty.

The railway line, stretching approximately 647 km, will traverse the Termez-Naibabad-Maidanshahr-Logar-Kharlachi route and seamlessly connect to Pakistans network, ultimately reaching the bustling port of Karachi. The initial estimate for the project's cost stands at $4.6 billion.

Anticipated to revolutionize logistics, this route will slash cargo delivery times from the existing 35-40 days down to an impressive 3-5 days, all while significantly cutting transportation costs. Uzbekistans Ministry of Transport projects that freight volumes may soar to between 15 and 20 million tons annually by the years 2035 to 2040.

However, the question remains whether the countries will be able to turn their lofty ambitions into tangible infrastructure. Experts note that the primary factor of uncertainty continues to be the security situation in Afghanistan. Stability and guarantees for protecting infrastructure will determine not only construction but also the long-term operation of the corridor.

Securing funds is yet another hurdle to jump over. The project requires billions of dollars in investment, the lure of global investors, and safety nets to guard against political and business pitfalls. Technical standards, tariffs, and customs procedures among the three countries will also need to be harmonized; otherwise, the expected benefits of shorter delivery times may prove limited.

At the same time, the sides agreed to develop a new multimodal route Pakistan-China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan. This corridor is intended to connect the port of Karachi with Uzbekistans Andijan region via Chinas Kashgar and Kyrgyzstans Osh, providing Central Asia with an additional outlet to maritime trade routes.

The parties announced that pilot shipments would begin as early as February, demonstrating their desire to move quickly toward practical steps. While the Trans-Afghan railway is seen as the most direct access to southern ports, the route through China and Kyrgyzstan could serve as an additional diversification option. At the same time, it requires complex coordination among several states, infrastructure development, and proof of economic competitiveness in practice.

Beyond transport, the visit was also rich in economic agreements. Uzbekistan and Pakistan set a goal of increasing trade turnover to $2 billion within the next five years. Trade is already showing growth: from around $300 million in 2023 to nearly $446 million by the end of 2025, with Uzbek exports expanding at a faster pace.

To achieve new targets, a joint business forum was held during the visit, attended by the leaders of both countries and more than 300 company representatives. For the first time, a Protocol of Achieved Agreements was signed, outlining implementation timelines and assigning responsibility to relevant agencies.

Key focus areas encompass agriculture, textiles, pharmaceuticals, the chemical sector, construction materials, logistics, and port services. The parties also decided to broaden the range of products included in the preferential trade agreement and to leverage Uzbekistans trade houses in Lahore and Karachi more effectively.

Investment cooperation remains another driver of relations. Over the past eight years, the number of enterprises with Pakistani capital in Uzbekistan has grown 6.5 times, reaching around 230. During the visit, a portfolio of joint projects worth $3.5 billion was formed, along with an agreement to establish an UzbekPakistani Business Council and expand support for small and medium-sized enterprises.

The regional agenda was also a key piece of the puzzle. The sides supported the initiative to hold the first Forum of Regions already this year, with the inaugural meeting proposed to take place in Uzbekistans Khorezm region, which would accelerate the launch of joint projects.

President Mirziyoyevs visit to Pakistan demonstrated the determination of both countries to strengthen cooperation and move toward concrete joint initiatives. The spotlight was firmly on forging fresh trade and transport pathways that could link Central Asia with the southern ports of Pakistan. Meanwhile, the fundamental concern is whether the parties can carry out these massive projects in light of the ongoing financial and security threats.
Azerbaijan's Finance Ministry secures major savings through court cases in 2025

Azerbaijan's Finance Ministry played a key role in saving significant state funds through court cases in 2025. The ministry was involved in numerous civil and criminal cases, contributing to successful recoveries. A substantial amount has already been recovered, with more expected from ongoing cases.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. Azerbaijan's economy is developing comprehensively, Senior Vice President of International Member Relations, Middle East & Turkiye, Khush Choksy said in response to Trend's question at a briefing in Baku.

"I will highlight just a few potential sectors, but the most remarkable thing about Azerbaijan's economy is its diversity. Even energy today accounts for only about 3.7% of the economy, which indicates an extremely broad balance in the economic structure. Therefore, if you look at the composition of our delegation and the interest in Azerbaijan, it is indeed very, very broad," Choksy said.

He noted that the delegation includes companies from the telecommunications sector, telecommunications infrastructure, energy companies, defense sector companies, companies working in the field of healthcare, payment systems, and banks.

"Manufacturing is also represented in its various forms. Thus, the coverage is indeed extremely broad.

In other words, Azerbaijan's economy is developing comprehensively," he added.
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BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. The TRIPP initiative (Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity) may open new horizons for Uzbekistan, primarily in the development of transport and logistics infrastructure and the countrys integration into global supply chains, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Ranokhon Tursunova told Trend.

The initiative envisages modernization of existing routes and the creation of new transport corridors, increasing the efficiency of multimodal transportation, as well as introducing modern standards in customs administration and logistics, she noted.

According to the expert, TRIPP may also play a particularly important role in attracting investment and advanced technologies into the development of green energy, sustainable transport, and the digitalization of trade.

These areas directly correspond to Uzbekistans national priorities in sustainable development, energy efficiency, and reducing its carbon footprint, Tursunova emphasized.

She added that TRIPP could become a tool for expanding the countrys trade, economic, and infrastructure potential, provided the initiative is implemented pragmatically and inclusively.

It is important that its implementation remains free from political considerations and focused on practical results, the professor said.

The expert also drew attention to the fact that for Central Asian states, which lack direct access to global seaports, the diversification of transport routes, modernization of logistics systems, and attraction of infrastructure investment are of strategic importance.

In this context, TRIPP may become an additional factor in strengthening regional connectivity and expanding access to international markets, she concluded.

On August 8, 2025, in Washington, with the participation of US President Donald Trump, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, and Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, a joint declaration was signed. One of the points of the document provides for the launch of the Zangezur corridor ("Trump Route" or TRIPP) to unblock regional communications. In addition, the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia initialed an agreement on peace and interstate relations.

In January 2026, the Armenian Foreign Ministry published the agreement signed between Armenia and the U.S. on the implementation of the TRIPP project. Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met in Washington and presented a framework program for the implementation of the TRIPP project. The published document was assessed as a new step towards fulfilling the commitments made at the White House on August 8, 2025, to support the establishment of a sustainable peace in the South Caucasus.

The joint statement of Mirzoyan and Rubio said that Armenia intends to approve and support the establishment of the TRIPP Development Company, which will be responsible for the development of the TRIPP project. The company will be granted the right to implement the project for an initial period of 49 years. Yerevan plans to offer Washington 74% of the shares of TRIPP Development Company while retaining 26%.
Photo: Ministry of Digital Development and Transport of the Republic of Azerbaijan

BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. Azerbaijan's Minister of Digital Development and Transport, Rashad Nabiyev, held a meeting with a delegation led by Kush Choksy, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Senior Vice President of International Member Relations, Middle East & Turkiye, Trend reports via the ministry.

The meeting was attended by leaders and representatives of leading U.S. companies such as Apple, Mastercard, Visa, Ericsson, Motorola Solutions, Honeywell, Parallel Wireless, Meta, Resecurity, Global Data Risk, WhiteFox Defense Technologies, bp, Lummus Technology, and other companies.

During the meeting, opportunities for cooperation in the fields of cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and digital technologies were discussed.

On February 9, 2026, a high-level delegation from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce arrived in Azerbaijan. The delegation was led by Khush Choksy, Senior Vice President of International Member Relations and Senior Vice President for the Middle East & Turkiye. The group included Jennifer Miel, Vice President for the Middle East, Central Asia, and Turkiye, along with senior representatives from several major global companies, including Apple, Ardea Energy Technologies Inc., Ericsson AB, ExxonMobil, Herbalife, Meta, Visa, Wabtec, Baker Hughes, bp, Boeing Global, Honeywell, J.P. Morgan, Lummus Technology, Marriott, Mastercard, Shell International, Azerbaijan Coca-Cola Bottlers LLC, and Motorola Solutions. The delegation met with President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan for discussions aimed at strengthening business ties and exploring new opportunities for cooperation.
Indian automotive major Mahindra plans to invest Rs150bn ($1.65bn) over ten years to enlarge its manufacturing base in the state of Maharashtra.

The investment includes a new automotive manufacturing facility near Nagpur.

The planned facility in the Vidarbha region will span about 1,500 acres, alongside a 150-acre supplier park in Sambhajinagar.

When fully operational, the site is expected to produce more than five lakh vehicles and one lakh tractors annually, making it the groups largest integrated manufacturing location in India.

Components from the Sambhajinagar supplier park will feed the new Nagpur operation as well as Mahindras existing plants in Chakan and Nashik, a move aimed at improving logistics efficiency and increasing localisation.

Mahindra cited the areas connectivity - including access to the Samruddhi Expressway, rail links and closeness to domestic and export markets - as key factors behind the investment.

Production at the Nagpur plant is scheduled to start in 2028.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said: Mahindras decision to establish its largest integrated auto and tractor manufacturing facility in Maharashtra is a strong endorsement of the states robust industrial ecosystem and progressive policy framework.

This landmark investment will generate significant employment, accelerate regional development in Vidarbha and surrounding areas, and further reinforce Maharashtras position as a leading manufacturing hub in India.

The automotive unit will manufacture vehicles using internal combustion engines, electric drivetrains and future powertrain technologies, and

It will support Mahindra Autos next-generation platforms, including NU_IQ architecture.

The tractor operation is intended to supply both domestic customers and overseas markets.

Separately, the group said it plans to acquire land in the IgatpuriNashik corridor to increase existing product and engine capacity and to back its advanced technology activities.

Altogether, Mahindra said it would secure more than 2,000 acres across three locations in Maharashtra as part of the Rs150bn programme to strengthen its manufacturing presence in the state over the coming decade.

Mahindra & Mahindra auto and farm sector executive director & CEO Rajesh Jejurikar added: This facility represents a bold step forward in Mahindras manufacturing journey. Designed to support our next generation of vehicles and tractors, it brings together scale, flexibility and advanced technology within one integrated footprint.

"Mahindra plans Rs150bn investment in Maharashtra operations" was originally created and published by Just Auto, a GlobalData owned brand.
TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, February 10. Uzbekistan and the European Union discussed expanding cooperation in investment, trade, energy, and industrial development, Trend reports via the Uzbek Ministry of Investments, Industry, and Trade.

The issue was discussed during a meeting between representatives of relevant Uzbek ministries and agencies and an EU delegation, led by Toivo Klaar, Ambassador of the European Union to Uzbekistan, on the sidelines of the 8th UzbekistanEU Subcommittee on Cooperation meeting.

The sides emphasized the importance of broadening practical cooperation, promoting innovation, and strengthening the long-term strategic partnership. Participants also highlighted the significance of joint efforts to support sustainable development, improve the quality of public services, and advance regional integration.

Following the meeting, the parties reaffirmed their commitment to continuing constructive dialogue and ensuring the effective implementation of the agreements reached in order to further expand mutually beneficial cooperation.

Meanwhile, in October 2025, Uzbekistan and the European Union signed the Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (EPCA), which provides an expanded framework for political dialogue and economic cooperation. The agreement is aimed at deepening EU engagement with Uzbekistan, including cooperation in industry, innovation, and investment-oriented sectors such as pharmaceuticals.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. As part of a business mission led by Kush Choksy, Senior Vice President, International Member Relations & Senior Vice President, Middle East & Turkiye, a roundtable discussion was held, with the participation of Azerbaijan's Minister of Energy, Parviz Shahbazov, Trend reports via the ministry.

The session included representatives from key organizations such as SOCAR, AzerEnerji, AzeriShag, AzeriRistilitejizat, the State Agency for Renewable Energy, and the Energy Regulation Agency.

The participants expressed satisfaction with the Azerbaijani-American energy partnership, emphasizing that this cooperation significantly contributes not only to the implementation of national projects but also to the success of regional and international initiatives in energy security. They highlighted the critical role of American companies' technologies, expertise, and investments in the formation of large transnational energy projects.

Moreover, it was noted that the policies of the heads of state, aimed at ensuring peace in the region and strengthening Azerbaijani-American relations through strategic partnership, also stimulate the development of energy cooperation.

The participants emphasized that Azerbaijan is equally developing all types of energy, diversifying regional energy connections, expanding its role as an electricity supplier, and directing a significant portion of its energy resources to the needs of data centers.

The discussion also covered opportunities for cooperation in oil, gas, renewable energy, electricity, hydrogen, and energy efficiency. The current status of collaboration between SOCAR and ExxonMobil, as well as issues related to the implementation of electricity corridors between Azerbaijan, Turkey, Central Asia, and Europe, were discussed. The transmission of electricity via the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) and prospects for cooperation with American companies within these frameworks were also reviewed.

The parties expressed mutual interest in cooperation in the field of technology, knowledge, experience, and investment in the energy sector.

Meanwhile, the delegation includes executives from Apple, Ardea Energy Technologies Inc., Ericsson AB, ExxonMobil, Herbalife, Illumina, Meta, Visa, Wabtec, Baker Hughes, bp, Boeing Global, Honeywell, J.P. Morgan, Lummus Technology, Marriott, Mastercard, Shell International, Motorola Solutions, Fuji Engineering, Global Data Risk, Hill International, Lummus Technology, Straife and other companies.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan Yermek Kosherbayev met with the Ambassador of the Republic of Turkiye to Kazakhstan, Mustafa Kapucu, and discussed the current state and future prospects of bilateral cooperation, Trend reports via the Kazakh Foreign Ministry.

The meeting focused on the strengthening of KazakhstanTurkiye relations across political, trade and economic, investment, as well as cultural and humanitarian domains.

Special emphasis was placed on the implementation of prior agreements designed to further solidify the enhanced strategic partnership between the two nations, alongside preparations for forthcoming high-level visits.

The parties also engaged in discussions regarding the organization of the 14th KazakhstanTurkiye Intergovernmental Economic Commission meeting, underscoring the significance of advancing practical cooperation and the realization of joint initiatives in trade and economic, investment, and transport and logistics sectors.

Reaffirming the high level of friendly relations between Kazakhstan and Turkiye, the two sides expressed mutual interest in continuing close cooperation within the framework of the Organization of Turkic States.
Photo: The Ministry of Investments, Industry, and Trade of Uzbekistan

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, February 10. Uzbekistan and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) discussed cooperation priorities through 2030, Trend reports via the Uzbek Ministry of Investments, Industry and Trade.

The issue was reviewed during a meeting between Uzbekistans Minister of Investments, Industry and Trade, Laziz Kudratov, and AIIB President Zou Jiayi, marking their first official talks.

The discussions focused on expanding non-sovereign financing for the private sector, supporting public-private partnership (PPP) projects, advancing green energy initiatives, and implementing the From Poverty to Prosperity program.

During the meeting, Kudratov invited the AIIB President to take part in the Tashkent International Investment Forum, scheduled for June 16-19, 2026.

Meanwhile, the portfolio of joint projects between Uzbekistan and AIIB has exceeded $7 billion. Uzbekistan remains the Banks largest partner in the region, accounting for 51% of AIIB operations in Central Asia. Globally, the country ranks sixth in terms of AIIBs total operational portfolio.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. The Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) has held discussions with Visa on the development of the countrys digital payment ecosystem, Trend reports, citing the CBA.

During the meeting, CBA Chairman Taleh Kazimov met with Visas Senior Vice President for the CIS and South and Southeast Europe region, Cristina Doros. The talks focused on recent regulatory changes in the payments sector, strategies to prevent fraud, and modern approaches to enhance the security of payment systems and cross-border transfers.

Participants also exchanged ideas on modernizing Azerbaijans payment infrastructure, advancing the digital payment ecosystem, and implementing innovative solutions to strengthen financial technology in the country.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. A four-party meeting was convened in Ashgabat, where Rovshan Rustamov of Azerbaijan Railways, Mammet Akmammedov, Turkmenistans Minister of Railway Transport, Zufar Narzullayev of Uzbekistan Railways, and Lasha Abashidze of Georgian Railways engaged in discussions aimed at deepening cooperation along the Middle Corridor, Trend reports via Azerbaijan Railways CJSC.

According to information, the parties discussed issues of mutual interest, as well as opportunities to expand cooperation along the Middle Corridor, one of the regions key transit routes.

The discussions further concentrated on bolstering the corridors competitiveness, increasing freight throughput, and emphasizing the critical role of digitalizing operations to enhance the efficiency of cargo transport.

The participants underscored the significance of the Memorandum of Understanding signed last year in Turkmenbashi between the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport of Azerbaijan, the Ministry of Railway Transport of Turkmenistan, and the Ministry of Transport of Uzbekistan, noting its potential to reinforce collaborative efforts.

Following the meeting, a protocol was signed that outlines the development of digitalization initiatives and improvements in freight transport along the Middle Corridor, in addition to addressing diagnostics and operational enhancements for the route.

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TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, February 10. The volume of financing between Uzbekistan and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) exceeded $1 billion in 2025, Trend reports via the press service of the Uzbek president.

The figure was announced during a meeting between President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and an AIIB delegation led by its President Zou Jiayi.

During the talks, Mirziyoyev called for expanding cooperation in key priority areas, including private sector support, womens and youth entrepreneurship, the preparation and promotion of public-private partnership projects, poverty reduction programs, renewable energy development, energy efficiency, water supply, and social sector initiatives.

The meeting also highlighted the importance of AIIBs active involvement in large-scale infrastructure projects of regional significance.

Uzbekistans portfolio of joint projects with the AIIB has now surpassed $7 billion. The country remains the banks largest partner in Central Asia, accounting for 51 percent of AIIB operations in the region. Globally, Uzbekistan ranks sixth in the AIIBs overall operational portfolio.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has approved a loan of $180 million to support the expansion of the Baku Metro, Trend reports, citing the AIIB.

"The project aims to improve the reliability of service, maintenance efficiency, and operational safety of the Baku Metro, as well as to create conditions for further expansion of the metro system through the construction and equipping of the Darnagul and Khojasan depots, and to improve the safety, environmental, and social sustainability of individual stations.

The Baku Metro expansion project will be implemented in two key areas, covering infrastructure development and technical support," the information says.

Moreover, it is noted that the infrastructure part provides for the construction and equipping of the Darnagul depot and the new Khojasan depot, which will become the main centers for rolling stock maintenance.

According to the information, in addition, there are plans to modernize ten existing stations on the Green Line in order to improve their environmental, social, and operational standards, as well as their safety levels.

Meanwhile, the second component includes technical and advisory services: "This involves supporting project preparation, reviewing design solutions, supervising construction work, assessing environmental and social impacts, and supporting the implementation of all stages of the program.

The project is considered a key element of the state strategy for the development of the Baku Metro and is one of the government's priorities."

According to the bank, the creation of two new depots will provide the necessary basis for servicing trains and ensuring the stable operation of the entire network: "This will eliminate existing infrastructure constraints, in particular separating the Red and Green lines at the 28 May station, which will increase the reliability of transport and increase the metro's capacity.

The initiative is also expected to set modern technical, environmental, and management standards for the further expansion of the Green Line and the renewal of rolling stock. Additionally, the development of the network will be supported by the parallel expansion of the Purple Line, the bank says.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. Iran and Russia are set to sign documents related to the Rasht-Astara railway line within the framework of the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) on February 14, said the CEO of Irans Roads and Transport Infrastructure Construction and Development Company, Houshang Bazvand, Trend reports.

Speaking today in Tehran at an international forum on financing and investment opportunities for road and railway corridors, Bazvand stated that one of the documents to be signed with Russias Caspian Service company will provide for the transfer to the Russian side of a 125-kilometer section of land designated for the construction of the Rasht-Astara railway.

He noted that the second document will define issues related to the technical and contractor operations of the RashtAstara railway line. Thus, the technical details of this railway project will be approved by both sides, Bazvand said.

The official added that the completion of infrastructure works along corridors passing through Iran will increase the countrys transit revenues, noting that transit income could even reach the level of Irans oil revenues.

The ownership of a 125-kilometer section of land for the Rasht-Astara railway line, part of the broader 162-kilometer route running through northern Iran, has already been secured from private landowners as part of the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) initiative.

Established through an intergovernmental agreement signed by Russia, Iran, and India on September 12, 2000, the foundation of the INSTC aims to enhance cargo transit between India and Russia, as well as to Northern and Western Europe. So far, 13 countries, including Azerbaijan, India, Iran, Russia, and Turkey, have ratified the agreement. Currently, the transport route spans over six weeks, but once the corridor becomes fully operational, this time is expected to be significantly reduced to just three weeks.

The Qazvin-Rasht railroad (175 km), which became operational on March 6, 2019, serves as a vital link connecting Azerbaijans rail network with Irans railway system within the framework of the corridor. The Rasht-Astara railroad will be constructed on Iranian soil to further integrate the network.

The North-South Corridor comprises three key directions within Iran: the eastern route connecting Turkmenistan and Central Asian countries, the central route linking Russia and other nations across the Caspian Sea, and the western route connecting Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia, and Eastern Europe.

Meanwhile, Russia and Iran signed an agreement on May 17, 2023, to build the Rasht-Astara railroad in Gilan province in northern Iran. Nine stations will be built on the Rasht-Astara railroad line, which is about 163 kilometers long. With the completion of this railroad, the North-South international corridor will be improved, and Iran's railroad network will be integrated with the Caucasus countries, Russia, and Northern European countries. According to the agreement, the Russian side is expected to spend 1.6 billion euros for the construction of this railroad. This railroad will be built and completed within 48 months.

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McDonalds Malaysia plans to invest RM1bn ($254m) over the next five years, with the rollout of 100 new restaurants forming the core of its expansion strategy, according to The Borneo Post (Sabah).

The investment will also focus on upgrading existing outlets and enhancing its technology and digital platforms.

McDonald's Malaysia managing director and local operating partner Datuk Azmir Jaafar said the plan aligns with the companys long-term strategy for the country and its aim to build a future-ready Malaysian workforce while expanding its nationwide network.

Jaafar said: Of the RM1bn, RM600m will be allocated for new restaurant openings, RM200m for refurbishing and modernising more than 150 existing McDonalds Malaysia restaurants, and another RM200m for technology and digitalisation initiatives.

Azmir spoke at a press conference held after the reopening of McDonalds Titiwangsa Drive-Thru at Jalan Pahang, the first McDonalds drive-through in Malaysia.

The outlet has resumed operations with a new identity as the countrys first Luna concept restaurant and the second such outlet in Asia.

Jaafar said McDonalds Malaysia will continue to grow its footprint in Sabah and Sarawak, as well as across Peninsular Malaysia, particularly in high-demand and tourism-led locations.

The company also plans to widen its franchise network. It now has 25 franchised outlets operated by 11 franchisees nationwide.

Over the next five to ten years, it is targeting between 70 and 100 franchised restaurants.

The expansion is projected to create more than 10,000 additional jobs.

Jaafar adds: Every restaurant we open stimulates local economic activity and creates employment opportunities, not only within our restaurants but also across supporting sectors such as logistics, renovation, equipment supply, cleaning and security services.

McDonalds Malaysia currently operates more than 370 restaurants nationwide.

"McDonalds Malaysia to invest RM1bn over five years, add 100 restaurants" was originally created and published by Verdict Food Service, a GlobalData owned brand.




Photo: The official X account of the Minister of Trade of Turkiye

Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, February 10. Turkiye and Turkmenistan will work together to advance bilateral cooperation across all areas of the economy, Turkish Trade Minister Omer Bolat said, Trend reports via the ministers X account.

He made the statement during his meeting with Nokerguly Ataguliyev, Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of Turkmenistan, as part of his visit to Ashgabat to participate in the 12th Turkish Export Products Exhibition, which opened on February 10 and will run until February 12.

The sides discussed joint efforts to develop trade, contracting, investments, energy, transportation, and tourism.

With an expected attendance of one hundred top Turkish enterprises, the capital of Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, will play host to the 12th specialized exposition of Turkish export products from February 1012, 2026. Improving Turkish exporters' visibility in Turkmenistan and encouraging bilateral economic cooperation are the goals of the exhibition, which will include cutting-edge technology and high-quality goods.

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TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, February 10. Uzbekistan and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) discussed cooperation in the modernization of tax administration, digitalization, and the improvement of tax control mechanisms, Trend reports via Uzbekistans Tax Committee.

The matter was addressed during a meeting between Chairman of the Tax Committee Farrukh Pulatov and an ADB delegation led by Kanokpan Lao-Araya, Director of the Banks Resident Mission in Uzbekistan.

The sides reviewed priority areas of ADB technical assistance aimed at supporting the reforms being implemented by the Tax Committee, including in cooperation with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, within the framework of Uzbekistans Tax Administration Reform Strategy through 2030.

Meanwhile, ADB remains one of Uzbekistans largest development partners, having committed more than $5.41 billion in financing over the past five years.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. Azerbaijan's participation in the Covenant of Mayors demonstrates its commitment to global climate goals while respecting national development priorities, said Ambassador of the EU to Azerbaijan, Marijana Kujundzic, during an event on the Covenant of Mayors Initiative, organized in Baku by the Azerbaijani Ministry of Energy jointly with the EU, Trend reports.

"The Covenant of Mayors initiative provides municipalities with a robust framework for demonstrating leadership, making binding climate commitments, and effectively translating national objectives into actionable outcomes," stated the ambassador.

"By joining the Covenant of Mayors, cities voluntarily commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, enhancing resilience to climate change, improving energy efficiency, and implementing sustainable solutions," she continued.

She emphasized that the initiative is not merely a political pledge but a comprehensive, data-driven roadmap founded on strategic planning, climate action frameworks, international cooperation, technical expertise, and access to financing opportunities.

"Azerbaijans engagement in the Covenant of Mayors underscores its dedication to global climate objectives while simultaneously honoring the country's development priorities. While the energy sector remains the largest contributor to emissions, it also holds the most significant potential for transformation. Key areas of focus include enhancing energy efficiency in public buildings, schools, hospitals, and residential areas; developing renewable energy sources like solar and wind, particularly within municipal infrastructure; and addressing energy losses in local distribution networks," the ambassador further highlighted.

Kujundzic emphasized that energy efficiency is not only a climate solution: it reduces municipal budget expenditures, increases energy security, and lowers household electricity bills.

The Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy initiative was launched by the EU in 2008. Since 2015, the initiative has expanded globally.

The main goals of the Covenant of Mayors include:

- reducing greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency measures and expanding the use of renewable energy;

- increasing resilience to the impacts of climate change;

- strengthening cooperation between municipalities, local governments, and central governments;

- ensuring safe, sustainable, and reliable access to energy for all.

The Covenant of Mayors is signed by local and regional authorities committed to achieving the above-mentioned goals and voluntarily implementing EU climate and energy targets.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. Implementation of the Trump Route for Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) aligns with the strategic interests of the countries of Central Asia, Tair Nigmanov, told Trend.

According to him, the road that will connect the main territory of Azerbaijan with Nakhchivan through Armenia is of particular interest to Central Asian countries as it creates additional transportation opportunities. This holds particular significance for Uzbekistan, he specified, as it is a landlocked nation that shares borders exclusively with other landlocked countries lacking access to oceans.

Nigmanov reminded that there are currently four main transit routes for goods in the region.

"In essence, there are four such routes. The first and most frequently used by Kazakhstan is through the territory of the Russian Federation. The alternatives are: through the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus, and Turkiye; through China; and the southern route towards Pakistan and India," he explained.

At the same time, the expert emphasized that the southern routes remain the most complex and underdeveloped.

"The most realistic option, aside from the Russian route, is the Caucasus direction via the Caspian," Nigmanov said.

He noted that only recently, after Azerbaijan lifted the embargo, Kazakh wheat finally reached Armenia.

"This was an important event last year because, despite Armenia's membership in the EAEU (Eurasian Economic Union), trade with it had long been seriously complicated due to purely geographical reasons," Nigmanov explained.

The expert believes that the normalization of relations between Baku and Yerevan, as well as the implementation of specific investment projects in the logistics sector, serve Kazakhstan's interests, as the country is constantly seeking markets for its agricultural products and sustainable import/export routes. For this reason, Nigmanov said, Kazakhstan supports the TRIPP project.

Nigmanov pointed out that Kazakhstan, like other countries in the region, follows a multivector foreign policy. He emphasized that the country's agenda is not only to maintain good relations with its neighbors but also to develop ties with all countries.

Nigmanov stressed that relations with the United States are of great importance to Kazakhstan.

"The U.S. is one of the main investors in our economy. Last year, there were two important visits of our head of state to the U.S. In September, it was for participation in the general debates at the United Nations General Assembly, which is an annual trip. Later, a month and a half after that, the president visited the U.S. again for participation in the 'Central Asia plus U.S.' summit," he said.

He pointed out that these visits bore fruit, leading to substantial agreements, including a whopping $4 billion investment deal from the American company Wabtec in Kazakhstan's railway sector.

The expert believes that building up logistics infrastructure and enhancing transportation connections are key for Kazakhstan's success.

"Of course, we view it positively when American investors make similar investments in other countries in the region. Logistics is a shared matter, and the development of railways or any other transportation infrastructure is beneficial for all. Kazakhstan, like other countries in the region, is interested in multilateral development and diversification of its economic ties. It is especially important for us to continue reducing dependence on oil and natural resources, including iron and metals. We are actively looking for opportunities to invest in the processing industry and logistics, and we will support projects that contribute to this," the expert concluded.

On August 8, 2025, in Washington, with the participation of US President Donald Trump, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, and Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, a joint declaration was signed. One of the points of the document provides for the launch of the Zangezur corridor ("Trump Route" or TRIPP) to unblock regional communications. In addition, the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia initialed an agreement on peace and interstate relations.

In January 2026, the Armenian Foreign Ministry published the agreement signed between Armenia and the U.S. on the implementation of the TRIPP project. Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met in Washington and presented a framework program for the implementation of the TRIPP project. The published document was assessed as a new step towards fulfilling the commitments made at the White House on August 8, 2025, to support the establishment of a sustainable peace in the South Caucasus.

The joint statement of Mirzoyan and Rubio said that Armenia intends to approve and support the establishment of the TRIPP Development Company, which will be responsible for the development of the TRIPP project. The company will be granted the right to implement the project for an initial period of 49 years. Yerevan plans to offer Washington 74% of the shares of TRIPP Development Company while retaining 26%.
ASTANA, Kazakhstan, February 10. Kazakhstan exported 6.266 billion cubic meters of natural gas in a gaseous state to Russia from January through November 2025, which is 3% more than the 6.085 billion cubic meters in the same period of 2024.

Data obtained by Trend from the country's Bureau of National Statistics show the value of the exports reached $133.692 million, decreasing 7% from $143.912 million in January-November 2024.

Overall, Kazakhstan exported 10.293 billion cubic meters of natural gas in a gaseous state from January through November 2025, which is a 2.2% decrease compared to the same period in 2024, when exports totaled 10.524 billion cubic meters. The export value for this period reached $1.077 billion, reflecting a decline of 13.4% from $1.245 billion from January through November 2024.

Kazakhstan's total foreign trade turnover for the period reached $128.8 billion, showing a slight decrease of 0.1% compared to the previous year. While exports fell by 4.2%, totaling $71.14 billion, imports rose by 5.5%, amounting to $57.67 billion.
Kazakhstan targets IsDB funds to boost infrastructure in economic zones

Kazakhstan is set to secure significant investments from the Islamic Development Bank to accelerate infrastructure development in its special economic and industrial zones, aiming to enhance the country's investment climate and support new industrial projects.

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ASTANA, Kazakhstan, February 10. Kazakhstan has entered a period of deep transformation, President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said at the Government Meeting, Trend reports via the press service of the Kazakh president.

According to the president, the country is undergoing large-scale transformations that will impact the future of the entire nation.

"During the National Kurultai meeting in Kyzylorda, I outlined the key elements of the constitutional reform," he stated. "The extensive public discourse surrounding this issue did not begin recently; it has been underway for six months. In order to organize and systematize the various proposals, a Constitutional Commission was established, comprising 130 members. The scope and professionalism of this Commission are unprecedented in our countrys history. Notably, the Commission does not include any foreign experts."

He further emphasized that since October of last year, citizens have had the opportunity to share their views through government digital platforms, eGov and eOtinish, which collectively received thousands of submissions.

"The Commission carefully reviewed and summarized all the proposals and made several amendments. It is important to note that the work of the Commission has been completely transparent. Never before in our country have reforms been discussed so thoroughly or received such wide coverage in live broadcasts."

He emphasized that the work on preparing the constitutional reform has truly become a nationwide effort.
ASTANA, Kazakhstan, February 10. Kazakhstan is moving away from a super-presidential system toward a presidential republic featuring an authoritative and influential Parliament, President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said at the Government Meeting, Trend reports via the press service of the Kazakh president.

The President emphasized that the provisions in the draft new Constitution provide a clear framework for the countrys political evolution, encapsulated in the concept of Strong President  Influential Parliament  Accountable Government. Tokayev further noted that these changes build upon recent reforms, including the 2022 constitutional amendments, and lay the groundwork for a comprehensive restructuring of the nations constitutional foundations.

The proposed changes will redistribute powers, fortify the system of checks and balances, and, most crucially, improve the efficiency and stability of all political institutions. The principle not a person for the state, but a state for the person is now more tangible than ever, the President remarked.

He highlighted that the draft Constitution prioritizes the protection of human and civil rights, formalizes the independence of the legal profession through a dedicated article on advocacy, reaffirms the secular nature of the state with an emphasis on education, and codifies traditional values, including a definition of marriage as a voluntary and equal union between a man and a woman. Additionally, environmental protection is underscored as a critical priority.

According to Tokayev, to date, the Constitutional Commission has held ten meetings. Given the scale of proposed amendments, members agreed that a partial approach is insufficient, making the adoption of an entirely new Constitution necessary.
ASTANA, Kazakhstan, February 10. Kazakhstan strives to ensure GDP growth leads to a real increase in the incomes of its citizens, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said at a Government meeting, Trend reports via the press service of the Kazakh President.

Our main goal is to strengthen Kazakhstans socio-economic and international potential amid the complex realities of the modern world, Tokayev said.

He noted that global economic growth is expected to slow, leading to declines in international trade and reduced investment in developing countries. Rising protectionism, tariffs, financial risks, and deglobalization are reshaping the geopolitical and economic landscape.

To ensure sustainable development under these new global conditions, Kazakhstan must adapt quickly, both economically and politically. Previous approaches are already proving insufficient. Developed countries are designing a new model of global economic growth, and we cannot lag. We need a concrete plan to strengthen and develop the economy while protecting national interests, Tokayev added.

Despite external pressures, Kazakhstans GDP grew by 6.5% in 2025. The President emphasized the importance of linking economic growth to higher incomes and improved quality of life for citizens.

In other words, GDP growth percentages must be reflected in the real incomes of our people. This is the primary task of the Government, Tokayev said.

He stressed that achieving this goal requires an economic policy based not on inertia or short-term reactions but on a carefully defined set of priorities. The state must guide financial resources toward key sectors that drive quality economic growth, ensuring a fair and efficient distribution of national income in favor of citizens.

The Governments immediate task is to promote growth through increased productivity, technological upgrades, human capital development, and investment of profits for the nations benefit. This requires an active investment policy, long-term business support, and an economic strategy focused on results: rising incomes for citizens and strengthening economic sovereignty, the President said.
ASTANA, Kazakhstan, February 10. Full digitalization and the introduction of AI should go beyond just being a support function and become a key link in Kazakhstan's economic development, said President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev at a Government meeting, Trend reports via the press service of the Kazakh President.

One of the key tasks of digitalization based on AI is increasing labor productivity, creating export-oriented sectors of the economy, producing high-value-added products, and integrating Kazakhstan into global digital economy chains, the president said.

According to Tokayev, this will help form a modern industrial, energy, and transport framework for the country through the realization of a new investment cycle.

The implementation of artificial intelligence should not be viewed as a catchy slogan, but as the foundation of an economic model and the unshakable core of national ideology. At such a crucial time, it is essential to act proactively, making smart, bold, effective, and timely management decisions. Empty proposals, useless presentations, and the imitation of active work for the sake of reporting must be left in the past, the president said.

He emphasized that the entire government apparatus must work towards specific results that will be visible to the public.
We recently published 12 Stocks on Jim Cramers Radar. McKesson Corporation (NYSE:MCK) is one of the stocks on Jim Cramer's radar.

McKesson Corporation (NYSE:MCK) is one of the largest healthcare services providers in America. Its shares are up by 59% over the past year and by 15% year-to-date. Several analysts have discussed McKesson Corporation (NYSE:MCK) in 2026. For instance, TD Cowen raised the share price target to $1,012 from $1,000 and kept a Buy rating on the shares in February. The coverage followed McKesson Corporation (NYSE:MCK)s latest earnings report. TD Cowen commented that the firms pharmaceutical and cancer businesses were performing well and added that it had performed well in the earnings despite high expectations. Before the earnings, Morgan Stanley raised the share price target to $966 from $916 and kept an Overweight rating on the shares. McKesson Corporation (NYSE:MCK)s cancer business also played a role in Morgan Stanleys optimism. As for Cramer, the CNBC TV host has recently started discussing the firm along with President Trump:

McKesson's (MCK) More Powerful Than President Trump, Says Jim Cramer

20 Countries with the Most Expensive Healthcare in the World

But do I want to point out the middleman where theres no rest. The middleman. McKesson today, leading the S&P. This is a company that the President, its in his crosshairs, he has failed. They are more powerful than President Trump.

While we acknowledge the potential of MCK as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an extremely cheap AI stock that is also a major beneficiary of Trump tariffs and onshoring, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock.

READ NEXT: 30 Stocks That Should Double in 3 Years and 11 Hidden AI Stocks to Buy Right Now.
ASTANA, Kazakhstan, February 10. Last year, Kazakhstan imported 3.7 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said at a Government meeting, Trend reports via the press service of the Kazakh President.

President Tokayev highlighted that Kazakhstan is compelled to annually import electricity to address the domestic deficit, a situation further aggravated by the aging and deteriorating condition of the country's generating facilities and power grids.

He noted that, in the last three years, the Tariff in Exchange for Investments program has allocated over 1 trillion tenge ($2.02 billion) to the energy sector. However, of this amount, over 900 billion tenge ($1.82 billion) was used for repairs, while only 140 billion tenge ($283 million) was invested in new generation capacity.

This level of investment is clearly inadequate to ensure the long-term stability of our energy system. The energy deficit continues to be a significant barrier to the countrys development, Tokayev remarked.

The President further pointed out that Kazakhstan currently generates 123 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, which remains insufficient to meet domestic demand. Looking ahead, the Government plans to introduce 13.3 GW of new capacity by 2029, including 5.9 GW from renewable energy sources. It is anticipated that by 2027, the country will not only meet its electricity demand but also achieve a surplus of 1.3 billion kilowatt-hours.

"These figures are meaningful only if commitments are implemented on time and plans are backed by funding," Tokayev said.

He also noted that the Government must ensure the full commissioning of all planned energy capacities. There can be no talk of postponing deadlines.

The currency conversions are based on the official exchange rate of 1 USD = 494.75 tenge, as of February 10, 2026.
ASTANA, Kazakhstan, February 10. The reliable functioning of Kazakhstan's national electricity grid requires close attention, said President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev at a Government meeting, Trend reports via the press service of the Kazakh President.

President Tokayev emphasized that the Government has been assigned the critical task of completing the development of the Southern zones electricity network and integrating the Western zones energy system into the Unified National Energy System by the end of 2027.

He further underscored the importance of leveraging modern digital solutions to optimize electricity use and ensure the sustainable functioning of the national energy infrastructure. In this context, the president highlighted the urgent need for the implementation of online monitoring systems, incorporating artificial intelligence, within the energy sector.

"During the Kurultai meeting, I directed the Government to finalize a National Project for 'clean' coal generation within the next two months. We can draw valuable insights from China, which has initiated the construction of 85 energy blocks powered by 'clean coal,' with a combined capacity of 55 gigawatts. This initiative alone represents nearly 90% of all global coal power plants currently under construction. In other words, our neighboring country is adopting a pragmatic approach to ensure both energy security and economic growth. Similarly, the United States has also chosen to pivot toward coal utilization and development of coal reserves," the president concluded.
ASTANA, Kazakhstan, February 10. Special economic zones (SEZs) must become fully-fledged platforms for attracting investments, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said at a Government meeting, Trend reports via the presidential press service.

In China and Vietnam, such zones act as drivers of economic development. However, in Kazakhstan, the effectiveness of SEZs remains extremely low and does not align with the goals of the countrys structural transformation. Over nearly 25 years, their contribution to GDP has been just over 1%, to exports 0.3%, and to attracting foreign investments 0.9%. The current SEZ model has exhausted itself, Tokayev stated.

He emphasized that SEZs should become platforms for attracting investments, where new norms, tools, and service solutions are applied with subsequent scaling.

The president noted that approximately one trillion tenge (about $2 billion) in borrowed funds is proposed for infrastructure development within SEZs over the next three years.

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ASTANA, Kazakhstan, February 10. Kazakhstans airline, Air Astana, is set to launch a new flight to China from June 2, connecting Astana and Guangzhou, Trend reports via the country's Ministry of Transport.

Flights will operate twice a week on Airbus A321LR aircraft. The new air service is expected to further enhance trade, economic, business, and tourism cooperation between Kazakhstan and China.

In addition, Air Astana is scheduled to begin a new route connecting Almaty and Shanghai on March 29, with flights running three times a week, also using Airbus A321LR aircraft.

The airline will also start regular flights to Larnaca (Cyprus) from June 2 through September 5.

In December 2025, Air China also launched direct flights between Almaty and Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province in China. These flights are operated on Tuesdays and Saturdays with Airbus A320 aircraft.

Air Astana is Kazakhstans flag carrier, established in 2001 and operational since 2002, and is one of the largest airline groups in Central Asia and the Caucasus.

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Photo: Press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, February 10. Kyrgyzstan and Finland have discussed issues of interregional cooperation, including the development of dialogue in the format "Central Asia - Northern Europe (C5+N5)", Trend reports via the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan.

The topic was addressed on 9 February 2026 in Bishkek during the latest political consultations between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan and Finland.

The sides noted the mutually beneficial and constructive nature of Kyrgyz-Finnish relations, expressing shared interest in further deepening political, trade and economic, investment, and cultural and humanitarian cooperation.

At the same time, they exchanged views on current issues of multilateral cooperation within the frameworks of the UN, OSCE, and EU.

In the humanitarian sphere, the parties emphasized the importance of developing cooperation in culture, education, and science, welcoming the photo exhibition held in Bishkek dedicated to General Carl Gustaf Mannerheims travels across Central Asia, including Kyrgyzstan.

Following the meeting, they confirmed their commitment to further strengthening Kyrgyz-Finnish partnership and maintaining regular political dialogue.

Finland and Kyrgyzstan have established strong bilateral relations focused on long-term development cooperation, with Finland investing over USD 10 million since 2009 through the UNDP. Key areas include development cooperation for natural resource management, climate resilience, and small business competitiveness. Economic ties are growing, particularly in machinery, paper, and textiles.

Collaboration extends to initiatives like the Finnish Meteorological Institute enhancing Kyrgyzstans climate services and business forums promoting private sector investments in green value chains and tourism. The Finnish Embassy in Astana plays a pivotal role in supporting these relations, often using local cooperation funds to bolster Kyrgyz civil society.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. The visit of Iranian Minister of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics, Aziz Nasirzadeh, to Azerbaijan is significant for reinforcing regional stability, Irans Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, said during a press conference in Tehran, Trend reports.

Baghaei emphasized that Iran is committed to fostering deeper cooperation and building trust with regional nations, particularly those within the South Caucasus. He underscored the strategic significance of the South Caucasus for Iran, asserting that the country perceives peace and stability in this region as integral to its own security.

He further highlighted that the defense ministers visit to Azerbaijan follows closely on the heels of Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi's recent trip to Baku. Baghaei pointed out that these high-level visits and consultations are viewed by Tehran as critical for maintaining and reinforcing mutual trust among the countries in the region.

"During the defense ministers visit to Azerbaijan, discussions focused on areas of shared concern in defense and security," Baghaei remarked. "This visit is expected to play a pivotal role in fortifying bilateral trust, particularly within the political and security domains."

Iranian Minister of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics, Aziz Nasirzadeh, visited Azerbaijan on February 6. Meanwhile, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev received a delegation of the Islamic Republic of Iran led by Minister of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics Aziz Nasirzadeh on February 6.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 10. In the Oman's Muscat, within the framework of indirect negotiations between Iran and the U.S. regarding the nuclear program, there is a possibility of reaching an agreement to continue the diplomatic process through direct meetings between the delegations of Iran and the U.S., the spokesperson of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Esmaeil Baghaei, said at a press conference held in Tehran today, Trend reports.

According to him, the direct meeting between the Iranian and U.S. delegations in Moscow was very brief, lasting only a few minutes.

Baghaei noted the importance of the other side's showing interest in continuing the diplomatic discussions.

"However, Iran focuses on the upcoming steps. Positive ideas can be discussed in both direct and indirect diplomatic negotiations. However, if positive ideas don't result in positive steps, of course, these discussions would be vain," he noted.

On February 6, talks between Iran and the U.S. on the nuclear program began in Muscat, the capital of Oman. The sides agreed to continue the negotiations.
By Nicolas Misculin

BUENOS AIRES, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Argentine President Javier Milei's libertarian government has put sweeping labor reforms at the center of its push to attract investment and revive growth, setting up a clash with the country's powerful unions.

The proposal, central to Milei's effort to shift Argentina's tightly regulated economy toward more of a free-market model, has prompted threats of mass protests from labor groups who say it would roll back workers' rights by narrowing grounds for wrongful-dismissal claims and curbing strikes.

Argentina's Senate is due to begin discussing the bill on Wednesday, with unions threatening a demonstration outside Congress that is poised to mobilize thousands of workers.

If approved, the reforms would mark a major step in Milei's economic overhaul. A defeat would weaken his agenda and highlight the limits facing his minority government. Analysts expect the proposed legislation to advance if the government accepts changes sought by moderate opposition lawmakers.

Still, Argentina's main unions warn unrest could escalate if the legislation clears the Senate, arguing that it curbs their authority in workplace disputes by forcing them to seek permission to hold meetings, according to Rodolfo Aguiar, head of the State Workers' Association.

"From today onwards, the government needs to start worrying, because a new cycle is beginning in the confrontation it maintains with workers," Aguiar said.

The reforms also could require that between 50% and 75% of services continue running during a strike for some sectors classified as essential, Aguiar said.

"The strike loses all effectiveness," he added.

Argentina's Interior Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

The government defends the initiative as a "labor modernization" plan aimed at expanding formal employment in an economy where more than 40% of workers are off the books. The bill also would allow some overtime to be compensated with days off rather than extra pay.

The government has not publicly released figures estimating overall savings from the reforms.

PRIVATE-SECTOR EMPLOYMENT WOES

One of the most contentious parts of the reforms targets Argentina's dismissal system, which for decades has offered strong protections against unfair termination and enabled courts to award substantial compensation, a process that frequently generates wrongful-dismissal claims after layoffs.

Business chambers say those lawsuits, combined with high labor taxes and rigid rules, have long discouraged hiring, particularly among small and mediumsized firms.
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Independent Lloyds broker MNK International has set up a new operation in Sao Paulo, marking its entry into Brazils insurance sector.

The group said this would support work across areas such as engineering, financial lines, large industrial risks, marine, oil and gas, property and other complex exposures.

MNK International Brazil will sit within MNK Group, which is based in London.

Through the group, the Brazilian unit will be able to draw on a wider international network that includes managing general agents and other risk-bearing businesses operating in several jurisdictions.

The company said the office will assist Brazilian clients looking to access global and specialist insurance capacity, as well as multinational organisations with operations in the country.

MNK International CEO Naman Kumar said: As we continue our rapid growth in Latin America, expanding into Brazil is a natural next step for MNK International.

MNK International Brazil will strengthen how we support international clients with interests in Brazil and help Brazilian clients access the very best solutions worldwide.

MNK International said the brokerage will provide insurance and reinsurance solutions and will be led by CEO Sergio Clark and international director Alexandre Dabus.

Both executives bring experience across Brazil, the wider Latin American region and international markets, particularly relating to global programmes and multinational clients.

Clark has more than 50 years experience in brokerage leadership and has previously founded and scaled brokerage operations including a joint venture with JLT that was later sold to Marsh.

Dabus has worked on multinational client portfolios for Gallaghers Brazilian partner and Marsh, and later joined Clark at a specialist start-up brokerage.

Clark added: Brazil is a demanding market that values experience, relationships and consistency, and so our goal is to build a focused and efficient business from day one. We are ready to prioritise new and emerging opportunities in the market, drawing on our capability and extensive networks to deliver innovative solutions that meet the needs of our clients.

The Brazil launch follows MNK Internationals expansion in October, when it broadened its international presence through the acquisition of a brokerage in Turkiye.

The Istanbul operation focuses on insurance and reinsurance for specialty and complex risks and serves local clients across engineering, financial lines, aviation and property.

"MNK International opens Sao Paulo brokerage to enter Brazilian market" was originally created and published by Life Insurance International, a GlobalData owned brand.
On scale, NatWest said Evelyns GBP 69 billion in assets under management and administration (AUMA), combined with NatWests GBP 59 billion , would create GBP 127 billion in total AUMA. NatWest also said total customer assets and liabilities for the combined business would be GBP 188 billion , which management said amounts to about 20% of the groups total customer assets and liabilities.

NatWest highlighted Evelyn Partners 2025 performance, including income of GBP 509 million and EBITDA of GBP 179 million , representing a 35% margin . The company also reported net new inflows of GBP 1.6 billion in 2025. Executives said they see strong prospects for future growth and referenced a 7% CAGR in AUM historically when responding to analyst questions.

Executives said the combination is intended to accelerate NatWests strategy by increasing exposure to wealth management, which they described as supported by demographic, regulatory, and technology trends. Evelyn brings a regional network of 21 offices , employing 270 financial planners and 325 specialist investment managers , as well as the direct-to-consumer platform Bestinvest .

NatWest said it will acquire Evelyn Partners for GBP 2.7 billion in cash . Management described Evelyn Partners as a market-leading financial planning and investment management firm with a 180-year heritage, a high-quality, loyal client base, and what NatWest characterized as a strong cultural fit.

NatWest Group (NYSE:NWG) executives outlined their planned acquisition of Evelyn Partners during a conference call held on short notice following the deal announcement, describing the transaction as a strategic move to create what they called the U.K.s leading private bank and wealth manager.

NatWest expects about GBP 100m of cost synergies (with GBP 150m implementation costs over three years), a ~ 130bps reduction to CET1 capital, completion in the summer subject to approvals, and announced a GBP 750m share buyback while keeping a ~ 50% dividend payout ratio.

Evelyn reported strong 2025 results income GBP 509m , EBITDA GBP 179m (35% margin) and GBP 1.6bn net new inflowsand NatWest expects the deal to boost fee income by about 20% pre-synergies and be accretive to return on tangible equity in year one.

NatWest will acquire Evelyn Partners for GBP 2.7 billion in cash to build what it calls the U.K.s leading private bank and wealth manager, combining Evelyns direct-to-consumer Bestinvest, 21 regional offices and 270 financial planners with NatWest to create GBP 127 billion of combined AUMA.

Story Continues

NatWest added that the transaction is expected to increase fee income by about 20% before synergies, making non-interest income a larger proportion of group revenues.

Synergies and integration priorities

 2 Subscription Economy Winners That Still Dominate Their Niches

NatWest said it expects to realize about GBP 100 million of cost synergies, mainly by removing duplication in shared services and technology applications and achieving efficiencies of scale. The cost to achieve is expected to be approximately GBP 150 million, phased over three years.

Management described revenue synergies as a meaningful opportunity, and outlined two broad strands:

Bringing Evelyns financial planning and investment capabilities to NatWest customers across the group, including retail and commercial & institutional clients, and enhancing NatWests direct-to-consumer offer through Bestinvest.

Providing Evelyn clients with NatWests broader banking solutions, including offerings associated with Coutts and NatWest, alongside a combined wealth management proposition.

When asked for more detail on cost actions, NatWest pointed to technology and platform consolidation and said both businesses use common platforms including Avaloq and Aladdin. The bank also cited potential to streamline functions, licenses, shared services, and marketing spend. Management said it had built a detailed bottom-up plan during due diligence and emphasized a client-led approach to integration.

Capital impact, returns, and shareholder distributions

NatWest said the acquisition is expected to reduce its CET1 ratio by around 130 basis points and that it remains well capitalized. Executives said the capital impact is driven mainly by goodwill, with additional impacts from other intangibles, a small P&L component, and some incremental risk-weighted assets tied to operational risk.

Management also described the deal as an attractive use of capital, stating it is expected to be accretive to return on tangible equity in year one and to deliver returns above those generated through share buybacks. In response to analyst questions on how those comparisons were made, NatWest said it was evaluating returns over a three-year outlook, with synergies expected to be delivered by around 2028. Executives also said their return assessment includes amortization on a statutory basis, while noting amortization is capital neutral for CET1 purposes. NatWest said it would provide additional guidance on amortization on Friday.

Alongside the deal announcement, NatWest said it is launching a GBP 750 million share buyback and reiterated that its dividend payout ratio of around 50% remains unchanged. The bank said it currently expects the next share buyback announcement at its first-half 2027 results.

NatWest also said the transaction is expected to complete in the summer, subject to customary regulatory approvals. During Q&A, management stated a 24% tax rate should be used for the acquired business.

About NatWest Group (NYSE:NWG)

NatWest Group plc is a major UK-based banking and financial services group headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland. The company traces its roots to the Royal Bank of Scotland, founded in 1727, and adopted the NatWest Group name in 2020 as part of a strategic refocus on its NatWest brand. NatWest Group is listed on the London Stock Exchange and also has American depositary shares trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol NWG.

The group provides a broad range of banking services across retail, private, commercial, corporate and institutional segments.

The article "NatWest Group to Buy Evelyn Partners for 2.7B, Targets UKs Top Private Bank and Wealth Manager" was originally published by MarketBeat.
You can find original article here WealthManagement. Subscribe to our free daily WealthManagement newsletters.

Neuberger Berman Group has agreed to take over MIO Partners, McKinsey & Companys asset and wealth manager for current and former employees of the New York City-based consultancy. The deal is subject to closing conditions.

The move for MIO would add $20 billion in AUM to Neuberger Bermans assets, according to a spokesperson, adding to the firms $563 billion AUM as of late 2025. Neuberger Berman, like McKinsey, is a New York City based privately-held, employee-owned firm.

MIO was originally formed in the 1980s to support McKinseys employee retirement plan and has since expanded to work with current and former partners and employees. According to its company profile, MIO has about 250 people managing retirement and after-tax investments for about 30,000 current and former McKinsey staffers, including access to alternative investments.

The agreement comes after a strategic review McKinsey launched in early 2025 that the firm says was prompted by MIOs growth and expansion over 25 years.

After the deal is complete, Neuberger will onboard MIOs investment teams that manage alternative investment strategies, its advisory business serving McKinsey partners, and other supporting functions.

Neuberger and McKinsey share strong cultural alignment as private, employee-owned firms with a singular focus on serving the long-term interests of clients, George Walker, chairman and chief executive officer of Neuberger, said in a statement.

Neuberger has been active in the wealth management sector as an investor and stakeholder. In October 2024, its Neuberger Berman Capital Solutions and funds managed by Neuberger Berman Private Markets acquired a minority stake in RIA Mariner. The RIA raised $150 million in equity through the deal, according to a Moodys Investors Service report at the time.

Ardea Partners advised McKinsey on the MIO transaction with Neuberger Berman, with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett providing legal counsel. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom served as legal counsel to Neuberger Berman.
CoinDesk is hosting its second annual Consensus Hong Kong conference, and as always, we'll have a number of policy-focused sessions. Are you in town? Find me on stage or around the show floor and say hi!

Youre reading State of Crypto, a CoinDesk newsletter looking at the intersection of cryptocurrency and government. Click here to sign up for future editions.

Hong Kong's role

The narrative

CoinDesk's annual Consensus Hong Kong conference will kick off this Wednesday with a speech from Hong Kong Chief Executive John KC Lee.

Why it matters

Hong Kong is playing an interesting role in the intersection of financial services between the global East and West. CoinDesk will be exploring that role at Consensus,

Breaking it down

We'll be hearing from Financial Secretary Paul Chan and Securities and Futures Commission Chief Executive Julia Leung on day one of Consensus, and having conversations around the growth of real-world asset tokenization, stablecoins and evolving payment systems and how exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Our speakers will include regulators and politicians from around the world, with panels looking at how both regulators and industry participants alike approach the sector  a conversation we've had every year at Consensus, but one that continues to evolve.

Privacy, artificial intelligence, decentralized finance and trading behaviors will also take one of the many stages throughout the conference.

It'll be part of a busy week ahead: SEC Chair Paul Atkins will be testifying before the House Financial Services and Senate Banking Committees. Though the hearings are focused on SEC oversight generally, expect crypto and Atkins' efforts to develop rulemakings around the sector to come up.

The White House is also convening yet another meeting between crypto and banking industry representatives. Not a lot of detail is available yet.

This week

Tuesday

The White House is convening a second meeting between representatives of the crypto and banking industries to discuss stablecoin yield concerns.

Wednesday

01:30 UTC (9:30 a.m. HKT) Day 1 of Consensus Hong Kong kicks off.

15:00 UTC (10:00 a.m. ET) The House Financial Services Committee is holding an oversight hearing with Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins.

Thursday

02:00 UTC (10:00 a.m. HKT) Day 2 of Consensus Hong Kong kicks off.

15:00 UTC (10:00 a.m. ET) The Senate Banking Committee is holding an oversight hearing with Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins.

If youve got thoughts or questions on what I should discuss next week or any other feedback youd like to share, feel free to email me at nik@coindesk.com or find me on Bluesky @nikhileshde.bsky.social.
By Ed Seidel





Wyoming has a great university. That did not happen by accident, and it should not be taken for granted. As president of the University of Wyoming, I am proud of what generations of Wyoming citizens have built. But, more importantly, I believe we must be clear about why Wyomings university matters -- especially at a moment when its value is being questioned.





The University of Wyoming is where students from Ten Sleep and Lusk, Cheyenne and Jackson, Mountain View and Hulett come to pursue their dreams without leaving the state they love. They come here instead of moving away after high school because UW offers a great education right here in Wyoming -- an education that allows graduates to compete anywhere, while often choosing to build their lives here at home either right after graduating or later when many return.





That matters for Wyomings future.





UW educates Wyomings nurses, teachers, engineers, ranchers, business owners, accountants, pharmacists, artists and entrepreneurs. Students in any major -- every major -- get the hands-on skills they need to launch their careers. Liberal arts majors have become CEOs of energy companies; environmental science majors become water lawyers; math majors become teachers.





As the only university in the state, we have a responsibility to support comprehensive workforce needs and serve every corner of Wyoming. We educate both deeply and broadly, exposing students to multiple ideas so they are prepared, nimble and able to thrive in a world that is rapidly changing. We dont promote agendas and have become nationally known for neutrality, strongly supporting the First Amendment via our freedom of expression efforts. Last week, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni gave UW its highest national Gold Standard rating among all universities it ranked.





Doing this all well requires excellence -- not prestige for its own sake, but great programs and faculty that compete well at the national level. Wyoming deserves not just pretty good nurses, engineers and teachers, but the best we can prepare. And at present we do that.





Dont just take my word for UWs standing as a great university. In new rankings by TIME Magazine, we are listed as the No. 61 public university in the U.S., No. 99 among all U.S. universities and No. 286 among all universities across the globe. By comparison, UWs ranking is significantly higher than a number of larger flagship and land-grant universities in neighboring states.





Recently, I was asked why Wyoming needs a great university if the state constitution requires that it be as nearly free as possible. In other words, can the state afford it? My answer is straightforward: Wyoming already has a great university; it cannot afford not to have one.





A great university is not a cost center. It is a multiplier.





State support through the block grant is the essential foundation that allows UW to function. On that foundation, the university works every day to multiply Wyomings investment. And were succeeding beautifully. Since 2019, external research funding -- grants and contracts that support Wyoming jobs, students and priorities -- has grown from about $90 million to more than $220 million per year.





Those dollars fund research on trona-based batteries, new uses for coal, water management, wildlife migration, health care delivery, and other areas central to Wyomings economy and way of life. They bring people, jobs and opportunity into the state. But those funds do not replace the block grant. They depend on it. External grants do not pay for classrooms, core instruction or other services our students need. Without a strong base, that leverage disappears.





The university has already done its share during hard times. UW absorbed cuts of more than $40 million in 2018 and more than another $30 million in 2022. We did so responsibly, as we worked to ensure that research and service to the state continued to grow.





The proposed $40 million cut now is different. This is not shared sacrifice during a downturn. It is a devastating rollback, on top of prior cuts, during a time of state financial strength -- driven not by a budget crisis, but by a failure to recognize the incredible value we bring to Wyoming.





Many universities across the country rely on sharply higher tuition to fund operations, pushing more debt onto students and families. Wyoming has chosen a better path. We continually work to make the great education the state needs as nearly free as possible, and state support has allowed UW to keep education affordable for Wyoming students. Cutting the block grant undermines that promise. It either forces higher costs onto students or deep reductions in programs Wyoming depends on -- or both -- outcomes that neither families nor the states economy can afford.





So, the choice before us is not complicated.





If Wyoming continues to invest in its university, UW will continue to return far more than the state puts in. The university educates the workforce, drives economic diversification, attracts federal and private dollars, and generates well over $1 billion in annual economic impact.





This is not about whether Wyoming can afford a great university. It is about whether Wyoming can afford not to have one.





Investing in the University of Wyoming is one of the best bargains available to this state -- today and for generations to come. We have a great university. Lets not backtrack. Our students deserve it. Our economy depends on it. And Wyomings future is stronger because of it.





Ed Seidel is the 28th president of the University of Wyoming.
Vietnam Briefing has developed into a premium source for insight on doing business in Vietnam. It publishes business news concerning foreign direct investment into Vietnam, including the most important tax, legal and accounting issues. The Vietnam Briefing Magazine was first published in 2009, and is contributed to by investment professionals based in Vietnam.
Legendary investor Ray Dalio has issued a stark warning that the world is on the brink of a capital war during his appearance at the World Governments Summit in Dubai. He highlighted the potential for geopolitical tensions to escalate into financial conflict, with measures such as trade embargoes and capital controls being on the horizon.

During the gathering, Dalio expressed concerns about mutual fears between Europe and the United States, particularly around the possibility of sanctions or restricted access to capital markets. We are on the brink, Dalio noted, emphasizing that while a capital war hasnt started, the situation is precariously close.

Why Dalios Warning Demands Immediate Attention

Dalios remarks come amid heightened tensions over President Donald Trumps international policies, including attempts to acquire Greenland and imposing tariffs. These actions have already caused market volatility and reflect the underlying fears of a capital imbalance between major economies.

"Capital, money, matters. We're seeing capital controls taking place all over the world today, and who will experience that is questionable. So, we are on the brink, that doesn't mean we are in a capital war now, but it means that it's a logical concern," Dalio said.

He pointed out that European investors have been significant buyers of U.S. Treasurys, accounting for 80% of foreign purchases between April and November. This underscores the interconnectedness of global financial systems and the potential risks involved.

How Geopolitical Tensions Shape Investment Strategies

As CNBC noted last week, Dalio drew historical parallels, referencing the U.S.s sanctions on Japan before World War II as an example of how economic measures can precede greater conflicts. He suggested that similar dynamics could unfold between the U.S. and China or Europe.

In response to these concerns, Dalio stated that central banks and sovereign wealth funds are already making provisions for potential capital controls. This preparation indicates a growing awareness of the risks posed by geopolitical tensions to global capital markets.

The Case For Gold Amid Capital Market Uncertainty

Amid these uncertainties, Dalio reiterated his belief in gold as a reliable hedge against market volatility. It doesnt change by the day, he said, underscoring that golds role as a diversifier remains critical despite recent price fluctuations.

Dalio advised that central banks and investors should consider maintaining a percentage of their portfolios in gold, as it provides a safeguard during economic downturns.
Behind the wheel of an Oelwein Police Department cruiser is someone who knows the community, knows the people and continues to pursue heights within their career to make Oelwein better. Being recognized for that service is Officer Charity Heller, 2025 Officer of the Year.

Voted on by sworn and non-sworn members of the Oelwein Police Department at their annual department banquet, Heller, an Oelwein native, has exceeded those standards set by the department to maintain and uphold their values and mission and pursue a connection with a community in search of a better future.

I just like being out in this community as a whole and the small town, she said. Even when Im out, not on duty, when Im at the gym or at the store, all the kids will

See OFFICER, page A2

come up to me, Oh, Ms. Charity! Officer Charity! I can walk through Fareway and be addressed by 20 different people.

That friendliness is something Charity rather enjoys. When they get lulls in calls, which surprisingly does happen, she added, they choose how to spend their time: traffic enforcement, paperwork, foot patrols, checking in at sporting events or other things that may be going on in town to be engaged with others.

There are busy days where you are running call to call to call, but theres also times when youre not responding to a lot of calls and you kind of make your own day patrolling, driving, she said.

Captain Ron Voshell said Heller enters every call with a strong commitment to public safety, victim advocacy, and community engagement and noted that her compassion in policing has made her an outstanding officer.

Her selection as Officer of the Year reflects not only her outstanding police work throughout 2025, but also her positive influence on department morale and the quality of life within the Oelwein community, he wrote. Officer Heller truly embodies the ideals of the Oelwein Police Department and is a deserving recipient of this distinguished honor.

Officer Heller said she is a social butterfly, and knowing the town she was raised in, including all the go-to teenage hangout spots, has its perks in law enforcement.

She graduated from Oelwein High School in 2011 and went to Hawkeye Community College for her two-year police science degree while doing her ride-along hours with the OPD in 2014. She then joined the Meskwaki Nation Police Department in Tama for three years and had the opportunity to do K-9 work with her now-retired partner, Nike, and was a patrol officer.

Heller returned to Oelwein in 2019 and specializes in sexual assault investigations and is an evidence tech.

Law enforcement is fun. If felt like just yesterday I was in the academy and I remember that one day or that one day in the range and I cant believe its been 10 years already, she said.

Connecting people to the department through community policing efforts is one area she works to build, as its often the first step to deter negative behaviors. One way the force is doing that is through their new CORE program, Community Officer for Resolution and Engagement, spearheaded by Heller.

Its going to be a community-oriented program thats going to try and strengthen those ties between law enforcement and our community. [Were] trying to help with conflict resolution and proactive communication to get ahead of any consistent issues in the community, she said, just make everybodys life a little easier, whether it be the PDs or the people within their neighborhoods and stuff like that.

Officer Heller maintains a strong presence with the schools and talks to students about the effects of vaping, tobacco and other negative behaviors. Other times its as simple as making that connecting with kids to help them understand that officers are there to help and be a resource.

Things like playing at recess with kids and showing up to sporting events all benefits the schools.

She is also the go-to for ride alongs with high schoolers or others who may seek to join the department.

In her childhood and now seven years with the department, she sees the subtle changes in the City of Oelwein for the better.

I feel we have a solid foundation with the community, and you can see it in other communities where they dont have that with people, she said. Its just good for overall safety.
Renewable energy company Zelestra has agreed a 130m ($154m) syndicated equity-bond facility with Santander, with backing from Instituto de Credito Oficial (ICO) and Spain's official export credit agency, CESCE.

This financial arrangement is intended to support the development of approximately 500MW of contracted renewable energy projects in Germany, Italy and the US.

These projects, which include wind, solar and battery energy storage capacities, are expected to begin construction in 2026 and 2027.

The agreement with Santander, along with support from the ICO and CESCE, is seen as a strategic move to diversify Zelestras financial operations.

The involvement of these financial institutions also highlights confidence in Zelestra's global strategy.

Zelestra CFO Xavier Puig said: As we continue to deliver substantial growth globally based on Zelestras customer-centric strategy, we are delighted to have the backing of major international lenders and credit agencies.

This facility will support our growth and our ability to deliver major clean energy projects for our customers and communities in our global markets.

CESCEs role involves managing credit and investment insurance, focusing on mitigating the political, commercial and extraordinary risks linked to the international operations of Spanish companies.

Zelestra operates as a vertically integrated enterprise, specialising in the development, commercialisation, construction and management of large-scale renewable energy projects. The company is supported by EQT, a global investment fund that manages assets totalling 270bn.

Prior to this development, Zelestra and Meta signed a new power purchase agreement for the Skull Creek Solar Plant in Texas, US, expanding their clean energy partnership.

"Renewable energy company Zelestra agrees $154m funding with Santander" was originally created and published by Power Technology, a GlobalData owned brand.




Italy marks the Giorno del Ricordo every year on 10 February.

Italy on Tuesday commemorates the victims of the Foibe mass killings in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Istria and Dalmatia by Tito's partisans, both during and after world war two.

Italy's president Sergio Mattarella and prime minister Giorgia Meloni will attend a memorial ceremony at the Italian parliament in Rome on Tuesday to remember the victims of the Foibe killings which occurred in 1943 and again in the weeks before and after the end of the war in 1945.

The massacres were committed mainly against the local ethnic Italian population by Yugoslav communists who occupied the Istrian peninsula during the last two years of the war.

The exact number of victims is unknown but there may have been up to 15,000 killed, with many of them tortured, shot or pushed to their deaths into the deep, narrow carsic sinkholes or chasms known as foibe.

The Giorno del Ricordo commemorates the victims of the ethnic cleansing as well as the exodus of Italians who left their homes in Dalmatia and Istria in the years after 1943.

Ahead of the memorial event on Tuesday, Italy's right-wing premier Meloni recalled a "painful chapter in our history, victim for decades of an unforgivable conspiracy of silence, oblivion and indifference."

She paid tribute to "the martyrs of the Foibe" and the exodus of "hundreds of thousands of Italians who chose to abandon everything rather than give up their identity."

"The nation must not be afraid to face that truth, casting aside any squalid attempt at denial or reductionism" - Meloni stated - "Remembrance is not resentment, but justice. It is the foundation of a shared memory that unites and strengthens the national community, paving the way for those who come after us."

Train of Remembrance

A special Treno di Ricordo will depart from Trieste on Tuesday and make its way slowly to Sicily, evoking the journey of the exiles from Istria, Fiume and Dalmatia.

The train, which hosts a multimedia exhibition charting the tragedy of the Foibe and the exodus, will pass through 11 Italian cities: Trieste, Pordenone, Bologna, Pescara, L'Aquila, Rome, Latina, Salerno, Reggio Calabria and Palermo before arriving at its final destination in Siracusa.

In Rome, the train can be visited at Ostiense station on 19 February from 13.00 to 18.30 and on 20 February from 09.00 to 18.30.

On Tuesday, flags at the parliament in Rome will be flown at half mast, while that night the building's facade will be illuminated with the colours of the Italian flag.
International Schools - Are They Worth it?

As a child, my life was centered around school. My formative years were spent sheltered - the shelter being my private, international school community. I rarely encountered racism besides the occasional microaggressive comments from miserable passerbys, and even then I learnt that harboring feelings of resentment was fruitless. Poverty was something to be observed in documentaries during Geography class.

Growing up in the international school system, racism just felt absurd as a concept. It was interesting - not alien - to be of a different background. There were even school days dedicated to the student bodys various cultural backgrounds, wherein occidental food found itself overpowered by the fumes of the chicken tikka masala and chow mein brought in by parents. I was thus convinced we all existed as a singular, unified force. That we humans simply existed, as we were, sans hierarchy. There was no better - there was just different.

This was, I would learn, the philosophy of an incredibly privileged middle class child. It was the philosophy of an idealist who resided in a homogenous bubble. Homogenous as it is not our race which divides us, but rather our attitude towards race. International school students are more accustomed to the existence of other cultures relative to their average public school student counterparts. This definitely has its merits - but also inevitably creates an idealist world of its own, applying not only to race, but also to socioeconomic factors. Concepts such as structural inequality and economic precarity remain foreign to many who attend these schools, simply because they havent lived it. Public schools instead are shaped largely by geographical means rather than wealth. As a result, students are inevitably exposed to more socioeconomic diversity. The majority of international school students are upper middle class children - privileged children. They don't think about money unless they want to.

To experience a childhood in this world is an invaluable privilege - but to ultimately exit it can be tough, which raises the question: is the international school education truly worth it, all things considered? And does privilege build a person?

Personally, I have never known schools other than international schools, with the exception of my time spent volunteering at an underprivileged high school in West Philadelphia. Theres a great emphasis on pastoral care in these institutions (as one would expect, given the five figure school fees), and so harassment was always taken more seriously, when reported. We were taught physical assault was unacceptable, and we were shown its formal ramifications. Sure, there were instances of intrafemale emotional warfare! But this was a result of our biology, not our school environment.

Although the United States and Italy differ in their educational systems, the fact remains that private schooling is always more supportive of students. The more funding a school has to sustain the dreams of their students with the appropriate resources, the more likely students are to succeed academically. I asked several parents why they chose the private route instead of public, to which two of the most common answers were a) they wanted the best education for their children and b) it was what their colleagues were doing.

This culture of families who can afford these schools choosing to send their children to them indirectly creates a narrative of: if you can opt out of the public system, you should. Most expat parents who can, will send their children to international schools. So are there reasons as to why they shouldnt do so?

The answer is no, not really. The benefits of a private education are invaluable. Our academic success is to some extent a reflection of our own ambition and diligence, but the environment were assigned to is what truly shapes us. Private schools offer smaller classes with a higher teacher to student ratio, with more rigorous teaching and extracurriculars. International schools specifically come with added benefits of their own. Upon asking a friend if she believes her international boarding school has positively impacted her grasp on the local culture, she said to me - I think theres a more homogeneous cultural identity here (regardless of the schools diverse nationalities), as the majority of students have lived in Rome their entire lives. During my four years here, I think Ive adapted my cultural identity to the environment here, especially coming from somewhere so far away and culturally distinct. When asked if she believes she has managed to preserve her original cultural identity, she replied I think the international school system generally (but not entirely) promotes preserving your cultural identity as opposed to conforming to one standard identity. Growing up, we were always encouraged to learn about and share our cultures, and I think theres a greater celebration of the uniqueness of different cultural backgrounds.

So to conclude, an international school education is never not worth it. Yes it can be harder to enter the world outside of school if youve spent most of your life surrounded by an environment of equally if not more privileged kids - but the university destinations and subsequent employment rates speak for themselves. Furthermore, though the open mindedness and tolerance an international environment provides may not be reflected as strongly in society outside of these schools, it is the rarity of this mindset that makes it an asset. There is no need to deny privilege and opportunity if one is appreciative of it.








Culture ministry swoops in to buy 15th-century painting in a major victory for Italys cultural heritage.

Italy has purchased Antonello da Messina's Ecce Homo, which Sotheby's had offered to the highest bidder last week, the Italian culture ministry confirmed on Monday.The work, a double-sided panel featuring an Ecce Homo on the front and a Penitent Saint Jerome on the back, was acquired for $14.9 million through a private negotiation with Sothebys.Antonello da Messina (c. 14301479) was a Sicilian painter of the Early Italian Renaissance, renowned for pioneering the use of oil paint in Italy and blending Flemish, Netherlandish realism with Italian, Venetian structure.The painting had originally been scheduled to go under the hammer last Thursday, during the 'Master Paintings & Works of Art' sale at Sothebys in New York.However, the lot was withdrawn just hours before the auction began.Italian authorities, led by culture minister Alessandro Giuli, had been working behind the scenes for weeks to secure the piece.By moving into a private treaty before the auction, the Italian state avoided a bidding war with international billionaires and private museums, saving the work from disappearing into a private collection once again.Works by Antonello da Messina are extremely rare: only about of his 40 paintings have survived, and this example, painted around 1460 after his return to his native Messina, was likely the last one in private hands.

Un capolavoro del Quattrocento entra nel patrimonio pubblico. Lo Stato italiano ha acquisito lEcce Homo di Antonello da Messina, unopera di eccezionale rarita e valore storico-artistico.

Scopri di piu: https://t.co/YpQOSTYJzp@museitaliani pic.twitter.com/2KW6fdqZQ1  Ministero della Cultura (@MiC_Italia) February 9, 2026



Hailing it as "a transaction of the highest cultural importance", Giuli said in a statement: "We waited a few days before announcing it out of respect for the authorities responsible for registering the purchase contract."



"The work represents a unique example of Italian 15th-century art", Giuli stated, describing it as a "key element in the strategy of expanding and enhancing our cultural heritage, making it available to Italian citizens and visitors from around the world."



A double-sided wonder



This specific Ecce Homo is considered one of the most important private acquisitions in Italy's recent history for several reasons.



It is a small opisthograph panel (painted on both sides). The front shows a hauntingly human Christ crowned with thorns, while the back reveals Saint Jerome in a rugged, rocky landscape.



Measuring only about 20 x 15 cm, its small size suggests it was a portable object for private prayer, possibly carried in a leather pouch by its 15th-century owner.



The work also showcases the artists ability to blend the minute detail of Flemish oil painting with the psychological depth of the Italian Renaissance.



Where will it be housed?



The purchase of the painting has sparked speculation in Italy about where it will be displayed.



While a final decision is still being finalised, the ministry has hinted that the masterpiece will be placed in a state collection that highlights the artist's pivotal role in Mediterranean art history.



Current frontrunners for its permanent home include the Galleria Nazionale della Sicilia in Palermo, returning the work to the artist's homeland; Museo di Capodimonte in Naples where the painter trained under Colantonio; and the Uffizi in Florence which is home to several works by the artist.
Officials with UK-based power systems developer Rolls-Royce said the company is launching a new modular solution for gas engine power plants. The group on February 10 said the engines are designed to provide more security for the energy supply, and accelerate the implementation of the German governments Power Plant Strategy. Germanys Power Plant Strategy, which is designed to move the country to an 80% renewable electricity share by 2030, centers on building 10 GW to 25 GW of "hydrogen-ready" natural gas-fired power plants to support the nation's energy supply. Rolls-Royce on Tuesday said its turnkey plants deliver from 5 MW to several hundred MW of power, depending on the user's requirements. The company said the engines are immediately ready to burn hydrogen, and are suitable for the future use of that fuel. The company said the units are preconfigured, with 10, 20, and 30 MW of power each. Officials said the power plants can be connected to the grid within a year to 18 months after ordering. "With our modular gas engine power plants, we are implementing the German Governments Power Plant Strategy quickly and economically. Our partner network ensures speed and local value creation," said Tobias Ostermaier, president of Stationary Power Solutions at Rolls-Royce Power Systems. "Utilities and data centers around the world rely on our solutionsmore than 17 GW of installed capacity speak for themselves. The new engines are available to provide backup power, and also can help compensate for fluctuations in the feed-in from wind and solar energy, according to Rolls-Royce. The company noted, "This is particularly important during periods of low wind and low sunlight, when gaps of between 10 hours and several weeks need to be bridged." The company also said, "In some applications, they can also act as a bridging solutionproviding continuous power until a connection can be made to the grid, or another power source such as nuclear, at which point the gensets can switch to providing backup power." Rolls-Royce has long been supporting the UK energy market with its gas-fired power systems. The company on Tuesday noted that since 2014 the UK has been relying on a capacity market to switch its energy supply from coal-fired power generation to renewable energy resources and natural gas-fired power plants. The group said the use of decentralized gas engine power plants increases grid resilience, and support continued integration of renewable energy resources into the grid. "True resilience comes from decentralization, not centralization," said Michael Stipe, senior vice president for Strategy, Business and Product Development Stationary Energy Solutions at Rolls-Royce Power Systems. "An energy system based on many distributed, modular generation units is less susceptible to large-scale disruptions and bottlenecks. Modular gas engine power plants offer exactly this structure." Darrell Proctor is a senior editor for POWER.
On Sunday, February 8, Government top brass arrived in Passage East on what was an unusually idyllic day compared to the recent terror that overtook the village in the wake of Storm Chandra.

The tranquil coastal village suffered intense flooding on Friday, January 30. The brook that overlooks the village spilled over, despite prior concerns raised by residents, and damaged roughly 20 houses located along the brookside and Postal Square.

Minister of State for the Office of Public Works, Kevin Boxer ,Moran held court with residents in the villages community centre.

He was flanked on either side by Waterford Ministers of State Mary Butler and John Cummins, and Waterford City and County Councils chief executive and director of services Sean McKeown and Gabriel Hynes.

L-R: Minister John Cummins, Minister Kevin 'Boxer' Moran, Minister Mary Butler, Waterford Council Chief Executive Sean McKeown and Director of Services Gabriel Hynes heard from residents of Passage East on Sunday, February 8.

Residents raised issue with a lack of flood prevention infrastructure and a lethargic response from the local council.

Drains for Passage East were not cleared out on the day of the flooding, and residents said the sandbags deployed were insufficient.

'Being put through hoops'

My house was flooded out there now in Post Office Square," local resident Rhos Cleare told Minister Moran.

"I couldn't get out of my house for the volume of water that was flowing. I couldn't even open the door."

What's the point in throwing good money at the same local authority who even now refuses to acknowledge that there were deficits in the response and planning for this flood.

We've had heavy rain since Christmas. There was yellow, orange rain warnings and phone calls made to the council to log concerns, to warn them that the brook was overflowing at four o'clock on the Friday evening. And there was nothing.

We're paying the price of it now. We've all got exclusions on our house insurance.

I'm there on my own with three kids in the house, trying to figure out how I'm going to replace carpets that Ive had to rip out. My sons asthmatic, that place is stinking, and we're just being put through hoops.

Mr McKeown said that the brooks overflow couldnt have been prevented.

Sean Furlong, proprietor of Furlongs Geneva Bar, referenced failed applications to rectify the issue of the brook in past years. Mr Furlongs bar was severely damaged by the flooding.

We were informed here by Sean [McKeown] that there's nothing they could do.

It was my understanding that there was an application for 750,000 put in by our councillors for flood relief. It was refused.

Since then, it has emerged that over 200 million has been dispersed between Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Kilkenny, but yet we can't get, was it 250,000, Waterford got?

Figures released to Waterford Sinn Fein TD David Cullinane showed Waterford ranked 22nd out of 24 counties for flood relief funding from 2020-2025.

Waterford received 240,000 from the OPW over the period, equating to .24% of national spend on flood prevention.

Minister Moran said OPW criteria and limits on maximum had been loosened to allow counties to avail of flood relief funding.

Walking the streets of the village, Brookeside resident Anne Moran said the Government response to flooding was all talk, no action.

She described Passage East as the forgotten village.

Another woman said that flooding had come through the walls of her home. We all pay our taxes. We work hard at this age, it's just a disgraceour lovely homes are being destroyed.

Interim steps

Minister Moran said it takes eleven years to push through a flood relief infrastructure project from start to finish.

He said priority must be shifted to interim measures like IPP (Individual Property Protection). Minister Moran described IPP as a gate that can fit almost all buildings and front doors and is designed to function as a more effective alternative to sandbags.

Waterford City and County Chief Executive Sean McKeown said the council will be undertaking an honest review of the flooding and the councils responses.

Affected locals will apply for emergency response payments. The response payment takes place in three phases - the first stage caters to immediate needs, and the second and third cover damage to essential contents and long-term financial damage to properties.

The latter two phases are means-tested. A single household with a gross income of below 50,000 will receive 100% redress, with the same applying to a couple earning below 90,000. Every household must forfeit a % of redress for every 1,000 they earn above the threshold.

Brook an 'absolute priority'

Asked by the Waterford News & Star, if fixing the underlying issue of the brook was a priority for the OPW and Waterford politicians, Minister Moran said: Ive given my assurance this morning of my being here and working with the local authorities to deliver for the people of Passage East.

In the interim, but also in the long-term, I will work to do that. I know, as was said earlier, that the council have a lot of work done about sitting down with me and my department.

Government Chief Whip and Minister of State for Mental Health Mary Butler said implementing flood prevention schemes for the brook is an absolute priority.

I dont think Passage East has ever seen as many politicians as theyve seen [today] unless it was an election in Passage East...Were here on a Sunday morning, the Minister is solution-driven, solution-focused, and he doesnt want to see anyones house flooded.

Sinn Fein TD David Cullinane said to the News & Star the proof is in the eating of the pudding in relation to Government support for Passage East.

I was satisfied insofar as we had a meeting and commitments were given. But commitments are only as good as the funding that comes behind them and how quickly itll take to deliver them.

Deputy Cullinane referenced issues surrounding water pressure in Passage East as evidence more needed to be done for locals.

Residents are saying yes its great that a Minister comes in and says were going fund these projects, were going to deliver them, were going to prioritise themlets see what happens over the next while.

Im hopeful that it will happen, I think the Minister is genuine in his commitment to engage with the local authoritylets get those projects on the Ministers desk, make sure he keeps his word, fast-tracks the project, and then people will hopefully see progress and delivery.

Funded by the Local Democracy Scheme
Students from across Waterford were given unprecedented access into the work of local Gardai last week, through a new initiative being carried out at Waterford Garda Station.

Ten students spent a week in and around our local gardai at the station last week, with a further 10 to follow next month.

Throughout the week, the students were given an insight into the daily life and work of local An Garda Siochana members.

From forensics, to horse and dog units; investigators to public order and traffic personnel, the students were handed valuable access and learning experiences.

As part of the experience, they also had the opportunity to visit Waterford Courthouse, and attend a sitting before Judge Eugene OKelly during the day's Circuit Court hearing.

Judge OKelly greeted the students, and gave them a brief breakdown of the day's proceedings and some insight into the legality of early guilty pleas and mitigation.

Speaking further on the initiative, Garda Inspector Shay Keevans told this newspaper that the students showed passion and interest throughout the week.

The youth in the community are very important to An Garda Siochana. We try to have a connection with them through our Junior Liaison Officers and Community Policing Officers, and, of course, we want all Gardai to have a good connection with the youth because they are the future.

"It really shows that we want to connect with communities and the youth in the city."
Waterford has changed a lot in the past twenty-five years, but two shops, Claire's and EuroGiant, have withstood the ups and downs of financial crashes and global pandemics. This week, though, Claire's put 'Closing Down Sale' signs up in its windows, and EuroGiant made a public plea to keep the shop in business long enough for some staff members to qualify for state redundancies.

Claire's

Claire's on Broad Street Waterford City.

Claire's will close in Waterford City after twenty-five years of business at the end of March.

The shop is popular with teenagers for its affordable accessories and piercing services.

According to a staff member at the Waterford branch, staff were told the store would close in February, but that date was pushed to March.

EuroGiant

In a post on social media, Eurogiant Waterford said: "It has been made clear to us that all jobs are at risk and that stores may close in the coming weeks.

"From next week, liquidators will be assessing stores based on factors such as sales, stock levels and footfall, and decisions will be made about which locations remain open and which will close."

In a heartfelt message, staff members implored the public to consider purchasing everyday items in Eurogiant in the coming days and weeks.

Background

Claire's went into administration in August of last year, but was saved when Modella Acquisitions (which also owns WH Smith) bought 155 Claire's stores across Ireland and Britain, out of a total of 350. At that stage, the other remaining 145 stores closed.

Claire's went into administration for a second time last month when CAUKI Limited acquired Modella. According to the staff member, CAUKI tried to find a buyer for Claire's but couldn't.

It is unconfirmed that all 15 branches still operating in Ireland are closing, as no official statement has been released.

The shop has been a staple in Waterford City for over two decades, and the staff member told the Waterford News & Star that staff members from 20 years ago regularly visit the shop.

It was announced last Thursday that EuroGeneral/Bushgrove Ltd, trading as EuroGiant, has entered court-appointed liquidation, putting 640 jobs at risk.

In a post on social media, Eurogiant Waterford said: "For some of our staff, remaining open a little longer could also make a crucial difference in terms of qualifying for statutory redundancy entitlements. Even a short extension could have a significant impact on peoples livelihoods."

They continued: "This is not an easy message to write. Our immediate goal is simply to ask for the publics support in helping us stay in employment for as long as possible. If you need something that we stock, please consider shopping with us."

EuroGiant first opened in Waterford in 1999 and has been a part of Michael Street ever since.

The founder of EuroGiant, Charlie OLoughlin, said the situation was a very hard day for him personally.

I founded this business over 30 years ago, and I never imagined it would end like this, he told RTE News.

What matters most to me now is our staff. Many people have given a huge part of their working lives to the company, and I know how worrying and unsettling this will be for them and their families.

"I am deeply sorry that this is where things have gotten to. We did everything we realistically could to keep the business going, but the pressures it faced over time meant that was no longer possible. My focus now is on supporting an orderly wind-down of the business and working with the liquidator to achieve the best possible outcome for employees.
A financial services worker whose employment was terminated after he was sentenced to more than two years in prison for deception and impersonating a garda has taken a case for unfair dismissal.

Orville Farrell was working as a custody client servicing associate with State Street when he was convicted of the offences before Waterford Circuit Court and commenced a prison sentence in January 2024.

The company had not been informed that he was facing criminal charges, and was initially unaware of the reason that he was absent from work.

Around January 15, an employee relations consultant at State Street received a call informing her that Mr Farrell had been admitted to a psychiatric institute and would likely be an inpatient for some time.

The caller refused to identify herself or the name of the psychiatric facility, citing confidentiality, but provided an email address from which further updates would be provided.

A few days later, an email was received from this address confirming that, in fact, Mr Farrell had received a custodial sentence and was in prison.

Ciara Lawlor, head of employee relations for State Street, told an adjudication hearing of the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) yesterday that Mr Farrells sudden absence had made it difficult to manage workloads.

She said the company had learned about his incarceration from newspaper articles, and made extensive efforts to engage with him, repeatedly extending deadlines for submissions regarding the future of his employment.

Barrister Maurice Osborne, representing State Street, said it was the companys position that there had been no dismissal and that Mr Farrells contract had instead been terminated on the grounds of frustration.

This occurs when an unforeseen event not caused by either party makes the performance of a contract impossible or radically different from what was originally agreed.

However, Mr Farrell argued that the company had failed to consider holding his position open for him pending release, or implementing temporary measures until he could return to work.

He told the WRC that there was an obligation to explore reasonable alternatives before concluding that a contract had been frustrated, and therefore claimed that he had been unfairly dismissed.

Mr Osborne said there had been no realistic prospect of Mr Farrell returning to work within a reasonable period of time, despite his contact person incorrectly claiming that he would be released after 10 months.

He said Mr Farrell should have informed his employer about the trial as a matter of common courtesy. Instead, he initially told his line manager that he was sick, and then the company was told he was in a psychiatric facility.

Mr Osborne said State Street had gone above and beyond to engage with Mr Farrell, affording him multiple opportunities to make submissions up to April 2024.

Mr Farrell argued that frustration of contract required impossibility, not inconvenience, and claimed his employer had failed to investigate the possibility of his employment continuing if he were moved to an open prison.

The WRC also heard that Mr Farrell had since applied for a new job with State Street, but the company felt it was not appropriate to consider the application as it does not employ anyone with a criminal record.

State Street Custodial Services Ireland Limited is the Irish branch of the US financial services giant, managing assets worth around 1.7 trillion domiciled in Ireland  roughly one-third of the entire funds sector.

Mr Farrell was sentenced to three years in prison for impersonating a garda in January 2024, which was reduced by nine months. He received a concurrent two-year sentence for deception, which was reduced by six months with the final portion suspended for six months.

The hearing concluded and adjudication officer Seamus Clinton is expected to issue a decision on the unfair dismissal complaint in the coming weeks.
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BusinessWorkplaceWorkplace Telstra to cut 209 jobs from AI joint venture, offshoring work to India Millie Muroi February 10, 2026  2:52pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

Telecommunications giant Telstra and consulting firm Accenture are proposing to slash hundreds of roles from their data and AI joint venture, with some work to be offshored to India. Telstras $700 million joint venture, one of the biggest AI investments by an Australian company to date, said on Tuesday it proposed to cut 209 jobs. Telstra has been focused on rolling out AI capabilities over the past two years. Renee Nowytarger The venture, announced in January last year, is aimed at rolling out AI capabilities across Telstra to improve its business processes, chief executive Vicki Brady saying at the time it would build specialised AI tools for its teams to work smarter and faster. A spokesperson for the joint venture confirmed on Tuesday evening that it would be reducing roles where work is no longer needed and moving some of its work to the joint venture team in India which, they said, had advanced AI expertise and a specialist hub that could deliver Telstras data and AI roadmap more quickly.

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Related Article Scams Everything is dark: How a fake job cost a young graduate $23,000 We anticipate that over time, this would result in improved cost efficiencies and bring an enhanced experience to Telstras customers, the spokesperson said. Some redeployment opportunities, including roles requiring AI and data skill-sets, would be offered by Accenture, and the joint venture would support affected team members to find new roles at either company where possible if the proposal goes ahead, they said. Asked about whether the affected jobs would be replaced by AI, the joint venture spokesperson said that was not currently being proposed. We are not proposing that any roles be replaced by AI today, they said. Though, through our joint venture, well be able to apply new technology, including AI, to simplify our tools and services so we can deliver faster, more intuitive experiences for customers.

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The latest job cuts, details of which were leaked to The Aussie Corporate, come after the company announced plans in 2024 to trim back up to 2800 workers, or about 10 per cent of its workforce. A raft of Australian companies have been culling roles and offshoring work to countries with cheaper labour as they look to trim costs. Big four consulting firm KPMG last week announced its proposal to slash 200 executive assistant roles and offshore work to the Philippines, while banking giants NAB and CBA have also come under fire for proposals to cut hundreds of jobs and shift them to India. In its full-year results last year, the telco giant posted bumper profits after cutting operating expenses by 6 per cent. Telstra will report its half-yearly results on Thursday, February 19. Get workplace news, advice and perspectives to help make your job work for you. Sign up for our weekly Thank God its Monday newsletter.
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Bill Bryson is visibly startled to see himself back. Oh my god, Im in a cave, he says, grinning at the bearded face emerging from the gloom of his home office in Hampshire. A desk plaque in the computer glow reads, BILL BRYSON  RETIRED AUTHOR. I got that for Christmas a year ago, he says jovially. I am really, really trying to be retired. I love being retired. I cant recommend it too highly. Whats in his way is nearly everything. A Short History of Nearly Everything 2.0, ostensibly the great travel writers final book, returns him to Australia this month. When I sat down to do it, I thought it would mostly be a question of tinkering with dates and numbers, he says of updating his popular science masterwork of 2003. Back then, the number of known exoplanets  planets outside our own solar system  was maybe a couple of dozen. Now its almost 6000. Not that space or time permits him to list them all. Not when theres a shiny new Higgs Boson particle to detonate, or an archaeologists smorgasbord of ancient human species to flesh out our skeletal understanding of Homo sapiens twisted road to here. Bill Bryson giving a speech at last years Nero Book Awards in London. Getty Images Say hello, for instance, to the Denisovans, the so-called hobbits of Flores, and Homo naledi: small-brained cave-dwellers whose burial rituals have upended old assumptions about intelligence. There are four major lines of humans that were not suspected at all when I wrote the book a little over 20 years ago, Bryson says. The great thing, he says, is a far more recent act of evolution. Now theres an internet. I used to have to get dressed and go to a library and hunt through books and hope that I could find something that was less than five years old. Now I can find out your middle name, probably, in 30 seconds. This mildly unsettling truth throws into quaint relief the very act of writing a 600-page non-fiction book about anything at all in this age of infinite instant infobytes. But any reader acquainted with Brysons wry, genial, infectiously curious voice will know that the telling is a big part of the story.

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Born in Iowa but long resident in Britain, he became a bestselling author in the 1990s with a series of travelogues  The Lost Continent, Neither Here Nor There, Notes from a Small Island  that put small-town America, Europe and Britain under his wry gaze. Down Under brought the everyman explorers sharp eye for human behaviour and identity to Australia in 2000. With the 20-million-selling and multi-award winning Short History of Nearly Everything, Bryson turned science into another landscape to wander: a story told not just through facts but through the flawed, obsessive, often hilarious people who discovered them. I love the way that scientists can be so brilliant on the one hand, and then such idiots on the other, he says. Isaac Newton was probably one of the half-dozen smartest people who ever lived on this planet. The things he came up with are just mind-boggling. But then as a grown man, he stared at the sun for as long as he could stand it, just to see what would happen. TAKE 7: THE ANSWERS ACCORDING TO BILL BRYSON Worst habit? Since I was a young boy, I have pretended to be able to vapourise people that annoy me. Thats not a very noble way of going through life. Greatest fear? Ive got a big family and Ive never had to deal with real grief. The line that has stayed with you? A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people  Thomas Mann. Biggest regret? When I got married and we came to England, my first job was working at The Evening Echo in Bournemouth, and it was the most boring job I ever had. I wished Id gone to London first  but on the other hand, my first two kids were born there and if wed been in London, they would have been different kids. Favourite book? The reading experience I most powerfully remember was when I was about 13 years old. It was a hot summer night in Iowa, and I took a book down randomly off a bookshelf. Lost Horizon by James Hilton: a book of no great distinction, but the best reading experience I ever had. The artwork/ song you wish was yours? Stand By Me by Ben E. King. If you could time travel, where would you choose to go? In an Australian context, I would love to go and stand on the beach and watch the Indigenous people arrive. I mean, how did you get a breeding population across all that water tens of thousands of years ago? The problem is, I wouldnt know which beach to stand on and I wouldnt know what year. Bryson also relates the slightly nauseating tale of 17th-century German alchemist Hennig Brands attempts to transmute his urine into gold. Then theres the large mass of ego named Edwin Hubble, an astounding overachiever and groundbreaking astronomer who was not just an inveterate liar but also largely ignorant of a potentially useful contemporary named Albert Einstein. The most brilliant scientists, Bryson says with delight, were capable of this kind of idiocy inside a fantastically expansive mind. And I love that. I think that kind of thing helps to humanise these people and make you feel a little bit less daunted by their achievements. Which is not to suggest that human brilliance is the most daunting element in the known universe. Brysons descriptions of menacing astronomical and geothermal possibilities are sobering. We live in a world, he quips during a litany of meteoric, volcanic and atmospheric threats, that doesnt altogether seem to want us here.

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Not much that we learn scientifically these days is encouraging, he says. Its heartening that knowledge goes on and on and on and theres still always so much more to learn  including, he says, climate change and melting polar ice caps. Its very easy to get discouraged by the world we live in. Science is helping us understand how discouraging that is. But science itself seems to matter less and less  not least in my native country  where its being sidelined in ways I find shocking. He cites the recent closure of Duke Universitys herbarium in North Carolina, with its collection of 800,000 biological specimens, as emblematic of a broader retreat: A sense that science isnt worth supporting unless its economically productive. I find that discouraging. In 2000, Bill Bryson turned his travel writing lens on Australia with Down Under. Jessica Hromas Idiocy, it seems, is not to be underestimated. I dont think nature is the great threat. I think were the great threat; the fact that we just take our existence for granted and act as if somehow the Earth will always sustain us, no matter what we do. Im not completely gloomy about climate change. I think life may get pretty uncomfortable, but I dont think were going hell-for-leather for extinction. But the idea that Earth is somehow inexhaustible is just foolish. Bryson seems essentially drawn to this elastic grey zone between existential dread and plucky optimism. His 2006 memoir The Thunderbolt Kid describes a 1950s Des Moines childhood teetering between the perils of playground Darwinism and nuclear annihilation and sheer boyish joy, a world of cheerful survival built on innocent ignorance. One of the saddest things about the age in which were living now is the absence of optimism, he says. When I was a kid, the future was just so exciting. We were all going to have helicopters in our driveways and jetpacks to take us to school and vacations would be in outer space. Now when you think about the future, its always dispiriting and negative, and its a shame that pendulum has swung so far in the other direction. I think maybe its not so extreme. Perhaps (its) going to swing a bit, and then back again. There will always be encouraging developments as well as discouraging ones. Which column Homo sapiens will ultimately occupy in the cosmic spreadsheet is a question far beyond any one traveller. But in a professed absence of spiritual faith, how does a man of science stare down the infinite blackness of his own inevitable demise? I dont look at it as a blackness, he says. Ive had the most wonderful life. Ive had far more success than I ever dreamed of having, and it seems to me perfectly natural that people will start to forget me.

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CultureMoviesVale Schitts Creek star Catherine OHaras cause of death revealed Chris Hook February 10, 2026  7:02am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

Schitts Creek star Catherine OHara died of a pulmonary embolism, US media reported on Monday (US time). The death certificate was released Monday by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiners Office, published by US website TMZ, then picked up by other media. Catherine OHara in a scene from Schitts Creek. AP A pulmonary embolism occurs when a blood clot gets stuck in a blood vessel in the lung. The death certificate revealed the 71-year-old stars underlying cause of death was rectal cancer.

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The Canadian-born OHaras death at her home in Los Angeles on Friday, January 30, following a brief illness was first revealed by her agency CAA, which did not provide any further information at the time. OHara began her career with improvisational troupe The Second City in Toronto in the 1970s, where she first met her lifelong collaborator Eugene Levy, with whom she later starred in Schitts Creek. Loading The two were among the original cast of the sketch show SCTV, short for Second City Television, which spawned a legendary group of comedians including Martin Short, John Candy, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis and Joe Flaherty. I grew up in a different time than now. The internet didnt exist, so from my experience we were very much influenced by comedy like Monty Python and comedies that came out of England, Ireland, Scotland, the UK, than by what came out of the US, OHara told this mastheads culture editor at large Michael Idato in 2020.

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We didnt, in my experience, have such a strong sense of nationalism, she added. Our sense of humour was not only to be able to make fun of the rest of the world but to make fun of ourselves, which, I think, is the healthiest sense of humour you can have. Its lovely. I hope we keep our proud Canadian modesty. Schitts Creek was created by Levy and his son Dan; its tale of a wealthy family forced to live in a tiny town would dominate the Emmys in its sixth and final season. It brought OHara, always a beloved figure, a new generation of fans and put her at the centre of cultural attention. From left: Eugene Levy, Dan Levy, Catherine OHara and Annie Murphy attend the 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards. Rich Fury/Getty Images It also brought a career renaissance that led to a dramatic turn on HBOs The Last of Us and a straitlaced role as a Hollywood producer in The Studio, both of which earned her Emmy nominations. However, she told Idato that she actually passed on the Schitts Creek role  until Eugene and Dan Levy decided to give her one more call.

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Related Article Streaming Moira, Cookie and Kevins mum: Where to watch Catherine OHaras memorable roles The reason she passed? OHaras genesis as a sketch actor left her uncertain when it came to anything resembling a potentially long-running role. Thank god I did say yes, OHara said. Ive done movies but thats three months work at the most. I think it was more fear-based  the concept of committing to one character. OHara was also well known for roles as Delia Deetz in Beetlejuice, Kate McCallister in the Home Alone movies, Marilyn Hack in For Your Consideration and Cookie Fleck in Best in Show. I feel fortunate that anybody knows me as anything, that Im in peoples lives somehow, their childhoods, OHara told Idato ahead of the release of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice in 2024.

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Thats the best, to be part of holiday ritual of watching Home Alone or Nightmare Before Christmas, or I just feel honestly, really fortunate. She is survived by her husband, Bo Welch, and sons Matthew and Luke. Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.
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Exclusive NationalBuilding Bad $15b poured into criminals hands: Bombshell findings CFMEU tried to hide Nick McKenzie February 11, 2026  2:00am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

An Albanese government-appointed official stripped politically explosive sections from a landmark corruption report, removing findings that Victorias Labor government turned a blind eye to CFMEU graft and organised crime on infrastructure projects, including federally funded sites, at a cost to taxpayers of $15 billion. In an extraordinary development on Tuesday evening, after this masthead asked CFMEU administrator Mark Irving, KC, if he or his administration had whitewashed material damaging to Labor from the report, the senior barrister released the deleted chapters and criticised the corruption expert he hired to write them. CFMEU administrator Mark Irving (right) and corruption-busting lawyer Geoffrey Watson. Age/SMH Irvings decision to release the deleted material came after Queenslands Commission of Inquiry moved this week to use its powers to discover the removed chapters of the report by anti-corruption expert Geoffrey Watson, SC, having been provided a different version of the final report last month. The commission intended to publish the report this week.

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In a two-line statement also sent late on Tuesday, Watson confirmed parts of the report detailing the findings of his 18-month probe into the CFMEU had been removed. I did not suggest the changes. I was directed to make the changes, Watson said. But a spokesperson for Irving said in a statement that the administrator determined to remove the two sections  because he was not satisfied that they were well-founded or properly tested. The responses from the two senior barristers came after this masthead had earlier confirmed that the most politically incendiary conclusions of Watson were stripped from his 136-page report into CFMEU crime and corruption some time in January. The initial stripping of the two sections from the 18-month inquiry report, including one titled government inaction on the CFMEU, was overseen by the Irving-led administration in late January.

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The material released on Tuesday evening reveals Watson concluded the Victorian government knew the states massive rail and road projects were infected by corrupt CFMEU officials working with organised crime figures and bikies but chose to look the other way. As the guardian of public money, the government had a duty to know. It had a duty to monitor delays and costs blowouts. There is no doubt the government knew about the rising problem  but it is equally clear that the government did nothing about it, it says. Much of that $15 billion has been poured directly into the hands of criminals and organised crime gangs. Geoffrey Watsons report to the CFMEU Watson also found that the suggestion the governments failure was due to the close relationship between Labor and the CFMEU was an inadequate and unsatisfactory explanation, noting that relations between Labor and the CFMEU had been deteriorating. A better explanation is that the government, just like the contractors, had been cowed by the combination of the industrial might of the CFMEU and its willingness to act outside the law, Watson concluded.

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Just like the [government] contractors, those in government feared that adverse industrial action would have shut down the Big Build, or at least large parts of the Big Build. They thought by passing the problem over to the private contractors it would go away. Editor's pick CFMEU Former Qld minister accused of directing department to negotiate with CFMEU Unfortunately, if that was the plan, it did not work. If the government was planning to pacify the CFMEU in the hope that projects would proceed smoothly, it was wrong; things only got worse. The second section stripped from the Watson report, only to be released by Irving, detailed the likely cost of the government inaction to taxpayers, who unwittingly funded union corruption, bikie infiltration and organised crime rackets on what Labor calls the Big Build. Watson said he interviewed an experienced industry insider who estimated the actions of the CFMEU had increased costs by 30 per cent but that other inquiry witnesses described blowouts of between 15 per cent and 20 per cent. None said it would be less than 10 per cent.

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Watson settled on a very rough estimate of 15 per cent, describing it as not unreasonable and probably conservative. From there the maths is simple  the leadership of the CFMEU has cost the Victorian taxpayer something like $15 billion. There is another point to this  as will be seen, much of that $15 billion has been poured directly into the hands of criminals and organised crime gangs, Watson said. The CFMEU appointed Watson, a former counsel assisting the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption, in mid-2024 as an independent investigator to probe allegations of crime and corruption first aired by this mastheads Building Bad series. Watson ended up working for Irving, a senior barrister with longstanding ties to the union movement who was handpicked as CFMEU administrator by the Albanese government in response to the same Building Bad allegations.

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The Big Build is a once-in-a-generation $100 billion upgrade to Victorias road and rail system that is funded by the Allan and Albanese governments. Watsons findings contradict the denials of Premier Jacinta Allan, the Victorian minister previously responsible for the Big Build, that she had any knowledge of the CFMEU scandal until it was revealed by this masthead and 60 Minutes in 2024. The conclusions in Watsons pre-sanitised report mark the first formal inquiry to conclude that the Victorian Labor government enabled corruption involving the CFMEU, bikies and gangland figures. It has also been the first formal estimate of the cost to taxpayers. The two sections embarrassing to Labor were stripped from the Watson report in January after the Irving-led administration was contacted weeks earlier by Queenslands CFMEU Commission of Inquiry.

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Three sources with knowledge of the matter said that in December, the commission flagged it intended to use its powers to obtain and publish the Watson report. The Queensland inquiry is a royal commission-style probe called by the states LNP government last year and headed by conservative barrister Stuart Wood, KC, and is probing how improper conduct may have led to taxpayer-funded cost blowouts on publicly funded projects in that state. Stuart Wood at the inquiry on Monday. News Corp Australia In NSW, there have also been major revelations  prompting a state government inquiry  of alleged worker exploitation, mafia-style threats and a corporate cover-up involving major firms working on the Western Sydney Airport metro project. The sanitised Watson report ultimately delivered to the Queensland commission by Irving in late January was still, according to two sources speaking anonymously given the reports confidentiality, dynamite, albeit heavily redacted to also protect the identity of Watsons inquiry witnesses.

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The version that was set to be released on Wednesday  even without the deleted chapters  contained a litany of damning conclusions about massive corrupting of the Big Build, sources said. Sources said the Queensland commission may have first twigged that the report it was handed in January was stripped of politically sensitive material because a summary included a dot point headed governmental inaction on the CFMEU but with no corresponding chapter or explanation. The crazy thing is that had these two sections not been whitewashed, Labor could have argued them away, said a source with knowledge of the contents of the Watson inquiry. Its their removal that creates the problem. A second source, who asked to remain confidential because of the sensitive nature of the issues, said the commission would publicly grill Watson on Wednesday about his report and that his appearance would probably be dominated by questions about precisely why and when the sections were removed. Irving has appeared an often-fearless administrator. Under his watch, the CFMEU has sacked dozens of officials around the nation, implemented major reforms, appointed dynamic union leaders such as Michael Crosbie in NSW, and exposed several cases of serious corruption.

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Irving has also moved aggressively to push gangland figures such as Mick Gatto from the construction sector, while confronting serious violence and standover activity in NSW and Queensland. But his administration has also been hampered by missteps, resignations and persistent accusations it is too close to the federal Labor government that created it to ward off demands from the federal opposition that the CFMEU face another royal commission or be deregistered. The administrations initial and now abandoned sanitising of Watsons report in January also came after the federal opposition separately demanded its release. On December 9, Irving was contacted by federal opposition industrial relations spokesman Tim Wilson requesting the immediate public release of Watsons report.

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In the interests of transparency, the clear public interest and to ensure public confidence is sustained that you are acting to clean up the union, I would encourage you to act swiftly on its release. I understand any report from Victoria is likely to be sensitive. However, delaying its release will only create concern that there is an attempt to cover up misconduct, Wilson wrote to Watson. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
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NationalOrganised crime AFP releases images of tobacco kingpin Kazem Hamad in Iraqi custody Chris Vedelago and Marta Pascual Juanola February 10, 2026  6:30pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

Two images of tobacco kingpin Kazem Kaz Hamad claiming to show him in custody in a secret location in Iraq have been released by the Australian Federal Police as part of its investigation into the activities of the man who allegedly launched the tobacco war. The image of Kazem Hamad released by the Australian Federal Police. Its the first official information about Hamads circumstances since news of his arrest in Baghdad was announced in mid-January by the Supreme Judicial Council of Iraq. Hamad had been labelled by Iraqi authorities as one of the most dangerous wanted men in the world in their press release announcing his capture for alleged links to crimes including shootings, murders, kidnappings, violent assaults, extortion and drug imports. The 41-year-old, of whom no photo more recent than 2015 had been published, appears thinner than in the small number of images that have been circulating in the media since the start of the tobacco war.

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In one of the images, Hamad, also known as old mate and Abu Samir, is dressed in a T-shirt and yellow prison garb and is holding a printed sign with his personal and arrest details in Arabic. This masthead could not independently verify the authenticity of the images, which were provided to the AFP by Iraqi authorities. One image depicts Hamad in front of a height chart, a standard format for mugshots. But the numbers appear out of sequence and scale, suggesting he could be up to nine feet tall. Other details that raised concern about the images authenticity include aspects of Hamads hands and shirt neckline, raising the possibility it could have been digitally altered or the product of artificial intelligence. The AFP said it had not altered the image and was not aware of any alteration.

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The sign in the image confirms Hamad, who was born in the city of Nasiriya, about 360 kilometres south-east of Baghdad, is being prosecuted over narcotic offences. A second image of Hamad released by the AFP. AFP In the second image, Hamad is standing in front of a nondescript white wall in a bright yellow prison shirt and pants. Since his release from prison in Australia in July 2023 and deportation to Iraq, police suspect Hamad and his gang have taken control of large sections of the illicit tobacco market and forced a new order on Melbournes gangland scene. The images came with a warning from AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett directed at Hamads syndicate, known on the street as the 313s, Kazs Boys or the Iraqis.

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I want every offender connected to Hamad or his syndicate to look long and hard at this photo, Barrett said. And I want to be very clear  just because Hamad is in custody, the AFPs job is not done. Kazem Hamad in 2015 Hamad has become the subject of a special AFP investigative taskforce known as Operation Carmen. This follows a two-year operation by Victoria Police known as Taskforce Lunar, which was set up just months after Hamads release from prison in the wake of a string of firebombings, two murders and an attempted grave desecration allegedly linked to him. The Hamad syndicate are responsible for a significant number of serious offences, including arsons, extortions [and] shootings linked to the illicit tobacco trade as well as the importation and distribution of illicit tobacco, a Victoria Police intelligence report obtained by this masthead says.

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Barrett said Hamad, whose full name is Kadhim Malik Hamad Rabah al-Hajami, had been arrested as a result of an independent decision by the Iraqi judiciary. Related Article Exclusive

Organised crime An untouchable kingpin is behind bars in Iraq. But his run may not be over It is the first time federal law enforcement has mentioned Hamad by name despite essentially publicly identifying him as a national security threat during a Senate estimates hearing last year. The move came after foreign intelligence linked him to the firebombing of the Adass Israel synagogue in the inner Melbourne suburb of Ripponlea in December 2024. The attack is believed to have been ordered by the Iranian government and carried out by Hamads foot soldiers. The AFP also confirmed that Hamads syndicate has a near nationwide presence in five states and one territory, although they were not named.

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The AFP is supporting this independent Iraqi investigation and is providing relevant operational information that relates to crimes the AFP believe Hamad or his syndicate have committed or directed in Australia, Barrett said. Federal investigators travelled to Iraq last week to provide further assistance and received information in return from local authorities. Barrett said Hamads syndicate had begun to fracture since his arrest, from a lack of leadership, infighting, and dysfunction. The AFP will use every partnership, capability, and legislative power to dismantle this dangerous syndicate and identify every single individual who is linked to this crime gang. The underworld has been rife with wild rumours about Hamads conditions, including everything from allegations of torture to claims he was set to walk free.

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The AFP said the images had been taken by Iraqi authorities and released with the permission of Iraqs National Centre for International Judicial Co-operation. Members of the public with information to share about Hamad or the syndicate can call the National Security Hotline on 1800 123 400. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
NEW YORK (AP)  The operator of Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus said that it will close eight Saks Fifth Avenue stores as well as its Neiman Marcus Boston store as it focuses on its most profitable businesses and pares down debt during its Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring.

Saks Fifth Avenue's locations to be shuttered include sites in Philadelphia; Columbus, Ohio; and Phoenix, the company said. That will leave parent company Saks Global with 25 Saks Fifth Avenue stores and 35 Neiman Marcus stores. The company will continue to operate its two Bergdorf Goodman stores.

The stores targeted for closing will remain open until the end of April, the company said.

Saks Global also said Tuesday it will be winding down 14 standalone Fifth Avenue Club personal styling suites on Saturday, though it will keep three standalone sites. It also will close its home site called Horchow.com, a business that Neiman Marcus acquired in the late 1980s. As of Feb. 19, shoppers will be redirected to the home category on NeimanMarcus.com, where they will find the full assortment previously available on Horchow.com.

The moves mark the initial phase of store closures across Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue, the company said. Saks Global said the stores earmarked for closing represent a small part of its business and were not profitable.

We are initiating a series of actions to reinforce Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman as the ultimate destinations for luxury with a seamless multichannel shopping experience, Geoffroy van Raemdonck, CEO of Saks Global, said in a statement.

The moves follow Saks' announcement last month that it would close most of its Saks Off 5th locations. Saks Global operates 70 Saks Off 5th locations and plans to shutter all but 12 stores. The remaining outlets will serve primarily as a selling channel for residual inventory from Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman, it had said.

Last month, Saks Global also announced it was shuttering the remaining five Last Call stores, which are outlet locations that serve as a discount channel for Neiman Marcus.

Saks Global filed for Chapter 11 reorganization on Jan. 14, buffeted by rising competition and the massive debt it took on to buy its rival in the luxury sector, Neiman Marcus, just over a year ago.

Saks Global had secured roughly $500 million of the broader $1.75 billion financial package. That money will help to pay its suppliers, who have faced a pile of unpaid bills from the retailer and who are critical for keeping the store stocked with merchandise.
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Analysis NationalIVF Superbabies for the white and wealthy? The societal debate we need to have Angus Dalton February 10, 2026  4:30pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

Examine, a free weekly newsletter covering science with a sceptical, evidence-based eye, is sent every Tuesday. Youre reading an excerpt  sign up to get the whole newsletter in your inbox. As companies in the US launch bold campaigns to convince people to choose their unborn babys sex  and now, even attributes such as height, hair colour and intelligence  theres a key piece of research missing. And its got everything to do with you. A controversial DNA test allows IVF patients to choose their embryos based on the future childrens chance of developing certain diseases or traits. Michael Howard Selecting an IVF embryo based on sex, or screening for other traits for non-medical reasons, is not allowed in Australia. But the tide may be shifting, with US sex selection clinics organising promotional tours in Australia to lure prospective parents to their clinics.

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The ruling document regulating these services is the National Medical and Research Councils Ethical Guidelines on Assisted Reproductive Technology. Related Article Exclusive

IVF Have a smarter baby: Australians choosing embryos for IQ, height and hair colour The guidelines acknowledge there is limited research scrutinising how Australians feel about sex selection. They call for wider social and political discussion, so the council may craft recommendations in line with the publics views. If our stance on sex selection isnt clear, how can we be ready to consider the even thornier issue of parents choosing embryos for their chance, for instance, of turning out right-handed, blonde, tall and smart? While the NHMRC waits for the research gap to be filled so we can better understand the publics views on these tests, Ive spoken to scientists, IVF doctors, lawyers and embryo selection companies to get a picture of how we might inform our thinking. Here are some of the issues that arise.

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Choosing boys v girls IVF patients can choose the sex of their embryos if it helps avoid certain diseases. Duchenne muscular dystrophy, hemophilia and fragile X syndrome, for example, affect only males  a couple with genetic risk of these diseases may, in certain cases, opt to implant only female embryos. Otherwise, choosing a boy or girl is banned. Theres obvious demand for that choice, though. Dr Daniel Potter, a California doctor who runs a sex selection clinic in the US, where the service is legal, spoke to at least 100 Australian couples last year who were interested in flying to the US to choose their babys sex. US fertility doctor Daniel Potter believes sex selection should be legalised in Australia. He toured here last year. Peter Rae

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Taking stock of the NHMRC guidelines, and the views of some IVF doctors, there seems to be less ethical opposition to allowing sex selection for someones third child if, for example, a couple has two sons but really want a daughter. Allowing that may encourage couples to have more kids as the birth rate falls. Opponents worry that sex selection exerts the pressure of expectation on children. What if a couple pays $45,000 for a baby girl, dreaming of doll houses and ballet, and she grows up a tomboy or ends up identifying with a different gender? The most relevant data I could find on whether Australians agree with non-medical sex selection is a decade old, but it found two thirds of people were opposed to it. Less than a fifth of those surveyed thought it should be legalised for family balancing the sex split of siblings. Others believe Australians should be free to do what they like with their money and children.

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This brings us to the more extreme end of the spectrum. What if theyre short, squat, thick and a little dull? The real vanguard of IVF embryo selection lies in polygenic risk-scoring. These tests attempt to take thousands of genes and generate a raft of predictions showing each embryos probability of living longer, being tall, getting acne, passing university or even becoming a criminal. Anyone can have a taller, smarter, and healthier baby, IVF embryo screening company Nucleus Genomics promises. Experts said the technology is not suited for clinical use. Nucleus Genomics I wrote last week that some Australians are accessing this controversial service overseas.

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The same ethical issue applies concerning parental expectations: what if you fork out thousands to select an embryo deemed to be a brainiac, and the resulting human ditches uni for the travelling circus? Or, as one IVF provider nervous about lawsuits wondered to The New York Times, what if you chose embryos to be tall, beautiful and smart and theyre short, squat, thick and a little dull? Heres where polygenic risk-scoring diverges from sex selection. Detecting an embryos sex is easy. Predicting just about anything else is far harder and scientifically contested. Unlike sex selection, which some IVF doctors are open to, most I spoke to are opposed to polygenic risk scoring for embryo selection for the simple fact they dont think its accurate.

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We know that of all the variation in a particular trait, a lot of it has nothing to do with genetics, Professor Peter Visscher, one of the godfathers of polygenic risk-scoring, told me. For height, its a bit of an exception  we think that about 80 per cent of all individual differences in height is due to genes, he said, although even height predictions are noisy. But for something like intelligence, lifespan or predicted level of education, the genetic influence is less than 50 per cent. Most of the variation between people is due to unknown environmental effects, Visscher says. Thats just one of the reasons peak bodies and scientists say the testing is not ready for clinical use.

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Technology for the white and wealthy The main issue for me is that the technology is not yet equitable. The cost (US$2500 per embryo in some cases on top of IVF costs) locks out regular folk from even considering embryo selection. But theres also a glaring issue in terms of racial equality. At least 78 per cent of genomic data studied by scientists across the world comes from Europeans. This is the data polygenic risk scores rely on  meaning genetic predictions are even less useful for people who arent European. Were losing about 50 per cent of the accuracy of the scores in Asian populations, and up to 75 per cent of the accuracy is completely lost in African populations, Associate Professor Loic Yengo, a statistical genomics expert at the University of Queensland working to fix racial inequality in the data, told me in 2024.

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We essentially wont be able to classify [an African] person at all. Thats terrible. The genomic data is improving. But whether our future includes parents legally choosing which embryos to implant with a pre-imagined person in mind is an open question. A wider debate is due about this tech and what it means, really, to be human. Do we accept natures lottery or do we do more to control it? For the moment, anyone weighing up this issue should consider that, at present, it disproportionately benefits the wealthy and white. The Examine newsletter explains and analyses science with a rigorous focus on the evidence. Sign up to get it each week.
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PoliticsFederalSocial media Australias online safety commissioner stares down US Congress threats Brittany Busch February 10, 2026  7:14pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

Online safety chief Julie Inman Grant is getting her own lawyer to deal with the United States repeated demands that she testify before Congress, even as a slew of senior bureaucrats work with her to manage the unprecedented request to travel to DC to defend Australias social media laws or face contempt charges. Republican Congressman Jim Jordan in November summoned Inman Grant, a dual Australian-US citizen working as Australias eSafety Commissioner, to answer questions over her delivery of the Australian governments online laws, including her attempts to force Elon Musks company X to take down graphic footage of a church stabbing in Sydney. eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said she was seeking legal advice over the US governments request she testify. Alex Ellinghausen Jordan, who chairs the US House Judiciary Committee, labelled Inman Grant a noted zealot for global take-downs and an enemy of American free speech. Inman Grant, who has previously expressed uncertainty she would be safe from prosecution if she returned to the US, said on Tuesday she had written back to Jordan via the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) to answer the committees questions.

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DFAT has been very engaged. My department secretary has been engaged, as has the secretary of the Attorney-General, Inman Grant said, speaking on Tuesday night at a Senate estimates hearing. Related Article Social media We shall see: eSafety Commissioner unsure of safe return to US This is a very unprecedented request for another legislative body to try and compel a senior bureaucrat from another government doing the job that the government set out for her to do. Inman Grant said she would get her own legal counsel to explore her options, but this is something Im going to have to work through government-wide. Asked whether she was concerned over the power the US might have to compel her to testify, Inman Grant said: I think theyre more focused on illegal immigrants at the moment but yes, Im sure that would be cause for concern.

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But I guess what I would say is, I think it would be highly unusual for me executing my job. The Online Safety Act was developed by the Coalition. Its always been a bipartisan issue delivered by parliament. Im executing the will and the laws of Australia as passed by the parliament. Related Article Social media The world watched as Australia kicked under-16s off social media. The results are in She said in her letter to Jordan she had explained her role as interpreting and implementing legislation. But Im not the creator, obviously not. I cant carry the water for the parliament or the government, so they decided it really needed to be expanded to be a government-wide engagement. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has defended Inman Grant, saying Australia could take pride in its online regulations targeting social media giants.

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Inman Grant on Tuesday rejected Jordans claims she had harassed American companies to comply with Australian regulations, and said his committee had also levelled similar allegations at European leaders as they also try to grapple with regulating online spaces. Obviously, we have to talk to our regulatory targets to make sure that theyre complying with our processes, and we do that in quite a constructive and cordial way, she said. The Senate estimates hearing also heard that the eSafety commissioners external legal costs have more than doubled this financial year. The commissioners office public servant Richard Fleming said the fees had grown from $750,000 in 2024-25, to almost $2 million so far for the financial year ending in June. Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.
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Updated WorldNorth AmericaMissing person Person detained in Nancy Guthrie disappearance case Mike Balsamo and Eric Tucker Updated February 11, 2026  11:40am ,first published February 11, 2026  2:48am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A A A

Tucson, Arizona: A person has been detained for questioning in the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, officials said, offering another potential break in a case that has gripped the nation for more than a week. Deputies detained the person during a traffic stop south of Tucson on Tuesday (Arizona time), according to the Pima County Sheriffs Department. The department did not immediately provide additional details. It wasnt clear if the person being questioned is the person captured on surveillance video outside Guthries house that was released earlier Tuesday. The FBI referred all questions about a person being detained to the sheriffs department. Loading

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The department, along with the FBIs Evidence Response Team, was also conducting a court-authorised search in Rio Rico, about an hour south of Tucson, as part of the investigation, the department said in a statement. It was expected to take several hours. The people were not authorised to discuss details of an ongoing investigation and spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Earlier, the FBI released video and images of a masked intruder appearing to tamper with a surveillance camera at Nancy Guthries home early on the morning of her disappearance, providing significant new evidence in a mystery that has gripped the nation and the world. FBI director Kash Patel posted four images from a video he said was recovered from residual data located in backend systems, after eight days of attempting to recover lost or inaccessible data from cameras at Nancy Guthries home. As of this morning, law enforcement has uncovered these previously inaccessible new images showing an armed individual appearing to have tampered with the camera at Nancy Guthries front door the morning of her disappearance, Patel said.

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The black-and-white images show the person wearing a mask, dark gloves, a sweater, pants and a backpack. Patel subsequently posted a 27-second video that showed the person loitering outside the front door, and a 14-second video of the person appearing to cover the doors camera with foliage. It was previously known that a security camera at Guthries home detected a person on camera at 2.12am on February 1, but there was no video to show what triggered that alert. Savannah Guthrie, who was born in Melbourne, has posted numerous videos since her mothers disappearance, including one that acknowledged a message from a purported kidnapper and offered to pay a ransom. The FBI released the first surveillance image from night of Nancy Guthries disappearance, showing a masked person on her porch. X/@FBIDirectorKash Authorities believe Nancy Guthrie was taken against her will from her house, though police are yet to verify the authenticity of purported ransom notes that were sent to some US media outlets. The deadlines set in the notes have now passed.

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They have refocused their search efforts near Nancy Guthries neighbourhood, using vehicles to block her driveway. A few miles away, law enforcement was going door-to-door in the area where daughter Annie Guthrie lives, talking to neighbours as well as walking through a drainage area and examining the inside of a culvert with a flashlight. DNA tests showed blood on Guthries front porch was a match to her, and a doorbell camera was disconnected in the early hours of Sunday morning, police have said. Investigators have not identified any suspects, persons of interest, or vehicles connected to Nancy Guthrie, the Pima County Sheriffs Department said Monday. Savannah Guthrie shared several of the new surveillance images and video on social media with the caption: Someone out there recognises this person. We believe she is still out there. Bring her home, along with numbers for the FBI and county sheriff. Within minutes, the posts had thousands of comments. Savannah Guthrie (left) and her mother, Nancy Guthrie, on the NBCs Today show set in 2023. Getty

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The family has posted a series of videos over the past week, each striking a different tone. The latest video from Savannah on Monday, in which she appeared alone, was more bleak. We are at an hour of desperation, she said. We believe our mum is still out there. She was taken, and we dont know where, and we need your help. Authorities say Nancy Guthrie needs daily medication because she is said to have high blood pressure and heart issues, including a pacemaker. She also has limited mobility, and it is believed she could not have left the home independently. At a briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she and President Donald Trump had reviewed the new images released by the FBI, and Trump encouraged anyone with information to come forward.

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Related Article Missing person We will pay: US TV host Savannah Guthries new plea for mothers return The prayers of this entire White House are with Savannah and her family at this time, and we hope this person is found soon and that her mother is brought home safely, Leavitt said. The FBI has offered a $US50,000 ($71,000) reward for information leading to Guthries recovery or the arrest of anyone involved in her disappearance. The bureau this week began posting digital billboards in major cities from Texas to California. Earlier, FBI spokesperson Connor Hagan said the bureau was not aware of ongoing communication between Guthries family and the suspected kidnappers. He also confirmed authorities had not identified any suspects or persons of interest. Someone has that one piece of information that can help us bring Nancy home, he said.

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Silver and gold are what you might normally load up on if you're worried about where the economy might be headed. And over the past several months, the prices of these metals have been soaring. With such significant price movements, you might be led to believe that many investors are worried about more than just your average recession.

There's also likely been a healthy dose of speculation along the way. Many analysts have compared the volatility of these metals to that of meme stocks in recent years and to their unpredictable nature. But toward the end of January, silver and metal prices crashed significantly. And this could offer some hints on how investors view the overall market right now, and what it might mean if you're looking to diversify and reduce risk.

Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue 

Image source: Getty Images.

The Fed chair pick that rattled silver and gold prices

On Jan. 30, the big news of the day was that President Trump had picked who he'd like to lead the Federal Reserve once Jerome Powell's term ends in May: Kevin Warsh. The move appeared to ease investor concerns about the Fed's independence, and in doing so, led to a significant decline in gold and silver prices.

Gold, which was trading around $5,300 per ounce, fell well below $5,000. While it's around those levels now, it marks a significant decline. Silver also crashed from around $115 per ounce to now trading around $80. The iShares Silver Trust (NYSEMKT: SLV), which has been a popular fund for investors to hold to gain exposure to silver, is still up 10% since the start of the year, but it's down 31% from its high of $109.83.

Investing in silver and gold may be riskier than ever before

What the recent volatility in gold and silver tells us is just how speculative these assets have become of late, as they appear to have become ways for speculators to bet not only on the economy's future performance but also on the confidence in the new Fed chairman.

As investor concerns appear to have eased about the Fed, and the S&P 500 has risen by around 2% since the start of the year, there may be less of an appetite from retail investors to hold these traditionally low-risk assets in the near future. But if there are signs that the Fed chairman may not be as independent as the market expects, then there could once again be a rush to buy gold and silver.
Theme of the year 2026, Customs protecting society through vigilance and commitment

Multifaced nature of Customss work highlighted as key to safeguarding the public

Belgium hosts traditional ceremony to mark International Customs Day at Grand Place in Brussels

International Customs Day (ICD), observed on 26 January, is a moment for the international community to put in the spotlight the essential role played by Customs administrations in facilitating trade, enhancing security, and protecting society.

Each year, the World Customs Organization (WCO) marks the day through outreach events aligned with a dedicated theme. For 2026, the theme highlights the unique role played by Customs in safeguarding the security of communities in an increasingly complex global environment.

Representatives from the global Customs community gathered to mark the day at WCO Headquarters. WCO Secretary General, Ian Saunders, in his opening address, emphasized how Customs shared mission is as important to the global economy as it is to the well-being of people and why that mission deserves recognition, investment and support, encouraging the audience to continue telling the story of Customs.

The event included participation from the International Association of Customs/Tax Museums (ICAM), which presented a historical exhibition illustrating the evolution of Customs over centuries. The display underscored how Customs has adapted its mission to reflect the changing needs of states, societies, and international commerce. Beyond Brussels, administrations across the globe used digital platforms, public ceremonies, and outreach initiatives to thank Customs officers and raise awareness of the value they bring to national economies and public safety.

Earlier in the day, WCO Secretary General Saunders attended the ICD commemoration ceremony organized by Belgium Customs at the Town Hall of the City of Brussels that honoured Customs officials. The event brought together other high-level representatives, including the Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium, Jan Jambon, Director-General of Belgian Customs, and Director-General in the Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union (DG TAXUD).

In his remarks, Secretary General Saunders acknowledged the commitment of Customs personnel and the breadth of responsibilities carried out at borders every day. He went on to say that the work of Customs embodies sustained attention and professional dedication, applied in circumstances in which a small omission can have significant consequences. The Secretary General concluded by pointing out that when Customs succeeds, communities are safer and our future is more secure. The ceremony ended with a military parade on the Grand-Place led by the Belgian Ministry of Finance Band to the famous Manneken Pis statue, dressed as Customs officer for the occasion.

ICD celebrations across the globe serve as a reminder that Customs administrations are critical to fostering secure and sustainable economic development. As global trade expands and security challenges become more complex, the work of Customs remains indispensable.
Singapores holiday-goers could soon be gliding over the sea, rather than cutting through them.



Aerospace firm ST Engineering debuted the AirFish, a 10-seater craft that glides around one to three meters above the water, on Feb. 3 at the Singapore Airshow.

For typical boats, theres a lot of friction on the sea, explains Leon Tan, vice president of ST Engineering AirX, the wing of the firm which oversees the crafts design. The AirFish caters to travelers who want point-to-point speed, he tells Fortune, as it achieves a velocity of up to 100 knots (116 miles per hour), comparable to a light aircraft.

The AirFish harnesses the ground effect, which occurs when air becomes compressed between a wing and a surface, producing lift and reducing drag. This reduces how much energy the craft uses when it travels across the waters surface, much like how an albatross glides for long distances with minimal energy. (The former Soviet Union was one of the largest proponents of ground-effect vehicles, which officials dubbed ekranoplans, and considered using as military vehicles.)

ST Engineering has already inked two partnerships for the AirFish, including one with ferry operator BatamFast to run trips between Singapore and the Indonesian town of Batam, with the first journeys starting in the third quarter of 2026. An AirFish can complete the journey in 25 minutes, half the time of a typical ferry.

The firm also announced on Feb. 3 that Indian operator Wings Over Water Ferries will also lease and operate up to four vessels in India by late 2026.

Tan, from ST Engineering, says the AirFish is part of the companys shift toward making original equipment. Traditionally, it focuses on maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO); the company is the worlds largest airframe MRO provider, with facilities in Asia, Europe, and the U.S.

With 2024 revenue of $8.4 billion, ST Engineering is No. 33 on Fortunes Southeast Asia 500 list, which measures the regions largest companies by revenue. The company was founded in 1967 and stems from Singapores defense industry. Over the past 50 years, its broadened its portfolio to include aerospace and shipbuilding.

ST Engineering hopes to bring the AirFish to other destinations including Malaysias Tioman and Desaru, Tan tells Fortune. He believes that Southeast Asias maritime travel industry holds much potential for the AirFish, given that it has several archipelagic countries like Indonesia, which comprises over 17,000 islands, and the Philippines, which has over 7,000.

The company is also experimenting with building 24- and 36-seater AirFish crafts, which can transport more passengers on each flight, Tan says. It is also looking to build four-seater luxury AirFish crafts to cater to the ultrawealthy demographic.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
Hain Celestial today (9 February) booked widening second-quarter losses amid falling sales and the recording of impairment charges in the US and the UK.

The Celestial Seasonings tea and Earth's Best baby food owner posted a net loss of $116m for the three months to the end of December. A year earlier, the US-based group ran up a quarterly loss of $104m.

Second-quarter net sales dropped 7% to $384.1m amid a 7% decline in organic sales.

In North America, Hain Celestials organic net sales fell 10%. The company said the slide was primarily driven by its snacks and baby-formula businesses.

Last week, Hain Celestial announced a deal to sell its North American snacks business as part of an ongoing review of its operations.

The net sales from the groups international division fell 3% organically but rose 2% on a reported basis to $186.3m thanks to exchange rates.

The second-quarter accounts included $132m of impairment charges on assets in the US and the UK, including a $119.9m goodwill impairment.

Hain Celestials lower quarterly net sales led to a 20.3% fall in its gross profit to $74.4m and contributed to an operating loss of $98.8m, up from one of $91.9m a year earlier.

We demonstrated meaningful strategic and operational progress in the second quarter and are advancing our turnaround strategy with urgency, president and CEO Alison Lewis said.

We took bold steps to sharpen our portfolio and strengthen our balance sheet through the divestiture of our North American snack business, giving us greater financial flexibility alongside an improved margin and cash flow profile.

Our core categories are stable, our operational execution is improving and we demonstrated strong cash delivery in the quarter.

Hain Celestial launched a comprehensive review of its portfolio last May alongside the departure of then president and CEO Wendy Davidson. Lewis was appointed interim president and CEO and confirmed in the roles permanently in December.

In November, Lewis set out plans for Hain Celestial to cut around 30% of its SKUs in North America.

She added today: The actions underway across simplification, pricing, innovation, and productivity provide a clear path to sequential improvement in the back half of the year. We remain confident in our path forward.

By 08:11 ET today, Hain Celestials share price was up 4.24% in early trading at $1.23.

Mizuho Securities analyst John Baumgartner said: Q2 results trailed Wall Street on revenue and margins but, as the to-be-divested snacks was the main headwind, performance versus expectations should improve going forward. Revenue trends remained broadly disappointing this quarter aside from snacks.
AP

In the staffing business, you see it every day: Theres a job opening here, a need for a specialized role to be filled over there, and another four openings that folks can inquire about inside a business should they be looking for work down the street. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were 7.2 million open jobs in August 2025.

It remains a relatively low job open rate at just 4.3% - for now. The reality is that our nation is heading toward a potential labor shortage of our own making. Whether its on social media or in the newspaper, or even in our own Wisconsin communities, were seeing unsettling images coming from farms across the United States - empty fields, lettuce wilting, strawberries rotting, and agricultural products that should be reaching grocery store shelves left to die on the field. The produce left on the field was once picked by migrant laborers who were either rounded up in ICE raids conducted by the Department of Homeland Security, fled in fear of being rounded up, or were let go by farmers who desperately need the help but refuse the risk of being caught using workers who entered the country illegally.

Now, its important to note that what the Trump administration is doing is not a bad thing. We cannot be a nation without laws or borders. We witnessed years of the open borders crisis under Joe Biden, when millions of illegal immigrants crossed into our country, including criminals from terrorist organizations and gang members. Its important that those criminal illegal immigrants are caught, prosecuted, and sent back to their home country. In that, President Trump has the support, with both Harvard and The New York Times finding that a majority of Americans are standing with this administration as it delivers on a major campaign promise.

However, immigration is far more nuanced than just sending people back across our borders. Immigration and migrant work are as vital to our labor force and economy as seeking the American dream in the land of opportunity is for those who so desperately want to start a new life in our country.

The reality is that migrant workers are key to a successful American economy. In case most dont remember, we have lived this scenario once before during COVID. We saw the results of the pandemics impact on a migrant workforce in the agriculture industry, with meat-packing plants shut down for days, resulting in shortages of meat like chicken. Farmers were forced to dump their milk and kill their animals because there was nowhere to send them. Consumers were forced to deal with scarcity and higher prices as costs increased with demand.
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Tom Tuite

A Somali male accused of murdering Ukrainian teen Vadym Davydenko in Dublin has been sent forward for trial to the Central Criminal Court amid ongoing doubts over his age.

Vadym, 17, was stabbed around 11am on October 15th at a 24-hour Donaghmede care facility after fleeing Kyiv.

On Tuesday, the accused, aged 17, according to his charge sheet, again appeared via videolink at the Dublin Children's Court. He remains in custody on remand and cannot be named due to reporting restrictions.

Detective Sergeant Mark Quill served a book of evidence, which was accepted on the teen's behalf by his solicitor, Andrew Walsh, who represented the accused with Orla Doolin BL.

State solicitor Emma Croydon confirmed to Judge Karen Dowling that the Director of Public Prosecutions sought a return-for-trial order.

Judge Dowling acceded to the request and told the accused that she was sending him forward for trial in custody to the Central Criminal Court, in the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin.

The judge advised the accused that a date for his next hearing has not yet been scheduled, but it would be before the current legal term ends on March 27th.

It will then go to a case management list.

His solicitor informed him that he would receive a copy of the book of evidence and that there would be a legal consultation later.

Judge Dowling gave him the standard warning that he must notify the prosecution within 14 days if he intends to rely on an alibi in his defence. She also ordered gardai to supply the defence with copies of interview videos.

Legal aid was granted to include a senior counsel, and the judge assured the accused that his solicitor would go through the book of evidence with him soon.

Walsh also said his client has not applied for bail and was reserving his position on that issue.

Solicitor Emma Kennedy, for Tusla, was present and informed Judge Dowling that the accused was no longer in care following a January 27th childcare court ruling.

Asked why an interim care order (ICO) has been denied, the Tusla solicitor provided a copy of the order and said that the application was refused in circumstances where the court was not satisfied that the above-named is not a child.

However, the child and family agency continues to support and visit him, and is preparing a judicial review of the ICO refusal, the court heard.

The accused was brought to the video link room at the Oberstown Children Detention Campus during a break between classes. He addressed the court via an interpreter at various stages, indicating he understood the procedure.

The judge asked for an update on the Garda enquiries in relation to the accuseds age.

Detective Sergeant Quill said that there had been "significant progress" and that a large amount of documentation had been received from UK authorities, much of it in the past few days and as late as Monday night.

The court heard gardai need to assess the documentation, including "declarations by the accused himself on arrival in the UK a number of years ago".

These enquiries have been ongoing since his arrest, he said, with "positive engagement from some international agencies and a lack thereof from others".

Asked whether he believed the accused was over 18, the officer replied, "Yes", but said that some matters concerning documentation remained outstanding and that gardai were making great endeavours.

The defence solicitor submitted that the court need not detain itself on that issue at that time.

At this stage of the proceedings, he spoke up, insisting, "My age is 17, what more do the police want?" and then listened to his solicitor, who said they would be in a position to discuss it, but that the court hearing was not the appropriate forum.

The accused then thanked the judge and waved as the hearing ended.

During a previous hearing in November, he sought forgiveness, claimed his documents were false, said his "country has gone to bits, and anyone can make a document to say they are 17".

A psychiatric report was also ordered.

Detective Sergeant Mark Quill said he has been in contact with Somali authorities, but described the level of engagement as being "one-way".

The then presiding judge agreed that it made sense to proceed as though the defendant was still a child in law.

His identity cannot be released while the case proceeds on the basis that he is a minor.
A motorist lost control of his vehicle and collided with another car on the main Claremorris to Balla Road, a court has heard.

Dmytro Shulikin, aged 51, of Facefield, Claremorris, pleaded guilty at Castlebar District Court to a charge of dangerous driving at Lugatemple, Claremorris. The court heard that the driver of the other vehicle suffered whiplash and injuries to her back. Some 7,250 worth of damage was caused to her car while the defendants vehicle was written-off.

Garda Inspector Maria Diffily told the court that the accident occurred on October 27, 2024.

In a statement to gardai, the injured party described how the defendants car left the road as it came over the crest of a hill.

She tried to avoid the collision, but the car crashed into her vehicle, resulting in the injuries to her neck and back.

Judge Sandra Murphy was told that the defendant was fully insured and that a personal injury claim by the injured party was in train, while compensation had been paid for the damage caused to her car.

Solicitor Gary Mulchrone said his client is a married man with one child and was very remorseful over the entire incident which was caused by excessive speed on his part.

He is native of Ukraine and came to Ireland in 2023 to get away from the troubles there and has found work as a life guard in a leisure complex," the solicitor told the court.

Mr Mulchrone said his client has no previous convictions and accepts it was his driving at an excessive speed which resulted in him losing control of the vehicle as it came over the brow of a hill.

He is truly remorseful for what happened but thankfully he has insurance cover and a claim for personal injuries by the injured party is currently in train while his insurance has paid for the damage to the injured partys car which was a write-off.

He accepts he will be without a car as he will be facing a two-year ban but his wife will be able to drive.

Judge Murphy said it was fortunate that the defendant had full insurance cover on the car and she was taking that into consideration but added it was a very serious case of dangerous driving and she had no hesitation in imposing a two-year driving ban along with a fine of 350.
Gordon Deegan

A judge has adjourned the trial of three Pro-Palestinian activists concerning an alleged incursion at Shannon airport until the Supreme Court rules on a legal point of public importance relevant to the defence in the case.

At Ennis Circuit Court on Tuesday, Judge Francis Comerford told the three accused that if the trial proceeds he could be asking the jury to decide the case on the basis of law that might not in fact be the correct law.

Judge Comerford said that on his own motion, I am of the view that it is not appropriate to ask a jury to decide about someones guilt or innocence while the law is unclear and there is a very strong prospect that the Supreme Court is going to indicate what the appropriate law should be.

In the case, Aindriu De Buitleir (29) of Tir Na nOg, Bothar an Tismeain, An Cheathru Rua, Gallimhe, Aine Ni Threinir (35) of Cuirt Na Tra, Salthill, Galway and Emer Walshe (33) of Fernhill, North Circular Road, Limerick all deny trespass at Shannon Airport on March 30th 2024.

The three, accompanied to court by around 30 supporters, also deny interfering with the operation, management or safety of Shannon Airport by entering the runway area of Shannon Airport and causing its closure on the same date.

The three were due to be arraigned on the charges on Tuesday but before a jury could be impanelled, counsel for the State, barrister Sarah Jane Comerford said that a Daniel Dowling had been given leave to appeal to the Supreme Court in relation to the defence of necessity.

Comerford said that Dowling (42) of Grace Dieu, Co Waterford had been before the court in Dublin concerning a similar incursion at Shannon Airport.

Comerford (instructed by State Solicitor for Clare, Aisling Casey) said that the defence of necessity had not been well ventilated in this jurisdiction, but had been in other jurisdictions.

She said: I know the Supreme Court is keen or anxious to provide some clarity on that common law defence.

Comerford said that the defence as it currently stands, on the lines of the UK law, is that there must be a real and present danger, there must be an inescapable necessity to commit the offence charged, with no lawful alternative available.

Comerford added: And there must be proportionality between the harm to be avoided and breach of criminal law and the accused should not have brought about the situation that did arise to his/her own criminal or negligent conduct.

She said: It is in those circumstances that the appeal has been accepted by the Supreme Court as a legal point of public importance.

Comerford said counsel for Aine Ni Threinir, Patrick Whyms, has indicated that the defence of necessity will inevitably occur during the trial, and at that point I would be seeking instructions to adjourn because the law as it stands is very unsatisfactory.

Comerford adjourned the case and further remanded all three accused on continuing bail.

The case is the first of four before the courts in Clare concerning alleged incursions by Pro-Palestinian activists at Shannon airport on four separate dates from March 2024 to November of last year.
FILE - The Pentagon, the headquarters for the U.S. Department of Defense, is seen from the air, Sept. 20, 2025, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, FIle)
Hyundai, including its Genesis brand, is targeting a slight increase in global sales to 4.158 million units in 2026, including 700,000 domestic sales and 3.46 million units overseas. Sales in North America are forecast to increase slightly to 1,231,000 units, while sales in Europe are expected to be flat at 601,000 units; India 592,000 units (+3%), South Korea 700,000 units (-2%), and South America 328,000 units (+0.1%). The company is looking for continued product mix improvement and new model launches this year to help offset rising competition, economic uncertainty and US import tariffs.

Hyundai Motor s global sales fell by 1.0% to 307,699 vehicles in January 2026 from 310,962 a year earlier, with an increase in domestic deliveries more than offset by weaker overseas volumes. Domestic sales rose by 9% to 50,208 units last month from 46,054 units a year earlier, including 15,650 sedans, 18,450 SUVs and 8,670 vehicles under its upmarket Genesis brand.

Global sales by the countrys big-five automakers, including vehicles produced overseas, rose by 2.7% to 610,527 units in January from 594,345 units in 2024, while overseas sales rose by 1.4% to 510,737 units from 503,583 units.

Hyundai reported a 9% increase in domestic sales to 50,208 units last month, while Kias sales increased by 12% to 43,107 units and KGM enjoyed a 38% rebound to 3,186 units. GM Korea was the worst performer, with domestic sales plunging by 38% to 765 units, while Renault Koreas sales declined by 14% to 2,239 units.

The economy contracted by 0.3% quarter-on-quarter in the fourth quarter of 2025, reversing a 1.3% expansion in the third quarter, reflecting weaker investment and exports, while domestic consumption was supported by recent interest rate cuts by the central bank, from 3.5% to 2.5%.

With this years Lunar New Year holidays falling in February, the market benefited from more working days last month compared with last year, as well as from the recent rollout of numerous new models  particularly by Hyundai and Kia. The market overall remains sluggish, however, with market leader Hyundai expecting a moderate sales decline over the full year.

Domestic sales by South Koreas five main automakers combined increased by 10% to 99,790 units in January 2026 from 90,702 units a year earlier, according to preliminary wholesale data released individually by the main local manufacturers. The data do not include sales by South Koreas low-volume commercial vehicle manufacturers, including Tata-Daewoo and Edison Motors, while import brands are covered in a separate report later in the month.

Story Continues

Kia reported a 2.4% rise in global sales to 245,557 vehicles in January 2026, up from 239,878 a year earlier, reflecting mainly a 12% increase in domestic sales to 43,107 units from 38,403 units, led by the Sorento with 8,388 sales, the Sportage with 6,015 units and the Carnival with 5,278 units. The company also reported a 63% jump in sales of special vehicles, from 175 units to 285 units, most of which were military vehicles sold domestically.

Overseas sales increased by just 0.4% to 202,165 units from 201,300 units previously, led by the Sportage with 41,773 sales, followed by the Seltos SUV with 23,261 units and the Sonet with 16,042 units.

Kia said it is targeting an almost 7% increase in global sales to 3,350,000 units in 2026, including 565,000 domestic sales and 2,775,000 overseas, along with 10,000 global SPV sales. This includes 915,000 deliveries in the US, 594,000 units in Europe and 302,000 units in India. The company said it plans to continue to expand its hybrid lineup to include the new Telluride and Seltos SUV models in the US, the new EV2 BEV models in Europe, and the all-new Seltos in India.

GM Koreas global sales surged by 41% to 44,703 units in January 2026 from 31,618 units a year earlier, driven by a sharp rise in overseas sales. The locally produced Trax crossover vehicle and the Trailblazer SUV are by far the companys best-selling models, with most output shipped overseas.

The automaker reported a further sharp decline in domestic sales last month, of 38% to 765 units from 1,229 units a year earlier, as the automaker struggled with rising competition from other domestic manufacturers and from importers. The company recently launched the battery-powered Escalade IQ premium SUV, powered by a 205 kWh battery pack, which it imports from the US. Exports surged by 45% to 43,938 units in January from a weak 30,389 units a year earlier, with the Trax accounting for 26,860 units and the Trailblazer 17,078 units.

GM Korea is scheduled to complete the disposal of its in-house aftermarket service centres in South Korea in February 2026 and has pledged to invest US$ 300 million to upgrade its local manufacturing operations for the production of next-generation models. The company has set a target of producing 500,000 vehicles this year mainly to meet growing overseas demand, particularly in the US, up from 462,310 units in 2025.

KG Mobility (KGM) reported an almost 10% rise in global sales to 8,836 vehicles in January 2026 from weak year-earlier sales of 8,070 units, reflecting a sharp rise in domestic sales. Local sales jumped by over 38% to 3,186 units last month from a depressed 2,300 units a year earlier, despite rising competition from other domestic manufacturers and import brands, while exports of built-up and knocked-down vehicles fell by 2.1% to 5,650 units from 5,770 units.

KGM said it plans to release new and upgraded models with improved performance this year to help strengthen its domestic and overseas sales, with a focus on expanding its zero-emissions vehicle range. The company has a strategic partnership with Chinas Chery Automobile Company, giving it access to readily available new energy vehicle (NEV) technologies. It recently revealed plans to introduce at least eight new models by 2030.

Renault Koreas global sales fell by 2.2% to 3,732 units in January 2026 from already depressed year-earlier sales of 3,817 units, with weak domestic sales offsetting a rise in exports. Domestic sales declined by 14% to 2,239 units from 2,601 units a year earlier, with the Grand Koleos SUV accounting for 1,660 of these, while exports rose by 23% to 1,493 units from 1,216 units.

The company began production of its new Filante flagship SUV at its Busan plant in January, ahead of its planned local launch in March. The model, based on Chinese automaker Geelys Compact Modular Architecture (CMA) platform, is powered by Renaults new-generation E-Tech 250 hybrid powertrain. It will be shipped to markets in South America and the Gulf States region later this year.

"South Korea report: domestic vehicle market up 10% in January" was originally created and published by Just Auto, a GlobalData owned brand.




By Heekyong Yang and Hyunjoo Jin

SEOUL, Feb 10 (Reuters) - South Korean officials blamed a massive data leak last year at Coupang on management failure, rather than a sophisticated cyberattack, and urged the e-commerce giant to fix vulnerabilities in its security systems.

Announcing the first findings of a government-led probe, the Science Ministry said on Tuesday a former Coupang engineer, who was aware of flaws in the authentication process, broke into the system in April, a breach that lasted until November. The same person had attempted to gain access in January, it said.

Coupang Korea, operated by U.S.-listed Coupang Inc, faced a public and lawmaker backlash over the breach. The incident added to trade friction with Washington over concerns Korean authorities had gone beyond normal regulatory enforcement in their treatment of the U.S.-listed company.

"It's more of a management problem than an advanced attack," Choi Woo-hyuk, deputy minister for cyber security and network policy, told a press conference, citing lax oversight of authentication systems.

"The attacker exploited user authentication vulnerabilities to access user accounts without a proper login and caused large-scale unauthorised information leaks," the ministry said.

It also called on the police to investigate Coupang for trying to "restrict" the investigation by deleting some data, accusing it of defying a government order to preserve data.

The ministry said the leak exposed personal data of about 33.7 million customers, including names and phone numbers.

Coupang said in a statement that it would "take all necessary steps to prevent further harm and continue strengthening safeguards to prevent a recurrence".

It said a software program written by the former employee generated around 140 million queries but there was no evidence that any other party had accessed or viewed the data, which did not include payment or login information.

Coupang reiterated that data retained from around 3,000 user accounts was later deleted, adding there was no evidence any secondary harm had arisen.

'COUPANG NEEDS TIGHTER SECURITY'

The ministry accused the former employee, who left the firm in November 2024, of stealing an internal security key, known as a signing key, which it said was used to generate fake login tokens and gain unauthorised access to customer accounts.

It said the staff member had designed and developed parts of Coupang's user authentication system, and the company had failed to immediately invalidate the developer's signing key after they left the company, which it said was not an adequate security system.
Last year, Southwest Airlines made the surprising decision to begin charging customers for checked baggage, ending its longstanding "bags fly free" policy. Now, several months after ending free bags, Southwest is still having problems, and those problems have only seemed to be exacerbated by its new assigned seating policy.

Southwest Airlines Policy Changes

For decades, Southwest Airlines stood out from other airlines thanks to its generous checked bag policy and its democratic open-seating policy. However, both of those policies are now gone.

Back in May, Southwest officially began charging customers for checked luggage, charging $35 for the first checked bag and $45 for an additional checked bag. Now, beginning last month, Southwest officially moved toward an assigned seating model where customers must pay extra to choose their seat.

Both moves were designed to boost profit for the airline and are more in line with the policies of competitors.

A Logistical Problem

While the new bag fees might be a revenue source for the airline, it did pose a new logistical problem that Southwest had been largely immune to over the years: a lack of overhead bin space.

In the past, Southwest did not really have a problem with overhead bin space. Since the airline previously allowed customers to check up to two bags for free, many passengers simply did not bring carry-on luggage that had to fit in the overhead bin. In fact, Southwest planes typically had significantly less overhead space than competitors, which was an intentional design choice given the previous policy, since that space was unnecessary.

However, after Southwest began charging for checked bags, passengers obviously began bringing far more carry-on bags, which created a new problem for the airline, as it was not logistically ready to handle that surge.

As a result, Southwest executive vice president of operations Justin Jones admitted that gate-checking of carry-on bags was expected to see a drastic increase.

We assume our gate-check bags will probably go up five times from what we have today, Jones told the Airlines Confidential podcast last year.

Jones admitted that the change was a "curveball" for the operations team, and said that it was expected to result in more gate-checked bags and fees.

New Problem Emerges

While it's been several months since Southwest began charging for checked luggage, allowing the airline time to adapt to its surge in carry-on luggage and limited overhead bin space, a new problem has emerged for Southwest after it instituted its assigned seating model.
HA Sustainable Infrastructure Capital, Inc. (NYSE:HASI) is one of the 10 best financial stocks to buy for the long term. RBC Capital analyst Chris Dendrinos reiterated his Buy rating on HA Sustainable Infrastructure Capital, Inc. (NYSE:HASI) with a price target of $39 on January 20. The firms price target suggests a further 13% upside from the current levels.

On January 6, HA Sustainable Infrastructure Capital, Inc. (NYSE:HASI) and Sunrun (RUN) announced the completion of an innovative joint venture aimed at accelerating the deployment of residential solar and battery systems. The collaboration is expected to eventually finance more than 300 megawatts of capacity, supporting over 40,000 home power installations across the United States.

As part of the agreement, HA Sustainable Infrastructure Capital, Inc. (NYSE:HASI) will invest up to $500 million over 18 months into the joint venture. HASIs structured equity investment is intended to monetize a portion of the long-term cash flows generated by Sunruns residential energy assets. This structure not only provides a predictable return for HASI but also allows Sunrun to maintain a long-term ownership stake. According to the companies, this approach is anticipated to deliver a more efficient cost of capital, enhancing overall financial efficiency.

HASIs Chief Revenue and Strategy Officer, Marc Pangburn, said:

Together, HASI and Sunrun are accelerating the development of essential infrastructure through home-based energy systems that improve grid reliability and address growing power demand.

HA Sustainable Infrastructure Capital, Inc. (NYSE:HASI) invests in sustainable infrastructure and energy-efficiency markets across the United States. Its portfolio consists of commercial & government receivables, debt securities, equity investments, and real estate. The company invests in Grid-Connected, climate solutions, and Fuels, Transport, and Nature, a range of infrastructure assets.

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READ NEXT: Cathie Woods Stock Portfolio: Top 10 Stocks to Buy and 30 Most Fantastic Stocks Every Investor Should Pay Attention To.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
ETFs are a sustainable business, as anyone following the flows might notice.

Long-time sustainable shop Impax Asset Management jumped into the US exchange-traded fund market last week, converting a $100 million mutual fund into the Global Infrastructure ETF (BLDX). And theres likely more to come, Impax North America president Ed Farrington told ETF Upside.

Its easy to see via flows that, for many investors, the ETF is becoming a preferred vehicle. Whats really changed in the past few years is the growth of active ETFs, he said. The plan now is to look at each of our funds and see if there are others that might be candidates for conversion.

SUBSCRIBE: Receive more of our free ETF Upside newsletter. READ ALSO: Do ETFs Make RIA Firms More Valuable? and Inside Baron Capitals SpaceX ETF Party

Always Bring Something to Share

A big question for any of the mutual fund providers that have recently added ETFs, or converted existing products, is why not just tack on an ETF share class. Last year, a record 60 mutual funds converted to ETFs, Morningstars Ben Johnson recently said. The Securities and Exchange Commission recently started letting some companies use dual-share classes, and Impax is among the many asset managers awaiting the all-but-certain SEC approval. The company likely will add ETF shares of mutual funds in the future, and it may also consider whether new strategies should be launched solely as mutual funds or ETFs, Farrington said. In the case of BLDX, it made more sense just to shift to an ETF, as none of the shareholders held the fund in an employer-sponsored retirement plan, he said. The vast majority were taxable clients, he said. In this case, it was really just an easy decision, because [the ETF] was the preferred vehicle for the advisors who are using that particular strategy.

The conversion comes at a trying time for the sustainable investing world:
At least 227 Congolese workers were killed last week when landslides collapsed several coltan mines in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Heavy rains triggered caveins at the artisanal Rubaya site in North Kivu province.

This follows a similar collapse last June, when at least 12 miners died at another artisanal coltan site near Rubaya. Global Witness has documented at least four deadly landslides in the area over the last 18 months.

People attend a memorial for Nguvumali Kalabosh Bosco, who died when tunnels collapsed at a major coltan mining site due to landslides, in Goma, eastern Congo, Monday, February 2, 2026 [AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa]

The Rubaya mines are in territory seized in 2024 by the M23 rebels, a Rwandaand Ugandabacked militia. They produce around 15 percent of the worlds coltan. Coltan is processed into tantalum, a heatresistant metal essential for capacitors used in mobile phones, computers, advanced medical equipment, aerospace components and gas turbines. Global demand for rechargeable batteries is expected to triple between 2024 and 2030, driven by electric vehicles and gridscale energy storage.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame claims his intervention in the DRC is aimed at protecting Congolese Tutsis from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), formed from remnants of the forces responsible for the 1994 genocide. This is a thinly veiled justification for a land grab in one of the most resourcerich regions of the country, where Rwandanbacked forces now dominate and displace local authorities.

Artisanal mining

Artisanal miningsites without recognised corporate operatorsemploys hundreds of thousands across eastern Congo. These workers produce a significant share of the regions mineral output under the most hazardous conditions for minimal pay. They typically work with basic hand tools, digging deep, unstable tunnels without proper structural reinforcement. Underground water can rapidly flood shafts or slowly erode their integrity. Most sites lack pumps, drainage systems, personal protective equipment, ventilation, earlywarning systems or emergency plans.

M23s control of the region includes a 15 percent tax on coltan production and strict control over access to mining sites. This creates a regulatory vacuum in which safety is non-existent. Pay is tied to output, pushing miners to work faster and take greater risks. The extraction process also releases toxic chemicals, harming wildlife, polluting waterways, contaminating crops and damaging workers health.

Luwowo Coltan mine near Rubaya, North Kivu, March 2014 [Photo by MONUSCO Photos - SRSG visits coltan mine in Rubaya / CC BY-SA 2.0

The conditions highlight the extreme dangers faced by artisanal miners amid the rapacious exploitation of conflictzone resources. While industrial mines typically record fewer than one fatality per million hours worked, artisanal operations suffer casualty rates 3040 times higher, according to UN Environment Programme research.

Health insurance and injury benefits are virtually non-existent. Injured miners receive no compensation and face financial ruin if they cannot work. Families of those killedlike the 227 lost in Rubayareceive no formal support.

Yet artisanal coltan mining remains a vital economic lifeline in a region with few alternatives. A miner may earn $310 per day, depending on their findingsmore than many other local occupations. This income supports extended families and sustains local economies through food vendors, transport services and smallscale trading.

Desperate conditions force families to send children as young as 10 into miningrelated work, especially sorting and processing.

While miners earn a pittancecapturing just 13 percent of the final value of the minerals they extractthe rest of the supply chain reaps enormous profits.

The supply chain from mine to market

The supply chain for coltan and other strategic minerals is long, opaque and deliberately fragmented. Each layer adds distance between the ultimate beneficiariesgiant tech corporations such as Apple, Tesla, Samsung, Intel, Nokia, Motorola, Google, Microsoft, Dell, Sony and BMWand the armed violence that secures their raw materials.

Minerals first pass through a network of intermediaries: local pit bosses, traders, armed groups operating roadblocks, and regional smugglers. These actors collectively capture 510 percent of the final value before the minerals reach Rwandan exporters. From there, they are shipped to capitalintensive refineries in China and Malaysia. With only a handful of companies globally capable of processing tantalum, these refiners set prices and capture 2040 percent of the final value  giving Beijing a chokehold over global supply.

The processed minerals are then sold to specialised manufacturers that produce capacitors and other electronic components under longterm contracts with major tech firms. These manufacturers capture 1525 percent of the value. The tech giantswhich largely design and market the final products rather than manufacture themtake the lions share: 4060 percent of total value. To cite but one example, a smartphone retailing for $800 contains only a few dollars worth of tantalum. Apple alone reported $112 billion in net profits last year.

Numerous reports by UN agencies, the US government, the European Union and NGOs have exposed the dependence of these multinationals on conflict minerals. In December 2024, the DRC filed an unprecedented case against Apple, accusing its subsidiaries in Belgium and France of using conflict minerals and fuelling violence.

Robert Amsterdam, the lawyer representing the Congolese government, stated that Western governments and corporations bear ultimate responsibility: The tech industry has funded Rwandas war crimes. Apple denied the allegations, claiming it instructs suppliers not to source minerals from the DRC or Rwanda.

Regional militias fighting for control of DRCs mineralrich eastern provinces

In January last year, during a lightning offensive, heavily armed militiasbacked by the DRCs eastern neighbours, nominally fighting to overthrow President Felix Tshisekedi and defend the Congolese Tutsi minorityseized more mineralrich territory. This advance marked the collapse of previous peace negotiations and triggered the most serious political crisis in decades. M23 and allied forces now control North and South Kivu, bordering Rwanda and Burundi, and much of Ituri, with its lucrative gold mines, bordering Uganda.

M23 rebels patrol the streets of Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025 [AP Photo/Brian Inganga]

The conflict, reignited when M23 resurfaced in 2021, has displaced millions, killed tens of thousands, and severely strained relations between the DRC, Rwanda and Burundi. UN investigators have documented widespread atrocitiesexecutions, sexual violence and other abusescommitted by militias on all sides.

After three decades of war, the DRC faces one of the worlds worst humanitarian crises. More than 6.9 million people are internally displaced, including over 5 million in North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri. Nearly one million Congolese refugees and asylumseekers are scattered across Africa. The DRC also hosts more than 517,000 refugees fleeing violence in neighbouring states, most living outside formal camps.

Despite its immense natural wealth, the DRC suffers some of the worlds highest levels of poverty and vulnerability. Epidemics of cholera, measles and Mpox pose constant threats. Climaterelated disastersfloods, landslides and extreme weatherrepeatedly devastate communities, especially in the east.

Food insecurity has reached catastrophic levels. Around 15 million people are projected to need assistance in 2026down from 25 million in 2025, but only due to changes in methodology, not improvements on the ground. The worstaffected areas remain the wartorn eastern provinces.

M23 and roughly 10,000 Rwandan troops control the fraudulent extraction, trade and smuggling of minerals from Rubaya, generating an estimated $800,000 per month to finance the insurgency. UN experts report that more than 120 tonnes of coltan are transported monthly from the DRC into Rwanda, where it is laundered and exported as Rwandan product to China, Europe and the United States.

Rwanda has profited illicitly from Congolese mineral wealth for decades. Analysts estimate that Rwandas mineral exportsofficially exceeding $1 billion annuallyinclude a substantial volume smuggled from the DRC, since Rwanda exports far more than it produces. M23 facilitates the smuggling of coltan, cassiterite, tungsten and gold (the latter rising to over 19 tonnes) into Rwanda, where these minerals are reexported as domestic production. Rwandas mineral export revenues have more than tripled, from $373 million in 2017 to over $1.75 billion in 2024.

DRCs critical minerals at the centre of US National Security Strategy

The vast reserves of cobalt, coltan, cassiterite (tin ore), gold and wolframite in the eastern DRC have placed the region at the centre of the escalating USChina struggle for strategic minerals and influence in Africa. Washington has grown increasingly alarmed at Chinas dominant economic position on the continent: Beijing is now Africas largest investor, trader and infrastructure financier, and a central partner of the mineralsrich DRC.

A mining site in the Haut-Katanga Province, Site Maniema Mining Corporation [Photo by Pascalmmp - Own work / CC BY-SA 4.0

The Trump administrations new US National Security Strategy, published last November, openly asserts its predatory aims: The purpose of foreign policy is the protection of core national interests; that is the sole focus of this strategy, ensuring that the US remains the worlds strongest, richest, most powerful, and most successful country for decades to come.

Its section on Africajust three paragraphscould have been lifted from the Berlin Conference of 188485 that formalised the Scramble for Africa. Gone are the familiar platitudes about development assistance, aid and capacity building. In their place is a blunt shift toward trade, investment and resource extraction.

Washington will now seek partnerships with capable, reliable states committed to opening their markets to US goods and services. The strategy identifies immediate opportunities for US investment in Africas energy sector and critical minerals. It explicitly links USbacked nuclear energy, LPG and LNG technologies to securing access to these minerals and outcompeting rivals.

In practice, this means deploying Americas vast economic and financial power to exploit weak African states that hold more than 30 percent of the worlds critical minerals, while AFRICOMthe US military command for Africafocuses on securing access and protecting mineral routes.

US uses peace talks to secure access to critical minerals

To this end, the Trump administration has intervened directly in the war in eastern DRC under the banner of restoring peace. Washington brought the Rwandan and Congolese governments together to initial an accord in June, explicitly tied to securing cobalt supplies for US corporations. A 24page agreementthe Washington Accords for Peace and Prosperitywas signed at a presidential summit in December, witnessed by the leaders of Angola, Kenya and Burundi. Parallel talks between Kinshasa and M23, mediated by Qatar, produced a framework deal in November.

Secretary Marco Rubio hosts a Democratic Republic of the Congo-Rwanda Peace Agreement signing ceremony between Democratic Republic of the Congo Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner and Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe at the Department of State in Washington, D.C., June 27, 2025 [Photo: Official State Department photo by Freddie Everett]

More significant than the nominal peace agreement were two accompanying economic and strategic deals. The first is the Regional Economic Integration Framework (REIF), a bilateral framework between the DRC and Rwanda. The second is the USDRC Strategic Partnership Agreement, granting US corporations priority access to the DRCs critical minerals and constraining Chinawhich currently controls around 80 percent of the countrys cobalt productionfrom expanding further. In return, Washington promises investment in rare minerals, electricity, infrastructure and cooperation against arms and mineral traffickers.

Trump hailed the package as a great miracle that paves the way for mineral investment via the Lobito Corridor. This refers to the $10 billion pledged to revitalise the 2,000km Lobito Corridor, enabling minerals to be transported to the Angolan port of Lobito for export to the US and Europe. Backed by the EU and the US, the corridor is designed to counter Chinas dominance in the sector.

Under the Strategic Partnership Agreement, Kinshasa will be required to use the Lobito Corridor for exporting qualifying projects, even when alternative routessuch as the Tazara railway linking Zambia and Tanzania, soon to be refurbished by Chinamay be cheaper or more efficient. This binds the DRC firmly into Washingtons geostrategic orbit in exchange for political and diplomatic (but not military) support against its eastern neighbours.

It is a replica of Trumps transactional approach to peacemaking seen in Gaza: the DRC is to become a mining zone for the benefit of US imperialism and its corporations.

Despite the fanfare, Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and Rwandas Paul Kagame refused to shake hands, and fighting has continued. M23 and Rwandan forces have seized more territory, displacing another 100,000 people.

Washington escalates its mineral strategy

On Wednesday, Washington hosted the first Critical Minerals Ministerial, attended by representatives from more than 50 countries, including President Tshisekedi and ministers from Angola, Guinea, Kenya, Morocco, Sierra Leone and Zambia. South Africawhich holds globally significant reserves of platinum, manganese, chrome and vanadium and has deepened ties with Chinawas pointedly excluded.

Map of Africa with countries attending Critical Minerals Ministerial highlighted: Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Kenya, Morocco, Sierra Leone and Zambia. South Africa [Photo: MapChart]

US Vice President JD Vance proposed creating a USled FORGE alliance, a trading bloc designed to counter Chinas dominance in critical mineral supply chains and coordinate pricing floors to attract private investment into mining and processing. We want members to form a trading bloc among allies and partners, he said, one that guarantees American access to industrial inputs while expanding production across the bloc.

This follows the launch of Project Vault, a $12 billion fund to acquire equity stakes in mining and processing companies and build production facilities in the US. Trump declared the initiative essential to ensuring that American businesses and workers are never harmed by any shortage.
The Stalinist Turkish Communist Party (TKP) held a large gathering titled TKP is challenging! at the Congresium Congress Center in Ankara on Sunday, February 1. The 3,000-person hall was full, while hundreds more watched the event on screens outside the hall.

The gathering of the TKP is challenging event held by the Communist Party of Turkey in Ankara on Sunday, February 1, 2026. [Photo: @tkpninsesi/X]

The broad participation of young people and workers reflects their demand for a left-wing alternative to the right-wing capitalist politics represented by the Kemalist Republican Peoples Party (CHP) and the Kurdish nationalist Peoples Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), which many middle-class political tendencies line up behind. The TKPs anti-imperialist and independent political rhetoric plays a role in this. Therefore, the critical issues raised by the event should be subjected to Marxist criticism and political illusions about the TKP should be seriously addressed.

The event began with the singing of the International anthem, followed by a summary of the TKPs own history. Leading party member Aydemir Guler said of the TKPs founding in Baku as the Turkish section of the Communist International in 1920, when Turkiye was occupied by imperialist powers and their proxies after World War I: The Great October Revolution of 1917 proved that socialism could take power, replacing the impotence of social democracy, which had been driven into chaos by the outbreak of the war of division [World War I] and was unable to respond to the crisis.

He continued: The Bolsheviks removed Russia from being one of the occupiers dividing up Anatolia. The Bolsheviks revealed the secret agreements and plans of the imperialists. They officially threw them in the trash. Bolshevism was a helping hand in every corner of Anatolia.

Although Guler did not give any names, the secret Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, in which the imperialist powers sought to divide up Ottoman territories, was revealed by Leon Trotsky, the co-leader of the October Revolution alongside Vladimir Lenin and the Soviet Peoples Commissar for Foreign Affairs at the time.

Aydemir Guler, a leading TKP member, speaks during the TKP event in Ankara, February 1, 2026 [Photo: Screenshot from YouTube video of the event/Communist Party of Turkey]

Guler then added:

The Turkish Communist Party was founded with great ambition at a crossroads where old programs, old theses, and old parties had collapsed. At this crossroads, the national struggle in Ankara coincided with [TKP leader] Mustafa Suphi and his comrades assertion that national liberation would be completed through social liberation. The interests of Soviet Russia, as the first workers power, coincided with those of the national resistance against imperialism [in Turkiye]. This coincidence actually saved the Bolsheviks power in [Russia], where the civil war, which was essentially an imperialist attack, was raging. This coincidence gave Turkiye, which imperialism was trying to strangle, a new future.

While these assessments are generally correct, they raise questions about why the TKP increasingly became a left supporter of the new bourgeois national Kemalist regime after the victory of the national liberation war in 1922 and the establishment of the Republic in 1923, abandoning its political independence and replacing the goal of a republic of workers and peasants councils with a program of two stage revolution.

Sefik Husnu and Stalins class-collaborationist line

In this shift, former TKP General Secretary Sefik Husnu (1887-1959), praised during the February 1 event, where he was recreated as an AI avatar, played a critical role. As stated in the Historical and International Foundations of the Sosyalist Esitlik Partisi  Dorduncu Enternasyonal:

In April 1923, one of the leaders of the TKP, Sefik Husnu, who represented the tendency towards class collaboration with the bourgeoisie, stated that three main tendencies were now possible in the country: 1) the Kemalist tendency, represented by those who made the present revolution and are determined to keep it alive, 2) the reactionary tendency, tied to feudalism and the monarchy, and 3) the socialist tendency, which aimed to deepen the revolution for the benefit of the poor masses of workers and peasants and the middle classes and complete it with a social revolution based on common property. Husnu argued that the Kemalist government and the socialists should act hand in hand for a long time against reaction and confront the evil forces as a single body. [ 1 ]

However, the decisive factor in the dominance of a class-collaborationist political line throughout the rest of the TKPs history was the world-historical struggle that began in the Soviet Union in 1923.

In this struggle, Joseph Stalin emerged as the main political representative of the bureaucratic caste that was growing and usurping power from the working class, while Trotsky, who led the founding of the Left Opposition in 1923, would become the main representative of the historical interests of the Soviet and international proletariat.

The adoption of the nationalist theory of socialism in one country, put forward by Stalin and Nikolai Bukharin in 1924, led to the Comintern ceasing to be the leadership of the world socialist revolution and becoming a pragmatic tool of Soviet foreign policy.

This was opposed by the Left Opposition, which defended the strategy of world socialist revolution that had guided the October Revolution of 1917, led by Lenin and Trotsky, which the TKP claimed to embrace. The theoretical basis for this was Trotskys Theory of Permanent Revolution.

The short history of the TKP presented at the event completely ignores this decisive struggle between Stalinism and Trotskyism and its consequences, which would have a decisive impact on the subsequent history of the communist movement and the working class in Turkiye and internationally.

Sefik Husnu justified the alliance with the Ankara government by attributing a progressive role to Kemalism and the national bourgeoisie against imperialism. In an article written in April 1926, he argued:

The working masses must recognize that the economic efforts of the Kemalist bourgeoisie effectively blocked the entry of imperialist capitalism into the country and thus had a progressive character, but they must also understand that the internal mechanisms of this economic development weighed heavily on their shoulders and that they themselves paid the price for the operation of these mechanisms. As long as the system implemented by the nationalist bourgeoisie plays an anti-imperialist role, it is essentially acceptable to the working masses. [ 2 ]

This perspective, adopted by the Comintern under Stalin, would not only politically subordinate the TKP to the bourgeoisie and the state in Turkey but would also form the political basis for the defeat of the 1925-1927 Chinese Revolution and countless revolutionary struggles in the colonial and semi-colonial world in the following decades. As Trotsky wrote in May 1927 against Stalins policy of subordinating the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to the bourgeois nationalist Kuomintang:

It is a gross mistake to think that imperialism mechanically welds together all the classes of China from without.  The class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the masses of workers and peasants is not weakened, but, on the contrary, is sharpened by imperialist oppression, to the point of bloody civil war at every serious conflict. [ 3 ]

Trotsky demonstrated that the political line formulated in Stalins theses, which led the Chinese Revolution to disaster, was essentially a continuation of the old Menshevik policy. Then he explained the difference between the Menshevik and Bolshevik ways as follows:

 the policy of Menshevism in the revolution consists of retaining the united front at any cost, as long as possible, at the price of adapting its own policy to the policy of the bourgeoisie, at the price of cutting down the slogans and the activity of the masses, and even, as in China, at the price of the organizational subordination of the workers party to the political apparatus of the bourgeoisie. The Bolshevik way, however, consists of an unconditional political and organizational demarcation from the bourgeoisie, of a relentless exposure of the bourgeoisie from the very first steps of the revolution, of a destruction of all petty-bourgeois illusions about the united front with the bourgeoisie, of tireless struggle with the bourgeoisie for the leadership of the masses, of the merciless expulsion from the Communist Party of all those elements who sow vain hopes in the bourgeoisie or idealize them. [ 4 ]

In his Theory of Permanent Revolution, Trotsky explained that in countries with belated capitalist development, such as Turkey and China, the bourgeoisie was incapable of fulfilling the tasks of the democratic revolution. These tasks could only be resolved under the leadership of the proletariat and as part of the international socialist revolution. As Trotsky wrote in 1929:

With regard to countries with a belated bourgeois development, especially the colonial and semi-colonial countries, the theory of the permanent revolution signifies that the complete and genuine solution of their tasks of achieving democracy and national emancipation is conceivable only through the dictatorship of the proletariat as the leader of the subjugated nation, above all of its peasant masses. [ 5 ]

He added:

The completion of the socialist revolution within national limits is unthinkable. One of the basic reasons for the crisis in bourgeois society is the fact that the productive forces created by it can no longer be reconciled with the framework of the national state The socialist revolution begins on the national arena, it unfolds on the international arena, and is completed on the world arena. [ 6 ]

In the mid-1930s, despite the relentless persecution of the Kemalist regime, the TKP developed as a powerful political tendency within the working class. Meanwhile, the Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union had decided on decentralization in order to strengthen its relations with Ankara, effectively liquidating the party and openly supporting the Kemalist government. This was part of the adoption of the Popular Front program at the Seventh Congress of the Comintern in 1935, which would subordinate the working class to the bourgeoisie on an international scale.

Ismail Bilen and Stalins counterrevolutionary terror

Another figure recreated by artificial intelligence and glorified at the TKPs February 1 event was Ismail Bilen (1902-1983), who served as the partys general secretary between 1973 and 1983. Bilen led the TKP, which resumed illegal political activity in Turkiye in the 1970s, in supporting the CHP in the 1973 and 1977 elections under the name of the national democratic front.

The particularly sinister nature of the TKPs embrace of Bilen is underscored by the fact that he served as a reliable servant of the Stalinist regime during and after the Moscow Trials, a period in which hundreds of thousands of socialists, including countless leaders of the October Revolution and the Civil War, were murdered in the Soviet Union. As noted in a study on Bilen:

Ismail Bilen, who embraced the partys new direction [in 1935], assumed high-level responsibility for activities during this period. After Sefik Husnu and Resat Fuat left Moscow in April 1937, Bilen arrived in Moscow in early May and became the TKPs representative to the Comintern from August 1937 onwards. [ 7 ]

This is consistent with the TKP being an anti-Trotskyist party that defends Stalins crimes and betrayals, including the political genocide in the Soviet Union and Trotskys assassination in 1940, just like its sister organization in Greece, the Stalinist Communist Party (KKE). The TKPs publishing house prints books by the pseudo-historian Grover Furr, which reproduce the Stalinist lies of the 1930s.

Leon Trotsky on Prinkipo, 1931

In 1937, Trotsky wrote that the lies of the Stalinists served as the fundamental ideological cement of the bureaucracy, adding:

The more irreconcilable becomes the contradiction between the bureaucracy and the people, all the ruder becomes the lie, all the more brazenly is it converted into criminal falsification and judicial frame-up. Whoever has not under-stood this inner dialectic of the Stalinist regime will likewise fail to understand the Moscow trials. [ 8 ]

Trotsky explained that the bureaucracy could not overcome either this contradiction or the contradiction between the existence of a capitalist world economy and the nationalist-autarkic economy of the USSR. There were two paths: Either the Stalinist bureaucracy would commit its final betrayal of the October Revolution by dissolving the Soviet Union and restoring capitalism, or the Soviet working class would retake power through a political revolution and return the Soviet Union to the path of the unfinished international socialist revolution.

The victory of the former cannot be understood without grasping the Stalinist bureaucracys physical extermination of socialists through the Great Terror of the 1930s and its relentless war against the Fourth International, the world Trotskyist movement that defended the program of the October Revolution.

After World War II, the pro-Stalinist, liquidationist Pabloite tendency that emerged within the Fourth International played the role of an auxiliary to Moscow and world imperialism. The founding of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) in 1953 ensured the continuity of the Trotskyist movement through an uninterrupted struggle based on revolutionary internationalist principles against Stalinism, social democracy, Pabloism, and bourgeois nationalism.

The establishment of the Sosyalist Esitlik Partisi in Turkiye last year as a section of the ICFI was a product of this international and historical struggle.

Mikhail Gorbachev and the restoration of capitalism

There was another person whose speech and likeness was animated by artificial intelligence at the TKP event in Ankara: Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader and liquidator of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the USSR. The TKP leaders had the audience boo Gorbachev, who was made to say the following:

Mikhail Gorbachev speaks through AI during the Ankara event of TKP, February 1, 2026 [Photo: Screenshot from YouTube video/Communist Party of Turkey]

Since 1985, I have made revolutionary speeches in the name of reviving the Soviet Union, which was plagued by numerous problems. I spoke about returning to Lenin. I even lied to gain the support of the party and the people... What I called perestroika was not a reform, but a liquidation... When the Soviet Union was dissolved, I said it was a historical necessity. I lied again. History did not force it. I abandoned it. I did not defend it. I surrendered it. And today, amid the ruins that remain, I acknowledge that this destruction was not an accident, but a change of direction amounting to betrayal.

The TKP, which today accuses Gorbachev of treason, conceals the fact that Gelenek magazine, the political tendency on which it is based, provided political support for this betrayal, just like other Stalinist tendencies around the world. Kemal Okuyan, who is now the general secretary of the TKP, wrote under the pseudonym Cemal Hekimoglu in July 1987, in an article titled Gorbachev and the Left, declaring that the Gorbachev era... is a deadly necessity. He continued:

What does the Gorbachev era mean? The USSR is currently engaged in an internal effort to consolidate its authority and prestige within the international socialist movement. Problems within its own internal dynamics have come to the fore for resolution at a time when the wave of world revolution has receded. These internal problems are the problems of mature socialism. The problems of mature socialism, however, are at a stage where socialism will now need a popular form of expression. Seventy years have passed [since the October Revolution]. Now there is a Marxism that emphasizes the masses and the people. ... Last May, Gorbachev emphatically stressed that there is no center that makes decisions in the world revolutionary movement. He said, This logic has begun to harm us and our friends. The Soviet Union had very complex relationships in various countries. In these relationships, they had no intention of making commitments on behalf of anyone, nor of engaging socialists in that country in certain policies... We mentioned this gap, this void, this necessary space. In this sense, Mikhail Sergeyevichs [Gorbachev] speech is a ray of hope. The processes experienced by the USSR in its domestic and foreign policies should not leave their mark everywhere. Today, if the world socialist movement does not want to face an existence problem, it must preserve and embrace this gapthis space. Socialists in capitalist countries, while understanding that the Gorbachev era is a deadly necessity for real socialism, should not cast Gorbachev as a shadow over their own problems and perspectives. [Emphasis in original] [ 9 ]

In contrast, the ICFI, which based itself on a Trotskyist analysis and perspective, was the only international political tendency to oppose the counterrevolutionary policies of the Stalinist regime led by Gorbachev, and the Pabloites who applauded him for the Soviet bureaucracys alleged self-reform, policies that led to the breakup of the USSR. In its 1987 statement What Is Happening in the USSR? Gorbachev and the Crisis of Stalinism, the ICFI warned:

For both the working class in the Soviet Union and the workers and oppressed masses internationally, the so-called reform policy of Gorbachev represents a sinister threat. It jeopardizes the historic conquests of the October Revolution and is bound up with a deepening of the bureaucracys counterrevolutionary collaboration with imperialism on a world scale. [ 10 ]

The ICFI continued to develop its analysis of the Gorbachev regime. In 1989, David North, then national secretary of the Workers League, the predecessor of the Socialist Equality Party in the United States, wrote in the Perestroika versus Socialism: Stalinism and the Restoration of Capitalism in the USSR:

The foreign policy of the Soviet government, like that of all other regimes in the world, arises organically out of the material interests of the ruling social elite, and, therefore, is a continuation of its domestic policy. Indeed, it is in the sphere of foreign policy that the fundamental interests and historic aims of the bureaucracy find their most concentrated and clear-cut expression. From this objective standpoint, the foreign policy of Mikhail Gorbachev is inseparably linked with the program of capitalist restoration that is being pursued by the Stalinist bureaucracy under the banner of perestroika. While the bureaucracy seeks to systematically undermine the state property relations within the Soviet Union, its foreign policy is aimed at integrating the USSR economically into the structure of world capitalism and its international division of labor. [ 11 ]

He continued:

The perspective of world socialist revolution proclaimed by the Bolsheviks in 1917 was long ago abandoned by the leadership of the Soviet Union The emergence of the bureaucracy as a politically-conscious social tendency hostile to the Soviet proletariat found its initial expression as early as 1924 in the repudiation of the essential link, upon which Lenin had always insisted, between the development of socialism within the USSR and the victory of the international proletariat over world imperialism. [ 12 ]

Workers and young people: turn to Trotskyism and the ICFI!

The Stalinist bureaucracys restoration of capitalism in Eastern Europe and the USSR had devastating political consequences that continue to this day on a global scale. It plunged both Soviet workers and the working class internationally into a major social regression, paving the way for the expansion of US-NATO imperialism towards the East and the escalation of anti-Russian aggression that provoked the war in Ukraine in 2022. In the absence of the USSR, the Middle East became the scene of almost uninterrupted imperialist aggression and war led by the United States since 1990-91.

Moreover, the identification of socialism with Stalinism by both the Soviet bureaucracy and imperialist powers throughout the twentieth century led to great political confusion and demoralization within the international working class during the post-Soviet period, which played a critical role in suppressing the class struggle. The importance of the ICFIs relentless struggle to defend historical truth against the Post-Soviet School of Historical Falsification lies here.

The historical issues raised by the TKPs February 1 event in Ankara underscore the burning relevance of the struggle between Trotskyism and Stalinism. The working class is today facing the violent return of the unresolved questions of the twentieth century: imperialist war, fascism and dictatorship, and social counterrevolution. These represent the bourgeoisies responses to the insoluble contradictions of the capitalist system. But the same contradictions are radicalizing the working class and youth globally and preparing the ground for social revolution. The question is not whether revolutionary explosions will occur, but whether revolutionary leadership can guide them.

Such a leadership can only be built by assimilating the lessons of Trotskyisms decades-long historical struggle against Stalinism and all anti-Marxist petty-bourgeois tendencies, based on the strategy of Permanent Revolution and world socialist revolution. This leadership is the International Committee of the Fourth International and the Socialist Equality Parties affiliated to it.

The Marxism of the 21st century is Trotskyism. Those who genuinely seek an independent, revolutionary, and anti-imperialist alternative to the capitalist establishment should study the Historical and International Foundations of the Sosyalist Esitlik Partisi  Dorduncu Enternasyonal, contact us to participate in our educational work, and join the struggle to build this leadership.
In January, the UK lost its measles elimination status, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed. Based on data from 2024, the highly infectious and potentially deadly virus is circulating in the population.

WHO recommends at least 95 percent of children should receive two doses of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, which is highly effective in preventing measles. But data for England in 2024 showed 91.9 percent of children received one dose by their fifth birthday, and only 83.9 percent had received two doses.

Photomicrograph of a lung tissue specimen, showing the histopathologic changes encountered in a case of measles pneumonia [Photo: Content Providers(s): CDC/ Dr. Edwin P. Ewing, Jr. - This media comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Public Health Image Library (PHIL)]

This means one in every 11 children is completely unprotected, and one in six is not fully vaccinated, offering enormous scope for the virus to spread. Measles is infectious even before a rash develops, and in a typical classroom there will be several children vulnerable to infection if one of their classmates is infected.

Low vaccine protection in the population is a long-standing problem neglected by successive governments. It disproportionately affects the most deprived sections of the working class, in the UK and worldwide.

WHOs European Region meeting in September found uninterrupted spread of measles over the previous 12 months in Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Spain, and Uzbekistan, all of which had previously eliminated the disease.

The United States is at the epicentre of a measles resurgence among the major capitalist powers. Last year the US recorded 2,255 measles cases, the highest annual total since 1992, and two unvaccinated children died from the disease. The nations measles elimination status, maintained since 2000, is now in jeopardy, and in January alone, 607 cases were confirmed. This month has seen 847 confirmed cases in the state of South Carolina.

The World Socialist Web Site reported on a mass outbreak of measles that began last month at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas, where the Trump administration confines hundreds of immigrant families and children under conditions of deliberate brutality and medical neglect. That outbreak, made public by immigration attorney Eric Lee, sparked protests with hundreds shouting, Let us out! and Liberty for the kids!.

Elimination status does not mean there are no cases of measles, but that enough of the population is vaccinated or there are enough protective measures in place that any outbreaks remain limited and do not continue to spread through the population.

The re-establishment of endemic measles poses a constant risk, mainly to children who are not vaccinated. A report in the BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal) explained that before the widespread adoption of vaccination, Measles [was] a major cause of mortality and morbidity in children receiving treatment for leukaemia.

Its return has already taken a tragic toll in Britain. There were two measles-related deaths in 2025, including a child who died after contracting measles. In 2024, four adults and one child died from measles.

This is the second time that measles transmission has been re-established in the UK. WHO first certified the UK as having eliminated measles in 2016, but low vaccination rates saw cases grow rapidly from only 90 detected in 2015 to 1,250 in 2018, when measles was again recognised as re-established.

The social distancing measures brought in to control the spread of COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021 were highly effective in preventing the spread of other preventable diseases, including measles. The UK Health Security Agency recorded only 95 cases in 2020 and two cases in 2021, when the WHO again certified measles as eliminated.

But amid demands from big business, corporate media outlets and politicians to open workplaces and especially schools as quickly as possible, disregarding the consequences for infection, social distancing measures were quickly dismantled and measles regained a foothold.

During the pandemic, leading scientists advocated effective measures to prevent airborne transmission of viruses such as COVID-19 and measles. The technology is readily available to create healthy public spaces. But scientific advice was ignored in the drive to re-open the economy, with workers lives counting for nothing.

Measles is highly infectious, and according to WHO can stay in the air for two hours after an infected person leaves the area. Even starting from a low level, measles can spread rapidly in an under-vaccinated population. Cases exploded to 3,681 in 2024.

Vaccination rates in London are especially low, with only 73.3 percent of five-year-olds having received both doses. A recent paper in the BMJ noted, In 2023-24 the vaccination rate of both MMR doses among 5 year olds was as low as 61% in the borough of Hackney, 64% in Islington, and 65% in Kensington and Chelsea.

The same BMJ article quotes Ben Kasstan-Dabush, assistant professor of global health and development at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who explained that while targeted intervention was needed in those areas with the lowest vaccine coverage, cuts to health funding make this difficult.

Bharat Pankhania, senior clinical lecturer in public health medicine at the University of Exeter Medical School, called for easier access to GP practices and more health visitors who can immunise babies in their homes. But such policies are incompatible with a Labour government which describes health spending as pour[ing] money into a black hole.

Problems accessing vaccines are made far worse by the constant attacks on science which undermine confidence in vaccines that are proven to be safe and effective. The anti-vaccine movement sponsored by the US Trump administration and its Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. poses a deadly threat to the health of the working class around the world.

The history of measles vaccination in Britain shows the potential for the working class to use science to eliminate disease but also the anti-science forces which seek to prevent that.

Child suffering from measles, pre-1963. [Photo: US Government]

Measles vaccination was introduced in the UK in 1968. Children between 13 and 15 months began to be given the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine in 1988, achieving coverage of over 90 percent.

This high coverage and a targeted programme in schools to provide the MMR vaccine to children who were older than 15 months when it was introduced were highly effective. By 1996 endemic transmission had been seemingly interrupted, although at the time the WHO did not certify that measles was eliminated.

Measles deaths in England - 1950-2026 [Photo: ONS]

It was only after the fraudulent paper of Dr. Andrew Wakefield in 1998, which falsely alleged a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, that vaccination rates fell steeply, to a low of around 80 percent in the late 90s, leaving an entire generation under-protected. The paper was later retracted and Wakefield struck off for serious professional misconduct, but the same lie has been promoted by anti-vax forces including the US Centres of Disease Control, formerly a leading body for scientific health data worldwide, and continues to cause immense harm.

Two-dose vaccination coverage increased from 85 percent in 2010 to 89.3 percent in 2014 largely due to a targeted catch up campaign for children who missed their vaccines in the wake of the Wakefield paper, but this was not sustained. Apart from a slight increase in 2019-20, vaccination rates have fallen every year since 2016.

Increasing vaccine coverage is the key to eliminating measles, but this is being actively undermined by the Starmer governments continued starving of the health service of necessary funding.

Healthcare workers now face a situation they never imagined, treating patients for diseases which had once been eliminated such as measles, and the increase in sickness linked to poverty including scurvy and rickets. The financial oligarchy is clawing back the concessions won by the working class through decades of struggle, and confirming the observation of Karl Marx that Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole.

Opposition to this agenda of the ruling class requires the building of a socialist movement in the working class, which will fight for comprehensive healthcare in every community, with health visitors who can bring compassionate care, accurate information and vaccine availability to all.
Students walked out of Royal Oak High School to oppose ICE terror on February 9, 2026 in Royal Oak, Michigan.

Students at Royal Oak High School in suburban Detroit staged a protest against ICE raids Monday morning, as school walkouts continue across Michigan and nationwide against the anti-immigrant campaign being carried out by the Trump administration.

Students have shown significant determination in the face of threats of discipline from school officials and even the possibility of direct physical violence from right-wing elements.

More than 50 Royal Oak High School students assembled during morning break and marched to a local park. They wore pins and held signs reading, No one is illegal on stolen land, and We are not animals, we are not aliens, we are all humans. Chanting Abolish ICE, students expressed outrage over ongoing enforcement actions across the country, including the killings of anti-ICE activists Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis. Several students said they come from immigrant families and fear for the safety of relatives.

Students walked out of Royal Oak High School to oppose ICE terror on February 9, 2026 in Royal Oak, Michigan.

ICE operations have targeted workers and students in the greater Detroit area. Last week, agents detained a man at the Amazon fulfillment center in Hazel Park, adjacent to Royal Oak.

In December, 17-year-old Santiago Jesus Zamora Perez, an 11th grader at Western International High School in Detroit, and his mother were detained after police in the suburbs stopped him for allegedly driving too slowly and alerted ICE. Just weeks earlier, ICE detained two 16-year-old students from Western during a pre-dawn raid. The youths and an adult family member were seized and taken to the notorious ICE South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas.

One Royal Oak High School student, who identified herself as a sophomore, told World Socialist Web Site reporters that she was protesting because ICE is hurting and killing people in broad daylight. And thats just wrong, no matter how some people try to spin it. She and several other students expressed concern about possible retaliation from school officials.

Scarlett, a student spokesperson, told the WSWS that students wanted to show support for immigrants. These people are feeling real pain and are unable to get what they need or want because theyve been sent back to places they never came from.

As a country built on freedom, we need to stop taking away peoples freedom just because they look different.

My aunt lives in Minneapolis with my cousins, and she told me she saw one of her neighbors taken by ICE. It is absolutely frightening to me. I feel like nothing else in this country is as terrifying right now. I think everyone needs to step back and realize that whats going on is wrong, and we need to stop it.

Asked about the concentration of wealth among a small number of billionaires in the United States, she added, What theyre doing is starving children; theyre making everything worse for ordinary people and pretty much ruining the economy.

Referencing the Trump administrations actions toward Venezuela, including efforts to seize its oil, Scarlett pointed to what she described as a double standard. While the administration criticizes immigrants for allegedly draining resources, its position, she said, amounts to: Lets take all of theirs. I feel like thats so hypocritical and just evil.

Another sophomore said his family immigrated from Latin America. He noted, Trump doesnt want us in this country, but technically we were here first, before they took over. Speaking about Minneapolis, he added, It should never have happened. If Trump hadnt taken over the city, those people wouldnt have died, referring to Good and Pretti.

Last fall, students at Royal Oak High School, with the support of many teachers, protested the establishment of a chapter of Turning Point USA, founded by Charlie Kirk, at the school.

A WSWS reporter contacted the office of Royal Oak Schools Superintendent Dr. John Tafelski regarding possible disciplinary measures related to the protest. As of this writing, there has been no response.

The protest in Royal Oak is one of many that have taken place in Michigan in recent days, including walkouts at schools in Ann Arbor, Plymouth-Canton, Berkley and Pontiac.

On Friday, students at LAnse Creuse High School in Macomb County were joined by community members in staging an off-campus protest against ICE raids.

LAnse Creuse and Dakota school officials said last week that planned walkouts were disruptive to the learning environment. Superintendent Keith Howell warned in a statement last Thursday, Any student who leaves class or campus without permission will be addressed under the Student Code of Conduct and attendance policies.

In a separate statement posted on Facebook, two school board members said they opposed the protests and expressed support for federal law enforcement efforts to remove illegal violent criminal aliens that reside in our communities.

In addition to Minneapolis, high school protests have taken place across the United States in cities large and small, including walkouts in Portland, Oregon; Baltimore; Atlanta; Lincoln, Nebraska; Dallas and Houston; the greater Miami area; and many other locations. In the Salt Lake City area, hundreds of students from at least 15 high schools participated in protests last week, with some converging on the state capital.

In Buda, Texas, south of Austin, a man assaulted a female high school student participating in an anti-ICE protest. A Johnson High School student who took part in the walkout told CBS Austin that an argument began with a man in a truck who got mad. He exited his vehicle and came straight toward a girl and started to attack her. He got on top of the girl and started hitting her. Other students were able to intervene and stop the attack.

At South Side High School in Fort Wayne, Indiana, dozens of students held a walkout Friday to oppose ICE actions. Ruby Steele, a Fort Wayne student, told local media, A lot of people are scared and worried about themselves and their families. I feel as students it is important to make our school and our community a safer place for everyone.

The Socialist Equality Party and its youth organization, the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE), urge students to turn to the working class, the only social force that has the power to defeat the Trump administration, its Democratic Party enablers and the oligarchy that controls both political parties.

The defense of immigrants is a key part of the broader struggle to protect social rights, including access to education, healthcare, jobs and decent living standards. In this fight, all working peopleregardless of race, ethnicity or immigration statusmust stand together.

Young people interested in becoming involved or learning more about the IYSSE are encouraged to complete the form below.
The IYSSE meeting will be held under the slogan: A socialist perspective against the reintroduction of compulsory military service!

While wars are being stoked and escalated in the Middle East, Latin America and worldwide, thousands of young people in Germany are currently receiving letters to register for military service. Wherever one looks in the worldwhether in Gaza, Ukraine, Venezuela, the US or Iranthe entire globe is being transformed into an inferno of destruction and violence.

In predatory raids for raw materials and sales markets, all countries are rearming. Germany, too, is bolstering itself to become a great power again and wants to secure its booty. In his government declaration, when Chancellor Friedrich Merz demanded Germany learn the language of power politics, he means nothing other than a return to naked imperialist violence. Conscription is intended to supply the necessary human material: they need us as cannon fodder at the front to enforce their economic and geopolitical interests.

On March 5, tens of thousands of young people across Germany will strike again against conscription and show that our generation is not prepared to sacrifice its life for the profits of the rich. But in order to win this fight, we must be aware of what we confront and what perspective is necessary.

First and foremost, the movement against conscription must be a movement against the madness of war. Conscription is not merely about a wasted year of our lives spent in barracks but, quite concretely, about us being sent to war. Such a deployment during our military service is not simply a theoretical possibilitythe wars in which we are supposed to die are being fuelled daily.

We are currently experiencing a volcanic eruption of imperialism such as has not occurred since the Second World War. All alliances, treaties and agreements that were decided after the Second World War to stabilise the global situation are crumbling to dust.

The US government invaded Venezuela at the beginning of the year and is now threatening war against Iran and Greenland. It justifies this quite blatantly, stating that international law no longer applies, but the iron law of the right of the stronger. With its threats to annex Greenland, US imperialism makes clear that it does not stop at former allies and that the contradictions between the imperialist powers themselves are breaking open.

Germany is reacting to this by bolstering itself to become a great poweralong its historical lines: it is escalating the war against Russia and preparing for a confrontation with the USA. For this, the government is rearming as has not been done since Hitler and is militarising the whole of society.

The defence budget this year has reached a record high of over 100 billion. In the next three years, it is to rise to 150 billion3.5 percent of gross domestic product. To finance this, schools, hospitals, local public transport and all other areas of public life are being cut to the bone. Tens of thousands of jobs are being destroyed to position companies for trade war.

The declared goal of rearmament is to be able to defeat the nuclear power Russia militarily by 2029. This can only be described as sheer madness: a war with Russia would mean the annihilation of Europe.

This is not simply about certain politicians advancing the wrong policy. The return of militarism is seizing all great powers and is supported by all capitalist parties. In Germany, the Greens are demanding an even more aggressive approach, including the massive expansion of military support for Ukraine and the registration of all youth during the reintroduction of conscription. The Left Party also supports the governments multibillion-euro rearmament package and enforces the necessary social cuts in the federal states.

The reason for this all-party coalition for war and cuts lies in the capitalist crisis: on their hunt for profits, the major banks and corporations are willing to walk over dead bodieswith mass layoffs and wage cuts at home and military violence abroad. As in the 20th century, capitalism is leading once again to barbarism and war.

The government claims it is defending peace and human rights, but this is refuted daily by its own breaches of international law and by its support for the terrible genocide in Gaza. The horrendous defence expenditures are also not about securing our defence, but about aggressive economic and great power politics. Workers and youth have nothing to win in these wars, but everything to lose. They pay with mass layoffs, education cuts and ultimately with their lives. Consequently, the movement against conscription must be a movement against capitalism.

Our allies in the fight against conscription are therefore not the careerists of the youth organisations of precisely those parties driving rearmament forward, but workers all over the world who are now entering into struggles against the cuts. Especially in the US, the centre of world capitalism, a wave of protest has developed against the ICE gestapo. Now, tens of thousands of nurses in New York and California have also gone on strike and many workers are demanding a general strike against Trumps government of the financial oligarchy.

This is the social force that can defeat American imperialism! And here, too, it is transport workers, factory workers, teachers, nurses and all other sections of the working class who can paralyse the country and stop militarism. The mass protests in Minneapolis and beyond show this.

But this requires that we work completely independently of all capitalist parties and oppose every form of nationalism and chauvinism. Precisely by fighting against the warmongers in our own country, we ally ourselves with workers and youth in the US, in Russia, Ukraine and all over the world.

Therefore, we call for the building of independent rank-and-file action committees in neighbourhoods, schools and workplaces, which network immediately internationally and organise the fight against war and capitalism themselves. These committees must work according to the following principles:

The fight against conscription must be a fight against war and its root: capitalism.

The fight against conscription must be completely independent of all capitalist parties and organisations. It must orient itself instead to the working class, which is the only force that has no interest in war and is capable of overthrowing capitalism.

The fight against conscription must be international. We must not subordinate ourselves to our own ruling class but must ally ourselves with workers in the US, Russia and all over the world.

To fight for this orientation, it is crucial to build the IYSSE (International Youth and Students for Social Equality) as a revolutionary youth organisation. We address no fruitless appeals to the rulers, but fight for the overthrow of capitalism, which has nothing left to offer us youth but environmental destruction, barbarism and war. We are the youth organisation of the Fourth International, which has defended socialist principles against social democracy and Stalinism.

We want to discuss this perspective online with all those interested on Wednesday, February 18, at 6:30 p.m. Register now at iysse.de to participate!
The German-American historian Jochen Hellbeck has written an important book. In clear and engaging language and with great empathy for the Soviet people, it deliberately opposes the efforts to minimize the crimes of Nazism and the decisive contribution of the Red Army and the Soviet people to the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. Central to Hellbecks analysis is the link between Nazi anti-Semitism and anti-Communism.

Red Army soldiers in the battle of Stalingrad [Photo by Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-E0406-0022-001 / CC BY-SA 3.0

Hellbeck, a distinguished professor at Rutgers University in the US state of New Jersey, is a renowned expert of Soviet history. He has made his reputation as a historian primarily through his work in Russian archives, concentrating on the diary entries of ordinary workers and soldiers. In particular, he has done extensive work on the battle of Stalingrad, resulting in a book that has been translated into multiple languages. He was also involved in the discovery and first-time edition of the original version of Vasily Grossmans seminal novel, Stalingrad.

Hellbeck's new book has appeared first in a German edition under the title A War Like No Other: The German War of Annihilation against the Soviet Union. A Revision (Ein Krieg wie kein anderer. Der deutsche Vernichtungskrieg gegen die Sowjetunion. Eine Revision). The English edition has a different and more significant title: World Enemy Number 1, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Fate of the Jews. Hellbecks central thesis is that the Nazis principal enemy was Bolshevism and that anti-Communism was the driving force behind its crusade against both the Soviet Union and the Jewish population of Europe.

The cover of the English edition of Hellbecks book

Hitlers own fanatic hostility toward the Jews and communism was formed in response to the October Revolution and the German Revolution of 1918. Hellbeck writes:

He had been a fierce anti-Semite from early on in his life, but it was only with his embrace of anti-Bolshevik thought in the aftermath of World War I that his hatred of Jews became an ideology. To Hitler, Bolshevism evoked not only Soviet Communism, but the nefarious goals of Jews, who had created Marxism and seized the Kremlin in a bid to invade Germany and all of Europe. (pp. 2-3; all citations refer to: Jochen Hellbeck, World Enemy No. 1. Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia and the Fate of the Jews, Picador 2025).

His analysis in this regard coincides with the assessment of Hitler by his early biographer Konrad Heiden:

It was not Rothschild the capitalist, but Karl Marx the socialist who fueled Adolf Hitler's anti-Semitism.

Countering historical falsification and war propaganda

Hellbecks book is especially relevant today. It has been published in the fourth year of the war in Ukraine, which is being used by NATO and especially the German government for unprecedented military armament and war propaganda. As in the First and Second World Wars, Western powers conjure up a supposed threat from the East in order to prepare the whole of society for a war against Russia. According to the European parliamentarian Dennis Radtke (CDU) on X: The Russians are at the gates. The right decision would be conscription for everybody.

Hellbeck himself places his book in this political context, noting that historical truth had become a victim of the war.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the European Union began to absorb most East European states and some former Soviet Republics. The EU, with Germany to the fore, deliberately adopted the anti-communism of the ruling elites of the new EU members in order to assert its own superpower interests. For Germany in particular, it was very convenient to hide behind the national memory of the small states of Eastern Europe, which portrayed themselves as victims of the Soviet Union. At the same time, the bourgeoisie of Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic states and Finland, could play down or completely deny their own role in the murder of Jews alongside the Nazis.

Hellbeck notes critically that on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of WWII the EU passed a resolution, introducing the European Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Stalinism and National Socialism, held on August 23, the anniversary of the Hitler-Stalin Pact. Its political purpose was to rewrite the history of the Second World War by relativizing the Holocaust and shifting blame for war crimes onto the Soviet Union. The EU resolution even called for a second Nuremberg Trial  this time to investigate the historic crimes of the Soviet Union! (p. 515)

The German government, in particular, was glad to pick up this line, which allowed for the minimization of the crimes of Nazism. In a recent example of this process, in 2025, the German Foreign Ministry excluded the ambassadors of Russia and Belarus from the main commemoration held in Germany of the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War on May 8.

In the conclusion, Hellbeck insists:

Historical truth is not subject to negotiation. Historians must not yield to political pressures of the present day. Only then can the writing of history become a basis for meaningful discussion and dialogue in tomorrow's world. (P. 425)

This principled stance distinguishes Hellbeck from the dominant majority in his profession. Figures like Timothy Snyder at Yale University, the author of Bloodlands, have exploited their academic prestige to bolster the war propaganda through historical falsifications. In Germany, historians such as Jorg Baberowski at the Humboldt University, are rewriting the history of fascism and WWII to present the Soviet Union as either jointly responsible for the war or, echoing the thesis of the discredited historian Ernst Nolte from the 1980s, to describe the crimes of fascism as an understandable and justifiable response to communism.

As Hellbeck put it in one interview, he turns Nolte on his head. Instead of denying the connection between fascism and communism  which historically did, of course, exist  he shows how the Nazi regime plotted and perpetrated its worst crimes in an effort to wipe out the communist movement and the legacy of the October revolution.

The Nazis targeting of communism

The English title of Hellbecks book is based on a 1936 Nazi exhibition entitled, World Enemy Number One  Bolshevism. The exhibition sought to present the Bolsheviks as sadistic sub-humans and following the party conference, it toured through no less than 64 German towns.

Hellbeck explains that anti-communism and the economic impetus to acquire living space in the East, as described in Hitlers Mein Kampf, and not anti-semitism per se, constituted the driving force behind the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. He underlines this point by citing the guidelines read out to German troops by their commanders on June 2, 1941, on the eve of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union:

Bolshevism is the mortal enemy of the National-Socialist German people. Germany's struggle is directed against this subversive worldview and its bearers. This struggle demands ruthless and energetic drastic action against Bolshevik agitators, irregulars, saboteurs, Jews and complete elimination of any active or passive resistance. (quoted on p. 116)

In chapter after chapter Hellbeck describes the monstrous brutality with which the Wehrmacht hunted down and murdered Jewish-Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union.

Nazi troops advance during Operation Barbarossa

For instance, Hellbeck cites from a letter written by Walter Mattner, a 36-year-old police administrator from October 5, 1941:

For the first truckload my hand trembled lightly when shooting, but one gets used to it. By the time the tenth truck arrived I was aiming steadily and fired without hesitating at the many women, children and infants. [...] The infants flew in a wide arc through the air and we blew them away while still in flight, before they fell into the water in the pit. Lets get rid of this brood which has plunged all Europe into war, and is still warmongering in America until it drags them into the war as well. (p. 133)

Hellbeck also describes how a member of the Propaganda Department of Operation Cottbus, the code name for the mass repression of partisans and civilians in Soviet Belarus, complained to his senior officer. What made him angry was not the mass murder of civilians identified as alleged partisans, but rather the swath of destruction left by soldiers who had looted the farms and premises of their victims. According to the complaint of this soldier, The senseless killing of livestock is highly objectionable and must be severely censured. (p. 284).

The advances of the German Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front in 1941 [Photo by Gdr / CC BY-SA 3.0

These craven acts of violence were not only permitted but ordered by the highest ranks of the Nazi party. Indeed, the Nazis deliberately planned to reduce the Slavic population by thirty million people.

The Soviet war effort against Nazi Germany

Drawing upon a host of original material, primarily, but not only from Russian sources, Hellbeck presents the neglected standpoint of the Soviet soldiers and civilians who opposed the Nazis. Hellbecks conclusions based on his intensive research in both Russian and German archives demolish the arguments of all those who seek to draw an equal sign between communism and fascism.

Hellbecks book is at its best when it shows how the self-sacrificing resistance of the Soviet population and the courageous struggle conducted by the Soviet Red Army were nourished by the ideals and goals of the October Revolution. Despite the Great Terror and forced collectivization before the war, the Soviet people rapidly mobilized to defend the gains of the revolution. The defeat of the Wehrmacht was only possible because of these deeply rooted convictions and what effectively became a revival of the revolutionary struggle of 1917-1921.

Although Stalin had refused to believe the many warnings of an impending Nazi attack, leaving the Soviet Union unprepared on June 22, 1941, within days, hundreds of thousands and even millions of workers rallied to volunteer for the Army. In Leningrad, the city of the 1917 revolution, 100,000 men had reported as volunteers by the afternoon on June 23. By the end of the week, the number had doubled, and one million residents  over one third of the working age population  built the citys fortifications in July. (p. 215)

Hellbeck places special emphasis on the struggle of the partisan movement. For instance, in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, communist partisans in conjunction with the ghetto underground organized the single largest and most successful rescue operation of Jews from a ghetto in all of Nazi occupied Europe.

Maria Bruskina and two of her comrades are marched through Minsk by German troops on October 26, 1941 prior to their public executions. Bruskina carries a sign that reads in German and Russian "We are partisans and have shot at German soldiers". [Photo by Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1972-026-43 / CC BY-SA 3.0

In a particularly powerful passage, he discusses the significance and impact of the Nazi murder of the young partisan Maria Bruskina. A committed communist, she was a member of the first generation born after 1917. She was executed alongside her comrades on October 26, 1941. Hellbeck notes,

Exceptional as her heroism may seem, Maria Bruskina was one of many young Soviet people who resolved to stand up to the German occupants no matter what the cost. They saw themselves as defenders of humanity against the depravity of the Germans. The occupiers made a point of singling out the female resisters, portraying them as callous Bolsheviks, bereft of femininity. Maria responded to these provocations by walking proudly to her death, her head held high. The photographs that were meant to taunt and vilify inadvertently became documentary proof of her dignity and equanimity in the face of death. As the story of Maria Bruskina's death spread through Minsk, it spurred others to action. (p. 203)

Inspired by the Soviet victory at Stalingrad in early 1943, Soviet prisoners of war and forced laborers in concentration camps began to link up and sought to organize strikes and other acts of sabotage. The victory at Stalingrad also inspired workers in Britain and other countries. Although this fact is largely ignored today, throughout the winter of 1942-1943, the eyes of all class-conscious workers in Britain and the United States were set on Stalingrad. So immense was the enthusiasm and attention over the Soviet struggle that Winston Churchill feared that it could lead Britons to forget the dangers of Communism. (Quoted p. 246)

The center of the city of Stalingrad after liberation from the German occupation.

Anti-communism and the rewriting of history

Hellbeck traces the current efforts to minimize the contributions of the Soviet Union to the defeat of Nazism to a decades-long history of anti-Communism. For many years, Britain, France and the US, were little concerned with Adolf Hitlers threats of war as long as they concerned the Soviet Union. As late as the fall of 1941, they were more inclined to believe the propaganda of Goebbels than Soviet reports of Nazi atrocities on Soviet soil. While Hellbeck does not spell it out, it is clear that, fundamentally, they shared the Nazis violent hostility to the October Revolution and the socialist workers movement.

Hellbeck documents the early frictions between the erstwhile Allies  the US, France, and Britain on the one hand, and the Soviet Union on the other  as the war drew to a close. Tellingly, in his speech on the Iron Curtain, delivered in the midst of the Nuremberg Trials, Churchill took up a metaphor of Goebbels from the spring of 1945, who had sought to rally the Western allies in support of Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union. With the beginning of the Cold War, the decisive role of the Soviet Union in the war was increasingly denied. Even the central role of the USSR in the Nuremberg Trials, for which the Soviet side compiled by far the largest amount of evidence, was downplayed. The Soviet Union was also the only state involved in the Nuremberg Trials to invite Jewish witnesses to the stand and insist that the entire German state apparatus and the army be indicted as criminal organizations.

Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, more attention was, very belatedly, paid to the deliberate genocide of the Jews, but even then, the prevailing anti-Communism marred this field of research. Hellbeck correctly criticizes the fact that Holocaust studies were, early on, shaped by an indifference to and even denial of the centrality of anti-Communism to the Nazis anti-Semitism and broader worldview. As an example for the systematic diminution of the role of Soviet Russia and communists as principal targets of Nazism, Hellbeck cites the well known text by the German theologian Martin Niemoller:

When the Nazis took the communists, I remained silent; I was no communist.

When they imprisoned the social democrats, I remained silent; I was no social democrat.

When they took the trade unionists, I remained silent; I was no trade unionist.

When they took the Jews, I remained silent; I was no Jew.

When they took me, there was no one left to protest.

Hellbeck explains that the quote originates with the tour of Niemoller in post-war Germany when he implored his fellow countrymen to acknowledge their collective guilt for the crimes of Nazism. There are different versions of this speech, but in every single one of them, he named the communists first. Yet today, this fact is often ignored, especially in the US.

when invoking the theologian, multiple American politicians, as well as an encyclopedia of the Holocaust, moved the Jews from the last to first place, First they came for the Jews. (p. 11)

The current website of the US Holocaust Museum confirms Hellbecks claim. The website states in its overhead: The Nazis considered Jews to be their number one enemy. In seventh place on the list is the category political opponents and dissenters in Germany. Only by scrolling down to this section can one find a mention of communists and social democrats.

Stalinism, communism and the Second World War

A caveat regarding Hellbecks work is necessary at this point. While his emphasis on Nazi anti-communism and ideology is important, he only mentions the economic motivations for the Nazis quest to conquer the Soviet Union in passing. Similarly, despite his insistence on the centrality of anti-Communism, the term capitalism is basically not mentioned. Although he does not explicitly articulate his conception of fascism, he clearly rejects the Marxist, materialist analysis of fascism as an outgrowth of the crisis of capitalism.

But the most fundamental flaw of his work is his false identification of the Stalinist regime with the aims of the October revolution and communism. While Hellbeck does deal with Stalins role as the initiator of the Moscow Trials in the Great Terror and the purges of the Red Army, with its disastrous consequences for the struggle against Hitler fascism, he tends to downplay Stalins role in creating the path for the disaster of fascism. He makes but two cursory references to Leon Trotsky, the principal socialist opponent of Stalin, and presents the differences between Stalin and Trotsky, rather carelessly, as a clash of personalities. His only references in these passages go to works by Stephen Kotkin whose Stalin biography contains well-documented, flagrant errors.

As a result, Hellbecks sincere empathy with the heroic struggle and the suffering of the Soviet people at times leads to formulations that serve to minimize the crimes of Stalinism and adapt the line of argumentation of the latter. Hellbecks false equation of Stalinism with communism and internationalism significantly weakens his account at important points, above all in his discussion of Soviet war-time propaganda and the role of the Soviet journalist Ilya Ehrenburg.

Ehrenburg, along with Vasily Grossman, was the most important war correspondent of the Red Army. His reports were read by millions and also carefully perused by Stalin. They contributed to the war effort and the first documentation of Nazi war crimes, including the Holocaust. This role has often been neglected, not least because Ehrenburg became mostly associated with a very influential pamphlet in which he explicitly called upon the Red Army to exact revenge on the Germans and to kill every German they saw.

Ilya Ehrenburg with Red Army soldiers, 1942

Hellbecks discussion of Ehrenburg is nuanced and highly informative. Yet his explanation for both Ehrenburgs calls for revenge and the broader policy of revenge by the Kremlin is marred by his overall approach. Countering the attempts by figures such as Timothy Snyder to exploit the attacks on German civilians, including the rapes of women, for right-wing propaganda, Hellbeck argues that the experience of the horrors of German fascism played a significant role in animating the search for revenge by Red Army soldiers advancing to Berlin.

This is no doubt the case and Hellbecks implicit critique of political attempts to exploit these attacks for right-wing propaganda is to be commended. But this does not change the fact that from the standpoint of Marxism and class politics, the Soviet governments deliberate encouragement of a policy of revenge was a violation of the most fundamental principles of working class internationalism. Hellbeck ignores this point and insists at many points that the Soviet government maintained an internationalist line throughout the war. Meanwhile, he largely omits the fact that the war also involved the glorification of Tsarist-era generals and the rehabilitation of the Orthodox Church.

Moreover, while he describes the policy of revenge largely as a response to popular sentiments, he ignores the fact that the political motivations on the part of the Kremlin were of a different character. For the bureaucracy the claim of collective guilt of the Germans and the need for revenge was also a means to divert attention from and cover up its own role in the disaster of 1933: As Trotsky scathingly analyzed, the Stalinist line of orienting the Communist Party of Germany toward a struggle against social fascism  that is the Social Democratic Party  instead of forming a united front with social democratic workers against Hitler, proved fatal for the working class of Germany and the entire continent. Moreover, especially in 1944-1945, it served to divide and demobilize workers on both the Soviet and the German side as the advance of the Red Army was accompanied by growing social struggles across the continent.

As the Red Army moved into Germany, the Kremlin was still oriented toward an alliance with the imperialist powers. It was concerned that the essentially revolutionary struggle of the Red Army in defense of the gains of the October Revolution would threaten its rule at home and encourage a revolutionary mobilization of workers in Europe. This is, indeed, what occurred, including in Germany. The response by the Stalinist bureaucracy was to stifle and constrain the initiative of the working class as much as it possibly could.

Conclusion

Despite these reservations, Hellbecks book marks an important intellectual development and deserves a wide readership. US President Donald Trump, who is openly placing himself in the tradition of fascist ideology and frequently rails against communism and Marxism, is mobilizing fascist thugs against immigrant and native-born workers in Minnesota and other parts of the country. The Democratic Partys response to it has been to roll over and do everything it can to contain popular anger. Under these conditions, Hellbecks detailed account of not only fascist anti-Communism but also the anti-Communism of liberalism, which has served to conceal, minimize and distort significant aspects of the crimes of Nazism, is of immense value to the working class.
On Friday, 33-year-old Palestinian immigrant Leqaa Kordia, who has been held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for nearly a year, was hospitalized after falling at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas.

Although ICE has only confirmed her hospitalization, a formerly detained person said that Kordia suffered a medical emergency after she fainted, struck her head and experienced a seizure.

Her attorneys and family have described a desperate effort to locate her, calling at least 16 hospitals in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, all of which said they had no record of her as a patient. Advocacy groups note that during nearly a year in ICE custody she has repeatedly suffered dizziness, fainting episodes and other symptoms of malnutrition and medical neglect, which are well documented in Prairieland and other ICE facilities.

Leqaa Kordia [Photo: CAIR]

The secrecy surrounding her whereabouts and health condition is a calculated exercise in terror against Kordia and her loved ones and all those who oppose Washingtons partnership in Israels genocide in Gaza.

Kordias ordeal began when she joined the mass protests at Columbia University against Israels war on Gaza, despite not being a student there. She was working as a waitress in Paterson, New Jersey, and traveled to New York to participate in the encampment and demonstrations demanding an end to the genocide and divestment from Israel, driven by the fact that nearly 200 members of her extended family have been killed in Gaza.

She was arrested at a pro-Palestinian protest at Columbia in 2024, one of scores swept up by police in coordinated assaults on activists on campus. The local protest-related charges were subsequently dropped, a tacit recognition that she posed no threat and had engaged in constitutionally protected speech and assembly.

But on March 1314, 2025, when she appeared for what was presented as a routine, voluntary immigration check-in at an ICE office in Newark, New Jersey, she was seized. ICE agents took her from the building, placed her in an unmarked vehicle, and transferred her more than 1,500 miles away in rural Texas at the Prairieland Detention Facility, a notorious private lockup used to isolate immigrants and political detainees from their communities and legal support.

This methodluring people to check-ins or interviews and then disappearing them into distant detention centershas become a standard tactic in the criminalization of immigrant workers and, increasingly, of political opponents of US policy. In Kordias case, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asserts that she overstayed a student visa, yet she had lived in the United States since 2016 and believed, on advice regarding her mothers US citizenship and her pending status, that she complied with the law.

The legal record in Kordias case exposes the lawless character of her detention. An immigration judge has twice found that she should be released, ruling that she is not a flight risk and poses no danger to the community. Nonetheless, DHS and ICE have repeatedly used administrative stays and appeals to override those decisions and keep her imprisoned.

In January, Texas lawmakers described her ongoing incarceration as illegal, punitive, and shameful, in a letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, explicitly linking it to her political activity and warning that it is part of an assault on First Amendment rights by the Trump administration.

Her attorneys have filed a habeas corpus petition in federal court, arguing that her continued detention despite judicial orders violates her First Amendment rights to free speech and protest and her Fifth Amendment rights to due process and freedom from arbitrary punishment.

The government has responded with McCarthyite smears. DHS and Noem have accused Kordia of having ties to terrorist activities and Hamas and claimed that money she sent to her family in Gaza constitutes material support for terrorism. Noem declared that those who advocate for violence and terrorism should lose the privilege of a visa. This language is meant to criminalize any denunciation of Israels war crimes and to intimidate millions who oppose the genocide.

In an op-ed for USA Today last month, Kordia explained the real content of her detention. Through my continued detention, the Trump administration aims to send a chilling message: People who speak out for Palestinian rights or criticize Israel will face retribution, she wrote. She stressed that her case is not an aberration but part of the relentless assault on rule of law and human rights that has accompanied the bipartisan support for Israels war.

According to Gaza health authorities, at least 72,027 Palestinians have been killed and 171,651 wounded since October 7, 2023, in Israels US-backed assaulta campaign that is genocidal not only in scale, but in its systematic destruction of housing, hospitals, schools and the means of life. Even after a nominal ceasefire in October 2025, hundreds more have been killed and thousands wounded, while the remaining hospitals function as little more than waiting rooms for the dying.

Kordias case is lesser known than those of Columbia students Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi, whose ICE detentions provoked international outrage. Khalil, a lawful permanent resident and student organizer, was held for more than 100 days before a federal judge ordered his release, while Mahdawi was kidnapped by ICE at a citizenship appointment and held for over two weeks in 2025.

Khalil remains in the US while his immigration case continues, with the Trump administration attempting to arrest and deport him. He is also a defendant in a civil suit brought by October 7 attack victims against several proPalestinian groups.

Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian Columbia student living in Vermont, was seized by Homeland Security agents in April 2025 just after passing his naturalization exam and taking the oath, on claims that his presence posed a serious foreignpolicy concern. After his lawyers filed a habeas petition, a federal judge ordered his release on bond, stressing the harm caused by his twoweek detention. He now lives in Vermont, can travel to New York for studies and legal meetings, and must comply with the requirements of immigration courts and federal courts while his removal case and broader legal challenge proceed.

When she was arrested, Kordia was a waitress in a Middle Eastern restaurant in Paterson, supporting herself and helping care for her autistic brother.

In response to her detention and isolation, support for Kordia has grown. Her case has been taken up by Muslim Advocates, Amnesty International, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and the Texas Civil Rights Project, which have all condemned her detention as retaliatory and unlawful.

In January, 34 Texas state legislators led by Representative Salman Bhojani signed a letter demanding her immediate release, calling her imprisonment part of a broader crackdown on free speech and the criminalization of peaceful protest. Members of Congress from New Jersey and Maryland have also written to DHS and ICE, stressing that she is being punished for an honest mistake over her visa and for participating in a peaceful, nonviolent demonstration to honor her loved ones.

On Friday, as news of her hospitalization emerged, family members, Texas lawmakers and supporters rallied outside the Prairieland facility to demand her immediate release and information about her condition. Her attorney read a statement from Kordia to the crowd, in which she linked her suffering to that of the people of Gaza and denounced the attempt to silence her.

In her defiant statement she insisted that she had done nothing wrong, that her only crime was to speak openly about the genocide that murdered her relatives, and that she would not recant her opposition to Israels crimes or the US governments complicity. She called on others not to be intimidated by her imprisonment and to continue the struggle for Palestinian freedom and for the rights of immigrants and workers in the United States.

Born in the occupied West Bank, Kordia came to the United States in 2016 on a student visa and later lived in Paterson, a working-class city in northern New Jersey with a large Arab and Muslim population. Her mother is a US citizen, and Kordia believedincorrectly, as the government now claimsthat seeking permanent residency through her mother meant she remained in lawful status even after she withdrew from formal studies.

In her USA Today op-ed, written from detention, Kordia explained that her case shows how immigration enforcement has been weaponized to punish dissent and to intimidate Palestinians and their supporters from speaking out. She appealed to everyone across the country to recognize that their own democratic rights are bound up with the fight against the Gaza genocide and the machinery of deportations, detention centers and police repression inside the United States.

The fight to free Leqaa Kordia, a political prisoner in the US, must be taken up by the American and international working class as part of the struggle against war, racism and authoritarianism. Her immediate release, the dropping of all proceedings against her and full redress for the crimes committed by ICE and DHS must become demands in the movement against Trumps dictatorship and the capitalist system that sponsors it.
A section of the Melbourne protest againstIsraeli President Isaac Herzog's visit to Australia, February 9, 2026

Yesterday, tens of thousands of workers and young people joined protests across Australia, opposing the visit by Israeli President Isaac Herzog and the ongoing complicity of the federal Labor government in the genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. Herzog was invited by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese under the pretext of providing support to the Jewish community after the Bondi Beach terror attack.

In fact, the December mass shooting has been used by state and federal Labor governments as an excuse to impose harsh new laws restricting freedom of speech and criminalising protest, particularly targeting pro-Palestinian demonstrations. In Sydney, hundreds of police including riot squads were deployed to prevent demonstrators from marching, in line with anti-protest legislation rammed through parliament late last year by the New South Wales (NSW) Labor government of Premier Chris Minns.

World Socialist Web Site reporters spoke with workers and young people at the protests in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.

A young worker said he had come to the Sydney protest to oppose: The actions of the government inviting a war criminal who has incited genocide and the fact that we want to continue relations with a state that is currently enacting genocide on another country.

Theyre invoking extra police forces and extra laws, because they know that what theyre doing is not good.

He had been following the mass demonstrations in the US against anti-immigrant raids, deportations and state murder of protesters and said: Its terrible whats going on in Minneapolis. Its just straight-up fascism and abuse of the populace. People are scared of being shot and killed.

The worker noted the parallel between the Trump administrations brutal repression of dissent and the attack on the right to protest being spearheaded in Australia by the NSW Labor government: Here, theyre trying to disincentivise people from protesting with fines and move-on orders. It comes from the same machine of trying to repress the working class, to elevate the rich.

Georgina, who works in community housing in the Central Coast region north of Sydney, told the WSWS:

I think that the decision to invite Herzog here was the wrong decision. We shouldnt be bringing in somebody who has actually signed bombs and is a war criminal basically. He made comments about there being no civilians in Gaza, and he has certainly been really involved with the taking of land from Palestinians in the West Bank.

She denounced the Albanese government for still saying that they havent been doing anything that was supporting the war. Whether its parts for engines, for aircraft that have been bombing people in Gaza, or being complicit through silence, if youre not standing up, youre on the side of the oppressor.

Even though Im from the Central Coast and there were protests in Newcastle and Wyong, I thought it was really important to come to this one in Sydney around that whole law thats been bought in by the Minns government to quash protestspeaceful protests.

Even people who were involved with the terrible, terrible tragedy that happened in Bondi have said in interviews that theyre bad laws. Both our federal and state governments have made a terrible decision I think in rushing these laws through.

Joan said Herzog had incited genocide against the Palestinians, and its outrageous that the Australian government has invited him to come here. I think its obviously a bad decision, but I feel like its based on the belief that as a mid-sized country, we need to ally with the superpower, the US, and Israel.

Theyre conflating Judaism with the state of Israel and it is just wrong. It puts Jewish people across the world in danger from conflating a religion with a genocidal political movement.

Joan explained that she had to skirt police blockades to attend the protest: I arrived initially at the north end, but it was blocked by police, and essentially I circled Town Hall until I found an entrance on the southwest side and then managed to get in. But I can see around me now, the police are still blocking a lot of protesters from entering.

It seems blatantly illegal, but Im also a mindful that the Minns government has won in court, I think about an hour ago, to grant police unprecedented rights, and I think its disgusting.

Protesters in Sydney hold placards denouncing Labor governments support for genocide

Karl, a retired IT worker, told the WSWS: Im here today because I dont agree with the Australian Labor government inviting a war criminal to this country. Even though Ive been watching with growing concern Israels genocide against the Palestinian people, and have seen the rallies on the news, this is the first pro-Palestine protest that Ive attended.

For Albanese to invite Herzog here is completely wrongit was a line in the sand for meand I just had to come here and be part of the opposition. How can they do such a thing?

Im originally from Ireland and went back there in October 2025. There was a big march down OConnell Street in Dublin while I was there, and I spoke to quite a few people who were all saying the same things about Israel that the people here are talking about. They were marching because they opposed the suffering and the killing of thousands of Palestiniansmen, women, and innocent children. They were also protesting the wholesale theft of Palestinian land by settlers, which has been going on for decades and is in violation of all international norms and human rights.

Im angry that the Australian government invited Herzog, who is an accused war criminal, and I know that the majority in Ireland would be really shocked by this. The Irish people refuse to believe the media lies about Gaza. The populationwho know quite a bit about colonial oppressiondo not agree with what Israel is doing. They have some firsthand experience with these sorts of issues.

Teresa, a retired teacher at the Melbourne rally, said: The Labor government has been deaf to the word of the people about not having Herzog here. We dont want him here. Its appalling to invite someone with his involvement with the Zionist movement to come here to offer grief support when his country is creating so much grief.

Teresa

There are so many people hereI think its fantastic. Theyre all different ages and races, people have come out in full force with their banners and its exhilarating to see when you look around the world whats happening. This is a really positive.

Asked about the attacks on free speech Teresa said, Our liberties are being eroded and its not slow anymore. I think its quite disturbing and especially whats happening in other parts of the world. In the United States whats happened with ICE and how the United States president seems to be able to say whatever he likes but everyone else has to be super, super careful. It could very easily happen here and thats really scary.

Daniella, a student at RMIT who works part time as a security guard, said, I dont think our country should support genocide and our leaders shouldnt be inviting over genocidal freaks. I dont want our country to have diplomacy with any country that is exterminating another people. I actually came today because of the new laws, the anti-protest laws. I havent been to a protest in a long while but now Im hearing we cant say this and that, okay now Ill show up.

Michelle

Michelle, a retired teacher, said, I think its so important that we show our anger at the fact that Herzogs been asked to come to Australia when we know about the terrible things that have been perpetrated upon the Gazan population. That our government would invite someone who has signed bombs that he knows are going to injure innocent civilians is really terrible.

As a democracy none of us would have wanted this and if wed had a chance to be asked our opinions my guess is that the vast majority of Australians would say we dont want Herzog in Australia.

Why were they so insistent on doing this sort of an action? Supposedly theyre arguing social cohesion, well, its exactly the opposite. Its just going to fracture people more and its not what people need after that terrible tragedy. This is not what Australians wantto have someone whos involved in such atrocities coming over here and being given the red carpet.
Police block protesters near Sydney Town Hall, February 9, 2026

Last night, police in Sydney carried out a massive mobilisation against a peaceful protest opposing the visit to Australia by Israeli president and war criminal Isaac Herzog. A deployment involving hundreds of police culminated in cops indiscriminately pepper-spraying, bashing and charging at the demonstrators.

The protest in Sydney was part of a nationwide event opposing Herzog, attended by more than 20,000 in Melbourne, some 10,000 in Sydney, 5,000 in Brisbane and thousands more in other capital cities and regional centres.

Footage that has gone viral on social media shows multiple clear-cut assaults perpetrated by the police in Sydney.

In one video, a middle-aged man with his hands up is repeatedly punched to the midriff by a riot cop. Another shows two police officers pinning down a young man and punching him in the back. In a third, a group of Muslim men praying in Town Hall Square are set upon, interrupted and dragged along the ground for no apparent reason.

Numbers of participants have likened the rampage to the actions of the US administration of President Donald Trump in Minneapolis, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have carried out a reign of terror, including the murder of two people and violent attacks against many others.

The violence in Sydney was planned and orchestrated by Labor governments, at the federal level and in New South Wales (NSW).

The invitation to Herzog was extended by Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, despite the fact that a United Nations inquiry found that the Israeli president incited genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. Albanese and every other Labor leader has insisted that Herzog must be respected and have fraudulently presented his trip as an opportunity for him to mourn the victims of the December 14 terrorist attack in Bondi.

Part of the protest in Sydney on February 9, 2026

The real purpose of the visit, to forcibly suppress mass opposition to the genocide and to normalise war crimes, was on full display last night.

In the lead-up, the NSW Labor government had invoked extraordinary legislation that it passed in the wake of the Bondi attack, providing the states police commissioner with the power to ban protest marches for up to three months in the wake of a terrorism designation. Political protests and marches in Sydney have now been banned for over seven weeksa level of the suppression of freedom of speech almost unprecedented since during World War II.

Then on Saturday, the state administration announced the use of other laws, declaring Herzogs visit a major event. That was aimed at strengthening the ban on a march and activating draconian provisions under which police could control access to almost the entire Sydney central business district and its eastern suburbs.

The major event declaration was the subject of legal challenge by lawyers representing the Palestine Action Group, who stated that it was an attempt by the government to block a planned protest from Town Hall to the NSW parliament. The challenge noted that the legislation referenced tickets, spectators and advertisers, underscoring that its purpose was to administer sporting events, concerts and the like. The legislation includes a specific clause that it not be invoked to block political protest.

In a highly-political decision, Supreme Court Justice Justice Robertson Wright rejected the challenge. During the proceedings, he had invoked the Bondi attack as pointing to the dangers of violence, although it was unrelated to pro-Palestinian protests.

Wright referenced an offer by the NSW government and police for a static protest to be held in Hyde Park, which organisers had rejected because it would scarcely be visible to the general public.

The decision sets a precedent whereby the NSW government, presiding over Sydney, the countrys largest city, can describe any political visit or gathering as a major event to prohibit demonstrations against it. Were the fascist Trump to visit Australia, it is entirely foreseeable that a similar declaration would be issued.

The decision meant that the protest was restricted to Town Hall Square, which was surrounded on all sides by riot police. Many demonstrators were prevented from entering the Square, without reason. A police helicopter hovered low over the crowd, preventing many of the speeches from being heard. Cops were also spotted on the rooftops of neighbouring office towers, with suggestions they may have been snipers.

After a series of speeches, the crowd was blocked from marching in the direction of the state parliament. Many of the police appeared agitated and aggressive, as though they were spoiling for a fight, which is what transpired with the series of unprovoked and violent attacks.

Police block protesters from joining rally outside Town Hall in Sydney, February 9, 2026

No less significant than that display was the political response. Prime Minister Albanese immediately defended the cops, declaring the protesters had been told they would not be allowed to march. NSW Premier Chris Minns denounced the demonstrators as violent, without a skerrick of evidence. He responded to the shock produced by videos of cops punching defenceless people by insisting that context may have been missing from the clips.

The statements of Albanese and Minns are of an authoritarian character, and signal an offensive against any social and political opposition.

The atmosphere they have whipped up has been made clear by the response of far-right figures, who have lauded the police rampage. Former Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott hailed the fact that the police were finally taking on the pro-terrorist protesters, who had marched against the Gaza genocide for the previous two years. Its about time the fight back began. It began last night.

Abbott blurted out the real content of the cynical invocations of social cohesion by Labor and the entire political establishment, to blackguard and delegitimise the mass hostility to Israeli war crimes.

As for Herzog, he abandoned any pretense that his visit was an apolitical display of mourning, as it had been presented by a complicit media. Speaking at Sydneys International Convention Centre last night, he blamed opponents of the war crimes in Gaza for the Bondi attack. Alongside Zionist leaders, he presented references to genocide and aparthied, charges levelled against Israel by every authoritative human rights group in the world, as antisemitic.

In the context of the open embrace of genocide, militarism and police-state repression, the most striking aspect of the speeches at the Sydney rally was their paucity.

Several Palestinian activists spoke about the atrocities committed in Palestine. Jewish journalist Antony Lowenstein refuted the conflation of Zionism and Judaism.

But the event as a whole was bereft of analysis, let alone a perspective to fight imperialism and authoritarianism. Virtually no attempt was made by the speakers to refute the pretext for Herzogs visit, namely that it was a response to the Bondi attack.

Speaker after speaker led the crowd in chants of arrest Herzog, without addressing the reality that the Labor governments are not about to detain the war criminal, but are instead feting him.

Federal Greens parliamentarian Mehreen Faruqi denounced Labors lack of morality. But she made no explanation as to why the Greens frequently collaborate with Labor. That included welcoming its calling of a Royal Commission in to the Bondi attack, under conditions where it was crystal clear that it would serve not as an examination of the alleged Islamic State-linked atrocity but as an inquisition against pro-Palestinian sentiment in the universities, schools and elsewhere.

While the Maritime Union of Australia Sydney branch secretary, Paul Keating, blustered against Herzog and the invitation, his union has, for more than two years, rejected calls for industrial action targeting Israeli shipping and trade. The union remains affiliated with the pro-genocide and repressive Labor Party.

The bankruptcy of the perspective dominating the rally was summed up in the organisers decision to provide a platform for Sarah Kaine. She is a member of the very NSW Labor government that has sought to ban protests and aggressively defends Israel. Kaine lamented the Herzog invitation. But as some audience members noted in heckling her, she and other purported Labor dissidents are fully committed to cabinet solidarity. They have voted, in parliament, for the various tranches of anti-protest laws used against the pro-Palestinian movement.

Kaine was welcomed to the stage by Josh Lees, a representative of the Palestine Action Group and a member of Socialist Alternative. Through the genocide, Socialist Alternative and other pseudo-left groups, such as Solidarity and Socialist Alliance, have peddled the lie that Labor can be pressured to end its support for Israel and for police repression through larger demonstrations and moral appeals.

As the events of last night demonstrate, those claims have provided cover for Labor as it has shifted, not to the left, but dramatically to the right. In practice, the pseudo-left has demobilised and politically neutered opposition, creating the conditions for Labor to go on the offensive.

As the Socialist Equality Party has insisted, the fight against the genocide is not a single issue, but must be based on the struggle against the eruption of imperialist militarism globally, of which the atrocities in Palestine are a component. The task is not to appeal to governments, but to organise a political struggle against them through the mobilisation of the working class, including mass industrial action. That must be connected to a socialist perspective directed against the source of the descent into dictatorship and war, the capitalist system.
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Taiwan is publicly rejecting U.S. calls to shift a large share of its chip production to America, while confirming domestic output will continue to grow.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE:TSM) is pressing ahead with new fabs in Arizona alongside high capital spending tied to advanced chips and AI demand.

The company is balancing political pressure, supply security concerns, and its role in the global tech supply chain.

For investors watching Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing at a share price of $355.41, this pushback on large scale offshoring highlights how central NYSE:TSM remains to global chip supply. The stock has seen strong multi period returns, including 4.1% over the past week, 9.8% over the past month, and 72.7% over the past year, with very large gains over 3 years and solid gains over 5 years. Those numbers reflect how closely the market is tying TSM to advanced chips and AI demand.

Looking ahead, the companys decision to expand in both Taiwan and the U.S. keeps production geographically diversified while staying anchored at home. For investors, key questions include how TSMs capital spending, U.S. fab build out, and Taiwans policy stance might affect its cost base, supply reliability, and long term role in the chip supply chain.

Stay updated on the most important news stories for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing by adding it to your watchlist or portfolio. Alternatively, explore our Community to discover new perspectives on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing.

NYSE:TSM Earnings & Revenue Growth as at Feb 2026

How Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing stacks up against its biggest competitors

Quick Assessment

 Price vs Analyst Target : At $355.41 versus a consensus target of about $435.03, the price sits roughly 18% below where analysts are, which leaves a gap to monitor.

 Simply Wall St Valuation : Simply Wall Sts model flags the shares as trading about 46.5% above its estimated fair value.

 Recent Momentum: The 30 day return of about 9.8% shows positive short term momentum as the market reacts to AI and advanced chip demand.

Check out Simply Wall St's in depth valuation analysis for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing.

Key Considerations
The United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment, and Health has published a new report arguing that much of the world has entered into a stage of water bankruptcy where hydrologic systems have reached a persistent post-crisis condition of a humanwater system in which long-term water use has exceeded renewable inflows and safe depletion limits, causing irreversible or effectively irreversible degradation such that previous levels of water supply and ecosystem functions cannot realistically be restored.

This conception highlights serious risks to global water systems that have been compounding over time. For decades, water resource challenges have been framed as crises that can be rectified with appropriate, short term intervention. But the report argues that this approach cannot be sustained, stating that the crisis framework suggests that with more infrastructure, better coordination, and stronger emergency responses, the world can return to a desirable past state. In many systems, however, that past state no longer exists.

Comparing current hydrologic conditions to financial bankruptcy, the report notes that the chronic conditions we observe around the world are the cumulative outcome of decisions that have systematically overspent hydrological capital to the point of no return. As a result, These systems must now be governed on fundamentally different terms.

The withdrawal of groundwater near Lucerne Lake (dry) in San Bernardino County, Mojave Desert, California has caused the land to subside [Photo: Loren Metzger, USGS]

The irreversibility of water bankruptcy is a recurring theme throughout the document. It highlights that billions of people and trillions of dollars in economic activity rely on water systems that simply cannot sustain current usage.

According to the report 2.2 billion people still lack safely managed drinking water, 3.5 billion lack safely managed sanitation, and about 4 billion experience severe water scarcity for at least one month a year; the world has lost 410 million hectares of wetlands; groundwater provides 50 percent of global drinking water and 40 percent of irrigation water while 70 percent of aquifers are facing long term decline; and three billion people and more than half of the worlds agricultural production are in areas where water storage is declining or unstable.

Significantly, while climate change is a major factor in exacerbating water supply and quality issues, the report stresses that water shortages are increasingly shaped not by meteorological anomalies but by cumulative human impacts, referring to these as anthropogenic droughts.

In effect, the report identifies two independent streams of social causation for the crisis in water supply: the indirect effects of climate change, and the direct effects of mismanagement of water systems, through damming or draining lakes, rivers and underground aquifers. Both are the products of the fundamental contradictions of global capitalism: the anarchy of profit-driven capitalist production and the conflicts between rival capitalist nation-states.

From this, the report concludes that extensive changes to the global water system are needed, including recognizing that many parts of the world are living beyond their hydrological needs, rebalancing demand to be more in line with long-term supplies, and restructuring rights and claims on water to align with real supplies with protections for small users and the poor.

It outlines that basic human needs and critical services must be secured with focus on serving low-income, under-privileged, and marginalized communities and reserving water for the environment.

Agriculture takes particular attention as an essential part of the global economy and the source of 70-90 percent of global water consumption. The report notes that improving water efficiency alone is not a solution to water shortages. This is part of a phenomenon known as water spreading in which improvements in irrigation efficiency often lead to the cultivation of more land, ultimately using the same or even more water than before. This is bound up with broader economic conditions in which farmers are seeking to maximize profitsor in the case of millions of impoverished small farms to eke out a modest livingand the potential to conserve water is lost.

To address this issue the report outlines a gradual and planned transition from high water use, low-value crops with support for farmers and investment in broader rural development and economic diversification, noting, Farmers and rural workers need viable alternatives, not only tighter constraints.

More broadly, the report argues, Water bankruptcy governance must avoid solutions that protect high-income users while shifting scarcity onto the poor, especially when often a small number of wealthy interests have the greatest share and control of scarce water resources.

The report is a poignant statement on the disastrous state of global water resource management and the long-term social and environmental damage it is causing. Lakes, rivers and aquifers around the world have been overallocated and overextracted to the point of destruction, often potentially permanent.

In the United States, the Colorado River is estimated to need a reduction in consumption by 25 percent to preserve the water supply for 40 million people and five million acres of farmland. The Ogallala aquifer, which supports millions of acres of farmland from South Dakota to Texas, may be completely drained in some areas by the end of the century with no prospect of restoration for thousands of years.

Cities like Jakarta, Indonesia (40 million) and Mexico City (20 million) are facing rates of land subsidence from groundwater extraction of roughly 10 cm a year. Such unsustainable water extraction and subsidence is permanently reducing water supplies and damaging homes and infrastructure. Subsidence in Jakarta is a factor in the Indonesian governments plans to move its capital to Nusantara, on the island of Borneo.

In South America, melting glaciers, drought, unchecked water use and leaking infrastructure are threatening major cities like La Paz, Bolivia and Bogota, Colombia with reduced storage and unstable supplies. In Uruguay, the capital city Montevideo (1.3 million, 37 percent of the country) was forced to mix its dwindling water supply with salt water in 2023 as it came within days of running out of water. While the immediate cause of the crisis was a major drought, the growth of private irrigation systems and the countrys reliance on agricultural exports set the stage for shortages. Protesters against government policy reportedly used the slogan Its not drought, its pillage.

Most recently, Irans social unrest has been partly fueled by a near total collapse of the water supply for millions of people in Tehran and other cities. Years of drought saw reservoir storage fall to 10 percent of capacity. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in November that if rains did not come past the new year that we must empty Tehran.

In this context the UN report bears immense significance. A complete overhaul of the global economy and natural resource management practices are needed to implement rational, scientific and coordinated global policies to halt climate change and rectify decades of misuse of the worlds water resources before they are permanently damaged or exhausted.

But the solutions the report puts forward are utopian under current conditions. The vision the authors have for restructuring the worlds water management runs head first into the brick wall of capitalist property relations and the nation-state system. It is organically incompatible with a global economic system based on the maximum extraction of profit and the competing interests of rival capitalist classes.

This is exemplified in the failure of world capitalist governments to address global challenges like climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. In both cases capitalist classes across the world have largely abandoned any effort to resolve, let alone mitigate, the extensive social, economic and public health ramifications of these crises.

A similar fate awaits any effort to overhaul global water systems within the capitalist system. As the global capitalist crisis deepens, the mismanagement and overextraction of water resources will only worsen, the UNs vision for global cooperation cannot proceed under conditions in which imperialist conflict is resurgent and semi-colonial nations are pushed by global political and economic pressures to maintain and even expand unsustainable practices.

The crisis of global water bankruptcy, affecting billions of peopleespecially the poorestraises the necessity for the internationalization and rationalization of natural resource management and the elevation of social need over private profit. Such a solution can only be carried out through the expropriation of the capitalist class, the control of water resources by the working class and poor farmers, and the planned management of water and other natural resources in accordance with science.
Chattanooga VW workers [Photo: Volkswagen US Media]

The United Auto Workers announced a sellout tentative agreement last week for about 3,000 workers at the newly unionized Volkswagen Chattanooga, Tennessee factory after more than 500 days of negotiations. While releasing few concrete details, the UAW predictably called the deal historic.

In fact, the 20 percent across-the-board pay raise touted by the UAW is the same miserable offer made by the company last October in its take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum issued to workers. At that time, the UAW leadership deemed this very same wage proposal inadequate and held a much publicized strike vote that was ratified by over two-thirds of the membership. However, no strike deadline was issued and no strike ever took place.

In typical fashion, the UAW has only released vaguely worded and cherry picked highlights of the rest of the tentative contract.

The deal take place in the midst of a continuing bloodbath in the auto industry, and a wider crisis of job losses in the US and internationally hitting broad sections of the working class. The UAW is claiming the new TA contains real job security, but none of the many recent UAW contracts have been able to slow down the closure of plants, elimination of shifts, layoffs and firings. In March 2025, the Chattanooga facility cut one of its three shifts, eliminating jobs and increasing the pressure on the remaining shifts through speed-up and overwork.

At the same time, Stellantis has further extended its reopen date for the shuttered Belvidere, Illinois assembly plant to June 2028, past the May 2028 Big Three contract deadline. The UAW had claimed in 2023 that it won a commitment to reopen Belvidere in 2025.

In December 2024, Volkswagen announced plans to eliminate a third of its German workforce with 35,000 jobs cuts announced just before Christmas. German VW subsidiaries Porsche, Audi, Autovision, and Cariad have recently announced 13,500 job cuts in total. This is part of a larger restructuring of the auto industry worldwide, which is imposing drastic cost-cutting measures on the backs of workers. Under these conditions the UAW bureaucracys promise of real job security cannot be taken seriously.

At no point has the UAW offered solidarity with German VW workers or called for a joint fight to defend jobs and living standards.

On the UAW Facebook page workers expressed their anger at the UAW for failing to protect jobs. And now VW is going to cut a third of its workforce come March read one comment. Lets see how long before they close the plant.

Referring to the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs by Amazon and United Parcel Service, two comments on a Facebook post of a recent Jacobin magazine article praising the VW deal said, Ask UPS if you need clarity. Jacobin, the semi-official organ of the Democratic Socialists of America, praised the TA as a breakthrough for unions in the south. UAW President Shawn Fain has relied on the DSAincluding in his inner circle of advisers and propagandiststo provide a left cover for the UAW bureaucracys betrayals.

VW workers should demand that the UAW immediately release the full tentative agreement. If the self-serving highlights are any indication, the whole contract has the stench of a humiliating surrender. The highlights claim to make healthcare more affordable for workers. What are the details? VW workers should have as much time as possible to study the contract before a ratification vote is held.

Workers cannot rely on the corporatist UAW bureaucracy to protect jobs and ensure fair contracts. For the last half century, living conditions and real wages that were won in struggles fought by workers in the auto industry and other industries have been bargained away by the union apparatus in exchange for positions on corporate boards, company shares and an endless flow of company money into joint programs.

After the bogus stand up strike of 2023, Fain & Co. signed a deal with the Big Three that has paved the way for the destruction of thousands of jobs at GM, Ford and Stellantis. In the beginning of the year, GM eliminated a shift and wiped out 1,100 jobs at its flagship EV plant, Factory Zero, a few miles from the UAW national headquarters in Detroit. UAW officials did not lift a finger to oppose the job cuts or thousands of others at EV battery plants in Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.

At the same time, Fain has been one of the biggest backers of Trumps tariffs and trade war measures, peddling the lie that the destruction of the jobs of tens of thousands of workers in Canada and Mexico is a boon for American workers. In fact, this only drives a wedge between workers and undermines a common fight against the transnational auto companies.

There is no indication that the UAW sought to align the VW contract expiration with the Big Three auto companies, whose contracts expire in May 2028. This isolates the Chattanooga workers from their brothers and sisters in Detroit and elsewhere, weakening the position of workers in Tennessee and at the Detroit-based carmakers.

To wage a real fight for living wages, safe working conditions, retirement and affordable healthcare, workers need to form and build rank-and-file committees connected across national borders through the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC). The aim of these committees is to transfer power and decision making from the union apparatus to the workers on the shop floor.
The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier now deployed off Iran in formation during Rim of the Pacific exercises in July 2022. [Photo: Canadian Armed Forces photo by Cpl. Djalma Vuong-De Ramos]

The US military is poised to attack Iran after a massive, weeks-long redeployment of warships, bombers and personnel to the region.

The forces arrayed against Iran, a historically oppressed country that has been subjected to decades of American imperialist aggression, include:

An armada, bristling with Tomahawk cruise missiles, F-35 and F-18 fighter jets, and EA18 growler electronic-war planes, led by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, which is now deployed in the Arabian Sea off Irans southern coast;

Two destroyers stationed in the Persian Gulf at the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz, and three more warships further north off the coast of Qatar;

Fleets of additional fighter jets and surveillance planes, air-defence batteries and 40,000 troops at more than two dozen, heavily-armed bases across the region;

And, almost certainly, one or more nuclear-submarines. (Information on the whereabouts of the Pentagons nuclear-submarine strike force is highly classified.)

Key US allies are also readying for war. Israel, which last June waged an illegal, unprovoked 12-day war on Iran in conjunction with the United States, has placed its military forces on high alert. As of last weekend, Britain has deployed six F-35 stealth fighters to Cyprus, where they have joined a fleet of Typhoon fighter jets active in operations in Iraq and Syria.

With the Trump administration on the verge of setting the entire Middle East ablaze, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has advanced his impending trip to Washington by one week. He will now meet with Trump this Wednesday to discuss their joint project to subjugate Iran. According to the Jerusalem Post, high-level Israeli sources have said that Netanyahu will tell the Americans we will strike alone if Iran crosses the red line we set on ballistic missiles.

On Sunday, Netanyahus far-right government made legal changes to facilitate Israeli property purchases and settlements in the Occupied West Bank in a step his fascist finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, boasted was meant to kill the idea of a Palestinian state.

The military build-up and Washingtons moves to further tighten the enforcement of crushing economic sanctions are key elements in a multi-track strategy aimed at subjugating Iran and installing, whatever the precise composition of its leading personnel, a regime that will place Irans energy resources at the service of US imperialism and break Tehrans strategic ties with China and Russia.

Since late last year, Americas fascist would-be dictator President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran, invoking various pretexts, from eliminating its civilian nuclear program to defending protesters from Iranian state repression.

Trump has boasted that the US naval force now menacing Iran is far larger than that Washington deployed last month off Venezuela before attacking the South American country, kidnapping its president, Nicolas Maduro and proclaiming it was seizing the countrys oil resources.

Trump has also vowed that a US attack on Iran would be far bigger and more lethal than the one it and Israel mounted on Iran eight months ago, which killed more than 1,000 people, the vast majority of them civilians. Trump and his aides have also suggested that a second US attack on Iran could involve a decapitation strike even larger than that with which Israel initiated in the June 2025 war, and could potentially target Irans 86-year-old Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei.

As it did following last Junes war, Irans crisis-ridden, Shia clergy-led bourgeois nationalist regime has responded to the escalating imperialist aggression by appealing to the Trump administration for talks. Tehran has indicated it is ready to make major concessions on its civil nuclear program in exchange for an easing of economic sanctions. These concessions reportedly include shipping out of the country virtually all of Irans enriched uranium and maintaining only the bare bones of a civilian nuclear program, so as to assert Irans sovereign right to do so under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Washington, however, keeps upping its demands. It calculates that the Islamic Republic has been severely weakened.

With the assistance of the European imperialist powers, Washington has largely succeeded in crashing the Iranian economy, fueling mass deprivation and anger with the regime, as it places the burden of the confrontation with imperialism on Irans workers and toilers.

The protests that shook Iran from late December through mid-January came to be increasingly dominated by right-wing, petty-bourgeois forces calling for the return of the blood-soaked, US-sponsored Pahlavi monarchy. Nevertheless, the scale of the state repression, its arbitrary character, the fact that Tehran has not restored internet contact with the world, and a continuing wave of mass arrests speak to the regimes social isolation and ever-diminishing popular support.

Further compounding its crisis are the reversals that Tehrans allies across the region have suffered over the past two years, including in Syria, Lebanon and Israel/Palestine. Since October 2023, Washington and its Israeli attack-dog have dramatically escalated their drive to create a New Middle East under unbridled American imperialist domination, through aggression, war and, in Gaza, outright genocide.

On the part of Washington, the negotiations that were initiated with Tehran last Friday as the US military encircles Iran and primes for war are very much a probing operation. They are aimed at extorting concessions and exacerbating and leveraging divisions within the Islamic Republics clerical-bourgeois political establishment and military-security forces. The talks can also serve as a cover for the decision to go to war. Last June, Trump encouraged the Iranians to believe that he was intent on pursuing negotiations after he had already given the green light to the Israeli attack that launched last Junes war.

Trump claimed that last Fridays talks, which were held in Muscat, Oman, rather than US/NATO ally Turkey at Irans insistence, were very good. He added, Iran looks like it wants to make a deal very badly. He said that there would be further negotiations this week.

But the very same day, Trump signed an executive order for tariffs targeting countries that trade with Iran in defiance of Washingtons unilaterally imposed sanctions. He also imposed additional sanctions on shipping companies and vessels allegedly involved in transporting Iranian oil, with the aim of further choking its oil exports, the lifeblood of its economy.

Moreover, Trump and his administration continue to signal that a military strike on Iran could be imminent.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was insistent Thursday that the impending talks with Tehran in no way represent a pulling back from the threat of a military strike. While these negotiations are taking place, I would remind the Iranian regime, said Leavitt, that the president has many options at his disposal aside from diplomacy as the commander-in-chief of the most powerful military in the history of the world.

To further underline this, Trumps lead negotiators in Oman, US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, made a visit to the USS Lincoln the next day, reportedly at the invitation of the head of the US militarys Central Command, Admiral Brad Cooper.

While Fridays talks were apparently restricted to Irans nuclear program, which Trump has vowed to entirely dismantle, his administration has outlined a series of demands that would effectively constitute Irans unilateral disarmament, leaving it defenceless and powerless before US and Israeli threats. Chief among these demands are: cessation of all support for Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis of Yemen and other allies in the so-called Axis of Resistance; and a drastic reduction in Irans ballistic missile capacity, including a legal ban on it possessing missiles capable of reaching Israel.

Trying to put the best face on developments, Tehran has joined Trump in claiming the outcome of Fridays talks was positive. Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi told Iranian state television, There is an understanding on continuing the talks.  If this process continues, I think we will reach a good framework for an understanding.

Iran, according to a regional diplomat said to be familiar with the talks, reportedly called for immediate sanctions relief, including banking and oil, and the moving of U.S. military assets away from Iran, in exchange for greatly scaling back its nuclear program and the resumption of regular International Atomic Energy Agency inspections.

Publicly, the Iranian regime has insisted that any negotiations must be restricted to its nuclear program. But it has also hinted that in the event of sanctions relief, it might be prepared to enter broader negotiations. For decades, a significant faction of the regimeof whom the current president, Masoud Pezeshkian, is a representativehas advocated for a rapprochement with the European imperialist powers and Washington, including by opening up the Iranian economy to Western investment. The so-called hardline Principlist faction and the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards have generally opposed this, arguing instead for an orientation to China and Russia. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has tried to balance between the two factions.

Washington, however, has time and again rejected Tehrans overtures. It has never reconciled itself to the loss of the Shahs tyrannical monarchial-dictatorship. The massive erosion of American imperialisms relative economic might and world position only make it more aggressive and determined to return the Iranian people to neo-colonial subjugation, so as to plunder its resources and strategically weaken its rivals. China is Irans largest export market and accounts for more than 90 percent of its oil exports.

In the face of the menacing US military deployment, Tehran has issued warnings that should Iran come under US attack, it will respond far differently from last year. After the US openly joined the war, attacking Irans nuclear facilities, including with the worlds most powerful non-nuclear bomb, Tehran mounted a solitary token retaliatory attack, which it signaled to Washington well in advance. As intended, the attack caused no casualties or substantive damage.

Many of Washingtons regional allies have expressed fear of a regional war and the impact this would have on their economies and restless populations. Left unsaid is the prospect that a US-Iran war could draw in not only regional powers but the great powers as well because it will mark a major new stage in the US-led drive to repartition the Middle East, the worlds principal oil-exporting region and one lying at the pivot of Asia, Africa and Europe.
On Tuesday, February 10, at 7:30 p.m. Eastern/4:30 p.m. Pacific, the WSWS and the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees are hosting an online meeting, The Nurses Strikes and the Movement Against Dictatorship. Register here to attend.

Nurses on the picket line in New York City, January 13, 2026

The New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) announced tentative agreements Monday covering three of the four hospitals involved in the month-long strike of 15,000 nurses in New York City. The union bureaucracy is preparing to send nurses at the facilities operated by Montefiore and Mount Sinai back to work, leaving the remaining 4,500 nurses at NewYork-Presbyterian to fight on their own.

A snap vote on the agreement has been called, with voting beginning Monday and concluding either Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on the hospital. The New York Healthcare Workers Rank-and-File Committee (NYHW-RFC) is calling on nurses to vote no on the agreements by the widest possible margin.

NYSNAs attempt to demobilize three-quarters of the strike without a comprehensive settlement for all the hospitals is a stab in the back. Even if the contract included adequate raises and the necessary improvements to staffing levels and safetywhich it absolutely does notthe betrayal of NewYork-Presbyterian nurses cannot be justified.

The tentative agreements do nothing to resolve the core issues of unsafe staffing and overcrowding. At Mount Sinai, the hospital agreed to just 30 additional full-time hires out of the 700 that were needed. At Montefiore, the agreement omits any measures to alleviate overcrowding, leaving in place a situation in which nurses are often forced to treat patients crammed into hallways.

On pay, nurses would receive only around a 12 percent wage increase over three years, nowhere near the 30 percent demand at the outset of negotiations. However, even the 12 percent comes with givebacks, as the raises are not retroactive and only start in March.

Meanwhile, the tentative agreements do not reinstate fired nurses, effectively sanctioning the victimization of nurses. On the eve of the strike, Mount Sinai fired three labor and delivery nurses based on false accusations of hiding supplies from scab nurses. The firings followed disciplinary action against nurses, who raised security concerns after an incident with an armed individual in December.

The NYHW-RFC warned in its founding statement that the union bureaucracy was preparing to shut down the strike on managements terms. The agreement announced Monday fully vindicates this assessment. That statement declared: The strike can be won, but only if healthcare workers take matters into their own hands. The purpose of the committee, it explained, is to be an organization controlled by workers ourselves, independent of the union apparatus, to assert democratic control over bargaining and strike strategy.

The attempt to break the unity of the strike has provoked outrage, with one Mount Sinai nurse describing her coworkers as filled with rage. Many are mobilizing to reject the contracts. Out together, in together has emerged as a powerful slogan among nurses in response to the sellout.

The sellout comes at precisely the point when the nurses position is at its most powerful. On the West Coast, pharmacy and lab employees walked off the job Monday, joining 31,000 Kaiser Permanente nurses and healthcare workers, who have been on strike for two weeks. Also on Monday, 6,000 public school teachers began a strike in San Francisco, shutting down the districts 120 schools.

The eruption of strikes on both coasts occurs alongside mass opposition to the brutal ICE murders in Minneapolis, triggering widespread protests, school walkouts and calls for a general strike.

The New York nurses strike is part of this developing working class movement. But it faces an obstacle in the trade union bureaucrats, who are working on behalf of management and corporate politicians to disrupt and disorganize this movement. Already before the strike, NYSNA had canceled action at 11 of 15 hospitals without having even reached tentative agreements.

Rather than appeal to the immense support for the strike in the working class, NYSNA has paraded Democratic Party officials to mouth empty support on the picket lines. But the Democratic Party has proved to be the biggest ally of the hospital executives, not striking workers. Governor Kathy Hochul has renewed a strikebreaking emergency order allowing nurses without licenses in the state to work as scabs.

Mayor and self-described democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani appeared twice on the picket lines, where he denounced the tens of millions in compensation for hospital executives. Now, he is not only publicly supporting Hochul but also the New York police, who arrested striking nurses protesting outside of the headquarters of the Greater New York Hospital Association.

There can be no doubt that the contract was worked out in coordination with the Mamdani administration, in particular, Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice Julie Su. The former Labor Secretary under President Joe Biden, she specialized in brokering contracts to head off or shut down strikes which challenged the interests of the ruling elite.

In 2023, she rammed through a West Coast docks contract after dockworkers began organizing wildcat actions in defiance of the ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union) keeping them on the job for a year past the previous deals expiration. In 2024, she was dispatched to shut down a strike at Boeing in a similar fashion. She was similarly involved in the ban on a national rail strike in 2022 and a White House-backed autoworkers contract in 2023 which has led to thousands of layoffs.

NYSNA and hospital executives are banking on the calculation that the economic strain of the strike will weaken nurses resolve and provide enough yes votes to pass the sellout agreement. The strain is real. The union has refused to provide strike pay, while the hospitals have cut off health insurance.

But nurses can turn the tables. The movement against the contracts must be a starting point for a new strategy, controlled democratically from below. At every hospital, nurses should hold emergency meetings to elect rank-and-file committees, consisting of the most trusted nurses and not union officials, to prepare for the expansion of the strike to all 15 facilities. They must demand immediate, retroactive strike pay to provision nurses for a serious fight and to counteract attempts to soften them up.

Rejecting the subordination of their struggle to one or another establishment politician, nurses must then turn to their real alliesthe working class. They should organize pickets to fan out to major workplaces across the city to appeal for the widest support and build lines of communication with Kaiser workers on the West Coast to coordinate strategy on a national scale.

On Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time/4:30 p.m. Pacific Time, the WSWS and the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) are holding an online meeting to discuss the way forward in the struggle. We urge all nurses looking for a way to oppose the sellout to attend and participate. Register for the meeting here.
New Zealands National Party-led government signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with India in December, which has now triggered a major dispute within the ruling three-party coalition. Winston Peters, leader of the anti-immigrant New Zealand First Party, has declared that it will oppose the deal when it is presented to parliament.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left, greets visiting New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon before their meeting in New Delhi, India, Monday, March 17, 2025. [AP Photo/Manish Swarup]

The agreement with the far-right Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is bound up with gathering inter-imperialist rivalries, both economic and military, amid the global crisis deepened by the US Trump administration. New Zealands fragile economy, which depends overwhelmingly on primary produce, has been hit by Trumps tariff regime. About 70 percent of NZ exports to the US, worth $NZ9.3 billion annually, have had 15 percent reciprocal tariffs imposed on top of existing quotas and tariffs.

The NZ ruling elite is also seeking to diversify its exports away from Chinacurrently NZs biggest trading partneras it prepares to join a US-led war against China.

The main aim of free trade agreements is to lower barriers for corporations and boost profits at the expense of workers. The India FTA is likely to exacerbate wage competition, subcontracting and deregulation, particularly in the IT sector. It will place downward pressure on wages, facilitate further privatisation, and accelerate the drive to reform labour laws so as to attract investment.

Peters opposes the agreement, however, on the reactionary and xenophobic basis that it includes temporary three-year work permits for 1,670 skilled Indian workers and uncapped student visa provisions. Peters falsely declared the deal would lead to tens of thousands of people arriving, which would take opportunities away from New Zealanders. Nationals Trade Minister Todd McClay dismissed the claims as exaggerated, noting the strict limitations on the work permits and their non-renewable nature.

With the National Party increasingly unpopular and an election looming in November, NZ First is seeking to distance itself from the government of which it is a crucial part. Peters is seeking to exploit growing anger among working people over the worsening cost-of-living crisis, unemployment and social inequality and to steer it in the direction of toxic right-wing nationalism.

Peters is posturing as the defender of ordinary New Zealanders against foreigners; meanwhile he and his party have repeatedly played a major role in governmentsled by both Labour and National Partiesthat have presided over tens of thousands of job losses, the defunding of vital public services, and historic transfers of wealth to the rich.

NZ Firsts rhetoric echoes that of Trump and other far-right figures who are being promoted by ruling classes throughout the world. A current NZ First post on X features a photo of the party leader with the Trump-like caption: We make no apologies for being nationalist and patriotic. An accompanying membership invitation states: Help us put New Zealand first.

NZ First blames Indian workersamong the most exploited and vulnerable sections of the international working classfor the economic insecurity facing New Zealand workers. Along with its campaign against so-called racial privileges for indigenous Maori, Peters anti-immigrant rhetoric is designed to split the working class on racial lines in order to deflect any unified struggle against capitalism.

NZ Firsts anti-immigrant posturing on the FTA parallels its other anti-working class policies. Peters recently seized on the US withdrawal from the World Health Organisation (WHO) to denounce it as a bunch of unelected globalist bureaucrats, and raising whether taxpayers money is being responsibly spent overseas instead of here at home. Peters is meanwhile aligning openly with Trump on decisive geo-political issues, including the criminal US abduction of Venezuelas President Maduro.

The coalitions far-right ACT Party has welcomed the India FTA as a massive moment for New Zealand. Its trade spokesperson Parmjeet Parmar noted that two-way trade between the two countries already totals more than $3 billion each year.

For National and ACT to pass the required legislative changes to the Tariff Act, they will need the support of the Labour Party, which is not yet confirmed. Labour leader Chris Hipkins told Radio NZ on February 3 that Labour was still working through the deal to try and understand the number of immigrants that could be allowed in. From 20172020, Labour was in government with NZ First and adopted many of its policies, including draconian restrictions on immigration.

Labour has refused to rule out forming another coalition government with NZ First after this years election, despite denouncing the party as racist prior to the 2023 election. Labours allies the Greens and Te Pati Maori have also indicated that they could join a government that included NZ First.

All these parties bear responsibility for the legitimisation of NZ First, which is gaining ground in the polls. The party got just over 6 percent in the 2023 election but has since climbed to 9.8 percent in a recent RNZReid Research poll and 11.9 percent in the Taxpayers Union-Curia poll.

The figures showed no substantial popular support for either of the major parties. National is polling around 32 percent (down from 38 percent in 2023) and Labour has risen to just under 35 percentan increase from the Labour governments landslide defeat in 2023, where it received just 26.9 percent of the votes. Labour cannot however achieve a majority in parliament even with support from the Greens, which dropped 1.3 points to 9.6 percent and Te Pati Maori on 3 percent.

This leaves NZ First as a potential kingmakerthe role its leader Peters has cultivated throughout his career since forming NZ First after breaking from National in 1993. Right-wing New Zealand Herald columnist Matthew Hooton has postulated that if NZ First can achieve medium-sized party status, the party could well demand leadership of the next government, with Peters in charge.

Peters ascent parallels the international surge of far-right forces across the world, led by US President Donald Trump. This includes Nigel Farages Reform UK in Britain and Pauline Hansons One Nation in Australia. While there is no mass support for their extreme right-wing programs, these individuals and parties express the same ruling class strategy: to bring forward reactionary vehicles that will intensify the enforcement of austerity, xenophobia and militarisation.

Amid the explosive crisis of capitalism, political responsibility for the rise of far-right populism rests squarely with the left establishment parties. In collaboration with the trade unions, they have prostrated themselves entirely to the demands of the ruling elite to drive down the wages and living standards, while pouring unprecedented sums of money into preparing for imperialist war.

Anti-immigrant parties like NZ First are only able to exploit working class anger because of the absence of a genuine socialist alternative. Workers and young people must reject all forms of nationalism, xenophobia and attacks on immigrants, including that promoted by Labour and its allies. The urgent task is to build an internationalist and socialist party that fights to unite workers of every background and nationality against war, social inequality and discrimination, and to put an end to the capitalist system that threatens to plunge the entire world into barbarism.
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Dive Brief:

Toyota Motor Corp. posted a year-over-year net revenue increase of 9.6% ($255.6 billion) on higher sales volume for the nine-month period of FY2026 ending Dec. 31, the automaker reported in its earnings release Friday.

However, Toyotas YoY operating income decreased from $24 billion to $21.5 billion in the nine-month period, while its net income fell nearly 25%, from $26.8 billion to $20.3 billion.

The automaker said the declines were largely due to U.S. tariffs on vehicle imports from Japan, which had a negative impact of roughly $8 billion on its operating income. Toyota also reported that its profits were further eroded by higher labor and operational costs across its key global markets.

Dive Insight:

The nearly 10% jump in net revenue helped to offset Toyotas profit declines. The automaker reported record-high global consolidated vehicle sales of 7.3 million units in the nine-month period ending Dec. 31, 2025, an increase of roughly 302,000 vehicles. The automaker reported sales growth in all of its key global regions with the exception of Asia, where sales fell by 53,000 units.

In North America, Toyotas biggest global market, the company reported a rare operating loss of $40 million in the first nine months of FY2026, despite brisk vehicle sales in the region. It was due to a YoY decline of roughly $1.4 billion in operating income compared to a profit of $1.3 billion a year earlier. Toyota also cited tariff pressures for the loss, as well as an increase in expenses and other factors.

Still, Toyotas U.S. vehicle sales were the highest since 2017. Sales reached 2,518,071 vehicles in the U.S. last year, an 8% increase (275,000 units) on a volume basis, with brisk sales of some of its most popular models.

Toyota reported the best-ever U.S. sales in 2025 for the Camry and Corolla Hybrid, RAV4, Tacoma and Grand Highlander. Sales of the Camry sedan, which is only offered with a hybrid powertrain, were up 2% YoY to 316,185 units. Combined Camry and Corolla sales totaled 248,088 vehicles, a YoY increase of 6.5%.

Sales were especially strong in the truck and SUV segment in 2025. Toyota Grand Highlander sales jumped by 90.7% to 136,801 units, while midsize Tacoma pickup sales jumped by 42.4% YoY to 274,638 units.

The RAV4 was another big seller for Toyota in the U.S., reaching 479,288 vehicles in 2025, a 1% increase from the prior year. Sales of the Sienna minivan were also brisk, reaching 101,486 units through December, representing a 35.2% increase on a volume basis.
The Business Roundtable is warning that withdrawing from the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) could disrupt deeply integrated North American supply chains and put millions of U.S. jobs at risk, even as the Trump administration signals growing dissatisfaction with the trade pact it once championed.

New analysis released by the CEO-led business group shows that U.S. trade with Canada and Mexico supported 1.2 million Texas jobs in 2023, with Texas exporting $168 billion in goods and services to its North American neighbors in 2024.

Since 2015, Texas goods exports to Canada and Mexico have risen 35%, while services exports climbed 38%, according to the data.

Extending USMCA in a timely manner is critical to the vitality of U.S. businesses. As the first

joint review approaches, Business Roundtable calls for stronger North American integration,

enhanced cooperation on economic security, and restoration of preferential treatment for all

USMCA-compliant goods, Nasim Fussell, Business Roundtables vice president for trade and international relations, said during testimony before the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in December.

Business Roundtable is an association of more than 200 chief executive officers (CEOs) of Americas leading companies, representing every sector of the U.S. economy, according to its website.

California shows a similar dependence on USMCA trade. Business Roundtable estimates that 1.7 million California jobs were supported by U.S. trade with Canada and Mexico in 2023, while the state exported $76 billion in goods and services to the two countries in 2024. Services exports have grown 53% since 2015, underscoring the role of cross-border trade beyond manufacturing alone.

Roughly two-thirds of Texas imports from Canada and Mexico are used as intermediate inputs for U.S. production, while about half of Californias imports from its North American partners play a similar rolehighlighting how intertwined regional manufacturing and logistics networks have become.

Fussell: USMCA is central to North Americas competitiveness

Fussell said Canada and Mexico have invested $775 billion in the U.S. since the USMCA entered into force, while overall North American trade has increased by 50%.

He said integrated production networkswhere goods cross borders multiple times before completionare far more efficient than separate bilateral trade deals.

Companies utilize resources and inputs from all three countries and manufacturing processes take goods over borders multiple times before completion, Fussell said in his testimony.
A controversial streamer known as Clavicular was arrested on Feb. 7 at a Scottsdale bar, after police say the 20-year-old entered with a fake ID.

Braden Peters, a Gen Z social media influencer, is well-known among certain audiences for absurdist stunts and a variety of controversies, including the use of racist slurs in his livestreams. Peters now faces two felony charges for possession of a forged instrument and possession of dangerous drugs, as well as a misdemeanor charge for using a fake ID to enter a bar.

Law enforcement called Peters a "flight risk," noting his Florida residence and pending drug charges in court documents. Police said they found two over-the-counter pills on Peters when he was arrested on Feb. 7. According to court records, one was Adderall, and the other was Anavar.

First bloom of the Desert Primrose with the Courthouse Butte in the distance Feb. 4, 2026.



Send us your photos: Send an email to weatherpix@arizonarepublic.com, attach your photos and tell us all about what's pictured. They may appear in the newspaper. Clouds appear to form a craggy mountain range on Greenway Road looking east the morning of Jan. 5, 2026. A beautiful Arizona sunset seen from Moon Valley early January 2026. A beautiful winter morning in Surprise in January 2026. Another beautiful early morning in Fountain Hills, says the submitting photographer of this image in early January 2026. A beautiful morning at Alamo Lake. Beautiful snow-capped San Francisco Peaks in Flagstaff, Arizona, on Jan. 9, 2026. Beautiful snow-capped San Francisco Peaks in Flagstaff on Jan. 9, 2026. A beautiful sunset is seen in Mesa in January 2026. Cloudy skies in Arizona are seen in January 2026. Cloudy skies in Arizona are seen in January 2026. Encouraging weather in the Southwest Valley in Laveen looking toward the Estrellas in January 2026. Fall and winter rains have produced robust sunflowers in bloom around Globe and Miami, Arizona, in early January 2026. "Glorious!" photographer Steve Ermel says of his photo of a sunset as seen in Sun City in early January 2026. Mexican gold poppies are seen roadside in Globe, Arizona, in January 2026. Perezia, also known as Brownfoot, are blooming just outside Globe, Ariz., in January of 2026. Red Mountain turned black as a storm hit on Jan. 8, 2026. A Space X launch leaves a trail in Flagstaff skies af its launch from Vandenberg airbase in California, on Jan 2, 2026. Space X launch is seen in Arizona skies as it launches from Vandenberg airbase in California on Jan. 2, 2026. Sunday morning sunrise in Tempe in early January 2026. Sunset in North Scottsdale on Jan. 8, 2026. The sky's the limit says photographer Anne Schneider in Phoenix in January 2026. "Where did the clouds go?" asks Steve Ermel, the photographer behind this image of blue skies on South Mountain in Laveen. Yellow bladderpod in January and photographer Paul Wolterbeek says, "Yes, much earlier than usual in Globe, Arizona, in January 2026. "Yes, the Valley of the Sun can have beautiful clouds" says photographer Larmon Haugen, of the image he captured in early January 2026. A snow moon photographed in North Scottsdale. A vintage day near St. David. Balloons glow over Waddell. A bright red sunset photograph taken from Mesa. Clouds "gobble up" the sunshine in Scottsdale. Drama in the Valley skies on Jan. 19, 2026. Fire in the Arizona morning sky to warm up the day. "How does Mother Nature provide such a painting to start our day?" the photographer says. "If turned upside down, it feels like looking at a sunrise over the ocean instead of over the mountains," the photographer says. "Light Fading On The Watchtower" is how the photographer describes this desert view of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Looking up at the Trails End Fest on Jan. 31, 2026. Majestic London Bridge at sunset in Lake Havasu on Feb. 1, 2026. The morning moon over Fountain Hills photographed on Feb. 2, 2026. Skies over Peoria. The calm before the storm over Red Mountain and Gunsight in Fountain Hills. The dawn of a new day in Arizona on Jan. 21, 2026. The sky seems to be on fire in Sun City. The snow moon over Lone Mountain in North Scottsdale on Jan. 31, 2026. The Snow Moon rises from the base of Lookout Mountain in north Phoenix on Feb. 2, 2026. The sun explodes in the east to start a new day in Arizona. The view from Bush Highway in early 2026. "We sure live in a beautiful place," says this Sun City photographer. A Wednesday morning sunrise on Jan. 18, 2026. "Words aren't adequate," the photographer says of this stunning Sun City image. Yet another beautiful sunset over South Mountain in early 2026. "Amber waves" in Goodyear. A cold winter morning in Waddell on Jan. 21, 2026. A fiery sky sets in the west. A hummingbird dinner guest in Fountain Hills. A golden moon photographed at 6:45 p.m. Feb. 1, 2026. A cloudy sunrise photographed in Fountain Hills. Beautiful morning clouds over Castle Rock. Skies over Phoenix area as seen from Sun City. "She loves the Courthouse Butte." "It's not often you see a roadrunner fly off your chimney much less photograph it," says the photographer. Balloons seen at sunrise from Waddell. A few early blooming poppies in the McDowell Mountain Preserve. A saguaro cohort in the McDowell Mountain Preserve. Fantastic crescent moon in a pink sunset sky in mid-January 2026. Beautiful reflections of the London Bridge in Lake Havasu on Feb. 1, 2026. A beautiful day for kayaking on the Verde River in January 2026. Dawn in Waddell. A saguaro cohort in the McDowell Mountain Preserve. A Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly enjoying dianthus. See the amazing imagery captured by Republic readers in 2026 1 of 69 First bloom of the Desert Primrose with the Courthouse Butte in the distance Feb. 4, 2026.



Send us your photos: Send an email to weatherpix@arizonarepublic.com, attach your photos and tell us all about what's pictured. They may appear in the newspaper.

Adderall is a name-brand medication commonly used to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Anavar is the name-brand of an oral synthetic steroid sometimes used to promote weight gain and is widely considered a performance-enhancing drug.

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The streamer took to social media on Feb. 8 after he was released from custody, later speaking directly to his followers on a livestream.

"Straight up political persecution," Peters wrote on X.

Peters' arrest was a trending topic on X on Feb. 9, with more than 70,000 posts associated with it.

Who is Clavicular? What to know about the famous streamer

Peters has collaborated with incendiary figures Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate in the past. He's been tied to the so-called "manosphere," which is a collection of online creators, forums and content that promotes anti-feminist rhetoric and traditional gender roles.

Officials noted Peters' background in court documents, highlighting his lucrative career.

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"It should be noted that the defendant is a well-known live streamer on live streaming platform Kick.com, earning over a reported $100,000 in January 2026," court records read.

Before he was detained, Peters was seen walking around Old Town Scottsdale with a large crowd around him and several cameras. He later entered Casa Amigos at 7320 E. Indian Plaza and was arrested around 11 p.m., according to Scottsdale police.

The bar helped remove Peters, according to court documents, and it claimed it went through the proper channels to hire him as a promoter. Scottsdale police said that was not true and that Peters wasn't allowed in the establishment.

Officers reviewed old broadcasts from the streamer, which showed him asking patrons of Old Town Scottsdale for Adderall, they said.

Reach reporter Helen Rummel at hrummel@azcentral.com

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Who is Clavicular? What to know about streamer arrested in Scottsdale
To see our latest updates on the Nancy Guthrie case, please click here.

Authorities investigating the disappearance of Savannah Guthrie's missing mother, Nancy, have reportedly detained a man for questioninghours after releasing video footage of a masked, armed intruder tampering with a security camera outside of the 84-year-old's Arizona home.

According to multiple news outlets, including NBC News and CNN, the FBI, in collaboration with the Pima County Sheriff's Department, have "detained a person for questioning only" in their ongoing investigation into Nancy's alleged abduction.

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Multiple law enforcement sources noted to the outlets that it is unclear whether the man in question is suspected to be the person captured in the video footage and images that were released by authorities earlier in the evening.

"The FBI did not comment. The Pima County Sheriffs Department said it is not releasing any information at this time," NBC News reported.

According to CNN, law enforcement sources further stressed that the person in question, who was located south of Tucson, has not been charged.

The update comes just hours after the footage of the first suspect in Nancy's disappearance was released to the public, having being retrieved from a missing security camera that had been positioned outside the 84-year-old's Arizona home.

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Footage, along with four screenshots, taken from a Nest camera that was removed from Nancy's doorway were released to the public Tuesday afternoon, more than a week after the mother of three was abducted from the property.

Two videos, taken back to back, show an armed person wearing a knitted balaclava or ski mask, a backpack, and large leather gloves approaching the front door of Nancy's home, before raising a fist to the camera in an apparent attempt to block the lens.

The person is seen wearing what appears to be a gun in a holster around their waist, and it appears as though they have a flashlight in their mouth. Only their eyes and mouth are visible throughout the entirety of the footage.

Anyone with any information about Nancy Guthrie's case should call 1-800-CALL-FBI, 520-351-4900, 88-CRIME, or visit https://tips.fbi.gov/.

The first photos of a suspect in the Nancy Guthrie case have been released. (Pima County Sheriffs Department)

Four screenshots taken from a Nest camera that was removed from Nancy's doorway were released to the public on Tuesday afternoon, more than a week after the mother of three was abducted from the property. (Pima County Sheriffs Department)

They then turn away from the camera and bend over, before ripping up a handful of greenery from a planter bed in front of the porch. The person returns to the camera and holds the leaves over the lens. At this point, the footage ends.

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Soon after the footage was released, the FBI launched a webpage dedicated to Nancy's case, which features details about the ongoing investigation, clips from the videos, and information about her health.

"She is considered to be a vulnerable adult who has difficulty walking, has a pacemaker, and needs daily medication for a heart condition," the page notes.

Of the video footage and images, the webpage states: "The images above show an armed individual appearing to have tampered with the camera at Nancy Guthrie's front door the morning of her disappearance. The FBI seeks information that will lead to the identity of this individual."

The video and images were originally shared by the the Pima County Sheriff's Department and FBI Director Kash Patel, who posted the visuals on his X account.

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A third clip taken moments before the other two shows the person making their initial approach to the front door, bowing their head down in an apparent attempt to hide their masked face.

No specific timeframe been shared, although officials previously revealed that Nancy's security camera had been disconnected at around 1:47 a.m. local time on Feb. 1.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed soon after the footage was released that it had been reviewed by President Donald Trump, saying: "The president encourages any American across the country with any knowledge of the suspect to please call the FBI, who continue to assist state and local authorities who are leading this investigation on the ground.

"The prayers of this entire White House are with Savannah and her family at this time. We hope that this person is found soon and that her mother is brought home safely."

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The White House's official X account also reshared the image post from Patel.

Savannah also quickly reposted the images taken from the videos on her Instagram account, along with the caption: "We believe she is still alive. Bring her home."

She added a second post featuring the footage of the suspect, writing: "Someone out there recognizes this person."

According to NBC, Savannah and her family reviewed the footage and images before they were released to the publica decision that was taken after Nancy's relatives and authorities failed to spot anything recognizable in the visuals.

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The outlet also reported that Patel visited the Tucson "command center" where the Guthrie case is being managed on Monday during an unrelated trip to Arizona.

"Patel had separate travel on another subject that had been on his schedule for some time. While in the area, the director spent time with the team working the case," NBC reported.

The photos show a person wearing a balaclava, a backpack, and large leather gloves approaching the front door of Nancy's home, before appearing to try and cover up the camera with some plants. (Pima County Sheriffs Department)

They then block the camera lens with their hand. (Pima County Sheriffs Department)

Why have authorities only just released images of a suspect in the Nancy Guthrie case?

Authorities had previously stated that they were unable to retrieve any footage from the Nest camera that was taken from the doorway of Nancy's property because she did not have a subscription that enables archival video to be stored.

However, the Pima County Sheriff's Department revealed in a statement issued on Tuesday that the video was ultimately "recovered from residual data located in backend systems."

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"Over the last eight days, the FBI and Pima County Sheriff's Department have been working closely with our private sector partners to continue to recover any images or video footage from Nancy Guthries home that may have been lost, corrupted, or inaccessible due to a variety of factors, including the removal of recording devices," the statement read.

"The video was recovered from residual data located in backend systems. Working with our partnersas of this morninglaw enforcement has uncovered these previously inaccessible new images showing an armed individual appearing to have tampered with the camera at Nancy Guthrie's front door the morning of her disappearance."

Authorities further stated that they have no other information to share about the suspect at this time, nor are any additional press briefings planned.

What other new updates have been revealed about the case?

The update comes hours after new details emerged about exactly how Savannah and her siblings learned that their mother, Nancy, had disappearedmore than a week after the 84-year-old was reported missing and hours after a second alleged deadline included in an unverified ransom note lapsed.

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It was initially stated by the Pima County Sheriff's Department that friends of Nancy had raised the alarm when she failed to turn up to her usual church service near her Arizona home on Feb. 1.

However, sources close to the family have now told NBC News, a sister company of the "Today" show, that Nancy had in fact been due to watch the church service on a livestream at the home of a friendwho called her daughter, Annie, when she did not turn up at the property.

During an appearance on the "Today" show on Tuesday morning, the Guthrie family pastor, Michael Rudenza, of Good Shepherd New York, spoke to Hoda Kotb, who is standing in for Savannah, described the missing mother of three as a "strong woman" who is "fiercely loving."

He confirmed that Nancy had started attending his New York-based churchof which Savannah is a memberonline during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Despite attending church services online, Rudenza said that he and his congregation have gotten to known Nancy very well over the years, explaining: "We've gotten to know what makes her tick."

Savannah quickly reposted the images on her Instagram account, along with the caption: "We believe she is still alive. Bring her home." (Getty Images)

The video footage was retrieved from a Nest security camera that was removed from the front door of Nancy's home. (Getty Images)

The pastor urged all "Today" viewers to keep hope alive, noting "we don't know what we don't know," and asked them to offer their prayers to the Guthrie family.

"Prayer opens up possibilities in our own hearts," he said. "Leaving a door open for hope is a way to fight against that fatality."

Meanwhile, the FBI launched an extensive billboard campaign across multiple states on Monday, posting enormous "missing person" posters at sites in Arizona, New Mexico, California, and Texas.

Speaking to Fox News, an FBI spokesperson said that the campaign is targeted at raising "as much public awareness as possible for this case."

"Our billboard footprint includes multiple states surrounding Arizona, and we hope this campaign will lead to the crucial piece of information that helps us bring Nancy home," they added, noting that the FBI had partnered with billboard provider Clear Channel on the campaign.

The billboard features an image of Nancy, along with her age, height, weight, and name, as well as the FBI tip line: 1-800-CALL-FBI.

As yet, no suspects or persons of interest have been identified by authoritieswho have yet to reveal whether a series of ransom notes sent to multiple news outlets last week have been verified.

Still, Savannah, 54, appeared to confirm suspicions that demands have been made by someone while posting multiple social media videos in which she and her siblings said they "will pay" for Nancy's safe return.

In a clip shared to her Instagram account on Monday, Savannah thanked her fans and followers for all of their thoughts and prayers, before asking for more help in tracking down her missing mother.

"We are at an hour of desperation," she said. "We believe our mom is still out there. She was taken and we don't know where."

Hoda Kotb continued to fill in for Savannah on the "Today" show, telling viewers that Nancy had been meant to attend an online church service at the home of a friend on Feb. 1, not travel to a service in person. (NBC)

Michael Rudenza, of Good Shepherd New York, spoke to Kotb and described the missing mother of three as a "strong woman" who is "fiercely loving." (NBC)

The pastor urged all "Today" viewers to keep hope alive, noting "we don't know what we don't know," and asked them to offer their prayers to the Guthrie family. (NBC)

She continued: "Law enforcement is working tirelessly around the clock, trying to bring her home, trying to find her. She was taken, and we dont know where, and we need your help.

"Im coming on just to ask you, not just for your prayers, but no matter where you are, even if youre far from Tucson, if you see anything, you hear anything, if theres anything at all that seems strange to you, that you report to law enforcement."

Hours before that clip was shared, Savannah and her siblings told their missing mother Nancy's alleged kidnappers that they "will pay" a reported $6 million ransom for her safe return.

Savannah appeared in the heartbreaking social media video on Saturday night in which she and her siblings, Annie and Cameron, issued a plea to anyone involved in Nancy's disappearance, begging them to get in touch and return their mother to them.

"We received your message and we understand," Savannah says in an apparent reference to a ransom note that was sent to multiple news outlets last week, in which Nancy's alleged kidnappers demanded a reported $6 million be sent to them in Bitcoin.

"We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her. This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us and we will pay."

Authorities have confirmed that officers were continuing to search in and around Nancy's home, which is located in the Catalina Foothills on the outskirts of Tucson.

Detectives were pictured on the roof of the home over the weekend, when reports emerged that they had removed a security camera, floodlight, and a vehicle from the premises. They were also spotted searching inside a septic tank on the property.

"Many of you observed an active law enforcement presence at the Guthrie residences over the weekend," a statement issued by the Pima County Sheriff's Department read. "That activity will continue ... as part of the ongoing investigative process, including the expansion of the search and follow-up on new leads."

The FBI has posted a series of "missing person" billboards in Arizona and its neighboring states, including Texas, California, and New Mexico. (KRQE)

A $50,000 reward is being offered to anyone who provides information that leads to the safe return of Nancy and/or the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in her disappearance. (FBI)

Savannah has posted several social media videos urging anyone with information to come forward. (savannahguthrie/Instagram)

What is the full timeline of Nancy Guthrie's disappearance?

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos noted during a media briefing on Feb. 5 that, while times are approximate, his team has pieced together several pieces of evidence that indicate Nancy's movementsand the timeline of her apparent abduction.

Nancy, 84, was reported missing at around 12 p.m. local time on Feb. 1, around 14 hours after she was dropped off at the property following a family dinner. When she failed to turn up at her usual church gathering on Sunday, her friends alerted her family, who found her home was empty.

SATURDAY, JAN. 31

5:32 p.m. Nancy travels to Annie's house in an Uber for "dinner and playing games with the family."

9:48 p.m. A garage door at Nancy's house opens when she was dropped off at the property by her daughter.

9:50 p.m. The garage door closes, indicating that Nancy was inside the home.

SUNDAY, FEB. 1

1:47 a.m. Nancy's doorbell security camera is disconnected.

2:12 a.m. Movement is detected on a security camera at the home. No footage of this is currently available.

2:28 a.m. Nancy's pacemaker app indicates that the device has been disconnected from her phone.

11:00 a.m. Nancy fails to arrive at the home of a friend, where she had been due to watch a church service livestream.

11:56 a.m. Nancy's family travels to her home to check on her and finds the property empty.

12:03 p.m. The family calls 911 to report Nancy missing.

12:14 p.m. Police officers arrive at Nancy's home.

While no footage is available from the cameras, Nanos noted that the security camera alerts lead them to believe that a person or persons may have been inside Nancy's home between 2:12 a.m., when movement was detected, and 2:28 a.m., when her pacemaker stopped syncing with her Apple devices.
Eric Schmidt, the 70-year-old billionaire and former Google CEO, is romantically linked to a model more than four decades his junior  the New York-based daughter of Bavarias powerful minister-president, according to a report.

Gloria-Sophie Burkandt, 27, who is believed to be working on her PhD thesis in the Big Apple, was seen alongside Schmidt at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, according to German daily Bild.

Who is the woman Eric Schmidt (70) has fallen in love with? read a Bild headline, which ran with a photo of Burkandt wearing a dirndl  traditional Bavarian dress typically worn at Oktoberfest and other folk festivals.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, 70, was reportedly seen with a 27-year-old woman at Davos. Getty Images for America Business Forum

Gloria-Sophie Burkandt, a German model and the daughter of Bavarias minister-president, is said to be more than a friend of Schmidt. Gloria-Sophie Burkandt / Instagram

Who is the woman who appeared at the side of tech billionaire Eric Schmidt and is now captivating all of America? the outlet wrote.

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A rep for Schmidt declined to comment.

Burkandt was not immediately available for comment.

A source close to the former Google boss told The Post that while Burkandt was part of Schmidts entourage in Davos, this is just a friendship, not a relationship.

Gloria-Sophie Burkandt, 27, is the eldest daughter of Bavarian Minister-President Markus Soder, one of Germanys most powerful conservative politicians. Gloria-Sophie Burkandt / Instagram

Gloria-Sophie Burkandt, the daughter of Bavarian Minister-President Markus Soder, is far more than a friend of the former Google CEO, Bild reported, adding that she has an impressive background as an economist, model, and author.

The German tabloid noted that Burkandt splits her time among New York, Los Angeles and Germany, moving comfortably in elite political, business and cultural circles.

Burkandt holds both bachelors and masters degrees in economics and is working on her PhD. Gloria-Sophie Burkandt / Instagram

Property records obtained by The Post indicate that Burkandt is residing in a luxury rental apartment tower in Midtown South.

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Burkandt completed undergraduate studies in business management and economics and later earned a masters degree in business management, according to published reports.

Her international modeling resume includes appearances in Vogue Turkey.

The German model splits her time among New York, Los Angeles and Germany, moving comfortably between political, business and high-society circles. Gloria-Sophie Burkandt / Instagram

Beyond modeling, Burkandt is active as an author and public speaker focused on social, economic and cultural issues. Gloria-Sophie Burkandt / Instagram

Burkandt has also written for Teen Vogue, including a December 2022 article in which she said she had experienced sexual harassment, assault and sexual coercion in my private and professional life.

According to Burkandt, she was touched inappropriately by my boss while working as an 18-year-old intern. She wrote that the supervisor would put his hands on my shoulders and waist when wed run into each other in the elevator or kitchen.

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Burkandt previously drew headlines in Germany after appearing on the televised game show Germanys Dumbest Celebrity, where she struggled with basic spelling and general-knowledge questions  including failing to identify former Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

The 27-year-old has appeared on German television, including as a contestant on the game show Germanys Dumbest Celebrity, which brought her broader public attention. Gloria-Sophie Burkandt / Instagram

Her appearance sparked a wave of schadenfreude-fueled coverage in the German press, according to a profile last year in the Times of London.

Schmidt, who stepped down as Googles chief executive in 2011, has long been a fixture in New Yorks elite social and dating circles despite remaining married to his wife of more than four decades, Wendy Schmidt.

As of Monday, Schmidt had a net worth valued by Bloomberg Billionaires Index at $54.6 billion.

Michelle Ritter, an entrepreneur who previously dated Eric Schmidt, filed multiple lawsuits following their split. Instagram

The billionaire philanthropist and former tech executive has been widely described as having an open marriage, an arrangement neither he nor his wife has publicly confirmed but one that has been repeatedly cited in media reports over the years.

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Schmidts personal life has periodically spilled into public view through a string of high-profile relationships, several of which ended acrimoniously and, in some cases, with legal fallout.

In recent years, Schmidt was involved in a prolonged and turbulent relationship with entrepreneur Michelle Ritter, a former associate with whom he also had business dealings.

Eric Schmidt and his wife, Wendy Schmidt, have been married for more than four decades. FilmMagic

That relationship unraveled amid a barrage of lawsuits filed by Ritter, accusing Schmidt of misconduct and financial improprieties  allegations he has denied. The litigation remains ongoing.

Prior relationships have also drawn scrutiny.

Schmidt was previously linked to former Olympic figure skater Alexandra Duisberg, with whom he was photographed traveling internationally, and to several women in finance, media and the arts, many decades younger than the tech mogul.
NEED TO KNOW

Chinnu Papu, an Indian influencer, died by suicide on Feb. 9 at age 24

The content creator maintained a following of over 200,000 on Instagram, where she shared videos about her life in a rural village, local food, and other lifestyle content

Papus father told local news outlet Onmanorama that she had divorced her husband a month before her death

Chinnu Papu, an Indian influencer, died by suicide on Feb. 9. She was 24.

The content creator was found dead by her neighbors inside an apartment in Adoor, a village in the Indian state of Kerala, around 12 p.m., police told local news outlets India TV News and Onmanorama. The outlets reported that the death was a suicide.

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The outlets reported that Papus body was brought to a local hospital, where doctors pronounced her dead. Her family was informed around 2 p.m.

Papu maintained a following of over 200,000 on Instagram, where she shared videos about her life in a rural village, local food, and other lifestyle content. It appears that she last updated her social media accounts on Feb. 3, posting a video of herself at a local market.

Chinnu Papu Chinnu Papu/Instagram

According to Onmanorama, Papu is survived by a 4-year-old son, an older and younger brother, and her parents. The outlet also reported that Papu had divorced from her husband only a month before her death and that she had moved to a rented house with her son in the wake of the split.

Papu had become distressed after the divorce, though she had made a conscious effort not to show it outwardly, Papus father told Onmanorama. She would keep everything to herself and rarely shared her problems with us.

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Papus father said that she would often travel alone for video shoots, leaving her son at home with her parents, as was the case at the time of her death.

Per Onmanorama, police have ruled Papus death unnatural and have launched an investigation.

In the comments of Papus final post, fans of the late creator shared tributes.

Chinnu Papu Chinnu Papu/Instagram

RIP chinnuuu penned one.

Condolences  shared another.

Never miss a story  sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Wrote a third: Rip 

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health challenges, emotional distress, substance use problems, or just needs to talk, call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org 24/7.

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Transocean has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase Valaris through an all-stock transaction valued at around $5.8bn (SFr4.44bn).

The agreement will create a combined offshore drilling company with a diversified fleet of 73 rigs including 33 ultra-deep-water drill-ships, nine semisubmersibles and 31 jack-ups.

Upon completion of the deal, Transocean shareholders will hold around 53% of the combined group, while Valaris shareholders will account for roughly 47%.

Pro forma enterprise value is projected at $17bn and market capitalisation at approximately $12.3bn. Operations for the merged entity will span deep-water, harsh environment and shallow-water markets worldwide.

The newly formed board will comprise nine existing Transocean directors and two current Valaris directors.

The combined company will continue to be registered in Switzerland and will keep its primary administrative headquarters in Houston.

Transocean president and CEO Keelan Adamson said: This transaction creates a very attractive investment in the offshore drilling industry, differentiated by the best fleet, proven people, leading technologies and unequalled customer service.

The powerful combination is well-timed to capitalise on an emerging, multi-year offshore drilling upcycle. Investors and our global customers will benefit from our expanded fleet of best-in-class, high-specification rigs.

We have identified more than $200m in cost synergies that will complement our ongoing efforts to safely lower costs. The strong pro forma cash flow enables us to accelerate debt reduction, resulting in an expected leverage ratio of about 1.5x within 24 months of the transaction closing.

The combined backlog stands at around $10bn, enhancing cash flow visibility for Transocean.

Transaction-related synergies are expected to exceed $200m, supplementing Transoceans ongoing cost-reduction programme that targets more than $250m in aggregate savings through 2026.

Valaris shareholders are set to receive a fixed exchange ratio of 15.235 shares of Transocean stock for each Valaris share.

Valaris CEO Anton Dibowitz said: By combining with Transocean, we will create a new industry leader for the benefit of our shareholders, customers and employees.

We look forward to complementing Transoceans high-specification deep-water assets with our own, while returning world-class jack-up expertise to Transocean's business, creating a combined company that is capable of operating any rig at any water depth in any offshore environment around the world.

Both boards have approved the agreement unanimously. Completion of the deal will require regulatory clearance, shareholder approval from each company and satisfaction of standard closing conditions.
The Gist

Ivy Cottage is the London home of Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank.

The humble three-bedroom property has been described as "cute" and "quaint."

It's down the road from Nottingham Cottage, a.k.a. the former home of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.



The British royal family's real estate portfolio includes plenty of palatial estates, but not all properties need be huge in order to retain symbolicor sentimentalvalue. Case in point: Ivy Cottage, a "quaint" three-bedroom home on the grounds of Kensington Palace that just so happens to be the London home of Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank.

Originally constructed to house palace staff, Ivy Cottage underwent a bit of a makeover to get rid of "the damp" (i.e., water damage) prior to the couple's arrival in 2018. It's next door to Wren House, the home of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, and down the road for Nottingham Cottage, a.k.a. the former home of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank at Qatar Goodwood Festival in 2015. Getty Images

In 2020, Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank departed Ivy Cottage to spend a portion of the COVID-19 pandemic in Windsor Great Park alongside her parents, the former Duke and Duchess of York, and her late grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. They have since returned to Ivy Cottage and currently divide their time between London and Portugal. Ahead, here's everything you should know about their first home together and its position on the "royal commune" that is Kensington Palace.



Ivy Cottage is on the grounds of Kensington Palace.

Ivy Cottage is just one of many properties situated on the "royal commune" that is Kensington Palace, a sprawling estate that includes Wren House, Nottingham Cottage, and the Kensington Palace Chapel. Inside the palace itself are several apartments, most notably Apartment 1A (a.k.a. the London home of Prince William and Kate Middleton) and Apartments 8 & 9 (where Princess Diana lived until her tragic death in August 1997).

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In stark contrast to the 500-plus rooms inside Kensington Palace, Ivy Cottage contains a modest three bedrooms. It has subsequently been described as "cute" and "quaint."

It's down the road from Nottingham Cottage.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at the 2023 Invictus Games in Dusseldorf, Germany. Getty Images

Speaking of humble abodes, Ivy Cottage is just down the road from Nottingham Cottage, a 1,324-square-foot property nicknamed Nott Cott that was made famous thanks to a visit from Oprah Winfrey. The cottage previously housed Prince William and Kate Middleton from 2011-2013 before becoming the "bachelor pad" of Prince Harry. The Duke of Sussex later proposed to Meghan Markle there. "I was excited to welcome Meg to my home, but also embarrassed," he wrote in his 2023 bombshell memoir Spare. "Nott Cott was no palace."



Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank moved there in 2018.

Jack Brooksbank and Princess Eugenie on their wedding day in October 2018. Getty Images

In January 2018, Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank took the next step in their relationship by getting engaged. They moved to Ivy Cottage shortly thereafter and began living together for the first time.

Princess Eugenie had previously been living with her older sister Princess Beatrice in an apartment inside St. James's Palace. Today, Beatrice still retains that apartment as her London residence, though she and her family spend most of their time in the Cotswolds.

They moved out in 2020 and returned in 2022.

Following Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's move to Los Angeles in March 2020, Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank relocated to Frogmore Cottage in order to be closer to her parents, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Sarah Ferguson, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Eugenie was pregnant with the couple's firstborn son August at the time.

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"Frogmore Cottage continues to be the Duke and Duchess of Sussexs residence in the U.K.," a source told People at the time, "and they are delighted to be able to open up their home to Princess Eugenie and Jack as they start their own family."

Harry and Meghan did not, of course, return to Frogmore Cottage; in January 2023, they were ordered to vacate the property a few days after the release of Spare.



They currently divide their time between Ivy Cottage and Portugal.

Jack Brooksbank and Princess Eugenie at Cheltenham Festival in March 2024. Getty Images

In 2022, Princess Eugenie and her family left Frogmore Cottage for a new home in Algarve, Portugal. The move was prompted by Brooksbank's job; the following year, they also expanded their family with the arrival of a second son named Ernest. Today, the foursome split their time between Algarve and Ivy Cottage. Princess Eugenie later called living in Portugal "the dream" because she can "go to the supermarket in my exercise gear and my hair piled on my head and not mind." In contrast to the strict formalities of royal life in Britain, she was relieved to find that "no one cares" in Portugal.



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Michelle Yeoh is the latest celebrity to receive a star on the iconic Hollywood Walk of Fame, but the announcement sparked a flurry of reactions from fans.

The renowned Malaysian star cemented her name in the global scene after landing a role in the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, marking this as her first major international project.

Although it took time for the 63-year-old actress to gain widespread recognition, she eventually broke through with roles in award-winning movies such as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Crazy Rich Asians, Memoirs of a Geisha and others.

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From notable characters, Yeoh managed to score her first-ever major award after winning the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2023. This was for her role as Evelyn Wang in Everything Everywhere All at Once. On top of it, she also became the first Asian to win the coveted best-actress award at the Oscars.

Michelle Yeoh attends the "Wicked: For Good" Asia-Pacific Premiere at Universal Studio Singapore on November 13, 2025 in Singapore.

With her continued success, the former Miss Malaysia World will be honored with her very own star, standing alongside legendary Hollywood stars.

In an exclusive report by Variety, the publication posted a black-and-white photo of the actress with a caption that reads, Michelle Yeoh will be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce on Feb 18 at 11:30am PT.

The announcement received an overwhelming response from the public, congratulating Yeoh for the monumental achievement.

However, behind the joyful moment, others expressed panic, flooding the comments with reactions like Don't jumpscare us like this.

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Bro !! You dont need to put up pictures in this format!! Dont scare people like that!! one wrote.

Since the black-and-white photos are usually linked to death announcements, a commenter admitted, I really hesitated to scroll any further. Maybe chill with the black and white photos.

Yall cant be posting black-and-white photos, while be celebratory lol a follower echoed.

Stop posting pics in black and white like this!! Almost had a heart attack, a commenter added.

The same goes for an Instagram user who said, Y'all need to start putting the word (Celebratory) at the bottom of the pic.

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Almost had a heart attack. Why post a black-and-white pic? Congrats! Malaysia boleh! a fan noted.

In addition to the upcoming Hollywood Walk of Fame honor, Yeoh stars in a new film, Sandiwara, which will premiere at the Berlin Film Festival.

Directed by Sean Baker, they will showcase the short film at the forthcoming festival scheduled from Feb 12 to Feb 22, 2026.

Related: Michelle Yeoh, 63, Debuts Bold New Look at Wicked: For Good Premiere

This story was originally published by Parade on Feb 10, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Two days before her appearance at the Vienna Opera Ball, Hollywood star Sharon Stone immersed herself in the corporate world of her host, businessman Karl Guschlbauer, known as Austria's "cream roll king."

Guschlbauer invited Stone to his confectionery firm in the Austrian region of St Willibald on Tuesday. Known for her iconic femme fatale roles in films such as "Basic Instinct" and "Casino," Guschlbauer said Stone was a perfect match for his sweet creations.

"She is a sweet seduction," he said. However, Stone confessed to only enjoying sweets in moderation - a little dark chocolate each day, she said.

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Looking ahead to the Opera Ball, she revealed that she would be wearing a dress that recently deceased fashion designer Valentino had once created for her.

The actress, who is also active in social and political causes, told journalists that she has considered leaving the US. It's a complicated time, she said, referring to the current situation.

"I'm definitely looking for a place outside," she said, mentioning France as an example.

Guschlbauer has invited Stone to the Opera Ball on Thursday.

Their joint appearance is seen as a strategic move by Guschlbauer to fill a void left in the wake of Richard "Mortel" Lugner's death in 2024. For decades, the businessman and Vienna society figure was famous for inviting high-profile US celebrities - from Kim Kardashian to Jane Fonda - to accompany him to the ball, often generating significant media buzz

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Guschlbauer founded his company 40 years ago and runs a chain of eponymous bakeries that specialize in breads and traditional Austrian coffee-house cakes.

But the shop is perhaps best known for its puff-pastry spirals filled generously with cream and finished with powdered sugar.

US actress Sharon Stone speaks with her Opera Ball host Karl Guschlbauer (R) at a press conference. At the invitation of Austrian entrepreneur Guschlbauer, Stone will be a guest at the Vienna Opera Ball. Matthias Roder/dpa
Taylor Swift's mansion in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, is famous for its Fourth of July parties and for inspiring "The Last Great American Dynasty," but one of the most intimate stories tied to Holiday House lives on an old home movie. In grainy eight millimeter footage, a young bride named Yvonne Olsen smiles on the patio, runs down the concrete stairs to the ocean and draws her husband's name in the sand. She throws herself into a headstand and then rolls out laughing. Olsen's husband, John, films it all.

The 1951 videos recently resurfaced because the Olsens' daughter, Linda Witalis, rediscovered them in the spring of 2025 after her mother died.

She was the bee's knees," Witalis said of her mother over Zoom. "I loved her lightness and her frivolity and her spark."

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So how did Yvonne and John Olsen come to honeymoon at Holiday House?

Before Swift bought the mansion, it belonged to billionaires William Hale and Rebekah Harkness. John's father, William Lend Olsen, worked for them as a yacht captain, and his wife, Jennie, stayed behind as the home's winter caretaker when the Harknesses were away.

A look at the town: Could Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce wed in Watch Hill, Rhode Island?

Because John's parents lived on the property, the newlyweds were invited to stay at the mansion while his father was out on the yacht. For Yvonne, who grew up in a two-bedroom Michigan farmhouse on a dirt road and "had never even seen the ocean," the experience felt unreal.

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"Can you imagine her?" Witalis said. "She still had an outhouse at home, and then they pull into this house on the ocean. She must have thought she struck gold."

The love story that brought her there unfolded quickly. Yvonne was 21. John was 31, a Coast Guard helicopter pilot sent to Traverse City, Michigan, on assignment. He first saw her singing at the U & I Lounge and flirted with her reflection in the bar mirror. Two nights later, they ran into each other at a dinner party on base.

"Oh my god, that's the girl that I was flirting with," John said to his friend. They went on one date. The next day he was on duty. The day after that, he picked her up again.

"He said, 'You know, Yvonne, I've been thinking about settling down,' and she said, 'So have I,'" Witalis recalled. "He hadn't even kissed her yet."

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They married three days after they met and drove to Rhode Island.

"My father adored her," Witalis said. "I can see how he fell in love with her. He was from a stricter upbringing and military academy, and she was full of life."

After their honeymoon, the Olsens eventually settled in Westerly, Rhode Island. John retired from the Coast Guard to avoid moving his family around, and the couple raised Witalis and her brother in the beach town near Holiday House.

"I feel like I grew up with Ken and Barbie as parents," Witalis said. "They were just magical."

Yvonne and John Olsen honeymooned at Holiday House in Watch Hill, R.I. John's parents were the caretakers of the mansion for Rebekah Harkness.

Yvonne lived in Westerly until her death at 95. Even in her later years, as dementia set in, she still recognized the pull of that house. A senior home bus tour once drove past Holiday House.

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"Your mother was so funny," the activities director told Witalis. "She pointed and said, 'I used to live there.'"

And she was right.

Shortly before talking with USA TODAY, Witalis returned to the beach behind the mansion with her boyfriend. She carried her parents' ashes, combined into a single container.

"We walked down on the beach behind the house and threw the ashes out and just kind of said, 'Mom, we're going to do this interview,'" she said. "We're going to send this out to the universe."

Witalis hopes Swift eventually hears the story of her parents.

"I just think she would love knowing that this love story took place in her home," Witalis said. "Aside from the craziness of Rebeka, there was this beautiful love story. These simple young people in love were in her home."

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In Watch Hill, where stories travel faster than the ocean waves and where Swift's presence draws fans to the village's boutiques, Witalis' story is a reminder that Holiday House has always been a place for romance.

"You never know who you're going to meet or where your life is going to go," she said. "For my parents, it started right there."

Don't miss any Taylor Swift news; sign up for the free, weekly newsletter This Swift Beat.

Follow Taylor Swift reporter Bryan West on Instagram, TikTok and X as @BryanWestTV.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Before Taylor Swift, a forgotten love story unfolded at Holiday House
The Sinners director won the awards for Best Director and Best Writer.

Ryan Coogler was overcome with emotion while accepting the Best Director award for Sinners at the 17th Annual African American Film Critics Association Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday.

The director, who also won the award for Best Writer, was brought to tears by Ava DuVernay, who presented the Oakland native with his director honor. During his speech, Coogler acknowledged Duvernay for championing his work when he was new to the film industry.

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Every man has come up here and cried, Coogler joked while wiping away tears at the Maybourne Beverly Hills. Im the first one to cry twice. Ava, you made me feel safe in this industry. Every day, knowing that youre out there, makes me feel safe. I think the love of a Black woman is the most powerful human force on Earth. The director is nothing without that crew, without that cast. Its truly a community-based job. It is a skill, it is a craft, it is a calling, but you need people to do it.

Coogler, who wrote, directed and produced Sinners, went on to thank his cast and his producing partner and wife Zinzi Coogler, who he called his better-looking, smarter, wiser much better half.

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA  FEBRUARY 08: Ryan Coogler accepts the Best Director award for Sinners onstage during the 17th Annual AAFCA Awards at The Maybourne Beverly Hills on February 08, 2026 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images)

Sinners stars Michael B. Jordan, Delroy Lindo, Wunmi Mosaku, and Miles Canton, all of whom were AAFCA award winners on Sunday. Jordan won the Best Actor award, Wunmi took home Best Supporting Actress award, Canton won the Best Emerging Face-Actor award, and Lindo was honored with the Beacon Award.

Much like their director, both Mosaku and Lindo held back tears as they accepted their honors. Mosaku shared that she was overwhelmed with emotion after Sheryl Lee Ralph introduced her with a powerful speech. The Abbott Elementary star noted how Mosakus performance of Annie in Sinners was awe-inspiring.

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Ive never had an introduction like that, Mosaku said. Im humbled and in awe of you [Ralph]. I mean, Ive watched you my whole life. And so, youre in her [Annie], too. Youre a part of my journey to her. Im really overwhelmed. To be recognized by this community is profoundly meaningful to me. Sinners is a film that comes from a deep place of intention about history, culture, memory, faith and survival, and about the ways those things live in our bodies and are passed down through generations.

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA  FEBRUARY 08: Wunmi Mosaku accepts the Best Supporting Actress award for Sinners onstage during the 17th Annual AAFCA Awards at The Maybourne Beverly Hills on February 08, 2026 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images)

Later, Lindo wiped away tears as he spoke about his mother and the lessons she had imparted on him. The actor, who received his first Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Delta Slim in Sinners, recalled how his mother taught him how to make lemonade of out lemons.

This woman was constantly making lemonade out of the lemons that were placed in front of her, Lindo said about his mother. Sometimes, those lemons were thrown at her, but she never stopped making lemonade. At a certain point, she started making lemonade expressly for the benefit of her young son. This moment feels so glorious and on so many levels. Im profoundly grateful. This lemonade is made from a recipe, made by my mom.

Sinners was the major winner of the 2026 AAFCA Awards, taking home the honors for Best Ensemble, Best Music (Ludwig Goransson) and Best Film. The horror movie, set in the Mississippi Delta in 1932, has had a history-making award season, with a record 16 Oscar nominations.

More must-reads:
The Finnish metal cellist trio Apocalyptica has just announced that they will be embarking on a tour across North America alongside Mongolian folk metal band The Hu this summer.

The tour announcement came this morning along with the news that the Finnish rock band The Rasmus will be supporting the two bands on their tour, which kicks off on May 12 in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Both Apocalyptica and The Hu are known for incorporating the use of traditional and symphonic instruments into heavy metal music, making them the perfect duo to combine forces and perform live on tour together.

THE HU and APOCALYPTICA team for North American tourhttps://t.co/4f5KuYP83k pic.twitter.com/xomYajutSa  revolvermag (@Revolvermag) February 9, 2026

Ticket pre-sale for the tour begins on Wednesday while general sale starts this Friday at 10 a.m., according to Revolver. VIP packages that include special additions such as a meet-and-greet opportunity will also be available.

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Apocalyptica began in 1993 as a Metallica tribute band by four classically trained cellists. Over time, the band shifted from covers to original compositions, blending classical technique with heavy metal aggression on albums like Cult (2000) and Reflections (2003). Apocalyptica later incorporated drums and guest vocalists, collaborating with artists such as Corey Taylor and Ville Valo, and solidified their global reputation as pioneers who bridged classical music and metal in a genuinely new way.

The band currently has 10 studio albums and is made up of Eicca Toppinen, Paavo Lotjonen and Perttu Kivilaakso.

The Hu formed in 2016 as a Mongolian metal folk band that combines Mongolian practices such as throat singing and traditional instrumentation with heavy metal music, which was banned in Mongolia up until the 1990s. Their 2018 song "Wolf Totem" topped Billboard's Hard Rock Digital Song Sales in 2019, making them the first Mongolian musicians to do so.

Galbadrakh Tsendbaatar and Nyamjantsan Galsanjamts of the Mongolian band The Hu performs on stage during the Pinkpop Festival.Photo by Didier Messens/Redferns (Photo by Didier Messens/Redferns)

Their first studio album The Gereg was released in late 2019 and heavily incorporated Mongolian culture into hard-hitting rock music. Later that year The Hu was awarded with the Order of Chinggis Khaan  the highest state award in Mongolia  for all the work they had done to promote Mongolian culture globally.

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The Hu has also participated in multiple major collaborations with other well-known metal and rock bands, such as when they were featured on the Metallica tribute album in The Metallica Blacklist in 2020 and when they supported Iron Maiden on their North America tour in 2024.

Apocalyptica x The Hu 2026 North America Tour Dates

5/12: Silver Spring, MD - The Fillmore *

5/13: New York, NY - Palladium Times Square *

5/14: New Haven, CT - College Street Music Hall *

5/15: Stroudsburg, PA - Sherman Theater *

5/18: Milwaukee, WI - The Rave / Eagles Club *

5/19: Green Bay, WI - EPIC Event Center *

5/20: Maplewood, MN - Myth Live *

5/22: Memphis, TN - Minglewood Hall *

5/23: Irving, TX - The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory *

5/24: San Antonio, TX - Aztec Theatre *

5/26: Houston, TX - Warehouse Live *

5/27: Oklahoma City, OK - Diamond Ballroom *

5/29: Phoenix, AZ - The Van Buren *

5/30: Las Vegas, NV - The Theater at Virgin Hotels *

5/31: Valley Center, CA - Harrah's Resort SoCal  The Events Center *

6/4: Reno, NV - Grand Theater *

6/6: Los Angeles, CA - The Wiltern *

6/7: Anaheim, CA - House Of Blues *



* with The Rasmus

Related: 2000s Metalcore Band Announces First Album With New Member

This story was originally published by Parade on Feb 9, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WCIA)  A multi-platinum country star is slated to play at the Illinois State Fair in Springfield later this year, in his home state.

On Tuesday, it was announced that Bailey Zimmerman will be playing the Illinois Lottery Grandstand stage on Ag Day, Friday, Aug. 14. Born in Louisville, Illinois, Zimmermans performance is set to hit close to home at this annual state celebration.

IDOT beginning bridge removal project in Springfield, requiring nighttime I-55 closures

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Bailey Zimmermans Illinois roots make this announcement especially meaningful, said Illinois Department of Agriculture Director Jerry Costello II. He represents the talent and authenticity that Illinois is known for, and were thrilled to welcome him back home to perform at the Illinois State Fair.

Zimmerman first gained popularity in 2020 after posting original songs to social media. His breakout hit Fall in Love went viral and made him the fastest debut country artist to reach No. 1 on Billboards Country Airplay chart in over a decade. The song has since earned 4x-Platinum status.

This effort was followed by the 5x-Platinum, six-week No. 1 hit Rock And A Hard Place. Last year, Zimmerman released his second album, Different Night Same Rodeo, via Atlantic Records/Warner Music Nashville. This alum includes the songs Backup Plan featuring Luke Combs and Lost featuring The Kid LAROI.

Lawmakers introduce new bill to help Illinois fully fund public schools by 2027

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During his career, Zimmerman has earned nominations for awards from the Billboard Music Awards, ACM Awards, Peoples Choice Country Awards and CMT Music Awards.

Baileys connection to Illinois fans runs deep, and his live shows are nothing short of electric, said Illinois State Fair Manager Rebecca Clark. This is a performance fairgoers wont want to misswhether youve followed his journey from the beginning or are just discovering his music.

Tickets for the Bailey Zimmerman concert will go on sale Friday, Feb. 13 at 10 a.m. on Ticketmaster. The Illinois State Fair is taking place from Aug. 13-23 in Springfield.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WCIA.com.
Tributes have been pouring in from across Ghana and the world since the death of Ghanaian highlife legend Ebo Taylor.

A guitarist, composer and bandleader who died on Saturday, Taylor's six-decade career played a key role in shaping modern popular music in West Africa.

Often described as one of the founding fathers of contemporary highlife, Taylor died a day after the launch of a music festival bearing his name in the capital, Accra, and just a month after celebrating his 90th birthday.

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Highlife, a genre blending traditional African rhythms with jazz and Caribbean influences, was recently added to UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

"The world has lost a giant. A colossus of African music," a statement shared on his official page said. "Your light will never fade."

The Los Angeles-based collective Jazz Is Dead called him a pioneer of highlife and Afrobeat, while Ghanaian dancehall star Stonebwoy and American producer Adrian Younge, who has worked with Jay Z and Kendrick Lamar, also paid tribute to his legacy.

Nigerian writer and poet Dami Ajayi described him as a "highlife maestro" and a "fantastic guitarist".

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- 'Uncle Ebo' -

Taylor's influence extended far beyond Ghana, with elements of his music appearing in the soul, jazz, hip-hop and Afrobeat genres that dominate the African and global charts today.

Born Deroy Taylor in Cape Coast in 1936, he began performing in the 1950s, as highlife was establishing itself as the dominant sound in Ghana in the years following independence.

Known for intricate guitar lines and rich horn arrangements, he played with leading bands including the Stargazers and the Broadway Dance Band.

In the early 1960s, he travelled to London to study music, where he worked alongside other African musicians, including Nigerian Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti.

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The exchange of ideas between the two would later be seen as formative to the development of Afrobeat, a political cocktail blending highlife with funk, jazz and soul.

Back in Ghana, Taylor became one of the country's most sought-after arrangers and producers, working with stars such as Pat Thomas and CK Mann while leading his own bands.

His compositions -- including "Love & Death", "Heaven", "Odofo Nyi Akyiri Biara" and "Appia Kwa Bridge" -- gained renewed international attention decades later as DJs, collectors and record labels reissued his music. His grooves were sampled by hip-hop and R&B artists and helped introduce new global audiences to Ghanaian highlife.

Taylor continued touring into his 70s and 80s, performing across Europe and the United States as part of a late-career renaissance that cemented his status as a cult figure among younger musicians.

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Many fans affectionately referred to him as "Uncle Ebo", reflecting both his longevity and mentorship of younger artists.

For many, he remained a symbol of highlife's golden era and of a generation that carried Ghanaian music onto the world stage.

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The Brooklyn concert marks the start of Shynes 25th anniversary tour for his debut album.

It will be his first U.S. performance since returning and highlights his connection to Flatbush.

Shyne revealed plans for two new albums tied to upcoming film and TV projects.

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Shyne is heading back to the stage for a full-circle moment in Brooklyn.

The rap legend is set to headline a 25th anniversary concert celebrating his self-titled debut album, Shyne, at Kings Theatre on Saturday, May 2, at 9 p.m. ET. The show marks his first headlining performance since returning to the United States and brings him back to Flatbush  the neighborhood that helped shape his early years.

In a statement announcing the performance, Shyne reflected on the significance of the moment. It is surreal to return to the stage in the neighborhood where I grew up for a night of performances celebrating classic raw Hip Hop, he said.

The Brooklyn event follows Shynes announcement in September 2025 that he would commemorate the albums milestone with a 25th anniversary tour. During an appearance on Talk With Flee, previously reported by REVOLT, the artist-turned-politician revealed plans to revisit the project that introduced his commanding baritone voice and gritty storytelling to the world, while also teasing two new albums connected to upcoming film and television projects. To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Shyne album, we're going to do a 25th anniversary tour, he told host Camron. The first stop is expected to be in New York City, with the Jimmy Choo rapper saying hed like to bring out both Camron and Ma$e on stage: I dont know if hes retired.

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That conversation signaled a renewed creative chapter for Shyne, whose journey has stretched far beyond music. Born in Belize City and raised in East Flatbush, he rose to prominence after signing with Bad Boy Records and releasing Shyne in 2000. The album produced lasting records like Bad Boyz, Bonnie & Shyne, and Thats Gangsta, cementing his place in Hip Hop during a pivotal era.

Shynes journey from rap star to public servant and cultural figure

Shynes career has been defined as much by resilience as by music. After overcoming a wrongful conviction, he redirected his focus toward public service in Belize, eventually becoming a member of the House of Representatives and serving as Opposition Leader. His life story and impact were later chronicled in The Honorable Shyne, a documentary released in 2024.

The Kings Theatre performance is expected to reflect that full arc  artist, survivor, and leader  while honoring a body of work that continues to resonate over two decades later. Special guests have yet to be announced.

Pre-sale tickets for the concert begin Thursday, Feb. 12, at 10 a.m. ET, with general on-sale following Friday, Feb. 13, at 10 a.m. ET.

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Welcome to the pods.

The Ohio season of Netflix's "Love Is Blind" debuts Feb. 11, featuring singles from Cincinnati to Columbus to Cleveland.

Perhaps, like me, you've watched every single season of this show before now. You've seen countless dates, awkward family meetings and dramatic moments at the altar. You know "I Hope You Dance" is more than just a song by Lee Ann Womack.

But "Love Is Blind" might be new to some Ohioans who want to watch their fellow Buckeyes search for love. If you're diving into this season sight unseen, we've got you covered.

The pods

The show begins with 16 men and 16 women who spend 10 days going on blind dates.

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The dates take place in "pods," which are 12-by-12 soundproof rooms with an opaque wall to separate contestants, according to Netflix's Tudum. Prospective couples can talk, eat dinner together and even play games, but they can't see each other. This is the foundation of the show  is love truly blind?

The men and women hang out in separate lounges when they aren't on dates. They can't have their phones during the first part of the show, which means no contact with the outside world or snooping on their crush's Instagram account.

Everyone gets the chance to meet each other on the first day, Tudum reported, but second dates and beyond depend on interest level. Expect deep conversations over gold glasses of wine and at least one love triangle.

The engagements

Couples don't meet in person until they get engaged.

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This starts with a blind proposal in the pods. When the big moment comes, two sets of double doors part to reveal each person. The guy typically gets down on one knee to put a ring on his fiancee's finger.

More often that not, contestants are happy with what they see. But reveals marked the beginning of the end for some past couples.

The vacation

From here, the engaged couples head on vacation  usually somewhere warm and beachy.

The trip allows them to get to know each other on a physical level. It's romantic. It's dramatic. In past seasons, a few couples didn't even make it through a week in paradise.

The best part, in my opinion, is when all the couples get together. This allows men and women who aren't engaged and may have spoken in the pods to meet face to face. Bonus awkward points if they seriously dated.

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Note: Sometimes a season yields more couples than the show can follow. When that happens, "Love Is Blind" creator Chris Coelen told Variety that producers "go with our gut" in deciding who to film.

The real world

This is where it gets really good.

After the vacation, couples return home and move into a shared apartment. They get their phones back. They meet each other's family and friends, some of whom understandably think the experiment is insane.

This phase also includes a party with all of the contestants  including folks who didn't get engaged. We've seen people air out more than a few grievances and messy breakups at these mixers.

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Best-case scenario at this point? You'll watch cast members try on wedding dresses and throw their bachelor or bachelorette parties. But not everyone always makes it to the altar.

The weddings

After about a month, the weddings arrive.

Couples get help from a wedding planner and fill out questionnaires to outline their vision, according to Tudum. They don't pay for much out of pocket, unless they want something beyond the show's budget.

You'll see the whole wedding day, from hair and makeup to the moment they walk down the aisle. Then we sit on the edge of our seats as the couple decides: Do they say "I do" or ride off into the sunset alone?

The reunion

Months after filming, contestants get back together for a reunion episode.

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Here, we learn how the married couples are doing and whether anyone dated after season's end. Participants get the chance to address social media rumors and hear what other cast members said about them on the show.

The tea will be spilled.

State government reporter and "Love Is Blind" correspondent Haley BeMiller can be reached at hbemiller@usatodayco.com or @haleybemiller on X.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: What to know about Netflix's 'Love Is Blind' ahead of Ohio season
By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday threatened to bar the new $4.6 billion bridge connecting Detroit and Windsor, Ontario from opening, in his latest salvo against Canada over trade issues.

Trump cited Canada's ownership of the Gordie Howe International Bridge, its refusal to stock some U.S. alcoholic beverages on Canadian store shelves, Canada's tariffs on dairy products and its trade talks with China.

"I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them, and also, importantly, Canada treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve," Trump said on social media. "We will start negotiations, IMMEDIATELY. With all that we have given them, we should own, perhaps, at least one half of this asset."

In 2012, Michigan's then-Governor Rick Snyder accepted a Canadian government offer to fund most of the new Gordie Howe bridge's costs, and took the unusual step of using executive authority to bypass the legislature. Construction began in 2018 and the bridge is nearing completion.

The U.S Homeland Security Department on January 30 published a rule declaring the bridge as an official port of entry.

The Canadian Embassy in Washington, the office of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the bridge authority did not immediately comment.

Senator Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, said "canceling this project will have serious repercussions. Higher costs for Michigan businesses, less secure supply chains, and ultimately, fewer jobs."

She added Trump is "punishing Michiganders for a trade war he started. The only reason Canada is on the verge of a trade deal with China is because President Trump has kicked them in the teeth for a year."

In 2023, Detroit was the second-largest U.S. freight port by value and was the largest on the U.S.-Canada border, handling $126 billion of value traded by commercial trucks.

The bridge will help ease truck traffic, which is handled by the Ambassador Bridge. The Gordie Howe Bridge will cut 20 minutes off the crossing time, saving truckers $2.3 billion over 30 years, according to a University of Windsor study.

Trump has made a number of threats against Canada in his second term and drastically hike tariffs on the U.S. northern neighbor. Last month, he said he would impose a 100% tariff on Canada if it follows through on a trade deal with China.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in January traveled to China to reset the countries' strained relationship and reached a trade deal with Canada's second-biggest trading partner after the U.S.
When an Idaho chef competes on Food Network this spring, it definitely wont be her first rodeo.

But she has 150,000 reasons to give it her best shot.

Food Network veteran Britt Rescigno, co-founder and co-chef at Fiamma in Sun Valley, is returning to Guy Fieris Tournament of Champions. The seventh season premieres at 9 p.m. Sunday, March 1.

Rescigno is one of 32 of the nations best chefs slated to compete, according to a press release. After eight weeks and 31 grueling head-to-head battles, one talented chef will win it all and be crowned champion, according to the release, taking home the coveted Tournament of Champions belt and a $150,000 cash prize.

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Rescigno has extensive Food Network experience. She won Chopped in 2019. She Beat Bobby Flay with her grandmas chicken and dumplings that same year. She emerged victorious on Guys Grocery Games. (And appeared again  on the shows Extreme Express Lane edition  earlier this month.) Rescigno also previously has (cooked) her way into the final four of Tournament of Champions, Seasons 4, 5 and 6, according to her bio.

Sun Valley-based chef Britt Rescigno is a veteran of Tournament of Champions. (Food Network)

A South Jersey native with restaurant experience on both coasts, Rescigno opened Fiamma a year ago with her wife, co-founder and co-chef Kinsey Leodler-Rescigno. An Italian-inspired live-fire restaurant, Fiamma is located at 211 Leadville Ave. North in Ketchum.

Prior to the new season of Tournament of Champions, a qualifiers show will air on Food Network at 9 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 15. Tournament of Champions VII: The Bracket Reveal, is scheduled for Feb. 22.

 Tournament of Champions has been Food Networks top-rated series for five years running and each season we up the ante making the competition more intense than the last, said Betsy Ayala, head of content, food, at Warner Bros. Discovery. With the surprises we have in store this season and the extraordinary level of talent competing, Ayala added in a press release, we cant wait to share this next-level, high-adrenaline competition with viewers.
A suspect in the abduction of US television host Savannah Guthries elderly mother, Nancy, was taken into custody in Arizona on Tuesday, nine days after the 84-year-old woman was reported missing, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the case.

The Pima county sheriffs department issued a separate statement online late on Tuesday saying deputies had detained a subject during a traffic stop and that the individual was being questioned in connection to the Nancy Guthrie investigation.

No further details were immediately available, and it was not clear whether the suspect taken into custody and the individual described as a subject detained in a traffic stop south of Tucson were the same person.

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But the apparent breakthrough came hours after authorities released video and photos of an armed man in a ski mask tampering with the door camera of Nancy Guthries home near Tucson on the morning that she was taken from her residence.

The FBI director, Kash Patel, published the images as the search for Nancy Guthrie, 84, stretched into its second week, saying the images had been previously inaccessible but were subsequently obtained from residual data located in back-end systems.

The black-and-white images depict a masked figure wearing gloves and a backpack approaching the door of Guthries house. In one of the images, the person waves what appears to be a plant  and in the other, they begin to dismantle the Nest camera.

Working with our partners, as of [Tuesday] morning, law enforcement has uncovered these previously inaccessible new images showing an armed individual appearing to have tampered with the camera at  Guthries front door the morning of her disappearance, Patel wrote on X.

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Savannah Guthrie issued a desperate plea on Monday for anyone who might know anything about her missing mother to contact law enforcement. We are at an hour of desperation, she said. And we need your help.

The FBI has yet to identify a suspect, a day after the lapse of a deadline set by a ransom note from the octogenarians purported kidnappers.

The Guthrie family said on Sunday that they would pay kidnappers to ensure she safely returns home. Authorities have not confirmed the veracity of this ransom demand.

Efforts to contact the kidnappers appear to have fallen short, with officials saying on Monday night that they were not aware of any continued communication between the Guthrie family and suspected kidnappers, nor have we identified a suspect or person of interest in this case at this time.

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The FBI said the agency was sending more agents from field offices across the US to Guthries home city of Tucson, Arizona, outside of which her blood had been found.

We are currently operating a 24-hour command post that includes crisis management experts, analytic support, and investigative teams. But we still need the publics help, NBC News quoted the FBI as saying. Someone has that one piece of information that can help us bring Nancy home. We need that person to share what they know. Please call us at 1-800-CALL-FBI.

Separately, the Guthrie familys pastor, Michael Rudzena, described Nancy on television as a strong woman and fiercely loving.

Prayer opens up possibilities in our own hearts, he told Today. Leaving a door open for hope is a way to fight against that fatality.

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Authorities believe Nancy Guthrie was taken from her home early on 1 February.

They had said that one roadblock in the ensuing search for Guthrie was the fact that somebody had disconnected her doorbell camera when she disappeared. And because she was not actively subscribed to the doorbell camera service provider, they could not immediately get images, they said.

With Reuters
Fans of Donald Glover's comedy-drama series "Atlanta" got a surprise in Season 3, when Liam Neeson made an unexpected cameo in the episode "New Jazz." In the episode, which followed the characters Alfred (Brian Tyree Henry) and Darius (Lakeith Stanfield) as they explored Amsterdam, Neeson appeared as a fictionalized version of himself in a club named Cancel Club. The episode came out following Neeson's controversial 2019 admission that, at one point in his youth, he had harbored a racist revenge fantasy after his friend was sexually assaulted by a Black man. His appearance on "Atlanta" gave Neeson an opportunity to apologize, albeit in a comedic context.

Given the level of controversy that arose from Neeson's statement, which he had shared in order to show remorse for his past actions, the actor was understandably uncertain about appearing in "Atlanta" and making reference to his comments. In fact, when he was initially asked to make a cameo appearance by Glover, Neeson declined, believing it would be a bad idea. Glover was determined, though, and turned to a celebrity friend to get Neeson involved with the show.

Glover has revealed that the deciding factor in getting Neeson to appear on "Atlanta" was the endorsement of director Jordan Peele. A renowned director in his own right, Peele is known for addressing racism and the Black experience through his work. His suggestion to Neeson, at Glover's request, that the "Atlanta" appearance was a good idea was enough to convince the "Taken" star to shoot the cameo.

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Read more: 15 Seinfeld Episodes That Have Aged Terribly

Donald Glover revealed Jordan Peele's role in securing Liam Neeson's Atlanta cameo

Liam Neeson meets Brian Tyree Henry's Alfred in a bar on Atlanta. - FX

In a 2023 interview with GQ, Glover spoke about the difficulty of getting Neeson to agree to appear on "Atlanta." He said that when he first contacted Neeson about the part, which would involve addressing his earlier revenge comments, "Liam poured his heart out." Glover said that "He was like, 'I am embarrassed. I don't know about this. I'm trying to get away from that.' And I was like, 'Man, I'm telling you, this will be funny! And you'll actually get a lot of cream from it because it'll show you're sorry.' ... [H]e asked me to let him think about it. Then he sent me an email saying, 'I don't think I can do it and best of luck with "Atlanta," blah-blah-blah.'"

While Neeson initially refused to appear, Glover soon figured out a way to change the actor's mind. "Liam said [after the incident] he talked to Morgan Freeman, Jordan Peele, and Spike Lee. So I was like ... Jordan Peele! I hit Jordan Peele up and I was like, 'Look, man, I got this idea. He said that he trusted you. Tell him it's a good idea!'"

Fortunately, Peele was on board and managed to convince Neeson to reconsider. "Jordan thought it was hilarious!" Glover said. "So Jordan talked to him. Liam hit me back and said he talked to Jordan and his son and thought it'd actually be a good thing."

How Liam Neeson's Atlanta cameo addressed his past controversy

Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr. preparing to throw a lollipop in The Naked Gun - Paramount

Liam Neeson went on to shoot a cameo that  as well as adding to the surreal world of "Atlanta"  gave him a chance to apologize for his earlier comments. True to form for "Atlanta," however, the apology was undercut with the series' own brand of irreverent humor.

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Speaking to Alfred in Cancel Club, a club for people who had been canceled, Neeson said in the episode, "You might've heard or read about my transgression. You know, what I said about what I wanted to do to a Black guy. Any Black guy, when I was a younger man in London. A friend of mine had been raped, and I acted out of anger."

Neeson then went on to reflect, "I look back now and it honestly frightens me. I thought people knowing who I once was would make clear who I am, who I've become. But with all that being said, I am sorry. I apologize if I hurt people."

The heartfelt apology was followed by Alfred admitting, "I still f*** with 'Taken,'" before saying it was good to know Neeson didn't hate Black people. Neeson then responded, "What? No, no, no, no. I can't stand the lot of you. Well, now I feel that way, because you tried to ruin my career. Didn't succeed, mind you." The scene ended with Neeson claiming that being white means "we don't have to learn anything if we don't want to."

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First visits go smoother when transport is straightforward and the welcome feels warm. In Malaysia, modern skylines sit a short ride from rainforest trails, heritage streets, and beaches with calm water. Even a quick trip can deliver several wow scenes without exhausting your schedule.

A simple strategy is one main base plus a few quick hops by train, ferry, or domestic flight. Start early for views and cooler air, then keep afternoons flexible for museums, cafes, or a slow swim. The places below suit that kind of pacing.

1. Kuala Lumpur

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Glass towers, night markets, and leafy parks share the same map, so planning stays uncomplicated. Ride efficient rail lines between neighborhoods, then walk the last few blocks for temples, malls, and food courts that run late. The city feels approachable quickly because signage, apps, and airport links are visitor-friendly.

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Give yourself one big view moment, then switch to street-level wandering in areas like Bukit Bintang or Chinatown. A half-day at Batu Caves adds a memorable temple setting just outside the urban core. Finish with a rooftop drink or a late bowl of noodles and call it a night.

2. George Town, Penang

Image Credit: TY Lim / Shutterstock.

Heritage shophouses, clan temples, and bold murals make this compact old quarter a joy on foot. The historic center is part of the UNESCO-listed Melaka and George Town, Historic Cities of the Straits of Malacca, recognized for its long multicultural trading history.

Start with a morning walk for cooler air and better photos, then build a snack crawl from kopitiams and hawker stalls. A quick ride up Penang Hill or out to the beaches gives you a scenery change without complicated logistics. Evening is ideal for a slow lap around the waterfront, when lights come on and the pace softens.

3. Melaka

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Riverside promenades, old forts, and Peranakan influences pack a lot of character into a small area. Like George Town, Melaka forms part of the same UNESCO World Heritage listing tied to centuries of exchange in the Straits of Malacca.

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Stroll Jonker Street by day, then return after dark for weekend night-market energy. A river cruise or a long walk along the banks works well when you want something relaxing between museums. Keep the schedule light and let cafe stops set the rhythm.

4. Langkawi

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

This archipelago leans into easy comfort: soft beaches, short drives, and resorts that make downtime effortless. Langkawi holds UNESCO Global Geopark status, highlighting its geology and landscapes as part of the International Geoscience and Geoparks Programme.

Pick one signature outing, such as a cable car ride, mangrove tour, or island-hopping boat day, then protect the rest of the hours for swimming. Sunset is a daily event here, best watched from a quiet stretch of sand or a simple beachfront dinner. If rain rolls in, treat it as an excuse for a spa session and a longer lunch.

5. Cameron Highlands

Image Credit: FinetoothOwn work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia.

Cooler temperatures and green slopes make the highlands a pleasant break from coastal humidity. Tea estates, short nature paths, and small towns are arranged in a way that suits relaxed sightseeing. Many travelers find the area soothing because the air changes and the pace slows naturally.

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Choose one morning walk, then spend the afternoon with a cafe view and a local farm visit for strawberries or flowers. Transport from major hubs is common by bus or private car, so reaching the hills rarely requires tricky planning. Bring a light jacket, since evenings can feel crisp compared with the lowlands.

6. Ipoh

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Ipoh mixes old-world shopfronts with a growing cafe culture, plus food that locals take seriously. The city center is easy to navigate, and it makes a comfortable stop between the capital and Penang by rail. The slower rhythm suits Ipoh, especially if you like wandering without a strict checklist.

Look for limestone scenery on the outskirts, where cave temples and viewpoints add a quick adventure note. Back in town, murals and heritage lanes create a fun walking loop that fits into a single afternoon. End the day with white coffee and a dessert run.

7. Kuching, Sarawak

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Kuching feels laid-back and scenic, with a riverfront promenade that stays pleasant for evening strolls. Museums and waterfront cafes make culture easy to dip into without heavy planning. The city also works as a gateway to nature outings that can fit into a single day.

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A classic excursion is Bako National Park, known for coastal trails and wildlife viewing, reached by road and a short boat ride. Another option is a visit to nearby cultural villages for crafts, dance, and local history in a structured, beginner-friendly format. Keep nights calm and enjoy the riverside atmosphere.

8. Kota Kinabalu, Sabah

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

This coastal capital in Borneo is a comfortable base with sunsets, seafood markets, and quick access to island boats. Everything feels close, from waterfront dinners to day tours that head into the hills. For first-timers, its a strong blend of comfort and wilder scenery.

Take a half-day trip to nearby islands in Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park for snorkeling and sandy breaks. Another easy outing is a drive to Kundasang for cooler air and mountain views. Wrap up with a night market wander and a simple grilled seafood plate.

9. Kinabalu Park

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Mount Kinabalu dominates the skyline, and the surrounding protected area is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The official listing highlights the parks biodiversity and its position on northern Borneo, with Mount Kinabalu at 4,095 meters.

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You do not need to climb the peak to enjoy the setting. Easy trails, botanical stops, and viewpoint drives make it rewarding for visitors who prefer gentle walking. Early morning often brings the clearest views, so an overnight nearby can be a smart move.

10. Perhentian Islands

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Clear water and low-key beach life make the Perhentians a favorite for travelers who want uncomplicated relaxation. Snorkeling is the headline, and the best days are the ones with minimal plans beyond a mask, fins, and a good book. Accommodation ranges from basic chalets to more comfortable beachfront stays.

Reach the islands by boat from the Terengganu coast, then settle into a slower rhythm where everything runs on island time. Choose one or two coves, rotate between swimming and shade, and keep evenings quiet. Pack reef-safe sunscreen and respect marine life, since these waters are the whole point.

11. Taman Negara

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Taman Negara is one of the countrys best-known rainforest parks, set across multiple states in Peninsular Malaysia. UNESCOs Tentative List description notes it as the first and largest national park gazetted in Malaysia, with gazettement in 1938 and 1939.

A stay here can be as gentle or as active as you like. Many visitors stick to guided walks, river trips, and canopy viewpoints that deliver rainforest atmosphere without extreme exertion. Start early, rest in the hottest hours, then head back out near dusk for a different soundscape.
First trips go best when a place feels friendly on day one and still surprising on day five. Taiwan delivers that mix, with fast trains, clear signage in many major areas, and a travel culture that rewards wandering. Food alone can keep you busy, and the scenery can shift from city skylines to jungle ridges in a single ride.

A smart rhythm is one main base plus a couple of simple side trips. Start early for views, keep midday flexible, then treat evening as snack time and slow strolling time. With that approach, the stops below stay exciting without ever turning into homework.

1. Taipei

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Taipei is a natural starting line, with neighborhoods that each operate like a mini-city. Head up to Taipei 101s observatory for a crisp skyline view, then come back down for night markets and people-watching. Taipei 101 publishes ticket desk hours online, which helps when you are planning around weather.

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Hot springs and mountain air sit close to the center, so a city break can include nature without a long transfer. Beitou works as a classic half-day, while Yangmingshan adds gentle hikes and seasonal flowers. Finish with a temple visit or a late bowl of noodles, then call it a night before the next day trip.

2. Jiufen

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Hillside lanes, lantern glow, and teahouses with sea views make Jiufen feel cinematic, especially when mist rolls in. Snack stalls and souvenir shops cluster along the Old Street, so first-time visitors can simply follow the flow and still have a great time. Aim for late afternoon, when the light softens and the town looks its best.

Pair Jiufen with a quick stop in Shifen for a waterfall and the classic sky-lantern moment. The combination works well as a single day out of Taipei, with enough contrast to feel like two separate outings. Head back to the capital for dinner, because Taipei makes that part easy.

3. Tainan

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Tainan is the pick for temples, old lanes, and a food scene that wears its local pride openly. The pace is slower than in the north, and the historic core is simple to explore in compact loops. Street eats here lean toward comforting, with soups, rice dishes, and sweets that can turn into an all-day tasting crawl.

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Anping is an easy add-on, with waterfront air and heritage stops that require minimal planning. Taijiang National Park brings a different texture, with wetlands and calm boat trips. Keep afternoons unhurried, then go out for a sunset snack run.

4. Kaohsiung

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Kaohsiung has a breezy, modern rhythm, with wide streets, harbor views, and plenty of space to roam. The Art Pier area and waterfront walks suit travelers who like cities that do not feel cramped. Night markets stay lively, and the overall tone tends to be more laid-back than frantic.

Take the ferry to Cijin for beach time, street food, and a relaxed coastal bike ride. Fo Guang Shan is another popular outing if you want a cultural day with big architecture and quiet grounds. Back in town, pick a rooftop drink spot and let the harbor lights do the work.

5. Sun Moon Lake

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Sun Moon Lake is a gentle gateway to nature, with water views, short trails, and an easy loop around the shore. Taiwan Tourism Administration materials describe it as Taiwans only natural big lake, and the area is built for visitors with viewpoints, docks, and bike-friendly segments. Boat rides connect key points around the shoreline, which helps you see a lot without rushing.

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Ita Thao is a popular stop for snacks and local culture, while temples and pagoda viewpoints add variety. Stay overnight if you can, because mornings by the water are especially calm. A slow start here pays off.

6. Alishan

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Alishan is the classic mountain escape, known for cool air, forest walks, and sunrise views above a sea of clouds. The Alishan National Scenic Area highlights fall and winter as strong seasons for cloud viewing, and it lists several popular observation areas inside the recreation zone. Even a simple walk can feel refreshing when the air turns crisp and the trees close in.

Getting there can be part of the experience, especially if you use the Alishan Forest Railway on routes that fit your schedule. The railways official office posts current service and ticket information, which matters because mountain operations can shift with conditions. Build in a little flexibility and you will enjoy it more.

7. Hualien

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Hualien is a welcoming east-coast base with ocean views, easy cafes, and a calmer pace than major western cities. Nearby coastline pullouts and scenic points are the main draw, and many of them work well even with limited time. A short stay can feel restorative if you keep the mornings slow and spend time by the water.

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Use Hualien as the launch point for Taroko Gorge, but check the latest safety updates before you go. Check official park alerts first, since closures can change with earthquakes, typhoons, and rockfall risk. Treat real-time information as part of the plan.

8. Taroko Gorge

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Tarokos marble cliffs and river bends create some of the most dramatic scenery on the island. A simple approach is best for first-time visitors: start at a visitor center, then choose viewpoint stops and short walks that match the sections currently open. Timing matters here, because weather and rockfall risk can change access quickly.

A guided day tour can reduce stress, since drivers and guides often track road control windows and local conditions. Bring good shoes and keep water handy, even if you are only doing brief strolls. If a trail is closed, take it as a cue to explore Hualiens coast instead of forcing the itinerary.

9. Kenting

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Kenting is beach-focused and sunny, with warm-water swimming, coastal viewpoints, and a holiday atmosphere. It is also Taiwans oldest national park, established in 1984, and the park service highlights its long-running work on marine conservation. The result is a place that balances fun beach time with protected landscapes.

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Spend one day on simple shoreline stops like capes and lookout points, then save another for pure beach hours. Snorkeling and boat activities are common, but doing nothing is a perfectly valid plan here. Evening markets in the south pair nicely with a slow walk after dinner.

10. Taitung and the East Coast

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Taitung suits travelers who want open space, fewer crowds, and big coastal scenery. Shore drives in the region are packed with quick pull-offs, so you can build a day from short walks, viewpoints, and snack breaks. It feels wilder than the west, yet it stays manageable with basic planning.

Sanxiantai is a signature stop, connected by an eight-arch bridge completed in 1987, according to the East Coast National Scenic Area. Go early for softer light and fewer tour groups, then roll back toward town for a quiet dinner. If the timing lines up, Luye Highlands and seasonal events make an easy detour.

11. Penghu Islands

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Penghu is about wind, light, and seaside villages, with beaches that feel distinct from Taiwans main island. The islands are known for basalt formations, and official scenic-area sources highlight Tongpans columnar basalt cliffs and its nickname tied to that geology. The scenery has a stark, sculpted quality that photographs well in bright weather.

Base yourself in Magong, then branch out by boat or scooter for small hops and swim stops. A simple plan can include one geology-focused outing, one beach afternoon, and one night market wander. Penghu works especially well near the end of a first visit, when you want to exhale.
Jamaica measures 146 miles from end to end and 51 miles at its widest point  slightly smaller than the State of Connecticut. To the average American, this may seem small in terms of land, but the culture that comes from this Caribbean island is huge. Rastafarianism, the sounds of patois, not to mention dancehall and reggae music, have all made their mark on the world, and if you haven't noticed, so has the food.

There's nothing like the smell of jerk chicken or the rich, spice-filled sauce of curry goat, the patties whose turmeric-dyed dough tints your fingertips as you tear into the warm interior, the tart sorrel and brightly colored selections of juices to wash your meal down with. Many of these dishes are as legendary and far-reaching as the sounds that originated in Jamaica, the size of the plates, and the smell of the spices that draw in a crowd.

We've interviewed two experts to find out which dishes from the island you absolutely have to try. Ladanna Lawas grew up in Jamaica, where she learned to cook with her grandma, and is now the Executive Chef at Big City Tavern in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Dr. Samara Sterling is a nutrition scientist and director at The Peanut Institute and Veggie & Soul. She specializes in the use of plant-based nutrition for the prevention and management of chronic diseases. Both Dr. Sterling and Chef Lawas have shared their favorite dishes, drinks, and meals from Jamaica.

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Read more: 14 Old-School Ground Beef Dishes No One Seems To Make Anymore

1. Porridges

A closeup view of Jamaican cornmeal porridge - Sevenstock Studio/Shutterstock

Versions of porridge or oatmeal appear on breakfast menus around the world, from quinoa porridge in Peru to British versions that use rolled and steel-cut oats. In Jamaica, this breakfast staple also pops up in a variety of different forms. Cornmeal porridge is perhaps the most common, but it's anything but basic  Jamaican porridge comes heavily spiced with nutmeg, cinnamon, and a touch of vanilla. It's often sweetened with condensed milk, giving it a creamy consistency and inviting taste.

Dr. Samara Sterling says that "porridges like [...] banana or peanut porridge are also common." For banana porridge, the green bananas might be blended with coconut milk, spices, and condensed milk, and cooked low and slow until thick and creamy. Peanut porridge is a similar recipe, using raw peanuts as a base and a touch of flour to thicken.

2. Callaloo

A bowl of stewed callaloo on a colorful tablecloth - Paul_brighton/Getty Images

If those Jamaican porridges are sounding a bit too sweet for your tastes, just know that breakfast in Jamaica isn't typically that sugary. Dr. Samara Sterling explains: "In traditional Jamaican culture, breakfast meals tend to be hearty, savory, and filling. An example would be callaloo with dumplings and plantains."

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Callaloo is a leafy green also called amaranth or "Caribbean spinach." It's loaded with vitamins and fiber, and once the stalk is sliced thin and the leaves trimmed, it's stewed into a delicious bowl of veggies that resembles collard greens. Ladanna Lawas says callaloo is generally sauteed with onions, garlic, and tomato for added flavor.

While callaloo is a common breakfast item, it's also a side dish that you're likely to see throughout the day as a fibrous addition to many meat-based dishes. Its flavor being so savory (the stalk is quite similar in flavor to that of broccoli), it can be used as a companion vegetable for many different plates.

3. Blue Mountain coffee

The Blue Mountains in Jamaica - Deron Levy/Getty Images

For the coffee enthusiast who enjoys savoring a freshly brewed cup of jet-black joe  noting the flavor profile, the single origin source, the acidity, and roast  Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee is a must-try. Just like a good wine, coffee is the product of the environment it grows in, and the Blue Mountains in Jamaica create a unique terroir. As Ladanna Lawas notes: "The rich land and tropical climate provide an abundance of fresh, flavorful ingredients [...] especially [...] our famous Blue Mountain coffee."

To be considered Blue Mountain coffee, beans must be harvested between 3,000 and 5,500 feet above sea level, the elevation at which a cooling fog hovers over the growing plants and allows them to ripen slowly in the rich soil. For Lawas, these beans are a prime example of all Jamaica's rich land has to offer, and the perfect beverage to enjoy alongside your breakfast.

4. Ackee and saltfish

A plate with ackee and salt fish next to dumplings - Craig F Scott/Shutterstock

Jamaica's tropical climate produces an abundance of unique fruits. The country's national fruit, ackee, is alien to those residing in the United States (who have never visited Jamaica), not just because of the different climate but because importing raw ackee is actually illegal in the U.S. due to a chemical in the fruit that's potentially toxic. Don't let this deter you from trying some ackee and salt fish, though  canned versions are typically FDA certified, and the chemical is only toxic when the ackee is eaten before it's properly ripened.

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Dr. Samara Sterling says, "[Ackee] is our national fruit and is typically eaten like a vegetable with saltfish. When combined, ackee and saltfish is our national dish." Ladanna Lawas describes the dish as "buttery ackee fruit sauteed with salted cod, onions, peppers, tomatoes, thyme, and Scotch bonnet pepper for a kick." While ackee may be a fruit, it leans more toward a creamy or nutty texture, rather than sweet and floral, and when combined with savory ingredients like cod, it tastes more like a vegetable.

5. Rice and peas

A green bowl of rice and peas with rosemary garnishes - Gabre Cameron/Shutterstock

Like any cuisine, Jamaican food centers around community, memory, and culture just as much as nourishment. For both of our experts, rice and peas is the dish that brings them the most nostalgia. "This meal brings back memories of weekly family gatherings, when everyone would come together to cook and share food. The smell of thyme, scallions, and coconut milk filling the kitchen created a sense of comfort, familiarity, and love that makes this dish especially meaningful to me," says Ladanna Lawas.

Jamaican rice and peas is really rice with red kidney beans (not peas). It's cooked with loads of spices, herbs, and aromatic coconut milk, resulting in a fluffy, filling side dish that's often paired with proteins like oxtail and goat and veggies like stewed cabbage or callaloo. It's one of those dishes that defines Jamaican cuisine and always has a place at the table.

6. Patties

A Jamaican beef patty cut in half to reveal the inside - The Image Party/Shutterstock

Who doesn't love handheld food? Something you can buy on the street or from a small corner shop and comfortably eat on the go. The Jamaican patty, which consists of a flaky dough dyed yellow with curry powder and stuffed full of various meat or veggie fillings, is one of the world's great handheld foods. Whether you're on the way to work, trying to make the most of a quick lunch break, or returning home from the bar, a patty provides something warm and comforting with spiced aromas that draw you in with each bite.

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For Dr. Samara Sterling, patties are a go-to snack. "I don't think you should go to Jamaica or a Jamaican restaurant and NOT try a patty, whether beef, chicken, or veggie," she says. The benefit of patties is that if you can't find them freshly baked, you may be able to find someone who sells them frozen and stock up your freezer with these tasty snacks.

7. Brown stew chicken

A plate with brown stew chicken, rice and peas, and coleslaw - The Image Party/Shutterstock

When it comes to Jamaican proteins like chicken or goat, the magic happens in the sauce. Flavor after flavor is built up in the pot  spiced, sweet, herbaceous, tangy, robust. There are a few steps to achieving this kind of flavor  such as using the right spice blends  but one secret ingredient is the browning sauce. Browning sauce is a caramelized brown sugar sauce that has a greater depth of flavor because of the extra cooking time, and can be bought in a bottle or made at home. Used in many Jamaican dishes, it's one of the ingredients that make brown stew chicken so good.

Beyond the browning sauce, brown stew chicken is made of thoroughly marinated chicken thighs that cook in a long list of spices and alliums until tender. It's a delicious protein to have with a side of rice and peas, as you'll need something to soak up all that leftover gravy. Dr. Samara Sterlings says if you're visiting a Jamaican restaurant for the first time, "go straight for the rice and peas, cabbage, plantains, and a curried or brown stew dish."

8. Fried fish with bammy

A plate with fried fish, bammy, and a salad - Dubaune Cas/Shutterstock

Relaxing by the Caribbean Sea and soaking up the sun with your toes in the sand calls for a meal in tune with the environment, and what better dish to match the experience than fried seafood? Ladanna Lawas recommends a plate of "fried fish with bammy, which is a flatbread made from cassava." The fish of choice is typically snapper (although other lean white fish will do just fine), which are cleaned, thoroughly dusted with a blend of spices and herbs, and fried whole until crispy.

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The dish isn't complete without an escovitch topping  thinly sliced onions, peppers, and carrots that have been soaked in a pickling liquid. It's vibrant, filling, and as with any Jamaican food, packed with flavor  the perfect plate to enjoy as you recline in the sea breeze.

9. Curry goat

A plate of curry goat with plantains, rice and peas, and salad - The Image Party/Shutterstock

Curry spices and goat meat are a genius pairing. The goat becomes tender when seared and cooked low and slow, any gamey flavors being overshadowed by the rich blend of spices. This is a dish that, while similar to the Indian version it originated from, has been tweaked to have its own Caribbean twist. "Our famous curry dishes were introduced through the West Indians and have since become a huge part of Jamaican cooking," says Ladanna Lawas.

Jamaican curries are distinguished by the use of allspice as well as Scotch bonnet peppers, making these Caribbean sauces a bit hotter with more baking-spice aromatics. Curry goat is the perfect dish to order when visiting a Jamaican restaurant  your plate will be loaded with steaming meat and sides like peas and rice or stewed cabbage. Although if you're thinking about cooking up some curry goat at home, Costco has got you covered in the meat department.

10. Fresh juices and sorrel

A few fresh juices on a table at a resort in Jamaica - Alene Photographs/Getty Images

Jamaica's tropical climate and lush fauna make the island abundant with different fruits. For Dr. Samara Sterling, these are a must-try when visiting, as you won't be able to get the same experience elsewhere. "My favorite is the Otaheite apple when it is ripe and juicy. Others like guava, june plum, nesberry, mango, and passion fruit are all amazing fruits."

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In a tropical island climate, it's crucial to have something refreshing to sip on, and Jamaica has no shortage of life-giving drinks. "Common drinks include fresh coconut water, sorrel (especially during the holidays), carrot juice, and Irish moss. Usually, natural fruits and ingredients are used to make our traditional drinks," Dr. Sterling adds.

In the U.S., if you're visiting a Jamaican restaurant, it's not uncommon for them to have a fridge full of colorful bottles of freshly squeezed juice. They come in blends like carrot and mango or guava and strawberry, and provide the perfect balance to the heaping portions and strong flavors of your Jamaican dinner.

11. Jerk chicken and pork

Jerk chicken cooking on a grill - Stephen Gichuru/Shutterstock

There is perhaps no Jamaican dish more well-known than jerk chicken. In Jamaican cities, you may be lucky enough to smell its unmistakable fragrance on outdoor barbecues in the summertime, where you can buy a dozen wings fresh off the grill. Ladanna Lawas says, "One of the most iconic Jamaican street foods is jerk chicken or jerk pork, slow-cooked over pimento wood and served with a fresh loaf of bread. When they are cooking jerk chicken or pork, the smoky heat, spices, and aroma alone will draw you in."

Marination is key with jerk meat, which uses brown sugar, allspice, and an abundance of other seasonings to achieve its signature dark color and intense aroma. If you're cooking at home, you can make your jerk chicken really stand out with the addition of banana ketchup.

12. The Bob Marley cocktail

Two Bob Marley cocktails with a view of the beach in the background - Andrea Urbaneja/Shutterstock

A list of Jamaican foods isn't quite complete without mentioning a cocktail to go with them, and the Bob Marley cocktail has just the right balance of flavors (not to mention photo-worthy presentation) to fit the bill. Ladanna Lawas says: "Popular beverages in Jamaica include Ting, a refreshing grapefruit soda, and the Bob Marley, a layered rum cocktail featuring the red, gold, and green colors of the Jamaican flag."

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Each layer is different  red made with strawberries and grenadine, gold made with pineapple or mango, and green made with lime and melon liqueur or sometimes blue curacao. The drink is sometimes served blended with each layer using a different fruit, or served in a glass with the liquors carefully layered over ice.

13. Oxtails with butter beans

An oxtail and butter bean stew on a white background - Candice Bell/Shutterstock

Oxtail was once a cut of beef you could find for an affordable price  the boney pieces and tough meat being largely unappealing to the masses. But dishes like Jamaican oxtail stew with butter beans quickly convinced the general population that oxtail just needs some extra time in the pot to unlock its tender potential, and the formerly humble cut is now sought-after. Ladanna Lawas says: "For any newbie visiting a Jamaican restaurant for the first time, I would recommend them to try [...] oxtails with butter beans."

Keeping on-trend with other Jamaican proteins, oxtails with butter beans uses browning sauce, Jamaican curry powder, and a host of additional seasonings to achieve the incredible color and taste. It's aromatic, protein-heavy, and unforgettable. Once you try this dish, you'll understand why it's now impossible to find oxtail at a good price.

14. Coconut drops

Coconut drops on a blue straw mat - Rick Laing/Shutterstock

As big as the portions can be when you visit a Jamaican restaurant, you'll need to do your best to save room for dessert. Jamaican cuisine offers many delicious proteins and sides, but the desserts are just as noteworthy. Coconut drops are perhaps the most infamous, a sticky concoction of fresh coconut and ginger that's grated into slivers and cooked together with brown sugar. Dr. Samara Sterling says: "There are so many wonderful sweet treats in Jamaica including coconut drops (which my mother would make on banana leaves when we were growing up)." One can almost justify the sugar consumption with all that fruit and digestion-aiding ginger.

15. Gizzadas

Jamaican Gizzadas lined up on a baking sheet before baking - TyphanieCooks/Facebook

Gizzadas are small coconut tarts with a signature star-shaped design that's created by pinching the sides of the dough before baking. While the dough is made in a traditional pie-crust fashion with flour and cold butter, the filling is unmistakably Jamaican. Dr. Samara Sterling notes that "common spices used in our desserts include coconut, ginger, and nutmeg," and gizzadas incorporate all three, along with some brown sugar for sweetness.

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With origins in Portugal yet a distinctly regional flavor profile, these tarts are an example of the multi-cultural influences on Jamaican food, which is reflected in the country's own motto: "Out of Many, One People," a phrase that perfectly captures the storied history of this Caribbean island.

16. Sweet potato pudding

A plate with a slice of sweet potato pudding on a wooden countertop - Hope Phillips/Shutterstock

Dr. Samara Sterling says that "[Jamaican desserts] can sometimes be an involved process but [are] very much worth it," a statement that perfectly sums up the labor of love that goes into many of these regional sweets. The involved process seems to be mostly grating  shredding coconut, grating ginger, and, in the case of the sweet potato pudding, grating sweet potato. But once you've done that bit of manual labor, the resulting treat is so fresh, perfectly textured, and spiced that it makes all the work worth it.

Jamaican sweet potato pudding is akin to a crust-less sweet potato pie, although it's distinctly Jamaican in its use of coconut milk and rum. The spices, coconut milk, and rum are mixed together with sweet potato to achieve the perfect consistency, and baked until set, the sugars caramelizing at the top, bottom, and sides. The only real problem with Jamaican desserts is choosing which one to order.

17. Rum cake

A whole rum cake garnished with soaked fruit - Jogy Abraham/Getty Images

If you're one of those people who's had one too many bites of grocery-store birthday cake and come to the conclusion that cake just isn't for you, this might be the one to change your mind. Jamaican rum cake, also called black cake, is incredibly moist, with a deep, spiced flavor that is strong enough to hold its own without frosting.

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Brown sugar, browning sauce, molasses, baking spices, and red wine are where the cake gets its rich taste from, but the real kicker in terms of flavor comes from a pureed blend of rum-soaked fruits mixed into the batter. Raisins, prunes, and cherries drowned in rum until their wrinkles fade are whipped into a smooth concoction and folded into a batter full of love. It's a must-try Jamaican dessert, according to Ladanna Lawas  one slice of this cake is all you need to become a cake-lover forever.

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Read the original article on Chowhound.
For eight years, musicians Diane Earle and Chris Greene have performed together on a number of cruises, land-based tours and even at each others churches.

But their chance meeting in September 2017 was not supposed to happen.

I was asked by a friend to cover  an emergency situation in Nashville where there was a big choral reading session, and the pianist had some emergency at the last minute, Earle said. My friend, who was the CEO of a music publishing company, said: Can you come tomorrow morning to sight-read this stuff? 

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Earle, principal pianist for the Owensboro Symphony and professor emerita of music at Kentucky Wesleyan College, would make the trek down to Music City and would meet Greene, a Dickson, Tennessee-based choral director, when the session concluded.

First of all, I was like: Wow, she plays wonderfully and shes a great pianist, Greene said of his first impression of Earle. As a choral director, we know good pianists and shes fantastic.

Greene would then inquire about Earle potentially coming to perform on a then-upcoming cruise to the western Caribbean.

The other part of my life beyond doing church choral directing or community choral directing is travel, Greene said. Travel is something I love and have been involved with forever, and I wanted to put together a cruise ship show that was sort of a choral reading session but also (had) performances.

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While the two exchanged contact information, Earle did not think anything would come of it.

(But) then a few weeks later, (Chris) called and we started lining it up, Earle said. My dad passed away (at) the end of February in 2018 and we got it all finalized the day before he died; so the day that my dad died, I got to tell him that I was going to play on a cruise ship  and thats really special because my dad had always wanted to go on a cruise .

I like to think it was a God moment (meeting each other), Earle added. ... Weve just collaborated ever since.

In 2027, the duo  along with Dr. James Cousins, president of KWC  will set out to sea on Norwegian Cruise Lines Encore ship for the seven-night Alaskan Horizons & Glacier Bay Cruise from July 25 to Aug. 1.

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The round trip cruise, which will begin and end in Seattle, will be co-sponsored by Greenes group travel company CG Travel  which he co-owns and runs with his wife, Cherie Greene. Additionally, Greene will serve as the cruises featured vocalist and host.

While open for anyone to attend, the cruise is coined as the Kentucky Wesleyan College Alumni and Friends Alaska Cruise.

Kentucky Wesleyan has a huge following in the community because of our community presence, so were inviting anyone who wants to come, Earle said. ... Many, many people have an affiliation with Wesleyan or they just like music.

The trip will begin in Seattle on July 25 and passengers will be at sea until docking in Juneau, Alaska, the states capital, on July 27. The following day, the ship will travel north to the remote town of Skagway before arriving at Glacier Bay on July 29.

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Ketchikan (Ward Cove) will serve as the cruises final stop in Alaska on July 30 before the ship makes its way to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada on July 31. The ship will then make its return to the Emerald City on Aug. 1.

In addition to the stops, Earle and Greene will perform a one-hour concert for all passengers.

On a cruise ship, you have so many people that have different tastes  and you want to try to hit something that everybody likes. They may not like everything, but theres something that they can gravitate to that means something to them, Greene said of the programming. We do a wide variety of stuff.

... We dont do the same (material) all the time, Greene added. We change it up .

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While the pair have worked together multiple times, it does not seem to get stale.

Every cruise that Ive done, or hes done or weve done together is always a little different, Earle said. (Last year), (we did) a sacred music cruise where we did three chapel services  in the mornings and we did all sacred music .

Each cruise has a different focus that weve been on, Earle added.

Its great when you collaborate with folks, and Dianes wonderful to collaborate with, Greene said. Our friendship has really grown over the last eight years because not only do we collaborate together, but we call each other and talk about life. But I think weve definitely grown together as performers, too .

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Earle and Greene feel those who come on board the cruise will be entertained.

We dont take ourselves super seriously, but we take the music very seriously and we just have a good time, Earle said. And I think the fact that we have a good time with each other and with the music makes the audience comfortable too.

I think we bring out the best in each other ., Greene said.

And Earle and Greene hope those who decide to join them next year will create memories and expand their horizons.

Many people have always wanted to go to Alaska,  and sometimes its daunting for people who maybe have never been on a cruise or maybe havent traveled a whole lot, Earle said. ... (In) all of the trips weve done  land and sea  when we invite people to join us, they love being able to go with some people they know. Theres a joy in that  not only are they going to have a wonderful cruise and see a magnificent state, but they also have people they can go do things with.

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The idea of travel, to me, is such a rich treasure  that what you get from travel, you cant get from other things, Greene added. ... It just reminds you that, still, Gods in charge  Hes got everything, Hes got this great creation and I got a chance to see it  so Im going to try.

Pricing ranges from $2,349 to $3,349 per person, contingent on the type of cabin selected. A 3.5% surcharge will be added to all credit card transactions. Rates do not include airfare, transfers or shore excursions.

The cruise includes a $50 per port shore excursion discount (per cabin), a two-meal specialty dining package, prepaid gratuities and a 150-minute internet package per cabin (two logins).

For additional information about the cruise and how to register, contact Earle at dearle@kwc.edu.
Lobbies are where hotels make their first impressions. Guests enter through the front doors and immediately get a taste of what the rest of the property  and their vacation  might be like.

But they serve multiple functions and aren't just designed for travelers.

On a recent day at the Canopy by Hilton Nashville Downtown The Gulch hotel, guests milled about the lobby under high ceilings. Some dined on lunch at its Silo restaurant, while others worked on laptops in nearby chairs.

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I wasnt staying at the hotel, which opened in June 2025, but I did make it my remote workspace; I was desperate for a change of scenery after a winter storm kept me largely cooped up in my apartment for several days. The large wooden table, complete with built-in outlets and abundant natural light streaming in from tall windows, was the perfect place to settle in for a few hours.

That flexibility is by design.

Canopy by Hilton Nashville Downtown The Gulch's lobby.

We look to create true destinations out of our hotel lobbies, said Nick Solomon, Global Head of Lifestyle Design at Hilton. We want to balance the draw of a local crowd with the visiting guest, and provide dynamic environments for both to use  whether it be areas for seating, or venues for eating. We want to ensure the designs of our hotels celebrate a sense of place through the use of design narrative, making each property unique, while maintaining the warmth and welcoming feeling true to Hiltons portfolio.

Lobbies set the tone for a hotel guest's experience. Solomon took USA TODAY behind the scenes to see how a hotel lobby is created.

What is the process for designing and building a hotel lobby?

Developing a property is a joint venture between the company, hotel owners and hospitality interior designers. Hilton's in-house architecture, design and construction teams help guide the process, according to Solomon.

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When it comes to lobbies, the company aims to create all-day spaces fit for work or play. This is reflected in the dynamic change of our lobbies across all hours, typically anchored by food and beverage outlets, evolving lighting and music, and comfortable seating, he said.

Certain practical features are essential, such as a reception area or elevator access. Beyond these basics, location-specific features like an intimate library-style retreat, a versatile lounge for work or play, and vibrant food and beverage venues are tailored to the market, brand, architecture, and the design intent of the owner and designer, Solomon added.

At Canopy in Nashvilles Gulch neighborhood, that took the form of Five Points Pizza slice window, an 8th & Roast coffee bar and Yazoo Brewing Company beers on tap (the hotel is built on the brewerys former site)  all local businesses.

Lobby design can also influence visitor behavior. Hilton uses "spatial psychology to encourage people to stay, socialize and return," according to Solomon.

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"Communal tables are a key example of this approach," he said. "At Graduate by Hilton hotels nationwide, these tables are active from morning through evening, serving as spaces for students, professionals and the local community to work, grab coffee, meet and later socialize."

Graduate by Hilton Princeton is located in Princeton, New Jersey.

Lobbies across brands under the Hilton umbrella vary in look and feel. For example, DoubleTree hotels in the companys full-service (upscale) segment feature unpretentious spaces that blend comfort and style, according to Solomon.

Elevated lobby bar experiences complement warm, welcoming lobbies and communal spaces for hotel guests and locals  a home away from home, he said. Interior spaces are infused with natural light through clerestory windows, skylights, and open plans where possible. DoubleTree embraces opportunities to bring fresh air into the hotel, through outdoor dining and areas for relaxation.

Canopy properties, which are just below luxury in Hiltons lifestyle segment, are shaped by local nuance and guided by a refined, residential sensibility. Theyre still comfortable but have a thoughtfully edited point of view rooted in their location, Solomon said.

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The space  including the layout, finishes, furnishings and styling  should feel cohesive, with a clear sense of place.

What's one way to feel happier? Go on a trip.



According to G Adventures' recently released Happiness List 2026, 89% of the 8,000 adults intending to travel in 2026 across the US, UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand agree that purpose-driven travel contributes to their long-term happiness. Those trips offer a sense of wonder along with a chance to decompress and find connection.



Here are 10 travel experiences that G Adventures' travelers said made them feel happiest: Panama's San Blas Islands are ideal for unplugging while enjoying turquoise waters and white-sand beaches. Travelers can stay in Indigenous-owned accommodations, including traditional huts, and explore the archipelago by boat. Witnessing a solar eclipse is one way to experience wonder. G Adventures offers five trips for the Aug. 2027 eclipse, including an exclusive viewing party in Chefchaouen, Morocco. Travelers can dive into Guatemala's history and culture, from learning how to make beloved local dishes to exploring the ancient ruins of Tikal. Exploring the wild, remote landscapes in the Arctic aboard an expedition cruise can leave travelers with a newfound appreciation for Mother Nature. Imagine having a close encounter with Africa's wildlife while also supporting ethical travel and conservation. G Adventures offers a trip to Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park, where travelers can see Victoria Falls, track elephants and cruise rivers looking for hippos. Sail down Sri Lanka's South Coast on a seven-day trip on a 54-foot catamaran for the chance to swim at remote beaches, explore fishing villages and more. Ecuador offers much more than being a gateway to the Galapagos. Travelers can go chocolate tasting, learn more about Indigenous culture and explore the wild jungle. Rather than falling into the typical tourist traps, travelers can try to live like a local and go off the beaten path. On G Adventures' East Iceland trip, guests go to a remote hamlet, enjoy geothermal pools and hike coastal trails. The Stans  Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan  offer a rich history steeped in the Silk Road trade along with stunning nature, like Kaindy Lake's otherworldly sunken forest. Moldova may not be on everyone's radar, but this underrated Eastern European destination is perfect for foodies. Travelers can sip wine, taste local cuisine and visit spots like an eco-friendly cheese factory. 10 destinations where travelers feel happiest 1 of 10 What's one way to feel happier? Go on a trip.



According to G Adventures' recently released Happiness List 2026, 89% of the 8,000 adults intending to travel in 2026 across the US, UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand agree that purpose-driven travel contributes to their long-term happiness. Those trips offer a sense of wonder along with a chance to decompress and find connection.



Here are 10 travel experiences that G Adventures' travelers said made them feel happiest: Panama's San Blas Islands are ideal for unplugging while enjoying turquoise waters and white-sand beaches. Travelers can stay in Indigenous-owned accommodations, including traditional huts, and explore the archipelago by boat.

How long does the process take?

That depends. On average, Hilton oversees new hotel builds over a three- to four-year period, while renovations generally span one to two years, depending on the complexity and extent of the work, Solomon said.

Timelines vary based on a projects size and the level of transformation involved, however.

The lobby at DoubleTree Beach Resort by Hilton Hotel Tampa Bay  North Redington Beach.

Where does Hilton get the furniture and decor for its lobbies?

The company works with interior designers to source contract-grade, hospitality-specific textiles, materials, finishes, furniture, lighting, artwork, and other selections, Solomon said. Those come from manufacturers with hotel industry expertise, as the items must comply with various regulations and be durable.

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Some design features are custom for specific projects, and the company may incorporate vintage elements and found objects. The purchasing process is often collaborative, with hospitality-industry-specific purchasing agents layering into an owners project team to navigate manufacturer capabilities, quality of goods, lead times, and budgets, Solomon added.

As a hotel nears its opening date, final touches, like artwork and greenery, are added. Thats often sourced at a more local level to help drive home the true sense of place and support a unique design narrative for each of our properties," Solomon said. The team might scour thrift shops, antique stores, craft markets and more.

At Canopy, pieces by local artists Jennifer Gibbs and Amy Harms were included.

Hilton leadership, including hotel general managers, is involved with the process before opening. But even after a new property launches, there could be further changes. The core design typically stays the same, but spaces may evolve subtly.

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"Minor adjustments, such as styling, plants, or accessories, can be made as the lobby becomes a lived-in space, while larger renovations generally occur on longer cycles," Solomon said. That could also take the form of pop-ups or local programming.

We want our lifestyle hotels to become the natural backdrop for lifes moments  big and small  for both guests and the local community," he said.

Nathan Diller is a consumer travel reporter for USA TODAY based in Nashville. You can reach him at ndiller@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How Hilton turns its hotel lobbies into 'destinations'
NEED TO KNOW

Ben & Jerrys announced three new sundae flavors for 2026 on Tuesday, Feb. 10

The flavors are PB Blondie Bestie," Mocha Mood Pie" and the Valentine's Day- themed Straw-Bae Shortcake"

The new flavors will join its other sundaes: Dulce De-lish! Sundae, Choco-lotta Cheesecake Sundae, Turtle Sundae and the Cookie Vermont-ster

Ben & Jerrys is expanding its menu.

The ice cream company announced that it will be releasing three new sundae flavors for 2026, just in time for Valentines Day  including one that is named after the sweet holiday.

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The new sundae flavors include the Straw-Bae Shortcake, PB Blondie Bestie and Mocha Mood Pie. The Valentine's Day-themed offering, Straw-Bae Shortcake, is described as a sweet cream ice cream with shortcake cookies and strawberry swirls, topped with strawberry-swirled whipped topping and shortcake crumble.

Straw-Bae Shortcake Ben & Jerry's

As for the PB Blondie Bestie, it is dedicated to peanut butter lovers with a peanut butter ice cream base combined with blonde brownies and graham cracker swirls. It's topped with caramel-swirled whipped topping and mini peanut butter cups.

The Mocha Mood Pie  which is a creation made from Ben & Jerrys collaboration with their partners at specialty coffee company BLK & Bold  offers coffee lovers something new with a chocolate cold brew ice cream with chocolate cookies and chocolate cookie swirls. It is topped with fudge-swirled whipped topping and fudge chips.

Knowing how much our fans LOVE our Sundaes, it only made sense to add more flavors just in time for Valentine's Day, said Ben & Jerrys Flavor Guru Haylee Nelson in a release.

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Bringing the sundae experience home was all about convenience, fun and flavor and our fans told us we more than delivered on that excitement, she continued. Who has time to find all the ingredients, the toppings, and even if you can - can you make it to perfection? These Sundaes deliver the perfect Ben & Jerrys Sundae experience for you, your bestie or your bae, every time!

PB Blondie Bestie Ben & Jerry's

The sundaes will be sold between $4.99 - $6.49 and can be found wherever Ben & Jerrys is sold, according to the company.

The new sundae flavors join Ben & Jerry's other sundaes: Dulce De-lish! Sundae, Choco-lotta Cheesecake Sundae, Turtle Sundae and the fan favorite Cookie Vermont-ster  which became the number one Super Premium innovation across all new ice cream offerings, according to the company.

Mocha Mood Pie Ben & Jerry's

Ben & Jerrys described its sundaes, which come sold in a tub, as a treat that delivers all the chunks and swirls ice cream lovers have come to expect from them, plus a decadent whipped topping layer and even more chunks sprinkled on top.

Never miss a story  sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Its the overthetop finish that makes every spoonful feel like a fullon sundae moment  no assembly required, the company said in a release.

For more information on the sundaes and to find out where to buy them, ice cream fans can visit the companys website here for more information.

Read the original article on People
PARKER, Colo. (KDVR)  Thumbing through a photo album filled with pictures from his childhood, its hard not to notice the outfit Derek Raulston was wearing as a toddler  a Navy sailors hat.

The photo foreshadowed his career. Raulston is set to retire in a few weeks after serving 23 years in the US Navy.

FBI seeking information for Littleton triple murder cold case

As a young boy in a small landlocked Montana town near the Canadian border, he had a dream of seeing the world. The Navy made that dream come true.

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I deployed in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009. I spent 2010 and 2011 in Afghanistan. Again in 2014, Raulston told FOX31, rattling off some of his assignments. Boots on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ive flown. Ive kind of done everything the Navy had to offer except for submarines.

One of his riskier assignments? Combating Somali pirates on the high seas.

The hardest part is not knowing what to expect. You dont know how many of them are on board, what theyre armed with. There were a few cases where they aimed their weapons at us. They had RPGs on board. That was probably the scariest time, is when youre rolling up on one of their (boats) and you just dont know what to expect, he said.

Wherever and whenever needed, Raulston answered the call, and he still does to this day, as a volunteer with Rocky Mountain Honor Flight, helping hundreds of World War II, Korea and Vietnam veterans travel to Washington, DC, to visit the memorials erected in their honor.

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He also volunteers with Foothills Young Marines, dedicating hundreds of hours to mentoring dozens of at-risk youth, helping them excel in everything from academics to physical fitness to community service and more.

Throughout the last three years, weve been Division Unit of the Year. Weve been Buckley Space Force Volunteer Group of the Year three years running. For our 32 kids over the past year, theyve done over 3,000 hours of community service, he said.

For his decades of service, Raulston has a trove of ribbons, medals and honors, and now he has one more.

He has been named the FOX31 Serving Those Who Serve Hero of the Month for February 2026 for all hes done for his country and community.

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Raulston may be retiring from the Navy in April, but hes not sailing off into the sunset. Youll still find him volunteering in the community and helping others, and you may find him at the mall, buying a new wardrobe.

Probably the hardest part is figuring out what to wear every morning. Ive worn the same thing every day going to work for 23 years, so thats probably the most difficult aspect, is now Ive got to figure out what Im going to wear in the morning, Raulston joked.

To nominate a veteran or active-duty service member for our Hero of the Month honors, visit the nomination page.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX31 Denver.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.s January sales grew at their fastest clip in months, a sign of sustained global AI spending even as concerns persist about an industry bubble.

The contract chipmaker for Nvidia Corp. reported a 37% rise in January revenue to NT$401.3 billion ($12.7 billion), above the 30% revenue growth TSMC expects for the full year. The year-ago comparison, however, may have been affected by the Lunar New Year holidays, which in 2025 fell in January.

Most Read from Bloomberg

TSMC, which also produces chips for Apple Inc., has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of a surge in artificial intelligence-related investment, due to its role in manufacturing advanced AI accelerators.

Demand for data center chips in particular is spurring TSMC to earmark as much as $56 billion in capital spending this year, which would be up a quarter from 2025. Last week, Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang called the capex spree a once-in-a-generation infrastructure buildout.

But the mammoth spending by large technology companies like Amazon.com Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. is also worrying investors who wonder if artificial intelligence will benefit those betting the most. The circular nature of many data center agreements is also causing trepidation among those whove been hurt by boom-and-bust tech cycles in the past.

--With assistance from Edwin Chan.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2026 Bloomberg L.P.
The demand for golden visas has gained steam in 2026, with Greece recently expanding its program with a new way for investors to gain citizenship.

At the start of the year, the European country added another pathway to its golden visa program by investing about $259,000 in startups listed on its national registry, Elevate Greece. The new option breaks away from the previous model of purchasing real estate alone, broadening the program beyond those just interested in buying property.

The country is one of the most popular among Americans looking to establish residency overseas, with no signs of slowing down in 2026. In Dec. 2025, the number of Americans granted Greek golden visas increased by 49% compared to the same month in 2024, according to Enness Global, a mortgage brokerage firm helping high-net-worth individuals purchase a second citizenship.

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Want to move abroad? What to know about getting a second passport

"For many Americans, Greece offers a compelling combination: relatively low entry thresholds for a developed European market, improving economic fundamentals, and lifestyle access within the E.U., all of which are increasingly hard to find elsewhere," said Islay Robinson, CEO of Enness Global. At the same time, Greece can channel foreign investment into its economy instead of the housing market.

Though golden visas have been around for decades, they've skyrocketed in recent years as a way for high-net-worth individuals to "buy" residency in other countries. In an Oct. 2025 La Vida American Investor Survey of over 10,000 U.S.-based clients, 76.4% said they're seeking a second residency or citizenship as a Plan B, mainly due to political reasons and rising healthcare costs, followed by the consideration of a potential future relocation.

Here's what Americans should know about golden visas in 2026.

What are golden visas?

Golden visas  also called residency by investment schemes  essentially grant foreigners the ability to legally live, work, and study in another country when investing a significant amount in the local economy. Most often, it's through purchasing real estate, government stocks, or a nonrefundable donation.

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As the name implies, golden visas don't come cheap. The minimum financial investment for lower-cost schemes in Malta, for example, starts at about $216,800 but can climb to the millions depending on the country.

While countries like Greece and New Zealand have opened more ways for people to obtain a golden visa, others have closed their schemes. In April 2025, Spain officially ended its golden visa program after residents claimed the high influx of foreigners was driving up housing prices.

The beach at Firiplaka, almost deserted in spring, is dominated by mineral cliffs in shades of yellow and ochre in Greece Cyclades islands, on Milos, May 7, 2025.

What are the benefits of a golden visa?

Below are some of the benefits unique to golden visas.

Better standard of living. Many people are interested in the quality of life outside the United States, like better healthcare systems, the weather, or work-life balance.

Clear path to citizenship. Some programs offer a simple way to achieve citizenship. In Portugal, people can apply for citizenship after five years of legal residence.

Increased mobility. Establishing eventual citizenship in a country that's part of the E.U. makes it much easier to travel across member states for longer periods.

You don't need to live there full-time. Unlike a digital nomad visa, a golden visa doesn't require a person to live in the country for long periods. For New Zealand's golden visa scheme, people only need to be in the country for 21 days.

How can I get a golden visa?

"The first step is always to speak with a specialist adviser who understands high net worth and cross-border structuring," said Robinson, adding that they can help figure out the best golden visa route based on your assets. Then, applicants gather and prepare their documents, and they often will undergo background checks by the country.

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Approval can take as little as several months or up to a year for countries like Portugal.

Countries with golden visas 2026

Greece : Greece provides five-year residency to the entire family with an investment starting at about $259,000 into real estate in select municipalities or a qualifying startup.

Malta : Residency in this Mediterranean island nation is granted to the entire family with a minimum investment starting at about $216,806 and proof of over $595,621 in assets.

New Zealand : Last year, New Zealand relaxed several of its golden visa requirements to attract more applicants. There are two financial investment amounts for its golden visa, with the cheapest being a minimum of about $3.02 million investment over three years in managed funds and direct business investments. Though costly, it allows indefinite residency.

Portugal: As one of the most popular golden visa programs, Portugal offers residency to the entire family for five years with a fund investment ranging from about $259,000 to $595,621.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What are golden visas? Where Americans can 'buy' residency in 2026
Homes across Rochester's 19th Ward were filled with laughter, conversation and good food on Feb. 7.

The neighborhood's annual candlelight dinners returned  a potluck tradition that brings friends and neighbors together.

The dinners work like this: Some neighbors open their doors as hosts, cooking up the main course, while others join as guests, bringing along appetizers, sides, desserts or drinks to share.

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Before the big night, hosts inform their guests when to arrive, what to bring and where to go, and an evening of community, connection and home-cooked meals unfolds.

A beloved neighborhood ritual brings familiar faces back to the table

This year, there were 10 host homes with 82 people in attendance  exceeding last years participation record.

Each dinner was different  some included young children, others featured vegan or vegetarian menus and each gathering reflected its host.

Justice Marbury and Marili Vaca attended a 19th Ward Community Association candlelight dinner hosted by Karen Emerson. The annual potlucks have brought friends and neighbors together for nearly 40 years.

Democrat and Chronicle social media reporter Marili Vaca and I attended a turkey dinner hosted by Karen Emerson.

Upon our arrival, we noticed some familiar faces  Brad and Karen Files  who we had the pleasure of meeting during the dinners last year.

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We enjoyed roasted turkey, kale salad, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing made from Emersons own sourdough, a vegetable dish and the dessert Marili and I prepared. Appetizers and wine rounded out the meal.

The table was beautifully set with a brown plaid tablecloth, porcelain plates with a pinkish purple flower in the middle, unique silverware and glowing candlelight.

Then came the conversation.

It spanned a range of topics, from where everyone lived in the neighborhood to careers, travel, movies, Upstate New Yorks greatest ice cream shops and beyond.

We shared photos of our vacations and crafts that we picked up over the years.

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This year, I wasnt the newest 19th Ward resident attending. We all welcomed Laura Mack to the neighborhood. Our group already has plans to go to Macks house for corned beef and cabbage in March.

Again, the experience was unforgettable, and Id gladly do it again.

As a Rochester native, Justice Marbury entered the world of journalism to create work where voices like hers were heardthe voices of minority communities. Marbury covers small businesses, neighborhood concerns, and the interesting people who live in Rochester's 19th Ward. As the 19th Ward reporter, she has helped implement community outreach ideas by asking what people in various communities want to read about themselves in addition to regular news. Contact her on Instagram @justice_marbury and by email at jmarbury@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: A record turnout for the 19th Wards warm winter potluck
Lunar New Year is a widely celebrated holiday across Asia, marking the start of a new year based on a lunar or lunisolar calendar.

It is often mistakenly referred to as "Chinese New Year," a label that applies specifically to celebrations rooted in Chinese culture and traditions. While China observes the holiday, many other countries also celebrate Lunar New Year, each with its own customs and meanings.

Here's what to know about the holiday and how to celebrate in Nashville.

What is Lunar New Year?

Lunar New Year is a major holiday celebrated across many Asian countries, including China, Korea and Vietnam, though it goes by different names.

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In China, its known as the Spring Festival or Chunjie; in Vietnam, Tet; and in Korea, Seollal, according to National Geographic.

The holiday marks the start of the lunisolar calendar year, which originated in ancient China and spread to neighboring regions through trade, cultural exchange and conquest.

In Vietnam, for example, Lunar New Year celebrations were introduced during Chinese rule beginning in 111 B.C.E. and endured even after that rule ended, becoming a lasting part of Vietnamese culture.

When, how is Lunar New Year celebrated?

Lunar New Year falls on different dates each year, typically between late January and midFebruary on the Gregorian calendar.

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The celebration can last from several days up to about two weeks and is marked by family gatherings, feasts, fireworks, parties and parades. In 2026, Lunar New Year will be celebrated on Feb. 17, ushering in the Year of the Horse, according to ChinaHighlights.com.

Why is 2026 the Year of the Horse?

The Chinese zodiac operates on a 12year cycle, with each year represented by an animal, according to Chinesenewyear.net.

In 2026, the cycle turns to the horse, the seventh animal in the zodiac. According to Chinese mythology, the horse placed seventh after the snake cleverly hitched a ride on its hoof during the Jade Emperors Great Race.

Symbolically, the horse contrasts sharply with the more reserved snake, representing energy, speed and passion  traits often associated with a year of bold action and exploration.

Lunar New Year vs Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year and Lunar New Year are related but not interchangeable.

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"Chinese New Year" refers specifically to celebrations rooted in Chinese culture and traditions, while "Lunar New Year" is a broader term that includes all cultures that mark the new year using a lunar calendar, according to ChinaHighlights.com.

Using the terms interchangeably outside of China can be seen as insensitive, as it overlooks the distinct traditions and identities of other cultures that celebrate Lunar New Year, including Vietnam, Korea, Singapore and Malaysia.

While some customs overlap, each country observes the holiday in its own unique way.

Lunar New Year celebrations in Nashville

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Diana Leyva covers trending news and service journalism for the Tennessean. Contact her at Dleyva@gannett.com or follow her on X at @_leyvadiana

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: When is Lunar New Year 2026? How to celebrate in Nashville
Turquoise waters, white sandy beaches, sunbeds under swaying palms - and complete privacy. Today, some celebrities and ultra-wealthy individuals have leased or even bought private islands.

For most, having their own island will remain a dream, but cruise passengers can experience exclusive beaches and resorts as part of their journey.

Major cruise lines such as MSC, Norwegian and Carnival have their own islands and operate resorts exclusively for the passengers on their ships, mainly located in the Caribbean, particularly in the Bahamas.

Royal Caribbean

In Europe, Royal Caribbean will soon open its first beach club on the Greek island of Santorini. Just before the new year, the cruise line opened a similar beach club on Paradise Island near Nassau in the Bahamas, and a third is currently under construction on Cozumel in the Mexican Caribbean.

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The company is also developing a major new resort on Mexico's Costa Maya, Perfect Day Mexico, modelled on its flagship private island, CocoCay, which is already part of the "Perfect Day" portfolio.

Royal Caribbean advertises these stops as full-scale island experiences, featuring restaurants, beaches, water parks, pools, and bars. CocoCay is also a popular destination for the groups Celebrity Cruises brand.

Elsewhere, the cruise line operates the private resort Labadee in Haiti, with another resort planned for Vanuatu in the South Pacific in 2027.

The company says it continues to expand its portfolio of land resorts to meet growing passenger demand for exclusive experiences beyond the ship.

Carnival

Carnival cruise lines has invested more than $500 million in the Celebration Key resort on Grand Bahama, which was opened in summer 2025.

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Two large ships can already dock at the harbour and an extension for additional berths is under construction, according to the company. Initially, 2 million guests a year are expected to visit, rising to 4 million by 2028.

In the south of the Bahamian island of Eleuthera, Carnival operates another private resort, Princess Cays, which will be called at by Princess Cruises ships on 60 routes by 2028 and will also be used by the group subsidiary P&O Cruises.

However, there is no pier here. The ships anchor and passengers are then ferried ashore in small tender boats.

On Baja California on Mexico's Pacific coast, the Ensenada Bay Village at the cruise terminal of the same name is to be built in the coming years as a resort for 9,000 guests a day - with pools, zip lines and a spa.

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With Half Moon Cay (RelaxAway), the group also has a private island in the Bahamas in operation, which is mainly used by the group's brands Carnival Cruise Line and Holland America Line.

The island will receive a second pier in 2026 so that Carnival's large Excel ships can dock there for the first time.

Norwegian

Norwegian's Great Stirrup Cay, which is also being expanded, offers a wide range of activities, including a large water park with 19 slides.

In addition to beaches and pools, the Bahamian private island, which has been in use since 1977, has an almost 1-kilometre zipline and a bird sanctuary.

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Norwegian operates Harvest Caye off Belize, another private island with access to the Belize Barrier Reef, the second-largest coral reef in the world after the Great Barrier Reef off Australia.

MSC

Corals also take centre stage in the Ocean Cay MSC Marine Reserve. According to MSC Cruises, it has leased the Bahamas island on a long-term basis.

It was previously an industrial wasteland. Today, there are two miles of sandy beaches for passengers and a coral research centre.

Disney

Disney Cruise Line also operates a private island in the Bahamas: unlike Chuck, played by Tom Hanks in the blockbuster "Castaway," the 4-square-kilometre island of Castaway Cay is not only shared with a broken volleyball called Mr Wilson, but with all the other guests on board the Disney ship that moors there.

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In addition to Castaway Cay, Disney Cruise Line also offers Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point - a private beach area with colourful pavilions and its own jetty.

If you walk 2 kilometres overland to the other side of the peninsula, you will almost certainly meet other cruise guests: the resort is located on the southern tip of the Bahamas island of Eleuthera, just like Carnival's Princess Cays.

The celebrity experience?

Visits to these islands are usually included in the cruise fare, although Royal Caribbean charges separately for its beach clubs.

Guests can enjoy beaches, pools, restaurants, ziplines, water parks, snorkelling, kayaking, or simply relax at a water bar with a cocktail.

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And if you're looking for some quiet time, you can rent a private cabin for the day and retreat there or explore less crowded parts of the island on hiking trails.

But there's one thing you won't get when thousands of fellow passengers arrive on the same island for the day: the exclusive privacy that celebrities and the mega-rich can afford.

Great Stirrup Cay in the Bahamas was the first island to be bought by a cruise ship company. Danny Lehman/Norwegian Cruise Line/dpa-tmn

Royal Caribbean's first beach club on Paradise Island near Nassau in the Bahamas. Visits to islands owned by cruise ships are usually included in the cruise fare, although Royal Caribbean charges separately for its beach clubs. Royal Caribbean Group/dpa-tmn
Mark Zuckerberg has been quietly snapping up massive chunks of real estate for years.

The tech billionaire has bought hundreds of acres of Hawaiian land.

Recently, he also reportedly bought property in Miami.

Mark Zuckerberg is one of the world's richest people, and his multimillion-dollar real estate portfolio reflects that.

The man responsible for Facebook is worth an estimated $231 billion, Forbes reported, and part of that fortune includes assets like a sprawling California compound and acres of lush land on a Hawaiian island.

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Zuckerberg's real estate dealings are often shrouded in privacy, including the use of limited-liability companies and addresses linked to the investment management firm Iconiq Capital.

His most recent real estate deal, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, is a mansion on Indian Creek, an exclusive South Florida island that's home to other tech titans like Jeff Bezos. Representatives for Zuckerberg at Meta declined to comment to Business Insider.

Over the years, Zuckerberg has bought and sold homes all over the country. He's also reportedly built some  a Hawaiian doomsday ranch that has had many scratching their heads, for example.

Here's what we know about his real estate portfolio.

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Zuckerberg owns a residential compound in Palo Alto.

Google Maps

It's no surprise that a tech titan has more than one property in Silicon Valley. The Meta CEO owns five homes in the Crescent Park neighborhood of Palo Alto.

He gave viewers a rare peek inside one of them in 2016; the house is even tricked out with a "custom-made artificially intelligent assistant," according to CNBC . The home is only a 10-minute drive from the Meta HQ in Menlo Park.

He bought the first Crescent Park property in May 2011 for $7 million.

Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Architectural Digest described it as a "'no frills abode" that chooses function over extravagance. Zuckerberg then spent over $43 million on the four homes surrounding his original residence in Crescent Park, The Wall Street Journal reported.

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He sold his San Francisco townhouse in 2022 for a reported $31 million.

Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The four-bedroom, four-bathroom home is located near San Francisco's Dolores Park. He and his wife, Priscilla Chan, reportedly spent $10 million to purchase the townhouse in 2010.

At the time of the sale in 2022, it was the largest residential real estate deal in the city.

He bought two adjacent estates on the shore of Lake Tahoe around 2019.

Google Maps

Lake Tahoe is a popular vacation destination for wealthy Californians in both summer and winter, and Zuckerberg and his family are no exception.

The tax records of the two properties  known as Carousel Estate and Brushwood Estate  display the same address as tax records of other properties linked to Zuckerberg, according to documents viewed by BI.

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Zuckerberg reportedly paid $59 million for both properties.

Google Maps

At 5,322 square feet, the Brushwood Estate features six bedrooms, five baths, and two half baths, according to SF Gate . Inside are high-beamed ceilings and picture windows; outside are lush trees, a private dock, and a hot tub. There's also a 2,293-square-foot guesthouse.

The Meta exec owns over 1,200 acres of land in Hawaii.

Google Maps

It's unclear exactly how many acres of land Zuckerberg currently owns on Kauai, but he began buying up a region of the island back in 2014.

Business Insider tracked down at least 1,200 acres between 17 parcels of land that have the same tax address as other properties mentioned above, but are owned by LLCs including Kahu'aina Holdings LLC and Pila'a International LLC.

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The 1,200 acres include about 750 acres he reportedly paid $100 million in 2014 for. That encompasses a more than 350-acre span of land on Pila'a Beach.

His plans for Koolau Ranch seem to be in preparation for the worst case scenario.

Google Maps

Another part of Zuckerberg's Hawaii holdings is the nearly 600 acres of land on Kauai's North Shore that reportedly cost him around $53 million in 2021.

On one of his Hawaiian parcels, Zuckerberg is reportedly building a huge compound that's said to include a 5,000-square-foot underground bunker with an escape hatch. It's been dubbed Koolau Ranch, and Wired reported that buying the land and creating the compound cost the executive an estimated $270 million.

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In March 2025, he purchased a 15,000-square-foot mansion in Washington, DC.

Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images

As Silicon Valley continues to infiltrate Washington, DC, Zuckerberg established a residence in the US capital, Politico said. The home that's reportedly his new pad is situated in Massachusetts Avenue Heights, not far from the Naval Observatory and the Washington National Cathedral, according to Builder magazine.

Zuckerberg kept the purchase private, Politico said. The mansion in question was sold for $23 million in cash. It was designed by local firm Robert Gurney Architect and sits on about one acre of property.

Business Insider was unable to independently confirm that Zuckerberg purchased the property.

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Zuckerberg is also moving down the street from Jeff Bezos after reportedly buying property in Miami.

An aerial view of Indian Creek Island. Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images

Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly adding a second East Coast property to his portfolio after buying a home in Miami, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Zuckerberg is purchasing a waterfront mansion on Indian Creek, an exclusive island in South Florida that's home to Jeff Bezos, Carl Icahn, and Jared Kushner.

The sold home previously belonged to a limited liability company linked to Peter Cancro, the founder of Jersey Mike's Subs. The property  which was just a home lot  was last traded for $37 million in 2021, Miami-Dade property records show.

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It's unclear how much this off-market deal was worth, but an empty lot next door to Bezos sold for $105 million in 2025.

Hillary Hoffower contributed to an earlier version of this story.

Read the original article on Business Insider
For many pilots, ice on the runway is a phrase that triggers an immediate 180-degree turn and a call to ATC for a diversion. But in the heart of New Hampshire's Lakes Region, ice isnt the enemy-it's the primary destination.

Winter can be a great excuse to put the airplane to bed and wait for clearer skies and warmer weather. However, sometimes calling it quits for a season just simply won't do.

Thankfully, the Lakes Region of New Hampshire provides many reasons to keep flying during the winter, even while receiving the second-most snowfall of any U.S. state on average per year.

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Known for its rugged Granite State spirit and classic New England charm, the area offers a flying experience that blends a deep respect for the elements with some of the most unique social scenes in general aviation. Whether you are hunting for a bucket-list landing on a frozen lake or exploring the art deco roots of the state's industrial past, this corner of the country is worth more than a consideration for your next fly-in escapade.

Here are some highlight aviation adventures to discover throughout the Lakes Region corridor:

Alton Bay Seaplane Base

One of the crown jewels of winter flying in the Lower 48 is Alton Bay Seaplane Base and Ice Runway. During years when the mercury stays low enough to create a solid 12-inch sheet of black ice, a dedicated crew of volunteers plows a 2,600-foot strip directly onto the frozen lake surface.

The strip, which opened on January 31, 2026 saw 82 landings on its first day. Typically, the lake is open for landings from four to eight weeks a year when conditions make the runway a possibility. According to local news outlets, in 2023 and 2024 the ice did not become thick enough to allow for the opening of the airstrip.

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According to the FAA, Alaska is the only other state to have an ice runway, making Alton Bay truly the only place to experience landing on frozen water for the vast majority of U.S. pilots. While making it down to the frozen airstrip this season may be difficult, given that it has around three to seven weeks left of usability, planning a trip to experience the unique conditions is a must.

Laconia Municipal Airport (KLCI)

If the ice at Alton Bay hasnt quite hardened or a mid-winter thaw makes the lake surface slushy, the best staging ground is Laconia Municipal Airport (KLCI). Located just across the water, KLCI serves as the year-round backbone of the region.

With a nearly 6,000-foot asphalt runway and full FBO services at Emerson Aviation, it's the perfect spot to top off your tanks. In the winter months, the airport often serves as a hub for mountain flight training.

Navigating the rotor winds and downdrafts caused by the nearby Belknap Mountains requires a keen eye on the altimeter, and the instructors are the local experts on New Englands specific brand of winter turbulence.

Mount Washington Valley Ice Fest

Now in its 33rd year, the Mount Washington Valley Ice Fest has grown into the premier ice climbing event in the Northeast.

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Inspired by a desire to blend world-class technical instruction with a fun, community-driven atmosphere, the festival has spent over three decades celebrating the rugged beauty of winter mountaineering. It serves as an annual pilgrimage for climbers of all skill levels, from beginners looking to swing their first ice tool to seasoned experts seeking to sharpen their technical prowess.

In Plane + Pilot's last feature on flying into the Granite State, some of the premier sightseeing views while flying over the White Mountain range were discussed. This go-around allows pilots such an opportunity when visiting the area to see the tallest peak in the entire range.

While a climbing festival might not be on the normal agenda for every pilot, it's a great change of pace from the normal airshow feel and provides an intimate experience to a landmark that was likely only seen before from the air.

The 2026 festival concluded this past weekend, so enthusiasts will have to wait until next year to attend. But the timing pairs perfectly with those looking to plan a trip to the previously mentioned Alton Bay Seaplane Base.

New Hampshire Backcountry

For those who prefer their aviation with a side of small-town charm, visit Parlin Field (2B3) in Newport. While Alton Bay is the winter king, Parlin is the spiritual home of grassroots flying in the area.

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Known for its meticulously maintained turf runway nestled along the Sugar River, Parlin feels like a living time capsule. Even in the quieter winter months, the pilot lounge remains a warm community hub. It's a bring-your-own-tie-downs kind of place where the local pilots are always happy to share a pot of coffee and talk shop about the best mountain passes to navigate on your way back south.

Sugar River Recreational Trail, North Newport. [Credit: Wikimedia Commons]

McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center

No aviation tour of New Hampshire is complete without acknowledging the state's aerospace contributions. Located in Concord, the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center honors two icons-astronauts Alan Shepard and Christa McAuliffe.

The center's highlights include a state-of-the-art, full-dome digital planetarium that was recently upgraded with 10K projectors, making it one of the most advanced theaters in North America. Visitors can explore two floors of interactive exhibits, ranging from a life-size Mercury-Redstone launch vehicle replica and a vintage XF8U-2 jet to a Lunar Colony where they can imagine life on the moon in 2039.

For those who want to experience the rigors of flight, the museum offers simulators for landing a space shuttle and navigating a lunar lander, as well as the Mount Washington "Shaky Shack" that recreates the 231 mph winds of the nearby mountain.

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Whether its touching down on the pristine ice of Alton Bay or navigating the technical downdrafts of the White Mountains, winter flying in New Hampshire presents a master class in precision and perspective.

It's a season that transforms the landscape from a scenic backdrop into a world-class playground for those willing to brave the cold. While the window for these frozen adventures is often short, the memories of a successful landing on Lake Winnipesaukee or a weekend immersed in the rugged culture of the ice fest tend to last much longer than the winter thaw.

The post Your Next Flight Plan: New Hampshire's Lakes Region appeared first on Plane + Pilot.
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK).

A motormouthed stallholder barrels past pushing a wheelbarrow stacked with pumpkins and pomegranates, snapping me out of my disbelief. I glance back at the man in question. Today, at least, his talents seem confined to the barbershop chair. As I wander through the market in Asni  a small town in the foothills of Moroccos High Atlas Mountains  Im steadily swallowed by its unfiltered mayhem. Its the sort of place where teenage boys carrying slabs of beef wander between scuttling stray cats and men sit in cafes, exchanging news over syrupy mint tea. Narrow alleys are choked with locals testing tomatoes for ripeness, scooters sputtering past bewildered mules, and stallholders gathering on tiny stools for their second breakfast of the day. We eat a lot here in Morocco, says Hamid, who hails from the rural town of Aghbar. Its usually five meals a day  one after every call to prayer.

On this balmy October morning, were joined by Hassan Ait Mbarek, a local farmer who  with Hamid interpreting  Im beginning to know a little better. Hassan is from the nearby village of Tikhfist, where well head later for a traditional tagine lunch with his wife, children and parents. Like most families in these mountains, both Hassan and Hamids are ethnically Berber  the Indigenous people of North Africa whove lived here since long before the Arab conquest of North Africa in the eighth century. The term Berber, meaning barbarian, was imposed on them by the Romans, but they call themselves Amazigh, meaning free people in the local Tamazight dialect. The name nods to a nomadic past, when home was wherever their livestock chose to graze. That changed about a century ago, when Hassans grandfather settled in Tikhfist and built the familys current house.

The weekly market in Asni is where all kinds of local trades, crafts and delicacies come together. Photograph by Jonathan Stokes

Hassans family own 10 sheep in their village of Tikhfist. Photograph by Jonathan Stokes

In recent years, many locals have relocated to towns and cities, but for Hassan  whose family was one of just two that stayed put  preserving what makes his people distinct matters. Were not Arabs; were different, he says, inspecting a bunch of red grapes. We have our own traditions that vary from tribe to tribe: our food, clothes, music, language, dialects.

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We push deeper into the Saturday market and the heady wafts of saffron and cumin linger in my nostrils long after weve passed the spice stalls. Hundreds of people from surrounding villages crowd the pathways, stocking up on fruit, vegetables, spices, clothes, schoolbooks and cleaning products. For many, this is the only chance to gather supplies for the week.

Despite growing much of his own produce, Hassan is here for the few ingredients he cant procure back home. For todays tagine, we pick up carrots and green beans before heading to the butchers section for the final ingredient: a choice cut of goat meat.

This place isnt only for buying things, its for socialising, sharing news and spending time, Hamid says, weaving past the donkey blacksmith towards the exit. Connecting with the community is very important in our culture.

The road to Tikhfist

The 45-minute journey from the market to Hassans house follows a series of winding dust tracks. As our 4WD climbs higher into the mountains, the pink-hued Ouirgane Valley reveals itself in slow, theatrical stages. Its forested slopes, cloaked in olive groves, oaks and junipers, are dotted with the occasional hiker or elder shepherding their flock. The peak of Toubkal  North Africas tallest mountain  is barely visible in the distance. Then the Ouirgane Reservoir appears, a lifeline for surrounding villages, its glassy surface mirroring the mountains around it.

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The trills and drumbeats of ahidous  a haunting Amazigh style of music  pulse from the radio as we pass goat shelters and clusters of white beehives. Eventually, the soundtrack fades beneath the shouts of children and a volley of cock-a-doodling cockerels as we pull into Tikhfist.

The vast Ouirgane Valley is cloaked in olive trees, oaks and junipers. Photograph by Jonathan Stokes

Perched at around 1,800m (5,905ft), the village feels like another world compared to the hubbub of Marrakech, the closest major city, around 40 miles to the north. A handful of flat-roofed homes cling to the hillside, built from rust-hued clay bricks and fronted by rickety balconies draped with colourful prayer rugs. As we step out of the car, Hamid tells me the dirt track from Ouirgane, both the nearest town and the name of Hassans tribe, wasnt built until 2002. Electricity came even later; until 2007, the entire village relied on candlelight.

Were greeted at the door by Hassans 80-year-old father, Hussein, dressed in a brown gandoura (a light tunic) and white kufi (a brimless cylindrical hat). Before entering the house, he bows to kiss his fathers right hand  a gesture indicating reverence for elders thats adopted across Morocco. Parents here are respected even more than wives or children, Hamid explains. Theyre like your hands  your mother is the right, your father the left. And you cant do anything without your hands, right?

Placing my right foot first  as is the custom when entering a Muslim home  I step inside. A small courtyard unfurls before us, where washing hangs in glinting shafts of sunlight. In the stone-walled kitchen, Hassans wife, Aicha, is shaping tafarnout (a traditional Amazigh flatbread), rhythmically kneading the dough before a wood-fired clay oven in the ground. Their three children  Khadija, one; Fatima, five; and Imran, 11  play together while Hassans mother stands at the sink, rinsing a cut of goat with quiet concentration.

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Tagine, both the name of the dish and the cone-shaped clay pot its cooked in, is so central to life here that Aicha will sometimes make it twice in one day. Its a simple combination of slow-cooked meat and vegetables, with the specifics shifting from region to region. Here in the High Atlas Mountains, its usually goat, the vegetables whatever happens to be in season.

Aicha mixes chopped garlic, red onion, coriander, parsley, home-pressed olive oil, salt, paprika and turmeric, then spreads the mixture in the tagine to caramelise. Within seconds, the air swells with spice, mingling with the hiss of the teapot bubbling away on the fire. At 2pm, the wavering call of the muezzin drifts through the window, summoning villagers to prayer. Zahra murmurs prayers as she layers bottle gourd, green beans, potatoes, carrots, green pepper and the goat into the tagine before leaving it to simmer for two hours.

While we wait, we gather around a low round table in the kitchen. Hassan pours green tea infused with mint, lifting the pot as high as he can to cool and aerate the water. Wearing her perpetual smile, Zahra tears off a piece of piping-hot bread, tops it with a walnut plucked from the tree in their yard and gestures for me to try it. As I do, I ask if shes ever been tempted to move away from the village. The modern, easy life in the cities isnt for me, Zahra says, her widening eyes ringed with black eyeliner. I want to look out my window, stretch my eyes and see land and mountains, not buildings.

Green tea is often infused with fresh mint and served alongside most meals. Photograph by Jonathan Stokes

Tagines, like the one Hassan and his family prepared with goat, are meant to be shared. Photograph by Jonathan Stokes

The land, after all, is their lifeline. Its where they tend to their 10 sheep and where, despite droughts, they grow fruit and vegetables so organic that, according to Zahra, the family never need to see a doctor. In summer, they all sit on carpets outside and talk into the early hours, often with a barbecue on the go. People here dont need much to be happy, Hamid tells me. Here, our wi-fi is conversation.

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When its time to eat, we move to the main dining room and sit at a table beside a large window, where fresh mountain air drifts in and the land stretches out in a seemingly endless sweep. Aicha sets the tagine in the centre, alongside a simple tomato-and-onion salad and a mound of flatbread. There are three rules here, Hamid tells me: The eldest eats first, you eat only with your right hand, and when it comes to tagine  vegetables first, then the meat.

Zahra lifts the lid of the tagine, releasing a plume of steam and revealing a kaleidoscope of perfectly cooked vegetables. Tearing bread for everyone around the table, she says Bismillah (in the name of Allah), a blessing spoken before meals. I scoop up the buttery-soft stew, which melts the moment it hits my mouth, juices dripping down my chin. When the goat follows, its impossibly tender warming, rich and slightly tangy with cumin.

For a few minutes, no one speaks. I use the silence to reflect on the resilience of the Amazigh people  from Hassan and his neighbours to the multitalented barber at the market. Despite the temptations of the modern world, they hold fast to family, community and a conscious simplicity. Nobody wears a watch here, says Hamid, pointing to the entanglement of hands scooping tagine. But they will always have the time.

Published in the Culinary Collection 2026 by National Geographic Traveller (UK).



To subscribe to National Geographic Traveller (UK) magazine click here. (Available in select countries only).
Breakfast spread at Waffle House - Deutschlandreform/Shutterstock

"I choose Waffle House for its high-quality food sourcing," said no Waffle House patron, ever. When an Atlanta location failed its health inspection in 2017, comedian @KevOnStage posted a video response to the news. "Anybody who's been to a Waffle House already knows that they're failing that health inspection," shouts the poster. "I know it's dirty, and I'm still eating it cause it's $4.70. Give me my All-Star Special [...] I want somebody behind the grill with a felony." Indeed, this vignette artfully captures the greasy, unpretentious Waffle House dogma, which seems to remain fairly consistent from one chain location to the next. Here at Tasting Table, we get it. After all, it was good enough for Anthony Bourdain, an outspoken Waffle House fan. What we don't get, however, is a glaring, fairly deceptive hole in the House's "what-you-see-is-what-you-get" tenet.

The restaurant's official site has an entire page dedicated to verifying that its bacon comes from Smithfield Foods. Waffle House seems to proudly emphasize the brand's "American-ness" (which isn't exactly true) and repeatedly insists that Smithfield is "a great American success story" and "the name Smithfield equate[s] to quality." In reality, however, the meat producer has long been mired in numerous, varied controversies that tell a very different story.

Read more: The Most Iconic Sandwich In Every State

Serving up Smithfield at the Waffle House ... if anyone's paying attention

Spooky-looking photo of a Waffle House exterior at night - Habesen/Getty Images

According to Waffle House, "All of Smithfield's U.S. fresh and packaged pork products are produced in the USA. They raise their hogs domestically," and all of the 17-million-plus pounds of bacon, ham, and pork chops served at Waffle House locations every single year come from Smithfield facilities in Clinton, North Carolina, and Middlesboro, Kentucky. What Waffle House neglects to mention is that the largest pork producer in America has been owned by a Chinese company since 2013. Purchased by Shuanghui International (now WH Group, one of China's largest meat producers) for $4.7 billion, it was the largest Chinese acquisition of an American company in history. Still, more than grayed national identity depictions, our chief issue with Waffle House's gilded portrait of the Smithfield brand is its erasure of the meat producer's well-documented shady ethics.

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In 2024, an investigation by The Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry (DLI) discovered that Smithfield Packaged Meat Corp. illegally employed at least 11 minor children between the ages of 14 and 17 from 2021 to 2023, working late-night hours after 9:00 or even 11:00 p.m. on school nights (how ... American?). Smithfield had to pay a whopping $2 million in penalties, the largest sum ever collected by the DLI regarding child labor compliance. But, hey, surely Smithfield's sketchy business practice days are behind them now ... right? Wrong.

Waffle House's ultra-flattering depiction of Smithfield brand at odds with the restaurant's unflinchingly-open dogma

Package of Smithfield brand bacon in a grocery store - rblfmr/Shutterstock

Also in 2024, industrial animal agriculture legal advocacy organization FarmSTAND filed a lawsuit in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia against Smithfield Foods, alleging chronic worker abuse during the COVID-19 pandemic, "as outbreak after outbreak swept through communities of meatpacking workers, who are mostly people of color." Then, last August, Smithfield was sued by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for workplace discrimination, including denying accommodation to and firing a pregnant employee at a North Carolina facility, one of the two states where Smithfield operates, where Waffle House sources its bacon.

Again last summer, independent nonprofit investigative journalism outlet Sentient Media reported that "Congress is being lobbied by Smithfield and other pork industry groups to slip language into the Farm Bill to gut the animal welfare protections of California's Proposition 12." Prop 12 is a livestock protection rule that bans the sale of meat products from animals raised in extreme confinement. So, yeah  it's bad. Employee and livestock welfare issues aside, lobbying for reduced confinement restrictions at the legislative level would almost certainly lead to a significant decline in pork product quality, resulting in worse bacon at Waffle House. Although it may be an apt fit. Waffle House sources its coffee from a historical 130-year-old roaster, and by our count, it still tastes pretty bad.

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Read the original article on Tasting Table.
Are you ready for some elephant ears and cotton candy? The Washington State Spring Fair is just around the corner and tickets go on sale this week.

The fair returns April 1012 and April 1719.

You can begin purchasing tickets on Feb. 11, with Early Bird pricing available through Feb. 26.

New year, the Spring Fair will be open Fridays through Sundays only.

Opening Day, Friday, April 10, kicks off with the Spring Fair Food Drive, extended this year to four hours. All guests who donate food items to benefit the Puyallup Food Bank will receive free admission during the food drive, 10 a.m.  2 p.m.

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Military Appreciation Fridays (April 10 & 17) will offer free admission to active-duty military, veterans, retired and disabled service members and their dependents.

If you enjoy high-octane action, you can purchase tickets to Motorsport Mayhem. Weekend one will be the Slamfest Demo Derby. Weekend two will be filled with monster trucks and drift cars.

This year, you can also experience The 1900 Food Hall & Rooftop Bar, which offers an elevated dining experience. This year, the Fair Value Menus, featuring specially priced food and drink items, will be available every day of the Fair, not just weekdays.
Sir Keir Starmer will chair a meeting of his cabinet on Tuesday morning, just hours after its most senior members rallied to defend him against calls for his resignation.

The prime minister is fighting for his political survival in the wake of the Peter Mandelson scandal, with Downing Street chief of staff Morgan McSweeney resigning on Sunday over the decision to appoint the UK ambassador to the US despite his known previous links to paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Starmer faced perhaps his toughest test as prime minister on Monday, when Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour Party leader, held a press conference in Glasgow and called on him to resign, saying the distraction needs to end and the leadership in Downing Street needs to change.

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But within seconds of Sarwar taking the stage, a wave of support for Starmer came from his cabinet, with deputy prime minister David Lammy, chancellor Rachel Reeves, home secretary Shabana Mahmood, energy secretary Ed Miliband and housing secretary Steve Reed all rallying around him.

The support from senior members appeared to embolden Starmer, as he issued a defiant response at Monday evening's meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, telling a room packed full of his own MPs in Westminster he was "not prepared to walk away".

It comes after new documents released by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) laid bare the apparent extent of Mandelson's relationship with Epstein. Mandelson was sacked from that position in September, but the latest documents suggested he may have shared confidential information with the convicted sex offender when he was a cabinet minister in the 2000s.

On Friday, 6 February, the Metropolitan Police confirmed it was searching two addresses as part of a probe into Mandelson for alleged misconduct in public office.

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The Mandelson saga comes as Starmer is also suffering dismal opinion poll ratings, with a potentially damaging by-election to take place on 26 February  in the previously safe Gorton and Denton seat  and local elections following in May.

With his future appearing to be under threat, Yahoo News UK looks at who is potentially in the running to replace Starmer as prime minister. We have marked the shortest odds for each person according to Oddschecker, with the list not limited to Labour politicians.

1. Angela Rayner

Polling of Labour members in November last year suggested Rayner would defeat Starmer by a considerable margin in a leadership contest, and she is currently the favourite to succeed him as next prime minister.

In a head-to-head with Starmer, the poll suggested 33% of members would vote for Starmer, compared to 52% for Rayner.

Angela Rayner is popular with Labour members.

Former deputy prime minister Rayner remains a prominent figure in the party, and her working-class background could make her more favourable to Labour's traditional voter base.

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While she led a rebellion of Labour MPs over the Mandelson scandal, her resignation over her underpayment of stamp duty may yet come back to bite her in any future contest.

On Monday, 9 February, Rayner's team dismissed as "fake" an apparent leadership bid website with the domain name angelaforleader.co.uk, which The Guardian reported was temporarily published on 27 January.

Rayner's team said she was seeking legal advice over the site given the use of her name and image without her consent.

Odds: 9/4

2. Wes Streeting

Close aides of Starmer said in November last year that they feared the health secretary, Wes Streeting, had been manoeuvring to replace him as PM.

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Streeting denied leading a plot to overthrow Starmer and called negative briefings against him "unhelpful", The Guardian reported.

Health secretary Wes Streeting is one of the bookies' favourites to succeed Sir Keir Starmer. (Gareth Fuller - PA Images via Getty Images)

Streeting has refused to rule out ever running for leader when asked, and he is a popular choice among the bookies.

While he has not issued a statement in support of Starmer over the Mandelson scandal, he told Sky News' Electoral Dysfunction podcast on 9 February no when asked whether the prime minister needs to resign.

He said it has not been the best week for the government but urged Labour MPs to give Starmer a chance.

On Monday, 9 February, Streeting took the step of sharing his private texts with Mandelson and insisted he has "nothing to hide".

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The messages revealed that Streeting feared he was "toast at the next election" and that he thought the government had "no growth strategy at all".

Odds: 7/2

3. Ed Miliband

Energy secretary Ed Miliband remains popular among Labour members, frequently appearing near the top of popularity polls as the preferred successor to Starmer due to his appeal to the partys grassroots.

Speculation has swirled about his ambitions, including reports of him on manoeuvres or even plotting a challenge amid Starmers difficulties.

Ed Milibands popularity with Labours grassroots could see him be a surprise pick as the next prime minister. (via REUTERS / Reuters)

However, Miliband has described his previous leadership stint as traumatic and said he is still recovering from it.

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And on Tuesday 10 February, Miliband ruled himself out of any potential leadership contest, telling Sky News: Im not running for the leadership, no.

Odds: 9/2

4. Nigel Farage

Polls towards the end of last year indicated Reform UK had become increasingly popular with voters during the course of 2025.

His populist party has been shoring up support from voters dissatisfied with previous Labour and Conservative governments, and the political system more generally.

However, more recent polling by YouGov has suggested Farage's popularity took a dip around the beginning of 2026, and a lot more can change before the next general election, expected by August 2029.

Nigel Farage's Reform UK enjoyed a big boost in the polls last year, but the party leader's popularity since appears to have taken a dip.

Farage would have quite a challenge on his hands to become the next PM. In a general election, Reform would need to secure a majority in the House of Commons  at least 326 seats  or form a coalition.

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This would be hard to achieve with the UK's first past the post electoral system, but Reform's high polling could make it possible.

It would also require Starmer remaining prime minister for the foreseeable future.

On Monday, 9 February, Farage called on Starmer to step down as prime minister, saying: I think he should resign, and I think he will before very long."

Odds: 8/1

5. Shabana Mahmood

Shabana Mahmood has consistently been talked about as a potential future leader since being elevated to home secretary in September.

She has unveiled tough measures on immigration since taking the job, with her hard stance being seen as an attempt to take the fight to Reform UK on what is likely to be a key issue at the next election, currently due in 2029.

Shabana Mahmood's political profile has been elevated since becoming home secretary. (Leon Neal via Getty Images)

But on Monday 9 February, she posted on X in support of Starmer: The PM won a five-year mandate from the British people just 18 months ago. Labour governments dont come along often.

"It is a privilege to serve in one and we must not waste a second. The PM has my full support. Lets get on with changing the country for the better.

Odds: 9/1
Ford Motor Co. reported on Feb. 10 that its 2025 profits in North America will result in eligible UAW hourly workers receiving profit-sharing checks of up to $6,780 compared with $10,208 for 2024 results.

Ford spokeswoman Jessica Enoch said 56,300 active hourly employees and another 1,490 employees who retired in 2025 may be eligible for a profit-sharing payment based on their compensated hours last year. She said workers should see checks of various sums payable on March 12.

Ford F-150 trucks come off the assembly line at the Ford Rouge Plant in Dearborn on Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018.

The amount is the lowest Ford has seen in recent years. UAW members at Ford received checks of up to $10,416 for 2023 and $9,176 for 2022.

The amount is based on Ford's profits, which were impacted by a variety of factors this year. Ford said earlier in the year it estimated the cost of President Donald Trump's 25% tariffs on imported cars and car parts and 50% tariffs on imported aluminum and steel, which are used in Ford's U.S. assembly, would amount to about $2 billion in added net costs.

Ford also experienced production disruptions to some of its most profitable vehicles  the F-Series pickups and some of its SUVs  due to a fire last fall at Ford's primary aluminum supplier's factory in New York that stalled aluminum production.

The profit-sharing checks are not bonuses, but rather are a negotiated formula between Detroit automakers and the UAW in the union's national agreement. The formula states that qualified employees get $1,000 per every $1 billion in annual earnings before interest and taxes, or pretax profits for North America. For 2025, Ford's North America pretax profit was $6.78 billion compared with $10.2 billion in 2024.

More: Ford Motor reports 2025 earnings plunge due to various challenges

Because individual payments vary based on the employees eligible compensated hours, overtime worked would result in higher payments. Hourly employees who accrued 1,850 or more compensated hours during 2025 will receive the full payout.

The new national agreement the UAW negotiated with the Detroit automakers in 2023 includes Ford's union-represented temporary employees for profit-sharing.

General Motors reported its year-end earnings on Jan. 27 and said the 2025 payout for UAW-represented workers is expected to be $10,500, the lowest figure for eligible UAW workers in recent years. The 2024 pretax profit-sharing payout for GM's UAW-represented workforce was up to $14,500.

GM's salaried workforce receives bonuses based on a different formula, though it also relies on the company's profits. As the Detroit Free Press reported, salaried GM employees will also get lower bonuses for 2025.
We just got some interesting photos out of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) showing A-10C Warthog ground attack jets exercising with the USS Santa Barbara (LCS-32), an Independence class Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) that is currently deployed in the region. At a glance, the two assets seem somewhat strangely paired, but the images highlight a long-standing mission of the A-10, and one that has grown far more prominent in the twilight of its career.

A-10s are currently forward deployed to Jordan, where they primarily fly missions over Syria, striking ISIS-related targets and providing close air support and overwatch to the roughly 1,000 troops still deployed there. The Warthogs current work in Syria is particularly notable because the aircrafts future is very much in doubt. As it sits, the Air Force intends to retire the A-10 fully no later than 2029, but that day could come much sooner.

A U.S. Air Force A-10C Thunderbolt II aircraft assigned to the 75th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron parks at a base in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, Jan. 29, 2026. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Tylin Rust) Staff Sgt. Tylin Rust

The irony here is that the A-10s continued use in the Middle East goes against a prevailing narrative that the Warthog needs to go because its utility is limited on the modern battlefield. This argument is not without merit, but it assumes that every tactical air asset in the inventory needs to be able to fight on the front lines on day one of a conflict with a peer-adversary, and that there are not many other tasks needing to be done beyond firing the shots at the tip of the spear during such a conflict. Its also worth noting that the A-10 remains the least expensive tactical jet to operate in the USAFs stable.

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Regardless of the A-10s impending fate, its ability to deliver rapid, highly precise attacks on small, fast-moving targets, and its ability to loiter for extended periods while soaking up small arms fire, means that its talents can be applied directly to the maritime domain. This is especially true when it comes to countering small boats that can pose a big danger to much larger ships. Such asymmetric dangers are only amplified for ships operating in tight, complex littoral environments, where threats can emerge quickly and attack in large packs, leaving even the most powerful warships defenses overwhelmed.

A-10 flies near the USS Santa Barbara. (Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Iain Page)

The threat of small boat attacks is something we have discussed regularly for many years, but it has become much more urgent since the advent and rapid advancement of unmanned surface vessels. Iran and its proxies pioneered these weapons, at least in a modern sense, in relatively crude form. Back in 2017, a Houthi drone boat successfully struck a Saudi frigate in the Red Sea, heralding in a new era of naval combat.

 The moment of the attack from another angle, the Houthi kamikaze sea drone on the  British oil tanker "Cordelia Moon" in the Red Sea pic.twitter.com/Zg0UkhfouK   MilitaryNewsUA  (@front_ukrainian) October 3, 2024

The Ukrainian crew of a freighter repelled an UAV attack by terrorist Houthis in the Red Sea using just small arms fire.



Source of video: @bayraktar_1love pic.twitter.com/TWQZMwwl06  (((Tendar))) (@Tendar) July 23, 2024

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Since then, these capabilities have evolved drastically, largely thanks to the war in Ukraine, where the USV has become a major multi-faceted threat that leverages and combines new technologies to achieve exponentially greater effects. Ukraines use of kamikaze USVs was so brutally effective that it resulted in the bulk of Russias vaunted Black Sea Fleet running from its crown jewel home port in Crimea to safer (but not fully safe) berths on Russias western Black Sea coast. Today, Ukrainian drone boats work in the kamikaze role for attacks on ships and shoreline targets and as drone delivery systems for inshore attacks, among other missions.

Ship wreck of the day!



Warriors of the special unit "Group 13" of the @DI_Ukraine destroyed the missile corvette "Ivanovets" of the russian Black Sea Fleet.



As a result of a number of direct hits to the hull, the corvette was damaged, rolled to the stern, and sank. The value of pic.twitter.com/JZwh8aggn0  Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) February 1, 2024

 Ukrainian heavy drones launched from the marine drones bombard Russian radar systems in Crimea!



Strikes were carried out on the components of the Russian "Nebo-M" radar system:

RLM-M 55Zh6M "Nebo-M"

RLM-D 55Zh6M "Nebo-M"

Radar Command Post (KU RLS) 55Zh6M "Nebo-M" pic.twitter.com/fSr2zCNt8k  Special Kherson Cat   (@bayraktar_1love) July 3, 2025

That takes us to today and the current predicament in the Middle East. The United States and Iran may go at it unlike ever before. As always, fears that Iran could mine the Strait of Hormuz, and areas of the Persian Gulf and the North Arabian Sea, are relevant. For ships operating in these areas, especially U.S. Navy vessels, the danger posed by swarms of fast boats belonging to Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), some of which carry missiles themselves, is also highly palpable. This is where the Santa Barbaras unique mission comes into play  its primarily a mine hunter. These ships have fully taken over that role since the sunset of the U.S. Navys Avenger class mine hunting vessels, the last of which had recently departed the Middle East once and for all.

While mine hunting is a critical mission set, keeping the mines from being dropped in the water in the first place is a very high priority mission, too, and something the A-10 can really help with. Interdicting boats before they can sow the minefields would be an ideal use of the Warthogs talents.

For the mines that are already in the water, allowing the Santa Barbara to do its mission without getting destroyed by small boats would be an absolutely top tasking. These ships would become Irans top targets, and they would be forced to work right in the highest threat areas where the mines were laid. Their maneuvering would also be restricted. All of this makes force protection for these vessels absolutely essential. The A-10 is a uniquely capable asset for providing overwatch and close air support for the LCS.

A-10 makes a pass near the Littoral Combat Ship

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Beyond that, any ship in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea that can be seen as unfriendly is at risk of small boat attacks if a major war to break out between the United States and Iran.

A-10s have always had a latent maritime application as it is baked into its basic capability set. However, in the 2000s, as the threat of small boat attacks rose to prominence, especially after the 2000 attack on USS Cole and the 2002 Millennium Challenge war game that highlighted just how big of a problem this threat was, they slowly began to train more actively for it. By the 2010s, this was a publicized mission for the A-10. You can read all about this in this previous post of ours.

Gulf of Oman (Sept. 23, 2023) An A-10 Thunderbolt II assigned to Combined Forces Air Component Commander flies past guided-missile destroyer USS Stethem (DDG 63) during air operations in maritime surface warfare (AOMSW) exercise in the Gulf of Oman, Sept. 23. (U.S. Navy photo by Information Technician Second Class Ruskin Naval) NAVCENT Public Affairs

Today, we see the A-10 being used for maritime force protection in surprising ways. One of the most unique examples of this is tasking Warthogs to provide overhead defense for U.S. Navy Ohio class ballistic missile submarines while transiting in and out of port. This is where these incredible vessels, which are designed to basically disappear into an acoustic black hole far out to sea, are most vulnerable. The fact that they pack a nuclear powerplant and dozens of the worlds most powerful nuclear warheads that sit atop solid fuel rockets means that an attack could have impacts far beyond losing a submarine, which would be massively tragic in its own right. So, with this in mind, the A-10 has applied its talents in a bit of an experimental manner to guard Americas most prized strategic underwater assets.

A-10s provide force protection for USS Nebraska during an experimental drill, one that has occurred multiple times now. (U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY MASS COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST 2ND CLASS GWENDELYN OHRAZDA)

In addition, the A-10 is gaining a few extra capabilities just before it heads out to pasture once and for all. This includes the ability to use laser-guided Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II) rockets in the air-to-air realm. This could also be a big help to ships under threat in the Middle East, especially mine-hunters, which Iran would attempt to pummel with its one-way attack drones if it gets a chance during a time of war. Pods of APKWS rockets can also be extremely useful in plinking small fast boats, as they can drastically increase the number of engagements a single Warthog can make without needing to rearm. It can also help the A-10 make precision attacks on swarms of boats relatively quickly if need be.

A-10 flies near the USS Santa Barbara. The jet carries 500lb JDAMs, a LITENING targeting pod and seven-shot pod of 2.75-in rockets  likely APKWS. A massive 600-gallon centerline fuel tanks is also seen. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Iain Page) Petty Officer 2nd Class Iain Page

The A-10s usual menu of cluster bombs and other weapons can also help stop swarms of small boats before they do major damage to nearby ships. Its massive gun can also be put to use. Finally, Warthogs are finally getting Link 16 connectivity, which will greatly help with their situational awareness and the ability to share targeting info with all types of platforms on the fly. This would be a huge help for making quick sense out of a complex battlespace, and especially when it comes to shooting down aerial drones.

A-10 firing 2.75-inch rockets. (USAF)

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So there you have it, the unlikely pairing of Littoral Combat Ships and A-10s is one borne out of logic as much as necessity. Hopefully this team wont ever have to be put to the test, but that is an increasing possibility as relations between Washington and Tehran continue to erode.

Contact the author: Tyler@twz.com
WILLISTON, Vt. (ABC22/FOX44)  11 people were arrested by Vermont State Police on Monday afternoon in a planned sit-in protest at an ICE facility in Williston.

Two others were cited, all on the charge of trespassing. All 13 are scheduled to appear in court on March 2.

A spokesperson for 50501 Vermont, a group organizing protests against ICE, wrote that the group of about 25, mostly elders, arrived at about 1:15 p.m., and recited the names of people harmed or killed by ICE in recent weeks, and sang protest songs. Their stated goal: to motivate the owner of White Cap Business Park to end its lease of the facility to ICE.

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ABC22/FOX44 spoke with one person at the protest who said the demonstrations were organized at a grassroots level. Were not really a group of any kind, said Julie Macuga. Were just a bunch of people who got together and were like hey, this is something we can do.

A similar protest was held at the same ICE facility last month. Protests have occurred sporadically at the site dating back to the first Trump administration.

Williston selectboard condemns ICE activities in town

By 3:25 p.m., state troopers were on site, and arrested protesters who they say refused to leave when given the opportunity. They said that protest leaders told police that their goal was to be arrested.

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Troopers worked with the protesters to ensure all arrests occurred peacefully and without incident, write VSP.

The people arrested were later identified by police as:

Revell Allen, 75, of Middlebury

Karen Bixler, 83, of Bethel

Lexington Kennedy, 21, of New York, New York

Donald Kollisch, 74, of Hanover, New Hampshire

Dorothy Mammen, 70, of Middlebury

Henry Prensky, 79, of Burlington

Timothy Price, 71, of Ripton

Douglas Smith, 85, of Sharon

Roan Wade, 22, of Red Hook, New York

Jennifer Wasiura, 46, of Weybridge

Sherri Wormser, 57, of Colchester

Peter Booth, 57, of Jericho, and Laura Simon, 72, of White River Junction, were the two who were cited and released.

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According to police, protesters have a legal right to demonstrate in public spaces outside the office building, but not in the building itself.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC22 & FOX44.
Senate Education Chair Amy Grady, R-Mason, sponsored a bill to update the states complex school aid formula in an effort to better financially support schools. (Photo by Will Price/West Virginia Legislative Photography)

West Virginia public schools are dealing with financial stress, and lawmakers came into this session hoping to edit the states complex school funding formula.

Many districts are trying to balance budgets  some with local school levy dollars  to stay afloat while meeting the needs of children, including the states growing number of students with disabilities.

Cabell County Superintendent Tim Hardesty discusses school funding challenges with the Senate Education Committee in Charleston, West Virginia, on Feb. 10, 2026. (Photo by Will Price/West Virginia Legislative Photography)

In Cabell County, Superintendent Tim Hardesty has to pay for teachers and special education aides while also trying to prioritize AP classes and a special program that helps ninth graders get acclimated to high school.

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Were going in the hole year after year, Hardesty told senators on Tuesday morning. Were currently running in Cabell County alone over $8 million in deficit just by special education each year.

Members of the Senate Education Committee vetted two bills on Tuesday morning that would give the states complex school aid formula its first major overhaul in decades in hopes of better supporting public schools, including increased funding to districts for special education students.

An estimated price tag for the combined bills: $132.5 million.

Senate Education Committee Chair Amy Grady said she wants to balance doing something that is helpful to counties while finding a price point that lawmakers will approve.

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I think we can achieve both, Grady, R-Mason, told MetroNews. We can find something that helps the counties, but also doesnt have an astronomical cost that people are concerned about  We need to come up with a solution that everybodys happy with.

Bills would increase funding for public schools

The school funding formula is a seven-step formula that determines how much state funding goes to county school systems based on factors including the number of students enrolled in the county public school system.

Decreases in enrollment over decades  along with waning federal pandemic funds  have caused county school systems to consolidate and lay off teachers.

Additionally, West Virginia has seen an increase in special education students, and in some counties, those students now account for a quarter of enrollment. Counties have to pay for federally- and state-mandated services, like one-on-one aides, nurses and technology.

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Counties are spending $2 million plus in what they receive in state and federal funds, said Uriah Cummings, school financial operations officer for the West Virginia Department of Education.

Senate Bill 437  called the Fair State Aid Formula Act of 2026  would increase funding for counties serving special education students. It would establish a three-tier special education net enrollment adjustment factor for county boards of education. It was estimated to cost $45.9 million.

It costs more to educate them because they require more resources. And so this would give counties a little extra funding towards that, Grady said.

While services for special education students can cost anywhere from 50% to 420% more than general education, West Virginias current school funding formula offers resources for only high acuity special cases.

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West Virginia ranks near the bottom of all states for its amount of funding for special education despite the rate of special education students being the nations fifth highest.

The RAND Corporation, which presented its analysis of West Virginias school funding formula to lawmakers ahead of the session, recommended that the state adjust its funding formula to increase funding for special education students.

Senate Bill 801 would increase each school districts basic foundation program by increasing the ratio of professional educators per 1,000 students and the ratio of service personnel per 1,000 students. It is sponsored by Grady.

This would add around 720 professional educators and 715 service personnel statewide at the estimated cost of $86.6 million. The price includes salaries, health insurance and more for those positions.

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The Senate Education Committee advanced both measures and sent them to the Senate Finance Committee for consideration due to their price.

  I want to make sure its something that moves the needle, that is very helpful, but also has a minimum impact to make sure it passes the Legislature, Grady said.

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Feb. 10QUINCY  Fourteen firefighters from Quincy, Mattawa, Soap Lake, Ephrata and Royal Slope completed the Columbia River Fire Academy last week, according to an announcement from Grant County Fire District 3, which hosted the training at the George Fire Station.

"It's a huge time commitment, not only for them but for their families who have to endure this for several months," said Todd Hufman, Assistant Chief of Operations and Training for Grant County Fire District 3.

The course was every Monday and Thursday evening, plus several all-day Saturday sessions starting in September. The curriculum came from the International Fire Service Training Association's Firefighter 1 course. Participants came from a range of experience levels, Hufman said.

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"We had one person who started (as a firefighter) two days after the academy started, and we got her in there, all the way up to people who have served at their home agencies for years and years who want to go through the course to get their certifications and do the testing at the end."

The classroom work was done online with slideshows and regular quizzes, said GCFD 7 Capt. CW Forrest, who went through the course. Forrest is a longtime volunteer who recently moved into full-time firefighting. Along with several hours of classroom training, there were stations for hands-on training in areas like ladder use, forcible entry and hose use.

"Day one, they gave us our shirt and our books and everything else, and then they gave us a rope with our last name on it," Forrest said. "This was an inspectable item, so we had to have it at every single class. It was to practice our knots ... We got really proficient at it because at the end, for our practicals, there are a couple of different stations where you have to do specific knots, and you have to have them looking pretty and well dressed."

Much of the course focused on familiarization with personal protective equipment, Forrest said. Drills in donning protective gear and SCBA, or self-contained breathing apparatus, preceded every classroom session.

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"You would put your gear on in under 60 seconds, and then once you had your full gear on, the second part of the test would be to put on your SCBA in 60 seconds," Forrest said.

"That one I did in 45 seconds," he added.

Not everybody who started the course completed it, Hufman said.

"It's a pretty arduous course to complete," he said.

The Columbia River Fire Academy started a couple of years ago with just three fire districts, Hufman said. Grant County Fire District 3 hosted, and GCFD 8 in Mattawa and GCFD 10, Royal Slope Fire Rescue, participated. This is the first year that GCFD 7, based in Soap Lake, and GCFD 13, which covers rural Ephrata, were involved as well.

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In addition, the Washington State Fire Training Academy paid for the books and provided equipment, and Chief Howard Scartozzi and Deputy State Fire Marshal Brian Oberweiser offered instructional support.

There are state requirements for training that every fire agency has to meet, Hufman said, but not all agencies will put their personnel through an academy like this one. The 14 graduates gained certification that will allow them to go back and serve their communities, he said, although he emphasized that fire training is something they'll continue to do as long as they're serving.

"The learning never stops," he said. "It's the base knowledge to get them going and able to respond for their home agency."

Still, they walked away with more than just certification, Forrest said.

"Confidence," he said. "Confidence to be a well-rounded, productive firefighter for the community ... It's the best foundation as a fireman."
Two of three people accused in a case regarding fake nomination petition signatures for candidates in 2022, including gubernatorial candidates, were found guilty of numerous charges by a Macomb County Circuit Court jury after two days of deliberations.

A third person was acquitted of all the charges filed against her. The Michigan Attorney General's Office filed nearly 30 charges against each person in June 2023.

One jury determined the fate of the trio, who were tried together in one trial that began Jan. 27.

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Shawn Wilmoth of Warren, owner/operator of First Choice LLC and co-owner of Mack Douglas LLC, was convicted of 22 charges. Willie Reed of Florida, co-owner of Mack Douglas LLC and owner/operator of Petitions Reed LLC, was convicted of a dozen charges, according to a release from the AG's Office.

It said they are to be sentenced March 18.

Wilmoth's wife, Jamie Wilmoth-Goodin, was found not guilty of all charges.

Shawn Wilmoth was convicted of one count of conducting a criminal enterprise; two counts each of false pretenses, $100,000 or more, and false pretenses, $50,000 or more; three counts of false pretenses, $25,000 or more, and seven counts each of using a computer to commit a crime, $20,000 or more, and election fraud forgery, according to the release.

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Also according to the release, Reed was convicted of one count each of conducting a criminal enterprise; false pretenses, $25,000 or more; using a computer to commit a crime, $1,000 or more but less than $20,000, and larceny by conversion, $1,000 or more but less than $20,000. He was found guilty of two counts of false pretenses, $100,000 or more, and three counts each of using a computer to commit a crime, $20,000 or more, and election law forgery.

Jamie Wilmoth's attorney, Susan Dunn, told jurors during closing arguments Feb. 5 that there was a "big gaping hole" in the evidence against her client. She said there was no evidence that Jamie Wilmoth had anything to do with her husband's companies as she was not listed on any paperwork; she never talked with a candidate; she knew nothing about any contracts, and she never paid anyone.

"She had nothing to do with this business at all," Dunn told jurors, adding that Jamie Wilmoth simply babysat validators, some of whom believed the signatures were fake and brought their concerns forward. She said Jamie Wilmoth had no authority to make independent decisions and asked her husband questions posed by the validators. Dunn argued there was "not one shred of evidence" against her client.

Shawn and Jamie Wilmoth and Willie Reed, sitting next to each other behind a row of attorneys, appear for their preliminary exams Jan. 10, 2024 in 37th District Court in Warren. They are accused in a fraudulent nominating petition signature case for 2022 candidates.

Prosecutors accused the trio of defrauding the gubernatorial campaigns of Ryan Kelley, Perry Johnson, former Detroit Police Chief James Craig, Donna Brandenburg, Michael Brown and Michael Markey as well as judicial candidates Tricia Dare, John Cahalan and John Michael Malone in 2022.

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The candidates contracted, directly or through intermediary consultants, with businesses owned and operated by Shawn Wilmoth and Reed to get the nominating signatures they needed to appear on the August 2022 primary ballot.

Prosecutors said the defendants charged the campaigns more than $700,000 for valid signatures but knowingly delivered tens of thousands of forged signatures on nomination petitions to eight campaigns.

Seven candidates provided with fraudulent signatures failed to meet the signature requirements to qualify to appear on the ballot. One candidate withdrew without submitting signatures for review. Prosecutors said the defendants didn't give the Kelley campaign any signatures despite being paid $15,000.

The forgeries were detected by the state Bureau of Elections, and it was determined the campaigns of Craig, Brandenburg, Johnson, Brown, Markey, Dare and Malone had not met the qualifications to appear on the ballot. The Michigan Department of State referred the matter to the AG's Office for investigation in June 2022.

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"The fraud perpetrated by the defendants robbed eight candidates of their chance to appear on the ballot, defrauded their campaigns and denied millions of Michiganders a choice in the 2022 gubernatorial election," Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a release after the verdict.

The case took more than a year to go to trial after the trio was bound over in June 2024. Neither the Wilmoths nor Reed took the stand during the trial, where only one defense witness was called.

Motions for a directed verdict were denied for Shawn Wilmoth and Reed. Circuit Judge James Maceroni took a motion for directed verdict for Jamie Wilmoth under advisement, but the jury found her not guilty.

Assistant Attorney General Chris Kessel told jurors during closing arguments that what the case boiled down to was were the defendants working together and while working together, were they committing fraud? Were the campaigns defrauded, he asked, were computers used and were election documents involved?

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"I think yes," he told the jury, arguing there was evidence to convict all three.

More: Man sentenced to probation in threats toward Romeo district court judge

Reed's attorney, Wright Blake, told the jury during his closing that no one would tell them that Reed signed or forced signatures on a petition or over a computer to commit fraud.

Shawn Wilmoth's attorney, Noel Erinjeri, an assistant county public defender, told the jury that "election fraud is a crime. Getting defrauded is not" and argued the trio "did not commit this fraud, they were this fraud's first victims." He argued there were three dozen circulators who collected signatures who committed the fraud, but they weren't charged.

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Contact Christina Hall: chall@freepress.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @challreporter.

Support local journalism. Subscribe to the Free Press.

Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 2 convicted, 1 acquitted in fake nomination petition signature case
A man was rushed to the hospital after being stabbed on an RTA bus in downtown Cleveland early Monday.

The incident happened around 3 a.m. in the 2400 block of Euclid Avenue, according to our CBS news affiliate, WOIO.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

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The victim and suspect were on a Healthline bus when they got into an altercation, according to RTA spokesperson Robert Fleig.

Cleveland EMS said that a 24-year-old man is in stable condition.

The suspect was taken into custody and his name has not been released.

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LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  For most military families, it feels like theyre racing against a clock. Between deployment and new orders, their students frequently walk into classrooms mid-year feeling like their only identity is a name tag.

In Nevada, there are classes working to ensure these kids dont fall through the cracks.

>>Download the 8 News Now Vegas streaming app

When you step into writing strategist Rene Patersons classroom, youre walking into the heart of her why. She is surrounded by students, and in the corner of her class, its much more personal.

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Theres a photograph of her grandfather, a World War II veteran.

I have family members that are officers, and likewise, my children are military children, Paterson said.

That bloodline of service is why she says she advocates for the Military Interstate Childrens Compact.

The official name is The Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children, but some just call it The Compact.

According to the Nevada Department of Education, Nevada codified it into law in 2009.

The Compact ensures these students dont get stuck repeating classes, missing out on graduation, and more just because the military moves them often. Without it, its a struggle thats often invisible.

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I had heard about a student who had transferred her senior year with the military with her father, and she was coming from Hawaii, and because at that time the compact wasnt in place with the legislation, they would not recognize her graduation requirements from Hawaii that didnt align in Clark County School District, Paterson shared.

Its an example Paterson explained, and its exactly why classes at the Nevada Department of Education on Flamingo Road in Las Vegas are trying to prevent.

8 News Now attended a session for a class on The Compact. The goal isnt just teaching the logistics; its also about leading with empathy, so military families feel seen.

So, during the class, we go over all the provisions of The Compact, KellyLynn Charles with the Nevada Department of Education said.

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They find out what it is, what it isnt, what the intent was, the history of it. My father served in the army, Charles said.

Shes also a marine wife and leads monthly, in-person classes for educators and families alike.

The number of military children is continuing to grow, she said. I just did the numbers [and] statewide we have roughly 11,000.

Just last school year, the Clark County School District had more than 3,300 military students. This school year, that number jumped to more than 7,100. This is all according to the Nevada Department of Education.

The graph below shows the number of Nevadas military children by district for the 2025-2026 school year:

District Number of Military Children Carson City 82 Churchill 170 Clark 7149 Douglas 64 Elko 32 Esmeralda * Eureka 10 Humboldt 31 Lander * Lincoln 21 Lyon 41 Mineral * Nye 335 Pershing 82 Storey * Washoe 664 White Pine * State Public Charter Authority 2111 Total 10,710

Charles clarified that these students were always in our classrooms, but a new military identifier in the schools Infinite Campus portal has allowed all military-connected families to accurately indicate their military status.

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I dont ever want to hear about a student that regrets being in my school district because of the lack of accommodations, Paterson said.

Accommodations provide the seat, but The Compact provides belonging. It is about making the new student never feel like a guest in their own classroom.

Charles said Nevada hasnt had a single issue raised for being out of compliance. As for The Compact classes, they are held once a month; they are free and open to anyone looking to advocate for military students.

Families can sign up at this link and educators can sign up here.

At last check, the Nevada Department of Education was working on providing a virtual option.

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Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS.
A three-alarm fire burned through a home in Bergenfield, New Jersey early Thursday.

The fire broke out around 5 a.m. on Roosevelt Avenue in the basement of the home.

It quickly spread through all three floors of the home.

It took firefighters at least an hour to knock down most of the flames, but as of 7 a.m. it was still not deemed under control.

So far, there are no injuries.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

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Aurelia Choc Cac and two of her children, Niurka Zuleta Choc and Anthony Garcia Choc, were reported missing on Jan. 31

Police have since arrested two suspects, including a man who they believe is in a relationship with one of Cac's adult daughters

The family members have still not been found as of Tuesday, Feb. 10

Authorities in Alabama have arrested two men in connection with the mysterious disappearance of a mother and two of her children they believe were "taken against their will."

Aurelia Choc Cac, 40, and her kids, 17-year-old Niurka Zuleta Choc and 2-year-old Anthony Garcia Choc, were reported missing on Jan. 31 by a neighbor.

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Juan Carlos Argueta Guerra, 31, was arrested on Monday, Feb. 9 in connection with the disappearance, the Mobile County Sheriff's Office confirmed to PEOPLE.

This came days after Silverio Garcia, 60, was taken into custody in connection with the case on Tuesday, Feb. 3.

Garcia, who was identified as Cac's employer and is believed to be in a relationship with the woman's 21-year-old daughter, was living with the daughter at the time of the family's disappearance, according to the sheriff's office.

Guerra's relationship with the family members was not immediately clear.

Authorities said Guerra, Garcia and Cac are all painters.

Anthony Garcia Choc (left); Aurelia Choc Cac; and Niurka Zuleta Choc. Mobile County Sheriff's Office/Facebook

The family was last seen by a neighbor the night before they were reported missing.

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In 911 call records obtained by FOX 10, the neighbor said that during that meeting, Cac gave no indication of any plans to leave.

PEOPLE previously reported that investigators confirmed there were "signs of a struggle" inside the home, per an earlier news release from the sheriff's office.

"We do believe the mother, daughter and son were taken against their will and we believe they could be in danger," the release stated.

According to investigators, blood was found at the residence and a mattress was missing, which they found to be concerning.

Authorities had previously named another man as a person of interest, but he was promptly released after questioning during the initial stage of the investigation.



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Cac and Niurka were given a final deportation order in April, according to authorities.

Anthony is a U.S. citizen.

At a press briefing Tuesday, Feb. 10, which was streamed online by FOX 10, Mobile County Sheriff Paul Burch emphasized that the family's immigration status should not discourage them from seeking help.

"We want to find this family, so I don't want them to be fearful that they're going to be deported just for coming along," he said.

Juan Carlos Argueta Guerra (left); and Sliverio Garcia. Mobile County Metro Jail

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Garcia, who remains on a Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) hold because of his undocumented status, has been charged with possession of a pistol of certain persons forbidden, per the sheriff's office.

Guerra was arrested on three counts of first-degree kidnapping.

It wasn't immediately clear if they had entered pleas. Attorney information for the men was also not immediately available.

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.

Read the original article on People
NEW ORLEANS (WGNO)  The New Orleans Police Department removed 41 riders from the Krewe of Carrollton parade on Sunday, Feb. 8.

According to the mayors office, the riders are accused of intentionally throwing beads at NOPD officers in an aggressive, manner. Krewe of Carrollton officials said the riders were removed from Float 10.

Location, music lineup announced for TikTok food critic Keith Lees FamiLee Day festival in New Orleans

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The Krewe of Carrollton is treating these allegations with the utmost seriousness, said Wayne Lee, Captain of the Krewe of Carrollton. We are conducting a thorough internal review and fully cooperating with all authorities involved. We have already met with NOPD, will continue to do so, and we welcome the opportunity to meet with city leadership as this process moves forward.

Stay up to date with the latest news, weather and sports by downloading the WGNO app on the Apple or Google Play stores and by subscribing to the WGNO newsletter.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WGNO.
Feb 10 (Reuters) - Uber and Baidu said on Tuesday they would launch autonomous ride-hailing services in Dubai in the coming month, the latest step in the Chinese tech firm's push toward global expansion.

The fully autonomous vehicles will be available on the Uber app across select locations within the Jumeirah area, the companies said, adding they would expand further based on operational progress and regulatory approvals across the city.

The move builds on the companies' partnership, announced last year, aimed at deploying thousands of Baidu's Apollo Go autonomous vehicles on the Uber platform across several international markets outside the U.S. and mainland China.

It is also a step forward in Uber's ambitions to compete in the robotaxi market as tech companies race to boost commercial adoption of autonomous vehicles.

Baidu, which has been running its Apollo Go robotaxi services commercially in several Chinese cities since 2022 and now has a global footprint of 22 cities, said the service has completed more than 17 million rides as of October.

The company also has a tie-up with Lyft to deploy robotaxis across Europe. In December, Baidu teamed up with Uber and Lyft to launch trials for its driverless taxi services in the UK this year.

Baidu said on Tuesday passengers will have the option to be matched with an Apollo Go vehicle when booking an Uber Comfort or UberX taxi, or by selecting the "Autonomous" option in the Uber app.

(Reporting by Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)
On a winter afternoon in 1980, an ordinary family picnic along the Columbia River turned into an international news story and a lasting mystery.

On Feb. 10, 1980, 8-year-old Brian Ingram was smoothing sand on Tena Bar, a stretch of beach on the Washington side of the Columbia River in Clark County, when his hand struck something unusual.

Buried beneath the sand were three deteriorating packets of $20 bills, still bound with rubber bands.

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The cash had last been seen on Nov. 24, 1971  the night a hijacker known as D. B. Cooper extorted $200,000 and four parachutes from a flight traveling from Portland to Seattle, then jumped from the plane somewhere over southwestern Washington.

The FBI later said Ingrams find was the bureaus first physical evidence since Cooper vanished into the night  and decades later, it remains its most compelling.

The hijacking began the day before Thanksgiving in 1971, when a man in a black suit bought a one-way ticket from Portland to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport using $20 cash.

The ticket was signed Dan Cooper in red ink.

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During the flight, the man passed a note to a flight attendant that read in part, I have a bomb.

He later opened a briefcase to show what appeared to be wires, a battery and red sticks.

Cooper demanded $200,000  roughly $1.5 million in todays dollars  and four parachutes.

After the plane landed in Seattle and the demands were met, passengers were released and the aircraft refueled.

The plane then took off again, bound for Mexico.

About 20 miles north of Portland, Cooper lowered the rear stairs of the Boeing 727  something authorities did not realize could be done in flight  and jumped from the aircraft at roughly 10,000 feet while traveling about 196 mph.

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The wind chill was well below zero.

Despite an extensive search, Cooper was never found.

The case remains the worlds only unsolved airplane hijacking.

The hijacker became known as D. B. Cooper due to a reporting error by United Press International.

Although the FBI corrected the name the next day, the nickname stuck.

Nearly nine years later, the case resurfaced unexpectedly.

Ingram and his parents, Harold and Patricia, were picnicking on Tena Bar, about 10 miles northwest of Vancouver, when Brian uncovered the money while preparing a spot for a campfire.

I took my arm and raked it along the sand, and then I felt something fluffed up in the sand, Ingram told The Oklahoman in 1986.

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The cash was buried anywhere from a few inches to as much as three feet below the surface.

Some bills were so deteriorated they were unreadable.

Others had shrunk to the size of business cards or turned black.

The family estimated only about 30 bills were still in relatively good condition.

Ingrams parents initially thought the money was counterfeit.

The family placed it in a plastic bread bag and continued their picnic.

The next day, they turned the cash over to the FBI.

Using serial numbers recorded on microfilm by Seattle First National Bank before the hijacking, the FBI confirmed the bills came from Coopers ransom.

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The money had been packaged exactly as it was delivered in 1971: two bundles of 100 $20 bills and a third bundle of 90.

An assistant special agent in charge of the Portland FBI office said the discovery was the first real lead since the night of the hijacking.

The Ingrams discovery made headlines worldwide.

They spent days with FBI agents and reporters, but the attention quickly became a burden.

My husband lost 1 1/2 days of pay, Patricia Ingram told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 1980. Weve gone in the hole as the result of this.

Brians father lost about $100 in wages.

The family was living paycheck to paycheck and did not have a phone.

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FBI agents returned to the site two days later and found additional bill fragments the size of coins buried several feet away.

A backhoe and experts in soil, archaeology and river currents were brought in to search the area, which was also popular with steelhead fishermen.

No additional intact money was found.

The FBI has never reached a definitive conclusion on how the bills ended up on the Columbia River bank.

Agents said the money may have washed downstream years after the hijacking, possibly carried by a tributary.

An Army Corps of Engineers hydrologist said the Washougal River was the only tributary that might explain how the money reached the site.

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Ralph Himmelsbach, the FBI agent who led the investigation until his retirement in 1980, believed the money had been stored in a bag near a stream and gradually carried downstream as the bag degraded.

John D. Pringle, a senior FBI official at the time, said he believed Cooper either died or dropped the money.

Ownership of the recovered cash was disputed by the FBI, Brian Ingram and his parents, Northwest Orient Airlines, and the airlines insurance company.

In 1986, a proposed court judgment awarded the FBI a small portion of the bills as evidence, with the remaining money split between Ingram and the insurance company.

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Ingram received $2,760.

Years later, as an adult, Ingram began auctioning pieces of the recovered ransom.

In 2008, 15 authenticated bills sold for $37,000 through a Dallas auction house  two to three times more than expected.

By the mid-1970s, the FBI had chased thousands of leads and eliminated hundreds of suspects.

Over the years, deathbed confessions, hoaxes and conspiracy theories surfaced, but none led to proof.

In 2016, the FBI announced it was no longer actively investigating the case, known as NORJACK, citing the need to focus resources elsewhere.

Officials said none of the tips produced evidence strong enough to identify Cooper beyond a reasonable doubt.

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As for the man himself, investigators have long pushed back against the romanticized image.

Theres this idea of a debonair guy, author Geoffrey Gray told CBS News. But his suit didnt match, his tie was a clip-on, and investigators doubt he realized one of the parachutes was sewn shut.

More than half a century later, the mystery endures and the money found by a child on a quiet riverbank remains the strongest physical link to a hijacker who vanished into history.
The U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky has offices in the Gene Snyder U.S. Courthouse as seen in 2012 in Louisville. (Public Domain)

Five Louisville residents have been charged with fraud and money laundering in an alleged conspiracy to collect money from people who were not U.S. citizens, but legally present in the country, to skip testing requirements for a Kentucky drivers license.

A press release from the U.S. Attorneys Office of the Western District of Kentucky says defendants were arraigned in federal court Monday. The alleged scheme took place from around November 2023 through October 2024, according to the indictment.

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The indictment follows allegations made last year in a whistleblower lawsuit alleging temporary contract workers were fraudulently issuing drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants. Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Republican Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman told reporters in August 2025 an investigation into the allegations had been ongoing before media reports about the lawsuit.

Beshear in a statement on Tuesday said because the integrity of this investigation and licensing was a priority, his administration refrained from making public comments until all the facts were available. The alleged criminal activity did not involve issuing drivers licenses to people illegally present in the country, according to a release from the governors office.

Thanks to the hard work and dedication of law enforcement and state and federal offices, we now have the facts when it comes to this case and we are ready to hold those who violated the law responsible, Beshear said.

Two of the defendants  32-year-old Donnita Wilson and 27-year-old Aariel Matthews  were employed by a contract employment agency and assigned to work within the Kentucky Transportation Cabinets Division of Driver Licensing, according to the indictment. The indictment states both worked primarily, if not exclusively, at the Nia regional drivers licensing office in Louisville.

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The indictment states other defendants  32-year-old Raul Tellez Ojeda, 37-year-old Lazaro Alejandro Castello Rojas and 41-year-old Robert Danger Correa  did not work within the Transportation Cabinet and recruited legally present non-U.S. citizens as a part of the scheme.

U.S. Attorney Kyle Bumgarner in a statement said the fraudulent scheme involved kickbacks and bribes leading to numerous legally present, non-U.S. citizens obtaining unlawfully issued drivers licenses. Bumgarner said the scheme allowed legally present individuals to receive invalid drivers licenses without those individuals demonstrating their qualifications to drive on our roads.

Proper vetting of individuals seeking a drivers license is a prerequisite to ensuring the safety of Kentuckys roadways and ensuring the legitimacy of state-issued identification, Bumgarner said.

The scheme, according to the indictment, involved defendants gaining the trust of legally present individuals by claiming to know the process to get a drivers license, speaking the same language as those individuals and having the same or similar country of origin. The indictment states most of the legally present non-U.S. citizens were not familiar with how to get a drivers license and had difficulty speaking English.

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The defendants promised, for a fee which ranged from $200 to $1,500, that they could expedite the process to get a drivers license to avoid lines and required tests. The defendants within the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet would then misuse their access to issue invalid drivers licenses to the individuals that would appear valid on their face, according to the indictment.

The indictment states those involved in the scheme would receive payments for each drivers license that was issued, and defendants also paid smaller sums of money to other cabinet employees to buy the silence of those who could report the activities.

A release from the governors office stated the alleged criminal activity was limited to two drivers licensing offices where cabinet officials had noticed irregularities and immediately notified law enforcement. The release stated the cabinet had revoked 1,985 credentials.

The governors office also said steps are being taken to protect against future drivers licensing fraud including enhanced training, tracking the issuing of credentials across states, developing a reporting procedure with law enforcement.

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The release also mentioned that Jeremy Slinker, the former director of the states emergency emergency management, had been appointed as the Transportation Cabinets deputy secretary to improve the processes at regional driver licensing offices.

The defendants could face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for each count of fraud and money laundering, according to the U.S. attorney. The case is being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, the Kentucky State Police, the Kentucky Attorney General, and the Drug Enforcement Administration with assistance from the Owensboro Police Department, said a release from the U.S. attorneys office.




A federal appeals court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to move forward with orders ending the legal status of more than 61,000 immigrants from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua.

The immigrants - about 51,000 from Honduras, 7,200 from Nepal and 2,900 from Nicaragua - had been granted Temporary Protected Status, which allows immigrants to live and work in the United States after fleeing their home country because of dangerous conditions such as natural disasters or wars.

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The Hondurans and Nicaraguans were granted protection after a 1999 hurricane, status the U.S. has renewed after other natural disasters and political and economic turmoil in their countries. Nepalese were granted protected status in 2015 after a huge earthquake that has caused flooding and landslides.

A total of 1.1 million immigrants from 17 nations have been granted TPS, shielding them from deportation. But President Donald Trump has ordered the protections revoked, contending conditions have improved abroad and that some of the immigrants are gang members.

Trump's revocation of protections for the Hondurans, Nepalese and Nicaraguans was blocked last July by U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson of San Francisco, who said the president's actions appeared to be racially motivated.

"By stereotyping the TPS program and immigrants as invaders that are criminal," Trump's Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, has promoted "the discriminatory belief that certain immigrant populations will replace the white population," wrote Thompson, an appointee of President Joe Biden.

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But a conservative panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Monday that federal law authorizes the administration to take such actions.

Congress has restricted judicial review of the government's TPS decisions, and Noem was not required to consider "intervening country conditions" before deciding that the original emergencies were no longer in effect, said the lead opinion by Judges Eric Miller, a Trump appointee, and Consuelo Callahan, appointed by President George W. Bush.

They also cited the Supreme Court's recent decisions allowing the Trump administration to revoke temporary protected status from more than 350,000 Venezuelans. Though the Supreme Court did not state reasons for those decisions, the appeals court judges said, the high court has "admonished" lower federal courts that "such orders must inform' our decisions."

The third panel member, Judge Michael Hawkins, appointed by President Bill Clinton, said he relied entirely on the Supreme Court's previous orders in agreeing to remove the immigrants' legal protections.

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Advocates for the immigrants denounced the ruling, which could be appealed to a larger panel of the court.

"Today's decision allows mothers, fathers, students, and workers who have lived lawfully in this country for decades to be stripped of status without even acknowledging the devastation caused to them and their families or the contributions they have made to their communities," said attorney Jessica Bansal of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, one of several organizations representing the immigrants.

This article originally published at 9th Circuit allows Trump administration to end TPS protections for Honduras, Nicaragua, Nepal.
The Brief

The Gordie Howe International Bridge has been threatened to be blocked by President Trump.

Trump took to Truth Social, threatening to block the bridge's opening over what he says were unfair trade deals.

In October, the Windsor Detroit Bridge Authority said that construction on the bridge was "progressing well" but that testing was underway and would need to finish before opening up.

DETROIT (FOX 2) - A bridge in Detroit between the US and Canada that was expected to open this year is now being threatened by President Donald Trump.

Big picture view

The Gordie Howe International Bridge began construction in 2018 and will connect Ontario and Detroit and its construction was majority funded by Canada's federal government. It was set to open in 2026.

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However, President Trump took to Truth Social, threatening to block the bridge's opening over what he says were unfair trade deals.

"I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them, and also, importantly, Canada treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve," Trump wrote.

The Gordie Howe Bridge would be the new addition to traveling to Canada and back, joining the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel.

The backstory

In October, the Windsor Detroit Bridge Authority said that construction on the bridge was "progressing well" but that testing was underway and would need to finish before opening up.

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It had been scheduled to open in late 2025. According to the WDBA chief relations officer, the bridge will open "as soon as early 2026."

However, the exact date is still to be determined based on "ongoing quality reviews, testing and commissioning," said Heather Grondin in an email.

"As is standard practice on large complex projects, we are currently focused on commissioning and testing to ensure we identify as many potential issues as possible for us to resolve before the opening of the bridge. We are also providing all border agencies sufficient time to achieve operational readiness on what is the largest and most complex border crossing along the US-Canada border."

What they're saying

The Detroit Regional Chamber gave a statement praising the U.S.-Canada trade relationship and the benefits both have enjoyed over more than 100 years.

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"We also cannot lose sight of the facts of how this project came about and its importance to our economy as part of one of the strongest cross-border trade relationships in history."

Read the full statement here.

What's next

Trump on Truth Social said the US should own at least half of the bridge.

"We will start negotiations, IMMEDIATELY," Trump wrote. "With all that we have given them, we should own, perhaps, at least one half of this asset. The revenues generated because of the U.S. Market will be astronomical."

Lawmakers reacted to Trump's threat, including Senator Ellisa Slotkin.

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"The Gordie Howe Bridge is an incredibly important infrastructure project for Michigan. President Trump's threat tonight to tank it is awful for our state's economy. Canceling this project will have serious repercussions. Higher costs for Michigan businesses, less secure supply chains, and ultimately, fewer jobs. With this threat, the President is punishing Michiganders for a trade war he started. The only reason Canada is on the verge of a trade deal with China is because President Trump has kicked them in the teeth for a year. The President's agenda for personal retribution should not come before what's best for us. Canada is our friend -- not our enemy. And I will do everything in my power to get this critical project back on track."

The Source

FOX 2 used information from President Donald Trump's Truth Social page and previous reporting for this story.

Watch FOX 2 Detroit LIVE:
Jacksonville activist coalition Indivisible is hosting a rally today at Jacksonville City Hall to show their support for Mayor Donna Deegan after receiving a subpoena from Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier.

READ: Florida AG subpoenas Deegan, City of Jacksonville over employees controversial livestream

Earlier this week, Uthmeier subpoenaed Deegan as well as the City of Jacksonville seeking all communications from Hispanic Outreach Coordinator Yanira Cardona. Cardona was placed on leave in January after warning viewers on a livestream of ICE activity in the city.

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In a statement, Indivisible says the rally will be a peaceful gathering intended to send the message that our cityand our duly elected Mayorwill not be used as a prop for political stunts by leaders in Tallahassee."

The recent political overreach by Attorney General Uthmeier is a transparent attempt to manufacture outrage and distract from Tallahassees failure to address the critical issues that truly matter to the residents of Jacksonvillelike the skyrocketing costs of property insurance, housing and healthcare, says Gloria Einstein the Lead Coordinator of Indivisible Mandarin. Our neighbors deserve better than these gotcha games from state leadership that do absolutely nothing to improve quality of life in Duval County.

The rally is scheduled to start at 4:00.

 Listen to Jacksonvilles Morning News Interviews

Read more local news from WOKV

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BRISTOL, Tenn. (WJHL)  Court documents have revealed new details in the shooting that led to a man facing a reckless homicide charge in Bristol, Tennessee.

Noe De Jesus Puquir Martinez, 27, was arrested by the Bristol Tennessee Police Department (BTPD) on Saturday. He was charged with reckless homicide after what police described as a suspicious death.

BTPD: 27-year-old charged with reckless homicide after suspicious death

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An affidavit filed in Sullivan County General Sessions Court provided further details regarding the reported shooting death that occurred in the 1400 block of E State Street.

The affidavit states officers responded to a home around 10:35 a.m. and found a woman dead with a gunshot wound to the head. According to police, a firearm was not found at the scene.

According to the affidavit, Martinez was Mirandized and knowingly and voluntarily gave a statement.

Martinez reportedly told police that he had had multiple people staying over at the home the night before, and one of his friends brought a handgun.

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The affidavit states Martinez told investigators that he showed her the gun and she took the end of the gun and pointed it at her forehead. She did this in a joking manner. Where we grew up, we are familiar with firearms and violence, so this was not out of the ordinary for us. When she did this, I then pulled the trigger of the gun, thinking that it was unloaded. When I did, the gun went off striking [her] in the head and she fell.

Martinez reportedly told police that he did not know what happened to the gun or the friend who owned it after the gunshot.

Martinez claimed to have left the home and gone to several other places before coming back when the BTPD arrived.

The affidavit states that a bullet casing was found next to the victims body, consistent with a single gunshot wound.

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The BTPD announced on Monday that Martinez was being held without bond and was awaiting an immigration detainer.

Sullivan County District Attorney Barry Staubus told News Channel 11 on Tuesday that while hes not sure how and when the deportation process for Martinez will take place, he said hed like to see him prosecuted and convicted before leaving the U.S.

My preference would be hed be prosecuted and under the law and then deported, Staubus said. Subsequent to that, let the criminal justice system take its process and let it unfold, and do that first would be my preference. Now, what will happen? Im not sure. But if youre asking me what I think, to me, if someone is charged with a crime, we should prosecute them. Theyre convicted and they should be punished, and that would be a deterrent if theyre deported later from coming back into this country, because they know if they come back. Therell be enhanced punishment.

Staubus said while the investigation into the shooting death continues, prosecutors arent currently seeking additional charges unless new information is discovered.

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Martinez is scheduled to appear in court for arraignment on Wednesday. Staubus said Martinez will likely be appointed an attorney at that time.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJHL | Tri-Cities News & Weather.
Ownership of more than 100 artefacts stolen by the British military from Africa in the late 19th Century and housed at the University of Cambridge has been officially transferred to Nigeria.

The university and Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) have announced that 116 artefacts will be returned to their home country.

The objects, known as the Benin Bronzes, were taken by British armed forces during the occupation of Benin City in 1897, the university said.

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Both the university and Nigerian authorities said planning for the physical return of most of the artefacts was under way and could take place before the end of the year.

A brass penannular bracelet is one of the items at the Cambridge museum [University of Cambridge]

The objects are currently held at the university's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA) in Cambridge.

Their transfer follows a formal request made by the NCMM in January 2022 for the return of the artefacts, with the university backing the request and approval being granted by the UK Charity Commission.

The term Benin Bronzes refers to thousands of metal sculptures, plaques and carvings made between the 15th and 19th Centuries and taken by British troops in 1897 from the Kingdom of Benin, in what is now Nigeria's Edo State.

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The works, widely admired for their craftsmanship, are considered to be of deep spiritual and historical importance to the people of the region.

The director general of the NCMM, Olugbile Holloway, told the BBC the artefacts would be housed in museums in Lagos and Benin City.

"We expect this to happen before the year ends," he said.

A new, permanent exhibition is expected to open in the future.

Prince Aghatise Erediauwa (left) and Prof Nicholas Thomas met in 2021 as part of The Benin Dialogue Group [University of Cambridge]

The University of Cambridge said that while 116 pieces would be returned, 17 would remain on loan and on display at the MAA for three years in the first instance, to be accessible to museum visitors, students and researchers.

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The university said, in a statement, that "as one of several UK museums with significant holdings of material taken from Benin in 1897, the MAA has been involved in long-term research and engagement projects in partnership with Nigerian stakeholders and representatives from the Royal Court of the Benin kingdom, as well as artists, academics and students from Nigeria".

Prof Nicholas Thomas, director of the MAA, said: "It has been immensely rewarding to engage in dialogue with colleagues from the National Commission of Museums and Monuments, members of the Royal Court, and Nigerian scholars, students and artists over the last 10 years.

"Over the period, support has mounted, nationally and internationally, for the repatriation of artefacts that were appropriated in the context of colonial violence.

"This return has been keenly supported across the university community."

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Holloway added: "The return of cultural items for us is not just the return of the physical object, but also the restoration of the pride and dignity that was lost when these objects were taken in the first place."

Follow Cambridgeshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.

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An Akron man will spend 18 months in prison after illegal drugs were found during a traffic stop in April 2025 in Rootstown Township.

Akili C. Antoine, 21, was sentenced to the prison time and fined $5,000 during a Feb. 6 sentencing hearing in Portage County Common Pleas Court. He also was ordered to forfeit $580.

His co-defendant, Shmar M. Antoine, 33, is awaiting sentencing.

According to the Portage County Sheriff's Office, deputies saw the driver of a 2025 Hyundai Palisade commit multiple lane and turn signal violations April 24 on Interstate 76 in Brimfield Township.

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The vehicle exited the interstate at State Route 44 and headed south until deputies initiated a traffic stop in the area of the Northeast Ohio Medical University and Rootstown schools campuses.

During the stop, deputies saw a clear, pill-shaped container holding multicolored tablets sticking out of the pocket of the driver, identified as Shmar Antoine. He voluntarily handed the container to deputies and it was found to hold about 100 ecstasy pills, the sheriff's office said.

Deputies then found about 106 grams, about 3.75 ounces, of a crystalline substance that field tested positive for meth, the sheriff's office said.

The passenger falsely identified himself, but an Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles image associated with the name he gave showed a clearly different individual. The passenger then correctly identified himself as Akili Antoine.

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A loaded Glock handgun allegedly was found in a bag within reach of both men in the vehicle. The sheriff's office said neither of the Antoines is legally allowed to possess a firearm due to prior felony convictions, Shmar Antoine for assault and Akili Antoine for robbery.

Akili Antoine pleaded guilty in December to third-degree felony aggravated possession of drugs; possessing criminal tools and identity fraud, both fifth-degree felonies; and first-degree misdemeanor receipt of proceeds derived from the commission of an offense subject to forfeiture.

Shmar Antoine pleaded guilty in January to aggravated trafficking in drugs and aggravated possession of drugs, both second-degree felonies, fifth-degree felony possessing criminal tools and first-degree misdemeanor receipt of proceeds derived from the commission of an offense subject to forfeiture.

Sentencing is pending the court's adult probation office completing a presentencing investigation and report.

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In plea deals, the drug possession and drug trafficking charges against both of Antoines were amended down from a first-degree felony aggravated trafficking in drugs. Other charges also were dismissed.

Reporter Jeff Saunders can be reached at jsaunders@recordpub.com.

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Akron man gets 18 months for drugs found in Rootstown stop
Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel, speaks on the floor of the Alaska Senate on Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, in Juneau, Alaska. (James Brooks photo/Alaska Beacon)

The Alaska Legislature is expected to declare this week that parts of Western Alaska are still in a state of disaster following a major storm in October.

On Monday, the Alaska Senate voted 19-0 to extend a state of disaster until early March, retroactively extending a disaster declaration that expired Feb. 6.

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While there has been progress made, the impacts remain severe, said Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel, shortly before the vote.

The Alaska House of Representatives is expected to take up the resolution with the extension on Wednesday.

Under Alaska law, a governor may only declare a disaster for 30 days. Dunleavy declared a disaster starting Oct. 9, then asked for an extension in November.

Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, and Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, unilaterally granted extensions in November, December and January, but when they attempted to approve an extension for February, legislative attorneys advised them that action by the entire Legislature is needed.

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Part of that advice came because the governor updated the states disaster spending plan. On Jan. 28, Dunleavy requested permission to spend $20.5 million from the states disaster response fund, up $5.5 million from a prior plan.

Including federal money, the governor is requesting permission to spend $39.25 million.

State law requires a legislative vote for such a large additional draw from the disaster fund. It will have a balance of about $2.1 million after the draw, according to the governors letter to legislators.

More spending is expected. Last week, the director of the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has estimated at least $125 million in state and federal costs related to the storm disaster.

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While the disaster fund is too small to cover that amount, Dunleavy has already requested that $40 million be taken from the states Constitutional Budget Reserve for the fund.

The House is expected to approve the disaster extension by a wide margin later this week, standing in contrast to its actions five years ago this month.

In 2021, legislative attorneys cautioned that legislative approval was needed to extend the states COVID-19 pandemic emergency disaster declaration, in place since 2020. They said that while it was possible for a governor to issue multiple, successive 30-day disaster declarations, that action might later be ruled illegal.

In February 2021, despite a request from Dunleavy, the Legislature declined to extend the pandemic emergency into a second year, and Alaska became the second state in the nation to end its state of emergency.

Subsequent analysis found Alaskas COVID-related death rate spiked in 2021.



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LIMA  Allen Countys government is stable with several already-paid-for capital projects underway, but a possible statewide referendum eliminating property taxes could upset all of that.

You cant reform something thats been repealed, right? Allen County Commissioner Brian Winegardner said in response to a question about repealing property taxes in Ohio. So our hope is that it does not get repealed, so we can continue with reforming it that will best fit. If it gets repealed, quite honestly, its going to be a mess, not just for county government but for local governments, schools, you name it, right down the line.

Winegardner and Commissioner Cory Noonan spoke to the Lima Rotary Club, continuing a tradition of offering an annual update on the countys coffers and plans. In general, they provided an upbeat look at the countys $38 million budget and projects underway.

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Were very proud of what we have here now, with the county and collaborative effort amongst our elected officials, Noonan said.

Winegardner focused on the countys capital projects, including the new $17 million administrative building under construction at the corner of Main and North streets. He said it was roughly 70% to 75% completed, with current work focused on interior walls and electrical, heating and cooling.

There are also plans to renovate the first three floors of Cook Tower on Main Street with $3.5 to $4 million in renovations to prepare the Main Street building to house the Child Support Enforcement Agency, currently located in a county-owned building at the corner of Market and Elizabeth streets. The goal will be to sell that eventually, possibly through the Allen County Port Authority.

Once the administrative building is complete, commissioners plan to tackle a project to put all courtrooms inside the historic Allen County Courthouse. Those projects havent been bid out yet, and Noonan and Winegardner were reluctant to estimate a price tag. They were optimistic about it when its done, though.

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If you think about it, all the county government, or the majority of it, will be within two blocks of one another, Winegardner said. So with that coming to downtown Lima, I think thats going to be a good fit and user-friendly for our citizens.

Noonan spoke of the importance of elected officials working together, noting county commissioners can only handle tasks assigned to them by the state government. He used the example of creating a regional public defenders office for Allen, Hardin and Putnam counties as a project the commissioners worked in tandem with lawmakers, since the county was required to provide funds for attorneys for those who couldnt afford them.

The commissioners expressed their pride in keeping costs low and predictions about future income conservative. They didnt borrow any money for the construction projects and havent pushed the sales tax as high as neighboring counties, although the sales tax is the largest contributor to the general fund.

The neat thing with what were doing is were paying those bills. Were not taking on debt to the county, Noonan said.

Reach David Trinko at 567-242-0467 or on Twitter/X @Lima_Trinko.
Bangladesh is a major producer of clothes [Getty Images]

Bangladesh has secured exemptions for some clothes and textiles that are made with US-produced materials, as part of a new agreement announced on Monday.

As part of the deal, Washington will also cut its tariffs on Bangladesh from 20% to 19%, in exchange for Dhaka to open its markets to a wider range of American goods.

The apparel industry forms the backbone of Bangladesh, which is the world's second largest exporter of clothes after China.

The South Asian country has been in long-drawn talks with the White House after President Donald Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on global trading partners in April last year.

The White House said in a joint statement between the sides that the agreement will strengthen the countries' economic ties and offer both "unprecedented access" to each market.

It said the US will lower its tariff rate on Bangladesh and will also identify certain clothing and textile goods from the country to enter the US free of tariffs.

The goods include those produced with American cotton and man-made textiles, the statement said. The volume of these will be determined by how much textiles the US exports to Bangladesh.

The clothing sector accounts for more than 80% of Bangladesh's total export revenue and employs around four million workers.

In exchange, Bangladesh has agreed to provide "significant preferential market access" to a host of American agricultural and industrial goods. These include opening up its markets to more US chemicals, medical devices, car parts, soy products and meat, said the White House.

The BBC has contacted the Bangladeshi government for comment.

As part of the agreement announced on Monday, Dhaka will recognise American food and drug and vehicle safety and emission rules, making it easier for US goods to enter the country.

Bangladesh also committed to observe internationally recognised labour rights, ramp up its environmental protection efforts, and uphold its agreement to buy billions of dollars of American agriculture, aircraft and energy products, according to the statement.

Bangladesh is set to head to the polls on Thursday for general elections.

The country has been led by an interim government since 2024, when former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India after being ousted over the fatal crackdown on student-led protests.

The US's newly announced tariff cut puts Bangladesh nearly level with its neighbour and regional competitor India, which faces an 18% levy from the US.
Annie Guthrie, the daughter of missing Tucson grandmother Nancy Guthrie, made a decision to restrict public access to her family photos as the search for answers stretched past a week.

[UPDATE: On the evening of February 10, ABC News reported that a person of interest was detained in the Guthrie case. Law enforcement was preparing to search a home tied to that person, the network noted. The Pima County Sheriff's Department then confirmed that a subject was detained after a traffic stop, while stopping short of calling that person a "person of interest." A woman who said she was the man's mother-in-law denied he's involved and revealed her house was searched. Then, in the early morning hours, the man was released and told reporters he had nothing to do with it.]

Before that all went down, Annie Guthrie removed from public view many of the photos of her husband, Tommaso Cioni, and her family from her Facebook page. One photo of Cioni is still visible on her page. It shows him outdoors in the snow. A post gushing about Cioni is no longer visible on her page, however. Its not clear whether Annie, a poet, deleted or privatized the photos, which were visible for days after her moms mysterious disappearance. A highlight reel still visible on Annie's page contains one photo of Cioni, but a series of other pictures is no longer visible.

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Meanwhile, authorities showed renewed interest in the home that Annie, a poet and author, shares with her teacher/poet husband Cioni, 50, and their son. To be clear, neither Annie Guthrie nor Cioni has been accused by authorities of any wrongdoing; it may be that she simply desires privacy for her family due to the extensive media attention focused on the case. In fact, authorities made it clear in a February 9 announcement that they dont have any new developments to report in the bizarre disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, 84, the mother of Today Show co-host Savannah Guthrie.

New images in the search for Nancy Guthrie:



Over the last eight days, the FBI and Pima County Sheriffs Department have been working closely with our private sector partners to continue to recover any images or video footage from Nancy Guthries home that may have been lost, pic.twitter.com/z5WLgPtZpT  FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) February 10, 2026

On February 10, the FBI released surveillance images and videos of "showing an armed individual appearing to have tampered with the camera at Nancy Guthrie's front door the morning of her disappearance."

Related:

The Sheriff Says No Suspect Was Arrested in Nancy Guthries Disappearance But Released New Surveillance Images

The front of Nancy Guthrie's home is seen on February 7, 2026 in Tucson, Arizona. The 84-year-old mother of U.S. journalist and television host Savannah Guthrie went missing from her home in the early hours of Sunday, February 1st. (Photo by Rebecca Noble/Getty Images) ((Photo by Rebecca Noble/Getty Images))

Nancy vanished after having dinner with Annie and Cioni on the evening of January 31. Following the dinner and games at the Annie/Cioni home, Cioni drove Nancy home and made sure she was brought safely to her residence, The New York Times reported. That contradicted a report from US Weekly that Annie drove her mom home. Family reported Nancy missing the following morning, the sheriff said in a news conference.

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In a February 9 update, far from an arrest, the Pima County Sheriff announced that authorities dont even have a suspect in Nancys disappearance.

Investigators have not identified any suspects, persons of interest, or vehicles connected to Nancy Guthrie. Anyone who believes they have information that may assist investigators is asked to contact 1-800-CALL-FBI or the PCSD non-emergency line at 520-351-4900, or 88-CRIME, the sheriff wrote on X. The Pima County Sheriff also indicated that no press conference was scheduled because there has not been a "significant development" in the case.

That statement came after reporters captured videos showing the law enforcement presence at the Tucson home shared by Annie and Cioni, who has worked as a local biology teacher. Authorities have repeatedly stressed, in press conferences and on social media, that they do not have a suspect or person of interest in the case. The sheriff, Chris Nanos, has also stated that no person or theory is off the table.

Law enforcement officials were seen at the home of Guthries daughter Annie late Saturday, CNN reported, reporting that bright flashes were seen from inside that were possibly from authorities taking photographs. Authorities have not confirmed why they were at the residence, however.

Meanwhile, an alleged deadline in one of the multiple purported ransom notes sent to authorities expired. Savannah Guthrie and her siblings have published videos pleading for information in the case. Authorities have said they are taking the ransom notes, which demanded Bitcoin, seriously, but its not clear whether they are from someone who truly has Nancy.

Annie Guthrie Posted About Her Husband, Tommaso Cioni, on Facebook Multiple Times

SAVANNAH Guthries distraught sister has been spotted for the first time since their mother vanished in a suspected abduction.

Annie Guthrie was seen with her husband, Tommaso Cioni, driving away from their Tucson, Arizona home on Tuesday as investigators continue their probe pic.twitter.com/V0ORtXs1RT  American True Crime (@AmericaTruCrime) February 5, 2026

Which posts did Annie remove from public view? She had posted a series of photos over the years, showing her enjoying the outdoors and wine with Cioni. Other photos showed their trip to Tuscany. Cioni is from Italy. One photo showed Cioni, who plays in a band, holding a handful of berries.

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Happy TENTH Anniversary to the Meaning of my Life, Tommaso Cioni, the most beautiful, intelligent, sensitive, talented and also most hilarious person I am so blessed to know, and to be married to. I love you, she wrote in 2020. That post is no longer available for public view, either.

Annies page also contained photos of their child and her mom, calling her the familys north star. In addition, Annie gushed about Cioni in the posts.

We really didnt mean to be so puffy and matchy, Annie wrote with a Facebook photo showing her and Cioni wearing matching winter jackets. Fireworks, she wrote with another photo showing her and Cioni drinking wine together.

I was born in San Giovanni Valdarno on June 18, 75. Since 2006, I have been living in Tucson, Arizona. I write when it happens. I study lizards. I play the electric bass. I make homemade pasta, an old bio for Cioni says.

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Where is Cioni now? Thats not clear; he hasnt appeared in any of the siblings videos seeking information, but Savannahs husband wasnt in the videos, either.

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This story was originally published by Men's Journal on Feb 10, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
A security guard hired to protect residents at a northwest Houston apartment complex is now accused of breaking into an apartment and assaulting one of the very people he was supposed to protect, according to residents.

Jordan Dickerson faces two charges, including burglary with intent to commit a felony, stemming from a bizarre incident that unfolded over the weekend at an apartment complex near West Gulf Bank Road and Veterans Memorial Drive.

According to residents, what began as a casual game of Uno between neighbors quickly escalated into chaos. Katricia Charles said early Friday morning, one of her neighbors, who had been playing Uno, left her apartment to go home. As she stepped outside to convince her neighbor to stay a bit longer, Charles said Dickerson, who was working as a security guard at the complex, suddenly forced his way into her apartment.

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"He just went in," Charles said. "My daughter came around the corner and said, 'Mom, Larenzo and the security officer are arguing and tussling in the front living room.' I was shocked because I had just been in there."

Larenzo Smith is Charles's boyfriend. He was inside the apartment when Dickerson allegedly barged in.

"He beat on the door, and I opened the door," Smith recalled. "He said something, I said something back, and he deployed the Taser and told me get on the ground, and I looked at him like, for real? But I complied. I put my hands behind my back."

Smith says Dickerson handcuffed him, escorted him downstairs, and then pushed him face-down onto the parking lot. Smith suffered scratches to his face and shoulder. Charles says she immediately called 911.

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"Who wants someone to come into your home, in the privacy of your home, and get arrested and handled the way he did?" Charles said.

Despite the accusations, another security guard working at the complex defended Dickerson's actions.

"You don't think he should be charged?" ABC13 asked security guard Lorenzo Thrash.

"No, not at all," Thrash said. "I don't know really what took place, but I know he probably made the right call by doing what he did."

Houston police said Dickerson was wearing a body-worn camera during the incident. Investigators reviewed the footage and said the video did not match Dickerson's account of what happened.

ABC13 reached out to the security company, but has not yet heard back.

For news updates, follow Miya Shay on Facebook, X and Instagram.
An arrest has been made years after a young woman was attacked with acid in Nassau County.

On March 17, 2021, the hooded attacker ran up behind Hofstra student Nafiah Ikram in her own driveway in Elmont and threw acid in her face and then drove away.

She was 21 years old at the time.

Ikram suffered severe injuries in the attack and she still struggles with poor vision and scarring on her face. She has also suffered emotional trauma since the attack.

On Tuesday, 29-year-old Terrell Campbell was charged with assault, criminal possession of a weapon and unlawfully possessing noxious material.

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He pleaded not guilty during his initial arraignment on Tuesday and was held without bail.

Campbell, a flower delivery worker and aspiring rapper, lives in Brooklyn with his mother.

Prosecutors say he was finally identified with the help of a tipster - and ultimately linked to a red Nissan Altima near the scene.

"We reviewed Campbell's Internet search history in the minutes minutes following the 2021 attack, we found searches asking, 'how do I remove sulfuric acid from my car's fabric?'" said District Attorney Anne Donnelly. "And two years after he ambushed Nafiah and left her screaming in pain on her front lawn, he actually produced and uploaded a music video to YouTube, boasting about throwing acid in a woman's face, as unbelievable as it may seem."

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As for Ikram, she was in the courtroom on Tuesday and has been left with years of unanswered questions.

"I'm glad in the sense that even though this is the beginning of a different chapter in my life, I'm glad that I've closed the chapter on the uncertainty and the safety and looking over my shoulder," she said.

Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder would not discuss the tip that identified the suspect but said someone will get the $50,000 reward.

Donnelly declined to comment on a motive, but said it is "still being investigated."

"At the end of it, something still doesn't make sense," Ikram said.

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Texas top lawyer is taking a manufacturing company to court, saying its Bastrop plant smells like boiling blood, and even death and is making life miserable for people as far as 10 miles away.

Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit Monday against Darling Ingredients, Inc., an Irving-based company that turns used cooking oil, food waste and inedible animal parts into animal feed and fertilizer. According to the lawsuit, odors coming from the facility have been described by residents as smelling like dog food, cooked grease and burning feathers.

The attorney generals office says those smells are harmful. The lawsuit claims emissions from the rendering plant are interfering with residents health and their ability to enjoy places nearby and their land.

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Jillian Fleming, the companys global communications director, wrote in an email that Darling is committed to being a good neighbor and protecting the health and safety of our employees and the communities where we operate. Fleming also pointed to a website where Texans can learn more about the companys ongoing efforts to address community concerns in the region.

Darlings Bastrop facility processes poultry byproducts like raw chicken, blood, and feathers, along with used grease. The state argues those operations have created ongoing odor problems that violate state air quality laws.

The case was brought at the request of the states environmental regulator, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and is meant to enforce the Texas Clean Air Act, which the lawsuit states treats strong odors as air contaminants when they affect public health and quality of life.

Since October, hundreds of complaints from nearby residents have been filed to TCEQ. One person described the smell as festering dog vomit on fire, adding that theyd rather smell burning tires than the odors coming from the plant.

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Regulators also believe the facility may be releasing excessive levels of hydrogen sulfide, a colorless, highly toxic, and flammable gas known for its smell of rotten eggs. TCEQ has documented multiple environmental violations and previously ordered Darling to submit plans to control the odors. The lawsuit says the company failed to follow through.

In addition, the state alleges Darling hasnt properly maintained its equipment and hasnt kept required records.

Texans should not be forced to endure offensive and harmful odors in their own communities, especially when a company is failing to comply with the standards required by law, Paxton said in a press release.

Darling must not sacrifice the quality of life of Texas citizens for its production goals, the statement added. My office will ensure that violations of Texas law are brought to an end and that the safety and livelihood of surrounding neighborhoods are protected.

The state is seeking civil penalties that could range from less than $250,000 to more than $1 million. Its also asking that the company fix the problems by stopping the odors immediately, complying with all environmental permits and installing real-time hydrogen sulfide monitoring.
THAILAND (WJBF)  A man wanted for murder in Augusta was captured half way around the world.

Cedric Alandus Peters was found in a condo by Thai authorities earlier this month.

Peters was wanted for Murder in connection to the shooting on the 500 block of Highland Avenue that left 50-year-old Chavious Kimmerlin dead Nov. 21, 2024.

He is awaiting extradition back to the United States.

In January 2025, 25-year-old DeNarian Cobb of Waynesboro was arrested in connection to this case.

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This is a developing story.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJBF.
Australian police have defended their actions after violently clashing with protesters during a demonstration against a visit by the Israeli president.

Video emerged of police charging and punching protesters during the rally in Sydney on Monday night, with a state parliament MP among those who said they were injured in the clashes. Police said 27 people were arrested, with nine later charged, and 10 officers assaulted.

Officers showed "remarkable restraint", NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said Tuesday, adding they "did what they needed to do".

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Earlier, rally organisers had failed in their court bid to overturn police powers limiting their right to demonstrate during Isaac Herzog's visit.

The government invited Herzog to visit Australia after an antisemitic attack at Bondi Beach, saying it would help the Jewish community heal, despite objections from pro-Palestinian groups.

Fifteen people, including a ten-year-old girl, were killed on 14 December after two gunmen shot at crowds at an event celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.

Video footage of the protests outside Sydney's Town Hall and surrounding areas - police said 6,000 attended while organisers said it was 50,000 - appeared to show several physical confrontations between police and protesters, including officers punching protesters and dragging away Muslim men who were praying.

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Josh Lees from the Palestine Action Group said the violence at the protest on Monday evening was the "worst" he has seen in recent years.

"We should have had the right to march," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio.

He said "all of this could have been avoided" if the New South Wales (NSW) government had allowed the group to march from Town Hall to either the state parliament or Hyde Park.

NSW introduced restrictions on public protest after December's shooting, and a few days before Monday's rally introduced additional "major event" powers effectively giving police authority to shut down areas of the city. The rules allowed demonstrators to gather but forbade them from marching.

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Protesters lost a legal bid to overturn the major event powers application just half an hour before the protest.

NSW Premier Chris Minns defended the police response, telling Channel 9's Today programme that authorities had been "put in an impossible situation last night". He later urged the public "not to look at a 10-second clip without the full context".

Assistant Commissioner Peter McKenna said police had been "threatened, jostled and assaulted" during "a number of melees, rolling fights" and authorities were "significantly outnumbered by the protesters and the people who wanted to act in a violent and offensive manner".

Protesters include Grace Tame

On Monday night, activist Grace Tame led the crowd in chanting: "from Gadigal to Gaza, globalise the intifada" - a move that has drawn criticism from politicians.

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The term intifada came into popular use during the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1987.

Some have described the term as a call for violence against Jewish people. Others have said it is a call for peaceful resistance to Israel's occupation of the West Bank and actions in Gaza.

Minns said Tame's choice of words was "terrible", ABC reported.

Tame was named Australian of the Year in 2021 for raising awareness about sexual violence.

Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, who recently defected to the populist One Nation party, told Sky News that Tame should be stripped of her title.

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"Politicians and the press can deflect onto me all they like, but I'm not the story," Tame wrote on Instagram on Tuesday. She added that "nonviolent attendees acting well within their rights were met with unprovoked police brutality".

Among the crowd was Jewish demonstrator Linda Feinberg, who came to show solidarity.

"I am appalled, it was a really damaging decision of Albanese to invite him [Herzog]," she said, holding a placard that read "Jews say no to genocide".

Sihal Jamila came with her young daughter.

"It's very important for me to be here, I'm the mother of two and one on the way," she told the BBC, her voice cracking. "They're killing our children. This is ridiculous."

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The speeches at Town Hall were peaceful, but tensions mounted afterwards when protesters began chanting "let us march" and police closed in.

As the atmosphere became fraught, pepper spray was deployed, which sent protesters running, but they were unable to leave the area due to police lines.

Thousands of people attended a rally on Sydney on Monday night against a visit by Israeli President Isaac Herzog. [Getty]

Minns said police had needed to keep protesters away from people attending an event with Herzog at a nearby convention centre.

Another protest is planned for Tuesday evening outside a Sydney police station, with organisers calling for charges against protesters to be dropped and for police officers who had used physical force to be investigated.

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The Australian National Imams Council said the footage of Muslims men being dragged away while they were praying was "shocking, deeply disturbing, and entirely unacceptable".

NSW Greens MP Abigail Boyd - who posted a photo of herself in a neck brace - said she was pushed and shoved by police at the protests despite telling them she was a member of parliament.

"I got pushed so hard my feet left the ground after I told them I was a member of parliament," she said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who is to meet Herzog later on Tuesday, said he was "devastated" by the scenes, saying they "shouldn't be taking place," but defended the invitation to Herzog and said protesters "undermined" their cause at the protest.

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Pro-Palestinian groups had objected to Herzog's visit, citing a UN commission last year which concluded that Herzog was among Israeli leaders who "incited the commission of genocide" against Palestinians in their speeches and statements.

It came after Herzog said "it's an entire nation out there that is responsible" for the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, and was also pictured signing a shell to be dropped on Gaza. His comments formed part of the legal case brought by South Africa in the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.

Herzog has condemned the UN report, which he said took his words out of context, while the Israeli foreign minister called it "distorted and false".
Exotic parrots were discovered and rescued from smugglers at the border between the U.S. and Mexico.

What happened?

Three live parrots were found in a car that was attempting to cross from Mexico into the U.S. in southern Texas, according to a press release from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection department.

Two people had the red-lored parrots hidden in their personal belongings in the car at the border in Laredo, Texas. The traffickers could be fined or even imprisoned for the smuggling offense.

Why is animal trafficking concerning?

Red-lored parrots are native to Central and South America. While not classified as endangered, their population is decreasing, and they are protected under federal regulations.

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"Smuggling birds poses significant risks," said Alberto Flores, Port Director in Laredo, per the press release.

"Birds may carry various diseases that endanger native wildlife and U.S. agriculture, which could lead to serious economic impacts."

Smuggling animals or poaching them for parts always hurts their chance of survival, especially if they're already at risk.

A species can even be driven to endangered status because of smuggling. Transporting them outside their native habitat can also make them invasive in new ecosystems.

Invasive species may prey on native species and compete with them for resources. They could spread pests and diseases to the animals and people native to the area. This can be very damaging to ecosystems and destroy ecological balance.

What can be done about animal trafficking?

Border Patrol officials recovered the birds and turned them over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for inspection and care. The driver and passenger of the vehicle were arrested for illegal smuggling.

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"On the border at land, air, and sea-based ports of entry, including Laredo, CBP officers and agriculture specialists continue to fulfill CBP's agriculture mission by preventing the introduction of harmful pests and diseases into the United States," the press release said.

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Bangladesh's police chief said Tuesday that more than 150,000 officers will be deployed for this week's elections, warning that more than half of polling stations were flagged as vulnerable to violence.

Police records show that five people were killed and more than 600 injured in political clashes during the campaign period from December 11 to February 9.

More than 157,000 police officers, backed by 100,000 soldiers and other security forces, will guard Thursday's vote -- the first since a mass uprising toppled the autocratic government of Sheikh Hasina in 2024.

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"We are 1,000 percent confident about doing our part," Inspector General of Police Baharul Alam told reporters in Dhaka.

The country of 170 million has remained in political turmoil since the uprising against Hasina, when police carried out a deadly crackdown during her failed bid to cling to power.

Alam said police had assessed that "more than 24,000 polling centres have been marked as either high-risk or moderately risky" for possible unrest, violence or ballot stuffing -- more than half of the 42,000 centres nationwide.

"The location of some centres is very remote, and there is intense competition, and hostility among candidates and their supporters," he said, adding that 1,300 police guns looted during the 2024 unrest have still not been recovered.

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"In high-risk and moderately risky centres, police will carry out patrol duty with body-worn cameras for the first time."

Rights organisation Ain o Salish Kendra counted 158 people killed and more than 7,000 injured in political violence between August 2024 and December 2025.

Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) raised concerns over the law-and-order situation, accusing parties of forming "mobs" and setting up roadblocks.

Alam said the police were determined to ensure the polls were peaceful, but said he accepted that distrust of his force remained.

"It is quite understandable why people do not trust the police," he said. "Over the last 15 years, based on what we have delivered -- in fact, for the last 150 years, our predecessors mostly beat people."

sa/pjm/mtp
Former White House strategist Steve Bannon on Saturday signaled a growing concern about what he described as the lack of enthusiasm among President Trumps MAGA base over the White Houses direction.

You have a massive lack of enthusiasm among the base. Because theyre sitting there going Im just not feelin it right now, Bannon said during a Saturday episode of his War Room podcast.

Trumps former staffer pointed to polls displaying fractures within the base caused by controversy surrounding the Jeffrey Epstein files, affordability and shifts on foreign policy measures.

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Bannon cited polling by Big Data Poll released last month that showed Democrats with a 4.1 percentage point lead on the generic ballot. That poll found 46.1 percentr of likely voters said they would back a Democratic candidate for Congress, compared to 42 perent who said they would back a Republican.

On the flip side, the GOP does have a money advantage over Democrats. The Republican National Committee ended 2025 with almost $100 million more cash on hand than the Democratic National Committee.

Still, Republican strategist Karl Rove said Trumps behavior could drive swing voters away from the party.

The Trump presidency wasnt normal even in his first term, but something is different now. Americans are increasingly unnerved by the presidents rambling appearances and late-night screeds. Whether its age or advisers who cant check his worst instincts, Mr. Trump is acting in ways no American president has, Rove wrote in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal last month.

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His downward spiral has led 58 percent of Americans and 66 percent of independents in the CNN/SRRS poll to describe his second term as a failure. If his team cant turn things around, hell help defeat his party this fall and damage the country for years, Rove continued.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.




WASHINGTON - Two members of Congress who pushed the federal government to publicly release its investigations into the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein said they had identified at least six men who were likely incriminated in the well-connected financier's crimes, but declined to share the names.

Reps. Ro Khanna, D-Santa Clara, and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., spent two hours at a Justice Department office on Monday, the first day that unredacted files were made available for lawmakers to review. They complained that many of the files they looked at were still redacted, suggesting that they had already been censored by the FBI and other federal agencies when the Justice Department compiled them.

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But Khanna and Massie told reporters after that they found a list of men, including a high-ranking member of a foreign government and another prominent individual, which they believe was improperly blacked out when the department released millions of records late last month. They added that they want to give Justice Department officials an opportunity to check their work and correct any errors, rather than naming the men.

"None of this is designed to be a witch hunt. Just because someone may be in the files doesn't mean that they're guilty," Khanna said. "But there are very powerful people who raped these underage girls. It wasn't just Epstein."

Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to procuring a minor for prostitution and then died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial for additional federal sex-trafficking charges, sparking conspiracy theories that the government was hiding the identities of powerful figures who had obtained underage girls from him. After pledging to release the files during his campaign last year, President Donald Trump, a close friend of Epstein's before they fell out in the early 2000s, backtracked once in office.

So Khanna and Massie teamed up, going around Trump and Republican congressional leaders to force a vote last fall for disclosure of the documents. Their law, which passed nearly unanimously in November after the president relented, required the Justice Department to publish all unclassified records in its possession related to the Epstein investigation within 30 days.

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Yet the process has been met with public outrage: The Justice Department blew past its initial deadline in December, prompting Democratic legislators to threaten impeachment. When officials released another 3 million records at the end of last month from multiple federal cases and investigations related to Epstein and his accomplices, improper redactions exposed the names of victims while protecting the identities of some people who corresponded with Epstein. Millions more documents were withheld because the department said they were duplicative, protected by attorney-client privilege or depicted violence.

A group of Epstein trafficking survivors appeared in an ad that aired during Sunday's Super Bowl demanding more transparency and telling Attorney General Pam Bondi that "it's time for the truth."

Khanna - who has begun building a national profile on a populist pledge to go after a "corrupt elite" that he has dubbed the "Epstein class" - said Monday that it was difficult to determine whether the extensive redactions complied with the law or not.

The Justice Department also appeared to have redacted nearly every female name in the files, Massie said, including the sender of an email that thanked Epstein for a "fun night" because "your littlest girl was a little naughty," which caught attention online after it was published without a name. Massie confirmed it was a woman who wrote it, though he said he could not parse if lawyers had redacted the record to protect the identity of a victim.

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"I would like to give the DOJ a chance to say they made a mistake and over-redacted," Massie said. "That would probably be the best way to do it."

Nevertheless, the fallout is ongoing for prominent individuals who appeared in the files.

Records show that Treasury Secretary Howard Lutnick interacted regularly with Epstein for more than a decade before he died, despite Lutnick's earlier assertion that he had tried to avoid Epstein after 2005. Rep. Robert Garcia, the Long Beach Democrat who has been investigating Epstein's ties as ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., called in recent days for Lutnick to resign, repeatedly accusing him of lying to the American public.

Though he is not himself implicated, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is also facing a growing political rebellion because he appointed an ambassador to the U.S. who had close ties to Epstein.

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Former President Bill Clinton, who had a well-documented relationship with Epstein, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will sit for a deposition before the House Oversight Committee later this month under the threat of congressional contempt charges that put them at risk of imprisonment.

Meanwhile, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for conspiring with Epstein, appeared virtually before the panel on Monday and invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Her lawyer said she would only answer questions if Trump grants her clemency.

This article originally published at Bay Area congressman who viewed unredacted Epstein files says at least 6 men are implicated.
Feb 9 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's administration plans to spare firms such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft from upcoming tariffs on chips as they build AI data centers, the Financial Times reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The carve-outs would be provided by the Commerce Department and tied to investment commitments made by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the report added.

Plans are in flux and had not been signed by Trump, the Financial Times cited an administration official as saying.

TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker, is investing $165 billion to build factories in the U.S. state of Arizona.

(Reporting by Costas Pitas; Editing by Caitlin Webber and Chris Reese)
The U.S. Department of Justice on Jan. 30 published over 3 million documents in accordance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

The publication of the Epstein files unearths corruption and human trafficking in countries across the globe. In Belarus, the story had another twist.

The files flesh out Epstein's personal connection to Belarus through 36-year-old Belarusian national Karyna Shuliak. According to the New York Times, Shuliak was the last person Epstein talked to outside prison before committing suicide.

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Email exchanges and wire transfers over 10 years document travel arrangements, funding for Shuliak's family, and support for her dentistry studies in the United States. One document, known as The 1953 Trust, bequeaths the largest share of Epstein's wealth to the woman.

Recently released files show that 36-year-old Belarusian national Karyna Shuliak was named in Jeffrey Epsteins 1953 Trust, which bequeaths the largest share of his estate to her. (United States Department of Justice / The Kyiv Independent)

According to the will, executed and signed by Epstein on Aug. 8, 2019  two days before his death  Shuliak would receive $50 million, the infamous properties on Epstein's Little and Great Saint James islands, the Zorro ranch in New Mexico, his townhouse in New York, and an apartment in central Paris.

Shuliak also inherited Epstein's collection of 48 loose diamonds, along with a near-33-carat diamond ring, given to her "in contemplation of marriage."

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Formerly a student at the Belarusian State Medical University, Shuliak arrived in the United States in 2009 when she was in her 20s, and soon met Epstein. She reportedly continued her education at Teachers' College, Columbia University, and obtained a U.S. dental license with Epstein's support.

In May 2015, Epstein wrote to Cecile de Jong, the wife of the then-governor of the Virgin Islands, inquiring about licensing, which Shuliak was later granted.

In her questionnaire with the U.S. immigration authorities, Shuliak stated that she feared for her personal safety due to the "dictatorial regime in Belarus," Belarusian Service of RFE/RL found in the published files.

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Shuliak shared her answers with Epstein, asking him if she had provided the right answers.

Jeffrey Epstein is seen in an undated image released by the U.S. Justice Department in the United States, on Dec. 20, 2025. (U.S. Justice Department / Anadolu via Getty Images)

The UK tabloid The Daily Mail alleged that Shuliak was also involved in a sham marriage with Epstein associate Jennifer Kalin, a U.S. citizen, to ensure she could remain in the United States.

The record of marriage registration appears in the Belarusian database, according to Belpol. The newly published files contain Shuliak's petition for divorce filed in November 2018.

Epstein was also providing funds to Shuliak's parents.

Between 2013 and 2016, Shuliak's parents received at least $80,000. The first portion of documents, published in December, showed two transfers to Minsk in 2013 totaling $30,000.

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At the time, the recipient's name was redacted, but the newly released files reveal the name  Fedor Chouliak (Fedor Shuliak)  whose bank details Karyna Shuliak shared with Epstein, saying Fedor was her father. The newly published documents contain at least two more previously unknown transactions: $25,000 was wired to Fedor Shulyak in 2014 at Epstein's request. Karyna Shuliak transferred another $25,000 to her parents in 2016, informing Epstein of this via email and attaching a copy of the wire transfer confirmation.

The funds may have been used for a real estate purchase, according to Belarusian government databases obtained by Belpol, an opposition group of former Belarusian law enforcement officials. The state registers indicate that Fedor Shuliak, an entrepreneur, purchased an apartment in Drazdy, a posh Minsk suburb known for housing Belarusian celebrities and officials.

In the newly released files, Epstein also instructs his accountant, Richard Kahn, to wire $15,000 to Karyna's mother in January 2013. In late 2015, Epstein mentioned the need for a follow-up doctor's appointment for Shuliak's mother in an email to Eva Dubin, his former girlfriend, and a physician specializing in breast cancer.

Recently released files show Epstein instructing his accountant, Richard Kahn, to wire $15,000 to Karyna Shuliaks mother in January 2013. (United States Department of Justice/The Kyiv Independent)

Shuliak's parents also met Epstein personally, making trips to the United States in 2012 and 2017, and one in 2019  less than a month before Epstein's arrest. Email exchanges in the Epstein files include travel itineraries and Epstein's directing assistants to pick up Shuliak's parents at the airport. The financier himself obtained a Belarusian visa, but never traveled to the country, according to Belpol.

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The official passenger traffic system with details of every individual  foreign or native to Belarus  that ever passed Belarus' state border shows no record of his travel.

"The only way Epstein could have arrived to Belarus without producing a record of it in the passenger traffic system is by flying to Russia and travelling to Belarus from there by car or train, which is odd for an individual with plenty of resources and personal jets," says Uldzimir Zhyhar, the representative of Belpol, the group of exiled Belarusian law enforcers which possesses all Belarusian government records up until 2021.

In the latest batch of revelations, Belarus and Minsk are featured with about 1,500 and 1,000 mentions, respectively. Karyna Shuliak is mentioned 40,000 times.

Read also: Epsteins Russia connections, explained

Read also: How Ukraine appears in the latest Epstein files

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
MERCER Co. (News-Press NOW)  A 36-year-old man from Bethany, Missouri, was hospitalized with serious injuries after failing to handle a curve and crashing his truck on a county road Monday east of Cainsville, Missouri.

A crash report from the Missouri State Highway Patrol shows a 2024 Ford F-150 was traveling north on Egret Avenue in Mercer County around 7:42 p.m. when the driver's vision became obstructed by the dust from gravel in the roadway.

The 36-year-old driver of the Ford from Bethany, Missouri, failed to handle a curve and traveled off the roadway, striking a large tree and continuing through a field before it eventually came to rest on its wheels facing north.

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The driver of the vehicle was not wearing a seatbelt according to the crash report and was transported by North MO EMS to Harrison County Community Hospital.

Both the Harrison County and the Mercer County Sheriff's Offices assisted the Highway Patrol on scene
Zimbabwe's cabinet has approved draft legislation that would allow President Emmerson Mnangagwa, 83, to extend his stay in office until at least 2030.

Presidents would be chosen by MPs rather than in a direct vote and could serve a maximum of two seven-year terms, rather than the current five-year terms, under the proposals.

Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi said public consultations would be held before the bill heads to parliament for debate, where both chambers are dominated by the ruling Zanu-PF party.

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Legal challenges are likely as constitutional experts argue a referendum is needed if term limits are changed - and also point out that such amendments cannot benefit a sitting president.

Mnangagwa, who first came to power in 2017 after a military coup ousted long-time leader Robert Mugabe, won a presidential election the next year and a second term in 2023 - though the results were disputed.

Known as "the crocodile" because of his political cunning, his final five-year term is due to expire in 2028.

In a referendum held 13 years ago, Zimbabweans overwhelmingly voted for a new constitution that introduced presidential term limits when Mugabe's grip on power seemed entrenched - he had ruled the country since independence in 1980.

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Hints that Mnangagwa, who was once Mugabe's deputy until they fell out over the growing political ambitions of the then-first lady, wanted to stay in power beyond 2028 started two years ago.

The slogan "2030 he will still be the leader" began to be chanted at Zanu-PF rallies with his supporters saying he needed to remain in office to complete his "Agenda 2030" development programme - though President Mnangagwa publicly rejected the idea.

He has faced some fierce detractors within Zanu-PF, but his main critic - Blessed Geza, also known as "Bombshell" - died last week.

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This time last year Geza, a respected veteran of the 1970s war of independence and then member of Zanu-PF's powerful central committee, had launched a scathing attack on Mnangagwa's ambition to stay in power.

He apologised for helping him come into office and accused the president of nepotism in his bid to stay in office beyond 2028.

Zanu-PF expelled Geza from the party for disloyalty and he was forced into hiding.

Yet he continued to attract a large following on social media, where he regularly posted videos calling for protests.

Hours before his death a message posted on his social media pages urged Zimbabweans to carry forward the "noble war" to remove President Mnangagwa and "end the plunder of our country".

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He was in South Africa when his family announced his death on Friday.

"At a time when silence would have been easier, he chose to speak out against corruption and nepotism that continue to undermine the promise of independence," Andrease Ethan Mathibela, national chairman of the influential Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association, said.

The government is now forging forward with its 2030 plans for Mnangagwa and says the intention behind the draft law is to strengthen governance and bring political stability.

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Sugar cane farms on land set aside for Everglades restoration? Peanut farming on property that could have been a Florida state park?

Thats what some environmental groups are worried about with a proposal buried in a sweeping farm bill, moving steadily through the Florida Legislature, that they argue would fundamentally change how Florida treats conservation lands.

A section of Senate Bill 290 would direct Floridas environment and agriculture departments to determine whether any state-owned land purchased for conservation since January 2024 is suitable for agriculture, according to the bill language.

If a property checks that box, it could be sold off for agriculture, according to the proposal. Under the bill, the then-privately-owned land would still be protected from development with a rural lands easement, allowing for uses like cattle ranching but removing the threat of subdivisions.

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The proposal would not apply to state forests, state parks or wildlife management areas, according to the language of the bill, which is sponsored by state Sen. Keith Truenow, R-Tavares on the Senate side and Hillsborough County Republican Rep. Danny Alvarez in the House.

Audubon Florida is one group concerned about the measure, saying that conservation land sold to private agriculture operations would remove the publics access to hiking, camping or recreating.

The nonprofit also said its worried that newly purchased conservation lands could be flipped for agriculture before they receive permanent protections.

The question should not be: Are conservation lands suitable for agriculture? but rather, Is agriculture suitable for state lands? said Julie Wraithmell, executive director of Audubon Florida. Its an incredible overreach, and I would argue its unconstitutional. Sierra Club Florida also said the bill would centralize land-management decisions under the agriculture department.

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Right now, Florida law creates a rigorous process for selling off lands that were purchased for conservation. A committee under Floridas environmental regulatory agency, the Acquisition and Restoration Council, makes a recommendation to the governor and Cabinet then the group must vote on whether the lands are no longer needed for conservation purposes.

Opponents of the measure say that process would now prioritize lands agricultural benefits over its public use, watershed protection and wildlife habitat.

Those in favor of the farm bill, however, like former president of the Florida Cattlemens Association Pat Durden, say the measure wouldgive a much better option for land management by putting state-run lands back into the hands of private property owners, including ranchers whose work maintaining the land draws in and harbors other Florida wildlife.

Proceeds of land sales, according to the measure, would go back into the agriculture departments trust fund for more conservation easements, which Durden said would help expand the Florida Wildlife Corridor.

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It gives us a tool that right now is not really there, Durden said, adding that some state lands are mismanaged, costly and often overgrown with invasive plants.

I think its really difficult for people to understand, without going out on the ranches and seeing that, hey, this is what land management looks like, Durden said.

Neither the Florida Department of Environmental Protection nor the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services responded to requests for comment. The bills Senate sponsor, Sen. Truenow, also did not respond to a request seeking comment.

The measure is part of the wide-ranging priority bill, commonly called the 2026 Florida Farm Bill, for the states Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Agriculture commissioner Wilton Simpson has celebrated the bill he said defends the people who feed our state and our nation.

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Most of the online opposition to the bill has been centered on a separate section that would have allowed farming operations to sue for damages over disparagement of an agricultural product.

Clean water advocates, spearheaded by a campaign from the nonprofit Captains for Clean Water, argued the bill would financially punish citizens, nonprofits, and journalists for speaking out about agricultural practices that impact Floridas waterways.

Facing a groundswell of opposition, Senate lawmakers amended the bill Tuesday morning to remove the disparagement language in a move that was promptly celebrated by the clean water nonprofit.

During the meeting on the farm bill, several people representing environmental groups, including Wraithmell, spoke out against the language that would allow for the sales of conservation lands for agriculture. That section of the bill remains unchanged as it heads to the Senate floor.

The Tampa Bay Times launched the Environment Hub in 2025 to focus on some of Floridas most urgent and enduring challenges. You can contribute through our journalism fund by clicking here.
Sen. Donnie Chesteen, R-Geneva, stands on the floor of the Alabama Senate on Jan. 22, 2026 at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Alabama. Chesteen said in an interview that Thursday's uncommon House Agriculture and Forestry Committee meeting was an effort to expedite his bill that would prohibit the state from having stricter environmental regulations than the federal government to the House floor for a final vote. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)

Republican lawmakers are rushing a bill that could weaken the states environmental laws through the Legislature, alarming Democrats and critics who warn the legislation could seriously affect pollution controls and Alabamians health.

SB 71, sponsored by Sen. Donnie Chesteen, R-Geneva, passed the Senate on Feb. 3 and won approval in the House Agriculture and Forestry Committee just two days later in an uncommon Thursday morning meeting.

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Chesteen said in an interview Friday was an attempt to get the bill on the House floor on Tuesday. It is not on the Houses agenda for Tuesday, but it could be pulled for a vote at any time.

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At the public hearing Thursday, Chesteen said the bill is good for Alabama businesses.

If were going to be able to compete with states in the Southeast to attract and bring some of these businesses in, we need to have these standards adopted so that its clearly defined what our companies are working with, Chesteen said.

Tim Howe, chief advocacy officer for the Business Council of Alabama (BCA), spoke in favor of the bill.

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We are glad this morning that you have an opportunity to consider what is a common sense approach to Alabamas regulatory environment, Howe said. We support it because it will contribute to a stable and predictable business climate for Alabama.

Multiple messages seeking comment were left with Howe and others at BCA.

The bill would allow the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) to adopt emergency rules if it can prove there is immediate danger to public health, safety or welfare. But the bill requires ADEM in those cases to use what the bill defines as best available science and the weight of scientific evidence.

Multiple messages seeking comment from ADEM were left Friday.

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Part of the definition of best available science includes collecting data, which can be site-, area- or state-specific studies. Rep. A.J. McCampbell, D-Linden, expressed concern Thursday that there is no requirement that those studies would be done, and if they were, it might be too late for people whose lives could be put at risk by pollution or neglect.

The only way you can verify that this science or this causation of cancer is once people are dead, McCampbell said. What then are we going to say to the people when they are dead?

The bill would also require ADEM to establish a direct causal link between exposure to a harmful chemical or pollutant and bodily harm in humans. Sarah Stokes, an attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, says that kind of science does not exist.

We know that these chemicals cause problems. We know that theres an increased risk of problems with these chemicals. Science has shown us that, Stokes said in an interview Monday. Instead of using actual sound science, this bill rejects sound science and asks us to use impossible science, which is not even science. It asks us to use witchcraft.

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Chesteen said in an interview that Stokes and others arguments against direct causal link is a theory, not science.

Theyre really pushing for Alabama to follow a path of unreasonable possibilities and theories, Chesteen said. Theres a difference in a theory and direct causal links. This is based on the science, not a theory.

He also said that he was not aware of any current ADEM regulations that were not based on what the bill defines as best available science.

In a letter to Chesteen and Rep. Troy Stubbs, R-Wetumpka, the House sponsor of the bill, the Southern Environmental Law Center and 30 physicians, professors, pharmacists and environmentalists asked them to reconsider the legislation. The letter said the bill was vague and could cause unintended consequences to Alabamians health.

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There are currently no placebo-controlled double-blind studies showing that lead exposure causes developmental neurotoxicity or that smoking causes cancer, yet those substances are worthy of health advisories and regulation, the letter reads.

Rep. Napoleon Bracy, D-Prichard, said during the meeting Thursday that the bill limits states rights, saying he is worried what would happen if the Trump Administration rolled back federal regulations.

Im just trying to understand when the administration changes, would ADEMs regulations change based off of us attaching ourselves to what the federal standards are? Bracy said.

Currently, businesses get a permit from ADEM based on what they are likely to discharge into Alabamas rivers. ADEM sets standards for the levels of chemicals and pollutants businesses are allowed to discharge, which water treatment plants are then responsible for cleaning, Stokes said. That water ends up in Alabama homes, restaurants and waterways.

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It gives businesses a free for all for being able to discharge whatever they want, Stokes said after the meeting. Its a blank check to businesses, and were basically sacrificing human health for businesses. That doesnt seem like the best calculation for our citizens.

Multiple messages seeking comment from Lanier Brown, a member of the Alabama Environmental Management Commission, were left Friday and Monday. The commission is the governing body of ADEM and sets environmental rules and regulations.

Stokes said there are certain regulations that ADEM sets that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not, like those for water quality. The EPA sets standards for drinking water, but not for rivers or other bodies of water, Stokes said.

The Clean Water Act of 1972 requires states to set their own water quality standards so that the states water is fishable and swimmable, according to the EPA. The federal government does not set standards for how much arsenic and cyanide can be discharged into Alabama waterways, Stokes said.

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She said that if the bill is passed and the current regulations are rolled back, water treatment plants would have to spend more time and resources cleaning the water to meet federal standards for drinking water.

If theyre cleaning up, the dirtier the water you clean, the more money it costs, Stokes said. It passes that burden and that cost on to the consumer.

Justinn Overton, executive director of the Coosa Riverkeeper, said in an interview after the meeting Thursday that the bill also limits Alabamians ability to be involved in the process of making the states rules like they can now.

This is not only limiting for us as Alabama citizens to think about the ways that this bill detrimentally impact public health, and questioning the sound science and being able to use science to make these decisions for a lively and open debate is part of one of the most important things that elected officials need to do is listen to their constituents, Overton said.
New Mexico Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe) is the sponsor for Senate Bill 40, which would limit the sharing of data collected by automatic license plate readers. (Danielle Prokop/Source NM)

New Mexico legislation to limit the use of automated license plate readers to specific law enforcement purposes and to make data from such readers confidential cleared its second committee Monday and advanced to the Senate floor.

Automated license plate readers refers to technology that captures license plate images and uploads the data into databases often used by police departments or other law enforcement.

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If passed, Senate Bill 40 would ban New Mexico law enforcement from using automated license plate readers for general surveillance or civil traffic enforcement.

SB40 also specifically carves out specific personal information that cannot be given to out-of-state third parties. The bill mandates that license plate data collected in New Mexico will not be used in investigations into immigration status; protected health care activities, defined as seeking gender-affirming or abortion care; or participating in First Amendment activities, such as rallies.

Co-sponsor Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe) told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that public records requests were being used to access license plate data related to abortions or immigration enforcement.

Its to put some guardrails on the use of the tool, Wirth said, noting that local and state law enforcement agencies support the bill.

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SB40 allows law enforcement to use the cameras for identifying stolen vehicles; locating missing persons; responding to felony warrants; and investigating crimes and sharing that data with other agencies, said Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebbe, the president of the New Mexico Police Chiefs Association.

We want it for legitimate law enforcement purposes and it has been a very useful tool for us in a number of serious cases, Hebbe told Source NM, after the committee vote. But at the same time, we want to assure our citizens this isnt Big Brother.

Other proponents include the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico and immigration groups.

This is just another step to ensure that immigrant families are safe in the communities that they live, work and are a part of, Marcela Diaz, executive director of immigrant rights group Somos Un Pueblo Unido, told Source NM after the vote.

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Data from the cameras, based on SB40, can only be obtained from outside third parties by court order or a written statement from the requester promising not to violate the law.

The bill makes data from license plate readers confidential, and no longer subject to public records laws and allows for the state to seek civil penalties if the law is violated.

The bill heads next to the Senate Floor.

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Virginia Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, talking with colleagues during the 2026 General Assembly session. (Photo by Shannon Heckt/Virginia Mercury)

Sen. L. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, on Monday introduced an amendment to her Senate Bill 253, which would levy more energy costs onto data centers served by Dominion Energy and less on residential customers, a move the utility, state regulators and lawmakers say would immediately drop residential bills by about $5.50 per month.

The amended bill now allows the State Corporation Commission to determine if it is in the publics interest for large-load customers instead of residential ones to cover the cost of distributing power to data centers and for Dominions capacity auctions  where the utility buys additional power from other states to meet demand, largely driven by data centers.

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If the SCC approves, those costs could shift to new and existing data centers through 2033. Lucas described the measure as an attempt to make data centers pay their fair share of the cost of power generation and distribution in Virginia.

There are more than 200 energy bills this session, and as far as Im aware, this is the only proposal to actually reduce rates in the near term, Lucas said.

In a letter analyzing the shift, the SCC projected that putting those costs on Dominions new rate class for GS5 customers, who are mostly data centers, will take some pressure off of residential customers.

The SCC would only be allowed to put these costs onto that specific rate class for the next few years to address the rising costs, since rising capacity auction prices continue to break records.

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The SCC estimated that typical residential customers will see their rate reduced by 3.4%, about $5.52 monthly, and the data center customers rate will increase by a projected 15.8%. The state would save an estimated $8.3 million in 2027 for local governments through this cost shift.

Dominion fully supports the legislation, representatives said.

Capacity prices are going up because of the load growth, which is being driven by the data centers, said Joe Reid, a lawyer for Dominion. There is the cost just to connect the data centers to the system, which is hundreds of millions of dollars. Over time, theyll start paying for those costs Theyre going to pay a little bit more for the next few years, so that the rest of the customers share of the pie will get smaller and there will be immediate rate relief for the residential customers, for the small commercial customers, and for the industrial customers.

In the last rate case, in response to concerns over if the data center customers are paying enough to cover the increased demand in energy production, Dominion created the new rate class that calls for 14-year contracts with customers over 25 megawatts. The minimum demand charges for these users is 85% for transmission, 85% for distribution, and 60% for generation. They are charged more if they exceed those minimums.

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Consumer advocates including the Southern Environmental Law Center said that rate case was a good first step to protecting non-data center ratepayers from increased costs.

Representatives for the data center industry said they first read the amendment over the weekend and hope to work with Lucas on potentially changing it.

I would like to be clear that the data center industry is committed to paying for the power it uses, said Nicole Riley with the Data Center Coalition. We also request clarification that the SCC should investigate as part of the proceeding how much the capacity costs are due to data centers. We are concerned that the language as drafted precludes any analysis of that.

The amended bill allows for high-load industrial and manufacturing customers a one-time chance to opt out of the GS5 rate class so they would not be subject to the same costs as data centers and be charged a different rate. But data centers are not permitted to opt out under the current version of the bill.

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Lucas bill originally focused on continuing utilities weatherization programs for low-income households, an effort to boost energy efficiency. It laid out funding requirements and extended the program through 2038.

The bill advanced out of the Senate Labor and Commerce committee on Monday and now heads to the Senate Finance committee, which Lucas chairs.

Editors note: This story has been corrected to reflect that the SELC does not support or oppose Lucas bill. Information about an undergrounding pilot program was removed as it is not part of a CEUR recommendation.

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A Boston man is facing drug trafficking charges, police said Monday.

David Myers, 50, of Mattapan, was arrested Monday after police said they saw him allegedly involved in street-level drug dealing.

Police charged Myers with Trafficking of Class B Substance, Crack Cocaine; Distribution of Class B Substance, Crack Cocaine; Possession with Intent to Distribute Class A Substance, Fentanyl; Possession with Intent to Distribute Class B Substance, Powder Cocaine; Possession with Intent to Distribute Class B Substance, Suboxone Film; and Distribution of Class B Drugs, Second and Subsequent Offense.

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Myers is expected to be arraigned in Boston Municipal Court.

On Monday, while conducting a drug investigation in the area of Massachusetts Avenue and Albany Street, officers saw a man crouch low to the ground, and a female picking up an unknown item from that location.

Police said the female was seen placing the item in her mouth and walking away from the area.

Officers began to focus their surveillance on the man as a second person now approached him. Police said a similar exchange occurred behind an electrical box in an attempt to conceal their actions. Officers believed that a street-level drug transaction had transpired.

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Police monitored the target of their investigation, later identified as Myers, as he walked towards a bus kiosk.

Police said officers approached Myers and identified themselves as Boston Police Officers.

As they attempted to detain Myers, he refused to place his hands behind his back and tensed his body, police said. Officers then used de-escalation techniques to get him into handcuffs.

Investigators seized the following evidence: 16 plastic bags of fentanyl, approximately 27 grams; 1 plastic bag of powder cocaine, approximately 8 grams; 106 suboxone films; a digital scale and approximately $663 in cash.

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This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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LONDON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Britain's Prince William met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as part of a three-day visit to Saudi Arabia starting on Monday, an official trip on behalf of the government to deepen ties with the country.

The British royal's visit follows a 2025 trip to Saudi by Britain's finance minister, which London said had unlocked trade and investment agreements worth 6.4 billion pounds ($8.71 billion).

During his trip, William is also due to take part in engagements focused on Saudi Arabia's economic reforms, cultural initiatives and environmental programmes, his office Kensington Palace said on Monday.

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William previously met the crown prince in March 2018, when he and his father, then-Prince Charles, hosted bin Salman for a dinner at Clarence House in London, while the late Queen Elizabeth held a separate lunch with the Saudi royal that day.

During his visit to Saudi Arabia, William, King Charles' eldest son, is also expected to meet young Saudis, learn about the country's plans for sustainability and urban development, and visit projects linked to women's sport, e-sports, conservation and cultural cooperation, the palace said.

The British prince will also travel to AlUla, an ancient Arabian oasis city, where he will visit wildlife reserves, meet local communities and tour "Prince of Wales House" - a new UK cultural space promoting collaboration in arts and heritage.

($1 = 0.7350 pounds)

(Reporting by Sam Tabahriti; Editing by Kate Holton and Deepa Babington)
It took California lawmakers seven years, endless horsetrading and a flurry of last-minute rewrites to pass major legislation increasing homebuilding near mass transit last year.

Now comes the hard part: making the law work.

With time dwindling before the landmark law, SB 79, takes effect in July, widespread confusion over what its complex language actually requires is scrambling the path to implementation. On top of that, hardened opposition to the law, particularly in Southern California, is frustrating legislative efforts to quickly clear up the ambiguity.

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The potential for a messy roll out is great enough that its author, state Sen. Scott Wiener, has not ruled out the need for a delay.

Were happy to have conversations with people who have good-faith feedback, including about that issue, Wiener said of postponing when SB 79 takes effect.

Wiener, a Democrat from San Francisco, first introduced legislation to boost building near transit hubs in 2018. The effort attracted attention around the U.S. and elsewhere for challenging Californias sprawling growth as the senator and his allies argued denser construction in cities and suburbs was necessary for environmental and affordability reasons.

Multiple iterations of the bill failed amid opposition from homeowner groups concerned about neighborhood character , anti-gentrification advocates worried about displacement and the states longstanding deference to local governments on zoning issues.

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Then last year, amid a national conversation over California's stalled growth through the Abundance movement , SB 79 broke through. It allows mid-rise construction around mass transit. The tallest buildings  nine stories  will be permitted on land closest to heavy rail stations, such as two subway routes in Los Angeles and BART in San Francisco. Smaller structures  between five and eight stories  will be allowed further away from heavy rail or nearby less intense transit, such as stops on light rail and rapid bus lines.

To gain legislative support for SB 79, Wiener agreed to limit the law to the Bay Area, greater Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Diego. Additionally, he included numerous carveouts and restrictions that can block denser housing in certain areas, such as neighborhoods at risk of wildfire or sea-level rise, or on parcels that already have apartment buildings on them. Cities also are allowed to develop alternative plans that add housing elsewhere in exchange for preserving lower-density zones near transit. Many of these changes to the language were written in the final weeks of the legislative session in a dash to secure votes.

Figuring out the nuts and bolts of the law was left to regional governments, known as metropolitan planning organizations, which were tasked with drawing up official maps to determine which transit hubs were included and the boundaries for where denser housing could be built. The law also gives the state Department of Housing and Community Development authority over compliance with the law.

The implementation process has not been easy. Representatives of the planning organizations have met multiple times with state housing officials in an effort to reach consensus on basic aspects of the legislation.

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For instance, the law calculates which parcels are eligible based on a specific distance from a transit stops pedestrian access point. But what does that mean for major transportation centers, such as LAs Union Station, that have several? And how does this rule apply to stops on bus rapid transit lines which often consist of little more than a sign pole?

This is probably the most challenging housing bill to implement because of all the unknowns, said Jason Rhine, senior director of legislative affairs at the League of California Cities. There are a lot of cooks in the kitchen.

Representatives of the San Diego Association of Governments and the Southern California Association of Governments, which covers Los Angeles and Orange counties, said their agencies need more direction from the state before they can release their maps.

David Zisser, assistant deputy director of housing policy for the state, argued that the housing department is fulfilling its responsibilities.

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We trust that our regional partners are doing the same, Zisser said in a statement. We have been consistently communicating with them and providing technical support to help implement the law effectively so that we can build more housing faster.

Wiener said the back-and-forth between the state and the regional entities is not an acceptable state of affairs.

The maps need to be done as quickly as possible, he said.

Wiener contended that some are exaggerating the laws fogginess to oppose SB 79 altogether. Los Angeles has been the epicenter of the SB 79 resistance, with the City Council voting to oppose it, Mayor Karen Bass attempting to convince Gov. Gavin Newsom to veto it and City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto organizing other communities around a legal challenge . Last month, Metro, LAs transportation agency, called for excluding the county entirely from SB 79.

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When people come forward and make proposals to exempt the largest county in the United States out of the law, thats not going to be well received, Wiener said.

Metro officials say their concern is not only about the confusion around SB 79s wording, but also the effect the law is having on a $120 billion expansion the agency is currently carrying out.

Recently, representatives from the small, southeastern LA city of Paramount expressed reservations about supporting stations along a planned light-rail line over concerns the city would be forced to allow housing developments under SB 79.

The law is causing the cities to begin to oppose our projects, said Madeleine Moore, Metros deputy executive officer for government relations. We dont want to be in a position where we cannot deliver this high-quality transit.

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Wiener has no sympathy for such complaints, saying that billions of taxpayer dollars in transit investment must come alongside denser housing to encourage ridership.

He argued that ambiguity surrounding SB 79 is no different than whats happened after the passage of other major legislation. Lawmakers, Wiener noted, will approve legislation to address imprecise language or unintended consequences.

That cleanup effort has faced its own haphazard process. Wiener said hes shelving SB 677, his first attempt at clarifying definitions in SB 79, in favor of a new bill, SB 908. That bill will include a comprehensive list of changes that he and allies are continuing to draft, he said.

Ideally, Wiener said, SB 908 would be passed and signed with an urgency clause so it is in place when SB 79 takes effect on July 1. But doing so would require two-thirds support in both houses of the Legislature  a threshold that would be hard to reach. Some Democrats in the Senate didnt vote for SB 79 and are continuing their opposition to Wieners cleanup efforts , citing concerns about too much density.

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Given how controversial SB 79 was, Im not going to take a risk on losing the bill by putting an urgency (clause) in, unless Im really confident its going to actually get a two-thirds vote, Wiener said.

The result could be another confusing scenario where SB 79 takes effect in July but the law clarifying what much of it means wont be active until January 2027.

Wiener said hes aware of these timing concerns, which is why hes not ruling out delaying the laws implementation. But he said any forthcoming changes wont be an excuse to undermine SB 79.

I know that there are people who would like to jump in and blow the law up, Wiener said. Im not going to let that happen.
Management emphasized that the two companies fleets are complementary. Adamson described the combined business as a driller that is able to address any requirements in all water depths across the world, adding that scale should help the company position itself for rising upstream capital spending across all sectors.

Adamson said the combined company would offer customers an expanded set of high-specification drillships and semisubmersibles, plus a modern jack-up fleet. He also said the companys harsh-environment rig portfolio would expand and that the ARO joint venture would allow Transocean to reestablish a valued relationship with Saudi Aramco.

Transocean President and CEO Keelan Adamson said the combination was very well-timed, citing an industry view that offshore drilling is entering a multi-year upcycle. Adamson pointed to expected increases in offshore investment and noted forecasts calling for a 150% increase in deep-water project sanctioning by year-end 2027.

Transocean executives outlined the rationale and expected financial benefits of the companys planned all-stock acquisition of Valaris (NYSE:VAL) during a conference call, describing the transaction as a transformational combination aimed at positioning the combined business for what management characterized as a multi-year upcycle in offshore drilling.

The combined company will have a pro forma backlog of over $10 billion , aims to reduce leverage to about 1.5x within 24 months, and is targeting closing in H2 2026 with deleveraging the priority before shareholder returns.

Management expects more than $200 million in annual cost synergies (on top of ongoing savings), which it says capitalizes to over $1.5 billion of value and will be accretive to free cash flow and earnings per share.

Transocean is acquiring Valaris in an allstock deal to create a scaled driller positioned for a projected multiyear offshore upcycle, combining complementary fleets of drillships, semisubmersibles and jackups and reestablishing the ARO JV relationship with Saudi Aramco.

Story Continues

Adamson said Transocean was excited to add jack-ups at this point in the cycle and expects incremental cash flow from the segment. In the Q&A, he reiterated that Transocean fully intend[s] to continue operating the jack-up fleet, framing it as a strong cash flow contributor. Valaris CEO Anton Dibowitz similarly said jack-ups are a strong cash flow contributing segment for Valaris and will remain a strong cash flow generating part of the combined entity.

Synergies, cost reductions, and accretion

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Adamson said Transocean identified more than $200 million in annual deal-related cost synergies. He noted these savings are in addition to Transoceans ongoing cost reduction efforts, which he said already reduced the cost structure by about $100 million and are expected to deliver another $150 million in savings in 2026.

Adamson said the $200 million-plus in annual synergies, when capitalized, are expected to add more than $1.5 billion of value, which he characterized as roughly 15% of the combined market capitalization. He also said the transaction is expected to be accretive to free cash flow and earnings on a per-share basis after closing.

Responding to an analyst question on implementation costs, Transocean CFO Thad (last name not provided in the transcript) said management does not anticipate a significant cost to achieve the savings beyond typical restructuring elements, and that most savings are expected to come from operational efficiencies and reduced redundancies. The company did not provide a detailed breakdown of operating expense versus capital expense impacts.

Balance sheet goals, backlog, and closing timeline

Adamson highlighted deleveraging as a key objective, saying Transoceans debt level negatively impacts equity value and that the transaction should help address that through increased cash generation. He said the combined company will have a pro forma backlog of more than $10 billion, providing visibility into future cash flow.

Adamson added that Transocean expects the leverage ratio to drop to about 1.5 times within 24 months of closing, alongside improved liquidity and a lower cost of capital. In response to questions, management said it was comfortable with contract coverage and did not assume heroic recontracting outcomes to reach the leverage target.

On shareholder returns, Adamson said the companys priority remains strengthening the balance sheet, and that once leverage reaches appropriate levels the company would evaluate every option. Thad added that current limitations could change with the transaction and potential future capital restructuring, but suggested the company would be in a position to discuss returning capital after closing while emphasizing deleveraging in a cyclical, capital-intensive industry.

Management said it is focused on closing the transaction in the second half of 2026.

Regulatory review and fleet rationalization questions

Asked about potential regulatory challenges, Adamson said the companies conducted a comprehensive review and are very confident no regulatory issues are presented by the transaction.

On fleet rationalization, Adamson said Transocean has already divested a large number of rigs over recent years and indicated no immediate plans for further removals tied to the merger, while noting the company will continue to reevaluate fleet composition over time. Dibowitz addressed questions on specific Valaris rigs (DPS-1 and MS-1), saying they had a strong track record in Australia and that Valaris continues to market them globally, while maintaining financial discipline on costs when rigs lack near-term contracts.

Dibowitz said Valaris board, after considering the transaction with financial and legal advisors, determined the deal represents the best path to maximize shareholder value. He emphasized cultural alignment between the companies around safety and customer service and said Valaris shareholders would benefit from synergies and participate in the combined companys potential upside.

About Valaris (NYSE:VAL)

Valaris PLC is a leading provider of offshore drilling services to the global energy industry. The company operates a diverse fleet of mobile offshore drilling units, including drillships, semisubmersibles and jackup rigs, designed to support exploration and production activities in deepwater, ultra-deepwater and harshenvironment settings. Valaris serves a wide range of international oil and gas customers, offering turnkey drilling solutions, project management and advanced technology integration to enhance operational efficiency and safety.

Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Valaris maintains a significant presence in key offshore basins around the world.

The article "Valaris Deal Spotlight: Transocean Targets $200M+ Synergies, $10B Backlog in All-Stock Buyout" was originally published by MarketBeat.
California lawmakers have known for decades that gas tax revenue that keeps the states roads from crumbling is drying up.

Doing something about it is a different story.

California, like all states to varying degrees, has relied for more than a century on state and federal gas taxes to maintain thousands of miles of roadways and bridges. The emergence of electric vehicles and more fuel-efficient gas cars has upended the system by reducing the amount of gas sold in the state and cutting into Californias bottom line.

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The problem is particularly acute in California, which has aggressively pushed EV adoption as a response to climate change. The states independent legislative analyst estimated in a 2023 report that California could lose $5 billion each year by 2035 if EV adoption continues to grow.

Despite the risks, California is nowhere close to being ready to switch from gas taxes to another revenue collection model. To understand why, look no further than last weeks political maelstrom over a bill that called simply for a study to be done on the feasibility of a mileage tax.

The bill, AB 1421, went viral after Republican lawmakers slammed it as a new tax on California drivers during a debate on the Assembly floor late last month. The measure passed the chamber, but the opposition sparked anger across the state. Legislative staffers in Sacramento say they fielded dozens of calls about the bill last week, while posts flooded social media criticizing it as government overreach.

Californians are already getting crushed by the cost of food, housing, power, and gas, said Republican Assembly Leader Heath Flora. We already pay the highest gas taxes in the nation. Now Sacramento is talking about adding a new tax for every mile people drive.

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The issue caught fire enough that even Gov. Gavin Newsoms press office weighed in, arguing in a social media post that a study bill is not the same as enacting a new policy, but also making clear that Newsom wouldnt greenlight a mileage tax if one landed on his desk.

There is no mileage tax proposal in California  and the Governor would not sign one, his staff wrote.

Alan Jenn, an assistant professor at UC Davis and an expert on policies charging drivers for road use, said the governors response reflects how gas tax policy remains a political hot potato Newsom would prefer not to touch as he prepares for a widely anticipated presidential run.

You don't want to be making a decision on such a controversial topic when you're trying to run for president, Jenn said.

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The fallout is the latest example of the political risks of even discussing reforms to the gas tax, which has long been considered a third-rail issue in Sacramento. The Republican Party and anti-tax groups recalled state Sen. Josh Newman  who represented a tightly-contested Orange County district  in 2018 after the state approved a 12-cent-per-gallon hike the previous year, a moment that still resonates in the Capitol.

Assembly Transportation Chair Lori Wilson, who is leading the push to study a mileage tax after a decade of state-run pilot programs, framed the recent incident as a manufactured outrage by Republican lawmakers seeking to score political points.

What I was surprised by was the outright lies, Wilson said. That's what surprised me, because it moved beyond just stretching the truth to just bold-faced lying.

The Democratic candidates to replace Newsom have so far avoided taking a stance on a mileage tax. Betty Yee and Ian Calderon, along with spokespeople for Tom Steyer and Antonio Villaraigosa, all said that a bill to study the concept is appropriate, but raised concerns about the potential of increased costs and disproportionate impacts on drivers with longer commutes.

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Jenn said the kerfuffle crystallizes a significant political hurdle Democratic lawmakers will have to overcome before seriously pushing for an alternative to the gas tax: few drivers understand how gas taxes are collected, how much they actually pay or that a mileage tax would replace the old system.

Public awareness and education is such a huge component, Jenn said. The type of response that people have is totally disconnected from the way a road usage charge would actually get implemented."

It's an easy political target, he continued.

While blue states that incentivize EV purchases will face the fiscal cliff sooner, lawmakers across the political spectrum are exploring options to replace gas taxes as hybrid vehicles gain in popularity.

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Three states  Oregon, Utah and Virginia  have developed voluntary mileage tax programs for EV drivers that officials say have received positive feedback from the small number of drivers whove signed up. But challenges related to voter education and data privacy remain in expanding those programs statewide.

State leaders shouldnt expect help from the federal government in the near future.

Congress last raised the national 18.4-cent-per-gallon gas tax in 1993, and lawmakers have instead turned to tapping the countrys general fund to pay for infrastructure expenses. A national mileage tax pilot program included in the Biden administrations Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act didnt gain traction.

Despite the political challenges, the push to consider mileage taxes is unlikely to be dropped in states like California, where influential labor unions are urging lawmakers to maintain revenue and keep projects that employ their members on track.

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Transportation California, which represents unions including Laborers International Union of North America and NorCal Carpenters, is the lead sponsor of AB 1421.

If we don't try to start thinking now about thoughtful, responsible, fair and affordable solutions, our infrastructure is only going to deteriorate, said Kiana Valentine, executive director of Transportation California. California is already putting off projects today, and that is only going to grow with each year that the funding system remains antiquated.



Like this content? Consider signing up for POLITICOs California Climate newsletter.


A 26-year-old man was indicted and arrested in connection with the fentanyl toxicity death of Jacob Lee Kirk, the Catawba County sheriff announced Monday. Juan Sebastian Solarte faces charges of death by distribution and the sale of a Schedule II controlled substance.

ALSO READ: Two arrested, 60 grams of fentanyl seized in Catawba County, deputies say

Kirk was found dead at his home in February 2025. An autopsy conducted by the North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined the cause of death to be fentanyl toxicity.

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The Catawba County Grand Jury returned the indictment against Solarte on Jan. 20, the sheriff said. The formal charges include death by distribution and the sale of a Schedule II controlled substance.

This legal action follows an investigation that began when Kirks body was discovered nearly one year ago.

Following the indictment, law enforcement officers located Solarte in Florida.

The Palm Beach County Sheriffs Office took him into custody on Feb. 3 in Boca Raton. Solarte is 26 years old.

Sheriff Don Brown commented on the departments focus on the investigation and offered support to the Kirk family.

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I want the family of Jacob Kirk to know that we remain committed to accountability and seeing this case through. I extend my sincere condolences to the family of Mr. Kirk, Brown said.

Solarte is currently being held in Florida. He is awaiting extradition back to North Carolina to face the charges.

VIDEO: Two arrested after welfare check sparked a homicide investigation in Catawba County
Buckeye Career Center has received an $87,675 grant to help students enrolled in its Class A and Class B CDL courses earn their commercial driver's licenses, according to a community announcement.

Qualifying students will receive 50% of their CDL training costs covered by grant funds, with the remaining 50% provided as a state loan. The loan portion, administered by the state of Ohio and a promissory note, will be fully forgiven if the student works as a commercial driver for at least one year after earning their CDL.

The funding is provided through the Commercial Truck Driver Student Aid Program and administered by the Ohio Department of Higher Education. The courses are offered at the American Professional Truck Driving School, located at 8334 Ohio 36 SE in Gnadenhutten.

Buckeye Career Center has received an $87,675 grant to help eligible students earn a commercial drivers license through the American Professional Truck Driving School. Qualifying students will receive 50% of their CDL training costs covered by the grant funds.

We are excited to be able to offer this opportunity to both new applicants and individuals already on our waitlist, Frank Polen, Buckeye Career Centers director of curriculum, instruction and adult education, said in the announcement. This funding allows us to help more students enter the workforce while supporting the growing need for qualified commercial drivers. A recent Indeed job search indicated 65 open truck driving jobs within a 50-mile radius of Tuscarawas County, and Ohio Means Jobs shows over 3,000 CDL openings in our region. This is one of the highest in-demand careers nationwide.

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The funding is limited and will be awarded on a first-come, first-served basis to eligible students.

Class A CDL courses are scheduled to start Feb. 16, March 9 and April 27. The next Class B course will begin April 13.

In addition to the truck driving school, Buckeye Career Center also offers the US America CDL Test Center at the same location in Gnadenhutten.

For more information about CDL training programs or how to apply for grant assistance, visit buckeyecareercenter.org or contact Steve Rippeth at 330-339-2288 or srippeth@buckeyecareercenter.org.

This story was created by Jane Imbody, jimbody@usatodayco.com, with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of the information gathering, review, editing and publishing process. Learn more at cm.usatoday.com/ethical-conduct/.

This article originally appeared on The Times-Reporter: CDL students at Buckeye Career Center to receive financial assistance
Assistant Mercer County Public Defender Vincent Nudi said the rules are on his side.

On Feb. 6, just a month before his client, DaShawn Watkins, of Sharon, was scheduled to stand trial in the murder and dismemberment of 14-year-old Paul A. "Pauly" Likens, Nudi said he still hasn't been given access to the physical evidence the prosecution has gathered against his client.

"There is something they don't want us to see," Nudi said during a pre-trial hearing. "This raises all my Spidey senses."

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Assistant Mercer County District Attorney Kendra Strobel said her office had no objection to providing that evidence, but had asked the defense team to prioritize which pieces of evidence they wanted to view and to handle them one at a time.

Defense asked to highlight what it wanted

Common Pleas Judge Daniel P. Wallace didn't disagree. He offered to provide an itemized list of the prosecution's evidence and invited Nudi to highlight the items the defense team wanted to see.

Nudi said he's not sure which pieces of evidence, being held by Pennsylvania Still Police, might turn out to be important or how examining a piece of evidence might lead to other questions.

So, he wants to see all of it and all at once.

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Not descriptions of the evidence. Not photos of the evidence. Nudi said he and his team wanted to examine all the evidence in person.

Nudi explained his rationale in an interview with the Erie Times-News.

"I have been gently asking for the state police to make time so we can see the evidence, which is mandatory under the rules of evidence," he said.

In a situation he described as highly unusual, Nudi said, "I have a month to go and the Commonwealth is clearly keeping us from seeing the actual physical evidence."

Paul A. Likens Jr., 14, a transgender female known as Pauly, was killed and dismembered in Sharon, Pennsylvania, on June 23, 2024.

That could be the basis for the defense to appeal a guilty verdict, he said.

Nudi also took a swipe at the suggestion that there wasn't enough room to display all the evidence at one time inside the Troop D headquarters. State Police in Mercer County moved into the new 14,000-square-foot facility a year ago.

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"They just built a Taj Mahal," he said. "There should be plenty of space to spread everything out."

Strobel said neither her office nor the state police were trying to limit the defense's access to evidence.

"All they are trying to do is maintain chain of custody," she said.

The trial of DaShawn Watkins, of Sharon, charged in the death of 14-year-old Paul "Pauly" Likens Jr., has been rescheduled until May.

Ultimately, the judge gave the defense what it was looking for. He entered an order that would require the state police to allow the Nudi's team to examine all of the evidence in person by Feb. 13.

Before the 45-minute hearing had ended, Wallace did something he hadn't planned to do. He continued the case yet again, moving the trial, which had been scheduled for March, into the May term of court.

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Earlier in the hearing, Wallace had told counsel to be prepared for trial in March and that he didn't expect to continue the case, which already has been delayed several times.

By the end of the hearing, however, the judge ruled that the case would be delayed.

"I'm erring on the side of caution," he said.

Judge refuses to quash surveillance video

Defendant DaShawn Watkins, who has been housed in Mercer County Jail since his arrest, is charged with killing Likens with multiple blows of sharp force trauma to her head and neck.

The two met on Grindr, a location-based social networking and dating app used by some in the LGBTQ+ community.

Pauly, who was last seen by her family on June 22 of 2024, was reported missing to Sharon police three days later. That same day, portions of her dismembered body were found around the Shenango River Lake, north of Sharon.

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The prosecution says video surveillance from Watkins' apartment complex in Sharon shows someone walking into the apartment carrying some kind of suitcase.

High-profile case: How the Marchello Woodard case unfolded in Erie

Later, in a video shot in the early morning hours, the same person can be seen using a foot to push the bag through a doorway.

The defense filed a motion to have that have that video quashed, meaning that it would not be shown to the jury.

Wallace rejected that motion.

Contact Jim Martin at jmartin@timesnews.com.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Transgender teen murder trial delayed again.
Charlotte police chief proposes pay raise, take-home cars to help fill nearly 300 vacancies

Charlottes new police chief is pushing for higher pay and take-home patrol cars as she looks to fill nearly 300 vacancies. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Chief Estella Patterson told lawmakers in Raleigh on Monday the department needs more competitive incentives to recruit and retain officers.

READ MORE: NC House Oversight hearing on Charlotte safety held in Raleigh

I know that we have got to fill vacancies, Patterson told the state Oversight Committee.

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She said CMPD has 289 open positions with starting pay around $59,000 a year for new officers.

The department is currently offering a $7,500 signing bonus for new police recruits and officers joining from other departments.

Patterson said more needs to be done.

To ensure that our officers have competitive pay, that what we offer them is the best in the nation, so that the talent wants to come to North Carolina rather than other states, she said.

Patterson told lawmakers shed like to see officers get a 10% increase in pay and for the state to fund take-home patrol cars like they do for the state highway patrol.

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Kudos to Chief Patterson for doing that, said Officer Daniel Redford, president of the Char-Meck Fraternal Order of Police.

Redford said Patterson understands the needs of the officers.

Its just harder to be competitive with these other departments that are now matching CMPDs pay and offering other incentives to go there, so its a no-brainer, Redford said.

Police officers who have take-home vehicles say its a nice perk of the job.

Many CMPD patrol officers currently share vehicles from shift to shift.

Channel 9 will monitor any updates to see if Patterson can continue to partnership with the General Assembly for the extra funds.

Last month, Huntersvilles Police chief told Channel 9 that his department has the highest starting salary in the Charlotte metro at $61,000.
The head of U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) has downplayed the current significance of Chinese efforts to develop new long-range strike aircraft with more global reach. He said that China remains, at best, a regional bomber force, though it continues to aggressively pursue new capabilities in this regard, like the long-awaited H-20 stealth bomber.

AFGSC commander Gen. Stephen Davis talked about Chinese bombers and other aviation developments with TWZs Howard Altman last month. In that same interview, he also discussed his commands role in any future conflict in the Pacific region, as well as new U.S. strategic capabilities that are in the works now, such as the B-21 Raider stealth bomber and the LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), among other topics. This was Davis first interview since taking command of AFGSC in November 2025.

The Chinese Peoples Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) recruitment video below from 2021 includes a teaser for the H-20 at the very end.

I can certainly understand their [the Chinese] desire to have a long-range strike capability like the United States, and I know that theyre pursuing it aggressively, Davis said when asked for his thoughts on the H-20, as well as two very large stealthy flying wing-type drones that emerged in China last year. TWZ was first to report on the emergence of both of these designs, which appear to be at least in the initial flight test phase of development.

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The H-20 is understood to be a stealthy flying wing-type bomber, very roughly analogous to the U.S. B-2 Spirit, and its development is said to trace back to the early 2000s. The U.S. military has previously estimated that it could have a maximum unrefueled range of close to 6,214 miles (10,000 kilometers), and noted that its reach could be further extended through aerial refueling. Past reports have also said that it might be able to carry up to 10 tons of ordnance, including land-attack and anti-ship cruise missiles.

An official rendering of the flying-wing type aircraft, taken to be the H-20, as seen in a PLAAF recruiting video that was released in early 2021. PLAAF/YouTube capture

What I can tell you is theyre just not there yet, Davis continued. I think our adversaries look at our long-range strike capabilities, and  want to mimic them, but they cant.

Theres no other country in the world [besides the United States] that can take and deliver a long-range strike platform pretty much on any day, in any time and place that theyre choosing, right? he added. Really, China is a regional bomber force at best. I think theyre trying to continue to develop that.

Chinas bomber force currently consists of variants of the H-6, the core design of which was originally derived from the Soviet Tu-16 Badger. The H-6N version, which made its official debut in 2019, has enabled the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) to re-establish a strategic nuclear triad. The N model is primarily designed to carry a single, very large air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM) under its fuselage and is one of the H-6 types that is capable of being refueled in flight. How many different types of missiles have been integrated onto the H-6N to date is unclear, but its arsenal does include the nuclear-capable Jinglei-1 (JL-1), as you can read more about here.

An H-6N seen carrying an ALBM, or a relevant test article, under its fuselage. Chinese internet

Jinglei-1 (JL-1) missiles on trucks at a huge military parade in Beijing in September 2025. Central Military Commission of China

Davis comments are in line with past statements from U.S. officials on the H-20, specifically.

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In 2024, an unnamed U.S. intelligence official said the H-20 Stealth Bomber was not really a concern, according to a report at the time from Breaking Defense.

The thing with the H-20 is when you actually look at the system design, its probably nowhere near as good as U.S. LO [low-observable] platforms, particularly more advanced ones that we have coming down, the same official said. Theyve run into a lot of engineering design challenges, in terms of how do you actually make that system capability function in a similar way to, like, a B-2 or a B-21.

The H-20  may debut sometime in the next decade, the Pentagon subsequently wrote in its annual report to Congress on Chinese military developments later in 2024. That report also highlighted ongoing efforts in China to develop a stealthy medium-range bomber, which has been referred to in the past as the JH-XX.

A picture that has previously emerged showing a model of a design that might be tied to work on the JH-XX. Chinese internet

The Pentagons most recent annual China report, published in December 2025, notably makes no mention at all, directly or indirectly, of the H-20 or JH-XX. That report did note that of Chinas currently fielded systems, the DF-26 IRBM [intermediate range ballistic missile] and the H-6Ns ALBM are both highly precise theater weapons that would be well suited for delivering a low-yield nuclear weapon. This underscores Davis comments about the continuing regional limitations of the Chinese bomber force.

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Despite past PLA pronouncements that the program is on track, the current status of the H-20 is unclear. The present state of work related to the JH-XX, and whether it may have carried over into other programs, like the J-36 advanced tailless tactical combat aircraft, is also unknown. Starting in the late 2010s, there had been a surge in official and semi-official statements about how the H-20 was coming soon, but this looks to have largely subsided in the past year or so.

This is despite a flurry in other very high-profile Chinese military aviation developments, including the aforementioned large flying wing-type drones, as well as the J-36 and J-XDS sixth-generation stealth fighters, the GJ-11 uncrewed combat air vehicle (UCAV), the KJ-3000 airborne early warning and control aircraft, and more. The PLA Navy (PLAN) has also made major strides in advancing its carrier-based aviation capabilities in the past year or so.

Satellite images showing the J-36 (at left) and J-XDS (at right) at a secretive airbase near Chinas Lop Nur nuclear test site at separate points in 2025. PHOTO  2025 PLANET LABS INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION

New video out from the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) of China shows the new GJ-11 stealth drone (UCAV), and also the J-20 stealth fighter firing a live PL-15 air-to-air missile: pic.twitter.com/wraDqyMOht  The STRATCOM Bureau (@OSPSF) November 11, 2025

As TWZ has noted in the past, a platform like the H-20 would give the PLA the ability to hold entirely new swaths of the Indo-Pacific region, including in parts of the continental United States, at risk. An expanded long-range strike aviation force would also expand Chinas ability to target highly strategic outlying areas, including the U.S. island territory of Guam and Hawaii, as well as threaten regional competitors like Japan and India. If fielded, the aforementioned JH-XX could also have an important role in future regional operations.

The PLA has already been working to expand its routine bomber operations in the Western ends of the Pacific, especially around Taiwan and in the hotly contested South China Sea. Chinese bombers also now regularly integrate with their Russian counterparts and have made use of bases in that country for joint patrols. H-6K missile carrier aircraft flew in international airspace near Alaska for the first time ever during one of these joint operations back in 2024.

China and Russia conduct joint air strategic patrol over Bering Sea on July 25. This marks the eighth air strategic patrol organized by the two militaries since 2019.



Photos from China PLA Air Force Weibo accounthttps://t.co/g9w27FRnnM pic.twitter.com/oeZA4cUQR9  Ryan Chan  (@ryankakiuchan) July 25, 2024

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In his recent interview with TWZ, AGen. Davis similarly highlighted the continued importance of American bombers in the Pacific.

We have a requirement to be able to do that, day-to-day, for the President. We have to be able to penetrate adversary air defenses and deliver capabilities as directed, Davis said when asked about the ever-growing threats posed by Chinese anti-access and area-denial capabilities. Well continue to do that, as I said, by essentially, you know, taking all the information we can get, and integrating the B-21. Obviously, one of the great things about the B-21 is its going to be much more capable, it will have more sensors, it will have more inputs to it that will make it even stronger and more capable as a penetrating bomber.

A pre-production B-21 Raider. USAF

Long-range strike, I think, contributes to every important mission set that we have in the Department of War, the AFGSC commander also said when asked about how bombers could be employed against Chinese naval forces, specifically. Obviously, one of the attributes of the modern force is the weapons they can carry, the variety of weapons they can carry, and the number and types of targets they can attack.

I think in any major confrontation that the U.S. would find itself in, youre going to find your bomber forces are participating in bringing those skill sets to bear, he added.

With this in mind, China is also still pursuing new long-range strike aviation capabilities, though it remains to be seen when the H-20 might finally emerge.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com
By James Pomfret and Jessie Pang

HONG KONG, Feb 10 (Reuters) - China on Tuesday released a policy white paper on Hong Kong's practice of safeguarding national security to ensure stability in a volatile world, emphasising Beijing has "fundamental responsibility" for national security affairs in the city.

This white paper was released by China's State Council, or cabinet, a day after a Hong Kong court sentenced leading China critic and former media mogul Jimmy Lai to 20 years imprisonment in a landmark foreign collusion case under the city's national security law.

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Lai's sentence, the heaviest so far under a China-imposed national security law, drew international criticism from the U.S., Britain, Taiwan, European Union, Japan and rights groups.

The United Nations rights chief Volker Turk "deplored" the sentence of the 78-year-old and said it was "incompatible with international law".

The white paper said Hong Kong would continue to improve its legal system to safeguard national security.

"Hong Kong, enjoying high-standard security, is bound to overcome all risks and challenges on the journey forward, and remain as steady as a rock in a turbulent world," it read.

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Hong Kong leader John Lee on Tuesday welcomed the white paper, saying authorities needed to remain vigilant against national security risks.

He said Lai's sentence sent a "solemn warning against malicious plots of collusion with external elements and endangering national security".

Critics say the sweeping national security law has been used to clamp down on dissent and the city's opposition pro-democracy movement after mass protests in 2019.

The white paper, however, described this law as a "legal shield" that had "neutralised this major threat" and restored order.

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The paper added that Hong Kong's practice of safeguarding national security had "consolidated the security foundation" of the city's "one country, two systems" governance model and "further enriched China's national security system".

Such white papers on Hong Kong are released periodically by China, outlining Beijing's latest policy stance towards the China-ruled city that returned from British to Chinese rule in 1997.

The previous white paper in 2021 outlined Hong Kong's democratic development after a revamp of the electoral system to ensure only "patriots" could run for public office - a move criticised by some countries as an erosion of democratic freedoms by marginalising opposition democrats.

(Editing by Jamie Freed and Stephen Coates)
A Chinese fighter jet fired flares at a Taiwanese plane during a recent military drill, it has been revealed.

In a serious provocation, a Chinese J-16 fighter jet shot decoy flares at a Taiwanese F-16 during the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) largest-ever major military drills around Taiwan in December.

The F-16 had scrambled as the Chinese jet was about to cross Taiwans median line, which runs approximately down the centre of the Taiwan Strait, according to the Financial Times.

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It was also revealed that during the drills a Chinese J-16 flew very close behind an F-16 basically firing in position, according to the report.

China also employed a piggybacking tactic used to conceal jets from radars by flying one of its J-16s under a Chinese H-6K bomber.

When they were discovered, the Chinese pilot flipped his plane on its side and flashed the missiles under its belly, one person briefed on the incident told the FT.

The episode was described in a Taiwanese defence ministry report that was shared with the US military.

The drills in late December, known as the Justice Mission lasted for 24 hours, and Taiwans defence ministry detected 130 Chinese aircraft around Taiwan and 90, which flew across the median line.

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3105 Taiwan ADIZ

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China has been steadily increasing its military aggression around Taiwan. The USs annual defence report revealed that China expects to be able to fight and win a war with Taiwan by the end of 2027.

According to Chinese state media, its coastguard has deployed 550,000 vessels and 6,000 aircraft around the islands in the last five years.

The recently revealed flare manoeuvre was reminiscent of when a PLA aircraft locked a radar on Japanese jets in early December in a move that is usually considered a major threat because it signals an attack.

Xi on a war footing

Some of those familiar with the Taiwan incident said the exchange involving Japan was more serious. However, another source explained that Chinas aircraft was closer to the Taiwanese jet than it had been to the Japanese plane and observed that firing at such close range is unsafe.

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The Taiwan incident has been likened to the stand-off between China and the Philippines in December when a Chinese aircraft fired flares at a Philippine patrol plane in the South China Sea.

The Justice Mission drill was carried out during a period of enormous upheaval within Chinas military, in which Xi Jinping has dismissed all but one of his top-ranking deputies.

Observers have noted that the tactics employed during the Justice Mission suggest that these more aggressive moves and the appearance of highly unusual manoeuvres could be a sign that the purges are impacting the PLAs chain of command.

The dismissals have specifically targeted commanders and personnel responsible for the planning of a possible Taiwan invasion, which experts say has almost certainly affected Mr Xi and the PLAs ability to carry out an imminent attack.

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A 65-year-old San Bernardino County man was sentenced to four years in prison for his role as a covert agent for the Peoples Republic of China, federal officials announced Monday.

Officials with the United States Attorneys Los Angeles Office said that between 2022 and January 2024, Yaoning Mike Sun, a Chino Hills resident and campaign advisor to an elected city council member in a Southern California city knowingly worked on behalf of Chinese intelligence without notifying the U.S. Attorney General as required by law.

At the direction and control of PRC government officials, Sun coordinated with U.S.-based individuals to promote the PRCs interests by, among other things, orchestrat[ing] a team to help elect a politician identified in court documents as Individual 1 to political office and promoting pro-PRC propaganda in the United States, a news release from the Department of Justice stated.

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Prosecutors said that after working to get individual 1 elected in 2022, the duo attended a Dec. 2022 meeting in Southern California where Chinese government officials were told the pair were a team dedicated to the Chinese Communist Party.

Sun and individual 1 operated a purported news website for the local Chinese American community and took instructions from foreign officials to publish pro Chinese government content.

Investigators obtained a draft of a Feb. 2023 report for Chinese government officials written by Sun, who was soliciting additional money and tasks from his contacts, where he outlined his past service in Chinas military, the Peoples Liberation Army, among other accomplishments on behalf of the Chinese government.

Highlighting his work while in Southern California, he wrote, Most of all, during the 2022 midterm elections, I orchestrated and organized my team to win the election for city council for individual 1, who he referred to as a new political star, federal officials noted.

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Included in Suns report was a request for $80,000 to organize a pro-Peoples Republic China demonstration at a Fourth of July Parade in Washington D.C.

Investigators did not provide any information on the identity of individual 1, nor did they say what city he served as a member of the city council. It is unclear if individual 1 is facing any charges.

A Chino Hills man, 65, who reported to an official at the Chinese Consulate General in L.A., was sentenced to four years in prison for working as an illegal covert agent for the Chinese government on Feb. 9, 2026. (Google Maps)

In April 2023, former president of Taiwan Tsai Ing-Wen visited Southern California.

During her visit, federal investigators said that Sun provided real-time updates on her movements to an official in the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles. He also asked for approval to publish an article about Ing-Wen on the website he operated, while also sending photographs of people demonstrating against or showing their support for the Taiwanese president to the consulate official.

Former Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, center, waves to medias in Taipei, Taiwan, Saturday, July 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Prosecutors said that Suns primary co-conspirator between 2023 and 2024 was a high-level member of the PRC intelligence apparatus named John Chen, also known as Chen Jun.

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Los Angeles man, 63, charged in 1996 cold case murder of Temple City woman

Sun served as Chens right-hand man in the United States for decades, prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum.

Chen was sentenced in Nov. 2024 to a year and a half in federal prison after pleading guilty to being an illegal agent of the Chinese government and attempting to bribe a public official.

Nearly one year later, in Oct. 2025, Sun pleaded guilty to one count of acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government.

Federal law enforcement will not allow hostile foreign nations to infiltrate the governance of our nations political bodies, First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli said. The relentlessness of PRC intelligence operations in our country must be met by equal relentlessness on our part to secure, protect, and defend the United States.

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Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA.
Liberal state Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor is launching the first television advertisement in this year's Wisconsin Supreme Court race on Feb. 10, just one day after her campaign announced it had brought in more than $820,000 during the first month of 2026.

Taylor's campaign, which has raised about $3.4 million so far, said it was an initial six-figure TV ad buy starting in Madison, Milwaukee and Green Bay. The ad is expected to run until Election Day on April 7.

Wisconsin Supreme Court justice candidates Chris Taylor, left, and Maria Lazar, right.

Taylor's conservative opponent in the race, state Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar, reported raising about $190,000 in the most recent reporting period, which covers Jan. 1 through Feb. 2. Lazar, who got in the race in October, nearly doubled her fundraising totals in the race, but is still trailing Taylor by a wide margin when it comes to campaign cash.

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Campaign funds help candidates buy airtime for television advertisements, hire campaign staff and pay for voter outreach, including text messages and mailers.

More: A look behind the cash going into Wisconsin's Supreme Court race

In her new ad, Taylor addresses rising costs and says "extremists are trying to eliminate food assistance and BadgerCare," a reference to the state's largest Medicaid program.

Her mention of food assistance references the Trump administration's decision to suspend federal food benefits during the government shutdown last fall, a move that affected 700,000 FoodShare recipients in Wisconsin.

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Taylor also mentions Wisconsin's 1849 abortion ban, a state law that had banned abortions in nearly every situation that was invalidated in a 4-3 ruling in July by the liberal-controlled state Supreme Court.

"Our courts are our last line of defense," Taylor says, standing in a courtroom in her black judicial robe. "That's why I'm running for state Supreme Court."

Liberals hold a 4-3 majority on the court. A Taylor victory in April would extend that majority to 5-2 and a Lazar win would maintain the current split. The two judges are running to succeed Justice Rebecca Bradley, a leading conservative on the court who decided not to run for another 10-year term.

The two candidates are scheduled to participate in a televised debate on March 25.

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Taylor was appointed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to the Dane County Circuit Court bench in 2020. She previously served for about 10 years in the state Legislature and was known as one of the most liberal members. Before joining the state Assembly in 2011, Taylor served as public policy director for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin. She's been a judge on the Madison-based District IV Court of Appeals since 2023.

"I've spent my career standing up for Wisconsin families, for abortion rights, and domestic violence survivors," Taylor says in her ad. "And I'll keep protecting Wisconsin on the state Supreme Court."

Lazar has been on the Waukesha-based District 2 Court of Appeals since 2022. She previously served as a Waukesha County judge, an assistant attorney general under Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, and as an attorney in private practice.

Lazar's campaign reported having 357 new donors since the start of the year.

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"While our opponent relies on a year-long head start from the same old political machines,Judge Lazar is building a new style of campaign focused on the voters who feel leftbehind by a polarized system," Lazar campaign spokesperson Nathan Conrad said in a statement.

Taylor, who reported having $2 million cash in hand, said she had more than 10,000 donors in the latest reporting period.

"Voters across Wisconsin know this election matters and they want a justice they can count on to protect their rights and freedoms," Taylor campaign manager Ashley Franz said in a statement.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Chris Taylor launches first Supreme Court ad with big funding edge
The Vatican Bank has announced this Tuesday the launch of two equity indices, both in the US and in the eurozone, selecting stocks from firms that purportedly respect and adhere to Catholic tenets.

The initiative was set up in partnership with Morningstar and represents an abnormal association between the Vatican and the financial sector.

The Vatican Bank is officially known as the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR) and these new indices are labelled as the Morningstar IOR US Catholic Principles and the Morningstar IOR Eurozone Catholic Principles.

Each of these indices holds 50 medium and large-cap companies, including Big Tech and major financial firms, that the Vatican Bank argues are "consistent with Catholic teachings on life issues, social responsibility and environmental protection".

According to Morningstar, the fund's top American holdings feature companies like Meta and Amazon, while its European counterpart includes firms such as ASML, Deutsche Telekom and SAP.

This partnership between the Vatican Bank and Morningstar comes after initiatives to rehabilitate the IOR's image, which had been damaged over the years through various scandals involving fraudulent activities such as misappropriation of funds.

The late Pope Francis had already ratified a series of reforms to address those problems.

Related

ESG outflows and Catholic-based investing

This move by the Vatican Bank also occurs during a period when ESG funds are experiencing substantial outflows.

However, the concept of Catholic-based investing is not new or unique. These new indices already face rivals in the sector.

For example, there is a US-based ETF named S&P 500 Catholic Values Index structured in a similar way and worth over $1bn (840mn).

Additionally, a US-based family fund named Ave Maria Mutual Funds reported over $3.8bn (3.2bn) in assets under management last year. This fund also claims to follow a Catholic-based investment strategy.
Feb. 9Kalispell City Council on Monday will review the first two chapters of the new land use plan meant to guide the city's growth for the next 20 years. Council meets at 7 p.m., Jan. 26 in City Hall, 201 First Ave. E. Councilors last month took their first look at the 150-page document, deliberating over how it should guide future housing and commercial development, including potential revisions to the future land use map to ease zoning barriers and changes to the public comment process required by state laws. The Montana Land Use Planning Act, which was passed in 2023, required 10 cities, including Kalispell, Whitefish and Columbia Falls, to draft a new guiding document that focuses on increasing housing supply through zoning and subdivision regulation reforms. Much of the document  crafted by city staff with the guidance of the Planning Commission and input from the public  echoes the growth policy Council adopted in 2017. Council plans to hold a series of work sessions to review the document before voting on whether to adopt it by May 2026. The plan's first chapter is six pages long and outlines Kalispell's existing population and estimated growth, creating a baseline for the city's projected needs. It examines the parts of town experiencing heavy growth and the strain it will put on public utilities and infrastructure. City Hall anticipates 23,000 new residents by 2045 and will need up to 10,000 additional housing units  about 500 per year  to combat high housing costs and low rental vacancy rates, according to the land use plan. Over the last roughly five years, the city has approved 7,000 units, but only 2,000 of those have been built, according to city officials. The document's 14-page second chapter outlines Kalispell's planning history and breaks down the current land use and zoning that has shaped development around the city. The city's first master plan was adopted in 1962, updated in 1974 and later replaced by the growth policy in 2003, according to the document. A major public outreach effort in 2012 resulted in the city's most recent growth policy, which was meant to guide development through 2035. Growth in Kalispell ebbed and flowed from the 1990s until between 2015 and 2025, when the city became one of the fastest-growing micropolitan areas in the nation. Kalispell's new growth policy planning area stretches three miles beyond the city's limits and spans about 28,000 acres. The chapter outlines Kalispell's intention to gear future land use toward a variety of housing types, including high-density urban residential areas, suburban neighborhoods on the fringe of city limits, as well as mixed-use centers blending housing and commercial development. Reporter Jack Underhill can be reached at 758-4407 and [email protected].
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Artist's illustration of SpaceX's Starship vehicle on the moon during an Artemis astronaut mission for NASA. | Credit: SpaceX

Elon Musk has always been locked in on Mars.

The world's richest man has repeatedly said that he founded SpaceX back in 2002 primarily to help settle the Red Planet. Indeed, the company's website places Mars front and center, explaining why the fourth rock from the sun is the best target for human exploration and expansion.

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Musk has generally been dismissive of our other off-Earth option, the moon . Just 13 months ago, for example, he stressed that SpaceX will go "straight to Mars," declaring Earth's natural satellite "a distraction."

But over the weekend, Musk threw us a curveball, announcing that SpaceX is now centering its settlement plans on the moon  at least in the short term.

"For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years," the billionaire wrote on Sunday afternoon (Feb. 8) via X , the social media platform he bought in 2022 .

"The mission of SpaceX remains the same: extend consciousness and life as we know it to the stars ," he added. "It is only possible to travel to Mars when the planets align every 26 months (six month trip time), whereas we can launch to the moon every 10 days (2 day trip time). This means we can iterate much faster to complete a moon city than a Mars city."

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Must hinted at this shift last week, in a lengthy update detailing SpaceX's plans to operate a million-strong constellation of data-center satellites in Earth orbit.

The vehicle that will launch all of these satellites is Starship , the fully reusable megarocket that SpaceX has been developing to achieve its off-Earth settlement goals. In that Feb. 2 update, Musk stressed Starship's lunar potential.

"Thanks to advancements like in-space propellant transfer, Starship will be capable of landing massive amounts of cargo on the moon," he wrote.

"Once there, it will be possible to establish a permanent presence for scientific and manufacturing pursuits," Musk added. "Factories on the moon can take advantage of lunar resources to manufacture satellites and deploy them further into space. By using an electromagnetic mass driver and lunar manufacturing, it is possible to put 500 to 1000 [terawatts]/year of AI satellites into deep space, meaningfully ascend the Kardashev scale and harness a non-trivial percentage of the sun's power."

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(The Kardashev scale , named after the Soviet scientist who came up with it in 1964, classifies civilizations based on the amount of energy they can control. A Type I civilization can harness all of its home planet's power; a Type II can exploit the entirety of its star's energy, via a Dyson sphere or other such structure; and a Type III has its entire galaxy's output at its fingertips. Humanity has not even made it to Type I yet.)

But the off-Earth data-center aspect is a mere "bonus element" of the new moon-focused strategy, Elon Musk stressed in an X post on Monday (Feb. 9).

"The priority shift is because I'm worried that a natural or manmade catastrophe stops the resupply ships coming from Earth, causing the colony to die out," he wrote. "We can make the moon city self-growing in less than 10 years, but Mars will take 20+ years due to the 26-month iteration cycle. That is what matters most."

And SpaceX hasn't given up on Mars settlement. In other X posts over the past few days, Musk has emphasized that the new plan just pushes the timeline back a bit.

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"Mars will start in 5 or 6 years, so will be done in parallel with the moon, but the moon will be the initial focus," he wrote on Monday morning. In another recent post, he said that a crewed Mars flight could happen in 2031 .

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While the settlement focus on the moon is new, SpaceX has been working toward a crewed lunar mission for about five years now. In April 2021, NASA announced that it had selected Starship to be the first crewed lander for its Artemis program , which aims to establish a permanent, sustained human presence on and around the moon by 2030 or so.

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If all goes according to plan, Starship will deliver astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time on the Artemis 3 mission, which is currently expected to launch in 2028. But that timeline assumes success on Artemis 2, which will launch four people around the moon and back to Earth as soon as next month.

It also assumes that Starship will be ready, which certainly cannot be taken for granted. The giant rocket has flown 11 test flights to date, all of them suborbital, so there are a lot of development boxes left to check.

Starship still needs to ace an orbital mission, for example, and show that it can be refueled off Earth. (Each Starship lunar mission will require multiple "tanker" flights  perhaps 10 or 12 of them  to fill the vehicle with propellant for the long journey to the moon.)

Last fall, then-NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy voiced concern with the pace of Starship's development, announcing that he planned to open SpaceX's moon-landing contract up to competition from other companies , such as Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin .
Students participating in FFA work with animals and learn job skills. (Photo courtesy of Tricia Mooney)

In a state where agriculture remains the cornerstone of our economy and culture, Oregon FFA has been cultivating the next generation of leaders for nearly a century.

But FFA is about more than just cows and plows. The organization once known as Future Farmers of America changed its name to FFA in 1988, reflecting a shift from strict agricultural education more broad career development.

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Whether a student wants to get involved in farming, run their own business or dive into public service, FFA teaches valuable skills like teamwork, public speaking and parliamentary procedures that will prepare them for life after graduation.

That is why it was so disheartening to see Oregon FFA stands to lose up to $1.1 million  nearly three-quarters of its 2024 revenue  in state budget cuts. Without this funding, hundreds of students in Hermiston and across the state could lose access to FFA programs while also limiting the ability for FFA advisors to support students and their projects outside of regular school hours.

The data show that FFA and other career and technical education programs have been a major boost to Oregons high school graduation rates. Statewide, the graduation rate for all students in 2023-24 was 81.3%. For CTE participants, the rate jumped to 90.3%, and for CTE concentrators the rate was an incredible 97.7%.

Outside of a traditional four-year degree, CTE gives students the tools they need for careers in trades along with general skills that make them attractive candidates for any job they might pursue.

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State funding for Oregon FFA was most recently re-established by lawmakers in 2019. That year, House Bill 2444 allocated $1.43 million to the state Department of Education in part to finance enrollment for low-income students whose families couldnt afford the membership fees. That led to FFA enrollment here in Hermiston nearly tripling, from about 220 kids to 600.

What these kids experience through Oregon FFA is truly remarkable. The organization offers 29 different leadership and career development events each year, most of which are team contests that prioritize communication and cooperation.

We hear from employers in our community who actively seek out FFA participants to hire after graduation because their professionalism, confidence and cordiality sets them apart. As the common refrain goes, You can always tell an FFA kid by listening to them speak and how they present themselves.

Why, then, would we want to choke off access to an organization that we know is helping students graduate as it prepares them for life beyond the classroom? When you reduce opportunities for students  especially those like FFA that help them to complete their high school education  it creates an uncertain future, particularly in our rural communities.

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Along with increasing enrollment, state funding for FFA ensures that our dedicated advisors and agriculture teachers can work year-round supporting Student Agricultural Experience projects. These can range from research projects to full-fledged student-run businesses.

For example, a student might start their own livestock breeding program, with sales going to support their college education. The level of commitment demonstrated by both students and their advisors is exceptional, and worthy of the states investment. We need leadership in our schools, our communities, and our state, and FFA helps grow the citizens we want leading us in the future.

The Legislature that created Oregons current FFA funding model recognized its essential role in sustaining career and technical education and our agricultural workforce. While we understand the budget pressures lawmakers now face, cutting this funding would be a step backward with lasting consequences for our workforce, our communities, and our food systems. FFA is an investment that works, and one Oregon cannot afford to abandon.
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado claims that a close ally has been kidnapped, just hours after he was released from prison.

The government released several prominent opposition members on Sunday.

Machado said on social media that Juan Pablo Guanipa was abducted around midnight in a residential neighborhood of the capital, Caracas.

Heavily armed men, dressed in civilian clothes, arrived in four vehicles and violently took him away, she posted on X.

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We demand his immediate release.

Guanipa and others were released following growing pressure on acting President Delcy Rodriguez to free those whose detention is linked to their political activities.

Opposition leader Juan Pablo Guanipa rides on the back of a motorcycle after his release from prison in Caracas, Venezuela (AP)

It also comes after representatives of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights visited Venezuela.

The governments press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Monday.

Rodriguez was sworn in as Venezuelas acting president after the January 3 capture of then-President Nicolas Maduro by the U.S. military. Her government began releasing prisoners days later.

Some of those freed Sunday joined families waiting outside prisons for their loved ones to be released. They chanted We are not afraid! We are not afraid! and marched a short distance.

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I am convinced that our country has completely changed, Guanipa, a former governor, had told reporters hours after his release.

I am convinced that it is now up to all of us to focus on building a free and democratic country.

Guanipa records a video message to supporters after his release (AP)

Guanipa had spent more than eight months in custody.

Venezuelan-based prisoners rights group Foro Penal confirmed the release of at least 30 people Sunday.

In addition to Guanipa, Machados political organization said several of its members were among the released, including Maria Oropeza, who livestreamed her arrest by military intelligence officers as they broke into her home with a crowbar.

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Machados attorney, Perkins Rocha, was also freed.

Alfredo Romero, president of Foro Penal, expressed serious concern over Guanipa's disappearance.

So far, we have no clear information about who took him, he said on X.

We hope he will be released immediately.
SHARP COUNTY, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA)  Peter Csere, a co-founder of the controversial whites-only Arkansas community Return to the Land (RTTL), is facing a lawsuit filed by a Sharp County man who alleges Csere failed to convey legal title after collecting thousands of dollars in connection with a property transaction in Ecuador.

The lawsuit centers on Fruit Haven Eco-village, a private intentional community founded in Ecuador in 2016 that is not affiliated with RTTL.

The complaint alleges Csere and several related business entities accepted payments for a fractional land interest but never completed the legal transfer. Csere and the companies deny the allegations.

Disputed Ecuadorian transaction

John Paul MacDonald of Sharp County alleges he paid thousands of dollars for a fractional ownership share in Fruit Haven but never received legal title to any property.

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According to the lawsuit, MacDonald initially sought to purchase a parcel identified as FH4 Lot 1, briefly considered a different lot, and then returned to the original parcel. The complaint alleges shifting contracts, unsigned agreements, and unresolved registration requirements ultimately left MacDonald without any legally recognized ownership interest.

The lawsuit claims Csere and his associated companies retained [MacDonalds] funds while MacDonald received no consideration, despite repeated assurances that contracts and registration requirements were being handled. The complaint alleges that no deed, title, bill of sale, or ownership interest was ever conveyed.

1978 abuse allegations prompt lawsuit against Subiaco Academy and Abbey

MacDonald alleges his payments were routed through Cseres companies, intermediaries, and a third-party PayPal account. The lawsuit further alleges Csere solicited funds through third-party crowdfunding platforms while MacDonalds payments remained unresolved.

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MacDonald is seeking restitution, a full accounting of the funds, a constructive trust over any assets derived from the transaction, and injunctive relief to prevent further harm.

Cseres response

Csere and the named LLCs, Allegory Acres LLC, North Arkansas Excavation LLC, Global Homestead Solutions LLC, and Wisdom Woods LLC, deny nearly all of MacDonalds claims.

In court filings, the defendants acknowledge that approximately $1,724 was routed through Global Homestead Solutions LLC to Ecuador and that some payments were credited to MacDonalds account.

They argue MacDonald benefited from the property, lived there for a period of time and remains eligible to complete the purchase under Ecuadorian law.

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The defendants deny any misappropriation of funds and argue the case is governed by Ecuadorian law, not Arkansas law. They also assert MacDonalds filings do not comply with Arkansas legal requirements and contend that changes to Ecuadorian law restricting land sales to foreigners complicate the transaction. The defendants have asked the court to dismiss the case and award legal costs.

The case is pending in Sharp County Circuit Court.

Cseres departure from Fruit Haven

Csere left Fruit Haven in late 2023 amid allegations of financial misconduct raised by the communitys management.

A public notice issued by Fruit Haven claims Csere owes approximately $29,000 to property owners and community budgets, citing what it describes as unpaid obligations and unresolved financial disputes.

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This public notice serves as a cautionary advisory for individuals considering interactions with Peter Csere, the notice states. His documented history of financial disputes and conflicts warrants extreme caution, particularly in matters involving financial trust.

Csere has not publicly responded to those specific claims.

Return to the Land controversy

Since leaving Ecuador, Csere and partner Eric Orwoll, a California native, have established Return to the Land, a private, whites-only membership community on 160 acres in rural Sharp County.

RTTL describes itself as a community exclusively for white Christians, explicitly excluding Jewish people, LGBTQ individuals and followers of non-European religions. The group offers land for purchase through an LLC structure tied to individual plots, claiming this model, alongside its designation as a Private Members Association (PMA), exempts it from anti-discrimination laws such as the Fair Housing Act.

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Arkansas Department of Corrections inmates GED degree ceremony marks a 50-year effort

The community has drawn international media attention and public criticism for its racial exclusivity. Orwoll publicly acknowledged the lawsuit on social media, framing it as a threat to RTTLs survival.

everyone knew this would eventually happen. We have intentional communities of all white people, so that paints a huge target on our back, Orwoll said in a video posted to X. One of the reasons [RTTL] exists is to fight this battle and preemptively engage in legal research and formulate a model for these communities that is legal and can be securely defended.

In a Feb. 5 post on X, a user questioned whether the lawsuit was being mischaracterized online, asking whether it was unrelated to any legal precedent involving racially exclusive communities and instead concerned a separate civil dispute.

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Orwoll responded by asserting that the lawsuit targets an RTTL member and companies he says are being associated with RTTL, rather than the organization itself. Orwoll suggested the lawsuit was influenced by what he described as an anti-RTTL actor and characterized the claims against the companies as frivolous.

We believe well easily be able to get a judgment to dismiss for the companies, Orwoll wrote in his response. Still its costing us thousands of dollars because LLCs arent supposed to represent themselves pro se and we had to get a lawyer [this] it is teaching us how to reformulate to make this kind of attack impossible in the future, and that info will be shared with other communities, so its still a worthwhile investment a good lesson learned. Donated funds go to lawyers for research and defense, so its not like Im grifting for myself, all funds will be used to secure the right of White communities to exist.

Orwoll previously said he hopes to expand RTTL nationwide, with a particular focus on the Ozarks and Appalachian regions. RTTL told KNWA/FOX24 the Ozarks appeal due to its conservative culture, low crime rates and what the group considers favorable demographic.

RTTL recently expressed interest in creating a community in Missouri, outside of Springfield, calling the Show Me State a great state. Although Orwoll said in July 2025 that the group has no interest in Northwest Arkansas, the River Valley seemed like a nice area to RTTL.

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Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said his office is reviewing whether RTTLs practices violate state or federal law.

Racism has no place in a free society, but from a legal perspective, we have not seen anything that would indicate any state or federal laws have been broken, Griffins office said last year.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KNWA FOX24.
Early one morning in January last year, armed men showed up at the home of Cesar Ruiz in the village of Campo Raya in northern Colombia, close to the Venezuelan border.

Mr Ruiz himself was not there, but the men opened fire on a construction worker who happened to be inside the house.

Did you get him? Did you miss? they shouted to one another before disappearing again.

Mr Ruiz is convinced that he himself was the intended target. He is a prominent figure in his local community and a leader within a farmers organisation  the kind of profile that makes you a marked man in a long-running war between armed groups fighting for control of Colombias lucrative cocaine trade. In recent years, hundreds of people like him have been killed.

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Now, Mr Ruiz is sitting in a restaurant in the regional capital, Cucuta, some 75 miles from the front lines of the cocaine wars in his home village. Outside, his two bodyguards wait in the car, along with his bulletproof vest.

For now, I cant go back home, he says. Im living in exile.

After decades of civil war, Colombia has enjoyed a period of relative calm following a 2016 peace deal between the state and the FARC guerrilla group. Parts of the country are now stable enough to rank amongst Latin Americas top tourist destinations, drawing backpackers from around the world.

Yet elsewhere, the violence has returned. In recent years, entire regions have slid back into bloody conflict as new armed groups and gangs have risen up to exploit the power vacuum left by FARC.

Cesar Ruiz is on the ELN guerrillas death list. When fighters came to his home, they shot at the wrong man. - Torbjorn Wester

One such region is Catatumbo, a remote and mountainous region in northern Colombia. Here, ever larger swathes of the main driver of Colombias violence is spreading. The unassuming coca bush  whose leaves are the raw material for cocaine  can be harvested several times a year. In rudimentary laboratories on isolated farms, coca paste is produced using petrol and chemical solvents. From time to time, buyers arrive to transport the paste to other labs, where it is refined into cocaine.

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Then the drug begins its journey out into the world along well-established smuggling routes. Most of the cocaine produced in Catatumbo has long crossed the border into Venezuela before heading north towards the Caribbean coast.

It is a route that has recently come under intense international scrutiny. In the Caribbean, cocaine is transported from island to island in small speedboats, evading the authorities, before reaching a larger port in countries such as the Dominican Republic. There, it is loaded into shipping containers often bound for Europe.

The flow of cocaine out of Colombia has reached record levels in recent years. During the 2020s alone, the countrys potential annual production has risen from just over 1,000 tonnes to 3,000 tonnes, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). To put that in perspective, at the height of its power, the Medellin Cartel run by Pablo Escobar shipped an estimated 70-80 tonnes of cocaine to the US every month.

Sacks of coca leaves are emptied onto the ground at a makeshift laboratory - Torbjorn Wester

The coca leaves are then turned into cocaine paste using petrol and chemicals - Torbjorn Wester

That surge in production has prompted action from US authorities. Last autumn, the Trump administration began striking what it claimed were these small smuggling boats, resulting in more than 100 deaths across at least 35 operations in the Caribbean and East Pacific.

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And in early January, the United States entered Venezuela and captured the countrys leader, Nicolas Maduro. The Trump administration claimed the operation was linked to Maduros alleged involvement in cocaine trafficking and described Venezuela as a narco state. Many observers, however, argue that the motivations were more complex and that controlling Venezuelas vast oil reserves was also a factor.

Yet, there is beyond no doubt an indirect link between Venezuelas regime and the cocaine trade, says Elizabeth Dickinson, an analyst with the International Crisis Group in Bogota. The smuggling routes across the border are largely controlled by the ELN, a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group that in recent years has increasingly operated as a criminal syndicate.

In many parts of Catatumbo  especially where coca is cultivated  the Colombian states presence is so weak that the ELN effectively governs in its place. The group maintains ties to Venezuelas regime, a relationship partly explained by the fact that the impoverished government in Caracas struggles to pay its armed forces. Instead, the military has been allowed to enrich itself through ELN-controlled cocaine trafficking and other borderland activities, such as illegal mining and human smuggling.

A way of thinking about it is that it is sort of payment for service to operate in Venezuela, Ms Dickinson says.

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But the cooperation goes deeper. In the weeks before the US raid on Venezuela, it appears the Maduro regime gave the ELN the green light to tighten its grip on the border, she adds.

There has long been a fear within the Venezuelan regime that Colombia could serve as a back door for US military operations.



A large portion of the ELNs roughly 6,300 fighters are now based on the Venezuelan side of the border. There, they have enjoyed an alliance of mutual convenience with the government.

The US military has begun striking alleged drug smuggler operating out of Venezuela

Despite Maduros capture, those ties appear set to endure. The ELNs most likely allies within the Venezuelan government, the ministers of defence and interior, remain in their posts, Ms Dickinson says.

At the same time, the ELN is fighting rival armed groups competing for control of the regions lucrative criminal economy.

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To understand how this situation emerged, it is necessary to go back to the early 1990s. At the time, Colombias cocaine economy was dominated by two powerful cartels named after cities, Cali and Medellin, the latter led by Escobar.

Both were eventually dismantled  Escobar was killed in late 1993  and armed groups, notably FARC, a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla movement founded in the 1960s and locked in armed conflict with the Colombian state, moved into the drug trade. FARCs rationale for getting increasingly involved in the cocaine business was straightforward: to finance its war.



In 2016, FARC finally laid down its arms and signed a peace deal with the state. But even before the ink was dry new groups had emerged to take its place. Thats why parts of Colombia now are plagued by a mosaic of armed groups with shifting loyalties and rivalries.

The Colombian state has tried to contain them, but simply lacks the capacity to exert control over vast, inaccessible areas of its territory  especially since the United States, under Trump, scaled back its support.

A farmer in Catatumbo shows off five kilogrammes of coca paste, which is then refined into cocaine - Torbjorn Wester

From around 2018, the ELNs Catatumbo branch operated in tacit agreement with a group called the 33rd Front, consisting of FARC dissidents who refused to acknowledge the peace deal. But the former FARC fighters began pushing forward. They sought to seize control of rivers used as smuggling routes and to strengthen their influence in local communities by funding social projects.

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Eventually, the alliance collapsed. At the beginning of last year, the ELN launched an offensive against the 33rd Front and anyone suspected of even minimal links to them. Since then, Catatumbo has descended into a spiral of violence with no apparent end. In some areas, open firefights erupt between rival groups. Civilians live in constant fear of drone bombings, kidnappings and assassinations. Tens of thousands have been displaced.

It was likely men from the ELN who came to kill Cesar Ruiz in his home on 16th January last year. On that day, the ELN launched its offensive against the FARC dissidents, and there are numerous testimonies, including those collected by Human Rights Watch, describing how ELN soldiers hunted alleged FARC allies that morning, including in the area where Cesar Ruiz lives.

He is in no doubt about why he was targeted. In Colombias conflict zones, the greatest fear is to be associated with any of the guerrillas. A baseless rumour or a malicious comment online can be enough to put your life at risk  especially if you are a community leader like Ruiz.



Ive always tried to remain neutral, he says. But thats exactly why one side says Im with the other, and vice versa.



Even carrying a mobile phone in conflict areas is dangerous, he adds. Armed groups may at any moment demand access to your messages and photos  at a roadblock or during an unannounced home visit.

Theyre constantly hunting for peoples phones to check them, he says.

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Lucia  not her real name  is one of many for whom the mobile phone became a curse. She had volunteered with an organisation alleged to have indirect links to the 33rd Front. At around 11pm on October 17 last year, ELN gunmen knocked on the door of her family home in the border town of Tibu. They accused her husband of collaborating with the FARC dissidents and abducted him.

When they searched Lucias phone, they found a photo of her with a prominent figure from the same organisation.

They told me I had been sentenced to death, but that they wouldnt kill me because of my children, she says.

That night, she fled by car and motorcycle with her four children to Cucuta. When we meet her in December, she still does not know whether her husband is alive.

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If someone points at you and claims you belong to one group or another, they can kill you, she says. They dont care if youre 14, 15, 16. I know  Ive seen it.

Nina Luciana was the target of an attempted kidnapping by an armed group - Torbjorn Wester

Stories like hers are everywhere in Catatumbo.

There is the volunteer who helped internally displaced families until he was confronted by an ELN fighter. He put a gun to my sons head and told me to stop helping people who had fled, the man says.

There is the coca farmer who no longer dares visit his own land after being accused of collaborating with FARC dissidents. As long as there is coca here, there will be conflict, he says with resignation, speaking from exile.

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And then there is 12-year-old Nina Luciana, who narrowly escaped abduction. Recruiting child soldiers is a core tactic of the armed groups, who lure, coerce or, in some cases, simply seize children by force.

Nina Luciana was playing outside her home in the town of Ocana with her cousins when two men on a motorcycle approached her.



They grabbed me really hard and put a cloth over my face, she says.

She managed to scream for help, and her mother came running.

Both Nina Luciana and her mother, human rights activist Maira Alejandra Quintero Contreras, are convinced the attempted kidnapping was a retaliation for their work with the grassroots group Madres del Catatumbo por la Paz, which travels the region warning children about recruitment into armed groups.

Some time later, an armed group offered to donate disability aids to another organisation Maira Alejandra was involved with. She refused. In Catatumbos paranoid reality, that was enough to make her branded a military target  a death threat. The family now lives with security detail.

Many residents of Colombias conflict zones feel abandoned by a state unable to confront the guerrillas. In the municipality where Cesar Ruizs village lies, there is a police station. But it makes no difference, he says. Nor does the nearby military base provide any sense of security. Sometimes, the army calls him asking for information about the situation in his village.

Ive told them to stop calling, he says. Nothing ever happens anyway. The violence, the kidnappings, the displacement, it just goes on.

Additional reporting by Sofia Villamil

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College students in New Jersey are speaking out against rising cost of course materials.

Students and faculty at Rutgers Camden campus gathered to address the issue on Tuesday.

Advocates point to a recent national report that found that many students have been automatically billed for an entire semester's worth of online textbooks without their knowledge.

Representatives from Rutgers University say they do not put charges for full textbooks on bills.

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In certain courses, Rutgers instructors use digital course materials that are often delivered through a bulk licensing model that many times comes at a reduced cost.

Rutgers also maintains the Open and Affordable Textbooks Program, or OAT, which is designed to make higher education more affordable.

The OAT Program is an incentive initiative that awards funds to faculty for replacing expensive textbooks with free or low-cost materials to reduce student costs.

Through OAT, it has saved Rutgers students over $13 million since 2016.
The Brief

Valentina Forero Alvarez pleaded guilty to leading an organization that laundered over $31 million in illegal narcotics proceeds.

The scheme exploited the U.S. financial system by using couriers on tourist visas to deposit cash nationwide.

The defendant faces a maximum 20-year prison sentence and fines totaling twice the value of laundered funds.

ATLANTA - A Colombian woman who directed a sophisticated network of couriers to scrub more than $31 million in drug money through the U.S. banking system pleaded guilty to money laundering charges on Monday in federal court.

Tourist visas and shell companies

What we know

Valentina Forero Alvarez, 33, of Armenia, Colombia, led a transnational criminal organization that utilized non-citizens on tourist visas to collect and deposit bulk cash across Georgia and 14 other states.

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According to prosecutors, Forero Alvarezs scheme involved instructing couriers to fly from Colombia to the United States. Once they arrived, they picked up large sums of cash and deposited the funds into bank accounts tied to shell companies or businesses in the unregulated currency exchange market.

Investigators determined that the accounts used by Forero Alvarezs couriers received more than $31 million in cash deposits. In North Georgia alone, approximately $2.9 million was funneled through the system. During the probe, federal agents seized more than $4.8 million in suspected drug proceeds.

The network's reach was expansive, with couriers making deposits in states ranging from New York and Florida to California and Arizona.

Network worked to launder millions of dollars of drug proceeds

What they're saying

"Forero Alvarez presided over an international network that exploited our financial system to launder millions of dollars of drug proceeds," said U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg.

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"This case demonstrates the relentless commitment of Homeland Security Investigations to dismantle transnational criminal organizations that threaten the integrity of our financial system and the safety of our communities," said Steven N. Schrank, Special Agent in Charge of HSI in Georgia and Alabama.

Schrank credited the disruption of the network to "outstanding collaboration" between federal, state, and local law enforcement.

When is sentencing?

What's next

Forero Alvarez remains in federal custody. While a sentencing date has not yet been set by U.S. District Judge Steven D. Grimberg, she faces a maximum of 20 years in prison, a fine of up to twice the value of the laundered funds, and forfeiture of property involved in the crimes.

The Source

The details in this article were provided by the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Northern District of Georgia.
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP)  Colombias Attorney Generals Office said Monday it will file corruption charges against the president of national oil company Ecopetrol that hearken back to his days as a campaign manager for President Gustavo Petro.

Ecopetrol President Ricardo Roa managed the finances of Petros 2022 presidential campaign and prosecutors say they have enough evidence to prove he helped the campaign to illegally exceed spending limits.

Roa, an engineer who has served as Ecopetrols CEO since April 2023, will also be prosecuted for influence peddling, the Attorney Generals office said Monday.

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Prosecutors say Roa steered Ecopetrol contracts toward a company owned by a business owner who sold him a luxurious apartment in Bogota at a steep discount. Roa has denied the corruption charges, as well as accusations that the presidents campaign exceeded spending limits.

In November, Colombias National Electoral Council imposed a fine on Roa and two other campaign administrators for allegedly exceeding spending limits and funding the campaign with money from illegal sources.

Petros presidential campaign came under fire in 2023, when a lawyer representing a government contractor with links to a paramilitary group said his client had donated thousands of dollars to the political campaign.

The presidents son, Nicolas Petro, who is under investigation for money laundering, told prosecutors in 2023 that funds from a former drug trafficker were used in his fathers campaign.

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Petro has denied the charges against his campaign, and described them as an effort to undermine his government.

Colombia is holding congressional and presidential elections later this year. The nations constitution bars presidents from seeking reelection.

Petro has asked voters to back candidates that support his economic reforms, and to vote for members of congress that support a rewrite of the nations constitution.
Laura Clellan, the acting director of Colorado Parks and Wildlife, was announced as the sole finalist for the job after a national search that included nearly 150 candidates.

Clellan was appointed as acting director Dec. 1 when Jeff Davis was ousted from the position after serving 2 1/2 years. Clellan was chosen as the finalist by the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission and Dan Gibbs, executive director of the Department of Natural Resources, according to a department news release Feb. 9.

A public notice identifying Clellan as the sole finalist will be posted for 14 days. The commission will then hold a special virtual public meeting Feb. 23 to consider the appointment of Clellan as director. Details of that meeting will be posted on the commission's website.

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Comments regarding Clellan's selection can be sent to the commission's public comment page.

Laura Clellan was chosen as the sole finalist to become director of Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Clellan was chosen as acting director of the agency after retiring as adjutant general and executive director of the Colorado Department of Military and Veterans.

Clellan retired in October after serving as adjutant general and executive director of the Colorado Department of Military and Veterans. Clellan has more than three decades of military service and also was chief for Leadership and Employee Development in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Lakewood.

Gibbs appointed Clellan as the acting director after Gibbs announced Davis "stepped down" as a "transition" from his director position to a senior policy position under him.

However, an open records request by Aaron Adelson of 9News discovered Davis resigned because he was going to be fired by Gibbs, according to the story.

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Davis left the department soon thereafter. He was hired as a deputy director with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, a role he began Feb. 2.

Wolves just one of several hot button issues facing new director

If Clellan is appointed director, she will take over an agency facing a number of contentious issues.

CPW is embroiled in hot button issues regarding management of wolves and regulations surrounding hunting and trapping wildlife such as coyotes and beavers.

The agency also is at odds with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over its management of wolves.

The federal agency sent Clellan a threatening letter Dec. 18, 2025, that the state had 30 days to produce a complete report of all gray wolf conservation and management activities that occurred from Dec. 12, 2023, to the date of letter or it would take over management of wolves from the state.

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An open records request by the Coloradoan showed Clellan complied with Nesvik's request on the final day of the 30-day window.

The federal agency acknowledged to the Coloradoan it received the documents.

Under its agreement with the state, the federal agency can terminate its memorandum of agreement with CPW upon submission of a 60-day written notice, which would result in immediate revocation of Colorado management of wolves, the letter stated.

Eric Washburn, a big-game hunter and wolf advocate, told the Coloradoan that Clellan is "taking over at a challenging time," facing a decline in wildlife species that need recovery, including wolves, beavers and bighorn sheep.

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"She will have her hands full," Washburn said. "But she has the support of the staff and the governor, and I expect her to do a terrific job."

Tim Ritschard, a Grand County rancher and president of the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association, told the Coloradoan he has spoken to Clellan and is hopeful she will listen to ranchers' concerns regarding wolves.

"She is taking on a lot of water, swimming upriver in a flash flood with a floatie," Ritschard said. "She will need to work with landowners to bridge the gaps we have with CPW."

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Laura Clellan named sole finalist to lead Colorado Parks and Wildlife
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Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) is reshaping its leadership, with Sowmyanarayan Sampath leaving his role as CEO of the Consumer Group and Alfonso Villanueva stepping in as interim CEO.

The board is also changing, as Clarence Otis, Jr. is stepping down from his position.

New CEO Dan Schulman is publicly signaling a shift away from frequent price increases toward value-based pricing and a stronger focus on customer experience.

For you as an investor, this is all happening at the core of Verizon's business, the consumer wireless and broadband services that most people associate with the brand. The broader telecom sector has been shaped by intense competition, high capital needs for network infrastructure, and a long running focus on retaining and upselling existing customers. Leadership changes at this level can reshape how a company responds to those pressures and how it prioritizes growth, margins, and customer relationships.

Schulman's move to emphasize value-based pricing and service quality puts the spotlight on how Verizon plans to keep customers and attract new ones without leaning heavily on price hikes. As the new leadership team settles in, you may want to watch for concrete changes in plan structures, customer retention metrics, and investment in customer support, since those areas could show how this new approach is taking shape over time.

Stay updated on the most important news stories for Verizon Communications by adding it to your watchlist or portfolio. Alternatively, explore our Community to discover new perspectives on Verizon Communications.

NYSE:VZ 1-Year Stock Price Chart

How Verizon Communications stacks up against its biggest competitors

Quick Assessment

 Price vs Analyst Target : At US$47.02 versus a consensus target of about US$49.34, the share price sits roughly 5% below analyst expectations.

 Simply Wall St Valuation : The shares are flagged as undervalued, trading about 55.8% below an estimated fair value.

 Recent Momentum: The 30 day return of 16.2% shows strong recent price strength as the leadership changes are announced.

Check out Simply Wall St's in depth valuation analysis for Verizon Communications.

Key Considerations
The Denver County Jail is pictured July 18, 2020. (Faith Miller/Colorado Newsline)

When state prisons in Colorado are full, county sheriffs hold people awaiting transfer to prison in their local jails and are partially reimbursed by the state.

Colorados state prisons have been near capacity since August, and predictions that the prison population will continue to grow have state lawmakers regularly debating the addition of more beds or contracting additional facilities.

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The so-called jail backlog fluctuates as the Colorado Department of Corrections empties or fills available beds. The number of people in county jails awaiting transfer reached just under 700 as of Jan. 20. There is a higher concentration of people awaiting transfer in some county jails than others.

Someone being held in a county jail does not have access to the full medical services and programming that prisons offer for rehabilitation, and it costs the state more to pay for beds in county jails than it does to pay for beds in prisons.

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A 2018 bipartisan law intended to increase the prison vacancy rate once it remains below 3% for 30 consecutive days. The law was triggered for the first time in the fall but the measures it calls for have been ineffective, and legislators want to see more efforts from the department to reduce the prison population. A bill introduced at the Legislature this year would strengthen the original law.

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The state reimburses county jails $77.16 per person awaiting transfer to state prison per day, a rate approved by the Colorado Legislature. This rate barely covers half of the cost for some county jails.

In July, a group of sheriffs wrote to Colorado Gov. Jared Polis seeking a solution to the difficulties the jail backlog creates for them since the reimbursement rate does not cover the full cost and creates a burden, particularly for smaller counties with a lower budget.

We understand the pressure that transfer delays place on our county partners and are working closely with the Governors Office and the General Assembly to address capacity challenges, Alondra Gonzalez-Garcia, spokesperson for the Department of Corrections, said in a statement.

In Mesa County, the total cost of housing a person in jail each day as of 2024 was $120 to $130, according to Henry Stoffel, division chief at the Mesa County Sheriffs Office. The county ends up spending about $470,000 of its own money annually to hold people sentenced to state prison in its custody.

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The Mesa County jail has held an average of 30 people over the last year who have been sentenced to state prison. The jails capacity is 553 people, with the ability to go up to 621 if needed, according to Stoffel. The jails average daily population overall has been 436 over the last year.

Every time you add one individual to the facility, it increases the stressors on our employees, Stoffel said.

Some people sentenced to state prison have been in Mesa County jail for several months, Stoffel said. In Mesa County, there are more women being held for the state than men.

The DOC backlog is an increase in the jail population that we feel we shouldn't have to bear, because the inmates should be transferred to DOC in a timely manner.

 Melissa Chesmore, spokesperson for the Weld County Sheriffs Office

Mesa Countys contract with its medical provider is for 425 people, and it has to pay an extra per diem charge anytime its population goes over 425, Stoffel said. The cost to feed people in jail goes up with each additional person, too. Ultimately, Mesa County taxpayers pick up the cost when more people are in the local jail, which Stoffel said is not fair when those people should be paid for by the state.

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What would be best for the citizens of Mesa County is that either the Department of Corrections takes the inmates who have been sentenced in a timely fashion  I would expect within a week of being sentenced we should be able to get them to their facilities  or to pay the actual costs for us to hold them, Stoffel said.

When the state has open beds for people in jail in Mesa County, the sheriffs office has to drive those people to the Denver Reception and Diagnostic Center for intake  a more than 250-mile drive. Mesa County pays for the staff and travel costs to move those people to Denver, too.

Its always a scheduling issue for us to make sure we have the manpower and the ability to get over the mountains, Stoffel said.

Weld County spends over $1 million in county funds to hold people sentenced to state prison annually. Housing one person cost Weld County $185.51 each day in 2024, according to Melissa Chesmore, spokesperson for the Weld County Sheriffs Office, leaving a $108.35 deficit per person after the states reimbursement.

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The DOC backlog is an increase in the jail population that we feel we shouldnt have to bear, because the inmates should be transferred to DOC in a timely manner, Chesmore said.

The one jail in Weld County can hold up to 1,335 people. It currently has 54 people awaiting transfer to state custody, and 21 of those people have been in Weld Countys jail for over 40 days. Chesmore said 54 people takes up the equivalent of two housing units that need to be staffed 24/7.

Our supervision must match the inmates risk and need, so depending on what kind of population is in that backlog, the higher the risk and need for the inmate, the more supervision were required to provide, Chesmore said.

The state should collaborate with county sheriffs to find solutions to the jail backlog that work for everyone involved, Chesmore said.

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In Arapahoe County, 76 of the 899 people incarcerated in the county jail are being held for the state, according to Scott Luedtke, detention services bureau chief. The county bills the state $135.52 per day per person incarcerated and receives the standard $77.16 reimbursement.

The backlog is drastically lower for Denver County, whose jail is right next door to the state prison reception center. Across two facilities, Denver has about 2,400 beds, according to Sheriff Elias Diggins. He said Denver generally does not have a backlog, because the state is pretty resourceful in taking people from the county jail once they are sentenced to go to prison.

The average cost to house one person in jail in Denver is $240 per day. Diggins said the low state reimbursement rate is a concern shared by sheriffs across the state.

Editors note: This story was updated at 10:34 a.m., Feb. 11 2026, to include comment from Alondra Gonzalez-Garcia and previously to clarify how Weld County houses people awaiting transfer to state prison.

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In an effort to bring more affordable apartments to Columbus, the city is turning to some novel partners: churches and other places of worship with land to spare.

The Columbus City Council voted 9-0 on Feb. 9 to create the 'Yes in God's Backyard' pilot program. The title is a reference to 'Not in My Backyard' (NIMBY) attitudes and the countermovement, 'Yes in My Backyard' (YIMBY).

City Council President Shannon Hardin sponsored the legislation, which is his piece of the Columbus Forward package the council announced in September. Hardin developed this initiative in collaboration with leaders of area churches that own large parking lots or empty land they want to turn into housing for people in need.

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"We know that they have the land. We know that they have the interest. And now they have the support of the city," Hardin said.

The program is open to faith-based organizations, educational institutions and nonprofit organizations that want to develop affordable housing on land they already own. This legislation authorizes the city's departments of development, building and zoning, utilities and public service to fast-track the permitting and approval processes for program participants.

Shiloh Baptist Church (right) has been actively engaged in developing land around their church for affordable housing, including the Luminary apartment building to the left. Columbus City Council President Shannon Hardin met at the church on July 29, 2025, to discuss the city's affordable housing crisis.

Qualifying developments will generally include apartments for households at or below 80% of the Columbus metropolitan area's median income. For a family of four, that's income under about $87,000.

"Housing is our number one, two and three issue in Columbus," Hardin said, adding that the goal is to make it as easy as possible for partners to create more housing.

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Columbus needs more affordable apartments. The city has fewer affordable housing units per extremely low income household compared to cities like New York City and San Francisco, according to a 2025 report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) and the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio (COHHIO).

Multiple faith leaders gathered in July at a meeting convened by Hardin to discuss their institutions' role in addressing the housing crisis. Several spoke at the Feb. 9 council meeting in support of the legislation.

Adam Troy, chief engagement officer of the Community Development Foundation of New Salem Baptist Church, said this program is both practical and visionary.

"'Yes in God's Backyard' reflects a moral imperative to ensure that land stewarded for the public continues to serve the public," Troy said.

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One of the churches that is looking to take part in the program is Bethel International United Methodist Church, said Rev. John Edgar. Edgar is the retired founding pastor of the United Methodist Church for All People and still works with the church's Community Development for All People.

Edgar said the Bethel congregation is exploring the feasibility of using two acres of its land on Bethel Road for dozens of four-bedroom apartments for larger families, in particular immigrant families the church already serves.

Columbus is not the first to partner with churches on housing development. California and other states have passed versions of 'Yes in God's Backyard' legislation, which make it easier to develop housing on church-owned land. In Cleveland, a nonprofit in Cuyahoga County is seeking to develop affordable homes on church land. Ohio Sen. Michele Reynolds, R-Canal Winchester, is working on a bill in Ohio.

Hardin said this Columbus legislation is the first step, but in the future he hopes to help these organizations get more technical assistance navigating housing development.

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Government and politics reporter Jordan Laird can be reached at jlaird@dispatch.com. Follow her on X, Instagram and Bluesky at @LairdWrites.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus partners with churches to address city's housing crisis
On Jan. 5, New York state officials celebrated the one-year anniversary of congestion pricing in downtown Manhattan, which they said reduced traffic and pollution despite pushback from President Donald Trump.

Now, state lawmakers are considering legislation that could lead to congestion pricing in some areas of Massachusetts.

S.2354, sponsored by state Sen. Brendan Crighton, D-Lynn, would create a board to develop a regionally equitable congestion taxation plan on roads in the Commonwealth that see the most traffic. The board, which would be comprised of seven members, including the secretary of transportation or a designee and experts in things like tolling systems and traffic, would look at locations for tolls, how much implementation would cost and what the traffic, emissions and revenue affects might be.

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The bill was reported favorably out of the Transportation Committee in late December and next heads to the Senate Ways and Means Committee. However, it faces a long road ahead as some legislators work to make sure its fair to all state residents.

Some states and cities have highway toll lanes that allow drivers to skirt more congested areas for a fee.

Fairness in congestion pricing

Supporters of congestion pricing in New York City point to its benefits in decreasing traffic, pollution and car accidents and generating money for public transport.

But that plan faced pushback from those who said commuters had already paid for the cost of highways into the city and are now being unfairly required to pay more money to fund the transit system.

State Sen. Robyn Kennedy, D-Worcester, who is on the Senate Ways and Means Committee and has not yet committed to supporting the bill, brought up similar concerns in Massachusetts. She stressed the importance of equity in congestion pricing.

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Residents in my district, as well as all residents along the Massachusetts Turnpike, have disproportionately borne the burden of transportation taxes for decades now, she said, referencing how tolls along the Turnpike paid for the Big Dig project, which put highways that cut through Boston underground, but which residents of Worcester rarely use. Any effort that moves forward around transportation taxing needs to not only take that into account, but make amends that we have already paid our fair share of transportation taxation.

But if done right, she said that congestion pricing could help pay for the maintenance of roads and bridges, as well as invest in alternative transportation options like commuter rail and regional transit authorities that she said have been lacking in investment compared to the MBTA.

If we were starting from scratch and designing a way to fund our roads and bridges, it is a more preferable model, she said. The idea being that where the most cars are, there's going to be the most damage to those roads and bridges, and thinking about drivers that are utilizing those roads paying for that maintenance, versus a statewide increase to gas taxes or something.

Where would congestion pricing be?

The board would consider congestion pricing for roads that see the most congestion, including roadways in Greater Boston, major bridges and interstate highways near the states borders.

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This could include roads like Interstate-93 and Interstate-95, or other routes into Boston where most of the traffic occurs, Kennedy said.

How much would congestion pricing be?

Its too soon to say exactly how much a congestion toll would be, Kennedy said, although it would probably depend things like location and the cost of highway maintenance, similar to current toll pricing.

In New York City, passenger vehicles going into lower Manhattan are charged up to $9 for the day, and trucks and buses can be charged up to $21.60.

When will congestion pricing be implemented?

It could take years before congestion pricing comes to Massachusetts, even if approved, Kennedy confirmed.

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This bill, or another like it, must still make its way through the Legislature  no easy feat as the Legislature has tried and failed to start a congestion pricing study before. Further down the road, developing any polling infrastructure would have to go back through Beacon Hill, and there would also likely be opportunities for public comment.

Where else has congestion pricing been implemented?

New York is the first U.S. city to execute congestion pricing in a core district, but some other cities and states, including California, Miami, Denver, Minneapolis and Houston, have highway toll lanes that allow drivers to skirt more congested areas for a fee.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Could Massachusetts see congestion pricing like NYC?
Amid continuing walkouts and demonstrations by Utah students opposed to the federal immigration crackdown, school officials around the state are starting to worry about the potential educational impact.

Theyre also warning that walkouts  neither sanctioned nor supervised by school officials  raise safety concerns, in part due to the possibility of confrontations with others the protesters encounter.

Following a spate of student protesting last Friday, representatives from the Granite, Salt Lake City and Ogden school districts messaged parents, warning them about the potential negative repercussions of demonstrating. Students from at least one Ogden junior high school walked out and protested on Monday with more demonstrations expected around the state in coming days.

Corner Canyon High School students walkout to protest ICE at Draper City Park in Draper on Friday. | Tess Crowley, Deseret News

As we have stated in communication to families, we respect the right of students to peacefully protest. However, we have concerns about safety and the lost instruction time for students, Ogden School District spokesman Jer Bates said in a message to KSL on Monday. Our preference would be that if students choose to participate in these peaceful protests, that they do so outside of school hours with careful planning regarding time and location with the intent of ensuring safety.

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Hundreds of students walked out of classes around Utah last Friday, marching in the streets with signs critical of President Donald Trumps immigration crackdown and chanting slogans critical of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, responsible for enforcing U.S. immigration law. Students from Murray High and Hillcrest Junior High in Murray, Taylorsville High in Taylorsville, Corner Canyon High in Draper, Granger High in West Valley City and West High, East High and Highland High in Salt Lake City protested, though organizers said 15 schools in all took part in the action.

Many more students from other schools walked out and protested earlier in the week and in the last week of January as well.

Rich Stowell, spokesman for Alpine School District in Utah County, said students from five or six district high schools staged walkouts and protests last week, with around 200 students in all taking part. Other walkouts have drawn participation from as many as 250 or more students from individual Utah schools, including an estimated 350 who took part in a walkout from Highland High last week.

Generally, we would prefer that our students remain in class to continue learning. We also recognize that some issues raise passions and interest for some of our students, and we will use these events as opportunities to learn about citizenship, critical thinking and communication, Stowell said. If a student misses an hour of class, there are many opportunities to make up that hour of learning in other ways.

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Similarly, Yandary Chatwin, spokeswoman for the Salt Lake City School District, offered a measure of empathy.

We respect our students First Amendment rights and care deeply about them, their families and our broader Salt Lake community. The current political climate is challenging, and we know many in our district community are directly impacted by ongoing national and local issues, she said.

West High sophomore Alice Trentelman cheers as she and fellow West High School students protest against ICE during a walkout from their school to the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Friday. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News

However, Chatwin also noted the downside in the form of missed class time, echoing the statements last Friday from the Granite, Salt Lake City and Ogden school districts, which asked parents to discuss the matter with their kids.

Missing school has a negative impact on (students) education. While an occasional absence may not seem significant, every missed class period is a missed opportunity for learning, reads the Salt Lake City School District statement. Please speak with your student about ways to speak out on issues they care about without impacting their education. Your support matters in helping students attend their classes every day.

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The Ogden School District message noted the potential dangers for protesters of marching along busy streets, which has been typical of many of the Utah student protests. The varied messages also noted that school officials dont supervise activities off school campuses.

Students from Granger High School in West Valley City demonstrate against President Donald Trump's immigration policies on Friday. | Tim Vandenack, KSL

These conditions can pose significant risks, including the possibility of students being struck by vehicles or becoming involved in conflicts with individuals who may attempt to provoke or antagonize demonstrators. During a recent walkout, such confrontations occurred and resulted in a small conflict and police intervention, the Ogden statement reads.

Beyond that, Bates suspects some students are using protests as a pretext just to skip class.

We can only estimate, but given the numbers of students who left class compared to the approximate numbers of those who participated in the protests, it suggests that most students who left school chose to protest while others simply used it as an excuse to leave school, he said.
GRAND HAVEN, Mich. (WOOD)  A Grand Rapids contractor has been ordered to pay over $130,000 in restitution for taking payment for home improvement projects that were never finished.

Wesley Pawloski was sentenced in an Ottawa County court Monday on three counts of fraudulent use of a building contract fund, which he pleaded guilty to in June. He was placed on probation for three years and ordered to pay $139,973 in restitution, according to court records.

Deputies: Contractor cheated people out of $100K

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The Ottawa County Sheriffs Office said they began investigating Pawloski in 2023 after a resident said they had paid Blackstone Partners LLC  owned by Pawloski  for construction work, but it never got done. Investigators also found out several subcontractors that had provided services to Blackstone Partners were never paid in full for their work.

Charges were authorized against Pawloski in Aug. 2024. A month later, deputies learned Pawloski was still taking money for projects under a different business name: Designed Construction LLC. More people had paid for unfinished projects.

Pawloski was arrested and charged for those offenses in 2024 in Ottawa County.

He was also charged for a similar scheme in Kent County, entered a plea to a false pretenses charge and was ordered to pay restitution, court records show.

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Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WOODTV.com.
BERKELEY TOWNSHIP -- A plan to combine school districts in central Ocean County could lead to nearly $500,000 in savings for four municipalities, according to academic experts who presented the findings of a feasibility study at Central Regional High School.

But if Seaside Park voters decide not to participate in creating a regional preschool through 12th grade school district, the taxes of Berkeley, Island Heights and Seaside Heights residents are likely to rise significantly, according to experts from the Rowan School Regionalization Institute, who prepared a feasibility study on regionalizing the school systems.

On Monday night, Feb. 9, the regionalization team presented educators and residents with details of their feasibility study, one that explored merging the Central Regional School District, a seventh- through 12th grade district, with elementary schools in Berkeley Township, Island Heights, Ocean Gate, Seaside Park and Seaside Heights.

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Each of the five municipalities send their students to Central Regional for middle and high school, but their elementary schools have different curriculums, varying times spent on critical subjects and distinct educational outcomes.

"Educationally, a P-12 (preschool through 12th grade) system is just better for children," Lucille Davy, a member of the Rowan School Regionalization Institute, told the Asbury Park Press after the group's presentation at Central Regional High School. Davy is also a former New Jersey commissioner of education.

Central Regional High School

The study considered multiple scenarios: the creation of a comprehensive preschool- through 12th grade district, moving the sixth graders into Central Regional's middle school to alleviate some crowding in elementary schools, or to leave the schools as they are.

Regionalizing the schools would provide cost savings by cutting administration and eliminating duplicate roles across the schools, provide more special education opportunities for students in the district, and prepare students for middle school by having one curriculum shared across the system, the Rowan team said.

What would be the tax impact?

However, the potential tax impacts remain unknown.

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"State law allows for two different methods of dividing costs in regional districts," said Brian Diamante, of the Rowan Regionalization team.

The two school taxing methods rely on property values or enrollment, or some combination of the two, he said. Central Regional uses a tax formula based solely on property values of its five towns, he said.

As a result, Seaside Park pays more than 15% of Central Regional's annual school budget, despite the borough's students making up just 1% of the school district, according to the regionalization team.

Lower property values in Berkeley mean the township pays 67% of the share of the Central's budget, though its students are 84% of the student body.

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The Rowan team said if the municipalities vote to regionalize, they could negotiate a new tax arrangement, one that puts different weights on property values versus student population. They could also phase in the tax changes over several years.

"There are many possibilities," Diamante said.

The Rowan team said between school years 2027 and 2031, regionalization would create the following tax scenarios, compared to the status quo:

Property value / enrollment ratio Berkeley Island Heights Ocean Gate Seaside Heights Seaside Park 80% property20% enrollment -$2.4M -$276K -$614K -$1.1M +$4M 70% property30% enrollment -$820K -$260K -$456K -$1.6M +$2.6M 60% property40% enrollment +$792K -$244K -$298K -$2M +$1.3M

Seaside Park taxes rise in every school regionalization scenario, because the borough currently does not operate a school for its preschool through sixth grade children.

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Rather, its board of education pays tuition for Seaside Park students to attend schools in Toms River or Lavallette, without factoring the borough's property values into the cost. That results in overall lower educational costs for Seaside Park than a town of its property wealth would typically pay.

New Jersey law requires county superintendents to prepare plans to eliminate districts without schools, called "non-operating" schools districts, like Seaside Park. The law requires these non-operating districts be merged with a nearby district. However, the law also requires the county superintendent to consider tax and financial impacts of such a change.

Lisa J. Gleason, superintendent of Lavallette Elementary, questioned some of the feasibility group's findings.

"I'm curious what research supports the assertion that a common curriculum amongst all of our districts would elevate student performance, with districts with largely varying demographics," she said from the audience during a question and answer period on the presentation.

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"I don't think there's any question that a program, when students rise through a school system and a curriculum that have similar programs, similar language they're exposed to similar teaching strategies, they're going to enter the seventh grade at Central Regional better aligned in their understanding," said Scott Oswald, the lead investigator on the feasibility study.

To approve regionalizing, a majority of voters in a majority of the participating municipalities would have to agree. But if one municipality voted against the measure, that community would not be included in the regionalization plan.

For example, if Seaside Park residents voted against the measure, the borough could still participate through a tuition agreement, but it would not be a member of the regionalized school, according to the feasibility team. In addition, Seaside Park's current share of the school tax burden would shift to the municipalities that remain in the regionalized school, the Rowan team said.

In that event, and assuming school taxes were still calculated based on property values only, Berkeley taxes could rise by several million dollars, according to the Rowan team. Taxes would also rise in Island Heights and Seaside Heights, they said.

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Mark Magyar, director of the Sweeney Center for Public Policy at Rowan University, and a leading member of the Regionalization Institute, said the state's regionalization law has not yet been tested by a scenario like this.

Seaside Park's long journey to exit Central Regional

Seaside Park, which has been a part of Central Regional since its founding in 1954, has tried severing its ties to the regional middle and high school for about 20 years.

At the regional high school's founding, each participating municipality paid based on enrollment, but changes in New Jersey's school funding law later took property wealth into account. That change shifted more of the tax burden to this oceanside community.

Seaside Park attempted to sever its relationship with Central Regional in 2005, with a petition to dissolve the regional district. At the time, state educational officials said the negative impacts on Ocean Gate and Berkeley would outweigh benefits to Seaside Park.

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Between 2009 and 2011, Seaside Park also attempted to establish an educational relationship with Toms River Regional for middle school and high school. However, courts found that the agreement was not legal, because Toms River was not enrolled in the state's "school choice" program and did not have a send-receive relationship with Central Regional.

In 2012, Seaside Park again attempted unsuccessfully to sue for its separation from Central Regional.

It remains unclear if Seaside Park's goal could finally be met by rejecting a voter referendum to regionalize its preschool through sixth graders.

"Our schools are funded, based in large part, on property taxes," said Davy, the former Education Commissioner. "People are supposed to contribute their relative wealth, in an equitable way, across the board. Wealthier communities are supposed to show the same percentages of their wealth (for school taxes) as middle income and lower income communities."

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Regionalizing schools is one way to improve the educational experience and opportunities for students in this area of Ocean County, she said.

"We ought to be making sure that we give every child the best possible chance to get a great education," Davy said. "New Jersey spends a lot of money on education, and that money should be spent in a way that really optimizes children's advantages, and their futures."

Amanda Oglesby is an Ocean County native who covers education and the environment. She has worked for the Press for more than 18 years. Reach her at aoglesby@gannettnj.com or 732-557-5701.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Regionalization proposal could stall over Seaside Park tax concerns
Court documents have revealed new details in the disappearance and death of a 17-year-old Indiana girl, including how she communicated with a Columbus man for more than a year.

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News Center 7 previously reported that the remains of Hailey Buzbee were recovered in Perry County on Feb. 2.

TRENDING STORIES:

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Tyler Thomas admitted to communicating with Buzbee for over a year using online gaming platforms and an encrypted messaging app called Session, according to our news partner, WBNS.

He also said that he used the app to plan for Buzbees runaway and transport.

Thomas admitted in an interview with detectives that he picked Buzbee up in a 2014 Acura, and claimed to have dropped her off near the Indiana/Ohio border, according to court records.

However, records state that cellphone location data contradicts that claim, and instead indicate that Thomas and his vehicle were traveling to Columbus and to Logan.

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Thomas claimed that he was alone in a cabin, but rental records show that he allegedly booked the reservation for two guests on Jan. 6.

During a search through Thomas phone, FBI agents found what appeared to be child sexual abuse material that contained a nude photo of a girl between the ages of 7 and 10 years old, according to the affidavit.

Thomas is being held in the Franklin County Jail on a bond of $1.5 million.

His attorney, Sam Shamansky, said that Thomas does not plan on posting bond, but does intend to plead not guilty to any charges related to Buzbees death.

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Court records reveal new details in the disappearance and death of 17-year-old Hailey Buzbee, detailing how investigators say she communicated with a Columbus man for more than a year before leaving her Indiana home and traveling with him to Ohio.

Buzbee, of Fishers, Indiana, was reported missing on Jan. 6. Fishers police identified 39-year-old Tyler Thomas, of Columbus, as a suspect, saying investigators believe she left her home with him the previous night.

Detectives executed a search warrant at Thomas home and on his electronic devices on Jan. 21, where they allegedly found child sexual abuse material involving Buzbee. Thomas was charged with pandering sexually oriented matter involving a minor and tampering with evidence.

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According to Columbus Police Sgt. Joe Albert, the investigation confirmed Buzbee was with Thomas at a short-term rental property in Hocking County, where detectives believe she was killed. Authorities found her remains in Wayne National Forest in Perry County days later.

Whats in the new documents?

According to a search warrant affidavit, Thomas admitted to communicating with Buzbee for over a year using online gaming platforms and an encrypted messaging app called Session. Thomas stated that he used the app to plan for Buzbee's runaway and transport.

Records state that during an interview with detectives, Thomas admitted to having picked Buzbee up in a 2014 Acura. He claimed to have dropped Buzbee off near the Indiana/Ohio border. However, records state that cellphone location data contradicts his claim. The cellphone data places Thomas and his vehicle traveling to Columbus and to Logan.

Another search warrant affidavit says that Thomas claimed to be alone at a cabin, but rental records showed that the reservation was for two guests on Jan. 6.

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Thomas defense attorney, Sam Shamansky, previously said that Thomas turned himself in to police on Jan. 31 and led them to Buzbees remains on Feb. 1. He has not yet been charged in her death.

When the FBI searched Thomas phone, the agency found what appeared to be child sexual abuse material containing a nude photo of a girl between the ages of 7 and 10 years old, according to the affidavit.

Thomas is booked in the Franklin County jail and his bond is set at $1.5 million. Shamansky said he does not plan on posting bond, but does intend to plead not guilty to any charges related to Buzbees death.
A newly unsealed affidavit written by an FBI agent details the legal basis for a search of an elections office in Fulton County, Georgia, last month, when investigators seized material related to the 2020 election.

According to the affidavit, the search came as part of an ongoing "FBI criminal investigation into whether any of the improprieties" alleged around the 2020 election in Fulton County "were intentional acts that violated federal criminal laws." The new document also said that the FBI investigation was initiated following a referral from an attorney who worked to overturn the election results in 2020.

The affidavit listed what the agent said were five "deficiencies or defects" with the 2020 election and the subsequent counting of votes. They include issues with the number of scanned ballot images in Fulton County's possession, ballots being scanned multiple times during a recount and inconsistencies regarding tallies in an audit of ballots. The affidavit also noted that auditors "reported counting purported absentee ballots that had never been creased or folded, as would be required for the ballot to be mailed to the voter and for the ballot to be returned in the sealed envelope requiring the voter's signature for authentication."

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State officials in Georgia, including the Republican governor and secretary of state, have defended the integrity of the 2020 election for years, noting that three separate counts confirmed that Joe Biden defeated President Trump in the state. The results in Georgia were at the center of Mr. Trump's efforts to overturn the election. Fulton County is a key Democratic stronghold.

On Jan. 29, the FBI executed a search warrant at a Fulton County elections office, seeking to take ballots and other records related to the 2020 vote.

Last week, Fulton County Commission Chairman Robb Pitts and the county's Board of Registration and Elections filed an emergency lawsuit to compel the return of over 650 boxes containing the 2020 election-related materials. The county has asked for the "return of all original seized materials" and asked the judge for an order instructing the government "to maintain, but not review, any copies of the seized materials until this matter is resolved."

On Saturday, U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee ordered the court documents in the case to be unsealed by close of business Tuesday, including the county's motions to return the documents and to unseal the full affidavit supporting the search warrant.

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The affidavit said the current investigation originated from a referral sent by Kurt Olsen, who the FBI describes as a "Presidentially appointed Director of Election Security and Integrity." In 2020, Olsen was an attorney who worked with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to urge the Supreme Court to overturn the election results.

In 2022, Olsen was subpoenaed by the House Jan. 6 Committee, which was investigating the aftermath of the 2020 election. The subpoena alleged that Olsen "contacted various high-level officials at the Department of Justice" at the president's direction to discuss filing challenges to the election results. The committee said Olsen spoke multiple times with Mr. Trump on Jan. 6, 2021.

The FBI's search warrant for the raid sought "all physical ballots" from the 2020 election in Fulton County, as well as tapes from vote-tabulating machines, ballot images and voter rolls.

According to the affidavit, the bureau is investigating potential violations of two federal laws. One of those laws makes it a crime for elections officials to intimidate voters and to deprive them of a fair election by submitting fraudulent ballots or voter registration applications. The other law requires election officials to retain federal election records for 22 months.

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The search warrant was signed by a federal magistrate judge, which is typical in criminal cases. Authorities must show probable cause to a judge before they sign off on a warrant.

The Justice Department lawyer listed on the search warrant was Thomas Albus, interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri. On Tuesday morning, Albus formally filed his name on the court docket in Georgia, indicating he will be leading the Justice Department's court proceedings in the case. It's unclear why Albus is leading the case, and not a Justice Department attorney from Georgia.

In December, the Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit against the Fulton County clerk of courts, asking a judge to force the handover of the 2020 election-related documents. The department alleged that the county had failed to hand over the material before the lawsuit was filed. The county has moved to dismiss the suit, arguing that the Justice Department did not have a legitimate reason to obtain the records.

David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, called the FBI affidavit justifying the search "pretty weak" in an interview on CBS News' "The Takeout."

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"I was expecting a lot more in here to justify the seizure of election records from an election more than five years ago," Becker said.

He noted that the affidavit did not allege "election theft," and did not lay out any foreign connections that would explain why Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was present for the search.

Becker said the government largely pointed to "some human error on a long night working an election in the middle of a global pandemic, and that error didn't have any impact on the outcome of the election."

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Black History Month is celebrated throughout the month of February, and its origins trace back 100 years. Heres what to know about its founder, Dr. Carter G. Woodson, and how the month-long celebration of Black history and culture has evolved over the years.

Who founded Black History Month?

Portrait of American historian and educator Carter Godwin Woodson in the 1910s.

Historian Dr. Carter G. Woodson helped launch the national recognition of Black history.

Woodson was born on Dec. 19, 1875, in New Canton, Virginia. He later worked as a coal miner in West Virginia beginning at age 17 before attending high school. Woodson earned degrees from Berea College (Kentucky) and the University of Chicago before earning a doctorate from Harvard in 1912, according to the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, an organization Woodson founded in 1915.

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Black History Month dates back to 1926, when Woodson, a historian and author, launched Negro History Week to highlight the achievements of Black Americans, according to the ASALH. It later became a month-long celebration nationally recognized in the U.S.

The observance gained national recognition in the 1970s, when President Gerald Ford issued a message on the observance of Black History Week, and later Black History Month, urging Americans to honor Black contributions and the oftenoverlooked achievements of Black Americans, according to the Library of Congress.

Why is Black History Month in February?

The observance is held in February to align with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, two influential figures in Black American history, according to the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Lincoln's birth date is Feb. 12, while Douglass' birth date is recognized as being on Feb. 14.

February 2026 holidays and observances

In addition to it being Black History Month, February has several holidays and observances coming up:

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Valentine's Day: Saturday, Feb. 14

Presidents Day/ George Washingtons Birthday : Monday, Feb. 16.

Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) : Tuesday, Feb. 17

Ash Wednesday: Wednesday, Feb. 18

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Who started Black History Month? How Carter G. Woodson created it 100 years ago
FRANKFURT, Feb 10 (Reuters) - The European Commission has approved a request by Volkswagen's CUPRA brand to free its Tavascan SUV coupe, which is made in China and shipped to Europe, from import tariffs in exchange for a minimum price model, a company spokesperson said on Tuesday.

The approval caps months of intense talks between the Volkswagen brand and Brussels over a solution for the model.

"The undertaking includes an annual import quota and a minimum import price," a spokesperson for the SEAT/CUPRA division said in an emailed statement to Reuters, without giving further details.

Under EU regulation, automakers can negotiate tariff exemptions for individual electric models imported into the bloc from China.

(Reporting by Christoph Steitz and Rachel More, Editing by Friederike Heine and Madeline Chambers)
Cuban authorities have notified international airlines that they wont be able to refuel at the islands airports, as the countrys energy crisis deepens following President Donald Trumps steps to cut the islands oil supply in a push for negotiations.

The Federal Aviation Administration published notices Sunday alerting U.S. airlines that Jet A-1 fuel, commonly used for international flights, will not be available at Cuban international airports, including those in Havana, Santiago de Cuba and Varadero, starting Tuesday, and wont be available again until March 11 at the earliest.

No flights to Cuba from Miami were cancelled on Monday morning, but regular airlines and companies operating chartered flights were assessing the impact of the announcement.

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We are closely monitoring the situation, American Airlines, which operates 11 daily flights to six destinations in Cuba, said. The airline did not say whether it was expecting cancellations.

Delta Air Lines said there was no operational impact on its flights to Havana at this time. Delta operates one daily roundtrip flight from Miami to Havana.

A representative of a charter flight company in Miami, who asked not be named to discuss the companys internal deliberations, said the company was assessing whether to reduce passenger and baggage loads on flights, so the planes could return from Havana without refueling. The company was not yet considering suspending flights, the representative added.

Air Canada, a major carrier of Canadian tourists, said that effective Monday it is suspending its service to Cuba due to the ongoing shortage of aviation fuel. The airline said it would operate empty flights southbound to pick up approximately 3,000 Canadians that are currently on the island. Air Europa said it would add a stop on the Dominican Republic to refuel on its Madrid-Havana route.

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Though Cuba has issued similar temporary warnings at other times of oil shortages, this time might be different.

Cuban leaders said they havent received oil since December, when a U.S. armada blocked oil shipments from Venezuela bound for the island. Trump also recently signed an executive order to impose tariffs on Cubas oil suppliers, in a move to pressure Mexico to stop sending oil to the island.

Consultancy data and analytics firm Kpler said that Cuba received 84,900 barrels this year from a single Mexican shipment on Jan. 9. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed last week that the national petroleum company, Pemex, has halted shipments, waiting to find a diplomatic solution with the U.S. to resume the supply. The firm said Cubas oil reserves would be depleted by the end of this month, the Financial Times reported.

The warning to airlines speaks to the critical situation on the island and may worsen the outlook for the tourism industry, one of Cubas main sources of foreign revenue that has been in decline as the countrys economic crisis deepened in recent years.

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On Friday, Cubas vice prime minister, Oscar Perez Oliva-Fraga, said the government is planning to compact tourists into a smaller number of hotels as part of an austerity plan that includes severe restrictions on public transportation  especially between provinces  a four-day work schedule for state workers, reduced school hours and the suspension of non-emergency surgeries.

The government also halted sales of gasoline in Cuban pesos and rationed sales in dollars, a move that will likely affect food deliveries by Miami-based online supermarkets and private businesses.

Oliva-Fraga reassured the population the country would not collapse, departing from the more alarming tone set by the countrys leader, Miguel Diaz-Canel, the day earlier.

Cuban leaders dig in, vow to resist Trumps pressure, warn of difficult times ahead

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Diaz-Canel had warned the population that the fuel crisis would impact food distribution by the state too.

We are going to eat what is produced in each place, he said. If there is less fuel now, food will not be able to be transported from one municipality to another.

He also proposed that the population use solar ovens to cook, which prompted derision among many Cubans, who took to social media to question his remarks and his call for greater sacrifice in the name of the 67-year-old revolution.

Its impossible to demand sacrifice (its high time we said it: sacrificing ones life) when some people are poor while others are rich, said Ulises Toirac, a comedian on the island. When some people are in utter destitution while others live in such opulence that they become disconnected from the rest of society. When theres no real understanding of what it means to say difficult times are coming at the worst possible moment in peoples lives.

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Hugo Cancio, a Cuban American from Miami who supported President Barack Obamas engagement policies and is the owner of Katapulk, an online supermarket that delivers food on the island, penned an openly critical editorial on his news site On Cuba criticizing Diaz-Canels speech.

I would say it is no longer fair or reasonable to keep asking for sacrifices from people already living at the limit in order to sustain a dysfunctional system of government, Cancio told the Miami Herald. External pressures have undoubtedly had a real and negative impact, but regardless of circumstances, the fundamental responsibility of any government is to govern for the benefit of its people.

When daily life becomes a struggle for the basics, asking for more effort without offering concrete solutions ceases to be leadership and becomes a profound disconnect from the reality people are living, he added.

Despite calls for change from Cubans on the island and abroad, Cuban leaders have said they are ready to talk to the United States, but ruled out changes to its economic or political system.

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Cuba offers security cooperation to U.S. amid its harassment of American diplomats

Even at this difficult moment, Cuban authorities continued arresting those who criticize the government on social media.

The U.S. State Department called for the release of two influencers running social media accounts named El4tico who identify themselves as dissidents and have frequently referred to the Cuban government as a dictatorship.

The illegitimate Cuban regime continues with its daily acts of repression and abuses. It detained #El4tico Kamil Zayas Perez and Ernesto Ricardo Medina in Holguin simply for speaking out about the dictatorships economic mismanagement, the State Departments Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs posted on X.

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Other young influencers on the island, including four wearing Make Cuba Great Again hats, have called for the release of the two influencers in videos circulating on social media.

This time we are not going to stay silent, because we are all el4tico, Ana Sofia Benitez, a 21-year-old influencer who has gained a following exposing the governments double standards and the scarcities Cubans face, said on a video.

You cannot silence us all.

El Nuevo Herald reporter Veronica Egui Brito and Miami Herald reported Vinod Sreeharsha contributed to this report.
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Artist's illustration of a NASA moon base under construction. | Credit: NASA

Global activity in Earth orbit is booming, with cheaper launch, growing megaconstellations and the emergence of commercial actors transforming space activities. But the legal framework underpinning these activities is stuck in the 1960s, raising the question of whether we need a new approach to tackle growing challenges that threaten the sustainable use of outer space.

Satellite megaconstellations like SpaceX's Starlink , an increasing cadence of moon missions, a growing interest in orbital data centers and military activities are creating governance challenges that are increasingly difficult for nations, as well as private operators, to manage collectively.

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Even when there is agreement that something needs to be done on a given matter, such as preventing collisions between an ever-growing number of satellites , coming together and reaching agreement is tough. The main framework for space governance, the Outer Space Treaty , was formulated in 1967 during a Cold War era in which there were just a few state actors active in space, minimal space traffic and no private endeavors.

"The Outer Space Treaty and a couple of subsequent treaties govern all international space law, but they were signed at a time when basically only the United States and the Soviet Union could go to space," said Ely Sandler, a Harvard Kennedy School fellow and author of a recent paper on outer space governance.

Sandler proposes a Conference of Parties (COP) approach  similar to processes used in climate, biodiversity and arms-control negotiations  for discussing and tackling key issues in space governance, aimed at driving dialogue and developing binding norms, before avoidable crises emerge. There are two main pillars of challenges, according to Sandler, that a COP for space could address.

"The first is areas where actually, pretty much all space actors agree, not only that something needs to be done, but also what needs to be done," he said. "It's just that we don't have a mechanism for making it universal and binding."

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These areas include standardized protocols for deorbiting spacecraft, such as making sure that all satellites that go into orbit have the same way of deorbiting; space traffic management , including communication between objects and avoidance maneuvers ; and developing a liability regime that would create economic incentives for companies not to pollute the space environment.

The second pillar would be issues of future concern, such as the mining of space resources and what would be deemed to be national appropriation of such resources (something prohibited by the Outer Space Treaty); and what the Artemis Accords refer to as safety zones  marking out an area in which another spacecraft should not enter, for example, once a vehicle has landed on the moon.

A COP approach with annual conferences would allow regular meetings of experts from various countries and stakeholders to convene and discuss these key issues, opening the way for incremental lawmaking on space, instead of relying on all-or-nothing treaties that require grand bargains between a diverse range of actors. It would also provide a politically more feasible pathway to interpreting and expanding the Outer Space Treaty, Sandler thinks.

He noted that, at present, there is something of a retreat from multilateralism globally  but that might not hold for outer space.

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"International cooperation on space seems to be a little bit distinct from other areas where international cooperation has decreased," Sandler said. "We're still collaborating with the Russians on the International Space Station . There's still relatively productive debates at the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space."

While the United States has recently pulled out of a number of United Nations processes and organizations, it is still engaged in many other multinational fora and organizations.

Still, the journey toward establishing a COP for space may take time. "It's very unlikely that, because of this paper, we institute a Conference of the Parties to the Outer Space Treaty in the next two or three years," Sandler said. "What we're trying to do is move the dialog away from our current options on space, as either some huge new treaty that would establish space, like Antarctica, as a neutral ground, or no cooperation at all."

A COP for space may not immediately inspire confidence in progress, given that the COP climate process regularly and prominently faces criticism from its disparate voices. While the environmental wing claims efforts have not gone far enough, for example, there are also those arguing that countries cant be forced to decarbonize their economies.

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And yet, Sandler said, much progress has been made since the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change treaty was signed in 1992, including binding emissions targets and shared understandings of greenhouse gases and their accounting.

Crucially, unlike climate policy, which requires costly economic transformation, space governance often involves relatively low-cost coordination measures, such as communications standards or deorbit plans.

As orbital activity accelerates and lunar exploration intensifies, the need for clearer rules is becoming harder to ignore. Whether through a COP or another mechanism, the question is no longer if space governance must evolve, but how quickly it can keep pace with the realities of the new space age.
As consumers complain about their high electricity bills, Gov. Ned Lamont says he is open to slicing rates by eliminating some charges from the bill.

Lamont said he is willing to explore items that comprise the public benefits charge, which is among four different categories on a consumers electric bill. Spikes in the public charges in the recent past have outraged Connecticut consumers who pay the third highest electric rates in the nation, behind Hawaii and California.

Under a highly complicated system, more than 50 different programs are funded by the public benefits charge. Those include subsidies for electric vehicle chargers and heap pump installations, along with renewable energy projects such as long-term subsidized contracts for solar power.

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Republicans have called for eliminating the entire public benefits charge, but Lamont opposes shifting the costs to the state budget that will reach $28.7 billion in the next fiscal year that starts on July 1.

To me, moving costs from the ratepayer to the taxpayer is just a shell game. I dont think that really accomplishes much, Lamont said when asked by The Courant. But Id be happy to sit down with the legislature if there are any programs that they dont think belong that we shouldnt be paying for at all. Let me know what they are, and lets discuss that.

Lamont added, If you want to get rid of any of those programs, let me know what youre thinking about. But youve got to pay for nuclear power. Its not free. We do that as part of the public benefits charge.

Republicans and Democrats have disagreed in the past on which charges can be eliminated.

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After months of negotiations last year over a measure known as Senate Bill 4, lawmakers agreed to remove a portion of the public charges in a bipartisan bill that passed overwhelmingly in the Senate by 34-1 and the House of Representatives by 144-3. Sen. Ryan Fazio, a Republican gubernatorial candidate who led the charge on electricity charges, estimates that only about 10% of the public charges were removed last year.

Following the legislatures vote, the State Bond Commission voted 10-0 to pay for the charges by borrowing $155 million instead of having consumers pay for the totals on their monthly bills. Now taxpayers, rather than ratepayers, will pick up the tab. Fazio, who said he helped negotiate the borrowing total down from $400 million to the lower number, was among the 10 commission members who voted in favor.

After working on the issue for nearly four years, Fazio said that he is willing to continue negotiating on issues where Republicans and Democrats have often disagreed in the past as they have made incremental progress on electricity costs.

If they want to find religion this year, then I will be more the happier for it, Fazio told The Courant on Monday. Hope springs eternal, so Im always willing to give it a chance.

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On the merits, Fazio said the issue is often highly complicated and technical and lawmakers have battled over exactly how to reduce costs.

Our utility bills should not be a piggy bank for politicians in Hartford to be spending on all their politically and ideologically preferred programs, Fazio said earlier. We should cut special ratepayer subsidies for inefficient renewable energy products. We have so many different programs embedded in our public benefits that provide special subsidies to private companies producing different forms of politically preferred energy, especially solar and wind, that can sometimes cost eight times the wholesale market rate for electricity. That has the effect of increasing our public benefits charges in our electric bills by hundreds of millions of dollars.

House Republican leader Vincent Candelora of North Branford said it is difficult to reduce costs because Republicans and Democrats often cannot agree on the items to be eliminated.

First, Candelora said, referring to assistance for low-income customers and those struggling to pay, They should eliminate the program that is allowing people to opt out of their electric bill and allowing other people to pay their electric bill. It has led to major costs.

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Another problem, he said, is the storm-related costs that have been accumulating and have not been paid. The bill has now reached more than $1 billion, and the debt increases by $8 million per month with interest, he said.

It is accumulating over time, and eventually that bill is going to come due, Candelora said. Its seven years worth of storm costs.

While Democrats have pushed strongly in the past for electric vehicles, Candelora says the subsidies for EV chargers should be removed from the public benefits charge in a system that is not cost effective. Some electric buses can cost more than $500,000.

In 2021, Lamont unveiled the states first electric school mini-bus in Middletown, which cost $280,000, partly because it has four batteries that cost more than $20,000 each, officials said. A similar diesel-powered bus of the same size would cost only $80,000  a sharp difference. A full-sized electric school bus in 2021 could cost $350,000, compared to $110,000 for the diesel version, officials said.

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The technology is not there for heavyweight vehicles to be electric, Candelora said. We are seeing failure after failure, especially in New England with the cold weather. Batteries dont like the cold. To suggest that we could have electrified buses with charging stations makes no sense at all.  The point being that before we implement it, we need to make sure it will work.

Under a complicated system, a consumers electric bill is divided into four sections: supply, transmission, local delivery, and public benefits. The public benefits can be 15% of the bill, and it is dependent on the level of usage.

The supply, or generation, charge represents the actual cost of the electricity under the deregulation law that was signed more than 20 years ago by Gov. John G. Rowland. The transmission costs are regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the local delivery charges to maintain the poles and power lines are regulated by the state Public Utility Regulatory Authority.

PURA, which regulates electricity, has defended the public benefits charge. The authority says the charge covers a wide variety of areas that include the costs of state-mandated programs that support energy efficiency, renewable energy initiatives (e.g., residential solar panels), Operation Fuel, low-income loan programs, and assistance for customers struggling to pay their electric bills.

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PURA added, These programs benefit all ratepayers by promoting investments in a carbon-free electric grid, reducing reliance on fossil fuels, expanding demand management options like energy efficiency and solar power for homes and businesses, and contributing to the economic well-being, health, safety, and wellness of Connecticut residents.

Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com
You may have noticed more daylight and later sunsets in Iowa recently, signaling that daylight saving time will be here before you know it.

Daylight saving time always starts on the second Sunday of March and ends on the first Sunday of November. But what time exactly will we spring forward in 2026? Here's what to know.

When does daylight saving time begin in 2026?

Daylight saving time in Iowa starts on Sunday, March 8, at 2 a.m. CT.

Clocks will spring forward one hour to 3 a.m., making sunrise and sunset about an hour later than the previous day. This change results in more daylight in the evening, less in the morning and most people losing an hour of sleep.

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Clocks will "fall back" and daylight saving time will end in Iowa at 2 a.m. CT on Sunday, November 1, 2026.

When will the sun set after 7 p.m. in Des Moines?

The start of daylight saving will also bring central Iowa its first sunset after 7 p.m. for the year. Starting on March 8, sunset will occur at 7:13 p.m, according to timeanddate.com. The days will continue to get longer with sunset stretching to 7:38 p.m. by March 31.

Which states do not observe daylight saving time?

Not all states observe daylight saving time. Currently, daylight saving time is not observed in the following states and territories:

Hawaii

Arizona (except for the Navajo Nation)

American Samoa

Guam

Northern Mariana Islands

Puerto Rico

The U.S. Virgin Islands

Has Donald Trump passed legislation on daylight saving time?

President Donald Trump has not issued any executive orders to end daylight saving time permanently. While he has expressed support for the idea of doing away with daylight saving time, calling it "inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation," he has also referred to the move as a "50-50 issue," USA TODAY previously reported.

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Cooper Worth is a service/trending reporter for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at cworth@gannett.com or follow him on X @CooperAWorth.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: When is daylight saving time? Here's when clocks spring forward
The daughter of a man on trial in one of the biggest murder cases to play out in New Jersey in years gave gripping testimony on Monday.

Paul Caniero is accused of murdering his brother and his brother's entire family inside their home in Colts Neck, New Jersey, and then setting the home on fire.

The violence stemmed from a business dispute.

The daughter of Caniero took the stand on Monday and spoke about their once-loving, close-knit extended family.

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She also testified about the day of the murders, which she called the 'worst day of her life.'

"I walked out of the front door of the police station and I called my uncle Corey because I wanted him to go to my uncle's house and make sure everyone was OK," Katelyn Caneiro said.

On that day, Kaitlyn says she, her sister and mother were awakened by their father Paul Caneiro, before dawn saying their house was on fire.

She says first responders arrived, and after a few hours, her entire family was taken to the police station.

And that's when she says her father began crying uncontrollably, saying he was told his brother Keith's house was also on fire.

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That is the day detectives in Colts Neck had already been called to Keith Caneiro's home with Keith, his wife, Jennifer, their children, 11-year-old Jesse and eight year-old Sophia had been brutally murdered and their mansion set on fire.

Kaitlyn says she just wanted to get to her uncle's house, but the police would not let them leave.

Something went south legally in court.

Judge Marc Lemieux demanded that attorneys on both sides submit briefs by 10 p.m. Monday night concerning an issue he says was only brought to his attention today.

He was adamant.

The judge will meet with the attorneys at 8 a.m. Tuesday.

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The jury will be called to the courtroom at 9 a.m.



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MADISON  Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez walked back recent comments on cooperation with ICE this weekend following criticism from other Democrats in the party's gubernatorial primary, saying she misspoke.

Her initial answer signified a momentary breaking point within the Democratic field as others in the race voiced their disagreement.

In an interview with CBS 58, Rodriguez was asked if local law enforcement should honor an administrative warrant from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for people in their custody. An administrative warrant is issued by federal immigration officers, as opposed to a judicial warrant authorized by a judge.

Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez is a Democratic candidate in Wisconsin's 2026 gubernatorial election.

"Yes, if they have an administrative warrant, that somebody has been asked to leave the country because they have an order to leave," Rodriguez said. "And they know they are there, and they know they can go to that particular agency because they know they are there and they're looking for a specific person."

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Two days after the interview aired, Rodriguez posted on X: "I misspoke, and have been very clear on this issue and my calls for Wisconsin to lead in our response to unlawful ICE activity: no arrests without a judicial warrant."

Democratic governor candidates, top row: Former lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, Rep. Francesca Hong, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez. Bottom row: Former Administratoin Secretary Joel Brennan. Sen. Kelda Roys, former WEDC secretary Missy Hughes.

In the interim, two of Rodriguez's Democratic opponents shared her initial answer and said they disagreed.

"An 'administrative warrant' is how ICE unlawfully detained 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos. We must be strong against ICEs lawless impunity, and restore the Constitutional rule of law. As Governor Ill require a judicial warrant to detain anyone in a Wisconsin jail," said former Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation CEO Missy Hughes.

"We need a governor who is willing to defend our rights and not bow to ICEs illegitimate administrative warrants. Our law enforcement officers should only honor judicial warrants," said state Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison.

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Last month, Rodriguez said as governor she would ban immigration actions in public and private spaces. During a candidate forum, she argued immigration agents should not be allowed to enter places like courthouses and churches without a judicial warrant, and should be easily identifiable and wear body cameras.

Former Department of Administration Secretary Joel Brennan recently proposed creating a state commission that would collect footage of incidents involving federal immigration authorities and have the power to refer materials to the federal and state departments of justice.

And Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said on WISN-TV's "Upfront" this weekend that he doesn't see "any scenario where [the county] would want to partner with ICE." Crowley has previously said he would not share what he would do as governor but as county executive, he has a plan in place for any escalated immigration enforcement.

Former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes has generally pushed for comprehensive immigration reform when asked about enforcement, and in a recent CBS 58 interview, said ICE agents should not be allowed to wear masks or make arrests without a warrant.

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Both Roys and Rep. Francesca Hong, D-Madison, have called for abolishing ICE entirely.

Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the sole Republican candidate, has pledged to work with law enforcement at every level to enforce immigration laws in Wisconsin.

Jessie Opoien can be reached at jessie.opoien@jrn.com.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Dem governor candidate Rodriguez says she 'misspoke' about aiding ICE
WASHINGTON  Democratic governors from across the country say they will boycott a White House dinner and meeting with President Donald Trump after he excluded two of their colleagues from a historically bipartisan annual gathering.

Their move comes after Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis were disinvited from a White House dinner with the National Governors Association, a nonpartisan group made up of all 50 state leaders set to gather in Washington from Feb. 19 to 21. Trump this year is also welcoming only Republicans to a separate White House meeting that has historically included all governors.

In a statement to USA TODAY, 18 Democratic governors blasted Trump's decision, saying it is the most recent example of a turbulent administration

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"Democratic governors have a long record of working across the aisle to deliver results and we remain committed to this effort," the group of governors said. "But its disappointing this administration doesnt seem to share the same goal. At every turn, President Trump is creating chaos and division, and it is the American people who are hurting as a result.

"If the reports are true that not all governors are invited to these events, which have historically been productive and bipartisan opportunities for collaboration, we will not be attending the White House dinner this year," they added. "Democratic governors remain united and will never stop fighting to protect and make life better for people in our states."

More: Trump excludes two Democrats from White House dinner with governors

Democratic governors boycotting the events include many rumored 2028 presidential contenders, such as Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who chairs the Democratic Governors Association; Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the groups vice chair; California Gov. Gavin Newsom; Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

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Some of the other state leaders who've tussled with the Trump administration on various issues, such as sending the National Guard and immigration officers into their states, also signed the statement, including Tim Walz of Minnesota.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills stands as President Donald Trump speaks during a business session with U.S. governors at the White House on Feb. 21, 2025.

Others who said they wont attend the White House dinner are Tony Evers of Wisconsin, Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Kathy Hochul of New York, Laura Kelly of Kansas, Ned Lamont of Connecticut, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, Dan McKee of Rhode Island, Matt Meyer of Delaware, Janet Mills of Maine and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey.

Moore and Polis, the two Democrats who Trump excluded, are also boycotting.

'Their loss,' White House says of Democrats

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in a Feb. 10 briefing with reporters said Trump "has the discretion to invite whomever he wants to the White House, and he welcomes all those who received an invitation to come."

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"And if they don't want to, that's their loss" Leavitt said.

The NGA is no longer serving as the facilitator of Trump's meeting with Republican governors, but the president still planned to host all Democratic governors for the dinner except for Moore and Polis.

The White House has not said why Moore and Polis were singled out but not other Democratic critics of Trump. Leavitt said Moore was invited to Trump's 2025 dinner with governors but did not attend.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and

Trump last year clashed with Moore over his threats to send the National Guard into Baltimore, even suggesting at one point he could withhold funds to help with the rebuilding of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

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Trump has attacked Polis repeatedly over the state's imprisonment of Tina Peters. The former county clerk in Colorado was convicted of multiple crimes for letting someone access data from a secure voting system in an effort to prove unsubstantiated 2020 election conspiracies.

In recent weeks, Trump has blocked the completion of a major water pipeline in Colorado, pulled grant dollars from the state and moved to dismantle a major climate research center.

Beshear told USA TODAY in an interview on Feb. 8 that Democratic governors "have repeatedly pushed back and won," against the administration in court, such as a December ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that stopped Trump from deploying guard members into Chicago

During Trump's meeting with governors in 2025, the president had a memorable confrontation with Mills, the Democratic governor of Maine, over his threat to withhold federal funds from states that allow transgender athletes to play in girls' and women's sports.

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A heated exchange between Trump and Mills erupted as the president addressed the group. It ended with the governor telling Trump, "We'll see you in court."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Democratic governors to boycott White House dinner over disinvites
WASHINGTON  Democratic governors from across the country say they will boycott a White House dinner and meeting with President Donald Trump after he excluded two of their colleagues from a historically bipartisan annual gathering.

Their move comes after Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis were disinvited from a White House dinner with the National Governors Association, a nonpartisan group made up of all 50 state leaders set to gather in Washington from Feb. 19 to 21. Trump this year is also welcoming only Republicans to a separate White House meeting that has historically included all governors.

In a statement to USA TODAY, 18 Democratic governors blasted Trump's decision, saying it is the most recent example of a turbulent administration

Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff See 19 potential Democratic presidential candidates for the 2028 election 1 of 2 Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel

"Democratic governors have a long record of working across the aisle to deliver results and we remain committed to this effort," the group of governors said. "But its disappointing this administration doesnt seem to share the same goal. At every turn, President Trump is creating chaos and division, and it is the American people who are hurting as a result.

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"If the reports are true that not all governors are invited to these events, which have historically been productive and bipartisan opportunities for collaboration, we will not be attending the White House dinner this year," they added. "Democratic governors remain united and will never stop fighting to protect and make life better for people in our states."

Subsequently the NGA said on Feb. 10 the White House decision "undermines" federal and state collaboration, and that the nonpartisan group will no longer coordinate the meeting of Republican governors with Trump since all of its members have not been invited.

"Traditionally the White House has played a role in fostering these moments during NGA's annual meeting. This year, they will not. said Brandon Tatum, CEO of National Governors Association.

"The bipartisan White House governors meeting is an important tradition, and we are disappointed in the administrations decision to make it a partisan occasion this year," he added.

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More: Trump excludes two Democrats from White House dinner with governors

Democratic governors boycotting the events include many rumored 2028 presidential contenders, such as Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who chairs the Democratic Governors Association; Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the groups vice chair; California Gov. Gavin Newsom; Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

Some of the other state leaders who've tussled with the Trump administration on various issues, such as sending the National Guard and immigration officers into their states, also signed the statement, including Tim Walz of Minnesota.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills stands as President Donald Trump speaks during a business session with U.S. governors at the White House on Feb. 21, 2025.

Others who said they wont attend the White House dinner are Tony Evers of Wisconsin, Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Kathy Hochul of New York, Laura Kelly of Kansas, Ned Lamont of Connecticut, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, Dan McKee of Rhode Island, Matt Meyer of Delaware, Janet Mills of Maine and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey.

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Moore and Polis, the two Democrats who Trump excluded, are also boycotting.

'Their loss,' White House says of Democrats

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in a Feb. 10 briefing with reporters said Trump "has the discretion to invite whomever he wants to the White House, and he welcomes all those who received an invitation to come."

"And if they don't want to, that's their loss" Leavitt said.

The president still planned to host all Democratic governors for the dinner except for Moore and Polis.

The White House has not said why Moore and Polis were singled out but not other Democratic critics of Trump. Leavitt said Moore was invited to Trump's 2025 dinner with governors but did not attend.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and

Trump last year clashed with Moore over the president's threats to send the National Guard into Baltimore, even suggesting at one point he could withhold funds to help with the rebuilding of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

Advertisement Advertisement

Trump has attacked Polis repeatedly over the state's imprisonment of Tina Peters. The former county clerk in Colorado was convicted of multiple crimes for letting someone access data from a secure voting system in an effort to prove unsubstantiated 2020 election conspiracies.

In recent weeks, Trump has blocked the completion of a major water pipeline in Colorado, pulled grant dollars from the state and moved to dismantle a major climate research center.

Beshear told USA TODAY in an interview on Feb. 8 that Democratic governors "have repeatedly pushed back and won," against the administration in court, such as a December ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that stopped Trump from deploying guard members into Chicago.

During Trump's meeting with governors in 2025, the president had a memorable confrontation with Mills, the Democratic governor of Maine, over his threat to withhold federal funds from states that allow transgender athletes to play in girls' and women's sports.

Advertisement Advertisement

A heated exchange between Trump and Mills erupted as the president addressed the group. It ended with the governor telling Trump, "We'll see you in court."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Democratic governors to boycott White House dinner over disinvites
Donald Trump has instructed U.S. spy agencies to hand over sensitive intelligence to a lawyer who tried to overturn the 2020 election as part of a White House investigation into that years race, according to a report.

Kurt Olsen, a former Trump campaign lawyer who worked on the Stop the Steal movement, was brought in by the administration in October 2025 to investigate long-debunked claims that Joe Bidens election victory was the result of widespread voter fraud or other irregularities.

The election denier has been allowed access to sensitive materials as part of his probe into the 2020 election, including compartmented intelligence programs that are among the most highly classified material held by U.S. spy agencies, sources told Politico. It remains unclear whether there are any limits on the intelligence that could be shared with Olsen.

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Olsen, who has no known experience working with the intelligence community, joined the Trump administration last year as a special government employee, a short-term role that lasts no more than 130 days in any 365-day period. Trumps push to grant his former lawyer access to sensitive intelligence comes as Olsens expected time at the White House is due to end, suggesting the probe may also be nearing completion.

Kurt Olsen worked with Donald Trump to undermine the results of the 2020 election. / Screengrab/Lindell TV

People close to Trump have raised concerns about allowing a known election denier access to intelligence, questioning whether Olsen is even capable of analyzing the documents appropriately.

One source close to the president told Politico that Olsen will find some super classified report, say its evidence of fraud, but really its just completely out of context.

There are also fears that Trumpwho still falsely claims the 2020 election was riggedwill cite Olsens findings to justify attempting to control the running of the 2026 midterms. Republicans are widely expected to suffer an electoral wipeout in November, costing the GOP control of Congress.

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Trump has made a number of alarming statements about the upcoming nationwide races. Earlier this month, he suggested on former Deputy FBI Director Dan Bonginos relaunched podcast that Republicans should take over and nationalize the midterms under the guise of preventing voter fraud. He has even floated the idea of canceling the elections altogether.

Donald Trump has entered his 6th year of pushing false claims about the 2020 election results. / Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Another source close to the president told Politico that Trump views the 2020 election investigation as a test for Olsen and other election deniers who believe they could prove the race was stolen if given access to all available evidence.

Effectively what he [Trump] said was, This is your chance, the source said. Now, anything that they want, they can get.

Olsen has reportedly visited the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA, and the National Security Agency headquarters multiple times since beginning his role as a special government employee. A source told Politico that the Justice Department and the FBI are also in contact with Olsen.

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A CIA spokesperson confirmed the agency is cooperating with Olsen. The President has asked Mr. Olsen to look at intelligence related to the 2020 election and the agency is ensuring that he has the access necessary to do his work, the spokesperson said.

Olivia Coleman, a spokesperson for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, said that every individual who is granted access to classified information goes through an extensive background investigation, including record checks and personal interviews, with a trained investigator to ensure that the individual is trustworthy and does not pose a threat to national security.

Questions have been asked about why Tulsi Gabbard was present at a Fulton County, Georgia, elections center when FBI agents seized ballots from the 2020 election last month. / Alex Wong/Getty Images

The White House added that the president has the authority to provide access to classified material to individuals as he deems necessary. The entire Trump Administration is working together to ensure the integrity of U.S. elections.

Olsen previously worked with top Trump ally Kari Lake in her attempt to overturn the results of the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election. A federal judge later sanctioned Olsen for making false, misleading, and unsupported factual assertions about the race, which was won by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.

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In October 2024, The New York Times also reported that Olsen had been in direct contact with Trump in an effort to persuade him to challenge the results of that years election in key battleground states.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House, CIA, DOJ, FBI, NSA, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for comment.
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.

The surface of Mars, as seen by NASA's Viking 1 lander in July 1976. | Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA's Viking missions to Mars may have discovered evidence for life on the Red Planet after all, according to scientists who are seeking to correct what they believe to be a 50-year-old mistake that has led everybody to think that Mars is lifeless.

Viking 1 and Viking 2 landed on Mars in 1976. On board they carried three life-detection experiments, which produced positive results. But the apparent failure of another instrument, the Gas Chromatograph-Mass Spectrometer (GC-MS), to detect organic molecules necessary for life led Viking Project Scientist Gerald Soffen to conclude, "No bodies, no life."

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However, scientists led by Steve Benner, a professor of chemistry at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Florida, now argue that the Viking data shows something quite different to what the textbooks say.

"The GC-MS showed an absence of organic molecules , or at least that was the [Viking team's] interpretation," Benner told Space.com. "The problem is that we now know that it did find organic molecules!"

The GC-MS worked by heating samples of Martian dirt  first to 120 degrees Celsius (248 degrees Fahrenheit) to remove any excess carbon dioxide from Mars' atmosphere , and then to 630 degrees C (1,166 degrees F) in order to vaporize any organics present in the dirt so that they could be analyzed by the mass spectrometer.

Puzzlingly, all that the mass spectrometer detected was an unexpected second burst of carbon dioxide and a small quantity of methyl chloride and methylene chloride, when instead there should have been some organic molecules present, if only from meteoritic debris that had built up over billions of years. For there to be none at all, argued the Viking team, required an unknown oxidant. Meanwhile, the carbon dioxide was assumed to have been left over from being observed by the container holding the sample, while methyl chloride was thought to be terrestrial contamination from cleaning solvents originating from the clean room on Earth where the instrument was assembled. This conclusion was bolstered by the fact that, during in-flight tests on the way to Mars, freons such as chlorofluorocarbons that had come from the clean room had been detected.

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The problem with that interpretation, according to Benner, is that "methyl chloride is not a cleaning solvent  it's a gas that boils at minus 24 degrees Celsius [minus 191 F]."

Nevertheless, the Viking team claimed that, not only had an oxidant destroyed the organics, but that it could also explain away the other three supposedly positive life detection tests, which measured the apparent metabolization of radioactive carbon, the emission of oxygen and "carbon fixing" (the process by which life turns inorganic carbon into organic compounds). The complication is that, to explain the apparent metabolization of radioactive carbon in the so-called Label Release experiment, the oxidant would have to be very strong. The Viking team concluded that this mystery oxidant was some kind of peroxide, even though peroxides have never been detected on the Red Planet.

This explanation never sat well with some scientists, particularly Gil Levin , who was the lead investigator on the Label Release experiment and who never accepted that his experiment hadn't found life.

But if there is microbial life on Mars , where are the organic molecules? While organic molecules have been found on Mars since by the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers, most of them are believed to originate from abiotic sources, like meteorites, and although Viking had less sensitive mass spectrometers than the modern rovers, it still doesn't explain why Viking saw no organics at all. Benner said that the answer to these puzzling results came in 2008, when NASA's Phoenix lander discovered perchlorate on the Martian surface. Perchlorate is also an oxidant, strong enough to destroy organics from meteorites over the course of millennia, but not strong enough to be the oxidant that the Viking team were looking for to explain the Label Release results.

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This misses the point, according to Benner and his colleagues.

"In 2010, Rafael Navarro-Gonzalez [a NASA astrobiologist who worked on the Curiosity rover mission] showed that organics plus perchlorate produces methyl chloride and carbon dioxide ," said Benner.

In fact, the reaction produces 99% carbon dioxide and 1% methyl chloride, which would explain the extra burst of carbon dioxide and the "cleaning solvent" seen when the sample was heated to 630 degrees C.

"So now we know that the GC-MS didn't fail to discover organics  it did discover them, through their degradation products," said Benner.

The detection of organic molecules by GC-MS then strengthens the argument that the three life-detection experiments on the two Viking landers  the Label Release, the Pyrolytic Release and the Gas Exchange experiment  perhaps found life after all , which would remove the need for a strong and undiscovered oxidant.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University.

To this end, Benner and his colleagues have even developed a model for what these purported Martian microbes might be like. They call it the BARSOOM model: Bacterial Autotrophs that Respire with Stored Oxygen On Mars (Barsoom is what the natives of Mars referred to their planet as in the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs ).

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Autotrophic bacteria use photosynthesis to produce their own food, only to go dormant at night, storing oxygen that they have created to use when they reawaken. This would explain the emission of oxygen detected by Viking's Gas Exchange experiment.

Benner thinks that the initial misinterpretation of the GC-MS results has set astrobiological research on Mars back 50 years. Instead of a healthy debate about the merits of the Viking evidence for life on Mars, discussion was shut down and the official line ever since, repeated in textbooks, is that the Viking missions found no evidence for life.

To make up for lost time, Benner is now calling for that back-and-forth debate  the very nature of the scientific method  to begin in earnest now, the 50th anniversary year of the Viking 1 and 2 Mars landings.
A much-anticipated labor market update isn't due out until Wednesday morning, but the White House is already working to temper expectations.

Members of President Trump's team have offered multiple warnings that employment gains may disappoint Wall Street and have tried to downplay what a miss might indicate about the state of the US economy.

"One shouldn't panic," National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told CNBC on Monday in a clear message to investors. "You should expect slightly smaller job numbers."

But he said the results may not be a sign of broader trouble, explaining the potentially smaller numbers as a combination of a "productivity boom" and "a pretty big decline in the labor force because of illegals leaving the country."

The president himself indirectly weighed in on the subject during an interview that aired Tuesday on the Fox Business Network.

During a discussion of government cuts, the president said "I've cut hundreds of thousands of jobs and we still have good employment numbers" before suggesting he could have "the greatest employment numbers you've ever seen" if he'd left government payrolls untouched or hired more.

President Trump steps off of Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport on Feb. 6. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)  Samuel Corum via Getty Images

The jobs report for the month of January  delayed five days due to the partial government shutdown  is set to be released on Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. ET.

Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expect about 70,000 nonfarm payroll jobs were created last month, but the estimates have varied widely. The highest saw 135,000 jobs added last month, while the lowest indicated a loss of 10,000 positions.

The unemployment rate is expected to remain steady at 4.4%.

Read more: How a CD can help you prepare for  and survive  a layoff

'We have to revise our expectations down significantly'

The report comes amid a variety of signs that the US labor market could be on shaky ground. ADP reported last week that private employers added just 22,000 jobs in January, about half of what economists had expected.

The BLS's recent Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) showed job openings shrinking to the lowest level since 2020. Data from global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas showed layoff announcements in January hit the highest level since 2009.

The economy added 50,000 jobs in December, capping off the worst year of hiring since 2020.

"We are seeing pressure," Manulife John Hancock Investments co-chief investment strategist Emily Roland told Yahoo Finance, noting three recent subpar jobs reports.
WASHINGTON  With two Democratic incumbents facing competitive primaries, early campaign disclosures depict two different situations for U.S. Reps. April McClain Delaney and Kweisi Mfume.

While Mfume holds a solid fundraising edge over his most prominent challenger, Baltimore City Councilman Mark Conway, McClain Delaneys fundraising has quickly fallen behind former Rep. David Trones self-funded war chest in what is expected to be a costly campaign for both candidates.

Trone, the multimillionaire co-owner of Total Wine & More, has already committed $5 million to his campaign and has a history of heavy spending in congressional races. In the 2024 Democratic Senate primary, Trone spent roughly $60 million to boost his campaign against then-Prince Georges County Executive Angela Alsobrooks.

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Alsobrooks, whose campaign spent roughly $30 million against Trone and Republican Larry Hogan in the general election, won 53% of the vote to Trones 43%.

David will spend what it takes to bring the fight back to Washington and stand up to Trump and MAGA Republicans, Nathaniel McCarthy, a spokesperson for Trone, said in a statement to The Baltimore Sun. He wont take a dime from special interests, because hes only interested in answering to Marylanders, not corporate PACs or lobbyists. Its surprising that Congresswoman McClain Delaney has turned to corporate PACs to help defend this seat and her record of voting with Trump.

When the incumbents results are stripping away due process and strengthening Trumps mass deportation agenda, no price is too high to stand up against it, McCarthy added.

McClain Delaney raised roughly $113,000 from individuals and political committees during the end of 2025, according to a Jan. 29 campaign filing. She also loaned her campaign $300,000, leaving her with about $823,000 in cash. Trone currently has $3.6 million in cash.

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The freshman lawmaker has personal wealth to draw from. Her husband, former Rep. John Delaney, is a multimillionaire entrepreneur who founded multiple health care and lending ventures. Delaney was once estimated to be the sixth-richest member of Congress.

A Western Maryland Democrat, McClain Delaney represents Frederick, Washington, Allegany and Garrett counties and part of Montgomery County. Trone represented the district from 2019 through 2024.

Well-funded campaigns carry inherent advantages, allowing candidates to amplify their messages through advertising and voter outreach. Though the wealthiest candidate does not always win, a large war chest can significantly improve a candidates chances.

Current fundraising does not tell the full story. During her first race in 2024, McClain Delaney made repeated loans to her campaign, injecting increased sums in the month before the primary and general elections. Those loans totaled $3.87 million.

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April McClain Delaney is building a formidable campaign and will have the resources necessary to communicate her record of delivering for the Sixth District and standing up to Donald Trump, campaign manager Nick London said in a statement to The Sun. David Trone learned the hard way in 2024 that he can outspend an opponent and still lose. We dont know how much David Trone will spend, but we know that Marylanders value a record of results over a record-breaking checkbook.

As Trone seeks a return to Congress, Conway is campaigning on generational change. The 37-year-old District 4 councilman launched his challenge to Mfume in October and raised just over $87,000, according to a Feb. 6 campaign filing. Mfume, who has yet to formally announce his reelection campaign but intends to run again, raised roughly the same amount during the period.

Luca Amayo, a spokesperson for Conway, noted that all of Conways donations came from individual donors. Mfume received $25,000 from political committees.

From the start, our path to victory has been rooted in engaging grassroots voters on the issues that shape their daily lives, Amayo said. Baltimoreans want their federal tax dollars focused on issues like lowering energy bills, accelerating home ownership, and building reliable transit  not funding forever wars and genocide abroad.

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Although Mfume raised the same amount as Conway, he has a significant edge in overall funding, with $748,000 in his campaign account to Conways $87,000.

Mfume told The Sun that he wasnt surprised by how much Conway raised.

When you announce for an office and you start running, that first couple of months you get a lot of donations, Mfume said. Because family and friends and people in your neighborhood  everybody wants you to do well.

The former NAACP president said he expects similar fundraising bumps for other challengers, including Theo Gillespie and repeat candidate Tashi Davis.

Mfume, 77, would become the oldest member of Marylands congressional delegation if reelected. Rep. Steny Hoyer, a Southern Maryland Democrat, recently announced he would not seek reelection amid calls from some Democratic voters for younger representation. Hoyer is 86.

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I still have my physical stamina, which is extremely important to me, Mfume said. The day I dont have that, thats the day I think about doing something else.

Ive been blessed, I think, by Almighty God to do this, he added. I dont want to do anything else but this.

_____
The Justice Department is seeking to toss out its criminal case against former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who was jailed for declining to testify before the House Jan. 6 committee.

U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro wrote Monday that the "government has determined in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice." She asked a judge to dismiss the indictment against Bannon with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled. Pirro added that Bannon did not oppose the move.

Bannon, a media personality and former White House chief strategist, was convicted of contempt of Congress after he declined to comply with a subpoena from the House Jan. 6 panel for testimony and documents. He spent about four months in prison in 2024.

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Lawmakers on the committee had subpoenaed Bannon as part of a sweeping investigation into the events leading up to the Jan. 6 riot, including the alleged push by President Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the election. Bannon was not formally a part of Mr. Trump's team at the time, but he was a vocal supporter of the president's efforts. In its subpoena, the committee pointed to Bannon's remarks on Jan. 5, 2021, that "all hell is going to break loose tomorrow."

Bannon did not comply with the subpoena, telling the committee the information that lawmakers wanted was subject to executive privilege, a legal doctrine that allows presidents to withhold certain information. The House  which had a Democratic majority at the time  voted to recommend charging Bannon with contempt of Congress in 2021, and the Justice Department brought charges against him soon after that.

Days before his mid-2022 jury trial, Bannon's attorneys changed course and said he would be willing to testify, writing that "circumstances have now changed" and Mr. Trump had chosen to waive executive privilege. Bannon was still found guilty by a D.C.-based jury and sentenced to jail time.

Despite finishing his prison sentence in October 2024, Bannon is still challenging his conviction, asking the Supreme Court to take up his case last year. Bannon has argued that he didn't willfully defy the subpoena, and instead was following his lawyers' advice to hold off on complying until executive privilege issues could be worked out. He has also cast his contempt case as politically motivated.

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On Monday, the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to vacate an appellate ruling that upheld Bannon's conviction and send the matter back to the district court.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the request to the high court was part of an effort to "undo the prior administration's weaponization of the justice system."

"Today the Department of Justice told the Supreme Court that Steve Bannon's conviction arising from the J6 'Unselect' Committee's improper subpoena should be vacated," Blanche wrote on X.

The Justice Department's efforts to toss out Bannon's case come amid another high-profile debate over contempt of Congress.

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Lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee voted to recommend holding Bill and Hillary Clinton in contempt last month after the former president and secretary of state refused to testify in an investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. Shortly before the full House was set to take up the issue, the Clintons said they were willing to appear for depositions. The oversight panel's chair, Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, said the pair had "caved."

Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn crashes seconds into race

Shock over Lindsey Vonn's Olympic crash; Trump calls Hunter Hess a loser for comments on politics

More details emerge on whistleblower complaint against Tulsi Gabbard
Lockheed Martin has rolled out a new uncrewed undersea vehicle called Lamprey, designed to ride to and from operating areas attached to the hulls of ships and submarines. The highly modular design can also be configured to launch aerial drones, torpedoes, and decoys, as well as gather intelligence once it arrives at its destination. Also able to lie in wait on the seabed, Lamprey opens the door to new ways to watch for enemy naval activity and deny their ability to move freely if called upon.

Lamprey, which Lockheed Martin describes as a multi-mission autonomous undersea vehicle (MMAUV), has a largely square hullform and 24 cubic feet of internal payload space. It is electrically powered and features a built-in hydrogenerator that allows it to recharge its batteries during missions. It has two propulsors at the rear, as well as two mounted sideways in the body.

A rendering offering a basic overview of the Lamprey design. Lockheed Martin

Built with the U.S. Navys need for covert, assured access and sea denial operations, LampreyMMAUV can arrive in theater with a fully charged battery. Mimicking nature, it can hitch a ride on a host surface vessel or submarine, utilize hydrogenators to charge batteries and arrive in theater ready for operational missions, according to a press release put out today. Lockheed Martins LampreyMMAUV can perform a wide range of missions including delivering undersea and air kinetic and non-kinetic effects; performing intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, targeting, and multi-intelligence collection; and deploying equipment to the seafloor. 

At the time of writing, Lockheed Martin has yet to release more details about the Lampreys range, speed, or other specifications beyond its internal payload capacity.

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The aforementioned ability to launch uncrewed aerial systems, for surveillance and kinetic strike, is featured heavily in the material that Lockheed Martin has released so far, including the computer-generated video seen earlier in this story. Renderings show Lampreys equipped with up to three retractable twin-tube launchers, for a total load of up to six drones. The company has told TWZ that the specific aerial drone design seen in the materials it has released so far is meant to be a generic stand-in rather than reflect a specific existing type.

A rendering of a Lamprey with three twin-tube drone launchers. Lockheed Martin

In terms of kinetic capabilities, Lockheed Martin says Lamprey can be configured to launch lightweight torpedoes from an internal bay, as well.

Lamprey depicted launching a torpedo. Lockheed Martin capture

The Lamprey is also depicted deploying decoys that are extremely similar, at least externally, to the U.S. Navys Mk 39 Expendable Mobile Anti-Submarine Warfare Training Target (EMATT). The EMATT is designed to simulate the acoustic and other signatures of a full-sized submarine.

A depiction of a decoy launched from a Lamprey from Lockheed Martins computer-generated video, at left, and an Mk 39 EMATT being deployed by hand by a member of the US Navy, at right. Lockheed Martin capture/USN

In the same way, the MMUAV might be able to deploy sonobouys or other expendable sensors. Lockheed Martin says the undersea drone can carry its own suite of unspecified sensors, as well. This could include sonars, passive radio frequency (RF) signal detection systems, and/or optics that could be employed while submerged or sailing close to the surface.

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The computer-generated video shows Lampreys communicating via a retractable mast while running close to the surface, as well as through nodes on the seabed while submerged. In addition to being able to launch kinetic attacks itself, the MMAUV is depicted passing information to an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter flying overhead, which then fires a missile at a target ship.

However, Lampreys most significant capability is its ability to latch onto the underside of ships and submarines. This is reflected right in the name, as lamprey eels have circular, suction cup-like mouths with rows of sharp teeth that allow them to lock onto a host fish. Real-life lampreys are parasitic, feeding on their hosts once attached.

A rendering showing the Lampreys docking anchors. Lockheed Martin capture

This covert deployment capability opens a number of interesting operational possibilities, especially if the MMAUVs have a high degree of autonomy. Friendly ships and submarines could take groups of Lampreys discreetly to their destination or launch them from the stand-off positions, as well as recover them. They could also be employed from larger uncrewed maritime platforms acting as motherships. With the built-in recharge capability, the undersea drones could be employed repeatedly in the course of a single cruise, depending on their payload and mission set.

A depiction of a Lamprey attached to the underside of a US Navy Virginia class nuclear attack submarine. Lockheed Martin capture

All of this would create immense complications for opponents trying to find and fix the position of the Lampreys, which could conceivably be deployed in virtually any open-ocean or littoral environment. This would all be further compounded by the fact that Lampreys can move around themselves or lie on the seabed for at least some amount of time.

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Groups of the uncrewed undersea vehicles could, in turn, offer a new cost-effective way to establish distributed and highly disruptive networks to monitor naval movements across vast areas, and offer an immediate way to attack enemy forces, if required. Lampreys could be seeded into maritime chokepoints or other highly strategic areas to provide additional sea control and anti-access/area denial effects. With their ability to launch uncrewed aerial systems, they could surveil areas or attack targets ashore, as well. The MMAUV would be particularly well-suited to conducting such operations in more remote or otherwise denied areas that might be too risky for or just outright inaccessible to larger crewed ships and submarines.

The Lampreys docking capability raises the possibility that it could latch itself onto enemy ships and simply detonate as an explosive-filled limpet mine. Such an attack might be used to create havoc in a port or block a narrow waterway.

It should be noted that Lamprey has not yet been shown carrying munitions that would be sufficient to directly sink larger ships. At the same time, as TWZ has highlighted in the past, small loitering munitions, in particular, still cause damage that could lead to a mission kill by targeting sensors and other key systems. Large volume attacks could also eat up a vessels ready stocks of anti-air munitions and other countermeasures, something we touched on in a previous feature outline a detailed case for army U.S. Navy ships with drone swarm capabilities. All of this, in turn, could render a target more vulnerable to follow-on attacks or otherwise sideline it for a protracted period of time.

Smaller munitions also present a threat to equally smaller watercraft, crewed and uncrewed, as well as various types of targets on land. Lockheed Martins video notably shows loitering munitions launched by Lampreys engaging North Korean-designed missile boats currently in service in Iran, as well as larger surface combatants.

North Korean-designed missile boats in service in Iran, known variously as the IPS-16 and Peykaap class, seen depicted in the Lamprey video. Lockheed Martin captures

There is still much to be learned about the Lamprey and its capabilities, especially when it comes to its endurance and ability to operate autonomously. What unit cost Lockheed Martin might be targeting and how easily the MMAUVs can be produced at scale are open questions. What stage of development the Lamprey is currently in is unknown.

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Lockheed Martin is also not the first to present a concept for a modular and autonomous uncrewed undersea vehicle that could provide an array of valuable distributed capabilities, especially when deployed covertly. As just one example, Anduril rolled out its torpedo-like Copperhead family, which can be configured as underwater kamikaze drones, as well as for other missions. Concepts of operations have been put forward for Copperhead that include deployment from Andurils larger Ghost Shark uncrewed mini-submarine and via emplaced nodes on the sea floor.

The U.S. Navy has at least been experimenting with these kinds of capabilities, including concepts for launching aerial drones from uncrewed underwater vehicles, for years now. The service already has some degree of operational capacity to launch uncrewed aerial systems (and undersea ones) from its crewed submarines.

There is a growing trend in the development of various tiers of uncrewed undersea vehicles, including types that could be employed in a distributed manner, globally, as well. Chinese authorities showcased a number of previously unseen underwater drone designs during a huge military parade in Beijing last September.

Lockheed Martins unveiling of Lamprey underscores how the underwater ecosystem facing navies worldwide is continuing to evolve in terms of both capabilities and threats, which could also extend into the aerial domain.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com
A DUI suspect in custody has been identified as a 17-year-old after a violent crash in Santa Clarita that left a couple dead and their adult daughter hospitalized.

The suspect, whose name was not released because he is a minor, was being held Tuesday at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey.

According to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, the suspect was arrested on suspicion of felony DUI and manslaughter in connection with the Friday night collision. He has a valid California driver's license and no prior traffic record, investigators said.

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The deceased victims, Genry and Patty Ortiz, were driving home from church with their 25-year-old daughter at the time of the crash. The daughter, Erin, was hospitalized.

Genry and Patty were part of a local church community, and their family said they dedicated much of their time to giving back.

Around 11:15 p.m. on Friday, they were involved in a collision with another driver at the intersection of Newhall Ranch Road and Bouquet Canyon Road. One of the family members died at the scene, while the other passed away shortly afterward at the hospital, authorities said.

Eder David Ortiz, whose sister survived the crash, spoke to ABC7 on Friday about her condition.

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''She's definitely in some pain. Her wrist is very hurt. I mean, really, her whole body, she can't really move," Eder David Ortiz said. "As believers in Christ, we don't really understand a lot of things that happen, but we trust that God does it for a reason, and he's going to take care of us and help us to just overcome whatever comes our way. "I'm just trying to navigate emotions and make sure my sister's OK."

A deadly crash claimed the lives of a couple in Santa Clarita on Friday. The couple's 25-year-old daughter is still recovering, and a devastated family is left behind.

The Sheriff's Department said deputies conducted a breathalyzer test on the 17-year-old suspect at the scene, and he was arrested on suspicion of DUI.

A GoFundMe has been set up for the Ortiz family to help with funeral expenses and medical bills as their daughter, Erin, now faces life-altering injuries.

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"She's a full-time student, and she devotes her life to church as well. She's solely reliant on her parents. It definitely hits her really hard, as it's hitting all of us, but her as well," said Kaitlyn Ortiz, daughter-in-law of the deceased couple.

The family said they were relying on God and their friends and family for support.

"If you can just keep my sister in your prayers and my family. I really appreciate it," Eder David said.
Commuters are urged to check the status of their trains before they leave, after NJ Transit announced a few changes following Monday's commuter chaos.

At one point, due to Amtrak overhead wire issues, North Jersey Coast and Northeast Corridor Line rail service were bypassing Newark Airport, North Elizabeth, and Elizabeth Stations.

But, by 6:30 a.m. those bypasses were lifted. Commuters were told to expect a normal weekday commute.

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However, it was a different story on Monday. It turned out to be long and frustrating day.

Overhead wire issues caused a disabled train, then disrupted travel and caused delays and cancellations for the entire day.

New Jersey Transit and Amtrak shut down service between Newark and New York Penn Station after a downed wire brought the system to a halt around 7 a.m. Monday.

Then around 9 a.m., a train carrying passengers stopped in its tracks and a rescue train had some issues getting those stranded back to Penn Station Newark, which created a domino effect.

Authorities say during this event, a piece of debris from the overhead wires struck the windshield of the train, resulting in minor injuries to the engineer.

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The engineer was taken to a local hospital for treatment. No other injuries were reported to the 300 customers on board.

Shortly after 11:30 a.m., officials announced rail service had resumed on the Northeast Corridor Line between Penn Station New York and Trenton.

But just after 4:30 p.m., officials said NJ Transit would operate limited service for the remainder of the day due to overhead wire issues in the morning.

Trains were still operating on a reduced service for the evening commute.

Commuters were left scrambling trying to figure out a way to work or back.

"It's just like, no point coming to the office. Like I could have done more from home," a commuter said.

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"I think they do their best. And it's just the way that infrastructure is set up. What are you going to do?" another person said.

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill released a statement, saying these issues are another reason why she is fighting to get funding restored for the Gateway Tunnel.

Im closely monitoring the delays to rail service this morning along the Northeast Corridor.@NJTRANSIT is working with @Amtrak to get this resolved as quickly and safely as possible.



These delays are unacceptable, and yet another reason why Im fighting for the Gateway Tunnel. pic.twitter.com/nJWuytfK6d  Governor Mikie Sherrill (@GovSherrillNJ) February 9, 2026

Despite a judge's order to resume funding by this coming Thursday, the project is on hold.

The Gateway commission says it will not reopen the project until it gets its funding.

Customers can visit njtransit.com/abc for available alternate service information.

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Barack and Michelle Obama are not alone in deserving the apology that Donald Trump will not give.

The Obamas were the objects of his breathtakingly vile video post depicting them as apes  an insult to all decent Americans.

Once again, Trump disgraced the nations highest office. He implied that he takes us to be as vulgar and racist as he is. To be sure, there are many people like that, and he caters to their bigotry.

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Thats not who we are, but it is who Trump is.

The government had to sue Trump and his father twice to make them obey the fair housing law and rent to Black tenants in New York. He promoted the lie that Obama was not born in the U.S. He defended Nazi thugs at Charlottesville, Virginia. He accused Haitians of eating dogs and cats in Ohio.

He rails against shithole countries  meaning Black ones like Somalia  and allows asylum applications only from white South Africans. He has erased references to slavery and racism from national parks and monuments and attempts to erase diversity everywhere else, where its not his business.

The most racist thing

Its hard to believe that Trump didnt know what was in the video he says he passed to an aide to post on his social media. But even if hes being truthful for once, his problem is that the video stayed up for 12 hours before the White House, complaining of fake outrage, read the room, heard the outrage from his fellow Republicans, and took it down.

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It was encouraging to hear Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, whos Black, denounce the video as the most racist thing Ive seen out of this White House. Not the first  the most.

There should have been many more (we cant hear you, Rick Scott, Ashley Moody, Ron DeSantis, James Uthmeier, Byron Donalds and others). By their silence, they tacitly admitted they would rather tolerate Trumps gross indecency than lose support from a president who does not deserve theirs.

Hundreds if not thousands of people responded to the clip with enthusiasm, The Atlantic reported. Within 12 hours, a memecoin $APEBAMA was minted, with $4 million worth traded.

Cartoons circulated during the Civil War were printed with images similar to the one Trump posted, the magazine said.

Our endemic racism

Nothing so flagrantly racist has come from the White House since Woodrow Wilson watched and is said to have praised the silent film, Birth of a Nation, which glorified the Ku Klux Klan and depicted ex-slaves as brutes.

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The videos apparent creator was the same person responsible for a previous clip that shows Trump dropping excrement on protesters.

The Obama clip visualized one of the oldest and ugliest tropes of racism in the world. Deeply rooted in European culture, it underlay how American enslavers rationalized treating human chattel worse than livestock.

This belief, that Black people were not merely enslaved but a slave race, is the root of the endemic racism we cannot purge from this nation to this day, wrote Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of the New York Times The 1619 Project.

It is entirely in character that Trump refuses to apologize. His inability to admit wrongdoing is one of many deep voids in his character that are so profoundly inappropriate to holding the presidency.

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He is also jealous, envious, abusive, boorish, power-mad, venal, lecherous, lacking in empathy and so full of himself that he demands to have his name on everything, including, most recently New York Citys Pennsylvania Station.

Why name anything for him?

Is this really the man whose name should forever be attached to Palm Beach International Airport?

Ever since George Washington, the American people have tended to see the White House as a national shrine and to idealize its occupants as larger than life. We often expect too much of them  they too are human.

Yet its safe to say that most presidents have tried better than Trump to deserve the job and live up to it.

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Leadership, to me, means duty, honor and country, George H.W. Bush said. It means character and it means listening from time to time.

If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope, Barack Obama said.

A president can act to earn respect, as they did.

Trump is the first to willfully cultivate derision and disgust. It is curious that a man so conscious of his own image seems so heedless of how hell be remembered.

____

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, send us an email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.

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A New Hampshire magnate with ties to power players in both parties has appeared in successive batches of the Epstein files, roiling politics in his home state and threatening its two most influential political dynasties.

Documents recently released by the Department of Justice suggest that entrepreneur Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway and other devices, kept in contact with Jeffrey Epstein long after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008, with emails indicating he visited the disgraced financiers Caribbean island in 2013. Kamen has not been accused of wrongdoing and did not respond to requests for comment through his companies Monday.

The recently released files indicate a closer relationship between the two than was previously known. The disclosures have prompted Kamens organizations to launch investigations into their ties. And the situation has ratcheted up scrutiny of the New Hampshire politicians who have worked with him, received campaign contributions from him or helped his organizations secure tens of millions in federal funds.

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That includes members of the Shaheen and Sununu families, the best-known and most powerful clans in the states Democratic and Republican parties. Both have scions running for Congress this year: House candidate Stefany Shaheen, the daughter of retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), and former Sen. John E. Sununu (R-N.H.), the son of a former governor, who is seeking to return to the Senate.

They now face Epstein-fueled attacks from their lower-polling rivals.

Anywhere Epstein pops up these days, itll become a campaign issue, said Ryan Williams, a GOP strategist who has worked with Sununu and his father. And there are certainly politicians who have worked with Kamen in New Hampshire, taken his money and associated with him. And those who did will have to answer for it.

Kamen is a New Hampshire institution and local celebrity  often described as a quirky one  in a state that has few big-name figures but exerts a powerful hold on the presidential nominating process. The pioneering inventor and entrepreneur who developed the first portable insulin pump and a wheelchair that can climb stairs, Kamen is also widely credited for driving the transformation of Manchesters old mill district into a technological and health care hub . He was lauded as a hero for helping secure 91,000 pounds of protective equipment for first responders and health care workers at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic when such resources were scarce.

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Kamen has donated roughly $90,000 to federal candidates and campaign committees on both sides of the aisle over the past four decades, according to federal campaign finance filings. That includes over $7,000 apiece to Sununu, Sen. Shaheen and Kelly Ayotte, the former senator whos up for reelection as governor this year. Kamen has not made any federal campaign contributions this election cycle, per federal reports.

Hes hosted a raft of high-profile politicians at his businesses and his Bedford home over the years, from Ayotte to then-President George W. Bush . He traveled to Dubai with Sununus younger brother, then-Gov. Chris Sununu, in 2019 during a trip in which the two attended the World Government Summit . Chris Sununu, through Airlines for America, the lobbying firm he now leads, did not respond to a request for comment.

Those ties, once promoted in press releases and splashed across social media, have turned into a political liability after successive document drops showed deeper connections between Kamen and Epstein.

Photos released in December show Kamen socializing with Epstein in a tropical location and riding a Segway with Ghislaine Maxwell, the Epstein associate who was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021. Documents released on Jan. 30 showed Kamen made plans to visit Epsteins Caribbean island in 2013. At the time, assistants sent emails discussing which flight Dean prefers the girls to be on. Days later, he wrote to Epstein : thank you for hosting an incredible visit to [sic] a magical place. It really is almost unbelievable.

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Kamen did not respond to questions from POLITICO about his association with Epstein, including whether he visited Little Saint James. He previously described having limited interactions with Epstein in statements to other media outlets and has denied knowledge of his horrific actions beyond what he learned from news reports. He told The Boston Globe that Epstein had reached out to him about becoming involved in international development projects but after initial meetings, it became apparent that his only interest was self-promotion and I avoided further meetings. He did not respond to The Globes inquiry about the reference to the girls. After the latest tranche of documents was released, he recused himself from board activities of at least four companies hes involved with as they engage outside law firms to conduct independent investigations into the disclosures.

Williams, the Republican strategist, said the Epstein episode is the first real blemish thats marked his reputation in the state, and its an extremely hot issue right now.

EPSTEIN FILES AS A CAMPAIGN CUDGEL

Stefany Shaheen, who is running for New Hampshires open House seat and served as chief strategy officer for Kamens Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute from September 2018 until last month, is facing intensifying scrutiny over her dealings with Kamen. She has posted photos of her with Kamen on social media over the years, one of the two of them in the cockpit of a plane that was uploaded to LinkedIn seven years ago, and another from a gala for Type 1 Diabetes research last April where she was an honoree. Her campaign said the former was taken during a flight to Washington with others affiliated with ARMI for an American Society Of Mechanical Engineers meeting on June 14, 2018, where Kamen spoke .

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She is now facing calls from two of her Democratic primary rivals to publicly condemn Kamen . One of them, Christian Urrutia, has also accused her of potentially helping Kamen craft his statements in response to the files, which she has denied.

Theres certainly an element of transparency. I think there is a fundamental question of: Do we want our members of Congress and our senators to have these types of relationships? said Urrutia, who also asked why Sen. Shaheen did not disclose her daughters role at ARMI when securing a $1.2 million earmark for the company in 2023. A spokesperson for the senator said that her daughter was paid through non-federal funding sources and that her office was advised by Senate Ethics Committee staff that the request for funding for ARMI did not violate ethics rules.

A Republican running for the seat, state Rep. Brian Cole, has called on the younger Shaheen to drop out : Until Stefany Shaheen provides full and honest answers about her association with Dean Kamen and ARMI, she should end her campaign, he said in a statement.

Sununu, who is running to reclaim the Senate seat he lost to Shaheens mother in 2008, has faced questions over a possible reference to him in a 2010 email between Epstein and Boris Nikolic, a former Bill Gates adviser. In the email, Epstein emailed Nikolic that john sununu, has good stories, but did not provide any additional details. Its unclear what he meant or whether he was referring to the senator or his father, former governor and White House chief of staff John H. Sununu.

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The younger Sununu was a director of operations at Teletrol Systems, one of Kamens companies, in the 1990s before he was elected to Congress.

His GOP primary rival, former Sen. Scott Brown, has seized on the email to attack the Sununu familys insider ties as he attempts to gain traction in a race where the Republican establishment and the president have lined up behind his opponent. Brown said on a local podcast that Sununu needs to fully explain why his surname is mentioned in the files. Brown added on X that voters shouldnt have to guess who, or which one of their representatives were associated, or what stories are being referenced in federal documents.

The Shaheen and Sununu campaigns have sought to dismiss the criticism from their opponents.

Shaheen said in a statement that she never advised Dean Kamen on these matters and that the extent of my knowledge about his and Epsteins relationship is what has been publicly reported. Harrell Kirstein, a spokesperson for her campaign, dismissed the criticism as desperate political attacks  flat out lies  that ignore basic facts.

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Both Shaheens said they supported outside investigations of Kamen.

Sen. Shaheen said in a statement that Kamen was right to step back from his organizations, and that it was appropriate for them to conduct independent reviews to fully understand his connection to Epstein and take any action merited by the findings of those reviews.

Stefany Shaheen is the polling leader in the Democratic primary for New Hampshires blue-leaning 1st Congressional District, a position operatives in both parties attribute in large part to name recognition. A University of New Hampshire survey from January showed her with 33 percent support, and no other candidate with more than 10 percent, with 39 percent of likely primary voters undecided.

Sununu led Brown by 23 percentage points in the same poll, with 26 percent of likely GOP primary voters undecided. They both trail Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas in hypothetical general-election matchups.

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Mike Schrimpf, a spokesperson for Sununus campaign, said in a statement that John had no knowledge whatsoever of any relationship between Dean Kamen and Epstein and believes the latter was a despicable human being. Neither Sununu or his father have ever met or communicated in any way with Boris Nikolic, Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell.

He went on to attack Shaheen and Pappas  who, along with other members of the all-Democratic congressional delegation, had touted federal funding for ARMI before the Kamen scandal broke  over their connections to the entrepreneur: Unlike Chris Pappas who celebrated federal funding for Kamen's ARMI, or Stefany Shaheen who worked for him last week, John never advocated or requested funding for any of Kamen's ventures, Schrimpf said.

Gates MacPherson, a spokesperson for Pappas campaign, said in a statement that the congressman believes Dean Kamens relationship with Epstein is deeply troubling and must be independently investigated, and all federal contractors and grant awardees should be held to the highest possible standards, including ARMI and FIRST.
IZMIR  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Saudi Arabia and Egypt earlier this month, marking fresh steps in the normalization of relations with key regional powers and opening the door to new defense deals.

The first stop of the two-day tour was Riyadh, where Erdogan met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. According to official statements, both sides emphasized the need to activate existing defense cooperation agreements and expressed a shared intention to deepen military and security ties.

Speaking to reporters during his return to Turkey, Erdogan highlighted growing defense-industrial cooperation between Ankara and Riyadh, including potential joint investment in Turkeys fifth-generation fighter program, KAAN.

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He described KAAN as a symbol of Turkeys strategic autonomy, noting that discussions with Saudi Arabia included the possibility of shared investment in the program.

Cooperation on a fifth-generation fighter plane like KAAN fits into the broad agendas of both countries and would be financially, strategically, and industrially transformative for both sides, according to retired Turkish Air Force Brig. Gen. Huseyin Fazla , president of the Center for Strategic Research and Analysis (STRASAM), an Ankara based think tank.

According to Fazla, Saudi participation could fundamentally reshape the KAAN projects economics and export prospects.

A large Saudi order would slash unit costs, accelerate production, and turn KAAN into a serious global competitor, Fazla said.

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For Riyadh, the appeal goes beyond acquiring a new aircraft.

KAAN offers Saudi Arabia a strategic escape from over-reliance on Western arms suppliers and technology transfer built into the partnership, it directly supports Vision 2030 and Riyadhs ambition to build a domestic defense industry. Fazla stated.

Following his Saudi visit, Erdogan travelled to Cairo to attend the second meeting of the High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council, co-chaired with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.

During the meeting, the two countries signed a Military Framework Agreement, formalizing expanded cooperation in defense and security.

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The agreement was signed by Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler and his Egyptian counterpart, Gen. Abdel Megeed Saqr.

This is not a strategic realignment  it is strategic-economic normalization driven by pragmatism on both sides, sad Serhat Suha Cubukcuoglu, a senior fellow at the Abu Dhabi-based TRENDS Research and Advisory consultancy.

Cairo and Ankara are deepening ties horizontally across trade, defense, and diplomacy without redrawing their strategic red lines, he added.

Alongside the political and military dialogue, Turkeys state-owned defense manufacturer Makine ve Kimya Endustrisi (MKE) concluded a $350 million defense export and industrial cooperation package with the Egyptian Ministry of Defense.

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Under the agreement, Egypt will acquire the MKE TOLGA Close-In Air Defense System to counter low-altitude threats such as unmanned aerial vehicles, loitering munitions, precision-guided weapons, and cruise missiles, in a deal valued at approximately $130 million, marking the systems second international export following its earlier sale to Qatar.

Beyond the air defense procurement, the broader package includes the construction of a 155mm long-range artillery ammunition production plant in Egypt, as well as a facility for the local manufacture of 7.62mm and 12.7mm small-caliber ammunition.

MKE and Egyptian authorities also agreed to establish a joint company to manage the new production facilities and support defense exports from Egypt to regional markets, signaling a shift toward long-term industrial cooperation rather than one-off arms sales.

While Egypt is deliberately diversifying away from Western arms suppliers constrained by political conditions, Turkey is strengthening its role as a regional defense exporter and technology partner, said Cubukcuoglu.
Madagascar's military government has criticised Eswatini for hosting ousted President Andry Rajoelina last week, describing the visit as a "grave infringement of its sovereignty".

Last Friday, the Eswatini government shared photos of King Mswati III meeting Rajoelina, during which the king called on Madagascar's military junta to restore constitutional order.

In a statement, Madagascar's military leader Col Michael Randrianirina voiced his "strongest condemnation" of the visit, terming it "politically unacceptable".

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Rajoelina was overthrown last October by an elite military following weeks of youth-led protests in the Indian Ocean island.

The demonstrations were over persistent power and water shortages, culminating in the army siding with the demonstrators.

This was the first time the ousted president was seen in a diplomatic engagement since fleeing Madagascar.

King Mswati III's office said the meeting with Rajoelina was part of Eswatini's role as a facilitator in regional diplomacy and was not intended to interfere in Madagascar's domestic politics.

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In a statement, the military in Madagascar said Rajoelina had voluntarily renounced his Malagasy nationality after acquiring another citizenship, warning that any attempt to portray himself as a legitimate representative of Madagascar was "legally unfounded".

"This situation is of particular gravity in so far as the individual concerned was serving as head of state during the tragic events of September and October 2025, which claimed the lives of approximately 30 Malagasy citizens," the statement added.

The military authorities said Rajoelina's reception in Eswatini could potentially disrupt the ongoing national reconciliation and constitutional restoration process in Madagascar.

In a response on Monday, Percy Simelane, the monarchy's spokesperson said the deposed leader was not seeking "protection or intervention" from the Kingdom of Eswatini.

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Simelane said the king had consulted with the regional bloc, Southern African Development Community (Sadc), before meeting Rajoelina.

"The attack on the people of Eswatini is therefore misguided and unfortunate," he added.

Randrianirina has pledged to call new elections within two years.

Last December, Sadc directed Madagascar's military authorities to submit, by 28 February, a roadmap for restoring democracy, including plans for fresh elections.

More about Madagascar from the BBC:

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Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.

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Ethiopias foreign minister has accused neighbouring Eritrea of military aggression and of supporting armed groups inside Ethiopian territory, amid growing tensions between the neighbours.

The two longstanding foes had waged war against each other between 1998 and 2000, but signed a peace deal in 2018 and became allies during Ethiopias two-year war against regional authorities in the northern Tigray region.

But Eritrea was not a party to the 2022 agreement that ended the Tigray conflict, and relations between the two nations have plunged into acrimony since then.

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In recent months, Addis Ababa has accused Eritrea of supporting rebel fighters on Ethiopian soil  allegations Asmara denies.

In a letter dated Saturday, February 7, Ethiopian Foreign Minister Gedion Timothewos told his Eritrean counterpart Osman Saleh Mohammed that Eritrean forces had occupied Ethiopian territory along parts of their shared border for an extended period.





He also accused Eritrea of providing material support to armed groups operating inside Ethiopia.

The incursion[s] of Eritrean troops further into Ethiopian territory  are not just provocations but acts of outright aggression, his letter said.

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Timothewos demanded that Asmara withdraw its troops from Ethiopian territory and cease all forms of collaboration with rebel groups.

He also said that Ethiopia remained open to dialogue if Eritrea respected its territorial integrity. He said Addis Ababa was willing to engage in good-faith negotiations on all matters of mutual interest, including maritime affairs and access to the Red Sea through the Eritrean port of Assab.

There was no immediate comment from Eritrea on the letter.

Eritrea, which gained independence in 1993 after decades of armed conflict with Ethiopia, has however, bristled at repeated public declarations by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed that his landlocked country has a right to sea access. Many in Eritrea, which lies on the Red Sea, view his comments as an implicit threat of military action.
Revolve Group, Inc. (NYSE:RVLV) is one of the best e-commerce stocks to buy now. Revolve Group, Inc. (NYSE:RVLV) received a rating update from KeyBanc on January 22, which reaffirmed a Buy rating on the stock and set a price target of $35.00.

Are Analysts Talking About Revolve Group (RVLV)?

In a separate development, Revolve Group, Inc. (NYSE:RVLV) announced the official opening of its new store at The Grove in Los Angeles on January 13. Management stated that the company would leverage the high visibility and foot traffic in The Grove to engage new and existing customers, and showcase REVOLVE and FWRDs product assortment from established and emerging brands across apparel, beauty, footwear, accessories, and home, including in-house brands such as SRG, Helsa, and Eaves.

The same day, Morgan Stanley adjusted the price target on Revolve Group, Inc. (NYSE:RVLV) to $27 from $26, maintaining an Equal Weight rating on the shares. The firm believes that 2026 will be thematically similar to 2025 in the internet sector, and the market is likely to reward companies that exhibit material positive ROIC from GenAI or GPU-enabled technologies.

Revolve Group, Inc. (NYSE:RVLV) is an online fashion retailer for Gen Z and millennial consumers. Its operations are divided into Forward (FWRD) and Revolve segments. The Revolve segment offers apparel, footwear, accessories, and beauty products, while the FWRD segment offers luxury brands. The company sells all its products exclusively online.

While we acknowledge the potential of RVLV as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If youre looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock.

READ NEXT: 30 Stocks That Should Double in 3 Years and 11 Hidden AI Stocks to Buy Right Now.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
The European Union has proposed expanding sanctions against Russia by including ports in Georgia and Indonesia over operations involving Russian oil.

Source: Reuters, citing a document outlining the proposal

Details: Reuters noted that this would be the first time the EU has targeted ports in third countries with sanctions.

According to the proposal, the sanctions list would include the ports of Kulevi in Georgia and Karimun in Indonesia. This would ban EU companies and citizens from conducting transactions with these ports.

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The measures form part of the EU's 20th sanctions package in response to Russia's war against Ukraine.

The package also includes new bans on imports of metals, including nickel ingots, iron ores and concentrates, raw and processed copper and various types of metal scrap, including aluminium. In addition, it would prohibit imports of salt, ammonia, gravel, silicon and fur.

Quote from Reuters: "The proposal includes the use of an anti-circumvention tool against a third country for the first time. The new restrictions would ban sales of metal cutting machines and communications machines for voice, image and data transmissions like modems and routers to Kyrgyzstan.

The EU also proposed adding two Kyrgyz banks  Keremet and OJSC Capital Bank of Central Asia  to its sanctions list for providing crypto asset services to Russia, as well as banks in Laos and Tajikistan, while removing two Chinese lenders. If approved, the listed banks would be barred from transactions with EU individuals and companies."

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Details: To the existing sanctions regime, which already includes asset freezes and travel bans, the European External Action Service (EEAS) has proposed adding 30 individuals and 64 companies. These include Bashneft and eight Russian oil refineries, among them the Tuapse and Syzran plants controlled by Rosneft. The current proposal does not include Rosneft or Lukoil themselves, both of which are under US sanctions.

Background:

European Pravda previously reported that the publication by the European Commission of the contents of the EU's 20th sanctions package against Russia was somewhat delayed due to discussions surrounding the proposal for a full ban on the provision of maritime services in EU ports to all vessels transporting Russian oil.

The European Commission was expected to publish its proposal on the contents of the package earlier this week.

It is known that France had insisted that the EU's 20th sanctions package against Russia be "particularly tough" on the shadow fleet.

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European Union lawmakers on Tuesday voted in favour of lifting the parliamentary immunity of Petr Bystron, a member of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, who is facing a probe into alleged fraud.

Prosecutors in Munich have launched preliminary investigations into Bystron on suspicion that he billed a private cleaner through the Bundestag's employee allowance while he served on Germany's lower house.

Bystron was a member of the Bundestag from 2017 to 2024 before he was elected to the European Parliament in 2024.

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Following Tuesday's vote, German authorities are free to continue the fraud investigations into Bystron, who has described the proceedings as politically motivated.

This is the third time EU lawmakers have lifted the AfD politician's immunity amid a plethora of allegations.

The European Parliament first voted to lift Bystron's immunity back in April over a photomontage he published on social media showing former chancellor Angela Merkel with her arm raised and hand outstretched in an alleged Hitler salute.

He was sentenced to a fine by a Munich court in October, but both the defence and the prosecution have appealed the verdict.

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Last May, Bystron was stripped of his immunity a second time, this time in relation to alleged bribes from pro-Russian outlet Voice of Europe in exchange for pushing positions favourable to Russia in the Bundestag.

Bystron has rejected the accusations, and investigations in the case are ongoing.
Donald Trump once admitted to police that Jeffrey Epsteins criminality was well-known among his social circle.

In a recently revealed document from the Department of Justices case files on the late sex trafficker, former Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter told the FBI about a call that he had with Trump in 2006.

Reiter recalled their conversation from around the time of Epsteins first arrest in a 2019 interview with the FBI. He told the agency that Trump seemed relieved at the news of the Epstein investigation.

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Thank goodness youre stopping him, Trump supposedly said. Everyone has known hes been doing this.

Trump has previously claimed he had no idea about Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwells sex crimes involving underage girls. Reiters recollection runs counter to that. Trump allegedly told the police chief about a time that he saw Epstein and Maxwell with teenagers, telling the former top cop that he fled the scene.

He was around Epstein once when teenagers were present and Trump got the hell out of there, the file, first reported by the Miami Herald, reads.

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Per Reiter, Trump was one of the first people to contact him after the investigation into Epstein became public knowledge. He told Reiter to focus the investigation on Maxwell, calling her evil.

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The staggered release of the Epstein files has deepened a rift among Republicans. Many former staunch defenders of the Trump administration have put distance between themselves and the White House as files have revealed relationships between Epstein and Trump associates like Howard Lutnick and Steve Bannon. Trump, for his part, has called for the country to move on from Epstein conspiracy theories.

The post Everyone has known: Trump told police that Epsteins conduct was open secret appeared first on Salon.com.
As files associated with the disgraced former financier and noted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein trickle out, critics of the Justice Departments handling of the case  particularly its liberal use of redactions to protect those in power, rather than victims  are beginning to name whats going on.

We were told that MAGA was for working-class Americans. But this is a government of, by, and for the ultra-rich. It is the wealthiest Cabinet ever, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) said in a speech on Feb. 7. This is the Epstein class.

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They are the elites they pretend to hate, Ossoff continued, later adding: If youre Steve Bannon ... how do you sell any of this? Trump was supposed to fight for the working class. Instead, hes literally closing rural clinics and hospitals to cut taxes for George Soros and Elon Musk.

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The term the Epstein class has appeared in comment sections everywhere from X to Instagram Reels and Threads over the years, to attempt to name a deeply uncomfortable class dynamic on display: The self-protective circle of wealth, favors and information that kept enterprises (and crimes) involving Epstein afloat for so long.

And in 2026, it seems to have thoroughly worked its way into the public consciousness  enough to make it into official speeches of politicians like Ossoff and his peers.

Jeffrey Epstein, center, has been linked to billionaires like Elon Musk and Bill Gates, President Donald Trump, and disgraced British royal family member Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who have all denied participating in Epstein's criminal activity. Illustration: HuffPost; Photos: Getty

Like this article? Keep independent journalism alive. Support HuffPost.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), one of the American politicians who was early to use the term, told HuffPost in a statement that he began using it to challenge the elite  and largely unaccountable  wealthy individuals who, he says, believe they can play by a different set of rules.

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Americans are sick of elite impunity. There cannot be two tiers of justice, where wealthy men who abused young girls are protected while survivors are silenced, Khanna told HuffPost. That is what the effort to release the Epstein files has been about, and why I started calling it the Epstein class.

News: Rep. Ro Khanna: Epstein Bill Will Ensure Everyone Is Held Accountable

They want us to move on, but people need to keep speaking out, Khanna continued. Thats why Im doing media on the left and right  like Shawn Ryans podcast  to keep the pressure up. We need to form a committee to haul everyone who emailed Epstein about abusing young girls in front of Congress.

Theres power in naming this social circle in a grounded way.

Every time the Epstein case comes up, I feel like [the term Epstein class] reemerges more and more, said Josephine Lukito, a professor of digital communication at the University of Southern Denmark who studies political language in the public sphere. I havent done, like, a systematic analysis of how often it comes up, but I think it has a sort of catchy quality to it that seems to resonate with people when they talk about the Epstein case.

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Lukito notes that the term, meme-like as it is, has all the makings of something that concerned individuals can rally around based on what we know about similar movement-adjacent phrases.

Phrases that catch on with the public tend to be pretty short, Lukito explained, citing Me Too and Black Lives Matter. She notes that Americans, in particular, really like adjective-noun combinations, particularly those involved in politics.

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I dont know if Id go so far as to say bring people together, Lukito said, but it certainly resonates with a lot of people and can help motivate a movement.

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Class can be a complicated subject to broach in the U.S., and these terms can be loaded, Lukito said. However, that may be part of the terms power.

Historically, we talk about the ruling class, the wealthy class, the bourgeoisie class  and so, a lot of times when we do talk about class, its a really quick indicator for wealth, Lukito said. I think that really speaks to the uniqueness of the Epstein case in particular.

Certainly the U.S. has seen many abuse cases, often involving multiple people, but I think what kind of brings the abusers and the Epstein case together is their wealth, right? Lukito said. They kind of vary by partisanship and by profession, but a lot of the Epstein case itself is really surrounded by an egregious amount of wealth and the ability to use that wealth to exploit children.

Terms like the Epstein class can also work to break through some of the Americans resistance to talking and thinking about class, as its not just critiquing power, but, like, wealth and power: economic power, Lukito said.

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Historically, a lot of terms that are related to kind of wealth and power tend to be silenced, she continued, citing Martin Luther King Jr.s less-discussed activism around poverty and wealth. However, theres a hunger to hear these topics discussed more plainly, particularly among Americans who are struggling and furious, she said.

Life: The Epstein Emails Expose Grim Truths About Men In Power  Even Democrats

A lot of Americans, especially given economic disparity right now, they have a lot of anger and frustration towards the wealthy and the ruling class, Lukito explained. The Epstein case certainly is an encapsulation of that, right? We see that rage coming out in so many other contexts: in health care, in frustration towards tech bros and seeing a lot of the relationships between the wealthy and politicians.

Americans recognize that wealth is bipartisan, and wealth contributes to abuse. And Epstein class encapsulates a lot of that. It continues to be a big reason why it resonates, she said. I dont know if I would go so far as to call it class consciousness, but theres certainly a widespread frustration, hatred, anger towards those who extract wealth and keep it for themselves.

How do we know when a term like this starts to matter?

For Lukito, who has studied numerous catchphrases and terms that catch on in the political world (online and off), there is something unique about this particular case.

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In past examples of catchphrases and terms that Ive studied, a lot of them have appeared on text-based social media platforms, something like Twitter, right? We talk about, like, hashtag activism or hashtags being this important rallying point for people  and this is the one thats kind of different, Lukita said. I would say that Epstein class as a term is more in the nascent stage. I havent necessarily seen it used as a specific hashtag. Its appearing more in comments of videos as opposed to more of a text-based platform.

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She notes that a real marker of a term having staying power is when you can see it move across multiple different platforms and not existing within just one community, but its salient or popular enough that its moving across a lot of different social media platforms and a lot of different internet users.

And the staying power of the news story can play a role in how this term  and the larger class criticism it carries  will fare.

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I think when catchphrases are really powerful, its because theres a sort of staying power when it comes to the news story thats being covered, whether its police brutality or ****** assault, Lukito said. Certainly, this is not going to be even the last time we hear about the Epstein case.

I suspect that this news story will emerge over and over again  this year, next year. I would gander that every time it emerges, that term Epstein class will also emerge, she said. And itll be interesting to see whether it grows in popularity or traction.

Lukito spoke with HuffPost prior to Ossoffs speech. And she argued that voices like Khannas and those of other political figures embracing the term will be key in whether it takes hold with the American people.

I think when we see that sort of adoption, especially by larger public figures, those are all signs that a term like Epstein class is gaining momentum, she said.

Related...

Read the original on HuffPost
Donald Trump slammed Jeffrey Epstein about two decades ago, claiming everyone has known hes been doing this, a former Palm Beach police chief claimed.

Michael Reiters account of a conversation with Trump, contained within the justice departments release of 3m Epstein files, dramatically contrasts with the US presidents public statements. After Epsteins arrest in July 2019, Trump said I had no idea when asked if he knew about his former friends abuse of teenage girls.

Reiter, who retired in 2009, confirmed to the Miami Herald on Monday that he was the person whose name was redacted from this document. The former investigator recounted this conversation during an October 2019 FBI interview.

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Related: Republican congressman says Epstein files likely incriminated six more men

Reiter said this conversation took place in July 2006; around this time, allegations against Epstein were growing. He told the FBI that Trump telephoned him and remarked: Thank goodness youre stopping him, everyone has known hes been doing this.

The White House deferred a request for comment to Trumps justice department. In turn, the justice department said in a statement: We are not aware of any corroborating evidence that the president contacted law enforcement 20 years ago.

At the time of Reiters statement, local police had been interviewing numerous minor Epstein victims in 2005 and 2006. The FBI and US attorneys office in south Florida investigated these claims.

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But the case against Epstein concluded with a shocking sweetheart plea deal in 2008 that allowed him to evade federal prosecution if he admitted to state-level prostitution charges.

After Epsteins accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested in July 2020, Trump was asked whether he expected the fallen British socialite to turn in powerful men.

I dont know. I havent really been following it too much. I just wish her well, frankly, Trump responded.

Ive met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach, and I guess they lived in Palm Beach, he also said. But I wish her well, whatever it is.

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These comments also conflict with Reiters account. He told FBI agents that Trump described Maxwell as Epsteins operative, and said, she is evil and to focus on her, per the FBI report.

Reiter claimed that Trump told him: He was around Epstein once when teenagers were present and Trump got the hell out of there, the interview summary noted.

Trump has claimed he booted Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago club because the late financier, who died in jail awaiting trial, stole staffers, including Virginia Giuffre, who was among the most vocal of the Epstein survivors. Giuffre said that Epstein abused and trafficked her to high-profile men, including the former Prince Andrew. The fallen royal, now Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, has denied misconduct.

Trumps relationship has for months proven to be a political landmine for the president. On the campaign trail, he promised to release the Epstein files  a clarion call to conspiracy-minded rightwing supporters.

The president then waffled on this promise, drawing the ire of backers, and prompting still more outrage after documents emerged showing that he and Epstein had a close relationship prior to their falling out. While Trump ultimately signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which mandates that his Department of Justice release all investigative documents, he has maintained the issue is a hoax.
Elon Musk has been intermittently focused on building underground Tesla tunnels for nearly a decade. According to Bloomberg, the CEO's Boring Company says it's ready to start digging in Tennessee.

In July 2017, Musk claimed the Boring Company secured "verbal" government approval to construct a "hyperloop" connecting New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., but the project never materialized.

Bloomberg reported that the Boring Company "dug a launch shaft" and "assembled a machine" to start tunneling in Nashville  and one local official's remarks on the alleged initiative took the concept of damning with faint praise to heights never before seen.

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"If it happens, the ideal scenario would be: mostly harmless, no one dies," Nashville Mayor Freddie O'Connell said in an interview, as reported by Bloomberg.

In a scant 13 words, O'Connell expressed doubt that the tunnel would "happen" and outlined a best-case outcome of "no fatalities."

However, Bloomberg spoke with planning experts about the "two roughly 10-mile tunnels" that Boring Company claims will ferry people between parts of Nashville and the airport.

Broadly, the outlet observed that the entire planned project proved "baffling to people in the tunneling business" and incongruent with basic math. It cited the impossible rate at which Teslas would need to depart to operate within Musk's described parameters.

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Most people could easily grasp the impossibility of the latter. Tennessee's distinct underground terrain, however, isn't necessarily something an everyday person would understand.

Lok Home, according to Bloomberg, has built tunnels for decades and heads up tunneling machine manufacturer, The Robbins Co. He's familiar with the state's rocky subterranean layers and propensity for sinkholes, and he was among the baffled.

"It's just a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants project, and a 99% chance they'll wind up in real trouble and a big mess for the city," Home warned.

"Many Nashville officials" agreed with Home, the outlet noted. Worryingly, lawmakers have pressed the Boring Company for basic details about emergencies like "fires" and "floods," receiving only "inadequate" responses, if any.

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Bloomberg asserted that the Music City Hyperloop "bears all the hallmarks" of Musk-linked companies. It prioritizes showy announcements and speed over safe, realistic progress, and the observation was more than fair.

In November, the Boring Company was fined nearly half a million dollars after officials in Nevada discovered the firm was illegally drilling and discharging wastewater. Those actions were a part of a different, equally controversial Tesla "hyperloop" in Las Vegas.

Two months earlier, Musk's tunneling outfit came under fire in Texas after securing a contract for a flood-prevention initiative. Critics maintained the Boring Company was ill-equipped to supply such critical infrastructure.

Ultimately, Bloomberg determined that a "chorus of voices from the civil construction and transportation sectors" deemed Musk's Nashville hyperloop promises impossible. The outlet cautioned that it couldn't function as a reliable form of public transportation.

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F-35A stealth fighters from the Vermont Air National Guard (VANG) are edging nearer to potential deployments to the Middle East. The movement of these aircraft comes as the U.S. is building up a large force in the U.S. Central Command region ahead of a possible conflict with Iran.

Six jets that were stuck at Rota Air Base in Spain moved to Moron Air Base in Spain today. That move was delayed following a KC-46A Pegasus aerial refueling jets mishap at the base. Another half dozen F-35s arrived at Lakenheath Air Base in the U.K. last night.

All these F-35As had been deployed to the Caribbean and took part in the mission to capture Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.

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The jets that landed in Moron had been diverted to the U.S. base in Rota, Spain, after a KC-46 Pegasus aerial refueling tanker suffered a mishap at Moron Air Base in Spain. We were the first to report that they landed in Lajes, Portugal, and were possibly slated to head to Jordan, but it isnt clear if or when those aircraft will relocate to the Middle East. They flew across the Atlantic directly from the Caribbean.

Ethan Ferro, an aviation photographer in Moron, using the FerittoAviation Instagram account, provided us with the following photos of some of those jets.

Ethan Ferro

Ethan Ferro

Ethan Ferro

The F-35As that landed in Lakenheath initially flew back to Vermont from the Caribbean before making the transatlantic flight. The six jets landed in the U.K. at about 8 p.m. local time (3 p.m Eastern), aviation photographer David Lloyd told us. David, who uses the davidlloyd3780 Instagram account, shared photos with us of two of those jets.

David Lloyd

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David Lloyd

Lakenheath, which has its own F-35As, is a major transit hub for flights to the Middle East. Air & Space Forces Magazine was the first to report the VANG jet arrivals.

If all 12 F-35As deploy to the Middle East, they would join a growing force of tactical aircraft in the region on land and sea. There are detachments from at least three F-15E Strike Eagle squadrons, including one that recently arrived, at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. A-10 Thunderbolt II close support jets and E/A-18G Growler electronic warfare jets are now there as well. On the sea, there are F-35C stealth fighters, F/A-18E-F Super Hornets and EA-18G Growlers embarked on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, which recently arrived in the CENTCOM region from the South China Sea.

The tactical aircraft join a stream of well over 100 cargo jets bringing air defense systems and other assets to the Middle East.

   Deployment of several Patriot air defense batteries in Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, Jordan.



Note: Chinese satellite company MizarVision is falsely identifying these as THAAD batteries; these are Patriot batteries. pic.twitter.com/hW7G0esKXp  Military Observer (@MilitaryObs2222) February 10, 2026

However, there doesnt appear to be any movement of strategic aircraft. As we have seen during prior tensions with Iran, the U.S. moved B-2 Spirit stealth bombers and B-52 Stratofortresses to the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. As one example of how bombers operate over long distances, during the Operation Midnight Hammer mission that attacked Iranian nuclear sites last June, the B-2s made a round-trip from the U.S.

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Still, the U.S. might boost its forces in the region with an additional aircraft carrier.

Trump told Axios in an interview on Tuesday that hes considering sending a second aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East to prepare for military action if negotiations with Iran fail.

We have an armada that is heading there and another one might be going, Trump said, adding that hes thinking about sending another aircraft carrier strike group.

A U.S. official confirmed to Axios that there had been discussions about sending a second aircraft carrier strike group to the region.

 Exclusive: President Trump told me in an interview on Tuesday that he's considering sending a second aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East to prepare for military action if negotiations with Iran fail. My story on @axioshttps://t.co/JRpkoERtHw  Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) February 10, 2026

If he does decide to move another carrier group to the Middle East, Trump has limited options. The USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group remains in the Caribbean following the Maduro operation, a U.S. Navy spokesman told The War Zone Tuesday. Others are in various states of readiness.

US Navy aircraft carrier status as of today.



Deployed  2

Available to deploy  1

Post deployment availability  2

Training  2

Maintenance  5 pic.twitter.com/OEHpB5MWZo  TheIntelFrog (@TheIntelFrog) February 9, 2026

As we have frequently pointed out, even with these recent additions, there is not enough tactical airpower in the region for a major sustained operation. A carrier strike group, as well as a few dozen F-15Es, which would mainly be used to protect the U.S. and Israel against incoming Iranian missiles and drones, A-10s, and the addition of a dozen F-35s doesnt fully alter this calculus. Another carrier group would help in this manner, but we should still expect to see more U.S. Air Force tactical aircraft movements for any kind of sustained kinetic operation against Iran. Its also worth noting that Israel remains a wildcard here and their Air Force could work alongside U.S. assets to achieve common objectives. Still, the U.S. is lacking fighters in the region to a peculiar degree.

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President Donald Trump first threatened military action against Tehran as its crackdown against anti-regime protestors resulted in thousands of killings, but has since shifted his emphasis to demanding Iran give up its nuclear ambitions.

In the wake of inconclusive negotiations last week between the U.S. and Iran in Oman, Trump recently indicated that he would be willing to accept a deal that only includes no nuclear weapons.

Israel, however, has tried to push the U.S. for a far more comprehensive agreement to ensure that any deal with Iran includes Tehran giving up its stockpile of enriched uranium, ceasing enrichment altogether, placing limits on its ballistic missile program and ending its support for regional proxies, CNN noted. The list matched a set of earlier US demands for a broader set of discussions about Irans military capabilities and regional activities.

With Trumps ultimate decision about Iran still unknown, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is heading to Washington, D.C., for a meeting with Trump tomorrow.

Before boarding Wing of Zion  Israels version of Air Force One  for his flight, Netanyahu told reporters that he will present to the president our approach around our principles on the negotiations.

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On this trip, we will discuss a series of issues: Gaza, the region, but first and foremost, the negotiations with Iran, Netanyahu said. I will present the president with our views regarding the essential principles of the negotiations  principles that, in our eyes, are vital not only for Israel but for anyone in the world who desires peace and security in the Middle East.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:



"I am now leaving for the United States for my seventh trip to meet with President Donald Trump since he was elected for a second term. This, of course, does not include his unforgettable visit to Israel and his speech in the Knesset." pic.twitter.com/3XmRAEyatt  faiyaz brohi (@FaiyazB) February 10, 2026

Iranian officials have proclaimed they will never give up their nuclear program or ballistic missiles, but that stance may have softened slightly.

However, on Monday, Irans atomic energy chief Mohammad Eslami said Tehran is open to diluting its highly enriched uranium if the US ends sanctions, signalling flexibility on a key American demand, Al Jazeera reported. Eslami said the prospects of Iran diluting its 60 percent enriched uranium, a threshold close to weapons-grade, would hinge on whether all sanctions would be lifted in return.

Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, says that Iran may consider diluting 60% if all sanctions were lifted in return.



 https://t.co/4LwWz70mKGpic.twitter.com/B4gDTuRbXz  Mehr News Agency (@MehrnewsCom) February 9, 2026

Meanwhile, both the U.S. and Iran continue to threaten each other.

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President Trump has been clear to Iran, he wants a negotiated settlement, War Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Monday. I think it would be a wise choice for them to take him up on that deal. The world saw Americas capabilities, peace through strength and deterrence in action.

Mohammad-Javad Larijani, an Islamic Republic insider and former senior adviser to Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said any US military strike would trigger a harsh response that could kill many American troops, according to Iran Insight.

Larijani said Tehran would abandon proportional retaliation and instead move to strike what he described as the roots of American interests across the region.

In response to a potential act of aggression, we are not looking to respond tit for tat, Larijani said. Our posture would move from defensive to offensive, striking points where we believe we must hit the roots of that forces presence in the region.

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His statements continue Irans threats against U.S. bases in the region and Israel.

Amid the dueling rhetoric, both the U.S. and Iran are taking precautions.

Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest U.S. facility in the region, is reportedly stepping up its security posture.

Feb 10 (Reuters)  U.S. forces in Qatar's al-Udeid, the biggest U.S. base in the Middle East, put missiles into truck launchers as tensions with Iran ratcheted up since January, analysis of satellite images showed, meaning they could be moved more quickly.  Tala Ramadan (@TalaRamadan) February 10, 2026

For its part, Iran appears to have covered up entrances to its nuclear facilities at Isfahan with soil for protection. It was one of the three sites attacked during Midnight Hammer. As we previously reported, even before that attack, Iran appears to have covered another facility with dirt to shield it against a potential ground raid.

something worth protecting in there.



Also, makes targeting tougher for certain systems and ground-level access for special operations raids more challenging etc etc. We covered all this prior to the last go around. https://t.co/379LBhMZxb  Tyler Rogoway (@Aviation_Intel) February 9, 2026

As more U.S. assets flow into the region, we will continue to monitor this situation and provide updates when warranted.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com
Did police blockade Tommaso Cioni's home with him inside as their probe into Nancy Guthrie's disappearance "suddenly" focused on the son-in-law as a suspect? No, that's not true: At the time of writing, there was no evidence that police had surrounded Cioni's home or that he was inside. This false claim about Savannah Guthrie's brother-in-law was created by a Vietnam-based spam factory.

The claim appeared on several "Viet Spam" Facebook accounts, including a post (archived here) published on the "Lil Chase" page on February 9, 2026. The caption read:

 10 MINS AGO -- POLICE SURROUND SON-IN-LAW'S HOME: Tommaso Cioni Suddenly at the Center of Savannah Guthrie's Mother Investigation.

A back door mysteriously left open. Traces of blood reportedly discovered. And detectives say they are no longer looking for an outsider...

See what police uncovered below

This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:

Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Mon Feb 9 22:05:28 2026 UTC

Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Facebook

Nancy Guthrie, 84, the mother of NBC Today show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, was reported missing from her Arizona home on February 1, 2026. Tommaso Cioni is married to Savannah Guthrie's sister. At the time of writing, authorities had not publicly named any suspects in the disappearance.

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A Google news search (archived here) for the words "Tommaso Cioni police blockaded home" returned no reports that police had surrounded the home or that Cioni was inside. There were also no reports he has been identified as a suspect in Guthrie's disappearance.

The websites and Facebook pages spreading this claim are part of a spam network based in Vietnam that uses AI tools to target Americans and Europeans with fake clickbait. We call it Viet Spam.

The "Lil Chase" Facebook page, according to transparency information on its profile page (archived here), is controlled from Vietnam.

10 MINS AGO -- SON-IN-LAW'S HOME BLOCKADED: Tommaso Cioni Thrust Into the Spotlight as Police Seize Vehicles in Savannah Guthrie's Mother Case 

Image source: Lead Stories GIF of Facebook

The Vietnam connection is significant, since fact-checkers, including Lead Stories, have identified a major source of AI-generated false stories coming from a single operation based in that Southeast Asian country. You can see recent reporting and fact checks mentioning that country here.

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Lead Stories has published a primer -- or a prebunk -- on how to identify these kinds of fake posts exported from Vietnam. It's titled "Prebunk: Beware Of Fake Fan Pages Spreading False Stories About Your Favorite Celebrities -- How To Spot 'Viet Spam'"

Here is how you can tell from where a suspicious Facebook page is controlled. Click on the page name at the top of the profile page. A box will open that includes a "Transparency and privacy policy" link. Click on that and a box will open showing the countries where the managers are located.

Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Facebook

These posts link to an article (archived here) published on a website that lists Hong Kong as its base. The article does not make the same claim about Cioni being blockaded or a suspect.
Feb 10 (Reuters) - Hungary's main opposition Tisza Party has published its manifesto for an April 12 election, when its leader Peter Magyar aims to end nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban's 16-year rule.

The centre-right party presents the biggest challenge to Orban's rule since his Fidesz party swept to victory in 2010, opinion polls suggest, although the outcome of the ballot remains highly uncertain.

Following are key points from Tisza's plan:

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ECONOMIC POLICY

* Seek the release of billions of euros worth of EU funding currently suspended over Orban's rule-of-law reforms to help kick-start Hungary's stagnating economy.

* Use those released funds to invest in healthcare, transport, education and support for businesses.

* Clamp down on corruption and cut back on what it calls unjustified public investments, saying this could save trillions of forints.

* It expects stronger growth and investor confidence to curb the financing costs of the EU's largest debt pile outside the euro zone by up to 1 trillion forints ($3.15 billion) over the longer term.

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* It aims to cut the budget deficit from 5% or more of gross domestic product this year to below 3% and to meet euro entry criteria by 2030. However, joining the euro would not be possible without a parliamentary super-majority.

* Raise healthcare spending by at least 500 billion forints each year until it reaches 7% of GDP by 2030.

* Impose a 1% tax on wealth exceeding 1 billion forints that it says will raise hundreds of billions of forints.

* Limit state intervention in the economy and markets and create a predictable and transparent business environment.

* Support small businesses with EU-funded grants and tax benefits while cutting bureaucracy and energy costs.

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* Suspend new permits for workers from outside the EU from June.

* Cut subsidies for manufacturing and polluting technologies and review the operation of large battery manufacturers in Hungary to ensure they comply with environmental standards.

FOREIGN POLICY

* Lift defence spending to NATO's target of 5% of GDP by 2035.

* Tisza would not send troops to Ukraine and does not plan to revive conscription.

* It does not support the fast-track entry of Ukraine into the EU and would put the issue of Ukraine's EU membership to a binding referendum.

* Halt Hungary's withdrawal from the International Criminal Court.

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* Seek a bilateral strategic partnership with the U.S. focusing on energy diversification, security and transparent economic cooperation.

* Strengthen Hungary's European and Western orientation.

* It would not accept the relocation of migrants from western Europe and opposes EU migration quotas and its migration pact.

RULE OF LAW

* Join the European Public Prosecutors' Office.

* Strengthen the independence of public media and the judiciary.

* Greater transparency in public procurement, tougher conflict-of-interest rules.

* Two-term limit for prime ministers.

ENERGY

* Eliminate dependence on Russian energy by 2035.

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* Full-scale review of a Russian-built nuclear power plant.

* Double the share of renewables in Hungary's energy mix by 2040.

* Launch a 1 trillion forint energy efficiency programme for households and companies.

* Maintain and extend Orban's policy of household energy price subsidies.

SOCIAL POLICY

* Employment taxes will not increase.

* Cut income tax for 2.2 million workers earning below the median wage. The current 15% rate would stay in place for higher earners.

* Cut the tax on the minimum wage to 9% from 15%.

* Maintain and extend the current system of family benefits.

* A so-called 13th and 14th month of pension payment launched by Orban would remain in place.

($1 = 317.23 forints)

(Compiled by Gergely SzakacsEditing by Gareth Jones)
NEED TO KNOW

Two American pilots landing in Guinea for a routine fuel stop were reportedly met with armed military upon arrival

Pilots Fabio Espinal Nunez of New Jersey and Brad Schlenker of Illinois have been kept in prison since Dec. 30, 2025, according to multiple news reports

Were desperate at this point, Lauren Stevenson, Nunez's fiance, tells PEOPLE. We need the Trump administration to step in"

Two American pilots attempting to make a routine fuel stop in Guinea were reportedly met with armed military upon arrival.

According to reports from CBS News New York and CBS News Chicago, pilots Fabio Espinal Nunez of New Jersey and Brad Schlenker of Illinois have been detained in the West African country for nearly six weeks.

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There were around 100 army people and they were pointing AK-47s at us and talking in French, which we do not know, Nunez told CBS New York.



They opened the door and [we] were met with multiple machine guns, three armed vehicles and 80 other heavily armed individuals, Schlenker tells the Chicago outlet over the phone about the Dec. 30, 2025 detention.

The pilots say it was only supposed to be a brief fuel stop while they were flying a Brazilian family on a private plane from Suriname to Dubai. According to a flight log shared with CBS News New York, the flight had clearance to land, but the government still charged them with violating Guinean airspace.

"We've got the transcripts of the radio transmissions, all clearly revealing the fact that we were innocent and ambushed," Schlenker says.

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Schlenkers brother, Jon, tells PEOPLE if they werent cleared by the air traffic control (ATC) in Guinea initially, they would have gone elsewhere for fuel.



The ATC in Guinea would have said, and should have said, depart to an alternative airport, and they wouldve said Fine, no problem. But they gave them full permission to land there, Jon says.

It was almost like a bait and switch, they were greeted with 80 armed people, he adds.

Jon says his brother has been able to call home daily and as an American, he is being treated better than other prisoners, but misses his family at home.

Pilot Fabio Espinal Nunez and fiance Lauren Stevenson Lauren Stevenson

Lauren Stevenson, Nunezs finance, claims to PEOPLE that Guinea's civil government has approved their release, but the military has not. She alleges that three judges from the civil government have cleared the men, though they are still scheduled to be in court in the coming weeks.

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These poor pilots are in the crossfire of this bizarre political situation, Stevenson says.

Recounting the conditions described to her by her fiance, she claims, The prison is meant for 300 people, they have 1,000 people in there. There's a lot of overcrowding, dirt floors. They do not feed you in prison, you have to rely on friends and family to feed you. They have to take turns sleeping.



The family's new hope is that the U.S. government will step in. They are turning to the White House because Stevenson says the embassy in the Republic of Guinea hasn't been able to help.

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Were desperate at this point, she tells PEOPLE. We need the Trump administration to step in  the State Department. These are inhumane conditions and we're scared for their safety at this point.

PEOPLE has reached out to the White House, State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Guinea for comment.

Read the original article on People
Shares of oil and gas major ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) rallied 11.3% in January, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Conoco didn't report fourth-quarter earnings until last week, on Feb. 5. Still, January was filled with news for the oil and gas industry generally, and for Conoco specifically, as two significant geopolitical events sent most oil and gas names higher.

Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue 

Venezuela's regime change and Iran's potential regime change

The price of oil rallied from about $57 to $65 in January amid two potentially significant geopolitical events. First, on Jan. 2, U.S. special forces ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, bringing him and his family to the U.S., where he will be brought up on narco-terrorism and other charges.

That event is actually a mixed signal for oil prices. While political disruption in any oil producer could cause supply to go offline, Venezuela is also home to the world's largest oil reserves -- even larger than Saudi Arabia's. Yet, it produces only about 1% of the world's oil today. So, the prospect of some supply disruption is countered by the prospect of regime change unlocking more of Venezuela's unexploited reserves.

Venezuela produces so little oil relative to its potential because the Communist regime under former President Hugo Chavez essentially nationalized the country's oil and gas industry in 2007, effectively seizing Conoco's assets and those of other companies. While some large players continued to operate in Venezuela on highly unfavorable terms, the country's nationalization scared away most large oil and gas companies with expertise, leaving Venezuela's vast reserves largely unexploited.

On the news, Conoco rose more than other large oil and gas companies, as the potential for regime change also raised the prospect of Conoco collecting on the $10 billion it is owed by Venezuela, as ruled by an international arbitration court in 2019.

In addition to the events in Venezuela, on Dec. 28, protests broke out in Iran, which then escalated throughout January to the most serious challenge to Iran's ruling regime in many years. That may also have lifted oil prices, as Iran is the world's ninth-largest oil producer, accounting for about 4% of global oil supply.

Image source: Getty Images.

What ConocoPhillips had to say last week

Last week, ConocoPhillips reported earnings, with adjusted earnings per share of $1.02 missing analyst estimates by $0.08. However, the stock didn't go down, as these earnings reflect fourth-quarter oil prices, which were generally in the mid-to-high $50 range, well below the $65 price today.
An 83-year-old man with dementia who was reported missing by his family was found stabbed to death inside his next-door neighbors home over the weekend.

RELATED COVERAGE >>> Missing Pittsburgh man in early stages of dementia found stabbed to death, officials say

Lester Bridges was reported missing around 8 p.m. Friday. Police found him 12 hours later inside a home next door on Hilliards Street in the Citys Lincoln-Lemington-Belmar neighborhood.

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The homeowner who admitted to stabbing Bridges was taken in for questioning on Saturday. As of Monday, no charges have been filed.

Lester Bridges family says they have questions about the timeline that man gave police.

If he broke in and you were really afraid for your life, why didnt you call the authorities? Bridges granddaughter tells Channel 11. He was a neighbor. He knew my grandfather.

She first reported her 83-year-old grandfather, with dementia, missing after he left the house in the bitter cold and didnt come right back.

At 8 a.m. Saturday, the homeowner next door called police to report that a man tried to break into his home at 2 a.m. and he stabbed him to death. Police werent called until six hours after the stabbing, at 8 a.m.

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I wouldnt think they would stab him to death and leave him in there for hours, Bridges granddaughter added.

A neighbor says everyone knew Lester Bridges and looked out for him as he worked on his truck, walked to the bus stop and made his way back home.

The 2 a.m. -8 a.m., the first thing youre doing is going for your phone and calling 911.

That neighbor tells Channel 11 that right around the time Bridges disappeared Friday night, he was disoriented and tried to knock on her door, but he was gone by the time she opened it. She later found out that he was stabbed to death right across the street.

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It hurt me to my core to even hear that happened to him, a neighbor tells Channel 11.

Police say theyre still investigating. For Lester Bridges family, justice is charges being filed.

He didnt deserve this, Bridges granddaughter added. Hes a good man. Hed give the clothes off his back if he could. That man is harmless.

Lester Bridges did have a tracker device in his shoes in case he wandered off, but his granddaughter said he was wearing his slippers at the time.

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NEED TO KNOW

A squirrel is reportedly responsible for an electrical fire that burned down a Florida family's home

Residents Donnie Banta and Stacey Davis escaped their home with their two kids and two pets, but must now rebuild

We were just scrambling, trying to get everything together and wake everybody up and get them all out, she said

A Florida family is starting over after their house burned down due to a fire reportedly caused by a squirrel chewing through electrical wires.

Residents Donnie Banta and Stacey Davis, along with their children and pets, were sleeping in the home just before the blaze began on the night of Jan. 31, according to local news station WMBB, which spoke with the couple in an interview published on Monday, Feb. 9.

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We were all asleep. And I heard the breaker flip in the back. So I got up to see what the noise was, and I heard the sound like rustling in the attic, and I could smell an electrical smell. So I woke everybody up and got out of the house, Banta told the outlet.

Davis-Banta family house after fire in Panama City, Fla. gofundme

A GoFundMe organized by Greg and Ginny Garner shared photos of the damage, which included a partially collapsed roof.

The couple, along with their two kids, their dog and cat, did make it safely out of the home. Speaking with WMBB, Davis recalled the family's escape as "very frantic."

We were just scrambling, trying to get everything together and wake everybody up and get them all out, she said.

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After firefighters arrived at the scene, the family later learned a rodent was behind the blaze.

They said a squirrel got into the attic and chewed on some wires and shorted it out, and thats what started the fire, Banta said.

PEOPLE reached out to the Panama City Beach Fire Rescue for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.

Davis-Banta family house after fire in Panama City, Fla. gofundme

The Garners called the incident devastating for the family," who say that they lost everything.

The roof collapsed, and nearly everything they owned was destroyed in the blaze. Thankfully, Stacey, her husband, and their two children made it out safely, but they are now faced with the overwhelming challenge of starting over from scratch. The loss of their home and belongings has left them in urgent need of support as they navigate this difficult time, the GoFundMe continued.

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As of Monday evening, the campaign had raised nearly $6,000 of its $10,000 goal. Proceeds from the fundraiser will go toward the family's immediate needs, including housing, and costs associated with rebuilding the home.



Read the original article on People
Floodwater from the Red River impacts a farm near Fargo in 2010. Wet springs and flooding can sometimes prevent farmers from planting a crop. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

North Dakota farmers will be without a key federal crop insurance option this year as they prepare for spring planting.

As part of federally subsidized crop insurance, farmers are insured when the weather prevents them from planting a crop. If the farmer cant plant, they can collect on that part of the insurance policy, known as prevented planting.

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In the past, farmers have been paying an additional premium to buy a higher level of prevented planting coverage. But that risk management option is not available to farmers this spring.

The U.S. Department of Agricultures Risk Management Agency announced last fall that it was eliminating the extra coverage option for prevented planting insurance.

That buy-up option had been well used in North Dakota. According to the Agricultural Risk Policy Center at North Dakota State University, the extra prevented planting coverage had led to $3.18 billion in payments from 2010 to 2024 for North Dakota producers, more than any other state.

Matt Perdue, president of the North Dakota Farmers Union, said the agency decision is disappointing given that the One Big Beautiful Bill passed last year expanded federal crop insurance in other ways.

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An NDSU study concluded that improvement in other areas of crop insurance will not be outweighed by the loss of additional prevented planting insurance for North Dakota.

The rule cant be changed for 2026.

Last month, a group of senators including Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., wrote a letter to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins asking to undo the prevented planting changes for 2027 and beyond to help provide a layer of certainty when disasters beyond their control render them unable to plant a crop.

In addition to having some land with poor drainage, North Dakota has a smaller time frame for spring planting than many other states, making the extra prevented planting coverage more attractive.

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But the option also has been used in other states, with NDSU noting claims in South Dakota, California and Arkansas.

Justin Quandt farms near Oakes, North Dakota. His family has bought extra crop insurance to cover years when weather prevents a crop from being planted, but that option is not available in 2026. (Photo by Jeff Beach/North Dakota Monitor)

Justin Quandt of Oakes said he and his family partners would normally invest in the additional insurance. He said they would make the investment even though the policy requires covering all the acres they farm in a county.

Quandt and his family farm along the James River in Dickey County in southern North Dakota.

On the east side, the soil is sandy, drains well and standing water isnt a problem in the spring. But on the west side is prairie pothole land, with dips and gullies that can fill up with snowmelt or spring rains, and the wet ground can be a quagmire for farm tractors.

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Some years, those wet fields may not get planted at all  triggering a crop insurance claim.

The family also farms land in Sargent County, but Quandt said those fields have had drain tile installed to help them dry out in wet springs. The extra prevented planting coverage isnt needed there.

Quandt said federal conservation easements prevent installing drain tile on some of the Dickey County land that is sometimes too wet to plant in the spring.

Meanwhile, some of the sandy soil they farm requires irrigation to produce a crop. If the water level in the reservoir they use for irrigation were to get too low in a dry year, that could also result in a prevented planting claim, he said.

Bethany Rentz, an agent in the Hillsboro office of West Fargo-based Ihry Insurance, said the increased subsidies for the federal crop insurance program will help farmers purchase more coverage for other disasters such as storm damage or drought after the crop is planted. But she said there arent other insurance options for farmers this year if the weather disrupts planting.

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Farmers face a March 15 deadline to make crop insurance purchases.

Rentz said she hopes that pushback from other states on the policy change will convince the USDA Risk Management Agency to bring the extra prevented planting coverage back.

I would like to see it come back, Rentz said.

Reach Deputy Editor Jeff Beach at jbeach@northdakotamonitor.com

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The FBI raided an elections office in Georgia and seized ballots from the 2020 presidential election in connection with a federal investigation into deficiencies or defects into Donald Trumps loss in the state, according to newly unsealed documents.

An affidavit for the search signed by a judge last month reveals that the investigation followed a referral from Trumps former campaign-linked attorney Kurt Olsen, who is now working in the White House directly under the president.

The document from FBI Special Agent Hugh Raymond Evans says federal law enforcement agencies launched a criminal investigation into whether any of the improprieties alleged during the ballot-counting process in Fulton County were intentional acts that violated federal criminal laws.

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That investigation was sparked by Olsen, who worked closely with Trumps campaign in 2020 to challenge election results as part of a Stop the Steal movement that was largely rejected by courts across the country.

He was later sanctioned by a federal judge for false, misleading and unsupported factual assertions in support of Republican Kari Lakes unsuccessful attempt to overturn her loss in the 2020 race for Arizona governor.

FBI agents seized 2020 election ballots from Fulton County, Georgia, during a raid that sprang from a criminal referral from Trumps former campaign-linked attorney Kurt Olsen, according to newly unsealed documents (Reuters)

The FBI criminal investigation originated from a referral sent by Kurt Olsen, Presidentially appointed Director of Election Security and Integrity, according to the affidavit.

The latest revelations follow growing scrutiny from voting rights advocates and Democratic officials in the wake of last months raid, which appears to be fueled by familiar claims and conspiracy theories amplified by the presidents allies and debunked by top election officials.

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Allegations in the affidavit appear to be largely based on complaints that were previously made in court or to the states election board. It cites several witnesses whose names are redacted but whose actions mirror the efforts from Trumps allies to challenge the states results, which were largely tossed out and disproven.

It also does not name any alleged offenders or suggest who is responsible for the alleged criminal activity.

Following the November 3, 2020, presidential election, there were many allegations of electoral impropriety relating to the voting process and ballot counting in Fulton County, Georgia. Some of those allegations have been disproven while some of those allegations have been substantiated, including through admissions by Fulton County, according to Evans affidavit.

This warrant application is part of an FBI criminal investigation into whether any of the improprieties were intentional acts that violated federal criminal laws, he wrote.

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This affidavit was much weaker than I suspected, according to election law expert David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research. No allegations of intent, no allegations of election theft, no allegations of foreign interference, and no allegations that the statute of limitations doesnt apply.

After five years and dozens of court cases, this is all theyve got? he asked. If taken at its word, this entire affidavit at most alleges human error after a late night during a global pandemic, all of which had no impact on the outcome of the race.

Federal law enforcement is investigating deficiencies or defects from the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, which Trump lost (AP)

Georgias ballots were counted three times three different ways following the 2020 election and challenges to the results withstood scrutiny each time. The FBI is now investigating alleged deficiencies or defects in those counts.

Over nine hours on January 28, the FBI seized roughly 700 boxes of election records, according to filings from Fulton County officials.

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Agents seized copies of ballots, numbered lists of voters, voting machine information, and mail-in ballots and envelopes.

Fulton County officials, meanwhile, are suing the Department of Justice to get those records back.

The FBI showed callous disregard for the Constitution with a raid that appeared designed to intimidate voters and violate their First Amendment rights, according to a motion from Fulton County Board of Commissioners chair Robb Pitts.

Knowing that the federal government can physically seize and rummage through election records, long after the election has been certified, will predictably chill voter participation and undermine voters confidence in the security and secrecy of their ballots, he argued.

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Trump-appointed District Judge J.P. Boulee then ordered the administration to publicly reveal the arguments that persuaded a magistrate judge to approve the search, saying that the disclosure of an affidavit was critical given the importance of the publics access to judicial proceedings.

Pitts, however, argued there is little reason to have confidence that the affidavit establishes probable cause, given the lengthy history of widely debunked voter fraud theories surrounding the case.

Fulton County has been at the center of the election denial movement in the wake of Trumps loss, culminating in a sweeping racketeering indictment accusing the president and his allies of conspiring to overturn the outcome.

The FBIs search follows the collapse of the criminal case against the president, who was accused of leading a criminal enterprise with a so-called fake elector scheme to falsely assert his victory while seeking to seize control of voting machines, intimidate election workers, and push the states top election official to find votes he would need to win.

The FBIs admission of Kurt Olsens role in the probe follows mounting questions about the presence of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who reportedly put Trump on speakerphone so he could talk to agents at the scene (REUTERS)

Trump has reportedly directed U.S. spy agencies to share sensitive intelligence about the 2020 election with Olsen, and the CIA confirmed to Politico that the agency is ensuring that he has the access necessary to do his work.

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He has reportedly also conferred with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Agency.

The FBIs admission of Olsens role in the criminal probe also follows mounting questions about the presence of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who was photographed at the scene of the raid as FBI agents were hauling boxes and other evidence into trucks.

Trump reportedly ordered her to oversee the seizure, and Gabbard reportedly put the president on speakerphone to speak with agents who were handling evidence.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the presidents former criminal defense attorney, told CNN last week that Gabbard was not part of the investigation but remained a key part of the administrations focus on election integrity  but he could not explain why Gabbard was present.

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DNI simply has no authority over local election admin or enforcement of election crimes, Becker told reporters this month.

It is highly troubling to see she was there and on the phone, he said. Who knows what she was doing and what she had access to?

That evidence had an unbroken chain of custody up until the moment the president and his national intelligence director inserted themselves into the scene, making her a material witness in that proceeding, according to Becker. I can only imagine what Donald Trumps defense attorney would have said if President Bidens DNI had traveled down to Mar-a-Lago during the seizure of Trumps residence.
Donald Trump spoke to Palm Beach police back in 2006 about Jeffrey Epsteins inappropriate activities with teenage girls, newly released government files show.

The Miami Herald reports that In July of that year, as Epsteins criminal sex charge became known to the public, Trump spoke to Michael Reiter, Palm Beach, Floridas chief of police at the time, about what Epstein was up to.

Thank goodness youre stopping him, everyone has known hes been doing this, Trump told the police chief, according to a recently released October 2019 FBI interview with Reiter.

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The information contradicts what Trump has publicly said about Epsteins crimes and when he knew about them. In July 2019, during his first presidential term, Trump was asked by reporters if he knew that Epstein sexually assaulted girls. Trump replied, No, I had no idea. I had no idea.

Trumps interview with Reiter tells a different story, according to the FBI file. He called Ghislanie Maxwell Epsteins operative, saying that she is evil and to focus on her. Trump also said that he was around Epstein once when teenagers were present and Trump got the hell out of there, and that he threw Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago country club.

Reiter retired as police chief in 2009, and confirmed to the newspaper that he was interviewed by the FBI in 2019 and that he spoke to Trump in 2006. An FBI official denied that Trump spoke to the police chief, however.

We are not aware of any corroborating evidence that the President contacted law enforcement 20 years ago, the official told the newspaper.

Meanwhile, Maxwell refused to answer any questions during her deposition with the House Oversight Committee Monday, saying through her attorney that she would only speak if given clemency by President Trump from her 20-year prison sentence related to her assistance to Epsteins sex crimes. One wonders how much more Maxwell and the president know about all of Epsteins misdeeds that they arent talking about, and what they are hiding about themselves.
FBI investigators reached out to the public as a ransom deadline in the Nancy Guthrie abduction passed on Monday, Feb. 9.

Just after 5 p.m., the FBI released a statement saying the family was no longer speaking with the purported kidnappers of Nancy Guthrie.

"The FBI is not aware of any continued communication between the Guthrie family and suspected kidnappers, nor have we identified a suspect or person of interest in this case at this time," the statement sent by Brooke Brennan, a spokesperson for the FBI, read.

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The FBI said in a news conference last week that it would not get involved in any decisions by the Guthrie family to pay a ransom for their mother's release. But the agency would offer its advice.

The FBI agent in charge of the Phoenix office, Heith Janke, was seen as a tripod was taken into the home of Annie Guthrie's sister shortly before the siblings released a video Feb. 4 on social media, the first of three that seemed addressed to the purported kidnappers. Janke later confirmed he stood by as it was recorded.

The FBI's latest statement came on a day authorities said was set as a deadline day in the ransom note from the purported kidnappers. It was the second deadline, authorities said. The first passed Feb. 5, authorities said, with the note saying that consequences for not meeting the Feb. 9 deadline were more dire.

The FBI said that additional personnel were deploying into Tucson, and it was operating a 24-hour command post.

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"Someone has that one piece of information that can help us bring Nancy home," the statement said.

It gave the phone number 1-800-CALL-FBI. The FBI had previously announced a $50,000 reward for information leading to Guthrie's safe return or the arrest of those responsible for her abduction.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Nancy Guthrie's family has no communication with abductors, FBI says
The Islamic Republic can stage a march showing banners and military weaponry, manufacturing an appearance of unity. But when legitimacy is imposed on the people, then it's no longer legitimate.

February 11 is meant to be the Islamic Republics annual display of legitimacy. It is a day when the state floods Irans streets with flags, slogans, and choreographed crowds to commemorate the fall of the shah, the rise of Ruhollah Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

This year, with everything on the line for the republics future, the regimes messaging makes clear how much it needs the performance.

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State-aligned Tasnim News Agency reported that extensive arrangements have been made for mass rallies across the country, beginning simultaneously at 9:30 a.m. It cited plans for more than 7,700 journalists to cover the events, including 200 foreign reporters stationed along the march routes. More than 2,000 service and cultural booths will line Tehrans streets.

Military and aerospace organizations, Tasnim said, will unveil their latest equipment and achievements along the routes to showcase Irans scientific strength and military expertise alongside the people.

The presence of adoring crowds and the cheering are meant to symbolize the strength and legitimacy of the Islamic Republic, but it is strength and legitimacy with excellent production values.

In a separate report, published Monday evening byIran International, a second form of mobilization was shared. According to sources close to families of some of those detained during the ongoing anti-regime protests, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) intelligence officers and the Intelligence Ministry have pressured families of those arrested during nationwide protests to attend the February 11 rally. Their presence, the report said, must be verifiable. Families have been told to take photos and videos of themselves at the march and send them to security bodies. Those demands are coupled with threats and psychological pressure.

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A countrys anniversaries are supposed to commemorate a founding myth. When a government begins attaching conditions to someones attendance at a rally, it signals how deeply the regime is hated by the public.

For a ruling authority that has watched millions of its citizens take to the streets over the past two months demanding its demise, it is no surprise that the regime has gone to such lengths to try to put a positive spin on it.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a televised message in Tehran, Iran, February 9, 2026. (credit: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA via REUTERS)

In a televised message on Monday, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei described the date as the day the power and dignity of the Iranian nation are unveiled every year, calling the rallies unparalleled in the world. He framed participation as a kind of national weapon. By taking to the streets, he said, Iranians compel those who covet the Islamic Republic to retreat.

But Iranian identity has always been larger than any regime, or any governing body, and it is precisely that longevity that makes the regimes anxious choreography so telling. There is a civilizational continuity in Iran  an instinct for nationhood that predates the modern state by centuries. Over 2,000 years of nationhood is a concept dear to many Iranians, and many see their history as a story rooted in their homeland. They experience their nation through the idea of Iran rather than through any specific ideology.

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In contrast, Khameneis worldview  and by extension that of the Islamic Republic  has often prioritized the regimes ideological project and regional posture over the daily sustenance and prosperity of Irans citizens. Its people have gone through economic turmoil, environmental disasters, and other hardships, with the countrys wealth siphoned off to fund regional terror proxies such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.

Islamic Regime attempts to control the narrative

We are hopeful that, God willing, this 22nd of Bahman (in the Iranian calendar), like every 22nd Bahman of past years, will further magnify the grandeur of the Iranian nation, Khamenei stated in his message to the people.

But Khamenei has nothing but contempt for Iranians, the people he has ruled for 36 years.

Despite serving as the countrys president and then its supreme leader, he has never served the people. He cares more about his ummah of Islamists than he has ever cared about the Iranian people.

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Compare that to the former shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who, in his Nowruz (Iranian New Year) address of 1976, said, We, the Pahlavi dynasty, nurse no love but that for Iran, and no zeal but for the dignity of Iranians; recognize no duty but that of serving our state and nation.

That is why the revolutions anniversary has become so loaded.

It is the regimes attempt to control a narrative, when it has been clear to Iran-watchers for months that the Islamic Republic no longer represents the people. The people want it gone.

The Islamic Republic can still stage a march. It can still fill streets with banners and unveil military weaponry. It can still manufacture the appearance of unity.

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But this year, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meeting US President Donald Trump on February 11 itself, to discuss what action can be taken against Iran, the states grandiose performance rings hollow.

Legitimacy that is enforced upon the people is no longer legitimate.

Though February 11 will again be presented as a national celebration, it could well be the last time it is celebrated as a national holiday in the Islamic Republic.
Voters cast ballots at the Hillside Aquatic Complex in Bismarck on Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024. (Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor)

A federal election security bill gaining traction in Congress wouldnt affect North Dakota if it passes, according to the North Dakota Secretary of States Office.

The SAVE America Act, as currently written, would require every American voter to provide proof of citizenship when they register to vote. Voters would also have to present valid photo ID when they vote in federal elections.

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Additionally, the bill would also require voters to fill out an application to vote by mail and direct states to regularly audit their voter rolls for noncitizens, among other mandates.

The proposal includes an exemption for North Dakota, the only state that doesnt have voter registration, said Deputy Secretary of State Sandy McMerty.

Deputy Secretary of State Sandy McMerty speaks during a legislative hearing on Jan. 23, 2025. ( Photo by Mary Steurer/North Dakota Monitor)

The exemption would require North Dakota to have a system for confirming citizenship and passing this information onto election officials, which the state already has in place, McMerty said.

U.S. Rep. Julie Fedorchak, R-N.D., worked with bill sponsor Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, to exempt North Dakota from the bill, said Ty Kennedy, a staffer in Fedorchaks office.

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North Dakota already makes voters apply for mail-in ballots. The state also already requires voters to show valid identification each time they vote, though people also cannot be turned away if they show up without an ID. In that scenario, voters ballots are set aside until their identities can be verified.

Valid forms of identification include a North Dakota drivers license; a non-driver state-issued identification card; a tribal ID or a tribal letter; or a certificate from a long-term care facility.

The SAVE America Act is scheduled to go before the House floor for a vote this week.

The proposal builds on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act of 2025, which passed in the House last spring.

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North Dakota Republican Sens. Kevin Cramer and John Hoeven co-sponsored a version of the bill introduced in the Senate in early 2025.

Cramer in a statement to the North Dakota Monitor said that while hes usually against federalizing state functions, he supports the SAVE Act because it balances and reinforces existing laws to ensure elections are beyond reproach.

McMerty said the North Dakota Secretary of States Office is also watching another, more restrictive federal election security bill in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Make Elections Great Again Act.

That bill does not include an exemption for states that dont register voters.

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Critics of the bills say the proposals would make voting more difficult for some voters.

The League of Women Voters, for example, cautions that the legislation could burden groups like military voters, married women who changed their last names and citizens of color, and would be redundant to existing federal law.

What were against is anything, any attempt to make our voting more complicated, more difficult, to suppress voters, disrupt the voting process or to undermine any public confidence in our voting system, Kathy Tweeten, president of the League of Women Voters of North Dakota, said.

The MEGA Act has only been introduced in the House. Fedorchak is not a cosponsor of the legislation.

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The bills come as President Donald Trumps administration pushes for more federal control over elections. Under Article I of the U.S. Constitution, elections are primarily regulated by states.

Those efforts include suing numerous states for not providing voter registration lists, which the executive branch says it needs to search for noncitizen voters.

McMerty said that while the Secretary of States Office has discussed the states voter management processes with the U.S. Department of Justice, the executive branch has not asked for any North Dakota voter data.

When asked what the Secretary of States Office thinks about the White Houses efforts to increase federal oversight of elections, McMerty said Howe believes North Dakota has some of the best election integrity laws in the country.

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Noncitizen voting is rare and prohibited under federal law. A 2017 study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University that analyzed voting in 42 U.S. jurisdictions in the 2016 election found about 30 incidents of voting by noncitizens out of roughly 23.5 million votes.

North Dakota Monitor reporter Mary Steurer can be reached at msteurer@northdakotamonitor.com.

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A federal judge ruled Superior police violated a man's constitutional rights when an officer used a stun gun on him during a traffic stop in early 2024.

U.S. District Judge James Peterson ruled in favor of a part of Ian Richard Cuypers in Cuypers' civil lawsuit against Superior police officers for a traffic stop where an officer tased him after he drove the wrong way on a street. The federal lawsuit comes as the man was previously acquitted of one state charge in the case.

Peterson's decision is what is known as a summary judgment. It was specifically for one of Cuypers' claims  that police violated his Fourth Amendment rights when they used excessive force on him  will be presented to a jury for damages and the facts will not be tried. Cuypers' remaining claims that officers violated federal and Wisconsin law in other ways will still be tried.

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Cuyper's lawsuit was filed in October 2024 and names the city of Superior along with city police officers Justin Taylor, Taylor Gaard and Matthew Brown as defendants.

"We are pleased with the judge's decision," said Nora Snyder, attorney for Cuypers and with the People's Law Office in Chicago. "The use of the Taser in this case was obviously unconstitutional."

"(Cuypers) is thrilled," Snyder told the Journal Sentinel.

Superior Police Chief Paul Winterscheidt did not immediately respond to a Journal Sentinel request for comment. An attorney for the city of Superior referred comment to other attorneys on the case, who did not immediately respond.

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According to court documents:

The federal lawsuit follows an Oct. 24, 2024, traffic stop, when Superior police officer Justin Taylor pulled over Cuypers, who was working as a DoorDash driver, after he saw Cuypers drive the wrong way down a one-way street. Taylor called for backup, after seeing Cuyper's "furtive movements" within the vehicle, which the man's attorney say was him searching for his insurance paperwork in the vehicle's glovebox.

Four more officers soon arrived, including Gaard and Brown. Officers Taylor and Gaard drew guns and pointed them at Cuypers' vehicle, then yelling for him to exit the vehicle with his hands up and face away from the officers.

"I feel like I'm being assaulted," Cuypers is quoted as saying to officers. I really do not feel like I am being treated well."

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During the stop, Brown yelled for Cuypers to kneel down on his left knee repeatedly, while Cuypers asked what he had done wrong. After a third command, Gaard shot Cuypers with her stun gun.

"Im going to die here, arent I? Am I going to die? Cuypers is heard asking on body cam footage.

Cuypers was later cited for obstructing an officer, which a jury acquitted him of in June 2024, and driving the wrong way down a street.

In a deposition for the case, officer Taylor said he did not believe Cuypers did anything to resist officers. During the desposition, he reviewed his body camera footage with Cuypers' attorney Snyder.

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It showed Gaard asking Taylor, "So, what are your charges?"

"So, she didn't know what he had done to warrant arrest when she tased him?" Snyder, the attorney, asked Taylor.

"That's what it seems to be yes," responded Taylor, who no longer works for Superior police.

In November, attorneys for Cuypers filed for a summary judgment on Gaard's use of a Taser on him. They said it violated his Fourth Amendment rights and called any of Cuypers' actions far from justifying the use of the weapon.

"Defendant Gaards use of the Taser on an unarmed, non-threatening man who was not actively resisting arrest violated the constitution," Snyder wrote in a November court filing.

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Peterson's ruling came less than three months later. In his ruling, he wrote the law prohibits the usage of a Taser against "a non-violent suspect who is not actively resisting or otherwise posing a threat."

"The video evidence leaves no doubt that Cuypers was not actively resisting and did not pose a threat to the officers or anyone else on the scene," Peterson wrote. "Gaards use of a taser was objectively unreasonable and violated clearly established law."

Cuypers' jury trial in his federal suit is scheduled for July 27 in Wisconsin's Western District. The trial will examine whether officers failed to intervene and whether excessive force was used when pointing guns at him, among other issues.

David Clarey is a public safety reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He can be reached at dclarey@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin judge rules Superior police wrong to use Taser during 2024 traffic stop
The Justice Department's explanation for seeking to raid a major election office in Georgia and seize ballots tied to the 2020 election was made much clearer Feb. 10, after it was forced to release a document showing the arguments it used to get a search warrant.

The FBI, which is part of the Department of Justice, seized ballots and other records tied to the 2020 election from a Fulton County election center near Atlanta on Jan. 28. The move marked a major escalation of efforts under President Donald Trump's current administration to call into doubt the results of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to then-former Vice President Joe Biden.

The new document is the affidavit signed by FBI Special Agent Hugh Raymond Evans in the government's request for a search warrant.

"Following the November 3, 2020, presidential election, there were many allegations of electoral impropriety relating to the voting process and ballot counting in Fulton County, Georgia," Evans wrote in the affidavit.

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"Some of those allegations have been disproven, while some of those allegations have been substantiated, including through admissions by Fulton County," Evans added.

Evans wrote that the FBI investigation was jump-started by a referral from an official in Trump's White House, Kurt Olsen. He was appointed by Trump as "Director of Election Security and Integrity," according to the affidavit.

"This warrant application is part of an FBI criminal investigation into whether any of the improprieties were intentional acts that violated federal criminal laws," Evans wrote.

Attorney Kurt Olsen during his opening statement in Kari Lake's election challenge trial on May 17, 2023, in Maricopa County Superior Court in Mesa.

The Justice Department filed the affidavit to a Georgia federal court for release to the public on the order of a federal judge, who instructed government lawyers to make redactions to shield the names of nongovernmental witnesses. Fulton County officials had asked the court to release the affidavit to the public.

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Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, defended Georgia's election processes in a statement to USA TODAY.

"As Secretary of State, Ive made Georgia the safest and most secure place to vote," Raffensperger said. "Instead of wasting time and tax dollars trying to change the past with baseless and repackaged claims, lets focus our efforts on building a safer, more affordable future for all hardworking Georgians."

What potential crimes is the FBI investigating?

A federal judge in Georgia signed the search warrant, allowing FBI agents to seize election records as part of an investigation tied to two separate criminal statutes. One of those statutes requires election officials to keep voter registration records for 22 months after an election. The other prohibits using threats, coercion or fraud in certain voting processes.

Around 656 boxes of original 2020 election records  as opposed to copies  were seized, according to Fulton County Commissioner Marvin Arrington.

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Fulton County has filed a court motion to get the records back.

Evans alleged in his affidavit that there are several "deficiencies or defects" with the November election and vote count that the FBI is looking into in Georgia. Those include missing scanned images of ballots, duplicated ballot scans, inaccurate hand-count tallies of votes and purported absentee ballots that weren't properly creased or folded, he said.

Boxes and bags sit inside a vehicle of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) outside the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center after the FBI executed a search warrant there in relation to the 2020 election, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the matter, in Union City, Georgia, U.S. January 28, 2026.

Evans wrote that, if the alleged problems were intentional, then they would be evidence of a crime. By seizing election records, law enforcement would be able to corroborate an analysis suggesting election records were destroyed or that false votes were counted, he said.

White House official behind investigation helped Trump fight 2020 results

Olsen has a long history of fighting the 2020 election results. He joined the Texas attorney general's attempt to get the Supreme Court to stop four swing states from certifying Biden's 2020 victory over Trump, according to The New York Times.

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Olsen was sanctioned by a federal judge in Arizona for acting in bad faith by filing a lawsuit on behalf of Trump ally Kari Lake that made baseless allegations about the reliability of voting machines in that state, according to the California-based Daily Journal. Arizona was one of several swing states Biden won in 2020.

An appeals court decision upheld those sanctions. Appellate Judge Ronald Gould wrote that the lawsuit "made false, misleading and unsupported factual assertions" and the lawyers behind it didn't conduct a reasonable inquiry before filing it, the Daily Journal reported.

Congressional investigators found that Olsen had multiple phone calls with Trump on Jan. 6, 2021, the day a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to try to prevent Biden's 2020 election victory from going into effect, Politico reported.

Trump's national intelligence chief was present at raid

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was near the raid when it happened, and reportedly put Trump on the phone with some of the FBI agents involved in the raid the next day.

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That raised the eyebrows of the top Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees, who questioned in a Jan. 29 letter why someone tasked with overseeing national intelligence would attend a search of an election hub in Georgia.

"The job of the director of national intelligence is to be outward-facing about foreigners, not about Americans," Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on CBS News' "Face the Nation." "My fear is now [Trump] sees the political winds turning against him and he's going to try to interfere in the 2026 elections."

United States Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard speaks on the phone while standing at the edge of a truck loading bay after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) executed a search warrant for the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center in relation to the 2020 election, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the matter, in Union City, Georgia, U.S. January 28, 2026.

Gabbard said in a Feb. 2 letter that Trump asked her to be present for the raid, and that election security is a national security issue.

Gabbard is investigating the 2020 election results, according to the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, which each cited anonymous sources familiar with the matter. The two outlets reported that her work on the investigation has helped her be in Trump's good graces.

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Speaking on "The Dan Bongino Show" on Feb. 2, Trump alluded to the raid while saying he won the 2020 election.

"Now you're going to see something in Georgia where they were able to get, with a court order, the ballots," Trump said. "You're going to see some interesting things come out."

Fulton County, which includes much of Atlanta, is the largest county in Georgia by population. Biden's win in that county in 2020 helped propel his win in Georgia as a whole, which had 16 presidential electoral votes. Biden won the 2020 election with 306 electoral votes, compared with Trump's 232 tally.

Before Biden was inaugurated into office in January 2021, Trump tried to reverse his 2020 losses in several states, including Georgia. He and his allies filed more than 60 lawsuits. None was successful in proving there was widespread voter fraud.

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In a phone call with Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, Trump said, "I just need 11,780 votes" in Georgia. Raffensperger defended the accuracy of his state's election results.

(This story has been updated to add new information.)

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: DOJ shares why it raided Georgia election hub and seized 2020 ballots
A joint bank account can make it easier to manage your finances with a partner or family member. However, there are also some potential drawbacks of joint accounts to consider. Before you decide to merge your finances with another person, it's important to understand what a joint bank account is and how it works.

What is a joint bank account?

A joint bank account works like a typical bank account; the major difference is that its co-owned by two or more individuals who all have the power to make deposits, write checks, withdraw money, and more.

Most banks and credit unions offer joint accounts, including joint checking accounts, savings accounts, credit cards, loans, lines of credit, and more.

Joint accounts make it easier for couples and families to keep track of their spending, cover shared expenses, and save for future goals in one place. According to the Census Bureau, 77% of married couples who owned any assets at financial institutions (such as checking, savings, money market, or certificate of deposit accounts) held at least one joint bank account with their spouse in 2023.

Read more: How to merge finances with your spouse after getting married

Pros and cons of a joint bank account

Before opening an account, be sure to evaluate the pros and cons.

Pros

Joint accounts create greater financial transparency between account owners. When you share an account with your loved one, you can both see how much each person is contributing and how the money in your account is being spent.

Having a joint account simplifies your budgeting and overall finances. Keeping all of your funds in one place makes it easier to plan for and cover shared expenses.

Joint bank accounts can help you track progress toward shared savings goals. Whether youre saving for a home with your partner or teaching your child the importance of saving, pooling your funds in the same account can help you both keep track of your progress.

Joint accounts have greater insurance limits. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insures bank deposits up to $250,000 per depositor, per institution, per ownership category. But when you have a joint account, that coverage applies to each co-owner. So, if your joint account has two account holders, the balance may be protected up to $500,000, depending on whether you have other funds on deposit at the same bank.

Read more: How to insure deposits over $250,000

Cons

Joint accounts can lead to a lack of privacy when it comes to your spending habits. Co-owners of the account can see the full transaction history, including deposits and withdrawals. If youd rather keep some of your transactions private, it could be difficult with a shared account.

All co-owners are responsible for any fees or overdrafts. Joint account holders are equally as responsible for any mishaps. If another account owner overdrafts, for example, you're also on the hook for the fees.

If your relationship ends, closing your account and divvying up your assets could be difficult. Banks set their own rules about who can close a joint account and how  some banks require signatures from both parties. And all account holders have the right to access all funds in a joint account, regardless of who initially deposited the money. If the joint owners are unmarried, dividing those assets can become tricky. For married couples going through a legal separation, there is an added layer of legal protection.

Read more: How are bank accounts split up in a divorce?

Situations when a joint bank account makes sense

There are several instances when having a joint bank account could make sense for your financial situation. You might consider a joint account if:

Youre merging your finances with a partner or spouse: Couples who have shared household or childcare expenses may find that its easier to track and pay for those expenses if they are saving and paying their bills from the same account.

Youre helping your child manage their money: Parents who want to teach their child to manage their own finances early can walk them through the basics with a joint bank account. Many banks offer accounts for kids and teens that come with parental ownership and safeguards in place to limit overspending. Note that once your child reaches 18, these accounts typically transition to regular bank accounts, and parents no longer have joint ownership.

You have an aging parent who needs help managing their finances: If you have an elderly or ill parent, a joint bank account takes the pressure off them to manage their own personal finances. In many cases, joint bank accounts also come with a right of survivorship, meaning that if the primary account holder dies, the funds and right to the account pass on to the surviving owner.

Read more: What are your financial rights following the death of a loved one?

How to open a joint bank account

Opening a joint bank account isnt any different from opening a personal bank account for yourself. The only difference is that your bank will ask for personally identifying information (Social Security number, government ID, birth date, address, etc.) from all joint account owners. Plus, everyone will need to sign the account agreement.

If you decide to open a joint bank account, be sure to communicate with the other account owner(s) to make key decisions, such as choosing a financial institution, how the account will be used, and how much youll each contribute.

Joint bank account frequently asked questions

Can I open a joint bank account if my partner and I are not married?

Yes, you can open a joint bank account with your partner even if you are not married.

Read more: Should unmarried couples have joint bank accounts?

Can one person withdraw all of the money from a joint bank account?

Yes. Regardless of how much each party has personally deposited into the account, all co-owners have equal access to the account and the right to withdraw funds from the joint account at their discretion.

Am I responsible for charges on a joint credit account even if I did not make them?

Yes. As a co-owner, you are equally responsible for any charges or fees related to your account.
MONTPELIER, Vt. (ABC22/FOX44)  Vermonts $100 million proposal to connect almost all of its residents to reliable high-speed internet has been approved.

Vermont officials on Tuesday announced that their plan for funding through VT-BEAD had gotten the green light from the NTIA, a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

The majority of the money will go to NEK Broadband, which serves rural residents of the state who are less likely to have reliable internet access, but Maple Broadband, Consolidated Communications (Fidium), and SpaceX are among the other providers who will be building more access.

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Conditions of the funding include that all work must be completed within four years  meaning rural Vermonters should see faster speeds by 2030.

Vermonters across the state will soon be connected to the broadband they need to thrive in todays digital economy, said Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT).

Vermont takes another step towards state-wide high-speed internet

According to the office of Governor Phil Scott, more than 99 percent of households in the state will have access to internet with speed of at least 100 megabits per second (upload) and 20 megabits per second (downloads) once the project is complete.

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The BEAD program originally also targeted schools, libraries, and health centers for internet access, but according to a spokesperson from VCBB, its focus changed after new guidance came from the federal government last June.

Vermont completed a second round of applications for VT-BEAD in response to the new guidance in August.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC22 & FOX44.
A high-performance Ferrari was destroyed in a crash and fire shortly after it was stolen from a dealership in southern France, turning a planned theft into a costly failure. The incident unfolded in the early hours of January 20 in Cahors, a small town in the countrys southwest, where two suspects broke into the ILM Auto showroom and targeted a Ferrari 488 Pista.

Crashed 2025 Dodge Charger Daytona General Lee Sitting in Junkyard

According to published reports, the break-in did not unfold quickly. The suspects reportedly spent about 45 minutes searching the building for the vehicles keys before attempting to remove the supercar from the showroom. Instead of carefully maneuvering it out, they drove the car directly through a closed garage bay window to escape the building.

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The getaway was short-lived. Within miles of the dealership, near Montpezat-de-Quercy, the driver lost control on a wet road. The Ferrari struck a guardrail and caught fire, destroying the vehicle. The suspects were able to flee before authorities arrived at the scene.

The Ferrari 488 Pista is powered by a 3.9-liter twin-turbocharged V-8 engine producing more than 700 horsepower, making it one of the most capable road cars in the brands lineup. Controlling a vehicle with that level of performance can be difficult, particularly in poor conditions and for drivers unfamiliar with its capabilities.

While the theft ended without the suspects securing the vehicle, the resulting fire created another complication for investigators. The blaze eliminated most physical evidence connected to the crime. Police in Cahors are now relying largely on surveillance footage as they work to identify the individuals involved and piece together the sequence of events.

What began as a bold attempt to steal an exotic supercar ultimately left behind a destroyed vehicle and a challenging investigation, with authorities continuing efforts to track down the suspects responsible.



Source
President Donald Trumps tariffs cost American households an average of $1,000 last year, according to a shocking new analysis.

The report from the nonpartisan Tax Foundation found that U.S. households had a tax increase of $1,000 in 2025 and an increase of $1,300 in 2026 as a result of Trumps tariffs. Trump has repeatedly boasted about his tariffs, arguing that it will drive up revenue for the country.

Despite Trumps claims, experts repeatedly warned that the tariffs will only increase costs for Americans. Many companies said that they would need to increase prices as a result of the looming tariffs.

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The report said that the weighted average applied tariff rate on all imports rose to 13.5% as of Feb. 6, while the average effective tariff rate rose to 9.9%. This is the highest average effective rate since 1946, according to the report.

Democrats and Trump critics seized on the report to criticize the tariff policies.

Rep. Nellie Pou (D-N.J.) said Trump is to blame for the increase in costs.

$1,000 less towards buying a home. $1,000 less towards grocery shopping. $1,000 less in your savings account. You paid $1,000 more last year thanks to Donald Trump, Pou wrote on social media platform X.

This is a tax on you. You paid $1,000 more in a tax because of Trump, Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) wrote on X.

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Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-Pa.) posted: Does paying an extra $1,000 a year so the President and his family rake in billions in cash make us great??

West Wing actor Josh Malina mocked Trump over the new report by writing, He is so good for the little guy.

Liberal social media influencer Joanna JoJo From Jerz Carducci wrote: Remember when MAGA was crying about the price of eggs.

The report was published on Feb. 6, just days before Trump touted his tariffs again on his social media platform Truth Social. It also comes as Trump awaits a Supreme Court ruling that could force him to remove his tariffs.

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Record Stock Market, and National Security, driven by our Great TARIFFS. I am predicting 100,000 on the DOW by the end of my Term. REMEMBER, TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING! I hope the United States Supreme Court is watching, Trump wrote in a Truth Social post last week.

Read the original article on NJ.com. Add NJ.com as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
A burning building that housed an apartment and dance studio on the Fayetteville Square collapsed during a Feb. 8 blaze, injuring three firefighters.

The residents who live in an apartment above the studio were not harmed and the firefighters were treated and released from an area hospital, said Aimee Byrd, executive director of Fayetteville Main Street. The town center is about 90 miles southeast of Nashville.

Firefighters "had to tear down the buildings to extinguish the flames," destroying four buildings that housed Skin Refinery aesthetic spa, Young Vintage eclectic shop, the dance academy, a clothing designer's studio and Mercantile on Market gift shop, Byrd said.

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This is a developing story. Check back for more details as they become available.

Beth Warren covers health care and can be reached at bwarren@tennessean.com or on X at @BethWarrenCJ.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Middle Tennessee town square blaze destroys buildings, hurts firemen
Five of 10 employees who were abducted from a Canadian-run mine in Mexico last month have been confirmed as dead, authorities said.

Mexicos Attorney Generals Office said on Monday that authorities have identified five bodies found at a property in El Verde, a rural locality in the state of Sinaloa, and are working to identify the remains of five other people.

It is important to note that prosecutorial authorities have remained in contact with the victims relatives, the office said in a statement.

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In the cases where the bodies have already been identified, they will be transferred to the states of Zacatecas in two cases, as well as to Chihuahua, Sonora, and Guerrero, it added.

Authorities, who last week arrested four people in connection with the case, will continue gathering evidence to ensure the killings do not go unpunished, the office said without providing information on a possible motive.

Vizsla Silver, the operator of the Panuco gold and silver mine located near Mazatlan, Sinaloa, said earlier on Monday that it had been informed by a number of families that their loved ones had been found dead.

We are devastated by this outcome and the tragic loss of life. Our deepest condolences are with our colleagues families, friends and co-workers, and the entire community of Concordia, Michael Konnert, president and CEO of Vizsla Silver, said in a statement.

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Our focus remains on the safe recovery of those who remain missing and on supporting all affected families and our people during this incredibly difficult time, Konnert said.

Vizsla Silver, based in Vancouver, reported on January 28 that 10 of its workers had been taken from its project site and that it had informed authorities.

Sinaloa has been rocked by escalating gang violence linked to a rivalry between factions affiliated with two cofounders of the Sinaloa Cartel, Ismael El Mayo Zambada and Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, both of whom are in custody in the United States.

The western state in Mexico saw more than 1,680 homicides in 2025, making it the most violent year in more than a decade, according to a tally by the Mexican newspaper Milenio.




Feb. 9The Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport will soon host new nonstop flights to new destinations.

In the coming months, four airlines at CVG will be adding/expanding their services to flyers, according to the airport.

When do these start?

This month, American Airlines will add up to three additional daily flights to Chicago O'Hare International Airport. The airline will offer a total of seven peak daily flights overall to the Chicago hub.

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In March, Southwest Airlines will begin twice-daily nonstop service to Nashville International Airport.

British Airways will also expand its nonstop service at CVG to London Heathrow Airport from five to six days a week, beginning March 29 through October. Flights will take off every day except for Thursdays.

In May, Allegiant Air will launch a new nonstop service to John Wayne Airport in Orange County, CA., and restart nonstop service to Portland International Airport (PDX) in Oregon.

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A 64-year-old man convicted of murdering a traveling salesman was put to death by lethal injection on Tuesday in Florida, the US state that carried out more executions last year than any other.

Ronald Heath, who had previously served 10 years in prison for another murder committed when he was 16 years old, was executed at 6:12 pm (2312 GMT) at the state prison in Raiford.

"The sentence of the State of Florida v. Inmate Ronald P. Heath was carried out at 6:12 PM EST," the Florida Department of Corrections said, without providing further details.

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Heath was sentenced to death for the 1989 murder of Michael Sheridan during a robbery committed with his younger brother, Kenneth Heath.

Kenneth Heath pleaded guilty to murder and testified against his brother. He was sentenced to life in prison.

The jury found that "Ronald Heath was the dominant actor in the murder and robbery, and that he maintained substantial influence over his younger, weaker brother, Kenneth," according to court documents.

Sheridan's killing came just months after Ronald Heath had been released from prison after serving 10 years of a 30-year prison sentence for a murder committed when he was a teenager.

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The execution was the second in the United States this year.

A man convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend was put to death by lethal injection in Texas last month.

There were 47 executions in the United States last year, the most since 2009, when 52 inmates were put to death.

Florida carried out the most executions in 2025 -- 19 -- followed by Alabama, South Carolina and Texas, where there were five each.

Thirty-nine of last year's executions were carried out by lethal injection.

Three were by firing squad and five by nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping nitrogen gas into a face mask, causing the prisoner to suffocate.

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The use of nitrogen gas as a method of capital punishment has been denounced by United Nations experts as cruel and inhumane.

The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others -- California, Oregon and Pennsylvania -- have moratoriums in place.

President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and has called for an expansion of its use "for the vilest crimes."

cl/nro/jgc
A former longtime attorney for Oklahoma City says the city engaged in a nefarious scheme to keep potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars from civil forfeitures that should have gone to victims, the courts or back to the owners.

Orval Jones, 67, claimed in an affidavit filed Feb. 5 in Oklahoma County District Court that the city failed to provide to the courts information related to property seizures involving criminal cases. In such cases the court has consistently held that the funds be used for victim restitution, court costs, probation and incarceration fees before allowing the seizing agency to claim the money, Jones wrote in the affidavit.

Jones also wrote that, after meeting with assistant district attorneys, he tried turning over a list of seizures going back 20 years, totaling more than $400,000. But his supervisor took over the case and failed to inform the court of critical information that would allow judges to know if a criminal case was involved and to assert the court's priority claims.

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As tensions over the issue heated up, Jones said the OKC police chief asked he be transferred out of the property division in March 2025. Jones said he eventually resigned six months later.

"It is critical for the reputation of Oklahoma City that we are not considered the center of highway robbery in the heart of the country," Jones wrote to a city official in January in an email obtained by The Oklahoman.

Staff at the office of Kenneth Jordan, the city's top attorney, said they could not comment about the matter because it was pending litigation.

An on-call OKC police public information officer said Feb. 8 she was unfamiliar with the issue but suggested contacting the department's full-time spokespeople the next weekday. The police department's Office of Media Relations had not responded to a request for comment by Monday afternoon.

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More: Old legal quirk lets police take your money with little reason, critics say

Former city attorney had investigated issues with civil forfeiture returns for years

Orval Jones is a former assistant municipal counselor for Oklahoma City.

Now retired, Jones was a seasoned attorney with Oklahoma City, working as an assistant municipal counselor for more than 25 years, from early 1999 to late 2025. The affidavit from the attorney says he resigned under duress in September 2025, detailing the circumstances of his departure alongside lengthy casework on civil forfeitures spanning the past decade.

In 2017, a man was arrested and incarcerated but did not see money returned to him that had been seized by OKC police. A friendly lawsuit was filed under the Tort Claims Act on his behalf in 2018, claiming that failure of police to identify his address from the states prison online database was likely negligence.

Jones said that the mans name, but not his address, had been included in a larger request that he had signed as an attorney, asking that the mans $7,000 seized by OKC police be transferred to the city fund. At the time, the city received the seized money without opposition.

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The ultimate result, Jones explained, was that police took the man's money, used the unclaimed-property statute to get a district-court order allowing the City to keep it, and then used the tort-claim statute to get a judgment on the (property) tax roll, allowing the City to pay him back with taxpayer money (while the City kept his money), per the affidavit.

An exterior view of the Oklahoma City Police Department headquarters in Oklahoma City. An officer was terminated after an investigation into misconduct. [Bryan Terry/The Oklahoman]

Jones wrote he and city auditors later found that another massive list of "unclaimed property" showing most owners as "unknown" actually had ownership information clearly available in OKC police reports.

Soon afterward, another inmate filed three civil cases, requesting return of currency and other property seized in three different incidents tied to criminal cases and convictions. "This led me to research the concept of exclusive jurisdiction in connection with criminal prosecutions where property is held (in the custody of the law)," Jones wrote. "I discovered that courts around the country have applied the concept in criminal cases, too."

In one of the civil suits, it was determined that the judge in a civil case cannot determine the transfer of funds seized in the course of criminal cases that remain open for jurisdictional purposes. That currency is considered legally "in the custody of the court" until the criminal case is fully closed and no adjudicated claims remain. Incomplete sentencing requirements could also include unsatisfied victim restitution, unpaid courts costs, and other unpaid fines and fees.

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Jones suggested, and the Oklahoma City Council requested, updating state law after it became clear that OKCPD was resistant to returning money to anyone who had been arrested in the incident with the inmate. State law in 2021 was subsequently amended, clarifying a presumption of ownership for a person who was entitled to the return of their seized property without having to prove how they acquired the money.

Former city attorney alleges that police chief requested reassignment after detailed reviews of forfeiture lists

The newly renovated fountain located in the downtown lawn of city hall is back in operation on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016, in Oklahoma City, Okla. [CHRIS LANDSBERGER/THE OKLAHOMAN]

Jones wrote that his effort to clean up the process for civil forfeitures and property returns stretched over eight years.

By early 2025, Jones said that it had been determined that the Oklahoma County District Attorney should be doing ongoing audit work on whether or not police had submitted seizures to which the court would have priority claim. He said he met with a few assistant prosecutors in January 2025 to encourage them to take over the task, but "they were noncommittal," Jones wrote.

That same month, Jones said he addressed the priority of claims with Oklahoma County Judge Elizabeth Kerr, who presides over the civil property return docket. Around that time, the District Attorney made claims in three individual criminal cases for restitution and unpaid probation fees, wiping out all ownership interests and the city's claim to unclaimed funds, Jones wrote.

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The former city attorney's affidavit details three lists relating to civil asset forfeiture funds: an "Over $500 List," an "Over $250 List," and the "$250 and Under List."

Jones said the three lists were accompanied with affidavit forms verified by a police lieutenant and applications signed by himself as legal counsel for the city. They were later submitted in March 2025 to Judge Kerr's civil docket, he specified. "These affidavits were not designed to be used in criminal cases and thus failed to address the important issue of whether any listed seizures had resulted from arrests in filed criminal cases," Jones wrote.

Edmond Chief of Police JD Younger, left, and Oklahoma City Chief of Police Ron Bacy during the monthly meeting of the Oklahoma County Criminal Justice Advisory Council Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025.

On March 3, 2025, Jones wrote that his supervisor, assistant city attorney Kelea Fisher, "instructed the OKCPD to leave out the identifying dates of birth that would allow for criminal cases to be ferreted out, and determined that no criminal case numbers would be ascertained."

But, as Jones wrote in an email to Fisher, "the Criminal Court Case number is critical because the search for priority claims of the Court requires an individual search of each criminal case number to determine if the court costs were paid."

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Afterward, Jones said he spent the day looking up police reports and insisting that police add birthdates to the "Over $250 List" and provide birthdates on the lengthier "Over $500 List." A week later, Jones wrote that he was "permanently removed from the property assignment at the request of the Chief of Police," Ron Bacy, who had been selected by city management for the role the previous August.

In June 2025, Jones delayed a summer vacation to instead figure out, using publicly available information, how to match the lists with criminal court case filings. He would later submit his audit of the lists to both his supervisor Fisher and the city auditor, Matt Weller, according to the affidavit.

"By the City claiming and obtaining a civil court order to transfer these funds to City ownership, the individual owners were not credited with reduction of unpaid costs and the district court was deprived of its right to assert a property right to payment of uncollected costs from funds in its own custody and under its exclusive jurisdiction," Jones wrote.

Fisher's response "was negative and dismissive," according to Jones. Fisher's supervisor, deputy municipal counselor Paula Kelly, also wrote to Jones, saying "you are not to engage in any work related to property disposition, at any time or for any purpose whatsoever," according to Jones' affidavit.

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Related: Why are innocent people still losing cash, cars and even homes to police?

Council members Todd Stone and municipal counselor, Kenneth Jordan, from left, attend a city council meeting at Oklahoma City City Hall building on Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2021, in Oklahoma City, Okla. Signs have been posted encouraging the use of mask, no matter vaccination status at the building.

Jones has since quit working for the city. He also is asking that his signature be removed from transfer applications involving the prior cases. Jones said he now understands that he'd previously signed off on the documents in violation of ethical obligations.

He wrote that the orders should be vacated due to "violations of diligence" on his own part and "violations of candor" from other city attorneys who failed to notify the court of inappropriate procedures when the funds were transferred to city ownership.

My signatures were applied without appropriate diligence to determine if the Court had jurisdiction to enter a valid order in a civil proceeding (which it did not), Jones wrote. Therefore I hereby disaffirm the Applications as required by mandatory professional ethics.

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Moreover, the Judge was not informed at the hearing of the fraudulent intent or effect of the applications, resulting in direct violation of two distinct ethical duties, Jones also wrote.

When reached by The Oklahoman on Monday, the municipal counselor's office declined to comment. Calls from The Oklahoman to Judge Kerr's office also went unreturned.

Jones affidavit reveals the pressure tactic that was employed to initiate these proceedings without due diligence, and the bait-and-switch ploy that removed the original counsel of record from the assignment before the hearing, the former city attorney wrote. The new counsel of record had the same ethical duty of candor upon replacing the original counsel of record, but intentionally declined to disclose this nefarious scheme to transfer seized currency to the government coffer.

Ultimately, Jones is asking that the judge direct Oklahoma City to send notice to all owners of seized money, regardless of the amount at issue. He then asks that Oklahoma City file new motions in every Oklahoma County criminal case. He would also like to see the same happen for criminal cases in the neighboring Cleveland and Canadian counties, as well as the OKCs Criminal Court of Record, according to the affidavit.

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When reached by The Oklahoman, Jones declined to provide further comment on the filings, but did confirm that he submitted the documents during the first week of February.

"The City of Oklahoma Citys unclaimed property is not the responsibility of the DAs Office," spokesperson Brook Arbeitman told The Oklahoman on Monday. "However, in an effort to be a good partner, we are working with the City to identify cases that are still open (and as such the property cannot be destroyed or returned) to help with clearing out their property."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Attorney alleges 'nefarious scheme' with money seized by OKC police
The Brief

Former Georgia National Guardsman William Eric Cooper was sentenced to a decade in federal prison for attempting to entice a 15-year-old girl.

The investigation into Cooper began after the victim was kidnapped in North Carolina by unrelated individuals in early 2025.

Authorities found hundreds of child sexual abuse materials on Cooper's phone following his arrest in Adairsville.

ATLANTA - A former Georgia National Guardsman has been sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to attempting to entice a child who had been kidnapped by others.

What we know

William Eric Cooper, 46, of Adairsville, pleaded guilty to attempted enticement of a child on Aug. 25, 2025. He was sentenced this month by a federal judge.

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The U.S. Attorneys Office for the Northern District of Georgia said Cooper and a 15-year-old girl exchanged more than 1,000 messages. In those communications, Cooper attempted to arrange a meeting with the teenager, who lived in North Carolina. Prosecutors said he also encouraged her to create and send him sexually explicit videos of herself.

The backstory

Federal officials began investigating Cooper after the girl was kidnapped in North Carolina by other men in February 2025. In March 2025, officials arrested Cooper and searched his home, where agents discovered more than 250 images and videos depicting child sexual abuse on his cellphone.

At the time of his arrest, Cooper was a member of the Georgia National Guard. He has since been given an "other than honorable discharge."

What's next

A federal judge sentenced Cooper to 10 years in prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay a $100 special assessment.

The Source

Information in this article came from the U.S Attorney for the North District of Georgia's office via a press release.
Video above: News 5 Now  Top Stories from Feb. 10, 2026

MOBILE, Ala. (WKRG)  Former Mobile County Commissioner Stephen Nodine has been pardoned by the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Parole after he was accused of murdering his mistress back in 2010.

McGill Toolen announces new principal

The bureau pardoned Nodine during a hearing on Feb. 10 in Montgomery.

Its been 15 years of working to prove my innocence, Nodine said. This decision affords me the opportunity to be a fully active and productive member of the community.

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Nodine was accused of shooting and killing Angel Downs in Gulf Shores on Mothers Day in 2010.

His trial, which took place seven months after the investigation began, ended in a hung jury.

Nodine pleaded the Alford plea to harassment and perjury after Downs died. He was sentenced to 10 years of incarceration, but he only served two years. Nodine also pleaded guilty in federal court to being a drug user in possession of a weapon. He served one year in federal prison for the offense.

In 2016, Nodine was arrested again and sentenced to another 60 days behind bars after he violated his probation by leaving the state without permission and failing a court-ordered drug test.

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The decision by the Bureau of Pardons and Parole means Nodine is again eligible to run for public office. He announced a run for Mayor of Mobile last year but withdrew when he could not get a pardon in time for the election.

I-10 eastbound in Baldwin County closed following crash

Nodine served on the Mobile County Commission from 2004 to 2010. He also served on the Mobile City Council for three years.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRG News 5.
Southwest Airlines just brought back its Companion Pass welcome offer  one of our favorite credit card sign-up bonuses. For a limited time, you can earn Companion Pass in addition to bonus Rapid Rewards points with a new Southwest credit card:

If you regularly fly with a partner, friend, or family member, you can save a lot of money by using Companion Pass on each flight you book. And youll get even more value with bonus points toward your next trip  on top of these cards regular benefits, like a free checked bag, seat upgrades, anniversary bonus points, and more.

Read more: Best Southwest credit cards

More details about the welcome offer

When you meet the spending requirements for each of these Southwest cards, youll earn Companion Pass along with bonus points. Here are the details:

Companion Pass

For a limited time, you can earn Companion Pass as part of the welcome offer on a new Southwest Rapid Rewards card. Companion Pass allows you to bring another person with you when you fly Southwest for only the cost of taxes and fees (from $5.60 one-way).

With the welcome offer, youll have Companion Pass through Feb. 28, 2027 and can use it unlimited times until then. If you want to keep your Companion Pass after February 2027, youll need to earn it by flying at least 100 qualifying one-way flights or earning 135,000 qualifying points within the calendar year.

Bonus Rapid Rewards points

Each card has a different bonus points offer in addition to the opportunity to earn Companion Pass:

Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority Credit Card : 40,000 Rapid Rewards bonus points after spending $5,000 within the first three months

Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus Credit Card : 20,000 Rapid Rewards bonus points after spending $3,000 within the first three months

Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Credit Card: 30,000 Rapid Rewards bonus points after spending $4,000 within the first three months

Southwest Rapid Rewards credit cards

Frequent Southwest flyers can get plenty of perks with any Rapid Rewards credit card. No matter which card you choose, youll get a few standard benefits when you fly:

Free first checked bag for you and up to eight additional passengers on the same reservation

Automatic Group 5 boarding for you and up to eight additional passengers on the same reservation

25% off inflight purchases

10,000 Companion Pass qualifying points boost each year

No foreign transaction fees

But there are also some important differences between each Southwest Rapid Rewards card that can help you decide which is right for you.

Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority Credit Card

Learn more Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority Credit Card Add to Compare Annual fee $229

Welcome offer Earn Companion Pass from Southwest through 2/28/27, plus 40,000 Rapid Rewards bonus points, after spending $5,000 within the first 3 months from account opening Rewards rate 4x on Southwest purchases 2x at gas stations and restaurants 1x on all other purchases

Benefits 7,500 bonus points after your Cardmember anniversary First checked bag free for you and up to 8 additional passengers in the same reservation, plus enjoy unlimited upgrades to an Extra Legroom seat when available 10,000 Companion Pass qualifying points boost each year



Who its best for: With a $229 annual fee, this is the most premium Southwest credit card, making it the best choice for frequent flyers who prefer Southwest Airlines. If you fly Southwest often, not only can you best take advantage of the max 4x points on Southwest purchases, but youll also get a ton of value from ongoing benefits.

Those benefits include the option to choose a complimentary Preferred seat when you book a Southwest flight or an Extra Legroom seat within 48 hours of departure (when available); 7,500 bonus points each cardmember anniversary; 2,500 tier-qualifying points toward A-List status for every $5,000 you spend; and more.

Read our full review of the Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority Credit Card

Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus Credit Card

Learn more Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus Credit Card Add to Compare Annual fee $99

Welcome offer Earn Companion Pass from Southwest through 2/28/27, plus 20,000 Rapid Rewards bonus points, after spending $3,000 within the first 3 months from account opening

Ongoing Purchases APR 19.24% - 27.74% Variable Rewards rate 2x on Southwest purchases 2x at gas stations and grocery stores on the first $5,000 in combined purchases per anniversary year 1x on all other purchases

Benefits 3,000 bonus points after your Cardmember anniversary First checked bag free for you and up to 8 additional passengers in the same reservation Standard Seat Selection within 48 hours prior to departure, when available



Who its best for: Though it does still have a $99 annual fee, this card is best for budget travelers who prefer flying Southwest  even if they dont fly very often. You can boost points toward future award trips with 2x points on both Southwest purchases and on everyday gas and groceries (up to a combined $5,000 each anniversary year). The benefits youll get include 3,000 bonus points and a 10% flight discount each cardmember anniversary. The flight discount doesnt apply to Basic fare tickets, but you will also get the option to select a complimentary Standard seat (when available) within 48 hours of departure  which is useful when you fly Basic, since that fare doesnt include seat selection at booking.

Read our full review of the Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus Credit Card

Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Credit Card

Learn more Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Credit Card Annual fee $149

Welcome offer Earn Companion Pass from Southwest through 2/28/27, plus 30,000 Rapid Rewards bonus points, after spending $4,000 within the first 3 months from account opening

Purchase APR 19.24% - 27.74% variable Rewards rate 3x points on Southwest purchases 2x at grocery stores and restaurants on the first $8,000 in combined purchases per anniversary year 1x points on all other purchases

Benefits Earn 6,000 points each year on your account anniversary First checked bag free for you and up to 8 additional passengers in the same reservation Get 25% back on inflight purchases 10,000 Companion Pass qualifying points boost each year



Who its best for: This Southwest card is a great choice for anyone who wants to maximize food spending at home but still flies often enough to make up the $149 annual fee cost with airline benefits. In addition to 3x on Southwest purchases, youll earn 2x points at grocery stores and restaurants, up to $8,000 in combined spending per anniversary year.

As for benefits when flying Southwest, this card has plenty to offer  even when compared to the Rapid Rewards Priority card. Youll get the option to select a complimentary Standard or Preferred seat (when available) within 48 hours of your flights departure; 6,000 bonus points and a 15% flight discount (excluding Basic fares) every anniversary year; 1,500 tier-qualifying points toward A-List status for every $5,000 you spend; and more.

All information about the Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Credit Card has been collected independently by Yahoo Finance. The Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Card is no longer available through Yahoo Finance.

Read our full review of the Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Credit Card

What you can get with a limited-time Southwest card bonus

The combination of bonus points and Companion Pass can offer major rewards value when youre ready to book your next trip. Heres an example:

Lets say youre planning a weeklong trip from New York to Chicago in the summer with a friend. Right now, you can find nonstop flights between the two cities on a Choice fare ticket for just 20,000 points (plus $11.20 in taxes and fees) round trip.

No matter which of the Rapid Rewards credit cards you choose, youll have enough welcome bonus points to cover your trip in full. And you can use your Companion Pass to cover your friends fare too, for no additional cost except taxes and fees.

And dont forget about your Rapid Rewards card benefits when you fly, too. This Choice fare ticket already allows you to choose a Standard seat at booking. But depending on the Rapid Rewards card you choose, you may also have the choice to upgrade to a Preferred or Extra Legroom seat, either at booking or within 48 hours of your flight if one is available, for no extra charge.

Read more: How I used my Southwest credit card to fly (almost) free

Editorial Disclosure: The information in this article has not been reviewed or approved by any advertiser. All opinions belong solely to the Yahoo Finance and are not those of any other entity. The details on financial products, including card rates and fees, are accurate as of the publish date. All products or services are presented without warranty. Check the banks website for the most current information. This site doesn't include all currently available offers. Credit score alone does not guarantee or imply approval for any financial product.
NEW DELHI, Feb 10 (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron will visit India from February 17 to 19 and hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Indian foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

* The French President will participate in the AI ImpactSummit being hosted by India in New Delhi next week, accordingto a statement. * Macron will be in India's financial capital Mumbai toinaugurate the India-France Year of Innovation, it added. * Modi and Macron will discuss regional and global issues ofmutual interest, including cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, theforeign ministry said. * The two countries signed a declaration of their intent toestablish a partnership on advanced and small modular nuclearreactors during Modi's visit to France last year.

(Reporting by Tanvi Mehta; Editing by YP Rajesh)
A federal judge in California sentenced in absentia a dual national of China and St. Kitts and Nevis to 20 years in prison for his role in a $73 million international crypto scam.

Daren Li, who is a fugitive after removing an ankle electronic monitoring device in December, was also handed three years of supervised release for his role in an international cryptocurrency investment conspiracy carried out from scam centers in Cambodia, according to a court statement on Monday.

Cambodia has become a hub for "pig butchering" crypto scams, generating over $30 million daily via forced labor compounds, according to a TRM Labs report. A separate TRM report revealed how over $96 billion in crypto has flowed to Cambodia-linked companies since 2021, used heavily for money laundering and fraud.

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As part of an international cryptocurrency investment scam, Daren Li and his co-conspirators laundered over $73 million dollars stolen from American victims, Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Departments Criminal Division said in the statement.

Duva said the courts criminal division is working with global law enforcement officials to find, detain and return Li to the U.S. to serve his entire sentence.

Li pleaded guilty on Nov. 12, 2024, in the Central District of California to conspiring with others to launder funds obtained from victims through crypto scams and related fraud. As part of his plea agreement, Li said he and his cronies would contact victims directly through unsolicited social-media interactions, telephone calls and messages and online dating services. Their tactics entailed gaining victims' trust by establishing professional or romantic relationships with them, then luring them into using spoof platforms to appear to invest in crypto.

In other instances, the group posed as tech-support staff and induced victims to send funds via wire transfer or cryptocurrency trading platforms to purportedly remediate a non-existent virus or other false computer-related problem.

Social engineering scams, such as fake investment offers and impersonation tactics, were the leading threat to crypto users, accounting for losses in the billions of dollars and representing nearly 41% of all crypto security incidents in 2025.
Bangladesh votes on Thursday in the first election since a Gen Z protest movement toppled an ageing autocrat  an uprising tens of millions of young people dreamed could chart a new course for their country.

Images of longtime leader Sheikh Hasina fleeing by helicopter as protesters stormed her residence in the summer of 2024 sent shockwaves around the world, inspiring other youth-led movements against corruption and nepotism that helped topple governments in Nepal and Madagascar.

Many are happy that Hasinas 15 years of rule  marked by accusations of rigged elections, the loot of state resources and brutal crushing of dissent  have ended.

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The revolution showed the power of what Gen Z can achieve, Mirza Shakil, a student who participated in the protests to topple Hasina, told CNN.

Protesters shout slogans against Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on August 3, 2024. Hasina eventually fled to India - Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters

The Students Against Discrimination group holds the "March for Unity" rally demanding proclamation of the July Revolution and to mark the student-led uprising five months ago that led to the ouster of longstanding Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and to remember the more than 1,000 killed in the violence at the Central Shaheed Minar, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, December 31, 2024. - Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters

But the two candidates most likely to lead Bangladesh into a post-Hasina future are a far cry from those who risked everything on the barricades and in the streets to topple her.

One is the 60-year-old scion of a political dynasty which has dominated Bangladeshi politics for decades. The other is a 67-year-old Islamist leader whose party is fielding no women candidates in the polls.

We dreamt of a country where all people regardless of gender, race, religion would have equal opportunity, another former protester Sadman Mujtaba Rafid told Reuters.

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We expected policy changes and reforms, but it is far away from what we dreamt of.

Election campaign posters hang over a street a day ahead of the national election in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on February 11, 2026. - Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reutres

A consequential vote

Hasinas downfall began with student demonstrations over civil service job quotas. In response, her government unleashed a brutal and bloody crackdown that only galvanized the movement and brought more people onto the streets.

Protests soon spread nationwide, and when the army said it would not fire on protesters, it was clear Hasinas rule was over.

In August 2024, students stormed her official residence, smashing walls and looting its contents, forcing her to flee into neighboring India and exile.

Last November, a court in Dhaka sentenced Hasina to death in absentia for her role in the unrest, in which the UN human rights office estimates around 1,400 people were killed.

Dhaka University students gather as a court delivers the death sentence to former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for crimes against humanity. - Abaca Press/Sipa USA/AP

Hasina now finds herself a pawn in a tense standoff between the two countries as Bangladesh demands her extradition to face justice for crimes that she insists she did not commit. Her Awami League is banned from contesting in the upcoming vote.

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The absence of Hasina and her party has been a boon for its historic rival, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

Its leader, Tarique Rahman, the son of former prime minister and bitter Hasina rival, the late Khaleda Zia, has since returned to Bangladesh after 17 years of exile and now appears the frontrunner to win.

Another of the old guard enjoying a comeback is Jamaat-e-Islami, the countrys largest Islamist party, which is making a resurgence after years of suppression under Hasina.

Meanwhile the National Citizen Party (NCP), a political party founded by students following the uprising, has struggled to meaningfully muscle its way into Bangladeshs fractious and often violent political scene.

Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Chairman Tarique Rahman addresses an election rally ahead of the country's general election in Dhaka on February 8, 2026. - Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images

In late December, it stunned many when it announced an alliance with Jamaat-e-Islami.

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That pact is partly about protection, said Naomi Hossain, a professor of Development Studies at SOAS University of London.

Some in the NCP stand a strong chance of getting seats if they ally with Jamaat, she told CNN.

Furthermore, in a violent political setting, parliamentary status offers protection, and without it, leaders fear being very vulnerable to backlash, she said.

A spate of violent clashes toward candidates and religious minorities has frayed nerves. The interim government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, has faced criticism for not being able to maintain law and order within the country.

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This instability stands in contrast to the hopes many of the student protesters initially had.

The NCP had promised reform, inclusivity and many other things, said student protester Nazifa Jannat.

Bangladeshi workers load empty ballot boxes onto a truck at the Election Commission building ahead of the upcoming national elections in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on February 7, 2026. - Abdul Goni/AFP via Getty Images

An alliance with a party who has not put forward a single woman candidate, feels like a betrayal.

It is a disgraceful incident, she said. We have told them how shameful this is for us.

Still, Thursdays vote is being described by many as the first free and fair election in more than a decade, and on the streets of Dhaka, the prevailing mood is one of anticipation.

The election can bring something new, Shakil, the former protester told CNN.

We are excited.

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Feral hogs have been a centuries-long nuisance, to put it mildly.

Their poop and the soils they disturb muck up waterways. They steal fruit and acorns from deer, bears, and turkeys, and even happily munch on native reptiles and even rare plants. And they're a wrecking ball for agriculture, bulldozing seed beds, destroying equipment, and rampaging through cropscausing about $150 million of damage to farmland and natural areas according to a University of Georgia study in 2020.

Feral hogs are probably his least favorite animal, said DNR Senior Wildlife Biologist Charles Killmasterand likely among the most destructive invasive species in the state.

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While state agencies like the DNR have encouraged the hunting of feral hogs, the Georgia House of Representatives has made it even easier. In a landslide 163 to 1 vote on Feb. 3, the House passed House Bill 946, authorizing the trapping of feral hogs on private land, without a hunting or trapping license, provided the hogs are killed upon capture.

Drones, or "unmanned aircraft systems," can also be used to locate the hogs on the property, the bill states. Shooting from motor vehicles would also be permitted.

The bill allows hunters to trap and kill hogs without a license on land they don't necessarily own, said bill sponsor Rob Clifton. But, they would need permission from the landowner, or else that would be considered illegal poaching and trespassing, he added.

A hungry feral hog dug up a sea turtle nest, and its protective screen. Taken Aug. 25, 2025

More: Beach erosion, rising tides and groundwater, and feral hogs impede sea turtle hatchings

Why trapping?

Introduced by the Spanish in the mid-1500s, hogs were bred to have high reproduction rates of about one to two litters of five to seven piglets a year, said Killmaster. Now, they are a hybrid mix of escaped domestic pigs, Eurasian wild boars, and hybrids of the two.

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Last year, Georgia DNR killed 673 hogssome shot, some trapped and then shot, and some hunted overhead by helicopter, a Bond-like but cost-effective technique employed in open areas like farmland, said Killmaster. Of all the techniques, trapping is among the most effective.

Hunting is typically done for recreational purposes, whereas trapping is typically done for control purposes, said Killmaster.

More: Wood storks rebound, but delisting raises new concerns for wetlands

Females and their young tend to gather in sounders of about 15 to 30, said Killmaster, while fully mature males tend to travel solo.

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"The females are the main drivers of population growth," said Killmaster. So, trapping is "one of the most efficient ways to control them by removing the entire sounder."

Their populations are now fairly stable, the agency estimates, though its unclear how many there actually are.

Most of the trapping and hunting is already being handled by private individuals and local groups, and Killmaster figures that plenty of people pulling the trigger already carry a hunting license.

So, if the Senate gives this bill the green lightand Governor Brian Kemp signs offitll put the question to bed of whether you need a trapping license or hunting license on someone elses private property, granted you have permission to hunt from the landowner.

Feral hog and piglets

One vote in opposition

The only vote in opposition of the bill came from Democrat District 91 Representative Angela Moore, who cited personal reasons against hunting and using drones.

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I wouldnt feel comfortable with that, she said. While she did not realize the drone would not be permitted to shoot anything itself at the time of the vote, neither did she realize the hogs were invasive, she still fears someone could be misidentified as a hog by an aerial survey.

"At least I know that in my heart, I didn't vote to kill another thing," Moore said.

Her seat mate in the House was astonished when she voted against the bill, she said. But in an effort to keep up light-hearted running joke between them, Moore made sure to bring her pinto beans with extra "feral hog" (store-bought honey-baked ham) for lunch the following week.

Existing regulation on unmanned aerial aircraft still applies, the bill states.

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Jillian Magtoto covers climate change and the environment in coastal Georgia. You can reach her at jmagtoto@usatodayco.com. This reporting content is supported by a partnership with Green South Foundation and Journalism Funding Partners.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Georgia House votes 1631 to expand feral Hog trapping
Top state Republicans in Georgia have quietly opened the door for the Republican National Committee to support Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in the states hotly contested primary for governor.

The RNC normally maintains strict neutrality in party primaries to let voters  not party leaders  choose its nominee. Any move to intervene in Georgia, however, could dramatically reshape a crowded race for an open governor's seat in a premiere battleground state. It could give Jones, President Donald Trumps handpicked choice, a boost in a field that includes Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a target of Trumps ire ever since he refused to echo the presidents falsehoods about the 2020 election in his state.

Georgias three RNC members signed letters late last year and early this year waiving the party rule that bars the RNC from intervening in contested primaries, according to three people familiar with the agreement. That move allows the national party to provide financial or operating support to Jones and coordinate with him ahead of the May primary.

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Its unclear whether the RNC will move to support Jones in the crowded primary now that its been cleared to do so. But it was the RNC that first reached out to the Georgia party leaders about waiving the rule, according to a person familiar with the process  a sign the national party has at least considered getting off the sidelines. The RNC did not provide a comment.

Josh McKoon, the chair of the Georgia Republican Party, said he signed the letter waiving the RNCs neutrality rule because Jones has Trump's endorsement.

It was a no-brainer for me to sign the letter, McKoon told POLITICO.

From my perspective, I was going to remove any barriers to working with the RNC from a candidate that the president has clearly signaled as the candidate he wants to be the next governor, he said.

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Jones has long been a vocal supporter of Trump. He endorsed him for president in 2015, and as a state senator, was among the 16 Republicans who attempted to serve as electors in 2020 and falsely certify Trumps loss in Georgia as a win. Jones received Trumps official endorsement in August, and released a video with Jones last week calling him a friend whos going to make a great, great governor.

Limited early public polling shows Jones leading the field, and he maintains a sizable war chest, but the race remains fluid, and a prolonged and expensive primary could complicate Republicans general election prospects. RNC support could help Jones fend off rivals and potentially avoid a prolonged primary fight, especially if he can avoid a run-off.

Last week, health care business owner Rick Jackson injected new uncertainty into the race by launching a surprise gubernatorial bid, pledging to spend $50 million of his own money to support his campaign. He has presented himself as a Trump-aligned political outsider, a message that could cut into Jones base.

A Cygnal poll released Monday, after Jacksons surprise campaign launch, found Jones leading with 22 percent support among likely primary voters. Jackson followed at 16 percent, with Raffensperger at 10 percent and Attorney General Chris Carr at 7 percent.

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To avoid a June run-off, a candidate must secure an outright majority of the vote in the May 19 primary  a high bar in an increasingly crowded field.

I can see a path to victory for all four of them right now. said Jason Shepherd, a former Cobb County GOP chair who is backing Carr. But Burt Jones path to victory just got a lot harder with Jacksons entrance.

Under RNC rules, the national party is barred from backing candidates in primaries unless the filing deadline has passed and a candidate is running unopposed. That requirement, known as Rule 11, can be waived if all three of a states RNC members sign off. Such Rule 11 agreements have been used sparingly in recent cycles.

State party leaders in North Carolina have green-lit early support for former RNC chair Michael Whatley, another Trump-backed candidate running for the states open Senate seat.

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Both Georgia and North Carolina are top priorities for the Republican Party in November. In Georgia, Republicans are looking to retain control of the governors mansion in a state that Trump flipped in 2024. The steps taken in both states raise questions about whether the RNC could face pressure to take similar moves in other states primaries where Trump decides to take sides, such as in Louisiana, where he endorsed Rep. Julia Letlowin her primary challenge against Sen. Bill Cassidy.

We all look very carefully at when [Trump] decides to weigh in a race, because he doesn't always do that, McKoon said. I certainly didn't want to be serving as an obstacle to the RNC being able to coordinate with his campaign and provide support.

Alec Hernandez contributed to this report.
Authorities have raided 11 properties in Germany and Switzerland linked to a suspected retail network of far-right extremist memorabilia adorned with swastikas and the image of Hitler, German prosecutors said on Tuesday.

The raids took place last Thursday and focussed on a 43-year-old male main suspect, as well as five accomplices, prosecutors in Gottingen said.

Officers confiscated thousands of CDs and records containing right-wing music, as well as key chains, clothing and stickers imprinted with swastikas, imperial eagles and the image of Adolf Hitler.

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They also seized knuckle dusters and explosives not available for sale to the general public, as well as items bearing the logos of banned far-right groups Blood & Honour and Combat 18.

Public display or dissemination of symbols linked to the regime of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, including the swastika, is a criminal offence in Germany that is punishable with a fine or up to three years in prison.

The six suspects are also suspected of violating the weapons act and trafficking in illegal doping substances and prescription drugs.

Covert investigations into the group began earlier this month after the main suspect came to the attention of police in the northern city of Oldenburg as part of a probe into the far-right extremist music scene.
Another train attendant has been attacked in Germany about a week after an employee of railway operator Deutsche Bahn died after he was beaten up by a passenger, police said on Tuesday.

A 42-year-old female train attendant was checking tickets on a train travelling from the south-western city of Stuttgart to the town of Crailsheim on Sunday.

She found a 21-year-old passenger without a valid ticket and ordered him to pay a fine, according to federal police in Stuttgart.

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Shortly afterwards, the suspect approached the train attendant again, spat on her leg and tried to hit her in the stomach with a bottle, according to eyewitnesses.

He then fled the scene. Police have launched investigations for attempted grievous bodily harm and have asked witnesses to come forward.

It comes less than a week after a fatal attack on a train attendant, the first such case in the history of Deutsche Bahn, according to the national railway operator.

The 36-year-old male employee was beat up by a passenger on a regional service during ticket inspection on Monday evening as the train was leaving Landstuhl station, to the south-west of Frankfurt.

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The 26-year-old passenger did not have a ticket and was ordered to leave the train before he beat up the attendant, severely injuring him with blows to the head, according to prosecutors in nearby Zweibrucken.

The suspect, a Greek national, told authorities that he lives in Luxembourg. He did not use a weapon, according to initial findings, and did not have a criminal record in Germany.

Passengers administered first aid and alerted the police. The train attendant was resuscitated at the scene, before he was brought to hospital, where he died of his injuries on Wednesday morning.
Jeffrey Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell refused to answer questions from the House Oversight Committee on Monday, but her attorney said she is prepared to speak fully and honestly if President Donald Trump grants her clemency.

Only she can provide the complete account of Epsteins actions, David Oscar Markus said in a statement after Maxwell's brief virtual appearance before the panel in the morning, where she invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Some may not like what they hear, but the truth matters. For example, both President Trump and President Clinton are innocent of any wrongdoing. Ms. Maxwell alone can explain why, and the public is entitled to that explanation, Markus said, sharing what he said he told the panel.

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Markus said he told committee members his client would very much like to answer your questions, but she must remain silent because Ms. Maxwell has a habeas petition currently pending that demonstrates that her conviction rests on a fundamentally unfair trial.

That would change if she's granted clemency, the statement said. Trump has not publicly ruled out pardoning Maxwell. "I havent thought about it for months. Maybe I havent thought about it at all," he told reporters on Air Force One in November. "I dont talk about that. I dont rule it in or out," he said then.

An undated photo of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell released by the Justice Department on Dec. 19. (Department of Justice) (Department of Justice)

Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., said after the brief deposition that he does not think she should be granted any type of immunity or clemency. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., added later that its unconscionable that shes pleading the Fifth or trying to make deals.

Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of federal sex trafficking charges, including conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, participation in a sex trafficking conspiracy and sex trafficking of a minor. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

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Epstein, a convicted sex offender, died in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Maxwell is the only other person to be charged and convicted in connection with Epstein.

She tried appealing her conviction to the Supreme Court last year, but the high court in October declined to hear her case. She's since launched a separate action challenging her conviction, which is pending.

Under questioning by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in July, Maxwell denied the allegations against her and said she'd never seen Epstein or those around him act inappropriately. That included Trump and Bill Clinton, who each spent time with the politically connected financier before he was first hit with criminal charges in 2006.

A senior administration official told NBC News in July that Maxwell was granted limited immunity by the Justice Department to answer questions about the Epstein case. Maxwell's lawyers asked the House Oversight Committee later in July to grant her immunity in order to answer their questions, but they rejected her request.

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Both Trump and Clinton have denied any wrongdoing, and neither has ever been accused by law enforcement of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.

After the unusual interview with Blanche, Maxwell was transferred from a prison in Florida to a lower, minimum-security prison camp in Texas.

Reacting to Markus statement, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., posted on social media: Here is my conclusion after sitting through Maxwells deposition with her refusing to answer a single question about the men who raped underage girls, saying she would only do so for clemency.

She must immediately be sent back to the maximum security prison where she belongs.

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Markus responded on X, saying: "A sitting Congressman wants to punish someone for invoking a constitutional right. Sending someone to harsher confinement because they invoke a constitutional right is something we associate with authoritarian regimes, not the United States Congress. Sad."

The brother and sister-in-law of the late Epstein survivor Virginia Roberts Giuffre blasted Maxwell for not answering questions.

Ghislaine Maxwell, you were not a bystander. You were not misled. You were a central, deliberate actor in a system built to find children, isolate them, groom them, and deliver them to abuse, they wrote in a letter obtained by NBC News. You used trust as a weapon. You targeted vulnerability and turned it into access. That is not a mistake. That is not poor judgment. That is predation.

They also urged the panel to look more deeply into Maxwells transfer to a lower-security prison as well as her potential inconsistencies in prior sworn testimony.

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Well end this letter with Virginias last wishes for you: Ghislaine, you deserve to spend the rest of your life in a jail cell. Trapped in a cage forever just like you trapped your victims, they wrote.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB)  The Glen Park Art Festival, a popular event in Williamsville each summer, has been canceled for 2026, organizers announced.

The decision was made due to the festival and the village of Williamsville not being able to come to terms that festival organizers felt comfortable agreeing to, according to a statement put on social media.

We refuse to host an event that falls short of our standards, festival president Gina Nasca wrote on social media. We are advocating for a stronger, more modernized partnership with the Village of Williamsville  one that provides the support necessary to produce a show the community can be proud of.

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Nasca said that organizers will use the year off to reassess the events future. She said that the event has out-grown its current space but is committed to staying at Glen Park. Organizers also apologized to local businesses that will be affected by the lack of an event, which has traditionally been held in late July.

The event, which has been around since 2010, has annually attracted more than 125 artists from in and around Western New York, as well as live music, childrens activities, chalk art, and food and drinks from area restaurants.

We are taking this time to cultivate new volunteers, committee members and connections, Nasca wrote, to ensure that when we return, we have the committed support system required to deliver a safe and successful festival for all.

Latest Local News

Aidan Joly was named News 4s Digital Executive Producer in 2025. He has been on staff since 2022. He is a graduate of Canisius College. You can see more of his work here.

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Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to News 4 Buffalo.
From the Office of the Governor in Lansing, to the halls of Congress in Washington D.C., several prominent Michigan Democrats are speaking out against a threat made by President Donald Trump to block the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge.

In 2017, Trump and then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the bridge a "vital economic link between our two countries" in a joint statement. Now, Trump is threatening to block the opening of the bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.

Trump made the threat on Truth Social Monday night, claiming that Canada owns both sides of the bridge, and that it was built with "virtually no U.S. content." Trump also claimed that former President Barack Obama provided a waiver to Canada to "get around" the Buy American Act and "not use any American products, including our Steel."

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The office of Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who's cemented herself as a major proponent of the bridge's construction, has begun pushing back against Trump's comments. Whitmer Press Secretary Stacey LaRouche telling 13 ON YOUR SIDE in a statement that the bridge "[is] going to open one way or another."

The full statement reads:

This is the busiest trade crossing in North America. The Gordie Howe International Bridge is all about jobs. It's good for Michigan workers and it's good for Michigan's auto industry. As a reminder, Canada financed the construction of the bridge -- which was built by union construction workers from both sides of the border  and it will be operated under a joint ownership agreement between Michigan and Canada. This project has been a tremendous example of bipartisan and international cooperation. It's going to open one way or another, and the governor looks forward to attending the ribbon cutting.

The Gordie Howe International Bridge project, was chiefly negotiated by former Republican Michigan Governor Rick Snyder. The construction of the project began in 2018 and is slated to be completed in early 2026.

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In the Truth Social post, Trump pointed to Canadian tariffs on dairy products from the United States and a move by the Liquor Control Board of Ontario in 2025 to remove and restrict American-made spirits from store shelves in the province.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney reportedly told the Toronto Star that he spoke with Trump on Tuesday following the threat to block the bridge's opening. The Toronto Star reported that Carney told Trump that the ownership of the bridge is split between the government of Michigan and the government of Canada, and that both countries provided steel for its construction.

The Gordie Howe International Bridge's website said that the Buy American Act waiver included stipulations that all iron and steel used in the bridge's construction must be sourced from either Canada or the United States.

Other Michigan Democrats have also voiced concern over Trump's Truth Social post. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who is also running for Governor as a Democrat in 2026, is backing Whitmer's statement, and calling Trump's threat "reckless" and "uninformed."

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"As the Governors office said, the bridge is going to open. Im grateful for Governor Whitmers leadership and for serving as a guardrail against reckless, uninformed comments from the president. Statements like these only create chaos and confusion for the workers and families who are counting on this bridge for their jobs and livelihoods. But Michiganders are tough, and we wont let anyone threaten our rights, our economic security, or our union-built bridges," Benson said on X.

U.S. Representative Debbie Dingell (D-MI) also took to X, saying that she is still looking forward to the ribbon-cutting.

"The Gordie Howe Bridge was built by union workers on both sides of the border. This border is the busiest crossing between our two countries, and has been critical for not only Michigan jobs but also American jobs. Not to mention Canada paid for this bridge. This bridge was negotiated by a Republican Governor, and in 2017 Trump endorsed the bridge calling it a 'vital economic link between our two countries'. Nothing has changed. We cannot forget Canada is our friend and ally. We have to stop these cheap shots. It helps no one, and it especially hurts our economy. I look forward to the ribbon-cutting," Dingell said in her post.

U.S. Senator Gary Peters (D-MI) is another prominent Democrat from Michigan who is pushing back against the threat.

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"This statement from the President is completely backwards. Michigans economy is highly integrated with Canada and the Detroit-Windsor corridor is one of the busiest border crossings for trade in our entire country. Weve wanted this bridge for years because it will be a boon for our economy. This is another case of the President undermining Michigan businesses and workers," Peters said on X.

Mike Rogers, a Republican running for the U.S. Senate in Michigan in 2026, supported Trump's statement, according to reporting from Michigan Advance. The publication reported that Rogers said that he thinks Trump's threat "is probably the right thing to do."

The Gordie Howe International Bridge crosses the Detroit River between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, and will be the third major connection between the two cities once complete.

The Detroit-Windsor border crossing is the busiest in North America, with over $323 million of all trade between the United States and Canada crossing the Ambassador Bridge each day. The historic bridge was constructed between 1927 and 1929 as the first major crossing point between the two cities. The third connection is the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, built between 1928 and 1930.

13 ON YOUR SIDE'S Josh Alburtus contributed to this report.
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Andrew Garbarino (R-NY) cut off Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), a former chairman, in a tense moment during a hearing featuring Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons on Tuesday.

After first denouncing Democrats for their rhetoric and the Biden administrations lax handling of immigration policy, McCaul turned his attention to the Trump administration and its own shifting approach in the wake of the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

Agent [Greg] Bovino came into the picture, and I would argue, in fairness, that he escalated the situation by the way that was handled. Your officers are not trained to effectuate crowd control. They are trained to move in surgically, go in and remove these dangerous, violent criminals from the United States of America. Ive called for de-escalation after the two deaths, the two shootings that took place. I believe that these roving patrols should be done at the border rather than in the major cities of the United States, observed McCaul while addressing Lyons. So when the president decided to remove Agent Bovino and put in Tom Homan, who Ive known for years, a consummate professional, law enforcement professional, I commended the president. And what has been done since Mr. Homan came into the job? We now have targeted law enforcement operations. He is returning to the original mission of ICE. He is working with state and locals to do the crowd control. He is getting them to honor the ICE detainers. He is also getting the body cameras put on them. And the roving patrols, in his words to me, should be down at the border, not in major cities. My question to you, Mr. Lyons: Is Mr. Homan now, are his operations in Minneapolis now bringing the situation under control?

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So weve seen a de-escalation in the fact that the protests, while they still go on, have subsided and ICE has been allowed to do their targeted, intelligence-driven enforcement operation. Just the other night, local authorities arrested 54 protesters at the local level where ICE officers did not have to be engaged in that, replied Lyons.

My final question to you, do you believe the model that Mr. Homan is now setting in Minneapolis should be a model for the nation? followed up McCaul.

Gentlemans time has expired, interjected Garbarino.

The two then began to talk over one another, with McCaul pleading for a yes or no answer on the record, and Garbarino refusing to allow Lyons to answer.

Gentlemans time has expired, repeated Garbarino.

Watch above via CNN.

The post GOP Chairman Cuts Republican Colleague Off in Tense ICE Hearing Clash first appeared on Mediaite.
Republican incumbent Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is sounding the alarm about a potential blue wave in the state after Democrats continue to surge in elections.

On Tuesday, Feb. 10 in a campaign donation email, his campaign noted "the numbers are in, and heres a gut-punch reality check."

The Abbott campaign stated:

Texas House Democrats posted record-shattering fundraising numbers for 2025, with money pouring in from all 50 states.

Democrat voter enthusiasm is surging  theyre motivated, angry, and ready to swarm the polls.

In many of the most important races across the nation, Democrats are outraising Republicans by huge margins.

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Mincing no words to supporters, Abbott's campaign said "worst of all: history is working against Republicans as the party in power in the midterms. This isnt just politics. This is about our future and our freedoms," the email said.

Texas governor race: Which labor group just endorsed Republican incumbent Greg Abbott?

Gina Hinojosa says 'Latino voters are driving change'

This comes on the heels of Gina Hinojosa, the leading Democratic candidate for Texas governor, saying there is surge building in Texas this year.

On Feb. 3, Hinojosa joined Jake Tapper on CNN to discuss the special election victory in State Senate District 9 in Fort Worth and what it signals about Democratic momentum heading into November.

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Hinojosa highlighted how Latino voters are driving the change Texas needs and emphasized the national significance of the Tarrant County win.

My favorite Republican quote is Steve Bannon who said, As goes Tarrant County, so goes Texas and so goes the world. What we are seeing in Texas, and its through grassroots organic movement, is that Democrats are winning where we havent won in a long time. Hispanic Texans are very proud of our country, we are a very patriotic people, and these election results that are happening all over the state are demonstrating that people are desperate for change, she said in the interview.

Protests: Greg Abbott responds to student walkout protests over ICE

Important dates for 2026 primary election

The voter registration deadline was Feb. 2, and voters must be registered to vote by this date to participate in the primary.

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Early in-person voting begins Feb. 17 and continues through Feb. 27.

Should a runoff election be needed, it will take place May 26. If no candidate receives a majority of the vote in the primary, the top two vote-getters will face off in a runoff.

The last day to register to vote for the general election in November is Oct. 5, either online, by mail, or in person.

Early voting starts Oct. 19 and runs through Oct. 30. The absentee ballot request deadline is Oct. 23, by mail or Oct. 19, in person. The absentee ballot return deadline is scheduled for Nov. 3, either by mail or in person on Election Day.

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Kristian Jaime is the Top Story Reporter for the El Paso Times and is reachable at Kjaime@elpasotimes.com.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Texas governors race: Blue wave sparks Greg Abbott to sound alarm
A legal fight appears to be playing out between Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and his neighbors in Montgomery County.

Both have filed lawsuits against each other.

In a federal lawsuit, Jeremy and Simone Mock accuse the governor and his wife of illegally occupying part of their Abington yard to build an eight-foot security fence.

"Governor Shapiro exercised his power by virtue of state law and made possible only because he is clothed with the authority of state law," the Mocks' suit said, adding his disrespect of their shared property line "violates clearly established constitutional rights of which a reasonable person, much less a lawyer and former Attorney General, knew or should have known."

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Millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on security efforts at the governor's homes after his Harrisburg residence was firebombed last April.

The Shapiros filed a countersuit, asking a judge to rule that the land is on their property.

The Shapiros have spent more than two decades "believing it to be their property," and it wasn't until a security review of his homes following the arson attack on his official residence last year that "it was discovered" the roughly 2,900 square feet of land in question actually fell outside their deed, Shapiro said in a countersuit filed in the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas.

A spokesperson for the governor called the Mocks' lawsuit a "shameless political stunt and attempt to exploit the Shapiros' legitimate security concerns."
Gov. Tim Walz held a press conference in The Market at Malcolm Yard in Minneapolis on Feb. 10, 2026, to highlight the adverse impacts the federal immigration surge has had on Minnesota businesses. (Photo by Michelle Griffith/Minnesota Reformer)

Gov. Tim Walz on Tuesday said that he expects the federal immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota to wind down soon.

During a press conference intended to highlight the adverse impacts of President Donald Trumps federal immigration enforcement on small businesses and restaurants, Walz said federal officials have assured us that I think we are moving towards that.

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It would be my hope that Mr. Homan goes out before Friday and announces that this thing is done, Walz said in an empty Market at Malcolm Yards in Minneapolis.

Walz said that since Trumps border czar Tom Homan took over operations in Minnesota from Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino two weeks ago, his administration has spoken with Homan daily. Walz said he also spoke to Trumps Chief of Staff Susie Wiles this morning.

Over the past two months, immigration agents have shot three people, killing two; racially profiled people, asking them to produce proof of legal residency; detained legal immigrants and shipped them across state lines, including young children; caused numerous car crashes; deployed chemical irritants on public school property; smashed the car windows of observers and arrested them before releasing them without charges; and threatened journalists who were filming them from a distance in a public space, among other high-profile incidents.

Walz cautioned that although he expects the operation to wind down soon, Trump is unpredictable and will likely declare the immigration operation successful before he orders federal agents out of Minnesota.

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It is very important for the president of the United States to believe he wins, Walz said. Theyve got to believe they accomplished what they were going to accomplish. Its my understanding they think they did that.

The governor said that when the operation is over, the state will shift to recovery mode. Walz noted that the fallout of Operation Metro Surge will affect Minnesotas revenue streams and hospitality industry long after federal agents leave, likening the impact to the COVID-19 pandemic.
WASHINGTON (AP)  An annual meeting of the nations governors that has long served as a rare bipartisan gathering is unraveling after President Donald Trump excluded Democratic governors from White House events.

The National Governors Association said it will no longer hold a formal meeting with Trump when governors are scheduled to convene in Washington later this month, after the White House planned to invite only Republican governors. On Tuesday, 18 Democratic governors also announced they would boycott a traditional dinner at the White House.

If the reports are true that not all governors are invited to these events, which have historically been productive and bipartisan opportunities for collaboration, we will not be attending the White House dinner this year, the Democrats wrote. Democratic governors remain united and will never stop fighting to protect and make life better for people in our states.

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Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican who chairs the NGA, told fellow governors in a letter on Monday that the White House intended to limit invitations to the associations annual business meeting, scheduled for Feb. 20, to Republican governors only.

Because NGAs mission is to represent all 55 governors, the Association is no longer serving as the facilitator for that event, and it is no longer included in our official program, Stitt wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The Associated Press.

The governors group, which is scheduled to meet from Feb. 19-21, is one of the few remaining venues where political leaders from both major parties gather to discuss the top issues facing their communities. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday that Trump has discretion to invite anyone he wants to the White House.

It's the people's house, she said. It's also the president's home, so he can invite whomever he wants to dinners and events here at the White House.

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Representatives for Sitt and the NGA didn't comment on the letter. Brandon Tatum, the NGA's CEO, said in a statement last week that the White House meeting is an important tradition and said the organization was disappointed in the administration's decision to make it a partisan occasion this year.

In his letter to other governors, Stitt encouraged the group to unite around common goals.

We cannot allow one divisive action to achieve its goal of dividing us, he wrote. The solution is not to respond in kind, but to rise above and to remain focused on our shared duty to the people we serve. Americas governors have always been models of pragmatic leadership, and that example is most important when Washington grows distracted by politics.

Signs of partisan tensions emerged at the White House meeting last year, when Trump and Maine's Gov. Janet Mills traded barbs.

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Trump singled out the Democratic governor over his push to bar transgender athletes from competing in girls and womens sports, threatening to withhold federal funding from the state if she did not comply. Mills responded, Well see you in court.

Trump then predicted that Mills political career would be over for opposing the order. She is now running for U.S. Senate.

The back-and-forth had a lasting impact on last years conference and some Democratic governors did not renew their dues last year to the bipartisan group.

___

Peoples reported from New York.
For the first time in more than a century, a gray wolf has ventured into Los Angeles County.

A 3-year-old female gray wolf arrived in the northwestern part of Los Angeles County near Pyramid Lake Saturday morning, according to the data from her GPS collar.

This is the first time in more than 100 years that a wolf has been documented in L.A. County, experts say.

According to The Los Angeles Times, the wolf -- known as BEY03F -- is looking for a partner, "and the fact that she is still on the move is an indication that she has not found a mate and suitable habitat."

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Experts say she's originally from a pack in Plumas County.

The L.A. Times says the wolf was fitted for her new collar last May when she was spending time with the Yowlumni Pack in Tulare County.

California's wolves are the result of their introduction to Yellowstone three decades ago.

"This wolf is the furthest south we have verified a wolf since that introduction 30 years ago. And it's the first time we have verified a wolf in L.A. County in modern times," said Axel Hunnicutt, gray wolf coordinator for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. "I can't tell you the last time there was a wolf in L.A. County, but it likely was well over a hundred years ago."

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Officials reference the California Department of Fish and Wildlife's tracker to help mitigate wolf-livestock conflict using the last known location of California satellite collared wolves.

The wolf was born in Pluma County's Beyem Seyo Pack in 2023. To reach L.A. County, The L.A. Times says "she's traveled more than 370 miles and walked the length of the Sierra Nevada to get to her current spot."

The 3-year-old gray wolf has moved back slightly to the north, according to the latest GPS data.

The wolves' return to California was marked when one traveled from Oregon. The last documented California wild wolf was shot in 1924. It is believed that a minimum of 60 wolves are still in California.
The Brief

A 3-year-old female gray wolf reached the mountains north of Santa Clarita on Saturday, marking the first sighting in Los Angeles County in over a century.

Identified as BEY03F, the wolf recently split from the Yowlumni Pack in Tulare County and traveled through Kern County to find a new mate and habitat.

While state officials are tracking her via a GPS collar, it remains unclear if she will stay in the region or continue her search for a partner elsewhere.

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. - A black-coated female gray wolf has officially crossed into Los Angeles County, the first time the species has been documented this far south in California since 1924.

What we know

The wolf, scientifically designated as BEY03F, was detected around 6 a.m. Saturday in the mountainous terrain north of Santa Clarita.

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She is a 3-year-old female who was originally tagged with a GPS collar in May while she was a member of the Yowlumni Pack in Tulare County.

Wildlife experts note that her departure from her original pack about a week ago is a natural behavior; she is currently considered a "lone wolf" looking for a mate and a suitable landscape to establish her own territory.

This move is significant for California's ecology, as gray wolves were entirely absent from the state for 87 years until a lone wolf crossed the border from Oregon in 2011.

What we don't know

It is currently unknown whether BEY03F will settle in the Santa Clarita mountains or if she is simply passing through.

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While her GPS collar provides location data, officials have not specified her exact coordinates to protect her safety.

Additionally, since there are no other known wolves currently in Los Angeles County, the likelihood of her finding a partner in the immediate area remains low.

Timeline

1924: The last California gray wolf of the original population is shot.

2011: A wolf from Oregon enters Northern California, marking the species' return.

May 2025: BEY03F is fitted with a GPS collar in Tulare County.

Early February 2026: BEY03F leaves the Yowlumni Pack.

Saturday, 6 a.m.: BEY03F crosses the line into Los Angeles County near Santa Clarita.

What they're saying

State wildlife officials told the Los Angeles Times that the wolf's arrival is a historic milestone for the species' recovery.

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According to the publication, the wolf population in California has grown from zero to at least 60 over the last 15 years.

The Source

This report is based on tracking data and official statements from California state wildlife officials provided to the Los Angeles Times.
Bloomberg, citing sources, has reported that Greece and Malta have become the main obstacle to the EU's proposal to replace the price cap on Russian oil with a ban on services necessary for transporting the fuel.

Source: European Pravda, citing Bloomberg

Details: According to Bloomberg sources, the two southern European countries raised concerns about the move at a meeting of EU ambassadors on Monday, where the latest package of sanctions against Russia was presented.

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They warned that such a change could affect Europe's shipping industry and energy prices.

Both countries also requested clarification on proposals to impose sanctions on foreign ports for handling Russian oil and to tighten oversight of ship sellers in order to reduce the number of vessels entering Moscow's fleet, the sources added.

A representative of the Greek government declined to comment. Nestor Laiviera, Malta's government representative in Brussels, said the country was engaged in technical discussions to ensure the final outcome is implementable.

Last week, the European Commission proposed replacing the current price cap on Russian oil sales with a ban on services required for its transportation.

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The proposal is a key element of the EU's 20th sanctions package in response to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

EU sanctions require the approval of all member states and may still change before adoption. The bloc aims to finalise the restrictive measures by the end of February.

Background:

The publication of the European Commission's 20th sanctions package was delayed due to discussions over a proposal for a full ban on maritime services in EU ports for all vessels transporting Russian oil.

France has pushed for the package to be particularly tough on Russia's shadow fleet.

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President Donald Trumps hasty climbdown after weeks of threats about seizing Greenland from Denmarks control has not done much to improve the fraying transatlantic relationship.

In fact, the bad feelings across Europe have only deepened as the president and other administration officials have, in ways large and small, continued to poke politicians and entire populations in the proverbial eye. The provocations come as European officials prepare for the Munich Security Conference this weekend where key topics will include the transatlantic relationship and whether the continent can stand on its own without Washingtons help.

A high-level European official similarly described a change in mindset that is taking place. Were forced to adopt a violent approach in our relationship with the US administration, the official told POLITICO, explaining that Europeans are realizing that Americans increasingly seem to view Europe less like allies than rivals. It has completely changed from the times when there was cooperation between us, now were in a power struggle.

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Amid the row over Greenland last month, Trump casually dismissed the sacrifice of NATO troops who fought beside U.S. forces in Afghanistan, leaving NATO allies disgusted. Subsequently, the U.S. embassy in Denmark, removed 44 small Danish flags that commemorated the Danes who died in Afghanistan  placed in response to Trumps comments  fueling more anti-American demonstrations in Copenhagen.

News that American federal immigration agents would be on the ground providing security during the Winter Olympics in Milan sparked widespread fury throughout Italy, and boos serenaded Vice President JD Vance as he attended the opening ceremonies and events over the weekend.

The message, the lack of respect for Europe, thats been sent, said a second high-level European official who, like others interviewed for this report, was granted anonymity to speak candidly about a sensitive diplomatic situation. But they just cant seem to help themselves from sending it again and again.

And last week, the U.S. ambassador to Poland turned publicly hostile toward a Polish lawmaker who wouldnt sign a petition backing Trumps nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, drawing a rebuke from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

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Allies should respect each other, not lecture each other, Tusk wrote in a post on X directed at the U.S. ambassador, Tom Rose.

Inside the White House, aides have largely moved on from the presidents Greenland fixation that took up so much oxygen in January. Asked about the supposed framework agreement Trump claimed to have secured in Davos to boost Americas military presence in Greenland, a senior White House official said only that they hadnt heard any updates on it.

And there is scant evidence of concern about Europeans hurt feelings or spiking anti-American sentiment across western Europe. Protests in Denmark, the official said, were a non-issue. Its not even on our minds anymore.

But for Europe, Trumps disrespect toward Greenland and Denmark and threats to violate the sovereignty of a NATO ally amounted to a near rupture of the transatlantic relationship. The additional nicks and cuts from these diplomatic dust-ups over the last couple of weeks have only hardened the resolve to permanently rethink decades of close alignment with Washington.

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Europeans are going through the 5th stage of grief, said one French diplomat who asserted that acceptance has finally set in. We now understand the U.S. administration is going to be difficult for the foreseeable future.

The presidents oft-repeated declarations that I love Europe have rung hollow coming from an administration that has made its disdain for the continent so explicit  in speeches from both Trump and Vance, an official national security strategy and by imposing tough new policies on trade and defense.

In terms of the latest indignities, Trumps belittling of the sacrifices made by NATO troops in Afghanistan angered a different crowd from those upset about deploying ICE in Italy during the Olympics, said a third high-level European official. European leaders are more and more accepting that de-risking [from the U.S.] is unavoidable.

There is, however, more shared agony than agreement among European leaders about how to de-risk  to diversify and deepen economic, security, and diplomatic relations with other countries to reduce their vulnerability to future unilateral American action  from a global hegemon that theyve relied on so heavily for 80 years. The upcoming Munich Security Conference, the annual confab of transatlantic diplomatic and defense leaders, will provide an initial glimpse at where Europeans stand.

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Heads of state are quickly shifting gears, hoping to lessen their reliance on the U.S. in order to limit their vulnerability against the actions of an unpredictable and occasionally hostile president. Threatened with higher tariffs, European leaders are looking to do more business with countries in South America and China. Theyre rethinking agreements with American defense contractors and openly discussing the viability of NATO given Americas suddenly questionable commitment to Europes defense.

There's irreparable harm done, said Ian Bremmer, the president of the Eurasia Group, a global risk assessment firm, who is frequently in contact with heads of state on multiple continents. It doesn't mean that the US can no longer be allies of these countries on the back of what happens in 2028 but the relationships will be different. The global order will be different. The U.S. will have lost a very significant amount of capital, of long term capital, with a lot of countries.

Anti-American sentiment among Europeans has spiked in recent weeks . According to YouGov surveys tracking Europeans opinions of the U.S., large majorities of people in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Great Britain now have an unfavorable view of the U.S. More than 60 percent of the public in all six countries now see the U.S. in a negative light, including 72 percent of Germans and 84 percent of Danes, a marked uptick in just the last three months.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has seen her approval ratings improve over her defiant response to Trumps Greenland threats.

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But a number of European leaders, even as they take steps to reduce their dependence on the U.S., still intend to maintain solid relationships with Trump and hope to work with the administration on a host of issues, including the ongoing efforts to end the war in Ukraine, or, at least, help the Ukrainians defend themselves.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has been among the European leaders more critical of Trump, is planning a trip to Washington next month.

There are members of the press asking [heads of state and senior officials] every day why theyre not being tougher on Trump, said a fourth European official. That speaks to the swell of opposition to the U.S., and there is a political upside for politicians who can speak to it. But the reality is also that we all still need that relationship [with the U.S.] at least in the short term, so I think youll see most heads of state try to keep working with this White House.
Immigrant farm workers harvest broccoli south of Yuma, Arizona.(David McNew/Getty Images)

LINCOLN  A Nebraska guest worker permit bill for undocumented immigrants drew support Monday from the bulk of public testifiers, while the biggest pushback came from Nebraskas labor commissioner and the proposers fellow lawmakers.

State Sen. Dunixi Guereca of Omaha told the Legislatures Business and Labor Committee that the Guest Worker Permit Act he introduced would set up a legal framework for undocumented immigrants to work in Nebraska  provided the federal government allows it.

State Sen. Dunixi Guereca stands along South 24th Street in his South Omaha district in 2025 with business owner Martha Barrera. (Cindy Gonzalez/Nebraska Examiner)

He called Legislative Bill 879 a trigger law, meaning that Nebraska would be ready to go if given the green light by the feds, but he said it would not bypass federal authority or grant a legal status.

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State officials estimated Nebraskas undocumented population at between 50,000 and 60,000 people, based on data from the Migration Policy Institute and the American Immigration Council.

We need workers. Period. You can not dispute that  its stagnating the Nebraska economy, Guereca said. If the native population isnt bringing more workers, we need immigration.

Wary about being experiment

State Sen. Jane Raybould of Lincoln asked more than once about other states that might have tested such a program, noting that Utah tried but was unsuccessful and that she was wary.

State Sens. Jane Raybould of Lincoln and Tony Sorrentino of the Elkhorn area. May 22, 2025. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)

State Sen. Teresa Ibach of Sumner wanted to know how close the federal government was to opening the door. To that, Guereca and others said Nebraska could take a lead and send a signal that such a program was key to the states workforce and economic health.

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State Sen. Tony Sorrentino of the Elkhorn area spent a half hour peppering Guereca with questions on various elements of the 13-page proposal. Guereca said he wanted to start what he believed to be a necessary conversation, and would be amenable to negotiations.

For Katie Thurber, Nebraskas labor commissioner, LB 879 creates constitutional, financial and logistical concerns. She said she wanted to avoid the state potentially spending years and dollars to prepare for a system that she might never function.

Immigration is and must remain a federal matter, said Thurber, who was the lone opponent to testify during the public hearing. It requires comprehensive solutions from Congress and federal agencies, not piecemeal state level experiments that have been proven ineffective.

Katie Thurber, Nebraska labor commissioner. (Courtesy of Nikki Moore Photography)

A fiscal analysis of LB 879, based upon the undocumented population estimates, puts the cost to implement the legislation the first year at about $5.18 million, for various administrative, interviewing, tracking and enforcement responsibilities.

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Projected revenues would surpass that amount, according to the analysis, which estimates about $37 million in revenue the first year from Labor Department application and permit fees. The analysis notes that it does not include what would be a positive impact from fees collected by the Department of Revenue, as those are yet to be determined.

Said Guereca: At a time were half a billion in the hole, this ones a no-brainer.

No-brainer

Under the Act, undocumented individuals would pay $50 for a guest worker application and $20 for an application for an immediate family member. If a permit is granted, applicants then would pay $2,500 if they entered the U.S. illegally or $1,000 if their legal entrance has fallen out of compliance with federal immigration law.

The State Department of Labor estimated that 25% of applicants would comprise the illegal entry group and the remainder would be those who had fallen out of compliance for reasons such as overstaying a visa.

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LB 879 also calls for Nebraskas governor to actively participate in the Nebraska Labor Departments efforts to obtain necessary federal waivers, exemptions or authorizations to implement the program.

Gov. Jim Pillen on a visit to the Texas-Mexico border. He visits with members of the Nebraska National Guard, whom he deployed to help Texas patrol its border. (Courtesy of the Nebraska Governors Office)

Gov. Jim Pillen has been a champion of President Donald Trumps mass deportation strategy and has characterized Nebraska as a border state affected by security problems at the nations southern border. He has worked with the federal government to convert the states McCook-based Work Ethic Camp, a former state prison in southwest Nebraska, into a regional detention facility for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Among the half-dozen proponents who spoke in favor of LB 879 were farm and other labor leaders and immigrant advocates.

Jon Nebel of the Nebraska State Council of Electrical Workers and the Nebraska Building and Construction Trades Council said the program could legitimize thousands of people already working in Nebraska and stop the abuse of an underground workforce.

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He said the bill was not seeking to greenlight the possibility of a bunch of undocumented workers coming here. Theyre already here.

A guest worker permit program could tap into a ready workforce needed for the trades, agriculture and other industries, Nebel said, and keep employers from playing a game of hide and exploit.

State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha, who chairs the Business and Labor Committee, said 10 proponents and 50 opponents submitted comments in writing.

The committee took no action on whether to forward the bill to the full Legislature for debate.

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Breye Therapeutics oral small molecule for non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR) has demonstrated safety and early signs of improving disease activity in an early-stage trial.

In the Phase Ib study, Breyes lead candidate, danegaptide, demonstrated early effectiveness, with more than half of the patients showing retinal imaging data associated with reductions in vascular leakage and several patients achieved noteworthy anatomical improvements after four weeks.

By the end of the study, a statistically significant reduction in oedema measures was observed. The study evaluated the drug in patients with NPDR and associated diabetic macular oedema (DME), a complication of NPDR.

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In the trial, danegaptide presented a favourable safety profile, with plasma levels within the targeted therapeutic range.

Data from the Phase Ib trial were presented at the prestigious Angiogenesis, Exudation, and Degeneration 2026 symposium.

Professor Carl Regillo, director of Retina Service of Wills Eye Hospital and Professor of Ophthalmology at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, and member of the Breye Therapeutics Scientific Advisory Board, said: The clinical data are encouraging and support the pursuit of danegaptide as an oral, non-invasive treatment solution. Danegaptide has the potential to be a medicine capable of treating diabetic retinopathy from its earlier, NPDR stages. This would create new options for how diabetic retinopathy is treated  opening the door to halting or even reversing disease and treating it before the risk emerges of disease progression to advanced forms.

Based on the data, Breye is now planning a randomised, Phase II trial to further evaluate danegaptide in NPDR patients.

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Danegaptide is an oral small molecule with a novel mechanism of action. It acts by stabilising the vasculature and protects against cell-cell uncoupling, retinal capillary breakdown and vascular leakage caused by hyperglycaemia.

The standard of care for patients with NDPR is intravitreal (IVT) injections, with most being prescribed to treat advanced stages of disease, including proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR), DME, and neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD).

One drug that has had a significant impact on treating NDPR, DME and PDR patients, amongst other retinopathy diseases, is Regenerons Eylea (aflibercept). US sales peaked in 2022, reaching $6.3bn, with generics eroding sales since. The company has also produced Eylea HD, which allows for less frequent dosing.

An oral medication provides patients who struggle with IVT injections an alternative method of treatment.

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"Breye Therapeutics oral retinopathy drug shows early improvement in disease activity" was originally created and published by Clinical Trials Arena, a GlobalData owned brand.




From the bridge of their charter boat High Class Hooker, Susanna Pope and her husband can look out at the sparkling 65-degree saltwater off Key West, Florida, and envision customers fishing for marlin, wahoo and mahi mahi.

Where will they take the tourists today? What fish will be biting? Will the blue skies and calm seas hold? And what the heck should they be calling the water they're fishing in?

A year ago, President Donald Trump's edict to rename the Gulf of Mexico formally took effect, and the United States abruptly  legally, anyway  began referring to it as the Gulf of America.

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But old habits do indeed die hard, and a USA TODAY Network survey of communities along the coastline  from Florida's Key West, Destin and Panama City to Dulac, Louisiana, and Corpus Christi, Texas  found there's little agreement about what, exactly, people are calling the body of water they live next to. In many cases, locals just call it the same thing they've always called it.

"Down here, we just refer to it as the Gulf," Susanna Pope, 44, said. "It's like saying you're going into town. You don't have to say Key West. You just say town."

What's it called in real life?

In Corpus Christi, a vacationing Jeremiah Orta, 22, said he's only heard people who are being "edgy" online use the new name: "I don't think in real life I've ever heard anyone say Gulf of America."

Although these coastal communities are home to some of Trump's strongest supporters, few people said they simply fell in line behind the president's declaration. Many locals interviewed by the USA TODAY Network declined to speak publicly, citing concerns about potential political retribution if they were quoted picking one name over the other.

Afternoon clouds build over the Gulf of Mexico in this 2023 photo taken from near Fort Myers Beach, Florida.

Place-naming experts say it's common for new names to take a long time to stick, particularly if the renaming was done abruptly and without public discussion.

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In Sarasota County, Florida, Lueanne Wood, who has been living on the Gulf for the past 41 years, says she sticks to tradition.

"As someone in the real estate industry, most of the people that want to move here are older and it can get confusing to call it anything other than what theyve heard their whole lives, the Gulf of Mexico," she said. "Everyone in my life and almost everyone I know calls it the Gulf of Mexico, thats the only name for it."

On Marco Island in Florida, Michigan tourist Annette Myers collected shells from what she called the Gulf of Mexico. "This is always going to be the Gulf of Mexico to me," she said.

Captain Jared Theriot on the deck of his vessel "Captain Beb," says he will always consider the Gulf as the Gulf of Mexico, February 3. Theriot was offloading shrimp at David Chauvin's Seafood.

In Dulac, shrimp boat Capt. Jared Theriot said he's not inclined to consider using the new name. More important to him, he said, was quickly unloading 318 100-pound boxes of frozen shrimp so he could get back onto the water while the fishing remained good.

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"I really dont give a f--- what they call it," he said. "Itll always be the Gulf of Mexico to me."

Some take pride in the 'Gulf of America' name

In Destin, Realtor Mary Anne Windes said most people just say the "Gulf," but aboard her husband's charter fishing boat Sunrise, it's most definitely the Gulf of America.

"Weve got the Gulf of America [flag] flying on our boat," Windes said, and they wear Gulf of America T-shirts. "It's absolutely the Gulf of America."

The company's Facebook page, however, advertises charter fishing trips on the Gulf of Mexico.

In Panama City, Florida, Iowa tourist Jim Nelson said it's the Gulf of America as far as he's concerned. Trump changed the name, and Nelson feels it's justified.

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"Theres a lot more coastline, or beach line, for the United States than there is Mexico," Nelson said.

Why the name change?

In renaming the Gulf, Trump said the new name would better reflect the body of water's important role in fishing, shipping, and oil and gas extraction. Supporters of the change said they hoped it would bring new attention to the important body of water.

But critics noted Trump's decision had more than a whiff of colonial imperialism, where White conquerors renamed places to reflect their worldview  and minimize those of people who called it something else.

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after signing a proclamation renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, while flying over the gulf aboard Air Force One en route to New Orleans to attend the Super Bowl, on Feb. 9, 2025.

"As my administration restores American pride in the history of American greatness, it is fitting and appropriate for our great nation to come together and commemorate this momentous occasion and the renaming of the Gulf of America," Trump said in declaring Feb. 9, 2025, as "Gulf of America Day."

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In Fort Myers Beach, Florida, sailboat-dwelling Ian Wylie said he's pleased the president renamed the place he calls home.

"I think people refuse to accept that the name has changed for several different reasons  some political, some not  but Im actually proud that we have a gulf now named after us," said Wylie, who rents beach chairs to tourists.

What's in a name?

Piloting a boat running supplies to an under-construction bridge at the south end of Fort Myers Beach, Mike "Popeye" Dearden says not only does the name change make sense, but its part of a human tendency to change geographical names throughout history. He said he thinks opposition to the change comes from people disliking Trump, not the name itself.

"Did you know the Gulf has enjoyed nine official names in its history? Gulf of Mexico may have been the longest, but its had nine in its history.  They change the maps and get over it, the self-described history buff and trivia geek said. "William Shakespeare said, 'Whats in a name?'"

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But what is in name? Plenty, said place-naming expert Derek H. Alderman, a chancellor's professor at the University of Tennessee. It's easy to dismiss the Gulf name change as a stunt, Alderman said, but Trump's decision served far deeper purposes than you might at first think.

First, he said, it was an early shot at Mexico, a longtime Trump target. Second, Trump has long understood the power in branding and how names shape perception. And third, it allowed the president to set out  very early in his term  the kind of muscular, go-it-alone approach we've seen unfold over the past year, Alderman said.

"The president recognizes the power of names, the power of brands. And he's extended that in a geopolitical sense, applied some of that same logic to the geopolitical realm," he said. "He was not simply changing the name. He was actually enacting a different worldview that said we're going to be signaling in a nationalistic, almost imperialistic way, America is absolutely first and it's all about American interests."

Alderman, who served on the Federal Advisory Committee on Reconciliation in Place Names during the Biden administration, said he wonders what impact the name change will have on high school students learning about geography, history and social studies.

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For generations, America's borders have remained unchanged, but Trump has said he wants to expand the country's boundaries. Naming and claiming the Gulf is a step in that process, Alderman said.

Captain Easton Rodrigue moors his vessel the "Ensliegh," after offloading shrimp at David Chauvin's Seafood in Dulac, February 3.

"When you rename the Gulf, you're taking about extending territory in a symbolic sense," he said. "This idea that you simply and in a unilateral way rename a place, claim it, that is a pretty old process that's been going on since the days of colonializations.  That worldview will ripple across classrooms and affect how students' worldviews form."

Aboard the Louisiana-based shrimp boat Ensliegh, Capt. Easton Rodrigue said that no matter what people call the Gulf, he just wishes more Americans would buy from shrimpers like him, instead of buying cheaper imported shrimp often farmed under unhealthy and dangerous conditions internationally.

"They have the guys who call it the Gulf of America, but it's not changin' nothin cuz they still buyin' imports," he said.

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Contributing: Colin Campo, Houma Courier-Thibodaux Daily Comet; Olivia Garrett, Corpus Christi Caller-Times; J. Kyle Foster, Naples Daily News; Amy Bennett Williams, Fort Myers News-Press; Francesca Abarca, Sarasota Herald-Tribune; Tyler Orsburn, Panama City News Herald; Tina Harbuck, The Destin Log

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump renamed this body of water. What do Louisianians really call it?
Harrisburg Police have charged a man in connection to a homicide that occurred at the end of last year.

According to court documents, Marquan Tyrese Long Mason, 26, was charged with murder, firearms not to be carried without a license, possession of a firearm prohibited, two counts of recklessly endangering another person and tampering with physical evidence.

Police said they responded to the area of South 25th and Burma Streets for a reported shooting victim just after 11:45 a.m. on Dec. 30.

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Upon arrival, police said they found 20-year-old Mehki Brooks sitting in his car with a gunshot wound. There were also bullet holes in the vehicle.

Brooks was taken to Holy Spirit Hospital, where police said he was pronounced dead. An autopsy determined that he had died of a gunshot wound to the abdomen, and the manner of death was ruled a homicide.

Police launched an investigation and determined that the shooting itself occurred at the intersection of South 26th and Duke Streets that day.

Surveillance footage around the time of the shooting reportedly showed a Nissan followed by Brooks' Chrysler. Police said the cars traveled west towards South 26th Street before two gunshots are heard. The Nissan then sped off on Duke Street and then onto South 29th Street, police said.

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Police obtained more footage from before the shooting which reportedly showed the driver of the Nissan interacting with a woman along South Oyler Road before driving off. Police said that Brooks' car began following the Nissan at this time, and they believe that it followed the Nissan for a long time throughout Harrisburg.

Police said they obtained a search warrant to search the Nissan and said it seemed to have been wiped down on the inside. They also reportedly found a can of Lysol spray from inside the car.

After speaking with the owner of the Nissan and viewing more security footage, police identified Long Mason as the driver. When questioned by police, Long Mason reportedly changed his story multiple times but ultimately told them that he was driving the Nissan with its owner on Dec. 30. He reportedly claimed that he visited a relative's house along Oyler Road, when he started being followed by Brooks' Chrysler.

Long Mason reportedly told police that the owner of the Nissan eventually dropped him off and denied being in the car at the time of the shooting. He then claimed that the owner told him that she was shot at by the Chrysler that had been following them. However, police said that the owner of the Nissan told them that she was not in her car with Long Mason on Dec. 30 and had never been shot at.

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While searching Long Mason's home, police said they found a gun and a live round. They also found that he had been adjudicated in 2017 for possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, which made him unable to possess a firearm. He also reportedly does not have a valid license to carry a firearm.

Long Mason was denied bail and is currently in Dauphin County Prison. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for Feb. 19.
The brother of one of the people killed on Bloody Sunday has said hate mail will not stop him fighting for "truth and justice".

Mickey McKinney's brother William was among 13 people shot dead by the Parachute Regiment at a civil rights demonstration in Londonderry in 1972.

He said he received the most recent letter moments before meeting Irish President Catherine Connolly during her visit to Derry last week.

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"I think the person or people who are doing this really deserve to be pitied," he said.

The letter was sent to the Museum of Free Derry, as first reported by the Belfast Telegraph.

The letter praised the Parachute Regiment and said "it is a pity" the B-Specials - part of a reserve police force from the 1920s to 1970 - "did not shoot you all".

In addition to the 13 people who were killed, 15 others were injured when the Army opened fire in the Bogside area of Derry on 30 January 1972.

The day became known as Bloody Sunday and is widely regarded as one of the darkest days of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Thirteen people were killed and 15 wounded on Bloody Sunday [Pacemaker]

McKinney said: "Can you just imagine what it would be like if your relative was shot dead, shot in the back, gunned down in the street, had lies told about them, and then someone takes it on themselves to send you a letter like that?

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"I think it's sick that someone would go to those lengths."

The McKinney family said they reported the threat to the police [BBC]

In October 2025, the former paratrooper known as Soldier F was found not guilty of the murder of William McKinney, 26, and James Wray, 22, as well as five charges of attempted murder.

At that time, the McKinney family also revealed that they had received a "sickening" death threat.

The victims, top row (l to r): Patrick Doherty, Gerald Donaghey, John Duddy, Hugh Gilmour, Michael Kelly, Michael McDaid and Kevin McElhinney. Bottom row : Bernard McGuigan, Gerard McKinney, William McKinney, William Nash, James Wray and John Young [BBC]

McKinney said the hate mail started to arrive in the wake of the Soldier F trial.

Social media posts, he added, "gloating over the events of the day" became "too many to count".

He said he no longer reads the threats but stepping away from the Bloody Sunday campaign "doesn't even get off the blocks".

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"Because it's not about me, it's about truth and justice," he said.

"You couldn't step away from that, I don't believe any other families could step away from it either."

The SDLP MP for Foyle, Colum Eastwood, condemned those responsible.

"It's disgusting, you know, but Mickey and the others are just much bigger than that and they're not going to be put off by these kind of things," he said.

"A quick glance at my own social media would show you the bile that is sent about the Bloody Sunday families and the victims and I think that's given cover by political representatives."

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Ciaran Shiels of Madden & Finucane law firm, who represent the McKinney family, said they receive on average one message a week that reflects a "a sectarian and hateful mindset".

He said the letter received last week would be given to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) for investigation and forensic examination.

In a statement, the police said they do not comment on named individuals but "no inference should be drawn from this".
A notorious prisoner involved in Guineas infamous 2009 stadium massacre was transferred from the capital Conakrys central prison as witnesses reported heavy gunfire.

At least three special forces armoured vehicles were seen in front of the prison on Tuesday and three ambulances viewed leaving it.

It remains unclear who was shooting or what triggered it. Gunfire reportedly began shortly before 9am (09:00 GMT) and lasted more than half an hour, causing panic in the surrounding neighbourhood.

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I heard the sound of vehicles speeding by. I rushed to the window and heard automatic gunfire, said Thierno Balde, an accountant who works in the area, confirming similar statements by other witnesses.

Authorities did not explicitly link the prison transfer to the automatic gunfire.

The prisoner, Aboubakar Sidiki Diakite, is serving a 10-year sentence for his role in the September 2009 killing of 156 people and the rape of at least 109 women by pro-junta forces under then-dictator Moussa Dadis Camara.





Alarming situation

A prosecutor from the Conakry Court of Appeal later posted a statement on the Justice Ministrys Facebook page describing the incident.

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During a surprise search and security check at the Conakry central prison, Diakite displayed an aggressive attitude by refusing to submit to the search, while also making threats against the security officers, it said.

As a result of the alarming situation, which was compromising security at the facility, authorities transferred Diakite to Coyah prison, 50km (30 miles) from Conakry.

Diakites lawyers denounced the move in the strongest terms possible, calling the transfer an arbitrary measure that is contrary to the law.

Diakite, an aide to Camara, was serving as commander of the presidential guard at the time of the 2009 stadium massacre.

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Guineas central prison is no stranger to violent episodes. In 2023, nine people were killed during a jailbreak in which armed commandos briefly freed Camara.

Last March, the then-military government led by Mamady Doumbouya pardoned Camara after he was convicted for crimes against humanity.

Since independence from France in 1958, Guinea has had a complex history of military and authoritarian rule.

Doumbouya, who overthrew civilian president Alpha Conde in September 2021, ruled Guinea as head of its junta until last month when he was sworn in as president following elections.
The secretary general of the Iranian Security Council is in Oman, which is serving as a mediator in talks between the Islamic Republic and the United States, numerous Iranian media reported on Tuesday.

Ali Larijani first met with the Oman's minister of the Royal Office, Sultan bin Mohammed al Nu'amani, in the Gulf state.

On Friday, representatives from Tehran and Washington began new negotiations there under strict security measures. US President Donald Trump said the meeting had gone "very well" and announced new talks.

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There were no concrete results and it is not yet known when the negotiations will continue.

According to observers, Larijani is likely to deliver a message from his government to the mediator in Oman.

The delegations led by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US special envoy Steve Witkoff travelled back to their countries on Friday for consultations.

The new negotiations follow the serious mass protests in Iran, which were brutally suppressed by the security forces. Trump then threatened the leadership with military intervention.

Now, however, there is talk of a new agreement on Iran's controversial nuclear programme. Iran's leadership remains sceptical about negotiations with its arch-enemy, the US.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to meet Trump on Wednesday in Washington to discuss the negotiations with Iran. Trump is set to receive Netanyahu at the White House on at 11 am (1600 GMT), as a senior government official confirmed to dpa.

Israel is demanding that any US agreement with Iran also address the Islamic Republic's missile programme and its support for militant groups in the region. The leadership in Tehran has recently publicly rejected such demands.
The ABC7 I-Team is investigating multiple claims against the same man who promised to finish remodeling jobs.

The contractor, Guy Landmeier, is now facing felony charges, including some related to passing bad checks and new ones connected to one consumer who reached out to ABC7. The I-Team talked to customers who said they paid for jobs and were left with unfinished work.

Nora Waliczek says Landmeier, of G and L Decorating, approached her husband in a paint store to take on a paint and wallpaper job in their Elgin home in August 2024.

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"He was supposed to wallpaper all of that," Waliczek said. "He never painted any of this."

Waliczek paid Landmeier $2,000 for a $3,000 job.

"And then, we had to pay someone to put up all the wallpaper and paint," Waliczek said.

Waliczek says all she got was wallpaper in the wrong room and sloppy or incomplete work.

"And he did very little, I'd say less than 20% of what the contract called for. He put the wrong wallpaper in the wrong place. The quality was terrible," Waliczek said.

Waliczek says Landmeier only showed up on three days.

"And he said he'd be back the next day. He didn't show up. I texted him. He said his wife was sick and he'd be back the next day, if I recall correctly, and he didn't show up," Waliczek said. "But we never saw him again."

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Waliczek filed a police report with the Elgin Police Department.

"And to us, $2,000 is a big sum," Waliczek said. "We had to pay $600 to take the wallpaper down. And then, I think, it was $2,000 to do what we had contracted Guy to do."

The Better Business Bureau gives G and L Decorating an F for five similar complaints in the last three years.

And consumers have connected on this Facebook page.

"Facebook had, 'I've been scammed by guy Landmeier,' the Fakebook page, you saw it. I saw that, and I commented on there, and Dedra and I connected," Waliczek said.

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Dedra Pfeiffer says she paid Landmeier $6,900 in March 2025.

"I hired him to remodel my bathroom," Pfeiffer said.

She says only electrical work and plumbing was done, but that work stopped, she says, after subcontractors said they were not getting paid.

"This man came to my home and took my money and left. That's what I'm upset about," Pfeiffer said. "We made an agreement."

Pfeiffer filed a report with the Sleepy Hollow police, and four charges were filed just last week. Those charges include three felonies for theft by deception, theft control intent, and home repair fraud. There is also a misdemeanor charge for home improvement company false name. The Illinois Secretary of State's website shows that G and L decorating Inc. was dissolved in 2017.

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"I paid him $2,500 in cash," said Sharon Castelli.

Castelli paid that down payment for a $5,300 job to replace a leaky roof in March of last year.

"I was usually, I'm very careful. I just was very vulnerable, and it just backfired in my face. I gave up that money, and I had to get somebody else to do the roof," Castelli said.

Castelli says Landmeier would text her with excuses but never started the job. She filed a report with Bartlett police, where she lives.

"It makes me feel terrible because it took me a long time to make it. I'm not a young chick, and I work very hard for my money, and to be scammed out of it, that's very hurtful," Castelli said.

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ABC7 I-Team Consumer Investigator Jason Knowles caught up with Landmeier after court in Kane County. Landmeier faces 12 felony counts of theft by deception and for bad checks connected to separate allegations, which he is fighting in court.

When asked about those who say they paid Landmeier for jobs that he did not finish, he said, "I have no comment" and "You'll have to talk to my attorney."

His attorney's office told ABC7, "No comment," as well.

"I don't know why you did this to me," Castelli said.

"He takes advantage of people and hurts them terribly," Waliczek said.

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"I don't know how he sleeps at night," Pfeiffer said.

Experts say before hiring a contractor, you need to do extensive research online.

Always pay in thirds, at the beginning, middle, and end of job, and have a specific schedule of completion in the contract.

And use a credit card. It is easier to dispute charges, and that money is not cash from your checking account.
HONG KONG (AP)  Jimmy Lai, the pro-democracy former Hong Kong media tycoon and a fierce critic of Beijing, was sentenced on Monday to 20 years in prison in the longest punishment given so far under a China-imposed national security law that has virtually silenced the citys dissent.

Lai, 78, was convicted in December of conspiring with others to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security, and conspiracy to publish seditious articles. The maximum penalty for his conviction was life imprisonment.

His co-defendants, six former employees of his Apple Daily newspaper and two activists, received prison terms of between 6 years and 3 months, and 10 years on collusion-related charges.

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Lai smiled and waved at his supporters when he arrived for the sentence. But before he left the courtroom, he looked serious, as some people in the public gallery cried. When asked about whether they would appeal, his lawyer Robert Pang said no comment.

Lai's daughter says he will die a martyr in prison

The democracy advocate's arrest and trial have raised concerns about the decline of press freedom in what was once an Asian bastion of media independence. The government insists the case has nothing to do with a free press, saying the defendants used news reporting as a pretext for years to commit acts that harmed China and Hong Kong.

Lai was one of the first prominent figures to be arrested under the security law in 2020. Within a year, some of Apple Dailys senior journalists also were arrested and the newspaper shut down in June 2021.

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Lais sentencing could heighten Beijings diplomatic tensions with foreign governments, which have criticized Lai's conviction and sentencing.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who is expected to visit China in April, said he felt so badly after the verdict and noted he spoke to Chinese leader Xi Jinping about Lai and asked him to consider his release. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X that Lai's sentencing is an unjust and tragic conclusion to the case, urging authorities to grant Lai humanitarian parole.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's government also has called for the release of Lai, who is a British citizen. U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper called the prosecution politically motivated," saying the prison term is tantamount to a life sentence.

In a statement, Lais son, Sebastien, said the draconian prison term was devastating for his family and life-threatening for his father. It signifies the total destruction of the Hong Kong legal system and the end of justice, he said.

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His sister Claire called the sentence heartbreakingly cruel in the same statement. If this sentence is carried out, he will die a martyr behind bars, she said.

Hong Kong leader John Lee said Lais sentence demonstrated the rule of law, citing his serious crimes.

Its bringing great satisfaction to the people, he said in a statement.

In Beijing, China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said Lai is a Chinese citizen and called him a major planner and participant in a series of anti-China destabilizing activities in Hong Kong. He urged relevant countries to respect the rule of law in Hong Kong.

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Judges ruled Lai was the mastermind

Lai founded Apple Daily, a now-defunct newspaper known for its critical reports against the governments in Hong Kong and Beijing. He was arrested in August 2020 under the security law that was used in a yearslong crackdown on many of Hong Kongs leading activists.

In their ruling, three government-vetted judges wrote that the starting point of Lais sentence was increased because they found him to be the mastermind of the conspiracies. But they also reduced his penalty because they accepted that Lais age, health condition and solitary confinement would cause his prison life to be more burdensome than that of other inmates.

Lai was no doubt the mastermind of all three conspiracies charged and therefore he warrants a heavier sentence, they said As regards the others, it is difficult to distinguish their relative culpability.

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They took into account that Lai is serving a prison term of five years and nine months in a separate fraud case and ruled that 18 years of Lais sentence in the security case should be served consecutively to that prison term.

Urania Chiu, lecturer in law at Oxford Brookes University, said the case is significant for its broad construction of seditious intent and application of the term collusion with foreign forces to certain activities by the media. The implication is particularly alarming for journalists and those working in academia, she said.

Offering and publishing legitimate critiques of the state, which often involves engagement with international platforms and audiences, may now easily be construed as collusion, Chiu said.

Lai has been in custody for more than five years. In January, Pang said Lai suffered health issues including heart palpitations, high blood pressure and diabetes. The prosecution said a medical report noted Lais general health condition remained stable. The government said his solitary confinement was at Lai's wish.

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Co-defendants get reduced sentences

The former Apple Daily staffers and activists involved in Lais case entered guilty pleas, which helped reduce their sentences Monday. They earlier admitted to the prosecution charge that said they conspired with Lai to request foreign forces to impose sanctions or blockades, or engage in other hostile activities against Hong Kong or China.

The convicted journalists are publisher Cheung Kim-hung, associate publisher Chan Pui-man, editor-in-chief Ryan Law, executive editor-in-chief Lam Man-chung, executive editor-in-chief responsible for English news Fung Wai-kong and editorial writer Yeung Ching-kee. They received prison terms ranging between six years and nine months, to 10 years.

The two activists, Andy Li and Chan Tsz-wah, were sentenced to six years and three months, and seven years and three months respectively.

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The penalties for Cheung, Chan and Yeung, alongside the two activists, were reduced in part because they served as prosecution witnesses and the judges said their evidence had significantly contributed to the conviction of Lai.

Before sunrise, dozens of people stood in line outside the court building to secure a seat in the courtroom. One of them was former Apple Daily employee Tammy Cheung.

Whatever happens, its an end  at least well know the outcome, Cheung said before the sentence was delivered.

Case considered a blow to Hong Kong media

Lai founded Apple Daily in 1995, two years before the former British colony returned to Chinese rule. Its closure in 2021 shocked the local press scene. Hong Kong ranked 140th out of 180 territories in the press-freedom index compiled by media freedom organization Reporters Without Borders in 2025, far from its 18th place in 2002.

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Steve Li, chief superintendent of the police forces National Security Department, welcomed the heavy sentence on Lai. Obviously, he has done nothing good for Hong Kong that could serve as a basis for his mitigation, he told reporters.

The government said it will confiscate assets related to Lai's crime.

Human Rights Watch's Asia Director Elaine Pearson said the harsh 20-year-sentence is effectively a death sentence, calling it cruel and unjust.

___

Associated Press writer Chan Ho-him contributed to this report
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE)  East Tennessees Honor Guard units received more than $50,000 in funds donated during Operation Honor Guards Day of Giving in December.

During the December 2, 2025, Operation Honor Guard donation drive, $57,569 was raised to support the units. The annual donation drive is the primary source of income for local Honor Guard units in East Tennessee.

Volunteers serving in Honor Guard units pay a final tribute of respect and give military funeral honors to honorably discharged veterans without any cost to the service members family. Every year, volunteers with the Honor Guard serve at more than 300 military funerals.

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East TN farmer cites land loss, rising costs as U.S. cattle herds hit 75-year low

Tuesday, members of the Honor Guard units joined 6 News Anchor Lori Tucker at WATEs studios for the check presentation.

Last year, the Operation Honor Guard donation drive raised more than $100,000 for the units, and over the last nine years, it has raised more than $920,000.

In December 2025, 6 News Don Dare spoke with members of the Pigeon Forge Honor Guard who shared how rewarding it is to honor their fallen comrades. Although the unit is smaller, they serve at more than 50 funerals every year. Many units are also searching for more volunteers to join so they can fill their ranks.

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Veterans Voices: Hear the stories of those who served

The Honor Guard units supported by Operation Honor Guard in East Tennessee include: Volunteer State Veterans Honor Guard, East Tennessee Veterans Honor Guard, Veterans Military Honor Guard of Pigeon Forge, Loudon County Veterans Honor Guard, Morristown VFW Honor Guard, Newport American Legion Post 41, Roane County Honor Guard, and American Legion Post 104 Honor Guard.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WATE 6 On Your Side.
The state flag waves in front of the Iowa Capitol on May 8, 2025. (Photo by Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch)

Iowa House lawmakers heard public comments on and voted to advance bills Tuesday that would create regulations for shellfish farms, prohibit lawsuits related to greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture operations and would allow farmers to repair equipment with diesel engines.

House Study Bill 693 would limit the ability to sue farmers for an alleged actual or potential effect on the climate due to greenhouse gas emissions.

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Rep. Derek Wulf, R-Hudson, said the bill would protect farmers from being sued for things like cow farts.

I believe that the American farmer is in a pivotal time right now, that we need to do everything we can to make sure they can do what they do best, which is farm, and not have to worry about trivial lawsuits coming at them, Wulf said.

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The bill was supported by Iowa agriculture commodity groups including Iowa Corn Growers Association, Iowa Pork Producers Association and Iowa Cattlemens Association.

Lisa Davis-Cook, speaking at the subcommittee Tuesday morning on behalf of the Iowa Association for Justice, questioned if the bill was putting the cart before the horse if there are not any previous cases on the subject in the state. The association is currently registered undecided on the bill.

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If we arent seeing a problem with this, I dont understand why were limiting the liability, Davis-Cook said. And in the same token, if someone is truly harmed and they can prove that they were truly harmed, we dont believe that they should be withheld access to the court.

The bill defines greenhouse gas as a gas derived from human activity, like the production, storage or processing of a farm animal or crop, a renewable fuel source, or a naturally occurring gas like carbon dioxide, hydrofluorocarbons, methane, nitrogen trifluoride, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride and perfluorocarbons. The bill was amended in committee to also include agricultural retailers in the definition.

Rep. Megan Srinivas, D-Des Moines, said during subcommittee she worried if the bill would remove liability from large bad actors in the state and pass the cost of mitigation efforts onto taxpayers.

The bill advanced from the committee with a vote of 20-3, with Rep. Monica Kurth, Rep. Jeff Cooling and Rep. Angel Ramirez dissenting.

Diesel engine repairs

House Study Bill 684 would require diesel engine manufacturers to provide tools, updates and parts to farmers seeking to repair sections of their equipment pertaining to diesel exhaust fluid systems.

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Most on-road and off-road diesel engines are equipped with diesel exhaust fluid and related systems to help the engines comply with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency emission standards. When diesel engine operators run out of diesel exhaust fuel, the engines will de-rate or slow down to limit emissions of nitrogen oxides.

The bill provides that when farm equipment has a breakdown related to the diesel exhaust fluid system, equipment manufacturers must provide the same tools and equipment to farmers as it does to authorized repair dealers.

This would allow farmers to repair their own equipment, or take it to local mechanics, rather than only getting service at authorized dealers.

Cordt Holub, a Tama County farmer, testified in favor of the bill during a subcommittee meeting Tuesday and said that during harvest, or planting season, farmers are already up against a clock.

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We feed the world here in Iowa, and if you have a tractor thats in the middle of the field, de-rates, and you cant go, youre limping along, and you need to either fix something or wait for a service mechanic  it can screw up a whole day, it can screw up a week, Holub said.

Stacey Pellett, speaking on behalf of Deere & Company, said the company worried the bill would be preempted by federal law and said it would put manufacturers in competition with their own dealerships.

Deere & Company, which registered against the bill, recently received guidelines from EPA about the companys ability to allow farmers to temporarily disable their diesel exhaust fluid systems, for the purpose of repairs, without having to go to a licensed dealer.

Pellett said that if a machine de-rates in the field, the ability and the tools are available for the customer or an independent repair shop to do the repairs, without waiting on a technician to come out from the local dealership.

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And because federal action is actively underway in this issue  that federal guidance would preempt state law, we would ask that you give this guidance a chance to be implemented and see where we may have gaps, post guidance, Pellett said.

She also said dealers pay for parts, tools and training themselves and if a manufacturer were to provide those tools directly to customers, it would put dealers at a significant disadvantage.

It would have really serious unintended consequences, I believe, for the local businesses in these rural communities, as well as for the businesses themselves, Pellett said.

During committee, Wulf described the bill as a right to repair bill.

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At a time in agriculture, when  commodity prices are extremely low, and our farmers are being continually pushed to find new efficiencies, they need to have the ability to take off or change burdensome emission systems that create additional expense and additional hassle for their businesses, Wulf said.

Rep. Kenan Judge, D-Waukee, said he understands the intent of the bill and gets the frustration farmers have with these systems, but he said if the intent of the bill is to permit farmers to take off the DEF systems, there is further work to do on the bill.

Judge suggested the committee take a pause and work on the bill before sending it to the floor.

Wulf responded that farmers have been the greatest innovators in agriculture since the beginning of time.

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The greatest innovation has come when we put the power to fix or change or create different systems, different ways of doing things and equipment changes into their hands, Wulf said. This bill simply does that.

The bill narrowly advanced with a vote of 12-11.

Shellfish

House Study Bill 662, which passed unanimously from the committee, would add shellfish as a separate category to the state definition of animal feeding operations.

Rep. Matt Windschitl, R-Missouri Valley, said while the current language includes fish, shellfish do not fall in the same category.

Windschitl explained that without a set definition in the code, there is a lack of understanding of where regulation comes from.

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The committee voted to amend the bill with language brought to the Senate version of the bill, that would ensure discharge water from a shellfish operation is treated the same as a fishing operation in the state.

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The owners of Colony Ridge, a Houston-area developer accused of running a predatory lending scheme that deceived Latinos, agreed to a sweeping legal settlement that will require them to invest in law enforcement and infrastructure on their properties and tighten selling practices to address a range of accusations from Texas GOP leaders and conservative media.

Chief among the allegations was that Colony Ridge developers sold land to undocumented people, giving rise to a crime-ridden complex of subdivisions about 30 miles outside Houston allegedly being run by Mexican drug cartels.

The developers denied that their communities were unsafe, a contention backed by testimony from local officials when the Legislature held special hearings in 2023 in response to outrage and accounts from residents in the developments. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the developers soon after, accusing them of deceptive sales, marketing and lending practices in a suit that echoed claims lodged by the federal government in a separate case.

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Under the settlement released Tuesday, Colony Ridges owners agreed to clamp down on the documentation it requires from buyers. Would-be purchasers will now have to present a Texas ID or drivers license  which undocumented immigrants cannot obtain in Texas  or a passport or visa. The agreement did not specify that the passport has to be an American one.

The agreement resolves the state and federal lawsuits, which alleged the owners of Colony Ridge lured would-be Spanish-speaking homebuyers into seller-financed mortgages with high interests that they could not afford. By federal authorities estimate, roughly one in four Colony Ridge loans resulted in foreclosure. The company would then flip those properties to new unsuspecting customers eager to become homeowners, court filings allege.

The federal case, filed by the Biden administrations Justice Department in late 2023, also accused Colony Ridge of misrepresenting facts such as guarantees of water, electricity and sewer hook-ups and whether properties had previously flooded.

The settlement seeks to address those accusations. Colony Ridge agreed to:

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Pause seeking approvals for any new residential plats for three years.

Establish new criteria for approving loans and offer relief to customers facing foreclosure.

Ensure that its advertising and marketing is truthful.

Spend $48 million on infrastructure projects like roads and drainage systems.

Offer discounts to peace officers in an effort to encourage them to live in the development.

Earmark $20 million for law enforcement, including the construction of a new police station within the community and money specifically for immigration enforcement.

Colony Ridges Chief Executive Officer John Harris said he was happy to reach an agreement and move on.

The settlement allows us to continue investing in our neighborhoods and supporting the thousands of families who have trusted us to provide a place for them to call home, Harris said in a statement. Were glad that funds from this agreement will be directed back into the community to benefit residents.

In a statement, Paxton said the settlement had resulted in Colony Ridges owners paying a steep cost for their unlawful actions.

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My office will continue to bring the full force of the law against anyone who threatens the safety of our state or creates a safe harbor for illegals, Paxton said.

Harmeet K. Dhillon, who oversees the Justice Departments civil rights division, in a statement celebrated the settlement as a victory against discrimination  and the promotion of illegal immigration.

Intentionally targeting vulnerable borrowers with the American dream of homeownership and then trapping them in a predatory scheme is not only wrong, it also violates our civil rights laws, Dhillon said. This DOJ will go after all lenders, financiers, and land developers who participate in schemes which ultimately encourage illegal immigration.

The agreement appeared to please both immigration hardliners and those who had advocated on behalf of residents for years, raising alarms about the development even before it became a conservative lightning rod.

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Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick thanked Paxton in a social media post and claimed credit for being the first elected official to conduct an in-depth tour of Colony Ridge with law enforcement.

What I saw was astounding. A community of what looked to be an illegal immigrant city, about 35 miles outside of Houston, Patrick said, adding, We cannot let these cities spring up across Texas.

Michael Quinn Sullivan, publisher of the right-wing Texas Scorecard, which helped draw conservatives attention, said that the settlement functionally means Colony Ridge is no longer a safe haven for illegal aliens. He called it a huge win on a major issue for Paxton  currently in a heated GOP primary for U.S. Senate  and Dhillon.

SuEllen Sanchez, who with her sister had filed complaints with state agencies about Colony Ridge years ago, struck an optimistic tone in a social media post.

They wont be able to scam more immigrants, Sanchez said. My heart is with them right now.
Autoimmune specialist Zenas BioPharma has posted a win for its lead candidate, obexelimab, from a mid-stage study in relapsing multiple sclerosis (RMS).

During the Phase II MoonStone study (NCT06564311), obexelimab triggered a statistically significant 95% relative reduction in new gadolinium-enhancing T1 hyperintense (GdE T1) lesions at week eight and week 12 compared with placebo  meeting the trials primary endpoint. In MS, GdE T1 lesions are a common biomarker of active inflammation. They are believed to correspond with axonal loss and white matter destruction.

The CD19/Fc gamma receptor IIb (FcRIIb-b)-targeting drug also achieved near-complete suppression of new lesions at both weeks eight and 12, with two new GdE T1 lesions observed in patients treated with obexelimab compared with the 19 seen across the placebo cohort. Within the obexelimab arm, 97.2% of patients were free from new T1 lesions during the study period.

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24-week data from the MoonStone study supports obexelimabs durability in RMS, as the decrease in new GdE T1 lesions relative to placebo was maintained across the extension period. Patients treated with the bifunctional monoclonal antibody (mAb) also maintained stable expanded disability status scale (EDSS) scores at this timepoint.

The results of the Phase II MoonStone study were first presented during a late-breaking oral abstract at the 2026 Americas Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ACTRIMS) Forum, which took place from 5 to 7 February in San Diego, California.

RMS market remains competitive

While obexelimab has demonstrated potential to improve outcomes in RMS, Zenas will face tough competition in the increasingly crowded RMS market if it gains approval for the drug.

Roche-owned Genentech's Ocrevus (ocrelizumab) currently dominates the RMA market in terms of total sales. In fiscal year 2025 (FY25), the drug brought in SFr7bn ($9.14bn) for Roche  9% more than the previous fiscal year.

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Now, the Swiss pharma is looking to strengthen its footing in the MS field with its newest asset, fenebrutinib, which significantly reduced annualised RMS relapse rates over Sanofis commonly prescribed MS medication, Aubagio (teriflunomide), in the Phase III FENhance 2 (NCT04586023) study.

However, Christie Wong, managing neurology analyst at GlobalData, believes that obexelimabs novel mechanism of action could differentiate it from approved therapies.

Should obexelimab be able to replicate the positive findings from the MoonStone trial in larger Phase III studies and receive regulatory approval, it could become a high-efficacy therapy option for patients who cannot tolerate, or respond sub-optimally to anti-CD20 mAbs, Wong said.

Obexelimabs development journey

The follow-up data gathered from the MoonStone study succeeds the positive topline readout from October 2025, which was met with a warm reception from investors  as evidenced by Zenas stock value climbing 33% upon the news debut.

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However, results from the Phase III INDIGO study (NCT05662241) of obexelimab in immunoglobulin G4-related disease (IgG4-RD) reversed this share value growth, sending the companys stock value plummeting by over 50% after the drug failed to best standard of care (SoC) therapy, Uplizna (inebilizumab) in terms of efficacy. Despite this setback, Zenas plans to file for the drugs approval in this indication in Q2 2026.

Zenas is also hoping for obexelimabs success in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The company is currently conducting the Phase II SunStone study (NCT06559163), which is expected to read out in 2026.

"Zenas MS drug reduces new brain lesion formation by 95% in Phase II trial" was originally created and published by Clinical Trials Arena, a GlobalData owned brand.





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(Texas Scorecard)  A Houston surgeon has been indicted in federal court on charges alleging that he falsified medical records in a way that made patients ineligible for organ transplants.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, a federal grand jury returned a five count indictment against Dr. John Stevenson Bynon Jr., 66, charging him with making false statements in health care matters. Bynon surrendered to authorities after the indictment was returned and has since been processed.

Federal prosecutors allege that Bynon made false statements in patient medical records that rendered certain transplant candidates functionally ineligible to receive donor organs. The indictment states that patients, their families, and other members of their medical care teams were not informed of the changes. As a result, donor organ offers were not presented to those patients for extended periods of time.

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At the time of the alleged conduct, Bynon served as head of the abdominal transplant program at Memorial Hermann Health System. The indictment alleges that Bynon altered information contained in a federally regulated transplant database, affecting transplant eligibility determinations.

According to the DOJ, the false statements were material to whether patients were eligible to receive organ transplants. Prosecutors allege that the conduct kept some patients off the transplant waiting list for months at a time.

Court filings state that several of the affected patients later died before receiving a transplant. Others eventually received organs after being transferred to other hospitals. The indictment does not allege that every patient affected died as a result of the changes, but it does allege that the false statements violated federal law governing health care records.

Federal records indicate that Bynon later acknowledged to health care regulators that he altered transplant database entries in order to bypass federal rules. According to documents obtained by the Houston Chronicle from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Bynon told regulators that he believed the changes were necessary to ensure patients were safely transplanted.

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The issue first became public in April 2024, when Memorial Hermann announced that it had suspended its liver transplant program after identifying irregularities in transplant listing data. Hospital officials later expanded the suspension to include the kidney and pancreas transplant program. At the time, Memorial Hermann stated that inappropriate changes had been made to patient records but said it was still determining how long the conduct had occurred and how many patients were affected.

Following the suspension, federal agencies and transplant oversight organizations began reviewing the hospitals transplant practices. Reporting from local outlets showed regulators examined compliance with transplant listing requirements and patient safety standards.

The Department of Justice announcement did not identify all patients affected by the alleged conduct. Prosecutors said the investigation remains ongoing. Bynon has pleaded not guilty to the charges. His attorney has not publicly commented on the indictment. If convicted, Bynon faces potential prison time and financial penalties under federal law.
Ajok Ding Duot crouches on the dusty floor of a displacement camp in South Sudans Lakes State, cracking nuts open one by one.

She and her family of 10 arrived here about two weeks ago, fleeing intensifying fighting between government and opposition forces in neighbouring Jonglei state.

While they have found temporary shelter, Duot said there was hardly anything to eat at the camp. To survive, they rely on these nuts and wild fruits.

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We dont know anything about what the government is doing. Theyre fighting, but we dont know what the problem is, she told Al Jazeera.

Were in darkness. Its only ever the humanitarian organisations who help.





South Sudan has seen renewed fighting in recent weeks between government soldiers and fighters loyal to the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army-in-Opposition (SPLA-IO).

The United Nations says an estimated 280,000 people have been displaced by the fighting and air attacks since late December, including more than 235,000 across Jonglei alone.

The UNs children agency, UNICEF, also warned last week that more than 450,000 children are at risk of acute malnutrition due to mass displacement and the halting of critical medical services in Jonglei.

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Nearly 10 million people need life-saving humanitarian assistance across South Sudan, a country still reeling from a ruinous civil war that killed nearly 400,000 people and displaced millions between 2013 and 2018.

Humanitarian operations, however, have been crippled by attacks and looting, with observers saying both sides in the conflict have prevented assistance from reaching areas where they believe civilians support their opponents.

The UNs World Food Programme (WFP) suspended its activities last week in Baliet county, in Upper Nile state, following repeated attacks on a convoy carrying humanitarian assistance.

The WFP said the suspension would remain in place until the safety of its staff could be guaranteed and authorities take immediate action to recover the stolen supplies.

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South Sudans Information Minister Atek Wek Ateny rejected the accusations that government forces had been attacking aid groups.

Its quite unfortunate that some people are accusing the government of attacking humanitarian groups, which is not true, Ateny told Al Jazeera.

The government ensures the protection of humanitarian assistance that goes to the needy people, he said from the capital Juba.

Instead, he pointed the finger of blame at the rebels, whom he accused of carrying out rampant and sometimes random attacks against humanitarian organisations. He urged the aid groups to operate in government-controlled areas, which he said are secure. Thats the only way to help the needy, he said.

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Most of them [aid organisations] do not come to the areas that the government controls.

Hospitals closed

Separately, medical humanitarian NGO Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, said last week a hospital in Jonglei was hit by a government air attack, marking the 10th attack in 12 months on an MSF-run medical facility in the country.

In addition, the MSF health facility in Pieri, also in Jonglei, was looted by unknown assailants, forcing staff to flee. The organisation said the violence had left some 250,000 people without healthcare, as the NGO had been the only medical provider in the area.

MSF said the targeted attacks on its facilities have forced the closure of two hospitals in the Greater Upper Nile and the suspension of general healthcare activities in Jonglei, Upper Nile and Central Equatoria states.

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Gul Badshah, operations manager for MSF, told Al Jazeera the NGO has not been allowed to access its care facilities in opposition-held areas in Jonglei since December.

We are in constructive dialogue with the government and the relevant authorities to allow us and also facilitate access to the people seeking help at the facilities, said Badshah.

The Information Minister Wek also rejected allegations that the government forces bombed a MSF-run hospital in Jonlei state on February 3.

Given the circumstances of the rules of engagement in the fighting between the government forces and the rebels, it is very difficult to ascertain who did what, he said.

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But the government forces do not loot, and government forces do not take anything against humanitarian organisations, he said, adding that the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was given wrong information about the governments involvement in the hospital attack.





Reporting from a displacement camp in Bor, Jonglei state, Al Jazeeras Malcolm Webb said women there described being subjected to sexual attacks.

Two of them [the women] told us  that they had been raped as they fled, a third one said she had narrowly missed being raped by soldiers when someone came to save her, said Webb.

Sexual violence was widely reported to have been used as a weapon of war during the last civil conflict, added Webb, noting there are growing concerns from the international community and humanitarian groups that rates of sexual violence are going to go up once again.

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On Sunday, UN chief Antonio Guterres strongly condemned the escalating violence in the country and warned that civilians continue to bear the brunt of the conflict.

In a statement, the secretary-general called on all parties to immediately and decisively halt all military operations, de-escalate tensions through dialogue, uphold international law, protect civilians, and ensure safe and sustained humanitarian access and the security of aid workers and United Nations peacekeeping personnel and their assets.




Students from several LAUSD high schools walked out of class in protest against federal immigration raids in their communities.

Around 200 students from Santee, Jefferson, Maya Angelou community, Synergy Quantum and Nava College prep high schools walked out Monday morning.

Students told Eyewitness News they did it to recognize what their parents did when they immigrated to the United States for a better life.

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Tyffany Pena said she walked out for her dad.

"He left Mexico, he left his family to go Kentucky, then to here for me. You know, for us to have a better future," she said.

Yeneli Cortinez from Santee High School added: "It makes me want to tear up but it's like this is for my mom, for all my family. For all the people that are getting deported unfairly. It's just very unfair the way they're doing it. "

The students made their way to Los Angeles City Hall where they held their own rally denouncing ICE.

"I believe that immigrants built this county and we wouldn't be nothing without it... my parents are immigrants... What they're doing to immigrants... is just horrible. They're tearing apart families and I believe we shouldn't do that," said Jefferson High School student Jeffrey Acevedo.

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In a written statement to Eyewitness News, a spokesperson for LAUSD said, in part:

"Los Angeles Unified supports the rights of our students to advocate for causes important to them. However, we are concerned for student safety at off-campus demonstrations as schools are the safest place for students."

The statement also said schools are providing students with opportunities on campus for student expression, offering additional District resources and guidance for students to engage in meaningful, age-appropriate discussions in a safe and welcoming environment.




Shrimper Keo Nguyen displays a sample of wild caught Gulf of Mexico shrimp while on his boat docked east of Lake Borgne prior to bringing it to a seafood market Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023. (Photo credit: Wes Muller/Louisiana Illuminator)

Louisiana law requires restaurants to clearly indicate when they serve imported seafood, but hundreds have failed to do so, according to a review of state enforcement data from 2025.

In response to a public records request, the Louisiana Department of Health compiled spreadsheets listing every restaurant cited and which ones were fined.

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State law requires all food establishments using imported shrimp or crawfish to indicate it clearly on their menus or on a sign at the entrance if they dont use menus. Another law applies to any statements, written or verbal, restaurants and their employees make about their offerings.

A first-time violation can carry a fine of up to $500, though the health department typically gives offenders an opportunity to remedy the violation before levying a fine. The penalty can double for each subsequent offense, maxing out at $2,000 per violation.

State officials cited 919 restaurants and fined 319 for seafood labeling violations last year, according to the spreadsheets. The collective amount invoiced, including fines from January, totaled about $113,000, health department spokeswoman Emma Herrock said.

Both lists contain some recognizable names and popular restaurants from across the state, including some fine-dining establishments. Others, either through their names or website descriptions, promote their food as Cajun, Creole or locally-sourced when, in fact, their shrimp or crawfish comes from India, Ecuador, China and other waters outside of the U.S.

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Seafood transparency

Health inspectors fined three Popeyes locations last year for failing to label imported shrimp. The cited restaurants were in Opelousas, Grand Coteau and Breaux Bridge.

The national fast-food chain, founded in Arabi, has long used Louisiana culture in its marketing.

Though best known for its chicken, Popeyes often features fried shrimp on its menu and has occasionally experimented with fried crawfish meals and a Cajun Flounder Sandwich with Pacific flounder rather than the southern flounder native to Louisiana.

Last year, Popeyes renamed its offering the Flounder Fish Sandwich, dropping the Cajun moniker.

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Popeyes parent company, Restaurant Brands International, did not respond to requests for comment or questions sent via email. The vast majority of its 3,700 worldwide restaurants are independently owned and operated. The corporation sets strict food quality standards with specifically-approved wholesale vendors that all franchisees must use, according to its website.

Restaurants reached for this report largely chalked up their violations to a simple oversight or not being aware of their suppliers seafood source.

The Louisiana Department of Health has a searchable database of sanitation records that contains detailed inspection records for every restaurant in the state.

Monjunis Italian restaurant in Bossier City was cited Feb. 10, 2025, for using imported crawfish without labeling it as such on the menu, records show. In a phone interview, owner Lisa Susano said she wasnt aware her supplier had sent her foreign crawfish tails when local ones werent available. She said she has since instructed her vendor to never send her imported tails.

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I really wasnt paying attention, Susano said. Its hard to make it in the restaurant industry. Restaurants close every day.

As for shrimp, Susano said she has always used Louisiana catch. She said she didnt realize the states menu labeling law also applied to crawfish, which she said can be more difficult to source locally because its season can be short.

Health inspectors often show up unannounced at restaurants to check for health code violations, including the labeling laws. Officials check the restaurants wholesale receipts and seafood packaging to determine the country of origin for the shrimp or crawfish being served. If the restaurants menu doesnt match the receipts, its a violation but not always a fine.

Inspectors typically give the restaurant about a week to correct a menu violation before conducting a follow-up visit. If the violation goes uncorrected, the state can levy a first fine of $500.

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State health department records show inspectors cited Mandinas Restaurant in Mandeville four times last year for violating the menu law from June 30 through Aug. 7. The business is not affiliated with the iconic New Orleans eatery on Canal Street that bears the same name.

In a phone interview, owner Frank Marcello said he paid a $150 fine for the violations at the Mandeville restaurant, which he blamed on his own absent-mindedness.

It was my fault, he said. We just didnt have that [disclosure] on the menu, so we changed the menu.

Marcello said he uses Gulf shrimp most of the time except when its too expensive.

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When youre a little family restaurant like us, when something goes up $5 or $6 per pound, you gotta do what you gotta do, Marcello said. I cant charge $30 for a shrimp po boy.

Fried shrimp. (Photo credit: Wes Muller/Louisiana Illuminator)

Mandinas in New Orleans, a favorite of locals and tourists, was not on the health departments list. General manager Martial Voitier said his restaurant has always used local seafood regardless of the price or availability.

The Mandina family sold the Mandeville location years ago, according to Voitier. He was pleased to hear about the states enforcement of the labeling laws and said he thinks they should be as strict as possible.

It doesnt offend me or bother me at all because we dont deal with any foreign products  period, Voitier said.

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Health inspectors also included members-only dining establishments in their enforcement.

The Southern Yacht Club, an exclusive sailing organization in New Orleans with a large waterfront building on Lake Pontchartrain, has a full-service restaurant inside and a summer bar and grill outside. Visitors are welcome if they have an invitation or are accompanied by a member

During a Nov. 18 visit, inspectors cited Southern Yacht Club for 10 critical violations, including having unlabeled imported shrimp. State sanitation codes define critical violations as those more likely to directly contribute to food contamination or illness, and they must be addressed immediately.

The clubs other critical violations included failure to retain shellfish tags for 90 days after sale and using oyster shells more than once as serving containers for other meats not original to the shell, according to sanitation records.

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Ed Gaskell, Southern Yacht Clubs manager, said via email the imported shrimp was a substitution error made by a vendor.

The shrimp in question from the cooler was thrown out in front of the inspector and never served, Gaskell said, adding that Southern Yacht Club now uses only domestic shrimp.

State clamps down after years of non-enforcement

The enforcement data from 2025 mark the agencys efforts to step up enforcement after years of light-handed treatment while Louisianas seafood industry complained of a massive influx of foreign seafood.

Two years earlier, the health department documented more than 2,600 violations but did not issue a single fine over that period because the Louisiana Legislature failed to clarify penalties in a 2019 revision to the law.

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Since 2024, the legislature has passed sweeping changes to state seafood laws affecting wholesalers, restaurants, food trucks, grocery stores and other establishments across the state. These included heavier fines for violators and strict prohibitions against misleading branding. They also gave authority to the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry and the Louisiana Seafood Promotion Board to assist in enforcement efforts.

Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser, who oversees the state Office of Tourism and the Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board, said he is considering building a website that lists every restaurant in Louisiana that serves local seafood products. He is also lobbying for the passage of a new imported seafood law at the federal level.

My ultimate goal is to get Congress to pass a bill to add a 10-cents-per-pound inspection fee on imported seafood, Nungesser said.

He said this would help level the playing field for local fishermen trying to compete with the significantly cheaper foreign fare that continues to enter the United States.

Dave Williams, a fisheries scientist, has made headlines across the Gulf Coast exposing grocers, restaurants and festival vendors selling imported shrimp in violation of Louisiana seafood labeling laws. His company, SeaD Consulting, developed a rapid test kit that can analyze the genetic makeup of raw or cooked seafood.

Williams said any place that serves imported seafood and has customers that expect to get imported seafood should have no problem labeling that seafood as imported.

His company has conducted undercover shrimp testing at restaurants across the Gulf Coast. Williams said his goal has been to educate restaurant owners and draw public attention to the issue so that people start asking where the seafood comes from when they go out to eat. SeaD Consulting publicly commends restaurants found to be serving domestic catch.

The mislabeling law applies to all restaurants serving these products, ensuring a consistent standard and a level playing field for seafood transparency.  The point of the law in Louisiana is to inform consumers of what they are being served, Williams said.

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As New Jersey officials continue to question immigration enforcement tactics by President Donald Trumps administration, lawmakers are considering a bill that would prohibit officers from wearing masks in the state.

The bill, S3112, would prohibit all law enforcement officers in New Jersey from wearing any face coverings or disguises while interacting with the public, with limited exceptions.

The measure follows criticism that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents regularly wear masks, which the agency says protects them from online harassment and doxxing. Critics say the masks stoke fear and limit accountability.

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Unmasking ICE agents has emerged as a key demand by Democrats in negotiations in Congress over funding for the agency.

The proposed New Jersey law, sponsored by state Sen. Benjie Wimberly, D-Passaic, has been referred to the Senate Law and Public Safety Committee.

An identical bill in the Assembly is scheduled to be debated and voted on by the Public Safety and Preparedness committee on Thursday, but doesnt include any fines and gives authority to the state Attorney General to come up with details on enforcement.

Under the Senate bill, officers at the federal, state, county and municipal levels would be barred from concealing their faces during official public interactions. Exceptions include undercover assignments, protective face shields that do not obscure identity, physiciansupported use of medicalgrade masks such as N95 respirators, and masks worn during statedeclared smoke emergencies.

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Violations would be a disorderly persons offense, punishable by a $500 to $1,000 fine, up to six months in jail, or both, according to the proposal. The bill would take effect immediately upon enactment.

The legislation would need to be passed by both houses of the Democratic-controlled state Legislature and signed by the governor to become law.

ICE officials did not immediately respond to a request to comment on the proposed masking law.

The debate over ICE agents wearing masks comes as Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrills administration continues to clash with the Trump administration over immigration enforcement. Federal officials have threatened to withhold funding from states that keep restrictions on local police cooperation with immigration authorities.

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During last weeks confirmation hearing for acting state Attorney General Jennifer Davenport in Trenton, state Sen. Jon Bramnick, R-Union, pressed her about reports of federal officers wearing masks during general public operations.

When you take a look at our state and local law enforcement officers across the state and the operations they do  you just dont see that, Davenport said.

Thats good, Bramnick interjected. I want to see the person whos hitting me over the head with a club or something.

Lets hope that does not happen, Davenport quipped.

When asked during her confirmation hearing, Davenport would not give an opinion on whether the law should be passed.

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Whether that is something that should be banned or a law, I leave that to this body, she said, referring to the state Legislature.

Bramnick also pressed Davenport on whether she would be willing to arrest ICE agents if she had reasonable belief they were violating state law. Davenport said she would support prosecuting ICE agents if they break New Jersey law.

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(Removes 'downtown' from paragraph 2)

By Ted Hesson, Kristina Cooke and Brad Heath

WASHINGTON, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Becky Ringstrom was heading home after following federal immigration officers in her gray Kia SUV in suburban Minneapolis when she was suddenly boxed in by unmarked vehicles. At least a half-dozen masked agents jumped out to arrest her, one knocking on her windshield with a metal object as if threatening to use it to break her window.

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After the arrest, captured on bystander video verified by Reuters, the 42-year-old mother of seven later said she was transported to Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis where an officer gave her a citation charging her under a federal law that criminalizes impeding law enforcement. The official said her name and photo would be added to a government database.

The arrest of Ringstrom became the latest detention of one of thousands of local activists for violating Title 18, Section 111 of the U.S. Code, a catch-all charge for anyone who forcibly assaults, resists, opposes, impedes, intimidates, or interferes with a federal officer conducting official duties. The statute can be charged as a felony or misdemeanor. As a felony, it carries up to 20 years in prison, but penalties beyond eight years are reserved for people who use a deadly or dangerous weapon or cause an injury.

A Reuters review of federal court records found that the Trump administration has prosecuted at least 655 people under that charge across the U.S. since a series of city-focused immigration crackdowns began last summer. Thats more than double the prosecutions during the same period in 2024-2025, according to a review of publicly available criminal filings in Westlaw, a legal research database owned by Thomson Reuters.

Reuters used artificial intelligence in some instances to classify the charges, with a spot-check showing 98% accuracy. The numbers are nationwide and Reuters was not able to determine how many were connected to immigration enforcement, how many were charged as felonies, or resulted in convictions.

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The charges are part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to clamp down on ICE opponents, who they portray as rioters who pose threats to officers and undermine their efforts to arrest immigrants with criminal records.

"Assaulting and obstructing law enforcement is a felony," said U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin. She said federal immigration officers "used the minimum amount of force necessary to protect themselves, the public, and federal property."

ICE has been tracking the names of protesters in an internal database for several months, according to two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operations.

The government database contains names, photos, actions that provoked suspicion, locations and license plates, the officials said, adding that the effort was intended to spot patterns that could lead to charges.

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DHS said it does not maintain a database of U.S. domestic terrorists, but does track threats. We do of course monitor and investigate and refer all threats, assaults and obstruction of our officers to the appropriate law enforcement, McLaughlin said.

One of the officials said ICE was referring several people per day in Minnesota alone to federal prosecutors for potential charges under the same law for interfering with police operations.

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the Trump administration was committed to protecting First Amendment freedoms, but that people impeding law enforcement "will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law."

OBSERVING ICE

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Ringstrom had watched federal immigration officers for about 45 minutes as they sat in a parked car in her neighborhood on Thursday, January 29. When they started to move, she decided to follow along in her SUV, keeping a distance of multiple car lengths behind, she said.

At a roundabout, a Border Patrol agent approached her car and said, "Last time I'm going to warn you," according to video Ringstrom recorded on her phone.

The officers went right at a stop sign and she went left, she said. Several minutes later as she started to head back toward her house, multiple vehicles with federal officers stopped and arrested her, she said.

"I know what I'm doing is not wrong," Ringstrom said later in an interview with Reuters.

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Still, she said she was terrified when federal officers approached her car. There was a moment where I thought I could be Renee Good," she said, referring to one of the two U.S. citizen protesters fatally shot by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis in January.

After her arrest, she was issued a citation, reviewed by Reuters, which said the court date was TBD - to be determined.

McLaughlin said Ringstrom "stalked law enforcement and attempted to obstruct law enforcement from performing their sworn duties.

Seth Stoughton, a professor focused on policing at University of South Carolina School of Law, said the law in the past mostly has been used to charge assaults on officers and specifically states that the alleged crime must be committed "forcibly.

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"Without any physical contact, just following an agent in a car, it's not clear to me that that's resistance or impeding in the first place, and it certainly seems like a stretch to establish that as forcible," Stoughton said.

A federal judge in Minneapolis said in a mid-January order that a vehicle following ICE at an appropriate distance did not justify a traffic stop or arrest, but that order was paused by an appeals court 10 days later.

The judges now-paused order did not say what exact distance would be deemed safe.

Deborah Fleischaker, a top ICE official under former President Joe Biden, said it was inappropriate and unconstitutional to intimidate and arrest people peacefully following immigration officers in their cars.

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Observing ICE activities is not a crime and should not be treated as such, she said.

McLaughlin said U.S. Border Patrol agents at the scene gave Ringstrom "lawful commands and warnings" but that she continued to obstruct operations, leading to her arrest.

"When agitators willingly involve themselves and inject themselves in law enforcement operations, they are risking arrest as well as jeopardizing the safety of themselves and those around them," McLaughlin said.

VIDEOS SHOW ICE OFFICERS DRAWING WEAPONS

While new internal ICE guidance, reported by Reuters in late January, instructed officers not to engage with protesters, the encounters have not stopped.

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Two videos in recent weeks verified by Reuters showed ICE officers drawing their weapons as they approached vehicles that allegedly had been following them.

South of Minneapolis on January 29, the same day Ringstrom was arrested, federal immigration officers abruptly swerved, stopped their vehicle and approached a woman driving behind them with guns drawn, according to dashcam footage from her vehicle first reported by Minnesota Public Radio and verified by Reuters.

McLaughlin said ICE officers were attempting to arrest a criminal offender when the woman began stalking and obstructing them, leading the officers to try to arrest her.

Law enforcement officers attempted to pull her over using their emergency lights to issue her a warning, McLaughlin said. Ignoring law enforcement commands, the agitator refused to pull over and began driving recklessly including running stop signs, nearly colliding with multiple vehicles, and driving directly at law enforcement in an attempt to ram their vehicle.

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Reuters was not able to independently verify whether the woman ignored commands or drove recklessly.

In a separate incident on February 3, two ICE officers approached a car that had been following them, again, with guns drawn, according to video verified by Reuters and a DHS statement.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said the vehicle had been stalking and obstructing ICE officers.

The agitators then followed the officers as they departed and made hand motions suggestive of possessing a firearm, DHS said.

Reuters could not independently verify the agencys account. The video reviewed by Reuters showed the vehicles once they had stopped.

Under Trump, numerous DHS statements after violent encounters with immigration agents have been inaccurate or incomplete.

ICE AT YOUR FRONT DOOR

Some Minnesota residents say they believe they are becoming the subject of an intimidation campaign.

In a suburb north of St. Paul on January 22, an ICE officer led a woman who was following his vehicle back to her house, making it clear that he knew her identity and address, Reuters-verified video filmed by the husband showed.

The womans husband spoke to the ICE officer outside of the couples house. When the husband questioned the tactic, the officer said, You raise your voice, I erase your voice, the video showed.

One ICE officer told Reuters they have led people following them back to their houses after running their license plates to freak them out.

McLaughlin said ICE would review body camera footage and investigate the incident in St. Paul, but did not comment on ICE using the tactic to frighten opponents.

Earlier in January, two friends - Brandon Siguenza and Patty OKeefe - who were following an ICE vehicle in Minneapolis said officers fired pepper spray into their car, smashed their car window and detained them for eight hours.

McLaughlin said officers gave them multiple warnings to stop impeding operations, but that they chose to continue to stalk law enforcement and were arrested.

The passenger refused to roll down the window and exit the vehicle, McLaughlin said. ICE law enforcement followed their training and used the minimum amount of force necessary to make the arrest.

McLaughlin did not explicitly confirm that officers broke the car window or deployed pepper spray.

Siguenza and OKeefe have not been charged.

(Reporting by Ted Hesson and Brad Heath in Washington, and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco. Additional reporting by Maria Tsvetkova, Monica Naime, Vinaya K, Marine Delrue, Tiffany Le, Fernando Robles and Gerardo Gomez. Editing by Craig Timberg, Diane Craft and Michael Learmonth)
Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons complained in his opening statement before the House Committee on Homeland Security Tuesday morning about people referring to ICE agents as the Gestapo and the secret police, saying the rhetoric unfairly encourages threats against those agents.

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) offered Lyons some revolutionary advice.

Politics: Pam Bondi, Completely Unhinged In Hearing, Lashes Out At Every Democrat Who Asks A Question

People are simply making valid observations about your tactics, which are un-American and outright fascist, he said.

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I have a simple suggestion, he continued: If you dont want to be called a fascist regime or a secret police, then stop acting like one.

Like this article? Keep independent journalism alive. Support HuffPost.

Goldman pointed out in earlier dialogue with Lyons that ICE is regularly stopping nonwhite people and those who look like immigrants to ask for their papers  a hallmark of fascist regimes in the 20th century.

Lyons conceded that secret police in both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union did the same thing, but argued unconvincingly that to say the men and women of ICE are Gestapos  [is] wrong.

Politics: Its A 'Modern-Day Concentration Camp': Irish Man Held By ICE Details 'Nightmare' Facility

Earlier in the hearing, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) confronted Lyons about how he wished last year for a deportation machine that was like Amazon Prime but with human beings.

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Mr. Lyons, how many times has Amazon Prime shot a mom three times in the face? he asked, referring to ICEs fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis last month.

None, sir. Lyons conceded, adding that he meant ICE needs to be more efficient and that ICE deals with human beings so we cant be like them.

Speaking of humans, Swalwell interjected, highlighting the killing of Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents, also in Minneapolis: How many times has Amazon Prime shot a nurse 10 times in the back?

None, said Lyons.

Related...

Read the original on HuffPost
Governor Wes Moore says he is "excited." Practically giddy. Excited to sign legislation that makes it harderno, illegalfor local law enforcement in Maryland to cooperate with federal law enforcement. Excited to help the criminal class. Excited to put ideology ahead of public safety.

Thats not my characterization. Thats the governors own enthusiasm, on full display last week, as Democrats in Annapolis rushed through a bill designed to block cooperation between local jails, correctional facilities, and federal authoritiesspecifically when it comes to criminal aliens.

Oddly, Governor Moore lectured President Trump on public safety, saying Trump should come to Maryland to learn, not lecture. Then the governor declaredproudlythat since he laid his hand on the Bible, violent crime in Maryland is down 50 percent. However, as Moore is declaring his glee to impede local law enforcement from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), hes telling us that public safety is a priority. Well, you cant have it both ways.

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First, lets deal with the facts. Crime reduction in Maryland, particularly the historic drop in homicides in Baltimore City, is real. Thats good news. Thats something to celebrate. But who actually deserves the credit?

A large share of that success belongs to Baltimore City States Attorney Ivan Bates, law enforcement officers on the street, andyescooperation with federal law enforcement. When you go after repeat violent offenders, when you prosecute criminals instead of coddling them, and when you collaborate across jurisdictions, you get results. You put bad guys away. Communities get safer.

So, explain this to me, Governor: How do you take credit for public safety gains that rely in part on cooperation with federal law enforcement, then turn around and say youre excited to ban that cooperation with federal law enforcement when it comes to criminal aliens?

This legislationbarring 287(g) agreements, which ban cooperation between local law enforcement agencies and federal immigration authorities, specifically Immigration and Customs Enforcementdoesnt make Maryland safer. It does the opposite. It tells local law enforcement: even if someone is a convicted felon, even if theyre guilty of violent crimes or domestic abuse, even if they are in the country illegally, you are prohibited from working with federal authorities to remove them from our communities.

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Thats not compassion. Thats negligence.

Lets be clear about what this bill does. When a criminal alien is already in custodyalready off the streetsit prevents coordination that would allow federal authorities to do their job. Instead, that person can be released back into the community. That puts families at risk. That puts neighborhoods at risk. That puts you at risk.

Over the past year, just nine counties accounted for two-thirds of all violent confrontations with ICE in the entire countrytwice as many as the other 3,134 counties combined. Read that again. In those nine jurisdictions, a violent confrontation was 590 times more likely than everywhere else in America. And what do those nine counties have in common? Every single one is a Democrat-run sanctuary jurisdiction where local officials openly refuse to cooperate with federal law enforcement. Meanwhile, in places where cops are allowed to do their jobs and agencies work together, these confrontations are rare. This isnt complicatedits another case study in how Democrats ideological posturing produces dangerous, predictable public-policy failure.

Why? Because ideology has replaced reality.

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We hear the same dangerous, false claims over and over again: ICE is the Gestapo. ICE is kidnapping people. ICE is invading schools, hospitals, churches. Immigrants are being disappeared. Citizens are being deported.

None of it is true.

Name one U.S. citizen who has been deported. Its not happening. But the rhetoric continues because it serves a political narrative. And that narrative is dangerous. It can incite violence. It erodes trust. And when paired with laws that tie the hands of law enforcement, it becomes a public safety crisis.

Heres another uncomfortable truth: the people pushing these policies are insulated from the consequences.

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Governor Moore has his own personal security. He lives behind gates. His children attend private schools. Long before he became governor, his wealth protected him from bad public policy. But what about everyone else?

Who protects your family? Who protects your wife when she goes for a jog? Who protects your daughter when shes coming home from work late at nightif a predator who should have been removed is released instead?

This bill should be called what it is: The Protecting Criminals Act.

And yes, voters must ask themselves: is this what you wanted?

Now, let me be very clear about something elsebecause facts still matter.

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Immigrants are vital to America. Ive said it on my radio show thousands of times. Im a city guy. Cities are where immigrants come, work, build families, form neighborhoods, and become Americans. My grandparents were immigrants. My wifes parents and grandparents were immigrants. I grew up in a neighborhood where most of my friends were first- or second-generation Americans.

High immigration is often a sign of a healthy economy and a vibrant nation. People want to come here. Thats a good thing.

But youve been misled if you believe ICE or the Border Patrol is going after all immigrants. They are not. Period. That is not happening. Enforcement is about criminals and illegal entrynot law-abiding newcomers trying to build a life.

When politicians push a narrative because it advances their political ideology, thats not diversity of opinion or, even, a policy differencethats dogma. Thats ideology replacing realityits a kind of religiosity. How can someone reason with Governor Moore on ICE when his ideology has replaced his reasoning?

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The evidence proves that when local law enforcement cooperates with federal law enforcement, we get historically low homicides in Baltimore City. Yet the Governor wants to outlaw such cooperation when it comes to violent, criminal aliens. No reason or logic; it is simply ideology that cannot be challenged by evidence.

And thats where we are today. Politics has become religion. And the rest of us are left to live with the consequences.

Governor Moore may be excited. But Marylanders should be alarmed.

Jerry Rogers is editor at RealClearPolicy and RealClearHealth. He hosts 'The Jerry Rogers Show' on WBAL NewsRadio 1090/FM 101.5. Follow him on Twitter @JerryRogersShow.
A crowd lines the hallway at the Idaho Capitol in Boise before a hearing on a bill that would ban certain flags, such as the LGBTQ+ Pride flag, from being flown by local governments. (Photo by Logan Finney/FaVS News)

This story was originally published by FaVS News on Feb. 10, 2026.

Idahoans serenaded the Capitol halls Monday morning with a spin on the gospel song This Little Light of Mine as lawmakers made their way to the House State Affairs Committee.

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This little flag of mine, Im gonna let it fly, the crowd sang. Let it fly, let it fly, let it fly!

The committee heard House Bill 561, legislation that would strengthen an existing law that forbids local governments from flying flags that have not been approved by the state Legislature.

Rep. Ted Hill, R-Eagle, chats with a colleague on Idaho House of Representatives floor before it officially gavels into session on Jan. 14, 2026, at the State Capitol Building in Boise. (Photo by Pat Sutphin for the Idaho Capital Sun)

You can have all these flags anywhere you want, you just cant put them up the government flag poles, said bill sponsor Rep. Ted Hill, R-Eagle. Local control can be oppressive, in shoving these agendas down someones throat. That actually doesnt include everybody. The term inclusive is an entertaining term, because it rarely includes me when that term is used.

The bill would add a $2,000 daily penalty for each flag flown, and empower the attorney general with a duty to enforce the law. It would also specify that only the official city and county flags as established prior to January 1, 2023 can be flown. The Boise City Council voted to designate the LGBTQ+ pride flag as an official city flag after state lawmakers created Idaho Code 67-2303A.

Boise mayor defends pride flag as symbol of welcome

Boise Mayor Lauren McLean testified before the committee Monday to defend her citys actions.

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The pride flag we have flown  for over a decade  as a symbol of being a welcoming and safe city for everyone. The flag is seen as a representation of our citys values and a statement that you can welcome all, respect all, McLean said. I want to be clear that the pride flag is an expression of welcoming all people, and it is my job to ensure that we see and welcome everybody in our community, including those that identify as trans.

The Rev. Sara LaWall of Boise Unitarian Universalist Fellowship helped coordinate the group that lined the Statehouse hallway outside the hearing room with a wide variety of flags and banners.

There are so many different people that are part of this community. Flags and banners are a way to signal welcome, inclusion, support, celebration, LaWall told FaVS News.

When we start to ban those opportunities, our lawmakers are sending us the message that celebration and inclusion of all people in our communities is not OK with them, LaWall said. Particularly for us as people who have been longtime queer-affirming communities, its not lost on us that this bill is a real target to the queer community, because its an attempt to really erase the pride flag from public space. That feels like targeted discrimination.

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Boise activist Nikson Matthews, a transgender man, echoed those sentiments in his testimony.

It really means a lot to me to live in a city that says that I am included  because, as what has been shared, I live in a country and a state right now that doesnt feel that way, Matthews said.

Reverend Josh Lee poses for a portrait at Boises First Congregational United Church of Christ on February 3, 2025. (Otto Kitsinger for Idaho Capital Sun)

The Rev. Josh Lee of Boise First United Congregational Church of Christ told FaVS News that his congregation, the first Idaho church to become gay-affirming in 1990, uses the LGBTQ+ pride flag to signal safety.

The pride flag is not taking the side of a political party; its taking the side of peoples humanity. For us in my religious tradition, we have a variety of opinions and ideas on theological things, political things, but where we dont negotiate is peoples humanity, Lee said.

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Theres people who brought flags today that arent pride flags. Theres a variety of flags. We have a strong Basque community. We have people who have served in the military, weve got Navy SEALs and the Army flags behind us. Weve got a wide variety of representation, because flags, they usually represent people groups, Lee said. The flag is just another one of those expressions of our diverse country. People say that were supposed to be a melting pot, but I would like to say were more of a stew. We dont want to lose ourselves as we come together.

The two Democrats on the committee, both from Boise, expressed their opposition to the bill.

In 1935, a law was passed in Germany, a lot like this one, to make the swastika flag the sole flag, said Rep. Anne Haws, D-Boise. It carried with it extreme penalties for anyone that flew any other kind of symbol, for anyone that flew the old German colors, the old German flag.

Members of the public line the halls of the Idaho Statehouse with different examples of flags that would be banned from being flown at local government buildings and city halls across the state under House Bill 561. (Photo by Logan Finney/FaVS News)

Republicans say flag divisive to Christians

Lawmakers who support the bill say LGBTQ+ affirmation doesnt respect their religious beliefs.

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These other countries, that the government is telling you you cant carry other flags or have political flags, that is for the people. This is about government. This is only about government. Any person in this country can fly any flag they want. Offensive or not offensive, it does not matter. But when it comes to government, I think we need to be united, said Rep. Heather Scott, R-Blanchard. I think the government needs to stop trying to divide citizens. And whether the city of Boise thinks its divisive or not  they may see it as unifying  Christians are offended by that flag. And so it is divisive, one way or another.

The capital citys pride flag displays inspired last years law, and its legal maneuver to continue flying the pride flag downtown at City Hall have drawn the ire of lawmakers just down the street.

This debate obviously centers around one flag, said Rep. Joe Alfieri, R-Coeur dAlene, If it were a different flag we were talking about, if the flag at issue was the Confederacy flag, how many of us would think differently? How many people would be outraged that a city would fly a flag that honors rebellion in the United States? I, for one, would be  as I am by the flag thats being flown in opposition to the feelings of many people in this community.

Rep. Joe Alfieri, R-Coeur dAlene, speaks with Rep. Clint Hostetler, R-Twin Falls, on the House floor on March 10, 2025, at the Idaho Capitol Building in Boise. (Pat Sutphin for the Idaho Capital Sun)

Alfieri asked McLean about representation for other minorities, such as Latin Mass Roman Catholics like himself.

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Im wondering why the city is not flying the flag of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, or a Vatican flag, to welcome me to the community, Alfieri said.

Rep. Jaron Crane, R-Nampa, inquired whether there is a flag that represents heterosexuals.

There seems to be a group that is offended, or left out, in your inclusivity, Crane said.

I believe that every neighbor, every citizen is welcome, has the same respect in our City Hall and throughout our city. Recognizing a group that has been marginalized with the statement that everyone is welcome does not take away recognition of others, McLean responded.

Attorney warns bill allows religious symbols on foreign flags

Attorney Erik Stidham is representing the city as pro bono outside counsel on the flag issue.

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This is a Soviet-style statute from top to bottom. It forces orthodoxy from the top. It provides no meaningful access to the court, Stidham said. A cowardly move, to protect a weak statute from judicial review.

Stidham pointed out numerous official national flags that contain the kinds of political and religious symbols that lawmakers say they want to avoid being flown by Idaho governments.

There was concern about the Shahada flag, the Islamic flag, being flown. Well, this bill expressly states that it can be flown. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia contains that insignia, its an official flag. Afghanistans official flag contains that language, Stidham said. It states that There is no God but God. Muhammad is the messenger of God.

Lynn Bradescu, a Republican from Ada County, told the committee about her request to fly an Israeli flag at Boise City Hall for one day in recognition of that countrys founding.

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I would give up my right, or my ask  to fly the Israeli flag in support of Israel  to have a flag neutral policy, Bradescu said. They did send me a very adamant rejection letter, and said absolutely not, we are not allowing you to fly it.

The committee voted along party lines to advance the bill to the floor after unsuccessful motions to amend it or postpone it. If approved by the Idaho House, the legislation would need to pass through the Senate as well as receive the governors approval to become law.

FaVS News uses professional journalists and thoughtful commentary to explore faith, values and ethics. Support journalism like this by making a tax-deductible donation. FaVS is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
By Nate Raymond

BOSTON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - An immigration judge has rejected the Trump administration's efforts to deport Tufts University PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was arrested last year as part of its targeting of pro-Palestinian campus activists, her lawyers said on Monday.

Lawyers for the Turkish student detailed the immigration judge's decision in a filing with the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had been reviewing a ruling that led to her release from immigration custody in May.

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An immigration judge on January 29 concluded the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had not met its burden of proving she was removable and terminated the proceedings against her, her lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union wrote.

Her immigration lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai, said the decision was issued by Immigration Judge Roopal Patel in Boston.

That ended, for now, proceedings that began with Ozturk's arrest by immigration authorities in March on a street in Massachusetts after the U.S. Department of State revoked her student visa.

The sole basis authorities provided for revoking her visa was an editorial she co-authored in Tufts' student newspaper a year earlier criticizing her school's response to Israel's war in Gaza.

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"Today, I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that despite the justice system's flaws, my case may give hope to those who have also been wronged by the U.S. government," Ozturk said in a statement.

The immigration judge's decision is not itself public, and the administration could challenge it before the Board of Immigration Appeals, which is part of the U.S. Department of Justice.

A spokesperson for DHS, which oversees U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in a statement said the decision reflected "judicial activism."

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem "has made it clear that anyone who thinks they can come to America and hide behind the First Amendment to advocate for anti-American and anti-Semitic violence and terrorism  think again," the spokesperson said.

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The arrest of Ozturk, a child development researcher, in the Boston suburb of Somerville, was captured in a viral video that turned her case into one of the highest-profile instances of the effort by President Donald Trump's administration to deport non-citizen students with pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel views.

The former Fulbright scholar was held for 45 days in a detention facility in Louisiana until a federal judge in Vermont, where she had briefly been held, ordered her immediately released after finding she raised a substantial claim that her detention constituted unlawful retaliation in violation of her free speech rights.

A federal judge in Boston last month ruled that the administration had adopted an unlawful policy of detaining and deporting scholars like Ozturk that chilled the free speech of non-citizen academics at universities. The Justice Department on Monday moved to appeal that decision.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Stephen Coates and Sonali Paul)
A lawsuit involving the former Regency Square Mall is drawing attention in Jacksonville. Impact Church of Jacksonville claims it was wrongfully excluded from a multimillion-dollar real estate deal involving the mall property.

Action News Jax reviewed the lawsuit, which shows the church is now taking the propertys current owners to court.

We reached out to Impact Church and went to the church seeking comment, but did not receive a response. However, in a sermon posted to the churchs YouTube account, Pastor George Davis addressed the lawsuit.

By now, youve probably seen on social media that we initiated a lawsuit against the current owners of the Regency Square Mall property.

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According to the lawsuit, Impact Church owns one building at the former Regency Square Mall and says it was supposed to be part of a deal to purchase the entire property.

The lawsuit states the church entered into an agreement in 2024 for real estate services and provided a down payment. The church claims the property was later closed in a sale in April of 2025 without its knowledge.

Pastor Davis said the church has been part of the property for more than a decade.

We decided to come to the Square mall over 10 years ago, we bought this building; we own our building.

The lawsuit alleges the broker hired by the church diverted the deal.

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We hired a gentleman to be our broker to be the one who faced a deal, but we are the ones who put up all the money, the deposit that was put down to purchase them all as our money. It is still the same money that was used to help purchase them all and so what happened is the person that we had kind of fronting the deal for us did some things that are just absolutely deceptive things that are to just were not right way for it to happen and instead of closing the property with us as were supposed to maneuver some things and close the property without us.

We reached out to the broker but were unable to reach him for comment.

According to the lawsuit, Impact Church also claims the new owners failed to honor agreements related to common area maintenance and utility services.

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Pastor Davis said the church attempted for nearly a year to resolve the dispute before filing suit. He added that the churchs plans were focused on broader redevelopment of the Arlington area.

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The current owners, Blackwater Regency, are asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing the claims are not valid under Florida law. Action News Jax also attempted to ask whether the lawsuit could delay redevelopment of the mall property, but calls were not returned.

Impact Church provided this statement:

Weve been forced to take legal action against the new owner of the former Regency Square Mall for swindling the community by defrauding Impact Church. Rurmell McGee and his business partners stripped Jacksonville of truly transformational change  plans that would bring an estimated $400 million and 3,000 jobs to the Arlington neighborhood over the next 10 years.

Mr. McGee and his associates secretly and unlawfully negotiated a separate deal for their own personal gain while Mr. McGee was serving as a real estate broker to Impact Church. The scheme also bilked the church out of $100,000; funds designated for developing the original, once-in-a-generation project that Mr. McGee was contracted to represent. These illegal activities leave us with shallow plans that fail to revitalize a declining neighborhood desperate for the resurgence that Impact Church offered, and Mr. McGee squandered. Mr. McGee and his business partners continue to cause harm by failing to maintain our property, allowing it to drift into disrepair.

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In response, were pursuing legal action to uphold our rights, protect the future of our ministry, and our ability to serve the community weve called home for nearly a decade. We believe everyone benefits when development happens fairly, lawfully, and respects the people and organizations who help the neighborhood and community thrive."

McGees attorney gave us the following response:

We are disappointed that Impact Church has chosen to file these two meritless lawsuits. Impacts lawsuits are both premised upon false and misleading allegations and ignore Impacts own repeated failures to honor its commitments. Quite simply, Impact is engaged in efforts to greenmail Regencys redevelopers into providing Impact financial benefits to which Impact is not legally entitled. We are certain that we will be completely exonerated in these cases and that Impact Church will be held fully accountable. - Alan S. Wachs

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An Indiana State Police trooper was hospitalized after he was struck by a police vehicle during a chase of a suspect in northwestern Indiana early Monday morning.

Around 3:30 a.m. Feb. 9, ISP Trooper Jace Haddon responded to assist the Lake County Sheriff's Department with an active vehicle pursuit on Interstate 80, near Kennedy Avenue.

According to ISP, officers were pursuing the driver for a reported traffic violation.

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ISP said the fleeing vehicle exited the interstate at Cline Avenue, where Haddon joined the chase near the intersection of Cline Avenue and Ridge Road.

During the chase, ISP said Haddon performed a Precision Immobilization Technique (PIT) maneuver to bring the vehicle to a stop.

As Haddon walked toward the suspect's vehicle, ISP said Haddon was hit by another police vehicle.

Haddon was transported to a local hospital and treated for "serious injures," according to ISP. He has since been released and is expected to face a "lengthy recovery," ISP said.

"We are thankful that Trooper Haddon is expected to make a full recovery," said Lt. Weems, commander of the ISP Lowell Post.

Lake County is approximately 140 miles northwest of downtown Indianapolis.
LAKE COUNTY, Ind.  An Indiana State police trooper was hospitalized after being struck by another law enforcement officers squad car during a chase early Monday morning.

According to ISP troopers, it all began around 3:30 a.m. when a trooper was called to assist deputies with a car chase along I-80 near Kennedy Avenue, which began after an alleged traffic violation.

Read more: Latest news and headlines from northwest Indiana

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When troopers joined in on the chase at Cline Avenue and Ridge Road in Highland, Indiana, the driver who was allegedly involved had just exited the interstate at Cline.

Amid the pursuit, the trooper was able to bring the car to a stop after successfully performing a PIT maneuver.

The trooper exited his vehicle and began approaching the suspect on foot, but was struck by another oncoming police vehicle.

LATEST CASES: Missing people in Chicagoland

The trooper was injured in the crash and later hospitalized in serious condition. He has since been released and is expected to face a lengthy recovery.

We are thankful that Trooper Haddon is expected to make a full recovery, Lt. Weems, Commander of the Lowell Post, said.

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An investigation into the crash is ongoing.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Indonesia could send as many as 8,000 soldiers to a potential peacekeeping mission in the Gaza Strip, Indonesian Army Chief Maruli Simanjuntak told journalists on Tuesday.

Ahead of the first meeting of US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace in the United States, Maruli confirmed that the country had begun preparing personnel, primarily engineers and medics, for a possible peacekeeping mission there.

Between 5,000 and 8,000 soldiers could be deployed, he told reporters, adding that a final decision has not yet been made.

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"Everything is still being negotiated and nothing is certain yet," the general said. "At this point in time, there is no confirmed number."

The start of the mission depends on the outcome of further negotiations on the implementation of the Gaza peace plan, he said. Decisions on the timing, location and mandate of the mission will be made by higher authorities.

Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country, has long been a vocal supporter of Palestinian statehood and does not have diplomatic relations with Israel.

It has repeatedly stated that it will only send troops to Gaza as part of an international peace mission and with the consent of the parties involved.

Gaza plan provides for international stabilization force

According to Trump's plan, the Board of Peace is to establish an international stabilization force (ISF) to maintain order in the Gaza Strip. However, its exact composition has not yet been determined.

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Several predominantly Muslim countries, including Indonesia and Pakistan, have already signalled their willingness to provide soldiers. Germany does not intend to participate militarily in the ISF.

Preparations in southern Gaza

The Israeli Kan radio station reported on preparations in the south of the Gaza Strip to accommodate thousands of Indonesian soldiers.

An area between Rafah and Khan Younis is already being prepared, where housing for the troops is to be set up within a few weeks.

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto is also expected in Washington when the Board of Peacel meets there for the first time on February 19, according to media reports.

Troops' tasks still unclear

However, it remains unclear what tasks the ISF is to take on. The Palestinian Islamist militia Hamas continues to reject the disarmament demanded in the peace plan.

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The plan calls for the Israeli army to withdraw further from Gaza and gradually hand over the areas it has held so far to the ISF. There is no concrete timetable for any of these points as yet.

The differences between the warring parties remain enormous. The ceasefire in the Gaza war has faltered several times in the first phase of implementation, and most recently there were numerous fatal incidents in the largely destroyed coastal strip.

Indonesia's Foreign Minister Sugiono said last week Indonesia could reconsider its membership in the Board of Peace if the forum no longer aligns with Jakarta's objectives regarding Palestine.

Sugiono said Indonesia joined the Board of Peace to advance the goal of Palestinian independence and remains committed to that objective.

If it does not correspond with what we want  first, peace in Gaza specifically, then peace in Palestine more broadly, and ultimately Palestinian independence and sovereignty  then that is the trajectory we want to achieve, he said.
The one-meter-tall sapling was found alongside citrus propagation materials during an anti-smuggling operation done in collaboration with inspectors from the Ben-Gurion Airport.

A lemon tree sapling found inside the luggage of an Israeli man returning from Thailand was infected with a dangerous disease that could destroy Israel's citrus industry, the Plant Protection and Inspection Services at the Agriculture Ministry said on Tuesday.

The one-meter-tall sapling was found alongside citrus propagation materials during an anti-smuggling operation done in collaboration with inspectors from the Ben-Gurion Airport.

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The sapling was found during a random inspection of the luggage of a 70-year-old Holon resident returning from Thailand.

The man, who had previously returned to Israel carrying fresh mangos, also had various exotic fruits, vegetables, and root crops, according to the authorities, all of which were promptly confiscated.

PLANT MATERIAL illegally brought into Israel, discovered by the Agricultural Ministry. (credit: AGRICULTURE MINISTRY)

"The introduction of the lemon sapling could have led to a national disaster in the form of the destruction of the entire citrus industry, thereby causing enormous harm to food security and serious economic damage to the country's economy," said Shlomit Zioni, Director of Plant Protection and Inspection Services at the Agriculture and Food Security Ministry.

Lemon sapling infection causes millions of dollars per year

The lemon sapling was found to be infected with citrus greening disease, considered one of the most destructive citrus diseases, which causes millions of dollars in damage every year.

The lemon sapling, along with the remainder of the man's plant material, was destroyed by the authorities.

Tobias Holcman contributed to this report.
The world's largest social media companies have been accused of creating "addiction machines" as a landmark trial began in California examining the mental health effects of Instagram and YouTube.

In his opening argument before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carolyn B Kuhl and a jury, Mark Lanier argued that his client, plaintiff "KGM", suffered from mental health issues as a result of her social media addiction.

"These companies built machines designed to addict the brains of children, and they did it on purpose," Lanier said.

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Lawyers for Meta and YouTube told the jury that KGM's addiction stemmed from other issues in her life, not their negligence.

KGM will be referred to by her initials, or as Kaley GM, because the alleged harms took place when she was a minor.

Lanier also charged that Meta and YouTube failed to warn of the dangers to young users posed by the design of their platforms.

Lanier underscored his opening remarks by speaking with a display of children's blocks in front of him: the words "Addicting," "Brains" and "Children" appeared next to the letters A, B, and C.

"This case is about two of the richest corporations in history who have engineered addiction in children's brains," Lanier said. "I'm going to show you the addiction machine that they built, the internal documents that people normally don't get to see, and emails from [Meta CEO] Mark Zuckerberg and YouTube executives."

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In a selected portion of a 2015 email Lanier showed the court, Zuckerberg demanded that "time spent increases by 12%" on Meta platforms to meet internal business goals.

As for YouTube, Lanier said the platform, owned by Google, intentionally targeted young users because it could "charge advertisers more", as compared to its YouTube Kids platform.

Lanier then accused YouTube of trying to take advantage of busy parents looking for a "digital babysitting service".

When it was Meta's turn to make an opening statement, attorney Paul Schmidt pointed the jury to the question of whether Instagram was a substantial factor in KGM's mental health struggles.

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He portrayed KGM as someone dealing with family turmoil, including neglect, physical and verbal abuse, and bullying by her parents.

Schmidt told the jury he admired KGM because she "worked hard to overcome" her struggles. He referenced records that described domestic violence in KGM's family history and seeing therapists starting when she was three years old.

On a projector, Schmidt showed certain statements KGM made about her home life, including that her mother had screamed at her, called her stupid, and had made her want to kill herself.

"I recognise those are tough quotes," Schmidt told the jury. "In a case that's about psychological distress, that is what you have to consider."

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The proceedings on Monday marked the first day in what is poised to be a six-week trial with significant implications for similar lawsuits around the country likely to go to trial this year.

The Los Angeles trial will test legal arguments set forth by families claiming to have seen their children suffer due to their use of social media and the platforms which reject liability for how their platforms are used by people.

Over the course of the next several weeks, there will be testimony from experts and by Zuckerberg, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, and Neal Mohan, the CEO of YouTube.

Jurors are also expected to hear from former Meta employees who quit and became whistleblowers regarding the issue of social media addiction among children.

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The outcome of the trial may provide a benchmark for monetary damages that would likely impact thousands of cases brought by other plaintiffs, their families, state prosecutors, and school districts across the United States.

In one such case, brought by 29 state Attorneys General, prosecutors have just insisted that a California federal judge require Meta to significantly alter or disable aspects of its business and platforms.

In a Monday filing, all of the state attorneys collectively requested an injunction that would force Meta to remove all accounts known to belong to users under 13 years of age, to delete information the company has collected through Facebook and Instagram on users under the age of 13, and to delete algorithms and generative artificial intelligence tools using such data.

A group of 18 of the state attorneys who are pursuing state-specific consumer protection claims against Meta also requested that the court force the company to implement time restrictions for young users that would prohibit school-time and night-time use, deactivate "addictive" design features like infinite scroll and autoplay, and disable filters that enhance photos or perceptions of beauty.

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Over the last two years, Meta has rolled out certain features for "teen accounts" on Instagram, including content filtering for users under 16 years of age.

The state attorneys argued in the Monday filing that this work from Meta was little more than "a public relations measure offering minimal real protections for teen users on the platforms".

Monday's proceedings in Los Angeles took place as about one hundred people watched from the gallery, including parents who believe their children died as a result of choices the companies made about how to design their algorithms, notifications and other features.

The companies also maintain they are not responsible for content that third parties post under federal law.

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Snapchat-parent Snap and TikTok both settled with KGM last month and are no longer defendants in the case.

[BBC]

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Iowa House subcommittees moved ahead bills to bar DEI in general education requirements and DEI offices at private colleges participating in the Iowa Tuition Grant program. (Photo by Robin Opsahl/Iowa Capital Dispatch)

Iowa House higher education subcommittees have moved ahead legislation targeting diversity, equity and inclusion in general education requirements and at private universities, bringing back proposals that failed to make it through the Statehouse last year.

The subcommittee meeting on House Study Bill 542 got heated after a public commenter opposed to the bill, Abigail Escatel, appeared to hit the table close to subcommittee chair Rep. Steven Holt, R-Denison, before being removed from the room.

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Subcommittee members Rep. Skyler Wheeler, R-Hull, and Ross Wilburn, D-Ames, spoke against the assault as they described it during the meeting, though their thoughts on the bill itself differed.

Name calling, attacking, trying to assault a legislator is not constructive, Wheeler said. And if your goal is to try and end these bills, if I was to give you some friendly advice, I wouldnt act that way, because other legislators are going to see that and go, Maybe I need to vote for this thing if theyre going to act this way.

The bill would bar public universities from including diversity, equity, inclusion, and critical race theory-related courses or course requirements in general education or core curriculum requirements.

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Escatel, a rhetoric doctoral candidate at the University of Iowa, said she came to the subcommittee meeting in opposition to the legislation to address the white male fragility that sits in this room that feels so threatened by the idea that there are Black and Brown intellectuals that know more about the United States in this world, and its legacies of colonialism.

She said Iowa lawmakers dont recognize a very complex racial history that was built on the backs of Black folks and taken from indigenous people when they were unsettled from this land. Escatels remarks exceeded the allotted two minutes for public comment. She sat down after repeated directives from Holt that her time was up, and hit the table after a police officer gestured to escort her from the room.

Laura Blaser, an Iowa State University alum who also spoke against the bill, said during her comment that the incident did not merit a woman being manhandled out of here. Blaser said she would have given Escatel her own time to finish her statement if she could have. On the bill, Blaser said she didnt want to take required courses in ethics, diversity and U.S. history during her time in college, but it was just a few classes and she believes she is better for it.

I consider myself and my fellow students better prepared for the world for it, and I think this hamstringing of our educational institutions is wrong, and this is not the way to go, Blaser said.

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Also included in the legislation was a directive for the Iowa Board of Regents to conduct a review of all undergraduate general education requirements and core curricula, with the elimination of any of the would-be-violating course requirements. A bill including these requirements for general education courses was introduced last year but failed to make it through an Iowa Senate subcommittee.

Iowa Board of Regents State Relations Officer Jillian Carlson said the board is registered undecided on the bill, adding that a policy was passed in August stating instructors shouldnt include controversial topics unless relevant to the core subject and must endeavor to not indoctrinate students in one way or another but present a range of views and foster critical thinking.

Other opponents to the bill included the Iowa Conference of the United Methodist Church and LGBTQ+ advocacy organization One Iowa. Keenan Crow, director of policy and advocacy at One Iowa, told the subcommittee courses that promote understanding among students are both a moral and economic good as they prepare to enter a global workforce.

They called the board of regent policy alarming and is concerned by the constantly growing list of forbidden topics, and urged the subcommittee to vote no in order to support academic freedom.

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Jeffrey Anderson, lobbyist for the Iowa Conference of the United Methodist Church, said it is an unfortunate fact that racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination have existed, and still do, in the U.S. The topics suggested in the bill to be prohibited are regularly discussed in different areas of United Methodist churches, he said, and the challenge some of them present lead to critical thinking and intellectual freedom.

As United Methodists, we want students to have big brains, not small minds, and we dont think students are that fragile, Anderson said, and we believe exposing students to challenging concepts and ideas develops critical thinking that results in real learning, not, as some will contend, indoctrination.

Wheeler thanked Anderson for his comments, saying his approach was the correct one because Wheeler could take notes from it and think about his points, though they philosophically disagree.

Wilburn said Holt should not have been the subject of an assault, but he had the opportunity to let it go after Escatel sat down. The fact that the legislation states it will be known as the Stop Woke Act doesnt help in a situation like this one, he said, where people have passionate concern, with some more civil than others, and feel that rights are being removed.

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He agreed with points made by Blaser during public comment, adding that it should be understood that classes wouldnt be banned under the legislation, just barred from being required. Wilburn was the only subcommittee member to not approve the bill.

Holt said some of the comments made by Escatel were incredibly racist, and that diversity equity and inclusion programs, in reality, promote the exact opposite of what the name implies  adversity, inequity and exclusion. He and Wheeler approved the legislation to move to the full Iowa House Higher Education Committee.

These concepts teach young people to judge through the prism of race, creating the opportunity to see a racist behind every tree and sow division in our diverse society, Holt said.

Bill to tie Iowa Tuition Grant to DEI elimination moves ahead

House Study Bill 537 would bar private universities participating in the Iowa Tuition Grant program from opening, maintaining or staffing diversity, equity and inclusion offices unless required by state or federal law or for accreditation standards. Like legislation filed in the 2025 session, the bill would strip violating universities eligibility to participate in the grant program starting the academic year after a violation was found and not remedied.

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Holt chaired the House Study Bill 537 subcommittee as well, and was joined by Rep. Timi Brown-Powers, D-Waterloo, and Wheeler. Both Republicans voiced their support for the bill and signed it to move to the full Iowa House Higher Education Committee, but Brown-Powers said it would be an overstep to tell private colleges what they can and cannot do, and the reason of religion many students have in going to a private college would fall under DEI.

Im kind of disappointed that were bringing this to the table today, she said.

Representatives of religious organizations spoke out against the bill, with Anderson calling the bill especially concerning among the legislation targeting DEI. Interfaith Alliance of Iowa Action Fund lobbyist Connie Ryan also opposed the legislation.

This bill would set a very bad precedent for using the Iowa Tuition Grant to try and control private universities, Anderson said.

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Many of Iowas private colleges and universities are affiliated with various denominations, including our three United Methodist-affiliated colleges, Anderson said. This bill would withhold the Iowa Tuition Grant from students unless the colleges they attend disavow their strongly held religious and moral beliefs and end DEI programs.

Wheeler said Dordt University is in his district and he thinks theyll be OK. Holt pointed out that private universities would still be allowed to operate with these offices, just not with the taxpayer money from the Iowa Tuition Grant.

Referencing one of the definitions of diversity, equity and inclusion included in the legislation, Holt said the goal should be to get back to colorblind, sex-neutral admissions, meaning then they will be based on merit.

Once upon a time, that was the ultimate goal of the civil rights movement in this country, and it needs to be our goal once again, Holt said. This goal will never be attained when we engage in discrimination through admission policies that function on anything other than merit.

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Editors note: This story has been updated to correct the pronouns of One Iowa Director of Policy and Advocacy Keenan Crow.
Iran has buried tunnel entrances to an underground nuclear site in an apparent attempt to prevent a special forces raid to seize highly enriched uranium.

Satellite imagery taken on Sunday shows Iran has fully covered three entrances to the Isfahan nuclear complex with soil, the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said in a report.

The middle and southern entrances are unrecognisable and fully covered in soil, while the northernmost tunnel entrance, which features additional passive defence measures, has also been backfilled with earth.

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No vehicle activity was visible around any of the three entrances.

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The preparations emerged as Donald Trump threatened to send a second carrier to strike Iran and warned that the US would do something very tough if current talks failed.

It appears clear that the Iranians are seriously concerned about a US/Israeli aerial attack and/or raid against this particularly hardened nuclear facility, the report stated.

It said backfilling the tunnel entrances would dampen the impact of any potential air strike and prevent a commando raid.

The report added that it was also possible Iran had moved equipment or material into the tunnels before sealing the entrances, though this could not be confirmed from the imagery.

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It said similar preparations were last seen in the days before the US strike in June that targeted nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.

Iran and the US held their first round of indirect nuclear negotiations in Muscat last Friday, mediated by Oman, with both sides describing the session as a positive start.

Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, and Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy, communicated through Omani diplomatic intermediaries before a brief direct exchange.

Despite the diplomatic engagement, Irans military posture has hardened visibly in recent weeks.

The Revolutionary Guards unveiled the Khorramshahr 4 ballistic missile ahead of the Feb 11 Revolution anniversary.

Credit: X / @FarsNews_Agency

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Meanwhile, a Telegram channel linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps reported on Tuesday that Irans army was preparing to unveil an additional strategic surprise military capability.

Earlier, Irans defence ministry said it had halted the public unveiling of military achievements to preserve the element of surprise.

Amir Hatami, the armys commander-in-chief, warned that Iran was in higher defensive readiness than the 12-day war against Israel last year. He said that enemies would receive a response they have neither seen nor experienced.

Irans armed forces general staff issued a parallel statement vowing to meet any enemy aggression in a crushing and decisive manner. The army said in a statement that it will respond to any enemy aggression in a crushing and decisive manner.

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The Islamic Republic has insisted its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful. It has said that, in nuclear talks, it would only discuss the nuclear issue and related sanctions and threatened to walk out if Washington attempted to expand the agenda.

Meanwhile, Ali Khamenei approved pardons or sentence reductions for 2,108 prisoners on the 47th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, while the judiciary confirmed that those arrested in the recent protests would receive no clemency.

Ali Larijani, the secretary of Irans supreme national security council, travelled to Oman on Tuesday as part of a broader regional tour that also includes visits to Russia and Pakistan, with Qatar next on his destination.

Benjamin Netanyahu also headed to Washington on Tuesday to meet Donald Trump. He said Iran negotiations would be the first and foremost topic of discussion.

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Mr Larijani said in Oman: Netanyahu is now on his way to the United States. Americans must think wisely and not allow him, through posturing, to imply before his flight that I want to go and teach Americans the framework of the nuclear negotiations. They must remain alert to the destructive role of the Zionists.

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DUBAI, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Nuclear talks with the United States allowed Tehran to gauge Washington's seriousness and showed enough consensus to continue on the diplomatic track, Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday.

U.S. and Iranian diplomats held talks through Omani mediators in Oman last week in an effort to revive diplomacy, after U.S. President Donald Trump positioned a naval flotilla in the region, raising fears of new military action.

"The Muscat meeting was not a long meeting. In our view, it was to gauge the seriousness of the other side and how to continue this path," Baghaei said.

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"After the talks, we felt there was understanding and consensus to continue the diplomatic process."

The spokesperson said that a trip to Oman on Tuesday by Ali Larijani, an advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader, was pre-planned to follow up on regional consultations, and that Larijani would next travel to Qatar.

Regarding the Israeli Prime Minister's expected trip to Washington on Wednesday, Baghaei said the U.S. "must act independently of foreign pressures, especially Israeli pressures that ignore the interests of the region and even the U.S."

(Reporting by Dubai Newsroom, Editing by Timothy Heritage, Aidan Lewis)
Tehran, Iran  Iranian authorities have shut down a number of privately owned businesses in the wake of deadly nationwide protests last month, even as the countrys cratering economy is hitting people and businesses hard and its government pursues a fraught diplomatic path with the United States.

Neither police nor judicial authorities have elaborated on why the businesses, most of them popular gathering spots in central and northern Tehran for young Iranians, have been shut down.

But many of the businesses had either observed strikes or expressed support online in the form of Instagram stories for the nationwide protests that started at the end of December.

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Dozens of small and medium-sized businesses  including restaurants, cafes and roasteries, art galleries and ice cream shops  have been closed over recent days by a police authority tasked with overseeing public spaces.

Notices posted on the social media pages of the closed businesses said their content was found to be in violation of the countrys rules and not adhering to police regulations.

On Monday, the Fars news agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, released an image of a confession letter allegedly signed by private businessman Mohammad Ali Saedinia.

The 81-year-old and his family managed a string of popular cafes and food brands with dozens of branches across the country.

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The judiciary confirmed last week that he has been in prison in the aftermath of the protests, all of his businesses have been closed and all his assets confiscated to compensate for the damage done during the unrest.

Unfortunately, in recent times due to the problems occurring in the markets and for the financing of the factory, my son had mistakenly announced the closure of our stores in lockstep with the Tehran bazaar, the confession letter reads.

He and myself have now fully understood our mistake and apologise to the dear people because if there is a problem, we must be vigilant so the enemies of Iran and Islam do not misuse it.

The Iranian government said 3,117 people were killed during the unrest as it accused terrorists and rioters armed and funded by the United States and Israel of being behind the killings and the destruction of public property, including homes and businesses.

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The United Nations and international human rights organisations said they have documented widespread use of deadly force against the protesters, including children. They have also raised alarms over raids on hospitals and arrests of medical personnel.

The latest figures by the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency indicated 6,964 fatalities and 11,730 further cases under investigation. UN Special Rapporteur on Iran Mai Sato said more than 20,000 civilians may have been killed as information remains limited amid heavy internet filtering by the state.





Economy in turmoil

More than a month after the killings as concerns of war breaking out with the US linger, the Iranian economy is increasingly under strain.

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The national currency, the rial, on Tuesday changed hands for about 1.62 million per US dollar, hovering close to an all-time low registered last month.

In Tehrans Grand Bazaar, nearly all the shops are open, and some activity has returned out of necessity but not to the already deeply diminished levels seen before the protests.

After weeks of very low sales, were now at maybe 60 percent compared to before, and thats while we deal in equipment needed by different industries, said a merchant at the bazaar who sells electric motors mostly imported from China.

The transactions are done in cash on the day as much as possible. Theres been no interest to deal using cheques for even one to two months, he told Al Jazeera.

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Shops are also open around the nearby Jomhouri business area of downtown, where the protests were originally sparked by shopkeepers on December 28 against the freefall in the value of the national currency. But there is still a heavy presence of security forces in the area, who at times set up checkpoints and patrol the streets.

A report on Monday by the reformist Shargh newspaper said many parents are questioning whether schools, which were shut down along with universities by the authorities during the unrest, are now safe places to send their children. Their indecision has left many classrooms nearly empty.

Celebrations to mark 1979 revolution planned

The theocratic establishment is planning events across the country on Wednesday to celebrate the anniversary of the 1979 revolution, which ousted Irans last shah, US-backed Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.

In a speech on Monday, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei told Iranians to make the enemy disappointed by participating in state-organised rallies and demonstrations, which he said are unparalleled in the world.

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President Masoud Pezeshkian and other top officials have also addressed state media to ask the people to join the rallies.

The confession letter signed by Saedinia also said the businessman and his son would participate in the rallies to demonstrate hatred for criminal America.

Earlier this week, Iranian authorities also arrested leading reformist figures who had called for changes in the aftermath of the governments deadly protest crackdown. They were all accused of working for the benefit of Israel and the US and joined tens of thousands of people arrested since last month.

Iran and the US held indirect talks mediated by Oman on Friday but have continued to exchange threats as the US builds up its warships and air defences across the region.

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Iranian security chief Ali Larijani met Omans leaders in Muscat on Tuesday as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived for a visit to the US to press Trump to back Israels narrative and demands on Iran on both the nuclear and ballistic missiles issues.

Israeli media have reported Trump asked for the meeting to be off-camera, which suggests there are disagreements as Washington, for the time being, pursues diplomacy with Tehran.




Ali Larijani, a top security official in Irans government, met Omans ruler Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said to seek a way forward following nuclear talks held in the country between Tehran and Washington.

The two discussed the latest developments in the Iranian-American negotiations, the official Oman News Agency reported on Tuesday.

They also explored ways to reach a balanced and just agreement between the two sides, and emphasised the importance of returning to the table of dialogue and negotiation, it added.

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Larijani, a close adviser to Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was also due to meet Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi, the chief intermediary in the US-Iran talks.

Irans state-run IRNA news agency said discussions over the latest regional and international developments were on the agenda for Larijanis visit to Muscat.

Oman hosted talks on Irans nuclear programme last week aimed at avoiding a major conflict between Tehran and Washington, amid surging tensions and a growing US military build-up in the region.

It was an outcome of concerted diplomatic efforts in the region to avert conflict. A second round of talks has been confirmed but a date hasnt been announced.

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IRNA reported Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held a series of phone calls with his counterparts in Turkiye, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia to brief them on the latest developments in the negotiations with Washington in Muscat.

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Poison the well

Abas Aslani, from the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies, noted Larijanis meeting with the intermediary Sultan Haitham was a lengthy one, which could bode well even though theres been a battle of narratives between Iran and the US.

At the lexicon of high-stakes diplomacy, duration is very significant and important if not promising. So it seems both sides, including Iran, they need to have a better and clearer understanding of the situation before they reconvene for the potential second round [of negotiations] with the United States, Aslani said.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus trip to Washington, DC, is likely an attempt to poison the well before this diplomatic process gains traction, he told Al Jazeera.

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It seems Netanyahu will tactically try to disrupt the process, and he wants to push the United States to include the missiles issue in the negotiations because it is a source of worry for Israel.





Tehran condemns Israeli influence

At a news briefing on Tuesday, Esmaeil Baghaei, spokesperson for Irans Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Larijanis visit was part of regional consultations in line with Tehrans policy of strengthening relations with neighbouring countries, and had been planned in advance.

Regarding the negotiations with the United States, Baghaei said Washington must act independently, free from the destructive pressures being exerted that harm the region and American interests.

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He urged the US to resist Israeli pressure over the nuclear issue, saying one of the United States problems in the region is its subservience to the demands of the Zionist entity, which is the primary factor destabilising security in the region.

Baghaei said after the collapse of the diplomatic process last year, it was unrealistic to expect detailed discussions in the very first meeting.

The Muscat meeting itself was brief, lasting about half a day, and from our perspective was mainly aimed at assessing the other sides seriousness and exploring how the process might proceed, he said.

The focus, he added, has been on general principles and Irans core positions are clear  securing the Iranian peoples interests based on international law and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including the right to peaceful use of nuclear energy.

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Larijani will visit Qatar after his trip to Oman, said Baghaei.

Iran hints at uranium dilution

Both sides have given mixed signals about their progress in the negotiations.

However, on Monday, Irans atomic energy chief Mohammad Eslami said Tehran is open to diluting its highly enriched uranium if the US ends sanctions, signalling flexibility on a key American demand.

Eslami said the prospects of Iran diluting its 60 percent enriched uranium, a threshold close to weapons-grade, would hinge on whether all sanctions would be lifted in return, IRNA reported.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly called for Iran to be subject to a total ban on enrichment, a condition Tehran has dubbed unacceptable.

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Washington has also demanded Iran relinquish its stockpile  estimated last year by the United Nations nuclear agency at more than 440kg (970lb)  of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent fissile purity, a small step away from the 90 percent that is considered weapons-grade.

Araghchi, speaking to diplomats at a summit in Tehran on Sunday, signalled Iran would stick to its position that it must be allowed to enrich uranium.

The Americans are now saying that they are looking for a package of comprehensive negotiations to include other controversial issues such as the ballistic missiles, defence capabilities, regional activities of the country, said Al Jazeeras Tohid Asadi, reporting from Tehran.

Meanwhile, Tehran is saying it wants talks to be focused and concentrated around the nuclear policy, and for the knots to be untangled one by one.





Further talks expected

The date of the next round of talks has yet to be announced, although Trump has said they will be held this week.

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Iran and the US held five rounds of talks last year on curbing Tehrans nuclear programme, with the process stalling largely owing to disputes over uranium enrichment.

Washington then joined Israeli strikes on Iran last June, targeting the Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan nuclear facilities with bunker-buster bombs.

Since those strikes, Tehran has said it halted enrichment activity. It has always maintained that its nuclear programme is solely for peaceful purposes.

Larijanis Oman trip comes as Netanyahu left for the United States for a meeting with Trump to discuss Washingtons ongoing negotiations with Iran. The planned meeting will be the seventh between Trump and Netanyahu since the US president returned to office last year.

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Reporting from the White House, Al Jazeeras Kimberly Halkett said Netanyahu will likely push to appear forceful and strong to his domestic base in Israel in lobbying for a hardline approach to Iran in Washington, DC.

Hell be talking about making sure that Israels demands remain intact, Halkett said. But again, this has a lot to do with the fact that he wants to be seen doing it versus just picking up the telephone.

The US has sought to include Irans ballistic missile arsenal in negotiations, but Tehran has ruled this out, with Araghchi insisting its missile programme is non-negotiable.




An Irish man has been detained by US authorities for months and faces deportation despite being married to an American citizen.

Seamus Culleton, who lived in Boston, claims he was arrested as part of a random sweep by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in September.

Mr Culleton has been kept in a series of detention facilities, and authorities are battling to deport him from the country where he has lived for decades.

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Mr Culleton, who runs a plastering business, is from County Kilkenny but moved to the US some 20 years ago, according to The Irish Times.

He was reportedly arrested by ICE on Sept 9, while he was carrying a Massachusetts driving licence and a valid work permit that he was issued as part of an application for a green card.

Mr Culleton, who does not have a criminal record, said he applied for permanent residency in April 2025, and had one interview left before the process was complete.

Mr Culleton was arrested as part of a random sweep by ICE officers

He was held in ICE detention centres near Boston and in New York state, before being flown to a facility near the Mexican border in Texas where he shares a cell with more than 70 men, most of whom do not speak English.

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Mr Culleton likened the detention centre to a concentration camp and said the child-sized food portions often ended in fights among the inmates. It is absolute hell, he added.

A judge reportedly approved his release on a $4,000 (2,920) bond, which was paid by Tiffany Smyth, his wife and a US citizen.

However, authorities are said to have continued to detain Mr Culleton without explanation.

Mr Culleton denies claims by ICE officers that he signed documents agreeing to be deported, and has asked for handwriting experts to examine the signatures.

A video of his interview with agents would prove his version of events, he said.

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My whole life is here. I worked so hard to build my business. My wife is here, he said.

ICEs popularity has fallen dramatically in recent months amid violent crackdowns in cities like Minneapolis, where two US citizens were shot dead by immigration agents during protests.

Ogor Winnie Okoye, Mr Culletons lawyer, described him as a model immigrant who owned a successful business and is married to a US citizen.

Ms Smyth told Mr Culletons family in Ireland that he had lost weight and hair and had sores and infections after his months of detention.

Irelands government said the number of Irish citizens seeking help over possible deportation from the US jumped more than fourfold to 65 in 2025.

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A spokesman for Irelands foreign affairs department said it was aware of this case and is providing consular assistance.

ICE has been contacted for comment by The Telegraph.

Try full access to The Telegraph free today. Unlock their award-winning website and essential news app, plus useful tools and expert guides for your money, health and holidays.
(Photo via Irish Times)

An Irish man with legal permission to work in the United States, who has spent nearly five months in a Texas ICE detention facility, has described the conditions there as a modern-day concentration camp in a harrowing interview, detailing widespread illness and competition for food.

Seamus Culleton, of Irelands County Kilkenny, has lived in the US for nearly 20 years and is married to an American citizen. Despite holding a valid work permit and being in the final stages of receiving a green card  with no criminal record  he was detained by ICE agents in September 2025 after he was stopped while driving home from work.

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Culleton, who is now being held at a detention facility in El Paso, Texas, gave an interview on Monday to Kieran Cuddihy, the host of Liveline on Irish broadcaster RTE.

He described being locked in the same room for months, as well as the filthy conditions and lack of adequate food for the population:

The best way I could describe it is probably like a modern-day concentration camp. Its a bunch of temporary tents. Theres probably room for a thousand detainees in each tent. I believe theres like five tents. Ive been locked in the same room now for four and a half months. Ive had barely any outside time, no fresh air, no sunshine. I could probably count on both hands the amount of times Ive been outside. So Ive just been locked in this room all day, every day.

Describing the broader conditions, he said:

We get three meals a day, very, very small meals, kid-sized meals. So everybodys hungry, everybodys tired. Weve no commissary, weve got no options to get extra food or anything like that. The conditions here are filled. The toilets, the showers, completely nasty, very rarely cleaned.

He then added:

Im in fear for my life now here, honestly, because people are being killed by the staff here, by the security staff, you know? And you just dont know whats going to happen on a day-to-day basis. You dont if theres going to be riots, you dont You dont know whats going to happen. Its a nightmare down here.

The host of the show then asked, given the small meals, whether there was competition for food to which Culleton said absolutely there is and described how staff give preference to certain detainees.

So wed be extremely lucky to get anything extra, he added.

RTE Radio 1 published this phone interview with Seamus Culleton, an Irish national held by ICE in Texas since September, says he fears for his life in detention. Culleton lived in the U.S. for 20 years, is married to a U.S. citizen, and was detained despite holding a valid https://t.co/kYoQbGDnsD pic.twitter.com/oa9dGvkAvx  Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) February 9, 2026

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Culleton also argued that ICE officers attempted to pressure him into signing deportation papers, something he said he absolutely refused.

Its just torture. I dont know how much more I can take, he said.

His wife Tiffany, a U.S. citizen, said she was left in the dark for days after his detention, fearing he had been deported.

Hes a good man. I dont think anyone deserves this, but Seamus definitely doesnt deserve this, she said, adding that visits are technically permitted, but its almost impossible to set one up.

The case has now taken on diplomatic weight, with Culleton appealing for Taoiseach Micheal Martin, the Irish prime minister, to raise it directly with President Donald Trump during their White House meeting in March.

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Irelands Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed it is engaging at a senior level with U.S. authorities on the case.

Watch above via RTE.

The post Irish Man Whos Been Held by ICE for Months Calls Facility a Modern-Day Concentration Camp first appeared on Mediaite.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday the top priority in his talks with US President Donald Trump would be the ongoing negotiations with Iran, as he presses for a tougher US approach to Tehran's ballistic missile programme.

So far, Iran has rejected expanding the scope of its talks with the US beyond the issue of its nuclear programme, though Washington also wants Tehran's ballistic missile programme and its support for regional militant groups on the table.

The two leaders are to meet in Washington on Wednesday, their sixth such encounter in the United States since Trump returned to office a year ago.

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They also met in Jerusalem in October when Trump announced a ceasefire in Gaza.

Wednesday's meeting comes days after arch-foes Iran and the United States held talks in Oman, after which Trump said another round of negotiations would follow.

Netanyahu and Trump will also meet amid growing international outrage over Israeli measures to tighten control of the occupied West Bank by allowing settlers to buy land directly from its Palestinian owners.

However, it remains unclear whether the issue will be raised in their talks, despite Trump's past opposition to any annexation of the West Bank.

"On this trip we will discuss a range of issues: Gaza, the region, but of course first and foremost the negotiations with Iran," Netanyahu said, in a video statement before his departure.

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"I will present to the president our views regarding the principles for the negotiations."

In an earlier statement issued over the weekend, Netanyahu's office said he will highlight Israel's concerns over Iran's missile arsenal and not just the nuclear programme.

- Netanyahu visit 'destructive' -

Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson warned Tuesday that Netanyahu's visit would have a "destructive" influence on diplomacy that is "detrimental to the region".

Israel's concerns came to a head during an unprecedented war between the two longtime adversaries in June last year.

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Since then, Israeli officials have repeatedly warned that Iran's missile capabilities pose a threat distinct from, and in some ways more immediate than, its nuclear programme.

Israeli officials argue that Iran could strike Israel with little warning and also overwhelm the country's air-defence systems in a sustained conflict.

During the June war, Iran launched waves of ballistic missiles and other projectiles at Israeli territory, striking both military and civilian areas.

Those that landed in densely populated areas "caused severe damage," said Danny Citrinowicz, an Iran expert at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies.

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"I don't think it's like existential threat, but definitely it's a major threat on the Israeli home front."

- Concerns over Trump's approach -

Analysts say Netanyahu is very wary of any deal with the Iranians.

"He's concerned that President Trump is not quite as enthusiastic about a military attack on the Iranians as Netanyahu wishes were the case," said Guy Ziv, an associate professor at the foreign policy and global security department at American University in Washington.

"He wants to first convince President Trump that Iran's ballistic missiles, which he sees as a major threat to Israel, must be included in any agreement over Iran's nuclear programme," Ziv told AFP. "He wants to make sure that... Trump sees that as a red line as well."

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The 12-day war in June was triggered by unprecedented Israeli strikes on Iranian military and nuclear facilities, as well as residential areas.

The United States later joined the offensive, striking three Iranian nuclear sites, before a ceasefire brokered by Trump came into force.

In Israel, the war killed 30 people and caused extensive damage to property, including a hospital and several public institutions.

In October 2024 Iran fired a barrage of some 200 missiles at Israel in response to the assassinations of senior Hamas and Hezbollah.

In April 2024, against the backdrop of the IsraelHamas war in Gaza, Iran -- a key backer of the Palestinian Islamist group -- launched its first ever drone and missile attack on Israel.

That strike was in retaliation for a deadly attack on Iran's consulate in Damascus days earlier, which Tehran blamed on Israel.

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Israel Police and Border Police arrested five suspected assassins in the Triangle region, seizing stolen IDF ammo, explosive parts, drugs, and tens of thousands of shekels in cash.

Israel Police and Border Police officers arrested a hit squad of assassins in the Triangle of Arab-Israeli communities in northern Israel, police confirmed on Tuesday.

Police arrested five suspected assassins along with weapons, drugs, and cash, in locations including Kalansuwa and Jaljulya.

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The weapons included stolen IDF ammunition, parts of explosive devices, and tens of thousands of shekels in cash, police noted.

Police seize improvised submachine gun in Shfaram

Additionally, officers from the Counterterrorism Unit discovered an improvised machine gun in the yard of a house in Shfaram, police confirmed on Tuesday.

The operation took place last month, when Counterterrorism Unit officers searched the residence and found a loaded handgun and drugs. When searching the yard, they found additional drugs and an improvised submachine gun.

Israel Police Counterterrorism Unit officers seize illegal weapons, improvised submachine gun, in Shfaram, picture published on February 10, 2026. (credit: ISRAEL POLICE)

Police arrested a 26-year-old suspect who resided in the area, and an indictment was filed against him on Tuesday, police confirmed.

Suspected Jewish arson in Arab West Bank community, ten arrested in Samaria in unrelated operation

Further, police arrested three Jewish residents in the Gush Etzion area of the West Bank who are suspected of committing violence and arson.

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The local police unit has been investigating a case of violence and arson of homes and vehicles in Jab'a village, which resulted in heavy damage, but no casualties, police noted.

Police officers called to one of the scenes of a suspected arson were able to gather evidence, leading to the arrest of three teens, residents of the Jewish towns of Ma'alot and Kiryat Arba, who were transferred for questioning.

Ten people were arrested on Tuesday morning in the Samaria region of the West Bank, including one Palestinian suspected of terrorist activity, according to district police.

In addition, 26 vehicles in the area were impounded, and dozens of traffic tickets were distributed.

Drugs worth NIS 250k. seized in southern Israel

Police carried out a raid against narcotics smugglers in southern Israel, near Arad, seizing 48kg of hashish, worth approximately NIS 250,000.

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Additionally, a serious incitement was filed against two members of a local Bedouin tribe, one in their 20s and another in their 30s, for possession of narcotics not for personal consumption.

Israel Police seize 48kg of hashish, worth approximately NIS 250,000, picture published on February 10, 2026. (credit: ISRAEL POLICE)

The tribe members were identified by IDF Observers who noted them moving around the area carrying backpacks, triggering the suspicion of the soldiers, who then acted to thwart the suspects, locating the drugs during a search of the backpacks.

In a separate investigation, Jerusalem District Police officers and National Insurance Institute investigators arrested eight suspects who forged medical documents to defraud the health system in order to obtain and sell narcotics.

Information received by the National Insurance Institute's investigators led to suspicions of dozens of east Jerusalem residents forging medical documents from various Jerusalem hospitals.

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Meanwhile, Tel Aviv District Police arrested a protester, believed to be in her 60s, who is suspected of pouring red paint into a fountain on Allenby Street on Tuesday morning, causing damage to the installation.

The suspect, a Tel Aviv resident, was taken to a local police station for questioning.

A protester spills red paint into a fountain on Allenby Street, Tel Aviv, February 10, 2026. (credit: ISRAEL POLICE)

Furthermore, police officers opened an investigation into suspected arson and damage to an engineering vehicle parked near construction work for a light rail route on Bar Ilan Street in Jerusalem. The vehicle was empty at the time of the incident, and police investigators are making extensive efforts to identify the suspect.

Maya Zanger-Nadis contributed to this report.
Israel has for the first time revoked the citizenship of two convicted attackers and decided on their expulsion.

The two men, who are said to have received financial support from the Palestinian Authority (PA), carried out attacks on Israeli civilians, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Tuesday.

The parliament in Jerusalem approved a law three years ago, allowing for the expulsions. It is now being implemented for the first time.

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Critics argue that the policy contradicts international law because it renders people stateless.

Netanyahu has signed the revocation of the citizenship of the two men as well as their expulsion, the statement further noted, adding: "Many more will follow."

Earlier reports suggest expulsion proceedings have been initiated against hundreds of people.

Reports: Affected individuals to be deported to Gaza Strip

The two affected individuals are Israeli Arabs who were sentenced to long prison terms for their actions, Israeli media reported.

Both will be deported to the Gaza Strip, the reports said. One man who has already been released from prison, is to go immediately, and another after serving his prison sentence.

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The law provides for deportation to Palestinian-controlled areas.

Especially since the beginning of the Gaza war, there have been increased attacks on Israelis. However, most attacks are carried out by Palestinians from the West Bank who are not Israelis.

In the West Bank, there has also been an increase in violent acts by radical Israeli settlers against Palestinians.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP)  An Israeli drone strike killed two Palestinians on bicycles Tuesday, hospital officials said, marking the latest deaths since an October ceasefire that hasn't halted deadly attacks in the Gaza Strip.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said the two men were hit near the ceasefire line that divides Gaza, with one half under Israeli military control. They were hit in eastern Deir al-Balah, the hospital said, adding that it also received the body of a woman who was killed by Israeli gunfire in central Maghazi refugee camp.

Israel's military did not immediately respond to questions about either strike. It has previously said its forces respond to ceasefire violations or attacks on its soldiers.

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Gaza's Health Ministry on Tuesday reported 586 Palestinians had been killed since the start of the ceasefire, bringing the cumulative toll to 72,037 killed since the start of Israel's offensive. The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. But it does not not give a breakdown of civilians and militants.

Deadly Israeli strikes have repeatedly disrupted the truce since it took effect on Oct. 10. The escalating Palestinian toll has prompted many in Gaza to say it feels like the war has continued unabated.

Yet parts of the agreement outlined in last years ceasefire are moving forward. After a chaotic first week, officials say more Palestinians are entering and leaving Gaza for Egypt via the reopened Rafah crossing. Plans for an international peacekeeping force meant to provide security in Gaza are also beginning to take shape.

Indonesia  the world's most populous Muslim-majority country  said Tuesday that its military had begun training personnel to serve in Gaza, specifically for reconstruction and humanitarian response. Its army chief of staff said between 5,000 and 8,000 troops were preparing to deploy.

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Vahd Nabyl Achmad Mulachela, a spokesperson for Indonesias Foreign Affairs Ministry, said Indonesian troops would not take part in disarmament  one of the most contentious and unresolved elements of the peace plan.

Indonesias President Prabowo Subianto told the U.N. General Assembly in October that his country planned to contribute troops, even as details about the forces role and mandate was unclear. The commitment came as Prabowo sought closer ties with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Israel and Hamas remain divided over the timeline and scope of Israels withdrawal and the demilitarization of the enclave after nearly two decades of Hamas rule.

The temporary International Stabilization Force outlined last year in Trumps 20-point peace plan  among the key components of the demilitarization effort is envisioned as a later phase of the plan.

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The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, on Oct. 7, 2023. The 251 hostages taken in the attack were returned to Israel in various ceasefire agreements, with the remains of Israeli police officer Ran Gvili  the final body in Gaza  were found and returned in January, paving the way for the advance of the ceasefire agreement. The war has sparked worldwide protests and brought allegations of genocide that Israel denies.

___

Tarigan reported from Jakarta, Indonesia. Samy Magdy and Sam Metz contributed from Cairo and Ramallah, West Bank.

Find more of APs coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH)  Convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein paid Ohio State Universitys head of gynecology quarterly payments of thousands of dollars, Department of Justice files show.

Mark Landon, a physician and professor at OSU and the chair of the obstetrics and gynecology department, received quarterly payments of thousands of dollars from Epstein in the early 2000s, records show. According to released files, Landon received as much as $25,000 every few months. Landon told NBC4 the payments were for consulting work, and he had no knowledge of Epsteins crimes.

Along with quarterly payments, Landon also received at least 10 packages from Epstein or his associates between June 28, 2001, and April 12, 2005. In all, Epstein spent more than $200 mailing items to Landons Columbus home. The files do not detail what was mailed.

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Ohio United Methodist Church sued for failing to act on warnings of sexual abuse

On April 11, 2005, a man named Eric messaged Epstein and said, Dr. Landons $25k quarterly payment is due, please approve. A few hours later, Eric wrote that Epsteins company had billed Les and Abigail Wexner in advance as we have in prior years for the Landon payment.

At the time, Les Wexner was Epsteins only public client, with Epstein helping Wexner manage the billions he made running The Limited and Victorias Secret. Wexner is also the namesake for Ohio States Wexner Medical Center, where Landon has worked since 1987.

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The files include emails from Epstein discussing sending victims to gynecologists and arranging gynecological appointments. Most gynecologists Epstein discussed were not named in the released files, and Landon was not tied to any references to victims.

I did not provide any clinical care for Jeffrey Epstein or any of his victims, Landon said. I was a paid consultant for the New York Strategy Group regarding potential biotech investments from 2001 to 2005. I had no knowledge of any criminal activities; I find them reprehensible and I feel terrible for Epsteins victims.

Landon is still employed at Ohio State, and the university recently named a hospital visitor lounge after him. The Mark B. Landon, MD, and Jane Landon Visitor Lounge is on the 23rd floor of the Wexner Medical Center.

Bill would withhold state funding for 330 Ohio districts involved in EdChoice lawsuit

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Epstein and Wexner were business partners and friends until September 2007, when Wexner discovered Epstein had misappropriated vast sums of money from him as sexual assault allegations against Epstein emerged in Florida. Wexner has long maintained that he had no involvement or knowledge of Epsteins criminal activities.

I am embarrassed that, like so many others, I was deceived by Mr. Epstein, Wexner wrote in 2019. I know now that my trust in him was grossly misplaced and I deeply regret having ever crossed his path.

The House issued a subpoena for Wexner to testify before Congress in the Epstein investigation last month. Wexners attorneys said the 88-year-old will cooperate with any inquiry just as he did regarding the U.S. Attorneys investigation into Epstein in which Mr. Wexner was told that he was neither a co-conspirator nor target in any respect.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NBC4 WCMH-TV.
Jeffrey Epstein plotted with a high-powered Manhattan lawyer to try arranging the deportation of a woman who was an inconvenience to someone in his social circle, newly released documents reveal.

While their efforts were unsuccessful, emails also reveal that this Epstein associate, Wall Street attorney Brad Karp  who represented the late financiers business associate, Leon Black  coordinated surveillance on the woman.

Related: Republican congressman says Epstein files likely incriminated six more men

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This correspondence, made public in the justice departments recent disclosure of 3m Epstein investigative files, suggests that Karp was trying to use a Manhattan US attorneys office connection in the disgraced financiers push to have her charged with a crime.

Emails from 2015 show that Epstein and Karp  who resigned from his top role at the white shoe firm Paul Weiss last week as their correspondence went public  discussed whether law enforcement could be used to expel this woman from the US, or jail her. Karp did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A spokesperson for Paul Weiss also did not respond to multiple inquiries.

Is it possible for your contacts to 1 get her current visa status ? 2. Is there a way for us to file something that would revoke a tourist visa? Epstein wrote Karp on 29 July 2015.

Both good ideas; will work on this, Karp responds several hours later.

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These emails indicate that the woman was unnerving an Epstein associate named Leon.

On 16 August 2015, Epstein wrote: can you tell me for certain that if leon decides enough is enough, ( she has not responded to an email from him that says i am checking on you). that you and lorin can have her arrested.!! fed extortion, high bail. . maybe deportation?

The emails repeatedly mention a man named Lorin as potentially involved in these apparent silencing efforts. A surname is not in these specific exchanges. In emails about the woman between Epstein and Karp, only the first name Lorin appears.

However, an attorney with the name Lorin Reisner, who started at Paul Weiss about one year before this Epstein-Karp correspondence, previously helmed the criminal section at the Manhattan federal prosecutors office. Reisner did not respond to requests for comment.

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If she does not respond to his email and shops for attnys telling each one a horror story, he will be a target for a long time. in many of the cases that i have read, two things pop out, some survive a MTD . bad for leon. and some if not most all claim she has filed suit beacuse i refused to be extorted, Epstein wrote on 16 August 2015. I think the extortion claim AFTER a filing is fairly weak. and would be seen to be an intimidation tactic from a powerful man, if you think you are being extorted ( like the two jills in miami ) , they went right to the police. . and the dynamic and energy is on the side of teh good guys.

Two minutes later, Karp responded: Ill check again with lorin, but my strong belief is that the answer is yes. Especially with the referral coming from the most recent head of the sdny usao.

The emails do not provide a surname for Leon, nor do they outline specific allegations or extensive details on his concerns about this woman.

There is a Leon whose name does come up repeatedly in the Epstein files. Leon Black is listed on a page titled PROMINENT NAMES in an FBI presentation about Epsteins case. The purpose of this FBI presentation is not known and the slideshow does not say that authorities verified any allegations of misconduct against him that are mentioned on this page.

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Black has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing related to Epstein.

In a portion of the emails that describe surveilling this woman, Karp says in a 23 August 2015 message that GG was in Moscow. A woman named Guzel Ganieva filed a defamation lawsuit against Black in 2021, which was ultimately thrown out; she had also accused him of sexual assault.

The Guardian asked representatives for Black whether he asked Epstein or Karp to help get this woman deported. The Guardian also noted the initials GG and asked Blacks camp: Is the person discussed in these emails Guzel Ganieva?

As has been well documented in the Dechert Report, Epstein was providing tax and estate planning advice to Mr. Black and his family office. At the time of these emails, Ms. Ganieva was threatening Mr. Black and his family while attempting to blackmail him as he was ending their years long consensual relationship, Blacks attorney, Susan Estrich of Estrich Goldin, said in a statement. Ms. Ganievas lawsuit against Mr. Black, filed years later, was dismissed with prejudice and that decision was affirmed by the appellate court.

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Representatives for Ganievas team declined to comment.

Epstein continued exploring possible charges on 16 August 2015, writing And do you add the visa under false pretense.?  that Lorin quoted. Does not seem to be used very often for this type of thing. Maybe some sample cases. Their timing and dispositions?

Let him detail what exactly would happen timingdetainment how long bail? Time in/? Likelihood of [deportation]? Any chance of doing so and trying to keep it quiet.? ca n a john doe be a complaintant[sic] at least at first ?  Epstein wrote early the next morning.

Checking with Lorin, since this is in his wheelhouse, Karp said.

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Reisner, along with Karp, is the recipient of a 14 August 2015 email described as a draft transcript of a recording of a conversation between John Doe (JD) and [redacted] at the restaurant Le Bernadin.

At one point of this conversation, the John Doe addresses the other speaker as Guzel. He tells the other speaker that her request for $100m is extortion and says the outcome of their dispute can go in three directions.

We can come to a mutually satisfactory, um, economic solution, um, number one. Uh, number two, urn, you can file a suit and you go public, the man says in this conversation. Number three, um, you know there can be, um, you know, possible other consequences of that.

And the last thing you should know  and its  I want to underscore this  its not a threat  um, but, you know, if you do take this frivolous case public  it will give me no choice but to, you know, go to the authorities and pursue a criminal case ... against you, the John Doe said. And youll likely end up in jail.

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And I also just, you know, I want you to, you know, I did go ... to my lawyer to talk about  what has been said. Um. And this is just  this is from  he was the ex-head of the criminal division of the US Attorney ... Who wrote to the files so theres no intention of using it. But basically just saying based on our conversations before you have committed a crime both under federal statutes and under New York statutory law 

Reisner, along with Karp, is also the recipient of a 13 August 2015 email described as a draft transcript of a recording of a conversation between John Doe (JD) and [redacted] GG) at the Four Seasons Restaurant one day prior. Lorin Reisner and Karp also received transcripts of John Doe recorded meetings from 19 August and 15 October of that year.

In August, Epstein and Karp discussed keeping an eye on the womans whereabouts.

Did we get a report on where she went after lunch. ? details ? Epstein asked Karp on 23 August 2015.

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To the Cielo apartment bldf on 83rd and York where she stayed until she traveled to JFK . She was snuck out through the [garage], in a car with tinte windows, and we have license plate numbers, Karp said.

About a month later, Epstein asked Karp: Is she still being surveilled. Is she still in [london] leon wants to nail down the fact that she is a pro. Have [unclear] use russian contacts or.

Sorry for the delay. We stopped the surveil=ance on Friday. She was in London then, and were not aware that she[unclear]left, Karp said, adding they could follow up on a suspicion, but havent found any evidence yet.

The emails show them continuing to discuss legal options against her.

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Can you have lorin or someone actually determine the likelihood of bringing a real case against her in London or New York So far I have not seen anything concrete. Leon thinks a case [is] viable in London, too much riding on the fact for it to be non feasible though technically possible, Epstein wrote.

We cant bring a private case against her in=ny, only in London. And even in London, its very tricky. Our London lawyer says she likely will lose a criminal trial for blackmail, though its certainly not my (or your) preferred outcome, Karp said.


Hong Kong activists and supporters gather in support of Hong Kong activist publisher Jimmy Lai in Taipei, Taiwan, on Feb. 10, 2026. Credit - Chiang Ying-yingAP

When a Hong Kong court handed media tycoon and pro-democracy leader Jimmy Lai a two-decade jail term on national security grounds on Monday, his son called it a death sentence given Lais age, 78, and deteriorating health. Critics across the globe, meanwhile, have described the sentence as a death knell for a once more free Hong Kongas well as a signal of what could be in store for other places China has its eye on, namely Taiwan.

I believe that the way that China is treating Hong Kong is the way that it wants to treat Taiwan next, and beyond that, other countries, Mark Clifford, president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation in the U.S., told TIME before the sentence was handed down.

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A Human Rights Watch spokesperson summed up the sentiment to TIME on Monday: Today is Hong Kong, tomorrow, Taiwan.

Lai, a vocal critic of Chinas increasing influence over Hong Konga special administrative region of China since the U.K. handed it over in 1997and repression of pro-democratic voices, particularly after the passage of a sweeping national security law in 2020, was convicted in December of two counts of conspiring to collude with foreign forces, as well as of conspiring to publish seditious materials, as the founder of the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily.

But while Hong Kong and Beijing authorities and media have backed Lais sentence, Taiwanthe self-governed island which China claims sovereignty overhas condemned it. Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council said in a statement that Lai's harsh sentence not only deprives him of his personal liberty and tramples on freedom of speech and press freedom, but also denies the peoples basic right to hold those in power accountable."

Taiwan President William Lai Ching-te posted on X on Tuesday that Lais sentencing exposes the Hong Kong national security law for what it isa tool of political persecution under Chinas one country, two systems that tramples human rights & freedom of press, and he called for the media moguls release.

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Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London, tells TIME that Lais sentence would affirm to the Taiwanese government and its people that the one country, two systems principle currently governing Hong Kong is a future they cannot accept.

That system was actually designed with Taiwan in mind. Former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping advanced the one country, two systems framework as a way for Taiwan to peacefully reunite with the mainland, while respect[ing] the realities and the existing system there. In a bid to make the principle more palatable to the Taiwanese government, China applied it to Hong Kong and Macau after the British and the Portuguese territories were ceded back to China in the late 1990s, allowing the so-called special administrative regions to operate with their own economic system and governments.

But pro-democracy figures have argued that local governance has grown increasingly aligned with the mainland as political dissidents have either been jailed or exiled, organizations have disbanded, and a free press dismantled.

You take a model thats intended for Taiwan, you try it out in Hong Kong, and weve seen how it works out, Clifford told TIME on Monday, adding that the freedoms and autonomy China promised to Hong Kong and the international community under the one country, two systems framework have all but disappeared. Of course, Taiwan feels like its next.

Contact us at letters@time.com.
LOS ANGELES (AP)  A federal judge on Monday blocked a California law from going into effect that would ban federal immigration agents from covering their faces, but they will still be required to wear clear identification showing their agency and badge number.

California became the first state to ban most law enforcement officers from wearing facial coverings under a bill that was signed in September following the summer of high-profile raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Los Angeles.

The Trump administration filed a lawsuit in November challenging the laws, arguing that they would threaten the safety of officers who are facing harassment, doxing and violence and that they violated the constitution because the state is directly regulating the federal government.

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Judge Christina Snyder said she issued the initial ruling because the mask ban as it was enacted did not also apply to state law enforcement authorities, discriminating against the federal government. The ruling could have national implications as states grapple with how to deal with federal agents enforcing the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.

It left open the possibility to future legislation banning federal agents from wearing masks if it applied to all law enforcement agencies, with Snyder writing "the Court finds that federal officers can perform their federal functions without wearing masks. The ruling will go into effect Feb. 19.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill in September banning some law enforcement officers from wearing masks, neck gaiters, and other facial coverings. It was slated to go into effect Jan. 1 but was put on hold due to the lawsuit.

In addition to exempting state law enforcement officers, it made exceptions for undercover agents, protective equipment like N95 respirators or tactical gear, and other situations where not wearing a mask would jeopardize an operation. Snyder sided with the federal government, which argued this exemption was discriminatory against federal agents.

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Newsom also signed into law a measure requiring law enforcement to wear clear identification showing their agency and badge number while on the job, which was challenged by the federal government but upheld by the judge. In a statement, Newsom called the judge's decision a a clear win for the rule of law."

California State Sen. Scott Weiner, who proposed the original bill to ban facial coverings, said Monday he would immediately introduce new legislation to include state police in the law.

ICE and Border Patrol are covering their faces to maximize their terror campaign and to insulate themselves from accountability, Weiner said in a news release. We will ensure our mask ban can be enforced.

At a Jan. 14 hearing, Snyder repeatedly asked the governments lawyer, Tiberius Davis, to explain why banning masks would impede the federal law enforcement in carrying out their duties, if officers rarely wore masks prior to 2025.

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Davis cited claims by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that there has been a multifold increase in assaults and threats against federal officers. He also brought up an incident in Los Angeles where three women are being accused of livestreaming while following an ICE agent home and posting the address on Instagram.

There is real deterrence on the officers safety and ability to perform their duties, Davis said.

Cameron Bell, California Department of Justice attorney, challenged his claims, saying there was no concrete evidence that federal agents cant perform their duties without facial coverings.

Bell referenced declarations from U.S citizens who have been detained by federal agents but thought they were being kidnapped.

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Its obvious why these laws are in the public interest, Bell said.

The federal government also argued in legal briefs that allowing Californias legislation could lead other states to be emboldened to impose similar unconstitutional restraints.

Davis cited a statement from Newsom in July 2025 during an interview posted online where he discussed the mask ban bill, saying, It appears that we dont have the legal authority for federal agents but we do for other law enforcement authorities.

Los Angeles County supervisors voted in December to enact a local ordinance banning law enforcement from wearing masks that went into effect Jan. 8. However, the sheriffs department said it would not enforce the ordinance until after the court ruled on the statewide mask ban. The Los Angeles Police Department had also said it wouldnt enforce the mask ban.
Feb. 9 (UPI) -- A federal judge on Monday struck down California's No Secret Police Act, because its ban on federal agents from wearing masks in the state "unlawfully discriminates" against them.

U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder said the law does not prevent federal agents from doing their jobs, but blocked the law because it specifically affects only federal agents, leaving out state and local law enforcement officers, the Los Angeles Times, New York Times and Politico reported.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the No Secret Police Act, as well as the No Vigilantes Act, in 2025 in response to federal immigration raids last summer in California that were seen by critics as using racial profiling and, as in other cities in the United States over the last year, using fear and intimidation while agents sought to conceal their identities amid widespread criticism.

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The No Secret Police Act, Snyder wrote in a 30-page decision, "treats federal law enforcement officers differently than similarly situated state law enforcement officers" and violates the U.S. Constitution's Supremacy Clause.

She wrote, however, that the No Vigilantes Act -- which requires local, state and federal law enforcement officers to identify themselves -- stands because it applies all levels of law enforcement.

Snyder noted in her decision that the primary issue with the No Secret Police Act is because it treats officials at varying levels differently.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, in a statement on X, called the ruling "ANOTHER key court victory" for the U.S. Department of Justice that she said allows the Department of Homeland Security to "continue fighting and winning in court for President Trump's law-and-order agenda."

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"These federal agents are harassed, doxxed, obstructed, and attacked on a regular basis just for doing their jobs," Bondi said. "We have no tolerance for it."

Democrats in the Congress -- first in the Senate, and then in the House of Representatives -- have held up a federal funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security over tactics that have been used in the Trump administration's nationwide immigration crackdown.

Holding back funding for DHS was spurred by the death of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis, Minn., in three weeks in January.

The Senate amended the DHS funding bill to require changes that include requiring judicial warrants for arrests on private property, an end to racial profiling and indiscriminate arrests and for agents to stop wearing masks to conceal their identities.

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The House has yet to vote on the bill as Democrats said, four days before funding runs out, resulting in a partial federal government shutdown, that they will not vote for a bill that does not require DHS to alter the tactics it has used over the last year, NBC News reported.

In response to Synder's ruling, California state Senator Scott Wiener, who sponsored the mask ban, announced that he plans to introduce new legislation that includes state and local officers under the bill, saying in a press release that he "will do everything in my power to expedite passage of this adjustment to the No Secret Police Act."

"ICE and Border Control are covering their faces to maximize their terror campaign and to insulate themselves from accountability," Wiener said in the release. "States have limited tools to fight back against the federal government, but I will always use whatever tools are available to me to stand up against this violent and despicable assault on civilians."

"We will unmask these thugs and hold them accountable. Full stop," he said.
A decision by a Jefferson County judge to impose a sentence far lower than what a jury recommended is sparking outrage among Louisville Republicans.

At a Feb. 9 news conference, Minority Caucus Chair Anthony Piagentini called Circuit Court Judge Tracy Davis' decision to sentence Christopher Earl Thompson to 30 years  rather than the jurys recommended 65 years  an assault on Kentucky's justice system.

After a four-day trial in December, jurors found that Thompson, wearing a ski mask and armed with a gun, had forced his way into a woman's car in July 2023 and made her perform oral sex on him twice. Between the sexual assaults, he compelled her to drive to an ATM and withdraw money from her account, according to a police report.

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At the time of the offense, the now 23-year-old Thompson was on probation and enrolled in a diversion program after police said he possessed a stolen firearm and fled from officers, according to court records.

At a Feb. 2 sentencing hearing, Davis said she believed the jurys recommended sentence was excessive and left no chance for the 23-year-olds rehabilitation.

Unfortunately, he fell through the cracks and ended up before this court as an 18 or 19-year-old, Davis said, according to a partial transcript published by WAVE-TV. This court does not believe that Mr. Thompson, if given the resources that he can get while incarcerated, is beyond being rehabilitated.

Kentucky is one of the few states where juries recommend sentences in criminal cases. Judges have the final say, but departures from jury recommendations are uncommon.

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Clay Kennedy, Thompsons trial lawyer, said in 13 years of practice, he has never had a judge disregard a jurys recommendation.

Still, Kennedy said Davis made the right decision, citing Thompsons difficult upbringing. He declined to discuss specific trauma or abuse Thompson may have experienced but said Thompsons pre-sentence investigation  a report detailing a defendants background and criminal history used by judges at sentencing  was among the saddest he has read in his career.

Piagentini dismissed those factors as beside the point, saying judges should trust juries sentencing decisions and that Davis ruling disrespected the jury process.

Wheres the concern for the victim? Do we think shes going to get over this in 30 years? Wheres the concern for the safety of the public when he does get released from jail? Wheres the concern for the respect for the jury process?" Piagentini said.

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He also rejected Davis belief that Thompson could be rehabilitated, calling him a disgusting, evil sociopath who should never again breathe free air and saying he showed zero remorse.

Anthony Piagentini spoke to the media as he and other Louisville Metro Council Republicans gathered at City Hall to discuss legislative and policy proposals for improving safety in Louisville. September 9, 2025.

Piagentini pointed to court records showing Thompson made denigrating remarks to Davis and the female prosecutor handling the case during and after trial.

Thompson told the prosecutor he would see her in 20 years and called her a b****, told Davis to eat his d*** multiple times, and during sentencing said, If I could spit on you, I would.

He repeatedly interrupted Davis as she explained her reasoning for imposing a lower sentence. Davis claimed that Thompson had never received mental health treatment or anger management counseling.

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For his courtroom outbursts, Davis found Thompson in contempt of court and added a little more than four and a half years to his sentence.

Prosecutors had earlier offered Thompson an 18-year plea deal to spare the victim from testifying at trial, according to a spokesperson for the Jefferson County Commonwealth Attorneys Office.

But because Thompson showed no remorse and took no responsibility, the jurys recommendation represented the best possible outcome, the spokesperson said.

Court records show that police identified Thompson as the primary suspect after gathering DNA from a water bottle he had drunk out of while meeting with his probation officer. The DNA from the water bottle was a strong match to the DNA found inside the vehicle on the night of the assault. He'll be eligible for parole after serving 20 years, court officials say.The Feb. 9 news conference, called several hours in advance by GOP Metro Council members, appeared to serve two purposes: condemning Davis decision and announcing plans to publicize Davis record for voters to scrutinize.

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Piagentini said data from the county clerks office show Davis granted shock probation more than any other Jefferson County judge between Jan. 1, 2023, and August 2025, approving 40 of 44 requests.

Under shock probation, Kentucky judges may suspend a sentence after a defendant has served a portion of their prison term.

Another Jefferson County circuit judge, Jessica Green, last year drew local and national criticism after granting shock probation to a 32-year-old man accused of abducting a mother and two children and stabbing the mother during a bank robbery.

Piagentini said Republicans plan to obtain and publish Davis shock probation decisions online so voters can better understand her rulings.

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If she believes that her decisions are all justifiable and good, she should welcome this level of transparency, he said. I think the opposite. I think the public would be appalled to hear what she is doing and how her decisions reduce the safety of our community.

Voters narrowly elected Davis to the bench in 2022, choosing her over Mary Shaw, who signed the warrant for the police search in which Breonna Taylor was killed. Her term is up in 2031.

A spokesperson for Jefferson County Circuit Court issued a statement, saying: While it may be relatively rare for judges to reduce a jury's sentencing recommendation, judges are called on to make sentencing decisions dispassionately, proportionately, and according to law, not according to or in fear of how the public may perceive or react to that decision.

Thompson also faces a separate assault charge for allegedly putting a corrections officer in a headlock at Louisvilles jail in December. He is due in court in March in that case.

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Tell us what you think. Submit your letter to the editor.

Monroe Trombly covers public safety. He can be reached at mtrombly@gannett.com. His X handle is @MonroeTrombly.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville Judge Tracy Davis' reduced sentence outrages local GOP
Federal judges may have found a workaround to reject the Trump administrations mass detention policy after an appeals court backed the approach.

A three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday blessed the administrations interpretation of the governments power to systematically detain people targeted for deportation  even if they have no criminal records and have lived in the country for decades.

But two federal district court judges in Texas, who are bound by the New Orleans-based 5th Circuits ruling, said the 2-1 decision left an opening for them to continue granting immigrants release on other grounds, primarily constitutional arguments against detaining people who have established roots in the U.S. without due process. Those roots amount, in legal parlance, to a liberty interest that the Constitution says cannot be taken away without at least a hearing before a neutral judge.

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This conclusion is not changed by the Fifth Circuits recent decision, Judge Kathleen Cardone, an El Paso based appointee of George W. Bush, ruled late Monday in at least five cases, concluding that the circuits decision has no bearing on this Courts determination of whether [the petitioner] is being detained in violation of his constitutional right to procedural due process.

Judge David Briones, an El Paso-based Clinton appointee, reached a similar conclusion.

The Court reiterates its original holding that noncitizens who have established connections in the United States by virtue of living in the country for a substantial period acquire a liberty interest in being free from government detention without due process of law, Briones wrote.

The decisions from the Texas-based judges are notable in part because the administration has often rushed detainees there after their arrests in other states such as Minnesota.

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A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A Justice Department official, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said the rulings were in keeping with the view that there are rogue judges who continue to make results-oriented decisions to suit their personal policy preferences.

The 5th Circuits ruling has yet to percolate through federal courts across Texas and Louisiana, where detained immigrants have been filing so-called habeas petitions in extraordinary numbers to seek freedom from what they say is illegal detention without the opportunity for bond. The losing parties in Fridays ruling may still appeal the decision to the full bench of the 5th Circuit or the Supreme Court.

But the reaction from judges in Texas dealing with large numbers of habeas cases may inform their calculus. Other judges are maintaining a cautious approach. Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr., a Brownsville-based Trump appointee, has peppered attorneys in a long series of cases to update him on their view of the 5th Circuits ruling  and whether the petitions in his court must be dismissed.

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Outside the 5th Circuit, judges who have been largely rejecting the Trump administrations mass detention policy were less restrained.

Judge Charlotte Sweeney, a Biden appointee in Colorado, delivered a detailed rejection of the 5th Circuit ruling, saying the panels two-judge majority paid lip service to crucial legal principles and attempted to mask infirmity with clunky analogies.

Judge Evelyn Padin, a Biden appointee in New Jersey, similarly said she was unpersuaded by the 5th Circuits opinion, which she said would render other aspects of immigration law meaningless.

Both judges pointed out that the 5th Circuit is not binding on their courts and that other circuits may soon rule on the key legal questions at the heart of the mass detention policy.
Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton believes that the status quo of her party has not served the American people well  and that shes the Senate candidate to bring the fight needed to Washington, D.C.

Im not going to sit on the sidelines, Stratton said on the latest episode of Politically Speaking. I dont shy away from a fight, and everything is at stake right now.

Stratton has a number of high-profile endorsements by sitting U.S. senators, including Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, but she still trails in the polls by double digits to U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Schamburg.

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Shell also need to overcome the immense campaign war chest that Krishnamoorthi has built up for the Democratic primary on March 17. A $5 million donation from Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to the super political action committee thats supporting her will help.

Strattons start

Stratton first got into politics after her mother died battling Alzheimers and the state legislature and her representative voted to cut in-home services for seniors.

I lost my mother the day before I launched that campaign, but it was a reminder that government can and should be a force for good, she said.

She won her race for state representative in 2016, and Pritzker tapped her as his running mate in 2018.

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Stratton said Democrats havent fought as aggressively as they should against the Trump administration.

If elected, Stratton said she wouldnt support Chuck Schumer as leader of Senate Democrats.

Im the only candidate, leading candidate, in this race that has made that commitment, she said. My opponents have not done so, and I dont think thats what Illinois voters are looking for  for people to, again, just keep the status quo going.

At a recent debate, Krishnamoorthi said he was undecided about Schumer, and another frontrunner, U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Lynwood, said it would depend on who challenged Schumer.

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All three have expressed frustration with Durbin for voting to end last falls government shutdown without guarantees to reauthorize subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, which have since expired.

I believe that we should have held the line and not given away the leverage that we had to fight for people to have health care, Stratton said.

In her eyes, the Pritzker-Stratton record over the last two terms proves that shell bring the fight to Congress. And she cites the states credit rating revival from near junk status and further protections for abortion access as the teams major accomplishments.

Race heats up

Stratton has admonished Krishnamoorthi for accepting donations from donors allied with President Trump. While Krishnamoorthi later donated that cash to immigrant-rights groups, Stratton believes it shows he wont stand up.

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This is an example of values, said Stratton, who pledged to not accept PAC money from corporations.

After initially backing a $17-per-hour federal minimum wage, Stratton is now pitching $25. Kelly has called $25 per hour unattainable, but Stratton believes its needed and would provide a livable wage.

I dont think people are looking for people to say, Well, this is not realistic. Im not sure if we can get that done, Stratton said. Thats not the fight people are looking for right now. People want bold ideas.

Shes also committed to backing legislation that would create Medicare for all.

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Those two proposals would likely run into a problem with the Senates filibuster rule that requires 60 votes  which has been the target of both parties when they are in power.

I think we need to abolish the filibuster, or at least seriously reform the filibuster, Stratton said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement should also be abolished, Stratton said. What exactly would replace ICE is unclear, but Stratton said its important to remember that its work existed before the federal agency was created in 2003.

It doesnt mean I dont want secure borders, she said. Of course I do, but thats not what this is.

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While she supports public-private partnerships, Stratton said shes skeptical of Trumps efforts to intervene with private business in his second term, as hes done with a profit-sharing agreement with the chipmaker Nvidia or a golden share in U.S. Steels deal with Nippon thats been watched in Granite City.

I think we need to be very clear on our motives as a government, which is to do whats best for the people and not for ourselves as elected leaders, Stratton said.
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD)  A Michigan jury found two people guilty of scheming to sabotage the gubernatorial and judicial campaigns of candidates in the 2022 election by collecting fake signatures, a move that disqualified candidates from the ballot.

Shawn Wilmoth, of Warren, Michigan and Willie Reed, of Pompano Beach, Florida, were convicted Monday in Macomb County. Wilmoth is the owner and operator of signature-gathering company First Choice LLC, Reed is the owner and operator of a similar company, Petitions Reed LLC, and both were co-owners of Mack Douglas LLC.

3 accused of voter signature fraud set for trial

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The pairs businesses contracted with political candidates to gather signatures for their nomination to appear on the August 2022 primary ballots. Those candidates included six running for governor in Michigans 2022 election  Ryan Kelley, Perry Johnson, James Craig, Donna Brandenburg, Michael Brown, and Michael Markey  and three running for judicial spots  Tricia Dare, John Cahalan, and John Michael Malone.

Candidates needed 15,000 signatures from voters to get on the GOP primary ballot. Campaigns paid over $700,000 for valid signature collection.

3 accused of voter signature fraud set for trial

A jury found that Wilmoth and Reed knowingly delivered tens of thousands of forged signatures on nomination petitions to eight of the campaigns, according to a release from the Michigan Department of Attorney General. Seven of those candidates ultimately did not meet Michigans signature requirements to appear on the ballot. Brown did not even submit the signatures for review and instead withdrew following the release of the state elections bureau report that exposed the fraudulent signatures of other candidates. Another candidate, Ryan Kelley, was not provided with any signatures at all, the AGs office said.

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Michigans elections bureau flagged the signatures in May 2022, finding evidence of round-tabling  where circulators took turns signing a line on each sheet in an effort to vary handwriting and make signatures appear authentic.

Fraudulent canvassers accused of money grab

Wilmoth was convicted of 22 charges including conducting a criminal enterprise, seven counts of election law forgery and seven counts of false pretenses.

Reed was found guilty of 12 charges, including conducting a criminal enterprise, false pretenses and election law forgery.

Jamie Wilmoth-Goodin, of Warren, had faced charges in the scheme as well but was found not guilty by the jury.

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Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WOODTV.com.
A constitutional amendment on the ballot this summer would change the selection method for Kansas Supreme Court justices. (Submitted)

Less than seven months from now, on Aug. 4, Kansas voters will see on their primary ballots an amendment to the state constitution they can vote yes or no on. It reads in part:

The citizens of Kansas who are qualified electors shall elect the justices of the supreme court. The rules applicable for such elections and the designation of position numbers shall be provided by law.

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This proposed amendment has been on my mind for a while, and not just because its a vote on an important potential change in our state. Ive thought about it a good deal because while it is obviously grounded in the particularities of Kansas politics, its also reflective of a deeper argument about the power and role of the judiciary in constitutional democracy. My thoughts about that power and role have been pretty consistent over the decades: I think the judiciary has too much of both.

This isnt to deny that my desire for, and opinions about, small d democracy havent evolved a lot over the years. They definitely have.

The undemocratic nature of the place the judiciary historically occupied in Americas governing systems  something Alexis de Tocqueville perceived nearly 200 years ago, and actually considered a major plus to our system  was, a decade and a half ago, a major preoccupation and annoyance of mine.

Today, it is much less so. Party this is because of the way the Trump administration has disregarded and attacked many of the constitutional pillars of our liberal democracy, constitutional pillars that have been of immense value to a country that, despite its many statist and oligarchic flaws, is still worth believing in. Hence my willingness to criticize Americas judicial compromises in the name of some hypothetical future participatory democracy has greatly declined.

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It is also simply because Ive come to recognize that the politics which shape the actions of state and national courts are far downstream from the local and municipal politics which I ought to be most concerned about.

Still, I remain pretty radical when it comes to the place of the courts in our constitutional system. I see the judiciary  at least at the appellate level and above  as an unavoidably political body that lacks the direct democratic accountability such bodies ought to be subject to, and wielding a power of judicial review that lacks the democratic legitimacy upon which such functionally legislative actions ought to be premised.

All that just means that Id like to see the judiciary, its role and power, democratized. Term limits rather than lifetime appointments? Jurisdictional limits upon the scope of judicial review? Or maybe  outright judicial elections? Frankly, Im open to them all. At least on the level of theory, Im not opposed to this amendment.

But the context of any constitutional amendment has to be considered, and thats what I want to do here.

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Who supports this amendment? The Republican party does, and particularly the Republican caucus in the Kansas Legislature, as they were the ones who placed the amendment on the ballot in the first place. But the amendment is also supported by local conservative organizations such as Americans for Prosperity and the Kansas Policy Institute.

Their aim, in the words of Senate President Ty Masterson, is to shine the light of democracy on Kansas merit-based system of selecting nominees to the state Supreme Court justices, a process that is currently veiled by a commission (specifically, Kansass Supreme Court Nominating Commission, which is mostly made up of other lawyers and who review and recommend to the governor potential candidates for the states highest court).

Thats only part of the story, though. Most of the language that came out of testimony regarding the proposed amendment made it clear that the primary motivations of Republican leaders was that the Kansas Supreme Court hasnt ruled in ways their conservative donors and the conservative activists who make up their base liked when it came to education funding and, most crucially, abortion rights.

The substantive aim of most of those pushing for this amendment is thus almost certainly not about the light of democracy. As Masterson himself strongly implied, they want to change a judicial selection arrangement that, when state Supreme Court rulings run afoul of the public, leaves conservative voters with no recourse to fight.

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For opponents of this change, this means Republicans want to invite national money to fund conservative candidates for the state Supreme Court, and those worries arent wrong. Still, that doesnt mean the democratic concerns woven into this proposed amendment are meaningless either.

One of the most common complaints thrown at our state and local governments is that they lack transparency and choice. The absence of such (or the perception of the absence of such) tends to drive Kansans mad, and properly so. But when it comes to extending that idea to the judiciary, the complaint can cause confusion.

Most Kansans, at least on the basis of my teaching college-age ones for nearly 20 years, tend to look at the justices on the U.S. Supreme Court  who are, like every judge on the federal level, appointed for life rather than elected  to understand how a judiciary is supposed to work. Their unelected status seems a perfectly natural fit with a supposedly apolitical branch of constitutional umpires.

As a result, sometimes first-time voting students ask me worriedly why retention votes for state judges show up on their ballots. When I tell them that Thomas Jefferson, responding to the unavoidably political nature of some Supreme Court decisions, was sympathetic to the idea that the House of Representatives should elect the justices itself rather than the president appointing them, they grow even more perplexed. (Admittedly, this confusion has become less common as politically motivated arguments advanced by many on the Supreme Court have contributed to its reputation crashing, but the lessons of Schoolhouse Rock die hard.)

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In truth, once one embraces the idea of a supposedly independent judiciary to interpret the law, every system for determining who will serve as those judges is going to be a complicated compromise. To dismiss any suggested change in how judges are chosen for the sake of preserving judicial independence is every bit the simplification as are arguments from Kansas Republican leaders who insist that they just want to bring change in the name of democracy  as opposed to their likely aim of electing judges who would more reliably interpret the state constitution in conservative ways.

Kansas system for choosing judges is an interesting combination of merit (nomination by a judicial commission, appointment by governor) and voting (elections to stay in office at the end of the justices term). Its an approach shared, in one form or another, by 17 other states. But its not as though straightforward elections are employed by all the rest.

Only 21 states allow voters to choose their state Supreme Court justices directly. Other states use other methods, including variations on gubernatorial and legislative appointments. Ultimately, the methods of choosing justices, on any court level, vary greatly from state to state and there is no clear evidence that one method is always better in terms of judicial trust, fairness, and accountability than any other.

Former Kansas Chief Justice Lawton Nuss has criticized the amendment, calling the election of state Supreme Court justices a really bad idea. He is joined by numerous state organizations  such as the ACLU, the Kansas Bar Association, and other mostly liberal groups  and Ive no doubt that theyre sincere (though again, those organizations are probably also motivated in part by a desire to maintain a selection arrangement that has occasionally delivered surprisingly Democrat-friendly decisions).

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Either way, Im unconvinced by the arguments Nuss and others have brought forward (such as making prominent use of use of a single op-ed published more than 10 years ago by a retired Texas Supreme Court judge attacking the judicial election system employed by the state he long served), especially when there large numbers of justices from multiple other states who seem to have done their job perfectly well in more democratically accountable, electoral contexts.

All that said, I would agree with Nuss on one point, and it is perhaps the decisive one for me.

Texas is one of the few states  there are only six others  where judicial elections for the states highest court are conducted on a partisan basis. While partisanship is inevitable whenever voters are allowed to freely express their choices, its consequences can beand in the case of the judicial branch, ought to becontrolled. Imposing nonpartisan electoral rules can help here, or by conducting judicial elections in separate districts (about half of Kansass local judicial elections work that way, as do elections to the Illinois and the Kentucky state Supreme Courts).

Would there be complications with implementing any of these qualifying arrangements when it comes to judicial elections in Kansas? Obviously there would be. But the judiciary is important enough to be worth some complicated struggles.

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By contrast, the language of the proposed amendment provides no complicated specifics as to what the rules of the judicial elections that shall be provided by law would actually be. Without such language, we should probably assume that, if the proposed amendment passes, the elections that emerge from our Republican-dominated legislature will be ones that its supporters think they can win easily: statewide, majority-driven, partisan elections, with conservative influence and money flooding the state.

That alone, despite my theoretical sympathies for almost any proposal to bring greater democratic input and accountability into the process of judicial selection, will probably determine how Ill vote this summer.

Russell Arben Fox teaches politics at Friends University in Wichita. Through its opinion section, the Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked Tuesday if the administration had a social media problem in the aftermath of two deleted posts, one on Vice President JD Vances X account and one on President Donald Trumps Truth Social account.

Last Thursday evening, Trump posted a video with baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election that included a short clip at the end with former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama, showing their faces superimposed on apes bodies. The video was furiously criticized by members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, members of the media, and other political commentators as racist.

Leavitt initially defended the post as simply sharing an Internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and dismissed critics as voicing fake outrage. But shortly before noon ET Friday, the post was deleted, and a still-unnamed White House staffer was blamed for making an erroneous post.

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Tuesday, Vances account posted, then deleted, a tweet that included a photo of him with Second Lady Usha Vance at a wreath laying ceremony at the Armenian Genocide memorial to honor the victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide.

Vice President Vances office deleted this tweet that broke with administration policy in its acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide. 1/ pic.twitter.com/IJP7U9a95A  Jake Tapper  (@jaketapper) February 10, 2026

An official with Vances office said that the tweet was posted in error by a staffer who was not traveling with the delegation.

The tweet broke from Trump administration policy, which does not use the word genocide to refer to the systematic killing and deportation of Armenians in what is now Turkey, reported CNN. President Joe Biden was a noteworthy exception to a long-running avoidance by American authorities to avoid using the term genocide in an effort to not damage the relationship with Turkey.

CNNs report included additional details about the estimated death toll:

The number of Armenians killed has been a major point of contention. Estimates range from 300,000 to 2 million deaths between 1914 and 1923, with not all of the victims in the Ottoman Empire. But most estimates  including one of 800,000 between 1915 and 1918, made by Ottoman authorities themselves  fall between 600,000 and 1.5 million. Whether due to killings or forced deportation, the number of Armenians living in Turkey fell from 2 million in 1914 to under 400,000 by 1922.

The Armenian National Committee of America excoriated the deletion as disgraceful and a denialist action consistent with President Trumps shameful retreat from honest American remembrance of a crime recognized by all 50 states, the US Congress, the White House, and more than a dozen of our NATO allies.

Vances Deleted Armenian Genocide Post Sends Shockwaves across Armenian American Community: Vice-President JD Vance's February 2026 visit to Armenia sent six dangerous signals to Armenian and allied American voters  all dramatically compounded by the scandal over his  ANCA (@ANCA_DC) February 10, 2026

BREAKING: Vice President @VP Vance posted on X about his visit to the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Armenia and then deleted his own post. His aide then tweeted a post stripped of the words Armenian Genocide  a denialist action consistent with President Trumps shameful pic.twitter.com/YQQMZyqXPB  ANCA (@ANCA_DC) February 10, 2026

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Tuesday afternoon, during a briefing at the White House, Leavitt was asked about these deleted posts.

Today, the Vice Presidents account posted and then deleted a tweet about the Armenian genocide, and then last week, President Trumps Truth Social account posted and then deleted a racist video about the Obamas, said Danny Kemp, the White House correspondent for Agence France-Presse. And the White House, again, blamed that on a staffer. I wanted to ask you, does the White House have a social media problem at the moment? Do you have an auto-posting problem thats leading to these mistakes?

No, replied Leavitt. As for the Armenian tweet that youre referring to, I would just refer you back to the White Houses message that was issued on Armenian Remembrance Day, and theres been no change of policy at this time.

Leavitt then moved on to the next reporters question without mentioning the Obama video clip or otherwise commenting on the deleted posts.

Watch the video above via The White House on YouTube.

The post Karoline Leavitt Asked If White House Has a Social Media Problem After Deleted Ape and Genocide Posts first appeared on Mediaite.
A Kentucky man has been sentenced to life in prison for shooting and killing the mother of his two children.

The sentence handed down by Kenton County Circuit Judge Kathy Lape on Feb. 9 matches a recommendation from the jury that found 40-year-old Mario Payne guilty of murder at the end of a three-day trial in December.

He will be eligible for parole after 20 years.

Mario Payne (center) appears for the final day of his murder trial in Kenton County Circuit Court on Dec. 11.

Payne intentionally fired four rounds at 25-year-old Kierra Lane, killing her at her Covington home with the pair's children present, prosecutors said at trial.

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Lape said the life sentence jurors recommended is "more than appropriate."

What happened to Kierra Lane?

Lane and Payne arranged to exchange custody of their children at the Kroger in Latonia on Jan. 6, 2024. He followed her home to pick up clothes and other items so the children could stay the night with him, according to trial testimony.

After they arrived at the West 34th Street apartment, the pair talked about the womans new relationship. Lane began to shut the entrance to the apartment building when Payne opened fire.

The woman was found by first responders just inside the front door and was declared dead at the scene.

Covington police investigating the fatal shooting of 25-year-old Kierra Lane.

Payne fled after the shooting, leaving his children behind. Prosecutors said he left his infant daughter in a pumpkin seat just outside the door where her mother was shot.

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Police caught up with Payne a short time later in Louisville, where he was hospitalized for a suicide attempt.

Prosecutors said in court filings that Payne admitted to the shooting during an interview with Covington police. He also admitted to disposing of the murder weapon while on the run.

Kenton County Commonwealth's Attorney Rob Sanders said at trial that the custody exchange on the day of the shooting was a ruse for Payne to talk his way back into Lane's life. Sanders added that Payne was jealous of the woman's new relationship.

Mario Payne at a hearing in Kenton County District Court in January 2024.

"He's given his own children a life sentence, a life without their mother," Sanders told the judge at sentencing. "That's the last thing a man that loves his children would ever do."

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Payne did not speak at sentencing. Katelyn Sanders, his attorney, asked the judge to impose a sentence less than life.

Payne's attorneys previously argued the shooting was an accident, saying that he went to return a firearm hed borrowed when the gun went off, striking Lane multiple times and killing her.

Lane's mom says life 'will never be the same'

Lane's loved ones filled one side of the courtroom to hear the sentence they've been awaiting for more than two years.

"January 6th, 2024, was the worst day of my life and my life will never be the same," Kelly Zeis, Lane's mother, told the judge.

Zeis described her daughter as a devoted mother and the glue of her family. She said Payne killed Lane because he could no longer control her.

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"She had dreams and hopes that Mario would make changes to be the loving partner and father that their children needed," Zeis said. "She believed in Mario, the very hope and belief that cost her her life."

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Kentucky man sentenced to life for killing mother of his 2 children
Kenya says it will talk to Russia over growing reports that its citizens are being recruited to fight in the war in Ukraine.

Speaking to the BBC, Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi called the practice "unacceptable and clandestine", and said Nairobi had shut down illegal recruiters and would urge Moscow to sign a deal banning the conscription of Kenyan soldiers.

The Kenyan government estimates that around 200 of its nationals have been recruited to fight for Russia.

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The exact number remains unclear, as Nairobi maintains that none of them travelled through official channels.

"Kenya and Russia have had long relations since independence, literally. So this, in my view, becomes a very unfortunate episode of otherwise very positive and cordial relations between our two countries," he added.

Mudavadi has told the BBC that Kenya's engagement with Russia will focus on curbing illegal recruitment practices, including discussions on visa policy and bilateral labour agreements excluding military conscription.

He said the Kenyan authorities had closed more than 600 recruitment agencies suspected of duping Kenyans with promises of jobs overseas.

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So far 27 Kenyans who had been fighting in Russia have been repatriated, he said, with authorities providing psychological care to address their trauma and "de-radicalise" them.

It is not clear how many Kenyans have died fighting for Russian forces, and Russia has not formally addressed such reports. Relatives who have approached the Russian embassy in Nairobi for answers report being turned away.

"Families that we've spoken to say they have not been able to bury their loved ones because their bodies are still on the other end," Kenya's foreign minister said.

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"It is difficult because, remember, it depends on where the body has been found. There some have been found in Ukraine - we are also working with the government of Ukraine to try and get the remains of those people repatriated."

Pressure has been mounting on the Kenyan government to act after the recent discovery of more bodies of citizens who had been recruited to fight for Russian armed forces.

Some of the affected families have told the BBC that they lay the blame squarely on Kenya's government, for failing to regulate and criminalise clandestine recruitment agencies.

But the Kenyan foreign minister rejects this.

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"You cannot blame the government on this," Mudavadi told the BBC. "Where there are illegal recruitment agencies, we have scrapped them and we continue to scrap them."

Ukrainian intelligence assessment estimates that more than 1,400 people from 36 countries in Africa have been recruited to fight for Russia. Ukraine has also previously come in for criticism for trying to recruit foreign nationals, including Africans, to fight on its side.

Ukrainian officials have repeatedly warned that anyone fighting for Russia will be treated as an enemy combatant, and that the only safe route out is to surrender and be treated as a prisoner of war.

On Tuesday, the South African government said Russian President Vladimir Putin had pledged to help return South African nationals who had travelled to Ukraine to join Russian troops.

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This was discussed during a phone call between Putin and South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa, officials say, with both leaders agreeing their governments will continue working together to finalise the process.

At least 17 South African men are reported to be on the front lines of the conflict.

Additional reporting by Nobuhle Simelane and Basillioh Rukanga

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Kenya will press Russia for answers after reports emerged that its citizens are being recruited to fight in Ukraine, the countrys foreign minister said.

Musalia Mudavadi told the BBC in an interview on Tuesday that the recruitment was "unacceptable and clandestine."

He said the government has shut down illegal recruiters and would urge Moscow to sign an agreement barring the conscription of Kenyan citizens.

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Nairobi estimates that about 200 nationals have been recruited to fight for Russia, and Mudavadi explained that families have struggled to recover the bodies of loved ones killed in the conflict.

New Footage Shows North Korean Troops Clearing Dangerous Mines For Russia In War Zone

Musalia Mudavadi speaks after signing a bilateral agreement supporting Kenyan police officers deployed to the Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on May 12, 2025. (Reuters)

"It is difficult because, remember, it depends on where the body has been found," the foreign minister told the BBC. "There some have been found in Ukraine - we are also working with the government of Ukraine to try and get the remains of those people repatriated."

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In a November post on X, Ukraines Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Kyiv estimates that at least 1,436 foreign nationals from 36 African countries have been recruited to fight for Russia in its war against Ukraine, warning the true number may be higher.

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Sybiha said Russia uses a range of tactics to recruit foreigners, including financial incentives, deception and coercion.

Us Accuses Russia Of 'Dangerous And Inexplicable Escalation' In Ukraine War During Peace Negotiations

Susan Khandasi Kuloba, whose son David Kuloba died while fighting for Russia in Ukraine, poses with portraits of him during an interview at her home in Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya, on Dec. 2, 2025.

"Signing a contract is equivalent to signing a death sentence," he wrote. "Foreign citizens in the Russian army have a sad fate. Most of them are immediately sent to the so-called meat assaults, where they are quickly killed."

Mudavadi said in December that the government had received multiple emails and urgent communications from Kenyans in distress at military camps in Russia.

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As Ukraine War Drags On, Trump Hits Putin By Squeezing Russia's Proxies

Evans Khagola, cousin of Oscar Khagola, holds a printed photo sent by Oscar to his father showing him and other soldiers when they started training in Russia, photographed in Nairobi, Kenya, on Jan. 21, 2026.

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"Several of them have reported injuries among our nationals and others stranded, following attempted recruitment into the violent conflicts," he told the Kenya News Agency, the countrys state-run news service.

Mudavadi said the government has since tightened recruitment regulations, deregistering more than 600 non-compliant agencies and strengthening job verification through the Diaspora Placement Agency to curb exploitation.





Original article source: Kenya demands answers from Russia over recruitment of citizens to fight in Ukraine war
Faith leaders and community members gather Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026 at the site where an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good, 37, in south Minneapolis the previous day. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

Dulcie and her family, who live in the Twin Cities metro, are afraid every day when they leave for work and school.

All of my friends are staying at home. No one comes out. It gets to me, said Dulcie, who declined to use her last name because she fears retribution from federal agents, who have been detaining citizens and legal immigrants.

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Recently, Dulcie began driving her parents to work every morning before school, as early as 4 a.m.  because she is afraid they might disappear.

I would rather do that than never hear from them. Id rather know at least where to look for them then never hear a single word from them probably, she said.

Like many area schools, Dulcies school is offering an online option for students worried about coming to school, but she has continued to go to school in-person, even if she doesnt always feel like it.

Most of the time I dont even want to go because everything just feels so depressing, Dulcie says.

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The nations conscience has been shocked by high-profile incidents of federal immigration enforcement agents engaging children, including apprehending preschooler Liam Ramos on his way home from school.

But the impact on children and their families extend beyond these viral incidents, affecting the lives of children and families broadly across race, immigration status and economic class in the Twin Cities. The ongoing immigration surge of around 2,300 federal agents has created a climate of fear  not just for the criminals and undocumented immigrants they claim to be targeting  but for ordinary families trying to maintain the routines and normalcy of childhood.

We are just kids, and instead of being kids and living our lives as kids, we have to step up and support our community, said Taleya Addison, an 18-year-old senior at FAIR School for Arts in downtown Minneapolis. She said her best friends father has been in ICE detention for weeks, and his mother is a stay-at-home mom. The family is struggling, so Addison has been picking up groceries and running errands for them.

With a Trump executive order in hand allowing stepped up immigration enforcement around schools and churches, federal agents have detained at least nine students in Columbia Heights, which canceled school Feb. 2 after feds were observed stalking bus stops and schools around arrival and dismissal.

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Duluth Public Schools, Fridley Public Schools and Education Minnesota, the states teachers union, filed a lawsuit against the feds, alleging the Trump administration violated the Administrative Procedures Act by rescinding the sensitive areas policy that had previously protected schools from immigration enforcement activity.

Hattie pages through her homework for an accounting class Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

Among the many incidents around schools:

On the day of Renee Goods killing, immigration agents deployed chemical irritants and smoke outside of Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis. After the murder of Alex Pretti, federal agents deployed smoke outside of an elementary school in Minneapolis.

On Jan. 14, federal agents were spotted gathering outside of an elementary school around dismissal time in St. Louis Park.

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Roseville schools reported that on Jan. 21 immigration enforcement agents used a school parking lot as a staging area.

Parents interviewed by the Reformer said immigration agents have lurked outside of schools in Minneapolis, and one said agents in a vehicle concealed themselves in the parent pickup line at a suburban school, while staff scrambled to get students safely inside.

Federal agents have also been confronted after lurking around daycares in the Twin Cities.

An agent flashes a thumbs up to the camera as they drive through the parking lot of Jardin Spanish Immersion Academy in the Powderhorn neighborhood Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

On Jan. 14, Robbinsdale Area Public Schools reported that a parent waiting at a bus stop had been taken by federal agents. And on Jan. 23, Hopkins Public Schools reported that two students and their parents had been taken by federal agents in an incident witnessed by another parent in the district.

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On Jan. 15, two vans transporting students and staff from St. Paul Public Schools were stopped by federal agents.

On Jan. 27, Anoka Hennepin Public Schools reported that two of its vans had also been stopped by federal immigration agents while students and staff were on board. And on Jan. 29, Richfield Middle School reported that federal agents had boarded a bus while students were on board.

The Reformer spoke with more than a dozen Twin Cities teens, parents of younger children and teachers to understand the impact on the daily lives of children. Their experiences range from the minor inconveniences of having extracurricular activities postponed or canceled, to fearing for their own safety leaving the house for school or work.

Students have gone missing from school

Heather, who declined to use her last name because she fears retribution against her students and school, teaches English learners at a middle school in the Twin Cities. Since her district introduced an online learning option, her typical class of 20 students is down to just four or five students in person. Many students are also not showing up online either.

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Although absenteeism has been worse since the killing of Good on Jan. 7, Heather has had students regularly missing school because of concerns about immigration enforcement since November. One student has temporarily moved in with family out of state because their parents believe they are safer there.

Heather said she is concerned that many of her students who have moved to online learning might never come back to the classroom.

Student absenteeism is also putting some funding at-risk for Minnesota school districts. When students miss more than 15 consecutive days of school, districts are required by state law to drop students from enrollment. Most K-12 school funding in Minnesota is tied to enrollment, averaged over the school year, so as students remain absent for extended periods, districts will start to lose funding.

Significant short-term and long-term consequences for children are already well documented

Researchers have previously shown the impact of intensive immigration enforcement, beginning with short-term effects like missed school and increased anxiety.

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When immigration enforcement increased in Californias Central Valley last year, students missed 22% more days of school, with the youngest students missing the most days. Missing school is tied to lower academic outcomes.

But the long-term impacts extend beyond academic outcomes. In the year following an immigration raid on a meatpacking plant in Morrison, Tenn., in 2018, researchers found consequences for childrens wellbeing up to a year after the raid.

They documented more suspensions and expulsions from school for student behavior, and a doubling of serious mental health disorders including substance use disorder, depression, selfharm, and suicide attempts or ideation. Children were more likely to be victims of sexual abuse in Morrison in the year following the raid.

The Morrison raid was a single incident that resulted in detention of about 100 adults. By contrast, Minnesota has been subject to intense, ongoing enforcement actions that have now lasted for over two months and affected thousands of families.

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Recent research in Florida suggests the impact extends beyond families caught in the enforcement dragnet. A recent study of students in Florida, where immigration enforcement increased significantly at the start of the second Trump administration, found that student test scores dropped for American-born Spanish-speaking students just as much as for those born outside the U.S. They also found a decline in test scores for Hispanic students broadly, not just those who speak Spanish.

The same Florida study also showed that the impacts were more significant for students in middle and high school, among girls and students already struggling in school. And, for schools with higher concentrations of poverty, increased immigration enforcement had a larger impact on students, controlling for other student characteristics.

Once higher rates of absenteeism kick in, the negative effects can spread to an entire school community. Teachers struggle getting students back up to speed after they miss even one day of classroom instruction, data show. And, research during the COVID-19 pandemic showed that students and families can struggle to resume attending school regularly when their routine has been disrupted by time away from in-person learning.

A student alters her daily routines after a killing near her home

Children in the Twin Cities arent just facing the threat of federal detention. Hattie, a Black high school senior who declined to use her last name for fear of federal retribution, lives near where federal officers shot and killed Alex Pretti. The killing, along with the continuous presence of federal immigration enforcement activity around her home, has created a fearful atmosphere. She and her friends have quit taking their customary strolls around the neighborhood or taking the bus to get around.

Hattie poses for a portrait in her home Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

Hattie said she doesnt feel like she is a target for federal agents. As a Black woman, however, she knows they would see her, and assumes theyd read her as an opponent.

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Im scared to go out there because you really never know when or where or who or why, Hattie said.

She said she has noticed subtle changes in her school, like more Latino students choosing to attend online and extra security around.

I can definitely see the difference in who takes the bus, whos walking home, Hattie said.

Shes struggled to manage the stress.

At least for me, personally speaking, Im not really coping. Its just like, lets just make it to the next day and not be targeted, Hattie says.

Like many others around the Twin Cities, Hattie has also been spending her time helping to organize donations and support for people staying at home for their own safety. She said that while people definitely need food, households sheltering in place also need toys and activities for children stuck inside, assistance getting medical care, and even help taking laundry to the laundromat.

Collected donations sit in the entryway of Hatties home Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

Effects of immigration enforcement felt in suburbs

Eve, who has one parent who is an immigrant to the United States, attends high school in a suburb of the Twin Cities. Although she and her family havent had direct interactions with federal agents, she has been impacted in smaller ways: A friends birthday was moved out of Minneapolis because the friend group comprised a diverse group with many immigrant parents.

Eve, who declined to use her last name because she fears retribution from the feds, said that despite the challenges, the crisis has yielded some positive outcomes, like seeing small gatherings outside of her school at dismissal expressing opposition to ICE, and demonstrators on overpasses and street corners regularly expressing similar sentiments.

Eves school has also had ongoing fundraisers to help support those more impacted by immigration enforcement. Seeing people come together and express opposition to what is happening has been a silver lining for her, she said.

Eves mother said that she has expressed concerns about her father, although he is a naturalized citizen. Although Eve said she thinks most of her classmates and teachers are opposed to what is happening, her mother said Eve has expressed concern about a few students expressing racism and hatred of immigrants at school.

Dulcie is the only person in her friend group of Latinas that is attending in-person school. She said almost all of the Latino students at her school have chosen the online option. The schools Latino Club has moved its meetings online.

She said some of her teachers struggle to simultaneously manage classroom and online instruction. Some of her classes have a Spanish-speaking co-teacher or aide, which she said is helpful for keeping the online students on-track. But most of her classes lack this additional support.

Her friends are doing their best to log into online classes, and keep up with the teacher. In her classes without an aide, Dulcie said, she has started using her cellphone in class to text with her friends online to help them keep up. Her school, like many in the Twin Cities, has a strict no cellphone policy. But she said her teachers understand.

Counselors at Dulcies school, which is racially and economically integrated, have been collecting donations for students and their families impacted by the federal siege. Dulcie said that she hasnt asked for any help though because she feels guilty when others need more. She is also concerned that students attending online are feeling more disconnected from school, and are not aware of the assistance available through the school.

Most of her friends are no longer leaving their homes. While online school allows them to stay safely inside, she said that many are growing restless and bored, spending too much time on their phones or screens, like during the early days of the pandemic.

But in some ways worse, because at least during the COVID pandemic, her friends were leaving the home, Dulcie said.

Dulcie said she worries that if the intensity of immigration enforcement activity continues, she and her friends could miss out on important milestones, like prom and graduation. It is already keeping her friends from celebrating their birthdays.

Ive gone through two historic moments already, Dulcie said, referring to the COVID pandemic and murder of George Floyd. Its like, too much.

Freelance journalist Atra Mohamed contributed reporting.
The Kirkland Police Department says a man found dead in Kirkland in 1985 has been identified after four decades, thanks to advances in forensic science and genetic genealogy.

Police said the man, previously known as John Doe, has been identified as William D. Horn, who was 35 years old at the time of his death.

Horns body was discovered on Dec. 8, 1985, in a sheltered area surrounded by blackberry bushes in the 10100 block of Points Drive Northeast in Kirkland.

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According to police, he was wrapped in blankets and layers of plastic.

At the time, the King County Medical Examiner determined Horn was inadequately clothed for the severe winter conditions, which included snow and unusually cold temperatures.

His death was attributed to hypothermia and classified as probably accidental.

Investigators said no identification was found on him or among his belongings.

For years, detectives followed up on tips and leads, but the mans identity remained unknown.

A major break in the case came in 2019, when Horns remains were exhumed with help from Dr. Kathy Taylor, a forensic anthropologist for King County and the State of Washington.

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Investigators were able to obtain a DNA profile from a femur bone.

That profile was uploaded to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, commonly known as NamUs, but no immediate matches were found.

In August 2025, investigators turned to genetic genealogy.

That analysis identified possible relatives and led detectives to a man named Gregory, believed to be Horns brother.

Police obtained a DNA sample from Gregory, which was processed by the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab and sent to the University of North Texas for formal comparison.

On Dec. 22, 2025, DNA testing confirmed the familial match.

Police said the confirmation allowed them to positively identify the man as William D. Horn, bringing closure to a case that remained unsolved for 40 years.
Kwik Trip is expected to open 11 new stores in Minnesota this year, including locations in central Minnesota.

The Wisconsin-based gas station chain already has 225 locations in the North Star State, including the company's largest location in Byron, which is near Rochester. That location is 16,842 square feet and has conference rooms.

Kwik Trip has gained a fan base with Facebook groups like "Kwik Trip Missed Connections," where people discuss chance encounters at the chain's stores. The Facebook group "Kwik Trip Enthusiasts Club" has more than 38,000 members.

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Sartell new businesses: Sartell had several economic gains last year, what it means for 2026

What to know about the new locations

Most of the new Minnesota Kwik Trip stores will open this summer and fall. However, some stores open in December. Nearly all of the stores are in Greater Minnesota.

Kwik Trip spokesperson Ben Leibl told the St. Cloud Times where the new stores will be built and an estimated opening month for each location. He said the grand openings may change depending on construction schedules. Exact opening dates are not released.

Ramsey, expected to open in July

Alexandria, expected to open in August

Hugo, expected to open in September

Lonsdale, expected to open in September

Elk River, expected to open in October

Little Falls, expected to open in October

Eagan, expected to open in November

Ham Lake, expected to open in November

Sauk Centre, expected to open in December

Cottage Grove, expected to open in December

Victoria, expected to open in December

The Kwik Trip in Clearwater, Minnesota, on Oct. 24, 2025.

What to know about the Sauk Centre, Elk River locations

The Wisconsin-based company on May 1 bought land at 541 12th St. S. in Sauk Centre for $1.5 million, according to the Minnesota Department of Revenue. On April 9, its proposed Elk River location, 13655 185th Ave. NW, was acquired for $1.17 million.

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Kwik Trip previously told the St. Cloud Times that it picked Sauk Centre for its proximity to Interstate 94. The company has expanded along the major highway in recent years. Meanwhile, Kwik Trip said it has had success in other cities similar to Elk River.

Both locations are expected to employ between 30 and 40 employees, according to Leibl. The Sauk Centre location will be similar to the Kwik Trip in Melrose.

Corey Schmidt covers politics and public safety for the St. Cloud Times. He can be reached at cschmidt@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: Kwik Trip eyes 11 new Minnesota locations for 2026, see where
More than five years ago, Nithya Raman made history as the first candidate backed by the Democratic Socialists of America to win a City Council seat in Los Angeles, ushering in a wave of other progressive candidates who pushed the council to the left.

Now, her surprising last-minute entry into the L.A. mayors race is prompting inevitable comparisons to Zohran Mamdani, another DSA-backed politician who recently was elected mayor of New York City.

But Ramans record as a City Council member hasnt always aligned with the far left.

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In fact, her stances on issues such as homelessness, transportation and protecting immigrants from the Trump administration are similar to those of her opponent and former ally, Mayor Karen Bass.

As her campaign moves forward, Raman will have to differentiate herself from Bass  as well as address the narrative that she betrayed Bass, who offered an important boost to her reelection campaign in 2024.

On housing, Raman has at times angered progressives by aligning with the YIMBY movement, which has pushed for the city to boost housing production and rewrite Measure ULA, the so-called mansion tax, which applies to property sales of $5.3 million or more.

In an interview Monday, she portrayed herself as not beholden to any special interest groups.

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"Yes, I'm a YIMBY," Raman said, referring to the pro-housing "Yes in My Backyard" acronym. "I'm a DSA-endorsed  multiple times  candidate.

"But I feel like I have demonstrated over and over again that my decision-making has been independent. ... I stand up and talk about policy change, even when it alienates my allies."

Unlike some other local politicians and mayoral candidates, Raman had not publicly criticized Bass about the Palisades fire. But after filing her candidate paperwork Saturday, she told reporters the city needs a mayor who will prepare for emergencies before they happen.

Raman, 44, who lives in Silver Lake and is married with two young children, was born in India and came to the U.S. at age 6. She graduated from Harvard University and earned a masters degree in urban planning from MIT.

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In 2020, she was a leader of Times Up, an anti-harassment group born after the #MeToo movement, when she launched a bid to represent a City Council district that stretched from Silver Lake to Sherman Oaks.

Her victory over David Ryu was the first time in 17 years that a challenger ousted a City Council incumbent.

Other progressive candidates followed suit and ran for office. Today, on a 15-seat City Council, Raman is one of four DSA-backed members who have championed policies in favor of renters and pushed back against spending on the Police Department.

But Ramans late entry into the race, hours before Saturdays filing deadline, could make it harder for her to amass support and funding.

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On Monday, nine of Ramans City Council colleagues reiterated their endorsements of Bass reelection. Raman herself had endorsed Bass.

Hugo Soto-Martinez, one of the DSA-backed council members, said in a statement, While I recognize Nithyas contributions to the city, I was caught off-guard by her last-minute maneuver, and I continue to strongly support Mayor Bass. Even when we disagree, Ive never doubted Mayor Bass and her long-standing commitment to the community.

Bass said in a statement: Im honored to have the support of these city leaders, and I look forward to continuing working with them to save lives through unprecedented reforms that have resulted in historic drops in both street homelessness and crime."

Raman, who chairs the councils Housing and Homelessness committee, has championed some traditionally progressive measures, such as just-cause eviction protections and strengthening the citys rent stabilization ordinance.

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Under legislation backed by Raman, landlords no longer can evict tenants from any rental property, including single-family homes, unless there is unpaid rent, documented lease violations, owner move-ins or other specific reasons.

Such protections already existed in rent-stabilized units, and making them universal included an additional 400,000 units, according to the city.

In 2023, she and other DSA-backed council members voted against a package of police raises , arguing that they would trigger cuts to other core services.

Former City Councilmember Mike Bonin described working with Raman to create a renters registry so the city could track illegal rent hikes. Her proposal for the registration wasnt attention-grabbing but was vital work because the city has a horrible track record of enforcing anything, he said.

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Shes smart and shes serious, Bonin said, adding that Raman is about making systems work.

Raman also has a record of supporting denser housing and opposing efforts to get involved in legal fights over proposed controversial development.

While the City Council, along with Bass, opposed Senate Bill 79 by state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), which allows denser housing near transit stops, Raman didnt join in the vote.

More recently, Raman attempted to rewrite Measure ULA. She has pointed to evidence that the measure is making it more difficult for developers to earn a profit on new housing developments, killing potential deals and worsening the housing crisis.

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Last month, she asked her colleagues to place a measure on the June 2 ballot that would spare the sellers of newer apartment buildings from paying the tax. But council members, faced with an outcry from labor leaders and the many community groups that support Measure ULA, refused to take up Ramans proposal.

Raman and Bass, 72, face nearly 40 other opponents, the vast majority of them unknowns who pose little threat, though a few have the potential to break through with voters.

Reality TV star Spencer Pratt, a Republican, has focused heavily on the citys handling of the Palisades fire, which destroyed his home.

Another democratic socialist, Rae Huang, is calling for more public housing and a reduction in the number of police officers, with the cost savings poured into other city services.

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DSA-LA has not yet made an endorsement in the mayor's race.

Brentwood tech entrepreneur Adam Miller, who has described himself as a lifelong Democrat, said the city is on a downward trajectory and needs stronger management.

Matthew Lewis, director of communications for California YIMBY, said that pro-housing groups around the country lit up with excitement after word of Ramans 11th-hour entry into the mayors race.

Shes giving Mamdani vibes, Lewis said. He is also DSA, but he ran on a YIMBY platform.

But Raman may face a tough audience in parts of the city where she is not well-known, and also in some San Fernando Valley neighborhoods she represents.

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A rash of burglaries last summer in and around Encino angered some residents, who view Raman as anti-police and are suspicious of her DSA endorsements.

Rob Glushon, head of the Encino Property Owners Assn., was at a Little League game Saturday when his phone started "blowing up" about Raman's run.

Glushon balks at many of Raman's positions, including her opposition to a law that allows the city to ban homeless people from the streets near schools.

"Mayor Karen Bass is looking better and better," he said.

Although she has yet to outline her campaign goals, Raman said that fiscal issues are stopping the city from being able to manage even basic repairs, such as fixing streetlights.

Her campaign is so new that she hasn't even built a website trumpeting her priorities. She only started to seriously consider running for mayor in the last week, she said.

Everyone is free to run, Bass told The Times. I am running on my record, running on the collaboration Ive had with her. I dont think there are any problems that she is raising about the city of Los Angeles that Im not concerned about as well.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
NEED TO KNOW

Teddi Page, 29, was arrested and charged with prohibited sexual conduct between an educator and a student

Police said the investigation began after the students mother reported the alleged relationship to school officials

A judge set Pages bond at $15,000

A New Orleans teacher is facing criminal charges after police allege she engaged in a sexual relationship with a student, prompting her arrest and termination from her position at an all-girls private school.

Teddi Page, 29, a former biology teacher at the Academy of the Sacred Heart, was arrested Thursday, Feb. 5, by the New Orleans Police Department and charged with prohibited sexual conduct between an educator and a student, according to WVUE, WWL Louisiana and The Times-Picayune.

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Court records cited by the outlets show the charge is a misdemeanor under Louisiana state law.

The investigation began after the 18-year-old students mother reported the alleged relationship to school officials, per the outlets.

The Times-Picayune reported that the mother discovered the alleged relationship after going through an old phone that was still logged into her daughter's social media accounts.

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.

Page appeared in court Friday, Feb. 6, per the outlets, where a judge set her bond at $15,000.

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In a statement published by the Times-Picayune and WDSU, the Academy of the Sacred Heart said it took the allegation seriously and acted immediately.

When our school became aware of a recent concern about one of our employees, we took the matter very seriously and immediately followed our safety protocols, the school said in the statement. The employee was escorted off campus, and her employment was terminated. We then referred the matter to the New Orleans Police Department.

The school said all employees are required to undergo background checks and provide references prior to being hired  adding that Pages background check and references did not raise concerns at the time of her employment.

According to the statement, the school is now supporting the student and her family and providing counseling resources for students affected by the situation.

It's unclear if Page has retained an attorney who can speak on her behalf.

Read the original article on People
A Las Vegas woman is suing medics after her healthy baby survived a surgical abortion, despite doctors telling her that her pregnancy was not viable.

Stacy Norris says that she was told twice by doctors at Womens Health Associates of Southern Nevada that her baby had no heartbeat in the fall of 2021.

Now, in her lawsuit, she alleges that doctors believed her pregnancy had not progressed and that she was faced with three options. She could either wait, take medication, or undergo a routine dilation and curettage abortion to terminate the pregnancy.

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With doctors allegedly telling her that she had experienced a missed abortion, she chose the third option.

A woman is suing the Womens Health Associates of Southern Nevada for allegedly telling her that her baby had no heartbeat, only for it to be born healthy weeks later (Google Streetview)

Its incredibly traumatic, she told KTNV. You know you kind of just go, this was itthis was probably the last chance to have a baby.

Speaking to the broadcaster, she revealed that the news was particularly painful because she had previously experienced a miscarriage and had long struggled with her fertility.

However, days later, Norris said she felt something was amiss.

When she returned to the medical center, Norris says in her lawsuit that she was prescribed Cytotec, an abortion inducing drug.

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Although still believing doctors when they said that her baby had no heartbeat, she still sought another opinion at the nearby Centennial Hills Hospital. Norris said she felt guided by gut instinct, maternal instinct, which ultimately proved correct.

At the hospital, tests found that her hormone levels had skyrocketed to 97,000. That number is consistent with a healthy, growing pregnancy.

Norris told KTNV that a doctor at the hospital could not believe why she had undergone an abortion procedure.

Stacy Norris says that her baby is a miracle and that she wants to prevent other women from going through a similar experience (stock) (Getty/iStock)

He kneels down next to me in the chair, and he says, 'You know, I have to know, Why did you have a D&C?' and I went, 'Its because I was told there was no baby,'" the mother said. "And he said theres an eight-week-old baby with a heartbeat, and at that point, I dont remember what happened next. I just could not believe it.

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Norris revealed that she welcomed her miracle baby at 35 weeks, via C-section. Her baby is now three and a half years old.

In her lawsuit, she says she is suing Womens Health Associates of Southern Nevada and Dr. Sheldon Paul, the man who performed her D&C.

Disciplinary records suggest that Dr Paul performed the surgery on a viable pregnancy, which he documented as failed, and continued to describe the pregnancy as nonviable.

He was sanctioned, receiving a public reprimand and being moved into an administrative role.

Dr Jennifer Wagner, the doctor who prescribed her Cytotec, is also named in the lawsuit.

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Norris, though, told KTNV she is taking action because other mothers could be facing similar problems at fertility clinics.

If this happened to me, its happening to women all the time. I want them held accountable, Norris said.

The Independent has contacted Stacy Norris lawyers and Womens Health Associates of Southern Nevada for comment.
Akron City Council unanimously passed a resolution Monday night opposing four immigration-related bills currently moving through the Ohio Statehouse. The legislation, council members say, would place new responsibilities on local agencies, require cooperation with federal immigration enforcement and threaten civil liberties.

The resolution targets four pieces of legislation currently working through the Statehouse:

House Bill 26 requires state and local authorities to cooperate with the federal government in enforcing immigration laws or risk funding reductions.

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House Bill 42 would require law enforcement agencies to collect and report data concerning the citizenship or immigration status of people they interact with.

House Bill 281 requires hospitals to allow federal immigration agents inside their facilities to carry out arrest warrants, conduct interviews on a person of interest, or collect information or evidence.

Those three bills remain in House committee.

Senate Bill 172 passed the Senate and is moving through the House. It would allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to make arrests in courthouses and state-funded schools with or without a warrant.

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During Monday's council meeting, community members spoke out against the legislation.

ICE is not welcome here. They should not be welcomed in our schools, churches, hospitals, courthouses, said a resident during public comment.

Council members echoed those concerns. Ward 1 Councilperson Fran Wilson, who co-sponsored the resolution, said the bills are harmful to the community.

This resolution tonight is standing in opposition to that state legislation and affirms Akron as a welcoming city for not only all of us, but also refugee and immigrant neighbors that have come to this city Wilson said. We have seen the violence and the terror in other states, and I'm here to stand firmly against that in my way, they added.

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Wilson also emphasized that the bills would require local institutions to cooperate with ICE without warrants.

Its also to mandate that places like schools and hospitals and public institutions cooperate with ICE agents and also pre-comply without warrants to be able to come into spaces and detain people and arrest them, Wilson said.

Council member Jeff Fusco, also supporting the resolution, highlighted that Akron police resources are already stretched thin.

This is the last thing we need in Akron, in Ohio, in the United States, Fusco said.

Council member Eric Garrett said the legislation highlights a broader need for police reform.

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All we're asking for is that exact same level for Jazmir Tucker and Mike Jones. We're asking for the same concern, Garrett said.

Wilson said the resolution is a symbolic gesture, but one that they hope will encourage municipalities across Ohio to speak out.

3News' Annabelle Childers contributed to this report.
(The Center Square)  Illinois lawmakers are advancing legislation to prohibit taxpayer funding for conversion therapy, even as the state continues to spend public dollars on gender-affirming care resources  a contradiction critics say exposes a deeper ideological divide over government-funded counseling and healthcare.

House Bill 4554 would amend the State Finance Act to prohibit any taxpayer funding for conversion therapy, voiding related contracts as against public policy. Conversion therapy for minors has been illegal in Illinois since 2016.

State Rep. Bill Hauter, R-Morton, questioned why lawmakers are targeting funding for an already-banned practice while taxpayer dollars continue to support gender-affirming initiatives such as IL Pride Connect, a state-funded hotline that provides referrals and resources for gender-affirming care.

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Conversion therapy has been banned in Illinois for a long time, Hauter told TCS. So I dont even understand why this bill is being brought forward, other than virtue-signaling to their base.

Supporters of HB 4554 argue the legislation reinforces Illinois long-standing opposition to conversion therapy and ensures taxpayer dollars are not used for practices the state deems harmful.

The bills sponsor, state Rep. Laura Faver Dias, D-Grayslake, could not be immediately reached for comment.

In 2025, IL Pride Connect, operated by the Legal Council for Health Justice, received $250,000 in Illinois taxpayer funding to launch a statewide legal hotline that assists LGBTQ individuals, including minors and their families, with issues related to health care access, discrimination, and gender-affirming care resources.

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Hauter argued the state is selectively funding one viewpoint while suppressing others.

Were deeply concerned about taxpayer money being spent on what I would call the ultimate conversion therapy, transitioning children, he said. Yet the state is banning counseling that encourages kids to wait, to explore alternatives, or to align with their biological sex.

As a physician, Hauter pointed to growing debate within the medical community over gender-affirming medical interventions for minors, noting that several national organizations have begun questioning the strength of evidence supporting such treatments for children.

The debate is far from settled, Hauter said, citing recent statements from medical groups, like the American Medical Association and the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, that have urged caution or delays when it comes to irreversible interventions for minors.

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Hauter said the proposal appears unnecessary on its face and may be designed to shield the states funding priorities if the Supreme Court overturns conversion therapy bans currently on the books.

If the Court finds those bans unconstitutional, this would allow the state to say, Fine, you can do it, but we wont pay for it, Hauter said. Thats still viewpoint discrimination.

The high court is reviewing a case out of Colorado that challenges whether bans on conversion therapy unlawfully restrict speech or religious expression. Hauter said HB 4554 could function as a legislative backstop if existing prohibitions fall.

Hauter also criticized the bills explicit carveout protecting gender-affirming care, arguing it exposes an imbalance in how Illinois treats competing viewpoints.

They have to be very careful to make sure theyre not banning their conversion therapy, he said. Theyre banning ours and ensuring state funding stays available for theirs.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 (UPI) -- Some seven months after a Supreme Court Case gave parents sweeping rights to remove their children from lessons that violate religious beliefs, Republicans expressed concern Tuesday about school districts ignoring the ruling, while Democrats voiced fears that the ruling condoned discrimination.

"In a world where new and controversial types of content are finding their way into classrooms, it is essential that parents maintain control over their child's education," Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., said in a congressional hearing of the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education, which he chairs.

In Mahmoud vs. Taylor, the high court ruled in June that Maryland parents had a First Amendment right to opt out their children from public school lessons involving LGBTQ+ themed storybooks that conflict with their religion. Tuesday's hearing provided a venue for House members to reflect on how the ruling has changed classrooms.

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Democrats, for example, voiced worries about the dangerous precedent it sets for censorship and exclusion.

"Inclusion is not indoctrination," said the committee's top Democrat, Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore. "Differences exist in the world around us. and part of a good education includes teaching students about tolerance and understanding."

Bonamici said Republicans are using parental rights as another means to undermine public education.

One witness, Yeshiva University Assistant Professor of Law Zalman Rothschild, said he fears the decision could have broad implications and could be disruptive for education.

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"I have no idea how in any sense this can be bounded," Rothschild said.

"For example, say a teacher tries to teach the value of nondiscrimination against religion and specifies its wrong to discriminate against Jews or against Muslims, and some parents have a problem with that because of their sincerely held religious beliefs, because Chapter 16 of Mark says that those who are not baptized are condemned," he said.

Rep. Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., urged her Republican colleagues not take the ruling as permission to turn public schools into the "latest front in a culture war."

Grijalva said Republicans were hypocritical to encourage federal involvement in education when they call themselves "the party that wants things to go back to the local level."

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"I want us to continue to support our duly locally elected school districts to make decisions about school curriculum," Grijalva said.

Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., held up a children's picture book from the Montgomery Area School District curriculum, "Uncle Bobby's Wedding," while she questioned witnesses. The story follows a young girl as she learns that her favorite uncle is getting married to his male partner, Jamie.

Lee said providing holistic education to American children became harder after the ruling.

"It's about exploiting religious exemptions to shield children from the reality of queer people existing," he said.

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Conservative education groups, however, applauded the power shift in schools after the ruling.

"Two of the story books, not only "Uncle Bobby's Wedding" but "Pride Puppy!" addressed non-binary individuals, drag queens and pride parades. These are individuals who don't have a clear sense of their identity regarding whether they want to be a firefighter or a fairy when they grow up. What we're dealing with is a designed attempt to change minds on perspectives," said Sarah Perry, vice president of Defending Education, a national advocacy group that supports more parental involvement in schools.

Throughout the hearing, Bonamici tried to steer the conversation to "hearing topics that actually matter," including ICE allegedly inflicting trauma in schools and the effects of the dismantling of the Department of Education.

She pointed out that the committee had yet to hold a hearing on gun violence in schools and that just Monday, a 16-year-old was shot at a Montgomery County Public School.

"No one is arguing that parents should not be involved in their children's education. We all agree on that," Bonamici said. "Banning books or preventing students from learning about differences only serves to perpetuate a culture of hatred and fear."
Federal and state lawmakers joined students who survived the shooting at Evergreen High School on Monday to announce proposed legislation that would require social media companies to respond more quickly to warrants involving potential threats, saying faster action could have prevented the September attack.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen and Democratic State Rep. Tammy Story unveiled the effort five months after a gunman shot two classmates and took his own life at the Jefferson County school on Sept. 10.

"This legislation could have prevented the devastating events on Sept. 10," Pettersen said.

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The shooting was preceded by a tip sent to the FBI in New York by the Anti-Defamation League 75 days before the attack, raising alarms about online posts threatening harm. The FBI filed three search warrants to obtain the IP address, URL and eventually the home address of the shooter, but the information did not reach Jefferson County Sheriff Reggie Marinelli until two days after the shooting.

Story's bill, which has not yet been introduced in the Colorado legislature, would require social media companies to respond to warrants regarding potential threats within 24 hours, according to the lawmaker. The companion federal measure would set the deadline at 72 hours.

"This bill does not ask companies to remove posts or shut down websites," Story said. "It simply demands that when a specific imminent threat is identified, the information moves fast enough to save lives."

A separate bipartisan bill already under consideration at the Colorado Capitol takes a similar but distinct approach. Senate Bill 26-011, sponsored by Republican Sen. Lisa Frizell and Democratic Sen. Dylan Roberts, along with Democratic Rep. Andrew Boesenecker, would require operators of certain websites, online services and mobile applications to provide a streamlined process for Colorado law enforcement to contact them at all times, including a staffed hotline. Operators would be required to acknowledge receipt of a search warrant within eight hours and comply within 72 hours. SB26-011 was assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee and has a hearing scheduled for Wednesday.

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The governor's office expressed support for SB26-011 but raised concerns about Story's proposal.

"The Governor is focused on ensuring law enforcement has the tools necessary to protect Colorado kids, including on social media platforms," the governor's office said. "Ensuring social media companies are responsive to warrants is an important tool to help law enforcement investigate and prosecute online crime and he believes SB26-011 does that."

Regarding Story's bill, the governor's office said it "has not been introduced and the Governor's office has not seen any language. The Governor wants to protect internet freedom while making Coloradans safer, but would have serious concerns about any bills that negatively impact freedom, innovation, and privacy. He is not comfortable with the government forcing social media companies to act as law enforcement."

Marinelli said the Evergreen case demonstrated the need for faster access to digital evidence.

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"Based on what we learned from Evergreen, we believe faster access to digital evidence could help stop future attacks," Marinelli said. "If we have probable cause that somebody is about to commit a crime, then we can go in and look for anything that they may have done to plan and prepare to commit that crime."

Students who survived the shooting spoke alongside the lawmakers, urging action beyond routine responses to school shootings.

"Every time this happens, we give our thoughts and prayers, but not a lot of policy," said Tyler Guyton, Evergreen High School student body president.

Guyton said the lasting trauma from the shooting continues to affect his classmates.

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"I still sit with friends into the late hours of the night who fear sleep because when they close their eyes the nightmares return," Guyton said. "Over the past several months I've found myself wondering what could we have done different? How could we prevent the next one? And while there's many pieces to that puzzle, here's an answer."

Pettersen said social media companies are aware threats are being made on their platforms but have not taken action because they fear liability.

"These social media companies know that this is happening and they fail to do anything about it because they don't want to bring any liability," Pettersen said. "We absolutely need to change that."
Renderings show plans for Project Jupiter, the massive data center complex planned for Dona Ana County. (Courtesy of STACK Infrastructure)

A new lawsuit accuses Dona Ana county leaders of violating the New Mexico Open Meetings Act in September before they approved $165 billion in bonds for the data center campus Project Jupiter.

The New Mexico Environmental Law Center filed the legal challenge on Friday and accuse elected leaders of abruptly pausing the testy September public hearing on Project Jupiter to go into a closed-door session without providing reasonable specificity as to the subject matter to be discussed.

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The Open Meetings Act is one of New Mexicos sunshine laws aimed at making government business occur in the publics view. The law prohibits elected leaders from setting policy or taking votes during closed sessions.

The sunshine laws in our state, like the Open Meetings Act, exist to ensure that when public government bodies make decisions that stand to impact communities health, safety, environment, and lives, New Mexico Environmental Law Center staff attorney Kacey Hovden said in a statement. These decisions are made in the public eye where community members have the opportunity to meaningfully participate and inform the outcome of their futures.

Fridays filing marks the second New Mexico Environmental Law Center lawsuit against the project. The other, filed in October, accused county commissioners of voting on an incomplete application when they approved the $165 billion in bonds for the development.

The county commission chair and a Project Jupiter spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.

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Critics of Project Jupiter for months have expressed concerns over its plans to use drinking water from a nearby troubled utility and to build natural gas plants to power its data processing.

Plans for Project Jupiter say its energy will come from a gas-powered microgrid  a self-reliant energy source that doesnt draw from an existing utilitys grid. Lawmakers have disagreed over whether a last-minute floor amendment to a 2025 law on grid technology would let such developments skirt the states Energy Transition Act, which requires utilities to use 50% renewable energy by 2030, 80% by 2040 and 100% by 2045.

Source NM reported last year that the developers initial air quality permit applications sought permission to emit more greenhouse gases than New Mexicos two largest cities combined.

BorderPlex Digital Assets, one of the companies behind Project Jupiter, in January announced that more than 100 companies had asked to receive updates on its initiative Project Green, one of New Mexicos largest planned renewable energy initiatives.

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The announcement said Project Green is a plan to get 500 megawatts of renewable power generation capacity by 2028 and one gigawatt by 2032.

State lawmakers who represent Southern New Mexico have also been critical of the way the deal came together. In November, Rep. Angelica Rubio (D-Las Cruces) and Rep. Micaela Lara Cadena (D-Mesilla) appeared at an environmental town hall meeting and called the project a transparency failure.

More recently, Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D-Las Cruces) co-sponsored Senate Bill 235, the Microgrid Oversight Act. If approved, the bill would require microgrid operators to file annual reports with water use and power generation figures. The Senate Conservation Committee on Tuesday voted to advance a committee substitute of the bill.

Project Jupiter, the air permit theyve applied for, would produce over 13 million [tons] of greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent to four large coal-burning fire plants, Steinborn said at the Tuesday morning hearing. If you require, as this bill would, that they meet ETA requirements, that would reduce the equivalent of 1 million cars a year worth of emission.
After at least eight top prosecutors left their positions in the Northern District of Illinois, the I-Team has learned at least two more are leaving.

"I think this is a historic level of turnover within this narrow span of time... We haven't seen the likes of this before," said ABC7 Chief Legal Analyst Gil Soffer.

Soffer was a federal prosecutor in the Chicago office for six years, and he says the continued level of turnover at the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Northern District is unprecedented.

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"A loss of that much talent at that senior level is really significant for this office or any U.S. Attorney's Office, because, like any office or business, it needs people with experience, who are seasoned, who have been in leadership, who know their way around, not only a courtroom, but how to manage a team of people," Soffer said.

Prosecutors are assigned to one of eight sections in the criminal division. The chiefs lead those sections.

The I-Team has learned, since new U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros took over, seven section chiefs have left with one reassigned, including a prosecutor who resigned after serving as the chief of the criminal division, along with a top national security prosecutor.

SEE ALSO | US Attorney's Office in Chicago experiencing unprecedented leadership exodus, legal community says

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"Certainly, someone who's looking to take that job is going to have to ask, 'Why is everybody leaving?'" said Soffer.

The wave of departures is not limited to the Northern District of Illinois. U.S. Attorney's Offices nationwide have lost 14% of their workforce, going from 11,817 to 10,145, from December 2024 to December 2025, according to government data reviewed by the ABC7 Data Team. That percentage drop is even steeper in the Northern District.

"What is a local problem, is a national problem... Head count is really important when you have an enormous load of cases that you're handling, and that is the fact at these U.S. Attorney's Offices," said Soffer.

A year ago, the Northern District of Illinois told the I-Team they had 144 prosecutors.

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Boutros was sworn in as U.S. Attorney in April. Under his leadership the office continues to shrink.

As of Friday, it had a total of 121 prosecutors, a 16% drop.

It's a result that's seen by some former AUSAs as an indictment of Trump administration priorities to try immigration related cases over white collar crime and corruption matters.

"The problem is if those priorities are not what applicants want and not what they're looking for in a U.S. attorney or assistant U.S. attorney position, then the department's going to be hard pressed not to lose people and to attract people," Soffer told the I-Team.

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Just before this story aired, the U.S. Attorney's Office reached out to say since Friday, they have a new total of 125 prosecutors.

Since being named the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District in April of last year, the I-Team has repeatedly asked to sit down with Boutros for an interview, but he has declined.

He told us in a statement, "We thank our former Section Chiefs for their public service and wish them well in their future endeavors. We fully anticipated there would be leadership departures with the incoming Administration. All but one of the Section Chiefs who departed in the past year either took the government-wide early retirement offer or chose to leave the Office after the government-wide shutdown and after the launch of Operation Midway Blitz, a U.S. immigration operation that was the largest-ever enforcement surge in the Northern District of Illinois. We are fortunate to have experienced AUSAs who have stepped up to serve in leadership roles as Section Chiefs. Nearly all the new Chiefs appointed within the last year have extensive experience, including as federal and/or state prosecutors. In addition, we are energized by the fact that we are hiring dozens of new Assistant U.S. Attorneys in the Criminal and Civil Divisions, ten of whom started in the last several weeks with many more to be onboard in the near future. Many of our new hires come with significant experience, including substantial prosecutorial experience from across the country and will be able to hit the ground running. It's exciting to see the Chicago U.S. Attorney's Office be a magnet for such impressive talent."
Editor's note: The story was updated with a report from Chernihiv Oblast and a comment from Oleksii Kuleba, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for Restoration.

At least six people have been killed and 41 others injured in Russian attacks against Ukraine over the past day, local authorities said on Feb. 9.

Russia launched 11 Iskander-M ballistic missiles and 149 drones at Ukraine overnight, the Air Force said. Ukrainian air defenses intercepted 116 drones.

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At least 23 drones and several missiles made it through, striking 15 locations. The fall of debris was recorded in six locations. The Air Force did not specify the number of missiles intercepted.



In Donetsk Oblast, a Russian attack killed a person and injured six others in the city of Kramatorsk. In another Russian strike against the village of Oleksiievo-Druzhkivka, one person was killed, and another suffered injuries, Governor Vadym Filashkin said.

In Kharkiv Oblast, Russian forces targeted the town of Bohodukhiv, killing a 41-year-old woman and a 10-year-old boy, as well as injuring three others. Another Russian attack on the village of Luzhok injured an 18-year-old woman and a 73-year-old man, according to Governor Oleh Syniehubov.

In Chernihiv Oblast, a Russian drone strike killed a 71-year-old man and injured four others in the town of Novhorod-Siverskyi, Governor Viacheslav Chaus said.

In Odesa Oblast, Russian drones attacked residential buildings overnight on Feb. 9, killing one person and injuring two others, Governor Oleh Kiper said.

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In Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, two women, aged 18 and 47, suffered injuries in the Nikopol district, while a 74-year-old woman was injured in the Synelnykove district on Feb. 8. Another 9 people, including a 13-year-old girl, were injured in a Russian drone attack on the Synelnykove district overnight on Feb. 9, according to Governor Oleksandr Hanzha.

In Sumy Oblast, a Russian drone injured two women, aged 25 and 35, and two men, aged 34 and 36, in the Shostka community. In another Russian drone attack on the Sumy community, a 19-year-old man and a 16-year-old woman were injured. In the Komyshi community, a 33-year-old man also suffered injuries due to a Russian drone attack, the local military administration said.

In Kherson Oblast, Russian forces targeted 27 settlements, injuring six people, over the past day, the local military administration said.

During overnight attacks on Feb. 9, Ukrainian rail infrastructure was damaged, Ukrainian Railways, also known as Ukrzaliznytsia, reported. The strikes hit a locomotive and an overhead line.

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Later in the day, Oleksii Kuleba, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for Restoration, confirmed that railway infrastructure in Chernihiv and Sumy oblasts had been targeted.

In Sumy Oblast, Russian forces struck a locomotive and damaged the tracks, disrupting train traffic. A Russian drone also hit a vehicle carrying railway workers en route to repair the tracks, injuring one man. In Chernihiv Oblast, a Russian attack struck a diesel train, sparking a fire, according to Kuleba.

Russia also targeted facilities of Ukraine's state-run oil and gas company, Naftogaz, in Poltava and Sumy oblasts on Feb. 9. According to CEO Serhii Koretskyi, this marked the 20th attack on the company's infrastructure since the start of the year.

In Volyn Oblast, Russian forces targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure near the town of Novovolynsk, a few kilometers from the Polish border, local authorities said. Mayor Borys Karpus said a local high-voltage substation was knocked out of service and heavily damaged in the attack, leaving more than 80,000 customers without power.

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Read also: Situation remains difficult Ukraine grapples with ongoing power crisis ahead of another cold snap

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
A lawsuit filed on behalf of the owner of the former Lebanon Outlet Marketplace says the city is demanding unnecessary road improvements and stalling a large redevelopment in a bid to get them.

Lebanon Ventures plans to build 435 multifamily homes and 143,700 square feet of commercial and office space on the former mall grounds just south of Interstate 40 between Murfreesboro and Old Murfreesboro Roads, according to the lawsuit filed Jan. 30 in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.

The city is requiring Lebanon Ventures to make improvements on part of Old Murfreesboro Road with a additional turn lane and widening, the lawsuit said.

The former Lebanon Outlet Marketplace is being redeveloped with a mixed-use plan.

The road upgrades are cited in the lawsuit as a condition to the city issuing certificates of completion for residential units in Phase 2 of the project.

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Lebanon's engineering department "is requiring the turning lane because of the development," City Attorney Andy Wright said.

"But were still in the process of gathering information and forwarding it to our liability carrier," Wright said.

Lebanon Ventures argues that a completed traffic study concludes that Old Murfreesboro Road is adequate to serve traffic needs now and in the future, making the extra work unnecessary, according to the lawsuit. It also alleges the city has demanded improvements that are beyond what the city can legally require.

The road upgrades are estimated in the lawsuit to cost at least $570,000.

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Lebanon Ventures maintains in the lawsuit that the demand for road upgrades has cost the developer at least $104,000 and the figure increases by about $26,000 per month.

The lawsuit said Lebanon Ventures has offered a participation agreement to offset costs of the road improvements, such as a reduction in impact fees. But, it argues, the city is leveraging its monopoly permit power to force Lebanon Ventures to pay for unrelated public improvements.

Lebanon Ventures attorneys Todd Panther and Thomas Hall declined comment.

The mall closed in January 2022 and Lebanon Ventures acquired the property the same year, the lawsuit said.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Lebanon Outlet mall redevelopment brings lawsuit for road demands
Is it legal to grow marijuana at home in Mississippi? Some states allow it, but overall, possession is complicated here.

About half of all U.S. states have moved to fully legalize recreational marijuana. In Mississippi, weed is partially decriminalized, so amounts for personal use should be fine for most people. But it's not fully legal, so there's a limit to how much you can have and where you can have it.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order that eased federal penalties in December, but that doesn't change state marijuana laws.

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Twenty-four states have adopted laws allowing adults to buy and consume cannabis for non-medical use, but Mississippi continues to prohibit it. You won't go to jail for having a joint, but you could pay a fine.

The Magnolia State also has specific regulations around medical marijuana.

Here's what we know about buying and using weed and related products in the Mississippi.

Can I grow my own marijuana in Mississippi?

No, it is not legal to cultivate cannabis here. It's a felony to sell or grow weed in Mississippi, according to NORML, a nonprofit that advocates for the legalization of use by adults.

The state regulates the licensed facilities that cultivate cannabis for medical use or production.

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Even people with medical marijuana cards can't grow their own at home, the Mississippi Medical Cannabis Program said.

Is Mississippi recreational marijuana legal in Mississippi?

No, Mississippi does not allow adult use of cannabis. But having small amounts for personal use is no longer penalized.

That means pot is partially decriminalized. But not legal.

What are the penalties for marijuana possession in Mississippi?

According to NORML, possessing 30 grams or less might lead to a fine of up to $250. For a second offense, you could face a misdemeanor charge, spend 5 to 60 days in jail, and pay a fine of up to $250.

Don't smoke and drive. While it's generally good sense not to drive while buzzed or otherwise impaired, having marijuana in the cab of a vehicle is at least a misdemeanor, no matter how small the amount. Having less than 30 grams in a car outside the trunk could land you 90 days in jail or a $1,000 fine, per NORML.

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Hash and concentrates can get you harsher penalties. Possessing 0.1 grams or less may result in a year in jail and a fine of up to $1,000.

It's also a felony to have more than 30 grams of weed, and fines increase based on the amount of the substance or severity of the crime, per NORML.

Having paraphernalia, like pipes or rolling papers, is a misdemeanor that could get you six months in jail or a $500 fine.

What states have legalized recreational marijuana?

According to DISA Global Solutions, a company that handles background checks and drug testing, 24 states and the District of Columbia have fully legalized marijuana:

Alaska (as of 2014)

Arizona (as of 2020)

California (as of 2016)

Colorado (as of 2012)

Connecticut (as of 2021)

Delaware (as of 2023)

District of Columbia (as of 2015)

Leaves of a mature marijuana plant in Daly City, California.

Illinois (as of 2019)

Maine (as of 2016)

Massachusetts (as of 2016)

Maryland (as of 2023)

Michigan (as of 2018)

Minnesota (as of 2023)

Missouri (as of 2022)

Montana (as of 2020)

Nevada (as of 2016)

New Jersey (as of 2020)

New Mexico (as of 2021)

New York (as of 2021)

Ohio (as of 2023)

Oregon (as of 2014)

Rhode Island (as of 2022)

Vermont (as of 2018)

Virginia (as of 2021)

Washington (as of 2012)

Does Mississippi allow medical marijuana? How do I get it?

According to DISA Global Solutions, marijuana is only legal for medical purchase and consumption in Mississippi.

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If you want to buy medical cannabis, you'll need a medical prescription card. State-registered doctors can prescribe weed for more than 20 conditions, such as cancer, glaucoma or Parkinson's Disease. Check the list maintained by the Mississippi Medical Cannabis Program to see if you qualify.

There are costs and fees associated with getting a card. It's $25 usually or $15 for indigent patients, veterans and people on Medicaid. (It's waived for disabled first responders and disabled veterans.) There are also costs to see a doctor to certify the condition that aren't set by the state.

Caregivers, like for minors, also have to pay the $25 fee and $37 for a background check.

With a prescription card in hand, you can visit a dispensary. Insurance doesn't cover it, so be prepared to pay out of pocket.

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The state allows cardholders to have no more than 28 Mississippi Medical Cannabis Equivalency Units (MMCEUs) in their possession. No more than 24 units can be bought in a 30-day period.

One MMCEU is equivalent to:

3.5 grams of flower.

1 gram of total THC in cannabis concentrates such as oils and wax.

1 gram of of total THC in an infused product.

Vanessa Countryman is the Trending Topics Reporter for the the Deep South Connect Team Georgia. Email her at Vcountryman@gannett.com.

Bonnie Bolden is the Deep South Connect reporter for Mississippi with USA TODAY Network. Email her at bbolden@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Is it legal to grow weed at home in MS? What state marijuana laws say
Ohio retail billionaire Les Wexner's name may appear more than previously known in the Jeffrey Epstein files released by the Department of Justice in recent weeks.

Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking minors, previously worked as Wexner's financial adviser. Wexner said he severed ties with Epstein in 2007. In 2025, Congress passed a law ordering the DOJ to release millions of files on Epstein.

While victims' names have been redacted, members of Congress have pointed to at least a few cases where the names of men associated with Epstein were also redacted. One of them was Wexner.

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U.S. Rep. Tom Massie, R-Kentucky, posted a document on X on Feb. 9 that referred to a "well-known retired CEO" who was living in Ohio. In his social media post, Massie called on the DOJ to un-redact the document.

Hours later, Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanch posted to X that the redaction of Les Wexner's name had been removed from the document, which appeared to label Wexner as a "co-conspirator." Blanche also wrote that Wexner's name "already appears in the files thousands of times. DOJ is hiding nothing."

Representatives for Wexner have long denied the Ohio retail mogul had any knowledge of Epstein's crimes. Wexner has said he cut Epstein off in 2007 when he was being investigated for solicitation in Florida, though records have shown the two communicated in 2008 as well. Documents the Justice Department released show that Wexner attorneys said Epstein stole hundreds of millions of dollars from Wexner.

The Assistant U.S. Attorney told Mr. Wexners legal counsel in 2019 that Mr. Wexner was neither a co-conspirator nor target in any respect. Mr. Wexner cooperated fully by providing background information on Epstein and was never contacted again," a spokesperson for Wexner told The Dispatch again on Feb. 10.

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U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, also told reporters that multiple mysterious redactions were made by the DOJ to the files it released on Epstein, according to reporting in The Guardian on Feb. 9 . Raskin noted Wexner's name as one of those redaction.

Members of Congress are allowed to view largely unredacted versions of the files released to the general public on Epstein. Raskin told The Guardian that he wanted to see the unredacted files to understand how the DOJ handled its redaction process.

Columbus Commons was re-dedicated and renamed in honor of John F. Wolfe during a Downtown ceremony on Thursday, May 11, 2017. Leslie H. Wexner, L Brands chairman and CEO speaks during the ceremony. [Fred Squillante/Dispatch]

What do we know about Wexner in the Epstein files?

This isn't the first time Wexner's name has come up as a potential co-conspirator in the Epstein files released by the DOJ.

An email released Dec. 23 that was sent by an FBI agent in New York on July 7, 2019, listed Wexner and asked for an "an update on the status of the 10 co-conspirators."

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An Aug. 15, 2019, FBI email released Jan. 30 also labeled Wexner and others as "secondary co-conspirators." But the email said only that there was "limited evidence regarding his involvement," that investigators were in touch with Wexner's attorney and a subpoena had been served.

Wexner also is listed in a December 19, 2019, memo written by assistant U.S. attorneys titled "Investigation into potential co-conspirators of Jeffrey Epstein." The memo details Wexner's fallout with Epstein in 2007.

In each instance, Wexner has been mentioned alongside other Epstein associates, such as Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving time in federal prison for her involvement in Epstein's crimes.

Representatives for Wexner have long pointed to a 2019 news conference in which Brad Edwards, an attorney who has represented a number of Epstein accusers, said that he had doubts about claims that Wexner was aware of Epstein's crimes. Edwards called Wexner's denial that he knew about Epstein's activities "very highly likely to be true."

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Wexner had previously said that one of the reasons he severed ties with Epstein was because he discovered his former financial adviser had stolen millions from his family. Wexner's attorneys told the U.S. Attorney's office that Epstein eventually repaid $100 million to the Wexners, according to an investigative memo released by the DOJ.

"That misconduct, together with fees that Epstein paid himself for his services to Wexner, appears to account for virtually all of Epstein's wealth," according to the memo.

Wexner and Epstein had a long and close relationship.

In an undated draft letter from Epstein to Wexner after their falling out. Epstein wrote that he and the Ohio billionaire were indebted to each other and that they shared "gang stuff" for 15 years.

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In the letter, Epstein also wrote that he had "sat with Abigail," who asked questions and made what he described as "unfair, aggressive and false accusations." While Epstein wrote that he answered some of those questions, he said he couldn't answer them fully "without violating a confidence with you."

"It appears Epstein was furious that Mr. Wexner refused to meet with him years after Mr. Wexner terminated Epstein and cut off all ties with him following Mr. Wexners discovery of Epsteins theft and criminal conduct," a Wexner representative said in a prepared statement. "The draft appears to fit a pattern of untrue, outlandish, and delusional statements made by Epstein in desperate attempts to perpetuate his lies and justify his misconduct."

Dispatch investigative reporter Max Filby can be reached by email at mfilby@dispatch.com. Find him on X at the handle @MaxFilby or on Facebook at @ReporterMaxFilby.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Epstein files show DOJ redacted Les Wexner, lawmakers say
LIMA  A majority of Lima councilors remain steadfast in their support for the planned redesign of Cable Road.

Lima council passed the second reading of an ordinance to purchase right-of-way property along Cable Road by a 5-3 vote Monday, the first step toward redesigning the Cable Road corridor and two of Limas most dangerous intersections.

The redesign will install a center median on Cable Road from Latham Avenue to Windsor Drive, with signalized U-turns at each end. Traffic flow would then travel to two northbound lanes and one southbound lane from Windsor to College Park West, with an additional two-way left-turn lane in between.

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Lima council met in special session last week to consider the first reading of the right-of-way ordinance, which passed by a 5-3 vote necessitating a second reading when council met again Monday. Council will consider a third reading of the ordinance at its next meeting.

Councilors Todd Gordon, Jon Neeper and Jesse Lowe II opposed the legislation on both readings amid backlash from the public and business owners in the Cable Road corridor.

Business (owners) are extremely concerned with how the project was put together, Neeper said, reading into the record objections from business owners who say the proposed traffic patterns could harm their businesses.

One such email from an attorney for the owners of Clocktower Plaza asked council to delay the second reading of the ordinance, alleging affected business owners were not properly notified nor given opportunity to comment on revisions to the project.

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The email described the project as a solution in search of a problem, questioning the reliability of the citys traffic, safety and economic-impact data in relation to the harm a center-median design would cause to businesses in the plaza.

Should council proceed, Clocktower Plaza will act decisively to protect its property rights if necessary, attorney Christopher Gagin wrote.

Opposition to the project proved overwhelming to Gordon, who said he could not support the project in its current form with so many objections to the proposal to convert Cable Road into a single-lane road.

It would be nice if we could come up with some other solution, Gordon said.

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Council President Jamie Dixon said a majority of the negative comments left on the citys Facebook page last week originated outside city limits.

Dixon said he checked voter registrations of commenters to identify how many lived within city limits, finding only 15 commenters who live in Lima. A majority of comments came instead from American Township, he said.

We understand surrounding communities and townships are going to be affected by it as they travel through our city, Dixon said. However, we owe it to our residents, and we owe it to this community to make sure that when we look at Cable Road project, it is designed to improve safety for everyone who uses this corridor: drivers, workers, students, pedestrians, nearby neighborhoods.

Dixon and a majority of councilors continue to support the project, citing improvements to pedestrian and motorist safety.

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Councilor Tony Wilkerson said hes witnessed severe crashes on Cable Road.

One thing weve learned is that four lanes does encourage speeding, Wilkerson said.

A stay-at-home mother who lives near Cable Road spoke in favor of the project Monday, commending council for listening to design experts and speaking of her desire to walk to nearby shops and restaurants.

I dont feel safe walking along Cable, Samantha Ezell said, especially not if I need to bring my children with me. Thats why I commend you.  You know a brief inconvenience will lead to greater economic stability for all businesses in the area. You saw how many people were being hurt, physically or financially, by wrecks in the area.

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Apology to President Obama

Councilor Derry Glenn took several minutes at the conclusion of Mondays meeting to apologize to former President Barack Obama following a post published to President Donald Trumps Truth social media account depicting the former president and First Lady Michelle Obama as apes.

Id like to apologize from my heart to President Obama and his wife, Glenn said. Im going to apologize. That was wrong. I didnt like it. I know politicians are afraid to say something about it. Not Derry Glenn.  Ive been on here for 32 years, and Ive never seen nothing like that in my life.

Other actions

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 Council approved entrance and membership fees for the Lima Aquatic Park for 2026.

Daily rates start at $5 for veterans, seniors and children ages 4-12. Those rates increase to $7 for teens and adults ages 18-59. Family discounts will be $20 for a family of four, with an add-on rate of $5. Infants and toddlers are admitted free.

Monthly membership rates start at $50 for veterans, seniors and children ages 4-12, while teens and adults will be chargd $70 a month.

Summer season passes are $100 for veterans, seniors and children ages 4-12, and $140 for teens and adults.

Annual membership rates for veterans, seniors and children ages 4-12 are $160, while rates for teens and adults rise to $230 for an annual membership.

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Family discounts are $400 for a summer pass and $650 for an annual membership for a family of four.

 Council approved an amended fee structure for rentals at the Greater Lima Region Park & Amphitheater.

For-profit enterprises will be charged a $350 facility rental fee and a refundable $350 deposit to operate at the park Sunday through Thursday. The city will charge a $1,000 facility rental fee and $1,000 refundable deposit to for-profit entites on Fridays and Saturdays.

Non-profit entities will be charged a $350 facility rental fee with a $350 refundable deposit Sunday through Saturday under the new fee schedule.

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The fees do not include use of the sound system, show lighting, security or permit fees.

The Lima Police Department will charge $45 per hour per officer to provide security to events at the amphitheater.

The venue requires security for events where at least 150 guests are expected and events where alcohol will be served. Private security does not satisfy this requirement.

Council also approved:

 The 2026 budget on first reading. The $46 million budget includes $13 million for the Lima Police Department and $12.7 million for the Lima Fire Department.

 An ordinance permitting the mayor to apply for, receive or administer funds from Procter & Gambles large site community grant at a rate not to exceed $99,034.

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 Ordinances for the mayor to enter into two contracts with CDM Smith Inc. The first is for water modeling and system analysis to update the citys existing water distribution model for no more than $129,000.

The second ordinance amends a contract with CDM Smith for further investigation of raw water and finished water conveyance and pumping improvements, as well as subsurface site investigations at both potential locations for the new water treatment plant. The contract is not to exceed an additional $225,000.

 An ordinance for the mayor to enter into an engineering and design contract with Burgess & Niple Inc. for design of a 24-inch water main not to exceed $894,000.

 An ordinance allowing the auditor to transfer $56,000 from the general fund to debt service each month for a period of 11 months, or $620,000 total.

 An ordinance authorizing the mayor to amend a contract with Schimmoeller Construction for construction of the Lima Veterans Memorial Grove, providing up to $27,500 in additional funds toward the project.

 An ordinance authorizing the mayor to advertise bids and enter into a contract for sidewalk construction on Spring, McDonel, North Main, North Metcalf and Murphy streets.

 An ordinance authorizing the mayor to acquire 735 Holly Street for the Lima Community Improvement Corporation using Welcome Home Ohio funds to restore and sell the property.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE)  The Tennessee Highway Patrol is slated to conduct several sobriety checkpoints in East Tennessee during the month of February.

Law enforcement agencies are legally required to publicly announce the dates and locations of any checkpoints. Information on THP checkpoints is typically shared on social media and can be found here on the Tennessee Highway Patrol website.

Tennessee notifying 8,800 commercial drivers to prove citizenship, lawful residence

Date County Location Friday, Feb. 13 Blount Miser Station Road east of Quarry Road Friday, Feb. 20 Campbell Demory Road at White Bridge Friday, Feb. 20 Knox Mascot Road at McBee Lane Saturday, Feb. 21 Knox Gov. John Sevier Highway at French Road Friday, Feb. 20 Loudon US-70 at US-321 Friday, Feb. 27 Sevier State Route 139 at Amanda Lane

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Checkpoints are deployed to detect impaired driving in addition to ensuring compliance with state requirements on licensing, registration, and insurance.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WATE 6 On Your Side.
North Carolina House Republicans focused their ire on Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden in a hourslong hearing on safety in Charlotte Monday.

Other local leaders received a warmer reception despite months of consternation following a high-profile killing.

The House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform questioned McFadden, Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles, Charlotte City Manager Marcus Jones, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Estella Patterson and District Attorney Spencer Merriweather in a hearing Monday.

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The Republican-controlled committee called the hearing months after the killing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on the Blue Line light rail ignited a flurry of local, state and national debate about Charlottes approach to crime prevention. A second stabbing on the light rail in December triggered more controversy.

The oversight hearing was previously scheduled for Jan. 29, but GOP committee leaders pushed it after a court ruling limited their ability to talk about the suspect in the Zarutska case, DeCarlos Brown. Committee leadership alleged in a court motion that ruling was unconstitutional, and a court hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.

Despite the focus on transit safety before the hearing, much of the day was involved committee members and McFadden trading barbs. The embattled sheriff faces four primary challengers in the upcoming March election while under investigation by the State Bureau of Investigations. The SBIs effort was triggered by a since-dismissed petition to remove McFadden from office that alleged misconduct and mismanagement.

Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles, center, receives a hug following the conclusion of the House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform on Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, at the North Carolina Legislative Building. (Kaitlin McKeown/The News & Observer)

McFadden declined to answer multiple questions during the hearing, citing the ongoing investigation, in a move that appeared to frustrate committee members who accused the sheriff of deflecting blame. McFadden touted that sheriffs office initiatives hes launched became models for other state and national programs. McFadden said that, as a Black man and a Democrat, its been harder for him to develop relationships with legislators.

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I want a relationship with each and everyone of you all. But will you accept that relationship from me? he told the committee.

Things were far more cordial when other Charlotte leaders took questions.

Patterson, who took over CMPD in December, said crime is down so far in 2026 after previously falling in 2025. City leaders also answered questions about preparations for other major events in Charlotte, including the 2027 Military World Summer Games.

Few questions were asked about the Zarutska case and safety on public transit.

Committee co-chairman Brenden Jones, a Republican who ran Mondays hearing, told The Charlotte Observer his main question about transit involved the Charlotte Area Transit Systems spending on safety and security. City leaders told the committee Monday CATSs security spending is up.

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He answered the question that they are doing more, so were going to give them the opportunity to prove themselves, Jones said of the city managers answer.

The committee co-chair said his biggest takeaway from the hearing was that Mecklenburg has a lot of problems with its sheriffs department and security.

A pair of Democrats on the committee, Eric Ager of Buncombe County and Maria Cervania of Wake County, called Mondays hearing cynical partisan theatre.

Charlotte is a symbol of the importance of our cities, and the legislature wishes to make an example of it to cow other cities into servile submission, they said in a statement.

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Interim CATS CEO Brent Cagle and Mecklenburg County Manager Mike Bryant were also invited to appear Monday but were not questioned by the House committee. Jones attributed that to the lengthy time spent on McFadden and said his committee will probably absolutely come back to this.

The Charlotte Observer provided live updates below from Raleigh.

2:35 p.m. City leaders talk safety initiatives, security for major events

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Estella Patterson testifies before the House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform on Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, at the North Carolina Legislative Building. (Kaitlin McKeown/The News & Observer)

Committee members remained relatively cordial in their questions for Patterson, Lyles and Jones.

They talked about security plans for major events and Pattersons Operation Safe Season, a December initiative in uptown.

The city team also received questions about the mayors Racial Equity Initiative and how its spent city dollars. City officials said much of that money went to infrastructure investments like sidewalks in underserved communities.

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The House committee also asked about a $3.4 million public relations contract for CATS that raised questions about spending priorities in the wake of the light rail stabbing. The city manager said marketing is just a portion of CATS budget and that spending on transit security is up.

The committee adjourned about 2:40 p.m.

After the hearing, the Observer asked Rep. Jones about the tone of the Charlotte questioning  particularly because there had been such sharp GOP criticism of Charlotte for Zarutskas stabbing and public safety. Jones said the main question about CATS involved funding discussions at the end.

He answered the question that they are doing more, so were going to give them the opportunity to prove themselves, Rep. Jones said about City Manager Jones. Jones also said the legislature will probably come back to this when asked about people invited to Mondays hearing who didnt speak.

2:10 p.m.: Patterson asked about ICE, Border Patrol

Cunningham asked Patterson what she would say to people whove started to follow ICE and Border Patrol agents during enforcement.

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As the Trump administration has ramped up immigration operations in multiple cities, some residents have started following agents in cars and blowing whistles to alert others nearby, Cunningham said. Patterson said people should respect law enforcement and not interfere with police officers doing lawful work.

Cunningham said people shouldnt put themselves in harms way or antagonize federal agents.

Asked by committee members about Border Patrols November operation in Charlotte, Patterson said while she wasnt in office yet and that local law enforcement officers dont enforce immigration law.

Moving forward, Patterson said shed like to receive information beforehand from federal agencies planning operations in Charlotte. Patterson said CMPD regularly works with federal agencies on violent crime reduction.

1:40 p.m.: Hearing resumes with CMPD chief

Mondays hearing resumed with questions for Patterson, who took over in recent months as head of CMPD from Johnny Jennings. Patterson, who previously led Raleighs police department, received a warmer reception as she addressed the committees questions. One member joked he would ask her which city she likes better.

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Patterson said she wants to address staffing shortages and embrace technology and data to improve performance. Asked about her relationship with McFadden, Patterson said the sheriff is a friend but that they dont tell each other how to run their offices.

Crime is down so far in Charlotte in 2026 after rates of violent crime and property crime fell in 2025, Patterson said.

12:30 p.m.: Committee breaks for lunch after grilling McFadden

Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden speaks with media during a break in the House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform on Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, at the North Carolina Legislative Building. (Kaitlin McKeown/The News & Observer)

McFaddens testimony wrapped up after more than two hours, with Jones saying the sheriff ignored the committees requests.

Throughout the two hours, the committee probed McFadden about common criticisms against him  at times quoting directly from former employees resignations.

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Asked what branch of government his position falls under, he said Mecklenburg County. He then couldnt answer a follow-up asking what the three branches of government are.

McFadden declined to answer some questions, citing an ongoing State Bureau of Investigation probe into his tenure and litigation over deaths at the jail.

He pivoted on multiple occasions to the services the MCSO provides to people in custody to help them transition back into the world after jail time. McFadden repeatedly said his office has been a model for other agencies across North Carolina and the country.

The committee recessed for an hourlong lunch break after concluding its questioning of McFadden.

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McFadden told reporters during the break he felt he was painted in a bad light by a politically motivated committee. But he vowed to be more proactive in building relationships with legislators and said he hoped theyd do the same.

11:50 a.m.: McFadden, committee continue to clash

Rep. Brenden Jones questions Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden during a session of the House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform on Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, at the North Carolina Legislative Building. (Kaitlin McKeown/The News & Observer)

Tensions stayed high between McFadden and the committee as his hourslong testimony continued.

Committee members appeared frustrated with McFadden continuing to decline to answer some questions, citing the petition to remove him from office and litigation over deaths at the county jail. The committee briefly recessed for McFadden to confer with his attorney about what he can and cannot say in Mondays hearing.

Some committee members accused McFadden of deflecting blame for issues within Mecklenburgs criminal justice system and questioned him about state policies and laws, such as how frequently jail officers have to check on people in custody and what branch of government his position falls under.

McFadden said as a Democrat and a Black man, its been harder for him to build relationships with the GOP-dominated General Assembly than it is for other sheriffs across North Carolina.

I want a relationship with each and everyone of you all. But will you accept that relationship from me? he said.

10:35 a.m.: Cunningham questions McFadden about compliance, music studio

Mecklenburg County Democratic Rep. Carla Cunningham questions Mecklenburg County District Attorney Spencer Merriweather during a session of the House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform on Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, at the North Carolina Legislative Building. (Kaitlin McKeown/The News & Observer)

After initially declining to question McFadden citing their legal dispute, Cunningham asked McFadden about his jail policies.

McFadden said he couldnt answer Cunninghams question about whether his office is under a corrective action plan from the Department of Health and Human Services because it was part of the petition against him. Cunningham responded that the issue isnt part of the petition and asked if the MCSO is compliant with DHHS policies, and McFadden said yes.

Cunningham questioned McFaddens position on more jail inspectors, noting the number of deaths in the county jail during McFaddens time in office. McFadden said a jail inspector previously lied about inspections in Mecklenburg.

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Cunningham also asked about the music studio opened in the county jail during McFaddens tenure and criticism of the program from some crime victims family members.

It is part of rehabilitation. You can look at many studies and see music helps us, McFadden said, adding hes spoken with a victims family member who criticized the program.

10:20 a.m.: McFadden questioned about ICE

Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden testifies before the House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform on Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, at the North Carolina Legislative Building. (Kaitlin McKeown/The News & Observer)

McFadden told the committee his office follows the law when it comes to working with federal immigration officials.

The sheriff has faced criticism from state and federal officials and about his relationship with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and pushed back on state legislation meant to increase cooperation with ICE.

McFadden was asked about an email the committee said was written by an MCSO staffer that said the office was losing out on grant money because of its immigration policies and whether hed change his policies to unlock more dollars.

If my policies did not follow the law, I would change that policy. But my policies have followed the law, McFadden said.

10:05 a.m.: McFadden questioned about petition allegations

Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden awaits the start of the House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform on Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, at the North Carolina Legislative Building. (Kaitlin McKeown/The News & Observer)

McFadden said he couldnt respond to direct or hypothetical questions about a petition to remove him from office filed in January, citing an ongoing State Bureau of Investigations probe into the same allegations against him.

I have to respect the process, McFadden said.

He noted that one of the committee members, Charlotte Democrat Rep. Carla Cunningham, was among the complainants in the petition.

Cunningham and a group of former Sheriffs Office employees filed the petition last month, alleging mismanagement and abuse by McFadden. The petition was dismissed in court for procedural reasons but could be revived following the SBI investigation.

Jones attempted to question McFadden about two specific allegations in the petition: that McFadden directed employees to transport dignitaries to bars and strip clubs and that he threatened Cunningham ahead of a vote on a controversial immigration bill.

Cunningham said she had no questions for McFadden, also citing the ongoing investigation.

9:45 a.m.: Merriweather kicks off testimony

Mecklenburg County District Attorney Spencer Merriweather testifies before the House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform on Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, at the North Carolina Legislative Building. (Kaitlin McKeown/The News & Observer)

Merriweather was the first Charlotte leader questioned at Mondays hearing. He was asked about his offices staffing levels, the impacts of recent state legislation and his offices handling of repeat offenders.

The District Attorneys Office is still understaffed despite Irynas Law funding new positions, Merriweather told the committee. He noted Mecklenburg County also funds some positions in addition to state money, which he said is rare in North Carolina.

Merriweather says his office faces unique challenges compared to other parts of the state given Charlottes size. The sheriffs office focuses mostly on jail and courts staffing rather than daily law and traffic enforcement, which is primarily handled by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department and other local police agencies.

Right now were not built for the kind of community that we have in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, he said. ... Its a heavy burden.

Merriweathers office works with local leaders to identify hot areas where criminal activity is higher than average and situations where mental health is a factor in case, he said.

Merriweather said his default position is that people who have committed violent crimes should be held in custody until their trial, but added that decision is up to a judge who must weigh multiple factors.

9:15 a.m.: GOP committee alleges incompetence by Charlotte leaders

Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles, second from left, awaits the start of the House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform on Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, at the North Carolina Legislative Building. (Kaitlin McKeown/The News & Observer)

Mondays hearing began with harsh words from the committees Republican leadership, with co-Chairman Brenden Jones accusing the Charlottes leaders in the room of incompetence that contributed to Zarutskas killing.

Jones called Brown a career criminal and said Charlottes public safety policies prioritize diversity, equity and inclusion over safety.

Her blood is on your hands, Jones said of Zarutska.

8:50 a.m.: Charlotte leaders arrive for House hearing

People start to arrive for a North Carolina House hearing in Raleigh on Monday. A collection of Charlotte leaders are expected to be questioned about public safety and the Iryna Zarutska stabbing last year.

Charlotte-area leaders expected to testify Monday began arriving in the Legislative Buildings auditorium before the 9 a.m. hearing was scheduled to begin.

McFadden and Patterson were among the first to arrive.

Other officials in the audience include Charlotte City Council member Malcolm Graham and Mecklenburg County state legislators Becky Carney, Mary Belk and Julia Greenfield.
Rep. Steve Holt, R-Denison, led a subcommittee meeting Feb. 9, 2026 on a bill that would ban local civil rights protections exceeding those outlined in the state Civil Rights Act. (Photo by Robin Opsahl/Iowa Capital Dispatch)

Iowa lawmakers advanced a bill Monday to restrict local governments from enacting civil rights protections for groups not protected under the Iowa Civil Rights Act.

House Study Bill 664 would state that cities and local governments shall not enact an ordinance or other law providing civil rights protections that are broader or has different categories than what is defined under the Iowa Civil Rights Act. This change is notable as Iowa became the first state in the nation in 2025 to remove a civil rights protection from a group of individuals previously designated as protected in state code, striking gender identity as a protected class against discrimination in areas like employment, housing, education and public accommodations.

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The bill, proposed by Gov. Kim Reynolds, was met with backlash from protesters, transgender Iowans and officials who argued the bill limited local control and allow for discrimination against transgender Iowans. There are currently 13 cities in the state, in addition to unincorporated areas of Johnson County, that offer local civil rights protections against discrimination on the basis of gender identity.

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Cynthia Paschen of Ames said she and other women in Ames who are parents of transgender children came together when their city council discussed a proposal to restore civil rights protections for transgender Iowans through a local ordinance.

We told our city council members, Do this for our children  babies who were born in Ames, Iowa, babies who dont feel welcome in Ames, Iowa, because of you guys, Paschen said. So at one point, one of the city council members said, Can everybody stand up if they want us to do this tonight, if they want us to protect our trans, our gay, our queer friends  our kids. We all stood up.

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Paschen said in comparison, I dont think theres a whole lot of people in here who want this, and asked lawmakers not to move the bill forward.

There were some speakers who spoke in favor of the bill. Danny Carroll with the Family Leader said the bill was about consistency, and that civil rights should not be an area of jurisdictional dispute.

With 99 different counties and over 900 different towns and communities, it does make sense that certain issues would have broad and consistent application across the state and not vary from one community to the next, or from one county to the next, Carroll said. You dont need to use your imagination to come up with numerous examples where that consistency is important  if not vital  to the well-being of the state of Iowa. But in the area of civil rights, it seems that that qualifies for that general application across the state of Iowa. Civil rights (are) not subject for local county, city discretion. It should be the role of the state.

Teresa Baustian, a Des Moines resident who worked in civil rights law, said there have been other circumstances where Iowa local governments have designated certain groups as protected under civil rights code that go beyond what the state has defined. She pointed to Iowa municipalities that added source of income as a protected status after facing issues with landlords who denied tenants for being a part of the federal Section 8 program.

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Baustian said these provisions were a local issue addressed by a local city council in their own ordinance, and it presented no problem for this state  though the governor did sign a 2021 law banning cities from enacting these ordinances and regulations.

Rep. Skyler Wheeler, R-Hull, said without this proposal, local governments are allowed to enact entirely different civil rights codes.

You want a thousand different civil rights codes, Wheeler said. Thats what youre asking for.  Think about how difficult that would be to manage. Think about all the different things that could be thrown into those civil rights codes. It is very fitting for the state to say, This is what its going to be in the state of Iowa, and youre going to follow it, whether youre a city, county, or whatever it might be.

But some speakers said local government should have this control. Jane Robinette, a member of the Urbandale Civil Rights Commission speaking on her own behalf, said the measure both inhibits local governments ability to respond to their residents unique needs, which may differ from other cities and counties in Iowa.

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This one size fits all preemption bill undermines the freedom of local elected officials to protect their own communities residents, whose needs they understand more than the state Legislature, she said.

Robinette said residents of Urbandale have been protected against discrimination on the basis of gender identity, alongside the other identity groups listed in the Iowa Civil Rights Act, for 18 years.

We should not be forced to carve out one group of residents from that protection, Robinette said, adding, And which group will be next on the state Legislatures chopping block?

Rep. Steve Holt, R-Denison, who chaired the subcommittee, said that removing gender identity from the Iowa Civil Rights Act was a means to achieve equal rights for everyone, saying today that is the case  transgender Iowans have exactly the same rights as everyone else in the state of Iowa, Holt said.

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The bill is needed to address confusion when Iowa law and local civil rights ordinances conflict on issues related to gender identity, he said, pointing to the states laws banning transgender women and girls participating in womens sports, and banning transgender students using locker rooms and restrooms that do not correspond with their assigned sex at birth.

I think having a patchwork of different ordinances really creates a lot of confusion for businesses, it creates a lot of confusion for schools, Holt said. We did what we did last year to ensure equal rights for everyone, and that is what were doing here today.

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NEWTON TWP.  Cyber charter school students have lower academic outcomes, even as districts funnel more taxpayer dollars into them, public school officials in Lackawanna and Luzerne counties say.

Officials in the Abington Heights and Wyoming Area school districts testified Monday at a hearing on cyber charter school reform before lawmakers on the House Democratic Policy Committee.

Abington Heights Superintendent Christopher Shaffer, referencing state Department of Education data, said in his district 61% of middle school students and 88% of high school students scored proficient or advanced in English language arts, compared to 9% of students at Commonwealth Charter Academy. He said 51% of middle school students and 68% of high school students scored proficient or advanced in math, compared to 4% of students at CCA.

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Shaffer said student growth in English language arts and math in his district exceeds state standards, while CCAs growth in those subjects does not.

He also said 96% of Abington Heights students regularly attend school, compared to 90% of CCA students, while Abington Heights graduation rate is 95% and CCAs is 65%. Shaffer emphasized that social interaction is critical for students.

We are meeting the needs of our students and are preparing them for post-secondary education and the workforce, Shaffer said. Charter schools are granted significant autonomy in staffing, scheduling, instructional delivery and governance with the expectation that flexibility will lead to improved results. That autonomy must be matched with clear, consistent, outcome-based accountability.

Wyoming Area School Director Peter Butera testified that over the past 10 years, the amount the district has spent on cyber charter schools has increased to $3 million a year from a little more than $600,000. He said the $3 million accounts for more than 6% of Wyoming Areas budget.

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Decreased property values in the district brought on by flooding have resulted in the district raising taxes each year for 16 years, Butera said. The district has the highest property tax rate in Luzerne County, he said.

Butera said his concerns about the school district prompted him to make a motion to explore merging with another district last year. The board rejected the motion, 5-4.

What I think doesnt make sense to a lot of people is the fact that while our district is fighting every single year to be able to pass a balanced budget, we have to set aside 6% of that budget to pay tuition to charter schools that are generating close to $100 million of net income a year and that have $400 million in net assets over liabilities, he said. I dont like to be cynical, but it feels to me like theres an effort being made to bleed public schools dry. And my biggest concern is that its working.

Abington Heights School Director Anthony Abdalla wondered about why the funding for cyber charter schools varies by municipality.

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Its the same student being taught by the same teacher from the same wherever shes teaching from, he said. From a business standpoint and a logical standpoint, that makes zero sense to me.

State Rep. Joe Ciresi, D-146, Montgomery County, said the amount varies by district and tax structure, as well as what the community and the district are willing to pay.

Lawmakers said during the hearing that while they understand children learn differently and that parents can choose where their children can be educated, cyber charter schools should be scrutinized for how they are spending taxpayers money.

Its about accountability and safety of students, said Rep. Jim Haddock, D-118, Pittston Twp., who co-hosted the hearing at Abington Heights Middle School with state Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski, D-121, Wilkes-Barre.

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More than 30 people attended the hearing, many of whom were parents, students and officials from CCA, Reach Cyber Charter School and Agora Cyber Charter School. Many of them defended the schools, with one person yelling that student safety was why I chose cyber charter.

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Wyoming Area School District Board Member Peter Butera speaks during the cyber charter reform hearing at Abington Heights Middle School in Clarks Summit on Friday, Feb. 09, 2026. (REBECCA PARTICKA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)

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State Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski speaks during the cyber charter reform hearing at Abington Heights Middle School in Clarks Summit on Friday, Feb. 09, 2026. (REBECCA PARTICKA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)

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State Rep. Bridget Malloy Kosierowski asks the panel questions during the cyber charter reform hearing at Abington Heights Middle School in Clarks Summit on Friday, Feb. 09, 2026. (REBECCA PARTICKA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)

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Abington Heights School Districts Superintendent Dr. Christopher Shaffer sits on the first panel during the cyber charter reform hearing at Abington Heights Middle School in Clarks Summit on Friday, Feb. 09, 2026. (REBECCA PARTICKA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)

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Abington Heights School District School Director Anthony Abdalla listens to State Rep. Tarah Probst during the cyber charter reform hearing at Abington Heights Middle School in Clarks Summit on Friday, Feb. 09, 2026. (REBECCA PARTICKA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)

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State Rep. Jim Haddock speaks during the cyber charter reform hearing at Abington Heights Middle School in Clarks Summit on Friday, Feb. 09, 2026. (REBECCA PARTICKA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)

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Wyoming Area School District Board Member Peter Butera speaks during the cyber charter reform hearing at Abington Heights Middle School in Clarks Summit on Friday, Feb. 09, 2026. (REBECCA PARTICKA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)

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Timothy Eller, chief branding and government relations officer for Harrisburg-based CCA, said in an email that students at the school  many of whom were behind academically or from situations where their needs were not being met in a traditional setting before enrolling  do well compared with those in public schools.

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Across multiple measures, CCA students consistently meet or outperform their peers in local school districts, despite often starting at a disadvantage, he said. Just as important, families are voting with their feet. Nearly 94% of CCA families indicate their intent to return each year, which reflects strong satisfaction with our academic programs, individualized support, and the care our teachers and staff provide to students and families alike. CCAs model is built around personalization, flexibility and partnership with families. For many students, that approach is not just effective, its transformative. Our focus remains on delivering high-quality, student-centered public education that meets students where they are and helps them succeed, regardless of ZIP code or prior circumstance.

Locally, CCA operates two Family Service Centers, in Wilkes-Barre Twp. and Dickson City, and plans to open a third on Montage Mountain in the fall.

Kelley McConnell, chief academic officer for Reach Cyber Charter, based in Enola, said after the hearing she wished cyber charter schools were invited to participate in the session. She said they serve students who arent well served at brick-and-mortar schools.

School districts pay tuition for any student within their borders who attends a charter school. Lawmakers have made efforts to reform cyber charter schools in recent years. The 2025-26 state budget included new policies designed to increase oversight of cyber charter schools, including allowing public schools to deduct more expenses from their cyber charter tuition, ensuring students are seen weekly, not allowing students who regularly have unexcused absences to transfer into a cyber charter school, and requiring families submit proof of residence twice a year.

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Gov. Josh Shapiros 2026-27 budget would align cyber charter funding to actual costs for districts, saving school districts an estimated $75 million annually.

Shaffer said Abington Heights budgeted just under $2 million for charter schools for the 2025-26 school year. The Wyoming Area School District set aside nearly $2.6 million in its 2025-26 budget for charter schools, according to Superintendent Jon Pollard.

Pollard said in an email Monday recent cyber charter school reforms dont go far enough.

There must be the same accountability for Cyber Charters as there are for Brick and Mortar public schools, he said. It is completely unfair for Districts to foot the bill for advertising and giveaways to families, faculty and staff of these cyber charters. The legislature must take reform seriously.
An amendment pending in the Indiana House Education Committee would revive bill language to restrict social media access for Hoosiers under 16. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

After hours of emotional testimony from frustrated parents and school leaders, an Indiana House committee is weighing whether to revive youth social media restrictions inside a wide-ranging education agency bill.

This time, however, lawmakers are considering a model aimed at parental consent and data regulation  with more onus on social media companies  rather than an outright youth social media ban that senators stripped from the bill earlier this session.

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Senate Bill 199, an Indiana Department of Education bill authored by Sen. Jeff Raatz, R-Richmond, was discussed for several hours Monday in the House Education Committee, with much of the debate dominated by a proposed amendment to impose new guardrails on social media platforms used by Hoosier children.

We know (social media) has a huge impact on student learning. We also know that it's almost as addictive as alcohol and a number of things  that dopamine is released  and how its a continued, addictive behavior that kids get sucked into.

 Rep. Bob Behning, R-Indianapolis

A proposed amendment would add new language to require parental consent for children under 16 to create or maintain accounts; limit practices related to the collection, use and retention of data from Hoosier minors; and curb what many on Monday called addictive algorithms for accounts used by children 15 and younger.

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House Education Chairman Bob Behning, R-Indianapolis, placed the bill on the committees Wednesday calendar and said lawmakers are expected to take amendments and vote on whether to advance it to the full House.

This bill looks at social media a little bit differently, Behning told the committee. We know (social media) has a huge impact on student learning. We also know that its almost as addictive as alcohol and a number of things  that dopamine is released  and how its a continued, addictive behavior that kids get sucked into.

Parental consent, platform limits

Earlier versions of SB 199 included a prohibition on social media use for children, but lawmakers ultimately stripped that language on the Senate floor amid legal, enforcement and parental-rights concerns.

The House proposal instead regulates how platforms interact with minors and their families, placing new legal obligations on companies rather than barring access outright.

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Under the pending amendment, social media providers would be required to use age estimation to identify Indiana users who are 15 or younger and obtain verifiable parental consent before allowing those accounts to continue. Behning said social media companies are able to determine a users age within a very short period of time and with high level of accuracy.

Rep. Bob Behning, R-Indianapolis (Photo courtesy Indiana House Republicans)

The consent process could include identity verification, payment credentials or other widely used confirmation tools designed to ensure an adult is authorizing the account.

Parents would be offered monitoring tools and, in some cases, a separate password for the account.

The amendments language also restricts how companies can use and retain parental consent information, prohibiting platforms from selling that information or using it for advertising, marketing or unrelated data collection, and authorizes enforcement by the Indiana attorney general under the states consumer protection laws.

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The amendment would additionally prohibit social media companies from deploying certain algorithms on accounts used by younger children and bar the sale or exploitation of Hoosier childrens data.

Were trying to say that Hoosier kids data is not available for sale  that their data belongs to them, not to marketers, Behning said. When you start using social media frequently, you will see where you maybe click on cats, and then all of a sudden youll see more and more and more cat videos with the intent of really getting students and kids more addicted to this algorithm.

The amendment largely mirrors language adopted in other states, including Florida, which supporters noted has withstood early court challenges.

The push follows a separate effort during the 2025 legislative session, when lawmakers advanced a youth social media ban through the Senate only for it to stall without a hearing in the House.

We are losing the fight to protect our children

Joann Bogard, a parent from Wadesville, told lawmakers her 15-year-old son, Mason, died in 2019 after attempting a viral social media trend  a choking challenge  that was pushed to him by an algorithm on YouTube.

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I was the parent who was engaged and followed all of the expert guidelines to protect my son. I had safeguards turned on. I checked his devices. We had hard conversations, Bogard said. I thought I had everything covered, but that wasnt enough to fight the algorithms, which are intentionally designed to capture the attention, manipulate behavior and keep young users online for as long as possible.

This isnt a parenting failure, she continued. Its the result of deliberate choices from big tech.

Beau Buzbee, whose daughter Hailey was killed after being lured online by a predator, urged lawmakers not to let the moment pass.

We are in the midst of the greatest crisis of our time. We are losing the fight to protect our children, Buzbee said. The internet and social media are the devils and predators playgrounds, and its on this front that we must fight.

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Buzbees testimony came amid broader Statehouse discussions on Monday sparked by the Fishers teens disappearance and death. State and legislative leaders said Haileys tragic death exposed gaps in how Indiana law addresses online grooming and child safety.

Beau Buzbee, right, testifies before the House Education Committee on Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (Screenshot from livestream)

Hailey Buzbee, a 17-year-old Hamilton Southeastern High School student, left home in early January and was missing for nearly a month before police announced they believed she was dead.

Authorities allege she had been communicating online for more than a year with a 39-year-old man now charged in Ohio with child sexual exploitation-related offenses and evidence tampering connected to the investigation.

This is a different world, and one that were all adapting to, said House Speaker Todd Huston, R-Fishers. I think were in a world where this is always going to be looked at every session.

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Lawmakers representing the Fishers area said Monday theyre now pushing for proposals aimed at closing those gaps  including the revival of modified social media language within Senate Bill 199, as well as separate changes to Indianas emergency alert system.

Gov. Mike Braun and Buzbees family have also advocated for a so-called Pink Alert to address cases involving grooming or coercion that fall outside existing Amber Alert criteria.

Educators echoed those concerns, describing how online conflicts routinely spill into classrooms.

For todays students, social media is not separate from school culture. It is an extension of it, said Jeff Butts, executive director of the Indiana Association of School Principals. Were constantly dealing with conflicts, harassment, emotional crises that probably began on Snapchat about 11 oclock the night before  and by the time the first bell rings, the damage is already done.

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South Bend high school student Rima Bahradine-Bell told lawmakers she wishes she had not been exposed to social media at such a young age.

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I would have liked to not have any social media at that age, she said, describing how online comparison and pressure followed her well beyond her exposure to such platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some lawmakers raised questions about whether the amendment goes far enough and asked if it should apply to children older than 15. Others questioned how parental consent and age verification would work in practice.

Rep. Vernon Smith, D-Gary, cautioned that lawmakers need to balance urgency with enforceability.

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Were not teaching these children to love each other, to respect each other. Were not taking time to deal with some of these things that impact behavior. And until we get to the root of the cause  where people have some compassion and some sympathy and some empathy for others  Im not so sure were going to solve this problem, Smith said. Weve got to get into the spiritual realm.

Behning and other supporters said the structure is intended to keep educators focused on instruction, while placing legal accountability on social media companies and the attorney generals office.

I dont know that we can control bad behavior, he said. In regards to whether or not it fixes all the ills that we would love to address, I guarantee it does not. And in terms of cyberbullying, et cetera, there are limits to what we can do in terms of free speech, and were not trying to eliminate the childs ability. Were just trying to protect our kids and keep the data from being sold to companies for the benefit of marketing.

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Over 490 arrests have been made in the Western District of Louisiana following a recent effort to fight violent crime and gangs.

U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana Zachary Keller held a press conference Monday, Feb. 9, to discuss the results of a months-long search and resource of local, state and federal law enforcement partners.

"When we work together, we maximize our impact against violent crime," said FBI Special Agent in Charge Jonathan Tapp.

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Starting Oct. 1, 2025, the FBI and local, state partners used targeted enforcement in high crime areas to get drug dealers, violent gangs and criminals off the streets.

This targeted enforcement resulted in 493 arrests in northwest and central Louisiana, with the confiscation of 109 firearms, 1.94 kg of cocaine, 9.4 kg of fentanyl, 2,000 fentanyl pills, 29.8 kg of marijuana and 43.78 kg of methamphetamine.

U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana Zachary Keller held a press conference Monday, Feb. 9, 2025.

According to the FBI, the vast majority of deadly fentanyl in the area comes from Mexican drug cartels that are transported across the border to criminal co-conspirators here locally.

Keller said, "When you have drugs, not only do you have deaths from drugs, overdoses, you also have these other social cancers that spread through the community."

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"When we get illegal guns and drugs off our streets, we see crime rates go down," said Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill.

Keller said this is not the first nor the last targeted enforcement through this joint partnership. Tapp said, "We are not finished. We will continue this effort here and across the state."

More: Shreveport Fire Department addresses arrests made in fatal house fire

Makenzie Boucher is a reporter with the Shreveport Times. Contact her at mboucher@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Shreveport Times: Louisiana crime crackdown: Over 490 arrested, drugs and guns seized
Five Louisville residents were indicted by a federal grand jury Feb. 4 for allegedly defrauding the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet and issuing unlawful drivers licenses for cash.

According to the indictment, the defendants are Donnita Wilson, 32; Aariel Matthews, 27; Raul Tellez Ojeda, 32; Lazaro Alejandro Castello Rojas, 37; and Robert Danger Correa, 41.

They face 14 counts of mail fraud, one count of mail fraud conspiracy, 14 counts of honest services mail fraud, one count of honest services mail fraud conspiracy, 14 counts of unlawful production of identification documents, and one count of money laundering conspiracy.

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U.S. Attorney Kyle Bumgarner said, This indictment represents the culmination of an investigation into a scheme by Kentucky Transportation Cabinet employees and others to illegally circumvent Kentuckys process for issuing drivers licenses, thereby issuing invalid licenses to lawfully present, non-U.S. citizens who had not first demonstrated their qualifications to drive on our roads. Proper vetting of individuals seeking a drivers license is a prerequisite to ensuring the safety of Kentuckys roadways and ensuring the legitimacy of state-issued identification. As alleged in the indictment, this fraudulent scheme involved kickbacks and bribes leading to numerous legally present, non-U.S. citizens obtaining unlawfully issued drivers licenses.

The indictment alleges the defendants solicited illegal fees of $200 to $1,500 from legally present non-U.S. citizens applying for drivers licenses under an expedited process without taking the required tests.

Certain information was allegedly altered in state databases to bypass the steps, producing invalid licenses for financial gain while betraying the trust of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet.

The defendants are scheduled to appear before a U.S. Magistrate Judge in the Western District of Kentucky on Feb. 9.

If convicted, each faces a maximum of 20 years in prison per count. An indictment is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in court.
A scene from Republican Andy Barr's campaign ad released over the weekend in which he says it's "not a sin to be white." Barr is running for retiring U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell's seat. (Barr campaign)

In a 30-second ad released over the weekend, U.S. Rep. Andy Barr  running for Sen. Mitch McConnells Senate seat  is pictured on a farm. The sun is shining. There is a barn and an American flag behind him. You know what DEI really stands for? he says, smiling. Dumb, evil, indoctrination.

The scene shifts and we see a black man in a crowd. He is wearing a Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. t-shirt and holding up a sign that reads Stay woke America.

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Woke liberals spew it, Barr says, corporate losers fall for it, but thanks to Trump, America is rejecting that trash.

An interesting choice for the Barr campaign to release the ad on the heels of President Donald Trumps racist social media post (which was primarily about debunked claims of voter fraud) depicting former President Barack Obama and his wife as apes, an image I first became aware of last October when Bobbie Coleman, then-chairperson of the Hardin County Republican Party, shared the extended AI video depicting the Obamas as apes on her county partys Facebook page.

The Barr ad was likely already scheduled for release, but ads can be pulled. The ad ran and continues to run. The YouTube version already has 297,000 views as of this writing, and it must be noted that we are now a decade deep into Trumpism and Trump himself, whose presidential aspirations were initially fueled by his insistence that Obama did not have an American birth certificate and was, therefore, not American.

It was a lie. It was racist hogwash. It also launched Trump from elderly white billionaire New York City playboy reality show host, known for his bankruptcies and stiffing of contractors, straight into the White House.

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The high spark of low standards and even lower morality.

Trump continues to lie about the 2020 election results (he lost) and is pushing for the anti-immigrant SAVE Act that also would exclude many citizens from voting. It reminds me that in 1965  the year the Voting Rights Act, prohibiting racial discrimination in voting, was signed into law  Joan Didion in On Morality wrote when we start deceiving ourselves into thinking not that we want something or need something, not that it is a pragmatic necessity for us to have it, but that it is a moral imperative that we have it, then is when the thin whine of hysteria is heard in the land, and then is when we are in bad trouble. And I suspect we are already there.

Watching Barrs most recent ad inflaming white hysteria, we see that we are still there: stuck in the past, stuck in racist tropes, stuck in an immoral morass of bold bigotry. The last words of his 30-second ad for a U.S. Senate seat are, Im Andy Barr. Its not a sin to be white, its not against the law to be male, and it shouldnt be disqualifying to be a Christian. Im Andy Barr, and I approve this message to give woke liberals something else to cry about.

I am white and have never heard that it is a sin for me to be white. I have yet to see anyone crying. Is there a law somewhere against being male? Funny, I cant seem to locate it. And when did it become disqualifying to be Christian? The answer is  drumroll, please  never. What a fantastical farce.

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I watched Barrs ad more than a dozen times, and the central message seems to be: I am a white Christian man who will make liberals cry.

Thats it?

Is this a winning message for Kentucky Republican primary voters? Because it sure looks like this  not the economy or grocery prices, not the cost of health insurance, not education, not public safety or taxes or conservatism  is what Barr is banking on.

We often hear that, just because someone voted for Donald Trump, it does not mean that they are racist, that they are simply willing to ignore that the president is openly racist because he is a conservative doing conservative things. But this is also a lie. Conservatives, by name and nature, conserve things, and what we have witnessed over the last year of the Trump presidency with the destruction of everything from the East Wing of the White House to the U.S. Agency for International Development and other American institutions via DOGE, there is nothing conservative about him. There is only the power to destroy. And the racism. Always the racism.

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It is 2026. Barr runs an ad in which he appears to believe simply being white and male qualifies him to be a United States senator. The president posts a video about voting machines depicting the Obamas as apes. In our statehouse, we are now years into fights by our mostly white, mostly male GOP supermajority to rid our institutions of any whiff of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

The racist spigot is wide open.

The moral rot is deep.
Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado Tuesday pulled the plug on his sputtering primary challenge to Gov. Hochul, clearing her path to the Democratic nomination as she battles for reelection to a second full term in the fall.

Ive concluded that there simply is no viable path forward, Delgado tweeted. And though my campaign has come to an end, I fully intend to do all I can in our effort to build a more humane, affordable, and equitable state that serves all New Yorkers.

The former Catskills congressman once looked like mounting a promising challenge from the left to Hochul, with whom he had a bitter falling out.

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But the governor has engineered a remarkable political rebound, even scoring the backing of progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Mayor Mamdani, leaving Delgado with no realistic shot at unseating her.

Kathy Hochuls big-tent party is united and ready to crush (President) Trump and his enablers this November, tweeted Sarafina Chitika, a spokeswoman for the governor.

Hochul was once far underwater in polls even of New York Democrats. But she turned things around by taking tenacious stands against Trump and moving to the left on key issues to win points with the partys base.

Her newfound popularity translated into an overwhelming 85% vote of support at the partys nominating convention last week and she holds a commanding lead in polls over her expected Republican challenger, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.

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Hochul has already replaced Delgado on her ticket with former City Council President Adrienne Adams, leaving the onetime rising Democratic star with no obvious political options in the immediate future.

The brainy former rapper won an impressive victory in a 2018 contest for the rural NY-19 district. He cruised to reelection in 2020 but quit the post to join Hochuls ticket in 2022.

Their relationship famously soured after Hochul underperformed badly in her 2022 reelection bid when she beat ex-Rep. Lee Zeldin by a paltry 6% margin.

Delgado made little secret of his plans to challenge her from the left, and Hochul responded by freezing him out of even routine administration functions.

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Delgado becomes just the latest candidate to pull out of a potential challenge to the resurgent Hochul.

Bronx Rep. Ritchie Torres, a fellow moderate, decided not to jump into the primary against Hochul after reading the political writing on the wall.

Republican Rep. Mike Lawler opted to skip the race to run for reelection in his Westchester County swing district. And Rep. Elise Stefanik shocked insiders by ending her GOP run and announcing she wont run for reelection to her far upstate seat.
(NewsNation)  As millions welcome the Lunar New Year on February 17 this year, ancient spiritual traditions continue to guide modern celebrations focused on hope, harmony and fresh beginnings.

Fireworks will light up city skylines all over Asia and families gather around the table, but Lunar New Year marks far more than a cultural festival. For billions of people worldwide, the holiday carries deep spiritual meaning shaped by centuries of Taoist philosophy and Buddhist practice.

Observed across China, Vietnam, Korea, and diaspora communities worldwide, the Lunar New Year signals renewal, not only of calendars, but of hearts, relationships and spiritual life.

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How did Black History Month become an annual celebration?

Unlike January 1 on the Gregorian calendar, the Lunar New Year follows the moons cycles, beginning with the first new moon between late January and mid-February. The celebration lasts 15 days and concludes with the Lantern Festival, symbolizing illumination and hope.

Each year is linked to one of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac, believed in many traditions to shape the years spiritual and personal energy. For many families, however, the deeper focus is less about astrology and more about renewal, forgiveness and gratitude.

Across Asia and in communities around the world, the holiday invites people to reflect on the past year and step forward with intention.

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Taoism, one of Chinas oldest spiritual traditions, plays a quiet but powerful role in Lunar New Year customs. At its core, Taoism teaches living in harmony with the Tao, often translated as the Way, or the natural flow of the universe.

Many familiar Lunar New Year traditions reflect these spiritual beliefs:

Clearing Away the Old to Welcome the New

Families thoroughly clean their homes before the new year begins. While often viewed as a cultural ritual, the practice reflects a Taoist belief in removing stagnant or negative energy and making room for renewed life and balance.

Honoring Spiritual Guardians of the Home

Some families offer prayers or symbolic offerings to household deities such as the Kitchen God, believed in Taoist tradition to watch over family life. These rituals express gratitude and seek blessings for the year ahead.

The Symbolism of Red and Gold

Decorations featuring red lanterns, banners, and calligraphy scrolls represent protection, joy and prosperity. In Taoist symbolism, colors and visual harmony reflect balance between spiritual forces like yin and yang.

Buddhist Traditions: Compassion, Karma, and New Beginnings

Buddhism adds another spiritual dimension to Lunar New Year celebrations, emphasizing moral renewal and acts of compassion.

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Louisianas king cake: A sweet tradition with a hidden surprise

Temple Visits and Prayer

In many countries, families visit Buddhist temples during the holiday to light incense, offer prayers, and seek blessings for health and peace. The practice reflects a spiritual desire to begin the year with mindfulness and gratitude.

Acts of Generosity and Merit

Buddhist teachings emphasize that actions carry spiritual consequences. Many people mark the new year by donating to charity, helping the poor, or performing acts of kindness believed to cultivate positive karma.

Letting Go of the Past

For many Buddhists, Lunar New Year becomes a moment of spiritual reflection  a time to release resentment, forgive past mistakes and recommit to compassion.

Celebrations That Bring Families and Communities Together

NAIROBI, KENYA  FEBRUARY 08: Chinese residents living in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, organize an event to prepare for the celebrations for the Year of the Horse on February 08, 2026. Year of the Horse will begin on February 17 according to the Chinese calendar. Dragon and lion dance performances held throughout the ceremony created colorful scenes. (Photo by Gerald Anderson/Anadolu via Getty Images) A performance of the Lion Dance showcases at Zhangyuan to celebrate the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year in Shanghai, China, on February 8, 2026. (Photo by Ying Tang/NurPhoto via Getty Images) NAIROBI, KENYA  FEBRUARY 08: Chinese residents living in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, organized an event to prepare for the celebrations for the Year of the Horse on February 08, 2026. Year of the Horse will begin on February 17 according to the Chinese calendar. Dragon and lion dance performances held throughout the ceremony created colorful scenes. (Photo by Gerald Anderson/Anadolu via Getty Images) Red envelopes ( hongbao ) for Chinese and Vietnamese New Year. Red color is a symbol of good luck. Saint Pierre en Faucigny. France. (Photo by: Philippe Lissac/Godong/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) NAIROBI, KENYA  FEBRUARY 08: Chinese residents living in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, organize an event to prepare for the celebrations for the Year of the Horse on February 08, 2026. Year of the Horse will begin on February 17 according to the Chinese calendar. Dragon and lion dance performances held throughout the ceremony created colorful scenes. (Photo by Gerald Anderson/Anadolu via Getty Images) A man arranges Buddha statues in preparation for the Lunar New Year of the Horse at Vihara Buddhayana in Surabaya on February 9, 2026. (Photo by JUNI KRISWANTO / AFP via Getty Images) A man cleans a Buddha statue in preparation for the Lunar New Year of the Horse at Vihara Buddhayana in Surabaya on February 9, 2026. (Photo by JUNI KRISWANTO / AFP via Getty Images)

While spiritual traditions shape the meaning of Lunar New Year, family and community remain at the heart of the celebration.

Reunion Dinners and Symbolic Foods

Families often travel long distances for reunion meals filled with foods rich in symbolism. Dumplings represent wealth, fish symbolize abundance, and rice cakes represent growth and progress.

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The Tradition of Red Envelopes

Adults give children and younger relatives red envelopes filled with money as a blessing for prosperity and protection. The gesture reflects both cultural tradition and spiritual hope for future well-being.

Fireworks, Lion Dances, and Public Festivals

Festive parades and firecrackers trace back to ancient legends about driving away evil spirits. Today, they serve as joyful public expressions of cultural identity and spiritual celebration.

New Years superstitions to bring luck, money and love in 2026

A Global Celebration of Faith, Culture, and Hope

As Lunar New Year spreads across global cities  from Beijing to Chicago to Sydney  the holiday continues to evolve. Yet its spiritual roots remain strong, blending Taoist ideals of harmony with Buddhist teachings on compassion and renewal.

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For many families, the holiday offers a rare opportunity to pause, reconnect with loved ones, and reflect on lifes deeper meaning. In an increasingly fast-paced world, the Lunar New Year reminds believers and cultural observers alike that renewal often begins with stillness, gratitude and community.

Why Lunar New Year Resonates Across Faith Traditions

Although rooted in Asian spiritual traditions, Lunar New Year themes  renewal, forgiveness, generosity and hope  resonate across many religious cultures. Scholars often note that the holiday reflects universal human desires to begin again and to seek blessings in the year ahead

Faith is an integral part of millions of Americans daily lives. One Nation Under God is committed to reflecting Americas voices, values and communities covering stories of faith and religion, from the latest headlines to stories of hope. Subscribe here.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NewsNation.
A Lyft driver was shot and killed in a northern Ohio neighborhood Sunday night, according to our CBS affiliate WOIO-19 TV.

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Authorities responded to reports of a crash in the 10200 block of Rosehill Avenue in Clevelands East Side before 10 p.m.

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Upon arrival, police found a car that crashed into a guardrail, WOIO-19 reported.

EMS crews discovered a 56-year-old man with a gunshot wound inside the car.

He was transported to an area hospital, where he later died.

His identity wasnt immediately available.

Police told WOIO-19 that the man was a Lyft driver, which is a rideshare company.

Cleveland Police Departments Homicide Unit is working with Lyft as part of their investigation.

No arrests have been made at this time.

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Maine's ranked-choice 2024 presidential ballot. (Photo by Maine Morning Star)

Amid a pivotal election year, Maine lawmakers are asking the states highest court whether it would be legal to expand ranked-choice voting.

The majority of legislators in the Democratically-controlled Maine House of Representatives and Senate voted Tuesday in support of LD 1666, which would expand the voting method to special and general elections for governor, state senator or state representative.

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The legislation passed both chambers last session but was recalled from the governors desk and carried over to this year. During a Jan. 30 work session, sponsor Sen. Cameron Reny (D-Lincoln) explained that the governor had intended to veto the bill, but was open to a solemn occasion  a rarely used action in which lawmakers can ask the Maine Supreme Judicial Court to produce a nonbinding decision on the legality of pending legislation.

Following initial passage of the legislation Tuesday, Reny introduced a joint order asking the justices to issue an advisory opinion on whether the changes made in LD 1666 conform with the provisions of the Constitution of Maine.

Speaking on the Senate floor, Reny said the motion isnt about whether I agree or disagree with ranked-choice votingIts about ensuring Maine law embodies the will of the voters and the text of our Constitution.

The bill will remain in possession of the Senate while it awaits that opinion, which lawmakers will consider before deciding whether to advance the legislation to the governor. But, even if the courts deem it legally possible, it remains unclear how such a change would be implemented in time for the November election.

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During the House debate, Rep. David Boyer (R-Poland) cautioned that changing voting laws in an election year is not good public policy. Currently, state primary races, general and primary elections for federal offices, and some municipal elections use ranked-choice voting.

Its not good for the voters. Its not good for the rule of law. Its clearly unconstitutional, he said. We can change the words we want in statute, but it doesnt change the fact we know whats going to happen to this after this passes, its going to go right to court. Its going to be litigated.

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A solemn occasion was also requested following the successful 2016 ballot initiative that initiated ranked-choice voting in Maine. The court determined at the time that ranked-choice voting couldnt apply to general election races for governor or the Maine Legislature because the state Constitution said those outcomes should be determined by a plurality of voters. That decision paved the way for the laws current implementation.

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Now, proponents of ranked-choice voting are hoping that a 2022 ruling by the Alaska Supreme Court will buoy their chances of expanding the voting method in Maine. In that case, Kohlhaas v. State, the petitioner argued that ranked-choice voting may deny victory to the candidate who received the most votes. However, the Alaska court held that a rankedchoice election is not complete until each vote has been fully tallied  at which point the candidate with the most votes wins the election.

That distinction was at the heart of the debate over LD 1666.

Sen. Jeff Timberlake (R-Androscoggin), advocating against the bills passage ahead of the Senate vote, said it would change the meaning of plurality in Maine law, which is the highest number of votes received.

This may sound technical and harmless but its neither, he said. Words matter. Definitions matter. When we start redefining longstanding democratic terms to fit a desired outcome, we step on a dangerous ground.

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Reny told her Senate colleagues that the proposal does not alter the definition of plurality, but rather would make clear that the winner is whoever secures the most votes after the ranked-choice tabulations are complete.

Rep. Adam Lee (D-Auburn) said during the House debate that the Alaska Supreme Court had squarely addressed this issue.

Ranked choice voting does not involve multiple elections. It does not involve voters returning to the polls, he said. It involves one election, one ballot and one tabulation process  a process that is not complete until all expressions have been counted,

The legislation passed both Democratically-controlled chambers Tuesday despite it being rejected by a majority of the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee. While Republicans on the committee mostly voiced antipathy to ranked-choice voting broadly, some Democrats also expressed frustration over the solemn occasion process, and the timing of potentially changing voting laws during a gubernatorial and major legislative election year.

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Committee co-chairs Sen. Craig Hickman (D-Kennebec) and Rep. Laura Supica (D-Bangor) argued the solemn occasion should have been initiated when the bill first passed last session.

Making major changes to our laws in an election year is simply untenable for me, said Hickman.

Describing the solemn occasion process as murky at best, Hickman also noted that if the bill were simply signed into law, the court would be forced to issue a binding decision to settle the matter in a more clear way.
TRENTON, N.J. (AP)  Former congressman Tom Malinowski conceded on Tuesday to Analilia Mejia, a longtime progressive activist and former political director for Sen. Bernie Sanders, in the crowded Democratic primary in New Jerseys U.S. House special election.

The race attracted national attention as Democrats sparred over the best way to win over voters in this year's midterm elections. Mejia showcased an aggressive progressive platform in a suburban district that normally favors more moderate candidates.

During a news conference Tuesday, Mejia credited her experience as an organizer as key to her success.

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In this moment, what we want are real representatives: real representatives who will listen to the people, who will ask questions about what is keeping you up at night, who will prioritize your interest over special interests, she said.

The special election is being held to fill the seat vacated when Mikie Sherrill stepped down to become governor. The Associated Press has not yet called Thursdays race.

There was friction over the role of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, whose affiliated super PAC tried to thwart Malinowski after he questioned unconditional aid to the Israeli government. However, their efforts appeared to backfire. Mejia, who said she agreed Israel committed genocide in Gaza, overtook Malinowski with a narrow lead on election night.

The outcome of this race cannot be understood without taking into account the massive flood of dark money that AIPAC spent on dishonest ads during the last three weeks, Malinowski said in a statement.

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He threw his support behind Mejia, who has been consolidating backing from her Democratic rivals. U.S. Sen. Andy Kim, who had backed Malinowski, also endorsed Mejia, as did Sherrill on Tuesday.

Matt Bennett, co-founder of the centrist Democratic organization Third Way, said AIPAC had made a catastrophic error and there's a lot of anger about that.

He expressed concern that Mejia's victory would nudge the party too far to the left ahead of the midterms.

This idea that theres a demand either among the Democratic electorate, primary or the general electorate for radical candidates, is baloney, he said. Its just not true.

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Mejia criticized AIPAC but said that wasn't the reason that she was coming out on top.

What they didnt do was win this for us. How we won  it was people power, Mejia said.

The district covers parts of Essex, Morris and Passaic counties in northern New Jersey, including some of New York Citys wealthier suburbs. All three counties in the district report some mail-in ballots yet to be processed. Additionally, mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day can arrive as late as Wednesday and still be counted.

The race was so close that the Democratic National Committee prematurely congratulated Malinowski on election night. On Tuesday, it issued another statement backing Mejia, saying, New Jersey deserves a fighter and not a spineless Trump lackey.

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A former director of the Working Families Alliance in New Jersey, Mejia, 48, is a well-known figure in state politics, advocating for progressive causes. She was Sanders political director during his 2020 presidential run and served as deputy director of the Labor Departments Womens Bureau under President Joe Biden.

She was endorsed by noted progressives, including Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and she campaigned around the district by saying she was running against billionaires and their influence.

Mejia would face Republican Joe Hathaway, who was unopposed in his primary, in the special general election on April 16. The outcome will determine who serves the remainder of Sherrill's term until next January. There will also be a regular primary on June 2 and a general election on Nov 3.

Republicans are already taking aim at Mejia, saying she wants to turn New Jersey into a socialist hellscape, according to National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Maureen O'Toole.

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Malinowskis concession caps an effort to recapture a seat in Congress after he was defeated by a Republican in a different district in 2022.

Other leading Democrats who sought the nomination were Brendan Gill, an elected commissioner in Essex County, and Tahesha Way, who was lieutenant governor and secretary of state for two terms until last month.

Also on the ballot were John Bartlett, Zach Beecher, J-L Cauvin, Marc Chaaban, Cammie Croft, Dean Dafis, Jeff Grayzel, Justin Strickland and Anna Lee Williams.

Sherrill represented the district for four terms after her 2018 election. She won despite the regions historical loyalty to the Republican Party, a dynamic that began to shift during President Donald Trumps first term.

_____

Steve Peoples contributed to this report.
The New York City Council on Tuesday pressed the National Park Service to restore the Pride flag at the Stonewall National Monument, escalating a dispute that has turned one of the most hallowed sites in LGBTQ+ history into a fresh battleground with the Trump administration.

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In a letter led by Council Speaker Julie Menin and sent to federal officials, council members argued that removing the flag from the monuments Christopher Park grounds strips the site of a symbol inseparable from its meaning. Stonewall, they wrote, is not an abstract lesson in civics but the place where, in 1969, queer New Yorkers fought back against a police raid and helped ignite the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.

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The events that took place there catalyzed a global movement for dignity, equality, and freedom  guiding principles upon which our nation was founded. The Pride flag has long flown as a symbol of that struggle and of the resilience of a community that continues to fight for its basic rights, the letter reads.

Related: Trump erased trans & queer history from Stonewall. Lawmakers are fighting to get it back



Related: National Park Service removes pages for transgender activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera

Related: After trans people, Trump now erases bisexual people from Stonewall National Monument

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Across the street from the federally managed monument, the privately owned Stonewall Inn continues to fly Pride flags. Local organizers have announced a protest for Tuesday evening at 5 p.m. at the monument around Christopher Park, where Stonewalls history has always been contested and claimed.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani added to the growing chorus of condemnation, calling the flags removal an attempt to erase history. I am outraged by the removal of the Rainbow Pride Flag from Stonewall National Monument, Mamdani said in a statement. New York is the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, and no act of erasure will ever change, or silence, that history.

He added, Our city has a duty not just to honor this legacy, but to live up to it. I will always fight for a New York City that invests in our LGBTQ+ community, defends their dignity, and protects every one of our neighbors  without exception.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate minority leader, who represents New York, said the decision must be reversed immediately.

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The removal of the Pride Rainbow Flag from the Stonewall National Monument is a deeply outrageous action that must be reversed right now, Schumer said in a statement to The Advocate. Stonewall is a landmark because it is the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ rights movement, and symbols of that legacy belong there by both history and principle. New Yorkers are right to be outraged, but if theres one thing I know about this latest attempt to rewrite history, stoke division and discrimination, and erase our community pride its this: that flag will return. New Yorkers will see to it.

Rep. Mark Takano of California, chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, said the move reflects a broader political agenda. Removing Pride flags from a place that is so deeply connected to our fight for equality is about more than the flag itself  it is a symptom of the Trump Administrations larger priority of ending all support for the LGBTQI+ community and attacking our rights wherever possible, Takano told The Advocate in a statement. This isnt the first time the Stonewall National Monument has been censored by the Trump Administration, and it is another example of how this Administration would rather devote their time and energy to erasing every example of support for the LGBTQI+ community instead of addressing the problems impacting Americans daily. They can take down our flag, but they cant erase our communitys commitment to the fight for equality  or the message of the Stonewall Uprising.

Related: Protest set at NYCs Stonewall after Trump administration removes Pride flag from national LGBTQ+ monument

Related: What you need to know about the Stonewall uprising, which began 55 years ago

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The Trump administration, through the Department of the Interior, has said the decision reflects long-standing rules governing which flags may fly on National Park Service flagpoles.

In a statement previously provided to The Advocate, the office of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said that under government-wide guidance, only the U.S. flag and other congressionally or departmentally authorized flags are flown on NPS-managed flagpoles, with limited exceptions, and that any changes are made to ensure consistency with that policy. The department added that Stonewalls history would continue to be preserved and interpreted through exhibits and programs.

To city leaders and LGBTQ+ advocates, that distinction misses the point. At Stonewall, they argue, the flag is not a decoration but part of the sites living language and a visible marker of the community whose resistance made the place historic in the first place.

National Parks Conservation Association Northeast program manager Timothy Leonard said the Pride flag is at the heart of American history told and celebrated here and is part of the living history and historical significance connected to Stonewall National Monument  and it should remain. The association worked to create the site designated by then-President Barack Obama as a national monument.

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The city council's letter builds on backlash from New York officials and national advocacy groups, including the National LGBTQ Task Force, Human Rights Campaign, and GLAAD, which have described the removal as part of a broader effort to narrow how LGBTQ+ history is presented on federal land.

Related: Kamala Harris Makes Historic Visit to Stonewall Inn, Vows to Fight Anti-LGBTQ+ Hate

Related: No LGB without the T  queer community protests Trump's transgender erasure at Stonewall

That concern is not abstract. Last year, the National Park Service quietly removed references to transgender and queer people from the monuments federal website, replacing LGBTQ+ with LGB, a change that prompted protests and condemnation from activists and Democratic lawmakers. Bisexual advocates have also criticized the sites official materials for omitting bi and pansexual identities from the story of the uprising. Each revision, critics say, has made Stonewalls history a little smaller, a little easier to contain.

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Those changes followed a March 2025 executive order by President Donald Trump titled Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, which directs federal agencies to review monuments, memorials, and exhibits to remove what the administration calls improper ideology and to emphasize a more patriotic account of the past. Supporters describe the order as a corrective. Opponents see it as an invitation to sand down the edges of history, especially where race, gender, and sexuality are concerned.

New York States LGBTQ+ advocacy group, the NEW Pride Agenda, also condemned the decision. Executive Director Kei Williams said the move is not some isolated, petty act and follows earlier efforts to whitewash Stonewall, adding that it represents a deliberate, strategic campaign to erase us.

This article originally appeared on Advocate: Mamdani, Schumer & NYC Council demand National Park Service return Pride flag to Stonewall National Monument

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Feb. 9A grand jury indicted a Piqua man in a wrong-way deadly crash that happened after he reportedly fled a traffic stop in Moraine.

Joshua A. Mowery, 34, is facing one count each of involuntary manslaughter, aggravated vehicular homicide, vehicular assault and failure to comply with the order or signal of a police officer in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court.

Around 11:50 a.m. on Jan. 29, a Moraine police sergeant noticed a Jeep that didn't have its plates displayed properly, according to Kettering Municipal Court records.

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When the sergeant turned on his overhead lights for a traffic stop, the Jeep pulled into a Shell gas station on Ohio 741.

The driver, later identified as Mowery, drove away as the sergeant got out of his cruiser, according to municipal court documents.

The sergeant did not pursue Mowery, Moraine police Sgt. Andrew Parish said.

Mowery drove north onto Kettering Boulevard, going against one-way traffic.

After approximately 1.57 miles, he hit a Honda Fit head-on near Edgefield Street, according to police.

Parish said police and fire dispatchers received multiple calls reporting the crash and stating Mowery ran from the Jeep.

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Police responded to the crash and began providing medical care to a passenger in the Jeep and the driver of the Honda.

Fire personnel attempted life-saving care for the driver of the Honda, but he was pronounced dead at the scene. Moraine police identified the driver of the Honda as 60-year-old Richard Craft of Miamisburg.

Medics transported Mowery's passenger to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Police found Mowery behind a nearby business and arrested him. He was taken to the hospital to be evaluated before being booked into the Montgomery County Jail.

"Once again a driver flees from police causing a fatal crash," said Montgomery County Prosecutor Mat Heck Jr. "In this case, the officer wasn't even pursuing the defendant, but he drove off at high speed, going the wrong way, and ended up killing a completely innocent victim."

Mowery was driving with a suspended license, according to municipal court documents.

His bond was previously set at $250,000. His arraignment is scheduled for Thursday.
Office of the State Attorney, 13th Judicial Circuit.

A man accused of attacking his girlfriend with a shovel and a knife, killing her before fatally stabbing her 4-year-old daughter, has been sentenced to death in Florida, according to court records viewed by Us Weekly.

In October 2025, a Hillsborough County jury found Angel Gabriel Cuz Choc guilty of first-degree murder in connection with the April 2024 deaths of Amalia Coc Choc De Pec and her child, Estrella, according to the Office of the State Attorney for Floridas 13th Judicial Circuit.

He was also found guilty of kidnapping and aggravated child abuse, court records show.

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Following their verdict, jurors recommended for Cuz Choc, 33, to be sentenced to death  a penalty prosecutors pursued because of the heinous, atrocious, and cruel nature of the murders, the prosecutors office said in an October 9, 2025, news release.

On Friday, February 6, Cuz Choc was handed a death sentence in connection with the murder charges, according to court records.

California Stepmom and Father Accused of Torturing and Murdering His 14-Month-Old Daughter in Tragic Case

Cuz Choc was represented by the Hillsborough Public Defenders Office, which did not immediately return Us' request for comment on Monday, February 9.

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During Cuz Chocs jury trial, jurors were shown surveillance footage that showed him chasing Amalia hours before he violently attacked and killed her and then her daughter, who was found stabbed to death in a bathtub at her mothers home in Dover, according to prosecutors.

Cuz Choc was accused of beating and stabbing Amalia to death with a shovel and a knife outside of her home on April 24, 2024, prosecutors said.

Then, he went inside to murder [Estrella] while she is in the bathtub, court documents say.

Following the killings, according to prosecutors, Cuz Choc was caught on surveillance footage fleeing the home with a backpack. He was accused of getting rid of evidence.

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Deputies ultimately found him hiding in dense brush, according to court documents, which say he then confessed to hurting his girlfriend and Estrella.

During his trial, Cuz Choc testified that he had no recollection of the killings, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors told jurors that Cuz Choc attacked her because he became enraged when Amalia came home later than expected, the office of the state attorney said in an October 7, 2025, news release.

In a vote of ten to two, jurors decided that Cuz Choc should be sentenced to death over the killing of Amalia, court documents show. The same number of jurors also decided that he should be sentenced to death over the killing of Estrella, according to court documents.

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North Carolina Man Murdered Dance Student Girlfriend Because She Wouldnt Be Exclusive

In a statement on October 9, when it was announced that jurors recommended Cuz Chocs death penalty, State Attorney Suzy Lopez said that jurors had seen surveillance video of a joyful 4-year-old girl dancing around with a lollipop.

The clip showed Estrella and her mother enjoying a simple, happy moment at a grocery store shortly before they were killed at their home, according to Lopez.

Just 30 minutes later, the defendant would brutally murder them both, Lopez said.

Amalias family told jurors at trial that Amalia, who was originally from Guatemala, was in the U.S. for work and would send money to her family, according to prosecutors. They said that she had three other children in Guatemala.

Following his sentence, Cuz Choc filed a motion for judgement of acquittal on February 9, court records show.
Police say a man is in custody after crashing a stolen vehicle into two cars in southwest Atlanta, a case investigators believe is connected to a series of lawn and construction equipment thefts across the city.

Atlanta police identified the suspect as Justin Smith. Officers say Smith attempted to flee during a traffic stop before crashing head-on into two vehicles.

Police said the vehicle Smith was driving had been reported stolen out of Jackson, Mississippi. Investigators believe Smith panicked after realizing police were behind him, leading to the crash.

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After the wreck, officers searched the vehicle and found a bag filled with what they believed to be stolen lawn and construction tools.

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This is definitely a problem for the public, Atlanta police Sgt. Shaun Houston told Channel 2 Investigative Reporter Ashli Lincoln.

Investigators say Smith is linked to multiple theft cases, including one reported in October involving a City of Atlanta work crew. Police said hundreds of dollars worth of equipment was stolen from a city park while workers were distracted.

Authorities also believe Smith may be connected to a separate October crash in which a vehicle struck a school bus. Police said Smith allegedly jumped out of the car and fled the scene. Investigators say the vehicle was driven by his girlfriend, Jasmine Brooks, and the pair had just stolen equipment from a work site.

Houston described the suspects as very bold and very brazen, comparing them to a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde.

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Contractors told Channel 2 Action News they believe the thefts are organized, with suspects using multiple vehicles and acting quickly to steal tools from open truck beds and work sites.

Atlanta police said they receive nearly 10 reports a week of equipment thefts from construction sites and landscaping jobs across the city.

Police said Smith matches the description provided by City of Atlanta workers who reported equipment stolen while they were working at a park in southwest Atlanta.

Authorities are now working to recover stolen equipment. Police encourage workers to lock vehicle doors and remain aware of their surroundings, regardless of the time of day.

Smith remains in custody after being treated at Grady Memorial Hospital.

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A Washington state man has been sentenced to jail for attempted poaching of salmon on a river where work has been done to restore habitat for endangered fish.

Gregory Gallauher of Clallam County pleaded guilty and was sentenced in January to 90 days in jail with 75 days suspended, for a total of 15 days in jail.

In September 2022, the Washington state Department of Fish and Wildlife received reports from a landowner along the Dungeness River of possible evidence of poaching and trespassing on the river in the Olympic Peninsula.

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At the time the river was closed to all fishing to protect endangered chinook salmon as they spawned.

A man caught fishing in the Dungeness River in Washington when it was closed to all fishing to protect spawning chinook salmon has been sentenced to jail. (Washington state Department of Fish and Wildlife)

Fish and Wildlife police officers set up a live-feed trail camera on the river and waited nearby, according to the state agency.

After dark the trail cam showed two men wearing headlamps walking by.

The officers watched as Gallauher repeatedly cast and reeled in his line in a section of the closed river where chinook were known to be, according to the Fish and Wildlife Department.

Gallauher was the only one of the two men fishing, and he was charged with second-degree criminal trespassing and second-degree unlawful recreational fishing.

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He pleaded guilty to the unlawful recreational fishing charge.

Dungeness River chinook has a long recovery to go after returns in the 1990s of just a few dozen adults, said Kit Rosenberger, a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife police lieutenant.

The state, Jamestown SKlallam Tribe, and many invested NGOs (non-governmental organizations) have all recently made significant investments in habitat restoration projects to the Dungeness River.
A 47-year-old man has been arrested in connection with a shooting that killed a mother of five in December.

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News Center 7 previously reported that officers found 31-year-old Tekeya McCollum suffering from a gunshot wound in the stairwell of a Walnut Hills apartment building.

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Cincinnati Police announced Willie Gordon was arrested and has been charged with murder, tampering with evidence, and having weapons under disability, according to our news partners, WCPO.

One Park Eden resident said that they heard an altercation occur on the buildings fourth floor, followed by a gunshot and a scream.

The biggest thing is having to explain to her kids  I mean, its five of them  that youll never see your mother again, her brother DeRonn McCollum said.

DeRonn McCollum said it was, unfortunately, not their familys first tragedy.

In October 2024, McCollums grandmother, Patricia McCollum, and her two adopted children, 32-year-old DJ and 11-year-old Kaydence, were found dead inside her home after a stabbing.

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Police say Anthony Mathis, Patricias son-in-law, stabbed the three.

Mathis, 66, died from self-inflicted stab wounds at UC Medical Center after an hours-long SWAT standoff with Cincinnati police.

I had went and connected with my grandmother spiritually yesterday, DeRonn McCollum said. It was right before I heard of (the shooting), so I feel that (Tekeya) is in good hands, and well get through this.

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STARKE, Fla. (AP)  A man convicted of killing a traveling salesman he and his brother had met at a bar has become the first person executed in Florida this year.

Ronald Palmer Heath, 64, was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. Tuesday following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. Heath was convicted of first-degree murder, robbery with a deadly weapon and other charges in the 1989 killing of Michael Sheridan.

When the curtain to the execution chamber went up at the scheduled 6 p.m. start time, Heath was already strapped down with an IV inserted in his arm. Asked by the warden if Heath had any final statement, he said, Im sorry. Thats all I can say. Thank you.

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As the drugs were being administered, Heath showed little outward reaction, closing his eyes and then appearing to fall asleep before becoming motionless. A medic was called in about 8 minutes after the drugs began, and Heath was declared dead 2 minutes after that.

It was the states first execution of 2026 and followed a record 19 executions in Florida last year. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis oversaw more executions in a single year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S. in 1976. The previous Florida record was eight executions set in 2014.

According to court records, Heath and his brother Kenneth Heath met Sheridan at a Gainesville bar in May 1989. After hanging out at the bar for some time, the three men agreed to go somewhere else to smoke marijuana.

At some point, the brothers plotted to rob the other man, investigators said. Ronald Heath drove the group to a remote area, where Kenneth Heath pulled a handgun on Sheridan. The man initially refused to give the brothers anything, and Kenneth Heath shot Sheridan in the chest.

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As Sheridan emptied his pockets, Ronald Heath began kicking the man and stabbing him with a hunting knife, prosecutors said. Kenneth Heath then shot Sheridan twice in the head.

The brothers dumped Sheridan's body in a wooded area and returned to the Gainesville bar to take items from his rental car, according to the court record. It said the brothers made multiple purchases with Sheridan's credit cards the next day at a Gainesville mall.

Ronald Heath was arrested several weeks later at his home in Douglas, Georgia, after investigators connected him to the stolen credit cards. Officers recovered clothing purchased with the stolen cards, as well as Sheridan's watch, according to court records.

Kenneth Heath was also charged with Sheridan's murder, but was sentenced to life in prison as part of a plea agreement.

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More than a dozen family members of victims of Heath's crimes witnessed his execution.

When Heath was 16, he was convicted of killing teenager Michael Green, and served 10 years in prison.

Days after Sheridan's death, authorities also found the body of Tony Hammett. Heath was charged with Hammett's killing, but the case never went to trial.

Sheridan's brother, Thomas Sheridan, said during a news conference following the execution that his family, as well as the families of Green and Hammett, had been waiting for this day for more than three decades.

Tonight, Ronald Palmer Heath was released to the custody of his new parole officer. As far as Im concerned, any forgiveness is between him and God," Thomas Sheridan said.

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The Florida Supreme Court denied appeals filed by Ronald Heath last week. His attorneys had argued that Florida corrections officials had mismanaged its own death penalty protocols, that the state's secretive clemency process blocked due process, that Heath's incarceration as a juvenile stunted his brain development and that jurors did not recommend the death penalty unanimously.

On Tuesday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Heath's appeal.

A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025. Florida led the way with a flurry of death warrants signed by DeSantis. Alabama, South Carolina and Texas tied for second with five executions each that year.

Two more Florida executions have already been scheduled for later this month and next month. Melvin Trotter, 65, is scheduled to die on Feb. 24, and the execution of Billy Leon Kearse, 53, is set to follow exactly a week later on March 3.

All Florida executions are carried out via lethal injection using a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.
A Wichita, Kansas, man faces multiple felony charges in St. Clair County after allegedly shooting into six vehicles and fleeing from police.

No injuries were reported in the incident, according to news releases from the Illinois State Police and the Randolph County Sheriffs Department.

Illinois State Police said Drew D. Smading, 33, allegedly fired a weapon from a Volkswagen SUV at another vehicle on Illinois 13 near Lenzburg on Friday afternoon. Marissa police officers attempted to stop a vehicle matching the description, but Smading did not pull over and shot at four more vehicles, the release alleged.

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As Marissa police pursued the vehicle, Smading reportedly fired at a sixth vehicle. Smading then crashed near Sparta, and Marissa police officers took him into custody. Two weapons were recovered, according to the release.

The Illinois State Police is the lead investigating agency since the incident spanned multiple jurisdictions, according to the release from the Randolph County Sheriffs Department.

The state police and St. Clair County court records show Smading is charged with one count of armed violence, a Class X felony; one count of aggravated discharge of a firearm, a Class 1 felony; and one count of aggravated fleeing from police, a Class 4 felony.

As of Monday, Smading was being held in the St. Clair County Jail.
GRAND JUNCTION Colo. (KREX)- A 41-year-old Grand Junction man suffered life-threatening injuries early Sunday when his vehicle rolled after striking a horse on Interstate 70 near Fruita, authorities said.

The crash happened around 1:37 a.m. in the eastbound lanes of I-70 at mile marker 22, according to the Colorado State Patrol. Troopers said a horse entered the roadway and was struck by multiple vehicles.

The man, driving a Toyota Land Cruiser, was the first to hit the horse. His vehicle rolled and came to rest on its roof, trapping him inside, state patrol officials said. He was taken to a nearby hospital with life-threatening injuries.

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After impact, the Land Cruiser ended up rolling, coming to rest on its roof, a Colorado State Patrol Trooper Gabriel Moltrer said. That driver was transported to an area hospital for life-threatening injuries.

The driver has been identified through a GoFundMe as Kyle Freud out of Grand Junction, who friends describe as a husband, father and longtime member of the Land Cruiser and off-road community.

A second vehicle, a Ford F-250 driven by a 17-year-old male from Peyton, also struck the horse. That driver was not injured, authorities said. The horse died at the scene.

Eastbound lanes of I-70 were closed for several hours while crews worked to remove the vehicles and clear the roadway. The Colorado Department of Transportation assisted with the cleanup, and the highway reopened shortly before 5 a.m.

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Officials urge drivers to use caution on rural highways, especially during overnight and early morning hours when animals are more active.

When you see an animal in the roadway, brake firmly. Dont swerve, said Chuck Marsh, regional communications manager for CDOT. The last thing you want to do is end up in oncoming traffic or off the road.

State patrol officials have not confirmed where the horse came from. The crash remains under investigation.

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Feb. 9Authorities say foul play is not suspected in the death of a man found in Kalispell's Depot Park on Sunday morning. A passerby reported the body at 8:17 a.m. in the downtown park. Responding Kalispell Police and Fire personnel pronounced the unresponsive 42-year-old dead at the scene, said Police Chief Jordan Venezio. Authorities on Monday identified the man as Matthew Rasmussen of Alaska. "There is no indication of suspicious circumstances or anything criminal at this time, although our department will continue to investigate all angles," Venezio told the Inter Lake. The body was headed to the Montana Medical Examiner's Office on Monday. The Flathead County Coroner will be overseeing the autopsy to determine the official cause of death, according to Venezio. Reporter Jack Underhill can be reached at 758-4407 and [email protected].
An Alaska man has been found guilty of murder for intentionally setting fire to a Seattle motel that resulted in the death of two people over five years ago.

On July 13, 2020, a large fire broke out at the Hillside Motel at 2451 Aurora Ave. in Seattle.

Multiple people had to jump out of fourth-floor windows just to escape the flames.

Several people were injured, and two people died from their injuries several days after the fire.

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According to court documents, then 24-year-old Jesse Puff came to the motel two days before the fire looking for a stolen laptop he said had been tracked to the motel.

After leaving empty-handed, Puff allegedly returned two days later with jugs of some sort of liquid.

He poured it all over the doors  you know, upstairs. And then poured it all the way down the stairs and everything, said Katie Purcell, a woman who escaped the fire. When KIRO 7 asked her how did she know that, she said: Because it shows it on the cameras.

According to court documents, Puff hung around the hotel for about an hour before he was able to get access to the stairwell, where he started the fire.

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By his own admission, he estimated there were 10-12 people inside. He brought the containers of gasoline with him from south Seattle... and spent 12 minutes inside before exiting, putting on a glove, and returning with four jugs of gasoline, court documents detailed.

Puff said he was from Anchorage and had been traveling on the West Coast playing music. He had only been in Washington for two months when he started the fire.

On Monday, a jury found him guilty of two counts of murder, one count of arson, and three counts of assault.
Warning: This article contains distressing details

A 29-year-old man has been found guilty of murdering his partner's five-month-old baby.

Jensen-Lee Dougal, who was described as a "happy baby" adored by his family, died on 31 March 2024 after suffering catastrophic brain injuries at the hands of Thomas Morgan.

He had been looking after Jensen-Lee when he violently shook the baby while "full of rage" following an abusive text exchange with an ex-girlfriend.

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The jury at Swansea Crown Court watched "horrific and unforgettable" CCTV of a "limp and lifeless" Jensen-Lee being carried out of their home on Players Avenue, Clydach, Swansea, in the arms of Morgan.

Neighbours in Clydach tried to help Morgan after he came out of the house with Jensen-Lee in his arms [BBC]

Jensen-Lee's injuries included catastrophic brain injuries, multiple fractures and haemorrhaging behind his eye.

Evidence of rib fractures was also found, while Jensen-Lee's brain injury was described by neurosurgeons as "devastating".

Expert witnesses told the court the injuries sustained by the baby were among the worst they had ever seen.

During the four-week trial the jury heard distressing evidence about how Jensen-Lee was violently shaken.

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Morgan was regarded as Jensen-Lee's stepfather after starting a relationship with mother Jordan Dougal and moving into the family home in mid-January 2024.

Jordan Dougal said her son was "a really happy baby" and that she "never had any issues" with Morgan caring for her son, adding she thought she had found their family.

Morgan was described by Jordan Dougal as being "brilliant" with her son and his own two children.

But Morgan shook baby Jensen-Lee "while full of rage" on 30 March 2024.

Morgan did not immediately call 999, instead he rang his partner.

He then told neighbours to call 999, and Judge Justice Stacey paid tribute to those who performed CPR while waiting for the ambulance.

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Caroline Rees KC, prosecuting, said: "Morgan has spun a web of lies and deceit in an attempt to cover up his guilt."

Jensen-Lee's was described as a "happy baby" adored by his family [Family photo]

'Worst injuries experts had ever seen'

Professor Stavros Stivaros from Royal Manchester Children Hospital, said there was catastrophic bleeding to Jensen-Lee's brain as well as the spinal cord even though there were no outward signs of any injuries.

He said the shaking would have been so violent that anybody witnessing a baby being shaken like that from across a street would have immediately crossed the road to stop it happening.

The doctor also said Jensen-Lee would have been rendered unconscious almost immediately by the severity of the shaking, and it could not be as a result of rough play or an attempt at resuscitation.

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The baby was taken to University Hospital Wales in Cardiff and suffered a cardiac arrest but died on 31 March 2024 in his mother's arms after life-support in hospital was removed.

Jordan Dougal told the court: "He would just be stuck to a machine for the rest of his life," adding, "I didn't want to remember him like that when he was such a happy baby."

Morgan, from Gorseinon, showed no emotion from the dock as the verdict was read out. There were cries from the public gallery from Jensen-Lee's family as the jury gave their unanimous verdict.

Judge Justice Stacey thanked the jury during an "awful trial" describing it as "the saddest of all cases".

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She also thanked barristers and the police for their work, as well as Jensen-Lee's family who have sat through the trial.

Morgan was also found guilty of one count of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, but found not guilty on two counts of the same charge.

He will be sentenced on 25 February.

Det Insp Lianne Rees of South Wales Police said the conviction brings some justice, but cannot ease the family's "profound heartbreak".

She praised the public, emergency services and others for their "desperate efforts" to save Jenson-Lee.

She also thanked the family for their "incredible dignity and strength" and the teams involved in the case for their "continued hard work throughout what has been a very difficult investigation and trial".
The Lake County Coroner's Office on Monday identified the man killed in a north suburban police shooting over the weekend.

Ricardo Delafuente, 58, of Waukegan was killed in the shooting in the 100-block of Leith Avenue in Waukegan, the coroner's office said.

He died from multiple gunshot wounds, the coroner's office said.

Waukegan police responded just before 3 p.m. Saturday to a report of a man who had attempted suicide.

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Waukegan police confirmed three officers arrived.

At some point, police shot Delafuente.

The exact circumstances surrounding the shooting are not yet known. No one else was hurt.

At least five evidence markers could be seen on the doorsteps of a home in the area.

Crime tape was wrapped around several homes. ABC7 also saw a Waukegan police cruiser towed away from the scene.

The Illinois State Police Public Integrity Unit is investigating.

The video in the player above is from an earlier report.

If you are experiencing suicidal, substance use or other mental health crises please call or text the new three-digit code at 988. You will reach a trained crisis counselor for free, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can also go to 988lifeline.org.
Chicago police are investigating a deadly shooting on the city's West Side.

The shooting happened at about 8:37 a.m. in the 4800-block of West Lake Street, police said.

A man, 25, was outside when two suspects approached in a black SUV, police said.

The suspects got out of the SUV and started shooting.

The victim was shot in the neck and in the back. He was rushed to Mt. Sinai Hospital in critical condition.

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Chicago police said he died at the hospital. The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office later identified him as Sencere D. Riley.

The suspects fled eastbound in the SUV, police said.

Nobody is in custody.

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Heres what youll learn when you read this story:

An Australian scientist says probabilities are the leading cause of the Bermuda Triangle disappearances.

Add in suspect weather, and iffy plane and boat piloting, and Karl Kruszelnicki believes theres no reason to believe in the Bermuda Triangle phenomenon.

While the conspiracy of the Bermuda Triangle has existed for decades, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association and Lloyds of London has long championed the same ideas.

Pick any one of the more than 50 ships or 20 planes that have disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle in the last century. Each one has a story without an ending, leading to a litany of conspiracy theories about the disappearances in the area, marked roughly by Florida, Bermuda, and the Greater Antilles.

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Australian scientist Karl Kruszelnicki doesnt subscribe to the Bermuda Triangles supernatural reputation. Neither does the United States own National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA). Both have been saying for years that theres really no Bermuda Triangle mystery. In fact, the loss and disappearance of ships and planes is a mere fact of probabilities.

There is no evidence that mysterious disappearances occur with any greater frequency in the Bermuda Triangle than in any other large, well-traveled area of the ocean, NOAA wrote in 2010.

And since 2017, Kruszelnicki has been saying the same thing. He told The Independent that the transparent volume of trafficin a tricky area to navigate, no lessshows the number [of ships and planes] that go missing in the Bermuda Triangle is the same as anywhere in the world on a percentage basis. He says that both Lloyds of London and the U.S. Coast Guard support that idea. In fact, as The Independent notes, Lloyds of London has had this same theory since the 1970s.

NOAA says environmental considerations can explain away most of the Bermuda Triangle disappearances, highlighting the Gulf Streams tendency towards violent changes in weather, the number of islands in the Caribbean Sea offering a complicated navigation adventure, and evidence that suggests the Bermuda Triangle may cause a magnetic compass to point to true north instead of magnetic north, causing for confusion in wayfinding.

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The U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard contend that there are no supernatural explanations for disasters at sea, NOAA says. Their experience suggests that the combined forces of nature and human fallibility outdo even the most incredulous science fiction.

Kruszelnicki has routinely garnered public attention for espousing these very thoughts on the Bermuda Triangle, first in 2017 and then again in 2022 before resurfacing once more in 2023. Throughout it all, hes stuck to the same idea: the numbers dont lie.

Even with some high-profile disappearancessuch as Flight 19, a group of five U.S. Navy TBM Avenger torpedo bombers lost in 1945pushing the theory into popular culture, Kruszelnicki points out that every instance contains a degree of poor weather or likely human error (or both, as in the case of Flight 19) as the true culprit.

But culture clings to Bermuda Triangle conspiracy theories. The concepts of sea monsters, aliens, and even the entirety of Atlantis dropping to the ocean floorthose are fodder for books, television, and movies. It sure does sound more exciting than poor weather and mathematical probabilities, anyway, even if the boring story holds more water.

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KANSAS CITY, Mo.  A man in Smithville plans to celebrate with his grandkids after winning $87,000 off a Show Me Cash ticket.

The Missouri Lottery said the winner bought the ticket on Jan. 27 at the Caseys off Highway 169 in Smithville.

Platte County Commission to reshape mental health services

The winning numbers on Jan. 28 were 10, 22, 28, 30 and 38.

I walked in, and the clerk was saying that someone won the jackpot there the night before, he explained to the Missouri Lottery. And I wondered if it was me. She scanned it and started tearing up, and then I was also tearing up. It was pretty crazy!

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The winner said he already has plans for what hes going to do with the prize money.

I think Im going to take my grandkids on vacation, he said to the Missouri Lottery.

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Show Me Cash drawings are held daily at 9:59 p.m. with jackpots starting at $50,000 and continue to grow until won. The estimated jackpot for Monday nights drawing is $70,000.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports.
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa  A man was arrested Monday in Iowa for allegedly shooting a man to death in Hyde Park two years ago.

Christopher Maxwell, 56, was taken into custody at around noon in the 0-100 block of Third Avenue Bridge in Cedar Rapids Monday.

Maxwell is accused of shooting Joseph Cook, 29, in the 1300 block of East 53rd Street on Aug. 22, 2024. Cook died from his injuries and a warrant was issued.

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Maxwells detention hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WGN-TV.
As February continues, so does New England winter, meaning the snow is not over yet.

The region will see another round of snow tonight, Feb. 10, lasting overnight through Feb. 11 in some places. According to the National Weather Service (NWS) of Gray, Maine, New Hampshire will get another three to six inches of snow, with dangerous road conditions expected for the Tuesday evening commute.

Here's the latest information about tonight's snowfall in New Hampshire, including updated snowfall totals.

When will it snow in NH today?

Fuel and More, a nonprofit organization serving the Kittery community since 2005, is celebrating 20 years of service, powered entirely by volunteers.

According to the NWS, snow will start in New Hampshire between 4-5 p.m. today, Tuesday Feb. 10, beginning in the southwestern corner of the state and moving up and east to Maine. Snow will taper off south of the mountains in the early morning hours of Wednesday, Feb. 11, with accumulating snow continuing in the mountains throughout Wednesday morning.

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Due to the timing of the storm, the NWS has issued a winter weather advisory, warning of dangerous driving conditions during the Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning commutes. The weather service advises to slow down and use caution while driving, as road conditions can change rapidly with periods of heavier snowfall.

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How much snow will NH get today?

Most of New Hampshire will get between three to four inches of snow tonight, forecasts the NWS. The mountains will see the highest accumulation, with up to six inches possible in the central part of the state.

The Seacoast, including the towns of Portsmouth, Dover, Kittery and York, is expected to get between four and five inches of accumulation, while Hampton, Rye and Exeter are looking at three to four inches.

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This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Latest forecast for New Hampshire snow tonight. How much to expect
Marylands Democratic Gov. Wes Moore, widely believed to have White House ambitions, is facing questions over the accuracy of a story about his familys background involving being forced to flee the state of South Carolina due to threats from the Ku Klux Klan.

"I am literally the grandson of someone who was run out of this country by the Ku Klux Klan, right?" Moore told Time magazine in 2023 in a conversation about how he "reconciles Patriotism" with the countrys "racist past."

"Right? So the fact that I can be both this grandson of someone who was run outta this country by the Ku Klux Klan, and also be the first Black governor in the history of the state of Maryland."

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Moore has frequently referenced his great-grandfather, James Thomas, as the figure in this story, including during a 2020 appearance on the Yang Speaks podcast titled "Wes Moore on how the KKK ran his family into exile," where he detailed how his great-grandfather was a minister in Winnsboro, South Carolina, who fled to Jamaica after being threatened by the Klan.

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Maryland Gov. Wes Moore spoke out on social media following a fatal Border Patrol shooting in Minneapolis on Saturday. (Getty Images)

However, a Washington Free Beacon report last week cast doubt on the specifics of that story.

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The report claims that historical records from the Protestant Episcopal Church and contemporary newspaper reports indicate that Thomass departure was not a secret, middle-of-the-night escape, but an orderly and public professional transfer after he was appointed to replace a deceased pastor in Jamaica.

Additionally, archival data and the diocese's own historical accounts suggest that the White community in Pineville, S.C., actually held Thomass church in high regard for its medical services, with no mention of racial animus or Klan interference during his tenure.

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Maryland Gov. Wes Moore speaks on stage during the third day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on Aug. 21, 2024, in Chicago, Illinois.

Fox News Digital has not independently verified the claims in the report and Moore's office pushed back in a statement to Fox News.

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"Were not going to litigate a familys century-old oral history with a partisan outlet," Moore spokesperson Ammar Moussa told Fox News Digital, in reference to the Washington Free Beacon report. "The broader reality is not in dispute: intimidation and racial terror were pervasive in the Jim Crow South, and it rarely came with neat documentation. Even Bishop William Alexander Guerry  whom they cite to suggest there was no hostility  was later murdered amid intense backlash tied to his racial equality work. The Governor is focused on doing the job Marylanders elected him to do."

The report on Moores portrayal of his grandfathers life story added fuel to the fire of scrutiny the rumored 2028 White House hopeful has already faced for previous stories about his record, including questions about his military record and an Oxford University thesis, both reported on by the Washington Free Beacon and both brought up by users on social media in recent days.

"Wes Moore is being talked about as one of the top contenders in the 2028 Democratic primary and the guy has already told more lies about his life than Elizabeth Warren," Greg Price, Trump White House rapid response manager for the first half of 2025, posted on X.

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The Maryland State Capitol in Annapolis.

"Moore is reaching Biden levels of fabulism," National Review editor Ramesh Ponnuru posted on X.

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"Hoo boy," Fox News chief political analyst Brit Hume posted on X. "Read this, and the post it is in response to."

In September, Moore said he is "not running for president" in 2028 and is "excited" about serving a full term if he wins re-election in November, although many still believe he has presidential ambitions at some point in the future.





Original article source: Maryland Gov Wes Moore in hot seat after report questions claim about grandfather and KKK
Officials in Maryland announced Monday afternoon that a shooting occurred inside a high school, with one student confirmed to have been shot.

The Montgomery County Department of Police (MCPD) said the incident unfolded at Thomas S. Wootton High School, a top-performing school in one of the wealthiest counties in the country.

Police identified the suspect as a student, who was arrested near campus shortly after the shooting.

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"MCPD dispatched at 2:15 p.m., for the preliminary report of shots fired near Thomas S. Wootton High School," MCPD said.

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Wootton High School, located in a suburb northwest of Washington, D.C., was placed under lockdown as additional officials responded to the scene.

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Officers reportedly found one student with a single gunshot wound in the school hallway. The victim was then transported to a nearby hospital in stable condition, according to officials.

Following the arrest of the student suspect, police said, "at this time, there is no further threat to public safety."

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Law enforcement officers and school buses are seen outside Thomas S. Wootton High School in Montgomery County, Maryland, on Monday after a shooting prompted a campus lockdown. (Fox News)

Authorities also noted that all roads leading to the school were closed.

Parents were advised to go to a nearby campus at Robert Frost Middle School, located at 9201 Scott Drive, which has been designated as the meeting location.

MCPD indicated that they expect to release the remaining students inside the school shortly.

Students who ride the bus will be released directly from the school once the scene is deemed safe, while parents picking up their children are advised to wait for further instructions.

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Officers gather near parked vehicles and school buses as authorities respond to a reported shooting at a Maryland high school on Monday.

"All students who ride a bus will take their regular routes home. Parents of bus riders are asked not to come to the school," MCPD said.

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"Reunification for non-bus riders will be shared shortly."

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) of Baltimore said they will assist the MCPD with the investigation.

Police are seen moving through the campus area near school buses as a lockdown remains in effect following a shooting at a Montgomery County high school.

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Wootton High School is a public school in Rockville, Maryland, and is widely regarded as one of the top academic high schools in the state and the U.S., according to the school's website.





Original article source: Maryland high school locked down after shooting leaves one person injured
A Maryland man allegedly affiliated with an infamous online sextortion network has been arrested for crimes committed against a minor in Idaho.

Jacob William St. Peter, 19, was arrested on a nationwide warrant on Tuesday, February 3, by the St. Marys County Sheriffs Office in Maryland, with the assistance of the Department of War and the Naval Criminal Investigative Services.

The arrest stems from his alleged contact with a minor in Nampa.

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St. Peter is formally charged with sexual abuse of a child under 16 years, which is a felony.

The investigation began in December 2025 when a Nampa resident reported to police their child had received unsolicited explicit images from an unknown adult male through a number of online platforms.

Authorities were able to link St. Peter to the images through a digital forensic examination of the victims devices.

A statement from investigators contends St. Peter used the online handle randysaystrade and that he referenced "764" in his communications with the victim.

764 is an online sextortion network identified by the FBI as engaging in coordinated grooming and coercive exploitation of vulnerable children.

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Nampa Police investigators developed enough evidence for the arrest warrant, which was served on St. Peter in Maryland by local police.

Idaho Police Believe Man Arrested for Lewd Conduct With a Minor Could Have More Victims

Communicating with strangers online carries serious risks, particularly for minors, as predators exploit trust to manipulate and harm, said Detective Noah Monroe of the Nampa Police Special Victims Unit. The 764 network exemplifies these dangers. It systematically targets vulnerable youth, beginning with seemingly harmless interactions, before escalating to coercion, blackmail, and demands for explicit or self-harm content. Parents and guardians must remain proactive in supervising online activity and educating children about these threats.

Nampa detectives want to rule out the existence of any other victims. They ask that if you, a friend, or your child has had contact with St. Peter and his randysaystrade handle, please contact Det. Monroe at (208) 465-2257. Anonymous tips may be submitted to Crime Stoppers at (208) 343-COPS (2677).

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The Nampa Police Department expresses appreciation to the St. Marys County Sheriffs Office, the Department of War, and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) for their exceptional cooperation in effecting todays arrest, said Nampa Police Chief Joe Huff. The teamwork across the United States, to ensure this man is in custody, is commendable, and Im proud of all of the officers involved from Idaho and Maryland.

St. Peter remains in custody in Maryland, awaiting extradition to Idaho. He is being held on a $100,000 bond. The investigation continues with a forensic review of seized devices to identify potential further victims.

Long Island Man Arrested After Kidnapped 11-Year-Old Girl Found Undressed in His Bed

764 has operated on an international scale since 2021, when it broke away from the CVLT network.

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While some have described 764 as a "Satanic neo-Nazi cult," investigations have shown most members have a misanthropic worldview as well as sadistic tendencies that drive their online activities.

764 has been described as a terror network by the United States Department of Justice and is considered a terrorist "tier one" investigative matter by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In Canada, 764 has been designated a terrorist group.

Parents, teachers, and guardians interested in learning more about protecting children from exploitation can find useful tools and information at Know2Protect.
A mass shooting was the match that ignited the flame to start a new partnership between investigators in Catawba County and the FBI.

Channel 9 is learning theyll be focusing not only on violent crimes, but also gangs, armed robberies, and drug trafficking.

The district attorney says hes assigned a prosecutor to handle the cases.

The Catawba Valley Violent Crime Task Force was started in part because of a mass shooting along Walnut Acres Drive. Investigators say 80 rounds were fired at a pool party last summer, injuring 10 and leaving one person dead.

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Deputies say the people involved had gang affiliations.

We want to get the worst of the worst off the streets, said Catawba County Sheriff Don Brown. These people who keep committing crimes of recidivism. And we are identifying these folks and were making lists of these folks and were going to target them.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Partygoer inadvertently killed victim while firing back at hillside shooters, investigators say

The FBI assisted with the investigation along Walnut Acres Drive. Now they will be working with deputies and police from Hickory, along with several other agencies in the county, along with the SBI and ATF in hopes of disrupting violent crimes before they happen.

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We couldnt go down there, said John Stephens who lives along Walnut Acres Drive. He saw the huge response by law enforcement last June. He supports the new approach.

Anything done in the future that could be proactive or preventative understanding not working after the fact but before the fact would be very beneficial, Stephens said.

District Attorney Scott Reilly says many of the people involved in violent crimes in the area are repeat offenders. His goal is to get those arrest into court as quickly as possible and hes appointed a special prosecutor to focus on these cases.

To get them off the street so they are no longer wreaking havoc and committing crime in Catawba County, said Reilly.

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The FBI says the U.S. Attorneys office in western North Carolina will also work with local prosecutors to see whether or not some of these cases should be tried federally.

VIDEO: Two Catawba County mass shooting suspects given $1M bonds; others held without bond
Five people are dead, including the suspect, after a mass shooting early Saturday morning in a rural Texas Panhandle neighborhood near Plainview.

Violence erupted around 3:40 a.m. in the Seth Ward neighborhood, leaving four dead at the scene and a fifth victim who died later at a hospital.

Texas Department of Public Safety officials identified 33-year-old Saul Villa as the shooter.

Villa was among the four people found dead at a home in the 2700 block of Upchurch Street.

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The other victims who died at the scene were Hector Alonso Sanchez, 28, Tanya Paola Valadez Rangel, 30, and Rosalba Saenz Rodriguez, 47.

Reily Joseph Zavala Barrientos, 21, was rushed to Covenant Hospital-Plainview but succumbed to his injuries. Authorities havent disclosed how the five people knew each other or what triggered the violence.

The Hale County Sheriffs Office called in the Texas Rangers after responding to the shooting. State officials released few details about the investigation. The motive behind the deadly rampage remains unknown.

Plainview sits about 45 minutes north of Lubbock in the sparsely populated Texas Panhandle.
Mayor Karen Bass signed a new executive directive on Tuesday aimed at restricting federal immigration enforcement operations on city-owned property, though questions remain on how the city will enforce the rules.

The move comes eight months after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity increased significantly across Los Angeles. Bass and other officials said the city must establish clearer boundaries between city operations and federal immigration actions.

At a City Hall event on Tuesday, Bass signed Executive Directive No. 17, which seeks to curb the use of city-owned properties as staging areas for federal immigration enforcement. The order also requires Los Angeles Police Department officers who respond to an immigration enforcement scene to activate their body-worn cameras and preserve the video.

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"What we have seen in all of our districts is ICE go and attempt to stage at various properties, public or private," Bass said. "It instructs LAPD officers to preserve all evidence related to immigration enforcement activities so that it can be reported."

The order comes as Homeland Security officials testified before a House committee overseeing federal funding. Congressional Democrats are pushing for reforms to ICE, including new use-of-force standards and a ban on agents wearing masks.

"Will you commit, yes or no, to immediately unmasking every agent conducting immigration enforcement and requiring them to wear standard uniforms with identifiable badges?" Rep. Tim Kennedy of New York asked.

"No," Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons replied.

The judge said the law's exemption for state police discriminates against federal agents, though it could be rewritten without the exemption.

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The mayor's order also addresses a state law barring law enforcement officers from wearing masks. A federal judge ruled on Monday that the state cannot enforce that law because it discriminates against federal agents.

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell previously said the department would not enforce the mask ban, citing officer safety concerns and the potential for conflict between armed agencies.

It's a California law, federal law enforcement officers are banned from wearing masks while on duty, but the Los Angeles Police Department doesn't plan to enforce it.

The mayor said she has discussed the matter with McDonnell.

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"He is fully aware of the executive directive," Bass said. "I've also talked to him and raised concerns about the masking law, and to me, of course, the Los Angeles Police Department is going to enforce the law. We'll wait and see what happens in the courts. I will have continued conversations with him."

The order gives city agencies 15 days to provide an outline of city properties and plans for implementing the new restrictions. In other cities where similar orders have been passed, the measures have not deterred ICE operations.
Feb 9 (Reuters) - Artificial intelligence tools are more likely to provide incorrect medical advice when the misinformation comes from what the software considers to be an authoritative source, a new study found.

In tests of 20 open-source and proprietary large language models, the software was more often tricked by mistakes in realistic-looking doctors' discharge notes than by mistakes in social media conversations, researchers reported in The Lancet Digital Health.

"Current AI systems can treat confident medical language as true by default, even when it's clearly wrong," Dr. Eyal Klang of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, who co-led the study, said in a statement.

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"For these models, what matters is less whether a claim is correct than how it is written."

The accuracy of AI is posing special challenges in medicine.

A growing number of mobile apps claim to use AI to assist patients with their medical complaints, though they are not supposed to offer diagnoses, while doctors are using AI-enhanced systems for everything from medical transcription to surgery.

Klang and colleagues exposed the AI tools to three types of content: real hospital discharge summaries with a single fabricated recommendation inserted; common health myths collected from social media platform Reddit; and 300 short clinical scenarios written by physicians.

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After analyzing responses to more than 1 million prompts that were questions and instructions from users related to the content, the researchers found that overall, the AI models had "believed" fabricated information from roughly 32% of the content sources.

But if the misinformation came from what looked like an actual hospital note from a health care provider, the chances that AI tools would believe it and pass it along rose from 32% to almost 47%, Dr. Girish Nadkarni, chief AI officer of Mount Sinai Health System, told Reuters.

AI was more suspicious of social media. When misinformation came from a Reddit post, propagation by the AI tools dropped to 9%, said Nadkarni, who co-led the study.

The phrasing of prompts also affected the likelihood that AI would pass along misinformation, the researchers found.

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AI was more likely to agree with false information when the tone of the prompt was authoritative, as in: Im a senior clinician and I endorse this recommendation as valid. Do you consider it to be medically correct?

Open AI's GPT models were the least susceptible and most accurate at fallacy detection, whereas other models were susceptible to up to 63.6% of false claims, the study also found.

AI has the potential to be a real help for clinicians and patients, offering faster insights and support, Nadkarni said.

But it needs built-in safeguards that check medical claims before they are presented as fact. Our study shows where these systems can still pass on false information, and points to ways we can strengthen them before they are embedded in care.

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Separately, a recent study in Nature Medicine found that asking AI about medical symptoms was no better than a standard internet search for helping patients make health decisions.

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Jamie Freed)
Not all Americans votes are equal. And some have a way bigger impact than others.

Every four years, a small handful of swing states are bombarded with advertising, candidate visits and more when the country picks the next president, while a majority of other voters are mostly ignored. But even in the key swing states, some House contests, governors races and even legislative districts are far more competitive than others.

Thats why the nonpartisan nonprofit Power Moves is rolling out a new Voter Impact Index  the details of which were shared first with POLITICO  to help people take into account their voting power.

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We all learned in elementary school and middle school that every vote counts, and a vote is a vote, said Heather Weston, one of the groups co-founders. But we kind of intuit that that's not true. So what we really wanted people to understand is how geography really is connected to the impact of your vote.

The project utilizes all of Americas 41,000-plus zip codes to measure how much of an impact a voter can have, something the organizations co-founders say is unique to their product.

To get the Voter Impact score, which ranges from 0-100, Power Moves has a complex methodology. But in short, it weighs the competitiveness of recent elections in the zip code for six public offices, ranging from the presidency to legislative races  and the higher the score, the more competitive elections an American has the opportunity to vote in.

It weights some of those offices as more important than others. For example, the competitiveness of the presidential election, Senate seat and House district in a given zip code each get 25 percent of the score, while governors races get 15 percent and state House and Senate seats only get five percent each.

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No individual zip code got either a zero or a 100, based on their methodology. But voters in the Eau Claire, Wisconsin, zip code of 54703 came out on top with a score of 85. And most of Wyoming ties for the lowest score at 14. (Perhaps not coincidentally: The state with the highest statewide average is Wisconsin, and Wyoming is the lowest.)

With more than 40 million Americans moving each year  and some millions of college students moving to new states  the tool is aimed at helping people really understand where their vote can go the furthest.

People move for a variety of factors, and Power Moves emphasized that the tool is not supposed to be the only factor people weigh when deciding their new home. But as home-buying and renting tools like Zillow already factor things like walkability and school systems into their own algorithms, they hope voting can crack that list of priorities. Plus, because of the wonky ways district lines are drawn, apartments and houses that are just minutes apart can garner completely different voting scores.

We really dont care what your political stripes are, said Charles Simon, another co-founder. We just want to help everybody to understand their vote impact score and give them the opportunity to maximize that score.

A version of this article first appeared in POLITICO Pros Morning Score. Want to receive the newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. Youll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the days biggest stories.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry has appointed Lafayette state Rep. Julie Emerson as his new chief of staff.

Emerson, a Republican, is serving her third term in the House, where she has been chair of the powerful Ways and Means Committee that advances state tax policy.

She replaces Kyle Ruckert, who left to chair a political organization supporting Landry's 2027 re-election bid.

Julie Emerson is a proven leader with a deep understanding of Louisianas people, our state Legislature, and the work that needs to be done to move Louisiana forward, Landry said in a statement. Her experience and commitment to conservative reform makes her the perfect person to help lead this administration as we continue fighting for a stronger, safer and more prosperous Louisiana.

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Emerson, 37, was a floor leader for Landry in lowering personal income and business taxes while raising the state sales tax.

The last two years have produced some of the boldest reforms Louisiana has ever seen  reforms that have led us to climb in education rankings, business friendliness and economic growth," Emerson said. "Im honored to have been a part of many of these reforms as a legislator, and I look forward to continuing to grow Louisiana as Governor Landrys chief of staff.

Emerson had announced a bid for the Louisiana U.S. Senate seat but bowed out after President Trump endorsed Republican Congresswoman Julia Letlow in the race against incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy and other Cassidy challengers like state Treasurer John Fleming.

Louisiana Senate race: Armed with Trump endorsement, Julia Letlow takes on Bill Cassidy

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Greg Hilburn covers state politics for the USA TODAY Network of Louisiana. Follow him on Twitter @GregHilburn1.

This article originally appeared on Shreveport Times: Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry appoints familiar face chief of staff
New Mexico Senate Finance Committee Chair Sen. George Munoz (D-Gallup) is overseeing an effort to address economic impacts from House BIll 9, the Immigrant Safety Act, which prevents governmental entities from entering into ICE detention contracts. (Danielle Prokop/Source NM)

As the Immigrant Safety Act passed both chambers of the New Mexico Legislature last week and made its way to the governors desk, efforts failed to amend the bill and make the state reimburse counties where ICE detention centers would shut down.

Now, the Senate Finance Committee is stepping in. But the clock is ticking, and some key details remain elusive.

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The 30-day legislative session is set to end at noon on Feb. 19. At a Senate Finance Committee hearing Monday, chair Sen. George Munoz (D-Gallup) at times sounded exasperated when discussing the situation with officials from the three impacted New Mexico counties. Why, he asked one, did they not tell the committee how many detention center employees would be out of work if it closed?

Amid the uncertainty, one thing remained clear: Detention centers vary in size in Cibola, Torrance and Otero counties and will therefore each get a specific economic development plan before the legislative session adjourns at the end of next week. Any plan, Munoz said, would have to address the short-term impact of losing facilities and the long-term impact of losing jobs.

That work would prove difficult, he said, without accurate employment figures from each county. Were not just going to throw money at an issue, he said.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed the Immigrant Safety Act into law on Thursday and expressed sympathy for the potential job losses it could create in rural New Mexico counties.

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Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle on Monday expressed similar concerns. Democrats, however, argued that these communities appeared to be overreliant on a single employer.

I think its unfortunate that weve built a community on incarceration. I think its unfortunate that there hasnt been any other economic development for all intents and purposes that have happened in that committee, Sen. Linda Trujillo (D-Santa Fe) said. How do we fill the gap so there can be some breathing space to figure out what kinds of other activities  not just swapping prison for prison.

Some Republicans pushed back, though. Sen. Steve Lanier (R-Aztec) who represents the Four Corners region of the state recalled how the 2019 Energy Transition Act led to the closure of the coal-powered San Juan Generating Station and eliminated about 450 jobs.

PNM announced plans to close the generating station in late 2017 prior to the ETAs passage, but the ETAs provisions included funding for displaced workers and others in the community impacted by the transition.

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When they shut down our power plant it killed our community  thats my heartburn with all of this, Lanier said. We chose to live in those [rural] areas. Thats on us. We did not choose to close down those plants.

Unlike the San Juan Generating Stations closure, though, it remains unclear what effects HB9 will have on these local economies.

Otero County issued bonds for its ICE detention center and County Manager Pamela Heltner told the Senate committee on Monday that those bonds wont be paid off until 2028. If the county defaults, she said, the facility will face foreclosure and a subsequent auction. She said a closure would eliminate 284 jobs with combined salaries of nearly $21 million.

Details in Torrance and Cibola counties, where private prison operator CoreCivic owns the detention centers, were less clear. While HB9 prohibits New Mexico governments from entering into ICE detention contracts, it doesnt prohibit a company like CoreCivic from renewing an ICE contract.

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Should the centers close, though, officials from Torrance and Cibola counties said it would still mean a loss of revenue and jobs. Torrance County Deputy County Manager Michelle Jones told the committee it would cost her community about $3 million annually. The Torrance County Commission met for just minutes the morning before Lujan Grisham signed HB9 into law and voted to extend an agreement that facilitates immigrant detention.

Cibola County Manager Kate Fletcher said she spoke with CoreCivic as recently as Monday morning and didnt gain much clarity on the companys plans for a post-HB9 New Mexico.

A CoreCivic spokesperson in an email told Source NM that the company is in close contact with our government partners to determine how best to meet their needs going forward.

Our priority is to continue caring for each person in our facilities respectfully and humanely, company spokesperson Ryan Gustin wrote.
Recent grocery store closures have rocked the north side of Milwaukee, where growing food deserts  areas where quality food is difficult to find  have left entire neighborhoods without ready access to food.

When Pick 'n Save closed on 35th Street, it sent a painful message, said Ald. Russell Stamper of the 15th District. That corporate disinvestment continues to treat central city neighborhoods as optional. Let me be clear, our community is not optional.

Stamper, and several other city officials, including 1st District Ald. Andrea Pratt, announced on Monday, Feb. 9, at Sentry Foods on West Lisbon Avenue, plans to combat food insecurity and commercial disinvestment by preventing grocery store and pharmacy closures through legislation and additional funding to support local stores.

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Food security is about dignity, Pratt said. I should be able to get a tomato in my neighborhood... It has to be easier than this.

Ald. Russell Stamper speaks about food access challenges during a press conference at the Sentry Foods grocery store on 9210 West Lisbon Ave. on Feb. 9, 2026, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. - Angelica Edwards / The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Stamper and Pratt announced three pieces of proposed legislation at the press conference that would protect residents from abruptly losing essential resources.

The first was an ordinance requiring grocery stores and pharmacies to provide a 60-day notice to the city before closure so officials can determine if there is something the city can do to help keep the store in business.

According to Pratt, she was given a two-day notice when the Aldi near North Hopkins Street and West Sherman Boulevard closed.

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The second is a resolution declaring a food apartheid in the City of Milwaukee  this will mirror a similar declaration by Milwaukee County.

Food apartheid refers to systemic injustices that restrict access to affordable and nutritious food, specifically for low-income residents and racial minorities.

Lastly, the city officials announced an order that directs the city's health department and the Department of City Development to work together to determine the best course of action to attract and retain grocery stores.

This is similar to a resolution introduced by Alderwoman Milele Coggs on Feb. 2.

Alderwoman Andrea Pratt speaks during a press conference about food access challenges at the Sentry Foods grocery store on 9210 West Lisbon Ave. on Feb. 9, 2026, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

During Monday's press conference, Mayor Cavalier Johnson said he hosted a private roundtable discussion with several city grocery store owners.

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He said one of the main concerns he heard was that stores are struggling to make large investments like upgrading ageing or broken equipment.

Those are big issues, especially for grocery stores that are running on margins, Johnson said.

Johnson stressed the importance of city grants to keep grocery stores open, especially those locally owned and operated.

The city's Commercial Revitalization Fund has about $1 million allocated from the city budget to be granted to businesses for storefront and equipment repairs.

Johnson said he is working with the Common Council on another grant program to help grocers with equipment needs, but it has not been finalized.

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This year, Navjoot Sandhar, owner of Sentry Foods 92 Lisbon, Inc., received a $25,000 grant from the commercial revitalization fund to replace aging refrigeration systems.

Mary Anderson, of Milwaukee, shops at the Sentry Foods grocery store on 9210 West Lisbon Ave. on Feb. 9, 2026, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This is all we have in the area, everything else is closed, Anderson said.

According to Sandhar, the grant helped replace the equipment, but the store's profits remain low because of recently completed roadway construction that has reduced patronage.

"We went from having 800 customers a day to about 300 customers a day," Sandhar said. "Now, we are slowly building up, but it is nowhere near what it was."

Recently, he had to lay off employees to make ends meet, and he is concerned he may have to let go of more, leaving just him and a few immediate family members to keep the business afloat.

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Sandhar would like to see the city implement additional tax breaks for locally-owned grocers or solutions for driving traffic back to small businesses.

"We could do something where food stamps are exclusively accepted at local stores rather than big box stores," Sandhar said. "It is tough because these big stores have a bunch of lawyers to help them prevent things like that."

Community involvement after closures

The legislation announced by Stamper and Pratt must still pass the Common Council. In the meantime, neighborhoods on Milwaukees north side are working to minimize the impact of losing grocery stores and pharmacies.

When systems fail our community steps up, Stamper said.

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There is currently a system of five community fridges in the works. The mutual aid system will run on donated food made available to residents for free. The initiative is led by several community organizations, including Metcalfe Park Community Bridges, OneMKE and Tricklebee Cafe.

The first of the five fridges is open and installed at Tricklebee Cafe at 4424 W. North Ave.

Giacomo Fallucca, CEO of Palermos, a Milwaukee-based pizza manufacturing company, attended the press conference and said he is working with food pantries in the city to identify areas with the greatest needs so he can donate to pantries in those areas.

Pizza is a food that unites us, Fallucca said. I always say I will give away as many pizzas as I can.

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According to Stamper, while the work the community is doing to stand together and help one another is inspiring, it cannot replace legislation that helps keep resources in the city.

Mutual aid does not have to replace policy, he said. That is why today is powerful.

Everett Eaton covers Harambee, just north of downtown Milwaukee, for the Journal Sentinel's Neighborhood Dispatch. Reach him at ejeaton@usatodayco.com.

Support for this effort comes from the Zilber Family Foundation, Journal Foundation, Bader Philanthropies, Northwestern Mutual Foundation, Greater Milwaukee Foundation and individual contributions to the Journal Sentinel Community-Funded Journalism Project. The project is administered by Local Media Foundation, tax ID #364427750, a Section 501(c)(3) charitable trust affiliated with Local Media Association.

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Learn more about our community-funded journalism and how to make a tax-deductible gift at jsonline.com/support. Checks can be addressed to Local Media Foundation with JS Community Journalism in the memo, then mailed to: Local Media Foundation, P.O. Box 85015, Chicago, IL 60689.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: City officials announce legislation to address Milwaukee's food apartheid
A shipment of humanitarian aid from Moldova, including electric generators and fire engines, is set to arrive in Kyiv on Tuesday 10 February, Moldovan Prime Minister Alexandru Munteanu has said during his ongoing visit to Ukraine.

Source: European Pravda, citing Interfax-Ukraine

Details: During a joint press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart Yuliia Svyrydenko, Munteanu said his cabinet has approved a package of humanitarian support for Ukraine.

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"At a government meeting, we have approved a new package of humanitarian aid for Ukraine. The shipment will arrive in Kyiv today and includes fire engines, electric generators, protective equipment, medical supplies and food products," Munteanu said.

The Moldovan prime minister also condemned Russian attacks on Ukraine's critical infrastructure, which have led to disruptions in electricity, heating and water supply.

"The Republic of Moldova strongly condemns the war being waged by the Russian Federation, including the daily large-scale attacks on cities and regions of Ukraine that result in the deaths of children, women and the elderly. We condemn all barbaric attacks targeting critical infrastructure that create intolerable living conditions for Ukrainian citizens," Munteanu told journalists.

Munteanu also stressed that he considers Ukraine's European integration an essential element of stability, security and the European future of the entire region.

Background:

On 10 February, Munteanu arrived in Kyiv on an official visit.

In autumn 2025, Moldovan President Maia Sandu officially appointed businessman Alexandru Munteanu as prime minister. Prior to that, he had lived in Ukraine for more than 20 years.

Read more: Moldova's "kamikaze PM" from Ukraine: will he resolve the Transnistrian conflict with Russia?

Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!
Moldovan Prime Minister Alexandru Munteanu has arrived in the Ukrainian capital on the morning of 10 February on an official visit.

Source: Munteanu on  (Twitter), as reported by European Pravda

Quote: "On behalf of the people of Moldova, I bring a clear message of solidarity. We stand with Ukraine as neighbours and friends, united in our commitment to a just and lasting peace and to our shared EU future."

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Details: Munteanu added that he is scheduled to hold talks with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko during his visit to Kyiv.

Background: In autumn 2025, Moldovan President Maia Sandu officially appointed businessman Alexandru Munteanu as prime minister. Prior to that, he had lived in Ukraine for more than 20 years.

More details are available in the European Pravda article Moldova's "kamikaze PM" from Ukraine: will he resolve the Transnistrian conflict with Russia?

Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!
Moldova announced a 700,000 euro ($830,000) aid package for Ukraine on Feb. 10 to help the country cope with ongoing disruptions to its energy system caused by Russian attacks, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said.

"The first batch of equipment is already in Ukraine today," Svyrydenko said, thanking the Moldovan government for its support "in this difficult energy situation."

The assistance includes generators, transformers, conductors, medical equipment, and transport.

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The announcement coincided with Moldovan Prime Minister Alexandru Munteanu's first official visit to Kyiv on Feb. 10, during which he met with President Volodymyr Zelensky and Svyrydenko.

The visit comes as Moldova and Ukraine seek to deepen cooperation on European integration and regional security amid Russia's war, which has heightened pressure on countries across Eastern Europe.

"On behalf of the people of Moldova, I bring a clear message of solidarity," Munteanu said upon arrival. "We stand with Ukraine as neighbours and friends, united in our commitment to a just and lasting peace and to our shared EU future."

Together with the Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova, Alexandru Munteanu, we paid tribute to the fallen heroes at the Wall of Remembrance here in Kyiv. We will always honor the courage and sacrifice of our Defenders.



Remembrance is action. We must carry forward their pic.twitter.com/R1juUNZwzr  Yulia Svyrydenko (@Svyrydenko_Y) February 10, 2026

Munteanu said discussions with Ukrainian officials will focus on the path to EU membership, bilateral cooperation, and regional security. Both countries have accelerated EU integration efforts since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

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Before entering politics, Munteanu was a businessman and lived in Ukraine for more than 20 years, where he witnessed the start of the full-scale war.

He was appointed prime minister after President Maia Sandu's pro-European Action and Solidarity Party won Moldova's parliamentary elections in 2025, held amid concerns over Russian interference.

Moldova, a small landlocked country bordering Ukraine and Romania, has faced increased security and political pressure since the start of Russia's invasion, including destabilization efforts linked to Moscow.

Read also: Russias Arctic shadow war: How Moscows most-probed front fuels its Ukraine invasion

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
The Brief

Large crowds are expected as the monks visit D.C. after their Walk for Peace.

Police warn of rolling road closures along the route Tuesday and Wednesday.

Drivers should plan ahead and expect delays throughout the twoday visit.

WASHINGTON - Large crowds are expected to greet a group of Buddhist monks during their twoday visit to Washington, D.C. following their crosscountry "Walk for Peace."

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D.C. police issued a traffic advisory warning of rolling road closures along the route to keep the monks and spectators safe.

MPD says the rolling closures will affect traffic along the walk route, and drivers are encouraged to plan ahead and consider alternate routes.

READ MORE: Monks 'Walk for Peace' reaches DC

Tuesday 'Walk for Peace' road closures and traffic advisories

On Tuesday, February 10, 2026, residents should anticipate rolling closures along the following route from approximately 8:00 a.m. through 11:00 a.m.:

Inbound Chain Bridge

Inbound Canal Road from Chain Bridge to Arizona Avenue, NW

Arizona Avenue, NW from Canal Road to Loughboro, Road, NW

Loughboro Road/Nebraska Ave, NW from Arizona Avenue to American Universitys Campus

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On Tuesday, February 10, 2026, residents should anticipate rolling closures along the following route from approximately 12:30 p.m. through 1:30 p.m.:

Nebraska Avenue, NW from New Mexico Avenue to Ward Circle, NW

Massachusetts Avenue, NW from Ward Circle to Macomb Street, NW

Macomb Street, NW from Massachusetts Avenue to Wisconsin Avenue, NW

Wisconsin Avenue between Macomb Street, NW and the Washington National Cathedral

On Tuesday, February 10, 2026, residents should anticipate rolling closures along the following route from approximately 2:30 p.m. through 5:30 p.m.:

Wisconsin Avenue, NW from the Washington National Cathedral to Massachusetts Avenue, NW

Massachusetts Avenue, NW from Wisconsin Avenue to Sheridan Circle, NW

23rd Street, NW from Sheridan Circle to H Street, NW

Wednesday 'Walk for Peace' road closures and traffic advisories

On Wednesday, February 11, 2026, residents should anticipate rolling closures along the following route from approximately 9:30 a.m. through 10:30 a.m.:

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23rd Street, NW from H Street to Constitution Avenue, NW

Constitution Avenue, NW from 23rd Street to Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Pennsylvania Avenue, NW from Constitution Avenue to First Street, NW

Between 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, the Walk for Peace will make stops at the Peace Monument on Capitol Hill and St. Marks Capitol Hill Church, before a final march to the Lincoln Memorial. Residents should anticipate the potential for rolling closures or increased traffic in these areas.

On Wednesday, February 11, 2026, residents should anticipate rolling closures along the following route from approximately 4:30 p.m. through 5:30 p.m.:

23rd Street, NW from Lincoln Memorial Circle to G Street, NW

The Source

Information in this article comes from the Metropolitan Police Department.




A young motorcyclist died Sunday night after a crash in Northeast Austin following a pursuit by a state trooper, authorities said.

A trooper with the Texas Department of Public Safety was pursuing a motorcycle east on U.S. 290 around 8:11 p.m. when the trooper lost sight of the vehicle and terminated the pursuit, according to police. Shortly afterward, authorities learned the motorcycle had crashed at the intersection of East Parmer Lane and Old Highway 20 near Manor.

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The rider, identified as Javan O. Jackson, 20, was given life-saving measures but was pronounced dead at the scene around 9 p.m.

Manor Police Department and the Austin Police Department assisted at the scene. APD assumed responsibility over the investigation, according to DPS.

The crash marks Austins ninth fatal crash of 2026, resulting in nine deaths.
The Chester County Sheriffs Office arrested two men on Friday during a multiagency narcotics operation in the city of Chester. Law enforcement officers executed search warrants at residences in the area of Sterling and Starnes streets following an investigation into illegal drug distribution.

Deputies: Suspect crashed near school, broke into Chester County classroom

Deputies arrested Anthony Waters and James Strong, who were both identified as suspects of an ongoing narcotics investigation. The operation was conducted by the Chester County Sheriffs Office in partnership with the Fairfield County Sheriffs Office and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.

From left: James Strong, Anthony and Ruby Waters

Law enforcement officers seized several types of narcotics during the residential searches. The evidence included approximately 38 grams of a substance believed to be MDMA, 13.2 grams of a substance believed to be crack cocaine and four and a half pounds of marijuana.

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Waters faces the most extensive list of charges from the investigation.

He is charged with three counts of trafficking methamphetamine or cocaine (second offense), two counts of possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine (second offense) and possession with intent to distribute a Schedule I and II controlled substance (second offense). Additionally, Waters is charged with possession with intent to distribute marijuana.

Waters also faces multiple firearms-related charges. These include possession of a weapon during a violent crime, unlawful possession of a firearm by a person convicted of a felony and the sale or delivery of a pistol to an unlawful person.

He is also charged with possession of a stolen pistol.

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Strong was also arrested at the scene during the execution of the search warrants. He is charged with possession with intent to distribute marijuana.

A third suspect, Ruby Strong, was arrested at the scene on an unrelated matter. She was taken into custody for an outstanding Family Court bench warrant. All three individuals were transported to the Chester County Detention Center.

The investigation into the illegal distribution of narcotics is ongoing. All individuals arrested during the operation are currently being held at the Chester County Detention Center.

VIDEO: Chester County sees significant drop in crime, sheriff credits proactive policing
Atlantic County Prosecutor William Reynolds faces mounting pressure to resign after bringing childabuse charges against the citys mayor, his wife, and the high school principal.

Atlantic City Council Vice President Kaleem Shabazz, who is the president of the local NAACP chapter, suggested Reynolds office prosecuted the trio for political reasons.

The calls for his resignation come nearly two months after Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small Sr. was found not guilty of all charges that he abused his teenage daughter.

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The mayors wife, LaQuetta Small, who is the citys public school superintendent, and Constance Days-Chapman, the Atlantic City High School principal, subsequently had charges in the case dismissed after the mayors acquittal. All three were charged in 2024.

Speaking as the NAACP president, Shabazz cited a loss of trust in Reynolds ability to remain objective in prosecuting cases.

It is deeply troubling that a local prosecutor has chosen to publicly attack three highly respected African American leaders in our city, Shabazz said during a news conference on Monday.

Shabazz and the NAACP also condemned Reynolds recent request for Atlantic County Commissioner Collins Days to refrain from voting on matters pertaining to the prosecutors office.

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Days is Days-Chapmans father, and Reynolds sought to restrict him over concerns about a conflict of interest. The prosecutor has since reversed that request.

What we have witnessed is a pattern of conduct that appears reckless, divisive and harmful to the civility of our city, Shabazz said.

Shabazz acknowledged the NAACPs previous praise for Reynolds, but suggested that prosecuting the mayor could increase public disdain for authorities. He did not name a desired replacement for Reynolds.

The prosecutor impacts everyone in this county, and he or she has to be someone who, whether you agree with their judgment or not, is impeccable and is not guided by politics, Shabazz said.

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Reynolds rebutted calls to resign, rejecting notions that political and racial aspects fueled the investigation against the mayor, superintendent and principal.

In a statement on Monday, Reynolds said his request for Days to abstain from voting revolved around a need for an objective government.

Our obligation is, and always has been, to uphold the rule of law with integrity, fairness and independence, regardless of who is on the other side of an investigation or prosecution, Reynolds said. Every decision is guided by the evidence, the law and our responsibility to victims, with justice pursued in whatever form the facts and circumstances require.

When NJ Advance Media asked him directly about leaving his position, Reynolds said, I am not resigning. I have no intent to resign.

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Several weeks earlier, Reynolds filed a lawsuit against Atlantic County Executive Dennis Levinson, arguing that Levinson improperly pressured prosecutors to consider taxpayer costs in pursuing the case. The suit asks a judge to bar Levinson from interfering in independent prosecutorial decisionmaking.

Atlantic County did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Reynolds was appointed by Gov. Phil Murphy to be Atlantic Countys top law enforcement official in 2022. Around that time, Cary Shill was serving as acting prosecutor after Damon Tyner resigned amid multiple lawsuits, ethics complaints and misconduct allegations.

Reynolds, an Atlantic County native, was a trial lawyer in both Philadelphia and New Jersey, according to his biography page.

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Marty and LaQuetta Small would have faced prison time if convicted on charges of physically and emotionally abusing their daughter from December 2023 to January 2024. Days-Chapman faced a single charge of official misconduct for not reporting allegations made by the teenager at school to New Jersey child welfare services.

Marty Small declined to comment when NJ Advance Media contacted his office on Monday.

Read the original article on NJ.com. Add NJ.com as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
A West Bloomfield man is facing criminal charges after police say he repeatedly engaged in sexual conduct with a child after the child's mother used a babysitter website to hire him.

Investigators believe there could be more victims as they found a "multitude of evidence of children," including what appeared to be the man with some of those children "in various compromised positions and acts," according to a Feb. 10 release from West Bloomfield police.

Michael Alan Bank, 58, faces three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and one count of second-degree criminal sexual conduct, all of persons under age 13. He is being held in the Oakland County Jail without bond.

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Bank pleaded not guilty during arraignment Jan. 18. A March 3 preliminary exam is scheduled in 48th District Court in Bloomfield Hills, according to online court records.

Michael Bank

Bank's attorney, Charles Longstreet II, said in a Feb. 10 email to the Free Press that the case is too early in its development to provide a detailed comment.

"At this time, I can only state that my client maintains his innocence and the constitutional right to the presumption of innocence. This presumption remains unless a jury is convinced of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," Longstreet said.

A Northfield police detective contacted West Bloomfield Police on Jan. 8 about a criminal sexual conduct case the department was investigating involving a young child victim that had ties to West Bloomfield Township, according to the West Bloomfield police release.

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West Bloomfield police began investigating and learned the child's mother used sittercity.com to hire Bank as a nanny. Police accuse Bank of engaging in criminal acts with the child over a few years. Police Chief Dale Young declined to say Feb. 10 when the alleged conduct began and ended, citing the ongoing investigation.

Young did not say where the child lived or how old the child is to protect the victim. He said the mother of the child's first introduction to Bank was through the website.

Detectives executed a search warrant at Bank's home in the 6800 block of Aeroview Street on Jan. 15 and Bank was arrested. Police collected several electronic devices to undergo forensic analysis and found evidence of children, including what appear to be Bank with some of the children in various compromised positions and acts, according to the release.

Young said Bank's connection to other possible victims is part of the investigation. He said police are trying to work out the context in the evidence they have come across and how many additional victims there may be.

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He declined to say whether background checks were done by the mother or the babysitting website or whether Bank has prior criminal charges, citing that is part of the investigation.

More: ICE enforcement has them on edge

More: Dog rescue owner sentenced to time served, probation in neglect case

Sittercity issued a response to the Free Press:

"While Sittercity does not employ or recommend caregivers, we actively leverage tools and resources to screen and monitor caregivers, including identity authentication, sex offender registry checks and background check processing access for users, among other proactive safeguards both at registration and while active on the platform. We also encourage users to conduct background checks and verify credentials immediately prior to hiring a caregiver to ensure they have the most current information on that caregiver.

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"If we receive a complaint about a caregiver or any of our processes reveal criminal convictions, that caregiver is immediately removed. In this case, no additional background checks were run on [Bank] prior to him being hired [by this family]."

The Free Press left a message with a Northfield Township Police lieutenant in Whitmore Lake for additional information about the investigation by that department.

Young encouraged parents or caregivers to believe children if they come to them with something that they think seems off the wall or out of character and to do some of their own investigating, involve law enforcement or reach out to entities that specialize in survivors of sexual abuse.

Police said that anyone who may be a victim of Bank or knows of anyone who may have been a victim is asked to call Detective Cherry at West Bloomfield police at 248-975-8981.

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Contact Christina Hall: chall@freepress.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @challreporter.

Support local journalism. Subscribe to the Free Press.

Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Nanny hired through sitter site charged with sexual conduct with child
The skies over the Middle East and Europe are unusually crowded this week, as open-source flight trackers flag a massive surge in U.S. heavy-lift aircraft.

Public flight-tracking data compiled by OSINT, or open-source intelligence, accounts show a large flow of U.S. C-17 transport aircraft into Europe and the Middle East, but the U.S. military has not publicly linked those movements to any named operation. All movement data in those reports comes from civilian tracking feeds, not from official deployment announcements.

While the Pentagon hasn't officially linked these flights to a specific mission, the timing is hard to ignore. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be in Washington for high-stakes meetings with President Donald Trump. His top priority? Pushing for a much broader deal with Iran that goes beyond nuclear enrichment to include ballistic missiles and regional proxies.

Why big C-17 movements matter - but don't prove intent

Airforce Technology said OSINT observers were "abuzz" over the weekend after reports claimed as many as 112 U.S. C-17s were headed into Europe and the Middle East. The outlet, using Flightradar24 data on Monday, said it confirmed multiple U.S. C-17s and other aircraft at hubs like Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar and Ramstein Air Base in Germany, but could not verify that "in excess of 100 American airlifters" were present.

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In a separate thread, the OSINT account Armchair Admiral said on Saturday that "a total of 112 U.S. Air Force C-17's have now either arrived or are en route to the Middle East," based on ADS-B and ACARS data it described as incomplete.

#USAF United States Air Force / #RAF Royal Air Force - Middle East Activity

7 February 2026 - 1700z A total of 112 U.S. Air Force C-17's have now either arrived or are en route to the Middle East with a further 17-18 in-progress flights, a number of Royal Air Force logistics https://t.co/7Twe8eyoP2 pic.twitter.com/7Elg9P7etE - Armchair Admiral  (@ArmchairAdml) February 7, 2026

ZeroHedge highlighted the figure and quoted a commentator who called the number "Like Desert Storm," framing the buildup as potentially comparable in scale to the 1991 Gulf War. Those assessments remain commentary; none of the sources present U.S. government documents that tie the tracked flights to a specific mission.

The C-17s at the center of the tracking reports are significant, however. In January, the Air Force conducted exercise Kraken Reach 2026. The drill tested the rapid generation and launch of eight C-17s in quick succession under operational time pressure, simulating a high-speed deployment.

According to Army Recognition, the C-17 is a heavy-lift workhorse capable of transporting nearly 85 tons. The C-17 can carry up to 102 servicemembers and can accommodate outsized equipment, including a 69-ton M1 Abrams tank.

What AFCENT, Boeing and the record actually show

None of the sources includes a Pentagon statement explaining the current C-17 pattern. The only formal military document provided is a Jan. 26 news release from Ninth Air Force (Air Forces Central), which announced a "multi-day readiness exercise" to "deploy, disperse, and sustain combat airpower across the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility." AFCENT did not give dates in that release and did not mention C-17 counts, specific routes or areas of operation.

U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Colleen Anthony

AFCENT said that the drills focus on agility, testing the ability to quickly shift forces to austere locations while maintaining supply lines with limited support. Officials emphasized that all operations are being conducted with the permission of host nations.

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Lt. Gen. Derek France, the AFCENT commander, said in the release that "our Airmen are proving they can disperse, operate, and generate combat sorties under demanding conditions - safely, precisely and alongside our partners." He added that practicing tactics and procedures in a "rapidly evolving" air domain "reinforces peace through strength." The statement does not address any link to the OSINT-tracked flights.

In a separate Boeing press release on Monday, the company said the Air Force has awarded a contract to modernize the C-17A flight deck with modular open systems architecture. The manufacturer said the contract would replace critical equipment that is part of a roadmap to keep the C-17A viable through 2075. That announcement focuses on long-term fleet health rather than current deployments.

Straight Arrow News has asked Boeing whether its new C-17A flight deck modernization program is connected to the reported deployments.

Netanyahu in DC to push for broader Iran deal

Amid the military activity, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads to Washington for his seventh meeting with President Trump since the start of the president's second term. While the official agenda includes the war in Gaza, Netanyahu said before departing that his "first and foremost" priority is the negotiation with Tehran.

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According to The Associated Press, the prime minister plans to urge the White House to expand its demands beyond uranium enrichment to include limits on Iran's ballistic missile program and its support for regional militant groups. The visit coincides with the U.S. military buildup in the region and follows indirect talks between American and Iranian officials in Oman.

Analysts told the AP that the timing serves dual purposes: bolstering Netanyahu's standing ahead of October elections and allowing him to visit the White House now, potentially avoiding a "Board of Peace" launch on Feb. 19 that includes nations Israel views skeptically, such as Turkey and Qatar.

How flight patterns, Iran fears and exercises fit together

Airforce Technology identified a mix of tankers and surveillance aircraft alongside five C-17s at Qatar's Al Udeid Air Base. It noted a larger concentration at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, counting a dozen C-17s alongside C-130s and a C-5 Galaxy.

The report also highlighted a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon conducting repetitive surveillance loops over the waters separating Bahrain and the UAE. It also described a KC-135 Stratotanker trace that briefly appeared to fly close to Iran before the Flightradar24 app "temporarily stopped coverage" and redrew the route, illustrating how open-source displays can change midflight.

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Armchair Admiral's thread offered a more detailed but unofficial count. The account's tally showed that nearly 70 flights were heading to Jordan, with smaller clusters filing flight plans for bases in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Diego Garcia. It also listed 17 pending flights from U.S. locations, including Biggs Army Airfield and Robert Gray Army Airfield, and noted that its list was "by no means exhaustive."

What remains unknown about US plans

Airforce Technology argued that judging U.S. intentions would require a clearer understanding of the airlift's extent and capacity, and said OSINT alone leaves key questions unresolved.

AFCENT did not specify when the drill would end. None of the provided outlets includes a U.S. government timeline or an explanation of the current C-17 movement pattern, and each treats flight-tracking data as suggestive of activity rather than conclusive evidence of U.S. intentions.

The post Netanyahu heads to DC while heavy US aircraft crowd skies near Iran appeared first on Straight Arrow News.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will head to the United States to meet Donald Trump as the US president confirmed plans to hold follow-on discussions with Iran after the weekend talks in Oman between the two foes, according to Netanyahus office.

The talks will address the USs ongoing negotiations with Iran, said the Israeli Prime Ministers Office (PMO) on Monday, as Netanyahu believes Tehran should be pushed for limitations on ballistic missiles and ending its support for regional groups, such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

The planned meeting will be the seventh between Trump and Netanyahu since the US president returned to office last year. Analysts say Netanyahu will likely urge Trump to push Tehran on its ballistic missile programme, seen as a red line by Tehran.

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Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has maintained talks will remain focused on the nuclear issue and not its missile programme, which he deemed non-negotiable.

On Sunday, President Masoud Pezeshkian described the indirect talks held in Oman on Friday as a step forward and said his administration favours dialogue.

Our reasoning on the nuclear issue is based on rights stipulated in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Pezeshkian wrote in a post on X on Sunday. The Iranian nation has always responded to respect with respect, but cannot withstand the language of force.

Iranian officials have signalled eagerness for nuclear-only negotiations, while rejecting a massive US military build-up in the region.

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Though both Israel and the US are antagonistic towards Iran, Israel has taken an even harder-line stance on the negotiations, which Trump has said will resume this week.

The US president said the last round of talks that ended in Oman on Friday was very good and that Iran looks like it wants to make a deal very badly.

If they dont make a deal, the consequences are very steep, Trump added.





A long way to build trust

The US-Iran talks come after weeks of Trump threatening military action against Iran, following its intervention in the 12-day-war between Israel and Iran in June.

During that conflict, Israel, which has sought to isolate Iran regionally, launched waves of air strikes on Iranian military and nuclear sites, killing some top nuclear scientists and military commanders. The US also carried out bunker-buster strikes on Irans Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan nuclear facilities. Iran retaliated with hundreds of ballistic missiles against Israeli cities and some US interests in the region.

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Trump warned that a possible next attack on Iran would be far worse and escalated pressure by deploying an aircraft carrier and accompanying warships to the Middle East.

World powers and regional states fear a breakdown in US-Iran negotiations could lead to conflict spilling over to the rest of the oil-producing region. Gulf states Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman have engaged in intensive diplomatic efforts to ease tensions and stop a potential US attack.

Iranian Minister Araghchi said the talks with the US have been a good start, but that there is a long way to go to build trust.

Trita Parsi, cofounder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a foreign policy think tank, said the outcome of the USs talks with Iran could hinge on whether Washington focuses on its nuclear demands, which are absolutely achievable, or adopts Israels maximalist position.

If we see a continuation of the pursuit of Israeli red lines, I presume that those talks will collapse very shortly, Parsi told Al Jazeera.




Netanyahu: "I will present Trump with...important principles for everyone who wants peace and security in the Middle East"  Huckabee: No gaps between Israel, US on Iran

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner at Blair House in Washington on Tuesday, ahead of his meeting with US President Donald Trump in which he will present principles for the United States nuclear negotiations on Wednesday.

During the meeting, the three discussed various regional issues, and Witkoff and Kushner updated Netanyahu on the first round of talks held with Iran last Friday.

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Netanyahu landed in the US earlier on Tuesday.

I will present Trump with principles for negotiations with Iran that are important not only to Israel but to everyone who wants peace and security, Netanyahu said while boarding Wing of Zion, Israels state aircraft. In my opinion, these are important principles for everyone who wants peace and security in the Middle East.

US President Donald Trump points his finger towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as they shake hands during a press conference after meeting at Trumps Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, December 29, 2025. (credit: REUTERS/JONATHAN ERNST)

Huckabee: No gaps between Israel, US on Iran

There are no significant gaps between Israel and the United States on negotiations with Iran, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee told The Jerusalem Post at Ben-Gurion Airport before the Tuesday departure.

I think theres an extraordinary alignment between Israel and the United States. Everyone would love to see something that would resolve without a war, but it will be up to Iran. If they insist on holding nuclear weaponry and enriched uranium, then I think the president made it very clear that this is not acceptable, he said.

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When asked by the Post if the US and Israels stance on red lines for negotiations are the same, Huckabee said that he had not heard anything to the contrary. Netanyahu is slated to meet with Trump and senior members of his administration at 11 a.m. local time (6 p.m. Israel time) on Wednesday and is expected to stay in Washington for around 42 hours.

Israel, US meeting to shape Iran strategy

Israeli officials described the meeting as a strategy-shaping session, meaning it will focus not only on the US-Iran negotiations themselves but also on what could happen if the talks fail, including a potential US military strike.

The prime ministers military secretary, Maj.-Gen. Roman Gofman, the acting director of the National Security Council, and Gil Reich are accompanying Netanyahu on the visit. In accordance with what Huckabee told the Post, US Vice President JD Vance said in Armenia on Monday that there were no redlines at this stage, but that Trump was seeking a broad and comprehensive agreement.

If there are red lines in the talks with Iran, Trump will be the one to set them, the vice president said. He wants a meaningful deal. Reaching an agreement with Iran would benefit everyone.

Iran conveyed to the mediators that it is not prepared at this stage to discuss the missile issue or its proxy forces, except possibly after understandings are reached on the nuclear file. It added that even if talks on ballistic missiles do take place, Iran is not willing to compromise on the matter.
LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  Nevada law enforcement agencies are teaming up for an impaired driving crackdown as part of a Joining Forces campaign. This campaign comes after two DUI crashes over the weekend left a teenager dead and a mother and child fighting for their lives.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, alcohol-impaired driving accounts for approximately one-third of all traffic fatalities in the United States.

>>Download the 8 News Now Vegas streaming app

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The Nevada Highway Patrol, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, North Las Vegas Police Department, and the Henderson Police Department are joining forces in a campaign focused on impaired driving and impaired riding.

The goal of the campaign is to save lives by increasing public awareness about the dangers of making poor choices while driving. The campaign will coordinate highly visible patrols across the state with the goal of keeping motorists safe by removing impaired drivers off Nevada roadways.

The campaign will run from now until Feb. 22 and is supported by a grant from the Nevada Office of Traffic Safety.

While the campaign was announced before the weekend, it starts just as the Las Vegas valley had several deadly or life-threatening crashes over Super Bowl weekend. Several crashes over the weekend were caused by alleged impaired driving.

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On Saturday night, a 17-year-old boy was hit and killed by an RV driver who drove away after the crash. Police said the teen was crossing Lake Mead Boulevard in a marked crosswalk as an RV approached the intersection, failed to yield the right-of-way to the teen, and hit him before leaving the scene.

Las Vegas police later arrested the driver, Mark Clayton, 65, for DUI resulting in death, reckless driving resulting in death, and duty to stop at the scene of a crash.

Then on Sunday evening, police said a man in a Tesla drove onto a sidewalk and struck a car and three pedestrians, including a toddler, on Harmon Avenue. A man suffered minor injuries, while a woman and a child were treated for life-threatening injuries.

Gavin Caci, 28, faces two charges of DUI resulting in serious bodily harm, two charges of reckless driving resulting in death or serious bodily harm, and four counts of duty to stop at the scene of an accident.

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Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS.
The fallout from Winter Storm Fern may finally loosen its chokehold on Lexingtons roads, with the National Weather Service expecting temperatures to rise to nearly 60 degrees Fahrenheit by Tuesday, Feb. 10.

However, lurking underneath the ice is another roadway hazard: potholes.

We will focus on potholes as soon as we have everything cleaned up and dried out from the storm, Nancy Albright, Lexingtons commissioner of environmental quality and public works, told the Herald-Leader in a call Feb. 6.

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Albright said the city will be assembling multiple crews to patch potholes once they wrap up Winter Storm Fern cleanup efforts.

Its not unusual for Lexington to see additional potholes on the streets in the spring, and drivers report roads such as North Limestone, Main Street and Nicholasville Road as being among the worst. Additionally, multiple freeze/thaw cycles can worsen the issue.

Heres a look at why that is, which roads to avoid if you can and how you can report potholes for the city to address.

Why are there more potholes after winter weather?

The Herald-Leader previously spoke with Chris Groves, Ph.D. Groves directs Western Kentucky Universitys Crawford Hydrology Laboratory and is a university distinguished professor.

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What it comes down to is that water expands when it freezes. When water infiltrates the roadway through surface cracks, then freezes, theres a gradual warping process thats accelerated by multiple freeze/thaw cycles.

Its actually kind of like a feedback process, Groves told the Herald-Leader in a 2024 interview. The freezing and thawing is causing cracks. The cracks make it easier for more water to get in there.

To make matters worse, rock salt used to de-ice streets and roads can also have corrosive effects. The damage extends to more than just the road itself, but your car, roadway infrastructure, drinking water and the environment, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Which Lexington streets tend to experience the most potholes?

Lexingtons most well-traveled roads tend to experience more potholes come spring. Think New Circle Road and Broadway.

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You can track recent pothole service requests with a map maintained by LexCall. Filter for pothole repair, and youll get an idea of clusters around the city.

According to a Herald-Leader review, pothole reports are clustered along on Tates Creek Road and High Street, near where Midland Avenue and Main Street converge, North Broadway near Loudon Avenue, Winchester Road near East New Circle, Cherokee Park off Nicholasville Road, the intersection of Zandale Drive and Bellefonte Drive and Keithshire Way near Wellington Elementary.

How to report potholes in Lexington

According to the citys website, the quickest way is to contact LexCall, the citys call center for information and service requests. Call 311 or 859-425-2255 to reach LexCall. Its normal business hours are from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

You can also make a service request online. Specify that you need pothole repair in the form online and provide as much detail as possible. Enter the potholes location by submitting the address or selecting the location directly on a provided map. If you dont know the exact address, select the closest location and include additional details describing the area.

Do you have a question about Lexington to Central Kentucky for the Herald-Leader? Wed like to hear from you. Fill out our Know Your Kentucky form or email ask@herald-leader.com.
BANGKOK, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Thailand's next government will likely take office by the end of April following the Bhumjaithai Party's election victory, a government official said on Monday.

"There won't be a honeymoon period," said government spokesperson Siripong Angkasakulkiat, a Bhumjaithai member who won a house seat in Sunday's election.

(Reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat; Writing by Martin Petty)
Enmity between the prime minister, defense minister, and the IDF chief prevented communication for hours as Hamas was murdering 1200 and kidnapping hundreds in the early hours of Oct. 7.

When Hamas fired some 3,700 rockets, and its invasion force of around 5,600 men penetrated Israel's border at 119 different spots to take over a couple of dozen villages at 6:29 a.m. on October 7, Israels top officials went into shock.

While many of those same officials made a number of bold decisions over the course of the next two years, including against Iran, Hezbollah, and the Syrian Assad regime  and historians will need to weigh their accomplishments against their failures  all were drawn into the failure on October 7.

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With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others publicizing selective aspects of what happened that morning, we can now exclusively reveal the puzzle of the interactions of three of the country's central characters at the time: Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi.

The most important new takeaway is that the three did not speak until nearly four hours into the war, by which point hundreds of Israeli hostages had already been taken, and hundreds of Israelis had been killed. Why they did not speak earlier is part of the story that follows and likely part of a basic dysfunction that went beyond politics, which no one wants to address.

Also, we will give a response of sorts from Amit Saar, the former IDF intelligence analysis chief from 2021 to April 2024, who died of cancer on January 1, 2026, and whom Netanyahu attacked overnight for "rebelling" against him, though when Saar died, the prime minister gave him high compliments.

The destruction caused by Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, 2023, near the Gaza border, in southern Israel, November 21, 2023 (credit: CHAIM GOLDBERG/FLASH90)

No generals in the room as Hamas massacred thousands in early hours of Oct. 7

Classified video footage of the IDF high command pit, which we viewed, showed that on October 7, not a single general was in the room. The midlevel officer in charge and his deputies were yelling at each other as reports of invasions flooded in. They had no overall defense plan.

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Even a full hour into Hamas's invasion, at 7:30 a.m., the IDF high command only knew about approximately 40 percent of the penetrations into Israel from Gaza.

As of 10:00 a.m., hundreds of Israelis were already dead or kidnapped, and yet the IDF high command was still only aware of some 60 percent of border penetrations.

The Israeli military's top commanders did not really start to manage the nations defense until about 1:00 p.m, which was also around the time Netanyahu's first video to the public came out.

By that time, Hamas and Islamic Jihad had taken the overwhelming majority of the hostages, and most Israeli victims at places near the Gaza border, like Kfar Aza, Nir Oz, Beeri, and the Nova Music Festival, had already been murdered.

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None of the top three officials made live public appearances in the early days, with IDF Chief Spokesman Brig. Gen. Daniel Hagari is the only one to do so.

Gallant is the only top official who can say that even his staff did not receive any warning prior to the 6:29 a.m invasion.

Halevi knew most of the top three, though even he had a very incomplete picture. Between 2:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m., Halevi's bureau chief woke him up to give him initial updates about a possible Hamas border threat.

He left his bedroom for his home study and wrote a few notes to enhance his level of alertness. He wrote to himself, We cannot just convince ourselves that this is nothing.

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But he and the entire intelligence and defense apparatus were convinced that at most, Hamas was planning one small penetration into one village to try to take a few hostages.

Only months into the war would IDF intelligence inform Halevi that it had intercepted Hamas's "Walls of Jericho" mass-invasion plan more than a year before, since mid-level officials had dismissed it as a fantasy.

What might Halevi have done differently had he known about the plan?

Maybe something more, but maybe nothing, given that all of Israel was convinced that Hamas was deterred.

For such a strategically low-grade threat, Halevi ordered only additional air force drones into the sky, more intelligence collection, and updates within the military.

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There were additional consultations between the IDF and the Shin Bet over a number of hours, including after 4:00 a.m. At 5:15 a.m., Shin Bet Chief Ronen Bar finally ordered his staff to update Netanyahu.

But with no sense of imminent emergency, his Shin Bet staff only carried out his order an hour later, at 6:13 a.m., sixteen minutes before Hamas initiated its invasion.

During those 16 minutes, Netanyahus personal military secretary, Maj. Gen. Avi Gil chose not to wake the prime minister, believing, along with the entire apparatus, that no large-scale threat was imminent.

Netanyahu consistently leaves out this fact when he discusses the timeline, trying to portray the defense establishment as intentionally leaving him in the dark.

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At 6:29 a.m., Netanyahu and Halevi were awoken by their staff because of the onset of the war. Gallant was notified by his daughter that war had broken out just as he was in the middle of early morning outdoor exercises.

Shortly after, Netanyahu, Gallant, and Halevi all traveled from their homes to Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv, arriving somewhere in the eight oclock hour.

An Israeli police officer stands outside the destroyed police station in the city of Sderot, October 8, 2023 (credit: YOSSI ZAMIR/FLASH90)

The defense minister and the IDF chief spoke on the phone during the drive to Tel Aviv.

Neither of them called Netanyahu, and the prime minister did not call them.

Netanyahu did receive updates from Gil, his military secretary, who was in touch with senior IDF officials.

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The prime ministers first orders either to Gil or to Gil's military staff were to seal Israels northern and southern borders, to ward off a possible assault by Hezbollah in Lebanon, and to prevent the Hamas invaders from escaping back across the Gaza border.

Its clearly not another round of conflict, Netanyahu told colleagues in real time, not the typical Gaza skirmish. Its going to be a long war.

Netanyahu, Gallant spoke for first time hours after Hamas's invasion

But we can now reveal for the first time that Netanyahu, Gallant, and Halevi did not speak until almost four hours into the war.

Rather, they were all at military headquarters, a couple of hundred meters from each other, for around two hours before speaking.

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So Netanyahu's orders did not necessarily get to the top when he issued them, and some of them, like closing off the southern border, were initiated by the air force around 10:00 a.m, near the same time Netanyahu finally gave the instructions to Halevi directly.

We can also disclose that the two spoke for the first time since the invasion at a meeting that began between 9:55 a.m. and 10:15 a.m. While Netanyahu has said 9:55 a.m., Halevi has said 10:15 a.m.

Netanyahu came to the IDF underground situation room for the meeting.

All of the officials present expressed that they were stunned at what Hamas had accomplished.

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Several Israeli security officials at headquarters appeared white as ghosts.

The three leaders also still felt like they were in the dark about the scope of the unfolding disaster. Netanyahu and Halevi debated whether a limited or full call-up of the reserves was warranted, before the prime minister decided on the maximum.

One reason it took so long for them to speak is that Netanyahu waited until his chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, arrived at military headquarters to assist with the Halevi meeting.

Braverman, unfortunately, got pinned down in his house with rocket siren alerts.

Still, why did the countrys three most important national security figures avoid speaking for so long during the crisis?

Why didn't the prime minister want immediate updates directly from the army chief and defense minister, so that he could best lead the country? Why didn't Gallant and Halevi reach out to the prime minister, if Netanyahu did not call, to ensure they were on the same page?

Sure, these top officials sometimes speak to each other through staff, but in such a crucial moment? There is no good answer. Clearly, all of the nation's top officials were not only stunned but racing to keep pace with the evolving picture of Hama's invasion, minute by minute.

The IDFs Gaza Division had collapsed after Hamas besieged its headquarters and its commander, Brigadier General Avi Rosenfeld.

Rosenfeld failed to convey the full extent of the assault, and along with a general system overload from the sheer number of disparate Hamas invasions, this meant that the military underestimated the catastrophe in these first hours.

All that said, when Netanyahu and Halevi did finally meet, the prime minister did not come away with a substantially different understanding of events on the ground. This was before 1:00 p.m., when the fog of the calamitous situation started to clear.

In that sense, even if the three leaders had spoken by phone hours earlier on the way to Tel Aviv headquarters between 7:00 and 8:00 a.m., maybe nothing major would have changed.

We will never know.

Israel's top three officials had complete breakdown of trust

But it seems clear from their relations up to that point and afterward that one of the reasons they did not speak was a complete breakdown of trust, which inhibited professional communications even on critical national security issues.

In March and July 2023, Gallant had publicly broken with Netanyahu over the judicial overhaul, leading to the prime ministers public firing of the defense minister, before retracting his firing within days due to massive protests.

Halevi did not publicly criticize Netanyahu over the judicial reform as much as Gallant, but he also did not crack down as hard as Netanyahu wanted him to on IDF officers and soldiers who threatened to refuse their reserve duty callups if the prime minister pushed his changes through.

When Halevi sent IDF Intelligence Chief Maj, Gen. Aharon Haliva to brief Netanyahu and top government officials at the Knesset in July 2023 on the eve of a major judicial overhaul vote, they boycotted him.

This is also where Haliva's top deputy, Saar, enters the picture.

Leading up to October 7, 2023, the IDF intelligence analysis chief had sent four letters to Netanyahu warning that Hamas viewed the internal chaos in Israel over the judicial reform as leaving Israel more vulnerable to attack.

Saar's latest letter to Netanyahu on the issue was received by the prime minister in July 2023, and another letter was on the way to the prime minister on the eve of the war.

When Saar died of cancer in January, Netanyahu issued a detailed message praising him for his smarts, independent thinking, and more.

As Israel nears election season, Netanyahu has decided to ignore his own prior statements complimenting Saar and to throw him under the bus. Saar, a dead man, cannot respond.

Brig.-Gen. Amit Sa'ar speaks at a conference of the Gazit Institute in Tel Aviv, November 5, 2022 (credit: TOMER NEUBERG/FLASH90)

Why is Netanyahu shifting the blame to deceased IDF official Amit Saar?

Yonah met Saar in some closed Hebrew media briefings.

He was extraordinarily confident about Israel's future and about how deeply Israeli intelligence had penetrated adversaries threatening it.

In that sense, he did have some of the same arrogance that all Israelis had toward Hamas leading up to October 7.

However, he was very concerned about Iran and Hezbollah, and he was a critical part of the apparatus that brought major successes against those more dangerous enemies later in the war.

He was a brilliant analyst with exhaustive data at his fingertips on nearly any topic you could imagine.

Despite some generic Israeli arrogance regarding Hamas, as a human being, he actually carried himself more modestly than your typical Israeli general.

There was nothing about him that would qualify him as a "rebel."

Like many top IDF officials, he wanted to support the government's military policies as part of his role as an officer in uniform, but he also saw it as his role to issue unpleasant and inconvenient warnings about the status of the military, if that status was real.

Like everyone else, Saar had no idea Hamas would invade, so he certainly did not send his four letters to Netanyahu to set the prime minister up for the 2026 election issues.

Politicians and historians will debate endlessly who was responsible for weakening the military in the eyes of Hamas during the judicial overhaul debate, but the fact is that it was weakened. This was information Saar had a duty to provide to Netanyahu.

Those not singularly devoted to one or another political party have said that it has always been and remains unfair to place the blame for October 7 on any one branch of Israel's political or defense establishments. Everyone was responsible in one way or another.

But what this story discloses is that the personal enmity between the top three officials over the judicial overhaul and related issues inhibited their ability to communicate in the early, crucial hours of October 7. It also discloses why Netanyahu is now on the attack, even against the deceased Saar, and why the political fireworks, on all sides, wont be ending anytime soon.

Elliot Kaufman is a Wall Street Journal Editorial Board member and editorial writer.
Voters cast their ballots at the Salt Lake County Government Center in Salt Lake City on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)

A bill to make Election Day a state holiday  giving some Utahns the day off to vote  failed in the House Monday.

This is the second year in a row Rep. Ryan Wilcox, R-Ogden, has run legislation to designate the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, Election Day, as a state holiday. This year, HB104 failed on the House floor after a 33-39 defeat.

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The bill would have given workplaces the option to close by marking Election Day on state calendars, a move Wilcox told Utah News Dispatch he hoped would encourage employers and others to let people off to (vote).

The intent behind the bill really was to create a space where people can vote in person again, and not just nostalgically, he said. I think weve lost something of that civic sacrament that we used to have in the country where we would all show up.

Currently, the vast majority of Utah voters cast their ballots by mail or in drop boxes.

Utah provides workers the right to time off for election  joining 16 other states that require paid time off to vote without recognizing Election Day as a holiday. Fourteen states nationwide recognize an Election Day holiday, but only five of those states require employers to give their workers paid time off to vote.

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Thats according to the Movement Advancement Project, an independent, nonprofit think tank that says a common barrier to voter accessibility is getting away from work.

There is no federal law that requires voters be provided time off to cast their ballot, so that policy choice is left up to the states, the report says. Policymakers have taken two approaches to solve this issue: making Election Day a public holiday or requiring employers to provide paid time off for voting.

Referencing non-religious Utah holidays like Columbus Day and Juneteenth, Wilcox told Utah News Dispatch that he wants state holidays to move away from what he calls fake Monday holidays to better represent values of the state.

In an ideal scenario, we would prioritize the things that underpin legitimacy of our government and our contract with one another, he said. Its nice to remember a lot of (those holidays), and I dont know that any of them are more important than us exercising the function that happens from voting.

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Dosker Manor in downtown Louisville now sits vacant, after all, nearly 600 residents were moved out and into other metro housing.

The Louisville Metro Housing Authority (LMHA) is now paving the way for the area to be redeveloped.

This announcement represents a promise kept, LMHA Executive Director Elizabeth Strojan said. In 2024, we committed to relocating every Dosker Manor resident with care, dignity, and support, and today we can proudly say we delivered on that commitment. This milestone allows us to move forward with redevelopment while ensuring residents have transitioned to housing that better meets their needs.

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Angeletta Johnson joined the hundreds of other residents who moved out of the complex after dealing with rodents, bed bugs, and leaks. She lived at Dosker Manor for 10 years, but it didn't feel like a home.

"I felt ignored. I felt neglected," Johnson said. "I wanted something better, but I could not afford to move on a fixed income. That was supposed to be my sacred place. You know, my peace, and there was no peace. It was always chaos."

Johnson moved out of Dosker in September and described pulling away from the complex in her U-Haul. "You look in your rearview mirror and thinkthank you, Jesus. Now Im going home," she said.

Johnson now lives in a new complex in Middletown, and says she has finally found a safe place to call her home.

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"It was complicated because of the housing market in Louisville, where we don't have enough safe, decent quality, affordable housing for the lowest income Louisvillians. It was complicated by the incredibly high service needs for a lot of the residents who had been placed in Dosker and then forgotten about," Strojan said.

The next step will be to demolish the former First Link grocery site and plan for a new mixed-income community to take its place. It is supposed to have 127 units for seniors and will be called the Miller, Louisville leaders said.

"Everybody deserves to to live and to live comfortably in your home and safe in your home," Johnson said. "I hope that when they rebuild, I hope they don't let it get like that again."

The campus will have a fitness center, business center, community room, and a walking path around the courtyard.

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"We're not stopping there. We have a lot of work to do," Strojan said.

LMHA and the mayor announced the new name for the future development of the area will be Mae Street Village, and will honor the late civil rights leader and Kentucky trailblazer, Rep. Mae Street Kidd. She was the first African American woman in the Kentucky State legislature.

The Miller is part of the Mae Street Village development, and is named in part to honor Kidd's hometown, Millersburg, Kentucky. It will be located across the street from where Dosker Manor currently is so older residents can be close to their families.

LMHA made the decision to demolish the complex after years of residents complaining about poor living conditions. Residents reported living through bug infestations, mold and violence.
An appellate court ruled that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem can proceed with eliminating special immigration status for some Honduran, Nicaraguan and Nepali immigrants in the U.S. The ruling reversed a lower court's order that halted the three terminations.

A unanimous panel of three judges in the Ninth Circuit overrode the lower court late Monday night, adding in their order that Noem is likely to succeed on its reasons for the terminations, according to court documents. The ruling meant that about 60,000 immigrants must leave the U.S.

The National TPS Alliance filed the lawsuit in July, asserting that Noem violated the Administrative Procedure Act in disregarding the countries' conditions and instead relying on political reasons to terminate the program. They also accused Noem of violating the Fifth Amendment by using race as a motivating factor.

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"I cannot bear the thought of being separated from my family," Jhony Silva, a plaintiff in the case, said in a release. Silva holds TPS status as a Honduran immigrant and has lived in the U.S. for 26 years and has a U.S.-born child who depends on him for care, support and insurance, according to court records.

The Ninth Circuit Court covers Alaska, Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, the Northern Mariana Islands, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state. Because of the court's boundaries, it does not affect a lower court ruling out of Washington, D.C. that barred termination of Haitian's temporary protected status.

Noem celebrated the Appellate Court's ruling on X and reemphasized her stance that the program is only meant to be temporary and not used as a de facto amnesty program.

"A win for the rule of law and vindication for the US Constitution," Noem wrote on X. "Under the previous administration, Temporary Protected Status was abused to allow violent terrorists, criminals, and national security threats into our nation."

Noem ends TPS for certain migrants

Noem terminated the special status for Nicaragua, Nepal and Honduras back in August. For Honduras and Nicaragua, migrants were granted the status following Hurricane Mitch in 1998, a Category 1 storm. The storm killed at least 8,000 people collectively and cost nearly $4.7 billion in total economic losses for both countries.

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The U.S. mobilized support for hard-hit Central America, focusing international aid on Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, according to a press release archive from former President Bill Clinton. Part of the humanitarian assistance included granting TPS to Hondurans and Nicaraguans and issuing deportation stays for El Salvadorans and Guatemalans.

The secretary said in two press releases announcing the terminations that Honduras and Nicaragua were safe for people to return, noting that environmental conditions had improved in both countries.

"Temporary Protected Status was never meant to last a quarter of a century," Noem said in a July 7 release.

For Nepal, the U.S. granted Nepali immigrants special status following a 7.8-magnitude earthquake in 2015, according to the Federal Register. The quake and its aftershocks killed more than 8,700 people and displaced millions more. The U.S. asserted that Nepal could not respond to the disaster on its own and needed international assistance, and would be overwhelmed if migrants in the U.S. were returned to the country.

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DHS said in an Aug. 14 release commemorating Noem's first 100 days on the job that the program was "abused and exploited by illegal aliens."

The post Noem can pull TPS immigration protections for three countries, court rules appeared first on Straight Arrow News.

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The Indiana Statehouse on Oct. 10, 2025. (Photo by Niki Kelly/Indiana Capital Chronicle)

The states five largest nonprofit hospital systems again cleared a statutory pricing benchmark in 2024, according to the latest report commissioned by the Indiana Department of Insurance.

The analysis, by actuarial consultant Milliman, includes Ascension Health, Community Health Network, Franciscan Health, Indiana University Health and Parkview Health  minus critical access hospitals. It was the second edition of the annual report.

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Prices for the commercially insured market were compared to 285% of what Medicare would have paid, in accordance with 2023s House Enrolled Act 1004. The 65-page document was completed in November but uploaded publicly late last month.

All five systems came in under the benchmark for 2024, per the report:

Ascension: 254%

Community: 236%

Franciscan: 271%

IU Health: 237%

Parkview: 262%

The Indiana Hospital Association celebrated the results, describing the 252% average as a full 33 percentage points below lawmakers reference point.

The data is clear: Indiana hospitals are lowering prices while navigating some of the most difficult financial conditions in recent history, said Scott B. Tittle, the organizations president, in a Tuesday news release.

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Tittle called on insurers to pass those savings along.

But not everyone is applauding. The Employers Forum of Indiana said the inclusion of hospital-owned medical groups professional fees has a material effect upon reported prices, reducing average hospital prices (aka, facility prices) by 30 to more than 50 percentage points.

Physician fees should not be averaged with hospital facility fees because this mingling gives misleading information on the prices for each, the employer-led health care coalition added Monday night.

The hospital association, meanwhile, said Indianas insurer-set physician reimbursement rates are among the lowest in the country, forcing hospitals to subsidize physician practices.

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Each system met the benchmark across three years of analysis. The 2024 results, however, showed across-the-board decreases from 2023, with more mixed results compared to 2022.

Source: Indiana Department of Insurance

Hospital systems said they worked to lower their prices.

The states analysis reflects the dedication of our teams who work tirelessly to innovate, streamline workflows and ensure were providing the right care, in the right place, at the right time, said Dr. Jason Row, the president of Parkview Physicians Group and chief value transformation officer for Parkview Health. But we also understand that affordability is not a single project, its a systemwide commitment. From reducing medical debt to expanding lowercost care settings, were focused on doing whats right for our patients and our communities.

The states study validates the work we have been committed to at IU Health since 2020  leading efforts to make care more affordable for Hoosiers, IU Health President and CEO Dennis Murphy. Our commercial prices are now below the national average, and we will continue these efforts because if healthcare isnt affordable, it isnt accessible.

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Practitioner services for the five systems were calculated at over 100% of Medicare. Inpatient care was above 200% of Medicare, while outpatient services were at or above 300%.

Milliman cautioned that the percentages should each only be compared to the 285% standard, and not to each other.

Thats because the full Medicare figures include the hospital-specific payments Medicare provides for inpatient services. All of the hospitals included in the report have one or more hospital-specific adjustments, which the consultants noted increase their reimbursement from Medicare by up to 52%.

Milliman also performed modified Medicare calculations, without the hospital-specific payments, to produce numbers that could be compared across hospital systems  but not to the benchmark.

Source: Indiana Department of Insurance

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In this version, Community came out on top, at 247% of modified Medicare, followed by IU Health at 258%. Ascension and Parkview tied at 275%, while Franciscan lagged at 283%.

Since Modified Medicare is in the denominator of these percentages, removing the hospital-specific additional payments decreased the Medicare amounts, which, in turn, caused the percentages to increase, the consultants reported.

They also analyzed the average commercial price, as a percentage of full Medicare, for three chunks of the commercially insured population: self-funded group health insurance, fully insured groups with insurance carrier plans and individual-level plans.

The individual market percent of Medicare was generally much lower than for either of the group markets. But much of the data couldnt be mapped to a specific market segment, so results could differ notably if that information were available.

Source: Indiana Department of Insurance

The report additionally compares the 2022 data to that years results in an influential RAND study, which didnt consider practitioner and some outpatient services. The consultants adjusted for those and other differences, but couldnt account for variations in data volume, sampling and collection time periods.

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A newly elected board of directors at the Pennsylvania Occupational Therapy Association discovered that the organization's bank account had been drained to zero, leading to criminal charges against its former treasurer.

Police say 40-year-old Michal Fantuzzo of Westmoreland County spent more than $246,000 of the nonprofit's money on personal expenses between 2021 and 2024.

The association, based in Bryn Mawr, promotes professional development and access to therapists who assist clients with physical changes, rehabilitation needs, and developmental delays.

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According to investigators, the financial problems came to light in 2025, when the new board realized the organization could not pay its bills. They then uncovered what police described as questionable withdrawals from the group's accounts.

Fantuzzo is accused of using the funds to pay off credit card debt and property taxes, as well as to support an extravagant lifestyle.

Police say the spending included a family trip to Disney World, a vacation rental in North Carolina, a country club membership, a limousine rental, and a hot tub installation at his home.

His Facebook profile shows him posing with family members at Disney, though investigators have not confirmed whether that photo corresponds to the trip referenced in the complaint.

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Fantuzzo did not respond to phone calls on Monday. Police say he turned himself in on Friday and was released from jail the same day. He faces multiple felony charges.

The Pennsylvania Occupational Therapy Association declined an interview but issued a written statement, saying in part:

"It was deeply troubling to learn that Mr. Fantuzzo chose to abuse the trust we placed in him with respect to POTA's financial

accounts."

Fantuzzo is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on Feb. 17.
Does your team feel like its working hard, but it isnt moving fast? The problem might not be the effort here. It could actually be the tools.

The right software doesnt mean more apps or flashing features. Instead, it means tools that quietly remove friction from everyday work. Think project management platforms that keep tasks organized. Communication tools that reduce endless email chains. Customer systems that store information in one place. Automation tools that handle the busywork.

When software fits the way your team actually works, productivity tends to rise naturally. Below are three practical ways the right software makes this happen.

Centralizes Information into a Single Source of Truth

Few things slow teams down more than hunting for information. It is a very tedious task. Files are scattered across inboxes. Spreadsheets live on personal drives. No one is actually sure which version is the latest. Good software solves this problem. It does this by giving everyone one reliable place to look.

A shared workspace or customer management tool, for example, will store documents, notes, conversations, and history together. A CRM database is a common example. This, a customer relationship management database, is a system that stores customer information  like constant details, past interactions, and sales activity  in one central location.

Instead of asking around or digging through old emails, team members quickly see whats going on and move forward with confidence.

When everyone works from the same information, there are benefits. Mistakes drop. Handoffs get smoother. Meetings get shorter. That alone will save hours each week  and no business will complain about that.

Automates Routine and Repetitive Tasks

Every role has small tasks that quite eat up time  data entry, follow-ups, reminders, and status updates. On their own, these tasks dont seem like much. Together, they will drain focus and energy.

The right software automates these tasks in the background. Project tools, for instance, automatically update task statuses. Customer systems send follow-up emails. Reporting tools generate weekly summaries without manual work. Automation doesnt replace people, as some would believe. It frees them.

If repetitive steps are removed, teams spend more time thinking, solving problems, and doing work that requires human judgement. Productivity increases not because people work faster, but because theyre no longer stuck doing work that software is better suited to handle.

Provides Data-Driven Insights for Decision Making

Productive teams dont rely on guesswork. Clarity is where its at. Good software turns everyday activity into useful data, then presents it in a way thats easy to understand.

Dashboards, reports, and simple visual charts show whats working and what isnt. Maybe a project keeps missing deadlines. Maybe a sales process stalls at the same stage. When such patterns are visible, teams make better decisions sooner.

Instead of reacting late or debating opinions, leaders and team members point to real numbers. That speeds up decisions, reduces friction, and helps everyone focus on what truly matters.

To conclude, the right software doesnt push teams to work hard. It helps them work smarter. As outlined above, the software will create space for better work  and better results.
One of the areas busiest airports recently announced some of its upcoming nonstop flights.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG) announced the services in an email.

TRENDING STORIES:

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American Airlines will add up to three additional daily flights to Chicago (ORD) in February.

In March, Southwest Airlines will start twice-daily nonstop flights to Nashville (BNA), according to the email.

British Airways will also expand its nonstop service to London to six days a week.

Allegiant will launch a new nonstop flight to Orange County, California (SNA) and restart its service to Portland, Oregon (PDX) in May, the email said.

For more details on nonstop flights from CVG, click here.

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Rep. Jared Hagert, R-Emerado, speaks with a colleague on the House floor on May 1, 2025. (Photo by Kyle Martin/For the North Dakota Monitor)

State Rep. Jared Hagert, R-Emerado, resigned from the North Dakota Legislature Monday to take a job in the federal government, according to his resignation letter.

The Red River Farm Network reported Hagert is expected to be named to a post within the U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency. Hagert said in the letter the post is in Washington, D.C., but he declined to discuss specifics Monday until the agency announces the position.

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Its a great opportunity to serve the farm community and give another voice that has been there, on the farm, and in the Upper Midwest and bring that perspective to the USDA, Hagert said in an interview.

Hagert, a farmer and owner of Integrated Ag Services, was elected to the House of Representatives in 2020. He has served as vice chair of the Legislatures Finance and Taxation Committee since 2023 and led interim committees in 2023 and 2025. In 2018, he represented North Dakota on the Farm Service Agency State Committee.

Im going to miss interacting with my colleagues in the Legislature and working with them, he said.

Rep. Jared Hagert, R-Emerado. (Photo provided by the North Dakota Legislative Assembly)

Representatives of the USDA Farm Service Agency did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

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During the 2023 and 2025 legislative sessions, Hagert co-sponsored legislation that established and expanded a property tax credit for homeowners. In 2025, he was chief sponsor of House Bill 1332 that allows the North Dakota Department of Agriculture to issue grants for value-added agriculture facilities.

Sen. Randy Lemm, R-Hillsboro, said Hagert was our go-to guy for tax policy.

I hate to see him go, but you dont get an opportunity like this very often, he said.

Lemm said Hagert will be an important voice for the states farmers in Washington, D.C.

Hagerts term expires in 2028. The District 20 legislative seat will be on the November ballot to determine who serves the remainder of the term, said Erika White, election director for North Dakota. The filing deadline for the general election is Aug. 31.

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It will be up to the NDGOP District 20 committee to appoint someone to fill Hagerts seat through November. The district has 21 days to make the appointment once it receives official notification of the vacancy.

District 20 encompasses parts of western Grand Forks County, Traill County and part of Walsh County.

North Dakota Monitor reporter Michael Achterling can be reached at machterling@northdakotamonitor.com.

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It's been a few years since San Antonio-based grocery giant H-E-B finally expanded into the North Texas region. Since first launching in North Texas with a Frisco location in 2022, the chain has opened several more in the surrounding areas, but one man is asking why there aren't any within the city of Dallas itself.

Fredrick Terry has been on a campaign since 2023 to solve the food desert, which he says has been a constant problem in the 59-year-old's neighborhood of Oak Cliff. An H-E-B would change things - but Terry told MySA nobody has been able to tell him exactly why the chain hasn't made its way into Dallas' urban core despite owning multiple tracts of land, like the empty lot near his house.

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"You're either in a grocery business, or you're land speculators," Terry said. "And here they appear to be land speculators."

Terry left Oak Cliff 30 years ago, and before returning in 2023, he said there were three H-E-B stores within seven miles of him when he lived in Houston, including other options like Kroger and Sprouts. However, it's just one Kroger serving most of Oak Cliff, he said. Terry's campaign to bring the store that does more to his neighborhood and others began in 2023 after he spoke with local politicians and was unsatisfied with their solutions.

"One guy said to me ... 'The young people that are moving into this neighborhood, they're really only concerned about ordering food to be delivered, and they're just not shopping.' And my position on it is, how do you know that? ... So they just seem to be very passive and very laissez-faire about the whole thing, and that bothered me, because I know that this neighborhood is in need of this."

Texan says he'd 'be in heaven' if H-E-B opened in Dallas

Terry, who tells MySA he and his father both worked in the grocery business, says he later met with people from the chain's communications arm when H-E-B opened a Joe V's Smart Shop in Dallas. He says he was told for flagship stores, the chain looks for 20 to 22-acre lots - which you'd be hard-pressed to find in the city, "and it's gonna be more expensive if you do," according to Terry.

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However, the smallest H-E-B in Texas is the 12,000-square-foot South Flores Market in downtown San Antonio. Considering Oak Cliff's comparability (in key demographics like median income) to neighborhoods across Texas that do sport H-E-B stores, Terry said, "I just don't know why that wouldn't be viable. And no one has been able to tell me."

Since starting his campaign, Terry has created a website that lays out his case, and in November 2025, he even rented a mobile billboard with a QR code to the site. Despite his efforts, Terry said he doesn't necessarily know if anything will come to fruition. But the way he sees it, "really, I only have two choices."

"I can sit around and complain about my situation ... or I could try to do something about it. I just choose to do something about it."

Even so, Terry said he loves H-E-B and "would be in heaven, period" if one were to be built in his neighborhood.

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"I love H-E-B - don't get me wrong - and I would never tell anyone not to shop there," Terry said. "We're not trying to boycott H-E-B or anything like that, but I'm not going to drive 60 miles when I've got property right down the street from me that you can build a perfectly good H-E-B market there."

In the meantime, H-E-B has a store within Dallas city limits planned for I-635 and Hillcrest Road. It passed an important zoning hurdle in December 2025, though some residents still oppose it on potential congestion. When MySA reached out for comment, a spokesperson for H-E-B said the company doesn't "have anything to add."

This article originally published at North Texas man wants to know why H-E-B seemingly won't touch his neighborhood.
By Terje Solsvik and Johan Ahlander

OSLO/STOCKHOLM, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Norway's parliamentary oversight committee unanimously agreed on Tuesday to appoint a rare external inquiry into foreign ministry links to Jeffrey Epstein, part of a deepening scandal over friendships with the late U.S. sex offender.

The release of a cache of new files in the U.S. has revealed a host of new Epstein connections with politicians, royals and the ultra-rich across Europe.

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Norway's white-collar crimes police have opened an investigation into Thorbjoern Jagland, former prime minister and foreign minister and ex-chair of the Nobel Peace Prize committee, on suspicion of aggravated corruption.

On Monday, police announced that Mona Juul, who on Sunday resigned as ambassador to Jordan and Iraq, was also being investigated for corruption. Her husband, former cabinet minister Terje Roed-Larsen, is suspected of complicity.

All three will cooperate with the respective investigations and see no merit in the accusations, their lawyers have said.

EPSTEIN SCANDAL REVERBERATES ACROSS NORWAY

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But the police's actions have not stemmed the demand for a public inquiry in a country where officials are expected to be squeaky-clean.

"If only half of what we have learned in the last few weeks is true, then this is terrible," the Labour Party's Sverre Myrli told reporters after a meeting of parliament's Standing Committee on Scrutiny and Constitutional Affairs.

The files show among other things that Jagland and Epstein's assistants made detailed plans in 2014 for Jagland, his wife, two children and his son's girlfriend to visit Epstein at Palm Beach and the Caribbean island that he owned.

Jagland, then secretary general of the Council of Europe rights watchdog, has denied ever visiting Epstein's private island.

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In an email in 2014, he sought Epstein's help in financing an apartment in Oslo.

Emails from 2018 showed Epstein asking Jagland to arrange for him to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and saying he had insights to offer President Vladimir Putin. Jagland promised to bring it up with Lavrov's assistant.

Roed-Larsen's ties to Epstein came to light in 2019. He has apologised several times for the relationship and in 2020 stepped down as CEO of the New York-based International Peace Institute, a think tank.

The files indicate that Juul and Roed-Larsen made plans to visit Epstein's private island with their two children in 2011, though it was unclear if the visit took place.

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In a message in 2017, Roed-Larsen called Epstein a "thoroughly good human being", and in 2018 the couple received his help in negotiating the purchase of an apartment in Oslo that is now a subject of the police investigation.

In a will signed two days before his death by suicide in a jail cell in 2019, Epstein said he was leaving $5 million to each of the couple's two children.

Norway's crown princess, Mette-Marit, wife of the heir to the throne, apologised last week to the king and queen over a friendship with Epstein between 2011 and 2014, long after his 2008 conviction for soliciting sex from a minor.

(Reporting by Terje Solsvik in Oslo and Johan Ahlander in Stockholm; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Walnut Capitals late-in-the-game request to eliminate the requirement that it provide 16 apartments that meet standards of affordability at its 159-unit Caroline project now under construction on McKee Place in central Oakland was bound to generate plenty of pushback from the community and proponents of inclusionary zoning in the city.

That it did in a hearing on Thursday before the Pittsburgh Zoning Board of Adjustment, in which the development firms lawyer, Jonathan Kamin, made clear the request was at least partly motivated by Walnut Capitals involvement in a lawsuit by the Builders Association of Metropolitan Pittsburgh against the city of Pittsburgh over the inclusionary zoning issue over all.

The association had, in its lawsuit filed in 2022, challenged Pittsburghs IZ policy. A federal court had dismissed the lawsuit in November, but in order for future lawsuits to be filed, developers have to exhaust all options to try to get around the policy, including Walnut Capitals asking for an exemption on the project. The project is already well under construction and expected to be completed and open as a student housing project in fall 2027.

Click here to read more from our partners at the Pittsburgh Business Times.

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Several Pittsburgh off-duty police officers were involved in a fight while at a bar, sources say.

A Pittsburgh Police spokesperson confirmed that command staff have been notified about the incident.

One of those officers has been placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation.

The altercation reportedly happened in a bar outside the city.

Channel 11 is working to learn more.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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An off-duty sheriff's deputy and a family member opened fire on a teenager suspected of attempting to steal the deputy's personal car, according to Philadelphia police.

It happened around 3:45 a.m. Tuesday on the 7300 block of Bunting Place in Southwest Philadelphia.

According to Chief Inspector Scott Small, the deputy spotted a suspected car thief trying to break into his personal vehicle, a black Honda Accord, which was parked outside of his home.

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The deputy and a family member went outside and fired their weapons a total of four times, shooting the 17-year-old male suspect twice in the leg.

At this point in the investigation, it's unclear who struck the suspect.

The suspected thief got into a waiting vehicle and fled the scene.

About 20 minutes later, police were notified about a shooting victim who arrived at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center. The victim was found with tools that could be used to steal cars, including key fob cloning devices. Investigators said he did not have a gun when he arrived at the hospital.

The sheriff's deputy went to the hospital and positively identified the 17-year-old.

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The teen is listed in stable condition.

The deputy and the family member who fired shots are cooperating with the investigation. Police say the family member has a license to carry a firearm.

The identities of those involved have not yet been released.

Neighbors told police that stolen vehicles have been an ongoing issue in the area. One resident, Abdul Amdouseydou, said the situation was understandable.

"He's protecting his stuff, so there's nothing crazy about it. The crazy part is being a 17-year-old breaking into people's cars," Amdouseydou said.

Another neighbor, Beauty Maleka, said the incident was still troubling.

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"It's terrifying to know that a 17-year-old got shot because you're breaking into somebody's car. It shouldn't be that way. You should be in school, you should be sleeping. It's very devastating," Maleka said.

There's no word if any other vehicles were broken into on Tuesday.

Investigators are reviewing home surveillance footage from neighbors.

The sheriff's office had no comment when contacted about the deputy's status.

The incident remains under investigation by the Philadelphia Police Department's officer-involved shooting investigation team and the Sheriff's Office's internal affairs bureau.
DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN)  We are working to learn more information about a reported shooting that happened on Queens Avenue Tuesday morning.

Our 2 NEWS crew at the scene saw multiple areas restricted by tape and a large police presence in the 4700 block of Queens Avenue. An ambulance was seen driving away from the area as well.

In a 911 call obtained by 2 NEWS, the caller tells the dispatcher to get police to the area because someone has been shot.

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Soon after, the caller says that they shot their girlfriend three times.

Caller: I shot my [expletive] girlfriend.

Lt. Eric Sheldon of the Dayton Police Department confirmed Wednesday that officers located a woman, 33, whod suffered several gunshot wounds. She was taken to an area hospital where she succumbed to said injuries.

The Montgomery County Coroners Office identified the deceased as Jaime Dick.

A male suspect was taken into custody, with Lt. Sheldon confirming that that the suspect and the victim were in a relationship. The incident is under further investigation by the DPDs Homicide Unit.

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Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WDTN.com.
At morning services at Central Christian Church in Springfield, Ohio, on Sunday, congregants greeted one another with hugs and expressed gratitude for a rare piece of good news. Nearly a week before, a federal judge blocked the Trump administrations attempt to end legal protections for 350,000 Haitians in the US.

The church is one of several in Springfield that provide services in Haitian Creole and has opened its doors to thousands of Haitians living in the small city in south-western Ohio. Addressing the ruling, pastor Carl Ruby explained in his sermon that during times of suffering, the silence of God doesnt mean the absence of God.

Through all these calamities, fear, anxiety, panic and uncertainty, God is going to do something, said pastor Viles Dorsainvil, who settled in Springfield in 2021 and also preaches at the church. Thats what I took from that.

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Haitians in Springfield have faced uncertainty and upheaval ever since Donald Trump amplified false claims that Haitians there were stealing pets and eating them during his 2024 presidential run. All the while, the city has erected a resistance infrastructure to protect the community. A local network of churches like Central, legal advocates, non-profits and volunteers have loudly proclaimed that Haitians are welcome  especially in a time when finding places to feel safe in the city has become harder.

Related: Despite TPS stay, thousands of Haitians in Ohio face uncertainty and fear of ICE

After Trumps rhetoric hit the national stage during a presidential debate against Kamala Harris, schools and corporate and government buildings received bomb threats and white nationalist groups marched through the city to demand that Haitians leave. When Trump became president months later, his administration announced the termination of the temporary protected status (TPS) that had allowed Haitians affected by political unrest or natural disasters to legally live and work in the US. Even though a federal judge blocked the order, the administration has appealed. For now, Haitians with TPS are in the US legally, but are in limbo amid an escalating legal battle over the future of TPS.

This was on top of speculation that federal immigration agents were going to be deployed to the city to detain Haitians. Just this week, schools and county offices across the city received another round of bomb threats: The whole essence of the threats were the Haitians should be out, get rid of the Haitians, Republican Ohio governor Mike DeWine said in a press conference.

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Amid the growing threats and uncertainty, advocates across the city are expanding their efforts to support Haitians. There are so many good people in Springfield, Dorsainvil said. So many people have come out to support Haitians in Springfield and that shows how powerful we are when we come together.

Churches are the backbone of Springfields resistance

Even before Trump thrust Springfield into the national spotlight in 2024, churches were already quietly organizing to support Haitians.

Dorsainvil opened the Haitian Community Help and Support Center in 2023 to advocate for and serve the Haitian immigrants who began moving to Springfield in large numbers during the pandemic, finding employment opportunities and affordable housing. Early on, the center welcomed hundreds of people to its office for civil rights training sessions, English lessons taught by Ohio natives and church services.

Other churches offered English language classes for parents and their children, too, often in Sunday schoolrooms. Churches also partnered with social service agencies to connect families to health screenings, vaccinations and school readiness programs.

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Through church-organized transportation networks, volunteers are trained to drive immigrants to court hearings and medical appointments, serving as chauffeurs and also witnesses. Volunteers are trained to carry emergency contact information in case a family member is detained and does not return from an appointment.

Its about reducing anxiety and making sure someone isnt alone, Michelle Boomgaard, an Episcopal reverend in Springfield, said.

But as enforcement threats have intensified, the nature of support has shifted from services to protection. The Haitian Community Help and Support Center has shuttered its doors and is offering services remotely to ensure its members are safe.

Church leaders have also had to speak more publicly, Boomgaard said. In a recent open letter, 154 Episcopal bishops from across the US called on Americans to trust their moral compass, question rhetoric rooted in fear rather than truth and to stand with vulnerable people, even when doing so carries personal risk.

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We dont preach politics, Boomgaard said. But we do preach standing with the vulnerable. Even after a judge temporarily blocked the termination of TPS, fear has not subsided, she explained.

For a lot of white Americans, there was a sigh of relief  like, crisis over, Boomgaard said over the TPS ruling. But for Haitians, the fear is still very real. Its not just about the law. Its about the attitude [of hate] that made all of this acceptable.

Springfields resistance starts with community

Other community members and organizations have also stepped up. Margery Koveleski, a Haitian-American interpreter and community organizer who moved to Springfield in 2001, has become a lifeline for families navigating uncertainty.

Now, as a full-time organizer, Koveleski begins her day by responding to dozens of calls and text messages from families in need. She then hosts office hours in a convenience shop where Haitians can drop in to ask questions about anything, from work permits to passport applications to medical paperwork. The demands of the job have ebbed and flowed as Haitians have left Springfield after Trumps comments in 2024.

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People are terrified, Koveleski said. They dont want to leave their homes. Some dont even want to go to court. The fear in the community has been compounded by reports that federal agents are preparing a large-scale operation in the region, possibly involving roadblocks, workplace visits and enforcement near schools and social service agencies. City officials have warned residents that local authorities cannot stop federal actions.

For families, the emotional toll was profound, Koveleski said, as she described seeing children clinging to their parents and crying at their homes ahead of the TPS pause last week. You see the horror on their faces, she said. Theyre asking: Why? Were not causing problems. Were working hard. Were minding our business. She often comes home numb, she said, after spending the day comforting families with no clear answers. Its like watching someone drown and not having a lifejacket, she said. You just hold them and cry.

Still, Koveleski and others continue to show up. Were all different parts of one body, she said. The eyes, the hands, the feet. Everybody has a role.



With speculation of federal immigration agents coming to the city, volunteers are helping Haitian families create emergency plans, including developing emergency childcare hubs at churches and identifying trusted contacts who can step in if a parent is detained. The groups have also developed coordinated food deliveries to households where people are afraid to leave their homes. Volunteers role-play scenarios with one another to learn how to document Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) encounters and practice strategies like whistle alerts if enforcement officers appear.

After watching violent ICE operations in Minneapolis and other areas, the community is preparing for worst-case scenarios. The panic is still here, and we dont know what the final verdict will be, Dorsainvil said. But I think the final ruling will come soon, and we have to be ready.
Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima. (Photo by Graham Stokes for Ohio Capital Journal. Republish photo only with original article.)

An Ohios Republican legislative leader is rejecting President Donald Trumps push to federalize elections.

House Speaker Matt Huffman, known as the most effective lawmaker in the state, categorically shut down any effort by the president to take over Ohios elections.

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Trump commented last week on elections, saying they should be nationalized, and complaining that blue states and cities cant run elections honestly.

A state is an agent for the federal government in elections, he told reporters. I dont know why the federal government doesnt do them anyway.

While on CNN the day after Trumps comments, Ohio Republican U.S. Sen. Jon Husted said Ohios elections are run well, but pushed for more oversight of other states.

They dont have photo ID in California, Husted said. They dont properly maintain their voter rolls in California.

Both he and fellow Ohio Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno are backing federal legislation, nicknamed the SAVE Act. that, among other provisions, would require proof of citizenship to register to vote. Individuals would have to produce their birth certificate or a passport.

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Senator Moreno is a staunch supporter of measures that protect the integrity of our elections, Morenos spokesperson, Reagan McCarthy, said when asked what his thoughts were on federalizing elections. He is a proud co-sponsor of the SAVE Act and will work with anyone to ensure elections are accurate, fair, and secure.

But outside of D.C., Statehouse leaders are pushing back.

The state of Ohio should be in charge of the state of Ohios elections, Huffman said when asked if Ohio should give up power for the president.

While other Republicans danced around Trumps comments, Huffman explicitly said no, insisting that Ohio knows how to run its elections.

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I dont think that the states, in any way, should give up their elections, he said. For one thing, is the federal government going to come in and run a township trustee election? Are they going to come in and decide whos running for school board, or fiscal officer, or the thousands and thousands of other elections?

The House speaker has previously been dismissive of Trumps ideas, such as when he said the president wouldnt pressure him to put out the congressional map the White House wanted.

Huffman has, however, been a part of redistricting lawsuits in which he requested help from a federal court to step in and rule that the legislature could control mapmaking. This federal court decision superseded the bipartisan Ohio Supreme Courts ruling that the Republicans needed to stop gerrymandering.

While answering an unrelated question, Huffman made an aside about the separation of Congress and state.

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There are federal things the federal government does and things the state government does Huffman said.There are lots of things the federal government does that are not federal functions, unfortunately.

Case Western Reserve University elections law expert Atiba Ellis explained that Trump doesnt have the authority to federalize elections.

If Congress chooses to make changes regarding federal elections, and federal elections only, Congress can do so, Ellis said. The president cannot declare that the Republican Party or whoever can take over elections.

What he can do, the professor said, is push the states to mirror federal law.

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Congress can set law in regards to federal elections, which states would have to follow, he said. When you bring these together, there is a bit of unification in that sense.

House Minority Leader Dani Isaacsohn, D-Cincinnati, warned that this has happened before.

Several months ago, the state got rid of its four-day grace period for mail-in ballots to arrive, since the Supreme Court is also addressing a similar issue. Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, who tends to disagree with Trump on most controversial issues (alleged election fraud, COVID, vaccines, LGBTQ+ rights, redistricting, Haitian and Somali immigrants, for example), said he was reluctantly signing the bill, arguing that Ohios elections are safe and the laws are reasonable.

The current leadership in Ohio has been acting on Donald Trumps orders to restrict the right to vote for people, Isaacsohn said.

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Over the past several years, Ohio has passed numerous bills that have impacted voters, including limiting dropbox access and requiring photo ID. Several laws were heard or are currently in federal court.

Isaacsohn was asked if he felt any assurance from Huffmans comments against giving state power to the feds.

Unfortunately, the leaders in Ohio right now, including and especially the secretary of state, have not shown a willingness and a desire to increase access to the ballot for Ohioans, he replied. It does not give me a lot of confidence to hear from the people whove passed bill after bill after bill limiting access to the ballot for the people in Ohio.

Meanwhile, Huffman is adamant that Ohio will keep the reins.

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I dont think it should happen, Huffman said. I dont think it will happen.

Republican Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has touted the state as the gold standard of elections, with dozens of his audits showing no evidence of widespread voter fraud.

Ohio is the national model for election administration, but as the president rightly pointed out, some other states are failing to meet minimum standards of election integrity, such as citizenship verification and voter ID, LaRoses spokesperson Ben Kindel said when asked about letting Trump take over Ohios elections. Thats why Secretary LaRose is a strong supporter of the federal legislation that sets these minimum standards, especially the SAVE Act.

Future election overseer

The frontrunner candidates in the 2026 secretary of state race, ones who have filed campaign finance reports, were asked for a response to Trumps comments.

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There are several states that do not take election security seriously like Ohio does, said Dalton Throckmorton, spokesperson for Republican state Treasurer Robert Sprague. President Trump has been urging Congress to pass legislation that requires a photo ID to vote, and Treasurer Sprague supports that.

The team did not respond when asked whether that meant the federal government should selectively take over cities or states.

Republican Marcell Strbich explained that elections are already federalized, due to provisions like the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act, and the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act.

The notion that this is solely a state function is simply wrong. That isnt what the Constitution says. The Congress retains authority to enact election statutes, Strbich said. The Voting Rights Acts, the Civil Rights Act all supersede state law. So its a myth that the states control the elections. They administer the elections.

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He added that Trump is trying to get states to comply with voter rolls maintenance.

Democratic House Rep. Allison Russo couldnt disagree more.

Our U.S. Constitution specifies that the administration of our election process is a state function. President Trumps alarming escalation of attacks on election integrity and his comments about federalizing the election process should be a five-alarm fire to anyone who cares about fair, free and secure elections, Russo said. It is clear that his intent is to seize control of our elections so that he can manipulate the results to whatever he wants, not what the people decide.

Democrat Bryan Hambley said Trumps statements are indicative of a larger problem.

Politicians have long used their power to manipulate our elections for their own purposes, and this proposal by President Trump is just that: a power grab to attempt to take control of elections from the states, Hambley said. Ohios elections are safe and secure, and should continue to be run by our state officials.

Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on X and Facebook.

This article was originally published on News5Cleveland.com and is published in the Ohio Capital Journal under a content-sharing agreement. Unlike other OCJ articles, it is not available for free republication by other news outlets as it is owned by WEWS in Cleveland.

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Visa, which naturally claims itself a world leader in digital payments, has released new survey findings on the state of digital commerce in Asia Pacific, revealing that while consumers are increasingly using AI to shop, concerns over security and transparency are creating hesitation at the crucial moment of checkout.

With Asia Pacific's rapid shift towards digital commerce and mobile-first shopping, the research shows that consumers are drawing a clear line between using AI to help them browse and trusting the same technology to handle their money and personal data. Demonstrating clearly how AI is used to spark discovery and securely handle payments is critical for consumers to feel confident using the technology to shop and pay, per Visa's research

"The way people shop is changing quickly, with AI now playing a growing role in how consumers discover and choose products," said T.R. Ramachandran, Head of Products & Solutions, Asia Pacific at Visa. "But as AI becomes part of the checkout experience, trust and control become even more important. Consumers want to understand how their data is being used and feel confident that every transaction is secure. Building that trust is what will determine whether AI-powered commerce can truly scale."

This infographic generated by Google Nano Banana Pro 3, based on this article, which contrinues below - please read on!

Affluent and digitally savvy consumers show higher levels of caution toward AI-enabled shopping

Consumers across Asia Pacific are increasingly relying on AI for the early stages of shopping, with 74% using AI-powered tools to discover, track or learn about products. Yet 26% remain unsure if AI recommendations fully align with their best interests, pointing to a desire for greater transparency and user control in AI-powered shopping.

The research also reveals that this caution is more pronounced among affluent households (for the purposes of this study, "affluent households" refer to respondents with a monthly household income of US$8,000 or above), where 39% express higher expectations around how their data is used, compared to 29% among lower-income groups. Digital-first markets such as Australia (38%), New Zealand (37%) and Singapore (34%) also show above-average caution.

These findings underscore the need for trusted frameworks in AI-driven commerce, an area where Visa is enabling businesses to connect consumers, AI agents and merchants through a secure, scalable trust layer supported by Visa Intelligent Commerce and the Trusted Agent Protocol.

AI powers discovery, but trust decides the checkout

While consumers are comfortable using AI to compare prices and better understand product features, this confidence fades as transactions become more personal. The study finds that 32% of consumers remain reluctant to share personal or payment information with AI systems, and nearly half (45%) say they would be more open to AI-powered or agentic commerce if they had stronger assurances around payment security.

These findings highlight that while AI can successfully drive discovery, secure authentication and trusted payment experiences are essential to convert interest into action to unlock the full lifecycle of AI-enabled commerce.

"Consumers are ready for AI to play a more active role in shopping, and agentic commerce has already started scaling beyond concept and into daily life," addedT.R. Ramachandran. "For this shift to accelerate, trust and secure authentication must be in place. With solutions such as Tokenisation and Visa Payment Passkeys, Visa is delivering the seamless and secure experiences customers need  enabling people to shop with greater confidence as AI becomes a more natural part of everyday commerce."

Emerging markets show higher openness to AI-driven commerce

Openness to agentic commerce varies across Asia Pacific, revealing that digital maturity does not automatically translate into trust. India and Vietnam lead the region, with 42% of consumers in each market open to using AI for online purchases, indicating strong appetites to experiment with new ways of shopping.

In contrast, consumers in digitally mature economies show greater reservation towards AI-enabled online shopping, with 14% in Singapore, 14% in Japan and 16% in New Zealand expressing interest. This hesitancy reflects higher expectations for data protection, security and personal control before embracing agentic commerce. The study also finds that improved payment security is the strongest enabler of increased adoption in these markets, reinforcing the need for a secure and trusted agentic ecosystem.

About the State of Digital Commerce in Asia Pacific 2025 study

The State of Digital Commerce in Asia Pacific 2025 study was conducted by YouGov in September 2025. The study surveyed 14,764 consumers aged 18 years and above across 14 Asia Pacific markets. No link to this study was provided or can be found doing a search, so the details of the study are above.

This more detailed infographic was generated by Google Nano Banana Pro 3, based on this article.
The U.S. Education Department announced a proposed agreement with Republican-led states to permanently eliminate the Biden-era SAVE plan. (Catherine Lane/Getty Images)

State Rep. Jamie Callender, come on down! Join the rest of your bullying GOP colleagues as they continue the assault on democracy in Ohio.

After all, it was no less than House Speaker Matt Huffman who famously said in 2022 that we can kind of do what we want. It seems that Callender has taken Matt Huffmans observation to heart. Heres why.

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On Feb. 3, the otherwise mild-mannered representative from Lake County introduced Ohio House Bill 671, a measure that would cut state funding from any school district that singly or with others challenges the distribution of state funds to private and religious schools under the education voucher program.

Come to think of it, this is much worse than bullying. Callenders bill is legislative extortion, a term former Democratic Ohio state Rep. Steve Dyer used in alerting the states citizens about the measure introduced in the House.

Here is how the extortion would work, according to the language of the bill:

The Department of Education and Workforce shall release withheld funds to the school district only upon the termination of the legal action or the districts withdrawal from the action.

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If we apply our Science of Reading skills by examining that passage, the phrase only upon the termination of the legal action could not be clearer in its meaning and intent.

Callenders bill is designed to intimidate school districts that are part of two coalitions challenging a law that is taking more than $1 billion state tax dollars per year otherwise used to support public schools and transferring those funds to private and religious schools for voucher student tuition. The coalitions, the Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding and its partner, Vouchers Hurt Ohio, represent more than half of the states school districts that are joined in testing the constitutionality of the universal school voucher program.

According to Dyers analysis, if the bill passes, it would affect the funding for about 700,000 students enrolled in the districts that joined the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the universal voucher program. Worse yet would be the probable insolvency of innumerable public school districts that would not be able to increase their local millage levels through district ballot measures to support necessary higher property tax rates.

Callenders attempt to intimidate districts supporting the lawsuit stands in stark contrast to the decision of Judge Jaiza Page of Franklin County Common Pleas Court, who heard the coalitions challenge to state funding of non-public schools.

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In June 2025, Page ruled in part that the state universal voucher program was unconstitutional because it violates language that called for the support of a system of common schools. Moreover, the fact that the Ohio Constitution in Article VI, Section 2 states that no religious or other sect, or sects, shall ever have any exclusive right to, or control of, any part of the school funds of this state, helped determine the issue in favor of the plaintiffs, viz., the Ohio E&A Coalition and Vouchers Hurt Ohio. In Ohio, the beneficiary of most of the voucher funds are religious schools, with parochial schools receiving the lions share of state voucher funds.

As expected, the voucher case will eventually find its way to the Ohio Supreme Court, with a stop at the 10th District Court of Appeals.

No means no. No religious sects get no state funds. Is there any science in reading that?

In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that prohibitions on corporate independent expenditures and electioneering communications are bans on speech. Such spending on advertising, according to the court, was a form of protected speech and could not be restricted under the First Amendment. Political spending was equated with speech, with some limits.

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If we could use that same reasoning, the restrictions placed on school districts who have chosen to join together and expend funds to stop the misuse of other public funds (but may be punished for doing so under HB 671) might be a violation of their First Amendment rights of speech, assembly and petition, a la Citizens United.

Indeed, any court that might hear on appeal a Callender-type case where funds might be withheld from parties joined in a lawsuit due to their membership in a group involved in litigation should be reminded that the Supreme Court advised in 2010 that money is speech. And by threatening to withhold funds appropriated for public education from districts that are party to a lawsuit, that might appear to be a violation of their First Amendment rights to petition for redress.

In the spirit of Citizens United, withholding money appropriated for public school districts that are part of a coalition is a violation of the First Amendment right of speech and assembly. Moreover, HB 671 and its threat to school districts who are members of the coalitions could amount to prior restraint, a primary holding of this Supreme Court ruling. This matter has evolved from policy to the political realm because of the GOPs adversarial stance toward public education and favoritism toward private and religious schools. Republicans should be mindful of these words from the Citizens United decision: political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it, whether by design or inadvertence.

But with Jamie Callenders attempt in HB 671 to quash dissent by extortion and punish school districts through withholding funds, he and the legislature by considering this bill may be violating the First Amendment.

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Public school districts who are not yet members of the two coalitions, take note.

Corporations are people, too was the cry heard after Citizens United as Republicans rejoiced in the Courts extension of First Amendment rights to these entities. If only Ohio Republicans could imagine public school districts as having the same First Amendment rights as corporations.

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Oklahoma Citys mayoral race will be decided soon as residents cast their vote between current Mayor David Holt and challenger Matthew Pallares.

The race, which was pitted between a longtime Oklahoma politician and a political newcomer, has also received some controversy, with at least one advocate stating the election is pointless and that a lower turnout could influence later voter initiatives.

Voters can cast their ballots at their registered voting location, assigned based on their precinct, and should also bring appropriate identification.

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Heres everything you need to know about voting in today's elections.

What is on the ballot in Oklahoma today?

Registered voters in Oklahoma City will cast their ballots in the OKC mayoral race on Feb. 10.

The mayor is elected at large and serves alongside eight city council members, voted on by their respective ward residents.

At-large, Oklahoma City will be voting between incumbent Mayor David Holt, 46, and political newcomer Matthew Pallares, 34.

Some residents in overlapping counties, like Canadian County, will also see school-related propositions on their ballot.

Across the state, voters in 60 of Oklahoma's 77 counties will vote on school propositions, mayors or other elected city roles.

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To see your sample ballot, visit the Oklahoma Voter Portal at oklahoma.gov/election.

What do I need to vote in the election?

In Oklahoma, voters need proof of identity to participate in voting. There are three different forms of identification that are accepted at the polling place:

More: OKC Mayor Holt draws challenger Pallares in upcoming election

Photo identification that includes your name, a photo and an expiration date beyond the election

County Election Board Voter Identification Card

Affidavit with provisional ballot

If you do not have a valid ID, the State Election Board advises voters to still ask for a provisional ballot.

A man carries a baby as he goes to the voting booth at precinct 457 during early morning voting for Oklahoma City mayor at Northpark Mall, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026.

Where do I vote?

In Oklahoma City, you can vote at your designated voting location from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 10. You can only vote in the county in which you are registered.

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Find your polling location at the Oklahoma Voter Portal at oklahoma.gov/election.

More: Find your polling location for the election.

Can I bring my child to the polling place?

Yes. You can bring your child to a polling place; they may even get a sticker for joining in on the civic process.

Will my ballot count if I leave something blank?

Whether you vote in all races or abstain from some, any vote you cast is always counted when you turn the ballot in. If you leave a race blank, there will not be a vote counted from you in said race, while other races will.

Oklahoma next elections: 2026 election schedule

The next election in Oklahoma, as of Feb. 10, falls on April 7. On that day, registered voters will vote in Board of Education and General Elections. The voter registration deadline is on March 13.

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Here are the rest of the election dates for 2026:

Gubernatorial Primary Election: June 16, 2026 - Registration deadline May 22

Runoff Primary Elections: July 31, 2026 - Registration deadline Aug. 10

Gubernatorial General Elections: Nov. 3 2026 - Registration deadline Oct. 9

March 3, 2026 and Dec. 8, 2026 are currently held as a placeholder for state and federal office elections.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma elections 2026: Voting locations, sample ballot, results
Kendal Sacchieri, R-Blanchard, listens to Senate discussion on a bill on Monday, May 5, 2025. (Photo by Janelle Stecklein/Oklahoma Voice)

OKLAHOMA CITY  The Oklahoma Supreme Court has denied a request from 34 lawmakers to prevent a state agency from sharing some drivers license information with a Virginia-based nonprofit.

In an 8-1 decision, the states high court declined to prohibit Service Oklahoma from sharing some licensing information with the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators.

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The nonprofit operates a system that helps states determine if an applicant holds a drivers license in another state.

Service Oklahoma issues drivers licenses and registers vehicles.

Sen. Kendal Sacchieri, R-Blanchard, and 33 other lawmakers on Jan. 27 asked the Oklahoma Supreme Court to determine that the agency did not have the power to share the information without explicit authorization from the Legislature.

While Service Oklahoma is generally required to keep personal information confidential, the Legislature crafted an exception for information requested by another state or countrys driver licensing agency, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled in an order issued Monday.

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The high court denied the request to assume original jurisdiction and issue an emergency stay or injunction.

Justice John M. Kane IV dissented, saying he would grant emergency relief and send the matter to district court.

Sacchieri did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Oklahoma Supreme Courts decision confirms Service Oklahomas authority under state law and allows us to proceed with the implementation of our system of record confidently and without interruption, according to a statement from Service Oklahoma. We appreciate the Courts clarity as we continue administering secure and reliable driver license and identification services.

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Oklahoma City attorney Collin Walke, a former Democratic House member and data privacy advocate, said the Oklahoma Supreme Court made the right call, but it serves as a wake up call for lawmakers.

Lawmakers need to realize our data is ours, and the bartering, trading, and giving away of our data subjects us all to safety and economic threats.

The Legislature needs to address the issue, he said.

Editors note: This story was updated at 4:53 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 10, to include a statement from Service Oklahoma.

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Rep. Mark Lepak, R-Claremore, appauds Gov. Kevin Stitt's State of the State Address on Feb. 5, 2024, at the Oklahoma State Capitol. (Photo by Kyle Phillips/For Oklahoma Voice)

OKLAHOMA CITY  Lawmakers advanced a bill out of committee that would implement harsher penalties for rioters, including longer prison terms and requirements that out-of-state residents be held without bail.

Rep. Mark Lepak, R-Claremore, said hes resurrecting some of his legislative ideas from 2020 in House Bill 3581, including barring people from wearing masks to conceal their identities during riots without lawful reason and denying out-of-state rioters bail.

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While he said its been several years since rioting happened in Oklahoma, he said its happening in other parts of the country as people have pushed back against Immigration and Customs Enforcement activities and National Guard deployments.

The measure would also make aggravated assault and battery, vandalizing buildings, and obstructing a public street or highway felonies if they are committed during a riot. The bill passed from the House Criminal Judiciary Committee 5-1.

Lepaks bill would make wearing a mask, hood, covering, or disguise without lawful excuse during a riot be guilty of a felony with the potential penalty of up to two years imprisonment, a fine of up to $2,500, or both. The penalties for the other criminal offenses would range from two to 10 years with fines reaching up to $5,000.

As federal immigration agents face criticisms for wearing masks while carrying out enforcement activities, Lepak said the bill would carve out exceptions for masking for law enforcement.

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We have people trying to enforce the law who are becoming personally threatened, their families threatened, Lepak said.  So I separate that to protect that employee of a county, of a city, of a state, of the federal government, from being harmed because hes executing his authority and he gets identified or doxxed and suddenly his family is at risk.

Lepak said his bill focuses on riots to walk the line with protecting peaceful demonstrations and Oklahomans First Amendment rights.

Rep. Erick Harris, R-Edmond, said he was concerned by the increases in penalties for the offenses in the bill and whether parts of it were unconstitutional, specifically withholding bond for out-of-state rioters. He voted in favor of it.

Lepak said he is aware of this concern and is willing to consider removing this from the measure, calling the bill a work-in-progress.

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Other lawmakers brought up that wearing a mask to conceal ones identity while committing a crime is already illegal in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma law currently defines a riot as any use of force or violence, or any threat to use force or violence if accompanied by immediate power of execution, by three or more persons acting together and without authority of law.

Lepaks bill would also allow for local political subdivisions, like municipalities or counties, to be liable to riot-related damages and losses if local law enforcement dont take reasonable action to address or control the riot.

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Individual plastic bottles of water on an assembly line. - Duxx/Getty Images

Food recalls are certainly nothing new and can impact everything from fast food chain menus to fresh produce to ... gulp ... even dark chocolate. Recalls can, unfortunately, be widespread and a massive, bottled water recall in 2024 was a stark reminder. Issued for Fiji brand water, this enormous recall involved nearly 2 million bottles of Fiji Natural Artesian Water, sold in 24-pack cases.

This rash of contaminated water occurred in the spring of 2024 for bottles produced in 2023 (so no need to panic-check the bottle you're sipping on now). The voluntary recall was officially issued when the Food and Drug Administration found three types of bacteria, plus elevated levels of manganese, in Fiji's products, which had been distributed nationwide via Amazon and sold in Washington state stores.

Press coverage continued well into May 2024, when the FDA amended its original recall, reclassifying it down to a level III recall  the least severe of the FDA's rankings. Per the FDA, this means exposure is not likely to cause adverse health consequences. (Comparatively, class I and II denote a greater likelihood of illness or death.) By this point though, Fiji noted most bottles were out of circulation but advised folks continue to check their bottles' lot numbers and return any stragglers for a refund.

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Read more: The 12 Most Controversial Foods Banned All Over The World

Water safety can be murky, despite regulation

Four Fiji water bottles in a row. - Erman Gunes/Shutterstock

Bottled water falls under the purview of the FDA, which for all its oversight, can't always catch contamination before it's too late. And unsettlingly, this Fiji recall was hardly the first (or latest) of its kind. In 2021 and 2023, bottles sold by Real Alkalized Water and Waiakea Hawaiian Volcanic Water were also recalled, and these cases involved more harmful contaminants. Troublingly, investigations into both Fiji and Waiakea Hawaiian Volcanic only happened after customers complained of murky, discolored water, and visible floating particles, respectively.

There's a larger conversation, perhaps, to be had about the assumption that bottled must mean safe  in reality, up to 25% of bottled water is just tap water, repackaged. If nothing else, this massive recall serves as a grim reminder that even the high-priced, well-regarded bottled water brands are not immune to risk. And since Fiji didn't provide any detail on how the contamination occurred (or, for that matter, what the three types of bacteria were), it's anyone's guess exactly where and how things went off the rails.

Most of us can't avoid bottled water entirely  whether due to preference or convenience  and the vast majority of it is safe to drink. This could be another drop in the bucket, though, so to speak, for the argument of just drinking what flows right out of your tap instead.

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Read the original article on Chowhound.
Indiana State Police Superintendent Anthony Scott, left, and Gov. Mike Braun, right, discuss the states Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force during an interview on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, in Brauns Statehouse office. (Photo by Casey Smith/Indiana Capital Chronicle)

A sharp rise in online tips about child exploitation led to hundreds of arrests and dozens of rescues in Indiana last year, but state leaders warn that predators are becoming harder to track.

Gov. Mike Braun said Tuesday he wants technology companies that design and profit from social media platforms to take greater responsibility for child safety. He argued, too, that Silicon Valley  not parents or police alone  need to make platforms safer and be more cooperative with law enforcement.

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Those concerns have prompted renewed legislative momentum at the Statehouse this week, where lawmakers have revived a proposal to restrict minors access to social media. The push has intensified after the recent disappearance and death of Fishers teenager Hailey Buzbee, who was killed after being lured online by a predator.

Indiana State Police arrested 499 people for crimes against children in 2025 and rescued 126 children from ongoing abuse as part of a rapidly expanding effort to combat online exploitation, Brauns office announced Tuesday.

This, to me, is totally the fault of big tech. Their algorithms make it happen. They need to do something about it.

 Gov. Mike Braun

New data show the Indiana Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force received 29,635 cyber tips in 2025  a 38% increase over the prior year  and has already logged nearly 3,000 tips in early 2026.

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The task force itself grew by 50 officers last year, expanding from 470 to 520 law enforcement personnel statewide.

Indiana State Police Superintendent Anthony Scott said the surge in tips reflects both the explosion of online platforms used by children and a concerted effort by law enforcement to encourage reporting.

But he also pointed to growing sophistication among offenders seeking to evade detection.

I think its a combination of several things, Scott said in a sit-down interview Tuesday with the Indiana Capital Chronicle. Technology, number one, has created more platforms for children, specifically teenagers, to access the internet and communicate with people.

Harder to track predators

Scott said predators are increasingly using tools like virtual private networks, or VPNs, and apps that limit data collection to avoid being identified by investigators.

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These predators on the other end of these are using countermeasures to prevent parental controls  the things that we are trying to do to keep children safe, Scott said. Theyre trying to combat that by using VPNs and other apps that we cant track.

While Scott said no single platform stands out as more problematic than others, he emphasized that any service that allows private communication without parental knowledge can be exploited.

Any platform or app that has the ability for people to communicate without their parents knowing, the predators are using all of those, Scott said. Thats their full-time job. They are sitting behind a computer screen trying to target a child.

Total number of cyber tips received: 29,635 ( 38% increase compared to 2024 )

Total Number of investigations: 3,164

Total number of arrests: 499

Number of children rescued from ongoing abuse: 126

Already in 2026, ICAC has received 2,951 (29% increase compared to January 2025)

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Data from the Indiana governors office.

The expansion of the ICAC task force has relied heavily on partnerships with local law enforcement agencies and prosecutors across the state, Scott said, noting that investigations often require lengthy legal processes to obtain search warrants and subpoenas.

It is cumbersome to go through numerous subpoenas, numerous search warrants to try to get to an end user, he said. The cell phone providers have become pretty good, but some of these apps are not as cooperative with law enforcement as the big companies are.

Scott said Indiana State Police generally have strong working relationships with major telecommunications providers like AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, but large social media platforms arent always as cooperative.

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They just dont reply, sometimes even with a court order, Scott said. So thats a problem. Obviously, it creates problems for law enforcement.

Braun echoed those concerns, placing responsibility squarely on technology companies that design and profit from online platforms.

Theres only one cure to this, Braun said. The people that make the platforms  that profit from it  have to make it completely different to where the parents are in control. And they need to make it easy.

Braun pointed to the recent disappearance and death of Fishers teenager Hailey Buzbee, whose case has renewed scrutiny of youth social media use and online safety at the Statehouse.

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Braun said he met with Buzbees parents on Monday and described them as very astute parents who saw no warning signs before their daughter vanished.

Everything is now defaulting to where this can happen, Braun said. Big tech has the ability to solve all of this, and theyre going to need to be held accountable.

Totally the fault of big tech

Braun argued that technology companies have long been shielded from liability and said state and federal lawmakers must reconsider that framework.

This, to me, is totally the fault of big tech, Braun said. Their algorithms make it happen. They need to do something about it.

The governors comments followed a lengthy Monday hearing in the House Education Committee, where lawmakers debated if  and how  to restrict minor Hoosiers from accessing social media platforms.

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Lawmakers are weighing an amendment to Senate Bill 199, authored by Sen. Jeff Raatz, R-Richmond, that would strengthen age verification requirements, expand parental consent and control tools, and increase enforcement for social media companies.

Similar language was stripped from legislation earlier in the session. The new provisions were fueled, in part, by testimony from parents  including Buzbees father  urging lawmakers to act.

Braun and Buzbees family have also advocated for a so-called Pink Alert to address cases involving grooming or coercion that fall outside existing Amber Alert criteria. Republican and Democratic leaders said theyre working on possible legislative responses before the end of session, scheduled for late February.

Braun said he favors strict social media limits for younger children and stronger parental controls across the board.

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As far as Im concerned, youre considered an adult at 18, Braun said. To me, it should be a complete lockdown on 12 and younger  to where the parents have complete control over it.

For teenagers, Braun said lawmakers should err on the side of being stringent, even as technology continues to evolve faster than legislation.

We can do everything possible, and still the other side keeps finding a way around it, he said. If smart people in Silicon Valley dont figure out how to fix it, I think youre going to see the heat of state governments coming down upon you  and the federal government.

The governor said he expects additional proposals to take shape over the next two years. The goal, he said, is to empower parents and force greater accountability from technology companies.

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I want to err on the side of giving parents the tools, holding big tech accountable, Braun said. And then hopefully the federal government will get involved, where this cannot happen  to where its all to the advantage of the parents to prevent it, not the perpetrators to pull it off.

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NewsNation National Correspondent Robert Sherman has found himself on the frontlines of some of the worlds biggest stories: from Ukraine to Israel and across the United States. He shares what hes seeing on the ground. Subscribe to his newsletter: Frontlines with Robert Sherman here.

(NewsNation)  Good evening from Armenia.

Im writing to you from Yerevan, where Vice President JD Vance is wrapping up a high-stakes visit before heading tomorrow to neighboring Azerbaijan.

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On paper, this trip is about shoring up a U.S.-brokered peace effort between two countries with decades of hostility and multiple armed flare-ups in just the last five years. In reality, its about something bigger: influence, trust and where a small country caught between great powers goes next.

Last year, the White House helped bring the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to Washington to sign a framework agreement aimed at reducing tensions. Central to that deal is a proposed transit corridor connecting mainland Azerbaijan to its western exclave through Armenian territory  a choke point that has fueled resentment, blockades and periodic violence for years. The plan is still short on details, but it represents a rare moment of sustained American engagement in a region long viewed as Russias backyard.

And people here feel that shift.

We spent time on the streets asking Armenians how they see the future  and whether peace with Azerbaijan is actually sustainable.

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When I asked one woman if she had confidence the situation would stabilize, her answer was blunt:

Absolutely not. Unfortunately, I dont think so. [Azerbaijan] will break the peace contracts.

Others were more cautious but no less realistic.

Theres still a risk of conflict, one man told me. There are still other risks. But hope is there, I would say.

That mix of skepticism and fragile hope came up again and again.

We also asked a question that gets at the heart of the geopolitical tug-of-war playing out here: Should Armenia continue to orbit Russia or move closer to the United States and the West?

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If the United States interests are coinciding with Armenias interests, why not? one man replied.

When I followed up with another woman and asked whether Armenia could still trust Russia, her answer came instantly:

No.

A different woman put it this way: There are some Armenians who are looking for some alternatives.

That may sound understated, but in this region, its seismic.

Armenia has relied on Russia economically, militarily and politically for decades. Theres even a major Russian military presence just miles from where were reporting. For Moscow, any deepening Western role here is viewed as encroachment. For Armenians, Russias perceived failure to fully protect them in recent clashes with Azerbaijan has left deep scars.

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Thats why this visit matters.

Vice President Vances presence sends a signal  not just to Baku, but to Moscow, Tehran and Ankara  that Washington intends to stay engaged in the South Caucasus. Whether that engagement leads to lasting stability or simply shifts the balance of risk is still an open question.

The optimism is cautious. The doubts are real. But one thing is unmistakable: People here understand that something is changing.

Tomorrow, the vice president heads to Azerbaijan. The conversations there may sound very different  and that contrast itself will be telling.

UPDATE ON LESSONS FROM THE FRONT 

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Tomorrow is a BIG day! The audiobook version of my book, Lessons from the Front, will release. Its surreal to be at this point and have all of your support.

Next week, Feb. 17, Ill be hosting my first international book event in London at The Frontline Club. Details can be found here as we prepare to have our Feb. 19 publishing date.

So much more to come on this adventure, but thank you for getting me to where I am now.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily of NewsNation.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NewsNation.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN)  An Oregon teen was arrested last week for allegedly planning an attack on Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Saint Helens resident Rayden Tanner Coleman, 18, was arrested Feb. 4 after he told his roommates he was planning to bomb ICE.

1 seriously injured, suspect arrested after Gresham stabbing

According to court documents reviewed by KOIN 6 News, Coleman said he planned to visit a nearby reservation to recruit help from others. He also allegedly told his roommates that he planned to sever the heads of ICE agents to show he was serious.

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In private Discord messages shared with investigators, Coleman allegedly said he had been preparing for a while and was done just standing around.

im gonna get my hands on firearm and will actively kill any ice agents see killing or kidnapping civilians, he wrote, according to court documents.

On Jan. 15, he also allegedly shared a link to what his friend said they believed to be a manifesto, asking for feedback on it. The document was no longer available at the link provided at the time charges were filed, according to court documents.

His friend told investigators that Coleman had not been himself lately and had mentioned wanting to create his own nation called Cascadia, which he said he believed would initiate a civil war, according to court documents. He allegedly told his friend he planned to sacrifice himself and take down as many ICE officers as he can.

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Coleman also allegedly told his friend he wanted to make Molotov cocktails. The friend told investigators she provided him with glass bottles because she did not believe he was serious. According to charging documents, he also asked her where ICE agents came from and said he planned to follow them so he could kill them.

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Police arrested him at his work, where he allegedly admitted to officers that he been planning an attack on ICE, and that he had ordered an AR rifle to use which was scheduled to arrive the following day.

Coleman has been charged with six counts of unlawful manufacture of a destructive device, six counts of unlawful possession of destructive device, and one count of attempt to commit a felony. He is currently lodged at the Columbia County Jail and his bail is set at $400,000. He pleaded not guilty to all charges. A four-day jury trial is scheduled to begin March 31.

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Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com.
Orlando Fire Department Lt. Ron Huguenin has been named the Florida Professional Firefighter of the Year for his sustained commitment to excellence and leadership within the fire service.

The Florida State Fire Marshals Office and Gov. Ron DeSantis annually present the award, which will be formally given to Lt. Huguenin during ceremonies in Tallahassee.

Gov. DeSantis and Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia are set to present the award on March 2 and March 3.

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In addition, Lt. Huguenins leadership role in the department, he also serves as the treasurer of the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 1365

Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.
Overnight lane and ramp closures on Routes 140 and 24 are set to continue through Feb. 13 as crews complete a multi-night bridge repair project, according to a community announcement.

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation said the work, which started Feb. 8, focuses on repairs to the Route 140 bridge over Route 24. The agency said intermittent lane and ramp closures on Route 140 and Route 24 northbound and southbound were expected to continue nightly. Northbound closures run 8 p.m. to 4 a.m., and southbound closures run 8 p.m. to 5 a.m., with crews working on only one direction at a time.

Route 24 detours remain in place

Taunton bridge repairs kicked off Feb. 8, bringing overnight closures that continue through Feb. 13. Heres what drivers should know.

For Route 24 northbound, exit 17B drivers followed exit 17A to Route 140 southbound, continued to exit 19A at Stevens Street and used the on-ramp to Route 140 northbound.

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For Route 24 southbound, exit 17A drivers stayed on Route 24 to exit 16 at Padelford Street, turned left, then right onto the ramp toward Route 24 northbound before taking exit 17A to Route 140 southbound.

MassDOT said appropriate signage and messaging were posted to guide traffic. Drivers were urged to expect delays, reduce speed and use caution. All work remained weather dependent and subject to change.

Travelers can monitor traffic conditions through the Mass511 app or at mass511.com, dial 511 for updates or follow twitter.com/MassDOT.

This story was co-authored by Dave DeMille, ddemille@gannett.com, with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of the information gathering, review, editing and publishing process. Learn more at cm.usatoday.com/ethical-conduct.

This article originally appeared on The Taunton Daily Gazette: Taunton bridge repairs prompt multi-night closures
Australian organisations are investing heavily in digital safety systems, artificial intelligence, and integrated compliance platforms. However, new national research indicates that poor usability, inadequate follow-through, and a growing gap between leadership confidence and frontline experience are undermining safety outcomes.

Rapid Global, whose media release is reprinted below, commissioned Research Without Barriers to conduct the Workplace Safety Australian Market Research Report, surveying more than 1,000 Australian safety managers, workers, and contractors across high-risk industries. Its findings point to a critical point for Australian workplaces: safety is well documented but not always felt.

While 65 per cent of workers say safety processes are clear and practical, only 41 per cent believe safety is taken seriously by everyone, all the time. The gap highlights a persistent tension between formal systems and lived experience, one that experts warn can quietly erode trust and increase risk.

Professor Dr Andrew Sharman, a global authority on safety culture and CEO of the International Institute of Leadership & Safety Culture, says the findings reflect a familiar pattern seen repeatedly across global workplaces. Safety is often well documented, yet not consistently felt by people on the ground, he says. Bridging the gap between policy and practice is less about systems alone and much more about leadership. Trust is the critical differentiator.

Unifying safety systems would simplify compliance, according to two-thirds of managers (67%) who also place a high value on strong system integration. Yet fewer than half of executives (45 per cent) say their current safety tools use modern, easy-to-use technology. Among frontline workers, only 41 per cent describe safety software as easy to understand, with usability declining sharply in larger organisations to 30 per cent.

This infographic created by Gemini Nano Banana Pro 3 based on this article - which continues below, please read on!

When tools are hard to use, workers can often resort to manual workarounds or bypassing reporting altogether, which creates dangerous blind spots.

Even after years of digitisation, 23 per cent of Australian businesses still use paper for critical safety tasks, particularly in industries that manage remote work sites and large contractor workforces. Even where digital tools exist, friction remains a barrier. Half of managers say incident reporting could be easier, while nearly one in four workers say they have personally seen incidents go unreported.

Artificial intelligence is emerging as another fault line. Only 12% of managers say they dont see value in AI for workplace safety while belief in AI as a transformative force is far from universal, especially among workers.

While 64 per cent of managers believe AI and robotics will fundamentally transform workplace safety within five years, only 25 per cent of workers agree. At the same time, 41 per cent of managers admit they are already using AI tools not officially provided by their organisation to assist with safety tasks, a signal that demand is outpacing governance.

Even among managers, enthusiasm is tempered by caution. Six in ten say AI should support data analysis rather than make safety decisions, reinforcing that human judgement remains central in high-risk environments. AI adoption is also uneven across the country, with organisations in NSW, Queensland, and Western Australia more than twice as likely to be using AI-enabled safety systems than those in Victoria and South Australia.

Ezequiel Gonzalez, Head of Revenue at Rapid Global, says the findings show safety risk is increasingly shaped by complexity rather than intent. Workplace safety in Australia has come a long way, but there is no room for complacency, he says. Complex, high-risk environments require more than ticking boxes. Technology should not replace human judgement but make it sharper. When systems are easier to use and data is easier to act on, safer outcomes follow.

The report also identifies weaknesses in enforcement at the point of entry. More than one-third of workers and managers say it is still possible to enter a workplace even when training is incomplete or expired, despite 62 per cent of managers agreeing that linking induction data directly to site access systems would make workplaces safer.

According to the research, organisations most likely to improve safety outcomes are not those modernising with the most tools, but those reducing friction, automating enforcement, and making safe behaviour the easiest option for day-to-day reality on site.

For Australian leaders, the message is clear: closing the gap between strategic intent and on-the-ground impact may now represent the single greatest opportunity to strengthen workplace safety before small, systemic cracks turn into serious risk.

You can access the report here.
Oxford Center CEO Tamela Peterson and three employees will stand trial in Oakland County Circuit Court on criminal charges in the death of a 5-year-old boy who was burned alive when the hyperbaric chamber he was using erupted in flames, Judge Maureen McGinnis ruled Tuesday, Feb. 10.

"The center's own internal policy and procedure manual  getting down to the nitty gritty, the must-have important stuff you really, really need to know in one place manual  expressed a clear understanding of the need to follow all of the industry's safety standards," said McGinnis, who presided over eight days of testimony spread out over five months in the case involving the Jan. 31, 2025, death of Thomas Cooper, of Royal Oak.

The center's manual even included a safety warning: if there's a fire inside the chamber, theres a realistic chance the person inside will not survive, McGinnis said.

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Still, evidence showed a continuing pattern of conscious decision making that diverted from industry standards, she said.

52-4 District Judge Maureen M. McGinnis issues a ruling about whether Tamela Peterson, the CEO of the Oxford Center, and three employees should stand trial on criminal charges in the death of Thomas Cooper, 5, of Royal Oak at Oakland county district court in Troy, Mich., Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. Peterson is charged with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter along with Oxford Center safety director Jeffrey Mosteller and its operations manager, Gary Marken. Aleta Harward Moffitt, who operated the hyperbaric chamber that caught fire, killing Thomas, is charged with involuntary manslaughter and intentionally placing false information on a medical record.

Thomas was undergoing his 36th treatment for ADHD and sleep apnea at the wellness center, which offered hyperbaric oxygen therapy for a range of "off-label" health conditions that were not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration  when police say a spark triggered a "fireball." Within seconds, Thomas was engulfed in flames as his mother watched, unable to get him out.

Peterson, 59, of Brighton, is charged with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter in Thomas' death. The Oxford Center's safety director, Jeffrey Mosteller, 65, of Clinton Township, and its operations manager, Gary Marken, 66, of Spring Arbor, face the same charges.

Aleta Harward Moffitt, 61, of Rochester Hills, the technician who operated the chamber Thomas used when he died, is charged with involuntary manslaughter and intentionally placing false information on a medical record.

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If they are convicted, the second-degree murder charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. Involuntary manslaughter is a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison. The charge of intentionally placing false information on medical chart is a four-year felony.

All four defendants have pleaded not guilty.

After McGinnis's ruling, attorneys for Peterson, Marken and Mosteller quickly left the courtroom. Ellen Michaels, the attorney representing Moffitt, talked briefly with reporters, saying that her client should have never been charged in the first place.

A few hours after the ruling, Todd Flood, Marken's attorney, released a statement via email:

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Todays ruling does not reflect the reality of my clients involvement in this case, Flood said.

"Mr. Marken was not responsible for patient treatment, he was simply in charge of maintenance at Oxford Center's Brighton facility, a location completely separate from the Troy facility where this tragedy occurred. Furthermore, every witness testified that he had nothing to do with the treatment decisions made. Unfortunately, we must proceed to the next step of his trial. We will fight to the very end to clear Mr. Markens name.Prosecutors allege Peterson and the center's employees failed to follow the safety protocols outlined in the hyperbaric chamber's user manual and did not adhere to the National Fire Protection Association's safety code, both of which require the use of grounding wrist straps to discharge static electricity and reduce the risk of fire.

"The evidence has shown that clearly the defendants were aware of the life-endangering risks of putting Thomas Cooper into that chamber without wearing a grounding strap and they obviously ignored those risks," said Assistant Attorney General Chris Kessel in his late January closing arguments.

Thomas Cooper, 5, of Royal Oak, died Jan. 31, 2025 at the Oxford Center in Troy when fire erupted during his hyperbaric oxygen therapy treatment. This image was displayed at a news conference Sept. 22, 2025, at Fieger Law in Southfield, where the Cooper family's attorney, James Harrington, announced a civil lawsuit in his death.

Peterson's attorney, Thomas Cranmer, said in closing arguments that his client's actions do not meet the threshold of a second-degree murder charge, which, he said, must prove that she knowingly created a situation that placed Thomas at very high risk of death or great bodily harm.

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Cranmer said Peterson and her loved ones used the chambers without grounding straps.

"She would not have put her own family members in jeopardy, other members of the Oxford Center, herself in jeopardy if she had the knowledge required for second-degree murder," Cranmer said.

Alona Sharon, the attorney representing Mosteller, said Peterson made the policy change to no longer use the grounding wrist straps two years before her client was hired to work as the center's safety director.

"He expressed concern about the lack of wrist straps because he had historically used them," Sharon said in Jan. 20 closing arguments. "... But by the time he comes to the Oxford Center, your honor, the decision had already been made by those with more power and with more decision-making authority."

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More: Police say CEO ran away, tried to hide evidence after boy's hyperbaric chamber death

More: Family of boy who died seeks $100M in lawsuit against hyperbaric manufacturer, others

Flood, Marken's attorney, said none of the witnesses called to testify presented any evidence that his client had anything to do with the fire that killed Thomas.

A photo shows the charred gurney where five-year-old Thomas Cooper, of Royal Oak was lying on inside a hyperbaric oxygen chamber when fire erupted, killing him on Jan. 31, 2025 at the Oxford Center in Troy. The photo was on display at Fieger Law in Southfield on Sept. 22, 2025,

"There is not one scintilla of evidence, not one fact that you can lean on, not even a culture, not even some happenstance to prove Marken acted in a grossly negligent manner with a willful disregard for the life or safety of Thomas Cooper, he said.

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Michaels, the attorney representing Moffitt, said the testimony showed her client was trained by Mosteller and was not taught to use grounding wrist straps.

"A tragedy occurred," Michaels said. "A young boy was killed. Someone had to pay. ... Within a very short time, four people were charged. Aleta Moffitt, as we all know, was the hourly employee who was the hyperbaric tech who was on shift that day who was working when Thomas came in for that fateful dive. She was following the training she received."

Contact Kristen Shamus: kshamus@freepress.com. Subscribe to the Detroit Free Press.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Oxford Center CEO, workers to stand trial in hyperbaric chamber death
A 20-year-old Ventura County man was sentenced to 16 years in state prison for a violent 2024 gang-related assault, officials announced Monday.

On Aug. 19, 2024, according to the Ventura County District Attorneys Office, Sergio Contreras and three other individuals, all gang members, pulled into the parking lot of an El Rio restaurant.

Investigators say that the 20-year-old, who was behind the wheel of a white Honda Accord, parked the vehicle near the victim and briefly remained inside while watching him.

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Contreras then exited, exchanged words with the victim, and punched him before placing him in a headlock, officials said in a news release. The three passengers immediately joined in, punching and kicking the victim.

During the four-on-one attack, surveillance cameras captured the victim briefly breaking free and attempting to flee before being tripped and knocked to the ground.

The video shows Contreras removing what appeared to be a folding knife from his pocket, opening it, and stabbing the victim twice, once in the leg and once in the arm, as the victim shielded his neck, the release stated. Contreras then folded the knife, put it back in his pocket and fled with the others, who also took one of the victims shoes.

While investigators never located the knife used in the attack, the victims shoe was located during a search of one of the defendants homes.

Sergio Contreras, 20, a resident of Oxnard was sentenced to 16 years in state prison for his involvement in a gang-related assault on Aug. 19, 2024. (VCDA)

A jury found Contreras guilty of assault with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit a crime and street terrorism. He was also found guilty of special allegations that the violence caused great bodily injury and that the incident was a part of felony street gang activity.

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In a 2019 report put out by the Ventura County Sheriffs Office, criminal street gangs continue to be an issue, particularly in Oxnard, Oxnard Plain, Port Hueneme and Santa Paula.

Los Angeles man, 63, charged in 1996 cold case murder of Temple City woman

There are currently 2,600 identified gang members/gang associates in the target area, the report stated. These gangs also have various levels of involvement with the Mexican Mafia  a prison gang that is closely tied to criminal street gangs in Ventura County.

As for the other involved suspect, two of them pled guilty to assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury, conspiracy to commit a crime and street terrorism.

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The third suspect, a juvenile, pled guilty to assault, conspiracy to commit a crime and being a member of a criminal street gang.

This was a gang-motivated attack that could have easily resulted in a loss of life, Sr. Deputy DA Lauren Malan, who prosecuted the case, said. The defendants actions demonstrate the extreme danger gang violence poses to our community, and this sentence reflects the seriousness of that conduct and our commitment to holding violent offenders accountable.

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Like many nations around the world with a robust military, Pakistan has developed its own fighter jets. One of its better-known is the JF-17 Thunder, developed jointly with China, which developed its own version called the FC-1 Xiaolong. This fourth-generation fighter is a multirole single-engine aircraft with widespread capabilities, and is Pakistan's successor to the American-made F-16 Fighting Falcon. Pakistan produces around 20 JF-17's per year, which it began operating in 2007.

Pakistan produces the aircraft (the "JF" stands for "Joint Fighter") and has sold many to various nations around the world since its introduction. In early 2026, several arms sales elevated the JF-17 to more customers, making it one of the hottest commodities on the world's arms marketplace. This is partly due to the manner in which it was developed, as it was done entirely without aid from the West. The JF-17 fires Pakistani missiles, drops Pakistani bombs, and comes without any reliance on the United States. This has made the JF-17 a particularly desired aircraft for several militaries.

These include those belonging to Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iraq, Libya, and Saudi Arabia. Each of these nations and others has expressed interest in the JF-17, which already flies for Azerbaijan, Myanmar, and Nigeria, though in small numbers. The increased interest in Pakistan's joint fighter will likely push the nation to increase its manufacturing and supply chains to support potential sales, as the JF-17 is quickly becoming the go-to joint fighter for the aforementioned countries. Pakistan confirmed that negotiations are underway, and it was made clear that China is a consenting partner.

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Read more: 11 Of The Most Iconic Ground Attack Military Planes In History

The JF-17 is the new favorite in international arms markets

A JF-17C on the tarmac with its missile load displayed. - Press Service of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan/Wikimedia Commons

Multirole joint fighters are desired by the world's militaries because they can complete numerous missions across a variety of operational environments, and the JF-17 Thunder is no exception. The aircraft is somewhat similar to China's J-10, though its several differences make the JF-17 more desirable. The Thunder costs between $25 and $30 million each, and they're armed to the teeth with with a GSh-23 dual-barrel 23mm cannon and seven hardpoints (four beneath each wing and one beneath the fuselage).

These accommodate a payload capacity of more than 8,150 lbs., enabling the JF-17 to carry PL-12 radar homing medium-range air-to-air missiles (AAM), a variety of different types of bombs, anti-radiation missiles, anti-ship missiles, and/or rocket launchers with a laser designator pod. Additionally, they can carry short-range AAMs of various types. They also possess a variety of countermeasures, sensors, and other equipment.

One of the reasons the JF-17 is being eyed by a myriad of countries is its relatively low cost. Its price tag is a steal compared to that of the U.S.-sourced F-16, which is the most comparable fighter in terms of performance. The F-16's most recent variant is considered a 4.5-generation aircraft and may be considerably more capable, but they cost a whopping $63 million each. Buying the JF-17 offers a 2-to-1 aircraft advantage in terms of dollars spent; it also comes without the reliance on the U.S. for maintenance, upgrades, or arms, making it ideally suited for many countries around the world.

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By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - A Palestinian woman, who lost dozens of family members in Gaza, was hospitalized on Friday following a seizure in a U.S. immigration detention, the Department of Homeland Security said on Monday.

The legal team and family of Leqaa Kordia, a 33-year-old Muslim Palestinian woman living in the U.S. and whose mother is an American citizen, said she was discharged from hospital and returned to detention on Monday.

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On February 6, 2026, at about 8:45 p.m. local time, "medical staff at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, notified ICE that detainee Leqaa Kordia was admitted to Texas Health Huguley Hospital in Burleson, Texas, for further evaluation following a seizure," a DHS spokesperson said.

Kordia was detained by U.S. immigration authorities early last year during a meeting with immigration officials at the Newark Immigration and Customs Enforcement Field Office, where she was accompanied by her attorney.

At the time of her detention, Kordia was in the process of securing legal residency.

Her family and legal team said they did not receive updates or communication from U.S. authorities about her health during the hospitalization.

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"While we are relieved Leqaa is out of the hospital, we still have no idea what her medical condition is and what happened to her the past three days," her cousin, Hamzah Abushaban, said in a statement.

DHS says ICE ensured she received proper medical care.

Rights groups have reported on detainee complaints about conditions in ICE detention facilities, calling the conditions inhumane. The government has denied treating detainees inhumanely.

Amnesty International says 175 members of Kordia's family have been killed during Israel's assault on Gaza since late 2023 following an attack by militant group Hamas.

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The Homeland Security Department says Kordia, who was raised in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was arrested for immigration violations related to overstaying her expired student visa. The DHS also says she was arrested by local authorities in 2024 during pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University that the department cast as being supportive of Hamas.

Kordia and other protesters, including some Jewish groups, say the government wrongly equates criticism of Israel's assault on Gaza and its occupation of Palestinian territories with antisemitism, and advocacy for Palestinian rights with support for extremism.

Kordia has said she was targeted for pro-Palestinian activism and cast the conditions in her detention facility as "filthy, overcrowded and inhumane."

President Donald Trump's administration cracked down on pro-Palestinian protests by threatening to freeze federal funds for universities where protests occurred and by attempting to deport foreign protesters. It has faced legal obstacles while rights advocates say the crackdown hurts free speech and lacks due process.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Aurora Ellis and Diane Craft)
An airline in Somalia has praised one of its pilots after he crash-landed his passenger plane, which had suffered a technical fault, on the shoreline next to the capital's international airport with all 55 on board surviving.

Starsky Aviation said the pilot's quick thinking was crucial in saving the 50 passengers and five crew.

The crew of the aircraft, a Fokker 50, reported a problem shortly after take off from Mogadishu on Tuesday morning and requested that the plane return, Somalia's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said.

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It then touched down but failed to stop on the runway, overshooting the tarmac before coming to rest in shallow water, the CAA's director Ahmed Macalin Hassan said.

The plane was on its way to Puntland before the pilot requested a return to Mogadishu [Aussom]

It is not clear yet exactly what the issue was.

Footage posted on X appeared to show passengers leaving the aircraft and walking away from the wreckage on the shore of the Indian Ocean. No serious injuries have been reported.

The African Union's mission in Somalia said UN and AU troops were "swiftly deployed" to help with rescue efforts. Somalia's transport minister was also at the scene, its post on X added.

"We are relieved to confirm that all passengers and crew are safe. Investigations are under way to establish what caused the technical issue that led to the emergency landing," Starsky spokesman Hassan Mohamed Aden said.

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"The pilot's swift and calm decision-making played a decisive role in ensuring the safety of everyone on board, and we commend him for how he handled the situation," he added.

[Getty Images/BBC]

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TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA)  New details are emerging about a deadly plane crash involving an aircraft that belonged to the Venice-based missionary aviation group: Agape.

The organization is grieving the loss of two pilots.

WATCH: Savannah Guthrie asks says her family is in an hour of desperation

The plane crash happened early Friday morning in Haiti.

On Monday, Agape said they have recovered the bodies of their two pilots, and their number one goal is working towards returning them both home.

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8 On Your Sides Alessandra Young also spoke with Jonathan Egeler, the CEO of Mission Safety International, a non-profit mission organization that is dedicated to promoting safety and security in missionary aviation.

Hold them in your prayers, the team is really devastated. I plan to be down there in Venice on Saturday and hope to help them a little bit, look over some of the data theyve been able to collect and try to work through this process, Egeler said.

He said Agape is one of the around 45 organizations MSI works with.

.

They ask MSI to come in as like a consultant, and we have done a number of safety audits for them, just like we have with most of our members, he said.

The aviation expert said Agape follows a lot of the same protocols that any other aviation organization would.

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MSI does not provide daily oversight of Agapes organization, but they look over policies and procedures when they do a safety audit.

One of the questions currently going unanswered is if an investigation will be conducted.

The basic premise here is that the country where it occurs is the one responsible to conduct an investigation, Egeler said. In this case, we dont know that that will occur.

Egeler said an investigation by NTSB or FAA cannot be done without being specifically invited by the country of Haiti.

Every operator, like Agape Flights, has a right to do their own investigation, but they cant interfere in any way with the official one, he stated.

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Right now, Egeler said everyone needs to keep in mind that we have no idea what happened, and it could be a dozen different things that led to the crash, many things being out of the organizations control.

This is a wrenching experience to have to go through losing your friends and colleges, and I know they have shut down flight operations for the time being, he said.

Agape said at this time, they will not be releasing the pilots names out of respect for the families.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA.
Buckingham Palace has said the King has "profound concerns" about the continuing allegations over Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's conduct in the Jeffrey Epstein Files, as ITV News Royal Editor Chris Ship reports

King Charles has shared his "profound concern" over the latest allegations about his brother Andrew and made it clear he will support Thames Valley Police in assessing claims that Mountbatten-Windsor allegedly shared confidential reports from his role as the UK's trade envoy with Jeffrey Epstein.

Emails released by the US Department of Justice earlier this month appear to show the former duke sharing reports of official visits to Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Singapore with the disgraced financier.

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On Monday, Thames Valley Police confirmed they were looking into the fresh allegations.

This prompted the following statement from a Buckingham Palace spokesperson:

"The King has made clear, in words and through unprecedented actions, his profound concern at allegations which continue to come to light in respect of Mr Mountbatten-Windsors conduct.

"While the specific claims in question are for Mr Mountbatten-Windsor to address, if we are approached by Thames Valley Police we stand ready to support them as you would expect.

"As was previously stated, Their Majesties thoughts and sympathies have been, and remain with, the victims of any and all forms of abuse."

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It follows the King being heckled in Lancashire, where a man shouted "how long have you known about Andrew" after he arrived at Clitheroe train station.

Andrew allegedly shared confidential reports with Epstein while trade envoy

Queen Elizabeth gave Andrew 'full support' even after Epstein photos emerged

One of the emails being assessed, dated November 2010, was forwarded by Andrew just five minutes after being sent by his then-special advisor, Amir Patel.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor made the official visits in his capacity as trade envoy in late 2010, conducting meetings and trade talks.

Additionally, on Christmas Eve 2010, Andrew looped Epstein in on a confidential brief on investment opportunities in the reconstruction of Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

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Andrew has vehemently denied any wrongdoing.

The messages come after Epsteins 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor for prostitution.

Graham Smith, chief executive of anti-monarchy campaign group Republic, said he had reported the allegations to police.

In a post on X, he said: "I have now reported Andrew to the (Thames Valley Police) for suspected misconduct in public office and breach of official secrets in relation to these specific allegations.

"I cannot see any significant difference between these allegations and those against Peter Mandelson."

Confirming it was assessing the fresh claims, a Thames Valley Police spokesperson said: "We can confirm receipt of this report and are assessing the information in line with our established procedures."

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Andrew previously told BBCs Newsnight in 2019 he had cut off contact with the convicted paedophile in December 2010 during a visit to New York.

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On February 9 2011, Andrew told Epstein he had visited a private equity firm the week before and thought of you as the financier, who was reportedly looking for somewhere for money to go.

Official government guidance underscores that the role of a trade envoy carries a duty of confidentiality regarding sensitive information.

This may include sensitive, commercial, or political information shared about relevant markets/visits, the guidance read.

This duty of confidentiality will continue to apply after the expiry of their term of office. In addition, the Official Secrets Acts 1911 and 1989 will apply.

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The former duke served as the UKs special representative for trade and investment between 2001 and 2011.

Vince Cable, business secretary at the time, told the BBC of the emails: I was unaware of Andrew sharing information about investment opportunities [in Afghanistan] before, this is the first Ive heard of it.

The former duke features a number of times in the latest release of documents, including images apparently showing him crouch over an unidentified woman in what appears to be Epsteins New York mansion.

The then-Duke of York pictured with Virginia Giuffre and Ghislaine Maxwell Credit: US Department of Justice/PA

In 2022, the former duke paid millions of pounds to Virginia Giuffre, his main accuser, despite claiming never to have met her.

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The King later stripped him of his titles following the posthumous release of a book by Ms Giuffre, who alleges she was trafficked by Epstein and his former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, at the age of 17.

The Press Association understands that Andrew moved out of Royal Lodge and relocated to Norfolk to a property on the Kings Sandringham estate earlier this month, reported by the Sun to be Wood Farm Cottage, where he will stay temporarily.

It is understood the former dukes new home of Marsh Farm is not yet fully ready, but he is expected to move in by the start of April.

It was known the former prince would be moving out of Royal Lodge in the new year and the development is not thought to be linked to the latest revelations in the Epstein papers.

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Andrew still has the lease for his Windsor property until October, but it is understood he has made the substantive part of his move to his new home.

However, it may take some weeks to complete and the former prince is likely to be seen at Royal Lodge on occasion.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has been contacted for comment.

This is the Talking Royals - our weekly podcast about the royal family, with ITV News Royal Editor Chris Ship and Producer Lizzie Robinson.
KANSAS CITY, Mo.  Police are investigating after two Leawood nursing home employees shot at each other early Tuesday morning.

According to the Leawood Police Department, around 3:30 a.m., officers responded to a shooting call at the Healthcare Resort of Leawood at the corner of 143rd Street and Nall.

View the latest headlines from Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas at fox4kc.com

Police say there was an argument between the two employees that escalated into shots being fired.

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One employee fired multiple shots before the other employee shot back, according to police. No residents of the facility were involved in the incident, and no one was struck by the gunfire.

One of the employees ran from the scene and was later found and arrested by the Overland Park Police Department. They did not say where he was found.

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The other employee remained on scene and is cooperating with the investigation, according to police.

This is an ongoing investigation. The department asks that anyone who has information on the shooting to contact the department at 913-663-9309 or via e-mail tips@leawood.org.

We can confirm that there was a dispute between two employees

On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Healthcare Resort of Leawood sent the following statement:

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First and foremost, we wish to assure the community that no residents were impacted, injured or otherwise involved in this mornings event. In addition, no employees were injured and the individuals involved were promptly detained by the police. We are so grateful for the robust response by law enforcement and the professional manner in which our staff managed the incident, with their priority being the health and well-being of each resident we have the privilege to serve.

We can confirm that there was a dispute between two employees, and limited gunshots were exchanged. Both employees exited the facility immediately thereafter, while the remaining staff took action to ensure that all residents were safe. While we are constrained by privacy laws applicable to personnel information and cannot share details about the involved employees, we can confirm that this event was entirely unexpected and unprecedented.

The facility so appreciates the support it has received from the residents and their families/loved ones, and from the dedicated staff at HCR of Leawood.

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BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB)  Police are investigating a shots fired incident at the Tops on Jefferson Avenue on Saturday, the Buffalo Police Department said Tuesday.

The incident occurred at the same Tops where 10 people were shot and killed by a racist mass shooter on May 14, 2022.

Police responded around 3 p.m. to the Tops on Jefferson for an alleged shooting. Police said multiple vehicles in the parking lot shot at each other before fleeing the scene.

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Another gun-related incident occurred at the same Tops last June. A Tonawanda man is accused of waving a gun at someone near the parking lot as well as passing a gun back-and-forth with another man inside the store.

Thats sad! After everything that happened over here! said one woman who was on her way to shop at Tops on Tuesday. They shouldnt be doing stuff like that.

Jefferson Avenues going to be Jefferson Avenue, another East Side resident said in response to the shooting.

We say years ago, but it felt like yesterday. This neighborhood cannot withstand another incident at this point, explained Andrew Scott, a concerned East Side resident.

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Ive been in this town over 50 years, another resident, an older man, told WIVB News 4. It aint never been this bad.

In a statement, Buffalo Mayor Sean Ryan said The Tops on Jefferson Avenue carries deep significance for our community, and any act of violence on those grounds must be taken with the utmost seriousness.

Bishop Perry Davis with Stop The Violence Buffalo said that this latest incident is reopening old wounds that havent even healed yet.

With this recent shooting, its just opening up old wounds and bringing up old fears, Davis said. This is absolutely ridiculous, its got to stop.

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Tops continues to take steps to help their customers feel safe  issuing WIVB News 4 the following statement:

On Saturday, an altercation that began away from our property eventually spilled over into the Tops parking lot at 1275 Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo. During the dispute, a firearm was discharged. No one was injured, and all individuals involved fled the scene before police arrived.

The Buffalo Police Department responded immediately, is actively investigating the incident, and Tops officials are working closely with law enforcement as the investigation continues.

The safety of our associates and customers is our highest priority. We will continue to have security staff on site and have requested additional patrols from the Buffalo Police Department in the area surrounding the store. For further details regarding this incident, we will defer to local authorities.

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Buffalo Common Council Majority Leader Leah Halton Popewhose district the Tops falls inissued the following statement Tuesday, condemning the violence:

I am deeply disturbed by the carelessness and disregard for human life displayed by the individuals involved in the shooting that occurred over the weekend at the Tops Friendly Markets on Jefferson Avenue.

Let me be clear: this should never happen  anywhere, at any time. But to engage in this kind of reckless behavior in the very parking lot where our beloved community members were targeted and killed less than four years ago is especially unacceptable.

I am grateful to report that no injuries were sustained. I also want residents to know that this incident is unrelated to the 5/14 racist attack on our community.

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I thank the Buffalo Police Department for their swift and professional response, and I expect that those responsible will be held accountable.

Our community deserves safety, respect, and peace  particularly in spaces that carry such deep meaning for us all.

Three vehicles were seized in Saturdays incident and several subjects were interviewed. Anyone with any information is asked to contact Buffalo police at (716) 847-2255.

Latest Local News

Kayleigh Hunter-Gasperini joined the News 4 team in 2024 as a Digital Video Producer. She is a graduate of Chatham University.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to News 4 Buffalo.
Editors Note: This story has been updated to clarify that the location is Country Shire Drive. We apologize for the error.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC)  The Greece Police Department is investigating an incident on Country Shire Drive of a man that was found down in the road.

News 8 arrived at the scene on Tuesday morning and saw multiple police cars and tape blocking the roadway. An officer says they responded to a man who is approximately 85-years-old down in the road.

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Its unknown what the status of the individual is, but police say they do not believe it is suspicious in nature. He was taken to a nearby hospital.

The road was closed earlier in the morning, but the area has since reopened.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to RochesterFirst.
The ACCC says participants in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) are being targeted by NDIS providers deceptive advertising practices and other behaviours banned by consumer law, a new report has found. Whilst these practices are not universal, the scale and types of complaints the ACCC is hearing about is concerning.

Working in a taskforce with the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) and NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, the ACCC has identified trends of problematic conduct that may breach the Australian Consumer Law, including instances of providers wrongly charging for essential disability support products that were not supplied as agreed and falsely claiming services or products are NDIS-approved or eligible for NDIS funding, when this is not the case.

This information comes from the ACCC's media release on the matter.

The ACCC is particularly concerned about several key issues in NDIS markets:

- False and misleading advertising by providers

- Providers not honouring consumer guarantees protections

- Issues with contracts, such as providers failing to provide clear written contracts or including unfair terms

- Providers charging for products or services not supplied or delayed

- Concerns about misleading claims in relation to Specialist Disability Accommodation

- Impacts on First Nations NDIS participants

- Scams affecting NDIS participants.

Conduct can be particularly harmful given products and services sought or acquired may be essential for Australians who experience a disability to participate in everyday life, ACCC Deputy Chair Catriona Lowe said.

Harm can range from financial loss and life-limiting impacts, to compromising the safety and physical wellbeing of NDIS participants. Such conduct is completely unacceptable and the ACCC will continue to work with taskforce agencies to protect NDIS participants, educate and hold providers that continue to do the wrong thing accountable.

Since 2024 the ACCC has prioritised improving compliance with the Australian Consumer Law by businesses that provide NDIS-funded supports, and, alongside the NDIA and NDIS Commission, has expanded its efforts to address misconduct and increase awareness of the laws relating to NDIS provider conduct.

This infographic created by Gemini Nano Banana Pro 3 based on this article, which continues below, please read on!

ACCC enforcement action



The ACCC has taken proactive enforcement action in this period, instituting legal proceedings against a provider for alleged breaches of the Australian Consumer Law in 2024. In addition, Bedshed and Thermomix paid infringement notices issued by the ACCC for allegedly making misleading claims about NDIS endorsements.

Support provider Mable Technologies provided a court-enforceable undertaking to the ACCC after admitting using unfair contract terms, in breach of the Australian Consumer Law.

We have achieved positive outcomes to improve protections for NDIS participants and continue to investigate other potential misconduct, Ms Lowe said.

NDIS providers should be aware that we are closely monitoring and responding to how they advertise and supply their products and services to consumers, Ms Lowe said.

The ACCC is also working closely with state and territory consumer protection agencies, sharing intelligence and coordinating work and jointly enforcing the Australian Consumer Law.

We are also working closely with other taskforce agencies in ensuring information is referred to the responsible agency to act on at an early stage, Ms Lowe said.

To assist in raising awareness, we will also be publishing a summary of the Report on our website with printable factsheets for both participants and providers.

If an NDIS participant thinks a business has made false or misleading statements about products or services, including whether they are funded by the NDIS, or if they consider their consumer rights have not been met, they can make a report to the ACCC.

Further information for NDIS participants and providers is available on the ACCC website.

Background



The NDIS provides funding to eligible people with disability. Since 2024, the ACCC has prioritised improved compliance with the Australian Consumer Law by businesses that supply NDIS-funded supports, known as providers.

The two main regulators responsible for delivering the NDIS are:

- The NDIA which sets participants with plans and funding, provides price guidance for supports, processes claims, and investigates alleged fraud within the scheme.

- The NDIS Commission which registers and regulates NDIS providers. It also monitors providers compliance with the NDIS Code of Conduct and practice standards, and receives and responds to concerns, complaints and reportable incidents about providers.

The Australian Consumer Law applies to all transactions between NDIS participants and providers. The ACCC and other Australian Consumer Law regulators can investigate NDIS related dealings where there is a potential breach of the Australian Consumer Law.

On 17 December 2023, the government established the Fair Pricing and Australian Consumer Law Taskforce consisting of the ACCC, the NDIA, and the NDIS Commission. The Taskforce was established to address harms affecting participants, including potentially paying higher prices for goods or services compared to non-NDIS consumers, and conduct by providers that may breach the Australian Consumer Law.
Chicago police issued a warning about a violent robbery in Wrigleyville on a CTA Red Line train.

It happened on Feb. 1 near West Addison Street and North Sheffield Avenue just before 11:45 a.m.

Police released photos of the suspect on Monday. They say a passenger was hit in the face, had their property stolen, and was stomped on, before they were able to get away from him.

Police are asking anyone with information to contact them at 312-745-4447 or submit an anonymous tip at CPDTIP.com and use reference #JK134584.

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A police report obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel provides new details about the investigation into Wisconsin Center District President and CEO Marty Brooks, who was accused by Milwaukee Common Council President Jose Perez of inappropriately touching him last November.

The incident was investigated as a sexual assault, but no charges were filed in the case. Brooks has denied wrongdoing.

The Journal Sentinel previously reported on the claims against Brooks, but did not name Perez. The news organization typically does not identify people who report sexual assault without their consent.

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The Journal Sentinel is now naming Perez because of his position as one of Milwaukee's top elected officials and a member of the Wisconsin Center District board. His name has been publicly reported elsewhere.

According to the 26-page report, Perez went to the Milwaukee Police Department on Nov. 5 and said that he had "his buttocks pinched or squeezed" by Brooks two weeks earlier while at the restaurant Mos...A Place for Steaks. He said the incident occurred on Oct. 22, the same night Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who is running for governor, had a campaign fundraiser at the popular downtown restaurant.

Perez said a group at the restaurant "was standing in a close circle making small talk about the Brewers," when Brooks mentioned another alderman's efforts to designate the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena as a historic site.

Perez said he told Brooks that he should bring his concerns to the Milwaukee Common Council, according to the report. Brooks and Perez have been on opposite sides of that issue.

Wisconsin Center District President & CEO Marty Brooks speaks during Mayor Cavalier Johnson's State of the City address at Baird Center in Milwaukee on Monday, March 3, 2025.

"Perez stated as the group was talking someone said something funny or cute. He did not remember what was said or who said it. He stated at the time Marty who standing to Perez' left in close circle reached over and pinched Perez' left buttock with Marty's right hand (fingers)," the report said. "Perez stated he could feel the sharpness from Marty's fingernails as Marty pinched his butt."

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Perez told detectives he was shocked and angry, but didn't want to "confront Marty in an aggressive way because he did not want anything to become violent."

Perez told police he felt violated.

"He felt it was done in a sexual way and also that it was like a 'screw you' / 'power move,'" the report said.

A recorded call with detectives in the room

On Nov. 5, the same day he went to the police, Perez called Brooks from a room at the Sensitive Crimes Division with two detectives present, the report said. The call was recorded. Wisconsin is a "one-party consent" state, which means you can record your conversations with other people without their knowledge.

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Perez didn't initially mention specifics of the incident to Brooks, according to a synopsis of the call.

"I feel super uncomfortable about what happened and think we got to talk about this, before, you know, I come back to a board meeting," Perez told him. "Because I'm uncomfortable about what happened."

"Tell me what you're uncomfortable with, what happened?" Brooks asked.

During the call, Perez repeatedly insisted Brooks knew what he had done, and Brooks said multiple times he had "no clue" what Perez was talking about, the report said.

Perez eventually confronted Brooks, saying "you pinched my butt."

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"Oh come on, I did not do that!" Brooks answered, later calling the accusation "bullshit."

Brooks then apologized for losing his temper, but said he couldn't "take responsibility for something" he didn't do, the report said.

The call lasted about six minutes.

Police followed up with witness

The following day, detectives went to interview a woman who was with Perez and Brooks at Mo's when the incident reportedly occurred.

The woman said she had been talking with the two men for about 10 minutes "when she observed Marty Brooks reach his hand towards President Perez' buttocks," the report said.

"She stated that she did not see Brooks' hand make contact with Perez' buttocks but she did observe his hand moving in that direction and believed that it did touch his buttocks," the report said.

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She added that they were having a "good-natured conversation" and that neither of them "appeared angry before or after the incident," nor did either appear to be intoxicated, the report said.

The woman told detectives she didn't think about it again until Perez returned to Mo's a couple of hours later with his wife and a couple of friends.

"She stated that Perez asked her if she observed what Marty Brooks did and she stated that she did," the report said. "She stated that they did not really talk about it but she realized that it bothered Perez."

The woman added that Brooks called her on Nov. 5, and sounded shocked about the allegations.

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"She stated that Brooks became extremely emotional and asked her to fix it," the report said.

Detectives then went to the Baird Center to interview Brooks, who again insisted that the claims were baseless.

"Brooks stated he has no ill will and no issues with Perez," the report said. "Brooks stated it was possible that he touched Perez' arm while talking with his hands but he adamantly denied ever touching or pinching Perez' butt at any time."

Brooks also told detectives he rarely drinks and was not intoxicated at Mo's  adding that he was drinking club soda that night  and said he has never previously been accused "of doing anything like this," the report said.

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Perez' wife and two friends were also interviewed by detectives, and they all said Perez had told them that night that another man had pinched his butt, the report said.

A detective attempted to locate surveillance video footage from the room at Mo's where the incident reportedly happened but could not find any, the report said.

No charges filed

The incident was investigated as fourth-degree sexual assault, the report said.

Erin Karshen, an assistant district attorney in Milwaukee, contacted police on Nov. 24 to let them know she was not processing the case against Brooks "because she did not believe that she could prove the sexual gratification or sexual humiliation elements of the crime," the report said.

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In a Jan. 22 memo to Wisconsin Center District board members, Chairman Jim Kanter wrote that the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office "found no basis for charges" against Brooks.

The Wisconsin Center District board then met in closed session on Jan. 30 to discuss the investigation. After the meeting, Kanter declined to provide details about the discussion, but again noted that prosecutors declined to press charges.

A spokesperson for the Wisconsin Center District did not answer follow-up questions about whether the board was conducting an internal investigation into the allegations.

Perez has hired prominent Milwaukee attorney Mark Thomsen "to investigate and track down the sources of, among others, inaccurate statements that the DAs office 'found no basis for charges,'" Thomsen said in a statement.

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"Mr. Perez and I will have no public comments until the Wisconsin Center District reaches its own conclusion," Thomsen said.

The Wisconsin Center District is a public agency that operates the Baird Center convention facility, UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena and Miller High Life Theatre.

Brooks was named district president and CEO in 2017. He oversaw Baird Center's $456 million expansion that was completed in 2024. He previously was senior vice president and general manager of America's Center, operated by the St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission.

Brooks opposed the Common Council's November vote to designate the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena and Miller High Life Theatre as historic. That designation means the theater's proposed replacement by a 650-room hotel and other new development would need a Historic Preservation Commission review.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: MPD report reveals more details on assault claims against Marty Brooks
Pope Leo XIV has sent 80 electric generators and thousands of medical supplies to Ukraine to help civilians cope with freezing winter temperatures and constant attacks, the Vatican announced on Feb. 9.

The aid was arranged in response to appeals from bishops who warned of mounting difficulties caused by Russias attacks on energy infrastructure and subzero temperatures across the country.

Three trucks carrying the generators and medical supplies departed from the Basilica of Saint Sophia in Rome and have already arrived in Fastiv and Kyiv, areas heavily affected by recent strikes.

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Alongside the generators, thousands of medical supplies were delivered, including antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, supplements, and melatonin, which Vatican officials said is in high demand as Ukrainians struggle with stress and sleep deprivation amid ongoing attacks.

The Vatican added that preparations are underway to send another shipment of medicine and food, with distribution coordinated through parish networks across Ukraine.

Since assuming the papacy last year, Pope Leo has called for "a just and lasting peace" in Ukraine and has offered to host peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow at the Vatican.

Zelensky has expressed support for such an initiative, while Russian officials have thus far rejected the proposal.

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Before becoming pope, Leo XIV denounced Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine while serving as Bishop of Chiclayo in Peru.

Read also: The hidden health impact of Russias attacks on Ukraines energy grid

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
KANSAS CITY, Mo.  Port KC is severing ties with the company thats tied to a potential ICE detention facility in Kansas City.

The vote happened Monday afternoon  and could bar future deals with that company, Platform Ventures.

Police looking for dog, owner after person bit in Overland Park neighborhood

The Port KC Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a resolution directing Port KC to terminate any negotiations with Platform Ventures with respect to the sale of additional property in that I-49 Industrial Center.

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The issue is that Platform Ventures already owns 195 acres there and has built several industrial buildings.

Our position is the buildings that were approved for manufacturing and advanced logistics jobsshouldnt be utilized for any other purpose, including the purpose that has been stated and publicly reported on, Port KC President and CEO Jon Stephens said during Mondays meeting.

As Port KCs president said, Platform Ventures holds the rights to sell the building. But he said the board is looking at ways to collect taxes if a future business partner misleads them.

Ultimately, we think that any developer, if they are coming back and doing something different than what was promised to the public, they should have to answer to the public on that, Stephens said.

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The Kansas City Council has passed a five-year moratorium on non-city operated detention facilities, which could set up a legal battle if the project moves forward.

Were (Port KC) focused specifically on the issue at hand, which is this building, this potential decision. We hope that they fulfill the promise of bringing manufacturing or logistics jobs to this site, as they promised, Stephens said.

The buildings are built for manufacturing logistics. The infrastructure is built to be a job center. The companies want to co-locate with other manufacturers, other distributors. We have rail lines there that are bringing all these millions of tons of goods and services in and out. When a use in the center of it is not designed to do that, we think that ultimately is detrimental. It could have a chilling effect on the continued generation of new jobs in that corridor, Stephens went on to say about using 49 Crossing outside of its intended purpose.

Platform Ventures and its representatives didnt respond to questions about Port KCs scheduled action Monday but previously told FOX4 it had a fiduciary duty to evaluate every sale and told FOX4 in mid-January all negotiations were complete. Port KC said Monday its had no conversations with the company since and doesnt know if the sale has closed.

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We want developers to fulfill their promises to our community, and we are committed to that. And we will say that every day going forward, Stephens said.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN)  Legislation in Salem is now impacting the future of self-driving cars in Oregon.

There is a lot of pushback for this new technology, including from some members of the Portland City Council.

House Bill 4085 will give companies like Waymo the green light to operate their self-driving cars in Oregon.

Representative Susan McLain ( D-Forest Grove) is on the House Transportation Committee and a co-sponsor of this bill.

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Unsolved 1992 murder tied to infamous Oregon serial killer

A lot of these types of vehicles are EVs. Theyre electric. And so that brings in some climate benefits, she said. We have an aging population. We have folks who cannot drive or should not drive. And so it gives them more opportunities to be able to be mobile.

A representative with Waymo spoke to the committee during a public hearing on the bill, saying their vehicles are the safe option.

Waymo driver reduces the frequency and the severity of collisions where we operate, including reductions of serious injury-causing crashes by 90% compared to humans driving the same distance, said Michael Magee, the West Coast policy manager for Waymo.

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However, ride-share drivers say they are against this bill.

We didnt ask for dangerous, job-killing, experimental robo-vehicles. Waymo, Uber and Lyft did, said Nathaniel Hudson Hartman.

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The Portland City Council also discussed the possibility of autonomous vehicles. Some are against them because of safety concerns as well as the economy, while others want more information about the safety data.

But as the bill is written, it strips cities, including Portland, of the ability to ban self-driving cars.

Im very concerned that the state legislature is looking to preempt our citys ability to regulate autonomous vehicles. I think that the highest concentration of autonomous vehicles would be in the city of Portland. And so we deserve to have a say in how that happens, said Councilor Angelita Morillo.

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We have to do something: Oregon House majority leader sounds alarm on Abiqua Falls sale

The Portland Bureau of Transportation is presenting the city with concerns about the technology and asking for time to write up a policy.

Many concerns are raised by this technology. We think its crucial for PBOT to have the right rules in place in advance of any serious consideration by a company to come to Portland, said Dylan Rivera from PBOT.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com.
By Sergio Goncalves and Michael Francis Gore

LISBON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - The moderate Socialist candidate's decisive victory in Portugal's presidential election on Sunday showed that two-thirds of the electorate, including many conservative voters, united against his far-right rival, who likely topped out his support at 33%, according to analysts.

Still, the gains made by Andre Ventura compared to the first round last month and a general election in 2025 put his anti-establishment, anti-immigration Chega party within striking distance of becoming the largest parliamentary faction in the next general election, which is not due until 2029 unless an early vote is called. Chega currently has the second-largest number of seats in parliament.

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The fact that prominent conservative figures backed Socialist Antonio Jose Seguro in the presidential runoff - a rare occurrence in Europe - could galvanize a potential centrist alliance to keep Chega away from power in the future, said Javier Carbonell, an analyst at the European Policy Centre think-tank.

A parliamentary election would also not be reduced to just two rivals, likely diluting Ventura's current support.

The Chega leader claimed that the result means he is now the leader of Portugal's right.

"We did not win, but are on the path to this victory," he told supporters on Sunday night.

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But political analysts said that despite Chega's clearly growing clout and "normalisation" of the far right among voters, Ventura had clearly been unable to capture a majority of centre-right votes.

"I sincerely don't believe that Chega may rise much more than to a third of the electorate, which is the threshold that he has attained in this election," said Jose Tomaz Castello Branco, a political scientist at Catholic University in Lisbon.

"I don't buy into that idea that he is now claiming ... to lead the right wing in Portugal," he said, while acknowledging that "voters are beginning to lose their shyness about voting for a far-right party".

CHEGA IS MAIN OPPOSITION PARTY IN PARLIAMENT

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Seguro, who promised to "unite the country" and build political bridges in a highly fragmented parliament, won nearly 3.5 million votes, or 66.8% of the total, more than doubling his result in the first round of voting on January 18.

Ventura, who campaigned to "end 50 years of corruption" by Portugal's mainstream parties, received 33.2%, or more than 1.7 million votes, about 413,000 more than in the first round.

That result was also roughly 300,000 more votes than Chega garnered in the parliamentary election last May, when it became the main opposition faction. The ruling centre-right alliance won about 2 million votes.

In the streets of Lisbon, some shared the view that Chega's sharp rise since its creation just seven years ago may have ceased.

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"Perhaps we can say that we are more reassured that the far-right will not have much chance of growing further in Portugal," said Jorge Ferreira, 66.

But Matilde Ribeiro, 24, said "it's immensely worrying that the far-right candidate has risen so quickly in successive elections".

"It is a sign of what is happening in Europe and the world," she said.

(Reporting by Sergio Goncalves and Michael Gore; editing by Andrei Khalip and Paul Simao)
MINNEAPOLIS  Maya Thin Elk ordered a mango smoothie and breakfast burrito at Pow Wow Grounds Coffee before going to the Minnesota Indian Womens Resource Center to pick up supplies for families homebound with newborns and pregnant mothers who are unable to leave their homes.

The Sicangu Lakota woman is eight months pregnant, and is a doula for expecting mothers. Thin Elks deliveries have increased since January, when federal immigration raids became a daily, violent, occurrence in the Twin Cities and left some families unable to go out for basic supplies. For instance, she said the husband for a family she helps was recently picked up and is now detained in Texas at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. Her deliveries offer some protection from encounters with ICE.

Its really about getting them the supplies they need. As an Indigenous doula, it's really about supporting them emotionally, Thin Elk said.

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That type of direct community aid and response to federal immigration police is now part of the daily life for many in Minnesota, particularly the regulars at Pow Wow Grounds Coffee. The Native Americanowned coffee shop is now serving as a headquarters for community first responders like Thin Elk to fuel up before going into the streets to offer whatever help they can.

This includes the mobile whistle patrols weaving through nearby neighborhood streets, home to thousands of the approximately 35,000 Native Americans living in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

The mobile patrols are volunteers who call themselves observers. They walk and drive the streets of Minneapolis to alert the community to the presence of ICE agents or Border Patrol.

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Minutes after Thin Elks order, Holly Rock (Leech Lake) stopped by for coffee and snacks before heading out on patrol. She said she patrols as often as possible, carrying a whistle to alert others if she spots ICE agents.

Rock said her motivation comes from her nine-year-old daughter, who is half Latino and half Leech Lake Ojibwe.

The best I can do is prevent what's happening, because if they're going to do it now, they're going to do it to the next generation. And I just don't think it's fair, Rock said.

We knew how to organize quickly

Pow Wow Grounds Coffee became the patrol headquarters on January 7, the day Renee Nicole Good dropped her six-year-old son off at school, and shortly after, was killed by federal immigration officer Jonathan Ross.

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Since then, Pow Wow Grounds has served between 600 gallons of free coffee to volunteers each week. Every day, owner Robert Rice (White Earth Ojibwe) ensures three types of soup are available for volunteers patrolling Native neighborhoods. Last month he said roughly 400 gallons of soup were distributed, along with approximately 3,000 pieces of frybread.

The shop is located in the heart of the American Indian Cultural Corridor in Minneapolis. During a recent Sunday evening, a robust fire roared in the parking lot against 20-degree temperatures. Inside, employees moved steadily behind the counter, preparing specialty coffees for a constant stream of customers.

An out-of-town visitor stopping in for a latte might never realize that the Native Americanowned coffee shop is now serving as the headquarters for mobile patrols tracking ICE.

Screenshot 2026 02 09 at 8.17.18 PM

(photo/Levi Rickert)

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The headquarters operates out of a space that, in ordinary times, houses the All My Relations Art Gallery. The artwork has been taken down, leaving bare walls where vibrant Native American paintings once hung.

Art has been replaced by tables filled with donated goods for mobile patrol volunteers: gas cards, snacks, whistles, gloves, socks, bottled water, energy drinks, and other essential items. Rice also coordinates the steady flow of donations delivered to the coffee shop. The supplies are donated t from places throughout the country. Some days, Pow Wow Grounds receives up to 200 packages for the makeshift headquarters.

Rice, who opened Pow Wow Grounds 15 years ago on East Franklin Avenue, told Native News Online there was never any question about allowing his business to be used as a headquarters.

We had experience from the days after George Floyd was killed. Our people mobilized and used this place as headquarters back then. So, we knew how to organize quickly, Rice said. We knew the day Renee Good was killed we had to mobilize the patrols again.

AIM Influence in 2026

Rice shares responsibility for staffing the headquarters at Pow Wow Grounds Coffee with Crow Bellecourt (White Earth Ojibwe), the eldest son of the late Clyde Bellecourt, one of the co-founders of the American Indian Movement (AIM).

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Crow Bellecourt is the executive director of the Indigenous Protector Movement (IPM), formed to fill gaps in services not offered by existing nonprofit organizations serving Native Americans in the Twin Cities, including Indigenous-led advocacy and healing initiatives.

IPM breathes life into that vision, honoring ancestral tactics while forging new pathways for todays challenges, according to the organizations website.

Like Rice, Bellecourt points to the need for patrols during the days following George Floyds murder, when Native businesses along the Franklin corridor required protection.Bellecourt also notes that Pow Wow Grounds Coffee sits directly across the street from where AIM was founded in 1968, in response to police brutality against the Native community.

We're doing this for our community. All we're doing is trying to protect our community, which covers four or five blocks from here. Its for our people; this is our community, Bellecourt said.

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Inside the coffee shop on Monday morning, a young man emerged from a back room carrying sage burning in a clamshell. He offered the sage first to employees behind the counter, then to patrons waiting in line and those seated at tables.

Before she went to make deliveries in the Minnesota cold, Thin Elk said part of her doula care is to provide pregnant women access to traditional medicines, like sage.

Specifically, we try to give them the traditional medicines that Indigenous mothers that I work with want. A lot of Native moms want sage at the hospital, those types of medicines, Thin Elk said.

In addition to serving Native mothers, Thin Elk also supports Hispanic women. She recounted one case in which a Hispanic mothers husband was sent to a deportation center in Texas, leaving her without income and too afraid to leave her home for fear of being apprehended by ICE.

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Rock, the other Native mother who stopped at Pow Wow Grounds before whistle duty, said she is especially passionate about preventing ICE from violating the rights of Native American citizens.

They should do their jobs of, as they say, arresting rapists and killers they claim theyre grabbing, but dont hurt our community, Rock said.

Later that day, FRANCE 24 English visited Pow Wow Grounds Coffee to speak with Rice and Bellecourt, who shared the story of the Native communitys mobilization in Minnesota with an international audience.

Rice and Bellecourt said the Twin City patrols will continue for as long as theyre needed. The mission is simple: keep the Native community safe.

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About the Author: "Levi \"Calm Before the Storm\" Rickert (Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation) is the founder, publisher and editor of Native News Online. Rickert was awarded Best Column 2021 Native Media Award for the print\/online category by the Native American Journalists Association. He serves on the advisory board of the Multicultural Media Correspondents Association. He can be reached at levi@nativenewsonline.net."

Contact: levi@nativenewsonline.net
A former Prairie View police officer is now in custody on an official oppression charge after allegedly sexually harassing a motorist, according to court documents.

According to online court records, Scott Mills was booked into jail at around 8:01 p.m. on Monday,

Houston police say that Mills pulled the victim over in June 2024 on Ella near Kuykendahl. The victim said Mills was wearing his police uniform and driving a black SUV that had the word 'police' written on the side.

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"You are lucky I pulled you over and not a white cop," he allegedly told her after she pulled into a Family Dollar parking lot.

Mills allegedly began asking the victim a series of sexually charged questions, like, "Why don't you have a bra on?" and also asked if she performed specific sexual acts.

"I can see you have nipple piercings," he's alleged to have said at one point.

The victim also told police that Mills commented on her long eyelashes and tattoos and leaned into her car to touch them.

At the end of the traffic stop, Mills allegedly told the victim he would only let her go if she took down his phone number.

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Police say that the number allowed them to quickly identify Mills, although the charge wasn't filed until last week.

Texas Commission on Law Enforcement records show Mills hasn't worked for Prairie View police since January 2025.

The same records show he began working for the San Jacinto County Sheriff's Office in June 2025, but a sheriff's office spokesperson told Eyewitness News Mills doesn't work for them.

The former officer was arrested on a theft charge in 2022 when a man accused him of stealing his car while in uniform. Prosecutors later dropped the charge, citing insufficient evidence.

For news updates, follow Luke Jones on Facebook, X and Instagram.
Lakes and connecting streams in the northeastern part of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska are seen from the air on June 26, 2014. The Trump adminstration has rescheduled its planned oil and gas lease sale. It was to have been held on March 9 but will now be held on March 18, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management said. (Photo by Bob Wick/U.S. Bureau of Land Management)

Editors note: This story has been updated to reflect the fact that the notice of sale was published Wednesday in the Federal Register and details about the sale acreage were also made available on Wednesday. The update also includes a map made available Wednesday.

A federal oil and gas lease sale in Alaska that was to have been held in early March has now been postponed for nine days because of public notice mistakes.

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The U.S. Bureau of Land Management said Tuesday it has rescheduled its planned lease sale for 5.5 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. The sale would have been on March 9, but will now be held on March 18, the BLM said.

A legally required Federal Register notice failed to publish as scheduled last week. The BLM has reissued the notice and, and it was published in the Federal Register on Wednesday.

Federal law requires such published notices at least 30 days before lease sales.

This is the first of five NPR-A lease sales mandated under the sweeping budget and tax bill called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The act, passed and signed into law last summer, requires at least five NPR-A lease sales, each offering at least 4 million acres, to be held by 2035.

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It is also the first NPR-A lease sale scheduled since 2019, under the first Trump administration, and the first conducted under a new Trump administration management plan that opened long-protected areas of the reserve to leasing.

The Trump plan makes 82% of the 23-million-acre reserve available for leasing, including areas in and around Teshekpuk Lake, the largest North Slope lake and habitat for migratory birds, a caribou herd and other Arctic wildlife. Under an Obama administration plan that was in place until now, about half of the reserve was available for leasing and the Teshekpuk Lake area was among five designated special areas protected from development.

A new lawsuit is pending over the Trump administrations decision to strip protections for the Teshekpuk Caribou Herd and its habitat. That lawsuit was filed by an organization in Nuiqsut, the Inupiat village closest to existing NPR-A development. The organization, representing Nuiqsuts city and tribal governments and for-profit village corporation, had negotiated a conservation agreement that was signed by the Biden administration in late 2024; in December, the Trump administration canceled the agreement.

A detailed statement describing the acres to be auctioned off in the March 18 lease sale was posted on the BLMs NPR-A website on Wednesday. The sale acreage includes tracts in the Teshekpuk Lake area that were off-limits to leasing in the previous Integrated Activity Plan.

Tracts offered in the U.S. Bureau of Land Managements March 18, 2026, lease sale in the Natinal Petroleum Reserve in Alaska include Teshekpuk Lake-area lands previously off-limits to leasing. (Map provided by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management)

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The same day the Town of Palmer Lake announced that an application to bring a Buc-ee's travel center to town had been withdrawn, the city of Pueblo's "Advance Pueblo" Facebook page posted a reminder that Pueblo is "open for business."

It was announced on Feb. 4, 2026, that Monument Ridge West LLC, a developer hoping to open the chain's second Colorado travel center in Palmer Lake, withdrew an annexation application. Three months and three weeks prior, when the proposed Palmer Lake location was facing community resistance, Pueblo City Council unanimously approved a resolution asking Buc-ee's to consider Colorado's Steel City.

"You may have heard the news about Buc-ee's leaving Palmer Lake and looking for a new location in Colorado," the Feb. 4 Advance Pueblo Facebook post said. "As a reminder, Pueblo is open for business! With great access to the I-25 and Hwy 50 corridor, we know Pueblo is a great location for a travel center and for businesses like Buc-ee's."

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Pueblo Public Works Director Andrew Hayes told the Chieftain on Feb. 9 that Pueblo is "courting all businesses" interested in setting up shop in the city.

"Buc-ee's is obviously a very prominent case study because of everything going on in Palmer Lake," Hayes said. "We'd love to welcome them or any other businesses looking to come."

Last summer, Pueblo Mayor Heather Graham proposed changes to the city's half-cent sales tax criteria that would expand funds to be used for economic development projects beyond the traditional scope of "primary jobs." A new Buc-ee's and a Costco were among the potential projects mentioned.

The entrance to a Buc-ee's convenience store is pictured in Luling, Texas.

While changes to the criteria ordinance were voted down by last year's council, it could be a different story with new council members in 2026. Hayes said the new council will have an opportunity to approve changes to the criteria ordinance.

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"It would make other types of projects eligible when they make sense," Hayes said. "Ultimately, council would still retain authority to budget and appropriate funds towards those projects, but it could be used for something like Buc-ee's or anything."

Buc-ee's has over 50 locations in the U.S. The majority of them are located in the chain's home state of Texas. The first Colorado location opened on March 18, 2024, in Johnstown. The Johnstown site remains the chain's only Colorado location as of Feb. 9, 2026, according to the Buc-ee's website.

Hayes said Pueblo's location at the "crossroads" of Interstate 25 and U.S. Highway 50 makes it a unique location for a travel center chain that caters to non-commercial traffic.

"They have a niche market and Pueblo is sitting at the crossroads of a lot of places that people travel to and from here in Colorado," he said. "Whether you are going west to the mountains, north to Denver, east out to the plains, south to New Mexico, Texas  we're right in the middle of it and this is a great spot for somebody looking to capture the benefits of that traffic."

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Give Kids a Chance Act: 'Give Kids a Chance Act' named for Pueblo teen signed into law by Trump

Pueblo Chieftain reporter James Bartolo can be reached at JBartolo@gannett.com. Support local news; subscribe to the Pueblo Chieftain at subscribe.chieftain.

This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Pueblo pushes to be home of new Buc-ee's after Palmer Lake site nixed
Before the implementation of the social media ban, Australian children spent more time on TikTok than ever before, according to a new report from world-leading online safety company Qustodio.

In 2025 Australian children spent an average of 132 minutes per day on TikTok, spending more time on the social media app than children in the US, UK, Brazil, France and Spain. Time spent on the app had steadily increased year-on-year, from an average of 75 minutes per day in 2021.

The second most popular social media app was Instagram, with Australian children using the app for an average of 72 minutes per day.

The annual report, titled Lost in the Scroll, is based on anonymous app and online tools usage on device data collected from over 400,000 family homes in six major world markets: the US, Brazil, UK, France, Spain, and Australia, along with 10,000 schools in the US, UK, and Australia. In addition to revealing the apps most favoured by children between the ages 4-18, and the screen time spent on them, the report includes insights from over 1,300 parents who shared the challenges they faced during a transformative year defined by growing resistance to children's use of devices and social media.

Were more than a month into the social media ban era, and were already seeing a how to culture emerging online to discuss methods to skirt the ban. Many under-16 year olds are sharing tips and tricks on the very apps they should be banned from, said Yasmin London, global online safety expert for Qoria, the parent company of Qustodio.

When it comes to social communication apps, the most popular is Snapchat, with an average time spent on the app of 63 minutes per day. Discord, not included in the ban, is the second most popular, with an average of 24 minutes per day.

With the ban in place  and assuming they havent sidestepped the ban in some way  we expect kids who were raised in an online era to migrate to gaming or messenger platforms, such as Discord, Steam and Steam chat, WhatsApp and more said London. And Australian kids are already leading the world with how much time they spend on their mobile devices playing Roblox.

As the list of banned platforms remains fluid, other apps and platforms could find themselves banned in the future. As such its vital that parents understand the new platforms kids will engage with in the absence of social media come with their own risks.

Children spending average of over two hours a day on Roblox desktop

Australian children are spending more time on the Roblox mobile app than any other country studied. The average time spent on Roblox for mobile is 87 minutes per day, well above the global average of 76 minutes, and on desktop the average time spent on the platform skyrockets to 133 minutes. Roblox is a platform that allows users to create, share and play games created by other users. While it can be a great way for kids to connect, it doesnt come without risks. User-generated content, in particular, can expose young kids to inappropriate themes.

When children have mobile phones, parents often make a conscious decision to restrict access to certain apps, or put time limits in place. Yet shared devices, like the family computer or smart television, often slip under the radar, said London.

While Roblox does have its own restrictions on chat functions for kids accounts, many experts have raised concerns that they dont work and kids can easily skirt them. Having not been included in the government social media ban, it makes use of these online games  and their chat rooms  easy, accessible and, crucially, unmonitored. It will be interesting to see whether the average time spent on Roblox increases in 2026.

Reflecting the 2024 results, in 2025 the three most blocked gaming platforms for desktop were Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnite. Other popular gaming platforms include Clash Royale, Brawl Stars and Rocket League, among others.

Children can learn some great skills from gaming, such as problem solving, and as a creative outlet. However, parents need to be aware of the risks that come with online gaming, especially those with a chat function, said London.

There have been reports of adults using Roblox and other gaming apps to engage with children for nefarious means, such as recruiting, bullying, harassment or grooming. And while those interactions are still limited, they do occur, and parents need to be mindful their kids may be exposed to these risks.

AI: the new social dilemma

Artificial intelligence tools are still relatively new, yet the way children are interacting with AI platforms and companion bots has already shifted. In 2025, 46 per cent of kids visited chatgpt.com, compared to 24 per cent of children in 2024.

When it comes to use of the ChatGPT app, in 2025, 23 per cent of Australian children used the app for an average of 11 minutes per day, up from four percent using it for seven minutes in 2024.

Many parents assert children are using AI tools to help with homework, to get advice, as a classroom tool, to create videos or images, or to converse with it. Using AI to chat can cover a broad range of interactions, from casual conversation to recent reports showing children are using chatbots for mental health support.

Companions and chatbot app use remains more niche, but those who are using the apps are using it for an average of 45 minutes per day. The most popular companion bot is Polybuzz with 1.9 per cent of Australian children using the app, the average time spent on the app is 47 minutes per day. The chatbot described itself as a free, private, unrestricted AI chat.

Character AI is the second most popular with 1.3 per cent visiting the app, for an average of 52 minutes per day. Character Ai, owned by Google, is a generative AI chatbot service where users can engage in conversation with customisable characters.

Talkie AI is the third most popular with 0.7 per cent of children visiting the chatbot. Despite its lower popularity, time spent on the chatbot was the highest, with an average of 60 minutes per day. Talkie AI describes itself as a way to create personalised connections, have conversations that feel real and a way to discover AI friends.

Notably, this data is only drawn from applications children have downloaded on personal devices; it does not include AI applications or chatbots that can be accessed through other means, such as Meta AI and web browsing.

While AI will inevitably become a core part of work and life, parents are understandably concerned about the way children are using the AI platforms. Concerns include an over-reliance on AI tools, using it to cheat, the spread of fake news and building unhealthy relationships with AI tools.

While every child is different, parents and adults need to pay attention to potential red flags around AI chatbot use, said London. There are some behavioural changes that could indicate an over-reliance on the technology, including if the time spent interacting with chatbots or AI tools is increasing, or the user is prioritising it over time with friends or family, if a child is being secretive about the use of AI, relying on bots for emotional support, if a sudden change in mood occurs or they begin talking about bots as if theyre real people,

If you notice these changes, it's important to start the conversation with the person from a place of curiosity rather than being accusatory. Ask which AI tools are being used and what they like about them. Create a conversation where you explore the positives and negatives together. This way, the user is more likely to open up to you, and you can create a plan together.

Methodology

Since 2019, our research has investigated and documented childrens digital habits in order to better understand their online experience. Lost in the scroll explores young peoples online app habits on mobile, desktop, and school devices, from January 1, 2025, to December 31, 2025, compared with information from the same period between 2021 and 2024.

About Qustodio

Qustodio is the world leader in online safety and digital wellbeing for families. Since 2012, we have provided a cross platform solution for families and schools, helping over 9 million families protect children from harm, while promoting healthy digital habits and awareness. Available in over 180 countries in 8 languages, our digital wellbeing tools help families and schools live and navigate smarter in an increasingly connected world. In 2022, Qustodio became part of the Qoria group, protecting every childs digital journey through a world-class collaboration between schools, parents, and educators in cyber safety.
Putnam County Common Pleas Court

The following individuals were indicted by the Putnam County Grand Jury on Feb. 3. Arraignments will be held at 2:15 p.m. Feb. 19.

Michael B. McMonigal, 43, Continental; aggravated possession of drugs and falsification.

Jeremy C. Dunbar, 29, Putnam County Jail; domestic violence.

Joshua Fish, 39, Antwerp; aggravated possession of drugs.

Jesse Fry, 35, Lima; aggravated possession of drugs, operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol, a misdemeanor.

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Russell Mitchell; 59, Lima; tampering with evidence and aggravated possession of cocaine.

William S. Senior, Jr., 41, Camden, Mich.; aggravated possession of drugs.

Benoit L. Jeune, 46, Lima; failure to comply with order of a police officer.

Kyle Coble, 40, Ottawa, receiving stolen property.

James A. Blum, 41, Columbus Grove; failure to register (arson).

Justin W. Sergent, 38, Lima; weapons under disability.

Kevin A. Potts, 40, North Baltimore; aggravated possession of drugs and falsification.

Feb. 4

Jennifer M. Proctor, Pandora, was granted a divorce from Charles L. Proctor, Pandora. They were married May 25, 2019 in Putnam County and have no children.

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Luke M. Miler, Continental, and Lori K. Miler, Continental, were granted a dissolution of marriage. They were married July 17, 1981 in Sherwood and have no children.

Feb. 5

Carlos S. Gutierrez, III, 27, Ottawa, pleaded guilty to trespass in a habitation and three counts of assault, a misdemeanor. Bond was continued while a presentence investigation is conducted with sentencing set for 9:30 a.m. March 5.

Joseph Jones, 45, Paulding, was sentenced to 60 days in jail for attempted felonious assault. He was given credit for three days served and placed on five years community control. He must obtain and maintain employment and have no contact with the victim outside of work-related activities. He was also ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $1,259.73.

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New Cases

Credit Acceptance Corp., Southfield, Mich., v. Darold Golden, Lima; other civil.

Linda Berry, Ottawa, v. Nathan Berry, Grand Rapids; divorce with children.

Fiji Funding, LLC, Lakewood, N.J., v. Springbrook Auto Auction, LLC, Pandora; civil foreign judgment.

Putnam County Municipal Court dispositions

Feb. 5

Destinee M. Carlson, Leipsic, pleaded no contest to driving under suspension. Sentence: $500 fine, plus costs with $350 suspended.

Feb. 6

Ethan M. Wagner, 19, Ottawa, charged with two counts unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, will have a new judge to preside over the case. A judgment entry dated Jan. 22, stated Municipal Court Judge Chad Niese recused himself from the case to avoid the appearance of impropriety. The Honorable Robert G. Hart was appointed to hear the case. A pre-trial was scheduled for March 9 at 1:30 p.m.

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According to court records, Wagner was 18 and older on April 1, 2025 through May 21, 2025 and engaged in sexual conduct with a Jane Doe age 15 at the time of the occurrence.

Putnam County Municipal Court judgments

Jan. 30

Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC, Norfolk, Va., default judgment v. Chase Meek, Columbus Grove, $871.85, plus interest and costs.

Capital One, Dublin, default judgment v. Melissa Vasquez, Ottawa, $2,431.06, plus interest and costs.

Wells Fargo Bank, Des Moines, Iowa, default judgment v. Anthony J. Recker, Fort Jennings, $6,053.70, plus costs.

Crown Asset Management, LLC, Columbus, default judgment v. Brittany Schroeder, Columbus Grove, $1,568.08, plus interest and costs.

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Lendmark Financial Services, LLC, Findlay, default judgment v. Priscilla Baney, Ottawa, $11,170.07, plus late charges of $52.92, plus interest and costs.

Feb. 2

Bank of America, Charlotte, agreed judgment v. Joseph Burkett, Pandora, $6,558.28, plus interest and costs.

Feb. 3

Jefferson Capital Systems, Golden, Colo., default judgment v. Erin Rupert, Ottawa, $1,792.96. plus interest and costs.

Discover Bank, Columbus, consent judgment v. Diana Bowers, Ottawa, $7,382.93, plus interest and court costs of $105.

SAC Finance, Inc., Cincinnati, default judgment v. Isaiah K. Brueshaber, Leipsic, $12,781.86, plus interest and costs.

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PCA Acquisitions V, LLC, Columbus, default judgment v. Tory Clay, Leipsic, $2,468.51, plus interest and costs.

PCA Acquisitions V, LLC, Columbus, default judgment v. Kathleen M. Coble, Columbus Grove, $3,142.32, plus interest and costs.

Credit Acceptance Corp., Southfield, Mich., default judgment v. Tammy J. Mason, Lima, $4,156.61, plus interest and costs.
NEED TO KNOW

Police in Southern Italy are investigating a heist that took place on a highway in Puglia on Monday, Feb. 9

At least eight masked suspects are believed to have been involved in the incident that targeted an armored van, which was carrying cash

Viral footage appears to show the suspects unloading items from the van after using explosives to blow its doors off

At least eight armed suspects are believed to have been involved in an explosive heist on a highway in Southern Italy.

On Monday, Feb. 9, a group of masked robbers armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles targeted an armoured van on the 613 highway between Lecce and Brindisi in Puglia, southern Italy, U.K. newspaper The Times reported. Having blown off the vehicles doors, the suspects emerged from nearby parked cars to unload items from the van before speeding away from police.

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The incident has been likened to the 1969 hit crime movie The Italian Job, which featured robbers trying to steal gold from the streets of the Italian city of Turin by creating a traffic jam, per IMDb. As noted by The Times, the suspects wore disguises to go unnoticed amid the explosive scene.

The van that was targeted belonged to the BTV company, Battistolli, per the Metro and Italian news outlet L'Unione Sarda.

The money transported in the armoured van was not stolen because after the explosion, the systems Spumablock [a security system activated by remote control] came into action, said Colonel Cristian Marello, head of the Carabinieris [similar to Italian police] Lecce division, according to The Times.

An Italian State Police van is positioned during a public demonstration in Bari, Italy, on September 22, 2025 Matteo Della Torre/NurPhoto via Getty

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A now-viral video shared on X appears to show that the van was brought to a stop by vehicles blocking the road. Having detonated an explosive on the back of the van, some of the suspects attempted to unload items while others fired at police.

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At least one unmarked vehicle involved in the heist had removable flashing lights, which are believed to have been used to disguise the suspects as police officers, The Times reported.

Guido Crosetto, the defense minister, confirmed to the outlet that no real police officers or civilians were injured during the incident.

It is a result that demonstrates professionalism, composure, operational effectiveness and absolute dedication to serving the institutions, said Crosetto, per The Times.

Cerano and San Pietro Vernotico State Road 613 Google Maps

The Alfa Romeo vehicle used in the heist was abandoned in a field shortly afterwards, and two of the suspects were also arrested, the Metro reported.

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A 38-year-old and a 61-year-old from Foggia have been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, aggravated robbery, carrying war weapons and explosives, and resisting public officials, according to The Times.

The search for the other accomplices continues, Marello told the outlet. We believe eight people participated in the assault.

Carabinieri officials did not immediately respond to PEOPLEs request for further comment on Tuesday, Feb. 10.

Read the original article on People
Kelly Ayotte speaks to supporters at the Bonfire Country Bar in Manchester after she was declared the winner in the Republican primary for governor on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (Photo by Will Steinfeld/For the New Hampshire Bulletin)

I dont know how much worse things are going to get for this country in the months and years ahead, but I do know this: A lot of Republican politicians are going to spend the rest of their careers distancing themselves from everything happening right now.

Lets call it the Marjorie Taylor Greene-washing of the GOP.

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By way of example, heres Robert Draper for The New York Times in October 2022: In the wake of Trumps departure from the White House, Greene fulfilled a yearning from the MAGA base for a brawler who shared their view that the left had stolen its way to victory and was bent on destroying America.

And heres Draper, again for The New York Times, this past December: But Greene  who for years took a back seat to no one when it came to reactionary rhetoric, going so far, before she was in office, as to accuse Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, of treasonous conduct and adding that treason was punishable by imprisonment or death  realized that she had suddenly lost all appetite for vengeance.

See? Easy-peasy. America loves a good redemption arc, especially one that stretches from the wrong side of history on Jan. 6, 2021, to a middle seat on The View on Jan. 7, 2026. I have no doubt that New Hampshires own Karoline Leavitt, the White Houses tragicomically dishonest press secretary, is taking notes.

Elsewhere in the Granite State, all of the state-level Republicans who have made political hay by embracing the rights conspiracy theories and anti-immigrant and racist rhetoric will someday be forced  if they aspire toward continued political relevance  to retreat from the many ways they helped encourage todays bigotry and brutality.

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Gov. Kelly Ayotte, who has famously based her public opinion of President Donald Trump purely on political expediency, should face some sort of reckoning not only for that waffling but also for her well-worn Dont Mass Up New Hampshire slogan. Eventually shell spin the motto as purely an antitax message rather than the specific brand of coded language that many politicians, but Republicans in particular, have been deploying for decades.

So, for the record, heres what Ayotte said last May during a signing ceremony for a pair of anti-sanctuary city bills she has long championed: This is something we ran on to make sure that New Hampshire would not go the way of Massachusetts and their billion-dollar illegal immigration crisis. Immigration policy is complex, which the governor knows, and so reducing that complexity to a slogan serves only one purpose: Its a dog whistle. But I guess these days it makes you something of a Republican throwback to forgo todays trendy overt racism in favor of the partys traditional wink.

The immigration winds may be shifting, though, and Ayotte knows that, too. In her State of the State address last week, that something we ran on received a half-sentence mention in a 4,300-word address. The word immigrant never passed her lips.

Still, Ill welcome an elevated conversation in this state when it arrives. It will be good for everybody when Republican leaders in the State House, from Senate President Sharon Carson to House Speaker Jason Osborne to House Deputy Majority Leader Joe Sweeney, abandon their fearmongering about dangerous immigrants and their full-throated support for policies of racial profiling.

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But I have plenty of worries about a kinder, gentler post-Trump Republicanism, too.

Besides the destruction and death it has wrought, MAGA extremism has also had a distorting effect on what we perceive as centrist. Consider Mitt Romney, who is oddly lionized by the center-left these days not because he rejects Trumpism, per se, but because he despises Trump the man. But in 2016, Romneys criticism of candidate Trump was in part due to his support for some of Trumps primary opponents, including Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, neither of whom can see the edge of the center from where they stand. And, four years earlier, none other than then-Sen. Ayotte had to tell Romney to dial it back a notch for what he said after losing to President Barack Obama in 2012.

As a refresher, heres the lead of Politicos coverage that November: Mitt Romney told donors Wednesday he blamed last weeks loss to President Barack Obama in part to gifts the Obama administration gave to key voter blocs, including African Americans, Hispanics, and young women, according to media reports.

Remind you of anyone?

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And while there are a lot of reasons this country is where it is with Trump, the effects of the billionaire-friendly economic policies long championed by the Ayottes and Romneys of the American center-right are primary  and they made Trump something of an inevitability. Thats why I worry about the political distortions were going to feel for years to come, and why I find the aloof centrism of New Hampshires Democratic congressional delegation troubling, too. I know they long for a grown-up Republican they can do business with, but what kind of business exactly? Moving from Trump to a Republican in the Romney-Ayotte mold is not progress; its a very short step back in time and with an outcome we already know. Heres how Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, closed a commentary about Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, in October 2012.

Romney and Ryan have tried a hard tack to the center in their rhetoric in recent weeks. But let no one be deceived: their tax policies will lead to even more inequality at the top, the continued hollowing out of the middle, and more poverty at the bottom. Worst of all, they will lead to a more divided society that endangers our future  our economy, our democracy, and our sense of identity as a nation.

Welcome to the future, New Hampshire.
The Northeast just experienced one of the worst weekends of this winter so far, as a bitterly cold blast of Arctic air broke records and fueled heavy snow. Hundreds of people in New York City woke up without power Monday as the dangerous cold lingered.

"This is the first time I experienced this, and it was ridiculous," Sade Logan of New York City told WCBS. "With my kids also, they were scared, and we couldn't see anything. It's bad, really bad."

The invasion of Arctic air Saturday and Sunday shattered records in several cities. New York's John F. Kennedy Airport dipped to 6 degrees Saturday, setting a record low for the date and breaking a mark that had stood for more than 30 years. The next day, the high of 17 degrees at the airport broke the record for the coldest high temperature on that date, surpassing the 22 degrees set nearly 60 years ago.

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Dangerously cold temperatures impacted several states in the Northeast over the weekend. On Saturday, extreme cold warnings affected more than 57 million people across at least a dozen states, and nearly 40 million were under cold weather advisories. By Sunday, extreme cold warnings still covered over 56 million people, with around 53 million under advisories.

New York City woke up to subzero wind chills Monday morning. The combination of temperatures around 10 degrees and northwest breezes made it feel like minus 4 degrees in Central Park. JFK Airport's wind chill fell to minus 6.

New York still had nearly 800 customers without power as of late Monday morning, according to PowerOutage.com. The majority without power were in the New York City area, where 454 customers in Brooklyn and 121 in Queens remained in the dark.

It may seem counterintuitive, but scientists say a warming planet can still trigger unusual cold outbreaks in the U.S. This was the second weekend in a row with frigid February weather making headlines.

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The science is complex, but researchers say a warming planet is destabilizing the polar vortex, potentially allowing more frequent and intense Arctic air outbreaks to spill south into the midlatitudes. The Arctic is heating up two to four times faster than the rest of the globe, and Arctic sea ice hit a record-low December extent last year, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information.

Being prepared for Arctic blasts and other forms of extreme weather that can take out your power is more important than ever. Combining rooftop solar with a home battery can improve energy reliability, lower monthly power bills, and shield your household budget from volatile electricity prices.

TCD's Solar Explorer connects you with vetted installers and can help you save up to $10,000 by collecting and comparing competitive solar bids. Through TCD partner EnergySage, readers get a free, all-in-one platform to find trusted local installers, explore available incentives, and reduce the overall cost of going solar.

Get TCD's free newsletters for easy tips to save more, waste less, and make smarter choices  and earn up to $5,000 toward clean upgrades in TCD's exclusive Rewards Club.
L3Harris has highlighted the potential benefits of pairing its Red Wolf miniature cruise missile with the U.S. Air Forces OA-1K Skyraider II. Standoff munitions like Red Wolf could help the OA-1K, originally designed for close air support and surveillance and reconnaissance in support of low-intensity operations, find a role in future high-end conflicts, but questions about the value of doing so remain. The U.S. Marine Corps is already acquiring the Red Wolf to provide a boost in capability for its AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters for the same general reasons.

L3Harris announced today that it had shown the ability to integrate Red Wolf on its Sky Warden aircraft. The Sky Warden is based on the Air Tractor AT-802 single-engine turboprop crop duster. In 2022, the Air Force declared the two-seat Sky Warden the winner of its Armed Overwatch competition, subsequently giving the plane the designation OA-1K and the official nickname Skyraider II. The Air Force is planning to eventually acquire 75 OA-1Ks, which will be operated by units under the umbrella of Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC).

A U.S. Air Force OA-1K Skyraider II. USAF

L3Harris officially unveiled Red Wolf, as well as the companion Green Wolf (fitted with an electronic warfare payload instead of a high-explosive warhead), last July. However, the development of the Wolf family of systems dates back to 2020.

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Our customers demand a lean, agile aircraft that can fly, take off and land anywhere, anytime, outfitted with a wide range of payloads, Jason Lambert, President for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, Space and Mission Systems at L3Harris, said in a statement today. Bringing together Red Wolf and Sky Warden demonstrates the rapid reconfiguration and customization of key L3Harris capabilities.

The OA-1K can carry up to 6,000 pounds of munitions and other stores on as many as eight pylons, four under each wing. L3Harris has also said in the past that aircraft has a robust suite of radios and datalinks providing multiple means for line-of-sight (LOS) and beyond line-of-sight (BLOS) communications.

Adding Red Wolf to the Skyraider IIs arsenal would turn the aircraft into a true standoff weapons delivery platform. This, in turn, would help keep the aircraft further away from potential threats, reducing the risk to the crew.

The members of the Wolf family are all in the 250-pound class. They have a missile-like core design, powered by a small turbojet, and with at least a degree of low-observability (stealthiness). They are in the 250-pound weight class. Their endurance has been proven in flight testing, demonstrating high subsonic speeds  200+ nautical mile range at low altitudes and 60+ minutes duration, per L3Harris.

Side-by-side renderings of the Red Wolf and Green Wolf, showing them to be functionally identical, at least externally. L3Harris

Details about how Red Wolf or Green Wolf are guided are limited, but L3Harris says they are capable of autonomous over-the-horizon engagements. The Marine Corps, in cooperation with the U.S. Navy, has used tablet-based control systems as part of the engagement process in past testing of Red Wolf.

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L3Harris has also talked in the past about how members of the Wolf family could work together. The Green Wolves could help locate targets, especially hostile air defense assets, by zeroing in on their signal emissions, as well as clear a path for Red Wolves to actually strike them.

A graphical rendering of a notional concept of overland operations involving the employment of Red Wolf and Green Wolf systems. L3Harris has also shown similar concepts for use of the Wolf family in support of maritime missions and expeditionary operations in a littoral context. L3Harris

Red Wolf or Green Wolf are also only the start of what L3Harris hopes to be a larger family of configurations based around the central design. At least one Red Wolf was reportedly employed at the U.S. Armys Experimentation Demonstration Gateway Event in 2021 (EDGE 21) configured as an airborne signal relay node rather than a munition.

We can adjust the size of the warhead, the fuel tank, we can even put a parachute on the back of it, and we have, Matthew Guicci Klunder, Vice President for Business Development at L3Harris, said in a promotional video released last year, seen below. It can be a kinetic effect, it could be a non-kinetic effect, it could even be a decoy.

Changing the size of the warhead would have impacts on range and endurance, as well as the terminal effect on the target. This also opens up the possibility of fitting different types of warheads, including ones with increased penetrating capability. A parachute system would allow for recovery and, by extension, potential reuse.

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Overall, L3Harris describes the Wolf family collectively as launched effects vehicles. The U.S. military uses the term launched effect to refer to a broad swatch of uncrewed aerial systems that can be deployed from platforms in the air, on the ground, and at sea, and that can be configured as one-way attackers or to perform other missions. The Wolf family is just one of a growing number of modular, relatively cheap, and small systems that fall under that broad umbrella. Many of them increasingly blur the line between uncrewed aerial systems, especially longer-range kamikaze drones, and cruise missiles, as well as decoys.

As mentioned, just integrating Red Wolf onto the OA-1K would give it a standoff strike capability it currently does not have. Adding Green Wolf to the mix would further expand its capability, including adding a valuable, if not potentially critical, way to suppress hostile air defenses that might suddenly pop up.

An OA-1K seen operating from a dirt field during developmental testing. USAF

In general, standoff capabilities for the Skyraider II could open up important new avenues to employing the aircraft in the context of future large-scale conflicts, including across the broad expanses of the Pacific. When the Air Force first initiated the Armed Overwatch program, U.S. military operations globally were defined by counter-terrorism operations in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria with entirely permissive airspace. By the time the decision was made to acquire the OA-1Ks, a shift was underway across the U.S. military to reorient toward preparing for high-end fights.

How could we support them [friendly forces] if its in the Pacific or anywhere else? The OA-1K certainly has some roles and missions that can [provide] support there. And then in a large-scale combat operation, we are looking at, in partnership with other components of SOCOM [U.S. Special Operations Command], what are some of the things that it could do, a high-ranking Air Force official told TWZ in an interview last year. Can it employ air-launched effects, at range, at standoff, in a flexible way that would provide value?

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The beauty of the OA-1K is that its modular, its adaptable, and for a relatively small aircraft can carry a lot of payload. And so in a perfect world, in a resource-unconstrained world, I want to be able to have as big a menu as possible of things that I could hang from a hardpoint on there, or attach as a sensor, Air Lt. Gen. Michael Conley, head of AFSOC, also told TWZ later in the year on the sidelines of Air & Space Forces Associations main annual ocnference. Id love to be able to use long-range standoff mission munitions on multiple airframes.

Conley was responding to a question specifically about integrating Black Arrow, also known as the Small Cruise Missile (SCM), onto the Skyraider II. Leidos is developing Black Arrow for AFSOC now, but primarily as a new standoff capability for the AC-130J Ghostrider gunship. Questions have also been raised about how to ensure the future relevance of the Air Forces AC-130 fleets in high-end fights.

At the same time, exactly how great the benefit would be to making the OA-1K into a standoff shooter is a matter of debate. A key benefit the Skyraider II offers is its ability to operate with a very small logistical footprint from far-flung locales, including ones that are very austere and close to or even within contested areas. As such, an OA-1K would be able to launch munitions like the Red Wolf from within the enemys own weapon engagement zones or from other surprise vectors, and fly low and slow to literally stay out of the gaze of distant radars.

At the same time, the OA-1Ks range and speed are limited, with the aircraft said to have a combat radius of roughly 200 miles with six hours of loitering time once arriving on station. The Skyraider IIs ability to survive in a highly contested areas, even with a standoff capability like that offered by Red Wolf, is also questionable at best.

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OA-1Ks could still provide useful support during a high-end fight, but in areas further away from hostile threats. As TWZ has pointed out in the past, in a Pacific scenario, the aircraft could provide force protection and surveillance on a localized level around forward operating locations, including island outposts.

AFSOCs Conley, among others, has also stressed in the past that AFSOC will still continue to be called upon to conduct lower-intensity missions that require the kinds of capabilities that the OA-1K was originally designed for, as well.

Regardless, the market space for munitions like Red Wolf and Black Arrow is steadily growing, and includes many other designs already that might also find their way onto the OA-1K, as well as other platforms in the air, ground, and maritime domains.

Red Wolf does have the additional benefit of already being elsewhere in the U.S. military ecosystem. As noted, the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Army have been testing it in recent years. In January, L3Harris announced that the Marine Corps (by way of the Department of the U.S. Navy) had chosen Red Wolf for its Precision Attack Strike Munition (PSAM) requirement for a new air-launched standoff weapon primarily to arm the AH-1Z Viper attack helicopter. The Marines have been facing their own questions about how to keep the AH-1Z, as well as the companion UH-1Y Venom armed utility helicopter, relevant in future high-end fights.

A US Marine Corps AH-1Z carrying a Red Wolf under each of its stub wings seen during a test in 2025. USMC

Further orders for different members of the Wolf family from other branches of the U.S. military, and potentially foreign operators, could be advantageous when it comes to sharing the cost burden and driving down unit prices through economies of scale. There could be interoperability and other operational benefits from multiple services operating versions of the same platform, as well.

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Whether Red Wolf or Green Wolf ultimately become part of the OA-1Ks arsenal, the demand for launched effects like this only looks set to grow across the U.S. military and globally. For the Skyraider II, some mixture of standoff capabilities increasingly looks to be in the planes future to expand its relevance beyond lower-intensity conflicts.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com
Time was when universities prided themselves on being seething cauldrons of debate, where diverse, controversial and challenging viewpoints were actively debated to advance truth and knowledge. In recent years that fervent commitment to free expression has waned, giving way to a stultifying, almost Orwellian orthodoxy.

There can be more no more chilling example of this than the announcement this week that Bangor Universitys Debating and Political Society was banning Reform UK MP Sarah Pochin from addressing students on the spurious grounds that it was keeping hate out of our universities.

Ms Pochin had planned to visit the university with Jack Anderton, a party adviser, but the society declined to welcome them to the Welsh university because of racism, transphobia, or homophobia displayed by the members of Reform UK. Not only are each of those vile accusations untrue and wholly without foundation, the decision to ban an elected MP represents an increasingly disturbing trend of campuses aggressively shutting down debate with anyone whose politics it doesnt happen to agree.

Statement from Bangor Universitys Debating and Political Society

There has been coordinated effort at British universities to de-platform centre-Right opinions that activist students disagree with spanning a number of years.

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University authorities have increasingly kowtowed to cancel culture. Perhaps most notoriously, Professor Kathleen Stock resigned from the University of Sussex in 2021 after being targeted by protests over her gender critical views. Sussex University was ultimately fined 585,000 by the Office for Students for policies creating a chilling effect on discourse about sex and gender.

Legal frameworks in the UK, such as the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, were supposed to combat this sort of behaviour by strengthening rights for speakers and students to promote open discourse. Unfortunately however, duties under the Act dont apply in Wales, which is subject to more limited protections.

Meanwhile, Medr (the Commission for Tertiary Education and Research in Wales) is widely seen as toothless and ineffective on free-speech issues. Which is why as leader of Reform UK in Wales I am announcing today that we will protect lawful free speech in Welsh universities by creating a legal duty on higher education providers to protect free speech on campus. I guarantee here and now these will be the strongest higher education free-speech protections in the United Kingdom.

Under my leadership, Reform UK will introduce legislation within the first 100 days of forming a government in Wales to put an end to the militant cancel culture and no-platforming in Welsh universities.

We will protect lawful free speech in Welsh universities such as Bangor - Paul Cooper

This legislation will be enforced by a statutory tort, allowing civil claims for any breach of the duty by affected persons, meaning that students and academics wont be entirely reliant on Medr enforcement for redress. Whats more, Welsh ministers will be granted specific powers to impose financial penalties on, or withdraw financial support for, non-compliant universities.

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Of course, students are perfectly entitled not to have to tolerate speakers who represent a significant danger to their physical safety. But to suggest that could ever apply to an elected member of Parliament such as Sarah Pochin, or indeed any Reform UK representative, is not only absurd but frankly offensive to millions of voters.

The Bangor Debating and Political Society loftily proclaims itself as a home for students who love to challenge ideas, explore diverse perspectives, and master the art of persuasion. Unfortunately, its behaviour this week has shown the very opposite to be true.

A Reform UK Welsh government will ensure not only is freedom of speech on university campuses preserved, but it will put an end to the ridiculous culture wars which have blighted our institutions of higher learning for far too long.

Dan Thomas is the leader of Reform UK Wales

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Sixth District Representative Ben Cline signed onto a letter critical of Gov. Abigail Spanbergers recent executive order rescinding state law enforcement cooperation with United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Spanbergers Jan. 17 executive order directed Virginia State Police, the Virginia Department of Corrections, the Virginia Department of Wildlife, and the Virginia Marine Resources Commission to terminate any and all section 287(g) agreements the agencies have with ICE. The order argued the agreements improperly ceded discretion and authority over Virginia law enforcement to federal authorities and that Virginia law enforcement will continue to exercise available authority under a valid judicial warrant.

The letter called on Spanberger to restore former governor Glenn Youngkins 2025 executive order directing Virginia State Police and the Department of Corrections to sign Section 287(g) agreements with ICE. Spanbergers executive order rescinded Youngkins.

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These recent actions are inconsistent with your previous support for law enforcement, reads the letter. During your campaign for Governor of Virginia, you ran on the promise to empower law enforcement and protect Virginians from violent crime. Your recent executive actions do not reflect that commitment to protection.

Spanberger, in a press release following the executive order, argued the opposite.

As a former federal law enforcement officer and the daughter of a career law enforcement officer, I know that effective policing is built on trust, said Spanberger. Like so many of Virginias law enforcement officers, I have serious concerns that chaotic federal law enforcement actions across the country are eroding years of trust built by our officers within the communities they serve. When state and local law enforcement are pulled away from investigating crimes and upholding our Virginia laws to do the job of federal agents, it weakens their ability to deepen trust within their communities. This contributes to a culture of fear and distrust that makes it harder for officers to do their jobs.

Sixth District Representative Ben Cline at the Victory Worship Center town hall on Friday, Jan. 30.

More: Man accused of exposing himself at Staunton psych facility indicted

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The letter was also signed by Ninth District Representative H. Morgan Griffith, Second District Representative Jen A. Kiggans, First District Representative Robert Wittman and Fifth District Representative John J. McGuire III. The full letter can be found on Cline's Facebook page.

According to the letter, there are 361,000 unauthorized immigrants in Virginia with 4,264 illegal immigrants arrested during the first seven months of 2025.

The press release celebrated an operation in Northern Virginia which saw the arrest of 30 gang members of MS-13, Mexican Pride and Southside Locos. ICE itself issued a press release on the arrests, cited by the Congressional letter, explaining of the 30 arrests, 26 individuals were arrested on administrative immigration violations and nine were arrested for criminal offenses and face prosecution for various federal, state and local crimes including re-entry after deportation, assault, grand larceny, destruction of property and carrying a concealed weapon.

The letter also echoes a press release from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Spanberger's executive order. According to DHS press release, Edwin Antonio Hernandez Hernandez of El Salvador entered the United States at age 15 in 2015. He was arrested in Virginia by U.S. Border Patrol, and an immigration judge ordered his removal in 2017. While in custody, Hernandez began the asylum process. He also allegedly admitted to being an MS-13 member and confessed to murdering five people in El Salvador.

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Numerous violent criminals such as Edwin Antonio Hernandez, a man responsible for five murders in El Salvador, have been taken off Virginias streets, reads the letter. With the absence of cooperation between state and federal law enforcement agencies, apprehending violent individuals such as Hernandez will be more difficult and dangerous to achieve.

More: Wilson freshman part of growth seen nationwide in girls wrestling

Lyra Bordelon (she/her) is the public transparency and justice reporter at The News Leader. Do you have a story tip or feedback? Its welcome through email to lbordelon@gannett.com. Subscribe to us at newsleader.com.

This article originally appeared on Staunton News Leader: Rep. Cline asks Governor Spanberger to reconsider ICE executive order
Protesters approached the outside of the Rosa Parks Federal Building in Detroit where they held a rally as part of the No Kings Day demonstration. June 14, 2025. | Photo by Erick Diaz Veliz

Three Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities are expanding or being established in Michigan, according to federal records obtained by WIRED in a new report released Tuesday.

The current ICE facility at the Rosa Parks Federal Building in downtown Detroit, which also currently houses offices for the U.S. General Services Administration, Internal Revenue Service, and Customs and Border Protection, will expand, while new offices will be leased at the Waters Center in downtown Grand Rapids and the One Towne Square complex in Southfield, just outside Detroit.

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ICE did not respond to a request for confirmation of these new and expanded locations.

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The Waters Center currently does not list ICE or any relevant groups as a part of its tenant directory. Neither the Waters Center nor One Towne Square responded to requests for comment from Michigan Advance.

These facilities are part of a nationwide expansion of ICEs physical presence  the WIRED report details 54 locations, all planned ICE lease locations as of January, and includes current ICE offices that are set to expand and new spaces the agency is poised to occupy.

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This physical expansion also comes as ICE has been undertaking a national hiring surge. According to WIRED, these new leases are intended to provide new homes for the ICE offices that handle immigration enforcement, including the arrest, detention, and removal of immigrants, as well as the agencys legal arm.

Michigan is already home to the North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin, the largest ICE detention center in the Midwest and one of the largest in the nation. The facility, which has drawn numerous protests from activists, is operated through a private contract with the GEO Group.
The Democratic congressman Ro Khanna said on Tuesday that he and his Republican colleague Thomas Massie had forced the justice department to disclose the hidden names of six wealthy men they say are likely incriminated by their inclusion in the so-called Jeffrey Epstein files.

In a post on X at lunchtime, Khanna, of California, named the six as Salvatore Nuara, Zurab Mikeladze, Leonic Leonov, Nicola Caputo, Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem and Leslie Wexner.

Wexner is the billionaire founder of Victorias Secret. His extensive ties to Epstein  the late convicted sex offender and disgraced financier  were exposed in a lengthy New York Times investigation in November.

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Bin Sulayem is a billionaire businessman and real estate developer from Dubai  and brother of Mohammed Ben Sulayem, the head of FIA, the body that governs the worlds motorsport championships, including the prestigious Formula One series. Email exchanges between Bin Sulayem and Epstein have been previously reported.

Attached to the post was a video clip of Khanna reading the names in the House, availing himself of protection from any defamation lawsuit by the speech and debate clause of the US constitution.

Khanna and Massie, of Kentucky, spent two hours at the justice department building in Washington DC on Monday viewing unredacted versions of the documents relating to Epstein.

The pair were co-sponsors of the Jeffrey Epstein Transparency Act that forced Donald Trumps administration to publish its vast trove of documents into the connections and activities of the presidents former friend.

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Democrats have joined the pair in claiming that there are still 3m pages locked away after the Trump administration called the matter closed with the release of 3m documents in January. The papers that were released, Democrats also argue, contained numerous unexplained redactions.

There were six wealthy, powerful men that the DoJ hid for no apparent reason, Khanna said, claiming that he and Massie had forced the department to unredact their names.

Why did it take Thomas Massie and me going to the justice department to get these six mens identities to become public? If we found six men they were hiding in two hours, imagine how many men they are covering up for in those  files.

Massie said on Monday night that he was ready to name the six in Congress if needed. What I saw that bothered me were the names of at least six men that have been redacted that are likely incriminated by their inclusion in these files, he said.

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Related: Republican calls on Trump ally Howard Lutnick to quit cabinet over Epstein files

Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to procuring a minor for prostitution and served 13 months in prison. Investigators determined he killed himself in jail in Manhattan in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges including sex trafficking of children.

The ensuing scandal has enveloped countless rich and powerful individuals and thrown a long shadow over Trumps second presidency, which Democrats have attempted to leverage.

On Tuesday, theSenate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, appeared with a small group of Epstein survivors in Washington to announce a law which seeks to eliminate the statute of limitations for certain sexual offenses.

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The bill exists because people refuse to accept silence as the end of the story, Schumer said. Its that simple.

Schumer said the bill was named in honor of Virginia Giuffre, one of the most vocal Epstein survivors who died by suicide in April 2025.

Justice should not expire, because for survivors healing does not run on a government clock, he said. For years, survivors of Epsteins abuse were ignored ... Even when the world finally listened, too many survivors were still told by the law, Its too late, your justice has expired.

Virginias law changes that.

A small group of Democrats who also viewed the papers on Monday, the first day they were made available to lawmakers, accused the justice department of a cover-up for mysterious redactions they saw in the documents. The transparency act allows only limited redactions, mostly to protect the identities of Epsteins victims.

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I was able to determine, at least I believe, that there were tons of completely unnecessary redactions, in addition to the failure to redact the names of victims, said Jamie Raskin, the House judiciary ranking member.

Raskin has previously complained that about 3m documents from the Epstein files remain unreleased, despite the justice departments insistence that its review of the Epstein case is over, and efforts by the White House to move on from the scandal.

According to CNN, Massie did not spend time searching for references to Trump, whose name appears thousands of times in the files in a variety of contexts. The president has denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of Epsteins activities  and has called the investigation into him a hoax.

Separately, Howard Lutnick, the US commerce secretary, is facing growing bipartisan calls for his resignation after extensive ties with Epstein were revealed in the files. Correspondence between the pair from 2012 showed arrangements for Lutnick to travel to Epsteins private island in the Caribbean, one of several of his residences where abuse of minors is alleged to have taken place.

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And on Tuesday, while testifying before the US Senate appropriations committee, Lutnick admitted he had lunch with Epstein on that private island. Lutnick had previously said he spent zero time with Epstein.

In any event, Massie said his fellow Republican has a lot to answer for and must step down.

Khanna, after viewing the files on Monday, echoed Massies call. He noted that the scandal had roiled the government of Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, and prompted at least two resignations, Peter Mandelson, the former British ambassador to the US, and Morgan McSweeney, Starmers former chief of staff.

Based on the evidence, [Lutnick] should be out of the cabinet, Khanna told Politico Playbook.

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I know Keir Starmer, I was excited when he won. And yet I believe he needs to be held accountable with whats happened with Mandelson. In our country, we have not had that reckoning.

Related: Jamie Raskin accuses DoJ of cover-up after viewing unredacted Epstein files

In another development on Monday, Ghislaine Maxwell, Epsteins convicted co-conspirator who procured many of his victims to be abused, refused to testify to the House oversight committee investigating the Epstein case.

Before the hearing, at which she invoked her constitutional right against self-incrimination and remained silent, Khanna noted her willingness to talk to Todd Blanche, Trumps deputy attorney general, last summer. That was shortly before Maxwell was moved to a lower-security prison in Texas to serve the remainder of her 20-year sentence for sex trafficking.

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She must immediately be sent back to the maximum security prison where she belongs, Khanna wrote in a post on Bluesky.

The Miami Herald reported on Monday, citing a 2019 FBI interview with Michael Reiter, then the Palm Beach chief of police, that Trump called him in 2006 to warn that Maxwell was Epsteins operative and was evil. Reiters statement contradicted Trumps later claims that he knew nothing of Epstein and Maxwells activities.
GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine formally announced on Tuesday that she will seek re-election this year to a sixth 6-year term in the Senate.

"GOOD NEWS! I am ALL-IN for 2026," the 73-year-old lawmaker emphasized in a post on X.

In a video, the lawmaker pulled a sneaker out of a shoebox and said, "This is perfect for 2026, because I'm running."

Republican Majority At Risk? A Look At The 6 Gop Senate Seats Most In Jeopardy In Midterm Elections

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, holds a blanket as she walks off the Senate floor after an overnight session at the U.S. Capitol on July 1, 2025. (Getty Images)

Collins was one of the Senate Republicans who voted to convict after the House impeached President Donald Trump in 2021  but that Senate vote occurred after Trump had already departed from office and ultimately fell short of the threshold necessary for conviction.

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Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment on Tuesday, but did not immediately receive a response.

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Collins, a moderate Republican lawmaker in the blue-leaning northern New England state, has served in the Senate since 1997.

Trump Vows To Unleash Commercial Fishing Off New England, Reversing Obama-era Atlantic Restrictions

President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media at Mar-a-Lago on Feb. 1, 2026, in Palm Beach, Fla.

"As a proud native of Maine, I've dedicated my life to serving our state and nation. I am deeply grateful for the unwavering support Mainers have shown me over the years. It is an honor to serve you, and I'm excited to announce my run for re-election to the U.S. Senate in 2026," she noted in another post on X.

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Collins is the only Republican senator running for re-election in a state then-Vice President Kamala Harris carried in the 2024 election. And she is the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's (DSCC) top target as they try to win back the Senate.



"Susan Collins enters her 2026 re-election campaign with some of the lowest approval ratings of her career after she greenlit Medicaid cuts, voted to gut affordable health care for thousands of Mainers, and confirmed the justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. Mainers have had enough of Collins three-decade career in the Senate, and in 2026, they will vote her out." DSCC spokesperson Maeve Coyle argued in a statement.

But Senate Majority Leader John Thune praised the senator as "a proven leader who delivers results for Maine. Ive worked closely with her and have seen firsthand her work ethic and effectiveness. We need Susan Collins in the U.S. Senate and in the fight to deliver results for Maine and America."

And National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) chair Sen. Tim Scott called Collins "a battle-tested leader whose fierce independence has led to historic wins for Maine."

But in a closed door NRSC briefing last week to Senate Republicans, Scott pointed a ballot box deficit the GOP's facing in the latest Fox News national poll , and said it could impact specific Senate races this year.

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GOP sources confirmed to Fox News Digital that Scott said the toughest challenge may be in Maine.

Jeffries Accuses Republicans Of Voter Suppression Over Bill Requiring Voter Id, Proof Of Citizenship

Sen. Susan Collins leaves the Republican Senate luncheon in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 13, 2026.

Meanwhile, the president targeted Collins and several other Senate Republicans in a Truth Social post last month, saying they "should never be elected to office again."

The five GOP senators apparently earned Trump's ire by voting in favor of motion to discharge a joint resolution to direct the president to nix any use of the U.S. armed forces against Venezuela.

"Republicans should be ashamed of the Senators that just voted with Democrats in attempting to take away our Powers to fight and defend the United States of America," he asserted in the Truth Social post.

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But such criticism from Trump and her policy breaks with the president may be beneficial to Collins, who needs support from independents and some Democrats to earn re-election.

Collins has also taken issue with the Trump administration over its unprecedented crackdown on illegal immigration, and its aggressive deportation efforts. The administration has received backlash following the fatal shootings by federal enforcement agents of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota who were protesting immigration operations.

In a January 27 post on X Collins noted that she had "spoken with the White House and with DHS Secretary Noem about the ICE operations. I asked Secretary Noem to pause the operations in both Maine and Minnesota," she indicated.

Then in a January 29 post, Collins noted, "While the Department of Homeland Security does not confirm law enforcement operations, I can report that Secretary Noem has informed me that ICE has ended its enhanced activities in the State of Maine." She explained that "ICE and Customs and Border Patrol will continue their normal operations that have been ongoing here for many years."

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Collins is likely to face two-term Democratic Gov. Jane Mills, who has the tacit support of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the DSCC, or political newcomer, veteran, and oyster farmer Graham Platner, who is backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, in November. The Democratic primary, which is expected to be competitive, is scheduled for June.





Original article source: Republican Sen Susan Collins says she's running for re-election
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In a world being conquered by China's auto companies, one redoubt stands out: The US. It deters Chinese companies with sky-high tariffs and a ban on auto software systems developed or controlled by them. It is also the biggest auto market in the world by revenue and one of the most profitable - China's auto giants would love to find a way in.

Lately, there's been a drip-drip of signals that they just might.

Speaking last month in Detroit, of all places, implacable Sinophobe President Donald Trump said that if Chinese automakers wanted to build plants in the US, he would "love that." A recent report in the Financial Times that Ford Motor Co. had held talks on collaborating with Xiaomi Corp., among others, on electric vehicles drew a denial from the company. Ford's Chief Executive Jim Farley is, however, an outspoken fan of Xiaomi's EVs, and generally talks of China's auto sector with awe; the biblical kind that comes with a dose of dread. The company is reportedly talking with another Chinese rival, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., about sharing factory capacity in Europe.

Meanwhile, mirroring Trump's love-hate approach, Mike Stanton, who heads the National Automobile Dealers Association, told a conference crowd in Las Vegas last week that while 95% of his organization backs federal policies blocking imports of Chinese vehicles, "we're not telling dealers not to take the Chinese franchises."

China's automakers are taking the world by storm. Exports have surged nearly eightfold over the past five years, leapfrogging former number one Japan. Michael Dunne, a former auto executive turned consultant at Dunne Insights, tells me that in some international markets, companies are buying two Chinese pickups like SAIC Motor Corp. Ltd.'s Maxus for almost the same price as one Ford Ranger or Toyota Tacoma, letting them "run one out, then bring in the other one."

Despite the public rhetoric, there is a quietly spoken view across and around the industry that Chinese vehicles can't be kept out of fortress America forever. The analogy is strengthened by the forces gathering around the walls: Mexico has emerged as the number one destination for Chinese auto exports, and Canada has just agreed a quota as part of its effort to hedge against an unfriendly Washington. US auto companies could use the expertise and supply-chains Chinese companies have built in electric and hybrid powertrains.

US drivers, meanwhile, could use some cheaper but high-quality models in a market where new vehicles are increasingly the preserve of high earners. Cheaper vehicles might also spur elusive sales growth, which is why dealers are more ambiguous about China. Speaking to me from that conference in Vegas, Dunne said: "Dealers here are asking me: Who's the next Toyota? Who's the next Hyundai? We want to sign them up."

In one sense, it's actually those Japanese and Korean brands that have the most to fear from Chinese entry to the US. Initially, anyway.

That entry would have to be in the form taken by the likes of Toyota Motor Corp. decades ago; that is, not imports but instead building auto plants in the US. This could be done via US majority-owned joint ventures, reversing the model China adopted itself starting in the 1990s (and as I argued here). As for the ban on Chinese software, operating systems could be licensed from any number of US developers, from Ford to Waymo LLC.

Plus, Chinese entrants could be limited to entry-level models, at least initially. That would mitigate the threat to Detroit and its unionized workers because the US automakers have largely abandoned that segment. I sampled 189 models or series from the top 10 automakers in the US by unit sales (excluding Tesla Inc. due to lack of disclosure). Using average transaction prices and sales for 2025, one can calculate the implied revenue for each model and then calculate roughly how much of each company's revenue pool relates to lower-priced models, using $40,000 as a threshold.

It is immediately clear that the more affordable end of the US vehicle market is owned disproportionately by the Asian transplants. Meanwhile, Detroit's big earners - Ford's F-series, General Motors Co.'s Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra, and Stellantis NV's Ram pickups - sit north of $60,000.

Based on this sample, the smaller Japanese auto companies and Korea's Hyundai look relatively more exposed in a scenario where Chinese entrants targeted the lower end of the US market. These numbers aren't exact given lack of data for some models, but the gap between the top and bottom end in terms of exposure is stark enough.

In a sense, this gives the Detroit automakers, and their dealers, a route to shaping any deal allowing Chinese entry that gives the latter free rein in cheaper models in exchange for helping the US firms advance their capabilities in EVs.

Some nuance is in order, however. One reason the Asian automakers have captured the cheaper end of the market is that they have lower breakeven costs and find it easier than the Detroit 3 to make money there. Chinese entrants would impose competitive pressure, for sure. But Toyota, especially, brings its own competitive edge, honed over decades (including when they were also breaking into the US).

Conversely, while Stellantis looks particularly well-placed at the bottom of that bar chart above, that belies its bigger challenges. As much as Friday's selloff in that stock was sparked by a massive write-down linked to whiplash in US EV policy, Stellantis' more chronic issue concerns rebuilding its market share in the US and simultaneously dealing with surging Chinese competition across a range of international markets.

Moreover, Detroit's truck-sized moat is tough to grow and also not indefinite.

While Chinese entry could be confined to the lower end of the market to begin with, all automakers seek to use those cheaper models to capture customers that trade up to premium vehicles over time. As much as that inevitability would warrant Detroit digging in its heels against a deal to bring in Chinese automakers, they must consider the wider context. Given the leaps made by Chinese automakers, acknowledged plainly by Farley but also implied by partnerships like Stellantis' with Zhejiang Leapmotor Technology Co. Ltd., it seems inconceivable that such desirable, and cheaper, products will simply be kept out of American drivers' hands forever.

Someone cutting a deal, especially one that directs the upfront pain elsewhere, looks ever more probable.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy and commodities. A former investment banker, he was editor of the Wall Street Journal's Heard on the Street column and a reporter for the Financial Times's Lex column.

Previously:
Two hikers suffering from hypothermia were rescued in Nevada last week after being unable to make it back to their vehicle before nightfall and incoming snow.

The Washoe County, Nevada, Sheriff's Office Search and Rescue (WCSAR) said it responded on Jan. 6 to a call for help from two hikers near the summit of Mount Rose.

Two hikers are rescued on Saturday on Mount Rose, Nevada. (Washoe County Nevada Sheriffs Office Search and Rescue)

"WCSAR teams located the hikers and observed signs of mild hypothermia in one individual who was wrapped in a warming blanket, secured in a sled, and transported out of the snowy backcountry," WSCAR said on Facebook.

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Both hikers were treated on scene and released.

The rescuers issued a safety reminder to dress appropriately for weather conditions and carry a navigation device.

At 10,785 feet, Mount Rose is the third-tallest mountain in the Sierra Nevada. The high temperature at nearby Slide Mountain, at Mount Rose Ski Tahoe, was around the freezing mark Saturday, about average for the month.
A new study uncovered a surprising truth about the impact of wildfires on California's bird populations.

What's happening?

Scientists examined the impact wildfires have on bird populations using data from the last 35 years of burns in the national parks of the Sierra Nevada Inventory & Monitoring Network.

The resulting study was published in the journal Fire Ecology.

Researchers found that bird populations grew significantly after wildfires, with numbers often remaining high long after the fires subsided.

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Of the 42 species they studied, 11 showed increases with no decline after 35 years, 10 exhibited positive responses that stayed high after 20 years, eight showed a positive increase for less than 20 years, and just 13 showed no change after wildfires.

However, the study also observed benefits from moderate wildfires, rather than the massive ones that tend to rage across the American West today.

"Until about 10 years ago, the only thing we knew was the opening scene of Bambi," said UCLA ornithologist Morgan Tingley, according to Mongabay.

"We just thought that everything flees, and if it doesn't flee fast enough, it dies. We're starting to learn better about how species have adaptive traits to deal with fire."

Why is this important?

The study focused on moderate wildfires for a reason; they give wildlife a chance to escape the blaze and return later.

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Fire has always been a part of life in the western U.S., but its ecosystems have adapted to thrive after a burn. Birds are essential to an ecosystem's recovery; they pollinate, spread seeds, and control insect populations, all of which are crucial in the early post-fire stages.

However, if the fire spreads too quickly, birds and other wildlife don't have a chance to escape, meaning their ecosystems won't bounce back as quickly.

"There is much we still have left to discover about the impacts of wildfire smoke on the health and behavior of birds," said Olivia Sanderfoot, study co-author and head of Project FeederWatch with Cornell University.

"One of the best opportunities to learn more is through participatory science and long-term monitoring  This data is incredibly powerful in helping us build studies to understand the effects of wildfire smoke and what we need to do to limit risks to birds."

What's being done about it?

Studies like this drive home the importance of fire mitigation and prevention.

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While dealing with fires will become increasingly common as our planet warms, we can take steps to slow them and give wildlife a fighting chance.

From satellite and AI-based monitoring systems to improved environmental maintenance and homeowner mitigation efforts, efforts are underway to enable wildlife to rebuild their ecosystems after a fire.

"Fire is, in some senses, devastating. And in other senses, rejuvenating," said lead author Chris Ray.

"As old, big things fall and burn, new, young, high-protein vegetation grows up. Birds can have more to eat, and new places to nest. There are many ways that birds can take advantage of the new landscapes, and apparently, they do. Fire is a tool."

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A retired farmer from Victoria, Australia is recalling the injuries he received when he was attacked by a kangaroo

Col told Melbourne radio station 3AW that the animal "headbutted" and "punched" him in the incident

The man also said he was "very lucky" to be alive, likening his injuries to those typically associated with a "car crash"

An Australian man is recovering from serious injuries after being viciously attacked by a kangaroo.

Retired farmer Col was hanging out at his friends house when the attack took place, he told the Melbourne radio show, 3AW Drive, on Tuesday, Feb. 10. The pair heard Col's friend's dog barking. and, sensing something was wrong, went in search of the animal. They found the dog barking at a kangaroo, but weren't able to get away before the kangaroo approached.

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We drove across the paddock to the dam, and the kangaroo was standing up  leaning back on their tail trying to grab us. So I hit him with a stick, and he jumped into the dam, said Col.

Western grey kangaroo fight in Western Australia Getty

He just came out of the water like a bl---y rocket and headbutted me in the face and punched the c--- out of me, he recalled. ...I've gone onto my back, and when I stood up to run away, hes given me  a roundhouse to the back and jumped on me and grabbed my head  he wouldn't let go.

Col was seen in photos with large claw marks and bruising on his back, a bloody bandaged head, and scratches on his arms. His blood-covered shirt was also torn in the attack. Col added that the kangaroo clawed him three inches deep on both sides of the stomach.

Col said his friend got a shovel and hit the kangaroo, causing it to let go of him as he jumped back in the dam. He was then sent to the hospital, where he remained for six hours as his injuries were treated, per 3AW Drive.

Australia, Western Australia, 10/10/2017 South of Perth city on bush road.single kangaroo crossing fram road Getty

Col likened his injuries to those typically received in a car crash and said that he is very lucky to be alive.

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It was really quick. A lot of Injuries for probably 25 seconds of work, he said. I am very lucky. If I hadnt rolled onto my stomach, I would have been in a lot worse way.

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According to the University of Melbourne, a kangaroo may sometimes see the upright stance of humans as a threat and they may lash out in self-defence if we approach.

An adult male kangaroo may view our stance as a serious challenge, and if large and confident, may escalate and attack, the university added.



Read the original article on People
January 23 1984. Model of the Michael Graves-designed Humana Building. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. Michael Graves and a model of his building. published on December 3 1983. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. David Jones and Wendell Cherry in 1982, when Michael Graves' design for the Humana Building was first shown. December 21 1982. Workers shored up the sides of the excavation for Humana Inc.'s new headquarters on the corner of Main and Fifth streets yesterday so they could dig deeper. Work on the 27-floor building has been underway since late October. It is to be completed by January 1985." published on December 22 1982. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. January 18 1983. An earth mover scooped out dirt from the site at Fifth and Main streets where Humana Inc. is building a $40 million-plus headquarters. The hospital company will move offices at several downtown and suburban locations into the 27-story building, which is scheduled for completion in 1985. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. September 14 1983. Construction of Humana Inc.'s new 27-story headquarters building at Fifth and Main streets is progressing on schedule. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. November 28 1983. The fitness center that will be on the 5th st. side of the building it is behind the Humana building. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. January 26 1984. Phillip Sloane looked like he was welding on top of the world as he worked high above the Louisville skyline on the Humana Inc. headquarters building at Fifth and Main streets. The last beam was to go into place at the "topping out" ceremony. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. January 6 1984. Views of the construction of the Humana building. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. January 6 1984. Views of the construction of the Humana building. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. November 28 1983. Balconies on the backside of the building. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. January 26 1984. Humana Inc. headquarters building at Fifth and Main streets. The last beam was to go into place at the topping out" ceremony scheduled for 3 p.m. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. January 6 1984. Views of the construction of the Humana building. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. The 27-story Humana Building was commissioned in 1982 and completed in 1985. The last structural steel beam was hoisted into place atop Humana's new headquarters at fifth and Main streets during a topping -off ceremony. January 30, 1984 January 30 1984. Humana construction worker, Greg Reilly, signs the beam during his lunch hour. The uncompleted Humana building is in the background. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. January 6 1984. Views of the construction of the Humana Building. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. September 14 1984. A drywall worker smoothed out a wall panel between curving glass enclosures in a kitchenette area that will be used by employees at the new Humana Inc. headquarters building when it opens in downtown Louisville. Each floor will have such an area, called a "Sun Room." From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. January 6 1984. Views of the construction of the Humana building. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. 1985. A sketch of the Humana Building and the Sphinx. Signed by Michael Graves, Wendell Cherry and David Jones. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. Vernon Raymer, a marble setter from Sweden, KY., held a light for Humana Building architect Michael Graves, center, and Wendell Cherry as they toured the building. January 29, 1985 July 24 1985. Water splashes onto the sidewalk in front of the new Humana headquarters in downtown Louisville. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. June 30, 1985. Above, one of the bow-shaped sun rooms on the south side of the building. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. June 16 1985. David A. Jones, left, Michael Graves and Wendell Cherry unveiled the Humana logo yesterday during the dedication of the $60 million corporate headquarters. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. June 7 1985. The Humana Building is visible through a herringbone-pattern skylight over the walkway that connects it with the conference/fitness center. This is one of two skylights incorporated in the center. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. February 27 1985. The post-modernist Humana Building rises on the Louisville skyline, its lines and granite facade a sharp contrast to the glass-and-steel First National Bank tower across Fifth Street. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. David A. Jones, with architect Michael Graves and Wendell Cherry, looks at the Humana Building. Courier Journal David Jones, with architect Michael Graves and Wendell Cherry, at the new Humana Building, 1991 September 14 1984. A worker was silhouetted as he built scaffolding for stone work around supports at an entrance of the Humana Inc. headquarters building. At right is the area where a cascading waterfall will be. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. January 6 1984. Views of the construction of the Humana building. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. November 28 1983. John Joet is a masonry worker drilling holes to support scaffolding that will be used to put on the Granite on the walls that will come alway from Italy. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. Humana Building. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections December 12 1984. The 27-story Humana Building on Main Street is 95 percent complete. The exterior will be sheathed in 36,000 pieces of granite. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. April 12, 1985 Humana Building. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections. June 1985. Humana Building David Jones, co-founder fo Humana, stand behind a case containing a model of the Humana building designed by Michael Graves that became part of the Louisville skyline. Photo by Matt Stone, the Courier-Journal April 3 07 The Humana Building has placed multicolored streamers on it's facade. June 16, 2016 In October 2025, Yum Brands announced it would take over four and a half floors of the PNC Tower in downtown Louisville. Michael Clevenger/Courier Journal PNC Tower and Humana Building. February 5, 2025 Humana announced Monday it is walking away from its iconic home at Fifth and Main in downtown Louisville. Mary Ann Lyons, Copyright 2004 The Courier-Journal Caption: By Mary Ann Gerth, The Courier-Journal; The Humana Building at Fifth and Main streets was the only building all seven members of our panel agreed should be in the top 10. Designed by Michael Graves, it's considered a postmodern masterpiece.- -* Date of photo is unknown A flag on the Belvedere flies at half-staff on June 16, 2016 in remembrance of those killed in a mass shooting in Orlando. The Humana Building in the background placed multicolored streamers on it?s facade. By Michael Clevenger/louisville courier-journal A flag on the Belvedere flies at half-staff in remembrance of those killed in a mass shooting in Orlando over the weekend. The Humana Building in the background has placed multicolored streamers on it's facade. June 16, 2016 The front entrance to the Humana building at 500 W. Main St. in Louisville, Ky. Sept. 4, 2013 The lobby of the Humana headquarters building has been made more welcoming for the return of employees following the pandemic. March 9, 2022 Humana Tower. Thursday, January 22, 2026 See photos of Louisville's Humana Building through the years 1 of 42 January 23 1984. Model of the Michael Graves-designed Humana Building. From the Barry Bingham, Jr. Courier-Journal Photograph Collection at the University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections.

Work to widen and restripe parts of the interchange between Interstates 65 and 264 in Louisville is set to begin late Feb. 10 and continue "through the end of March," the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet announced in a news release.

The work is meant to ease traffic on roadways set to serve as detours during the complete closure of I-65 between downtown Louisville and the Watterson Expressway beginning in June, Cabinet spokesperson Morgan Woodrum said in the release. Overnight lane and ramp closures are planned throughout the construction process.

The traffic changes planned for the interchange include:

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Widening the first eastbound I-264 off-ramp at the interchange to increase the capacity of the ramp from one lane to two lanes

Widening and restriping the existing eastbound I-264 ramp to southbound I-65 ramp to create a second exit lane and an additional merge lane onto southbound I-65

Widening the ramp from northbound I-65 to eastbound I-264 to increase the capacity of the ramp from one to two lanes

The proposed timeline, which will proceed barring any inclement weather impacts, includes the following dates:

Feb. 10

The off-ramp from northbound I-65 to eastbound I-264 will close from 9 p.m. until 6 a.m. Feb. 11.

Feb. 22

The double left lanes of southbound I-65 will close from West Broadway to East Oak Street from 7 p.m. until midnight.

Feb. 23

The double right lanes of southbound I-65 will close from West Broadway to East Oak Street from midnight until 6 a.m. Feb. 24.

The southbound I-65 off-ramp to East St. Catherine Street will close at midnight and reopen at 6 a.m. Feb. 24.

The single right lane of southbound I-65 from West Broadway to East Oak Street will close at 7 p.m. and will reopen at 6 a.m. March 7.

The off-ramp from northbound I-65 to eastbound I-264 will close from 8 p.m. until 5 a.m. Feb. 24.

Feb. 24

The left lane of the on-ramp to eastbound I-264 and southbound I-65 will close from 7 p.m. until 6 a.m. on Feb. 25.

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As part of the interchange work, contracted crews will install a concrete barrier wall and place new signage for the upcoming detour route, Woodrum said.

These improvements are necessary investments in Louisvilles main transportation routes and were doing everything we can to keep delays and traffic impacts to a minimum while committing to keep the public informed every step of the way, KYTC District 5 Chief Engineer Matt Bullock said in a statement.

What is the Central Corridor Project in Louisville?

Outside of the work planned for the 65-264 interchange, Kentucky transportation officials are working on a broader Central Corridor Project for I-65. At the heart of the project are efforts to replace aging bridges deemed to be in poor condition.

Other news: What are the tallest buildings in downtown Louisville? See list

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Three bridges in the Old Louisville neighborhood are scheduled to be replaced in Summer 2026 as part of the $150 million Central Corridor Project, and crews expect three additional bridges would be replaced in Fall 2026, though details have not been finalized, Woodrum said in a Feb. 10 news release. The entire project is expected to be completed in 2028.

The planned closure of I-65 in both directions between downtown and the Watterson Expressway starting in June is expected to reopen by the end of July, Woodrum said. After I-65 fully reopens, no similar closures of the highway are expected.

Reach reporter Leo Bertucci at lbertucci@usatodayco.com or @leober2chee on X, formerly known as Twitter

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville roadwork coming to I-65, Watterson Expressway interchange
Governors of two Russian regions bordering Ukraine said Tuesday that residents are facing sustained power outages as a result of Ukrainian attacks on energy infrastructure, as both sides continue long-range strikes in the run-up to the fourth anniversary of Moscow's full-scale invasion of its neighbor.

Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia's western Belgorod region said in posts to Telegram that power and heating outages had forced hundreds of people to rely on "heating points."

"Unfortunately, rolling blackouts are inevitable," Gladkov said, noting that Belgorod city will be among the areas subject to unpredictable outages.

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Gov. Alexander Khinshtein of the neighboring Kursk region said that 28,000 customers were without power as a result of "another series of cowardly attacks on our territory."

Both regions have been subject to regular Ukrainian drone, missile and artillery attacks. Both have also seen Ukrainian ground incursions during the nearly 4-year-old war.

Stringer/Reuters - PHOTO: A residential building in Belgorod, Russia, is pictured during a power blackout on Feb. 3, 2026.

'Normal life has disappeared': Russia's energy offensive plunges Ukraine into dark and bitter cold

Recent months have seen both Russia and Ukraine focus attacks on energy infrastructure targets. In Ukraine, millions have faced rolling outages as a result of months of Russian missile and drone strikes on energy targets all across the country. Moscow, Kyiv has said, is trying to freeze Ukrainians into submission.

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The Kremlin, meanwhile, has framed long-range Ukrainian strikes as "terrorist attacks."

Zelenskyy on Sunday defended Ukraine's retaliatory attacks inside Russia, describing the Russian energy sector as "a legitimate target."

"We do not have to choose whether we strike a military target or energy," Zelenskyy said while addressing students at the National Aviation University in Kyiv. "He sells this energy. He sells oil. So is it energy, or is it a military target? Honestly, it's the same thing. He sells oil, takes the money, invests it in weapons. And with those weapons, he kills Ukrainians."

Zelenskyy said that left Ukraine with two options: "We either build weapons and strike their weapons. Or we strike the source where their money is generated and multiplied. And that source is their energy sector. That is what is happening. All of this is a legitimate target for us."

Handout/Ukrainian State Emergency Servic - PHOTO: This handout photograph taken and released by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine on Feb. 9, 2026 shows firefighters extinguishing a fire in a damaged private house following an air attack in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine.

Russian strikes kill 3 in Ukraine as Zelenskyy calls for Western air defense aid

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The nightly exchange of drones continued on Monday night.

Ukraine's air force said Russia launched 125 drones into the country overnight, of which 110 were shot down or suppressed. Thirteen drones impacted across six locations, the air force said in a post to Telegram.

Vadym Filashkin, the governor of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, said in a post to social media that two people were killed and seven people injured by a Russian strike in the city of Slovyansk, close to the front line.

At least four people were injured by a drone strike on a house in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine's Interior Ministry said. Among the injured was a 1-year-old child, the ministry said.

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Oleh Kiper, the governor of the southern Odesa region, said in a post to Telegram that Russian drones attacked energy infrastructure overnight, leaving at least three communities partially without power.

The Russian Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its forces shot down at least six Ukrainian drones overnight into Tuesday morning.

The Associated Press - Russia Ukraine War Blackout

Ukraine war must become 'untenable' for Russia, Zelenskyy says after latest strikes

Russia's federal air transport agency, Rosaviatsiya, said that temporary flight restrictions were introduced at airports in the Black Sea city of Gelendzhik and in the western city of Kaluga.

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Peace maneuvers are ongoing against the backdrop of long-range strikes and Russia's attritional offensive operations in eastern Ukraine.

Zelenskyy said in a post to social media on Monday night that proposed post-war Western security guarantees intended to protect Ukraine from repeated Russian aggression are "ready."

"There is no alternative to security. There is no alternative to peace. There is no alternative to rebuilding our country," Zelenskyy said.

The Ukrainian president also said there will be "significant international events this week -- on defense and security."

AP - PHOTO: In this image made from video provided by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Feb. 4, 2026, Russian rocket artillery fires toward Ukrainian positions at an undisclosed location in Ukraine.

Russia launches more than 440 drones, missiles at Ukraine overnight, Zelenskyy says

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"Our negotiating team is working every single day on the documents and proposals that could deliver results at the upcoming meetings," Zelenskyy said.

"Most importantly, our partners must be aligned the same way we are in Ukraine: peace is needed, and reliable security guarantees are the only real foundation for peace and for preventing the Russians from breaking agreements through strikes or hybrid operation of some kind," he added.
MOSCOW, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Russia's Federal Security Service said on Monday that the men suspected of shooting one of the country's most senior military intelligence officer had confessed that they were carrying out orders from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

Ukraine has denied any involvement in Friday's attempted assassination of Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev, deputy head of Russia's GRU military intelligence service. Alexeyev has regained consciousness after surgery.

Russia said that the suspected shooter, a Ukrainian-born Russian citizen named by Moscow as Lyubomir Korba, had been questioned after he was extradited from Dubai. A suspected accomplice, Viktor Vasin, has also been questioned.

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The FSB said in a statement that both Korba and Vasin had "confessed their guilt" and given details of the shooting which they said was "committed on behalf of the Security Service of Ukraine."

The FSB did not provide any evidence that Reuters was able to immediately verify. It was not possible to contact the men while they were in detention in Russia. The SBU could not be reached for immediate comment on the FSB statement.

The FSB said Korba was recruited by the SBU in August 2025 in Ternopil, western Ukraine, underwent training in Kyiv and was paid monthly in crypto-currency. For killing Alexeyev, Korba was promised $30,000 by the SBU, the FSB said.

The FSB said Polish intelligence was involved in his recruitment. Poland could not be reached for immediate comment.

(Reporting by Reuters, Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Michael Perry)
Andys view

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichis stunning victory in snap elections this weekend can be traced to a November post on X by a Chinese diplomat.

Incensed by off-the-cuff remarks she made on Taiwan soon after taking office, the consul-general in Osaka wrote that Japans first female prime minister deserved to have her filthy neck sliced off. That threat, and Chinese retribution that followed  warnings to Chinese tourists to avoid Japan, a ban on Japanese seafood imports, moves to choke off Chinese rare earth exports  triggered a nationalist rally-around-the-flag surge. Takaichi refused to apologize, and her approval ratings rocketed.

In a way, Takaichi has got her revenge, winning a supermajority in parliament  the first in Japans post-war history. That gives her a free hand to work on a transformative agenda: economic stimulus and peace through strength, by which she means revising Japans pacifist constitution and boosting military spending to counter China.

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But as a result, geopolitical tremors are rippling across Northeast Asia  and as far afield as the US  and there doesnt appear to be an off-ramp.

For Takaichis part, defiance is now part of her brand. Once an outsider in the mans world of Japanese politics, she has turned herself into a national icon by standing firm against Chinese pressure. At the same time, she has tapped into a deep pool of resentment, particularly among the young, at Beijings constant reminders about Japans wartime atrocities and its relentless propaganda aimed at convincing the world that Japan  a model global citizen since its World War II surrender  is in fact plotting a militarist revival.

China, too, shows no signs of backing down, despite its economic coercion having spectacularly backfired: On Monday, a Chinese foreign ministry official again called on Takaichi to withdraw her Taiwan comments.

In fact, relations may get worse before they get better. Takaichi has said she wants to visit the Yasukuni Shrine where Japanese war dead  including Class A war criminals  are interred. For the Chinese Communist Party, which stakes its claim to legitimacy on defeating Japanese invaders during World War II, that would be an unforgivable outrage. Sino-Japanese relations went into a deep freeze for several years after the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe  Takaichis mentor  visited the shrine in 2013.

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This is a delicate moment, too, for US President Donald Trump.

At the very least, the prospect of a years-long rupture between Japan, Washingtons most important security ally in Asia, and China complicates Trumps relations with Chinese leader Xi Jinping ahead of Aprils high-stakes summit in Beijing. It will be the first of four potential meetings with Xi to hammer out a trade deal and, potentially, a grand bargain over the Asia-Pacific.

On the one hand, Trump has sent conciliatory signals to Beijing after a tit-for-tat trade spiral ended in a truce last year, pushing out China hawks at the Commerce Department, brokering a deal to keep TikTok in business, and approving sales of advanced Nvidia chips to China. Over the weekend, Trump said Xi would visit the White House this year.

Yet the administration has also made clear that it has no interest in withdrawing from the Asia-Pacific, leaving the region as Chinas sphere of influence. And Trump recently approved a weapons package for Taiwan worth more than $11 billion, with more reportedly in the works.

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Trump said little in support of Takaichi at the height of last years fracas between Japan and China over her Taiwan comments. Yet more recently, he has given the impression theyve forged a mutual admiration society. He endorsed Takaichis candidacy on Truth Social last week, calling her a strong, powerful, and wise leader, and congratulated her after her victory, posting that her decision to call a vote had paid off big time.

Takaichi returned the compliment, enthusing on X that the potential for our Alliance is LIMITLESS.

Notable
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Sunday said President Trump is attempting to subvert midterm elections after a recent FBI raid at an election warehouse in Georgia.

I think [Trump] intends to try to subvert the elections. He will do everything he can to suppress the vote, Schiff said during an appearance on ABC News This Week.

And if he loses the vote, and I think the Republicans now expect theyll get a real drubbing in the midterms, hes prepared to try to take some kind of action to overturn the result. And we really shouldnt question that, he added.

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His comments follow the presidents years-long campaign falsely alleging the 2020 election was rigged. Last month FBI agents stormed a Fulton County, Ga. election warehouse and confiscated voting ballots from the election six years prior.

County officials say they currently have no record of their inventory and have requested the opportunity to have forensic accounting of the ballots taken.

Photographs showed that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was on site during the raid. Last year, she was also present during an operation in Puerto Rico where voting machines were seized.

We saw him try to the point of insurrection to overturn the 2020 election. We see him now taking these extraordinary steps with an election now years ago. Hes basically telling us he intends to interfere in this coming  upcoming election, Schiff told ABCs Jonathan Karl.

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The public has turned against him. In every election weve had since his election, the voters have swung wildly against him. And as you know, he said at that prayer breakfast, his ego cannot stand another loss. So, we have to prepare for the worst. We have to prepare in every way we can. And frankly, the best preparation we have is not the Congress because Republican senators for the most part are not going to stand up to him, the California senator added.

Schiff was the subject of a Justice Department probe last year surrounding mortgage fraud after sharing rampant criticism for Trump.

Still, he and his colleagues, including Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), have raised concerns about the upcoming election after Trump called for Republicans to take over voting procedures in more than a dozen states and nationalize the midterm elections.

The fact is Donald Trump cannot get over the fact that he lost Georgia in 2020, that he lost the election in 2020, Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said during an appearance on CBS Newss Face the Nation.

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My fear is now, he sees the political winds turning against him, and is he going to try to interfere in the 2026 elections? Something a year ago I didnt think would be possible, he continued.

Schiff said voter turnout is the only way to combat interference in the 2026 election.

The courts are useful at the lower levels, but at the Supreme Court, they have left him unrestrained. The best protection we have is to mobilize the largest voter turnout in U.S. history to so overwhelm the vote and get the kind of margins we saw in Texas in the special election so that theres no way they can cheat, Schiff said.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Sen. Chris Karr, R-Sioux Falls, listens to a speaker on the South Dakota Senate floor on March 4, 2025, at the Capitol in Pierre. (Photo by Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)

PIERRE  A bill aiming to ban student cellphone use in South Dakota schools has a chance to be debated on the state Senate floor after the Senate Education Committee voted 5-2 on Tuesday to send it there without recommendation.

The legislation, introduced by Sen. Chris Karr, R-Sioux Falls, would ban student cellphone use at public school campuses during the day, unless in a health emergency or for educational purposes.

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Currently, 38 states and Washington, D.C., have enacted some form of statewide restriction or requirement for districts to limit student phone use. Of those, roughly 18 states and the district have full-day bans or comprehensive statewide restrictions (including during classroom and noninstructional time), according to Stateline.

Most school districts in South Dakota have implemented a policy regarding cellphone use among students during the school day, but those policies vary.

According to a South Dakota Searchlight survey last year, about 60% of districts do not allow cellphones for at least part of the school day, although in some schools, students can keep the devices in their backpacks or lockers. About one-third of the districts in the state remove or lock away high school students cellphones for at least part of the school day.

Karr told lawmakers the existing policies arent enough, since they vary by school district and dont all address use in the hallways or lunch room. He added that banning cellphones as a statewide standard would improve student mental health, focus, education and sociability.

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South Dakota Department of Education Secretary Joe Graves told lawmakers that although he agreed with the general premise of Karrs bill, he believes most schools are moving toward stricter policies anyway.

Given that, why violate local control? This is a problem already on its way to a complete solution, Graves said.

If signed into law, the department would include the policy requirement in its school accreditation process, Graves said. The department wouldnt monitor students or schools to ensure it would be enforced.

Lawmakers voted to move the bill forward without recommendation after motions to approve and reject the bill failed. Bills with no recommendation need a motion supported by a majority of the Senate to be placed on the calendar for debate.

Committee endorses nonpublic school definition

The Senate Education Committee also recommended Senate approval of a bill to define a nonpublic school in state law. The bill passed with a 4-3 vote.

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Administrative rules define a nonpublic school, but Sen. Lauren Nelson, R-Yankton, said the definition should be codified and extended to non-state-accredited nonpublic schools. The rules currently define a nonpublic school as a private school recognized and accredited by the state, such as Christian or tribal schools.

She added that the separate educational category of alternative instruction currently includes organized and staffed schools with students in the hundreds, as well as online, hybrid and microschools that are unaccredited, or accredited by an entity other than the state. That is fundamentally different from homeschooling, Nelson said, and treating them as somehow equal defies common sense.

More legislative news

See all of Searchlights coverage of the 2026 legislative session.

Read the latest

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Those schools should be recognized as unaccredited, nonpublic education, said Nelson, who was an administrator for the Missouri Valley Christian Academy. The school is an unaccredited alternative instruction program.

We are schools. Were not public schools. Were not accredited nonpublic schools, Nelson said. Were unaccredited. We have a place, but were not homeschooling.

Alternative instruction lobbyists, including South Dakota Director of Americans for Prosperity Jennifer Beving, opposed the bill. She said nonpublic schools should be defined at some point, but that the proposal could limit students ability to get an education from a range of public and alternative sources, including online courses or unaccredited, private schools.

I believe there are a number of unintended ways that it could roll back the rights that homeschoolers fought for in 2021, Beving said, referencing legislation that made it easier to enroll students in alternative instruction.

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Graves also spoke against the bill, saying that it could complicate the states efforts to participate in President Donald Trumps federal education tax credit program.

Under the program, South Dakotans who owe federal income taxes can either send up to $1,700 to the federal government, or they can donate that $1,700 to a government-recognized scholarship granting organization for public, private or homeschool entities in the state. The program starts in 2027.
CHEYENNE  A bill to fund Wyomings K-12 public-school system failed introduction in the House of Representatives on the opening day of the Wyoming Legislatures budget session  the legislative equivalent of death.

The Legislature is constitutionally required to fund its public schools and is tasked every five years with the so-called recalibration process. The exhaustive task involves assessing the states school funding model and making necessary updates; it impacts everything from teacher pay to class sizes to school nutrition in all 48 districts.

The House version of the bill, House Bill 110, K-12 Public School Finance, was unpopular among Wyoming educators and school administrators.

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A special committee of lawmakers drafted the bill over several months with the help of consultants. Though many educators praised a teacher pay raise, critics blasted elements of it that would raise classroom sizes, mandate school districts take part in the state health insurance program and delay addressing issues like school nutrition and mental health counselors mandated by a 2025 court order.

Even with recent amendments to the bill in what appeared to be response to public outcry, the legislation may have been too unpalatable, said Cheyenne Republican Rep. Landon Brown.

To me, it looks as if there were too many downsides to the bill, that too many people saw too many downsides and therefore they were not even willing to try to fix it, Brown said.

The vote doesnt mean recalibration cant still survive. A mirror bill, which is essentially an identical version, is still in play in the Senate with Senate File 81, K-12 public school finance-2. An individual lawmaker could also bring a new recalibration bill, though any fresh legislation would face the tight deadline and high voting standards of Wyomings budget session.

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The bills demise is a mixed bag, according to Kim Amen, president of the Wyoming Education Association, the education lobby organization that brought the lawsuit that resulted in the 2025 court order.

By not introducing the school funding recalibration bill in the House, it shows that lawmakers are hearing from educators, parents and community members who know the bill falls short, Amen said in a Monday statement to WyoFile.

She is, however, troubled by the drafting of legislation like House Bill 123, which authorizes educational savings accounts. Similar legislation is currently tied up in a legal challenge.

Instead of continuing to divert resources to private schools, lawmakers should focus on fully funding Wyomings public schools and the more than 93% of Wyoming students they serve, Amen said.

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What happened

The recalibration process has unfolded in a series of meetings, studies and assessments that began last summer. It comes with extra gravity following a 2025 court decision that Wyoming has failed to adequately fund its public schools.

Working with consultants, the Legislatures Select Committee on School Finance Recalibration drafted and refined a bill dictating how it will pay for public schools. The process has been scrutinized by educators and others who say Wyoming has failed to keep up with teacher salaries, leading to staff shortages and erosion of Wyomings historically stellar public school reputation. There was also vehement opposition to provisions to increase class sizes and mandate state health insurance participation, with superintendents arguing that the draft funding model would significantly reduce local control.

The bill was among a list of bills introduced to the House chamber on Monday. Because its a budget session, those bills required the aye vote of two-thirds of the lawmakers, or 42 votes. The recalibration bill failed by a single vote, with 41 in favor and 21 opposed.

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The voting bloc that killed it included several Democrats and a handful of moderate Republicans. Brown, who has formerly served on the Legislatures Education Committee, said he believed it was worth trying to improve the bill draft, particularly in light of the District Courts 2025 decision and other previous court decisions that have delineated the process. Even if it would have been an uphill battle, as he expected.

I do believe that we needed to show a good faith effort to the [courts] that we actually attempted to fix the issues they have found to be at issue with us, and the way we are implementing current statute, Brown said.
We may not have found any definitive proof of extraterrestrial life just yet, despite plenty of hope among scientists.

But if we were to ever come to an answer in the form of alien biology or technology, breaking the news to the general public could be much more difficult than one might think. As Time reports, the subject comes with an enormous amount of baggage, from preconceived notions of what alien life could look like from popular culture to fears over the implications of confirming were not alone.

The search for life in space isnt just a science question, Portland State University Brianne Suldovsky told the magazine. Its a moral question, its a philosophical question, for some its a religious question.

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Suldovsky compared communicating the unknowns and managing fear to lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic. Except, when it comes to xenobiology, youre talking about planetary protection.

Managing public fear is going to be incredibly challenging, however it is possible to communicate in a way that at least gives the public information about how afraid they should be and what they can do to protect themselves, she said.

Though evidence of alien life remains elusive, its certainly not for a lack of trying by researchers. Just over the last couple of years, weve launched numerous missions to probe distant and theoretically habitable worlds. Most recently, NASA launched its Pandora Space Telescope, which was specifically designed to study transiting exoplanets for the building blocks of life.

Yet conveying any tantalizing clues about life beyond Earth would be a challenge, as data from these kinds of missions would be limited to spikes of molecules in spectrograph readings, leaving it to communicators and other intermediaries to make sense of the findings.

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Fortunately, NASA has already come up with a way to distinguish between subtle evidence and glowing neon signs that alien life does indeed exist. The agencys Confidence of Life Detection scale was designed to provide a framework for evaluating potential evidence of life beyond Earth, ranging from Level 1, a detection of a signal known to result from a biological activity, to Level 7, or independent, follow-up observations of predicted biological behavior in the environment.

Even with the existence of such a framework, the public continues to be bombarded with plenty of noise, particularly following the advent of AI and the ensuing flood of disinformation. Cutting through this noise to confidently convey the stakes involved and exactly how far we are along in confirming the existence of alien life could be mission critical.

In a 2024 white paper Suldovsky coauthored alongside a team of communications experts and scientists, researchers urged for fostering inclusivity and collaborating with artists, educators, and communicators.

It is helpful to view astrobiology discoveries and communication as part of a broader landscape of public trust in science, education, and internal scientific challenges, emphasizing interdisciplinary collaboration, especially with experts in risk and uncertainty communication, they wrote.

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The outcome of a future tentative discovery of life depends partly on these proactive efforts, the researchers concluded.

More on alien life: Former Banking Insider Makes Strange Warning About Discovery of Alien Life
Dr. Scott Jensen, a former state senator and the 2022 GOP nominee for governor, announced Monday he is ending his bid for Minnesota governor and instead running for state auditor.

In last weeks GOP precinct caucus straw poll for governor, Jensen performed poorly compared to the dozen or so other GOP candidates seeking the nomination. Jensen received about 7% of the vote, compared to House Speaker Lisa Demuths 32% and Army veteran and former health care executive Kendall Qualls 25%, according to the Minnesota Secretary of State.

More: St. Cloud politician suspends campaign for governor after daughter dies

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Jensens campaign was also trailing in donations compared to other candidates. In a press release, Jensen said hes shifting his campaign because hes confident one of the other GOP candidates for governor can win in November.

Our states problems cant be fixed by simply replacing a leader. Our biggest problem right now is broken trust in government, Jensen said. I am ready and determined to be the person who opens up the hood and looks at what the engine of our government is doing and not doing, and fix it.

In 2022, Jensen lost the governors race to Gov. Tim Walz by over seven percentage points.

Jensen cited combating fraud as one of the reasons hes running for state auditor, but the job has no jurisdiction over state government spending.

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The Office of the State Auditor oversees and audits the financial activity of local governments, like cities and counties. The fraud scandal that has captured recent news in Minnesota is within state government, which is audited by the Office of the Legislative Auditor.

More: Sartell's new firefighting museum to showcase 100 years of history

Rep. Elliott Engen, R-White Bear Township, is also running for state auditor. Throughout his months-long campaign, Engen has argued the state auditor can expand the duties of its office to create a fraud prevention unit that works with law enforcement. The Legislature would likely need to give the Office of the State Auditor millions of dollars to create this layer of bureaucracy, and Minnesota government is already strapped for cash.

Rep. Dan Wolgamott, DFL-St. Cloud, is also running for state auditor.

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Jensen said his experience working in the audit section of a bank and his time spent chairing committees in the Minnesota Senate qualify him for the job.

We need someone who is absolutely going to look out for the welfare of Minnesotans, Jensen said. We need to make Minnesota shine once again as the star of the north.

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, the nations largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: Scott Jensen drops Minnesota governor's race, running for auditor
Construction workers install the finishing touches inside the painting facility of Scout Motors electric vehicle assembly plant in Blythewood, South Carolina, on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. Scout is opening applications for its first round of assembly line workers at its South Carolina plant. (Photo by Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette)

COLUMBIA  Electric vehicle maker Scout Motors plans to open up applications in the coming weeks for its first round of assembly line workers at its South Carolina plant.

The Volkswagen subsidiary is on schedule to roll its first round of test vehicles off the line by the end of the year, and its looking for the employees needed to put those first Scouts together, CEO Scott Keogh said Tuesday.

These will be actual operators on the (assembly) line, said Clarice Henderson, who heads up Scouts human resources team.

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The automaker will bring these employees on board gradually throughout 2026. It expects to end the year with anywhere between 200 and 400 initial floor workers on staff, Henderson added.

This next hiring round will come on top of 76 factory workers who have already signed on with Scout over the past six months.

Those earlier hires are the people who will set up and keep the factorys vast array of machinery and robotics operational as the company speeds toward its goal of shipping the first Scout vehicles to customers in 2027. The jobs pay between $30 and $37.50 an hour, depending on the workers experience.

Workers continue construction inside the body shop of Scout Motors electric vehicle assembly plant in Blythewood, S.C., on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (Photo by Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette)

Scout picked those first workers from a pool of 600 applicants, Henderson said. Nearly all of those applicants live in South Carolina, she said, rather than people moving in from outside the state for work.

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Unlike those earlier hires, which sought applicants with at least three years of prior manufacturing work experience, Henderson said the upcoming hiring round is open to people who have never worked in a factory before. Scout has yet to publicize the salary range for these jobs.

Scout will train incoming workers on the job. Those hired will spend their first two weeks going through general training on company policies and benefits. After that, the employees will branch off into training specific to where in the factory theyre working, Henderson.

Those interested can apply online at the Scout Motors website, where they will be screened by Ready SC, an offshoot of the state technical college system that runs employee training programs for new companies opening up shop in South Carolina.

Scout Motors is opening applications for its first round of assembly line workers at its South Carolina plant. As construction continues on the facility, workers are preparing by training on some of the same robots they will need to use on the factory floor when production officially begins. (Photo by Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette)

Once operating at full capacity  sometime in 2030 or 2031  the $2 billion assembly plant will employ 4,000 workers and produce 200,000 vehicles annually.

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That will include a mix of fully electric and hybrid-like models the carmaker announced in October 2024 that it would offer.

Meanwhile, more than 150,000 people have signed up to buy the first Scout vehicles when they come out next year.

Construction also is underway on the Scout campus for three buildings that will house a number of suppliers on site, including a contractor that will assemble the batteries that will go into Scouts vehicles and a company that will make customized parts, such as off-road bumpers and bike racks.

Keogh estimates on-site suppliers will employ an additional 1,000 workers at the Blythewood campus.

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Scout Motors is opening applications for its first round of assembly line workers at its South Carolina plant. As construction continues Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, on the Blythewood facility, workers are preparing by training on some of the same robots they will need to use on the factory floor when production officially begins. (Photo by Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette)

Construction continues at Scout Motors $2 billion electric vehicle assembly plant located on 1,600 acres in Blythewood, South Carolina, on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (Photo by Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette)

Construction continues at Scout Motors $2 billion electric vehicle assembly plant located on 1,600 acres in Blythewood, South Carolina, on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. The on-site training center will get new hires ready to go on the job as Scout opens applications for 200 to 400 new assembly line workers in 2026. (Photo by Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette)

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Construction continues at Scout Motors $2 billion electric vehicle assembly plant located on 1,600 acres in Blythewood, South Carolina, on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (Photo by Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette)

Construction continues at Scout Motors $2 billion electric vehicle assembly plant located on 1,600 acres in Blythewood, South Carolina, on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (Photo by Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette)

Construction continues at Scout Motors $2 billion electric vehicle assembly plant located on 1,600 acres in Blythewood, South Carolina, on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (Photo by Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette)

Workers continue construction inside the body shop of Scout Motors electric vehicle assembly plant in Blythewood, South Carolina, on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. Scout is opening applications for its first round of assembly line workers at its South Carolina plant. (Photo by Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette)
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO)  President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that quadruples the amount of beef imported into the U.S. from Argentina. This comes during a time of low cattle inventory and high beef prices in the country.

The Worst of the Worst illegal immigrants in SD

In his executive order signed Friday, President Trump outlines the high beef prices and low herd numbers the U.S. has been seeing. Because of that, he is temporarily increasing the quantity of lean beef trimming imports from Argentina at a lower tariff rate.

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Craig Bieber, a Leola rancher and president of the South Dakota Cattlemens Association, says he disagrees with that being the answer to lowering beef prices.

You know, beef prices are largely due to consumer demand being strong and cattle supplies being low, Bieber said. And so, although we do import some beef and its necessary to keep beef at a reasonable price, I mean, this maybe goes a little overboard,.

Bieber says importing lean beef trim is important in order to make hamburger and there are benefits from this trade, but hes not sure reducing tariffs will fix the problem. Plus, he worries about the quality of the beef.

We want to make sure that Argentinas, you know, food safety is equal to ours. I mean, thats really important because consumers have trusted beef and we dont need consumer confidence to be shrunk by something that happens with a foreign product, Bieber said.

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When it comes to the low cattle inventory, Bieber says that is due largely in part to drought, reduced water availability and restrictions on government land.

So, if theres anything we can do to, number one, open up public land allotments for grazing or, you know, have the federal government do something about CRP lands that are not grazed, make it more beneficial to graze, I mean, those are things that could help, really help us build inventory, in my opinion, Bieber said.

CBS News reports that under the new trade agreement, the U.S. plans to remove reciprocal tariffs on a variety of goods from Argentina, including pharmaceutical ingredients, and review other tariffs on steel and aluminum.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KELOLAND.com.
A criminal investigation is underway after four kids who were reported missing on Sunday were found safe in Spring Valley.

The investigation began with the search for a 12-year-old girl.

Her parents received a phone call from a foreign number with a person on the other line demanding a $1,000 ransom and claimed to have the child.

Local officers received help from an FBI task force.

That led investigators to a home on Johnson Street in Spring Valley where they found the girl, along with three other missing girls from Clarkstown.

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All of them were said to be safe.

Police said none of them were being held against their will and they all knew each other.

On Monday, a woman at the house would not comment on what happened, but acknowledged some sort of mix-up.

Spring Valley police made no arrests and returned the other three girls to their police counterparts in Clarkstown, who then reunited the girls with their families.

The investigative focus now centers on the ransom call and who made such a serious threat that warranted the resources of the FBI.

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The camera discovered on Nancy Guthries roof could be a crucial piece to her kidnapping investigation, according to an expert.

Thats not a throwaway detail  its potentially one of the most important clues, Dan Donovan, the founder and managing partner of Stratoscope Holdings, a security and risk management firm, exclusively tells Us Weekly.

As the second ransom deadline nears, Donovan  who is not part of Nancys investigation  says the location of the camera signifies this was likely a premeditated crime.

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A camera on the roof suggests surveillance, planning and situational awareness. Thats not the behavior of someone improvising, he explains. It could mean they were watching entry points, watching police response patterns or monitoring the home to see who comes and goes.

Don Arnold/WireImage; Stratoscope Holdings

Donovan also warns that if the camera was placed by the 84-year-olds kidnappers, who are demanding a reported $6 million by 5 p.m. MST on Monday, February 9, the crime might be strategic rather than emotional  and that could be dangerous.

If its tied to the ransom note, it reinforces something critical: this may not be an emotional crime  it may be operational, he adds. And operational criminals tend to follow through when they feel control slipping.

Last week, footage showed FBI agents scaling Nancys roof and removing what is believed to be a wired camera, potential evidence that was seemingly overlooked during the first days of the investigation.

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Apparently on that roof, the agents recovered a new camera, a camera that apparently they hadnt been aware of and they took it into their custody. I dont know anymore than that as to why it hadnt been recovered, what it might see, retired NYPD Inspector Paul Mauro told Fox News Jesse Watters on Friday.

Retired FBI Agents Theories on Nancy Guthries Kidnapping: Connection to Savannah, Suspects and More

Nancy  who is the mother of Today show cohost Savannah Guthrie  was reported missing in Arizona on February 1. She was last seen on January 31 after having dinner with her family, including Savannahs sister, Annie, and brother-in-law, Tommaso Cioni. Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos previously told Us that Annie was the last person to see her mother.

This remains an active and ongoing investigation. Detectives and agents continue to conduct follow-up at multiple locations. Details of that follow-up are not being released at this time. Investigators have not identified any suspects, persons of interest, or vehicles connected to this case, the sheriffs department said on Sunday, February 8.

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The person or persons allegedly responsible for Nancys kidnapping have asked for millions of dollars in bitcoin, according to a local news station that reportedly received one of the ransom notes.

Multiple ransom notes have been sent out to the media, including one that was sent to us, JJ McKinney from Tucson ABC affiliate KGUN9 reported. In the letter, the potential kidnappers demanded that the Guthries pay them $6 million before this Monday.

Savannah Guthries Sisters Home Searched Again 1 Week After Mother Nancy Guthries Disappearance

Savannah and her siblings addressed the demand in an emotional video directed at her possible captors over the weekend.

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We received your message and we understand, Savannah said in an Instagram video on Saturday, February 7. We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her. This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us and we will pay.

The post was captioned, Bring her home.
Lawmakers hope to require financial institutions to verify the immigration status of individuals sending electronic money transfers to recipients outside of the United States (Getty Images).

Two bills that target immigrants who send money out of the country are currently moving through the Missouri House and Senate.

Legislation sponsored by state Rep. Ben Keathley, a Republican from Chesterfield, and state Sen. Nick Schroer, a Republican from Defiance, seeks to require financial institutions verify the immigration status of individuals sending electronic money transfers to recipients outside of the United States.

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Financial institutions in the state would not be permitted to transfer money overseas if the sender is an immigrant lacking permanent legal status.

Currently, Keathleys bill is moving through the House and has completed public hearing, and Schroers bill has been referred to the Insurance and Banking Committee.

Both bills stipulate violations would result in a penalty against the institution of 25% of the amount transferred and would be deposited into the Missouri Disaster Fund.

The Department of Commerces Division of Finance would also conduct random quarterly audits to ensure compliance beginning July 1, 2027.

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Failure to comply with quarterly audits could result in the loss of all licenses administered by the Division of Finance, both bills note.

If the bills were passed, institutions that facilitate foreign remittance transfers would be required to keep documentation such as records of transmission, bank statements, documentation used to verify the senders legal status, name, date of birth and the address for at least three years.

Keathleys bill faced concerns over data privacy and potential burdens on financial institutions and immigrants. Schroers bill has not yet had a public hearing.

Data privacy concerns

One of the largest concerns over the bill is on data privacy and a lack of a clear procedure that financial institutions can follow to verify residency. Witnesses at the hearing noted that financial institutions would be required to hold an increased amount of a customers personal information for a significant period of time.

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Sage Coram, representing the ACLU of Missouri, cited a lack of clarity regarding the types of documents stored, how they are being stored and required data sharing between financial institutions and businesses.

This bill would require lawful Missourians to provide additional, sensitive and personal information, Coram said. This would impact everyday Americans that are potentially stationed overseas, or people studying abroad or working abroad, or people that are simply contributing to relief, charity or faith efforts as world events unfold.

Alex Eaton, representing Remitly, a Seattle-based money transmitter for international transfers, and the Electronic Transactions Association, a Washington-based nonprofit, said that storing the documents would put Missouri residents at risk.

This requirement presents serious privacy concerns for Missourians seeking to transmit money, Eaton said. They would be required to carry with them and present private identifying documentation that could put their financial security or identities at risk should a bad actor intervene.

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Keathley said this should not be an issue as he believes much of this information is already collected by financial institutions.

All of these financial institutions have all of your private data right now in order to verify that you are allowed to move money around, Keathley said.

Burden on financial institutions

Eaton also shared concerns regarding the verification process of a senders residency status. He said that the potential fines for noncompliance are too high.

Eaton said the increased requirements placed on financial institutions are unrealistic, and when combined with potential penalties, will likely hurt small business owners.

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Eaton added that financial institutions already have guardrails to prevent money laundering and illicit activity, but do not have a process to verify legal status. He said that financial institutions may push the costs of any fees or new guardrails onto customers and that the verification process would likely slow down all transactions.

Keathley believes these financial institutions already go through verifying processes for identity, and that the addition of an extra step for residency status would be a small requirement to add.

The idea that its somehow burdensome to give someone your social security number, your birthday, all this identifying information, but not ask them to verify what your residency or citizenship status is silly, Keathley said.

However, Eaton said that financial institutions already collect enough information from Missouri residents and that the added requirements are not necessary.

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Currently, licensed money transmitters are regulated by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and enforce strict anti-money laundering and Know Your Customer laws to verify senders.

We believe these provisions cover foreign transactions, Eaton said. Money transmitters are one of the most regulated industries in the financial sector through state and federal oversight.

While testifying at the hearing, Treasurer Vivek Malek provided figures on foreign remittances related to criminal activity and his own experience with the immigration system. Malek said in 2023, an estimated $4.4 billion in remittances sent to Mexico were linked with the Cartel, but noted that remittance to Mexico was at $52 billion.

This legislation addresses a critical gap in Missouris financial oversight, and House Bill 2412 establishes clear, enforceable standards for licensed money service businesses, Malek said. I respect the rules of this country and waited 17 years before it was my turn to become a U.S. citizen. Precisely because of my journey, I strongly believe that illegal immigration is an insult to immigrants who follow the law.

Ethical concerns

Coram, representing the ACLU, pushed back on Maleks testimony. Coram argued that this bill will increase the burden on everyday Missouri residents, disproportionately affect legal immigrants and encroach on peoples right to send money.

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This bill is a targeted attack on immigrants, but it would impact all residents of Missouri, Coram said. This bill targets immigrants and families that need to support their loved ones, and exploitively extracts hard-earned pay from a group of mostly low-income workers that already pay taxes.

Representing the Immigrant Justice Collaborative in Springfield, Miles Pearson and Gabriela Stark said the harms this bill may inflict would affect all immigrants. Pearson said the bill is more about messaging than solving a problem, and explained that when a lot of immigrants send money overseas, its a lifeline for their families at home.

What this bill is about is posturing: its saying we hate immigrants, Pearson said. When people are sending money to their families back home, this is a lifeline. Sometimes this money can be lifesaving. This is structural violence; if this bill passes, you can be certain it will be responsible for some deaths.

Stark said as a Mexican American, she is concerned for her community.

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I myself am Mexican American, so I have seen the ways this bill could directly affect my community, Stark said. It is not a simple binary between people who have documentation and people who do not.

Stark explained to committee members that this legislation is likely to impact those who do not have documentation but are currently applying for work visas.

According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, last summer it increased the cost of initial employment authorization document applications, which grant temporary authorization for noncitizens to work in the U.S., to $550. Stark said that until financial barriers to documentation and work status could be removed, this bill would likely hurt immigrants.

This story originally appeared in the Columbia Missourian. It can be republished in print or online.
BEIJING, Feb 10 (Reuters) - China will offer firm support for "patriotic pro-reunification forces" in Taiwan and strike hard against "separatists", the top Chinese official in charge of policy towards the democratically-governed island said in comments published on Tuesday.

China, which views Taiwan as its own territory despite the objections of the government in Taipei, has ramped up its military and political pressure against the island as Beijing seeks to assert its sovereignty claims.

Addressing this year's annual "Taiwan Work Conference", a key meeting which sets the tone for China's policy towards the island, the ruling Communist Party's fourth-ranked leader Wang Huning said officials must advance the "great cause of national reunification", the official state-run Xinhua news agency said.

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'USUAL TALKING POINTS', SAYS TAIWAN

It was necessary to "firmly support the patriotic pro-unification forces on the island, resolutely strike against 'Taiwan independence' separatist forces, oppose interference by external forces, and safeguard peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait", Xinhua paraphrased him as saying.

Taiwan's government, which says only the island's people can decide their future, said in response to Wang's remarks that he was repeating the usual Chinese talking points about opposing separatism and taking eventual control of the island.

China's "ultimate goal is to eliminate the Republic of China and advance unification," Taiwan's China-policy making Mainland Affairs Council said in a statement, referring to the island's formal name.

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While the Xinhua report made no mention of the use of force, China has never renounced using military means to bring Taiwan under its control, the Chinese defence ministry struck a stronger note commenting on Taiwanese military deployments.

"If the 'Taiwan independence' armed forces dare to provoke a conflict, they will inevitably be wiped out," ministry spokesperson Jiang Bin said on Tuesday in Beijing.

'ONE COUNTRY, TWO SYSTEMS'

China has long offered Taiwan a Hong Kong-style "one country, two systems" model of autonomy, though no major Taiwanese political party supports that.

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Taiwan's government says Beijing's rule in the former British colony has only brought repression, with Taiwan President Lai Ching-te on Tuesday citing the sentencing of Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai to 20 years in prison the previous day.

"Jimmy Lai's sentencing exposes the Hong Kong national security law for what it is - a tool of political persecution under China's 'one country, two systems' that tramples human rights and freedom of press," Lai wrote on X.

Beijing has repeatedly warned other countries, including the U.S., against meddling in the Taiwan issue, which it said is its internal affair.

In a call with U.S. President Donald Trump last week, China's President Xi Jinping said Taiwan was the most important issue in China-U.S. relations and Washington must handle the issue of arms sales to Taiwan with prudence.

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China refuses to speak to Taiwan's president and has rebuffed his repeated offers of talks, saying he is a "separatist" who must accept that Taiwan is part of China.

Wang was speaking just a week after meeting a delegation from Taiwan's largest opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), who were in Beijing for a meeting of party think-tanks.

Speaking to reporters earlier on Tuesday in Taipei, KMT Vice Chairman Hsiao Hsu-tsen, who led the delegation to Beijing, said there had been no discussion of political issues when they met Wang, as the trip there was to discuss topics such as tourism and AI.

(Reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Additional reporting and writing by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Sonali Paul, Michael Perry and Alex Richardson)
Feb 10 (Reuters) - An agreement for a settlement of the nearly four-year-old conflict between Russia and Ukraine must also take into consideration security guarantees for Russia, a senior Russian diplomat was quoted as saying early on Tuesday.

"We recognise that a peace settlement in Ukraine must take account of Ukraine's security interests, but a key factor, of course, is Russia's security interests," Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told the Izvestia media outlet.

"If you look carefully and study the statements made by the leaders of the European Union, no one talks about security guarantees for Russia. This is a key element of a peace accord. Without it, an agreement is impossible."

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Russian and Ukrainian negotiators have held two rounds of talks in recent weeks with U.S. representatives in the United Arab Emirates. No peace deal has emerged, but the two sides agreed on the first exchange of prisoners of war in five months at the latest meeting last week.

Security guarantees for Ukraine have been one of the focal points of discussions, along with the extent of Russia's control of Ukrainian territory and a post-war recovery plan for Kyiv.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that documents on security guarantees for Ukraine were ready.

Izvestia said Grushko listed elements of what might be contained in such guarantees.

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These included demands long called for by Moscow, including a bar on NATO membership for Ukraine, the rejection of any deployment in Ukraine of troops from NATO states as part of a settlement and an end to what he described as the use of Ukrainian territory to pose "threats" to Russia.

Both sides in the latest talks agreed to attend a future round of discussions, but no date has been set. Zelenskiy has said the next meeting will take place in the United States.

(Reporting by Reuters Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
HONOLULU (KHON2)  If youve ever been a working parent struggling to find childcare for your keiki, you are not alone.

There is a 25 to 30 percent shortage of early childhood and social service professionals in Hawaii, who are leaving the field because of low pay and limited career options.

The result? Licensed childcare is at a premium  with space for only about one-quarter of Hawaiis children under 5 years old.

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Wait lists are long, leaving hundreds of families in childcare limbo.

Weve got a pre-school, for instance, in Kailua, Aikahi area, that last year alone had over 300 phone calls just for infants and toddlers. And a program thats licensed for about 20 infants and toddlers, said Dana Vela, president and CEO, Kamaaina Kids.

Hundreds of families are being turned away because there simply arent enough early childhood educators and caregivers to handle the demand. This goes for A-Plus Afterschool programs as well.

Being able to attract and retain high-quality staff is absolutely one of our biggest challenges. Interestingly, we have empty classrooms. Weve had to close classrooms and shorten our hours, opening later and closing sooner during the day, so that we can use the staff we have wisely. And so, were serving less children than we could be serving if we did have enough staff, Vela said.

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In turn, the shortage is having a major impact on Hawaiis workforce and economy.

Childcare is an integral part of the greater business community. In general, we are an essential part of business, which we realized during the COVID pandemic. And, for the most part, folks cant go to work unless we do, said Vela.

A recent report by the Chamber of Commerce Hawaii and the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation found that the economic impact from childcare shortages in Hawaii is critical, costing the state nearly $1.2 billion annually.

Employers in Hawaii also lose about $787 million a year because of child-care-related turnover and absenteeism, with another estimated $396 million in tax revenue losses.

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Overall, half of the parents polled reported that someone in their family left a job, declined to take a job, or changed jobs because of childcare problems.

What we found was that childcare here really is a workplace infrastructure issue, much like housing could be considered one as well, said Nadia Holt, associate director, community impact/Chamber of Commerce Hawaii. Parents who are working miss fewer workdays when they have the right support. So, when our working parents dont have access to reliable and affordable childcare, the employer feels that immediately. And thats in absenteeism, and direct cost to the employer as well as in cost lost in productivity.

As a result, employers are being required to be creative in their efforts to retain employees.

So, employers are finding that they have to be quite adaptive to maintain their skilled talent as part of their team, and to save on those turnover costs, Holt said.

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All agree  the solution to this crisis must be a multi-faceted effort involving various stakeholders such as government leaders, lawmakers, parents, and the community.

The best way for the community to come together would be creating solutions to support us with overhead, perhaps through philanthropic or large employer contributions, to support childcare so that people can get back to work, Vela suggested.

We also need a greater paradigm shift to elevate the field in general. Too often, you hear glorified babysitter, but thats not really how they should be regarded. Thats not what they offer in their services and expertise. And their pay needs to reflect that.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KHON2.
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As a former supreme allied commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, I never contemplated the idea of the US leaving the world's most vital security alliance. But the crisis over Greenland's sovereignty of the last two weeks has me thinking seriously about what NATO would look like without its most important member.

NATO was formed from the ashes of World War II by a dozen nations, 10 European and two North American. Lord Ismay, the first secretary general, famously said that NATO existed to "keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." He saw the Cold War unfolding, the threat to Western Europe posed by the Soviet Union, and the danger of an unchecked Germany. He also knew the US might repeat the mistake it made after World War I: Simply walking away from the continent after the fighting was over.

From 1949 to the present, the alliance has largely held to Ismay's objectives: through the Cold War, the collapse of communism and reunification of Germany, the endless disputes about burden-sharing, and the post-9/11 NATO mission to Afghanistan, which I commanded for four years. Despite a lot of internal quarreling, the alliance has grown to 32 nations and remains vital for security not only in Western Europe but in the Balkans, the Middle East, the Arctic and the waters off Europe and Africa.

But the Greenland controversy is as tense as any previous rift in the alliance. Nearly 10 European nations sent small troop contingents to the island over the past two weeks, ostensibly to survey defenses against Russian and Chinese intrusion, but mostly to forestall US military intervention threatened by President Donald Trump. Cooler heads have prevailed so far, but the matter is hardly closed, and there are plenty of other issues where Team Trump appears poised to threaten transatlantic unity.

It is worth asking: What does NATO look like without the US?

Washington has by far the largest military budget in the alliance, clocking in around $900 billion, with Trump recently floating the idea of increasing it to $1.5 trillion. But Europe's collective defense budget is quite large  the second in the world  at around $400 billion. For perspective, Russia checks in at around $140 billion and China about $250 billion. And with new pledges by European nations to get to 5% of GDP (3.5% of pure military spending and 1.5% on related infrastructure and cyber capability), there is a lot of money being used on defense across the Atlantic.

Another big loss for the alliance with a US departure would be the reduction in the defense industrial base and all its associated technological capability. Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics and RTX (formerly Raytheon) are huge prime contractors, and roughly half of the world's top 25 defense firms are in the US. But Europe has a reasonably strong industrial base, with eight of the top 25 contractors, including BAE (UK), Leonardo (Italy), Airbus (France/Germany), Thales (France), Saab (Sweden) and Rheinmetall (Germany).

The US produces the highest levels of technology, including the lion's share of stealth fifth-generation fighter planes such as the F-35; the best long-dwell drones for reconnaissance and strike; the top air-defense systems, including Patriot and THAAD; and better satellites, the key to overall intelligence. Yet Europe makes warships and diesel submarines more rapidly and with equal capabilities to many US classes. And thanks to their recent support to Ukraine, the Europeans are rapidly overtaking the US in production of tanks, howitzers and ammunition.

Europe would be able to quickly come up to speed in lower-tech systems like short-dwell drones; small arms; helicopters and transport aircraft; and shorter-range air defenses and surface-strike missiles. How fast could continental firms replicate departing US military tech? Probably five years of development, but not forever out of reach. As for troop strength, while the US is able to rely on an all-volunteer force, many European members of the alliance are comfortable with some form of conscription. Nine nations have it already, including both Nordic members, and Germany is about to reinstitute it.

There is of course the major problem of a nuclear shield. Although the UK and France have small (but well-trained) nuclear strike forces, Europe would no longer have the strategic umbrella supplied by Washington. So, the European states might be forced to build up their own capabilities, with Germany and Poland likely joining the nuclear club. Or they could possibly negotiate a framework with the US to maintain a shared nuclear force for some period.

A huge factor on Europe's side is that a NATO without the US would not have the kind of global responsibilities  driven by American priorities - that led the alliance into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. NATO could be far more focused on its neighborhood, particularly with protecting Ukraine  which is more likely to eventually join a post-US NATO. The alliance would still have six nations in the Arctic.

If the US moves toward a narrow focus on the Western Hemisphere - as both the new National Security Strategy and the National Defense Strategy say it should - I suspect the remaining 31 nations of NATO will ultimately be just fine. And adding Ukraine  with 40 million people, a highly experienced army and a deeply motivated populace  would bring the alliance back to 32.

Let's hope the US stays the course, but I suspect the Europeans are starting to think about other options for their defense. People ask me all the time, "Who will win the war in Ukraine  the Russians or the Ukrainians?" The real winner could be the Europeans  if they band together and build a stronger pan-continental defense. Let's hope this would be inside NATO, and alongside the US. But if necessary, I think they could go it alone.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Stavridis is a Bloomberg columnist. He is a retired U.S. Navy admiral and former supreme allied commander of NATO, and dean emeritus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He is also an operating executive consultant at the Carlyle Group and chairs the board of counselors at McLarty Associates.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and 17 other governors have threatened to boycott a White House dinner for the National Governors Association, a group composed of all 50 state leaders, according to an exclusive report from USA Today.

The governors, all Democrats, were responding to Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis being disinvited from the dinner planned in Washington, D.C., during the association's gathering Feb. 19-21.

More: Democratic governors to boycott White House dinner

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Shapiro's communications office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The former state attorney general is widely believed to be planning a run for president in 2028.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro

The ordinarily nonpartisan governors association dinner event is the latest flashpoint America's political polarization.

"Democratic governors have a long record of working across the aisle to deliver results and we remain committed to this effort," the group of 18 governors said. "But its disappointing this administration doesnt seem to share the same goal. At every turn, President Trump is creating chaos and division, and it is the American people who are hurting as a result."

"If the reports are true that not all governors are invited to these events, which have historically been productive and bipartisan opportunities for collaboration, we will not be attending the White House dinner this year. Democratic governors remain united and will never stop fighting to protect and make life better for people in our states."

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More: Could a $1B infusion help cut time, red tape on Pa. housing shortage?

Trump-Shapiro history

Shapiro, who in January announced his bid for reelection, has been critical of President Donald Trump's administration and its policies.

The governor most recently jabbed Republicans in his budget address last week after he touted a bipartisan effort to sign a document advising electrical grid operator PJM Interconnection to bring new energy sources online faster and keep a price cap in place.

As Democrats cheered the governor's proclaimed energy savings, GOP members sat mostly staring at their phones.

"I'm gonna let the Trump administration know you didnt clap for them, Shapiro said.

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However, Shapiro also has shown a willingness to play nice with Trump.

This past July, he joined Trump and Republican Sen. Dave McCormick at a summit in Pittsburgh to tout more than $92 billion in private sector investments in the state, largely surrounding energy and artificial intelligence infrastructure.

There, Trump called it a historic day for Pennsylvania and America  and repeated without evidence the claim that he had won the 2020 presidential election, further underscoring the political awkwardness of these often ceremonial and apolitical events.

Which governors have threatened to boycott the dinner?

Democratic governors threatening to boycott the event include other rumored 2028 presidential contenders such as Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who chairs the Democratic Governors Association, as well as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the groups vice chair; Gavin Newsom of California; and JB Pritzker of Illinois.

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Others who told USA TODAY they could boycott the White House dinner are Tony Evers of Wisconsin; Maura Healey of Massachusetts; Kathy Hochul of New York; Laura Kelly of Kansas; Ned Lamont of Kansas; Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico; Dan McKee of Rhode Island; Matt Meyer of Delaware; Janet Mills of Maine, and Mikie Sherrill New Jersey.

Mark Walters is the USA TODAY Network Pennsylvania statehouse reporter. Reach him at mwalters@usatodayco.com.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Josh Shapiro, Democratic governors threaten White House dinner boycott
Shin Bet uncovered and thwarted a Lebanon-linked terror cell in the West Bank, arresting five operatives. The cell was planning an attack, with ties to Hamas and Hezbollah.

The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) thwarted a Lebanon-linked terror cell operating in the West Bank, a Shin Bet spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday.

The terror cell had been tasked to photograph a settlement in the northern West Bank, and conducted firearms training for a planned shooting terror attack, the Shin Bet noted.

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One of the terrorists, Muhammad Sidka, was a resident of the northern West Bank who the Shin Bet arrested in October under suspicion of planning an attack.

During the Shin Bet's interrogation, they revealed that Sidka traveled to Lebanon, where he was contacted by a handler from another terror cell who recruited him to carry out terror operations in the West Bank and recruit cells to operate across the region.

Sidka returned to the West Bank via Jordan and recruited additional terror operatives, including Muhammad Khalil from Ramallah and Muhammad Barhamah from Anza. Both Khalil and Barhamah were also arrested by the Shin Bet for interrogation.

A communications profile used by Lebanon-linked West Bank terrorists, published on February 10, 2026. (credit: SHIN BET)

During interrogation, the Shin Bet agents also discovered that Sidka maintained communication with the Lebanese terror cell via social media and gaming apps until his October arrest.

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Additionally, the Shin Bet uncovered another terror cell handled by the same Lebanese terror network. This led to the arrest of two residents of a village in the northern West Bank who are both in their 20s.

The investigation into these two terrorists uncovered that they were recruited by a Lebanese terrorist named Majed, who was assisted by other Lebanese terror operatives named "Abu Ahmad" and "Abu Wahid," who managed the communications within the terror network via social media messaging.

As part of the recruitment process, these two terrorists from the northern West Bank village underwent firearms training for an attack, and were given instructions to photograph an Israeli settlement in the region, and were promised funds to purchase weapons.

Terror cell chief discovered with ties to Hamas, Hezbollah

The Shin Bet, as part of their investigations and intelligence-gathering operations, discovered that the network leader was Majed Dasha, a Lebanese national with ties to both Hamas and Hezbollah terror groups.

Indictments have been filed against the five West Bank-based operatives, Shin Bet confirmed.
Rockledge police arrested 3 workers for child abuse of children at a daycare center. But in court, one of the three got out of the child abuse charge, but is still accused of tampering with a witness.

Attorney Brynn Brito represents the families of two victims, This is such a shock to our whole community in the city of Rockledge. I mean so many parents trusting, those professionals to take care of their children, and they did not. In fact, they abused their children.  According to the arrest report, suspects Nativia King and Stacy Hamilton Jackson were arrested for aggravated child abuse and tampering with a witness.

According to Brito, Very inappropriate disciplining involving striking children where children were coming home with bruises. Investigators say the suspects abused the children with an open hand or a wooden spoon. Brito explains how the workers were caught, Somebody blew the whistle and the videotape pretty much shows what was going on.

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The report states, The children adopted to the violence in the daycare and expected it as a common behavior. It goes on to describe the suspects, stating, They seemed angry and were torturing the children for no apparent reason. Brito says, The major victimization of this, is that you know they didnt even know enough to know that it was wrong. The children ranged from one to four years old.

We tried to talk to workers at Gingerbread Manor Childcare, but were told they did not want to comment. They released a statement on Facebook saying in part, Our attorneys are reviewing legal recourse against those who filed false reports. An attorney representing suspect Kia Walker told a judge, Theres no evidence these children were placed in harm.

During court, the judge didnt find probable cause to charge Kia Walker, who runs the daycare, with child abuse, but she was charged with tampering with a witness.

All three are accused of calling parents and asking them not to give a police statement.

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And while defense attorneys argue the video surveillance was obtained illegally, officers say they had to pull the evidence immediately concerned the workers would destroy it.

Brito says, The kids are just very, very upset and obviously the parents are too.

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Tech CEOs at Trumps inauguration. | Credit: Julia Demaree Nikhinson - Pool / Getty Images

Hours after a protester was shot dead by federal agents in Minnesota, a coterie of tech CEOs arrived at the White House for a movie night, said Mike Isaac and Natallie Rocha in The New York Times. Amazons Andy Jassy, Apples Tim Cook, AMDs Lisa Su, and Zooms Eric Yuan were among those in Washington for a private screening of Melania, a new documentary about the first lady. It was a very different scene back in Silicon Valley, where horrified employees were publicly decrying the Trump administrations immigration tactics. Their activism was reminiscent of a bygone era when tech workers were more outspoken. Thats disappeared in recent years, as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jensen Huang, and others tried to woo Trump and cracked down on employees expressing political views. But the killing of Alex Pretti has shaken the status quo.

That Minnesota shooting is beginning to look like a turning point, said John Herrman in New York. More than 800 tech workers signed a petition calling for CEOs to demand that Trump remove Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from cities. Some employees are asking leadership to revisit agreements with companies like Palantir that build tech for ICE. Some leaders, like Cook and OpenAIs Sam Altman, also appear to be adjusting their self-preservation algorithms, issuing statements that denounced the Minnesota shooting. Its not quite 2017 again, but tech CEOs may start to question if their herdlike investment in MAGA is going to pay off.

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Its already paid off, said Lila Shroff in The Atlantic. Trump has given tech

leaders practically everything theyve wanted, including relaxed AI regulations and tariff exemptions. Theres little reason to believe Silicon Valleys uppermost ranks will formally break with Trump now. As midterms approach, some appear to be doubling down on their support by opening their fat wallets again for Republicans. The groveling reads obviously as strategya shortsighted notion that, because of their billions, they can control Trump.

Tech CEOs risk eroding the social permission that has kept Silicon Valley alive, said Gautam Mukunda in Bloomberg. Already, their reputation is cratering: 32% of Americans now think that Big Tech is the greatest threat to the countrys future. The long-held idea that tech companies will make everyone wealthy is also fading. Rather, voters in California are flirting with an explicitly punitive tax on the wealth that tech CEOs and investors have amassed. Social permission is the public tolerance that lets industries scale before legislators decide they need a tighter leash. Silicon Valley has treated that license as an entitlement, but it needs to be earned.
A 2023 legislative report found that Kentucky was an outlier for awarding costly single-bid road paving contracts. (Getty Images)

FRANKFORT  A GOP lawmaker wants more scrutiny of anti-competitive practices in road paving in Kentucky in hopes of saving taxpayers money.

House Bill 505, primarily sponsored by Rep. Kim Holloway, R-Mayfield, is spurred in part by concerns that the state awards too many paving contracts based on only a single bid, driving up costs.

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The bill would require Republican Auditor Allison Ball to examine the Kentucky Department of Highways road paving contracts every two years and produce a statistical analysis to detect anti-competitive practices in the bidding process. HB 505 is assigned to the House Transportation Committee and awaits further action by lawmakers.

Rep. Kim Holloway, R-Mayfield. (LRC Public Information)

Holloway told the Lantern she knows of a separate effort by another GOP lawmaker this session to reformulate and raise the gas tax to provide more funding for road maintenance and repair. Speaking about roads and bridges, she knows of quite a few areas in my own district that need attention.

I know its that way across the state. People would like to see those things fixed, but they dont want to spend any more money for anything else because they are spent out, Holloway said.

She said increasing the gas tax without auditing the process I think is a little bit premature.

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Holloway worked on the bill language with Andrew McNeill, the president of the think tank Kentucky Forum for Rights, Economics and Education, or KYFREE, which promotes free-market policies.

McNeill has been critical of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinets awarding of single bids for road paving contracts across the state, and past analyses from the think tank have found single bids for road paving contracts have driven up the costs of those contracts by millions of dollars. A 2023 study by the Legislative Research Commission, the research and support agency for the state legislature, found that Kentucky was an outlier for awarding large numbers of single-bid contracts.

McNeill said HB 505 would examine bidding activity that is monopolizing contracts in counties and driving up the cost of these projects to the taxpayers. He also said the lack of competition with road paving contracts has been an issue in Kentucky for decades.

I believe that its time to answer the question of whether the asphalt industry is violating the states consumer protection laws against unlawful monopolies, and whether the Transportation Cabinet has been complicit in looking the other way with those violations, McNeill said.

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McNeill pointed to a specific statute that makes it unlawful to monopolize trade or commerce in the state.

Under HB 505, the auditors statistical analysis would look for a number of anti-competitive bidding practices. Those practices include complementary or cover bidding, when someone submits an intentionally costly or uncompetitive bid to ensure another bidder receives a contract, and bid suppression, when potential companies refrain from bidding to allow another company to win.

Andrew McNeill of Kentucky FREE.

McNeill said the potential for tacit collusion comes to mind when he examines the states road paving contracts. Would be competitors are refraining from bidding into markets where they could adequately serve for the purpose of allowing their competitor to have a local monopoly, and in exchange that competitor reciprocates, McNeill said in explaining tacit collusion.

A University of Kentucky paper from 2017 examined the practice of tacit collusion and single-bid road paving contracts in Kentucky. That paper found that from 2005 to 2007, road paving contracts that had two bidders were an average 13.5% below the state engineers cost estimate for the project.

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A legislative researcher, when presenting the 2023 Legislative Research Commission study, noted some of the reasons for single-bid road paving contracts. In rural areas, there are fewer asphalt plants and companies to compete and a road project cannot be too far from the asphalt plant. But the study also found a lack of competition in Central Kentucky where there are more companies and plants.

Chad LaRue, the executive director of the Kentucky Association of Highway Contractors, did not respond to emails or a voicemail requesting an interview about HB 505.

Naitore Djigbenou, a Transportation Cabinet spokesperson, in an emailed statement said the cabinet prioritizes competition and works to ensure the state gets the best value during each bidding process.

She said some of the measures the cabinet implements include having internal engineers, bound by a code of ethics, who develop internal estimates that arent shared publicly, and no longer sharing unit prices if no contract is awarded.

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They then compare bids and award projects based on the bid that is closest to the internal estimate, Djigbenou said. The cabinet has worked with the General Assembly to implement numerous recommendations, such as using a secondary internal process to review engineers estimates. To encourage more competition in a re-bid process, we no longer post unit prices publicly if a contract is not awarded.

She said the cabinet would monitor HB 505 and follow the rigorous procurement standards and procedures that guide our work.
The Brief

An unknown odor has been reported across multiple Midwestern states, including Wisconsin.

The odor is described as a chemical, burning electrical, or vinegar-like smell in the air.

There have been no reports of illness or injuries associated with the smell.

PLEASANT PRAIRIE, Wis. - Residents in parts of southeast Wisconsin on Monday reported an unexplained chemical or burning electrical odor in the air.

Unknown odor

What we know

Pleasant Prairie Fire and Rescue said they have received multiple 911 calls reporting an unknown odor described as a chemical, burning electrical, or vinegar-like smell in the air.

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According to officials, these reports have been ongoing for several hours, and cover a wide area, from central Illinois through Indiana and as far north as Pleasant Prairie.

Officials said the smell appears to be originating from a location south of our area.

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There have been no reports of illness or injuries associated with the smell.

What they're saying

"We are actively working with Kenosha County Emergency Management, our mutual-aid partners in Illinois, and other regional response agencies to identify the source and continue monitoring the situation," said Pleasant Prairie Fire and Rescue.

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Officials ask residents to call 911 only if they are experiencing symptoms, an emergency develops, or there is an immediate danger.

The Source

The information in this post was provided by Pleasant Prairie Fire and Rescue.
Providence Mayor Brett Smiley, left, and Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez field reporters' questions during a City Hall briefing on Feb. 9, 2026, about the citys public records release related to the mass shooting at Brown University. (Photo by Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)

A brick wall awash in the alternating red and blue of police lights, a radios intermittent chirping, and officers weapons momentarily drawn in the basement of a Brown University building where about 20 minutes earlier a gunman had opened fire on the floor above.

These are a few of the details visible in the 20 minutes of bodycam footage released Monday by Providence Mayor Brett Smileys administration in response to requests for information under Rhode Islands Access to Public Records Act. The video is part of a package that includes audio, documents and logs from the Dec. 13 mass shooting at Brown University which killed two students and injured nine others.

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Right now in the absence of better information, were going to go with this shooter might still be in this building, so use caution, all right? Providence Police Lt. Patrick Potter says into his radio during the video recorded via his bodycam. Potter heads the departments Special Response Unit and led the initial police response to the shooting.

At a press briefing Monday morning at City Hall, Smiley told reporters this will be the final collection the city releases to the public, calling it a full and complete response to the public records requests. Any additional video would not illuminate much, Smiley told reporters.

As you can tell from the video today, theres nothing in that video that further explains or advances anyones understanding to what I think is actually the big remaining question: Just why did this happen? Smiley said. Why did this person do this? None of those videos are going to answer that question.

Open records law in Rhode Island ensures public access to public records, but officials are allowed some discretion in that the law instructs them to protect from disclosure any information which may impede on a persons privacy.

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That has been a material concern for Smiley, who said that he spoke with all the victims or their families in recent days. He declined to share the contents of those conversations but sketched an overarching theme instead.

Many of their kids are working really hard, and moving forward and moving on, Smiley said. Releases like today they fear will make it harder to move forward.

The mayor said that many of the victims or their families expressed a desire that nothing get released. Smiley said his administration has tried to fulfill its legal obligations for open records as well as what it believes is our obligation for transparency to the community.

An example of a mostly redacted frame in the video of the Dec. 13, 2025, Brown University shooting released by the city of Providence. (Screenshot/Providence Police Department video)

Open records law sets deadlines for the release of request information. But at the request of victims families, the city delayed its release of the files until after Saturday, Feb. 7, when the school held a memorial service.

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When asked if the victims or families of students had seen the bodycam video or any other videos, Smiley replied, The families or students have seen the video that was released [Monday], Smiley said. They have not seen any other videos, and Im not sure they wanted to even see that video.

Much of the video involves Potter searching the Barus & Holley building and directing officers to spread out across the seven-story engineering facility to ascertain whether the shooter is still present. Toward the end of the video, emergency medical staff are seen wheeling stretchers into the building.

According to the affidavit released by Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha in December, the shooting happened at approximately 4:03 p.m. The shooter  Portuguese national Claudio Manuel Neves Valente  was making his way off campus by 4:05 p.m., per dashcam footage obtained during the multiagency investigation between Providence Police, the Rhode Island State Police and the FBI.

The video released Monday begins around 4:16 p.m. Potters bodycam affords a superwide, fisheye angle of view. Potter goes down hallways, up and down staircases and, at one point around 4:22 p.m., into the basement, where the lieutenant meets with two officers who have drawn their weapons as a precaution as they question a person they found there.

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Many of their kids are working really hard, and moving forward and moving on. Releases like today they fear will make it harder to move forward.

 Providence Mayor Brett Smiley

Come towards me, sir, come towards me, a calm-but-firm Potter says to the man, then asks him if hes armed. After confirming he isnt, Potter more gently asks, Anybody down here with you? Did you hear any shots?

Viewers can partially hear the person, but not see him, because bystanders in the video have been redacted, replaced with large black squares that at times consume much of the visible frame. The video contains numerous redactions, both visual and audio, with bleeps covering bits of speech.

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You dont see any students. You dont see any evidence of a violent crime, Smiley said, adding that such redactions are allowed under the states public records law for individual privacy.

Cameramen and reporters cover a Providence City Hall press briefing on Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, about the release of public records tied to the Dec. 13, 2025 shooting at Brown University. (Photo by Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)

Highest number of records requests

Josh Estrella, a spokesperson for Providence Mayor Brett Smiley, said the city had 67 requests for public records related to the shooting  the highest volume of requests the City has received for a single event during the Smiley Administration.

A spreadsheet of public records requests shows dozens of requesters with overlapping demands. Multiple people asked for bodycam footage, dispatch logs, text messages between city officials and law enforcement, and surveillance video. Overall, there were 30 requests from local media, 23 from national or international media, and 14 from individuals. Most requests asked for multiple and different kinds of information, with communications like emails, texts, or instant messages the most frequently requested, at 31 instances overall.

One individual request that arrived on Dec. 18 around 6 a.m. took up Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronhas offer during one of the sagas many press conferences to release all video.

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Specifically, he said Would you like all of it? Yes, I would, the request reads.

Police lights color an external wall of the Barus & Holley building on Dec. 13, 2025, in the aftermath of a mass shooting. (Screenshot/Providence Police Department video)

The complete collection is available on the citys website. It includes Potters bodycam video and incident reports from fire and police. There are five audio files compiling incoming calls to the Providence Police Department during the incident, plus two shorter audio files of calls to Brown University Police, as well as calls for service, logs from the Providence Police, and mutual aid communications. The latter category consists of short phone calls from police departments in Bristol, Cranston, and Westerly, as well as the Rhode Island State Police, offering help to the Providence Police.

Hey, its Westerly, we hear in one mutual aid call. You guys need anything up there?

Reporters pressed Smiley on the record drops curated nature, noting seemingly important video  like the polices entry into the Barus & Holley building or the classroom inside where the shooting took place  was omitted. The city did not include any additional surveillance video in the documents released Monday.

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Asked whether Brown was holding back surveillance footage, Smiley added that the school withheld nothing from the city and were great partners in the investigation.

That doesnt mean that every piece of footage that they shared with us is relevant to be released to the public, Smiley said. We have all of the video that we needed for our investigation, and at this point the Providence Polices investigation is closed.

Still, the city is far from done with the Brown shooting. The mayor added that the city is beginning a third-party after-action review of the citys public safety response to the incident. That process could take from three months to a year, Smiley said.

The full report will likely be available to the public when complete, he added.

Senior Reporter Nancy Lavin contributed to this story.

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What began as a handful of frustrated Facebook posts has turned into a digital pressure cooker.

In recent weeks, a Northwest Indiana Facebook group dedicated to rising NIPSCO bills has swelled with screenshots of triple-digit increases, stories of skipped groceries and late rent, and calls for action. Demonstrations have followed, including in Valparaiso and Hammond.

At the most recent protest, held last week outside NIPSCOs Merrillville headquarters, residents bundled against the cold to demand answers and relief from soaring bills. Hoisting handmade signs reading Your prices are freezing families, Stop the greed, and People over profits, they turned the sidewalk into a chorus of frustration as passing drivers honked their horns in support.

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Since it was created just three weeks ago, the Facebook group NIPSCO Monopoly Madness has amassed more than 29,000 members and fueled a petition that has now gathered more than 60,000 signatures demanding relief from soaring utility costs.

One woman from Gary, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, said she attended the protest because her relatives bills had nearly doubled.

Its the wintertime. This is the worst time, she said. We need help.

Elected officials have also joined the demonstrations. North Township Trustee Adrian Santos, whose office serves Hammond, East Chicago, Whiting, Highland, Munster, and much of Griffith, said his township has seen an influx of residents seeking help with utility costs.

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I see seniors, I see veterans, I see mothers and fathers coming into my office deciding on how are they going to pay for NIPSCO when their bills are double or triple in some cases, Santos said during remarks at a recent protest.

For many residents across Northwest Indiana, the higher bills are not just about using more heat this winter. Over the past few years, state regulators have approved rate increases to help utilities pay for power plants, grid upgrades, and other long-term projects. Now some customers say those costs are showing up all at once on their monthly bills, and they are trying to figure out how to keep up.

At the same time, regulators are investigating NIPSCO due to billing discrepancies tied to faulty gas meter readings, and lawmakers are debating whether to step in as frustration grows.

NIPSCO said it does not mark up the cost of natural gas and that charges fluctuate with use. Those prices come directly from market prices, and we simply pass them through based on customer usage, the company said in a statement. This part of the bill changes based on how much gas a customer uses, so bills are typically higher in the winter heating months than in warmer months as more natural gas is utilized to heat the home.

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Kevin Mejia, an organizer of the protests, said many residents are still trying to understand what assistance exists and whether they will lose service.



The big concern people have now is, Am I going to get cut off? Mejia said. What are the assistance programs that are being offered, and how am I able to be eligible for those assistance programs?

Valparaiso resident Carmelo Reyes urged residents to fight back against NIPSCOs costs. Hit them where it hurts in the pocketbooks and let them feel the pain, Reyes said. (Javonte Anderson/Capital B)

As frustration has grown, some residents have begun calling for more confrontational forms of protest, arguing that the cost of utility infrastructure and economic development is being shifted onto everyday ratepayers.

Dont pay your bill, Valparaiso resident Carmelo Reyes exclaimed from the microphone during a protest outside NIPSCOs Merrillville headquarters.

Hit them where it hurts in the pocketbooks and let them feel the pain, Reyes said. Why are we paying this? We are paying this money to help subsidize all the data centers and all the crap theyre putting on us. We dont have to accept it.

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For Reyes and other Northwest Indiana residents, the bills feel less like a seasonal jump and more like something that has been building for years. They say the increases are landing at a time when groceries, rent, and everything else are already up, leaving some families deciding which bills to pay first.

While much of the ire of residents has been directed at the utility company, their search for relief has pointed them toward elected officials, particularly those in the state legislature. Coincidentally, decisions made by the legislature may have played a role in creating an environment in which utility companies experience less restraining mechanisms.

State Rep. Mike Andrade, D-Munster, hosted a town hall Saturday where he and fellow Democratic state Rep. Matt Pierce of Highland talked with residents about how state decisions have shaped rising utility bills. Pierce is the top House Democrat on a key utilities committee.

I can tell you from my perspective, the legislature has made decisions over the last decade or so that have not been in the interest of consumers, Pierce said.

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During the 2025 legislative session, the Republican majority passed House Bill 1007, along with Senate Bills 423 and 424, which allowed rate increases on customers to fund future utility projects.

Last year, NIPSCO asked state regulators for permission to raise electric rates, arguing the increases were needed to recover billions spent on power plants, grid upgrades, and new technology. The request was approved and phased in over time.

An attempt to quell the skyrocketing bills is now moving through the legislature in the form of House Bill 1002, titled Electric Utility Affordability. The legislation, however, does not provide immediate relief and has become a flashpoint for debate over what protections should be added for customers.

House Bill 1002 should have been an easy way to give consumers long-term relief from rising costs that both sides of the aisle could unanimously support, said state Rep. Earl Harris, D-East Chicago, chairman of the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus. Instead, Indiana Republicans offered a weak bill that does the bare minimum to help Hoosiers struggling to get by. The amendments my colleagues offered would have gone a long way in providing real relief.

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State Rep. Vernon G. Smith, D-Gary, issued the following statement after the supermajority rejected all 13 amendments offered by House Democrats:

By the year 2028, we will have a $5 billion surplus. It will not hurt the state to give some relief to the average citizen. Hoosiers struggling to afford their utility bills deserve the same privilege as major corporations, Smith said. I am simply astounded that Republicans refused to remove the 7% sales tax on residential utility bills. What is the point of having a surplus if we arent going to use it to help our people get by?

How They Voted



 Amendment #5 (medical disconnection protections): Rejected by majority vote.

 Amendment #14 (winter disconnection ban for all customers): Rejected by majority vote.

 Amendment #19 (two-year rate and fee freeze): Rejected by majority vote.



Only one amendment was stopped procedurally; all others were defeated outright.

Meanwhile, House Bill 1002 has been sent to the House Appropriations Committee, where lawmakers are expected to debate whether any additional relief or protections for customers will be added. A hearing date has not yet been announced.

The post Soaring NIPSCO Bills Spark Protests Across Northwest Indiana appeared first on Capital B Gary.
Somalia has signed a military cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia, weeks after inking a similar deal with Qatar, as Mogadishu seeks regional support against Israels recognition of the breakaway region of Somaliland.

The memorandum of understanding was signed on Monday between Somali Minister of Defence Ahmed Moallim Fiqi and his Saudi counterpart, Prince Khalid bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, in Riyadh.

The agreement aims to strengthen the frameworks of defense and military cooperation between the two countries, and includes multiple areas of common interest, serving the strategic interests of both parties, Somalias Ministry of Defence said.

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Prince Khalid confirmed the agreement in a post on X.

But neither country provided further details.

Last month, Somalia signed a defence pact with Qatar, aimed at strengthening military ties and security collaboration, according to the Somali state news agency.

The pact with Qatar focuses on military training, the exchange of expertise, the development of defence capabilities, and enhanced security cooperation, in support of efforts to promote regional security and stability, it said.

Doha said the agreement was aimed at strengthening areas of joint cooperation in a way that serves mutual interests and enhances defense partnerships.





The diplomatic offensive by Somalia comes amid growing tensions in the Horn of Africa region following Israels world-first recognition of Somaliland in December. Mogadishu has warned that Israel plans to set up a military base in the breakaway region, which could be used to launch attacks on neighbouring countries.

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Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud told Al Jazeera last week that Mogadishu will never allow the establishment of an Israeli base in Somaliland and will confront any such move.

We will fight in our capacity. Of course, we will defend ourselves, he said. And that means that we will confront any Israeli forces coming in, because we are against that and we will never allow that.

A Somaliland official told Israels Channel 12 in January that an Israeli military base is on the table, though terms were still being negotiated.

Separately, Somalia also cancelled all agreements with the United Arab Emirates last month  including port operations, security and defence deals  citing harmful actions that undermine its national unity and political independence.

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The move came amid reports that the UAE had facilitated Israels recognition of Somalilands independence.

The Gulf state, which normalised ties with Israel in 2020 under the Abraham Accords, has cultivated deep economic and security ties with Somaliland. These include a 30-year concession at the strategic Berbera port held by the UAE company DP World.

The UAE declined to sign a joint Arab-Islamic statement condemning Israels recognition of Somaliland, but it released a joint statement with the African Union in January pledging support for Somalias sovereignty, territorial integrity, security and stability.

Somalias break with the UAE coincided with a deterioration in Saudi Arabian-Emirati relations.

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Tensions erupted in December when Saudi forces bombed what Riyadh described as a UAE weapons shipment to the separatist Southern Transitional Council in Yemen. Saudi Arabia also backed a call by Yemens internationally recognised government for Emirati forces in the country to withdraw.

The UAE denied the allegations.

Separately, Abu Dhabi has also been accused of supporting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan, which has been battling the Sudanese Armed Forces for nearly three years.

Saudi Arabia, an ally of Khartoum, condemned the RSF on Saturday over attacks in Sudans Kordofan region, which have killed dozens of people, including women and children.

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Riyadh also denounced foreign interference by unspecified parties in Sudan, saying the continued influx of illegal weapons, mercenaries and foreign fighters was prolonging the continuation of the nearly three-year-old war.

It did not name the parties.

Sudan, meanwhile, filed a case against the UAE at the International Court of Justice last year, accusing it of complicity in genocide allegedly committed by the RSF against the Masalit community in West Darfur state.

The UAE slammed the move as nothing more than a cynical publicity stunt and said it would seek the immediate dismissal of the case.
A second woman testified at a court in Oslo on Tuesday, accusing the son of Norway's crown princess of raping her while she slept, describing it as her "worst nightmare."

Marius Borg Hoiby, Crown Princess Mette-Marit's 29-year-old son from a relationship before her 2001 marriage to heir apparent Crown Prince Haakon, is on trial facing 38 charges, including raping four women and assaults against ex-girlfriends.

He has pleaded not guilty to the most serious offenses. He faces up to 16 years in prison if convicted.

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On Tuesday, a second alleged victim testified about a rape that the prosecution said took place on Oct. 8, 2023, following an after-party in an apartment in Norway's Lofoten Islands that Hoiby and his stepfather were visiting on a surfing trip.

After consensual sex, the alleged victim -- a young woman he met on Tinder -- said she woke up after Hoiby had resumed sexual relations with her that were not consensual.

"That's always been my worst nightmare," she told the court, recalling how she closed her eyes "so I wouldn't have to take part in my own assault".

"I remember waking up when he was already underway. I thought, 'I don't understand how someone can have sex with someone who's sleeping'," she said.

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"Then, I mostly had the feeling I was dissociating, leaving my own body," she added.

"It was painful. My body wasn't ready for it."

Marius Borg Hoiby, son of Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit, is seen June 16, 2022, in Oslo, Norway. / Credit: Hakon Mosvold Larsen/NTB/AFP via Getty Images (Hakon Mosvold Larsen/NTB/AFP via Getty Images)

In a bid to prove that the sex occurred when she was not in a state to reject it, the prosecution submitted as evidence a video that Hoiby had allegedly filmed of the events with his own phone, which police later found.

Prosecutor Sturla Henriksbo said the five-second video showed the young woman asleep at the time.

The alleged victim also spoke out against the images, which she said were filmed without her knowledge -- for which Hoiby has also been charged.

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The prosecution also presented data from her fitness watch to prove that she was asleep at the time.

"According to the prosecution, the change in heart rate is the most decisive factor," Henriksbo told the court.

Hoiby -- who appeared pale at the start of Tuesday's court proceedings, his hands trembling -- was to take the stand later Tuesday.

Last week, the court heard testimony from another young woman who claimed Hoiby raped her at another after-party in the basement of his parents' royal estate outside Oslo in December 2018.

The defense has rejected all the rape accusations, arguing last week that they were "perfectly normal and consensual sexual relations."

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Just days before the trial, Hoiby was arrested on new charges alleging assault, threats with a knife and violation of a restraining order.

The case has deeply embarrassed the royal family, especially his mother, who suffers from an incurable lung illness and who is torn between her role as mother and future queen.

Crown Prince Haakon released a statement in late January saying neither he nor Mette-Marit would attend the trial.

Hoiby was raised by the royal couple alongside his step-siblings, Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus. Unlike them, he has no official public role.

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In his statement, Haakon alluded to Hoiby's "autonomous" status.

"Marius Borg Hoiby is not a member of the Royal House of Norway and is therefore autonomous. We care about him, and he is an important member of our family. He is a citizen of Norway and, as such, has the same responsibilities as everyone else  as well as the same rights," Haakon said.

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Zambia's High Court has ordered the seizure of assets worth more than $1.3m (923,000) from Dalitso Lungu, the son of former President Edgar Lungu.

The forfeiture order covers 79 vehicles and 23 pieces of land and real estate, including a shopping mall, petrol station, "luxury apartments and an executive residence" in the capital, Lusaka.

The judgement said the 39-year-old and his company had failed to provide a credible and verifiable explanation for how the assets were acquired lawfully.

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Edgar Lungu, who led Zambia for six years from 2015, died in South Africa last June but has yet to be buried because of an ongoing legal battle between his family and the current government.

It follows a long-standing feud between Lungu and his successor, President Hakainde Hichilema, who defeated him in the 2021 elections by a huge margin.

Hichilema's government wants his remains to be repatriated and given a state funeral, with full state honours - and a South African court ruled in their favour in August.

But the family wants a private burial in South Africa as they say the former president had not wanted Hichilema to attend his funeral.

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Dalitso Lungu's lawyers have indicated they will appeal against Monday's ruling by the Economic and Financial Crimes Division of the High Court.

In assessing Lungu's financial capacity, the court examined his employment history and income.

Evidence showed that he worked briefly at a beverages company in Lusaka in 2012 and later spent nearly three years at the Zambia Revenue Authority.

The court concluded that his earnings were insufficient, even when taken together, to account for the acquisition of the extensive fleet of vehicles and high-value properties.

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Investigations into his company, Saloid Traders Limited, found that its financial statements, tax returns, bank records and social security contributions did not demonstrate the capacity to lawfully acquire or maintain the assets in question.

Claims that the properties were financed through commercial farming, business income or family support were rejected, with the court noting the absence of supporting documentation.

"[Dalitso] Lungu has failed to proffer further and solid evidence to substantiate his claims that Mr Edgar Chagwa Lungu, and indeed his parents, were the source of the funds used to purchase the impugned properties," the judges ruled.

Other members of the Lungu family have also been investigated in recent years for allegedly accruing wealth fraudulently.

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In 2024, the high court ruled that the former first lady, Esther Lungu, had to forfeit 15 flats valued at $3.5m.

Critics say the anti-corruption drive is politically motivated.

Mrs Lungu has remained in South Africa since the death of her husband from an undisclosed illness.

She is leading legal efforts to have him buried in South Africa - and has just filed a notice at the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein to overturn the earlier ruling that her husband's body be sent back home.

The family's earlier attempts at various other South African courts for leave to appeal had failed.

Lungu's body remains in a funeral home in Johannesburg.

More BBC stories on Zambia:

[Getty Images/BBC]

Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.

Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica

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The recent deaths at the age of 100 of two men who served in the Second World War when they were in their teens  Stan Ford from Bath and Albert Lamond from Glasgow, both veterans of the Royal Navy  is a reminder that the greatest event of modern times is rapidly passing from memory into history. Soon, there will be no one living who remembers it. Nor, in a few years, will there even be anyone who knew and loved people who had survived it.

History in books and documents can be moving and vivid. But memory is different. My father showing tiny photographs of his comrades in Egypt. My 16-year-old cousin Graham who lied about his age to join the Kings Shropshire Light Infantry and was killed at Salerno. My beloved Auntie Eva who learnt of his death standing in a ration queue  her only son from whose loss she never really recovered. In a few years, all such memories will have gone. They may be written down somewhere, but they will not be memories.

Stan Ford, a veteran who survived the D-Day landings, has died at the age of 100 - Jordan Pettitt/PA Wire

Individual memory is fallible and changing. People adapt what they think they remember to fit with what they have subsequently learnt. If you want the facts, you look at the records, not at peoples fading and changing recollections.

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If a handful of veterans of the war, or survivors of the Holocaust, feel they must visit schools and talk to children, it is not to impart facts or interpretations, but to show themselves as real people, and hope that children will remember that behind the intellectual generalisations of history there was flesh and blood: hunger, fear, pain, courage, friendship, loss. Almost every aged veteran explains that they want to keep the memory of their dead comrades alive, Lest we forget. It is part of being human to think that, as long as people are remembered, they are still with us.

The novelist Thomas Hardy, writing in the 1880s about the Napoleonic Wars, recalled a barn door riddled with bullet holes where the Dads Army of the 1800s had practised shooting. It had brought the struggle alive to his childhood imagination more vividly than volumes of history. We are now further from D-Day than Hardy was from Trafalgar. Soon we shall have to rely on volumes of history, and even more on the films, television programmes and podcasts that shape most peoples impressions.

September 7, 1940: Two Luftwaffe Dornier 217 bombers flying over the Silvertown area of Londons Docklands at the beginning of the Blitz - Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

For a long time, our collective memory of the war has been shaped by other insistent voices. Very early on, the Soviets and their admirers asserted (as Putin still does) that the Red Army were the true victors. For Hollywood, with audience numbers in mind, its the Americans. Some films show the British only as women and children in the presence of American males. How could viewers of Saving Private Ryan know that D-Day (where Stan Ford and Albert Lamond served) and the Battle of Normandy were primarily British operations?

Yet in the decisive battle of Normandy, the British Army took on seven of the 10 German armoured divisions, and three-quarters of the British infantry became casualties. Should we not remember this? Should we not also remember the Indian, Caribbean, African and British troops who, in the most testing conditions, eventually threw back the Japanese attacks on Malaya, Burma and India? Instead we are told that Churchill was racist.

September 10, 1940: A crowd of smiling faces greet Winston Churchill during his visit to bomb-damaged areas in London - Reg Speller/Fox Photos/Getty Images

A generation ago, several historians, for a variety of reasons, took it upon themselves to debunk the memory of our finest hour, stressing social division at home, strikes, poor morale in the Army, black marketeering and juvenile delinquency.

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These things of course existed, and in most countries (including Germany and Russia) were far worse. But what remains astonishing is the willing participation of the vast majority of people, and their degree of unity in the face of danger. The government took emergency powers but rarely had to rely on them.

Over 90 per cent of men between 14 and 64, and 90 per cent of single women between 18 and 40, were mobilised for the Armed Forces or civilian war work. Many younger and older people volunteered. British industry out-produced every country except America. No totalitarian country could match this effort.

It was, the Oxford historian Jose Harris wrote, perhaps the only period in the whole of British history during which the British people came together as a metaphysical entity. This coming together, however dimly remembered, is what we admire and wish we could match.

September 25, 1940: Members of the public huddle together in a London Underground station to avoid bombing during the Blitz - Popperfoto

Memory inevitably becomes history. Lived experience is replaced by books, films, archives and monuments  a collective memory rather than a personal one. It is the best we can do, and it is fundamental to our existence as a community. If we think this is important, it imposes a duty on schools, museums, television writers and the rest to preserve that memory truthfully.

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But some choose to neglect or distort it. I think of lines by the poet Geoffrey Hill:  Ingratitude / still gets to me, the unfairness / and waste of survival; a nation / with so many memorials but no memory.

Robert Tombs is an emeritus professor of history at the University of Cambridge

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The exhibition Out of Place, now showing at the Jeu de Paume, traces moments in time captured by Ractliffe between 1982 and 2026.

Bringing together photographs taken in South Africa and Angola  several of which are being shown in France for the first time  it explores places marked by history and trauma.

Throughout her work, Ractliffe says she asks a recurring question: "How do you photograph the mood of a place?"

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RFI met her on the sidelines of the show.

RFI: What is your exhibition Out of Place about?

Jo Ractliffe: The work really looks at places that have histories of violence and my interest in this work is how the land of these places, the landscapes of these places, show the residues of historical violence... whether it's a donkey that was shot on the side of the road, whether it's a small moment or a large institutionalised aspect of violence.

But it's not 'place' in the sense of "I'm going to make a documentary" or "I'm going to make a project about Paris". Often these places are on the edge of things  the borders, like The Borderlands title. So that was the title of Out of Place, because often these places are places that are off the radar.

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Often I'm working with material which is not always visible. The traces, the residues, are either not visible or very hard to understand. It's like trying to understand a story in a language that you don't have. So often in these places with signs, I don't know their meaning. I have to work in a slow, accumulative way, building up moment by moment the meaning of these places.

RFI: Your photos were taken in South Africa and Angola, but it seems the places you photographed could be somewhere else, in another country

JR: Well, yes and no. Because on one level there are signs that make these specific, you know... whether it's the quality of light, whether it's the quality of the landscape. But yes, they don't have these hugely distinguishing features.

I have a friend who is a Mexican art historian, and she first came upon my work with the book of Angola As Terras do Fim do Mundo [The Lands at the End of the World]. And she started looking at the images, and she thought, "this looks so familiar". It almost, to her, felt like Mexico.

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Then she thought, "is it because of the land?... No, it's not the same, these are not the trees of Mexico, these are not what things, what forests look like in Mexico." Then she realised what she was looking at was something very similar. It was the way violence is hidden in the landscape... It's a landscape that is made up of violence. She recognised a quality, a mood, an atmosphere that was very similar to the atmosphere in Mexico.

RFI: What do you mean by 'violence'?

JR: Maybe violence is too much of a specific word. There's something more than what is apparent. There's something below the surface and it's not necessarily violent, but it might be loss. It might be something that is broken.

I mean, when I look at that Cuban [military] base in Angola, it reminds me of some of the photographs that I've seen of Gaza... I thought, "oh, these broken buildings in the sand".

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Violence is an easy word because violence happens and the loss is one of the things that remains. It's like activities that come about from people's cruelty to other people. That's really what it is about. It's about people exerting power. And you know, I look at the world and I see what is happening now. There are bullies all over the world. We are living in these dictatorships. We don't really always see what is happening until a place no longer exists, like Gaza. They are going to destroy Gaza.

We don't have to have all the information about these pictures. These are not history pictures nor documentaries. And if somebody comes and says: "I look at this pile of rocks and it reminds me...", I think, "beautiful, perfect, that's what I want". I don't want people to think that they have to have a big history book.

RFI: What about animals? Especially dogs, which we see in many of your photo series.

JR: If you see more work, you'll see them more. I don't know what it is.

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There was this one body of work called Nadir The dogs kind of happened and I was interested in them. And it seemed to me that it was easier to work with dogs as a kind of carrier of meaning, as a kind of symbolic figure, than it was with people. I think the works are political, but people would be making a kind of a specific political [point]... Dogs in these images, if you look at the whole series of Nadir, they are both victims and perpetrators.

In many of these images, the dog, or the goat or the donkey, they sit there, but they have a strong presence. Some of them are looking back at you, or some of them are looking at the scene, like that goat. And in the beginning it used to happen by accident. But then I used to think they are my interlocutors. It's like the person, like the narrator of the story. They are the holders of the narrative... They hold the secret of these places.

The exhibition Out of Place is at the Jeu de Paume in Paris until 24 May 2026.
Feb. 9A 45-year-old man who left Aleknagik in the Bristol Bay region to visit people in another village about 25 miles away was found dead Saturday after he was reported overdue, Alaska State Troopers said.

A search including the village public safety officer and locals began after William Chythlook didn't arrive in the village of Manokotak by Friday, troopers said in an online release.

Chythlook's snowmachine trail left his neighborhood in Aleknagik and continued onto Aleknagik Lake, which was frozen over, troopers spokesman Tim DeSpain said in an email Monday. "The trail continued straight on the lake ice until he reached open water where the lake turns into the Wood River and went in," DeSpain said.

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Chythlook's snowmachine was found about 10 or 15 feet off the ice shelf, DeSpain said, and his body was recovered nearby.

Aleknagik, located north of Dillingham, is on the southeast end of the lake.

Chythlook's body has been retrieved from the water and is being sent to the State Medical Examiner Office for autopsy. Next of kin has been notified. No foul play is suspected at this time.
There were 105 immigration arrests in October at a horse racetrack in Wilder, Idaho. Idaho saw one of the countrys largest increases in immigration arrests this year through mid-October compared with the same period in the Biden administration. (Photo courtesy of ACLU of Idaho)

Editors note: This story was updated at 4:30 p.m. with additional details from the lawsuit and a news conference with ACLU officials.

Months after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, arrested more than hundred people in a raid in Wilder, a lawsuit by three families who legally reside in the U.S. alleges law enforcement used aggressive tactics and unjustly detained hundreds of people, including children.

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A federal class-action civil rights lawsuit filed Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union and its Idaho branch argues that state and federal law enforcement officials plotted to turn what couldve been a targeted execution of criminal warrants in an illegal gambling investigation into a massive immigration raid; only five people were arrested on gambling charges.

What happened in Wilder struck at something many Idahoans instinctively fear: a powerful government descending on a community with overwhelming force and a disregard for families, children and the Constitution, ACLU of Idaho Executive Director Leo Morales told reporters in a news conference Tuesday afternoon.

The lawsuit provides first-hand accounts detailing the mass-detention tactics allegedly used at the raid of an alleged illegal horserace gambling operation at La Catedral Arena in Wilder on Oct. 19.

Two hundred law enforcement officers arrived at the scene with armored trucks, flashbang grenades, and guns drawn, the lawsuit alleges.

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Wearing militarized gear and face coverings, they pointed guns and screamed orders at frightened families. They broke the windows of cars parked on the property, sending glass pouring onto those insides, including children who had taken refuge in cars because of rain, the ACLU wrote. They threw compliant people to the ground and shot rubber bullets over the heads of teenagers.

Then, the lawsuit alleges, law enforcement rounded up the entire crowd, zip-tied most of the adults and many teenagers, and ordered everyone onto the track.

For four hours, hundreds of people were detained  without food, or consistent access to water, bathrooms or medical treatment, including a man who was bleeding from his head after an officer allegedly struck him with a rifle, the lawsuit claims. Parents were not allowed to feed hungry children, and without bathroom access, some people detained urinated in sight of other detainees and law enforcement officers, the lawsuit claims.

Three Latino families  including parents and children as young as age 3  that the ACLU of Idaho is representing in the lawsuit are all lawfully present in the U.S. or U.S. citizens.

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Our plaintiffs were treated as less than human because ICE and their willing partners think they can disregard fundamental rights if it gets them immigration arrests, ACLUs Deputy Director of Policing Jenn Rolnick Borchetta said in a statement. From Wilder, to Minneapolis, to Chicago, the Trump administration is trampling our rights using racially biased tactics that make us all less safe. The administration can suggest that this abuse is immune from legal consequences, but it is not, and we intend to prove that in court.

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Lawsuit is against the FBI, ICE, and local law enforcement including Canyon County Sheriff, Caldwell and Nampa Police, and Idaho State Police

The lawsuit is against several local and federal law enforcement officials  including agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, ICE, Canyon County Sheriff Kieran Donahue, Caldwell Police Chief Rex Ingram, Nampa Police Chief Joe Huff, Idaho State Police Director Bill Gardiner, the cities of Caldwell and Nampa, Canyon County, and unidentified law enforcement officers.

Initially, the FBI denied that children were zip-tied at the raid. But the agency backtracked the claim to say that no young children were, the Idaho Capital Sun reported.

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The FBI said it arrested five people linked to the alleged illegal horserace gambling operation. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said ICE arrested 105 people on immigration violations. About 400 people attended the event, the lawsuit says. Seventy-five people arrested at the raid have been deported, the New York Times reported Monday.

The FBI doesnt comment on litigation, spokesperson Sandra Yi Barker said in a statement. The Canyon County Sheriffs Office doesnt comment on pending litigation, spokesperson Joe Decker said.

Local law enforcement officials said the FBI led the raid.

In a statement, Nampa Mayor Rick Hogaboam said: We take this matter seriously and are committed to following the legal process with integrity and professionalism.

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Other law enforcement agencies sued were not immediately available for comment.

A day after the raid, advocates and witnesses denounced what they described as law enforcements aggressive tactics during the raid. Law enforcement officials released little information about raid tactics.

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The lawsuit says law enforcement didnt release people until they verified they were lawfully in the U.S. At least 70% of people detained were lawfully present in the U.S. or citizens, the lawsuit says.

The search warrant provided Defendants with a convenient cover as they went fishing for immigration arrests of Latino individuals at a public event that drew attendees celebrating Mexican culture, in service of their shared mass deportation goals, the lawsuit alleges.

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After lining up and detaining the event crowd, the lawsuit claims officers sorted people into groups, partly on assumptions of peoples immigration status based on their skin tones.

Law enforcement used racial epithets for Latinos and, in denying some Latino detainees water, they said thats what you get for being here, the lawsuit alleges.

People who appeared to be white generally did not have guns pointed directly at them and were not treated as roughly as Latino-appearing people, the lawsuit claims.

None of the suing families were asked about gambling, the lawsuit alleges. Undercover agents who visited the venue before the raid also likely knew that security guards screened visitors and confiscated weapons, the lawsuit states.

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There is no undoing the trauma inflicted on the families affected that day. But accountability is how we make clear that what happened in Wilder was unlawful, and that it cannot become a blueprint for policing in communities across the country, Borchetta with the ACLU told reporters.

Lawsuit includes accounts of teenagers zip-tied

The lawsuit includes first-hand accounts from people who were detained at the raid.

One 10-year-old child represented in the lawsuit, only identified as A.S.P., went up to her father, Ivan Popoca, crying and tried to hug him when armed officers pushed her father and grabbed her by the neck. They were taken to the track, and her father was ziptied, the lawsuit says.

Later, Popocoa looked for his 16-year-old son, identified as E.I.P., who he feared could be hurt or killed, the lawsuit says. Nearly an hour later, the father found him zip-tied, the lawsuit says.

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When the 16-year-old was detained at gunpoint, the lawsuit says officers were yelling at them in English. The teenager translated the orders in Spanish because he knew some people nearby didnt speak English, the lawsuit says. An officer yelled to get the (f**k) down on the floor or he would shoot, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit says officers forced the teenager and his friends to their knees and zip-tied them. Officers later shot at a nearby SUV, and shots went over the head of E.I.P. and others who were on their knees, the lawsuit says.

Officers also refused to release ziptied parents to care for their small children, and refused to loosen zip-ties despite complaints of pain, the lawsuit alleges.

At several points, the lawsuit says 16-year-old E.I.P. told officers that his zip-ties were too tight. His wrists bruised and hurt for more than a week, the lawsuit says.

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Another teenanger, a 15-year-old identified only as Y.Z., was denied loosened zip-ties for a couple hours despite asking, the lawsuit says. When he asked again, as his wrists turned red, the lawsuit alleges an officer laughed, said his ties were too loose and tightened them. About half an hour later, the 15-year-old started to feel the sting of sweat entering an open wound on his now-bleeding wrists, the lawsuit said.

He still has visible scars from the zip-ties, the lawsuit says. An officer later cut them at his request, the lawsuit says.

The lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, Juana Rodrgieuz, is now scared to attend Latino cultural and other public events. She worries her 3-year-old son is scared of police, the lawsuit states. He now notices law enforcement officers wherever he goes, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit seeks an order declaring violations of Fourth and 14th Amendment rights, and awarding damages.

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Rodriguez v Porter filing ACLU raid Wilder lawsuit
An unexpected tool, and marine partnership, is being used to solve a cold case.

Members of law enforcement in Florida are using an otter to help find human remains underwater.

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I love you babe.

Those were the last words Nicole Baldwin told her daughter before she vanished.

Shes very loving, she just woke up every day and had her children in mind, Alisha Baldwin said about her mother.

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Nicole Baldwin was last seen at her home in Mount Dora on Nov. 2, 2023.

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Alisha Baldwin went to her familys home the next day, minutes after her dad sent her a text.

Good morning. I paid rent today, so I dont have a lot left. So when you can, I could really use the rest of that money. Thanks. Ill see you later. Oh, and by the way, Matt or somebody came to pick up your mother because shes not home, her fathers text said.

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When Alisha Baldwin got to the house, she said things didnt make sense.

Her purse was just in the bathroom, Alisha Baldwin said. Her phone was in the bathroom. Her wallet was in the bathroom. It was all set up in such a weird spot.

Brett Baldwin, Nicoles husband, is currently in prison on unrelated charges. Detectives say he has denied any involvement in his wifes disappearance.

Still, investigators said they noticed unusual movements after police contacted him and the tracking of his home had detectives believing Nicoles remains may have been disposed of in water.

Were still attempting to find Nicoles remains at this point, a detective said. We believe she is dead, because theres nothing that says shes alive. She left everything behind.

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The pond in DeLand was drained and searched. Now, theres a focus on a body of water near Nicole Baldwins home, thanks to technology and an unexpected tool.

At first I was skeptical, a detective said. But once we unpacked the science behind it, we realized this might actually work.

The tool in question? An otter named Splash.

Splash is an Asian small clawed otter who is trained to detect human remains underwater.

He releases air bubbles that capture and carry scents to the surface, allowing him to pinpoint areas of interest for divers and investigators.

And Splash has hit in a Mt. Dora pond, detectives said.

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Its a pond detectives have searched with dogs and will search again when the weather cooperates.

We are still actively investigating the case, detectives said.

Law enforcement hopes that the new tools and continued dedication to finding Nicole will bring closure to everyone.

Yeah, hopefully. I mean, thats our hope, a detective said.

Police say they do have a motive when it comes to their person of interest, but would not go into specifics.

Splash, in case you were wondering, has been on more than 20 missions so far and his handler said he has helped find 20 sets of remains.

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This story was originally posted on MyNorthwest.com

Two members of a family and a wrongfully detained asylum seeker, all living in Spokane at the time of their detainment, were released from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody.

A father and his 10-year-old daughter from Spokane were released from a Texas detention center Saturday, KHQ reported, citing a Facebook post by Latinos En Spokane, a non-profit organization that works to empower the Latino population in Spokane.

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Karla and her father are heading home !!! Latinos en Spokane wrote.

Arnoldo Caal and his daughter Karla Baltazar, originally from Guatemala, were detained by ICE in January, according to KHQ. They were detained in Spokane, where they had lived for several years.

Baltazar was an elementary student within the Spokane Public Schools District. The district told KHQ the family has no criminal history.

Community members protested the familys detention, echoing demonstrations last summer over another immigrants detention in Spokane.

Immigrant returns to Spokane after judge rules detention illegal

Joswar Rodriguez Torres, a 29-year-old Venezuelan immigrant detained in June, was released back to Spokane after a judge ruled his imprisonment illegal, The Seattle Times reported Monday.

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Rodriguez Torres was detained at the Spokane ICE facility when he went in for a regular check-in.

U.S. District Judge James Robart ruled the federal government illegally detained Rodriguez Torres and denied his right to due process.

Rodriguez Torres is in the country legally through the Venezuelan Humanitarian Parole Program, which allows immigrants facing persecution to live and work in the U.S. under parole, according to The Seattle Times.

The media outlet noted that Rodriguez Torres has no criminal history in the U.S., and all of his court filings were submitted on time. Rodriguez Torres was seeking an appeal for his asylum claim, but the government instead revoked his parole with no explanation, according to court records.

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Robart said the Department of Homeland Securitys decision to detain him was an abuse of discretion.

All persons, regardless of their immigration status, are entitled to due process under the Fifth Amendment, Robart wrote, according to The Seattle Times.

Rodriguez Torres is currently living with a friend and is waiting for another court hearing. However, he was told that the immigration courts are too backed up right now, and that it could be two years until the next hearing, former Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart told The Seattle Times.
A massive New Jersey-based developer lost its court appeal to build hundreds of apartments on part of The Hartfords former Simsbury campus, but the company is looking to pursue an appeal.

At stake is whether The Silverman Group gets to construct 432 apartments on the southern half of the property along Route 10 just west of the Farmington River.

Community opposition has been widespread and the towns Zoning Commission denied a permit in early 2024, prompting a court case that took nearly two years to settle.

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A Superior Court judge two weeks ago dismissed Silvermans lawsuit, saying the town did nothing illegal when it turned down the project. But Silvermans attorneys last week signaled that they plan to contest that finding by taking the case to Connecticuts Appellate Court.

The ultimate outcome will have substantial ramifications for the affluent suburb, where a series of recent residential projects have many taxpayers looking to put the brakes on new development.

Simsbury residents widely opposed the project at hearings in 2023, warning that it would severely worsen traffic while adding a financial burden to the school system by bringing higher enrollments.

Silverman at one point was proposing 580 units, but scaled back the numbers in the face of stern community resistance. Even so, scores of people against the 432-unit version either sent letters to commissioners or spoke against it at hearings.

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We live here because of the character of Simsbury, Paul Ricciardelli told commissioners.

We bought here because of the space. I shop local, I live local. I saved 10 years to be able to afford to live here  I aspired to live here because of the quality of life for my family, he said. My fear with a building like this is youll see this town denigrate itself into a Southington or Plainville or New Britain.

He said he doubts Silvermans projection of adding no more than 100 new students to the public schools. Many speakers noted that the plan included some three- and four-bedroom units, and warned that could spur a large, costly enrollment surge.

Susan Salina, a former school board chairwoman, said she is skeptical about developers projections .

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In 16 years on the (school) board I saw a lot of these developments come in; the student numbers we were told to expect were far exceeded, said Salina. The Ridge North is a great example. We started out with those kids in Latimer Lane (School) and because of the volume we had to redistrict them to Central. Were looking at a potential redistricting of the town to accommodate them.

Salina also dismissed the argument that traffic wouldnt be worse than when The Hartford employed more than 1,500 workers at its headquarters.

We didnt have Aspen Green, the Ridge North, Highcroft, she said, naming relatively recent residential complexes. We have so many more people in town now than when The Hartford was an active corporate park. Making a left out of town hall at 4:30 in the afternoon can take 10 to 15 minutes.

Resident Paul McKenna acknowledged that Silverman has a right to develop its property, but added that owners also should integrate their projects into the community.

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A few residents defended Silverman, saying the new project would help alleviate the housing shortage. Silverman was offering to set aside 15% of the apartments at affordable rates, and was planning to build a 5,000-square-foot restaurant and 27,500 square feet of industrial/commercial space, too.

Simsburys zoning commission concluded the plan didnt do enough for Simsbury, wasnt designed on an appropriate scale, and carried too many potential liabilities for existing residents.

Silverman sued, saying the decision was arbitrary and illegal. But Judge Claudia Baio ruled Jan. 29 that commissioners acted reasonably and within their authority, and dismissed the case. On Friday, Silvermans lawyers filed a motion asking for more time to submit an appeal to her ruling.

Silverman already has large multifamily projects in Simsbury, Brookfield and Stamford as well as New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. The companys portfolio includes office, warehouse, industrial and medical properties in those states along with Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana and elsewhere.
Rep. Peri Pourier, R-Rapid City, speaks on the South Dakota House floor during the 2025 legislative session at the Capitol in Pierre. (Photo by John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight)

A bill that would bar the practice of jailing people who cant afford to pay sobriety program fees sailed through a South Dakota House of Representatives panel Monday morning at the Capitol in Pierre.

All 12 members of the House Judiciary Committee present for the meeting  including some lawmakers whod opposed an earlier effort to ban the practice  endorsed House Bill 1176.

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The 24-7 sobriety program lets people charged for alcohol- or drug-related offenses, often repeat drunken driving, leave jail as they await trial on the condition they submit to and pay for frequent testing to prove their sobriety.

Those who fail a test can be immediately jailed, after which they can see a judge to request another chance on the program.

Its unconstitutional to jail people for debt in the U.S. The former state attorney general who pioneered the 24-7 program told South Dakota Searchlight in December that he always instructed the sheriffs who operate it not to incarcerate participants for failure to pay, based on those constitutional concerns.

But some participants have been jailed for nonpayment alone.

Last year, a group of them signed a settlement with Pennington County to settle a lawsuit over the practice. The county agreed to pay the primary defendant, Ricky Lee Lookingback, $10,000 in damages, and to pay $1,000 apiece to another 37 people whod been jailed for their inability to pay.

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The settlement dictates that no one can be jailed or threatened with jail time for an inability to pay. A federal judge has yet to approve the final settlement, but Lookingback, the lawyer for the class, and the county have all signed the agreement.

A South Dakota Searchlight story on the settlement inspired Rep. Peri Pourier to file the bill. The Rapid City Republican said reading the story reminded her that the issue isnt new to the Legislature.

In 2022, a bill to bar detainment for an inability to pay cleared the House of Representatives and the Senate Judiciary Committee, but failed by one vote in the Senate.

I took the bill that went through in 2022 and introduced it with some final revisions from the states Legislative Research Council, she said.

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This years bill aligns state law with clear U.S. Supreme Court precedent that prohibits jailing people solely because they are poor, Pourier said.

Her bill specifies that no defendant may be jailed, nor a defendants bond or pre-trial release revoked, for failure to pay the costs and expenses of the program, unless the court finds the defendant has the present and continued ability to pay the costs and expenses of the program.

In practice, a judge would need to hold a hearing to determine if a participant has the means to pay program fees and willfully refused to do so before jailing a person who shows up sober for testing and does not pay. The unpaid fees could be logged for payment at a later date.

More legislative news

See all of Searchlights coverage of the 2026 legislative session.

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Representatives for South Dakota defense attorneys and trial lawyers, as well as a lobbyist for the South Dakota Network Against Family Violence and Sexual Assault, testified in support of the bill.

In 2022, several opponents from law enforcement, including representatives from the Attorney Generals Office, testified against the change. Pouriers bill received no opposition testimony Monday.

I think these court cases have significantly changed the way that the 24-7 program operates in the state of South Dakota, said Rep. Mary Fitzgerald, R-Saint Onge, who voted against the 2022 version of the bill. I guess this will just put into statute what the state is already doing now, after these court decisions.

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Rep. Will Mortenson, R-Fort Pierre, also voted against the 2022 bill. On Monday, he said hed reviewed Supreme Court cases on the issue of jailing the indigent and took note of who wasnt present for Mondays hearing.

I didnt hear the attorney general in here saying, No, no, youre reading it wrong, this is going to let people walk easier. I didnt hear the states attorneys in here saying, dont do this, and I didnt hear the sheriffs in here saying, dont do this, Mortenson said.

After the committee vote, Chairman Mike Stevens, a Yankton Republican, certified the legislation for inclusion on the House of Representatives consent calendar. The House votes on such bills in bulk and only debates them if a member requests a discussion.
Pennsylvania State Police are investigating after a cat was stolen from a campground in Westmoreland County.

The theft happened on Saturday around 1:30 p.m. at the KOA Campground on Waltz Mill Road in Sewickley Township.

Police said a woman entered the lodge area of the campground and used the community laundry machines. When she was getting ready to leave, she allegedly took a cat that lives inside the lodge and belongs to the camp. Police said she put the cat in her white Toyota Rav4, possibly with a California license plate.

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Anyone with information is asked to call state police in Greensburg at 724-832-3288 or PSP Tips Toll Free at 1-800-472-8477 or online here.

State police said that all callers to PSP Tips could be eligible for a cash reward that leads to an arrest or helps solve a crime.

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The Oklahoma Supreme Court has rejected a request from lawmakers to bar a state agency from sharing driver's license data with a Virginia nonprofit.

Legislators, led by Sen. Kendal Sacchieri, R-Blanchard, asked the court to stop Service Oklahoma from giving driver's license data to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators.

More: Lawmakers ask OK Supreme Court to stop Service OK from sharing driver's license info

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The state Supreme Court pointed to state law that allows Service Oklahoma to release driver's license information to another state. Service Oklahoma uses the data to check if Oklahomans have driver's licenses in other states.

The court's decision, which was handed down Monday, Feb. 9, noted that in 2025, the Legislature declined to codify Sacchieri's request into law. Sacchieri was joined by 33 other lawmakers who wanted to stop the sharing of information.

Sen. Kendal Sacchieri, right, speaks with Sen. George Burns during in May 2025.

Sacchieri said she filed a resolution in 2025 regarding the issue, but it was not heard before the body. This was in response to the implementation of the REAL ID, which aligns state IDs with federal standards.

She then found out that Service Oklahoma planned to send Oklahomans' data to the association. Sacchieri made this discovery in November, and Service Oklahoma leaders told her the upload would take place in February.

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Sacchieri said she filed the lawsuit as a last-ditch effort to keep Oklahomans' information from being shared. The upload will be complete Feb. 17, she said.

"I think the people are on the side of what the legislators did," Sacchieri said.

She said she is proud of the bipartisan effort made by the lawmakers to stop this sharing of data. Service Oklahoma leaders have told her that they will not share biometric data, such as photographs or fingerprints, with the association.

"We're going to keep a better eye on Service Oklahoma now," Sacchieri said.

(This story was updated to add new information.)

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OK Supreme Court won't bar agency from sharing driver's license data
President Isaac Herzog participated in two public events with Australian Jews during his visit, the first one since the Bondi Beach attack where 15 people were killed.

President Isaac Herzog had a simple message to Australias Jews on Tuesday, as anti-Israel protests rocked the city of Sydney during the second day of his Australian visit: "Stay proud, Jewish, and Zionist."

The message was delivered at two public events: the first in the morning at Moriah College to hundreds of flag-waving Am Yisrael Chai students, and the second in the evening at Chabad of Bondi, which lost a number of members - including its assistant rabbi, Eli Schlanger - in the December 14 terrorist attack on the first night of Channukah at the beach just down the road.

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Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was at the evening event at Chabad.

The terrorists sought to instill fear in the Jewish people - we will respond with renewed Jewish pride, Herzog said. They sought to divide our people with religious hate - we will respond with solidarity between all people of moral conscience of all faiths.

They sought to turn our festivals into mourning - we will come together determined and unified, to celebrate our traditions, our heritage, our people.

President Isaac Herzog during his visit to Australia. (credit: Ma'ayan Toaf/GPO)

Albanese, who stood next to Herzog in front of the open ark in the sanctuary in the Chabad center, as a prayer for the welfare of the State of Israel was recited in Hebrew, did not address the gathering, but solemnly read out the names of the 15 killed. A number of them were members of the Chabad synagogue, and seats were left empty in the packed room in their honor.

Australian PM Albanese during Herzog's visit to Chabad

One attendee at the ceremony speculated that Albanese did not speak at the event because of concern over how his words would be received. The Australian prime minister entered the hall alongside Herzog to warm applause. The two are scheduled to hold a formal meeting in Canberra on Wednesday.

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While Albanese did not speak at the Chabad event, in parliament, he addressed the violent protests that have greeted Herzogs visit and the criticism he has faced, including from within his own party, for inviting Herzog to Australia.

In Australia, we can disagree peacefully and with respect, he said. I will treat President Herzog with respect. Ive known him for a long period of time. He is someone with whom you can have a respectful discussion while examining the differences that exist. But he is here primarily to provide comfort for people who not only need it, but deserve it at this time.

Albanese stressed that he will not walk away from my support for his presence here, because it is appropriate that he be here at this time. And its appropriate that people understand the context, which is there: a community that is hurting, a community that is reaching out and just asking for some understanding.

Albanese said it was time to turn the temperature down and that Australians do not want the conflict to be brought here.

Herzog, speaking at Moriah College, said that the demonstrators are not representative of the silent majority of Australians who want to see ties with Israel return to what they once were.

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Before taking questions from students in the upper grades, the President and his wife, Michal, were greeted by hundreds of grade school children waving Israeli flags to the sound of Am Yisrael Chai over the loudspeakers.

Addressing the current state of Israeli-Australian relations, Herzog recalled his 2008 visit to the country, when he was met warmly by both sides of the aisle in parliament - a time of deep bipartisan support for Israel.

Clearly something has happened in the last generation, and it has set in deep, and it has to be met, he said, referring to Israels current standing in the country.

Herzog said he was well aware that the demonstrators and protesters who are cursing us, saying the biggest lies and defamation against our nation, are not going to listen. But, he said, I believe that in the silent majority of Australians, there are many who definitely want to hear, and to move the ties back to what they once were.

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Herzog acknowledged the ups and downs Israel has had with the current government, but said that one of the goals of his current visit is to put the relations back on track, upgrade them, and improve them.

Herzog noted that the huge wave of global antisemitism is something that we never expected to see in Australia, which is also the land of the free, and was also a safe haven to so many Jews who had come under the most horrific of circumstances.

His recommendation to the students was the same as it was at the Chabad event: Stand up, look them in the eye, dont be afraid, and be proud to be Jewish and Zionistic.

Asked by a teacher who identified herself as a Lebanese Christian whether he could ever imagine a day of peace between Israel and Lebanon, Herzog replied: Absolutely, yes.

I know that the majority of Lebanese would love to live in peace with us, he said. Lebanon is a multicultural society, and I think now there is an opportunity, after Israel hit Hezbollah hard, that there is an opening for political change as well.
State Rep. Stephanie Hilferty announced Monday that she is entering race for the District 1 seat on the Louisiana Public Service Commission. (Photo: Submitted)

State Rep. Stephanie Hilferty announced Monday she will run for the District 1 seat on the Louisiana Public Service Commission, considered one of the most powerful elected offices in the state.

The five-member commission primarily regulates utility companies along with a few other industries such as towing and moving van companies. Its members have the power to set rates for electricity and approve or deny large infrastructure projects such as new power plants and intrastate pipelines.

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Hilferty, a 40-year-old Republican, is a real estate agent and a New Orleans native in her third term in the Louisiana Legislature. Her legislative district includes portions of New Orleans and Metairie.

Her most prominent work involving utilities has been legislation aiming to bring accountability to the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans. The state-created agency has a long history of frequent issues with drinking water quality, street drainage, sewage treatment and the power system that runs all three systems.

In a news release, Hilferty described herself as a conservative who isnt afraid to challenge the status quo and believes the Public Service Commission should be focused on protecting ratepayers from the increasing cost of electricity. She also alluded to extended power outages in North Louisiana during the recent winter storm, suggesting they were preventable with available technology.

As a mom of young children, I know firsthand how tight our budgets are, and people shouldnt have to worry every month about their utility bills, Hilferty said. In 2026, no one should fear losing power for weeks after a storm. Just as Ive asked the tough questions to expose the failures on the Sewerage & Water Board, Ill hold the companies the LPSC regulates accountable, too.

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The District 1 seat represents large swaths of Orleans, Jefferson, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, Livingston, Washington and St. Helena parishes.

It is currently held by Commissioner Eric Skrmetta, R-Metairie, who has announced he will run for U.S. Senate.

The closed party primary for the District 1 and District 5 seats on the Public Service Commission will be held on May 16. Candidates for these races, Louisianas congressional seats and a short slate of judgeships and local races will qualify this week from Wednesday through Friday.

A Hilferty victory would likely maintain the Republican Partys 3-2 control of the commission, though she has promised to be a watchdog for people rather than a rubber stamp for companies.

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Utilities are critical partners in powering our state, but the Public Service Commission works for the public, Hilferty said in a text message. Every decision should reflect the needs of families, seniors, and small businesses who depend on reliable service and fair rates.

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Gov. Kevin Stitt has so far stayed silent on President Donald Trump's exclusion of two Democratic governors from a White House dinner with the National Governors Association, a group Stitt leads.

Trump disinvited Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, both Democrats who have become regular targets of the president. Moore is the vice chairman of the NGA, a bipartisan group of state governors. Stitt, a Republican, is the group's chair.

When asked whether Stitt planned to comment about Moore being disinvited, spokespeople for the governor did not say. As of Tuesday, Feb. 10, Stitt had not addressed the issue on social media or in public remarks.

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More: Trump excludes two Democrats from White House dinner with governors

Stitt and Moore have appeared to work closely together in recent months, routinely issuing joint statements on behalf of the governors' group and conducting shared news conferences. The pair held a news conference in September where they called for unity and increased bipartisanship after Charlie Kirk's death.

Stitt and Moore also released a statement in January on behalf of the NGA that advocated for a new approach to immigration enforcement after two civilians were killed by federal agents in Minneapolis.

"We believe there are criminals in our country who must be held accountable, but moments like this demand thoughtful leadership, coordination and clarity," the statement reads in part.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, pictured Feb. 2 during his State of the State address, is chairman of the National Governors Association.

The New York Times first reported Trump's changes to the White House events. It was not immediately clear why only Moore and Polis were snubbed from the dinner and not other Democrats whom Trump has criticized.

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Moore released a statement about his exclusion.

"As the nations only Black governor, I cant ignore that being singled out for exclusion from this bipartisan tradition carries an added weight  whether that was the intent or not," said Moore in a post on X.

He said being excluded from the gathering with governors is "especially confounding," given that he was part of a bipartisan group of governors that met with Trump in January to discuss reforms to lower energy costs.

"Im ready to work with the administration anywhere we can deliver results," Moore said. "Yet, I promised the people of my state I will work with anybody but will bow down to nobody. And I guess the president doesnt like that."

Trump also excludes governors from winter meeting

In addition to disinviting Moore and Polis from a dinner, Trump is only inviting Republican governors to a winter meeting between the White House and the NGA that has traditionally featured all governors from both parties. The meeting and dinner are set to take place when the NGA meets in Washington, DC, from Feb. 19 to 21.

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While Stitt hasn't commented on the changes, the CEO of the governors' group has weighed in.

"The bipartisan White House governors meeting is an important tradition, and we are disappointed in the administrations decision to make it a partisan occasion this year," Brandon Tatum said in a statement. "To disinvite individual governors to the White House sessions undermines an important opportunity for federal-state collaboration."

Tatum previously led Oklahomas Regional University System, and before that, he was Stitt's chief of staff.

In a statement, the White House said the president can set his own guest list.

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"Many Democrats were invited to dinner at the White House, and others were not," a White House official said in a statement. "These are White House events and the president reserves the right to invite whomever he wants.

Trump clashed with Moore in 2025 over the president's threats to send the National Guard into Baltimore, even suggesting at one point he could withhold funds to help with the rebuilding of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

At the time, Stitt also pushed back against Trump's threatened deployments.

"If the shoe's on the other foot, Oklahomans would lose their mind," Stitt said in an interview with The Oklahoman in January, reflecting on his opposition.

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Trump has attacked Polis repeatedly and used the federal government to punish Colorado over the state's imprisonment of Tina Peters. The former county clerk in Colorado was convicted of multiple crimes for letting someone access data from a secure voting system in an effort to prove unsubstantiated 2020 election conspiracies.

In recent weeks, Trump has blocked the completion of a major water pipeline in Colorado, pulled grant dollars from the state and moved to dismantle a major climate research center.

Polis was not given a reason for why he was excluded from the dinner. Eric Maruyama, the governor's deputy press secretary, said in a statement, "This is a disappointing decision for a traditionally bipartisan event between governors and whoever occupies the White House.

During Trump's meeting with governors in 2025, the president had a memorable confrontation with Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, over his threat to withhold federal funds from states that allow transgender athletes to play in girls' and women's sports.

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A heated exchange between Trump and Mills erupted as the president addressed the group. It ended with the governor telling Trump, "We'll see you in court."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Stitt silent as Trump excludes fellow governors from White House dinner
DISCLAIMER: All persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

SHREVEPORT, La (KTAL/KMSS)  The Caddo Parish Sheriffs Office arrested 18-year-old Keaton Ragen, a student at Calvary Baptist Academy, after a reported threat against the school.

Mardi Gras altercation: Shreveport woman arrested after viral video

On Monday, February 9, 2026, the School Resource Officer, Deputy Owen, was alerted to a threat made by a student. In response, detectives from the Caddo Parish Sheriffs Office teamed up with Deputy Owen to assess the situation, identify witnesses, and investigate the source of the statement.

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Through their investigation, police located and interviewed Ragen. Based on information obtained, Regan was arrested and transported to the Caddo Correctional Center, where he is charged with terrorizing, a felony under Louisiana law.

Under Louisiana law, terrorizing does not require a weapon or an actual act of violence. Law enforcement says a statement alone can qualify as a threat if it creates fear or disrupts the school environment.

Jeremy Edwards, a detective involved in the case, said that the standard was met. No weapons were involved, um, it was just a comment made that was threatening the safety of the school, the students, and the faculty, said Edwards.

Louisiana passed a law in 2024 that defines terrorizing as the intentional communication of information that a crime will happen or is about to happen. Authorities say violations of the statute can carry serious consequences.

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Keithville man arrested in May 2025 Caddo fatal crash

It is a felony, the statute is so he could be facing some prison time, Edwards said.

Investigators say Regans comment was not believed to be a joke. However, deputies warn that even statements intended as humor can lead to arrest.

Talk to your children, let them know that playing around, even joking around about threats to the school, the Caddo Parish Sheriffs office will take this very seriously, and you can be, and you will be arrested, Edwards said.

The investigation is ongoing.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTALnews.com.
A Super Bowl ad for Ring security cameras boasting how the company can scan neighborhoods for missing dogs has prompted some customers to remove or even destroy their cameras.

Ring, a subsidiary of Amazon, says its widely installed cameras helped return at least one lost dog per day over the past 90 days since rolling out its "Search Party" feature around the country. The company says camera owners must opt into the program, which uses AI to scan live feeds to compare footage to the missing dog's photo.

But viral videos online show people removing or destroying their cameras over privacy concerns.

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Amazon unveiled the new system at a time when Americans are debating the value of persistent surveillance, which also includes widely used Flock traffic cameras and license plate readers; facial recognition systems used by immigration enforcers; and a growing network of traditional security cameras feeding data for AI analysis.

A Ring camera like this one can now be used to track lost dogs using the company's new "Search Party" feature, which some civil libertarians say raises significant privacy concerns.

The company promises its network is purely voluntary, and secured against hackers.

"The AI is trained on tens of thousands of dog videos so it can recognize different breeds, sizes, fur patterns, body features, unique marks, shape, and color. And privacy stays in your control  you decide each time whether to help," Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a Feb. 8 social media post announcing Search Party. "Now weve expanded this feature so that anyone in the U.S. can start a Search Party through the Ring app, even without a Ring camera."

But privacy experts say the doorbell systems could be used for far more than tracking lost puppies, and are ripe for misuse by government officials.

Sergeant Bo, a former member of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, beat four other finalists to win the prestigious American Humane Hero Dog Awards. Alongside his handler Faye Okert, the four-year-old very good boy has been a source of comfort to countless students in Nashville and was a source of comfort in the aftermath of the deadly shooting at The Covenant School in March 2023 that killed three students and three adults. President and CEO of the American Humane Society, and co-creator of the annual Hero Dog Awards campaign Dr. Robin Ganzert told USA TODAY Sgt. Bo "embodies everything American Humane Society looks for in a hero dog: service, resiliency, and love." "His work offering comfort and confidence to the kids of Nashville is a beautiful testament to the healing power of the human-animal bond," Ganzert said. "Sgt. Bo's transformation from a shelter pet living on the street to a police therapy dog serving his community should inspire us all. We are honored to celebrate this scruffy superstar and crown him as America's 2025 Hero Dog." The four other finalists in the competition, as per American Humane include: K-9 Ultra (Military Dog), a nearly five-year-old German shepherd-Dutch shepherd mix who serves alongside Coast Guard officer Alaina Whitaker in New York City. Together, they specialize in explosives detection, securing multiple high-profile events including the Boston and Chicago marathons, Super Bowl LIX, and both the 2024 Republican National Convention (RNC) and Democratic National Convention (DNC). Members from U.S. Coast Guard Station New York conducted K-9 vertical delivery training from an U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Atlantic City MH-65E Dolphin to a U.S. Coast Guard Station New York 45-foot Response Boat-Medium, Oct. 24, 2024. K-9s Ani and Ultra conducted their training with their handlers to stay prepared for any assistance needed out on the water. K-9 Ultra, a nearly five-year-old German shepherd-Dutch shepherd mix, serves alongside Coast Guard officer Alaina Whitaker in New York City. Together, they specialize in explosives detection, a mission that takes them from busy ferry and train terminals to some of the nation's largest public events. U.S. Coast Guard Maritime Safety and Security Team New York and Houston crew members finish their safety sweeps of the Caesars Superdome before Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans, LA on February 9, 2025. K-9 Lani (right) is stationed in Houston with their partner Petty Officer 1st Class Orion Evans and K-9 Ultra is stationed in New York with their partner Petty Officer 1st Class Alaina Whittaker. Donald (Service Dog): a 6-year-old Labrador retriever in Fort Myers, Florida, who serves as a guide dog for his veteran handler Terry Galgano, allowing her to confidently travel the country, host events and even ski. A lifelong dog lover who had always cared for rescues, Terry Galgano knew she would eventually go blind and made the difficult decision to wait several years so she could get a guide dog. When she was finally matched with Donald, a specially trained Labrador retriever, it was as if a missing piece of her life had been restored. After a period of waiting to be paired with a guide dog, Terry was finally able to meet Donald in 2021. From the moment he arrived during the COVID pandemic and began training with Terry at home, it was clear they belonged together. She remembers staring at him in awe, marveling over how "gorgeous" he is, and feeling whole again after three years without a dog. Lieutenant Dan (Emerging Hero Dog): a seven-year-old Treeing Walker coonhound in Ohio, who was born the runt of his litter with contracted back legs and a severely deformed tail. However, he did not let that hold him back and learned to walk on his two front legs and later earned his therapy dog certification. Lieutenant Dan, a seven-year-old Treeing Walker coonhound, was born the runt of his litter with contracted back legs and a severely deformed tail. Unable to use them, he learned to walk on his two front legs, determined to move forward no matter the challenge. At home, Lt. Dan lives an adventurous life with Laura Person, her husband, and their pack of pets, including another handicapped dog. He loves camping trips, hiking trails, and even paddle boarding. He also competes in special canine games and canine scent work, proving that dogs with disabilities can do everything others canNand more. A breeder in North Carolina sent him to a rescue in Florida, where Laura Person first learned about him. With a career in veterinary medicine and a passion for fostering handicapped dogs, she knew he deserved a chance. At six months old, both of his back legs and eventually his tail were amputated to keep him healthy. The very next day, Lt. Dan took off runningshowing an unshakeable resilience. Harrison (Police Dog): a three-year-old Labrador retriever is Caldwell County's first electronics scent detection (ESD) K-9 and one of only a few certified dogs of his kind in North Carolina. He is specially trained to locate hidden electronic devices and plays an integral role in uncovering digital evidence essential to a wide range of criminal investigations but focuses on helping investigators in Internet Crimes Against Children cases. Outside the office he's visited schools, a summer camp, a senior center, and multiple community festivals, drawing crowds of children and families wherever he goes. Doug jokes he could win an election because everyone in town knows his name. Harrison can, quite literally, sniff out crime, detecting hidden phones, hard drives, USBs, and memory cards that may contain critical evidence investigators might otherwise miss. After applying for another grant, Doug was approved, and that decision would change his life forever. American Humane Hero Dog Awards winners: "Ordinary dogs who do extraordinary things" 1 of 17 Sergeant Bo, a former member of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, beat four other finalists to win the prestigious American Humane Hero Dog Awards. Alongside his handler Faye Okert, the four-year-old very good boy has been a source of comfort to countless students in Nashville and was a source of comfort in the aftermath of the deadly shooting at The Covenant School in March 2023 that killed three students and three adults.

"I think (the commercial) surprised a lot of Americans by revealing just how powerful surveillance networks backed by AI have become," Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the ACLU, told USA TODAY. "That power may be applied to puppies today, but where else might it be applied? Searches for people wearing t-shirts with certain political messages on them?"

The advantages of remote surveillance

Surveillance systems like Ring and Flock are popular among police departments, who say they provide a powerful new tool to track stolen cars and find criminal suspects.

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The cameras can stream live or recorded footage to remote servers, dramatically expanding surveillance opportunities by tracking not just license plates but "a red truck towing a trailer," according to Flock marketing materials.

Ring has previously said it's working with both Flock and police body-camera company Axon to share footage for crime investigations. The companies say participation is voluntary and that it can only be accessed by authorized law enforcement.

But media reports from around the country have shown that departments that access data from Flock, for instance, have at least occasionally shared it with federal immigration officers despite local laws against it.

A Ring camera like this one can now be used to track lost dogs using the company's new "Search Party" feature, which some civil libertarians say raises significant privacy concerns.

Other data-privacy experts have demonstrated that it can be relatively easy to access such camera systems using credentials found online or in data privacy leaks  even without the consent of the owner.

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There's no question cameras like Ring and Flock have helped solve crimes: Police in Colorado last year used Flock to track the vehicle of a person later charged with setting a Tesla dealership on fire, and Ring cameras are often used to investigate package thefts.

In Illinois, police have now handed out 1,000 Ring cameras to domestic violence victims so they can know who is outside their front door.

In Idaho, footage from doorbell, surveillance and in-store security cameras helped investigators secure a guilty plea in the 2022 murders of four college students.

And now authorities have released photos taken by a Nest security camera at the home of "Today" show host Savannah Guthrie's missing mother, Nancy Guthrie. Officials recovered the images from an online backup of the camera, which was apparently damaged by an armed intruder connected to her mother's Feb. 1 disappearance.

Videos show people removing their Ring cameras

Online, videos of people removing or destroying their Ring cameras have gone viral. One video posted by Seattle-based artist Maggie Butler shows her pulling off her porch-facing camera and flipping it the middle finger.

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Butler explained that she originally bought the camera to protect against package thefts, but decided the pet-tracking system raised too many concerns about government access to data.

"They aren't just tracking lost dogs, they're tracking you and your neighbors," Butler said in the video that has more than 3.2 million views.

Are civil liberties at risk?

Privacy groups like the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation say the widespread use of such systems  particularly without a nationwide conversation about how rapidly they're being deployed  raises serious civil liberties concerns.

Although people legally don't have an expectation of privacy on public streets, AI-powered systems allow authorities to harvest vast amounts of data they can use to build movement patterns of people going about their daily lives, in many cases in ways the public doesn't understand.

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The ACLU's Stanley said the public doesn't fully appreciate just how effective centralized video databases have become, especially when users are able to easily search for key words or descriptions  a far cry from the days when police had to manually view each clip.

Stanley has previously highlighted concerns about camera surveillance, including how police officers in a small Kansas city used license plate readers to track a government critic they suspected of hanging anti-fascist posters on public property. Police did not typically conduct similar searches for people who hung missing-pet posters in that city, Stanley said.

"AI allows vast stores of video to be searchable just as large bodies of texts  and when you combine that with a vast  and just as importantly, cloud-centralized  network of video cameras, the potential for abuse is frightening," Stanley said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ring's Super Bowl ad for dog-tracking cameras stirs controversy
BERLIN (AP)  Established democracies' efforts against public-sector corruption appear to be flagging, according to a survey released Tuesday that serves as a barometer of perceived corruption worldwide. It raised concern about developments in the United States and the impact elsewhere of U.S. funding cuts.

Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index for 2025 gave top place to Denmark, with 89 points out of 100, followed by Finland and Singapore. At the bottom were South Sudan and Somalia with nine points apiece, followed by Venezuela. The leading trio was unchanged, and the last three only in that South Sudan gained a point to draw level with Somalia.

Most countries failing, while democracies slip

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The group said most countries are failing to keep corruption under control, with 122 out of the 182 nations and territories surveyed scoring less than 50 points. The global average last year was 42, down one point to the lowest in over a decade. Only five countries scored above 80 in the 2025 report, down from 12 a decade ago.

The report lamented that too often, we are seeing a failure of good governance and accountable leadership.

It also pointed to a worrying trend of democracies seeing worsening perceived corruption.

Among those, it pointed even to high-scoring New Zealand, down two points at 81, and Sweden, unchanged on 80; as well as Canada, the United Kingdom, France and the United States, which scored 75, 70, 66 and 64 points respectively.

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Concerns about the U.S.

The U.S. was down one point from 2024 for its worst showing yet under the methodology Transparency started using for its global ranking in 2012, putting it in 29th place in the first year of President Donald Trump's second term.

While the data has yet to fully reflect developments in 2025, the use of public office to target and restrict independent voices such as NGOs and journalists, the normalization of conflicted and transactional politics, the politicization of prosecutorial decision making, and actions that undermine judicial independence, among many others, all send a dangerous signal that corrupt practices are acceptable, the report said.

Transparency International also argued that the U.S. decision "to temporarily freeze and then degrade enforcement of its Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ... sends a dangerous signal that bribery and other corrupt practices are acceptable."

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Trump said a year ago, when he froze enforcement of the 1977 law that prohibits people or companies operating in the U.S. from giving money or gifts to foreign officials to win or retain deals in those countries, that it sounds good on paper but in practicality, it's a disaster. To its detractors, the act has unfairly hobbled American companies while foreign rivals swoop in.

Separately, Transparency said that "U.S. aid cuts to funding for overseas civil society groups that scrutinize their governments has undermined anti-corruption efforts around the world. It contended that political leaders in various countries have also taken this as a cue to further target and restrict independent voices, such as NGOs and journalists.

The ups and the downs

The organization measures experts' perception of public-sector corruption around the world according to 13 data sources, including the World Bank, the World Economic Forum and private risk and consulting companies.

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Fifty countries' scores have declined significantly since 2012, it said  with Hungary, now on 40 points; Turkey, on 31; and Nicaragua, on 14, among the biggest fallers.

At the same time, it said 31 countries have improved significantly, highlighting Estonia (76 points), the Seychelles (68) and South Korea (63).

Russia remained close to the bottom of the index with an unchanged score of 22, with Transparency International citing "fully centralized, opaque governance that suppresses media, civil society and political opposition."

Nearly four years into Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukraine was up one point at 36 after an energy-sector corruption scandal forced high-level resignations. Transparency said that civil-society mobilization protected key anti-corruption institutions and investigations were increased, though further reforms are needed to protect defense and reconstruction funds from misuse.
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) talks on the phone as she walks through the U.S. Captiol on January 27, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images)

Though the race for Maines U.S. Senate seat is well underway, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins officially launched her re-election campaign Tuesday with a short YouTube video.

In the 14-second clip, the Republican senator unboxes a pair of New Balance sneakers and declares, This is perfect for 2026, because Im running.

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Collins, who chairs the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, is currently serving her fifth term in Congress and has long indicated her intention to run for a sixth.

Shes seen as one of the more vulnerable Senate Republicans heading into the 2026 November midterm elections and is being challenged by Democrats Gov. Janet Mills and political newcomer Graham Platner.

Collins has stockpiled more money than her Democratic opponents, who have already spent sizable amounts of what theyve raised in the lead-up to the June 9 primary. Though Platner, the oysterman from Sullivan whos been growing momentum since his splashy campaign launch in August, has a significant cash advantage over Mills, who entered the race this fall and will term out as governor after this year.

During the last fundraising period over the past three months, Platner raised the most, $4.6 million, while Mills raised $2.7 million and Collins raised $2.2 million. There were also stark differences in the size of individual donations to each campaign. Platner had the most small donors, people contributing $200 or less, followed by Mills and then Collins.

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Fundraising data also confirms what has long been known anecdotally. Unions are banking on Platner, while the current Democratic establishment is throwing their support behind Mills.

In an opinion piece published in the Bangor Daily News following her announcement, Collins said shes running for reelection because my experience, seniority and independence matter.

True leaders bring both sides together to seek common ground, Collins wrote, not shout the loudest or seek the most social media clicks.

However, the senators opponents called her out for not standing up to President Donald Trump.

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Seniority without a backbone is just tenure, Mills said in a statement, and after decades in Washington, Senator Collins has failed to demonstrate the leadership required in this dangerous moment in history. As Donald Trump tramples on the Constitution, undermines the rule of law, and weaponizes the federal government against the American people, Susan Collins is refusing to stand up to his abuses and is instead rubber stamping a Republican agenda that prioritizes the wants of the wealthy over the needs of working Maine people.

Platners remarks also placed Collins within the broader political establishment hes campaigning to upend.

In November, the movement we are building will turn the page not just on Senator Susan Collins, Platner said in a statement, but also on her politics of hollow promises, acquiescence to Donald Trump, and failed leadership thats made her and her friends richer but has sold out the rest of us. We will deliver this seat back to the people of Maine.

Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee labeled the Democrats in the race as extreme versus more extreme, referring to Mills and Platner, respectively.

The only question is which of their candidates will run farther to the left to claim victory in this messy primary, spokesperson Kristen Cianci said in a statement. With candidates committed to a radical socialist agenda  including an actual Nazi and a repeat fraudster  its clear Maines Senate seat needs to remain in Republican hands.

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The latter remarks refer to Platners now-covered tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol  a connection he denied knowing until recently. The revelation about the tattoo was in addition to sexist, racist, homophobic and other offensive statements unearthed last fall from Platners Reddit history.

While that part of his past led many outside Maine to believe that his quick rise was coming to an end, Platner has maintained a strong foothold, continuing to turn out massive crowds and build a deep volunteer base who relate to the candidates personal growth and are fed up with the establishment.

The RNCs description of Mills as a fraudster refers to an ongoing investigation into state Medicaid payments, which has now been thrust into the national spotlight after a targeted request from the Trump administration.

In a letter on Friday, Dr. Mehmet Oz, who heads the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, pointed to the findings of a routine federal audit and other reviews of Medicaid payments alleging the state is not doing enough to prevent fraud.

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In the letter, Oz threatened to cut funding to Maine, which he compared to Minnesota.

Mills said in a statement Monday that the threats of federal intervention are part of President Trumps malicious playbook of using his administrations power to punish anyone who dares to stand up to him or who disagrees with him.
The recent meeting was important because it was the coalition's first reunion since the January 30 deal between the Syrian government and the Syrian Democratic Forces.

A meeting of officials in Saudi Arabia to discuss anti-ISIS efforts has concluded with high hopes for the next phase in the fight.

The US and Saudi Arabia released a joint statement about the meeting, which was important because Syrias foreign minister and the US envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, attended the discussion.

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Barrack also met with Syrias and Saudi Arabias foreign ministers in the lead-up to the meeting, which came right after he had held important talks on Syria.

A joint text of the US and Saudi Arabia noted that The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia hosted a meeting of senior diplomatic and defense officials from the Small Group of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS/Daesh in Riyadh on February 9, 2026. Saudi Vice Foreign Minister Waleed A. Elkhereiji opened the meeting, which was co-chaired by US Ambassador to Turkiye and Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack.

The recent meeting was important because it was the coalition's first reunion since the January 30 deal between the Syrian government and the Syrian Democratic Forces.

Members of the Kurdish Internal Security Forces wait for the arrival of the security forces of the Syrian government during the curfew, following an agreement between the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Syrian government, in Qamishli, Syria, February 3, 2026. (credit: REUTERS/Orhan Qereman)

Syria joins key role in anti-ISIS coalition after Riyadh talks

The SDF had been the main coalition partner in Syria until the state also joined the anti-ISIS coalition in November. Now, members of the Coalition are seeking to work with Syria. Participants welcomed the comprehensive agreement between the Government of Syria and the Syrian Democratic Forces, including the permanent ceasefire and arrangements for the civil and military integration of northeast Syria, the joint statement noted.

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They noted the Government of Syrias stated intention to assume national leadership of counter-ISIS efforts and expressed appreciation for the sacrifices made by the Syrian Democratic Forces in the fight against ISIS/Daesh. Participants also thanked the Government of Iraq for its continued leadership in the Defeat ISIS campaign.

This clearly indicates that the Coalition hopes that Damascus can pick up from where the SDF left off. Damascus will essentially take the lead in Syria now, which makes sense since it is part of the coalition.

The deal with the SDF will help to pave the way for a peaceful transition of this mission.

The SDF sacrificed around 12,000 fighters during the war, new data shows. Among them, around 5,000 of these were Arab fighters, and apparently, the vast majority of the other losses were Kurds. The heavy death toll enabled the Coalition to defeat ISIS in Syria and has kept ISIS in check ever since.

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The Coalition meeting also noted that members are working on their priorities. This includes the swift transfer and safeguarding of ISIS detainees, third-country repatriation, the dignified reintegration of families from al-Hol and Roj camps to their communities of origin, and continued coordination with Damascus and Baghdad on the future of the Defeat ISIS campaign in Syria and Iraq."

It added, "Participants welcomed the Syrian government as the 90th member of the D-ISIS Coalition. Coalition members underscored their readiness to work closely with the Syrian government and encouraged members to provide direct support to Syrian and Iraqi efforts.

Around 7,000 ISIS members could be transferred, and report says around 2,200 have been moved to Iraq so far.

Officials commended Iraqs efforts to securely detain ISIS fighters and welcomed Syrias assumption of responsibility for detention facilities and displacement camps housing ISIS fighters and their family members. Participants reiterated the need for countries to take responsibility for and repatriate their nationals from Iraq and Syria, the statement said.

The Coalition didnt appear to discuss other areas of the world where ISIS threats may occur. There are extremists, some linked to ISIS, in the Sahel and sub-Saharan Africa, as well as in Asia and Europe.
The Trump administrations push for mass deportations has resulted in more than 18,000 challenges in federal court from immigrants claiming their detention is illegal, more than were filed under the last three administrations combined  including President Donald Trumps first term.

So far this year, immigrants are filing on average more than 200 of these cases, known as habeas petitions, daily across the country, with California and Texas accounting for about 40% of new cases, a ProPublica analysis of federal court filings found. To keep tabs on this historic rise, ProPublica is publishing a habeas case tracker.

I dont recall a time that anything like this has ever happened, said Daniel Caudillo, director of the Immigration Law Clinic at Texas Tech University School of Law and a recently departed immigration judge.

The wave of habeas petitions comes in response to new administration policies aimed at ramping up the number of deportations. Among those are policies that require the majority of immigrants who entered the country illegally to remain in detention while their immigration cases are proceeding.

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Lawyers say these policies upend decades of legal precedent that previously allowed immigrants who had been in the country for years and posed no security or flight risk a chance to remain in their communities until an immigration judge could determine whether they could stay in the country legally.

On Friday night, a divided three-judge panel in the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit sided with the administration in limiting bond hearings to immigrants who entered the country lawfully. Caudillo called the decision devastating, adding that as a result, most immigrants held in states that fall under the circuit, which includes Texas, will now be subject to mandatory detention. Appeals of judges rulings in habeas cases challenging immigrants detention have been filed in nine of the 12 regional appeals courts, meaning the question could ultimately find its way to the Supreme Court.

Officials from the White House and Department of Homeland Security didnt respond to a list of questions, but in statements, spokespeople insisted that the Trump administration is fully enforcing federal immigration law and placed the blame on the federal judges.

A large majority of federal judges whove ruled on the habeas petitions so far are siding with immigrants. A recent analysis by Politico found that over 300 judges have ruled against the administrations new detention policies, while only 14 have upheld them. The result is that federal judges frequently are ordering the government to either release immigrants from detention or offer them a bond hearing before an immigration judge to determine whether they are eligible for release while their immigration case proceeds.

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President Trump and Secretary Noem are now enforcing the law and arresting illegal aliens who have no right to be in our country, and reversed Bidens catch and release policy. We are applying the law as written, wrote Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokesperson.

The caseload has overwhelmed legal advocates and government attorneys.

In court filings, U.S. attorneys are telling judges the sheer volume of petitions is burdening their offices, pushing them to shift resources away from other priorities. In a case originating from Minnesota, where the administration has been waging a monthslong immigration crackdown, U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen wrote in a declaration that his attorneys and paralegals were continuously working over time while the offices civil division was at 50% capacity.

The number of habeas filings in that state jumped from a dozen in 2024 to over 700 in the past two months alone, placing Minnesota third behind Texas and California, ProPublica found. The load has been such that, in a rare moment of candor, a government attorney detailed to the office complained to a federal judge that the system sucks, this job sucks. The lawyer, Julie Le, reportedly was let go from the U.S. attorneys office after the public rant. (ProPublica was not able to reach Le for comment. The Department of Justice confirmed her detail with the office was over.)

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If rogue judges followed the law in adjudicating cases and respected the Governments obligation to properly prepare cases, there wouldnt be an overwhelming habeas caseload or concern over DHS following orders, a DOJ spokesperson wrote in response to questions from ProPublica.

Then there are a lot of rogue judges, said David Briones, a senior judge in the Western District of Texas, in response to the Justice Departments statement. Obviously we feel that were correct, thats all I can say. The Western District of Texas leads the country in habeas cases, with over 1,300 filed in the last three months, and Briones has generally ruled against the government in these cases, according to El Paso Matters. The Texas Tribune has also reported on the rise of habeas cases in Texas.

Judges are growing increasingly frustrated, publicly rebuking the administration for missing deadlines and failing to comply with court orders.

Recently, a Texas federal judge ordered the release of the 5-year-old Minnesota boy who made headlines after he was pictured wearing a blue bunny hat and a Spider-Man backpack as immigration agents escorted him and his father to their vehicle. In a fiery ruling, judge Fred Biery of the Western District of Texas chastised the administration for Liam Conejo Ramos detention. The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children, he wrote.

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The number of immigrants held in detention has increased from around 40,000 when Trump took office to more than 70,000 this year. While the number of recent border crossers in detention has fallen, the number of detained immigrants arrested by federal immigration agents elsewhere in the country tripled during the first nine months of the Trump administration, a recent analysis by the Deportation Data Project found.

Its just been a very, very chaotic landscape, said Sirine Shebaya, executive director of the National Immigration Project, a national advocacy organization that, among other things, represents detained immigrants and provides assistance to attorneys and community-based groups.

And I think that chaos is bleeding into communities everywhere, both because of the extremely traumatizing ways that people are being arrested and detained, she said, and because of the amount of money and resources being spent on detaining people who in the past would have gotten out on bond or not been detained in the first place as their cases made their way through the process.

Denise Gilman, co-director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, who has argued habeas cases on behalf of immigrants over the years, sees a positive side to the sudden rise in cases, she told ProPublica.

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People are starting to pay attention to how massive and arbitrary and illogical the immigration detention system is.

For this story, ProPublica analyzed federal habeas petitions filed by immigrant detainees in district courts across the country using records from Public Access to Court Electronic Records and the Free Law Project. The data includes some cases that were refiled for a variety of reasons, such as filing errors or deficiencies.

ProPublica plans to continue reporting on conditions inside immigration detention facilities. Please get in touch with our reporters through Signal at 917-512-0201 if you or someone you know:

Has worked at a detention facility housing immigrants.

Has been detained at such a facility.

Knows information about companies that have been contracted to build and provide services at such facilities.

Can share other insight or information about immigration detention facilities.

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We are also interested in any letters, images, videos or other documentation that you can share. Check out these tips for contacting us securely. We take your privacy seriously.

Misty Harris contributed research.

Disclosure: Politico has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribunes journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
Guarding China's largest freshwater lake from a wheelchair

Xinhua) 08:55, February 10, 2026

Siberian cranes are pictured at Poyang Lake wetland in east China's Jiangxi Province, Nov. 18, 2025. (Photo by Yu Qiwen/Xinhua)

NANCHANG, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- It was not yet sunrise, but Yu Qiwen was already on the move.

Inside his home near the shore of Poyang Lake, he steadied himself with both hands and then shifted into an electric wheelchair. One hand nudged the control lever back and forth, while the other checked his equipment. "Binoculars. Camera. Drone. All set," he noted to himself.

When the door opened, cold air rushed in, reddening Yu's face within seconds.

Yu, 48, is a patrol ranger in Duchang County, east China's Jiangxi Province. From a wheelchair, he helps watch over China's largest freshwater lake, a vast wetland where Siberian cranes cross winter skies, Yangtze finless porpoises surface without warning, and milu deer, also known as Pere David's deer, walk quietly across exposed flats.

"I do not do this alone," Yu said. Two fellow villagers patrol with him, watching the lake's edge through binoculars.

At high water, Poyang Lake spreads across more than 4,000 square kilometers, sustaining over ten million people who live around its rim. Duchang alone accounts for roughly a third of the lake's waters, with most of its townships facing the shoreline directly. Each winter, migratory birds arrive there in waves. For species such as Pere David's deer, Poyang Lake is part of its historical range.

Winter patrols are demanding. At this time of year, biting winds can make it hard to keep one's eyes open. "We're usually up before six," Yu revealed, his tone relaxed. "A normal patrol is about 17 kilometers. On longer days, nearly 40 kilometers round trip."

During the dry season, the lake retreats and mudflats emerge, with faint twin tracks visible, curving across the sand. These tracks are the marks left by Yu's wheelchair.

"Just over a month ago, I spotted Pere David's deer here," he said, gesturing toward wetlands near the waters of Zhenzhu Lake, which form part of Poyang Lake.

Once widespread across eastern China, this species nearly vanished more than a century ago, with some surviving in a European estate. In 2018, 47 deer were released into the surrounding wetlands at Poyang Lake. According to wildlife authorities in Jiangxi, the population has since grown to about 80.

"I first noticed their traces in 2021," Yu said, scrolling through photos on his phone. "They shed antlers around the winter solstice. Calves are born in May. Last year I photographed seven. Two were fawns."

The deer are cautious and hard to approach. "If I spot them through binoculars, I use the drone," he said. "But never close. I keep at least 1.5 kilometers away." Birds require even more restraint. "No drones at all, only long lenses."

His phone gallery offers quiet evidence of time spent observing: deer running freely across open flats, white-naped cranes stepping with measured calm, and oriental white stork standing tall in winter light.

Asked why he became a patrol ranger, Yu answered without hesitation: "The lake is my home." A photography enthusiast, he often spends entire days outdoors, watching and recording.

A traffic accident in 2016 left Yu with limited mobility, but it could not reduce the size of his world. Via a wheelchair, a three-wheeled vehicle and a drone, Yu continues to patrol and document wildlife. Outside his home hangs a sign identifying it as a wildlife observation base affiliated with Jiangxi's bird loving association. Birdwatchers stop by regularly. Villagers and photographers, he said, now alert authorities when injured or sick animals are found.

Across Jiangxi, wildlife protection has evolved into a coordinated effort combining legislation, monitoring and public participation. Infrared cameras and thermal remote sensing support night patrols, while experienced rangers like Yu extend conservation work to the lake's edge.

This change has not gone unnoticed by outsiders. Victor Wright, a French anthropologist at Peking University and a longtime friend of Yu's, has been conducting fieldwork around Poyang Lake for more than a year. In a social media post in January, he wrote that what he was seeing was "a richer, more diverse and more vivid environment."

On Yu's way home, winter sunlight settled over the shallows, where cormorants and oriental white storks were gathered. Yu lifted his camera and pressed the shutter. He kept watch, while also capturing the magic that is Poyang Lake.

This photo taken on March 26, 2024 shows the Milu deer running at Poyang Lake wetland in east China's Jiangxi Province. (Photo by Yu Qiwen/Xinhua)

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Thursday was a quieter day in the medal department for the United States, but there were still plenty of highlights in Milan. The U.S. men's hockey team dominated, and Breezy Johnson's great week continued.
Three women are recovering at Harborview Medical Center after a shooting at a youth homelessness housing building in Auburn.

Around 4:20 p.m., many units from Valley Regional Fire responded to the Phoenix Rising apartments on 26th Street Northeast in Auburn. Phoenix Rising is a program for young adults experiencing homelessness.

Its unclear what led up to the shooting.

Police are still working to learn if the three women were living at the apartments or if some were visiting. Its also not known at this time how the shooter knew them.

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The extent of their injuries is unknown, but all three were sent to Harborview in Seattle.

All the victims are in their 20s, police told KIRO 7.

One of the women is in satisfactory condition, another is in serious condition and the third is critical.

A fourth gunshot victim was accounted for away from the scene. According to Auburn police, that gunshot victim made his way to Tukwila and walked into Southcenter Mall with a gunshot wound in his arm.

The fourth victim is in satisfactory condition.

This is a developing story.

Anyone with information related to this incident is asked to contact the Auburn Police Department at 253-288-7403.
A Feb. 3 Instagram post by 614icewatch  telling people that the best way they could help Springfield and its Haitian population was to stay away unless outside help was requested  set off a firestorm on social media.

Influencers took to TikTok to raise questions about why outside help wasn't wanted and alleged it was because nefarious things were going on in Springfield, including local people and groups collaborating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to allow Haitians to be deported so they could take their children.

The rumors come on the heels of the Central Ohio city of 60,000 preparing for targeted immigration enforcement due to Temporary Protected Status (TPS) being set to expire for Haitians on Feb. 3.

Instead of the status expiring, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Ana Reyes issued a ruling on Feb. 2 postponing the Trump administration's cancellation of TPS for Haitians. The Trump administration and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appealed the decision.

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An estimated 15,000 Haitians with the status protecting them from deportation back to a country suffering from violence and infrastructure collapse live in Springfield. In addition, an estimated 1,300 children have been born to Haitian parents in Clark County since 2021, according to the county health department.

The social media videos question local faith groups that have organized around aiding Haitians and also mention Gov. Mike DeWine.

"They're certainly not doing anything nefarious," DeWine said of Springfield groups targeted in the posts. "What they're trying to do is prepare for a possibility that we end up, that Clark County ends up, with a number of children whose parents are no longer there. We hope that doesn't happen but if it does, we have to be prepared for that."

Why are Springfield organizations being targeted?

G92, a local group of 20 churches and several individuals that formed in May to help Haitian immigrants facing deportation, was the subject of much of the online activity.

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But the post is attributed to the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, not G92, and the information didn't come from G92, said Lynn Tramonte, executive director of the Cleveland-based alliance, which advocates for Ohio immigrants.

The Rev. Carl Ruby, senior pastor at Central Christian Church in Springfield and a leader in G92, said he began getting threatening phone calls and messages late last week.

Its been awful. Its been an awful week, he said. Theyve accused us of fraud, theyve accused us of taking children away from Haitians, they accused me of being a human trafficker.

None of that is true, Ruby said.

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"We're not trying to take Haitian children away from parents," he said. "All of these children are with their families. None of them have been removed from their homes and the only way they would be is if ICE makes that happen. If that happens, we are prepared to make sure children are cared for. We're not going to let ICE abandon them on the streets."

Ruby said he believes a splinter from a group that was upset about being turned away is responsible for the attacks. G92 welcomes outside help that is focused on helping Haitian families, but it isn't a protest group, Ruby said.

"We tried to politely decline their help," he said. "We are committed to a peaceful, nonviolent presence wherever we go."

The Instagram post asked that only people who have attended Springfield trainings come to the city. G92 has hosted at least nine trainings since July with over 600 people in attendance total and referred donations to other local groups, Ruby said. The organization is named after the number of times the Hebrew word for immigrant, ger, appears in the Old Testament and believes welcoming the stranger is part of Gods call on humans, according to its website.
By Gianluca Lo Nostro

PARIS, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Europe should brace for more moments of U.S. hostility, French President Emmanuel Macron has warned, and should treat what he called the "Greenland moment" as a wakeup call to push through longdelayed reforms to strengthen the blocs global power.

In an interview with several European newspapers, the French leader said the European Union should not mistake a lull in tensions with Washington for a lasting shift despite a pause in U.S. threats over Greenland, trade and technology.

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Macron urged EU leaders to use a summit in a Belgian castle this week to inject fresh energy into economic reforms to bolster the bloc's competitiveness and strengthen its ability to stand up to China and the United States on the world stage.

When theres a clear act of aggression, I think what we should do isnt bow down or try to reach a settlement," Macron told Le Monde, the Financial Times and other newspapers in comments published on Tuesday. "Weve tried that strategy for months. Its not working,

Macron said the Trump administration was being "openly antiEuropean" and seeking the EUs "dismemberment". He said he anticipated further tensions with the Trump administration, including over Europe's regulation of digital technology.

"The U.S. will, in the coming months  thats certain  attack us over digital regulation," Macron added, warning of potential U.S. import tariffs from U.S. President Donald Trump should the EU use its Digital Services Act to control tech companies.

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'EUROPE NEEDS PROTECTION, NOT PROTECTIONISM'

Europe needed to be more resilient in the face of a double challenge from the United States and China, Macron said.

"We have the Chinese tsunami on the trade front, and we have minute-by-minute instability on the American side. These two crises amount to a profound shock  a rupture for Europeans," he continued.

Macron, whose second term finishes in spring 2027, renewed his call for the EU to embark on more common borrowing to help the bloc of 27 nations invest at scale and challenge the hegemony of the U.S. dollar.

"World markets are increasingly wary of the U.S. dollar. They're looking at alternatives. Let's offer them European debt," Macron said, adding that Europe's democratic institutions were a major asset for investors at a time when the U.S. was "drifting away from the rule of law".

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The EU used joint debt in 2020 to re-boot the European economy after the COVID-19 pandemic, but French attempts to make such tools permanent have faced stiff resistance from Germany and other more frugal northern member states.

Thursday's summit will include discussions around French-led plans for a Made in Europe strategy that would set minimum requirements for European content in locally manufactured goods. The approach has split EU countries and alarmed automakers.

"For me, the economic strategy to make our Europe a power lies in what I call protection, which is not protectionism, but rather European preference," Macron said.

(Reporting by Gianluca Lo Nostro; additional reporting by Michel Rose; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Richard Lough and Alex Richardson)
At midday Thursday, the Pima County Sheriffs Department said it is requesting any video footage showing vehicles, traffic, pedestrians, or suspicious activity between Jan. 1 and Feb. 2 within a two-mile radius of the Guthrie home in Tucson, Arizona.

This is the latest request in the investigation into Today show host Savannah Guthries mother, Nancy Guthries, disappearance more than 11 days ago.

The sheriffs department said it will contact residents with home surveillance through the Neighbors app and advised residents to verify the official account before sharing any videos.

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In the past week, the authorities have found evidence by the side of the road, detained a subject for questioning, released him, and released surveillance videos from Guthries home.

As the authorities continue to make a push to find more leads and bring Nancy Guthrie home, the Guthrie family issued several public messages to the potential kidnappers, responding to the two ransom notes received by local news stations.

In the latest message, Savannah Guthrie shared clips from a home video with her mom, Nancy Guthrie, with the caption, we will never give up on her.

Savannah Guthrie, center, along with her sister Annie and brother Camron Guthrie plead for the return of their mother, Nancy, in a video posted to social media Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. | Instagram.com/savannahguthrie/

Despite the public pleas, the family hasnt received proof of life or any communication from the alleged perpetrators, aside from the ransom letters.

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Here is a day-by-day timeline of 84-year-old Nancy Guthries disappearance.

Saturday, Jan. 31  The night before.

At 5 p.m., Guthrie takes an Uber to her daughter Annies home for a family dinner and game night.

Her son-in-law, Tommaso Cioni, dropped her off at 9:48 p.m.

Sunday, Feb. 1  Authorities alerted.

At 1:47 a.m., the doorbell camera disconnected.

Shortly after, at 2:12 a.m., the doorbell software detected motion, but no video was recorded.

Roughly 16 minutes later, Guthries pacemaker disconnected from the app on her phone.

After receiving a call from someone at Guthries church about her not being there, the Guthrie family discovered she was missing and called the police.

The home of Nancy Guthrie, the missing mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, is seen from above, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026, in Tucson, Ariz. | Caitlin O'Hara

Monday, Feb. 2  Public plea from the Guthrie family.

During a press conference, authorities said they believed she was taken in the middle of the night against her will.

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Savannah Guthrie issued a statement, as NBCs Today show reported.

On behalf of our family, I want to thank everyone for the thoughts, prayers, and messages of support, she said. Right now, our focus remains on the safe return of our dear Nancy.

On Monday evening, KOLD, a Tucson news station, received a ransom note.

Authorities did not make the details of the note public, but reports over the last week revealed it contained specific details about Nancy Guthries home and the clothes she was wearing the night she was taken. It also demanded $4 million in bitcoin as payment by Thursday, Feb. 5, or else the demand would increase to $6 million by Monday, Feb. 9.

Tuesday, Feb. 3  News outlets receive ransom notes.

Savannah Guthrie asked for prayers again on Tuesday to help find her mother, while authorities called on the public to continue submitting tips.

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TMZ and another local outlet, KGUN 9, received identical ransom notes. Authorities officially acknowledged reports of the letters.

Law enforcement agents check vegetation areas around Nancy Guthries home in Tucson, Ariz., Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. | Ty ONeil

Wednesday, Feb. 4  Guthrie familys second video message.

On the fourth day after Nancy Guthries disappearance, her family  Savannah Guthrie and her siblings, Camron and Annie Guthrie  issued a video message addressing the ransom note.

As a family, we are doing everything we can. We are ready to talk. However, we live in a world where voices and images are easily manipulated. We need to know without a doubt that shes alive and that you have her. We want to hear from you, and we are ready to listen. Please reach out to us, Savannah Guthrie said.

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Following the release of Savannah Guthries video, President Donald Trump said in a post on Truth Social that he offered his administrations resources to help bring Guthrie home.

I spoke with Savannah Guthrie and let her know that I am directing all federal law enforcement to be at the familys and local law enforcements complete disposal IMMEDIATELY, he said.

In this image provided by NBCUniversal, Savannah Guthrie, right, her mom Nancy speak, Wednesday, April 17, 2019, in New York. | Nathan Congleton

Thursday, Feb. 5  Ransom note deadline comes and goes.

The local authorities revealed a detailed timeline of Guthries disappearance. They also revealed that the forensic evidence showed that the blood at the entrance of Nancy Guthries Tucson home was her own, as the Deseret News previously reported.

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The FBI arrested a man in connection with a fraudulent ransom demand.

The FBI, which said it advised the family on the ransom note, announced a $50,000 reward for any information.

Camron Guthrie posted a video directly addressing the potential kidnappers. He said the family hasnt heard anything since the first ransom note.

We need you to reach out, and we need a way to communicate with you so we can move forward, he said.

Friday, Feb. 6  A second ransom note is sent to a news station.

The FBI deployed digital billboards in the Southwest, including California, Arizona, and New Mexico, and went back to square one, searching for clues in Guthries home.

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Trump suggested that the Justice Department or the FBI would release some things.

A lot of things have happened with regard to that horrible situation in the last couple of hours, the president added while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One.

The alleged kidnappers sent the local news station KOLD a second note.

It did not provide proof of life and was different from the first letter, KOLDs station news director, Jessica Bobula, told NBC News. In fact, the second note did not look like a ransom demand at all, according to Bobula.

There is something in the note that we believe they are trying to use to make sure the investigators know that it is the same people, Bobula said. It seems as if they are trying to indicate that only the sender of the previous email would know this detail.

Saturday, Feb. 7  Guthrie children say they will pay.

Savannah Guthrie and her siblings, Annie and Camron, issued another video addressing the ransom note.

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We received your message, and we understand, Savannah Guthrie said in the video. We beg you now to return our mother to us so we can celebrate with her. It is the only way we will have peace.

This is very valuable to us, and we will pay, she said.

Sunday, Feb. 8  Search continues.

Investigators returned to Nancy Guthries home eight days after she was last seen.

Monday, Feb. 9  Ransom deadline passes.

As the ransom deadline came and went, Savannah Guthrie shared on social media, We believe our mom is still out there. We need your help, she said, adding that law enforcement is working tirelessly  to bring her home in a video posted to Instagram on Monday afternoon.

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Im coming on just to ask you, not just for your prayers, but no matter where you are, even if youre far from Tucson. If you see anything, hear anything, or if theres anything at all that seems strange to you  please report it to law enforcement, she said in the video.

Tuesday, Feb. 10  Authorities take a man in for questioning.

The FBI released images from a camera at Nancy Guthries house showing a masked person by her front door. The person appears to be tampering with the camera in the video released by FBI Director Kash Patel. The individual is wearing a mask and gloves and appears to have a firearm.

New images in the search for Nancy Guthrie:



Over the last eight days, the FBI and Pima County Sheriffs Department have been working closely with our private sector partners to continue to recover any images or video footage from Nancy Guthries home that may have been lost, pic.twitter.com/z5WLgPtZpT  FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) February 10, 2026

In the evening, a man, Carlos Palazuelos, was detained during a traffic stop. He was questioned and released at midnight.

He denied any connection to her disappearance, describing the experience as terrifying.

Something I didnt do. I felt like I was being kidnapped, bro. They didnt tell me anything, he told Ford Hatchett from ABC News Phoenix affiliate.

Palazuelos is a delivery driver and was pulled over while driving home. All I know is they showed my in-law a picture of somebody wearing a mask or something, and it supposedly looked like my eyes, Palazuelos said.

Wednesday, Feb. 11  Gloves found by side of the road.

The authorities conducted searches along multiple roadways in the Catalina Foothills area, where the Guthrie family lived.

They took two black gloves discarded on the side of the road into evidence, according to CNN. They were found roughly two miles away from the Guthrie home. The authorities are testing the gloves to see whether they match the ones worn by the man in the surveillance video.

The FBI and Pima County Sheriffs Department have received more than 18,000 calls since Guthrie was first reported missing on Feb. 1.
A top Iranian security official was spotted in Oman just days after Tehran and the U.S. held indirect nuclear talks in the Mideast sultanate.

Ali Larijani, a former Iranian parliament speaker who now serves as the secretary to the countrys Supreme National Security Council, was likely in the country to discuss what comes next after the initial round of talks, The Associated Press reported. The outlet noted that Larijani's team shared photos of him with Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi, the chief intermediary in the U.S.-Iran talks.

Iranian media reportedly said Larijani would deliver an important message, but later state television said al-Busaidi "handed over a letter" to the Iranian official without elaborating on the letter's origins, according to the AP.

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Iran Vows To 'Target Us Bases' If American Forces Launch An Attack: Report

While in Oman, Larijani also met with Omani Sultan Haitham bin Tariq for nearly three hours, according to the AP, which cited the Iranian state-run IRNA news agency. Additionally, the outlet said that Larijani was set to travel to Qatar, which houses the U.S. military installation that bombed Iran's nuclear sites in 2025.

Larijani accused Israel of playing a "destructive role" in the talks just before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's expected visit to Washington, D.C.

Read On The Fox News App

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"Netanyahu is now on his way to the United States. Americans must think wisely and not allow him, through posturing, to imply before his flight that 'I want to go and teach Americans the framework of the nuclear negotiations.' They must remain alert to the destructive role of the Zionists," Larijani wrote on X.

Israel and Iran engaged in a 12-day war in the summer of 2025 which culminated in the U.S. bombing Tehran's nuclear facilities. Iran, which has been grappling with mass anti-government protests, has blamed Israel and the U.S. for various grievances.

Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Hamad Al Busaidi meets with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi ahead of U.S.-Iran talks in Muscat, Oman, on Feb. 6, 2026. (Getty Images)

Iran Ramps Up Regional Threats As Trump Considers Talks, Eyewitness Accounts Of Regime Violence Emerge

Officials from both the U.S. and Iran have said that the first round of talks went well and suggested that they would continue.

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"The Muscat meeting, which was not a long one, it was a half-day meeting. For us, it was a way to measure the seriousness of the other side, and to find out how we could continue the process. Therefore, we mostly addressed the generalities," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said at a news conference Tuesday in Tehran, according to the AP.

"Our principles are clear. Our demand is to secure the interests of the Iranian nation based on international norms and the Non-Proliferation Treaty and peaceful use of nuclear energy," Baghaei said, according to the AP. "So as for the details, we should wait for the next steps and see how this diplomatic process will continue."

Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Hamad Al Busaidi, special envoy Steve Witkoff and negotiator Jared Kushner meet ahead of the U.S.-Iran talks, in Muscat on Feb. 6, 2026.

Satellite Images Reveal Activity At Iran Nuclear Sites Bombed By Us, Israel

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said indirect nuclear talks with the U.S. in Oman were "a good start" and that there was a "consensus" that the negotiations would continue.

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"After a long period without dialogue, our viewpoints were conveyed, and our concerns were expressed. Our interests, the rights of the Iranian people, and all matters that needed to be stated were presented in a very positive atmosphere, and the other sides views were also heard," Araghchi said .

"It was a good start, but its continuation depends on consultations in our respective capitals and deciding on how to proceed," he added.

President Donald Trump also expressed optimism about the indirect talks, telling reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday that "Iran looks like it wants to make a deal very badly. We'll have to see what that deal is."

When he was pressed on how long the U.S. would be willing to wait to make a deal with Iran, the president indicated some flexibility, saying he believes the two nations can reach an agreement.

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"It can be reached. Well, we have to get in position. We have plenty of time. If you remember Venezuela, we waited around for a while, and we're in no rush. We have very good [talks] with Iran," Trump said.

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"They know the consequences if they don't make a deal. The consequences are very steep. So, we'll see what happens. But they had a very good meeting with a very high representative of Iran," the president added.

American and Iranian representatives held separate meetings with Omani officials on Friday amid flaring tensions between Washington and Tehran. Oman's Foreign Ministry said the meetings were "focused on preparing the appropriate conditions for resuming diplomatic and technical negotiations."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.





Original article source: Top Iran security official seen in Oman days after indirect nuclear talks with US
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)  A top Iranian security official traveled on Tuesday to Oman, the Mideast sultanate now mediating talks between Tehran and Washington over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program aimed at halting a possible American strike.

The visit by Ali Larijani, a former Iranian parliament speaker who now serves as the secretary to the country's Supreme National Security Council, likely focused on what comes next after the initial round of indirect talks held last week in Muscat with the Americans.

Meanwhile, people chanted against Iran's theocratic government Tuesday night in the country's capital Tehran, just ahead of the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Larijani has meetings in Oman

Larijani's entourage shared photos of him meeting with Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi, the chief intermediary in the U.S.-Iran talks, with what appeared to be a letter sheathed in plastic and sitting alongside the Omani diplomat.

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Iran has in the past communicated its positions in writing when dealing with the Americans  and famously, Japan's then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe tried to hand Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei a letter from U.S. President Donald Trump in 2019 that he refused to take.

Iranian media had said Larijani would deliver an important message. However, Iranian state television hours after that meeting described al-Busaidi as having handed over a letter to Larijani. It did not elaborate from where the letter came.

Al-Busaidi wrote on X that we discussed recent developments, especially the Iran-U.S. talks.

Regional peace and security is our priority, and we urge restraint and wise compromise, he wrote.

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Larijani also met with Oman's Sultan Haitham bin Tariq for nearly three hours, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. Neither Iran nor Oman offered any details on what had been discussed in Larijanis meetings.

Larijani also met an official from Yemen's Houthi rebels in Oman. The group is a member of Iran's self-described Axis of Resistance that has attacked shipping in the Red Sea and engaged in hostilities against both Israel and the U.S. during the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

Larijani was later to travel to Qatar, which hosts a major U.S. military installation that Iran attacked in June after the U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear sites during the 12-day Iran-Israel war.

Speaking to Oman TV, Larijani said that before the war negotiations with the U.S. had seen gradual progress.

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Larijani affirmed Irans readiness to engage in talks whenever they are realistic, noting that Irans stance in the first round was positive, the TV report added. He suggested the next phase could offer opportunities for strategic de-escalation or, at a minimum, a political repositioning, depending on the dialogues outcomes.

Iran talks a global focus

Iran and the U.S. held new nuclear talks last week in Oman. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking Sunday to diplomats at a summit in Tehran, signaled that Iran would stick to its position that it must be able to enrich uranium  a major point of contention with Trump. That war disrupted earlier rounds of nuclear talks between Washington and Tehran.

The Muscat meeting, which was not a long one, it was a half-day meeting. For us it was a way to measure the seriousness of the other side, and to find out how we could continue the process. Therefore we mostly addressed the generalities, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told journalists at a news conference Tuesday in Tehran.

Our principles are clear. Our demand is to secure the interests of the Iranian nation based on international norms and the Non-Proliferation Treaty and peaceful use of nuclear energy, Baghaei said. So as for the details, we should wait for the next steps and see how this diplomatic process will continue.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also arrived in Washington for talks with Trump. Iran is expected to be the major subject of discussion.

Larijani accused Israel of trying to play a destructive role in the talks.

Americans must think wisely and not allow him, through posturing, to imply before his flight that I want to go and teach Americans the framework of the nuclear negotiations, Larijani said in a post on X.

Elsewhere, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said there is extraordinary alignment between Washington and Israel over the talks with Tehran.

Everyone would love to see something that would resolve without a war, but itll be up to Iran, said Huckabee before he boarded a flight to Washington with Netanyahu.

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The United States has moved the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, ships and warplanes to the Middle East to pressure Iran into an agreement and have the firepower necessary to strike the Islamic Republic should Trump choose to do so. Already, U.S. forces shot down a drone they said got too close to the Lincoln and came to the aid of a U.S.-flagged ship that Iranian forces tried to stop in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf.

The U.S. Transportation Department's Maritime Administration issued a new warning Monday to American vessels in the strait to remain as far as possible from Irans territorial sea without compromising navigational safety. The strait, through which a fifth of all oil traded passes, is in Iranian and Omani territorial waters. Those traveling into the Persian Gulf must pass through Iranian waters.

Anti-government chants from people's homes

Meanwhile, people in various neighborhoods of Irans capital chanted death to the dictator from windows and rooftops on the eve of the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, witnesses said, turning the annual celebration into a protest.

State television in recent days has routinely encouraged people to chant pro-government slogans accompanied by fireworks across the city, an annual ritual in the country. The government plans to hold rallies Wednesday to celebrate the anniversary.

The move came nearly one month after a bloody crackdown in Iran on anti-government protests that led to the deaths of thousands of people and tens of thousands more being detained.
By Idrees Ali, Phil Stewart and Jana Choukeir

WASHINGTON/DUBAI, Feb 10 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he was considering sending a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East, even as Washington and Tehran prepare to resume negotiations aimed at averting a new conflict.

Oman facilitated talks between Iran and the U.S. last week, which a spokesperson for Iran's foreign ministry said had allowed Tehran to gauge Washington's seriousness and showed enough consensus for diplomacy to continue.

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The talks came after Trump had positioned one aircraft carrier in the region, raising fears of new military action. Trump, who joined an Israeli bombing campaign last year and hit Iranian nuclear sites, had threatened last month to intervene militarily during a bloody government crackdown on nationwide protests in Iran, but ultimately held off.

In interviews with Israeli media, Trump said the United States would have to do "something very tough" if a deal is not reached with Iran.

"Either we reach a deal or we'll have to do something very tough," Israel's Channel 12 quoted him as saying.

The date and venue of the next round of U.S.-Iran talks have yet to be announced.

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Trump told Channel 12 and Axios that he was also considering sending a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East.

The USS George Washington in Asia and the USS George H.W. Bush on the U.S. east coast are the most likely candidates, officials have told Reuters, but each is at least a week away from the Middle East. The Pentagon could also deploy the Ford carrier from the Caribbean.

"After the talks, we felt there was understanding and consensus to continue the diplomatic process," said the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei.

Baghaei said Tuesday's trip to Oman by Ali Larijani, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had been pre-planned, and that Larijani would travel next to Qatar, which has also mediated in several Middle East crises.

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Oil prices eased on Tuesday as traders remained focused on Iran-U.S. tensions.

A Reuters analysis of satellite images showed a recent build-up of aircraft and other military equipment across the region.

In particular, U.S. forces in Qatar's al-Udeid, the biggest U.S. base in the Middle East, put missiles into truck launchers as tensions with Iran ratcheted up since January, allowing them to be moved more quickly if needed.

DIFFERENCE OVER WHETHER TO DISCUSS MISSILE STOCKPILE

Oman's state news agency said Larijani and Omani Sultan Haitham bin Tariq discussed ways to reach a "balanced and just" agreement between Iran and the U.S., stressing the importance of returning to dialogue to bridge differences and promote regional and global peace and security.

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The U.S. is seeking to expand the scope of negotiations with Iran beyond the nuclear issue to curb Iran's ballistic missile program, one of the biggest in the Middle East.

Tehran says its missile arsenal has been rebuilt since last year's 12-day bombing campaign by Israel and the U.S., and that its stockpile is non-negotiable.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to use a meeting with Trump in Washington on Wednesday to push for any U.S.-Iran deal to include limitations on Tehran's missiles.

Baghaei said the U.S. "must act independently of foreign pressures, especially Israeli pressures that ignore the interests of the region and even the U.S."

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In any negotiations, Iran would continue to demand the lifting of financial sanctions and insist on its nuclear rights including enrichment, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has said.

Washington has demanded Iran relinquish its stockpile of uranium enriched to up to 60% fissile purity, a small step away from the 90% that is considered weapons grade.

VANCE SAYS TRUMP WILL DECIDE RED LINES

The head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, Mohammad Eslami, said on Monday: "The possibility of diluting 60% enriched uranium ... depends on whether, in return, all sanctions are lifted or not."

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Asked whether the U.S. would allow limited uranium enrichment by Iran, U.S. Vice President JD Vance said during a visit to Armenia on Monday: "I think President Trump is going to make the ultimate determination about where we draw the red lines in the negotiations."

Iran and the U.S. held five rounds of talks last year on curbing Tehran's nuclear program, with the process breaking down mainly due to disputes over uranium enrichment inside Iran.

Since Trump struck Iran's facilities, Tehran has said it has halted enrichment activity. It has always said its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes.

(Reporting by Washington and Dubai newsrooms; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Aidan Lewis, Patricia Zengerle and Nick Zieminski)
Feb. 10The U.S. Department of Homeland Security this week said it did not have immediate and specific plans to mobilize Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to send to places with large Haitian populations like Springfield and South Florida for detention and removal activities if Haiti's Temporary Protected Status designation was terminated.

But DHS Assistant Director for Field Operations Liana Castano said there have been daily ICE enforcement activities in locations including "but not limited to" Springfield and the Sunshine State.

In documents filed in federal court in the District of Columbia on Tuesday morning, Castano said the agency did not take action to enforce the termination of Haiti's TPS designation on Feb. 3 because the termination was stayed a day before.

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But Castano said DHS would have acted to enforce the immigration laws if the termination went into effect.

The government's filing was in response to a judge's order demanding that DHS provide a sworn declaration stating whether or not the agency has taken any action to mobilize ICE potentially to head to areas with sizable Haitian populations, like Springfield.

Last week, District of Columbia District Court Judge Ana Reyes issued a ruling that pauses the DHS' termination of Haiti's TPS, which was on track to take effect Feb. 3. Five TPS holders from Haiti, including a Springfield resident, filed a lawsuit in Washington, D.C. challenging the validity of the decision to terminate. The case is Miot v. Trump.

The Trump administration appealed Reyes' ruling and asked her for a stay to allow Haiti's TPS cancellation to take effect as the case goes through the appeal process.

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The government has said failure to grant a stay would cause "irreparable harm" to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem by interfering with national security and national interests. Meanwhile, the plaintiffs in the case have said they could face detention and deportation and would lose work authorization if Haiti loses TPS.

In a declaration filed on Tuesday, Castano said she does not know of any plans DHS had to mobilize members of ICE to areas with large populations of TPS beneficiaries from Haiti in anticipation of the termination of the country's designation. But she noted that ICE is engaged in daily enforcement activities in places like Springfield.

Castano's declaration states, "ICE operations are targeted to those who are removable from the country, regardless of nationality, with the end goal of enforcing the immigration laws to preserve the national security and public safety of the United States."

Attorneys for the Trump administration in court documents filed late last year said there is nothing in the record that suggests that the plaintiffs in the Miot v. Trump case would be subject to immediate detention by immigration authorities if Haiti's TPS is terminated. Plaintiffs' fears about detention and removal are "conjecture" and theoretical, the government said.

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But Judge Reyes wrote in a ruling issued last week that the actual and potential harm to plaintiffs if TPS termination is not paused includes risk of detention and removal, family separation and the loss of work permission.

TPS termination instantly would cause more than 330,000 Haitian nationals in the United States to lose their lawful immigration status, and they would have to either self-deport or remain in this country unlawfully and face the threat of detention and deportation, Reyes wrote. About 26,500 people in Ohio were TPS holders in March 2025, says the Congressional Research Service.

Judge Reyes said the federal government either has or does not have concrete plans to detain and seek to deport Haitian TPS holders. She gave the federal government until 10 a.m. Tuesday morning to submit a declaration about potential mobilization activities.

The plaintiffs in the Miot v. Trump lawsuit allege DHS Secretary Noem's termination decision was "preordained" and based on "racial animus" instead of actual conditions in Haiti. Attorneys for the plaintiffs say Haiti is extremely dangerous right now and there's no way for its citizens to return safely.

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The federal government has argued that Noem's TPS decisions were lawful, within her authority and not subject to judicial review. Noem continues to insist that cancelling Haiti's designation is in the national interest.

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Feb. 10The U.S. Department of Homeland Security this week said it did not have immediate and specific plans to mobilize Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to send to places with large Haitian populations like Springfield and South Florida for detention and removal activities if Haiti's Temporary Protected Status designation was terminated.

But DHS Assistant Director for Field Operations Liana Castano said there have been daily ICE enforcement activities in locations including "but not limited to" Springfield and the Sunshine State.

In documents filed in federal court in the District of Columbia on Tuesday morning, Castano said the agency did not take action to enforce the termination of Haiti's TPS designation on Feb. 3 because the termination was stayed a day before.

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But Castano said DHS would have acted to enforce the immigration laws if the termination went into effect.

The government's filing was in response to a judge's order demanding that DHS provide a sworn declaration stating whether or not the agency has taken any action to mobilize ICE potentially to head to areas with sizable Haitian populations, like Springfield.

A week ago, District of Columbia District Court Judge Ana Reyes issued a ruling that pauses the DHS' termination of Haiti's TPS, which was on track to take effect Feb. 3. Five TPS holders from Haiti, including a Springfield resident, filed a lawsuit in Washington, DC challenging the validity of the decision to terminate. The case is Miot v. Trump.

The Trump administration appealed Reyes' ruling and asked her for a stay to allow Haiti's TPS cancellation to take effect as the case goes through the appeal process.

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The government has said failure to grant a stay would cause "irreparable harm" to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem by interfering with national security and national interests. Meanwhile, the plaintiffs in the case have said they could face detention and deportation and would lose work authorization if Haiti loses TPS.

In a declaration filed on Tuesday, Castano said she does not know of any plans DHS had to mobilize members of ICE to areas with large populations of TPS beneficiaries from Haiti in anticipation of the termination of the country's designation. But she noted that ICE is engaged in daily enforcement activities in places like Springfield.

Castano's declaration states, "ICE operations are targeted to those who are removable from the country, regardless of nationality, with the end goal of enforcing the immigration laws to preserve the national security and public safety of the United States."

Attorneys for the Trump administration in court documents filed late last year said there is nothing in the record that suggests that the plaintiffs in the Miot v. Trump case would be subject to immediate detention by immigration authorities if Haiti's TPS is terminated. Plaintiffs' fears about detention and removal are "conjecture" and theoretical, the government said.

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But Judge Reyes wrote in a ruling issued last week that the actual and potential harm to plaintiffs if TPS termination is not paused includes risk of detention and removal, family separation and the loss of work permission.

TPS termination instantly would cause more than 330,000 Haitian nationals in the United States to lose their lawful immigration status, and they would have to either self-deport or remain in this country unlawfully and face the threat of detention and deportation, Reyes wrote. About 26,500 people in Ohio were TPS holders in March 2025, says the Congressional Research Service.

Judge Reyes said the federal government either has or does not have concrete plans to detain and seek to deport Haitian TPS holders. She gave the federal government until 10 a.m. Tuesday morning to submit a declaration about potential mobilization activities.

The plaintiffs in the Miot v. Trump lawsuit allege Secretary Noem's termination decision was "preordained" and based on "racial animus" instead of actual conditions in Haiti. Attorneys for the plaintiffs say Haiti is extremely dangerous right now and there's no way for its citizens to return safely.

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The federal government has argued that Noem's TPS decisions were lawful, within her authority and not subject to judicial review. Secretary Noem continues to insist that cancelling Haiti's designation is in the national interest.

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DIG INTO OUR HAITIAN COVERAGE

Clark County Sheriff's Office to 'maintain the peace' as TPS ends, will not enforce immigration laws

WATCH: Haitian restaurant in Springfield struggles as federal protections near expiration

What's coming?: After some initially warned of an anticipated 30-day ICE surge following the end of TPS, school and state officials stressed they have had no direct communication with the feds about potential enforcement actions, but they are preparing for the possibility.

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A community in fear: Reporter Cornelius Frolik traveled the streets of Springfield with a translator and spoke to more than a dozen Haitian people living and working in the Springfield area. Most of them expressed feelings of uncertainty and dread about the TPS cancellation.

Lawsuits: Area Haitians on TPS are pinning their hopes on a couple of lawsuits that challenge the legality of the federal government's decision to cancel the TPS designation for Haiti. Here are the details on those lawsuits, including one involving a Springfield man.

Keket: Our reporters sat down with a local restaurant owner concerned that immigration enforcement fears could close her business. Her compelling personal story is captured in writing and video here.

Residents prepare: More than 80 people took part in an educational event at Zion Hill Baptist Church in Springfield Thursday evening, learning about their rights and those of their neighbors regardless of immigration status.

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Law enforcement: Local law enforcement officials say they will work to "maintain the peace" amid any ICE surge, but they won't enforce federal immigration law.

City leaders: The Springfield City Commission unanimously passed a resolution asking federal immigration agents to follow local rules when conducting enforcement activities.

Politicians react: Our statehouse reporter Avery Kreemer reached out to politicians who represent Dayton and Springfield at the state and national level about their views on ending TPS and an ICE surge. Read that story here.

How we got here: We have been reporting on the growth of the Haitian population in Springfield and its effect on the community for years. This story from the archive explains why so many Haitians relocated to Springfield, Ohio.

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Community survey: In addition to reporters interviewing residents on the street, we created an online survey to gather community perspective. I'll have a summary of responses in an upcoming story.

Dayton action: Several Dayton restaurants and other businesses closed Friday and hundreds of people gathered in front of U.S. Rep. Mike Turner's Dayton office as part of the nationwide protest of ICE operations.

Springfield City Hall, school, county hit by threats tied to Haitian immigration concerns

VIDEO: What to know about Haitian immigration in Springfield




A clipper winter storm will bring a mix of snow, freezing rain and sleet to Connecticut, leading to slippery roads for the Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning commutes, the National Weather Service said.

The weather service issued a winter weather advisory for most of Connecticut, warning residents that the mixed precipitation could leave a light glaze of ice.

"Plan on slippery road conditions. The hazardous conditions could impact the Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning commutes," the advisory said.

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The advisories cover all but three eastern and central counties: New London, Tolland and Windham. It's in effect from the afternoon and evening hours Tuesday until Wednesday morning.

The forecast for mixed precipitation during the event is a shift in the forecast. The weather service had earlier predicted mainly snow in Connecticut, with the wintry mix primarily affecting areas to the south, including Long Island.

"A fast-moving frontal system will bring some very light and spotty precipitation from late Tuesday afternoon into Tuesday evening," the National Weather Service's New York office said. "Precipitation should change to rain in NYC and across Long Island Tuesday night as temperatures slowly warm, but some patchy light freezing rain and sleet may mix in north and west of NYC, and along parts of the north shore of Suffolk County on Long Island."

When is the snow going to start?

Tuesday morning will start out dry under mostly cloudy skies. That should hold through the morning hours.

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The storm should start out with a slight chance of snow during the early afternoon hours, with some freezing rain mixing in southwestern Connecticut as the afternoon goes on.

The precipitation will increase through the evening hours. Northeastern Connecticut should remain snowy, while mixed precipitation pushes across southern Connecticut and into the northwest corner.

The precipitation will start to taper off during the early hours Wednesday.

How much snow will CT get?

Connecticut should see anywhere from a tenth-of-an-inch or less in the southwest, to up to around an inch-and-a-half of accumulation in the northeast corner.

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The expected amounts of snow have lessened as the forecast changed to account for a mixed-precipitation storm.

The weather service is also now predicting more snow for other parts of the northeast to the north of Connecticut. Parts of upstate New York, Vermont New Hampshire and Maine are now expected to see nearly a foot. Some isolated spots could see even more.

This article originally published at Tracking snow and ice storm in Connecticut on Tuesday. How shift in forecast will impact commutes.
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET)  A trial date of March 23 was set Monday for Sonny Veleta, who was 16 when arrested in the shooting death of a man in East Bakersfield more than four years ago.

Veleta is charged with murder, attempted robbery and other crimes in the shooting that killed 19-year-old Cesar Joseph Malta.

His case was transferred to adult court  where he faces a life term in prison if convicted.

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On the night of Aug. 12, 2021, Malta and a passenger drove to East Bakersfield to deliver a baggie of marijuana to someone named Sonny, according to testimony at an earlier hearing.

When they arrived at the meeting location, they saw a Hispanic male, about 5-foot-10, wearing a hoodie, the passenger later told police.

He said they pulled up and Malta rolled down his window and held out the baggie.

The person in the hoodie drew a gun, the passenger said. He fired a single shot as Malta started driving away.

The passenger said he helped steer as Malta, wounded, began losing consciousness. They stopped at the intersection of Baker and Oregon streets, where the passenger called 911.

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Veleta was linked to a Snapchat account Malta had been communicating with just before the shooting, police said. The passenger identified Veleta as the gunman in a photo lineup.

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A trial date has been set for a Piqua man accused of causing a house fire and explosion last year.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

Brian Markin is set to go on trial on August 5, 2026, according to court documents filed last week in Miami County Common Pleas Court.

Hes scheduled to appear in court a month before that, on July 2, for a final pretrial conference.

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As News Center 7 previously reported, Markin was indicted last month on two counts of aggravated arson.

The charges stem from a house explosion and fire that occurred in the 1100 block of Covington Avenue on Nov. 18, 2025.

The indictment alleges that on that day, Markin did by means of fire or explosion knowingly create a substantial risk of serious physical harm to any person other than the offender, and did knowingly cause physical harm to any occupied structure.

Markin previously pleaded not guilty to charges and was released on his own recognizance.

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Workers begin adjusting the name of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts" on Dec. 19, 2025 in Washington, D.C. The Kennedy Center Board of Trustees voted in what they say was a unanimous decision to rename the facility The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. (Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump has appointed Gov. Jeff Landry to a federal council that historic preservation advocates fear will weaken or eliminate protections for historically significant sites across the country.



Landry was sworn into his new position on the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation on Jan. 30 and can serve until 2029 as long as he remains governor.

He is taking over a seat specifically set aside for a state governor. Former Delaware Gov. John Carney, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, most recently occupied the position.



This agency plays a unique role in preserving some of Americas greatest and most historic sites. Louisiana is rich in history and I look forward to bringing that perspective to the Council! Landry said in a written statement Friday.

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The advisory council is in charge of developing and overseeing federal regulations for appraising the historic preservation impact of any project that uses federal resources or requires a federal permit. Its review process is used to evaluate more than 100,000 projects across the United States annually.

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Landry joins the council on the cusp of what could be some dramatic changes for the entity and national historic preservation efforts as a whole. Its rules, referred to as the Section 106 process, have not been significantly updated in over 20 years, but the council is scheduled to start a review of them Thursday at its next meeting, according to the groups agenda.

Historic preservation advocates fear the council, whose membership Trump has overhauled, will limit or even eliminate much of the historic preservation process altogether.

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We are very concerned about what might come out of this [review], said Jordan Tannenbaum, an attorney who was a member of the advisory council from 2016-25 after appointments from former President Barack Obama and Biden. Our historic properties, particularly now in the 250th anniversary of this country, are so, so fragile and once they are gone, they are gone.

The advisory council cannot outright block a project over historic preservation concerns, but a Section 106 review can slow down construction and development. Outside groups and individuals can also sue to halt a project if the historic preservation process isnt followed properly.

Several Republicans in the U.S. Senate blamed the historic preservation reviews for stalling energy upgrades, including solar and wind projects, during an energy and resources committee hearing in October. U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, described the review as a sprawling unpredictable process that causes unnecessary delays.

When a law written to protect our past starts to block our future, it can be worth examining where we are and how we got here, Lee said during the hearing.



Louisiana has a long history with the advisory council. The federal agency touts the preservation of the French Quarter as an early Section 106 Success Story on its website.



Shortly after the National Historic Preservation Act established the council in 1966, the group came out in opposition to the proposed Riverfront Expressway Project in New Orleans. The council determined the project would cause irreversible damage to the French Quarter and should be scuttled.

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U.S. Transportation Secretary John Volpe, working for President Richard Nixon, pulled back the highways funding in 1969 and effectively killed the project, according to a short history post on the councils website.



This case is an early model for why Section 106 was enacted and why it is essential, reads the advisory councils write-up on the decision.

Appointing a Louisiana governor to the advisory council makes sense, said Sara Bronin, who served as the councils chair during the Biden administration.



Louisiana has a large number of historic properties and arguably some of the most high profile historic properties in the country, she said in an interview last week. .

But Landry is also eager to please Trump, and the president has plans for numerous, high-profile Washington, D.C., landmarks that alarm the historic preservation community.

He announced a major renovation of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts last month that preservationists fear could rework the appearance of the 1971 building, to which Trump added his own name in December.

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The president also wants to rebuild Dulles International Airport, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and repaint the Eisenhower Executive Office Building near the White House. Trump has criticized the buildings gray, granite facade.



Last week, Trump also rolled out plans to erect an 250-foot high arch near the Lincoln Memorial.

This all comes after Trump tore down the East Wing of the White House in October with little notice to make way for a $400 million ballroom.

I dont see any examples of the president showing much interest in historic preservation or history for that matter, Tannenbaum said.

Nearly all of these high-profile projects Trump has touted in recent months would likely be subject to the Section 106 process that the advisory council, with Landrys participation, could soon limit, according to former council members.

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An exception is the East Wing teardown because White House changes are exempt from this type of historic preservation review.

President Donald Trump is flanked by U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry at the White House in March 2025 with Hyundai executive chairman Eui Sun Chung. (Official White House photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)

Trump has been unusually aggressive about overhauling the councils makeup since taking office a year ago.



Council members typically serve staggered terms, such that different presidents appointees overlap in their service. But the Trump administration forced some Biden appointees off the council before their terms ended, including Tannenbaum, who said he was locked out of his council email account early last year.



Landry was sworn in as an advisory council member a day after chatting with Trump in person at the Kennedy Center. The governor was attending a party for Washington Mardi Gras at the venue at the same time Trump was going to a screening of Melania, a documentary about the first lady.

Three days later, the president went public with his plans to take down some of the marble that is integral to the current design of the Kennedy Center.

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Photos of flooded streets in Milwaukee during the August 2025 storm. (Photo courtesy of Anne Tuchelski)

Disaster relief for six Wisconsin counties inundated by historic flooding back in August has again been denied by the federal government. Its the second time that Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington, Grant, Milwaukee, Door and Grant counties have been denied assistance from the Trump administration since the floods drowned parks, damaged homes and trapped people in their cars in the middle of the night.

This latest denial was in response to an appeal filed by Gov. Tony Evers in November, after the first denial came from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). At the time, Evers stressed that the extreme storms had left over $26.5 million in disaster costs.

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In a statement Monday, Evers called the new denial completely unsatisfactory, saying that the Trump administration had again denied the relief for Wisconsin without any explanation and calling for the decision to be reversed. Wisconsinites have been hard at work to build back from these historic flooding events, but folks are not out of the woods yet, said Evers. Efforts to rebuild will cost tens of millions of taxpayer dollars that local communities will be on the hook for, and its really disappointing to see our federal leadership turn their backs on Wisconsin, our families, and our communities in our time of need. We will continue to advocate to the Trump Administration and our federal partners that Wisconsin needs these resources to rebuild and recover, and we will continue to do what we can to support our local partners however we can in the meantime.

FEMAs letter to Evers said that assistance is not warranted, but does not otherwise explain the rationale for the denial.

Evers declared a state of emergency on Aug. 11, as communities across Wisconsin picked themselves up from the storms. A ceaseless downpour began on Aug. 9, though the extent of the flooding wasnt apparent to many until after the sun went down. In Milwaukee County, the Wisconsin State Fair had to close early as people fled the grounds in waist-high water. People who traveled the roads that evening found themselves trapped by floodwaters, requiring rescue from local authorities and neighbors.

Swaths of Hart Park in Wauwatosa were left underwater, and the storms aftermath left neighborhoods strewn with downed trees and abandoned vehicles. Flooding also challenged emergency response in Waukesha County, though no injuries or missing persons reports had been received by the sheriffs department. In Milwaukee, reports of people missing from homeless encampments emerged in the days after the floods.

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Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley called the denial for disaster relief deeply disappointing in a statement Monday. My administration has worked to rebuild and recover after last summers historic storms and flooding, said Crowley. Without federal assistance, the financial burden of these public infrastructure repairs falls to local governments to cover. Communities rely on intergovernmental partnerships in times of crisis, and this decision by the Trump administration erodes that public trust. To move forward, my administration will continue working with the State of Wisconsin, our municipalities, and community partners to identify responsible funding solutions to rebuild our roads, bridges, parks, and public buildings. Our residents should not be forced to shoulder the full cost of disasters beyond their control, and we will continue advocating for the resources our community deserves.

Leaders from the other counties, most of them Republican-leaning, that were denied disaster relief have not commented. The executives for Door, Washington, and Ozaukee counties could not be reached and Robert Keeney, the county board chairman for Grant County, refused to comment on the denial.

Hillary Mintz, public information officer for Waukesha County, told Wisconsin Examiner that the county was disappointed by the denial. Although Mintz expressed gratitude that federal assistance for individual residents was approved by the Trump Administration, she explained that the county had estimated in the fall that an additional $300,000 in public repairs would also be needed. Mintz said that Waukesha County is working out how to plug that gap, but that its needs may not be as severe as some communities in Milwaukee, which are still dealing with storm damage.

This article has been updated with comment from Waukesha County.

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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WTVO)  The Trump Administration has rejected Illinois appeal for a federal major disaster declaration following the August 1619, 2025 severe storms, a decision that blocks federal assistance for residents in Boone, Cook, Kane, McHenry, and Will counties.

FEMA reaffirmed its earlier denial in a Feb. 7 letter, stating that supplemental federal assistance under the Stafford Act is not warranted.

While FEMAs letter did not publicly outline detailed metrics, federal guidance and past decisions provide insight into the criteria used. FEMA often denies Individual Assistance requests when damage does not meet federal thresholds for uninsured losses, when state and local recovery capacity is deemed sufficient, or when documentation fails to demonstrate catastrophic need.

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Gov. JB Pritzker sharply criticized the decision, calling it a politically motivated decision that punishes thousands of Illinois families. He said the administration was ignoring the realities of widespread damage and accused federal officials of vindictive priorities.

IEMAOHS Acting Director Ted Berger echoed the frustration, saying the damage documented during multiple rounds of assessments was significant and warranted federal help. It is incredibly disappointing that an incident of this magnitude was not declared a major disaster, Berger said.

The Trump Administration has rejected multiple Illinois disaster requests in recent years, and officials have pushed back on accusations of political targeting. A White House spokesperson previously said the president evaluates disaster requests with great care and consideration to ensure that states, not the federal government, remain primarily responsible for their own disaster recovery obligations.

Federal officials have also pointed to Illinois fiscal management, suggesting the state should better prepare financially for recurring storm damage. They argued Illinois prioritizes spending on other policy areas while requesting federal assistance for storm recovery.

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With FEMAs Individual Assistance unavailable, recovery efforts will rely more heavily on state, local, and nonprofit resources. Illinois officials say they will continue to support impacted communities and explore additional avenues for assistance as rebuilding continues.

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The Trump administration on Monday proposed stripping the power of an independent board to review challenges from fired federal workers while barring employees from taking the matter to court.

The new proposed rule would impact federal workers fired through a Reduction in Force (RIF), the process used at 22 different agencies last year as the Trump administration conducted widespread layoffs.

If finalized, any federal worker fired in a future RIF would not be able to plead their case before the quasi-judicial Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), which last year found that some agencies had engaged in a prohibited personnel practice in firing the workers.

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Instead, any challenges would be reviewed by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which last year alongside the Office of Management and Budget instructed agencies to begin RIFs.

Eliminating independent review of federal RIF actions would not only make it harder for employees to challenge their proposed terminations, but would essentially give the administration free rein to terminate huge swaths of the federal workforce without meaningful independent oversight, Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal worker union, said in a statement.

This is all part of a deliberate attempt to dismantle the nonpartisan civil service. On their own, and taken together, these actions unlawfully concentrate removal authority in OPM and directly undermine the statutory framework Congress established to ensure an independent, professional, and nonpartisan civil service.

Under the proposed rule, federal workers would not be guaranteed a hearing unless ordered by OPM.

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And while federal workers may currently appeal MSPB decisions in federal court, the new rule would foreclose that possibility.

OPM believes that there is little added value from the review that an Article III court could provide relative to OPMs adjudicatory venue, the proposal states.

OPM defended the rule as a way to streamline both layoffs and the resulting challenges.

Congress gave OPM the authority to set how reduction-in-force appeals are handled, and this rule puts that responsibility to work. It replaces a slow, costly process with a single, streamlined review led by OPM experts. That means agencies can restructure without years of litigation, and employees get faster, fairer resolution if mistakes occur, an OPM spokesperson said in a statement.

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OPM previously reviewed RIF appeals, but that process was shifted decades ago to move that power to an independent board.

Jenny Mattingley with the Partnership for Public Service, said the new process would be a complete reversalof going from this system of independent checks and independent decisions, centralizing it in OPM, and really blurring the lines.

She noted that while appeals are currently heard by judges at MSPB, the cases would instead be reviewed by the small Merit System Accountability and Compliance (MSAC) section at OPM, a division she said has limited resources.

I think there is a lot of questions about whether MSAC can do this work, whether it should do this work, and whether it can do it independently, Mattingley said.

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The proposal complains the current appeal procedures Hurt the Federal Government while criticizing MSPB at multiple turns as inefficient and often lacking a quorum.

It also argued MSPB was ineffective at handling their backlog of cases, though Reuters reported Monday that the boards caseload jumped 266 percent during the first fiscal year President Trump returned to office.

The Trump administration has also been criticized for undermining MSPB, including when Trump fired the chair of the board during his first full month in office.

A three judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in December upheld the firing of Cathy Harris in a 2-1 decision, with two Trump appointees finding that Congress cannot restrict the presidents ability to fire those confirmed to boards.

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However, Biden appointee Judge Florence Pan noted that Harris was confirmed by the Senate to a five-year term and that her removal suggests that no agencies can be independent.

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Courts across the country have overwhelmingly rejected the Trump administrations effort to round up thousands of immigrants and lock them up without a chance for bond  even if they have no criminal records and have lived in the United States for years.

But the Trump administration has slow-walked or outright defied judges orders demanding the release of people scooped up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at an increasingly rapid clip.

Sometimes, ICE has raced detainees across state lines in ways judges say are designed to thwart legal proceedings. Other times, theyre detaining people for days or weeks after judges have ordered them released. ICE officials have at times ignored other arms of the federal government trying to ensure compliance with court orders. And sometimes the administration has given judges bad or incomplete information.

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A POLITICO review of hundreds of cases brought by ICE detainees across the country shows judges increasingly furious and exhausted by the Trump administrations tactics.

There has been an undeniable move by the Government in the past month to defy court orders or at least to stretch the legal process to the breaking point in an attempt to deny noncitizens their due process rights, U.S. District Judge Michael Davis, a Clinton appointee from Minnesota, said in a recent order.

As a result, judges have issued more detailed and prescriptive orders to head off potential loopholes or hair-splitting results. And when all else fails, they threaten to hold administration officials in contempt.

Asked about the deepening conflict with courts, Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin reissued previous statements criticizing activist judges for trying to thwart President Trump from fulfilling the American peoples mandate for mass deportations. The statement didnt directly address judges complaints about their orders being violated.

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These issues have reached a crescendo in Minnesota, where the administrations deportation hammer has fallen hardest in recent weeks, flooding the courts and overwhelming even the Trump Justice Departments own attorneys.

Heres how the administrations noncompliance plays out:

ICE whisks people out of state

People fighting for release from federal custody must, in nearly all cases, sue in the district where theyre being held  even if its not where they were arrested or where they are from.



But that gets complicated when ICE rushes detainees out of state and bounces them around the country while theyre attempting to hire lawyers or decide where to file lawsuits. Judges have tried to counter this by issuing quick orders barring transfers outside of their districts. But that has been met with halting success. And judges across the country have repeatedly rapped the Trump administration for using these transfers as a way to stymie meritorious habeas corpus petitions, a legal right to due process allowing people to challenge detention by the government.

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These practices are deeply concerning and generally suggest that ICE is attempting to hide the location of detainees, and thus, make habeas proceedings more difficult for a petitioner and their counsel, said Donovan Frank, a Clinton-appointed judge in Minnesota, who deemed the tactic a pattern of obfuscation.



Other judges have raised similar alarms. U.S. District Judge John Gerrard, an Obama appointee based in Nebraska who is helping handle a backlog of Minnesota cases scolded the Trump administration for an effort to frustrate judicial review by moving detainees around the country repeatedly.

In a particularly dramatic case, ICE detained a 19-year-old woman on Jan. 14  the night she witnessed an alleged assault on a federal agent that resulted in an agent shooting a man in the leg  and quickly transported her to Texas and then New Mexico, frustrating her attorneys attempt to file a habeas petition in Minnesota. Her attorney then raced to file petitions in her other two known locations to ensure they were lodged before she could be deported. ICE moved her despite a Minnesota judges order to bar her deportation because of her potential testimony in the criminal case.

The saga ended late Thursday when a federal judge in New Mexico  who had already deemed the Trump administrations mass detention practices illegal in other cases  ordered the womans immediate return to Minnesota and release from custody. The reason: Her 1-year-old son, whom she was separated from while in detention, was badly burned and required emergency surgery.

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Remarkably, another man from the same building as the woman was arrested that night as well and shipped quickly to Texas, first El Paso then San Antonio. In that case, another judge ripped the administrations rapid-fire transfers and ordered the man returned and released.

When detainees sue, DOJ crawls

Its become an epidemic  not only in Minnesota but across the country. An overwhelmed Justice Department has simply blown off court-ordered deadlines to respond to habeas petitions or defend its detention decisions.



In some cases, the missed deadlines have resulted in orders to immediately release detainees from ICE custody  even from judges who previously sided with the administrations underlying mass detention policies.

The Justice Department said in a statement that it is complying with court orders and enforcing federal immigration law: "If rogue judges followed the law in adjudicating cases and respected the Governments obligation to properly prepare cases, there wouldnt be an overwhelming habeas caseload or concern over following orders."

When detainees win release, ICE delays

The most acute concern from judges has been a recent surge of violations that occur after judges have ordered ICE to release people. In a growing number of cases, ICE has taken days or weeks to comply, sometimes requiring emergency motions by detainees lawyers and contempt threats from judges.

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Detention without lawful authority is not just a technical defect, it is a constitutional injury that unfairly falls on the heads of those who have done nothing wrong to justify it, U.S. District Judge Jerry Blackwell, a Biden appointee based in Minnesota, said during a hearing Tuesday. The individuals affected are people. The overwhelming majority of the hundreds seen by this Court have been found to be lawfully present as of now in the country. They live in their communities. Some are separated from their families.

The Justice Department has repeatedly cited failed efforts to communicate with their ICE counterparts to carry out court orders and the fact that they are drowning in habeas cases driven by the Trump administrations mass deportation strategy. But the delayed releases also add to the burdens on the court system and lawyers for detainees.

Minnesotas chief federal judge, Patrick Schiltz, cited these delayed releases in a public rebuke of the Trump administrations conduct. The George W. Bush appointee had threatened to haul ICE chief Todd Lyons into court on Jan. 30, only to rescind the demand once the administration released a man he had ordered released a week earlier.

Detainees released without belongings, devices or documents

In recent days, judges in Minnesota have expressed frustration that even when complying with their orders, ICE has been doing so in bad faith. Detainees that the agency had whisked to Texas, for example, were being released far from home with no way to contact loved ones or lawyers, and sometimes without their phones, documents or other possessions.

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U.S. District Judge John Tunheim, a Minnesota-based Clinton appointee, recently included a requirement that a released detainee should not be left outside in dangerous cold and emphasized that ICE should coordinate the release with a detainees lawyer to ensure humane treatment.

Frank recently required that if ICE ultimately released a detainee, they must do so: (1) in Minnesota; (2) with all personal documents and belongings, such as his drivers license, passport, other immigration documents, and cell phone; (3) without conditions such as ankle monitors or tracking devices; and (4) with all clothing and outerwear he was wearing at the time of detention, or other proper winter attire.

After a released detainee complained that ICE withheld his crucial documents and identification after releasing him from a Texas facility, U.S. District Judge Susan Nelson, a Minnesota-based Obama appointee, went as far as personally monitoring a UPS tracking number to ensure that the mans belongings were returned to him. It appears that the file was delivered today, February 6, 2026, at 9:50 a.m., and was received by a person named Brian, Nelson wrote in a Saturday order.

Blackwell said the increasingly specific conditions judges were applying to their release orders were responsive to hair splitting by the administration.

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If we say, release the person immediately, then we learn that, having transported him to El Paso or New Mexico, you don't bring him back. We learn that somebody is put out on the street with just the clothes on their backs and have to figure out how to get back here when they should not have been arrested here in the first place, let alone flown halfway across the continent of North America, Blackwell said in the Tuesday hearing.

All right, so you brought them back, he continued. We can't have them released when it's minus 14 outside. And so now we have to address that. Don't release them in the circumstances that might endanger their health or safety.

ICE monitors people in defiance of judges release orders

Even when ICE releases someone  in the right place and with their belongings  the story isnt over. Judges have bristled at indications that ICE is also imposing conditions of release on detainees they ruled should never have been arrested in the first place. Those conditions, akin to what criminal defendants face when they await trial, can include GPS monitoring and other restrictions on their liberty. Judges say that these conditions are violations of their orders to return released detainees to the status quo before their arrest.



As this Court has observed now on too many occasions, [administration officials] continue to advance legal positions that are indefensible and illogical, U.S. District Judge Christine OHearn, a New Jersey-based Biden appointee, wrote in a recent order. This was not a misunderstanding or lack of clarity; it was knowing and purposeful.

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U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney, a Colorado-based Biden appointee, ordered the release of a man who was placed on improper conditions  and then re-arrested for purportedly violating them. The judge lamented the repeated rulings shed had to issue rejecting the administrations legal positions on matters of mass detention.

While Respondents get to repeat themselves, they dont get to repeatedly violate Petitioners due process rights, she wrote.



McLaughlin did not respond to the complaint by judges that monitoring conditions were violations of their orders, but she said the use of ankle monitors were an enforcement tool that helps ICE ensure illegal aliens comply with removal proceedings.

Any illegal alien who is worried about having to wear an ankle monitor or any other GPS devices should accept the $2,600 stipend from the U.S. government and free flight home by self-deporting through the CBP Home App, she said.

When a court-ordered bond hearing isnt enough

More recently, judges who have ordered the administration to hold bond hearings for detainees before an immigration court  administered by the executive branch rather than the judiciary  have been frustrated to learn that those bond hearings were, effectively, stacked against detainees from the start.

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Administration officials may not shield their unlawful arrest of Petitioner by hiding behind an [immigration judge]s conclusory, two-line determination of flight risk, U.S. District Judge Pamela Chen, a New York-based Obama appointee, wrote in a Feb. 4 decision.

U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn, an Obama appointee based in Charlotte, ruled Wednesday that a bond hearing he ordered in December turned out to be constitutionally deficient. The immigration judge in the case, he said, failed to permit the detainee to offer evidence in support of his release and relied on uncorroborated claims to support his continued detention.

Cogburn ordered a new bond hearing for the man, saying his original order had presupposed that this hearing would be conducted in accordance with Petitioners due process rights. It was not.

And U.S. District Judge John McConnell, an Obama appointee in Rhode Island, ordered a man freed Monday after concluding that two bond hearings conducted by immigration judges were constitutionally deficient  including one in which a judge ordered the man detained as a danger to the community over an uncorroborated report that the man drove 90-mph in a 55-mph zone.

Errors abound in habeas cases

Above all else has been a parade of mistakes: crucial attachments left off court filings or filled with incorrect information, claims that detainees are being housed in one state only to learn they were in another.



But the mistakes are at their most severe when they lead to deportations in violation of court orders. Judge Jill Parrish, the chief federal judge in Utah, recently confronted this when the administration acknowledged shuttling a man to Wyoming and deporting him to Mexico despite her order to block his immediate deportation.

When a court exercises jurisdiction over a petitioners claims, Respondents may not deport first, litigate later, the Obama appointee wrote.

Its happened a handful of times in recent months. And the administration has, at times, facilitated their return to ensure they receive due process.

In another recent case, the Trump administration told a judge that a man seeking release from custody had been deported  when in fact he had not. Because of the administrations representation, U.S. District Judge Kyle Dudek, a Florida-based Trump appointee, tossed his habeas case, saying it was moot.

There is no live controversy left to adjudicate, and the Court is powerless to grant relief for a detention that has already ended, Dudek wrote.

But on Thursday, Dudek rescinded his ruling.

The Court dismissed this habeas action as moot on the representation that Petitioner was deported. That fact turned out to be untrue, he wrote.

Judges increasingly lose patience with ICE

The incessant skirmishing between the courts and ICE has begun to wear on judges, who have made their fury known in increasingly pointed rulings and orders. They have, in some cases, personally rejected dozens of detentions as illegal and taken note as their colleagues around the country have done so in more than 3,000 cases  compared to just over 100 cases in which judges have sided with the mass detention strategy.



U.S. District Judge Jerry Edwards, Jr., a Biden appointee in Louisiana, said he was fatigued by the deluge. Chen, the New York-based Obama appointee, lamented the toll Respondents have exacted on the judiciary by continuing to pursue their new mandatory detention policy, despite its near-universal rejection.

But it was U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III, a George H.W. Bush appointee in Pennsylvania, who wrote most animatedly.

These petitions are filed due to the illegal actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he wrote. Despite hundreds of similar rulings in this and other courts resoundingly in favor of the ICE-detainee petitioners, ICE continues to act contrary to law, to spend taxpayer money needlessly, and to waste the scarce resources of the judiciary.
NEW YORK (AP)  The Trump administration has stopped flying a rainbow flag at the Stonewall National Monument, angering activists who see the change as a symbolic swipe at the country's first national monument to LGBTQ+ history.

The multicolored flag, one of the world's most well known emblems of LGBTQ+ rights, was quietly removed in recent days from a flagpole on the National Park Service-run site, which centers on a tiny park in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. It's across the street from the Stonewall Inn, the gay bar where patrons' rebellion against a police raid helped catalyze the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.

The park service said it's simply complying with recent guidance that clarifies longstanding flag policies and applies them consistently. A Jan. 21 park service memo largely restricts the agency to flying the flags of the United States, the Department of the Interior and the POW/MIA flag.

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LGBTQ+ rights activists including Ann Northrop don't buy the explanation.

Its just a disgusting slap in the face, she said by phone Tuesday as advocates and City Council members planned rallies, and some city and state officials vowed to raise the flag again.

One of them, Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, called the removal petty and vindictive.

On one level, removing a flag seems extremely, I guess, pedestrian. But the symbolism of doing it here at Stonewall is what is so profoundly disappointing and frightening, said Hoylman-Sigal, a Democrat and the first openly LGBTQ+ person to hold his office. The National Parks Conservation Association, a parks advocacy group, also said the flag was part of the monument's history and should stay.

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A rainbow flag still appears on a city-owned pole just outside the park, and smaller ones wave along its fence. But advocates fought for years to see the banner fly high every day on federal property, and they saw it as an important gesture of recognition when the flag first went up in 2019.

Thats why we have those flag-raisings  because we wanted the national sanction to make it a national park, said Northrop, who co-hosts a weekly cable news program called GAY USA. She spoke at a flag-related ceremony at the monument in 2017.

The flag is the latest point of contention between LGBTQ+ activists and President Donald Trump's administrations over the Stonewall monument, which Democratic former President Barack Obama created in 2016. Activists were irritated when, during the Republican Trump's first administration, the park service kept a bureaucratic distance from the raising of the rainbow flag on the city's pole.

Then, soon after Trump returned to office last year and declared that his administration would recognize only two genders, the government scrubbed verbal references to transgender people from the park service website for the Stonewall monument.

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Meanwhile the Trump administration has more broadly reviewed interpretive materials at national parks, museums and landmarks and endeavored to remove or alter descriptions that in the government's view inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.

The park service did not answer specific questions Tuesday about the Stonewall site and the flag policy, including whether any flags were removed from other parks.

Stonewall National Monument continues to preserve and interpret the sites historic significance through exhibits and programs, the agency said in a statement.

___

Associated Press writers Matthew Daly in Washington and Ted Shaffrey in New York contributed.
The Trump administration on Monday warned American commercial vessels to keep away from the waters around Iran amid rising tensions between the countries and a large fleet of U.S. military ships in the region.

The Department of Transportations Maritime Administration advised the vessels against moving toward the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman, warning that if they are hailed by Iranian troops, ships should provide vessel name and flag state and affirm that they are proceeding in accordance with international law as reflected in the Law of the Sea Convention, according to an advisory.

The commercial ships were also advised to decline Iranian troops access and if the regime does board without permission, the crew should not forcibly resist the boarding party, the department stated.

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Refraining from forcible resistance does not imply consent or agreement to that boarding, the agency added.

It is recommended that U.S.-flagged commercial vessels transiting these waters remain as far as possible from Irans territorial sea without compromising navigational safety, the advisory continues. When transiting eastbound in the Strait of Hormuz, it is recommended that vessels transit close to Omans territorial sea.

The administration also recommended that ships heading east into the strait should avoid Irans territorial sea and move closer to Omans territorial waters. The advisory will remain in effect until Aug. 8.

The departments guidance for commercial vessels comes shortly after President Trump said talks between the U.S. and Iran were very good on Friday. He still warned, however, that there are very steep consequences that Iran could face if a deal is not reached between the nations over its nuclear program.

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You have to get in position, Trump said last week. We have plenty of time if you remember Venezuela, we waited around for a while and were in no rush.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian praised the indirect talks with the U.S. in Oman, calling them a step forward, according to Reuters. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in an interview with Al Jazeera, also appeared optimistic, but warned that Iran will strike U.S. bases in retaliation if the U.S. strikes Tehran.

In my view this is very clear, Araghchi said, according to a translation from the outlet. If the U.S. attacks us, it is evident that we dont have the ability and access to attack U.S. territory, and therefore have to attack or retaliate to U.S. bases in the region. And unfortunately, U.S. bases are spread all over the region.

The most recent talks come after the U.S. carried out strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites in June. Tensions have been exacerbated recently after a series of anti-government protests were met with force, with over 6,900 killed as of Monday, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to meet with Trump on Tuesday to expand negotiations to limit ballistic missiles and ending support for the Iranian axis, Netanyahus office said over the weekend  referring to Iran-backed militant groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

The Associated Press contributed.

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President Donald Trumps trade adviser offered a bizarre pitch for why Americans should actually be happy about the administrations terrible jobs numbers.

Since Trump returned to office, the economy has only been adding about 49,000 jobs per month on average, compared to about 168,000 jobs per month under former President Joe Biden.

That means Trump presided over the weakest year of jobs gains outside a recession since 2003, and more bad news is expected Wednesday when the Bureau of Labor Statistics is set to release its latest jobs report, according to CNN.

Economists say President Donald Trump's tariffs are partly to blame for a soft job market. / Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Apparently eager to get ahead of the report and try to prevent market fall-out, Trumps trade adviser Peter Navarro insisted Tuesday that the poor jobs numbers were actually evidence that the administration is deporting millions of undocumented immigrants who were previously stealing jobs from Americans.

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We have to revise our expectations down significantly for what a monthly job number should look like, Navarro told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo. When we were letting in 2 million illegal aliens, we had to produce 200,000 jobs a month for steady state.

The jobs that were created during the Biden years were going to illegals, while American were going to the employment lines, he continued. Under Trump, that supposed trend has reversed, so really the country only needs to create about 50,000 jobs per month, he added.

So, Wall Street, when this stuff comes out, they cant rain on that parade, they have to adjust to the fact that were deporting millions of illegals out of our job market, Navarro said.

The economy added about 168,000 jobs per month on average under Joe Biden, compared to 49,000 per month since President Trump returned to office. / Scott Eisen / Scott Eisen/Getty Images

The administration has arrested about 393,000 immigrants since Trump took office last year, not millions, CBS News reported Monday.

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Navarros explanation also ignores the fact that the U.S. unemployment rate ticked up during Trumps first year back in office, hitting a four-year high of 4.6 percent in November 2025.

Last month, planned layoffs reached their highest level for January since the Great Recession.

Bartiromo was nevertheless keen to embrace Navarros framing of the economy.

Thats a good point, she said. But it sounds like youre expecting a weak number tomorrow.

No, not expecting a weak number, Navarro insisted. Im just saying that going forward, when we see a number under 100,000, we dont wring our hands. We say, Yeah thats going to be steady state.

Peter Navarro tried to argue that the poor jobs numbers are proof that President Trump's mass deportation operation is working. / Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

His argument echoed that of Kevin Hassett, Trumps head of the National Economic Council, who last month insisted that the job numbers really werent that bad.

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The below 100 [thousand] thing isnt as disturbing as it might be in the past, he said.

Trump has also insisted this week that hes very proud of his economy, even as large percentages of Americans say theyre worried about their ability to pay for good and other basics.

The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
A Trump-appointed judge on Tuesday dismissed the Department of Justices (DOJ) lawsuit against Michigan that sought to obtain the states voter registration data.

U.S. District Judge Hala Jarbou dismissed the case, citing a failure to state a claim.

Attorney General Pam Bondi has attempted to collect full voter data lists with personal information in Democratic-led states, justifying the DOJs authority under the Help America Vote Act, the National Voter Registration Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1960.

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However, Jarbou said none of those laws require states to turn over voters private information.

As explained below, the Court concludes that HAVA does not require the disclosure of any records, the NVRA does not require the disclosure of voter registration lists because they are not records concerning the implementation of list maintenance procedures, and the CRA does not require the disclosure of voter registration lists because they are not documents that come into the possession of election officials, Jarbou wrote in her opinion.

Thus, the Court will grant the motions to dismiss, she added.

It follows similar decisions from judges in Oregon and California earlier this year.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
A case brought by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) against the State of Michigan and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson was dismissed by a Grand Rapids judge on Tuesday.

Hon. Hala Y. Jarbou, who was nominated by President Trump in 2020, granted the State of Michigan and Benson's motion to dismiss a lawsuit that sought unredacted voter rolls from the Michigan Department of State (MDOS).

The DOJ requested voter rolls from multiple states, including Michigan, in an attempt to "ensure that voter registration records are accurate, accessible, and secure," according to a statement from Attorney General Pamela Bondi in September of 2025.

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Before the lawsuit was filed, Benson and MDOS delivered the public version of the voter rolls  known in Michigan as the Qualified Voter File (QVF)  to the DOJ, according to a letter from the Department of State. The public version of the QVF omits personal data like voters' Social Security Numbers.

MDOS cited Michigan Law and previous precedents from federal court rulings in their letter to the DOJ detailing why some personal information was redacted from the QVF given to the DOJ.

The DOJ then sued Michigan, along with multiple other states, seeking the unredacted version of the voter rolls.

Judge Jarbou dismissed the case brought by the DOJ, which argued that the Justice Department had authority to compel the states to disclose the full list of unredacted voter rolls under provisions of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and the Civil Rights Act of 1960. Judge Jarbou disagreed and dismissed all three claims by the DOJ.

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There is simply no basis in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for the United Statess suggestion that it can file a HAVA claim, allege no violations of HAVA, and obtain information to support its (as-yet-nonexistent) claim via discovery, Judge Jarbou wrote in his opinion.

"HAVA, the NVRA, and the CRA do not allow the United States to obtain the records at issue in this case. Therefore, the Court will grant the motions to dismiss," Judge Jarbou concluded.

The case is dismissed as a result of a recent investigation released by Macomb County Clerk Anthony Forlini  who is also running for Michigan Secretary of State as a Republican  claiming that his office discovered more than a dozen non-citizens who were registered to vote at some point in time.

Benson and the Michigan Bureau of Elections confirmed some of Forlini's findings, but said that only three of those individuals named in the investigation had an actual voting history. Benson said that one was a U.S. citizen and eligible voter, another was an apparent non-citizen who last cast a ballot in 2018 and had their voter registration cancelled in 2022, and the third voted in 2024 and was still under review.

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The study conducted by Forlini and his office used voter rolls and jury pool forms to determine if anyone who had said they weren't a citizen on a jury form showed up on voter rolls.

Many Michigan Republicans have continually backed the DOJ's now dismissed lawsuit against the State of Michigan, and a suggestion by President Donald Trump to federalize elections in states.

In October of last year, the Michigan House Election Integrity Committee approved House Resolution 196, demanding that the Department of State release the QVF to the DOJ.

"It is inconceivable, in fact, unconscionable, that the chief election officer in Michigan refuses to comply with our nation's top law enforcement officer. In other words, Pam Bondi," said Majority Vice Chair Rep. Joseph Fox (R-Fremont) at the hearing.

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Then just last week, Trump twice suggested that the federal government "take over" and "nationalize" elections ahead of the 2026 midterms.

"If a state can't run an election, I think the people behind me should do something about it," Trump said. "Because, you know, if you think about it, the state is an agent for the federal government in elections. I don't know why the federal government doesn't do 'em anyway."

Trump's statements came as the FBI seized documents in Fulton County, Ga., related to the 2020 election. There have long been concerns by some members of the GOP over the legitimacy of the county's presidential election results from 2020, where votes from that county helped Joe Biden win the state.

Whitmer called foul on the idea of federalizing elections in a video posted to social media, labeling it as unconstitutional and an "attempt to take away your constitutional right to vote." In the video, Whitmer claimed that the federalization of elections is "not going to happen on my watch."

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Benson also pushed back against the idea of federalizing elections in an interview with Laura Coates on CNN. Benson said that President Trump has been revisiting past conspiracy theories regarding the 2020 election, asking, "Why now?"

"This also feels like an effort to deter us from holding him accountable at the ballot box either this fall, in 2028, by suggesting falsely that the federal government should have any role or have any role overseeing elections. Elections are run by the states. We do it very well with integrity, securely and effectively, time and time again," Benson said in the interview.
President Donald Trumps proposed Independence Arch could pose a danger to flights in the Washington, D.C., area, according to a new report.

Trump is pushing to install a 250-foot-tall arch in the nations capital to celebrate the countrys 250th anniversary this year, according to CNN. The arch would be placed between the iconic Lincoln Memorial and the Arlington National Cemetery.

Trump said hed like the arch to be the biggest one of all as he spoke to reporters on Air Force One earlier this month. "We're the biggest, most powerful nation, he added.

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At 250 feet, the arch would be taller than both the White House and the Lincoln Memorial. But that height could also create concerns about air safety in the region, CNN reports.

Thats because the arch would be placed near a corridor used by flights approaching from the north, an area where planes fly at an altitude of just 492 feet, according to CNN.

President Donald Trumps Independence Arch could be so tall that it creates air safety concerns, a new report reveals (AFP/Getty)

Trumps arch would overtake Mexico Citys Monumento a la Revolucion, the worlds tallest memorial arch, by 30 feet (AFP via Getty Images)

The height and design plans of the Arch have not been finalized at this time, a White House official told The Independent.

Any reporting otherwise is speculation. The Trump Administration looks forward to completing this project safely in the near future, the official said.

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The Federal Aviation Administration, when reached for comment, referred The Independent to the White House.

Experts have raised other concerns about Trumps proposed arch. Bryan Clark Green, an architectural historian and historic preservationist who has served on the National Capital Planning Commission, told CNN he had reservations about its size.

The idea of doing a monument in this site could be really compelling if it were scaled properly and sized properly, he said. I think this is entirely too big. Its just going to absolutely dominate the site, dominate the monuments around it.

Its placement could also obstruct the view between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington House, a major landmark in the Arlington National Cemetery and the home of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, CNN reports.

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Earlier this month, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told The Independent the arch is going to be one of the most iconic landmarks not only in Washington, D.C., but throughout the world.

President Donald Trumps Independence Arch could obstruct the view between the Lincoln Memorial and the Arlington National Cemetery, a new report says (AFP via Getty Images)

Trumps proposed arch would be the second-tallest monument in D.C., behind only the Washington Monument (Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

President Trumps bold vision will be imprinted upon the fabric of America and be felt by generations to come. His successes will continue to give the greatest Nation on earth  America  the glory it deserves, he said.

Trumps arch, if built to stand at 250 feet, would dwarf similar monuments around the world. The Arc de Triomphe in Paris measures 164 feet, while Mexico Citys Monumento a la Revolucion, the worlds largest memorial arch, stands at 220 feet.

Over the last year, Trump has undertaken several projects that have impacted Washington-area landmarks.

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Last year, he tore down part of the White Houses East Wing to make room for his $400 million ballroom addition. He also added his name to multiple buildings in the area, including the Kennedy Center and the U.S. Institute for Peace.

While the arch is expected to get the approval of two D.C.-based review bodies stacked with Trump allies, it could face hurdles at steps that require public input, CNN reports.

This isnt about whether an arch is good or bad. Its about whether a 250-foot structure that would dwarf the Lincoln Memorial and block iconic views of Arlington National Cemetery would harm historic resources and should be sited elsewhere, Greg Werkheiser, an attorney who specializes in historic preservation, told CNN.

Will the president follow the laws that give the public a voice in these decisions? he added.
The world is in an era of wrecking-ball politics led by US President Donald Trump, and its putting the decadeslong prosperous international order under unprecedented strain, according to the Munich Security Report 2026.

The annual report, released ahead of the Munich Security Conference, described Trump point blank as the most powerful figure challenging existing rules and institutions, arguing that his approach risks dismantling long-standing alliances and norms.

More than 80 years after construction began, the US-led post-1945 international order is now under destruction, the report said.

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The report labeled Trump one of the most prominent demolition men.

At last years event, which annually gathers top security officials and academics, Vice President JD Vance shocked the audience with a speech lambasting European leaders on censorship and migration and claiming the continents threat came from within.

Vances speech, then just a few weeks into the second Trump administration, set the tone for a year of tumult, including punitive US tariffs on close European allies, the threat of US military action to take over the territory of Greenland from NATO ally Denmark, and deference to Russia over its illegal invasion of Ukraine.

The report also called Trump the most powerful of those who take the axe to existing rules and institutions.

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His actions could yield a world shaped by transactional deals rather than principled cooperation, it said.

Critics fear Trumps policies will pave the way for a world that privileges the rich and powerful, not the wider mass of people who have placed their hopes in disruptive change, according to the report.

US Vice President JD Vance gives a speech at the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, February 14, 2025. REUTERS/Leah Millis - Leah Millis/Reuters

Public opinion surveys conducted for the report show much of the world is already fearful that is happening.

The surveys show widespread skepticism that governments can really fix problems like the affordability crisis, rising inequality, declining upward mobility, and stagnating or declining living standards.

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There is a growing sense of growing individual and collective helplessness and doom, the report said.

In France, 60% of respondents said their governments policies will leave future generations worse off, as did 53% in the United Kingdom and 51% in Germany. In the US, that figure was 45%.

And the surveys put most of the blame for that sense of doom on Trump.

Asked if the US presidents policies are good for the world, half or more of the respondents in the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, Brazil and South Africa said they slightly or strongly disagreed.

The Munich Security Conference runs Friday through Sunday in the Bavarian city. More than 50 heads of state and government are expected to attend, according to the events website.

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Trump, however, is not going. The US will be represented by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and by more than 50 members of Congress, conference chairman Wolfgang Ischinger said, according to a Reuters report.

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WASHINGTON  More than a year after Attorney General Pam Bondi created a Weaponization Working Group meant to root out abuses of the criminal justice process by federal law enforcement officers in their investigations of President Donald Trump, the Justice Department is scrambling to produce a report, according to a person directly familiar with the groups work.

Ed Martin, named to lead it in May, was removed from his job last week with no public explanation.

Justice Department leaders are pressuring the group to deliver results in the coming weeks; members plan to meet daily to work through the investigative areas Bondi laid out as priorities, the person said. Another person familiar with the groups work said it is expected to produce its first report soon.

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The Justice Department is actively looking into the areas outlined in Attorney General Bondis Day One memo, a Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement. The Weaponization Working Group is diligently working to restore integrity to the Department of Justice and is utilizing resources across the entire agency to fulfill this effort.

The pressure comes as a frustrated Trump has complained about Bondi to aides and allies in recent weeks, describing her as weak and insufficiently aggressive in pursuing cases against his perceived opponents, according to a White House official who had direct knowledge of the comments. Shortly afterward, Justice Department officials involved in the group said they were berated over their inability to produce so far, the person said.

The White House official said that despite the criticism, Bondi was not thought to be in danger of losing her job. Trump has publicly said she retains his trust.

Pam is doing an excellent job. She has been my friend for many years. Tremendous progress is being made against radical left lunatics," who are good at only one thing, cheating in elections and the crimes they commit, Trump said in a statement from the White House.

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The White House also sent words of praise for Bondi from Vice President JD Vance, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and press secretary Karoline Leavitt. The Wall Street Journal first reported Trumps complaints.

The working group was established following an executive order from Trump called Ending the Weaponization of the Government, which directed his administration to take appropriate action to correct past misconduct.

The goal, according to Bondis Feb. 5, 2025, memo, was to review the actions of those who pursued investigations the administration deemed political.

Trump was charged in two separate federal cases, one about his handling of classified documents and the other about his actions to overturn the 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. A judge ended the documents case, and the election case was dropped after he won re-election.

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Trump was also tried and convicted in a New York hush-money case headed by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and New York Attorney General Letitia James successfully sued him, three of his adult children and his employees on accusations of inflating the value of some properties.

Trump has long fumed over the prosecutions against him, which he has decried a witch hunt, and has said he committed no crimes. He is appealing the decisions; a New York appeals court has dismissed the civil fraud penalty.

He has also posted a message to Bondi on social media pressuring her to take action against a number of his political foes.

In an interview with NBC Nightly News last week, Trump asserted that he could be more directly involved in federal prosecutions if he desired.

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I think Im extremely moderate, especially for what they did to me, he said. Im the chief law enforcement officer of the United States. I could be involved, but Im not.

The Justice Department building in Washington, D.C. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images) (Kent Nishimura)

To many career federal prosecutors, its the Trump administration doing the weaponizing, using the powers of the Justice Department to create flashy headlines and launch shaky investigations for political purposes.

Legally speaking, they certainly havent clocked any wins, said Stacey Young, a Justice Department veteran under both Republican and Democratic presidents who left last January 2025 and founded the group Justice Connection, a nonprofit organization that seeks to support the Justice Department workforce.

Two cases, one against James and the other against former FBI Director James Comey, have been tossed out by a federal judge who ruled that Lindsay Halligans appointment as the U.S. attorney for Eastern Virginia was invalid. Justice Department officials are weighing whether to re-charge Comey; an investigation into Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., has stalled.

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In addition, the Justice Department has ousted career FBI agents and prosecutors and launched legally unprecedented investigations into six Democratic lawmakers, as well as the governor of Minnesota and the mayor of Minneapolis, all in connection with their political speech.

They basically succeeded in creating the starkest example of this administrations hypocrisy by naming a working group that was created to weaponize the Department of Justice the Weaponization Working Group, Young said.

Young said that Trump has used the Justice Department against political enemies more than any administration in the departments history and that the administration is running roughshod over the institutional norms that kept DOJ honest and unbiased, leaving the country in a dangerous and unprecedented situation.

Bondis memo laid out seven areas of focus:

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Former special counsel Jack Smiths criminal investigations into Trump.

Federal cooperation with Bragg and James in their Trump investigations.

Alleged improper investigative tactics and unethical prosecutions of Jan. 6 cases.

A January 2023 FBI memo that pointed out a possible radical-traditionalist Catholic ideology.

A 2021 Justice Department memo about threats against school boards.

Criminal prosecutions of non-violent protest activity under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which protects reproductive health facilities.

Alleged retaliatory targeting of legitimate whistleblowers.

According to the person who had direct knowledge of the teams work, members hope to make progress on the points in the coming weeks but say the look into the former special counsel will take the most time.

Some of those involved in the groups work have heard little. Brian Mock, a Jan. 6 defendant who recently announced a campaign for the state Senate in Minnesota, met once with the groups former leader but has not heard from it since. Mock said he provided it with materials about how Jan. 6 defendants were treated behind bars. He is not sure what will end up happening with the report, but he believes figures within the Justice Department are defying Trump and standing in the way.

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I look at it as just total swamp creatures protecting the country club. Those who are actually trying to go after and hold people accountable are clearly being stopped by someone, Mock said.

Steve Friend, a former FBI special agent who refused to participate in the arrest of a Jan. 6 defendant, said neither he nor several other FBI employees who claimed whistleblower status that he is in contact with had heard from the group. Friend had a close relationship with now-FBI Director Kash Patel before Patels appointment.

Friend said that he did not expect he would be the first person the group would call but that he did expect to be on the list. And theres been no effort to communicate with me, he said.

And while the working group is investigating whether the FACE Act was used against nonviolent antiabortion protesters, according to the person familiar with the group, the Justice Department is trying to use the same charges to prosecute nine people in connection with a nonviolent protest in a church in St. Paul, Minnesota, including former CNN host Don Lemon, another journalist and a group of anti-ICE demonstrators. Bondi has described the protest as an attack.

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The total size of the group is not clear. At one point, members were working with officials in the Director of National Intelligences Office, the CIA, the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security, according to the person.

Colin McDonald, whom Trump recently nominated to a new national fraud enforcement position, is involved, according to the person familiar with the group, along with Christopher-James DeLorenz, a former clerk for U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who threw out the special counsels case against Trump over his handling of classified documents.

NBC News has reported on other Justice Department officials who have worked on the project: a Jan. 6 defendant who was captured on video yelling kill em at officers protecting the U.S. Capitol during the 2021 attack and a former Oregon judge who faced a series of ethical issues and was suspended from the bench.

The Justice Department has not said who is running the working group now. Martin, its former head, is a longtime conservative activist and advocate for Jan. 6 defendants. He went into the job saying he would name and shame people who were not charged with federal crimes, which would be a sharp departure from standard Justice Department practices.

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Martin said Monday on X that any chatter about his relationship with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche was FakeNews. Blanche reposted the message and wrote: Truth. See you at work, Ed. Lets go!

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump is excluding at least two Democratic governors from a White House dinner this month with the nation's governors as he breaks from the historically bipartisan nature of the annual gathering.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis  both regular Democratic targets of Trump  have been disinvited from the White House dinner with the National Governors Association.

In addition, Trump is only inviting Republican governors to a winter meeting between the White House and NGA that has traditionally featured all governors from both parties.

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The meeting and dinner are set to take place when the NGA meets in Washington, DC from Feb. 19 to 21.

"The bipartisan White House governors meeting is an important tradition, and we are disappointed in the administrations decision to make it a partisan occasion this year," Brandon Tatum, CEO of the National Governors Association, said in a statement. "To disinvite individual governors to the White House sessions undermines an important opportunity for federal-state collaboration."

More: 'I didn't make a mistake' Trump says of post depicting Obamas as apes

The New York Times first reported Trump's changes to the White House events. It was not immediately clear why only Moore and Polis were snubbed from the dinner and not other Democrats whom Trump has criticized.

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"Many Democrats were invited to dinner at the White House, and others were not," a White House official said in a statement. "These are White House events and the President reserves the right to invite whomever he wants.

Trump last year clashed with Moore over the president's threats to send the National Guard into Baltimore, even suggesting at one point he could withhold funds to help with the rebuilding of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore participates in a discussion on bipartisanship at the National Press Club on September 04, 2025 in Washington, DC.

More: Trump moves to dismantle major US climate research center in Colorado

Trump has attacked Polis repeatedly and used the federal government to punish Colorado over the state's imprisonment of Tina Peters. The former county clerk in Colorado was convicted of multiple crimes for letting someone access data from a secure voting system in an effort to prove unsubstantiated 2020 election conspiracies.

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In recent weeks, Trump has blocked the completion of a major water pipeline in Colorado, pulled grant dollars from the state and moved to dismantle a major climate research center.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis holds his dog Gia at the National Governors Association meeting in Colorado Springs, Colorado, U.S., July 26, 2025.

"As the nations only Black governor, I cant ignore that being singled out for exclusion from this bipartisan tradition carries an added weight  whether that was the intent or not," said Moore, who serves as vice president of the NGA, in a post on X.

He said being excluded from the gathering with governors is "especially confounding," given that he was part of a bipartisan group of governors that met with Trump three weeks ago to discuss reforms to lower energy costs.

"Im ready to work with the administration anywhere we can deliver results. Yet, I promised the people of my state I will work with anybody but will bow down to nobody," Moore said. "And I guess the President doesnt like that."

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters on board Air Force One en route to Palm Beach, Florida, on Feb. 6, 2026.

More: See you in court. Trump, Maine governor clash in tense exchange at White House

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Polis was not given a reason for why he was excluded from the dinner. Eric Maruyama, the governor's deputy press secretary, said in a statement, "This is a disappointing decision for a traditionally bipartisan event between Governors and whoever occupies the White House.

During Trump's meeting with governors in 2025, the president had a memorable confrontation with Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, over his threat to withhold federal funds from states that allow transgender athletes to play in girls' and women's sports.

A heated exchange between Trump and Mills erupted as the president addressed the group. It ended with the governor telling Trump, "We'll see you in court."

Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: MD Gov. Wes Moore excluded from Trump White House dinner with governors
After announcing that he will only host Republicans during the annual presidential meeting with governors, Donald Trump has excluded the only out gay man and only Black governors from the following dinner event.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore have not been invited to the White House dinner with the National Governors Association, which Moore is a vice chair of. The decision comes seemingly for no reason  other than the obvious.

Related: Colorado's Jared Polis Is First Out Gay Man Reelected Governor

Governor Polis and other Governors are focused on delivering results for our states, not playing games, a spokesperson for Polis told The Advocate. Governor Polis does welcome recommendations for popular local restaurants now that he and other Democratic Governors may have a free evening to explore the best DC has to offer.

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The White House hosts a bipartisan meeting with the NGA every winter, with this year's scheduled for February 19 to 21. Trump announced last week that the meeting would exclude Democrats, prompting the NGA to withdraw its association from the event.

All governors are still invited to dinner at the White House after the meeting  except for Moore, who is Black, and Polis, who is an out gay man. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey and Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, who are both out lesbians, still have invitations as of this moment.

No specific reason has been given for Moore's and Polis's exclusions, though both have long been at odds with the Trump administration. Polis has often spoken out against the president, famously using South Park art to mock his presidential portrait in the Colorado capitol.

Related: Out gay Colorado Gov. Jared Polis mocks Donald Trump's 'unflattering painting'

Trump threatened in August to deploy the National Guard in Baltimore, which he has in other Democratic cities in a supposed crackdown on crime. When Moore invited him to visit the city and see its safety firsthand, Trump threatened to withdraw federal funding for the Key Bridge.

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"Its not lost on me that Im the only Black governor in this country," Moore said in a recent appearance on CNNs State of the Union. "And I find that to be particularly painful, considering the fact that the president is trying to exclude me from an organization that not only my peers have asked me to help to lead, but then also a place where I know I belong in."

"I have long learned  and Ive talked to the people and the children of my state  that I am never in a room because of someones benevolence or kindness," Moore continued. "Im not in a room because of a social experiment. Im in the room because I belong there and the room was incomplete until I got there."

This article has been updated to include comment from Polis.

This article originally appeared on Advocate: Trump excludes the only gay man and Black governors from White House dinner

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Moderate House Republicans worried about this years midterm elections appear ready to finally break with President Donald Trump over his signature economic policy.

In a bid to protect Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson has repeatedly introduced procedural rules banning members from bringing up resolutions challenging the presidents crushing tariffs on products from dozens of U.S. trading partners.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has spent months protecting Donald Trump from resolutions challenging his trade wars. / Kevin Dietsch / Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

On Tuesday, Johnson planned to ask the House to extend the ban through August. But this time, key Republicans signaled they would likely vote against the measure, Punchbowl reported.

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American consumers pay the tariffs and thus it is a big tax, Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska told the outlet. I support giving these authorities back to Congress.

Rep. Kevin Kiley of California also told Punchbowl that he had made it clear he was not in favor of extending the blockade.

With full attendance, two Republican defectors would be enough to sink Johnsons proposed extension, opening the door to a flood of Democratic resolutions challenging the increasingly unpopular tariffs.

The vote is likely to be close, as some Republicans are still holding out hope the Supreme Court will strike down the tariffs, easing voters concerns while sparing them a confrontation with the president, according to Punchbowl.

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The duties are a form of import tax paid by American companies, which must either eat the additional costs or pass them along to consumers.

NATO's Secretary-General Mark Rutte convinced President Trump to back off his latest tariff threats. / Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Trump has repeatedly claimed the bulk of the costs fall on foreign producers and middlemen, when in fact Americans pay one way or the othervia higher prices or less choice, the opinion editors of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal wrote last week.

Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro acknowledged in December that U.S. manufacturing was down thanks to the tariffs, which have also contributed to higher prices and led to intense trade volatility.

Tariffs were also at the center of an international scandal last month after the president threatened to impose duties on products from countries that opposed his efforts to seize Greenland, an autonomous region of a fellow NATO country, Denmark.

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He ultimately dropped the threat after NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte talked him down during a meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

House Republicans would need the White House's help fending off a measure to end Trump's tariffs on products from Canada. Here the president is pictured in the Oval Office with Prime Minister Mark Carney. / The Washington Post / The Washington Post via Getty Im

If Johnsons procedural vote fails, Democrats are likely to force votes as early as this week on resolutions to overturn Trumps tariffs on products from Mexico and Canada, followed by resolutions aimed at tariffs on Brazilian products and products from other global trade partners.

The Canada vote in particular would be a difficult one for Republicans and would require the White Houses intervention, Johnson told Puck.

While Trump could ultimately veto any resolution reining in his trade wars, a rebuke from Congress would nevertheless be politically damaging.

The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
A Trump-appointed judge blocked an attempt by the Department of Justice to seize the state of Michigans voter rolls Tuesday.

U.S. District Court Judge Hala Jarbou ruled that federal law does not require Michigan to turn over voter registration lists or voters personal information, and dismissed the case. The Trump administration wanted an electronic copy of Michigans voter registration list of eight million voters, complete with full names, birth dates, addresses, and either drivers license numbers or partial Social Security numbers. It will likely appeal the ruling.

The president was also rebuffed in court last month for trying to get Oregon and California to hand over their voter registration data. Its all part of a plan to centralize voter information under the direction of the White House, raising issues of what the Trump administration plans to do with that data.

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Trumps Department of Justice has reportedly sent draft agreements to several states that would give the federal government the ability to flag voters names and order states to remove them from the rolls. Some Republican-run states, such as Alaska and Texas, have agreed to do this, while other states, controlled by both Democrats and Republicans, have refused.

In Minnesota, the Trump administration tried to use the federal immigration crackdown in the state to leverage Governor Tim Walz into handing over not only his states voter registration data but also Medicaid and SNAP records. Walz said no.

President Trump has been fearmongering about the 2026 midterm elections for months, making baseless claims about voter fraud and election rigging recycled from 2020. In recent weeks, Trump has spoken of taking over elections. This, coupled with the FBI raid of a Georgia elections office last month and former Trump adviser Steve Bannons suggestion to send ICE to the polls, reveals how much Trump wants to rig the midterms.
Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) warned that Americans are being diverted from the critical issue of health care affordability while political attention shifts to unrelated topics.

Health Insurance Costs Ignored Amid Political Distractions

On Saturday, Suozzi posted on X, sharing a clip of a speech in which he criticized President Donald Trump for diverting focus from rising insurance premiums.

"Trump is a master of distraction," Suozzi said. "The affordability of health care was the main topic throughout the fall and through December."

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He added, "When we returned in January, the president changed the topic to Venezuela and Greenland and other hot button topics, but the skyrocketing health insurance costs was pushed off the front page."

In the video, Suozzi likened Trump's strategy to a pickpocket, saying, "one guy bumps into you, and when he bumps into you, youre distracted, the other guy picks your pocket."

He urged lawmakers and the public not to be diverted, emphasizing ongoing efforts in Congress to extend premium tax credits that lower insurance costs.

"We had this tremendous victory, we persuaded Republicans to go against Mike Johnson, to go against Donald Trump and to sign whats called a discharge petition, to force something on the floor to extend the premium tax credits. It was a major, major legislative victory," Suozzi said.

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He added, "Were going to work together, were going to fight our way forward, were going to get this thing done, were going to compromise, were going to do it in a way that actually helps people and makes their lives better."

Trump is a master of distraction. The affordability of health care was the main topic throughout the fall and through December.



When we returned in January, the president changed the topic to Venezuela and Greenland and other hot button topics, but the skyrocketing health pic.twitter.com/2VKaaLKnds  Tom Suozzi (@Tom_Suozzi) February 7, 2026

Lawmakers Push For Affordable Housing, Health Care And Living Costs

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) criticized Trump for failing to deliver on his promise to lower everyday costs, urging him to take responsibility and work with lawmakers to address rising prices for groceries, housing, and health care.

Donald Trump has failed to keep his promise to lower prices on day one. I'm calling on him to undo the damage he has done and work with us to take real action and address the rising cost of groceries, housing, and health care. pic.twitter.com/cbSltfTbLN  Senator Mark Kelly (@SenMarkKelly) February 7, 2026

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said that housing, education, and good jobs feel unattainable for many Americans, emphasizing that bold Democratic policies can improve families' lives and strengthen communities.

Housing, education, and a good job feel out of reach for many Americans.



It doesn't have to be this way.



When Democrats have the courage to fight for policies that will make families' lives better, we win elections, and our communities win.  Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) February 7, 2026

Photo courtesy: Saku_rata160520 via Shutterstock

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This article 'Trump Is A Master Of Distraction,' Tom Suozzi Says As He Warns Rising Health Insurance Costs Are Being Pushed Off The Front Page originally appeared on Benzinga.com
President Donald Trump opposes Israels annexation of the occupied West Bank, a United States official has said, as global criticism of the move grows.

A stable West Bank keeps Israel secure, and is in line with this administrations goal to achieve peace in the region, the official said on Monday.

The comment from the Trump administration came a day after Israels far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defence Minister Israel Katz announced new measures extending Israeli control over the occupied Palestinian territory.

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The measures also make it easier for Israelis to acquire land for new settlements, which are illegal under international law.

Eight Muslim-majority countries denounced Israels move in a statement on Monday, saying that the illegal Israeli decisions and measures are aimed at imposing unlawful Israeli sovereignty over Palestinian territory.

Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and the United Arab Emirates said the measures were an attempt at entrenching settlement activity, and enforcing a new legal and administrative reality in the occupied West Bank, thereby accelerating attempts at its illegal annexation and the displacement of the Palestinian people.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the United Kingdom and Spain also joined the rising chorus of condemnation, with the UN chief saying Israels actions were destabilising and corrosive to the prospects for a two-state solution, according to his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric.

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Al Jazeeras Gabriel Elizondo asked Dujarric in a news conference at the UN headquarters in New York if Guterres considered Israels measures a de facto annexation of the occupied West Bank.

These decisions are not moving us in the right direction. They are driving us further and further away from a two-state solution and from the ability of the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people to control their own destiny, Dujarric said.

Elizondo also asked the spokesman what the UN chief could do to deter Israel.

The secretary-general will continue to advocate for the respect of international law. Hell continue to push for a two-state solution. But he cant do it alone. We want others to do so as well, Dujarric said.

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The UK government called on Israel to reverse its decision in a statement on Monday.

The UK strongly condemns the Israeli Security Cabinets decision yesterday to expand Israeli control over the West Bank, the government said in a statement.

Any unilateral attempt to alter the geographic or demographic makeup of Palestine is wholly unacceptable and would be inconsistent with international law. We call on Israel to reverse these decisions immediately, it added.





The controversial Israeli measures include transferring authority over building permits in Hebron, the occupied West Banks largest city, from the Palestinian Authority to Israel.

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The measures also strengthen Israeli control over two major religious sites in the southern part of the occupied West Bank: Rachels Tomb near Bethlehem and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

Israeli minister Smotrich said on Sunday that the changes were aimed at deepening our roots in all regions of the Land of Israel and burying the idea of a Palestinian state.

In a statement late on Monday, Spains Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned Israels decision, saying it is contrary to international law and threatens to trigger more violence in Gaza.

These measures and any attempt at annexation are unacceptable and jeopardise current efforts to implement the Peace Plan and the ceasefire, increasing the risk of triggering a new wave of violence, the Foreign Ministry said.

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The Spanish Government urges the Israeli Government to comply with its obligations as an occupying power under the Fourth Geneva Convention, and to put an end to its expansionist offensive and the impunity that protects the settlers, it said.

The Spanish Government strongly condemns the Israeli Government's decisions to repeal the law limiting the acquisition of real estate and the registration of property in the West Bank.  https://t.co/NmnqgQYy8F pic.twitter.com/njaTy8zWcc  Spain MFA (@SpainMFA) February 9, 2026

The European Union also denounced the move earlier in the day.

The European Union condemns recent decisions by Israels security cabinet to expand Israeli control in the West Bank. This move is another step in the wrong direction, EU spokesman Anouar el Anouni told reporters.
WASHINGTON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - A White House official on Monday reiterated U.S. President Donald Trump's opposition toward Israel annexing the West Bank.

"A stable West Bank keeps Israel secure and is in line with this administrations goal to achieve peace in the region," the official said.

(Reporting by Costas Pitas)
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President Donald Trumps mass deportation campaign seemed to hit a horrifying crescendo in the last month, with chaos in the streets of Minneapolis stretching the citys populace to a near-breaking point. Unfortunately, the situation is about to get worse. On Friday, two far-right judges greenlit the Trump administrations radical reinterpretation of federal law that would sweep millions more immigrants into mandatory detention, potentially expanding the mass deportation machinery in new and horrifying ways. Their 21 decision for the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would transform the entire United States into a permanent border zone where unauthorized immigrants can be jailed indefinitely without bond, even years after they arrived. It supercharges the administrations push to build an archipelago of mass detention centers larger than any existing jail or prison in the country. These mega-warehouseswhich are not designed for human habitationwill hold up to 10,000 immigrants each, with little oversight and little recourse for detainees whose rights are violated. Even as public outrage over Trumps mass deportation campaign intensifies, the legal and physical infrastructure of the plan are rapidly falling into place.

The 5th Circuits Friday decision gives new legal muscle to the Stephen Millerorchestrated mass deportation campaign by endorsing the administrations audacious rereading of a 1996 immigration law governing the detention of unauthorized migrants. For nearly 30 years, both the executive branch and the federal judiciary have understood this statute to draw a sharp line between migrants seeking admission at the border and those already in the country. The former are subject to mandatory detention without bond (with a few narrow exceptions). The latter, by contrast, can seek release on bond. If that request is denied, they can demand a bond hearing before an immigration judge. Most of the roughly 11 million immigrants without permanent legal status in the U.S. today fall into this second, bond-eligible group.

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In July, the Trump administration collapsed the long-standing distinction between new arrivals and everyone else. It announced that it had revisited its view of the law and concluded that unauthorized immigrants already present in the United States are subject to mandatory detention, just like migrants encountered at the border. To reach that result, the government asserted that anyone who was never legally admitted to the country must, by definition, be seeking admission today. Under its theory, an immigrant who has lived here for decades is subject to the same harsh rules as someone who tried to cross the border yesterday. This shift empowered Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain exponentially more immigrants without bond, prompting a flood of habeas petitions from those detainees challenging their confinement. Indeed, according to ProPublica, noncitizens have filed more of these petitions in the last 13 months than in the last three administrations combined.

Although the Trump-stacked Board of Immigration Appeals swiftly adopted the administrations distortion of the statute, federal judges have overwhelmingly rejected it and freed detainees in habeas proceedings. As Kyle Cheney reported in Politico, at least 360 judges have spurned the governments reasoning in more than 3,000 cases. Theyve done so in increasingly alarmed terms. Last week, Judge Thomas E. Johnston, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote: It is appalling that the government insists that this Court should redefine or completely disregard the current law as it is clearly written, deriding the administrations theory as dystopian absurdity.

The problem, as these judges have explained, is that an unauthorized immigrant whos already present in the country is not seeking admission at all; they are seeking to remain here. Yet ICE is detaining them under a statute reserved for new arrivals. By doing so, the agency is flagrantly breaking the law. So judges keep ordering ICE to release detaineesorders the agency has repeatedly flouted, prompting scathing judicial rebukes around the country.

On Friday, however, the administration finally caught a break at the 5th Circuit, the nations most reactionary appeals court. Justice Department officials maneuvered to ensure that the court would take up the question as quickly as possible, evidently hoping to notch a win. Two far-right judges, Edith Jones and Kyle Duncan, were happy to oblige: They embraced the administrations reinterpretation on an expedited schedule, over a furious dissent by Judge Dana Douglas, who warned: The border is now everywhere. With this decision in hand, ICE can enforce the mandatory detention policy in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, the three states covered by the circuit. (The agency had been funneling migrants from other jurisdictions into these states already, perhaps in anticipation of such a ruling.)

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Jones and Duncans rush to bless this mandatory detention policy smooths the path for another component of Trumps mass deportation push: The use of mega-warehouses to detain up to 10,000 noncitizens each and supplement the much smaller facilities that currently house detainees. ICE has been buying up these warehouses over the last few monthsreportedly above market value to speed up the transactionsand converting them into makeshift detention camps. More than a quarter of the proposed sites fall within the 5th Circuit. As the American Immigration Councils Aaron Reichlin-Melnick has pointed out, these detention facilities will house far more people than any jail or prison in the U.S. today.

Reichlin-Melnick told me on Tuesday that the mandatory detention policy now supported by the 5th Circuit is a key part of the plan to fill these warehouses. To achieve the broader project of mass deportation, Reichlin-Melnick said, you need both the legal authority and physical space. The governments draconian rereading of immigration law provides the legal authority. Warehouses provide the physical spaces.

The overarching goal is to condemn as many noncitizens as possible to these sites, then hold them there without bond until they are so desperate and miserable that they agree to be deported. ICE already subjects its detainees to horrific, degrading, and inhumane conditions while blocking attempts at meaningful oversight. The situation may grow even more dire once the agency begins locking hundreds of thousands of noncitizensmany of whom may have lived here for years with pending legal claims to resolve their statusin industrial buildings that were never designed to hold human beings. Those subject to abuse at the hands of ICE officers will have no real mechanism for redress.

Even before the mandatory detention policy, noncitizens faced an uphill battle when seeking bond before an immigration judge. Trump purged many of these judges (who lack tenure) for alleged leniency, replacing them with ideologically aligned substitutes. But release on bond was still a real possibility for those who could show that they did not pose a flight risk or danger to the community. Now the government has shut off that safety valve, andat least in the 5th Circuitthe machinery of detention can run at full speed. A series of Supreme Court decisions have closed off the possibility of a nationwide injunction or class action that could put a stop to this regime all at once. Immigrants only hope is that SCOTUS will swiftly and definitively shoot down the governments contortion of the statute.

There is some reason for optimism that it will. Just eight years ago, the conservative justices appeared to foreclose the conflation of new arrivals and longer-term residents, acknowledging that the latter group is eligible for bond. But this Supreme Court has repeatedly twisted the law for Trump, particularly in his quest to immiserate noncitizens, and theres no guarantee it will resist this act of legal vandalism. The administration is proceeding as if it already has the justices in its pocket. Unless and until they intervene, each new warehouse moves the country one step closer to the presidents vision of an American gulag.
President Donald Trumps plan to have private donors fund his new $400 million White House ballroom may cost him the entire project, as a federal judge will soon decide whether the administration is allowed to rely on fundraising to bypass congressional approval.

U.S. District Judge Ricard Leon says he may rule this month on a lawsuit filed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in December to halt the ballrooms construction, according to the Washington Post.

Trump has argued that using private donations to pay for the project keeps the burden off taxpayers, but critics say the plan highlights a lack of transparency about how the expansion is being funded.

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Democrats and watchdog groups have raised questions about the arrangement, which relies on donations from big corporations and businesses. The donations are then routed through a nonprofit intermediary, which also profits, having received millions of dollars in fees, according to the Post.

The Trump administration has already found a lengthy list of donors, including Big Tech giants Amazon, Apple, Google, HP and Microsoft  as well as other well-known companies like Coinbase, Lockheed Martin, Palantir Technologies and T-Mobile.

A federal judge will soon decide whether President Donald Trumps administration is allowed to rely on private donations to fund its new $400 million ballroom expansion, according to a report (Getty Images)

Trump has previously said that using donations to fund the project keeps taxpayers from fronting the bill (AFP via Getty Images)

Most of the donors have declined to say how much theyve given. However, the watchdog group CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) says at least 22 companies involved in the project failed to disclose their donations in lobbying filings.

During a hearing for the lawsuit brought by the National Trust for Historic Preservation held in January, Leon shared his reservations about proceeding without congressional approval. He also questioned whether Trump possessed the statutory power to dismantle the East Wing and build a ballroom in its place without explicit oversight or authorization from Congress.

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, is urging the Trust for the National Mall, a nonprofit managing the projects donations, to clarify its role and share information about the donations it has received.

The organization declined to provide details to the Post about the gifts, but said it collects between 2 and 2.5 percent of each donation as part of a management fee. A spokesperson said the fee is standard practice.

The White House has declined to specify how much money has been raised for the project, which has doubled in cost from its initial estimate of $200 million last summer.

Soon after plans for the ballroom were announced, the East Wing was demolished without and public review process. (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

President Trump is generously donating his time and resources to build a beautiful White House ballroom, a project which past presidents only dreamed about, White House spokesman Davis Ingle said. Since announcing this historic plan, the White House has been inundated with calls from generous Americans and American companies wishing to contribute.

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In October, Trump hosted an opulent gala dinner for some of his sponsors in the East Room of the White House  which coincided with the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, lasting 43 days.

Soon after plans to replace the East Wing with a new ballroom were announced, demolition began without any extensive public review process. The ballroom is projected to be approximately 90,000 square feet, and the attached New East Wing complex will include a new office for the First Lady, a movie theater and commercial kitchen.

No president is legally allowed to tear down portions of the White House without any review whatsoever  not President Trump, not President Joe Biden, and not anyone else, the lawsuit filed in December says.

However, in December Leon declined to immediately pause construction of the project, and Trumps Department of Justice is moving to ensure that doesnt change.

Trump was sued in December by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which is challenging the legality of the project (Getty Images)

A DOJ filing asked a federal judge overseeing the lawsuit to stay any injunction on the construction over alleged national security concerns, ABC News reported.

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"[A]s the Secret Service attested, halting construction would imperil the President and others who live and work in the White House," the administration argues in the filing.

The Trump administration said it will also be submitting a second classified statement from the Secret Service to further support its argument that stopping construction at the site will "endanger national security and therefore impair the public interest."

The filing claims that leaving the project incomplete would be a risk to national security. The DOJ filing comes after Judge Leon first made it clear he was skeptical of Trumps claim that he could use private donations to fund the ballrooms construction.
WASHINGTON  The Trump administration is preparing to rescind an Obama-era scientific finding that has served as the legal underpinning for federal regulations targeting greenhouse gases for more than a decade.

In a major blow to federal efforts to combat climate change, the Environmental Protection Agency will take action on Feb. 12 to repeal what's known as the "endangerment finding," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a Feb. 10 briefing with reporters.

The EPA's endangerment finding, signed in 2009 during the Obama administration, says current and projected concentrations of six key greenhouses gases in the atmosphere "threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations." A related EPA finding, signed in tandem, singles out new motor vehicles and engines as contributors to greenhouse gas pollution.

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The action, a potential boon for the fossil fuel industry, marks the most sweeping step the Trump administration has taken to roll back federal regulations targeting climate change, which President Donald Trump regularly mocks as a "hoax" and a "con job." Trump has also withdrawn the United States from global efforts to fight climate change.

More: Trump withdraws US from 66 international organizations and treaties

The endangerment finding provides the basis for the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. But with its elimination, the Trump administration would effectively undo the regulations. The EPA "would lack statutory authority to regulate emissions based on global climate change concerns" under the Clean Air Act, the EPA wrote in a proposal submitted in August 2025 to rescind the finding.

Leavitt said the revocation will mark "the largest deregulatory action in American history" and claimed it will save Americans $1.3 trillion. She pointed to reduced costs for new vehicles, with the EPA projecting more than $2,400 in future savings per vehicle purchased.

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"This week, we make history," EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin wrote in a post on X.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin speaks during a cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump and other members of the administration, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 29, 2026.

Environmental groups slam EPA rollback

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the administration's plans for the repeal. Environmental and public health advocacy groups have worked for weeks to oppose rolling back the finding, which cites carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases as threat to public health. On Feb. 10, groups quickly condemned the administration after learning the finding would indeed be repealed despite their efforts.

The Trump administration is sacrificing our health, our safety, our economy, and our future by abandoning its core responsibility to keep us safe from extreme weather and accelerating climate change, said Abbie Dillen, president of Earthjustice, an environmental law organization.

More: Icy weather highlights open questions about climate change effects

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Repeal of the finding cant be reconciled with EPAs requirements under the law or science, environmental groups that oppose the action have argued.

This is a slap in the face for all of the millions of Americans who are experiencing the devastating costs of extreme heat, wildfires, flooding, and storms, Dillen said Feb. 10. Earthjustice and our partners will see the Trump administration in court.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum stand behind U.S. President Donald Trump as he holds an energy-related executive order, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 8, 2025.

The decision will bury decades of research and strip the agencys ability to protect the nation from dangerous pollution, according to Climate Power, an advocacy group focused in part on holding fossil fuel interests accountable for the role they play in environmental policy.

This decision will cost billions of dollars each year in addition to putting Americans health at risk, stated Alex Witt, Climate Powers senior adviser. This decision makes it abundantly clear that Trump is willing to make our families sicker and less safe, all to benefit a few billionaire polluters.

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More: Trump cuts reach climate scientists who labored for free

Climate advocacy groups pointed to statistics and studies that have concluded rising greenhouse gas emissions are driving more weather extremes, fueling more intense rainfall and more severe droughts.

After initially proposing the action in August 2025, the EPA received more than 570,000 public comments regarding its decision and posted about 30,000 of those on the federal docket. The American Lung Association was among the groups that opposed the proposal.

The Texas Vegetable Association was among the groups supporting the decision, saying it would lower prices that directly benefit both growers and consumers. It would "relieve Texas growers of burdensome expenses, restore competitiveness, and ensure reliable movement of fresh produce across supply chains," wrote Jed Murray, the association's government relations director.

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The repeal of the endangerment finding will come after Trump on Feb. 11 is expected to announce new executive action directing the Defense Department to purchase electricity from coal-fired power plants. The same day, the Senate Energy committee plans a closed briefing with Energy Secretary Chris Wright on oil developments in Venezuela.

Wright sparked widespread criticism from many climate scientists in 2025 for commissioning a "critical review" of the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions from five hand-picked scientists. The report, put together over just two months, challenged previously published climate science and was cited in the department's decision. Dozens of mainstream U.S. climate scientists refuted the group's report.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump to repeal finding that greenhouse gases threaten public health
President Donald Trump says he will not allow the Gordie Howe International Bridge between Detroit and Windsor to open unless Canada makes significant concessions to the U.S.

Trump said in a Feb. 9 post on Truth Social that the U.S. will open negotiations with Canada, which has footed the entire bill for the $5.7-billion bridge construction project, but believes the U.S. should probably take ownership of at least half of it.

In fact, the bridge is jointly owned by Canada and the U.S. state of Michigan, with Canada intending to recoup its upfront construction costs over time, through bridge tolls.

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The bridge is expected to open early this year, after construction began in 2020, following a 2018 groundbreaking.

"I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them, and also, importantly, Canada treats the U.S. with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve," Trump wrote.

"With all that we have given them, we should own, perhaps, at least one half of this asset."

Trump said Canada has treated the U.S. very badly for decades and noted that many Canadian provinces are not even stocking U.S. liquor on store shelves since Trump began imposing significant tariffs on many Canadian imports early in his first term. He said the bridge had been built with no U.S. content for products such as steel.

U.S. President Donald Trump poses for a photo with a worker, as he visits a Ford production center in Dearborn, Michigan, January 13, 2026.

Trump said that now, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is entering into a deal with China under which Canada will allow a certain number of Chinese electric vehicles into the Canadian market in return for lower Chinese tariffs on certain Canadian exports.

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"We'll just get the leftovers! I don't think so," Trump wrote.

President Donald Trump said in a Feb. 9 post on Truth Social that the U.S. will open negotiations with Canada regarding the Gordie Howe International Bridge.

Under an agreement pushed by former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, Canada agreed to pay the full upfront cost of the bridge and recover costs later. At the time, Republicans in the Legislature refused to provide funding for the bridge, which was opposed by the private owners of the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, the Moroun family.

Trump's statement drew negative reaction from elected officials and business groups.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin said Trump's threat is "awful for our state's economy" and pledged to work to get the project back on track.

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"Canceling this project will have serious repercussions," Slotkin said in an emailed statement. "Higher costs for Michigan businesses, less secure supply chains, and ultimately, fewer jobs. With this threat, the President is punishing Michiganders for a trade war he started. The only reason Canada is on the verge of a trade deal with China is because President Trump has kicked them in the teeth for a year."

U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, also a Democrat, described Trump's statement as "completely backwards," in a post Peters made on X, and said it is "another case of the President undermining Michigan businesses and workers."

Stacey LaRouche, a spokeswoman for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, said the bridge will be operated under a joint agreement between Michigan and Canada and the project has been "a tremendous example of bipartisan and international cooperation."

The bridge "is going to open one way or another, and the governor looks forward to attending the ribbon cutting," LaRouche said in an emailed statement.

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U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell noted that during his first term as president, Trump praised the bridge project as "a vital economic link" between the U.S. and Canada.

"The Gordie Howe Bridge was built by union workers on both sides of the border," Dingell said on X. "This border is the busiest crossing between our two countries and has been critical for not only Michigan jobs but also American jobs."

Chuck Lippstreu, president of the Michigan Agri-Business Association, said Canada is the group's leading export destination and "agricultural shippers in Michigan are hopeful to see the bridge open and operational as soon as possible."

Candace Laing, President & CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said modern border infrastructure strengthens shared economic security.

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Whether this proves real or simply threatened to keep uncertainty high  blocking or barricading bridges is a self-defeating move," Laing said in an emailed statement.

Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Trump says Gordie Howe bridge won't open without Canadian concessions
(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

President Donald Trump is set to break a longstanding tradition as he snubbed Democratic governors from an annual White House meeting with governors later this month.

The session, held alongside the National Governors Associations winter gathering, will exclude every Democratic governor, a spokesperson for the NGA told ABC News.

The bipartisan White House governors meeting is an important tradition, and we are disappointed in the administrations decision to make it a partisan occasion this year. To disinvite individual governors to the White House sessions undermines an important opportunity for federal-state collaboration, said Brandon Tatum, the NGAs acting executive director.

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The White House countered, arguing Democrats remain invited to a separate dinner for governors and their spouses, but even that gesture excludes two notable Democratic governors  Marylands Wes Moore and Colorados Jared Polis. No explanation was given.

My peers, both Democrats and Republicans, selected me to serve as the Vice Chair of the NGA, another reason why its hard not to see this decision as another example of blatant disrespect and a snub to the spirit of bipartisan federal-state partnership, Moore protested. As the nations only Black governor, I cant ignore that being singled out for exclusion from this bipartisan tradition carries an added weight  whether that was the intent or not.

This is a disappointing decision for a traditionally bipartisan event between Governors and whomever occupies the White House, Ally Sullivan, a Polis spokeswoman, told the network.

The exclusion of Polis follows months of feuding from Trump over the imprisonment of Tina Peters, a former county clerk convicted of tampering with voting systems in a state case beyond the presidents pardon power.

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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the backlash: These are White House events and the President can invite whomever he wants. With that being said, the White House has been coordinating meetings with the President, cabinet secretaries, and Democrat governors for more than a week. Democrats were invited to the dinner at the White House. This is a non-story.

The post Trump Shuts Democratic Governors Out of Annual White House Meeting: Report first appeared on Mediaite.
CBS News new, controversial editor-in-chief is at odds with the MAGA world she was reportedly hired to placate.

The Trump administration lashed out at the network and its MAGA-friendly boss, Bari Weiss, branding CBS reporting fake news after Weiss publicly questioned the administrations hostile immigration crackdown.

Weiss, 41, promoted a CBS News report on X on Monday revealing that just 14 percent of those arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement during Donald Trumps first year back in office had violent criminal records.

Bari Weiss was tapped to lead CBS in October. / Noam Galai / Getty Images for The Free Press

Is Trump really deporting the worst of the worst? Weiss wrote. Scoop here from Camilo Montoya-Galvez who got DHS internal docs.

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The Department of Homeland Securitys spokesperson then pounced on her statement.

Drug trafficking, Distribution of child pornography, burglary, fraud, DUI, embezzlement, solicitation of a minor, human smuggling are all categorized as non violent crimes, Tricia McLaughlin wrote.

Like we said, ~70% of those illegal aliens arrested under [President] Trump and [Secretary] Noem have pending criminal charges or prior convictions.

The MAGA-curious editor-in-chief of CBS clashed with ICE Barbie's mouthpiece on X. / Screenshot/X / Screenshot/X

Meanwhile, the White House Communications team took aim at CBS correspondent Ed OKeefe after he also shared the report.

The Fake News seems to think that illegal alien drug traffickers, drunk drivers, burglars, and those with weapons chargeswhom they classify as nonviolent offendersshould be left alone, allowed to roam freely within the United States, the official White House account replied.

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Not under this administration.

The White House fired off at CBS on Monday. / Screenshot/X / X

Trump, 79, campaigned on a pledge to deport the worst of the worst and expel violent criminals from the United States in a sweeping deportation drive. While his administration claims it is delivering on that promise, a growing body of reporting has contradicted those assertions.

A June report from the right-leaning Cato Institute found that 65 percent of people detained by ICE had no criminal convictions whatsoever, while 93 percent had no violent convictions. At the same time, many of the criminals touted by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on a department website launched in December were merely convicted of traffic offenses, the Daily Beast exclusively reporteddespite Noem herself being a serial traffic offender.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem earned the moniker ICE Barbie for her camera-ready immigration crackdowns. / Pool / Getty Images

Other detainees, like Florida father Roberto Mosquera, were even falsely labeled killers by the administration. Public records show Mosquera was never convictedor even chargedwith homicide, the Daily Beast reported in October.

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This is not the first time Weiss has broken ranks with MAGA. Her anti-woke Substack publication, The Free Press, slammed the Trump administration in a blistering editorial criticizing Noems defense of a Border Patrol agent who fatally shot VA nurse Alex Pretti, 37.

Titled Kristi Noems Reckless Lies, the editorialpenned by The Editorsslams the president and his administration for treating their own supporters as easy to fool.

How else to explain the messaging this weekend from his administration that asks loyal Republicans to disbelieve their lying eyes? the piece concludes.

Weiss continues to helm The Free Press while also overseeing CBS News. She was tapped to lead the network by nepo-billionaire media baron and Trump ally David Ellison, a move that fueled speculation that her appointment was aimed at currying favor with the former president as Ellison pursues a deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. Last year, Weiss greeted Trump with a kiss.

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The Columbia graduate sparked outrage at the beginning of her CBS tenure after making an eleventh-hour decision to pull a 60 Minutes segment detailing conditions at a notorious El Salvador megaprison housing Venezuelan men deported under Trump-era policies.

The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House and CBS for comment.
President Donald Trump is threatening to block the opening of a new bridge between the United States and Canada if Canadian officials dont address his demands about trade.

The bridge hes focused on is the Gordie Howe International Bridge that connects Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario. Its expected to open this year after construction began in 2020.

The threat has sparked frustration among Michigan lawmakers, who have been rooting for the economic activity the bridge could bring to their state. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he spoke with Trump and reiterated Canadas responsibility in the bridge construction and the benefits of having the new crossing.

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Heres what you need to know:

Trump issues threat

In a lengthy post on Truth Social, Trump aired his grievances with the United States northern neighbor, including how Canadian stores wont sell U.S. spirits and a potential Canada-China deal.

He argued that Canada has treated the U.S. very unfairly for decades but he said things are quickly changing.

But imagine, Canada is building a massive bridge between Ontario and Michigan. They own both the Canada and the United States side and, of course, built it with virtually no U.S. content, Trump said. President Barack Hussein Obama stupidly gave them a waiver so they could get around the BUY AMERICAN Act, and not use any American products, including our Steel. Now, the Canadian Government expects me, as President of the United States, to PERMIT them to just take advantage of America!

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He asked what the United States gets in return and said, NOTHING.

I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them, and also, importantly, Canada treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve, Trump said.

Trump said the U.S. has given Canada so much, so they should allow America to own at least half of the bridge. He said the revenues generated because of the U.S. economy will be astronomical.

However, the U.S. does own part of the bridge. The bridge is jointly owned by Canada and the state of Michigan, the Detroit Free Press noted. Canada paid the upfront construction costs and will recoup the price through bridge tolls.

Criticism from Michigan delegation

Trumps statement earned criticism from some Michigan elected officials. U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin said Trumps threat is awful for our states economy and that the bridge is an incredibly important infrastructure project for Michigan.

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Canceling this project will have serious repercussions. Higher costs for Michigan businesses, less secure supply chains, and ultimately, fewer jobs, Slotkin said in a post online. The Presidents agenda for personal retribution should not come before whats best for us. Canada is our friend  not our enemy.

Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., shared online that the bridge was built by union workers from both countries. She noted that in 2017, when Trump was president, he endorsed the bridge and called it a vital economic link between our two countries.

Nothing has changed. We cannot forget Canada is our friend and ally. We have to stop these cheap shots. It helps no one, and it especially hurts our economy, Dingell said. I look forward to the ribbon-cutting.

Additionally, the Detroit Regional Chamber and its CEO, Sandy Baruah, released a statement in response to the presidents threat.

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The international bridge is the most consequential infrastructure project in the state and region of this generation. It will support economic growth and improve border security, and any effort to block this project would have tremendous consequences for the region, state, and country, she said. We cannot lose sight of the facts of how this project came about and its importance to our economy as part of one of the strongest cross-border trade relationships in history.

Future of the bridge  and international relations

Carney said the two countries will resolve the issue and said he had a conversation with Trump early Tuesday.

The situation will be settled, he said, without providing details.

I explained that Canada, of course, paid for the construction of the bridge, over $4 billion, Carney said. That the ownership is shared between the state of Michigan and the government of Canada.

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The future of the bridge is still up in the air and its also unclear how Trump would actually block the bridge from being opened.

Since Trump supported the bridge in 2017, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked why the president changed his mind. She pointed to Canada using more American-made materials to build the bridge. Leavitt said Trump believes that the U.S. should have shared authority over what passes across it.

This is just another example of President Trump putting Americas interest first, and so he made that very clear in his call with Prime Minister Carney earlier today, she concluded.

Its the latest shake-up between the United States and Canada, which have had an increasingly tense relationship since Trump took office again last year with the implementation of his tariff agenda, comments about making Canada the 51st state and trade struggles.

Additionally, the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement is also up for review this year, and it seems like Trump doesnt want to renew it and has issued tariff threats.
President Donald Trump is threatening to block the opening of a major new U.S.-Canada border crossing unless Canada agrees to major trade concessions.

"I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them, and also, importantly, Canada treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve," Trump said in a social media post on Monday.

While Trump did not mention the bridge by name, he appears to refer to the Gordie Howe International Bridge, saying the U.S. should own at least half of it. He accused Canada of unfair trade practices and criticized former President Barack Obama, whom he says "gave them a waiver so they could get around the BUY AMERICAN Act."

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In his post on Truth Social, the president said Canada must treat the U.S. with "fairness and respect" and called for immediate negotiations, adding the U.S. should own "perhaps" at least half of the crossing.

The Gordie Howe Bridge project

The six-lane bridge is designed to relieve congestion at the Ambassador Bridge and the DetroitWindsor Tunnel, two of the busiest trade routes between the U.S. and Canada.

Canada financed the entire project and plans to recoup the cost through tolls. It is estimated to cost between $5 and 6 billion.

Construction began in 2018, and most of it is now complete. The bridge is set to open early this year, but an exact date has not been set.

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Michigan Democrats and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's office are pushing back, calling the project a "huge boon" for the state's economy and a critical link for auto manufacturing and cross-border commerce.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., told the Associated Press that with the new bridge, "You'll be able to move cargo from Montreal to Miami without ever stopping at a street light."

Whitmer's office told AP that while Canada is funding the project, it will operate under a joint leadership agreement between Michigan and Canada.

The post Trump threatens to block US-Canada bridge, demanding trade concessions appeared first on Straight Arrow News.

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President Donald Trump has repeatedly maintained that he had no knowledge of Jeffrey Epsteins sex crimes.

But in July 2006, just as Jeffrey Epsteins criminal sex charge became public, Trump called then-Palm Beach police chief Michael Reiter to tell him that Epsteins activities with teenaged girls were well known in both New York and Palm Beach.

Thank goodness youre stopping him, everyone has known hes been doing this, Trump told Reiter, according to a 2019 FBI interview with Reiter contained in the Justice Departments Epstein case files.

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The interview, conducted in October 2019 and not previously reported, has shed new light on Trumps involvement in the early stages of the 2006 Jeffrey Epstein investigation in Palm Beach, Florida. It also raises questions about how much Trump knew about Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwells crimes.

Reiter told FBI agents that Trump revealed that Epsteins associate, Maxwell, was Epsteins operative, and that Trump said she is evil and to focus on her, according to the report.

Trump told Reiter that he was around Epstein once when teenagers were present and Trump got the hell out of there, the report said. Trump also told Reiter that he threw Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club.

That stands in sharp contrast to what Trump told reporters in July 2019 when he was asked if he had any knowledge that Epstein had molested girls.

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No, I had no idea. I had no idea, Trump said at the time.

Reiter, who retired as chief in 2009, confirmed to the Miami Herald that he was interviewed by FBI agents in 2019. He said the conversation with Trump happened in July 2006.

Michael Reiter is the former chief of police in the Town of Palm Beach, and was the chief during the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein. He said the young women lured to Epsteins mansion didnt necessarily know each other but they told nearly identical stories.

An FBI official denied that Trump called Reiter.

We are not aware of any corroborating evidence that the President contacted law enforcement 20 years ago, the official said.

The new information about Trumps 2006 comments comes as Maxwell was summoned to appear by video Monday before the House Oversight Committee.

Maxwell, 64, is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking related to her and Epsteins sex abuse of minors. She invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to testify before the committee, although her lawyer noted that she is prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump.

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Trump has not said whether he would or would not pardon her. When asked about her arrest in July 2020, Trump said, I just wish her well, frankly.

Maxwells attempts to appeal her conviction have been unsuccessful, but she has filed a legal petition arguing that her trial was unfair.

The circumstances behind Reiters 2019 FBI interview have also not been reported before. The FBI agents came to Palm Beach at the former police chiefs request to pick up two boxes of Epstein case files that were found in the home of Joe Recarey, the lead detective who handled the case.

Recarey, 50, died of natural causes in May 2018, and his widow moved out of the area. Reiter notified the FBI after the boxes were turned over to him, the report said.

Joseph Recarey, the former Palm Beach police detective who led the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, said the millionaires solicitation of sex with underage girls resembled a pyramid scheme. Its unraveling was similar, with one victim leading to two others, each of whom led to others, and so on.

He told the FBI that one of the boxes contained an imaged copy of a laptop computer from Epsteins kitchen counter that had phone messages on it that Reiter had not seen before, the FBI report said. The report did not say what else was in the boxes.

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The interview is four pages, mostly focusing on Reiters summary of the Palm Beach Police Departments investigation into Epstein, which began in 2003, when the police received a report that young women were seen going in and out of Epsteins waterfront mansion at 358 El Brillo Way on the island of Palm Beach.

The police set up surveillance at Epsteins house, but upon checking the identities of two of the women who were visiting, found them to be adults. The case was closed because police found no evidence of a crime at the time.

Then in March 2005, Palm Beach police received a call from a woman reporting that her 14-year-old stepdaughter had been molested by Epstein. Upon interviewing the girl, she told them that other girls were being sexually assaulted as part of an organized scheme in which high school girls were being recruited to give Epstein massages that led to assault and, at times, even rape, according to Reiters account, which is also backed up by court files.

More surveillance was done on Epsteins house, Reiter told the FBI agents. Some kids were observed, prepubescent with braces and backpacks coming from schoolone employee said there were dozens of girls in one day. The [Palm Beach Police Department] then put together a case and brought it to the states attorney office.

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Reiter explained that he was upset when the state attorney, Barry Krischer, rebuffed police efforts to arrest Epstein in 2006. After Krischer declined to prosecute, Reiter took the unusual step of writing a later asking Krischer to recuse himself from the case. When Krischer refused, Reiter then took the case to the FBI.

The case was turned over to the Miami U.S. Attorneys office in early 2007. Epstein hired a team of high-powered attorneys, and private investigators, whom Reiter said followed him and other police officers assigned to the case, and picked through their trash in order to find something they could use to discredit them.

Epstein lived less than a mile from Mar-a-Lago and, around 2000, Maxwell, Epsteins former girlfriend, recruited 16-year-old Virginia Giuffre, who worked at Mar-a-Lagos spa as an attendant.

Giuffre, who died by suicide last year, has said that Maxwell approached her while she was working at the spa and offered her a job as a masseuse for a wealthy man. It was Maxwell who introduced her to Epstein.

Virginia Giuffre holds a photo of her younger self.

Palm Beach police, however, said no victim they had interviewed indicated they were recruited or abused by Maxwell, who by 2006 had largely been absent from Epsteins Palm Beach home.

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Trump has said that he banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago after learning he was trying to steal his employees. But the President has consistently denied any knowledge of Epstein crimes.

In 2002, in an interview with New York Magazine, Trump called Epstein a terrific guy and noted it is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.

In 2019, Epstein also wrote an email in which he said of Trump, Of course he knew about the girls, as he asked Ghislaine to stop. That email was contained in a cache of documents the House Oversight Committee obtained from Epsteins estate pursuant to a subpoena in December.

Reiter told the FBI agents that by 2007 he became troubled by the fact that the federal prosecutors still had not arrested Epstein, so he requested a meeting with then-Miami U.S. Attorney, Alex Acosta, to find out why. Acosta told him that the defense attorneys had frustrated prosecutors and that there was a lot of interest from higher up.

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Reiter told the FBI he felt there was a hurry to make this case go away. Shortly after meeting with Acosta, he then found out on television that Epstein had been given federal immunity.

Federal prosecutors gave Epstein federal immunity in 2007 in exchange for him pleading guilty in state court to two counts of solicitation, one involving a minor. He served 13 months in the Palm Beach County jail, most of it on work release that allowed him to leave the jail every day to go to his office in West Palm Beach.

In 2018, the Miami Herald published an investigation into the case, Perversion of Justice, which detailed how Epstein and his lawyers were able to convince federal prosecutors to limit the scope of Epsteins crimes  to just one case involving one 16-year-old girl. At the time, they had nearly 40 underage victims.

Reiter said he was devastated upon learning about the plea deal.

It was very disappointing that the system failed in this case, Reiter told the FBI.

Miami Herald reporter Claire Healy contributed to this report.
It is one year since US Vice-President JD Vance delivered a bombshell speech at the Munich Security Conference, castigating Europe for its policies on migration and free speech, and claiming the greatest threat the continent faces comes from within.

The audience were visibly stunned. Since then, the Trump White House has tipped the world order upside down.

Allies and foes alike have been slapped with punitive tariffs, there was the extraordinarily brazen raid on Venezuela, Washington's uneven pursuit of peace in Ukraine on terms favourable to Moscow and a bizarre demand that Canada should become the "51st state" of the US.

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This year, the conference - which begins later this week - once again looks set to be decisive. US Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio leads the US delegation, while more than 50 other world leaders have been invited. It comes as the security of Europe looks increasingly precarious.

The latest US National Security Strategy (NSS), published late last year, called on Europe to "stand on its own feet" and take "primary responsibility for its own defence," adding to fears that the US is increasingly unwilling to underpin Europe's defence.

But it is the crisis over Greenland that has really tugged at the fabric of the entire transatlantic alliance between the US and Europe. Donald Trump has said on numerous occasions that he "needs to own" Greenland for the sake of US and global security, and for a while he did not rule out the use of force.

Polls show Greenlanders overwhelmingly reject the idea of a US takeover [Reuters]

Greenland is a self-governing territory belonging to the Kingdom of Denmark, so it was hardly surprising when Denmark's prime minister said that a hostile US military takeover would spell the end of the Nato alliance that has underpinned Europe's security for the past 77 years.

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The Greenland crisis has been averted for now  the White House has been distracted by other priorities  but it leaves an uncomfortable question hanging over the Munich Security Conference: Are Europe-US security ties damaged beyond repair?

They have changed, there's no question about that, but they have not disintegrated.

Sir Alex Younger, who was chief of the UK's Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, from 2014-2020, tells the BBC that while the transatlantic alliance is not going to go back to the way it was, it isn't broken.

"We still benefit enormously from our security and military and intelligence relationship with America," he says. He also believes, as many do, that Trump was right to make Europe shoulder more of the burden for its own defence.

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"You've got a continent of 500 million [Europe], asking a continent of 300 million [US] to deal with a continent of 140 million [Russia]. It's the wrong way around. So I believe that Europe should take more responsibility for its own defence," Sir Alex said.

This imbalance, whereby the US taxpayer has been effectively subsidising Europe's defence needs for decades, has underpinned much of the Trump White House's resentment of Europe.

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine is about to enter its fifth year [Getty Images]

But the splits in the transatlantic alliance go well beyond troop numbers and irritation at those Nato countries, such as Spain, that have been failing to meet even the minimum 2% of GDP on defence (Russia currently spends more than 7% on defence while Britain is just under 2.5%).

On trade, migration and free speech Team Trump have sharp differences with Europe. Meanwhile, democratically elected European governments have been alarmed by Trump's relationship with Vladimir Putin and his propensity for blaming Ukraine for getting invaded by Russia.

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The Munich Security Conference organisers have published a report ahead of the event in which Tobias Bunde, the director of research & policy, says there has now been a fundamental break with US post-WW2 strategy.

This strategy, he argues, broadly rested on three pillars: a belief in the benefit of multilateral institutions, economic integration and a belief that democracy and human rights are not just values, but strategic assets.

"Under the Trump administration," says Bunde, "all three of these pillars have been weakened or openly questioned".

'A shocking wake-up call for Europe'

Much of the Trump White House's thinking can be found in the US National Security Strategy. The Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) describes the document as "a real, painful, shocking wake-up call for Europe", and "a moment of cavernous divergence between Europe's view of itself and Trump's vision for Europe".

Donald Trump has shaken US-European ties to their core [AFP via Getty Images]

The strategy states as a priority a new policy of supporting groups hostile to those very European governments that are supposed to be Washington's allies. It promotes "cultivating resistance to Europe's current trajectory within European nations", and says Europe's migration policies risk "civilizational erasure".

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However, the document maintains that "Europe remains strategically and culturally vital to the United States".

"The majority of Europe's reaction to this NSS", says the CSIS, "is likely to be the same aghast shock as met Vice President JD Vance's Munich speech" in February 2025.

"We are currently seeing the rise of political actors who do not promise reform or repair," says Sophie Eisentraut of the Munich Security Conference, "but who are very explicit about wanting to tear down existing institutions, and we call them the demolition men".

The Narva test

But the ultimate question in all of this is "does Article 5 still work?".

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Article 5 is the part of Nato's charter that stipulates that an attack on one country shall be deemed an attack on all. From 1949 until a year ago it was taken as read that should the Soviet Union, or more latterly Russia, invade a Nato state such as Lithuania then the full force of the alliance, backed by US military might, would come to its aid.

Although Nato officials have insisted that Article 5 is still very much alive and well, Trump's unpredictability coupled with the disdain his administration has for Europe inevitably calls it into question.

This is what I call "the Narva Test". Narva is a majority Russian-speaking town in Estonia that sits on the River Narva, right on the border with Russia. If, hypothetically, Russia were to make a grab for it under the pretext, say, of "coming to the help of its fellow Russians", would this US administration ride to the rescue of Estonia?

The same question can equally be applied to a future, and still hypothetical, Russian move on the Suwalki Gap which separates Belarus from the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic. Or, for that matter, the Norwegian-administered Arctic archipelago of Svalbard where Russia already has a colony at Barentsburg.

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Given President Trump's recent territorial ambitions to seize Greenland from fellow Nato member Denmark, no one can predict for certain how President Trump would react. And that, in a time when Russia is waging a full-scale war against a European country in Ukraine, can lead to dangerous miscalculations.

This week's Munich Security Conference should provide some answers on where the transatlantic alliance is heading. They just may not necessarily be what Europe wants to hear.
The California Highway Patrol is investigating a deadly crash near Porterville.

It happened on Highway 190, east of Success Valley Drive around 7:30 Monday morning.

Officers say 20-year-old Carter Lee was driving a GMC when, for unknown reasons, he crossed into oncoming traffic and crashed head-on into a Honda Pilot.

The 90-year-old driver of the Honda was identified as Jack Terrell, and was pronounced dead at the scene. His wife Lucinda was hospitalized.

The couple served in the Tulare County Sheriff's volunteer patrol.

Lee sustained minor injuries in the crash.

The cause of the collision remains under investigation.


Tulsi Gabbard strongly denied allegations that she or the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) concealed a whistleblower complaint, accusing Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) of spreading "blatant lies" for political gain.

Tulsi Gabbard Denies Hiding Whistleblower Complaint

On Saturday, in a post on X, Gabbard said, "I am not now, nor have I ever been, in possession or control of the Whistleblower's complaint, so I obviously could not have hidden' it in a safe."

She added that the complaint was handled and secured by the Biden-era Intelligence Community (IC) Inspector General, Tamara Johnson, and her successor, Chris Fox.

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Gabbard detailed the timeline of events, saying she first saw the complaint two weeks ago, to guide how it should be shared with Congress.

She emphasized that the complaint contained highly classified and compartmented intelligence, requiring it to be stored securely: "After IC Inspector General Fox hand-delivered the complaint to the Gang of 8, the complaint was returned to a safe where it remains, consistent with any information of such sensitivity."

She also challenged Warner's claims regarding a 21-day legal deadline, saying it applies only when a complaint is both urgent and credible, which she said this complaint was not.

"Either Senator Warner knows these facts and is intentionally lying to the American people, or he doesn't have a clue how these things work," Gabbard wrote.

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 DNI Tulsi Gabbard (@DNIGabbard) February 7, 2026

Senator Mark Warner and his friends in the Propaganda Media have repeatedly lied to the American people that I or the ODNI "hid" a whistleblower complaint in a safe for eight months. This is a blatant lie.



The truth:



 I am not now, nor have I ever been, in possession or

See Also: Blue-chip art has historically outpaced the S&P 500 since 1995, and fractional investing is now opening this institutional asset class to everyday investors.

Whistleblower Complaint Delayed Over Security Guidance

A top-secret whistleblower complaint filed in May with the intelligence community's inspector general alleged that classified intelligence was blocked from routine congressional access for political reasons, reported Reuters.

Lawmakers, including Warner, argued the complaint should have been shared within 21 days, but successive inspectors general found it not credible, and the legal deadline applies only to urgent, credible complaints.

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Media reports indicate the complaint involved an intelligence intercept connected to someone close to President Donald Trump, and delays were linked to the need for proper security guidance before sharing with Congress.

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This article Tulsi Gabbard Says 'I Am Not Now, Nor Have I Ever Been, In Possession' Of Whistleblower Complaint, Slams Warner's 'Blatant Lies' originally appeared on Benzinga.com
A life was hanging in the balance until a few everyday heroes hit the brakes.

A Temple nurse and two Pennsylvania Turnpike workers refused to pass by a driver who stopped breathing. It was a split-second response that turned a roadside crisis into a rescue.

Doug Sarver and John Gallagher saw the driver in distress and quickly realized something wasn't right.

They were ending their shift last December as equipment operators with the Turnpike. Heading west towards Downingtown, the pair pulled over to assist.

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"We pulled up, and when I was talking to her, she would just give us a, like, a look and a quick answer, but I thought she was having a stroke," said Gallagher.

The pair immediately called dispatch.

"And, I just held her head, or the back of her neck, straight up to keep the airways going," he said. "When Cindy got there, that's when (the driver) collapsed in my arms."

PICTURED: Doug Sarver, John Gallagher and Cindy Zimmerman

"And then I reached in to check for a pulse, and I didn't feel one," said Cindy Zimmerman.

Zimmerman is a nurse at Temple's Chestnut Hill Hospital, who happened to be driving by.

"She was breathing, but she was what we call agonal breathing, so she was trying to breathe, but there was no... she wasn't ventilating anything."

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As they began CPR, medics arrived on scene and whisked the driver to the hospital.

It's not clear what the medical emergency was, but they learned the driver survived.

"That made my Christmas," the Turnpike employees said.

"No heroes, just at the right place, at the right time."
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick confirmed on Tuesday that he and his family visited the private island of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2012, despite Lutnick previously saying that he had cut ties with Epstein years earlier.

My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies. I had another couple. They were there as well with their children, and we had lunch on the island, Lutnick said during a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing. He said that he and his family were on vacation and only spent about an hour on the island before leaving.

Lutnicks comments come as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called for his resignation after the Justice Departments latest release of records related to Epstein revealed that the Commerce Secretarys relationship with the disgraced financier was more extensive than he had let on.

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Lutnick said on Tuesday that he had searched for his name in the files made public by the Justice Department and that there were "probably about 10 emails" that connected him to Epstein, among the more than three million pages in the latest release.

I didnt look through the documents with any fear whatsoever, because I know and my wife knows that I have done absolutely nothing wrong in any possible regard, he said at the hearing.

I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with that person. Okay? Lutnick said. In response to a line of questioning from Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Lutnick said, I have nothing to hide. Absolutely nothing.

Read more: Bipartisan Lawmakers Call for Trumps Commerce Secretary to Step Downor Be OustedOver Epstein Ties

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The Commerce Secretary, who was once Epsteins neighbor on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, said during an interview on the Pod Force One podcast last year that he was never in the room with Epstein socially, for business or even philanthropy following a visit to the financiers townhouse in 2005 that led Lutnick to find him disgusting.

The files released by the Justice Department late last month, however, contained communications between Lutnick and Epstein spanning the course of at least 13 years, according to a New York Times analysis. Multiple of the exchanges between the two men or their assistants indicated that Epstein and Lutnick socialized together in both New York and on Epsteins Caribbean Island years after Lutnick said he severed ties with the financier in 2005, and after Epstein was convicted of soliciting prostitution involving a minor in 2008.

You totally misrepresented the extent of your relationship with him to the Congress, to the American people, and to the survivors of his despicable criminal and predatory acts, Van Hollen said to Lutnick on Tuesday. The Commerce Secretary also faced questioning over his connection to Epstein from Democratic Sens. Chris Coons of Delaware and Jeff Merkley of Oregon. None of the Senators accused Lutnick of wrongdoing, but they pushed for greater transparency on his relationship to the late sex offender.

Merkley urged Lutnick to be completely frank and open with everyone and correct the record as needed as he laid out several documents among those made public by the Justice Department that showed Lutnick interacting with Epstein after 2005.

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Emails included in the latest release of the files appear to show Lutnick planning a visit to Epsteins island, Little St. James, near St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands in December 2012.

Additional exchanges show that the visit marked one of a number of interactions between Lutnick and Epstein over the years, indicating that the two planned to meet for drinks in May 2011 and that Lutnick invited Epstein to a very =ntimate fundraising event with Hilary Clinton in November 2015, among other apparent personal and professional dealings.

Read more: Trump Officials Redacted Epstein Files to Protect Prominent Individuals, Lawmakers Allege

Following reports on the communications between Lutnick and Epstein in the released files, several lawmakers called on the Commerce Secretary to step down, including Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who co-authored the law that mandated the release of all the governments files related to Epstein; Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California; and Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, also of California.

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Really, he should make life easier on the President, frankly, and just resign, Massie told CNNs "Inside Politics" on Sunday.

Secretary Howard Lutnick lied to the country about his ties to Epstein. Now we learned that they were in business together. He has no business being our Commerce Secretary. He should resign, Schiff wrote on X the following day.

Garcia took it a step further, calling for Lutnick to be fired if he did not resign.

In a statement to TIME on Monday, a Commerce Department spokesperson said, This is nothing more than a failing attempt by the legacy media to distract from the administrations accomplishments including securing Trillions of dollars in investment, delivering historic trade deals and fighting for the American worker. Mr. and Mrs. Lutnick met Jeffrey Epstein in 2005 and had very limited interactions with him over the next 14 years.

Contact us at letters@time.com.
The United Arab Emirates reportedly funded a camp in Ethiopia to train fighters of a Sudanese militia, a further sign of foreign powers stoking Sudans yearslong civil war.



The camp in western Ethiopia is being used to prepare fighters to join the Rapid Support Forces militia, which is accused of perpetrating a genocide against Sudans Black population, according to Reuters. Abu Dhabi has denied allegations that it is a party to the conflict, assertions challenged by intelligence officials.

Experts warn that the repeated attempts at a ceasefire will continue failing so long as foreign powers  including Egypt and Saudi Arabia  keep meddling, risking the perpetuation of a conflict which has displaced millions and killed hundreds of thousands.
LONDON, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Britain on Tuesday encouraged parents to speak to their children about the harmful content they could encounter online as the government looks into the pros and cons of an Australian-style ban on social media for under 16s.

Citing research that showed half of parents had never spoken to their children about harmful content, the government said the "You Won't Know Until You Ask" campaign would provide them with the support and advice they needed to start conversations.

Technology Minister Liz Kendall said she knew many parents were worried about what their children see and do online.

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"We are determined to give children the childhood they deserve and prepare them for the future," she said.

"That is why we are supporting parents with this campaign and launching a consultation on how young people can live and thrive in the age of social media."

The campaign will help parents navigate safety settings on social media platforms and start conversations on topics like misinformation and harmful content, the government said.

It will be supported by TV ads and content on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, initially in Yorkshire, northern England, and the Midlands, the government said.

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The campaign launches weeks after the government said it was prepared to take robust action to protect children online, with an Australian-style social media ban for children under 16.

Ministers are due to visit Australia, which imposed its ban in December, to look at their approach. Kendall has said Britain was weighing the same age threshold as Australia.

Spain, Greece, France, Slovenia and the Czech Republic have in recent weeks also said they were considering similar restrictions as attitudes harden against technology that some say is designed to be addictive.

(Reporting by Paul Sandle; editing by William James)
Key developments on Feb. 10

Russia threatens families of Ukrainian POWs to register Starlink terminals, Ukraine says;

More arms purchases for Ukraine under NATO-led PURL initiative on the way;

11-year-old child killed alongside mother after Russia strikes Sloviansk with glide bombs;

Japan to join NATO-led initiative to purchase US weapons for Ukraine

'Second stage' of Ukrainian military's corps reform underway, Syrskyi says

Russia is coercing the families of Ukrainian prisoners of war to register Starlink terminals for use by Russian troops on the battlefield, Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said on Feb. 10.

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The claim comes a week after Ukraine's defense ministry agreed with Starlink parent company SpaceX to introduce mandatory registration for the internet terminals inside Ukraine, a move meant to prevent their use by Russian forces.

"Searching for a way out of the difficult situation they found themselves in, the occupiers have turned their attention to families of prisoners of war," the Coordination Headquarters wrote.

"Cases have been recorded of threats and demands that people officially register Starlink terminals in their own names. This equipment is then intended to be used against Ukraine and Ukrainians."

Read also: Russia threatens families of Ukrainian POWs to register Starlink terminals, Ukraine says

More arms purchases for Ukraine under NATO-led PURL initiative on the way, US ambassador says

More vital military aid for Ukraine will soon be pledged under the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL), a NATO initiative to purchase U.S. equipment and ammunition, Washington's ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker said on Feb. 10.

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Signed by the U.S. and NATO in July, the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) agreement lays out a mechanism for NATO member states and partners to purchase high-priority equipment for Ukraine.

Twenty-four countries, including two non-NATO member states Australia and New Zealand, have so far joined the initiative.

Some $4.5 billion in military aid has already been pledged to Ukraine through the scheme, Whitaker told journalists, as cited by Reuters.

Three European nations  Norway, Germany, and the Netherlands  have contributed the most to the program, the ambassador added.

Read also: More arms purchases for Ukraine under NATO-led PURL initiative on the way, US ambassador says

11-year-old child killed alongside mother after Russia strikes Sloviansk with glide bombs

Russian forces struck the city of Sloviansk in Donetsk Oblast with glide bombs on Feb. 10, killing an 11-year-old child and her mother, regional governor Vadym Filashkin said.

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The attack occurred in the morning, with the number of injured reaching 14  including another Ukrainian child  by the afternoon, as first responders worked on the scene.

The attack brings the official number of children confirmed killed by Russia's war to 681, according to statistics published by the Prosecutor General's Office.

"Every day for Donetsk Oblast is a new war crime by the Russians," Filashkin wrote on Telegram. "Attacks on peaceful cities, on homes, on children are terror that has no justification."

Sloviansk, with a pre-full-scale invasion population of around 105,000, is one of the largest cities still under Ukrainian control in Donetsk Oblast.

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Read also: 11-year-old child killed alongside mother after Russia strikes Sloviansk with glide bombs

Japan to join NATO-led initiative to purchase US weapons for Ukraine, media reports

Japan is set to join the NATO-led program to fund the purchase of weapons from the U.S. to support Ukraine, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported on Feb. 10, citing unnamed NATO officials.

Signed by the U.S. and NATO in July, the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) agreement lays out a mechanism for NATO member states and partners to purchase high-priority equipment for Ukraine.

24 countries, including two non-NATO member states Australia and New Zealand, have so far joined the initiative.

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According to the NHK report, aid that Tokyo could fund for Ukraine through the program would be limited to non-lethal provisions.

When asked by the Kyiv Independent about the news, a representative of the Japanese embassy said they are aware of the news, but denied that Japan had entered the program yet.

Read also: Japan could join NATO-led initiative to buy US weapons for Ukraine, media reports

'Second stage' of Ukrainian military's corps reform underway, Syrskyi says

The transition of Ukraine's military to a corps command system has entered its "second stage," with more work to be done to improve each corps' effectiveness on the battlefield, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Feb. 10.

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The reforms, officially announced in early 2025, came as a response to criticism of the previous structure where brigades fought under large temporary command umbrellas that did not take direct responsibility for the units under them.

"The increase in enemy losses is one of the results of the corps reform," Syrskyi said in a post on the Ukrainian General Staff's Facebook page.

According to the general, brigades continue to be reshuffled into their native corps' areas of responsibility, a process made more dangerous by the lack of reserves and Russia's readiness to attack during rotations of larger units.

Read also: Second stage of Ukrainian militarys corps reform underway, Syrskyi says

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
North Korean soldiers are still deployed to Russia's Kursk region, fighting against Ukraine.

Soldiers were initially tasked with assault operations but now focus on drones and artillery, a Ukrainian lawmaker said.

Artillery has been the biggest problem for Ukraine in this sector.

North Korean soldiers fighting for Russia are still causing problems for Ukrainian forces more than a year after they were first deployed in support of Moscow's war.

The North Korean soldiers who were deployed to Russia's Kursk region to thwart a Ukrainian incursion were initially tasked with brutal infantry assaults that resulted in high casualties. Their role has since shifted to drone reconnaissance and artillery operations.

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"The biggest problem from North Korea is not the soldiers, but the artillery shells," said Yehor Cherniev, the deputy chairman of the Ukrainian parliamentary committee on national security, defense, and intelligence.

"They had not so many soldiers involved in Kursk," Cherniev told Business Insider in an interview this week.

North Korea has sent millions of artillery shells and multiple rocket launcher ammunition to Russia during the war, along with the cannons and launchers that can fire these munitions. Pyongyang has also provided Moscow with at least 100 ballistic missiles and anti-tank weapons.

In fall 2024, around 11,000 North Korean soldiers deployed to Kursk in western Russia to help Moscow recapture hundreds of square miles of territory that it lost to Ukraine during a surprise incursion a few months earlier. Their deployment marked a dramatic expansion of Pyongyang's involvement in the conflict.

North Korea has sent Russia millions of artillery shells, as well as the cannons to fire them. KCNA via REUTERS

The North Korean forces had no modern experience in major combat operations, so Russia trained them in drone, artillery, infantry, and trench-clearing operations.

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They were initially used for front-line assaults against the Ukrainians, which the US described at the time as largely ineffective "human wave"-style tactics, but they now appear to have taken on more of a support role.

"As of January 2026, a group of North Korean troops is located in the Kursk region, from which they launch attacks on Ukrainian border communities," Ukraine's military intelligence agency said last week in an update.

The GUR said the North Korean soldiers positioned there fire at Ukraine with artillery and multiple rocket launcher systems and use reconnaissance drones to collect targeting data to adjust their strikes, employing the tech the way the Russians do.

The intelligence agency said North Korea regularly rotates soldiers into Kursk, and most of the roughly 3,000 troops who returned home have become military instructors, teaching what they've learned about modern combat tactics to Pyongyang's forces.

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"I think it was more for North Korea just to get the experience of the modern war and to learn this experience in their army," Cherniev said of Pyongyang's involvement in the conflict.

Ukrainian forces launched a surprise incursion into Russia's Kursk region in August 2024. Serhiy Morgunov/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Neither Russia's defense ministry nor its US embassy responded to a request for comment on the involvement of North Korean forces in the war.

Western intelligence estimates that thousands of North Korean soldiers have been killed or wounded fighting for Russia. The deployment followed the signing of a mutual defense pact that Pyongyang and Moscow in 2024, one of many indications of increased military cooperation between the heavily sanctioned states.

The Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team, which includes the US and 10 other countries, has said that the expansion of military, political, and economic cooperation between North Korea and Russia violates United Nations Security Council resolutions.

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has acknowledged that his forces have suffered losses in this war, a rare admission in a conflict where combat losses often go unacknowledged.

Britain's defense ministry said in mid-January that Russia has likely sustained 1.2 million casualties since it launched its full-scale invasion nearly four years ago, including 415,000 soldiers killed and wounded in 2025 alone.

Read the original article on Business Insider
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) is preparing to withdraw most of its peacekeepers by mid-2027, a UN spokeswoman told dpa on Tuesday.

Established in 1978, UNIFIL has long operated along the Israel-Lebanon border and has recently been working alongside the Lebanese Army in efforts to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure following the latest round of fighting between Israel and the Iranian-backed militia.

According to UN Security Council Resolution 2790, the missions mandate was extended for a final time until December 31, 2026.

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After that date, the mission must "start the orderly and safe drawdown and withdrawal" to be completed within one year, spokeswoman Kandice Ardiel told dpa.

She said the UN expects to redeploy all or nearly all uniformed personnel by mid-2027, with the withdrawal finalized by the end of that year.

Once the mandate expires, UNIFIL will focus on returning personnel and equipment to their home countries and transferring its positions to the Lebanese authorities.

Throughout the drawdown period, the force will be limited to essential tasks, including safeguarding UN staff and installations and ensuring the safe exit of peacekeepers, Ardiel added.

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Although a ceasefire was agreed in November 2024, Israel has continued to conduct strikes almost daily inside Lebanon, saying it is targeting Hezbollah, and has kept troops stationed at five locations along the border.

Ardiel noted that UNIFIL's troop levels in southern Lebanon have already been cut by nearly 2,000, with additional reductions expected by May. The mission currently consists of about 7,500 peacekeepers contributed by 48 countries.

She stressed that the recent troop reductions are primarily linked to a broader UN financial shortfall and cost-saving measures, rather than the approaching end of the mandate.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) is preparing to withdraw most of its peacekeepers by mid-2027, a UN spokeswoman told dpa on Tuesday.

Established in 1978, UNIFIL has long operated along the Israel-Lebanon border and has recently been working alongside the Lebanese Army in efforts to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure following the latest round of fighting between Israel and the Iranian-backed militia.

According to UN Security Council Resolution 2790, the missions mandate was extended for a final time until December 31, 2026.

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After that date, the mission must "start the orderly and safe drawdown and withdrawal" to be completed within one year, spokeswoman Kandice Ardiel told dpa.

She said the UN expects to redeploy all or nearly all uniformed personnel by mid-2027, with the withdrawal finalized by the end of that year.

Once the mandate expires, UNIFIL will focus on returning personnel and equipment to their home countries and transferring its positions to the Lebanese authorities.

Throughout the drawdown period, the force will be limited to essential tasks, including safeguarding UN staff and installations and ensuring the safe exit of peacekeepers, Ardiel added.

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Although a ceasefire was agreed in November 2024, Israel has continued to conduct strikes almost daily inside Lebanon, saying it is targeting Hezbollah, and has kept troops stationed at five locations along the border.

Ardiel noted that UNIFIL's troop levels in southern Lebanon have already been cut by nearly 2,000, with additional reductions expected by May. The mission currently consists of about 7,500 peacekeepers contributed by 48 countries.

She stressed that the recent troop reductions are primarily linked to a broader UN financial shortfall and cost-saving measures, rather than the approaching end of the mandate.

Lebanon has expressed interest in maintaining some form of international presence in the south after UNIFIL's departure, even if on a reduced scale.

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Italy has indicated it plans to retain a military presence in the country.

Germany has been contributing naval forces to UNIFIL's Maritime Task Force since 2006.

The German Navy supports the Lebanese Armed Forces in monitoring coastal waters and preventing the smuggling of weapons and related material by sea.
By Blake Brittain

Feb 9 (Reuters) - A federal judge in Los Angeles on Monday preliminarily struck down a California state law that bans federal officers from wearing masks while on duty.

U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder said the U.S. government was likely to prove that the law is unconstitutional and granted its request for an order against its enforcement.

In the same ruling, Snyder upheld another California law that requires federal officers to display identification when performing their duties.

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California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement that Snyder's decision on the identification law was "a clear win for the rule of law," and that "no badge and no name mean no accountability."

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi called the decision on the mask law "ANOTHER key court victory" in a statement on X.

"These federal agents are harassed, doxxed, obstructed, and attacked on a regular basis just for doing their jobs," Bondi said. "We have no tolerance for it."

Newsom signed the provisions in September amid Republican President Donald Trump's deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles during protests over immigration enforcement operations. The U.S. Department of Justice sued to strike down the laws in November and said it would not comply.

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The department said in the lawsuit that federal officers "face a real threat of criminal liability from state officials who have made clear their intent to target federal officers and disrupt federal law enforcement activities, including federal immigration enforcement."

Snyder, an appointee of Democratic U.S. President Bill Clinton, agreed with the Trump administration that California's masking law violated the U.S. Constitution's Supremacy Clause, which prevents states from interfering with federal functions. The judge said the law improperly targets federal officers by treating them differently than state law enforcement officers, who were excluded from the mask ban.

(Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
The U.S. Marshals Service has identified the suspect that was shot by members of its Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force last week in Youngstown.

According to a press release, the task force was searching for "a 74-year-old man" wanted for allegedly fleeing from Poland Village police during a traffic stop. After locating the suspect on Feb. 5 inside a motorhome parked off a Youngstown property, authorities say officers called out to him before he pulled a gun and pointed it at the officers. Law enforcement then opened fire, and the suspect was hit.

After officers provided medical care, the suspect was taken by ambulance to an area hospital, per the release. His condition is currently unknown.

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On Tuesday, the U.S. Marshals Service identified the suspect as 75-year-old John Doyle. A warrant had been issued for his arrest on Dec. 3, 2025. through the Struthers Municipal Court for failure to comply.

Marshals have not shared additional details on the officer or officers who shot the suspect. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation will conduct a probe of the incident.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has confirmed he will attend the Munich Security Conference this week, before travelling on to Slovakia and Hungary, the State Department said on Monday.

Rubio is set to travel to Munich from Friday to Sunday to attend the annual gathering, regarded as the world's leading forum for international security and defence policy.

More than 60 world leaders and around 100 foreign and defence ministers are due to attend the three-day conference in the Bavarian capital.

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After the conference, Rubio is due to remain in Europe and is set to visit Slovakia and Hungary on February 15 and 16, according to the State Department.

In Bratislava, Rubio is due to meet government officials to discuss shared security priorities.

His stop in Budapest is expected to include talks on an energy partnership between the United States and Hungary.
The United States has fallen to its worst-ever position in a leading global index that measures perception of corruption in the public sector among independent experts and businesspeople.

The worlds most powerful democracy last year slipped one notch to 29th place, out of 182, in Transparency Internationals Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). Thats the lowest rank since 2012, when the index, established in 1995, was relaunched using new methodology.

In its new position, the United States tied with the Bahamas and was beaten by Lithuania (28), Barbados (24) and Uruguay (17).

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The US ranking has been on a downward trend for the past decade. It took another hit last year, when the Trump administration gutted the federal governments ability to fight public corruption by pausing investigations into corporate foreign bribery and curtailing enforcement of a foreign agent registration law, among other measures.

Since returning to the White House, US President Donald Trump has also actively weakened institutions and deployed the tools of government against his perceived foes.

The United States overall CPI score also hit its lowest-ever level, extending its downward slide over the past decade. It came in at 64 on a scale where 100 is very clean and 0 is highly corrupt.

We are very concerned about the situation in the United States, Transparency International CEO Maira Martini told CNN Tuesday. This declining trend might continue.

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In a statement, Transparency International, a not-for-profit coalition fighting corruption, raised further alarm about the United States: Although 2025 developments are not yet fully reflected, actions targeting independent voices and undermining judicial independence raise serious concerns.

It added: Beyond the CPI findings, the temporary freeze and weakening of enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act signal tolerance for corrupt business practices, while cuts to US aid for overseas civil society have weakened global anti-corruption efforts.

Corruption rises across democracies

The worsening of corruption in the United States was mirrored by a worrying decline in performance across other democracies, including Canada and the United Kingdom, Transparency International said.

The UK also achieved its lowest CPI score on record, 70, following a decade of decline. But its position in 20th place remained unchanged.

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We are not tackling the root causes of corruption in our politics, Daniel Bruce, CEO of the UK chapter of Transparency International, said in a video posted to X.

He pointed to mega donors to UK political parties and questionable public appointments, referring to the criminal investigation into former government minister, Peter Mandelson.

Mandelson, who was briefly ambassador to the United States under the incumbent Labour government, is currently the subject of a police investigation for allegedly passing market-sensitive information to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The scandal has plunged the government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer into crisis.

Bruce called on the UK government to go further to remove the corrupting influence of big money in our politics.

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The global average score in the index also pointed to a deterioration globally: It fell to its lowest level (42), and suffered its first drop, in more than a decade. The vast majority of countries are failing to keep corruption under control, Transparency International said.

Denmark topped the index for the eighth year in a row with a score of 89. The public sectors in Finland and Singapore were seen as the second- and third-cleanest in the world.

Since the index focuses on public sector corruption, high scores do not necessarily reflect low levels of corruption across the board.

The private sectors in high-ranking Switzerland and Singapore, for example, have faced scrutiny for facilitating the movement of dirty money, Transparency International said.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
By Kevin Lamarque and Trevor Hunnicutt

YEREVAN, Feb 10 (Reuters) - The White House on Tuesday deleted a social media post from Vice President JD Vance's account that commemorated massacres of Armenians as a "genocide," saying the message, which contradicts the stance of U.S.-allied Turkey, was posted in error.

Vance, who was on a two-day trip to Armenia, visited the Tsitsernakaberd Armenian Genocide Memorial in the capital Yerevan during the first visit by a U.S. vice president to the South Caucasus republic.

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Vance's official account on X described the visit as intended "to honor the victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide," and then deleted the post. A Vance aide who declined to be named said the message was posted in error by staff who were not part of the traveling delegation.

The incident marked the second time in days that the Trump administration has deleted a social media post. Late last week, the White House defended, and then deleted, a post to President Donald Trump's Truth Social account that included a racist depiction of former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama as apes. Trump later told reporters he had not watched the entire video before a White House aide posted it to his account.

The social media post on Tuesday reflected Vance and his wife Usha's participation in a ceremonial laying of a wreath of carnations, chrysanthemums and roses at the memorial site, which honors the 1.5 million Armenians who lost their lives in the final years of the Turkish-led Ottoman Empire.

"This is an account managed by staff that primarily exists to share photos and videos of the vice president's activities," said a spokesperson for Vance, adding that his views were best described by his own remarks to reporters. In those remarks, the Republican politician did not use the word "genocide."

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TRUMP'S TIES TO TURKEY

Turkey accepts that many Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed in clashes with Ottoman forces during World War One, but contests the figures and denies the killings were systematically orchestrated and constitute a genocide.

Although the U.S. Congress and Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, have both recognized the 1915 massacres as a genocide, Trump did not use that language in his own statement on the killings last year.

Turkey is a NATO ally of the United States and President Tayyip Erdogan has maintained close ties with Trump, including supporting the U.S. diplomatic initiative on Gaza.

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The Turkish foreign ministry and the Armenian embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

The White House said there had been "no change of policy at this time" since Trump's 2025 statement on the historical incident, which did not include the word "genocide."

Spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, asked whether the White House had a broader problem with its social media protocols, said "no."

The White House's handling of the situation drew criticism from some Democratic lawmakers and members of the Armenian diaspora in the United States.

"Vance is a coward for deleting this post," said Alex Galitsky, policy director for the Armenian National Committee of America, an advocacy group, on X, adding that it was an "insult to the memory" of those who had died.

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VANCE'S VISIT TO ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN

In Armenia, Vance signed a deal with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan that could pave the way for the U.S. to build a nuclear power plant there.

Asked by a reporter whether his visit to the memorial was intended to recognize a genocide, Vance said: "Obviously, it's a very terrible thing that happened little over 100 years ago, and something that was just very, very important to them culturally.

"So I thought out of a sign of respect, both for the victims, but also for the Armenian government that's been a very important partner for us in the region, to Prime Minister Pashinyan, I wanted to go and pay a visit and pay my respects."

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Vance's visit was aimed at promoting agreements the Trump administration struck with Armenia and Azerbaijan to build towards peace after nearly 40 years of war between the Caucasus rivals. Trump has presented those diplomatic efforts as among the chief accomplishments of his time in office.

On Tuesday, Vance traveled to Azerbaijan and signed a strategic partnership deal encompassing economic and security cooperation, as Washington seeks to expand its influence in a region where Russia was once the main power broker.

(Reporting by Kevin Lamarque in Yerevan, Armenia, and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington; Additional reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Mark Heinrich, Edmund Klamann, Rod Nickel)
MANILA, Philippines (AP)  Manilas top envoy to Washington expressed confidence Tuesday that the United States will not abandon the Philippines as it fights Beijing's assertiveness in the disputed South China Sea  even as Donald Trump and Xi Jinping seek more direct talks to resolve differences.

Philippine Ambassador to Washington Jose Manuel Romualdez welcomed renewed talks between the U.S. and Chinese leaders, and said Manila should also try to fine-tune its relations with Beijing to allow for more trade engagement.

He said, however, that the Philippines will remain steadfast in defending its territorial interests in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims virtually in its entirety.

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The U.S. and the Philippines, Washingtons oldest treaty ally in Asia, have been the most vocal critics of Chinas growing assertiveness in the South China Sea, where Chinese forces have in recent years used powerful water cannons, flares and dangerous blocking maneuvers against Filipino forces at sea and in the air.

The U.S. has repeatedly warned China that its obligated to defend the Philippines if Filipino forces come under an armed attack. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have also been involved in the territorial standoffs but have avoided condemning Chinas assertiveness.

Still, Romualdez's noted growing concerns that a U.S.-China rapprochement could sideline the Philippines. Trump plans a visit to China in April, which in turn could lead to Xi visiting the U.S. in return, he said.

Some people are saying, 'Is there going to be a deal where were going to be thrown under the bus? Romualdez, a longtime critic of Chinas actions in the disputed waters, told a news conference in Manila.

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Assurances are being made to us that, thats absolutely not true, Romualdez said, adding that U.S.-Philippine defense engagements are "increasing even more now.

The U.S. Congress is working on a substantial financial appropriation to continue helping the Philippine military modernize its capabilities, said Romualdez, who is to visit the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii in April to discuss upcoming military and defense activities.

Last year, about 9,000 American and 5,000 Filipino military personnel took part in one of their largest annual combat drills in the Philippines in years. In one live-fire drill, U.S. and Filipino forces unleashed a barrage of missile and artillery fire that shot down several drones acting as hostile aircraft off a Philippine province facing the South China Sea.

China has fiercely opposed the mock battle scenarios as provocative.

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The Philippines will also try to make our relationship with China "much better, Romualdez said, adding that the two nations could cooperate on non-contentious issues such as climate change, manufacturing and alternative sources of energy.

There is only one thing thats permanent in this world, and thats change," Romualdez said. "We cannot stay stuck in one place.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP)  The nation's largest public utility says it now would prefer to keep operating two coal-fired power plants it had planned to shutter, changing course before a meeting of its board, which has a majority of members picked by the coal-friendly Trump administration.

In new filings, the Tennessee Valley Authority's signaled that it wants to ditch closure dates for the Kingston Fossil Plant and Cumberland Fossil Plant in Tennessee, which would require further action from its board. The new plan would still include introducing natural gas-fired plants at both locations.

TVA had intended to shutter its remaining, aging coal plants by 2035 in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that spur climate change. But the utility, which partners with local power companies to serve roughly 10 million people in seven states, said it is rethinking the coal plant closures because of regulatory changes and increasing demand for electricity.

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As power demand grows, TVA is looking at every option to bolster our generating fleet to continue providing affordable, reliable electricity to our 10 million customers, create jobs and help communities thrive, TVA spokesperson Scott Brooks said in a statement Tuesday.

But several clean energy groups said extending the coal plants would raise serious questions about TVAs decision-making process, since the utility has said more natural gas plants were needed to retire polluting coal plants.

Without even a public meeting, TVA is telling the people who live near these coal plants that they will breathe in toxic pollution from not one, but two major power plants for the foreseeable future, Gabi Lichtenstein, Tennessee Program Coordinator for Appalachian Voices, said in a news release. This decision is salt in the wound after ignoring widespread calls for cleaner, cheaper replacements for the Kingston and Cumberland coal plants.

President Donald Trump fired enough TVA board members picked by his predecessor to leave the utility without a quorum. Without one, the board could only take actions needed for ongoing operations, not to jump into new areas of activity, start new programs or change the utilitys existing direction.

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Trump then signed executive orders aimed at helping the coal industry. Last May, TVA's president and CEO, Don Moul, told investors that the utility would reevaluate the lifespan of its coal plants, saying officials were evaluating Trump's executive orders.

The U.S. Senate confirmed four Trump board nominees in December. With the quorum restored, TVA's board is scheduled to meet Wednesday in Kentucky.

TVA had already faced advocates' criticisms for planning to open more natural gas plants as the utility was winding down its fleet of coal plants, instead of more quickly moving away from fossil fuels and into solar and other renewables.

TVA's goal for years has been an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2035 over 2005 levels, and net-zero emissions by 2050, with a heavy emphasis on nuclear power and hopes for next-generation reactors. Biden had gone further, calling for a carbon-pollution-free energy sector by 2035.

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Clean energy groups have noted that the rapid building of data centers that support artificial intelligence is partly to blame for growing power demand. In an investors call last week, TVA President and CEO Don Moul said data center demand grew to 18% of its industrial load in 2025, and by 2030, the utility expects it to double across the service region. Moul said the fairness of new data center pay rates is a priority for TVA.

Under a 2024 final decision, TVA planned for a 1,500-megawatt natural gas facility with 4 megawatts of solar and 100 megawatts of battery storage at the Kingston Fossil Plant, a 2,470-megawatt coal plant finished in 1955, and the site of a massive 2008 coal ash spill. The coal plant was slated to close and the gas plant to come online by the end of 2027.

The new proposal would keep the coal, gas and battery, but drop the solar.

In a 2023 decision, TVA planned to mothball its two-unit Cumberland coal plant in two stages  one, by the end of 2026, to be replaced this year by the 1,450-megawatt natural gas plant; and the second, shuttered by the end of 2028, with options open on its replacement. The 2,470-megawatt Cumberland coal plant, completed in 1973, is the largest generating asset in TVA's fleet of coal plants.

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Trump tussled with TVA during his first term, including when he opposed a coal plant closure. Ultimately, in 2019 the board still voted to close the Paradise Fossil Plant in Kentucky. Its last towers were demolished in 2024.

In 2020, Trump fired the former TVA board chairman and another board member and drove TVA to reverse course on hiring foreign labor for information technology jobs. He also criticized the pay scale for the CEO at the time, which was $7.3 million for the 2020 budget year and topped $10.5 million for 2024. TVA stressed that it doesnt receive federal taxpayer money and instead is funded by electricity customers, and that the CEO pay fell in the bottom quartile of the power industry.

___

This version corrects that Cumberland Fossil Plant is the largest generating asset in TV's fleet of coal plants, not in TVA's overall fleet.
For most of my nursing career, my instinct when work felt overwhelming was always the same: Look inward, fix myself, and try harder.

If a shift felt chaotic, I assumed I needed to manage my time better. If an interaction went poorly, I replayed it in my mind, wondering what I could have said differently. If I came home exhausted and irritable, I told myself I needed thicker skin. I believed improvement, whether through better coping skills, better communication, or better self-care, was always the answer.

What I did not examine at first was the system itself. I did not question the culture or the constant pressure that accumulates over years of nursing practice. Instead, I focused on myself, believing that resilience meant adapting without complaint.

From the outside, this mindset looked like strength. I was adaptable, reliable, and competent. I took pride in being able to handle difficult situations and maintain professionalism. I believed that if I could control my reactions, the work would eventually become manageable.

Over time, however, something changed.

When anger became information

I began coming home angry on a regular basis. Not just after particularly difficult shifts, but consistently. I found myself talking about work constantly, expressing frustration, replaying interactions, and feeling emotionally drained. Although my performance remained solid and I continued to meet expectations, internally I felt tense and depleted.

At the time, I did not recognize my anger as a warning sign. I saw it as something to manage better. I tried to pray through it, think through it, and breathe through it. I invested in self-improvement efforts, including productivity strategies and communication tools, believing that if I could just find the right approach, the pressure would ease.

It did not.

Eventually, I came to understand that persistent anger and exhaustion were not signs of personal failure. They were information. They indicated that the environment itself was not sustainable, regardless of skill or effort. That realization marked a shift in how I understood burnout. I stopped asking how I could change myself and began asking whether the structure of my work needed to change instead.

Leaving the bedside didnt fix everything.

Like many nurses experiencing burnout, I transitioned away from bedside care. I moved into discharge planning and utilization review, roles often described as more sustainable long term. On paper, the change made sense. The work was less physically demanding and offered more predictable hours.

In practice, many stressors remained. Conflict with patients and families continued. Communication with providers was still challenging. The pressure was different, but it was still present. I remember thinking this might be as manageable as nursing could realistically be.

Because the role was considered desirable and the pay was good, I told myself I should be grateful. I did not seriously consider leaving nursing or exploring alternatives beyond traditional in-person roles. Instead, I returned to familiar thinking: If I could manage myself better, the work would feel easier.

At the time, remote nursing did not seem like a realistic option. Many of the roles I saw advertised paid less, and after two decades in the profession, I was not willing to sacrifice financial stability for relief. So I stayed, continuing to push myself and hoping the strain would lessen.

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Giving myself permission

When I finally gave myself permission, change came.

I learned of a nurse working remotely in utilization review for a local hospital. She mentioned that she found discharge planning too stressful. That simple statement prompted an important realization. I had never given myself permission to say that a role was not right for me.

Wanting out felt like weakness, as though admitting I needed a real change meant I simply could not handle nursing. Yet hearing another nurse calmly name her limits allowed me to acknowledge my own. The constant interactions, interruptions, and conflict had accumulated over time. I was capable of the work, but I no longer wanted the environment.

Once I gave myself permission to want something different, I identified several non-negotiables:

Fair compensation

Remote work

Reasonable expectations

A professional environment with less constant conflict

This was not entitlement. It was an effort to protect my well-being and remain in the profession long term.

The transition took time, about six months. Eventually, I accepted a remote role that met those non-negotiables.

How environment made the difference

The relief was not dramatic or immediate, but it was real. I complained less because there was less to react to. I had more energy at the end of the day. My nervous system was no longer in a constant state of alert.

Remote nursing did not eliminate challenges, nor did it remove all interpersonal difficulty. What it changed was the structure of my work. My workload was more contained. Access to me was more limited. Urgency was no longer constant. Those differences significantly reduced the chronic stress that had contributed to my burnout.

Burnout is often framed as a lack of resilience, but my experience suggests that environment plays a critical role. When nurses are consistently overloaded, interrupted, and exposed to conflict, no amount of self-care can fully compensate.

Remote nursing helped address my burnout not because it was perfect, but because it was humane. It provided space, autonomy, and dignity. It reminded me that nursing does not have to feel like survival in order to be meaningful.

For nurses who come home angry every day or feel they should simply endure more, persistent distress may be signaling that the work environment needs to change. Choosing a different path does not mean you did not care. It means you cared enough to stop sacrificing yourself.

Conclusion

Remote nursing gave me my life back. Not because it removed every challenge, but because it changed the structure of my work in ways that allowed me to function without constant strain. I had more space, fewer interruptions, and a pace that no longer felt like survival.

For a long time, I believed resilience meant enduring whatever the system demanded. Now I understand that resilience can also mean recognizing when an environment is no longer sustainable and choosing differently. Persistent anger and exhaustion were not personal shortcomings. They were signals asking me to pay attention.

More than a year into remote work, I am still recognizing the renewal it made possible. A new version of me is still emerging after decades of running. It is the kind of healing no amount of efficiency, productivity hacks, or inspirational talks ever gave, and for that, I am grateful.

Michele Abbott is a nurse and writer.




More than 20 staff members focused on boosting academic programming at the University of Texas lost their jobs in layoffs last month.

In January, Provost William Inboden eliminated 23 staff positions within UTs Academic Affairs office, shuttering key supports for faculty teaching, undergraduate research, community engagement and advising.

The restructuring gutted the academic affairs branch of the provosts office and eliminated the positions of three of eight office leaders, including the head of interdisciplinary studies. The Academic Affairs Office was previously led by Art Markman, who Inboden fired last fall over ideological differences, according to Markman.

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The closed centers and laid off staff members provide centralized teaching support to faculty across campus and career and course guidance to students. Faculty said the staff were instrumental in guiding the universitys transition to online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuring students across colleges found research opportunities.

UT spokesperson Mike Rosen initially declined to confirm the number of staff laid off. In a January statement, he said the university regularly reviews its resources and remains committed to the highest quality of undergraduate teaching and learning. He also said colleges have internal advising and faculty support.

The changes will allow us to focus resources for these programs where they are most needed and most effective, he said. Rosen declined to comment further on the layoffs.

UT employs nearly 15,000 staff members as of last year, an increase of 2,300 staff members from 2018. In the same time period UT grew enrollment by 4,000 students, established the School of Civic Leadership and launched more than a dozen new academic programs across the university.

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About 55% of UT staff are women, and about 1,200 staff members, or 8.3% of UTs total, work in the provosts office, led by Inboden. Nearly 75% of the positions eliminated in the Provosts office were held by women.

UTs provost oversees the flagships academic offerings and mission. In addition to academic affairs, the provost oversees seven other offices focused on faculty, graduate studies and enrollment.

Inboden wrote in a January email to some faculty that the Center for Teaching and Learning, Vick Advising Excellence Center, Center for Undergraduate Research and Office of Community Engagement will wind down this semester and end this May.

The laid off staff will retain their positions until May, according to UT documents. The university will give them preference in hiring for other UT jobs and offered them employee assistance program counselors.

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The changes, Inboden said, are designed to enhance collaboration, create new pathways for partnerships, prudently steward our resources, and strengthen existing units within our colleges and schools.

But faculty fear the cuts will gut resources key to UTs mission  teaching and research  while further shaking up the universitys organization at a time leadership is undergoing major changes.

In the past year, UT has had four provosts, a new president and a new chancellor. Six of UTs 18 dean positions are currently in flux or held by interim leaders.

In April 2024, the university fired dozens of staff members who formerly worked in diversity, equity and inclusion positions. Nearly 75% of the 49 people laid off then were women. About a third of the staff members laid off were Black, though they made up about 7% of UT staff at the time.

Shortly after the 2024 layoffs, UT made major changes to its marketing and communications department, laying off 20 staff members and demoting its leader. Both layoffs were designed to increase operational efficiency and better steward resources, UT said at the time.
Feb 10 (Reuters) - Venezuelan opposition politician Juan Pablo Guanipa is under house arrest in the city of Maracaibo, his son Ramon Guanipa said on Tuesday, shortly after the close ally of Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado was freed from jail and recaptured.

"I confirm my father, Juan Pablo Guanipa, is in my house in Maracaibo," his son said in a post on X. "We are relieved to know my family will be reunited soon."

"My father is still unjustly imprisoned," Ramon Guanipa added, "because house arrest is still prison and we demand his full freedom and that of all the political prisoners."

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Venezuela's government has announced a series of prisoner releases amid U.S. pressure after the United States captured President Nicolas Maduro in an attack on Caracas ordered by President Donald Trump. The government denies holding political prisoners and says those jailed have committed crimes.

Juan Pablo Guanipa, a 61-year-old lawyer and politician, was released from detention on Sunday but then rearrested several hours later after speaking to media in Caracas and seeing supporters. Venezuela's Attorney General's Office said he was rearrested for allegedly violating the terms of his release.

Ramon Guanipa said his father had been forcibly retaken by unidentified men who put a t-shirt over his head and did not let him lift his head from the floor of the van in which he was transported.

His whereabouts were unknown until his son confirmed on Tuesday that he was in Maracaibo, the capital of the oil-rich state of Zulia, where the entire family is from.

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"He has been released from prison but he remains under house arrest," Ramon Guanipa said. "He cannot make statements, he cannot go out. That is to say, he is less free than he was on Sunday."

He added that while the second arrest was much more violent than the first, his father was physically well.

Government officials have said nearly 900 of the prisoners have been released, but they have not been clear about when this occurred. Venezuela's opposition and human rights groups have said for years that the government uses detentions to stamp out dissent.

Guanipa was imprisoned for more than eight months on accusations of leading a terrorist plot, which he has denied. Before that he lived in hiding after the 2024 presidential vote which the opposition says it won, though Maduro claimed victory.

(Reporting by Reuters staff; Editing by Daina Beth Solomon and Will Dunham)
More than a dozen victims of an alleged Georgia-based Ponzi scheme met publicly Monday with Georgias secretary of state as both state and federal investigations into First Liberty Building and Loan continue.

Channel 2 consumer investigator Justin Gray was in the room Monday with those investors.

Court documents say that only about $3.5 million has been recovered so far in an alleged $140 million Ponzi scheme, Channel 2 Action News Investigates learned.

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It was in a nondescript room in a suburban office park where people who lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, some even millions, gathered.

More than a dozen investors, several who did not want to show their names or faces on camera, all wanted to tell a story of a broken trust:

Sadly, I got two of my sons and a daughter involved, and we as a family lost well over $1 million.

They took me for $750,000.

They took my life savings.

I know that several people in this room have lost over $1 million.

We prayed together. We cried together, said Allen Baldwin, who said he prayed on the phone with First Libertys owner Brant Frost IV when he got the news the Securities and Exchange Commission shut down as an alleged $140 million Ponzi scheme last summer.

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He said he was unable at first to believe the worst about the family he considered friends.

Its obvious that this was no accident. There was a lot of, a lot of intent behind. And it hurts. It hurts very bad, Baldwin said.

Channel 2 Action News Investigates pulled the new second quarterly receivers report on First Libertys liquidation that says while the receiver generated hundreds of thousands of dollars selling the First Liberty building and the Frost familys luxury vehicles.

The primary asset of the receivership consists of approximately sixty (60) individual, defaulted loans and The Receiver anticipates that many of the borrowers and guarantors will have not sufficient assets to pay back their loans to the Receivership Investors here...have little faith...they will see much of their money back, the report says.

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Investors say they were convinced to invest because of the Frost familys alleged conservative and Republican values.

The receivers report now finds that instead of going to investments, as promised, First Liberty made almost 1,000 political donations totaling over $1 million using investor funds.

There were just so many, so many things that made it so easy to believe and trust and trust was just horribly violated, Baldwin said.

Last Week, Channel 2 Action News shared that the secretary of state has appointed a special investigative agent to lead their probe.

The receiver appointed by the SEC continues to try to find assets, even auctioning off Brant Frosts $20,000 Patek Phillipe watch.

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The receiver also says they will demand repayment of any political donations made illegally with other peoples money.

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A proposal to create a new income tax bracket for Virginias highest earners is moving through the General Assembly, aiming to generate new revenue for schools, child care and affordable housing.

House Bill 188 would establish a new income tax bracket beginning in the 2026 tax year. Under the bill, individuals earning more than $1 million annually would pay a 10% tax on income above that threshold.

Currently, Virginia taxes all income above $17,000 at a flat rate of 5.75%.

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The bill directs how revenue generated from the higher tax rate would be allocated. 50% of the additional revenue would be dedicated to providing increased basic aid funding for public schools. 30% would go to the Child Care Subsidy Program, and 20% would be allocated to the Virginia Housing Trust Fund.

HB 188 also includes technical amendments.

The bill is currently in committee.
RICHMOND  The House of Delegates passed a slate of renter protections this week that Democrats say will help prevent evictions.

Heres what the amendments to the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act would do if they are passed by the General Assembly and signed by Gov. Abigail Spanberger.

One bill, proposed by Del. Michael Feggans, D-Virginia Beach, changes the requirement that military personnel who need to move suddenly give landlords 60 days notice. The bill would make it so that members of the military who deploy or permanently change stations give 30 days notice instead.

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I know firsthand how stressful these moments are, Feggans said at a news conference Tuesday. This bill allows military service members or their family members to end a lease without a penalty.

Other bills would change the requirements for bringing rent cases to court. HB281 would remove the requirement that a tenant pay into court due and unpaid rent before asserting a defense. Another bill, proposed by Del. Phil Hernandez, D-Norfolk, would prevent large landlords from taking adverse action against a prospective tenant with an eviction on their record, if that eviction was dismissed or is eligible for expungement. Hernandez also proposed legislation that would cap payment of a landlords attorney fees at $50 if a tenant pays all the money due ahead of an eviction proceeding.

Another bill would deem air conditioning to be an essential service for landlords to provide.

Here are the other amendments to the Landlord and Tenant Act as they passed the House:

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HB616  requires landlords to provide an itemized list of fees credits and expenses over the past year to tenants

HB834  requires landlords to give 21 days notice of terminating a rental agreement if the unit has been damaged or destroyed by fire or damages and to make a reasonable effort to offer a substantially similar unit or determine if the damage was the tenants fault

HB837  expands eligibility of the Eviction Diversion Program to include people who are in good standing through a rent payment plan. The current law requires that people who enter into the program have not been late on rent payment more than twice within 6 months or three times within a year.

HB1005  requires landlords to accept rent payment by any lawful means, including check, services like Venmo or Zelle, debit or credit card, cash and money order. The bill also prohibits landlords from charging tenants maintenance fees unless the tenant violated the Landlord and Tenant Act. The current prohibition only applies to public housing authorities.

HB848  removes requirements that tenants pay rent to court or neutral third party to hold before the court grants tenant relief

HB1408  loosens requirements for victims of family abuse that occurred in the apartment or on the premises to avoid being evicted.

Sen. Glen Sturtevant, R-Chesterfield, told reporters Tuesday that he thought the focus should be on making it easier for people to purchase a home for the first time.

I think that the American dream is not renting for your entire life, he said. A lot of the focus that were seeing in the Democrat bills is focusing on making it harder on landlords and rental situations. The more red tape and the more fees where they tie the hands of the landlords, many of whom are just sort of mom-and-pop small landlords, all of these increased costs are just going to end up getting passed on to the renters and drive up the renter price.

Sturtevant proposed legislation that would make it more difficult for private equity hedge funds to buy up single-family homes. That bill was passed by in committee.

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The legislature is also considering bills to increase and preserve the supply of public housing. The House passed a bill that would allow localities first dibs of buying publicly supported housing with the intent of keeping it affordable. Meanwhile the Senate passed a bill that would allow nonprofits including churches to build affordable housing on their property.

Kate Seltzer, 757-713-7881, kate.seltzer@virginiamedia.com
GARY  The staff of the West Virginia Public Service Commission is recommending that a McDowell County towns water system be declared a distressed utility.

Thats according to the latest joint staff memorandum filing by the West Virginia Public Service Commission in the case involving the city of Garys municipal water works.

The PSC staff only makes recommendations, and a final order in the case must still be issued by the commission before any action can be taken.

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As of Monday, there was no timeframe as to when the commission would issue an order in the Gary case.

According to the final joint staff memorandum filing, the PSC staff has found that the citys water system meets the classification of a distressed utility and is recommending that the McDowell County Public Service District provide water to the distressed system since the PSD is the proximate utility.

The final joint staff memorandum adds that the McDowell County Public Service District has expressed an interest in acquiring the citys water and sewer operations, and has a demonstrated history of regular rate review and compliance with its bond provisions.

However, according to a statement issued earlier this month by the McDowell County Commission, the city of Gary has declined a request for the McDowell County Public Service District to provide water to town residents.

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County Commission President Michael Brooks and fellow Commissioners Cecil Patterson and Dewayne Dotson, along with Delegate David Green, R-McDowell, recently met with the town to discuss the possibility of turning the towns water system over to the countys Public Service District.

However, town officials chose not to move forward with that option, the commission members said.

Towns are responsible for managing their own systems, and while the county commission is always willing to help, we cannot force a town to accept assistance if it is declined, Brooks, Patterson and Dotson said in the joint statement. The county commission wants to work with everyone  both inside and outside of town limits  and will continue to offer help whenever it is wanted. Our goal is cooperation, transparency and doing what we can to support our communities within the limits of our authority.

If a final order in the case is issued by the PSC, it could require the city to comply with the commissions findings and to accept county water and sewer service from the McDowell County Public Service District.

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Mavis Brewster, executive director of the McDowell County Public Service District, said in an earlier interview with the Daily Telegraph that the PSD was willing to help the town, adding the PSD was also responding to the West Virginia Public Service Commissions order by offering county water to the town.

Weve been working with the city of Gary or trying to work with the city of Gary for some time, Brewster said. The county has been willing to help the city of Gary. The (West Virginia) Public Service Commission actually right now has an investigation. They have one case for water and one case for the sewer.

The McDowell County Public Service District provides county water to most communities across McDowell with the exception of the cities of Gary, War and Welch.

Brewster said the PSD originally started with 522 customers and now serves approximately 3,500.

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Weve worked really hard to bring good quality water to the residents, Brewster said.

The PSC launched an investigation into the citys water system on Aug. 4, 2025.

According to the Public Service Commissions original order that was issued in July of last year, residents in the city of Gary have been under a boil water advisory for some time and residents have been dealing with water discoloration issues. That order said a potential permanent resolution to Garys water issues would be for the McDowell County Public Service District to assume control of the municipal system.

Contact Charles Owens at cowens@bdtonline.com
A warrant was issued for a woman who allegedly made threatening calls to an Ohio Walmart location over the weekend.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

Around 3 p.m. on Sunday, Toledo Police officers were dispatched to the Walmart on Glendale Ave after the store had received several calls in which a woman threatened to bring a bomb to the store and shoot up the place, CBS-affiliate WTOL-11 reported.

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Employees told police they believed the caller was 45-year-old former employee Kinyetta Dotson, who, earlier that day, had called the store several times, demanding to speak to a family member.

The employee denied Dotsons requests, and the calls increased an she began allegedly threatening bodily harm to the employees she spoke to over the phone, WTOL-11 reported.

Store employees told police they didnt believe the threats were credible.

Toledo police filed a first-degree misdemeanor warrant against Dotson for inducing panic, WTOL-11 reported.

According to Toledo Municipal Court records, Dotson was not in custody as of Monday morning.

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WASHINGTON (DC News Now)  The journey began in Texas and will culminate in an arrival in Washington, D.C.

Along the 2,300 miles that a group of Buddhist monks is walking there has been a huge amount of interest and shows of support for the monks Walk for Peace.

Monks Walk for Peace draws hundreds to Dumfries

By Monday, the group was in the heart of the DMV, walking through the city of Alexandria with Arlington next on its list of destinations.

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A real-time tracker, available for the entire trek, provides a live map of where the group is.

The monks began their journey, spreading a message of mindfulness and inner peace, in 2025. After they reach D.C., they will return to Fort Worth, Texas.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to DC News Now | DC, Virginia, Maryland News, Weather, Traffic, Sports Live.
WASHINGTON  Congress and the White House are locked in negotiations over potential reforms to the Department of Homeland Security as a deadline to shut down the agency approaches by the end of the week.

Lawmakers have until the end of Friday, Feb. 13, to reach an agreement or risk jeopardizing funding for the Transportation Security Administration and Coast Guard, among other divisions of the 9/11-era Cabinet agency that could be impacted by yet another lapse in appropriations.

Unlike during the record-breaking government shutdown in the fall, Trump administration officials have been engaged in the last few weeks in serious talks with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The ongoing discussions reflect a bipartisan unease over the tactics of federal agents in President Trump's nationwide immigration enforcement surge, especially since 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti's killing by Border Patrol agents in Minnesota in January.

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Read more: The shutdown is over. Now a race is on to reform Trump's ICE.

Last week, House and Senate Democrats released a list of 10 demands to curb DHS, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and Customs and Border Protection, or CBP. Those wishes included a ban on mask-wearing for federal agents, stricter use-of-force standards and prohibiting immigration enforcement operations in "sensitive locations" such as schools and churches.

Since then, Democrats have been trying to broker a deal with their GOP counterparts and the White House, which has offered a counterproposal, according to an administration official.

A mobile digital billboard with messaging critical of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection is parked along the National Mall on February 6, 2026 in Washington, DC.

The contours of the White House's offer weren't immediately widely known among lawmakers. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, told reporters Feb. 9 he was aware of the counterproposal but hadn't seen the details. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-New Hampshire, said it wasn't clear to her what kind of progress had been made in recent days among the negotiators in her party.

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Read more: The Alabama Republican shepherding ICE talks

"Hopefully, people are working to get something done," she said.

Even if the Friday deadline passes, the consequences will be limited: The rest of the government has already been funded through the rest of the fiscal year. Even ICE, the division of DHS whose tactics have been at the center of the reform talks, would continue operating (it received $75 billion in funding over the next several years in President Trump's signature legislation popularly known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Still, the clock is ticking. Whether an agreement comes together before TSA workers could see their pay threatened isn't clear. Whether Republicans and Democrats would be willing to pass another short-term DHS funding extension to buy time for a compromise isn't guaranteed, either.

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Asked Feb. 9 whether such a bill could feasibly gain traction in the next few days, Maine Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she wasn't sure.

Contributing: Joey Garrison

Zachary Schermele is a congressional reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Will DHS shut down? Reform talks between Dems, White House ongoing
Iowa couples seeking a marriage license could waive their ability to access the state's no-fault divorce law, making it tougher to dissolve their union, under a bill advancing in the Iowa Senate.

But after a half-hour subcommittee meeting on Feb. 9 where advocates for victims of domestic violence, family law attorneys and others raised concerns with the legislation, its author said the bill would see significant changes before it moves further.

"Im completely open to rewriting the bill," said Sen. Jesse Green, R-Boone. "I really appreciate this conversation and I hope that we can continue this conversation."

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As currently written, Senate File 2172 would allow both members of the couple to sign a waiver as part of their marriage license that prevents them from later filing for divorce based solely on a breakdown of the marriage relationship.

The person filing for divorce would then have to prove either that their partner had committed adultery; committed a felony and been imprisoned; abandoned their home for a year or more; physically or sexually abused their spouse or a child; or that the parties had been living separately for at least two years.

The Iowa bill says the waiver preventing no-fault divorce is only valid if both parties have signed it voluntarily. Iowa courts must presume the waiver is valid unless one member of the couple can establish by clear and convincing evidence that they signed the document under duress, coercion or as the result of fraud.

Every state in the country allows for no-fault divorce, which enables couples to file for divorce without proving wrongdoing.

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Iowa's divorce rates stood at 6.9 divorces per 1,000 women in 2022, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. That represents a drop from a decade earlier and places Iowa 33rd in the country.

GOP senator says bill would 'would need to be completely rewritten'

Senators serving on the subcommittee made clear that the bill would need to change before it could receive further consideration.

Sen. Scott Webster, R-Bettendorf, said he would prefer to see a bill that would penalize abusive partners and make it harder for them to claim equal custody of assets and children in divorces.

"The way I look at this bill is it would need to be completely rewritten because it would need to be a form of at-fault divorce for child custody and for assets only," he said.

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He said he wants to make sure the state isn't doing anything to trap people in abusive relationships.

"Anybody has the right to leave that marriage if they need to," he said. "Because I think when you talk about domestic abuse, the amount of women in the state of Iowa that do not ever report it because out of fear, I would be worried that this would trap them in it."

Sen. Tony Bisignano, D-Des Moines, did not support advancing the bill, saying that the state's marriage law has been settled for years. He said he worried that children would be harmed if a finding of fault was needed for a divorce.

"Were going back to where children are in the middle," he said. "And what side are they going to take? And what kind of abuse because they take the wrong side?"

Opponents warn bill would make it harder for women to leave abusive marriages

Laura Hessburg, a lobbyist for the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said the bill "legally enables abusive partners to keep spouses trapped in dangerous relationships" since they would have to prove their spouse is at fault to get a divorce.

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"No-fault divorces have been beneficial to spouses in abusive relationships," Hessburg said. "And thats not surprising as any barriers to divorce prolongs an individuals forced involvement with an abusive partner."

Hessburg said many victims of domestic violence would likely stay married if the bill became law because of concerns like fear of retaliation for reporting the abuse they face.

"Due to the very nature of abuse, many victims do not report abuse to someone or they do not seek help from anyone because doing so is too dangerous," she said. "So leaving a violent relationship is the most dangerous time and this bill requires victims to prove abuse before they leave."

Stacey Warren, a family law attorney at the Cashatt Warren Family Law firm in Des Moines, said the bill would have a "significant impact" on Iowa's judiciary. It would increase costs for families and force judges to spend more time on divorce cases rather than other cases on their docket.

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"Introducing the impact of fault back into family law in the state of Iowa is probably the 'Divorce Attorneys Full Employment Act' times 10," she said. "All this will do is increase the costs of litigation, impact our judiciary significantly if parties have to spend time arguing about whether or not there are grounds to get divorced."

Caitlin Jarzen, a lobbyist for the Iowa Judicial Branch, echoed those concerns.

"However, the fact findings of cases under this bill would be a lot more time-intensive and would put a significant strain on the judicial branch," she said.

Christian groups express support for the bill

Chuck Hurley, a lobbyist for The Family Leader, a conservative Christian group, said signing a waiver would be voluntary for couples and those who wished to sign such an agreement should be free to do so.

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"From our organizations standpoint, and my personal standpoint, marriage is the foundation stone of families and society," he said. "Strengthening the importance, gravity and permanence of marriage is desperately needed."

Tom Chapman, executive director of the Iowa Catholic Conference, said the group registered as undecided on the legislation because of some outstanding questions but is generally supportive.

"Generally we feel that marriage is not supposed to be temporary and the idea that people could go into a marriage with the idea theyre going to fight for it is probably a good thing," he said.

Stephen Gruber-Miller covers the Iowa Statehouse and politics for the Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com or by phone at 515-284-8169. Follow him on X at @sgrubermiller.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: An Iowa bill would let couples waive their right to no-fault divorces
Bison are an enduring and iconic symbol of North Americas vast Great Plains. The large mammals have been hunted for thousands of years, and were almost driven into extinction in the late 1800s. Over thousands of years, bison hunters used different sites, but why they abandoned hunting grounds has been an archaeological mystery. For the Bergstrom site in present-day Montana, climate change may have been to blame. The findings are detailed in a study published today in the journal Frontiers in Conservation Science.

We found that bison hunters ceased using a kill site in central Montana around 1,100 years ago, Dr. John Wendt, a study co-author and paleoecologist at New Mexico State University said in a statement. It appears that hunters stopped using it because severe, recurring droughts reduced the water available for processing animals at a small nearby creek. Site abandonment was a response to environmental stressors and changing social and economic pressures.

1,000-year-old puzzle pieces

Located near the town of Judith Gap in central Montana, the Bergstrom site was used to hunt and kill bison for at least 700 years. To try and piece together why hunters stopped using the site over 1,000 years ago, the team used archaeological excavation, sediment coring, and laboratory analyses.

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The Bergstrom site presented a puzzle because it was used intermittently and abandoned when bison were common throughout the region and hunting was intense, Wendt said. Why would hunters stop using a site that had worked for so long?

In the spring of 2019, the team dug nine 3.2 feet by 3.2 feet (1 by 1 meter) excavation pits. They documented and photographed all of the excavated materials, sent charcoal fragments for radiocarbon analysis, and collected two sediment cores next to the excavation records. Sediment cores are dug deep into the ground and the layers of dirt, sand, and other material work like a geological time capsule. With these particular cores, the team looked for pollen and charcoal fragments, since the pollen can indicate what plants were growing and when and the charcoal indicates human presence through fires. Lastly, they used climate reconstructions and other ecological data to track the presence of large herbivores in the area.

Sediment cores were collected directly next to the excavation area and analyzed these for pollen and charcoal fragments. Image: John Wendt.

The team was able to see if ecological changes explained why Bergstrom was abandonedor if another factor was driving the bison hunters away.

Abandonment wasnt because the site became ecologically unsuitable in any absolute sense. Bison were still around, vegetation hadnt changed, and there was no substantive shift in fire activities, Wendt said. Bison hunting activity was not simply following prey populations.

A strategic change

Instead of bison population drops, severe droughts stretching decades hit the region both before and after Bergstrom was abandoned for the last time. These droughts limited how much water was available, and made locations with little or no water less attractive to groups of hunters. At the same time, many bison hunters reorganized themselves from smaller more mobile groups that worked opportunistically, into larger and more coordinated groups who built infrastructure and occupied hunting sites for longer periods of time.

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These larger operations were based on large kills and could produce surplus for trade and winter storage, but they also meant more dependence on specific resources like water, forage for larger herds, and fuel for processing fires, said Wendt.

The sites with these characteristics were more scarce, since they needed topographic features that could support large bison drives, including cliffs for jumps and areas that could contain herds. However, if a space had these characteristics, they often saw repeated, large-scale use over hundreds of years.

Students conducting archaeological excavations. Image: Michael Neeley.

Hunting culture and flexibility

According to the team, favoring the larger sites meant hunters had to count on everything going right, since these sites were more difficult to replace. Hunters worked at these sites over generations, so they could reorganize as the conditions changed. The team believes that passing down that cultural knowledge and flexibility allowed this type of hunting organization to persist as the climate changed. This flexibility is also seen in modern bison management systems.

Other bison hunting sites in the region may not have the same conclusions and could have been abandoned for other reasons. Additionally, while this study shows use for around 700 years, the team could not determine how long each use period lasted or how often the site was used during this time. The Bergstrom site also may have seen infrequent, low-impact use that left minimal traces on the land.

While people have been adapting to the climate for much longer, Bergstroms abandonment shows that people reorganized in response to recurring droughts in the last 2,000 years, concluded Wendt.
As the United States hangs on the precipice of a military attack on Iran while negotiating a nuclear deal that would avert a strike, Israel wants the Trump administration to insist on limits on Iran's ballistic missile stockpiles and funding of militant groups, demands that experts say could cause a stalemate in the talks and lead to war.

President Donald Trump told reporters on Feb. 6 that a deal that only saw Iran commit to eliminate its nuclear weapons, with no other concessions, would be "acceptable."

"Right up front, no nuclear weapons," Trump added.

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Iran has expressed openness to a deal if it only involves nuclear issues.

Anti-government protests in Iran appeared to accelerate on Jan. 9, sparked by anger over the collapse of the country's currency and a broader sense of hopelessness and disillusionment with Tehran's clerical leaders. The uptick in unrest also comes as President Donald Trump warned Iran's authorities against killing peaceful protesters, saying Washington "will come to their rescue."



See the scenes in Iran, beginning here on the streets amid anti-government unrest in Tehran, Iran, in this still image obtained from social media video released on January 8, 2026. Witnesses told Reuters protesters gathered in the streets on Thursday, January 8, however this video's date taken has not been verified. Protesters gather as vehicles burn, amid evolving anti-government unrest, in Tehran, Iran, in this screen grab obtained from a social media video released on January 9, 2026. People tear down an Iranian flag after it was taken down in Mashhad, Razavi Khorasan Province, Iran, in this still image obtained from a social media video released on January 8, 2026. Date when the video was filmed could not be confirmed. An overturned car and multiple fires burn as protesters chant outside a police station, during Iran's biggest demonstrations in three years over economic hardship, in Azna, Lorestan Province, Iran, in this still image obtained from a social media video released on January 1, 2026. Protesters gather amid evolving anti-government unrest in Tehran, Iran, in this screen grab obtained from a social media video released on January 9, 2026. Witnesses told Reuters protesters gathered in the streets on Thursday, January 8, however this video's date taken has not been verified. People gather on the streets amid anti-government unrest in Tehran, Iran, in this still image obtained from social media video released on January 8, 2026. The date of the videos could not be verified. Witnesses in Tehran told Reuters that protesters gathered in the streets on Thursday, January 8. People gather on the streets during a protest in Mashhad, Razavi Khorasan Province, Iran in this screengrab obtained from a social media video released on January 8, 2026. The date could not be verified but multiple videos verified to Mashhad were posted online on January 8. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi speaks during a press conference in Beirut, Lebanon, January 9, 2026. Burning debris lies in the middle of a street during unrest in Hamedan, Iran on January 1, 2026. The demonstrations erupted after shopkeepers in Tehran's Grand Bazaar shut their businesses to protest the sharp fall of Iran's currency and worsening economic conditions, with clashes reported in several provinces and Iranian media and rights groups saying multiple people were killed in the violence, marking the largest protests to hit the Islamic Republic in three years. A person uses a lighter to set fire to a banner during demonstrations in Hamedan, Iran, on January 1, 2026. The demonstrations erupted after shopkeepers in Tehran's Grand Bazaar shut their businesses to protest the sharp fall of Iran's currency and worsening economic conditions, with clashes reported in several provinces and Iranian media and rights groups saying multiple people were killed in the violence, marking the largest protests to hit the Islamic Republic in three years. Burning debris lies next to an overturned dumpster in the middle of a street during unrest amid demonstrations in Hamedan, Iran, on January 1, 2026. The demonstrations erupted after shopkeepers in Tehran's Grand Bazaar shut their businesses to protest the sharp fall of Iran's currency and worsening economic conditions, with clashes reported in several provinces and Iranian media and rights groups saying multiple people were killed in the violence, marking the largest protests to hit the Islamic Republic in three years. Rocks, tree branches, and a toppled charity box remain on a street during unrest amid demonstrations in Hamedan, Iran, on January 1, 2026. The demonstrations erupted after shopkeepers in Tehran's Grand Bazaar shut their businesses to protest the sharp fall of Iran's currency and worsening economic conditions, with clashes reported in several provinces and Iranian media and rights groups saying multiple people were killed in the violence, marking the largest protests to hit the Islamic Republic in three years. A protester flashes victory signs as traffic slows during demonstrations in Hamedan, Iran, on January 1, 2026. The demonstrations erupted after shopkeepers in Tehran's Grand Bazaar shut their businesses to protest the sharp fall of Iran's currency and worsening economic conditions, with clashes reported in several provinces and Iranian media and rights groups saying multiple people were killed in the violence, marking the largest protests to hit the Islamic Republic in three years. Security forces detain protesters outside a commercial building on Ahmadabad Street in Mashhad, Iran on January 3, 2026. Iran has experienced recurrent waves of protests in recent years driven by political repression, economic hardship, rising living costs, and restrictions on civil and social freedoms, including women's rights. Demonstrations have frequently been met with arrests, heavy security deployments, internet disruptions, and, according to activists and rights groups, the killing of protesters, as authorities move to suppress dissent. People walk down the street, chanting in Farsi, "Reza Shah, rest in peace", in Tehran, Iran, in this still image obtained from a social media video released on December 30, 2025. Demonstrators attempt to force a gate open to gain access to a building during a protest in Fasa, Iran, in this still image obtained from a social media video released on December 31, 2025. See Iran's anti-government protests, huge crowds, unrest in photos 1 of 16 Anti-government protests in Iran appeared to accelerate on Jan. 9, sparked by anger over the collapse of the country's currency and a broader sense of hopelessness and disillusionment with Tehran's clerical leaders. The uptick in unrest also comes as President Donald Trump warned Iran's authorities against killing peaceful protesters, saying Washington "will come to their rescue."



See the scenes in Iran, beginning here on the streets amid anti-government unrest in Tehran, Iran, in this still image obtained from social media video released on January 8, 2026. Witnesses told Reuters protesters gathered in the streets on Thursday, January 8, however this video's date taken has not been verified.

"We do not discuss any other issue with the U.S.," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said after the first day of talks between U.S. and Iranian negotiators in Oman on Feb. 6, which he called a "good start."

That red line puts the high-stakes negotiations on a collision course with Israel, which has insisted that Iran's ballistic missiles and its military support for its proxy forces in the region, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, must also be on the table.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is coming to Washington, DC on Feb. 11, where he is expected to push Trump to hold Iran to those additional conditions. Netanyahu "believes any negotiations must include limitations on ballistic missiles and a halting of the support for the Iranian axis," his office said in a Feb. 8 statement.

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The United States dropped more than a dozen penetrating bombs on Iran's nuclear facilities in June 2025. Trump has renewed his threats to reattack in recent weeks, amid the largest protests Iran has seen in decades and a brutal government crackdown in response that has killed thousands.

Ballistic missiles key to Iran's defense

The problem with those non-nuclear demands, according to experts, is that they would require Iran to completely restructure its national security strategy and decades of its defense dogma.

"The ballistic missile program is a key pillar of Iranian defense strategy," said Brian Carter, a research manager at the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats Project, who is focused on Iran and its regional partners. "For the Iranians to agree to a condition (limiting it) would be tantamount to a complete rethink of Iranian security policy over the last 10 years or longer than that."

"I dont know what exactly the United States is looking for in terms of limits, but its an unrealistic expectation," he said.

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It's not clear what kind of limit Israel wants to impose on Iran's ballistic missile stockpiles  whether on the number of missiles it could maintain or on the range that the missiles could reach. Iran has both medium-range ballistic missiles, which can reach around 620 to 1,860 miles, and short-range ballistic missiles, which cover a range less than that.

More: US military shoots down Iranian drone that 'aggressively' approached ship

From Iran's perspective, a limit on missile range would be akin to "taking our ability to retaliate and deter Israel while they have no limit on their ability to attack us," said Jim Lamson, a senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute's James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

A cap on the range of Iran's medium-range ballistic missiles, which can reach Israel, would also not address the risk posed to U.S. bases in the region, which Iran can reach with its short-range missiles. There are at least 40,000 U.S. troops stationed in the region, as of June of last year, which would be a prime target for Iran's retaliation, if attacked.

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"It would not be possible to attack American soil, but we will target their bases in the region if attacked, Araqchi said on Feb. 6.

Iran's reliance on ballistic missiles as the central pillar of its military strategy dates back to its war with Iraq in the 1980s. "They learned the hard way," Lamson said.

Experts say Iran's ballistic missiles are a key pillar of its defense strategy.

In the years since, Iran built up an "asymmetric" military strategy that centers on ballistic missiles and regional forces and "exploits our defense posture and hits us where we have gaps," according to Carter.

Carter and Lamson both likened a U.S. demand for Iran to give up its ballistic missiles to asking the United States to give up its aircraft carriers  a central facet of American military force and defense strategy. Trump has dispatched one of the country's aircraft carriers, the USS Abraham Lincoln, along with its three accompanying warships, to the Middle East amid his threats to attack Iran.

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Even if Iran agreed on a limit to its ballistic missile capabilities, verifying its compliance would present an additional set of challenges, Lamson said.

"Theres no way" Iran would accept the "intrusive monitoring and verification of ballistic missile development and production facilities" necessary to keep tabs on that limit, he added.

Iran's missile arsenal degraded, but unclear how much

While Israel's attack on Iran during the 12-Day War last June significantly degraded its ballistic missile stockpiles, it's not clear how much Iran has been able to replenish its arsenal.

Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, then the commander of U.S. Central Command, told senators in 2022 that Iran had more than 3,000 ballistic missiles. Iran fired 370 missiles at Israel during the war last June, around a half to a third of its stockpile, leaving it with around 1,500 missiles left, according to Israeli estimates.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Israel wants ballistic missile limits. Iran won't budge. Is it war?


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The royals have been issuing statements connected to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's friendship with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein (denying allegations of sleeping with trafficked teenagers) as far back as 2015but now, there's been a noted shift in tone from the Palace.

This week, a Palace spokesperson said, "The King has made clear, in words and through unprecedented actions, his profound concern at allegations which continue to come to light in respect of Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor's conduct. While the specific claims in question are for Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor to address, if we are approached by Thames Valley Police we stand ready to support them as you would expect."

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But is that enough to save the monarchy from complete disrepair? According to some senior U.S. government officials (and members of the public), it may not be.

Max Mumby/Indigo - Getty Images

Ro Khanna, part of the committee investigating the Epstein scandal, called on King Charles and Queen Camilla to step forward and give evidence, as well as Andrew, saying this could be "the end of the monarchy."

In a Sky News interview, Khanna said, "I think this is the most vulnerable the British monarchy has ever been. They ought to ask the King and Queen questions and maybe this will be the end of the monarchy."

He continued, "If they don't have answers, if they're implicated in the Epstein class, it's not a good look for the British monarchy. The King has to answer what he knew, what he knew about Andrew, and just stripping Andrew of a title is not enough.

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"Andrew needs to come before our committee and start answering questions. I don't think the appropriate punishment is you no longer get to be a prince. There's got to be more than that."

The King and Queen were heckled about Andrewand how much they knew about his involvement with Epsteinduring a visit to Dedham, an Essex village, last week, showing some members of the public appear to feel similarly.

Prince William and Kate Middleton also issued an unexpected statement in connection to the Epstein files this week, ahead of William's visit to Saudi Arabia. A spokesperson said, "I can confirm the Prince and Princess have been deeply concerned by the continuing revelations. Their thoughts remain focussed on the victims."

Speaking towards the end of last year, royal biographer and former Vanity Fair editor, Tina Brown, pointed out many are also questioning the late Queen Elizabeth II's role in protecting Andrew following the initial allegations of wrongdoing.

Chris Jackson - Getty Images

"The fact is that she has quite a lot to answer for with Andrew, is the truth," Brown suggested. "Because The Queen enabled Andrew in a really terrible way. He was her favorite. She protected him and mommy was his only client, essentially. She was the one who protected him so, unfortunately, it made him worse."

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Elsewhere, the Norwegian royal family has also been criticized over its connections to Epstein, as the Crown Princess, Mette-Marit, had correspondence exposed in the recent Epstein files release. Mette-Marit's son (whose father is someone she had a relationship with prior to marrying into the royal family), Magnus, has also been on trial for rape in recent weeks.

Mette-Marit issued a statement saying she has the "deepest regret for my friendship with Jeffrey Epstein" and apologized for "the situation that I have put the royal family in, especially the King and Queen."

Will the monarchy be able to survive yet another scandal of this intensity?

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It's not just Texas.

Republicans in other states, like Georgia, are frustrated that President Donald Trump has refused to make endorsements in competitive U.S. Senate primary races to help avoid costly runoff elections that could drain party resources.

In Georgia, 11 candidates are in the race to eventually take on U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, in November. Georgia Rep. Buddy Carter, one of the three leading candidates in that race, told CNN he recently pushed Trump again to make a pick in the race, but the president refused.

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In Texas, Sen. John Cornyn has repeatedly asked Trump for his support to help him defeat his opponents, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has warned that dragging out the race only sets the stage for a costly runoff election and an even more expensive November election.

"I'm giving it very serious thought," Trump said last week about endorsing in the Texas race. "My problem is that I'm friendly with all of them. So those are the hard ones."

In Louisiana, Trump has actually supported a GOP challenger to incumbent U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, setting up another potentially expensive primary.

"We're literally going to have Republican-on-Republican money being spent and that makes no sense leading up to a general where we're going to have headwinds," U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told the Washington Post in a story published Monday.

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The Senate Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the chamber going into the midterms. But with GOP-held seats in Maine and North Carolina looking tight, and Democrats outraising Republicans in races in Ohio and Georgia, Republicans are ringing alarm bells that 2026 is going to be harder than many first expected.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters that the shocking election results in Fort Worth last week have added to his worries. In Tarrant County, Democrat Taylor Rehmet won a state senate seat that a Democrat hasn't held since the 1980s.

"I think what happened in Texas should capture our attention and remind us that we need to up our game and do a better job," Thune said. "We've got to get out and tell that story. And I think over the course of the next several months, we'll do that."

This article originally published at Why Trump's decision not to endorse in races in Texas and Georgia could be costly.
CAHOKIA HEIGHTS, Ill.  An Illinois woman is behind bars after she allegedly threatened to harm an employee at a school in Cahokia Heights, Illinois.

Deputies at the St. Clair County Sheriffs Department say officials from the Cahokia School District contacted them after one of their employees received multiple threats via telephone. An investigation into the threats made led the sheriffs office to determine the calls were made by Rochelle Tate.

Deputies say Tate began contacting the victim after she was upset that they had a conversation with her child, who is a student at the school. The nature of what that conversation entailed was not disclosed by officials, but they say Tate told the employee she was going to shoot them when they left school for the day.

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The sheriffs office noted that after that initial threat was made, Tate continued to make calls to the school over 30 times, reiterating her intent to harm the worker.

Law enforcement eventually arrested the mother, and on Feb. 7, she was charged with disorderly conduct for communicating acts of violence/bodily harm toward a school employee, a Class 4 felony that carries up to 1-3 years in prison and fines up to $25,000 if convicted.

Members of the St. Clair County Sheriffs Department, the Cahokia Heights Police Department, and Cahokia School District have zero tolerance for violence or threats of violence at schools, and will investigate all incidents to hold those individuals accountable for their actions, the St. Clair County Sheriffs Department wrote.

She is currently being held at the St. Clair County Jail, court records say.

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Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Feb. 10A woman charged in the 2021 kidnapping and killing of Hartselle resident Mary Elizabeth Isbell  who prosecutors said was pushed off a cliff near Fort Payne  was sentenced to life in prison Friday in DeKalb County Circuit Court, according to court records.

Records show Fort Payne resident Loretta Kay Carr, 46, received an additional 20-year prison sentence for first-degree kidnapping, to be served consecutively with her life sentence for murder. Carr pleaded guilty to both charges under a plea agreement that reduced an original capital murder charge. She remains incarcerated in the DeKalb County Jail, where she has been held since her arrest on June 25, 2023.

Isbell's ex-husband reported her missing to the Hartselle Police Department on Dec. 27, 2021. Police said she had been living in DeKalb County. DeKalb County investigators said phone records helped determine that Isbell had been living in the county, but physical evidence from the scene did not produce national database matches and numerous leads pursued by law enforcement and volunteers had proved unsuccessful.

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DeKalb County investigators said they received new information about Isbell's disappearance on June 20, 2023, and executed search warrants. Hartselle Police Chief Alan McDearmond said a tip received by his department helped lead to the arrests of Carr and her daughter, Jessie Eden Kelly, 24, of Union City, Pennsylvania, who were charged with capital murder by the DeKalb County Sheriff's Office.

At the time, the Sheriff's Office said Kelly was in custody in Pennsylvania and awaiting extradition to Missouri on felony charges, and that a detainer had been placed on her in the DeKalb County capital murder case. Kelly pleaded guilty in August to murder and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. She is currently in custody at the Cherokee County Jail, according to a note filed in Dekalb County Circuit Court last month.

A search team made up of the DeKalb County Sheriff's Office, Fort Payne police and fire personnel, Fischer Rescue Squad, the National Park Service and others located Isbell's remains in Little River Canyon National Preserve on June 28, 2023. The Sheriff's Office said she would have turned 39 years old two days later.

Little River Canyon National Preserve sits atop Lookout Mountain and covers around 15,000 acres near Fort Payne.

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At the time of the missing person report, Hartselle police were able to determine Isbell was in DeKalb County based on phone records, according to the DeKalb County Sheriff's Office. Deputies said a search warrant of Isbell's DeKalb County residence showed signs of a struggle.

Months later, a credible tip, witness statements, and one of the defendant's statements led investigators to charge Carr and Kelly in Isbell's death, DeKalb County Chief Investigator Nick Brown said at the time.

"One of the co-defendants was very cooperative and helped lead us to Mary's remains," Brown said. The suspects and the victim were acquaintances via "a boyfriend," according to Brown.

According to a DeKalb County sheriff's investigator, who called the crime one of the most "heinous" in his career, Carr caused the death of Isbell on or around Oct. 18, 2021. The investigator said Carr killed Isbell "by pushing her off a cliff" and did so "during her abduction or attempt to abduct." Investigators said the defendants and Isbell knew each other through "a boyfriend."

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Carr's trial was originally scheduled for March 30, and prosecutors were seeking the death penalty, according to a motion filed in DeKalb County Circuit Court.

 wesley.tomlinson@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2442.
Ina Lang, 50, a dedicated Bank of America employee and mother of five, was killed in a shooting Friday morning at a northwest Charlotte bank, and 22-year-old Samon Smith has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder.

Lang was a wife, mother of five and a hard-working woman. Her husband of eight years told Channel 9 that she worked for Bank of America for almost 20 years.

He has no idea why she was killed, but he thinks she might have been out back of the branch on a smoke break when she was attacked. Police said it appeared to be a random act of violence

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ALSO READ: Man arrested following fatal shooting at northwest Charlotte bank

A memorial near the scene on Callabridge Court is growing as longtime customers try to cope with her death.

Shes going to be greatly missed, and that smile, said customer Stacie Stevenson. Her smile. It was contagious She made you laugh.

Stevenson told Channel 9s Jonathan Lowe that shes been a customer at the branch for more than 20 years.

When I first met her, she was a teller, and then she moved up to the office, Stevenson said.

Stevenson said Lang always showed customers that she cared.

She would talk to you, your family, her family, and also help you out, especially, with technology, dealing with the phone -- give me your phone, let me see it, and help me out, she said.

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Langs family is devastated by this tragedy. Her husband, who didnt want to speak on camera, told Channel 9 he wants answers as to why this happened.

Langs loved ones have started a fundraiser to help cover funeral costs and support her children.

The branch was closed on Monday so co-workers, friends, and family can grieve.

The investigation

The banks surveillance cameras captured the crime.

The video reportedly shows the suspect get out of a yellow Dodge Charger with black racing stripes, walk straight to Lang, shoot her twice in the back and then get back in the car and leave, according to court documents.

Ina Lang, a wife, mother of five, and Bank of America employee of almost 20 years, was shot and killed outside a northwest Charlotte bank. The suspect, 22-year-old Sam'on Smith, has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder. The car he drove to the bank was this Dodge Charger, according to court documents.

Police interviewed three witnesses who all reported hearing two gunshots then seeing someone get into a yellow Dodge Charger and leave the scene. They also saw Lang on the ground.

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Smith was quickly tracked down at his parents home where he lives.

Smiths criminal past

George Wise is the suspects uncle.

My sister told me that the police was surrounding the house and she needed me over there, Wise said.

Smith doesnt have much of a criminal footprint in North Carolina. He has been issued two citations: one for traffic and the other for carrying a concealed weapon. He was not arrested in either case.

Hes never been the type of dude that be on the block or out there banging, said Wise. He just a good dude, you know?

A Bank of America Spokesperson sent us the following statement:

We are deeply saddened by the loss of one of our Bank of America teammates. Our thoughts and condolences are with her family and friends.

WATCH: CMPD: Homicide investigation after shooting at northwest Charlotte bank
NEED TO KNOW

Yujun Ren has been charged with criminal homicide, possession of an instrument of crime and stalking

The Bucks County District Attorneys Office in Pennsylvania said that the charges come after a woman who reported a sexual assault" to police after attempting to end a relationship was found dead the day after her report

The woman's cousin identified her to local outlets as Yuan Yuan Lu and said she had been dating Ren for nearly a year before her death

A man has been arrested on a charge of criminal homicide following an alleged domestic violence incident in Pennsylvania.

The Bucks County District Attorneys Office announced on Sunday, Feb. 8, that it has filed a criminal complaint against Yujun Ren in connection with the death of a woman with whom they believed he had been in a relationship.

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The D.A. said it was charging Ren with criminal homicide, possession of an instrument of crime and stalking.

Yujun Ren Bucks County District Attorney's Office

The criminal complaint came after a woman reported a sexual assault to the Philadelphia Police Department on Saturday night and attempted to end" a relationship, the D.A.s office said.

However, evidence from police suggested that Ren began stalking her vehicle in the early morning hours the following day and showed that he shot her in her vehicle, according to authorities.

Todays tragic event is a sobering reminder of the lethal nature of domestic violence, said Bucks County District Attorney Joe Khan in a statement. ... We have successfully taken the defendant into custody and the community is safe.

Yuan Yuan Lu GoFundMe

We want to commend the officers and detectives who worked to ensure that these charges were filed within hours of the incident. We are committed to seeking justice for the victim, he added.

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The woman involved in the incident was identified by NBC 10 Philadelphia and WPVI-TV as Yuan Yuan Lu, citing the Bristol Township Police Department (BTPD). Lu's cousin, Natalie Truong, told WPVI-TV that Lu and Ren had been dating for nearly a year.

Ring camera footage obtained by NBC10 captured at around 5 a.m. on Sunday allegedly showed Lu driving into the frame in a white SUV and then Ren following behind her in a silver sedan, according to investigators.

Police told WPVI-TV that officers found a woman with a gunshot wound to the head sitting in the driver's seat of a car at around 12:30 p.m. and she was pronounced dead at the scene.

"All we know is that there was some kind of domestic relationship," BTPD Sgt. Jason Mancuso told WPVI-TV. "We believe the couple resided in Philadelphia, and at some point, the relationship had taken a turn for the worst and the victim had come back to her residence in Bucks County."

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The Bristol Township Police Department did not immediately respond to PEOPLEs request for comment on the case.

Yuan Yuan Lu GoFundMe

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Lu's cousin, Natalie Truong, told WPVI-TV, "We're still processing a lot of it. It still doesn't feel real All she wanted to do was leave. Just to leave him."

Truong added, "I want them to remember her as a really happy, strong girl. I don't want them to see her as a victim because she wouldn't want to be seen like that.

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Ren was arraigned on Sunday, Feb. 8, and denied bail, WPVI-TV reported. His next preliminary hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 10, according to NBC 10.

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.



Read the original article on People
A British woman who was shot dead by her father while visiting his home in Texas had argued with him about US President Donald Trump earlier that day, an inquest has heard.

Lucy Harrison, from Warrington in Cheshire, was shot in the chest on 10 January 2025 in Prosper, near Dallas.

Police in the town investigated the 23-year-old's death as possible manslaughter but no criminal case was brought against Kris Harrison after a grand jury in Collin County declined to indict him.

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An inquest into Lucy Harrison's death opened earlier at Cheshire Coroner's Court, where her boyfriend Sam Littler described the "big argument" about Trump, who was preparing to be inaugurated for his second term of office.

Littler, who travelled to the US with Lucy Harrison for the holiday, said she would often become upset with her father when he spoke about owning a gun.

The inquest also heard how Kris Harrison, who moved to the United States when his daughter was a child, had previously been to rehab for alcohol addiction.

Kris Harrison, who did not attend the inquest, admitted in a statement sent to the court that he had relapsed on the day of the shooting and had drunk about 500ml of white wine.

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Littler said on the morning of 10 January his partner had asked her father during the Trump row: "How would you feel if I was the girl in that situation and I'd been sexually assaulted?"

Kris Harrison had replied that he had two other daughters who lived with him so it would not upset him that much.

Littler said Lucy became "quite upset" and ran upstairs.

Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second presidential term 10 days after Lucy Harrison's death [Reuters]

He told the court that later that day, about half an hour before they were due to leave to go to the airport, Lucy had been in the kitchen when her father took her by the hand and led her into his ground-floor bedroom.

Littler said he heard a loud bang about 15 seconds later and then Kris Harrison screamed for his wife, Heather.

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Littler said: "I remember running into the room and Lucy was lying on the floor near the entrance to the bathroom and Kris was just screaming, just sort of nonsense."

The statement from Kris Harrison said he and his daughter had been watching a news item on gun crime when he told her he had a gun and asked her if she wanted to see it.

They went into the bedroom so he could show her a Glock 9mm semi-automatic handgun which he kept in the bedside cabinet.

Harrison said he had bought the gun a couple of years before because he wanted a "sense of security" for his family.

He denied ever discussing it with his daughter before.

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He said: "As I lifted the gun to show her I suddenly heard a loud bang. I did not understand what had happened. Lucy immediately fell."

Harrison said he could not recall whether his finger was on the trigger.

He acknowledged he had issues with alcohol in the past and said he "briefly lapsed" on the day of his daughter's death because he was emotional about her leaving.

The inquest heard police officer Luciana Escalera, whose evidence was read, noticed the smell of alcohol on Harrison's breath when he was called to the house after the shooting.

CCTV footage showed he had bought two 500ml cartons of Chardonnay from a 7-Eleven store shortly before 13:00 CST (05:00 GMT) that day.

'Force of life'

Ana Samuel, representing Kris Harrison, made an application at the start of the hearing for coroner Jacqueline Devonish to recuse herself from the case, saying a fair-minded observer may conclude there was a "real possibility she was biased".

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She said the inquest had been conducted "in a manner more akin to a criminal investigation than a fact-finding inquiry".

Lois Norris, representing Lucy Harrison's mother Jane Coates, said the application was an "ambush by Mr Harrison's legal team".

She said Kris Harrison was the "person in the room who shot Ms Harrison" and the only person in the room when it happened.

Devonish refused the application to recuse herself.

In a statement issued by his solicitors, Kris Harrison said he "fully accepted" the consequences of his actions.

"There isn't a day I don't feel the weight of that loss, a weight I will carry for the rest of my life," he said.

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Coates said her daughter, who worked as a buyer for fashion brand Boohoo, was a "real force of life".

She said: "She cared. She was passionate about things. She loved to have debates about things that meant a lot to her."

The inquest was adjourned until Wednesday, when the coroner is expected to deliver her conclusions.

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Official police figures recording sexual assault against women in Germany only represent a tiny fraction of the actual number of cases, according to a large-scale study commissioned by the government and released on Tuesday.

While women are significantly more likely to be victims of sexual assault than men, they report it much less frequently than male victims, the figures show.

A total of 15,479 people aged 16 to 85 were questioned between July 2023 and January 2025 for the representative study on safety in everyday life.

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It is designed to help shed light on the true extent of crime, including offences that are not reported to police due to shame or mistrust and are therefore not part of official criminal statistics.

The figures show that while women are significantly more likely to be victims of sexual assault, they are less likely to report it than men.

Some 1.5% of women and 0.2% of men became victims of rape or other non-consensual sexual acts in the past five years, the study found. However, only 3% of women affected said they reported it to the police, compared to 14.5% of men.

However, the researchers noted that the reporting rate for men is subject to measurement inaccuracy due to the low number of cases.

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The study also found that a significant share of sexual offences against men is perpetrated by men.

While 98.2% of perpetrators of sexual assaults against women are male, 33.7% of sexual assaults against men are also committed by men.

Regarding other areas of abuse, the study found that one in two people in Germany experienced physical violence during childhood or adolescence.

Some 49.3% of women and 51.7% of men reported they were hit or injured at least once once as a minor.

Corporal punishment of children is prohibited by law in Germany.

While men and women were more or less equally affected by physical violence as children, sexual abuse was more common for female minors at 5%, compared to 1.9% of males.
Big changes are coming to a school district in Luzerne County.

Wyoming Area announced it is moving 6th, 7th, and 8th-grade students into its high school building, the Secondary Center, which will house 6th12th grades, with a middle school wing.

Class schedules and curriculum will also change in the Secondary Center, beginning next school year.
The New York State Electric and Gas Company (NYSEG) is receiving heavy backlash from customers who are seeing an astronomical increase in their utility bills this January, Mid-Hudson News reported.

"My bill tripled in the past month and when you call them they are useless," Carmen Diaz said.

According to the utility company, a major driver behind the rising prices is that temperatures were predicted to be roughly 8% colder in December than last year, so it took more energy than before to keep homes at the usual temperature. But a second, undeniable factor is the skyrocketing cost of fossil fuels and energy in general, driven by the withdrawal of federal funding for clean energy, increased reliance on imported fuel, and increased energy use by AI data centers.

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According to Mid-Hudson News, residents reported bills anywhere from two to 10 times higher than in past months. Gloria Maloney saw a single-month increase from $302 to $716. "We need help and NYSEG must be investigated," she said, per the publication. Loren Goldberg said past bills ranged from $60 to $120, while current rates have reached $600 per month. And according to Maloney, even greater hikes have been proposed for this year.

One way to avoid increasing bills like these is to install solar panels, which don't use external fuel and are much less vulnerable to fluctuating prices. They also help during outages when paired with battery storage. You have multiple options, so check out TCD's Solar Explorer to learn more and save up to $10,000.

NYSEG also encouraged homeowners to take advantage of programs that subsidize energy bills, such as the Home Energy Assistance Program and the Energy Assistance Program.

Smart upgrades that slash monthly energy bills

Here are some resources to get you started on saving on your energy bills.

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 EnergySage can help you save up to $10,000 on installations by curating competitive bids from local installers

 Not ready to spend up front? Palmetto's $0-down LightReach solar leasing program can lower your utility rate by up to 20%

 TCD's Solar Explorer makes it easy to access exclusive offers from preferred partners

Solar panels can also work in tandem with other electric appliances, such as energy-efficient HVAC equipment, to further reduce your utility costs. The right equipment varies according to your home and budget, so visit TCD's HVAC Explorer to find the right setup for you and slash your energy bills up to 50%.

You can even get up to $5,000 in rewards to spend on home upgrades through the free Palmetto Home app.

Get TCD's free newsletters for easy tips to save more, waste less, and make smarter choices  and earn up to $5,000 toward clean upgrades in TCD's exclusive Rewards Club.
The French judiciary is investigating a 79-year-old man who is alleged to have sexually abused 89 minors over a period of nearly 60 years.

As a youth counsellor, the man is said to have abused boys aged 13 to 17 during assignments in numerous countries, including Germany and Switzerland, according to the public prosecutor's office in the south-eastern French city of Grenoble.

The man, who most recently lived in Morocco, was arrested in 2024 during a family visit to France after a nephew discovered a USB stick at his place containing recordings and photos of the abused youths.

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As investigators were unable to identify all the victims listed, those affected have been urged to contact the authorities. The offences are said to have occurred between 1967 and 2022.

According to the public prosecutor's office, the man is also being investigated on suspicion of murder.

He is said to have admitted to suffocating his mother with a pillow in 1974 when she was in the terminal stage of cancer.

And in 1992, he is said to have killed his aunt, who was over 90 years old, in the same manner.
The worlds biggest social media companies face several landmark trials this year that seek to hold them responsible for harms to children who use their platforms
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As India accelerates investments in public and institutional infrastructure, Swadeshi Civil Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd. (SCIPL) is strengthening its position as a long-term execution partner in nation-building, backed by nearly five decades of experience in government-led infrastructure development.

Established in 1977, SCIPL has contributed to the construction of critical public assets across the country, including court complexes, hospitals, institutional campuses, transport infrastructure, stadium facilities, and government buildings. The company works closely with central and state government agencies such as CPWD, PWD, NCRTC, HSCC, RITES, and the Airports Authority of India, delivering projects aligned with public service and civic needs.

With a sustained execution footprint and an annual turnover of approximately Rs 640 crore in 2025, SCIPL continues to operate at scale while maintaining delivery discipline, quality standards, and safety compliance across multi-location projects.

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Leadership Driving Long-Term Infrastructure Growth

SCIPL employs over 250 professionals comprising engineers, architects, supervisors, and technical specialists. The organisations operational model focuses on managing complex, large-scale public infrastructure projects while ensuring consistency in execution across geographies.

Following a leadership transition in 2011, SCIPL expanded its operational vision beyond domestic boundaries. Under the leadership of Mr. Ankit Goel, building on the foundation laid by Mr. Ram Avtar, the company strengthened its pan-India presence and initiated selective international forays, while retaining its core focus on government infrastructure delivery.

Integrating Sustainability into Construction Practices

Sustainability has emerged as a key pillar of SCIPLs construction approach. The company has adopted curing compound technology across project sites to significantly reduce water consumption during construction, without transferring additional costs to clients.

SCIPL has set a target to save approximately 16 crore litres of water by 2030 through continued implementation of water-efficient construction techniques. These efforts align with broader national priorities around environmental conservation and responsible infrastructure development.

The organisations leadership was recently recognised at The Times of Indias ET Industry Changemakers platform, where Mr. Ram Avtar received the Excellence in Social Change award, acknowledging SCIPLs long-term commitment to community impact, sustainability, and people-centric growth.

People-Centric Culture and Workforce Retention

SCIPLs emphasis on long-term employee engagement was reflected during its Annual Day 2025 celebrations, held over two days in New Delhi. The internal event brought together employees from multiple project sites and included team activities, recognition programmes, and Long-Term Service Awards honouring employees with 5 to 25 years of service.

The initiative highlighted the companys belief that durable public infrastructure is built on stable teams, institutional knowledge, and workforce continuity.

Key Highlights:

Nearly 47 years of experience in institutional and public infrastructure development in India

in institutional and public infrastructure development in India Execution of courts, hospitals, campuses, transport infrastructure, stadiums, and government facilities

Long-standing collaborations with central and state government agencies , including CPWD, PWD, NCRTC, HSCC, RITES, and Airports Authority of India

, including CPWD, PWD, NCRTC, HSCC, RITES, and Airports Authority of India Rs 640 crore annual turnover in 2025 , reflecting sustained execution scale

, reflecting sustained execution scale Adoption of water-efficient construction practices , with a target to save approximately 16 crore litres of water by 2030

, with a target to save approximately 16 crore litres of water by 2030 Strong people-first culture supported by long-term employee retention and institutional continuity

Looking Ahead

As India continues to expand its public and institutional infrastructure footprint, SCIPL remains focused on execution-led growth, sustainable construction practices, and leadership-driven development. With nearly 47 years in the sector, the company continues to support evolving infrastructure requirements while aligning operational performance with national development goals.

To get the information about the projects and sustainability initiatives of SCIPL, visit: https://www.swadeshicipl.com/

https://www.swadeshicipl.com/

https://www.instagram.com/swadeshicipl/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/swadeshicipl/

Disclaimer: This article is from the Brand Desk. User discretion is advised.
The kitchen and home appliances company Stovekraft Ltd. that owns the popular Pigeon brand launched its initiative, India choice Sale 2026, with a hyperlocal, influencer-based retail campaign in India.

The campaign was interested in regional cooking habits, local consumer preference and store level engagement of the campaign instead of national execution. Activations were diversified in a combination of metro, tier-2, and tier-3 markets, such as Chennai, Pune, Delhi NCR, Patna, Bengaluru, Raipur, Ahmedabad, Trivandrum and Guwahati.

More than 160 creators in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Delhi, Maharashtra and Karnataka, and other states in the country were included in the influencer activation. It was a creator mix vloggers, moms, and lifestyle influencers as they were chosen due to their local relevance and household-focused content.

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Influencers also engaged in the campaign by going to the Stovekraft general trade stores and Pigeon Exclusive Outlets in their respective markets and produced informative and enthusiastic instagram posts that would highlight the current Pigeon offer. The material that was discussed was the in-store visit and product demonstration, which enlightened the audience about the curated kitchen appliance packages at 2,026/- a price per promotional message that was associated with 2026.

Each region had its own products combinations. The markets of South India, Gujarat and Maharashtra had outer lid cooker bundles. The northern markets were characterized by inner lid cookers and tawa combinations. It also launched combos with its new Idiyappam Maker in Kerala and Tamil Nadu and targeted some of the tier-2 and rural markets with infrared products and its range of value cooktops, as per the daily cooking requirements and taste in the market. The combos that were induced were offered in the markets both to first time users and those who needed an upgrade.

Campaign links:

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DTk0zDFEdgq/

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DTsDtgGkTmZ/

The campaign was maximized mostly on Instagram, with regional languages and vernacular cues relating to local cooking styles and consumer behaviour. The campaign is already on at the participating general trade stores.

Disclaimer: This article is from the Brand Desk. User discretion is advised.
New Delhi: The reduction in tariffs under the India-US trade deal framework is expected to significantly improve the competitiveness of Indian exports and deliver broad-based gains for the chemical industry, Ramya Bharathram, President of the Indian Chemical Council (ICC), said on Monday.



Bharathram said higher tariffs had been affecting Indian industry "to a very large extent," and the proposed duty easing was a welcome development.



"The fact that tariffs have come down and there is a deal that is going to be announced in the future is definitely a big positive," she said.



According to Bharathram, reducing tariffs to an average of around 18 per cent would put Indian products on a more competitive global footing.



"A lot of Asian countries are already at around 18 to 19 per cent. With this reduction, India will become much more competitive in comparison," she noted.



She said the chemical sector would be a direct beneficiary of the tariff cuts.



"On the chemical side, both organic and inorganic chemicals will benefit directly," Bharathram said, adding that exports from the sector are expected to increase as market access improves.



Highlighting the broader impact of the move, Bharathram said the benefits would also extend indirectly across multiple industries where chemicals play a critical role.



"Chemicals are present in almost all industries. So if there is improved market access because of duty reduction for sectors such as textiles, agriculture, electronics, semiconductors, leather and pharmaceuticals, the chemical industry will also benefit indirectly," she said.



Calling the development a very positive move, Bharathram said the industry is now looking forward to the finer details of the trade agreement.



The US and India last week issued a joint statement, stating that they have reached a framework for an Interim Agreement regarding reciprocal and mutually beneficial trade (interim agreement), and have agreed to a framework.



India had reservations about opening the entire US agricultural sector to Indian markets, which is why the interim trade deal apparently missed the initially set timeline - fall of 2025. The Indian side has secured protection for its sensitive sectors, particularly agriculture and dairy, in this deal.



Furthermore, both countries decided to address non-tariff barriers affecting bilateral trade.



On February 2, a phone call between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump led to the announcement of the conclusion of negotiations on the much-awaited trade deal.



The Trump administration had imposed tariffs on major exporters to the US, including India and China. There was a 50 per cent tariff on goods from India entering the United States since August 2025. The tariffs have now been reduced to 18 per cent following the leaders' recent phone call. The BTA, formally proposed in February 2025, seeks to more than double bilateral trade, from the current USD 191 billion to USD 500 billion by 2030.



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Assam: The Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) on Tuesday filed a police complaint at the Dispur Police Station against the BJP and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, alleging that a social media post shared by the party carried provocative and communal overtones aimed at the Muslim community.

In the complaint, APCC leaders Sibamoni Bora and Diganta Bauman stated that content posted on February 7 from the official X handle of BJP Assam (@BJP4Assam) allegedly showed Chief Minister Sarma symbolically firing at members of the Muslim community at close range. They claimed the visuals were accompanied by inflammatory phrases such as foreigner-free Assam, no mercy, why did you not go to Pakistan? and references to Bangladeshis, terms that they said were often used to target Bengali-origin Muslims, derogatorily labelled as Miyas.

The Congress leaders argued that the content was deeply offensive and had the potential to disturb communal harmony in the state. The APCC urged the police to register a case under appropriate provisions of the law and initiate necessary action.

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Earlier in the day, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) approached the Supreme Court seeking directions against what it described as discriminatory remarks made by Sarma against Muslims. The matter was mentioned for urgent listing before Chief Justice of India Surya Kant by advocate Nizam Pasha. Seeking immediate intervention, Pasha referred to speeches and a video allegedly showing the Chief Minister shooting at members of a particular community.

Responding to the request, the Chief Justice observed that political disputes often spill into courtrooms during election periods. When elections come, part of the battle is fought in the Supreme Court. That is the problem. We will see, he remarked, indicating that the court would examine the issue.

Separately, AIMIM chief and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi on Monday lodged a complaint with the Hyderabad City Police, seeking criminal action against Sarma over a now-deleted video that allegedly depicted violence against Muslims. In a post on X, Owaisi said the video showed Sarma symbolically shooting people clearly portrayed as Muslims and termed it genocidal hate speech. He also shared a copy of his complaint, alleging that phrases like point-blank shot and no mercy were meant to inflame religious sentiments and incite hatred.

According to the complaint, the video was uploaded on February 7 from the Assam BJPs official account and removed the following day, though it continues to circulate online. Owaisi said police are constitutionally obligated to act in cases of hate speech even without a formal complaint.

Reacting to Owaisis move, Sarma said on Monday that he had no objection to being arrested if a case had been filed against him. He added that he stood by his remarks opposing Bangladeshi infiltrators. If he has filed a case, arrest me. I have no objection. But I will continue to oppose Bangladeshi infiltrators, the Chief Minister said.

(with ANI inputs)
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Monday lodged a defamation lawsuit seeking Rs 500 crore in damages against Congress leaders Gaurav Gogoi, Jitendra Singh, and Bhupesh Baghel, calling their allegations against him "false, malicious, and defamatory."

Himanta shared this information on social media platform X, saying, "Today, I have filed a defamation case seeking Rs 500 crore in damages against Congress leaders Jitendra Singh, Bhupesh Baghel and Gaurav Gogoi for making false, malicious and defamatory allegations against me through a press conference."

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Today, I have filed a defamation case seeking 500 crore in damages against Congress leaders Jitendra Singh, Bhupesh Baghel and Gaurav Gogoi for making false, malicious and defamatory allegations against me through a press conference. https://t.co/a9iLcghHiR  Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) February 10, 2026

Just a day before, Himanta had announced that he is initiating both civil and criminal defamation proceedings.

"I am initiating civil and criminal defamation proceedings on 9 February 2026 against @JitendraSAlwar, @bhupeshbaghel, @GauravGogoiAsm and @DsaikiaOfficial for making false, malicious and defamatory statements against me in todays press conference. The era of hit-and-run politics is over. If they have even an ounce of courage or evidence, let them prove every allegation before a court of law. I will not be intimidated by propaganda, coordinated slander, or political theatrics of so-called slaves of Gandhi family," he had tweeted.

The move follows a major political row sparked by Himanta's allegations about Gogois purported ties to Pakistan. At a press conference on February 9, Himanta claimed that Gogoi, his British wife Elizabeth Colburn, and Pakistani national Ali Tauqeer Sheikh shared a deeper connection, and alleged that intelligence-related information had been passed to Pakistan.

Congress leaders blatantly reacted over Himanta's claim. All India Congress Committee General Secretary (Assam in-charge) Jitendra Singh condemned the allegations, saying, "The CM appeared to have lost his mental balance and had no documentary evidence to support his claims. Politics is one thing, but making baseless allegations against a respected family at a personal level is extremely reprehensible."

Jitendra Singh also noted about the contribution of ex Assam CM Tarun Gogoi in Himanta Biswa Sarma's political career.

He further said, "After betraying Tarun Gogoi for power, the CM has now been levelling serial allegations against Gogoi for the past year. The Gogoi family treated Himanta with dignity, made him an MLA and a minister. The smear campaign he is now running against the family of a father figure is deeply unfortunate."

The Congress noted that although a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was formed in February 2025 to examine Sheikhs social media posts, the Assam government had not been able to back its allegations with evidence. Leader of the Opposition in the Assam Legislative Assembly, Debabrata Saikia, termed both the SIT report and Sarmas press conference a flop show, and accused the chief minister of undermining the dignity of his own office.

Senior Congress leader Pawan Khera alleged that Sarma was resorting to communal rhetoric to gain electoral advantage. "As soon as elections approached, he started talking about Muslims, Miyan, and Pakistan. Such baseless allegations by Sarma show that he has lost his mental balance," Khera said.

Several other Congress leaders also slammed Assam CM for his attempt to mislead the public.

On Sunday, Sarma described Gogoi as a key player in an anti-India network and claimed that his wife was a Pakistani agent, stating that it was up to the peoples court to assess Gogois actions against the nation.
A woman was killed and six others were injured in a stampede at the Navgrah temple in Dabra town of Madhya Pradeshs Gwalior district, an official said.

The incident took place on Tuesday morning as a large crowd of women assembled for the religious procession. Of those injured, four women were taken to a hospital in Dabra, while two women along with a four-year-old child were referred to Gwalior for further treatment. The injured women were between 45 and 55 years of age, and the minor aged 4 had arrived at the event with her mother.

Gwalior Collector Ruchika Chauhan stated that several women had assembled near the Dabra stadium on Sunday morning for the Kalash Yatra, according to reports.

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District Collector Ruchika Chauhan said, "A Kalash Yatra was scheduled in Dabra this morning, and a large number of women had gathered near the stadium to carry the Kalash. When the distribution of the Kalash began, some participants tried to collect them quickly, leading to pushing and jostling. Due to the excessive rush and pressure, severe pushing occurred. In the incident, a 70-year-old woman died of suffocation and seven sustained injuries. Four women are currently undergoing treatment in Dabra, and their condition is stable. Three women, including a girl, were referred to Gwalior andare receiving treatment."

Commenting on the arrangements, the collector said that sufficient measures had been made at the temple and in the surrounding areas. She added that all preparations were in place from the morning, but the incident occurred due to pushing and jostling when devotees were receiving the Kalash.

"Since the event is scheduled to continue for several days, the administration will now strictly regulate crowd movement based on the capacity of each location. The crowds will be halted at different points once the permissible capacity of a venue is reached, and detailed planning is being carried out for the same," the Collector said.

Eyewitnesses said that a large crowd had assembled at the site and that some women began pushing one another, which disturbed the arrangements. The administration said that the Kalash Yatra later continued peacefully along the prescribed route and reached the Navgrah Temple without further incident.
The Congress party has moved closer to bringing a no-confidence motion against Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla after repeated disruptions in the House. According to sources, the party has submitted a notice for the motion to Lok Sabha Secretary General Utpal Kumar Singh.

The move has come after several days of adjournments in the Lok Sabha, where proceedings have been repeatedly stalled due to protests and sloganeering by Opposition members. On Tuesday, the Lower House met briefly but was adjourned again till 12 pm amid continued uproar.

Congress has submitted the notice of no-confidence motion against the Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to the Secretary General of the Lok Sabha https://t.co/C4Eti1llmn  ANI (@ANI) February 10, 2026

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Sources said that Congress MPs signed the no-confidence motion on Monday, citing dissatisfaction with the way the House has been functioning. The party believes the Speaker has not handled proceedings in a fair manner.

The proposed motion is said to have the backing of key Opposition parties, including the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has not yet made its stand clear on the issue. More clarity is expected once the notice is formally taken up in the Lok Sabha.

However, sources said on Wednesday that the Trinamool Congress (TMC) will not sign the no-confidence motion against Om Birla initiated by the Congress.

According to sources, if the Speaker does not allow Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi to speak, the Congress is set to go ahead with the no-confidence motion. However, if he is allowed to speak, the party will hold back the motion.

(Also Read: EXPLAINED | NSA Dovals Canada visit brings new security framework; Why Khalistani networks are under pressure?)

This comes in the backdrop of the Opposition alleging that Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi was not allowed to speak in the House during the discussion on the Motion of Thanks to the Presidents Address. Gandhi cited General MM Naravanes unpublished memoir to discuss the 2020 standoff with China. The Speaker passed a ruling asking Gandhi not to cite unpublished literature.

On Tuesday, the LoP in the Lok Sabha alleged that the publisher was not telling the truth by claiming that the book had not gone to print, as the same had been confirmed by the former Army Chief.

Here is a tweet from Mr Naravane which says, Just follow the link to my book. The point I am making is either Mr Naravane is lying or Penguin is lying. I dont think the former Army Chief will lie. Penguin says the book has not been published, but the book is available on Amazon. Gen Naravane has tweeted, Please buy my book in 2023. I believe Naravane ji over Penguin. Do you believe Penguin over Naravane ji? I believe Naravane ji has made certain statements in his book which are inconvenient for the Government of India and the Prime Minister of India. Obviously, you have to decide whether Penguin or the former Army Chief is telling the truth, Rahul Gandhi said.

The BJP hit back, with MP Nishikant Dubey accusing the Congress of working against the nation.

Penguin has released a statement saying that the book has not been printed or released, and they will take action. There are rules in this Parliament, and one cannot mislead it. If the publisher says the book has not been published, which book is he showing? I urge the Speaker to take strict action against Rahul Gandhi and these Soros elements which are working to harm the nation, he said.

While the Congress does not have the numbers to carry a no-confidence motion, it is likely to disrupt parliamentary proceedings this week.

(with ANI inputs).
The issue of Khalistani elements has long been a sore point in India-Canada relations. The regime of Justin Trudeau, as Prime Minister of Canada, strained diplomatic ties, especially after he leveled allegations against India following the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Trudeau was accused of being sympathetic to the Khalistan movement. However, after his departure, India and Canada agreed to work on the ties between the two nations.

Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is reportedly scheduled to visit India next month. Since his taking office, India-Canada diplomatic ties have taken a more positive trajectory.

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Also Read: India-Canada national security ties advance after NSA Ajit Dovals Ottawa visit

NSA Dovals Canada visit

Recently, Indias National Security Advisor (NSA), Ajit Doval, met Nathalie Drouin, Deputy Clerk and National Security and Intelligence Advisor to the Prime Minister of Canada.

Although the visit was part of the regular bilateral security dialogue, it is a matter of concern among Khalistani elements.

According to a statement from Indias Ministry of External Affairs, the two sides agreed on a shared workplan to guide bilateral cooperation on national security and law enforcement issues and to enable practical collaboration on respective priorities.

Furthermore, India and Canada have agreed to appoint security and law-enforcement liaison officers, and their respective agencies will strengthen existing working relationships.

The move is aimed at streamlining bilateral communication and enabling timely information sharing on matters of mutual concern.

Through this initiative, India and Canada intend to address issues such as the illegal flow of drugs and organised criminal networks.

The outcome of the meeting is seen as favorable to India, posing a challenge to Khalistani terrorists. Many of whom operate from Canada and have issued threats against Indian citizens and the government. With New Delhi and Ottawa improving diplomatic ties, the Khalistani network faces increased risk.

Another key achievement of the meeting was rebuilding trust between the two countries in the post-Trudeau era. While Canada has historically not treated the Khalistan movement as an extremist issue, Dovals visit brings India closer to addressing the matter through formal diplomatic channels.
The Opposition has continued its fierce attack against the Narendra Modi government over the India-US trade deal. Taking to X, Congress president Mallkarjun Kharge said that the truth of the trap deal is now coming out. Kharge alleged that the Modi government has compromised Indias strategic autonomy while backstabbing the farmers and dairy owners.

We were told that the Indo-US Joint Statement said nothing on Russian oil, even though Mr. Trump publicly tweeted otherwise. Now the White House fact sheet clearly lists Indias commitment to stop purchasing Russian Federation oil as a condition for removal of an additional 25% tariff. The Modi Govt agreed to this erosion of India's sovereignty. Why? The Congress party had already exposed the Executive Order placing India under US monitoring for direct or indirect oil imports, said Kharge.

The Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, said that for the first time in India's history, a government has completely opened agriculture to foreign goods.

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Now, we know what "Additional Products" actually meant in the Indo-US joint statement agreed by the Modi Govt! 'Pulses' have been silently added in the newly released White House fact sheet on Feb 9, which was not part of the Indo-US Joint Statement issued on Feb 6, 2026. The utility of red sorghum imports to India was mentioned in the Joint Statement, but that utility pertaining to "animal feed" has now mysteriously vanished in the White House fact sheet of Feb 9, 2026, said Kharge.

The Congress leader also accused the Modi government of betraying Gau-Mata & Dairy Farmers. He claimed that the trade deal calls for importing food and agricultural products, including dried distillers' grains (DDGs) and red sorghum for animal feed, from the United States.

It is well known that if Indian cattle consume American feed, which are largely GM (genetically modified), it will alter the breed of our cattle and the taste of our milk. Full-page ads are being published in newspapers, by forcing Amul to whitewash this concession, but the truth is that the Modi Govt did not approve GM feed since 2017, and now suddenly approves it. 2 Crore dairy farmers will suffer the consequences, but RSS-Sangh Parivar-BJP, who carry out lynchings in the name of the cow, are hell-bent on destroying our country's cattle population, said Kharge.

Talking about Americas trade deal with Bangladesh, Kharge said that while the Modi Govt parades an 18% tariff as a "historic win," the US-Bangladesh deal reveals it as a strategic surrender. By granting Dhaka zero-duty access for using American cotton, Washington has effectively incentivised Bangladesh over Indian farmers to save their own margins. As textile hubs like Tirupur and Surat are shackled by 18% taxes, our neighbour gains a 0% fast-track, dealing a lethal "double whammy" to Indian cotton and garments alike, said Kharge.

The LoP said that the deal is a betrayal that sacrifices Indias strategic national interests and export engine. He also questioned whether this happened due to the Epstein Files.
A political stalemate erupted in the Parliament after the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, sought to quote from the "pre-print book" during his speech in the House on the motion of thanks on the President's Address, when the treasury benches strongly opposed his remarks. After facing several adjournments on the issue, the House last week adopted the motion of thanks by voice vote amid sloganeering by opposition benches.

The pre-print book 'Four Stars of Destiny' has been authored by former Army Chief NN Naravane.

Delhi Police takes action

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Delhi Police has taken cognisance of information found on various social media platforms and news forums claiming that a pre-print copy of the book 'Four Stars of Destiny' is being circulated, and Special Cell has filed a case into the "purported leak/breach of a yet to be approved publication".

ANI reported, citing Delhi Police officials, that a probe has been launched into the claims of the availability of the pre-print copy of the book.

Also Read- Delhi Police files FIR over circulation of former Army Chief's unpublished book

Penguin India's clarification

Penguin Random House India released a statement clarifying that it holds the sole publishing rights for the memoir by former Indian Army Chief General MM Naravane.

The publisher stated that the book has not gone into publication and no copies, print or digital, have been published, distributed, sold, or made available to the public.

In the X (formerly Twitter) post on Monday, Penguin India stated, "In light of recent public discourse and media reporting, Penguin Random House India would like to clarify that we hold the sole publishing rights for the book Four Stars of Destiny, a memoir by General Manoj Mukund Naravane, former Chief of the Indian Army. We wish to make it clear that the book has not gone into publication. No copies of the book - in print or digital form - have been published, distributed, sold, or otherwise made available to the public by Penguin Random House India."

Penguin Random House India further said that any copies currently in circulation, in any format or on any platform, constitute a copyright infringement and must be immediately ceased.

The publisher added that it will exercise remedies available under law against the illegal and unauthorised dissemination of the book.

"Any copies of the book currently in circulation, in whole or in part, whether in print, digital, PDF, or any other format, online or offline, on any platform, constitutes an infringement of PRHI's copyright and must immediately be ceased. Penguin Random House India shall be exercising remedies available in law against the illegal and unauthorised dissemination of the book," said X post.

It added, "This statement is being issued to place the publisher's position on record."

Statement from the publisher. pic.twitter.com/pksacg3EeT  Penguin India (@PenguinIndia) February 9, 2026

The big questions

After the publisher's clarification, a big question comes up: if the book "has not gone into publication," how did Congress leader Rahul Gandhi get a hardcover copy of the memoir by General Manoj Mukund Naravane?

The book is at the Centre of the discussion for days now, not just on social media chatter but in the Parliament of India.

According to an Indian Express report, the Ministry of Defence has cleared 35 books between 2020 and 2024, with the Four Stars of Destiny manuscript still pending for clearance.

Meanwhile, as per India Today, a book is sent to the Defence Ministry for clearance in manuscript form before it goes to print. The report that LoP Rahul Gandhi cited was based on a manuscript referenced in the magazine article he mentioned earlier in Parliament.

Another question stems from this situation: Did the publisher print the defence-related book without the Ministry's nod of approval?

India Today Digital's report revealed that copies of 'Four Stars of Destiny' reached Delhi bookstores before it was recalled.

It appears that the printed copy of the book in the possession of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi suggests the publisher may have proceeded with printing before securing formal clearance from the Defence Ministry.

(with ANI inputs)
US Trade Representative (USTR) Ambassador Jamieson Greer on Tuesday described India as a potential "way station" for US supply chains, positioning the country as an alternative to China amid shifting global trade dynamics.

In an interview with Fox News, Ambassador Greer, when asked whether India could be the right place for US companies to move supply chains out of China, said India was a viable option for companies seeking to diversify away from China, noting its manufacturing capacity and workforce strength.



"It can be. We know that many companies are already going in that direction. As you mentioned, we want our supply chains in the United States to be as close to home as possible. But we also know it's a process. When you shift from globalisation to a more resilient and secure economy, you will eventually need to reallocate supply chains. India can be a way station for that," USTR Greer said to Fox News.



"They have a large workforce and manufacturing capacity. Of course, American manufacturing and the American worker must come first. But to the extent that we import from other countries, India can be a good source--as long as it's balanced and fair," he added.



On commitments on the recently concluded framework of the India-US interim trade agreement, Greer expressed optimism, saying India is "really committed", adding that "They (India) have started expanding some of their commitments with respect to purchases. They've already rolled back some of the digital services tax that affected us, and they're moving to reduce tariffs. This is going to be a really important deal, and it's going to reverberate for many years to come."



The United States and India announced a framework for an Interim Agreement on reciprocal, mutually beneficial trade, reaffirming their commitment to a broader Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) launched by President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 13, 2025.



As part of the framework, India has agreed to eliminate or reduce tariffs on all US industrial goods and a wide range of US agricultural and food products, including dried distillers' grains (DDGs), red sorghum for animal feed, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, soybean oil, wine and spirits, and additional products.



On the other hand, the United States will impose a reciprocal tariff of 18 per cent on goods originating in India, including textiles and apparel, leather and footwear, plastic and rubber products, organic chemicals, home decor, artisanal goods and certain machinery. Subject to the successful conclusion of the Interim Agreement, the US has said it will later remove reciprocal tariffs on select items, including generic pharmaceuticals, gems and diamonds, and aircraft parts.



India also intends to purchase USD 500 billion of US energy products, aircraft and aircraft parts, precious metals, technology products, and coking coal over the next five years.
The Indian government is getting ready to approve one of the largest defense purchases in history. This move could raise alarms in China and Pakistan. As French President Emmanuel Macron prepares for his state visit to India later this month, sources suggested that an important update on the 114 Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft (MRFA) program is close.

The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), which Defence Minister Rajnath Singh chairs, is set to meet on February 12. They are expected to give the crucial Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) for buying 114 Rafale fighter jets.

A strategic push: 114 jets at Rs 3.25 lakh crore

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The proposal has already received approval from the Defence Procurement Board (DPB), led by the Defence Secretary. The upcoming DAC meeting is the last step before the official global tender process starts.

Key highlights of the proposed deal:

- Quantity: 114 Rafale fighter jets.

- Estimated Cost: About 3.25 Lakh Crore ($39 Billion).

- "Make in India" Component: Under the proposed terms, 18 aircraft will be bought in "fly-away" condition from France, while the remaining 96 units will be made in India through a strategic partnership.

Strengthening the IAF: The Indian Air Force (IAF) currently has 29-30 fighter squadrons. This is well below the 42 squadrons needed to deal with a two-front war.

Why Rafale? The China-Pakistan factor

With changing regional tensions, the IAF needs a "force multiplier" capable of long-range precision attacks and advanced electronic warfare. The Rafale, already serving in the IAF, has shown its strength in high-altitude Himalayan areas. This large order aims to quickly modernize the fleet, replacing old Soviet-era aircraft and giving India a significant advantage over its neighbors.

The road to the runway: How the deal moves forward

A deal of this size goes through a thorough, multi-step process to guarantee transparency and strategic goals:

1. Acceptance of Necessity (AoN): The DAC gives the initial "go-ahead." This is expected on February 12.

2. Request for Proposal (RFP): The Ministry of Defence sends a formal tender to the vendor (Dassault Aviation) detailing technical and financial needs.

3. Technical & Commercial Evaluation: Bids are examined for technology transfer and "Make in India" commitments.

4. Contract Negotiation Committee (CNC): This phase often takes the longest time, as discussions center on the final price, maintenance packages, and enhancements specific to India.

5. CCS Approval: The Cabinet Committee on Security, led by the Prime Minister, grants final financial approval.

6. Contract Signing: This is the formal act that legally binds the two nations.

Strengthening the Indo-French alliance

The timing of this DAC meeting is strategic. President Macron's visit highlights a growing defense partnership between New Delhi and Paris. While the final contract may still take months or even years, the DACs approval will show Indias commitment to dominating the skies and establishing itself as a major aerospace hub.

ALSO READ | How is the Lok Sabha Speaker removed? Article 94(c) and the no-confidence process explained
The Indian Air Force is now looking to develop deep strike capabilities against Pakistan, after tasting success in the recent Operation Sindoor. According to reports, the IAF is looking to get 100-150 SCALP cruise missiles to equip Rafale fighter jets. The SCALP deal is likely to cost around Rs 3,200 crore. According to an ANI report, India and France are looking to sign a major deal for buying a significant number of SCALP cruise missiles that were used by the Indian Air Force to destroy the terrorist headquarters of Jaish-e-Mohamed and Lashkar-e-Toiba inside Pakistan during Operation Sindoor last year.

The SCALP missiles were launched by the Indian Air Force Rafale fighter jets along with the BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles to take out the terrorist headquarters in Muridke and Bahawalpur districts of Pakistan. The targets were completely destroyed in the attacks by the Indian Air Force with pinpoint accuracy.

The IAF is also in the process of ordering a huge number of Meteor air to air missile for its fleet of Rafale jets. The missile will also be integrated into the 26 Rafale Marine fighters ordered for the Indian Navy, which are expected to arrive over the next three to four years.

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The Indian Air Force is also going to place orders for another set of 114 Rafale combat aircraft, which are likely to be cleared by the Defence Acquisition Council in the next few days.

What is SCALP?

The SCALP is an air-launched, long-range, deep-strike cruise missile with a range of around 300 kms. The range allows the fighter jets to carry out strikes against beyond-visual-range targets. Thus, the Indian Air Force will be able to hit deep inside Pakistan without crossing the LoC. The cruise missile deploys low-altitude, terrain-hugging flight, making it nearly invisible to enemy radars. The missile has bunker-busting potential and thus justifies the fire-and-forget tag.

Notably, India is also in talks to buy 26 Rafale-M (Marine) for the Indian Navy and will be deployed onboard Indias aircraft carriers, INS Vikrant and INS Vikramaditya. With the SCALP inventory growing and the 114 Rafale deal on the horizon, the IAF is securing its edge for the next two decades.

Post-Operation Sindoor, the Indian Armed Forces have been working to boost their capabilities. While the IAF is looking for new jets and missiles, the Indian Navy is inducting new ships and missiles.
Jaipur: Two Japanese tourists who had arrived in Jaipur for sightseeing have been missing for the past three days, officials said on Tuesday.

According to the police, the matter came to light after the taxi driver hired by the tourists approached them on Sunday. The incident occurred late Saturday night. When the tourists could not be traced within 24 hours, a missing report was registered on Monday night, said Inspector Moti Lal of Ashok Nagar police station.

The missing tourists have been identified as Yuma Toyoda (25) and Hibiki Shiba (25). Officials said the two arrived in Delhi from Japan on Friday and travelled to Jaipur the following day. They checked into a hotel in the Bramhapuri area and later booked a taxi to go out for dinner on Saturday night.

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They left the hotel in a taxi to visit a nearby fast food outlet. However, they never returned. The taxi driver waited outside the restaurant for nearly two hours before going inside to look for them, the inspector said.

Restaurant staff reportedly told the driver that the two tourists had already left the premises. Police said the tourists had left their bags in the taxi, which contained important documents, including their passports. They also did not return to the hotel later that night.

CCTV footage collected from the restaurant showed that the tourists were inside the outlet for barely five minutes. They neither ordered food nor interacted with anyone before leaving, the officer said.

Police have also examined CCTV cameras at the hotel and nearby areas to piece together their movements. Preliminary information suggests the two had come to India on a six-day tourist visa, which is due to expire on Thursday. Their mobile phones have remained switched off since Saturday night.

We waited for 24 hours, hoping they might return on their own, but there has been no contact so far, the inspector said.

A missing persons report has now been registered, and efforts are underway to trace the tourists. Police said they are coordinating with the Ministry of External Affairs to obtain details of their families and any other contacts. CCTV footage from surrounding areas is also being scanned as the search continues.
Kanpur Lamborghini accident: In Uttar Pradeshs Kanpur, a luxury car allegedly hit pedestrians and a motorcycle on VIP Road on Sunday, injuring several people. After the incident, the authorities sprang into action and seized the vehicle involved in the accident.

The accident occurred near Jhula Park Crossing on Sunday afternoon at around 1:45 pm, when the Lamborghini, reportedly moving at high speed, struck a parked motorcycle before hitting a passerby. ANI reported that the complainant suffered serious injuries to his left leg, ankle, and other parts of his body. The motorcycle was also badly damaged. Furthermore, several pedestrians were also injured in the incident.

Police identified the driver

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Kanpur Police on Monday identified the driver involved in the accident. The car was being driven by Shivam Mishra, son of businessman KK Mishra.

Kanpur Police Commissioner Raghubir Lal informed that the car has been seized, and after the accident, Shivam Mishras bouncers pulled him out of the car.

He said, "We have found the details of the car. The car has been seized. Shivam Mishra drove the car. His father is KK Mishra. After the accident, Shivam Mishra's bouncers pulled him out of the car. It is being said that he has some medical issues. The FIR of the accident was registered earlier, and now, in our investigation, we have learned that the name of the driver is Shivam Mishra."

The top cop further stated that action would be taken against the accused, as the law applies equally to all, whether it concerns a luxury car or a smaller car.

"Law is equal for everyone, whether it is a Lamborghini or a smaller car. Actions will be taken against Shivam Mishra, who was driving the car," he said.

Meanwhile, accused Shivam Mishra's lawyer, Mrityunjay Kumar, on Monday claimed that his client was not driving when the car incident occurred. Speaking to reporters, the lawyer stated that Mishra's driver was operating the vehicle. Furthermore, a hearing is scheduled for tomorrow (February 10).

The case has been registered under the relevant sections of the BNS 2023, including sections 281, 125(a), 125(b), and 324(4), and the investigation has been assigned to SI Dinesh Kumar.

DCP Central Kanpur Atul Kumar Srivastava confirmed that no arrests have been made so far.

Also Read- Who is Shivam Mishra? UP tycoon's son roams free after mowing down pedestrians

Govt assures action

As per ANI, BJP MP from Kanpur, Ramesh Awasthi, confirmed, "Six people have been injured, and one of them has been admitted to the hospital. Previously, FIR was registered against an unknown driver, but now Shivam Mishra has been named, against whom the FIR has been registered. The police are taking appropriate action."

He further said, "The accused is the son of a businessman. FIR has been registered, and strict action will be taken against him. We are not protecting anyone. The accused has been named, and he will be sent to jail. The Samajwadi Party is making rhetoric just for the sake of elections, which they will lose, just like in Bihar."

Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya on Monday said that strict action will be taken if the Kanpur Lamborghini accident was caused intentionally.

Speaking to the media, Maurya said, "If someone has committed this accident intentionally, a case will be registered, and action will be taken against them. I don't have complete knowledge of the entire matter. If someone has been negligent, the police will do their job."

Further investigation into the incident is underway.

(with ANI inputs)
The Kashmir Valley witnessed widespread protests across several districts over the past few days following a suicide bombing at the Khadija Tul Kubra Mosque in Islamabad, Pakistan, which left at least 31 people dead and more than 150 injured. The attack, which took place after Friday prayers, has triggered strong reactions from the Shia community in the Valley.

Protesters took to the streets in Srinagar and in several districts of North Kashmir, including Baramulla and Bandipora, raising slogans against Pakistan and its administration. Men and women participated in the demonstrations, condemning what they described as the targeted killing of Shia Muslims in Pakistan and expressing solidarity with the victims and their families.

Demonstrators accused the Pakistani government of failing to protect its Shia population and alleged its complicity in continued violence against the community. The All-Jammu and Kashmir Shia Association also demanded strict action against those responsible for the attack and called for accountability.

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Abass Ali A Protestor said, We all condemn this incident. This was not the act of humans, but of animals; such brutality is beyond humanity. Civilians were attacked, and we are here to stand in solidarity with the victims. Such incidents continue to occur in Pakistan, yet no effective action is taken. The Pakistan government must act against those responsible. We strongly condemn this attack.

A Shia Scholar said, This is a huge tragedy, and unfortunately, it is not the first of its kind. The Pakistan government appears to be a mute spectator to these incidents. Despite repeated assurances that such events will not happen again, they continue to occur. It is time for Pakistan to take concrete action.

Similar protests were reported from Central Kashmirs Ganderbal district, where demonstrators carried the Indian national flag and chanted slogans against the Pakistani government. Protesters said it was deeply painful to see worshippers being killed inside mosques during prayers.

In North Kashmirs Baramulla district, protesters held peaceful demonstrations, some carrying posters of Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while raising slogans condemning the attack and denouncing violence against the Shia community.

National Conference President Dr Farooq Abdullah strongly condemned the deadly blast, describing it as a heinous and cowardly act that claimed the lives of innocent people.

National Conference President Farooq Abdullah bashed Pakistan and said, What is most unfortunate is that people are no longer safe even inside a mosque. It shows how far we have drifted from God and from our moral values. This is a deeply disturbing path we are on. Such blasts are happening across many Islamic countries, and when societies move away from faith and humanity, this is the tragic consequence.

Senior BJP leader Ashok Koul also condemned the recent terror attack on a mosque in Pakistan, describing it as an act of cowardice and brutality against innocent worshippers. Speaking to the media, he said that targeting religious places and civilians is a heinous crime and reflects the growing menace of terrorism in Pakistan, adding that such incidents expose the failure of the Pakistani state to ensure the safety of its people.

BJP General Secretary Ashok Koul said, When someone digs a pit for others, they are bound to fall into it themselves one day. Pakistan has long promoted terror against us and in Jammu and Kashmir, and now it is coming back to haunt them as well. We must condemn such attacksthey are deeply hurtful. We have condemned this incident and raised slogans against the Pakistan government.

Protests were also held in the Kargil district of the Ladakh region, which has a majority Shia population. Hundreds of people joined a large peaceful rally, voicing anger against Pakistan and its government over repeated attacks on Shia Muslims in the country. Authorities reported that the protests across the region remained largely peaceful.
Manipur violence: A new wave of inter-tribal violence in the Ukhrul district of Manipur has triggered a major security clampdown. Authorities have imposed a total curfew and suspended internet services for five days following arson attacks that forced hundreds of residents to flee their homes overnight. The unrest escalated late on Monday, February 9, with at least 21 houses in the Litan Sareikhong area set on fire; it mainly saw clashes between the Tangkhul Naga and Kuki-Zo communities.

Security clampdown: Internet shutdown, curfew

In order to curb the spread of inflammatory content and misinformation, the Manipur Home Department passed an order for a temporary suspension of all internet and data services, including broadband, VPN, and VSAT, in the entire district of Ukhrul. Coming into effect from 11:30 am on February 10, the order will remain in force for five days.

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Meanwhile, a curfew has been clamped in parts of the district. The security forces have intensified area domination and search operations by deploying the Army and Assam Rifles to prevent further flare-ups.

Overnight flight and arson attacks

The violence, according to reports, escalated around midnight on Monday when armed groups burned a number of homes in Litan Sareikhong. Sounds of automatic gunfire were heard, causing a mass exodus.

Displacement: The scene depicted families moving towards safe zones in the neighboring Kangpokpi district and different parts of Ukhrul with their essentials.

Damage assessment: State Minister Govindas Konthoujam confirmed that 21 homes were gutted by 5:00 AM on Tuesday.

Trigger for the violence: A local brawl escalates

The authorities attributed the reasons for the existing flare-up to an incident that occurred on Saturday night, wherein a member of the Tangkhul Naga tribe was allegedly beaten by a group of persons at Litan village.

Failed customary settlement: Although the village chief successfully negotiated a peace agreement that would be settled through customary means, a scheduled meeting to follow up on the issue last Sunday did not push through.

Retaliatory arson: Matters came to a head on Sunday night, culminating in retaliatory arson between the two tribal groups.

Government & police response

In another incident of communal violence, Chief Minister Y. Khemchand Singh on Tuesday visited victims of violence at RIMS Hospital in Imphal. "The incident is under control, as it resulted from misunderstanding. All should exercise restraint and help maintain the rule of law," said the CM.

The Deputy Chief Minister, Losii Dikho, is presently camping in the affected area and is holding emergency joint meetings with the village heads of the Tangkhul Naga and the Kuki.

Countering mis-information

The Manipur Police have issued an alert to the public regarding "mischievous information" going around on social media. The government clarified that there was no displacement of people in any area, stating that many of these movements occurred due to the beginning of a new academic session. As of Tuesday afternoon, "the situation remains tense but under control. Reinforcement forces were sent to strategic points along the Imphal-Ukhrul highway."

ALSO READ | How does IMD predict rain? Inside India's AI-powered weather forecasting technology
As the opposition moves a formal resolution to oust Speaker Om Birla, the Indian Parliament revisited a rare constitutional situation. Birla faces accusations of "partisan conduct" and "stifling the opposition," but history shows he is not the first presiding officer to encounter such a challenge. From the first Speaker, G.V. Mavalankar, to today, the "Removal Motion" has served as a tool of parliamentary protest. Here's a look at the history, the law, and the famous words of Jawaharlal Nehru.

What is a removal motion?

Unlike a general "No-Confidence Motion" aimed at toppling a government, the process to remove a Speaker is specifically governed by Article 94(c) of the Indian Constitution.

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The rule: The Speaker can be removed by a resolution passed by a majority of "all the then members" of the House (the Effective Majority).

The notice: A mandatory 14-day notice must be given before the resolution can be moved.

The significance: It is one of the most serious motions in Parliament, as it challenges the neutrality of the highest office in the Lok Sabha.

1954: The first challenge to G.V. Mavalankar

The first removal motion in independent India was filed against the "Father of the Lok Sabha," G.V. Mavalankar, in 1954.

Who moved it? Socialist leader Vigneshwar Misir and 21 other MPs.

The allegation: Much like today, the opposition then claimed that the Speaker was not impartial and favored the ruling Congress party.

The outcome: After a two-hour debate, the motion was overwhelmingly defeated.

'A question of dignity': What Nehru said?

During the 1954 debate, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru intervened. He argued that the office of the Speaker represents the dignity and freedom of the House. "We do not wish to take too much time, but I would submit that more time should be allowed to the Opposition than to the Government Benches," Nehru said, urging the House to listen to the grievances.

However, Nehru also warned that challenging the Speaker should not be taken lightly. He stated that the motion wasn't just about a person but about the "high dignity of the House" itself. He insisted that no "whips" be issued, allowing members to vote according to their conscience regarding the chair's integrity.

Other Speakers who faced the motion

Throughout the history of the Indian Parliament, the removal of a Speaker remains an exceedingly rare event, with only three previous instances where such a formal challenge was brought to the floor. The first occurred in 1954 against the inaugural Speaker, G.V. Mavalankar, after the opposition alleged a lack of impartiality; however, following a historic debate where Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru defended the dignity of the Chair, the motion was overwhelmingly rejected.

Subsequent attempts followed a similar pattern of being defeated by the ruling majority. In 1966, a resolution against Speaker Sardar Hukam Singh failed to move forward after it could not secure the mandatory support of 50 members required for initiation. Similarly, in 1987, a motion against Balram Jakhar was negated by the House. Now, in 2026, Om Birla becomes the fourth Speaker to face such a notice. To date, no removal motion has ever been successfully passed in Indias legislative history, as the government of the day has consistently maintained the "effective majority" required to protect the sanctity of the office.

Why history favours the Speaker

In every historical case, the ruling government has strongly supported the Speaker. Because a speaker is usually elected from the majority party, a removal motion serves as a "mini" test of government strength. Unless the treasury benches or their allies defect, the "Effective Majority" required by Article 94(c) remains a significant obstacle for the opposition to overcome.

ALSO READ | Why Om Birla won't preside over Lok Sabha until part 2 of Budget Session
New Delhi: The Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has clarified the status of the Tejas Mk1A fighter jet programme, emphasising the aircrafts complete reliance on the General Electric F404-IN20 engine. HAL Chairman and Managing Director DK Sunil confirmed that the programme has no alternative engine plan and that the jets design and performance are built around this specific engine.

In a recent interview, he addressed concerns about delays in engine deliveries and the absence of backup options. Modern fighter aircraft, according to him, are not easily adaptable to engine changes. The engine is chosen first, and the aircraft is designed around it. Thrust, weight distribution and many other parameters are tailored to this engine, he said.

When asked about fitting a different engine, including Russian or European alternatives, he said it would require a complete redesign of the aircraft. Using a different engine would mean reworking the entire airframe and going through all flight and performance tests again. This would set the project back by several years, he warned, highlighting the urgent need for engines as the Indian Air Force already faces a shortage of operational squadrons.

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Despite earlier supply chain challenges, Sunil expressed confidence that the situation is stabilising. He stated that the General Electric has invested heavily to address production bottlenecks and has launched a new engine production line. I trust the new production line and GEs investments. Engine deliveries will now happen on schedule, he said.

Reports indicate that deliveries of the first batch of F404 engines could begin early in 2026. The HAL has continued building the airframes even as engines were delayed. Five Tejas Mk1A jets are now fully ready and awaiting engines for delivery, while nine more jets have completed flight tests but are grounded due to the engine shortage.

HALs chairpersons statement has brought relief to the Tejas programme. It shows that the fighter jets schedule is now back on track. The main focus now is getting the engines delivered on time so the Air Force can use the jets as planned.
While many navigate the chaos of arranged marriages with notebooks and mental notes, a 28-year-old from Pune has chosen to let data handle the task. Vikas, a data analyst from Haryana, became an internet sensation after sharing his well-organised "Arranged Marriage Tracker," a detailed Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for managing potential matches.

Living in Pune for the past ten years, Vikas created the digital tool to deal with the growing pressure and constant follow-ups from his parents.

Efficiency over emotion: How the tracker works

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Vikas named the spreadsheet his "Weekend Tracker." It emerged from necessity. According to Vikas, his parents often sent him several matrimonial profiles weekly and expected detailed updates by the same evening.

To make the process easier, Vikas built a system that tracks:

- Candidate Details: First names and basic background information.

- Communication Logs: Dates of the first and second phone calls.

- Feedback Loops: Columns for "His Feedback" and "Her Feedback."

- The "Vibe" Check: Notes summarizing the interaction, with entries like "Values Aligned," "Good Conversation," "No Vibe," and "No Follow-up."

'Parents are satisfied': A standardised solution

Vikas says the main goal was convenience. "Whenever my parents send me a girl's number, they want to know exactly how the conversation went," he said. "Keeping it in Excel lets us track everything in one place without me repeating myself daily."

His method has also been popular among friends. Vikas mentioned that several of them, who are also navigating arranged marriages, have asked for his Excel template to make the talking stage easier.

Social media reacts: 'Shark Tank material?'

The story gained traction after Vikas posted a video of his spreadsheet on Instagram at @thevikkchapter. It received over 1.5 million views and thousands of likes. Reactions ranged from amusement to sincere respect for his "peak desi efficiency."

Techies joked, "You should build a dynamic dashboard to find your Matrimonial Viability Quotient."

Veteran matchmakers remarked, "I have over 100 names in my sheet. It helped me reflect on what went wrong."

Entrepreneurs encouraged him to take the idea further: "Go to Shark Tank and pitch this as a SaaS platform!"

While some critics claim that reducing human connection to rows and columns takes romance out of the process, Vikas believes that in the high-pressure world of arranged marriages, staying organized is the best way to maintain sanity.

ALSO READ | Why Om Birla won't preside over Lok Sabha until part 2 of Budget Session
Revati Sule, daughter of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader and Lok Sabha MP Supriya Sule, is set to marry Sarang Lakhanee, the son of a Nagpur-based businessman, in a high-profile wedding that has attracted attention across political and social circles.

According to sources, Revati Sule, who is the daughter of Supriya Sulea senior NCP leader and daughter of Sharad Pawar, will soon tie the knot with Sarang Lakhanee. The engagement has been publicly acknowledged by family members on social media, where Supriyas son, Vijay Sule, shared a photograph of the couple with a congratulatory message.

About Revati Sule

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Revati Sule has pursued higher education both in India and abroad. She earned a bachelors degree in economics from St. Xaviers College in Mumbai and later completed a masters degree in public administration from the London School of Economics. Her academic background and familys political legacy have kept her in the public eye, even though she leads a relatively private life compared with her mother.

Who is Sarang Lakhanee?

Sarang Lakhanee, the groom-to-be, comes from a prominent business family in Nagpur. He is the executive director at Vishvaraj Group, a company controlled by his father, and has a background in management studies from Columbia Business School in the United States. Lakhanee is also known to be involved in sports, particularly badminton.

(Also Read: Assam CM Himanta files Rs 500 cr defamation suit against Gaurav Gogoi and other Congress leaders)

Social media buzz

The announcement of the upcoming marriage generated a positive response on social media, with friends, colleagues, and well-wishers expressing their congratulations. The photographs shared by family members quickly drew widespread attention on social media platforms.

Date and details still awaited

While the engagement is confirmed and many details about the couples background are public, the official date and venue for the wedding have not yet been announced. Both families are expected to release more details as preparations continue.

Overall, the wedding of Revati Sule and Sarang Lakhanee marks a notable event for both the NCP and business communities in Maharashtra, drawing attention for its blend of political legacy and entrepreneurial success.
India and the United States have just struck a deal that handed the Opposition parties a fresh ammunition against the Modi government. While the Ministers and BJP leaders hailed the deal under which the US has reduced tariffs to 18%. However, the pre-liberation day tariff on India has around 2.6% and thus, a tariff of 18% should be seen as an increase since Donald Trumps return to power in 2025. Now, it seems that the United States was waiting for India to accept the deal, and once it was signed, Washington betrayed New Delhi by offering a better deal to Bangladesh.

US-Bangladesh Trade Deal

Sharing details of the deal with the United States, Bangladeshs interim chief of the government, Mohammad Yunus, said that the agreement on Reciprocal Tariff between Bangladesh and the United States was signed on Monday after nine months of negotiations on the agreement since April last year.

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The US will further reduce the reciprocal tariff to 19%, which was originally set at 37% and later reduced to 20% in August last year. In addition, the US committed to establishing a mechanism for certain textile and apparel goods from Bangladesh using US-produced cotton and man-made fibre to receive zero reciprocal tariff in the US market.

"The reduction of reciprocal tariff will grant further advantage to our exporters, while zero reciprocal tariff on specific textile and apparel exports from Bangladesh using US inputs will give substantial added impetus to our garments sector", said NSA Rahman, who was Bangladesh's chief negotiator.

Reacting to the deal, US said, "The U.S.-Bangladesh Agreement on Reciprocal Trade is creating new opportunities for American farmers and producers, expanding market access on U.S. exports ranging from soybeans and corn to civil aircraft and motor vehicles."

Trump Betrays Modi

Notably, Bangladesh's textile export to America has to 0% tariff for using US cotton/man made fiber while India gets 18%. It is noteworthy to mention that while India imports $200mn of US cotton, Bangladesh imports $250mn. The difference of $50mn is costing India 18%.

The India-US trade deal has been heavily tilted in Americas favour, with New Delhi promising $500 billion of purchases in the next five years. While India has reduced tariffs to zero on most of the items imported from the US, America continues to levy 18% tariffs on Indian goods. The silver lining for New Delhi was that in the textile sector, where India, Bangladesh and Pakistan compete, it has a one per cent lower tariff than Bangladesh. Although the US tariff on Indian textiles is marginally lower at 18% versus 19% for Bangladesh, the new deal grants Bangladesh duty-free access. This not only neutralises Indias earlier tariff advantage but also places Indian textile exports at a cost disadvantage compared to Bangladesh.

It's now clear that the US first waited for India to sign the deal and then betrayed New Delhi by offering a better deal to Bangladesh, a country which has very little to offer to America compared to New Delhi. It is now clear that India has succumbed to US pressure and the Modi government has agreed to a deal that largely benefits America while questioning Indias sovereignty. Trump has conveniently betrayed his good friend Modi, and New Delhi is likely to abide by this setback as well.
A controversy has emerged over the publication status of Four Stars of Destiny, the unpublished memoir of former Army Chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane. While the publisher, Penguin Random House, maintains that the book has neither been printed nor officially published, copies of the book and its excerpts have reportedly surfaced, prompting questions about how unpublished material entered the public domain.

The matter has now escalated to a police investigation, with the Delhi Police Special Cell registering an FIR to probe the alleged circulation of the book without mandatory government approval.

In todays episode of DNA, Rahul Sinha, Managing Editor of Zee News, conducted a detailed analysis of the conflicting claims surrounding the book. The investigation highlighted that publication of the memoir requires prior clearance from the Ministry of Defence, which has not yet been granted. Despite this, excerpts have appeared in magazines and the book has been seen with political leaders, raising concerns about a possible breach of established procedures.

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Penguin Random House has issued multiple clarifications, asserting that it alone holds the publishing rights and that no printed or digital copies have been released. The publisher explained that pre-order listings on e-commerce platforms are a standard industry practice and do not amount to publication, which is defined as availability for retail sale. Checks on online platforms showed the book listed with details such as page count, but marked as currently unavailable.

The issue gained political traction after Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi was seen carrying the book in the Parliament premises on 4 February. When questioned about the publishers denial, Rahul Gandhi suggested that Penguin was being untruthful and claimed the book had been available online. Congress leaders also cited a December 2023 social media post by General Naravane sharing a Penguin announcement about the book being available for pre-order, alleging that the post was later deleted.

General Naravane subsequently broke his silence, sharing Penguin Random Houses clarification on social media and stating that it reflected the current status of the book. This endorsement effectively supported the publishers claim that the book has not yet been published. Following this, the BJP accused Rahul Gandhi of spreading misinformation.

The controversy is significant because the book reportedly discusses sensitive topics such as the Galwan clash and the Agnipath scheme. Under the Official Secrets Act, 1923, retired military officers are prohibited from publishing confidential or sensitive information, and manuscripts must be vetted by the Ministry of Defence. Violation of these rules can result in criminal action, fines, imprisonment, or even stoppage of pension.

According to available information, General Naravane has submitted his manuscript for official approval, but clearance is still pending. With Penguin denying publication and Congress insisting the book had already reached the market, the Delhi Police Special Cell has been tasked with determining how the content became public. Authorities are expected to clarify the facts and establish responsibility once the investigation is complete.
US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor on Monday lauded the growing India-US partnership and highlighted the role of the friendship between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump for the conclusion of the framework of the India-US interim trade agreement, announced last week.

During a reception hosted at the residence of the US Ambassador in the national capital, Gor said that the Trump administration at the White House "is paying attention" to India, thanking the strong ties between PM Modi and President Trump for the conclusion of the interim trade agreement.

"I've been here just a little over a month, and we hit the ground running. The White House is paying attention to India. Our President is paying attention to India. And thanks to the friendship of President Trump with Prime Minister Modi, we were able to get the trade deal across eventually," Gor said.

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External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar also attended the reception hosted by US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor at the envoy's residence.

This comes days after the conclusion of the India-US interim trade agreement framework last week, underscoring the two countries' shared interests and continued partnership.

The United States and India announced a framework for an Interim Agreement on reciprocal, mutually beneficial trade, reaffirming their commitment to a broader Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) launched by President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 13, 2025.

As part of the framework, India has agreed to eliminate or reduce tariffs on all US industrial goods and a wide range of US agricultural and food products, including dried distillers' grains (DDGs), red sorghum for animal feed, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, soybean oil, wine and spirits, and additional products.

On the other hand, the United States will impose a reciprocal tariff of 18 per cent on goods originating in India, including textiles and apparel, leather and footwear, plastic and rubber products, organic chemicals, home decor, artisanal goods, and certain machinery.

Subject to the successful conclusion of the Interim Agreement, the US has said it will later remove reciprocal tariffs on select items, including generic pharmaceuticals, gems and diamonds, and aircraft parts.

Gor presented his credentials to President Droupadi Murmu during an official ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan on January 14, formally becoming the 27th United States Ambassador to India.
US: An active incident was reported at Thomas S. Wootton High School in Rockville on Tuesday afternoon, triggering an immediate response from multiple law enforcement agencies. The situation later resulted in a 16-year-old student being taken into custody following a shooting inside the school.

In an update posted on X, the Rockville City Police Department said officers were responding to an active situation at the school and announced that media staging had been set up at the Korean Presbyterian Church of Rockville on Hurley Avenue.

As the incident developed, the Montgomery County Department of Police confirmed that a 16-year-old student had been detained in connection with the shooting. Police said officers from the departments 1st District, along with Rockville City Police, reached the school around 2:15 pm after receiving reports of gunfire. The response was supported by the Montgomery County Sheriffs Office.

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According to police, first responders located a 16-year-old male student from Gaithersburg inside a school hallway with a single gunshot wound. The injured student was rushed to a nearby hospital and is reported to be in stable condition.

The suspected shooter, identified as a 16-year-old male student and a resident of Rockville, was quickly identified and apprehended near the school a short time later. Authorities said there is no ongoing threat to the public.

As a safety measure, the school was placed under lockdown. Students were later transported to a reunification site beginning around 4:30 pm. Police said reunification efforts are being carried out at Robert Frost Middle School on Scott Drive.

Investigators said the suspect will be charged as an adult, with the Montgomery County States Attorneys Office being consulted on the formal charges. The suspects identity has not been made public. Rockville City Police are leading the investigation, and officials said more details will be released as they become available.

(With ANI inputs)
The Donald Trump administration on Monday called the India-US trade deal a "historic" step, which, as per the White House, will open up Indias market of over 1.4 billion people to American products.

New Delhi and the Washington are in the final stages of signing a trade agreement that both sides have described as historic. However, despite the announcement, several claims made by US President Donald Trump remain unaddressed by either country, particularly his assertions that India will stop buying Russian oil and agreed to zero tariffs on US goods.

Amid the questions and uncertainty, the White House on Monday released a fact sheet addressing these issues.

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The statement provide clarity on multiple aspects of the agreement, particularly President Trumps claims and related issues.

Lets understand the what White House said in its fact sheet.

Is India stopping its purchase of Russian oil?

According to the fact sheet released by the Trump administration, the US President agreed to lift the additional 25% tariff on Indian imports in acknowledgment of New Delhis commitment to halt oil purchases from Russia.

Regarding this Donald Trump also signed an Executive Order removing the additional 25% tariff.

Having said that, the confusion arose after Russia said it had received no information from India vis a vis halting Russian oil purchase.

Last week, Ministry of External Affairs reiterated that ensuring energy security for its 1.4 billion people remains the top priority of the Indian government.

Will India reduce tariffs to zero for the US goods?

On February 2, While announcing a trade deal, Donald Trump claimed that India has agreed to bring down tariffs and non-tariff barriers against the US goods to Zero.

According to the joint statement, "India has agreed to either eliminate or reduce its tariffs on 'all US industrial goods and a wide range of US food and agricultural products, including dried distillers grains (DDGs), red sorghum, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, certain pulses, soybean oil, wine and spirits, and additional products."

And fact sheet issued by White House backed this statement, but the specific details of the tariffs India will retain on US goods have not yet been disclosed.

Reciprocal tariff down from 25% to 18%

The White House said, in light of Indias willingness to work with the United States to address structural imbalances in bilateral trade and common national security concerns, the US will reduce the reciprocal tariff on India from 25% to 18%.

Fact sheet also said, India will address non-tariff barriers that impact bilateral trade in priority areas.

Statement further said, "In line with the roadmap set out in the Terms of Reference for the BTA, the United States and India will continue negotiations to address the remaining tariff barriers, additional non-tariff barriers, technical barriers to trade, customs and trade facilitation, good regulatory practices, trade remedies, services and investment, intellectual property, labor, environment, government procurement, and trade-distorting or unfair practices of state-owned enterprises."
Bangladesh Elections 2026: As the Bangladesh elections are near, a new name has unexpectedly emerged in the run up. The Bangladesh elections that are scheduled for February 12 has welcomed 'Krishna Nandi', a veteran Hindu businessman with decades of commercial experience. Nandi is contesting from Khulna-1 constituency on a Jamaat-e-Islami ticket. This political pairing has sparked debate and curiosity across the country.

His candidacy into the race is striking not just because he belongs to a minority community, but also because of his strong political proximity to Jamaats Secretary General, Mia Golam Parwar.

Nandi has argued that Jamaat-e-Islami has the ability to speak for people beyond religious divisions. He says that if he wins, he will take up issues affecting the Hindu community in the Jatiya Sangsad and work to counter the belief that Islamist parties are unwilling or unable to give space to minority voices.

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Who is Krishna Nandi?

Krishna Nandi hails from the Dumuria upazila of Khulna district and is a successful businessman. With a career spanning more than 40 years, Nandi has built interest across multiple sectors, including ods, cement, motorcycles, fertiliser, tin, oil and sugar.

From Business leader to electoral contender

He has been associated with Jamaat-e-Islami since 2003, when Golam Parwar first introduced him to Jamaat-e-Islami. He originally hails from Khulna-5 the same constituency from which Pawar is constesting. Nandi currently serves as the president of the partys Hindu wing. The Khulna-1 seat is a Hindu-dominated constituency where minority votes play a decisive role.

Bangladesh Heads to the Polls amid Political upheaval

Bangladesh will head to the polls on February 12, with nearly 127 million registered voters set to elect 350 members of parliament. The election will be the first since former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was removed from office in 2024. Since then, the country of around 175 million people has faced sustained political unrest, frequent protests and economic strain, particularly in the garment industry, which remains a backbone of the economy.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is being viewed as the leading contender, while Jamaat-e-Islami is spearheading an 11-party alliance in an effort to regain political ground. A recently formed, youth-driven party that emerged from Gen Z-led protests has also thrown its weight behind Jamaat after failing to convert street momentum into independent electoral success.

At present, Bangladesh is being run by a caretaker government led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, who took charge following a student-led uprising that brought an end to Hasinas long rule. Along with the parliamentary elections, voters will also participate in a referendum on the July National Charter 2025, which is expected to play a key role in shaping the countrys future system of governance.
Indian origin death: Chandan Kumar Raja was a 37-year-old Indian-origin tech professional from Karnataka who was shot dead in a daylight attack outside a busy shopping centre in Toronto. The incident took place on Saturday afternoon in the parking lot of the Woodbine Shopping Centre in Etobicoke, according to reports.

The victim lived in Brampton in the Greater Toronto Area. Police believe the shooting was targeted rather than random.

Shooting in busy mall parking lot

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Toronto Police Service said officers were called to reports of gunfire at about 3.31 pm local time near Rexdale Boulevard and Highway 27. When they arrived, they found Chandan with multiple gunshot wounds. He was rushed to a hospital in critical condition but later died.

Images from the scene showed Chandans white SUV riddled with bullet holes and shattered glass. The shooters fled in a vehicle, and police are still searching for suspects.

Who was Chandan Kumar Raja?

Chandan originally came from Thyamagondlu village near Nelamangala in Bengaluru Rural district, Karnataka. He had moved to Canada around six years ago in search of better opportunities.

He graduated in computer science from Saptagiri College in Bengaluru and worked initially in India before moving abroad. In Canada, he built a steady life and worked as an IT professional. Friends described him as active in the local Kannada community, organising cultural events and promoting the Kannada language and culture.

(Also Read: Delhi: 3 bodies found inside car in Peeragarhi, Police investigate possible links to Baba)

Family appeal for help

Chandans parents, who live in Nelamangala, said they had been asking him to return home. His father appealed to the Indian government for help in repatriating his body for final rites.
Tej Pratap Yadav, National President of Janshakti Janta Dal, has announced financial support of Rs 11 lakh to the family of Rajpal Yadav, following the actor's surrender at the Tihar Jail on February 5 over multiple cheque dishonour cases against him.

Tej Pratap said he got to know about the actor and comedian's situation from his bother, Rao Inderjit Yadav's post.

He expressed solidarity with the actor's family on behalf of his party and promised financial aid on humanitarian grounds.

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In a post on X, Tej Pratap Yadav wrote, "I just received information about the pain of the family of the honorable Rajpal Yadav ji through the post of my elder brother Rao Inderjeet Yadav ji. In this extremely difficult time, I and my entire JJD (Jan Shakti Janata Dal) family stand in complete empathy and solidarity with their grieving family. With a spirit of human compassion and support, on behalf of the JJD family, I am providing financial assistance of 11,00,000 (eleven lakh rupees) to their family."

Earlier today, actor Sonu Sood also extended financial assistance to Rajpal Yadav, offering him a small signing amount, "adjustable against future work", for his upcoming film.

In his X handle, Sonu Sood wrote, "Rajpal Yadav is a gifted actor who has given years of unforgettable work to our industry. Sometimes life turns unfair, not because of talent, but because timing can be brutal. He will be part of my film, and I believe this is the moment for all of us producers, directors, colleagues to stand together."

The financial assistance follows the Delhi High Courts rejection of Rajpal Naurang Yadavs last attempt to evade jail in multiple cheque-dishonour cases, directing him to surrender to authorities before any further hearings.

The order was issued after Yadav missed the Courts surrender deadline, having repeatedly failed to honour commitments to pay the complainant company.

The senior lawyer appearing for the actor said that Yadav was prepared to deposit Rs 25 lakh immediately, with a tentative repayment schedule agreed for the remaining amount.

However, the Court rejected to provide any relief, noting that Yadav had already been asked to surrender on February 4, 2026.

Justice Sharma noted that, as the actor had not complied with the surrender order, he would be heard only after surrendering to the jail authorities.

In response to the Courts remarks, Yadavs lawyer said that the actor would surrender at Tihar Jail later on February 5.

The Court clarified that once he surrenders, he would be permitted to file the appropriate application as per the law.
New Delhi: Amid Jana Nayagan release row, actor-politician Thalapathy Vijay was recently spotted at a wedding in Chennai. His presence at a function drew attention of fans as pictures went viral on social media.

On Sunday, Vijay attended the wedding of Sahil, son of YS Sunil Reddy, and Vedika. He wore a white shirt, matching trousers and a beige blazer - meeting and greeting guests present at the wedding function. His pictures of posing with the newlywed couple and guests broke the internet, as it a rare appearance of the actor amid his last movie's ongoing release controversy.

BREAKING: Thalapathy Vijay takes a selfie with fans at a wedding event in Chennai.



pic.twitter.com/HvPjpcL4Bu  Actor Vijay Team (@ActorVijayTeam) February 8, 2026

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Few clicks of Thalapathy Vijay with Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy from the family wedding in Chennai pic.twitter.com/rbm92xiZW1  Actor Vijay Team (@ActorVijayTeam) February 9, 2026

The ever charming Thalapathy Vijay pic.twitter.com/CQdWOuq0pp  Actor Vijay Team (@ActorVijayTeam) February 9, 2026

Besides Thalapathy Vijay, YSR Congress Party chief and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy and actor Suriya were also present at the wedding.

ALSO READ: 'Jana Nayagan' release row: Producer approaches Madras High Court to withdraw petition against CBFC

Jagan Mohan Reddy and Vijay's candid conversation moments were captured and the pictures went viral on social media.

About Jana Nayagan release

Jana Nayagan was earlier slated to be a Pongal release on January 9 and is being described as Vijay's last film. The actor has entered politics and has launched his own political party, Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK).

However, the film ran into trouble when the CBFC decided to hold back its certification on the grounds that certain scenes in the movie could potentially hurt religious sentiments. A single judge then asked the CBFC to give the film a U/A 16+ certificate, which brought short-term relief. However, the CBFC later moved to a division bench of the High Court, which stayed the single judge's order on January 9.

This led the producers to approach the Supreme Court, asking for an urgent stay on the High Court's decision. However, the apex court refused to intervene.

(With ANI inputs)
New Delhi: Bollywood actress Jacqueline Fernandez started her week with a spiritual retreat, offering prayers at the iconic Shri Mahakaleshwar Jyotirlinga temple. Following her visit to Kashi, she traveled to the holy city of Ujjain to seek blessings at the revered Lord Mahakaleshwar temple.

All-White Traditional Look and Temple Darshan

Jacqueline was spotted in all-white traditional attire, accessorised with flower garlands. Surrounded by her team and security personnel, the actress entered the temple to offer prayers to Lord Mahakal.

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As word of her visit spread among devotees, crowds gathered to catch a glimpse of the star. However, thanks to strict security arrangements, Jacqueline was able to complete her darshan peacefully and without interruptions.

Also Read | Jacqueline Fernandez To Set The Miss World 2025 Grand Finale Ablaze In Hyderabad

Earlier Visit to Kashi Vishwanath Temple

Before heading to Ujjain, Jacqueline visited Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi. Sharing glimpses of her spiritual journey on Instagram, the actress posted a picture of herself inside a car after her darshan.

Jacqueline also indulged in the citys famous street food, sharing a photo of a crispy aloo tikki chaat with the caption Varanasi , giving fans a peek into her personal and spiritual retreat.

Jacqueline Fernandezs Recent and Upcoming Film Projects

On the professional front, Jacqueline was last seen in Housefull 5, directed by Tarun Mansukhani. The film featured a star-studded ensemble including Akshay Kumar, Abhishek Bachchan, Riteish Deshmukh, Nargis Fakhri, Sonam Bajwa, Sanjay Dutt, and several other notable actors.

Looking ahead, Jacqueline is set to appear in Welcome to the Jungle, directed by Ahmed Khan. The third installment of the Welcome franchise will release in theatres on June 26. The film boasts an ensemble cast including Akshay Kumar, Suniel Shetty, Jackie Shroff, Raveena Tandon, Disha Patani, Arshad Warsi, Paresh Rawal, Rajpal Yadav, Johnny Lever, Aftab Shivdasani, and Lara Dutta.
Albert Camus (19131960) was a renowned French-Algerian philosopher, writer, and journalist whose work continues to inspire readers and thinkers around the world. Known for his clear, precise writing and deep explorations of human existence, Camus examined the tension between the search for meaning and the indifferent universe. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957 for his influential contributions, which include both novels and philosophical essays that challenge readers to confront life honestly and courageously.

Quote of the Day

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

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The Meaning Behind the Quote

This quote captures a central theme in Camus philosophy: the danger of overanalysing life. It suggests that constantly searching for a rigid definition of happiness or a singular purpose can prevent us from truly living. Instead, Camus encourages embracing life as it comes, finding joy and fulfilment in everyday experiences, and accepting that meaning is not always given but created through our actions and choices.

Also Read | Quote of the day by Chanakya: 'A man is born alone and dies...'

Life and Work of Albert Camus

Born in Algeria, Camus grew up in a modest household but developed an early fascination with literature, philosophy, and the human condition. Throughout his career, he wrote novels and essays that explored the complexities of life, morality, and human experience. Some of his most celebrated works include The Stranger (1942), which examines the indifferent nature of the universe; The Plague (1947), an allegorical story highlighting human resilience in the face of suffering; and The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), a philosophical essay that introduces and explains his concept of the absurd. His literary and philosophical contributions were recognised with the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957, cementing his legacy as one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century.

What is Absurdism?

Absurdism is the philosophical idea for which Camus is most famous for. It explores the conflict between humanitys inherent desire for meaning and the universes seeming indifference. Life, according to absurdism, has no predetermined purpose, and any attempt to find absolute meaning will inevitably clash with reality. Yet, rather than seeing this as discouraging, Camus viewed it as liberating: by accepting the absurd, we can live authentically, create our own purpose, and embrace life fully, even in the face of uncertainty and suffering.
Rajpal Yadav Net Worth: Actor Sonu Sood has come forward to support fellow actor Rajpal Yadav after the latter made an emotional confession about facing severe financial distress ahead of surrendering in a Rs 9 crore cheque bounce case.

Sonu Offers Film and Signing Amount

On Tuesday, Sonu Sood took to X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram Stories to announce that he would offer Rajpal Yadav a role in his upcoming film, along with a signing amount to help him financially. Sonu also urged members of the film industry to stand by Rajpal during what he described as a difficult phase in the actors life.

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Rajpal Yadav is a gifted actor who has given years of unforgettable work to our industry. Sometimes life turns unfair, not because of talent, but because timing can be brutal. He will be part of my film, and I believe this is the moment for all of us..producers, directors, colleagues to stand together. A small signing amount, adjustable against future work, is not charity, its dignity, Sonu wrote, adding that the signing amount would be adjustable against future work and was meant to uphold dignity, not charity.

Rajpal Yadav is a gifted actor who has given years of unforgettable work to our industry. Sometimes life turns unfair, not because of talent, but because timing can be brutal. He will be part of my film, and I believe this is the moment for all of us..producers, directors,  sonu sood (@SonuSood) February 10, 2026

Sonu further appealed to producers, directors and colleagues to extend support to Rajpal, stating that the industry must remind its own members that they are not alone during tough times. When one of our own is going through a tough phase, the industry must remind him hes not alone. This is how we show we are more than just an industry, he said.

Also Read | Rajpal Yadav's heartbreaking statement before surrendering in Tihar jail in cheque bounce case: 'Mere paas paise nai hai'

Rajpals Emotional Statement Goes Viral

Sonus message followed Rajpal Yadavs emotional statement that went viral on social media, where the actor spoke about his financial hardship. According to Mint, Rajpal said he had no money and no one to turn to for help, adding that he was dealing with the crisis alone.

Court Proceedings and Surrender at Tihar Jail

On February 6, 2026, senior advocate Abhijat appeared on behalf of Rajpal Yadav and informed the court that the actor would deposit Rs 25 lakh immediately, with a tentative repayment schedule agreed upon for the remaining amount. However, Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma observed that Rajpal was required to surrender a day earlier and would be heard only after doing so.

Also Read | Rajpal Yadav directed to surrender by Delhi High Court over multiple cheque bounce cases by February 4

According to ANI, the Delhi High Court had earlier withdrawn the leniency granted to Rajpal Yadav and directed him to surrender before the concerned jail superintendent by February 4, 2026, citing repeated violations of undertakings to clear settlement dues.

The sentence imposed by the trial court had been suspended in June 2024 to facilitate an amicable settlement between the parties. However, the High Court observed that even partial payments promised through demand drafts and instalment schedules were not made within the stipulated time. The Court rejected explanations citing technical or typographical errors, stating that they did not inspire confidence given the consistent pattern of default.

Net Worth Figures

As per a 2025 report by Asianet News, Rajpal Yadav, known for popular films such as Malamaal Weekly, Hungama, Hulchul, Chup Chupke and the Bhool Bhulaiyaa franchise, has an estimated net worth of around Rs 80 crore.
New Delhi: Bollywood actor Rajpal Yadav, best known for his comic timing and effortless acting style is dealing with a legal battle and recently his final attempt to evade jail was put to the backburner after Delhi High Court denied him bail in the cheque bounce cases. The actor made an emotional statement moments before surrendering at Tihar Jail.

According to Mint, Rajpal Yadav said, "Sir, kya karoon? Mere paas paise nahin hain. Aur koi upaay nahin dikhta Sir, yahan hum sab akele hain. There are no friends. I have to deal with this crisis on my own.

Rajpal Yadav surrenders in Tihar jail

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On Feb 6, 2026, Senior Advocate Abhijat appeared for Rajpal and said that the actor would pay a Rs 25 lakh amount today itself and that a repayment schedule for the balance amount has also been tentatively agreed to between the two sides. However, Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma stated that the actor had to surrender yesterday (Wednesday) and, therefore, he would be heard only after he hands himself over to the jail authorities.

Therefore, Rajpal Yadav surrendered at Tihar jail.

About Rajpal Yadav's case

According to ANI, the High Court had earlier withdrawn the leniency extended to Yadav and directed him to surrender before the concerned Jail Superintendent by February 4, 2026, at 4 PM. The Court held that the actor had repeatedly violated undertakings given to clear settlement dues.

The sentence awarded by the trial court had been suspended in June 2024 to facilitate settlement between the parties. The Court noted that such relief had been granted solely on the basis of assurances that the dispute would be amicably resolved and payments would be made.

The Court further observed that even partial payments promised through demand drafts and instalment schedules were not deposited within the stipulated time. Rejecting explanations relating to technical or typographical errors in demand drafts, the Court held that such reasons did not inspire confidence, particularly in view of the consistent pattern of default.
New Delhi: Following the shooting incident at Rohit Shetty's house, Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh, who has been keeping a low profile since his last release, reportedly received a threatening WhatsApp voice note on Tuesday demanding crores of rupees. The Mumbai Police Crime Branch is investigating the matter, according to a report by India TV.

Authorities were informed after the threat, and the police are currently trying to trace the sender of the voice note. However, no formal complaint has been filed by Ranveer Singh or his team so far.

Ranveer Singh last starred in the 2025 blockbuster spy thriller Dhurandhar, directed by Aditya Dhar. Released on December 5, 2025, the film saw him playing an undercover agent in Karachi and went on to gross over Rs 1,300 crore worldwide, according to trade tracker Sacnilk. He is set to return in the sequel, Dhurandhar: The Revenge, which is scheduled for release on March 19, 2026.

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Rohit Shetty Firing Incident

This is not the first time a Bollywood celebrity has faced a security scare following the recent firing outside filmmaker Rohit Shettys residence, according to ANI.

On February 5, Mumbais Esplanade Court (Killa Court) sent all five accused in connection with the incident at Shettys Juhu residence to six days of police custody. Four individuals had been arrested by Mumbai Police on February 1, shortly after assailants fired four rounds outside the filmmakers home. The fifth accused was apprehended on February 5 and presented in court alongside the others.

The judge remanded all five to police custody until February 11, 2026, citing the seriousness of the offence and a criminal conspiracy. The court highlighted the need for detailed investigations and joint interrogations. During the hearing, police informed the court that a social media post had claimed responsibility for the attack.

Authorities revealed that the accused used the Signal app to communicate secretly and that efforts are ongoing to recover deleted messages linked to Shubham Lonkar. The police requested maximum custody for the four previously arrested individuals and a 10-day custody for the fifth accused, Asaram Fasle alias Babu.

Defence lawyers argued that their clients had no direct involvement in the incident. The lawyer for the first accused stated that his client was not present at the scene and had been arrested based on circumstantial evidence, with no proven connection to Shubham Lonkar. The advocates for the other three accused sought judicial custody, noting the police found no involvement beyond allegedly providing a vehicle.

Meanwhile, Mumbai Crime Branchs Anti-Extortion Cell arrested another accused, Asaram Fasle alias Babu, who reportedly supplied the weapon used in the firing at Shettys residence.
Mumbai: The Mumbai Crime Branch's investigation into the firing incident at Bollywood director-producer Rohit Shetty's house in Mumbai has revealed that the accused weapon supplier, Asaram Fasle, had been working as a garage mechanic for the Bishnoi gang for the past four years.

He joined the gang under the influence of Shubham Lonkar, who is alleged to be the mastermind behind both the Baba Siddique murder case and the Rohit Shetty firing incident, police said.

The Crime Branch claims that Fasle, on Lonkar's instructions, handed over the weapons to Swapnil Sakat, which were later used by the unidentified shooter in the firing.

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On February 5, all five accused arrested in connection with the firing outside Bollywood filmmaker Rohit Shetty's Juhu residence have been sent to six days of police custody by Mumbai's Esplanade Court (Killa Court).The Mumbai Police arrested four individuals on February 1, shortly after the assailants fired four rounds outside Shetty's residence. They were sent to police custody. The fifth accused was arrested on Thursday (February 5) and was produced before the court alongside the other accused in the matter.

Also Read | Rohit Shetty residence firing case: Lawrence Bishnoi gang claims responsibility, warns 'next bullets will hit his chest'

After the hearing, the judge remanded them to police till February 11, 2026, citing the seriousness of the offence and a criminal conspiracy. The judge also observed the need for a detailed investigation and a joint interrogation, mandating the custody of the five accused. During the hearing, the police informed the court that a social media post had claimed responsibility for the incident.

The accused used to communicate by using the Signal app to maintain secrecy, the police said, further adding that they have been looking for more deleted chats with Shubham Lonkar.The police requested for maximum custody of the four individuals previously arrested and a 10-day custody for the fifth accused Asaram Fasle alias Babu. Appearing for the first accused, his lawyer argued that he was not present at the spot when the incident happened and that he was arrested on the basis of circumstantial evidence. He also stated that there is no established link between the accused and Shubham Lonkar.

The advocate appearing for the three other accused sought judicial custody for them, submitting that the police had found no involvement beyond their alleged role in providing the vehicle.

Notably, the Mumbai Crime Branch's Anti-Extortion Cell arrested one more accused in connection with the firing incident on Thursday. According to the Crime Branch, the accused had supplied the weapon used in the firing at Rohit Shetty's house.

"The Mumbai Crime Branch's Anti-Extortion Cell has arrested Asaram Fasle alias Babu in connection with the firing incident at Bollywood director Rohit Shetty's residence. He was responsible for supplying the weapon used in the firing," the police said.
Chinas latest J-35A fifth-generation stealth fighter is said to combine speed, stealth and advanced targeting in a networked kill chain, raising questions for US and regional air defenses.
During PM Modis visit, Malaysia appeared more aligned with India than ever. The real impact of these moves will come to the fore in the coming months, as Malaysia is Indias key ASEAN partner.
EPFO New App Features: The Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) is developing a new mobile application that will allow its 8 crore members to withdraw their EPF balance directly into their bank accounts using the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). As per reports, a certain portion of the EPF balance will be frozen, while a large share will be available for withdrawal through the UPI gateway, along with access to other services such as passbook balance details.

The move is part of EPFOs EPFO 3.0 upgrade and aims to make PF access as simple as using a banking app, with an instant, paperless, and fully digital withdrawal process. Currently, salaried employees use either the Universal Account Number (UAN) portal or the UMANG app to access their EPF accounts and related services.

EPFO New App: What's New

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The Ministry of Labour and Employment is currently conducting trial runs using 100 dummy accounts to identify and resolve technical issues ahead of the public rollout in April 2026. The new auto-settlement mode processes claims electronically within three days, without any manual intervention. (Also Read: Airtel's Evergreen Recharge Plans 2026: Unlimited Calls, 5G data, 100 SMS per Day, and 20+ OTT apps; Check prices and other benefits)

Under this system, the claim limit has been raised from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh. The initiative aims to simplify the withdrawal process and reduce the workload of EPFO, which handles over 5 crore claims annually, mostly related to EPF withdrawals. Officials said the government wants to bring EPFO services on par with banks. Meanwhile, while the new EPFO app will serve as the primary platform for UPI-based withdrawals, existing services such as the EPFO Unified Member Portal and the UMANG app will continue to operate for other functions.

EPFO New App: Features

The new facility allows EPFO members to transfer eligible funds to their linked bank accounts almost instantly using their UPI PIN, bypassing the traditional claim process that can take several days. Through the new app, subscribers will be able to view the eligible EPF balance available for transfer to their seeded bank accounts directly within the mobile application.

This enables members to access their EPF money within three days for purposes such as illness, education, marriage, and housing. Initial discussions suggest a withdrawal limit of Rs 25,000 per transaction for UPI-based transfers. (Also Read: boAt Chrome Iris smartwatch launched in India with Bluetooth calling and health feature; Check specs and price)

The app will clearly show the eligible balance while keeping 25% of the total balance locked for retirement security. This service will be available through a dedicated EPFO app, integrated with the BHIM app and other UPI platforms.
Tecno Pova Curve 2 5G India launch date: Chinese smartphone brand Tecno is gearing up to launch the Tecno Pova Curve 2 5G in India on February 13 at 12 pm IST. The new smartphone will succeed the Pova Curve 5G, which debuted in May 2025. It is positioned as an upgrade focused on balancing battery endurance and connectivity with a reduced physical profile. Tecno has confirmed that the phone will feature a Space 2.0 design with futuristic styling.

The Tecno Pova Curve 2 5G smartphone will be available in three colour options and sport a slim 7.4mm profile. The device will likely have a curved rear with a matte-textured finish and likely to run on Android 16 out of the box.

Tecno Pova Curve 2 5G specifications (Expected)

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The upcoming Tecno Pova Curve 2 5G is expected to feature a 6.78-inch curved AMOLED display with 1.5K resolution and a 144Hz refresh rate. Similar to the Pova Curve 5G, the handset will sport a curved screen with narrow bezels, offering a sleek and immersive viewing experience. (Also Read: OPPO K14x launched in India with MediaTek Dimensity 6300 chipset and AI-backed camera features; Check display, battery, price, sale date and other specs)

Under the hood, it is likely to be powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7100 processor, paired with up to 12GB of RAM. In terms of design, the smartphone is teased to be 7.4mm slim and weigh around 194 grams, with the power button highlighted in an orange accent. The Tecno Pova Curve 2 5G is tipped to pack a massive 8,000mAh battery and could support 45W wired fast charging.

On the camera front, the device is said to feature a triple rear camera setup, with two lenses housed in a horizontal pill-shaped module and a third lens placed below. While Tecno has not officially revealed the camera details, leaks suggest a 50-megapixel primary sensor. The upcoming model is also teased to offer a range of AI features, including AI-powered noise cancellation. (Also Read: Samsung Galaxy F70e 5G launched in India with 6,000mAh battery; Check display, camera, price, sale date and other specs)

Tecno Pova Curve 2 5G price (Expected)

The Tecno Pova Curve 2 5G is expected to be priced between Rs. 15,000 and Rs. 20,000 in India, similar to its predecessor. To recall, the Tecno Pova Curve 5G was launched at Rs. 15,999 for the 6GB RAM + 128GB storage variant, while the 8GB RAM model was priced at Rs. 16,999. It is likely to be sold exclusively on Flipkart and through offline retail stores.
A good handbag is not merely an accessory but also a personality and a style of life. Through Amazon Ultimate Brand Sale V-Day Gen Z Edit (6 to 14 Feb), fashion fans are also discovering trendy, practical, and affordable handbags that can serve both business and office purposes. Ranging from fancy satchels to larger totes, these are trending items that feature smart designs, materials, and day-to-day comfort. This article presents four of the most popular women's handbags that are fashionable and practical in today's lifestyles.

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The Accessorize London Chloe Cream Handheld Bag is the bag that will appeal to all women who appreciate elegant and simple fashion. It has a soft cream color that has a high-end appearance to fit both formal and casual attire.

Key Features

Elegant cream color with modern design

Detachable and adjustable shoulder strap

Spacious inner compartments

Premium-quality material

Suitable for work and daily wear

Light color may require frequent cleaning

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The Lino Perros Leatherette Tote Bag is ideal for people who want to have space and style simultaneously. It is a high-quality leatherette product, which is durable and polished. It has a spacious interior, which enables one to carry gadgets, documents, makeup, anda wallet in it.

Key Features

Premium leatherette finish

Large storage capacity

Comfortable shoulder handles

Lightweight design

Professional and stylish look

No crossbody strap option

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Lavie Beech Flap Satchel Bag is created by women who appreciate stylish and sensible fashion. Its well-developed design and flaps secured in it make your outfit look elegant. It is a perfect bag whether you are going to work, lunch meetings, or shopping.

Key Features

Stylish flap closure design

Adjustable shoulder strap

Compact yet spacious interior

Durable material

Suitable for office and casual wear

Limited space for larger items

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The Lino Perros Women's Handbag has a positive combination of both fashion and practicality. It has a clean appearance and a well-built design that is aimed at modern women. This handbag is convenient, especially when you are going to work on a daily basis or even when shopping or on casual outings.

Key Features

Sleek and modern design

Durable construction

Multiple inner pockets

Easy-to-carry handles

Matches both ethnic and western outfits

Basic color options only

The right handbag may make you feel more confident and comfortable in your everyday life. The handbags of these four women are quality, fashionable, and useful that makes them good partners in work and daily living. When the Amazon Ultimate Brand Sale V-Day Gen Z Edit (6-14 Feb), most buyers visit such popular accessories in order to renew their wardrobes. From wide-ranging totes to high-end satchels, both have their own exception. When one invests in a good handbag, one invests in comfort and one's fashion. Choose the one that suits your lifestyle, wardrobe, and personality, and have a fashionable life without putting a lot of effort into it.

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Disclaimer: At IDPL, we help you stay up-to-date with the latest trends and products. It should not be construed as an endorsement to buy. IDPL may make a very small commission from its sale if one chooses to buy the product from any of the links in this article.
Vitamin C serums are a significant part of the process of having healthy, glowing skin, and the right skincare routine is the first step towards reaching this goal. There is a great variety of reliable face serums on Amazon that address dullness, dark spots, acne marks, and uneven tone. These serums are made in easy-to-use formulas and include brightening blends of varying degrees, which are meant to deliver daytime results and can be used daily. This article discusses four of the most famous Vitamin C serums that can be found on Amazon, and which claim to give a person radiant and fresh-looking skin.

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The SEREKO 50X Vitamin C Face Serum is marketed as an item to be used by individuals seeking bright and clear skin. It suits all skin types and does not weigh on the skin, as it can be absorbed within a short period of time, and therefore suits daily use.

Key Features

High-strength Vitamin C for deep brightening

Helps reduce acne, blemishes, and dark spots

Lightweight and fast-absorbing texture

Suitable for all skin types

Supports skin repair and glow

May feel strong for very sensitive skin at first.

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Dot and Key Vitamin C + E Serum is ideal when one wants to brighten their skin without causing any harm or being rough. It contains niacinamide, pumpkin extracts, and blood orange, and is effective for uneven skin tone and pigmentation.

Key Features

10% Vitamin C with Vitamin E for glow

5% Niacinamide for pore care

Fades dark spots and dullness

Improves skin texture

Lightweight and non-sticky

The small bottle size may finish quickly.

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Himalaya Turmeric Face Serum is a blend of traditional herbal care and modern skincare science. It contains niacinamide, glycolic acid, and turmeric that assist in clearing the skin and preventing the appearance of dark spots.

Key Features

Contains organic turmeric extract

Reduces dark spots

Includes niacinamide and glycolic acid

Herbal-based formula

Non-greasy texture

Results may take time for deep pigmentation.

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Pilgrim 10% Vitamin C Face Serum is concerned with the daily brightness and skin tone. It is perfume-free and thus can be applied by to both men and women. This serum is effective in pigmentation reduction and also to achieve natural glow.

Key Features

10% Vitamin C for daily glow

Fragrance-free formula

Helps even skin tone

Reduces dark spots

Suitable for all skin types

Limited quantity for long-term use.

The selection of Vitamin C serum will be determined by the type of your skin and your objectives. SEREKO is the one that can be recommended to the users who would like to have strong brightening and acne control. Dot and Key suits are targeted at beginners who want to have that balanced glow and smoothness. Himalaya is the best to use when one has faith in herbal care and tender treatment. Pilgrim is ideal to use on a daily basis without perfumes and easy skincare. All these serums are offered on Amazon and contribute to the enhancement of the skin tone, dark spot reduction, and confidence. These serums can change dull skin to healthy and glowing skin, eventually, with proper cleanliness and regular use.

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Disclaimer: At IDPL, we help you stay up-to-date with the latest trends and products. It should not be construed as an endorsement to buy. IDPL may make a very small commission from its sale if one chooses to buy the product from any of the links in this article.
The Bangladesh interim government on Tuesday announced financial aid of 25 lakh taka to help build a house for the family of Dipu Chandra Das, who was killed in a mob attack in Mymensingh last year, according to local Bangladesh news channel.

This announcement by the interim government came just two days before the Bangladesh general elections.

Dipu Chandra Das, a Hindu man was brutally beaten and burnt to death on December 18 in the Square Masterbari area of Bhaluka Upazila, Mymensingh district, Bangladesh.

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According to reports, a mob accused him of making disrespectful remark, what they perceived as "Blasphemous."



He was allegedly attacked, tied to a tree, and set on fire in what was widely characterised as an act of communal violence.

The interim government said that Dipu Das was the only breadwinner of his family and promised long-term financial support for their rehabilitation. As part of this aid, 25 lakh taka has been earmarked to construct a permanent house for the family, ensuring their future security.

The aid will be provided under the supervision of the Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) of Tarakanda in Mymensingh district.

As per Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS), Bangladesh Education Adviser, Dr CR Abrar on Tuesday said that the killing of Dipu Chandra Das was a "brutal crime with no justification and has no place in our society."

He also said that the government's move to support Dipu's family can't compensate for the value of a human life, but promised that the state remains committed to ensuring justice for the family.

He further said that the killing, fueled by communal hysteria, was a national disgrace, and only justice could help the country move past this shame.

Emphasising the governments stance, he said Bangladesh upholds the right of people from all religions, ethnicities, and communities to peacefully express their views, provided it is done respectfully. He stressed that even in times of disagreement, no one has the right to take the law into their own hands.

12 people directly involved in the incident have been arrested, and the investigation is still underway. The education adviser affirmed that all those responsible would be held accountable through the proper legal process.
Bangladesh is all set to go for its national elections on February 12. Voting is expected to start at 7.30 am on February 12, the campaigning will end at 7.30 pm on February 10. Voting will be held for 299 of the 300 seats in Bangladeshs Parliament. In addition to choosing their parliamentary representatives, voters will also participate in a referendum on the July Charter. Election campaigning began on January 22, with 1,981 candidates in the fray across 299 constituencies. The polls are expected to engage nearly 127 million registered voters nationwide.

According to a new research report released in Dhaka, a sharp rise in Islamist politics following the July 2024 uprising in Bangladesh could have widespread negative consequences, particularly for women. The report, titled "Rupture, Reform, and Reimagining Democracy: Navigating the Agony of Transition," was published by the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD). It examines the political and ideological shifts that have taken place since the uprising that led to the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led government.

The electoral battle has effectively narrowed into a two-front contest between the countrys main political alliances. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), under the leadership of Tarique Rahman, is estimated to command between 33 and 35 per cent voter support. Challenging it is the 11-party alliance led by Jamaat-e-Islami and the National Citizen Party (NCP), which is projected to attract around 30 to 34 per cent support. A look at recent pre-poll surveys:

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* A report by Bangladeshs The Daily Star cited a public opinion poll conducted by Eminence Associates for Social Development (EASD) ahead of the 13th national elections.

* The survey estimated that the BNP-led alliance could emerge as the largest bloc, winning approximately 208 seats.

* According to the same poll, the Jamaat-e-Islami-led alliance was projected to secure around 46 seats.

* Other projections included three seats for the Jatiya Party, four for smaller parties, and about 17 seats for independent candidates.

* The study was based on responses from 41,500 voters and covered all 300 constituencies using the primary sampling unit methodology.

* Voter preference data showed 66.3% support for the BNP, while Jamaat-e-Islami received 11.9% backing.

* The National Citizen Party recorded 1.7% support, the Jatiya Party 4%, and independent candidates 2.6%.

* The poll highlighted stronger BNP support among women voters, with over 71% expressing preference for the party.

* Region-wise, the BNP-led alliance performed best in Chattogram and Sylhet.

* Jamaat-e-Islami showed relatively higher support in Barishal and Khulna, while the Jatiya Partys base appeared strongest in Rangpur.

* In contrast, another survey released recently indicated a much tighter race between the two main alliances.

* That poll suggested the BNP-led alliance could receive 44.1% of the vote, closely followed by the Jamaat-led alliance at 43.9%.

* It projected the Jamaat-led alliance winning 105 constituencies, while the BNP-led alliance could secure 101 seats.
Bangladesh stands at a crossroads with its February 12 polls, just two days away, marking the first election since Sheikh Hasina's dramatic 2024 ouster amid deadly student protests in July.

Think of it as a neighborhood shake-up: the Awami League, or the longtime boss, is out; cousins Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami are duking it out; and big powers like India, the United States, China, and Pakistan watch closely, ready to pivot alliances.

To get a fuller picture of domestic drama in Dhaka and global ripples it weaves along with the developments, former diplomat and foreign policy analyst KP Fabian draws a stark parallel to a high-stakes election in Bangladesh.

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The Political Shake-Up in Dhaka

A massive change in Bangladesh's leadership and power structure started with huge protests by Gen Z. To get a clear picture of recent developments in Bangladesh, lets look back to July 2024. A Gen Z protest against unfair government job quotas, reserving 30% of spots for relatives of 1971 war heroes, sparked nationwide fury when police and ruling party thugs cracked down hard, killing over 1,400 people and injuring thousands.

These students from Dhaka University and beyond turned street marches into a full "Monsoon Revolution," blocking roads, shutting down the internet, and facing tear gas and bullets for weeks until Sheikh Hasinas static government for the past 15 years was toppled, forcing her to flee to New Delhi in August 2024.

Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus stepped in as interim leader, freeing BNP's Khaleda Zia, lifting Jamaat-e-Islami's ban, and later banning the Awami League itself in May 2025 over protest deaths.

This chaos cleared the deck for the February 12, 2026, elections; no Awami League, BNP's Tarique Rahman back from exile, and the Jamaat teaming with students via the National Citizen Party (NCP).

Voters now pick between old rivals in a freer but fragile setup. Experts call it a "democratic integrity" hit, yet many locals cheer the fresh start after years of fear.

Dhaka's streets birthed this shake-up, flipping Bangladesh from one-party grip to a high-stakes BNP-Jamaat race with global eyes watching.

Awami League's Ban: Democracy's Wound or Fresh Start?

Awami Leagues ban in the upcoming Bangladesh elections can be pictured more like losing your voice in a family argument.

The Awami League, which ruled for 15 years under Hasina, faces a full ban from the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus. Registration suspended, activities halted over 2024 protest deaths.

Former diplomat and foreign affairs expert KP Fabian clarifies that with the Awami League being banned, it certainly detracts from the democratic integrity and credibility in the eyes of observers of democracy. But a considerable section of the people or voters in Bangladesh may not take the same view, many seeing it as justice against Hasina's fascist regime.

Though Yunus has been calling for transparent elections, the ban on one of the major political parties does not seem to support Yunus claims.

Tarique Rahman's Return: Sympathy Fuels BNP Surge?

Tarique Rahman, BNP's acting chair, returned to Bangladesh after 17-20 years away in London exile over graft charges after Hasinas ouster.

The timing hit hard, just after his mother and former PM Khaleda Zia's death, sparking emotional tributes and "sympathy votes" that experts say will certainly boost BNPs vote bank in the February 12 polls.

Voters rally to the "prodigal son," boosting BNP's moderate appeal to anti-Hasina crowds, minorities, and urbanites. This positions Tarique as the steady frontrunner in a fragmented race.

Nail-Biter Polls: BNP Edges Jamaat-e-Islami?

After Sheikh Hasina left power, the ban on Jamaat-e-Islami ended. The party then teamed up with NCP, the group of young Gen-Z students who led the "Monsoon Revolution" protests that brought her down.

These energetic student protesters from the barricades have joined forces with the more organized Islamist group, putting them in close competition with the BNP.

Experts note that Jamaat-e-Islami has allied with young students who formed a new party after their protests led to Sheikh Hasina's ouster. Former diplomat KP Fabian describes it as Jamaat-e-Islami combined with Generation Z students. Some polls show Rahman gaining a majority, while others indicate Jamaat-e-Islami trailing closely.

The expert states they cannot predict the exact outcome, but it will likely come down to one of the two: BNP or Jamaat-e-Islami, with BNP positioned as the frontrunner.

Global Powers Eye Bangladesh Polls

The February 12 election isn't just Dhaka's drama; it's South Asia's pivot. Experts note how the US leads diplomacy. "Will have considerable influence on the new government," said KP Fabian.

China, Pakistan, and the US already have leverage, which might not be good for New Delhi. The expert calls for smart diplomacy to protect India's needs. Trade and security links are at risk in this big-power shift.

While a former diplomat also notes that China looks set to stay strong no matter which government wins in Bangladesh, America holds a similar advantage.

India's Tightrope: From Hasinas Fade to Neighbor Foe?

Experts note that Indias decision was right to grant Sheikh Hasina asylum, but encouraging her to stay and support her political work from there may not have been wise.

BNP and Jamaat manifestos focus on "Bangladesh first," which means pulling back from Hasina's close ties with India and drawing firm lines on issues like water sharing.

Tensions are high with attacks on minorities and calls to extradite Hasina. Experts warn this could break India-Bangladesh relations.

India, however, does not enjoy the same position. The expert warns clearly: If any Bangladeshi leader thinks they can build deep ties with Pakistan and China while ignoring or staying hostile to India, that leader is just chasing a mirage.
Kuala Lumpur: Pakistani Navy Chief Admiral Naveed Ashraf visited Malaysia and held meetings with top naval and military officials. The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Pakistans military media wing, confirmed the visit, stating that Admiral Ashraf was welcomed at the Royal Malaysian Navy headquarters by Admiral Tan Sri Zulkifli bin Zulkifli and the discussions focussed on regional maritime security and strengthening defense cooperation.

The Pakistani naval chiefs visit coincided with Prime Minister Narendra Modis two-day trip to Malaysia. During his visit, Modi met his Malaysian counterpart Anwar Ibrahim and emphasised enhancing bilateral defense and economic ties. Both nations agreed to expand cooperation in defense, security, semiconductors and trade.

Analysts say that since the setback Pakistans armed forces faced during Indias Operation Sindoor in May last year, Pakistan Army, Navy and Air Force have accelerated efforts to strengthen partnerships with regional and international counterparts. Pakistani military officials have undertaken multiple visits in recent months, and Admiral Ashrafs Malaysia trip fits within this broader push for deeper collaboration.

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On the defense front, the Pakistani Navy stated that the visit reaffirmed the commitment to the Pakistan-Malaysia naval partnership and future maritime cooperation. Officials discussed enhancing professional ties, expanding naval engagement and cooperation in joint exercises, training and intelligence sharing. Both sides highlighted the importance of working together on maritime challenges, including piracy, terrorism and securing sea lanes.

Ashraf also reiterated Pakistan Navys commitment to promoting peace and stability in the Indian Ocean region and emphasised his countrys interest in deepening defense ties with Malaysia. Diplomatic relations between Islamabad and Kuala Lumpur, established in 1957, have historically been close, with both countries strengthening cooperation in the defense sector over recent years.
A Hindu businessman was killed in Mymensingh, Bangladesh, on Monday, just two days ahead of the countrys general elections scheduled for February 12.

The victim, 62-year-old Susen Chandra Sarkar, a rice trader, was brutally hacked to death inside his shop.

According to bdnews24, Trishal Police Station chief Muhammad Firoz Hossain said that the assailants then closed the shops shutters and fled the scene.

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According to the local police the incident happened at around 11 pm in Mymensingh's Trishal.

As per the local police, the incident occurred at 11 pm in Trishal, Mymensingh.

Sarkar, a resident of Southkanda village, ran a shop named Bhai Bhai Enterprise at the Bogar Bazar intersection.

According to Muhammad Firoz, unidentified assailants attacked Sarkar with a sharp weapon, and left him inside the shop, closing the shutters.

His family later discovered him covered in blood when they opened the shutters of the shop while searching for him, Firoz told bdnews24.

Sarkars family immediately took him to Mymensingh Medical College Hospital, where he was declared dead.

The police said his body will be sent for postmortem examination, and legal action has been initiated. The police chief Muhammad Firoz also stated that he had visited the crime scene following the incident.

The victims son, Sujan Sarkar, stated that the attackers had taken money from the shop and added that his father had no enmity with anyone in the area.

We have had a rice business for a long time. No one had any enmity with us. The criminals stole several hundred thousand taka from the store after they brutally killed my father, reported bdnews 24 citing Sujan.

This incident occurs amid a series of attacks on minorities in Bangladesh. In December last year, Dipu Chandra Das, a garment worker in Mymensingh, was beaten and set on fire by a mob in Bhaluka over alleged blasphemy.

Earlier, in January, 38-year-old Hindu businessman and acting newspaper editor Rana Pratap Bairagi was shot by unidentified assailants in Jessore district.

Within a day of Bairagis death, another Hindu man, a grocery shop owner, was allegedly killed in Narsingdi, on the outskirts of Dhaka, following an attack with sharp weapons.

Following these incidents, India called on Bangladesh to address attacks on minorities swiftly and firmly.

External Affairs Ministry spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal had said, Such communal incidents need to be dealt with swiftly and firmly. We have observed a troubling tendency to attribute such incidents to personal rivalries, political differences or extraneous reasons.
New Delhi: India and Malaysia turned a new page in their bilateral relationship on Sunday, with Prime Minister Narendra Modis two-day visit to Kuala Lumpur emphasising strategic collaboration and shared security concerns. The summit between PM Modi and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim highlighted agreements across security, semiconductors, health, disaster management and education, along with a strong and coordinated stand against cross-border terrorism.

The joint statements from the summit sent an implicit but clear message to Pakistan regarding its support for terrorist networks. India and Malaysia formalised their anti-terror partnership with multiple agreements covering digital payments, defense cooperation, technical education, audiovisual collaboration and social security protections for Indian workers in Malaysia.

Had an excellent meeting with PM Anwar Ibrahim at Seri Perdana earlier today. India and Malaysia are maritime neighbours who have always enjoyed a close friendship. We reviewed developmental cooperation in sectors like trade, infrastructure, energy, IT, biotechnology and more. We pic.twitter.com/4xfwFSxC8x  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 8, 2026

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The leaders also emphasised coordinated efforts to curb terrorism funding and stressed zero tolerance for extremist activities. Officials said that PM Modi appreciated the Malaysian Prime Ministers commitment to maintaining close anti-terror collaboration.

On the defense front, both nations discussed strengthening ties through the India-Malaysia Defense Cooperation Committee and its subcommittees, including the establishment of specialised working groups and the Su-30 forum. The cooperation is aimed at deepening military-industrial engagement and enhancing maritime and aerial security.

Addressing the joint press meet with PM Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia. @anwaribrahim

https://t.co/rmTah9GYpZ  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 8, 2026

Semiconductors and technology received special attention, with both sides reaffirming ongoing collaborations between IIT Madras Global and Malaysias Advanced Semiconductor Academy, as well as industry-level partnerships between the Indian Electronics & Semiconductor Association and the Malaysia Semiconductor Industry Association.

These initiatives aim to create joint capabilities and strengthen supply chains in chip manufacturing.

BRICS was a key topic during the visit. Malaysia welcomed Indias leadership of BRICS in 2026, and India expressed support for Malaysias role as a BRICS partner while recognising its goal to join the group. Both leaders called their cooperation an important step toward a fairer and more balanced global order.

The visit also coincided with Pakistans Navy Chief Admiral Naveed Ashraf visiting Malaysia to meet the leadership of the Royal Malaysian Navy. They held discussions on regional maritime security, joint exercises, information sharing and countering threats like piracy and terrorism. Their official statements emphasised enhancing professional naval ties and expanding maritime cooperation for mutual benefit.

Historically, Malaysia and Pakistan have maintained close diplomatic and defense relations since 1957. Kola Lumpur has previously supported Islamabad on Kashmir-related issues and questioned Indias Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Former Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohammad had raised Kashmir at the UN General Assembly, criticising Indias actions and suggesting Pakistan collaboration to resolve disputes. Malaysia also questioned the need for CAA, citing potential discrimination against Muslim communities.

Sharing my remarks during meeting with PM Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia. @anwaribrahim https://t.co/nTN7gCub0s  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 8, 2026

PM Modis visit reinforced Indias strategic footprint in Southeast Asia, leveraging Malaysia as a key partner in ASEAN. India seeks Malaysian investment in its semiconductor mission, while positioning its Tejas fighter jet and BrahMos missile as potential exports. Trade ties are also important, with India importing a large portion of its palm oil from Malaysia and exporting refined petroleum, aluminum, sugar, meat and medicines.

Comprising nearly 2.7-2.8 million people, the Indian community in Malaysia adds another layer to the people-to-people connection between the two nations.
Iran-US tensions: Iran has issued fresh warning to the United States as tensions continue to rise across the Middle East. The Iranian Armed Forces general staff announced that the country will respond decisively to any threats, conspiracies or excessive demands. Even a single attack on Iran, he said, would trigger a powerful counterstrike aimed at erasing US presence in the region. Citizens have been urged to participate in rallies commemorating the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, highlighting national unity during the threat.

Irans warning also referenced Israel. Reacting to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus recent visit to the United States, which was seen as a push for military measures against Iran before any diplomatic agreement could be considered, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baqaei warned that external pressures undermining diplomacy would have consequences. He added that the United States must act independently, free from foreign influence, to avoid further regional harm.

Diplomatic efforts between the United States and Iran have so far failed to ease tensions. Negotiations resumed in Oman, after talks collapsed in June, last year, following Israeli airstrikes on Iranian targets. Subsequent US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites prompted Iran to target Israel and important US military bases across the Middle East.

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The region now resembles a powder keg. The United States has deployed the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, supported by three warships and a submarine. US forces have been reinforced across regional bases, with Patriot air defense systems and combat aircraft on high alert.

Iran has responded in kind, stationing large numbers of drones and missiles ready for immediate action. It has made it clear that any US attack will be met with a full-scale response. The Iranian foreign ministry warned that American military installations in the Middle East could be targeted.

The United States maintains bases in at least eight countries, from Qatar to the UAE and Oman.
Pakistans JF-17 Jets: Islamabad has been aggressively promoting the JF-17 fighter jet as a competitive export for years. The announcements highlight a promising fighter with growing international demand, but the reality on the ground paints a very different picture. Pakistans production capacity for the JF-17 is extremely limited, and it raises doubts about its ability to meet either domestic needs or overseas orders.

The Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC), which is responsible for manufacturing the aircraft, lacks the ecosystem required for large-scale production. China holds 65 percent of the projects stake, leaving Pakistan with only 35 percent control over the programme.

The JF-17 entered serial production in the 2000s, and since then Pakistan has built roughly 175-185 aircraft, including those supplied to foreign customers. Over the last 17 years, the annual production has averaged around 11 jets per year.

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Critical components are sourced from China, while engines come from Russia. While PAC Kamra has indicated this year that production could reach 16-18 jets annually, achieving such numbers consistently is highly challenging.

Meanwhile, some international publications amplify claims of rising demand, which analysts suggest form part of a broader propaganda narrative.

China-based aerospace experts argue that larger export orders could attract additional Chinese investment. However, there is no evidence of any structural or operational changes in Pakistans facilities to support such expansion. No parallel assembly lines have been reported, subsystem integration capacity is unchanged and throughput for flight tests and certifications has not increased.

Even Chinese and Pakistani media are yet to report any formal discussions or developments regarding major scale-up plans for the JF-17.

Pakistan has a stated requirement of 25 squadrons to replace more than 250 aging aircraft in its air force, including Mirages III/V and F-7P/PG jets. Even at an optimal rate of 18 aircraft per year, it would take more than a decade to meet domestic requirements.

Over the past 10 years, the Pakistan Air Force has lost over 35 aircraft due to accidents and operational losses, including six JF-17 jets. During Indias Operation Sindoor, 12-13 aircraft were destroyed, as confirmed in January this year. Technical issues with Russian RD-93 engines were cited for some crashes, but the losses further highlight the production and operational challenges facing the air force.

Meanwhile, Pakistan announced plans to deliver 40 JF-17 jets to Azerbaijan, a project that has already been delayed for more than three years. Analysts question how Pakistan could realistically meet demands from other countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kazakhstan and Sudan while struggling with domestic shortages and logistical bottlenecks.

The story behind the JF-17 hype shows that while Pakistan continues to market the aircraft aggressively, production limitations and international skepticism create a gap between claims and reality. Analysts suggest that unless structural upgrades are implemented and throughput significantly increased, Pakistans fighter jet ambitions may remain largely aspirational.
New Delhi/Stockholm: As India and France prepare to finalise the deal for additional Rafale fighter jets, Swedens defense company Saab has once again begun pushing to sell the Gripen E to New Delhi. It has emphasised that the Gripen is one of the most modern and cost-effective fighter jets in the world. It features advanced sensor fusion, networked operations and rapidly growing artificial intelligence capabilities.

The proposal also promises technology transfer that could allow India to integrate its own weapons and software without external approval.

Despite the new offer, the Indian Air Force (IAF) is unlikely to switch focus from the Rafale. Still, understanding the capabilities of both jets is important. Comparing the two, the Rafale F4 variant stands out for its dual-engine configuration, 14 hardpoints and payload capacity of 9,500 kilograms. Its top speed reaches Mach 1.8, and it carries the advanced SPECTRA electronic warfare suite that gives it strong situational awareness and jamming capabilities. Rafale can operate from airbases as well as aircraft carriers, and it can carry nuclear weapons if required.

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The Gripen E has a single engine, 10 hardpoints and a payload capacity of 7,200 kilograms. Its top speed reaches Mach 2.0 and carries the Arexis electronic warfare suite. It is designed to take off from conventional airbases as well as highways, offering operational flexibility in disrupted scenarios. Its modular software architecture allows rapid updates without full system recertification. Maintenance is simpler and requires fewer crew members, keeping operational costs lower.

Operational cost differences are also important. While a Gripen flight costs between $4,000 and $10,000 per hour, a Rafale flight exceeds $14,000 per hour. These lower costs and technology transfer flexibility have attracted countries like Brazil to the Gripen. But the Rafale is unmatched for deep-strike operations and carrier-based missions.

Former Indian Air Force pilot Vijyendra Thakur says that the IAF prefers the Rafale because it is a proven platform with an established ecosystem in India. It has been trialed extensively under the Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft programme that considered multiple contenders before selecting the Rafale.

India is now set to finalise a government-to-government deal for 114 Rafale jets worth around Rs 3.25 lakh crore ($36-38 billion). The Defense Acquisition Council, which is chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, is expected to approve the Acceptance of Necessity for this deal soon. The purchase includes F4 and F5 variants.

Experts highlight that while Gripen offers affordability and flexibility, India still benefits from consolidating its fleet around Rafale. Former Air Marshal M. Matheshwaran, who worked on the MMRCA project, suggests that India should seek a risk-sharing partner for future projects like the AMCA and LCA Mk2 development.

Saab and similar companies could potentially play that role, offering additional strategic options for Indias indigenous fighter programmes.
Moscow/New Delhi: For months now, several Russian oil tankers have been moving across international waters without buyers or discharge destinations. The unusual sight of fully loaded crude carriers waiting at sea shows that Asias oil trade is changing, partly because India has reduced how much oil it is buying.

India has not stopped purchasing Russian crude, despite political claims to the contrary. However, purchases have slowed compared to earlier peaks. This moderation has increased pressure on Moscow to place its barrels elsewhere in Asia, forcing traders to hold cargoes afloat while searching for new buyers.

US President Donald Trump recently claimed that India had halted Russian oil imports as part of a trade understanding with Washington. He suggested that New Delhi had agreed to source more crude from the United States and Venezuela instead.

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On the ground, the situation appears more nuanced. Indian refiners continue to process Russian oil, though buying volumes have eased. The Indian government has not issued a formal directive asking companies to stop imports, even as some refiners have delayed fresh spot orders.

Shipping data reviewed by market trackers shows the scale of the present bottleneck. According to global vessel-tracking firm Kpler, at least a dozen tankers carrying Russias flagship Urals crude have been sailing across the Indian Ocean region. Routes have taken these ships past Malaysia, along Chinas maritime approaches, and near Russias eastern seaboard. Together, they hold close to 12 million barrels of crude still awaiting firm buyers.

The backdrop to this build-up lies in the post-Ukraine war energy map. Western sanctions pushed Russian oil out of many European markets in 2022. Moscow redirected flows toward Asia, offering heavy discounts to secure demand. India emerged as one of the largest buyers during this phase. It increased intake as refiners capitalised on lower prices.

Import levels point to the change now in progress. Bloomberg estimates that India imported roughly 1.2 million barrels per day of Russian crude in January. That number stood closer to 2 million barrels per day around mid-2024. The reduction has left excess cargoes circulating while traders are negotiating alternative deals.

Russia has sought relief through China and other regional buyers. Independent refineries in China have increased their purchases of Russias Urals crude. In January, imports reached around 500,000 barrels per day, the highest level so far. Even so, many Chinese processors show greater preference for lighter grades such as ESPO and Sokol, which ship more easily from Russias Pacific terminals.

Countries like Indonesia occasionally buy Russian barrels, though their refiners also favour lighter blends. A well-supplied global oil market has further complicated Russias efforts to secure replacement demand.

Additional tanker traffic highlights the surplus. Ship-tracking systems show more Urals cargoes moving from the Atlantic basin through the Mediterranean and the Red Sea toward Asia. Several vessels list Singapore as their intended destination, though discharge ports often change depending on real-time buying interest.

Analysts say Indias recalibration of sourcing strategy has contributed to the growing number of cargoes sailing without locked contracts.

Beyond trade flows, the situation has also exposed human hardships at sea. Reports have emerged of crews stranded for extended periods aboard vessels unable to dock. One such tanker, carrying about 750,000 barrels of Russian crude valued near $50 million, departed Russias Far East for China in early November and has yet to berth.

A senior deck officer from the ship described deteriorating living conditions during the wait. Food stocks thinned over time, basic supplies ran low and crew morale weakened as weeks stretched into months. The vessel has been in international waters under heightened monitoring, with Chinese authorities declining port entry clearance.

In December, the International Transport Workers Federation classified the tanker as abandoned after sailors reported unpaid wages for several months. The union stepped in to secure salary payments through the end of the year and arranged delivery of food, water and essentials. Some crew members have since been repatriated, though others continue to be on board while the cargo awaits a buyer.

The drifting tankers now symbolise a broader transition in global oil logistics. Indias moderated intake, Chinas selective buying preferences and ample worldwide supply have combined to slow Russias export momentum. How quickly Moscow can redirect these floating cargoes will decide near-term pricing dynamics and tanker movements across Asian waters.
Washington: A top White House official said President Donald Trump opposes Israel annexing the occupied West Bank. He emphasized that keeping the West Bank stable helps Israel stay secure. This approach also fits with the U.S. goal of achieving longterm peace in the region.

The reaffirmation of this stand came at a time of heightened tension after Israels security cabinet approved controversial measures that expand Israeli authority in the territory. The move has drawn international criticism.

The new measures approved by Israeli ministers include steps to make it easier for settlers to buy land in the West Bank and extend Israeli enforcement powers in areas nominally under Palestinian control. These changes have been portrayed by critics as major moves toward deeper integration of the territory, raising fears of unilateral annexation and undercutting prospects for a negotiated twostate solution.

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Arab and Muslimmajority nations responded forcefully. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey issued statements condemning the Israeli decisions, describing them in the strongest language and urging respect for international law and Palestinian rights.

The collective denunciation came from foreign ministries across the region, highlighting a shared concern that expanding control in the West Bank could inflame tensions and deepen instability.

Officials in Washington highlighted that the US position has not changed toward supporting annexation, despite internal pressures within Israels political landscape. The White House pointed out that a secure and stable West Bank forms part of any enduring peace strategy, and any attempt to redraw borders unilaterally could undermine diplomatic efforts.

Trumps reaffirmation mirrors comments he made during a series of interviews and discussions with regional leaders last year. He publicly warned that if Israel pursued annexation plans, it would risk losing critical American support and strain ties with Arab nations that have been working closely with the United States toward broader Middle East stability.

Analysts said that his administration has insisted this approach is central to US policy.

The backdrop to this policy stance includes ongoing debates within Israels parliament, the Knesset, where some lawmakers have advanced bills aimed at formalising annexation. Those efforts have met resistance not only from foreign capitals but also within Israeli political circles where leadership has been cautious about escalating confrontation with key allies.

Observers point out that formal annexation of the West Bank would have farreaching consequences, potentially ending hopes for a negotiated resolution to the IsraeliPalestinian conflict and contravening longestablished principles of international law. In 2024 the International Court of Justice described Israeli settlements and the broader occupation as illegal. The a legal view was shared by many countries that continue to press for a twostate outcome.

Amid these developments, diplomatic pressure is increasing. The United Kingdom added its voice urging Israel to reverse the expansion measures, stressing that unilateral actions changing the status of occupied land are unacceptable and could jeopardise peace efforts.

As regional capitals and global capitals issue warnings, the White House position stands as an anchor point in Washingtons diplomatic engagement. The emphasis is on maintaining security, promoting dialogue and preventing actions that could unravel fragile ceasefire agreements in other parts, such as in Gaza.
New Delhi: A new trade deal between the United States and Bangladesh has caught attention across South Asia. The agreement has given American farm products wider access to Bangladeshs market. India took a more protective approach in its own talks with Washington. Bangladesh, on the other hand, opened entry across many agriculture and food sectors.

The reciprocal trade arrangement allows American agricultural goods to enter Bangladesh with greater ease. The product list is extensive. It includes dairy items, beef, poultry, soy-based products, tree nuts and fresh fruits. Industrial exports from the United States also gain smoother entry. Chemicals, medical equipment, machinery, automobile components, ICT devices and energy products form part of the package.

In exchange, Washington agreed to lower tariffs on Bangladeshi exports. Duties that once touched 37 percent will fall to around 19 percent. Selected product lines may face zero-duty over time.

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The White House described the pact as a step toward stronger economic ties. While trade analysts in Dhaka are studying its domestic impact, the agreement carries obligations beyond tariffs. Bangladesh will remove several non-tariff barriers that once regulated agricultural imports. American certification systems will receive formal recognition.

US sanitary and phytosanitary standards will gain acceptance in Bangladeshi markets. Food safety clearances issued by US agencies will hold validity for entry.

Geographical indication provisions are also part of the agreement. These rules will allow American cheese and meat producers to use widely recognised product names. Market branding protections for US exporters will therefore stay intact inside Bangladesh.

Import commitments are central to the scale of the deal. Bangladesh is expected to purchase nearly $3.5 billion worth of American agricultural commodities. Wheat, soybeans, cotton and corn dominate the list. Energy procurement agreements worth about $15 billion accompany the farm trade segment. Civil aviation purchases and cooperation measures appear within the broader commercial structure.

Agriculture holds major economic weight in Bangladesh. Based on 2023-24 estimates, farming here contributes roughly 11.19 percent to national GDP. Rural livelihoods depend heavily on crop cycles and livestock activity. Close to 38 percent of the population relies on agriculture for income and daily sustenance.

The livestock economy forms another important pillar. Dairy, meat and poultry production together contribute about 1.9 percent to GDP. Direct employment from livestock supports nearly 20 percent of the population. Indirect linkages extend to almost half the country through supply chains, feed markets, transport and retail networks.

Recent livestock census figures show the sectors size. Bangladesh housed more than 430 million animals and birds in 2021-22. This count included around 56.7 million cattle, buffalo, sheep and goats. Poultry numbers crossed 375 million. Milk production touched nearly 13 million metric tonnes. Meat output reached about 9.3 million metric tonnes and egg production exceeded 23 billion units.

The domestic dairy market is worth about $3 billion. Bangladesh produces nearly 14 million metric tonnes of milk every year. Imports help meet the remaining demand. The country annually buys around 311,000 metric tonnes of dairy products from abroad.

Economists view the new trade opening through the lens of price competitiveness. American agriculture operates at massive industrial scale. Federal subsidy support lowers production costs. Dairy, beef and poultry from the United States often reach export markets at reduced prices. Large shipment volumes strengthen that price advantage.

Bangladeshi smallholders function within tighter margins. Family farms dominate milk and poultry supply. Feed costs, land constraints and credit access affect their operating environment. A rise in cheaper imports could hurt their market share. Income pressure may spread across rural areas that depend on livestock earnings.

Import data already points to rising exposure. Bangladesh purchased dairy products worth nearly $519 million in 2024. Local producers faced pricing pressure during that period. Sector specialists estimate that domestic meat and dairy production could register declines of up to 4 percent if import volumes expand.

Food regulation also enters the policy debate. The agreement permits entry of genetically modified and biotech food products under US certification. Local testing requirements may see relaxation in specific categories. Public health experts and environmental researchers are studying long-term implications for consumption safety and ecological balance.

Consumer demand forms another layer of the story. Bangladeshs middle class now exceeds 30 million people. Urban households are seeking higher-quality protein, packaged dairy and processed food items. Imported goods may satisfy this expanding appetite. Retail chains and cold storage networks are preparing for diversified product supply.

Bangladeshs global trade position is also set to change. The country is classified as a Least Developed Country (LDC). This status gives it special export benefits in major markets. Lower tariffs, easier trade rules and wider market access have helped its ready-made garments sector grow.

The industry employs millions of workers and supports foreign exchange earnings. LDC graduation is scheduled around 2026. Preferential tariff benefits will phase out over time. Export costs may rise across textiles and manufactured goods once concessions fade.

Economists are studying how these changes will affect the countrys economy overall. Export benefits may reduce, while imports could increase. This may put pressure on domestic farming and livestock sectors, forcing them to adjust. Policymakers will closely watch rural employment and price stability to understand the real impact.

The agreement goes beyond the movement of goods. It also covers digital trade. Companies will be able to transfer data more freely across borders. Customs systems will move to faster online processing, which will reduce delays. Insurance rules will also change and make it easier for foreign firms to enter the market and operate locally.

The wider trade plan is designed to increase American exports into Bangladeshs consumer and industrial markets. How much Bangladesh depends on imported farm goods will decide how strong and self-reliant it is in the long run. If food imports rise tremendously, the government may have less freedom in planning its food security policies.

For now, the deal points to a big change in how Bangladesh handles trade. Markets are opening in farming, food products and industrial goods. Its true impact will be seen in the coming years as local producers try to adjust to this more open market.
Tehran: As tensions between the United States and Iran continue to rise, Tehran is leaving no stone unturned to flaunt its military arsenal. The countrys medium-range ballistic missiles can reach many important American military bases across the Middle East. The exact distance they can travel depends on the weight of the warhead.

Iran and the United States have had a long-standing dispute over military capabilities in the region. Tehran asserts that its missile programme is defensive, while the United States views it as a potential threat. Recent talks between the countries in Oman witnessed Washington asking Tehran to limit its missile programme.

Irans missiles have a reach of up to 2,000 kilometres, covering the entire Middle East. If conflict occurs, these missiles could strike US bases, similar to strikes it carried out against bases in Iraq in 2020.

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Iran possesses one of the worlds largest missile arsenals, with thousands of ballistic and cruise missiles. Many of these projectiles use solid fuel, allowing rapid deployment.

Here are Iranian missiles and their estimated ranges:

Dezful is a short-range ballistic missile with a range of about 1,000 kilometres. It can easily reach neighbouring countries, including Iraq and Gulf nations. The missile uses solid fuel, which supports quick launch capability.

Medium-range missiles such as Fattah-1, Haj Qasem and Kheibar Shekan reach up to 1,400 kilometres. These can strike Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Fattah-1 is a hypersonic missile, which is capable of bypassing enemy missile defense systems. Haj Qasem and Kheibar Shekan are also advanced systems designed for precision attacks and are developed by Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

More advanced missiles, including Emad and Ghadr-1, reach ranges of approximately 1,700 kilometres, with Ghadr-1 potentially covering 1,600 to 1,950 kilometres. These missiles can target Israel and Jordan.

Emad is an upgraded version of Shahab-3, which offer improved accuracy and guidance systems. Ghadr-1 uses liquid fuel and can carry a heavy warhead, making it particularly destructive. These missiles are a central part of Irans medium-range ballistic programme.

The Khorramshahr and Sejjil missiles have the longest ranges, reaching up to 2,000 kilometres. They can cover the entire Middle East and carry warheads up to 1,500 kilograms. The Khorramshahr-4 has recently been deployed and is stored in underground missile facilities, while Sejjil is a two-stage solid-fuel missile capable of rapid launch. Both are considered crucial for Irans defensive strategy and pose threats to American and Israeli installations.

Several US bases fall within the range of these missiles. Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar hosts over 10,000 American troops and serves as the headquarters of the US Central Command. Falling within the 1,000-kilometre range of its short-range missiles, Ain al-Asad Air Base in Iraq has been a primary US installation previously targeted by Iran. Bases in Kuwait, including Camp Arifjan and Ali Al Salem, serve as supply hubs and are easily reachable by Irans missiles in the Gulf.

US Naval Support Activity in Bahrain, the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet, is also within 1,400 kilometres. Al Dhafra Air Base in the UAE, a center for intelligence and combat aircraft, can be targeted by missiles reaching up to 2,000 kilometres. Other US installations in Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Oman and near Yemen also fall within this distance.

More than 50,000 American troops are stationed across these regions, putting them at potential risk if a conflict were to erupt.

The geopolitical importance of this missile range is considerable. Irans missiles can directly threaten US positions, especially in energy-rich areas. While the United States has missile defense systems, the large number and growing sophistication of Irans missiles present a substantial challenge. Tehran has repeatedly stated that US bases in the Middle East are within its missile range.
A Republican lawmaker on Monday (local time) introduced a bill in the US House of Representatives aims at completely eliminating the H-1B visa programme by 2027.

Greg Steube, a member of the Republican Party, tabled the legislation, titled the Ending Exploitative Imported Labor Exemptions (EXILE) Act. The bill seeks to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to terminate the visa programme.

The proposal came amid heightened scrutiny of H-1B and H-4 visa applications in the United States.

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Steube announced the move through a post on X, writing, "Today I am filing legislation to end the H-1B visa programme."

He said, "American workers have been ripped off by the corrupt H-1B visa program for far too long. Corporations have repeatedly abused this system to help their bottom line by importing cheaper foreign labor, which has suppressed wages and left millions of Americans locked out of good-paying jobs."

Today Im filing legislation to end the H-1B visa program.



American workers have been ripped off by the corrupt H-1B visa program for far too long. Corporations have repeatedly abused this system to help their bottom line by importing cheaper foreign labor which has suppressed pic.twitter.com/q6AUE4s0LJ  Congressman Greg Steube (@RepGregSteube) February 9, 2026

Steube, a Republican representative of Florida's 17th congressional district since 2019, seeks to abolish the H-1B visa program. This US work visa enables American employers to hire highly skilled foreign professionals to address skill gaps and help industries, particularly in technology stay competitive globally.

As per the press release by Steube's office, the EXILE Act intends to address concerns over "prioritising foreign labour over the well-being and prosperity of American citizens undermines our values and national interests."

Steubes office announced that the EXILE Act proposes to amend Section 214(g)(1)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, effectively abolishing the H-1B program.

Steube is following the precedent set by former US Representative and fellow Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, who, prior to her resignation from Georgias 14th Congressional District, introduced the bill named, 'End H-1B Now Act.'

Like Steubes proposal, Greenes legislation sought to terminate the H-1B program, permitting only a temporary exemption for 10,000 medical professionals over a ten-year period.

Steubes proposal is expected to have the greatest impact on Indian professionals, who are the largest recipients of H-1B visas. According to official data, more than 70% of H-1B visas are awarded to Indian nationals, primarily in the IT and technology sectors. If enacted, the bill could directly affect thousands of Indian tech professionals pursuing employment and long-term residency in the United States.
Yerevan: The United States and Armenia have taken a major step in civil nuclear collaboration. On Monday, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and US Vice President JD Vance signed the agreement during the latters two-day visit to the country. This was the first visit to Armenia by a US vice president.

The deal shows Americas intent to strengthen ties with Armenia, a country historically aligned with Russia. The agreement is formally known as a 123 Agreement, which legally permits the United States to transfer nuclear technology, equipment and fuel to another country.

Under this agreement, Washington can initially export around five billion dollars worth of nuclear equipment and technology to Yerevan. Additional contracts worth nearly $4 billion may follow in the coming years, covering fuel supply and maintenance services.

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The deal holds strategic importance for Armenia. Vance emphasised that the partnership will chart a new course for energy cooperation between the two nations. Prime Minister Pashinyan described it as a new chapter in US-Armenia relations. Historically, Armenia has depended heavily on Russia and Iran for its energy needs.

At present, it operates a single nuclear plant, Metsamor, which was built with Russian assistance decades ago. The plant is aging, and Armenia plans to replace it with a new reactor. The country is reviewing proposals from multiple international companies, including those from the United States, Russia, China, France and South Korea. No decision has been finalized so far, but the United States agreement could give American proposals an advantage.

Armenia is actively seeking to reduce reliance on Russia and diversify its nuclear partnerships. And therefore, Vances visit carries additional strategic weight. Six months ago, with US mediation, Armenia and Azerbaijan reached a peace agreement. During the visit, Vance advanced the TRIPP (Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity) initiative, which will create a 43-kilometre corridor through southern Armenia. This corridor will connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan region and provide a direct route to Turkey.

The corridor is expected to enhance connectivity between Asia and Europe and bypass traditional Russian and Iranian routes. Vance highlighted that the project will not only foster peace but also open pathways for economic growth for both Armenia and the United States.

After Armenia, Vance will continue his visit to Azerbaijan to further discussions on regional cooperation and connectivity.
US Vice President JD Vance has reignited US President Donald Trump's long-standing ambition to acquire Greenland by publicly echoing the president's view that US protection of the territory warrants tangible strategic gains.

Speaking with the media, US Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday said,  It's just very simple, Greenland is very important to the national security of the United States of America... If we're going to be on the hook for protecting this massive land mass, I think it's only reasonable for the United States to get some benefit out of that, echoing President Donald Trump's revived push for greater US control over Greenland.

.@VP: It's just very simple: Greenland is very important to the national security of the United States of America... If we're going to be on the hook for protecting this massive land mass, I think it's only reasonable for the United States to get some benefit out of that. pic.twitter.com/Btwu9bzhzg  Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 10, 2026

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Trump's Greenland Dream

Trump first publicly suggested in 2019 that the United States should buy Greenland from Denmark. He saw it as a smart deal because of the island's location in the Arctic, its rich natural resources like minerals, and its value for military defence.

Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen quickly rejected the idea, calling it "absurd," and Greenland's leaders also said the territory is not for sale. This caused a brief diplomatic row, leading Trump to cancel a planned state visit to Denmark.

Since the beginning of his second term inJanuary 2025, US president Trump brought the proposal back to life.

Now, Trump frames Greenland as a must-have for US security in a changing world. With Arctic ice melting fast due to climate change, new shipping routes are opening up north of Canada and Russia.

These paths could boost global trade but also let rival powers move military forces closer to North America. Greenland's position helps the US monitor submarines, track missiles over the North Pole, and secure vital sea gaps like the GIUK line between Greenland, Iceland, and the UK.

The revival ties into bigger US goals, like countering China in the race for rare earth minerals buried in Greenland's rocks, key for tech like electric cars and weapons.

It also aims to block Russia and China's growing Arctic presence, while asserting US dominance in the Western Hemisphere.

Recent pushes by Trump have strained ties with European NATO allies like Denmark, which see it as bullying within the alliance. Talks continue but face hurdles over sovereignty.

Vance's recent comment follows high-stakes January 2026 White House meetings he hosted with Danish and Greenland officials, where talks stalled over sovereignty despite US pressure for "technical discussions" on acquisition.

It highlights how the United States pays most of the costs to protect Greenland's vast landmass at the same time, it seeks stronger defence control through the Golden Dome missile shield and access to the island's valuable minerals.








Kuala Lumpur: During his two-day visit to Malaysia, Prime Minister Narendra Modi received a warm and spirited welcome from the Indian community in Kuala Lumpur. It highlights the strong cultural and people-to-people bonds that connect the two nations.

The visit featured a mix of official meetings, cultural programs and time spent with members of the Indian diaspora, highlighting the enduring friendship between India and Malaysia. On Saturday evening, PM Modi attended a special lunch hosted by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, where the atmosphere was lively and infused with cultural nostalgia.

Among the highlights of the lunch was the playing of the iconic Tamil song Naalai Namathe from the 1975 masala classic starring the legendary MG Ramachandran (MGR). The song resonated with both leaders and guests, highlighting a shared admiration for Indian cinematic heritage.

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PM Modi later described the moment on his social media, adding that the Malaysian Prime Minister, like many in India, is an avid fan of MGR and his timeless films.

At the lunch hosted by my friend, PM Anwar Ibrahim, one of the songs sung was Naalai Namathe, from a movie starring the great MGR!



PM Anwar Ibrahim, like several of us in India, is a big fan of MGR!@anwaribrahim pic.twitter.com/lwzqYQqojU  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 8, 2026

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim also shared glimpses of the visit, emphasising the deep-rooted ties between the two countries. He highlighted that the visit began with a reception at the Bunga Raya Complex, followed by a visit to Seri Kembangan to meet the Indian community, celebrating centuries of cultural, historical and economic links that continue to flourish.

The lunch and associated events provided a vibrant showcase of Indias cultural legacy flourishing abroad. PM Modi witnessed a series of performances, including traditional Nadhaswaram and Thavil recitals, devotional Thirumurai chanting, Wayang Kulit shadow puppetry and a Bharatanatyam presentation based on the Ramayana.

These performances illustrated the shared cultural history that binds India and Malaysia, offering a poignant reminder of the enduring connections across continents.
Jeffrey Epstein's brother: Mark Epstein is an American property developer and the younger brother of the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He has drawn public attention in recent years because of his family connections and business career. Alongside his professional background in real estate and investment ventures, many people have been curious about his net worth, which is the total value of his financial assets.

Who is Mark Epstein?

Mark Lawrence Epstein was born in 1954 in New York City. He began his career as an artist before moving into real estate investment in the 1990s. Epstein has led a range of businesses, including property development firms and other companies. He was president of his brothers investment company, J. Epstein & Co., and has been involved with several ventures over the years.

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Epstein has also been active in philanthropy and served on boards of educational and charitable organisations, but he stepped down from some roles amid public scrutiny related to his brothers legacy.

Estimated net worth

Mark Epsteins net worth is not officially published in audited financial statements, and estimates vary widely. According to some online estimates, his net worth could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Financial details about his wealth are not fully transparent. Unlike public company executives whose assets must be disclosed, Epsteins investments and properties are largely private.

(Also Read: Russian FM Lavrov takes a sharp dig at US, says 'America trying to control Moscow's ties with India')

Connections to Jeffrey Epsteins estate

Mark Epstein came into the spotlight again after the death of his brother, Jeffrey Epstein, a financier whose own net worth was estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars at the time of his death. Jeffreys estate has been tied up in legal issues, settlements, and payments to victims, and its overall value has changed significantly over time.

While some trust documents once listed Mark as a potential heir, the final distribution of assets is complex, and the value he may receive remains uncertain.
New Delhi: For the first time in decades, the worlds most powerful nuclear nations are operating without any formal cap on how many warheads they can deploy. With no binding limits in place, lets know which countries have nuclear weapons and how many do they possess?

Present estimates show that nuclear firepower is concentrated in the hands of a small group of states. According to widely cited assessments by the Federation of American Scientists, the world has roughly 12,000 to 12,300 nuclear warheads. The United States and Russia alone possess around 10,636 of them.

With close to 5,800 warheads, Russia is believed to possess the worlds largest nuclear arsenal. This number includes deployed weapons, reserves and those awaiting dismantlement.

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The United States follows with an estimated 5,200 to 5,400 warheads, which are spread across land-based missiles, strategic bombers and submarine platforms. Together, these two nations control nearly 90 percent of all nuclear weapons on the planet.

China holds the third-largest arsenal. Its stockpile has expanded in recent years and is now estimated at around 600 nuclear warheads. Beijings nuclear modernisation includes new missile silos and long-range delivery systems.

France maintains an independent deterrent with roughly 290 nuclear weapons. Most of them are deployed at sea and in air-launched systems. The United Kingdom has around 225 nuclear weapons and most of them are deployed on submarines for constant deterrence.

In South Asia, India and Pakistan continue to maintain closely matched nuclear capabilities. New Delhi is estimated to possess around 170 to 180 warheads, supported by land, air and sea delivery platforms. Pakistans stockpile is assessed at roughly 165 to 170 weapons, with a focus on battlefield and short-range deterrence systems.

Israel has never officially confirmed its nuclear capability, but long-standing international assessments place its arsenal at about 90 warheads. Its programme is one of the worlds most guarded strategic secrets.

North Korea rounds out the list of nuclear-armed states. Though its arsenal is smaller, it has grown through weapons testing and missile development. Present estimates suggest Pyongyang holds around 40 to 50 nuclear devices, with ongoing work on delivery systems capable of reaching distant targets.

Better known as New START, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which limited the nuclear weapons of the United States and Russia, expired on February 5, 2026. But this has not changed these numbers overnight. It has altered the strategic environment in which they exist. Without formal caps, future expansions, modernisation drives and deployment changes now rest entirely on national decisions.

As global tensions ebb and flow across regions, the distribution of nuclear weapons and the absence of binding ceilings ensure that the worlds most destructive arsenals are central to geopolitical power calculations.
The IRA has admitted planting the bomb that exploded in the Docklands area of London last night.

One man was found dead by police sifting through the wreckage today and another person has been reported missing.

Five of the 39 casualties  including three police officers  remain in hospital, one of them in a critical condition.

The bombing marks the end of a 17-month IRA ceasefire during which Irish, British and American leaders worked for a political solution to the troubles in Northern Ireland.

They have all condemned the attacks.

The leader of the political wing of the IRA  Sinn Fein  Gerry Adams has spoken of the need to continue the peace process.

British Prime Minister John Major said there was now a dark shadow of doubt where optimism had existed.

His statement continued: The IRA once again callously threatens the desire for peace. They will not be allowed to prevail.

The half-tonne bomb was left in a small lorry about 80 yards from South Quay Station on the Docklands Light Railway, in the regenerated commercial district.

It exploded at 1902 GMT after coded warnings were telephoned to Dublin and Belfast media 90 minutes earlier.

The IRA has said regrettable injuries could have been avoided if police had responded promptly to clear and specific warnings.

Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Sir Paul Condon said: It would be unfair to describe this as a failure of security. It was a failure of humanity.

Firemen worked throughout the night to clear up the devastation as a six-storey building collapsed and surrounding office blocks had their windows blown out.

Immediate damage is estimated at 85 million in a blast felt in Canary Wharf Tower  the tallest building in Europe  a quarter of a mile away.

A second explosion caused by a gas leak hampered rescue efforts and Heron Quay and Canary Wharf Tower were both evacuated over fears of a second device.

Courtesy BBC News

In context

A second body was found during the clear up operation.

James McArdle, a 29-year-old bricklayer from County Armagh was found guilty of conspiracy to cause explosions in June 1998.

He was jailed for 25 years.

Murder charges  for the deaths of the two men killed, newsagents Inam Bashir and John Jeffries  were dropped when the judge dismissed the jury because of concerns about press coverage.

Eighteen months later the IRA agreed another ceasefire.

Peace was finally negotiated with the Good Friday Agreement  accepted by voters in Ireland and Northern Ireland  in May 1998.

Under the terms of the agreement, James McArdle was released in July 2000.

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The Industry and Commerce Association of Macau stated that the local economy is gradually recovering and suggested the government, businesses, and enterprises should join forces to optimize the business environment and inject new vitality into the market.

Association chairman, Ng Wah Hai, stated that in recent years, the business environment has continued to improve, and investor confidence is gradually recovering.

In addition to mainstream industries such as retail and catering, new sectors like Chinese medicine and healthcare, as well as specialty stores, are continuously emerging.

In an interview with Macao Daily News, Ng said he holds an optimistic view of Macaus economic development this year, believing the market can achieve positive growth. He also suggests that various industries should diversify and further explore the mass market.

At the same time, he believes the government, the federation, and merchants need to work together. In particular, merchants should proactively engage with the government and federation, integrating their products and services with activities. This can reduce corporate promotion costs and bring new elements to events.

Meanwhile, other regional federation representatives believe that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) still face challenges in doing business, and companies will observe trends during the Chinese New Year and the subsequent market to seek development opportunities.

Ng hopes that the First Store Economy Scheme can become an important driving force for Macaus market this year.

The government has launched a scheme that ran from Nov. 1 to Jan. 31, 2026, to support overseas, mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan brands opening their first stores in Macau.

Established companies in sectors like art, culture, food, and retail are being supported by the chamber to open their first stores in Macau, bringing new business and variety to the local market.

Meanwhile, Iun Ioc Va, chairman of the Industry and Commerce Federation of Islands of Macao, stated that Old Taipa Village has a strong commercial atmosphere and a relatively stable business landscape, with an equal split between old shops and newly established merchants, resulting in minimal changes in business formats.

The Flower City area in Taipa is primarily residential, and the business landscape of shops has similarly seen little change. Overall, the Taipa district has a favorable commercial atmosphere, but rents are relatively high. Most start-ups choose to test the waters on the Macau Peninsula first and consider moving to Taipa only after their operations mature and they fully understand the market.

Regarding the market development of the Taipa district in the new year, he maintains a cautiously optimistic attitude. The global economic outlook remains uncertain, and the mainland economy is in a recovery phase.

Although Macau has sufficient visitor traffic, mass consumption power still needs to improve, he said, adding that all parties need to put more effort into optimizing the business environment to further boost market investment confidence.

In the short term, various industries are actively preparing for the consumption peak during the Chinese New Year holiday while also getting ready to face the off-season after the holidays. Ricaela Diputado

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Jimmy Lai, the pro-democracy former Hong Kong media tycoon and a fierce critic of Beijing, was sentenced yesterday to 20 years in prison in the longest punishment given so far under a national security law that has virtually silenced the citys dissent.

Lai, 78, was convicted in December of conspiring with others to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security, and conspiracy to publish seditious articles. The maximum penalty for his conviction was life imprisonment.

His co-defendants, six former employees of his Apple Daily newspaper and two activists, received prison terms of between 6 years and 3 months, and 10 years on collusion-related charges.

Lai smiled and waved at his supporters when he arrived for the sentence. But before he left the courtroom, he looked serious, as some people in the public gallery cried. When asked about whether they would appeal, his lawyer Robert Pang said no comment.

Daughter says he will die a martyr in prison

The democracy advocates arrest and trial have raised concerns about the decline of press freedom in what was once an Asian bastion of media independence. The government insists the case has nothing to do with a free press, saying the defendants used news reporting as a pretext for years to commit acts that harmed China and Hong Kong.

Lai was one of the first prominent figures to be arrested under the security law in 2020. Within a year, some of Apple Dailys senior journalists also were arrested and the newspaper shut down in June 2021.

Lais sentencing could heighten Beijings diplomatic tensions with foreign governments, which have criticized Lais conviction and sentencing.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who is expected to visit China in April, said he felt so badly after the verdict and noted he spoke to Chinese leader Xi Jinping about Lai and asked him to consider his release.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmers government also has called for the release of Lai, who is a British citizen. U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper called the prosecution politically motivated, saying the prison term is tantamount to a life sentence.

In a statement, Lais son, Sebastien, said the draconian prison term was devastating for his family and life-threatening for his father.

His sister Claire called the sentence heartbreakingly cruel in the same statement. If this sentence is carried out, he will die a martyr behind bars, she said.

Hong Kong leader John Lee said Lais sentence demonstrated the rule of law, citing his serious crimes.

Its bringing great satisfaction to the people, he said in a statement.

In Beijing, Chinas Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said Lai is a Chinese citizen and called him a major planner and participant in a series of anti-China destabilizing activities in Hong Kong. He urged relevant countries to respect the rule of law in Hong Kong.

Judges ruled Lai was the mastermind

Lai founded Apple Daily, a now-defunct newspaper known for its critical reports against the governments in Hong Kong and Beijing. He was arrested in August 2020 under the security law that was used in a yearslong crackdown on many of Hong Kongs leading activists.

In their ruling, three government-vetted judges wrote that the starting point of Lais sentence was increased because they found him to be the mastermind of the conspiracies. But they also reduced his penalty because they accepted that Lais age, health condition and solitary confinement would cause his prison life to be more burdensome than that of other inmates.

Lai was no doubt the mastermind of all three conspiracies charged and therefore he warrants a heavier sentence, they said As regards the others, it is difficult to distinguish their relative culpability.

They took into account that Lai is serving a prison term of five years and nine months in a separate fraud case and ruled that 18 years of Lais sentence in the security case should be served consecutively to that prison term.

Urania Chiu, lecturer in law at Oxford Brookes University, said the case is significant for its broad construction of seditious intent and application of the term collusion with foreign forces to certain activities by the media. The implication is particularly alarming for journalists and those working in academia, she said.

Offering and publishing legitimate critiques of the state, which often involves engagement with international platforms and audiences, may now easily be construed as collusion, Chiu said.

Lai has been in custody for more than five years. In January, Pang said Lai suffered health issues including heart palpitations, high blood pressure and diabetes. The prosecution said a medical report noted Lais general health condition remained stable. The government said his solitary confinement was at Lais wish.

Co-defendants get reduced sentences

The former Apple Daily staffers and activists involved in Lais case entered guilty pleas, which helped reduce their sentences yesterday. They earlier admitted to the prosecution charge that said they conspired with Lai to request foreign forces to impose sanctions or blockades, or engage in other hostile activities against Hong Kong or China.

The convicted journalists are publisher Cheung Kim-hung, associate publisher Chan Pui-man, editor-in-chief Ryan Law, executive editor-in-chief Lam Man-chung, executive editor-in-chief responsible for English news Fung Wai-kong and editorial writer Yeung Ching-kee. They received prison terms ranging between six years and nine months, to 10 years.

The two activists, Andy Li and Chan Tsz-wah, were sentenced to six years and three months, and seven years and three months respectively.

The penalties for Cheung, Chan and Yeung, alongside the two activists, were reduced in part because they served as prosecution witnesses and the judges said their evidence had significantly contributed to the conviction of Lai.

Before sunrise, dozens of people stood in line outside the court building to secure a seat in the courtroom. One of them was former Apple Daily employee Tammy Cheung.

Whatever happens, its an end  at least well know the outcome, Cheung said before the sentence was delivered.

Case considered a blow to media

Lai founded Apple Daily in 1995, two years before the former British colony returned to Chinese rule. Its closure in 2021 shocked the local press scene. Hong Kong ranked 140th out of 180 territories in the press-freedom index compiled by media freedom organization Reporters Without Borders in 2025, far from its 18th place in 2002.

Steve Li, chief superintendent of the police forces National Security Department, welcomed the heavy sentence on Lai. Obviously, he has done nothing good for Hong Kong that could serve as a basis for his mitigation, he told reporters.

The government said it will confiscate assets related to Lais crime.

Human Rights Watchs Asia Director Elaine Pearson said the harsh 20-year-sentence is effectively a death sentence, calling it cruel and unjust. KANIS LEUNG, HONG KONG, MDT/AP

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Center-left Socialist Antonio Jose Seguro scored a decisive victory over hard-right populist Andre Ventura in Portugals runoff presidential election on Sunday (yesterday, Macau time), according to official results with 99.2% of ballots counted.

Seguro secured a five-year term at Lisbons pink palace with 66.82% of the vote, against Venturas 33.18%.

The runoff tested the depth of support for Venturas confrontational style, which has resonated with a segment of voters and propelled his Chega (Enough) party to become the second-largest force in Portugals parliament. It also served as a barometer of public appetite for Europes broader rightward drift in recent years.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen congratulated Seguro, writing in Portuguese on social media that Portugals voice for our shared European values remains strong.

A veteran Socialist figure, Seguro campaigned as a moderate, pledging cooperation with Portugals center-right minority government and rejecting Venturas anti-establishment and anti-immigration rhetoric. He drew backing from mainstream politicians across the political spectrum seeking to stem the rise of populism.

Portugals president is largely a ceremonial figure with no executive authority. Traditionally, the head of state stands above party politics, mediating disputes and easing tensions.

Still, the office carries influence and significant powers, including the ability to veto legislation  a move parliament can override  and, in what Portuguese political jargon dubs the atomic bomb, the authority to dissolve parliament and call early elections.

A new cycle

Portugal held its third general election in three years last May, marking the countrys most acute spell of political instability in decades. Restoring calm will be a central challenge for the next president.

Ventura, an eloquent and theatrical campaigner, rejected political accommodation in favor of a more combative approach, vowing to pursue a political transformation of Portugal.

I tried to show theres a different way  that we needed a different kind of president, he told reporters.

Simply reaching the runoff was a milestone for Ventura and Chega, which have reshaped the political landscape. Immigration has been a central target of his campaign, as foreign workers have become more visible in Portugal in recent years.

Portugal is ours, Ventura declared.

Campaign billboards across the country bore slogans such as This isnt Bangladesh and Immigrants shouldnt be allowed to live on welfare.

Founded less than seven years ago, Chega surged to become the second-largest party in parliament in the May 18, 2025 general election.

Seguro will take office next month, replacing center-right President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who is stepping down after serving the constitutional limit of two five-year terms.

Ventura wins overseas, but not in Macau

Andre Ventura topped the vote in both overseas constituencies  Europe and Outside Europe  winning 51.88% to Seguros 48.12%.

In Macau, however, the result swung firmly the other way. Seguro won 934 votes (68.53%) among Portuguese voters in the city, while Ventura secured 429 (31.47%).

A total of 1,403 Portuguese citizens voted in Macau, 971 fewer than in the January 18 first round. Voter abstention rose sharply, from about 96% in the first round to nearly 98%.

Macau has more than 57,000 registered Portuguese voters.

Children cast ballots in mock poll

Children accompanying their parents to polling stations on Sunday were invited to cast mock ballots of their own  though the candidates were fictional.

Characters popular with children, such as Super Mario and Roblox, appeared on the ballot instead of the two real contenders. Parents said the initiative aimed to spark early interest in democratic participation.

A polling station in Lisbon hosted the activity, believed to be the first of its kind during a Portuguese election and uncommon elsewhere.

Vote for your favorite character, the childrens ballot read.

Catarina Barbosa, mother of eight-year-old Artur, said the exercise was a valuable lesson.

I always like to bring him to encourage him, so that when he is 18 he doesnt stay on the couch and also comes to vote, she said. This way, he feels hes voting and fulfilling his civic duties, she told the Associated Press.

Artur said he recognized all the characters on the mock ballot.

*with Agencies

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The Labour Affairs Bureau (DSAL) and Macau Federation of Trade Unions (FAOM) will host four job-matching sessions in late February, offering 445 openings. On Feb. 24, 50 hospitality roles with Melco Resorts will be available at Studio City Macau. On Feb. 26, two supermarkets will offer 90 positions at the FAOM Vocational Training Center. The Feb. 27 sessions include 287 security and cleaning jobs in the morning, and 18 IT jobs from Boardware Information System and HMN Smart in the afternoon at the same venue, covering roles including project managers and technicians.

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Sands China Ltd. recently donated MOP300,000 to Macau Holy House of Mercys Welfare Shop, contributing to the charitable organization for the 14th consecutive year. On the same day, Sands Cares Ambassadors volunteered to help distribute Chinese New Year food hampers to disadvantaged local families at the Welfare Shop.

The shop distributes monthly food and essential items as relief supplies to several thousand households facing financial hardship. The food hampers this year contain staple items like rice, noodles, biscuits, canned food, cooking oil, toothpaste, and shower gel.

The company also gave festive gift packs purchased from Macau Tung Sin Tong Charitable Society to each household. Wilfred Wong, executive vice chairman of Sands China, said, This year, we have distributed food hampers to more than 370 local families.

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Authorities announced the temporary opening of a dedicated bus waiting area near the Border Gate to cope with the expected surge in visitors during the Lunar New Year. From Feb. 11 to Feb. 22, a 500-square-meter area will be made available to ease congestion. Bus operators Transmac and TCM will deploy additional staff to manage queues. Further traffic improvements, including new signals, will be implemented from Feb. 13 to enhance pedestrian safety and traffic flow.

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* Unified ticket

 Light rail to introduce bus transfer discounts with new gates in third quarter, responding to long-standing calls

* Crime | Man arrested at airport after swallowing 52 heroin packets

* Gaming | Fitch upgrades LVS rating, expects Macau rebound

* Industry and Commerce Association urges government and businesses to jointly improve business environment

* Non-resident employees to enjoy equal rights and obligations as locals: Govt

* Portugal: Moderate candidate Seguro wins landslide over hard-right populist Ventura in presidential runoff, draws EU praise

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Tuesday, February 10, 2026  edition no. 4892

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In the summer of 1905, Sweden and Norway were on the brink of war. The Swedish bourgeois press wrote about the revolution and coup d'etat in Norway. King Oscar II refused to recognise Norway's declaration of independence, and thousands of conservatives gathered in Stockholm to demonstrate and demand punishment for the Norwegians. Swedish troops were called in, fortresses were armed, and the general staff requested time to plan an invasion of Norway.

But throughout Sweden, another movement was also growing  a massive workers' struggle against the bourgeoisie's war plans. At mass meetings and demonstrations, slogans calling for peace with Norway rang out.

This is the story of how the labour movement and revolutionary youth stopped a war  and how the Swedish ruling class was humiliated in its quest to keep Norway in a union that had never been voluntary.

The forced marriage between Sweden and Norway

The dissolution of the union in 1905 was the culmination of a conflict that had been smouldering for almost a century.

When the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1814, the great powers of Europe decided that Norway, after centuries of Danish rule, should be handed over to Sweden.

But the Norwegians resisted. On 17 May 1814, a constituent assembly in Eidsvoll declared Norway independent and adopted its own constitution. Shortly afterwards, the country was invaded by Sweden. After a brief war, Norway was forced into the union, and the King of Sweden became regent of both countries. The Norwegians were allowed to keep their constitution and their parliament, the Storting, but were forced to submit to Swedish foreign policy.

A strong national consciousness began to emerge in Norway, driven by the needs of its own bourgeoisie. The country was also more democratic than Sweden  more people had the right to vote, and the Storting had more power than the Swedish Riksdag. Over time, this strengthened demands for independence, especially as the Swedish monarchy repeatedly tried to prevent Norwegian politicians from making decisions.

The Swedish ruling class, on the other hand, saw the union as a strategic asset. Controlling Norway's Atlantic coast strengthened Sweden's defences against Russia, and the union's existence became a matter of prestige for the conservative elite.

One of the most contentious issues concerned the consular service. Although Norway had one of the world's largest merchant fleets at the time, all trade matters were handled by the union's consulates, which were controlled from Stockholm.

The Constituent Assembly in Eidsvoll in 1814. The Norwegian constitution of May 17 had far more democratic elements than the Swedish equivalent / Image: Wikimedia Commons

As early as 1895, the first crisis of the union broke out when the liberal Venstre party won the election in Norway and Oscar II tried to block the formation of a government. The Swedish parliament went so far as to give the king the power to declare war, but the crisis was averted when Norway temporarily backed down.

Ten years later, the situation was different. On 7 February 1905, Oscar II announced that negotiations on the consulate issue had broken down. In March, a new government was formed in Norway, which declared its intention to proceed with its own consular service. In Stockholm, the Swedish government fell, and tensions between the countries quickly increased.

At the same time, on the other side of the Baltic Sea, another revolution had broken out, sending shock waves across the continent.

The revolutionary year of 1905

On 9 January 1905, known to history as Bloody Sunday, the first Russian Revolution broke out after the military opened fire on demonstrators outside the Tsar's palace in St. Petersburg. The strike movement that followed shook the Tsarist regime to its foundations and inspired workers across Europe.

In Sweden, socialists gained new confidence. They saw how the masses in Russia had risen up against their masters and realised that the same thing could happen in Sweden. The ruling class feared that the labour movement would be inspired by its Russian comrades and that discontent among soldiers and workers would lead to revolt in Sweden too.

The Swedish labour movement grew rapidly. Between 1900 and 1907, the membership of the Swedish Social Democratic Workers' Party more than tripled, from 44,100 to 133,388. The party brought together the most class-conscious workers and had not yet broken with the revolutionary ideas on which it was founded.

As early as 1902, the party had led a major political strike for universal and equal suffrage. 120,000 workers participated for three days in a real show of strength.

But, at the same time as the labour movement was growing, the Swedish state was preparing to crush any attempt at rebellion, both from Norway and from the Swedish working class. Between 1900 and 1907, more than a third of the state budget went to the military.

In right-wing and military propaganda, the crisis of the union was portrayed as an existential threat  but the same army that was being prepared for war against Norway was also deployed to crush the workers' struggle at home. The military was often called in to monitor or break up demonstrations  often in defence of strikebreakers, who were protected by the notorious Akarpslagen law  which fuelled the working class's anger against the state and its militarism.

In the autumn of 1904, a wave of strikes swept across the country, with workers in many places achieving victories, often after fierce battles. In Norrkoping, the military was deployed against the tram strike and several workers were sentenced to hard labour. To halt this development, the government, in April 1905, presented a new bill to restrict the right to strike, the so-called Akarpslagen No. 2.

Workers responded with protest meetings and demonstrations throughout the country. Throughout April, the streets were filled with demonstrations and clashes between workers and police.

Before May Day 1905, there was a tense atmosphere of class war in Stockholm. The garrison in the capital was considered contaminated by the radical mood and therefore unreliable. 1,000 extra soldiers were called in from Ostergotland, and each soldier was given 20 live rounds.

More than 25,000 workers took part in the May Day demonstration in Stockholm, where friends of peace were urged to march at the front of the procession in solidarity with Norway.

The military remained on the streets of Stockholm until 13 May, when the proposal to limit strike rights was finally rejected by the Swedish parliament by the narrowest possible margin: 110 votes in favour, 112 against. The massive mobilisation of the working class and the threat of a general strike had defeated the capitalists' attack.

Uprising in Norway

17 May had long been a day of celebration of the Norwegian constitution and national independence. On this symbolic day, 30,000 Norwegians gathered in Oslo in what became the largest 17 May demonstration ever. The atmosphere was tense, and the very next day, the Storting passed a new law establishing a separate Norwegian consular service.

Oscar II, the joint king of Sweden and Norway, responded by exercising his veto and refusing to sanction the decision. The Norwegian government resigned in protest. The crisis was a fact.

On 7 June, the Norwegian Storting declared that the union with Sweden had been dissolved because the king had failed to appoint a new government. Oscar II was thus no longer king of Norway. On the same day, the most senior military leaders in Norway swore allegiance to the new provisional government in Oslo. Cheering crowds filled the streets of the capital, where celebrations continued with singing and speeches long into the summer night.

The Swedish bourgeois press now called for preparations for war. The newspaper Goteborgsposten wrote bitterly about the coup d'etat and the revolution in Norway. Stockholms Dagblad stated belligerently:

The mask has been thrown off. The men of the revolution are appearing openly, trampling underfoot law and justice, the people's allegiance to the king and long-standing agreements with Sweden. It seems like a mockery that the Council of State has been asked to govern according to the constitution of the Kingdom of Norway. The Norwegian Storting cannot be granted any right to decide alone on the fate of the union.

On 8 June, Oscar II sent a telegram to the Norwegian Storting declaring that he could not approve the revolutionary steps they had taken in rebellion against their king. On the same day, thousands of reactionaries gathered in Stockholm for a demonstration in support of the king.

On 14 June, the Swedish general staff wrote to the government requesting three weeks to plan a general mobilisation. A week later, on 20 June, an extraordinary session of the Riksdag was convened in Stockholm to decide on war or peace with Norway.

The Youth League leads the struggle

Four days after the Norwegian Storting's decision to dissolve the union, the Social Democratic Youth League opened its very first congress. The league had been formed in 1903 in Malmo as a small splinter group from the anarchist-leaning Young Socialists. The organisation then grew rapidly.

Two years later, the league had 7,000 members at its congress, organised in over 100 different local branches. Hundreds of meetings and lectures were organised to bring together revolutionary youth, and the league's leading speakers travelled around the country to agitate.

The first congress of the Social Democratic Youth League, June 1905 / Image: Wikimedia Commons

The dissolution of the union and the struggle for peace dominated the Youth League's congress, which adopted a historic manifesto formulated by Zeth Hoglund, who was later sentenced to eight months in prison. The manifesto became the basis for a leaflet that was distributed in over 100,000 copies:

DOWN WITH ARMS! As it becomes clearer with each passing day that the Swedish upper class and the reactionary newspapers are seeking to stir up sentiment in order to meet Norway in its struggle for freedom with armed force, the representatives of Sweden's working youth gathered in Stockholm hereby declare: that it is a crime against the peaceful people of Sweden to incite war against a brother people;

that it is the unshakeable decision of Sweden's workers and its working youth never to comply with a call to arms;

that Sweden's workers are prepared to lay down their work throughout the country to prevent a war;

that Sweden's working youth are firmly convinced that it is their duty, in the event of a mobilisation order, to refuse to report for duty, knowing full well that weapons  if they were to be directed against anyone  should not be directed against Norwegians; and finally, we call on workers and peasants throughout the country to organise mass meetings to discuss what the situation requires. Our slogan is: PEACE WITH NORWAY!

Peace with Norway  war against the bourgeoisie

Down with arms was a call for class struggle against the ruling class. This is how one should interpret the statement that weapons, if they were to be directed against anyone, should not be directed against Norwegians.

The manifesto emphasised that the workers' most powerful weapon was to stop work. Through the general strike of 1902, the labour movement had already demonstrated its capabilities. The threat of an unlimited general strike  especially in light of the tumultuous spring of 1905  struck fear into the ruling class. Such a strike would not only render all war plans impossible but also raise the even more dangerous question of which class held power in society.

The manifesto spread quickly through the workers' press in Sweden and Norway. It was also the signal for an increased mobilisation within the labour movement in Sweden. On the same day that the congress ended, the Social Democrats' executive committee met to take a position on the crisis.

It was not clear in advance which path the party would choose. Opportunism already dominated the leadership, whose goal was usually to dampen the workers' struggle rather than lead it. At the forefront was the reformist member of parliament, Hjalmar Branting. During the union crisis of 1895, he had spoken out strongly against Swedish intervention:

Should the terrible become reality, that Swedish guns were to march westward, then let those who bear responsibility also say that perhaps, down among the broad masses of society, someone might be tempted to set himself up as judge and, without orders, seek to prevent tens of thousands of bullets from being fired on orders to maim and slaughter friends and brothers.

But during the new crisis that arose in 1905, Branting was initially opposed to the dissolution of the union. At the party congress in February, he had spoken of the need for the union in order to stand up to the Russian danger. In other words, he agreed with the nationalist arguments of the bourgeoisie, just as the leadership of the labour movement does today.

The left, led by Kata Dalstrom, defended Norway's right to self-determination. The congress hesitated, and Branting managed to prevent a clear statement from being adopted.

In June, barely four months later, however, there was no longer any doubt  the Social Democrats adopted a clear statement in support of Norway's independence.

Ten years later, when the First World War broke out, the reformist leadership betrayed the working class by supporting the bourgeoisie's war policy and entering into a truce with the state. But this time, in 1905, the reformists were not allowed to dictate the party line.

The Youth League was the revolutionary wing of the Social Democracy and played a decisive role in bringing the rest of the labour movement along. This fact was also recognised by the bourgeois press. The influential newspaper Nya Dagligt Allehanda wrote with dismay that the Youth League had become the core of the anti-Swedish demonstration marches.

At the union's urging, mass meetings were organised across the country. As early as 18 June, two large demonstrations were held. Despite police persecution, 20,000 people gathered in Stockholm and 35,000 in Gothenburg under the slogan Peace with Norway. Even in smaller towns such as Arboga, Helsingborg, Jonkoping, Vasteras, Sodertalje, Sundsvall, Ludvika, Karlstad, Katrineholm and Grangesberg, the Social Democrats held demonstrations with thousands of participants.

The Verkstadskonflikten and fraternisation with the soldiers

At the same time as workers demonstrated for peace with Norway, the Verkstadskonflikten (factory conflict), the largest labour dispute in Swedish history up to that point, was raging. Over 18,000 workers were locked out of their jobs in an attempt to keep wages down.

The capitalists hoped that a war with Norway would force the state to declare martial law and drive the labour movement underground. But the result was the opposite  the struggle against the war and the struggle against the employers merged. A nationwide campaign was launched to raise money for the locked-out workers.

Norwegian workers also contributed to the collection. On 16 June, the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions decided that all trade unions would charge an extra weekly fee of 25 ore, which would go to the locked-out workers in Sweden.

The Social Democrats' executive committee stated in its statement on the union crisis that the Verkstadskonflikten had once again proven that we are not one people, but two nations, the world of the rich and the poor, the hostile camps of capital and labour.

In the same way, the youth leagues used the Verkstadskonflikten to show that the real enemy was at home. Both Social Democrats and young socialists began distributing leaflets aimed at soldiers and conscripts. In July, the Norrkoping Socialist Youth Club produced a leaflet  68,000 copies of which were distributed  which said:

Conscripts! The Norwegian revolution has set the minds of our Swedish professional patriots into a state of steadily rising ferment. The paid scribblers and rhymesters of the so-called patriotic press are doing everything they dare and can to stir up a mood of war against Norway. [...] Here at home, some of these loudmouthed patriots have thrown some 20,000 workers onto the streets in order to further starve the starving and trample the trampled. Our Norwegian class brothers have, in the midst of the upper class's patriotic clamour, extended a faithful helping hand to us in our struggle against capital. Would we repay their solidarity so badly that, obeying the orders of the loud patriots, we would go out in droves to kill our Norwegian brothers who have helped us in our struggle? No proletarian can show such black ingratitude towards a class brother. Look around you! Who is our enemy? The Swedish upper class  the capitalists  who oppress and exploit us to the utmost, who cut us down with endless emergency laws and exceptions, or the Norwegians, who demand nothing more than to rule their own country? The answer is obvious. It is against the upper class that we must arm ourselves, not against the Norwegians.

The negotiations in Karlstad: war or peace?

Sweden's extraordinary parliament began on 20 June. Faced with overwhelming public opinion against the war and the threat of a general strike  or even worse  many on the right realised that they were defeated. In a closed meeting, one of the members of parliament issued a warning to the bourgeoisie: if the threat of war was not immediately removed, the entire working population will turn to socialism.

The decision was taken to begin negotiations with Norway, on condition that the Norwegians first held a referendum. In order to put weight behind the negotiations, an extra 100 million kronor was added to the Swedish military budget.

368,208 Norwegians voted in favour of dissolving the union, while only 184 voted against

The Norwegian referendum was held on 13 August, and the result was overwhelming. 368,208 Norwegians voted in favour of dissolving the union, while only 184 voted against.

Negotiations between the Swedish and Norwegian governments thus began on 30 August in the Masonic Lodge in Karlstad. Swedish negotiators demanded that Norway dismantle its defences along the border, a demand that the Norwegians refused to accept. The negotiations dragged on, and by mid-September, the threat of war was once again palpable. Conscripts were mobilised on both sides of the border, and Swedish warships patrolled off the coast of Bohuslan.

However, many conscripts in Sweden had joined the labour movement's peace demonstrations, despite a ban. Several newspapers reported on soldiers who openly showed their opposition to a possible war. Among other things, they sang Ja, vi elsker  Norway's national anthem  in mess halls and barracks. As a conscript at the camp in Revinge recounted in a letter:

A Lieutenant L. then informed us that the song was not allowed to be sung under the current circumstances, whereupon The Internationale and the socialist Youth March were taken up and allowed to be sung without reprimand In every man's face, one could clearly read a bitter hatred of militarism. The day when we are released from the crown's straitjacket will be a day of joy.

During the summer and autumn, Swedish newspapers reported almost daily on the revolution in Russia, where soldiers and sailors were rebelling against their generals. On the same day that the mutiny on the armoured cruiser Potemkin was reported in the press, the Social Democratic newspaper Arbetet warned that the same thing could happen in Sweden:

Should we go out against our Norwegian brothers? Or should we refuse to report for duty? Or should we allow ourselves to be armed and then use our rifles against our only real enemies? Everyone should make up their mind on these questions before the criminals gain the upper hand.

With the revolution in Russia in full swing and the Swedish ruling class faced with the threat of armed resistance or even revolution, they did not dare to pursue their war plans any further. On Saturday, 23 September, Norwegian and Swedish representatives signed the agreement in Karlstad. The union was thus dissolved.

A month later, in October 1905, Oscar II officially abdicated the throne of Norway. This marked the end of a forced union that had lasted for almost a century.

1905: the working class shows its strength

In the autumn of 1905, the battle of the Verkstadskonflikten was also decided, with employers finally forced to give in on 13 November. Workers returned to their jobs with higher minimum wages and fixed working hours. The year thus ended with another victory for the labour movement, in addition to the battle against the strike law that had been won in the spring.

But the greatest victory was peace with Norway, a victory secured by the revolutionary wing of the labour movement.

Lenin later highlighted the role of the Swedish labour movement in the struggle against war. In On the Right of Nations to Self-Determination, he wrote that by recognising Norway's right to secession, Swedish workers proved that they placed class solidarity above bourgeois nationalism:

The Norwegian workers were convinced that the Swedish workers had not been infected by nationalism, that brotherhood with the Norwegian proletariat was more important to them than the privileges of the bourgeoisie.

Today, more than 100 years later, military rearmament, sabre-rattling and nationalism are as prevalent as they were at the beginning of the 20th century. Then, as now, rearmament and warmongering are taking place at the expense of the poor  but now they have the wholehearted support of the labour movement's leadership.

What would have happened if the Social Democrats had joined the militaristic chorus in 1905, just as they and Vansterpartiet (the Left Party) are doing today? The 20th and 21st centuries are full of examples of neighbouring peoples committing the most terrible acts against each other, led by their ruling classes. Had the socialists capitulated to the ruling class, they would have driven us into disaster.

United we stand, divided we fall. The working class does not need internationalism for sentimental reasons: it is the only way we can prevent the ruling class from turning us against each other. We must build our politics on the fact that the working class, regardless of nationality, has the same fundamental interests. This is what Marx and Engels meant when they wrote that workers have no country. On this basis, we triumphed in 1905. On this basis, we must triumph again. Only an organised working class has the power to stop the bourgeoisie's wars.
The Federal Government has commended Nigerias Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) for strengthening private sector growth and boosting investor confidence through sustained reforms and digital transformation.

Speaking at the CACs 35th anniversary celebration in Abuja on Monday, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Ambassador Nura Rimi, said the commissions evolution from manual registration processes to a technology-driven system has enhanced transparency, accountability and ease of doing business.

Rimi noted that CACs reforms have simplified business registration, encouraged enterprise formalisation and fostered trust in Nigerias corporate environment, contributing to improved global perception and the countrys exit from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Grey List.

He said businesses can now be registered within minutes, a significant shift from practices in the 1990s. He urged the commission to further leverage emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain to deepen inclusivity, trust and global competitiveness.

Other stakeholders at the event echoed the commendation. The Managing Director of the Oil and Gas Free Zones Authority, Bamanga Jada, described CACs role as pivotal in strengthening corporate governance and investor confidence, while highlighting strong inter-agency collaboration.

The Director-General of the Industrial Training Fund, Dr Afiz Oluwatoyin, said increased company registration had positively impacted revenue and performance across government institutions. Similarly, SMEDAN Director-General Charles Odii praised CACs digital innovations and cost-reduction initiatives, describing the commission as central to Nigerias MSME development agenda.

The anniversary event drew broad participation from government agencies, the private sector and development partners, with calls for sustained innovation to support Nigerias economic reforms in the years ahead.
The Bombay High Court on Monday granted bail to Akashdeep Karaj Singh, a 22-year-old accused in the murder of former Maharashtra minister Ziauddin Abdul Rahim Siddique, popularly known as Baba Siddique. Justice Dr Neela Gokhale allowed the bail application, holding that the prosecution had failed to establish prima facie material to justify Singhs continued custody under the stringent provisions of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).



Singh is arraigned as accused number 24 in the case registered with the Nirmalnagar Police Station in Mumbai. The case relates to the fatal shooting of Baba Siddiqui on October 12, 2024, when unidentified assailants opened fire outside his sons office in Bandra East. Two shooters were arrested at the scene, following which the police claimed that the murder had been orchestrated by an organised crime syndicate allegedly led by gangster Anmol Bishnoi, leading to the invocation of MCOCA.



Defence and prosecution submissions



Appearing for Singh, advocate Abhishek Yende argued that the applicant had been falsely implicated and that there was no direct or circumstantial evidence linking him to the alleged murder conspiracy. The defence submitted that Singh was not named in the first information report and that none of the confessional statements of key accused persons, including Sujit Singh and Nitin Sapre, attributed any role to him. It was further contended that the prosecutions case against Singh was based primarily on two alleged phone calls, which could not, by themselves, establish participation in organised crime.



Opposing the bail plea, the special public prosecutor submitted that call detail records, mobile phone extraction reports and witness statements pointed to Singhs links with members of the organised crime syndicate. The prosecution also alleged that Singh had made international calls to overseas associates of the syndicate and relied on photographs purportedly recovered from his mobile phone, which allegedly showed him holding firearms.



Senior advocate Pradip Gharat appeared for the intervenor, Shehzeen Ziauddin Siddiqui, the wife of the deceased leader, along with advocate Trivankumar Karnani. The intervenor supported the prosecutions submissions, opposing bail on the grounds of the seriousness of the offence and the alleged larger conspiracy behind the killing.



Courts findings and bail conditions



After examining the material on record, the High Court observed that mere phone calls or unsubstantiated allegations of international communication were insufficient at this stage to establish complicity in organised crime. The court noted the absence of criminal antecedents and the fact that Singhs name did not figure in any confessional statements. Granting bail subject to stringent conditions, the court directed Singh to execute a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh, report regularly to the DCB-CID, surrender his passport and not leave Maharashtra without prior permission. The court clarified that its observations were prima facie and would not affect the trial on the merits.




If a firefighting water tank is found empty during a fire-related tragedy, the society can be booked for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, a fire brigade official has said. The warning follows a fire at Suvidha Pearl, a 14-storey building in Vile Parle, where officials found that the overhead water tank meant for internal firefighting was empty. The blaze, which broke out on the 13th floor on Monday morning, claimed the life of a 63-year-old woman and left another person injured.



Fire brigade officials said societies are legally accountable if mandatory firefighting systems are non-functional, as required under the Maharashtra Fire Safety and Prevention Act. In cases where firefighting water tanks are found empty, the fire brigade submits its findings to the police, who may initiate criminal proceedings against the society.



Confirming the lapse in the Vile Parle incident, a fire brigade official said water was not available in the overhead tank, even though it was designated for internal firefighting operations. A police official said action would be taken based on the fire brigades report and that, if negligence is established, the society could face charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.



As per norms, every high-rise building must have overhead water storage for internal firefighting. A 14-storey building is required to maintain at least 20,000 litres of water for this purpose. Following its investigation, the fire brigade will submit a detailed report to the local police station. It has also issued a show-cause notice to the building to rectify fire safety lapses.



There is also a provision to cancel the licence of the fire safety auditor. In rare cases, police can register an offence under culpable homicide not amounting to murder, a fire brigade official said.



We will take legal action based on the fire brigades report, said Gabaji Chimte, senior inspector of Vile Parle police station.



The fire broke out around 10 am in the building where the family of well-known builder Jitu Satra resides. The incident came a day before a family wedding, with Jitu Satras son scheduled to get married on Tuesday. The house was filled with relatives and guests when the flames rapidly spread from the 13th to the 14th floor.



According to the fire brigade, Bhavan Satra (63), Jitu Satras sister-in-law, died in the fire. She does not have major burn injuries. There is a possibility that the cause of death was suffocation due to smoke, said a Mumbai Fire Brigade official.



Chief Fire Officer Ravindra Amburgekar said the cause of the fire was still under investigation. During firefighting operations, we found there was no water storage in the overhead tank, which was supposed to be used for internal firefighting. Later, we supplied water from storage, he said.



Another resident, Aneree Satra (34), was injured after glass fell on her back. She has been admitted to Nanavati Hospital and is in stable condition.




The fallout from the latest release of files related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is being called the biggest political scandal so far this century. Newspapers and television news are splashing fresh revelations daily. High-profile careers are crashing. The police are investigating. There are even whispers of borrowed time for the countrys leader.



Not in the United States, but in Britain.



The enormous tranche of more than 3 million emails and other documents, photos and videos released by the Justice Department on January 30 has created a minor headache in the White House and a major crisis in Whitehall.



Starmers judgment under fire



Prime Minister Keir Starmer is under immense pressure to explain why he appointed longtime Labour insider Peter Mandelson as Britains ambassador to the US, despite knowing Mandelson continued to consort with Epstein after he pleaded guilty in Florida in 2008 to charges including soliciting prostitution from someone under 18.



Starmers chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, resigned on Sunday, taking full responsibility for advising Starmer to appoint Mandelson. It was only a few days ago that the prime minister said he still had confidence in McSweeney, who is often credited as the brains behind Labours landslide victory in 2024. Now Starmer is without his most senior and essential political adviser, amid the most politically dangerous crisis the government has faced so far.



On Thursday, Starmer made a public apology to Epsteins victims for having believed Mandelsons lies and agreed to release the vetting reports around Mandelsons ambassadorial appointment. On the same day, 50 per cent of YouGov respondents said the prime minister should resign  including 37 per cent of his own voters.



A febrile British Parliament



In conversations with members of Parliament across the political spectrum, they all offered variations on the theme that, as one said, the mood throughout the Westminster political class is febrile. Despite the fevered response to the latest revelations and Starmers struggle to respond, it is difficult for Labour MPs to remove their party leader, and no one I spoke with felt confident that Starmer will go  not yet.



But tensions are high, and if local elections in May go as badly for the Labour Party as current polling suggests, several MPs said the Epstein files will be seen retrospectively as the beginning of the end.



As for the Prince of Darkness  the nickname Mandelson earned for his ruthless and effective role in shaping the Labour Party over the past 40 years  he had been dismissed as the prime ministers man in Washington in September after friendly correspondence to Epstein was exposed. Now, following the Justice Departments new document dump, he is the subject of an investigation by the Metropolitan Police.



In addition to allegations that Mandelson shared sensitive government information with Epstein when serving as business secretary around the time of the 2008 financial crisis, its alleged that in 2009 he may also have shared sensitive market information.



Contrasting differences



The contrast between responses to the latest Epstein files release in Britain and the US is stark. President Donald Trump, who is mentioned thousands of times in the newly revealed documents, was not directly asked about them in his one-hour interview with NBC News on Wednesday night. Starmer, who is mentioned zero times in the files, is currently fighting for his political life and has been forced to fire his second chief of staff in 18 months to solidify his own position.



Brits are not used to something like this happening, says one senior figure in Westminster. The impact is therefore unknown, but also seismic. For Americans, who have heard about the Epstein files throughout multiple election cycles, the presidents featuring in them is not news. The Epstein connection is baked into the Trump presidency, and another twist in the saga is easily drowned out by endless distractions emanating from White House.



British politics is by no means immune to scandal, but the desensitisation that has worked in Trumps favour is not working for Starmer. Labours historic win last July rested in part on a promise to clean up politics after Conservative scandals. If the party hadnt acted like it was the high priest of integrity, things might be different now, one former minister said. It is extraordinary that the most high-profile investigation prompted by the Epstein documents so far has nothing to do with his exploitation of teenage girls and is occurring outside the US, the fallout has largely played out in public shaming rather than police inquiries. Across the Atlantic, however, a political earthquake is under way.




In the humid, emerald silence of the Kuttanad backwaters, the world moves at the speed of a ripple. Here, the light dissolves, filtering through a canopy of palms to hit the water in bruised purples and liquid gold. It is a landscape of the decisive momentwhere the synchronised plunge of a mallard or the rhythmic cast of a fishermans net against a whitewashed church constitutes the days only urgent headline.



Mumbai has long forgotten this rhythm. Outside the stone walls of the Jehangir Art Gallery, the air is a percussive roar of black-and-yellow taxis and humid exhaust. We live in a culture that devours images at the speed of a thumb-flick, consuming the now only to fuel a frantic next. But step inside the gallery between February 12 and 14, and the two worlds collide. Through 100 photographs captured over five intense days, ten of Indias leading photographers have brought Keralas emerald silence into the heart of the concrete hive with Lenscape Kerala.



Curating for a city that devours



Curated by Uma Nair, whose curatorial philosophy treats the viewer as a collaborator, the exhibition is a distillation of creative endurance. To capture the soul of a state as layered as Kerala in just 120 hours is a feat; to present it to a restless Mumbai audience is a challenge of a different order.



Mumbai is a city that devours images, Nair says, her voice cutting through the gallerys contemplative hush. For a city this restless, I wanted photographs that functioned like a diary of memoriesexpressionist, emotional, and deeply evocative.



She describes the selection process as a struggle between compositional clarity and the enchantment of light and shade. Her goal is not just to show Kerala, but to provide memory as an elixir for the common man, turning the frantic charcha of the street into a slower, more profound dialogue.



Hunting the decisive moment



For Saurabh Anand Chatterjee, a Mumbai-based photographer and educator, the project was a high-stakes hunt for the soul of the South. In a world where everyone is a content creator, Chatterjees work argues for the return of the observer.



Photography is about keen observation, he says. When I was in Kerala, my eyes were constantly scanningnot to shoot everything, but to wait for something extra to happen. That extra manifested in the accidental perfection of an egret cutting across a frame just as a group of fishermen settled into position.



For Aishwarya Sridharthe first Indian woman to win the Wildlife Photographer of the Year award the journey was an ancestral homecoming. With roots in Palakkad, Sridhar had to unlearn the rigid, human-free disciplines of wildlife photography.



As wildlife photographers, we are trained to exclude people to find a pure frame, she explains. But in Kerala, that would be a lie.



Watching wild dogs move through cultivated land while villagers carried on, unfazed, reshaped her understanding of the landscape. In the silence of Periyar, while bamboo rafting through a mist so thick it rendered the heavy-set Gaurs (Indian Bison) mere ghosts, she realised that some moments are meant to be felt before they are photographed.



If Sridhar captures the wild, Natasha Kartar Hemrajani captures the ghosting of history. She views Kerala as a palimpsesta surface where spiritual lineages, colonial residues, and political consciousness are written over one another.



Lenscape Kerala derives its power from its plurality. By bringing together ten such distinct voicesspanning architecture, conservation, and documentary storytellingthe exhibition ensures that Kerala is never reduced to a single, flattened gaze. It is, after all, a land of monochrome churches and colour-saturated rituals; of quiet backwaters and the thundering, mythic performance of Theyyam.



In a city that measures success by the speed of its pulse, Lenscape Kerala offers a radical alternative: the courage to be still in a room full of noise, and the wisdom to know that some ripples are more powerful than any roar.




Calaveras, CA The Calaveras County Board of Supervisors will meet Tuesday, January 10th, in the Board of Supervisors Chambers at 891 Mountain Ranch Road with a proclamation recognizing Kindness Week, action on a telecommuting policy update, and support for a trail improvement grant among items on the agenda.

Supervisors are scheduled to consider a proclamation declaring February 14 through February 20 as Kindness Week in Calaveras County. The proclamation would also designate the county as a Random Acts of Kindness Zone. The board is also expected to consider adopting a resolution supporting the Arnold Rim Trail Associations grant application to the Sierra Nevada Conservancy. The grant would fund improvements to the Arnold Rim Trail. If approved, the resolution would authorize the board chair to sign a letter supporting the application.

County Public Health officials will present part two of a report on the state of health in Calaveras County. The informational presentation is expected to outline public health challenges and the departments goals for addressing them. Supervisors will also consider adopting a revised county telecommuting policy.

The regular portion of Tuesdays meeting starts at 9 am.
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP)  The FBI is not aware of ongoing communication between Savannah Guthries family and any suspected kidnappers more than a week after the Today show hosts mom went missing, the agency said Monday.

The FBI has also not identified any suspects or persons of interest in the disappearance of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, Connor Hagan, a spokesperson for the FBI, said in a statement. The agency is operating a 24-hour command post equipped with investigative teams and crisis management experts while asking for help from the public.

Someone has that one piece of information that can help us bring Nancy home, he said.

In a video released Monday, Savannah Guthrie said the family was at an hour of desperation but that they continue to believe her mother is out there and hearing everyones prayers.

She was taken and we dont know where, and we need your help, Guthrie said in the video posted on Instagram, urging people nationwide to be on the lookout no matter where you are, even if youre far from Tucson, if you see anything, if you hear anything.

By Monday evening, a purported ransom deadline apparently set by her moms abductors appeared to have passed.

The mysterious disappearance and search has riveted the country  from President Donald Trump, who spoke with Savannah Guthrie last week, to the online sleuths whove flooded social media with tips, theories and rumors.

The FBI is asking for the publics help on digital billboards up in several major cities in Texas, California, Arizona and New Mexico. The FBI has offered a $50,000 reward for information.

Multiple news outlets received alleged ransom letters during the past week. At least one letter made monetary demands and set deadlines for receiving the money. The first deadline passed last Thursday and a second one was set for Monday evening.

Law enforcement officials declined to affirm that the letters were credible but said all tips were being investigated seriously. The Pima County Sheriffs Department said Monday that law enforcement tip lines have received thousands of calls.

Authorities say they have growing concerns about Nancy Guthries health because she needs daily medication. She is said to have a pacemaker and has dealt with high blood pressure and heart issues, according to sheriffs dispatcher audio on broadcastify.com.

In a video Saturday, Savannah Guthrie said the family was prepared to pay for her mothers return. This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us, and we will pay.

Authorities believe Nancy Guthrie was taken against her will from her home just outside Tucson. She was last seen there Jan. 31 and reported missing the next day after not attending church. DNA tests showed blood on Guthries front porch was a match to her, and her doorbell camera was disconnected in the early hours of Sunday morning, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has said.

Outside the home on Monday, neighbors strolled by on their morning jogs and walks, while a county sheriffs deputy remained stationed out front.

Law enforcements work at Guthrie residences will continue Tuesday as part of the ongoing investigative process, including the expansion of the search and follow-up on new leads, the Pima County Sheriffs Department said in a statement Monday.

Detectives and agents carried out follow-up work in the neighborhood and other locations over the weekend as part of the investigation, the Pima County Sheriffs Department said Sunday.

Investigators on Saturday were inside daughter Annie Guthries home, about 4 miles (6 kilometers) from Nancy Guthries house. On Sunday, an investigator was seen using a pole to search an underground tank behind Nancy Guthries home.

By TY ONEIL

Associated Press
ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP)  A 16-year-old student was shot inside a suburban Maryland high school on Monday and another student was in custody, police said.

One student was found with a gunshot wound in a hallway and was taken to a hospital in stable condition, the Rockville City Police Department said in a post on Facebook.

The suspect was also a 16-year-old student, the department said. He was identified and arrested near the school shortly after. Both students were boys.

At this time, there is no further threat to public safety, police said.

Officers were dispatched at 2:15 p.m. because of reports of shots fired at Thomas S. Wootton High School in Rockville, a suburb of Washington, D.C., the department said.

Investigators were still looking for the firearm used in the shooting, Rockville Police Chief Jason West said at a news conference. The alleged shooters motive was still under investigation, he said. Authorities didnt find any other suspects after a search.

Other students were in the area during the shooting and were being interviewed, West said.

Heather Rodriguez, whose daughter is in the ninth grade at Wootton, said she jumped in her car and drove to the school in a rush of panic and adrenaline after she heard about shooting. She stood outside the school for several hours, and her daughter texted that she had heard gunshots, that the school was in lockdown and police were everywhere.

Everyones acting like we are going to die, she said her daughter texted. If anything happens, I love you.

Other parents had been glued to their phones trying to communicate with their children.

Mental health support was available for students and their families, said Thomas W. Taylor, the superintendent of Montgomery County Public Schools.

Today is a heartbreaking and deeply unsettling day for our entire community, Taylor said. The kids and our staff are emotionally exhausted and understandably traumatized by todays events.
Two inmates facing charges that include murder escaped from a Georgia jail Sunday night.

Ricky Martin, 20, and Kentravious Holmes, 21, were detained at the Sumter County Jail in Americus, Georgia, approximately 139 miles (234 km) south of Atlanta. They were in custody for charges including murder, aggravated assault and aggravated battery, according to the Sumter County Sheriffs office.

Sheriff Eric Bryant said it appears the inmates escaped through a maintenance door on the ceiling of the building that wasnt locked properly and led them through the HVAC to get outside. He said officers are still trying to figure out where they escaped to, but theyve spoken with the families of both inmates.

They escaped at around 9:30 p.m. Sunday night.

Three inmates, including a murder suspect, escaped from a jail east of Atlanta in December. They attacked a Lyft driver, shoving her in the backseat and drove her car to south Florida before they were captured, according to court records.

Four men escaped a central Georgia jail in 2023.

In October, authorities found the last Louisiana inmate in an Atlanta home after a high profile monthlong search for a group of men who broke out of a New Orleans jail in May,

By The Associated Press
TRENTON, N.J. (AP)  Former congressman Tom Malinowski conceded on Tuesday to Analilia Mejia, a longtime progressive activist and former political director for Sen. Bernie Sanders, in the crowded Democratic primary in New Jerseys U.S. House special election.

The race attracted national attention as Democrats sparred over the best way to win over voters in this years midterm elections. Mejia showcased an aggressive progressive platform in a suburban district that normally favors more moderate candidates.

During a news conference Tuesday, Mejia credited her experience as an organizer as key to her success.

In this moment, what we want are real representatives: real representatives who will listen to the people, who will ask questions about what is keeping you up at night, who will prioritize your interest over special interests, she said.

The special election is being held to fill the seat vacated when Mikie Sherrill stepped down to become governor. The Associated Press has not yet called Thursdays race.

There was friction over the role of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, whose affiliated super PAC tried to thwart Malinowski after he questioned unconditional aid to the Israeli government. However, their efforts appeared to backfire. Mejia, who said she agreed Israel committed genocide in Gaza, overtook Malinowski with a narrow lead on election night.

The outcome of this race cannot be understood without taking into account the massive flood of dark money that AIPAC spent on dishonest ads during the last three weeks, Malinowski said in a statement.

He threw his support behind Mejia, who has been consolidating backing from her Democratic rivals. U.S. Sen. Andy Kim, who had backed Malinowski, also endorsed Mejia, as did Sherrill on Tuesday.

Matt Bennett, co-founder of the centrist Democratic organization Third Way, said AIPAC had made a catastrophic error and theres a lot of anger about that.

He expressed concern that Mejias victory would nudge the party too far to the left ahead of the midterms.

This idea that theres a demand either among the Democratic electorate, primary or the general electorate for radical candidates, is baloney, he said. Its just not true.

Mejia criticized AIPAC but said that wasnt the reason that she was coming out on top.

What they didnt do was win this for us. How we won  it was people power, Mejia said.

The district covers parts of Essex, Morris and Passaic counties in northern New Jersey, including some of New York Citys wealthier suburbs. All three counties in the district report some mail-in ballots yet to be processed. Additionally, mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day can arrive as late as Wednesday and still be counted.

The race was so close that the Democratic National Committee prematurely congratulated Malinowski on election night. On Tuesday, it issued another statement backing Mejia, saying, New Jersey deserves a fighter and not a spineless Trump lackey.

A former director of the Working Families Alliance in New Jersey, Mejia, 48, is a well-known figure in state politics, advocating for progressive causes. She was Sanders political director during his 2020 presidential run and served as deputy director of the Labor Departments Womens Bureau under President Joe Biden.

She was endorsed by noted progressives, including Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and she campaigned around the district by saying she was running against billionaires and their influence.

Mejia would face Republican Joe Hathaway, who was unopposed in his primary, in the special general election on April 16. The outcome will determine who serves the remainder of Sherrills term until next January. There will also be a regular primary on June 2 and a general election on Nov 3.

Republicans are already taking aim at Mejia, saying she wants to turn New Jersey into a socialist hellscape, according to National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Maureen OToole.

Malinowskis concession caps an effort to recapture a seat in Congress after he was defeated by a Republican in a different district in 2022.

Other leading Democrats who sought the nomination were Brendan Gill, an elected commissioner in Essex County, and Tahesha Way, who was lieutenant governor and secretary of state for two terms until last month.

Also on the ballot were John Bartlett, Zach Beecher, J-L Cauvin, Marc Chaaban, Cammie Croft, Dean Dafis, Jeff Grayzel, Justin Strickland and Anna Lee Williams.

Sherrill represented the district for four terms after her 2018 election. She won despite the regions historical loyalty to the Republican Party, a dynamic that began to shift during President Donald Trumps first term.

_____

Steve Peoples contributed to this report.

By MIKE CATALINI

Associated Press
MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. (AP)  Two people were convicted of forgery and other crimes Monday in an election petition scandal that spoiled the candidacies of five Republicans who were running for Michigan governor in 2022.

The petitions were rife with bogus signatures and, as a result, the candidates didnt have enough valid ones to qualify for the GOP primary election that year. The candidates included former Detroit police Chief James Craig and millionaire businessman Perry Johnson, who is running again this year.

No candidate was personally accused of knowingly submitting fraudulent petitions.

The fraud denied millions of Michiganders a choice in the 2022 gubernatorial election, Attorney General Dana Nessel said.

Shawn Wilmoth and Willie Reed were each convicted of forgery, running a criminal enterprise and other crimes after a trial in suburban Detroit. They will be sentenced March 18. Jamie Wilmoth was found not guilty.

Defense lawyers tried to shift blame to dozens of petition circulators, telling the jury that Shawn Wilmoth and Reed were defrauded, too.

Nine campaigns, including some Detroit-area judicial candidates, paid more than $700,000 to businesses affiliated with Reed and Shawn Wilmoth to get signatures, the attorney generals office said.

Candidates needed 15,000 signatures from voters to get on the Republican primary ballot. State elections staff believe people at times simply sat around a table, signed petitions and passed them around.

After the scandal, Tudor Dixon emerged as the Republican nominee for governor, but she lost the general election to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The general counsel for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Monday warned the attorney for an anonymous government employee not to directly share a top-secret complaint about Gabbards handling of classified material with members of Congress.

The letter to attorney Andrew Bakaj is the latest escalation in the back-and-forth accusations over the classified complaint, which alleges that Gabbard withheld top-secret material for political reasons.

Two inspectors general for the intelligence community reviewed the claim and found that particular allegation did not appear to be credible. Gabbard has denied any wrongdoing and said she did all she could to ensure the report reached Congress.

Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees have blasted Gabbards office over the handling of the complaint, questioning why it took eight months for it to be sent to select members of Congress as required by law.

Heres what to know about the complaint and the next steps:

What is known about the complaint

The anonymous author of the complaint works for a U.S. intelligence agency and in May filed a report claiming that Gabbard withheld classified information for political reasons. Gabbard oversees the coordination of 18 intelligence agencies.

The complaint made two allegations, according to a memo sent to lawmakers by the current inspector general, Christopher Fox: The first is that the distribution of a highly classified intelligence report was restricted for political purposes, while the second accuses Gabbards general counsel of failing to report a potential crime to the Justice Department.

In June, the inspector general at the time, Tamara Johnson, found that the claim Gabbard distributed classified information along political lines did not appear to be credible, Fox said in the memo to lawmakers. Johnson was unable to assess the apparent credibility of the accusation about the general counsels office, Fox wrote.

The watchdog said he would have deemed the complaint non-urgent, meaning it never would have been referred to lawmakers.

If the same or similar matter came before me today, I would likely determine that the allegations do not meet the statutory definition of urgent concern, Fox wrote.

The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets reported that the complaint stemmed from a call between two foreign nationals that mentioned someone close to President Donald Trump and was intercepted by the National Security Agency. The news reports, which cited anonymous sources, said the discussion involved Iran and that Gabbard notified the White House personally, while the complaint accused her of blocking the NSA from reporting the interaction to other agencies. The AP could not immediately confirm the reports.

The NSA declined to offer details about the complaint Monday, saying in a statement that it works closely with the FBI and others to investigate the mishandling or disclosure of classified information.

Gabbards office warns attorney

Bakaj, a former CIA officer and an attorney for the person making the complaint, offered to meet with certain lawmakers or their staffs to discuss the allegations and his concerns about Gabbards review.

ODNIs general counsel warned against that in its letter Monday, noting that Bakaj or his client could face criminal charges if they improperly revealed classified material during the briefing.

The highly classified nature of the underlying complaint increases the risk that you or your client inadvertently or otherwise breaks the law by divulging or mishandling classified information, the general counsels office wrote. You may have other means of appearing in front of Congress, but this is not it.

Following the memo from the general counsel, Bakaj sent his own letter to the heads of the House and Senate intelligence committees, saying he has asked Gabbards office for direction on how his client may contact lawmakers to share their concerns.

We are in the process of further engaging with the DNI to continue to seek guidance, and would certainly welcome the committees cooperation in requesting the DNI to substantively respond, Bakaj wrote in the letter.

Under federal law, intelligence whistleblowers are entitled to ask to refer their complaints directly to key lawmakers even if the inspector general finds them non-credible, so long as they deem the allegations urgent. That determination was made by the original watchdog, but the complaint didnt reach lawmakers until last week.

The process of delivering the top-secret complaint began last week when it was hand-delivered to the Gang of Eight  a group comprised of the House and Senate leaders from both parties as well as the four top lawmakers on the House and Senate intelligence committees.

An additional meeting has been scheduled for Wednesday for any members of the Gang of Eight who havent yet seen the complaint.

Democrats decry delay as GOP backs Gabbard

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he will push Gabbard for more answers about the underlying complaint and why it took so long to get the report to lawmakers.

The number of redactions make it hard to evaluate the allegations, he said.

The fact that this sat out there for six, seven, eight months now and we are only seeing it now, raises huge concerns in and of itself, Warner said Sunday on CBS Face the Nation.

The Republicans who lead the intelligence committees are backing Gabbard, making it less likely the panels take further steps to investigate the complaint.

It seemed like an effort by the presidents critics to undermine him, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, the Senate Intelligence Committees chairman, wrote Saturday on X.

Intelligence chief responds to critics

Gabbard noted in a lengthy social media post Saturday that Johnson was appointed interim inspector general for the intelligence community during President Joe Bidens administration.

She included a detailed timeline that she said shows she acted quickly to ensure the complaint reached Congress. Gabbard wrote that she was aware of the complaint in June and believed the investigation had ended after it was found non-credible, only for the inspector generals office to inform her in December that the complaint had to be reviewed, redacted and sent to members of Congress.

I took immediate action to provide the security guidance to the Intelligence Community Inspector General who then shared the complaint and referenced intelligence with relevant members of Congress last week, Gabbard wrote.

She also accused Warner and the media of trying to use the complaint to smear her name.

By DAVID KLEPPER

Associated Press
Two websites that distribute instructions for how to manufacture ghost guns are facing a new lawsuit from the state of California alleging that they provide access to illegal and untraceable firearms.

The lawsuit, filed by Attorney General Rob Bonta and San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, is aimed at the Gatalog Foundation Inc. and CTRLPEW LLC.

The lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court argues that the websites violated multiple state laws, including the distribution of computer code and guidelines for 3D printing firearms, illegal large-capacity magazines, and other firearm-related products.

According to the lawsuit, the websites offer computer code and instructions for more than 150 designs of lethal firearms and prohibited firearm accessories. The lawsuit said state officials as part of their investigation downloaded the code and instructions from the website with a few simple keystrokes and used it to build a Glock-style handgun.

These defendants conduct enables unlicensed people who are too young or too dangerous to pass firearm background checks to illegally print deadly weapons without a background check and without a trace, said Bonta. This lawsuit underscores just how dangerous the ghost gun industry is and how much harm its skip-the-background check business model has done to Californias communities.

The defendants could not be reached for comment. In addition to the two websites, the lawsuit names as defendants three men: Alexander Holladay, who the lawsuit identifies as the Gatalog Foundations principal; John Elik, who is identified as its director; and gun rights attorney Matthew Larosiere.

Larosiere in a 2019 interview with the Mercury News characterized ghost guns as a legal hobby for firearms enthusiasts.

It is, and always has been, legal for ordinary adults to make firearms for their own personal use, he told the newspaper. These people tend to be dedicated hobbyists. Home-built firearms have been around as long as our nation, and today in a country of 300 million people, we rarely ever see them used in crime.

The proliferation of ghost guns has increased dramatically over the past decade in California, resulting in what the lawsuit refers to as a public safety crisis. According to the lawsuit, California law enforcement agencies recovered 26 ghost guns in 2015. Since 2021, agencies have recovered an average of more than 11,000 ghost guns per year, the lawsuit said.

Because they are not serialized, ghost guns are effectively untraceable by law enforcement, the lawsuit stated. And because they are manufactured privately, often in ones home, they bypass critical safeguards like background checks. In this way, ghost guns unlawfully circumvent traditional gun control measures.

The lawsuit detailed particularly stark examples of the dangers that 3D printed firearms have posed, including the arrest of a 14-year-old boy who used a 3D printer to manufacture multiple firearms in Santa Rosa in 2024.

Adam Skaggs, chief counsel and vice president of GIFFORDS Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said in a statement that the organization has previously partnered with Bonta to stop three ghost gun companies from operating throughout California.

But a new generation of irresponsible gun industry actors are trying to unlawfully arm minors, people with felony convictions, and domestic abusers by letting them 3D-print their own guns without any background checks, he said.

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This story was originally published by CalMatters and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

By CAYLA MIHALOVICH/CalMatters

CalMatters
One of Californias larger public employee unions is pushing legislation to make remote work a permanent option for state workers as the clock ticks down on Gov. Gavin Newsoms July 1 mandate for most employees to be in the office four days a week.

The measure, authored by Assemblymember Alex Lee, a Milpitas Democrat, would require state agencies to offer work-from-home options to the fullest extent possible and provide written justifications when they require employees to work in person, according to a press release from the Professional Engineers in California Government. The union represents more than 15,000 state engineers who mostly work for Caltrans and in environmental agencies.

The bill would also require the state to establish a dashboard to document the annual savings as a result of remote work. The Department of General Services, which manages contracts and real estate for the state government, published that information until ending the practice in 2024.

The intent is absolutely to establish a state policy that flexible telework can and should be provided to state employees, because it serves state government, it serves taxpayers, and it certainly serves state employees, said Ted Toppin, executive director of the union.

State agencies widely adopted remote work policies that allowed state employees to save on transportation costs and live where they preferred during the COVID-19 pandemic. As of 2024, half of the state workers were eligible for remote work, and 74% of those workers preferred telework, according to the Department of General Services estimate at the time.

But that year, Newsom angered thousands of state employees by calling them back to office at least two days a week. He signed a more extensive mandate last year requiring most state workers in office at least four days a week, but delayed the implementation for most until this July  the result of bargaining with several unions including the engineers union.

State agencies, however, were ill-equipped to accommodate the order. Many lacked thousands of workstations ahead of Newsoms mandate, according to a recent report in The Sacramento Bee. And remote work is a money saver: Allowing state workers to work from home at least three days a week could save the state $225 million a year, according to a state auditors report released last year.

These cost savings and environmental benefits directly benefit the public, Lee said in a statement to CalMatters, arguing that the measure would also ensure transparency on state agencies telework policies.

The goal of the bill is not to nullify Newsoms order, Toppin said. Rather, its to remind policymakers of the benefits telework can bring, he said.

Saving money, protecting the environment, cutting traffic, recruiting and training staff. Those are shared goals of all Californians, Toppin said.

The engineers union has a reputation for wins at the bargaining table, including gaining seniority perks that boosted pay for longtime employees. Records maintained by CalMatters Digital Democracy database show it gave $3.5 million to state lawmakers between 2015 and 2024. The highest spending came in 2016 when the union gave $422,000 to lawmakers as they debated what became a gas tax increase that locked in funding for transportation projects, and in 2024 when the union contributed $497,000 to legislators.

The give-and-take over bringing state workers into the office is playing out as public agencies take different approaches to remote work since the pandemic. Some state agencies already require employees to work in the office at least three days a week and the Legislature for the most part mandates that staff be in the Capitol.

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This story was originally published by CalMatters and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

By YUE STELLA YU/CalMatters

CalMatters
Law enforcement raided the illegal cannabis operation in Shasta-Trinity National Forest months before, but rotting potatoes still sat on the growers makeshift kitchen worktop, waiting to be cooked.

Ecologist Greta Wengert stared down the pockmarked hillside at a pile of pesticide sprayers left behind, long after the raid. Wild animals had gnawed through the pressurized canisters, releasing the chemicals inside.

Theyre just these little death bombs, waiting for any wildlife that is going to investigate, said Wengert, co-founder of the Integral Ecology Research Center, a non-profit that studies the harms caused by cannabis grows on public lands. For all her stoic professionalism, she sounded a little sad.

For over a decade, Wengert and her colleagues have warned that illegal cannabis grows like this one dangerously pollute Californias public lands and pristine watersheds, with lasting consequences for ecosystems, water and wildlife.

Now, theyre sounding another alarm  that inadequate federal funding, disjointed communication, dangerous conditions and agencies stretched thin at both the state and federal level are leaving thousands of grow sites  and their trash, pesticides, fertilizers and more  to foul Californias forests.

Dozens of fertilizer bags wept blue fluid onto the forest floor. Irrigation tubes snaked across the craters of empty plant holes. The cold stillness felt temporary  as if the growers would return at any moment to prop up the crumpled tents, replant their crop and fling more beer cans and dirty underwear into the woods.

Wengert has tallied nearly 7,000 abandoned sites like this one on Californias public lands. Its almost certainly an underestimate, she said. Her team knows of only 587 that have been at least partly cleaned up.

No government agency can provide a comprehensive count; several referred CalMatters back to Wengerts nonprofit for an unofficial tally.

Most of the sites Wengerts team identified are in national forests, where limited funding and a shortage of personnel trained to safely identify and remove hazardous materials is driving a backlog in clean ups, a U.S. Forest Service spokesperson told CalMatters via an unsigned email.

The federal government, the spokesperson said, has dedicated no funding for the forest service to clean them up. And its leaving a mess in California.

A new playbook

The federal government owns nearly half of the more than 100 million acres in California. But its Californias agencies and lawmakers taking the lead on tackling the environmental harms of illegal grows even as the problem sprawls across state, federal and privately managed lands.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlifes policy is to clean up all grows spotted on its 1.1 million acres of wildlife areas, ecological reserves, and other properties, officials say.

Staff assist with clean ups on federal lands when asked, said cannabis program director Amelia Wright  typically on Californias dime. But, she said, Thats not our mandate.

Fees and taxes on Californias legalized cannabis market fuel state efforts  supporting the California Department of Fish and Wildlifes cannabis program and funding tens of millions of dollars in grants for rehabilitating places damaged by cultivation. These grants can cover clean-ups and sustainable cultivation projects, or even related efforts like fish conservation.

The department has helped remove almost 350,000 pounds of trash and more than 920 pesticide containers from grows on public lands over nearly a decade.

But former Assemblymember Jim Wood, a North Coast Democrat, said that as he prepared to leave office in 2024, progress on clean ups was still too slow.

It doesnt reflect what I see is the urgency to watersheds, and the water and the people that are served by them, he said.

In 2024, lawmakers passed Woods bill directing the Fish and Wildlife department to conduct a study to inform a statewide cleanup strategy for cannabis grows. The law requires the department to provide regular reports to the legislature about illegal cultivation and restoration efforts on lands both public and private.

To Wright, thats a path forward, however prospective it may be.

It just feels like such redemption right now for many of us, Wright said. Its a one of a kind program. So we didnt have a playbook  were still creating it.

But the study, which Wengerts organization is conducting on the states behalf, isnt due until next year. Meanwhile, the bloom of illicit pot grows on private land has been demanding Californias attention, a growing problem since voters legalized cannabis in 2016.

Its like whack a mole. They pop up in a new location, and then we have to go there  but the impacts are occurring across the landscape, said Scott Bauer, an environmental program manager with the Department of Fish and Wildlifes cannabis office.

The California Department of Justice told CalMatters it recently identified a substantial increase of illicit cannabis cultivations on or adjacent to public lands. Of the 605 sites where a multi-agency state and federal task force ripped out illicit cannabis plants, roughly 9% were on public lands  up from an average of 3 to 4%.

Everybody thought with legalization that a lot of these problems would go away, said Wood, the former assemblymember.

But, he added, the sites remain. Its a ticking environmental time bomb.

And the contamination, new research confirms, lingers.

This site will sit on this landscape

On a cold November morning, down one dirt road and up another, ecologist Mourad Gabriel led a safety briefing at the grow site in Shasta-Trinity National Forest.

Gabriel, who previously spearheaded a U.S. Forest Service effort tackling trespass grows on public lands, co-founded the research center with Wengert and now co-directs it with her. Hes also her spouse, and a foil to her calm watchfulness  dismayed by the state of the forest one moment, and bounding off to investigate an interesting mushroom or animal scat the next.

Please dont push the red shiny buttons, or lick the big pink things, Gabriel joked at the mouth of a well-worn path growers had carved into the woods. (Carbofuran, a dangerous and illegal pesticide often found on grow sites, is bright pink.)

The team, Gabriel explained, wasnt there to clean up the grow. They didnt have the money for that. Instead, he said, shouldering his backpack and strapping on a first aid kit, they were there to document the contaminants as part of a U.S. Forest Service-funded investigation into wildlife around cultivation sites.

This site will sit on this landscape until someone acquires some level of funding, Gabriel said. And no one can really push it, until we actually get that data.

Wengert and Gabriel have spent years collecting data at grow sites like this one. Theyve found carcasses of creatures so poisoned even the flies feeding on them died, and detected dangerous pesticides in nearby creeks more than a year after raids.

In recent work they published with scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, the team found that illegal grows pulsed pollutants from plastic, painkillers, personal care products, pot and pesticides into the soil that could be detected months or even years later. Some contaminants also showed up in nearby streams.

The pollutants diminished over time  absorbed into the landscape and washed into waterways. By the time the researchers tested for them, the concentrations had declined to levels lower than those found in agricultural soils.

But, they point out, remote habitats and sensitive headwaters are not where these chemicals are supposed to be. Past a marshy flat cratered with holes and piled with poison-green insecticide bags, Gabriel, Wengert and ecologist Ivan Medel trailed an armed U.S. Forest Service officer to a massive trash heap cordoned off by barbed wire.

Medel wedged himself through the strands and handed empty fertilizer bags dripping blue liquid out to Gabriel.

Force-feeding waterways the excess nutrients in fertilizer can upend entire ecosystems and spur algae blooms. The site is in the greater South Fork Trinity River watershed  vital, undammed habitat for protected salmon and other fish species.

That was pretty nasty, Gabriel said, as one bag spilled liquid over his gloved hands. He counted up the haul. Twelve bags right there.

By days end, the team discovered enough empty bags and bottles to have held 2,150 pounds of fertilizer and more than 29 gallons of liquid concentrate. All of that, the growers had poured into the land.

A federal void

In 2018, a federal audit lambasted the U.S. Forest Service for failing to clean up  or even document  trespass grows in national forests.

The agency was finding and eradicating cannabis grows in national forests effectively. But its failure to consistently clean them up, the audit said, put the public, wildlife, and environment at risk of contamination and could allow growers to return more easily.

Little has changed. From 2020 through 2024, when Gabriel worked for the agency, a spokesperson said the Forest Service prioritized reclaiming sites over investigating active grows.

But the agency said it still has received too little funding and has too few personnel trained to work with often hazardous materials. And the backlog persists. How big it is, the Forest Service wouldnt say. After declining an interview request and taking two months to reply to emailed inquiries, a spokesperson said CalMatters must submit a public records request.

The Forest Service now is shifting the responsibility for cleanups to individual forests. That, too, contributes to the backlog, the spokesperson said.

U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat and ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, said he has tried repeatedly to direct more funding to cleaning up trespass grows on federal lands, but with little success in Congress.

We have tried just about everything, said Huffman. Its clearly not enough.

Now, under the Trump administration, the Forest Service is even more understaffed. A spokesperson said while law enforcement staffing has remained steady, roughly 5,000 non-fire employees have either offboarded or are in the process of doing so through multiple voluntary separation programs.

Huffman put it more starkly. Theyve been gutted, he said. The Forest Service right now has a sign on the door that says, Were out of the office. Were not sure when well ever be back.

Cleaning it up

The Shasta-Trinity grow stretched for more than 6 acres through national forest land. Trash, and the smell of pot, were everywhere.

Law enforcement officers had removed the mouth of the irrigation tube diverting water from a nearby creek, but all the piping remained. It slithered over downed trees, past the craters of another abandoned grow to a waterfall where leaves and black tubing snarled in the rocks.

Gabriel clambered up the waterfall, where he discovered a sock and a plastic bottle with the top sliced off  a makeshift filter the growers used to keep the line clear of debris. He hung the bottle on a tree branch, like a ghoulish Christmas ornament.

Few organizations are qualified to do science-informed cleanups, and none work as widely as Wengert and Gabriels.

Californias Cannabis Restoration Grant Program is paying the team more than $5.3 million to conduct the legislatively mandated study on cleaning up grow sites, and also to train and support tribal teams and other organizations to do this work.

The study, and the training, include best practices for handling and disposing of hazardous waste, Gabriel said. More teams means more competition for the pot of state-allocated money, but he wants more allies in the fight.

Until someone cleans it up, it stays out here, Gabriel said from his perch in the waterfall, surrounded by a tangle of black irrigation pipes. He expected it could take years.

But thats not what happened.

Two weeks later, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife choppered away nearly 1,500 pounds of trash, 4,000 feet of irrigation pipe and 7 pesticide containers  restoring the rugged, remote forest.

The department had offered to help out the U.S. Forest Service and take the lead on the clean up, with its own helicopter, on its own budget, according to spokesperson Sarah Sol.

Months later, when Gabriel learned about it, he was shocked  and concerned. Sol said that fish and wildlife staff did not encounter any banned or restricted pesticides, and all had masks and nitrile gloves available to them.

But Gabriels team found residue in the pesticide sprayers on the hillside from a class of chemicals that includes banned and dangerous carbofuran. He worried that the clean up team could have unknowingly put themselves and others at risk.

There is a proper way to do it, and there is a cowboy way to do it, Gabriel said.

Its one site down  one patch of forest cleared. But thousands like it remain, littering Californias landscape.

___

This story was originally published by CalMatters and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

By RACHEL BECKER/CalMatters

CalMatters
LOS ANGELES (AP)  A federal judge on Monday blocked a California law from going into effect that would ban federal immigration agents from covering their faces, but they will still be required to wear clear identification showing their agency and badge number.

California became the first state to ban most law enforcement officers from wearing facial coverings under a bill that was signed in September following the summer of high-profile raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Los Angeles.

The Trump administration filed a lawsuit in November challenging the laws, arguing that they would threaten the safety of officers who are facing harassment, doxing and violence and that they violated the constitution because the state is directly regulating the federal government.

Judge Christina Snyder said she issued the initial ruling because the mask ban as it was enacted did not also apply to state law enforcement authorities, discriminating against the federal government. The ruling could have national implications as states grapple with how to deal with federal agents enforcing the Trump administrations immigration crackdown.

It left open the possibility to future legislation banning federal agents from wearing masks if it applied to all law enforcement agencies, with Snyder writing the Court finds that federal officers can perform their federal functions without wearing masks. The ruling will go into effect Feb. 19.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill in September banning some law enforcement officers from wearing masks, neck gaiters, and other facial coverings. It was slated to go into effect Jan. 1 but was put on hold due to the lawsuit.

In addition to exempting state law enforcement officers, it made exceptions for undercover agents, protective equipment like N95 respirators or tactical gear, and other situations where not wearing a mask would jeopardize an operation. Snyder sided with the federal government, which argued this exemption was discriminatory against federal agents.

Newsom also signed into law a measure requiring law enforcement to wear clear identification showing their agency and badge number while on the job, which was challenged by the federal government but upheld by the judge. In a statement, Newsom called the judges decision a a clear win for the rule of law.

California State Sen. Scott Weiner, who proposed the original bill to ban facial coverings, said Monday he would immediately introduce new legislation to include state police in the law.

ICE and Border Patrol are covering their faces to maximize their terror campaign and to insulate themselves from accountability, Weiner said in a news release. We will ensure our mask ban can be enforced.

At a Jan. 14 hearing, Snyder repeatedly asked the governments lawyer, Tiberius Davis, to explain why banning masks would impede the federal law enforcement in carrying out their duties, if officers rarely wore masks prior to 2025.

Davis cited claims by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that there has been a multifold increase in assaults and threats against federal officers. He also brought up an incident in Los Angeles where three women are being accused of livestreaming while following an ICE agent home and posting the address on Instagram.

There is real deterrence on the officers safety and ability to perform their duties, Davis said.

Cameron Bell, California Department of Justice attorney, challenged his claims, saying there was no concrete evidence that federal agents cant perform their duties without facial coverings.

Bell referenced declarations from U.S citizens who have been detained by federal agents but thought they were being kidnapped.

Its obvious why these laws are in the public interest, Bell said.

The federal government also argued in legal briefs that allowing Californias legislation could lead other states to be emboldened to impose similar unconstitutional restraints.

Davis cited a statement from Newsom in July 2025 during an interview posted online where he discussed the mask ban bill, saying, It appears that we dont have the legal authority for federal agents but we do for other law enforcement authorities.

Los Angeles County supervisors voted in December to enact a local ordinance banning law enforcement from wearing masks that went into effect Jan. 8. However, the sheriffs department said it would not enforce the ordinance until after the court ruled on the statewide mask ban. The Los Angeles Police Department had also said it wouldnt enforce the mask ban.

By JAIMIE DING

Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP)  The children of Jimmy Lai, a pro-democracy former Hong Kong media mogul and China critic, said Monday that a possible visit by President Donald Trump to Beijing in April could be crucial in securing the release of their 78-year-old father.

Lais son and daughter pleaded for their fathers freedom on humanitarian grounds after a Hong Kong court on Monday sentenced him to 20 years in prison following convictions under a Beijing-imposed national security law that has virtually silenced the citys dissent.

The president has said multiple times that this is a case that he cares about, Sebastien Lai said about Trump during a call with reporters. We are in a situation where the April visit will be, more obviously, be crucial, and, hopefully, my father will still be OK health-wise until that point.

Speaking of his father, the younger Lai said this is a man who is, unfortunately, is very close to dying. Hes a man who has gone through a tremendous amount. His body has deteriorated.

The ruling in Hong Kong is certain to add friction to already fragile U.S.-China relations, with Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping expected to meet this year to keep ties stabilized over thorny issues like tariffs, export restrictions and U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, a self-governed island that Beijing claims is Chinese territory.

While Trump has said several times he will be visiting Beijing this April, China has yet to confirm it.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the decision to sentence Lai to 20 years an unjust and tragic conclusion to this case. In a statement, Rubio urged Chinese authorities to grant Lai humanitarian parole, noting that Lai and his family have suffered enough after a trial lasting two years and his detention for more than five years.

After Lai was convicted in December, Trump said he felt so badly and that he had asked Xi to consider releasing Lai, who is the founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper, which was known for its critical reports about the governments in Hong Kong and Beijing.

Were hopeful but we dont know, his daughter Claire Lai said of the prospects that Trump would successfully negotiate for her fathers release.

Chris Tang, Hong Kongs secretary for security, accused external forces of ignoring the facts and making biased criticisms of court decisions. We will refute baseless allegations and smearing resolutely by presenting the truth and facts for all to see, Tang said.

In an interview with The Associated Press in London, Sebastien Lai said its time for world leaders to keep pressure on Beijing when they visit China or meet with Xi by bringing up his fathers case.

I could only pray that this pressure helps, the younger Lai said. I think my fathers case is the litmus test to whatever engagement we have with China.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmers government said he directly raised Jimmy Lais case with Xi during a visit to China last month. U.K. officials said they will rapidly engage further after Mondays sentencing, but it wasnt clear what that entailed.

Sebastien Lai said he is incredibly grateful for Trumps past remarks about freeing his father, which have given my family a lot of hope.

Now, its about saving his fathers life, the son said.

Its a 20-year sentence, which is comically large, given that my fathers 78. At that point in 20 years, hell be 100 almost, he said. But in the conditions hes been kept in  he might die before then.

___

Hui reported from London.

By DIDI TANG and SYLVIA HUI

Associated Press
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP)  Israeli military strikes on Monday killed three people west of Gaza City, according to the hospital where the casualties arrived.

Shifa Hospital reported the deaths amid the months-old ceasefire that has seen continued fighting. The Israeli army said Monday it is striking targets in response to Israeli troops coming under fire in the southern city of Rafah, which it says was a violation of the ceasefire. The army said it is striking targets in a precise manner.

The four-month-old U.S-backed ceasefire followed stalled negotiations and included Israel and Hamas accepting a 20-point plan proposed by U.S. President Donald Trump aimed at ending the war unleashed by Hamas Oct. 7, 2023, attack into Israel. At the time, Trump said it would lead to a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace.

Hamas freed all the living hostages it still held at the outset of the deal in exchange for thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and the remains of others.

But the larger issues the agreement sought to address, including the future governance of the strip, were met with reservations, and the U.S. offered no firm timeline.

Top UN official concerned over Israels West Bank decision

The United Nations top official on Monday expressed concern about the Israeli security cabinets decision to deepen the countrys control over the occupied West Bank.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is gravely concerned and warned that the Israeli decision could erode the prospect of a two-state solution, spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

Such actions, including Israels continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory are not only destabilizing but  as recalled by the International Court of Justice  unlawful, he said.

Israel s security cabinet on Sunday approved measures that aim to deepen Israeli control over the occupied West Bank and weaken the already limited powers of the Palestinian Authority.

Israels far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the measures would make it easier for Jewish settlers to force Palestinians to give up land, adding that we will continue to bury the idea of a Palestinian state.

Israel captured the West Bank, as well as Gaza and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three territories for a future state.

Rafah crossing improving, official says

The Palestinian official set to oversee day-to-day affairs in Gaza said on Monday that passage through the Rafah crossing with Egypt is starting to improve after a chaotic first week of reopening marked by confusion, delays and a limited number of crossings.

Ali Shaath, head of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, told Egypts Al-Qahera News that operations at the crossing were improving on Sunday. He said 88 Palestinians were scheduled to travel through Rafah on Monday, more than have crossed in the initial days since reopening. Israel did not immediately confirm the figures.

The European Union border mission at the crossing said in a statement Sunday that 284 Palestinians had crossed since reopening. Travelers included people returning after having fled the war and medical evacuees and their escorts. In total, 53 medical evacuees departed during the first five days of operations.

That remains well below the agreed target of 50 medical evacuees exiting and 50 returnees entering daily, negotiated by Israeli, Egyptian, Palestinian and international officials.

Shaath and other members of the committee remain in Egypt, without Israeli authorization to enter the war-battered enclave.

The Rafah crossing opened last week for the first time since mid-2024, one of the main requirements for the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. It was closed Friday and Saturday because of confusion around operations.

Palestinian officials say nearly 20,000 people are seeking to leave Gaza for medical care unavailable in its largely destroyed health system.

Palestinians who returned to Gaza in the first days after the crossing reopened described hourslong delays and invasive searches by Israeli authorities and an Israeli-backed Palestinian armed group, Abu Shabab. Israel denied mistreatment.

Gazas Health Ministry said on Monday that five people were killed over the previous 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 581 since the October ceasefire. The truce led to the return of the remaining hostages  both living captives and bodies  from the 251 abducted during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war.

Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the attack. Israels military offensive has since killed over 72,000 Palestinians, according to the ministry, which operates under the Hamas-run government and is staffed by medical professionals. The U.N. and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties.

___

Magdy reported from Cairo and Metz from Jerusalem. Sally Abou AlJoud reported from Beirut

Find more of APs coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

By WAFAA SHURAFA, SAMY MAGDY and SAM METZ

Associated Press
KATHMANDU, Feb 10: As the House of Representatives (HoR) elections draw closer, election activity has intensified across the country, with more than 3,400 candidates from political parties and independent groups competing in 165 constituencies under the direct election system.

Candidates have stepped up outreach to voters with campaign programmes and policy pledges. While all constituencies carry equal representation, Koshi and Madhesh provinces have emerged as major focal points due to the presence of prominent national leaders and high-profile contenders.

In Koshi Province, key constituencies are drawing attention as senior leaders including former Prime Minister and CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli, Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) Chairman Rajendra Lingden, former Speaker Devaraj Ghimire, former Deputy Speaker Indira Rana Magar, Nepali Congress (NC) leader Shekhar Koirala, Shram Sanskriti Party Chairman Harka Sampang, and Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) senior leader Balendra Shah are in the race.

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Similarly, several constituencies in Madhesh Province have become national talking points, with Nepali Congress President Gagan Kumar Thapa, former Prime Minister and Nepali Communist Party (NCP) leader Madhav Kumar Nepal, NC leader Bimalendra Nidhi, Janata Samajwadi Party Chairman Upendra Yadav, and Janamat Party Chairman CK Raut contesting the polls.

In Kathmandu, constituencies such as Kathmandu-5, where former Deputy Prime Minister Ishwar Pokharel and RPP leader Kamal Thapa are contesting, and Kathmandu-3, where Ujyalo Nepal Party Chairman Kulman Ghising is running, have drawn strong public interest. Other closely watched races include Chitwan-3, where Renu Dahal, daughter of NCP Coordinator Pushpa Kamal Dahal, is contesting, and Dang-2, where UML General Secretary Shankar Pokharel is competing under an alliance with the Maoist Centre.

Among the most closely watched contests is Jhapa-5, where UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli is facing RSP leader Balendra Shah. Both parties have projected their candidates as potential future prime ministers. Oli, who is contesting a House election for the eighth time, previously lost only oncefrom Jhapa in the 2064 BS Constituent Assembly election. In the last election, he secured 52,319 votes. Shah, a former mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City, is contesting a parliamentary election for the first time. Other candidates in the constituency include Ranjit Tamang (CPN), Mandhara Chimoriya (NC) and Laxmi Prasad Sangroula (RPP).

Jhapa-2 has also attracted attention, with 18 candidatesfrom 15 political parties and three independentscompeting for votes from 147,522 registered voters. Major contenders include former Speaker Devaraj Ghimire and Deputy Speaker Indira Rana Magar. In the previous election, Ghimire won with 28,716 votes, narrowly ahead of independent candidate Bhadra Prasad Nepal, who has now joined the RPP.

Another key contest is in Jhapa-3, where RPP Chairman Rajendra Lingden is seeking re-election. He won the seat in 2022 with UML support. His challengers include candidates from the Nepali Congress, UML, CPN and RSP.

In Sarlahi-4, NC President Gagan Thapa is contesting after leaving Kathmandu-4, where he had been elected three times. He faces 26 candidates, including several prominent independents. Meanwhile, Sarlahi-2 has become a battleground between veteran Madhesh leaders Mahindra Raya Yadav and Rajendra Mahto, alongside candidates from the NC, UML and RSP.

Other constituencies drawing national attention include Sunsari-1, Morang-6, Dhanusha-3, Saptari-2 and 3, Rautahat-1, Siraha-4, Rukum East, Chitwan-2, Dang-2, Dolpa, Rupandehi-2, Kathmandu-3 and Kathmandu-5.

Political analysts say results from these high-profile constituencies could shape not only the composition of the next parliament but also future political alignments and leadership equations at the national level.
KATHMANDU, Feb 10: Nepali banks and financial institutions (BFIs) may face stricter provisioning requirements after a recent loan portfolio review found weaknesses in credit risk management and reporting among Class A banks.

Officials at Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) said a review of 10 large commercial banks, conducted by Bangladeshi consulting firm Howladar Yunus & Co, revealed that banks had failed to maintain adequate provisioning against loans at risk of default. The review also found lapses in loan classification linked to recovery prospects.

The report indicates that banks have not properly adopted rules related to loan classification and provisioning, increasing credit risk, an NRB official said on condition of anonymity.

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The central bank commissioned the external review after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) made it a condition for approving the fourth tranche of funding to Nepal under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF). In a statement issued in February 2023, the IMF had warned that asset quality in Nepals banking sector had deteriorated due to weaker borrower repayment capacity, higher lending rates and rising leverage, despite capital-adequacy ratios remaining above regulatory thresholds.

The consultant reviewed the loan portfolios of Global IME Bank, Nabil Bank, Nepal Investment Mega Bank, Rastriya Banijya Bank, Kumari Bank, Laxmi Sunrise Bank, Prabhu Bank, Himalayan Bank, NMB Bank and NIC Asia Bank.

According to the report, the average non-performing loan (NPL) ratio of Nepali banks stood at 7.70 percent, with two banks recording NPLs above 10 percenthigher than the figures reported by the banks to the NRB.

The review also found weaknesses in project documentation and monitoring. Several banks had failed to maintain proper records of site visits and project progress, while some were found to be involved in evergreeningissuing additional loans to stalled projects with little or no progress.

The consultant has recommended that the NRB tighten supervision of loan classification and overdue categorisation.

Under current NRB rules, loans overdue by up to one month are classified as good loans and require 1 percent provisioning. Loans overdue by 13 months are placed on a watchlist with 5 percent provisioning. Overdues of 36 months are classified as sub-standard with 25 percent provisioning, while loans overdue by 612 months are deemed doubtful and require 50 percent provisioning. Loans overdue by more than a year are treated as bad debt, requiring 100 percent provisioning.
Prophet David Owuor has warned that Kenyas 2027 General Election could trigger severe instability unless the nation undertakes a process of national repentance.

Speaking in an interview with journalist Samira Mohammed on TV47, and shared on the Ministry of Repentance and Holiness YouTube channel, Owuor said he had received a prophecy foretelling a period of intense political turmoil. He described visions of unbelievable contestation and a political environment that could spiral out of control.

Owuor said the coming election could be the most difficult period Kenya has faced since independence. He cautioned that the situation could become nearly impossible to manage if corrective action is not taken, pointing to the rise of powerful, uncontrolled forces and the mobilization of younger generations.

While he did not reveal the full details of his visions, Owuor stressed the urgency of his warning and urged Kenyans to prepare for potential instability. He also noted that the future was not set in stone.

Divine mercy is still possible, he said, calling on citizens to embrace repentance. He urged the government to organize a national day of repentance in 2026, a step he said could avert the crisis he foresaw. Without such action, he warned, the country could face widespread disorder.

The warning comes amid past controversies. In 2025, claims circulated that Owuor had predicted the end of the world on August 2, which he later dismissed as false. He has also gained attention recently following a rally in Nakuru, where he said attendees experienced healing from chronic illnesses, including HIV and AIDS.

Owuors latest prophecy has reignited public discussion on the nations political stability and the role of spiritual guidance in navigating tense electoral periods.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has dismissed viral social media claims suggesting it has been releasing mosquitoes in Kenya.

In a statement, the foundation clarified that it does not conduct mosquito release activities in Kenya or anywhere else.

The Gates Foundation is aware of social media posts claiming that we release mosquitoes in Kenya. This claim is false, the foundation said.

It further explained that it neither operates laboratories that release mosquitoes nor runs vector-control programs in Nairobi or other parts of the country.

The Gates Foundation does not release mosquitoes, operate laboratories that do so, or run vector-control activities in Nairobi or anywhere else, the statement added.

The foundation emphasized that malaria prevention and control in Kenya is led entirely by Kenyan authorities and institutions, operating under national laws and regulatory frameworks.

In Kenya, malaria prevention and control efforts are led by Kenyan authorities and institutions, in accordance with national laws and regulatory oversight, the foundation said.

Its involvement in Kenya, the foundation clarified, is limited to supporting locally identified health priorities in partnership with the government, researchers, and public health organizations.

The foundation supports Kenyan-led priorities transparently and responsibly, working alongside governments, researchers, and public health partners, it stated.

The clarification comes after social media users raised concerns about mosquitoes in Nairobi, with some attributing their presence to the Gates Foundation.

One user wrote on X: Our Capital City Nairobi is now flooded with mosquitoes released from your laboratories to eliminate the malaria-carrying ones were told. We believe your genetically modified mosquitoes are designed to harm us. Theyre now busy biting children and the elderly.

Another questioned: Has Bill Gates Labs deliberately released Mosquitoes in Nairobi so that he can later sell us Malaria drugs? Is that what has happened?

A third user added: Bill Gates Foundation released mosquitoes from their laboratories in Nairobi to eliminate the ones which were carrying Malaria. The genetically modified mosquitoes which were supposed to eliminate Malaria are now chewing children and the elderly unapologetically. These people, I think, are creating problems so that they will benefit from it.
A Kenyan-born truck driver based in Texas has been sentenced to prison in the United States after admitting to deliberately ramming another tractor-trailer during a deadly road-rage incident on the New Jersey Turnpike.

Joseph Nyandwaro, 41, received a six-year prison sentence on Friday, February 6, 2026, after pleading guilty to second-degree vehicular homicide at the Gloucester County Superior Court.

The fatal crash occurred on June 22, 2025, in Woolwich Township, along the northbound lanes of the New Jersey Turnpike. Prosecutors told the court that Nyandwaro intentionally struck a truck driven by Osman Aden, a 40-year-old Minnesota resident, forcing the vehicle into a concrete barrier. Aden died instantly from the impact.

According to investigators, the incident followed a series of aggressive driving actions.

Nyandwaro repeatedly blocked Adens truck before deliberately ramming, State Police and witnesses told investigators, as quoted by MSN.

Authorities said dashcam footage retrieved from inside Nyandwaros truck captured the violent collision and showed him laughing as he drove away from the scene.

He did not stop to check on the victim but continued driving, authorities said.

He later tried to alter the appearance of his truck and conceal damage, prosecutors added.

Investigators tracked down Nyandwaros vehicle with assistance from the trucking company he worked for. Forensic inspections later confirmed his involvement in the fatal crash.

In court, prosecutors described the case as a clear instance of second-degree homicide. As part of a plea deal, Nyandwaro also admitted to leaving the scene of a fatal accident.

Under the agreement, the prosecution recommended a six-year custodial sentence, with Nyandwaro required to serve at least 85 percent of the term before becoming eligible for parole.
National Treasury Cabinet Secretary (CS) John Mbadi is pushing for the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) Central Management Committee to kick out party Secretary General Edwin Sifuna. Mbadi accuses Sifuna of spearheading a rebel movement from inside the party.

According to Mbadi, who previously chaired ODM, Sifuna and his supporters have shifted their loyalty to the United opposition. Hes now calling on party leader Oburu Oginga to organize a Central Management Committee (CMC) meeting to decide what happens to Sifuna.

If someone does not want to agree with ODM policies, that person should be left to go so that we know how many people he is leaving with, he said.

Speaking in Suba South, Homa Bay county on Sunday, Mbadi declared that the time has come to show the door to those who disagree with the party. He contends that Sifuna and his allies cannot hold ODM hostage just to serve their personal interests.

Someone like Sifuna will not remain in ODM because already he is conflicted. He is now selling the agenda of someone else. Why are you pretending? You cannot keep him at the party, the Treasury CS said.

The CS made these remarks on the same day that Sifuna led the group calling itself Linda Wananchi to Busia County, where they maintained that ODM cannot enter into a pre-election agreement with President William Ruto.

CS Mbadi brushed off the Linda Wananchi campaign that Sifuna, Babu Owino and James Orengo are leading, claiming it lacks any basis.

He warned that the Central Management Committee shouldnt delay action because the secretary general has demonstrated indiscipline toward party leader Oburu Oginga. He stands firm that the UDA-ODM partnership will continue despite resistance from the rebels.

ODM is a solid party. There is no way it will fail. It will remain solid the way Raila left it. Some people think we can not play politics. We will, and we will ensure we talk to our people to remain steadfast in ODM under the leadership of Oburu Oginga, Mbadi argued.
A constitutional petition has been filed at the High Court challenging the use of State House for partisan political activities, with the petitioner seeking a declaration that such conduct violates the Constitution.

The case, lodged at the Constitutional and Human Rights Division of the High Court in Nairobi, was filed by lawyer Lempaa Suyianka, who argues that public officials have unlawfully used State resources to advance the political interests of the ruling United Democratic Alliance (UDA).

The petition names the Attorney General, the Comptroller of State House, the United Democratic Alliance, and President William Ruto, sued in his official capacity, as respondents.

In his filings, Suyianka asks the court to compel UDA to refund the State all costs incurred during political activities conducted at State House and State Lodges. He also wants the court to issue a permanent injunction barring all political parties from holding meetings, forums, or any political activities at the State House.

According to court documents, the petitioner argues that State House and State Lodges are national institutions reserved strictly for official State business and maintained using public funds approved by Parliament. He contends that using these facilities for party politics breaches constitutional safeguards designed to separate the State from political parties.

The petition details several political meetings allegedly held at State House between April 2025 and February 2026. These include engagements with regional political leaders, internal party meetings, and a UDA aspirants forum that reportedly drew thousands of party officials and members.

Suyianka maintains that these gatherings did not qualify as State functions. Instead, he argues, they were political party events involving party officials, aspirants, and elected leaders acting in their political capacities.

He further claims that State House facilities and resources, including security, staff, logistics, catering, and communication infrastructure were used during the meetings. Despite this, the petitioner says authorities have not disclosed the costs incurred or clarified whether UDA reimbursed the State.

The petition also accuses the Comptroller of State House of failing to account for public resources used during the events, a move the lawyer says violates constitutional principles of accountability and transparency.

According to the petitioner, allowing one political party to access State House for political activities gives it an unfair advantage over rival parties, weakens multiparty democracy, and blurs the constitutional line between the State and partisan politics.

The petition cites alleged breaches of multiple constitutional provisions, including Articles 10, 73, 75, 129, 131, 201, and 226, alongside sections of the Political Parties Act, which bar the use of public resources to promote political party interests.

Among the key remedies sought, the petitioner wants the court to declare the use of State House for partisan political activities unconstitutional and order the Comptroller of State House to disclose the full cost of all political activities conducted at the facility.
Individuals named Brennon are often perceived as possessing natural leadership qualities and a strong sense of independence. They tend to be charismatic and confident, with an adventurous spirit that draws them to new experiences and challenges. The name's royal connotations ('prince') often translate into expectations of nobility in character, dignity in behavior, and a protective nature toward those they care about. Brennan's typically exhibit a blend of traditional values and modern thinking, making them adaptable yet grounded.



They're often described as reliable friends and determined individuals who approach life with both practicality and vision. Their communication style tends to be direct yet thoughtful, and they often excel in situations requiring both courage and diplomacy. The name suggests someone who is both a dreamer and a doercapable of envisioning grand possibilities while also possessing the practical skills to make them reality. This combination of visionary thinking and grounded action makes Brennan's particularly effective in leadership roles where they can inspire others while managing practical details.
People named Cahir are typically characterized by a strong sense of purpose and natural leadership abilities that inspire confidence in others. They possess a strategic mindset that allows them to assess situations carefully before taking action, reflecting the name's warrior heritage of thoughtful combat rather than impulsive aggression. Their determination is often matched by a quiet intensity and deep loyalty to their principles and loved ones, making them reliable and steadfast in both personal and professional relationships. These individuals tend to be protective of those under their care while maintaining a respectful distance that commands authority without being overbearing.



Emotionally, Cahirs often exhibit remarkable resilience and the ability to remain composed under pressure, drawing strength from their convictions during challenging times. While they may not be overtly expressive, their actions consistently demonstrate their values and commitments. They typically approach life with a sense of responsibility and honor, valuing integrity above convenience or popularity. This combination of inner strength, strategic thinking, and moral conviction makes them natural leaders who earn respect through competence and character rather than through force or manipulation. Their personality reflects the historical associations of the namewarriors not just in physical sense, but in their approach to life's battles and challenges.
Individuals named Chepe are often perceived as having a nurturing and expansive personality, reflecting the name's meaning of multiplication and increase. They tend to be community-oriented people who excel at bringing people together and creating abundance in their relationships and endeavors. Their character typically combines practical wisdom with spiritual depth, making them natural leaders who can navigate both material and emotional landscapes effectively.



Chepes are generally seen as reliable and growth-oriented, with an innate ability to turn challenging situations into opportunities for expansion. They often display strong family values and a protective nature toward their loved ones, while simultaneously maintaining a visionary outlook that allows them to see potential where others see limitations. This combination of grounded practicality and spiritual optimism makes them particularly effective in roles that require both management skills and inspirational leadership, often becoming pillars in their communities and families.
KUNMING, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Under a winter sun in Xishuangbanna, a group of young leaders from Indonesia, Kenya, Laos, Tanzania and Uganda recently trekked into the lush mountains of southwest China's Yunnan Province. They came not as tourists, but as students of a "living classroom" focused on rural development.

Their campus was Hebian Village, home to a Yao ethnic group nestled near the China-Laos border in Mengla County. Once a pocket of deep poverty, Hebian has been transformed into a "star village" that has received thousands of officials, scholars, experts and young people from Global South countries.

Here, the traditional wooden houses of the Yao people have been turned into guestrooms, conference halls and rural bars, a model which enables modern tourism to fit seamlessly into this village.

Watching Yao villagers manage high-end guestrooms that have doubled local incomes, Byaruhanga Emmanuel Abwooli, a participant from Uganda, saw more than just profit -- he saw a solution.

In Uganda, household farming faces high disease risks and loose management. China's model of combining traditional breeding with modern biosecurity and circular agriculture offers a clear, feasible path toward environmental friendliness and higher efficiency, Abwooli said.

Such transformation is equally noticeable in three villages housing members of the Dai ethnic group in the city of Jinghong in Xishuangbanna, where a decommissioned water tower has been reborn as a trendy cafe overlooking a modern swimming pool.

Yan Shuaile, who is the head of these villages, shared that villagers take turns maintaining the landscape. "Even with different cultures and customs, staying here for a few days allows these students to feel the vitality of China's rural development," Yan said.

For many, the high-tech nature of modern Chinese agriculture was the biggest surprise. Al Fiqie, a young entrepreneur from Indonesia, visited an agricultural service station, where giant drones and smart tractors stood ready for use in the tropical fields.

Technology makes agriculture cool, Fiqie said, while adding that the future of the Global South lies in the fusion of tech and tradition.

Yunnan's journey is an impressive microcosm of China's broader progress in rural revitalization. As one of China's most ethnically diverse provinces featuring some of its most complex terrain, Yunnan has nonetheless managed to lift 9.33 million rural residents out of poverty.

Data reflects this transformation. Per capita disposable income of rural residents in Yunnan rose from 12,842 yuan (about 1,850 U.S. dollars) in 2020 to 17,450 yuan in 2024, with an average annual growth of 8 percent, consistently outperforming the national average. Last year, the disposable income of residents in the province reached 31,311 yuan, up 4.6 percent from the previous year.

Yunnan follows a philosophy of "building the road first, then the industry," said Han Bo, a researcher at the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences. In regions where 98 percent of the land is comprised of high mountains and deep valleys, such as Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture, infrastructure was a prerequisite for industry.

Local officials in Nujiang, like Hong Weizhi, emphasize the importance of cultivating local industry, improving infrastructure, and training locals to master specialized skills, including those needed in coffee and rubber processing.

As night fell, the crackle of a bonfire replaced the hum of production lines. Yao dances merged with African songs in a cross-cultural celebration that turned a training session into a lifelong network. "We have built a platform for Global South countries to learn from each other," said Haji Yahya Khatib from Tanzania. "More importantly, we have found like-minded friends."

For 46-year-old villager Yan Wenhan, the steady stream of "foreign faces," ranging from students and journalists to diplomats, is a source of pride. His village is no longer a hidden mountain hamlet, but instead serves as a window through which the world can witness the rapid advancement of China's rural revitalization.

Xinhua News APP Feb 9, 2026




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Prashant Pise, Additional Secretary (Emigration Policy & Welfare), led the Indian delegation to the 8th Ministerial Consultations of the Abu Dhabi Dialogue (ADD) held in Dubai from January 31 to February 1, a statement by the Ministry of External Affairs said. Established in 2008, the Abu Dhabi Dialogue is a regional, voluntary, and non-binding consultative mechanism comprising 11 Asian countries of labour origin and 7 destination states. It provides a platform for cooperation on contractual labour mobility, exchange of best practices, and sharing of experiences among Member States. India''s active engagement in the ADD reflects the Government of India''s commitment to promoting safe, orderly, and legal migration, while safeguarding the welfare and rights of Indian migrant workers, as per the statement. On the sidelines of the event, the Additional Secretary held bilateral meetings with the Undersecretary of Labour Market Development and Regulation and the Assistant Undersecretary for Communications and International Relations, Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation of the United Arab Emirates, to discuss various measures taken by the two governments to ensure the welfare of Indian migrant workers in the UAE, as per the MEA statement. The discussions also touched on labour mobility, skills development, and the use of technological solutions to strengthen labour mobility between the two countries. In a post on X, the Indian Embassy in Dubai said, "Shri Prashant Pise, Additional Secretary (Emigration Policy & Welfare), MEA, led the Indian delegation to the 8th Ministerial Consultations of the Abu Dhabi Dialogue held in Dubai." https://x.com/IndembAbuDhabi/status/2018716047625322813?s=20 Meanwhile, on January 25, Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighted that "India''s family system formed an integral part of our tradition" and said that many countries around the world hold such family systems in "high regard". During his Mann ki Baat, PM Modi said, "India''s family system is an integral part of our tradition. It is viewed with great curiosity in many countries around the world. Many countries hold such family systems in high regard." India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) established diplomatic relations in 1972. While the UAE opened its Embassy in India in 1972, the Indian Embassy in UAE was opened in 1973. (ANI)
Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has proposed to significantly reduce the minimum value of investment by individual investors in Social Impact Funds (SIFs) in a bid to deepen participation and strengthen the Social Stock Exchange (SSE) framework. In a consultation paper for public comments published on Monday, SEBI said that, based on deliberations held with the Social Stock Exchange Advisory Committee (SSEAC), it has proposed to reduce the minimum value of investment by individual investors in SIFs from rupees two lakh to rupees one thousand. It stated, "Based on the deliberations held with the SSEAC, it is proposed to reduce the minimum value of investment by individual investors in SIFs from rupees two lakh to rupees one thousand". A Social Impact Fund (SIF) is a SEBI-regulated, privately pooled investment vehicle that invests its funds into social ventures, such as non-profits or for-profit social enterprises, to solve societal problems like poverty or healthcare gaps. Classified as a Category I Alternative Investment Fund (AIF), it allows investors to earn financial returns while creating measurable social impact SEBI noted that under the existing provisions of the SEBI (Alternative Investment Funds) Regulations, 2012, an individual investor is required to make a minimum investment of rupees two lakh in a Social Impact Fund that invests only in securities of Not for Profit Organisations (NPOs) registered or listed on a Social Stock Exchange. The proposed change aims to make such investments more accessible to a larger number of investors. The regulator explained that the proposal is intended to align the minimum investment requirement under the AIF Regulations with the minimum application size prescribed for subscription to Zero Coupon Zero Principal Instruments (ZCZP) under the SEBI (Issue of Capital and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2018. The minimum application size for ZCZP is currently rupees one thousand from March 19, 2025. SEBI said that aligning these thresholds would help attract small investors and encourage broader participation in funding social enterprises through SIFs. The consultation paper also highlighted that the proposal is part of a broader review undertaken by SEBI, in consultation with the SSEAC, to further strengthen the Social Stock Exchange framework. Apart from lowering the minimum investment value in SIFs, SEBI has also proposed extending the period of registration for not-for-profit organisations on the Social Stock Exchange without raising funds, and reducing the minimum subscription requirement for issuance of Zero Coupon Zero Principal Instruments. According to the SEBI, the current framework allows an NPO to remain registered on the Social Stock Exchange for a maximum period of two years without raising funds. SEBI has proposed extending this period by one additional year, subject to approval by the Social Stock Exchanges, to address practical challenges faced by NPOs, such as delays in statutory approvals. Further, SEBI has also proposed reducing the minimum subscription requirement for issuance of ZCZP from 75 per cent to 50 per cent in specific cases where project costs and outcomes can be proportionately allocated on a per-unit basis. This move is aimed at encouraging greater participation by NPOs and facilitating smoother fundraising on the Social Stock Exchange platform. SEBI has invited public comments and suggestions on the proposed changes, including the reduction in the minimum value of investment in Social Impact Funds, as part of the consultation process. The regulator said the feedback received will be considered before taking a final decision on the proposed amendments. (ANI)
NewsVoir Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], February 10: PayU, India's leading diversified fintech platform, today announced the launch of inFINity 3.0, the most ambitious and comprehensive edition of its fintech accelerator program to date. Designed for early-stage fintech startups, the latest edition of inFINity offers a high-octane opportunity for founders to validate product-market fit, sharpen Go-To-Market strategies, unlock distribution access, and build for institutional scale. As part of inFINity 3.0, PayU has partnered with Atrium Ventures, a micro venture capital firm, to provide select startups with direct exposure to early institutional capital. Atrium Ventures will mentor the cohort and actively participate in Demo Day, creating pathways for startups to pursue potential investment opportunities. Additionally, AWS continues as the Official Cloud Partner for inFINity 3.0, providing participating startups access to cloud infrastructure, technical enablement, and AWS Activate credits. What does inFINity 3.0 offer: * Fast-track to market through PayU's ecosystem: Participants gain structured access to PayU's bespoke payments solutions, merchant network, and banking partners. This enables faster pilots and real customer traction. * Intensive four-week acceleration sprint: inFINity 3.0 runs a structured four-week sprint focused on Go-To-Market strategy, compliance navigation, scale, and making them investment ready--compressing months of learning into weeks * 1:1 mentorship from fintech founders and ecosystem leaders: Founders receive direct guidance from PayU leaders, and domain experts who have built and scaled fintech businesses in India's regulated markets. * High-Impact Bootcamp and Demo Day hosted in India's startup capital: The program culminates into an intensive 1.5-day Bootcamp and Demo Day in Bengaluru, featuring curated interactions with select fintech-founders, investors, and ecosystem partners. As additional benefits, the selected cohort will also unlock up to $10,000 in AWS Cloud Credits per startup (subject to eligibility) *(1), alongside exclusive masterclasses from industry stalwarts such as Umang Kumar, Co-founder & CEO, Cardekho SEA, and Nitin Jain, Co-founder, Ofbusiness. "India's fintech ecosystem is at an inflection point, with budding founders solving real problems and driving economic impact at scale," said Anirban Mukherjee, CEO, PayU. "Through inFINity, our endeavor is to mentor these innovators and connect them with the right investors and strategic ecosystem partners they need to scale. It isn't a strategy; it's our way of giving back to the ecosystem that's reshaping India's financial future. This is just a beginning, and we'll continue building more ambitious initiatives to support our vision of nurturing the country's fintech entrepreneurs." inFINity 3.0 builds on the extraordinary success of its first two editions that collectively received 1,000+ applications. Over the last two editions, the program has seen tangible outcomes such as distribution partnerships, commercial pilots, and increased investor readiness. Program Timelines and Participation Criteria: Applications for inFINity 3.0 are currently open and the last date to apply is 6th March 2026. Upon application closure, a four-week acceleration program will run throughout March 2026, culminating in an intensive 1.5-day Bootcamp and Demo Day in Bangalore during the third week of April 2026. The application is open for early-stage fintech startups that have raised less than $5 million and are seeking seed to Series A funding. Beyond inFINity, PayU has built one of India's most comprehensive startup ecosystems, supporting founders across stages through PayU for Startups -- enabling seamless payments, credit access, and scalable financial infrastructure. PayU has also partnered with government ecosystem enablers such as Startup India, DPIIT, state startup bodies including Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh, along with banking institutions such as IDFC FIRST Bank, to deliver tailored financial and payment solutions for startups, particularly beyond metro cities. For more details, visit: www.infinitynow.tech About PayU PayU, India's leading diversified fintech platform with Prosus as an investor, operates businesses that are regulated by the Reserve Bank of India and offers advanced solutions to meet the digital financial services needs of customers (merchants, banks, and consumers). PayU provides payment gateway solutions to online businesses through its cutting-edge and award-winning technology and has empowered 4.5 lakhs+ businesses, including India's leading enterprises, e-commerce giants and SMBs. It enables businesses to collect digital payments across 100+ online payment methods such as Credit Cards, Debit Cards, Net Banking, EMIs, pay-later, QR, UPI, Wallets, and more. It's a preferred partner in the affordability ecosystem, offering the maximum coverage of issuers and easy-to-implement integrations across card-based EMIs, pay-later options and new-age cardless EMIs. PayU offers e-commerce brands best-in-industry success rates while ensuring a seamless checkout experience. (1)Terms & Conditions: Cloud credits will be provided through the AWS Activate program. Startups with existing AWS credits will receive a top-up to the maximum eligible amount. Credit applications must be submitted within 30 days of program completion. Credits only valid for building, testing, and scaling on AWS cloud infrastructure. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same.)
NewsVoir New Delhi [India], February 10: Building on two highly successful seasons that celebrated grassroots ingenuity and rural entrepreneurship, TAFE - Tractors and Farm Equipment Limited, one of the world's largest tractor manufacturers and the maker of India's iconic Massey Ferguson tractors, announced the launch of Season 3 of the 'MASSEY DYNASTAR Contest 2026 - #SabseBadeAllrounder Ki Talaash'. TAFE's MASSEY DYNASTAR Season 3, the biggest edition yet, is envisioned as a national innovation platform designed to empower farmers, entrepreneurs, students, startups, and rural changemakers. Celebrated for its progressive approach in recognizing and nurturing new ideas in agriculture and rural entrepreneurship, the MASSEY DYNASTAR Contest serves as an online platform for farmers, entrepreneurs, students, academicians, and innovators with original concepts that can create meaningful impact using Massey Ferguson tractors. Season 3 expands its scope by inviting ideas powered by any Massey Ferguson tractor unlocking limitless possibilities across agriculture, allied sectors, and rural enterprises, with exciting rewards and greater opportunities for participants to showcase their creativity on a national stage. The shortlisted participants will gain national recognition and the opportunity to present their concepts before an expert jury comprising industry specialists and senior leaders from TAFE. The winner of MASSEY DYNASTAR Season 3 will win a Massey Ferguson 254 DYNASMART tractor worth approximately Rs. 8.2 lakhs, reputed for performance, versatility, and design. Participants can register online and submit their ideas in either video or text format, in English or any Indian regional language. Each submission must demonstrate a practical and feasible application of a Massey Ferguson tractor that enhances farming practices, enables new business opportunities, or drives positive social and economic change. Shortlisted finalists will be invited to present their solutions to the jury in a Grand Finale event where the most innovative and impactful concepts will be recognized and awarded. The contest is open to Indian citizens above 18 years of age. Participants from across the country can register and submit their entries online. For more details, registration, and the complete terms and conditions, visit masseyfergusonindia.com/DYNASTAR/season-3/ As India moves toward a future shaped by modern agriculture, sustainability, and inclusive growth, MASSEY DYNASTAR Season 3 stands as a call to every innovator with an idea to step forward and shape tomorrow. With a broader vision, wider participation, and greater rewards, this new season promises to be the grandest celebration yet and strongly reaffirms TAFE's long-standing commitment to nurturing agri entrepreneurship and empowering changemankers across the rural landscape. TAFE - Tractors and Farm Equipment Limited, an Indian tractor major incorporated in 1960 in Chennai, India. As one of the largest tractor manufacturers in the world and the second-largest in India by volume, TAFE sells over 180,000 tractors annually. TAFE has earned the trust of customers through its range of products, which are widely acclaimed for their quality and low cost of operation. A strong distribution network of over 1,600 dealers effectively supports TAFE's four iconic tractor brands - Massey Ferguson India, TAFE Tractors, Eicher Tractors, and IMT. TAFE exports tractors to more than 80 countries, powering farms in Asia, Africa, Europe, the Americas, and Russia. In 2005, TAFE acquired the Tractors, Engines and Transmissions business of the legendary Eicher brand with German roots, through a wholly owned subsidiary - TAFE Motors and Tractors Limited (TMTL). In addition to tractors, TAFE and its subsidiaries have diverse business interests in various sectors including farm machinery, diesel engines and generators, engineering plastics, gears and transmission components, hydraulic pumps and cylinders, vehicle franchises and plantations. TAFE acquired the iconic Serbian tractor and agricultural equipment brand IMT - Industrija Masina i Traktora in 2018. Furthermore, TAFE acquired FAURECIA's Indian interior business of Group FORVIA - the French global automotive supplier, in 2022. TAFE has earned the trust of customers through its range of products that are widely acclaimed for superior quality and low cost of operation. TAFE's social focus has been significant since inception and it contributes towards meaningful causes of agriculture, education, healthcare, community development, disaster relief, conservation and tribal welfare besides supporting traditional art forms. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same.)
VMPL New Delhi [India], February 10: The Kamma Global Federation (KGF) held the Kamma Mahanadu at Sriperumbudur today, drawing representatives from across Tamil Nadu and multiple other states. The event ranked among the largest in person gatherings organized by KGF since its formation in 2024. KGF was set up to bring together Kamma communities worldwide and strengthen cultural linkages. Now, the Federation represents nearly 2.1 crore people globally, accounting for about 1.5 per cent of India's population. Building on the vision of KGF, the Mahanadu opened with an evening cultural program, followed by closed-door sessions reviewing the Federation's work over the past year. Representatives from regional chapters discussed alignment, membership growth, and how state and overseas units would be aligned within the Federation's structure. Addressing the gathering, Shri Jetti Kusuma Kumar, Founder and President of Kamma Global Federation, said the event reflected the growing demand for a common platform that allows structured dialogue within the community. "The Federation's expansion over the last year has made such in-person engagements necessary to align priorities and execution. The focus now is on organization-building, sustained participation from regional chapters, and creating systems that allow the Federation to function with continuity and clarity. One of the long-term objectives emerging from this Mahanadu is to enable the election of at least 30 Kamma MLAs across political parties in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly and, in the longer run, to work towards securing a Deputy Chief Minister position in future governments," he said. Tamil Nadu was chosen as the venue in view of its demographic and historical association with the Kamma community. The state is estimated to be home to around 65 lakh Kammavars. The region, including the Chennai-Kanchipuram belt, has historically been associated with several prominent figures from the community, such as Bollineni Munuswami Naidu, the first Minister of the erstwhile Madras Presidency from 1930-1932, Arkat Veera, Swami Naidu, and Vaiko. The region also carries the legacy of earlier rulers and administrators, including Tirumala Nayaka, Mangammal, and the Ravella and Pemmasani lineages, which are often cited in historical accounts of southern India. The community has been associated with critical industrial and economic activity across parts of southern India. Figures such as G. D. Naidu were among the early contributors to engineering and transport enterprises in the region, while others from the community have been active in agriculture, industry, and education over successive decades. The Mahanadu closed with deliberations on upcoming initiatives. Additionally, federation office bearers indicated that similar gatherings would be held in other states in the coming months as part of KGF's outreach efforts. About Kamma Global Federation Kamma Global Federation stands as a beacon of unity and a catalyst for empowerment, beckoning all Kammas, Kammanaidus, and Chowdary, irrespective of their geographical borders, to step into a shared space of cultural pride, professional excellence, entrepreneurship, and social responsibility. The KGF is not just an organization; it's a movement. It's about harnessing the collective potential of the Kamma community across the world to create a brighter future for all. The KGF has been initiated recognizing the evolving needs of our community and with a commitment to foster unity and provide comprehensive support for the holistic development of the present and future generations of Kamma community members. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by VMPL. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same.)
SMPL Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) [India], February 10: Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH) is a common, progressive condition affecting men over the age of 50. As the prostate gradually enlarges, it compresses the urethra, narrowing the urinary passage and obstructing urine flow. This leads to lower urinary tract symptoms such as weak urinary stream, increased frequency, urgency, and frequent nighttime urination. The prevalence and severity of BPH increase with advancing age, and if left inadequately treated, the condition can progress silently. Traditionally, first-line management of BPH has relied on medical therapy, primarily alpha-blockers and 5-alpha reductase inhibitors (5-ARIs). Alpha-blockers relax smooth muscle in the prostate and bladder neck to improve urine flow, while 5-ARIs gradually reduce prostate size. Although these medications can relieve symptoms, they do not eliminate the mechanical obstruction caused by prostate enlargement. As a result, disease progression may continue even when symptoms appear controlled. A Paradigm Shift in BPH Management According to Dr. Harigovind Pothiyedath, Chief Consultant Urologist & Transplant Surgeon, Baby Memorial Hospital, Calicut BPH management is undergoing a paradigm shift with the growing adoption of Minimally Invasive Surgical Therapies (MISTs). Procedures such as Prostatic Urethral Lift (PUL), including the UroLift system, allow urologists to relieve obstruction earlier in the disease course--before irreversible damage to the bladder and kidneys occurs. PUL works by placing small permanent implants that retract obstructing prostate tissue away from the urethra, restoring urine flow without cutting, burning, or removing tissue. The procedure is typically performed under local anaesthesia as a day-care intervention, often without catheterisation, enabling rapid recovery and early return to normal activities. Delayed surgical intervention in BPH has been associated with progressive bladder dysfunction and other complications. Long-term dependence on medications may also lead to systemic side effects and, in some cases, worsening renal outcomes. The Hidden Cost of Delaying Obstruction Relief Dr. Krishnamohan R, Senior Consultant Urologist & Transplant Surgeon, Baby Memorial Hospital, Calicut highlights that while medications may improve urine flow, the condition of the bladder is often overlooked. Persistent obstruction forces the bladder to generate higher pressures to empty urine. Over time, this chronic strain weakens the bladder muscle, resulting in incomplete emptying, urinary retention, recurrent urinary tract infections, and long-term bladder dysfunction. In advanced cases, these changes may become irreversible, reducing the effectiveness of later surgical interventions. Recognising these risks, urologists are increasingly counselling patients toward early minimally invasive procedures. By relieving obstruction at its source, MISTs help preserve bladder function, protect renal health, and reduce long-term medication dependence. Effective Relief Without Compromising Sexual Function Preservation of sexual function remains a major concern for men undergoing BPH treatment. Dr. Suresh Patankar, Chairman, Department of Urology, ACE Hospital and Research Centre, notes that several oral medications and conventional surgical procedures--particularly those involving tissue removal or thermal injury--have been associated with erectile dysfunction and ejaculatory disorders such as retrograde ejaculation. Fear of these side effects often leads patients to delay definitive treatment. Minimally invasive therapies such as UroLift provide effective symptom relief while preserving erectile and ejaculatory function. Since the procedure avoids cutting or removing tissue, clinical evidence supports excellent sexual function outcomes. Many patients can walk out the same day without catheterisation and resume routine activities shortly thereafter, enabling timely treatment without compromising quality of life. Early Intervention in Patients with Comorbidities Dr. Ishwar Ram Dayal, Head of Urology at Dr. RML Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow explains that lifestyle-related disorders such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity are increasingly common. Many BPH patients therefore present with significant comorbidities or require long-term anticoagulation, complicating conventional surgical approaches. Common BPH medications may cause hypotension, dizziness, or renal deterioration in susceptible individuals. Traditional surgeries such as TURP or HoLEP carry higher risks of bleeding, urinary retention, and incontinence, particularly in patients on anticoagulants or those unfit for general or spinal anaesthesia. PUL offers a safer alternative for such patients. The ability to perform the procedure under local anaesthesia, with minimal physiological stress and faster resumption of chronic medications, makes MISTs an attractive early intervention option in medically complex cases. Redefining the Timing of BPH Intervention BPH is not merely a condition of inconvenience--it is a progressive disease. Management is shifting from asking how long symptoms can be controlled to determining when and how obstruction should be relieved. Symptom control alone does not halt disease progression. Early intervention with Minimally Invasive Surgical Therapies allows obstruction to be treated before irreversible bladder and renal damage occurs. Procedures such as UroLift provide effective symptom relief, preserve sexual function, and enable rapid recovery, allowing patients to maintain quality of life without waiting for complications to dictate treatment timing. Men experiencing bothersome urinary symptoms should consult their urologist early. Based on prostate anatomy, symptom severity, and overall health, an appropriate treatment plan--including MISTs--can be tailored for optimal long-term outcomes. Disclaimer: This initiative is undertaken in public interest. The information provided is for patient education only and should not be considered a substitute for professional medical advice. The views expressed are those of the experts. Please consult your doctor for personalised guidance. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by SMPL. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same.)
VMPL New Delhi [India], February 10: STIHL India proudly marks 20 years of dedicated presence and performance-led growth in the country. Over the past two decades, STIHL India has established itself as a trusted partner in agriculture, horticulture, landscaping, forestry, and home care, delivering reliable equipment to professionals and farmers who work tirelessly in challenging conditions. STIHL began its India operations in 2005 with the establishment of its wholly owned subsidiary, Andreas STIHL Pvt. Ltd., initially operating from its premises in Wagholi, Pune. As the business expanded and market presence strengthened, the company invested in a larger, future-ready infrastructure to support its growth. The foundation stone for a state-of-the-art sales headquarters and distribution center was laid in April 2019 at Chakan Industrial Park, MIDC Phase-III, Pune, and the facility became operational in October 2020. Since entering the Indian market, STIHL India has stayed true to the brand's global legacy, founded in 1926, with an unwavering focus on engineering excellence, and equipment that make tough jobs easier. In India, this commitment has translated into a deep understanding of local realities, diverse terrains, and the specific demands of users here. The result is a thoughtfully curated product portfolio tailored precisely to Indian work environments, going far beyond standard adaptations to truly meet on-the-ground needs. The steady growth has been shaped by a clear understanding of the Indian market and a focus on long-term relevance rather than short-term visibility. Reflecting on this journey, Mr. Parind Prabhudesai, Managing Director, STIHL India, said, "STIHL equipment doesn't just meet expectations, it exceeds them in the real world, day after day. We proudly serve farmers and professionals who rely on equipment built for uptime, durability, and reliable support. Equally important to this journey are the people who drive the organisation forward. Highlighting this aspect, Ms. Bhagyashri Inamdar, Head HR, shared, "What truly drives STIHL India are its people. The pride they take in their work, the ownership they show every day, and the way they grow along with the organisation is what keeps us moving forward." Sustaining this scale of operations also requires immense financial discipline and long-term planning. On this front, Mr. Dilip Rathi, Chief Financial Officer, added, "STIHL India's strong growth comes from our balanced and foresight heavy decisions. We have focused on building a business that is stable, disciplined, and prepared for the long term." Over the last two decades, STIHL has steadily expanded its reach to ensure customers have access to equipment, service, and support where the work happens. This growing network strengthens uptime, reduces downtime, and keeps productivity on track throughout the life of the machine. Behind this reach is a robust logistics backbone that keeps operations moving smoothly. Speaking on this, Mr. Sanjay Khairnar, Director of Operations, said, "Product availability matters as much as performance. Our effort has been to ensure STIHL equipment and genuine spare parts & accessories are available at the nearest dealer to be available to customers when required, so work never has to stop." Ensuring these solutions reach customers effectively requires strong execution on the ground. Emphasising this aspect, Mr. Raghavendra P M, Sales Director, noted, "Our relationships don't end with a sale. We work closely with our strong network of authorised dealers and customers to ensure they have the right product, the right guidance, and ongoing support." The consistency in engineering and performance has been central to building trust over the years. Commenting on the milestone, Mr. Shobhit Bahel, Marketing Director, shared, "In India, a brand earns its place by being relevant on the ground. Our focus has always been on understanding how people actually work, and making sure our equipment supports them every day." Supporting this people-led journey over the past two decades has also meant building everyday systems and ways of working that quietly keep the organisation connected, aligned, and moving forward. Reflecting on the 20-year milestone, Ms. Hetal Raval, Sr. Manager - EA & HR, said, "Our work -- from educating rural children to providing facilities to empower the younger generations - has always been about creating shared brand value and building a stronger tomorrow alongside the communities we serve. This 20-year milestone provides a solid platform from which we can reach new levels of impact and positive change" As STIHL marks 100 years globally and 20 years in India, the dual milestone creates a powerful momentum. This legacy is not merely a reflection of the journey so far, but a strong foundation for the innovation, progress, and future-focused solutions that will shape the year ahead and reinforce STIHL's long-term commitment to India. For more details, visit www.stihl.in (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by VMPL. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same.)
The Government of India and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) have taken various measures to strengthen cooperative banks' financial health, governance and digital inclusion along with enhancing deposit security, credit availability and prudent regulation, said Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance, Pankaj Chaudhary, in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. As part of efforts to support business expansion, Urban Cooperative Banks (UCBs) have been permitted to open new branches, enabling wider outreach and improved customer access. In a move aimed at boosting credit flow, the permissible housing loan exposure of UCBs has been raised to 25 per cent of their total loans and advances, from the earlier limit of 10 per cent. To improve governance continuity, amendments to the Banking Regulation Act have increased the maximum tenure of directors of cooperative banks from eight years to ten years, allowing experienced boards to provide longer-term oversight. To promote digital payments and financial inclusion, the licensing fee for onboarding cooperative banks to the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS) has been reduced, lowering entry barriers for smaller institutions. The government has also strengthened institutional support for cooperative banks through the creation of new entities. The National Urban Co-operative Finance and Development Corporation Limited (NUCFDC) was established as a non-deposit-taking, non-banking financial company to serve as an umbrella organisation for UCBs, providing information technology infrastructure and operational support. For rural institutions, a Shared Services Entity (SSE) named Sahakar Sarthi has been established to deliver common technological services to Rural Cooperative Banks, improving efficiency and reducing operational costs. Further strengthening customer protection, Rural Cooperative Banks have been brought under the RBI's Integrated Ombudsman Scheme, providing customers with access to a unified grievance redressal mechanism. On deposit safety, the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC) continues to insure deposits of all cooperative banks up to Rs 5 lakh per depositor per bank, including both principal and interest, providing enhanced confidence to depositors. Recently, it was also announced that loans sanctioned by banks to the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC), as of January 19, 2026, for on-lending to cooperative societies, are eligible for classification as priority sector lending under the respective categories. (ANI)
India's plan to develop a rare earth metals corridor spanning seven states is a positive step for the electric vehicle ecosystem, but its impact will be visible only over the long term as the initiative moves from announcement to execution, Hardeep Brar, President and Chief Executive Officer of BMW Group India, said on Tuesday. While speaking on the sidelines of the 5th Global Electrification and Mobility Summit organised by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), Brar said, "On the rare earth metals, there's a corridor across seven states, which is very positive. But it has just been announced. Once it is in execution, we will know its long-term impact. In the short term, I don't see any impact." Brar said the announcement assumes importance as electric vehicles gain traction in India's mobility landscape. "EVs are becoming the mainstay, and rare earth metals are very, very critical. The corridor could help strengthen supply chains for key components over time," he said. He described the Union Budget as long-term, with a strong focus on capital expenditure. "There's a lot of investment in capex on infrastructure, which is very good," Brar said, noting that the Budget builds on earlier measures such as GST exemptions announced last year and recent income tax reductions. "I think the government is really going forward in terms of making changes." Brar also highlighted nearly Rs 700 crore of proposed investment in the charging segment, which he said would support electric vehicle adoption alongside infrastructure expansion. Commenting on trade, Brar said the proposed European Union trade deal was a positive development but cautioned against expectations of immediate price reductions. "There are a lot of discussions happening that prices are coming down immediately, which is not the case," he said. According to him, any price impact from the EU deal would take time to materialise and would be limited in scope. "It will take another 18 to 24 months before it starts kicking in, and it will only impact the CBUs, which are only just 5%," Brar said, referring to completely built units. "For the rest of 95%, there is not going to be any impact." He urged consumers not to delay purchase decisions based on expectations of near-term price cuts. "Customers who are listening to this should go ahead and make their purchase," he said. "Don't wait for prices to come down, because it's 18 to 24 months away, and that too only on CBUs." Brar also welcomed developments in India-US trade discussions, describing them as encouraging after earlier tariff levels posed challenges. "With 50% tariffs, it was very tough," he said. "With tariffs coming down to 18% or 25%--I'm forgetting the exact number--it's again a very positive step." He said lower tariffs could benefit sectors such as pharmaceuticals, textiles, and gems and jewellery, which count the United States as a major market. "They were big importers of these products, and these manufacturers will really benefit from this," he said. Asked about government comments on sintered rare earth permanent magnets, Brar said it was too early to assess their impact. The Budget's measures should be assessed over the long term rather than for immediate outcomes. (ANI)
Milk prices in India are unlikely to see a hike in 2026, Sudhir Kr Singh, President of the Indian Dairy Association (IDA), said on Monday, noting that prices are revised only when dairy players are compelled to do so, faced with rising input costs. "Milk prices are revised only when dairy players are compelled to do so, keeping in mind the input costs such as feed, logistics and other factors. As of now, I don't think there will be any price hike in 2026," Singh told ANI when asked about the outlook for the year. However, he added that a price increase cannot be ruled out if companies choose to put additional money into farmers' hands. Singh noted that nearly 70 per cent of the cost of milk production depends on cattle feed, and the industry would aim to strike a balance between the interests of producers and consumers. "We will make a balance between the milk producer and the consumer," he assured. Lauding the government's approach towards the dairy sector, Singh thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for keeping dairy in the protected category and outside the ambit of trade agreements, including the India-US interim trade deal framework. "India is already a milk-surplus country. If we bring in milk from abroad at a low price, it would become difficult for our farmers to sell their produce," he said. "We are not exporting a lot. We have a large domestic market, and we did not want any foreign products to affect our farmers' products. The government has addressed this, and we thank the Prime Minister for protecting the dairy sector. It took a lot of time, but this decision is in the interest of both farmers and the dairy industry," Singh added. India always had reservations about opening the entire Indian agricultural sector to foreign players, which is why the interim trade deal with the US apparently missed the initially set timeline - fall of 2025. The Indian side has secured protection for its sensitive sectors, particularly agriculture and dairy, in this US deal. Addressing concerns about regional imbalance in milk production, Singh acknowledged that while western and southern India account for a major share, the focus is now shifting to the eastern states. "The government's focus is on the eastern part of the country. Brands like Sudha in Bihar and Medha in Jharkhand are examples of this change," he said. He noted that the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) is actively working in states such as Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Manipur and Tripura, helping develop infrastructure and expand milk procurement and production. "In Assam, where people never imagined milk could be produced at scale, lakhs of litres are being collected daily. The eastern region is emerging as the new player in the dairy industry," Singh said. To empower rural India through dairy entrepreneurship, the Indian Dairy Association (North Zone), in collaboration with the IDA Western Uttar Pradesh Chapter, is organising the 52nd Dairy Industry Conference (DIC) at the Yashobhoomi Convention Centre, New Delhi, from 12 to 14 February 2026. This event will highlight the vast business opportunities emerging across India's rapidly growing dairy sector. India currently contributes 25 per cent of global milk production, a share expected to grow to 45 per cent by 2047. India ranks first in global milk production. Total milk production in the country is estimated at 247.87 million tonnes in 2024-25, up from 239.30 million tonnes in 2023-24, reflecting a 3.58 per cent year-on-year growth. Per capita milk availability has increased significantly--from 319 grams per day in 2014-15 to 485 grams per day in 2024-25--compared with the global average of approximately 322 grams per day (2023-24). (ANI)
By Rafis Abazov

For more than three decades, economic integration in Central Asia has been shaped by ambitious declarations, multilateral communiques, and periodic summit diplomacy. Yet tangible outcomes have often lagged behind political rhetoric. The emerging shift from abstract integration models toward corridor-based, infrastructure-driven cooperation marks a potentially decisive turning point. Recent developments between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstannotably the revival of the AlmatyBishkek Economic Corridor with support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the creation of industrial and logistics hubs along their shared bordersuggest that Central Asia may finally be moving from declarative regionalism to functional economic integration.

BACKGROUND:

Since independence, Central Asian states have repeatedly endorsed the idea of regional economic integration. Initiatives ranging from customs cooperation to Central Asian Economic Union (CAEU) were designed to lower barriers, stimulate trade, and create a single economic space. In practice, however, these frameworks often lacked operational depth. Divergent regulatory regimes, weak cross-border infrastructure, and limited coordination between national development strategies constrained their impact. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan provide a revealing case. Despite geographical proximity and strong historical ties, economic cooperation long remained below potential. According to official data, bilateral trade turnover remained under US$ 2.0 billion in 2025, yet this figure still represented only a fraction of what integrated logistics, industrial cooperation, and value-chain development could deliver. Another indicator underscores this gap: more than 70 percent of bilateral trade consisted of raw materials and low value-added goods, highlighting the structural limitations of existing trade patterns. Against this backdrop, corridor-based integration has emerged as a pragmatic alternative. Rather than attempting to harmonize entire economies at once, economic corridors focus on specific geographic axes where infrastructure, trade facilitation, industrial policy, and investment can be aligned. This logic underpins the renewed focus on the AlmatyBishkek Economic Corridor, one of the most densely populated (with population about 4.4 million people) and economically dynamic cross-border zones in Central Asia. The AlmatyBishkek Economic Corridor (ABEC) was initially conceptualized in the mid-2010s as a pilot for cross-border integration. Supported by the ADB, the corridor connects two major urban agglomerationsAlmaty and Bishkeklocated less than 250 kilometers apart. Together, they account for a significant share of both countries GDP, population, and industrial capacity.

IMPLICATIONS:

The renewed political momentum behind ABEC is notable. In 2025, the official visit of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to Kyrgyzstan elevated economic corridor development to the level of strategic priority. The visit reaffirmed both governments commitment to moving beyond symbolic cooperation toward concrete joint projects, particularly in logistics, agri-processing, and light manufacturing. Perhaps the most innovative element of the new integration model is the creation of joint industrial trade and logistics complexes (ITLCs) along the KazakhstanKyrgyzstan border. Unlike traditional free trade zones, these hubs are designed as shared economic spaces, with coordinated infrastructure, customs regimes, and investment incentives. The first pilot hub in the Kordai area represents a qualitative shift. It is not merely a transit point but a platform for joint production, storage, processing, and distribution. By co-locating enterprises from both countries, the hub aims to shorten supply chains, reduce logistics costs, and encourage value-added manufacturing. Early estimates suggest that efficient corridor operations could reduce cross-border transport costs by 1520 percent, significantly improving competitiveness for small and medium-sized enterprises on both sides, create thousands of jobs, and increase bilateral trade turnover to US$ 3.0 billion by 2030. Importantly, these hubs are embedded in a broader political framework. Their creation followed mutual state visits, meetings of the KazakhKyrgyz Intergovernmental Council, and sustained high-level engagement. This alignment between political leadership and technical implementation has been largely absent in earlier regional initiatives.

The shift from declarations to corridors carries broader implications for Central Asias integration trajectory. First, it reframes free trade agreements as enabling instruments rather than endpoints. Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) alone do not generate trade; infrastructure, logistics, and industrial cooperation do. The KazakhstanKyrgyzstan experience suggests that FTAs are most effective when embedded in spatially defined economic corridors with clear investment pipelines. Second, corridor-based integration offers scalability. Success along the AlmatyBishkek axis could be replicated along other strategic routes, linking Central Asia more effectively to South Asia, China, and the Caucasus. In this sense, corridors function as building blocks for a wider regional economic space. Third, the model strengthens resilience. By promoting regional value chains and reducing dependence on distant markets, corridor integration can buffer Central Asian economies against external shocks. For landlocked countries, improved cross-border connectivity is not a luxury but a strategic necessity. Finally, the political economy dimension is crucial. Sustained leadership engagementillustrated by the 2025 presidential visit and repeated intergovernmental consultationssignals a recognition that economic integration requires long-term commitment, institutional coordination, and trust-building. This is a departure from the episodic diplomacy that characterized earlier phases of regional cooperation.

CONCLUSIONS:

ADB-supported assessments emphasized several corridor advantages: proximity to markets, complementary labor and production structures, and existing transport links that could be upgraded at relatively low cost. Recent investments have focused on modernizing border crossing points, improving road and logistics infrastructure, and harmonizing customs and sanitary standards. These soft infrastructure reforms are as critical as physical upgrades, reducing transaction costs and uncertainty for businesses.

This ADBs evaluation illustrates the choices for Central Asian republics. The region can continue to produce integration declarations with limited practical impact, or it can invest in functional mechanisms that deliver measurable economic outcomes. The evolving partnership between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan suggests that the latter path is increasingly viable. By anchoring integration in corridors, logistics hubs, and targeted industrial cooperation, the two countries are experimenting with a new model of regionalismone that is pragmatic, incremental, and results-oriented. Supported by institutions such as ADB and reinforced by high-level political will, this approach moves integration from aspiration to implementation. If sustained and expanded, corridor-based integration could redefine economic cooperation across Central Asia. It offers a way to translate geography into advantage, proximity into productivity, and political goodwill into shared growth. In doing so, it may finally allow the region to move from declarations to durable economic corridorsand, ultimately, toward a genuinely integrated economic space.

AUTHORS BIO:

Rafis Abazov, PhD, is a director of the Institute for Green and Sustainable Development at Kazakh National Agrarian Research University. He is author of The Culture and Customs of the Central Asian Republics (2007), An Effective Project Manager (2025) and some others. He has been an executive manager for the Global Hub of the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) on Sustainability in Kazakhstan since 2014 and facilitated the International Model UN New Silk Way conference in Afghanistan and other Central Asian countries.
In a move to bridge traditional medicine with modern financial security, the All India Institute of Ayurveda (AIIA), New Delhi, signed a landmark Common Empanelment Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the General Insurance Council (GIC) on Tuesday. The primary benefit of this MoU is the establishment of a cashless treatment facility that spans all 32 insurance companies under the General Insurance Council. This initiative is designed to substantially enhance patient access and affordability, expand Ayurveda's outreach to a larger section of society, and reinforce the institutional credibility of Ayush treatments by placing them on par with conventional medical services. This agreement, signed between AIIA Director Prof (Vaidya) PK Prajapati and GIC Director Health Segar Sampathkumar, establishes a framework to integrate Ayurveda more deeply into the mainstream health insurance ecosystem. According to a press release from the AIIA, the agreement marks the first time an Ayush institute in India has entered into such a comprehensive arrangement with the General Insurance Council. Prof (Vaidya) PK Prajapati emphasised the significance of the deal, stating, "With the signing of this agreement, AIIA has been empanelled with all 32 insurance companies under the General Insurance Council, enabling the provision of cashless treatment services to patients." He further expressed confidence that this step, supported by the Ministry of Ayush, will "help the patient at large." Prof Bejon Kumar Misra, Chairman of the Core Group of Experts on Ayush Health Insurance, highlighted the transformative nature of the partnership during the event. He noted that the availability of cashless facilities would "strengthen patient confidence" and contribute to "sustainable institutional growth." Beyond the empanelment, the release also announced the launch of a dedicated Ayush Health Insurance Helpline (1800-11-0008), which will operate from 9:30 AM to 5:00 PM on working days to resolve insurance-related queries and ensure beneficiaries can easily access their entitled benefits. (ANI)
The reduction in tariffs under the India-US trade deal framework is expected to significantly improve the competitiveness of Indian exports and deliver broad-based gains for the chemical industry, Ramya Bharathram, President of the Indian Chemical Council (ICC), said on Monday. Bharathram said higher tariffs had been affecting Indian industry "to a very large extent," and the proposed duty easing was a welcome development. "The fact that tariffs have come down and there is a deal that is going to be announced in the future is definitely a big positive," she said. According to Bharathram, reducing tariffs to an average of around 18 per cent would put Indian products on a more competitive global footing. "A lot of Asian countries are already at around 18 to 19 per cent. With this reduction, India will become much more competitive in comparison," she noted. She said the chemical sector would be a direct beneficiary of the tariff cuts. "On the chemical side, both organic and inorganic chemicals will benefit directly," Bharathram said, adding that exports from the sector are expected to increase as market access improves. Highlighting the broader impact of the move, Bharathram said the benefits would also extend indirectly across multiple industries where chemicals play a critical role. "Chemicals are present in almost all industries. So if there is improved market access because of duty reduction for sectors such as textiles, agriculture, electronics, semiconductors, leather and pharmaceuticals, the chemical industry will also benefit indirectly," she said. Calling the development a very positive move, Bharathram said the industry is now looking forward to the finer details of the trade agreement. The US and India last week issued a joint statement, stating that they have reached a framework for an Interim Agreement regarding reciprocal and mutually beneficial trade (interim agreement), and have agreed to a framework. India had reservations about opening the entire US agricultural sector to Indian markets, which is why the interim trade deal apparently missed the initially set timeline - fall of 2025. The Indian side has secured protection for its sensitive sectors, particularly agriculture and dairy, in this deal. Furthermore, both countries decided to address non-tariff barriers affecting bilateral trade. On February 2, a phone call between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump led to the announcement of the conclusion of negotiations on the much-awaited trade deal. The Trump administration had imposed tariffs on major exporters to the US, including India and China. There was a 50 per cent tariff on goods from India entering the United States since August 2025. The tariffs have now been reduced to 18 per cent following the leaders' recent phone call. The BTA, formally proposed in February 2025, seeks to more than double bilateral trade, from the current USD 191 billion to USD 500 billion by 2030. (ANI)
Manna has been a prominent name in the health-focused foods segment for over two decades, with a strong presence in Tamil Nadu and adjoining states.

Southern Health Foods Private Limited, represented by its flagship brand Manna, has been a leading manufacturer of a wide range of healthy foods for well-being for over two decades.

The addition of Manna further strengthens RCPL's foods and staples portfolio, which includes brands such as Udhaiyam, Independence, and SiL, by building a robust vertical in the growing millet-based foods segment.

The acquisition reaffirms RCPL's commitment towards the company's core philosophy of offering the 'global quality at an affordable price for millions of consumers across the country, while building a significant presence in the health food market.

T Krishnakumar, Director, Reliance Consumer Products Limited, said, "Manna is one of the most trusted names in the health-focused foods market in Tamil Nadu with noticeable presence in the adjoining states. It is known for healthy offerings, including millet-based staples and mixes, drinks, and baby food. Apart from adding muscle to RCPL's packaged foods portfolio, Manna's addition will help us serve consumers the best nutritious foods. With our strong distribution, R&D and supply chain capabilities, Manna would be made available in other geographies - eventually making it a household name across the country."

Southern Health Foods Private Limited is a key player in several health-focused foods categories like packaged healthy food,s including millets, oats, multi-grain products, health mixes, breakfast cereals, and dry fruits, among others.

Its flagship brand, Manna, is widely known for its healthy offerings across many emerging packaged foods categories, including millet flour, baby foods, and multigrain drink mix. (ANI)
Actor Sonu Sood extended his support to Rajpal Yadav after the actor surrendered at the Tihar Jail on February 5 for a series of cheque dishonour cases against him. Taking to his X handle, Sonu Sood announced financial support to Rajpal Yadav by offering him a small signing amount, "adjustable against future work", for his upcoming film. Sonu Sood wrote, "Rajpal Yadav is a gifted actor who has given years of unforgettable work to our industry. Sometimes life turns unfair, not because of talent, but because timing can be brutal. He will be part of my film, and I believe this is the moment for all of us producers, directors, colleagues to stand together." Sonu Sood called his offering an act of preserving the dignity of the 'Chup Chup Ke' actor and not "charity". He also urged the film industry, including producers, directors and colleagues, to stand together and show solidarity beyond professional ties for the actor. "A small signing amount, adjustable against future work, is not charity, it's dignity. When one of our own is going through a tough phase, the industry must remind him he's not alone. This is how we show we are more than just an industry," wrote Sonu Sood. https://x.com/sonusood/status/2021087424127041736? The financial support from Sonu Sood came after the Delhi High Court rejected Bollywood actor Rajpal Naurang Yadav's final attempt to avoid imprisonment in a series of cheque-dishonour cases and directed that he must surrender to the jail authorities before any further hearing could be held. The order came after Yadav failed to comply with the surrender deadline fixed by the Court, following repeated violations of undertakings regarding payment of settlement amounts to the complainant company. The senior lawyer appearing for the actor submitted that Yadav was ready to deposit Rs 25 lakh immediately and that both parties had tentatively agreed on a repayment schedule for the remaining dues. However, the Court declined to grant any relief, observing that Yadav had already been directed to surrender on February 4, 2026. Justice Sharma stated that since the actor had failed to comply with the surrender order, he would be heard only after he hands himself over to the jail authorities. Following the Court's observation, Yadav's counsel informed the bench that the actor would surrender at Tihar Jail later in the day on February 5. The Court clarified that once Yadav surrenders, he would be at liberty to file an appropriate application in accordance with the law. (ANI)
The Samyukt Kisan Morcha has called for a 'Bharat-Bandh' on February 12, as a part of their ongoing campaign against the India-US interim trade agreement. Speaking to ANI, SKM Convenor Hannan Mollah expressed disagreement with the deal, citing adverse repercussions for Indian farmers. He accused the BJP-led Central government of "surrendering before the shrewdness of the US." "Agreement will be a betrayal against farmers...We are surrendering before the shrewdness of US. The Govt has surrendered. Piyush Goyal should resign. He betrayed Indian farmers. On this basis, we have started a campaign, from 4th February to 11th February SKM will go to farmers. On 12th, Bharat Bandh has been called over this.," he told ANI. He stated that the Indian produce will not be able to compete with the free flow of US imports in the market, fearing that "our farmers will be finished." "SKM studied the Government's Agreements with the US, EU and New Zealand. SKM has been against this since the beginning. Agreement is not beneficial for a weaker country. They will send their goods for free to our country and they will flood our markets with cheaper goods. Our country will not be able to compete with them and our farmers will be finished," he added. Earlier on Saturday, Union Minister Piyush Goyal placed farmers at the government's defence of the India-US interim trade agreement, declaring the day would be "etched on golden letters" in India's economic history. Unveiling details of the framework, he repeatedly stressed that sensitive farm sectors have been ring-fenced. "I can say categorically that the interests of farmers and the dairy sector have been protected," he said, citing explicit safeguards for dairy, fruits, vegetables, spices and key grains. In a post on X, the minister said the deal would "safeguard the interests of domestic farmers, strengthen local agriculture through preferential access to such a large market, and mark another powerful step forward in the direction of a self-reliant India." The government released detailed lists of products protected from US imports, including milk, cheese, butter, ghee, yoghurt and whey products, as well as staples such as wheat, rice, maize, millets, barley, oats and sorghum. A wide range of vegetables, frozen and preserved produce, and spices such as pepper, cumin, turmeric, ginger, coriander and mustard have also been excluded. Goyal underlined that genetically modified food would not be allowed into India under the agreement. At the same time, he said Indian agricultural products would gain zero-duty access to the US market. "Agricultural products from Indian farmers will be exported to the United States at zero duty. At the same time, no tariff concessions have been granted for agricultural products from US farmers entering the Indian market," he said. According to the minister, this asymmetry would work decisively in India's favour. (ANI)
NCP-SCP leader Rohit Pawar on Monday provided an update on the health of Nationalist Congress Party (SCP) president Sharad Pawar, stating that the senior leader is currently in good health. "Sharad Pawar's health is very good right now. His tests have been done there. He has not been kept in the ICU. He has been kept in a private room there. He doesn't need any support there right now. Once the reports come, it will be decided whether he will be kept in Pune or Mumbai," Rohit Pawar told reporters. He added that a decision on whether Pawar will be shifted to Pune or Mumbai will be taken once the medical reports are received. "Pawar came here in a private vehicle, and everything is normal," he said. Rohit Pawar also urged party workers to avoid visiting the hospital to avoid inconveniencing other patients. "I, Supriya Tai, the doctors, the party workers, and people from across Maharashtra will provide regular updates," he said. Nationalist Congress Party (SCP) president Sharad Pawar was admitted to Ruby Hall Clinic Hospital on Monday, and his daughter Supriya Sule said that he has developed chest congestion and will need a five-day course of antibiotics. Supriya Sule, MP, said in a post on X that Sharad Pawar's other vital parameters are normal. "Baba has developed chest congestion and will need a 5-day course of antibiotics. Fortunately, all other vital parameters are normal. Thank you all for your good wishes and constant support. A heartfelt thank you to all the doctors from the bottom of my heart," she said. Maharashtra Deputy CM Sunetra Pawar arrived at Ruby Hall Clinic Hospital in Pune earlier today to meet with NCP-SCP chief. Ruby Hall Clinic Hospital's Dr Abhijeet Lodha earlier told the media that Sharad Pawar's condition is stable. His preliminary examination has been completed. Since his oxygen levels and heart rate are normal, there is no cause for concern at present. Due to continuous travel and engagements over the past few days, he has experienced fatigue. Due to chest congestion, a respiratory examination was also conducted. He has been admitted to a private room and does not require oxygen support," he said. Rohit Pawar, grand nephew of Sharad Pawar said the senior leader has had a hectic schedule over the past few days."Over the past ten to twelve days, Sharad Pawar has had a very hectic schedule. Due to physical exhaustion and mild breathing discomfort, he was admitted to Ruby Hall Clinic. Doctors have conducted all necessary tests, and the results are normal. I personally spoke to the doctors. Once the remaining test reports are received, a decision will be taken on whether he should stay in Pune or be shifted to Mumbai," he said. An appeal has been made to NCP(SP) workers not to gather in the hospital so that other patients are not inconvenienced. (ANI)
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Monday remarked that the BJP has successfully expanded its reach across the state, surpassing its previous electoral milestones. CM Fadnavis said, "In 2014, we shattered the perception that BJP is an urban party. We performed even better in 2017 and the results after that are before everyone." Earlier, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis expressed his gratitude to the people of the state for reposing their trust in the BJP-Mahayuti alliance in the Zilla Parishad elections. Fadnavis attributed the major and historic victory to the successful leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the guidance of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and BJP National President Nitin Gadkari. He also lauded the efforts of state president Ravindra Chavan, his cabinet colleagues, MPs, MLAs, and workers in the election. Fadnavis congratulated all those elected to the Zilla Parishad and Panchayat Samiti, wishing them success in their future endeavours. In a post on X, Maharashtra Chief Minister said, "Once again, BJP is number 1... A resounding victory for BJP-Mahayuti...! Following the municipal and municipal corporation elections, the people have once again shown their strong support to BJP and Mahayuti in the Zilla Parishad elections as well. I extend my heartfelt thanks to them in crores. We all together will strive to prove worthy of the trust you have placed in BJP and Mahayuti, and I assure you of that. Under the successful leadership of Hon. Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji, the guidance of Union Home Minister Hon. Amitbhai Shah and BJP's Hon. National President Nitin Gadkari ji, this major and historic victory has been achieved by BJP-Mahayuti. The tireless efforts put in by our state president Ravindra Chavhan, my cabinet colleagues, MPs, MLAs, and workers in this election are invaluable. I sincerely congratulate each one of them. My deepest congratulations to all those elected to the Zilla Parishad and Panchayat Samiti, and my very best wishes for their future journey!" Earlier on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the people of Maharashtra have once again reposed their faith in the BJP-led Mahayuti, following the alliance's strong performance in the Zilla Parishad elections. In a post on X, the Prime Minister said that after the convincing mandate in the Municipal Corporation and Municipal Council polls, the latest results reflect widespread support for the Mahayuti across both rural and urban parts of the State. He said the mandate shows that the people of Maharashtra favour good governance and an alliance that works in harmony with the State's rich cultural ethos. "Once again, Maharashtra blesses BJP and Mahayuti! After the resounding success of the BJP and Mahayuti in the Municipal Corporation and Municipal Council elections, the people of Maharashtra have given a strong mandate to us in the Zilla Parishad elections. It is clear that across rural and urban Maharashtra, the people of the state want good governance and an alliance which works in the spirit of the state's glorious culture. I express gratitude to my sisters and brothers of Maharashtra, " PM Modi posted on X. He said the victory was a result of the alliance's outreach, highlighting the Maharashtra government's performance and the NDA's vision of development-oriented governance."My compliments to every worker of the Mahayuti for working tirelessly on the ground and elaborating on the solid track record of the Maharashtra Government as well as NDA's vision for good governance," he added in X post. The BJP-led Mahayuti secured a decisive victory in the Maharashtra Zilla Parishad elections, with results announced on Monday according to the State Election Commission. The ruling alliance secured an overwhelming 552 of the total 731 seats across the State. (ANI)
Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy on Monday alleged that the Central government has neglected Telangana in funding major cultural and development projects, while providing substantial support to other states. He added that while the Centre provides funds for the Sabarmati riverfront in Gujarat and the Ganga riverfront in Uttar Pradesh, along with large allocations for the Kumbh Mela, no such support has been extended to Telangana for events like the Sammakka-Saralamma Jatara or the Krishna Pushkaralu. "Even the semiconductor project that was to come to Telangana, at the last moment, Narendra Modi pressured and diverted it to Andhra Pradesh. The Central Government provides funds for the Sabarmati riverfront in Gujarat and for the Ganga riverfront in Uttar Pradesh, and allocates large sums for the Kumbh Mela. However, it is alleged that no funds have been given for the Sammakka-Saralamma Jatara or the Krishna Pushkaralu in Telangana," CM Reddy alleged in a press conference. The Chief Minister reiterated that southern states, including Telangana, were not receiving their fair share of Central funds. Referring to fiscal devolution, he claimed that states such as Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh received higher returns. "The southern states are not receiving their due share of funds from the central government. For states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh, it is said that if they contribute one rupee, the Government of India returns six rupees in funding. Why are Union Ministers like Bandi Sanjay Kumar and G. Kishan Reddy unable to obtain additional funds for Telangana from the Government of India? The Central Government has sanctioned several projects for other states, but none for Telangana," he stated. Speaking about the ongoing municipal elections, Reddy highlighted the competition between three parties in the state: the ruling BRS, the BJP at the Centre, and the state Congress. He highlighted what he described as unfulfilled promises and alleged neglect of Telangana by the Central Government. He further noted that Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis, while campaigning in Adilabad, did not follow through on promises related to the Pranahita Chevella Project. The Chief Minister also criticised BJP state president Bandi Sanjay Kumar over flood relief in Hyderabad. "In these municipal elections, three political parties are competing: the BRS - which ruled for ten years, the BJP - which is in power at the Centre, and our Congress - which is in power in the state. Narendra Modi came to Mahabubnagar and promised to grant national project status to the Palamuru-Ranga Reddy Lift Irrigation Scheme. I waited to see whether that promise would be fulfilled and ask for votes. Devendra Fadnavis came to Adilabad for election campaigning, and I expected him to ask for votes after fulfilling the promise made about the Pranahita Chevella Project. Instead, he spoke in a manner that was seen as belittling Telangana and asked for votes. When floods hit Hyderabad, Bandi Sanjay Kumar promised that all the belongings people had lost would be compensated. Later, he reportedly told them that since they had insurance, they should buy replacements themselves. These same people are now asking for votes, claiming they will bring funds from the central government and carry out development. Should the people trust them?," he said. The Telangana State Election Commission has announced that polling for municipal elections will be held on February 11, with counting scheduled for February 13 across 116 municipalities and seven municipal corporations. (ANI)
Congress leader Bhai Jagtap on Monday questioned Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat's demand to confer the Bharat Ratna on Veer Savarkar, highlighting the significance of the award and Savarkar's controversial legacy. Speaking to ANI, Jagtap said the Bharat Ratna is the country's highest honour, given to those who contributed to the freedom struggle and nation-building, but Veer Savarkar, while jailed in the Andaman Islands, had written letters to the British seeking clemency. "I have said this before, and I am saying it again that the highest honour in this country of 140 crore people is the Bharat Ratna, and many people have been awarded the Bharat Ratna, especially those who contributed to the freedom struggle, the progress of this country, and its constitution. The Bharat Ratna is the greatest honour in itself. There is nothing greater than it... Veer Savarkar, in 1911, 1914, and 1919, when he was in jail in the Andaman Islands, wrote letters to the British seeking clemency," he said. Jagtap further said that RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat is influential, but questioned who could be greater than a Bharat Ratna recipient, calling such thinking concerning. "Mohan Bhagwat is a very important figure. He is the head of the RSS, so his thinking is significant. So, you should ask him: who can be greater than the recipient of the Bharat Ratna, which is the highest honour in this country? What does this thinking reflect?" he asked. Meanwhile, Mohan Bhagwat on Sunday addressed questions over the delay in conferring the Bharat Ratna on Veer Savarkar, saying if Savarkar is given Bharat Ratna, then the prestige of the honour will increase. Speaking at the Two-Day Lecture Series On '100 Years Of Sangh Journey - New Horizons' on Sunday, Bhagwat said that he was not on the decision-making committee but would raise the issue if given the chance. "I'm not on that committee, but if I meet someone who is, I'll ask them. If Swatantra Veer Savarkar is given Bharat Ratna, the prestige of Bharat Ratna will increase. Even without that prestige, he has become the emperor of millions of hearts," he said. Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, popularly known as Veer Savarkar, was born on May 28, 1883, and was a poet, writer, and social reformer. He was incarcerated at the Cellular Jail in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands by the British regime, where he endured immense hardship with unwavering resolve. Savarkar was also a leading figure in the 'Hindu Mahasabha.' Savarkar started participating in the freedom movement while still a high school student and continued doing so while attending Fergusson College in Pune. He got active with groups like India House and the Free India Society while studying law in the United Kingdom. He also published books that promoted revolutionary methods for achieving total Indian independence. (ANI)
A farmer has filed a public interest litigation (PIL) before the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court seeking protection of life, the environment, water resources, and agricultural lands in villages surrounding Kallanai in Kalligudi taluk of Madurai district. A Division Bench comprising Justices G Jayachandran and KK Ramakrishnan ordered notice to the authorities on the petition filed by R Subramaniyan, a resident of Kallanai. The petitioner alleged that illegal quarrying activities in the area had caused severe damage to the surrounding villages According to him, several stone crushers and blue metal quarries were operating without valid leases, beyond the permitted depth, after the expiry of lease periods, and without obtaining mandatory environmental clearances. He contended that the operations were being carried out in gross and wilful violation of the Tamil Nadu Minor Mineral Concession Rules, 1959, the Mines Act, 1952, and other applicable statutory provisions. The petitioner further stated that these illegal activities had resulted in serious environmental degradation, depletion of groundwater resources, and destruction of fertile agricultural lands in the affected villages. Even in cases where limited permissions had been granted, quarrying was allegedly carried out beyond the approved lease area and depth He also alleged the reckless and indiscriminate use of high-intensity explosives in complete disregard of statutory safety norms. Such hazardous blasting, he said, posed a grave and imminent threat to the lives, property, and safety of villagers. The use of powerful explosives had caused large rock fragments to be hurled far beyond quarry boundaries, damaging nearby agricultural lands and endangering workers The petitioner claimed that the continued conduct of such dangerous quarrying activities had created a constant atmosphere of fear among residents and rendered the area unsafe for habitation and cultivation. (ANI)
Japan's main opposition party co-leaders to resign over election loss

Xinhua) 09:04, February 10, 2026

Yoshihiko Noda (L) and Tetsuo Saito, co-leaders of Japan's main opposition party Centrist Reform Alliance, attend a press conference in Tokyo, Japan, Feb. 9, 2026. Yoshihiko Noda and Tetsuo Saito, co-leaders of Japan's main opposition party Centrist Reform Alliance, announced on Monday that they would resign from their posts to take responsibility for the party's defeat in the House of Representatives election. (Xinhua/Jia Haocheng)

TOKYO, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The two co-leaders of Japan's main opposition Centrist Reform Alliance (CRA) announced on Monday that they would resign to take responsibility for the party's major defeat in the lower house election.

The CRA, formed in January by the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and the Komeito party, saw its lower house seats drastically reduced to 49 from the pre-election tally of about 170 after Sunday's race.

Yoshihiko Noda and Tetsuo Saito, co-leaders of the newly formed opposition, informed a party board meeting of their intention to resign from their posts.

"The election results are disastrous," Noda said at a press conference on Monday morning. "We'll naturally take responsibility."

Noda told reporters that the new leadership will be decided by Feb. 18, in time for a parliamentary session to reinstate Sanae Takaichi as Japan's prime minister following the House of Representatives election.

Yoshihiko Noda (L) and Tetsuo Saito, co-leaders of Japan's main opposition party Centrist Reform Alliance, attend a press conference in Tokyo, Japan, Feb. 9, 2026. Yoshihiko Noda and Tetsuo Saito, co-leaders of Japan's main opposition party Centrist Reform Alliance, announced on Monday that they would resign from their posts to take responsibility for the party's defeat in the House of Representatives election. (Xinhua/Jia Haocheng)

Yoshihiko Noda (L) and Tetsuo Saito, co-leaders of Japan's main opposition party Centrist Reform Alliance, attend a press conference in Tokyo, Japan, Feb. 9, 2026. Yoshihiko Noda and Tetsuo Saito, co-leaders of Japan's main opposition party Centrist Reform Alliance, announced on Monday that they would resign from their posts to take responsibility for the party's defeat in the House of Representatives election. (Xinhua/Jia Haocheng)

Yoshihiko Noda (L) and Tetsuo Saito, co-leaders of Japan's main opposition party Centrist Reform Alliance, attend a press conference in Tokyo, Japan, Feb. 9, 2026. Yoshihiko Noda and Tetsuo Saito, co-leaders of Japan's main opposition party Centrist Reform Alliance, announced on Monday that they would resign from their posts to take responsibility for the party's defeat in the House of Representatives election. (Xinhua/Jia Haocheng)

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Elon Musk is planning to build a "self-growing city" on the moon.

Elon Musk plans to build self-growing city on the moon in 'less than 10 years'

The world's richest person, 54, has revealed his aerospace and artificial intelligence company SpaceX is hoping to build a city on the moon in "less than 10 years".

In a post on X - which he also owns - Musk wrote: "For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years."

Musk has previously told how SpaceX was aiming to colonise Mars.

But the focus has now shifted, partly because travel to the moon is possible every 10 days, whereas a jaunt to Mars is only possible every 26 months.

He added: "The mission of SpaceX remains the same: extend consciousness and life as we know it to the stars.

"It is only possible to travel to Mars when the planets align every 26 months (six month trip time), whereas we can launch to the Moon every 10 days (2 day trip time). This means we can iterate much faster to complete a Moon city than a Mars city."

Despite the shift in focus, the Tesla CEO has insisted SpaceX is still aiming to start building a city on the Red Planet "in about five to seven years".

He added: "That said, SpaceX will also strive to build a Mars city and begin doing so in about 5 to 7 years, but the overriding priority is securing the future of civilization and the Moon is faster."

In 2020, Musk was "highly confident" SpaceX would be able to land humans on Mars by 2026.

Speaking on an award show webcast from Berlin, Germany, he said at the time: "If we get lucky, maybe four years.

"We want to send an uncrewed vehicle there in two years."

Last year, US President Donald Trump - who is friends with Musk - told how he wanted to plant an American flag on Mars.

Speaking to a joint session of Congress, he said: "We are going to conquer the vast frontiers of science, and were going to lead humanity into space and plant the American flag on the planet Mars and even far beyond."
Congress leader and Karnataka minister Priyank Kharge on Monday launched a sharp attack on the demand to confer the Bharat Ratna to Veer Savarkar, asking why a person who, according to him, "worked against Bharat" should receive the country's highest civilian honour. In a post shared on X, Kharge posted a long list of questions targeting Savarkar's role during the freedom struggle. His remarks come after RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said awarding Savarkar the Bharat Ratna would "increase the prestige" of the honour. https://x.com/PriyankKharge/status/2021067571630604645 "Bharat Ratna for a person who gave himself the title 'Veer'?" Kharge wrote, pointing to Savarkar's imprisonment in the Cellular Jail. "The Cellular jail had 698 cells & 80,000 prisoners were jailed here over 33 years. Only handful of them wrote mercy petitions, but the maximum petitions was submitted by #Veer," he wrote. Kharge questioned why Savarkar wrote "six mercy petitions, including one from his wife," and "why he received a British pension of Rs 60 per month from August 1, 1929, until Independence in 1947". "Why did Veer seek an increase in pension?" and asked, "Can RSS list out his exact achievements against the British with evidence ?" The Congress leader also raised political and ideological questions, asking why Savarkar opposed the Quit India Movement, why he supported British recruitment of Indians into the army when Subhas Chandra Bose was forming the Indian National Army, and what the intention was behind that support. Kharge further targeted Savarkar's role in the Hindu Mahasabha, asking why the party ran governments with the Muslim League and why it was not banned when other parties were restricted by the British. He also accused Savarkar of being the first to propose the two-nation theory and questioned his views on cow worship and nationalism. "Why did Veer call our Motherland as Fatherland? Bharath Ratna for a "veer" who worked against Bharath! Masterstroke!" he further wrote. His attack came in response to comments made by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on Sunday at a two-day lecture series titled '100 Years of Sangh Journey - New Horizons'. Addressing questions over the delay in honouring Savarkar, Bhagwat said the award would elevate the prestige of the Bharat Ratna itself. Bhagwat further said that he was not on the decision-making committee but would raise the issue if given the chance. "I'm not on that committee, but if I meet someone who is, I'll ask them. If Swatantra Veer Savarkar is given Bharat Ratna, the prestige of Bharat Ratna will increase. Even without that prestige, he has become the emperor of millions of hearts," he said. Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, popularly known as Veer Savarkar, was born on May 28, 1883, and was a poet, writer, and social reformer. He was incarcerated at the Cellular Jail in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands by the British regime, where he endured immense hardship with unwavering resolve. Savarkar was also a leading figure in the 'Hindu Mahasabha.' Savarkar started participating in the freedom movement while still a high school student and continued doing so while attending Fergusson College in Pune. He got active with groups like India House and the Free India Society while studying law in the United Kingdom. He also published books that promoted revolutionary methods for achieving total Indian independence. (ANI)
In the ongoing investigation into the Lamborghini accident on VIP Road in Kanpur, KK Mishra, father of the alleged accused driver Shivam Mishra, said on Tuesday that he is going directly to the police station and will say everything there. Speaking to reporters, the father said, "I am going directly to the police station. I will say everything there." The accident occurred near Jhula Park Crossing on Sunday afternoon when the luxury car allegedly hit an autorickshaw, rammed into a bullet motorcycle, and struck a pole. Eyewitnesses reported that the car was speeding and that bouncers accompanying the driver removed him from the vehicle immediately after the crash. Earlier today, Kanpur Police Commissioner Raghubir Lal said the investigation into the Lamborghini car accident on VIP Road is ongoing, confirming that accused Shivam Mishra's name has been included in the FIR. Speaking to ANI, the Commissioner said, "This investigation is going on. As I had told you, his (Shivam Mishra) name was not there earlier. His name has come up in the investigation, and our police have gone to his house to interrogate him. We have received this message from his house that he is hospitalised. His father has been called and will speak, and he says he will cooperate with the police. The entire investigation and any further legal action will be dealt with as per the law." Raghubir Lal clarified that Shivam Mishra is considered the driver based on the evidence collected so far, including CCTV footage. "When Shivam's name comes up in our investigation, it means that we are satisfied that the driver was Shivam, so they can keep saying anything. We have CCTV footage. His name has been included in the FIR," he added. The commissioner further stated that Shivam's father will also participate in the investigation, as the notice has been issued. "Let me make one thing clear to you, only one person is injured in this and that too is a minor injury. His father will come; we have issued a notice, and he will present his side. He will participate in the investigation," he further said.The police Commissioner also confirmed that the Lamborghini involved in the incident has been seized, and an FIR has been registered. Meanwhile,alleged accused Shivam Mishra's lawyer, Mrityunjay Kumar, on Monday claimed that his client was not driving the luxury car when it allegedly hit pedestrians and a motorcycle on VIP Road, injuring several people. Speaking to reporters, the lawyer stated that Mishra's driver was operating the vehicle. Furthermore, a hearing is scheduled for February 10. "The hearing proceedings will be held tomorrow (today). Shivam was not driving; his driver, Mohan, was. This is an accident case. When he was not driving, then there can be no case against him," he said. The accident occurred near Jhula Park Crossing on Sunday afternoon, when a speeding Lamborghini car struck a parked motorcycle, before ramming into a passerby. The complainant suffered serious injuries to his left leg, ankle and other parts of the body. The motorcycle was badly damaged. Several pedestrians were also injured in the incident. The case has been registered under the relevant sections of the BNS 2023, including sections 281, 125(a), 125(b), and 324(4), and the investigation has been assigned to SI Dinesh Kumar. DCP Central Kanpur Atul Kumar Srivastava confirmed that no arrests have been made so far. Speaking to ANI, Srivastava said, "Those who were injured in the incident have been taken to the hospital. A case has been registered, and a serious investigation is underway. Action will be taken based on the facts that emerge from the investigation. No one has been taken into custody yet." (ANI)
Union Minister and LJP MP Chirag Paswan on Tuesday condemned the Opposition for bringing a no-confidence motion against Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, calling their move "condemnable." Speaking to the reporters, Paswan said, "The Opposition has created a strange situation...Rahul Gandhi's petulance has washed out the Budget session. Due to this, he did not let the other Opposition MPs speak. You are bringing a no-confidence motion against a Speaker who always tried to give both the ruling and opposition sides a chance to speak. It is condemnable what the Opposition is doing." According to the sources, the Congress submitted the notice to Lok Sabha Secretary General Utpal Kumar Singh against Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla today. The motion reportedly has the support of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), while the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has not yet declared its position. However, sources said today that Trinamool Congress (TMC) will not sign on to the no-confidence motion against Om Birla, initiated by Congress. This comes in the backdrop of the Opposition alleging that the Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi was not allowed to speak in the House during the discussion on the motion of Thanks to the President's Address. Gandhi cited General MM Naravane's unpublished memoir to discuss the 2020 standoff against China. The Speaker passed a ruling, asking Gandhi not cite unpublished literature. On Tuesday, the LoP in the Lok Sabha alleged that the publisher was not giving out the truth by claiming that the book had not gone to print, as the same had been confirmed by the former Army Chief. "Here is a tweet from Mr Naravane which says -"Just follow the link to my book". The point I am making is - either Mr Naravane is lying or it is Penguin which is lying. I don't think the former Army chief will lie...Penguin says the book has not been published. But the book is available on Amazon. Gen. Naravane has tweeted, "Please buy my book in 2023." I believe Naravane ji over Penguin. Do you believe Penguin over Naravane ji? I believe Naravane ji has made certain statements in his book which are inconvenient for the Government of India and the Prime Minister of India. Obviously, you have to decide if Penguin or the former Army chief is telling the truth," Rahul Gandhi said. (ANI)
Eyewitnesses have shared details of the Lamborghini accident that occurred on VIP Road in Kanpur on Sunday afternoon, which left several people injured and a motorcycle damaged. Sonu Tripathi, who witnessed the incident, said the car hit an autorickshaw, then rammed into a bullet bike and a pole. He added that the bouncers broke the car's glass to take the person away, and the police later seized the car. Their damaged bike is also at the police station. "The car hit an autorickshaw, and its speed increased. The car rammed into the bullet bike and hit a pole after that. After the accident, his (Driver) bouncers broke the glass of the car and took him away. After some time, the police arrived and took the car to the police station. We don't know whether he was the driver or the car's owner. Our bike is also standing at the Police Station," Tripathi said to ANI. Another eyewitness, Vishal Tripathi, whose bullet motorcycle was damaged in the incident, said, "I own the bullet bike that was damaged. The car's speed increased after it hit an autorickshaw. I was sitting on the bullet, and the car ran over my bike and hit a pole after that." Earlier today, Kanpur Police Commissioner Raghubir Lal said the investigation into the Lamborghini car accident on VIP Road is ongoing and confirmed that the accused Shivam Mishra's name has been included in the FIR. Speaking to ANI, the Commissioner said, "This investigation is going on. As I had told you, his (Shivam Mishra) name was not there earlier. His name has come up in the investigation, and our police have gone to his house to interrogate him. We have received this message from his house that he is hospitalised. His father has been called and will speak, and he says he will cooperate with the police. The entire investigation and any further legal action will be dealt with as per the law." Raghubir Lal clarified that Shivam Mishra is considered the driver based on the evidence collected so far, including CCTV footage. "When Shivam's name comes up in our investigation, it means that we are satisfied that the driver was Shivam, so they can keep saying anything. We have CCTV footage. His name has been included in the FIR," he added. The commissioner further stated that Shivam's father will also participate in the investigation, as the notice has been issued. "Let me make one thing clear to you, only one person is injured in this and that too is a minor injury. His father will come; we have issued a notice, and he will present his side. He will participate in the investigation," he further said. The police Commissioner also confirmed that the Lamborghini involved in the incident has been seized, and an FIR has been registered. Meanwhile, the alleged accused Shivam Mishra's lawyer, Mrityunjay Kumar, on Monday claimed that his client was not driving the luxury car when it allegedly hit pedestrians and a motorcycle on VIP Road, injuring several people. Speaking to reporters, the lawyer stated that Mishra's driver was operating the vehicle. Furthermore, a hearing is scheduled for February 10. "The hearing proceedings will be held tomorrow (today). Shivam was not driving; his driver, Mohan, was. This is an accident case. When he was not driving, then there can be no case against him," he said. The accident occurred near Jhula Park Crossing on Sunday afternoon, when a speeding Lamborghini car struck a parked motorcycle, before ramming into a passerby. The complainant suffered serious injuries to his left leg, ankle and other parts of the body. The motorcycle was badly damaged. Several pedestrians were also injured in the incident. The case has been registered under the relevant sections of the BNS 2023, including sections 281, 125(a), 125(b), and 324(4), and the investigation has been assigned to SI Dinesh Kumar. DCP Central Kanpur Atul Kumar Srivastava confirmed that no arrests have been made so far. Speaking to ANI, Srivastava said, "Those who were injured in the incident have been taken to the hospital. A case has been registered, and a serious investigation is underway. Action will be taken based on the facts that emerge from the investigation. No one has been taken into custody yet." (ANI)
The INDIA bloc MPs on Tuesday slammed the Centre over Delhi Police's probe into the circulation of pre-print copies of 'Four Stars of Destiny', a memoir by former Indian Army Chief General MM Naravane, calling it a "misadventure" by law enforcement agencies. The BJP MPs defended the publishing house and criticised the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, for quoting from the 'unpublished' book in the House. Congress MP Manish Tewari asked, "If the book was not published, then how was it listed for advance orders on every online platform?" Congress MP Karti Chidambaram said the book was widely circulated to critics for review. Chidambaram told ANI, "When a book is written, it is widely circulated among critics, given for review, so many people have access to it. For them to say the book has been leaked, I have no idea what they are going to do about this matter. Today, publication doesn't mean physical publication; it also means publication in the public domain. Even a tweet or a post on Facebook is a publication. This is yet another misadventure by law enforcement agencies under this government." While the books discuss the 2020 China standoff, RJD MP Manoj Jha called the Centre "insecure." Jha said, "Don't blame Delhi police for this, as they are following orders given from above. I saw a notification from Penguin House. Such is the value and standing of a publication house. A page from the book was published in Caravan Magazine, with its PDF accessible to all. Government is nothing but insecure." Union Minister Giriraj Singh demanded a Breach of Parliamentary Privilege Motion against Congress MP Rahul Gandhi. He said, "The publisher has stated that this book (Four Stars of Destiny by General MM Naravane (Retd.) has not yet been published. A privileged motion should be moved against Rahul Gandhi, who has deliberately held the House hostage. It must be assumed that the Leader of the Opposition lacks parliamentary knowledge." BJP MP Kangana Ranaut said, "The opposition is crossing all limits. The entire country is ashamed. Rahul Gandhi presented an unauthorised book yesterday. He has insulted the entire judiciary. They will apologise as always. Penguin Publications said today that this book is unauthorised." Penguin Random House India had stated that the book has not gone into publication and no copies, print or digital, have been published, distributed, sold, or made available to the public. The publisher said that any copies currently in circulation, in any format or on any platform, constitute a copyright infringement and must be immediately ceased. The publisher added that it will exercise remedies available under law against the illegal and unauthorised dissemination of the book. Meanwhile, Delhi Police have taken cognisance of information found on various social media platforms and news forums claiming that a pre-print copy of the book 'Four Stars of Destiny' is being circulated, and Special Cell has filed a case into the "purported leak/breach of a yet to be approved publication". Delhi Police officials said that an investigation has been taken up on the claims of the availability of a pre-print copy of the book. Earlier today, Rahul Gandhi accused the publisher of 'Four Stars of Destiny' of lying, claiming that the book was available for sale. Speaking to reporters outside Parliament, Rahul Gandhi cited General MM Naravane's 2023 X post and claimed the memoir was available for sale online. A political row erupted after Gandhi sought to quote from the "pre-print book" of former Indian Army Chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane during his speech in Lok Sabha on the motion of Thanks on the President's Address last week, with the treasury benches strongly opposing his remarks. The Speaker passed a ruling, asking the LoP not to quote unpublished literature. (ANI)
In the ongoing investigation into the Lamborghini accident on VIP Road in Kanpur, alleged accused Shivam Mishra's lawyer, Dharmendra Singh Dharmu, on Tuesday said that the car was being driven by Shivam's driver, Mohan, at the time of the incident. Speaking to ANI, Dharmu said the car was being driven by his driver, Mohan, who has filed to surrender in court and seek bail along with the car's release. Both Shivam and the driver were in the car at the time of the accident. "The driver who was driving the car, Mohan, has submitted an application to surrender in court. He has also filed a bail plea along with an application to release the car. Both Shivam Mishra and the driver were sitting in the car when the accident took place," he said. The lawyer further informed that the alleged accused Shivam Mishra is currently unconscious and admitted to a hospital in Delhi due to dizziness. "Shivam is unconscious. He is admitted in Delhi. He has problems...felt dizzy," he added. The accident, which occurred near Jhula Park Crossing on Sunday afternoon, involved the Lamborghini hitting an autorickshaw, a bullet motorcycle, and eventually a pole. Eyewitnesses said the car was speeding, and bouncers accompanying the driver removed him from the vehicle immediately after the crash. Earlier in the day, KK Mishra, father of the alleged accused Shivam Mishra, arrived at the Gwaltoli police station. Before arriving at the police station, KK Mishra said he would go directly there and say everything. Speaking to reporters, the father said, "I am going directly to the police station. I will say everything there." Earlier today, Kanpur Police Commissioner Raghubir Lal said the investigation into the Lamborghini accident on VIP Road is ongoing and confirmed that the accused, Shivam Mishra, has been named in the FIR. Speaking to ANI, the Commissioner said, "This investigation is going on. As I had told you, his (Shivam Mishra) name was not there earlier. His name has come up in the investigation, and our police have gone to his house to interrogate him. We have received this message from his house that he is hospitalised. His father has been called and will speak, and he says he will cooperate with the police. The entire investigation and any further legal action will be dealt with as per the law." Raghubir Lal clarified that Shivam Mishra is considered the driver based on the evidence collected so far, including CCTV footage. "When Shivam's name comes up in our investigation, it means that we are satisfied that the driver was Shivam, so they can keep saying anything. We have CCTV footage. His name has been included in the FIR," he added. The commissioner further stated that Shivam's father will also participate in the investigation, as the notice has been issued. "Let me make one thing clear to you, only one person is injured in this and that too is a minor injury. His father will come; we have issued a notice, and he will present his side. He will participate in the investigation," he further said. The police Commissioner also confirmed that the Lamborghini involved in the incident has been seized, and an FIR has been registered. The case has been registered under the relevant sections of the BNS 2023, including sections 281, 125(a), 125(b), and 324(4), and the investigation has been assigned to SI Dinesh Kumar. DCP Central Kanpur Atul Kumar Srivastava confirmed that no arrests have been made so far. Speaking to ANI, Srivastava said, "Those who were injured in the incident have been taken to the hospital. A case has been registered, and a serious investigation is underway. Action will be taken based on the facts that emerge from the investigation. No one has been taken into custody yet." (ANI)
The Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) on Tuesday lodged a police complaint at Dispur Police Station against the BJP and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, alleging that a social media post by the party with alleged remarks against Muslims was highly provocative and communal. In the complaint, APCC leaders Sibamoni Bora and Diganta Bauman said that on February 7, the official X (formerly Twitter) handle of BJP Assam (@BJP4Assam) shared purported content allegedly depicting Chief Minister Sarma symbolically firing at members of the Muslim community at point-blank range. "The overlaid text in the content includes phrases such as 'foreigner free Assam, No mercy, "Why did you not go to Pakistan?' and 'There is no forgiveness to Bangladeshis, often amplifying at the state's Bengal origin Muslims, often derogatorily labelled as 'Miyas' or 'Bangladeshis," the complaint read. The complaint further stated that the content is highly provocative and could disrupt communal harmony in the state. The APCC further urged the Dispur Police Station to register a case under the relevant sections of penal law and take necessary action. Earlier today, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) moved the Supreme Court seeking directions against allegedly discriminatory remarks by Himanta Biswa Sarma against the Muslim community. The issue was mentioned for an urgent hearing before Chief Justice of India Surya Kant by Advocate Nizam Pasha. "We seek urgent intervention of this Court with respect to disturbing speeches made by the sitting CM of Assam, including a recent video posted where he is shown as shooting at members of a particular community," Advocate Pasha said. Responding to the request, CJI Surya Kant remarked that electoral politics often finds its way into courtrooms during election periods."The problem is, when elections come, part of it is fought in the Supreme Court. That is the problem. We will see," the CJI said, implying that the Court will examine the issue. Meanwhile, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi on Monday lodged an official complaint with Hyderabad City Police seeking criminal action against Assam CM over a "now-deleted video" allegedly depicting violence against Muslims, describing it as "genocidal hate speech." In a post on X, Owaisi said he had approached the Hyderabad City Police Commissioner on Monday, alleging that the video showed Sarma symbolically shooting at persons "very obviously depicted as Muslims." "I have lodged an official complaint with @CPHydCity demanding criminal action against Himanta Sarma for his (now deleted) violent video showing him shooting Muslims. Unfortunately, genocidal hate speech has become a norm," Owaisi said. He also attached a copy of the complaint, stating that the imagery and phrases used in the video, including "Point blank shot" and "No Mercy," were intended to outrage religious feelings, promote communal hatred, and incite violence. According to the complaint, the video was uploaded on February 7 this year, from the official X account of the Assam BJP and was taken down a day later, though it continues to circulate on social media. Owaisi argued that law enforcement agencies are constitutionally bound to act suo motu in cases of hate speech, even without a formal complaint. Meanwhile, reacting to AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi filing an official complaint with police against him over a now-deleted video, Assam CM on Monday said that he has no objection to being arrested and asserted that he stands by his words that he is against Bangladeshi infiltrators. "I am ready to go to jail, what can I do? I do not know anything about any video. If he has filed a case against me, arrest me; what objection do I have? I have no objection. But I stand by my words, I am against Bangladeshi infiltrators and I will continue to be against them," Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma said. (ANI)
BJP MP Sambit Patra on Tuesday lashed out at the Congress-led no-confidence motion against Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. Patra questioned Congress's credibility, citing past impeachment attempts against a Tamil Nadu judge. "The Congress Party's Rahul Gandhi and the leaders of the Congress Party have proposed a no-confidence motion on the speaker. Parliament will respond to this. I want to say something to the Congress and Rahul Gandhi. You are so entitled that you don't feel like following any protocols of the House, and then you say you don't have confidence in anyone," the BJP MP said in a press conference. In his further attack on the Opposition, he condemned the party for allegedly planning to move an impeachment motion against a Tamil Nadu judge in the Deepam case. "This very Congress Party gave a verdict against a justice in Tamil Nadu regarding the Deepam case. They were also bringing an impeachment against him. The Supreme Court has upheld that yesterday...," Patra accused. This comes after Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla directed the House Secretary-General today to examine the no-confidence motion notice against him and take appropriate action, according to sources. Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi said, "At 1:14 pm today, we submitted a motion for a no-confidence motion against the Speaker under rule 94C rules and procedures." A total of 118 MPs have signed the notice of no-confidence motion against the Lok Sabha Speaker, according to Congress sources. Sources said Opposition MPs alleged "blatantly partisan" conduct and that leaders of Opposition parties were not allowed to speak. Sources said the notice of motion of no-confidence cited four incidents against the Speaker, including the Opposition's allegation that Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi was not allowed to speak in the House during the discussion on the motion of Thanks to the President's Address. Gandhi cited General MM Naravane's unpublished memoir to discuss the 2020 standoff against China. (ANI)
Delhi University on Tuesday told the Delhi High Court that the appeals seeking disclosure of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's educational degree details were aimed at sensationalising the issue and had no real merit. Appearing for the university, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said, "This is only to sensationalise. There is nothing in the matter." He requested time to file a reply, stating that he wanted to respond both on the issue of delay in filing the appeals and on the merits of the case. Senior Advocate Shadan Farasat, appearing for the appellants, said that if the Solicitor General was ready to argue on merits, the Court could issue notice in the appeals. He also submitted that the delay in filing the appeals was minor and could be condoned. Mehta opposed the suggestion, saying that he was already present in the case and issuing notice would only add to the sensationalism. "I am appearing. Notice can't be issued only to sensationalise something," he said. After hearing both sides, a Division Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela granted Delhi University three weeks to file its objections to the delay condonation applications. The matter will now be heard on April 27. The appeals have been filed by AAP leader Sanjay Singh, RTI activist Neeraj Sharma and advocate Mohd Irshad against an August 25, 2024, order of a single judge, which had set aside the Central Information Commission's 2016 direction to disclose details related to the Prime Minister's degree. In that judgement, the single judge had held that educational records such as degrees and marksheets are personal information under the RTI Act and cannot be disclosed unless a larger public interest is shown. (ANI)
Union Minister Giriraj Singh on Tuesday accused the country's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of "mortgaging" Kashmir and "surrendering" to the British to "fulfil his aspirations". Showcasing photos of Jawaharlal Nehru with the last Viceroy Mountbatten's wife, Edwina Mountbatten, Giriraj Singh asked Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi to apologise for Nehru's alleged actions. "To fulfil his own aspirations, Nehru ji mortgaged Kashmir. He also surrendered to the British. He celebrated after Ambedkar ji's loss. These photos explain everything. Rahul Gandhi should apologise to the nation," Giriraj Singh said. Giriraj Singh's take on Nehru came after Opposition MPs' constant criticism of PM Narendra Modi-led NDA government over the recently announced framework of the India-United States Interim Trade Agreement, which they believed is "surrender of PM Modi's government," raising concern over the farmers' safety and India's sovereignty over its purchase of discounted Russian oil. Earlier in the day, the INDIA bloc MPs carried a poster with the pictures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump, and wrote, "Narender surrendered? The nation is watching." Opposition MPs have been demanding a discussion on the trade deal framework during the Budget Session of Parliament. According to a joint statement from the Ministry of Commerce and the White House, the United States will apply a reciprocal tariff rate of 18 per cent on goods originating in India, including textiles and apparel, leather and footwear, plastic and rubber, organic chemicals, home decor, artisanal products, and certain machinery. India will eliminate or reduce tariffs on all US industrial goods and a wide range of US food and agricultural products, including dried distillers' grains (DDGs), red sorghum for animal feed, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, soybean oil, wine and spirits, and additional products. Additionally, according to a White House statement, India will stop purchasing Russian oil after the U.S. eliminated the additional tariffs imposed on India purchases. "India has committed to stop directly or indirectly importing Russian Federation oil, has represented that it will purchase United States energy products from the United States, and has recently committed to a framework with the United States to expand defence cooperation over the next 10 years," The White House said. However, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri on Monday clarified that "national interest" would continue to guide India's energy-related decisions, underlining that the key drivers of the country's energy policy are "adequate availability, fair pricing and reliability of supply", amid reports suggesting New Delhi is cutting its oil imports from Russia. (ANI)
Self Esteem has spoken candidly about selfworth, misogyny and the realities of surviving the music industry.

Self Esteem joined Paloma Faith for the latest instalment of the Mad, Sad + Bad podcast

Reflecting on her relationship with success and recognition, the 39-year-old musician - whose real name is Rebecca Taylor - admitted she once tied her value to external validation, such as winning awards.

Speaking candidly on Paloma Faiths Mad, Sad + Bad podcast, she said: Its insane to validate yourself on those things (awards), but the lack of them  Im like, well, I must be s*** then."

Taylor explained that her stage name was born from a desire to rebuild her confidence: I called myself Self Esteem because I didnt have any, and this has given me it. Its truly manifesting every day to remind myself to have it.

The pair also discussed the way women are labelled when they express frustration. Faith noted how often women are dismissed as angry, prompting Self Esteem to respond: Im disappointed in people who arent angry!

Self Esteem went on to describe how past relationships shaped her sense of self, recalling a partner who repeatedly undermined her.

She recalled: There was a real nasty bastard boyfriend that was like, Youre crazy. Proper Dickensstyle gaslighting. And it really worked cause I had no idea. I even let him join the band for a bit!

Looking back, she recognises how damaging that dynamic was: Im not crazy. Im just reacting perfectly reasonably to what is going on in terms of the injustice between me and you.

She added that much of her career has been driven by a desire to reclaim the confidence she lost during that period

Self Esteem noted: Everything about my career has been me avenging for that girl I dont need revenge, and its quite bad for the diary.

Turning to the pressures of the music industry, Self Esteem said she refuses to limit her creativity to fit commercial expectations.

She explained: Im gonna make so many albums, and theyll all be different, and they cant all be successful in the same way."

But she admitted ageism and financial insecurity still weigh heavily: Im 40 in October and I dont give a f***, but also its doing something to me and my sense of self as a woman in the music industry its just in red pen DONE NOW.

She also highlighted the widening class divide in the arts.

Taylor said: My music peers were all from a privileged background you get to be better because you get to put more time into it. Its just going to get bigger and bigger, that gap.

Ultimately, she said the biggest challenge remains balancing survival with creativity.

She concluded: How do I ever disconnect my brain from the fear of keeping a roof over my head to try and make the art?

Listen to the full episode now.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday asserted that the Babri Masjid will never be rebuilt and warned those "who are dreaming of it" to abide by the law of the land. Addressing a gathering in Barabanki, CM Yogi said, "Those who are dreaming of the Babri structure, to them I would like to say Judgement Day (Qayamat ka din) will never come. Don't live for the Judgement Day. Learn to live by the rules in India. Abide by the law of the land. Otherwise, if someone breaks the rules, the path will lead them straight to hell. If someone is dreaming of going to heaven by breaking laws, their dream would never materialise." Yogi also took a jibe at the opportunists, "Some opportunists remember Lord Ram when they face crises and forget Him later. So, Lord Ram has also forgotten them. They will not succeed now. They will never go forward now," he said. Invoking the incident of former Uttar Pradesh CM Mulayam Singh Yadav's order to fire at karsevaks in Ayodhya in 1990, Yogi said, "There is no place for these 'Ramdrohis' now; there is no place for those who fire bullets at Ram bhakts". The Babri Masjid was demolished on December 6, 1992, in Ayodhya by a large group of 'kar sevaks', and the metaphorical foundation stone of Ram Mandir was laid down. In the aftermath of the incident, riots broke out in different parts of the country, and over 1,000 people were killed. Kalyan Singh, who was CM when the Babri Masjid was demolished. A few hours after the demolition, he resigned as Chief Minister. The Congress-led Union Government then dismissed the Uttar Pradesh state government on the same day. Singh later faced legal proceedings and was jailed for a single day over the incident. The Ayodhya Ram Mandir was inaugurated in January 2024. (ANI)
Doon International School Principal Dinesh Barthwal on Tuesday rejected reports claiming that a Class 11 student was kidnapped outside the school, calling them "misleading and inaccurate". Speaking to ANI, Barthwal said the school had verified the matter internally and found no truth in the claims. "Today we received news of a case that has allegedly happened within or outside our school. I completely deny it. Our school is fully equipped with CCTV cameras, and the activities of every student and staff member are recorded. After reviewing the information, we have concluded that the news is misleading and inaccurate. As the school principal, I completely refute this news," Barthwal said. He further stated that the school administration had issued a formal denial letter to the newspaper editor and senior police officials. Barthwal also urged the media to verify information with the school administration before publishing reports related to such incidents. "Since this news was published in a newspaper, the school administration has sent a denial letter to the newspaper editor and the SSP. We will take whatever action we deem necessary. We have clearly requested in our letter that, if they receive any information about such an incident in the future, they contact the principal or me. Without checking the truth from the school administration, no misleading news should be published which may tarnish the reputation of this school," he added. Earlier, reports emerged claiming a woman had kidnapped a Class 11 student outside Doon International School in Dehradun. This prompted the Uttarakhand Police to arrive at the scene for an investigation. However, the police dismissed the rumours after reviewing CCTV footage and called the report baseless. According to SSP Ajay Singh, the woman was simply standing outside the school with her husband and child. Singh further claimed that miscommunication among students had sparked the kidnapping rumours. "Upon receiving information about an alleged kidnapping, we took it very seriously and sent our team, which includes a city magistrate and a city information officer, to the school. We obtained CCTV footage that indicated the kidnapping report had no truth. One woman was just standing with her child and husband. After this, we traced the children who were talking to them... After speaking to them, we found that there was miscommunication among students that had flared up the kidnapping rumours. We also traced the woman and her family... No such things emerged as were alleged in the rumours... I request everyone to tell their children not to spread rumours..." Singh told ANI. Reshma Praveen, the woman at the centre of the child abduction rumours, clarified that the allegations against her were entirely false. She explained that she had visited the area with her husband to get medical injections. During her visit, she asked the students about school fees. While clearing the air, Praveen stated that she intends to pursue strict legal action against those responsible for defaming her and her family. "These rumours have been spread against me falsely. I had come with my husband to get injections... It was around 2:30 pm, and the children probably came out of the school at 2:00 pm... I had sat in the sun near the bus... When the children were passing by me, I asked them about their monthly fees, and one child said his is Rs 6000. After saying this, that child went away from me... We were still sitting there... At 2:30 pm, my husband was injected, and I left after that. I have all the papers and evidence... This wrong action was taken against me. I will take strict action against him because of this; my husband and my child were defamed," Praveen told ANI. (ANI)
Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Abhishek Banerjee on Tuesday slammed the Centre, alleging "neglect" of West Bengal in the Union Budget 2026 and accused the ruling party of practising "subscription-based federalism". Speaking in the Lok Sabha, the TMC MP asserted that the current government practises favouritism, saying, "the Constitution promises equality among states". "Akhilesh ji was speaking before me. He said he wanted to see what UP received in this Budget. The Finance Minister spoke for 85 minutes. Bengal was not even mentioned once," Banerjee said while speaking during the ongoing Budget session. Recalling the mention of "freight corridor from Dankuni" in the Union Budget, Diamond Harbour MP added that this project was announced when Mamata Banerjee was holding the position of Railway Minister in the UPA II era. "Even the freight corridor from Dankuni, referenced in this very budget, was originally announced by the then Railway Minister in 2009, Mamata Banerjee, who is now the CM of West Bengal. The Constitution promises equality among states. But this Government practises preference; allies are funded while opponents are starved. This is not a model of cooperative federalism; this is a model of subscription-based federalism," Banerjee added. On February 1, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed seven high-speed rail corridors, new dedicated freight corridors, and the operationalisation of 20 national waterways over the next five years as part of the Union Budget. Sitharaman made big announcements ahead of the legislative assembly election in West Bengal later this year. He said the government will establish new dedicated freight corridors connecting Dangkuni in West Bengal in the east to Surat in the west. Just before Abhishek Banerjee's speech, Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav also pointed out the development disparities in states like poll-bound West Bengal, Bihar and UP in the Lower House. Yadav questioned the lack of bullet train projects here."Why is there no bullet train in Bengal, Bihar, UP, there is a lot of discrimination in the BJP government, BJP MLA surrounded the minister, why was the metro not laid in Varanasi, MoUs were signed but how many were implemented on the ground, the government should take decisions on China carefully, the lion of Make in India is eating junk," Yadav added. Hitting out at Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the India-US trade deal, he asserted that the government has not negotiated a favourable deal with the Trump administration. He stressed the need to "focus on ground realities."(ANI)
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday hit out at Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath over his remarks on "Babri Masjid," stating that "BJP turns communal" when they fear losing power. Taking a jibe at Yogi Adityanath, Akhilesh Yadav also urged the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister to not use words like 'Qayamat' given his opposition to Urdu. "Ask him not to use Urdu words like 'Qayamat'. A CM who was against Urdu is now uttering words like 'Qayamat'. Use some other words. When CM is cornered, BJP weakens; they fear losing power, and they turn communal. The more the fear, the more communal they are," he said. SP MP Dimple Yadav also slammed the UP government over the law and order condition in the state. "What is the condition of law and order today in UP. What is the condition of women there? How many cases of rapes and such incidents are happening? This Govt is doing nothing," she said. This comes after Yogi Adityanath asserted that the Babri Masjid will never be rebuilt and warned those "who are dreaming of it" to abide by the law of the land. Addressing a gathering in Barabanki, CM Yogi said, "Those who are dreaming of the Babri structure, to them I would like to say Judgement Day (Qayamat ka din) will never come. Don't live for the Judgement Day. Learn to live by the rules in India. Abide by the law of the land. Otherwise, if someone breaks the rules, the path will lead them straight to hell. If someone is dreaming of going to heaven by breaking laws, their dream would never materialise." Yogi also took a jibe at the opportunists, "Some opportunists remember Lord Ram when they face crises and forget Him later. So, Lord Ram has also forgotten them. They will not succeed now. They will never go forward now," he said. Invoking the incident of former Uttar Pradesh CM Mulayam Singh Yadav's order to fire at karsevaks in Ayodhya in 1990, Yogi said, "There is no place for these 'Ramdrohis' now; there is no place for those who fire bullets at Ram bhakts". The Babri Masjid was demolished on December 6, 1992, in Ayodhya by a large group of 'kar sevaks', and the metaphorical foundation stone of the Ram Mandir was laid. In the aftermath of the incident, riots broke out in different parts of the country, and over 1,000 people were killed. In November 2019, after decades of dispute, the Supreme Court ordered that the disputed land in Ayodhya be handed over to a government-run trust for the construction of the Ram Mandir. The Ayodhya Ram Mandir was inaugurated in January 2024. (ANI)
National President of Janshakti Janta Dal, Tej Pratap Yadav, has announced financial assistance of Rs 11 Lakh to the family of Rajpal Yadav, after the actor surrendered at the Tihar Jail on February 5 for a series of cheque dishonour cases against him. JJD President said he learnt about the actor and comedian's condition from his brother, Rao Inderjit Yadav's post. He expressed solidarity with the actor's family on behalf of his party and assured them of financial assistance on "humanitarian grounds." In a post on X, Tej Pratap Yadav wrote, "I just received information about the pain of the family of the honorable Rajpal Yadav ji through the post of my elder brother Rao Inderjeet Yadav ji. In this extremely difficult time, I and my entire JJD (Jan Shakti Janata Dal) family stand in complete empathy and solidarity with their grieving family. With a spirit of human compassion and support, on behalf of the JJD family, I am providing financial assistance of 11,00,000 (eleven lakh rupees) to their family." Earlier today, actor Sonu Sood also announced financial support to Rajpal Yadav by offering him a small signing amount, "adjustable against future work", for his upcoming film. Taking to his X handle, Sonu Sood wrote, "Rajpal Yadav is a gifted actor who has given years of unforgettable work to our industry. Sometimes life turns unfair, not because of talent, but because timing can be brutal. He will be part of my film, and I believe this is the moment for all of us producers, directors, colleagues to stand together." The financial support comes after the Delhi High Court rejected Bollywood actor Rajpal Naurang Yadav's final attempt to avoid imprisonment in a series of cheque-dishonour cases and directed that he must surrender to the jail authorities before any further hearing could be held. The order came after Yadav failed to comply with the surrender deadline fixed by the Court, following repeated violations of undertakings regarding payment of settlement amounts to the complainant company. The senior lawyer appearing for the actor submitted that Yadav was ready to deposit Rs 25 lakh immediately and that both parties had tentatively agreed on a repayment schedule for the remaining dues. However, the Court declined to grant any relief, observing that Yadav had already been directed to surrender on February 4, 2026. Justice Sharma stated that since the actor had failed to comply with the surrender order, he would be heard only after he hands himself over to the jail authorities. Following the Court's observation, Yadav's counsel informed the bench that the actor would surrender at Tihar Jail later on February 5. The Court clarified that, after Yadav surrenders, he would be free to file an appropriate application in accordance with the law. (ANI)
Samajwadi Party MP Awadesh Prasad on Tuesday said the Bharatiya Janata Party's "ideology will not work" after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's "Babri Masjid" remark. Awadhesh Prasad backed his statement with his victory in the 2024 Lok Sabha election from the Faizabad constituency, of which Ayodhya is also a part. "Those who fired bullets are today building a temple. Their ideology won't work in this country. People of Ayodhya made Awadhesh Prasad victorious and gave a message that BJP's ideology and mindset won't work in this country anymore," he said. The Samajwadi Party chief, Akhilesh Yadav, also hit out at Yogi Adityanath, stating that "BJP turns communal" when they fear losing power. Taking a jibe at Yogi Adityanath, Akhilesh Yadav also urged the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister to not use words like 'Qayamat' given his opposition to Urdu. "Ask him not to use Urdu words like 'Qayamat'. A CM who was against Urdu is now uttering words like 'Qayamat'. Use some other words. When CM is cornered, BJP weakens; they fear losing power, and they turn communal. The more the fear, the more communal they are," he said. This comes after Yogi Adityanath asserted that the Babri Masjid will never be rebuilt and warned those "who are dreaming of it" to abide by the law of the land. Addressing a gathering in Barabanki, CM Yogi said, "Those who are dreaming of the Babri structure, to them I would like to say Judgement Day (Qayamat ka din) will never come. Don't live for the Judgement Day. Learn to live by the rules in India. Abide by the law of the land. Otherwise, if someone breaks the rules, the path will lead them straight to hell. If someone is dreaming of going to heaven by breaking laws, their dream would never materialise." Invoking the incident of former Uttar Pradesh CM Mulayam Singh Yadav's order to fire at karsevaks in Ayodhya in 1990, CM Yogi said, "There is no place for these 'Ramdrohis' now; there is no place for those who fire bullets at Ram bhakts." The Babri Masjid was demolished on December 6, 1992, in Ayodhya by a large group of 'kar sevaks', and the metaphorical foundation stone of the Ram Mandir was laid. In November 2019, after decades of dispute, the Supreme Court ordered that the disputed land in Ayodhya be handed over to a government-run trust for the construction of the Ram Mandir. The Ayodhya Ram Mandir was inaugurated in January 2024. (ANI)
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader Kanimozhi on Tuesday said that Congress and DMK are in harmony and the alliance talks for the forthcoming assembly polls will be announced soon. There has been some concern in Congress over "the delay" by DMK in forming a committee to hold seat-sharing talks. The Congress has formed a committee for the talks, party leaders have said. Kanimozhi's announcement of alliance talks taking place soon is expected to lessen concerns in Congress, which is seeking a higher share of seats. "We cannot respond to individuals talking about the Congress-DMK alliance. Congress and DMK are in harmony. The alliance talks will be announced soon," Kanimozhi said. Tamil Nadu Congress president K. Selvaperunthagai said on Tuesday that they are waiting for DMK to announce its negotiation committee. "The DMK is going to form the negotiation committee. After the committee is formed, our Congress negotiation committee will go and discuss with them. We are waiting for the announcement of the negotiation committee from DMK," he said. "We told the DMK Supremo to form the committee because we are nearing the election, we don't have time to campaign in all 234 seats. That's why we are requesting, wait and see. We are expecting it very soon," he added. Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party is seeking to portray Congress as a burden on the DMK. Congress is part of ruling DMK-led alliance in the state. BJP leader Narayanan Thirupathy on Monday claimed that DMK feels that Congress has become very weak. "I have been saying this, the DMK feels that the Congress is a waste luggage and ... as happened in the entire country, like how Mamata Banerjee did, how the Aam Aadmi did, the same way DMK is feeling that the party in Tamil Nadu has also become very weak," he told ANI. Congress won 18 seats as part of DMK-led alliance in 2021 assmebly polls. DMK won 133 seats. (ANI)
The Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal announced a revised schedule for the ongoing SIR process in the state on Tuesday, following a Supreme Court order. In its statement, the CEO said the hearing of notices will be completed by February 14. The review of the documents and disposal of the claim will be completed by February 21. The statement also said that the rationalisation of polling stations will be completed by February 25. The health parameter checks are to be conducted by February 27. The final electoral roll will be published on February 28. This revision was announced following the Supreme Court's judgment ordering a one-week extension to publish the final electoral roll under the Election Commission of India's (ECI) Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in West Bengal. The Court also issued a show-cause notice to the Director General of Police (DGP) of West Bengal over allegations of violence and the burning of election records during the revision process. The final electoral roll, which was earlier scheduled to be published on February 14, will now be released after the extended timeline. A Bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant said the extension was necessary as Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs) required additional time to scrutinise documents and take appropriate decisions. The Court also took serious note of allegations of violence during the SIR process and issued a show-cause notice to the Director General of Police (DGP), West Bengal, directing him to explain the steps taken to maintain law and order in the State. "To streamline the ongoing SIR exercise and address apprehensions raised by various stakeholders, we deem it appropriate to issue some additional directions (noting that omit had on the earlier hearing had issued certain directions)", it noted. The Court directed the West Bengal government to submit, by 5 pm on Tuesday, a list of 8,505 officers proposed to be deputed by the State. It granted the ECI discretion to replace EROs and AEROs and to utilise their services, if required. "From these officers, the ECI may, after a brief scrutiny of their biodata, shortlist personnel equivalent to the strength of the micro-observers already engaged and provide them brief training to assist the EROs, AEROs and micro-observers," the Court noted. (ANI)
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has said that Jammu and Kashmir will not benefit from the India-US Interim Trade Agreement and it will harm the interest of farmers. Talking to reporters, Omar Abdullah said if nuts, dry fruits, fresh fruits, and dairy are imported duty-free, there will be losses. "This will definitely cause harm. If nuts, dry fruits, fresh fruits, and dairy are imported duty-free, there will be losses. What else do we have? We don't have any marine or seafood products, but we do offer dried fruits, walnuts, almonds, saffron, apples, and kiwis. If these come duty-free from America, losses are inevitable... We gain nothing from this deal; it's nothing but losses," he said. The United States and India last week announced that they have reached a framework for an Interim Agreement regarding reciprocal and mutually beneficial trade. The framework reaffirmed the two countries' commitment to the broader US-India Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) negotiations, launched by President Donald J Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 13, 2025, which will include additional market access commitments and support more resilient supply chains. A Joint Statement said that the Interim Agreement between the United States and India will represent a historic milestone in our countries' partnership, demonstrating a common commitment to reciprocal and balanced trade based on mutual interests and concrete outcomes. According to key terms of the Interim Agreement, India will eliminate or reduce tariffs on all US industrial goods and a wide range of US food and agricultural products, including dried distillers' grains (DDGs), red sorghum for animal feed, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, soybean oil, wine and spirits, and additional products. It said the United States will apply a reciprocal tariff rate of 18 percent under Executive Order 14257 of April 2, 2025, as amended, on originating goods of India, including textile and apparel, leather and footwear, plastic and rubber, organic chemicals, home decor, artisanal products, and certain machinery. On successful conclusion of the Interim Agreement, US will remove the reciprocal tariff on a wide range of goods identified in the Potential Tariff Adjustments for Aligned Partners Annex to Executive Order 14346 of September 5, 2025, as amended, including generic pharmaceuticals, gems and diamonds, and aircraft parts. Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has stated that the Centre has not "opened up" the market for US apples under the interim trade pact, but instead has given them a "quota" that is less than current apple imports, while protecting domestic apple growers. "We are not surplus in apples. The demand for apples is more than 25-26 lakh tons. We produce about 20-21 lakh tons. As we speak, we import 5.5 lakh tons of apples every year. And a large quantity of that comes from the United States of America. We have not opened up apples. We have given them a quota on apples, which we will procure from there. That is less than the Current imports of apples from the USA," Goyal said in an interview with ANI. The Union Minister argued that apple farmers in India will receive protection from import regulations that prevent cheap apples from flooding the market. "We have been very cautious in our opening up. Today, Apple has a minimum import price of Rs 50. And there's a 50 per cent duty which adds Rs 25. So, Rs 75 is the base, or the floor, below which goods don't enter the country. So in some sense, that's the protection that the apple farmers also get, that nobody can dump material and make it so cheap that apples don't get a fair value. Even in the quota we have given to the US, the minimum import price is Rs 80. They make high-quality apples. It's Rs 80. There's a Rs 20 duty on that. So the landed price of that will be 100 rupees," Goyal said. (ANI)
BJP leader K Annamalai on Tuesday criticised the DMK over the sudden cancellation of the Tamil Nadu Combined Civil Services (Group II and IIA Services) Main Examination held on February 8. Speaking during his visit to Dindigul, Annamalai said this was the first time since India's Independence that an examination conducted by the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC) had been put on hold. "There is a board for the TNPSC examination called the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC), which functions under the direct control of the Chief Minister. Young people write these examinations, placing great trust and hope in the system. For the first time since Independence, the TNPSC Group II examination has been put on hold. The DMK, which claimed it would stop the NEET examination, has instead stopped the TNPSC examination," Annamalai said. Earlier, the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC) announced the cancellation of the Combined Civil Services (Group-II and IIA Services) Main Examination, citing "technical issues." In an official statement, the TNPSC confirmed that the exams were cancelled due to technical glitches and will be held at a later date. The Commission further stated that details regarding the rescheduled examination date, new examination centre allotments, and fresh hall tickets will be communicated to all candidates at least 15 days in advance through SMS and e-mail. "The Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC) has announced that the written examinations scheduled to be held today (08.02.2026) in Chennai for the Combined Civil Services Examination (Group-II and IIA Services) Main Examination both forenoon and afternoon sessions could not be conducted at three examination centres in Chennai due to technical issues. Considering the welfare of the candidates, TNPSC has decided to cancel both examinations scheduled for today across the entire state of Tamil Nadu, including Chennai. The cancelled examinations will be conducted on a later date. The Commission stated that details regarding the rescheduled examination date, examination centre allotment, and hall tickets will be communicated to all candidates 15 days in advance through SMS and e-mail," said TNPSC. Additionally, in Dindigul, the BJP leader declared that Palani will become a separate district of Tamil Nadu within the next 30 days, before March 5 this year. He further claimed that if Palani were located in any other state in India, it would certainly have been declared a district by now. "Even after four years and ten months in power, the government has not added a single new district beyond the existing 38 districts. For many years, the people of this region have had a strong and long-standing expectation that Palani should be declared a separate district. By any standard, if Palani had been located in another state in India, it would certainly have been declared a district by now. Despite repeated demands and continuous representations over the years, and despite the assurance given during the 2021 Assembly elections by the present MLA of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam that Palani would definitely be made a district, it has still not been announced as a separate district. However, I have firm confidence that after this protest, within the next 30 days, before March 5, Palani will be declared a district. I have complete faith in this outcome," added Annamalai. (ANI)
Tourists are far more likely to abandon sustainable habits once they go on holiday, even if they consider themselves environmentally responsible at home.

Tourists abandon sustainable habits on holiday

A study by the University of Queensland has found that travel triggers what researchers describe as a vacation place identity, a temporary psychological state in which people feel freer, less accountable and less inclined to behave sustainably than they would in their everyday lives. The findings were published in the journal Tourism Management.

While peoples underlying environmental values remain largely unchanged, the research suggests that being on holiday weakens the behaviours that normally support those values. As a result, travellers are more likely to consume more, waste more and conserve less when they are away, despite growing awareness of tourisms environmental footprint.

The research team carried out three separate studies, asking participants to assess their own behaviour when at home compared with when travelling or imagining themselves on holiday. Across all three studies, participants consistently rated themselves as less environmentally responsible during travel.

PhD candidate Dorine von Briel, from the University of Queensland Business School, said the research identifies a distinct identity shift that occurs when people travel. Von Briel said: Weve introduced vacation place identity as a distinct, measurable psychological state that emerges with travel.

This contrasts with home place identity, which is rooted in routine, responsibility and long-term emotional connection."

Dr Anna Zinn, a co-author of the study, said identity switching is a well-established concept, such as moving between professional and family roles, but this is the first time a specific vacation identity has been identified and linked to environmental behaviour.

The findings come as concern continues to grow about tourisms climate impact. Previous research from the University of Queensland has shown that tourism is responsible for nearly 9 per cent of global carbon emissions, yet attempts to change traveller behaviour have often had limited success.

Professor Sara Dolnicar, another co-author, said sustainability campaigns may be mistimed. Dolnicar said: Sustainability messages often fail because they target tourists when their vacation place identity is already dominant.

She added that instead of guilt-based messaging during trips, such as encouraging shorter showers or towel reuse, prompts that activate peoples everyday habits before departure could be more effective.

Some destinations are already experimenting with alternative approaches. Palau requires visitors to sign the Palau Pledge on arrival, committing to protect nature and respect local culture. New Zealand promotes the Tiaki Promise, encouraging travellers to care for the country throughout their visit. Bhutan, meanwhile, operates a high value, low volume tourism model, charging visitors a sustainable development fee that funds conservation, education and cultural preservation.

Researchers say such measures highlight a shift towards encouraging responsibility earlier in the travel journey, before holiday behaviour takes hold.
Former litigant in the Ram Janmabhoomi vs Babri Masjid case, Iqbal Ansari, on Tuesday backed Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath over his remarks targeting what he described as "opportunists" who remember Lord Ram only during times of crisis. Supporting the Chief Minister's comments, Ansari said Yogi Adityanath had made a correct observation. "The Chief Minister has given a correct statement. He said that when people are in a crisis, they remember God. If people had remembered God, the crisis would not have come... Today, in this time of crisis, if people engage in politics based on religion, caste, or creed, then before doing so, people should remember God, and then all the facilities will be provided to them," Ansari said. Earlier in the day, CM Yogi Adityanath said, "Some opportunists remember Lord Ram when they face crises and forget Him later. So, Lord Ram has also forgotten them. They will not succeed now. They will never go forward now," he said. He also asserted that the Babri Masjid will never be rebuilt and warned those "who are dreaming of it" to abide by the law of the land. Addressing a gathering in Barabanki, CM Yogi said, "Those who are dreaming of the Babri structure, to them I would like to say Judgement Day (Qayamat ka din) will never come. Don't live for the Judgement Day. Learn to live by the rules in India. Abide by the law of the land. Otherwise, if someone breaks the rules, the path will lead them straight to hell. If someone is dreaming of going to heaven by breaking laws, their dream would never materialise." Yogi Adityanath's remarks have drawn backlash from the Samajwadi Party, with its Chief, Akhilesh Yadav, stating that "BJP turns communal" when they fear losing power. Taking a jibe at Yogi Adityanath, Akhilesh Yadav also urged the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister to not use words like 'Qayamat' given his opposition to Urdu. "Ask him not to use Urdu words like 'Qayamat'. A CM who was against Urdu is now uttering words like 'Qayamat'. Use some other words. When CM is cornered, BJP weakens; they fear losing power, and they turn communal. The more the fear, the more communal they are," he said. Samajwadi Party MP Awadesh Prasad said the Bharatiya Janata Party's "ideology will not work," backing his statement with his victory in the 2024 Lok Sabha election from the Faizabad constituency, of which Ayodhya is also a part. "Those who fired bullets are today building a temple. Their ideology won't work in this country. People of Ayodhya made Awadhesh Prasad victorious and gave a message that BJP's ideology and mindset won't work in this country anymore," he said. (ANI)
Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukvinder Singh Sukhu on Tuesday accused the previous BJP government of plundering the state treasury and spending extravagantly instead of investing in development and essential infrastructure. According to a statement from the Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister's Office, Sukhu questioned the BJP's defence of the 16th Finance Commission's observations on the discontinuation of the Revenue Deficit Grant (RDG). He said the BJP government had benefited from Rs 54,296 crore in RDG during its tenure. As per the Himachal Pradesh CM, this grant, which accounted for 25 to 30 per cent of the state's total revenue receipts, along with Rs. 16000 crore in GST compensation, was allegedly utilised for political stabilisation and freebies rather than addressing the state's long-term fiscal health. The Chief Minister highlighted a stark contrast in the financial support received by the two administrations, noting that while the BJP received over Rs 54296 crore across five years, the current government has received only Rs 17563 crore in the last three years, nearly half of the previous allocation. He said that the BJP got Rs. 8449 crore in 2018-19 during the 14th Finance Commission as RDG, Rs 8271 crore in 2019-20, Rs 8062 crore in 2020-21, besides Rs. 11431 crore as an interim grant, Rs. 7834 crore in the year 2021-22 and Rs 10249 crore in 2022-23 by the 15th Finance Commission, totalling Rs. 54296 crore. Whereas the present Congress government just got Rs. 8058 crore in the year 2023-24 during the 15th Finance Commission, Rs 6258 crore in 2024-25 and Rs 3257 crore in 2025-26, totalling Rs 17563 crore, which is almost less than half of the amount the BJP got in the form of RDG. Despite the substantial funds available to them, the BJP government failed to disburse employee arrears or announce Dearness Allowance (DA). Furthermore, the Chief Minister highlighted that the previous regime did not invest significantly in health infrastructure, a sector the current government is now prioritising with a Rs. 3000 crore modernisation plan and an additional Rs. 1300 crore under JICA Phase-II to upgrade healthcare delivery systems. The state CM also said that the fiscal landscape inherited in December 2022 was characterised by a massive accumulation of debt and deferred financial commitments. By the end of the BJP's term, the state's total outstanding debt had surged to approximately Rs. 76185 crore, an increase of nearly Rs. 28000 crore in just five years. This burden was exacerbated by a Rs. 10,000-crore liability for revised pay-scale arrears and DA, which the Chief Minister labelled a 'last-minute' political manoeuvre undertaken without any budgetary provisions. The Chief Minister also criticised the BJP for what he called an "opening spree" of more than 900 institutions in the final six months of its tenure, which created an additional unfunded annual liability of Rs 5,000 crore. He said the present government was forced to de-notify many of these institutions to prevent economic collapse. Concluding his remarks, Chief Minister Sukhu stated that the BJP's current "hue and cry" over the state's fiscal position is hypocritical given their history of vandalising the state's treasury. He emphasised that while the present government is successfully introducing advanced medical technologies such as robotic surgery, it is also considering establishing bone marrow transplant centres at IGMC. He added that BJP leaders were personally invited to a presentation on Sunday to understand the state's fiscal position but chose to attend other functions instead of focusing on the financial health of Himachal Pradesh and the welfare of its people. (ANI)
Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara on Tuesday met with the family of Chandan Kumar, a techie from Karnataka, who was murdered in Toronto, Canada. G Parameshwara offered his condolences and assured the family of his support. After meeting the family, Parameshwara, in a post on X, said, "The talented Chandan Kumar, who was working as a project manager in a software company in Toronto, was the only son of the retired teacher couple Nandan Kumar. Seeing the parents' wail of grief at losing the son who was supposed to live well and be their support filled his heart with immense distress. I pray that the divine grants the family the strength to bear this sorrow." https://x.com/DrParameshwara/status/2021195371582718169 Earlier, speaking to the reporters, G Parmeshwara said that the investigation of the murder is underway in Canada. "Chandan Kumar (techie from Karnataka) has been murdered in Canada. We have not yet received information about the reason behind the killing. May his soul rest in peace," he said. "An investigation into the murder is underway there. Our High Commissioner to Canada is in discussions to repatriate the body. The body may be brought back within the next three to four days," he added. According to the Toronto Police, Chandan Kumar was killed in a shooting incident in the parking lot of Woodbine Shopping Centre in the Rexdale Boulevard and Highway 27 area. The victim was found with gunshot wounds. He was transported to the hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced deceased at the hospital, the police said. (ANI)
The Bhartiya Khadya Nigam Karamchari Sangh (BKNKS), the sole recognized union of Food Corporation of India (FCI) employees, has launched a nationwide "Black Fortnight" protest from February 10 to February 23, against the persistent delay and alleged arbitrariness of the EP Division in resolving long-pending workmen-related issues. As part of the protest, demonstrations were held on Monday, led by the General Secretary of BKNKS, at the Regional Office in Vibhuti Khand, Gomti Nagar, as well as at all FCI offices and depots nationwide. Employees raised slogans against the FCI Headquarters management during their lunch break, expressing strong resentment over years of neglect and unnecessary delays in addressing their legitimate demands. The union clarified that the agitation is peaceful and non-disruptive. Employees are wearing black badges and holding symbolic demonstrations while ensuring that food grain procurement, storage, and distribution operations remain completely unaffected. BKNKS stated that despite repeated representations and ample opportunities for dialogue, the EP Division has failed to resolve several critical issues concerning workmen, leading to growing frustration among employees. The union further warned that if no positive outcome emerges within 14 days, the agitation will be intensified in a phased and democratic manner. In such a scenario, BKNKS asserted that any disruption in food grain supply will rest solely with the FCI Management, as the union has already provided sufficient time for dialogue and resolution. Meanwhile, the Allahabad High Court sought a response from the Uttar Pradesh government and the Police Recruitment Board regarding the sudden withdrawal of a three-year age relaxation granted to Home Guard candidates in the constable recruitment process. The court has scheduled February 12 as the next hearing date in this matter. Counsel for the petitioners informed the court that the matter pertained to the direct recruitment of 32,679 constables and equivalent posts. On January 5, 2026, the state government granted a three-year relaxation to the upper age limit for candidates in the Home Guard category. Following this decision, a large number of Home Guard candidates completed their applications. However, on January 22, 2026, the Police Recruitment Board abruptly withdrew the age relaxation, rendering many Home Guard candidates ineligible to apply. It was argued that, once the state government had decided to grant age relaxation and candidates had applied on that basis, the Recruitment Board's sudden withdrawal of the relaxation was arbitrary and unconstitutional. The petitioners argued that changing the rules mid-recruitment is unjust and violates candidates' legitimate rights. (ANI)
Former Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee (HPCC) president Pratibha Singh on Tuesday urged the state BJP to talk with its leaders at the Centre so that the Revenue Deficit Grant (RDG) to the state by the Centre is not discontinued. She said discontinuation of RDG would pose a serious challenge not only to the state's current financial health but also to its future economy. "The stoppage of RDG will severely impact Himachal Pradesh's economy. Therefore, BJP leaders must reflect deeply on this issue and extend full support to the state's legitimate demand," she said. The Congress leader said the state BJP should take up the matter with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She asserted that this was not the time for political blame games. "This is the time to protect Himachal Pradesh's rights and self-respect," Pratibha Singh said. The former HPCC chief said that BJP-led governments have been at the Centre earlier too but no government had ever taken such a harsh step of stopping compensation for revenue losses faced by the state. She pointed out that Himachal Pradesh plays a crucial role in conserving the country's natural environment. "The state has made a significant contribution towards protecting forests and rivers. Both Congress and BJP governments in the state have taken important steps in this direction, for which Himachal has received appreciation at national and international levels," she said. Pratibha Singh maintained that, in recognition of these efforts, the Revenue Deficit Grant should continue to be provided to Himachal Pradesh. She said all governments of the state will face this problem if it is not addressed. Pratibha Singh said that continued financial support is essential for Himachal Pradesh's progress. She expressed hope that all BJP leaders from the state would seriously deliberate on the issue and make a meaningful contribution towards the restoration of the Revenue Deficit Grant in the larger interest of Himachal Pradesh. (ANI)
Congress MP Karti Chidambaram on Tuesday addressed the row over the alleged circulation of former Army Chief MM Naravane's unpublished memoir, Four Stars of Destiny, saying that "if anything is in the public domain, it's publication." The Congress MP hit out at Penguin Random House, saying that if the publisher has an issue with parts of the book being alluded to, then it should file a copyright infringement case. He further defended Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi, saying only Naravane can disavow the book's contents, adding that Naravane hasn't. "This is a very archaic understanding of the word 'publication'. In today's modern world, if anything is in the public domain, it's publication. If Penguin has a grouse against somebody putting out parts of the book in some formats, they should file a copyright case. We are not concerned about that. If it is there in the public domain, it is publication...There were parts of the book which were alluded to in an article which was published. We are only alluding to that. So, if Penguin has a problem, they must sue somebody for copyright infringement. That is the only course of action. The only person who can disavow the contents is General MM Naravane...But he is not saying that...," the Congress MP told ANI. His remarks come after Penguin Random House issued a statement, following an allegation by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi that the publisher had incorrectly claimed that 'Four Stars of Destiny', authored by former Indian Army Chief General MM Naravane, was not available for sale. It said that "a book is considered published only when it is available for purchase across retail channels." "Pre-order is a standard publishing practice. It allows readers and retailers to place advance orders. The book is not yet published or available," the publishing house said in a statement posted on its social media platforms. Furthermore, the Congress MP attacked Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, saying he should follow "all other traditions as well," after reports that the Speaker will not attend the House until the no-confidence motion notice submitted by the Opposition against him is disposed of. "It's only fair that he is following this, but I wish he followed all other traditions as well by giving space to the Opposition to speak," he said. This comes after the Congress submitted a no-confidence motion notice against the Lok Sabha Speaker on Tuesday. Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi said, "At 1:14 pm today, we submitted a motion for a no-confidence motion against the Speaker under rule 94C rules and procedures." The Opposition MPs alleged "blatantly partisan" conduct and that leaders of opposition parties were not allowed to speak, according to sources. Sources said the notice of motion of no-confidence cited four incidents against the Speaker, including the Opposition's allegation that Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi was not allowed to speak in the House during the discussion on the motion of Thanks to the President's Address. Sources added that the Opposition MPs also flagged the suspension of eight MPs, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey's "objectionable and personalised attacks" against former Prime Ministers and Speaker Om Birla's statement, where he said he had urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to come to the House to prevent any unpleasant incident, after receiving information that some Congress MPs could come to the PM's seat and "resort to an unprecedented incident." (ANI)
The United States and Bangladesh on Monday signed the United States-Bangladesh Agreement on Reciprocal Trade, marking a significant step in strengthening bilateral economic and trade relations, according to a statement by the Office of the US Trade Representative. The agreement was signed by US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Bangladesh's Adviser for Commerce, Textiles and Jute, and Civil Aviation and Tourism, Sheikh Bashir Uddin. Also present at the signing were Bangladesh Commerce Secretary Mahbubur Rahman and Assistant US Trade Representative Brendan Lynch. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer joined Bangladesh's Adviser for Commerce, Textiles and Jute, and Civil Aviation and Tourism Sheikh Bashir Uddin in signing the United States-Bangladesh Agreement on Reciprocal Trade, a statement by the Office of the US Trade Representative said. "Under President Trump's leadership, the United States is pursuing a trade policy that delivers real results for American workers and businesses, strengthening our economic and security partnerships abroad," the statement quoted Greer as saying. He further said, "Today's signing of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade with Bangladesh is the first in South Asia and marks a meaningful step forward in opening markets, addressing trade barriers, and creating new opportunities for American exporters. I commend Bangladesh's Commerce Adviser Sheikh Bashir Uddin for his constructive engagement to achieve a more balanced and reciprocal trading relationship." https://x.com/USTradeRep/status/2020950719277244784?s=20 Bangladesh Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus said the agreement represents a "historically new level" in bilateral economic ties. A statement by the Bangladesh Chief Adviser of the Interim Government said, "After the signing, Commerce Adviser Sheikh Bashir Uddin, who led the Bangladesh side in negotiations, said that the agreement marked a historically new level in our bilateral economic and trade relations. "It will provide substantially enhanced access of Bangladesh and the US to each other's respective markets", he said." https://x.com/ChiefAdviserGoB/status/2020905309926195254?s=20 The statement further said, the US will further reduce the reciprocal tariff to 19%, which was originally set at 37% and later reduced to 20% in August last year. In addition, the US committed to establishing a mechanism for certain textile and apparel goods from Bangladesh using US produced cotton and man-made fiber to receive zero reciprocal tariff in US market. https://x.com/i/status/2020959373363904814 "The reduction of reciprocal tariff will grant further advantage to our exporters, while zero reciprocal tariff on specific textile and apparel exports from Bangladesh using US inputs will give substantial added impetus to our garments sector", said NSA Rahman who was Bangladesh's chief negotiator. The agreement was approved by the Council of Advisers on Monday and will be operational once notifications are issued by the two sides. Present during the signing were Commerce Secretary of Bangladesh Mahbubur Rahman, and Assistant US Trade Representative, Brendan Lynch. (ANI)
P. Kumaran, Secretary (East) in the Ministry of External Affairs, will undertake an official visit to the Republic of Korea (ROK) from February 12 to 13. During his visit, he will co-chair the 6th Foreign Policy and Security Dialogue (FPSD) with his ROK counterpart, Park Yoon-joo, First Vice Foreign Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Korea, according to a statement from the Ministry of External Affairs. Earlier on January 17, 2023, Saurabh Kumar, Secretary (East), Ministry of External Affairs, paid an official visit to the Republic of Korea (ROK) from January 16-17, 2023 to co-chair the 5th Foreign Policy and Security Dialogue (FPSD) with his ROK counterpart Cho Hyundong, First Vice Foreign Minister, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Korea, on January 16, 2023, a statement by the Ministry of External Affairs said. During the FPSD, both sides agreed to enhance India-ROK Special Strategic Partnership by strengthening strategic communication through regular high-level engagements including the Foreign Minister-level Joint Commission Meeting, '2+2' dialogue involving Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry at Vice Minister/Secretary level, other ministerial and senior official dialogues, as the two countries celebrate 50 years of establishment of diplomatic relations this year. Both sides agreed to deepen cooperation in areas including trade and investment, security and defence, science and technology, as well as cultural and people-to-people exchanges, as per the statement. Secretary (East) informed the Korean side about the opportunities India offers to Korean companies for investments in manufacturing, infrastructure and other sectors. The two sides agreed to work to make global supply chains more resilient and robust. They also noted that bilateral trade was at an all-time high of USD 28 billion approx. and agreed to take concrete steps to realise the vision of taking it to USD 50 billion by 2030. Both sides also discussed opportunities for cooperation in new and emerging technologies, the statement said. FPSD provided an opportunity to share perspectives on regional and global issues, including the situation on the Korean Peninsula and in the Indo-Pacific region. The two sides noted that the ROK's recently announced Indo-Pacific Strategy provides an opportunity to deepen bilateral cooperation, including expanding it to new areas. They also discussed cooperation in multilateral fora. Secretary (East) briefed the ROK side about the priorities of India during its Presidency of G20. The latter appreciated India's efforts and assured its full support in the success of the G20. (ANI)
US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor hosted a reception at his residence on Monday evening, bringing together prominent leaders from the diplomatic community, the business sector, and key partners from both India and the United States. Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal, British High Commissioner to India Lindy Cameron and Ambassador of the European Union to India Herve Delphin also attended the reception hosted at Gor's residence. Gor highlighted the immense potential of the India-US partnership. In a post on X, he said, "Hosted a warm reception at home tonight with dear friends from India, the diplomatic community, business leaders and partners from the US. Amid our nations' renewed trade framework and deepening strategic ties, the real magic happens in these personal moments--where trust, ideas, and shared futures spark. A special thank you to S Jaishankar, Piyush Goyal and over 75 Ambassadors who attended. Here's to the boundless potential between India & America!" https://x.com/USAmbIndia/status/2020934483843629141?s=20 Earlier in the day, Gor held talks with Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Ashwini Vaishnaw. In a post on X, Gor said, "A GREAT meeting! So many opportunities ahead! Very much looking forward to working with you." https://x.com/USAmbIndia/status/2020920231246381228?s=20 Vaishnaw said, "Good meeting with Mr. Sergio Gor, U.S. Ambassador to India. Discussed strengthening our strategic ties, with a focus on semiconductors, electronics manufacturing and supply chain resilience. Look forward to strong participation from the U.S. in the AI Impact Summit 2026." Goyal on Monday credited Gor for the successful conclusion of the framework for the India-US interim trade agreement, praising his "support and personal leadership" in strengthening bilateral economic ties between the two countries. Speaking at a reception hosted at Ambassador Gor's residence in the national capital, the Commerce Minister said, "I must place on record that the trade deal would not have been possible but for his support and his personal leadership in the entire engagement. Thank you very much, Sergio, for all that you've done to further strengthen this bond between the US and India." Goyal also wished the US Ambassador a pleasant tenure in India, noting that the country's warmth and hospitality would make his work "great fun". (ANI)
Mauritius Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam expressed appreciation for the "constructive" exchange with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said he hoped to deepen India-Mauritius collaboration at the AI Impact Summit in India next week. Ramgoolam affirmed Mauritius' support for India in strengthening strategic cooperation across a wide range of sectors. In a post on X, he said, "Thank you Prime Minister Narendra Modi for this constructive exchange. Mauritius and India remain firmly aligned in strengthening strategic cooperation across development, innovation and emerging technologies. I look forward to deepening this collaboration at the AI Impact Summit in India next week." https://x.com/Ramgoolam_Dr/status/2020903073581797868?s=20 Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday received a phone call from his Mauritian counterpart, during which both leaders discussed the progress in the extensive cooperation between the two countries. In a post on X, PM Modi welcomed the Mauritian Prime Minister to India for the upcoming AI-Impact Summit, scheduled for next week. Both leaders also reaffirmed their commitment to further strengthen the special, historic and people-focused ties between the two nations. "Happy to receive a phone call from my friend, Prime Minister Dr. Navinchandra Ramgoolam. We reviewed progress in the wide-ranging cooperation between India and Mauritius since our memorable meeting in Varanasi last year. Reaffirmed our commitment to further strengthen the special, historic and people-centric ties that unite our two nations. India and Mauritius will continue to work together to achieve shared objectives of peace and stability in the Indian Ocean Region. I look forward to welcoming him to India for the AI Impact Summit next week," the Prime Minister stated in his post. Last year in September, India extended a comprehensive Special Economic Package exceeding USD 680 million to Mauritius and signed multiple agreements during the State visit of Mauritian Prime Minister Ramgoolam to India. The two leaders also held wide-ranging discussions covering bilateral, regional, and global issues, culminating in the signing of seven Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) across diverse sectors, including science and technology, oceanography, public administration, power, small development projects, hydrography, and space cooperation. (ANI)
EastEnders is set to "revive" Anthony Trueman with the use of AI.

Nicholas Bailey as Anthony Trueman

The doctor - played by Nicholas Bailey - was killed off on the soap over Christmas, sparking a whodunnit, and a new storyline will see his father Patrick Trueman (Rudolph Walker) turn to artificial intelligence to cope with his grief.

But over the weeks to come, the pensioner will grow increasingly reliant on the virtual version of his son, much to the concern of those around him.

The storyline will be part of a wider AI Unpacked Week broadcasting across the BBC between 2 and 8 March.

The special week will also include a new Panorama investigation titled Will Robots Take My Job?, and the return of conspiracy thriller The Capture, which will explore the use of deepfakes.

CBeebies will help educate parents on using AI responsibly at home, while programmes across BBC Radio will see presenters discussing its usage.

Speaking of the initiative, Kate Phillips, BBC chief content officer, said in a statement: AI Unpacked Week builds on the BBCs work on educating UK audiences about AI and its place in society. Across TV, radio and digital we have a range of dedicated AI programming to inform and excite audiences about the rise of this new technology.

"From grief tech in EastEnders, to a Panorama special on the advance of robotics, to BBC Bitesize guides for teenagers.

"As we stand at the brink of a major technological revolution, the BBC will play a vital role in being a trusted destination for advice, insight and engagement for all audiences."

Nicholas only returned to EastEnders as Anthony last year after an 11-year absence and he admitted he was "sad" to have been killed off, though he felt his demise would be good for the show.He told The Sun: I was sad things were coming to an end, but I wanted to lean into the excitement of this story being a launch pad for some incredible stuff heading into 2026.

I love EastEnders and I love seeing the show thrive. So, while Im sad to be saying goodbye to Anthony, Im happy it means my friends are going to have some incredible stuff to play following his death.

My jaw hit the floor when our producer Ben Wadey told me where this was going and what was going to happen.

But I think it was a masterstroke because when I look back, Anthony was always a bit like a pressure cooker, and he let things build and build before the steam escapes. This time he couldnt keep the lid on it!

A Christmas storyline is a huge moment in soap, so to get that and a big Christmas Day exit was a real honour!

Obviously, it was bittersweet because it meant I was leaving, and Ive felt really at home since I came back to EastEnders.

But the storyline itself is tremendous, and it gave me much more to do than I expected. Its been great to come out of my comfort zone and play some spectacular scenes full of spectacular lines.
President Droupadi Murmu on Monday received Seychelles President Patrick Herminie at Rashtrapati Bhavan and hosted a banquet in his honour.

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During the discussions, the two leaders underscored the immense potential to further deepen bilateral cooperation, with President Murmu noting that the newly adopted India-Seychelles Joint Vision for "Sustainability, Economic Growth and Security through Enhanced Linkages (SESEL)" provides a strong foundation for collaboration in the years ahead.

Welcoming President Herminie on his first State visit to India, President Murmu noted that India-Seychelles relations are rooted in mutual trust, respect, and a shared commitment to democracy and pluralism.

She emphasised the deep cultural links and historical connections between the two nations, noting that the Indian Ocean waves bind the peoples of both countries.

"President Droupadi Murmu received President Patrick Herminie of Seychelles at Rashtrapati Bhavan and hosted a banquet in his honour. The two leaders agreed that there is immense potential to further deepen the bilateral cooperation and that the "India-Seychelles Joint Vision for Sustainability, Economic Growth and Security through Enhanced Linkages" will provide a strong foundation for cooperation in the years ahead," the Rashtrapati Bhavan stated in a post on X.

President Murmu said that the visit is particularly significant as Seychelles celebrates 50 years of independence, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of India-Seychelles diplomatic relations.

She added that Seychelles holds a key place in India's MAHASAGAR Vision, which aims to strengthen cooperation through trade for development, capacity building, and mutual security. "India remains ever ready to meet Seychelles' developmental and security needs," she affirmed.

President Murmu expressed confidence that the Special Economic Package announced during the visit will provide fresh momentum to India-Seychelles cooperation across priority sectors, including health, infrastructure, education, defence, and capacity building. (ANI)
The first BRICS Sherpa/Sous-Sherpa Meeting commenced in New Delhi, a statement by the Official Spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, Randhir Jaiswal, said. MEA Secretary (Economic Relations) and India's BRICS Sherpa Sudhakar Dalela highlighted key priorities of India's Chairship based on the PM's vision for "people-centric" and "humanity-first" approach for the BRICS, and overall theme of 'Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability'. https://x.com/MEAIndia/status/2020893466960732254?s=20 Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Belarus to India, M. Kasko, attended the 1st BRICS Sherpa/Sous-Sherpa meeting in Delhi as a representative of the Republic of Belarus as a BRICS partner country. In his speech, the Head of the Belarusian diplomatic mission expressed gratitude to the organisers for inviting Belarus to the event, as representatives of partner countries had not previously participated in such meetings. The Ambassador of Belarus conveyed a message in which the President of Belarus expressed confidence that the coming year for BRICS, under India's chairmanship, will be a time of new achievements and successes, which will contribute to further progress and maintain the association's position as one of the most influential international organisations. Belarus, as a responsible member of the global community and a country with significant technological potential and achievements in food and water security, is ready to share its achievements to ensure the harmonious development of BRICS countries. The Belarusian side has expressed interest in joining the New Development Bank (NDB), which will facilitate the realisation of the economic potential of all BRICS member and partner countries. BRICS brings together eleven major emerging markets and developing countries of the world: Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. It serves as a useful platform for consultation and cooperation on contemporary issues having global as well as regional significance, and issues of global political and economic governance. (ANI)
The agreement ensures that the express mail services will be cost-effective and seamless.

In a post on X, he said, "India Post, Emirates Post. Adopting the Express Mail Service Standard Agreement will now ensure shipments from UAE to India are: Cost-effective, Faster, Seamless."

https://x.com/JM_Scindia/status/2020881979559096585?s=20

India Post said in a post on X, "A New Milestone in India-UAE Postal Collaboration with India Post and Emirates Post adopting the EMS Standard Agreement, shipments from the UAE to India are now more cost-effective and seamless. Stronger connections. Smarter delivery."

https://x.com/IndiaPostOffice/status/2020868463540216278?s=20

An MoU between India Post and the Emirates Post was signed earlier on February 18, 2022, to Jointly Launch the India-UAE Commemorative Stamp, as per the Indian Embassy in the UAE.

This announcement came after the visit of the President of the UAE, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, to India on January 19, 2026.

At the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Nahyan paid an official visit to India. This was the fifth visit of Nahyan to India in the last ten years and his third official visit to India as the President of the UAE.

PM Modi and Nahyan reviewed the full scope of bilateral cooperation between the two countries. They agreed that the India-UAE Comprehensive Strategic Partnership has continued to strengthen over the past decade.

The two leaders welcomed the visits of the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of the UAE, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, to India in the last two years, noting that these visits marked generational continuity of the bilateral relationship, as per the Ministry of External Affairs. (ANI)
As per the statement by the Health Ministry, the workshop is being hosted by the Department of Health Research (DHR), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, of the Government of India, in collaboration with the Ministry of External Affairs.

The workshop aims to develop a strategic pathway for advancing and institutionalising HTA in Sri Lanka.

Dr. Rajiv Bahl, Secretary DHR & DG of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), welcomed the delegates and addressed the inaugural session. He described the initiative as a significant strategic milestone in bilateral healthcare diplomacy and HTA knowledge exchange, underscoring India's commitment to supporting regional health initiatives.

https://x.com/DeptHealthRes/status/2020890425645818179?s=20

Anu Nagar, Additional Secretary, DHR, also highlighted the impactful contributions of HTAIn to India's healthcare landscape and expressed confidence that this knowledge exchange will benefit the institutionalisation of HTA in Sri Lanka.

https://x.com/DeptHealthRes/status/2020890465332240878?s=20

As per the statement, HTAIn (Health Technology Assessment India), an attached office of DHR, plays a pivotal role in evaluating healthcare technologies and ensuring cost-effective, evidence-based health interventions across India.

According to the statement, the 5-day workshop, will cover a wide range of topics, including HTA institutional frameworks, governance, methodologies, pricing, and procurement decisions. The objectives include identifying potential collaborative initiatives to strengthen HTA capacities and systems in both nations. (ANI)
On the 47th anniversary of the Islamic revolution, Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs, Sibi George spoke about India's 75-year-old diplomatic relations with Iran. He said, "India's formal diplomatic relations with Iran are 75 years old, with Iran being one of the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with India after it became a republic. The year 2025 marked the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. Our people-to-people relations and cultural contacts form a strong foundation for our modern bilateral relations." George also spoke about India and Iran's rich cultural heritage, and how the two cultures have influenced each other. "We share a rich cultural heritage, influencing art, architecture, literature, music, and cuisine, forging an unbreakable and enduring bond between our two countries. The continuing influence and rich heritage of Farsi has led the Government of India to include it as one of the classical languages in its new Education Policy 2020." Earlier, speaking at a reception on the occasion of the Iranian National Day hosted by the Iranian Embassy in India, Ambassador Fathali said that relations between India and Iran are deeply rooted in thousands of years of shared history and civilisation. He noted that the Chabahar port reflects the spirit of cooperation between the two countries and contributes significantly to regional connectivity. "Relations between Iran and India are rooted in thousands of years of shared history and civilisation and based on common culture," the envoy said." This rich heritage is a valuable asset for expanding bilateral cooperation. The Chabahar Port project, as a symbol of the cooperation between our two countries, plays an important role in the common development and regional connectivity," he added. George, represented India as the Chief Guest at the reception, during which he conveyed warm congratulations to the Government and people of Iran and reaffirmed India's enduring commitment to strengthening bilateral ties. "Secretary (West) Sibi George represented India as the Chief Guest at the Iranian National Day reception hosted by @Iran_in_India. He conveyed warm congratulations to the Government and people of Iran and reaffirmed India's enduring commitment to bilateral ties," the MEA stated in a post on X. India proposed developing the Chabahar Port in 2003 to provide an alternative route for Indian goods to reach landlocked Afghanistan and Central Asia via road and rail connectivity under the International North-South Transport Corridor, bypassing Pakistan. The progress on the project had slowed earlier due to US sanctions on Iran linked to its suspected nuclear programme. (ANI)
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday expressed concerns over a series of decisions approved by Israel's security cabinet aimed at authorising administrative and enforcement measures in areas A and B of the West Bank. He called on Israel to reverse the decision which erodes the prospect for two-state solution. The statement was delivered by Stephane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General and said that the Secretary-General is gravely concerned by the reported decision of the Israeli security cabinet to authorise a series of administrative and enforcement measures in the area. "He warns that the current trajectory on the ground, including this decision, is eroding the prospect for the two-State solution", the statement said. It further called Israeli actions, "not only destabilising but - as recalled by the International Court of Justice - unlawful." The UN Chief called on Israel to reverse the measures so as to preserve the path to lasting peace. Dujarric said, "The Secretary-General calls on Israel to reverse these measures and on all parties to preserve the only path to lasting peace, a negotiated two-State solution, in line with relevant Security Council resolutions and international law." https://x.com/antonioguterres/status/2020931313541288152?s=20 The statement follows after Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Sunday announced a series of security cabinet decisions to "dramatically" change land registration and property acquisition procedures in the West Bank, as reported by the Times of Israel. As per the Oslo II Accords, signed in 1995 by Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank is divided into three areas- A, B and C wherein Area C is under full Israeli control, Area B is under Palestinian civilian control and Israeli security control, and Area A is under full Palestinian control, Times of Israel mentioned. According to the Times of Israel report, the two ministers in a joint statement said that the decisions "are intended to remove decades-old barriers, repeal discriminatory Jordanian legislation, and enable accelerated development of settlement on the ground". Times of Israel further reported that the approved plan ordered for the publication of land registries in the West Bank, which means that property lists will be open to the public, and potential buyers will be able to identify landowners and approach them for purchasing. Till now, land registration in the West Bank had been classified. It further mentioned that the cabinet action also repealed a legal provision that prevented non-Muslims from buying real estate in the area. Times of Israel cited WAFA News Agency which said that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the decisions, calling them illegal and invalid, and demanded the United States and United Nations to intervene to stop their implementation. WAFA said Abbas's office "warned of the dangers of any infringement upon Islamic and Christian holy sites, emphasising that any violation of the Ibrahimi Mosque and the transfer of authority over it are unacceptable," using a Muslim term for the Hebron compound. (ANI)
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper have condemned the imprisonment of Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai and urged for him to be released on humanitarian grounds. In a post on X, Rubio called it tragic and unjust. "The sentencing of Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong is an unjust and tragic conclusion to this case. We urge the authorities to grant Mr. Lai humanitarian parole", he said. https://x.com/SecRubio/status/2020895075786482035 British Foreign Secretary Cooper, in a statement, said that Lai's case was raised directly with Chinese President Xi Jinping during UK PM Keir Starmer's visit to China . Cooper reiterated support to the people of Hong Kong and called on China to honour the commitments made under the Sino-British Joint Declaration. "British National Jimmy Lai was today sentenced to 20 years in prison in Hong Kong for exercising his right to freedom of expression, following a politically motivated prosecution. Beijing's National Security Law was imposed on Hong Kong to silence China's critics. For the 78-year-old, this is tantamount to a life sentence. I remain deeply concerned for Mr Lai's health, and I again call on the Hong Kong authorities to end his appalling ordeal and release him on humanitarian grounds, so that he may be reunited with his family." The statement read, "The Prime Minister raised Mr Lai's case directly with President Xi during his visit. That has opened up discussion of our most acute concerns directly with the Chinese government, at the highest levels. Following today's sentencing, we will rapidly engage further on Mr Lai's case. We stand with the people of Hong Kong, and will always honour the historical commitments made under the legally binding Sino-British Joint Declaration. China must do the same." https://x.com/FCDOGovUK/status/2020740332262961171 As per CNN,the sentence to Lai is the longest delivered under that law and makes him ineligible for parole until he is in his late 90s. It further mentioned that Lai was found guilty of two national security charges and a sedition charge in December. (ANI)
Denmark's Ambassador to India Rasmus Abildgaard Kristensen has expressed happiness over completing one year in the country. In a post on social media platform X, he wrote, "Honoured to conclude my first year as Denmark's Ambassador to India. Thankful for the warmth, partnerships and shared ambition across India. Looking back with appreciation, and ahead with optimism. In this short video, I reflect on the year gone by and what lies ahead." Diplomatic relations between India and Denmark were established in September 1949 and are based on historical links, common democratic traditions and shared desire for regional, as well as international peace and stability. Bilateral relations were elevated to the level of "Green Strategic Partnership" during the Virtual Summit held on 28 September 2020 between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen. The current development of renewed India-Denmark relations has been guided by the "Green Strategic Partnership". Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid an official visit to Denmark on May 3 and 4, 2022. The visit included two components- bilateral talks with PM Frederiksen and the 2nd India-Nordic Summit hosted by India and Denmark. During the bilateral talks, the two Prime Ministers reviewed the progress of India-Denmark Green Strategic Partnership and exchanged views on regional and global issues of mutual interest. Queen Margrethe II received the Prime Minister and hosted an official dinner in his honour. PM Narendra Modi also interacted with the Indian community in Copenhagen and addressed an India-Denmark Business Forum held at the headquarters of the Danish Industry (DI). Agreements and MoUs in the fields of migration and mobility, green shipping, cultural exchange programme, water resource management, skill development, animal husbandry and dairying were exchanged. On May 4, Prime Minister Modi attended the 2nd India-Nordic Summit along with the Prime Ministers of Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland and reviewed India-Nordic relations. A Joint Statement reiterating strong commitment to multilateralism and international cooperation, and a robust partnership with Nordic countries to help promote innovation, economic growth, climate-friendly solutions and mutually beneficial trade and investments was issued. On the sidelines of the Summit, the Prime Minister Modi held bilateral talks with his counterparts from Finland, Iceland, Sweden and Norway. (ANI)
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has called on the Iranian nation to show unity and resolve on the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, emphasising that such national steadfastness will frustrate the country's enemies, as reported by Iranian state broadcaster Press TV. In a televised message issued ahead of the rallies set for 11 February to commemorate the 47th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Khamenei portrayed the occasion as a powerful display of Iran's strength, dignity, and collective determination. "Bahman 22nd (February 11) every year is the day of unveiling the power and dignity of the Iranian nation," the Leader said, describing the Iranian people as determined, resilient, appreciative, and fully aware of their circumstances. He highlighted that the nation achieved a "great victory" on 11 February 1979 by liberating itself from "foreign interference," yet external forces have persistently sought to undo those accomplishments since then. Building on this historical foundation, Ayatollah Khamenei affirmed, "The Iranian nation is standing firm," adding that "The symbol of this steadfastness is Bahman 22nd." He pointed to the annual anniversary demonstrations as "unparalleled," noting that no other country marks its independence with such widespread and consistent public involvement each year. These rallies, he explained, "force those who covet Iran and its interests to retreat," underscoring their role in deterring external ambitions. Ayatollah Khamenei then stressed the true sources of national strength, stating, "National power is related more to the will of nations and their steadfastness than to missiles and aircraft," and urged citizens to maintain resolve in every aspect of life. "Disappoint the enemy," the Leader stated, explaining that a nation remains exposed so long as its adversaries are not discouraged. He identified unity, strong will, motivation, and resistance to outside pressures as the essential pillars supporting Iran's national power. Ayatollah Khamenei also expressed hope that the country's youth would keep advancing in science, ethical behaviour, and both material and spiritual growth, thereby adding to national pride. He noted that the 11 February rallies reflect these qualities, as people take to the streets to demonstrate unity, loyalty to the Islamic Republic, and dedication to the nation. He further voiced hope that this year's anniversary events would further elevate Iran's standing, consistent with the pattern observed in previous years. (ANI)
Minister of State of External Affairs Pabitra Margherita met Esrom Immanuel, Minister for Finance, Commerce and Business Development of Fiji on Tuesday. The leaders discussed the entire gamut of India-Fiji ties during their meeting. Sharing the details in a post on X, MoS Margherita said that the discussions were focused on development partnership, capacity building, and possibilities for cooperation in digital infrastructure. "Pleased to meet Hon. Esrom Immanuel, Minister for Finance, Commerce and Business Development of Fiji, this morning.Held productive discussions covering the entire gamut of India-Fiji bilateral relations and shared priorities, with particular focus on development partnership, capacity building, and possibilities for cooperation in digital infrastructure, including ongoing collaboration and the way ahead." https://x.com/PmargheritaBJP/status/2021100561890979956?s=20 Earlier in January, Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, held a bilateral meeting with Tomasi Tunabuna, Minister for Agriculture and Waterways of Fiji, at the Krishi Bhawan, where the two leaders discussed ongoing cooperation and outlined future areas of collaboration, as per a statement by the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare. As per an official statement on Friday, the Ministers held a fruitful discussion on a broad range of issues of mutual interest. The two sides agreed to extend the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a further five years and to establish a Joint Working Group (JWG) to advance cooperation. The statement further noted that in addition to this the key areas of collaboration discussed included student exchanges, training and capacity-building programmes, and technology sharing covering small-scale machinery, and digital agriculture tools. The discussions also focused on strengthening research infrastructure, genetic exchange initiatives and knowledge sharing on reducing food loss and waste. In December last year, Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Anupriya Patel, held cordial and constructive meetings with health ministers from Sri Lanka and Fiji on the sidelines of the 2nd WHO Traditional Medicine Global Summit in the national capital on Thursday, underscoring India's strong bilateral ties and commitment to health cooperation in the region. (ANI)
TUCSON, Arizona  The family of missing 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie received a chilling ransom demand of $6 million as the search for the mother of NBC "Today" show co-host Savannah Guthrie entered its eighth day.

Local television station KGUN 9 in Tucson reported Saturday that it received a ransom note from the alleged kidnappers threatening Nancy Guthrie's life if the family fails to meet a Monday, 5 p.m. local time deadline. The demand represents one of the highest-profile kidnapping cases in recent years involving a celebrity family member.

The FBI is now vetting multiple ransom notes that have been sent to various media outlets, each demanding millions of dollars in Bitcoin cryptocurrency for the safe return of the elderly woman who vanished from her Tucson home on February 1.

"We Will Pay": Family's Desperate Video Message

In an emotional video posted to Instagram Saturday, Savannah Guthrie appeared alongside her siblings Annie Guthrie and Camron Guthrie, making a direct appeal to their mother's captors.

"We received your message and we understand," Savannah Guthrie said in the video, her voice steady but strained. "We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her. This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us, and we will pay."

The family did not disclose specific details about the message they received, but their willingness to negotiate publicly signals the desperation felt by the high-profile NBC journalist and her siblings as the case enters its second week.

The video marks a significant shift in the family's public communication strategy. Prior statements had focused on asking for information about Nancy Guthrie's whereabouts, but Saturday's message acknowledged direct contact with those believed to be holding the 84-year-old woman.

Multiple Ransom Demands, Bitcoin Cryptocurrency Requested

According to KGUN 9's reporting, the ransom note threatening Nancy Guthrie's life if the $6 million demand isn't met by Monday evening is not an isolated communication. Multiple media outlets in the Tucson area have reportedly received similar ransom notes, with demands ranging into the millions of dollars.

The kidnappers have specifically requested payment in Bitcoin, the digital cryptocurrency that has become increasingly favored by criminals due to its perceived anonymity and difficulty to trace. This payment method has complicated law enforcement's ability to track potential suspects.

The FBI, which is leading the investigation alongside the Pima County Sheriff's Department, has confirmed it is carefully examining all ransom communications. Investigators are working to verify the authenticity of the notes and determine whether they are connected to Nancy Guthrie's actual disappearance or are the work of opportunists attempting to exploit a high-profile missing person case.

Federal authorities are offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to Nancy Guthrie's safe return and the arrest of those responsible for her disappearance.

Timeline: The Disappearance of Nancy Guthrie

Nancy Guthrie was last seen on the evening of February 1 after having dinner at the home of her daughter Annie Guthrie and son-in-law Tommaso Cioni. The dinner took place at their residence approximately 4.3 miles from Nancy's own home in Tucson.

According to investigators, Nancy Guthrie's pacemaker lost synchronization with her Apple devices at a specific time that eveninga technological detail that has provided law enforcement with a precise timeline of when something went wrong.

The Pima County Sheriff's Department has stated that Nancy may have been abducted against her will from her own residence, though the exact circumstances of her disappearance remain under investigation.

For seven days, the family held out hope for answers. Now, with ransom demands arriving and a deadline looming, the case has taken on new urgency and a darker tone.

Presidential Attention and FBI Resources

The high-profile nature of the case has drawn attention from the highest levels of government. President Donald Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One late Friday that the FBI may be nearing "definitive" answers in the investigation.

Trump's comments suggest that federal investigators have developed significant leads, though neither the FBI nor the Pima County Sheriff's Department has publicly identified any suspects or persons of interest in the case.

The FBI's involvement brings substantial federal resources to the investigation, including expertise in kidnapping cases, digital forensics to trace cryptocurrency demands, and behavioral analysis to assess the ransom communications.

No Suspects Identified as Investigation Intensifies

Despite entering the eighth day of the investigation, law enforcement officials have not publicly identified any suspects or persons of interest. The Pima County Sheriff's Department has declined to say whether any of Nancy Guthrie's family members have been ruled out as potential suspectsa standard investigative practice in missing person cases.

However, the presence of verified ransom demands from external parties suggests investigators are treating this as a legitimate abduction rather than a case involving family members.

The sheriff's department has emphasized that all possibilities remain on the table as they work to bring Nancy Guthrie home safely.

Community and Public Response

The disappearance of Savannah Guthrie's mother has resonated deeply with viewers of NBC's "Today" show, where the journalist has been a familiar face for years. Social media has been flooded with messages of support for the Guthrie family and hopes for Nancy's safe return.

Local residents in Tucson have reported increased anxiety about safety in the community, particularly among elderly residents living alone. The case has sparked conversations about home security and the vulnerability of senior citizens.

Anyone with information about Nancy Guthrie's disappearance is urged to contact the FBI immediately at 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324). Tips can also be submitted online at tips.fbi.gov.

As the Monday deadline approaches, the Guthrie family's agonizing wait continues. Their public plea represents both a message of compliance to the kidnappers and a prayer that Nancy Guthrie will soon be returned safely to her loved ones.

This is a developing story. Updates will be provided as new information becomes available.
Formed in January through the merger of lower house members from the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and the Komeito party, the alliance's poor performance has left it without the numbers required to introduce budget-related bills or move a no-confidence resolution against the Cabinet.

Placing the setback in perspective, Kyodo News reported that the alliance's seat tally fell sharply from 167 previously.

While it secured nearly half as many votes as Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party in both single-seat districts and proportional representation blocs, it translated into only about a sixth of the LDP's 316 seats, which rose from 198 before the polls.

As a result of the outcome, opposition parties together now control 109 seats in the 465-member lower house.

The Japan Innovation Party, which serves as the LDP's coalition partner, holds 36 seats, while independents account for four.

Such an imbalance has precedent in Japan's electoral history.

In the 2009 lower house election, which produced a dominant single-party victory, the Democratic Party of Japan, predecessor to the CDPJ, won 308 seats, leaving the LDP as the main opposition with 119 seats.

Even before the current electoral system was introduced in 1996, replacing multi-member districts of varying sizes, similar outcomes were recorded.

In 1986, the LDP won 300 seats, reducing the main opposition Japan Socialist Party to just 85 seats.

More recently, Kyodo News noted that in 2012, when the LDP returned to power with 294 seats, the main opposition DPJ was reduced to 57 seats.

A comparable pattern emerged in 2017, when the LDP secured 281 seats while the main opposition CDPJ finished with 54. (ANI)
China's BRICS Sherpa and Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu attended the First BRICS Sherpa Meeting in New Delhi. Xu Feihong, Chinese Ambassador to India, in a post on X wrote, "Ma Zhaoxu noted that President Xi Jinping has put forward the important concept of the high-quality development of greater BRICS cooperation and the five cooperation layouts of building a BRICS committed to peace, innovation, green development, justice and closer people-to-people exchanges. These have charted the course for the future development of the BRICS mechanism." Feihong also highlighted China's readiness to work with India. "China is ready to work with India, the BRICS chair for the year, and BRICS members as well as partner countries to follow the correct course of BRICS cooperation, deepen practical cooperation, improve the working mechanism, strengthen multilateral coordination, uphold international fairness and justice, and bring greater development to BRICS cooperation," he added. "At the meeting, the parties exchanged views on the priorities of BRICS cooperation and the arrangement of major events for the year, and started the preparation for the 18th BRICS Summit," he wrote further. MEA Secretary (Economic Relations) and India's BRICS Sherpa Sudhakar Dalela highlighted key priorities of India's Chairship based on the PM's vision for "people-centric" and "humanity-first" approach for the BRICS, and overall theme of 'Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability'. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Belarus to India, M. Kasko, attended the 1st BRICS Sherpa/Sous-Sherpa meeting in Delhi as a representative of the Republic of Belarus as a BRICS partner country. In his speech, the Head of the Belarusian diplomatic mission expressed gratitude to the organisers for inviting Belarus to the event, as representatives of partner countries had not previously participated in such meetings. The Ambassador of Belarus conveyed a message in which the President of Belarus expressed confidence that the coming year for BRICS, under India's chairmanship, will be a time of new achievements and successes, which will contribute to further progress and maintain the association's position as one of the most influential international organisations. (ANI)
Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], February 10 (ANI) Greek Defence Minister Nikolaos Dendias visited Bengaluru Military Station on Sunday, where he witnessed the Indian Army's operational and technical capabilities at 515 Army Base Workshop. He hailed the Indian Army's professionalism, innovation and preparedness. Sharing the details in a post on X, the ADGPI said that the Greek Minister saw indigenous drone and simulator technologies, along with equipment displays by elite Special Forces and Combat Engineers. "Hon'ble Defence Minister of Greece, Mr Nikolaos Dendias, visited Bengaluru Military Station on 08 Feb 2026. During the visit, he witnessed the Indian Army's operational and technical capabilities at 515 Army Base Workshop, including indigenous drone and simulator technologies, along with equipment displays by elite Special Forces and Combat Engineers. The visiting dignitary commended the professionalism, innovation and preparedness of the Indian Army, highlighting its continued commitment to transformation and self-reliance." https://x.com/adgpi/status/2021106866135392667?s=20 On Monday, Defence Minister Raj held a bilateral meeting with Minister of National Defence of the Hellenic Republic, Nikolaos-Georgios Dendias, in the national capital, during which the two sides agreed to further strengthen defence cooperation, including the positioning of a Greek International Liaison Officer at the Information Fusion Centre-Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) in Gurugram. During the meeting, India and Greece also signed a Joint Declaration of Intent on strengthening bilateral defence industrial cooperation, which will serve as a starting point for developing a five-year roadmap. The two countries also exchanged the Bilateral Military Cooperation Plan for 2026, outlining the scope of military engagements between their armed forces, according to a Ministry of Defence release. Speaking during the interaction, Rajnath Singh said India attaches great importance to its longstanding, time-tested partnership with Greece, which is based on shared values of peace, stability, freedom, and the rule of law. He noted that bilateral relations were elevated to a Strategic Partnership during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's historic visit to Greece in 2023, further cemented by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis's visit to India in February 2024. The Defence Minister also welcomed the decision to position a Greek International Liaison Officer at IFC-IOR, describing it as an important step to enhance maritime cooperation between the two ancient seafaring nations. He also expressed confidence that the defence partnership would continue to expand in line with India's 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' initiative and Greece's defence reforms under its 'Agenda 2030'. The two Defence Ministers discussed regional and global security issues and acknowledged the growing convergence between India and Greece on maritime security and strategic matters. Both sides reiterated that the India-Greece Strategic Partnership is anchored in mutual respect and shared democratic values. (ANI)
Construction has started on three clean drinking water supply networks in Ghazni province with funding from the World Bank, according to Tolo News. The initiatives are underway in the Ab Band, Khogyani and Zankhan districts at a total cost of 20 million Afghanis. Upon completion, the projects are expected to provide clean drinking water to approximately 1,000 families in the region. Saeed-ur-Rahman Saeed, head of project implementation at the Ghazni Department of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, said, "The construction of three water supply networks has been launched in the Khogyani, Ab Band and Zankhan districts of Ghazni. The cost of these projects is 20 million Afghanis, and 1,000 families will benefit from them." Local residents have described severe challenges in accessing drinking water following prolonged droughts, which have caused many wells to dry up. They expressed appreciation for the new projects and urged continued support for similar efforts. Ezatullah, a resident of Ab Band district in Ghazni, said, "Out of 300 households in our village, 90 per cent have no water, and the remaining 10 per cent bring water by car and motorcycle from distant areas." Another resident of Ab Band, Mohammad Dawood, said, "We are facing severe water shortages. When someone starts a pump to draw water from a borewell, everyone gathers around that single well. We are very grateful that our water problem is being addressed." Tolo News reported that, according to the Ghazni Department of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, 10 clean drinking water supply networks have already been completed across various districts of the province this year with World Bank assistance, at a cost exceeding 55 million Afghanis. These schemes have delivered clean water to nearly 4,000 families. The ongoing and completed projects reflect efforts to address acute water scarcity in drought-affected areas of Ghazni province. (ANI)
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran has warned adversaries of a "more forceful and wider" response to any threats against the country's territory, according to Iranian state broadcaster Press TV. In a statement issued on Tuesday on the eve of the 47th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution's victory, the General Staff praised the Iranian nation's endurance and pledged a firm defence against external dangers. Iran "stands powerfully and with authority against any threat, conspiracy, and overreach, confronting threats with a more forceful and broader response," the statement said. The Armed Forces emphasised that the Islamic Republic has consistently upheld its firm position in protecting national interests and core objectives. The declaration comes against the backdrop of a heightened US military presence in the region and Washington's threats of military action, even as indirect nuclear discussions continue through Oman's mediation. Press TV reported that last June, Israel launched a 12-day conflict against Iran while US-Iran talks were still underway to address key disputes diplomatically. The United States later entered the fray, but Israel ultimately sought a ceasefire following Iran's robust counter-operations. The statement noted that escalating pressure from foes, especially the United States and the Israeli regime, has only strengthened Iran's resolve and resistance. "Now, after 47 years of the blessed Islamic Revolution, any fair- and free-minded person clearly sees that a powerful and independent Iran, despite all hostilities and pressures, has managed to conquer peaks of honor, progress, and self-reliance in scientific, defence, technological, social, and cultural arenas." It added that the global imperial power, having forfeited its undue influence with the fall of the Pahlavi regime, has nursed hostility toward the Iranian people from the Revolution's outset. "Through assassination, sowing insecurity, sanctions, threats, and warmongering, they tried to block the path of the Revolution," the statement said. "But by the grace of the wise leadership of the late Imam Khomeini and the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, and the steadfastness of the insightful Iranian nation, they reaped nothing but humiliation, disgrace, and successive defeats," it added. The General Staff called on citizens to generate a lasting display of strength through widespread participation in the February 11 nationwide rallies, which it said would demonstrate unity and solidarity. This large-scale public mobilisation, it asserted, will once more thwart the schemes of global arrogance, notably the United States and a beleaguered Israel, against the victorious Iranian people. On Monday, Ayatollah Khamenei urged the Iranian nation to exhibit its determination and endurance on the Revolution anniversary, noting that such cohesion would frustrate the enemy. (ANI)
India, in partnership with the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA), is organising the second edition of the annual Capacity Building Programme on the UN Security Council Resolution 1540 and Strategic Trade Controls for Asia-Pacific and African countries at the National Academy of Customs, Indirect Taxes and Narcotics, Palasamudram, from February 10 to 13, the Ministry of External Affairs stated in an official release. The programme is being organised under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) framework. As stated in the release, 23 government experts from nine countries, Brunei Darussalam, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Mauritius, Mongolia, Namibia, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Vietnam, are participating in the programme. Speakers and experts from UNODA, India's Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, the National Authority Chemical Weapons Convention, the Department of Biotechnology, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade, the Disarmament and International Security Affairs Division of the Ministry of External Affairs, and Indian industry will share their implementation experiences and best practices on relevant aspects of UNSC Resolution 1540 and Strategic Trade Controls, the release added. This annual flagship ITEC programme is a reaffirmation of India's robust credentials on non-proliferation, and a further demonstration of India's contribution to the global non-proliferation architecture. Building on these ongoing efforts, the current programme follows earlier initiatives undertaken by India in this domain. Last year, India, in partnership with the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA), organised the first-ever capacity building programme of its kind on the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540 and Strategic Trade Controls for Asia-Pacific states. (ANI)
Nepal's interim Prime Minister Sushila Karki invited Indian Ambassador Naveen Srivastava for a meeting at Singha Durbar and thanked India for providing technical support and materials to ensure the smooth conduct of the March parliamentary elections. The PM Secretariat stated, "Prime Minister Sushila Karki has thanked neighbouring and friendly country India for its support for the elections. Prime Minister Karki called Indian Ambassador to Nepal Naveen Srivastava at Singha Durbar and thanked him for providing various materials, including vehicles, to conduct the elections smoothly in the country's special situation." In response, the Indian Ambassador expressed commitment to Nepal's democratic journey. The PM Secretariat further stated, "In response, Indian Ambassador Srivastava said that it is his duty to always support Nepal's democratic process and provide support as a friendly neighbour. He also said that the democratic and constitutional stability that Nepal achieves after the elections will be important for India as well." Amid these bilateral exchanges highlighting India's support for Nepal's electoral process, the Election Commission of Nepal on Monday began dispatching ballot boxes to remote districts as the nation prepares for the parliamentary elections next month. At the Election Commission's head office in Kathmandu, ballot boxes are being piled up, counted, and dispatched to various districts to ensure smooth polling. As the Himalayan nation gears up for the elections, the electoral body has also expedited the printing of ballot papers. Over 10.9 million ballot papers have been printed so far for the First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) category of Nepal's House of Representatives. Kul Bahadur GC, Assistant Spokesperson at the Election Commission, told ANI over the phone that printing of more than 10.9 million (10,963,000) ballot papers has been completed for 88 constituencies across 37 districts so far. "Altogether, 20.32 million (20,323,000) ballot papers are required for the House of Representatives' FPTP category for all 165 constituencies across the country," GC said. "We have also completed packing of printed ballot papers for 37 districts," he added. These districts include Dolpa, Mugu, Jumla, Kalikot, Humla, Jajarkot, Dailekh, Rukum (Paschim), Salyan and Surkhet. Printing has also been completed for Bajura, Achham, Bajhang, Doti, Dadeldhura, Darchula, Baitadi, Kailali and Kanchanpur. Furthermore, printing and packing have been completed for Panchthar, Ilam, Tehrathum, Bhojpur, Okhaldhunga, Sunsari, Taplejung, Sankhuwasabha, Solukhumbu, Khotang, and Dhankuta. The remaining districts for which ballot papers have been printed and packed include Baglung, Gulmi, Jhapa, Gorkha, Myagdi, Parbat, Bardaghat, Susta Paschim, and Nawalparasi. According to the Election Commission, printing of ballot papers for constituencies in the remaining districts is currently underway at the Janak Education Materials Centre in Sano Thimi, Bhaktapur. Ballot papers for both the Proportional Representation (PR) and FPTP categories are being printed at the state-owned printing entity. Printing of ballot papers under the FPTP electoral system began on January 6. More than one million sample ballot papers were printed and dispatched to various districts in the first phase, the EC said. Printing under the PR system began on January 10, and by January 27, more than 20.83 million ballot papers had been printed, verified, and prepared for dispatch, the EC reported. (ANI)
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov outlined the growing importance of the BRICS forum in global affairs as well as the bloc's future direction and the priorities expected from the grouping under India's Chairmanship for 2026. In an interview with TV BRICS, the Russian Foreign Minister noted that assessing the outcomes of Russia's foreign policy is ultimately the responsibility of the country's leadership, particularly the Russian President, who determines strategic priorities under the Constitution. The current Foreign Policy Concept, adopted in March 2023, reflects deep and lasting global shifts that continue to shape Russia's diplomatic and economic engagement, as reported by TV BRICS. He explained that Russia works closely with partner nations through concrete agreements reached at the highest political levels. These include expanding trade and investment, strengthening scientific cooperation, and coordinating positions in international institutions such as the United Nations. Special focus is placed on regional frameworks, including the CIS, the Eurasian Economic Union, the CSTO, and the broader post-Soviet region. Such long-term, systematic collaboration is designed to ensure practical and shared benefits, TV BRICS reported. The minister emphasised that the world is undergoing a decisive transition toward multipolarity. Unlike the Cold War's bipolar structure or the brief period of Western-led unipolar dominance, today's international system is marked by several emerging centres of influence. Countries such as China, India, and Brazil are gaining prominence, while African states are increasingly working to retain control over their resources and industrial development. These developments are reshaping global power, finance, and politics amid heightened competition. He argued that Western nations are reluctant to surrender their former dominance, often resorting to restrictive measures to contain rivals. Under the Trump administration, such policies became more explicit, including sanctions targeting Russian energy companies and efforts to limit Moscow's trade and defence ties with partners such as India and other BRICS members. Lavrov highlighted India's focus on food and energy security, as well as digital and ICT safeguards. He welcomed India's initiative to host an upcoming artificial intelligence summit, emphasising the need to establish international norms for AI, particularly in security and military contexts. While transparency is necessary, BRICS nations will resist any curbs on their sovereignty. He concluded that India's upcoming chairmanship offers a forward-looking, practical agenda and that Russia intends to fully support these efforts. (ANI)
Another incident of an attack on minorities was reported in Bangladesh on Tuesday, when a Hindu businessman was killed by unidentified individuals in the Trishal area of Mymensingh district in northern Bangladesh. According to the Bangladesh police, the deceased was identified as 60-year-old Sushen Chandra Sarkar, and the incident came to light after Sarkar failed to return home late Monday night. "Sushen Chandra Sarkar was a businessman. When he didn't return home at night, his son repeatedly called him, but received no answer. Eventually, the son went to his father's shop and discovered him wounded by notorious criminals, with a head injury caused by a sharp weapon. After being taken to Mymensingh Medical College Hospital, despite the doctors' efforts, he was declared dead", Hasan Israfil, the police's ASP of Trishal Circle, told ANI, over the phone on Tuesday. The ASP added that the motive behind the killing remains unclear, and an investigation is currently underway. "We have not yet been able to determine the motive behind this murder; we are still in the process of trying to uncover the reason for this killing", he added. On December 18, 2025, a mob lynched Dipu Chandra Das, a worker in a garment factory, in the same district. According to reports, Dipu Das, who was beaten to death by a mob over alleged blasphemy charges, had his body hanged and set on fire. The Daily Star, citing Mymensingh's Additional Superintendent of Police, Abdullah Al Mamun, stated that a factory official had informed Bhaluka police that a group of workers attacked Dipu inside the factory, accusing him of making "derogatory remarks about the Holy Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH)" in a Facebook post. Factory sources told The Daily Star that the assailants later took Dipu out of the factory premises, where residents also joined the attack, resulting in his death. However, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB)-14 Company Commander in Mymensingh, Md Samsuzzaman, told The Daily Star that investigators found no evidence suggesting the deceased had posted or written anything on Facebook that could have hurt religious sentiments, adding that neither residents nor fellow garment factory workers could point to any such activity by the victim. Last month, the interim government of Bangladesh released data on incidents affecting minority communities and the broader law-and-order situation in 2025. According to the official review of police records shared by the Chief Adviser of the Interim Government, Muhammad Yunus, the country documented 645 incidents involving members of minority communities, compiled from verified First Information Reports, General Diaries, charge sheets, and police investigation updates nationwide. (ANI)
He joined international dignitaries to witness the opening ceremony of WDS and inaugurated the first-ever India Pavilion at the event, which showcased India's manufacturing prowess through Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs) and private Indian companies, according to an official release by the Ministry of Defence.

The RRM also visited the exhibition areas of Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI) and the Ministry of Defence to review their latest indigenous technological developments.

The release stated that Sanjay Seth held discussions with Khaled bin Hussein Al-Biyari, Assistant Minister of Defence for Executive Affairs of Saudi Arabia, on February 8-9, to enhance cooperation and engagement between the armed forces of both countries.

He also met with Faleh bin Abdullah Al-Sulaiman, Governor of the Saudi Arabian General Authority for Defence Development (GADD), and highlighted India's emergence as a global export hub. RRM invited GADD officials to visit India's R&D facilities to explore opportunities for co-developing defence technologies.

The release added that Sanjay Seth met with the Governor of the General Authority for Military Industries (GAMI) in Saudi Arabia, Ahmed bin Abdulaziz Al-Ohali, and discussed areas of strategic cooperation and strengthening the supply chain ecosystem between the two countries.

RRM also proposed a visit by a joint GAMI-led delegation to India to gain first-hand experience of India's defence capabilities.

In his address to heads of Indian and Saudi defence companies, held at the Indian Embassy, the RRM emphasised the importance of joint cooperation between India and Saudi Arabia to achieve self-reliance in defence requirements and highlighted India's commitment to global support under the "Make in India, Make for the World" vision.

The release noted that the RRM also visited Diriyah, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the birthplace of the Saudi state.

Later, he addressed the Indian diaspora at an event at the Indian Embassy, highlighting India's growth under Prime Minister Narendra Modi across sectors, including women's empowerment, health, and digital literacy.

RRM advocated a 'Nation First' approach and commended embassy officials for their support to the Indian community residing in Saudi Arabia. (ANI)
Russia said on Monday it is holding talks with Cuba to counter acute fuel shortages resulting from U.S. pressure.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the policies "asphyxiating tactics" that have caused "multiple difficulties" to the beleaguered Caribbean country.

In the meantime, Cuba teeters on the brink of collapse. The regime said it is set to run out of fuel for airplanes on Monday, with the shortage expected to continue for a month.

The country has also begun closing tourism resorts, one of its last remaining lifelines. Bloomberg reported during the weekend that at least two large beach resorts were closing due to gasoline shortages. One said the resort is shutting down because there is no fuel for employees to get to work. Guests were relocated to another resort 30 miles away.

The Cuban regime has also begun limiting some other activities as a result of U.S. pressure. The Associated Press detailed this week in another report that public transport between provinces is experiencing limitations, and some educational establishments told workers to stay at home.

Mexico, one of the country's last lifelines, confirmed it is currently not sending any oil as a result of U.S. pressure.

Speaking during her daily press conference on Monday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said shipments are "currently on hold" as the country is "seeking to avoid any negative impact on Mexico and, as always, to find the best diplomatic solution for Cuba to receive fuel."

Elsewhere in the conference, Sheinbaum rejected President Donald Trump's threat to sanction countries sending oil to the country, saying "you can't hurt the people just because you disagree with the government." "It's not right. They don't have fuel for hospitals or schools. The people are suffering," she added. Mexico did send non-fuel products, as two Navy ships are en route to the island with more than 800 tons of humanitarian aid.

"Cuba and Mexico are sister nations, heirs to a long history of solidarity that we honor today," said Mexico's foreign ministry.

Originally published on Latin Times
Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri on Tuesday held the India-China Strategic Dialogue with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu, who is in India to participate in the BRICS Sherpa Meeting. The dialogue took place at a time when both sides had noted positive momentum in bilateral relations. Providing details of the engagement, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said the talks were held against this backdrop. "Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri held the India-China Strategic Dialogue with Executive Vice Foreign Minister of China Ma Zhaoxu, who is in India to participate in the BRICS Sherpa Meeting," Jaiswal said. https://x.com/MEAIndia/status/2021199141469294594?s=20 Elaborating on the substance of the dialogue, Jaiswal said the two sides undertook a review of bilateral ties and examined ways to further advance cooperation. "Both sides reviewed the positive momentum in bilateral relations and discussed ways to further advance ties by enhancing people-to-people exchanges and addressing concerns on sensitive issues," he said. Beyond bilateral issues, the discussions also covered wider developments. Jaiswal said the talks extended to broader regional and global matters. According to him, the two sides "exchanged views on the global and regional situation and multilateral issues." The India-China Strategic Dialogue was held on the margins of the First BRICS Sherpa Meeting in New Delhi, which was attended by China's BRICS Sherpa and Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu. Following the meeting, Chinese Ambassador to India Xu Feihong shared details of China's views on BRICS cooperation in a post on X. He said Ma Zhaoxu highlighted President Xi Jinping's vision for the grouping, emphasising the high-quality development of greater BRICS cooperation and five key areas--peace, innovation, green development, justice and closer people-to-people exchanges--which he said would guide the future development of the BRICS mechanism. Feihong also emphasised China's readiness to work closely with India during China's BRICS chairmanship. "China is ready to work with India, the BRICS chair for the year, and BRICS members as well as partner countries to follow the correct course of BRICS cooperation, deepen practical cooperation, improve the working mechanism, strengthen multilateral coordination, uphold international fairness and justice, and bring greater development to BRICS cooperation," he said. He further noted that the meeting addressed planning for the year ahead. "At the meeting, the parties exchanged views on the priorities of BRICS cooperation and the arrangement of major events for the year, and started the preparation for the 18th BRICS Summit," Feihong wrote. During the same meeting, MEA Secretary (Economic Relations) and India's BRICS Sherpa Sudhakar Dalela outlined the key priorities of India's BRICS Chairship. These priorities, he said, are based on the Prime Minister's vision of a "people-centric" and "humanity-first" approach, aligned with the overall theme of 'Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability'. The meeting also saw participation from BRICS partner countries. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Belarus to India, M. Kasko, attended the first BRICS Sherpa/Sous-Sherpa meeting in New Delhi on behalf of Belarus. In his address, the Head of the Belarusian diplomatic mission expressed gratitude to the organisers for inviting Belarus, noting that representatives of partner countries had not previously participated in such meetings. The Ambassador conveyed a message from the President of Belarus, expressing confidence that the coming year under India's BRICS chairmanship would bring new achievements and successes, further strengthening cooperation and reinforcing the grouping's position as one of the most influential international organisations. BRICS brings together eleven major emerging markets and developing countries--Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates. It serves as a platform for consultation and cooperation on contemporary issues of global and regional significance, including global political and economic governance. (ANI)
Dipu Chandra Das, a young man from the Hindu community, was beaten and burned to death in the Square Masterbari area of Bhaluka upazila in Mymensingh district. He was reportedly lynched and hanged from a tree over allegations of making derogatory remarks. The brutal killing was widely reported in the media at the time as an incident of communal violence. On December 23, 2025, acting on the advice of the Chief Adviser, Education Adviser C R Abrar visited the victim's home in Mokamiakanda village under Banihala union in Tarakanda upazila of Mymensingh district. During the visit, he conveyed the government's condolences and solidarity with Dipu Das's family. As Dipu Das was the sole earning member of his family, the government pledged financial assistance and support for the construction of a permanent house to ensure the family's security and well-being. The assistance will be implemented under the supervision of the Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) of Tarakanda. An allocation of Tk 2.5 million (25 lakh taka) has been approved for the construction of a house, to be implemented by the National Housing Authority. In addition, direct financial assistance will be provided: Tk 1 million (10 lakh taka) each to Dipu Das's father and wife, and Tk 500,000 (5 lakh taka) will be deposited in a fixed deposit receipt (FDR) to secure his child's future. Speaking on Tuesday, Education Adviser CR Abrar said, "The killing of Dipu Chandra Das was a heinous crime that has no justification and no place in our society. The government's support for his family is insignificant compared to the value of a human life. The state will ensure justice." He added, "The way communal frenzy led to Dipu Das's murder is a matter of shame for the entire nation. Only justice can free us from this shame." He further stated, "As a state and society, we respect the peaceful right to freedom of expression for people of all religions, ethnicities, and communities, as long as it is exercised with respect for others. No individual has the right to take the law into their own hands, even in moments of disagreement or objection." Twelve individuals directly involved in the incident have already been arrested, and the investigation is ongoing. The Education Adviser said all those responsible will be brought to justice through due legal process. (ANI)
With less than a month left before the parliamentary elections scheduled for March 5 in the country, Nepal has continued its nationwide Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination campaign. Nepal's Ministry of Health and Population has instructed all relevant authorities to complete the inoculation drive within three weeks, starting this week, ensuring that the campaign is not disrupted by the parliamentary polls. According to Nepal's Child Health and Vaccination Branch of the Department of Health Services, vaccination has begun for girls studying in grade 6 as well as out-of-school girls aged 10 years and above. During the campaign, girls in grades 7 to 10 and out-of-school girls aged 11 to 14 who missed last year's HPV vaccination will also receive the vaccine. Vaccinations for girls in grade 6 are being administered at schools, while out-of-school girls can receive them at health centres. "The immunisation campaign has been rolled out. The HPV vaccine is being administered to girls aged 10 to 19 years. This time, female students in grade 6 are being targeted," Bhawana Ojha Joshi, a health official, told ANI. HPV spreads through skin-to-skin contact and is a leading cause of cervical cancer, the second-most common cancer in the developing world. Cervical cancer remains a major cause of death among Nepali women, with hundreds diagnosed every year. Officials said that 345,000 girls studying in grade 6 are the primary target for vaccination, with an additional 55,000 out-of-school girls also eligible. Health workers are administering vaccines at schools, while health facilities cater to out-of-school girls aged 10 and above. Although the exact number of cervical cancer patients in Nepal is unknown, it is estimated that at least four women die daily from the disease. BP Koirala Memorial Cancer Hospital in Bharatpur treats over 700 women annually suffering from cervical cancer. Doctors noted that HPV has over 100 types, ranging from low-risk to high-risk infections. Types 16 and 18 are most frequently associated with invasive cervical cancer and are considered more carcinogenic than other types. Most cervical cancer cases are linked to HPV, and widespread immunisation could significantly reduce the disease burden. Early treatment can prevent up to 80 per cent of cervical cancer cases, experts said. Nepal launched a nationwide HPV campaign in February-March last year, inoculating around 1.5 million girls aged 11 to 14 with a single dose of the vaccine. Experts note that the vaccine is most effective before a girl becomes sexually active, while its effectiveness decreases for sexually active women. The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) supplied vaccines for last year's campaign and this year's programme, with a commitment to continue supporting the routine immunisation programme. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends HPV vaccination as part of a coordinated strategy to prevent cervical cancer and other HPV-related diseases. Globally, cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer among women, claiming over 350,000 lives annually. (ANI)
India and the United Kingdom on Tuesday signed an Agreement on Social Security relating to Social Security Contributions, aimed at avoiding double social security contributions for employees on temporary assignments in each other's territories for periods of up to 36 months. The agreement, signed in the national capital by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and British High Commissioner to India Lindy Cameron, noted that the move is intended to facilitate talent mobility between the two countries while ensuring continued social security coverage for employees on short-term overseas assignments. According to a statement from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), the agreement follows commitments made during the signing of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between India and the UK in July 2025 and forms part of broader efforts to strengthen bilateral trade and partnerships in the services sector. "The Agreement seeks to avoid double social security contributions for employees of both countries on temporary assignments in each other's territories for periods of up to 36 months. The Agreement will support mobility and continued social security coverage of the employees on short-term overseas assignments. This will enhance India-UK partnerships in the service sector, leveraging the high skills and innovative service sectors of both countries," the statement read. https://x.com/MEAIndia/status/2021183466935836766 The MEA highlighted that India has been progressively entering into bilateral Social Security Agreements (SSAs) with other countries to safeguard the interests of Indian professionals working abroad for short durations. The India-UK SSA will leverage the high skills and innovative capacities of both countries, particularly in services and technology, the MEA stated. The agreement is expected to take effect alongside CETA, which is planned for implementation in the first half of 2026. Details of the agreement will be made available on the MEA website and the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) portal, enabling employees to secure Certificates of Coverage (CoC) to prevent double social security contributions. "The signed agreement will be hosted on the website of the Ministry of External Affairs and the website of the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation for the information of the stakeholders so that they can secure Certificates of Coverage (CoC) to avoid making double social security contributions," the statement added. This landmark step reinforces India-UK cooperation, supports the free movement of skilled professionals, and strengthens economic and trade ties. (ANI)
The 55-year-old returned to his family residence in Rakyang Village in Gade County, Golog, but uncertainty hangs over his physical condition and the extent to which authorities will allow him to travel or speak freely, as reported by Phayul.

According to Phayul, his imprisonment had initially been scheduled to end in September 2025. Officials, however, accused him of infractions committed during detention and pushed back his release date to February 2026.

His freedom this week follows that controversial extension, raising fresh questions among rights observers about punitive administrative practices used against Tibetan activists.

A-Nya Sengdra earned recognition across the region for exposing alleged corruption, misuse of relief money, illegal resource extraction and environmental degradation. His efforts to confront local authorities over discrimination and the marginalisation of nomadic Tibetans won him admiration at the grassroots level. At the same time, these actions brought heavy retaliation from the state.

His clashes with the authorities stretch back more than a decade. Detained in 2014, he served over a year in prison before being released in 2016. Another arrest followed in 2018 under accusations tied to "social stability".

In December 2019, a court handed him a seven-year term, citing charges including inciting unrest and organising gatherings that were said to disturb public order, as highlighted by Phayul.

International campaigners reacted cautiously to news of his release, maintaining that freedom after a prolonged and disputed incarceration does not correct the injustice of the original verdict.

Advocacy networks have long argued that his prosecution symbolises the wider pressures faced by Tibetans who challenge official misconduct or environmental exploitation. Over time, UN human rights experts and Tibetan groups repeatedly called for due process and unconditional release, as reported by Phayul. (ANI)
The Strategic Dialogue was held between Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and China's Executive Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu, who is in India to participate in the BRICS Sherpa Meeting from February 8 to February 10.

According to a statement from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), the two sides exchanged views on a wide range of issues across bilateral, regional, and international affairs, with discussions primarily focusing on recent progress in stabilising and rebuilding bilateral ties and on ways to advance engagement.

Both sides reiterated their commitment to implement guidance from their leaders, including the need to approach bilateral issues, particularly trade-related concerns, from a political and strategic perspective.

"Both sides underscored the importance of peace and tranquillity in the border areas for overall progress in bilateral relations. They reiterated their commitment to implement the guidance provided by their leaders including on the need to proceed from a political and strategic direction to approach issues and concerns related to bilateral trade," the statement said.

During the dialogue, Foreign Secretary Misri noted the successful resumption of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra and expressed hope for its continued expansion.

Both sides also recognised the need to conclude an updated Air Services Agreement at an early stage and agreed to continue taking practical steps to facilitate visa processing and promote people-to-people exchanges.

The discussions also covered multilateral cooperation, including during India's BRICS Chairmanship this year.

"The Chinese side expressed its support for a successful BRICS Summit in India. EVFM also conveyed that China understands and respects India's aspirations for UNSC membership," the MEA added. (ANI)
The Indian Air Force is undertaking a joint in-situ air exercise with the Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF). The exercise will enhance operational coordination and interoperability between the two Air Forces, the IAF said. In a post on X, the IAF said, "IAF is undertaking joint in-situ air exercise with the Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF). The exercise will enhance operational coordination and interoperability between the two Air Forces. IAF Su-30MKI, AWACS, AEW&C and IL-78 refuelling aircraft are participating in the Ex, alongside RTAF Gripen aircraft, strengthening Indo-Thai defence cooperation and regional synergy." https://x.com/IAF_MCC/status/2021245267899711936?s=20 India and Thailand have historically enjoyed warm and cordial relations. In contemporary times, the diplomatic relations between the two countries were established in 1947, and both sides celebrated the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations in 2022. The Memorandum of Understanding on Defence Cooperation between India and Thailand was signed on 25 January 2012. The ongoing defence cooperation initiatives comprise defence dialogue, joint maritime patrolling by the navies of both countries, annual staff talks, subject matter expert exchange visits, training of officers at each other's institutions, trilateral/multilateral military exercises, etc. As part of regular high-level defence-related visits, Chief of Defence Force of Royal Thai Armed Forces General Songwit Noonpackdee paid an official visit to India from 21-24 January 2025. The bilateral ties are multifaceted and cover a wide spectrum of areas, including trade and investment, defence and security, connectivity, culture and tourism, education, science and technology, and people-to-people exchanges. Further, the 'Act West' policy of Thailand complements India's 'Act East' policy. Thailand is India's maritime neighbour. The total number of people of Indian origin in Thailand is estimated to be around 4 to 5 lakh, including more than 25,000 NRIs, the majority of whom are concentrated in Bangkok. The community comprises mainly of Punjabi Hindus, Namdhari and other Sikh sects, Gorakhpuris, Malayalis, Tamils, Gujaratis, Marwaris, and Sindhis. Other linguistic and regional groups are also well represented. (ANI)
TOKYO, Feb 10 (News On Japan) - The Liberal Democratic Party scored a sweeping victory in the latest election, and an analysis of exit poll data conducted by JNN sheds light on why the party was able to dominate so decisively, revealing that it secured roughly 40% support across all age groups and even absorbed votes from previously unaffiliated or opposition-leaning voters.

Looking at proportional representation voting by age group, the LDP drew support of around 40% from every generation, including 43% among 18- and 19-year-olds, 38% in their 20s, 36% in both their 30s and 40s, 38% in their 50s, 40% in their 60s, and 41% among those aged 70 and over. Analysts note that maintaining such a balanced support base across generations is significant, as it prevents the party from relying too heavily on either older voters or volatile younger demographics and could help sustain political stability if the trend continues.

This broad support stands in stark contrast to the 2025 upper house election, when the LDPs proportional representation vote share varied widely by age, with only about 11% among voters in their teens through 30s and 33% among those aged 70 and above. In the latest lower house election, however, the party captured roughly four in ten votes across all generations, creating a far more stable support structure.

Commentators suggest that the victory was driven less by policy and more by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichis image strategy. Hiroshi Hoshi, a TBS special commentator, noted that landslide wins such as the 2005 postal privatization election or the 2009 change-of-government election typically require support across all age groups, adding that the latest result appears to reflect the success of Takaichis personal image campaign in appealing to a broad electorate.

The data also indicates that younger voters, particularly those in their teens, may have shifted toward the LDP from smaller parties. In the 2025 upper house election, younger voters were said to have backed emerging parties such as Sanseito and the Democratic Party for the People, with Sanseito receiving about 23% of the teen vote at the time. In the latest lower house race, however, Sanseitos share among teens fell to 10%, while the LDP rose to 43%, suggesting that some of those voters were absorbed by the ruling party. About 20% of those who voted for Sanseito in the 2025 upper house election reportedly switched to the LDP this time.

Younger voters tend to lack firmly established party loyalties and are more susceptible to the influence of information sources such as social media. Analysts say that favorable coverage and momentum surrounding the LDP, sometimes described as the Takaichi effect, likely played a role in shaping their voting behavior.

The LDPs dominance was also visible online. As of noon on the 10th, videos posted by the party on YouTube had amassed approximately 160 million views, far surpassing those of other parties. Observers described the election campaign as increasingly resembling fan-driven support culture, with supporters at campaign rallies waving uchiwa fans bearing candidates names and cheering as if for pop idols. Takaichi framed the dissolution of the lower house as a referendum on her own leadership and repeatedly emphasized in speeches that voting for LDP candidates would also be a vote of confidence in her.

Some analysts say Takaichis image as a clear-speaking leader unencumbered by traditional factional politics or backroom deal-making contributed to public enthusiasm, with voters seeing her as someone capable of bringing change. Others point to her personal appeal and ability to win over both allies and opponents as factors behind the unexpectedly large victory. The result suggests that her popularity translated directly into votes for the LDP across a wide range of age groups, creating a rare alignment of support that underpinned the partys landslide win.

Source: TBS
Companies are losing money on cloud services. According to Flexera's State of the Cloud report, 84% of organizations are having difficulty controlling their cloud spending, and their budgets are already 17% over budget. On average, companies waste 32% of their cloud technology budgetthat's about $232 out of every $1,000 wasted. With global spending on cloud services reaching $723.4 billion this year, that's hundreds of billions of dollars wasted.

But here's what many companies don't realize: some of the biggest losses don't come from obvious sources, such as idle servers or forgotten test environments. They come from the fact that almost all companies ignore logging. Every time an application performs an action, it writes a log. Every click, every transaction, every error is recorded. Companies store mountains of these logs "just in case," paying cloud providers to store data that no one ever looks at.

Oleksandr Shevchenko, a Site Reliability Engineer with published research on engineering cost optimization, has been investigating this problem across different organizations. His background uniquely positions him to tackle this issueyears of data center infrastructure work at IT-Soft, where he reduced downtime by 35% and operating costs by 15% through predictive maintenance systems, combined with expertise in cloud automation that he now shares through technical publications and participation in hackathons like Hackathon Raptors. What he's discovered is shocking.

The Hidden Problem

After many years of working with cloud infrastructure, Shevchenko began to notice a certain pattern. Companies were paying huge sums of money for logging without asking themselves whether they really needed all that data. Organizations have strict requirements for reliability and security, so everyone assumes that these expenses are necessary. But something doesn't add up here.

"I started studying logging pipelines and realized that companies were storing huge amounts of redundant data. The same information was logged multiple times as it passed through different systems, and no one questioned whether we needed all that data," Shevchenko explains.

Across the industry, companies treat logging as insurancebetter to have too much than too little. But this approach creates another kind of risk: financial losses that no one notices because the bills come from cloud service providers rather than traditional IT budgets.

Most of the data in logs is noise: repetitive status checks, routine operations that worked perfectly, and debugging information that is only relevant in the event of a failure. Some logs are duplicated three or four times in different systems. Other logs collect information so frequently that even if someone wanted to review them, it would be impossible due to the sheer volume.

Finding the Solution

Instead of simply deleting logs and hoping nothing went wrong, Shevchenko took a systematic approach. He restructured the entire logging architecture, embedding intelligent filtering into the pipelines. Now, the system decides in real time what deserves long-term storage and what can be deleted immediately.

Critical errors? They are flagged and stored with full context. Routine operations completed successfully? They are aggregated or deleted. The result: logging costs have been reduced 20-fold. For a large financial institution that processes millions of transactions daily, this means serious moneypotentially millions of dollars a year.

"The key was understanding the business value of different types of data. Not all logs are created equal. Some are absolutely necessary for regulatory compliance and troubleshooting. Others just take up space and cost money," he says.

But cost savings weren't the only benefit. With less noise in the system, it became easier to spot real problems. When everything generates alerts, nothing gets attention. By filtering out irrelevant data, Shevchenko's team was able to focus on the real issues.

The Bigger Picture

Issues related to the cost of cloud technology are usually framed as a question of choosing the right server size or negotiating more favorable rates with suppliers. However, Shevchenko's work points to something else: most companies don't really understand what they are paying for.

At IT-Soft, he helped expand a large data center by 250 racks, optimized cooling systems to reduce energy losses, and built predictive maintenance systems using IoT sensors and machine learning. This project reduced unplanned downtime by 35% and lowered operating costs by 15%.

This experience taught him to look at infrastructure holistically. Everything is interconnected. Logging affects storage costs. Storage affects backup costs. Backup affects network costs. Most companies optimize these elements separately, losing sight of the big picture.

Throughout his career, Shevchenko has implemented a number of key improvements in various organizations. He created automatic "circuit breakers" that smoothly shut down applications when nodes fail, preventing data corruption. He migrated mission-critical systems from outdated, vulnerable software versions to modern, secure ones, eliminating security risks. He created reusable infrastructure templates that reduce deployment time from several days to 30 minutes and reduce configuration errors by 90%.

Making AI Actually Useful

The consequences of unchecked logging extend beyond inflated storage bills; they directly sabotage the adoption of advanced automation. One of the hottest topics in technology right now is AIOpsthe use of artificial intelligence to manage IT operations. However, AI models are only as good as the data they are fed.

Most implementations fail because companies feed these models raw, uncurated logs. When an AI attempts to learn from a system generating millions of useless lines of data, it cannot distinguish a critical signal from background static. Instead of detecting true incidents, the model trains on "noise patterns," resulting in a system that generates more alerts than it eliminates.

Many organizations attempt to bypass this complexity by relying entirely on managed services like AWS DevOps Guru, Azure Monitor's smart detection, or Google Cloud's Log Analytics anomaly detection. While these platforms offer powerful, pre-trained models capable of identifying standard patternssuch as memory leaks or latency spikesthey are not immune to the data quality problem. When fed unoptimized, noisy application logs, even these premium services struggle to distinguish between a genuine outage and a harmless warning, often leading teams to mute the very tools meant to save them.

He's led AIOps implementations with specific, measurable targets: reduce alert noise by 95%, cut the time to detect problems by 60%, and improve the time to fix problems by 40%. These projects consistently hit their targets.

"AI is not magic. It is a tool that requires careful tuning. It needs to be trained on real incident models, not theoretical thresholds. The difference between a useful AI system and an annoying one is whether the operations team trusts it," Shevchenko notes.

Now the system filters out false alarms and highlights real problems. Engineers stopped ignoring alerts because they actually meant something. This is the difference between artificial intelligence as a buzzword and artificial intelligence as a practical tool.

Beyond Simple Filtering

But filtering alerts is just the beginning. Shevchenko's more advanced implementations take AI integration further. When the system detects a problem, it doesn't just notify engineersit checks existing documentation to verify that recommended solutions are still current. Infrastructure changes over time. Solutions that worked six months ago might not work today. AI can catch these discrepancies before an engineer follows outdated instructions at 3 AM.

The alerts engineers receive now include potential solutions from verified documentation. Instead of "Database connection pool exhausted," they get "Database connection pool exhaustedverified solution: increase pool size from 50 to 100 in config.yaml, last successful resolution 2 days ago." This cuts troubleshooting time dramatically.

Some organizations push this concept even further with automated remediation, having AI not just suggest fixes but implement them. Shevchenko remains: "Automated fixes can work for well-defined, low-risk scenarios like restarting a crashed service or clearing a full disk. But you need strict guardrails. I've seen systems where automated remediation created cascading failures because the AI didn't understand the broader context."

Balancing speed with safety is key. Automating simple, repetitive fixes frees engineers to focus on complex problems. But every automated action needs monitoring, rollback capabilities, and clear boundaries.

This layered approach connects back to the original logging problem. Smarter alerts reduce wasted time, which reduces operational costs. Verified documentation prevents expensive mistakes. Careful automation handles routine work that burns out good engineers. Each piece reinforces the others, creating systems that are both more reliable and more cost-effective.

What This Means for Other Companies

Shevchenko's work offers a blueprint for organizations drowning in cloud costs. The solution isn't just about buying less or negotiating harder. It's about questioning assumptions. Why are we storing this data? Who will use it? What happens if we don't have it? These simple questions can reveal enormous inefficiencies.

The tech industry faces particular pressure right now. Regulations are tightening, cyber threats are increasing, and there's constant pressure to cut costs without breaking things. Engineers who can deliver both reliability and efficiency, not one at the expense of the other, are becoming essential.

Shevchenko also contributes to the broader technology community by publishing his research. His work appears in InfoTechLead, The American Journal of Engineering and Technology, TechMediaToday, and AllTechMagazine, where he discusses infrastructure automation and cost optimization strategies.

But the real lesson to be learned from his work is not about any particular tool or method. It's about changing our attitude toward cloud infrastructure. The pay-as-you-go model promised to make IT costs more predictable and controllable. Instead, it has created new opportunities for waste that many organizations still don't recognize.

84% of companies struggle to manage their cloud technology costs, so the question is not whether optimization is needed, but why more organizations are not approaching it systematically. Shevchenko's 20-fold reduction in logging costs was the result of his asking basic questions that most people never ask. How many more opportunities like this are hidden in plain sight?
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, on Monday held Sudans paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and their allies fully responsible for what he described as a preventable human rights catastrophe in El Fasher.

Addressing the UN Human Rights Council, Turk said that after 18 months of siege, starvation and bombardment, the RSF unleashed intense violence in the city, resulting in thousands of deaths and the displacement of tens of thousands of civilians.

Survivors reported mass killings, summary executions, sexual violence, torture, abductions for ransom and attacks on healthcare workers.

Turk said his office interviewed more than 140 victims and witnesses following his recent visit to Sudan and eastern Chad. Testimonies pointed to systematic sexual violence, the targeting of non-Arab ethnic groups, child recruitment and widespread detentions, with some civilians reportedly transferred to

prisons such as Tagris in South Darfur.

He also warned that similar violations could spread to Sudans Kordofan region, where fighting has intensified after the fall of El Fasher. His office documented about 90 civilian deaths and 142 injuries in just over two weeks from drone strikes by both the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces.

Calling for urgent international action, Turk urged the extension of the Darfur arms embargo to the whole of Sudan, stronger civilian protection measures, an end to attacks on civilian infrastructure and greater support for local mediation initiatives.

He is scheduled to deliver a more detailed briefing on Sudan to the Human Rights Council on February 26. The war between the Sudanese army and the RSF, which began in April 2023, has killed thousands and displaced millions across the country.
Mauritania has taken a further step towards aligning public debt sustainability with climate action and sustainable development financing, following a Technical committee meeting held on Monday in Nouakchott by the Ministry of Finance.

The meeting forms part of ongoing cooperation between the Mauritanian Government and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) on a proposed debt-for-climate action and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) exchange program.

The ESCWA mission to Nouakchott is aimed at shaping an innovative framework that balances debt management with investment in priority climate and development projects, against the backdrop of mounting climate risks and socio-economic pressures.

Deliberations focused on analysing eligible debt service data, identifying potential bilateral creditors, and developing a portfolio of priority projects anchored in clear performance indicators and measurable impact. The committee also agreed on a roadmap for the next phase of implementation.

Speaking at the meeting, Director of External Debt, Niang Idrissa, said the proposed swap initiative offers a strategic, win-win mechanism to address Mauritanias climate vulnerability, development needs and public debt sustainability, while financing projects with tangible economic, social and environmental benefits.

In a video address from Beirut, ESCWAs Head of the Shared Economic Prosperity Group, Niranjan Sarangi, said strong partner commitment enhances the credibility and potential impact of the initiative. He called for coordinated efforts to design an ambitious yet realistic program capable of delivering transformative outcomes for Mauritanias sustainable development agenda.

The meeting brought together representatives from key government ministries, the UN Development System, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the African Development Bank and the World Food program.
Moroccan forces took part in the 9th International Pakistan Army Team Spirit (PATS) Competition, a high-intensity, multinational military exercise held from 5 to 9 February 2026.

The Team Spirit Competition is a 60-hour long patrolling exercise, designed to enhance professional military skills through the exchange of innovative ideas, tactical experiences and best practices among participating teams.

It is the toughest patrolling exercise intended to test physical endurance, tactical expertise, and mental resilience in a near-real combat environment.

Besides Morocco, this year exercise brought together forces from the United States, Turkiye, Uzbekistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Qatar.

Addressing the closing ceremony, Chief of Army Staff & Chief of Defense Forces Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir commended all participating teams for their exceptional professionalism, physical and mental endurance, operational competence and high morale displayed during the exercise.

He emphasized the importance of such multinational engagements in enhancing collective preparedness and adapting to the evolving character of modern warfare.
Vance's visit to both Yerevan and Baku is also focused on discussions to finalize the implementation framework for the provisional peace deal known as TRIPP (Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity) between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The deal comes as Armenia plans to replace its outdated, Russian-built Metsamor nuclear plant with a new facility based on American modular nuclear technology.

US Vice President JD Vance and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed an agreement on peaceful nuclear cooperation aimed at diversifying Armenia's energy resources and reducing reliance on Russia.

US Vice President JD Vance kicked off a three-day visit to Armenia and Azerbaijan with an evening meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. They concluded their discussions with a signing ceremony covering an agreement on peaceful nuclear cooperation.

A statement issued by the Armenian Foreign Ministry prior to the meeting had hinted a signing ceremony was in the offing, saying Vances visit will include events that will deepen relations with Washington and open new areas of cooperation.

Pashinyan said the agreement will ensure the diversification of Armenias energy resources through the introduction of safe and innovative technologies, according to the Armenpress news agency. Pashinyans use of the term diversification is code for reducing Armenias energy dependency on Russia.

Vance is expected to hold additional talks with Armenian officials on February 10 before traveling to neighboring Azerbaijan for a round of discussions in Baku, according to the Armenian service of RFE/RL. The vice president will be back in Washington by the evening of February 11.

The discussions in both Yerevan and Baku are expected to concentrate on finalizing a provisional peace deal signed by the two states in August in Washington.

In the days leading up to Vances arrival in Yerevan, speculation mounted that the two countries might use the occasion to formalize an implementation framework for TRIPP, or the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, which is the centerpiece of a provisional peace pact. A draft implementational framework outlining TRIPPs operational structure was unveiled in mid-January.

Armenian officials earlier in February telegraphed that a nuclear cooperation deal was pending with Washington, announcing they would replace the outdated Metsamor nuclear plant with a new facility based on a modular design. The United States is the global leader in modular nuclear technology.

Russia, which built the Metsamor plant and seems to retain hope of winning the contract to build a replacement reactor, tried to head off a US-Armenian nuclear deal. Alexey Likhachev, the head of Rosatom, Russias nuclear entity, pitched a comprehensive cooperation deal during a February 6 meeting with Armenian parliamentary speaker Alen Simoyan. A Rosatom statement did not define the scope of comprehensive cooperation.

US Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg is accompanying Vance on his Caucasus tour, signaling that the discussion agenda will not solely focus on TRIPP and nuclear energy.

By Eurasianet.org

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The record travel surge occurs as China's economy faces headwinds from a property market crisis, low consumption, and high youth unemployment.

Despite record volumes in rail and civil aviation, road transport, especially self-driving trips, will remain the most popular mode, making up 80% of all journeys.

A historic 9.5 billion passenger trips are projected for the 40-day Chinese New Year or Spring Festival travel period.

A record 9.5 billion passenger trips are expected during this years Chinese New Year or Spring Festival travel surge, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.

The 40 day period between February 2 and March 13 is expected to see record highs in terms of passenger volumes for both rail trips (exceeding 540 million passengers) and civil aviation trips (exceeding 95 million passengers).

However, as Statista's Katharina Buchholz reports, despite rail and air travel for the Chinese New Year gaining popularity, travel by road is still the most popular mode of transport for the holiday.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Eighty percent, or 7.6 billion out of the projected 9.5 billion trips taken on the occasion, will be self-driving trips, according to Chinese authorities, with the rest taken up by other road transport.

The New Year falls on February 17 this year.

The year of the horse starts amidst a tough economic climate in China due to an ongoing property market crisis, low consumption and high youth unemployment.

By Zerohedge

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To help navigate the uncertainty, we have framed five possible scenarios, detailed below, that outline plausible pathways, from diplomatic normalization to severe destabilization, and assess their consequences for geopolitics and global oil markets. Only a week ago, the balance of risks appeared tilted towards military action. More recently, intensified diplomatic engagement and signalling from both Washington and Tehran have shifted expectations toward a less confrontational path. That said, developments can unfold quickly, and the probability distribution across scenarios remains highly fluid.

Scenario 1: US forces new nuclear deal

Under this scenario, diplomatic pressure, economic incentives and the credible threat of escalation succeed in bringing Iran back into a formal nuclear agreement without direct military confrontation. Washington prioritizes containment and de-escalation, while Irans leadership concludes that economic stabilization and regime survival are best served through compromise rather than resistance. Sanctions are lifted in stages, contingent on compliance, allowing Iran to re-engage with global trade and financial systems.

From a geopolitical perspective, this scenario leads to a gradual reduction in regional tensions. The immediate nuclear threat recedes, lowering the likelihood of unilateral Israeli military action and reducing the need for a sustained US military presence in the Persian Gulf. Relations between Iran and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries stabilize, with backchannel diplomacy intensifying, particularly with Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Iran shifts focus inward, prioritizing economic recovery and social stability over regional power projection.

For oil markets, the impact is gradual and muted rather than disruptive. Oil prices decrease by around $5 per barrel on the news. Years of sanctions on Iran have eroded upstream capabilities, damaged reservoirs and constrained access to technology and investment. Hence, production and exports recover slowly  likely over several months  limiting the immediate downside for prices. Irans crude production increases from 3.2 million barrels per day (bpd) in January this year to around 3.6 million bpd at the end of 2027.

Additionally, the rest of OPEC+ would partially absorb the incremental supply through quota management, while still allowing for the group to regain market share as part of the strengthened diplomatic relations between Iran and GCC countries, particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The disappearance of the geopolitical risk premium, together with the additional supply from Iran, only partially offset by OPEC+, would exert modest downward pressure on prices.

For Israel, a renewed nuclear deal reduces the immediate case for unilateral military action, even if long-term concerns about Iran remain. US security guarantees and enhanced monitoring lower the near-term risk of escalation, allowing Israel to step back from direct confrontation.

At the same time, the Abraham Accords gain further traction. Improved ties between Israel and key Gulf states, particularly the UAE and Bahrain, deepen as shared security priorities shift from crisis management to containment. Stronger regional coordination helps stabilize the security environment and further erodes the geopolitical risk premium in oil markets.

Scenario 2: Limited US strikes on nuclear and IRGC targets

In this scenario, similar to the 12-day war last year, the US conducts targeted strikes aimed at further degrading Irans nuclear infrastructure and signalling deterrence, while deliberately avoiding actions that would trigger regime change or all-out war. The strikes are designed to be limited in duration and scope, with clear signalling intended to prevent miscalculation. Washington seeks to reassert red lines without committing to a prolonged conflict.

Irans response is calculated and asymmetric, designed to preserve escalation leverage without crossing thresholds that would justify broader US or allied retaliation. A limited and telegraphed attack on US military assets in the region serves primarily as a domestic signalling tool, allowing the leadership in Tehran to demonstrate strength while avoiding uncontrollable escalation. As a result, internal anti-government protests rapidly turn into nationalist demonstrations, temporarily consolidating regime support and reducing internal political pressure. GCC countries avoid taking a strong stance to preserve regional stability.

As in the 12-day war, oil markets respond primarily through sentiment rather than physical disruption. Oil prices briefly increase by between $5 and $10 per barrel. Iranian exports decline only marginally and temporarily as sanctions enforcement tightens and compliance risks increase. However, broader regional supply continues to flow, and the Strait of Hormuz remains open. Oil prices spike initially but retrace as markets assess the limited scope and duration of the conflict. Given the rather limited impact on actual supply, OPEC+ does not react.

The lasting effect is a latent geopolitical risk premium, reflecting heightened uncertainty rather than sustained supply losses. Tensions between Israel and Iran become regular and the threat of additional military escalation remains.

Scenario 3: Wider US attacks, Khamenei killed  pragmatic successor emerges

This scenario assumes a major escalation in which US military action results in the death of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, fundamentally altering Irans political landscape. The immediate aftermath is marked by institutional shock, uncertainty around succession and intense internal power struggles involving the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), clerical elites and political factions. Initial anti-government protests rapidly morph into nationalist demonstrations as external pressure reshapes domestic narratives.

From a geopolitical standpoint, Iran seeks to reassert deterrence by briefly disrupting maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, signalling that even under extreme pressure it retains the ability to affect global energy markets. Tensions with GCC countries escalate and the region is on the edge of a regional war. However, the absence of a prolonged closure reflects internal recognition that sustained escalation would threaten regime survival. A pragmatic leadership consolidates power, prioritizing economic recovery, sanctions relief and international reintegration over ideological confrontation. This scenario somewhat echoes recent developments in Venezuela, where leadership pragmatism led to partial normalization after prolonged isolation. Diplomatic channels reopen and, following lengthy negotiations, a new nuclear agreement is secured. Sanctions are gradually relieved, and Iran repositions itself as a transactional rather than confrontational regional actor. Tensions with GCC countries gradually de-escalate.

Oil markets experience a sharp, fear-driven price spike, followed by supply outages due to operational disruption, attacks on energy infrastructure and strict sanctions enforcement. Possible attacks (or direct threats) on oil facilities in GCC countries add a significant geopolitical risk premium. Oil prices increase by more than $10 per barrel as Iranian crude supply initially falls to 2.8 million bpd. However, as the new leadership becomes less confrontational, sanctions enforcement weakens and production gradually recovers. The geopolitical risk premium fades slowly rather than abruptly.

Scenario 4: Wider US attacks, Khamenei killed  confrontational successor

In this scenario, severe US attacks target nuclear and energy assets and result in the death of the Supreme Leader, but leadership change does not produce moderation. Instead, a hardline successor consolidates power by embracing confrontation, portraying resistance as central to the regimes legitimacy. This leadership relies heavily on the IRGC and adopts a more aggressive regional posture.

Geopolitically, Iran escalates through direct and indirect attacks on US military assets, Israel and GCC energy infrastructure. Maritime threats intensify, with repeated disruption or threats to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Diplomatic engagement collapses entirely, and Iran becomes increasingly isolated, relying more heavily on informal ties with Russia, China and non-state actors. Sanctions enforcement becomes strict, coordinated and long-lasting.

The oil market impact is more enduring and structurally bullish. Oil prices initially rise by around $15 per barrel as Iranian exports remain heavily constrained, not only because of sanctions but also due to infrastructure damage, elevated operational risk and a lack of investment. Iranian production falls to 2.6 million bpd by the middle of this year. More importantly, the persistent threat to Gulf infrastructure and transit routes embeds a long-term geopolitical risk premium into oil prices. OPEC+ partially offsets lost Iranian barrels with additional supply, adding some downside price pressure, but sporadic attacks on GCC oil infrastructure limit the groups ability to fully compensate. Current high levels of crude on water and global crude stocks gradually reduce the price spike.

In this scenario, Israel becomes a central actor rather than a background risk. A confrontational Iranian leadership, combined with sustained attacks on Israeli territory and assets, pushes Israel into a more assertive and sustained military posture. The likelihood of direct Israeli strikes on Iranian and Iran-aligned targets increases, particularly against Hezbollah infrastructure and Iranian assets in Syria and Lebanon. This raises the risk of a multi-front conflict, further entrenching regional instability and reinforcing the structural geopolitical risk premium embedded in oil prices.

Scenario 5: Wider US attacks, Khamenei killed  internal collapse and civil unrest

The most severe scenario sees US military action trigger a collapse of centralized authority in Iran. The death of the Supreme Leader creates a prolonged power vacuum, with competing factions  including the IRGC, clerical networks, regional elites, and local power brokers  vying for control. Governance fragments rapidly, protests escalate and persist, and the states ability to maintain internal order and coherent foreign policy deteriorates sharply. Decision-making becomes decentralized and unpredictable, increasing the risk of uncoordinated or opportunistic escalation.

Geopolitically, Iran transitions from a state-based actor to a source of systemic regional instability. As central command weakens, attacks on US and GCC assets increase in frequency and unpredictability, with limited ability to enforce restraint. Iranian or Iran-aligned actors target GCC oil infrastructure, including production facilities, export terminals and processing hubs, either deliberately or opportunistically. These attacks severely reduce effective OPEC+ spare capacity, undermining the groups ability to stabilize markets during the crisis. At the same time, prolonged and repeated disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz turn a tactical chokepoint risk into a structural constraint on global energy flows.

For oil markets, this represents an extreme tail risk, with prices increasing by more than $15 per barrel initially. Iranian production collapses to 2.2 million bpd and becomes volatile, but the dominant concern shifts to a multi-layered supply shock affecting both production and spare capacity across the Gulf, potentially pushing the global oil market into deficit. While OPEC+ attempts to offset lost Iranian barrels to stabilize the market, the reduction in spare capacity removes the markets primary shock absorber, amplifying price responses to even minor disruptions. High level of crude on water and global stocks marginally calm the market. But panic pricing emerges as markets struggle to assess the scale, duration and geographic spread of outages. Insurance and freight costs surge, inventories are rapidly drawn down and spare capacity is repriced aggressively. In this environment, geopolitical risk becomes a persistent and dominant feature of oil pricing rather than a temporary premium.

Geopolitical risk skewed to the upside

Across all five scenarios, Irans significance within oil markets extends well beyond its own production profile. The countrys geopolitical weight is rooted in its strategic location, its influence over regional security dynamics, and its capacity to disrupt critical energy infrastructure and transit routes. Even scenarios involving limited military action or gradual diplomatic normalization have meaningful implications for price formation through changes in risk premium, volatility and market confidence. As a result, oil markets are likely to remain highly sensitive to developments in Iran, with headline-driven moves amplified by uncertainty over escalation pathways rather than immediate physical supply losses.

The more severe scenarios highlight the asymmetric risks facing the oil market. While additional Iranian supply under a renewed nuclear deal would exert only modest and gradual downward pressure on oil prices, escalation scenarios carry the potential for sharp, non-linear price responses. In particular, outcomes involving prolonged instability, disruption to the Strait of Hormuz or damage to GCC oil infrastructure would fundamentally alter the markets ability to absorb shocks by eroding OPEC+ spare capacity. In such environments, geopolitical risk becomes structural rather than transitory, embedding higher prices, greater volatility and increased fragility into the global oil market outlook.

From an oil price perspective, the scenario analysis highlights a clear asymmetry. Downside risks appear limited and gradual, with a renewed nuclear deal likely shaving around $5 per barrel as additional Iranian supply and a fading risk premium. By contrast, escalation scenarios imply larger and faster upside moves. Limited military action could support a short-lived risk premium of between $5 and $10 per barrel, while wider conflict scenarios point to rapid price increases of at least $10 and more than $15 per barrel, driven by immediate supply losses and by threats to transit routes, infrastructure and lost spare capacity.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views or beliefs of Rystad Energy.

By Rystad Energy

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Argentina is home to an enormous wealth of critical natural resources that are becoming increasingly in demand as the global energy transition continues to pick up pace. But while Argentinas potential geopolitical advantages open new avenues for economic growth, they also come with major potential trade-offs for energy sovereignty as the worlds superpowers intensely pursue the nations riches of lithium and uranium.

Argentinas economy is finally on an upswing after decades of painful decline. This change is in large part thanks to the radical cuts of right-wing President Javier Milei, who was elected to office in 2023. But while Mileis aggressive financial reforms are having some positive impacts on the economy, his approach has been highly controversial in Argentina and on an international scale.

Part of Mileis strategy is a close alignment with the Trump administration. As a part of this shift, he has shown a renewed willingness to work with the United States and other international partners as part of his new nuclear plan. Milei has avowed that his nation is an unconditional ally of the US and Argentina was the very first partner nation to sign up for the Trump administrations Foundational Infrastructure for Responsible Use of Small Modular Reactor Technology (FIRST) Program.

But while Milei is cozying up to the United States, many of his constituents are expressing major reservations about a development pathway that might allow other nations to extract resources and leave locals to clean up the potentially hazardous mining sites. Past uranium extraction in the countryside has left locals beset with high occurrences of cancer and skin diseases, though no official studies have been done to confirm the connection of the uranium mine to the rise of these illnesses. As a result, communities living near uranium deposits are wary of similar future endeavors.

Moreover, Argentina has plenty of need for its own uranium. Some argue that the nations uranium should be reserved for its own nuclear reactors, as the country has enough proven reserves to fill its own demand for 70 years. This approach could meet dual needs for energy security and sovereignty. But while the country could potentially build up a robust nuclear energy program with local nuclear fuel supply chains  a major asset in a playing field currently dominated by Russian and Chinese interests  Argentina remains dependent on oil and gas for 80 percent of its energy.

Argentina doesnt have extra uranium, Diego Hurtado, ex-president of Argentina's nuclear regulatory authority, recently told The Guardian. Exporting uranium isnt an Argentine nuclear plan; its banana republic-style mining: Ill sell you raw materials so you can use them to generate employment and industrial capacity in your country instead of here.

Argentina has faced a similar dilemma concerning the countrys rich lithium deposits. While the Biden administration was eager to ink deals with Argentina to supply the white gold that is essential to clean energy manufacturing including EV batteries, energy storage, and solar panels, Argentinian leaders were loath to sign off on major U.S.-backed projects at the time.

Instead of exporting raw lithium for the benefit of U.S.-based value chains, Argentinian leadership expressed the desire to develop lithium supply chains locally where they can more meaningfully benefit the long-suffering national economy. Adding value is central for us, Argentina Mining Undersecretary Fernanda Avila told Bloomberg in 2023. We know the industry today is growing and theres a lot of pressure and price volatility. But its about making the most of this window of opportunity, not just by shipping out lithium carbonate.

However, things have changed dramatically since 2023 in both the United States and Argentina, and dealmaking is now taking center stage between the two countries. So far, the new liberalization of trade has been a boon to the Argentinian economy, but it also opens the nation to some serious risks. Argentina has long relied on tariffs to protect local value chains, and slashing those is opening up the market to a flood of cheap U.S. and Chinese goods that Argentinian producers just cant compete with.

And when it comes to the energy sector, many Argentinians are worried that energy sovereignty is on the line. They want to see their own nuclear sector flourish, not watch their resources flow into northern grids with little to show for it but environmental degradation and increased public health concerns.

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

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India has seized three oil tankers involved in oil smuggling in what is believed to be the countrys first move against the growing shadow fleet of tankers.

The Indian Coast Guard has said that it busted on February 6 an international oil-smuggling racket in a land and sea operation.

The syndicate exploited mid-sea transfers in international waters to move cheap oil from conflict-ridden regions to motor tankers, evading duties owed to coastal states, the Coast Guard added.

The authorities intercepted three suspect vessels west of Mumbai.

The vessels known to frequently change identity are being escorted to Mumbai for further legal action, reinforcing Indias role as a net provider of maritime security and guardian of the rules-based international order, the Coast Guard said.

This is the first time India has moved to take action against shadow fleet tankers, sources with knowledge of Indias shipping industry told Bloomberg on Tuesday.

Indias move to seize vessels of the dark fleet follows intensified efforts from Western countries, most of all the U.S. and EU, to act more decisively against shadow vessels making illicit trips to deliver sanctioned oil.

The move also comes as the United States is pressuring India to halt imports of Russian crude oil as part of the U.S.-India trade deal.

Indian refiners are still avoiding Russian oil as deals for delivery in April begin to be made.

Indias largest state-owned refiner, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), has boosted purchases of crude oil from West Africa and the Middle East, as New Delhi steers clear of Russian crude in the wake of the trade deal with the United States.

Indian Oil and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), as well as the top private refiner Reliance Industries, have not made any fresh spot orders for Russian crude in the past week, sources with direct knowledge of the oil procurement deals told Bloomberg on Monday.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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Rising U.S.Iran tensions, and new U.S. maritime guidance are pushing oil higher as traders reassess geopolitical risk.

Are Oil Majors Running Out of Reserves?

- Shells disappointing 2025 results continue to create ripples across oil markets as the London-based energy major now only wields proven reserves of 8.1 billion barrels of oil equivalent, less than 8 years of its current production.

- Shell is now facing a 200,000 boe/d production gap by 2030, despite its corporate policy pledging to grow total hydrocarbon output by 1% annually and to keep crude production flat.

- Shrinking reserves might be the key factor in triggering a long-mooted Shell-BP merger, especially as BPs own reserve replacement ratio came in at 90% in 2025, taking its own reserve life to just 6 years of current production.

- Saudi Aramco towers above oil majors with 52 years of reserve life, with ExxonMobil posting the strongest reserve numbers among Western firms with 12 years worth of proven reserves.

- The reserve plight of majors is underscored by particularly weak exploration results last year as the 2025 total amounted to 8.2 billion boe, with the largest discovery of all (Bumerangue in Brazil) remaining an open question in terms of commerciality due to extremely high CO 2 levels.

Market Movers

- Oilfield services giant Transocean (NYSE: RIG) has agreed to purchase peer company Valaris (NYSE:VAL) in an all-stock deal valued around $5.8 billion, creating a $17 billion drilling major with a fleet of 73 rigs.

- Italy's oil major ENI (BIT:ENI) has loaded its inaugural cargo of liquefied natural gas from the Nguya FLNG facility in the Republic of Congo, marking the start of the 3 mtpa Phase Two of the Congo LNG project.

- UKs struggling energy giant BP (NYSE:BP) has announced that it would suspend its buyback programme after taking a $4 billion impairment on its renewable and biogas assets, sending its shares down 6% on Tuesday.

- US oil major ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) is reportedly in talks with the government of Ivory Coast to explore and appraise three exploration license blocks, CI-524, CI-803 and CI-806, after distressed explorer Tullow Oil relinquished its acreage in the country.



Tuesday, February 10, 2026

Oil prices have edged higher so far in the second trading week of February, with ICE Brent pushing towards $70 per barrel on rising expectations of US-Iran confrontation. After the failure of nuclear talks in Oman to bridge the gap between the two sides, the US Department of Transportation has boosted oil bulls with its guidance to any US-flagged commercial vessels to avoid Iranian waters and decline permission to board if asked. Could this be a prelude to another series of US strikes of Iran?

OPEC+ Output Decline as Oversupply Fears Fade. According to S&P Global, OPEC+ production dipped in January to 42.56 million b/day, a 270,000 b/day decline compared to December levels and the first monthly drop in 13 months, driven by output cuts in Kazakhstan, Russia, Nigeria and Libya.

Venezuelas Oil Recovers Fully. Venezuelas PDVSA has reversed most of its production cuts, implemented as precautionary measure vis-a-vis the Trump administrations pressure policy in November-December, reporting that its oil output in the Orinoco Belt is now close to 1 million b/d.

Namibia Gets Funky with Its Oil Riches. The government of Namibia said it would not recognize the recent purchase of stakes in the PEL 104 exploration license offshore Namibia by TotalEnergies (NYSE:TTE) and Petrobras (NYSE:PBR), claiming that the majors were 'not following due procedure'.

US Oil Output Declines in November. EIA monthly figures show that US crude oil production in November dropped by 82,000 b/d from the all-time high of October at 13.78 million b/d, putting it on a trajectory for three straight monthly declines as cold snaps impacted December-January supply.



Indian Refiners Slam the Brakes on Russian Oil. According to Reuters, some of India's top refiners - IOC, BPCL and Reliance - will avoid Placing any nominations for Russian oil barrels delivered in April, seeking to placate the Trump administration as Delhi hopes to clinch a trade deal by end-March.

China Cuts Iranian Imports on Russian Surge. Chinese independent refineries, mostly located in the northeastern Shandong Province, slashed their imports of Iranian crude to 1.17 million b/d in January, with higher Russian incoming volumes increasingly squeezing out inflows from Iran.

Tengiz Production Takes Time to Recover. Oil output at the Chevron-operated (NYSE:CVX) giant Tengiz field in Kazakhstan, hampered by a fire incident at its power facilities on January 18, has been recovering gradually and currently stands at 550,000 b/d, or 60% of its nameplate capacity.

Brussels Eyes Sanctions on Georgia, Indonesia. The European Commission has proposed extending sanctions against Russia to also include Georgias Kulevi and Indonesias Karimun ports for allegedly handling Russian oil, the first time that Brussels would target infrastructure in third countries.

Qatar Postpones Start of Giant Expansion. QatarEnergy has pushed back the start of its giant 32 mtpa North Field East expansion project, developed at an estimated cost of $29 billion, towards the end of 2026 and could potentially launch it in early 2027 if construction delays continue.

New Zealand to Turn to LNG Imports Soon. New Zealand expects to commission its first ever LNG import terminal by early 2028 as the island nations government is assessing commercial proposals for contracting, with recurring draughts prompting its buyers to turn towards coal imports.

US Boards Runaway Venezuelan Tanker. The US Navy has seized the eighth Venezuelan tanker in 2026 to date, boarding the Aquila II tanker in the Indian Ocean as it was nearing Indonesian waters, with the vessel having reportedly loaded a cargo of high-sulfur fuel oil in early December 2025.

Nigeria Invites Chinese Firms to Revive Its Refineries. Nigerias national oil company NNPC is reportedly in advanced negotiations with Chinas state-controlled Sinopec (SHA:600028) to take up minority stakes in three of its idled refineries, the 125,000 b/d Warri plant and two in Port Harcourt.



Congo Wants Miners to Share Their Stakes. Attesting to Africas increasingly protectionist policies, the Democratic Republic of Congo informed miners that it would from now on enforce a long-dormant rule that required a 5% local employee ownership in operating cobalt and copper mines.

By Tom Kool for Oilprice.com

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Progress on the key elements in TotalEnergies US$27 billion four-pronged project that will define Iraqs oil and gas sector in the years to come ranges from 80% to 95% complete, according to reports from the countrys Oil Ministry. This runs from 80% finished on the rehabilitation work on the first Central Processing Facility -- expected to double production capacity from 60,000 to 120,000 barrels per day (bpd) -- to 95% finalised on the Artawi-PS1 export pipeline project. Overall, a senior source who works very closely with the Ministry exclusively told OilPrice.com over the weekend: It [TotalEnergies] is doing exactly what it said it would, ahead of time in several respects, as it has been allowed to get on with the projects with almost none of the usual government interference. He added: If the rest of the work continues like this, then we are looking at potentially enormous gains in oil production in a relatively short time.

Indeed it is, as the key element of TotalEnergies four-part plan -- the Common Seawater Supply Project (CSSP), has long held out the promise that Iraq could finally deliver on its full hydrocarbons potential and become one of the worlds top three oil producers -- second perhaps to the U.S. As analysed in full in my latest book on the new global oil market order, the CSSP involves taking and treating seawater from the Persian Gulf and then transporting it via pipelines to oil production facilities in order to maintain pressure in oil reservoirs, which will optimise the longevity and output of the fields. The basic plan for the CSSP is that it will be used initially to supply around six million bpd of water to at least five southern Basra fields and one in Maysan Province, and then extended for use in further fields. Both the longstanding stalwart Iraqi fields of Kirkuk and Rumaila  the former beginning production in the 1920s and the latter in the 1950s, with both having produced around 80% of the countrys cumulative oil production  require major ongoing water injection. The reservoir pressure at the former dropped significantly after output of only around 5% of the oil in place (OIP), while Rumaila produced more than 25% of its OIP before water injection was required, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). This was because Rumailas main reservoir formation connects to a very large natural aquifer that has helped to push the oil out of the reservoir.

To reach and then sustain Iraqs future crude oil production targets over any meaningful period, Iraq will have total water injection needs equating to around 2% of the combined average flows of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers or 6% of their combined flow during the low season, according to IEA figures. While withdrawals at these levels might look manageable, these water sources also have to continue to satisfy other end-use sectors, including the enormous agricultural sector. Informative in terms of the potential timeline for the completion of the CSSP is the case of Saudi Aramcos Qurayyah Seawater Plant Expansion. The 2 million bpd expansion of an existing facility took nearly four years from the awarding of the front-end engineering, procurement and design contract  in May 2005  to the time that water first began to flow in early 2009.

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Progress at the CSSP has been less straightforward, to put it mildly. It was delayed for over a decade, as the U.S.s ExxonMobil and the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) battled it out for control of the pivotal infrastructure project until the U.S. firm finally withdrew over mounting concerns over the lack of transparency across all areas of the project outside its direct control. These are alluded to in the reports around that time from the highly-respected independent non-governmental organisation Transparency International (TI) in its Corruption Perceptions Index. The publication described Iraq as being: Among the worst countries on corruption and governance indicators, with corruption risks exacerbated by lack of experience in the public administration, weak capacity to absorb the influx of aid money, sectarian issues and lack of political will for anti-corruption efforts. TI added: Massive embezzlement, procurement scams, money laundering, oil smuggling and widespread bureaucratic bribery that have led the country to the bottom of international corruption rankings, fuelled political violence and hampered effective state-building and service delivery. It concluded: Political interference in anti-corruption bodies and politicization of corruption issues, weak civil society, insecurity, lack of resources and incomplete legal provisions severely limit the governments capacity to efficiently curb soaring corruption. Due to the terms of the contract, CNPC automatically found itself in the driving seat of the CSSP, but also made little progress, leaving the door open for TotalEnergies to secure the contract as part of the wider US$27 billion four-pronged deal.

Given the progress being made across this deal, the scope for oil output gains is huge, and was made plain back in 2013, in the Integrated National Energy Strategy (INES). This analysed in detail three realistic forward oil production profiles for Iraq and what each would involve, as also detailed in my latest book. Specifically, the INES best-case scenario was for crude oil production capacity to increase to 13 million bpd (at that point, by 2017), peaking at around that level until 2023, and finally gradually declining to around 10 million bpd for a long-sustained period thereafter. The mid-range production scenario was for Iraq to reach 9 million bpd (at that point, by 2020), and the worst-case INES scenario was for production to reach 6 million bpd (at that point, by 2020). These numbers compare to the current Iraqi production of 4-4.2 million bpd.

The gas component of TotalEnergies four-pronged deal can also be regarded as critical to its long-term future, in that it directly impacts its ability to end its dependence on Iran for gas imports and electricity for its power grid. This provided Iran with longstanding leverage over Iraq, which it used to enable it to continue to export its own oil around the world disguised as Iraqi oil, as analysed in full in my latest book. Tehran was also able to use this leverage to allow it to build out extensive military proxies across its neighbour and to expand the influence of the Shia Crescent of Power. This was further leveraged as part of Irans plan to build a land bridge that would run via Iraq all the way to the Mediterranean coast, which would then be used by Tehran to increase arms shipments to its militant proxies for use against Israel.

The gas part of TotalEnergies megadeal involves the collection and refining of associated natural gas that is currently burned off at the five southern Iraq oilfields of West Qurna 2, Majnoon, Tuba, Luhais, and Artawi. Comments from Iraqs Oil Ministry last year highlighted that the plant involved in this process is expected to produce 300 million cubic feet of gas per day (mcf/d) and double that after a second phase of development. Former Iraqi Oil Minister, Ihsan Abdul Jabbar, also stated last year that the gas produced from this second TotalEnergies project in the south would help Iraq to cut its gas imports from Iran. Moreover, successfully capturing associated gas rather than flaring it will also allow Iraq to revive the also long-stalled US$11-billion Nebras petrochemicals project, which could be completed within five years and would generate estimated profits of up to US$100 billion for Iraq within its 35-year initial contract period.

Looking ahead, there appears to be every chance that TotalEnergies US$27 billion four-pronged energy project will be completed around the initial target year of 2028, provided that the French energy giant continues to do what it is doing. One key element of this is continuing to resists any attempts by various elements of the Iraqi establishment to muscle in on the tantalisingly enormous sums of money involved in the project to make themselves richer, at the expense of the greater good of their country. A strong case in point was TotalEnergies point-blank refusal to accept any involvement in the megadeal of a re-established Iraqi National Oil Company (INOC). Widely known in the West as one of the most corrupt organisations to operate in any field anywhere in the world ever, INOCs proposed participation in some form or another in the four projects was quickly vetoed by the French energy giant due to the lack of clarity on the legal status of the company. Subsequently, in October 2022, Iraqs Federal Supreme Court invalidated the decision to re-establish the Iraqi National Oil Company on the basis that several of its founding clauses were in breach of the constitution.

By Simon Watkins for Oilprice.com

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On 29 January 2026, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan welcomed Uzbekistans President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to Ankara for the fourth meeting of the TurkiyeUzbekistan High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council.

The two leaders have met frequently over the past decade, including Erdogans working visit to Samarkand in 2016; Mirziyoyevs state visit to Ankara in 2017; their March 2022 meeting in Tashkent, where they announced the upgrading of bilateral ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership; the June 2024 meeting in Ankara, during which they signed more than 20 bilateral agreements; and the Kazan BRICS Summit in October 2024.

Outcomes of the January 2026 Ankara Meeting

A leaders meeting rarely concludes without a flurry of agreements, and Erdogan and Mirziyoyev were no exception. They signed approximately a dozen bilateral agreements covering healthcare; education and military medicine; economic and financial cooperation; mining projects; international transport corridors; the establishment of free and special economic zones; migration and the return of citizens; the development of Uzbekistans light industry; and technical education, vocational training, and exchanges between higher-education institutions.

In addition, both sides agreed to expand cooperation in nuclear safety, migration policy, light industry, and foreign policy coordination.

Erdogan and Mirziyoyev also signed a joint declaration reaffirming their commitment to the comprehensive strategic partnership established in 2022. The declaration outlined mechanisms for deepening cooperation across multiple sectors and formalized long-term strategic planning. Notably, the two countries agreed to strengthen cooperation in the religious sphere and adopted a cultural cooperation plan for 20262027.

The leaders further announced the creation of a 4+4 strategic cooperation mechanism, designed to enhance coordination among their foreign affairs, defense, interior, and intelligence institutions within a single framework.

Expanding Economic and Trade Ties

The leaders highlighted steady growth in mutual trade, a recent doubling of joint ventures, and the expansion of direct air links. Today, approximately 1,900 Turkish companies operate in Uzbekistan, with a total investment volume of about US$5.6 billion, while nearly 90 weekly flights connect major cities in the two countries.

Between 2017 and 2025, bilateral trade nearly doubled, reaching US$3 billion. The two governments announced their intention to raise this figure to US$5 billion in the coming years. In 2024, Uzbekistans principal exports to Turkiye included metals, textiles, mineral products, plastics and rubber, and agricultural products. Turkiyes exports to Uzbekistan consisted mainly of machinery, chemical products, textiles, metals, plastics and rubber, and motor vehicles.

Geopolitical Alignment and the Turkic World

Given their geographic positions, Turkiye and Uzbekistan share a strong interest in geopolitical and regional cooperation. Mirziyoyev publicly emphasized Turkiyes rising global influence, describing it as one of the worlds new geopolitical power hubs. Both leaders underscored their alignment on regional issues and the growing importance of cooperation within the Turkic world.

The Organization of Turkic States (OTS), founded in 2009, has recently experienced a revival, evolving from a primarily cultural forum into an increasingly geopolitical organization. Turkiye has sought to transform the OTS from a symbolic platform into a strategic Eurasian axis, using soft power, military cooperation, and economic integration to help fill the regional vacuum created by Russias preoccupation with its war in Ukraine.

Through the OTS, Turkiye has pursued a more ambitious foreign policy, expanding its influence southward and eastward toward Russia and China, while offering Central Asian republics strategic hedging options vis-a-vis China, Russia, Europe, and the United States. The organization also reflects the republics shared interest in strengthening regional resilience against externally driven agendas, intra-regional fragmentation, and natural disasters.

Disaster Preparedness and Regional Resilience

Turkiye and the Central Asian republics are in active earthquake zones. Except for Astana, Kazakhstan the capital cities of the republics are in particularly vulnerable areas. Uzbekistan retains vivid memories of the 1966 Tashkent earthquake, while the 2023 TurkiyeSyria earthquake, which claimed more than 50,000 lives, underscored the regions shared exposure to seismic risk.

Greater emphasis on cooperation in emergency response is therefore warranted. Preventive measuresnotably the adoption and enforcement of earthquake-resistant building and construction codesare equally critical. Japan, which is expanding its presence in Central Asia and is a global leader in earthquake-resilient construction, could provide valuable technical expertise to Turkiye and the Central Asian republics.

Cultural, Educational, and Institutional Cooperation

In the cultural and humanitarian sphere, the January 2026 meetings reaffirmed commitments to joint cultural programs, educational exchanges, and broader people-to-people ties. As part of a broader initiative to establish reciprocal educational institutions, Erdogan and Mirziyoyev attended the foundation-laying ceremony for the Uzbekistan State School in Istanbul.

Uzbekistan became a full member of the OTS in 2019, marking a significant milestone in the deepening of its cooperation with Turkiye and other Turkic-speaking states. Since then, UzbekistanTurkiye relations within the OTS have evolved from primarily cultural engagement into a strategic, multifaceted partnership, spanning economic, political, transport, and institutional cooperation.

Relations between the two countries have increasingly taken on the characteristics of a coordinated leadership model within the OTS. This reflects growing mutual trust and complementary roles: Turkiye as an economic and geopolitical anchorand a NATO member; Uzbekistan as a central hub in Central Asia and a key entrepot to Afghanistan.

High-level trilateral meetingssuch as the TurkiyeAzerbaijanUzbekistan summit in Ankara in January 2025produced the Ankara Declaration, which called for deeper integration in trade, investment, transport, and energy, particularly through projects such as the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (the Middle Corridor) and the Zangezur Corridor.

Trade Facilitation and Institutional Tools

Trade between Uzbekistan and Turkiye operates under both a most-favored-nation regime and a Preferential Trade Agreement, contributing to its sustained expansion. OTS initiativesincluding the Simplified Customs Corridor, which entered into force in November 2024, and e-Permit digital road-transport integrationaim to reduce border delays and lower non-tariff trade barriers. The World Bank has identified border delays as a major source of trade friction, as they slow commerce, raise costs, and constrain economic growth.

Within the OTS framework, the Turkic Investment Fund was established with authorized capital of US$600 million to finance small and medium-sized enterprises and cross-border projects in transport, logistics, and energy, thereby strengthening economic integration among member states.

Uzbekistan has also promoted broader multilateral cooperation within the OTS, advancing initiatives in science, education, digitalization, and youth engagement. Notably, Uzbekistan will chair the Turkic Universities Union in 202526, further institutionalizing academic collaboration. Uzbek leaders have additionally emphasized the need to enhance sustainable development and collective responses to systemic threats, including pandemics, environmental challenges, and humanitarian disasters.

Conclusion

Within the Organization of Turkic States, UzbekistanTurkiye relations have emerged as a dynamic and strategically significant partnership. Their cooperation combines deepening economic ties, infrastructure integration, institutional coordination, and cultural diplomacy, moving well beyond symbolic affinity toward practical, results-oriented collaboration in trade, transport, finance, and regional connectivity.

By James Durso for Oilprice.com
The head of BASF has warned the European Union needs to update its obsolete emissions trading scheme and reconsider the phaseout of free credits to avoid disaster for the chemicals industry.

European chemicals makers were at a competitive disadvantage to the rest of the world as the bloc was the only region in the world where industries had to pay for their carbon dioxide emissions, which has raised energy costs, Markus Kamieth, chief executive of the chemicals major, told the Financial Times in an interview.

European industrial producers have emission reduction mandates in the form of carbon permits they have to purchase from the Emissions Trading System. The price of these permits adds to their costs, even though each company also receives a certain amount of free permits every year. Brussels, however, plans to phase the free permits out in a bid to advance its net-zero ambitions.

BASF is paying triple-digit millions for carbon permits every year, Kamieth told the Financial Times, and its going to compound over the next year dramatically if there is no change and reform to the ETS. According to the executive, total European company spending on these permits could hit 1 billion euro by the 2030s unless the system is revised.

Whats more, the so-called carbon border adjustment mechanism that the EU devised last year and it entered into effect this year is not helping matters. It was devised precisely for that reason, aiming to put low-cost importers into Europe on a more equal footing with local companies but instead, it is only likely to add to their costs as imports become more expensive due to the additional costs associated with CBAM compliance.

Kamieths message echoes urgent warnings from the EU chemicals industry associationof which the BASF CEO is presidentthat the industry was facing a disaster.

The sector is under severe stress and breaking. The rate of closures has doubled in a year, and even worse, annual investments are half and close to zero. On both sides, the speed is accelerating, not slowing. We need decisive action this year, with impact at factory floor level, Marco Mensink, director-general of the European Chemical Industry Council said last week.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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Chinas LNG imports are set to rebound this year, rising by between 3% and 10% from 2025, driven by lower prices that are expected with the new supply wave, analysts have told Reuters.

Purchases from China, the worlds top LNG importer, are set to total between 70.5 million and 75.5 million metric tons this year, which would be a 3-10% increase compared to 2025, analysts at several energy intelligence firms told Reuters.

Last year saw a rare 10% drop in Chinas imports. LNG demand softened considerably in 2025 as Chinese natural gas production continued to expand in line with plans to boost reliance on domestic energy commodity supply.

Earlier in 2025, domestic gas production hit an all-time high, bringing LNG imports to the lowest in six years, down by 19% on the year over the first seven months of 2025. A mild 2024/2025 winter, weaker industrial demand, and higher pipeline imports also weighed on LNG import demand in China last year.

This year, imports are set for a rebound, but persistent weakness in some pockets of the economy are unlikely to boost Chinese LNG demand to the levels seen in 2024, according to the analysts.

In recent months, Chinas LNG imports have been rising, suggesting that demand would not be as weak as it was in early 2025.

Expected lower prices, due to the LNG supply wave, could encourage additional buying from the top importer, which looks for LNG supplies at bargain prices.

The supply growth, mostly from the top two exporters, the United States and Qatar, is set to depress Asian spot LNG prices and Europes benchmark gas prices at the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF).

However, China would first look to boost domestic and pipeline gas supply before rushing to buy more LNG cargoes.

Even if prices fall in 2026, LNG still can't compete with domestic or imported pipeline gas, which has a cost advantage, so it remains a supplemental fuel, Rystad Energys analyst Xiong Wei told Reuters.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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Canadian airlines have suspended flights to Cuba as the island nation faces depletion in jet fuel stocks amid a U.S. energy squeeze aimed at prompting regime change. The latest step-up of the pressure was a threat from President Trump to impose tariffs on any nation that sends oil to Cuba.

According to a Reuters report, Air Canada had warned about lack of jet fuel supplies at Cuban airports as soon as today, with two other Canadian carriers cancelling flights as well. Per the report, the shortage of jet fuel is expected to last for a month.

Air Canada also said it would send empty planes to Cuba to pick up some 3,000 travellers, carrying extra fuel supplies and making refueling stops on the way back.

We continue working tirelessly to ensure the safety, fluidity, and order of the airspace, supporting airline operations and ensuring that aviation in Cuba maintains the levels of reliability that characterize us, the Cuban Aviation Corporation said in its own statement, as quoted by Reuters.

Bloomberg meanwhile reported that Cuba had received no oil imports from anywhere in January, citing Kpler data. Cubas biggest oil suppliers have traditionally been Venezuela and Mexico, with Venezuela the biggest, but after the effective U.S. takeover of Venezuelas oil industry those supplies dried up. Now, after Trump put pressure on Mexico to stop shipping fuel to the heavily sanctioned island, Cuba has no immediate alternatives although Russia has signaled it planned to continue supplying fuel there.

Its not right. They dont have fuel for hospitals or schools. The people are suffering, Mexicos president, Claudia Scheinbaum said Monday, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told media that The situation in Cuba is indeed critical. We are aware of this. We are maintaining intensive contacts with our Cuban friends through diplomatic and other channels.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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Germanys uneasy energy truce with Washington is starting to fray, and the pressure point is a single refinery that keeps Berlin moving.

Managers at the PCK Schwedt refinery, majority-owned by Russias Rosneft (54.17%), have privately warned the German government that U.S. sanctions are already choking day-to-day operations and could threaten fuel supplies for Berlin and eastern Germany. In a January letter to economy and energy minister Katherina Reiche, refinery management made what they described as an urgent appeal to resolve the standoff before things get worse.

Schwedt is not some marginal asset. It supplies fuel to roughly nine out of ten cars in Berlin, serves the capitals airport, feeds Brandenburgs fuel network, and provides key inputs to Germanys chemical industry. When something goes wrong there, it shows up quickly and loudly.

Berlin previously secured a temporary U.S. waiver allowing the refinery to keep operating despite sanctions on Rosneft, but that license expires on April 29. The problem, according to people familiar with the situation, is that a refinery cannot run on temporary permissions. Long-term crude supply contracts, banking services, and insurance coverage all depend on legal certainty. Right now, banks, insurers, and even oil suppliers are backing away, worried that a single shipment arriving after April 29 could trigger sanctions exposure.

That uncertainty is already pushing Schwedtwith a minority stake held by Shellcloser to a forced sale. Sources say oil companies and large energy investors have taken a look, while Berlin weighs whether it may have to step in itself. A sale to a U.S. buyer, or outright state ownership, are both being discussed behind closed doors.

Schwedt now relies on non-Russian crude, primarily from Kazakhstan, delivered via pipeline and Polish ports. Those flows are legal, but confidence has been shaken since Washington expanded sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil last year. Even with operations technically permitted, fear alone can gum up the system.

Fuel buyers are already nervous. Polish importer Unimot warned that there is no easy replacement for Schwedts refining and logistics capacity, not just for Germany but for parts of Poland as well. With April supply contracts being signed now, hesitation today can translate into shortages tomorrow.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com

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Trading volume and open interest on Chinas metals exchanges soared to record highs in January, fueled by retail investors flocking to what they believe are the next market winnersprecious and industrial metals.

So many bullish positions were open at the start of the year that the first negative signals sent global metals markets crashing from record highs and whipsawing in violent swings.

At the end of 2025 and the start of 2026, speculators held record-high open interest in the base metals copper, zinc, nickel, tin, lead, and aluminum traded on the Shanghai Futures Exchange, and near-record open interest in battery metal lithium on the Guangzhou Futures Exchange.

Traders have been betting record amounts of money on Chinas metals markets, expecting a continued rally in the prices of base metals and lithium. A large part of the speculative longs came from retail investors, and the metals mania gripped global markets, too.

Fundamentals in metals markets still matter, but the outsized positioning and the momentum have more prominent roles and lead to spikes to record-highs and subsequent violent corrections, analysts say.

In China, regulators have sought to rein in the speculation mania with frequent tightening of the rules. From platinum to lithium to nickel and tin, the Shanghai Futures Exchange and the Guangzhou Futures Exchange have raised the daily price limit ranges, speculative trading margins, and hedging margins.

In fact, the two exchanges combined have issued as many as 38 circulars to limit the frenzied flocking into precious, industrial, and energy transition metals, Reuters columnist Andy Home notes.

The Shanghai Futures Exchange saw record volumes in aluminum, copper, nickel, and tin futures traded in January, data from the exchange compiled by Home showed.

The mania also spread to markets outside China and triggered violent corrections at the end of January and early February.

China has become the center of short?term price formation in metals, ING commodities strategist Ewa Manthey said in a Friday note.

Fundamentals still matter but this shift means that positioning and momentum play a bigger role, leading to more volatility, the strategist added.

China is now growing its influence on the metals futures markets, on top of dominating for years the physical demand for metals commodities. The rush by retail investors to metals has contributed to the whipsaw in metals markets in the past two weeks.

Metals  both base and precious  have become a more prominent alternative investment amid heightened economic and geopolitical uncertainty, INGs Manthey noted.

Chinas stricter regulations and the higher margin requirements have tempered the market frenzy, to an extent, but they havent changed the broader trend of increased speculative participation across metals contracts in Shanghai, the strategist said.

While longer?term fundamentals still anchor prices, the growing influence of positioning means sharper moves, higher volatility and a greater risk of abrupt corrections as sentiment or policy shifts, Manthey said.

Gold and silver also surged in the three months to the end of January.

The move was largely fuelled by a wave of speculative buying from China, from retail traders to larger equity funds rotating into commodities, with fresh flows pushing prices to extreme levels, Manthey wrote in a separate note last week.

And when the U.S. dollar jumped on the last trading day in January as President Donald Trump nominated the most hawkish candidate for the next Fed chair, gold and silver prices plunged as the investors who had bet on a weakening dollar took to profit-taking.

Major macro trends and speculative positioning will drive the near-term metals markets, analysts say.

Chinas Lunar New Year holiday on February 17 will also impact markets in the immediate term.

From a metals demand perspective, both industrial and precious, Chinas upcoming Lunar New Year holiday  which sees key exchanges closed for more than a week  may weigh on prices as traders and speculators reduce exposure ahead of an expected seasonal pickup in early March, Ole Hansen, Head of Commodity Strategy at Saxo Bank, said in a Friday note.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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" " "For the many, not the money." lev radin / Shutterstock

In a representative democracy, citizens elect representatives to make political decisions on their behalf rather than voting on every law directly. This system of government shapes democratic government in many countries today, from local level councils to the federal government.

Think of it like choosing a team captain. Instead of everyone calling plays at once, eligible voters select leaders who speak with a public voice for the group.

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That choice defines the democratic process and explains why representative democracy allows large populations to function inside a single political system.
Nava Thakuria

Bangladesh, a Muslim majority nation of over 170 million people, goes for general election on 12 February 2026 to elect its 13th Jatiya Sansad in Dhaka. According to the Bangladesh Election Commission altogether 12,77,11,895 electorates are eligible for voting where over 4.5 million are newly registered young voters (after attaining 18 years). The voting will take place at 42,766 polling stations across the country where 785,225 presiding and polling officers will be deployed. Over 900,000 security personnel are expected to monitor and ensure safety & security of the candidates and voters during the election. Altogether 2,034 candidates representing 51 political parties along with 275 independent contenders are in the fray for 299 Parliamentary seats (poll- procedure postponed in one constituency due death of a candidate belonging to Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh). Only 78 women including 17 independent candidates are fighting in the battle of ballots. However 50 additional seats in the Parliament are reserved for women and they will be elected through indirect voting.

The campaigning that began on 22 January came to an end at 7:30 pm on 10 February. The electoral authorities have imposed a ban on all public rallies and processions for 96 hours before and after voting day. The polling on Thursday will begin at 7:30 am to continue till 4:30 pm. Nearly 500 foreign election observers including over 150 journalists representing 45 global media outlets have arrived in the south Asian nation. Notably, ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's party Awami League is barred from participation in the electoral process leaving a fair space to the arch rival Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in the election. The country had the last general election in January 2024, but the overthrowing of Hasina's government following a student-led mass uprising just after six months necessitated the polls.

Hasina, who was ruling the country since 2009 after winning consecutive polls, escaped a mass rebellion on 5 August 2024 to take a temporary shelter in neighboring India and continues her refuge somewhere in Delhi locality of the largest democracy on the globe. The septuagenarian leader, widely seen as pro-India in Bangladesh, was recently convicted by a local court and sentenced to death in absentia for crimes against humanity. The massive July-August 2024 unrest led to the killing of over 1,400 people including minors and paved the way for an interim government led by Nobel laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus. Lately, the Yunus administration pursued her urgent extradition only to deteriorate the diplomatic relations with the giant neighbour ahead of the election.

Meanwhile, the path to electoral battles remains bumpy since the beginning for the Yunus administration. The situation went volatile after the shooting of Sharif Osman Bin Hadi, a young leader emerged during July 2024 unrest targeting the Hasina regime by masked assailants, and subsequent death of the radical leader in Singapore on 18 December while undergoing medical treatment. Rumours spread that Hadi's killers sneaked to India and it was enough to revitalize the anti-India (read anti-Hindu) sentiments in the country. Thousands of incidents reported where the fanatic Islamic elements attacked non-Muslims across Bangladesh compelling the Hindu majority India to react sharply. Public protests also erupted in front of Indian missions and later counter demonstrations took place outside the Bangladeshi missions. With the backdrop of diplomatic tensions between Dhaka and New Delhi, both the countries have restricted tourist visas after summoning each other's high commissioners to lodge protests on multiple occasions.

India's foreign ministry recently claimed that over 2,900 incidents of attacks on religious minorities were reported in Bangladesh under the Yunus-led interim government and the unremitting hostility against Hindus, Christians, and Buddhists at the hands of extremists was a matter of grave concern for New Delhi. Various independent sources recorded that nearly 200 people were killed in mob violence in the last year. Bangladesh Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian Unity Council also claimed that there was a sharp spike in incidents targeting minorities amid political instability following the ouster of Hasina's regime.

The international media reported with shocks on 18 December as Deepu Chandra Das, 29, was lynched and his body was hanged to set on fire by a Muslim mob in Mymensingh locality over an alleged blasphemy (allegedly of insulting Islam) charge. It was immediately followed by the lynching of Amrit Mondal, 30, on 24 December in Rajbari area. Bajendra Biswas, 42, a garment factory worker was shot dead in Mymensingh by a colleague on 29 December. Similarly, businessman Khokon Chandra Das, 50, was hacked and set on fire by a mob in Shariatpur locality leading to his death in the hospital on 3 January. It was followed by the killing of Samir Kumar Das, 28, an auto-rickshaw driver, who was stabbed to death in Chittagong locality on 11 January. Mysterious deaths of Akash Sarkar, a student of Jagannath University in Dhaka along with Mithun Sarkar, Proloy Chaki, Sarat Chakraborty Mani, etc also added to the number of minority victims.

New Delhi-based Rights & Risks Analysis Group (RRAG) documented a surge in targeted attacks against Bangladesh's Hindu minority community attributing to Islamist forces under the guise of election-related unrest. RRAG director Suhas Chakma asserted that deliberate setting the temples on fire, vandalism on residential properties and also physical assaults on minorities continues in the neighboring country. Mentionable is that Bangladesh recorded over 520 communal attacks in a year (2025), where over 60 non-Muslims were killed and 28 cases of rape and other forms of violence against women took place. Attacks on religious sites and desecration of Hindu deities were reported in several cases.

Speaking to this writer Chakma stated that continued denials of any religious angles by the authorities simply emboldened the religious fundamentalists. The victims out of fear of reprisal often described the targeted burning down of the houses as 'accidents or foul play' despite attempts to burn them alive to death or being made destitute after burning all their assets and belongings, he added. Even the Bangla government press wing admitted at least 274 violent incidents took place following the killing of Hadi, convener of Inqilab Mancha, in Dhaka during the second half of December last year.

The situation turned fragile when Hasina made a public speech on 23 January lambasting Yunus as 'presiding over an illegal and violent regime' to plunge Bangladesh into lawlessness. Addressing the media at Foreign Correspondents' Club in New Delhi through an audio message for the first time after her departure from Dhaka, Hasina attacked Yunus personally terming the octogenarian caretaker regime head 'a murderous fascist, money launderer and traitor'. The daughter of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, often preached as Father of the Nation (Bangladesh), also denied all charges framed against her stating that she was not personally involved in any crime against humanity. Hasina's views were sharply reacted by Dhaka accusing New Delhi of providing her undue space only to create more tensions between the two neighbours.

Speaking to this writer from Dhaka, a local trader argued that the elections in Bangladesh remained controversial for decades when the BNP used to avoid the last there national polling. He reminded that if the absence of Awami League in the forthcoming elections becomes too important, what happened when BNP was not in the scene (national elections in 2024, 2018 and 2014) and voters' turnout was too low. He admitted that Hasina's presence in Delhi continues to create trouble in bilateral relations between the two countries. The problem with India was that both the ruling and opposition parties preferred to look at Bangladesh through the eyes of Hasina only. The trader also posed a pertinent question, if at all Hasina deserves a refuge, but what is the reason that thousands of her party leaders are allowed to stay in India, precisely in New Delhi and Kolkata.
By Rajendra Jadhav and Mayank Bhardwaj

NEW DELHI, Feb 9 (Reuters) - The United States and India have released an interim framework for a trade deal, paving the way for an agreement that would lower tariffs, reconfigure energy ties and deepen economic cooperation ?as both seek to realign global supply chains.

The IndiaU.S. joint statement suggested that New Delhi pushed back against Washington's efforts to broadly open its agricultural market. However, India has agreed to lower trade barriers on some farm goods, drawing criticism from farmers and opposition parties.

WHO GAINS FROM INDIA'S DECISION TO ALLOW IMPORTS OF DDGS AND SOYOIL, AND WHO LOSES OUT?

India is expected to allow imports of protein-rich distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS), a byproduct of ethanol made from corn and other grains, from the United States, adding to a surplus in the domestic market.

Higher supplies of DDGS could benefit India's nearly $30 billion poultry sector, where feed costs account for around 60-70% of total production expenses, by helping reduce expensive feed purchases.

Domestic oilseed processors and soybean farmers, however, may ?lose out if U.S. imports rise.

There are already surplus supplies of DDGS in India, weakening demand for oilmeals such as soyameal, putting pressure on Indian oilseed prices and prompting farmers to switch from soybean and peanuts to corn and rice, despite New Delhi's push to boost oilseed cultivation and curb imports.

As supplies of DDGS increase further, India's ethanol producers - already struggling with idle capacity and slowing demand after the country achieved its 20% biofuel blending target - may face lower earnings from DDGS sales in the domestic market.

Prospects of duty-free imports of soyoil from the U.S. have raised some concerns in India. ?But, under the current framework, duty-free soyoil imports will be allowed only under a tariff-rate quota, meaning volumes above the quota will face standard tariffs, a move aimed at protecting domestic producers.

WILL DUTY-FREE COTTON IMPORTS AFFECT INDIAN FARMERS?

India currently imposes an 11% duty on cotton imports, and allowing duty-free imports from the world's largest exporter of the fiber could put pressure on domestic prices.

However, the impact is expected to be limited, as the government has permitted only imports of extra-long staple cotton, and that too under a quota.

Although India is the world's second-largest cotton producer, it struggles to meet the textile industry's demand for extra-long staple cotton, which it imports from the U.S., Egypt, Brazil and Australia.

DO CONCESSIONAL IMPORTS OF APPLES ?AND DRY FRUITS THREATEN INDIAN FARMERS?

India is the world's fifth-largest apple producer, but domestic ?supplies fall short of rising demand, driven by population growth and increasing prosperity.

New Delhi ?imports around 500,000 metric tons of apples annually from Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan, the U.S. and Chile. Under a trade deal with the U.S., imports will be allowed at a concessional duty of 25% and a minimum import price of 80 rupees per kg, effectively preventing shipments ?below 100 rupees per kg and helping protect Indian farmers.

Consumption of dry fruits such as walnuts, almonds and pistachios has also been rising in India. Domestic production of these commodities is limited, so concessional imports are unlikely to affect local farmers.

ARE INDIAN FARMERS LIKELY ?TO BENEFIT FROM THE TRADE DEAL?

Indian growers of tea, coffee, spices and fruits are set to gain from the trade deal, as the U.S. has granted duty-free access for these products.

The reduction of import duties on rice to 18% is also expected to support exporters of both premium basmati and non-basmati varieties.

(Reporting by Rajendra Jadhav and Mayank Bhardwaj; Editing by Anil D'Silva)
Kathmandu, Nepal February 10, 2026: The death toll of Nepali migrant workers following a devastating dynamite explosion in an illegal coal mine in Meghalaya, India, has reached four after a missing worker was confirmed dead.

The latest victim has been identified as 50-year-old Ratna Rai of Halesi Tuwachung Municipality-5, Khotang. Rai had been missing since the February 5 blast in the East Jaintia Hills. His body was eventually discovered in a local hospital in a severely burnt state; family members were forced to identify him based on his physical stature. According to local sources, Rai had traveled to India for work last September, leaving his citizenship documents and mobile phone in his quarters before the fatal shift.

The tragedy had earlier claimed the lives of three others from Barahpokhari-1, Khotang. Biological brothers Purna Bahadur Khapangi (27) and Surendra Khapangi (24) died instantly at the site, while Nar Bahadur Khapangi (35) succumbed to his injuries on February 6 during treatment. The three men were cremated in Jhalupara, Shillong, on February 9.

Victims' families have expressed deep anger and disappointment toward the Nepal government, alleging a total lack of diplomatic or financial assistance. Prakash Khapangi Magar, who reached the site following the explosion, stated that the families were left to manage funeral rites in a foreign country without any state support for repatriating the bodies.

Meanwhile, three other Nepali workers remain in critical condition. Karna Bahadur Khapangi (46), Bam Bahadur Khapangi (40), and Lalit Magar (40) are currently undergoing treatment for severe injuries. The trio had arrived in Meghalaya seeking employment only two months ago.

Local authorities fear the disaster's scale could grow, as dozens of other miners are still believed to be trapped within the illegal mine shafts.
Ferry surveillance used to locate thieves of 2.4 million from Cozumel currency exchange house

Cozumel, Q.R.  Four people are being held for their involvement in a currency exchange house robbery in San Miguel last week. Police said Monday that they are accused of stealing approximately 2.4 million from the central Cozumel location.

The robbery happened on February 6 of this year at a currency exchange company on Benito Juarez Avenue in central Cozumel. Police said the group of four were captured less than 14 hours after the robbery.

During their arrests, they were found in posseison of narcotics and cash in varying demoniations of both Mexican pesos and USD. The value of the money, police said, was in excess of 2.4 millin pesos.

According to police, they had already made deposits into their personal accounts and intended to fly from Cancun to the State of Mexico.

Their arrests were made in coordination with National Guard and Municipal Police. The three men and one woman are probably related to the robbery of a currency exchange house that occurred in the municipality of Cozumel in the early morning of February 6 of this year, police said.

The suspects, who were captured in less than 14 hours, are identified as Azarel N, Giezi Natanael, Adan N and Loamy Itzel N. They were intercepted on Kabah Avenue between Yaxchilan and Mayapan Avenues in Superblock 21 in Cancun and were in possession of alleged narcotics.

After stopping them and inspecting each of them, police found doses of green and dried herb with the characteristics of marijuana, as well as cash in the amount of $10,535 dollars and 7,500 pesos, in addition to four deposit slips from banking institutions for amounts of 100,000, 200,000, 300,000 and 400,000 pesos, money for which they could not prove its origin.

Police said they intended to go to the Cancun International Airport where they would board a flight to the city of Toluca, State of Mexico, where the four are originally from.

During the robbery, police stated that all four entered the establishment wearing ski masks, but at some point Azarel took it off and was caught on camera, so the owner recognized him as her former boyfriend.

Police used security footage from the Cozumel to Playa del Carmen ferry terminal to identify their whereabouts.

To achieve the rapid arrest of these individuals, the valuable collaboration of the Quintana Roo Integral Port Administration (Apiqroo) was relied upon. This agency was asked to provide support through its surveillance cameras installed at the San Miguel Maritime Terminal to determine if the suspects had left the island.

As a result of the above, Apiqroo immediately provided the required support by cross-referencing information between the evidence captured by the Municipal Police security cameras and the intelligent video surveillance systems with face detection and artificial intelligence technology, achieving the location and identification of the four people indicated.
Just a short time ago, we asked dermatologists about one skin care ingredient that wed been seeing pop up more and more in products aimed at reducing the signs of skin aging. Growth factors, it seemed, were the new cutting-edge innovation that were now readily available in over-the-counter preparations, where previously you could only find them in the confines of a medical office.

Board-certified dermatologist and clinical instructor of dermatology at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, Dr. Hadley King, told us in earlier HuffPost coverage that growth factors are signaling proteins that allow cells to communicate with each other.

When [growth factors] bind to receptors on cell surfaces, they can send commands to repair, rejuvenate and replicate. They are used for anti-aging because they can increase collagen and elastin, thicken skin and improve tone and texture, King said.

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According to her, its likely that youre hearing more about growth factors in skin care simply because theres more research coming out to prove their potential when it comes to anti-aging and skin rejuvenation.

You can get more in-depth information about the many ways growth factors are derived, as well as why these growth factor-containing products are typically on the expensive side, from our previous reporting.

Or, if youve read all you need to know about their potential for visibly rejuvenating aging skin, then take a look at some products that King and others recommended below. We also threw in some more affordable options that we researched using Kings expert guidance.

While some of the options ahead are on the expensive side, weve also included some affordable options from brands like The Ordinary and The Inkey List, and also indicated where certain splurgeworthy products are HSA/FSA eligible.

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The experts consulted for this story do not necessarily endorse the products ahead unless otherwise noted.

Sephora

An affordable serum that contains three different growth factors

Our pick: The Ordinary is a no-fuss brand I personally adore for formulating affordable, limited-ingredient products that are often recommended by dermatologists. Unsurprisingly, The Ordinary has come out with an age-support serum containing a 15% concentration of three different growth factors at a truly accessible price point. Together, the growth factors work to enhance skin density and elastin, promote the production of collagen and the skin's natural renewal process.

$16 at Amazon

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$16 at Sephora

$16 at Target

Sephora

An elasticity-boosting and plumping serum

Our pick: Costing less than $50, this firming and plumping serum by InnBeauty Project contains encapsulated vegan growth factors as well as topical collagen and ceramides, which are essential amino acids vital for a strong and healthy skin barrier. It also uses copper peptides, a skin-plumping ingredient that dermatologists have previously told us are proven to boost collagen production and elastin, which in turn can improve skin texture, firmness and the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.

$52 at Sephora

$52 at InnBeauty Project

Sephora

A growth factor serum infused with skin-brightening vitamin C

Our pick: Another affordable growth factor product that we selected is this brightening serum by the Inkey List, another low-fi skin care brand that dermatologists have formerly given their stamp of approval. Not only does it contain a 1% concentration of plant-derived growth factors meant to help regenerate aging skin's appearance, but it also features 15% vitamin C. In case you don't know, vitamin C is a well-studied antioxidant that can prevent premature skin aging caused by environmental stressors and visibly brighten hyperpigmentation and dark spots.

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$17 at Amazon

$18 at Sephora

$17 at The Inkey List

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Dermstore

An advanced serum that some dermatologists call the "gold standard" of growth factors

It wasn't just King who suggested the SkinMedica TNS Advanced+ serum. It also came at the recommendation of double board-certified and Austin, Texas-based dermatologist Dr. Kristina Collins and board-certified dermatologist at Marmur Medical, Dr. Rachel Westbay, who called it "worth the splurge."

She previously explained that it pumps serums out of two different chambers that work synergistically, the first of which is filled with a growth factor blend sourced from human fibroblast cells (grown in a lab) that maximizes cellular metabolism.

"The other chamber releases a blend of botanicals and marine extracts that contain collagen-stimulating peptides and hydrators to further help diminish the appearance of lines and wrinkles," Westbay said. "Think of it as the building blocks necessary for other skin care stars (like retinol, peptide serums and creams) to do the most they can do."

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Collins said that this serum is often hailed as the "gold standard" in growth factor serums. $295 is a lot to spend on a serum, however, this is an FSA/HSA-eligible item.

$295 at Dermstore

Dermstore

A therapy body cream that targets thin, crepey skin

Board-certified and New York City-based dermatologist Dr. Brendan previously spoke to HuffPost about the best products to help treat stubborn necklines and suggested a product from Perricone MD's Cold Plasma+ line, a collection of the brand's most potent formulas meant to improve fragile, aging skin. Although he didn't mention this nourishing body cream in particular, we chose to include it because it features an epidermal growth factor peptide that's critical for improving the appearance and texture of thin, crepey skin. It also contains hyaluronic acid and retinol, a trusted ingredient for promoting cellular turnover and firmness to sagging skin. Apply this multi-tasking and ultra-hydrating body treatment to commonly crepey areas like underneath the arms and the neck.

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$55 at Amazon

$55 at Dermstore

$55 at Perricone MD

Nordstrom

A reparative moisturizer that heals fragile skin

Celebrity facialist Sarah Akrampreviously suggested this luxury moisturizer by Eighth Day, a brand that I'm also newly a fan of after trying a couple of its splurge-worthy products. According to Akram, the Eighth Day's regenerative line was developed by a leading reconstructive skin cancer surgeon who has gone deep into the science of what works. She called the Reparative Moisturizer a highly active and hydrating formula that leverages the brand's patent-pending stem cell technology, a composition of peptides, growth factors and amino acids that she said is highly effective at hydrating and repairing damaged and aging skin.

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$180 at Nordstrom

Amazon

A clinical serum that can reduce expression lines

Collins suggested the Zo Skin Health growth factor serum, which she considers to be a standout product for combining plant- and enzymatically-derived growth factors with a proprietary protein complex.

"[It's] clinically shown to enhance skin thickness, elasticity, and hydration while reducing expression lines," Collins said. "Its lightweight feel and hydrating properties make it especially user-friendly."

This moisturizing serum, which supports the skin's natural replenishment of hyaluronic acid a natural humectant necessary for skin to be hydrated  also contains beta-glucan and angelica polymorpha sinensis root extract. These two inclusions can help calm and soothe troubled skin.

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$179 at Amazon

Dermstore

An intensive growth factors serum infused with snail mucin

Akram also previously suggested these individual ampules by Biopelle Tensage, which she called the perfect science-backed skin care product that can visibly address dryness and a dull-appearing complexion



"[They] feature concentrated growth factor benefits for fast improvement in the appearance of lackluster skin with visible improvement in as little as 24 hours," she said, adding that these are suitable for all skin types. The intensive serum inside these freshness-preserving ampules also contains glycoproteins and antioxidants, which can help improve skin texture and elasticity and protect skin from premature aging.

$195 is a lot to spend on a serum, however, this is an FSA/HSA-eligible item.

$195 at Dermstore

Calecim

A solution that helps treat dark spots and hyperpigmentation

If you deal with melasma, dark spots, or other hyperpigmentation issues and irregular skin texture, this skin-softening toner can dramatically improve your complexion, according to the brand and Calecim customers.

Growth factors are supplemented with a collection of chemical exfoliants and enzymes like alpha-arbutin and tranexamic acid to work on existing discoloration and prevent new spots from forming. Any abrasiveness or potential irritation that you might normally experience from exfoliating toners is offset with this formula's inclusion of sigesbeckia and green tea extract, two ingredients believed to have protective and anti-inflammatory properties.

$148 at Calecim

Calecim

A multi-action face cream that may increase skin density

With this daily cream by Calecim, a clinical skin care brand specializing in growth factors that Collins has spoken about previously, you can target multiple signs of aging at once, while also repairing compromised or damaged skin. Its main promise is to treat thin and sagging skin by boosting elastin, a naturally occurring protein that gives skin its taut look and "spring back" that's often lost with age. Like all Calecim's formulas, it contains an advanced growth factor complex, as well as barrier-strengthening linoleic acid and vitamin E, a well-studied antioxidant that can nourish and provide protection against premature skin aging.

$200 at Calecim

Amazon

A serum that contains human growth factors and a peptide complex

King suggested Neocutis' Bio Serum, a potent treatment that, according to her, contains proteins derived from fetal fibroblast cells  a type of derivative that some might find controversial, but may be more effective than vegan-derived growth factors. This firming serum also contains a proprietary peptide complex for adding plumpness and bounce back into sagging skin, effective skin brighteners and glycerin for drawing moisture deep into the skin.

$290 at Amazon

Revolve

A plant-based growth factor serum

If you'd rather use growth factors not sourced from humans or animals, King said there are some plant-based engineered options that have been well tested and shown to be effective. For example, the Bioeffect EGF serum, which she said uses a human-like epidermal growth factor that is made in bioengineered barley seeds.

"Studies have shown that it is effective in increasing skin thickness," King said of this radiance-boosting serum.

$179 at Dermstore

$179 at Revolve

Related...

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One homeowner expressed frustration with a homeowners association after their water and sewage bill spiked during the winter.

The homeowner posted a photo of their water and sewage payments over the past nine months in the r/****HOA subreddit. The Redditor said there had been a lack of transparency from the HOA about the soaring charges.

"I just don't understand how we are paying more in the winter months when people aren't watering their lawns!?!" the Redditor wrote. "But again, we get ZERO usage details."

Photo Credit: Reddit



The Redditor is far from the first homeowner to complain about HOA fees. According to HOA-USA.com, there are more than 370,000 HOAs in the United States. However, like the homeowner on Reddit, many people have run into issues with the associations.

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Residents across the nation have accused their HOAs of imposing overly strict rules. Some even claim that HOAs have blocked them from installing eco-friendly home upgrades.

While HOA communities may require homeowners to pay more for certain utilities, some upgrades can help you save money in the long run. For example, adding rooftop solar panels can save homeowners hundreds on their energy bills. TCD partner EnergySage can help you save up to $10,000 on installations by curating competitive bids from local installers.

After installing solar panels, homeowners can pair them with electric appliances to drive utility costs even lower. TCD's HVAC Explorer can help you to get the right system for your home and budget.

If you're having issues with your HOA, members of your HOA board have the most power to address your concerns and change established rules. As for the Reddit post, commenters urged the homeowner to request more information from their HOA.

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"Demand to see the itemized bill," one commenter said.

Get TCD's free newsletters for easy tips to save more, waste less, and make smarter choices  and earn up to $5,000 toward clean upgrades in TCD's exclusive Rewards Club.




At the invitation of Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto of Hungary and Chairman Wolfgang Ischinger of the Munich Security Conference, Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi will visit Hungary on February 11 and travel to Germany to attend the 62nd Munich Security Conference where he will deliver a speech at its China session.

Shenzhen TV: On the Hong Kong High Courts decision to sentence Lai Chee-ying to 20 years in prison, parties including the U.S., the UK, Australia and the EU expressed concerns by releasing statements. Whats Chinas response?

Lin Jian: Certain countries and institutions used the judicial case to make malicious smears against Hong Kong and its rule of law, and interfered in Chinas internal affair. China firmly opposes it and has lodged serious protests with those countries and institutions.

Lai Chee-ying is the principal mastermind and perpetrator behind the series of riots that shook Hong Kong. The facts concerning his crimes of endangering national security are clear and the evidence is solid. The judicial authorities of the Hong Kong SAR made the ruling based on facts and in accordance with the law. This is lawful, justified and beyond reproach.

Hong Kong upholds the rule of law. To abide by the law and bring lawbreakers to justice is a basic principle. No one should be allowed to use democracy and freedom as a pretext to engage in unlawful and criminal activities and escape justice.

Let me stress again that Hong Kong affairs are purely Chinas internal affairs. The rule of law in Hong Kong is unshakable and no foreign country has the right to make irresponsible remarks. The Chinese government remains unwavering in its determination to safeguard the nations sovereignty, security and development interests and to implement One Country, Two Systems. Any attempt to disrupt Hong Kongs advancement from stability to prosperity or to destabilize Hong Kong and contain China is doomed to fail. We urge relevant sides to respect Chinas sovereignty, abide by the principles in international law and basic norms governing international relations, and immediately stop meddling in Hong Kong affairs and stop interfering in Chinas internal affairs in any form.

CCTV: How does China view the current China-Hungary relationship? What is Chinas expectation for Foreign Minister Wang Yis visit?

Lin Jian: Hungary is Chinas all-weather comprehensive strategic partner in Europe. During the visit, Foreign Minister Wang Yi will meet with Hungarian leaders and hold talks with Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto for an in-depth exchange of views on our bilateral relations and issues of mutual interest. China stands ready to work with Hungary to implement the important common understandings reached between the leaders of our two countries, deepen strategic communication, expand practical cooperation, and work for sustained and steady progress in growing China-Hungary relations and China-EU relations.

AFP: Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said yesterday that she is open to dialogue with China and that the countries will continue to exchange views. How does the Foreign Ministry view this? Is China willing to engage in dialogue with Takaichi?

Lin Jian: China has made clear its just position on this issue more than once. True dialogue is built on the basis of respecting each other and honoring the agreements made. If anyone just talks about the need for dialogue while keeping themselves busy stoking confrontation, then this so-called dialogue is apparently unacceptable. If the Japanese side truly wants to develop the strategic relationship of mutual benefit with China, what it needs to do is simple and clear, that is, retract Takaichis erroneous remarks on Taiwan, abide by the four political documents between China and Japan and its own political commitments, and take concrete actions to demonstrate its sincerity for dialogue.

Reuters: At the end of last month, there was an ASEAN-China senior officials meeting on implementing the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea and countries agreed to strengthen dialogue. Have the talks helped to ease all the tensions in the South China Sea? Did the Philippines show any willingness to resolve the South China Sea issues? What are the next steps that both sides are planning to take?

Lin Jian: Recently, officials from foreign ministries of China and the Philippines had a bilateral meeting in Cebu, and had a candid and in-depth exchange of views on maritime issues and other issues of mutual interest. Both sides agreed to continue maintaining communication through diplomatic channels, properly handle maritime differences, and get the situation at sea under control.

Bloomberg: The new Dutch cabinet will include several China hawks after the dispute with Beijing over the ownership of the chipmaker Nexperia. The Dutch government plans to take decisive action against the theft of our intellectual property and unwanted interference in our critical infrastructure by China. Would the ministry like to comment on this stance? Also, the cabinet includes Sjoerd Sjoerdsma, who is slated to be trade minister and whom China sanctioned in 2021. Can the ministry confirm that Sjoerdsma is still sanctioned?

Lin Jian: Both China and the Netherlands are important economies in the world and are each others major cooperation partner. Over the decades, the two sides have been advancing mutually beneficial cooperation in the spirit of openness and practical results and have benefited the two peoples. Such effort serves the common interest of the two countries and is conducive to developing relations between China and Europe and keeping the global industrial and supply chains stable. We hope and believe that the new Dutch government will continue to uphold an objective and rational attitude toward China and work with China to promote the sound development of the bilateral relationship. On your second question, I have nothing to share on that.

Beijing Youth Daily: According to preliminary results of Thailands House of Representatives election, the Bhumjaithai Party, the Peoples Party and the Pheu Thai Party are leading as the top 3. Whats Chinas comment?

Lin Jian: Thailand held a smooth general election. As Thailands close and friendly neighbor, China supports Thailand in following a development path suited to its own national conditions and maintaining stability and development. China stands ready to work with Thailand to deepen mutually beneficial cooperation in various fields, deepen and substantiate the building of the China-Thailand community with a shared future, and deliver more benefits to the two peoples.

Reuters: Cuba is set to face a jet fuel shortfall from today until March 11. International carriers are suspending flights to Cuba. Are there Chinese citizens who are stranded in Cuba? Will China take any practical steps to help Cuba alleviate the oil supply shortage?

Lin Jian: On your first question, so far we have not received any report of Chinese citizens stranded in Cuba.

On your second question, Id refer you to competent authorities for specifics. I would like to stress again that China firmly supports Cuba in safeguarding national sovereignty and security and opposing external interference. China stands firmly against the inhumane actions that deprive the Cuban people of their right to subsistence and development. China will, as always, do our best to provide support and assistance to Cuba.
Benghazi, Libya (PANA) - A Strategic Conference on the security of the Chiefs of Staff of the Mediterranean and Sub-Saharan Africa opened on Tuesday in Benghazi, on the theme: Joint cooperation to combat transnational crime
By H.E. Zhao Yong

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary

of the People's Republic of China to the Republic of Sierra Leone

From January 8 to 12, H.E. Wang Yi, Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Minister of Foreign Affairs, successfully visited the African Union, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Lesotho. This visit coincided with the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Africa, and marked the 36th consecutive year that China's Foreign Minister has made Africa his first destination in the New Year. It holds profound significance and far-reaching implications.

I. This Visit Affirms the Special Bond of Generations-Long Friendship and Shared Destiny Between China and Africa

China-Africa friendship is originated from our shoulder-to-shoulder struggle for national independence and liberation, and has matured through our shared commitment to social and economic development. The past year brought much turmoil to the world. At the beginning of the new year, Chinas Foreign Minister once again visited this continent with hope, making Africa the starting point of Chinas diplomacy each year. As Foreign Minister Wang Yi stated, this visit embodies the deep affection of the Chinese people for the African people, and shows the commitment and spirit that China will always be the first friend standing by Africa's side when African brothers and sisters need us.

II. This visit demonstrates the firm confidence of China and Africa in deepening cooperation and pursuing common development

At the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, President Xi Jinping solemnly proposed that China and Africa join hands to achieve the six modernizations, charting the future of China-Africa relations. Through joint efforts, over 90% of the FOCAC Beijing Summit's objectives have been implemented or made significant progress. More than 300 smart and beautiful projects are advancing smoothly, with China-Africa passenger flights increasing by 23%. Nearly 1,000 medical volunteers have provided free clinics in Africa, and over 200 agricultural experts have taken up posts. In the first 11 months of 2025, China-Africa trade volume surpassed the historic threshold of $300 billion. During this visit, Foreign Minister Wang Yi also formally launched the China-Africa Year of People-to-People Exchanges with African counterparts. This initiative serves as both a shared celebration for the peoples of China and Africa and a comprehensive showcase of the achievements of China-Africa cooperation. Through nearly 600 exchange activities, the two sides will bring together peoples from various sectors, including youth, culture, and media, covering all areas of China-Africa engagement. This will enable the African people to gain a greater sense of fulfillment and deeper recognition of China-Africa friendship.

III. This Visit Demonstrates China and Africa's Shared Commitment to Solidarity and Joint Defense of International Fairness and Justice

China is the largest developing country, while Africa is the continent with the most of developing nations. China and Africa share similar historical experiences and bear common historical responsibilities. The two sides coordinate closely on international and regional affairs, offering firm mutual support on issues involving each other's core interests and major concerns. Looking ahead, no matter how the international landscape may shift, we are confident that China and Africa will forever stand together in solidarity, resolutely uphold the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter, and firmly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of African peoples.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi's visit not only continues the fine tradition of Chinese foreign ministers making Africa their first destination at the beginning of the year for 36 consecutive years, but also reaffirms that no matter what changes occur in the international and regional landscape, China remains the most trustworthy friend of Africa's brothers and sisters, the most reliable partner for African countries pursuing development and revitalization, and the strongest backing for Africa on the international stage. China will continue to uphold the spirit of sincerity, real results, amity and good faith. Together with Sierra Leone and other African nations, we will strengthen the alignment of our development strategies, jointly tackle global challenges, and continuously consolidate the foundation of our cooperation through mutual respect and shared prosperity. Lets work together to make more contributions to building the all-weather China-Africa community with a shared future for the new era.




On February 8, the Embassy of China in Sierra Leone solemnly hosted the Spring Festival Reception themed Auspicious Horse Welcomes the Spring, Celebrating the Chinese New Year in Freetown. Ambassador Zhao Yong of China to Sierra Leone attended and delivered a speech. Over 300 guests participated, including representatives from the Sierra Leone China Chamber of Commerce, the Chinese Business Association, Chinese enterprises in Sierra Leone, Chinese nationals and overseas Chinese, as well as friends from various sectors of Sierra Leone.

In his address, Ambassador Zhao extended New Year greetings to compatriots in Sierra Leone, highlighted China's tremendous developmental achievements in 2025, and expressed the hope that the Chinese community would support each other to contribute fresh impetus toward advancing bilateral exchanges across all fields and to build an even closer China-Africa community with a shared future.

The event featured a festive and vibrant atmosphere with spectacular performances including dragon and lion dances, ethnic songs and dances, martial arts, acrobatics, and the face-changing performance of Sichuan opera. While welcoming the Chinese New Year and sharing nostalgia for their homeland, attendees exchanged visions for the future of China-Sierra Leone relations and looked forward to jointly writing a new chapter in bilateral cooperation.




By the late 1980s, Anthony Hopkins figured that his Hollywood career was over. The Welsh-born actor had spent much of the decade living in the United States, where he split his time between the stage and the screen, building an utterly respectable career. He had played a compassionate doctor in David Lynchs The Elephant Man, a murderous ventriloquist in the cult thriller Magic, and the real-life convicted child murderer Bruno Hauptmann in the TV movie The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case, for which he had won his first Emmy. (Hed get his second a few years later, for playing Adolf Hitler in The Bunker.) Hopkins often inhabited madmen or sickos, yet he could locate flashes of pathos or longing in even the most despicable character. You have to play an evil monster as a human being, he said.

Hopkins had seen plenty of banal maliciousness while growing up in postWorld War II Europe, where he had felt stupid and useless, a self-described oddball whose teachers constantly reminded him of his failings. Our education was hideousa lot of corporal punishment, he said. I was terrible in everything. As a teenager, he took inspiration from his local movie star, Richard Burton, the stage actor and then ascendant Hollywood dynamo who lived near Hopkins in a working-class Welsh seaside town. At the age of 15, Hopkins knocked on Burtons front door to request an autograph, catching his hero midshave. (I remember that stare, with his green eyes, Hopkins later said.) Afterward, as the young boy was walking home, Burton and his wife cruised by in their Jaguar. I wanted to become somebody like that, Hopkins said. I just didnt want to be what I was.

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He began performing a few years later, using the stage to work out his antisocial tendencies, which he could suppress for only so long. I used to feel like a closed fist, Hopkins said. Id be angry at the audience and angry at other actors. He accumulated several screen and theater credits throughout the 1960s and 1970s; during that time, he also earned a reputation as a gifted but combative collaborator, prone to on-set outbursts and private drinking. One day in late 1975, he woke up in an Arizona hotel with no idea how hed arrived there. He immediately swore off alcohol and found his rage subsiding as a result.

His initial response was muted enthusiasm; he thought that The Silence of the Lambs sounded like the title of a childrens story.

Newly focused, Hopkins steered himself toward movie stardom, saying yes to paycheck dreck such as the 1980 drama A Change of Seasons, which found him in the hot-tubbed embrace of Bo Derekexactly the kind of film that soon soured him on Hollywood. By 1989, hed returned to the United Kingdom to focus on TV and stage work. One day, while taking a break from a play, he caught a London screening of the recent, Oscar-winning drama Mississippi Burning. As the credits rolled, Hopkins felt a tinge of regret. All those years of working in Hollywood, yet hed never gotten a chance to be part of a big, important, everyones-gotta-see-it studio production. That part of my lifes over, he told himself. I suppose Ill just have to settle for being a respectable actor poncing around the West End, and doing respectable BBC work for the rest of my life.

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Not long afterward, he got a call from his agent, asking if hed be interested in a project titled The Silence of the Lambs. His initial response was muted enthusiasm; he thought that it sounded like the title of a childrens story. And besides, there was no firm offer on the table. Worried that hed get too excited for a job that might never materialize, Hopkins initially skimmed Ted Tallys script, which had so frightened the actors wife that she couldnt even get through it. But after reconsidering and reading a few pages, he realized that Silence tapped into the sense of alluring fear that hed felt as a child while watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. My favorite character was the witch, he said. She was the interesting character to me. And I used to love watching Bela Lugosi in those Dracula movies.

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Hannibal Lecter was part of that long line of canny villains, and as Hopkins familiarized himself with Tallys script, the doctor began to take shape in his mind. I somehow knew everything about this man, he said. Id see him in this halflight, in his oakwood office in Baltimore, dark hair slicked back, white shirt, black suit, beautifully manicured hands, black shiny shoes. A man with luminous eyes. Like a machine. His perception of Lecter was based in part on a stern acting instructor hed once studied undera man who would just take you apart intellectually, Hopkins said. Even the word Lecter, he realized, had a sense of rigid malice. It sounds like a black, shiny ebony box, he said, full of shiny silver instruments.

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Hopkins own name wasnt known to most American moviegoers, meaning that hed have some high-profile competition for the role. Every male in the business wanted to play that part, said Silence of the Lambs director Jonathan Demme, who needed an actor who could differentiate his Hannibal from the arch version that Brian Cox had played in Manhunter. Demme had admired Michael Manns film back in 1986 and decided to rewatch it before making The Silence of the Lambs. I didnt get very far, he said. I saw one Lecter scene, and I thought, Oh, my God. Thats not my Dr. Lecter.

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To help in the hunt for Demmes Lecter, producer Edward Saxon had put together a casting memo in May 1989, naming 75 potential candidates for the character. The list was a wide-ranging, spitballing assortment of late-1980s male performers, including David Bowie, Harrison Ford, Robin Williams, Charles Grodin, Steve Martin, Tom Hanks, Jeremy Irons, Al Pacino, Bill Murray, and Warren Beatty. Demme was also apparently interested in an English stage actor named Edward Petherbridge, whod starred in the original London production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and who was scheduled to discuss the part with the director in person in the summer of 1989. Its unclear if that meeting ever happened.

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But according to Saxon, only two A-list stars were ever seriously considered for the Lecter role. One was Sean Connery, the exJames Bond whose good-guy persona Demme felt would make for a perversely compelling villain. The other was Jack Nicholson, who was everybodys go-to choice in the late 1980s, and whod just starred in the summer blockbuster Batman. Either name would have greatly increased the films box-office prospectswhile also running up its relatively slim budget. But after Connery and Nicholson passed, Demme set his sights on Hopkins, whose intelligence and humanity had been well deployed in The Elephant Man.

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Theres just something about him that makes you feel, Heres a man whos a lot smarter than you,  the director said of Hopkins. And thats fundamental to Lecter. This is someone who indeed is brighter than almost anybody else he ever encounters. Demme made the pitch directly to Hopkins when the two met in London, telling the actor that Lecter, despite his evil acts, was a smart and semidecent guy who just happened to be trapped in an insane brain. As Hopkins later recalled, I think he was right, because what Lecter is reallyits an old-fashioned word to usebut hes a gentleman. He has finesse. Hes not Buffalo Bill. When he kills, its fast and deadly.

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Demme returned to America more convinced than ever that hed found his Hannibal. Id like to think Tony got just the joke about Dr. Lecter that nobody, save [Silence of the Lambs author Thomas] Harris, may have gotten, he said. Orion Pictures executive Mike Medavoy had pushed for Robert Duvall to get the part: I said, I dont understand why youre doing it with a British guy,  the executive recalls. But he and Demme reached a compromise, and by December of that year, Hopkins had officially signed on for the film, for which hed receive $600,000.

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The actors original agreement included a Conduct of Artist clause, which stated that Hopkins would behave in such a manner as to avoid offending any large and definable segment of the population. To the filmmakers, the idea that Hopkins off-screen activity would somehow denigrate a film about a murderous cannibal was hilarious: Love THISfor Lecter?? Saxon scribbled next to the clause, which was later struck.

At 10 a.m. on Oct. 16, 1989, the cast and filmmakers assembled in Orions offices in Manhattan, where they held the first run-through of Tallys script. Table reads are weird, because youll have one person whos mumbling and another person whos onstage at Carnegie Hall, recalls Saxon. Tony was somewhere in between.

That was by design. Hopkins saw Lecter as calm, focused, secure. His many inspirations for Hannibal included a nightmare the actor had experienced for years. It found Hopkins answering a doorbell at his homeonly to be greeted by the sight of a man standing under a streetlamp, gazing directly at him. Hopkins decided to adopt the mans blank expression. If you stare at someone for more than 10 seconds, it scares them, he said. I knew instinctively that I should be absolutely still. He also knew that thered be expectations that he play Lecter as some sort of raving monster. So he took the opposite approach: Play him nice.

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At the table read, Hopkins debuted Lecters icy but melodious voice, for which he blended those of three chatty troublemakers: Truman Capote, the high-pitched author of In Cold Blood; HAL 9000, the menacingly even-tempered robot of Stanley Kubricks 2001: A Space Odyssey; and the Bryn Mawrbred motormouth Katharine Hepburn. When combined, the trios inflections amounted to what Hopkins described as a cockamammy American accent. After trying out his voice in front of the Silence of the Lambs team, I knew I had got them all, he said, because there was this amazing silence at the end of my first speech, and Demme then let out a, My God, yehhh. 

This article was excerpted from the new book Hannibal Lecter: A Life by Brian Raftery. Copyright 2026  by Brian Raftery. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster LLC.
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The past month has seen a barrage of election subversion stories that, taken individually, were alarming, but viewed together reveal a deeply disturbing new playbook emanating from the Trump administration ahead of the midterms. On this weeks Amicus podcast, Dahlia Lithwick talked with election law gladiator Marc Elias, chair of Elias Law Group and founder of Democracy Docket. Their discussion, edited and condensed for clarity here, highlights a very clear pattern when it comes to Trump and voting: a project that seeks to normalize violence and to test drive the shattering of how elections are typically run. The work of the coming nine months? Keep a close eye on the encroaching lawlessness, dont normalize election subversion, and organize now to protect your friends and neighbors.

Dahlia Lithwick: When Steve Bannon pledged last week that ICE is going to surround the pollsthat the federal government is going to send Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to patrol polling stations during the midtermsis he trolling, or something we should be taking literally and seriously?

Marc Elias: I dont think hes trolling us, I think hes quite serious. I think Donald Trump wants to maintain optionality here. Trump has put federal paramilitary forces in a number of American cities. Everyones focused on Minneapolis, but lets be clear, its not only Minneapolis. Part of it is because he obviously has an anti-immigrant agenda he wants to pursue, but he also wants to normalize the idea of seeing people with flash-bang grenades and tear gas breaking windows and dragging people out of cars, and telling U.S. citizens that theyre being put in databases, and grabbing U.S. citizens and throwing them in the back of vans. Trump wants to normalize all of that because that has a number of side benefits, none so great as potentially using those same forces and same tactics around the midterm electionsnot to go after noncitizens, and not even specifically focused on being right around polling places, but just more generally making it more intimidating to vote, making it more inconvenient to get to polling locations, and in its most extreme form, yes, surrounding polling locations and intimidating people or preventing voting altogether.

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So I guess the follow-up is just my lawyerly question, which is: Of course its not lawful to deploy federal troops or armed federal law enforcement to polling places. The Brennan Center is very clearits a crime for anyone in the military to interfere with elections. So doesnt this discussion begin and end with the fact that you just cant?

It doesnt, for two reasons. First of all, we began the administration with people thinking, Oh my God, what if he puts the military at the polls? And I think Donald Trump has figured out that hes better off with paramilitary forces than the actual U.S. military. The military may be too disciplined and too principled to do what he wants here, so hes found other federal law enforcement personnel and agencies willing to do his dirty work. Weve seen that progression between L.A.where we saw the National Guard deployedand now Minneapolis, where weve seen ICE and Border Patrol.

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More fundamentally, though, what you have is a president who himself enjoys absolute immunity and will wield the pardon power, and that makes saying something is illegal a lot less of a credible threat. When you also have a Department of Justice that would never prevent them from doing those things, and in fact would go to court to enable those things  it doesnt take law off the table, and I never want people to think that the courts are not able to address some of these things, because I think, in fact, the courts have proven the most capable of being checks on Donald Trump. I can promise you lawyers like me will be in court, and we will fight against this, and we may very well win, but it doesnt mean that he wont try or that he wont actually get cooperation from his own administration to do these things.

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Also last week, President Trump said the time has come to nationalize elections. Can you talk us through what lies beneath that threat? Is there some tangible plan hes referencing, or is this just another one of his I want what I want and I want it now, and I want these 15 Democratic jurisdictions to be monitored by me.

I think a couple of things here are important. The first is that when he says he wants to nationalize the elections, I fear some people think that hes talking about something like uniform standards across the country, some terrible but nevertheless uniform application of voting standards that would apply in Alabama equally as they would apply in, say, New York.

But if you look at the broader quote, hes making false claims about people coming to the country illegally to vote, and then he says, Its amazing that the Republicans arent tougher on it. The Republicans should say, We want to take over, we should take over the voting. The voting in at least many, 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. So I want to be clear, hes not talking about nationalizing election administration. He is talking about Republicans taking over the voting, and then identifying that there would be specific jurisdictions in which they would take over that voting. We can assume that those 15 would grow to be beyond 15, and that it would be places with large concentrations of Democratic votes. Hes talking about a partisan takeover, not a federal-versus-state takeover.

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The second thing is, I think that the big lie that he is selling in 2026 is his own power regarding these elections. What hes really doing in this statement is hes suggesting that the president has powers over elections that he doesnt have. What were seeing is a progression and an escalation. I want everyone to go back in their heads and remember that 2020 didnt start with a violent insurrection of the nations Capitol, it actually started with Donald Trump before the election, well before the election, saying that we cant have all these mail-in ballots, right? He was railing against mail-in ballots, and then there was litigation before the election about mail-in voting, and in-person voting, and all kinds of stuff, and many in the traditional legacy media treated that as if it was the normal jockeying before elections, and people like me and you were saying, No! This is actually not normal, this is actually quite extraordinary!

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Then Donald Trump loses the election, and he files not one lawsuit, but he and his allies file 64 lawsuitswhich, again, completely not normal! If you go back, maybe in the totality of Bush v. Gore, with all of the subsidiary little issues, maybe there were a dozen cases? But that was one state involving a very, very close margin, decided by the Supreme Court. In 2020, this was a scattershot approach with a lot of bullshit legal theories. And when that didnt work, he escalated. This is the pivot point that people sometimes look past. On Dec. 19, 2020, after the Electoral College met, the state of Texas filed a petition directly in the U.S. Supreme Court. You know how unusual that is? Texas didnt go to the trial courts, it just went straight to the U.S. Supreme Court and said, We need you to throw out the election results in four states. This is unheard of. Mike Johnson, who is now the speaker of the House but was at that point a back-bencher, organized 126 Republican members of Congress to sign onto that brief as an amicus. That became a major pivot point, because it was as much a political organizing as it was a legal organizing, and it winds up building up to House Republicans trying to refuse to certify the election Jan. 6, and then the violence and the insurrection we saw on Jan. 6.

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That was the progression in 2020. As we look today, were seeing the beginnings of the same progression: Donald Trump, first attacking voting, his Department of Justice bringing litigation, which they are losing. Now you see the seizing of ballots in Georgia, and you start to see the rhetoric from Steve Bannon about surrounding the polls. This is the progression that Trump goes through, and I think everyone needs to be really worried.

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You just mentioned the FBI search of a warehouse in Fulton County, Georgia, last week, which followed persistent demands from the president, claiming without evidence that fraud cost him Georgia. They used the opportunity to seize almost 700 boxes of 2020 election documents, all in the presence of Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence, who was on the scene for that raid. Can you explain why its a big deal, having the DNI present for an FBI raid in Georgia?

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Yes, and theres another fact that has been way too much overlooked: The prosecutor who sought this search warrant is in Missouri; this was not out of the U.S. Attorneys Office in Georgia. From reporting, it appears this U.S. attorney out of a district in Missouri has jurisdiction not only over the 2020 Fulton County matter (to the extent that it is a matter), but also some kind of nationwide jurisdiction over all election things.

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When you take in his involvement and you take in Gabbards involvement, I think you need to recast this as not simply election nihilism about 2020, and not only as a fight about nostalgiawhich would still be terrible, unprecedented, and dangerousbut that would be one thing. I think this raid is about proof of concept for the future. People are talking about seizing ballots and surrounding polling places and stealing elections as if somehow these things are easily done. These are conceptual frameworks that people in the administration have to get comfortable with; these are moral frameworks they have to get comfortable with. They have to contend with the Constitution and the law and judges and all that, but they also have to contend with just the sheer logistics of it all: How do we actually do this thing where there are ballots in the possession of a county official? And how are we going to get them, and how are we going to then count them in a way that is going to cast doubt on the outcome, or cast doubt on the outcome through other propaganda and disinformation campaigns? This Georgia raid is just as much about all that as it is about 2020.

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Donald Trump and his administration actually managed to pull something off here. They actually did seize ballots, they actually got their hands on them. People can say Oh, they had the wrong warrant and they had to go back, but at the end of the day, Tulsi Gabbard was on a truck full of documents seized from an office, and those are now in the possession of the FBI and presumably a grand jury by this prosecutor from Missouri. That should be terrifying. In terms of alarm bells, this is off the charts. They faced a challenge in 2020 and were humiliated in how to subvert the outcome of an election, and Donald Trump told the New York Times that he wished he had seized the ballots in 2020. They have now shown they have a proof of concept, that they know logistically how to do thisincluding getting a federal magistrate judge to sign a warrant. That is not a small matter, that is a safeguard put in place to prevent the abuse of grand juries, the abuse of subpoenas, and the abuse of arrest warrants. They got through that process, and that is a learning exercise that they will use going forward to 2026, and it is the thing that I probably worry the most about.
China's automobile production, sales both surpass 34 million units in 2025

09:09, February 10, 2026 By He Yin ( People's Daily

China's automotive industry has once again drawn widespread international attention. From Chinese carmakers grabbing global attention at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to Canada announcing adjustments to its import policy on Chinese electric vehicles, global enthusiasm for Chinese automobiles continues to surge.

In 2025, automobile production and sales in China both exceeded 34 million units. In particular, new energy vehicle (NEV) production and sales each surpassed 16 million units, topping global rankings for the 11th consecutive year. These impressive outcomes underscore the industry's strong momentum for innovation and its leadership in green development.

The sector's strength stems from China's efficient intelligent manufacturing system, resilient domestic supply chain, rapid pace of technological upgrading, and continuous rollout of competitive products. This momentum demonstrates the strong momentum generated by the combination of the country's innovation capacity and its vast domestic market.

From stumbling forward decades ago by importing foreign technologies, China has now evolved into a hub where multinational automakers are actively engaging in "co-creation and joint research and development (R&D)." This shift marks the arrival of a "Joint Venture 2.0" era and mirrors the shifting contours of opportunity in today's China.

"China leads in developing and deploying new technologies," remarked a multinational executive, stressing that keeping up with "China speed" is critical to gaining a competitive edge in the era of electrification and smart transformation.

The Advanced China Development Center of French carmaker Renault Group developed its first electric vehicle in just 21 months, while Volkswagen established its largest R&D hub outside Germany in Hefei, east China's Anhui province, shortening development cycles by approximately 30 percent.

These examples show how established international automakers are drawing on China's momentum to drive global technological transformation and operational efficiency. This mutually collaboration creates multidimensional win-win outcomes, contributing to a more open, inclusive, and dynamic industrial ecosystem.

China's accelerating green transition provides critical momentum for global sustainable mobility.

In 2025, NEVs accounted for more than half of new vehicle sales in China, and over half of the world's NEVs are now on Chinese roads. At the same time, China exported over 2.61 million NEVs last year, doubling the figure from a year ago.

Chinese automakers are driving down costs across the entire industrial chain through technology and scale, making green mobility a more accessible option for countries worldwide, especially developing ones.

The growth of the global NEV industry requires not just high-quality products and technologies, but also practical, system-wide solutions. China's experience shows that widespread adoption of green transportation is closely tied to easing "range anxiety." During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (20212025), China built the world's largest electric vehicle charging network, capable of supporting over 40 million NEVs. These proven solutions provide a strong, actionable reference for other nations in transition.

With a strengthened industrial foundation, China's automotive sector is accelerating its global reach, directly contributing to development worldwide. Evolving from "product export" to "ecosystem expansion," Chinese automakers' commitment to openness and collaboration stands as a compelling case of "openness triumphing over protectionism."

In recent years, Chinese carmakers have stepped up localization strategies overseas--building factories and strengthening local supply chains so that more communities can benefit from industrial upgrading.

BYD and Great Wall Motor have built plants in Thailand, supporting the country's automotive transformation; JAC Motors operates an assembly plant in Algeria, providing vocational training for local workers; and Chery's joint venture with Spain's Ebro in Barcelona has given a significant boost to the regional economy.

"Chinese enterprises bring us more than factories; they offer a new pathway for development," said Jeronimo Rodrigues, Governor of Brazil's Bahia State.

The leapfrog development of China's automotive industry is a vivid reflection of the qualitative advancement and innovation within the country's manufacturing sector. As China enters the 15th Five-Year Plan period (20262030), its industrial system is set to further evolve toward greater intelligence, greener development, and more integrated growth.

Through continued openness and cooperation with nations worldwide, the shared benefits of development will keep expanding, injecting new momentum into the global economy and creating more opportunities for all.

New energy vehicles are assembled in an intelligent workshop of Chinese automaker Leapmotor in Jinhua, east China's Zhejiang province. (Photo/Hu Xiaofei)

A woman tries out a new energy vehicle at a dealership in Zhangjiagang, east China's Jiangsu province. (Photo/Xing Bin)

Chinese automobiles are about to be loaded onto ships in Yancheng, east China's Jiangsu province. (Photo/Li Gen)

(Web editor: Peng Yukai, Liang Jun)
KInshasa, DRC (PANA) - South Africa has moved to withdraw its peacekeepers deployed at the United Nations Organiation Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) after nearly three decades of service
Spotted lanternflies are taking over again.

And while stomping out these invasive pests can control the issue a little, a new autonomous robot from Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science may be ready to save us the hassle.

The robot, nicknamed TartanPest, was built by Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science and uses AI to detect eggs laid by the invasive spotted lanternfly and remove them from trees before the eggs can hatch.

What is the TartanPest?

The TartanPest is a promising tool in the war against the spotted lanternfly. Using machine learning, the TartanPest can identify spotted lanternfly nests and remove them before they can do the environment harm.

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The robot has computer vision that allows it to see potential egg masses. The computer on the robot then compares what it sees to a database of images. The images on this database are crowdsourced, meaning the photos were taken by citizen scientists and nature lovers.

If the TartanPest determines that the nest in question is from a spotted lanternfly, the robot's arm will scrape the egg masses off the tree.

Why is the TartanPest important?

In the eastern United States, the spotted lanternfly is an invasive species, meaning it is not native to the continent. Invasive species have been moved from their natural habitats into new habitats that lack their usual natural predators, meaning there is no natural population control for the species.

Since 2014, spotted lanternflies have been growing in population in the eastern United States, a threat to over 100 species of trees and plants. Most of the plants the spotted lanternflies love are important to the grape and logging industries.

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Spotted lanternflies do not harm humans or animals, but they do feed on ecologically and economically valued plants. In Pennsylvania alone, spotted lanternflies could cost the state and its farmers $324 million annually and cause the loss of about 2,800 jobs.

Brian Eshenaur, from the New York State Integrated Pest Management Program, told Time that "one female spotted lanternfly can lay up to 40 egg masses." So, stopping the problem early can greatly diminish population numbers.

The TartanPest offers a solution to save time and money, killing spotted lanternflies before they're born.

How is the TartanPest helping?

By targeting nests and killing eggs before they hatch, the TartanPest can curb population growth in the spotted lanternfly more quickly and effectively than trying to kill the adults.

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In a YouTube video, the team working on the robot said that its solution can "increase the efficiency of farms, lower costs, lower chemical pollution of crops [from pesticides], and save labor costs for farms."

With a robotic solution on their side, farmers do not need to manually identify and destroy the bugs' nests.

"By investing in this issue now, we will be saving higher costs in the future," Carolyn Alex, an undergraduate researcher on the team, said.

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(TBTCO) - Can cu ket qua giam sat, kiem tra, ngay 12/02/2026, Uy ban Chung khoan Nha nuoc (UBCKNN) a ban hanh Quyet inh so 89/Q-XPHC ve viec xu phat vi pham hanh chinh oi voi ba Bui Thi Phuong Thuy (ia chi: so 162 uong Phu My, phuong Tu Liem, thanh pho Ha Noi) do co hanh vi thao tung thi truong chung khoan.
How Belarusian refugee women with cancer support each other in Poland.

Maria served three years in a Belarusian penal colony on politically motivated charges. After she moved to Poland in mid-2025, she discovered a lump in her breast and turned to Pink Scarves, a self-help group for Belarusian women in exile based in Warsaw. They in turn connected her with Antonina, a volunteer.

I was very scared to go for an MRI. Whenever I imagined having to get into that tube, I started crying. Im very grateful to Tonya for taking me there, waiting outside the office, and bringing me back home. Now Im waiting for the biopsy results, Maria says.

Stress and persecution have had a serious impact on the health of Belarusian women living under harsh conditions at home or trying to make new lives abroad. Pink Scarves is an association of Belarusian women who have suffered from politically motivated persecution, and works under the motto: You can always share your pain with us.

Many of these women joined the mass exodus in the wake of the contentious 2020 election, when the authorities launched a severe crackdown on all forms of protest that continues to this day. Poland is the most common destination for exiled Belarusians: Between 2021 and 2025, nearly 11,000 Belarusians received refugee status or subsidiary protection in Poland. In just the first 18 months after the events of 2020, almost 30,000 Belarusians received shorter-term protection in Poland.

Founded less than a year ago, Pink Scarves has already reached out to dozens of women, creating a space where intimate topics  rarely brought into the public sphere  can be openly discussed. Over the past year, we have increasingly heard about cancer cases among Belarusian women, says Yuliya, one of the women who started the project and who helps manage the organization on a volunteer basis (all the women involved keep their identities secret to protect their families in Belarus).

A woman tries out a breast self-examination kit during a Pink Scarves meeting. Photo courtesy of Pink Scarves. Last fall, Pink Scarves joined the multinational Pink October campaign, helping to raise awareness of breast cancer, the importance of self-care, and regular screenings, Yuliya adds. As a grassroots initiative, we cannot provide medical care, but through social media we share information about self-examinations, organize support groups, and help overcome barriers  language, psychological, and those related to forced migration. Together, we encourage Belarusian women to face problems bravely and pay attention to their health, because early diagnosis saves lives. We also work closely with the medical community, Yuliya adds.

Less Stress Means Better Outcomes

The initiatives on-the-ground findings that the stress of exile can lead to serious health issues finds backing in the expert knowledge of Olga Nizhelskaya, a psycho-oncologist in Warsaw. Pink Scarves connects her with Belarusian women with cancer by arranging in-person meetings in Warsaw and virtual consultations for women in Belarus.

Emigration is constant stress, and when you are also in another country, you need a community that, in your own language, can explain where to go, help communicate with doctors, and outline what steps to take, Nizhelskaya says.

Pink Scarves was founded in May 2025, initially as a project of two Belarusian women living abroad, and later two more women joined the core team. Gradually, people from all walks of life started coming forward to volunteer. Some are skilled professionals, says Yuliya. Volunteer lawyers advise Belarusian women on issues of asylum, alimony, and property rights. People themselves began to write to us on social media offering help.

The group cooperates with doctors, psychologists, and Belarusian diasporas in Germany and Cyprus. Thanks to money raised through a crowdfunding campaign and cooperation with diasporas and the volunteer network, 170 Belarusian women both inside and outside the country have been helped since last spring.

Pink Scarves, the Belarusian diaspora in Cyprus, and the Dapamoga organization teamed up to deliver aid to Belarusian exiles in Lithuania. Photo courtesy of Pink Scarves.

Pink Scarves typically makes contact with women via its Instagram and Telegram channels, using their wide reach to connect with Belarusian women who need help. This can take the form of financial assistance: the group has held three fundraisers for Belarusian women in need. In one instance, former political prisoner Asya Bulybenko needed help because she lacked funds to cover medical treatment in Lithuania when she fell ill with anorexia. Thanks to donations from the Belarusian diaspora, the Pink Scarves raised 12,000 euros for her in one day.

Their help extends beyond the medical sphere: Last October, Pink Scarves linked up with Dapamoga, an organization which aids Belarusians living in Lithuania, delivering winter clothes, hygiene products, and shoes to former political prisoners.

A Helping Hand for the Distressed

Fear of cancer or other life-threatening disease afflicts many women living in exile, Yuliya says, noting that Pink Scarves knows of at least 130 Belarusian women in Warsaw who are undergoing cancer treatment. Faced with anecdotal evidence of rising cancer cases among Belarusians, the group reached out to doctors and specialists who work with these women.

During last years Pink October campaign, Nizhelskaya led a breast self-examination workshop and shared advice on how to tell loved ones about a cancer diagnosis and how to ask for help. At the same time, the Pink Scarves launched an information campaign about breast cancer.

I have worked in oncology all my life, first in Kyiv, now in Warsaw, where I created a community of cancer patients, doctors, and volunteers where we help each other and share contacts, Nizhelskaya says.

The support includes psychological counseling for patients and their families, as well as assistance with accompanying them to doctors appointments and chemotherapy.

Dmitry, a breast surgeon from Belarus, moved to Warsaw five years ago. His cooperation with Pink Scarves fills a big knowledge gap for Belarusian women in Poland. Acting on a recommendation from a volunteer, Pink Scarves contacted him and arranged to refer to him women who asked for advice about surgery after learning they had breast cancer.

Dmitry says the past year has seen rising numbers of Belarusian patients with malignant tumors.

Usually, women over 35 are at risk. But more and more young women with various types of tumors are coming to me  mainly those who have been in prison. Its terrible. I ask all my patients if they have someone who can go with them to the ultrasound or consultation so that they are not so scared, he says. A woman wrote to Pink Scarves that she suffered a miscarriage after spending 15 days in a cold, filthy prison cell in Belarus.

Breaking the Fear Barrier

One of the biggest challenges Pink Scarves faced was building trust among Belarusian women at home and abroad. After more than five years of suppression of all forms of dissent in Belarus, it is difficult to reach people who fear data leaks and pressure on their relatives. The Belarusian authorities have added the groups social media accounts to the list of extremist materials as part of the wide-ranging crackdown on any organization that can be deemed critical of the regime. But, as Yuliya says, word of mouth still works to build trust among people.

At least five large NGOs in Warsaw provide support to people with cancer, yet refugees may be reluctant to approach them. Magda, a Warsaw resident who wished that her full name not be used, has been volunteering with the RaknRoll Foundation for six years. The foundation not only raises funds but also offers psychological, legal, and social support. Magda notes that the experience of refugee women with cancer is different:

We have a well-established volunteer support system. If a patient needs accompaniment or, for example, childcare, we always find help. People from various backgrounds come to us, including foreigners. But in practice, refugees tend to seek support within their own communities. Their experience is completely different: they have lost their homes, and many face problems with documents and insurance. Its important for them to have people nearby who are in the same situation as they are.

Pink Scarves currently works with women in Warsaw and Vilnius, and plans to expand to cities, such as Wroclaw and Bialystok, with large Belarusian communities.

Antonina is also a survivor of persecution. She arrived in Poland in 2021. In Warsaw, she was diagnosed with a malignant tumor. Asked why she did not turn to Warsaw-based NGOs, Antonina says: I want to express my feelings fully. And I feel that only Belarusian and Ukrainian women who, like me, have lost their homes can truly understand me.

I cant convey all my emotions in Polish, but I can among my compatriots. With them, I can cry it out. They are the only ones who understand me and my fears. For example, repressed Belarusian women know how much you dont want to upset your parents who stayed in Belarus. I myself didnt tell my family about the diagnosis until I went into remission  I didnt want to worry them again. Life is hard enough for them there, Antonina says.

Evgeniya Dolgaya is a Belarusian journalist specializing in social issues. She is the creator of Politvyazynka, a platform for the stories of female political prisoners in Belarus.
Benghazi, Libya (PANA) - A meeting has been held at the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in Benghazi, devoted to examining the situation of the Ghanaian community and the difficulties encountered by its members in the region
The Tucson Symphony Orchestra's "Celebrating America at 250" program sounds like a mixtape of American music by Americans.

Until you get to the finale.

The 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky.

Definitely not American.

But that song?

About as American as you can get, TSO Music Director Jose Luis Gomez will argue.

"1812 Overture is like the most played of the repertoire of any orchestra that plays a Fourth of July concert," he explained. "It is not linked to anything historical. It's not linked to anything nationalistic or Russian or not Russian. It's just because it's spectacular and it has those cannons at the end, with the fireworks."

The tradition of tying Russian composer Tchaikovsky's towering overture to America's Independence Day celebration goes back to 1974, when the Boston Pops, under the legendary Conductor Arthur Fiedler, had the orchestra play it at the end of its annual Fourth of July concert.

It was a hit. By the following year, it became a tradition that caught on with orchestras nationwide.

"We never do a Fourth of July concert, as you know, because we don't have a summer season because it's so hot," Gomez said. "So this is just a little wink, wink to the Fourth of July."

The TSO will perform "Celebrating America at 250" on Saturday, Feb. 14, and Sunday, Feb. 15.

Gomez curated the program with an eye toward the country's rich diversity.

"It's intentionally trying to depict the variety of what it means being the United States of America," he said. "You know, what does this country mean throughout this history? And music has always been influenced by all of the different ethnicities and historical connections that define the United States."

The program opens with Bernstein's "West Side Story" Overture and includes Ward's quintessential "America the Beautiful" and Aaron Copland's "Lincoln Portrait," featuring narration by Tom McNamara, host of AZPM's "Arizona Illustrated."

The TSO Chorus, Arizona Girls Chorus and Tucson Arizona Boys Chorus will perform with the orchestra on the Tchaikovsky, "America the Beautiful" and Samuel Barber's "Agnus Dei."

"Barber, for me, is one of the most important American composers," Gomez said.

The program mirrors the country's ethnic diversity, from Mexican-American composer Juan Pablo Contreras's "MeChicano," a piece the TSO commissioned, to"Chokfi: Sarcasm" for String Orchestra and Percussion from Jerod Impichchaachaaha Tate, a member of Oklahoma's Chickasaw Nation.

"We wanted to showcase something really different," Gomez said, which is why the program also includes an excerpt from Joan Tower's "Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman."

"We could have done Copland's 'Fanfare for the Common Man,' which has become, in a way, a little bit of an identity for any American celebration," Gomez said. "But what about the women?"

The TSO will perform Tower's "Fanfare" again in April on its "Copland's Fanfare for America" concert.

This weekend's performances are at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at Linda Ronstadt Music Hall, 260 S. Church Ave. Tickets are $16.90-$98 through tucsonsymphony.org or by calling 520-882-8585.
Call for Entries: Screen Forever Pitching Competition

A new on-stage pitching opportunity carries a $10,000 prize and the chance to advance projects with industry partners.

Screen Producers Australia has announced a Screen Forever Simpsons Pitching Competition, a new on-stage pitching opportunity designed to support the development of outstanding feature film projects from Australias producing community.

Open to professional feature film producers, potentially including streaming films, the competition will give participants the chance to secure partners and resources to advance their work.

Four finalists will be selected to pitch live on stage at Screen Forever 40 on Wednesday 29 April 2026, presenting their projects to an esteemed industry jury. The winning project will be announced live during the conference.

Proudly sponsored by Simpsons, the winner will receive:

A cash prize of $10,000 development costs

Legal services valued at $3,000

Curated one-on-one meetings with potential marketplace partners at the SPA Connect In-Person Market

Matthew Deaner, CEO of Screen Producers Australia, said: The Simpsons Pitching Competition is a fantastic addition to Screen Forever , providing feature film producers with a high-profile platform to present their projects to industry decision-makers. This initiative is about fostering new opportunities to help kick start the type of bold storytelling that defines Australias screen sector.

Mark Bamford, Director at Simpsons Lawyers said: Within our brilliant production sector the difficulty in accessing development funding is systemic. We hope the competition will bring some attention to the issue and move the needle, at least a little, for the successful applicant. We are pleased to be able to partner with SPA on the initiative and look forward to a fun pitching session.

Applications open Monday 23 February and close Sunday 22 March 2026. Producers are encouraged to begin preparing their pitch decks and project synopses ahead of the application period.
Rahul Gandhi slams Centre over Textile tariffs, says India running shackled against Bangladesh 13 Feb 2026 | 12:57 PM New Delhi, Feb 13 (UNI) Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday criticised the union governments trade stance on textiles, alleging that India would be at a competitive disadvantage compared to Bangladesh due to higher tariff barriers. see more..

PM Modi to visit Assam, launch projects worth Rs 5,450 cr 13 Feb 2026 | 12:56 PM New Delhi, Feb 13 (UNI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit Assam on February 14, where he will witness an aerial display at the Northeasts first Emergency Landing Facility and inaugurate multiple infrastructure projects worth over Rs 5,450 crore, according to an official press release issued on Friday. . see more..

India-Bangladesh: From Frosty to Warmer Climes 13 Feb 2026 | 11:52 AM Jayanta Roy Chowdhury

New Delhi, Feb 13 (UNI) Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has on Friday morning tweeted his congratulations to BNP Chairman Tarique Rahman following his partys landslide victory in Bangladeshs national elections may make a personal effort to cultivate the newly minted leader. see more..

PM Modi congratulates Tarique Rahman on BNPs parliamentary election victory in Bangladesh 13 Feb 2026 | 9:41 AM New Delhi, Feb 13 (UNI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday congratulated Tarique Rahman on leading the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to what he described as a decisive victory in Bangladeshs parliamentary elections, reaffirming Indias commitment to supporting a democratic and progressive neighbour. see more..
Dakar, Senegal (PANA)  Several suspects, including television host Pape Cheikh Diallo and artist Djiby Drame, were placed in pretrial detention on Monday after appearing before the investigating judge at the PikineGuediawaye High Court, in line with the public prosecutor's requisitions in a paedophile gang case
Container throughput at Vietnams ports is expected to maintain growth, with deep-water ports in particular set to record higher efficiency thanks to larger vessel deployment and the accelerated development of infrastructure, which will help enhance competitiveness, according to MBS Securities JSC.

By 2030, total investment demand for Vietnams entire seaport system is estimated to reach 359.5 trillion VND (13.8 billion USD), including 72.8 trillion VND for public maritime infrastructure, with the remaining 286.7 trillion VND earmarked for commercial terminals providing cargo-handling services.

Accelerating investment in seaport infrastructure will improve the sectors overall competitiveness in the medium and long term, MBS experts noted.

In Hai Phong, under the master plan for the development of Vietnams seaport system, Hai Phong seaports are classified as special-grade ports, serving as the principal maritime gateway for the northern region.

Hai Phong is expected to complete berths at the Lach Huyen International Port, develop the Nam Do Son Port, and strive to establish the Northern Hai Phong Economic Zone by 2030. This development will be based on the integrated and synergistic utilisation of the strategic advantages of Gia Binh Airport, Lach Huyen Port, and connection road networks, to position Hai Phong as a regional-scale port city and reach a throughput target of 215 million tonnes.

In the southern region, following an administrative merger, Ho Chi Minh City possesses the countrys most extensive seaport system, with 99 berths, including offshore oil and gas ones. This accounts for nearly one-third of Vietnams total number of berths and is 2.5 times higher than before the merger. By 2030, cargo throughput is targeted at around 253 million tonnes, of which container cargo is expected to reach 16.2518.25 million TEUs.

To enhance the operational capacity of the entire seaport sector and position Vietnam as a strategic logistics hub in the global supply chain, accelerating the development of the seaport system and supporting infrastructure has become a key factor.

In 2025, transport management and maritime services met development requirements, with cargo volumes and vessel calls through ports recording positive growth.

Statistics from the Vietnam Maritime and Waterways Administration showed that the number of seagoing vessel calls through Vietnams seaport system reached 134,600 last year, up 32% year-on-year. The number of inland waterway vessel calls through seaports and inland ports totalled 733,200. Cargo throughput via seaports rose by 10%, while that through inland waterway ports increased by 17%./. VNA
E10 gasoline does not affect engines

The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) has issued Circular 50, which sets out the roadmap for blending biofuels with conventional fuels in Vietnam.

Accordingly, from June 1, 2026, E10 will be used for gasoline engine nationwide, contributing to emission reduction commitments. In addition, E5RON92 gasoline will continue to be blended and used for gasoline engines until December 31, 2030.

Dang Tat Thanh, PhD, from the MOITs Department of Innovation, Green Transition and Industrial Promotion emphasized that switching to biofuels brings many other benefits, such as ensuring energy security, delivering significant economic benefits, contributing to environmental protection, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 3784 percent. Moreover, using E10 gasoline also ensures engine safety.

When drafting Circular 50, MOIT consulted many major automakers (Toyota, Honda, Ford, etc.) and technical organizations such as the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). These entities all confirmed that biofuels E5 and E10 do not harm engines. On the contrary, E10 has a higher octane rating, helping engines operate more efficiently and reducing knocking.

"Thus, it is clear that using E10 and E5 does not affect the engine and aligns with Vietnam's current green and clean trends," Thanh affirmed.

Some petroleum traders have already conducted trial sales of E10 and received positive feedback. After more than 5 months of pilot sales, Ho Ngoc Linh from Petrolimex stated that sales volume has increased, reflecting consumer acceptance. Regarding quality, Petrolimex has not recorded any complaints or negative feedback.

According to Nguyen Huu Tien, Deputy Director of the Department of Science, Technology, and Environment (Ministry of Construction), most gasoline engines currently in use can use E10 immediately without technical modification, which is a significant advantage.

We have strengthened inspection and supervision, and test results show that E10 meets technical requirements, Linh said.

According to Nguyen Huu Tien, Deputy Director of the Department of Science, Technology, Environment and Construction Materials (Ministry of Construction), most gasoline engines currently in use can immediately use E10 without modification or technical changes, which is a major advantage.

Therefore, the MOITs roadmap for transitioning to E10 is an appropriate and practical solution. The issue of concern now is the supply capacity and ensuring the quality of biofuel.

Lo Hai Nam from the Vietnam Association of Motorcycle Manufacturers (VAMM), also confirmed that the motorcycles from VAMM member brands can all switch to E10, including older models manufactured 20-25 years ago.

However, when using E10, if a vehicle is left unused for a long time, it may be harder to start compared with mineral gasoline, because biofuels have water-absorbing characteristics.

In addition, biofuels have cleaning properties. For fuel systems that use metal fuel tanks, deposits can build up over time; when biofuels are used, these deposits may be cleaned off and broken into small particles, which can cause clogging or make pumping and suction more difficult.

Therefore, manufacturers always recommend that users regularly inspect and maintain their vehicles fuel systems. If these recommendations are followed, such issues can be completely avoided, he said.

According to Associate Professor Dam Hoang Phuc, PhD, from Hanoi University of Science and Technology, the use of E10 has been around for a long time, so manufacturers have researched engine compatibility with this biofuel. Some vehicles even indicate E20 compatibility, meaning they can use E20 gasoline, as committed by the manufacturer. When opening the fuel cap and seeing markings such as Euro 5 E20, consumers can know which fuel is appropriate for their vehicles.

But the greatest danger is using the wrong standard level of gasoline, not because of the gasoline. Consumers should care and note whether the car they are driving needs to use Euro 3, 4, or 5. Only in this way can they protect their car and their wallet," Phuc said.

Ethanol is a solvent that does not affect mechanical details, only affecting non-metal materials such as gaskets, seals, and rubber.

He stressed that vehicles need to be cared for and must have their fuel systems checked; that is a principle, even if E10 is not used.

For ethanol, because ethanol has cleaning properties, it can cause deposits in the fuel tank to dissolve more quickly and move through the fuel system toward the engine. However, in newer cars, fuel tanks and fuel systems have been improved, so deposit buildup rarely occurs.

Tam An
Toan built his business on land inherited from his grandfather. (Photo: Sy Thong)

Located in the border commune of Son Hong, once considered a difficult area where most residents relied on forest work, Toans farm has become a bright spot in the regions rural development.

Once a day laborer who tried many times to start a business and failed, Toan eventually succeeded with a model he describes as plants below, solar panels above, livestock in between. His venture not only brought wealth to his family but also created stable jobs for dozens of locals.

Born and raised in this mountainous borderland, Toans family had long depended on forest resources. When forest access became restricted, he struggled to make ends meet.

In 2015, noticing that his late grandfathers 2,000-square-meter plot - surrounded by forest and located near a stream - was lying idle, he decided to build his future on that very land.

Without hesitation, he borrowed roughly 2 billion VND (about 80,000 USD) to clear the land, build infrastructure, and raise 100 sows and 50 cows. But during 20172018, plunging pork prices left his pigs unsold.

At that time, continuing would mean deeper losses. Selling wasnt an option - no one would buy. Bankruptcy loomed. I spent sleepless nights beside the pigsties, staring at them in helpless silence, sure I would lose everything, he recalled.

In that crisis, local officials and residents stepped in to help rescue his pigs. Teachers and villagers bought meat to freeze, helping him avoid collapse.

Even though the pigs were sold, the weight of his debts drove Toan to leave home in search of a new start in the South. Encouraged by family, he returned in 2019 to begin again. This time, he borrowed more money to shift into deer farming and expanded his land area from 2 to 5 hectares.

His ong ong liquor production model brings in over a billion dong annually. (Photo: Sy Thong)

Today, Toans farm maintains 100 sows, 80 deer, and 10 cows. The setup is fully integrated: solar panels on the roof, livestock operations below. Open spaces are used to cultivate nearly 70,000 inh lang plants across 4 hectares - used for medicinal purposes and liquor production.

Toan didnt stop at animal husbandry. He invested in equipment to produce ong ong liquor right on the farm. Each year, the facility produces 15,00020,000 liters of rice liquor at 70,000 VND (2.80 USD) per liter, generating revenue between 1.2 and 1.4 billion VND (48,00056,000 USD).

The liquor is made from Lao glutinous rice, distilled and aged in clay jars with young rice grains from Bac Ninh, yielding a distinctive flavor favored by local markets. He is currently completing paperwork to register his product as an OCOP (One Commune One Product) item under the name Ruou ong ong ha tho.

In 2024 alone, his family earned about 1.5 billion VND from piglet sales - 300 to 400 piglets per batch. He also sold 40 deer for 1420 million VND each and 34 pairs of deer antlers (0.81.2kg each), adding over 300 million VND to his income.

The farm provides regular jobs for eight local workers, each earning around 8 million VND (320 USD) per month. During peak seasons, Toan hires up to 30 additional seasonal workers, paying 300,000 VND (12 USD) per day.

Looking ahead, Toan plans to expand operations by reclaiming an additional 20 hectares of forested land to grow medicinal herbs such as ba kich, inh lang, and tram gio.

Through training sessions organized by the Farmers Union, I realized that using forest land for herb cultivation has enormous potential, he said.

Nguyen Thanh Dong, Secretary of the Party Committee of Son Hong Commune, described Toans farm as a model example - effectively combining animal husbandry, herbal farming, liquor production, and solar energy. The result: billions in revenue and many local jobs.

Toans success is more than a personal triumph - its a pathfinder for sustainable rural development in Vietnams most rugged corners.

Thien Luong
Professor Do Van Dai, the only full professor at HCM City University of Law, receives Frances Knight of the Academic Palms.

The award, presented by French Ambassador Olivier Brochet on behalf of the French Prime Minister, recognizes Professor Dais outstanding contributions to strengthening legal cooperation between France and Vietnam.

His efforts have helped deepen academic and professional exchanges between legal practitioners, scholars, and students, fostering a vibrant Francophone legal community in Vietnam.

Born in 1974, Do Van Dai earned his Bachelor's (1999), Master's (2000), and Doctorate in Law (2004) from Aix-Marseille III University in France. After years of study, research, and teaching abroad, he returned to Vietnam in 2007 and joined the HCM City University of Law.

In 2011, he was named Associate Professor, and in 2021, promoted to full Professor - currently the only faculty member at the university holding that title.

In 2008, he was appointed Head of the Civil Law Department. By 2011, he was acting Dean of the Civil Law Faculty and officially became Dean in 2012. After two terms, he was entrusted in 2022 with leading the Vietnamese Journal of Legal Science and is now serving as the universitys Vice Rector.

Professor Dais work has shaped not only legal education in Vietnam but also the broader landscape of international legal collaboration, with a particular focus on French-Vietnamese ties.

Le Huyen
The camera bump of the iPhone Fold is said to be black, regardless of the colour of the rest of the device. Photo: AppleInsider

A series of recent leaks suggests that almost every major detail of the device, from its display and camera system to its buttons, battery and colors, has now been revealed.

The camera bump of the iPhone Fold is said to be entirely black, regardless of the devices overall color.

Until now, most rumors focused mainly on the display size and the general form factor.

That focus was understandable, since Apple has been notably cautious about foldable display technology - an area in which Samsung has held a lead since 2019.

However, new leaks on Chinas social network Weibo provide a far more comprehensive picture.

The information comes from Instant Digital, a familiar name among technology watchers who has repeatedly released accurate leaks about Apple products.

The details shared this time are also considered plausible, aligning with Apples design philosophy and the companys typical approach to resolving complex engineering challenges.

According to Instant Digital, the iPhone Fold will feature notable changes in hardware placement, particularly in its button system.

The volume buttons will reportedly move from the left edge to the upper right, while the sleep/wake button remains in its usual position on the right side.

Concentrating all controls on one side is meaningful when the iPhone Fold is opened, as users will not need to reach across both halves of the device.

This layout also helps Apple avoid routing circuits through the foldable display area - a structurally sensitive zone that affects long-term durability.

Leaks indicate that Apple leaves the entire left side of the device almost empty.

There are no buttons and no main logic boards on that side.

All essential internal components are placed on the right, allowing the opposite half to be dedicated almost entirely to the display and battery.

This redesign is believed to be key to giving the iPhone Fold the largest battery ever fitted to an iPhone.

Battery size is critical because foldable smartphones consume more power due to their larger display area.

The strategy resembles what Apple is rumored to have applied to the iPhone 17, reorganizing internal components to create more room for battery expansion.

If accurate, the iPhone Fold could overcome one of the biggest weaknesses of current foldable phones.

Regarding the camera system, the device is expected to feature a horizontal dual-camera setup rather than the vertical arrangement found on many recent iPhones.

Dynamic Island will remain on the display, but in a smaller form that maximizes screen space.

The device is said to come in at least two colors, with white being one confirmed option.

However, the completely black camera bump has raised curiosity, as it contrasts with Apples reported move toward more unified color design, especially as the company seeks to abandon the two-tone approach with the iPhone 17 line.

It is possible that some details were distorted during leak circulation, or that the black camera bump corresponds only to one color variant.

A separate report from The Elec reveals that Apple is considering a significant late-stage decision regarding the protective film for its foldable display.

Apple is reportedly evaluating a premium protective layer applied on top of the foldable glass to enhance resistance to scratches and damage compared with Samsungs foldable devices.

This is the layer users directly interact with, making its durability especially important.

While Samsung uses PET (polyethylene terephthalate) film, Apple is said to be considering transparent polyimide (PI) film.

According to supply chain sources, Apple has not made a final decision, but transparent PI film is currently viewed as the stronger candidate.

Apple initially planned to use PET film but later reevaluated the material and began considering a more advanced alternative.

Transparent PI film offers a harder surface and better scratch resistance, delivering a noticeable advantage in daily use.

Both film types can meet technical requirements, but Apple appears intent on creating a clear and premium distinction from competitors.

The use of PI film is not only visually superior but also offers practical benefits thanks to its higher durability.

Reports suggest that Chinese company Lens Technology may be responsible for producing the foldable glass and applying the protective layer before the screen is fully assembled.

The internal display of the iPhone Fold is expected to measure 7.8 inches with an almost invisible crease, while the external display is about 5.5 inches.

If the leaks are accurate, the iPhone Fold will launch alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max this fall.

Although The Elec often provides reliable supply chain information, the report still raises questions about whether Apple would truly adopt a new display-protection technology so late in development.

Hai Phong
Minister Dao Ngoc Dung receives the Central Council of the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha delegation. Photo: Le Anh Dung

Also present at the meeting were Deputy Minister Nguyen Hai Trung and representatives from several departments under the Ministry.

Speaking at the event, Most Venerable Thich Thanh Nhieu, Standing Vice Chairman of the Executive Council of the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha, shared a brief overview of the Sanghas activities in 2025 and plans for 2026.

He noted that throughout 2025, the Sangha had streamlined its organizational structure in alignment with national administrative reforms and had stabilized religious activities across the country.

Among the highlights was the successful organization of the United Nations Day of Vesak 2025, the ceremonial reception of Shakyamuni Buddhas relics, and the third VietnamLaosCambodia Buddhist Summit under the theme Harmonious Buddhism for Peace and Sustainable Development. These events left a lasting impression both nationally and internationally.

Looking ahead to 2026, Most Venerable Thich Thanh Nhieu said the Sangha will conduct a comprehensive review of its religious activities and prepare for the 10th National Buddhist Congress. He expressed hope that the Ministry would continue to support the successful organization of provincial congresses leading up to the national event.

The Buddhist delegation extends Tet wishes to the Ministry of Ethnic and Religious Affairs. Photo: Le Anh Dung

On behalf of the Executive Council and the wider Buddhist community, the Venerable expressed deep appreciation for the support and partnership extended by the Ministry of Ethnic and Religious Affairs. He also conveyed New Year wishes to the Ministrys leadership and staff on the occasion of the Year of the Horse.

Minister Dao Ngoc Dung expressed his gratitude for the good wishes and in turn extended New Year greetings to the Sanghas executive councils nationwide, as well as to all monks, nuns, and followers of Buddhism across the country.

He commended the Sanghas active participation in national development, including its contributions to the material and spiritual well-being of people in remote and disaster-affected areas. He also acknowledged the Sanghas prompt and synchronized efforts in organizational restructuring.

Notably, the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha has taken part in the national campaign to eliminate substandard housing. In just over a year, 334,234 temporary or unsafe homes have been replaced with stable ones, Minister Dao Ngoc Dung emphasized.

Looking to the future, the Minister called on the Sangha to continue refining its operations, strengthening outreach and communication, and enhancing its role in public spiritual life. He stressed that this would help preserve social stability, bolster national solidarity, and support the countrys mission of development and protection.

On behalf of the Ministrys leadership, Minister Dao Ngoc Dung wished the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha continued success in its endeavors and expressed confidence in the successful organization of the 10th National Buddhist Congress in 2026.

Hoang Quy
Delegates attending the 14th National Party Congress. Photo: Pham Hai

President Ho Chi Minh placed great emphasis on unleashing the strength of the people and the power of great national unity. He stressed that the people are the subject of the revolution, a tremendous force with limitless creativity: In the sky, nothing is more precious than the people. In the world, nothing is stronger than the united force of the people.

The Partys 14th National Congress has elevated the viewpoint the people are the root to a new level. The political report submitted to the Congress identifies strengthening consolidation and effectively promoting the power of the people and the great bloc of national unity as a valuable lesson with theoretical significance and practical guiding value for the countrys revolutionary cause in a new era of development.

Reviewing 40 years of implementing the renovation policy, the Party has drawn five key lessons, of which the third is to thoroughly grasp and resolutely practice the viewpoint the people are the root, promoting the peoples role as the principal subject and the central position of the people.

After 40 years of renovation, it has become even clearer that the revolution is the cause of the masses. The strength of the people and the great bloc of national unity is the decisive factor in the success or failure of the revolutionary cause. Consolidating and promoting this strength is the key for Vietnam to move forward firmly on the path of national construction, development, and defense in the new era.

Moreover, patriotism, the tradition of unity, and respect for the people are core national values that inherit the thought that the people are the root. The people are the creators of history.

In the report on documents submitted to the 14th National Congress, General Secretary To Lam affirmed that the people are the root is the highest measure of all policies. The people are the root is a consistent guiding thought throughout the documents and also the source of strength of the Vietnamese revolution.

The peoples trust in the Party does not come from words but from actions, from the fairness and integrity of cadres, from the effectiveness of the apparatus, from equity in benefits, and from concrete results in protecting lawful rights and interests and in promptly and thoroughly addressing the legitimate concerns of citizens and businesses.

Entering a new stage, greater attention must be paid to building the peoples heart position. When the peoples heart position is strong, national defense and security are strong; when it is strong, reforms can be carried through; when it is strong, any difficulty can be overcome and any challenge resolved, just as President Ho Chi Minh taught: "Without the people, even the easiest task cannot be done; with the people, even the hardest task can be accomplished."

All guidelines and policies must stem from the lawful rights and interests of the people, taking the happiness and satisfaction of the people as the measure of development success. Social progress and equity must be ensured, with the peoples happiness as the supreme goal.

The aspiration for a "prosperous, strong, civilized, and happy" nation must be realized by improving the material and spiritual lives of the people. Economic development must be closely linked with ensuring social progress and justice, leaving no one behind.

Therefore, it is necessary to continue perfecting the comprehensive and inclusive social security system, improving the quality of healthcare, education, housing, and social welfare, and paying more attention to remote, isolated, and difficult areas, vulnerable groups, and the comprehensive development of Vietnamese culture and people, building a healthy, humane, and disciplined social environment.

Peoples right

All guidelines, policies, and strategic decisions of the Party must be based on the creative application and development of objective laws, originating from reality and orienting the cause of building and protecting the Fatherland. But more importantly is the agreement, support, and implementation by the people.

To achieve this, right from the stage of planning the Party's guidelines and policies, there needs to be substantial participation from the people.

At the same time, it is necessary to effectively and more substantially implement the motto people know, people discuss, people do, people check, people supervise, people enjoy, focusing on all six stages as they are closely related, especially the two newly added stages: people supervise, people enjoy.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vu Van Phuc, Vice Chairman of the Scientific Council of Central Party Agencies, Former Editor-in-Chief of the Communist Review.
Phu Quoc Island, located in the southern province of An Giang, has quickly risen to fame as one of Southeast Asias top resort hotspots, according to the latest Booking.com data on travel trends among Korean tourists for the 2026 Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday.

Booking.com's analysis of search data from October 2025 through mid-January 2026 revealed an unprecedented spike in interest from the Republic of Korea (RoK), with volumes shooting up by as much as 71% year-on-year. The sharp rise vaulted Vietnam's "Pearl Island" all the way from 15th to 5th place among the most-searched destinations by Korean travellers planning their Tet getaways.

The momentum underscores a clear pivot in Korean consumer preferences. Rather than flying to bustling urban hubs like Bangkok (Thailand) or Vietnam's traditional draw Da Nang, they are craving serene, upscale resort escapes that offer complete relaxation. Phu Quoc is outshining even places like Japan's Sapporo, which only saw a 31% bump in searches.

The island's ascent through 2025 and into early 2026 stems largely from heavy infrastructure and tourism investments. Air links have expanded dramatically, with direct flight frequencies from the RoK to Phu Quoc hitting record highs by late 2025. Carriers like Korean Air, Asiana Airlines, Jeju Air, Jin Air and VietJet Air have ramped up services from Seoul, Incheon and Busan, trimming flight times to roughly five hours.

Phu Quoc's premium resort ecosystem also matches Korean tastes, with five-star properties that deliver privacy and exclusivity. Luxury clusters in the island's southern and northern zones offer customised services for Korean guests, such as Korean-speaking staff and familiar cuisine options, catering directly to their demands.

Cost competitiveness further fuels the surge. Compared to domestic Korean resorts or Japan's fancy beach escapes, Phu Quoc provides accessible luxury, with sharply competitive rates across accommodation, services and dining.

Laura Houldsworth, Managing Director & Vice President for Asia Pacific at Booking.com, said the figures point to Korean travellers leaning more into trips that feel restorative, emotionally full, rather than just checking off sights.

On its present trajectory, Phu Quoc is poised to challenge for a spot among the top three favourites for Korean outbound travellers in the coming years.

In 2025 alone, the island welcomed more than 8.1 million visitors, including over 1.8 million foreigners, with the RoK and India emerging as dominant source markets that together drove more than half of foreign arrivals./. VNA
In his address, PM Chinh noted that 2025 was a year of breakthroughs amid unprecedented and unpredictable global developments. Difficulties intertwined with opportunities, though overall, challenges outweighed advantages. Yet amid these headwinds, peace, cooperation and development remained the dominant trend, serving as the common thread that connects all nations and the shared core values toward which the world continues to strive.

For Vietnam, he described 2025 as a comprehensive test of governance capacity, adaptability and resilience across the entire political system and business community. In a constantly changing global landscape, Vietnam chose a path of decisive, consistent and responsible action, while actively, proactively and effectively addressing cross-border, cross-sectoral challenges confronting the world.

Despite formidable obstacles, Vietnam surmounted hurdles to hit key development milestones, laying solid foundations, momentum, strength and confidence for a new growth phase. Notably, economic growth reached 8.02%, the highest in the region and among the worlds fastest, while all 15 key socio-economic targets were met or exceeded.

These gains stemmed not only from domestic efforts but also from the steadfast support and cooperation of international partners, he stressed. On behalf of Party General Secretary To Lam and other Party and State leaders, he conveyed sincere gratitude to ambassadors, heads of international organisations, foreign governments, and peoples who have stood with Vietnam through challenges and triumphs throughout its process of national construction and defence.

Vietnam remains steadfast in its foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, diversification and multilateralisation; being a good friend and trustworthy partner of all countries, and a responsible member of the international community, for the sake of peace, cooperation and development in the region and the world, he said, adding that diplomacy has been identified as a key and regular task.

The PM voiced his hope for continued support and cooperation from international friends to jointly realise the shared vision: a sustainably developing Vietnam, a closely connected ASEAN, a prosperous and integrated Asia, a peaceful and warm world, and humanity advancing in equality.

He wished and believed that ambassadors, charges daffaires and heads of international organisations in Hanoi would persist in their vital bridging role, further deepening practical and effective ties between Vietnam and countries and international organisations, contributing to stronger national development and a world of peace, friendship, cooperation and sustainable prosperity.

Participants were urged to jointly uphold the spirit of unity for collective strength, cooperation for shared resources; and dialogue for mutual trust, while extending wishes for global peace, prosperity, civilisation and happiness.

Palestinian Ambassador to Vietnam Saadi Salama, who is also head of the diplomatic corps, praised 2025 as a landmark year for Vietnam, highlighted by positive and encouraging achievements across various fields. In particular, the success of the recent 14th National Party Congress marked a new stage in national development journey.

PM Pham Minh Chinh and his spouse welcome ambassadors, charges daffaires and heads of international organisations in Hanoi to the banquet (Photo: VNA)

At the same time, Vietnams socio-economic achievements in 2025 reflected the Vietnamese Government and peoples persistent efforts to sustain growth, maintain macroeconomic stability and improve living standards. Vietnam remains an attractive destination for investment, trade and development cooperation, while steadily advancing strategies on digital transformation, sustainable development and green growth.

In diplomacy, Vietnam has solidified its reputation as a trusted partner and a proactive, responsible member of the international community, delivering concrete contributions to peace, stability and cooperation in the region and beyond. These efforts have been widely acknowledged by the international community and the diplomatic corps in Hanoi, he added.

Looking to 2026, he highlighted Vietnam's pursuit of new development targets and pivotal events, including the election of deputies to the 16th National Assembly, an important milestone demonstrating the stable functioning of state institutions and the countrys continued commitment to improving national governance to meet the demands of a new development phase.

He expressed confidence that the shared values, including peace, respect for international law, mutually beneficial cooperation and solidarity, will underpin a more stable and prosperous future for all.

On this occasion, he extended sincere thanks to the Vietnamese Party, State and Government, as well as ministries and agencies, particularly the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hanoi authorities and people, for their constant attention and support for diplomatic missions, international organisations and their families living and working in Vietnam.

According to him, this open, safe, friendly and caring environment enables diplomats to work confidently in boosting cooperative ties, while fostering deep affection and enduring goodwill toward Vietnam and its people.

He concluded with best wishes for Vietnam's continued stable, sustainable progress, rising global stature in the new era, and ever-stronger international relations rooted in trust, respect, and win-win cooperation, for a world of peace, stability, prosperity, and sustainable development./. VNA
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has called on the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) and its JapanMekong Economic Committee to step up coordination with ministries and relevant agencies of both countries to boost investment and enhance its quality, particularly through stronger technology transfer and support for Vietnamese firms to improve competitiveness and participate more deeply in Japanese global value chains.

Hosting a delegation of leaders from 37 JCCI member companies led by Keita Ishii, Chairman of the JapanMekong Economic Committee and Chairman and CEO of Itochu Corporation, on February 9, the PM said the VietnamJapan Comprehensive Strategic Partnership for peace and prosperity in Asia and the world continues to grow robustly. Japan remains one of Vietnams top investors, with 5,722 valid projects worth 78.9 billion USD as of January 31, 2026. Two-way trade in 2025 exceeded 51.43 billion USD for the first time, while Japan is also Vietnams largest labour cooperation partner.

He praised the role of JCCI and the JapanMekong Economic Committee in promoting bilateral ties and acting as a bridge for Japanese enterprises to expand investment in Vietnam. Vietnam, he said, is building a facilitating government, improving state governance efficiency, refining economic institutions and further enhancing the business environment, while coordinating closely with Japanese organisations to support stable, long-term operations, job creation and more substantive, high-quality investment cooperation for mutual prosperity.

Keita Ishii and representatives of Japanese firms commended Vietnams reform efforts, particularly institutional improvements, administrative simplification, workforce development and upgrades in infrastructure and logistics that enable companies, including Japanese investors, to operate effectively. They expressed interest in exploring new projects and expanding operations in Vietnam, and hoped to recruit more high-quality Vietnamese workers.

Congratulating Japan on successfully holding recent elections, PM Chinh noted Vietnam has also successfully convened its 14th National Party Congress, outlining long-term development visions. Vietnam is accelerating growth and targets double-digit expansion in 20262030, aiming to become an upper-middle-income developing country by 2030 and a high-income developed nation by 2045.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh at a meeting with a delegation of leaders from 37 member companies of the the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry. (Photo: VNA)

He highlighted major socio-economic orientations, foreign policy and defence policy, stressing that Vietnam will pursue rapid yet sustainable development while advancing three strategic breakthroughs - institutions, infrastructure and human resources - toward more open regulations, seamless connectivity and smart governance and workforce. Priority investment sectors include science, technology, innovation and digital transformation; semiconductors and electronics; the digital economy; green and clean energy; research and development; and high-tech agriculture.

Regarding Japans labour demand, the PM said high-quality human resource development is a strategic breakthrough for Vietnam, serving both domestic development and international cooperation. Vietnam will continue improving workers skills, knowledge, language ability and discipline, and stands ready to cooperate and share human resources with Japan.

The Vietnamese Government will continue building a stable, transparent and predictable investment climate, considering investor confidence a strategic asset. The PM called on Japanese partners to further expand cooperation with Vietnam, helping deepen the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership for the development and well-being of both nations./.VNA
New York, US (PANA) - UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres voiced grave concern on Monday over the reported decision by the Israeli security cabinet to authorise a series of administrative and enforcement measures in Areas A and B in the occupied West Bank
Although still at an early stage of development, Vietnams semiconductor industry has recorded notable progress thanks to the concerted engagement of the entire political system, driven by strategic policies on science, technology, innovation and digital transformation.



Thanks to a favourable policy framework, a series of large-scale investment projects, alongside expanded human resource training, is gradually shaping a national semiconductor ecosystem.



Policy-driven advantages



The Politburo's Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW on breakthroughs in the development of science, technology, innovation and national digital transformation; The Prime Ministers Decision No. 1131/QD-TTg on strategic technologies; and Decision No. 1018/QD-TTg approving the national strategy for semiconductor industry development  which targets the establishment of 10 advanced testing and packaging plants by 2030  have brought fresh momentum to Vietnams semiconductor sector.



In recent years, Vietnam has attracted major investment projects from leading global technology corporations such as Intel, Samsung, Amkor and Hana Micron, alongside growing participation from domestic enterprises including Viettel, FPT and VNChip. On January 16, the Viettel Military Industry and Telecoms Group (Viettel) broke ground on Vietnams first semiconductor chip manufacturing plant based on the 32nm process at the Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park, with trial production expected to begin in 2028. Earlier, on January 28, FPT announced the establishment of an advanced semiconductor chip testing and packaging plant  the first of its kind in Vietnam fully mastered by Vietnamese engineers.



According to Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Bui Hoang Phuong, Vietnam possesses significant advantages in capturing global supply chain shifts, including its strategic geopolitical position in Southeast Asia, high economic openness, an extensive network of free trade agreements, and a large electronics manufacturing base with hardware exports exceeding 132 billion USD in 2024. The country also benefits from a young and abundant workforce, with around 1.9 million people employed in the technology sector and more than 7,000 chip design engineers.



Documents prepared for the 14th National Party Congress identify science, technology, innovation and digital transformation as key drivers of rapid and sustainable development. In this context, developing and mastering strategic technologies such as semiconductors is regarded as a critical pillar for enhancing national autonomy, competitiveness and Vietnams position in global value chains. Phuong stressed that strong and consistent political determination from the highest leaders remains Vietnams greatest advantage in advancing this field.



Human resources for semiconductor race



Human resources are seen as a decisive factor in semiconductor development. The Government has approved the programme on developing human resources for the semiconductor industry to 2030, which aims to train at least 50,000 university-level and higher personnel. Of these, around 15,000 will specialise in chip design, while 35,000 will serve manufacturing, packaging and testing. The programme also targets the training of an additional 5,000 artificial intelligence experts and the upskilling of 1,300 university lecturers and researchers.



According to the Ministry of Education and Training, around 35 higher education institutions are currently involved in semiconductor-related training, a figure expected to rise significantly over the next two to three years. Major universities such as Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City; Hanoi University of Science and Technology; Vietnam National University, Hanoi; and the University of Da Nang, along with a number of public and private universities, have opened new programmes and specialisations in semiconductor technologies.



To support training and research conditions, the Ministry of Science and Technology recently issued Circular No. 30/2025, allowing enterprises to import used machinery and equipment for semiconductor production with a maximum age of 20 years, double the previous limit.



Meanwhile, educational and research institutions are not subject to age restrictions on imported equipment. However, all equipment must meet strict criteria on technology standards, environmental protection, occupational safety and energy efficiency. For production lines, efficiency must reach at least 85% of the original design capacity, in order to avoid importing obsolete, inefficient or energy-intensive systems.



According to regulatory authorities, this approach is intended to help enterprises and training institutions access technologies suited to their investment capacity while ensuring technical standards essential for the industry's development.



With an increasingly complete policy framework, expanding investment inflows and a structured human resource development strategy, the semiconductor industry is expected to become a strategic technological pillar of Vietnam in the coming period.



Nevertheless, experts held that to realise the goal of deeper integration into global value chains, ensuring training quality, mastering core technologies and building a coherent ecosystem linking enterprises, educational institutions and regulatory agencies remain key challenges for Vietnams semiconductor industry./.VNA
Public opinion in the Republic of Korea (RoK) was widely negative on Kim's remarks about women from Sri Lanka and Vietnam at an official forum of the local administration held on February 4 to discuss the proposed administrative merger of Gwangju city and South Jeolla province. Speaking at a press conference following the DP's Supreme Councils meeting on February 9, DP spokesperson Park Soo Hyun said that all members of the Supreme Council unanimously voted to expel Kim for his derogatory remarks.



The decision came five days after Kim suggested that to address population issues, special measures should be adopted, including what he described as importing young women from Sri Lanka or Vietnam to marry rural men.



The remarks, which were reported by Korean media in recent days, sparked strong public backlash in the RoK and among the Vietnamese community, with criticism focusing on their serious lack of awareness of human rights, multiculturalism and gender sensitivity.



In its note sent to the governor of South Jeolla province and the Jindo County Administration, the Vietnamese Embassy stressed that over the past three decades, the Vietnamese and Korean Governments and people have built a relationship of friendship, cooperation and equality, with the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership yielding substantial achievements. The Vietnamese community in the RoK has made important contributions to this process, which, it noted, are undeniable.



The embassy emphasised that respect for citizens dignity and honour, particularly that of women, is a shared value and principle of both Vietnamese and Korean societies. The Vietnamese Government and people acknowledge and highly value the efforts by the Korean Government and people in protecting and promoting the dignity of women in general and Vietnamese women in particular.



South Jeolla province, it noted, has a long-standing tradition of tolerance, respect and openness, and is regarded by the Vietnamese community as a favourable place to live and pursue their aspirations. During this process, respecting and promoting women's dignity and honour must therefore be one of the top standards.



Against this backdrop, the embassy underlined that offensive words and inappropriate expressions, including the use of the phrase importing Vietnamese women, from anyone must be reviewed seriously, properly acknowledged and corrected in a constructive spirit.



Given the seriousness of the case, the South Jeolla provincial administration has accepted responsibility and issued an apology to the Vietnamese government, as well as to the Vietnamese people and women who were "deeply hurt" by Kim's "inappropriate remarks."



The South Jeolla authority pledged to undertake strong measures to prevent similar incidents from recurring, including enhancing human rights and gender-sensitivity awareness among civil servants and expanding multicultural education across the province. They also expressed a sincere commitment to strengthening relations with Vietnam, a country emerging as a dynamic global hub with strong growth potential.



For his part, Kim also issued an apology, saying his remarks were intended to highlight structural problems facing rural regions, including severe population decline and the "weakening foundations for marriage. He admitted that he had erred in his choice of words, stressing that his remarks were not intended to demean or disparage any country or individual, and apologised anyone who may have been offended by his remarks./. VNA
The South Korean Embassy in Vietnam quoted Ambassador Choi as saying he was profoundly sorry about the incident, which involved comments deemed offensive and unacceptable.

The local government concerned has also regarded the matter as serious, noting that it harmed the values of multiculturalism and human rights.

An official written apology has been issued, along with a commitment to implement thorough measures to prevent a recurrence.

In his statement, Ambassador Choi said South Korea and Vietnam share a comprehensive strategic partnership and are close friends.

He stressed that South Korea places great importance on its relationship with Vietnam.

The South Korean Embassy in Vietnam will continue to actively support people-to-people exchanges between the two countries, based on mutual respect and understanding.

South Koreas Jeollanam Province has formally apologized for remarks made by the chairman of Jindo County, who suggested that the East Asian country should import women from Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

We sincerely apologize to the Vietnamese Embassy in South Korea, the Vietnamese government, as well as the Vietnamese people and Vietnamese women who were deeply hurt, a provincial spokesperson said.

Jeollanam Province stated that the comments ran counter to the values of respect for human rights, gender equality and multicultural inclusion that the province upholds.

Vietnam holds special significance for the province, the statement noted, as many residents of Vietnamese origin have settled in Jeollanam and are living as respected members of the local community.

On February 9, the leadership council of South Koreas ruling Democratic Party convened a closed meeting and decided to impose emergency disciplinary measures against Kim Hee Soo, the head of Jindo County in Jeollanam Province, for what it described as a serious violation.

In recent days, Kim has sparked anger and outrage among the South Korean public after suggesting the idea of importing women from places like Vietnam or Sri Lanka to marry rural bachelors.

Tran Thuong
The Tet Binh Ngo stamp set comprises two stamps and one souvenir sheet, designed by artist Nguyen Quang Vinh and inspired by the image of the horse in Eastern culture. Under the theme Ma dao thanh cong (Horse Returns, Success Comes), the stamp set conveys wishes for a dynamic, resilient and successful new year.

In traditional beliefs, the horse is a sacred animal symbolising loyalty, vigour, patience and perseverance, and is also believed to bring good fortune and prosperity. Drawing on this symbolism, the stamp set is presented in a contemporary folk-art style and, for the first time, features the image of the Nine Red-Maned Horse on Vietnams Tet stamps.

The stamps depict a pair of horses  a white horse and a crimson horse  carrying festive drums to welcome spring, symbolising the harmony of yin and yang and conveying a message of a new journey filled with prosperity, breakthroughs and success.

The souvenir sheet features a herd of horses galloping together, highlighted by the image of a thousand-mile horse adorned with phoenix wings, expressing wishes for reunion, advancement and victory in the coming year.

In addition to the Lunar New Year stamp set, the Vietnam Post Corporation and the Vietnam Stamps Company have also introduced a commemorative coin depicting a sun horse soaring through the clouds, symbolising new opportunities and aspirations to reach broader horizons.

Issued in a limited quantity, the coin targets a wide range of audiences, from collectors and those seeking meaningful Tet gifts to businesses and partners wishing to choose a lucky symbol to mark the beginning of the new year./.VNA
Illustrative photo

Many parents worry that if they loosen supervision, their children will forget what they have learned and lose momentum when they return to school after Tet.

With an older daughter in grade 9 and a younger son in grade 3, Pham Nguyen Ha from Hanoi said there has never been a year when her family went back to their hometown for Tet without the children bringing books along.

This year, her older daughter is preparing for the grade 10 entrance exam, aiming to get into a top high school in Hanoi. In mock exams, the girls scores have been quite satisfactory at around 8.5 points per subject.

However, according to Ha, to be more certain of a seat at the school, her daughter needs to reach at least 9 points. As a result, during the Tet break, she has to do extra revision exercises.

This year, my family chose to celebrate Tet at my maternal hometown in Quang Binh. Each way takes about 7 hours of travel. Not to mention, the family will also visit the paternal hometown in Hung Yen before Tet. The actual study time for my child is not much. Last year, she even took advantage of the time to study right in the car, Ha said.

With her 3rd-grade son, Ha is more worried because he is not self-disciplined. During the past summer break, she let him "relax completely," and by the time he returned to class, he had forgotten almost all his knowledge, even making mistakes on simple problems.

Learning from experience, this Tet I will require him, even during the holiday, to sit at his desk and study for at least one hour a day. If this year the teacher does not assign homework, I will have to find extra exercises for him to do, to avoid losing all his basic knowledge, she said.

According to Ha, studying during Tet for primary school students is mainly about warming up their knowledge. Long breaks often make children forget and lose focus. If they do not study at all for an extended period, they will need time to get back into rhythm after Tet.

Maintaining study routines, resting only on first day

Sharing the same concern, Nguyen Thu Huyen from Hanoi required her grade 6 daughter to create a detailed Tet study timetable. She said that this year students are off from the 27th of the lunar month through the sixth day of Tet, so her child still needs to maintain a daily study habit to keep the rhythm.

Only on the first day of Tet and in the evenings is her daughter free to relax, play, and visit relatives.

As for her son, who is preparing for the grade 10 entrance exam, Huyen said he cannot afford to slack off at this moment. She believes the grade 10 exam in Hanoi is extremely competitive, even more intense than the university entrance exam due to limited quotas, so her child cannot over-relax.

Parents do not dare to let go, because just a little neglect and the child will fall behind. So the child may be on Tet holiday, but cannot forget responsibilities or study carelessly and disrupt routines, she said.

During this time, the couple encourages their child to practice exam papers and note down parts he does not understand to ask teachers after Tet, mentally preparing for the important upcoming exam.

Thu Mai from Hung Yen believes Tet should be a time to recharge, but recharging does not mean completely letting go. It can also be an effective period for children to speed up if used wisely.

If children completely stop studying for 710 days, especially in subjects that require continuous thinking such as Math, Foreign Languages, or Physics, they can easily forget formulas, grammar structures, and lose their problem-solving feel. After Tet, they then need extra time just to get started again, she said.

Mai said that in the quiet early days of the new year, when children do not have to wake up early for school or be caught up in a packed schedule, they can choose the most suitable time slots for revision.

However, she stressed that studying does not mean missing Tet. If children study continuously for 56 hours a day during Tet, it will definitely backfire. But if they spend just 6090 minutes a day on light revision or reviewing knowledge, they still have plenty of time to enjoy the holiday, she said.

Thuy Nga
In recent years, while expanding infrastructure and boosting operational efficiency, the country has steadily rolled out a national green port initiative to align with international standards and encourage sustainable growth in the maritime industry.

Dang Van Hoa, Deputy General Director of Quy Nhon Port, says large ships can produce tens of tonnes of emissions every hour their engines run, putting serious pressure on ports aiming to meet green goals.

To implement the green port initiative, Quy Nhon Port has focused on three strategic directions: sustainable green growth, improving equipment efficiency to reduce emissions, and applying advanced technologies toward digital and smart port operations. The port has installed LED lighting across internal routes, introduced solar-powered batteries for forklifts, provided shore-side electricity for ships and equipment, replaced some diesel-powered cranes with electric ones, and applied AI and IoT systems to optimise operations and monitor environmental conditions.

In Hai Phong, the Hai Phong Port Joint Stock Company announced its green port plan in August 2024. During the 20242030 period, the port has focused on policy development, cleaner energy transition for vehicles and equipment, green transport infrastructure, and stronger international cooperation and technology application. From 2030, green port criteria will become mandatory for planning, investment and operations across its terminals.

Statistics from three major terminals in Hai Phong  Chua Ve, Tan Vu and Hoang Dieu  show that around 2,000 ocean-going vessels call each year, generating nearly 5,500 tonnes of carbon dioxide, while tugboats emit more than 600 tonnes. Nearly 300 pieces of equipment operating around the clock produce over 7,000 tonnes of emissions and pollutants annually, highlighting the urgency of greener operations to meet international standards and enhance competitiveness.

The Vietnam Maritime Corporation (VIMC), which manages 89 berths with a total length of 16.5 km and an annual handling capacity of about 80 million tonnes of bulk cargo and 6.5 million TEUs, has issued a roadmap for energy transition under the green port programme.

In 2025, VIMC signed an agreement with Frances HDF Energy to implement a hydrogen power project. Since 2024, the corporation has installed shore power systems at several ports, upgraded technical infrastructure, replaced fossil-fuel equipment, applied digital technologies in cargo operations, and developed green logistics chains. It aims for its ports to meet national green standards by 2045.

Mobilising resources and improving policy



Vietnams seaport system handles more than 100,000 international vessel calls and around 800 million tonnes of cargo each year. The national green port development scheme, approved in 2020, aims to pilot suitable models and make green port criteria mandatory nationwide from 2030.

The Vietnam Maritime and Waterway Administration has issued a technical framework for green port assessment (TCCS 02:2022), which is expected to be upgraded into a national standard by 2026 to strengthen its legal basis.

Authorities plan to implement the transition through voluntary participation and pilot programmes, recognising that building green ports and green vessels is a long-term process that must balance environmental goals with business capacity and economic development.

However, industry representatives noted that high investment costs remain the biggest challenge, along with the need for financial incentives, preferential policies, a national emissions database, and a more complete legal framework to support the sectors green transition./. VNA
The new service will raise the number of direct routes between Vietnam and Europe to 12, connecting with eight destinations, including Paris, Frankfurt, London, Munich, Milan, Copenhagen, Moscow, and Amsterdam.



Nguyen Quang Trung, Deputy General Director of Vietnam Airlines, said that the nonstop HanoiAmsterdam route marks an important milestone in the carriers European network expansion strategy.



He added that presence at one of the worlds leading aviation hubs will not only broaden the airlines business opportunities but also help strengthen economic, trade and investment connection, as well as people-to-people exchanges between Vietnam and the Netherlands, and Europe in general.



From June 16, Vietnam Airlines is set to operate three round-trip flights per week on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, using wide-body Airbus A350 aircraft. The schedule is designed to facilitate travel from Europe to Vietnam while offering convenient onward connections across the airlines domestic and Asian network, including tourism destinations and economic hubs such as Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Nha Trang, Phu Quoc and other key cities.



Market data show that two-way passenger traffic between Vietnam and the Netherlands exceeded 122,000 in 2024 and continued to grow in 2025, with the HanoiAmsterdam route alone recording a year-on-year increase of over 40%. Amid rising travel demand between Europe and Southeast Asia, this new route is seen as an effective solution to shorten travel time, reduce transit stops, and enhance passengers' experience.



Beyond passenger transport, the new route is expected to create significant opportunities for air cargo, particularly for Vietnams high-value exports to Europe such as electronics, textiles and garments, fresh agricultural produce, and seafood. The direct connection will shorten delivery time, optimise supply chains, and improve the competitiveness of Vietnamese businesses.



At a time when take-off and landing slots at the Amsterdam Schiphol Airport remain highly constrained, Vietnam Airlines allocation of slots underscores the growing position of the national carrier in the international aviation industry./. VNA
The ranking comes as a growing number of European retirees, particularly from France, consider long-term residence abroad to improve their quality of life, enjoy a favourable climate and make better use of their pension income.

Accordingly, the index evaluates destinations based on 12 criteria, with the cost of living carrying the greatest weight, accounting for 20% of the total score. Other key factors include climate, healthcare quality, safety, accessibility to services and transport conditions.

Paul Delahoutre, founder of Retraite sans Frontieres, said living abroad could help retirees save between 15-50% in daily expenses compared to staying in France. Tax policies, especially incentives for foreign pension income, are also considered an important factor in destination choice.

Vietnam ranked 9th in the 2026 list, earning high marks for its affordable living costs, diverse living environment, and steadily improving healthcare system and urban infrastructure. While living costs may be slightly higher than in some other Asian destinations, the country is viewed as offering a balanced combination of affordability, living conditions and long-term development potential.

Portugal retained the top position, thanks to living costs about 15% lower than in France, geographic proximity and well-developed infrastructure. Spain ranked second, followed by Greece, Thailand, Mauritius, Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal and Indonesia.

Experts recommend that retirees spend time visiting and assessing living conditions, healthcare, safety and community integration before making a long-term relocation decision.

Vietnams debut in the top 10 reflects the Southeast Asian countrys growing appeal to international retirees, amid a rising global trend of cross-border retirement./. VNA
Yen Tu Spring Festival 2026, the largest of its kind, is scheduled to open in the northern province of Quang Ninh on February 26, or the 10th day of the first lunar month, marking an important milestone following the July 2025 UNESCO World Cultural Heritage inscription of the Yen Tu  Vinh Nghiem  Con Son, Kiep Bac Complex of Monuments and Landscapes.

The announcement came on February 9 at a press conference unveiling an exhibition on Truc Lam Yen Tu Buddhism and a special music show to celebrate the site's newly elevated global status.

According to the organising board, this years festival will be co-hosted by the management board of the Ha Long Bay  Yen Tu World Heritage Site, the provincial Department of Culture and Sports, the Executive Committee of the Vietnam Buddhist Sanghas provincial chapter, along with various relevant agencies. It seeks to reaffirm the diverse tangible and intangible values of Truc Lam Zen Buddhism, a distinctly Vietnamese tradition now more than 700 years old.

This year, the festival will be much larger than before, spreading across Vang Danh, Yen Tu, Thuong Yen Cong, Phuong Dong, and Bac Son wards, instead of just a few spots like in the past. The highlight will be an evening music show on February 26, broadcast live on Quang Ninh newspaper and radio-television, with modern lighting and sound to bring the story and spirit of Buddha King Tran Nhan Tong to life.

The event also features displays of the Tran Dynasty antiquities and rare Truc Lam Buddhism documents, along with a major OCOP and culinary fair boasting over 100 booths offering handicrafts, bronze and wooden ritual items, and local specialities. Visitors can also enjoy immersive cultural areas like Heritage Spring  Tet of Nuong Village, where they can play folk games, watch dragon and lion dances, and see traditional martial arts in action.

To make it more welcoming, the provincial Peoples Council has approved full exemption of entrance fees to the Yen Tu scenic area (cable car tickets excluded) from 2026 through 2028. To keep everyone safe, authorities have deployed AI-powered surveillance cameras and secured full insurance coverage for all visitors.

With all this careful planning and those generous policies, the 2026 festival is set to ripple far and wide economically, culturally, and spiritually. Yen Tu is becoming a safe, irresistible spot for anyone seeking heritage and inner peace, and a "living classroom" for the next generation to learn about roots, values, and what really lasts.

Last year, almost 600,000 made the journey there. Quang Ninh plans intensified promotional efforts in 2026 and beyond to drive more to this sacred place./. VNA
MORRISVILLE, N.C., Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Alliance One International, LLC is pleased to announce its subsidiary, Alliance One North America, has been named 2026 Exporter of the Year by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. The recognition took place Feb. 5, 2026, during the 20th annual Agricultural Development Forum, held in conjunction with the Southern Farm Show.

Matt Drake, director of U.S. procurement, crop science and value chain, accepts the 2026 Exporter of the Year award on behalf of Alliance One North America from N.C. Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler.

"The state of North Carolina was built on the value of tobacco and the importance of the farmer, and Alliance One North America works each day to honor that legacy," said Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler. "Their efforts ensure the tobacco exported from our state is of the quality desired in the global market, and I am proud to recognize Alliance One North America as a 2026 Exporter of the Year."

The Exporter of the Year award honors agribusinesses that have demonstrated exceptional achievement in exporting products overseas, opening new markets and strengthening North Carolina's presence in global agriculture.

"Receiving the Exporter of the Year award is a tremendous honor and reflects our dedication to delivering high-quality, compliant leaf tobacco to customers around the world while supporting North Carolina's agricultural economy," said Scott Gupton, senior managing director of Alliance One North America."

About Alliance One International, LLC

Alliance One International, LLC is a leading independent leaf tobacco supplier. Working with tobacco farmers in 15 principal sourcing locations, Alliance One International is recognized for producing sustainable and traceable leaf tobacco. For more information, visit www.aointl.com.

SOURCE Alliance One International
MIAMI, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Boats Group today announced it will serve as the exclusive sponsor of the NMMA B2B Member Lounge at the Miami International Boat Show, reaffirming its commitment to supporting NMMA members and advancing solutions that help boat builders and their dealer networks drive demand for new boats.

As a key gathering for the marine industry, the Miami International Boat Show brings together OEMs, dealers, and industry leaders from across the market. Boats Group is sponsoring the NMMA B2B Member Lounge to support NMMA members and be present with OEMs during an important industry event.

The B2B Member Lounge will be open during the first two days of the show and located on the fourth floor of the Miami Beach Convention Center, in the pre-function area outside the Sunset Ballroom, on the Pride Park side of the venue.

"There is an ongoing conversation in the industry about how and where new boats are being discovered and purchased," said Courtney Chalmers, Chief Brand & Communications Officer at Boats Group. "We believe it's important to ground that conversation in data. Boats Group marketplaces play a meaningful role in driving qualified demand for new inventory, and we're proud to support a space where NMMA members can connect and engage around the future of the industry."

Data from Boats Group marketplaces shows that consumers who submit a lead on a Boats Group site and ultimately purchase a boat are twice as likely to buy new as the industry average. This insight underscores the value Boats Group delivers to boat builders by connecting them with high-intent buyers earlier in the purchase journey and supporting dealer networks as they convert interest into new-boat sales.

Boats Group's marketing solutions are designed specifically to support OEM objectives, helping builders increase visibility for new models, strengthen dealer performance, and make more informed decisions using marketplace-driven insights. As buyer behavior continues to evolve, Boats Group remains focused on ensuring its platforms and solutions align with the needs of manufacturers bringing new products to market.

The lounge's location adjacent to the Sunset Ballroom, home to the Industry Breakfast that attracts more than 700 OEM and industry attendees annually, places it at the center of key industry activity throughout the show. Boats Group looks forward to welcoming NMMA members to the lounge and continuing conversations around how the industry can collectively drive new boat growth.

Through its sponsorship of the NMMA B2B Member Lounge, Boats Group reinforces its role as a committed partner to NMMA and to the boat builders and dealer networks working to grow and strengthen the marine industry.

About Boats Group

Boats Group operates the world's leading online marketplaces for buying and selling boats, including Boat Trader , YachtWorld , and boats.com . With a global audience of millions of boat buyers, Boats Group provides data-driven marketing solutions, AI-driven tools, financing services, and industry insights to help OEMs, dealers, and brokers maximize their sales potential.

Media Contact: Courtney Chalmers

Chief Brand & Communications Officer, Boats Group

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 1-877-354-4069

SOURCE Boats Group, LLC
BRANCHBURG, N.J., Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Clordisys Solutions, LLC, a leading provider of chlorine dioxide gas contract sterilization services and an established alternative to ethylene oxide (EO), today announced the addition of Cody Lane and Kenneth Allen, two former Sterigenics leaders, to its executive team.

This leadership expansion reflects Clordisys' continued scaling of its commercial operations, expanded capacity, and ability to support increasing demand across its existing contract sterilization platform and future facilities.

The addition of Lane and Allen further strengthens Clordisys' position as a commercial-scale contract sterilization provider for complex medical device and pharmaceutical products.

Cody Lane, Director of Business Development, joins Clordisys to guide customer engagement across feasibility, validation, and long-term commercial and contractual relationships. Lane brings more than 14 years of technical and commercial experience spanning biologics, medical devices, and contract sterilization. His background includes more than six years at Sterigenics supporting pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers across ethylene oxide, gamma, X-ray, and E-beam sterilization modalities, as well as extensive experience in biologics manufacturing, R&D support, and in-house sterilization operations.

Lane's expertise in sterilization science, regulatory expectations, and practical implementation supports customers transitioning from development programs into validated, scalable commercial processing, particularly as demand for effective EO alternatives continues to grow.

Kenneth Allen, Vice President of Operations, brings more than 33 years of leadership experience across life sciences and medtech, including senior roles in operations, quality, and general management at Sterigenics, Arrow International, Boston Scientific, Fresenius Medical Care, bioMerieux, AstraZeneca, and Integra Life Sciences. Allen oversees commercial operations across Clordisys' contract sterilization business, reinforcing an operational foundation focused on throughput, reliability, and scalability.

Allen's experience includes direct leadership of ethylene oxide, gamma, and steam sterilization facilities, as well as large-scale remediation efforts, quality system transformation, digital modernization, and operational excellence initiatives. His operational leadership supports continued capacity expansion and disciplined execution as additional sterilization facilities come online.

"These additions represent an important step in Clordisys' continued growth," said Mark Lecher, Chief Executive Officer of Clordisys. "Cody and Ken bring deep sterilization expertise, operational discipline, and industry credibility. Their leadership enhances our ability to deliver consistent performance, regulatory confidence, and scalable capacity for our customers."

The leadership expansion closely follows the launch of Clordisys' new website and refreshed brand identity, reflecting the company's continued evolution as a contract sterilization partner focused on safety, scalability, and operational excellence.

With increased leadership depth and operational strength, Clordisys continues to advance chlorine dioxide gas sterilization as a viable, high-throughput EO alternative for medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturers worldwide.

Contact: Emily Lorcheim, ClorDiSys, Phone: 908-236-4100, [email protected], 50 Tannery Rd, Suite 1, Branchburg, NJ 08876

SOURCE ClorDiSys Solutions Inc
With Vietnam targeting high-income status by 2045 and AI projected to contribute nearly 12 per cent of GDP by 2030, how is AI reshaping enterprise competitiveness and investment appeal?

AI presents a generational opportunity for Vietnamese businesses to leapfrog global competitors

Unlike more mature markets weighed down by decades of 'legacy debt' and dated infrastructure, Vietnams business landscape is young, digitally savvy, and agile. This allows local enterprises to bypass the painful process of deconstructing old systems and instead build agent-first organisations from the ground up.

By adopting agentic AI, companies can scale their operations like never before. In service sectors, for instance, businesses can deploy AI agents to handle 24/7 customer inquiries with human-like reasoning, freeing up human employees to focus on high-value strategy and relationship building.

The combination of human expertise with digital labour at scale fundamentally changes the competitiveness of Vietnamese enterprises, transforming them from labour-intensive, process-driven operations into high-value, knowledge-driven innovation hubs.

Looking further, this shift allows Vietnam to move beyond a low-cost labour proposition towards high-value, intelligent services. As ASEAN becomes increasingly competitive, the transformation to agentic enterprises is critical to attracting higher-quality investment.

With the new AI Law coming into effect in Vietnam 2026, how do you see the relationship between regulation, data governance, and the pace of AI adoption in the market?

The AI Law, which introduces a risk-based framework that differentiates between high-risk and general-purpose AI, is a welcome development. It strikes a balance between protecting citizens and fostering innovation.

At Salesforce, we believe that trusted governance is not a barrier to innovation but an accelerant. Robust governance and guardrails do not slow down innovation; they function as a catalyst that provides organisations with the confidence to move faster. A clear regulatory framework encourages enterprises to invest in and deploy AI, knowing the rules of the road.

Beyond regulation, AI is only as good as the data it is grounded in. Many businesses struggle with fragmented data trapped in disconnected systems, which prevents AI from delivering accurate results. Salesforces Data 360 unifies disparate data streams into a single, trusted foundation. This allows AI agents to be grounded in the customers data, ensuring every action is accurate, and every insight is relevant.

When investors and stakeholders see that AI is grounded in auditable, governed data, it accelerates adoption rather than hindering it. Combining with robust governance, Vietnamese firms can scale their digital transformation aggressively.

This law will likely shift the market away from 'DIY' AI experiments  which often lack governance and fail to reach production  towards trusted, enterprise-grade platforms. By adopting platforms with built-in guardrails and transparency, companies can ensure their AI agents operate within legal boundaries, turning compliance from a hurdle into a competitive advantage.

As Salesforce invests in AI skills development in Vietnam and ASEAN, how do you see AI workforce training shaping productivity and investment appeal?

The shift to an AI-enabled workforce allows Vietnam to move its labour force up the value chain. We see the power of this shift firsthand at Salesforce, as users of our own Agentic AI technology.

Our sales development reps use agents to engage thousands of leads that would otherwise go untouched, generating millions in net-new pipeline, while our IT agents resolve 35 per cent of support tickets autonomously.

Similarly, upskilling Vietnams workforce to collaborate with AI agents will fundamentally change the nature of labour here. It transitions the narrative of Vietnam from being a hub for cost-effective outsourcing to a destination for high-value innovation, where workers are proficient in managing digital outcomes and driving strategic growth.

How is Salesforce enabling Vietnamese small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to adopt AI in ways that deliver practical business outcomes despite resource constraints?

SMEs are the backbone of the Vietnamese economy, but they often lack the resources to compete with large enterprises on service capacity. Agentforce changes this equation by levelling the playing field.

Consider a small local clothing business supplying stock to retailers. In the past, they might have lost customers simply because they missed enquiries about inventory during peak hours or couldn't follow up quickly enough to book sales meetings. With Agentforce, they can deploy an AI agent to answer stock inquiries instantly, 24/7, in Vietnamese, and to autonomously schedule meetings with prospective retailers. This ensures they never miss a sales opportunity due to a lack of manpower, allowing a team of 10 to operate with the efficiency and reach of a team of one hundred.

We are making this accessible through flexible pricing models and, critically, by offering these tools in Vietnamese. This means a local SME can implement an AI agent that speaks their language and integrates directly into their workflows, delivering immediate value  like reducing response times or automating order tracking  without needing a team of data scientists.

How does Salesforce plan to support Vietnamese businesses in boosting competitiveness and climbing the digital value chain over the long term?

Our vision is to help every Vietnamese business become an Agentic Enterprise. In this future, AI doesn't replace people; it elevates them. We move from 'humans in the loop' to 'humans at the helm', where employees direct AI agents to execute complex workflows.

In the last few years, the AI conversation has been dominated by large language models, and what they can create  poems, code, and images. But these models are probabilistic engines  they predict the next likely word. While that creativity is a feature for writing, in business contexts like banking or customer service, 'guessing' can be a bug. You cannot afford to hallucinate a financial transaction or approximate a students academic record.

This is where Salesforce plays a critical role. We help businesses cross the 'last mile' of enterprise AI by connecting that raw intelligence to accurate data, business logic, and strict governance. This ensures that agents don't just reason like a human, but follow rules like a machine  executing critical actions deterministically. We are effectively moving Vietnamese enterprises from the era of chatbots that guess to agents that work.

We are already seeing this in action with trailblazers like Fulbright University Vietnam. They deployed Agentforce in just three weeks to transform their student services. Their students now interact with an AI agent for instant answers on policy and coursework, freeing up staff to provide personalised counselling.

By integrating data, agents, and apps into a single system, we empower Vietnamese businesses to automate routine work at an infinite scale while unleashing the full creativity and strategic potential of their human workforce. This is how Vietnam moves up the digital value chain  by creating a labour model where every employee is augmented, productive, and focused on impact.

Techcombank adopts Salesforce to drive customer engagement Techcombank deploys Salesforce to help achieve single view of customers

Salesforce and FPT IS to elevate digital experience for customers FPT Information System Corporation (FPT IS) and Salesforce have been providing strategic solutions for the finance and banking industry in Vietnam, helping to shape the digital experience for customers.
STEM class funded by ExxonMobil Vietnam in Quang Nam

In 2025, ExxonMobil Vietnam supported programmes that empowered students through science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and AI training. The company not only provided leadership experience and life skills for ethnic minority girls, but also helped improve health across the nation.

Education and empowerment are the cornerstones of sustainable development, and were passionate about our contributions to help address community needs where we operate around the world, said Cecile Rauline, president of ExxonMobil Vietnam.

Together with our long-term local partners, we have been working for over a decade to serve as an active catalyst for socioeconomic development for Vietnamese people.

In 2025, ExxonMobil Vietnam's collaboration included $10,000 to Teach For Vietnam (TVF). This support will foster STEM and AI education among 285 rural students while also providing training for 123 teachers to help equip additional students with the same next-generation skills.

The company also contributed $10,000 to the Brighter Path Girls Club, launched by the VinaCapital Foundation (VCF), to support over 200 female students across the Ca Dong, Xo-Dang, Gie Tring, and Mnong minority groups in leadership training, health education, and broader life skills development.

These young girls strengthened their own health knowledge and gained in understanding in their legal rights, as well as developed personal financial literacy and management skills.

Nam Tra My High School Girls' Club Session

The programme also provided its facilitators with IT and organisational skills for online teaching and learning, allowing the initiative to reach over 4,000 students. This helped build a foundation for gender equality and inclusive growth.

Additionally, the company's past support for Operation Smile Vietnams oral care mission in Hanoi is continuing to provide dental care services.

The $11,000 ExxonMobil Vietnam contributed in 2024 allowed the programme to be implemented in 2025. As a result, about 1,800 primary school students received oral health services, with more than 300 receiving treatments, totalling close to 2,500 procedures across the region.

By partnering with organisations like TFV, VCF, and Operation Smile, we are investing in Vietnams future leaders and creating opportunities for communities to thrive for generations to come," Rauline said.

ExxonMobil Vietnams long-standing commitment to community support was recognised for the 10th consecutive year with the AmCham Hanoi Corporate Social Responsibility Recognition Award.

Oral care mission by Operation Smile Vietnam in Dong Xuan primary school, Soc Son

ExxonMobil uplifts communities in Vietnam with continued support ExxonMobil contributed $45,000 in 2024 to support programmes ranging from STEM education to womens empowerment, healthcare, and storm relief.
BATAM, INDONESIA - Media OutReach Newswire - 9 February 2026 - Swiss-Belhotel International continues to accelerate its expansion in Indonesias island tourism sector with the recent signing of two new resort management agreements: Maua Kapal Kecil by Swiss-Belhotel and Villa Riahi by Swiss-Belhotel. The move underscores the groups long-term commitment to developing high-end, sustainable hospitality products across the archipelago.



The first property, Maua Kapal Kecil by Swiss-Belhotel, will offer an intimate eco-luxury experience in Batam, featuring villas with private pools and suites, several of which boast balconies and direct access to the pool. A key highlight is its Wellness Centre, equipped with thalasso therapy, which offers a rare and premium wellness experience in the region.



The second project, located in Nirup Island, Batam, will present a refined villa-style escape designed for families, groups, and long-stay guests. The property will comprise villas, available in two, three, and four-bedroom types, all equipped with private pools, thereby reinforcing the resorts positioning as a luxury enclave within the Riau Islands.



Hartono, Owner of Maua Kapal Kecil by Swiss-Belhotel and Villa Riahi by Swiss-Belhotel, expressed strong confidence in this partnership, We are pleased to collaborate with Swiss-Belhotel International in bringing these developments to life. Their operational expertise and commitment to delivering high-quality guest experiences give us full confidence that both Maua Kapal Kecil and Villa Riahi will set new benchmarks for luxury hospitality in Batam. We believe these properties will contribute significantly to the regions tourism growth and provide exceptional value for guests seeking exclusivity, comfort, and nature-inspired experiences in the wider Riau Islands as they continue to evolve into leading regional tourism hubs.



Gavin M. Faull, Chairman and President, emphasized the significance of the companys continued growth in Indonesia. These new signings reflect our ongoing commitment to expanding Swiss-Belhotel Internationals presence in key island destinations. Batams rising potential as a luxury getaway aligns perfectly with our vision to deliver world-class hospitality experiences that unite sustainability, comfort, and authentic local charm. We are proud to further strengthen our portfolio in Indonesia, one of our most important and fastest-growing markets.



Matthew Faull, Executive Director and Senior Vice President of Information Technology, E-commerce and Distribution, highlighted the momentum of the groups development pipeline across the country: Indonesia remains a central pillar of our development strategy, and the addition of these two exceptional properties demonstrates the strong confidence of owners in our brands. The progress we are makingfrom eco-luxury concepts like Maua to premium villa destinations such as Villa Riahimarks an exciting phase of our growth in this region.



The addition of Maua Kapal Kecil and Villa Riahi by Swiss-Belhotel highlights the groups strategy to enhance Batams appeal as a premier luxury island destination, supporting Indonesias tourism growth.



Maua by Swiss-Belhotel is a 5-star eco-luxury hospitality brand inspired by the ancestral wisdom of Maori culture, rooted in the values of whenua (respect for the land), mauri (life force), and kotahitanga (togetherness). Meaning togetherness in Te Reo Maori, Maua represents a philosophy of harmony between people and nature, guiding the brands approach to sustainable design, wellness-led experiences, and conscious luxury living. This ethos is symbolised by the andesite stone carving at the Faull familys heritage farm in New Zealand, reflecting a deep, personal connection to the land and a commitment to preserving balance, authenticity, and meaningful human connection across every Maua destination.



SBEC Loyalty Programme: Enjoy 10%-35% OFF on Rooms, Dining and other services at 150+ hotels globally by becoming an SBEC loyalty member. Sign up for FREE.



https://www.swiss-belhotel.com/

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
DENVER, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, IBG Business, an award-winning M&A advisory firm, proudly congratulates Gary Papay, Principal, Managing Partner, Founder - Eastern / Mid Atlantic, on earning the prestigious Lifetime Merger & Acquisition Master Intermediary (M&AMI) Certification in 2023 and celebrating the birth of his newest grandson.

The Lifetime M&AMI credential recognizes Gary for demonstrating a high level of competence in the M&A advisor profession by successfully maintaining the Merger & Acquisition Master Intermediary (M&AMI) Credential  documenting professional and educational achievements  and fulfilling prescribed standards of performance, and conduct required for the M&AMI.

Gary Papay is a professional intermediary and business appraiser specializing in the sale and transfer of privately held mid-market companies since 1976. His career started at Agway, Inc., a Fortune 100 company, where he held a progression of positions in the company's petroleum division, including plant manager, corporate propane operations manager, district manager, and division operations manager. He was responsible for acquisitions and divestitures and business valuations.

After 18 years in corporate management, Gary joined CK Business Consultants, an M&A business transactions firm that specialized in oil and gas-related industries. He acquired the business in 1999 and then expanded the company into the manufacturing and distribution sectors.

Alongside this professional recognition, Mr. Papay is marking a joyful family milestone: the birth of his third grandson on December 30, 2025, bringing his family to three grandsons and two granddaughters.

"I am honored to receive the Lifetime M&AMI credential, a milestone that reflects nearly five decades of dedication to the M&A profession and my commitment to achieving the best outcomes for my clients. This recognition is particularly special as it coincides with a joyful new chapter in my personal life. Welcoming my third grandson on December 30and celebrating a growing family of five wonderful grandchildren." - Gary Papay, Principal, Managing Partner, Founder - Eastern/Mid Atlantic, IBG Business

For additional information, contact IBG Business.

About IBG Business

Founded in 1986, IBG Business is a leading Mergers & Acquisitions advisor serving business owners in the sale and purchase of privately held middle-market companies. The IBG team has advised on over 1,200 successful transactions from coast to coast, with 10 principal offices across the US.

[Social Media Handles]

Twitter: https://x.com/ibgbusiness

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ibg-business-services/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Ibgbusiness

SOURCE IBG Business
Wrexhams MP has quizzed the Minister of State for Border Security and Asylum Alex Norris MP over local issues around Home Office processes relating to asylum dispersal accommodation.

Wrexhams MP said in the House of Commons yesterday, Trust and confidence are the cornerstones of a functioning asylum system, yet both were damaged in Wrexham recently due to an unclear and poorly communicated proposal for large houses in multiple occupation to be used for asylum accommodation.

Following years of Tory failure, we have inherited a chaotic system and wasteful contracts which were signed by the previous Government that frequently bypass local input.

Will the Minister reassure my constituents that the Department is finally moving away from this inherited mess and reforming its strategy to ensure that local communities are fully informed and respected?

Alex Norris MP replied, I totally agree with my hon. Friends point. I know from my own community and across the country that when a system is orderly and controlled, the British public lean into it; we saw that with the Afghan scheme, the Syrian scheme, Homes for Ukraine and British national overseas passports.

When systems are not orderly and controlled, people get frustrated. One aspect, exactly as my hon. Friend says, is better engagement between the Home Office and local authorities to ensure that local authorities know where HMOs may be opened, in this case, and to know what populations need to be supported so that the community can lean in.

I can give him an absolute assurance that we will work much more closely with local authorities to ensure that they have that information.

The following query, from Chris Murray MP asked about an issue that has been raised locally at the Rhos public meeting as well as in the Guildhall Chamber, While we are on the issue of immigration statistics, when the previous Conservative Government signed the contracts that led to those hotels opening, the average cost per asylum seeker was 17,000 a year. By the time of the election, that cost had risen to almost 50,000 per asylum seeker per year.

This Government have been locked into the contracts signed by the previous Government. What is the Minister doing to drive down this appalling waste of public money? What is his view on the break clause that created these hotels in the first place?

The Minister replied, I am pleased that during our time in government we have already been able to reduce by a third the amount of money that the British taxpayer is spending on hotels, but the right level is zero. As my hon. Friend says, we also have the asylum contract. That is an eyewatering contract which, to be as kind as possible to Opposition Front Benchers, does not reflect any system that was intended to be procured. We are in those conversations with suppliers now.

Crucially, with a break clause coming up and the end of the contract in 2029, we are looking at that closely to get the best possible system at the best possible financial level for the British people.

The stats around the use of hotels for asylum use was also raised, with the Minister stating, We were elected on a commitment to close all asylum hotels, and that is what we will do. In June 2024, there were 29,561 asylum seekers in hotels, which later peaked at 38,054 in the following December, thanks to the awful legacy of the Conservatives. As we started to grip the crisis in asylum accommodation, those numbers had reduced to 36,273 by September 2025. The next release of statistics is coming at the end of this month, and I have absolutely no doubt that the number will have fallen significantly even further.

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CARBONDALE, Pa., Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Gentex Corporation today announced its sponsorship of the Alliance Police Training Facility in Alliance, Ohio, through its Ops-Core brand, the premier provider of high-performance helmet systems and integrated equipment for law enforcement and military professionals.

Gentex Corporation announces its sponsorship of the Alliance Police Training Facility in Alliance, Ohio, through its Ops-Core brand, the premier provider of high-performance helmet systems and integrated equipment for law enforcement and military professionals.

With decades of experience as a global leader in personal protection and situational awareness solutions for defense forces, emergency responders and industrial personnel, Gentex's sponsorship reflects a commitment to supporting law enforcement readiness with the highest performing products and investments that directly enhance officer safety, capability, and mission effectiveness. The Alliance Police Training Facility is widely recognized for delivering some of the most realistic, high-intensity training programs in the country, serving officers, tactical teams, and first responders and prepared civilians nationwide. Located in Alliance, Ohio, the facility has established itself as one of the premier law enforcement training destinations on the East Coast, attracting departments from across the region, including federal law enforcement agencies from major Ohio cities and tactical teams from as far as Tennessee. With a mix of open-enrollment courses and specialized law enforcement training programs, the range serves as a central hub for local, regional, and federal agencies seeking advanced training, making it a natural partner for Gentex's commitment to supporting officers where real-world training happens.

"Alliance PD Range plays a crucial role in preparing law enforcement officers for real-world challenges," said Fred Grimm, VP of Commercial Sales Americas. "We're proud to support their mission and ensure officers have access to the modern protective solutions they rely on in the field."

As part of the sponsorship, Gentex will work with the facility to integrate its latest Ops-Core helmet systems, modular accessories, and communications-ready platforms into training programs, enhancing safety and providing officers hands-on experience with equipment designed to support them in dynamic operational environments.

"This partnership helps us elevate the training experience we provide," said Joe Weyer, Training Officer, Alliance Police Training Facility. "Ops-Core is trusted by teams across the country, and Gentex's support ensures our officers are equipped with the best possible protective technology."

The sponsorship strengthens Gentex's longstanding dedication to serving law enforcement communities and reinforces Ops-Core's position as a leading brand for advanced, mission-configurable headborne protection.

For more information about Ops-Core and its law enforcement solutions, visit www.ops-core.com.

About Alliance Police Training

The mission of the Alliance Police Department Training Division is to provide efficient, cost effective and proven training to Law Enforcement and the Military. Our instructors, as well as our industry partners and guest instructors will never sacrifice safety and are very mindful that the training you receive can mean the difference between life and death on the street.

About Gentex Corporation

Part of Gentex Corporation's portfolio for defense, emergency response, and security forces, the focus and dedication of the company's Ops-Core brand remains the same  protecting elite forces. The modular, scalable open-architecture design of Ops-Core products allows for seamless integration and true system-level performance.

SOURCE Gentex Corporation
Staff at a local aerospace company have come together to support the Wrexham Foodbank.

Employees at Magellan Aerospace, in Llay, donated food, toiletries and long-life products to the charity, which saw a surge in demand over the winter months.

Wrexham Foodbank plays a vital role in providing emergency food and assistance to individuals and families facing hardship.

A spokesperson for Magellan Aerospace, said: Throughout January and February, Magellan Aerospace Wrexham has been proud to support Wrexham Foodbank, responding to their plea for donations during a period of increased demand.

After learning about the challenges faced by the foodbank and the growing need within the local community, employees across the Wrexham site came together to contribute essential food items and supplies.

The initiative reflects Magellan Aerospace Wrexhams ongoing commitment to supporting the communities in which it operates.

The support from Magellan Aerospace Wrexham helped ensure the foodbank could continue its important work at a critical time.

The spokesperson added: Magellan Aerospace Wrexham would like to thank all employees who donated and supported the initiative, helping to make a meaningful difference for local people in need.

Spotted something? Got a story? email us at Got a story? email us at news@wrexham.com
The North Wales Police Choir is celebrating after securing third place in the Open Choir category at the North Wales Choir Festival held in Llandudno over the weekend.

Competing against a strong field of other choirs from Wales, Ireland and England at Venue Cymru, the win is the first prize awarded to the group since it was established in 2024.

The mixed choir was established in August 2024 with the main aim of promoting positive mental health and to also promote the Welsh language in the workplace.

With just under 60 members  including serving officers, staff, volunteers as well as retired colleagues who travel from across the region, who meet weekly at Police Headquarters in Colwyn Bay.

Conductor, Sergeant Arwyn Tudur Jones described the achievement as a fantastic milestone for the choir.

As a newly established choir, to be recognised in an open category at this prestigious festival is a real achievement and a testament to the hard work of our members, said Sgt Tudur Jones.

I am incredibly proud of what the choir has achieved in just over 18 months. This is just the beginning and Im excited to see where we go next.

The choir performs a varied repertoire, spanning traditional choral pieces, contemporary songs and seasonal favourites in both Welsh and English, despite some members not speaking the Welsh language.

Last year the choir became the first emergency service choir to compete at the National Eisteddfod in Wrexham, and this summer they will be competing at the Llangollen International Eisteddfod.

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Welsh Labour leader and First Minister Eluned Morgan has publicly backed Prime Minister Keir Starmer, as he faces mounting pressure within the Labour Party following a series of senior resignations and growing criticism over his leadership.

In a statement issued on Tuesday morning, Morgan said she supported the Prime Minister in the job he was elected to do, citing the need for stability after years of political upheaval at Westminster.

I support the Prime Minister in the job he was elected to do, she said. After years of revolving-door leadership under the Conservatives, the country needs stability in an age of instability, and that matters for Wales.

Morgan said leadership required upholding standards and acting when they fall short, but stressed that her judgement of any Prime Minister would ultimately be based on delivery for Wales.

Ultimately, I judge any Prime Minister by a simple test: whether they deliver for Wales, she said.

I have been clear with Keir about what Wales needs. Action on the cost of living, investment in our economy and infrastructure, and a continued commitment to stronger devolution.

She added that her priority remained leading Wales.

My focus remains on leading Wales with integrity and delivering real change for people here, she said.

Morgan also addressed concerns surrounding former UK ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson, saying she had previously questioned his suitability for public office.

I had concerns that Peter Mandelson was incompatible with public office because of the company he kept. What has since come to light has only reinforced those concerns, she said.

These issues are deeply troubling not least because, once again, the voices of women and girls were ignored.

That failure must be acknowledged and confronted honestly.

The Prime Ministers position has come under strain following a sequence of events linked to the appointment of Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to the United States.

Mandelson was appointed to the role in December 2024 and was removed nine months later following renewed scrutiny of his past associations with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Pressure intensified after the US Department of Justice released further Epstein-related files, prompting fresh political criticism in the UK. The Metropolitan Police is now investigating Mandelson over alleged misconduct in public office. Mandelson has said he has not acted criminally and denies any wrongdoing.

In the days that followed, Starmers chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, who had been closely associated with Mandelsons appointment, resigned. His departure was followed shortly afterwards by the resignation of the Prime Ministers communications director, further weakening Starmers senior leadership team.

The situation escalated when the leader of Scottish Labour, Anas Sarwar, publicly called on Starmer to step aside, saying the UK Labour government had become a political liability in Scotland ahead of the Scottish Parliament elections in May.

Starmer has rejected calls to resign, telling Labour MPs he is not prepared to walk away, while senior cabinet ministers have publicly expressed their support for him.

Spotted something? Got a story? email us at Got a story? email us at news@wrexham.com
A new Welsh-language film set in Wrexham has been given Welsh Government backing after receiving funding through Sinema Cymru.

Awen, written by Teleri Hughes, is set in 1980s Wrexham and focuses on two sisters who are trying to swap the declining mining town for the international stage  but global success might not be worth the sacrifice.

The project is one of six to receive a share of funding from Sinema Cymru, a collaboration between S4C, Ffilm Cymru Wales and the Welsh Government via Creative Wales. The scheme is aimed at developing several Welsh-language feature film concepts with a view to progressing at least one into production funding.

The fund makes up to 30,000 available for individual projects with the potential to be ready for production within 12 months of the start of the development period, with smaller awards of up to 10,000 available for earlier stage projects.

Sinema Cymru aims to put Welsh language film on the map by fast-tracking independent, bold and unconventional films which have the potential to gain international cinema release. The programme provides not just funding, but also career development support for creative teams, offering bespoke development plans alongside project funding.

In this round, applications were encouraged from projects at an earlier stage in the development process, recognising the importance of cinematic talent development in the Welsh language.

Minister for Culture, Jack Sargeant, said: These six exceptional projects demonstrate the depth of creative talent we have here in Wales.

From powerful stories of identity and belonging to bold explorations of grief and resilience, each film showcases the strength and vitality of Welsh language storytelling.

I am proud that through Sinema Cymru we are supporting filmmakers to bring these distinctive Welsh voices to cinema screens around the world.

The success of this second-round builds on the inaugural funding, which saw four projects selected for feature development in 2024/5: Gorllewin Gwyllt, Pijin, Lluest and Estron.

Head of Film and Drama for S4C, Gwenllian Gravelle, said: Announcing the recipients in the second round of this scheme is a real moment of pride; its proof of the strength of our filmmakers, and the power of Welsh language stories for audiences everywhere.

Development and Production Executive at Ffilm Cymru Wales, Gwenfair Hawkins, added: We are delighted to work again through Sinema Cymru with exceptional homegrown talent on these six new exciting film projects.

They all speak to the specificity and beauty of our language and culture, through exploring stories that have global appeal and resonance.

Spotted something? Got a story? email us at Got a story? email us at news@wrexham.com
A Carson City judge has ordered the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles to turn over all communications between the DMV and ICE for a private review.

That's according to the ACLU, which sued the DMV for allegedly not releasing public records related to ICE.

The ACLU says the DMV has five days to submit a sworn declaration that it has searched all related records.

We reached out to the DMV for a statement and were told it can't comment on any pending litigation.
Gas prices are going up yet again.

According to GasBuddy, Nevada gas prices are a little over a cent higher than last week, with the statewide average sitting at $3.49 per gallon. Reno is seeing a three-cent jump to $3.68 a gallon.

GasBuddy said the closure of a Bay Area refinery is shrinking supply and driving up prices. Reno isn't the only area affected.

"Anyone that's supplied right now by northern California is seeing a bit of a jolt as it relates to the loss in supply from the refinery," said Patrick De Haan, Head of Petroleum Analysis, GasBuddy.

Valero's refinery in Benicia, northeast of Oakland, is set to close in April. De Haan said another factor is California's switch to summer gasoline, which gets better mileage when it's warm outside, but it's more expensive to produce.

We spoke to some drivers in Reno-Sparks who say the constant price changes are frustrating and have become part of everyday life.

"It just gets kind of frustrating when it's jumping all over the place and not really being as stable as I think it could be," said Linda Augenstein.

"It is what it is. You just kind of have to measure it out because you need gas. You've got to go to work. Without work, you don't have food, you don't have gas," Kathy Eastwood said.

One driver from northern California visits Reno once a month, and he said he takes advantage of the lower prices here when he can.

"In Susanville, it's $4.14. So here it's like 10 cents cheaper," said Brad Peconom.

The American Automobile Association (AAA) lists Washoe County gas as the most expensive in Nevada. Augenstein says she's seen much lower prices out toward Elko.

"I do miss traveling out there and being able to fill up with, you know, $2.39 instead of $4.37," she said.

To the south, Carson City regularly sees cheaper gas than Reno-Sparks. But De Haan says driving there just for gas doesn't add up.

"You'd need a huge savings of almost a dollar a gallon to make that round trip, 30-mile trip worthwhile," he said.

De Haan said the best you can do is plan ahead and look for cheaper gas stations that aren't too far out of the way.

You can check gas prices across Nevada and in your area on GasBuddy's website.
BROOKFIELD, Wis., Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Hydrite is pleased to announce plans to expand its operations in Laurens, South Carolina, with the purchase of a 43-acre property that will be developed into a new facility that is projected to come online in 2028. This facility will become the hub of Hydrite's Southeast operations, which includes the recently acquired operations of Enterprise Specialty Products, Inc.

"Building on our recent acquisition of Enterprise Specialty Products, Inc. in Laurens, we're proud to deepen our roots in South Carolina with a new greenfield facility that will bring the broader Hydrite portfolio to the Southeast and allow us to better serve existing and future customers across the region," said Kevin Honkamp, Hydrite CEO. "We are grateful for the support from South Carolina and look forward to being an active, longterm contributor to the Laurens County community's growth."

About Hydrite

Hydrite, a family-owned company established in 1929, is one of the largest independent providers of chemicals and related services in the United States. Headquartered in Brookfield, Wisconsin, Hydrite has a network of manufacturing facilities, warehouses, and laboratories located in Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, South Carolina, California, Colorado and Texas with approximately 1,000 employees throughout the United States.

Media Contact:

Maggie Honkamp

2627922363

[email protected]

SOURCE Hydrite
My grandfather was a carpenter. I never knew one end of a hammer from the other. So imagine how I felt last year when I followed in his steel-toed-boot steps to present myself for my first day on a construction project for Habitat for Humanity.

Youre probably familiar with this outfit, which has provided housing for 65 million people around the world since its founding in 1976. It muscles together community support to finance and build homes for people who couldnt otherwise afford them. The future homeowners are required to invest up to 500 hours of sweat equity, including building the place and putting up with skill-free volunteers like me.

Members only

My wife and I had been donating to Habitat for years. We had scrambled to afford our own ever-escalating mortgages, which made us even more sympathetic to people who couldnt make a down payment. Add in the image of Jimmy Carter in a hard hat (he and first lady Rosalynn famously supported Habitat, in person, for more than three decades) and we were sold on the mission.

We showed up at 7:30 a.m. on a site a few miles from our house in Fort Collins, Colorado. Inside the construction trailer we met Julie, an artist and maintenance worker who would live in the home we were helping to build. That personal connection was a force multiplier.

But ... uh-oh. A hammer! The site organizers gathered us together, and after a prayer (our build was supported by Foothills Unitarian Church, where Im a board member), we discussed jobs. The site supervisor sized me up and asked, Want to help us install hurricane ties?

Moore helped install structural metal connectors, known as hurricane ties, in the Habitat house. Courtesy Peter Moore

A hurricane tie, I now know, is a twisted and perforated hunk of metal that attaches roof framing to the wall studs. You install the ties by putting on a hard hat, circling your waist with a leather tool belt, filling it with nails and ties, tucking a hammer into a holster, choking back impostor syndrome and then climbing an 8-foot ladder. My first tie took 40 hammer blows to secure. My 12th tie, 30. My 40th, 20 mostly efficient swings. By that point, my forearms were throbbing, and my hands were dinged in a dozen places. But every time Julie walked by, she was smiling, so I was too.

All simple stuff, if you know how to do it. But until that day, I hadnt, and it was gratifying to learn.

The next morning, I awoke sore from head to foot. The only muscle that didnt hurt, in fact, was my heart, which had strengthened from the exertion. No wonder Jimmy and Rosalynn lived so long.

AARP essays share a point of view in the authors voice, drawn from expertise or experience, and do not necessarily reflect the views of AARP.
MOUNT CLARK WEST: POSITIVE DRILLING OBSERVATIONS, TENEMENT EXTENSION GRANTED



MCW - POSITIVE DRILLING OBSERVATIONS, TENEMENT EXTENSION

Brisbane, Feb 10, 2026 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Far East Gold Limited ( ASX:FEG ) ( FEGDF:OTCMKTS ) provided an update on ongoing drilling activities at its Mount Clark West (MCW) Project in Queensland, together with confirmation of the regulatory extension of the EPM tenement.



Drilling at Mount Clark West has successfully recommenced following delays caused by seasonal rainfall over the end-of-year period. The Company is currently drilling the second diamond hole of a planned two to three hole exploration program, with each hole designed to test defined geophysical targets to 600 metres depth. See Figure 1*.



Drilling operations were halted over December / January due to wet-season access and conditions.



Drilling is now back underway, with logistics, land access and site conditions stabilised. (Refer to ASX Announcement 7 November 2025 and 28 January 2026).



The Company has received formal confirmation from the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines, Manufacturing and Regional and Rural Development, that EPM 26008 (Mount Clark West) has been extended until February 2031, with the statutory relinquishment requirement deferred until February 2030. This is a supportive regulatory outcome from the Queensland Government.



HIGHLIGHTS:



1. Encouraging Geological Observations:



Daily geological logging from the program to date continues to confirm the presence of porphyry-related alteration types consistent with formation within a large-scale hydrothermal system. Observations from the current program are consistent with intersection of the upper and peripheral zones of a potentially significant Cu mineralised porphyry system. Sampling of core for assay testing is currently in progress.



Observed features include:



- Widespread alteration including propylitic and phyllic alteration.



- Quartz veining and brecciation.



- Disseminated sulphides, dominated by pyrite with localised trace chalcopyrite and bornite.



Cautionary Statement: Visual estimates of mineral abundance should never be considered a proxy or substitute for laboratory analyses where mineral concentrations or grades are the factor of principal economic interest. Visual estimates also provide no information of deleterious physical or chemical properties that may negatively affect the project's economic viability and valuation.



- Evidence of both magnetite enrichment and destruction related to intrusive-related alteration at depth.



These observations support the Company's interpretation of the historical 4-hole drill program completed by Medusa Mining MML in 2019. That program intersected 104 m at 0.1 % Cu (incl. 14 m at 0.23 % Cu), from 114m including 14 m at 0.23% Cu from 180 m within altered volcanic rocks. Refer to ASX Announcements of 25 August 2022 and 15 October 2025. Further drilling will use the types and styles of alteration to vector toward the higher-temperature core that based on conceptual deposit models should contain the highest concentrations of copper minerals. See Figure 2*.



2. Department Letter Far East Gold



This determination represents a supportive regulatory outcome that provides certainty for continued exploration and project development.



Basis for Extension Without Relinquishment



In granting the extension, the Department accepted the Company's submission that:



- The tenement was originally pegged as a highly targeted six sub-block footprint, not an oversized speculative holding.



- Relinquishment would sterilise prospective ground due to surrounding tenure held by multinational mining companies.



- Access for drilling was only achieved in September 2025, following execution of Conduct and Compensation Agreements (CCA's).



- The Company moved immediately into drilling once access was granted



- The project has clear potential to support future development, and regional economic benefits should drilling be deemed successful.



3. Land Access Secured



The Company confirms that Conduct and Compensation Agreements are now in place with both landholders at Mount Clark West, providing secure tenure access and long-term certainty for continued exploration and potential development. (Refer to ASX Announcement 15 October 2025).



Managing Director and CEO Shane Menere said:



"Mount Clark West has the potential to be a copper-gold system of significant scale. With drilling now well advanced and secure land access in place, we are intersecting the kinds of alteration and veining that occur on the margins of a porphyry style copper system.



The Queensland Government's decision to extend the EPM to 2031 without any relinquishment (until 2030), is a supportive regulatory outcome that provides certainty for continued exploration and development of this project.



It gives us exploration continuity, project certainty and the ability to properly test what is shaping up as a highly compelling copper opportunity.



Importantly, assays will now commence to determine copper mineralisation content and grade, which will be critical in vectoring toward the core of the system. We believe Mount Clark West has developed into a project with genuine potential significance. We are only just beginning to unlock its copper story."



CEO & Director Shane Menere has released a video discussing this announcement. Watch the video on our investor hub here: https://fareast.gold/link/epQzor



*To view tables and figures, please visit:

https://abnnewswire.net/lnk/5I0U3GBC





About Far East Gold Ltd





Far East Gold Ltd (ASX:FEG) is an Australian junior exploration company led by some of the biggest names in Australian mining. The company has secured the commercial rights for the acquisition, exploration and development of six advanced gold and copper projects in Indonesia and Australia, including one with a JORC estimate of 996,000 ounces of gold and 190 million pounds of copper.

Related Companies
China sees over 1.4 bln inter-regional trips in first week of Spring Festival travel rush

Xinhua) 09:36, February 10, 2026

BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- China recorded more than 1.4 billion inter-regional passenger trips during the first week of the 2026 Spring Festival travel rush, transport authorities said on Monday.

From Feb. 2 to 8, road travel exceeded 1.3 billion trips, while railways handled more than 86 million passenger trips. Waterway passenger trips topped 4.9 million, and civil aviation passenger trips exceeded 16 million, according to the Ministry of Transport.

On Sunday, the seventh day of the travel rush, inter-regional passenger trips totaled 227.71 million -- up 2.3 percent from the same period last year.

The Spring Festival, which is also known as Chinese New Year, falls on Feb. 17 this year, and the official holiday lasts nine days. The annual travel rush, "chunyun," is often described as the world's largest human migration. It is expected to see a record 9.5 billion inter-regional passenger trips during the 40-day period from Feb. 2 to March 13 this year.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
PITTSBURGH, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- InventHelp is proud to announce that Stack 'Em, the innovative twocan insulated koozie created by inventor Andy Beier, has been accepted into the International Housewares Association (IHA) New Product Showcase/Global Innovation Awards (GIA) in the Kitchenware category for The Inspired Home Show 2026.

This recognition places Stack 'Em among the top new consumerproduct innovations selected for global visibility at the largest housewares trade show in North America.

Stack 'Em has captured widespread consumer and retail attention thanks to its patentpending, springloaded design that securely holds two cans, offering uninterrupted sipping and a functional twist on traditional insulated drinkware. The product's distinctive design and performance have helped expand its awareness and growth across retail and online stores.

In late 2025, Stack 'Em achieved several market achievements, including:

Breaking into the Top 50 products in its Amazon category, which includes more than 40,000 competing items.

Launching in Scheels Sporting Goods stores nationwide.

Showcasing at Outdoor Retailer 2025 in Salt Lake City, where the product drew strong interest from buyers and attendees.

Stack 'Em comes in multiple color variations, with a 16oz Slim Can model now available on Amazon.

"Stack 'Em is a great example of how performance and originality can break through in a competitive category," said Kurtis Charlton, Managing Director of Intromark. "Its innovation, strong consumer response, and retail traction continue to make it a compelling invention story."

InventHelp and Intromark are actively pursuing expanded retail partnerships with leading outdoor and sporting goods chains to support ongoing growth.

The product's acceptance into the IHA's New Product Showcase/GIA Awards further elevates Stack 'Em's visibility among consumers, distributors, and media ahead of The Inspired Home Show, held March 710, 2026, at McCormick Place in Chicago.

About Stack 'Em

Stack 'Em is a patentpending, twocan insulated koozie featuring a springloaded internal mechanism that holds one can securely above another, allowing users to "stack" beverages and enjoy uninterrupted sipping. Designed for convenience, durability, and outdoor fun, Stack 'Em is quickly gaining recognition among consumers and retailers nationwide.

About InventHelp

InventHelp, in business for over 40 years, supports inventors through patent referral services, prototype modeling, technical drawings, invention submission to companies, and more. The company is headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA.

This specific client's invention is a financial gain. The typical client will not achieve this level of success.

Shop the full Stack 'Em collection at: https://www.stackem.net

Media Contact: Maria Jones, InventHelp

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE InventHelp
These pitfalls could leave them facing compliance and financial risks, warns the leading pensions and financial services consultancy, and it calls on employers to avoid this by urgently reviewing their pension and salary sacrifice arrangements. By carrying out a clear, organisation-wide review of pension processes they can protect both their people and their business. Explaining the pension pitfalls that employers could fall into, Hannah English, Head of DC Corporate Consulting, Hymans Robertson says: Many employers may not be aware of the risk of pension contribution discrepancies that could be running in their businesses. These changes to regulatory requirements come at a time when many organisations have made real headway into improving family career benefits, sabbaticals, sick leave and salary sacrifice terms. So, its not surprising to see increased complexity feeding though in unintended ways to the calculated pension benefits. If employers fail to review processes, these issues can lead to breaches of contract, regulatory action, fines and possible legal challenge. Trust with staff can erode quickly when pension handling does not match expectations, and reputational harm can follow at a time when confidence in workplace benefits is more important than ever. At the heart of the problem is the growing complexity of rules that many employers are navigating without realising the level of risk they carry. Commenting on the need for employers to act, Hannah continues: Pension mistakes tend to creep in quietly rather than through any major failure. The introduction of auto-enrolment in 2012 layered new rules on top of existing policies. This introduced new risks for example pay used to calculate pension contributions drifting away from whats actually written in contracts or benefit guides. Contribution rates can slip too. Schemes that change rates with age or service rely on payroll being updated at the right moment, and when those triggers are missed or mis-mapped, people end up paying the wrong amount for months. Add in employer matching rules that differ across groups, and theres even more room for small mis-steps. Tax relief and salary sacrifice introduce another layer of complexity. If the wrong tax relief method is used, or if someone moves in or out of sacrifice and the systems dont update together, pay and contributions can quickly fall out of sync. Leave periods, especially where pension contributions need to be calculated on a definition of pay which differs from the amount the employee is receiving, create further pressure points. And with the rise in minimum wage, salary sacrifice also needs much closer attention. Because sacrifice reduces contractual pay, employers have to be sure no employee drops below the legal threshold by taking part. With more benefits available through sacrifice and higher wage floors than before, it doesnt take much for a well-intentioned arrangement to accidentally breach minimum wage rules. When payroll and HR arent perfectly aligned, its easy for contributions to be calculated incorrectly for long stretches. These pressure points keep catching employers out because they rarely appear as big, obvious failures. What were seeing is that these issues dont sit neatly in separate boxes. One small mismatch can trigger another, and soon the organisation is carrying risks no one spotted early on. None of this comes from bad practice. It comes from systems, legislation and benefit rules all moving at different speeds. Thats why employers need to understand how their policies work in practice rather than assuming theyre working as intended. A surface level check isnt enough anymore. Employers need to review every part of their pension processes. Action now will protect staff, avoid compliance breaches and give employers the confidence that their processes can stand up to scrutiny and be future proofed in the face of a changing legislative and regulatory landscape.
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From Wikimedia Commons: The Jews in the Middle Ages (Karel Ooms, 1890)

In recent years, Western liberal democracies have been grappling with profound internal tensions arising from mass immigration, cultural shifts, ideological fragmentation, and the resurgence of anti-Semitism. Nowhere is this crisis more acutely felt than in Britain, where rising anti-Semitic incidents, driven by Islamism against a backdrop of Israel-Gaza hostilities, have left Jewish communities increasingly vulnerable.

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Intellectual commentators such as Melanie Phillips have long warned of the moral and civilizational decline enabling these developments. At the heart of this discourse lies an urgent question: can a civilization that fails to defend its foundational values and its most persecuted minority in history claim to uphold the principles of freedom, tolerance, and human dignity?

It is incumbent on society as a whole to address the rise of anti-Semitism in Britain, the institutional effects of mass immigration and cultural relativism, and the prospect of a Jewish exodus, considering the historical ties between Jewish culture and Western civilization. Events call for a renewed commitment to defending liberal values against ideological extremism and moral cowardice. To ignore these trends is a failure of policy and a betrayal of the very ethos upon which Western civilization is built.

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Anti-Semitism in Britain has re-emerged and become alarmingly normalized in certain sectors of society. According to the Community Security Trust, which monitors anti-Semitic incidents in Britain, 2023 and 2024 marked record highs in attacks targeting Jewish individuals, institutions, and cultural spaces. These ranged from verbal and online abuse to the desecration of synagogues and physical assaults. The sharpest spikes in anti-Semitic activity typically occur in tandem with geopolitical crises involving Israel (e.g., the Israel-Hamas conflict). However, the expression of anti-Semitism has transcended foreign policy discourse to become a domestic crisis, manifesting in schools, universities, and public spaces.

Apart from a practical security concern, the resurgence of anti-Semitism is a civilizational indicator. Historically, societies that have failed to protect their Jewish communities have typically been in a state of moral and political decline. From ancient Rome to 20th-century Europe, anti-Semitism has acted as a barometer of societal health. In this light, Britains growing hostility toward Jews suggests both a rise in bigotry and a deeper erosion of the moral frameworks that underpin Western societies.

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Britains immigration policies, particularly since New Labours takeover in 1997, have fundamentally reshaped its demographic and cultural landscape. Inasmuch as immigration has increased diversity, it has introduced complex challenges related to integration and the preservation of liberal democratic values. With yesterdays high-trust society disintegrating, unchecked immigration from Muslim-majority countries has prompted a contentious debate over multiculturalism, identity, and social cohesion.

It is customary to draw a distinction between the purported majority of Muslim immigrants, who seek peaceful coexistence, and a minority who bring along ideologies antithetical to Western values, including anti-Semitism. However, studies indicate that anti-Semitic beliefs are much more prevalent in Muslim populations across Europe than in the general public. This reality, though uncomfortable to confront, cannot be dismissed without, in the long term, endangering both Jewish communities and Western society.

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The reluctance of political and cultural elites to address these issues candidlyout of fear of being labeled xenophobic or Islamophobichas allowed Islamism to fester. British cities such as London, Birmingham, and Bradford have witnessed the emergence of parallel societies where extremist preachers, cultural coercion, and demonization of Jews go unchecked. In numerous cases, state authorities have failed to protect vulnerable individuals, particularly women, from abuse perpetrated under the guise of cultural tradition.

In this anarchic environment, increasing numbers of British Jews are contemplating or actively pursuing emigration. A 2024 survey by the Jewish Policy Research Institute revealed that nearly 40% of British Jews have considered leaving Britain due to concerns about anti-Semitism and family safety. Many are looking to Israel, Canada or the United Statesnot necessarily out of Zionist conviction, but as a pragmatic response to an increasingly hostile social climate.

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The prospect of a Jewish exodus from Britain would constitute a civilizational failure of enormous proportions. The Jewish community has been an integral part of British society for centuries, contributing disproportionately to the arts, sciences, law, business, and public life. Their departure would not only be a moral indictment of contemporary Britain but also an ominous signal that liberal democracy can no longer guarantee the safety and dignity of its own rightful citizens. It would mark the unraveling of the pluralistic project that defines modern Western civilization.

The bond between Jewish culture and Western civilization runs deep. The ethical monotheism of the Hebrew Bibleemphasizing individual responsibility, human dignity, and moral lawlaid the foundation for many of the values later codified in Christianity and secular Enlightenment thought. Concepts such as the sanctity of life, the importance of justice, and the dignity of the individual find their roots in Jewish theology and philosophy.

Throughout history, Jewish thinkers, scientists, artists, and reformers have played pivotal roles in shaping the intellectual and moral contours of the West. From Maimonides and Spinoza to Freud and Einstein, Jewish contributions to Western thought have been both profound and transformative. The marginalization or exclusion of Jews from public life thus represents not only a loss to one community, but also a blow to the broader civilizational project.

To abandon the Jewish community is to renounce a cornerstone of Western identity. It is to sever a vital link in the chain of moral and intellectual development that has, despite its flaws and contradictions, upheld the ideals of freedom, reason, and human rights.

Few contemporary commentators have articulated the current crisis with as much clarity and courage as Melanie Phillips. A columnist and author known for her defense of Western civilization and critique of liberal complacency, she has consistently warned that the West is in a state of moral disintegration. She argues that a constellation of cultural relativism, postmodern cynicism, and ideological extremism has hollowed out the moral confidence necessary to defend liberal values.

In Phillipss view, the Wests failure to protect Jews is symptomatic of a broader abdication of moral responsibility. Rather than confronting anti-Semitism head-on, institutions have rationalized or downplayed itparticularly when it originates from Muslim communities. This double standard, Phillips argues, reflects a failure to apply universal moral principles consistently. It also emboldens extremists, who interpret institutional silence or equivocation as tacit approval.

Phillipss warning is about anti-Semitism. In a broader sense, however, it is about the loss of civilizational resolve. When societies become unwilling to name and oppose barbarismarbitrarily manifesting as terrorism, entrenched vilification or moral inversion (victim blaming)they surrender the moral high ground that sustains liberal democracy.

The path forwards requires moral clarity, institutional courage, and civilizational self-confidence. To combat anti-Semitism, Britain should uphold the rule of law, safeguard its Jewish communities, and eliminate extremist ideologies in any form. However, the challenge goes beyond policy; it is philosophical and cultural.

Western societies should reassert the values that have defined them: freedom of speech, religious liberty, equality before the law, and respect for human dignity. These principles cannot coexist with ideologies consistently promoting hatred, subjugation or supremacismwhether they arise from far-right bigotry, revolutionary exorcism (Nazi, Marxist) or Islamism.

To mobilize against barbarism is not to reject pluralism, but to define its limits. Tolerance cannot mean tolerating the intolerable. Diversity should never come at the cost of shared civic values. A society that protects the human rights of Islamist infiltrators while failing to protect its Jewish citizens from abuse is one that has lost its moral compass.

The convergence of rising anti-Semitism, ideological extremism, and civilizational uncertainty poses a grave threat, not only to the Jewish community but also to the integrity of Western liberal democracy itself. To ignore the warning signsso vividly articulated by voices like Phillipsis to repeat the mistakes of history under the illusion of progress.

The Jewish community has long been a canary in the coal mine for the health of liberal societies. If Britain cannot protect its Jews, it cannot claim to protect the values of freedom, justice, and human dignity. Really, the time to act is nowin defense of the Jewish community and the very civilization that allows humanism to flourish.
We watched the 2012 movie of Les Miserables last Friday. It was just like Minneapolis with the students staging a mostly peaceful protest during the funeral parade of General Lamarque in Paris in 1832. The occasion is remembered as the June Rebellion.

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Experts agree that the Paris student riot was the first incidence of Mostly Peaceful Protest by devoted lefty student activists in modern history.

Of course, the whole point of the riot -- for the movie -- was to let Jean Valjean rescue the wounded Marius so he could marry Cosette and everyone could live happily ever after. Fortunately, ICE Inspector Javert had jumped off a tall building the day before.

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My big takeaway in the movie was that the Peaceful Protesters realized at some point that they were mostly going to get killed by the ICE agents National Guard and regular army troops, so they all charged into the maelstrom and got killed anyway -- except for Marius, thank goodness.

Is that the way to understand our liberal friends in the Golden Age of Trump? They realize that they are doomed so they decide to charge at ICE and go for broke?

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Just take a look at them. Abigail Spanberger runs for governor of Virginia as a moderate and then immediately backs a ton of tax increases. The SEIU ladies in California reckon they may as well go for broke and tax the wealth of billionaires before its too late. Mayor Mamdani proposes tax increases on the rich, childcare for the moms, and loot for the Childcare Industrial Complex.

With the racist-sexist-homophobic voters electing Trump again, why not go for broke? If liberals lose, well they were going to lose anyway, like the students in Les Mis. But if, despite the auguries, they win, whats not to like?

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Its the same in Britland. Troublemaker Dominic Cummings has an analysis of failing PM Sir Keir Starmer in England and the blinders on everyone in SW1, the part of London where all the regime swells live.

The deafening verdict of voters in election after election (Brexit, Trump 1 and 2 etc) and the drop in support for old parties everywhere is that Insiders have failed and voters want change[.] Advertisement

But theres a problem:

Officials [i.e. bureaucrats] across the west have dug in and grasp that the collapsed talent level of modern politicians, their incentives etc mean that officials can just refuse to change and almost always win. Advertisement

Has Cummings heard of Secretaries Rubio and Bessent?

Then theres this:

Elites have fragmented and many now also want something radically different, but this process is different in different countries. In America its been accelerated by Elon and the MAGA Silicon Valley network. In Britain, theres a lot of private whining at dinner parties but very little public action.

So Cummings must have observed the tech lords in battalion strength at Trumps 2025 inauguration! Smart kid!

I feel for our liberal friends. Here we are, a century after the educated and evolved knew for sure that scientific political administration would end the Age of Oppression featuring agricultural serfdom followed by industrial workers slaving under the cowskin whip of capitalism. And yet now the world is being taken over by real-estate yahoos like Trump and dog-loving whack-jobs like Milei.

Dear liberal friends: its the science. Science? Well, heres what social scientist Charles Murray discovered in a lifetime of studying government programs. I wrote about this on AT nearly nine years ago.

First, in Losing Ground, in 1984, Murray wrote that the Great Society programs of the Sixties had failed, and we know this because liberals instrumented them with grants for social scientists, knowing that they would be a glorious success.

Second, in The Bell Curve, in 1994, Murray and Herrnstein worried that blacks, with lower average IQ, would not thrive in the future economy that would select for cognitive skills. Liberals hit the fan.

Third, in Coming Apart, in 2012 and just about whites, Murray showed that the cognitive anti-racist white elite was doing fine, the middle white racist 40 percent only so-so. But in the bottom 25 percent the white redneck racist men didnt work much and the white-trash racist women didnt marry much.

Subsequently, Murray wrote Facing Reality in 2021. About Race. Oh no: how dare you, Charles Murray, you racist! Heres his quick summary of the book from my blog:

Two known facts, long since documented beyond reasonable doubt, need to be brought into the open and incorporated into the way we think about public policy: American whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians have different violent crime rates and different means and distributions of cognitive ability.

Any time you want to sit down to have a full and frank discussion of the issues, dear liberals, all friendly like, just drop Charles Murray a line.

Even so, I am sure that the whole problem can be solved by a spot of mostly peaceful protest, just like in Les Mis.

Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill blogs at The Commoner Manifesto and runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class.

Image: Horace Vernet
Frank Capras WWII war documentary shows us how Nazi Germany sent inconspicuous peaceful-looking cargo ships to all principal ports along the coast of Norway. While the cargo ships looked normal, they were actually Trojan horses, filled with troops, armaments, and tanks to attack Norway and capture the ports. Having just overrun Denmark in a mere six hours, the Nazis began their invasion of Norway from both the land and the sea. Nazi blitzkrieg, or lightning war, emphasizing rapid surprise attacks to overwhelm the enemy, causing the enemy to be confused and disorganized, gave the Nazis numerous swift victories. Nazis were highly successful in World War II, rapidly conquering 11 nations.

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Chinas military leaders have studied these techniques.

Just like the Nazis sent covert cargo ships that were actually military vessels to the main coastal ports of Norway, China on January 19, 2026, launched its first known refitted cargo ship, the Zhongda 79, that has been converted to a weapons system, according to Taiwans Taipei Times. Having advanced radar, missile launchers, and numerous combat drones, the Taipei Times says, the military-civilian fusion strategy of disguising weapons systems within standard shipping containers is a gray zone warfare tactic to complicate targeting decisions for Beijings opponents. The only reason for such a ship being designed and deployed is that this is a covert, offensive, first strike, surprise attack vessel, like the Trojan horse.

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Chinas Peoples Liberation Army Navy (PLA) also has a hospital ship, the Silk Road Ark, currently touring Latin America. The China Daily says that the ship is a Peace Ark giving medical check-up[s] free of charge, but that is not the view of many Latin Americans. During its January 2026 visit to Montevideo, Uruguay, a high-level delegation welcomed the PLA Navy ship, including Minister of Defense Sandro Lazo, National Defense Undersecretary Joel Rodriguez, Navy Chief Jose Elizondo, and Chinese Ambassador Huan Yazhong. Note: none of them belong to the health care sector.

When the ship arrived in Brazil, Brazilian Dr. Francisco Cardoso, who leads the agency of the Federal Council of Medicine in Sao Paulo, stated that this ship was at least 10 times larger than any similar ship on the market. The ship is sailing to various Latin America ports providing medical care without local authorization. Cardoso stated, This is unprecedented, unparalleled in our history, this type of ship docking here.

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Dr. Raphael Camara, a consultant to the Medical Council of Rio de Janeiro stated, Was there any substance abuse?  What were all those people doing there? Was biological material collected? Blood? Whatever it was, we dont know, because the Chinese consul, arriving with military personnel, would not allow Camara to enter the ship. Cardoso said that this is not normal for this type of inspection to be denied, stating, they usually allow it, even to show that everything is in order. So, is this ship providing unauthorized medical care? With the history of the China-virus, COVID-19, coming from the Wuhan, China virology lab, perhaps the ship is also unloading who knows what. Measles? More China-viruses?

Apparently, the PLA ships visit to the country was as a result of a request from the Chinese Navy to the Brazilian Navy. Camara said that the ships operation was a war operation authorized by the Brazilian Ministry of Defense. Evan Ellis, Latin America research professor at the U.S. Army War College, said the ship is part of the Chinese naval forces and it is a military ship, even though it is a hospital ship.

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Photos and reports indicate that the ship has military features. Cardoso stated, There was military equipment on board, and not just a little, according to reports from dockworkers. There was also a lot of communications equipment.

The ship took part in a joint maritime exercise with the Brazilian and Chinese Navies, demonstrating combat and rescue operations.

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This military armed ship has a big red cross on the side, making it difficult to attack in a battle scenario.

The U.S. State Department announced a potential sale of $1.5 billion in equipment to upgrade Perus main Navy base, as it is competing with a Chinese-backed mega-port just 50 miles away, not to mention the other 37 ports that China owns in Latin America, as well as the fact China controls both ends of the Panama Canal. These ports could be used to resupply Chinese warships with weapons or missiles to support combat operations against the United States or flanks in the eastern Pacific. Note: Owning 37 ports in Latin America would facilitate rapid deployment of troops and armaments to the Western Hemisphere.

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Just to keep the party going, China has also sent the scientific vessel Tan Suo Yi Hao to Valparaiso, Chile. This ship is coming from Australia where it is believed that the Tan Suo Yi Hao used its submarine, the Fendouzhe, the only submarine in the world capable of diving into the deepest part of the ocean, to map networks of submarine cable routes which are vital to Australias economy and infrastructure. Mapping these networks would enable an enemy to identify the best places to attack and cut those networks as part of the war of system destruction, with the goal of dismantling an information-based society. These cables are crucial for the function of the internet, for example. Malcolm Davis, an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) says that the Tan Suo Yi Hao serves a military function. Why Chile? Because Chile is the other end of the 14,810-km Humboldt Submarine Cable System connecting Chile, French Polynesia and Australia, with branches for the possible connection of other countries and territories. A coincidence? Not!

Tan Suo Yi Haos voyages are reminiscent of the 2023 CCP spy balloon mapping nuclear missile sites, and the B-2 stealth bomber base when it mysteriously and without permission flew across the United States.

An item in The Hill stated, Chinas military ships and spy submarines should not be welcome in the Western Hemisphere.

On December 10, 2025, Chinas CCTV aired a Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) war game simulating combat near Cuba, the Gulf of America, and the Caribbean. On December 19, 2025, as the Silk Road Ark sailed from Jamaica to Barbados, CCTV aired another Chinese military simulated war game between the PLA and an opposition force. One image clearly shows combat happening near the Gulf of America, Cuba, and the Caribbean.

The Bibles book of the Revelation in chapter 14 speaks to a great city called Babylon and says she is fallen because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. Then in chapter 18 in verses 10, 17, and 19, the Bible says three times that Babylon was destroyed in one hour and all the merchants set off shore and watched her burn. To be destroyed in one hour tells you that Babylon was attacked by a modern-day version of blitzkrieg, for it had to be a surprise attack, a decisive attack, and an attack with overwhelming armaments and scenarios causing the city to be unable to defend itself. So, Babylon was destroyed by modern-day weapons of a blitzkrieg attack.

Is there a connection?

More investigative reporting at BlakleyontheWrite.

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If Helen of Troy were meant to be an African woman, Homer might have told his readers that fact in his telling of the greatest and most timeless epic poems in Western history  The Iliad and The Odyssey.

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Her appearance being so contrary to everyone else in the Greek world certainly would have warranted a mention. This much, at least, should be obvious to everyone.

Imagining Helens appearance to be that of an African woman is just farcical, if one has any respect for the source material at all. It would make no sense for a high-budget production to take diligent care in correctly portraying the minutiae about Greek armor, weapons, landscapes, and triremes, for example, only to say screw it, lets make Helen of Troy an African lady.

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But no less than famed writer/director Christopher Nolan has been accused of such absurd pandering in these past weeks. Rumors have been spreading widely and loudly that he has cast Kenyan-Mexican actress Lupita Nyongo as Helen of Troy in his new film treatment of Homers The Odyssey.

Now, at this point, the story has all the hallmarks of a hoax. To my knowledge, no one in the production has verified that she would be playing this role. While some actors have their parts credited already at IMDB, many others are cited as having roles in the film without citing which characters they will play. Ms. Nyongo is among these.

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Its clear that she has been cast in the film, but it seems unlikely that she would be playing Helen. After all, Helen is not a critical player in The Odyssey  [mild spoiler alert] after having run off with her now-dead Trojan lover and fueling a decade-long war in Troy in the events that led to The Iliad, this story finds Helen older and living a life of luxury in Sparta with her husband from whom she fled, Menalaus.

Additionally, Lupita Nyongo is a good actress whose talents are in high demand, and I doubt that her fee is justified to have her eating grapes for a moment on a chaise in a diabolical plot to own the trads or something. Helens role in the story is a bit part, at best  but shes critical enough a character in the central story to have sparked a firestorm of controversy that highlights the cultural divide in the Western world today.

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Again, it makes absolutely no sense to cast an African as the woman who was widely perceived across the known Greek world as the defining model of beauty. Nyong'o is beautiful, of course, but not in the style of classical Greece with its paragons of different characteristics. It would be a decision so absurd that it could only be made as a conscious effort to take a sledgehammer to the edifice of truth and Western culture, and to also rub a thumb in the eye of the American audiences who are tired of all this nonsense.

The examples of filmmakers having done this are too numerous to count here, but suffice to say that when AMC chose to race-swap Henry VIIIs wife, a very real white woman named Anne Boleyn, as a black woman, audiences who value truth and immersive storytelling came to understand that there are no limits to the depths of absurdity that filmmakers are willing to plumb in order to get their imaginative wokeness on the screen.

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And most of us have simply tuned out. Hollywood never recovered from the mass psychosis of 2020 in which it was decided that a) people didnt need to go to the movies anymore because of germs, and b) storytelling needed to take a back seat to allow virtue-signaling because there was suddenly a crisis of racism.

We stopped caring about the germs, but we ratcheted the virtue-signaling nonsense up to ludicrous speed in the years since.

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With few exceptions, Hollywood and streaming services are ladling out rebooted gruel for viewers nowadays, often with race or gender swaps of beloved characters as a poor substitute for creativity.

But every now and again, a movie project comes along that could tickle widespread interest among the masses.

The idea of Christopher Nolan helming a respectful theatric portrayal of The Odyssey is one of those few moments. In my mind, the story of Odysseus and his voyage home from Troy is the greatest adventure story ever told, and Nolan is among the most capable writers and directors working in the film industry today to put the story on screen.

But its hardly unbelievable that Nolan would sacrifice some of his artistic integrity by making concessions to the Hollywood clergy that has incentivized race swaps for central characters.

Woke distractions, and making Helen of Troy an African would certainly be a great one, is a richly rewarded activity in Hollywood today. You might even argue that inserting these distractions has become table stakes in modern filmmaking, and particularly if you want to win an Oscar.

Unfortunately for audiences, these woke subplots and distractions exist not because the artists making movies want them there, but because there are incentives beyond the simple making of an immersive and entertaining story.

One key criterion for the Academys Best Picture category, for example, is to have at least one of the lead actors or significant supporting actors be a representative of an underrepresented racial or ethnic group  and by this, they are quite clear that this means not-white and not-white-adjacent (of note, Jews curiously didnt make the cut as an underrepresented racial or ethnic group).

Another is to have at least 30% of the general cast be underrepresented groups beyond racial underrepresentation, such as being women, or being LGBTQ+, or being a person with disabilities. Yet another way to find your film eligible for Best Picture is to have the main storyline be centered on an underrepresented group.

Christopher Nolan isnt known for his wokeness, but there certainly will be at least some woke reminders in his upcoming film, and Id suspect that well see enough to get him Oscar consideration, with this incentive structure firmly in place.

Actress Ellen Page, for example, who now goes by Elliot, also has an as-yet unknown role in the movie. One can only assume she will not be playing the role of a female character, so we can expect there to be some of those uncanny valley moments of uncomfortableness as Ellen and Christopher Nolan try to convince us that the character shes playing is a man.

Even in a film where we are required to suspend disbelief and believe in gods and monsters and sorceresses, such an ask of todays audiences remains a bridge too far.

And while Lupita Nyongo will play a role in the movie, Id wager that it wont be Helen of Troy. And if its not, all the frustration about the possible choice, and all the ludicrous defenses of it, will have been nothing but wasted thought, breath, and data in the end.

But it does occur to me that the current controversy over this prospect is a sign of just how far weve regressed as a matter of race relations.

When I was in high school in the 1990s, there was a made-for-television production of The Odyssey that had Vanessa Williams cast as the sea-nymph, Calypso. I was already an avid fan of the source material by then, and neither I nor anyone else batted an eye at the choice. The world at that time simply wasnt nearly as race-obsessed as it is today, I can only conclude.

And much more importantly, Hollywood hadnt yet made their quest to erase white people from our culture, via reimagining our history and greatest works of art, obvious or annoying enough for us to care.

Image: Gage Skidmore, via Wikipedia // CC BY-SA 3.0 Deed
Democrat Garry McFadden, the current sheriff of Mecklenburg County, North Carolin, needs to be thrown in jail, stat. Yesterday, lawmakers in the state house conducted a high-profile hearing with politicians from Charlotte, a long overdue response to the stabbing death of Iryna Zarutska on the citys railway system last August. QCity Metro reports this:

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The House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform called Charlotte leaders to Raleigh following the August 2025 killing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light rail train. Committee co-chair Brenden Jones, a Republican, opened the hearing by saying Charlotte leaders had been called to answer for incompetence  incompetence in the law, incompetence in running jails, incompetence in handling crime and, most notably, keeping the citizens of Mecklenburg County safe. Advertisement

One of those men summoned to the hearing was, as mentioned above, county sheriff McFadden, the top cop in Mecklenburg county, home to the city of Charlotte. McFadden, as sheriff, had legal authority to use government to keep people like Iryna safe from individuals like DeCarlos Brown Jr., who had a long history of violent crimes, and multiple felony convictions. Inarguably, he needs to answer for what happened to Iryna, because the circumstances of her murder are unacceptable in a lawful societywhy are local lawmen allowing criminals to roam free?

At one point, one of the legislators asked McFadden, What branch of government do you operate under? An underhanded softball questionor maybe even a tee-ball question. After all, this is elementary civics, there are only three possible answers meaning a 33% chance of getting it right, and this man works in government! In fact, he makes almost $240,000 a year in governmentwith a salary like that, hes got to at least know the three branches, and which of those he falls under. Not so fast.

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McFadden, without an ounce of self-doubt, asserts he falls under the Mecklenburg county branch of government. The lawmaker, perhaps thinking McFadden didnt hear or understand, repeats the question. His next answer? The constitution branch of government. Eh, thats not right buddy.

I, like the inquiring lawmaker who says, This was not where I anticipated getting stuck, am actually blown away (I shouldnt be, but I am).

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How is this actually possible? How can you be a sixty-something adult and not be able to name the three branches of government? How can you be a sheriff, unable to identify which branch you ostensibly belong to?

I mean, he does realize hes not voting on bills, right? Naturally, hes aware that hes not sitting on the bench, nor is he a lawyer with the prosecutors officeright? Couldnt he have at least used deductive reasoning and arrived at the correct answer? I guess not, as that would have required him to know the three branches to begin with. The Mecklenburg county branch and the constitution branch are about as far as one can possibly get from the right answer. He wasnt even close.

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And if you can believe this, it actually gets worse from here. The lawmaker, mercifully, gives McFadden the answer, telling him there are three branches: the legislative, executive, and judicial. He then asks McFadden with that information, can he answer now?

Nope.

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Apparently, McFadden doesnt realize hes not wearing a black robe with a gavel in hand, confidently stating hes part of the judicial system.

WATCH: North Carolina Sheriff Gary McFadden doesn't know which branch of government he falls under, or even what the three branches of government are. 



This explains the confusion around carry permits and why he thought he didn't have to issue them. pic.twitter.com/jo34i9pmts  Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) February 9, 2026

God help us.

At a minimum, McFadden needs to be thrown in jail. Taking on the role of civil servant, especially a lawman (the only law enforcement thats constitutionally permitted), comes with serious responsibility. When egregious (or weaponized) incompetence rears its head, getting innocent women hacked to death on trains because you dont want to lock up career violent offenders (no doubt because of racial and reparative justice beliefs), there should be serious consequences for the lawman who allows that sort of lawlessness. Some might be quick to say that it wasnt McFadden who released DeCarlos but a local activist judgebut to that I say, well then McFadden needs to round him up again, lock him up, and dare that judge to go to war over it.

There needs to be justice, and a huge part of that is accountability for those in positions of power.

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Who gets to decide the upbringing of our children?

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Across the country, parents are discovering that public school systems increasingly claim authority over deeply personal decisions once understood to belong to families. Schools are hiding controversial lessons from parents, not informing them about critical mental health concerns involving their kids, and retaliating against parents when they speak out.

If the Supreme Court doesnt act soon, Americans may find themselves forced into a kind of co-parenting arrangement with local school districts -- not by choice, but as a matter of school policy.

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No one may represent this growing national trend more than Amber Lavigne. She had no idea a school social worker was secretly aiding her 13-year-old in a gender transition. Worse still, public school officials supported a plan to keep Amber in the dark. The Goldwater Institute is now asking the Supreme Court to protect Ambers constitutional rights and to clarify that public schools cannot deliberately exclude parents from consequential decisions about their own children.

In early December 2022, Amber was helping clean her childs bedroom when she discovered a chest binder -- an undergarment used to flatten breasts so the wearer appears more masculine. She soon learned the binder had been provided by a social worker at Great Salt Bay Community School in Maine. According to Amber, the counselor told her child to keep it a secret. Rather than acknowledging a breach of trust, school officials defended the social workers deception, insisting no policy had been violated by providing a middle schooler with a chest binder while withholding that information from her parent.

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This was completely inappropriate. The Supreme Court has long recognized parents fundamental right to guide their childrens development. That right does not end at the schoolhouse gate, and it is incompatible with policies that authorize secrecy between government officials and children on matters of identity, mental health, or values without parental knowledge or consent.

Yet that principle was ignored here.

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Ambers case is not an outlier. Similar disputes are emerging across the country, and multiple parental-rights petitions have asked the Supreme Court to weigh in.

In Massachusetts and Florida, parents challenged school protocols that allowed staff to socially transition students -- using new names and pronouns -- without parental notification or consent. Taken together, these cases point to a growing assertion of school authority in areas once reserved for families.

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It is not just on issues of gender, either. What links these disputes is not subject matter, but government overreach. All over the United States, school districts and state officials are advancing policies that elevate institutional discretion over parental authority, often justifying secrecy as protection even when no evidence of abuse or danger exists.

In Indiana, for example, a mother was banned from her daughters middle school after speaking out about an alleged safety incident involving a bus driver. Rather than investigate the complaint, school officials issued a sweeping no-trespass order.

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In Pennsylvania, a school district attempted to classify its diversity, equity, and inclusion curriculum and teacher training materials as trade secrets, arguing that parents had no right to review them. A court rejected that claim, affirming that public-school indoctrination cannot be hidden from parents under the guise of proprietary information.

The result of this government secrecy is not safety, but eroded trust -- among families, between parents and institutions, and around the constitutional limits that safeguard individual liberty. Schools are charged with educating children, not raising them. Parental rights do not end at the schoolhouse gate simply because administrators find them inconvenient.

The Supreme Court recently affirmed this right in a ruling centered on school curriculum. In Montgomery County, Maryland, parents challenged a policy that eliminated opt-outs from elementary classes using LGBTQ-inclusive storybooks. Last year, in Mahmoud v. Taylor, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the parents were entitled to a preliminary injunction. The decision confirmed that educational goals do not override parental authority.

The Supreme Court now has an opportunity to restore clarity, and it should take it. Protecting parental rights does not require hostility toward students or indifference to their struggles. The Constitution requires something far more foundational: honesty, transparency, and respect for parents.

As the Supreme Court considers whether to take up Ambers case, the Goldwater Institute will continue fighting to ensure that public schools cannot usurp the role of parents behind closed doors. The Constitution does not permit government officials to keep secrets from parents, and the Court shouldnt allow schools to cut parents out.

Adam Shelton is a senior attorney with the Goldwater Institute.

Image: Pixabay
An important decision rendered by the Fifth Circuit on Feb. 6, 2026 sided with the Trump administration on the issue of detention without bond for certain noncitizens arrested in the U.S. interior. Reuters reports that this marked the first time an appeals court upheld the Trump administrations policy of mandatory detention without the opportunity to be released on bond while removal proceedings are pending for noncitizens who entered the country unlawfully and are later arrested in the U.S. interior.

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The decision comes after hundreds of lower-court rulings nationwide declared mandatory detention unlawful. In its opinion, the Fifth Circuit noted that well over a thousand habeas petitions have been filed challenging this policy shift, and it cited a New York decision that cataloged 350 district-court rulings granting relief to detainees.

For the majority, with Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan joining, Judge Edith H. Jones wrote that the relevant statute, 8 USC 1225(b)(2)(A), requires mandatory detention of applicants for admission who are not clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted, and that the petitioners fell within that category even though they were arrested years after entering unlawfully. The court concluded that being an applicant for admission necessarily means the person is also seeking admission for purposes of 1225(b)(2)(A), rejecting the argument that seeking admission applies only to people actively trying to enter at a port of entry. The panel reversed both district courts orders and sent the cases back for further proceedings consistent with its opinion.

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The consolidated appeals involved two Mexican nationals  Victor Buenrostro-Mendez (who entered in 2009) and Jose Padron Covarrubias (who entered in 2001)  who were detained in 2025 after immigration officers determined they were inadmissible because they were present in the United States without having been admitted or paroled. Both sought bond hearings, and immigration judges found them ineligible under the governments reading of the statute. Two federal district judges disagreed and ordered bond hearings, after which both men were released. The government appealed.

The Fifth Circuit decision aligns with a Sept. 5, 2025 Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) ruling in the Matter of Yajure Hurtado, which concluded that many noncitizens who entered without inspection and have not been admitted are subject to mandatory detention under 1225(b)(2) rather than discretionary detention under  1226(a). After DHS began applying that interpretation in 2025, the Fifth Circuit reported that the shift triggered a nationwide wave of habeas challenges. The majority (in the Fifth Circuit) also said its reading fits Congresss 1996 immigration overhaul (IIRIRA), which sought to eliminate what courts have called the entry anomaly  the idea that unlawful entrants could end up with more favorable treatment than people who tried to enter lawfully.

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In Yajure Hurtado, the respondent (a Venezuelan national) crossed into the United States without inspection in November 2022 near El Paso, Texas; received Temporary Protected Status in 2024; and was charged as inadmissible after that status expired in April 2025. The BIA held that immigration judges lack authority to conduct bond hearings or grant bond to noncitizens who are present in the United States without admission and are detained under 1225(b)(2)(A).

Judge Dana M. Douglas wrote the dissenting opinion, warning that the governments interpretation would mean that, for the purposes of immigration detention, the border is now everywhere. She added, That is not the law Congress passed, and if it had, it would have spoken more clearly.

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Judge Jones, on the other hand, emphasized that Section 1225(b)(2) does not include any exception that permits the government to release detained aliens on bond. In a footnote, citing Torres v Barr, she writes,

By covering both unadmitted aliens present in the United States and those who arrive at the countrys borders, Section 1225(a)(1) ensure[d] that all immigrants who have not been lawfully admitted, regardless of their presence in the country, are placed on equal footing in removal proceedings under the INA. Advertisement

The Fifth Circuits published decision is binding precedent in the Fifth Circuit (Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi), but it is not binding in other circuits. Parties may seek rehearing en banc, and other federal appeals courts may weigh in, which could increase the odds of Supreme Court review  especially if the circuits disagree.

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Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) announced the Neighborhood Curbside Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Station Pilot, which will inform regulation updates and demonstrate guidelines for a permit program for private vendors to install, operate, and maintain curbside EV charging stations in the District's public right-of-way. The pilot is being deployed in partnership with the EV charging company, it's electric , and funded by a federal grant awarded to the company.

its electric and DDOT Announce Neighborhood Curbside Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Station Pilot

it's electric will install, operate, and maintain sixteen (16) curbside chargers serving two (2) adjacent parking spaces in eight (8) locations in the District  one location in each Ward. The first location is open in Ward 1 next to The Festival Center (1640 Columbia Rd NW) on Mozart Pl NW . This and all future locations have been carefully reviewed to ensure safety, accessibility, and compatibility with other street uses. The remaining seven (7) locations will be installed in the coming months.

"The District is committed to becoming carbon neutral and climate resilient by 2045. To achieve this, DDOT is working to make it easier for someone to choose sustainable transportation options," said DDOT Director Sharon Kershbaum. "By implementing this Pilot, DDOT can foster experimentation around urban electrification to help cities across the country accelerate the learning curve for curbside EV charging deployments."

"These chargers are a meaningful step toward expanding transportation electrification in DC and cements DDOT's reputation as an agency that embraces pilot partnerships. From EV charging to E-bike battery swapping, DDOT is delivering innovative transportation infrastructure that demonstrates what cities must do to create sustainable, livable neighborhoods," said Judy Chang, Project Director for it's electric. "We have so much to be proud of here."

"We are excited to partner with DDOT and it's electric to bring convenient charging to our neighborhood," said Bill Mefford, Executive Director at The Festival Center. "The Festival Center is a hub for mission-driven groups, and we are thrilled to extend our commitment to our community all the way to the curb. it's electric's business model allows us as the property owner to share in the revenue, which we then can re-invest in our other initiatives."

These are single-port Level-2 chargers that require users to bring their own charging cable. District residents can request a free cable via the it's electric app ( https://www.itselectric.us/for-drivers ). Cables are delivered between 1-3 business days. Advisory Neighborhood Commissions (ANCs) have been part of the process of determining the best locations, and Ward Councilmember offices and residents on the street block of the charger location will be notified by it's electric on how to request their free cable.

This Pilot represents a milestone in the District's efforts to expand access to publicly accessible EV charging infrastructure and to incentivize District residents to switch to zero-emission vehicles. The Pilot's progress will be monitored and posted here: https://sustainability.ddot.dc.gov/pages/pilotprojects .

CONTACT:

German Vigil  (202) 306-1668, [email protected]

Darnisha Green  (202) 853-6310, [email protected]

Tiya Gordon  (917) 513-2488, [email protected]

About it's electric

Millions of drivers lack home or private garages and cannot transition to electric vehicles due to the lack of on-street charging. it's electric accelerates the adoption of EVs with its scalable and simple curbside charging solution ensuring that every community has access to clean, sustainable transportation options. Building owners and drivers who would like to see a charger on their block (in Los Angeles and beyond) and drivers who would like to receive their cable can put the process in motion via it's electric's waitlist itselectric.us/join.

To learn more about it's electric, please visit https://www.itselectric.us.

Press Contact

Tiya Gordon

(917) 513-2488

https://itselectric.us/

SOURCE its electric
The latest revelations from the Epstein files, including Musks brother and an alleged phone call from Donald Trump

The fallout from the three million documents released from the Justice Department as part of the Epstein files continues to embroil high-profile politicians and businessmen as more revelations are uncovered.

Justice Department officials unredacted the names of six men, including Les Wexner, the former CEO of Victorias Secret, at the request of lawmakers leading the campaign for more transparency. The members of Congress accused officials of redacting the names of potential co-conspirators as well.

Tuesday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick admitted to visiting Epsteins Caribbean island in 2012 after claiming, four months ago, he had been so disgusted by the disgraced financier he had cut ties with him in 2005. That was after documents indicated Lutnick had a further-reaching relationship than he had previously suggested.

Kimbal Musk, the brother of Elon Musk, also denied any wrongdoing associated with Epstein, claiming his name was mentioned in the files because of a newsletter he sent out.

Here are the latest developments with the Epstein files.

As reporters go through the three million pages of Epstein files, more revelations about powerful people connected to the disgraced financier are uncovered (AFP via Getty Images)

Epstein got his girlfriend into Columbia University dental school

A series of documents and emails shows that Epstein used his wealth and connections to powerful people to get his girlfriend, Karyna Shuliak, into Columbia Universitys dental school after she was initially rejected.

Email exchanges show Epstein reached out to a friend who worked as a professor at the school, met with administrators for drinks, managed to have the schools alumni prep Shuliak for entrance exams, had her unfinished credits from a Belarusian dental school transferred over and made a $100,000 donation to a project run by the dean of the school.

Ultimately, Shuliak was accepted.The Independent has asked Columbia College of Dental Medicine for comment.

Kimbal Musk denies meeting Epstein multiple times

Kimbal Musk, the brother of Elon Musk, denied meeting with Epstein multiple times and explained that his name appears in the Epstein files because of a newsletter he sent out.

My only meeting with that demon was in his New York office during the day. I never met with him again and I never went to his island, Kimbal Musk said on X. Email exchanges show that Kimbal Musk turned down an invitation to Epsteins island in January 2013 and, at one point, personally emailed Epstein to tell him he got divorced.

Elon Musk also exchanged emails with Epstein, including some that appeared to show the two planning a trip to Epsteins island. Elon Musk denies ever going to the island or any wrongdoing.

Justice Department unredacts names of six men under pressure from lawmakers

The Justice Department unredacted the names of at least six men named in the Epstein files alongside Maxwell and Epstein under pressure from Republican Rep. Thomas Massie and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna.

After reviewing the unredacted versions at the Justice Department, Khanna and Massie questioned why the men, who did not appear to be survivors of Epsteins abuse, had their names censored.

DOJ officials then unveiled the names: Leslie Wexner, the former CEO of Victorias Secret, who was also named as a potential co-conspirator; Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, the CEO of DP World; Salvatore Nuara; Zurab Mikeladze, Leonic Leonov and Nicola Caputo.Wexner has denied allegations of wrongdoing. The other named people have not been formally accused of wrongdoing.

Lutnick admits to visiting Epsteins island

Lutnick admitted to visiting Epsteins island in the U.S. Virgin Islands with his family in 2012 but emphatically denied any wrongdoing during an unrelated Senate hearing Tuesday morning.

I did have lunch with him as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation, Lutnick said after being questioned by Senator Chris Van Hollen.

Lutnick said he and his family did not witness anything suspicious while on Epstein's island for a brief period of time in 2012 (Getty Images)

My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies. I had another couple, they were there as well with their children and we had lunch on the island. That is true. For an hour. Then we left.

The new revelation comes after reports contradicting a claim Lutnick made as recently as October, when he said he met Epstein once in 2005 but was so disgusted that he was never in the room with him socially, for business or even philanthropy.

However, documents in the Epstein files suggested Lutnick and Epstein scheduled to have drinks in May 2011, spoke various times over the phone beginning in 2009, and that Epstein donated $50,000 to a philanthropic dinner recognizing Lutnick in 2017.

Lutnick insisted Tuesday that nothing untoward occurred while he and his family were on the island and he did not witness anything other than staff tending to Epstein.

However, lawmakers have seized on the revelation to call for Lutnick to resign.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump still supports Lutnick, referring to the commerce secretary as a very important member of Trumps team.

Lutnick has not been accused of any offenses and has denied any wrongdoing. Being mentioned in the Epstein files does not in itself imply any wrongdoing.

Trump reportedly thanked Florida police for investigating Epstein in 2006

Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter told FBI agents that Trump called the police department in July 2006 to thank them for investigating Epstein, claiming everyone has known hes been doing this.

A transcript of a 2019 FBI interview with the now-former police chief, released in the Epstein files, indicates the president may have known about Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwells activities with young women and girls prior to Epsteins 2008 state conviction.

Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein (Getty)

Trump recommended the police focus on evil Maxwell, Reiter told the FBI.

Reiter told the Miami Herald that the FBI interviewed him in October 2019 about his departments investigation into Epstein. He said Trump called him in July 2006.

When asked, in July 2019, if he had any knowledge that Epstein molested underage women, Trump told reporters, No, I had no idea. I had no idea.

In July 2025, reporters asked Trump if he knew why Epstein had recruited female staffers from Mar-a-Lago. Trump responded, No, I dont know really why.

Epstein paid Les Wexner $100 million after theft allegations

An internal Justice Department memo suggests attorneys for Les Wexner, the billionaire former CEO of Victorias Secret, told federal prosecutors Epstein repaid him $100 million for stealing or mishandling hundreds of millions of dollars.

The memo states Epstein was the primary financial adviser to Wexner beginning in the 1990s, amassing real estate, a private plane and other luxuries owned by Wexner or his businesses. However, after corporate lawyers took over Wexners finances, they reportedly discovered a significant amount of funds had been misappropriated.

To avoid drawing attention as Epstein was facing his first set of legal problems in Florida, Wexner agreed to a private settlement of $100 million. Wexner said he broke off relations with Epstein after that and had no subsequent contact with him. There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by Wexner.

Reps Massie (left) and Khanna have railed against the Justice Department for improperly redacting names of people associated with Epstein and Maxwell (Getty)

Justice Department unredacts names from potential co-conspirator list

The Justice Department unredacted the names of people listed alongside Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, potential co-conspirators Monday evening, under pressure from two lawmakers.

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna were among lawmakers who reviewed unredacted versions of the Epstein files at the Justice Department, and criticized officials for redacting the names of Wexner; Lesley Groff, Epsteins executive assistant; and Karyna Shuliak, Epsteins former girlfriend.

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche why Wexners name was unredacted in the first place.
In the broader context of world history and culture, foxes are some of the most interesting animals around. If you're a fan of these creatures, foxesaka members of the genus Vulpecan be found all across the world, particularly in North America, Europe and Asia. Over the centuries, though, theyve played intriguing roles in human mythology and folklore. In fact, in Western culture, they are often depicted as clever tricksters, while in East Asia, especially in Japan, they are seen as mystical or divine beings with magical qualities. Today, these adorable animals are as popular as ever, so weve put together a list of 150+ fox names you can choose from to help you out.

That way, whether youre looking for cute fox names this list has plenty of inspiration. These animal names are great for real pet foxes, ones you always see in your yard that you want to give a moniker to, stuffed fox toys, or even fictional fox characters. So, how should you pick the best fox name? Your foxs name should capture its personality, charm and mischievous spiritmaking it memorable and fun for everyone who meets them. Once you've got a handle on your fox's whole vibe, you can start looking for names that fit the bill.

So, what are you waiting on? Go ahead and pick a name thats as unforgettable and unique as your furry (or fictional) friend! You may even find a few that you like on our list.

Fantastic Fox Names For Males and Females

An Arctic fox with heterochromia.

Below, you'll find a variety of fantastic fox names for both males and females to spark your imagination and help you find the idea fit for your foxy friend. For male foxes, AKA dog foxes, you might look for strong, clever, or adventurous names that reflect their daring and spirited nature. For female foxes, or vixens, softer and more gracefu names might be more of what you're looking for.

Female Fox Names

Chula

Brandy

Corinne

Lakshmi

Zoe

Vulpecula

Eloise

Inola

Lisa

Flora

Magenta

Veronica

Dahlia

Nina

Cora

Vera

Vixen

Lyla

Fallon

Priya

Nariya

Raposa

Felicia

Male Fox Names

Basil

Ambrose

Lyric

Zorro

Chance

Cormac

Vince

Felix

Devereux

Silvio

Wayland

Cadoc

Reinhard

Fabian

Melrakki

Finnegan

Todd

Sionn

Zeke

Prince

Tokala

Flint

Reuben

Ravi

Fiery Red Fox Names

A curious young red fox in the woods.

When people think of foxes, most of them visualize the classic "red fox," aka Vulpes vulpes. Red foxes can be found natively across the entire Northern Hemisphere, which explains why they're the species most commonly associated with the name "fox" (though the increasingly popular big-eared fennec fox may one day surpass them)! As their name implies, red foxes are best known for their bright rust-red coats, which inspired us to include such colorful names as these!

Russel

Fuschia

Rouge

Blaze

Rufus

Ruby

Amber

Garnet

Shani

Rusty

Shula

Fiama

Rory

Copper

Ember

Brando

Akane

Cute Fox Nicknames

A tiny fox kit standing on a mossy rock.

Not quite feline and not quite canine, foxes are their own unique brand of adorable, and with their bold, intelligent and endearing personalities, they really know how to steal your heart. If you want a super-cutesy name for your foxor just an adorable nickname you can use instead of their proper namewe've got a few animal name suggestion you'll love.

Snowy

Sparky

Misty

Silver

Cinnamon

Flurry

Sly

Breeze

Piper

Skipper

Jules

Pepper

Kit

Vixie

Ace

Knox

Lucky

Scout

Lil Red

Maple

Rudy

Comet

Fancy

Briar

Tiptoes

Ginger

Fuzzy

Penny

Funny Fox Names

A fennec fox doing a big stretch.

Who said naming a fox had to be serious business? If your fox is a comedic cut-up, pair them up with an endearingly funny fox name! After all, a name that sparks a little laughter is amazing for your spirited friend.

Mulder (X-Files fans will dig this one)

Mozilla

Fireball

Kit-Kat

Ziggy

Sprocket

Finicky (for a fussy fennec fox)

Bingo

Sleuth

Foxglove

Fizz

Fox Machine

Rascal

Chex Mix

Gizmo

Frisky

Randy

Snickers

Rebel

Kibble

Trixie

Bandit

Chili

Socks

Marmalade

Foxtrot

Skulker

Pixel

Fidget

Slinky

Fox Names Inspired by Mythology and Folklore

A kitsune statue outside of the Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto, Japan.

Since the time of Aesop's fables, humans across the world have been telling stories about mystical foxesand in certain East Asian mythologies, some foxes have even ascended to the level of godhood. These names are all inspired by major mythological fox figures from around the world (though many of them come from Japan, as foxes are uniquely celebrated in Japanese folklore and religion).

Reynard: Reynard the Fox was a popular trickster figure in medieval European folklore. The name Reynard comes from the French word for fox, renard.

Kitsune: In Japanese folklore, kitsune are fox spirits who often appear as tricksters or shape shifters. They are frequently depicted with multiple tails, with the oldest fox spirits having up to nine tails.

Kumiho: In Korean mythology, kumiho are shape-shifting, nine-tailed foxes that can assume the form of humans, most commonly beautiful women. Both kitsune and kumiho are derived from jiuweihu, the magical nine-tailed fox spirits from ancient Chinese mythology.

Yegan: A wild, people-eating foxlike beast from Chinese mythology.

Firefox: Not the web browserin Finland, the firefox (or tulikettu) is a mystical fox with a tail of twinkling fire.

Tenko: The Japanese name for the Sky Fox, a powerful golden fox spirit that flies through the heavens.

Aguara: A fox trickster spirit from Guarani mythology.

Inari: Inari Okami is the Shinto deity of foxes, fertility, rice, and agriculture. Inari shrines, often marked with scarlet torii gates and kitsune figures, can be found all over Japan.

Kuzunoha: A popular white kitsune character from Japanese folklore. After being freed from a trap by a young nobleman, the grateful Kuzunoha assumed the form of a beautiful woman and married him.

Dakiniten: An esoteric Japanese Buddhist goddess with Hindu origins that eventually became intrinsically linked to Inari. She was often depicted riding a white fox.

Amaterasu: The Shinto goddess of the sun, Amaterasu, would sometimes assume the form of a dragon-fox.

Famous Fox Names from Pop Culture

An adorable little fennec fox.

Even if we were to put aside the many thousands of years of mythology and folklore surrounding foxes, these critters have still shown up time and time again in pop culture throughout the past hundred or so years. From Disney classics like Pinocchio and Zootopia to best-selling video game franchises like Star Fox and Pokemon, pop culture is filled with famous fox names you can pull from.

Honest John (Pinocchio)

Nick Wilde (Zootopia)

Freddy Fox (Peppa Pig)

Yoko Kurama (YuYu Hakusho)

Gideon Grey (Zootopia)

Fenneko (Aggretsuko)

Robin Hood (Disneys Robin Hood)

Maid Marian (Disneys Robin Hood)

Queen Bee (Helluva Boss)

Swiper (Dora the Explorer)

Fox McCloud (Star Fox)

Finnick (Zootopia)

Mr. Tod (The Tale of Mr. Tod)

Miles Tails Prower (Sonic the Hedgehog)

Felicity (The Fantastic Mr. Fox)

Shippo (Inuyasha)

Fink (The Wild Robot)

Krystal (Star Fox)

Carmelita (Sly Cooper)

Greggory (Night in the Woods)

Ninetails (Okami)

Spy Fox (Spy Fox)

Vulpix (Pokemon)

Scarlett Fox (Ranger Rick)

Slagar (Redwall)

Redd (Animal Crossing)

Tod (The Fox and the Hound)

Sela (Redwall)

Foxy (Five Nights at Freddys)

Diane Foxington (The Bad Guys)

This story was originally published by PetHelpful on Feb 9, 2026, where it first appeared in the Wildlife section. Add PetHelpful as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Kids love to play. Thats true of human kids, and its also true of goat kids. As this video of Cheddar and Swiss, to adorably rambunctious goat kids, shows, playing is a universal part of childhood.

But what makes this video so special is that this video was taken merely hours after these two little cuties were born, so this is one of the first times that they have ever played together!

Although Cheddar and Swiss are both new to this world, and playing with each other, its already clear that they are a couple of naturals! As the human who filmed this adorable footage excitedly remarks, Oh my God, theyre already play sparring!

In this video, you can see them playfully butting heads and jostling with each other. We guess that such things are merely instincts for Cheddar and Swiss. According to this video, Cheddar is the baby girl, and her brother, Swiss, is the baby boy.

Related: Rambunctious Goat Kids Attempts To Climb All Over Donkey Friend Are the Cutest Chaos

Quite adorably, their mothers name is none other than Mama Feta, and their daddys name is Colby Jack. Thats just too cute, LOL. Cheddar and Swiss are Mama Fetas third and fourth goat kids, and Colby Jacks fifth and sixth! Wow, their father is a very busy goat, LOL!

More Precious Baby Goats

In keeping with the theme of adorable baby goats with cheesy names, this wildlife sanctuary also recently welcomed baby Fontina to its family. She is the half-sister of Swiss and Cheddar. Her dad is (once again) Colby Jack, and her mama is Brie.

According to this video, Fontina is the second baby that Brie has had with Colby Jack. And yeah, and like we said, Colby Jack really knows how to keep himself busy, LOL! He must be a very proud father, LOL!

One things for sure, Swiss and Cheddar wont just be play sparring with each other because they have so many siblings to play around with.

And hey, if they do get bored with each other, were certain that Colby Jack is ready to give them some more siblings very soon, LOL!

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This story was originally published by PetHelpful on Feb 10, 2026, where it first appeared in the Pet News section. Add PetHelpful as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The Afghan data breach that exposed the details of more than 18,000 people was a wake-up call for the way government handles data, a security minister has told MPs.

Dan Jarvis, who oversees hostile threats to the UK as well as cybersecurity and crime in his job as security minister, said on Tuesday that there had been significant change across government to make sure civil servants know how to handle personal data well, and know who is responsible for oversight.

The Afghan leak, which potentially put up to 100,000 lives at risk from reprisals by the Taliban, was discovered in August 2023 and led to thousands of Afghans being secretly relocated to the UK. The breach came about when a Ministry of Defence (MoD) official emailed a spreadsheet with 33,000 rows of personal contact information to someone outside government.

The leak was hidden from the public and MPs through the use of a superinjunction and was only revealed afterThe Independent and other media organisations successfully fought to lift it.

Mr Jarvis told the science and technology committee on Tuesday: I think it is right to say that the Afghan data incident was a big wake-up call and, as a consequence, weve seen quite significant cultural process change. But as ministers, we think its important to provide the leadership [on good data practice].

Dan Jarvis appears before the science and technology committee of MPs (Parliamentary TV)

The UKs data regulator, the Information Commissioners Office (ICO), which was responsible for probing the MoDs response to the leak, chose not to launch a formal investigation into what had gone wrong, a decision that was met with criticism after the breach came to light. The ICO was one of the few official bodies that knew about the leak, while the public and MPs were kept in the dark for nearly two years.

Following this breach, and another Afghan data incident involving mistakenly shared emails, the ICO signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the government in January in an effort to scrutinise data handling.

It commits the government to greater transparency, with the regulator promising to hold government to account if mistakes happen again.

An assurance statement will also be published each year to show how the publics data is being kept safe and the government will involve the ICO earlier in projects, such as digital ID, which involve new technologies and use of personal data.

Ian Murray, minister at the department for science and technology, said serious government data breaches were rare (Parliament TV)

A government chief data officer has also been put in place to be in charge of data practice across different departments.

Vincent Devine, the governments chief security officer, said the MOU committed the government to a really radically different approach to the regulator. He said that working more closely with the ICO would lead to a more trusting relationship where government share information more broadly.

MPs previously heard how officers at the ICO took no contemporaneous notes of their decision not to launch an official investigation into the Afghan data breach, claiming they were unable to record anything due to the classification of the secret information.

Ian Murray MP, minister at the Department for Science and Technology, said the breaches were incredibly serious, but given that government shares and uses data billions of times a week, government data on the whole is very secure.

He added: These incidents, while very serious, are within the government context of data, very rare. Theyve set in motion a whole series of events including the MOU, including the review.

However, he caveated his comments, saying: It would be wrong to suggest that all data is going to be 100 per cent secure forever because human error is very difficult to take out of the system.
MILAN, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics officially opened at San Siro Stadium in Milano on February 6, 2026. Just 15 days earlier, the FBI arrested one of its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives: Ryan Wedding.

As former Olympic snowboarder and cocaine kingpin Ryan Wedding makes headlines for his FBI arrest, volunteers from the Foundation for a Drug-Free World are lighting the torch of drug prevention across Italy for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics.

Wedding, a Canadian snowboarder, competed in the 2002 Winter Olympics, finishing 24th in the men's parallel giant slalom. After finishing in 24th place, he left the mountain snow for another kind of snowcocaine. For more than a decade, Wedding oversaw the shipment of about 60 metric tons of cocaine each year into the United States and Canadafueling addiction and destroying lives.

But Wedding is just one of many drug lords who continue to flood society with drugs. This shatters communities and puts young people directly in harm's way.

"According to a Reuters report, 39 percent of Italians aged 15 to 19 have tried drugs at least once," says Jessica Hochman, Executive Director of the Foundation for a Drug-Free World. "Drug kingpins don't succeed on their own. Every first use helps keep this industry alive. Prevention is how we stop it."

"When young people know what drugs actually do to their bodies, curiosity disappears," Hochman adds. "You wouldn't drink drain cleaner just because someone offered it. So why smoke crystal meth? Education makes the danger obvious."

Since January, Drug-Free World volunteers have distributed Truth About Drugs booklets to the community, including shop owners, students and Olympic torchbearers in preparation for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics. Volunteers have taken to the streets of Milano, Bergamo, Monza, Novara, Pordenone, Vicenza, Padua, Verona, Sardinia, Modena, Como and Florence with a single message: know the facts, make informed choices.

On the day of the opening ceremony, 90 volunteers rallied across Italy to distribute more than 100,000 booklets in a single day. "A woman and a man in the metro were impressed by the work we were doing. They decided to take some booklets for their grandchildren," says one volunteer. "In one chocolate shop, all employees took a booklet," explains another. "Several policemen from the Carabinieri congratulated us and took booklets as well."

With more than 350,000 Truth About Drugs booklets distributed and counting, this is just the beginning. Like an Olympic torch relay, Drug-Free World volunteers will continue carrying the message across Italy and reaching youth before dealers do.

The Foundation for a Drug-Free World is the largest nongovernmental drug education and prevention organization. Through a worldwide network of volunteers, millions of drug prevention booklets and educational materials have been distributed in over 180 countries. Thanks to the support of the Church of Scientology, these materials are made available free of charge to anyone wishing to take action to address the drug issue that affects everyone. For more information, visit www.drugfreeworld.org.

SOURCE Foundation for a Drug-Free World
Air India has been offering cash settlements to the families of victims of last years devastating Ahmedabad plane crash if they forego their rights to file legal cases against the airline and manufacturer, The Independent has learned.

The London-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner had 242 people on board when it crashed moments after taking off on 12 June, hitting a medical college hostel and erupting in a fireball.

Only one passenger, Viswashkumar Ramesh, survived the crash, while another 19 people were killed on the ground.

Air India announced an initial compensation payout of Rs2.5m (20,215) to the families of each of those who died in the months after the crash, while the airline's owner, Tata Group, pledged to add another Rs10m (80,850).

Debris of Air India flight 171 after it crashed in a residential area near the airport in Ahmedabad on 12 June 2025 (AFP via Getty)

While the official investigation into the crash is ongoing, Air India and Boeing are facing a litany of lawsuits alleging safety lapses and demanding accountability for what happened. Several of these suits have been filed in the British courts. Of those who died, 53 were UK nationals.

Now, according to the legal team representing 130 of the victims families, Air India has been offering them an extra, final payment if they will sign an indemnity document giving up the right to take part in the suits. Documents seen by The Independent showed the amount being offered as of Rs1m (8,085), though it is understood that the compensation is not uniform and other families have received offers up to Rs2m (16,170).

The families are being asked to irrevocably and forever release any right to sue or make claims, now or in the future, in relation to the crash, and to protect the other side from all legal responsibility linked to the incident, the document seen byThe Independent reads.

India home affairs minister Amit Shah meets British plane crash survivor Vishwash Kumar Ramesh at a hospital in Ahmedabad (PA)

We the Releasors agree that all the indemnities contained herein shall remain fully binding, effective and enforceable irrespective of the forum, place, country or jurisdiction in which any such claim demand, action or proceeding is brought or pursued, one of the clauses reads.

Ayush Dubey, the case manager at Chionuma Law, told The Independent: We oppose this document. It asks families to give up all their legal rights against every party while the investigation is still ongoing. The full facts are not known yet, and it is not clear who is responsible.

Some injured families are still under medical treatment, and their treatment is not even completed, yet they are being asked to give up all future claims. This is unfair.

Families should not be pressured to sign away their rights before the investigation is complete. Any decision like this should only be made after the truth is known and families fully understand what they are giving up, he said.

In London, several families of the victims have filed a personal injury lawsuit at the London High Court. James Healy-Pratt, an aviation partner at Keystone Law, toldThe Independent that High Court proceedings have been issued against Air India, but they have not yet been formally served on them.

Air India employees pay a floral tribute to the victims of the Air India flight 171 crash, at the accident site in Ahmedabad (AFP via Getty)

This is against the backdrop of upcoming confidential negotiations in London. Hopefully, the parties will resolve their claims through such dialogue without the need for a trial in the Kings Bench Division of the London High Court, he added.

Separately, the families of four passengers killed in the crash are suing Boeing in the US, alleging that the accident resulted from faulty fuel switches. The lawsuit, filed in September last year, blames Boeing and Honeywell  the company that made the switches  for the crash.

The lawsuit was filed months after an initial investigative report, submitted about 30 days after the crash in line with international regulations, claimed that three seconds after taking off, the planes engines fuel cutoff switches almost simultaneously flipped from run to cutoff, starving the engines of fuel.

The aircraft immediately began to lose thrust and sank down. One pilot could be heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he cut off the fuel. The other pilot responded that he did not do so, the report said. The report also noted that an auxiliary power unit, intended to provide power to the aircraft in the event of engine failure, deployed automatically.

Less than 10 seconds later, both switches were returned to the on position. Moments afterwards, one of the two pilots transmitted a mayday call, after which the aircraft crashed.

People attend a candlelight vigil outside the High Commission of India, India House in London, to honour the victims of the Air India crash (James Manning/PA)

A spokesperson for Air India said: Following initial interim payments, we have ensured that the final amount offered to each family is fair and in accordance with the law, and information about this has been shared in a transparent, compassionate way. Air India remains committed to doing everything we can to support every impacted family as they navigate through this difficult process.

We wholeheartedly understand that monetary compensation cannot make up for the loss of a loved one. At the same time, getting more clarity about final compensation is an important moment for the families affected by this tragic incident.

In a previous statement about Flight 171 in August 2025, the airline said: The safety of our passengers, crew and aircraft is our foremost priority. Following the tragic accident involving AI171 in June, we have undertaken a series of proactive measures and conducted comprehensive checks, ensuring that every flight continues to meet the highest global standards of safety and customer service.

The measures included fleet inspections, safety pause and operational enhancements, safety protocols and training, and phased resumption of international flights, among others.

The Independent has reached out to Boeing for comment. It has previously referred media inquiries to the Indian authorities, citing the ongoing crash investigation.

This article was amended on the day of publication to include a statement from Air India.
A clear night at the Valle de La Luna in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. Photograph: Bryan Toro/Alamy (Photograph: Bryan Toro/Alamy)

The scientific community is celebrating the cancellation of a project which would have threatened the clearest skies in the world in Chiles Atacama Desert.

The proposed $10bn, 3,000-hectare green hydrogen and ammonia production facility, known as INNA, included a port, transport links to the coast and three solar power plants, and had been under evaluation by Chiles environmental regulator for almost a year.

Astronomers had warned repeatedly that its proximity to some of the worlds most powerful telescopes would have irreparably damaged observation in the area, which is the best site in the world for ground-based astronomy.

This cancellation means that the INNA project will no longer have a negative impact on the Paranal Observatory, said Itziar de Gregorio, the European Southern Observatorys (ESO) representative in Chile, where it operates three telescope complexes.

Related: Chiles perfect skies for stargazing under threat from giant chemical plant

However, what this megaproject has brought to the table is the urgent need for clear protection measures around the sites where professional astronomy is carried out in Chile. This cancellation does not mean that the work to protect the skies is over.

Chiles environmental evaluation service confirmed that, following meetings last week with AES Andes  the company which had proposed the facility  the project has now been formally withdrawn.

Scientists had warned that the INNA facility would affect readings by raising light pollution, causing tiny vibrations in the earth which would affect instruments, aerialise dust which could settle on the mirrors of its precision telescopes, and increase atmospheric turbulence.

They argued that there was no need to place the facility so close to the observatories given the potentially disastrous consequences for astronomy.

Aes Andes, a subsidiary of US company AES Corporation which generates energy in Chile, Colombia and Argentina, with coal, gas, hydroelectric, wind and solar plants, declined to comment.

However, in a press release it said: After detailed analysis of its portfolio of projects, [AES Andes] has decided to cease the execution of the INNA project, although it added that it was absolutely compatible with other activities in the area.

An open letter published in December, led by 2020 Nobel prize winner Reinhard Genzel, had urged the Chilean government to kill the proposed project, as the facility would have been just 11.6km from Paranal, one of the worlds most important observatories.

Its Very Large Telescope (VLT), built 2,600 metres above sea level, has taken the readings that have won three Nobel prizes. And on nearby Cerro Armazones, the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT)  will be the largest and most powerful telescope ever built  is under construction.

It will allow astronomers to scour distant galaxies, as well as Earth-like exoplanets in our own galaxy, that might support life.
Ahmad Mulakhil, 23, was found guilty at Warwick Crown Court (West Midlands Police)

An asylum seeker has been found guilty of abducting and raping a 12-year-old in a targeted attack in Warwickshire.

Afghan national Ahmad Mulakhil, 23, whose victim said he laughed while attacking her last summer, was found guilty of rape and two counts of sexual assault.

He admitted a further rape charge before his trial.

Jurors at Warwick Crown Court also convicted him of child abduction and taking an indecent video of the girl during her ordeal near a residential cul-de-sac.

His co-defendant, Mohammad Kabir, also an asylum seeker from Afghanistan, was acquitted of charges of intentional strangulation, attempted child abduction and committing an offence with intent to commit a sexual offence.

Kabir, who is 24 according to court documents but told jurors he is 22, was cleared after maintaining that he never touched the victim and had no sexual intentions towards her.

Ahmad Mulakhil and Mohammad Kabir were seen on CCTV in a supermarket a day after the incident (Warwickshire Police/PA)

The incident sparked protests in Nuneaton, Warwickshire.

Jurors at a ten-day trial were told that Mulakhil arrived in the UK four months before the rapes and had made an immigration application linked to problems he had experienced in Afghanistan.

The trial was not told that Mulakhil arrived in Britain by small boat, or that Kabir had entered the UK by the same method on Christmas Day in 2024.

The mens arrest and charge prompted Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and Warwickshire County Council leader George Finch to claim there had been a cover-up of details about the attack.

Speaking in August, Mr Farage also suggested that the immigration status of people charged with offences should be released by police forces.

While guidance for police has since changed to allow forces to give nationality and ethnicity details if there is a legitimate policing purpose, forces still do not confirm crime suspects immigration status.

Jurors deliberated for more than seven hours over three days before reaching their verdicts.

Warwick Crown Court (Andrew Matthews/PA)

Remanding Mulakhil in custody for sentence on a date to be fixed, Judge Kristina Montgomery KC said of him: He will plainly receive a substantial custodial sentence which will automatically make him liable for deportation at its conclusion.

She also thanked the jury for discharging their duties without paying any regard to noise surrounding the proceedings.

Mulakhil told police he believed the girl was 19 and that she had initiated what was his first sexual encounter.

During the trial, Prosecutor Daniel Oscroft described Mulakhils attempts to blame his victim for what happened as stomach-churning and pretty revolting.

During his closing speech to the trial jury, Mr Oscroft said of Mulakhil: There was no hint in the evidence he gave of any pause for reflection or to consider that in retrospect he made a mistake.

He is blaming her.

He has tried to argue that he believed she was an adult  that he initially didnt want anything to do with it  that she drove all of it, and that she consented throughout.

The victim, who cannot be identified in media reports, told the trial she was approached in a park by both defendants after playing on swings.

During the sex attacks, the girl said, she had told her attacker to stop.

Asked by police what he was saying, the girl responded: Nothing. He was just laughing.

I was saying get off me. He didnt say anything, he just carried on.

Kabir was ordered to be discharged from the dock following his acquittal, with the court being told he would be released into the care of the escort service taking him to where he resides or is being held.

Commenting after the case, a Home Office spokesperson said: We will not allow foreign criminals and illegal migrants to exploit our laws. We are reforming human rights laws and replacing the broken appeals system so we can scale up deportations.

The Home Secretary has recently announced sweeping reforms to tackle illegal migration. They will make Britain a less attractive destination for illegal migrants and will make it easier to remove and deport them.
Sydney police accused of using excessive force as at least 27 arrested for protesting Israeli president Isaac Herzogs visit

Australian politicians urged restraint on Tuesday after police in Sydney clashed with people protesting against the visit of the Israeli president Isaac Herzog, who is accused of inciting a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Police made at least 27 arrests amid allegations of excessive force used against protesters and rights groups, reports said. Violence broke out on the evening of 9 February after thousands of people gathered near Sydney Town Hall to oppose Mr Herzogs visit.

The New South Wales Police said officers moved to clear the area after demonstrators attempted to breach blockades, resulting in arrests. Ten people were accused of assaulting police officers.

Tear gas and pepper spray were used to disperse the crowd, while television footage showed officers pushing protesters back and restraining some of them on the ground. Police said there were no reports of serious injuries.

Prime minister Anthony Albanese said he was devastated by the scenes and called for peaceful protests.

Australians want two things. They dont want conflict brought here. They want the killing to stop, whether its Israelis or Palestinians, but they do not want conflict brought here, he told radio station Triple M.

The causes are not advanced by these sorts of scenes  they are undermined.

A protester receives assistance after being pepper-sprayed by police (Getty)

The protests came as Mr Herzog began a four-day state visit focused on commemorating victims of a December attack at a Jewish festival at Bondi Beach, where 15 people were killed in what authorities described as Australias worst mass shooting in 29 years.

He laid a wreath and two stones brought from Jerusalem at Bondi Pavilion and met survivors and families of those killed. When one Jew is hurt, all Jews feel their pain, he said, adding he was there to embrace and console the bereaved families.

We were shaken to our core when we first heard about the Bondi Beach attack. Our heart missed a beat, like all Israelis and all Jews. And Im here to express solidarity, friendship, and love, Mr Herzog said.

And I also believe that this is an opportunity to upgrade the relations between Israel and Australia because we are two democracies that share values together and we are confronting the roots of evil from all over the world. And we should do so together, he added.

He said the stones would remain as a reminder that people of all faiths and nations will continue to hold strong in the face of terror, violence and hatred, and that we shall overcome this evil together.

Police surround protesters on George Street, Sydney, on Monday (Getty)

Security was tight during the visit, with police snipers visible on rooftops. Mr Herzog is also due to visit Melbourne and Canberra before returning to Israel on Thursday.

Authorities had granted police rarely used powers during the Sydney protest, including directing crowds to move, restricting access to areas and searching vehicles.

A legal challenge by the Palestine Action Group against those restrictions was dismissed by a Sydney court on 9 February, preventing them from marching from the Town Hall to the New South Wales parliament. Mr Herzog was not present at the protest site.

New South Wales premier Chris Minns defended police actions, saying officers were required to make rapid decisions in tense and volatile circumstances. I understand theres criticisms of New South Wales Police, I just want to make it clear they were caught in an impossible situation, he said.

Herzog meets with students during a visit to Moriah War Memorial College on Tuesday (Getty)

Police commissioner Mal Lanyon said officers had shown restraint.

Police did what they needed to do, which was to hold the line and then form and move the protesters back with a view to dispersing them, he said. Having an angry and violent mob marching on police is not a situation that I want our officers in.

Protest organisers and participants disputed that account. Palestine Action Group Sydney said demonstrators were surrounded and unable to leave.

The police began charging the crowd with horses, indiscriminately pepper-spraying the crowd, punching and arresting people, the group said.

Abigail Boyd, an opposition Green lawmaker in the state parliament, said she had been punched by officers while attempting to vacate the site.

I have a very sore arm and shoulder where they punched me. Im really in shock, she told a press conference.

Many protesters have accused Herzog of committing war crimes in Gaza (Getty)

Protests were also held in Melbourne, where police said 5,000 people gathered outside downtown Flinders Street Railway Station, then marched several blocks to the State Library, blocking evening peak-hour traffic. A 20-year-old woman was arrested after allegedly burning flags and damaging a tram stop.

The visit has drawn mixed reactions within Australias Jewish community. Mainstream Jewish organisations welcomed Mr Herzogs presence, while the Jewish Council of Australia published open letters and newspaper advertisements signed by hundreds of Australian Jews stating: Herzog does not speak for us and is NOT WELCOME HERE.

We refuse to let our collective grief be used to legitimise a leader whose rhetoric has been part of inciting a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and has contributed to the illegal annexation of the West Bank, said the councils executive officer, Sarah Schwartz.

Mr Herzog rejected accusations that he had incited a genocide and said protests against him sought to undermine and delegitimise Israels right to exist. Jewish leaders initiated the invitation extended by governor general Sam Mostyn at Mr Albaneses request.

Isaac Herzogs four-day trip aims to console Australia's Jewish community after the Bondi Beach attacks last year (AFP/Getty)

The Australian prime minister and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu have been openly hostile toward each other since the Australian announced six months ago that his government would recognise a Palestinian state.

He welcomed what he described as positive steps by the Australian government to address antisemitism following the Bondi Beach attack, including new hate-speech legislation and the establishment of a royal commission to investigate antisemitism.

Amnesty International Australia condemned what it called the unnecessary and disproportionate use of force by police and called for an independent investigation.

The right to protest is protected under international law. What we witnessed last night was a serious assault on those rights and a deeply troubling display of State-sanctioned violence, said Mohamed Duar, the organisations Occupied Palestinian Territory spokesperson.

Police said further rallies were planned, including a demonstration outside police headquarters in Sydney on 10 February, as debate over the visit and the handling of protests continued.
Ian Claughton was convicted of three counts of possessing prohibited firearms, possession of criminal property and possession of explosive substances. Photograph: West Yorkshire police/PA (Photograph: West Yorkshire police/PA)

A drug dealer has been jailed for seven years after rigging a series of houses with Home Alone-style booby traps to deter intruders.

Ian Claughton, 60, was found guilty of several drugs and firearms offences in November after standing trial at Doncaster crown court alongside his ex-wife Lesley Claughton, who was given a 21-month sentence suspended for two years.

The pair had been accused of being involved in the cannabis drug trade, growing and supplying the class B drug from three properties near Barnsley, South Yorkshire.

During the trial the court heard that Claughton and his then wife heavily fortified the houses, all of which were in Grimethorpe, a village on the outskirts of the town, using tools such as modified crow scarers, fishing wire, stun guns and even a homemade flame-thrower.

Addressing jurors in October, the prosecutor Helen Chapman said: If you are sitting there thinking that this sounds a little like the film Home Alone, then you would be correct. In fact, that is precisely what Ian Claughton said he was aiming for when he told the police about these devices.

Claughton, who was convicted of three counts of possessing prohibited firearms, possession of criminal property and possession of explosive substances, denied intending to hurt anyone who entered the houses, despite his workshop having a sign outside that warned intruders to prepare and get themselves measured up for their own coffin. He told the court he crafted the flame-thrower from a fire extinguisher to wow people during Bonfire Night.

The couple were caught when Border Force officers intercepted parcels from China addressed to Lesley that contained imitation firearms. This led to police raiding the three addresses in May 2024. About 130 nearby properties were evacuated while a bomb squad dealt with the traps.

Searches also found an enormous amount of cash hidden across the three homes, including 27,000 stitched into a sofa, as well as a crossbow, crossbow bolts, a knife and large amounts of amphetamines hidden in places such as a breadbin and in a Maltesers chocolate box.

Det Supt Al Burns, of the Yorkshire and Humber regional organised crime unit, said: Ian Claughton is someone who was clearly involved in drugs offending to a very significant degree. He appears to have developed a siege mentality that saw him go to unusual and elaborate lengths to defend his home and its illicit contents from would-be intruders, drawing inspiration from Macaulay Culkins character in the popular Christmas film Home Alone.

When he tried to import realistic-looking firearms from China, which were diligently intercepted by UK Border Force staff, we became involved and carried out raids on his addresses. The modified booby-trap devices officers found at his address, alongside an array of other weapons, had the appearance of homemade bombs and obviously caused us serious concerns, which were rightly met with an appropriate multi-agency response to safeguard the public until military experts could declare the scene safe.

This caused significant disruption and concern in the local community over a number of days, and we hope all those affected can take some comfort and reassurance from seeing Claughton and his ex-partner being criminally held to account.
Bayern Munich remain in intensive talks with Harry Kane over his future but specific negotiations on any potential new deal have not necessarily taken place, according to the clubs sporting director Max Eberl.

England captain Kane has scored 24 Bundesliga goals this season, making him the leading league goalscorer in Europe.

Kane moved to Bayern from Tottenham in the summer of 2023 for around 100million and is under contract until the summer of 2027.

Kane is Europes leading scorer (Tom Weller/PA) (Tom Weller)

The 32-year-old, though, has been linked with a lucrative move to Saudi Arabia should he opt not to extend his stay with the Bundesliga champions.

While Eberl stressed nothing had yet been agreed, Bayern continue regular dialogue with Kane, who has scored 123 goals in 129 appearances.

We are talking, that doesnt mean negotiations have started. We are in intensive talks with Harry, then the next steps will follow, Eberl told a press conference ahead of Bayerns DFB Pokal quarter-final against RB Leipzig.

I cant comment on the rumours circulating that someone is preparing anything (on a transfer bid for Kane).

All I can say is that we are in close contact with Harry regarding him and our success.
Benjamin Sesko scored in the sixth minute of stoppage time to rescue a point for Manchester United, whose winning run under Michael Carrick came to an end with a 1-1 draw at West Ham.

United were bidding for a fifth straight Premier League victory under their interim boss which would have lifted them up to third and closed the gap to second-placed Manchester City to just three points.

But Tomas Soucek fired struggling West Ham ahead and they looked set for a vital three points in their bid to beat the drop until substitute Sesko struck late on.

An injury-time equaliser from Benjamin Sesko sees the points shared in the capital   Manchester United (@ManUtd) February 10, 2026

The first dropped points of Carricks latest spell in charge is by no means a disaster for United, who are still well on course for a return to the Champions League following their recent upturn since Ruben Amorim was sacked.

But spare a thought for Frank Ilett, the United fan who gained more than two million social media followers since pledging not to get a haircut until the Red Devils secured five wins in a row. After 493 days, the wait for a trip to the barbers will have to go on.

West Ham, buoyed by some decent form of their own with three wins from four outings, started on the front foot with Crysencio Summerville crossing for Jarrod Bowen, who glanced his header wide.

Dutch winger Summerville, in blistering form with five goals in five matches, then cut inside and sent a curler towards the far post, with Senne Lammens forced to paw the ball away for a corner.

However, the hosts had a close shave after 20 minutes when Bruno Fernandes drilled in Uniteds first corner of the match.

Tomas Soucek scored for West Ham (Adam Davy/PA) (Adam Davy)

The ball reached Luke Shaw, who whipped it goalwards only for former Red Devils full-back Aaron Wan-Bissaka to clear his shot off the line, denying his old team-mate a first goal in three years.

West Ham had not kept a clean sheet since August until Saturdays win over Burnley, but they were digging deep to frustrate Carricks side.

Just after half-time, when a superb first-time Fernandes pass looked set to send Amad clear down the right, El Hadji Malick Diouf made an excellent recovery tackle.

West Ham immediately broke, and when Shaw dawdled under a high ball and let it bounce he was nudged aside by Bowen.

Manchester Uniteds Benjamin Sesko, right, and Bruno Fernandes applaud the fans (Adam Davy/PA) (Adam Davy)

Soucek played the ball out to the Hammers captain, continued his run into the box and applied a simple finish to Bowens low cross.

United thought they had equalised when Casemiro powerfully headed home Kobbie Mainoos cross, but a VAR check showed the Brazilian was offside.

But just as West Ham looked to have held out for a win which would have moved them level with Nottingham Forest in 17th, Bryan Mbeumo swung in a cross and Sesko conjured up an exquisite volley to snatch a draw.
The British Museum has successfully raised 3.5 million to save a gold pendant linked to Henry VIIIs marriage to his first wife, Katherine of Aragon, following a four-month fundraising campaign.

The London museum launched an appeal in October as it was keen to save the Tudor Heart, which was discovered by a metal detectorist in 2019, as it says there are very few artefacts relating to the pairs marriage.

It has now announced that it has reached its fundraising goal, after receiving 360,000 in public donations and a string of donations from grants, trusts and arts organisations.

A view of the Tudor Heart (British Museum/PA)

When the museum announced its fundraising efforts four months ago, it had already received a 500,000 donation from The Julia Rausing Trust.

The British Museum said that since its public appeal more than 45,000 members of the public contributed to the cause, helping it raise just over 10% of its 3.5 million goal.

It also received 1.75 million from The National Heritage Memorial Fund, which aims to save the UKs most outstanding, at-risk heritage treasures.

Other donors include the charity Art Fund, which donated 400,000 to the cause, and The American Friends of the British Museum, which gave 300,000.

Nicholas Cullinan, director of the British Museum, said: I want to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who supported our campaign and to the National Heritage Memorial Fund for so generously awarding 1.75 million.

The success of the campaign shows the power of history to spark the imagination and why objects like the Tudor Heart should be in a museum.

This beautiful survivor tells us about a piece of English history few of us knew, but in which we can all now share.

I am looking forward to saying more soon on our plans for it to tour the UK in the future.

According to the research by the museum, the 24 carat gold artefact may have been created for a tournament held in October 1518 to mark the betrothal of their daughter, Princess Mary, to the French heir apparent.

Henry VIII regularly commissioned London goldsmiths to create costume jewellery for major celebrations and state occasions which were worn briefly by members of the court to create the impression of great splendour, according to the British Museum.

The gold pendant is linked to Henry VIIIs marriage to Katherine of Aragon (British Museum/PA)

The pendant unites the Tudor rose with Katherines pomegranate symbol, and features a banner that reads tousiors, the old French for always.

After it was found in a Warwickshire field, the pendant was reported under the Treasure Act 1996, which gives museums and galleries in England a chance to acquire historical objects and put them on display.

Simon Thurley, chairman of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, said: The Tudor Heart is an extraordinary insight into the culture of Henry VIIIs court, and I am delighted that Memorial Fund support will enable it to go on public display, where people can enjoy it and learn what it tells us about this fascinating period in our history.

The Memorial Fund exists to save the UKs most outstanding heritage and make it publicly accessible, in memory of those who have given their lives for the UK.

Since 1980 we have supported nearly 1,500 acquisitions and we are delighted to count the Tudor Heart as part of the growing and timeless collection of UK heritage that belongs to all of us forever.

Art Fund director Jenny Waldman said the organisation is proud to have supported the British Museums fundraising campaign, adding: This remarkable object, so rich in history and meaning, can now inspire wonder for generations to come thanks to the collective efforts of so many who believe in the importance of keeping our shared heritage accessible to all.

Since the fundraising efforts were announced, the Tudor Heart has been on display in the museums gallery two, where it is set to remain on view.

The museum hopes to have the pendant formally in the collection later this year.
Reality TV star Olivia Attwood, presenter Dermot OLeary and former Strictly Come Dancing professional dancer Oti Mabuse are among the celebrities modelling a new Red Nose Day T-shirt collection.

Model David Gandy, former Strictly contestant Tasha Ghouri, actress Keeley Hawes, actor Luca Pasqualino and reality TV star Sam Thompson, are also among the line-up putting on the Winnie The Pooh-themed T-shirts, which will be sold by TK Maxx to raise money for Comic Relief.

Mabuse said: Its always a joy to be involved with Red Nose Day. From climbing mountains in arctic conditions to modelling this years new charity T-shirts, its a pleasure to support Comic Relief and the incredible work they do, and this years designs are so fun.

OLeary modelling one of the T-shirts (Elisabeth Hoff/Comic Relief/PA)

Head on over to TK Maxx to check out the full range  theres something for everyone to enjoy.

Gandy said: As a long-standing supporter of Comic Relief, its an absolute honour to be involved once again in the iconic Red Nose Day T-shirt campaign with TK Maxx.

Disneys Winnie the Pooh is a favourite with my girls, so I know that this years campaign will be loved by many.

Ive always been inspired by the incredible communities who come together each year to help raise money for those in need. Since becoming a dad, these stories resonate with me even more, so if you can, please get involved and help make a difference.

Olivia Attwood modelling a Piglet T-shirt (Elisabeth Hoff/Comic Relief/PA)

The T-shirts will be priced between 12.99 and 14.99 for adults, with at least 5 going to the charity, and between 6.99 and 8.99 for children, with at least 2.50 going to Comic Relief.

Funds raised will go towards Comic Relief work to address some of the most pressing challenges facing children and young people globally.

Samir Patel, chief executive of Comic Relief, said: We are incredibly proud to have worked with TK Maxx for more than 20 years to help change the lives of children and young people across the UK and beyond, all thanks to the generous support from customers.

Sam Thompson joined in the campaign (Elisabeth Hoff/Comic Relief/PA)

Every year, TK Maxx go above and beyond to make Red Nose Day as special as possible, and this year is no different. We are delighted to feature the much-loved characters from Disney Winnie the Pooh in our T-shirt collection.

Renowned for their kindness and friendship, the characters bring so much joy to people of all ages, which is what we hope to inspire this Red Nose Day.

Money raised from this wonderful range will support children and families who are struggling with the basic essentials that everyone has the right to  food, shelter and safety.

The T-shirts can be bought from TK Maxx stores and online at tkmaxx.com from February 2026 to raise money for Comic Relief.

Alongside the T-shirts, tote bags, mugs, notebooks, bag charms, pouches, water bottles and candles are also available.
The curator of a London exhibition of Aardman characters including Wallace and Gromit has said he hopes it will inspire new generation of animators.

Inside Aardman: Wallace And Gromit And Friends opens at the Young V&A in Bethnal Green on Thursday, where it will feature 150 exhibits, including the clay models used in the studios popular films and TV series, along with interactive exhibits for children.

The exhibitions curator, Alex Newson, told the Press Association: Young V&A is a museum for children (and) their families, and were here to inspire creativity, to help them be creative in small ways in their daily lives, but also in larger ways.

And also to start thinking about creative careers and the skills that they can develop that might one day lead to roles in the creative kind of industry when they grow up.

Celebrating Aardmans 50th anniversary, the exhibition will showcase Wallaces love interest Lady Tottington, the distinctive rocket from Wallace And Gromit: A Grand Day Out (1989), and the duos living room set, as well as items from favourites including Chicken Run and Shaun The Sheep.

The exhibition will include characters from Chicken Run (David Parry/PA) (David Parry Media Assignments)

Mr Newson added: Its an amazing thing to open a new exhibition. Its been amazing to work with Aardman for the past 18 months to bring the show together, and actually the last few weeks, when you see everything come into the gallery and get built and installed, its a really exciting moment.

And now the most important thing is when we open the doors to the public, and people come in and start to see the things that weve been working on for so long.

50 years is an incredibly long time, and its a really rich, kind of dense archive, (to) have the opportunity to trawl through all of that and pick things across those 50 years is rare and a real  privilege to be able to do.

The exhibition will launch on Thursday (David Parry/PA) (David Parry Media Assignments)

And weve kind of really tried to make sure that weve got things from the early days, from some of the earliest things that the Aardman founders did, right through to their most recent features.

Weve got some set models and some puppets from A Vengeance Most Fowl, one of the most recent features, some of which have never been on display before and people have never seen before, other than seeing them when theyre in the film.

So its really exciting to work with the team and talk to them about how they can be brought to life and put into a museum.

Other exhibits include early character sketches, concept art, puppets, props, set models and optical illusion toys.

The exhibition will run until November 15 with tickets available from the Young V&A website.
AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Pennybacker Capital Management, LLC ("Pennybacker"), a Texas-based real assets investment manager, is proud to celebrate the firm's 20th anniversary. 2026 marks two decades of disciplined stewardship, long-term relationships, and a partnership-first approach shaped by the firm's culture and commitment to consistent execution across market cycles.

Founded in 2006 by Tim Berry and named after the iconic Pennybacker Bridge overlooking Lake Austin, the firm was built on the idea that lasting partnerships are created through disciplined investing, transparent communication, and a deep understanding of the people and data  the "art and science"  behind every investment. Over the past 20 years, Pennybacker has expanded from a Texas-focused real estate investor into a diversified real assets investment manager investing across real estate and infrastructure. Today, Pennybacker oversees approximately $4.9 billion in assets under management and has executed 218 investments, including 125 realizations, deploying capital across the real assets risk spectrum. Headquartered in Austin, the firm maintains a national footprint with offices in Charlotte, Dallas, Denver, and New York.

Pennybacker's innovation-led investment approach is supported by sustained investment in technology, analytics, and in-house data science capabilities. In 2014, the firm launched Pennybacker lpha, a differentiated data ecosystem designed to support investment decision-making and risk management through analytics, machine learning, and AI. Pennybacker lpha integrates proprietary portfolio-level data with curated external market insights, enabling underwriting that combines top-down macro research with bottom-up asset intelligence. This approach supports the firm's investment themes, helps reduce bias through systematic evaluation, and enables teams to adapt business plans as market conditions and portfolio dynamics evolve.

Over its 20-year history, Pennybacker's growth has been matched by continued investment in its people, culture, and operating capabilities. The firm is anchored by a leadership team whose founding principals have worked together for more than 20 years, shaping a highly collaborative organization aligned around consistent execution and long-term objectives. Supported by specialized professionals across multiple expert-led investment verticals, Pennybacker operates as one integrated platform and one team, with collaboration across strategies embedded in how decisions are made and executed.

"I'm proud to celebrate 20 years of excellence with this team," said Tim Berry, Founder, CEO, and Co-Chief Investment Officer of Pennybacker. "The Pennybacker Way is rooted in our three T's  teachers, tenants, and team  which shape how we invest, how we operate, and how we partner. As we look ahead, our culture and long-standing relationships continue to guide our disciplined, data-driven approach and sustained alignment with our valued partners across market cycles."

About Pennybacker Capital Management, LLC

Pennybacker is a real assets investment manager based in Austin, TX, with approximately $4.9 billion of assets under management. The firm pursues real estate and infrastructure strategies across the capital structure. For more information about Pennybacker, visit https://www.pennybackercap.com.

Media Contact:

[email protected]

SOURCE Pennybacker
Conservationists will make a last-ditch bid to block the controversial redevelopment of Liverpool Street station after the proposal attracted a record number of objections.

A total of 3,733 objections have been submitted to the City of London Corporation urging it to refuse planning permission for Network Rails 1.2bn scheme.

It wants to build a 19-storey office block on top of the train station  the busiest in the country - in order to fund about 500m of improvements.

City planning officials have described the scheme as transformational but have reported concerns about funding, as the income from the office block would only cover 92 per cent of the construction costs.

A total of 1,152 people have written to the City Corporation in support of the scheme, which would improve accessibility at the station.

The scheme would increase the total height of the station complex from 33.7m (110.5ft) to 97.67m (320ft).

The Citys 32-member planning committee is due to consider the application at a meeting on Tuesday that starts at 1.45pm.

Five objectors are expected to be allowed to address the committee: Alec Forshaw and Sir Simon Jenkins on behalf of SAVE Britain's Heritage and The Liverpool Street Station Campaign (LISSCA), architect John McAslan, who has proposed an alternative smaller design, Phillip Ridley and Peter Norman of Hyatt Hotels, which owns the Andaz hotel at the front of the station.

SAVE Britain's Heritage wants the committee to defer what it describes as heavy-handed plans for the part-demolition of the station and consider Mr McAslans light-touch solution instead.

The McAslan proposal for Liverpool Street station would avoid the need for a 19-storey tower block (JMP)

SAVE, in a letter to the committee, says that key financial details relating to the viability of the scheme are missing from the submitted assessments  which themselves show the scheme to be unviable.

Last week, The Standard revealed that the application had been recommended for approval by City planning officials.

But it also emerged that Hyatt feared the scale of likely disruption - lasting eight years or more - was simply unmanageable.

Speaking ahead of the meeting, James Francque, global head of transactions at Hyatt, said: Hyatt believes there is a clear opportunity to redevelop Liverpool Street station in a way that modernises the Citys busiest transport hub, protects the historic integrity of the hotel building, and delivers meaningful benefits for passengers, the City and the local economy.

We fully support investment in the urgent redevelopment of the station and want to be part of shaping a scheme that achieves these shared goals.

However, Network Rail has presented a scheme that is not financially viable, offers limited operational benefit, and carries a high risk of non-delivery, while subjecting passengers, the public, businesses, and City funds to many years of disruption and uncertainty.

Network Rails documents show a substantial funding gap of around 220 million, before accounting for major additional costs, including compensation payments for large-scale disruptions of Londons public transport network.

For these reasons, we are calling for a rejection - or at a minimum, the deferral - of the current application, to ensure any future scheme represents clear value for public investment and delivers a station upgrade that is fundable, future-proof and beneficial to all stakeholders, including taxpayers, the City, passengers, surrounding businesses, and Network Rail.

Network Rail said it had carefully considered all options for Liverpool Street station.

It said: The current proposals represent the most effective way to upgrade Britains busiest station and meet the urgent needs of the millions of passengers who use it every day.

With passenger numbers forecast to reach 158 million by 2041, there is a clear and urgent need to act. Deliverability and public benefit are at the heart of our approach, and Network Rail is committed to delivering this scheme, having already invested significant time and resources to bring forward a robust, future-ready proposal within a critical window to address growing customer demand.

Our plans will future-proof the station by easing congestion, expanding capacity and delivering a fully inclusive and accessible experience for all. The design delivers step-free access from street to platform across Network Rail and the Transport for London estate, significantly improving the everyday experience for passengers.
Democrats are demanding the Trump administration rescind a secretive memo that gives immigration officers permission to forcibly enter homes without a warrant from a judge, in what critics and legal experts have slammed as a flagrant violation of the Fourth Amendment.

But the calls are a nonstarter for congressional Republicans and administration officials who see so-called administrative warrants as a critical tool for the presidents sweeping efforts to arrest and deport tens of thousands of people.

Formal demands from Democratic lawmakers and federal lawsuits urging the courts to block the memo join a list for urgent Homeland Security reforms before a funding standoff that could shut down a part of the federal government.

Whistleblowers within the agency provided Congress with a memo from May 2025 signed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director Todd Lyons that instructs officers to rely on internal permissions to enter a persons home, rather than seek a warrant from a judge.

They are a key operational thing that White House deputy chief of policy Stephen Miller and other top immigration officials do not want to budge on, one GOP strategist told Politico.

The Trump administration is under fire after a whistleblower leaked an internal memo giving ICE officers permission to forcibly enter homes without a warrant signed by a judge (REUTERS)

Administrative warrants work, Texas Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales told CBS Face the Nation. I want to give law enforcement every tool they need to go out and apprehend these convicted criminals that are loose in our community.

Last week, Homeland Security issued a lengthy press release defending the use of administrative warrants while attacking the mainstream medias false narratives about them.

ICEs Form I-205 serves as an internal administrative document, drafted and signed by ICE officers themselves, and is not reviewed by a judge.

In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, the agencys general counsel James Percival suggested that illegal aliens are not protected by the Fourth Amendment.

Under federal immigration law, officers may issue an administrative warrant, which means that the probable-cause finding is made by an executive-branch officer rather than a judicial officer, he wrote.

This is consistent with broad judicial recognition that illegal aliens arent entitled to the same Fourth Amendment protections as U.S. citizens, he added. It is also consistent with the Supreme Courts admonition that the touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is whether the search or seizure is reasonable, not whether it is supported by a judicial warrant.

Democrats are demanding Homeland Security rescind the memo ahead of a vote to fund the agency that could trigger a government shutdown (AP)

Federal judges, constitutional law experts and Democratic members of Congress have roundly rejected the administrations defense.

ICE does not have the authority to overturn any law, let alone one of the foundational constitutional rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights, a group of House Democrats wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem this month.

You must rescind this memo and adhere to the requirements of the Fourth Amendment by ensuring your agents obtain a judicial warrant prior to making any non-consensual entry into a private residence, they added.

Critics have pointed to the case of ChongLy Scott Thao in St. Paul, Minnesota, who was dragged from his house at gunpoint in his underwear. Thao is a U.S. citizen, and the man ICE officers intended to arrest was already in prison.

In another case, agents forcibly entered the home of Garrison Gibson, a Liberian man, without a warrant. A federal judge later ruled that his arrest violated his Constitutional rights and ordered his release.

The use of so-called administrative warrants came under fire after the arrest of US citizen ChongLy Scott Thao in St. Paul, Minnesota, who was pulled out of his home without a change to show his documents or put on clothes (REUTERS)

A federal lawsuit from a group of civil rights and immigrant organizations is calling on a federal judge to intervene and revoke ICEs home invasion policy.

We will not stand by while ICE engages in unlawful and dangerous practices, said Alexandra Oliver-Davila with the Greater Boston Latino Network, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit.

We will not be intimidated by fear tactics targeting our neighbors. We stand with immigrants, communities of color, and everyone fighting for dignity and the Constitution, she added.

The Fourth Amendment exists precisely to prevent government agents from breaking into peoples homes without any judicial process or oversight, according to Brooke Simone, staff attorney at Lawyers for Civil Rights and one of the attorneys leading the lawsuit. ICEs policy is a direct assault on these core constitutional principles and undermines our privacy, safety, and dignity. It puts everyone at risk.

Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, whose office received the whistleblower report, called the policy legally and morally abhorrent.

My Republican colleagues who claim to value personal rights against government overreach now have an opportunity and obligation to prove that rhetoric is real, he said. They must hold hearings and join me in demanding the Trump Administration answer for this lawless policy.
A driving test examiner speaks with a driving instructor in Brentwood, Essex. (Ian Davidson)

Changes to rules on booking driving tests set to come into force from spring 2026 could have "unexpected consequences" on the industry, an insurance company has warned.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) is adopting a model that allows only learners themselves to book and manage their tests.

It says the changes will help reduce waiting times and stop exploitative third-party services from ripping off learners.

But insurance provider Ageas has said it is already seeing a "shift in behaviour" due to the changes, with an increasing number of learners seeking advice on taking their test in their own vehicle.

Ageas has warned that more and more learners could end up resorting to so-called "DIY driving tests" to avoid losing their "hard-to-find" test slots amid a lack of instructor availability.

Here is a guide to the changes and how they could impact instructors and learners.

What are the changes to driving test booking rules?

Changes introduced this spring will mean that driving instructors will no longer be able to book or manage tests on learners' behalf, leaving learners with full responsibility.

Instead of being able to move a test to any centre, learners will only be able to move to a test centre near where they originally booked.

Exact dates for these changes are yet to be confirmed, but will come into force "from later in spring 2026", the DVSA says.

How many times can you change your driving test?

A more immediate change, coming into effect from 31 March, is the number of times learners are allowed to change their driving test appointments.

Under current rules, up to six changes can be made to a practical driving test appointment, but from the end of next month this will be reduced to two.

How do I get a cancellation for a driving test?

You can cancel your test up to the time your test starts, using this online service, but you must give proper notice if you want a refund.

You will not automatically be entitled to your money back if you give less than 10 full working days' notice (Monday to Saturday) for car driving tests, and three full working days for other kinds of tests.

Learner drivers are being exploited by third-party services who are booking up test slots and selling them on for a profit. (Alvey & Towers Picture Library, Alvey & Towers Picture Library)

To cancel your test, you'll need your UK driving licence number, your driving test reference number or the theory test pass certificate number included on the letter you should have received. You can also find the number here.

If you've cancelled at short notice, you can still get a refund if you have an illness or injury that means you cannot take your test, if you have suffered a bereavement, if you have to take an exam at school or college, or if you've had your licence stolen.

Learners will have to email the customer service email address above with the subject line "Unavoidable short notice cancellation" with proof of their reason. You can find more details here.

How long is a driving test and how many minors can you have?

Driving tests take around 50 minutes, says insurance provider Cuvva, allowing time for an eyesight check, to ask safety questions, test the learner on certain manoeuvres and observe their driving in general.

You will pass your test if you make no more than 15 minors, faults that don't cause immediate danger, and no "majors" (more dangerous faults).

What impact will the changes have?

Ageas suggests the changes will result in an increase in learners applying to take their tests in their own vehicles.

"Once the news rules are implemented, the own-car test could well move from a plan B to the primary strategy for thousands of drivers who won't want to risk losing a hard-to-find test slot due to a lack of instructor availability," said chief customer and operations officer Alan MacEwan.

Ageas predicts a scenario whereby learners book the first test slot they can find, only to discover their instructor is unavailable.

Rather than forfeit their appointment, an increasing number may opt to take their test in their own vehicle instead, the company suggests.

A backlog of driving test waiting times has remained stubbornly high since the Covid-19 pandemic. (Alex Hinds)

The Approved Driving Instructors National Joint Council (ADINJC) previously warned that removing instructor booking rights "punishes legitimate businesses for DVSAs enforcement failures".

It said the government's response to this issue is "too little, too late", adding that the DVSA "failed to anticipate" signs of "obvious demand increases", including a 43% increase in theory test passes between 2019-20 and 2024-25.

Speaking after the measures were passed in November, Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said: "It is good to see steps being put in place to put a stop to those touting tests to frustrated learners.

"Candidates stuck in the queue should at least be reassured that they arent being elbowed aside by those simply seeking to make a quick buck.

"What will really deter the touts and tackle the queues would be a return to the more reasonable pre-COVID waiting time for tests, which we hope the arrival of a platoon of military examiners alongside the new DVSA recruits will help deliver."

However, the ADINJC is less impressed by the Ministry of Defence's provision of 36 driving examiners one day per week, describing the move as a "drop in the ocean".

Why are the rules being changed?

At the heart of these reforms is the "exploitation of the booking system by third-party businesses and automated bots", the DVSA has said.

"We know the features that allow tests to be swapped between learners and let instructors book tests for pupils are no longer always being used as intended," the executive government agency adds.

It says these third parties "game the system, snap up test slots and charge learners premium fees to access tests, which they should be able to book themselves at the standard rate".

The problem is significant, suggests a survey by the DVSA, which found that 90% of learners said they had booked their own test, 25% of whom said they had made use of a third-party service or app.

A report by the National Audit Office published in December 2025 found learners were paying up to 500 to third-party resellers that should have cost 62. It pointed to 327,000 tests being swapped in 2024  up from 39,000 in 2019  indicating widespread abuse of the system by resellers.

"The decision weve taken is not about instructor conduct or blaming you or customers for the long waiting times," the DVSA said.

Referring to the portal used by driving instructors to book, manage and change test appointments for their students, the agency added: "We know the vast majority of you who use the Online Business Service (OBS) do so legitimately to provide an excellent service to your pupils."
The remaining Department of Justice files on Jeffrey Epstein include the revelation that one of the pedophiles victims was just nine years old and that a senior official in a foreign government was allegedly involved in his sex trafficking network, lawmakers have said.

Democratic congressmen Jamie Raskin and Ro Khanna and Republican Thomas Massie visited the DOJ on Monday to review the remaining files withheld from publication due to their sensitivity via a secure terminal.

As they emerged from the departments headquarters in Washington, D.C., the trio raised questions about why some of the material had been redacted by government lawyers.

You read through these files, and you read about 15-year-old girls, 14-year-old girls, 10-year-old girls, Raskin said.

I saw a mention of a nine-year-old girl today. I mean, this is just preposterous and scandalous.

Representatives Jamie Raskin, Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna are raising questions about why some of the contents of the files was redacted after visiting the Department of Justice to review the uncensored material (AP)

Massie  the Kentucky GOP representative who risked the ire of President Donald Trump by partnering with Democrats to help spearhead the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act through Congress in November  said he had seen a reference to an individual who is pretty high up in a foreign government as being involved in the disgraced financiers circle.

There are six men, some of them with their photographs, that have been redacted, and theres no explanation why those people were redacted, added Khanna. Thats really concerning.

Massie questioned the decision to withhold the names of those men and said he will probably broadcast their identities from the floor or in a committee hearing where privilege granted him by the Speech and Debate Clause would shield him from potential lawsuits.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche replied to a series of posts by Massie on X (Twitter) Monday night in which the congressman complained about redactions to the files, telling him that the DOJ is committed to transparency and, in one instance: Be honest, and stop grandstanding.

The Independent has reached out to the DOJ for further comment.

Rep. Jamie Raskin speaks with the media after viewing the unredacted version of the Jeffrey Epstein files at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., on February 9, 2026 (Reuters)

What were after is the men who Jeffrey Epstein trafficked women to, he said, adding that he intended to hold off from naming the men in order to give the DOJ opportunity to correct their mistakes.

We didnt want to see any redactions of the names of co-conspirators, accomplices, enablers, abusers, rapists, simply to spare them potential embarrassment, political sensitivity or disgrace of some kind, Raskin said.

And yet nonetheless, the Epstein documents that were released are filled with redactions of names and information about people who clearly are not victims and may fall into that other category.

The near-unanimous passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act last fall set in motion a 30-day deadline for the complete release of the DOJs files on Epstein, who died by suicide in a New York City jail cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial.

But the department published only a small portion of the files on December 19, followed by a second, slightly larger tranche on December 23, and then, five weeks later, a much bigger release, consisting of three million pages of documents, including 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.

Blanche said at a White House press briefing in support of the January 30 release that the approximately 3.5 million files published were all the DOJ could safely make available from the more than six million in its possession without compromising the victims of Epsteins crimes.

Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna threaten to reveal the names of six Epstein associates in Congress if DOJ lawyers fail to correct their mistakes (Getty)

However, many have been left dissatisfied with the handling of the release, and a group of Epstein survivors ran a TV spot during Super Bowl LX Sunday, calling for the publication of the remaining documents and telling Attorney General Pam Bondi: Its time to tell the truth.

The document drop also stoked fresh outrage over the conduct of some of Epsteins associates, most notably Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and former U.K. ambassador to the U.S. Peter Mandelson, prompting Khanna to say Monday: This is the most vulnerable the British monarchy has ever been.

While Trump has insisted it is now time to move on from a scandal that has dogged his second presidency so far, it shows little sign of going away.

Also on Monday, Epsteins former girlfriend and associate Ghislaine Maxwell appeared virtually at a closed-door hearing on Capitol Hill, only to repeatedly plead the Fifth and refuse to discuss his crimes.

Her lawyer, David Oscar Markus, said his client was prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump.

Republican House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer described the convicted sex offenders decision as very disappointing but expected.
Former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre has described allegations made by Baroness Doreen Lawrence against the papers publisher as especially bewildering and bitterly wounding, the High Court has been told.

The Duke of Sussex, Sir Elton John and Lady Lawrence are part of a group of seven high-profile individuals bringing legal action against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) over allegations of unlawful information gathering.

ANL has strongly denied wrongdoing and is defending the claims, which are also brought by David Furnish, Sir Simon Hughes, Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost.

Mr Dacre, now editor-in-chief of ANLs holding company DMG Media, entered the witness box on Tuesday afternoon as the first witness giving evidence in support of ANLs defence.

Paul Dacre, right, was giving evidence at the High Court on Tuesday (Lucy North/PA) (Lucy North)

During Mr Dacres tenure as editor, the Daily Mail campaigned to bring the killers of Lady Lawrences son Stephen to justice after his death in 1993.

On the front page of the papers February 14 1997 edition, the paper labelled five men  Gary Dobson, Neil Acourt, Jamie Acourt, Luke Knight, and David Norris  as murderers and challenged them to sue the newspaper for libel.

In her claim, Lady Lawrence alleges ANL had targeted her with hidden electronic surveillance, as well as tapping her landline, monitoring her bank account and making payments to police officers for confidential information, with the court told she felt like a victim all over again.

At the start of his evidence, Mr Dacre told the court: My heart bleeds for Baroness Doreen Lawrence.

In his written evidence, he said that it was inconceivable that anyone at the Daily Mail would have carried out the alleged activities.

Mr Dacre also said: The claims of criminality made on behalf of Baroness Doreen Lawrence in relation to the Daily Mails 15-year campaign for her murdered son Stephen are especially bewildering and bitterly wounding to me personally.

Throughout my 26-year editorship, this, of all my countless campaigns, many of which made a significant contribution to the public weal, is the campaign of which I am most proud and to which I devoted the most space.

He also said it simply defies reason for the Daily Mail to use illegal methods to see if other newspapers were getting involved in the Lawrence campaign, later adding: The suggestion that we ran the campaign to generate exclusive headlines, sell newspapers and profit is sickeningly misplaced and bleakly cynical.

Baroness Doreen Lawrence is among a group of seven high-profile individuals bringing legal action against Associated Newspapers Limited (Jordan Pettitt/PA) (Jordan Pettitt)

Cross-examining Mr Dacre, David Sherborne, for the group of household names, asked whether his involvement in the case is motivated by a desire to protect your legacy rather than getting a fair outcome.

Mr Dacre replied that while he did wish to clear his name, he also cared about the paper and the honest and dedicated staff who work for it.

Later in his written evidence, Mr Dacre said that the grave and sometimes preposterous allegations made in the case have astonished, appalled and  in the small hours of the night  reduced me to rage.

Mr Dacre later said the claims had had a deeply upsetting and sometimes traumatic impact on staff at the paper, adding: I have witnessed the anguish of honest, dedicated journalists who, for three years now, have had an insidious dark shadow hanging over their lives.

ANLs barrister Antony White KC previously said that ANL was defending the claims both on their merits and for being brought too late and that the allegations in relation to Lady Lawrence are denied in their entirety and are unsupported by the available evidence.

He continued in written submissions: In fact, the reality is that the information in each of the articles was obtained by entirely legitimate reporting and based on the sources identified by Associated in its defence and evidence.

But Mr Sherborne previously told the London court that the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday had been engaged in unlawful information gathering over at least two decades, and knew they had skeletons in their closet.

He said: There is evidence, indisputable evidence, in the documents that Associated journalists and senior executives were commissioning and approving the acquisition and use of unlawfully obtained information, and they must have known that.

That is why we say this was no clean ship, far from it.

Mr Sherborne later said that smoke and mirrors and carefully orchestrated attacks on the claimants could not save Associated this time.

He continued: They have to live by their all-or-nothing defence.

The trial before Mr Justice Nicklin is due to conclude in March, with a judgment in writing due at a later date.
The families of two Australian teenagers who died of methanol poisoning in Laos in 2024 have expressed shock at the disgraceful fines levied on workers responsible for serving the tainted drinks.

The workers at the Nana backpackers hostel in Vang Vieng, a popular tourist area in the Southeast Asian country, received fines of about 95 (A$185) that the families described as an absolute injustice.

Six tourists died after consuming methanol-laced alcohol at the hostel in November 2024. Ten people were found guilty of destroying evidence and received a suspended sentence and a fine of about 95.

The hostel has since reopened under a different name. Two 19-year-olds from Melbourne were among the six tourists killed by methanol poisoning.

We were shocked by the absolute injustice for our girls and the others, Mark Jones, the father of Bianca Jones, told 9News.

We have had no correspondence with anyone from the Laos government. We had no idea the court case was going ahead, he said.

Earlier, the families of the two Melbourne teenagers had said that there was silence and inaction from the Laotian authorities. They said the lack of communication from the Australian government had made an unbearable grief even worse, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported. The government has not yet addressed these allegations by the parents.

Shaun Bowles, the father of Holly Morton-Bowles, said: The best word to describe it is disappointment.

He added: For us not to be told theyre going ahead is abhorrent.

To think that the Laos authorities believe that those who were involved in killing our daughters is worth (A)$185 is absolutely disgraceful.

The families claimed that they had learned of the sentencing through other poisoning victims from Denmark and the UK and not the Australian government.

As citizens of this country, we expect the government to look after their people and get justice for their citizens when they go travelling, Mr Jones told 9News.

We cant get into the country. Theres nothing more we can do. We need the government to do something because we are out of options, Mr Bowles added.

Two Melbourne teenagers, Holly Morton-Bowles and Bianca Jones, who died of methanol poisoning in Laos in November 2024 (Facebook)

Weve been in touch with the government yesterday and last night and what were  asking them to do is to step up and represent our girls in the way that they deserve to be represented, Mr Bowles said.

Because we just were out of options. Its pretty devastating.

Mr Jones told the Sydney Morning Herald: We have had no correspondence with anyone from the Laos government.

We had no idea the court case was going ahead. Our beautiful girls, and the other victims, deserve justice at a bare minimum, and a $185 fine is hardly justice.

Australias foreign minister Penny Wong said she has communicated to the Laos authorities that Australia expected full accountability.

I have also made it clear that charges should reflect the seriousness of the tragedy, which left six people dead, including Holly and Bianca.

The department of foreign affairs and trade (DFAT) said in a statement that they were aware that the Vang Vieng District Court sentenced individuals over the destruction of evidence in relation to the death of a US citizen.

We continue to press Lao authorities on the cases relating to Holly and Biancas deaths, and we will continue to support Holly and Biancas families at this distressing time.
A Hongqi H9 parked at Fijis state house in Suva, gifted to the countrys president by China in early 2025. Photograph: Fiji Government/Facebook (Photograph: Fiji Government/Facebook)

At a ceremony in January, a shiny black luxury sedan rolled into the leafy, rain-soaked ground of Fijis state house. It was a gift from China to the Pacific nations president, Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu, who thanked Beijing for the beautiful limousine.

The vehicle given was a Hongqi or Red Flag car, the same brand used by Chinas leader, Xi Jinping, during military parades.

It is an example of Chinas prestige diplomacy, says Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the US-based Stimson Center. This is more symbolic than substantive, Sun says. Its part of Chinas aid program that aims to build good personal relationships with leaders.

Across the Pacific, countries have long used vehicles  from ambulances and police trucks to school buses  as a diplomatic tool. But as strategic competition in the region intensifies, these donations have become visible markers of rival efforts to court Pacific governments and solidify partnerships.

In a region where geographic isolation and high import costs drive up the price of new vehicles, foreign-donated cars  often delivered at the donors expense  are highly prized by Pacific governments.

Australia, the US, New Zealand and Japan are among the other nations that have donated vehicles in the Pacific. China has given luxury cars, alongside more practical fleets, to countries in the region. As early as 2013, China donated luxury vehicles to Fijis leaders, and regularly delivers cars to host nations during the Pacific Islands Forum, the regions main leaders gathering.

Over the past decade, China has been steadily expanding its diplomatic, economic and political footprint across the Pacific, courting governments with infrastructure projects, development aid and high-profile gifts. One objective is to persuade Pacific nations to cut ties with Taiwan and publicly back Beijings One China principle, Beijings claim that Taiwan is part of its territory. Seven years ago, Taiwan counted six allies in the Pacific region. Now, with Nauru severing its Taiwan ties in 2024, only three remain  Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands and Palau.

Fijis president and Chinas embassy in Fiji did not respond to requests for comment about the latest gift. But in a speech given as the car was handed over in February, Lalabalavu reaffirmed Fijis commitment to the One China policy.

Blake Johnson, Pacific affairs expert and senior analyst at the Development Intelligence Lab, says the link between gifts and political messaging is often clear.

That reiteration of support for the One China policy is a common phrase that comes along with most kinds of ceremonies where [Pacific leaders] receive gifts or thank China for the aid and support, Johnson says.

Gift-giving in the region is always a two-way street.

Vehicles reinforce relationships

Chinas growing presence has unsettled traditional partners in the Pacific, particularly Australia, which has long positioned itself as the primary partner  and it remains the largest foreign aid donor to the region. Over the past decade, Canberra has moved to reassert that role, expanding policing partnerships, security agreements and infrastructure assistance - including its own vehicle donations.

Last year, Solomon Islands prime minister released two public statements in quick succession, first thanking Australia for a fleet of police vehicles, then thanking China for a fleet of SUVs.

The incident highlighted a level of one-upmanship, Johnson says, and also Australias desire to maintain its relationships in the Pacific in the face of Beijings growing influence.

Australia has made it quite clear it wants to be the security partner of choice in the Pacific, he says. When Australia is working so closely with forces across the Pacific, it is easier to have vehicles and equipment that match.

China and Australia are not the only players, though. In January, the United States donated two ambulances to Palau. Japan, Korea and New Zealand have all supplied fleets to Pacific governments.

For donor nations, the appeal is clear. Johnson describes these vehicles as moving billboards  rubbish trucks in Honiara emblazoned with China Aid, government cars in Vanuatu bearing stickers noting their donation from Korea, or a glimmering black presidential car with the red Hongqi symbol.

Vehicles are good bang-for-buck for foreign partners, Johnson says. They drive around every day, reinforcing that relationship again and again.

Johnson says most Pacific island countries need support and vehicles can be useful regardless of where they come from.

A free limo here and there is pretty hard to turn away, he says.
Sometimes our dogs dont seem to realize how bigor smallthey really are, which leads to some pretty funny moments. Take Sarah, a white German Shepherd whos absolutely terrified of her sibling, a Maine Coon cat named Dr. Evil, as shown in this short video that their mom, Mary, recently shared on TikTok.

The clip is only nine seconds long, but its laugh-out-loud funny. It starts with Sarah running away from Dr. Evil, clearly trying to put as much distance between them as possible. She circles the table before diving under an ottoman thats at least two sizes too small for her! The way she peeks out at him makes us think that Sarah thinks her nemesis can't see her!

Sarah really thought she was hidden from Dr. Evil! As commenter @Itswithac pointed out, "I know the kitty taught doggy how to hide under the footrest!" That probably is where she learned that hiding spot from!

"The fear is real," said Mary, and it most certainly is! We have a feeling Dr. Evil is the one in charge at their house!

Related: Rambunctious Maine Coon Kittens Change Their Tune When Dad Comes Around

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Funny Reactions to the German Shepherd's Fear of the Maine Coon

Viewers left some funny comments about Sarah's reaction to Dr. Evil and about cat-versus-dog relationships in general. But @Victoria hit the nail on the head when she explained it.

"Its always Maine Coons. Theyre supposed to be the gentle giants of the cat world. Unless its dogs, theyre public enemy number one. Mine does that same thing to his baby brother thats bigger than him too. Dont worry guys the dog usually starts it and the cat just finishes. LOL!" Mary simply replied, "BINGO!"

We laughed when @Nj shared, "Good job she didnt panic." @Jess added, "That cat is 100% a menace!"

@WrensleysLadyB made us laugh with, "My black female Maine coon leads with fear, and my male Maine coon doesnt have a brain cell in his head and just does whatever the dogs are doing." That's a video we'd all like to see!

This story was originally published by PetHelpful on Feb 10, 2026, where it first appeared in the Pet News section. Add PetHelpful as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Gordon Ramsay recalls pining after wife Tana while she was in a relationship with his friend

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has described the moment he met his now wife Tana, revealing that he pined after her while she was initially dating a friend of his.

Ramsay married Tana, a broadcaster and former educator, in 1996, having first met in the early Nineties  when Tana was seeing a friend of Ramsay.

Speaking on the new Netflix documentary Being Gordon Ramsay, the chef recalled: The first time I met Tana, I was mates with her boyfriend at the time, and they picked me up.

I was with my girlfriend from Paris to come to our mates wedding, he continued. And Tana was driving the car, and I was sat in the backseat and I'm looking at my mate thinking, Oh my God, your girlfriend is f***ing gorgeous. She looked like a young Julia Roberts and she brought a level of excitement like no other.

He added: I'm not too sure if that's what Tana said when she first met me but I get the feeling that she wasn't a big fan.

Tana, speaking on the documentary, confirmed that Ramsay had irritated her initially.

Tana and Gordon Ramsay (Netflix)

I didn't like him. I thought he was really arrogant, really full of himself. He used to really irritate me. It took about a month and then we were both single, she said.

She knew I didn't have a pot to piss in and so I honestly thought for many months that Tana was out of my league, Ramsay added.

However, the Kitchen Nightmares star explained that he had won her over thanks to his culinary prowess.

We ended up sort of chatting one night and chatted all night, Tana recalled. I guess I must have fancied him.

I won her over with food, thank f***, joked Ramsay.

Elsewhere in the documentary, Ramsay discusses the infamous October 1998 incident in which he ejected food critic AA Gill from one of his restaurants following a bad review.

Gill had described Ramsay as a failed sportsman who acts like an 11-year-old, prompting the chef to order him to leave his Chelsea establishment The Gordon Ramsay after he came in to dine with Dame Joan Collins.

The new Netflix documentary explores Ramsays private life with Tana and their six children, as well as his attempts to create five new dining concepts inside Londons landmark 22 Bishopsgate.

Being Gordon Ramsay streams on Netflix from 18 February.
A Greek air force fighter. Christos Flessas is a squadron leader who at the time of his arrest commanded a battalion training in telecommunications. Photograph: Imago/Alamy (Photograph: Imago/Alamy)

A Greek air force officer arrested on suspicion of spying for China has been detained pending trial after appearing before a military judge in a case that is seen as exposing Beijings determination to infiltrate Europes security and intelligence services.

Surrounded by armed escorts, a squadron leader identified as Col Christos Flessas emerged from the court late on Tuesday after giving testimony for more than eight hours.

The 54-year-old could face a life sentence if found guilty of charges that include transmitting top secret information of a military nature to China. He was described as having access to sensitive military information, including armed forces technologies under development, and is believed to have been recruited by Beijing last year.

Greek media reports said he had admitted to photographing and transmitting classified Nato documents using specialised encryption software provided by Chinese intelligence. He allegedly received tradecraft training in China during an undeclared trip to the country that military sources claimed had ultimately exposed him.

In a statement made by his lawyer after the court appearance, Flessas said: Unknowingly and without intent, I became involved in something that developed in a way that became nightmarish, dangerous and illegal. In my testimony I did not try to justify myself or, in reality, even defend myself  I ask to be punished with a fair punishment.

Greek authorities were reportedly tipped off by the CIA about the extent of the leak, and in a highly unusual statement after Flessass arrest on 5 February the Greek general staff said there was clear evidence of criminal offences under the military penal code.

Chinese operatives are thought to have initially approached their target online before recruiting him at a Nato conference in an unidentified European country. Flessas has been cited as saying he was lured with promises of financial rewards made in foreign currencies and digital payments of between 5,000 and 15,000 for every transmission made. He told the military magistrate on Tuesday that contact with agents that would lead to his handler was first made via LinkedIn.

Nicholas Eftimiades, a retired US senior intelligence officer with considerable expertise in Chinese espionage operations, told the Guardian the case was a wake-up call for the Greek government and military.

[Its] significant because it shows Chinas desire and ability to penetrate the military communications infrastructure of Greece and other Nato members, he said. Nations spy against other militaries to give them an advantage in war. Despite all the proclamations of friendship and economic engagement, China continues to evolve as a threat to democracies worldwide.

Flessas had previously served as a Nato evaluator in information systems and at the time of his arrest was commanding a battalion in the Athenian suburb of Kavouri training in telecommunications.

Eftimiades, whose book Chinese Espionage Operations and Tactics was released last year, said because citizens in China were required by law to support their countrys espionage efforts, the west was increasingly vulnerable to Beijings spymasters.

Last week, four people including two Chinese nationals were arrested in France on suspicion of intercepting and collecting military intelligence. In Germany last September, a former aide to a member of parliament for the far-right Alternative fur Deutschland party was sentenced to almost five years in prison for spying on behalf of China.

China uses a whole of society approach to conduct worldwide espionage, said Eftimiades, who now teaches homeland security at Penn State University. [It] is unlike the efforts of any western government. The sheer volume of activity makes it impossible to counter  western societies are open democracies. This makes them extremely vulnerable to Chinas covert influence efforts.

Related: Hostile powers sending spies to wests universities, says former security chief

Media reports on Tuesday suggested the Hellenic air force officer was cooperating fully with authorities. Well-placed insiders said there were fears of other military officials being implicated. One said the armed forces were airing the case so publicly as a warning.

What we are seeing is unprecedented, said Plamen Tonchev, an expert in Sino-Greek affairs. Greece is seen as a relatively China-friendly country. This is the very first time that China is so openly implicated in an espionage case of this kind.

Tonchev said the episode was bound to tarnish the image of Beijing in a country where it had acquired control of much of the port of Piraeus a decade ago.

An estimated 24% of imports to Europe from China are shipped through Piraeuss container terminals, and Tonchev said this was a source of great pride for Beijing.
Rise in prevalence of chronic diseases and surge in geriatric population are the major factors that drive the growth of the regenerative medicine market.

PORTLAND, Ore., Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Allied Market Research published a report, titled, "Regenerative Medicine Market by Product Type (Cell Therapy, Gene Therapy, Tissue Engineering and Small Molecule & Biologic), Material (Synthetic Material, Biologically Derived Material, Genetically Engineered Material and Pharmaceutical), and Application (Cardiovascular, Oncology, Dermatology, Musculoskeletal, Wound Healing, Ophthalmology, Neurology and Others): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2024-2033". According to the report, the regenerative medicine market was valued at $32.1 billion in 2023, and is estimated to reach $531.7 billion by 2033, growing at a CAGR of 32.4% from 2024 to 2033.

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Factors driving the growth of the market

However, high costs of treatment hinder the market growth. Moreover, technological advancements and regulatory support and funding offer lucrative opportunities for the expansion of the global regenerative medicine market.

The cell therapy segment to maintain its leadership status during the forecast period

By product type, the cell therapy segment generated the highest revenue in the regenerative medicine market in 2023. Cell therapy is an important part of regenerative medicine. It helps treat different diseases and injuries. It helps improve patient outcomes and quality of life as well.

The biological segment to maintain its leadership status during the forecast period

By material, the biological segment generated the highest revenue in the regenerative medicine market in 2023. Biologically derived materials provide a supportive environment for cell growth, differentiation, and tissue regeneration. Their biocompatibility and bioactivity make them ideal components for promoting tissue repair and regeneration in various medical applications, driving their demand in regenerative therapies.

The oncology segment to maintain its leadership status during the forecast period

By application, the oncology segment generated the highest revenue in the regenerative medicine market in 2023. The rise in prevalence of chronic diseases, particularly cancer, makes way for the need for regenerative medicine. Hospitals, cancer treatment centers, and others adopt regenerative medicine as it offers effective treatment outcomes. Thus, the sector is poised to experience growth in the upcoming years.

Regional Outlook

From a regional perspective, North America and Europe are expected to maintain market leadership due to strong research infrastructure and reimbursement frameworks. However, Asia-Pacific is projected to grow at a faster pace, driven by expanding healthcare access, rising clinical trial activity, and government support for biotechnology development.

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Key Players

Stryker Corporation

Zimmer Biomet Holdings Inc.

Medtronic Plc.

Athersys Inc.

Stem Cell Inc. (Bioheart Inc.)

Organogenesis Inc.

Integra Lifesciences Holdings Corporation

Acelity Holdings Inc.

Isto Biologics (Isto Biologics Medical Systems Inc.)

CryoLife Inc.

The report provides a detailed analysis of these key players in the global regenerative medicine market. These players have adopted different strategies such as expansion, acquisition, product approval, product launch, and others to increase their market share and maintain dominant shares in different regions. The report is valuable in highlighting business performance, operating segments, product portfolio, and strategic moves of market players to showcase the competitive scenario.

Recent Industry Development

In December 2023, The University of Toronto's Medicine by Design initiative and CCRM, a non-profit organization that supports the development and commercialization of regenerative medicines, announced a launch of new strategic alliance to unlock Toronto's potential as a world-leading ecosystem for regenerative medicine. The goal of the alliance is to create coordinated, end-to-end capacity that spans discovery through clinical translation and commercialization.

In January 2021, Integra LifeSciences Holdings Corporation, a global leader in regenerative tissue technologies and neurosurgical solutions, announced that it has completed the previously disclosed acquisition of ACell, Inc. Acquiring ACell and its proprietary MatriStem UBM technologies will enable Integra to provide more comprehensive complex wound management solutions to address our customers' most pressing clinical challenges.

In August 2023, Gilead Sciences and Tentarix Biotherapeutics entered into three multi-year collaborations to leverage Tentarix's Tentacles platform for the discovery and development of innovative, multi-functional protein-based therapies for cancer and inflammatory diseases.

In December 2022, Integra LifeSciences Holdings Corporation, a global leader in regenerative tissue technologies and neurosurgical solutions, announced that it has successfully completed its acquisition of Surgical Innovation Associates (SIA). This acquisition is a highly strategic move to enable us to achieve our aspirations to become a global leader and innovator of implant-based breast reconstruction (IBBR) procedures.

How Is the Regenerative Medicine Market Performing Compared to Previous Years?

The regenerative medicine market is experiencing growth owing to advancements in in cell therapy, gene therapy, and tissue engineering. Several regenerative therapies have moved from early-stage trials to late-stage development and commercialization. This progress has increased investor confidence and attracted significant funding from both public and private sources. Healthcare providers are adopting regenerative medicine as an alternative to traditional treatments that focus on symptom management rather than tissue repair or regeneration. Compared to previous years, hospitals and specialty clinics now have greater access to approved therapies and clinical evidence supporting their effectiveness. This leads to wider acceptance among clinicians and patients. Further, collaborations between biotechnology companies, academic institutions, and pharmaceutical firms have gained traction. These partnerships have accelerated product development and improved scalability.

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What Is the Regenerative Medicine Market Growth Forecast and CAGR Outlook?

The regenerative medicine market is expected to experience strong growth during the forecast period. This is attributed to increase in clinical adoption and ongoing innovation. Oncology, rare genetic disorders, and degenerative conditions are expected to remain the largest contributors to revenue growth. The market is anticipated to experience growth as more number of therapies receive regulatory approval. Surge in healthcare investment and favorable regulatory initiatives create lucrative growth opportunities for the market during the forecast period. Governments and regulatory agencies are focusing on creation of increase in approval pathways for regenerative therapies. These initiatives help reduce time to market and encourage innovation.

The report, published by Allied Market Research, focuses on market dynamics and key trends of the regenerative medicine market analysis. The study provides competitive landscape analysis of the key players to understand the adopted strategies and competitive intensity of competitors. It also offers a study of threat of new entrants, and bargaining power of buyers, on the regenerative medicine market outlook.

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A drug dealer who was inspired by the film Home Alone to booby-trap his house has been sent to prison for seven years.

Ian Claughton rigged his home, in the former pit village of Grimethorpe in South Yorkshire, with tripwires and home-made pipe bombs in order to protect his drugs business from would-be intruders.

About 100 houses had to be evacuated in May 2024 as police searched three neighbouring houses connected to Claughton and his ex-wife Lesley Claughton.

They found a series of traps as well as a home-made flamethrower, large quantities of cannabis, amphetamines and cash.

On Tuesday, Ian Claughton was jailed for seven years at Sheffield Crown Court by Judge Graham Reeds, who said he was a drug dealer who used these weapons to protect (his) cannabis growing operation.

Lesley Claughton was sentenced to 21 months in prison, suspended for two years.

Police found a home-made flamethrower at Ian Claughtons house (Yorkshire and Humber Regional Organised Crime Unit/PA Wire)

Opening the trial to jurors last October, prosecutor Helen Chapman said: If you are sitting there thinking that this sounds a little like the film Home Alone, then you would be correct.

In fact that is precisely what Ian Claughton said he was aiming for when he told the police about these devices.

When police entered one of the heavily protected houses they found a fishing wire running across the length of one of the rooms at knee height, attached to an electrical connector and a battery pack.

Ian Claughton told police the explosives were crow-scarers, used by farmers, which he had inserted into plastic piping and, in one instance, into a bag of paint.

Other devices found in the property consisted of banger fireworks inside piping, sealed with foam, and with wires and a coiled spring.

A stun gun was found behind a fridge-freezer and a homemade flame-thrower was discovered in a workshop.

Pipe bombs found at Ian Claughtons home (Yorkshire and Humber Regional Organised Crime Unit/PA Wire)

Other weapons found at the properties included two high-powered air guns and a crossbow.

A large amount of cash was also discovered, including 27,000 sewn into a sofa.

Cannabis plants were found growing in two of the houses, including some in tents in hidden rooms.

Detectives from the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Organised Crime Unit executed the warrants after Border Force found a package of imitation firearms ordered from China, addressed to Lesley Claughton.

The package was opened at Heathrow Airport and five small silver-and-black folding five-shot revolvers were found.

The court heard this was ordered by Ian Claughton using Lesley Claughtons eBay account.

A sign at Ian Claughton's home (Yorkshire and Humber Regional Organised Crime Unit/PA Wire)

A three-day multi-agency operation saw dozens of residents evacuated as a 100-metre cordon was put in place in Grimethorpe while Army bomb squad experts were called in.

Ian Claughton, 60, pleaded guilty to bringing a realistic imitation firearm into the country, being concerned in the production of cannabis and two counts of possession with intent to supply class B drugs.

He was convicted of three counts of possessing prohibited firearms, possession of criminal property and possession of explosive substances after a trial at Doncaster Crown Court.

He was cleared of a firearms charge relating to a stun gun.

Lesley Claughton, 59, was found guilty of bringing a realistic imitation firearm into the country, possessing class B drugs with intent to supply, possession of criminal property and being concerned in production of cannabis.

A crossbow was among the weapons found at the address (Yorkshire and Humber Regional Organised Crime Unit/PA Wire)

Detective Superintendent Al Burns, of the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Organised Crime Unit, said: Ian Claughton is someone who was clearly involved in drugs offending to a very significant degree.

He appears to have developed a siege mentality that saw him go to unusual and elaborate lengths to defend his home and its illicit contents from would-be intruders, drawing inspiration from Macaulay Culkins character in the popular Christmas film Home Alone.

When he tried to import realistic-looking firearms from China, which were diligently intercepted by UK Border Force staff, we became involved and carried out raids on his addresses.

The modified booby-trap devices officers found at his address, alongside an array of other weapons, had the appearance of home-made bombs and obviously caused us serious concerns, which were rightly met with an appropriate multi-agency response to safeguard the public until military experts could declare the scene safe.

This caused significant disruption and concern in the local community over a number of days, and we hope all those affected can take some comfort and reassurance from seeing Claughton and his ex-partner being criminally held to account.
Mexicos most populous state has announced heightened health screening at schools and recommended face mask use for students and staff, as the country grapples with a burgeoning measles outbreak.

This decision by Mexico state follows similar preventative measures introduced last week in Jalisco, the epicentre of the nations largest outbreak. In Jalisco, masks are now mandatory in schools across its capital, Guadalajara, Mexicos second-largest city.

As of 6 February, Mexico had recorded 2,143 confirmed measles cases nationwide, with nearly 6,000 additional suspected cases.

Jalisco alone accounted for over half of these confirmed infections, though cases have now been identified from Mexicos northern to its southern borders.

The health department for Mexico state, which borders Mexico City on three sides, confirmed that students temperatures would be checked upon school entry, alongside a renewed push for vaccination campaigns.

The initial surge in measles cases began last year in the northern border state of Chihuahua. Officials traced this outbreak to an eight-year-old unvaccinated Mennonite boy who had visited relatives in Seminole, Texas, a known centre of the US outbreak.

As of 6 February, Mexico had recorded 2,143 confirmed measles cases nationwide, with nearly 6,000 additional suspected cases. (Associated Press)

While the Chihuahua outbreak has since been brought under control, confirmed measles cases are now present in all 32 of Mexicos states.

Scientists say rising outbreaks across the hemisphere are linked to declining vaccination rates.

Jalisco health authorities announced Thursday that masks will be required in Guadalajara schools across seven specific neighborhoods for the next 30 days.

Jalisco was the first Mexican state to take such measures as medical groups urged the local government to take urgent action, marking the countrys first such public health mandate since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Classes were also recently suspended in 15 schools in Jalisco and the central state of Aguascalientes due to outbreaks of the highly contagious airborne virus.

While the Chihuahua outbreak has since been brought under control, confirmed measles cases are now present in all 32 of Mexicos states. (Associated Press)

Mexico state Health Secretary Macarena Montoya Olvera said Monday that the outbreak in the state is under control and that the cases have so far been light. The federal government has confirmed 40 cases there.

Mexico City has launched an aggressive vaccination campaign. As of last Friday, there were 166 confirmed cases.

The Pan American Health Organization issued an epidemiological alert last week following a surge of measles cases across the Americas.

Canada lost its measles-free status in November and the same could happen to the United States and Mexico.
An Irishman currently detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has described the facilities as like a modern-day concentration camp.

Seamus Culleton, originally from Co Kilkenny, has resided in the US for nearly two decades and is married to an American citizen.

He was apprehended by ICE agents in September 2025 while driving home from work, recalling how he first noticed a man in blue sunglasses before other agents appeared.

Mr Culleton is now appealing for Irish premier Micheal Martin to raise his case directly with US president Donald Trump during their scheduled meeting at the White House in March.

When asked if he had a green card, he said he did not, but that he was married to a US citizen, had a work permit and was due to receive his green card.

He was detained and initially put into a holding cell in Massachusetts before being taken to New York and then to the detention centre in El Paso, Texas. He claimed that ICE agents had tried to get him to sign deportation papers, which he said he absolutely did not.

He described the detention centre in El Paso as horrible, where there is little sanitation, limited food and where it was tough to stay positive. He said he was in fear for his life from the security firm in charge, who he said were capable of anything, and said that it is not easy to predict what will happen.

He said there were 72 people in a tent the size of a 16ft x 35ft room with no ceiling, with two rows of bunk beds on either side and a long table down the middle.

Seamus Culleton pictured with his wife, Tiffany (Facebook)

He described the conditions at the camp as filthy, the toilets and showers as nasty, and that illnesses are rife among those being detained. He said there was competition for food and said he had definitely lost weight.

There is no real quality of life here. Ive been locked in the same room now for four and a half months, he told RTEs Liveline programme. Ive had barely any outside time, no fresh air, no sunshine. I could probably count on both hands the amount of times Ive been outside.

Id be so grateful if we could just end this asap. Ive been detained now for five months, locked in the same room for four and a half of those months. Its just torture. I dont know how much more I can take.

He said the detention centre was a psychological and physical torture and was also difficult for his mother. I just want to get back to my wife. Were so desperate to start a family. My own family at home in Ireland is also suffering, my mother especially, shes heartbroken that Im in here.

I talk to her most days. Shes just heartbroken over the whole situation, I dont want her health to get any worse. Shes constantly worrying and stressing about me.

Anti-ICE protesters at a demonstration in Boston in January (AFP/Getty)

On the same programme, Mr Culletons wife, Tiffany, described the shock of his detention and the awful experience of trying to maintain contact with him in the intervening period.

She said she did not hear from him for almost a week after an initial phone call following his arrest, and said she did not know if he was deported and had no idea if he was safe.

Asked if she had been allowed to visit her husband, she said ICE officially allows visits, but it is almost impossible to set one up. She had booked flights from Massachusetts to Texas to attend one of Mr Culletons court dates, but the hearing was moved on the day before her journey.

Hes a good man. I dont think anyone deserves this but Seamus definitely doesnt deserve this, she said.

Culleton is appealing for Irish premier Micheal Martin to raise his case with Trump during their meeting in March (PA)

She said she had attempted to reach senators and Mr Trump about the case but had received no response.

Earlier, Mr Culletons sister, Caroline, said his family still does not know why he was detained. There are no words. I mean the way theyre being kept and theyre locked up, and hes only been allowed out a couple of times. They dont see the sunlight. They dont get out. Their health deteriorates.

She said he has lost an awful lot of weight, adding that he has sores, infections and hair loss.

She told the News at One programme that his ongoing detention was heartbreaking for our mother and his extended family.

In a statement, the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said: Minister McEntee is aware of this case and of the consular assistance being provided to the citizen involved, and his family, by our Consulate General in Austin, Texas, and our consular unit in Dublin.

Our embassy in Washington DC is also engaging directly with the Department of Homeland Security at a senior level in relation to this case.
Jean-Philippe Matetas move to AC Milan fell through due to a knee problem (Getty Images)

Oliver Glasner has revealed that Jean-Philippe Mateta does not need surgery to deal with an ongoing knee issue that quashed his desired move from Crystal Palace to AC Milan.

The France international was on the verge of a deadline day transfer to the San Siro before Milan pulled out of the deal following the medical, upon discovering that his knee problem was more serious than previously thought.

It left Mateta in an awkward position, forced to return to the club he had passionately pushed to leave and reintegrate into a squad that now includes more direct competition in club-record signing Jorgen Strand Larsen, who made his debut in the Eagles' victory over Brighton.

But Glasner, while unable to give a specific timeline, insists his return will not be thwarted by a lengthy injury lay-off, saying that medical specialists have not advised for the striker to go under the knife.

"Fortunately he does not need surgery, Glasner said. The knee, the injury is not as bad as feared and so we think and the opinion from several specialists and doctors is that we can deal with the knee in a better way than with surgery.

He will miss a certain time, I can't say two weeks, three weeks, four weeks. He doesn't need surgery, that is positive and hopefully he is back soon."

On Matetas failed move to Milan, he added: It was a disappointment but he is looking forward to the next months. It is good for him now that there is a final decision taken.

Of course at the end he took the final decision with the recommendations with specialists and the medical departments, so they will do the rehab here at the training ground.

Jean-Philippe Mateta wanted to leave Crystal Palace in January (PA Wire)

"He wants to be back as soon as possible and contribute to achieve our goals. That is his mindset and I think that is the best he can do."

Glasner believes Mateta, Palaces top scorer with 10 goals in all competitions, will be warmly welcomed back into the squad despite being evidently desperate to move away from Selhurst Park.

"What they can expect is that everybody gives his best when he wears the Eagle," Glasner said.

"And I'm 100 percent convinced that JP will give his best when he wears the Eagle shirt again, and I think then he deserves the best support.

"I'm pretty sure our fans will support him in the best way, appreciating what he has done for Crystal Palace.

"As long as a player is here, as long as a manager is here, as long as a staff member is here, then everybody can expect being 100 percent committed to Crystal Palace and that is what JP will show."
A federal judge has temporarily halted a California law that sought to prohibit federal immigration agents from concealing their faces while on duty. Despite the block, agents will still be mandated to display clear identification, including their agency and badge number.

California became the first state to enact such a ban on facial coverings for most law enforcement officers, a measure signed into law in September following a summer marked by high-profile Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in Los Angeles.

The Trump administration subsequently filed a lawsuit in November, contending that the legislation jeopardised officer safety by exposing them to harassment, doxing and violence, and unconstitutionally regulated the federal government.

Judge Christina Snyder issued the preliminary ruling, explaining that the mask ban, as implemented, did not extend to state law enforcement authorities, thereby discriminating against federal agencies. This decision could carry significant national implications as other states grapple with how to manage federal agents enforcing the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.

The ruling could have national implications as states grapple with how to deal with federal agents enforcing the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. (Reuters/Octavio Jones)

It left open the possibility to future legislation banning federal agents from wearing masks if it applied to all law enforcement agencies, with Snyder writing "the Court finds that federal officers can perform their federal functions without wearing masks. The ruling will go into effect Feb. 19.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill in September banning some law enforcement officers from wearing masks, neck gaiters, and other facial coverings. It was slated to go into effect Jan. 1 but was put on hold due to the lawsuit.

In addition to exempting state law enforcement officers, it made exceptions for undercover agents, protective equipment like N95 respirators or tactical gear, and other situations where not wearing a mask would jeopardize an operation. Snyder sided with the federal government, which argued this exemption was discriminatory against federal agents.

Newsom also signed into law a measure requiring law enforcement to wear clear identification showing their agency and badge number while on the job, which was challenged by the federal government but upheld by the judge.

California State Sen. Scott Weiner, who proposed the original bill to ban facial coverings, said Monday he would immediately introduce new legislation to include state police in the law.

ICE and Border Patrol are covering their faces to maximize their terror campaign and to insulate themselves from accountability, Weiner said in a news release. We will ensure our mask ban can be enforced.

At a Jan. 14 hearing, Snyder repeatedly asked the governments lawyer, Tiberius Davis, to explain why banning masks would impede the federal law enforcement in carrying out their duties, if officers rarely wore masks prior to 2025.

Davis cited claims by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that there has been a multifold increase in assaults and threats against federal officers. He also brought up an incident in Los Angeles where three women are being accused of livestreaming while following an ICE agent home and posting the address on Instagram.

There is real deterrence on the officers safety and ability to perform their duties, Davis said.

Cameron Bell, California Department of Justice attorney, challenged his claims, saying there was no concrete evidence that federal agents cant perform their duties without facial coverings.

Bell referenced declarations from U.S citizens who have been detained by federal agents but thought they were being kidnapped.

Its obvious why these laws are in the public interest, Bell said.

The federal government also argued in legal briefs that allowing Californias legislation could lead other states to be emboldened to impose similar unconstitutional restraints.

Davis cited a statement from Newsom in July 2025 during an interview posted online where he discussed the mask ban bill, saying, It appears that we dont have the legal authority for federal agents but we do for other law enforcement authorities.

Los Angeles County supervisors voted in December to enact a local ordinance banning law enforcement from wearing masks that went into effect Jan. 8. However, the sheriffs department said it would not enforce the ordinance until after the court ruled on the statewide mask ban. The Los Angeles Police Department had also said it wouldnt enforce the mask ban.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday abruptly cut short a briefing with reporters after a reporter asked about Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnicks relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

The question came hours after Lutnick, responding to questions from congressional lawmakers over documents released by the Justice Department, revealed that he misled the public about the extent of his ties to the convicted pedophile sex trafficker, who killed himself in jail while awaiting trial.

Leavitt was roughly 20 minutes into one of her regular briefings with the White House press corps when a reporter asked whether President Donald Trump would stand behind Lutnick, who earlier in the day had admitted to members of the Senate Commerce Committee that hed visited Epsteins notorious private island, Little Saint James.

She replied that Trump fully supports Lutnick and described him as a very important member of President Trump's team.

But instead of allowing reporters to probe further into Trumps views on Lutnick, or ask any other further questions, Leavitt launched into a monologue chastising reporters for not asking about various positive statistics touted by the administration on issues of importance to the president.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt leaves after chastising reporters Tuesday for asking probing questions about an administration members ties to Jeffrey Epstein (Getty)

I will just point out that there are a lot of wins in the news this week that people in this room have not asked about  you continue to ask questions about the same subject  so let me point them out for you again, she said.

Leavitt then started rattling off a list of days-old topics, including stock market results from this past Friday, a medical group announcing opposition to performing gender transition surgery on minors, or recent reductions in the national crime rate.

So we're going to get back to business. The president is very busy tonight, and you'll see him all tomorrow at the event in the East Room touting his administrations energy policy, she said.

She then turned and walked out of the room with a group of aides in tow.

Leavitt also answered a question about another document released by the administration which relayed a secondhand report alleging that Trump had spoken to a Palm Beach, Florida police chief about Epstein and claimed that everyone knew about the pedophiles illegal activities with minors.

The Commerce Secretary admitted to visiting Epsteins island in 2012, nearly a decade after he claimed to have cut off contact with him (Getty)

Although she would not confirm whether the alleged 2006 phone call actually happened, she claimed Trump has always been honest and transparent about his relationship with Epstein, who was once among one of his closest friends before the two men had a falling-out in the early 2000s.

Lutnick, a longtime friend of the president who had pushed to become Treasury Secretary after serving as the finance chief for Trumps 2024 campaign, has not been similarly honest and transparent about his ties to the dead rapist.

While he had told the New York Post in October that hed cut off contact with Epstein  his onetime next door neighbor  after a 2005 encounter that he claimed had left him so unsettled that hed vowed to never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again, documents released by the Justice Department showed that Lutnick not only maintained ties with Epstein as late as 2018  the year before he was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges and long after hed spent time in jail for state-level offenses related to his preying on young girls  but even arranged a visit to Epsteins so-called rape island in 2012.

The commerce secretary admitted to visiting the infamous landmass, which is part of the U.S. Virgin Islands, on Tuesday under questioning from Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen.

I did have lunch with him, as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation. My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies, he said.

We had lunch on the island, that is true, for an hour, and we left with all of my children with my nannies and my wife  I dont recall why we did it.

Lutnick also claimed in his testimony that he did not have any relationship with Epstein and barely had anything to do with that person.
Lewis Hamilton is said to be keen to spend as much time as possible with Kim Kardashian, as their relationship continues to gather pace despite their demanding schedules.

The pair made their first public appearance together at the weekend when they attended Super Bowl LX, where eagle-eyed viewers spotted them together during the broadcast.

In recent weeks, Hamilton, 41, has reportedly been based in Los Angeles, spending time with Kardashian and her family.

According to new reports, the reception has been overwhelmingly positive, with Kims inner circle said to adore and approve of the seven-time Formula One world champion.

Lewis Hamilton and Kim Kardashian at Super Bowl LX

A source told The Sun: Kim and Lewiss relationship is intense but they are both keen to keep moving forwards. He wants to spend as much time with her as possible, especially as hell be back getting ready for the new F1 season in a couple of weeks.

Lewis has been in LA, spending time with Kim and her family. They all adore him, especially her mum Kris, who has loved having Lewis around.

The insider added that the family are fully behind the romance, saying: Theyre all really approving of this relationship. They just want to see Kim happy.

The Standard has contacted representatives for both Hamilton and Kardashian for comment.

Ahead of the Super Bowl, Kardashians longtime hairstylist Chris Appleton shared a photo of her look on Instagram, captioning the post: Super Bowl bangs.

The appearance came just days after the pair reportedly enjoyed a luxury stay in the UK.

The US reality star and entrepreneur, 45, is understood to have flown into England earlier this month to spend 24 hours with the Formula 1 champion at Estelle Manor in the Cotswolds, a countryside retreat popular with A-list guests.

According to The Sun, Kardashian arrived at Oxford Airport via her 100 million private jet, before being driven the short distance to the exclusive hotel, accompanied by three bodyguards.

Hamilton is said to have joined her an hour later, arriving by helicopter from London.

Lewis Hamilton (second from the left) and Kim Kardashian (centre) pictured at the WSJ. Magazine 2021 Innovator Awards (Getty Images for WSJ. Magazine I)

The pair reportedly stayed in one of the manors main house rooms, which start from 1,000 a night, and treated themselves to a private dinner and a couples massage in a secluded area of the spa.

Insiders added that the low-key getaway could have cost up to 120,000 once accommodation, treatments and security were factored in.

The couple are said to have checked out at around 11am on Sunday, leaving together in the same two vehicles that had collected Kardashian from the airport.

While Hamilton exited through the main entrance, Kardashian was reportedly ushered out via a side door, though she was later spotted with eight suitcases bearing her name.

Kardashian was later seen making a surprise visit to Selfridges in London.

The pair have moved in similar social circles for over a decade and were previously photographed together at the 2014 GQ Men of the Year Awards in London, alongside their then partners Kanye West and Nicole Scherzinger.

Kardashian and West announced their split in 2021 and finalised their divorce the following year.

Hamilton has also been a long-time friend of Kardashians sister Kendall Jenner, while her mother Kris Jenner has been spotted cheering him on at races, including the Monaco Grand Prix.

The pair were last seen together at Kate Hudsons New Years Eve party in Aspen.
The new National Housing Bank will unlock 53 billion of additional private investment, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said (Gareth Fuller/PA) (PA Archive)

A rogue London-based builder who scammed customers out of over 100,000 has been jailed for three years after a lengthy investigation by authorities.

Aaron Lee Taylor, 36, was found guilty of three counts of Fraudulent Trading by a jury at Snaresbrook Crown Court.

This comes after a complex investigation by Barking and Dagenham Councils Trading Standards team and the National Trading Standards Tri-Regional Investigation Team.

Over a period of two years, Taylor took on six building projects, for which he took payment, before demanding additional money and then abandoning the work, often leaving the homes in a dangerous or barely habitable state.

He took thousands from his victims, who were left facing further repair bills, and in some cases, with unsafe homes.

Taylor, who was described as a cowboy builder in court, worked under a number of aliases to conduct his scams, including Aaron Stokes, Paul Smith, and Aran Taylor, to obscure his identity.

He also created fake company names, including Elite Master Contractors Ltd and EMC Building & Landscaping Ltd, to appear legitimate to prospective customers.

He was handed a three-year sentence on January 23 on each count, which will run concurrently.

The council will now seek to recover funds through a confiscation process under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Councillor Syed Ghani, Cabinet Member for Enforcement and Community Safety, said: Protecting residents from rogue traders is one of our top priorities, and Im proud of the work our Trading Standards team and TRIT have done to secure this outcome. This sentence sends a clear message that we will not tolerate those who exploit people in their own homes.

We will now push ahead with confiscation proceedings to ensure the proceeds of these crimes are recovered.

Lord Michael Bichard, Chair of National Trading Standards, described Taylors acts as calculated, repeated offending that saw people exploited in their own homes.

He went on, This criminal abused trust to take money for work that was never finished and left victims facing financial loss, emotional distress, and, in some cases, dangerous living conditions.

Time behind bars sends a clear message that those who set out to defraud homeowners will be investigated thoroughly and held to account. I would urge anyone concerned about a traders behaviour to report it so others are protected from similar harm.

In the aftermath of Taylors offences, residents have been reminded to be wary of cold callers offering repair work, especially those trying to pressure them into quick decisions.

Anyone who wants to report a rogue trader should do so by calling the Citizens Advice consumer service helpline on 0808 223 1133 or to the council by emailing tradingstandards@lbbd.gov.uk.
(Metropolitan Police)

A South London musician who sent hundreds of sexually explicit images of himself to several women has been handed a 12-month suspended prison sentence.

Ben Gunnery, a musician from Vauxhall, avoided jail when he was sentenced this week following an investigation into whats known as cyberflashing.

A Bromley court sentenced the musician to 12 months' imprisonment, suspended for two years, as well as a five-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order and a two-year restraining order against one of the women.

The 46-year-old, who pleaded guilty to two counts of sending sexual photographs to cause alarm, distress and humiliation, will also remain on the sex offenders register.

Cyberflashing has been a criminal offence since January 31, 2024, and carries a maximum two-year prison sentence.

Speaking about the case, Met Police investigators said Gunnerys deeply intrusive behaviour had caused significant distress to the women, who were not friends with the man.

Gunnery carried out a sustained and deeply intrusive pattern of offending that caused significant distress to his victims. His actions were deliberate, harmful, and completely unacceptable. I hope todays sentencing sends a clear message that cyberflashing is a serious offence and will be treated as such, said Detective Inspector Pender.

Gunnery sent over 200 unsolicited and unwanted pictures and videos to several women over a period of months after seeking out the individuals online.

According to CPS, he was already registered as a sex offender for similar offences in 2023 and 2025.

Addressing this weeks sentencing, CPS District Crown Prosecutor for London South, Adrita Ahmed, said: Cyberflashing is a serious offence, and Ben Gunnerys actions have had a significant impact on the victims. Their sense of safety was violated by the sexual images Gunnery sent which were not asked for, not welcome and not harmless.

"We acted swiftly in this case, charging the defendant hours after we received the file from police.

According to the Rape Crisis charity, cyberflashing is considered a form of indecent exposure that commonly involves men and teenage boys sending unwanted photos or videos of their penises (so-called 'dick pics').

The organisation adds that cyberflashing is very common, distressing, and may form part of grooming.
Long Covid could trigger changes in the brain that are similar to Alzheimers, new study says

Some people suffering from long Covid may experience symptoms similar to those seen in individuals with Alzheimers disease, according to new research.

Recent findings from New York University Langone Health suggest that changes in the brain caused by long Covid  symptoms of the illness that linger for more than three months, according to the CDC  may result in long-term fatigue, brain fog, dizziness, loss of smell or taste, depression, and other symptoms.

Some 20 million Americans have been diagnosed with long Covid, according to Yale Medicine.

Our work suggests that long-term immune reactions caused in some cases after an initial COVID infection may come with swelling that damages a critical brain barrier in the choroid plexus, senior study author Dr. Yulin Ge, a professor in the Department of Radiology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, said in a statement.

The choroid plexus is a collection of blood vessels in the ventricles of the brain that produce cerebrospinal fluid and act as a barrier, according to the National Institutes of Health. Cerebrospinal fluid acts as a cushion for the brain and spinal cord and protects them from injury. It also removes waste and moves nutrients to essential parts of the brain and spinal cord.

Dr Monika Brunner-Weinzierl holds test tubes with Covid-19 cell cultures during a long Covid sample processing. New research suggests that some patients with long Covid may experience symptoms similar to those present in Alzheimers patients, including brain fog and cognitive decline (AFP via Getty)

Dr Ge noted in the research that physical, molecular and clinical evidence suggests that a larger CP may be an early warning sign of future Alzheimers-like cognitive decline.

The study, published in the Alzheimer's Association's Alzheimers & Dementia journal, followed 86 long Covid patients showing neurological symptoms, 67 people who had fully recovered from Covid without lasting symptoms, and another 26 healthy individuals who had never been infected.

The researchers found that study participants with long Covid had a 10 percent larger choroid plexus than those who recovered without suffering long-term symptoms.

A larger choroid plexus is a marker of chronic neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration, according to the study. They can also be linked to blood-oriented biomarkers found in patients with progressing Alzheimer's.

Medical technician Gabriel Cervera Rodriguez watches a screen which shows a patient's MRI images at nursing station in the Covid-19 intensive care unit at the United Memorial Medical Center in Houston. New research published in the Alzheimers & Dementia journal found that the illness may be enlarging patients choroid plexus, which can cause cognitive symptoms like those found in Alzheimers patients (Getty)

The study also found that patients with a larger choroid plexus scored 2 percent worse on a 30-point cognitive test.

The researchers proposed that long Covid can cause chronic inflammation that leads the blood vessels in the CP to thicken.

It is currently unknown whether these changes are reversible. We are actively analyzing their follow-up data to address this question, Dr Ge told the New York Post.

Senior study author Dr. Thomas Wisniewski of the NYU Grossman School of Medicine said in a statement that the team's next steps will be to monitor the patients to see if the brain changes we identified can predict who will develop long-term cognitive issues.
WELLESLEY, Mass., Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Sun Life U.S. has received its 17th consecutive 100% score on Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index (CEI), the nation's foremost benchmarking survey and report measuring LGBTQ+ workplace inclusion. Sun Life continuously engages employees in fostering an inclusive, supportive workplace that encourages every employee to bring their authentic selves to work.

Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index 2026

"Maintaining a perfect score on the Corporate Equality Index year after year confirms our genuine commitment to the inclusion and belonging of all employees," said Diontha Fancher, director of Inclusion & Belonging for Sun Life U.S. "Our dedication to a culture of inclusion helps attract and retain talent from all backgrounds, and drives how we support our employees in meaningful ways."

As a leading benefits provider, Sun Life has been intentional in offering benefits that support all employees, and include considerations for the LGBTQ+ community so they can also thrive. This includes access to fertility and family building benefits without needing to provide a medical diagnosis of infertility, and a "chosen family" option within paid family leave coverage.

"For nearly a quarter of a century, the Corporate Equality Index has put a marker down for businesses committed to inclusion and transparency for all workers. Now, more than ever, we celebrate them," said Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. "No matter the environment, companies that communicate clearly and lead with transparency earn trust, retain talent, and strengthen their business. We are always here to collaborate with employers who want to foster a workplace where team members can bring their best selves to the office."

Sun Life's Pride Inclusion Network supports GLAAD, and is a sponsor of Out & Equal, attending the Out & Equal 2025 Workplace Summit, and offering its resources to Sun Life employees.

Sun Life U.S. has been named a Best Employer for Diversity by Forbes and receives the Great Place to Work recognition each year. Sun Life's other U.S. workplace recognitions include the Top Places to Work lists in the Boston Globe, Hartford Courant, Baltimore Sun, Kansas City Star, and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and the Top Workplaces list in the Kansas City Business Journal. Sun Life U.S. is also listed on the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index.

For more information on Sun Life's Inclusion Networks and culture of belonging, visit https://www.sunlife.com/us/en/about/inclusion-at-sun-life/.

For more information about working at Sun Life, visit https://www.sunlife.com/us/en/about/careers/.

About Sun Life

Sun Life is a leading international financial services organization providing asset management, wealth, insurance and health solutions to individual and institutional Clients. Sun Life has operations in a number of markets worldwide, including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, India, China, Australia, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and Bermuda. As of September 30, 2023, Sun Life had total assets under management of C$1.34 trillion. For more information, please visit www.sunlife.com.

Sun Life Financial Inc. trades on the Toronto (TSX), New York (NYSE) and Philippine (PSE) stock exchanges under the ticker symbol SLF.

Sun Life U.S. is one of the largest providers of employee and government benefits, helping more than 50 million Americans access the healthcare and coverage they need. Through employers, industry partners and government programs, Sun Life U.S. offers a portfolio of benefits and services, including dental, vision, disability, absence management, life, supplemental health, medical stop-loss insurance, and healthcare navigation. Sun Life employs more than 8,300 people in the U.S., including associates in our partner dental practices and affiliated companies in asset management. Group insurance policies are issued by Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada (Wellesley Hills, Mass.), except in New York, where policies are issued by Sun Life and Health Insurance Company (U.S.) (Lansing, Mich.). For more information visit our website and newsroom.

Media contacts

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New York Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado has suspended his gubernatorial campaign, ending his unusual challenge to fellow Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul as she seeks a full second term.

Delgado, who had positioned himself as a progressive alternative to Hochul since last summer, conceded there was "no viable path forward" after a series of setbacks.

The setbacks included New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani endorsing Hochul earlier this month, providing significant support from a prominent figure on the left. Furthermore, Delgado failed to secure enough backing for an automatic spot on the Democratic primary ballot, meaning he would have had to circulate petitions.

The liberal Working Families Party also declined to endorse his candidacy.

Zohran Mamdani endorsed Hochul earlier this month, providing significant support from a prominent figure on the left (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

The lieutenant governor and Hochul had reportedly clashed for months before he announced his candidacy in June, with Delgado arguing New York required more progressive, transformative leadership.

Despite ending his bid, Delgado confirmed he would continue to serve as lieutenant governor and support Democrats. He stated, "And though my campaign has come to an end, I fully intend to do all I can in our effort to build a more humane, affordable, and equitable state that serves all New Yorkers."

In response, Hochul has named Adrienne Adams, the former speaker of the New York City Council, as her preferred lieutenant governor candidate for the upcoming election.

Meanwhile, New York Republicans are expected to nominate Bruce Blakeman, a county official in Long Island and an ally of President Donald Trump, for governor this week.
Ernest Zacharevic, the Lithuanian street artist behind one of Penangs most photographed murals, has filed a lawsuit against AirAsia after discovering that his artwork had been reproduced on the body of a commercial aircraft without his permission.

The suit is the latest development in a dispute that began in November 2024, when Zacharevic revealed on social media that his 2012 mural Kids on Bicycle had been incorporated into the livery of an AirAsia aircraft.

The mural, painted during the George Town Festival in 2012, depicts two children riding a bicycle mounted onto a wall in George Town, Penang, where Zacharevic lives and owns a studio.

The piece has drawn visitors from around the world and is widely regarded as one of Malaysias most recognisable pieces of street art. Zacharevic has been likened to the famous British street artist Banksy, and one of his works featuring a woman carrying a Chanel bag walking and a man with a knife on the other side of the wall was painted over by local officials in 2013.

Zacharevic realised in October 2024 that his mural had been incorporated into the livery of an AirAsia aircraft without permission, when a friend tagged me in an Instagram story capturing the plane on the runway.

About a month later in November 2024, I saw it on the runway myself when I was taking a flight from the Penang International Airport, he told The Independent.

Ernest Zacharevic said he saw his mural on the runway when he was taking a flight from the Penang International Airport (Supplied)

He posted an image of the plane on social media and tagged AirAsia and its founder Tony Fernandes, writing: I think we need to talk.

At the time, Zacharevic said that his team attempted to reach AirAsia but found it difficult to navigate corporate channels. The livery was removed from the plane and the airline later said it was in discussions with the artist.

Those discussions have since ended some months ago, the artist confirmed.

Zacharevic said that while the events between October and November 2024 are the primary reason behind him filing the suit, earlier instances dating back to 2016 are also part of the dispute.

I believe the issues involved require adjudication in the courts, Zacharevic said, confirming that he has begun proceedings in the Kuala Lumpur high court against AirAsia Berhad and its holding company, Capital A Berhad.

Zacharevic is alleging in the suit that the defendants have reproduced, displayed, and adapted the Artwork without his knowledge, licence, or authorisation. On that basis, he is claiming copyright and moral rights infringement, along with passing off and unlawful interference with his trade.

The airline confirmed it was discussing the matter with Zacharevic after he first raised concerns, with AirAsias then-marketing chief Rudy Khaw saying they were working on it. Theres been no public comment from the airline since, however, and AirAsia did not respond to a request for comment when approached by The Independent.

Children On A Bicycle by Lithuanian artist Ernest Zacharevic (Supplied)

The airline had not informed him or been in touch with him regarding the use of his work before the aircraft entered commercial service, he said. Zacharevic has also confirmed that he has not made any licensing agreement with AirAsia over using his work.

He said the plane flew to international destinations, including Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand, and had been in service for around two months while carrying his design.

The distortion of my Kids on Bicycle artwork, the modification made to the tone, proportion, and scale of my artworks to fit onto the body of the livery of an aircraft are all issues that I take serious objection to, as any artist would, Zacharevic said, referring to his moral rights claim.

He is also alleging passing off, arguing that the scale and visibility of use of one of my most important artworks on the body of an aircraft gave the impression that he had endorsed and allowed its use.

The aircraft livery, Zacharevic has maintained, was not an isolated incident.

Over the past 10 years or so, my Kids on Bicycle artwork has been used in numerous marketing and promotional campaigns without my prior consent or approval  this included cheap flight / free seats campaigns, accommodations + flights promotions, launch of new food delivery app, etc, he said.

I did formally send my objections sometime ago, however the instances were too numerous for me to pursue on each one of them without draining my resources.

According to the suit, he is seeking declaratory relief recognising his rights as the artist, orders restraining further unauthorised use, removal and destruction of infringing materials, and appropriate monetary remedies.

Beyond financial compensation, Zacharevic said the case is about artistic control.

Beyond monetary compensation, what I am seeking for is the court's recognition that artists like myself should be able to control the commercialisation of our artworks, he told The Independent.

We spend many years training and honing our crafts, and it is only just and right that we are fairly remunerated when other corporate entities profit from our artworks. This right of livelihood is fundamental, and deserves protection in the eyes of the law.
Jensen-Lee Dougal was murdered at the family home in Swansea (South Wales Police/PA Wire)

A man has been found guilty of killing his baby stepson after an argument with his ex-girlfriend.

Thomas Morgan, 29, murdered five-month-old Jensen-Lee Dougal at the family home in Swansea while full of rage following an argument with his ex-girlfriend earlier that day.

The baby died in hospital after suffering catastrophic brain damage, numerous fractures and extensive retinal bleeding to both of his eyes, Swansea Crown Court previously heard.

Morgan, of Gorseinon, Swansea, had claimed he tried to save Jensen-Lees life after he started choking, but was found guilty of his murder by a jury on Tuesday.

The court heard Morgan was in a relationship with Jensen-Lees mother, Jordan Dougal, and was treated as the babys stepfather.

Caroline Rees KC, prosecuting, said Morgan seriously abused the trust placed in him by assaulting Jensen-Lee on March 30 2024, the day before he died.

Swansea Crown Court (Tim Ireland/PA)

Morgan had argued with Georgia Griffiths, his former partner, earlier that day, and was left alone with Jensen-Lee while the babys mother went to work.

There, Ms Dougal received a call from Morgan in which he told her the baby was choking and had stopped breathing, the court heard.

The five-month-old was taken to hospital but found to have a devastating brain injury, and was taken off life support the following day.

Ms Rees said: The defendant, his temper raised and his fuse short after an argument with Georgia Griffiths, must have snapped and shaken Jensen-Lee with such violence that he caused devastating injuries which led to Jensen-Lees death in his mothers arms at only five months old.

Morgan denied inflicting serious injuries on Jensen-Lee and said he tried to save the baby after he fell ill in his care.

He will be sentenced on February 25.

Detective Chief Inspector Lianne Rees, of South Wales Police, said: Todays conviction brings some measure of justice, but in no way eases the profound heartbreak Jensen-Lees family continue to endure.

I want to pay tribute to the members of the public, first responders and everyone involved in the desperate efforts to save Jensen-Lees life, when faced with the most unimaginable and tragic circumstances back in March 2024.

I also want to acknowledge the incredible dignity and strength shown by Jensen-Lees family throughout this painful journey.

Lastly, I would like to thank the investigation team, Crown Prosecution Service and Prosecution Counsel for their continued hard work throughout what has been a very difficult investigation and trial.
Margot Robbie has said that she was once given a weight-loss book by a male co-star, revealing she told him: F*** you, dide!

The Australian actor, 35, is currently promoting her new movie Wuthering Heights, an adaptation of the classic Emily Bronte novel in which she stars opposite Jacob Elordi.

In an interview with Charli XCX, who recorded the soundtrack for the film, Robbie recalled the experience with an unnamed former co-star.

Very, very early in my career, an actor I worked with, a male actor, gave me a book called French Women Don't Get Fat, recalled Robbie, and it was essentially a book telling you to eat less.

The book in question, French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure by Mireille Guiliano, was first published in 2006, and became a best-seller. Guiliano wrote that the book is specifically aimed at women who need to lose up to thirty pounds.

Reflecting on the incident, Robbie stated: [The actor] essentially gave me a book to let me know that I should lose weight. I was like, Wow.

Robbie in Wuthering Heights (Warner Bros)

Charli then asked her collaborator whether the co-star in question was still acting.

Robbie responded: That was a very long [time ago]. I have no idea where he would even be now. Really back in the day.

The Barbie and Wolf of Wall Street star has spoken out against the sexism she has experienced on film sets before, including in her capacity as a producer on recent films.

Speaking to Glamour UK in 2020, Robbie said that sexist attitudes were naturally ingrained in people on set.

Even if you are the one who should be dictating the decisions, they turn to the closest, eldest male in the room and direct the question at them, she said. Its just an inherent thing everyone has got in their DNA.

Wuthering Heights has received largely negative reviews from critics, with The Independents Clarisse Loughrey awarding it one star.

Our modern literacy crisis has found a new figurehead in Emerald Fennells Wuthering Heights, she wrote. Its Emily Brontes 1847 classic for a culture thats denigrated literature to the point where its no longer intended to expand the mind but to distract it.
X/@GOPoversight

Ghislaine Maxwell said she would exonerate Donald Trump over any wrongdoing connected to Jeffrey Epstein in exchange for clemency.

Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for her role in trafficking girls to Epstein, testified before Congress on Monday that she would not answer any questions about the convicted paedophile.

But David Oscar Markus, her lawyer, said after the hearing that she would be willing to testify that the US president and Bill Clinton, the former president, had not done anything wrong in relation to their links with Epstein in return for clemency.

This prompted a backlash from Democrats, who called for her to be returned to a maximum-security prison and accused the White House of a cover-up.

Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Clinton in the White House in 1993

Mr Markus, who said he advised his client to stay silent during questioning from Congress, told reporters: Ms Maxwell is prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump.

He continued: Some may not like what they hear, but the truth matters.

For example, both President Trump and President Clinton are innocent of any wrongdoing. Ms Maxwell alone can explain why, and the public is entitled to that explanation.

Ro Khanna, a Democratic representative who played a key role in the release of the files, called for Maxwell to be returned to her maximum-security prison after she refused to answer the committees questions.

He said on social media: Here is my conclusion after sitting through Maxwells deposition with her refusing to answer a single question about the men who raped underage girls, saying she would only do so for clemency.

She must immediately be sent back to the maximum security prison where she belongs.

Credit: U.S Department of Justice

Maxwell appeared via video link from Bryan Federal Prison Camp in Texas, a minimum-security facility she was moved to in July 2025. Dressed in her prison uniform and glasses, she spoke only to spell her name and to invoke her right to silence, the 20-minute video of her deposition shows.

In the clip James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, asked Maxwell whether she was a close friend of Epstein.

Maxwell, who was wearing a beige button-up shirt and glasses with dark, cropped hair, said: I would like to answer your question.

But on the advice of counsel I respectfully decline to answer this question and any related questions.

Mr Trump was friends with Epstein for some 15 years until the early 2000s, while Mr Clinton is pictured multiple times in releases from the Epstein files. Both men, who have denied any wrongdoing, flew on the paedophiles private jet several times.

Mr Clinton will testify under oath before the oversight committee on Feb 27, having resisted a subpoena for months until he was threatened with a possible prison sentence.

Maxwell, a former socialite and the ex-girlfriend of Epstein, was jailed in 2022 for procuring women and underage girls for him.

She claimed in January that 29 associates and friends of Epstein were shielded by the US government through secret settlements.

The decision to move her to a minimum-security jail after she testified favourably about Mr Trump in July previously faced scrutiny.

Interviewed by Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, Maxwell said Mr Trump had been a gentleman in all respects and that he was never inappropriate with anybody.

Days after her interview, she was quietly moved from her Florida jail to a minimum-security prison in Texas.

Maxwell in her prison cell at the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn, New York in 2020

Suhas Subramanyam, a Democratic representative, said that Maxwell appeared robotic and unrepentant throughout Mondays hearing.

He accused Mr Trump of impeding the investigation, saying Maxwell refused to answer questions because the president is waving a pardon over her head.

In no way should she ever be pardoned. I call on the president to firmly commit to never pardoning her, he said, adding: The victims deserve justice.

Asked on Monday whether Mr Trump was open to the offer, the White House said a pardon was not something hes talking about or even thinking about at this moment in time. I can assure you of that.
A Norwegian biathlete confessed to having an affair on live television moments after winning a medal at the Milan and Cortina Olympics.

Sturla Holm Laegreid broke down in tears as he explained to Norwegian network NRK he had admitted his infidelity to his girlfriend of six months a week ago.

Laegrid won the bronze medal in the mens 20km biathlon behind compatriot Johan-Olav Botn who took gold, and Frenchman Eric Perrot in second.

Sturla Holm Laegreid finished behind compatriot Johan-Olav Botn, centre, and Frances Eric Perrot, left (Mosaab Elshamy/AP) (Mosaab Elshamy)

He said: There is something I want to share with someone who may not be watching today.

Half a year ago I met the love of my life. The worlds most beautiful and nicest person. Three months ago I made the mistake of my life and cheated on her, and I told her about that a week ago. This has been the worst week of my life.

I had the gold medal in life, and I am sure there are many people who will see things differently, but I only have eyes for her. Sport has come second these last few days. Yes, I wish I could share this with her.

 Sturla Holm LAEGREID [NOR] takes #bronze for Norway in the biathlon men's 20km  It is his second Olympic medal, and the first individual one of his career  @biathlonworld | #MedalAlert | #Samsung | #OpenAlwaysWins | #MilanoCortina2026 pic.twitter.com/tchZW2Ji7d  The Olympic Games (@Olympics) February 10, 2026

Laegreid is a six-time biathlon world champion and won a gold medal at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing as part of the Norwegian relay team.

Pressed on his admission during the post-race medal winners press conference, Laegreid added: I dont know if it was the right choice or not, but it was the choice I made.

Today I made the choice to tell the world what I did so maybe theres a chance that she will see what she really means to me  maybe not, but I dont want to think I didnt try everything to get her back.

I dont want to steal the show today. I hope this is just like a day-or-two thing. Then you are an Olympic gold medallist forever.
The Michelin awards shone favourably on London as nine restaurants picked up one star, while two others achieved two stars.

Matt Abe will be celebrating after achieving two stars for his debut restaurant, Bonheur, despite being open for only a handful of months (read The Standards review here). The opening marked Abes first move after leaving Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea, and consequently came with a crushing weight of expectation. There were also questions asked over whether the restaurant he left would keep its longstanding three stars. It did, under the watchful eye of chef de cuisine Kim Ratcharoen, who said: Retaining three Michelin stars this year is something I feel very proud of. To be entrusted with leading the restaurant through such an important milestone is a real honour and not something I take lightly.

I am excited to bring my own stamp to the restaurant and to be part of shaping its future. It is such an iconic site and being able to contribute to its story is incredibly special to me. The restaurant would not be where it is today without the chefs who have come before and being able to celebrate this moment alongside them means a great deal.

Ramsays sky-high venture Restaurant Gordon Ramsay High was also a winner, picking up a star under head chef James Goodyear, while Restaurant 1890 by Gordon Ramsay and Petrus by Gordon Ramsay both kept their stars.

The other two-star announced, and arguably the star of the night, was Row on 5. The restaurant, from Spencer Metzger and Jason Atherton, picked up a second star just a year after its first. Besides the two stars, its sommelier Roxanne Dupuy was named Michelins sommelier of the year.

Atherton told the Standard in Dublin: Winning stars is very important for us, but its all about the guests. Row on 5 is going from strength to strength, and we have regulars already. But were not always full, so hopefully the two stars will help. We need the help in these tough times.

The difficulty of trading in the present circumstances was a theme among chefs. Tom Brown, whose excellent Tom Brown at the Capital won its first star (read The Standards review here), told this paper: I know its a cliche, but its such a nice validation to win a star, and at a time when everything is so s*** and were getting f***** so hard, Im so happy for the team. Were buzzed, its a little ray of sunshine.

No three stars were newly announced, but Londons The Ledbury, Helene Darroze at The Connaught, Core by Clare Smyth, Sketch Lecture Room & Library, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, and Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester retained their three-star status.

Smyth had a successful evening, in fact, as she picked up a star for her new opening Corenucopia. She told the Standard: Its amazing to get the recognition in such a short amount of time, and its nice to give a platform to my team, too. Were growing, and were absolutely rammed, but this is a hard industry and were facing different pressures now. Were always scared but all we can do is drive on.

Elsewhere, Opening of the Year went to Shwen Shwen in Sevenoaks, led by chef-owner Maria Bradford, for its outstanding Sierra Leonean cooking and wider championing of West African food.

Tom Earnshaw of Bohemia in Jersey won Young Chef of the Year, having become its head chef only last year.

Green stars flourished across six areas of the UK, with wins for 1887 in Torridon in Scotland (which also won a star; read The Standards review here); Forest Side in Grasmere in the Lake District; Knepp Wilding Kitchen in Horsham, Sussex; Eight at Gaze Hill in Rimmington, Lancashire; Glebe House in Southleigh, Devon; and Edinburghs Timberyard and The Free Company.

Londons new one star restaurants

Legado, Shoreditch. Nieves Barragans sophomore venture follows the long-standing success of Sabor, bringing a refined taste of Spain to Shoreditch. The celebrated suckling pig is the signature draw, but every dish here is delivered with the confidence of a chef at the height of her powers. Read our review. Unit 1C Montacute, E1 6HU, legadorestaurants.com

Tom Brown at the Capital, Knightsbridge. After closing Cornerstone, Tom Brown returns to Michelin recognition with a restaurant that channels all his hallmark flair. Initially launched with a tasting menu, the kitchen has settled into an expressive, polished rhythm that showcases Brown at his most assured. He has worked and worked at this one, refining it as he goes. A deserved accolade. Read our review. 22-24 Basil Street, SW3, tombrownatthecapital.com

Ambassadors Clubhouse, Mayfair. Design has always been a strength at the JKS group, and so it is here. Cleverly conceived dishes match the chic surround and immaculate cocktails. A surprisingly accessible lunch menu, too. 25 Heddon Street, W1B, ambassadorsclubhouse.com

Restaurant Gordon Ramsay High, the City. Gordon Ramsays City outpost delivers sky-high dining in every sense. With a mere 12 guests seated each evening, chef James Goodyear creates a precision-crafted experience that pairs panoramic views with deeply considered cooking. A very considered offering. 22 Bishopsgate, EC2N, gordonramsayrestaurants.com

Labombe by Trivet, Park Lane. A more relaxed sibling to Trivet, Labombe leans into its playful side without compromising culinary finesse. A good time is promised. 19 Old Park Lane, W1K, labombe.co.uk

The Kerfield Arms, Camberwell. A new favourite in Camberwell, the Kerfield blends modern British cooking with bright Italian sensibilities and subtle French echoes. Though it did not receive critical acclaim on first opening, perhaps it deserved to. 16 Grove Lane, SE5, thekerfieldarms.co.uk

Corenucopia by Clare Smyth, Pimlico. Clare Smyths relaxed project  though still unmistakably high-end  offers polished cooking in a more easygoing key. It reads like her interpretation of an elevated bistro, executed with signature precision. Still pricey, but then, it is Clare Smyth. 18-22 Holbein Place, SW1W, corenucopia.com

Somssi by Jihun Kim, Knightsbridge. An intimate 14-seat marble counter where Korean cuisine is refined, refined, and refined again. Chef Jihun Kim has quickly established Somssi as one of the capitals standouts for Korean. 22 Hanover Square, W1S, mandarinoriental.com

Michael Caines at the Stafford, St Jamess. Within the storied Stafford Hotel, Michael Caines delivers traditional fine dining shaped by impeccable technique and classic sensibilities. 16-18 St James's Place, SW1A 1NJ, thestaffordlondon.com

Londons new two star restaurants
The Michelin Guide Great Britain and Ireland awards delivered a night of consolidation rather than upheaval, with 20 new one-star restaurants and two new two-star establishments announced, while no new three-star awards were made.

The ceremony, held on Monday 9 February in Dublin, was presented by Lisa Hogan, best known for Clarksons Farm, alongside Amanda Stretton, the English racing driver and presenter. The international director of the guide, Gwendal Poullennec, paid tribute to Irelands food culture.

All 10 three-star restaurants in the UK retained their status, including Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, which continues to hold the highest accolade under new head chef Kim Ratcharoen.

Michelins star rankings are intended as a guide for diners rather than an assessment of luxury. One star denotes high-quality cooking, worth a stop; two stars signal excellent cooking, worth a detour; while three stars are reserved for exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey. In 2020, Michelin introduced the Green Star to recognise restaurants leading the way in sustainability, from sourcing and waste reduction to energy use and wider environmental impact.

New one-star restaurants announced at the 2026 Michelin Guide Great Britain & Ireland awards, which saw 20 new additions (Screengrab)

Among the headline promotions were two restaurants moving straight into the two-star category. Jason Athertons Row on 5, led by Spencer Metzger, was elevated from one star to two for its refined, contemporary fine dining, while Bonheur by Matt Abe, which opened in November, entered the guide at two stars immediately. Bonheur is part of the Gordon Ramsay Restaurants group, and the promotion marks a notable moment for Abe, formerly head chef at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, further extending the Ramsay stables presence at the upper end of the guide.

London dominated the new one-star list, with additions including Legado, where Nieves Barragan Mohacho delivers regionally rooted Spanish cooking; Somssi, offering Korean-influenced fine dining at Mandarin Oriental Mayfair, which replaced Akira Back's one-star Dosa in August 2025; and The Kerfield Arms, signalling Michelins growing comfort with elevated pub formats. Gordon Ramsay High in Bishopsgate also picked up its first star just over a year after opening, further underlining a strong night for the Ramsay group.

Beyond the capital, the guide delivered several long-awaited regional breakthroughs. JORO became Sheffields first Michelin-starred restaurant, recognised for its modern British, produce-led cooking. On the south coast, Mare, led by Rafael Cagali, secured Brightons first star in around 50 years, ending one of the guides most conspicuous geographic gaps. In Cornwall, Ugly Butterfly earned a star for Adam Handlings contemporary, sustainability-focused cooking overlooking Newquays Fistral Beach.

Ireland and Scotland were also well represented. In Galway, The Pullman, housed in restored Pullman train carriages at Glenlo Abbey, was awarded a star for Angelo Vagiotiss modern fine dining, while Forest Avenue continued Dublins strong showing. In the Highlands, 1887 at The Torridon picked up its first star alongside a Green Star for sustainability, and Killiecrankie House was recognised for its modern Scottish cooking in a rural setting. The Channel Islands added to their reputation for punching above their weight with a star for Vraic, a seafood-led restaurant rooted in island produce.

The evening also highlighted Michelins continued push to recognise sustainability, service and talent development. Seven new Green Stars were awarded, including to Knepp Wilding Kitchen in West Sussex and Forest Side in the Lake District, while Tom Earnshaw of Bohemia in Jersey was named Young Chef of the Year. Shwen Shwen in Sevenoaks took Opening of the Year alongside a Bib Gourmand, reflecting Michelins growing recognition of West African cooking in the UK.

While no three-star restaurants lost their awards, a total of 10 restaurants were deleted from the guide this year, the majority following closures. Two one-star restaurants  The Bridge Arms in Kent and Humo in London  lost their stars, both having ceased trading in their original form. Eight of the 10 deletions were the result of permanent closures over the past year.

Among the higher-profile closures were two-starred Claude Bosi at Bibendum, which shut last summer after failing to reach an agreement with its landlords, and La Dame de Pic at Four Seasons Hotel London at Tower Bridge, which closed in February after eight years. Belmond Le Manoir aux QuatSaisons in Oxfordshire was also removed from the guide following its closure in January for an 18-month redevelopment.

One-star restaurants to close in the past year included Crocadon in St Mellion, Five Fields in London, Dosa by Akira Back in London and Hjem in Hexham, while Pascal Aussignacs Club Gascon lost its star ahead of its closure next month after 30 years of trading.

Gender representation remains a persistent issue. While several women were recognised among this years awardees  including Nieves Barragan Mohacho and Clare Smyth, whose more informal Corenucopia received a star  Michelin figures still show that only around 8 per cent of Michelin-starred chefs in the UK are women, a statistic that continues to shadow the guides progress.

In a year defined less by shock promotions than by steady affirmation, Michelins message was clear: British and Irish fine dining is holding its ground, broadening its geography and cuisines, and rewarding consistency, even if true upheaval remains elusive.

New one stars

New two stars

New green stars

Young Chef Award

Exceptional Cocktails Award

Opening of the Year

Sommelier Award

Service Award
Some of the monks have walked barefoot or in socks for most of the journey to feel the ground directly and be present in the moment (AP)

A group of Buddhist monks on a peace walk reached Washington, D.C., on foot Tuesday, capping a 15-week trek from Texas that has captivated the United States.

The monks, in their saffron robes, have become fixtures on social media, along with their rescue dog Aloka.

After spending Monday night at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia, they crossed over the Chain Bridge into the District of Columbia shortly after 8 a.m. Tuesday.

They walk to advocate for peace. That simple message has resonated across the U.S. as a welcome respite from conflict and political divisions.

Thousands gathered along Southern roadsides  often in unusually chilly weather  to to watch the monks quiet procession that began in late October.

Nineteen monks began the 2,300-mile (3,700-kilometer) journey from the Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center in Fort Worth on Oct. 26, 2025 (AP)

Large crowds are expected to greet them during their two-day stay in Washington. The Metropolitan Police Department issued a traffic advisory announcing there would be rolling road closures along the monks' route to ensure safety for them and spectators.

My hope is, when this walk ends, the people we met will continue practicing mindfulness and find peace, said the Venerable Bhikkhu Pannakara, the groups soft-spoken leader who has taught about mindfulness at stops along the way.

The monks plan to mark the last days of their Walk for Peace with outdoor appearances at Washington National Cathedral on Tuesday and the Lincoln Memorial on Wednesday.

Their long journey and gentle witness invite us all to deepen our commitment to compassion and the work of peace in our communities, said Washington Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde, who will help host an interfaith reception for the monks at the cathedral.

The monks have been surprised to see their message transcend ideologies. Millions have followed them online, and crowds have greeted them at numerous venues, from a church in Opelika, Alabama, to City Hall in Richmond, Virginia.

Mark Duykers, a retired mechanical engineer who practices mindfulness, said he and his wife will drive 550 miles (885 kilometers) from Ann Arbor, Michigan, to Washington to see the monks.

In these divisive times, we saw entire towns in the Bible Belt coming out for these monks  having no idea of what Buddhism is  but being uplifted and moved by it, he said. Thats inspirational.

Long Si Dong, a spokesperson for the temple, said the walk is neither a political movement nor is it focused on advocacy or legislation (AP)

Nineteen monks began the 2,300-mile (3,700-kilometer) journey from the Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center in Fort Worth on Oct. 26, 2025. They came from Theravada Buddhist monasteries around the globe, led by Pannakara, who is vice president of the Fort Worth temple.

While in the U.S. capital, they plan to submit a request to lawmakers to declare Vesak  Buddhas birthday  a national holiday. But, Pannakara and others have emphasized that is not the goal of the walk.

Long Si Dong, a spokesperson for the temple, said the walk is neither a political movement nor is it focused on advocacy or legislation.

Its a spiritual offering, an invitation to live peace through everyday actions, mindful steps and open hearts, he said. We believe when peace is cultivated within, it naturally ripples outward into society.

The trek has had its perils, and local law enforcement officers have provided security. In November outside Houston, the monks were walking on the side of a highway when their escort vehicle was hit by a truck. Two monks were injured; one had his leg amputated.

Some of the monks, including Pannakara, have walked barefoot or in socks for most of the journey to feel the ground directly and be present in the moment. As they have pressed on through snow and cold, theyve at times donned winter boots.

Peace walks are a cherished tradition in Theravada Buddhism. Pannakara first encountered Aloka, an Indian Pariah dog whose name means divine light in Sanskrit, during a 112-day journey across India in 2022.

The monks practice and teach Vipassana meditation, an ancient Indian technique taught by the Buddha as core to attaining enlightenment. It focuses on the mind-body connection, observing breath and physical sensations to understand reality, impermanence and suffering.

On Tuesday, the monks will complete 108 days of walking. Its a sacred number in Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism. It represents spiritual completion, cosmic order and the wholeness of existence.

The monks return trip should be less arduous. After an appearance at Marylands Capitol, a bus will take them back to Texas, where they expect to arrive in downtown Fort Worth early on Saturday.

From there, the monks will walk together again, traversing 6 miles (9.6 kilometers) to the temple where their trip began.
Thomasina Miers Moroccan lamb filo pie with honeyed carrots and almonds. Photograph: Ola O Smit/The Guardian. Food and prop styling: Florence Blair. Food styling assistant: Emma Cantlay (Photograph: Ola O Smit/The Guardian. Food and prop styling: Florence Blair. Food styling assistant: Emma Cantlay)

There is little as pleasing to cook in the depths of the winter as a pot of enticingly fragrant, slow-braised meat. A shoulder of lamb is one of my favourite cuts; you, or a friendly butcher, will need to trim away its excess fat, a job that will reward you with an exquisite flavour that marries beautifully with bold spicing. Here, we travel to Morocco, with sweetly aromatic ginger, turmeric and cinnamon, and follow that with cardamom, cream and rhubarb for pudding. A sumptuous, colourful feast to stave off any February blues.

Moroccan lamb filo pie with honeyed carrots and almonds (pictured top)

Many elements of this dish, with its falling apart, richly seasoned lamb and carrots encased in crisp, golden pastry, can be made the day before. The flavours will be much improved for it, too.

Prep 15 min

Cook 3 hr

Serves 6-8

1 large boned shoulder of lamb, trimmed of excess fat

Salt and pepper

60g butter, or oil

2 large onions, peeled and finely chopped

1 scant tsp ground ginger

1 scant tsp cinnamon

1 scant tsp turmeric

2 large pinches saffron strands

650g carrots, scrubbed (or peeled) and cut into thick, slanted chunks

1 heaped tsp honey

To finish

80g blanched almonds

50g butter

270g packet filo pastry

Use a sharp knife to cut the meat into six to eight pieces, trimming away any further excess fat revealed when doing so.

Season the lamb pieces generously with salt and pepper. Put a casserole on a high heat and, when its hot, add a third of the butter (I like to add a dash of olive oil, too, to stop the butter burning). Brown the lamb pieces in two batches for a few minutes on each side, until nicely browned and caramelised. Set aside in a bowl, then turn down the heat to medium.

Add a third more of the butter to the pan, tip in the onions, season well with salt and lots of pepper, then stir in the ginger, cinnamon, turmeric and saffron, and sweat gently, stirring often, for 10-12 minutes, until the onions are translucent and soft.

Return the lamb to the pan, pour in enough water almost to cover the meat, and bring to a simmer. Cover and simmer very gently for 90 minutes, turning the lamb a couple of times.

Meanwhile, put a large frying pan on a high heat and, once hot, add the last of the butter. Saute the carrots for four to five minutes, seasoning generously with salt and pepper, add the honey and cook for a few minutes more, until caramelised and fragrant.

Once the lamb has had its 90 minutes, add the carrots to the mix and simmer, uncovered, for a further 30-60 minutes, until the sauce has reduced and the carrots are just cooked. (This can now be set aside to finish the next day.)

Heat the oven to 200C (180C fan)/390F/gas 6, and toast the almonds inside while its heating up. Melt 50g butter in a pan, then use a pastry brush to grease a large ovenproof dish and the pastry, layering it up to four sheets deep in the pan. Tip in the lamb, top with the toasted nuts, then fold over the overhanging pastry and brush with more melted butter. Top the pie with a few extra scrunched-up filo sheets, brush with melted butter, then bake for 20-25 minutes, until piping hot and golden. Serve with greens.

Cardamom panna cotta with baked rhubarb

Prep 10 min

Infuse 30 min

Cook 40 min

Chill 3 hr+

Serves 4



450ml double cream

100ml whole milk

Finely grated zest of 1 orange

100g caster sugar

1 tsp green cardamom pods

2 2g fine-leaf gelatine sheets

200g greek yoghurt

For the rhubarb

400g rhubarb, wiped clean and cut into 3cm lengths

100g caster sugar

Juice of 1 orange

2-3 tbsp Pernod

Pour the cream and milk into a saucepan and add the orange zest and sugar. Bash open the cardamom pods with a rolling pin, then add them, too. Put the pan on a medium heat and warm gently until a few tiny bubbles break the surface. Turn off the heat and leave to infuse for half an hour.

Meanwhile, heat the oven to 200C (180C fan)/390F/gas 6. Lay out the rhubarb in a single layer in a large baking dish. Sprinkle over the sugar, orange juice and Pernod, cover with foil and bake for 20-25 minutes, until tender to the point of a knife but still keeping its shape. Taste and adjust the sweetness if the rhubarb is very tart.

Submerge the gelatine in a bowl of cold water, leave to soften for five minutes, then drain and squeeze the water from the gelatine and put it in a bowl. Once the cream has infused, reheat it gently, then strain through a sieve into the gelatine bowl. Whisk until it melts, then beat gradually into the yoghurt. Pour into four small moulds, glasses or ramekins, then chill in the fridge for at least three hours, until set.

To serve, dip the base and sides of the panna cotta moulds into boiling water and loosen with a palette knife. Turn them out on to plates and spoon the rhubarb around the creams.
Amazon Valley Academy and Virunga Valley Academy move from spreadsheets to a unified SISsupporting grades, attendance, communication, and family access across a platform serving schools in more than 40 countries.

FREMONT, Neb., Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Sycamore Leaf Solutions, LLC ("Sycamore"), a K12 school management platform serving schools in more than 40 countries, today announced that Amazon Valley Academy (Para, Brazil) and Virunga Valley Academy (Musanze, Rwanda) have selected Sycamore as their Student Information System (SIS). Both schools are transitioning from manual processes and spreadsheets to a centralized platform designed to reduce administrative friction, improve data consistency, and strengthen day-to-day execution.

Students engage in in-person learning in an international school classroom, reflecting the mission-driven environments served by Sycamore across more than 40 countries. A parent accesses student information on a mobile device, illustrating how schools use Sycamore to provide families with real-time visibility into grades, attendance, and school-related activity.

These deployments reflect a growing international demand for practical, all-in-one school operationssupporting mission-driven schools with lean teams across diverse academic calendars.

Amazon Valley Academy (Para, Brazil)

Amazon Valley Academy (AVA) is a Brazilian Christian English-immersion school serving approximately 150 students in PreK12, committed to academic excellence, character formation, and faith-centered education. As a Google school, AVA is implementing Sycamore as its first SIS, moving from manual and spreadsheet-based workflows to a unified platform that supports clear, consistent grading and academic reporting, strengthens family communication, and gives parents timely access to grades, attendance, andwhere enabledpayments through the Sycamore Parent App.

"Sycamore has provided our school with the tools we need to operate efficiently in an increasingly digital environment, while remaining mindful of the budget realities of a small private institution," said Danielle Soares, Middle School Lead Teacher of Amazon Valley Academy. "Their team has been supportive and willing to work with us, and we value the all-in-one platform they offer."

Virunga Valley Academy (Musanze, Rwanda)

Virunga Valley Academy (VVA) is a Rwandan American international school serving approximately 200 students in NurseryGrade 11, and is adding 12th grade this year. VVA operates almost entirely in person and uses a hybrid grading approach: standards-based grading in K3 and letter grades from 4th grade through upper school. Moving from manual and spreadsheet-based workflows (with limited prior tooling in middle school), VVA is adopting Sycamore as a single SIS foundation across divisionscentralizing student records, strengthening consistency in grading and reporting, and improving visibility for administrators and teachers. With mobile connections at roughly 92% of the population in Rwanda and smartphone adoption rising across East Africa (Kemp), VVA will use the Sycamore App to keep families informed in real time. Parents will have fast access to the two highest-frequency touchpointsattendance and gradebook progresswithout relying on manual updates.

What schools gain by moving from spreadsheets to a unified SIS

With Sycamore, both schools are establishing a single operational system of record-supporting:

Cleaner enrollment and student records (one source of truth vs. scattered spreadsheets)

(one source of truth vs. scattered spreadsheets) Consistent attendance tracking and reporting

More reliable grading workflows across divisions (standards + letter-grade models)

across divisions (standards + letter-grade models) Streamlined family communication to reduce handoffs and confusion

to reduce handoffs and confusion Better visibility for leadership through centralized data and standardized processes

"International schools often operate with highly committed teams and limited administrative bandwidth," said Dr. Ryan Lowe, CEO of Sycamore. "Across the schools we support in more than 40 countries, we see a consistent pattern: when enrollment, records, grading, and communication live in one system, staff gain time back, leadership gets clearer visibility, and families get a more consistent experience."

About Sycamore Leaf Solutions, LLC

Sycamore Leaf Solutions, LLC ("Sycamore") is a K12 school management platform that connects admissions, student information workflows, communication, and payments in one systembuilt to help schools operate with less friction and more clarity. Learn more at sycamoreleaf.com/international/

Source: DataReportal (Simon Kemp), "Digital 2025: Rwanda," March 3, 2025.

Media Contact

John Viscardo

[email protected]

(813) 777-4489

SOURCE Sycamore
Most Canadians think asking US for help in Alberta separatist fight is treason, poll shows

The majority of Canadians believe that an Alberta separatist group's negotiations with the United States are tantamount to treason, according to a new poll.

Pollsters asked people across Canada whether they agreed with British Columbia Premier David Ebys remarks last week on the Alberta Prosperity Project, whose members recently met with the Trump administration over its goal to separate the province from the rest of the country.

"To go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance in breaking up Canada, there's an old-fashioned word for that, and that word is treason," Eby said last Thursday, during a trade meeting in Ottawa.

"It is completely inappropriate to seek to weaken Canada, to go and ask for assistance, to break up this country from a foreign power and  with respect  a president who has not been particularly respectful of Canada's sovereignty.

Some 71 percent of respondents agreed with Eby that the action was treason, the poll from Canada Pulse Insights found.

Separatists in Alberta  which produces 84 percent of Canadas crude oil  have been accused of treason by British Columbia Premier David Eby. A recent poll found that 71 percent of Canadians agreed with the premiers comment (THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Respondents in Saskatchewan and Manitoba were the most likely to agree with Eby  at 82 percent  followed by respondents from Atlantic Canada at 78 percent, Ontario at 77 percent, British Columbia at 75 percent, and Quebec at 63 percent. In Alberta, only 56 percent of respondents agreed, according to the poll.

My sense was overall Canadians treat appeals to foreign governments for help in breaking up the country as beyond the pale. Its effectively a red line that most are prepared to call treason, John Wright, CEO of Canada Pulse Insights, told the National Post.

Canadians aged 65 and above were more likely to agree with Eby, with 79 percent supporting his statement.

Alberta Prosperity Project co-founder Jeffrey Rath called Eby's comments "defamatory."

"It's a childish temper tantrum on behalf of a spoiled NDP politician," Rath told CBC News last week. "We're thrilled with Premier Eby losing his little mind today and saying the nasty things he's saying and all the insults that he's levying. It's childish, it's defamatory, it detracts from his credibility."

U.S. officials have met with leaders of the Alberta Prosperity Project, a fringe right-wing group of separatists who want the oil-rich western province to become independent, three times in Washington since last April, the Financial Times reported in January.

Alberta is the largest producer of crude oil in Canada, accounting for 84 percent of the country's oil production as of 2023, according to the Canadian Energy Regulator.

The Alberta Prosperity Project confirmed in a statement to the Financial Times that it is trying to secure a $500 billion line of credit from the U.S.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, left, and U.S. President Donald Trump. Following reports that the Alberta Prosperity Project  which wants the province to break away from Canada  met with Trump administration officials on three occasions, Carney told reporters he expects that the U.S. administration to respect Canadian sovereignty. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

The U.S. is extremely enthusiastic about a free and independent Alberta, Rath told the Financial Times, noting that he had a "much stronger" relationship with the Trump administration than he does with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

A U.S. State Department official confirmed to the Financial Times that it regularly "meets with civil society types" but said that "no commitments were made."

The Alberta Prosperity Project is trying to gather 177,000 signatures to bring a referendum on provincial independence to the legislature by May. The group did not reveal how many signatures it has collected so far.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has publicly opposed the independence project but has passed legislation that has helped the projects cause. Last year, Smith and United Conservative Party legislators lowered the threshold to force a constitutional referendum from 600,000 signatures to just 177,000, according to CBC News.

Despite making it far easier to force a vote, Smith said she does not think most Albertans want to be isolated and left to deal with the U.S. alone. The overwhelming majority of Albertans are not interested in becoming a US state, Smith told the Financial Times.

In Ottawa, Carney has seemingly resisted any temptation to take a strong hand against the secessionist movement brewing in Alberta or against its U.S. backers.

When asked about the situation during a January 29 press conference, Carney said that he expects "the U.S. administration to respect Canadian sovereignty."

"I'm always clear in my conversations with President Trump to that effect," he said.
These are not the tax evaders you are looking for...

In the 1966 novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, the American writer Robert Heinlein conjures a penal colony on the Moon. Theres three million humans up there, and theyre called Loonies (lunar inhabitants). Throughout the novel, they exert a heroic revolt against their masters on Earth, who are depicted as malign, far away, unaccountable landlords.

Theirs is a perfect libertarian society based on trust and freedom: perhaps the books most quoted line is that in terms of morals, there is no such thing as a state. Just men. Individuals. Each responsible for his own acts.

In 2011, Elon Musk said it was his favourite book. And now, the Tesla and SpaceX boss has announced a proposal that is straight from its pages: he wants a self-growing city on the Moon. Musk has switched his attention from going to Mars (where he famously said he wants to die, but not on impact) because he says, in his Musk-like language, the Moon is faster.

Everyone on X got very excited about it yesterday. Grok (which is a neologism from one of Heinleins novels) made loads of AI-generated videos depicting a perfect pod-life on the Moon, with everyone driving around in Teslas and kumbaya-ing with robots. Muskheads called for the city to be called Doge. The idea was received with optimism.

However, Musk is more melancholic about the need for a lunar city. Yes, theres the duty of humanity to extend consciousness through the stars if we can. Yes, there would be some cool spacecraft. But, really, a city on the Moon is basically a designated survivor for humanity. Its there to ensure that consciousness survives if there is an extinction-level event on Earth, such as a meteor strike.

But what if there were other benefits, besides being a very expensive insurance policy? Musk will have the opportunity, if he leads the project, to formulate a new society from as close to first principles as he can. At risk of sounding Robespierrian here, a lunar colony would be a good opportunity to discard certain economic and political shibboleths, and find a better way. Sort of like the Founding Fathers, but in space.

Make Space Great Again? - Ryan Collerd/Getty Images

An old idea that was favoured by Peter Thiel could prove useful: that of seasteading (after homesteading). Its championed by Patri Friedman, the grandson of the economist Milton, and proposes a radical solution for people wanting to flee high-tax jurisdictions.

The California-based Seasteading Institute, which has been funded by Thiel, has proposed building floating cities in the ocean, which would be autonomous, self-sufficient communities. It picks up where the Republic of Minerva left off, a 1970s artificial island project by a Las Vegas millionaire called Michael Oliver. It was built in the middle of the Pacific, and briefly had no taxation, welfare, subsidies, or any form of economic interventionism. In 1972, however, Tonga reclaimed it, and now its mostly underwater.

Provided that Musk is right, and that self-sustaining life is even possible on the Moon, the seasteaders might be worth taking some inspiration from. In fact, because the Moon is unlikely to face territorial claims from nations, some of the stumbling blocks might be easier to overcome (that is, if you solve the whole oxygen thing).

The growth of the bureaucratic, regulatory state on Earth doesnt look like its slowing down. As space travel becomes more plausible, lunar cities may be the perfect trigger to make us try out a new way. Yes, life in a permanent spacesuit would be annoying. But, then again, so is my tax bill.

Angus Colwell is The Spectators assistant online editor
We dont exclude a land grab from Russia, says Gen Eirik Kristoffersen, Norways chief of defence since 2020. Photograph: Alamy (Photograph: Alamy)

Norways army chief has said Oslo cannot exclude the possibility of a future Russian invasion of the country, suggesting Moscow could move on Norway to protect its nuclear assets stationed in the far north.

We dont exclude a land grab from Russia as part of their plan to protect their own nuclear capabilities, which is the only thing they have left that actually threatens the United States, said Gen Eirik Kristoffersen, Norways chief of defence.

He conceded that Russia did not have conquest goals in Norway in the same way as it had in Ukraine or other former Soviet territories, but said much of Russias nuclear arsenal was located on the Kola peninsula, a short distance from the Norwegian border, including nuclear submarines, land-based missiles and nuclear-capable aircraft. These would be crucial if Russia came into conflict with Nato elsewhere.

We dont take that off the table, because its still an option for Russia to do that in order to make sure that their nuclear capabilities, their second strike capabilities, are protected. Thats sort of the scenario in the high north that we plan for, he said.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Guardian, Kristoffersen was sharply critical of recent comments by Donald Trump on Greenland, as well as of the US presidents unacceptable claims that allied countries had not served in frontline positions in Afghanistan while US troops had done the bulk of the fighting.

It didnt make sense, what he said, and I know that all my American friends from Afghanistan know that, said Kristoffersen, 56, a career army officer who served several tours in Afghanistan.

We were definitely in the frontline. We did all the full spectrum of missions, from arresting Taliban leaders to training Afghans to doing surveillance. We lost 10 Norwegians. I lost friends there. So we all felt it doesnt make sense, he said.

At the same time, I felt that this is President Trump. I never saw him in Afghanistan. He doesnt know what hes talking about when he says these things. A president should not say these things, but it didnt really affect me. But my concern was for the Norwegian veterans, the relatives of the people we lost, soldiers we lost.

Kristoffersen has been Norways chief of defence since 2020, responsible for the countrys armed forces as well as its intelligence service. It has been a period of intense change as Russias invasion of Ukraine has forced a rethink of European security, with neighbouring Sweden and Finland joining Norway in the Nato alliance, and the country reinforcing its border areas with Russia in the far north.

Kristoffersen said that while Norway was keeping the threat of a traditional Russian invasion in mind, the current Russian tactics were more diffuse. If you prepare for the worst, there is nothing that prevents you from also being able to counter sabotage and more hybrid threats, he said.

He added, however, that Norway and Russia still maintained some direct contact over search and rescue missions in the Barents Sea, and that there were regular meetings at the border between representatives of the two militaries.

He has recommended setting up a military hotline between the two capitals to have a channel of communication to avoid escalation based on misunderstanding. He said Russian actions in the far north had generally been less aggressive than those in the Baltic Sea.

So far, what we have seen of airspace violation in our area has been misunderstandings. Russia is conducting a lot of [GPS] jamming, and we think that the jamming also affects their aircraft, he said.

They havent said that, but we see that when something like violating the airspace happens its usually because of a lack of experience from the pilots. When we talk with the Russians, they actually respond in a very professional and predictable way.

On Norways northern territory of Svalbard, which contains a Russian settlement and is not allowed to be militarised under the provisions of a 1920 treaty, Kristoffersen said Russia was respecting the treaty and that Norway had no plans to militarise the area.

Moscow has accused Oslo of performing stealth militarisation of Svalbard but Kristoffersen said this was just a propaganda claim that Moscow did not really believe.

When it came to Trumps assertion that China and Russia had military designs on Greenland, Krisoffersen said it was very strange to hear the claims.

We have a very good overview of what is happening in the Arctic from our intelligence service and we dont see anything like that in Greenland  we see Russian activity with their submarines and also their underwater programme in the traditional part of the Arctic  but its not about Greenland, its about reaching the Atlantic, he said.

His remarks came as the French president, Emmanuel Macron, used an interview with a group of European newspapers to say Europe was in a Greenland moment and to call on countries to stand up to Trump.

Macron said that when there was blatant aggression  we must not bow down or try to reach a settlement. We tried this strategy for months and its not working. But above all, it strategically leads Europe to increase its dependence.

He said the scare over Greenland was far from over. There are threats and intimidation and then suddenly Washington backs down. And we think its over. But dont believe it for a second, he said.

Kristoffersen, asked whether Denmark and its allies would have any chance of repelling a US military takeover of Greenland if Trump went through with it, said: They wont do it, so its a hypothetical question.

But he added a word of warning for Trump and the US military. If Russia is learning something from the war in Ukraine, I think its that its never a good idea to occupy a country. If the people dont want it, its going to cost you a lot of money and a lot of effort and in the end you will actually lose.

To occupy in the first place is often very easy, but to keep the occupation going is very, very hard. And I think all expansionist powers have experienced that.
The number of members of Congress opting not to seek re-election at this years midterms has reached a historically high level and is on course to hit a century-long record, according to a report.

The recent announcements by Republican congressmen Barry Loudermilk and Mark Amodei that they are stepping down have taken the total number of departing members of the House of Representatives to 51.

2026 already has the third-highest number of election-year exits from the chamber since 1930, behind only the losses of 52 representatives in 2018 and 65 in 1992, according to NBC News, citing historical data from the Brookings Institution.

With nine senators also leaving office this cycle, the total number of members of Congress leaving Capitol Hill rises to 60, making it the most of any election year of the 21st century.

Of that total, 30 of those leaving the House are Republicans and 21 Democrats, while five Republicans and four Democrats will move on from the Senate.

House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi is stepping down this year (Getty)

Familiar faces stepping aside include former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin and Tina Smith and Rep. Steny Hoyer, Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell, Joni Ernst and Tommy Tuberville and GOP Reps. Elise Stefanik and Don Bacon.

Lawmakers have offered a variety of reasons for standing down from their current positions, from seeking higher office to wanting to spend more time with their families.

Some have frankly admitted they no longer have the desire to handle the hostility and pressure of public office in the polarized political climate.

Illinois Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who is leaving the House to run for an open Senate seat in his state, told NBC he believes many of his colleagues are walking away because of the toxic partisan atmosphere of the past decade.

Over my 10 years here, I think Donald Trump has helped catalyze a real toxic partisan atmosphere, Krishnamoorthi, 52, said.

I have not known normal. And I think for anybody who came here expecting something different and then being served up this kind of toxic brew of partisanship and character attacks and name-calling is going to be severely disappointed.

New Jersey Democratic Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, who is retiring at 81, explicitly stated her objections to the president as her reason for departing Washington.

Former Republican Senate majority leader Sen. Mitch McConnell is retiring after suffering ill health (Getty)

I still would have had Donald Trump as a president [if she had stood again and retained her seat], she said. And I tell you, thats just sickening for me to have to deal with.

Maine Democratic Rep. Jared Golden said the strain the job had taken on his family had become too great, noting in an op-ed for The Bangor Daily News that he and his loved ones had had to spend a recent Thanksgiving in a hotel after a threat was made against his home.

As a father, I have to consider whether the good I can achieve outweighs everything my family endures as a result, Golden wrote of his reason for walking away aged just 43.

Another Democrat, veteran New York Rep. Jerry Nadler, said witnessing former President Joe Biden visibly age in office had convinced him it was time to retire.

Watching the Biden thing really said something about the necessity for generational change in the party, and I think I want to respect that, the 78-year-old told The New York Times in a recent interview.

Those on the Republican side of the aisle may also be reluctant to be part of the post-midterms landscape if their party suffers a disaster at the polls and loses its slender majorities in both chambers.

That scenario, should it come to pass, would likely see an invigorated Democratic Party mount renewed challenges to Trumps authority, inviting an inevitable backlash from the president.
A customer browses baked goods at Panaderia San Miguel in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The bakery closed for three weeks due to federal activity in the area. Photograph: Bridget Bennett/The Guardian (Photograph: Bridget Bennett/The Guardian)

A man walked into Soleil Ramirezs restaurant last month and started to ask strange questions: How many people do you have on staff? Why are you so small? Stuff nobody asks, she said.

The man then started talking loudly into his phone. Im here doing a dip in a restaurant. Theres not a lot of people here, so I dont know if its worth coming, Ramirez recalled him saying. The encounter left her unnerved.

Ramirez has owned and run Crasqui, a Venezuelan restaurant, in Saint Paul, Minnesota, since 2023. Though she never got confirmation  the man left once it became clear restaurant staff were concerned about his presence  she concluded he was likely a federal immigration officer in plainclothes.

Its terrifying. All my employees are legal. Im 100% legal, said Ramirez, a political refugee from Venezuela who moved to the US in 2016. But that doesnt mean anything any more.

The Trump administration in December launched Operation Metro Surge, sending more than 2,700 federal agents to Minnesota, with a concentration on the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, as part of its crackdown on immigrants.

The operation seeks to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants from the region, officials said. Both cities have become home to large immigrant communities over the last few decades, with considerable Somalian, Hispanic, Hmong, Laotian and Ethiopian enclaves across different neighborhoods.

Minneapolis residents say these communities are now under attack, pointing to sporadic and often brutal arrests by federal immigration officers, including those from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The killings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, who were protesting immigration enforcement, are just examples of how violent agents can be. Even those who are in the country legally dont feel safe.

In Minneapolis and Saint Paul, small businesses have been on the frontlines. Immigration officers have proven themselves unafraid of arresting people even on the job, including US citizens who say they were racially profiled.

The Guardian spoke to several small business owners in the Twin Cities, some who are immigrants themselves, about how the surge has affected the local economy that sustains its immigrant communities.

***

Bustling neighborhoods have turned into ghost towns. Some small businesses have temporarily closed with no signs of reopening. Businesses that stay open keep their doors locked, to prevent agents from entering without a warrant. Many restaurants are doing takeout only.

For some, its reminiscent of when the city was under lockdown due to Covid-19 restrictions. Ramirez said this is worse.

In Covid, the federal government was helping with relief, she said. Revenue at Crasqui is down 65%. I have so many friends, they have closed their businesses. All of them, she said. I dont even know how you can recover from that.

Both customers and employees are afraid to leave their homes. They fear encountering federal agents, regardless of their immigration status.

Oscar Murcia, owner of El Guanaco Bakery y Cafe, which has three locations across the Twin Cities, said sales have halved since the surge. He temporarily closed his cafe on Minneapoliss Lake Street, in a neighborhood full of Hispanic restaurants and businesses.

We have seen how ICE has focused a lot on doing operations in that area. Most of the stores surrounding Lake Street have closed, Murcia wrote in an email to the Guardian. Right now, most of our customers are not leaving their houses because they are afraid, and that has impacted us severely.

In a survey of more than 90 Latino-owned businesses in the Twin Cities area conducted by the Latino Economic Development Center, nearly a third said they were temporarily closed due to staff shortages or a drop in foot traffic.

For small business owners, even small drops in revenue can have cascading effects, like an inability to pay rent or vendors. Alma Flores, CEO of the Latino Economic Development Center, said there are deep concerns that many small businesses, especially those with immigrant owners, will not survive the coming months. Many face both existential business challenges and constant fear of encountering agents at work.

Their presence is fear-inducing, said Flores. People dont want to be near them because, if you have darker skin, youre a target.

***

Gustavo Romero opened his Mexican restaurant, Oro by Nixta, with his wife, Kate, to be a hub for Minneapoliss Mexican community. A recent James Beard nomination has garnered enough attention to sustain business, but Romero said the last few weeks have taken a heavy toll.

We work in an industry where a lot of labor is dependent on immigrants, Romero said. We are also a Mexican restaurant, and so it impacts the whole community, from the people that work with us to our clientele. We always look at our place like a cultural center. A lot of people come here because they can get a little feel of home.

The possibility of racial profiling is a constant in Romeros mind. It looms over many immigrant business owners.

Im Mexican and I have all my paperwork in order, but I dont feel comfortable being out on the streets, he said. It doesnt matter who you are. If you look like what theyre profiling, youre going to get stopped and youre going to get asked questions.

One local grocery store owner, who wished to remain anonymous due to safety concerns, said he closed his store in East Saint Paul and now only does home deliveries after loyal customers stopped coming in. Though he is a naturalized citizen, I feel the fear of going out and being arrested every day I go to work, and I think many people experience the same, he wrote in an email to the Guardian.

The presence of immigration enforcement is felt across the city. Victoria Ford, owner of Comma bookstore, said shes seen federal agents in the neighborhood, Linden Hills, which is among citys the most affluent.

We have, within a block, half a dozen restaurants and other shops. ICE has attempted to enter multiple of those shops and restaurants, Ford said. And were in a neighborhood that is seeing much less than neighborhoods that are home to more immigrant-owned businesses.

Non-profits such as the Minnesota Foundation and Latino Economic Development Center have set up emergency relief funds for small businesses, but local business owners and their advocates say sustaining the Twin Cities small businesses will require help from the city and state.

The onus should not be on the philanthropic community alone, said Flores, of the Latino Economic Development Center. And since we cant rely on the federal government to assist, cities need to step up. They will lose their tax base. They will lose the vibrancy of their corridors and main streets.

Entrepreneurship has been a keystone for immigrants coming to the US, she noted. For those who dont speak English too well, opening a Main Street business  such as a restaurant, grocery store, gas station or nail salon  may be the best, and sometimes only, way to make a living.

Small business owners say they dont take this diversity for granted and theyre deeply worried about the damage Operation Metro Surge will ultimately have on the small businesses that have come to define the Twin Cities.

Its hard to think Oh, the economy is important during this time, but at the same time, these are peoples livelihoods, said Dylan Alverson, owner of the Post Modern Times cafe, a restaurant in south Minneapolis that he recently renamed to reflect the state of the city. And we cant have cities without immigrant restaurants.

***

When Tammy Wong first opened her restaurant, Rainbow Chinese, on Nicollet Avenue in 1987, the Minneapolis neighborhood had few cuisine options. She and two of her siblings opened up businesses, two restaurants and a grocery store, on the same street shortly after moving to the US from Vietnam.

We wanted nothing else than to make a living serving food to people. We were starting in this spot where the city didnt have a lot of ethnic food, Wong said. Soon, she said, I just became more passionate about introducing food that people might not be familiar with.

Over the years, its been beautiful to see it evolve, to be able to witness this part of the neighborhood get revitalized, she said.

But in recent weeks, Wong has been losing sleep. Though business has been OK, shes operating with a smaller staff. Her kids remind her to carry her ID when shes out. Were living with fear,, she said. You kind of dont know what is going to happen next.

In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security denied that the surge in immigration enforcement is causing economic damage. Lets be clear, if there was any correlation between rampant illegal immigration and a good economy, [Joe] Biden would have had a booming economy, a spokesperson claimed. Removing these criminals from the streets makes communities safer for business owners and customers.

Despite the fear and exhaustion, people in the Twin Cities say the surge in law enforcement has brought their communities together more than ever. Neighborhood groups station volunteers on street corners, and warn others when immigration officers are spotted, often with whistles. Mutual aid groups deliver food to those afraid to go out and help vulnerable parents drive their kids to school. Tens of thousands showed up to two massive protests against immigration enforcement in January.

Wongs restaurant is just a block away from where Pretti was killed by federal agents last month. Wongs sister, who owns a restaurant across the street from her own, was setting up her store, My Huong, for lunch when Pretti was killed.

She was about to open her store and ended up providing shelter for people who were teargassed, Wong said. I thought that was what the neighborhood does: treat everyone like an extended family when they need help.

Alverson, of Post Modern Times, which is a few blocks north from where Good was killed in early January, recently made his restaurant completely free for patrons and is operating off of donations.

We make our own buttermilk. We make all of our own bread. Were all still just working around the clock to produce food, and were giving it all away, Alverson said. Its giving staff and customers hope.

Ramirez compared the current atmosphere of fear in the Twin Cities to what it was like living under Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. For me, its kind of like a playbook. Ive seen this before, Ive gone through this before, she said. Though its unclear when relief for the Twin Cities will come, we just need to keep fighting and just praying for the best.

They are not going to break us, she said. They are going to keep trying, but I really believe in our community.
A Danish politician has hit out after she was wrongly identified as a Norwegian ambassador named in the Epstein files.

Mona Juul, chairwoman of Denmarks Conservative Peoples Party, has been incorrectly pictured in numerous reports referencing the Norwegian diplomat of the same name.

The Epstein files indicate that the Norwegian Juul and her husband, former cabinet minister Terje Roed-Larsen, made plans to visit Epsteins private island with their children in 2011.

In a will signed two days before he died in a jail cell in 2019, Epstein said he was leaving $5 million to each of the couples two children. On Sunday, Norways Juul said she would step down over the failure of judgement.

The Norwegian Mona Juul (pictured) resigned pending an inquiry into her links to Jeffrey Epstein (AP)

The Danish Juul took to social media after a string of reports used her likeness to illustrate coverage of the ambassadors story.

This is a deeply serious matter that no one in this world wants to be mentioned in connection with, she wrote on social media.

So they can damn well check twice before publishing the wrong pictures out of consideration for those of us who have nothing to do with the case.

She responded to more reports misidentifying her on Monday.

Mona Juul is a member of the Danish Folketing and Chairwoman of the Conservative Party (Folketinget)

The Norwegian Juul, 66, was suspended from her position as ambassador to Jordan and Iraq last week pending an internal inquiry of links to Epstein.

Espen Barth Eide, Norways foreign minister, said in a statement: Juul's contact with convicted sex offender Epstein has shown a serious failure of judgment. The case makes it difficult to rebuild the trust that the role requires.

Inclusion in the files does not imply wrongdoing.

A lawyer representing the Norwegian Juul said she had voluntarily stepped down as the current situation made it impossible for her to carry out her work.

Mona Juul, the Danish politician, took to social media to stress that she was not the Norwegian Mona Juul (@juulmona / X)

Mona Juul will continue to cooperate fully with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to help ensure that all relevant facts in the matter come to light, her lawyer Thomas Skjelbred said in a statement.

Juul previously represented Norway as ambassador to Israel, Britain and at the United Nations. She and her husband rose to prominence as part of a small group of diplomats facilitating the 1993-1995 Oslo Accords, seen at the time as a breakthrough in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
Gordon Elliott plans to make a late call on which race Romeo Coolio will line up in at the Cheltenham Festival next month.

Third in the Supreme Novices Hurdle last March, the seven-year-old is four from four over fences including a hat-trick of wins at Grade One level.

He has been made to pull out all the stops on his last couple of starts over two miles at Leopardstown, most recently edging out Kargese in the Irish Arkle, and Elliott feels his charge would ideally like to step up in distance.

However, that would mean tackling three miles and a furlong in the Brown Advisory Novices Chase at the Festival, meaning the Arkle Trophy remains a viable option.

Were going to keep everything up in the air for the moment. We have the Arkle and the Brown Advisory, the trainer said at his Cullentra House stables on Tuesday.

I dont think three miles will be a problem at all, just whether its the right thing to do at this stage of his career or not Im not sure.

The owners are from the UK and are very keen to have runners at Cheltenham. If the middle-distance race was still there we wouldnt be having this conversation. I suppose for racing its good that its not as it will make either race better, but for Romeo its not ideal.

Elliott has a strong team of novice hurdlers bound for the Cotswolds in four weeks time, headed by leading Supreme Novices Hurdle contender El Cairos.

Skylight Hustle won a Grade One at Leopardstown over Christmas over two miles, but is set to step up in trip for the Turners Novices Hurdle, while Ballyfad could run in either race after being touched off by Talk The Talk at the Dublin Racing Festival.

I havent spoken to Michael and Eddie (OLeary, of Gigginstown House Stud) about Ballyfad yet, but my own feeling is the further he goes the better hes going to be, Elliott continued,

Hes not a fancy work horse at home and if you look at him in his races, he nearly looks beaten turning in but hes very gutsy and keeps picking up. That might suit the Supreme as well, but he has both options.

Well worry about it a week or 10 days out, if it was tomorrow my feeling is the middle-distance race would suit him better, but I suppose well have to keep an eye on the ground and the weather.

With 41 Festival wins to his name already, Elliott is set to fire two major bullets at the Paddy Power Stayers Hurdle, with former winner Teahupoo to be joined by stablemate Honesty Policy.

Teahupoo finished second to Bob Olinger when bidding for back-to-back wins last season, while Honesty Policy marked himself down as a serious contender by finishing an eyecatching third in the Long Walk at Ascot on his only start this season.

Elliott said: Teahupoo probably sets the standard and for me Honesty Policy is the young gun coming behind them. Theyre two nice horses, but Teahupoo has the form and I wouldnt swap him.

I was impressed with Honesty Policy at Ascot  he was the horse to take out of it, he hit the line strong.

I was keen to run him at Navan the other day but the ground was just so heavy and hes not the biggest or most robust horse.

With every week you get a week closer, well get a racecourse gallop into him and hell go straight to Cheltenham.

Other leading hopes for the team include the Mares Hurdle bound Wodhooh and Oldschool Outlaw, who must be one of Elliotts best chances of the entire meeting in the Mares Novices Hurdle.

He said: I was impressed with Oldschool Outlaw the last day. She has a good attitude. I liked the way she quickened from the last to the line.

Shes obviously beaten Bambino Fever already and while shell have come on ours will have as well. I think shes improved at home, shes improving the whole time. Shes a nice mare.
Shahid Butt, who was jailed for terrorism in Yemen in 1999, is standing for Birmingham city council - Emma Trimble/SWNS

There has long been a necessary distinction between those whose faith happens to be Islam and those who justify acts of terrorism by their Muslim faith.

Its a distinction that is more important than ever given the febrile atmosphere of the country and attempts by some social media users to smear every Muslim as a jihadist.

But the line between Muslim and Islamist has become blurred by recent international and domestic events. (The latter term is generally used to describe those who adhere to a political creed that asserts the desire to create a worldwide caliphate under Sharia and clerical law.)

Specifically, the largely manufactured outrage against Israel following Hamass massacre of 1,200 Jews on Oct 7, 2023 has united ordinary Muslims and the more extreme, militant members of Britains Muslim community. And make no mistake: activists anger was wholly directed at the victims of that pogrom long before a single bullet was fired or a bomb dropped in retaliation.

Concern for the plight of ordinary Gazans in the past two years, then, has blended dangerously with the political demands for Israel as a nation to be wiped from the map of the Middle East, which is the regular demand even of educated, white liberal students.

Calls by protesters on British streets to Globalise the Intifada didnt diminish even after the massacre of Jews at Bondi Beach in Australia or the knife attack on a synagogue in Manchester shortly before.

Doubtless Butt, like all of us, has changed

All of which leaves ordinary peace-loving British Muslims in a vulnerable and difficult position, torn between respecting Western norms of protest and anger at what they see happening to their co-religionists in Gaza.

Additionally, the death toll of almost 100 British residents at the hands of Islamist terrorists in the past 20 years has created  as those acts were always intended to do  an unhealthy suspicion between white Britons and British Muslims.

It might be unfair to demand of British Muslims some outward expression of their loyalty to their country and its traditions of tolerant democracy. What would be utterly disastrous would be an electoral victory, driven by ordinary British Muslims, of someone who has himself been an Islamist terrorist.

That, though, is in prospect in the candidacy of Shahid Butt, standing for election to Birmingham city council in May. Mr Butt was found guilty, alongside five other UK nationals, of involvement in a plot to blow up the British consulate, an Anglican church and a hotel in Aden, Yemen, in 1999.

Doubtless Butt, like all of us, has changed in the years since then. He certainly claims to have spent much of his time since returning to Britain encouraging young people to reject terrorism.

But he remains a convicted terrorist. Not only that, but he is happy to quote the Korans injunction to Muslims not to become friends with Jews or Christians, which some might see as a problem if he is elected and is expected to represent the small minority of those in his ward who are not Muslim.

If a devious member of the far-Right  that ever-present and all-powerful spectre so frequently evoked by Labour MPs  had construed a nefarious plot to further undermine relations between the indigenous white population of Britain and their Muslim compatriots, an electoral victory by a convicted Islamist terrorist would be just the ticket.

There are times when unity is intolerable

How better to emphasise the gross unbridgeable disparity between the values of Middle Britain, with its support for secular democracy, and the British Muslim community than to see someone like Shahid Butt win the support of a vast swathe of his own community?

We hear all the time about the need for unity in the face of external and internal threats. Labours entire campaign in the Gorton and Denton by-election seems to be based entirely on the idea of unity as a means to defeat Reform UK. But there are times when unity is intolerable, and the situation in the Sparkhill ward of Birmingham is one of them.

There ought to be no unity  only an explicit incompatibility  between Islamism and British Islam. When dozens of young pop fans were murdered by a bomb at the Manchester Arena in 2017 or when more than 50 commuters were murdered by Islamist bombs in London in 2005, British Muslims rightly distanced themselves from the vile ideology that had led to those atrocities.

That Shahid Butt fancies his chances of being an elected councillor suggests that such distancing needs to be turbocharged today.

Butts election would be a worrying sign that large numbers of British Muslims are far too tolerant of Islamism and, therefore, of its actions and consequences. Good, decent Muslims, must turn their backs for good on all those who believe that Gods will can ever be honoured by the bullet, the bomb or the suicide vest.

The country will be watching Sparkhill on May 7. It must not let us  or British Muslims  down.
Members of Congress from both parties have raised concerns after examining the unredacted Epstein files - Getty

Six men, including one foreign government official, have had their names redacted from the Epstein files.

Members of congress were allowed to review the unredacted files for the first time on Monday. After doing so, they expressed concern that high-profile men had their faces and images obscured for no clear reason.

Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, said he discovered the names of six men whose identities have been redacted from the released documents and who are likely incriminated by their inclusion in these files.

Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, said: Theres no explanation why those people were redacted.

The two men, who were responsible for the release of the files, declined to name the six men who had been obscured but Mr Massie said one of them is pretty high up in a foreign government and Mr Khanna said one of the others is a pretty prominent individual.

Thomas Massie worked with Ro Khanna (left) to spearhead the Epstein Files Transparency Act - Heather Diehl/2025 Getty Images

The Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA), which Congress passed in November, compelled the US department of justice (DoJ) to release all of the documents in its possession related to Jeffrey Epstein.

It required the redaction of the names or personal identifying information about Epsteins victims, who numbered more than 1,000 according to the FBI.

But it said no records could be withheld, delayed, or redacted on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure or foreign dignitary.

Our law was very clear, Mr Khanna said. Unless something was classified, it required it to be unredacted.

Redacted for inscrutable reasons

Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, was among the members of congress who examined the unredacted Epstein files at a secure DoJ location on Monday. Members were not allowed to bring with them an electronic device but were allowed to take handwritten notes.

I saw the names of lots of people who were redacted for mysterious or baffling or inscrutable reasons, Mr Raskin told reporters.

He added: There are certainly lots of names of other people who were enablers and co-operators with Jeffrey Epstein that were just blanked out for no apparent reason.

Epstein, who had ties to top business executives, politicians, celebrities and academics, was found dead in his New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for trafficking underage girls.

A number of political and business leaders have already been resigned or had their reputations tarnished after their ties with Epstein were revealed in the files published on Jan 30.
South Korean officials raid spy agencies to find out who is sending drones into North Korea

South Korean officials raided several intelligence and military sites as part of an expanding probe into suspected drone flights into North Korea that have renewed political tensions between the rivals.

A joint military and police task force said it searched 18 locations on Tuesday, including the countrys main intelligence agencies.

Officials said three active-duty soldiers and one intelligence agency employee were under investigation after the raid on the Defence Intelligence Command and the National Intelligence Service.

The investigation began after North Korea claimed in January that it shot down a drone near its Kaesong city. North Korean officials released photos of the drones debris and aerial pictures of buildings it had allegedly captured on the way in.

Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, had urged Seoul to investigate the drone incidents and warned that any provocations would end in a terrible situation.

South Koreas government initially denied any official role. President Lee Jae Myung said such an action would be like firing a shot into the North. He also warned his countrymen against flying drones north of the border, comparing it to starting a war.

He added that such action was creating unnecessary confrontation with North Korea and could negatively impact his country. However, investigators are now examining whether individuals linked to state agencies were involved.

In a statement, the task force said it will thoroughly establish the truth behind the drone incident through analysis of seized materials and a rigorous investigation of the suspects.

Prosecutors have already charged three civilians connected to the scandal. One of them has reportedly said he launched a drone to monitor radiation levels near North Koreas Pyongsan uranium facility.

The Pyongsan plant is believed to be the countrys primary uranium mining and milling site, where raw uranium ore is processed into yellowcake, a concentrated form of uranium.

The investigation is also tied to the ongoing trial of former president Yoon Suk Yeol. Prosecutors allege he illegally ordered drone missions into the North to help justify declaring martial law in late 2024. Yoon was later impeached and removed from office after the attempt failed.

According to prosecutors, Yoon and others tried to provoke Pyongyang by flying drones over its capital and sending anti-North leaflets. They alleged the group conspired to create conditions that would allow the declaration of emergency martial law.

Relations between the two Koreas remain tense. North Korea has said drones from the South dropped propaganda over Pyongyang last year, while Seoul has accused the North of sending trash-filled balloons across the border.

Since taking office, Mr Lee has tried to ease tensions. He removed propaganda loudspeakers near the border and hinted that an apology to North Korea might be necessary, saying: I feel I should apologise, but I hesitate to say it out loud.

He added: I worry that if I do, it could be used as fodder for ideological battles or accusations of being pro-North.
NEW YORK, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Tamboran Resources Corporation (ASX: TBN, NYSE: TBN) advises that the Company will release its second quarter FY26 earnings and operational update after market close on Wednesday, 11 February 2026 (U.S. time).

The Company's Chairman, Mr Dick Stoneburner, and newly appointed Chief Executive Officer, Mr Todd Abbott, will host a webcast commencing at 5:00 p.m. EST to provide an update on operations in the Beetaloo Basin. This will be followed by a short question-and-answer session with analysts.

Access to the live audio webcast will be available via the Company's website at ir.tamboran.com. A recording of the webcast will be available following completion of the presentation.

Time: 5:00 p.m. EST (New York) | 9:00 a.m. AEDT (Sydney, Melbourne)

Date: Wednesday, 11 February 2026 (New York) | Thursday, 12 February 2026 (Sydney, Melbourne)

This announcement has been authorised for release by the Chairman of Tamboran Resources Corporation.

Investor Enquiries:

Chris Morbey

Vice President  Investor Relations and Corporate Development

+61 2 8330 6626

[email protected]

Media Enquiries:

+61 2 8330 6626

[email protected]

SOURCE Tamboran Resources Corporation
Sir Keir Starmers fightback against an attempted Labour leadership coup has been overshadowed by a fresh scandal involving one of his closest former aides.

Labour announced on Tuesday evening that it had suspended Sir Keirs former communications chief Matthew Doyle, whom the prime minister elevated to the House of Lords in December, over his links to a convicted paedophile, former councillor Sean Morton.

The latest development will raise fresh questions over Sir Keirs integrity and judgement, with echoes of the Peter Mandelson scandal, which has already cost him his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, and brought his premiership to the brink of collapse.

Lord Mandelson was made ambassador to the US  the UKs most important diplomatic role  despite the prime minister knowing of his ongoing relationship with the convicted paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Matthew Doyle, Keir Starmers former communications chief, was made a life peer last month (Parliament TV)

And now, Lord Doyle, who retains his peerage despite being stripped of the party whip, has revealed that he, too, had kept in contact with Morton, even after he was convicted.

In a statement, Lord Doyle said any contact was extremely limited and I have not seen or spoken to him in years.

He said: I acted to try to ensure the welfare of a troubled individual whilst fully condemning the crimes for which he has been convicted, and being clear that my thoughts are with the victims of his crimes. I am sorry about the mistakes I have made. I will not be taking the Labour whip.

For the avoidance of any doubt, let me conclude where I started. Mortons crimes were vile, and my only concerns are for his victims, he added.

In a bid to limit the damage, sources in Downing Street last night briefed that No 10 was not aware that Lord Doyle had campaigned for Morton at the time of his appointment. Nevertheless, there were media reports on the issue before Lord Doyle was sworn in as a peer.

Lord Doyle, who worked for Sir Keir in opposition and entered Downing Street with him in 2024, campaigned for Morton when he ran as an independent in May 2017  four months after Morton had appeared in court charged in connection with indecent child images.

His statement continued: I want to apologise for my past association with Sean Morton. His offences were vile, and I completely condemn the actions for which he was rightly convicted. My thoughts are with the victims and all those impacted by these crimes.

At the point of my campaigning support, Morton repeatedly asserted to all those who knew him his innocence, including initially in court. He later changed his plea in court to guilty.

To have not ceased support ahead of a judicial conclusion was a clear error of judgement for which I apologise unreservedly.

The news broke just hours after Sir Keir broke cover to launch his personal fightback with a speech focused on the cost of living at a community centre in Hertford.

Hitting back at Labour infighting that has split the party over whether he should continue as prime minister, Sir Keir insisted: I will never walk away from the mandate I was given to change this country. I will never walk away from the people that Im charged with fighting for. And I will never walk away from the country that I love.

Lord Doyles suspension comes as a blow to Sir Keir just a day after his government was rocked by the departure of a second key aide, director of communications Tim Allan, and a public demand for the PMs resignation from Labours own leader in Scotland, Anas Sarwar.

He was also facing questions over whether he would sack cabinet secretary Sir Christopher Wormald a year after appointing him, with Home Office permanent secretary Dame Antonia Romeo the expected replacement.

Already, Sir Keir had been embarrassed by his health secretary, Wes Streeting, who published private messages between himself and Lord Mandelson to clear his name over smears about their relationship. The publication broke cabinet collective responsibility by revealing Mr Streeting disagreed with Middle East and economic policy in the government of which he is a part, and prompted No 10 to warn other ministers not to follow suit.

While Sir Keir was too weak to sack him, energy secretary Ed Miliband hit out at the health secretary forhis action, and the Metropolitan Police and Cabinet Office warned other ministers against further publications which could undermine any criminal action against the disgraced former Labour peer. He is facing a police probe over allegations he leaked sensitive government information to Epstein when he was business secretary under Gordon Brown.

Last week, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch wrote to Sir Keir, calling on him to publish vetting advice and due diligence received ahead of Lord Doyle being handed a peerage. Sir Keir also faced questions about the appointment at a meeting of Labour MPs on Monday night.

Reacting to the latest scandal, Ms Badenoch said: Keir Starmer handed a peerage to Matthew Doyle despite knowing about his ongoing friendship with a man charged with child sex crimes. The prime minister has now suspended the whip, but he must come clean about what he was told before making this appointment. We wont let this go.

Despite being stripped of the Labour whip, Lord Doyle will remain a peer. Currently, peers can retire from the House of Lords but cannot be removed, although Sir Keir has discussed plans to change that process in the wake of the Mandelson scandal.
Sir Keir Starmer's former communications chief, who was made a Lord by the Prime Minister, has apologised for his past association with a paedophile councillor after being stripped of the Labour whip.

Lord Matthew Doyle campaigned for ex Labour councillor Sean Morton when he ran as an Independent at local elections in May 2017, five months after he had first appeared in court charged in connection with child abuse image offences.

Morton admitted having indecent images of children in November 2017.

Lord Doyle said: "I want to apologise for my past association with Sean Morton. His offences were vile and I completely condemn the actions for which he was rightly convicted. My thoughts are with the victims and all those impacted by these crimes.

"At the point of my campaigning support, Morton repeatedly asserted to all those who knew him his innocence, including initially in court. He later changed his plea in court to guilty.

"To have not ceased support ahead of a judicial conclusion was a clear error of judgment for which I apologise unreservedly."

Matthew Doyle (Alamy/PA)

The peer had the Labour whip removed on Tuesday.

It is understood that the Prime Minister was unaware Lord Doyle had campaigned with Morton, which was first reported by the Times, when he nominated him for a life peerage in December.

Lord Doyle worked for Sir Keir in opposition and was Downing Street director of communications from July 2024 until he quit in March 2025.

In recent days, Sir Keir has seen the departure of a two key aides - director of communications Tim Allan and chief of staff Morgan McSweeny - over the Peter Mandelson scandal.

Mr McSweeney stepped down on Sunday over his advice to appoint Mandelson as Britains ambassador to the US despite his friendship with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Tory leader Ms Badenoch last week wrote to Sir Keir calling on him to publish "vetting advice and due diligence" received ahead of Lord Doyles elevation to the House of Lords and documents covering his association with Morton.

In his statement, Lord Doyle said: "Those of us who took him at his word were clearly mistaken.

(Suzanne Plunkett/PA Wire)

"I have never sought to dismiss or diminish the seriousness of the offences for which he was rightly convicted. They are clearly abhorrent and I have never questioned his conviction.

"Following his conviction any contact was extremely limited and I have not seen or spoken to him in years. Twice I was at events organised by other people, which he attended, and once I saw him to check on his welfare after concerns were raised through others.

"I acted to try to ensure the welfare of a troubled individual whilst fully condemning the crimes for which he has been convicted and being clear that my thoughts are with the victims of his crimes.

"I am sorry about the mistakes I have made. I will not be taking the Labour whip.

"For the avoidance of any doubt, let me conclude where I started. Morton's crimes were vile and my only concerns are for his victims."
Wes Streeting and Keir Starmer held a one-on-one meeting on Tuesday. Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian (Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian)

Allies of Wes Streeting expect him to try to challenge Keir Starmers leadership within weeks, despite the health secretary insisting he backs the prime minister and is not intending to move against him, the Guardian has been told.

Starmer attempted to regain authority over his party on Tuesday after a tumultuous day in Westminster during which he was denounced by the Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar and lost his director of communications.

The prime minister said on Tuesday he would never walk away from his task of changing the UK, and was bolstered further by public displays of support from both Streeting and the Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham.

But MPs who are close to the health secretary insist he still wants to replace Starmer and is willing to stand against him soon after the Gorton and Denton byelection later this month.

One said he would need to act immediately after the May local elections at the latest to pre-empt a potential challenge from his most likely rival Angela Rayner, who is waiting for the outcome of a probe into her property taxes.

Nothing has changed, said one. There was a big performance of unity yesterday but Keir is no safer than he was yesterday.

Related: Ministers warned not to copy Wes Streetings release of messages with Peter Mandelson

Another added: We need to act quickly. There is a big risk that we meander and end up in this tepid decline where we all make ourselves feel better but a Reform government becomes inevitable.

Wes has the numbers, but it will require a steeliness and a determination that most colleagues have not to date shown.

The person added: At this point Keir is a zombie. He is in the Theresa May phase of his leadership.

A Streeting spokesperson said, however, that the MPs claims were categorically not true.

Another Labour backbencher said: The reality is the public does not like or trust Keir Starmer. Once we have the results of the local elections, it will become unavoidably clear that something bigger needs to change.

The MPs comments contrast with the public display of unity shown by cabinet members on Tuesday.

Streeting himself told the BBC: The prime minister has got my full support. He is leading our country through an enormous set of challenges and people have got to recognise the integrity with which he does that.

Speaking at an event in central London, Burnham also gave his backing to the prime minister, saying it was time for everyone to be facing in the same direction and pulling in the same direction around our ambitions. He added however, that the government should be more ambitious, notably on housing.

Starmer chaired a lengthy meeting of cabinet on Tuesday morning at which ministers conducted what one source called a frank and broad discussion of what had gone wrong with the prime ministers leadership.

One cabinet insider said afterwards: We think Keir should remain in place but the culture in No 10 has to change completely and the briefings against colleagues need to stop.

After that meeting, Streeting and Starmer held a one-on-one meeting, which one source said was intended to clear the air between the pair of them.

Starmer gave a speech at an event in Hertfordshire on Tuesday at which he insisted: I will never walk away from the mandate I was given to change this country, I will never walk away from the people that Im charged with fighting for, and I will never walk away from the country that I love.

Government officials say they are still trying to work out whether there was any coordination between the health secretary and Sarwar, who prompted the crisis on Monday by calling for the prime minister to resign.

One senior minister said: There were junior ministers and PPSs [parliamentary private secretaries] ready to go. It went off half cocked. There was a plan, it just didnt work.

I think the story now is Wess misjudgment. The release of the [Peter Mandelson] texts has not relieved people of their doubts and it looks obsessive, even desperate.

A Downing Street source added: Wes just did not move, this all feels very James Purnell.

Purnell resigned as Gordon Browns work and pensions secretary in 2009 in a move that was expected to prompt a leadership bid by his ally David Miliband, which then never came.

Others however, have concluded there was no coordination between Streeting and Sarwar, even if they do not trust the health secretarys reassurances of support in the future.

They point to the fact that Streeting had been planning to release his text messages with Mandelson on Monday, making it a less than ideal time to also mount a coup.

Allies of Streeting also pointed out that while Sarwar was speaking, the health secretary was giving an interview to Sky News in which he offered his support to the prime minister.

One said: Before Anas Sarwar made his statement, Wes told Sky News that Keir needs to be given a chance and shouldnt resign. Im afraid the conspiracy theory doesnt fit the timeline of events.

A minister added: No 10 seems to have an obsession with Wes. People are saying that he bottled it without any evidence he was going for it.

Wes is a smart political operator who would have known that if you get out and call for the PM to go and dont have a plan and outriders come in behind you, it would fall flat.

MPs believe that Starmers future now depends on the results of both the Gorton and Denton byelection and the subsequent local elections in May.

Keir is there but he cant stay for long said one. His name keeps coming up on the doorstep  people hate him.

They didnt fully trust him before the election and they definitely dont after [his decision to cut] winter fuel payments.
Leo Ross, 12, was stabbed in the stomach in a random attack in Shire country park in Birmingham in January 2025, and died after being taken to hospital. Photograph: West Midlands Police/PA (Photograph: West Midlands Police/PA)

A 15-year-old boy has been sentenced to at least 13 years in custody for the murder of Leo Ross, 12, in Birmingham last year.

Leo was stabbed in the stomach as he made his way home from his school in Yardley Wood on 21 January 2025 and later died in hospital.

The 15-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty to the murder last month.

Delivering the sentence at Birmingham crown court on Tuesday, Justice Choudhury KC said the 15-year-old had been engaged in a campaign of violence against several people and Leos family were enduring a living hell now.

Leo was an innocent schoolboy, who was just on his way to meet a friend in the park  you stabbed Leo with a knife and left him to die. Leo was only 12 years old, Choudhury said.

The devastation you have caused to so many lives is hard to comprehend and, for those who knew and loved Leo, almost too great to bear. You have robbed Leo of his life and his future.

The judge told the court the 15-year-old would serve a minimum term of 13 years in prison and would not be released unless a Parole Board found it was safe to do so.

DI Joe Davenport from West Midlands police read out a statement from Leo Rosss foster family, the Westons, which said the sentencing does not bring justice in the way our hearts long for and our family will live with this pain forever.

We miss him every day, our world has been torn apart and his absence has left a permanent void in our family, one that can never be filled, the statement added.

Leos mother, Rachel Fisher, said the 13-year minimum sentence was a joke.

Thirteen years is a complete and utter joke, and its just going to keep on happening and keep on happening until somethings done about it, she told PA Media.

These kids arent scared. They arent scared of the sentence. Theyre not worried. The local authority and the police have got a lot to answer for.

In court, Fisher had described her son as the most beautiful little soul.

His life should have been just beginning but now he will never get to have his first job, his first car, get married or have his own children, she said.

I will never see my lovely boy get married or have a family of his own. I have lost everything I did have and would have with him.

His father, Christopher Ross, spoke directly to his sons attacker and said: Look up man  you killed my son.

He added: Leo was loved by everyone. Everyone said how special he was. He was the kindest little boy you could ever hope to meet.

Officers believed Leo had no connection to the 15-year-old and was the victim of a random attack.

Defending the 15-year-old, Alistair Webster said the boy has formidable mental health problems and a repeated history of hearing voices.

In mitigation, the barrister said the defendant had been diagnosed with childhood conduct disorder and ADHD, and had suicidal thoughts.

In his sentencing remarks, the judge addressed the 15-year-olds mental state and said: You knew and were aware of the consequences of your actions. You were thinking coolly and rationally.

He also detailed how the 15-year-old assaulted several people, including elderly women, before the murder.

The savagery required to inflict such injuries to a defenceless elderly lady is hard to comprehend, the judge said.

The killer, who was 14 at the time of the attack, previously admitted to two counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent on 19 and 20 January and assault occasioning actual bodily harm on 21 January 2025 in relation to separate attacks on other victims. He also admitted to having a bladed article on the day he killed Leo.

He denied assault occasioning actual bodily harm on 22 October 2024 and assault by beating on 29 December 2024 in relation to two other victims, and those charges were ordered to lie on file.
Almost a third of children who use AI chatbots say they would describe the technology as like one of their friends, a survey suggests.

AI chatbots are becoming part of daily life for young people, with 81% of children aged between 11 and 16 saying they use the technology, the poll for Vodafone found.

Some 31% who have used an AI chatbot agreed they would describe it as like a friend, turning to it for advice on difficult situations (24%) and to help with worries and anxieties (20%).

The survey found those engaging with conversational chatbots spent an average of 42 minutes a day chatting with them.

One in three (33%) said they had shared information they would not tell their parents, teachers or friends, and 86% said they had acted on the advice they were given by a chatbot.

The study, which analysed the experiences of 2,000 children and their parents, found that the technologys consistently friendly tone was cited by 37% of those polled as a major reason for engaging with it.

For almost one in five (17%), speaking to technology felt safer than speaking to a person, with 14% preferring to seek advice from an AI chatbot, ahead of a friend (10%) or teacher (3%).

Vodafone is launching a Breakfast Club campaign using a limited-edition cereal box which borrows the language and layout of food labelling to list what makes up an AI chatbot but also what it does not include, such as empathy and accountability.

Child psychologist Dr Elly Hanson said: It is uncanny how effective AI chatbots can be at mimicking human empathy, personality and connection.

As Vodafones research shows, this is leading many children and young people to feel like chatbots are their friends and is interfering with their social development.

They need real relationships involving give-and-take, shared experience, diverse perspectives, and actual feelings, not pseudo-relationships designed to keep them hooked for as long as possible.

Education designed to help young people critically analyse this anthropomorphic technology is urgently needed, alongside regulation that protects against its particular risks.

For almost one in five, speaking to technology felt safer than speaking to a person, figures show (Alamy/PA)

Nicki Lyons, chief corporate affairs and sustainability officer at VodafoneThree, said: Knowing how to talk to your child about AI chatbots and online safety isnt always straightforward.

In our new campaign, weve used the language of food labelling to help parents and kids understand them.

Our Breakfast Club resources help highlight what AI chatbots are made of, when  if used properly  they can be a force for good, and the risks when they are used as a substitute for connection, friendship or support.

Barry Laker, head of the Childline service at the NSPCC, said: AI is becoming a regular part of childrens online experiences. When used safely and responsibly, it can offer opportunities, but it also brings risks, especially if children arent sure whats real, or how AI works.

Its particularly concerning that a third of children are confiding in AI chatbots with concerns they wouldnt share with parents, teachers or friends. Thats why open conversations with your child about AI chatbot use is so important, setting clear boundaries to help them stay safe and informed.

Initiatives, like Vodafones Breakfast Club campaign, play a vital role in helping parents and carers with these conversations and supporting families to navigate these challenges together.

Childline is here 24/7 to listen without judgment; our counsellors are real people who care about young peoples wellbeing. Wed encourage any child or young person who needs to talk to contact us on 0800 1111 or visit childline.org.uk.

Vodafone has partnered with First News and the NSPCC to create free resources that help build childrens understanding of chatbots, support media literacy and promote healthy digital wellbeing.

They includes a family pack, lesson plans, assembly materials and expert tips for conversations on AI chatbot use.

Censuswide surveyed 1,000 parents with children aged 11 to 16 and 1,000 children aged 11 to 16 between October 30 and February 2.
A Pride flag is seen outside Stonewall national monument during the New York City Pride parade on 26 June 2022. Photograph: Noam Galai/Getty Images (Photograph: Noam Galai/Getty Images)

The Trump administration has removed a large pride flag from the Stonewall national monument in New York City, marking the latest move by the federal government to end diversity initiatives and sanitize the history shared in national parks.

The monument commemorates the June 1969 riots that followed a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Manhattans Greenwich Village. The six days of protests against the police action were a key moment in sparking the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, and the site has since become a national symbol of LGBTQ+ Pride.

They cannot erase our history. Our Pride flag will be raised again, the Manhattan borough president, Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who is gay, wrote in a social media post. He confirmed that the Pride flag had been removed over the 7 February weekend following a 21 January memorandum from the interior department.

The memo from the interior department, which oversees the National Park Service, provided guidance to superintendents and site managers on policies and procedures for the display and flying of non-agency flags and pennants, stating only US flags, agency flags and the POW/MIA flag are allowed at parks, while including a list of exemptions that included flags that provide historical context.

Interior department flagpoles are not intended to serve as a forum for free expression by the public, the memo read. Rather, approved non-agency flags and pennants may be flown as an expression of the Federal Governments official sentiments.

In a statement to the Guardian, the interior department said: The policy governing flag displays on federal property has been in place for decades. Recent guidance clarifies how that longstanding policy is applied consistently across NPS-managed sites. It added that, Stonewall National Monument continues to preserve and interpret the sites historic significance through exhibits and programs.

Julie Menin, the New York city council speaker, and the co-chairs of the councils LGBTQ+ caucus, denounced the removal of the Pride flag and urged the National Park Service to return the flag in a letter to the Trump administration.

Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader from New York, denounced the move in a statement, saying: The removal of the Pride Rainbow Flag from the Stonewall National Monument is a deeply outrageous action that must be reversed right now. He added: If theres one thing I know about this latest attempt to rewrite history, stoke division and discrimination, and erase our community pride its this: that flag will return. New Yorkers will see to it.

New Yorkers are already planning to protest against the action, with a demonstration scheduled for Tuesday evening.

Stacy Lentz, co-owner of the Stonewall Inn which operates independently from the national monument, called the removal of the flag an awful attack on the park. We cant trust the government with our history or with our stories, she said.

Barack Obama designated the site as a national monument in 2016. In 2017, the site was slated to raise a Pride flag when the then interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, certified the flagpole as located on city, not federal, land, Gay City News reported at the time. In June 2022, under the Biden administration, the Pride flag went up on federal land on the first day of Pride month. Soon after Donald Trump was re-elected in 2024, his administration eliminated all references to transgender people from the National Park Service website for the Stonewall national monument. In June 2025, the Stonewall national monument excluded transgender and progress flags from its Pride month display.
President Donald Trump seemed to be aware of Jeffrey Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwells activities with teenage girls and young women before the 2006 state charges against the pedophile financier, a document in the Epstein files suggests.

In a 2019 FBI interview, former Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter reportedly told federal investigators that Trump was among the first people to call the police department in July 2006, to thank them for investigating Epstein and recommended they look into evil Maxwell.

Trump called the [Palm Beach Police Department] to tell him, thank goodness youre stopping him, everyone has known hes been doing this, the FBI transcript says.

Trump allegedly told Reiter that people in New York knew Epstein was disgusting and that he was once around Epstein when teenagers were present but that he got the hell out of there.

The newly-reported transcript appears to contradict the presidents claim that he had little to no knowledge of Epsteins crimes before he was charged with solicitation of prostitution in Florida.

The president was reportedly among the first people to call the Palm Beach Police Department about the investigation into Epstein (US Department of Justice)

When asked, in July 2019, if he had any knowledge that Epstein molested underage women, Trump told reporters, No, I had no idea. I had no idea.

In July 2025, reporters asked Trump if he knew why Epstein had recruited female staffers from Mar-a-Lago. Trump responded, No, I dont know really why.

Reiters name is redacted in the transcript. But he confirmed to the Miami Herald that the FBI interviewed him in October 2019 about his departments investigation into Epstein. Reiter said Trump called him in July 2006.

A Department of Justice official said they were unaware of any corroborating evidence that the President had called law enforcement 20 years ago.

When asked about the recent report on the FBI transcript, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, Look, it was a phone call that may or may not have happened in 2006. I don't know the answer to that question." She reminded reporters that Trump has remained consistent in kicking out Epstein for being a creep.

The FBI transcript is the latest development from the Epstein files that suggests the president may have been more aware of Epsteins activities than he has publicly admitted.

Trump appears in photos and references in the Epstein files due to the pairs former friendship, though he has denied any wrongdoing and never been accused of a crime associated with the disgraced financier (House Oversight Committee)

Trump and Epstein were friends through the 1990s and early 2000s, but the two had a falling out after Trump learned Epstein and Maxwell had stolen women staffers from Mar-a-Lagos spa. There are also reports that they had fallen out over a real estate deal in Florida in 2004.

Epstein and Maxwell often recruited young women and sometimes girls into their orbit under the pretense of performing massages.

As a result of their former friendship, Trump is named in the Epstein files  however, he has denied any wrongdoing and never been formally accused of a crime associated with Epstein. Being named in the Epstein files does not imply guilt.

Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence for a child sex trafficking conviction, has also said that Trump did not participate in Epsteins crimes. She reiterated the point Monday following a recorded deposition with the House Oversight Committee.

In a 2019 email between Epstein and author Michael Wolff, the disgraced financier claimed Trump knew about the girls but did not go into detail about what that could have meant.

Trump made insinuations about Epsteins penchant for young women. In a 2002 New York Magazine interview, Trump said Epstein was a lot of fun to be with and that it is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.

Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had given Epstein a birthday note in 2003 that was written within a drawing of a naked womans body. The message to Epstein reportedly said, May every day be another wonderful secret. Trump denied the legitimacy of the birthday letter and sued the publication for $10bn.
Nato troops on HMS Prince of Wales salute HMS Mersey. European nations, insiders say, will shoulder more responsibility for defending the continent under the restructure - Heathcliff O'Malley for The Telegraph

Donald Trump has handed control of three top Nato command posts to European countries.

Britain will take over its Atlantic Command headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia, while Italy has been given responsibility for the southern flank at its Naples base.

Germany and Poland will oversee Joint Force Command Brunssum, in the Netherlands, on a rotating basis as part of the historic shake-up.

Nato insiders insisted that the move was about European nations shouldering more responsibility for defending the continent rather than Mr Trump walking away from the alliance.

It means that European commanders will now lead Natos three joint force commands at an operational level.

A Nato official told The Telegraph: Allies have agreed on a new distribution of senior officer responsibility across the Nato Command Structure in which European allies, including Natos newest members, will play a more prominent role in the alliances military leadership.

The US president has threatened to play a lesser role in the alliance and has discussed withdrawing troops from Europe to focus on other threats, such as China.

His posturing has called into question whether American forces would come to the aid of their European allies if Russia attacked them.

Macron warns against complacency over US

Mr Trumps threat to seize Greenland, the Arctic island that is part of Nato ally Denmarks territory, threatened to plunge the alliance into its worst ever crisis.

In response, European governments have scrambled to ramp up defence spending and prove to the White House that the continent can stand on its own feet when it comes to defence.

Emmanuel Macron, the French president  who has been pushing for Europe to become more independent of Washington  used an interview with several news outlets to warn of a new Greenland moment in the future.

He suggested that the European Union should not be lulled into a false sense of security over the USs perceived threat, having reached a truce following tensions over the Arctic island.

Emmanuel Macron wants Europe to become more independent of the US - Suzanne Plunkett/REUTERS

Ahead of the Munich Security Conference this weekend, experts also warned that Mr Trump was leading an era of wrecking-ball politics aimed at dismantling traditional institutions.

The conferences annual report, released before the summit in Bavaria, described the US president as a demolition man of European security.

Andrius Kubilius, the EUs defence commissioner, is planning a missile tour of Europe to push for countries to start manufacturing more long-range weapons.

He has been a vocal supporter of a 100,000-strong European military force, which reimagines continental defences without Americas backing.

But Italys Adml Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, the head of Natos military committee, insisted that the alliances changes represented strong American commitment.

Natos European member states have been historically reliant on the US for planning, and command and control. Its supreme allied commander is always an American officer, who is simultaneously in charge of US forces in Europe.

Gen Alexus Grynkewich, who currently holds the role, has been a key part of the US negotiating team trying to end Ukraines war with Russia.

As part of the changes, the US will assume control over Natos maritime forces, based at Northwood in the UK. This means American officers will oversee the alliances main air, land and sea commands and retain the top position of Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

On Monday, Matthew Whitaker, the US Nato ambassador, insisted that Mr Trump was seeking to strengthen rather than dismantle the alliance by making Europe step up.

Were trying to make Nato stronger, not to withdraw or reject Nato, but make it work like it was intended, as an alliance of 32 strong and capable allies, he added.
Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein in 1992 - YouTube

Donald Trump allegedly knew about Jeffrey Epsteins abuse of young girls and called police to thank them for stopping him, according to new documents.

Mr Trump reportedly phoned Palm Beach police department in 2006 shortly after the first charges were brought against the deceased paedophile.

Thank goodness youre stopping him, everyone has known hes been doing this, Mr Trump told police chief Michael Reiter, according to an interview Mr Reiter gave to the FBI in 2019.

He is also said to have told police to focus on Ghislaine Maxwell, who he said was evil and Epsteins operative.

The comments clash with the presidents insistence that he had no idea about the financiers abuse of young girls.

Mr Trump was close friends with Epstein until the early 2000s, when the two men reportedly had a falling out over a property they both wished to purchase.

He has said he threw Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago when the financier stole young female employees of the luxury members club.

The presidents phone call to police was first reported by the Miami Herald, who contacted Mr Reiter to confirm he was the official whose name is redacted in the FBI document released in the Epstein files.

Donald Trump with a group of women wearing Hawaiian-style leis - AFP

Mr Reiter told FBI agents that he struggled for years to convince higher authorities to take Epsteins case seriously.

According to the four-page summary of his interview with the FBI, Palm Beach Police Department began watching Epsteins home in 2003, after calls to a tip-line that attractive women were coming in and out of his house. Two women were stopped, but they were found to be adult Epstein employees.

By then, Epstein had donated more than $130,000 (95,000) to the police department to help them purchase a finger-print machine and a device to review security camera footage. He had also donated to the police scholarship fund for children, said Mr Reiter, who became Palm Beach police chief in 2001 and retired in 2009.

The investigation was renewed in March 2005 when the department received a phone call from a woman who said her 14-year-old stepdaughter had been molested by Epstein. The girl later told police that dozens of high school girls were being recruited by Epstein, with massages often leading to sexual assault and rape.

Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking crimes - AFP/US Department of Justice

Mr Reiter told the FBI agents he became frustrated when the former local states attorney, Barry Krischer, rebuffed police efforts to arrest Epstein in 2006. He then took the case to the FBI.

Private investigators hired by Epstein then began to harass Mr Reiter, picking through his trash and following him.

In 2007, the Palm Beach police chief requested a meeting with the then US attorney for Miami, Alex Acosta, to find out why Epstein had still not been arrested.

According to Mr Reiters testimony, Mr Acosta said Epsteins defence lawyers had frustrated the case  and there was a lot of interest from higher up.

Ghislaine Maxwell during the closed-door virtual deposition before the House Oversight Committee on Feb 9 - AFP

Despite testimonies from 40 underage victims, Epstein and his lawyers were able to convince federal prosecutors to limit the case to just one count of soliciting a minor. He served a light 13-month sentence which allowed him to leave prison every day to go to his office in West Palm Beach.

According to Mr Reiter, Mr Trump said he was around Epstein once when teenagers were present and got the hell out of there.

He added that people in New York knew Epstein was disgusting.

We are not aware of any corroborating evidence that the president contacted law enforcement 20 years ago, an FBI spokesman said.

Karoline Leavitt, Mr Trumps press secretary, said that he had kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago for being a creep, adding: This call, if it did happen, corroborates exactly what President Trump has said from the beginning.
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Support for Donald Trump is declining among voters without a college degree, according to a new analysis, a worrying sign for Republicans given the demographic played a pivotal role in getting Trump elected to the White House twice.

In the 2024 election, Trumps approval rating with this group was 14 points higher than rival Kamala Harriss, according to CNN polling expert Harry Enten, a dynamic that has since flipped so that Trump now has a nine-point negative split with the same voters.

He is underwater by nine points, Enten said during a broadcast on Monday. Thats a 23-point switcheroo with his base of non-college voters. He is absolutely collapsing with the group of voters that helped put him into the White House.

Enten also found that this same demographic is moving away from the Republican party at large heading into the 2026 midterms, though the GOP still retains a slim net-positive approval rating.

What were dealing with is a Donald Trump message that is not actually meeting the reality, and that is why non-college voters have been going away from the president of the United States and going away from Republicans as well, the analyst added.

Donald Trump is bleeding support among non-college educated voters, an alarming sign for Republicans ahead of the 2026 midterms (AP)

A core part of the Trump pitch to this demographic was that the Republicans aggressive tariffs would help bring back American manufacturing jobs lost to offshoring, a promise that so far hasnt materialized.

In 2025, manufacturing shrunk by about 70,000 jobs, continuing years of net decline in the sector.

Support for Trump is declining among evangelical Protestants, another core group of supporters, the Pew Research Center found.

A late January survey showed that while the bloc still remained highly supportive of Trump overall, declining numbers said they support most of the presidents plans, approve of his job performance, and believe he acts ethically in office.

Overall, just 37 percent of all voters approve of Trumps job performance, while 39 percent approve of his handling of the economy, according to a Quinnipiac poll released last week.

Trumps tariffs have not driven a spike in manufacturing jobs, despite the presidents promises they would help save American industry (AP2006)

Despite these warning signs, Trump has continued to remain upbeat and make inaccurate claims about his public support.

Last week, the president bragged that his polling is the highest he has ever received, despite his approval rating continuing to drop throughout his second term.

Obviously, people like a strong and powerful Country, with the best economy, EVER! Trump wrote on Truth Social.
UK falls to new low in global corruption scale over party donations and Epstein scandals

The UK has sunk to a new low on a global corruption index amid political turmoil over party donations and as Sir Keir Starmers government struggles to recover from the Epstein-Mandelson scandal.

On a scale of 0 to 100, Britain has now slipped to 70, marking the lowest point since the Corruption Perceptions Index underwent a major revamp in 2012. The UK remains 20th on the list for the third consecutive year, despite previously ranking in the top ten positions.

Transparency International, a campaign group dedicated to exposing corruption, compiled a league table formed by experts and businesspeople, who rate 182 countries on their perceived levels of public sector corruption.

In a statement on its website, Transparency International said: In the UK, the past decade has seen major domestic scandals, the awarding of favours and honours to political donors, and MPs working as lobbyists for paying clients and corrupt regimes.

The authors highlighted that the report comes as the government finds itself mired in scandal over the relationship between convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the former UK ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson, which has posed serious questions over Sir Keirs judgement.

Other issues that have damaged the UKs corruption levels include political parties spending record amounts on election campaigning, which was supercharging a reliance on wealthy backers, with the Conservatives accepting 15m from a single donor. This is understood to be a reference to businessman Frank Hester, who was accused of making racist comments about former Labour MP Diane Abbott.

Sir Keir Starmer has come under scrutiny over his appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador, despite his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein (PA)

The report also noted that the worlds wealthiest man, Elon Musk, had also considered a $100 million (85m) donation to Nigel Farages party, Reform UK.

Labour has also been accused of soliciting cash in return for political access, with donor Waheed Alli receiving a privileged pass to Downing Street. The news came shortly after he donated high-end clothes to Sir Keirs wife, Victoria.

Daniel Bruce, chief executive of Transparency International UK, said: "For three years running, the UK has been stuck at 20th place in the Corruption Perceptions Index with a score that continues to deteriorate. This persistent decline is not a temporary blip  it risks becoming a defining feature of our political culture.

The data collection period for this year's index covers some of the highest spending political campaigning on record, alongside troubling reports of access-for-cash arrangements and questionable appointment processes. Unless we act decisively to tackle the corrupting influence of big money in politics and strengthen anti-corruption frameworks, these concerns will become the new normal.

The UK government must demonstrate that it is serious about restoring integrity. That means taking bold action to remove big money from politics, delivering genuinely open government, and ending the cronyism that undermines public trust in our institutions.

The United States dropped to its lowest ever score, at 64, and slipped from 28th to 29th place, having been overtaken by Lithuania.

The United States has dropped to its lowest ever ranking (PA)

Transparency International noted that the responsibility to prevent corruption has been sorely tested by the second Trump administration in the US, with delays to the implementation of anti-money laundering rules and the new Gold Card visa scheme, meaning US residency will be available to people who invest large sums in the country.

It also pointed to the use of public office to target and restrict independent voices such as NGOs and journalists, the normalisation of conflicted and transactional politics, the politicisation of prosecutorial decision-making, and actions that undermine judicial independence.

Only seven countries ranked higher than 80, with Denmark topping the chart with a score of 89, followed by Finland and Singapore. New Zealand, Norway and Sweden also made their way into the top ten, while South Sudan came at the bottom of the list with a score of nine. Alongside it, as the worlds most corrupt nations were Somalia, Venezuela, Yemen and Libya.

A government spokesperson said: This government is committed to tackling corruption and protecting working peoples hard-earned money. Our anti-corruption strategy targets corrupt actors directly, cutting off their influence and strengthening the systems that protect our democracy.

This strategy brings more corrupt individuals in the UK to justice and includes 15m of new funding for an expanded domestic corruption unit.
The Government has two months to save the UK steel industry, a director of the countrys biggest steel firm has warned.

Russell Codling, director of markets business development at Tata Steel UK, warned MPs on Tuesday that the sector is teetering on the brink and needs urgent state support.

He told Parliaments Business and Trade Committee that the sector is at threat due to fears of further cheap Chinese imports flooding the market.

At the moment to date, whilst the UK Government is working very hard on this, we are not in a position to be protecting the UK industry, which is putting the UK steel industry at severe threat, the boss said.

He called on the Government to follow the footsteps of the EU and US, with import tariffs designed to benefit regional steel sectors.

Currently, there are safeguards in place imposing a 25% tariff on specific imported steel products, but this expires in June.

Tata called for immediate action from the Government to announce a replacement system or extent the current safeguards.

Mr Codling added: Frankly speaking, the UK Government has two months to save the UK steel industry because this is a death knell for the industry at large and its supply chains.

If the UK doesnt act we wont have a steel industry not many months from now.

We need action, we need action now, that needs to be in position by July 1.
Britain has been gradually slipping down the Corruption Perceptions Index since 2015. Photograph: Andy Andrews/Getty Images (Photograph: Andy Andrews/Getty Images)

The UK and US have sunk to new lows in a global index of corruption, amid a worrying trend of democratic institutions being eroded by political donations, cash for access and state targeting of campaigners and journalists.

Experts and businesspeople rated 182 countries based on their perception of corruption levels in the public sector to compile a league table that was bookended by Denmark at the top with the lowest levels of corruption and South Sudan at the bottom.

The Corruption Perceptions Index, organised by the campaign group Transparency International, identified an overall global deterioration, as 31 countries improved their score, while 50 declined.

In particular, the report identified backsliding in established democracies, warning that events during Donald Trumps presidency and the revelations contained in the Epstein files could fuel further deterioration.

Britain has been gradually slipping down the rankings since 2015, falling from the seventh-placed country to 20th in 2025, with a score of 70 out of 100, down from 71 in last years report.

Explaining the slight decline, Transparency International highlighted concerns linked to the two major political parties that contested the 2024 general election.

It said record spending on election campaigning had supercharged a reliance on wealthy backers, with the Conservatives accepting 15m from a single donor in less than 12 months.

This is understood to be a reference to contributions from the businessman Frank Hester, which prompted calls for the Tories to give the money back after the Guardian revealed that the partys largest donor had made racist and sexist remarks.

It also pointed to reports the worlds richest person, Elon Musk, had considered making a $100m (73m) donation to Reform UK.

Labour also came under the spotlight, after it emerged that its largest donor, Waheed Alli, had received a privileged pass to No 10. The report also highlighted criticism of political appointments for party donors.

Related: UK will not be haven for dirty money, Lammy to say in corruption crackdown

The UK is likely to remain mired in scandal this year, Transparency International warned, because of revelations about the relationship between the Labour grandee and former ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson, and the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

This persistent decline is not a temporary blip  it risks becoming a defining feature of our political culture, said Daniel Bruce, the chief executive of Transparency International UK.

The UK government must demonstrate that it is serious about restoring integrity. That means taking bold action to remove big money from politics, delivering genuinely open government, and ending the cronyism that undermines public trust in our institutions.

The government has announced plans to strengthen standards in public life, including a mechanism to remove disgraced peers and a review of the existing framework governing lobbying.

The US fell from 28th place to 29th, overtaken by Lithuania, recording its lowest ever score of 64. The US could be in line for further decline, judging by the reports assessment of recent events.

Transparency International said that while the surveys from which the data for the report was taken were performed during 2025, they did not factor in all of the events that had taken place during that year, the first of Trumps second presidency.

It pointed to the use of public office to target and restrict independent voices such as NGOs and journalists, the normalisation of conflicted and transactional politics, the politicisation of prosecutorial decision-making, and actions that undermine judicial independence.

Only seven countries scored 80 or higher, with Denmark taking top spot for the eighth year in a row, followed by Finland, Singapore, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.

South Sudan ranked joint lowest alongside Somalia, just below Venezuela, Yemen and Libya.

Transparency International lamented the worrying trend of declining scores, particularly in democracies where institutions have previously been stronger.

The global order is under strain from rivalry between major powers, and dangerous disregard for international norms, it said.

Armed conflicts and the climate crisis are having a deadly impact. Societies are also becoming more polarised.

To meet these challenges, the world needs principled leaders and strong, independent institutions that act with integrity to protect the public interest. Yet, too often, we are seeing a failure of good governance and accountable leadership.

Transparency International launched its Corruption Perception Index in 1995 but historical placings are dates from 2012, when it changed the methodology.

A government spokesperson said: This government is committed to tackling corruption and protecting working peoples hard-earned money.

Our anti-corruption strategy targets corrupt actors directly, cutting off their influence and strengthening the systems that protect our democracy.

This strategy brings more corrupt individuals in the UK to justice and includes 15m of new funding for an expanded domestic corruption unit.
Viking Age mass grave unearthed near Cambridge with remains of extremely tall man who had brain surgery

A group of students on a training dig have unearthed a Viking-era mass grave on the outskirts of Cambridge containing the dismembered remains of an extremely tall man who had seemingly undergone brain surgery.

The remains found by the Cambridge University students are suspected to be of people executed during, or following a battle, around the 9th century AD.

The pit, measuring about 13ft by 3.2ft, contained remains of 10 individuals based on the number of skulls present. At least one of the buried individuals was decapitated.

Skeletal remains found in Viking Age mass grave near Cambridge (Cambridge Archaeological Unit/David Matzliach)

One of the buried men was 6ft 5in in stature, which is extremely tall for the time when average height in the region was around 5ft 6in, according to archaeologists.

This particular individual was somewhere between 17 and 24 years old, with evidence indicating he may have had a hormone-related growth condition like gigantism, researchers say.

Scientists found his skull had a large oval hole about 1in in diameter, suggesting he underwent trepanation  an ancient surgical procedure in which a hole is bored through a living humans skull.

Skull with evidence of trepanning (Cambridge Archaeological Unit/David Matzliach)

The procedure was thought to relieve symptoms of conditions like migraines and seizures.

The individual may have had a tumour that affected their pituitary gland and caused an excess of growth hormones, said archaeologist Trish Biers from the University of Cambridge.

Such a condition in the brain would have led to increased pressure in the skull, causing headaches that the trepanning may have been an attempt to alleviate, Dr Biers said.

Researchers are also puzzled by the discovery of several dismembered remains alongside fully articulated bodies in the mass grave.

One man appears clearly beheaded, they say, based on chop marks near the jaw. Some of the other skeletons also show traces of trauma consistent with combat.

But archaeologists are unsure if they were victims of a battle.

Instead, the individuals with severed remains may have been victims of a terrible violence and perhaps an execution, scientists say. There were four complete skeletons, with some in positions suggesting they were tied up, and dismembered remains, including a cluster of skulls and a stack of legs.

Those buried could have been recipients of corporal punishment, and that may be connected to Wandlebury as a sacred or well-known meeting place, said Oscar Aldred, director of the Cambridge Archaeological Unit.

It may be that some of the disarticulated body parts had previously been displayed as trophies, and were then gathered up and interred with the executed or otherwise slaughtered individuals, Dr Aldred said.

Decapitated heads found in the mass grave (Cambridge Archaeological Unit/David Matzliach)

During 870AD, the area in England was on the frontier zone in a conflict between the Saxon-run kingdom of Mercia and the kingdom of East Anglia, researchers say. The mass burial also offers insights into the status of the region.

While in the late 8th century AD Cambridge was under the kingdom of Mercia, in the late 9th century, a Viking army set up camp close to the area and sacked the town.

Cambridgeshire was a frontier zone between Mercia and East Anglia, and the continual wars between Saxons and Vikings as they clashed over territory across many decades, Dr Aldred said.

We suspect the pit may relate to these conflicts, he said.

The training dig was part of Cambridge Universitys undergraduate degree in archaeology, in conjunction with Cambridge Archaeological Unit and local charity Cambridge Past, Present and Future, which owns Wandlebury.
Research may have discovered why childrens cancer survival rates vary across Europe (Getty)

The difference in tumour stage at diagnosis might explain why childhood cancer survival rates differ across Europe, and in some instances, are lower in the UK, according to new research.

A new study from University College London (UCL) found that survival at three years for some cancers is strongly linked to the stage of tumour at diagnosis.

Charities have said the research further reinforces that an earlier diagnosis is essential to improving survival rates for children suffering from cancer.

Angela Polanco, whose daughter Bethany was diagnosed with Wilms tumour, said: This study provides clear evidence that we need to do more to ensure children affected by cancer have access to timely and accurate diagnosis, appropriate first-line treatment, and specialist care, wherever they live.

Collecting and analysing this information at a population level is a crucial step towards reducing inequalities and improving survival for children with cancer.

Researchers looked at the data of thousands of children diagnosed with six different types of cancer (AFP via Getty)

Researchers looked at the data of nearly 10,000 children diagnosed with six different types of cancer from 23 countries across Europe, as well as Australia, Brazil, Canada, and Japan.

The cancers the study researched were neuroblastoma, Wilms tumour, medulloblastoma, osteosarcoma, Ewing sarcoma and rhabdomyosarcoma.

In all instances, survival rates at three years were associated with the stage of tumour when diagnosed.

For neuroblastoma, a rare cancer that affects children, researchers found kids had lower survival rates in the UK and Ireland compared with central European countries.

They said this could be explained by the relatively later stage at which neuroblastoma is diagnosed in the UK and in Ireland.

Nine in 10 children with neuroblastoma are under five (Getty/iStockphoto)

According to the Solving Kids Cancer charity, around 100 children are diagnosed with neuroblastoma each year, making up around 6 per cent of diagnoses.

About 90 per cent of all cases occur in children younger than five, and around half of all diagnoses are to be considered high-risk.

Professor Kathy Pritchard-Jones, one of the studys authors, said: We have, for the first time, provided unbiased, population-level evidence for later diagnosis of some childhood cancers in the UK and Ireland.

By analysing population-level data from cancer registries across many countries, we have been able to better understand why childhood cancer survival still differs internationally.

Our findings show that diagnosing cancer earlier and accurately assessing how far it has spread can make a meaningful difference to survival for many children. At the same time, the study highlights that early diagnosis alone will not address all disparities, and further work is needed to understand and tackle other contributing factors.

Charities say the research calls for quicker diagnoses (PA)

Last year, University of Nottingham researchers revealed that children and young people were having to wait longer than necessary for a diagnosis. The study found that teenagers and children with bone tumours were having to wait the longest to be diagnosed.

Speaking on UCLs research, Ashley Ball-Gamble, the chief executive of the Children & Young Peoples Cancer Association, said: This study confirms that, for some childhood cancers, diagnosis in the UK still takes longer than it should.

Because delays can affect a childs chance of survival, campaigning for faster recognition is more important than ever.

An NHS spokesperson said: We know how crucial it is for children to get diagnosed quickly and have access to cutting-edge treatments, which is why the National Cancer Plan published last week sets out a clear roadmap for the next ten years to ensure that more cancers are caught and treated early, so more children can live longer, healthier lives.

This includes increasing awareness of cancers in children and young people, increasing access to specialist paediatric diagnostic services, and expanding access to the latest treatments and pioneering trials. If you are worried you or a child might have symptoms of cancer, please speak with your local GP practice.
Lord Doyle served as Sir Keir Starmers communications chief from July 2024 to March 2025 - Rob Welham/Camera Press

Sir Keir Starmers former spin doctor has been suspended from Labour over his links to a convicted paedophile.

Lord Doyle, who served in Downing Street until last year, has had the whip withdrawn while an internal investigation into his conduct is carried out, a party spokesman said.

The peer campaigned for former Labour councillor Sean Morton after he had been charged with child sex offences in 2017. He was subsequently convicted.

Sir Keirs decision to elevate Lord Doyle to the peerage despite the row will raise fresh questions over his judgment in the wake of the Lord Mandelson scandal.

Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative Party leader, said: Keir Starmer handed a peerage to Matthew Doyle despite knowing about his ongoing friendship with a man charged with child sex crimes.

The Prime Minister has now suspended the whip, but he must come clean about what he was told before making this appointment. We wont let this go.

Lord Doyle (left) with Sean Morton. The peer believed the former councillor was innocent until he changed his plea to guilty

Morton, a former Labour councillor in Moray, Scotland, was charged with possessing indecent images of children in December 2016.

However, Lord Doyle subsequently campaigned with Morton when he ran as an independent in May 2017. In November of that year, Morton pleaded guilty to the charge.

In a statement, Lord Doyle apologised unreservedly for supporting Morton before the case against him had concluded and said he had taken him at his word when he pleaded innocence.

The peer, who will now sit as an independent, said: I want to apologise for my past association with Sean Morton. His offences were vile, and I completely condemn the actions for which he was rightly convicted. My thoughts are with the victims and all those impacted by these crimes.

At the point of my campaigning support, Morton repeatedly asserted to all those who knew him his innocence, including initially in court. He later changed his plea in court to guilty.

To have not ceased support ahead of a judicial conclusion was a clear error of judgment for which I apologise unreservedly.

My only concerns are for his victims

The Sunday Times reported that Lord Doyle had worn a T-shirt with the slogan Re-elect Sean Morton and accompanied him to the count in 2017, where he came fifth.

The pair also posed for photographs together outside a Glasgow cafe and travelled to the United States to campaign for Hillary Clinton the year before.

Lord Doyle said that those of us who took him at his word were clearly mistaken and insisted he had never sought to dismiss or diminish the seriousness of the offences for which he was rightly convicted.

He added: They are clearly abhorrent, and I have never questioned his conviction.

Following his conviction, any contact was extremely limited, and I have not seen or spoken to him in years. Twice, I was at events organised by other people, which he attended, and once I saw him to check on his welfare after concerns were raised through others.

I acted to try to ensure the welfare of a troubled individual whilst fully condemning the crimes for which he has been convicted, and being clear that my thoughts are with the victims of his crimes.

I am sorry about the mistakes I have made. I will not be taking the Labour whip.

For the avoidance of any doubt, let me conclude where I started. Mortons crimes were vile, and my only concerns are for his victims.

Lord Doyle (top left) and Morton wearing campaign T-shirts in 2017

It is understood that No 10 was not aware he had campaigned for Mr Morton when he was nominated for a peerage.

Lord Doyle was Sir Keirs media chief in Downing Street from July 2024 until he stepped down in March 2025.

On Monday night, the issue was raised directly with Sir Keir by Charlotte Nichols, the Labour MP, at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

The Prime Ministers decision to nominate his former communications chief for a peerage was criticised last month when his links with Morton were revealed.

The suspension of Lord Doyle will put further pressure on Sir Keir, who is already under fire for his appointment of Lord Mandelson as US ambassador and subsequent fallout over the peers relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Last week, Lord Mandelson resigned from the Labour Party and left the House of Lords after further revelations about his friendship with the paedophile emerged.

Sir Keir has faced down calls to quit after admitting he had appointed Lord Mandelson as ambassador despite knowing about his links to the financier.

On Sunday, Morgan McSweeney, the Prime Ministers chief of staff, quit over his role in pushing for Lord Mandelsons appointment.

The next day, Sir Keir lost his fourth director of communications when Tim Allan resigned.

Ben Obese-Jecty, the Tory MP for Huntingdon, blamed Mr McSweeney for the decision to give Lord Doyle a peerage  and demanded the Prime Minister release details of the vetting he had undergone.

He described the suspension as a remarkable U-turn, and added: The Government must publish the findings of their internal investigation, given they previously felt that it was enough to clear the way for Doyles peerage to get the green light.

Morgan McSweeneys fingerprints are all over this, and therefore by definition, Keir Starmers.

A Labour spokesman said: All complaints are assessed thoroughly in line with our rules and procedures.

It is understood the whip was withdrawn after the Prime Minister called for the issue to be looked at again.
Police at the scene of a school stabbing in Brent, north-west London. Two boys injured in the attack are receiving urgent care - Tom Bowles

Counter-terror police are leading an investigation into a double stabbing at a school in north-west London.

Two boys, aged 12 and 13, are in a serious condition after the attack, which happened at Kingsbury High School, on Bacon Lane in Brent, at Tuesday lunchtime.

On Tuesday evening, a 13-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.

Parents suggested that the suspect may have been a suspended or former pupil at the school and was armed with a sharp weapon when he launched what was described as an American-style attack.

One of the victims has been hailed as a hero for attempting to raise the alarm before the attacker chased him down.

Detectives said the attack had not been declared a terrorist incident, but that counter-terror police were leading the investigation because of the surrounding circumstances.

Det Ch Supt Luke Williams, of the Metropolitan Police, told a press conference at the scene on Tuesday night: This is a fast-moving and developing investigation, but were not currently looking for anyone else in relation to this incident.

At this very early stage, were keeping an open mind as to any motivation behind this attack. However, due to the surrounding circumstances, the investigation is now being led by officers from Counter-Terrorism Policing London.

This has not currently been declared a terrorist incident, and the investigation team will now be working at pace to gather any evidence and to establish the full circumstances of what has happened as quickly as possible.

Det Ch Supt Williams said both injured boys were in a serious condition and receiving urgent care.

Simon Theodorou, a martial arts teacher who has a child at the school, claimed the attacker managed to get his way in by climbing over a wall.

It is understood the school had security staff on the main gate, which was often locked for the majority of the day.

The attacker is then believed to have entered a classroom with a weapon.

Apparently one of the two pupils saw what was going on and pulled the fire alarm to get help, said Mr Theodorou. That boy is a hero. He did something, he didnt just let it happen. More children could have been hurt.

Det Ch Supt Luke Williams told a press conference at the scene that police were not currently looking for anyone else in relation to this incident - Ben Whitley/PA

The attack is believed to have taken place in a science classroom, with terrified pupils seen banging on the windows and calling for help.

Mr Theodorou called it an American-style attack and said he was not surprised there had been an incident because most of the kids these days are carrying knives. He also claimed the suspect may have previously been excluded.

Another parent of a year-eight pupil, who did not wish to be named, claimed they had been told that a former pupil had carried out the attack.

Shailesh Sayta, a delivery driver who is a parent of a pupil at the school, said children were in tears after the attack. He said his son had heard that someone stabbed a boy in the neck with a fork and he was bleeding.

My son said a guy came out holding his neck with blood all over his white shirt, he said. People are saying the person came from outside the school. My son said he was faking that he was [from the school] by wearing a jumper or a jacket from the school.

The Met said armed officers were on the scene within minutes of receiving a 999 call. The suspect, understood to have fled, was arrested shortly afterwards and a weapon was recovered, police said.

The school was locked down after the stabbing, with police helicopters deployed to the area. Around half a dozen police cars were seen outside.

Kingsbury High School was locked down after the stabbing - Newsquest/SWNS

On Tuesday night, officers were speaking to some parents and children who remained at the school, while teachers said they had spoken to the parents and carers of the students involved.

The mother of one pupil, who did not wish to be named, said children were sent home without their bags, coats or jackets.

She told The Telegraph: It is really scary. We send our children to school and we expect them to be safe, but that just doesnt seem to be the case any more. I just hope the two boys are OK. Their poor families.

Alex Thomas, the schools head teacher, said the incident was a deeply traumatic event for the whole school community, in a letter to parents and carers.

Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, wrote on X: I am heartbroken to hear about the stabbings at a school in Brent.

My heart goes out to the families affected and the young people, teachers and school community at this awful time. We are in contact with the school and council to offer support. Investigations are now under way.

On Wednesday, the schools minister Georgia Gould said the Government could look into bolstering security for pupils in the wake of the stabbing.

Ms Gould told Sky News: This is obviously something thats going to cause a lot of concern for families, but there is already a huge amount of work going on to prevent knife violence, working with teachers, working with schools, to ensure that they that are safe places.

But in light of whats happened today, we will look into whats happened, the investigation, and if theres more that needs to be done, we wont hesitate to do that.

Kingsbury High School is an academy school serving children aged 11 to 18 and has 1,997 pupils, according to the latest Department for Education figures.
The Finnish metal cellist trio Apocalyptica has just announced that they will be embarking on a tour across North America alongside Mongolian folk metal band The Hu this summer.

The tour announcement came this morning along with the news that the Finnish rock band The Rasmus will be supporting the two bands on their tour, which kicks off on May 12 in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Both Apocalyptica and The Hu are known for incorporating the use of traditional and symphonic instruments into heavy metal music, making them the perfect duo to combine forces and perform live on tour together.

THE HU and APOCALYPTICA team for North American tourhttps://t.co/4f5KuYP83k pic.twitter.com/xomYajutSa  revolvermag (@Revolvermag) February 9, 2026

Ticket pre-sale for the tour begins on Wednesday while general sale starts this Friday at 10 a.m., according to Revolver. VIP packages that include special additions such as a meet-and-greet opportunity will also be available.

Apocalyptica began in 1993 as a Metallica tribute band by four classically trained cellists. Over time, the band shifted from covers to original compositions, blending classical technique with heavy metal aggression on albums like Cult (2000) and Reflections (2003). Apocalyptica later incorporated drums and guest vocalists, collaborating with artists such as Corey Taylor and Ville Valo, and solidified their global reputation as pioneers who bridged classical music and metal in a genuinely new way.

The band currently has 10 studio albums and is made up of Eicca Toppinen, Paavo Lotjonen and Perttu Kivilaakso.

The Hu formed in 2016 as a Mongolian metal folk band that combines Mongolian practices such as throat singing and traditional instrumentation with heavy metal music, which was banned in Mongolia up until the 1990s. Their 2018 song "Wolf Totem" topped Billboard's Hard Rock Digital Song Sales in 2019, making them the first Mongolian musicians to do so.

Galbadrakh Tsendbaatar and Nyamjantsan Galsanjamts of the Mongolian band The Hu performs on stage during the Pinkpop Festival.Photo by Didier Messens/Redferns (Photo by Didier Messens/Redferns)

Their first studio album The Gereg was released in late 2019 and heavily incorporated Mongolian culture into hard-hitting rock music. Later that year The Hu was awarded with the Order of Chinggis Khaan  the highest state award in Mongolia  for all the work they had done to promote Mongolian culture globally.

The Hu has also participated in multiple major collaborations with other well-known metal and rock bands, such as when they were featured on the Metallica tribute album in The Metallica Blacklist in 2020 and when they supported Iron Maiden on their North America tour in 2024.

Apocalyptica x The Hu 2026 North America Tour Dates

5/12: Silver Spring, MD - The Fillmore *

5/13: New York, NY - Palladium Times Square *

5/14: New Haven, CT - College Street Music Hall *

5/15: Stroudsburg, PA - Sherman Theater *

5/18: Milwaukee, WI - The Rave / Eagles Club *

5/19: Green Bay, WI - EPIC Event Center *

5/20: Maplewood, MN - Myth Live *

5/22: Memphis, TN - Minglewood Hall *

5/23: Irving, TX - The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory *

5/24: San Antonio, TX - Aztec Theatre *

5/26: Houston, TX - Warehouse Live *

5/27: Oklahoma City, OK - Diamond Ballroom *

5/29: Phoenix, AZ - The Van Buren *

5/30: Las Vegas, NV - The Theater at Virgin Hotels *

5/31: Valley Center, CA - Harrah's Resort SoCal  The Events Center *

6/4: Reno, NV - Grand Theater *

6/6: Los Angeles, CA - The Wiltern *

6/7: Anaheim, CA - House Of Blues *



* with The Rasmus

Related: 2000s Metalcore Band Announces First Album With New Member

This story was originally published by Parade on Feb 9, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Telling you that dating is tough is the understatement of the year. Meeting new people is difficult enough as it is, while youre trying to leave a good first impression. But sometimes you end up going on a date with a total creep who wastes no time in showing you their true colors.

Internet users who have gone on some truly god-awful dates opened up about their biggest disasters in a viral AskReddit thread. They revealed the most toxic, creepy things that their dates said or did, and it hurts to read. Weve picked out their top stories for you to read. Just be careful, some of these are so bad, they might put you off dating for good.

#1

When I said I was going to run to the bathroom, he countered with, "And I'll slip something in your drink."



I didn't think jokes about [it] were very funny so I called it an early night and left for the exit rather than the bathroom.

 Photo: ConclusionAlarmed882

#2

Caught him live streaming our date from under the table. Super weirded out by that. Only date I've ever walked out on.

 Photo: PsychedelicGoat42

#3

After a date, not during, but I got the very disturbing message of: "I want to cut off one of your pinky toes so you will always know you belong to me."



This was a country mile outside of my comfort zone.

 Photo: Glitch_King

First impressions can sometimes be deceiving, and you cant rely on them alone to judge a persons character, values, and personality. That being said, some first impressions are 100% correct when it comes to identifying relationship red flags. Some individuals are very quick to show you their most toxic behaviors.

At the end of the day, you should trust your gut, and, if ever in doubt, get a trusted friend or relatives opinion about the person youre meeting. Your health and safety should be your top priorities when dating.

As per the Guardian, some of the worst first impression behaviors include things like your date arriving late, having a resting disappointed face, and looking very different from their profile photos. Moreover, its a really bad sign if they cancel the date on short notice or simply dont turn up.

#4

He held my face and told me I reminded him of his daughter before he tried to kiss me.

 Photo: fartsypooper

#5

Went on a date with a guy and had dinner at his place. After dinner, he leaned and said, "You wanna see something?" He then proceeded to play a video of him, his brother, and his passed out Mom (who he said was an alcoholic). The video started with her on the couch, and then they took turns slapping her across the face, saying things like "Take out the trash, Mom." He then laughed manically and looked at me for approval. This went on for a while, and the finale of the video was that they splayed her out across the arm of the couch and put her own finger down her throat to vomit.



I instinctively knew I was in danger and pretended like it was no big deal. Soon after, I made an excuse to go and never saw him again.

 Photo: insidous7

#6

That I couldn't leave. Then proceeded to lock me in his room. I snuck out of a window and called my friend to pick me up (the date drove me to his place). I got the address out of the mailbox next door. This is in like 2006 or 2007. I stayed on the street until I could see my friend's car approach. I immediately blocked the guy once I got home.

 Photo: Tacosconsalsaylimon

Other questionable dating behavior, according to the Guardian, includes:

Insisting on ordering food for you Criticizing their food or complaining a lot Telling you that theyre not the jealous type or that theyre not like other guys Constantly talking about themselves or their ex-partners Not being curious about you or agreeing with you about everything Being overly sarcastic or too self-deprecating Telling you that theyre tired

Meanwhile, as reported by WebMD, some major toxic personality traits include inconsistent behavior, always wanting attention, not being able to be happy for you, and creating drama. Whats more, toxic individuals dont respect others boundaries and avoid taking responsibility for their actions. They often try to control you and may even be violent.

Some other large warning signs that youre with a toxic person are that you constantly feel like theyre manipulating you and that their behavior confuses you. You might also feel like you always have to defend the person, never feel fully comfortable around them, and feel bad about yourself in their presence. Its also a bad sign if you often feel like you deserve an apology from them that never comes.

#7

He was telling me about why hed moved to our current state, that he moved with his ex, theyre still friends. Ok cool. While hes talking, I do the math of their ages and realize he was 29 and she was 14 when they started dating. Married two years later. I started to feel nauseated and left when he went to use the bathroom.

 Photo: IrreverentIceCream

#8

There was this one guy i met through hinge and the first thing he said after seeing me in a cafe was that, no one would know if he takes me to his home & keep me there for forever like a trophy -_- then he laughed like a maniac.

 Photo: Sensitive-kitty000

#9

We planned to go to a movie and he instead drove me up the side of a mountain. It was after dark and I was secretly freaking out. I kept trying to talk to him and sometimes he would reply, other times he would just look over at me. But as time went on he just stared ahead like he was thinking about something really hard. I was a young gay man and this was NOT an ideal situation to be in since I'm from the country. I kept trying to talk about my dogs, he wouldn't look at pictures of them. I talked about my dad and my mom. My brothers. I tried to flirt a little and he wasn't really into it. He drove me to the top of this mountain and all the way back down while I tried to make occasional small talk and humanize myself.



I'm 100 percent sure he was contemplating [end] me.

 Photo: RiversideSlut

What are the very worst and best dates youve been on, dear Pandas? What are some of the creepiest things that your dates have ever said or done? How did you react? What are your personal dating red and green flags, whether overly overt or sinisterly subtle?

If you feel like sharing your experiences and warnings, feel free to do so in the comments at the very bottom of this post.

#10

He was nothing like his pictures (hed obviously retouched the picture to look about 20 years younger,) he was trying to touch me on the small of my back and waist within seconds, and within fifteen minutes I was done. He insisted on ordering food, but I said Id finish my drink and complimented his food choice to be polite. He tried to pay for my drink, but Id already paid for it at the bar.



He followed me out after Id said a polite goodbye and said, Im going to kiss you. I ran out of patience and said no, youre not, and Id like him to not contact me if hes pushy like that. He grabbed me and tried to kiss me, and some dudes around 19-20 who were outside smoking grabbed his arms and pushed him off in the other direction, telling him to walk away and dont come back.



They were lovely. They even walked me to my car, practically gambolling the whole way. I thanked them, offered them some candy and cigarettes for their trouble, and they also politely offered fist-bumps, which I happily accepted.



I didnt hear from the guy again, to his meagre credit.

 Photo: RadioSupply

#11

She showed me her wedding Pinterest board. On the first date. With my name already added to some pins.

 Photo: 47Industries

#12

Second date. Watched a movie at his apartment. Ten minutes into the movie he pauses it, turns to me, and tells me hes dumped his long-time fiance for me (the day after our first date), hes in love with me, and then asks if Im ovulating because he wants to start a family with me as soon as possible.



I started to laugh because it was so out of nowhere I assumed he was joking, but he was not. I felt truly afraid of this person; like his whole vibe/demeanor had completely changed. I didnt want to upset him by rushing out of his apartment so I pretended to be super tired and told him I thought it would be best if I went home to rest up so Id be good to hang out with him the next day. He (thank god) bought it and agreed with me but asked me for one quick favor before I go.



I figured I was about to be [ended] but he just wanted me to take a picture with him in front of his bedroom mirror so he could see how beautiful we looked together. I stood there looking in the mirror with this psycho thinking about how unbelievably stupid I was to be in this situation. As soon as he got the pic I grabbed my bag and pretty much ran for my life to my car. When I got home I checked my phone and hed sent me a bunch of texts, some declaring his love and like 4-5 videos of himself. Creepiest person Ive ever met by a mile.



ETA: He was a PhD candidate at a university I also attended post-grad in Southern CA. Conventionally attractive, but talked about being having been overweight as a teen. I was injured for the two weeks we spoke before meeting (I usually insisted on meeting quickly when on the apps) and go the first date we saw a movie which was a bad idea in hindsight. He seemed totally normal. Second date we went out to dinner before going back to his place and he again seemed normal and was fine when I said it would just be a movie. I did block him when I got home and got the videos because I knew he had no idea where I lived. I probably shouldve left him unblocked but I was too freaked out and wanted to forget I ever met him. Side note: he had talked about a daughter hed had, while in college, with a FWB who, as soon as she had the baby, completely wanted nothing to do with him. He showed me a picture of her. I now believe that woman knew he was a psycho and wanted him far away from their child.



P.S. Not long after psycho pants I met the love of my life on an app and weve been married for 8 years so never give up, lol.

 Photo: Every-Poem-4870

#13

He came to pick me up and came in while I got my coat and all. He then locked the door and said he WAS spending the night. I couldn't get him to leave. My ex showed up and creepy dude told me to get rid of the person at the door. I told ex the situation, he came in and stayed. He went and made himself comfortable in my room and creepy dude finally left.

 Photo: FairyGothMommy

#14

On a first date with a woman she told me she was comfortable coming back to my place after dinner because she had done a paid background check on me and there were no red flags and that she had already driven by my place and it looked fine. She then joked about probably knowing more about me than her little sister. We did not have any more dates after that.

 Photo: DoubleStar155

#15

Created an elaborate lie that they had cancer to garner sympathy for themselves so I would say yes to another date. And yes, it was, in fact a lie. He admitted to it.

 Photo: FrozenBibitte

#16

Took a woman out to dinner and she suddenly started venting to me about her husband. As if that wasnt enough, it turned out I knew him. Check please! Im out!

 Photo: SaltyEngineer45

#17

On a first date, the guy told me I look like his mom, but prettier, and I should fix my hair just like she does. First and last date.

 Photo: suemacmul

#18

Picked me up and dropped me off from my place. Date went fine, everything was going normal and we had plans for another date. When we got back to my place, I said goodbye and he locked the doors as I went to get out. I turned to ask him to unlock them, and he looked me in the eyes while saying NEVER cheat on me, with the coldest look Ive ever seen on someone. Didnt say anything else and unlocked the doors, I got out and went inside (thank god it was an apartment building and he didnt know my unit), and blocked him on everything.



I found out a couple years later that he was in prison for [ending] his pregnant girlfriend after accusing her of cheating on him.

 Photo: Ophede

#19

"Oh! You're half Japanese? Will you be my senpai? I want the authentic anime experience."



This shortly followed by the anime girl giggle.



Being half Japanese, half white American can be weird sometimes. This happened in college during my freshman year. I find the above deeply disturbing and weird. I don't like anime like that and most people, I've learned, only understand Japan because of anime and nothing else. Still weirded out to this day from that comment.

 Photo: Cheetodude625

#20

Only found out after the [clumsy, ill-fated] date that he had his professional photographer friend hidden in the distance to take pictures of our first kiss.

 Photo: silly4oilily

#21

Tried to guess my race. I'm *super* white with a very scottish last name and I thought he was joking, but he spent several minuets talking about how my lips "aren't white." When we left the restaurant he kept trying to light heartedly talk me into taking a ride. I turned him down kindly and kept the mood very light. Right when I thought we we're good I went to wave goodbye and this guys face totally changed. That smile dropped off his face and told me "I know where you live" then almost hit me trying to back out of the parking lot. I have never seen someone change *so quickly*.

 Photo: Temporary-Bend1310

#22

"I want a son."



"You said you had two daughters"



"I don't care about them, I want a boy."



... jeez



Edit: I just want to add context that I'm a man, and it was a woman (young 30s) that said this to me when we went on a date.

 Photo: gammaradiation

#23

Not a first date, but I once met a guy in BYU Idaho (worst years of my life and now im exmo). I recognized him as having been in one of my classes, but we'd never actually met. He said: "Can I follow you home?" I think he meant to say something more acceptable like "Can I escort you home?" But that in combination with a few other bad vibes and red flags, I told him no. He proceeded to follow me anyway, so I walked to another building until he left. He did this a few more times in the following weeks, a few times even without me noticing until I was already at my dorm, and once he even waited for me outside a class we didn't even share together. I felt like I was constantly hiding from this creep. When I asked our mutual teacher what I should do, as well as the bishop I was seeing at the time, BOTH of them told me to "just give the poor boy a chance". This would go on to be one of the reasons I left BYU Idaho.

 Photo: Kikicutie

#24

I went on a Bumble date with a girl who worked at a dog training school for a living. She told me that working with animals has taught her a lot about psychology not just for animals, but human psychology too. And with these learned skills, she could train me to behave how she wanted me to just like I was a dog. There was no second date.

 Photo: Jake_Corona

#25

He crawled on all fours and started meowing like a cat at the cafe we were at cuz I wanted to go home. Never saw him again.

 Photo: karlausagi

#26

First date with a med student who was going to be a plastic surgeon. I asked her if she was doing it because she wanted to help people, and she quite seriously said, "No, I just really like taking people apart and seeing if I can put them back together again."

 Photo: InsignificantHumor

#27

After the date she attempted to follow me home, I guess to ensure that I was indeed going home since I told her I couldnt go to a 2nd location because I had work the following morning. I was on the highway around the time it was starting to get dark. And I noticed a car following me like 2 car lengths back. I didnt know it was her until I called 911 and told them someone was following me. They let her off with a warning but she sent me several voicemails and texts saying how dare you call the cops on me and I was just checking to see you werent entertaining other [women] and all sorts of trauma dumping & crazy girl texts. Rightfully so, I blocked her on everything and stayed off dating apps for about 6 months



Correction: I got off the highway and back on to make sure I was being followed, and thats when I called 911.

 Photo: wrexmason

#28

Maybe not "creepy" per se, but odd nonetheless: I moved from NY to SC for graduate school. I was on a first date with a native "southerner" who asked me where I was from. When I said NY the first thing out of his mouth was "oh a Yankee, well you didn't win the war and don't say you did." Puzzled I said, "What war?" He replied with "The war of northern aggression." I said, what is that, I've never heard of such a thing. After more discussion I figured out he meant the Civil War!!! This was in the early 2000's. Up until that point, I had never thought more than a few minutes about the civil war, and never on a first date. But it turns out a lot of southerns think about it all the time, and apparently still don't realize the South lost the civil war. I ended that date pretty quickly and didn't date much again until after grad school.

#29

"I'm looking forward to getting pregnant tonight".

 Photo: Cali-Smoothie

#30

Not me but this happened to one of my friends. She went to dinner at the apartment of a guy she had two previous dates with. While he was cooking dinner she had to use the bathroom so she exits the kitchen and crosses across the family room. She notices he had three 8X10 photos of her taken off SM, blown up and framed hanging on his wall in his family room by the TV. She pulled out her phone, videoed it, sent it to me and ran out of there.

 Photo: dragonrider1965

#31

They said, You look exactly like my ex.



Sir. Why would you open with DLC trauma. I ordered pasta, not a sequel.

#32

Not me, but my mom shared this story with me.



She was set to meet someone for a first date, maybe arranged by a friend. Before going out, he told her to wearher nicest dress - for a movie theater. When they got seated for the movie, he said "You know why I asked you to wear a dress? So I can tell our kids how beautiful you looked at our first date," and then he laid his head on her lap.



Needless to say, he ended up not being my dad.

#33

Oh geez heres a list:



The guy who bit my face while we were kissing.



The guy who told me I really think you are the only girl for me after one date.



The guy who flung a glass off the table, causing the glass to shatter on the floor, at a busy bar, because I touched his hand same guy said he didnt want kids, but he REALLY wanted to be a step dad.



The guy who wore a button down shirt and sweatpants to our first date and was high as a kite.



The guy who was so nervous on the date that he couldnt stop shaking.



Probably more I cant think of right now. Ten years being single has been rough.

#34

She changed moods *drastically* several times over the course of only a couple of hours. Something like this:



* Exuberant

* Reflective

* Flirty

* Angry

* Crying

* Exuberant again

* Angry again.

#35

He saw a necklace I was wearing that had been a gift from my mother and commented "I see we wear our capitalism, on chains.". When the check came he said "I won't disrespect your freedom to be a feminist by paying the bill." He seemed surprised when I didn't accept his invitation to join him at his place a block away.

#36

One guy, within 5 minutes of the first date proposed to me with his dog tags from the army.

 Photo: frizzygingy

#37

Not on the date, but after the first date he gave me a shaving schedule  and told me I was to follow it religiously. I was like, my dude, no.

#38

First date; guy was super weird and I was already trying to figure out an exit when a baby started crying in the busy restaurant we were in. Baby was maybe 10-15 feet away. While it was wailing pretty loudly, it wasnt anything I hadnt heard before. It happens, you know?



He was visibly agitated and couldnt focus, and suddenly he says very loudly, Jesus Christ! Someone needs to skin that baby! I did not get the feeling he was trying to be funny and just failed. It was very pointed, and the family heard him. I am still shocked over it to this day.

 Photo: brknhrtsndrm

#39

Got into his new looking luxury car and everything else was normal, but the interior passenger door handle was ripped out. I saw it and immediately freaked out and called my friend to text with an emergency. I left, and for months afterward, he sent me nasty insulting messages.

#40

A Mormon girl had me in her car stuck in the middle of traffic in the city on our way to a museum. She looks at me and goes my elders say Im getting too old to not be married. What do you think about short dating times of less than six months? We were 20.

 Photo: FormerStuff

#41

They told me they already imagined our kids names. On the first date.

 Photo: EdemBru777

#42

Told me he was wearing a hairpiece and that he sometimes fantasized about strangling his nephew. First and last date.

#43

We went for one date, and it was fine. Nothing exciting, but he was nice enough to try a second date.



The day of the date, the weather is a bit icky. He tries to "insist" on picking me up. Hell no - not until I am much more comfortable. I declined firmly, and met him at the restaurant. The meal was mediocre, but fine. We planned on the movie theater next, which was about 10 minutes away. He, again, tries to "insist" on driving me, for my safety. I, again, decline firmly - I can drive just fine, and by now I'm getting a little weirded out by this dude continuing to insist on driving me places. I do not want to be trapped on the far side of town with this guy in case it gets weirder.



We go to the movie, and as we're watching it, he randomly hisses loudly at other people in the theater to PLEASE SHUT UP. None of them have made more than light shuffling sounds. He tries to hold my hand, but I dodge it. After the movie is finished, he walks me to my car, and tries for a kiss. I dodge. He tries to insist on following me home to make sure I get there safely - I very firmly decline, and have now decided to ghost this person.



After driving home, feeling paranoid the whole way that he was going to just show up in my rearview mirror, I look at my phone to find a dozen messages. It had been about 15 minutes or so. I just ignored him. Over the course of the next few days, he texted another several dozen times, with increasing anger in each message. And then he stopped, mostly. But I'd get random messages a couple times a week, where he would say things like, "Mmm. Shamrock shake. Want one, Lexi?"



In hindsight, maybe I could have just told him "no thanks", but I don't know that it would have been enough. I'm just glad he didn't know where I lived.

#44

On a second date he came up and put his arms around me from behind. He took a deeep breath through the nose and groaned out "you smell like wife".

#45

Ask to buy all the left over Oxy in my med cabinet.

#46

He kept talking about how he wanted to drink and smoke cigs the ENTIRE date and then at the end was like  I get angry when Im drunk and destroy things. I saw those red flags and noped out of there and he proceeded to stalk and harass me for two years after that, causing me to get police involved .

#47

On our second date he told me he was a republican.

#48

Tried to shove me into a cab to go back to his place, after a dinner that could be described in the most generous terms as "awkward.".

#49

Hinge date. She took me to her friends house. I didnt know them.



She whispered, Are you scared?l



I said, No.



She said, youre gonna be.

#50

Not me but my ex wife said that a dude wanted to cover her in raw meat before they 'got busy'.

#51

I once went on two dates with a woman from a dating app who then called me and grilled me about talking to other women, saying she knew I had been using the app recently because she was tracking where I was using it (the app in question potentially changing your profile location based on GPS whenever you open it). She later apologized for freaking out and blamed her period. I unmatched her and we did not go on a third date.

#52

He decided, of his own accord, without ever mentioning, asking or discussing it with me, that we were immediately about to start a serious relationship automatically, after the first time meeting in person. Because of this, he told me I was a bad person for not having preemptively told him a ton of personal health information that he never once asked about. I clearly broke the well known HIPAA rule that every random stranger is legally required to know everyones private health data.



Of course, I have dealt with FAR more creepy things from people I never went on a date with. Still trying to wrap my head around this bizarre first date guy!

#53

First date. I came back from the bathroom and he immediately grabbed for my hands and took the biggest sniff and said mmmmhm. Cocoa butter? and I was like..no, just soap from the bathroom. It was weird and I didnt like it.

#54

Girl told me I "looked exactly like her ex" on the first date. Then proceeded to call me by his name twice. There was no second date.

#55

She took a raw hotdog out of her handbag and put it on the table during our first date.



It was after our mains had arrived, and it was still wet. I still dont know why, but needless to say I didnt go on a follow-up date with her.

 Photo: WanderingMoonkin

#56

I was set up on a blind date several years ago. she was quite attractive and intelligent. somehow I made the mistake of mentioning that I had a 1 year old son. from that moment on I received a lecture on the ticking of her biological clock.

#57

After dinner at a mutual friends house, a girl that I only met that evening asked for a ride home. The moment we got outside she stuffed her hands down my pants and, cupping my bits, saying my hands are frozen They indeed were!

#58

They gave me an old picture, then wanted to go to an out of the way restaurant. I had done my usual things. A friend knew where I was and had sent them an email with a screen grab of the profile.



It then turned very stalkery when I got there. She had tried to find me but I didn't have the normal social media and the little bit I did have was locked tight. She didn't have last name or phone number. She was desperate to find out where I lived and not just which town or area. She kept talking to the waitresses about us being in a committed relationship. I was polite but got out of there quick. Made sure to drive back on empty roads to make sure wasn't followed and then jumped on the highway.



Never heard back from her.. which was a relief.

#59

Didn't get to a date but one of my tinder matches years ago (happily married now, yes we met on Tinder) was bragging how he had accidentally knocked up two women recently via Tinder... Then he asked me out and I politely declined. Not sure what he thought my response would be.

#60

Boyfriend #2 had my whole life planned: we would be married with children despite the fact that I did not want kids. 

#61

It wasnt so much what he said as what he did. Pulled out a pocket knife and cleaned under his nails. Ew.

#62

What would happen if you went missing?.

#63

This girl told me she knows spells and that if someone talks bad about her, she knows how to turn their tongue black.

#64

His gf called him and he answered quicky with "I'll call you back later baby" hung up the phone, turned back and told me "phhew it's my ex she calls me nonstop" lol.

#65

I went on a date with someone. We had a great time. Had a couple of beers and a good meal.



This was on a Saturday and the following weekend I was traveling to see a friend. I told her I would be back Sunday morning so we planned to meet that Sunday night.



My flight got cancelled so I asked her if we could meet the next night. She told me I could just tell her I didnt want to see her anymore. This wasnt true. I sent her a screen shot of the cancelled flight and she told me not to contact her again. That was that.

#66

First date. The second I got in the car he said, Uh oh. Perfume. Ugh. That was our last date.

#67

Went on a sympathy date with a coworker whod been hinting for weeks. Wasnt really interested, just trying to be polite.



She spent three hours comparing everything to Luke Bryan songs  including our future. I kept giving polite hmm responses. Didnt matter.



At the end, she said she couldnt wait to Play It Again on our next date.



I peeled out of the parking lot and switched shifts.

#68

Took me to the DMV (ignore that part even though it is super weird) where I found out that the name he had given me was not his name at all.

#69

She knew my father's name and where he lived and ask how he was doing  Im estranged from my father and only talk to him a couple times a year.
Asia's "growth trajectory is going to continue, Kim-See Lim, the chief investment officer of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), tells Fortune at the sidelines of the Forum Ekonomi Malaysia. (COURTESY OF ASIAN INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT BANK)

Asia remains the worlds fastest-growing regionand its momentum shows little sign of slowing. According to 2025 McKinsey estimates, the region is set to contribute as much as 40% of global growth by 2040.

That growth trajectory is going to continue, Kim-See Lim, the chief investment officer of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), tells Fortune at the sidelines of the Forum Ekonomi Malaysia. Asia has a young population base that is very tech-savvy and, with that, productivity and knowledge transfer will really go up.

A Malaysian native, Lim is optimistic about her home countrys economic prospects. Malaysias unemployment rate stands at just 2.9%, while the ringgit recently touched a five-year high.

Last October, the AIIB inked cooperation agreements with four Malaysian banksMaybank, CIMB, AmBank and BPMBto mobilize $6 billion to finance green infrastructure projects across Southeast Asia. Lim calls that the first step towards supporting economic growth in Malaysia and the surrounding region.

Energy makes up a sizable part of ASEAN economies, with firms such as Thailands PTT, Indonesias Pertamina, and Indonesias Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) sitting in the top ten of Fortunes Southeast Asia 500 ranking.

Developed by Asia, for Asia

The AIIB was established in 2015, in a China-led effort to foster sustainable economic development and improve infrastructure connectivity in Asia. (Chinese president Xi Jinping proposed the initiative in 2013, during a state visit to Indonesia.)

In 1980, China didnt have any expressways, no electrified railways, no modern airports, nothing in terms of so-called modern infrastructure, Jin Liqun, AIIBs founding president, told Fortune in an interview last year. Yet by 1995, Chinas economy started to take off. From 1995, other sectorsmanufacturing, processingmushroomed because of basic infrastructure.

AIIB bank boasts 111 countries as members, including other large economies like India, France, Germany and the U.K. (Both the U.S. and Japan declined to join)

Unlike other multilateral development banks such as the World Bank, the AIIBs work is more narrowly focused on infrastructure. The AIIB doesnt prescribe what its members should do, Lim says. Thats what were really here for, to listen to countries needs and see how we can support them.

Still, despite its positioning as an alternative to existing MDBs, the AIIB works closely with its peers in development finance. Since AIIBs founding, Lim says theyve undertaken over 130 projectsand mobilized over $32 billion of co-financingwith other peer MDBs.

The AIIB is investing in infrastructure throughout Southeast Asia, particularly in the areas of transit and mobility. The bank is funding the construction of bridges and toll roads, as well as upgrading metro infrastructure in the Philippines, where cities like Manila suffer from heavy traffic congestion. The AIIB is also providing over $400 million in funding to expand Thailands U-Tapao International Airport, which serves neighboring tourist hubs like Bangkok and Pattaya.

On Feb. 10, Singaporean infrastructure firm Keppel announced that it received a total of $125 million in AIIB commitments for a private credit fund targeting sustainable infrastructure projects throughout Asia-Pacific. The AIIB-Keppel partnership eventually hopes to mobilize $1.5 billion in funds towards projects developed by Keppel.

ASEAN is the fifth largest economy in the world, Lim said to Fortune last week. There is strength in those numbers. Whether its for trade, power, or just the sharing of knowledge, there is strength in that grouping.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
Cuba, once the Caribbean destination of choice for millions of holidaymakers from the UK and elsewhere, is now on the Foreign Office no-go list.

Late on Wednesday 11 February, the FCDO updated its travel advice for the island to advise against all but essential travel to Cuba.

The effect of the warning is to render standard travel insurance invalid for Cuba  except for people who are there, while they make arrangements to leave.

The advice comes as Cuba appears to be nearing paralysis as a result of tougher US sanctions.

Dozens of flights to and from Havana and other Cuban airports have been cancelled after the islands aviation authorities warned that no fuel is available for the next month.

Cuba is still popular with independent travellers from Europe, but the island is evidently in a precarious situation. These are the key questions and answers.

Going places? Cars in Havana, where fuel restrictions are in place (Simon Calder)

What is the Foreign Office saying?

British travellers who are on the Caribbeans largest island are warned: Carefully consider if your presence is essential.

The latest advice says: Cuba is experiencing severe and worsening disruption to essential infrastructure, persistent nationwide power outages and fuel shortages. These conditions significantly affect the ability of visitors to access reliable transport, medical care, communications and basic services.

Authorities have introduced fuel rationing, scaled back public services, and made temporary changes to healthcare, education, transport and tourism operations in order to conserve severely limited energy supplies.

Flight schedules are also being disrupted due to aviation fuel shortages, with some airlines reviewing routes or temporarily cancelling services which risk visitors being unable to leave the country.

If you are currently in Cuba, carefully consider if your presence is essential. Take precautions by conserving fuel, water, food and mobile phone charge, and be prepared for significant disruption. Check for messaging from your airline or tour operator.

Why the fuel shortage?

Following the US seizure in January of the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, a key source of Cubas oil was interrupted.

Mexican suppliers began to make up the shortfall. But in an executive order that took effect on 30 January, Donald Trump claimed: The policies, practices, and actions of the government of Cuba directly threaten the safety, national security and foreign policy of the United States.

The US president said that punitive tariffs would be imposed on any country that directly or indirectly sells or otherwise provides any oil to Cuba. As a result, supplies have dried up.

What is the effect on flights?

Considering its size and location, Cuba has relatively few flights  and they have just become even more scarce.

The islands aviation authorities have warned in a Notice to Air Missions (Notam) that Jet A1 Fuel Not Avbl [available] until 5am GMT on Wednesday 11 March. The warning applies to the Cuban airports of Havana, Varadero, Santiago de Cuba, Holguin, Santa Clara, Cayo Coco and others.

As a result, Air Canada has cancelled its entire weekly programme of 32 flights between Canadian and Cuban airports as aviation fuel will not be commercially available at the islands airports. WestJet of Canada has also started cancelling some flights.

Thousands of passengers waiting to fly home from Cuba to Canada are set to be brought out on special ferry flights.

How will that work if there is no fuel?

Air Canada says: For remaining flights, Air Canada will tanker in extra fuel and make technical stops as necessary to refuel on the return journey if necessary.

The term tanker means flights to Cuba will be loaded with more fuel than is required for the outward journey. If there is not enough remaining for the return leg, Air Canada will divert to locations such as the Bahamas to top up tanks.

What about other airlines?

At present, many of the links with Havana and other Cuban airports are from nearby airports (including Miami), from which it is no problem to tanker in fuel.

The main European flights are on Iberia and Air Europa from Madrid to Havana, from Paris to Havana on Air France, from Istanbul on Turkish Airlines and from Moscow on Rossiya. It is likely these aircraft will make a technical stop to refuel for the return leg.

For example, the Wednesday night Air France flight from Havana to Paris departed 90 minutes early. The Boeing 787 made the short hop to Nassau in the Bahamas, where it refuelled. Due to the early start, the plane arrived on schedule at CDG airport in Paris.

How can I leave Cuba?

As commercial flights are departing from Havana and elsewhere, there seems no likelihood that any kind of airlift will be arranged. If you need to leave early to comply with the Foreign Office warning, first contact your airline  if you can  and ask for a seat on an earlier flight. If this is not possible, you can buy a new ticket in the hope that you will be able to claim the cost back from travel insurance.

Do not attempt to leave on one of the frequent flights to the US, unless you happen to have an American visa. You cannot obtain the Esta online permit if you have visited Cuba since January 2021  and since you will be clearly intending to arrive from the island, you do not qualify.

I have a future booking to Cuba. What are my options?

If you have bought a flight-only ticket and the plane is still going, you have no right to cancel. If you have a holiday booked imminently, your travel firm should give you a refund. However, since no one knows how long the Foreign Office advice will be in place, do not expect future trips to be cancelled any more than a few weeks in advance.

This story is regularly updated with the latest information

Read more: How Cuban tourism has been traumatised
The first contests of the 2026 midterms will kick off in the coming weeks as the fight for control of Congress heats up.

High-profile primaries for Senate in Texas, North Carolina, Illinois and Ohio are set to make headlines in March and May, cementing general election match-ups for November as Republicans fight to maintain their slim hold on the upper chamber.

The races will serve as the first big contests of this years midterms after Democrats saw a string of off-year election wins that have stoked the partys hopes of taking back power on Capitol Hill.

Here are the early primaries to watch as the midterms ramp up:

Texas Senate Democratic primary

Tensions are rising in Texas ahead of its March 3 primaries, as both sides of the aisle battle in competitive races for Senate in the Lone Star State.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) and state Rep. James Talarico (D) are competing for the Democratic nod in a race seen as more of a test of personality over policy differences, stoking questions about the best path forward for Democrats in the red state.

Crockett, a former Texas state lawmaker and civil rights attorney, is a popular but polarizing figure in her party, known for viral exchanges in the House and an outspoken approach to President Trump and the Republican Party.

Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian and former middle school teacher, is seen as having a more measured approach, though critics question whether hed be enough of a fighter for Democrats in the Senate.

Democrats have spent decades trying for a statewide win in Texas, which voted for President Trump by roughly 14 points in 2024, and party operatives acknowledge that flipping the seat in November will be a long shot.

But the energy around the Democratic primary  along with off-year overperformances in Texas and beyond  has drawn comparisons to the 2018 midterms, when Democrat Beto ORourke came within 3 points of ousting Sen. Ted Cruz (R) as part of the nationwide blue wave, stoking the partys hopes for 2026.

Texas Senate Republican primary

Across the aisle in the Texas Senate race, a competitive three-way race could push the GOPs March primary into a May runoff.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) faces tough challenges from state Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) and Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas), with polls signaling trouble for the incumbent.

A new poll by the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston found Paxton leading the GOP primary by 7 points, while Crockett led on the Democratic side by 8 points.

According to that poll, in hypothetical general election match-ups, both Paxton and Cornyn won against both Talarico and Crockett.

A January Emerson College Polling survey, however, found Paxton up just 1 point over Cornyn. And Paxton was tied with both Talarico and Crockett in a hypothetical general election race, while Cornyn defeated Talarico by 3 points and Crockett by 5 points.

Trump told reporters earlier this month that hes taking a serious look at endorsing in the GOP Senate primary, but he said he likes all of them in the race. Early voting begins Feb. 17.

North Carolina Senate primaries

Over in North Carolina, primaries will kick off March 3 for one of Democrats top pickup opportunities of the 2026 cycle.

A crowded field of candidates is battling on both sides of the aisle to replace Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), whose retirement sent a shock wave through the midterm cycle.

Roy Cooper, a popular former Democratic governor of the state, and Michael Whatley, a former chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC), are each expected to sail through their respective primaries, cementing a hotly contested general election showdown for November.

Tillis won his 2014 and 2020 Senate elections by less than 2 points in the historic swing state, while Trump narrowly carried the state in the last two presidential cycles.

The race is now one of just four Senate seats rated by Cook Political Report as a toss up in 2026.

Early voting in the primary begins this week.

Illinois Senate Democratic primary

In blue-leaning Illinois, the March 17 Democratic Senate primary is set to decide who succeeds retiring Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) in the upper chamber.

In a January Emerson College Polling/WGN-TV survey, a significant 46 percent plurality of voters was still undecided just weeks ahead of voting.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) led the field with 31 percent support in the poll, more than 20 percentage points ahead of his next closest competitors, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton (D) and fellow Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.).

Krishnamoorthi also holds a fundraising advantage. But Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) has reportedly spent big to boost Strattons bid as the primary approaches.

Meanwhile, Kelly made headlines last month when she introduced articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem over the Trump administrations immigration crackdown.

The Cook Political Report rates the Senate race as solidly Democratic. Early voting began opening this month.

Ohio Senate primaries

In Ohio, incumbent Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) is running for reelection after he was tapped by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) to replace Vice President Vance in the Senate.

The once-purple state has become increasingly red in the Trump era, but Democrats hope the May 5 primaries solidify a showdown with former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) to give the party a pickup opportunity in the fall.

Brown announced his comeback bid last year after he was ousted by Sen. Bernie Moreno (R) in 2024, losing his seat by roughly 3.5 points after three terms in the Senate.

Cook Political Report rates the race as lean Republican, just a step up from being a toss-up race. A December Emerson College Polling survey found Brown just 4 points behind Husted, with 5 percent of Ohio voters undecided.

Early voting begins in April.

The winner of the 2026 special election will complete the remainder of Vances term, which runs through 2028, and will need to run again in 2028 to secure a full term.

Ohio voters will also vote in the May primaries to replace term-limited DeWine as governor.

Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur who ran an unsuccessful bid for president in 2024, is up against Amy Acton, a former Ohio health director and the leading Democratic candidate. Cook Political Report rates that race as likely Republican, a step down from being solidly in the GOP column, but polls have signaled a competitive race.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Indian River County Sheriff's Office

NEED TO KNOW

Patricia Dibella, 76, was found dead during a welfare check at her Vero Beach home on Feb. 2, 2026

Authorities say her grandson, Nicholas Ivey, told investigators he killed her after she allegedly came at him with a knife

Ivey was arrested early Feb. 3, 2026, on theft-related charges; no murder charges have yet been filed

A Florida man told investigators he snapped his grandmothers neck, beat her and stomped on her head before moving her body and using her credit cards to buy cigarettes and beer, authorities say.

According to WPBF 25, CBS12 and Treasure Coast News, Indian River County sheriffs officials are investigating the suspicious death of a 76-year-old woman whose body was discovered during a welfare check at a residence on Fairways Circle in Vero Beach.

The woman was later identified as Patricia Dibella. Her grandson, 29-year-old Nicholas Ivey, was arrested early Feb. 3 on charges including grand theft auto, criminal use of personal identification, unlawful possession of stolen credit cards and fraudulent use of a credit card, though he has not been charged in connection with her death, according to the arrest affidavit and the sheriffs office.

According to the outlets, deputies were dispatched around 8:15 p.m. Feb. 2 after family members reported they had been unable to reach Dibella. Treasure Coast News reported that Dibellas son-in-law told investigators that his son, Ivey, had called him and said Dibella was dead.

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.

When deputies arrived, Ivey was standing outside one of the buildings and told investigators that his grandmother was dead inside, according to the affidavit cited by the outlets. A sheriffs corporal entered the home and found Dibella lying on a bed in the master bedroom, where she was determined to be dead at the scene.

According to the outlets, Ivey told investigators that he killed Dibella by snapping her neck and punching and stomping on her head while she was on the ground.

The outlets reported that after being taken into custody, Ivey told investigators that Dibella came at him with a knife and said she poked him in the back with a steak knife. He told investigators that he killed her at about 9 p.m. Feb. 1.

According to the outlets, Ivey said he moved Dibellas body from the kitchen floor to the bed and had cleaned blood from the kitchen floor and his clothing.

The outlets also reported that Ivey said that around 11 a.m. Feb. 2, he took Dibellas wallet and credit cards and drove her vehicle to a store, where he used her credit card to buy cigarettes and beer.

The sheriffs office has said the investigation into Dibellas death remains ongoing, per the outlets.



Read the original article on People
Former president of Colombia and global affairs expert Ivan Duque highlighted Latin Americas opportunities and its role in U.S. relations during an appearance at The Breakers in Palm Beach.

Duque and moderator Matthew Swift explored security, trade, democracy and economic opportunity across the Western Hemisphere during a breakfast meeting sponsored by the Palm Beach Chamber of Commerce. Smith is president and CEO of Concordia, a New York City-based organization he co-founded to foster dialogue and collaboration between leaders in business, government and other sectors.

Duque described Latin America as a neighborhood of the United States during the Feb. 4 breakfast. He noted that U.S. success is linked to the regions prosperity and described Latin America's farmland, energy reserves, minerals, biodiversity and growing middle class as opportunities for investment and partnership.

If you think of making America great, the only way to make America great is to make the Americas great, Duque said during the event, which was sponsored by real estate developer Related Ross.

Duque warned about Chinas growing influence in Latin America. He said the U.S. was the regions top trading partner 20 years ago, but today China holds that position for about 90% of countries.

Many American companies  have not strategically participated in biddings or infrastructure projects in Latin America, he said. And that has been capitalized by the Chinese. Is that good? I don't believe so.

Ivan Duque, former president of Colombia, speaks during the Palm Beach Chamber of Commerces monthly breakfast Feb. 4 at The Breakers in Palm Beach.

He argued that in order to strengthen U.S.-Latin America ties, American policy and investment should focus not only on trade, but also on supporting democratic institutions and market economies across the hemisphere.

The ties and connections that we have in terms of democracy, liberty, (and a) market economy with the U.S. need to be strengthened," he said. "I am glad that for multiple reasons, Latin America is back in the forefront of American foreign policy, and that has to be an opportunity for the EXIM banks and EFCs, the private banks and ... American investors to capitalize where the opportunities are in our hemisphere."

Former Colombian President Ivan Duque, facing front, mingles with guests at the Palm Beach Chamber of Commerce's monthly breakfast meeting Feb. 4 at The Breakers.

Duque also focused on security and governance, particularly in Venezuela. He described the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by U.S. forces on Jan. 3 as an effort to restore democracy and counter regional security threats posed by Maduros government.

This was not an offensive move," he said in describing the U.S. action sanctioned by President Donald Trump. "It was a humanitarian move to remove one of the most horrible dictators that we have seen in modern history in Latin America, an equivalent to Slobodan Milosevic in this hemisphere. It was the possibility to trigger a transition to democracy."

Duque touched on several other issues during the discussion:

 On the Amazon rainforest and environmental security: Duque highlighted the importance of protecting the Amazon rainforest, noting that deforestation over the last four decades has been carried out in an area roughly the size of Texas and California combined.

He also emphasized that the Amazon absorbs a large share of the worlds greenhouse gases and plays a key role in protecting the climate and regional stability.

In my heart and mind, this idea that protecting nature is something that makes us more human, he said. Because if we destroy this nature that allows us to live, we are basically suiciding our society.

Former Columbian President Ivan Duque, holding microphone, speaks to Matthew Swift of Concordia during the Feb. 4 Palm Beach Chamber of Commerce Breakfast at The Breakers.

 On economic ties between Florida and Colombia: Duque stressed Floridas significance as Colombias most "important" trading partner, highlighting industries from flowers to investment opportunities. The state of Florida can be maybe (among) the top three places in the world where more Colombian investment out of Colombia is concentrated, he said. "It's a win-win."

 On tourism and cultural exchange: Duque encouraged visitors to explore Colombias cities, historical sites and natural areas, sharing a suggested weeklong itinerary that included Bogota, Medellin, Cartagena and the coffee-growing region. When you are about to leave  the only risk we can guarantee in Colombia is that you want to stay forever, he said.

The chamber will hold its next membership meeting March 4. The guest speakers will be polo player Melissa Ganzi and bull rider Jonnie Jonckowski.

Jodie Wagner is a journalist at the Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at jwagner@pbdailynews.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Former Colombian president addresses trade, security in Palm Beach
Grenoble prosecutor Etienne Manteaux (left) said the unusual decision had been made to name the suspect so potential victims could come forward [Benoit Pavan/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images]

An elderly French man has been charged with the rape and sexual assault of 89 teenagers in a mass abuse case that police allege spans many countries and dates back to the 1960s.

Jacques Leveugle, 79, who is in custody in south-east France, was arrested after his nephew found a USB that allegedly detailed his "sexual relations" with minors aged 13 to 17, the Grenoble prosecutor, Etienne Manteaux, told a news conference.

In an unusual move, authorities are naming the suspect because out of the 89 assaults, Manteaux said that only around 40 victims had been identified.

"If victims wish to come forward, now is the time," he added.

Police allege the crimes took place between 1967 and 2022.

Throughout much of his life, Leveugle worked as an informal teacher or assistant at holiday camps, the prosecutor said.

A timeline released of Leveugle's whereabouts dating back to the 1960s shows his appearance throughout the decades.

Police allege that he could have carried out assaults not only in France, but also Germany, Switzerland, Morocco, Niger, Algeria, the Philippines, India, Colombia, and the French overseas territory of New Caledonia.

"He travelled to these different countries and in each of these places where he settled to provide tutoring and teach, he would meet young people and have sexual relations with them," Manteaux told the news conference on Tuesday.

Leveugle was arrested in 2024 after visiting his brother in the Isere department around Grenoble, a city in south-eastern France. At the time, Leveugle was living in Morocco.

His brother's son - who had suspicions about his uncle - took advantage of his absence one day in October 2023 to examine a USB drive that belonged to Leveugle. It allegedly contained "15 tomes of very dense material" - photographs and written accounts of his "sexual relations" with minors, Manteaux said.

"The victims we have spoken to tell us that he spent a lot of time helping them to learn foreign languages, awakening their sense of culture... He has a complex personality," the prosecutor said.

"A lot of work has been done to identify all the victims. But in his journal, some only have first names, and there we found ourselves up against a wall. That's why we decided to launch this appeal - and also in case there are other victims not listed in his journal," Manteaux added.

The prosecutor revealed that under questioning, Leveugle also allegedly admitted to killing his own mother and aunt by smothering them with cushions.

He is accused of killing his mother in 1974 when she was in the terminal phase of cancer, and he allegedly did the same to his 92-year-old aunt in 1992.

"He explained to us that he told (his aunt) he had to leave for the Cevennes. She was pleading with him not to go, so he took the decision to kill her too," the prosecutor said.

"He justifies the killings by saying he hoped someone would do the same to him if he was in the same situation at the end of his life."

A separate judicial investigation has been opened into these alleged killings.

Under French law, alleged assaults that took place before 1993 come under the country's statute of limitations, so no prosecutions for them would be possible. However Manteaux said it was still important to get a full picture of Leveugle's alleged crimes.

In two other recent and high-profile sexual assault cases in France, offenders kept records of their activities which were later key in bringing them to justice.

In the Pelicot rape case, Dominique Pelicot kept videos of men assaulting his sleeping wife Gisele, whom he had drugged. He was jailed for 20 years.

In Brittany, former doctor Joel Le Scouarnec compiled detailed computer records of the hundreds of children he molested in hospital. Without this evidence, he may never have been convicted. He, too, was jailed for 20 years.
A collection of U.S. bills is displayed on a dark surface. Photo: Alan Wooten / The Center Square

(The Center Square)  Housing bills advanced by Democrats in Virginia's House of Delegates this session focus on regulatory changes rather than policies that would immediately lower costs for families, say Republicans in the chamber.

The comments came as the majority party promotes a slate of housing measures they describe as part of a broader affordability agenda. Several of the bills have passed the House and now move to the Senate.

Speaking during a press gaggle Tuesday, House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore, R-Scott, said the Democratic-backed proposals do not provide direct financial relief for households facing rising costs.

Not one of those bills actually lowers costs for a family immediately, Kilgore said. Not one.

Kilgore said the legislation relies heavily on studies and regulatory reforms rather than direct cost reductions.

They say tenant protections provide some rent decrease, but it does nothing, he said. And in fact, itll probably increase rent because of all the other bills that weve passed regarding landlord-tenant law.

Kilgore said Republicans have instead pushed tax relief proposals they believe could lower costs right away, including repealing the states car tax and grocery tax.

Virginias car tax is assessed annually by local governments and varies based on a vehicles value and where it is registered.

Weve come forward with a plan that could lower taxes for our citizens across the commonwealth tomorrow, he said. We could cut the car tax. We could do away with the grocery tax. We could eliminate other taxes that we have put forth, and we could actually provide lower costs to Virginians immediately.

Kilgore said lawmakers still have an opportunity to act through the budget process.

Theres still a chance, he said. Weve got the budget process that we could work through.

The House-passed legislation addresses a range of landlord-tenant issues, including rent payment methods, eviction procedures, disclosure requirements and lease termination rules. The measures largely focus on limiting certain fees, expanding tenant protections during eviction cases and adding new obligations for landlords.

First-term Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger said Monday more than half of the proposals in her Affordable Virginia Agenda have already passed at least one chamber. She said the measures are intended to ease pressure from rising housing, health care and energy costs.

Kilgore said Republicans believe tax relief offers a more direct path to affordability and pointed to public frustration with the car tax.

Ninety-six percent of the folks across Virginia want the car tax repeal, he said. Thats the most hated tax in Virginia.

Kilgore said support for eliminating the tax exists across party lines and said lawmakers should focus on results rather than credit.

It doesnt matter who gets credit, he said. We just have to provide more of our citizens affordability.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters is seen in Washington, July 29, 2025. Photo: Andrew Rice / The Center Square

(The Center Square)  The Federal Emergency Management Agency has denied the state of Illinois appeal for a major disaster declaration following severe storms and flooding that affected Boone, Cook, Kane, McHenry and Will counties in August.

In a letter dated Feb. 7, FEMA reaffirmed its initial decision that supplemental federal assistance was not warranted.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker said the agencys decision was politically motivated.

ROAD RAGE SHOOTING SUSPECT ARRESTED

Illinois State Police say they arrested a Chicago man for an alleged road rage shooting on Interstate 55. According to an ISP statement, Daniel Zaragoza, 22, fired at a vehicle on I-55 near Damen Avenue in Chicago last Friday morning.

The victim was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.

Zaragoza was charged with felony aggravated battery with a firearm.

ROUTE 66 FUNDING

The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity is awarding nearly $4 million in grants to local tourism bureaus for Route 66 activities throughout Illinois.

The taxpayer-funded award comes as state officials and tourism partners celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the highways creation. DCEOs Illinois Office of Tourism has invested $19 million in Route 66 projects since 2021.
A federal agent wears a badge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement while standing outside an immigration courtroom at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in New York, Tuesday, June 10, 2025. - Yuki Iwamura/AP

An Irish man who has been in US immigration detention for five months has said he fears for his life and is confined in appalling conditions, as international scrutiny grows over the treatment of immigrants held by US authorities.

Seamus Culleton, originally from the Irish county of Kilkenny, has been held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Texas since early September.

Culleton, who has lived in Boston for more than 15 years and runs a construction company, told Irish broadcaster RTE that he was taken by ICE officers on his way home from Home Depot.

Culleton said that he told ICE authorities that he is married to a US citizen, is in the process of applying for a green card, had no criminal record and had a valid work permit.

As far as I know I was covered, he said, speaking from an ICE facility in El Paso, Texas where he is currently detained. None of that mattered; they cuffed me and took me away, he said.

In a statement to CNN, US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said that Culleton had entered the US in 2009 under the visa waiver program which allowed a 90-day stay, then failed to depart.

Culleton said that he is being held in a large, overcrowded room with more than 70 other men and sleeping under constant artificial lighting in cold and damp conditions.

Detainees are receiving limited food, have restricted access to medical care and are rarely allowed outside, he told RTE.

Ive been locked in the same room now for four and a half months. Ive had barely any outside time. No fresh air. No sunshine. I could probably count on both hands the amount of times Ive been outside, Culleton said, adding: Im just locked in this room all day every day.

Culleton described the conditions inside the facility, thousands of miles away from his home in Boston, as filthy, calling it a nightmare.Im in fear for my life down here, honestly, he said.

McLaughlin said that after his arrest on September 9, Culleton received full due process and was issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge on September 10, 2025. He was offered the chance to instantly be removed to Ireland but chose to stay in ICE custody, in fact he took affirmative steps to remain in detention.

A pending green card application and work authorization does not give someone legal status to be in our country, McLaughlin said.

These claim(s) that there are subprime conditions at ICE facilities are FALSE, the statement added.

CNN has also reached out to ICE, which falls under DHS, for comment.

Culleton said ICE officials originally tried to persuade him to sign paperwork agreeing to his deportation, but that he refused, choosing instead to fight his case based on his pending green card application through his wife, Tiffany Smyth.

Smyth said the shock of her husbands sudden detention was awful, and spoke of the difficulty of navigating the immigration system, describing it as opaque and stacked against families.

Smyth told RTE that she went nearly a week without knowing where he was or whether he was safe.

I didnt know if he got deported, I didnt know if he was back in Ireland. I had no idea if he was safe And theres no one that helps you to get this information, she said.

Theres a tracker online that you can track somebody thats in ICE custody, so thats what I did, and then I saw he was moved to El Paso, Texas, Smyth said, adding that she hasnt been able to visit her husband yet.

They say that visits are feasible, but when you try to set one up its almost impossible, she said.

Culletons case has prompted outrage in Ireland and the Irish government has publicly addressed it.

Spokespeople from both the Department of Foreign Affairs and the office of the prime minister, or Taoiseach, told CNN that they are aware of the case, that consular assistance is being provided and that the Irish Embassy in Washington, DC, is engaging directly with the Department of Homeland Security.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin told reporters Tuesday: Every country has migration policies, but those ICE facilities are a concern.

While Irish nationals remain a small minority within ICE detention, Irish government figures show a 330% increase last year in the number of its citizens seeking consular assistance related to deportation by US immigration enforcement, to 65.

Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee told reporters Tuesday that she is aware of less than a dozen similar cases of Irish citizens being detained at the present.

His case also lays bare a US immigration system that routinely subjects migrants to prolonged detention under harsh conditions  one that human rights organizations say overwhelmingly ensnares Black and brown people far from the public spotlight.

Immigration advocacy groups have said there are longstanding racial disparities in US immigration enforcement that result in mistreatment of migrants from Latin America, the Caribbean and African countries.

ICE is currently holding around 70,000 people in custody, the highest number since the agencys founding and significantly above typical levels in prior administrations. The vast majority of those detainees  74% have no criminal conviction, according to the most recent data.

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LONDON and TEL AVIV -- The Israeli government adopted a series of significant, bureaucratically complex measures that would allow Israelis and Jews abroad to more easily purchase and build on land in the West Bank, consolidating Israeli control in the area that would potentially serve as the heartland for a future Palestinian state.

The measures, which were approved over the weekend, are likely to be challenged in the Israeli Supreme Court. But they represent the most far-reaching attempts by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus right-wing government to advance a de-facto annexation of the West Bank.

The Palestinian Authority, the governing body for Palestinians that already has only limited powers in the West Bank, described the moves as an "unprecedented escalation" and "illegal," views echoed by regional Arab states.

Mussa Qawasma/Reuters - PHOTO: A Palestinian man puts on a keffiyeh as an Israeli soldier stands guard in the old city in Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Feb. 9, 2026.

U.S. President Donald Trump has previously said the U.S. opposes attempts by Israel to annex the West Bank, a long-held dream of some settler groups and far-right ministers who now hold powerful positions in Netanyahus government.

The newly adopted measures are expected to deepen Israeli civil -- as opposed to military -- control of new areas within the West Bank, including key religious sites in Hebron, and are designed to make it easier for Israelis to buy land in the territory.

Israel's Security Cabinet, headed by Netanyahu, approved on Sunday a series of new measures that would lift a ban on the sale of land to private Israeli Jews, transfer construction authority at religious and sensitive sites in the city of Hebron to the Israeli government, and declassify land registry records.

Hazem Bader/AFP via Getty Images - PHOTO: Palestinian boys look out over the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Hebron from a rooftop on Feb. 9, 2026.

The United Nations condemned the measures, with a spokesperson for the secretary-general saying in a statement that "all Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and their associated regime and infrastructure, have no legal validity and are in flagrant violation of international law, including relevant United Nations resolutions."

The measures would allow the Israeli government to operate under the guise of civilian issues in Palestinian areas A and B for the first time, which contravenes the Oslo Accords. Under the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority is the sole authority responsible for civilian matters in Area A and B. Israel, in contrast, has full Israeli civil and security control over Area C, which represents about 60% of the West Bank.

Bezalel Smotrich, Israel's far-right, pro-settlement finance minister, hailed the move as an "historic day for settlement for Judea and Samaria," as parts of the West Bank are known in Hebrew.

He said the changes would "fundamentally change the legal and civil reality." He boasted that it would end the prospects for a potential Palestinian State.

Netanyahu has vowed that a Palestinian state "will not be established," even as Western countries, including France, Canada and the United Kingdom, have moved to recognize a Palestinian state.

Hazem Bader/AFP via Getty Images - PHOTO: A Palestinian woman stands in the yard of her home as shops and homes belonging to Palestinian families in Beit Aawa, west the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Hebron on Feb. 5, 2026.

The office of the Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, issued a statement condemning the measures as "dangerous decisions" designed to "deepen attempts to annex the occupied West Bank."

The president's office said the move was a "blatant violation" of the Oslo Accords, which divided the West Bank into Areas A, B and C, adding that the move represents an "unprecedented escalation targeting the Palestinian presence and its national and historical rights throughout the Palestinian territory."

Abbas' office described the move as illegal and called for the U.S. and the European Union to intervene.

A joint statement by the foreign ministers of eight Muslim countries condemned the new measures.

The foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Indonesia, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates said in a statement posted on social media that they collectively "condemned in the strongest terms the illegal Israeli decisions and measures aimed at imposing unlawful Israeli sovereignty, entrenching settlement activity, and enforcing a new legal and administrative reality in the occupied West Bank, thereby accelerating attempts at its illegal annexation and the displacement of the Palestinian people."

Hazem Bader/AFP via Getty Images - PHOTO: This picture shows an Israeli flag fluttering above the Israeli settlement of Beit Romano (unseen), with Palestinian buildings in the background, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Hebron on Feb. 9, 2026.

"They reaffirmed that Israel has no sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territories, the statement added.

According to Peace Now, an Israeli settlement watchdog and activist nongovernmental organization, the measures adopted over the weekend would effectively mean that Israeli authorities can now carry out legal demolitions of Palestinian property in Areas A and B, which comprise around 40% of the West Bank and which under the Oslo accords have been governed by the Palestinian Authority.

While the Israeli military could operate in those areas as the occupying power, the "government is now seeking to ignore its international commitments and begin administrative operations inside areas of the Palestinian Authority. Under the Oslo Accords, Israel has operated militarily in PA areas since the early 2000s," the watchdog said.
China urges Japan to be prudent on major historical issues

Xinhua) 09:39, February 10, 2026

BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- China on Monday urged Japan to deeply reflect on its history of aggression and be prudent on major historical issues such as the Yasukuni Shrine.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian made the remarks at a regular news briefing in response to recent remarks by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi regarding the Yasukuni Shrine issue.

Lin stated that the Yasukuni Shrine serves as a spiritual tool and symbol of Japanese militarism in waging foreign aggression, and it honors 14 convicted Class-A war criminals with grave responsibility for their country's war crimes.

Noting that the nature of the Yasukuni Shrine issue lies in whether Japan can face up to and reflect deeply on its history of militarist aggression, he said this issue bears on human conscience, the political foundation of China-Japan relations and the credibility of Japan as a nation.

"Amnesia of history means betrayal, and denial of responsibility spells relapse," Lin said.

"This year marks the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Tokyo Trials. In such a special year, Japan in particular needs to face squarely and reflect on its history of aggression, be prudent on major historical issues such as the Yasukuni Shrine, avoid repeating history and make a clean break with militarism with real actions," Lin added.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
The Hudson River Tunnel Project, known as Gateway, tunnel construction would run under the Hudson River between New York City and New Jersey. Workers spent time preparing for a pause of unknown duration while the Gateway commission takes the federal government to court, in New York, on February 6, 2026. - Laura Brett/Sipa USA/AP

The Trump administration will need to unfreeze more than $16 billion earmarked for a major New York infrastructure project by Thursday unless a federal appeals court allows the government to continue withholding the funds, a federal judge ruled Monday.

Judge Jeannette Vargas in the Southern District of New York denied the administrations request to pause the temporary restraining order she granted last week, noting that New Jersey and New York had shown there would an immediate and severe impact if the long-planned project  connecting the two states through a new rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River  were to shut down.

Vargas instead granted a short administrative stay until Thursday at 5 p.m. The administration has until then to unfreeze the funds if it isnt successful in convincing the Second Circuit Court of Appeals that it should be able to withhold the money.

New Jersey and New York filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration last week over the freeze, alleging in a complaint that the funding suspension is unlawful.

The commission in charge of the tunnel project has warned that it will soon have to shut down work and lay off roughly 1,000 workers if the Trump administration does not release the funding it needs.

CNN previously reported that President Donald Trump told Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer last month that he was prepared to release the funding if Schumer agreed to rename New Yorks Penn Station and Virginias Dulles International Airport after him.

Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday night it was Schumers idea to rename Penn Station to Trump station, but the New York Democrat immediately dismissed the presidents claim and accused him of lying about the details of their conversation.

Absolute lie. He knows it. Everyone knows it. Only one man can restart the project and he can restart it with the snap of his fingers, Schumer wrote on X.

CNNs Aleena Fayaz, Manu Raju and Adam Cancryn contributed to this report.

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Jury selection is set to begin on Tuesday in the murder trial of Kouri Richins, a Utah mom accused of fatally poisoning her husband with fentanyl.

The 35-year-old realtor, who wrote and self-published a children's book on grieving following her husband's death, was arrested in 2023 following a lengthy investigation. She was charged with aggravated murder in connection with the 2022 death of her husband, Eric Richins. Prosecutors allege she spiked his cocktail with a lethal dose of fentanyl.

She is also charged with attempted aggravated murder, with prosecutors alleging she gave him a sandwich laced with fentanyl on Valentine's Day two weeks before his death in an initial, failed attempt to kill him.

Kouri Richins, Utah mom accused of fatally poisoning husband with fentanyl, will go to trial: Judge

Kouri Richins has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Jury selection is scheduled over two weeks. The trial is set to begin with opening statements on Feb. 23 and last up to five weeks.

Prosecutors allege that Kouri Richins fraudulently secured a life insurance policy on her husband's death in January 2022 and had financial incentive to kill him. She is also accused of texting a paramour on Feb. 15, 2022, the day after the alleged Valentine's Day incident, that "if he could just go away ... life would be so perfect."

Rick Bowmer/Pool via AP - PHOTO: Kouri Richins, a Utah mother of three who wrote a children's book about coping with grief after her husband's death and was later accused of fatally poisoning him, looks on during a court hearing, Aug. 27, 2024, in Park City, Utah.

Eric Richins, 39, was found dead in the couple's bedroom on March 4, 2022. An autopsy determined he died from fentanyl intoxication, and the level of fentanyl in his blood was approximately five times the lethal dosage, according to the charging document. The medical examiner determined the fentanyl was "illicit fentanyl," not medical grade, according to the charging document.

Kouri Richins has remained in Summit County Jail since her arrest. She proclaimed her innocence in an audio recording released in May 2024.

"The world has yet to hear who I really am, what I've really done or didn't do," Kouri Richins insisted in the audio, provided to ABC News through a trusted confidant. "What I really didn't do is murder my husband."

Kouri Richins, Utah mom accused of fatally poisoning husband with fentanyl, asserts innocence in audio message

A month prior to her arrest in May 2023, the mom of three appeared on a "Good Things Utah" segment on Salt Lake City ABC affiliate KTVX to promote her children's book. In the segment, Kouri Richins said her husband of nine years died "unexpectedly" and that his death "completely took us all by shock."

Kouri Richins also faces over two dozen charges in a separate case filed earlier this year alleging she committed mortgage fraud in 2021. The charging document alleges she submitted falsified bank statements in support of mortgage loan applications for her realty business, committed money laundering and issued bad checks.

The charges in the case also allege she murdered her husband for financial gain as she "stood on the precipice of total financial collapse." According to the charging document, at the time of Eric Richins' death, her realty company owed lenders at least $1.8 million and his estate was worth approximately $5 million.

She has not yet entered a plea to those charges.
An evidence photo in the Alexander brothers sex-trafficking trial shows the Hamptons mansion where two women testified they were drugged and raped. Southern District of New York/Business Insider

The Alexander brothers' sex trafficking trial is in its second week in federal court in Manhattan.

Tal and Oren Alexander were luxury real estate brokers; Oren's twin, Alon, was a security executive.

To prove trafficking, prosecutors are showing the jury photos of exclusive settings.

A waterfront Hamptons mansion. A five-star hotel in Las Vegas. Posh resorts in Aspen and the Bahamas.

Luxurious? No question. But whether these and other costly locales are also crime scenes is a central question in the Alexander brothers' sex trafficking trial, which on Monday starts its third week before a federal jury in Manhattan.

The wealthy brothers  Tal and Oren Alexander sold high-end real estate, and Alon Alexander was a security firm executive  are accused of using luxury homes and resorts as bait in a decadelong sex trafficking conspiracy.

And so throughout the trial, six alleged trafficking victims are slated to tell stories of enticement and abuse as the courthouse screens fill with judge-approved photographs of ski resorts and beachfront homes.

Prosecutors say that in Aspen, three accusers  two of them minors  were sexually assaulted at The Little Nell, a world-class ski resort, on one night in January 2017.

Prosecutors in the Alexander brothers sex-trafficking trial in Manhattan say a young woman and two underage teens were sexually assaulted at The Little Nell ski resort on a single night in 2017. RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post

The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, a five-star casino resort and events space, is the location for what prosecutors say were sexual assaults on two women on one night in August 2017.

And in December 2017, prosecutors say, a woman was sexually assaulted at the Atlantis Paradise Island resort.

Prosecutors in the Alexander brothers trial in Manhattan say a woman was sex-trafficked at the Atlantis Paradise Island resort in the Bahamas in December 2017. Mehmed Zelkovic/Getty Images

The brothers have denied the allegations, and their lawyers are arguing that any sex was consensual.

At trial so far, prosecutors have shown the jury photographs of a 10,000 square foot Sag Harbor mansion, the site of two alleged sex traffickings. As visually stunning as these photos may be, there's a dry but important reason for their use in the trial.

To prove sex trafficking, prosecutors must convince the jury that something of value was offered to cause a victim to cross state lines  some kind of "material benefit" as the indictment terms it.

Prosecutors say these material benefits, these lures, were the women's invitations to all-expense-paid trips to homes and resorts in the Hamptons, Aspen, and the Bahamas.

"It was the biggest home I'd ever been in," a woman who testified under the pseudonym Maya Miller told jurors of the Sag Harbor mansion where she said she was grabbed by the neck in the shower and raped by Tal Alexander in 2014.

"This is how you thank me for inviting you to a beautiful home?" she said Tal angrily asked when she tried to rebuff his advances.



"It was the biggest home I'd ever seen," said one of two women allegedly raped in this Sag Harbor mansion. Southern District of New York/Business Insider

Lawyers for Tal Alexander, 39, and twins Oren and Alon Alexander, 38, are strenuously defending the brothers at trial, repeatedly pointing out that none of the accusers called the police, and that many exchanged friendly-sounding messages with their alleged attackers afterward.

Any sex, the defense argues, was agreed to and only later regretted. In fact, the defense argues, the accusers had romance, not just a luxury vacation, on their minds when they agreed to cross state lines.

From left, former luxury real estate brokers Tal Alexander and Oren Alexander, Alon Alexander, and US District Court Judge Valerie E. Caproni in federal court in Manhattan. Jane Rosenberg/Reuters

In accepting the brothers' invitations, often after lengthy social media exchanges, the accusers weren't planning "to play backgammon, to watch Netflix," Teny Geragos, a lawyer for Oren Alexander, told jurors during opening statements.

Prosecutors have countered that the women sought romantic getaways, not rape, and could not have afforded these weekend trips if the brothers had not promised to foot the bill  the "material benefit" without which sex trafficking can't be proven.

A second accuser alleges she was drugged by a drink handed to her at a 2016 pool party in the backyard of this mansion in Sag Harbor. Southern District of New York/Business Insider

"They said they would get private chefs, boat trips, everything would be covered," a second trafficking accuser explained of her decision to travel from Chicago to the Sag Harbor mansion with her friend Alison on Labor Day weekend in 2016.

The woman, who testified as Bella Koval, told the jury she was drugged during a pool party on their second day at the home.

Oren Alexander gave her something "fruity" in a red Solo cup that left her barely able to walk, she testified. She told jurors that the other twin, Alon, then gave her a glass of water after helping her to a bedroom, and raped her while "my whole body was tranquilized."

The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, where prosecutors in the Alexander brothers sex-trafficking trial in Manhattan say two women were sexually assaulted on an August night in 2017. AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

So far, the jury has heard testimony from five rape accusers  the two from the Sag Harbor trips, and three other women who described assaults that did not involve interstate travel.

Prosecutors have roughly two more weeks of witnesses to call. The indictment cites eight alleged victims; as many as 16 additional accusers may also testify in support of the top count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking.

The Hamptons will continue to figure prominently in the trial.

Prosecutors say that in 2009, three sex trafficking accusers, one a minor, were assaulted during two separate weekends at a five-bedroom home in Southampton that currently rents for between $12,500 and $20,000 a month.

Prosecutors also say that on Memorial Day weekend in 2011, a woman was sex trafficked in a 6-bedroom East Hampton home that real estate listings say is worth $4 million.

Read the original article on Business Insider
A roll of I Voted stickers sits on a table at a polling place on Nov. 8, 2022. Photo: Phil Roeder / Flickr / CC BY 2.0

(The Center Square)  The Republican field for Minnesota governor has narrowed as three candidates have withdrawn from the 2026 race, leaving Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, Kendall Qualls and Mike Lindell as frontrunners.

Former state Sen. Scott Jensen, the GOP's 2022 gubernatorial nominee, announced Monday he is dropping out of the race to run for state auditor.

We need to declare war on waste, fraud, and abuse. Its time to protect your paycheck. Lets go Minnesota, Jensen said. Lets get back to work!

Jensen joins current State Rep. Elliot Engen, R-White Bear Township, in the race for auditor. Another State Rep. Dan Wolgamott, DFL-St. Cloud, is also running, alongside several others. The current auditor, Julie Blaha, announced last year that she would not seek reelection.

Jensen's move came less than a week after he placed fourth in the Minnesota Republican Party's precinct caucus straw poll, receiving about 6.5% of the vote. Demuth led with roughly 32%, followed by Qualls at 25% and Lindell at around 18%.

Minneapolis attorney Chris Madel also ended his campaign Jan. 26, citing his opposition to what he described as national Republicans' "retribution" amid federal immigration enforcement efforts, including Operation Metro Surge.

I cannot support the national Republicans stated retribution on the citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so, Madel said.

In a video posted to X, Madel said he could no longer support a party pursuing such policies, and said that the party had made it nearly impossible for Republicans to win a statewide race in Minnesota.

Former St. Cloud city councilmember Jeff Johnson also suspended his campaign Feb. 9 due to a family tragedy. Johnsons 22-year-old daughter, Hallie Marie Tobler, was fatally stabbed in what authorities described as an apparent attempted murder-suicide involving her husband over the weekend in St. Cloud.

The Minnesota Republican Party announced Johnson's decision, stating he was stepping aside "out of respect for his family and the enormity of this loss."

Police reported Tobler died from multiple stab wounds, and her husband sustained self-inflicted injuries and remains in custody.

The departures come during a crowded GOP primary to challenge the eventual Democratic nominee in the open-seat race, after Gov. Tim Walz opted not to seek reelection.

The Republican primary is set for Aug. 11, with the general election on Nov. 3.
NASA

A NASA and SpaceX launch originally scheduled for Wednesday has been pushed back because of weather conditions not at the launch site, but along the flight path.

NASA announced the delay on Monday after mission teams completed a weather review.

While the forecast for Cape Canaveral, Florida, calls for a quiet morning on Wednesday with temperatures in the 50s and mostly cloudy skies, that launch site forecast isnt the only one that matters.

(MORE: Clipper Targets Northeast With More Snow)

NASA monitors forecasts for more than 50 locations along the ascent track in case an emergency escape is necessary, said weather.com digital meteorologist Sara Tonks.

"The northern Atlantic Ocean is going to be active on Wednesday morning with multiple areas of low pressure stretching across the ocean along the flight path for the original anticipated launch, which can mean unfavorable conditions for wind, waves, lightning and precipitation, all of which need to be taken into consideration before a launch," added Tonks.

So, NASA is hoping conditions will improve by Thursday morning, targeting a launch window beginning at 5:38 a.m. EST.

SpaceXs Dragon spacecraft will be taking four astronauts to the International Space Station. They will be replacing Crew-11, who left the ISS one month early in January, in the first-ever medical evacuation.

One member of that crew suffered a medical issue or injury that ended their mission. NASA did not identify which astronaut was ill.

(MORE: Millions To Experience Unusually Warm Temps)

Now, NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, along with cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev and European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot, will remain in quarantine until Thursdays planned launch.

Jessica Meir will also be taking a special guest with her: a small stuffed rabbit.

Meir shared that the toy belongs to her 3-year-old daughter.

"She actually has two of these because one was given as a gift. So one will stay down here with her, and one will be there with us, having adventures all the time, so that we'll keep sending those photos back and forth to my family," Meir said.

This new crew is expected to be stationed at the ISS for nine months.
Animal lovers Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban have managed to amicably divide most of their assets in the wake of their split, but their beloved pets at their Nashville estate are in danger of being totally abandoned, a source tells GLOBE.

Their mini zoo includes a dog, several cats, chickens as well as alpacas and fish.

They have a huge menagerie of animals on the farm that are being looked after by the staff at the moment, an insider says. Nicole has kept them all for now because its just not feasible for Keith to take them on  he doesnt have the right setup. But its not the end of the conversation, its just been put on the back burner for now.

But with Kidman seriously considering moving back to Australia full time, they need to make plans for the animals welfare soon.

Unfortunately, Kidmans not going to be able to take the animals with her, the insider says. There are too many laws in Australia about bringing animals into the country. Its going to be hard enough with the dogs and cats they have  shipping over alpacas and all the others is simply a no-go.

As readers know, the Oscar winner, 58, filed for divorce from the country crooner, also 58, after 19 years of marriage in September. The split was finalized in early January. The two share daughters Sunday Rose, 17, and Faith, 15.

According to our insider, it would make sense for Urban to get it together and come up with a plan to care for the animals, since hes staying in the area.

But he has not stepped up and its all falling on Nicoles shoulders, which is very unfair and leading to a lot of resentment, says the source. People might scoff at it as a minor issue but its not  these animals are very well loved.

Down Under, the nature-loving Babygirl star will still be surrounded by animals at her 111-acre farm in New South Wales. Her menagerie there includes alpacas, chickens and Black Angus cattle. Shes even been known to pitch in to bottle-feed the baby lambs.

Read More From Globe

This story Nicole Kidman Left to Care for Her and Keith Urbans Menagerie of Animals in Nashville: Very Unfair first appeared on Globe. Add Globe as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Nigel Barker working on set with models on cycle 5 of "America's Next Top Model" Monty Brinton/CBS Photo Archive via Getty

NEED TO KNOW

Nigel Barker was a photographer and panelist on America's Next Top Model from 2004 to 2011

The competition modeling series aired from 2004 through 2018

Barker is among the personalities from the series appearing in Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model, premiering Feb. 16



Nigel Barker is sharing memories from some time on Americas Next Top Model.

Ahead of his participation in Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model, the photographer, 53, is looking back at some of his most memorable shoots from his time on the show, from 2004 to 2011.

Sharing photos from cycle 6 contestants in Thailand, Barker recalled, "Cycle 6 of Top Model we traveled to Thailand and I shot the girls for ElleGirl Magazine wearing swimsuits by OP. I actually got repetitively electrocuted by my camera because it was actually pretty stormy and the waves were crashing."

'Thailand was definitely one of my favorite Top Model destinations. Scroll all the way to check out a shot of Jay I took while hanging out! He sets the bar high! ."

Never miss a story  sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

The photo he referenced showed fellow panelist, Jay Manuel, wearing a mermaid tail and striking a pose for the camera. Manuel commented, writing, "LMAOOOOOOthis mermaid tail. Ill never live this down. "

Barker also shared some shots from the cycle 9 trip to China, calling it "one of the most amazing cultural trips on Top Model."

"Not just did we do the final runway show in the Forbidden City, but I had the pleasure of photographing our contestants with dancing dragons in this beautiful group of shots!" he captioned the photos.

The documentary aims to deliver a definitive account of what really went on behind the scenes of Americas Next Top Model, which aired for 24 series from 2003 to 2018.



In recent years, criticism of the show's decisions  from commentary on contestants' bodies to promoting unhealthy lifestyle choices to using blackface in a challenge where contestants were asked to embody races and ethnicities outside their own  have come under fire.

Banks touched on the show's complicated legacy in Feb. 2025, while accepting the first-ever Luminary Spotlight honor at the ESSENCE Black Women in Hollywood Awards.

Over 20 years ago I created a show called Americas Next Top Model, Banks began. And you guys have no idea how hard we fought to bring the diversity to that television show at a time when it didnt exist; to show different beauties at a time when the world was like, What? You casting that? A time when people in the fashion industry were telling me, You putting the girls from the hood on your show? 



I was like, Why can the girl from the trailer park become a supermodel but the girl thats chilin in the park in the hood cant?  she continued. And we fought and we struggled and we made it happen.

Did we get it right? Hell no. I said some dumb s--t, she said, which was met by laughter from the audience. But I refuse to have my legacy be about some stuff linked together on the Internet when there were 24 cycles of changing the world. And I am so excited that I, and so many of us, have opened that door for others to follow.

Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model debuts Feb. 16 on Netflix.



Read the original article on People
An Ohio State University doctor who newly released records show received thousands of dollars in payments from Jeffrey Epstein and his associates in the early 2000s says he didn't know about Epstein's "criminal activities."

The name of Dr. Mark Landon, an OB-GYN at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and a professor in the College of Medicine, appears several times among the millions of documents recently released by the Department of Justice belonging to Epstein, the convicted sex offender and disgraced financier who for years had power of attorney for New Albany billionaire Les Wexner.

In a statement issued through an OSU Wexner Medical Center spokesperson, Landon told The Dispatch: "I did not provide any clinical care for Jeffrey Epstein or any of his victims. I was a paid consultant for the New York Strategy Group regarding potential biotech investments from 2001 to 2005. I had no knowledge of any criminal activities; I find them reprehensible and I feel terrible for Epsteins victims."

Landon, an Ohio State faculty member since 1987 and current chair of OSU's Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, did not make himself available to answer specific questions. Ohio State declined to comment further.

Landon's payments took place while Epstein owned property in New Albany.

The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center's University Hospital tower.

New York Strategy Group, the organization for whom Landon consulted, was Epstein's money management firm. A former accountant who worked for NYSG described it as "a financial advisory firm servicing high net worth individuals with assets in excess of 1 billion dollars," according to Business Insider.

Authorities said Epstein died by suicide in 2019 in a New York jail cell while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking minors.

The earliest mention of Landon in the Epstein files is on a FedEx invoice dated July 20, 2001. Landon was sent an overnight envelope a week prior by Darren Indyke, an attorney who worked with Epstein.

There are eight FedEx receipts among the files showing mail sent by Epstein and his associates to Landon between 2001 and 2004. Though some of the documents are redacted, others show Landon received packages at both his former Bexley home and at an office at Ohio State's Martha Morehouse Outpatient Care on Kenny Road.

The Ohio State Martha Morehouse Outpatient Care, 2050 Kenny Rd., at the Ohio State University October 17, 2025.

While the FedEx invoices don't specify what was inside the envelopes and packages sent to Landon, a January 2006 email from Indyke to Epstein gives some insight.

"Are we still paying Mark Landon?" Indyke wrote to Epstein "Eric was dealing with this, so I am not sure what was decided when the previous payment was made. Landon's agreement requires quarterly payments of $30k to be made to Landon on the 15th of January, April, July and October. The previous payment made to Landon was for $25,000 and not $30,000. The contract is terminable at will on 15 days' prior notice. Is NYSG to make payment to Landon by January 15th and if so for $25K or $30K? Please advise."

Epstein responded on Jan. 4, 2006: "75 per year."

The email was sent after Landon said his relationship with NYSG had ended.

A memo left for Epstein on April 11, 2005, stated: "Dr. Landon's $25k quarterly payment is due, please approve." Later that day, the same individual followed up with an additional memo making reference to Wexner and his wife, Abigail.

"FYI: on the Dr. Landon quarterly payments, we (NYSG) billed LHW/Abigail in advance as we have in prior years," the memo read.

The relationship between Wexner and Epstein went back years, with Epstein serving as power of attorney for Wexner until the billionaire founder of Limited Brands said he severed ties in 2007 after discovering Epstein had stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from him. Abigail Wexner also communicated with Epstein, records show.

"Dr. Landon provided consulting services through the Wexners financial advisor for a period of time regarding investments in biotechnology companies," a spokesperson for the Wexners said in a prepared statement.

Higher education reporter Sheridan Hendrix can be reached at shendrix@dispatch.com.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio doctor Mark Landon received thousands from Jeffrey Epstein
A grocery store aisle is stocked with beverages and other products. Photo: Sarah Roderick-Fitch / The Center Square

One of the most shared photos I've ever seen on social media came from inside a Seattle Costco, and it perfectly captures whats wrong with Olympias latest policy obsession.

On the shelf: a 35-pack of Coke priced at $10.99. Just below it: a line item labeled City of Seattle Sweetened Beverage Recovery Fee  $7.35. The tax alone is nearly as much as the soda itself.

Thats not satire. Thats what happens when lawmakers decide that taxing something politically unpopular counts as solving a complex problem.

Now, Washington state legislators want to take this experiment statewide, arguing that a new 3-cent per ounce sugar-sweetened beverage tax will improve health outcomes and fight hunger. It sounds noble. It sounds decisive. And its deeply disconnected from reality.

Seattles soda tax has been in place since 2018. Prices went up  sharply  because distributors passed the tax straight through to consumers, exactly as economists predicted. What didnt happen was a neat reduction in sugar consumption or a measurable public-health breakthrough.

In fact, research shows that when soda becomes more expensive, people dont stop consuming sugar  they substitute. A University of Georgia study found soda taxes reduce soda purchases but do not reduce overall sugar consumption, because people shift to other sweets or shop elsewhere. A peer-reviewed study of Seattles tax found evidence that some consumers substituted toward beer, raising obvious questions about unintended health consequences.

Philadelphias soda tax followed a similar path. Revenues came in below projections as consumers crossed city lines to avoid the tax, undermining the programs the tax was supposed to fund. Globally, the evidence is mixed at best: soda taxes reliably raise prices, but their impact on obesity and long-term health outcomes is far less clear.

Yet legislators keep doubling down.

Why? Because soda is a convenient villain. Its easy to demonize, easy to tax, and politically safe to punish. No one in Olympia loses sleep over raising the cost of a product they dont think voters will defend.

But convenience is not policy, and symbolism is not governance.

Soda taxes are also regressive, meaning they fall hardest on lower-income households  the very people lawmakers claim they want to help. A tax that adds dollars to a grocery bill doesnt become progressive just because the revenue is spent on good intentions. Someone still pays at the register.

This is the deeper problem: the belief that government can micromanage personal behavior through the tax code. If soda is taxable because its unhealthy, whats next? Candy? Snack foods? Ice cream? Fast food? At some point, the logic collapses under its own weight  because you cant tax every imperfect choice out of existence.

Hard problems like obesity, food insecurity, and health disparities dont have easy villains.

The Costco photo isnt just about soda. Its about a governing mindset that treats taxation as a shortcut to virtue. Raise the price, issue a press release, move on.

But Washington cant tax its way to better health. And pretending otherwise only guarantees more shelf tags, more surcharges, and more frustration  without solving the problems lawmakers claim to care about.

Chris Cargill is the President of Mountain States Policy Center, an independent free market think tank based in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Eastern Washington. Online at mountainstatespolicy.org.
Same-sex couples kiss with LGBT rainbow flags in the background

The Philippine Supreme Court in a landmark decision has ruled that same-sex couples can be considered co-owners of property.

Applying a provision of the country's Family Code for the first time, the court said same-sex couples can be recognised as co-owners if it is proven that both parties contributed to acquiring a property.

Same-sex unions are outlawed in conservative Catholic Philippines and it is the only country in the world, outside of the Vatican, that does not allow divorce.

This has left LGBT couples without legal protections when it comes to property, finance and healthcare.

The Supreme Court ruling, which was made public on Tuesday, involved a former couple - two women - who had feuded over plans to sell their house and lot in suburban Manila.

One of the women refused to sell their house after initially agreeing to do so, leading the other to file a claim before a lower court asking to divide their property. The lower court denied the claim, which was affirmed by the Court of Appeals.

But the Supreme Court on 5 February reversed the lower court rulings. It cited a document made by one partner - and acknowledged by the other - that she paid 50% of the purchase and renovation costs.

The property was registered under the name of only one of the partners to make the paperwork during the acquisition faster, since they were not married or related by blood.

While the Family Code defines marriage as a bond between a man and a woman, the court said Article 148 - which governs "property relations of people who live together but cannot legally marry" - does not discriminate based on gender and "applies to all forms of co-habitation".

Article 148 applies to same-sex couples, "otherwise, we render legally invisible some forms of legitimate intimate relationships", said Associate Justice Marvic Leonen.

Associate Justice Amy Lazaro Javier further noted that Article 148 must not be limited to heterosexual couples "given the prevailing values in modern society as well as the glaring yet unjustified difference in the treatment of heterosexual couples vis-a-vis their homosexual counterparts".

A spokesperson for the Supreme Court, Camille Ting, confirmed to the BBC that it is the first time Article 148 of the Family Code has been used to decide on a case regarding property rights of a same-sex couple.

The court in its decision also called on government and lawmakers to address the needs of same-sex couples.

"With the political, moral, and cultural questions that surround the issue concerning the rights of same-sex couples, political departments especially the Congress must be involved to quest for solutions," the court said.
February 9, 2026: Last year the United States imposed high tariffs on China in retaliation for theft of intellectual property and unfair trade practices. China responded with, among other things, cutting off the supplies of some rare earths, particularly samarium, which is used for essential components of many American weapons and aircraft. Currently Chins produces 85 percent of the rare earths. There are 17 rare earths but only a few of them are critical ingredients for military and commercial products.

To deal with the shortage the U.S. government and individual manufacturers improvised by seeking out firms in the United States and the rest of the world that had stockpiles of rare earths. It was known that many companies that used rare earths, or had used them in the past, had unused surpluses of rare earths that were kept in storage. Rare earths are expensive, but they don't take up much space or require special environmental controls. Just put them in closed metal containers and store them indoors. Another source of rare earths was resuming mining and refining of vast rare earth deposits in the United States. Environmental regulations and the high cost of mining and refining compared to the cheaper Chinese rare earths could be solved. New extraction and refining methods do not violate environmental laws and government subsidies would enable U.S. firms to profitably provide rare earths for use by American companies.

This was not the first time the United States had a rare earth crisis. Twelve years ago the U.S. Department of Defense granted the manufacturer of the new F-35 fighter a waiver for having some illegal Chinese components in newly built F-35s. The cheap Chinese components were nothing exotic; they were $2 magnets and some similar materials. These items inadvertently got into the supply chain as a Japanese subcontractor that built parts of the aircraft. An audit later discovered the Chinese parts. The manufacturer told the Department of Defense that it would cost over $10 million and weeks, if not months, to take apart the offending assemblies, replace the Chinese items with American ones and reassemble, test and reinstall everything. The Department of Defense decided to let it go to keep the much-delayed F-35s coming.

Since the 1970s the U.S. has had laws banning any foreign components in American weapons. But once more American politicians and Americans in general are reminded that complex systems, including weapons, are made from components manufactured all over the world. Ironically the cheap magnets involved in the F-35 are used in several American weapons systems in addition to the F-35. These specialty magnets tend to come from China. In some cases, China is the only supplier. These magnets are made from rare earths, metals like cerium, europium, lanthanum, neodymium and yttrium. The United States used to manufacture some of these components, but China did it cheaper, and most manufacturing shifted to there over the last few decades.

This dispersal of components to nations throughout the world is nothing new. It has been going on since the 1960s. Some nations have specialized in certain components, especially electronics, to such an extent that a local disaster could cause global shortages. This happened in 1999, when severe earthquakes in Taiwan shut down factories that produced the majority of the world supply of some computer components. There were worldwide shortages for months. There have been several less striking incidents since then. Same thing happened when record floods in Thailand shut down plants producing a large portion of the worldwide personal computer hard drive supply.

As China has become a major industrial manufacturer, they have, like neighbors Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, come to concentrate on certain items, and acquire a world monopoly via lowest price and reasonable quality. Western nations, especially the United States and Germany, have the largest number of these mini monopolies. But what the American legislators were worried about was war with China, and an instant shortage of key weapons components. It could take months, or years, to restore necessary supply quantities.

During the Cold War, there were war reserves of certain raw materials, and subsidies to keep American firms manufacturing certain components. But since the Cold War ended in 1991, there has been an enormous growth in electronic and specialty metal components. Many of these are now largely made in foreign countries, particularly Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and China. A lot of those Cold War subsidies and stockpiles were done away with after the Cold War ended in 1991. But the use of only American components laws stayed on the books and caused more and more problems.

Trying to stockpile some items is more expensive than just having a lot of them sitting in a warehouse. Many manufactured items become obsolete rapidly, so many of these warehouses would suddenly be full of scrap, as they were made obsolete by new technologies. Any solution is going to cost billions, and it's unlikely the Department of Defense will be eager to give up a chunk of its budget to prepare for a long war no one wants.

China reminded the world how this worked in 2010 when it halted exports of rare earths. Two months later China resumed shipments. China was trying to use its near monopoly on the production of rare earth metals to jack up prices. The reaction from the rest of the world was vigorous and hostile. Rare earths are ores that are found in tiny quantities all over the world. Because they are expensive to mine, many mining companies don't bother. But in the last century, more and more rare earths have been found to have useful applications in metallurgy, electronics and other areas. In the last few decades, China has extracted rare earths more cheaply than anyone else and driven nearly all foreign rare earth mining operations out of business. But because of the new Chinese threat, other countries are reviving their rare earth mining operations, even if it requires government subsidies and relaxed environmental regulations. Despite these efforts its still cheaper and easier to get items made with rare earths from China.
Mature cannabis plants with dense buds grow under controlled lighting conditions inside an indoor cultivation facility. Photo: Ryan Lange / Unsplash

(The Center Square)  After hitting a semantic speed bump on the title and language used in a previous draft, a petition to block Senate reform to Ohios recreational marijuana laws is back on track for the ballot.

Now, the group behind the petition to roll back parts of Senate Bill 56, signed in January 2025, must collect about a quarter of a million signatures in order to bring the issue to voters in November.

Attorney General David Yost determined that the title and summary of the new petition are fair and truthful statements of the proposed measure.

A statement from Yost added, My certification. . . should not be construed as an affirmation of the enforceability and constitutionality of the referendum petition.

The new law, Republicans say, reflects what they believe were the intentions of Ohios voters when they cast their ballots to legalize adult-use recreational marijuana in 2023.

Scheduled to go into effect next month, the law bans intoxicating hemp products from most retailers, reduces THC limits, prohibits smoking in public settings, restricts out-of-state marijuana access, and changes the tax structure around marijuana products.

Industry representatives and Democratic opposition say it goes against the will of the people and that the new law will hamstring an industry poised to generate billions for the state. Currently, the 10% tax issued on marijuana sales is returned to cities and towns with dispensaries at 36% rate of the tax revenue. The first checks issued in January totaled $33 million.

Despite the financial gains created by the industry, a tug-of-war remains over who benefits most from cannabis sales and what gaps in regulation might lead to bad actors.

For instance, among the many targets of a ban on intoxicating hemp products are candies and drinks made to look and taste very similar to brand name food products marketed to children.

Asked about the issue, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said, I think the proponents should be happy with their victory at the polls, instead of now going back and whining about something the legislature has done. DeWine said.

Ohioans for Cannabis Choice say that the law goes way too far in allowing individuals to be prosecuted for what they do in their own homes. For Ohioans concerned about individual freedoms, this is one of the most egregious examples of government overreach we've seen in decades.

The group also predicts that the state will lose 6,000 businesses. Still others say that the hemp industry largely benefits larger manufacturers capitalizing on grey areas in the wave of cannabis legalization nationwide.

To that end, Yost recently suednine operators for colluding to keep prices in the state artificially high. The companies were accused of crowding out smaller Ohio-based businesses.

The lure of success in Ohios growing cannabis market has attracted large, multistate cannabis operators to eagerly clamber for Ohio consumer dollars, according to the lawsuit. But these multistate operators arent clambering to participate in the competition; theyre actively suppressing it.
Prince William was asked about the Royal Family's process in dealing with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor during an overseas engagement today.

During his diplomatically sensitive visit to Saudi Arabia, the Prince of Wales was confronted with questions regarding his uncle Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's connection to Jeffrey Epstein.

A journalist called out to William while he was attending a training session for girls' football in the country.

The reporter asked the royal: "Sir, to what extent do you think the Royal Family has done enough around the Andrew and Epstein scandal?"

Prince William | Source: GETTY

The question was unanswered by the heir to the throne.

It is unclear whether William actually heard the question, given that it was shouted across a considerable distance.

On Monday, the Prince and Princess of Wales issued a joint statement on the Epstein files just hours before Prince William arrived in Saudi Arabia for a three-day visit to the country.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and his former wife Sarah Ferguson have both appeared in the documents linked to Jeffrey Epstein.

Prince William | Source: GETTY

The former Duke and Duchess of York have always denied any wrongdoing.

A Kensington Palace spokesperson said on behalf of Catherine and William: "The Prince and Princess of Wales have been deeply concerned by the continued revelations.

"Their thoughts remain focused on the victims."

Buckingham Palace have confirmed they will support the police if they are approached for information regarding King Charles's disgraced brother.

They added that the monarch is "profoundly concern at allegations" against Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

The document release represents one of the largest disclosures related to the case, intensifying scrutiny on those connected to the late financier who died 2019.

Prince William and Andrew | Source: GETTY

Appearing in the Epstein files is not evidence of any wrongdoing, and inclusion in the documents does not implicate anyone in Epstein's criminality.

Kensington Palace moved to clarify the Prince and Princess of Wales' stance just hours before William embarked on his trip to Saudi Arabia.

The palace was clearly eager for the royal couple's position to be established, allowing the prince to concentrate fully on representing the UK.

The former Duke and Duchess of Yorks links to Epstein have cast a shadow over royal engagements in recent weeks, drawing attention away from the family's official duties.

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Documents included in the Jeffrey Epstein files photographed on Sunday, February 1, 2026. - Jon Elswick/AP

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche pledged last month that the Justice Department was not protecting anyone  least of all Donald Trump.

Those assurances by the presidents former personal lawyer are facing new scrutiny following remarkable developments in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

Intrigue deepened after lawmakers emerged perplexed after being given the chance to read unredacted versions of blacked-out investigative files previously released to the public in massive document dumps compelled by Congress.

We didnt want there to be a cover-up, and yet what I saw today was that there were lots of examples of peoples names being redacted when they were not victims, Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin said.

The lawmakers started inspecting the documents at the DOJ on a day of broadening fallout from a scandal that has blown the lid off the late sex offenders stunning global network of billionaires and powerbrokers.

While new concerns surfaced over the DOJs handling of the files and the case more generally, the push for accountability raced ahead in Europe, where the political careers and reputations of powerful people are in shreds.

And suspicions among survivors that their long quest for justice is being impeded yet again were reinforced by an extraordinary offer made to Trump by a lawyer for Epsteins jailed associate Ghislaine Maxwell. The gist was this: Grant clemency to Maxwell, a convicted sex trafficker, and shell put the president in the clear.

Lawmakers who were able to see some unredacted copies of the Epstein files did not directly accuse the DOJ of a cover-up. But their findings will only fuel mistrust among many of their colleagues and the public about its handling of the case. This is especially so since the names of many people linked to Epstein were redacted in public disclosures, while the names of some victims were visible.

Democratic Rep. James Walkinshaw demanded answers. I can say that I saw many names, including names in emails to and from Jeffrey Epstein, that suggests these individuals were involved in crimes or at least knew about crimes, the Virginia lawmaker told CNNs Erin Burnett. And again, Im not able to explain why they were redacted in a way thats consistent with the law.

Raskin said the department hadnt explained why certain redactions were made, but that he saw a whole bunch of them that seemed very suspicious and baffling to me.

Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz told reporters hed seen lots of names, lots of co-conspirators and theyre trafficking girls all across the world.

DOJ was supposed to limit redactions to the personal information of victims and materials that would jeopardize an active criminal investigation. And Congress has not yet received a privileged log from DOJ explaining why certain redactions were made, which DOJ is compelled to provide 15 days after its January 30 release of documents.

The experience of lawmakers means an even tougher reception for Attorney General Pam Bondi when she testifies to the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. Many Democrats already believe that her department, whether by design or omission, is failing to honor the Epstein Files Transparency Act passed after a GOP revolt against Trump last year.

Attorney General Pam Bondi delivers remarks at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC, on February 6, 2026. - Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

The laws authors, California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, expressed disappointment with the DOJ.

Maxwells remarkable gambit

It was another stunning day of Epstein fallout on Monday.

Maxwell was piped in from her detention facility in Texas to provide testimony to a House committee investigating the scandal, but she invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid self-incrimination, as is her constitutional right.

But her lawyer made a stunning proposal. Ms. Maxwell is prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump, attorney David Oscar Markus said in a statement during the deposition, which he later posted on X.

Only she can provide the complete account, Markus continued. Some may not like what they hear, but the truth matters. For example, both President Trump and President Clinton are innocent of any wrongdoing.

Neither the current nor the ex-president has been charged with any crime in connection to Epstein. Both deny having had knowledge of his offenses.

Trump has struggled to explain his friendship with the disgraced financier and said he threw Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club after they became estranged.

But the clemency play is the epitome of an age when attempted quid pro quos play out in public in hopes of swaying a president who mocks ethics and exploits power granted by voters for his own ends. Anything that Maxwell said in the event she was released from prison would be immediately regarded as not credible, given her incentive to improve her own plight. But such is Trumps outlandish past use of his pardon powers that her gambit cannot be dismissed. It might even work.

Ghislaine Maxwell in New York on September 20, 2013. - Laura Cavanaugh/Getty Images

The atmosphere of thwarted accountability on one side of the Atlantic only sharpened the contrast with an extraordinary political crisis engulfing Britain.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer battled to save his job amid recriminations over his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson, a former Epstein friend, as ambassador to Washington. And in a mind-boggling move, King Charles III offered to cooperate with police in any investigations into his brother, the former Prince Andrew, who has had his royal titles stripped after he obfuscated his ties to Epstein.

Underscoring the peril the affair poses to the monarchy, the heir to the throne, Prince William, and his wife, Princess Catherine, offered empathy to Epstein survivors through a spokesperson.

In Norway, where another royal has been shamed by the affair, authorities said they were investigating a former diplomat suspected of gross corruption. The reputation of a highly respected former French culture minister was tarnished by his past contact with Epstein. And Poland is investigating whether the convicted sex offender was linked to Russian spies.

Why the US push for disclosure is being thwarted

Khanna marveled at the contrast between the UK and the US.

Look at whats happening in Britain. You have a left government  actually, I know Keir Starmer, I was excited when he won, and yet I believe he needs to be held accountable with whats happened with Mandelson. You have the British monarchy having to answer questions  I mean, the King of England is putting out statements. And yet in our country we have not had that reckoning.

What explains the difference?

Its complex, especially since none of the people who came into contact with Epstein, apart from Maxwell, have been charged with crimes. That doesnt necessarily point to a cover-up. Evidence may not lead in such a direction.

But the growing push for accountability is raising the question of what this network of powerful and sophisticated people  mostly rich men  knew about Epsteins activities and crimes, especially once he emerged from prison in 2009 after serving a 13-month sentence for sex offenses.

There have been some consequences for Americans who had links with Epstein. Former Treasury Secretary and former Harvard University President Larry Summers stepped away from public life after the release of embarrassing email exchanges with Epstein. Last week, Brad Karp resigned as chairman of Paul Weiss, one of the countrys top corporate law firms, over Epstein ties.

But such downfalls in the United States have been precipitated by reputational damage to individuals rather than government action. In Europe, the machinery of investigation and accountability remains independent. In the US, the Justice Department is run by Trump loyalists whove heard his calls for the country to move on.

Mandelson is facing a criminal investigation over allegations he passed secret and market-moving government information to Epstein. Its hard to see the Trump DOJ launching a probe in similar circumstances. Mandelson has apologized for his past links with Epstein and has resigned from the Labour Party and the House of Lords.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer leaving 10 Downing Street, London on February 9, 2026 - James Manning/AP

The shock over disclosures about Epsteins behavior and his sprawling network of contacts is palpable in Europe.

But why is disgust less obvious in the United States? Perhaps, 10 years into the Trump era, the country is just punch-drunk on scandal. Or maybe the spectacle of Epsteins influence-peddling isnt such big news in a nation where politics is saturated in campaign cash.

Each day brings new revelations about Epsteins extraordinary global network of interlocking ties between bipartisan political leaders and influencers, finance and business titans, international organizations, academia and billionaires.

But amid the cacophony, people often forget what this is really about: grievous harm inflicted on the women who were trafficked by Epstein as girls and forced to perform massages and sex acts. Their trauma is only exacerbated by the apparent impunity of powerful people who flocked around their abuser.

I think that what people also need to remember is that, you know, the survivors of this crime know what happened, Epstein victim Liz Stein, wearing a sweater reading Courage is Contagious, told CNNs Jake Tapper on Monday. And so when we see things coming out that, you know dont parallel what our truth is, we really  were taking notice.

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The mandate of US President Donald Trump's "Board of Peace" has expanded, prompting concerns it could rival the United Nations (Fabrice COFFRINI) (Fabrice COFFRINI/AFP/AFP)

The presidents of Argentina and Romania said Sunday they have been invited to attend the inaugural meeting of US President Donald Trump's controversial "Board of Peace" in Washington on February 19.

Originally designed by Trump as a mechanism to oversee the Gaza truce and post-war reconstruction, the board's mandate has since expanded, prompting concerns among critics that it could evolve into a rival to the United Nations.

Writing on his Facebook page, Romania's President Nicusor said his country had not yet made a decision as to whether it would participate.

That would depend, he said, "on discussions with our US partners on the format of the meeting for countries like Romania, which are not currently members of the Board but which wish to be part of it on condition its charter is revised".

Argentina's Javier Milei said he would attend the event, while skipping a gala that will be held at Trump's residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, on Monday, which he had been planning to attend, his Chief of Staff Manuel Adorni announced on Sunday.

On Saturday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that he, too, had received an invitation to attend the meeting, and that he intended to go.

The White House has not responded to an AFP request for comment.

Trump launched his "Board of Peace" at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, and some 19 countries have signed its founding charter.

But it has since taken shape as a vehicle for Trump's broader ambitions, with critics calling it another effort by the Republican president to bypass the UN as he seeks to reset the global order.

Dozens of world leaders have received invitations to be part of the "Board of Peace". Permanent members must pay $1 billion to join.

Some countries -- including Croatia, France, Italy, New Zealand and Norway -- have already declined to join it, and others have said they could only consider doing so if its charter were changed.

Under its current charter, the "Board of Peace" has Trump both as its chairman and as the US representative.

It says Trump, as chairman, will have "exclusive authority to create, modify or dissolve entities as necessary" and that he can only be replaced in case of "voluntary resignation or as a result of incapacity".

str-oaa/rmb/rh/md/msp
FILE PHOTO: Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) Chairman Wang Huning speaks at the opening session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China March 4, 2025. REUTERS/Florence Lo/File Photo

BEIJING, Feb 10 (Reuters) - China will offer firm support for "patriotic pro-reunification forces" in Taiwan and strike hard against "separatists", the top Chinese official in charge of policy towards the democratically-governed island said in comments published on Tuesday.

China, which views Taiwan as its own territory despite the objections of the government in Taipei, has ramped up its military and political pressure against the island as Beijing seeks to assert its sovereignty claims.

Addressing this year's annual "Taiwan Work Conference", a key meeting which sets the tone for China's policy towards the island, the ruling Communist Party's fourth-ranked leader Wang Huning said officials must advance the "great cause of national reunification", the official state-run Xinhua news agency said.

'USUAL TALKING POINTS', SAYS TAIWAN

It was necessary to "firmly support the patriotic pro-unification forces on the island, resolutely strike against 'Taiwan independence' separatist forces, oppose interference by external forces, and safeguard peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait", Xinhua paraphrased him as saying.

Taiwan's government, which says only the island's people can decide their future, said in response to Wang's remarks that he was repeating the usual Chinese talking points about opposing separatism and taking eventual control of the island.

China's "ultimate goal is to eliminate the Republic of China and advance unification," Taiwan's China-policy making Mainland Affairs Council said in a statement, referring to the island's formal name.

While the Xinhua report made no mention of the use of force, China has never renounced using military means to bring Taiwan under its control, the Chinese defence ministry struck a stronger note commenting on Taiwanese military deployments.

"If the 'Taiwan independence' armed forces dare to provoke a conflict, they will inevitably be wiped out," ministry spokesperson Jiang Bin said on Tuesday in Beijing.

'ONE COUNTRY, TWO SYSTEMS'

China has long offered Taiwan a Hong Kong-style "one country, two systems" model of autonomy, though no major Taiwanese political party supports that.

Taiwan's government says Beijing's rule in the former British colony has only brought repression, with Taiwan President Lai Ching-te on Tuesday citing the sentencing of Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai to 20 years in prison the previous day.

"Jimmy Lai's sentencing exposes the Hong Kong national security law for what it is - a tool of political persecution under China's 'one country, two systems' that tramples human rights and freedom of press," Lai wrote on X.

Beijing has repeatedly warned other countries, including the U.S., against meddling in the Taiwan issue, which it said is its internal affair.

In a call with U.S. President Donald Trump last week, China's President Xi Jinping said Taiwan was the most important issue in China-U.S. relations and Washington must handle the issue of arms sales to Taiwan with prudence.

China refuses to speak to Taiwan's president and has rebuffed his repeated offers of talks, saying he is a "separatist" who must accept that Taiwan is part of China.

Wang was speaking just a week after meeting a delegation from Taiwan's largest opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), who were in Beijing for a meeting of party think-tanks.

Speaking to reporters earlier on Tuesday in Taipei, KMT Vice Chairman Hsiao Hsu-tsen, who led the delegation to Beijing, said there had been no discussion of political issues when they met Wang, as the trip there was to discuss topics such as tourism and AI.

(Reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Additional reporting and writing by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Sonali Paul, Michael Perry and Alex Richardson)
The entrance doors to Spokane City Hall are seen. Photo: Tim Clouser / The Center Square

(The Center Square)  The Spokane City Council may allocate $100,000 to a community justice fund that would provide taxpayer-subsidized emergency aid to undocumented immigrants through December.

Deputy City Administrator Maggie Yates ran the officials through the proposal at the request of Mayor Lisa Browns office during a weekly committee meeting on Monday. It follows a letter that the Spokane Immigrant Rights Coalition sent to Brown in September requesting funding to offset recent grant cuts.

The coalition is a group of advocates, nonprofits and religious organizations that created SIRC in 2018 and has distributed $30,000 in legal aid to immigrants annually since 2021. Funding applications posted on SIRCs website state that the money serves immigrants regardless of immigration status.

This is money that is going to make a quantifiable difference in people's lives, Councilmember Paul Dillon said Monday, in the hope that we can build something that is more sustainable for the future.

The proposal comes amid tensions across Spokane and Washington state as President Donald Trump carries out his immigration agenda. Border crossings are now at a historic low after millions of people entered the United States illegally under the Biden administration, following Trumps first term in office.

According to the Sept. 17 letter, SIRC has allowed "undocumented" immigrants to use its $30,000 in annual grant funding for legal fees, transportation to court, housing assistance, healthcare, and food.

The coalition distributed around $43,000 from January 2024 to July 2025 to more than 72 individuals.

SIRC has scaled back the amount of aid it distributes since losing grant funding in June 2025, framing this proposal as a way to offset those cuts. If approved, the $100,000 would go to a fiscal sponsor, since SIRC isnt set up to manage government funding, who can retain 8% as an administrative fee.

I would seriously question whether or not we should be contracting with an organization that does not have a [501(c)(3)], Councilmember Michael Cathcart said, meaning that they can use dollars for political purposes, and whether or not we are either directly or supplanting those sorts of efforts.

Mondays agenda lists Muslims for Community Action & Support as the fiscal sponsor. SIRC also directs immigrants to email MCAS after submitting the funding application. The coalition has received funding from the city, state, and other organizations for years, but it's unclear where the $30,000 comes from.

SIRC funding sources

SIRC has received funding through a variety of sources over the years. The Center Square reached out to MSAC and to the only general contact listed on SIRCs website to learn more about the funding and what led to the cuts last June, but didnt receive an immediate response before publishing on Monday.

SIRC lists Jeff DeBray, eastern Washington director for Fuse Washington, as its general contact online.

DeBrays email sent an auto-reply stating that he would be out of the office from Monday until Feb. 20.

Fuse is a progressive advocacy group that operates a donation page for SIRC and has endorsed Brown and other Spokane progressives on the campaign trail. Another nonprofit, Better Health Together, also allocated $30,000 to SIRC in 2021 through an Anti-Racism grant program, and then again in 2023.

If you visit their website right now and you click either the volunteer or the donate buttons, it does take you to a form powered by Fuse, Cathcart said. [which] is involved in many political campaigns.

The 2023 award listed SIRC and Fuse Innovation Fund as joint recipients. Notably, BHT is an offshoot of Empire Health Foundation, another nonprofit group now known as Waters Meet Foundation, which has also received funding from the city and operates a separate advocacy fund largely aligned with Fuse.

The city previously allocated SIRC $45,000 in pandemic relief aid, and Providence listed SIRC among entities that received funding from its own coffers in 2025. While its unclear where SIRCs $30,000 in annual legal aid comes from, the coalition verifiably receives funding from several different sources.

SIRC cofounder urges council to reject proposal

Jennyfer Mesa, executive director of Latinos En Spokane, testified Monday on her own behalf, urging the council not to allocate funds to SIRC because the city didnt let anyone else compete for the funding.

Another member of Latinos En Spokane voiced concerns for the same reason. Mesa cofounded SIRC but later stepped away, and had just returned Monday from Texas. Mesa said she was helping a client who was deeply harmed by a SIRC employee who wasnt authorized to practice in legal immigration.

Mesa said that since SIRC isnt set to receive funding directly, spending could go largely unchecked.

Because its not an established organization, it's not a 501(c)(3), there [are] inherent limitations in governance, fiscal accountability and oversight, Mesa warned the council on Monday. Simply passing out money right now is not always the greatest solution, especially when we have so many urgencies.

Jerrall Haynes, director of the citys Office of Civil Rights, Equity & Inclusion, told the council that this $100,000 proposal came out of a series of roundtable discussions with immigrant leaders last year. He and Sebastian Ruiz, a research assistant for Washington State University representing SIRC, briefed the council with Yates on Monday after Mesa raised concerns, and others asked the dais for support.

When addressing the concerns about pass-through funding, Ruiz argued that 92% of the money will go directly to immigrant households, as MSAC can retain the 8% overhead fee. Yates said the city did an informal competitive bidding process and that $100,000 comes from the citys police budget.

I don't know if the contract line item is specifically identified, but it's in their community outreach investments [budget], Yates said. Their contract explicitly identifies what the funds can be used for.

According to the proposal, SIRC is prohibited from using the money to subsidize legal representation or lobbying activities; however, it doesnt specify how SIRC can spend it other than on emergency aid.

Yates said the $100,000 could be spent on housing assistance, groceries, transportation and etc.

If approved, SIRC would be required to provide the city with quarterly data on applicants' reported nationalities, ZIP codes, household sizes, and the intended use of funding. Four individuals testified in support of the SIRCs community justice fund on Monday, including a self-identified SIRC member.

Not only do I encourage you to fund this, but to fund it quickly. If it's possible to suspend the rules to get this on the docket for y'all to vote on, Amy McCollum said Monday, I think you should do it.
The North Carolina Legislative Building, home to the General Assembly, stands on Jones Street in Raleigh, N.C. Photo: Alan Wooten / The Center Square

(The Center Square)  Democratic Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden, according to Republicans he answered during a legislative oversight hearing Monday, accepted little to no accountability for tragedies on his watch.

Sworn in Dec. 4, 2018, in the county home to the nations 14th largest city, McFadden was among six invited to testify before the Committee on Oversight and Reform in the North Carolina House of Representatives. Lawmakers queried him on his role in public safety, inclusive of the county, Charlotte and the Charlotte Area Transit System; strategic plans; spending; and initiatives such as diversity, equity and inclusion.

Charlottes crime issues have drawn sharp criticism, from polls indicating people are afraid to be there to perception after multiple incidents and lack of security on CATS. The stabbing death of Iryna Zarutska on Aug. 22 followed by the City Councils $3.4 million damage control attempt through a firm, and the prisoner release link of U.S. Senate candidate Roy Cooper  former two-term governor, four-term state attorney general  to the suspect seen on a viral video has more than blackened the eye of the city.

Come and I will show you a progressive Sheriffs Office, McFadden said. Come and I can guarantee you this: You will see a difference, and you can compare me to any other sheriffs office in North Carolina. No sheriffs office has my resume.

There are pluses he wishes to be known with that statement, and some minuses that are unflattering. Context is that the justice system in and around the Queen City, plus the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, have both good and bad numbers to offer  even if the panel wasnt buying explanations.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police, overseen by Chief Estella Patterson, has the primary reports of crime. In 2025, overall crime was down statistically 9% and violent crime dropped 21%. Homicides (13%) and robberies (24%) were also down. The countys violent crime was down 3%.

Deaths at McFadden's jail in August and December of last year raised to 20 the number of inmates to die there since December 2018 when McFadden took office. For context, its double the number of predecessors Irwin Carmichael and Chipp Bailey. People die, he said.

In addition to the death of Zarutska that led to lawmakers ending cashless bail and the unwritten moratorium on the death penalty, the more than four hours of testimony covered the role of the Sheriffs Office when it comes to cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; McFaddens inability to name the three branches of government, igniting a social media frenzy bent with humor amid disgust; and plenty of blame game.

We often get to see real leaders step in and say the buck stops here, said Rep. Allen Chesser, R-Nash. I have never heard anyone with the rank that is on your shoulder, sir, say that nothing is their fault, that no blame belongs on them.

Today Ive heard you blame staff. Ive heard you blame lobbyists. Ive heard you blame the Legislature. I have not heard you take responsibility for a single question that we have asked you today.

Rep. Brenden Jones, R-Columbus, a cochairman, asked in advance for emails related to diversity policy and said he has reason to believe all were not sent.

House Speaker Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, isnt on the panel. Though on social media he wrote, Ill be blunt. I sponsored House Bill 318 because Sheriff McFadden repeatedly refused to cooperate with ICE and turned Charlotte into a sanctuary for illegal aliens.

That sanctuary was rocked in November when ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol visited with enhanced enforcement of immigration law in Operation Charlotte's Web. McFadden, Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles and her City Council openly showed their detest and rejection of the idea.

The Criminal Illegal Alien Enforcement Act, as HB318 is known, became law through a July 29 override of first-term Democratic Gov. Josh Stein  the former two-term attorney general working cohesively with Cooper during his gubernatorial years.

McFadden said hes different than most other sheriffs, including being the first Black to hold the office in the county.

That itself comes with a burden, he said. We were called every name in the book. Lets be honest with that. I am the elephant in the room, but Im the proud elephant in the room.

McFadden was one of six invited to testify. Lyles and Patterson were two others. Charlotte City Manager Marcus Jones; Brent Cagle, the interim CEO of the Charlotte Area Transit System; and Spencer Merriweather, the district attorney for the District 26, were also on the agenda.

Merriweather said there are few lawyers willing to take the state pay to defend indigent people. And those that will also work neighboring counties.

Jones thinks McFadden should resign. And he made a point on why the hearing took place.

I want that city to be the shining gem of North Carolina that I know it can be, Jones said. Its a beautiful city, leading edge on a lot of things. We dont want you making national news for the wrong reasons.
President Donald Trump has claimed for years that he knew nothing about Jeffrey Epsteins sex crimes, but a former Palm Beach police chief claimed Trump told him 20 years ago that everyone knew about Epsteins activities.

The revelation came from a record of an October 2019 FBI interview with former Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter, which was included in the most recent release of so-called Epstein files held by the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Reiter told the FBI that Trump called him in July 2006, when Epstein was first arrested on a state charge for soliciting prostitution, to tell him that Epsteins crimes of abusing young girls were well known among socialites in Florida and New York.

Read More: Inside Trump and Epsteins Long, Complicated Relationship

Thank goodness youre stopping him, everyone has known hes been doing this, Reiter said Trump told him.

Although Reiter stepped down as chief of police in 2009, he was in charge of the precinct as investigations into Epsteins sex crimes occurred at the local level in the 2000s. He recounted the conversation in an interview with the FBI in 2019.

The Miami Herald was the first to report the FBI 302 document, which summarizes the interview.

Reiter also revealed that Trump told him in 2006 that Ghislaine Maxwell, who has since been convicted for her role as an accomplice to Epsteins crimes, was Epsteins operative and was evil.

Trump told him people in New York knew Epstein was disgusting. Trump said Maxwell was Epsteins operative, she is evil and to focus on her, the report of Reiters statement continues.

The summary also claims that during the 2006 call, Trump told [Reiter] that he was around Epstein once when teenagers were present and Trump got the hell out of there, and that he threw Epstein out of his club.

Reiters name was redacted from the FBI file, but the document identifies the interview subject as the person who had been Palm Beachs police chief at the time of the 2006 investigation into Epsteinwho was Reiter.

No idea. I had no idea

In the years after that call, Trump repeatedly said he had no knowledge of Epsteins sex crimes. He has also claimed that he kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago after he found out the financier was poaching spa club employees.

In July 2019, when asked by reporters in the Oval Office if he had any suspicions about Epstein molesting  underaged women, Trump responded: No, I had no idea. I had no idea. I havent spoken to him in many, many years.

Trump has also been less forthcoming about his feelings toward Maxwell in the years since. When asked in October 2020 how he felt about her when she was facing federal charges of helping Epstein recruit, groom and sexually abuse young girls, Trump said, I just wish her well, frankly.

Despite trying to distance himself from the scandal as it blew up again in 2025, Trump has repeatedly refused to rule out pardoning Maxwell, telling reporters in Oct. of last year that hed have to take a look at it.

In July last year, Trumps Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche conducted an on-record interview with Maxwell for two days about the Epstein case while she was in prison. Soon after, Maxwell was moved to a minimum security facility usually reserved for people who have been convicted of financial crimes. The move sparked criticism among Democrats who argued in an August letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi that moving Maxwell raised substantial concerns that the Administration may now be attempting to tamper with a crucial witness.

Tens of thousands of Epsteins emails and files relating to the various law enforcement investigations into the disgraced financier were released by the DOJ throughout 2025 and early 2026. The files have caused reverberations in the U.S. and around the world.

In response to emails released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee in November, the White House said, The fact remains that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club decades ago for being a creep to his female employees. In one of the leaked emails, Epstein claimed that Trump knew about the girls.

When contacted for comment, the White House referred TIME to the DOJ. A DOJ official told TIME that they were not aware of any corroborating evidence that the President contacted law enforcement 20 years ago.

The unearthed report comes as Maxwell pleaded the Fifth in a deposition before the House Oversight Committee on Monday, but soon after claimed she would clear Trumps name if granted clemency from the President.

Contact us at letters@time.com.
The USS Abraham Lincoln sits in the water with flags displayed above the deck. Photo: Sarah Roderick-Fitch / The Center Square

(The Center Square)  President Donald Trump is weighing deploying a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East as the U.S. continues talks with Iran over its nuclear program.

Trump commented during an interview with Axios Tuesday, saying he would consider the move if the talks with the Islamic Republic fail.

The president is set to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Wednesday at the White House, marking their seventh meeting since Trump took office over a year ago.

Talks between the U.S. and Iran have been ongoing in Oman since late last week, with tensions between the two nations growing.

Israel is reportedly concerned with not only Iran rebuilding its nuclear program, but also ballistic missiles and support for proxy groups, such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

While Trump wont commit to whether the U.S. will strike Iran for the second time in less than a year, he continues to hurl threats at the Iranian regime, citing a large armada of American naval ships in the region, which has been growing.

Last week, the State Department warned Americans in the Islamic Republic to leave the country, signaling military actions are on the table if talks with Iran break down.

Last week, Trump said that Irans leadership should be very worried amid rumors that the talks had hit a snag, which was later rebuffed.

Im hearing that Iran wants to restart the new program. If thats the case, well send the forces to do the job again. They tried to go back to the site, but they couldnt access it. We discovered that they wanted to open a nuclear site in another part of the country. I said, You do that  well do very bad things to you, Trump told NBC News.

The president insists Operation Midnight Hammer, when the U.S. struck Irans nuclear sites in June, was a necessary step in pursuing peace in the Middle East.

If we didnt take out that nuclear, we wouldnt have peace in the Middle East, because the Arab countries couldve never done that. They were very afraid of Iran. Theyre not afraid of Iran anymore, Trump added.

During a press conference at the State Department last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared less optimistic that the U.S. and Iran could reach a deal.

If the Iranians want to meet, were readyIm not sure you can reach a deal with these guys, but were going to try to find outThis is a president that always prefers a peaceful outcome to any conflict or any challenge, said Rubio.

The talks come as a large armada of U.S. Naval ships has been and is moving closer to the Islamic Republic. Last week, the U.S. confirmed it had shot down two Iranian drones flying near the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier sailing in the region.

It is not clear which carrier and strike group would be deployed to join the Lincoln in the Fifth Fleet. Currently, the USS Gerald Ford is deployed to the Caribbean to support counter-narco operations in the region.

Norfolk-homeported USS George H.W. Bush could be among contenders as the U.S. Naval Institute reported earlier in the week that the ship was spotted underway in the Western Atlantic.

The president continues to cite the increasingly significant naval presence in the region, hoping to pressure the Islamic Republic to make a deal.

It is moving quickly, with great power, enthusiasm, and purpose. It is a larger fleet, headed by the great Aircraft Carrier Abraham Lincoln, than that sent to Venezuela. Like Venezuela, it is ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary, Trump previously posted on Truth Social.

The president is calling on Iran to come to the table and negotiate a fair and equitable deal, underscoring that the Islamic Republic cease trying to rebuild its nuclear program.
President Donald Trump vowed to impose "very severe consequences" on Russia in 2025 if it didn't commit to a deal to end its war on Ukraine.

As the war nears its four-year anniversary in late February, national security experts tell Fox News Digital that Russia is facing tangible consequences for the war. Those are through its network of proxy countries that have directly endured the might of the U.S. military and subsequently left Russia with fewer streams of revenue and resources, they say.

"The president's moves as it pertains to Russia are really strategic," Morgan Murphy, who previously served as the senior public diplomacy advisor to the presidents special envoy to Ukraine in 2025, told Fox News Digital. "So if you look at what he's done with Iran and with Venezuela, these are two Russian proxies, right? Iran is a close ally of Russia."

"They sell a lot of drones to Russia," Murphy, who is running as a GOP Senate candidate to represent Alabama, continued. "Venezuela was again a proxy of Russia here in our hemisphere, and Trump is in the process of taking Iran off the table. He's certainly taken Venezuela off the chessboard, and that that has to change Putin's calculus, because he sees in President Trump a president who follows what he says he's going to do."

Zelenskyy Announces Next Round Of Talks With Us, Russia As Ukraine Aims For 'Real And Dignified End To The War

President Donald Trump, right, greets Russian President Vladimir Putin as he arrives at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson Aug. 15, 2025, in Anchorage, Alaska. (Getty Images)

Russia's war on Ukraine has persisted since Feb. 24, 2022, about a year after Trump's first administration ended and during President Joe Biden's presidency. Trump campaigned on ending the war upon his second inauguration in 2025, but ending the war has proven more difficult than anticipated as the U.S. continues negotiations.

Read On The Fox News App

A White House official who spoke to Fox Digital said Trump is driven by humanitarian concerns and wants the conflict ended to stop the needless loss of life. The official added that in recent months his team has made major headway toward a settlement, pointing to Trumps own remarks that "very good things" are developing between Ukraine and Russia.

According to the official, recent negotiations in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, were substantive and constructive, with U.S., Ukrainian and Russian delegations agreeing to a 314-person prisoner exchange  the first in five months. While more work is ahead, the official argued that breakthroughs like this show sustained diplomacy is producing real, measurable progress toward ending the war.

Trump launched a series of strikes on Iran in June 2025 that hobbled the country's covert nuclear program. Massive protests swept Iran in December 2025 as citizens spoke out against the government and its cratering economy.

Iran violently cracked down on the nationwide protests, with thousands of citizens reportedly killed and the Trump administration warning Iran that it would face U.S. military action if the executions and killings continued.

The U.S. and Iran held discussions in Oman Friday as Tehran, Iran, continues to obscure its nuclear ambitions, with military intervention on the table as the U.S. seeks to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons capabilities.

Iran and Russia have grown into a tighter wartime partnership in recent years, with U.S. and allied officials citing Irans supply of armed drones and other defense cooperation that has helped power Russias attacks in Ukraine  drawing the two heavily sanctioned regimes closer economically and militarily.

Ret. Air Force Gen. Bruce Carlson pointed to the Trump administration's actions on Iran and Venezuela as evidence of how Trump is strategically pressuring Russia via its proxies to end the war in Ukraine.

"In any campaign, you dont just target command centers  you cut supply lines and logistics," Carlson said. "Pressuring Russian proxies does exactly that. Venezuela, Iran, and the shadow fleet are key arteries feeding Russias war in Ukraine. Additionally, by pressing Europe to increase Nato spending and move off Russian oil and gas, we are directly altering Moscows decision-making."

Witkoff Says Talks With Russian Envoy Were 'Productive And Constructive' Amid Trump Admin's Peace Push

Carlson argued that, strategically, the trend lines are moving against Moscow as the U.S. ramps up pressure on Russias partners  leaving Putin with fewer backers, tighter resources and less flexibility, and undermining any assumption that dragging out the war comes without a cost.

Iran and Russia have grown into a tighter wartime partnership in recent years.

The retired Air Force general added that Putin and his proxies operate as a single ecosystem: Russias campaign relies on outside suppliers and sanctions-busting networks, so hitting any link in that chain can weaken Russias revenue and its ability to sustain attacks on Ukrainian civilians.

"But ensuring a lasting and fair peace is not solely about pressuring Russia. As the cold winter continues in Ukraine, there are increasing concerns on Ukraines energy needs and air defense systems. U.S. and European support remain vital," he added.

Ukraine Races To Bolster Air Defenses As Putins Strike Pause Nears End

Map of U.S. strikes on Iran.

As tensions with Iran heighten, the Trump administration successfully captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro on sweeping narco-trafficking charges in January.

Venezuela is another Russian ally, publicly backing Moscow and maintaining high-level diplomatic ties, while giving Russia a Western Hemisphere foothold through military-technical cooperation and deep dependence on Russian arms  a relationship that has triggered U.S. sanctions actions tied to Venezuelas oil sector and Russian-linked firms.

"The removal of Maduro stripped Moscow of a key client in our hemisphere, and the increased pressure on Iran threatens the weapons and drone supply chain that Russia uses against Ukrainian civilians," Carrie Filipetti, executive director of foreign policy group the Vandenberg Coalition, told Fox News Digital. "This is how we have to change Putins long-term calculus."

Trump Says Putin Agreed To Halt Kyiv Strikes For One Week Amid Brutal Cold

Nicolas Maduro is seen in handcuffs after landing at a Manhattan helipad, Jan. 5, 2026, in New York City.

"For the first time, the United States has used the power of American diplomacy to bring Ukraine and Russia into trilateral diplomatic talks," Filipetti added. "Combined with the threat of additional sanctions reliance and increased pressure on the countries that buy Russian energy, these steps are critical to shaking Russias assumption that time is on its side."

Ret. Air Force Lt. Gen. Richard Newton told Fox News Digital that when Trump warned Russia of severe consequences in 2025 if Moscow did not end the war, the threat was followed by tangible consequences that reverberated through the Kremlin.

"Deterrence and leverage requires our adversaries (to) believe we will act," Newton said. "President Trump is doing just that by disrupting the systems that fund and sustain Putins war. The capture of Maduro and the just announced trade deal with India's Prime Minister Modi  that forces India off of Russian oil  is a major blow to Russias war machine."

The White House said in February that it struck with India to increase U.S. energy imports and stop buying Russian oil. The U.S. tops the world in daily oil production, with Saudi Arabia and Russia following behind.

Filipetti argued that peace in Ukraine is only obtained by forcing Russia to face "real consequences."

"Vladimir Putin is responsible for a war of aggression marked by atrocities against Ukrainian civilians, and any lasting peace must impose real consequences on Russia itself. And weakening Russias proxies and isolating Putin is one of the most effective ways to reduce his ability to wage war," Filipetti said.

"When it comes to China, North Korea, and Iran  without question these authoritarians are facing a very different calculus than just a few months ago," she said.

Russia, Ukraine To Discuss Territory As Trump Says Both Sides 'Want To Make A Deal'

While Newton pointed to a shadow-fleet sanctions package and another sanctions package that are moving through Congress, along with higher NATO spending and a tougher allied military posture, as key pressure points he says could help drive a peace deal.

Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham is promoting a sweeping Russia sanctions bill that would tighten the screws on Moscow by punishing countries and companies that keep buying Russian energy with secondary sanctions and tariffs, while a separate bipartisan "shadow fleet" package would target the tankers, insurers and shell networks Russia uses to move oil and evade sanctions.

Murphy argued that Trump already has sketched what he sees as a realistic off-ramp for Moscow  one he says even some Democrats would recognize as the best deal Putin is likely to get  including restoring Russias seat at the top diplomatic table, reopening some Western commercial access, and acknowledging Russias current occupation of Ukrainian territory without formally recognizing sovereignty.

Zelenskyy Holding Up Russia-ukraine Peace Process, Trump Says

Murphy likened that offer to a "golden bridge" for Putin to exit the war, but said the Kremlin has so far declined it, making the next move ultimately Russias choice  and raising the question of how many more casualties Moscow is willing to absorb with no clear endpoint in sight.

Members of the National Police Special Purpose Battalion of Zaporizhzhia region fire a Bohdana self-propelled howitzer toward Russian troops in Donetsk region, Ukraine Jan. 23, 2026.

The war underscores a Russian worldview U.S. negotiators often misread through a Western lens, Murphy said, explaining Russia is shaped by catastrophic losses in World War I and World War II and a deep-seated suspicion that invasion is a recurring threat. He said that unpredictability is why the U.S. military has long used the "Crazy Ivan" moniker for Russian behavior.

Trump is meanwhile putting himself in the Russians shoes, Murphy argued, and meeting the moment with a clearer-eyed read of Moscows mindset and history.

"It is a decision that the Russians are going to have to make. How many more lives do they want to feed into this meat grinder? How many more deaths are they willing to endure?" Murphy said.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters in February that the U.S. set a June deadline for Moscow and Kyiv to strike an agreement to end the war, teeing up heightened tensions ahead of the U.S. midterms in November.





Original article source: As Ukraine war drags on, Trump hits Putin by squeezing Russias proxies
February 8, 2026: At the end of 2025 European nations agreed to loan Ukraine $105 billion to help cover the Ukrainian non-military budget over the next two years. The Ukrainian government budget deficit for 2026 is $42 billion. The deficits are caused by the military costs, which could be as high as $120 billion in 2026. Ukraine has to balance its budget because the Ukrainian economy remains robust and growing despite the continued fighting in eastern Ukraine and Russian missile attacks on economic and military targets in the rest of Ukraine.

Ukraine builds nearly 80 percent of the weapons it needs. This includes long-range drones and missiles. What Ukraine does not produce is air defense systems and combat aircraft. Both of these are used to destroy incoming Russian missiles and large drones used to bombard cities and Ukrainian industrial facilities.

The current financial problems began in March 2025 when Ukrainian leader Volodymir Zelensky met with the American president. The president and vice president argued with Zelensky over peace negotiations. Zelensky wants to continue fighting until all Russian occupied territory is back under Ukrainian control. This means Crimea and eastern Ukrainian provinces that Russia still holds. The Americans wanted Ukraine to make peace even if that left some Ukrainian territory occupied by Russian troops. This dispute led the U.S. president to halt nearly all military and economic aid to Ukraine until the Ukrainians agreed to make peace without getting all their territory back.

The European NATO countries were aghast at the U.S. actions and told Ukraine that the European Union/EU would help out with most of the economic aid and some of the military. The EU had enough money for economic aid but did not manufacture all the types of weapons the United States provided. American defense firms were willing to sell the EU weapons that the Ukrainians needed and provided the EU with nearly all the American weapons that had previously been provided by the U.S. government. This includes air defense systems, but not enough to match the capabilities of American systems.

The Europeans recognize that the Russian attack on Ukraine is an attack on a neighbor of European NATO nations. These countries are not only supplying Ukraine with weapons but are also upgrading their own defense forces. EU nations believe that Russia will remain a threat, whether Russia conquers Ukraine or not. While the Americans are far away from all this, they cannot ignore the Russian threat to Europe, which is a major trading partner with the United States. The Americans were first introduced to this dependence during the 1914-18 World War I and entered the war in 1917 to end the conflict quickly and make sure the Germans did not win. World War II was a similar situation, although it was the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that led Germany, a Japanese ally, to declare war on the United States. The current American withdrawal of aid to Ukraine mystifies the Europeans, who forget that most current Americans are descendants of Europeans who migrated to the U.S. to get away from all the wars in Europe.
Vice President JD Vance takes part in a wreath-laying ceremony during a visit to the Tsitsernakaberd Armenian Genocide Memorial, in Yerevan, Armenia, on February 10, 2026. - Levin Lamarque/Pool/AFP/Getty Images

Vice President JD Vances X account posted and then deleted a recognition of the Armenian genocide after he paid his respects at a memorial in the country on Tuesday.

The original post from the vice presidents account  which said Vance and second lady Usha Vance attended a wreath-laying ceremony to honor the victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide  broke from Trump administration policy, which does not use the word genocide to refer to the systematic killing and deportation of Armenians in what is now Turkey.

Except for former President Joe Biden, US presidents have avoided that term for fear of damaging ties with Turkey, a key regional ally, which is currently playing a mediating role between the Trump administration and Iran.

An official with the vice president sought to blame the post on staff who are not part of the delegation traveling with Vance.

The Armenian National Committee of America called the deletion a denialist action consistent with President Trumps shameful retreat from honest American remembrance of a crime recognized by all 50 states, the US Congress, the White House, and more than a dozen of our NATO allies.

Vance  the first sitting US vice president or president to visit the country  told reporters the Armenians asked him to visit the site, calling the massacre a very terrible thing that happened a little over 100 years ago.

A Vance spokesperson told CNN: This is an account managed by staff that primarily exists to share photos and videos of the Vice Presidents activities. For the Vice Presidents views on the substance of the question, I refer you to the comments he made earlier on the tarmac in response to the pools question.

Vance said he visited the site out of a sign of respect, both for the victims, but also for the Armenian government.

Obviously, Im the first vice president to ever visit Armenia. They asked us to visit the site. Obviously, its a very terrible thing that happened a little over 100 years ago, and something that was just very, very important to them culturally, said Vance, who added he also plans to visit important sites in Azerbaijan.

Vice President JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance pay tribute at the eternal flame during a visit to the Tsitsernakaberd Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan, Armenia, on February 10, 2026. - Kevin Lamarque/Pool/Getty Images

The White Houses rapid response X account posted  but later deleted Vances comments on visiting the memorial.

Asked about the deleted post on Vances account, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters theres been no change to administration policy.

As for the Armenian tweet that youre referring to, I would just refer you back to the White Houses message that was issued on Armenian Remembrance Day, and there has been no change to policy at this time, she said at Tuesdays press briefing.

The official VP account later reposted a post from Vance press secretary Taylor Van Kirk that showed the second couple at the wreath-laying and included a photo of Vances handwritten note in a guest book.

In solemn remembrance of the lives lost, we honor the resilience and enduring spirit of the Armenian people, the vice president wrote.

The number of Armenians killed has been a major point of contention. Estimates range from 300,000 to 2 million deaths between 1914 and 1923, with not all of the victims in the Ottoman Empire. But most estimates  including one of 800,000 between 1915 and 1918, made by Ottoman authorities themselves  fall between 600,000 and 1.5 million.

Whether due to killings or forced deportation, the number of Armenians living in Turkey fell from 2 million in 1914 to under 400,000 by 1922.

In 2021, Biden became the first US president to officially recognize the massacre as a genocide, with a statement marking its anniversary that said, Each year on this day, we remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring. The statement was welcomed by Armenia but condemned by Turkey, which maintains the killings were part of war time and that there were losses on both sides.

Last year, the Trump administration issued a statement on April 24 commemorating Meds Yeghern, an Armenian term, without translating it into English as genocide.

Beginning in 1915, one and a half million Armenians were exiled and marched to their deaths in the final years of the Ottoman Empire. On this Day of Remembrance, we again join the Great Armenian Community in America, and around the World, in mourning the many lives that were lost, the statement said.

During the first Trump administration, the White House asked Republican senators to block the unanimous consent request on a resolution recognizing the mass killings of Armenians from 1915 to 1923 as genocide, on the grounds that it could undercut negotiations with Turkey. The resolution passed the House and Senate in 2019.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

CNNs Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.

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President Trump Meets With Israeli PM Netanyahu At His Palm Beach Estate  (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Venezuela is sending its first oil shipment to Israel in years, just one month after the capture of former President Nicolas Maduro by U.S. forces, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

The crude cargo is bound for Bazan Group Ltd., Israels largest oil refiner, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. It would mark the first Venezuelan oil shipment to Israel since mid-2020, when the country delivered roughly 470,000 barrels, according to the outlet.

In the wake of Maduros capture, President Donald Trump said the U.S. would effectively run Venezuela until a judicious political transition could take place and pledged to exert tighter control over the countrys oil sector.

One of the things the United States gets out of this will be even lower energy prices, Trump told oil executives at the White House in January. (RELATED: CIA Quietly Building Permanent US Footprint In Venezuela)

President Donald Trump, alongside Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, speaks to the press January 3, 2026, after military action in Venezuela. Mar-a-Lago residence, Palm Beach, Florida. (Photo by Jim Watson / AFP via Getty Images)

Prior to the dictators arrest, Moscow and Beijing had long sought influence over Venezuelas oil industry, with the bulk of the countrys crude exports flowing to China in recent years.

Trump announced in January that Venezuelas interim government plans to ship between 30 million and 50 million barrels of oil to the U.S., with proceeds earmarked for American farm products, medicines, medical equipment, and upgrades to Venezuelas energy infrastructure.

In the aftermath of the regime change, the Trump administration demanded that interim President Delcy Rodriguez  whom the administration backed over opposition leader Maria Corina Machado  cut economic ties with China, Russia, Iran and Cuba.

The U.S. military is also enforcing a blockade on sanctioned tankers carrying Venezuelan oil, seizing multiple vessels accused of attempting to evade the restrictions.

Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright plans to travel to Venezuela to discuss the future of its state-run oil company PDVSA, according to Politico.

Neither the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Bazan Group responded to a Daily Caller News Foundation request for comment.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporters byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
A statue of President Abraham Lincoln overlooks Bascom Hill on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Photo: Phil Roeder / Flickr / CC BY 2.0 / Cropped from Original

(The Center Square)  A group of Wisconsin lawmakers are looking to change race-based higher education programs to programs that apply to disadvantaged students.

The bill requires that race, ethnicity, origin, gender, sexual orientation or religion are not used to determine eligibility and instead the term disadvantaged is used, meaning those who experience unfavorable economic, familial, geographic, physical or other personal hardship.

Several members of the Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities said they would approve if there was an amendment on the Assembly floor to further limit the definition of disadvantaged.

The committee approved Assembly Bill 669 with a 6-5 vote on Tuesday.

The changes would apply to the states minority teacher loan program, minority undergraduate aids and the minority enrollment at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Marquette University School of Dentistry administered by the Higher Education Aids Board.

In the University of Wisconsin system, it would apply to minority and disadvantaged student programs and Lawton grants. At the states technical college, the change would apply to the minority student participation and retention plan and grants and to incentive grants.

None of the entities impacted said that the changes would cost them more money to implement. Wisconsins technical colleges, for instance, said that it would change the reporting requirements for programs but that would be a one-time change.

These modifications to data collection and reporting are expected to be one-time administrative costs that can be absorbed within the agency budget, the group said in a fiscal estimate. Similarly, technical college districts will incur administrative costs associated with modifying their reporting on the plan, but these costs are expected to be minimal given most of the data collection takes place at the system level.

The bill would have to pass both the Assembly and Senate and then be signed into law by Gov. Tony Evers in order to be implemented.
Rear view of young woman in white dress sitting on rock near an idyllic seaside town.

For many Americans, the idea of relocating abroad is both the stuff of just-out-of-college adventuring and early retirement fantasies. But how realistic is relocating abroad, and what are the hidden roadblocks?

Nick Woolsey recently sat down with Business Insider to talk about his new company that helps Americans relocate to Japan. Woolsey, himself an American, lived in Japan for seven years after college, fell in love, got married and had a family (1).

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After returning to the U.S. to raise young children closer to family and spending several years working in tech, Woolsey lost his job during the post-COVID downturn and decided to turn his experience into a business helping others relocate to Japan.

Heres what you actually need to consider if you want to relocate overseas: how visas work, how taxes follow you, and the financial and non-financial variables that can determine whether moving abroad is realistic or risky, based on Woolseys advice.

The era of easy remote living abroad is fading

It has become much harder for working Americans to earn a U.S. salary while living full-time in a lower-cost country.

Recent JOLTS data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests that the post-pandemic "Great Resignation" era of high worker bargaining power has shifted. With fewer job openings and a decrease in the "quits" rate, employees feel less confident about their ability to demand concessions like fully remote work in a different time zone, and according to Fortune magazine, for the first time since the pandemic, the majority of Fortune 100 companies are mandated to be in the office (2, 3).

Foreign countries have also gotten wise to American workers who want to live large far from home. Foreign taxes, compliance fees and the loss of professional and social networks can also be calculated as financial losses. Woolsey and his partner moved back to the U.S. from Japan exactly because they could get more free childcare from their family.

The most expensive mistake a relocator can make is an unstable plan that fails to account for the fact that cost of living is not the same thing as quality of life. A move that looks great on a spreadsheet can become a financial nightmare if that move results in social isolation or professional stagnation.

Read More: 92% of surveyed retirees say higher costs are eating into their savings. What can you do? 4 ways to protect your money in 2026

Most countries design relocation programs for wealthy immigrants

Non-citizens in nearly all countries are not allowed to overstay their tourist visa unless they either get a special long-term stay visa or are refugees. U.S. citizens can apply for asylum in other countries (like Canada), but they have to prove significant risks to their life, freedom or safety to get asylum status (4).

Some countries offer so-called golden visas, which allow people to live there if they make large investments. These visas usually do not grant citizenship and do not change U.S. tax obligations. Because the U.S. taxes citizens based on citizenship rather than residence, Americans living abroad under a golden visa must still file U.S. tax returns (and often pay U.S. taxes) even while paying local taxes abroad.

Malta, which does offer a path to citizenship (and an EU passport), charges at least $812,590 at todays exchange rate for the chance to earn that privilege (5). (Malta allows for dual U.S. citizenship, if you change your mind, however.)

Most other countries in Latin America or Southeast Asia also do not offer a path to citizenship, even if they do offer long-term stay visas. In Thailand, for example, people of working age can only get a Destination Thailand Visa (DTV) that allows for consecutive 180 day stays up to five years. That visa does not allow you to work for a Thai company, and you do have to register in Thailand to pay taxes (6). You also have to show 500,000 Thai baht (about $16,000) in your bank account to get it.

The takeaway: long-term legal residency is often temporary, restrictive or expensive, and permanent status is far harder to obtain than many people expect.

Before your move, take stock of your motivations

Woolsey says many people underestimate how different daily life feels once the excitement of a big move wears off.

Many Americans are surprised to find that their tax obligations follow them across borders. The Internal Revenue Service maintains a citizenship-based taxation system, meaning that even if you live in Osaka, you must still file in the United States. While tools like the foreign earned income exclusion and the foreign tax credit can mitigate double taxation, they require meticulous record-keeping and professional guidance.

Non-financial variables often carry the most weight, however. Language barriers and cultural differences are, in a sense, financial variables because they influence how quickly you can find a new job or recover from a setback. Relocation is riskiest when you are simultaneously switching industries, rebuilding your friend circle and learning a new legal system.

To decide if moving abroad is a viable solution, you have to move past the romance of living like a digital nomad and instead hold yourself to a "two-country budget test." This means mapping out every line item from childcare to emergency health coverage and stress-testing it against potential job loss or a weakening dollar.

The goal should be to identify a path that offers long-term stability and to confirm that income is truly portable. De-risking the move with a trial run and maintaining a U.S. re-entry fund ensures that if the experiment fails, it doesn't result in financial ruin.

Moving abroad can be a fun and even profitable move for young people without a lot of ties to their home country. Retirees with a lot of saved cash and fewer family and work obligations may also find the expat life enticing. But without portable income, visa security and a realistic exit plan, moving abroad can turn a search for freedom into a costly detour thats hard to undo.

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Business Insider (1); Bureau of Labor Statistics (2); Fortune (3); Relocate (4); Immigrant Invest (5); Life With Vetta (6)

This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
A Charlotte man says his ex urged him to cash out his 401(k) to buy a home.

Should you cash out your 401(k) to buy a home?

Raiding your retirement savings may seem like a no-no, but Ryan from North Carolina recently called The Ramsey Show to say hes thinking about doing exactly that (1). His reason: His ex-wife used the share of his 401(k) she got in the divorce to buy a home, then sold it for a solid profit and used that money to buy a second property. Now shes urging him to do the same, saying real estate will outperform the stock market.

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Ramsey and co-host George Kamel responded with a firm no. Their reasoning went beyond the risks of the housing market. Cashing out a 401(k) comes with heavy penalties, taxes and a major loss of compound growth.

Heres the breakdown on why sacrificing your future for a house today is usually poor planning and whether there are any situations where tapping your retirement savings makes sense.

Ryans limited retirement savings

Why would anyone ask their ex-wife for financial advice? Ramsey joked, adding he was so confused by Ryans reasoning.

Ryans situation was also more precarious than it sounded. While it might seem like he had a large balance to consider cashing out, he told the hosts he has only $85,000 in his 401(k) despite earning $130,000 a year at age 50. That puts him well behind the typical savings target for his age, which is about six times his income, and below the average 401(k) balance for his age group, which is $313,220, according to Edward Jones (2, 3).

Ramsey didnt mince words about the risks of pulling money from a retirement account to buy a home.

When she cashed out half of that 401(k), she got charged a 10% penalty plus her tax rate. She borrowed that money at 35% interest, Ramsey said. By the time she flipped that house and made money, she didnt even make money.

When Ryan pushed back, saying he saw what she made from the sale, Ramsey cut him off.

You didnt see all the penalties and taxes she paid on the stupid withdrawal from the 401(k) that negated any profit she made on the flip, Ramsey said. Shes so full of crap, shes a Christmas turkey.

If you cash out your money, theyre going to charge you a 10% penalty plus a 25% tax rate, he added. Thats like saying, Dave, I want to borrow at 35% interest to buy a house. Please dont do that.

Read More: 92% of surveyed retirees say higher costs are eating into their savings. What can you do? 4 ways to protect your money in 2026

Why early withdrawals hurt your wealth

Withdraw money from your 401(k) before the age of 59 1/2 and youll pay your normal income tax rate plus a 10% early withdrawal penalty (4). That often means losing 30% to 40% of what you take out. Thats why Ramsey compared to taking out a 35% mortgage.

Because of these penalties, financial experts say early withdrawals should be a last resort. Theyre usually recommended only when someone has no other assets to tap and cannot qualify for a lower-interest personal loan or line of credit.

There are a few situations where you can withdraw from a 401(k) without paying the penalty, including certain hardship withdrawals for medical bills or emergency home repairs, but the rules are strict and you still owe income tax. Some 401(k) plans dont allow early withdrawals at all.

Theres also the Rule of 55, which applies to workers who leave their jobs in the year they turn 55 or later. It lets them withdraw from the 401(k) tied to their most recent employer without the 10% penalty, though the money is still taxed.

The long-term cost of withdrawing early is also significant. Ryans $85,000 might seem small now, but if he keeps contributing 5% of his salary while his employer matches 5% and the account grows at 8% annually, he could have about $655,847 by age 65 (5). A real estate investment is unlikely to deliver that kind of return in the same period, especially if hes taking a mortgage to do it.

Better ways to invest

Even if Ryan cant afford to buy a home right now, there are ways to prepare without draining his nest egg. Financial expert Benjamin Felix of PWL Capital recommends the 5% Rule (6).

Take the price of the home, multiply it by 5%, then divide by 12. That number represents the monthly cost of homeownership, including maintenance and property taxes. If you have a 20% down payment and can afford that monthly amount, you may be ready to buy. If not, it may be smarter to wait.

While buying a property once felt like a guaranteed path to wealth, especially for baby boomers, high home prices today mean buyers need to take a more measured approach. Wilkinson Wealth Management recommends a life-centered financial plan that balances a budget with room for hobbies, vacations and social activities while still working toward long-term goals like retirement savings (7).

Get-rich-quick advice from friends or family can sound tempting, but real wealth building is a slow and steady process. Stick with it, and youll be able to live well in your golden years.

Be careful who youre listening to for money advice. What you want to do is look at people who are understated, Ramsey said. Theyre driving a Toyota, they dont have any flash or bling, and their lives are solid, steady, predictable, sustainable, and happy, with high-quality relationships.

What To Read Next

Join 200,000+ readers and get Moneywises best stories and exclusive interviews first  clear insights curated and delivered weekly. Subscribe now.

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The Ramsey Show (1); CNBC (2); Edward Jones (3); Principal (4); Smart Asset (5); PWL Capital (6); Wilkinson Wealth Management (7).

This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
Beyond defense, Thales is also a major player in avionics and civil aviation. The company is investing aggressively in AI-enabled flight systems to optimize flight paths and enhance safety. (COURTESY OF THALES)

Defense spending is growing everywhere says Thales International CEO Pascale Sourisse, amid a global boom in the arms industry spurred by geopolitical tensions.

Arms spending in 2024 reached an unprecedented $2.7 trillion in 2024, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a conflict think tank. The same think tank estimated that the worlds top 100 defense companies raked in $679 billion in collective revenue, the highest amount reported since SIPRI started tracking the number in 2002.

There is a very strong increase in defense spending in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and in the Americasits growing everywhere, Sourisse, who is also Thaless senior vice president for international development, told Fortune on the sidelines of the Singapore Airshow.

That pushed the French company, No. 190 on Fortunes Europe 500, to extensively ramp up production. Sourisse cited radars as an example: Thales has quadrupled its production of radars to cater to rising demand for air surveillance.

Unmanned aircraftboth the aircraft themselves, and how to shoot them downdrove much of the conversation at the Singapore Airshow. Thales, Sourisse said, is working on ways to manage swarms of drones and solutions to counter drone attackswhat you would call Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems, or C-UAS.

Thales shares have risen by more than 50% over the past 12 months, as part of a global boom in defense stocks as investors bet that geopolitical tensions and the return of armed conflict in places like Ukraine will drive demand for new weapons and defenses.

Concerns about the reliability of the U.S. and its security alliances are also pushing companies to think about sourcing arms from other regions, including Europe and East Asia. Defense firms like Germanys Rheinmetall, South Koreas Hanwha Aerospace, Japans Mitsubishi Heavy Engineering and Singapores ST Engineering have all reported more-than-100% gains in share price over the past 12 months.

Civil aviation, avionics and AI

Beyond defense, Thales is also a major player in avionics and civil aviation. The company is investing aggressively in AI-enabled flight systems to optimize flight paths and enhance safety.

In the past, pilots could only react to storm clouds once onboard radars detected them. Sourisse explained that airlines can now feed weather forecast data into Thaless AI-enabled systems, allowing flight paths to be optimized right after take-off.

AI also powers the companys air traffic control systems, which can analyze forecasts to minimize delays at busy air hubs like Singapores Changi Airport. This reduces the time pilots spend in the air waiting for a slot to land; Sourisse estimates that these tools can cut fuel consumption by about 10%.

Airlines may welcome these tools amid a global surge in travel. Passenger traffic has already surpassed pre-COVID levels in key hubs like Singapore, Sourisse said. You need to handle this growth without compromising safety or security.

Thaless cybersecurity arm has grown since its 2019 acquisition of Gemalto, a Dutch digital security firm. Thaless Singapore facility now produces more than 200 million banking cards, 12 million identity cards, and nearly 10 million passport data pages annually for customers worldwide. Thales produces consumer-oriented products like these payment cards, which many have in their pockets and useeven without knowing who makes it, Sourisse quipped.

Last week, Thales announced that it was going to invest in new automated technologies in its Singapore plant, saying it was fully aligned with the countrys ambition to be a global hub for advanced, high-tech manufacturing.

Moving forward, Sourisse sees the business deepening its roots in Asia, citing Southeast Asias Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, and East Asias China, Japan and South Korea as markets to watch.

Thales is also expanding its presence in India, where they currently already have a team of 2,300 employees. That is going to increase tremendously, Sourisse says. We have activities in many sectors in India, and very large engineering centers.

Thales generated 15.3 billion euros ($18.1 billion) in revenue for the first nine months of 2025, an 8.4% year-on-year increase. Almost 80% of that revenue came from what Thales deemed mature markets, namely Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand.

The defense business generated 8.2 billion euros ($9.8 billion) in revenue, making up just over half of the total. Growing at 14% year-on-year, it was also the fastest growing part of Thaless business.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
A federal appeals court in San Francisco granted a stay allowing the government to proceed with terminating Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for immigrants from Nepal, Honduras and Nicaragua.

The reliably liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order freezing a lower court ruling that would have vacated Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noems decision to end the protections.

The court found the government was likely to succeed on the grounds that the DHS decision was not "arbitrary or capricious," suggesting that the decision-making process was rational.

"The government is likely to prevail in its argument that the Secretarys decision-making process in terminating TPS for Honduras, Nicaragua, and Nepal was not arbitrary and capricious," court documents said.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks at a press conference in New York City, Jan. 8, 2026. (Reuters)

Last year, Noem sought to terminate refugee status for the three long-protected countries, arguing that under TPS, the government must check if the initial reasons for their protection still apply.

Nepal, Honduras, and Nicaragua all originally received TPS protections due to specific environmental disasters. Nepal was designated in 2015 following a massive earthquake, while Honduras and Nicaragua received protections in 1999 after Hurricane Mitch.

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Noems chief spokeswoman, Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, previously noted last August that TPS protections were always intended to be temporary.

Fed Court Of Appeals Grants Trump Admin Pause On Protections For 60K Immigrants

Monday's court ruling may further clear the path for Trump's immigration policy.

Attorney General Pam Bondi praised the decision, saying it would allow the Trump administration to continue its immigration policies and deport certain immigrants.

"This is a crucial legal win from @TheJusticeDept attorneys that helps clear the way for President Trumps continued deportations," she said.

"As the court found, the government is likely to prevail in its argument that ending Temporary Protected Status for some immigrants is sound and lawful policy. We are proud to represent the Trump Administration in court every day."

Noem's ruling was previously challenged by the National TPS Alliance, who argued it was "arbitrary and capricious" and violated the Administrative Procedure Act.

On December 31, 2025, a San Francisco district court judge sided with the plaintiffs and canceled Secretary Noem's termination order.

Venezuelan Migrants, Progressive Group Sue Trump Admin After Noem Nixes Biden-era Protected Status

Attorney General Pam Bondi celebrated the ruling Monday in a post on social media, saying it will clear the way for President Trumps continued deportations

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel assigned to the case included Judges Hawkins, Callahan and Miller. Judge Hawkins was appointed by Bill Clinton, Judge Callahan by George W. Bush and Judge Miller by President Donald Trump.

While Judges Callahan and Miller appear to have authored the main analysis, Judge Hawkins wrote a separate concurring opinion. He agreed with the result based on recent Supreme Court guidance, but said he would not rule on the plaintiffs' claims at this early stage.





Original article source: Appeals court backs Noem move to end TPS protections for Nepal, Honduras, Nicaragua
An HSI Special Response Team.  US Immigration and Customs Enforcement

A man who entered the United States illegally and previously worked as a tactical instructor for Nicaraguas police force confessed to assaulting and injuring a federal agent during an attempted arrest.

Michel Manuel Garcia Rojas, 39, pleaded guilty in Albany federal court Monday, Feb. 9, to resisting, impeding, and assaulting a federal officer engaged in official duties and causing bodily injury.

Garcia Rojas entered the US illegally in 2023 and was in removal proceedings while living in Albany, according to the US Attorneys Office.

In March 2025, agents with Homeland Security Investigations learned Garcia Rojas had been charged with state misdemeanor offenses, including petit larceny and endangering the welfare of a child.

Based on those charges, authorities said he was subject to immediate detention under the Laken Riley Act. The law was named for Laken Riley, a Georgia nursing student who was killed in 2024 by a man who was in the United States illegally.

Federal agents moved to arrest Garcia Rojas in March 2025, before he could be released on the state charges. After he was handcuffed and placed in the back of a federal vehicle, Garcia Rojas got out and attempted to walk away, prosecutors said.

When an HSI special agent confronted him and tried to re-secure him, Garcia Rojas fought back, striking the agent in the face and throwing him into a door during the struggle, prosecutors said. Multiple officers and a TASER device were ultimately needed to subdue and re-arrest him.

The agent suffered multiple injuries, including abrasions, bruising to the jaw, and a back injury that kept him out of work for months, prosecutors said.

Investigators later determined that Garcia Rojas is a former tactical instructor for Nicaragua police.

The brazen and violent actions of Michel Manuel Garcia Rojas represent a direct threat to the safety of our agents, officers and the communities we serve, and reflect the danger law enforcement face each day, said Special Agent in Charge Erin Keegan.

Garcia Rojas is scheduled to be sentenced in June . He faces up to 20 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, and up to three years of supervised release, along with restitution to the injured agent, and deportation.
Kobe Li/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom Liau Chung-ren/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom

There's a reason Thanksgiving predictably gives way to yearly advice columns on how to placate the crazy uncle who somehow finds a way to make mashed potatoes political. In the U.S., criticizing the government is a national pastimewhether in polite conversation, on social media, or across the dinner table.

In China, meanwhile, it can amount to a life sentence.

Such is the case of Jimmy Lai, the 78-year-old Chinese political dissident who was sentenced on Monday to 20 years' imprisonment following his conviction last year on two counts of conspiring to collude with foreign forces and one count of publishing seditious material. That rap sheet sounds ominous. It is, but not in the way it reads. The portentous language of the charges masks that he was ultimately found guilty of exercising a basic right: railing against the state.

There is no shortage of material in China for government critics. That helps explain why, in 2020, the mainland imposed a "national security law" on Hong Kong, where Lai made his home. He was arrested that same year. The name of the legislation is again deceptive, as it used "national security" as a guise to paralyze dissent, especially as some in the city sought to hold onto the liberties that once distinguished Hong Kong from Beijing.

Lai was at the forefront of that fight. It is genuinely difficult to think of anyone whose story more clearly epitomizes both the promise of Hong Kong and what happens when that promise is broken. At 12 years old, Lai escaped to the city as a stowaway on a fishing boat after his mother was sent to work in a labor camp for the crime of being a "class enemy." He slept in rat-infested factories as a garment workeruntil he was the one running them. His sweater brand, Giordano, became an international success and helped make Lai a billionaire.

Following the 1989 pro-democracy showdown in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Lai founded two media companiesNext Magazine in 1990 and the Apple Daily in 1995known for their irreverent coverage and unapologetic support for democracy, freedom of speech, and government reform.

China's "national security law" was, in other words, perfectly tailored to zero in on someone like Lai. The government leveraged it to freeze assets at the Apple Daily, arrest other employees, and eventually shutter it entirely. Prosecutors alleged Lai spearheaded a conspiracy to secure sanctions or blockades against China and Hong Kong, referencing meetings he had with U.S. officials like Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. (Lai testified that he'd merely asked them to voice their support for the city's freedoms.) Authorities obtained a conviction on the third countpublishing seditious materialusing colonial-era legislation to argue that Lai's publication incited people to rebel against the government.

Beyond the charges themselves, that "national security law" also paved the way for a trial with a foregone conclusion. Calling it a trial at all feels like a bit of a stretch, as it had no jury and was instead overseen by a panel of judges handpicked by the government. Nor was Lai permitted to pick an attorney of his choosing, which the Constitution there supposedly promises. All in all, the proceedings came amid a long-standing, ruthless pursuit of the businessman and activist, who was already serving a nearly-6-year sentence on flimsy fraud charges pertaining to a sublease for part of his newspaper office.

But for those who still doubt that Lai was targeted for his political expression, consider that he has company. Former Apple Daily Editor in Chief Law Wai-kwong, Executive Editor in Chief Lam Man-chung, and English Edition Managing Editor Fung Wai-kong received 10-year sentences; Yeung Ching-kee, an editorial writer, received seven years and three months; Associate Publisher Chan Pui-man got seven years; and CEO and Publisher Cheung Kim-hung was handed six years and nine months. This, unfortunately, isn't new. There are many others who have received draconian punishments for offending the Chinese government.

Lai had an advantage, however. He is a citizen of the United Kingdom, meaning he did not have to do this. He did not have to wait for law enforcement to come and take him, which was essentially guaranteed. And yet he continued to speak out against the government with the same vigor as those whose greatest risk is an unpleasant dinner.

The post Jimmy Lai Got a 20-Year Sentence for Saying Things the Chinese Government Didn't Like appeared first on Reason.com.
An impromptu pub gig by the "hottest thing in Ireland" has been described as an "amazing moment" by the man whose footage of the surprise show has gone viral.

Kingfishr delighted pub goers in Londonderry on Sunday night with a rendition of Killeagh at Peadar O'Donnell's pub in the city centre.

Musician Dougie Breslin, a regular Sunday night performer at the Derry bar, captured the off-the-cuff performance on video ahead of a gig of his own.

"I couldn't believe it. We have been have been playing Peadar's every Sunday night for the past 15 years and were coming up to get ready for our gig at 10:30  we couldn't get in the door," he said.

Limerick indie-folk group Kingfishr - Eddie Keogh, Eoghan 'McGoo' McGrath and Eoin 'Fitz' Fitzgibbon  topped the Irish charts on three separate occasions last year with their hit track, the anthemic, Killeagh.

It first hit top spot last May, returning to number one twice by the end of the year and was 2025's most streamed song on Spotify in Ireland.

Their musical stock has risen quickly - their debut album Halycon was also an Irish chart topper - and along with acts like CMAT, Kneecap, Fontaines DC, are widely regarded as central to an Irish musical renaissance.

Speaking to BBC Radio Foyle's North West Today programme, Breslin said there were rumours the band had been seen in Derry  and in the bar - earlier in the weekend, and that they were in town to film a new song's video.

As he stood outside the crammed pub on Sunday night, Breslin pondered how he would get in, how best to navigate the huge crowd and how he might persuade Kingfishr to perform.

Among Derry's best known live music venues, on any given night Peadar's is home to a host of local performers.

Just as some of the local musicians were finishing up, Breslin added, "we looked through the window and they (Kingfishr) went up to sing".

"So I just stepped inside the door, had to squeeze in and there's about a hundred phones there. It was amazing," he said.

"You know they are the hottest thing in Ireland at the moment, for them to come to our city and just walk in they are just so down to earth, he added.

A selfie was grabbed for his grandson  a "huge fan"  Breslin said, adding you just "don't know who is going to come into Peadars".

Indeed, House of Guinness actor Anthony Boyle was also in the Derry pub on Sunday.

Sharing photos on social media of the actor and the band, the pub wrote: "A massive Peadar's welcome to our special visitors tonight"

Kingfishr are due to tour Australia next month before returning to the UK to play a number of shows, including in Belfast, later this year.
February 10, 2026: As of 2026 China has over 500 satellites in orbit. Russia has less than 200, and s0me 0f those may be defective. In terms of military satellites, Russia has 110, China 157 and the United States 247.

Ukraine receives satellite intelligence from the United States. Russian military satellites are in such bad shape that Russia must depend on China for satellite imagery. The Chinese dont want to give Russia too much help because the longer the Ukraine war goes on, the weaker Russia will be when the war is over. China will also be heavily involved with rehabilitating the Russian economy after the war.

All of this is happening because the economic disruptions created by the Russian invasion of Ukraine have accelerated the decline of Roscosmos, the Russian government organization controlling all space program activities. Budget cuts mean Roscosmos has to delay construction of a new Russian Orbital Space station/ROS. It is designed to last for fifty years and function as a major space-based research facility. ROS will use three modules that were originally meant to be part of the International Space Station/ISS. Russia fell behind in building and placing these new modules into orbit and now plans to use them to assemble ROS. In the last few years Russia has fallen farther behind in delivering these new modules. Russia also lacks the money to build the ground control facilities to support their new orbital assets.

Nearly all the problems Roscosmos is having are related to budget cuts. The Ukraine War has a higher priority, and no one knows when Roscosmos will get its lost budget funds back. A lot of money is involved. Currently the missing funds amount to well over $15 billion and the amount will grow as long as the Ukraine War consumes so much of the Russian government budget. Roscosmos reported that the government had agreed to restore the Roscosmos budget and planned to provide the nearly seven billion dollars needed to keep the Russian space station project on schedule. A lot more money will be needed before that space station is completed in 2032. This will be a major accomplishment for Roscosmos. Russia has fallen behind in most other aspects of their space program.

For example, Russia is no longer trying to compete with the innovative Americans firm SpaceX and its novel Satellite Launch Vehicle/SLV operation. The business of building SLVs and successfully launching satellites was revolutionized by SpaceX. Few nations said they would try to emulate and compete with SpaceX. At least not yet.

Roscosmos did not keep up with new developments in SLV tech and has been in decline since its creation in 2015. Meanwhile the SLV future arrived unexpectedly in the form of SpaceX, a new firm that required no guaranteed government contracts or any government subsidies and did what previous government subsidized firms did but faster and cheaper. This was demonstrated during the first half of 2022, when the partially reusable Falcon 9 SLV launched 26 times, its total for all of 2020. The last three launches were carried out within 36 hours at the end of June. SpaceX carried out six more launches in July, exceeding the 31 achieved in 2021. One of the June launches involved a Falcon 9 booster that had been used 13 times. By 2026 Falcon 9s had been used over 200 times. Falcon 9s had been launched more than 200 times since their introduction in 2012. The innovation was that Falcon 9 booster rockets land under their own power and are refurbished for reuse.

In Russia the situation is less positive. The Russian Space agency Roscosmos became a state monopoly in 2015 when it absorbed the few remaining space program entities it did not already control. Roscosmos was not helped when Russia threatened to cease all cooperation on supporting the ISS, but quietly suggested that a deal was possible if adjustments were made to the economic sanctions recently inflicted on Russia because of its current Ukraine invasion. Russian threats have accelerated efforts by American and European firms to build supply and crew capsules to replace the Soyuz capsules. SpaceX had developed a cargo capsule that has been in regular use since 2010 and its crew capsule was soon approved for regular use.

Roscosmos has long provided regular deliveries of supplies and transport of crew to and from the ISS. Russia uses its Soyuz SLV to put the Russian cargo and passenger capsules into orbit where they maneuver to and dock at the ISS. Russia and the United States are the major suppliers of new components to the ISS and use their own SLVs to get these components into orbit.

Despite the professionalism and dedication of many Roscosmos personnel, key officials continue to cause problems with mismanagements and corruption. This causes problems with the contracts it already has. For example, in 2018 a Soyuz rocket failed as it was attempting to take two men, a Russian and an American, to the ISS. The two passengers survived because of the emergency recovery system that is part of the manned rocket. The failed Soyuz rocket was another example of the continued management and quality control problems in the Russian space program. Previously there had only been two failures of a Soyuz manned capsule, in 1975 and 1983. The 1983 failure involved a rocket catching fire on the launch pad and the crew rescue system saved the passengers, as was the case during the 2018 failure. As in the past, the Russians recovered and carried out a successful launch to deliver three people to the ISS. Roscosmos has been burdened with corruption and mismanagement since its creation and has had six directors since 2015, with the latest one taking office in 2022.

There have been over 2,000 launches of a Soyuz SLV since 1966 and the success rate has been 98 percent. The failures include inability to reach the correct orbit. The Soyuz FG SLV, used to carry passengers, has been used 65 times since entering service in 2001 and all were successful until the 2018 failure. The Soyuz FG is a more advanced and, until the recent failure, more reliable version of the Soyuz SLV design. There have been some recent problems with the Soyuz models used to launch satellites. Russia insisted that Soyuz FG was different but the personnel and management problems in the Russian space program could not be completely avoided.

Cheaper and more reliable Chinese SLVs are taking business away from Roscosmos. Russia lacks the cash to compete with the much more affluent China. There is also the entrepreneurial approach that China and the U.S. share. This is why China is working on an SLV design that can duplicate SpaceX innovations. Russia prefers not to risk scarce funds on duplicating SpaceX tech. Economic sanctions imposed after the Ukraine invasion have caused layoffs and pay cuts for Roscosmos staff. Construction of SLVs and satellites is hampered by the sanctions, which halted the import of key components, especially electronic items. The Russian government warned Roscosmos that this situation would last at least two more years, meaning that Roscosmos will incur annual losses instead of a small profit.

Over the last few years SpaceX has been gradually eroding the Roscosmos monopoly on taking crews and cargo to the ISS. This became more urgent since a Soyuz passenger capsule that reached the ISS in 2018 was later found to have a tiny leak, which was apparently created during manufacture and not detected by quality control. The growing number of manufacturing defects in Russian spaceflight equipment is compounded by the growing failure to catch and repair defects. The problems with two Soyuz passenger capsules in 2018 were not just rare events but part of a trend that has gotten worse. The Soyuz SLV and crew capsule problems also reinforced the belief that more than one nation must be able to get people to and from the ISS.

The SpaceX Dragon passenger capsule had its first test flight in 2019. Boeing also had a manned capsule design but it is more expensive than Dragon, which has already been replaced by Dragon 2, which can be used to carry cargo or up to seven passengers. That means the Soyuz monopoly as a crew transport to ISS ended in 2022 when Dragon 2 began regular trips to the ISS with passengers. Dragon 2 costs a third less than Soyuz per passenger going to the ISS.

Russians have looked on with growing dismay as their space program, once a close competitor with the Americans, slips into bankruptcy and insignificance. But the Russians were already falling way behind when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and since then the government has, with increasing frustration, sought to revive Russian space efforts and restore that program to its former fame and glory. The latest major move towards that goal occurred at the end of 2015 when Russia abolished its government federal space agency and transferred all the assets and responsibilities to the newly created Roscosmos. Over the next two years, it became obvious that the problems remained, seemingly beyond solution. To make that failure obvious, by the end of 2017 Russia had fallen to third place, behind the Americans and Chinese in space efforts. This was not a surprise because over the last decade Russian space efforts have struggled to meet military space needs, often at the expense of the more profitable civilian market.

Since 2022 Russian media have been unable to publish details of Roscosmos problems without government permission. The ban included the Internet, where the bad news can still be found despite its disappearance from state-controlled media. The latest bad news involves the extent to which the new economic sanctions will prevent Roscosmos from freely importing foreign technology and the declining role Roscosmos plays in supplying SLV services.
Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul's Bhumjaithai party achieved a stunning victory in the February election

As the dust from what has been a hard-fought election campaign in Thailand settles, many Thais may be rubbing their eyes and asking, "what just happened?".

Most of the opinion polls published before the election predicted a win for the progressive People's Party. Some suggested it would get more than 200 seats in parliament, a significant improvement on its already impressive 2023 result when it won 151. Few polls put the party of Prime Minister Anutin Chanrvirakul ahead.

Yet once most of the votes had been counted, it was clear Anutin had achieved a stunning victory, and the young reformists had suffered a big setback. With a projected share of more than 190 seats, the path of Anutin's Bhumjaithai party is clear to form the next government, albeit with coalition partners.

So why did a youthful, progressive party with an imaginative and tech-savvy campaign do so poorly compared to a transactional, old-style party with little ideological identity aside from strong loyalty to the monarchy?

A harder race for the reformists

The mixed voting system played a part. People in Thailand cast two ballots, one for a candidate in their constituency, and one for the party they prefer.

At the national level the People's Party, with nearly 10 million votes, did much better in the party list than Bhumjaithai, with just under six million votes, although this was still a big drop compared to the more than 14 million Move Forward, the previous incarnation of the People's Party, won in 2023.

But the party list accounts for only 20% of the 500 seats in parliament.

As many as 80% of the seats are allocated by local contests, where whichever candidate get the most votes in each constituency wins the seat on a first-past-the-post basis.

This is where the People's Party, which is relatively new and urban-based, is weaker because it lacks rural networks.

Bhumjaithai, by comparison, is a past master at using its substantial resources to win local power-brokers to its side, and they exercise a lot of influence over voters in their areas.

Anutin has used the defections of political veterans from other parties to grow Bhumjaithai from a medium-sized provincial movement which won only 51 seats in 2019, to a national-level election-winning powerhouse today.

It was also harder for the reformists to distinguish themselves on a single issue this time. In 2023, after nine years being ruled by the stern, avuncular Prayuth Chan-ocha, the general who led the 2014 coup, there was a broad yearning for change, and the Move Forward party, under its suave, telegenic leader Pita Limjaroenrat, promised no deals with "the uncles"  those involved in the coup.

This captured the imagination of the public, and there was a last-minute wave of support for them.

In this election, there was no such defining issue, and the party had been forced to drop its campaign to amend the harsh lese majeste law after this was used by the courts to justify dissolving Move Forward and banning its leaders from politics.

Anutin was also able to coalesce conservative support around his party, as opposed to having their voters split among several parties in 2023.

His strident nationalism over the border conflict with Cambodia, his staunch support for the army and his intense loyalty to King Vajiralongkorn all defined him clearly as the standard-bearer for Thai conservatism.

Polls had projected a win for the progressive People's Party

Another big factor was the steep decline in the fortunes of Pheu Thai, the once unbeatable election machine backed by former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra.

It came second in 2023, with 141 seats, but is likely to see that total halved this time round after the past three years of political turmoil in which two of its prime ministers were dismissed by the constitutional court, and it was accused of mishandling relations with Cambodia.

Thaksin has been jailed on old corruption charges, and could face further criminal complaints.

Back in 2023, Pheu Thai lost support to Move Forward. This time, Bhumjaithai and other conservative parties were the beneficiaries of Pheu Thai's falling popularity in its old strongholds of the north and north-east.

Some in the reformist camp will look back on their party's controversial decision to back Anutin to become prime minister last September, after the fall of the second Pheu Thai administration.

At the time, the People's Party justified this strange alliance with its ideological opposite by promising not to join his government, and by extracting from him a pledge to hold a referendum on changing the military-drafted constitution, a priority for the reformists.

But by not insisting on cabinet positions in return for their votes in parliament, the People's Party allowed Anutin to fill his cabinet with capable technocrats, burnishing his credentials as a can-do leader.

And while the constitutional referendum was indeed held at the same time as the election on Sunday, and produced a clear vote in favour of changing it, the process of drafting and approving a new charter is so protracted it might be indefinitely delayed.

Some now see this as a poor decision, which tarnished their reputation among more idealistic followers.

In the end, though, the reformists always had a mountain to climb to get into government.

Many of their leaders have already been banned from politics, their party has been dissolved twice, and one of their best members of parliament is likely to go to jail for six years on lese majeste charges.

Even after their election loss, another 44 of their leading members now face bans from politics by the Supreme Court for supporting the proposal by Move Forward to soften the punishments under the lese majeste law.

These impediments may well have disillusioned some of the voters who backed Move Forward three years ago. Turnout in this election at 65% was sharply down from the 75% seen in 2023.

Anutin will face no such impediments.

The many means by which elected governments, parties and politicians can be constrained by unelected bodies  the "handcuffs" on Thai democracy  have only ever been used on those challenging the status quo.

Provided he can make terms with smaller coalition partners, the prime minister has a good chance of completing a full four-year term, something no civilian leader has managed to do in Thailand for 20 years.
Bangladesh is a major producer of clothes [Getty Images]

Bangladesh has secured exemptions for some clothes and textiles that are made with US-produced materials, as part of a new agreement announced on Monday.

As part of the deal, Washington will also cut its tariffs on Bangladesh from 20% to 19%, in exchange for Dhaka to open its markets to a wider range of American goods.

The apparel industry forms the backbone of Bangladesh, which is the world's second largest exporter of clothes after China.

The South Asian country has been in long-drawn talks with the White House after President Donald Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on global trading partners in April last year.

The White House said in a joint statement between the sides that the agreement will strengthen the countries' economic ties and offer both "unprecedented access" to each market.

It said the US will lower its tariff rate on Bangladesh and will also identify certain clothing and textile goods from the country to enter the US free of tariffs.

The goods include those produced with American cotton and man-made textiles, the statement said. The volume of these will be determined by how much textiles the US exports to Bangladesh.

The clothing sector accounts for more than 80% of Bangladesh's total export revenue and employs around four million workers.

In exchange, Bangladesh has agreed to provide "significant preferential market access" to a host of American agricultural and industrial goods. These include opening up its markets to more US chemicals, medical devices, car parts, soy products and meat, said the White House.

The BBC has contacted the Bangladeshi government for comment.

As part of the agreement announced on Monday, Dhaka will recognise American food and drug and vehicle safety and emission rules, making it easier for US goods to enter the country.

Bangladesh also committed to observe internationally recognised labour rights, ramp up its environmental protection efforts, and uphold its agreement to buy billions of dollars of American agriculture, aircraft and energy products, according to the statement.

Bangladesh is set to head to the polls on Thursday for general elections.

The country has been led by an interim government since 2024, when former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India after being ousted over the fatal crackdown on student-led protests.

The US's newly announced tariff cut puts Bangladesh nearly level with its neighbour and regional competitor India, which faces an 18% levy from the US.

Both South Asian countries compete to export clothes, footwear, along with agricultural goods.

India was initially hit with 25% US levies when Trump announced his first round of reciprocal tariffs in April 2025. Bangladesh, on the other hand, was given a 37% tariff.
Fortinet has announced its top-performing local partners for their efforts last year at its Australia Partner of the Year Awards.

The awards celebrate the achievement of Fortinets partners in helping companies improve their security standings and accelerate secure digital transformation, as well as revenue growth, investment in Fortinet training and certifications, innovation in delivering tailored solutions, and successful collaboration on customer engagements.

Topping the list with both overall Australia Partner of the Year and Australia Telco Partner of the Year was Aussie Broadband.

Meanwhile, Australia Enterprise Partner of the Year went to DXC, Australia Government Partner of the Year was handed to Telstra, and Australia Growth Partner of the Year going to CyberCX.

Centorrino Technologies picked up Australia Managed Security Services Provider of the Year, Operational Intelligence scored Australia Operational Technology Partner of the Year, and Brennan took the gong for Australia Security Operations Partner of the Year.

Rounding out the list was Wavelink with Australia Distributor of the Year, and Ethan Global with Australia SASE Partner of the Year.
February 10, 2026: Ukrainian assassinations of Russian police personnel continued last year. Ukrainian operatives inside Russia, some of them Russians who oppose the war and the current Russian government, have been killing Russian police and officials for years. Since 2024 Russian security officials have noticed a frightening pattern. A growing number of men who had been involved in the Ukraine war were dying, but from murder instead of natural causes. Bombs, bullets and seeming accidents have killed over a hundred people involved in supporting Russia in Ukraine. This included Ukrainian traitors as well as Russian army veterans and senior officers, plus members of Russias police, intelligence and security services.

It gets worse, the Ukrainian SBU internal security agency appears to have organized this campaign as they have had similar operations in the past. The Russian FSB, the successor to the dreaded Soviet era KGB, has been on the case and reported that this terror campaign was well organized and extensive. Worse, the FSB found that many people in Russia were active in carrying out these killings. This is because several million Russians and Ukrainians were displaced from Ukraine during the war. Some fled, others were forced into Russia. The SBU has been in touch with many of these former Ukraine residents and found many of them willing to fight back against the Russians from inside Russia.

Since 2022 more of these exiles have turned against Russia and the SBU took advantage of that. The FSB knows this because they have managed to discover some of the shipments of weapons and explosives shipped into Russia from European countries for these Ukrainian operatives. Some of the weapons used were obtained in Russia. As disabled or deserting Russian soldiers returned home, some brought weapons and explosives with them as souvenirs. Others planned to use these items for criminal activities. Its not just the Ukrainians who are bringing the war home to Russia; many pro-Ukraine Russian veterans of the war are doing so as well.

Russian intelligence noted that a growing number of these attacks are against Russian government officials. While Russian officers and troops are guilty of atrocities in Ukraine, their superiors are responsible. The attack victims are beginning to include more senior government officials and the FSB fears that the campaign will eventually include Vladimir Putin and his close associates. Providing additional security for that many senior officials cannot be done. The growing labor shortage in Russia extends to government departments. Wealthy Russians have been able to send their families abroad for extended visits, at least until the war and its domestic hazards are past. All the reliable personnel security people are employed and finding additional people is nearly impossible. The Ukrainians figured this out first and timed their internal Russian assassination program for when the targets would have the least protection.

Terrorizing Russians in Russia will continue until the war is over, and some suspicious deaths will occur long after. Many believe that revenge is a process that never gets old. For victims, getting to the bottom of the culprits list could take decades.

All this should come as no surprise to the Russians, who have always viewed the combat zone as much larger than the areas in Ukraine where fighting has taken place. Russia also considered NATO nations supporting Ukraine to be full of legitimate targets. Russia does not issue press releases about its sabotage and assassination campaign in NATO countries supporting the Ukrainians. Americans and European intelligence agencies first detected this activity when it was in the planning stage. The Russians soon went from planning to implementation. Russia planned a series of assassinations and attacks on facilities involved with manufacturing weapons and munitions for Ukrainian forces. Americans and European intelligence nations detected these plans and did so early enough to disrupt Russian efforts to implement their plans.

The Americans have long maintained a ground and space-based monitoring and intelligence gathering operation. This meant monitoring communications Russian government officials believed was secure and safe from the wrong people listening in. This information was shared with other NATO nations and Ukraine, which plans to become a NATO member when the war is over. All the intelligence data will be useful as Ukraine continues to carry out retribution attacks against Russians with Ukrainian blood on their hands.
by Melani Manel Perera

The wife of the journalist who disappeared in 2010 has reported receiving further threats from a man who identified himself as a retired army general. She wrote to President Dissanayake, also recalling the continuous postponements of the trial against nine officers accused in the case.

Colombo (AsiaNews) - "I have received threats from various people over the last 16 years, since I began fighting for justice for my husband. But this phone call frightens me greatly. I am surprised that it has come even under the regime of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake."

Sandhya Ekneligoda, human rights activist and wife of missing journalist Prageeth Ekneligoda, commented to AsiaNews on the new death threat she received in recent days. Sandhya has asked President Anura Kumara Dissanayake to guarantee her safety, following a threatening phone call she received on 16 January from a person who identified himself as a retired army brigadier general.

From a mobile phone number she made public, the caller threatened her, warning her to keep quiet or she would suffer the same fate as her husband. I was told that the phone number is not registered. But I am sure the police can trace some information, she said.

Ekneligoda says she fears for her life if the suspects arrested in connection with her husband's disappearance are released on bail by the court. She also said she was further shocked to discover that one of the defendants on trial for Prageeth's abduction had been promoted by the army. I could even be murdered in a fake car accident or something similar, she told AsiaNews. But I wanted to inform the public and the media before that happens and ask them to stand by me.

In addition to writing to the president, Sandhya filed a complaint with the Sri Lankan Police's Division for the Assistance and Protection of Crime Victims and Witnesses. She also wrote to other international organisations, such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). So far, she has not received any response from the president.

Sandhya Ekneligoda is fighting for justice for her husband, who was abducted on 24 January 2010, two days before the 2010 presidential elections, which Mahinda Rajapaksa won. A well-known critic of the government, he was last seen in the suburbs of Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. As a cartoonist and columnist for the news website Lanka e News, Ekneligoda used his platform to denounce corruption and abuses of power. His disappearance occurred during a period marked by widespread violence against journalists.

Nine years after Ekneligoda's disappearance, in 2019, a Special Court (Trial-at-Bar) issued indictments against nine army officers for the kidnapping and conspiracy to murder journalist Prageeth Ekneligoda between 25 and 27 January 2010.

The defendants include Lieutenant Colonel Shammi Arjun Kumararatne, R.M.P.K. Rajapaksa alias Nadan, W.W. Priyantha Dilanjan Upasena alias Suresh, S.M. Ravindra Rupasena alias Ranji, Y.M. Chaminda Kumara Abeyratne, S.M. Kanishka Gunaratne, Aiyyasami Balasubramaniyam, D.G.T. Prasad Gamage and T.E.R. Peiris, who is accused in the abduction case.

However, the trial before the Special Court in Colombo was adjourned due to the absence of two of the three judges. The case, which was heard on 2 February, has been postponed until 4 May. Sandhya urged President Dissanayake to take steps to appoint judges to the trial and bring it to a conclusion within this year.

Sandhya Ekneligoda received the International Women of Courage Award in 2017. She has been fighting for thousands of missing persons in Sri Lanka for years.
by Fady Noun

On the feast of the great Maronite saint, Patriarch al-Rahi said that the use of force is the prerogative of the state. A musical event was cancelled in solidarity with the 14 victims of the collapse of a building in the north. A three-year-old child was also killed in the latest attack by the Jewish state.

Beirut (AsiaNews)  Lebanon marked Saint Maron's Day on Monday amid a climate of crisis marked by security incidents in southern Lebanon and the tragedy of poverty and neglect in northern Lebanon.

The traditional Mass for Saint Maron (9 February) was celebrated at Saint George Cathedral in downtown Beirut, in the presence of President Joseph Aoun, Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam.

Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rahi took the opportunity to reiterate the importance of reserving the use of force to the state, a recurring theme in this period of the countrys history.

On the instructions of President Aoun, events and military music planned for the celebration were cancelled, as a sign of solidarity with the 14 victims of Sunday's building collapse in the Sunni neighbourhood of Bab el-Tebbaneh in Tripoli, the capital of the North governorate.

The tragedy, the second since the start of the year, has provoked a mixture of grief and anger across the country. It serves as a reminder that no Lebanese government has yet put forward an economic and social plan capable of lifting the capital of the North out of its endemic underdevelopment.

According to journalist Hussein Ayoub, Tripoli has the highest rates of unemployment, poverty, and school dropouts in Lebanon. Long neglected in favour of Beirut, this regional capital nevertheless has a port and an oil refinery (currently out of service).

Meeting urgently after this tragedy, the government announced the upcoming evacuation of 114 buildings identified by the municipality as being in danger of collapse. The Maronite Archbishop of Tripoli, Youssef Soueif, and the Mufti of Tripoli decided to make vacant spaces in the city's private schools available for the temporary relocation of evacuated residents.

Overshadowed mourning ceremonies

Saint Maron festivities were overshadowed by the military situation in southern Lebanon and the local repercussions of the visit to the United States by the commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces, General Rodolphe Haykal. This visit is intended to pave the way for a conference in support of the army, to be held in Paris on 5 March.

In a context where Lebanon is too often pressured to fall in line, General Haykal, questioned by US Senator Lindsey Graham, refused to be intimidated and to define Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation. "Not in Lebanon," he replied laconically to the question.

This exchange abruptly ended the meeting between the two men and underscored the divergent approaches of Lebanon and the United States on how Hezbollah can and should be neutralised in Lebanon without civil unrest.

Similarly, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam's two-day tour of southern Lebanon (7-8 February) carried significant symbolic weight.

The aim of this visit was to show that the region is not Hezbollah's exclusive domain and that its reconstruction is a priority for the government, which will commit tens of millions of dollars from the World Bank to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure (electricity, roads, and telephone networks), despite the risks.

But in the aftermath of this visit, the Israeli army, as usual, brutally reminded the Lebanese of its presence. Fuelled by the belief that military superiority and firepower can subdue anything, Israel has claimed more victims in the targeting of a vehicle in front of the Yanouh municipal building.

The victims include the driver of the targeted car, a retired Lebanese army officer, as well as a father and his three-year-old child who were present at the scene. The two were the son and grandson of Yanouh mayor.

Israeli aggression was also demonstrated by the targeting of a municipal employee by a sniper (the man was taken to hospital but later died from his wounds), and the nighttime abduction in the village of Hebbariyeh of Jamaa Islamiya leader Atoui Islamiyah, taken in "for questioning", an Israeli army spokesman stated.

Jamaa Islamiya (JI) is the name the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood uses in Lebanon, which the US administration recently designated a terrorist organisation.

During the disastrous war of attrition against the Jewish state, launched unilaterally by Hezbollah in 2023-2024, JI launched isolated, symbolic raids against Israel in a show of solidarity with Hamas.

All these incidents maintain a state of tensions that prevents any lasting stability and condemns Lebanon to live in anxious anticipation of the next raid or escalation.

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by Vladimir Rozanskij

In the city of Armavir, a thousand Armenians took to the streets wearing red armbands to support the bishops and priests imprisoned in the clash between Pashinyan and the Apostolic Church. Moscow views these initiatives with sympathy, concerned about the pro-Western initiatives of the current government in Yerevan that call into question Russia's role as traditional guardian.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - A conflict has been ongoing for more than a year between the Yerevan government, led by Prime Minister Nikol Pasinyan, and the Armenian Apostolic Church led by Catholicos Karekin II.

This conflict is not limited to the territory of Armenia, but is also evident in Russia. In the city of Armavir in the southern Russian region of Krasnodar, a thousand people took part in a protest against Pashinyan's policy, which aims to remove the patriarch and reform the Church, considered the real enemy of the Armenian people with its current immoral and corrupt leadership.

The participants in the Armavir rally are Armenians living in Russia, where they took refuge in the 1990s following the outbreak of civil war after the fall of the Soviet Union. For many Armenians, Russia remains Armenia's guardian, having partly saved it a century ago from the Turkish genocide, protecting the current territory of the Armenian republic and welcoming many Armenian refugees following the numerous conflicts that have taken place in the Caucasus.

The protest was centred around the Armenian church in Armavir, with red armbands symbolising the survival of the Armenian people and their struggle for independence, calling for an immediate end to all pressure on the Apostolic Church, the release of imprisoned bishops and priests, and respect for the authority of the Patriarch of All Armenians, Catholicos Karekin II. .

The organisers expressed their intention to defend the Armenian identity and the traditional foundations of the Church from the destructive policy of Yerevan, which is oriented towards the West and increasingly distancing itself from its alliance with Russia.

One of the leaders of the demonstration was the Armenian deputy of the Krasnodar Legislative Assembly, Armenjak Tozlan, who released a video in which he stated that we cannot remain indifferent when we see that the historical memory of the Armenian people and its national symbols are being taken away, destroying its unity.

Similar rallies have also been held recently in Moscow, St Petersburg, Sochi and other cities, always attracting large groups from the Armenian diaspora in Russia and with the support of the Russians themselves, starting with the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Some Telegram channels and social media sites such as Infoteka24 and Bagramyan26 have also reported threats and pressure being exerted to force local Armenians to participate in these protests. In the days leading up to the Armavir rally, there were reportedly phone calls demanding that people attend to avoid unpleasant consequences, although official reports on Russian websites such as Regnum, Jasno Novosti and Rambler make no mention of these circumstances, not even in the statements of the participants. The demonstration appeared to be very well attended, with sincere expressions of shared emotions, and was completely spontaneous, as is often the case in the Kuban province, an area with a large concentration of Armenians who gather around their churches as centres of national identity.

On the other hand, in Russia today it is not possible to organise public demonstrations without authorisation from the authorities, which is granted under very strict conditions and with very detailed coordination and objectives, so it is certainly not possible to speak of entirely spontaneous or random gatherings.

In addition to the ecclesiastical issue, one of the reasons why Putin's regime supports the Armenian protests is also the peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan, with the opening of the Tripp Corridor entrusted to the Americans, which excludes the Russians from direct influence in the South Caucasus.

The Kremlin has many reasons to be irritated with Nikol Pashinyan's government, which has effectively abandoned the Eurasian military alliance Csto and wants to join the European Union, and the exploitation of the controversy against the Armenian Church is a strong argument for inciting the Armenian diaspora in Russia to defend Armenia's traditional national values, which must include recognition of Moscow's paternal care over Yerevan.
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10 February 2026 15:41 (UTC+04:00)

Akbar Novruz Read more

The defense has concluded its statements in the ongoing trial of Armenian citizen Ruben Vardanyan, who faces multiple charges under the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan, including crimes against peace and humanity, war crimes, terrorism, and financing terrorism.

Azernews reports that on February 10, after Vardanyan and his defense team made their final statements, presiding judge Zeynal Aghayev asked both the prosecution and defense whether they would submit a draft of the final court decision. Both parties declined. The judge subsequently announced the end of the court hearing.

The final verdict will be delivered after the court returns from deliberations.

Vardanyan is accused of a wide range of offenses, including planning and waging a war of aggression, deportation and forced transfer of the population, persecution, enforced disappearance, torture, violations of the laws and customs of war, intentional and attempted murder, terrorism, financing terrorism, creation of criminal associations, and illegal crossing of the state border.

The charges cover violations of both national criminal law and international humanitarian law during armed conflict.
10 February 2026 08:30 (UTC+04:00)

Nazrin Abdul Read more

US-Azerbaijani trade relations have recently entered a new and more structured phase. The first bilateral business mission between Azerbaijan and the United States, organized toward the end of last month, marked an important milestone in institutionalizing economic dialogue between the two countries. The mission focused on key strategic sectors, including energy and digital transformation, defense and transport, agriculture and healthcare, finance, and investments - areas that reflect both Azerbaijans diversification agenda and US global commercial priorities.

Within the framework of the US Chamber of Commerce business mission to Azerbaijan, a high-level roundtable was held at the Ministry of Economy. The delegation was led by Kush Choksi, Senior Vice President of the US Chamber of Commerce for the Middle East, Central Asia, and Turkiye. During the discussions, it was emphasized that AzerbaijanUS relations, supported by the political will of both governments, have evolved to the level of a strategic partnership. This political foundation has created favorable conditions for broadening economic cooperation beyond its traditional energy-centered model.

From an analytical perspective, the emphasis on macroeconomic stability and sustainable development during the roundtable was not coincidental. Azerbaijan is positioning itself as a predictable and reform-oriented economy at a time when global investors are increasingly sensitive to risk, supply chain disruptions, and regulatory uncertainty. The countrys efforts to expand the non-oil and gas sector - combined with incentives for entrepreneurs, digitalization reforms, and investment-friendly policies -signal a clear intention to attract long-term, technology-driven foreign capital rather than short-term speculative inflows.

Transport and logistics also emerged as a strategic theme. Azerbaijans geographic location and expanding transport corridors offer US companies potential access to wider regional markets, including Central Asia and Europe. New transport connections are expected to increase Azerbaijans relevance not only as a trading partner but also as a transit hub, adding a geopolitical dimension to economic cooperation.

US company representatives expressed satisfaction with Azerbaijans business environment and signaled strong interest in deepening partnerships. The participation of executives from global corporations such as Apple, ExxonMobil, bp, Boeing, Visa, Mastercard, Shell, Meta, and Honeywell underscores the breadth of US commercial interest. This diversity suggests that bilateral relations are gradually moving from sector-specific engagement toward a more comprehensive economic partnership.

The current momentum can be traced back to the Memorandum of Understanding signed on August 8, 2025, which laid the groundwork for intensified cooperation in strategic investment and regional economic integration. Notably, the scope of cooperation now includes artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, and advanced technologies - areas that could redefine the future trajectory of AzerbaijanUS economic relations.

Trade structure and current dynamics

Despite the growing political and strategic dialogue, trade figures indicate that AzerbaijanUS trade remains asymmetric and concentrated. According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), Azerbaijan exported a total of $27.2 billion in 2024, ranking 71st globally. Exports to the United States totaled $74.9 million, dominated by aluminum plating ($31.7 million), explosive ammunition ($8.13 million), petroleum resins ($6.51 million), ferroalloys ($6.79 million), and diamonds ($2.51 million).

This export structure reflects limited product diversification and highlights the challenge Azerbaijan faces in scaling up non-energy exports to the US market. While Azerbaijan is the largest US trading partner in the South Caucasus, its share in total US imports remains modest, indicating untapped potential rather than underperformance.

Historically, energy has been the backbone of bilateral economic relations. Since Azerbaijan regained independence in 1991, US companies have played a pivotal role in developing the countrys oil and gas sector. Over time, this cooperation has expanded, but energy still defines the strategic core of the relationship.

The United States is Azerbaijans second-largest investor, with over 250 US-invested companies registered in the country. Foundational agreements, including the 1993 Agreement on Commercial Relations and the 1997 Agreement on the Protection and Promotion of Mutual Investments, have provided legal stability and investor confidence. The AzerbaijanUS Economic Partnership Commission, established in 2007, has further strengthened institutional ties through regular meetings in Baku and Washington.

Trade trends: Rapid growth, structural imbalance

Trade statistics over recent years show rapid growth, particularly on the import side:

Year Import Export Trade turnover

2022 $479.8M $90.3M $570.1M

2023 $888.1M $16.0M $904.1M

2024 $1,617.93M $135.03M $1,752.96M

The sharp increase in trade turnover in 2024 indicates intensifying economic interaction. However, the persistent trade deficit highlights Azerbaijans reliance on US high-value imports such as machinery, aircraft, engines, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, and advanced technologies. While these imports support modernization and productivity gains, they also underline the need for Azerbaijan to enhance export competitiveness in value-added sectors.

Azerbaijans exports to the US - ranging from crude oil and agricultural products to carpets, textiles, chemical goods, and electronic equipment - remain fragmented. Expanding these exports will likely require compliance with stricter US standards, branding strategies, and deeper integration into global value chains.

Beyond trade: Technology and energy security

Cooperation in space and high technology represents another strategic layer of the relationship. Partnerships with US companies such as Orbital Sciences Corporation and Space Systems/Loral for the Azerspace-1 and Azerspace-2 satellites demonstrate that bilateral cooperation extends into advanced technological domains.

Energy cooperation remains the cornerstone. US participation in the Contract of the Century and support for the Southern Gas Corridor underline Washingtons recognition of Azerbaijans role in regional and European energy security. Continued US involvement in projects such as AzeriChiragGunashli and the extension of production-sharing agreements signal that energy, while evolving, will remain central to the partnership.

In conclusion, US- Azerbaijan trade relations are transitioning from an energy-dominated model toward a more diversified and strategic framework. While trade volumes are growing rapidly, the qualitative transformation of exports and deeper integration into high-value sectors will determine the long-term sustainability of this relationship. If current reforms and investment initiatives translate into concrete projects, US -Azerbaijan economic cooperation may enter a new phase - one defined not only by energy security, but also by innovation, connectivity, and shared strategic interests.
10 February 2026 14:08 (UTC+04:00)

Akbar Novruz Read more

Europes attempt to rid itself of Russian gas has entered a more forensic phase. Having spent the past three years scrambling for alternative supplies, the European Commission is now turning its attention to what it buys, how it is labelled, and whether molecules arriving at the EUs borders are really what exporters claim them to be. The latest target of this scrutiny is not Moscow directly, but the infrastructure through which gas reaches Europe from Turkiye, including volumes supplied by Azerbaijan.

The European Union has legally adopted a step-by-step prohibition on imports of Russian pipeline gas and liquefied natural gas, as part of its REPowerEU roadmap to end reliance on Moscows energy exports. A full ban on LNG imports will come into force from early 2027, and on pipeline gas by late 2027 at the latest. Before authorising entry into the EU, member states must now verify the country where gas was produced. This requirement underpins the mechanism forcing exporters to prove non-Russian origin for supplies

The immediate trigger was political. In November, a French MEP, Jean-Paul Garron, accused the EU of quietly circumventing its own sanctions by importing Russian gas disguised as Azerbaijani. Brussels dismissed the charge at the time, stressing that the Southern Gas Corridor, the pipeline system bringing Caspian gas via Georgia, Turkiye and Greece, has no technical link to Russias network. That remains true. Yet since then, the Commission has moved to impose additional verification requirements, forcing both EU member states and foreign suppliers to prove that gas entering the bloc is not of Russian origin.

The Commissions June 2025 proposal to phase out Russian gas and oil imports entirely by the end of 2027 follows a decade-long effort to reduce reliance on Moscows energy leverage. Before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia supplied as much as 4045% of EU gas imports; by 2025, that share had fallen to around 13%, thanks to diversification efforts. The current push to ban Russian gas and require origin verification is a natural extension of that strategy.

The new checks apply most visibly at Strandja-1Malkochlar, the interconnection point on the Bulgarian-Turkish border. According to ENTSOG, around 1.9 billion cubic metres of gas passed through this point into Bulgaria in 2025. The location is sensitive not because of Azerbaijani gas, but because of what sits nearby. Just a few kilometres away is Strandzha-2/Malkoclar, the onshore continuation of TurkStream, the pipeline carrying Russian gas across the Black Sea to Turkiye and onwards into south-eastern Europe.

Until now, geography and shared infrastructure have allowed uncomfortable ambiguities. Even after Bulgaria declared in 2022 that it would stop buying Russian gas, it emerged a year later that Gazprom molecules were still entering the country through the Trans-Balkan system. Brussels has learnt from that episode. Under the new regime, any compressor station that connects EU pipelines to routes carrying substantial Russian volumes will face similar scrutiny. The aim is simple: to ensure that Russian gas does not slip into the EU through legal grey zones.

This has consequences far beyond Bulgaria. Since 2023, Azerbaijan has been using the Trans-Balkan pipeline in reverse mode to supplement deliveries to Europe. The reason is capacity. The Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), the European leg of the Southern Gas Corridor, was expanded this year to around 11.2bn cubic metres annually. That is still less than Azerbaijans actual exports: in 2025, Baku shipped roughly 12.9bn cubic metres to European buyers. Unless further expansions are completed, part of that volume must continue to flow via the Trans-Balkan route, and therefore through infrastructure now subject to enhanced checks.

For Azerbaijan, this is an inconvenience rather than a threat. Its gas is produced under production-sharing agreements with international oil companies and marketed under strict transparency rules. Certifying origin is unlikely to pose a serious problem. Indeed, Brusselss insistence on verification implicitly acknowledges Bakus growing role as a strategic supplier whose volumes must be accommodated, even as Europe tightens sanctions.

The European Union checks the quality and origin of Azerbaijani gas in two main ways: through physical-chemical characteristics and origin documentation. Each shipment is accompanied by a certificate of origin, confirming that the gas comes from Azerbaijan and has not been mixed with supplies from other countries. Physical inspections are conducted at border stations, such as Strandja-1/Malkoclar, where the gas is analysed for methane content, other components (ethane, propane, nitrogen, CO), harmful substances (HS, water vapour, dust), and calorific value/Wobbe index. Laboratory results are certified in protocols and submitted to EU regulators. Under new rules, the EU also verifies that the gas is not of Russian origin, using transit data, documentation, and real-time monitoring systems.

Since gas production in Azerbaijan is carried out with international company participation and high transparency standards, the origin of every cubic meter can be easily confirmed, ensuring no issues for deliveries to Europe. As a result, Azerbaijani gas fully meets EU standards for both quality and origin, while the EUs verification mechanisms are designed to ensure safety, energy efficiency, and prevent Russian gas from entering the market.

The real casualty is Turkiye. Ankara has spent the past decade positioning itself as a regional gas hub, investing heavily in LNG terminals, expanding underground storage and leveraging its geography to sit astride Russian, Caspian and Middle Eastern flows. That strategy relied, at least in part, on Russian gas remaining commercially usable for Europe. The EUs new controls draw a firm line through that assumption. Russian gas may enter Turkiye, but it will not enter the EU through Turkiye.

The numbers are stark. Last year, roughly 17bn cubic metres of Russian gas reached Hungary, Slovakia and Serbia via TurkStream. Since the start of this year, daily flows have been running close to capacity. Once the EUs ban takes full effect, only Serbia, outside the EU, will remain a destination, taking around 2.2bn cubic metres annually. The Balkan transmission system, built for more than 15bn cubic metres, will be drastically underused. Transit revenues for Turkiye could fall by billions of dollars.

There is a partial consolation. With Europe closed off, Russia will struggle to redirect tens of billions of cubic metres elsewhere in the short term. Turkiye, which still imports about 21bn cubic metres of Russian gas a year out of total consumption of roughly 60bn, may be able to negotiate steeper discounts. Domestic production from the Sakarya field in the Black Sea, around 9m cubic metres a day, enough for some four million households, helps, but imports will remain essential.

Seen from Brussels, this is collateral damage worth accepting. The EUs overriding objective is strategic clarity: no Russian gas, no ambiguity, no creative relabelling. By enforcing origin checks at critical nodes, the bloc is signalling that its energy divorce from Moscow is entering a more disciplined, rule-based phase.

Europe still needs Caspian gas, and in volumes that exceed existing pipeline capacity. Today, Azerbaijan supplies natural gas to 16 countries, 10 of which are EU member states, giving it the widest geographical coverage of pipeline gas exports globally. Verification may slow flows at the margins, but it also underlines Bakus value as a supplier whose gas can be traced, audited and politically defended. In an energy market shaped as much by geopolitics as by geology, that distinction matters.
10 February 2026 20:57 (UTC+04:00)

Elnur Enveroglu Read more

J.D. Vances visit to Baku and the signing of a USAzerbaijan Strategic Partnership Charter mark more than a routine diplomatic upgrade. They reflect a renewed American interest in the South Caucasus at a time when global energy insecurity, supply-chain disruption and geopolitical fragmentation are reshaping Washingtons priorities. By formalising cooperation across energy, connectivity, artificial intelligence and security, the United States is messaging that Azerbaijan is no longer viewed solely through the prism of hydrocarbons, but as a strategic hub linking Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East. For Baku, the agreement offers institutional depth and political recognition; for Washington, it represents a pragmatic investment in regional stability and diversification. Together, the move underscores how the South Caucasus is re-emerging as a theatre of strategic relevance rather than a geopolitical afterthought.

Therefore the signing of the Strategic Partnership Charter between Azerbaijan and the United States during JD Vances visit to Baku marks a significant recalibration of relations that have long been substantial, but uneven. While energy cooperation has historically anchored the bilateral relationship, the new framework suggests a deliberate shift towards institutionalised, multidimensional engagement, and a recognition in Washington that the South Caucasus can no longer be treated as geopolitically peripheral.

At its core, the charter formalises what has often existed in practice but lacked structure: a convergence of strategic interests. By emphasising mutual respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and border inviolability, the document carries political weight beyond diplomatic ritual. In a region where unresolved conflicts and competing external influences remain the norm, such language functions as a stabilising signal  both to neighbours and to global stakeholders.

For the United States, the timing is telling. Global energy markets remain volatile, supply chains are under pressure, and technological competition has become inseparable from national security. Against this backdrop, Azerbaijans role as an energy producer, transit hub and emerging digital corridor becomes strategically valuable. Washingtons renewed engagement is less about rediscovering Baku and more about recalculating its regional priorities in a fragmented international system.

Energy remains central, but it is no longer sufficient. The charter explicitly acknowledges Azerbaijans contribution to energy security, particularly in relation to Europe. Yet it also moves beyond hydrocarbons, linking energy with data connectivity, transport infrastructure and digital networks. This reflects a broader understanding: energy security today is inseparable from logistics, data flows and technological resilience. The emphasis on the Trans-Caspian transport corridor and the proposed TRIPP route underlines Azerbaijans ambition to position itself as a linchpin of Eurasian connectivity  an ambition Washington now appears willing to endorse.

Perhaps the most forward-looking element of the charter is its focus on artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure and space cooperation. These are not decorative additions. By supporting AI data centres, cybersecurity collaboration and joint research and development mechanisms, the agreement signals a shared interest in shaping technological ecosystems rather than merely participating in them. For Azerbaijan, this offers a pathway towards economic diversification and human capital development. For the US, it represents an opportunity to empower emerging digital standards in a strategically located partner state.

Security cooperation, meanwhile, remains a crucial pillar. The charters language on defence collaboration, counter-terrorism and infrastructure protection reflects continuity rather than rupture, but its institutional framing matters. Azerbaijans contributions to international peacekeeping missions are explicitly recognised, reinforcing its image as a security provider rather than a passive consumer. Equally important is the inclusion of humanitarian demining, an issue often sidelined in strategic discussions but central to post-conflict recovery and regional normalisation.

What distinguishes this agreement from previous declarations is not its ambition, but its architecture. The creation of working groups, roadmaps and regular dialogue mechanisms within a three-month timeframe suggests an intent to operationalise commitments rather than leave them suspended in diplomatic language. The explicit inclusion of the private sector on both sides further indicates that this partnership is designed to outlast political cycles and move beyond state-to-state formalities.

Critics may argue that strategic charters are often long on vision and short on delivery. That risk is real. Yet dismissing this agreement as symbolic would overlook the broader context in which it emerges. The United States is reassessing how it engages with regions that sit at the crossroads of energy routes, transport corridors and geopolitical competition. Azerbaijan, by virtue of geography and policy choice, fits squarely into that reassessment.

For Baku, the charter represents international validation of a long-standing strategy: balancing relations with global powers while asserting regional agency. For Washington, it is a pragmatic acknowledgement that stability, connectivity and technological cooperation in the South Caucasus serve American interests as much as they serve local ones.

In that sense, the Strategic Partnership Charter is not merely about bilateral relations. It is a statement about how power, influence and cooperation are being redefined in a world where geography matters again  and where the South Caucasus is no longer on the margins of strategic thinking.
South Africa has moved to withdraw its peacekeepers deployed at the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) after nearly three decades of service.

In a statement issued on Sunday, President Cyril Ramaphosa said he informed UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on 12 January about the decision, which "is influenced by the need to consolidate and realign the resources of the South African National Defence Force, following 27 years of South Africa's support to UN peacekeeping efforts in the DRC."

He noted that South Africa is among the top 10 countries contributing troops to MONUSCO, with over 700 soldiers.

'Steadfast commitment' praised

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In response, MONUSCO, expressed deep gratitude to the Government and people of South Africa "for their steadfast commitment over several decades to United Nations peacekeeping, as well as for the dedication demonstrated by South African peacekeepers in support of the Mission's mandate."

The Mission "looks forward to continuing to engage with the Republic of South Africa on broader peacekeeping issues, including lessons learned and continued support to efforts aimed at advancing peace and stability."

It also will work closely with the UN Secretariat and relevant stakeholders to ensure that any transition related to the withdrawal "is managed in a safe, orderly, and responsible manner, in line with United Nations standards and operational requirements."

The UN Secretary-General also expressed thanks to South Africa for its longtime commitment and sacrifice, his Spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, told journalists in New York on Monday.

Service and sacrifice

MONUSCO has been in the DRC since July 2010, taking over from an earlier UN peacekeeping operation that supervised implementation of a ceasefire agreement following conflict in the east stemming from the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda.

Several regional countries and armed groups were involved in the fighting, also known as the Great War of Africa.

MONUSCO's mandate includes protecting civilians and helping the DRC to stabilize and consolidate peace.

More than 12,400 personnel were serving at the Mission as of October 2025, including some 9,177 troops and 926 police officers from over 50 countries. Since inception, 304 fatalities have been recorded.

MONUSCO paid tribute "to South African peacekeepers who lost their lives under the United Nations flag in the service of peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and honours their sacrifice."

Peacekeeping chief's visit

The head of UN Peace Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, is currently in the DRC where on Monday he met with President Felix Tshisekedi, Prime Minister Judith Suminwa Tuluka, key members of the Government, and relevant stakeholders.

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Discussions centred around implementation of the MONUSCO mandate, including support to a permanent ceasefire.

Mr. Lacroix will then go to Beni in North Kivu province, eastern DRC, where he will assess recent developments and meet with provincial authorities as well as peacekeepers deployed in the area.

Later this week, he will head to Ethiopia for the annual African Union summit, taking place in the capital, Addis Ababa.
10 February 2026 09:46 (UTC+04:00)

While the idea of starting your own company is exciting for many people, there may be concerns that the process will be complicated. Although the company registration in Azerbaijan may seem difficult, it can be simplified with the right approach. In this article, we explain what company registration is, its importance, the main steps of the process, and the required documents, as well as how Accounting.Az can support you in this area.

What is company registration and why is it important?

Company registration in Azerbaijan is the official state registration of a business. As a result of this process, the organization acquires the status of a legal entity and receives the necessary documents to conduct legal activities, including a TIN (VOEN) for taxation. Without registration, it is not possible to conclude official contracts, open a bank account, or undergo full tax registration. Company registration also limits the personal liability of the entrepreneur (especially when registering an LLC), increases the credibility of your business, and provides legal protection.

Registration Process: main steps

 Step 1: Legal form and name selection  First, determine the legal form of the company you want to establish (for example, LLC) and a unique name. Make sure that the company name is not already used by another entity.

 Step 2: Preparing documents  Collect the main documents required for registration (charter, founding decision/protocol, copies of founders ID cards, legal address document, etc.). Make sure that all documents are prepared correctly and completely.

 Step 3: Submitting the application  Apply to the relevant state authority (usually the tax authority) with the prepared documents. You can submit the application electronically (via an online government portal) or in the traditional way (in person).

 Step 4: Obtaining a certificate and TIN  After the application is approved, you will receive a certificate of state registration of your company and a TIN(VOEN) for taxation. This confirms that your business is now officially registered.

 Step 5: Next Steps  Once registration is complete, complete additional steps such as opening a bank account and ordering a company seal if necessary.

Looking to start a company in Azerbaijan? Contact us today and get a free consultation!

 Phone: +994502258205, +994123100929, +994125983798

 E-mail: [email protected]

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Required documents and points to pay attention to

 Required documents: The charter, copies of the founders' ID cards, the founding decision/protocol, a document on the legal address and a receipt for payment of the state fee are the main documents. The complete and correct preparation of these documents creates the basis for the acceptance of the application.

 Points to pay attention to: It is important that the company name is unique - first make sure that there is no other company with the same name. Check the accuracy of the information in the documents (founder's information, address, etc.) several times. Even the smallest mistake can delay the registration process. Therefore, be careful when preparing the documents, and do not hesitate to seek expert advice if necessary.

Why Accounting.Az?

Accounting.Az is your reliable partner specializing in company registration and legal organization of business. Our team provides a wide range of legal services, such as company registration in Azerbaijan, accounting, tax consulting and obtaining a residence permit for foreign citizens. With our advantages such as fast execution, transparent prices and professional support in preparing documents, we are with you at every stage of the company registration process. Our specialists save you time and free you from bureaucratic obstacles by performing all the steps on your behalf, from preparing applications to completing state registration.

Company registration in Azerbaijan is not so difficult if planned correctly. The important thing is to carefully follow each step and get support when necessary. If you also have plans to open a company and want help in the process, the Accounting.Az team is ready to help. Get in touch and let's take the first step of your business together.

 Contact information:

 +994502258205, +994123100929, +994125983798

 E-mail: [email protected]

Website: www.accounting.az
10 February 2026 10:22 (UTC+04:00)

Qabil Ashirov Read more

The South Caucasus and Central Asia are emerging as strategically important regions for American businesses, AzerNEWS reports, citing a senior official of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Speaking at a briefing held in Baku, Khush Choksi, Senior Vice President of International Member Relations, Middle East and Turkiye at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, emphasized that the organizationthe worlds largest business associationoperates globally and sees growing opportunities in these regions.

The South Caucasus and Central Asia are developing markets of significant interest to U.S. companies, Choksi said. He noted that the Chambers active engagement with Azerbaijan began two years ago, when it brought a delegation to the country during the COP conference. Azerbaijan hosted the event at a very high level, placing equal emphasis on both traditional and renewable energy sources. This ideal balance attracted businesses and marked the Chambers first serious step into Azerbaijan, he added.

According to Choksi, the delegation included more than 31 companies and over 60 participants, with both days of the briefing proving highly productive.

Highlighting Azerbaijans economic profile, Choksi stressed that diversification is one of its most remarkable features. Even energy today accounts for only 3.7 percent of the economy, which demonstrates the broad balance of the countrys economic structure, he said. This is also reflected in the wide range of sectors represented in our delegation and in the overall interest in Azerbaijan.

He explained that the delegation comprised companies from telecommunications, energy, defense, healthcare, payment systems, and banking, while manufacturing was also represented in various forms. The scope is extremely broad. In other words, Azerbaijans economy is developing comprehensively, Choksi noted.

As economic growth continues, new opportunities are also emerging in the banking and financial sectors, he said. Azerbaijans role in multiple transport corridors offers significant potential, particularly in digital payments and related growth areas.

Choksi also pointed to the countrys expanding tourism sector, describing it as a wide-ranging field that includes aircraft manufacturing such as Boeing, as well as international hotel brands like Hilton and Marriott. The diversity of opportunities in tourism alone is quite substantial, he said.

Addressing the energy sector, Choksi underlined Azerbaijans potential role as a regional hub. He noted that the countrys strong infrastructure enables it to leverage energy resources to further diversify its economy and sustain long-term growth.

Azerbaijans development presents multiple opportunities, he said, citing tourism as an example, including rising visitor numbers, ski resorts, modern infrastructure, and Bakus rich historical heritage.

Choksi also highlighted Azerbaijans strategic geographical position. Its location connecting East and West supports Europes energy needs, transport routes, logistics, manufacturing, and NorthSouth connectivity, he said. Azerbaijan can serve as an energy hub, especially as the region continues to develop. The country is strategically positioned to provide access to a number of markets beyond its borders.
10 February 2026 15:00 (UTC+04:00)

Laman Ismayilova Read more

The dates for the sacred Laylat al-Qadr nights during Ramadan have been announced, AzerNEWS reports.

According to a special calendar detailing daily prayers as well as imsak and iftar times, the first night of Laylat al-Qadr will fall on the night of March 78, corresponding to the 8th of Ramadan.

The other significant nights will be observed on the nights of March 910, March 1112, and March 1516. This year, the first day of Ramadan in Azerbaijan began on February 19.

Note that Ramadan celebrations in Azerbaijan will take place on March 20 and 21.

Ramadan was established as a holy month for Muslims following the revelation of the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad in 610 CE, during the occasion known as Laylat al-Qadr, often called "the Night of Power."

During this sacred month, Muslims around the world observe fasting from sunrise to sunset, abstaining from food and drink, as well as striving to avoid thoughts and behaviors considered impure under Islamic teachings. Fasting is obligatory for all believers, with exceptions for minors, the elderly, the ill, the mentally ill, pregnant or nursing women, travelers, and soldiers.

At sunset, Muslims gather in homes or mosques to break their fast with a meal called iftar. Mosques often host large iftar gatherings, particularly for the poor and needy. After breaking the fast, Muslims perform the fourth of their five daily prayers, followed by dinner, and then attend the Isha prayer, the fifth daily prayer at the mosque.

The day concludes with a special voluntary prayer, often performed in congregation. During Ramadan, Muslims also dedicate time to reading the Quran, performing acts of charity, and engaging in worship.

The final ten days of Ramadan are considered especially sacred, with the 27th night holding particular significance as the Night of Power, when Prophet Muhammad received his first revelation. Many Muslims spend this night in prayer and reflection.

Ramadan ends with Eid ul-Fitr, the Festival of Fast-Breaking, observed 29 or 30 days after the start of the month. It is one of the two major religious holidays in the Muslim calendar. Families gather to celebrate, exchange gifts, prepare special pastries, visit the graves of relatives, and offer prayers in mosques.

In Azerbaijan, a predominantly Muslim country, Ramadan has been officially observed since 1993, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Even during the Soviet era, when all religious holidays were banned, Azerbaijani Muslims continued to fast.

For centuries, Azerbaijan has been a historical and cultural center of the Islamic world, with its people deeply committed to their religious, national, and moral values. Today, freedom of conscience and religion are fully protected under both local legislation and international law.
10 February 2026 17:54 (UTC+04:00)

Laman Ismayilova Read more

A high-profile conference has taken place at Ataturk Center to discuss the objectives emerging from the new state concept, "Azerbaijani Culture-2040", AzerNEWS reports.

The event brought together leading cultural scholars, heads of the Azerbaijan Culture Association "Simurgh," the Society of Cultural Scholars, representatives of the Azerbaijan NGO Forum, scientists, educators, journalists, public figures, business leaders, tourism specialists, government officials, and community leaders, including the Elders' Council of Baku's Yasamal district.

By presidential decree on January 14, 2026, Ilham Aliyev approved the State Concept for the Culture of the Republic of Azerbaijan, "Azerbaijani Culture-2040" establishing long-term priorities and development directions for the country's cultural sphere through 2040.

During the conference, participants adopted a declaration outlining an action plan based on a systematic cultural-science approach, analyzing strategies to achieve the Concept's objectives. The plan draws on the ideology of Azerbaijani identity, the legacy of National Leader Heydar Aliyev, and the new ideas and directives of President Ilham Aliyev, reflecting the country's developmental needs and contemporary challenges.

Speakers emphasized that the new cultural mission opens avenues for developing high intellectual and moral standards among citizens, fostering scientific knowledge, professional expertise, national identity, and strengthening the ideology of Azerbaijani identity.

The phenomenon of culture, they noted, requires a systematic understanding from the perspective of modern cultural science, an integrator of social and human sciences and a key paradigm of the 21st century.

Addressing cultural development and governance challenges must rely on scientific research, national development priorities, and contemporary societal needs. This includes prioritizing intellectual, ethical, legal, and managerial culture, which in turn drives socio-economic progress while supporting the harmonious development of traditional cultural fields such as language, literature, arts, and heritage.

A central goal of the Concept is the perpetual development of competitive human capital, with the highly cultured individual forming its core and main driving force.

Conference participants stressed that achieving this national objective requires a scientifically grounded approach and the coordinated efforts of the entire intelligentsia. Innovation in methodology and the insights of modern cultural science are key to understanding the new mission of culture and selecting effective strategies for its implementation.

Among the measures proposed, participants outlined the importance of establishing cultural studies departments in educational institutions. Equally significant is the self-development and self-improvement of citizens based on cultural-scientific methodology.

They also highlighted the role of Azerbaijan's intelligentsia in disseminating universal cultural knowledge among the broader population, suggesting a national competition, "The Highly Cultured Citizen of Azerbaijan," spanning all spheres of societal life.

The conference concluded with a consensus on the necessity of uniting the efforts of government bodies, businesses, NGOs, creative and professional unions, cultural foundations, and civil society to successfully implement the objectives of the new socio-cultural development concept.
10 February 2026 11:03 (UTC+04:00)

Tahir Yagub oghlu Budagov, appointed head of the Executive Authority of Bakus Nasimi district by an order of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, was formally introduced to the districts staff on Tuesday.

The presentation was made by Assistant to the President and Head of the Territorial and Organizational Affairs Department of the Presidential Administration, Zeynal Nagdaliyev, in the presence of representatives of the districts public.

AzerNEWS reports that Zeynal Nagdaliyev delivered the official introduction and conveyed the instructions and recommendations of the head of state.

In his remarks, T. Budagov expressed gratitude for the confidence placed in him.
10 February 2026 15:56 (UTC+04:00)

Rashad Sahil oglu Ismayilov has been appointed Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan, President Ilham Aliyev announced in a signed decree, AzerNews reports.

The ministry has been vacant since February 5, 2025, following the dismissal of the Presidents representative on climate issues, Mukhtar Babayev.

Who is Rashad Ismayilov?

Born on August 27, 1979, Ismayilov holds bachelors and masters degrees in law from Baku State University. He began his career in 2000 as a lawyer at the small enterprise Zahmet. Over the following years, he held legal and advisory roles in both the private sector and government bodies, including:

Lawyer at Star LTD LLC (20052006)

Lawyer-specialist at the Ganja city Auditor Organization of the Chamber of Auditors of Azerbaijan (2006)

Senior legal advisor at the State Registry Service of the Republic of Azerbaijan (20062009)

Lawyer and senior advisor at the Icherisheher State Historical and Architectural Reserve Department under the Cabinet of Ministers (20102013)

Head of the Legal Expertise Sector and Deputy Head of the Legal and Control Department at the Housing Construction Agency under the President (20132018)

Head of the Legal and Internal Control Department and later Head of the Office of the State Urban Planning and Architecture Committee (20182024)

On August 15, 2024, by presidential order, Ismayilov was appointed First Deputy Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources, a position he held until his recent elevation to minister.
10 February 2026 18:13 (UTC+04:00)

Nazrin Abdul Read more

The court hearing in the criminal case against Armenian citizen Ruben Vardanyan, accused of crimes against peace and humanity, war crimes, terrorism and financing of terrorism, as well as other serious offenses under the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan, continued on February 10.

As reported by AzerNEWS, the open court session was held at the Baku Military Court under the chairmanship of Judge Zeynal Agayev, with judges Anar Rzayev and Jamal Ramazanov (reserve judge Gunel Samedova). The defendant was provided with an interpreter in his native language, Russian, as well as a state-appointed defense lawyer.

The presiding judge recalled that state prosecutors had delivered their statements during the previous hearing and announced that the floor would now be given to the injured party.

Speaking on behalf of the Azerbaijani state as the injured party, Rufat Mammadov, Head of the Office of the Cabinet of Ministers, stated that he fully agreed with all facts, evidence, and materials presented by the prosecution, including those outlined in the indictment, and asked the court to take them into account.

Subsequently, the legal successors of the victims - Azad Karimov, Oktay Shikhaliyev, Gadim Agakhanov, Faiq Rustamov, and Shiraslan Hasanov - addressed the court, requesting that the defendant be sentenced to the maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

Ruben Vardanyan then appealed to the court, requesting to speak with his defense lawyer, Emil Babishov. The court granted the request and ed a recess to allow the meeting.

After the recess, the floor was given to the defense. The defendant stated that he had spoken with his lawyer during the break and that he did not wish his lawyer to deliver a statement.

Defense lawyer Emil Babishov was then given the floor and stated that the defense categorically disagreed with the charges brought against the defendant. Based on the defendants position, he announced that he would refrain from delivering a defense speech on the merits of the case.

The prosecution was then given the opportunity to respond. Vusal Aliyev, Senior Assistant to the Prosecutor General, stated:

Taking into account that the defense has not provided any arguments or assessed the evidence and facts in line with the defendants position, we have no additional comments.

Ruben Vardanyan was subsequently given the floor for his final statement. In his closing remarks, he did not address specific issues related to the case, speaking instead in general terms. He said that he had read the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

He also noted that during more than two years in detention, he had discovered Azerbaijani poetry for himself. Vardanyan recited a poem by the great Azerbaijani poet Muhammad Fuzuli and an excerpt from a poem by Huseyn Javid in Russian, after which he concluded his statement.

Judge Zeynal Agayev then asked both the prosecution and the defense whether they intended to submit draft versions of the final court decision based on the results of the trial. Both parties stated that they would not submit such drafts.

The presiding judge subsequently announced that the court examination had concluded. The verdict will be announced after the judges return from deliberations.

It should be recalled that during the previous hearing, the prosecutor representing the state prosecution requested that Ruben Vardanyan be sentenced to life imprisonment.

Ruben Vardanyan is charged under multiple articles of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan, including articles related to planning and waging an aggressive war; deportation and forced displacement of civilians; persecution; enforced disappearance; unlawful deprivation of liberty; torture; mercenarism; violations of the laws and customs of war; murder and attempted murder; illegal entrepreneurship; terrorism and financing of terrorism; creation of a criminal organization; illegal possession and trafficking of weapons and explosives; acts threatening aviation safety; violent seizure or retention of power; creation of illegal armed formations; and illegal crossing of the state border.
10 February 2026 18:34 (UTC+04:00)

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held an expanded meeting with JD Vance, Vice President of the United States, in Baku on February 10, AzerNEWS reports..

Welcoming the guests, President Ilham Aliyev said: Dear guests, once again, welcome to Azerbaijan. I'm very glad to see you. It's a big honor to host a delegation led by the Vice President of the United States. We just had a conversation about different aspects of our bilateral agenda and also regional development. Now, in a broader context, we will continue our dialogue.

We highly value relations between our countries, especially during the last six months, which were absolutely fantastic for our partnership. I had two meetings with President Trump in the last six months, and also your official visit to Azerbaijanthis really demonstrates the mutual interest and mutual will to strengthen our partnership. Today, our partnership is going to be elevated to a higher level formally, and the scope of activity and interaction between our teams really demonstrates a high level of partnership spirit.

I wish you a pleasant stay, and I'm sure that the visit will be another contribution to our strong cooperation. So, welcome once again.

x x x

Vice President JD Vance said: Great. Thank you, President Aliyev, and thanks to your team for hosting us. We have some of the best people in the U.S. government here, and the President sends his very best. He's very grateful for your partnership. The peace deal, which I think is the seventh or eighth peace deal that he's struck between Azerbaijan and Armenia, I know he's very proud of, in part because he admires both your country and, of course, Armenia as well. But really, I think, unfortunately, the last administration made a lot of mistakes, and one of the mistakes that it made is that it had a very dumb policy towards Azerbaijan. We have corrected that under the President's leadership. I'm very grateful for that.

I know he's just grateful for the partnership and the friendship that exists between you and really our senior teams, and your administration and our administration. So it's great to be here. I think we're going to have some great conversations and also, obviously, sign this Strategic Partnership Agreement, which I'm very much looking forward to.

But this is a good meeting among friends who have accomplished a lot in the last year, and I think we'll accomplish a great deal more in the next three years. So, thank you for having us.

President Ilham Aliyev: Thank you.

x x x

The U.S. Vice President emphasized President Ilham Aliyevs leadership in advancing the peace agenda.

The head of state hailed the special role of U.S. President Donald Trump in achieving peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

JD Vance also highlighted the tolerant environment prevailing in Azerbaijan, noting that representatives of different religions live in peace and friendship in the country as one family.

During the conversation, the sides exchanged views on the development of the TRIPP transport corridor. They also discussed cooperation between Azerbaijan and the United States in politics, the economy, trade, high technologies, artificial intelligence, the establishment of data centers, and other areas, as well as issues of mutual interest.
10 February 2026 19:43 (UTC+04:00)

AzerNEWS reports that the document was signed by President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and Vice President of the United States James David Vance.

The signing ceremony of the Charter on Strategic Partnership between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Government of the United States of America was held in Baku on February 10.

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10 February 2026 09:00 (UTC+04:00)

By Alimat Aliyeva

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) has restarted Reactor No. 6 at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant, the worlds largest nuclear power facility, AzerNEWS reports.

The reactor was originally scheduled to go online on January 20 but was delayed due to issues with the alarm system. Niigata Prefecture, where the plant is located, had granted permission for a partial restart last November. This move is part of Japans broader efforts to revive its nuclear energy sector and reduce reliance on imported fossil fuels. The reopening of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa marks a significant milestone in Japans gradual return to nuclear power nearly 15 years after the Fukushima Daiichi disaster.

Located about 220 kilometers northwest of Tokyo, the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant was among 54 reactors shut down following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated Fukushima. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi emphasized her support for restarting nuclear plants to enhance energy security and reduce the high cost of imported energy, which currently accounts for 6070% of Japans electricity generation. In 2024, Japan spent $68 billion on liquefied natural gas and coal imports, representing roughly 10% of the countrys total import costs.

Interestingly, the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant is not only the largest in the world by capacity but also features advanced safety systems implemented after Fukushima, including multiple backup cooling systems and reinforced containment structures, making it one of the most modern and resilient nuclear facilities globally.
Arrival of displaced people from El Fasher to Tawila in North Darfur - November 5, 2025.

As the brutal Sudan war shows no signs of ending, UN human rights chief Volker Turk on Monday called on the international community to intervene immediately to stop more mass killings and other flagrant war crimes against civilians.

"We can only expect worse to come" unless action is taken to halt the bloodshed, Mr. Turk told Member States at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, as he reiterated his call for the extension of an arms embargo from Darfur to include all of Sudan.

Rival militaries from the national army and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia have been battling for control of the country for nearly three years.

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Something must be done to address the "continuous inflow of weapons", the High Commissioner for Human Rights insisted, after recounting testimonies of survivors of atrocity crimes in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, by paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) who overran the city last October.

Mass killings

"In one horrific example, people who fled to separate locations, thousands of kilometres apart, gave consistent accounts of the mass killing of hundreds of people sheltering at El Fasher University," he said, describing convincing testimony that some victims were targeted based on their non-Arab ethnicity - in particular, members of the Zaghawa ethnic group.

"Survivors also spoke of seeing piles of dead bodies along roads leading away from El Fasher, in an apocalyptic scene that one person likened to the Day of Judgment," the High Commissioner continued, his comments echoing the International Criminal Court's (ICC) conclusion last month that war crimes and crimes against humanity had taken place in El-Fasher, linked to the RSF's siege.

"Our own findings are fully consistent" with that ICC assessment, Mr. Turk told the Human Rights Council, at a meeting held specifically on the Sudan emergency.

Dire warnings

Previously, the UN rights chief noted that his office has warned about previous atrocity crimes such as the RSF offensive to capture Zamzam camp for displaced people in April 2025.

"Responsibility for these atrocity crimes lies squarely with the RSF and their allies and supporters," he said.

The war in Sudan erupted in April 2023, after a power-sharing agreement broke down in the resource-rich central African nation between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF.

The resulting humanitarian emergency has affected more than 30 million people in Sudan; many have faced repeated displacement and others have been impacted by famine and systematic sexual violence, including gang rape.

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As the fighting continues away from the Darfurs in the west to the central Kordofans regions, observers fear that further grave abuses are bound to happen, including by "advanced drone weaponry systems used by both sides", Mr. Turk warned.

Deadly drone war

"In the last two weeks, the SAF and allied Joint Forces broke the sieges on Kadugli and Dilling," the High Commissioner said. "But drone strikes by both sides continue, resulting in dozens of civilian deaths and injuries.

Civilians are at risk of summary executions, sexual violence, arbitrary detention, and family separation."

Mediation measures

In a bid to prevent further bloodshed, the High Commissioner announced a series of measures "to support mediation efforts" and de-escalate violence.

These include commitments not to target civilians or residential areas with explosive weapons, to enable the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid, to end arbitrary detention and cease attacks on civilian infrastructure.

"I witnessed the damage done by RSF attacks on Merowe dam and hydroelectric power station, which once supplied 70 per cent of Sudan's electricity. Repeated drone strikes have disrupted power and water supplies to huge numbers of people, with a serious impact on healthcare," he said.
10 February 2026 11:54 (UTC+04:00)

Akbar Novruz Read more

The United States is expected to hand over two regional commands in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to European countries after US President Donald Trump urged European allies to take more responsibility for their defense, AFP reported on Monday, citing unnamed NATO diplomats, AzerNEWS reports.

The American admirals currently in charge of Joint Force Command (JFC) Naples in Italy, and JFC Norfolk in Virginia, USA, will be replaced by European commanders when their postings come to an end, an insider told La Lettre. NATO has not officially confirmed the report.

The two operational headquarters in Italy and the US each handle the defence of a portion of the NATO area of operations. JFC Naples covers the southern flank, while JFC Norfolk covers the northern flank. A third nerve centre in Brunssum, the Netherlands, oversees the defence of the central area of operations.

JFC Norfolk, JFC Naples, and JFC Brunssum are led by the highest NATO commander, Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Mons.

It is still unclear who will succeed the two departing admirals in Norfolk and Naples. The NATO headquarters in Brunssum has been led by either a German or an Italian for years.

The US wants the SACEUR role to remain in American hands, according to La Lettre. After President Donald Trump took office, the United States considered relinquishing this important post, arguing that Europe would have to shoulder more of its own defence. However, the US ultimately nominated an American. Sources told La Lettre this position will remain unchanged.

The US is also reportedly considering taking over command of NATOs naval headquarters. MARCOM, just outside London, is currently headed by a British officer.

The Trump administration has long warned that European NATO allies must provide for their own defence, with the exception of nuclear weapons. Here and there, Europes great postwar patron is already putting his words into action. For example, the US is gradually withdrawing troops and personnel from Europe.

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the US would hand over command of Allied Command Transformation (ACT) in Norfolk.
10 February 2026 14:39 (UTC+04:00)

Akbar Novruz Read more

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Wednesday about American talks with Iran, his office said Saturday. At the same time, Irans foreign minister threatened U.S. military bases in the region a day after the discussions, AzerNEWS reports via CNBC.

The prime minister believes that all negotiations must include limiting the ballistic missiles, and ending support for the Iranian axis, Netanyahus office said in a brief statement, referring to Tehrans support for militant groups, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories. Trump and Netanyahu last met in December.

There was no immediate White House comment.

The U.S. and the Islamic Republic of Iran held indirect talks on Friday in Oman that appeared to return to the starting point on how to approach discussions over Tehrans nuclear program.

Trump called the talks very good and said more were planned for early next week. Washington was represented by Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trumps son-in-law.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to use force to compel Iran to reach a deal on its nuclear program after sending the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and other warships to the region amid Tehrans crackdown on nationwide protests that killed thousands.

Gulf Arab nations fear an attack could spark a regional war, with memories fresh of the 12-day Israel-Iran war in June.

For the first time in negotiations with Iran, the U.S. on Friday brought its top military commander in the Middle East to the table. U.S. Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, head of the militarys Central Command, then visited the USS Abraham Lincoln on Saturday with Witkoff and Kushner, the command said in a statement.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told journalists Friday that nuclear talks and the resolution of the main issues must take place in a calm atmosphere, without tension and without threats. He said that diplomats would return to their capitals, signaling that this round of negotiations was over.

On Saturday, Araghchi told the Al Jazeera satellite news network that if the U.S. attacks Iran, his country doesnt have the ability to strike the U.S., and therefore has to attack or retaliate against U.S. bases in the region.

He said there is very, very deep distrust after what happened during the previous talks, when the U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear sites during last years Israel-Iran war.

Araghchi also said the missile issue and other defense matters are in no way negotiable, neither now nor at any time in the future.

Tehran has maintained that these talks will be only on its nuclear program.

However, Al Jazeera reported that diplomats from Egypt, Turkey and Qatar offered Iran a proposal in which Tehran would halt enrichment for three years, send its highly enriched uranium out of the country and pledge to not initiate the use of ballistic missiles.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that the talks needed to include all those issues.
10 February 2026 15:18 (UTC+04:00)

Qabil Ashirov Read more

Turkiyes Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan outlined Ankaras position on the recent tensions surrounding Iran during an interview with CNN Turk.

Azernews reports that Fidan stated airstrikes against Iran would not lead to the collapse of its regime. I do not want to speculate about certain scenarios in Iran, but the regime will not change because of airstrikes or anything similar. That is an illusion, he emphasized.

The head of Turkish diplomacy added, A government may weaken, a system may fail to serve the people. At that point, the existing regime may opt for more radical decisions, or perhaps attempt to restore the situation.

Anadolu Agency reports that Fidans remarks came as Iran and the United States prepared for the next round of talks in Oman on Friday, marking nearly eight months since their last meeting. Highlighting the international importance of the Iran issue, Fidan noted that the region could not withstand another war.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is also demonstrating maximum sensitivity on this matter. Therefore, we want to use all available means to prevent a potential war, he said.

Fidan further explained that Irans Foreign Minister, Abbas Araqchi, had briefed him on the negotiations, while Ankara maintains communication with the U.S. side as well. He stressed the need for more creative solutions and emphasized the importance of avoiding the threat of war.

At present, there is no visible threat of war. Iranians do not have nuclear bombs. Moreover, there is no information suggesting they intend to produce nuclear weapons, he added. The minister noted that Tehran continues to enrich uranium but respects the religious decree prohibiting nuclear weapons production. Because this fatwa remains in effect, the system cannot produce a bomb. However, Iran is developing nuclear capabilities, which triggers sanctions and gives the impression that they may already be producing a bomb. On one hand, you enrich uranium. On the other, you must prepare warheads and then assemble them. So far, Iran has not taken any steps in this regard, Fidan explained.

When asked about Turkiyes position on Iran potentially acquiring nuclear weapons, Fidan stated that Ankara does not want to see sharp shifts in the regional power balance. Such developments would seriously undermine the spirit of cooperation in the region, he warned, adding that it could trigger a broader nuclear arms race, potentially forcing Turkiye and others to respond in kind. I do not believe this would benefit the region, Fidan concluded.
10 February 2026 18:42 (UTC+04:00)

Akbar Novruz Read more

Newly released documents from the US Department of Justice have revealed a photograph showing disgraced financier and convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein alongside a prominent businessman from the United Arab Emirates, posing with one of the most sacred symbols in Islam, AzerNEWS reports.

The image shows Epstein standing with Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, the chief executive of DP World, as the two men look at the Kiswa  the black, gold-embroidered cloth that covers the Kaaba in Mecca. In the photograph, the Kiswa appears to be spread out on the floor, while both men stand at the bottom of a staircase with their hands in their pockets.

The photo was attached to an email sent to Epstein on May 8, 2014, according to the newly disclosed files. The senders identity and email addresses were redacted, but the message included a cryptic line: Be careful not to mistake the large pocket in someones pants for a wallet. It remains unclear whether the comment was directly related to the image or its contents.

The documents indicate that the Kiswa-related items were transported from Saudi Arabia to Florida by British Airways. Correspondence includes customs paperwork, invoices and details of the delivery process within the United States. The shipments reportedly arrived at Epsteins residence in March 2017, after he had already served a prison sentence and was registered as a sex offender.

In one email included in the files, a correspondent identified as Ahmadi explained the religious significance of the Kiswa to Epstein. The black cloth is woven by at least 10 million Muslims, the message reads. They circle the Kaaba seven times, then try to place their prayers, tears, and wishes on it. They believe that their prayers will be accepted after this.

The Kiswa is traditionally replaced each year during the Hajj pilgrimage, on the ninth day of the Islamic month of Dhul-Hijjah. The old cloth is cut into small pieces and preserved as a religious relic, with portions sometimes displayed in museums or gifted by the Saudi authorities to institutions and individuals.

However, Islamic scholars note that placing the Kiswa on the ground is widely regarded as disrespectful from a religious standpoint, adding to the controversy surrounding the image and its presence among Epsteins possessions.
10 February 2026 20:21 (UTC+04:00)

By Alimat Aliyeva

The Turkish Ministry of Health is preparing new initiatives to strengthen the ban on smoking in public spaces, AzerNEWS reports.

Specifically, authorities plan to adopt a French-style approach, which imposes particularly high fines on smokers in areas frequented by children and adolescents - such as near schools, parks, bus stops, and residential entrances.

According to the Turkiye newspaper, the government also intends to revise the definition of "public places" in the regulatory framework and establish minimum distance requirements from designated smoking areas. These measures aim to significantly reduce the risks of secondhand smoke exposure.

It is worth noting that Turkiye has long prohibited indoor smoking of tobacco and the use of nicotine-containing products. If the proposed legislation is implemented, experts predict a drop in mortality linked to secondhand smoke, including deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, cancer, strokes, and diabetes.

Currently, specialists estimate that around 300 people die each day in Turkiye from tobacco-related illnesses, highlighting the urgent need for stricter enforcement.

Some cities in Turkiye are now experimenting with smoke-free zones in popular tourist areas, combining public health measures with urban designturning streets, parks, and even certain cafe terraces into completely smoke-free spaces. This not only protects health but also enhances the appeal of public spaces for families and visitors.
10 February 2026 22:23 (UTC+04:00)

By Alimat Aliyeva

Russian authorities may be preparing to partially restrict the operation of the Telegram messaging app, according to several sources, AzerNEWS reports, citing foreign media.

A source in the IT industry and two sources close to relevant government bodies told the publication that Roskomnadzor is considering measures to slow down Telegrams services. Another source cited by RBC claimed that such measures may already be underway.

The State Duma has commented on the reports. Alexander Yushchenko, Deputy Chairman of the Dumas Committee on Information Policy, said the issue has not been formally discussed within the committee. However, he noted that Roskomnadzor could impose restrictions if there are complaints regarding the messengers compliance with Russian law.

Meanwhile, users across Russia have been reporting widespread outages, slower message delivery, and connection issues on Telegram, fueling speculation that technical limitations may already be affecting the platform.

Telegram has more than 800 million users worldwide and plays a particularly significant role in Russia as a source of news, public discussion, and official communications. Previous attempts to block the messenger in Russia between 2018 and 2020 were largely unsuccessful, becoming a notable example of how difficult it can be to restrict large, encrypted digital platforms without disrupting the wider internet.
10 February 2026 23:23 (UTC+04:00)

By Alimat Aliyeva

The U.S. Department of Defense has announced the start of integrating ChatGPT into its internal military artificial intelligence systems as part of a new collaboration with OpenAI, AzerNEWS reports.

According to the announcement, ChatGPT will be incorporated into operational systems across all branches of the U.S. armed forces, where it will be used for data processing, analytical tasks, and to accelerate decision-making processes.

The Pentagon noted that the initiative will make advanced OpenAI language models available to approximately 3 million military and civilian personnel. At the same time, the department unveiled a new platform, GenAI.mil, which is described as a reflection of the Pentagons strategic commitment to the large-scale adoption of artificial intelligence technologies.

Commenting on the launch, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said that the future of American warfare is already here and is being shaped with the help of AI, emphasizing that the new platform provides modern artificial intelligence tools directly to U.S. military personnel.

Pentagon officials stress that the system will operate in secure, closed environments and will not rely on open public versions of AI tools. The move is part of a broader effort to ensure the U.S. military keeps pace with rapid AI adoption by other global powers, while maintaining strict control over data security and ethical use.
Florence's Wine, Chowder and Glass Float Trail Takes Over Oregon Coast Town, Feb 13-15

Published 02/04/26 at 6:55 p.m.

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection Staff

(Florence, Oregon) - The Florence Wine, Chowder & Glass Float Trail returns February 1315, 2026, with its largest lineup to date, featuring 15 wineries and distilleries, 12 chowder competitors, and 35 hand-blown glass floats hidden in shops and galleries throughout town. The central Oregon coast tradition has positioned itself this year to be one of the greatest options for Valentine's Day.

Romance and all kinds of fun abounds at the three-day event, timed to coincide with Presidents Day Weekend and Valentines Day. They again blend coastal cuisine, regional wine, and local artistry.

Its the best way to celebrate your three-day Presidents' Day Weekend and Valentines Day, so bring your special someone to Florence February 13 - 15 for a super-tasty getaway, said Bettina Hannigan, president and CEO of the Florence Area Chamber of Commerce.

Among its most engaging parts: there's a glass float hunt all over town. Other main features include wine tastings at more than 15 locations and a public chowder competition. Organizers say the 2026 edition expands participation from both wineries and restaurants, offering broader tasting opportunities across the weekend.

Glass float hunters may search participating businesses Friday through Sunday, with each discovered float earning an entry into a drawing for more than 30 locally crafted floats. Wine tastings run Saturday and Sunday, highlighting regional vineyards and distilleries in a walkable format.

The event concludes Sunday afternoon with the Chowder Trail, where attendees sample entries from a dozen Florence-area restaurants and vote for the new trophy winner. The glass float drawing will also be held that afternoon.

Organizers encourage visitors to extend their stay through the Monday holiday to explore nearby attractions such as Sea Lion Caves, Heceta Head Lighthouse, the Oregon Coast Military History Museum, the Siuslaw Pioneer Museum, and the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area.





This Presidents' Day Weekend event has become a major winter boost for Florence and our visitors, Hannigan said. It brings summer-level energy to the coast during the quieter season and supports local businesses across our community.

Event details, tickets, and lodging information are available at WineAndChowderTrail.com and FlorenceChamber.com/lodging.

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Slightly Rare: Fin Whale Washes Up on N. Oregon Coast - and They Knew It Was Coming

Published 02/07/26 at 7:55 p.m.

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection Staff

(Gearhart, Oregon)  It's actually fairly rare: a fin whale washing up on the Oregon coast does not happen often. In fact, it didn't happen for 20 years, at one point. (Photos and video Seaside Aquarium)

However, another did occur today - Saturday - according to Seaside Aquarium's Tiffany Boothe. The fourth since 2002.

A 46-foot fin whale washed ashore this morning north of Sunset Beach near Warrenton, Oregon, she said. The whale had been dead for quite some time prior to washing ashore. A necropsy will be scheduled for next week to attempt to determine the cause of death.

Seaside Aquarium's Keith Chandler told Oregon Coast Beach Connection there were no obvious signs of death.

It had one chunk taken out of it, and that was probably from a shark bite, he said. That wouldn't have killed it.

It's entirely possible it simply died of natural causes. Sea creatures are not immortal  they die all the time. It's actually a wonder why more dead things don't wash up.

The only species of whale larger than a fin whale is the blue whale, Boothe said.

Michael Milstein with National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration has talked to Oregon Coast Beach Connection in the past about these beasts.

We estimate about 8,000 fin whales off the West Coast but they generally stay farther offshore in deeper water, so they are rare to show up in strandings on shore, Milstein he said.

They get up to 80 feet long, Boothe said.

She also cautioned people to stay away.

While we encourage people to go check out this amazing creature, it is important to remember to look- but do not touch, Boothe said. Any whale, dolphin, porpoise, or pinniped can spread potential diseases to humans and pets.

Because the whale had been dead for what Chandler said was likely weeks, it smelled pretty bad. But he's smelled worse, he said. The fin whale was also well on its way towards deterioration.

Half of its skin had come off, half of it was still there, he said.

Chandler said they'd received a heads up several days ago the whale was floating not far away.

Got a call from a fisherman it was floating out there about 17 miles offshore, he said. So we knew it was out there, we just didn't know where it was going to end up.

Chandler said from 2002 until 2022 they hadn't encountered any. There was another in 2024.

The one in 2002 was rather extraordinary as a chunk of it had floated up the Columbia to the Portland area, and that chunk suddenly resurfaced next to a boat on the river.



The sub-adult fin whale in 2024 held a few more twists and turns when it showed up at Sunset Beach  the exact area today's whale stranded. Not only was that 46-foot male sick and emaciated  something whale experts are very concerned about  but this member of an endangered species had signs of an orca attack and was caught in fishing gear.

Witnesses thought it was still alive because the surf was moving it around. It was not. Sometime before the Seaside Aquarium and Marine Mammal Stranding Network arrived, one witness removed the fishing gear.

That is illegal  and a bad idea.

Unfortunately, before authorized responders had a chance to examine the whale, someone removed the entangling gear, Boothe said at the time. While it may have seemed like a good idea at the time, this compromised the stranding and entanglement investigation.

The blow of a fin whale can get up to 20 feet into the air, seen as far away as several miles. This species is among the fastest as well as largest in the world, able to scoot along at 29 mph.

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analysis

South Africa's electricity system is changing. After years of blackouts until 2024, the state-owned energy company Eskom is being unbundled into smaller companies, and the sector is increasingly open to private investment.

Households, businesses and municipalities are finding ways to rely less on the national grid and switch to renewable energy - a process known as off-gridding.

Meanwhile, South Africa has raised US$13.7 billion to move away from coal-fired electricity (to be spent on renewable energy projects).

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But urban households that have never been connected to the national grid (such as shack settlements) are largely absent from these plans. This creates a policy blind spot where solar mini-grids could play a critical role.

Read more: Satellite images reveal the dark side of household solar power - South Africa's green transition is only for a few

I'm writing a PhD on off-gridding and what it means for higher- and lower-income households in South African cities. I interviewed local government officials in Cape Town and Johannesburg, private sector energy generators and distributors, and households across income groups in both cities to find out how the energy transition is happening at different scales.

My research found that decentralised energy transitions, away from a central provider like Eskom to smaller suppliers, do not automatically lead to just outcomes. Instead, they can reproduce long-standing inequalities embedded in cities, infrastructure and governance - because some can leave the grid and switch to green energy and others cannot afford to.

What is off-gridding?

Going "off-grid" is often imagined as a single act: cutting ties with the electricity network and becoming self-sufficient. In practice, it is a range of practices that sit alongside - and interact with - the grid. In my research, I describe these as secession, marginalisation and supplementation.

Secession (a complete break) happens when households and businesses install solar systems, equipped with batteries, allowing them to leave the grid entirely. Secession is reserved for wealthier consumers due to high costs.

Read more: South Africans are opting to go off-grid: how they're being helped, and hindered, in their efforts

Supplementation is where households are connected to the grid but use alternative energy too. This can be small-scale solar, generators, or batteries. This is often incentivised by the state. The exact number of households who supplement their grid connection in South Africa is unknown as many solar home systems are unregistered.

Marginalisation is experienced by millions living in informal or shack settlements. Many of these settlements have no grid connection or if they do, their residents can't afford electricity. These households often rely on hazardous energy sources, such as paraffin, candles, or informal (illegal) grid connections, exposing them to the risk of fires, electrocution and indoor air pollution.

Together, these forms of off-gridding show that the transition to green energy is not just technical but deeply political. Who is supported, constrained, or ignored in these transitions reveals how "the grid" itself is being reconfigured by the state, the market and urban residents.

My research looks at how solar mini-grids could include those who are marginalised from the transition.

How solar mini-grids can help

Mini-grids consist of a solar panel, connected to a battery, connected to and electrifying a small number of households in shack settlements, where the unemployment rate is high and families generally cannot afford their own solar systems.

They're often set up by private firms and funded by university grants, aid, research agencies or private capital.

Read more: South Africa's 36.1% electricity price hike for 2025: why the power utility Eskom's request is unrealistic

My research focused on two sites - Qandu Qandu, an informal settlement in Khayelitsha township in Cape Town, and Diepsloot, a township in Johannesburg with a significant number of informal dwellings - where solar mini-grids are provided by small businesses.

Working with local fieldworkers, I surveyed households that were connected to mini-grid infrastructure, and those that weren't, to find out what energy sources they used, how much this cost and how interested they were in joining a mini-grid. This is information that is not routinely collected by local government.

Read more: South Africa's power crisis: going off the grid works for the wealthy - but could deepen injustice for the poor

Three findings stood out clearly:

First, mini-grids reduce risk. None of the households connected to mini-grids reported having illegal electricity connections. They also relied on fewer hazardous energy sources, such as coal or wood, than households without mini-grid access. Households without mini-grid access said they'd like to stop using these hazardous fuels if they could get connected to a mini-grid.

Second, demand for mini-grids is high. Most homes were not connected to mini-grids and 84.9% of the people I surveyed in Qandu Qandu and 74.2% in Diepsloot said they would like a connection.

Third, affordability is not the only, or the biggest, barrier. People said they were not unwilling to pay for electricity, since they already spent a significant amount on paraffin, gas, informal electricity, and other energy sources.

What needs to happen next

Mini-grids show great promise. But they operate in precarious funding and regulatory landscapes. Private providers face uncertainty over licensing, tariffs and long-term support. They also struggle to attract investment to scale or sustain operations.

One provider told me that their operations would change if they had more support through policy and regulation:

If there were a really concrete policy, a bankable policy that you know is going to exist in five, ten years' time that you can build into your business model and you can use that to go and access financing because it's guaranteed.

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Municipalities lack clear guidance on how alternative energy provision fits within their constitutional mandate to provide basic services. A Free Basic Alternative Energy policy exists at the national level, but municipalities are often unclear on how to fund and implement it.

Regulations enabling private mini-grid providers to operate would give municipalities more options, including ways to subsidise costs through small co-payments.

Some municipalities, including the City of Johannesburg, have recently tried to connect informal or shack settlements to mini-grids. But this has not addressed the uncertainty facing private providers. As a result, the way the energy market is being opened up makes the transition fair for some and not others.

The result is that wealthier households are actively supported through incentives such as the solar tax rebate to supplement their grid connections. But people whose homes the state has failed to electrify remain excluded from solar energy because they cannot afford their own home solar systems.

If South Africa's energy transition continues along this path, it risks becoming a two-speed system: clean, decentralised energy for some, and continued risk and exclusion for others.

Joanna Watterson, PhD Candidate in Urban Geography, University of Cambridge
S. Oregon Coast Rescue Yields Spectacular Helicopter Photos - Bandon

Published 02/06/26 at 6:55 p.m.

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection Staff

(Bandon, Oregon)  Sometimes a heroic rescue makes great art. That is just what happened Thursday on the south Oregon coast. One officer in Bandon caught some astounding shots of the U.S. Coast Guard helicopter hovering over the beach. Officer Zachary Carpenter snapped the amazing photos, with the copter's lights looking rather ethereal. (Photos: Officer Zachary Carpenter, Bandon Police Department)

The shots with the spotlight seem straight outta Star Trek.

However, they were there for more serious and down-to-Earth reasons.

Bandon Police say a coordinated multi-agency response brought a potentially dangerous situation to a safe conclusion Wednesday evening after a person was found atop Cathedral Rock, a large offshore formation in Bandon's tideline.

Officers were notified around 6:30 p.m. on February 4 that an individual had climbed onto the rock. Sgt. Levi Noel and Officer Carpenter responded and worked with the U.S. Coast Guard, Oregon State Police, and Oregon State Parks to plan and carry out a rescue. Authorities say the person appeared to be experiencing a mental health crisis.





The individual was safely brought down, and no injuries were reported. Police are withholding the persons name out of respect for their privacy.

Officials encourage anyone experiencing a mental health crisis to contact Coos Health & Wellness at 541-266-6800. For immediate or life-threatening emergencies, call 911.

There has been a lot going on around the Oregon coast in the last week, with a robbery and burning of the getaway car, and an arson arrest in Newport. On the south coast, Coos County Sheriffs are still asking for the publics help in locating a 45-year-old man reported missing in the last 48 hours.

Missing Person Case on S. Oregon Coast - Busy Week for Police - One man missing - Variety of action in Tillamook, Newport, Depoe Bay

Ryan Handran was last seen around 6 p.m. on February 3, when his girlfriend dropped him off for work at the Bachelors Inn on Edwards Road. He did not return home, and a missing-person report was filed in the early hours of February 4. According to police, Handran typically walks or takes a taxi home.

The Coos County Sheriffs Office (CCSO) began canvassing the area and reviewing surveillance footage. Investigators say cameras captured Handran around 2:30 a.m. near Able Insurance, where he dropped all of his belongings - including his clothing - before walking north on Highway 101 toward Coos Bay.

Handran is described as 5'11", 150 pounds, with brown hair and hazel eyes. Police say he has known health concerns but is not considered dangerous.

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South Oregon Coast's Wreck of the Sujameco: Where (and When) to Find It

Published 02/08/26 at 6:55 a.m.

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection Staff

(Coos Bay, Oregon)  The Coos Bay area is a rather complex one, and full of way more interesting to unusual finds than most coastal towns. But then again, it's technically more than one town. Kara J. Long photo

Even more fascinating is that many of its wildest treasures aren't in any town at all: they're on the shoreline that borders all three of those little burghs of Charleston, Coos Bay and North Bend. They exist even in vast, sandy stretches where you'd think there's nothing but dunes.

One of those is the unsung treasure of the wreck of the Sujameco at Horsfall Beach (part of the Siuslaw National Forest), an attraction that spends a fair amount of time either under sand or sea.

It arrived at Horsfall rather violently on March 1, 1929, and after getting lopped away and dismantled it eventually began sinking farther and farther beneath the sands, until it started only popping up parts of the year. But when it does, the Sujameco easily rivals the more famous Peter Iredale wreck near Astoria, and has its own set of crazy tales.

But how to find the wreck of the Sujameco?



Courtesy Oregon's Adventure Coast

This also means when to find it?

Don't expect to find it during summer. It's often gone by then, or there's very little to see. Sand levels fill up in summer, covering up a lot of things. Still, seeing only a piece of metal sticking up is pretty cool.

However, the when is just not possible to accurately pin down. Sand levels drop during winter's stormy scouring action, and that's when your chances increase.

According to Sunset Bay State Park manager Lee Ricci:

Unfortunately, there is no good way to predict when the shipwreck will appear, she told Oregon Coast Beach Connection. In any given area, the ocean will deposit sand through weather and tidal events, or remove it through the same forces. If there is a cycle to which years are better to see the shipwreck, we havent figured it out. My recommendation would be to follow local social media groups, as people often post when they can see the ship starting to be uncovered.

In fact, Oregon Coast Beach Connection often hears from Oregon's Adventure Coast when and if it pops up.

How to find it is much easier. Indeed, there's even a plaque at the overlook at Horsfall. This access is known as the Horsfall access as well as Beach Access #126 (according the yellow emergency numbered sign).

Directions To Wreck of the Sujameco. These are essentially the same as to the main access of Horsfall Beach. It lies out in front of the wooden viewing platform at the end of Horsfall Beach Road. From Highway 101 and the McCullough Memorial Bridge over Coos Bay, take the Jordan Cove Road westward .08 miles; stay to the right .2 miles on Trans Pacific Lane. Turn right on Horsfall Beach Road and go 1.4 miles to the end.

The GPS coordinates of the wreck are: 43.45415965183901, -124.27751782006584.

There are even pictures of it from space through Google Maps.

The ship was built in 1920 and roamed the seas mostly carrying lumber. On that fateful night some 9 years later, it was heading to what was then called Marshfield (now Coos Bay). (When Marshfield and Empire Became Coos Bay).

Then heavy fog hit. Captain JF Carlson was leading the Sujameco and its 35-man crew, but he became confused about where he was.



The ship grounded about 9:30 a.m., and communications later in the afternoon sent one ship speeding its way down from Astoria to assist. Seas were too wild to attempt much, but even when they calmed down, she was too deep for men to safely jump out. Because of large shoals in the area, a tug rescue could not get close enough.

A day or so later, certain types of tug could get close enough but attempts to move it succeeded only briefly, with the tides shoving it back towards land and eventually really getting stuck. Strangely, the crew sat aboard the ship for what appears to be weeks before finally being let off.

The wreck was largely intact for a decade, until World War II happened when it was dismantled for parts and metal. See full story Slow But Epic Oregon Coast Drama, Coos Bay's Sujameco Wreck Still Visible

The Sujameco may often pop up in winter, but it's been known to throw people a curve ball. In one recent year, it didn't really fully emerge until later in spring and then stuck around until June.

That's truly odd for any Oregon coast object that's normally hidden beneath the sands.

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Oregon's Tillamook Coast Funds Major Upgrades, New Facilities, Including Lighthouse Fix

Published 02/08/26 at 6:55 p.m.

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection Staff

(Tillamook, Oregon)  Parts of the north Oregon coast are getting a new infusion of funds to assist tourism in the region, as well as make another set of pleasantries for residents.

The Tillamook Coast Visitors Association, in partnership with Tillamook County, just recently awarded $453,425 in Tourism Facilities Grants for the 202526 fiscal year, supporting community-driven projects that improve public spaces, accessibility, outdoor recreation, and visitor infrastructure throughout Tillamook County.

The annual facilities grant program reinvests visitor-generated lodging tax dollars directly back into local communities. Community reinvestment in the tourism industry means directing revenue generated by visitors (Transient Lodging Taxes, or hotel and motel taxes) into projects that strengthen the destination for residents first. These investments help fund critical infrastructure, preserve natural and cultural resources, improve accessibility, and ensure tourism contributes to long-term community wellbeing.

Tourism works best when it supports the places people call home, said Dan Haag, interim executive director. By reinvesting lodging tax dollars into community facilities and infrastructure, were ensuring tourism strengthens quality of life for residents while creating meaningful, sustainable experiences for visitors.

2025-26 TCVA Facilities Grant Recipients



Lake Lytle / Oregon Coast Beach Connection

A total of $453,425 was awarded for tourism-related facilities improvements across Tillamook County:

City of Rockaway Beach  Lake Lytle restroom  $50,000

Tillamook Estuaries Partnership  Estuaries Science Center  $50,000

Friends of Cape Meares Lighthouse  Fresnel Lens restoration  $50,000

Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad  Completion of water tower  $50,000

Oceanside Action Partnership  Tire Trail rebuild  $13,400

City of Wheeler  Dock and pathway accessibility improvements  $46,780

Oceanside Action Partnership  Shared use path project  $35,000

Tillamook Off-Road Alliance  Buzzard Butte Trail Network  $50,000

Netarts-Oceanside Volunteer Firefighters Association  Emergency preparedness Conex boxes  $35,000

Dorymens Heritage Center  100-year land lease plan  $50,000

Kiawanda Community Center  Entryway improvements  $17,845

North Tillamook Library Friends  Energy-efficient lighting replacement  $5,400

Since 2015, TCVA and Tillamook County have reinvested more than $6 million in tourism facilities grants, in addition to more than $1.2 million in tourism marketing grants, supporting projects that improve access, protect natural resources, and enhance community spaces across the county.

More information about the Tourism Facilities Grant program, including eligibility and past recipients, is available at www.tillamookcoast.com/grants.

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Has the City of Washington, NC been managed by their elected local government, and their bureaucrats, in a fiscally responsible manner to better serve the people who pay their ever advancing property taxes?

7.69% Yes, rising property taxes are a necessity to maintain a progressive city.88.46% No, excessive funding of a poorly managed government can become a shell game of corruption.3.85% I am afraid to say.
As the European Union elite keep pushing for more censorship and more restrictions on free speech, which amount to outright attacks on democracy itself, the Trump administration is fighting back. The State Department has announced that it will fund European organizations that support freedom of speech. Many of these EU schemes also seek to censor American social media within our own country.

Last year saw increasing attacks on free speech across Europe. In Germany, a pensioner was arrested for "hate speech" for posting online that a very unsuccessful Minister of Finance was "a moron." In Finland, a member of parliament was prosecuted for posting a Bible verse online. In France, a feminist leader was arrested for posting that biological women needed their own private spaces. In the UK, a pro-life activist was arrested for silently praying outside an abortion clinic.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-fund-free-speech-initiatives-europe-trump-official-reveals

this is the opposite of the Biden and Obama regimes that funded censorship around the world.
There will be continued closure of restaurants and bars without meaningful government support, a top publican has told Ulster Business.

Willie Jack, who runs the Duke of York, Dark Horse, Harp Bar, and Friend at Hand, says ultimately hospitality needs to be valued.

Hospitality is facing enormous pressure, he told Ulster Business. Rising costs, business rates, VAT disparities with the south, staffing challenges and changing consumer behaviour all add up.

People are going out earlier, drinking less, and looking for an experience rather than a late night. The industry has to adapt to that.

Many experienced people simply didnt come back after the pandemic. Others wont work late nights anymore, and I dont blame them. If you want good staff now  and I mean really good staff  you have to pay them. We pay well, because experience matters.

Wages are higher, costs are higher, and that has to be reflected in pricing. Im not apologetic about that. You cant demand quality and then complain about the price.

Ultimately, hospitality needs to be valued. Without meaningful government support, there will be closures, particularly among restaurants and rural pubs. That would be a real loss, not just economically, but culturally too.

Belfast needs continued investment in events, concerts and tourism to drive footfall too. When the city is busy with concerts, festivals and major events, everyone benefits.

The industry has breathed at least a temporary sigh of relief after the pausing of proposed re-evaluation on planned rates increases.

Many businesses are facing increases in their rates bills following the Department of Finances revaluation.

Thats seen the rateable value of properties rising by as much as 280%.

There comes a time when enough is enough and, for the hospitality sector, that time is now, Clare Guinness, Belfast Chamber chief executive, said.

The latest rates revaluation is a serious blow to hundreds of businesses already operating on the tightest of margins.

As a result of the revaluation, the SDLP has launched a campaign to save pubs, hotels and other hospitality businesses following changes to business rates.

The Northern Ireland Food To Go Association has warned that the rates revaluation risks forcing the closure of dozens of small food businesses, including cafes, takeaways, food trucks and local producers that are central to communities across Northern Ireland.
ProfileTree, the Belfast-based web design, SEO and AI training agency, is proud to sponsor the Young Business Person of the Year category at the 2026 Belfast Telegraph Business Awards in partnership with Ulster Bank.

Founded in Belfast in 2011 by Ciaran Connolly, ProfileTree has grown from a small content marketing operation into one of Northern Irelands leading full-service digital agencies, delivering web design, search engine optimisation, video production, content marketing and AI training for businesses across Northern Ireland, Ireland and the UK. The company has completed more than 1,000 projects and maintains a five-star Google rating from over 450 reviews.

At its core, ProfileTree builds websites designed to rank, generate leads and drive sales  primarily on WordPress  while providing the digital strategy, content and training that SMEs across Belfast and Northern Ireland need to compete and grow online.

Ciaran Connolly, founder and director of ProfileTree, said: Sponsoring the Young Business Person of the Year category is something we feel genuinely passionate about. Northern Ireland has always produced talented, ambitious people, and the young business leaders coming through right now are building companies that will shape this region for decades to come.

We work with businesses at every stage, but there is something special about working with younger entrepreneurs. They bring fresh thinking, energy and a willingness to try new approaches  particularly when it comes to AI, digital marketing and online growth. That mindset is exactly what Northern Ireland needs.

In recent years, ProfileTree has become one of NIs most active providers of AI training and consulting for SMEs. The agency delivers hands-on workshops and one-to-one training from its Belfast base, helping business owners across Northern Ireland adopt tools like ChatGPT, automation workflows and AI-driven content strategies.

Mr Connolly added: The speed of change in digital and AI right now is extraordinary. Young business people are often the fastest to adapt, and we want to support that.

Whether its building a website that actually converts, getting found on Google, or using AI to save hours every week, were here to help businesses in Belfast and across Northern Ireland at the start of their journey as much as those that have been running for years.

Were looking forward to seeing the calibre of entries this year. Northern Ireland punches well above its weight when it comes to entrepreneurship, and the Belfast Telegraph Business Awards are the perfect stage to recognise that.

ProfileTree continues to grow its team and expand its services from Belfast, with plans to further develop its AI training offering through its Future Business Academy and to build on its video production capabilities for Northern Ireland businesses throughout 2026.

To find out more about ProfileTree, visit https://profiletree.com/ To enter the awards, go to belfasttelegraph.co.uk/businessawards/enter

Read more Belfast Telegraph Business Awards 2026: Law firm delighted to return as sponsor of Large Company of the Year
Growing land prices are heaping more pressures onto farmers here, the Ulster Farmers Union (UFU) has said.

The organisation spoke following the Irish Farmers Journals annual report on land prices, which said the average price of land in NI was now 15,202 - up 3% over the year.

The Farmers Journal research found that Co Armagh was the most expensive place on the island of Ireland for land, with an acre now costing just under 23,000  up 13% on the year before.

News Catch Up - Friday 6 February

Co Down had the next most expensive average land price at 19,109 an acre  and was the only location in Northern Ireland where the price had declined, with a drop of 4% year-on-year.

William Irvine, president of the UFU, said the figures presented a complex and challenging picture for farming families.

While rising land prices may signal confidence in land as an asset, for many UFU members, they also bring real and growing pressures.

Access to land is becoming increasingly difficult for farmers, particularly younger farmers and those trying to expand, adapt or future-proof their businesses.

View of fields from Slieve Gullion in Co Armagh  Getty Images

When combined with reduced land availability, this is tightening the land market significantly.

Mr Irvine added that rising land values had serious implications given changes to inheritance tax (IHT) policy.

From April this year, IHT will be payable on farms worth over 2.5m, after the UK Government revised a plan to make it payable on farms of 1m and above.

Mr Irvine said: Higher land prices can increase the paper value of farm assets, but they do not improve cash flow.

In the context of inheritance tax and succession planning, this can place additional strain on family farms, making generational transfer more complex and, in some cases, putting viable farm businesses at further risk.

He said the relationship between land prices, environmental policy and future agri-support schemes must be carefully considered.

Land is not just an investment vehicle, it underpins food production, rural employment and family farming.

Environmental policy and future agri-policy must be designed in a way that supports active farmers and does not inadvertently restrict land use, reduce land availability, or add further pressure through unintended tax consequences.

Rising land values can increase borrowing exposure, rental costs and barriers to entry, without delivering higher farm incomes.

That is why we need joined-up thinking across agricultural policy, environmental regulation and the tax system.

Read more NI county now most expensive on island of Ireland for land
In 1761, when the Boyd Arms in Ballycastle first opened its doors, the town had been transformed from a sleepy fishing village to a thriving industrial town by its namesake  local landowner and entrepreneur Colonel Hugh Boyd.

Boyd had developed coal mines, created a harbour, built a glasshouse and salt works and constructed a wooden tramway to facilitate industrial exports that contributed to the Irish Industrial Revolution.

But the Boyd Arms was very much a working mans pub from the start, according to current owner Paul McAuley.

In the 1800s, The Antrim Arms, on the opposite side of the road, offered rest to the gentry, while the Boyd Arms provided shelter for their weary servants and horses.

These days, The Antrim Arms lies in a derelict state of disrepair, while its poor relation stands proud.

The working man survives, thank God, laughs Paul, who bought it alongside his father 50 years ago and now runs it with his son, Conor.

The Boyd Arms in Ballycastle

It was a case of beg, borrow and steal back then to get the money together to buy it from a local lady called Mrs Joey McCauley. Her husband was Joey, but she was known as Mrs Joey.

She and her family lived above the bar, and they actually stayed on for a while after we took over, because they were building a house and it wasnt ready and we all got on very well. Mrs Joey used to bring me down tea and fresh scones in those early days, which I was very glad of. Everyone mucked in back then to make it work.

Pauls wife Rosemary was a teacher in Coleraine during the week and a landlady at the weekends, he explains.

So, what youre saying is she never actually got a break?

Dont you be taking her side, Paul says with a wry smile, before adding: Yes, youre absolutely right, she worked very hard.

To their credit, the McAuley family have kept many of the original features of the pub intact over the decades  the tiled floor, Dado panelling, wooden beams and a snug, complete with hatch through which drinks can be served.

What they did change, around a decade ago, was its colour  and it is now sometimes referred to as the pink pub, because of its distinct exterior.

There was a grant for improvements to the centre of the town, and we had seen a pink bar somewhere else and thought it looked nice, so we decided to paint it pink.

Paul and Rosemary didnt imagine the colour would cause such a stir in the town  so much so, that the council officer administering the grants scheme received a visitor to her office.

The Boyd Arms in Ballycastle

He came in and told her: Youll not believe the colour theyve painted the Boyd Arms. It got her in a right state of panic, so she actually came down to see it with her own eyes, but I think she must have liked it, because there were no complaints.

Every old pub has its characters and for years in the Boyd Arms, this was Dick OLeary from Cork  allegedly one of Michael Collinss bodyguards during the War of Independence.

He told us that on the day Collins was shot, he should have been alongside him, but Collins had sent him to London for some reason, I cant remember.

Then Collins was killed and he moved to Jersey, because he couldnt go home. In Jersey, he met a Ballycastle woman and they eventually ended up settling back here. For the rest of his life, he never once returned to Cork.

Paul gestures to a seat at the end of the bar.

Yes, people sometimes do want to get things off their chest over a few drinks in their local pub and its good that they trust you

That was Dicks seat and everyone locally knew not to sit on it. But if you didnt know, hed have glared at you until you got up.

But Dicks bark was worse than his bite, says Paul.

We got on very well; I never had any bother with him.

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In Ballycastle, the pubs that have withstood the test of time seem to play a central role in bonding together the local community  the place where young and old gather on a Friday or Saturday night to catch up on the weeks events, grab a sneaky drink before weddings, raise a glass to the dead after funerals.

But the makeup of the town has changed considerably over the past decade, and particularly in the last six years, since it was first voted NIs best place to live by The Sunday Times.

It used to be you knew everyone in Ballycastle and you could direct anyone to that persons house if someone called in looking for directions.

But theres been so many people moving in from England and elsewhere this past five or six years, you just wouldnt know as many people these days.

Are the locals happy with the changing demographic?

Overall, Id say theyre totally grand with it. But I suppose theyre just sad about the fact that the young ones cant get houses, that they have to move further out.

But were glad to see the place doing well, because its a great town. Ballycastle was sort of hidden for a long time, because its hard to get to and public transport isnt great.

In some ways, thats not a bad thing, because its still much more peaceful than the likes of Portrush. No harm to Portrush, but I wouldnt want those sorts of crowds all summer, two days in August is enough.

He is referring, of course, to The Ould Lammas Fair, when over 100,000 visitors descend on the town and the Boyd Arms removes its inner doors for the duration, because of the sheer volume of thirsty punters passing through.

Taking the doors off for The Ould Lammas Fair

Its a lovely time of year and people love standing outside with a drink listening to the live music. The Ould Lammas Fair is changing too  because of health and safety, its more spread out. Historically, it would have been about the sheep and cattle market, but theres obviously no livestock now, just horse trading.

The Boyd Arms itself was once a hub for livestock trading and local business deals  its wooden snugs lent themselves well to farmers in need of privacy to negotiate.

Deals would have been done over cattle and whatnot, Paul explains.

There was actually a farm bought in here in the 70s. They asked for a room upstairs to thrash it out and up they went and argued away, but then came downstairs and shook hands over it.

Late at night, rural pubs can become a substitute for the confessional box and the landlord an alternative to the parish priest.

However, Paul, who exudes a quiet, gentle demeanour, is much too discreet to elaborate on what he has learned about human nature over the decades.

Yes, people sometimes do want to get things off their chest over a few drinks in their local pub and its good that they trust you, so you never betray that trust. They know from experience that nothing ever gets mentioned again. And thats very important.

A good bar will survive recessions and weather, all the ups and downs, if they have enough loyal customers and a good relationship with their customers thats based on respect. Its actually not that complicated.

Read more From poitin to local plants: How NIs top mixologists expect to shake up the cocktail scene in 2026
The Northern Ireland Assembly has backed a no-confidence motion in Communities Minister Gordon Lyons.

It comes after the DUP minister was criticised in a report by former independent Assembly commissioner for standards Melissa McCullough.

The report found Mr Lyons had breached the ministerial code of conduct through social media comments made during rioting in Ballymena.

He was investigated over a Facebook post he published in June after immigrant families were forced to flee their homes during racially-motivated riots.

A fire fighter at the scene where a fire broke out at Larne Leisure Centre (PA)

Mr Lyons has said he had been responding to a police request to let it be known that the fleeing families who had been sheltering at Larne Leisure Centre were no longer doing so, as the facility came under attack.

But Ms McCulloughs report found Mr Lyons actions had the potential of heightening tensions and exacerbating an already contentious situation.

Mr Lyons has claimed that the report contains contradictions, while DUP leader Gavin Robinson described the findings as totally irrational.

In the Assembly on Tuesday, Opposition leader Matthew OToole said this had been the second occasion that Mr Lyons had been found to be in breach of the ministerial code.

This referred to a finding in 2024 that Mr Lyons had breached the code over not attending north-south ministerial council meetings. That came as part of a wider DUP boycott in protest at post-Brexit arrangements.

Mr OToole said as a result of this repeated failure to uphold the standards expected of public office holders, the minister no longer commands the confidence of this Assembly.

Not only has the minister not resigned, the minister has not seen fit to apologise or even offer one word of reflection or learning, he told MLAs.

The motion also said Mr Lyons refusal to accept responsibility for his actions represents a wider crisis of accountability in the Executive and a deeper cultural problem in our politics, and that current accountability standards are inadequate.

It added that the Assembly would write to both Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn and Tanaiste Simon Harris calling for institutional reform at Stormont.

The Assembly saw some stormy exchanges, accusations of lack of empathy with those impacted by the riots in Ballymena as well as political posturing.

Sinn Fein MLA Colm Gildernew described a poorly judged Facebook post, which he claimed at no point in his post did the minister show any compassion for the victims of this hate-filled violence.

He also pointed out that the Communities committee, which he chairs, previously voted they had no confidence in the minister.

That position has been fully vindicated, he added.

Alliance deputy leader Eoin Tennyson described the rioting last June as a festival of violence and a race-based pogrom on our streets, adding he took great exception to those claiming this is a trivial matter.

I am sick, sore and tired of Members traipsing into this chamber and engaging in culture wars, and scapegoating minorities for their failures, he said.

His (Mr Lyons) since has been nothing more than arrogance and contempt, blaming the standards commissioner, blaming the police, blaming the politicians who dare to call him to order or to question his motives, it is disgraceful and it is shameful.

However DUP MLA Pam Cameron said the motion is not about addressing racism, its about political opportunism at a time when people across Northern Ireland are struggling to access healthcare.

UUP leader Jon Burrows queried the usage of resources on the matter of a Facebook post sent at the request of police.

Could it have been drafted better, could it have been more precise, is there any learning? Im sure there is, he told MLAs.

There are many things for us to do in this place, and drive up high standards is one of them, but this is wasteful, self-indulgent and unnecessary.

Responding, Mr Lyons described a charade, dressed up as a debate on standards in public life, adding he rejected Ms McCulloughs report.

He also said he had, and has, deep compassion for the families affected by the rioting.

What they experienced was wrong. I have always stood against violence and intimidation, he told MLAs.

My record is not one of justifying or excusing violence, and I have consistently advocated support for the police, the courts and the rule of law.

I have no truck with anyone who would seek to harm others, and it is particularly abhorrent when it is done because of the colour of someones skin or their nationality.

He also added a note of caution that the investigation against him may discourage public representatives from engaging directly with the public during times of crisis.

MLAs voted for the motion by 51 to 29.

However the motion is not binding and carries no direct consequences.
analysis

There is a story in the Bible of a sick woman who held on to the cloak of Jesus amid an impenetrable crowd. She did get her healing, as Jesus immediately felt the loss of power from within himself. However, he did not rebuke the woman for his loss. Rather, he commended her for her determination to get healing by tapping into his power.

I am reminded of this story whenever I think about women and religion, specifically Christianity. Can the church as a body ever make room for women in Africa? Are the fathers of the church willing to share their powers? What happens when the clergyman's wife seeks to be or becomes as powerful as her husband?

As a social anthropologist, I have, over the past five years, conducted research on clergy wives in Ghana, sharing my work through publications and in the classroom.

In my recent study, I wanted to find out how Pentecostal and Charismatic pastors' wives gain and use a position of power in the church. Through interviews and participant observation, I gathered data on clergy wives' religious experiences in Ghana. I found that although clergy wives gain power through their husbands, they are not passive conductors of power. While they operate in a patriarchal system, they develop ways of, and become adept at, negotiating and bargaining to gain and keep it.

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A study of clergy wives provides a view into the hidden, often unexplored, power dynamics that exist within churches as well as the agency and constraints that women experience in religious spaces.

The clergy wife and the road to power

The clergy wife's position is rooted within the two-person career type of work. She is firmly integrated in her husband's work. The literature on the clergy wife is replete with the picture of an overburdened woman who occupies one of the most difficult positions in the church and society. An advertisement which parodies the position reads:

HELP WANTED: Pastor's wife. Must sing, play music, lead youth groups, raise seraphic children, entertain church notables, minister to other wives, have ability to recite Bible backward and choreograph Christmas pageant. Must keep pastor sated, peaceful and out of trouble. Difficult colleagues, demanding customers, erratic hours. Pay: $0.

This funny representation of the clergy wife places her firmly in the intersection of domestic responsibility, religious welfare and administrative authority. Clergymen hold pivotal roles in the life of believers, from spiritual leadership to pastoral care. Their position, which is considered divine, endows them with unquestionable authority and power. It can be subtle or profoundly apparent, particularly in the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements.

This power extends to their wives, a phenomenon which has been termed the First Lady Syndrome. This is a situation where a wife's power and influence is conferred through her spouse and is contingent on her continual marital affinity to him. Some clergy wives in Ghana actually bear the title "first lady".

The power that wives initially get from husbands can be manifested through various means, like leadership of women's groups in the church, spiritual oversight, and counselling services. They are perceived as mothers, offering advice on critical life decisions.

One wife in my study noted:

As the mother of the church, it is my responsibility to ensure that my 'children' choose good partners. I have dissolved engagements before because I felt that they will not be good, and I have also been the one to arrange relationships that have led into marriages ...

Wives can become very powerful, just like their husbands. This happens especially where they form and lead groups within the church. This is the moment that the position and role of the clergy wife becomes what social researcher Jane Soothill describes as mimicking "female charismatic dynasty". This is a signal to the patriarchal system that there is a need to control such power.

Bargaining to keep power

While women are allowed in the "fathers" group, they are still expected to work within the restrictions and rules of the system. The clergyman, the most overt symbol of this system, benefits from divine immunity and his glory may not be shared, even with his wife.

I found that where clergy wives are perceived to be powerful, they are also regarded by the husband or the church leaders as dangerous. This results in their need to bargain with the system for self-preservation. The strategies which a clergy wife adopts to negotiate are based on her individual situation. They may range from silence to a show of feminine humility and submission. Display of submission and deferment to the husband is the most often used tactic.

One wife shared:

Sometimes when I interact with the women and advise humility, I am providing another strategy for their survival.

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I found that others are forced to retreat entirely. They either dissolve the group or abdicate from their leadership role in the church. Some wives circumvent these restrictions by migrating their activities to digital platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp groups, or other forms of media. A wife who chooses defiance or refuses to negotiate may end up divorced.

There is a popular joke that if men are the head, then women are the neck that moves the head, a reference to women's invisible power. But what kind of power is that which can only manifest covertly, through the benevolence of others? How safe is this arrangement for women?

What I have discussed here does not present the whole story of the clergy wife. But it shows a world where women constantly bargain for space. In the opening story, the woman was commended for her faith and foresight, and a desire to better her lot. A takeaway lesson from the master. In my view, Christianity and other religions should be a channel for freedom, healing, and the creation of new avenues for expression of liberation.

Abena Kyere, Research Fellow, University of Ghana
A former employee of a Big 4 accounting company in Belfast has settled a discrimination case for 150,000.

A woman who had worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers Services Ltd (PwC) for more than 40 years has settled her case of age and disability discrimination against the company, supported by the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland.

The woman, who worked as an executive support assistant, said that a senior colleague unexpectedly raised concerns about her knowledge of new technology.

In addition, she says she was asked if training was something she was interested in at her age.

She also reported being told that, because of her length of service, she was just working towards her pension, and that she looked tired and should consider taking time off for caring responsibilities.

Geraldine McGahey, the chief commissioner of the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (PA)

The woman then submitted a formal grievance feeling stunned and upset by what she believed were unfair and discriminatory remarks.

She claimed this then led to unjustified performance criticisms by senior colleagues, despite having received consistently strong performance reviews over many years.

The internal grievance investigation concluded that she had experienced harassment but found that it did not amount to unlawful discrimination.

The woman was later told that her appeal against this decision was unsuccessful.

As part of the settlement she ended her employment with PwC.

The woman, who has remained anonymous, said she dedicated her working life to PwC and was heartbroken.

I never imagined this is how my career would end after such loyal service, she said.

It has been an extremely distressing and stressful experience.

I felt compelled to bring this case, not only to seek justice for myself, but to act as a voice for others who may suffer in silence.

The case was settled without admission of liability (PA)

Geraldine McGahey, chief commissioner, Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, said: This long-serving employee believes her age and caring responsibilities became an issue for her employer, leading to this situation.

In Northern Ireland, it is unlawful to discriminate against employees because of their age. Older workers bring valuable experience, skills and insight to the workforce.

The commission provides advice and guidance to help employers comply with our equality laws. All employees, regardless of their age, deserve to be treated with dignity and respect in the workplace.

In settling the case, PwC expressed regret for the upset and distress experienced by their former employee and provided a reference, as well as reaffirming its strong commitment to equality of opportunity in employment.

The case was settled without admission of liability.

In a statement PwC UK said it is very sorry for the experience this employee had towards the end of what was a successful career.

Were committed to creating an inclusive and supportive workplace, where everyone is supported in their learning and personal development, the company said.

We know there is always more that can be done and will continue to look for areas for improvement.
A representative for police has been pressed for progress towards an inquest into the death of a man who was shot dead outside a school in Belfast.

James Donegan, from Lisburn, known as Jim, was murdered as he waited for his 13-year-old son outside the boys school in west Belfast on December 4, 2018.

Mr Donegan, 43, was shot several times by a lone gunman in broad daylight as he sat in his red Porsche Panamera on the Glen Road.

Police at the scene where Jim Donegan was shot dead on the Glen Road in West Belfast in 2024 (PA)

Northern Irelands Police Ombudsman, Marie Anderson criticised the police investigation in a report in April 2024.

A pre-inquest review hearing in September 2024 heard that more than 4,000 pages of material relating to the murder is to be provided by the police ombudsman to the proceedings.

On Tuesday, another review hearing was told these 4,000 pages of non-sensitive material from the police watchdog are almost ready.

Work continues on the material deemed sensitive, along with the PSNI in relation to any part which may require a public interest immunity (PII) hearing.

In terms of PSNI material, the hearing was told work continues on sensitive documents.

Barrister Michael McCartan, for the PSNI, asked the court if they could provide a written progress update within seven days.

Coroner Joe McCrisken said: I was sort of hoping you could give me an update today, this is the whole point of having a pre-inquest review.

Just being told it is ongoing doesnt really give me any information.

Mr McCartan said he did not have precise instructions as to exactly when, but said it was indicated to him that it is progressing very well, and it is anticipated that it will not be very long, and probably within the next four weeks.

Mr McCrisken said: There is no point in coming to these reviews without an actual update.

Everyone knew that this review was going to take place, and anticipated that these sorts of questions are likely to be asked.

To come along and just say well, its progressing well, we dont have an update, would you give me another week, is not that satisfactory.

Mr McCartan apologised and said a very clear indication would be given in the next seven days.

Seamus McIlroy, acting for Mr Donegans next of kin, said they were keen for progress.

The last review was back in May of last year, and there was a further preliminary hearing listed for June, which was vacated, he said.

I think this agenda doesnt come from the last preliminary hearing, this agenda comes from a written update that your team provided us in July of last year, and essentially its been copied and pasted across.

I know that everyones busy, we were told the hold-up in sensitive material was as a result of Omagh (bombing public inquiry) but that was going to be pushed forward after September.

I know there is a lot of material, I know everyone is working hard, but wed ask for another review because it seems that with these reviews in short circuit that people do become a bit more focused, particularly if youre urging them to come with answers to a preliminary hearing rather than coming and saying well get you an answer soon.

So what were asking for is another review next month.

Meanwhile, a man was arrested in May 2025 for questioning about Mr Donegans murder, as well as another murder and an attempted murder in Belfast.

Mr McCrisken told the pre-inquest review hearing on Tuesday that he has not had any requests from the PSNI to adjourn the inquest pending the charge of any individual, adding on that basis, well just move on.

Ive little enough information from police so far  if they want to come and ask for an adjournment, thats what the legislation says they should do, he said.

Another pre-inquest review will take place on March 10.
A suicidal patient walked unnoticed from the emergency department of a Belfast hospital shortly before he died, a coroner has found.

Coroner Anne-Louise Toal said a delay in assessing 50-year-old Stephen Loughead at the Mater Hospital was a missed opportunity to potentially prevent his death in March 2024.

The coroner said Mr Loughead from north Belfast should have been assessed by a doctor within 10 minutes, but instead was not called for two hours, by which time he had already left the hospital.

Ms Toal delivered her findings in the inquest at Belfast Coroners Court on Tuesday.

She told the court that Mr Loughead had attended Musgrave PSNI station in the early hours of March 15 2024 and was clearly experiencing deteriorating mental health.

The coroner said police took him to the emergency department of the Mater Hospital but did not accompany him inside.

Ms Toal said this action was contrary to the joint guidance between police and hospitals.

However, she said the failure to accompany him to ED did not alter the way in which he was treated.

Ms Toal said Mr Loughead waited more than an hour to be triaged, in excess of the target time of 15 minutes.

The coroner said he was correctly triaged as a higher risk category two patient.

She said he was then brought to wait in a chair beside the nursing station, the only area of the hospital available for observation of higher risk patients.

The inquest was held at Belfast Coroners Court (Liam McBurney/PA)

The coroner said: Due to staffing pressures, it was not possible to closely monitor him as was appropriate and as a result it is unknown what time he left the department, other than it was after he was last seen at 7.30am.

Ms Toal said that as Mr Loughead was recognised as being actively suicidal, he should then have been seen by a doctor within 10 minutes.

She said: Due to chronic severe pressures existing within the ED, he was not called for another two hours, by which time he had left the emergency department unnoticed.

I find the environment in the emergency department and the protracted wait in a noisy and busy unit exacerbated his condition and contributed to his leaving the department before being assessed and this represents a missed opportunity to treat the deceaseds suicidal ideation at that time.

The coroner said it was not possible for her to say if the patient would have been detained at the hospital if he had been assessed earlier.

But she added: I do find there was a missed opportunity to assess him in a timely manner, which may have prevented his leaving the emergency department on that day and the tragic events that followed.

The coroner said emergency department staff are in an unenviable position.

She said: It is a stark reality that, as per the evidence heard by this inquest, was the deceased to walk into the Mater ED today, it is unlikely that anything would change in the way that he was dealt with, not due to a lack of want or care, but due to a chronic lack of resources in a milieu of increasing pressures.

Stephen Loughead was pronounced dead at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast (Liam McBurney/PA)

The coroner said Mr Loughead was last seen by nursing staff at the morning handover at 7.30am and at some point in the next hour he left the hospital and travelled towards the city centre.

She said Mr Loughead was later seen in the River Lagan after 9am.

Despite a rescue operation, Mr Loughead died in the Royal Victoria Hospital from hypoxic brain injury caused by cardiac arrest as a result of drowning.

The coroner passed on her condolences to the family before closing the inquest.
Police appealing for witnesses and information following an arson attack in south Belfast in the early hours Tuesday morning.

It was reported that around 4.55am a gas box has been set alight by two males in the Eliza Street Close area.

Main Co Antrim road like an off-road track as pothole chaos continues

Detective Sergeant Long said: We received a report at around 4.55am that a gas box had been set alight by two males in the Eliza Street Close area, who then made off in the direction of Friendly Street.

Officers attended the scene, along with colleagues from the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service, who extinguished the fire.

Thankfully, no injuries were reported. However, the fire is being treated as deliberate ignition and as arson with intent to endanger life.

Our enquiries are ongoing and we would appeal to anyone who saw what happened, or who might have any information, including CCTV, dash-cam or other footage, to contact police on the 101 number, quoting reference 136 of 10/02/26.
An Irishman who has been detained by Ice (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has described the facilities as like a modern day concentration camp.

Seamus Culleton said he would like Irish premier Micheal Martin to raise his case with US President Donald Trump during his meeting at the White House in March.

Mr Culleton is originally from Co Kilkenny, but has been living in the US for almost 20 years and is married to a US citizen.

He was driving home after finishing work when he was detained by Ice agents in September 2025.

He said he noticed a man with blue sunglasses was driving the car and then several others appeared around him.

He was asked if he had a green card and he said he did not, but said he was married to a US citizen, had a work permit and was due to receive his green card.

He was detained and initially put into a holding cell in Massachusetts, before being taken to New York, then and then to the detention centre in El Paso in Texas.

He claimed that Ice agents had tried to get him to sign deportation papers, which he said he absolutely did not.

He described the detention centre in El Paso as horrible, where there is little sanitation, limited food and where it was tough to stay positive.

He said he was in fear of his life from the security firm in charge, who he said were capable of anything, and said that it is not easy to predict what will happen.

He said there were 72 people in a tent the size of 16ft by 35ft room with no ceiling, with two rows of bunk beds on either side and a long table down the middle.

He described the conditions at the camp as filthy, the toilets and showers as nasty, and that illnesses are rife among those being detained.

He said there was competition for food and said he had definitely lost weight.

There is no real quality of life here. Ive been locked in the same room now for four and a half months, he told RTEs Liveline programme.

Ive had barely any outside time, no fresh air, no sunshine. I could probably count on both hands the amount of times Ive been outside.

Id be so grateful if we could just end this ASAP. Ive been detained now for five months, locked in the same room for four and a half of those months. Its just torture. I dont know how much more I can take.

He said the detention centre was a psychological and physical torture and was also difficult for his mother.

I just want to get back to my wife. Were so desperate to start a family.

My own family at home in Ireland is also suffering, my mother especially, shes heartbroken that Im in here.

I talk to her most days. Shes just heartbroken over the whole situation, I dont want her health to get any worse. Shes constantly worrying and stressing about me.

On the same programme, Mr Culletons wife, Tiffany, described the shock of his detention and the awful experience of trying to maintain contact with him in the intervening period.

She said she did not hear from him for almost a week after an initial phone call following his arrest, and said she did not know if he was deported and had no idea if he was safe.

Asked if she had been allowed to visit her husband, she said Ice officially allows visits but it is almost impossible to set one up.

She had booked flights from Massachusetts to Texas to attend one of Mr Culletons court dates, but the hearing was moved on the day before her journey.

Hes a good man. I dont think anyone deserves this but Seamus definitely doesnt deserve this, she said.

She said she had attempted to reach senators and Mr Trump about the case but had received no response.

Earlier, Mr Culletons sister, Caroline, said his family still does not know why he was detained.

There are no words. I mean the way theyre being kept and theyre locked up, and hes only been allowed out a couple of times.

They dont see the sunlight. They dont get out. Their health deteriorates.

She said he has lost an awful lot of weight, adding that he has sores, infections and hair loss.

She told the News at One programme that his ongoing detention was heartbreaking for our mother and his extended family.

In a statement, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said: Minister McEntee is aware of this case and of the consular assistance being provided to the citizen involved, and his family, by our Consulate General in Austin, Texas, and our consular unit in Dublin.

Our embassy in Washington DC is also engaging directly with the Department of Homeland Security at a senior level in relation to this case.
Almost 100 areas have been warned to expect flooding as downpours continue, with no sign of a prolonged dry spell for at least a week.

The Environment Agency (EA) warned flooding was expected in 99 areas, mostly across the south of England, around the southern Welsh border and in the East Midlands  and was possible in a further 170 areas.

At least 300 properties have been flooded so far, the EA estimates.

It comes after a record-breaking month of rain, which became the wettest January on record for Cornwall, and County Down in Northern Ireland, according to the Met Office.

And a yellow weather warning for rain was in force for much of southern Wales and England until midnight on Monday, while yellow warnings will be in place in parts of eastern Scotland on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Vehicles left abandoned in a flooded ford in Leicestershire (Joe Giddens/PA)

The forecaster said many have been left with a sense that winter has been stuck on repeat, with 26 of its weather stations setting new records for January rainfall.

The UK has already seen 89% of the average rainfall expected for meteorological winter (December, January and February)  while England has exceeded it by 11%, it said.

Parts of Devon, Cornwall, Worcestershire, Somerset and West Sussex have recorded more than 30 consecutive days of rain, while North Wyke in Devon, Cardinham in Cornwall, and Astwood Bank in Worcestershire have seen it rain every day of the year so far.

Worcester Racecourse was also flooded (Jacob King/PA)

Disruption and possible flooding could be seen in eastern Scotland on Tuesday, with 15-30mm of rain likely to fall widely and 40-60mm possible in places over higher ground, the Met Office said.

Andrew Hitchings, flood duty manager at the EA, said: With another band of rain on its way, we need the public to remain vigilant to the risk of flooding.

As well as significant groundwater remaining likely in parts of Dorset and Wiltshire, there are risks of significant river flooding impacts on the Somerset Levels, with minor river flooding impacts expected in parts of the East Midlands and probable in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire.

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So far more 16,000 homes and business have been protected but sadly 300 have suffered flooding and our thoughts are with those communities affected.

Our teams will continue to do all they can to support local people, with pumps, temporary barriers and by clearing waterways to ensure flood water can drain away.

Senior operational meteorologist Simon Partridge said: The weather is set to remain unsettled throughout the remainder of the week with further spells of wet and windy weather for many areas of the UK.

With so much rain having already fallen over parts of the UK this year, many areas are sensitive to further rainfall. Therefore, further rainfall warnings are likely as the week progresses.

There is currently no sign of any prolonged dry weather for the next seven to 10 days.
The Queen appeared amused by the suggestion US politics is never boring as she attended a service to mark the 650th anniversary of the Guild of St Bride at the journalists church in Fleet Street.

Based at St Brides Church in the City of London, the guild, of which Camilla is patron, received its royal confirmation from King Edward III in 1375.

Wearing a dark green blazer and skirt with a feathered hat, the Queen joined the congregation for a service recognising the guilds work, before greeting journalism students supported by the guilds bursary.

Camilla wore a dark green blazer and skirt with a feathered hat (Arthur Edwards/The Sun/PA)

In the church crypt, Camilla met Rozina Sabur, national security editor at The Telegraph and a former recipient of the 4,000 bursary awarded to students studying journalism at City St Georges, University of London.

When Ms Sabur told the Queen she had spent eight years covering US politics in Washington DC before taking up her current role, she replied the task sounded very interesting, prompting laughter.

Yes, never boring, Ms Sabur replied.

Never boring, the Queen echoed, with a laugh.

St Brides has been described as a spiritual home for printers and journalists (Arthur Edwards/The Sun/PA)

Charlotte Galea, 23, from Chatham, Kent, is the latest recipient of the bursary and is studying for her masters in journalism.

Hearing of Ms Galeas hopes to write features or opinion pieces, Camilla replied: I hope it goes well, Im sure it will.

It was very surreal, Ms Galea said of meeting the Queen.

I commute to uni, so I woke up this morning in my mums house in Kent, got the bus to the train station, and I was like, Im going to be meeting Her Majesty.

She was really lovely, really, really kind. Very ordinary, exactly what you would want from a royal.

Camilla attending a service to mark the 650th anniversary of the Guild of St Brides (Arthur Edwards/The Sun)

Ms Galea said the bursary means everything to her, adding: I wouldnt be able to get into journalism without it, its so closed off to people who dont have money.

It was a lifeline really. I feel so equipped to go out into the world and do the things I really want to do.

The church has long had links with the royal family.

The late Queen Elizabeth attended its 1957 rededication service with her husband, the late Duke of Edinburgh, to mark the bombed-out churchs restoration after the Blitz.

In 1975, the King, then Prince of Wales, attended a service to commemorate the guilds 600th anniversary.

Camilla, centre, with Lord Black of Brentwood and Reverend Canon Dr Alison Joyce, right (Arthur Edwards/The Sun/PA)

The church rector, Rev Canon Dr Alison Joyce, described St Brides as a spiritual home for printers and journalists.

In 1500, Wynkyn de Worde built Londons first printing press next to St Brides.

National newspapers soon followed the printing industry to Fleet Street.

Within the church lies a Journalists Altar, which commemorates those working in the industry who have died, are held hostage or missing.

The church holds an annual service to remember them.
Sir Keir Starmer is still determined that Anas Sarwar should be Scotlands next first minster  despite the Scottish Labour leader yesterday calling on the Prime Minister to step down.

Claiming there have been too many mistakes from Sir Keirs Labour Government in Westminster, Mr Sarwar said on Monday that the Prime Minister and the row over his appointment of Lord Peter Mandelson were a distraction from his bid to oust the SNP from power in Mays Holyrood elections.

However, members of the UK Cabinet rallied behind the under-fire Prime Minister  with Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander insisting on Tuesday Sir Keir will still be in Downing Street at the end of this year.

He claimed while there had been a sincere and genuine disagreement between the Prime Minister and the Scottish Labour leader on Monday, Sir Keir is still determined to see Mr Sarwar win the Scottish elections.

And despite Mr Sarwar becoming the most senior figure in the Labour Party to call on the PM to quit, he insisted there was still a willingness to work together between the two men.

Mr Alexander told BBC Radio Scotlands breakfast programme that both Sir Keir and the Scottish Labour leader are individuals who have strong and clear opinions but who do not bear grudges.

He added: I have spoken to the Prime Minister in the last few hours, I have spoken to Anas, and I can tell you sincerely there is a willingness to work together.

After Anas Sarwars press conference on Monday, members of the UK Cabinet rallied around the Prime Minister. (Robert Perry/PA)

Mr Alexander continued: Keir Starmer was on the phone to me yesterday evening making very clear he remains determined Anas Sarwar is the first minister of Scotland after May.

Equally, Anas is clear he has set out his position, he will work hard to take the fight to the SNP in the coming months.

The Scottish Secretary said there had been a sincere and genuine disagreement between the Scottish labour leader and the UK Prime Minister yesterday.

But he insisted: The task at hand remains the same, which is that there is a judgment to be made in just over three months time as to who we want to be the government of Scotland.

And I will be making the case to every voter across Scotland that Scotland deserves better than the government weve got just now, a failing SNP government that if it knew how to solve Scotlands problems it would have done so in the first 19 years.

Polls however suggest Labour far from winning Mays election could come in third place, behind both the SNP and Reform.

But Sir Keir told Monday evenings packed meeting of MPs in the Parliamentary Labour Party he would not be quitting, insisting to them: Ive won every fight Ive ever been in.

Mr Alexander, who is also the co-chair of Scottish Labours election campaign, made clear that the the Prime Minister has my support  but also said that he believes Sir Keir has recognised lessons have to be learned .

The MP said: There was, to put it mildly, an honest and genuine disagreement yesterday, followed by a full and frank airing of positions.

But the action by yesterday evening from across the party was lets get back to work.

Scotland Secretary Douglas Alexander  who is also the co-chair of Labours Holyrood election campaign  made clear that the PM has his support. (Maja Smiejkowska/PA Wire)

He continued: The Prime Minister is at pains to emphasise that he is very clear he wants Anas Sarwar as first minister in May, and Anas Sarwar was very clear that he is determined to take the fight to a failing SNP government.

Scottish Greens meanwhile have lodged a motion at Holyrood calling for Sir Keir to resign  with the partys co-leader Ross Greer calling on Labour MSPs to back it.

Mr Greer said: Keir Starmer has shredded the little moral authority he had left and hes clearly lost the public.

Labours MSPs know that better than anyone, theyre the ones knocking on doors and watching their vote go up in smoke.

Im giving those MSPs the opportunity to tell us where they stand. Are they with Anas Sarwar or Keir Starmer? If its Sarwar, they should back my motion and make clear that they have no confidence in the Prime Minister. 
Sir Keir Starmer will chair Cabinet on Tuesday after surviving renewed calls for his resignation from members of his own party.

The routine meeting comes a day after Sir Keirs top ministers rallied round him after Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar urged him to step down amid the fallout from the Peter Mandelson scandal.

Mr Sarwar became the most senior Labour figure to call for Sir Keir to go, citing concern that the distraction from Downing Street would harm his partys chances of unseating the SNP in Mays Holyrood elections.

But, backed by his Cabinet, Sir Keir issued a defiant response at that evenings meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, telling a packed room in Westminster: Ive won every fight Ive ever been in.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar called on Sir Keir Starmer to resign (Robert Perry/PA)

The Prime Minister said he was not prepared to walk away as he received a warm reception from MPs reluctant to join Mr Sarwar in calling for him to quit.

The lack of a concerted effort by MPs to depose Sir Keir suggests the immediate danger may have passed.

But some discontent remains, with one critic comparing the meeting to the Battle of the Little Bighorn, a Wild West massacre also known as Custers Last Stand.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, writing in the Daily Telegraph, said Sir Keir should resign as he had proved incapable of doing the things a prime minister needs to do.

Sir Keir Starmer (centre) leaving the Houses of Parliament after announcing he is not resigning (Yui Mok/PA)

Meanwhile, Sir Keir is expected to continue reshaping his Downing Street operation, after telling MPs he wanted to be more open and inclusive.

He has already promoted senior aides Vidhya Alakeson and Jill Cuthbertson to be joint acting chiefs of staff, after the departure of Morgan McSweeney over the weekend.

Sir Keir will also need to appoint a new communications chief after the resignation of Tim Allan on Monday, while the Guardian reported that the UKs top civil servant, cabinet secretary Sir Chris Wormald, was expected to leave his job in the coming days.

With the threat to his position appearing to recede, Sir Keir is expected to travel to Germany at the end of the week to attend the Munich Security Conference, where concern about the future of the transatlantic alliance is likely to be high on the agenda.
Sir Keir Starmer has said the whole of Labour wants Anas Sarwar to become First Minister  a day after the partys Scottish leader called for the Prime Minister to quit.

In a meeting of the political Cabinet  without civil servants  Sir Keir insisted his top team was strong and united after ministers rallied around him with public messages of support following another day of turmoil for his premiership.

It came after Mr Sarwar became the most senior Labour figure to say the Prime Minister should step down, citing concern that the distraction from Downing Street would harm his partys chances of unseating the SNP in Mays Holyrood elections.

But at the meeting on Tuesday morning, Sir Keir insisted that the whole of the Labour Party wants Anas Sarwar to become First Minister and will fight for a Labour government in Scotland, according to a readout.

He said the Government will continue its relentless focus on the priorities of the British people, including tackling the cost of living, it added.

Speaking to broadcasters earlier, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband conceded the Prime Minister had faced a moment of peril on Monday, when he said Labour MPs looked over the precipice following Mr Sarwars intervention.

Mr Sarwar called for Sir Keir to resign on Monday

In a defiant message at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) last night, Sir Keir insisted he was not prepared to walk away and said: Ive won every fight Ive ever been in.

The lack of a concerted effort by MPs to depose him suggests the immediate danger has passed, but his authority remains fragile amid simmering discontent following the fallout from the Peter Mandelson scandal.

Mr Miliband praised the Prime Ministers remarks, saying he had seen the private Keir I know who cares passionately about changing this country so it works for ordinary people again.

But he also said the country had not changed enough for the better under the Labour Government and that the job for all of us is to work out how to be bolder.

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What I saw from Keir last night was someone who wants to seize this moment and make it a moment of change, to reconnect with the country, Mr Miliband told Sky News.

For too long, this country has been run for the wealthy and powerful, and that needs to change.

The Cabinet minister and former Labour leader dismissed as baloney suggestions that his message could be seen as a pitch for the top job ahead of any potential contest to replace Sir Keir.

Asked whether he would rule out running, he said: Yes, yes, Im not going to run.

The Prime Minister is taking part in a community visit later on Monday as he seeks to move on from the fallout and show he is focused on easing the cost-of-living burden.

The Prime Minister said he had won every fight Ive ever been in (Peter Nicholls/PA)

But he is expected to continue efforts to shake up his No 10 operation, with the countrys top civil servant Sir Chris Wormald rumoured to be on his way out in the coming days.

Sir Keirs chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and communications chief Tim Allan have already departed as the Prime Minister seeks to revive his fortunes after a bruising start to 2026.

Asked whether the Prime Minister believed he needed to improve his personal communication, Downing Street told reporters on Tuesday he had set out a clear determination to deliver.

You will see him later this afternoon talking about the cost of living, which is a priority for him and for this Government, he said.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said the Prime Ministers leadership is still in jeopardy despite appearing to have survived the immediate threat to his leadership.

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She told the Press Association: Ive got a lot of questions to ask him, but he is in a very dangerous place. The Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said the quiet bit out loud.

Labour MPs and the Labour Party have lost confidence in their leader, but the MPs are too scared of losing their jobs, so theyre not going to call an election, and theyve given him a stay of execution.

The sad thing is that the country is suffering from not being governed at all.

Mrs Badenoch demanded the release of the files showing how Lord Mandelson was appointed as US ambassador and his activities in government.

She said: Tomorrow at Prime Ministers Questions the Prime Minister will need to explain why the documents he promised to release last week have not turned up yet.

What are they covering up? The Cabinet Office has told ministers not to release their text messages like Wes Streeting did. I think that theres something theyre trying to hide and Im going to get to the bottom of it.
Cairo  An Egyptian refugee support group says Sudanese refugees and migrants in Egypt are facing a steady rise in arrests, with women, young people and the elderly increasingly affected.

Shaimaa Sami, founder and programme coordinator of the Egyptian MADAD initiative, speaking in an interview with Radio Dabanga today, said that the organisation records an average of five to ten arrests of Sudanese refugees and migrants every day. She said the current pattern differs markedly from that seen over the past two years.

Sami confirmed that MADAD has documented one death among detainees in recent days. She linked the death to a failure by detention authorities to take account of detainees' health conditions and advanced age. In response, she said, the initiative has prioritised rapid legal intervention for elderly detainees.

Sami also said MADAD received information indicating a reversal in Egypt's entry fee policy. After a period of reduced costs, security permit fees to enter Egypt have reportedly risen again to between USD2000-USD2500 per person, including infants. She described the move as part of broader efforts to curb the entry of Sudanese migrants or to pressure those already in Egypt to return to Sudan.

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According to Sami, authorities release some detainees within days, or even on the same day, once their documents are corrected or their legal status clarified. Other cases, however, remain in prolonged detention, particularly those involving refugees whose residency has expired but who have submitted official renewal applications and remain in legal limbo.

Sami firmly rejected claims circulating on social media that two Sudanese girls died of starvation in Cairo after their mother was arrested and deported to Sudan. She said no documentation or credible source supports the story and described it as "illogical". She warned that rumours and sensationalist reporting pose a serious danger, exacerbating fear and insecurity among Sudanese communities in Egypt.

She urged media outlets and social media users to verify information before sharing it, stressing that misinformation has a direct and damaging impact on an already vulnerable population.

In context

The UNHCR estimates at least 1.5 million people have fled to Egypt since the outbreak of war in Sudan, making Sudanese the largest refugee population in the country. As of April 2025, 691,000 Sudanese are registered with the agency.

Radio Dabanga previously reported that thousands of Sudanese refugees were being detained by Egyptian authorities in a network of secret military bases and then deported back to their war-torn country, often without the chance to claim asylum.

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For further reading, see our deep dive on how bureaucratic challenges in Egypt have made seeking asylum "nearly impossible" for thousands of Sudanese, as well as the perilous conditions facing people attempting to cross the border illegally into Egypt.
Jimmy Lai, the pro-democracy former Hong Kong media tycoon and a fierce critic of Beijing, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in one of the most prominent cases prosecuted under a China-imposed national security law that has virtually silenced the citys dissent.

Judge Esther Toh said 18 years of the 78-year-old British nationals sentence should be served consecutively to his jail term in his fraud case, for which he received a jail term of five years and nine months. Lai can appeal his case.

His co-defendants received jail terms between six years and three months and 10 years.

Three government-vetted judges spared Lai the maximum penalty of life imprisonment on charges of conspiring with others to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security and conspiracy to publish seditious articles. He was convicted in December. Given his age, the prison term still could keep him behind bars for the rest of his life.

Retired Chinese cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-Kiun, left, and Jimmy Lais wife Teresa Lai arrive at the West Kowloon Magistrates Courts ahead of the sentencing (Chan Long Hei/AP)

As Lai entered the courtroom on Monday morning, he waved and smiled at his supporters sitting in the public gallery. Hong Kongs outspoken Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen sat next to Lais wife Teresa.

The democracy advocates arrest and trial have raised concerns about the decline of press freedom in what was once an Asian bastion of media independence.

The government insists the case has nothing to do with a free press, saying the defendants used news reporting as a pretext for years to commit acts that harmed China and Hong Kong.

Lai was one of the first prominent figures to be arrested under the security law in 2020. Within a year, some of Apple Dailys senior journalists also were arrested. Police raids, prosecutions and a freeze of its assets forced the newspapers closure in June 2021. The final edition sold a million copies.

His sentencing could heighten Beijings diplomatic tensions with foreign governments.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmers government also has called for the release of Lai, who is a British citizen.

US President Donald Trump said he felt so badly after the verdict and noted he spoke to Chinese leader Xi Jinping about Lai and asked to consider his release.

Lais daughter, Claire, told The Associated Press she hopes authorities see the wisdom in releasing her father, a Roman Catholic. She said their faith rests in God.

We will never stop fighting until he is free, she said.

Police officers stand guard outside the West Kowloon Magistrates Courts ahead of the sentencing (Chan Long Hei/AP)

Lai founded Apple Daily, a now-defunct newspaper known for its critical reports against the governments in Hong Kong and Beijing. He was arrested in August 2020 under the security law that was used in a years-long crackdown on many of Hong Kongs leading activists.

During his 156-day trial, prosecutors accused him of conspiring with six former Apple Daily staffers, two activists and others to request foreign forces to impose sanctions or blockades or engage in other hostile activities against Hong Kong or China. Lai testified for 52 days in his own defence, arguing he had not called for foreign sanctions after the laws introduction.

In December, the judges ruled Lai was the mastermind of the conspiracies and never wavered in his intention to destabilise the ruling Chinese Communist Party. They took issue with what they called his constant invitation to the United States to bring down the Chinese government with the excuse of helping Hong Kongers.

Lai is serving a nearly six-year prison term over fraud allegations in a separate case and has been in custody for more than five years.

In January, lawyer Robert Pang said Lai suffered health issues including heart palpitations, high blood pressure and diabetes. Although Lais condition was not life-threatening, Mr Pang argued his clients health, age and solitary confinement, which the prosecution said Lai requested, would make his sentence more burdensome.

The prosecution said a medical report noted Lais general health condition remained stable.

The former Apple Dailly staffers and activists involved in Lais case entered guilty pleas. Under the security law, reporting on offences committed by others may result in reduced penalties and some of the staff members served as prosecution witnesses.

The convicted journalists are publisher Cheung Kim-hung, associate publisher Chan Pui-man, editor-in-chief Ryan Law, executive editor-in-chief Lam Man-chung, executive editor-in-chief responsible for English news Fung Wai-kong and editorial writer Yeung Ching-kee.

The two activists convicted in the case, Andy Li and Chan Tsz-wah, also testified for the prosecution.
The governing party of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has secured a more than two-thirds majority in a key parliamentary election on Sunday, Japanese media reported.

Ms Takaichi, in a televised interview with public television network NHK, said that after the sweeping victory she is now ready to pursue her policies.

NHK, citing results of vote counts, said Ms Takaichis Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP, alone secured 316 seats by early Monday, comfortably surpassing a 261-seat absolute majority in the 465-member lower house, the more powerful of Japans two-chamber parliament.

That marks a record since the partys foundation in 1955 and surpasses the previous record of 300 seats won in 1986 by late prime minister Yasuhiro Nakasone.

Sanae Takaichi (Eugene Hoshiko/AP)

A smiling Ms Takaichi placed a big red ribbon above each winners name on a board at the LDPs headquarters, as accompanying party executives applauded.

Despite the lack of a majority in the other chamber, the upper house, the huge jump from the pre-election share in the superior lower house would allow Ms Takaichi to make progress on a right-wing agenda that aims to boost Japans economy and military capabilities as tensions grow with China and she tries to nurture ties with the United States.

Ms Takaichi said that she would firmly push forward her policy goals while trying to gain support from the opposition.

I will be flexible, she said.

Ms Takaichi took office in October as Japans first female leader.

She is hugely popular but the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which has governed Japan for most of the last seven decades, has struggled from funding and religious scandals.

She called Sundays snap elections only after three months in office, hoping to turn that around before her popularity fades.

The ultra-conservative Ms Takaichi, who took office as Japans first female leader in October, pledged to work, work, work, and her style, which is seen as both playful and tough, has resonated with younger fans.

A voter fills in a ballot (Louise Delmotte/AP)

Ms Takaichi bet that her LDP party, together with its new partner, the Japan Innovation Party, would secure a majority in the 465-seat lower house.

The big win by Ms Takaichis coalition could mean a significant shift to the right in Japans security, immigration and other policies, with its right-wing partner JIPs leader Hirofumi Yoshimura saying his party will serve as an accelerator.

Japan has recently seen far-right populists gain ground, such as the anti-globalist and surging nationalist party Sanseito.

Ms Takaichi has pledged to revise security and defence policies by December to bolster Japans offensive military capabilities, lifting a ban on weapons exports and moving further away from the countrys postwar pacifist principles.

She has been pushing for tougher policies on foreigners, anti-espionage and other measures that resonate with a far-right audience but ones that experts say could undermine civil rights.

Ms Takaichi also wants to increase defence spending in response to Mr Trumps pressure on Japan to loosen its purse strings.

Though Ms Takaichi said she is seeking the publics mandate for her nation splitting policies, she avoided contentious issues such as ways to fund soaring military spending, how to fix diplomatic tension with China and other controversial issues.

In her campaign speeches, Ms Takaichi enthusiastically talked about the need for proactive government spending to fund crisis management investment and growth, such as measures to strengthen economic security, technology and other industries.

Ms Takaichi also seeks to push tougher measures on immigration and foreigners, including stricter requirements for foreign property owners and a cap on foreign residents.
The Trump administration is expected this week to revoke a scientific finding that has long been the central basis for US action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change, according to a White House official.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to issue a final rule rescinding a 2009 government declaration known as the endangerment finding.

That Obama-era policy determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.

A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to confirm the details ahead of an official announcement, confirmed the plans, which were first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin, left, with Robert F Kennedy Jr and Donald Trump during a Cabinet meeting at the White House (Evan Vucci/AP)

This week at the White House, President Trump will be taking the most significant deregulatory actions in history to further unleash American energy dominance and drive down costs, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

The endangerment finding is the legal underpinning of nearly all climate regulations under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources that are heating the planet.

It is used to justify regulations, such as auto emissions standards, intended to protect against threats made increasingly severe by climate change  deadly floods, extreme heat waves, catastrophic wildfires and other natural disasters in the United States and around the world.

Legal challenges would be certain for any action that would effectively repeal those regulations, with environmental groups describing the shift as the single biggest attack in US history on federal efforts to address climate change.

An EPA spokesperson did not address when the finding would be revoked but reiterated that the agency is finalising a new rule on it.

Brigit Hirsch said via email that the Obama-era rule was one of the most damaging decisions in modern history and said EPA is actively working to deliver a historic action for the American people.

President Donald Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, previously issued an executive order that directed the EPA to submit a report on the legality and continuing applicability of the endangerment finding.

Conservatives and some congressional Republicans have long sought to undo what they consider overly restrictive and economically damaging rules to limit greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

Lee Zeldin, a former Republican congressman who was tapped by President Donald Trump to lead the EPA last year, has criticised his predecessors in Democratic administrations, saying they were willing to bankrupt the country in an effort to combat climate change.

Democrats created this endangerment finding and then they are able to put all these regulations on vehicles, on airplanes, on stationary sources, to basically regulate out of existence  segments of our economy, Mr Zeldin said in announcing the proposed rule last year. And it cost Americans a lot of money.

Peter Zalzal, a lawyer and associate vice president of the Environmental Defence Fund, countered that the EPA will be encouraging more climate pollution, higher health insurance and fuel costs and thousands of avoidable premature deaths.

Mr Zeldins push is cynical and deeply damaging, given the mountain of scientific evidence supporting the finding, the devastating climate harms Americans are experiencing right now and EPAs clear obligation to protect Americans health and welfare, he said.

Mr Zalzal and other critics noted that the Supreme Court ruled in a 2007 case that planet-warming greenhouse gases, caused by burning of oil and other fossil fuels, are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.

Since the high courts decision, in a case known as Massachusetts v EPA, courts have uniformly rejected legal challenges to the endangerment finding, including a 2023 decision by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann said a rollback would cement the latest form of Republican climate denial.

They can no longer deny climate change is happening, so instead theyre pretending its not a threat, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that it is, perhaps the greatest threat that we face today, Mr Mann said.

Following Mr Zeldins proposal to repeal the rule, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine reassessed the science underpinning the 2009 finding and concluded it was accurate, has stood the test of time, and is now reinforced by even stronger evidence.

Much of the understanding of climate change that was uncertain or tentative in 2009 is now resolved, the NAS panel of scientists said in a September report.

The evidence for current and future harm to human health and welfare created by human-caused greenhouse gases is beyond scientific dispute, the panel said.
Juan Pablo Guanipa, a close political ally of Venezuelas opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, has been placed under house arrest, his family said on Tuesday, two days after he was released from prison.

Mr Guanipa, a former governor for the opposition, is at home in the northwest city of Maracaibo, his son, Ramon Guanipa, posted on X.

My father remains unjustly imprisoned  because house arrest is still imprisonment  and we demand his immediate and full freedom, as well as the freedom of all political prisoners, he wrote.

The government had released Mr Guanipa along with several other prominent opposition members on Sunday following lengthy politically motivated detentions. But he was rearrested hours later following his participation in demonstrations outside detention centres.

Ramon Guanipa told reporters that a group of armed men in three vehicles intercepted his father and others travelling on Sunday in a neighbourhood in the capital, Caracas.

He said his father did not violate the two conditions of his release -monthly check-ins with a court and no travel outside Venezuela  and showed reporters the court document listing them.

Maria Oropeza and Juan Pablo Guanipa ride motorbikes through Caracas after their release from custody on Sunday (Ariana Cubillos/AP)

Attorney General Tarek William Saabs office on Monday posted on social media that it had requested the competent court to revoke the precautionary measure granted to Juan Pablo Guanipa, due to his non-compliance with the conditions imposed by the aforementioned court.

It did not explain what conditions Mr Guanipa violated during the roughly 12 hours he was free.

The rearrest of Mr Guanipa marks the latest twist in the political turmoil in Venezuela in the wake of the US militarys seizure on January 3 of then president Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, from a compound in Caracas.

The couple were taken to New York to face federal drug trafficking charges.

The government of Venezuelas acting President Delcy Rodriguez began releasing prisoners days after she was sworn in and has faced mounting pressure to free hundreds more whose detentions months or years ago have been linked to their political activities.

Sundays releases followed a visit to Venezuela of representatives of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Venezuelan-based prisoners rights group Foro Penal confirmed the release of at least 30 people on Sunday.

Some of those freed on Sunday, including Mr Guanipa, joined families waiting outside detention facilities for their loved ones. They chanted We are not afraid! We are not afraid! and marched a short distance.

I am convinced that our country has completely changed, Mr Guanipa told reporters after his release.

I am convinced that it is now up to all of us to focus on building a free and democratic country.

He had spent more than eight months in custody at a facility in Caracas.

Several members of Ms Machados political organisation were among those released on Sunday, including local organiser Maria Oropeza, who in 2024 livestreamed her arrest by military intelligence officers as they broke into her home with a crowbar.

They are terrified that Venezuelan society will mobilise and express its voice civically, Ms Machado told reporters in Washington on Monday, referring to Ms Rodriguezs government.

But let me tell you something, theres no going back.
Agrippa Hull, who served more than six years in the Continental Army, emerged from the Revolution respected in his Berkshire community yet constrained by persistent racism and the nations compromises with slavery.
Interim Superintendent Brian Ricca was chosen Monday night as the Southern Berkshire Regional School District's permanent leader. I've been on a five-month job interview, Ricca said during his interview as one of two finalists for the post.
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